16 Brutal Life Lessons for Ambitious People - Michael Smoak

1. 0:00 – 11:05

   Why Celebrating Small Wins Changes Everything

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      I have a hard time celebrating my achievements because in my mind it was my obligation to achieve it

   2. MSMichael Smoak0:05

      Ugh. The dilemma of the high achiever. I know, I know you don't struggle with this at all, right? I know this truly.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:11

      Game recognizes game, as they say.

   4. MSMichael Smoak0:13

      Yes, yes. All, all from a place of deep wounds and the desire to be adequate and enough. Yeah. I have a hard time celebrating my achievements and wins because it was in my mind, in my mind it was my obligation to achieve them. And not only that, I think the group of people we hang out with, you hang out with, I hang out with, makes the exceptional seem extremely normal. I was having a conversation the other day with a friend who both of us had long runs, and I was running sixteen, he was running twenty, and there was a time a couple of years ago where you couldn't have paid me thousands of dollars to do anything but drive sixteen miles. And the fact of the matter is, the average person thinks that's crazy, and there was a time where I was extremely proud of that. I remember running my first ten miles. I remember where I was, I remember what I was doing. It was sunny, we were in Atlanta on the BeltLine, and I remember when it hit ten and I hit stop on the Apple Watch, and I went, "Holy shit, I just ran ten miles." And then now it's just, it's just a normal.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:05

      Mm.

   6. MSMichael Smoak1:05

      And the carrot keeps moving for the high achiever. So I think the battle has now become learning to be content in the things that we achieve.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:14

      Mm.

   8. MSMichael Smoak1:14

      You know? This w- this was a goal of mine, sitting down with you and being on this podcast. I've listened to it for years.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:18

      Mm.

   10. MSMichael Smoak1:19

       And it's incredible to be in it with you right now. It's truly an honor, because you could interview anybody in the world, and yet here I sit. And so what, what is the, what is the line between sitting in the pride and the humility and the graciousness and gratitude of the achievement, and then moving the needle? And I think you alluded to this in an episode you did a while ago, talking about how you forgot to celebrate the wins along the way, which led to an inevitable case of burnout.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:43

       Mm.

   12. MSMichael Smoak1:44

       And when we were here at the podcast, at the four-way podcast the other day with [clears throat] Sean and George, we talked about the importance of romanticizing every single thing in your life, so that way when the big achievement comes, it doesn't feel like an obligation, it feels like a victory, and you can truly sit in it before you move on to the next thing.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:01

       It's strange, yeah. I think people that have high standards assume that they should always win, they should always succeed, and that turns success from a cause for celebration into the minimum level of acceptable performance.

   14. MSMichael Smoak2:17

       [chuckles]

   15. CWChris Williamson2:18

       Like, success simply becomes what's expected of you, and anything less than success would be a failure. And yeah, it's the habituation that we see, hedonic adaptation. People talk about it for, you buy a new car and it's all exciting, and then pretty quickly you get used to it. You move into a new house, and you're thinking about it for so long, and you were looking on Zoopla and Rightmove and you were comparing it, and this is what w- and then it's just the place that you put your shoes at the end of the day after a while. But a much more sort of pernicious place for this is in personal growth. It's in your own capacity. So previously, your old PR that you celebrated at the time is now a warm-up set, and the same thing goes for the status that you have and your precision with the way that you do your art form, the speed at which you can complete a particular task. Whether you're a salesperson or you manage a retail store or you write a blog or whatever, you want to permanently be pushing the limits. And as you raise the bar, that means that you will always feel like you suck because your standards continually outstrip your ability to deliver them. And that's good in some ways because it keeps forcing you to progress. But it does mean that you live in this gap, right? You don't live in the gain, the comparison between where you were and where you are. You live in the gap between where you are and where you want to be. That's not where you could be, 'cause sometimes you can want to be further than where you could be. And I told you that story about Alexander the Great, which is how he... W- w- we read the quote of Alexander saying, "And Alexander wept, for he saw there were no more worlds to conquer," as his ambition being able to outstrip reality's ability to challenge him. Oh, he was bigger than the world-

   16. MSMichael Smoak4:00

       [chuckles]

   17. CWChris Williamson4:00

       ... and he reached the edge of it and couldn't keep going, but would've done. But that's not the actual quote. The actual quote is him realizing that there are infinite worlds and he hasn't even yet become the lord of one. So he's crying at how puny and minuscule his accomplishments are, and I think that that's actually much closer to how we all feel. Like, who has ever reached the edge of their ambition? Their ambition continues to outstrip it. You're right. If you raise your standards, you regularly disparage your accomplishments even in the process of them. And there's a Jon Bellion song, uh, "Why" with Luke Combs, and in it he says, "If the higher I climb is the further I fall, then why love anything at all?"

   18. MSMichael Smoak4:39

       Mm.

   19. CWChris Williamson4:39

       He's talking about opening up to someone, but I think the same thing works for just hard charging and overachieving. That what if I permanently overachieve, then eventually I might get there.

   20. MSMichael Smoak4:49

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson4:50

       But you never arrive.

   22. MSMichael Smoak4:50

       When you said, I think you alluded to a version of it in there, but you said something to me the other day, our desire always outpaces reality's ability to meet it.

   23. CWChris Williamson4:59

       Yes.

   24. MSMichael Smoak5:00

       And I chose to just listen to people like you, people like Jim Carrey, who say, "I, I pray that everyone gets rich and famous and has everything they ever want so they can realize it's not the answer."

   25. CWChris Williamson5:11

       Mm.

   26. MSMichael Smoak5:12

       And a lot of people go, "Okay, great, but let me just do that anyway."

   27. CWChris Williamson5:14

       Mm-hmm.

   28. MSMichael Smoak5:15

       And then they get to the hedonic treadmill, and then they get to the end of their rope. There is no end.

   29. CWChris Williamson5:19

       Mm.

   30. MSMichael Smoak5:19

       Right? The goal is not money. It's not status. It's not even authenticity, which is something I speak on a lot. For me, the goal of authenticity is the byproduct of that. The goal is, in my opinion, to stay tapped into inspiration and deeper levels of inspiration, and there are things that always get in the way. Well, I want more money, or I get an idea and I wanna act on that idea. But I just chose to listen to you guys talking about how you get everything you want and then you realize it's not the answer. Why would I then go, "Yeah, but screw what they said. I'm just gonna do it anyway so I can be in the same state of, not suffering, but mild discomfort when I realize I didn't get what I truly wanted"?
2. 11:05 – 19:41

   Does Sharing Your Struggles Actually Help You Heal?

   1. CWChris Williamson11:05

      If you can't talk about it, you aren't healed from it. What's that mean to you?

   2. MSMichael Smoak11:11

      You're only as healed from something as your ability to share it. It means everything to me. So my dad passed away January 19th of 2025, and it was a long, arduous, painful process. Moved home after a long breakup, lived with that person, came home to reset, thought I'd just get to spend some time with the parents before I moved to Florida, and then my dad's not quite right. I hadn't seen him in about a month, so he was regressing quickly, and I could tell he didn't look right. And what I didn't know would happen would be over the next seven months, his health slowly regressing with no real answers as to what was wrong with him, which was really the crazy part. We didn't know what was killing my dad, which is a really weird place to be because it was the epitome of helpless. There was nothing the doctors could do, I could do, and we'll, maybe we'll dive deeper into the story later. But I remember not even being able to answer the question, "How's your dad doing?" without that-Pain or that tightness in my chest and my throat coming up. I couldn't even say, "He's fine. He's not doing well." I couldn't share anything about it. And 36 hours before he passed, I went and gave a presentation, and I battled it, but he insisted that I go give this talk at a conference in Dallas and fly right back home because I was afraid he'd pass while I was gone. And he said, "What are you worried? I'm gonna die?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "So what? We've said everything we need to say. Go live your life. I'll be mad if you don't do this." And I did it, and he ha- and he hung on. But I remember there's a part in that presentation where I talk about conviction and how important health is, and how that's one of my core messages in my content, is you have a, you can have a laundry list of problems until you have a health problem, and then there's only one problem. And I lived it, but I couldn't even talk about my dad 'cause there's a picture of him on the slide when I get to that, and I told you about this, and it was the first time I'd ever shared that story, and it's the day we found out he was gonna die. I took that photo for me. I didn't think I'd ever share it, but it's powerful because it was the m- it was the moment that I remember being or thinking as a kid would be the worst day of my life. And I could n- I was on stage, and I just broke. I had to go silent for 30 seconds in front of 300 people and gather myself because I wasn't healed. I hadn't done the work. I hadn't let myself grieve. I hadn't let myself be angry. I hadn't let myself be sad. And now I can sit here with you on the eighth biggest podcast in the world. Congratulations.

   3. CWChris Williamson13:43

      Thank you very much.

   4. MSMichael Smoak13:43

      That's super cool.

   5. CWChris Williamson13:43

      Suck me off.

   6. MSMichael Smoak13:44

      Um, I will. Uh, and, and tell that full story without pain because I went all the way into the emotion.

   7. CWChris Williamson13:52

      Yeah.

   8. MSMichael Smoak13:52

      So you cannot... I don't believe... I believe this: You cannot heal what you cannot feel, and you cannot feel what you are unwilling to reveal. And for me, it was about talking about how I felt, letting myself be angry, and telling someone, "I'm angry at my dad that he didn't look after his health more tightly." But my first instinct was to manage the emotion. How dare I be angry? He's dying. How dare I do that?

   9. CWChris Williamson14:17

      Mm.

   10. MSMichael Smoak14:18

       But that's not how you heal. We don't, we don't heal and do the work by burying our emotions, 'cause w- what you bury will bury you. It will come around in your subconscious mind and run the show. So instead, I allowed myself, I gave myself full permission to explore the emotion of anger and then ask myself, "Is this valid? Is this real?" No. But I couldn't get there until I processed it. And then it was sadness and grief and guilt and, at times, happiness. Full permess- full permission to express the full spectrum of emotion with which I was existing in. And now I can use that story to help people, and that is an incredible source of fulfillment. I heard a, a great Christian creator say once, "Your purpose in this life is to take what God delivered you from and turn around and help other people do the same thing." And for me, my biggest fear was always my dad dying. It was the grief that would come with that. But I made it to the other side, and now I get to share that story because I am healed from it. I don't c-cry or choke up when I talk about my old man. And there was a time where if you'd asked me this a year ago-

   11. CWChris Williamson15:22

       Mm

   12. MSMichael Smoak15:23

       ... I'd have to probably just say, "Hold on," and pause. So that's what that means to me. If you, if you cannot talk about it, you are not healed from it, and it will run your life subconsciously in some way, your relationships, your work, your body, your health. So whatever is stirring around inside you that you suppress, understand that suppression of expression leads to depression. And until you express those emotions, you are not gonna be delivered from them.

