Modern WisdomCatch Up 105 | Modern Wisdom Podcast 176
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,044 words- 0:00 – 2:47
AirPods, Apple, and candy-aisle nostalgia before the show starts
- CWChris Williamson
... Spotify paid, what is rumored, he hasn't said it, Spotify paid around about 100 mil for Joe Rogan and increased their market cap by five billion.
- JOJonny
How do you listen to Spotify? On Apple device, so like, they don't care. It doesn't really matter what Spotify do. Like, if they get Joe Rogan, "Oh, brilliant."
- YUYusef
Cool.
- JOJonny
And when you're making 10 billion in AirPod sales-
- YUYusef
So you're listening to Joe Rogan on Spotify on your Apple iPhone-
- JOJonny
With AirPods.
- YUYusef
... with your Apple AirPods so that-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
... just thinking, "Fuck Apple. Apple have really missed a, missed an opportunity here." Like ... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Jonny and Youcef from propanefitness.com. What's happening?
- YUYusef
What is happening?
- CWChris Williamson
You well?
- YUYusef
Very good. We've had a, had an extended soundcheck.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) You, you, you guys-
- YUYusef
But we're crispy now.
- CWChris Williamson
You guys started shouting limericks at me down the, down the line. It was very interesting.
- YUYusef
It, it's just because. I am not the pheasant plucker, I am only his mate, and I'm standing in for the pheasant plucker because the pheasant plucker's late.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) That was so good. I had no idea that that was what you were gonna soundcheck. I just asked you to count to five. That's like getting a six-nugget chicken nugget meal and finding out that there's seven nuggets in it. That's exactly what that's like.
- YUYusef
That's always a ... Look, do, okay, how do you feel about, you know when you have like a pack of Monster Munch? This is a very like year five problem, um, and then at the bottom you've got a bowl of just pure seasoning?
- CWChris Williamson
I don't remember that. I don't think that happened.
- JOJonny
No, I don't know.
- YUYusef
That never happened to you? Sh- uh, surely ...
- JOJonny
Sometimes you get it with like a Cornetto or a Flake 99 at the bottom.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, the chocolate, just pure chocolate.
- JOJonny
Yeah, when it's overfilled with chocolate, like ...
- CWChris Williamson
That's something, that's something else. Well, what's another good one is when you used to have Iced Gems and then at the bottom corner of the little Iced Gem packet, there would just be some gems, uh, sorry, some Iced. You know what I mean?
- JOJonny
Those, the little, little biscuit with the little swirly thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Iced Gems are legit.
- JOJonny
Do you ever think like what, why, why would you ever stop making that?
- CWChris Williamson
I don't think they have. I think they just stopped eating them.
- 2:47 – 6:27
Joe Rogan’s exclusive Spotify move: what actually changed
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, Jonny, can you give me another, like, just a tiny little twist on your gain, bro? Just a little bit, just a little bit. Cef's moved his mic in, so he's a little bit, uh, louder. Anyway, we are ... So after that two-minute intro, we are doing another catch-up episode, just catching the fudge up, finding out what's been going on. Number one on the list, the biggest news in the world, apart from the pandemic that's running riot outside, uh, Joe Rogan moving to Spotify. So anybody who doesn't know what's gone on, Joe Rogan has signed an exclusive long-year deal, multi-year deal, probably three or four years with Spotify. The rumored amount was 100 mil. Now, I don't know if that's 100 mil a year or 100 mil total, but either way, it's a significant amount of money. It's the largest amount of money that a podcast has ever been paid for a platform exclusive. And I think that there's probably quite a lot of implications for what's going on here, so I'll give you a little bit of background. Um, Rogan announces that he's moving the entire podcast to Spotify. Every old episode will remain on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, wherever else you tune in, um, but from the end of the year, it will be new episodes will only exist on Spotify and Spotify are going to create a video platform exclusive, like, create a video hosting platform in the app-
- YUYusef
Just for Joe.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I'm presuming they will roll it out thereafter, but, um, like, on Apple Podcasts at the moment, you can actually create video podcasts. Brian Rose break dancing in a stairwell.
- YUYusef
They've had that for a while. We, we did it ages ago, but it rams your, uh, your allowance.