   13. CWChris Williamson15:50

       It's interesting when we try to dictate the way that we should feel. I'm angry. I shouldn't be angry. It's like, but you are. And I think this is a big part of what ACT therapy is trying to achieve, acceptance and commitment therapy, that the acceptance part is this is just happening, and I have to allow it to sort of move through me. And if you don't, that's when you begin a relationship not just with the emotion, but with your relationship to the relationship of the emotion. I shouldn't feel shame, and then you feel bitterness about your shame, and then you feel frustration at your bitterness about your shame, and it's this infinite regress of saying things to yourself about something. My partner did something, and it really made me... It made me feel, it made me feel agitated, it made me feel maybe envious or insecure. I shouldn't feel insecure. You do. Y-you're allowed to feel it. It doesn't mean that you need to act on it. And maybe you do need to act on it, but if you just deny the emotion, I think there's a lot of insight that comes out of that. But it's not cool to do that. It-

   14. MSMichael Smoak16:56

       Correct

   15. CWChris Williamson16:57

       ... it doesn't flex particularly well. It isn't... W-we confuse suppression for strength, and they're not the same thing at all.

   16. MSMichael Smoak17:08

       Yeah. What's that John Mulaney bit? I had Irish parents, so my dad's belief was, "I'm gonna take this emotion and then bury it down, and then one day I'll die." [laughs] That's the Irish Catholic approach to a m-masculine emotion.

   17. CWChris Williamson17:20

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MSMichael Smoak17:20

       But you're right. Most people are intelle-intellectualizing and managing their emotions.

   19. CWChris Williamson17:26

       Mm.

   20. MSMichael Smoak17:26

       I'm pissed, but I shouldn't be. Well, now you don't get the clarity on the other side of the processed emotion. On the... And in my opinion, on the other side of processed emotion is divine revelation. Like I got to nothing but love and gratitude for the relationship that I had with my old man on the other side of letting myself be angry, sad, and grieve instead of burying it. But that's an, uh, that is also an uncomfortable process. It's not suffering, but it's pain. It's a lot of pain. What did Arthur Brooks say on your show? Pain is, uh, or suffering is pain times resistance.

   21. CWChris Williamson17:58

       Mm-hmm.

   22. MSMichael Smoak17:59

       And if you can just eliminate the resistance, pain in life is inevitable, but suffering is optional. And suffering becomes part of the equation when you resist the pain instead of letting it move through you. Not be consumed by it, but let it teach you something. Understand it.And then move through it. And then on the other side, that is the work. Everyone says, "Oh, I've done a lot of work on myselves, on myself." That's the work that I believe people say that they do or want to do.

   23. CWChris Williamson18:24

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3. 19:41 – 25:54

   What Grief Taught Michael

   1. CWChris Williamson19:41

      What did you learn from that process with your dad? What was it like going through that?

   2. MSMichael Smoak19:45

      Oh, man. I was having a conversation with my friend Chris Turner. His dad passed eight months before mine, and it was right in the time when he got sick and I was in denial. I was trying to get him better, doctor's appointments, supplements, you name it. I wasn't ready to surrender to the experience. And Chris brought up this interesting point, and I'll never forget. He said, "In tribes and other cultures all across the world, there's a coming of man ritual. The boy leaves the tribe, goes and gets the lion, comes back a man, goes and hunts the elk, comes back a man. There's this thing that turns, that is a definitive turn in his age from boyhood to manhood. And in America, we don't have that." And Chris pointed out, even in The Lion King, it's a great example of this, right? Mufasa dies and Simba goes on this great journey and acquires friends along the way, experiences adversity, develops enemies, almost dies a few times, comes out the other side king of the pride. For me, my dad's death and the months that led up to that of pain and suffering and anxiety, I think were the parts of me that were still a kid I had to familiarize myself with, but they couldn't necessarily stay with me if I was going to endure that experience. So I think that truthfully, I think I became a man on the other side of that. But what I learned was my nervous system's threshold for stress was a lot greater than I thought it was. Like I really, dude, there were nights, man, where you're constantly on edge when someone is that sick. So my dad had something called orthostatic hypotension, which means if he stands up, the blood can't adequately pump to his brain. So his blood pressure plummets, which means-

   3. CWChris Williamson21:31

      Is that kind of POTS, similar to POTS?

   4. MSMichael Smoak21:33

      I'm not sure. It was a byproduct of a vein in his liver being totally destroyed. That was really the root of all of his issues. So he would stand up and his blood pressure would drop to like 80 over 50 and he would pass out. And so my dad was a massive fall risk. And so there was always anxiety with him just getting up to go get a glass of water. And there were just so many nights I remember at least half a dozen times my mom, because I moved home to help care for him, just barreling into my room. He's fallen again. I need your help. And going from a dead sleep to having to go pick your dad up off the floor and like clean the blood off his head at 3 a.m., dude, that'll light up your CNS. But it taught me what I was capable of. I could handle so much more stress than I realized. And it dissolved me of my ego. I remember people kept asking me how I was doing when shit kind of hit the fan on the internet and I was getting all the crazy comments. I just kept thinking like I had to carry my dying father to the bath and dress him. You think an internet comment bothers me? It doesn't. Like I know what real suffering is and I'm grateful for that. Like I really am because it raised my threshold for stress so much. I'm so much more patient. I'm so much more empathetic to people's pain. I understand the value in hardship. I appreciate the relationship I had more and I did a ton when he was alive, but more than I ever could now that he's gone. Because I remember I had Peter Crone on my podcast and we had a conversation around my dad and he started sort of coaching me through it. And he noticed I kept saying I lost my dad. And he said, "I want you to stop saying that. You didn't lose anything. You found a relationship that was wonderful enough to feel this much pain for, which means at one point there was great joy." And so what I learned from that is that I'm incredibly blessed to have a man that if at the end of my life I'm half the human being he was, I'll be proud. Half the dad, half the husband, half the person, I'll be proud. I learned what really matters because at the time my internet career was starting to really take off, but all I really cared about was my dad getting better. And I heard a sermon from the guy that I go to church I go to in Atlanta, 2819. Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell talks about when the church was really starting to grow. And I didn't know this. This was the craziest part. I picked a sermon during their period of rest in December from two years ago. And he's talking about the tension between what you want and what God's will for your life is, the tension between that and how painful that can be. And his dad was dying at the time that 2819, which is now the fastest growing church in the world.Was really starting to explode, and all he wanted was his dad to be better. He didn't care about the success. He was so grounded in his real life that he was almost detached from whatever was to come next with the success of the church, and now it's this incredible, life-changing, impactful thing for millions of people across the world. And so it taught me to stay grounded, no matter how crazy or cool the achievements of this career get, and they are incredible. And I am overwhelmed with gratitude that because people chose to watch my videos on the internet, I get to sit down with you. That's the coolest thing in the world, man. Like, I live in a video game.

   5. CWChris Williamson24:55

      Mm-hmm.

   6. MSMichael Smoak24:56

      And I'm just trying to steward it properly. I'm trying to steward the blessing properly. So I'd say the biggest lesson is that I realize that every hard thing we go through makes us more of who we're meant to be, and I think who God designed us to be. I referenced that scripture to you the other day, James 1:2-4. It says, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance run its course so that you may be complete and lacking nothing." I am more myself. I feel more myself and more rooted in my sense of identity, who I am and, and what I feel God's called me to do, than I ever was before I went through that with my old man, and that's why I think we should count it all joy. The worst thing I've ever been through has been, God willing, somebody else's greatest breakthrough, because I've helped them battle grief, manage grief, feel grief, and come out the other side liberated from it.

   7. CWChris Williamson25:51

      Mm-hmm.

   8. MSMichael Smoak25:51

      And that's the greatest gift I could have ever been given.

4. 25:54 – 34:56

   Why Your Lowest Moments Can Lead to Your Biggest Wins

   1. CWChris Williamson25:55

      I had a conversation with Alain de Botton toward the back end of last year, and he has this line. He says, "The best men have been broken." And, uh, I asked him, "How can you tell? What do you mean, and how can you tell?" He says, "There's just a, there's a look. There's a twinkle in the eye. There's a kind of humility. There's a humbleness. There's a, a recognition of their own limits, even if they're really high." And I definitely see that, especially after getting kicked in the nuts permanently for the last two years with my health and having to manage an awful lot of things. It does push you... When you're going against the grain of life, you begin to look at your behavior and your patterns and your motivations and your goals under more of a microscope than you do when things are going well. You feel the texture of existence more, kind of like swimming into a river as opposed to being lazy riveted down it. You feel all of the small elements come past you, and that's a real uncomfortable situation to be in at the time, but it's a beautiful gift afterward. And, uh, yeah, I, I agree as well that your-- almost all of the greatest accomplishments that you've done in your entire life have been germinated from your lowest points. And adversity is a terrible thing to waste in that regard.

   2. MSMichael Smoak27:22

      Let me ask you, when you were going through all of that, and, and I told you how much I appreciated you, that's probably one of the more vulnerable things you've ever put on the internet.

   3. CWChris Williamson27:30

      Mm-hmm.

   4. MSMichael Smoak27:31

      I mean, it's you in hospital beds getting blood transfusions, all kinds of crazy shit. It's very vulnerable, and that's, that's a superpower, by the way. You im- probably empowered... I mean, I know you empowered me to talk about it 'cause I went and made an episode that day.

   5. CWChris Williamson27:42

      Mm.

   6. MSMichael Smoak27:43

      It was like, "Hey, guys, I feel like shit all the time, [chuckles] and I've been pretending I don't."

   7. CWChris Williamson27:47

      Yeah.

   8. MSMichael Smoak27:47

      So I'm grateful that you did that. Thank you.

   9. CWChris Williamson27:49

      You're welcome.

   10. MSMichael Smoak27:50

       But when you were in that, what really, what mattered to you in that moment, or in those months? 'Cause I know it got bad at times.