- CWChris Williamson
Your storage up, yeah, on your, on your hosting platform, so yeah, um, Spotify say that they're going to do that, all of Rogan's old stuff, but this means no more YouTube, it means no more Apple Podcasts. He will continue to upload some clips to YouTube on the JRE Clips channel, which is good, I guess, for him, for the searchability, virality, uh, people discovering the podcast, um, but full episodes, the only place that you can get them for presumably the next couple of years at the very least is going to be Spotify, that's audio and video, um, and then he, he announced that the Spotify share price closed 8% up that night and then the next day did another 10%. So Spotify paid what is rumored, he hasn't said it, Spotify paid around about 100 mil for Joe Rogan and increased their market cap by five billion, so that's a 5,000 times return. 5,000-
- YUYusef
Pretty good move. 500.
- CWChris Williamson
500.
- YUYusef
No.
- CWChris Williamson
50?
- YUYusef
Yeah. Oh my God. 100 million, yeah, 50.
- JOJonny
It's best to not, best to not. 21.
- CWChris Williamson
Whatever. Well, it's because it's American million and UK billion as well, right, because-
- YUYusef
It's imperial measurements, isn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I know. How many is ... Can you tell me that in old money please?
- YUYusef
What is it in stone?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It's, it's £17 and four ounces. So yeah, Rogan's made this move, 100 million to increase your market cap by five billion. No matter how many times that is, I know that's a good deal. Um, some of the other interesting things, Spotify pledged to spend 500 mil on podcast acquisitions during 2020. Now, a big chunk of that's gone on Rogan, but I don't know whether you guys know that they bought Anchor.... last year.
- YUYusef
Anchorelever, without you.
- CWChris Williamson
I- I- I- I can't- I Anchorelever it. I Anchorelever it.
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
You mean Anchor like the- the butter manufacturer?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, and them.
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
They bought every business that has the name Anchor.
- JOJonny
Anchor.
- CWChris Williamson
Now, every sh-
- 6:27 – 9:38
Spotify’s podcast stack: Anchor, RSS feeds, and a new ad era
- JOJonny
What is An- what is Anchor?
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-
- JOJonny
Talk to me there.
- CWChris Williamson
So Anchor is a podcast hosting, uh, platform. It's one of these new ones. So you, are you guys still on Libsyn? No, you're on Blubrry.
- JOJonny
We're all over the place.
- YUYusef
The- the better podcast platform.
- CWChris Williamson
The one that no one uses that always breaks on you.
- YUYusef
The one that all of WordPress uses-
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-
- YUYusef
... but it's never broken.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a lie. Don't lie. Um, anyway, so it's similar to that, but there's this new wave of podcast hosting platform like Anchor, and what they allow you to do is actually create and edit your podcasts in the web app. So it's like Garageband integrated into, so you upload your single file, you can clip stuff, you can add in intros, outros, upload your, uh, f- uh, media library and stuff like that.
- YUYusef
See, the- there's a lot of low-hanging fruit for that and it's- it's mad that it's taken this long given where we are in the curve with- of podcasts-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
... for something like that to come along.
- CWChris Williamson
But these kind of-
- YUYusef
And I think this, that there's a lot of stuff related to the- the Spotify, Joe Rogan takeover that has pointed out, like how- how many gaps there are in, like really obvious gaps that you could easily take over-
- CWChris Williamson
I've got, I've got some-
- YUYusef
... if you're a software company.
- CWChris Williamson
... I've got some- some cool stuff for you guys to think about, and I- I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this. And also, everybody that's listening, I want to hear what you think. This is a big move. We are, myself, Jonny and Yusuf are- are very interested in terms of both creators and consumers in the podcasting space. So it's like, it is the biggest news that's probably going to happen for quite a while. Um, Patrick Bet-Davies from Valuetainment reckons that within the next five years, we will see a one-billion dollar, uh, podcaster deal, which probably doesn't seem too ridiculous considering that Rogan's already managed to get a million, uh, sorry, a- a hundred million for his deal. Um, so yeah, what you get with these sorts of hosting platforms like Anchor FM, so to not get too sort of nerdy into it, currently what most podcasts use is the RSS feed. So you upload a file and then that distributes to wherever you're listening to this, so it distributes to Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. And so Spotify actually is one of those. But the way that it works is it has a single file which is hosted, which is unmovable and unchanging, and then that gets sent out. It's, uh, uh, syndicated to all of these different platforms, right? They're just an RSS, a glorified RSS reader. Um, the, what Spotify is intending on doing now that it's got Anchor as this crea- Anchorelever, want now that it's got that as its creation platform, they have started to introduce dynamically targeted ads mid-roll during podcasts. So if you ever listen to True Geordie, it- it, this is what I fucking hate, and this is a big implication for people that listen to podcasts, right? Listen to True Geordie, and halfway through, there'll just be an advert for WHSmiths read by some fella, like studio quality.
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Like, "Have you subscribed to your most recent, uh, edition of Gardening World? Well, why don't you head over to WHSmiths today and get £5 off with the code TRUEGEORDIE?"
- YUYusef
Oh, it's- it's so offensive.
- CWChris Williamson
Man-
- YUYusef
So this is-
- CWChris Williamson
... fuck mid-roll podcasts.
- YUYusef
... this is Spotify that's just can interrupt anyone's podcast and put in their own advert without-
- 9:38 – 14:08
Monetization realities: CPMs, host-read trust, and measurement limits
- CWChris Williamson
No, uh, technically, no. So what will happen, and this is what I think will happen with Rogan, Rogan was making somewhere between, not including YouTube ad revenue, he was making somewhere between 50 grand and 150 grand per episode on his, based on his CPM, he does about 150 million downloads per month. He'll have discounts on the long-term deals, people that's been with him for years. Like, Stamps.com have been with him for seven years. Um, Onnit won't pay as much 'cause he's a partner there, etc., etc. But-
- YUYusef
Cash App.
- CWChris Williamson
Cash App has been with him for forever, yeah. Um, s- I think Squarespace as well or- or, like, Wix or something.
- YUYusef
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so what will happen, I don't think Rogan will be doing any more pre-roll podcast ads. I don't think he'll need to. Spotify might have even stipulated that he's not allowed to as a part of this deal. But what you will potentially start to see, if you're not on Spotify Premium, is that you will be targeted with dynamic ads put mid-roll into the podcast, and what this means is that we're moving from... I saw this analogy online and this is kinda the bit I wanted to give over to you guys. I saw this analogy on the- on the internet where someone said, "Podcasting at the moment feels like the internet in the early 2000s before everything was syndicated, before there was Google targeting, uh, and tracking pixels and Facebook ads and retargeting and all this sort of stuff," where people were just saying, "That looks like the sort of site or podcast that my audience listens to." 'Cause being honest, like, mm- m- Modern Wisdom is now venturing into this world. We've got, every episode now has got a sold out pre-roll ad. And very fortunate, some of the partners I work with, Eleiko, Protein Works, FitBook, Tailored Athlete, Reebok, you know, like hu- Surfshark VPN, big companies that are prepared to pay, like, great money to be there, but they're just looking at me and going, "Yeah. Yeah. You, you look, you- you look like, yeah, yeah, young people. That's what young people like, isn't it?"
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. G- g- giving them really the young people." But that's not, like, that's not actually how targeting works and that's not what advertisers want. Like, using a fucking discount code to track sales, like, what would you say, Jonny, if I was like, "Oh, the most sophisticated format we have here is that someone's got to enter this particular bit of text"?
- JOJonny
Well, the wor- the worst thing about it is that, like, you're relying on the person reading out an advert for you. You know, like, you're spending all this money and then the way that's delivered is you basically send someone a- a text file that they have to read at the start of the podcast and you think, "Well..."
- CWChris Williamson
That, that-
- JOJonny
Like, is that the-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm, that being said, I think that, so there's two types of ads, there's dynamic and there's baked in. So-
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the baked in ads, the post, host-read pre-rolls are more expensive and that's because making the host put it in their own words converts better. So me saying, "This is what I like about the Protein Works, because I do, this is why I enjoy the, t- tailored athlete, this is why Surfshark VPN gets you access to Netflix's library," or what I use it for, bridges the gap between, uh-
- YUYusef
Yeah, it's, it's not so jarring. It's not just a dude talking about WHSmith just like, "Whoa, what's that?"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
The, the difficulty is that when someone's heard an advert or even like a, a baked-in thing as you, as you said, and it's like, "Oh, remember to go to tim.blog/wealthfront/tim/50." Uh, y-
- JOJonny
Yeah. Remembered it, didn't you?
- YUYusef
You're like, you're like, "I'm driving, I'm not gonna remember that URL to go and-"
- JOJonny
You did, you did. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Remembered it though.