   11. CWChris Williamson27:58

       It was very protracted, you know. From about two years ago was when I started trying to unearth what was going on, and about two and a half years ago, when I got COVID, before I went on tour with James, uh, was when I'd started to notice I was getting a bit more tired. I didn't really want to see my friends so much on a nighttime. That was strange. I was feeling lassitude, which is the emotion of being ill. Uh, I didn't want to eat new things, didn't want to go to new places, and I was getting more tired, and I was getting a bit of brain fog, and I was ripping. 2023, I was... It felt like my brain was on fire. It felt like I was permanently on cocaine. It was like being 23 again. And, uh, I noticed the change, and I didn't like it. And that got worse and worse and worse throughout 2024, and it got to the stage where we would be flying around. I remember we did a trip to New York with Gymshark, and then I flew to Florida to do Chris Bumstead and Ben Shapiro. And I-- we arrive in fucking Baton Rouge. Is that in Florida? Is that what I'm talking about?

   12. MSMichael Smoak29:07

       Yeah, Baton Rouge.

   13. CWChris Williamson29:07

       Right.

   14. MSMichael Smoak29:08

       No, that's in Louisiana.

   15. CWChris Williamson29:09

       No, where the fuck was it? Where the fuck did we go? Boca Raton.

   16. MSMichael Smoak29:14

       [laughs] Also not-

   17. CWChris Williamson29:15

       There's a right amount of syllables.

   18. MSMichael Smoak29:17

       BR, Baton Rouge, Boca Raton.

   19. CWChris Williamson29:17

       You know what I mean? Boca Raton, whatever the fuck.

   20. MSMichael Smoak29:18

       They're both-

   21. CWChris Williamson29:18

       That's not f- I mean, it's geographically very far away, but linguistically, it's right next to each other.

   22. MSMichael Smoak29:22

       Yeah, they're both shitholes. It's all right.

   23. CWChris Williamson29:26

       [laughs]

   24. MSMichael Smoak29:26

       No, Boca's nice.

   25. CWChris Williamson29:27

       Um, so I'm, uh... We fly in, and we've got an episode the next day, or maybe we'd recorded with Ben that day, and it was 6:30 p.m. at night, and I went to bed, and I woke up at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. And the guys had gone for dinner and done, had some adventure thing, and I just felt so on the outside. You know, I felt very much on the outside. I wasn't me. I didn't have access to me, and it just kept getting worse. It kept getting worse, kept getting worse. I was getting more tired, and I was trying to take a break. I wasn't pushing myself as hard. So I'm like, "I'm being more gentle with myself, and the more gentle I am, the more tired I get." And all I wanted was to have access back to the texture of my mind. I really love inhabiting my own mind. It's a really lovely place to be for the most part. Um, but I, I remember one of my friends, her dad was ill, and ill for a long time, and was gettingHis mental capacities were being diminished over time. And he turned to her once in the hospital bed and he said, "This illness has taken everything from me. It's even taken myself." And I think what he meant by that was, especially for smart people or people that are competent and feel like they have agency and sovereignty in the world, what you rely on is your mental faculties. I think Homosi's got two fears in life. One is chronic pain and the other is dementia, because the first one is just suffering for the rest of time, and the second one makes him a burden that can't fix himself. And, um, that, that really stuck with me and I, I don't know why. It's one of those random lines that somebody just says about someone else and it stuck with me. And then as I started to go through it, I realized, "Oh, this is what I feel. This is how I feel. I feel like this is taking away my own capacity to fix myself, and what if this spiral just continues to go down, continues to go down?" And, um, I guess one other kind of interesting lesson is how hard it is to not try hard.

   26. MSMichael Smoak31:33

       Hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson31:34

       You need to try hard at not trying hard. To be gentle with yourself requires effort, but if you apply too much effort, that's no longer being gentle with yourself. And then if you get it wrong, you start to whip yourself into submission for not being sufficiently gentle with yourself, which is not being gentle about your ungentleness. [chuckles] And, uh, you know, a lot of this I think is to do with the shame, the suppression of things, um, but it's also to do with your patterns. What am I used to? What's the pace that I'm used to working at? You know, there will be lots of people for whom this isn't going to hit them until they're 60, and there will also be people for whom it'll hit them when they're 15. And you think, "Fuck, I really didn't want to have to learn this lesson. Not now. Why now? Why does it have to be now? Could it not have been... I don't deserve it now." But the realization is you're not bulletproof, but you do have more capacity than you think. So it's a recognition of resilience and fragility at the same time, and I think that's where the humility comes from, that's where the empathy comes from. That's what Alain was talking about. But I, I love that line, "Adversity is a terrible thing to waste," because you develop a, a chip on your shoulder and you have something to prove again, and especially after a while, people run out of gas in some regard. You know, the kids that didn't believe in you in school, the bullies that mocked you or the teacher that wasn't supportive or the coach that benched you, that will power a young person for a good while, but not forever.

   28. MSMichael Smoak33:11

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson33:12

       And it's kind of nice to make a existential enemy every so often. I think it's good to just have, you know, for this season I've got a new-- there's a new bad guy in town, and this time it's this thing and I'm not gonna be able to get my revenge on him now. But in a couple of seasons, I actually reckon that this is gonna be the next metamorphosis thing that I come out of and, uh, it's like a little pit stop or a little lily pad that you can jump off to get to whatever the next level is. But it requires you to take a dip first. In other news, I've been in the gym for nearly two decades now, and it wasn't until the past few years that I had the best training run of my entire life, and a huge part of that was the RP Strength app. Actual scientists built this thing around one obsession, having a science-backed path to maximizing muscle gain. It tells you how many sets, how many reps, the amount of weight that you need to use, so all you have to do is show up and do the thing. It adjusts automatically every week based on how you're actually progressing, and there are over forty-five pre-made training programs and more than two hundred and fifty technique videos built in. So you're not just lifting, you're lifting optimally to get the most out of your workouts. A lot of the time I have less than an hour to be in the gym, and what I love about the RP app is that it takes that into account and adjusts my workout on the fly, so I know that I'm gonna maximize how much time I've got available. For me, following a proper evidence-based plan has made a huge difference, and if you're serious about training and the gains that you want to make, I'm pretty sure that it'll do the same for you. Right now, you can follow the exact same training plan that I use and get up to fifty dollars off the RP Hypertrophy app by going to the link in the description below or heading to rpstrength.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's rpstrength.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout.

5. 34:56 – 39:32

   What Chris Has Learnt Through His Health Journey

   1. MSMichael Smoak34:56

      What's the biggest lesson you learned from that period of having such an issue with cognition and energy in a world where your cognition and energy is critical for your success?

   2. CWChris Williamson35:05

      Literally the only thing that I do. The effects of particular mold especially affect a particular area of the brain that's, uh, associated with word recall. All I do is recall words. It was like a purpose-built curse just for me, like somebody had designed a malady only to impact the things that I needed to do. I could have been a lumberjack, and I'm sure I would have been tired, but I would have still been able to chop wood. Not, not this job. That was not good. The single biggest lesson that I learned throughout all of that... [sighs] One that comes to mind... One that comes to mind is recognizing the fact that the people around you really do want to help, and that sounds like a very basic bitch insight, but I think a lot of people, especially if you're the competent one in your friend group, if you listen to podcasts like mine, watch content like yours, you know, you're teaching your friends. From the outside, you look like you've got it all together. You're probably a leader in some form or another, or maybe you're, you have a good education or you, you go to the gym and you sort your life out, and your friends are the fat messes. Not you. Your friends are the fat messes. And that often I think makes it almost intimidating for our friends to help us, because you go, "What am I gonna-- what am I gonna tell Michael?"He's got it, he's got it all together. How can I step in and say, "Hey man, you, you seem a little... Are you okay?" Or whatever. He'll have it all to- or there'll be somebody way more competent than me in his life that's able to step in and help. But, um, leaning on people, reaching out and genuinely asking for help, I think I probably received more hugs in 2025 than the decade prior to that sort of all combined. Uh, you know, I was doing, before live shows, if I was feeling really, really bad, I'd have Bennett giving me a hug while praying over me.

   3. MSMichael Smoak37:05

      Mm.

   4. CWChris Williamson37:05

      And it just felt really nice. It was support. I'm stealing a bit of his nervous system and spirituality at the same time. That was cool. But it was just good. It was, it was a-- Being able to lean on people as a, an only child, it's something that you, you have to learn through instruction, not emergence. You don't-- It's n- you're not born with it. You know, by age five, you've known what it is to have a fight with your brother and then hug and make up the next morning because you don't hate each other, and that's what it means for you and someone to disagree but still be on the same team. You don't-- You-- There is no learning that at any point. So, uh, yeah, um, the ability to lean on people without feeling less than was a big part of it.

   5. MSMichael Smoak37:55

      Were you scared?

   6. CWChris Williamson37:56

      Yeah, terrified. Terrified. It finally felt like I'd arrived. Like I've done all of this stuff, and I finally got myself to this country I've dreamed to live in for so long, and... The reason that you do the work is to get to the stage where you can do this, have my own space and have my own team, and finally talk to the people that I want to for as long as I want about what I want. Just as it felt like I'd got my foot in the door and arrived, it felt like that had been whipped out from underneath me. It felt unfair.

   7. MSMichael Smoak38:30

      Mm.

   8. CWChris Williamson38:30

      I think that's what a lot of people feel, unfairness. I think about this, uh, I wonder how many people died, someone gets hit by a car, somebody gets, uh, shot on purpose or accidentally, stray bullet, or there's a mugging that goes wrong, or somebody slips and falls from something, and in the final few moments before they die, how many of them were just surprised or felt like it was unfair? I-- That has to be a huge proportion of people. "I wasn't supposed to... This wasn't supposed to be me." Um, and that's it. So it felt unfair.

   9. MSMichael Smoak39:08

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson39:09

       I was scared. Yeah.

   11. MSMichael Smoak39:10

       Well, I'm glad you're, for the most part, on the other side of that now, it seems.

   12. CWChris Williamson39:14

       Slowly, one step at a time. The, the world keeps on providing me new challenges to get over, but I'm definitely... [chuckles] I, I, I, I didn't need a bigger dose of humility. I didn't need any more ego stripping from me, but I, um, for one reason or another, that, that decided to happen.

6. 39:32 – 42:33

   How to Stop Letting Words Control You

   1. CWChris Williamson39:32

      You've got another line that I disagree with, and I wanted to talk about it.

   2. MSMichael Smoak39:36

      Great.

   3. CWChris Williamson39:36

      "Words can only hurt you to the degree that you believe they are true."

   4. MSMichael Smoak39:39

      Yeah. Why do you disagree?

   5. CWChris Williamson39:43

      Did you believe that the words of the people who tried to cancel you, soft cancellation, baby cancellation-

   6. MSMichael Smoak39:51

      Diet cancel.

   7. CWChris Williamson39:52

      You're correct. Um-

   8. MSMichael Smoak39:53

      [clears throat]

   9. CWChris Williamson39:54

      Did you believe that they were true?

   10. MSMichael Smoak39:56

       No.

   11. CWChris Williamson39:57

       Did you fear that other people might think that they were true?

   12. MSMichael Smoak40:00

       No.

   13. CWChris Williamson40:01

       You didn't fear that other people might think that they were true? Someone had never heard of you before.

   14. MSMichael Smoak40:04

       Why would I fear? If, if it's out of, completely out of my control, there's nothing to fear.

   15. CWChris Williamson40:08

       Mm.

   16. MSMichael Smoak40:09

       That's where this, this lesson of surrender that I learned a long time ago comes back to. The pain that I was feeling, and this is, again, count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds.

   17. CWChris Williamson40:20

       Yeah.

   18. MSMichael Smoak40:21

       My threshold for stress is a lot higher than a few left-wing angry creators making nasty videos about me and people photoshopping the MAGA hat on my head. Pretty, pretty funny. Someone made a clown photo at one point with me holding a MAGA sign. AI is getting good.

   19. CWChris Williamson40:34

       Cute.

   20. MSMichael Smoak40:38

       I wish, I wish I had a better answer than no, it didn't bother me.

   21. CWChris Williamson40:41

       Mm.

   22. MSMichael Smoak40:41

       But a lot of the pain, earlier we talked about Arthur Brooks talking about, I think it's the Buddhism formula for suffering, pain times resistance. The pain that I felt when my dad was sick was largely rooted in my desire to change the outcome. It was arguing with doctors. It was trying to get him to force take 20 pills a day.

   23. CWChris Williamson41:04

       Mm.

   24. MSMichael Smoak41:05

       As a 70-year-old man, he was pretty set in his ways. And I was so agonizingly in pain because it was like I was-- It's like I was holding this hot pan, and I'm going, "Ow, this is burning me."

   25. CWChris Williamson41:19

       Mm.

   26. MSMichael Smoak41:20

       And God's like, "All you gotta do is put the pan down."

   27. CWChris Williamson41:22

       Well, do you... Because there's still going to be a lot of upset. I'm aware of the difference between pain and suffering.

   28. MSMichael Smoak41:27

       Right.

   29. CWChris Williamson41:27

       But there are things that you can do, and learning to blend a desire to take control of the situation and make an impact on it, agency, sovereignty, something that I know that you care about a lot and everybody else does as well, with surrender. Because surrender can quite easily turn into passivity if you're not careful.

   30. MSMichael Smoak41:49

       Mm-hmm.
7. 42:33 – 58:07

   The Moment Michael Nearly Got Cancelled

   1. CWChris Williamson42:34

      Do you want to explain what happened?

   2. MSMichael Smoak42:35

      Sure

   3. CWChris Williamson42:35

      What your soft cancellation was.

   4. MSMichael Smoak42:36

      Sure. Yeah, I'd love to. Uh, it's not, you know, it's only a few people will hear this, so it's not like this could kick the fire back. [laughing]

   5. CWChris Williamson42:44

      [laughing]

   6. MSMichael Smoak42:44

      So I was getting a lot of heat to speak on what happened in Minneapolis, and I, I'll be honest with you, I don't watch the news 'cause I think it's a cancer and a cortisol dump, and that's not what my algorithm is. I don't have the news on the TV. I mainly just watch YouTube, and I kept getting hammered with these comments. "Speak about ICE. Speak about Minneapolis. Speak about what happened to Alex Peretti," God rest his soul. And I didn't know what any of that meant. I truly didn't. This was days after it happened. And so I even reached out to friends that were creators and said, "Are you guys getting hammered with these comments?" And all of them said no. So I said, "Well, what did I do to, to curate an audience that would do this?" [chuckles] And I started doing research, and I went, "Wow, that's terrible. Someone was killed in Minneapolis by ICE agents. That's awful." Murder under no circumstances is justified. And I kept getting hounded, and I saw other creators just letting their audience sort of puppeteer them into saying something or saying what they thought their audience wanted to hear, and then I thought and thought and thought, and I prayed on it deeply. Should I make this video? And this is where faith becomes an easy barometer for decision-making. So you ask, you asked me if these words hurt me. I made a video, and the barometer for choice of to post or not was, do I feel that what I'm about to say honors God? It's a very simple question, yes or no. Am I attacking people, or am I choosing to love on people? Am I adding flames to the fire of hatred and division, or am I just stating my opinion? So in the video, I said something to the effect of, "A lot of you are asking me to give my stance on what happened in Minneapolis with the ICE agents, and my opinion is that you don't want my opinion. You want to watch the first five to eight seconds of my video and decide if I'm your enemy or not." And in that video, I say, "My opinion is very simple. Murder and killing others is a tragedy, and it's not what God calls us to do. It's directly against what God calls us to do. Luke chapter six tells us to love those who hate us, that when someone slaps you, you offer them the other cheek. When someone takes your shirt, don't hesitate them, don't hesitate then to give them your robe. Because the only thing that blocks out hate is love. The only thing that changes a hateful heart is a loving one." That's what I said. And I said, "You don't follow me because I'm a political commentator, and you pressuring all of these big creators who got here through fitness or mindset to now become political mouthpieces for your opinions isn't fair. I'm not politically aligned with any party. I think there's fools on both sides because that's how the world works. I think there's smart people on both sides." But I said, "I'm not your puppet. I'm not gonna do what you demand of me because you think it's what I should do. You want to hear my opinion come out of your mouth. I'm gonna continue to create content that was the reason that allowed you to follow me. I'm gonna help you in areas that, that I'm competent in, and the geopolitical climate of the world isn't one of them. I love you. Thank you." Holy shit, [chuckles] did that, what I thought was a verily, fairly logical and general opinion start an absolute shit storm. I think that video across platforms has fifteen thousand comments. It's pretty split on positive, negative. So that's what happened.

   7. CWChris Williamson46:00

      Mm.

   8. MSMichael Smoak46:01

      That's the scenario, and that kicked up hundreds of creators stitching my video, putting my face on their back screen and attacking me, and somehow that, that evolved to Na- I, I can't believe I'm talking about this on the show with you. It's so funny. Nazi, racist, MAGA, none of which were said in the video, by the way. So it was amazing to watch the conclusions that people drew about my character from that video.

   9. CWChris Williamson46:23

      Mm.

   10. MSMichael Smoak46:24

       That's the scenario, which brings us to today, which is you asking... Basically, what you're asking me is, did the things that people said about me hurt my feelings? [laughing]

   11. CWChris Williamson46:33

       Uh, no, not quite. N-not far from, but your point is words can only hurt you to the degree that you believe they are true.

   12. MSMichael Smoak46:39

       Yes.

   13. CWChris Williamson46:40

       I understand what you mean, and it's the only insults that hurt are the ones that we agree with. But I think the insults that hurt most are the ones that we don't believe but we fear other people may believe.

   14. MSMichael Smoak46:56

       Mm.

   15. CWChris Williamson46:57

       Because that allows a sense of injustice, and it doesn't really matter how you feel about it if other people believe it. That, that is fake news. That's having your status besmirched. That's having your good name tarnished, and I think that that drives people absolutely insane. Now, this is the false accusation pandemic, and if somebody goes through that, they, they pay all of the costs of being somebody who did the thing without having done the thing. And if you believe that other people might believe it or if it seems to you like other people are believing it, and you didn't do it, and you don't believe it yourself, that to me feels like a special circle of hell to descend into. And that's why optics management and looking after the way that your brand is interpreted online is really important. Because let's say that that just happened once, and then it happened again. People got a vendetta. They decided that they were gonna pick apart and selectively edit 'cause all of the edits that were done of you got rid of the bit where you said any death is a tragedy-

   16. MSMichael Smoak48:10

       Yes

   17. CWChris Williamson48:11

       ... and just kept the bit where it said, "I'm not your puppet," and-

   18. MSMichael Smoak48:13

       Made me look incredibly condescending and arrogant, yes.

   19. CWChris Williamson48:15

       Exactly. Um, imagine if five of those had happened in a row because they'd gone back and they've been able to edit your videos in that manner. Well, now there's a narrative. That Michael guy, he, he seems like he's behaving in a w- there's a consistent pattern of behavior. Now, not only can you go back and say, "Well, no, look. Look, that's not what I said." I mean, even think about it, your indignation at the fact that that's not what I saidYou're pleading to people to say what they say I am is not who I am.

   20. MSMichael Smoak48:45

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson48:46

       And I have evidence.

   22. MSMichael Smoak48:47

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson48:47

       But imagine you didn't have the evidence, a false accusation of some kind. "I heard Michael say this thing at some live event. I didn't record it, but I can promise you that it's true." "I didn't." "But you don't have the recording either, and there's no proof around that."

   24. MSMichael Smoak48:59

       Right.

   25. CWChris Williamson49:00

       And then that narrative starts to take hold, and before you know it... I just, I agree that words hurt you to the degree that you believe they are true, but I also believe that words hurt you to the degree that you believe others will believe that they are true, and that is where your good name, to what extent you've got it left, gets, uh, sideswiped and you didn't deserve it.

   26. MSMichael Smoak49:24

       Good enough to get here.

   27. CWChris Williamson49:25

       Ah. [laughing] You're among friends.

   28. MSMichael Smoak49:27

       Well, let's, let's ping-pong this back and forth a little bit because, yeah, that can be true. If, if I were to have built an internet platform to the size that it is on a false identity, then I'd be really fucking nervous. But anyone... You know, someone said to me, "That, that video you made is authentic. It feels like you." And that's the type of video that anyone who truly w- watches your stuff knows you in real life, they're gonna, they're gonna rock with you even harder because of that. And the people who were never really watching or just casual or just sort of get their news from TikTok-

   29. CWChris Williamson49:58

       Mm

   30. MSMichael Smoak49:58

       ... they're gonna unfollow you, they're gonna say nasty things about you. But those aren't the people I want at, in my audience anyway. Those aren't the... And I'm not here to appease people or make as many fans as I possibly can. I'm just here to make an impact on the people who are prepared to listen.
8. 58:07 – 1:04:31

   Why Fear of Judgement is Holding You Back

   1. CWChris Williamson58:07

      The number one fear that holds people back from having everything they've ever wanted in life is the fear of being perceived. Most of us are operating from a place of deep fear and scarcity. Where we need to be operating from is a place of deep trust and abundance. Your slogan for the year should be simple. What your fear is... Your slogan for the year should be simple. Where your fear is, there your task is. Lean directly into the things that make you most afraid if you want to build the life you've always wanted for yourself.