- YUYusef
Well, whatever-
- CWChris Williamson
You did, you did. (laughs)
- YUYusef
I mean, I butchered it but-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
... like, to come home and, and also not, not only remember the URL but also remember that you even wanted to go and check that out. Whereas if you're on a platform, you know, like you're on Instagram, you'll be interrupted by an advert and you'll just go and click on it straight away and probably leave the platform if it's something you're interested in.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah. So that Spotify might have not only a dynamic ad that gets put in at particular sections throughout the podcast, but then that ad might be matched with some sort of visual link that appears on the-
- YUYusef
That's what they do currently, 'cause I'm, I think I'm the one who, only one out of the three of us that's still on Spotify Free.
- CWChris Williamson
You're the only person in the world that doesn't pay for Spotify, yeah.
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- JOJonny
But you'll have a, you'll have a third-party app, I imagine, that blocks the adverts, so you just have to-
- 14:08 – 17:10
Discovery and UX: why Spotify could win by fixing podcasts in-app
- JOJonny
Do you get Release Radar, Yusuf?
- YUYusef
Yeah, it's good.
- CWChris Williamson
What is that?
- JOJonny
Yeah, Discover. What's Release Radar?
- YUYusef
It's a curated playlist of stuff that you might like.
- JOJonny
Wait, wh- what the hell? Seriously?
- YUYusef
It's actually, it, it's one of the most impressive things about machine learning and kind of algorithms-
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- YUYusef
... that I've found because like such a high proportion of the songs in Release Radar I really like, and it's not just like, "Oh, you like young people music so I'll put some of the young people stuff in it."
- JOJonny
I'd like a-
- YUYusef
It's like, it's really carefully done.
- JOJonny
Yeah. I'd like a podcast Release Radar.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
Or like a Discover Weekly. But like Release Radar-
- YUYusef
Ah, okay.
- JOJonny
... is like usually it's a, it's a, a selection. So if you think about like I know there's maybe a, a list of podcasts at the moment, people maybe only listen to a few. Take it forward five years, people will probably be listening to even more podcasts. If you've got a curated list of like, "Here are the most popular releases from the podcasts you typically listen to," in a list, for you to just kind of work through as a playlist.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
Brilliant.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, the problem is... Johnny, I need you to put more gain on, bro, if that's all right. Um, the problem is that at the moment as a advertiser or even as a podcaster, like I don't really know who listens to this show. I have an idea of who listens to this show based on the Instagram DMs, I can look at the YouTube demos 'cause they go quite in depth 'cause you gotta sign up with your full account, gender, blah, blah, blah, location. But really, uh, you're just like shooting blind and just hoping that the content lands with people. And from a targeting perspective, that's obviously quite a big deal. Um, so yeah, I just think... I was originally kind of like, "Oh, god, it's a big change." I don't listen to podcasts on Spotify, I prefer Apple Podcasts because it's native, because it's very, very smooth. Um, also losing YouTube and losing the YouTube comments on episodes, like I don't comment ever, but I enjoy looking at what goes on and I like to hear how it lands with other people. Um, but, you know, if, if Spotify see that and they're able to then create a platform which kind of reflects what's gone on there, I guess that could be quite fun.
- JOJonny
Yeah. I'd... The more I think about... I think the thing I was most sad about was the video, the loss of video. Is my mic okay now by the way?
- YUYusef
Lovely. Ooh, yeah.
- JOJonny
The, the loss of, like 'cause I, I quite like... So for example, like the latest Elon Musk, Joe Rogan podcast, I got, I watched the vid- I, well, I'm, I haven't watched the whole thing but I'm watching the video rather than listening to it-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
... it, and for some reason... Go on. Sorry.
- YUYusef
Does this mean that you can only watch the video on Spotify platform or that you have to pay a premium, uh, Joe Rogan subscription to see-
- CWChris Williamson
No. So you, you will-
- YUYusef
... his videos?
- CWChris Williamson
... you will, you will be able to watch or listen to Joe Rogan for free on Spotify whether you have Spotify Free or Premium. However, I think if you don't have Spotify Premium you will be hit with dynamic mid-roll ads.
- YUYusef
Sure. So I, I heard rumors that the whole podcast was gonna become a premium one, um, but I don't think that would be-
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- 17:10 – 23:51
Platform war subtext: Apple’s leverage, YouTube censorship, and exclusivity signals
- YUYusef
I think from his perspective like he's getting 100 million, I don't think he's thought of this as a big like strategic move of the war between iTunes and Spotify and Netflix and it... I think he's just been like, "Yeah, 100 million. That's all."