   2. MSMichael Smoak58:39

      That's the thing that holds people back. It's not the fear of failure. It's not even the fear of success, 'cause sometimes there's that. That comes into the equation of, who will I have to become if this all works? What will have to shift within me? At every level we hit, and we all have different thresholds for this, is the fear of being perceived. It's that little middle schooler inside of us that says, "What will they think of me? Will I be cast out of the, of the cool kid crew? Will I be cast out of the tribe? What will the internet think?" Like I said, every person has a level for this. For some people, for most people that I get questions around, it's posting for the first time online. "What if I look cringe? What if I look corny?" For many people, it's the fear of public speaking. You know, that's the number one fear ahead of death in many psychological surveys, which I find fascinating.

   3. CWChris Williamson59:23

      Do you think that's true? I've read that too. Do you think that's true?

   4. MSMichael Smoak59:25

      I mean, it's, it's, it's in the data.

   5. CWChris Williamson59:27

      I'm, I'm gonna shoot you or I'm gonna put you on stage.

   6. MSMichael Smoak59:31

      Yeah, you're gonna go on stage, but your body's probably gonna have a ph-- This is also not fair. You do it for a living, so, like, you're a bit of, you're a bit of a biased resource on the answer.

   7. CWChris Williamson59:38

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   8. MSMichael Smoak59:38

      Some people might literally rather be killed. I don't know. I did have a friend once say to me, and I quote, though we couldn't experiment on him, he said, "No, I'd literally rather die than get on a stage in front of two thousand people." And he didn't laugh.

   9. CWChris Williamson59:50

      Mm.

   10. MSMichael Smoak59:50

       So, I mean, at his word was bond at that point.

   11. CWChris Williamson59:52

       Mm.

   12. MSMichael Smoak59:53

       But at every level, we hit a wall of perception, a fear of perception. You know, at first it was for me posting online, and then I did it, and it started to work, and then I overcame that, if you will. And then it was the audience got bigger, and now it was... And then I got canceled for the first time. This happened last year, too. It was about a different thing. And then the fear of perception kind of crept in there. And then maybe it was my first public speaking event in front of a couple of hundred people, and the fear of perception came back in. Everybody is afraid of what they will be thought of and if the narrative that the people project onto them is aligned with what they believe about themselves to be true.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:00:27

       Mm.

   14. MSMichael Smoak1:00:27

       And really, their deepest, darkest fear. What if they confirm that I am not enough? What if they confirm that I am incompetent? All the things that we deal with because someone said those things to us. "You're inadequate. You're not enough. You can't sit with us. You're not good enough," whatever, when we were a kid and we chose to believe that thing.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:00:42

       Mm.

   16. MSMichael Smoak1:00:42

       The fear of perception gets to everybody.But there's a level to it for everyone. Your fear of perception is much higher than the person at home listening to this or sitting in their car on their drive to work right now. But at some point, you hit a level where you go, "What will they think of me if I do this?" There's something in, in, within you that could hit... Maybe, maybe it's a new style of content. Maybe it's throwing out that certain joke that you really know is pushing it in the new talk.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:01:06

       Mm.

   18. MSMichael Smoak1:01:07

       Maybe it's being vulnerable to a degree that you've never been online before because that's not what the other guys are doing, so what will those guys think of me? 'Cause you're batting in a league that's pretty high. What will those guys think of me if I say something totally different in my videos? It's there somewhere. But I think too many people view it as a fight. "If I can overcome the fear of perception," or, "If I can conquer the fear of perception." The goal is not to overcome the fear of perception, it's to stay tapped in with inspiration. 'Cause you're inspired until you hit the wall. You know, the content was flowing for me, and I was super inspired and creating a bunch, and then the first wall was, boom, canceled 'cause I said something polarizing.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:01:43

       Mm.

   20. MSMichael Smoak1:01:44

       This was, like I said, a year-plus ago. I made a fat joke that was pretty off the... It was off-color, but it was funny. And that was where it first crept in. People, big creators started saying crazy stuff about me that wasn't true. And then I, and then I got blocked from inspiration. I didn't know what to create because I was worried what they will think of me-

   21. CWChris Williamson1:02:00

       Mm

   22. MSMichael Smoak1:02:01

       ... with what came next. And so if the goal is not to overcome the fear of perception, but to stay tapped into inspiration, then that shifts it from a fight to more of a dance. And so everybody wants to maximize their potential, but I don't think that's the game. I think you don't wanna maximize your potential, you want to know deeply the parts of you that don't want you to do that. Because when I decided to do seminars last year, there was a part of me that went, "What if nobody shows up?" Maybe a fear you had selling tickets across the world. Maybe not.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:02:30

       Mm.

   24. MSMichael Smoak1:02:31

       But that fear crept in. And so then the job is not, "Oh, let me just [exhales] bury that." The job is then, "Let me go explore that part of me that thinks nobody will show up so I can get to," as I said earlier, "is this true? Why is that, that kid in me so afraid that nobody will come to my birthday party?"

   25. CWChris Williamson1:02:49

       Mm.

   26. MSMichael Smoak1:02:49

       Right? That's the, that's the adult equivalent of the, the speaking tour I did last year. And so through deeply understanding and knowing the parts of us that don't want us to maximize our potential, it is only in doing that that the fear of perception falls away. But there's nowhere to get. That's the game, dude. Like, that's the game. There's nowhere to get. It's an exponential curve. It never touches zero. There's, for every new level, there's a new devil. I love that quote.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:03:13

       Mm.

   28. MSMichael Smoak1:03:14

       And when you went from your first episode on your couch in the UK to top 50 to top 25 to now eight, there's a fear that creeps in at every point, something that you have to work through. But I think the secret is knowing deeply the part of you that says you don't deserve that, you can't have that. And instead of saying, "That's wrong," familiarize yourself with it. And then you can process it. And that's the difference between un- processing your emotion and being run by your emotion. 'Cause you, the two decisions you make if you listen to the narrative, "I'm not enough," versus observe it and understand it and move through it, are wildly different decisions. So that's what the fear of perception is to me.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:03:51

       Mm.

   30. MSMichael Smoak1:03:51

       It's, it's the goal to stay tapped into the inspiration of what I believe the messages that God is placing on my heart are, and that's why my content is so diverse. One day I'll make a d- a video about grief and what I learned from the death of my father, and the next day it's the fucking review of the Coke-flavored Oreo, or the Oreo-flavored Coke Zero, my most viral video ever, classically, which is hilarious. There's no... It, it was just inspiration. It was following the inspiration. And in doing that, I've built a business out of it. But conventional rules would tell me, "Well, you're not sticking to the framework and the structures and the virality," and it's all bullshit. So the goal is to stay stat- stay tapped in to inspiration by dancing with that fear of perception.

9. 1:04:31 – 1:10:47

   Scarcity vs Abundance: Which Mindset Wins?

   1. CWChris Williamson1:04:31

      There's an interesting line between scarcity and abundance. So George Mack is just the most abundance mindset person that I've ever met.

   2. MSMichael Smoak1:04:38

      He really is.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:04:39

      Uh, he has... This is my f- one of my fucking favorite George stories. I think he must be on his 30th pair of AirPods now, and he's kept them all in his Bluetooth-

   4. MSMichael Smoak1:04:51

      I hope he has Apple stock

   5. CWChris Williamson1:04:52

      ... history. And I-- probably. And um, you can see George's AirPods one, two, three, four-

   6. MSMichael Smoak1:04:59

      [laughs]

   7. CWChris Williamson1:04:59

      ... all the way up to 30. But because they're all linked to his Find My, there's one pair that's in the United Nations building in downtown New York City.

   8. MSMichael Smoak1:05:07

      [laughs]

   9. CWChris Williamson1:05:08

      There's one left AirPod, I think, that's in Kandahar or something. So he's l- lost them around the world. Some of them have been in the ocean. Others of them have been picked up by people where he's left them. And, uh, he left them in Dean's the other night.

   10. MSMichael Smoak1:05:23

       Oh my g- when we were at dinner?

   11. CWChris Williamson1:05:24

       Yes.

   12. MSMichael Smoak1:05:25

       Oh my gosh.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:05:25

       He left them at Dean's. Uh, and he can see, he tracks them, and every so often, because you can do the Find My, he just plays a sound out of the AirPods. So the fucking UN building, it'll be beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And it's just him fucking with the... The dude in Kandahar, he's just like fucking with him because he knows that he's got his lost AirPods.

   14. MSMichael Smoak1:05:46

       [laughs] It's so good.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:05:49

       But he's just got this abundance mindset, man, and I don't think anyone's done a full treatment on the difference between scarcity and abundance mindset. Not enough. It's a really obvious meme, I guess, if you've been in the personal development world for a while. I haven't seen it fully sort of break through, and the idea that a, a glass half full versus half empty is a pretty sort of cliché way to think about it. Just assuming that it's okay, things will get better. I can take the risk. I can spend the money. I can treat myself. I can give myself time off. I can permit myself to attempt this thing that I don't know whether or not it's going to go well. Just assume that things are gonna go well. And it's a particular type of advice for a particular type of person that maybe many, perhaps even most people, actually need the opposite advice. They need to be told to pump the brakes on their risk tolerance. There is a big subset of peopleI'm gonna guess at the very least like me, perhaps like you who need the opposite piece of advice. I needed to read Die With Zero by Bill Perkins because otherwise I would have just been scrimping and saving. There's a difference between, um, misers and, uh, like spenders and unfortunately I fell into the camp of I'd never had money so I thought well now I've got it I sh- I should hold onto it. What if it goes away? Well, that means that you never get to arrive at a place where you arrive and yeah, abundance mindset is, um, a wonderful salve to the uncertainty and the fear that I think a lot of us feel.

   16. MSMichael Smoak1:07:25

       Your episode shift, are, are we allowed to talk about the new style of content that's coming out?

   17. CWChris Williamson1:07:28

       It'll be before this one, so yeah.

   18. MSMichael Smoak1:07:29

       Okay. The, the, the four-way episode that we had, we had a lovely four-way the other day. It was fantastic.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:07:34

       Yeah.

   20. MSMichael Smoak1:07:35

       Uh, me, me, Yush-

   21. CWChris Williamson1:07:36

       It's important to have an Indian man in there for diversity.

   22. MSMichael Smoak1:07:37

       Yeah, of course. It was great. Yes, he taught us a lot about breastfeeding. It was an interesting conversation. Go listen to that one.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:07:42

       Yeah.

   24. MSMichael Smoak1:07:42

       The-- but that's a great example, right? You could have said, "Well, this isn't what my audience expects of me. This isn't what got me to top eight in the world. I can't do a four-way podcast of me and my boys bullshitting."

   25. CWChris Williamson1:07:52

       Mm-hmm.

   26. MSMichael Smoak1:07:53

       "I've been the interview guy. I've been the solo guy giving advice." But to me, I viewed what you did as an act of authenticity and trusting that diversifying is actually the exact thing you should do because you haven't done it up to this point, and the f- more frictionless, less buttoned up, you know, pop a button and let your hair down approach to this like us just talking and joking and some of the crazy stuff that happened in that episode is exactly what people wanna see from you.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:08:19

       Mm.

   28. MSMichael Smoak1:08:19

       Because it makes you so relational. So I, I view creators through this lens as well. There's this guy who said he uses his content as a direct exposure therapy to people-pleasing. He posts whatever he wants. He says, "I don't..." I wish I knew his name so I could give him credit. "I post whatever I want. I'm not really overly mindful of what my audience wants, and I have a wide variety of topics that I speak on." He's an authority in some places, he's very human and goofy in others, and he talks about his story in other facets of content. So there's three pillars I think that exist. There's informational, aspirational, and relational. Informational is the authority figure content. I'm teaching you something. And then relational is the Open Tabs podcast, if that's what you decide to call it.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:09:02

       Yeah.

   30. MSMichael Smoak1:09:03

       Did you decide on a name?
10. 1:10:47 – 1:19:13

    Why We Chase Feelings, Not Things

    1. CWChris Williamson1:10:47

       We don't want the thing. We want the feeling that the thing gives us. Why?

    2. MSMichael Smoak1:10:54

       [sighs] Yeah. What did... Uh, we're speed running our recancellation right now with all the references we're pulling. What did Andrew Tate say? "You don't want the Ferrari. You want everyone to know you have the Ferrari and that they can't have the Ferrari," right? We don't, we don't-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:11:07

       Having things isn't fun. Getting things is fun.

    4. MSMichael Smoak1:11:08

       Having things isn't fun. Getting things is fun, but we don't want the thing. We want the feeling that it gives us because... I'll give you my opinion on this. This is... It's a faith-based one yet again. We'll come back to this my, a lot. My, my pastor, Philip Mitchell, that I referenced earlier, says that everybody has a God-shaped hole in their heart, and they try to fill it with the things of the world and, and this is why biblically idolatry is a sin. Sin is actually just God's way of protecting us from hurting ourselves 'cause we're stupid. [chuckles] We're people, we're dumb, and we make mistakes. To idolize something is to put it on a pedestal, and to put it on a pedestal implies that it can never let you down, but things of the world are imperfect. They'll always let us down. And so we don't want the thing. We want the feeling the thing gives us because the nice watch, the nice car, the status, the success, the money, whatever, any form of material success, will it make us feel significant, seen, heard, understood, important in our place in the world?

    5. CWChris Williamson1:12:02

       Mm.

    6. MSMichael Smoak1:12:03

       And it never does. Like you said, it's the hedonic treadmill. You step into the thing, it's really cool, you get the dopamine hit, and then the Ferrari just becomes, "We'll take my car."

    7. CWChris Williamson1:12:12

       Well, don't forget, there's a much more squirrely, pernicious version of this which is developing yourself with your traits and your skills and maybe your knowledge as well. Naval has this cool idea where he talks about how he wasn't that concerned about being smart, but he really wanted to appear smart. So what he did is he just wrote, memorized tons of stuff, and that gave him the illusion of being smart to other people, but it didn't mean he actually understood what he was doing, and that difference of when I'm able to impress people around a dinner table, when everybody else shuts up and they think I'm the most interesting person in the room, then-Or a black belt in some martial art. When I get there, then. And the difference is there's a obvious cultural meme around how cringey it is to assume that a Ferrari is going to fix your self-worth problem. But there's far less about, well, you know, once I've done a thousand hours of meditation, once I've got my black belt in Brazilian jujitsu, once I've finally read all of the classics and can quote them verbatim around the dinner table, once I've done even more pernicious than this, go deeper. Once I've done every level of the Hoffman process or internal family systems, or I know every Joe Hudson Art of Accomplishment podcast off by heart, and I've done the work and I've, I've transcended and included my Wilbarian ego and everything has now become a perfect manifestation of alchemized myself. That is just a slightly cleverer twist on the same arrival fallacy. But I will be when... I will be something when I something else. It's the same dynamic. It's just done in a slightly less shallow, obviously vapid way.

    8. MSMichael Smoak1:14:01

       Yeah, that's, that's it, man. That's, that's what I thought-- that's what I was talking about earlier. There's nowhere to get. There's nowhere to get. It doesn't mean you don't go there, doesn't mean you don't achieve the thing and, and build the accolades. That doesn't mean it's not fun and it doesn't feel good, but there's nowhere to get. There are just levels to climb through, and zero is death. Zero is when your life is over. And that's ma-- that, in my opinion, takes all the weight off of it. It makes it more fun, easier to obtain, and that when I get to the end of my life, I will have hopefully, God willing, done a lot of cool shit. But the ultimate mission for me is [sighs] I hope... You know, my dad said this to me like four weeks before he died. I thought it was very interesting that a guy who was living what I thought was the fullest life ever, the stories he told me, the things he got to do, the things him and his friends did. The last four to six weeks he was a-alive, when he was just stuck on the couch and we would just sit and talk. And one thing I'm really thankful for that I did that I hope anyone listening to this with parents who are still here do, is I recorded a series of podcasts with my dad when he got sick, and I asked him all the hard questions, and it was fucking brutal, man. Like, had to turn the camera off, had to walk away. It was... It's, it's a unique pain to look at my dad and say, "What do you want to say to me on my wedding day? Can you say it right there?" That's hard, but I'm grateful that I did it because now I have it. And it goes back to I don't really think a lot of what the people on the internet think about me, because I had to do that. My threshold for pain is so much higher, for stress is so much higher. I don't want to control the narrative. I tried that, and it created so much more pain within me. But back to the original point, it was interesting to hear a man who I thought was ten feet tall and bulletproof and had done everything in the world and had shown up for me every time I needed it, and was a great husband, a great dad, the best I'd ever seen. When he got to the end of his life, all he could tell me about was the things he wishes he did more of. And it wasn't anything complex. It wasn't that he wish he sold more tracks because he was a running track salesman. It wasn't that he wishes he did more skydive jumps or that he spent more time on the golf course. He said two things. He said... Well, he said three things. He said, "Number one, I should have spent more time at home with your mom and less time on the golf course with my buddies. And number two, I should have been here for you guys more when you were growing up." I didn't perceive it that way. To me, my dad was always there when I needed him. Like, I was lucky to have a dad who really loved me and showed up for me and, and my brother and sister. And the last thing he said was, "All I hope to hear when I get wherever I'm going is, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant.' You fought the good fight. You've run your race. Here's your crown. It's time to rest." And that's scriptural. And to me, these achievements are fun. They're so fun. I'm s- I'm... Words cannot put, be put into the feeling I have of gratitude to be sitting across the table from you right now, man. Like, it's so cool. I told my boy today, he called me, he was like, "How you feeling?" I was like, "Dude, we do downloads on Modern Wisdom when we were getting our walks together in college. Like, this is so cool."

    9. CWChris Williamson1:17:20

       Mm.

    10. MSMichael Smoak1:17:20

        It's incredible. But where I stand with my belief is not, is that God's not gonna say, "Well done, my good and faithful podcast host, my good and faithful content creator, business owner." He's not gonna say husband or father or brother. He's gonna say servant. And if what I do glorifies God, and if I feel that way and I receive confirmation or what I think is confirmation, that's what I think I'm here to do, and that's what I think we're all here to do. And I think if more people open their heart to the possibility of that being true, they would still have fun pursuing the thing and getting the thing and having the thing, but they'd understand that that's really all we're here for, and that the only zero, the only arrival is the end of it, and that it's all just fun.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:18:04

        Mm.

    12. MSMichael Smoak1:18:05

        It's fun and service. That's it.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:18:08

        Before we continue, as you're probably aware, I'm not a massive drinker, at least not anymore. But even if you too are not drinking, sometimes you just want something cold, frosty, and tasty without the fear of a hangover the next day, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co. Thank you very much. Their non-alcoholic brews taste just as good as the real thing. They've got IPAs, hazy goldens. They're so good that you'll forget that there's no alcohol in them until you wake up the next day feeling fantastic. It means that you can enjoy the ritual without the wreckage. No hangover, no 3:00 a.m. panic, no wasted Sunday recovering from Saturday. That is why I partnered with them. You can find Athletic Brewing Co.'s best-selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you, or best option, you can get the full variety pack of four flavors shipped right to your door. Right now, get up to fifteen percent off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or heading to athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout. Near beer. Terms and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing CompanyFit for all times.

11. 1:19:13 – 1:37:48

    Does Feeling Alone Mean You’re On the Right Path?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:19:13

       The path to being the best version of yourself should be lonely, and the loneliness you feel is nothing to be sad about. It is a benchmark and an indicator that you're probably on the right path. Everything in life has a true opportunity cost to it. Cutting people off, cutting things off, cutting habits off is uncomfortable, but every time I've done it, something incredible has filled that gap.

    2. MSMichael Smoak1:19:39

       This is total inception listening to you tell me what I said because I learned that from you, [chuckles] which is kinda hilarious.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:19:46

       Correct. It's the human centipede, but we've both got our ass and mouth attached to each other.

    4. MSMichael Smoak1:19:50

       We're Earl Bursing each other or whatever the fuck it's called.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:19:52

       That's correct.

    6. MSMichael Smoak1:19:53

       Yeah. My mouth to Chris's ass. Clip that.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:19:55

       Very good.

    8. MSMichael Smoak1:19:56

       [laughs] Yeah, I mean, you and, you and, and Hormozi talked about the lonely chapter, and I remember going through that being twenty-two years old and wondering. I really had one friend, my best friend, still m- the guy I just told you I was on the phone with earlier. Uh, Will, I love you if you're listening to this. It was just he and I. I, I would have these, these feelings of, "Why do I care this much about resistance training, progressive overload? Why do I wanna learn about hormesis and heat exposure and listen to Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk for three hours about those things with Joe Rogan? Why do I care what Chris Williamson and Andrew Huberman are gonna talk about for two hours?" And when I go talk to it about my-- f- talk about it to my friends, they go, "Sick, dude." It's like you can't expect everyone to have the interest, same interests as you. I get that. Wanna slide me one of those?

    9. CWChris Williamson1:20:43

       Yeah, get in there.

    10. MSMichael Smoak1:20:44

        Appreciate it.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:20:44

        Have a little nicotine bump. Go on.

    12. MSMichael Smoak1:20:46

        What is this? Is this the mint one?

    13. CWChris Williamson1:20:47

        This is the watermelon peppermint, I think.

    14. MSMichael Smoak1:20:50

        Watermelon peppermint.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:20:51

        Now, we're just finding different ways to stimulate ourselves.

    16. MSMichael Smoak1:20:53

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:20:53

        I'm an oral... I have an oral fixation, which is great to say after we just talked about ass to mouth.

    18. MSMichael Smoak1:20:57

        Yeah. [laughs] Chris loves finding ways to get o-orally stimulated, for sure.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:21:02

        Yeah, that's correct.

    20. MSMichael Smoak1:21:02

        Um, the-- I remem- [chuckles] I remember the, uh, this n- tooth-- nicotine toothpick's about to go straight to my frontal lobe and allow me to cohesively pull this thought together. But I remember being very confused about why nobody gave a shit about the things I gave a shit about.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:21:17

        Mm.

    22. MSMichael Smoak1:21:18

        And I just had this one friend. It was me and Will, and we'd-- he was up in New York at college, and I was down in Georgia, and so we'd do these things we called NEAT chats where we'd go out and go for a walk. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:21:29

        Very good.

    24. MSMichael Smoak1:21:29

        Walking. NEAT chats, he'd just text me like, "NEAT," and we'd go, and we'd do downloads on the podcast we were listening to. But we were each other's only outlet, and that can feel lonely. And I remember a girl I was dating at the time saying... I, I talked to her about the first time I heard about the anterior midcingulate cortex, and I went, "This is groundbreaking fucking information. I've gotta tell the world." Like, "The British are coming. The British are coming."

    25. CWChris Williamson1:21:52

        [chuckles]

    26. MSMichael Smoak1:21:52

        "The AMCC is growing. The AMCC is growing."

    27. CWChris Williamson1:21:54

        "Fuck, you is boring."

    28. MSMichael Smoak1:21:55

        Yeah. [laughs] Exactly.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:21:56

        Yeah.

    30. MSMichael Smoak1:21:57

        And it was a very loving, "You should, like, make content or something."
12. 1:37:48 – 1:47:00

    Why Perseverance is Vital to Succeed

    1. CWChris Williamson1:37:48

       there's nothing else. All right, I've got another one. I wanna, I wanna harass you about this one. If you want exceptional things, you have to be willing to work toward them for exceptional periods of time. I'm willing to bet ninety percent of people who didn't get where they wanted did so simply because they stopped too early. [sighs]

    2. MSMichael Smoak1:38:07

       I'm gonna do the thing, the aphorism thing.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:38:10

       Do it.

    4. MSMichael Smoak1:38:11

       Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to doing the obvious thing for an extraordinary period of time without convincing yourself you're smarter than you are, is the end of that quote from, from Mr. Hormozi himself. What was the obvious thing with growing the podcast? What are the obvious things that you did that got it to where it is today?

    5. CWChris Williamson1:38:29

       Not stopping.

    6. MSMichael Smoak1:38:31

       That's it. With social media growth, the-- people ask me all the time, "What's the number one thing you'd recommend?" Post every day for six months. Ninety plus... I would guarantee you ninety plus percent of people wash out after ninety days of posting. And so extraordinary success comes from just doing the boring stuff, but you can't package that. You can't make an incredible viral clip out of it or a multimillion-dollar business if you just tell people, "If you wanna get jacked, you should probably just not stop working out and not stop eating well and not stop walking. And if you wanna have a successful podcast, you should probably just not stop uploading an episode a week or two episodes a week." It's the same with social media. I haven't missed an upload in two and a half years on social media. So yeah, the byproduct is the growth, but it's the obvious thing, and it's the thing... It's not easy to do because things get in the way. You have all these ideas or creative blocks or reasons you can't post. But it's simple to understand, is if you wanna be where you wanna be, you have to do the boring shit for a long time, and that's what I've noticed from everybody at the top. There was never this game-changing, revolutionary formula for how they got there. They just kept fucking showing up. And if they had ten percent to give that day, if I had ten percent to give that day and I gave it, I gave a hundred percent.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:39:42

       Mm-hmm.

    8. MSMichael Smoak1:39:43

       Because I truly understand that that is so much better than nothing. And I do think so many people on social media stop right before they pop. So many people in the gym stop right before they hit that flow state with their workouts that gets them in the best shape of their life, or they find that way of eating that feels comfortable and they c- that they can sustain forever. Most people stop right before they strike gold, and I know if I just keep showing up, even if it all falls away, like you just said, I'd still do this for free. If all the sponsors-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:40:15

       Mm

    10. MSMichael Smoak1:40:15

        ... and the platform got stripped, you'd still come into this room and record, which means you'd climb again. But not many people have the testicular fortitude to be able to do that.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:40:28

        I think also one of the things is people mistake doing something they feel they should be doing instead of doing something that they're obsessed with.

    12. MSMichael Smoak1:40:37

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:40:37

        So I've got the, the difference between discipline, motivation, and obsession. So discipline is I will make myself do the thing. Motivation is I want to do the thing, and obsession is I can't not do the thing. Sort of climbed inside of you, and it's staring out through your eyes. And what we look at with a lot of people now, it appears like discipline, but what it is, is just the remnant of what was previously an obsession. Going to the gym, for me, was something that I did because I was obsessed with it. I wouldn't go on nights out at university because I wanted to stay in and read bodybuilding.com forums to see if this blueberry extract would get me more jacked or whatever the fuck. And now my training pattern is just like the hard rock that's cooled after that lava erupted for a while, and it looks like discipline from the outside, but it's actually just the remnant of this thing that kind of wore me for a while.

    14. MSMichael Smoak1:41:29

        Mm.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:41:30

        And, uh, I don't know whether you have heard me talk about this before, but ninety percent of podcasts don't make it past episode three, and of the ten percent that do, ninety percent of them don't make it past episode twenty. So by making twenty-one podcasts, you are in the top percentile of all podcasters ever.

    16. MSMichael Smoak1:41:47

        Let's go. [chuckles] We did it.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:41:50

        And it just sort of goes to show how rare consistency is.

    18. MSMichael Smoak1:41:54

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:41:54

        And, um, yeah, if you wanna-- I wanna be in the top percentile of all podcasters ever. Okay, just do twenty-one. Like, they can be shit. Do twenty-one and you have already won. And yeah, consistency's not sexy, and it doesn't really fit very well on an Instagram Reel because it's not a quick fix. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me that... It doesn't surprise me that people don't wanna do it. I think another element, a lot of people didn't get to where they are because of a lack of support. So I think the lonely chapter thing, I, I'm... was for a very long time, still maybe deep down now, uh, uncertain. Uncertain, am I doing this right? Is it okay for me to want to do this thing? Uh, and I basically have a lifestyle wide praise kink, and if you just say to me the thing that encourage me, that is a really good fuel source for me. But that means that in the UK, somewhere which is quite disparaging of anybody that wants to do anything different, it's the opposite. And I know that this, the lonely chapter thing particularly resonated with people in the UK because it's one big fuck off lonely chapter, and that's also one of the reasons I think that we've got such millionaire exit, like the whatever it's called, brain drain, this millionaire flight that's happening from the UK because if you're the sort of person that wants to make a lot of yourself, it's not a wonderful culture to be in, and I really would love to change that. But-

    20. MSMichael Smoak1:43:18

        Yeah, the, the praise kink is s- a super funny way to put that.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:43:21

        The lifestyle wide praise kink?

    22. MSMichael Smoak1:43:22

        Good boy, Chris.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:43:23

        [laughs]

    24. MSMichael Smoak1:43:23

        Good boy.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:43:23

        Don't you do it. Not here.

    26. MSMichael Smoak1:43:25

        [laughs]

    27. CWChris Williamson1:43:25

        I don't need it from you. Um-

    28. MSMichael Smoak1:43:27

        But I love what you just said there.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:43:28

        Yeah.

    30. MSMichael Smoak1:43:29

        The, the twenty-one episodes about putting you in the top one percent. They are probably gonna be shit.That's the other thing
13. 1:47:00 – 1:55:35

    Why Communication is the Most Powerful Tool You Can Wield

    1. CWChris Williamson1:47:00

       Clarity and conviction is perceived by those who hear it as confidence and competence.

    2. MSMichael Smoak1:47:05

       One of the most important things someone ever said to me, it was a mentor of mine. Clarity and conviction is perceived by those who hear it as competence and confidence. I think communication is the number one skill you can develop in this life. You've built a career off of it, and you're only as good as your ability to tell a story, or tell your story, or tell other people's stories on their behalf. But everybody seems to think, or so many people think, "I am just this way with my, my speaking, my words." It's, it's viewed as this static thing. But it's a muscle that you can train, so when you speak clearly, when you enunciate properly and with conviction, that when you sit across the table from me, whether you agree with me or not, you can tell that I believe what I'm saying.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:47:44

       Mm.

    4. MSMichael Smoak1:47:45

       You're perceived by the people around you as competent, intelligent, and confident, and people follow competent, confident people. I mean, look at, look at politicians. They might not always be telling the truth, but they sure do speak with clarity and conviction. Someone like Barack Obama's touted as one of the best speakers in the entire presidential candidacy, in the history of the presidency, and people loved him, 'cause he spoke clearly and with conviction, and then people perceived him as competent and confident enough to elect him twice. So the Bible says, "Life and death is in the tongue." What you say is incredibly powerful, both about yourself and the message that you're able to portray about whatever it is. So I encourage people to develop those skillsets and understand it's just a muscle. Communication skills are just a muscle. It's like the first time you went to the gym and your hands were soft, and now you look at my palms and I've got these calluses as, as you do from all the times I've picked up the dumbbell or the barbell. But the first time I did it, it hurt, and then over time, the hands got harder and more durable. Communication and public speaking are the same way, and that's how this crazy challenge, how this public speaking challenge that I've somehow become tied to has just grown on the internet. I think there's something like 60,000 or 70,000 people doing it. Did I tell you about this?

    5. CWChris Williamson1:49:05

       Mm, maybe not.

    6. MSMichael Smoak1:49:08

       If, if you search on Instagram, I know it's on, more on TikTok, if you search on Instagram #higherupwellnesschallenge, it says 28,000 posts. A year ago, I made a video, maybe more than this, maybe two years ago. I made a v- yeah, two years ago. I made a video and I said, "The number one skill that can change your life is the ability to communicate efficiently and effectively. And if you don't think you can do it, I promise you can. You just need to practice, so here's what I recommend. I recommend you pick, pick up the phone, turn the front camera on, hit record, and talk for 60 seconds unbroken."Whatever comes up, whatever comes out. No topics, no i- it doesn't have to be about anything. Anything goes. Try not to use too many filler words like um, you know. Don't use those words, and just speak for 60 seconds with no cuts, and do it for a minimum of 30 days. I didn't say tag me and hashtag this. I didn't try to start a challenge. What happened was this kid, Brandon, he took that video and sort of cut it up and he said, "I'm really terrified to post online and public speaking scares me, and this video convicted me to do it, so I'm just gonna title this 'The Higher Up Wellness Public Speaking Challenge.'" First video ever, mind you, I said post on a burner account. Nobody will see it.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:50:22

       Mm.

    8. MSMichael Smoak1:50:23

       First video ever, five million views overnight. Gymshark comments, I think the Cincinnati Bengals comment. Like crazy huge accounts comment on this kid just saying, "I'm very nervous and I'm going to spend the next 30 days practicing my public speaking skills." And he went from zero to 40,000 [chuckles] followers overnight, and that started just this storm of people practicing their communication skills. I'm just... I think it's very cool that, and I'm honored to even be tied to it, but this kid and this other creator, Reagan, did this, and their videos blew up. And now I, I'm watching. When I click on the hashtag, I'm watching all these people. What I like to do is go to their day one video and then go to their day 30. Some of these people have been doing this for 380 days. There's a guy who's on day 381. And the transformation in their ability to show up, their confidence, is unbelievable.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:51:14

       Mm.

    10. MSMichael Smoak1:51:14

        I mean, it's direct evidence of the fruit of, of battling the fear of perception, 'cause everybody says, "I was so scared to post online in case I looked like a cornball." Some of them have developed social media followings. One creator, Jet Franzen, went from zero to 500,000, I think, across his platforms, and just blew up and does incredible philosophical takes now. And it's because he, he just decided to get out of his own way and do this silly challenge. And it's so fucking cool to watch, but it's proof that these are skills. You can build clarity, you can build conviction, you can learn how to speak in stream of consciousness.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:51:49

        Mm.

    12. MSMichael Smoak1:51:49

        We're not all just gifted with the ability to do it or not do it. It's a skill and you have to hone it.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:51:55

        There's definitely an interesting duality to it, that clarity and conviction is certainly perceived as confidence and competence and, and insight and expertise, but as you said, people who don't have expertise or competence can reverse engineer their way into seeming like-

    14. MSMichael Smoak1:52:14

        [laughs]

    15. CWChris Williamson1:52:14

        ... somebody that you should listen to.

    16. MSMichael Smoak1:52:16

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:52:16

        It's the criticism of all style and no substance, right? But I think all substance and no style doesn't tend to get listened to. James Smith had this fucking unbelievable line about his first podcast. He's now on his second one. He's, like, a guy with multiple wi- I think he might be on his third one now. Um-

    18. MSMichael Smoak1:52:34

        Did you say multiple wives?

    19. CWChris Williamson1:52:36

        M- He's, like, a guy with multiple wives.

    20. MSMichael Smoak1:52:37

        Oh.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:52:38

        He's, like, serially dating his own podcasts-

    22. MSMichael Smoak1:52:40

        [laughs]

    23. CWChris Williamson1:52:40

        ... and renaming them and then fucking flipping the channels every time.

    24. MSMichael Smoak1:52:43

        I thought you meant literally married. I was like, "Damn-"

    25. CWChris Williamson1:52:45

        No, no.

    26. MSMichael Smoak1:52:45

        "... just putting James on blast right now."

    27. CWChris Williamson1:52:46

        No, no. No, no. Not at all. No.

    28. MSMichael Smoak1:52:47

        Okay.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:52:47

        He's fucking living a dad life in Australia. Um, and he had this line and he said, "On my podcast, I speak to people who are far smarter than me, but bun- much more boring."

    30. MSMichael Smoak1:53:00

        [laughs] That's just so true, dude.
14. 1:55:35 – 2:00:42

    How Your Etiquette Shows Exactly Who You Really Are

    1. CWChris Williamson1:55:35

       If you cannot do something as simple as return the shopping cart to its designated area, I'm going to assume you're a degenerate and your life is in shambles

    2. MSMichael Smoak1:55:43

       Shopping cart theory

    3. CWChris Williamson1:55:44

       Mm-hmm

    4. MSMichael Smoak1:55:45

       The litmus test for-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:55:46

       The shopping cart razor

    6. MSMichael Smoak1:55:47

       ... a good person. Yes. Okay, [laughs] we've got two new razors out of this podcast. This has been revolutionary.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:55:52

       Yep.

    8. MSMichael Smoak1:55:53

       I really believe that, man. And every- I've p- that video, I posted that just the other day, but it's an old one, and every time... I think it's got... The, the comment to like to view ratio is just totally fucked because it clearly stirs up negative emotion in people, and every time somebody comments, "What a, what a silly thing to care about," or, "This is just stupid," I would say, "Just say you're a bad person. You just outed yourself [laughs] completely. Just say you don't return the shopping cart." Jokes aside, yeah, it's a bit inflammatory and hyperbolic intentionally, but there's this great Reddit green text about how the shopping cart theory is the litmus test for if you're a functioning, self-governing member of society. If you can't even return your shopping cart, what can you do? What is your home life?

    9. CWChris Williamson1:56:36

       [laughs]

    10. MSMichael Smoak1:56:38

        What does your home life look like? What does your health look like? Everything's probably in shambles.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:56:42

        Yeah. It's the Jordan Peterson clean your room for the Walmart generation.

    12. MSMichael Smoak1:56:46

        Yes. That's it, for the Walmart. [laughs] Yeah, that's exactly right. It is the test of self-agency and self-governing. It's, it's just one of those things like why would you not do it? Anyone who voluntarily doesn't do it, I just... Safe to assume you probably also, like, hate dogs and treat service workers poorly is just the other character test.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:57:03

        I, I think the, the, the way that you treat waiters and waitresses is a good indication of this. It's such a good one. And, uh, I, I, I'm just gonna say it, I think that Americans are the rudest fucking drivers on the planet. Like, you guys treat lanes like they're your property.

    14. MSMichael Smoak1:57:22

        You ever been to Atlanta?

    15. CWChris Williamson1:57:24

        Only the airport, a lot, but only the airport.

    16. MSMichael Smoak1:57:27

        Ooh, but... Oh, you've never seen driving like that before. But you're right.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:57:30

        Why?

    18. MSMichael Smoak1:57:30

        You're right. It... 'Cause it's-

    19. CWChris Williamson1:57:31

        What's Atlanta driving like? Like Atlanta women?

    20. MSMichael Smoak1:57:35

        Well, [laughs] you're gonna get me in trouble with all my friends back home. [laughs] I can't answer that. I plead the fifth. My opinion is that you don't want my opinion. [laughs]

    21. CWChris Williamson1:57:43

        I bet you don't want me to hear what I've got to say about Atlanta.

    22. MSMichael Smoak1:57:47

        Atlanta driving is like eyes peeled, bring a gun just in case sort of situation. It's if you're not 15 over, you're 15 under, and everybody's really angry and got somewhere to be. But it's, it's whatever you know to be true about Americans times three in Atlanta. Third worst traffic city in the world.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:58:04

        Just for clarity, if you're in the UK and you are in front of the car that's in the lane that you're moving into, unless that car's going very quickly, they slow down and let you in. They flash you in. If you're in front of the car and you indicate, you get to move across, you get let in. And if you don't do that, it is incredibly bad form. Fucking unbelievably bad form. In the US, it almost feels like someone speeds up and slows down to make it impossible for you to enter the lane, even behind them.

    24. MSMichael Smoak1:58:33

        Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:58:34

        It is... It-- That's been one of the biggest changes of, of being here, and I feel like this is the driving equivalent of the shopping cart theory, that how nice of a person can you be if you can't let somebody into the lane in front of you?

    26. MSMichael Smoak1:58:49

        Not very.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:58:49

        Oh, we're touching, we're touching on something close to your heart now, aren't we, Atlanta driver?

    28. MSMichael Smoak1:58:53

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:58:53

        How does that feel?

    30. MSMichael Smoak1:58:54

        Yeah. But I, I, I'm very intention- if you were in front of me, I'd let you in.
15. 2:00:42 – 2:01:52

    Where to Find Michael

    1. CWChris Williamson2:00:42

       robot assistants. Dude, we gotta go to dinner. We got dinner with Trigonometry and Richard Reeves. Uh, where should people go? You fucking rule. I think your content's great. And, uh-

    2. MSMichael Smoak2:00:49

       Thank you, brother

    3. CWChris Williamson2:00:50

       ... I look forward to seeing what you do. So-

    4. MSMichael Smoak2:00:52

       Thank you

    5. CWChris Williamson2:00:52

       ... where should people go?

    6. MSMichael Smoak2:00:53

       Uh, Higher Up Wellness on all platforms, "The Higher Up Podcast." I will say I am, I don't have the, the name memorized, but I'd love to, uh, share this 'cause it just got news today. Marathon weekend in London, I'm doing my first live show-

    7. CWChris Williamson2:01:05

       Mm-hmm

    8. MSMichael Smoak2:01:06

       ... at the Bush Hall, the Bush Hall Theater.

    9. CWChris Williamson2:01:09

       Yep.

    10. MSMichael Smoak2:01:10

        April 25th, marathon weekend. Tickets on that, tickets for that go on sale this week. I will be promoting it, so just be on the lookout. We're gonna do-

    11. CWChris Williamson2:01:17

        Where can people get tickets?

    12. MSMichael Smoak2:01:18

        Uh, it's gonna be posted to my Instagram story. The link's not live. I tried to ask him, "Where can they get them?" And he said, "I can't tell you that yet. We don't have it." So it'll be posted like hell on my social medias across the board. But thank you so much for giving me the time, man. I was, I was sitting here before the episode went on and we were chatting, and I said, "I think I hold a pretty esteemed accolade. I think I'm..." I was reviewing the guest list, and I think I'm top 10 least formally educated guests you've ever had on the show. So to you community college grads, there's hope for you out there.

    13. CWChris Williamson2:01:45

        Well done. I'm, I, I, I'm, I ranked in the most retarded Modern Wisdom guests. All right.

    14. MSMichael Smoak2:01:50

        I'll hold that title proudly.

    15. CWChris Williamson2:01:50

        Appreciate you. Goodbye, everybody.

    16. MSMichael Smoak2:01:51

        Bye.

Episode duration: 2:01:55