- JOJonny
But it's like does, does that now exceed the value of what I would expect to gain from continuing? 'Cause like at the moment his revenue model is hinged on production whereas it sounds like with Spotify like as long as you are exclusive to us and continue just enjoying-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
... like doing what you probably enjoy doing most in your life, um, here's 100 million.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, regardless of what you listen on, I know y- Yusuf you've kind of moved through a few different podcasting apps, but me and Johnny use Apple Podcasts. No matter what it is that you listen on now you have to listen on Spotify. So it's quite a big signal from them to just say, "Look, this is the size of our penis. Our penis is so large we've taken the biggest podcaster on the planet," not only have we... 'cause he was, he wasn't even on Spotify. So if you go onto Spotify now-
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and search Joe Rogan he hasn't got a single episode except for the new trailer which is like just a audio version of the announcement that he made on, on Instagram. And, um, like for them to say, "Not only are we-"
- YUYusef
So they've gone from zero to exclusive?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And that is a huge move. Now-... from my side, again, thinking about the fact that we're starting to slowly monetize this podcast and dealing with partners that I really love, like Joe's just told the world how much value is in podcasting and podcasters. Like every podcaster that's listening, whatever you're s- currently charging for your CPM, like treble it. Because Rogan's just wo- just said that he's worth 100 million and made Spotify five billion in two days?
- YUYusef
It's a very smart move from Spotify.
- CWChris Williamson
It's hu-
- YUYusef
Very much.
- CWChris Williamson
It's so clever.
- YUYusef
I, I wonder whether Apple did a counterbid or if they were just like, "Oh, bollocks. Like, we've just lost Joe."
- CWChris Williamson
I can't see, I can't see them doing it, man. I could see-
- JOJonny
I don't think they care.
- CWChris Williamson
... I could see him going to YouTube, speaking to Google, and saying, "Look, I'm potentially leaving. What do you want to do?" Um, but he keeps on getting censored on there. So for instance, he can't stream other people's content, you know?
- YUYusef
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
He's always like, "Jamie, don't put that up. We'll get te-" Or Jamie's always like, "Don't put that up. We'll get taken down." And stuff like that.
- YUYusef
You- yeah, YouTube are brutal. And, and they just don't care, 'cause even Joe Rogan is just such a small proportion of their total traffic, they're just like, "Whatever."
- CWChris Williamson
40% isn't it?
- YUYusef
Yeah, but I'm, I'm surprised about Apple not putting in a- not throwing their hat in that ring. Because so I just got a year of Apple TV for free, and Johnny's mentioned how they've really like thrown in some really high profile actors and just plowed budget into their stuff to really try and like catch up with Netflix and with Amazon TV. Oh, what is it called? Amazon-
- CWChris Williamson
Prime.
- YUYusef
... Prime TV or something. Like, so they're really aggressively diving into these spaces. And for them to just lose someone exclusively to Spotify when there's this constant, you know, the back and forth court cases that Spotify and Apple have where-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, they're not letting them-
- YUYusef
... Spotify wouldn't allow them-
- CWChris Williamson
... use Siri and stuff like that.
- YUYusef
Yeah, so it's-
- JOJonny
Because like how do you listen to Spotify?
- YUYusef
You have to open the app. You can't just be like-
- 23:51 – 29:08
Medium, handles, and Chris’s pivot into writing
- CWChris Williamson
They, they do. They love a phone call, don't they? They just want to get you off. I tell you what, so I'm, I'm gonna start, as I keep on teasing out and as Greg McKeown, uh, red-pilled me on my own show about blogging, uh, I'm gonna start writing. And I spoke to Medium, so I went on (laughs) ... This is so fucking mad, right? I went onto Medium to register Chris Will X, just my social handle, I'm gonna go on there. Went on, tried to register it, "This username is not available." Holy fucking shit, has someone taken my u- Like no one else wants that, it's very specific. Went on, searched, 404.... I was like, "Hang on. So why is there a 404 error if I put medium.com/chriswillex and emailed them, asked for a support ticket?" Within 12 hours, they've come back to me and said, "Actually, because we're owned by Twitter, when we started Medium, we registered every verified Twitter's handle on Medium-"
- YUYusef
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
"... so that it was reserved for that person. I can see that your Twitter account is linked to your Medium account. Would you like me to change that handle over for you?" I was like, "Fucking yes, bro."
- YUYusef
Same.
- CWChris Williamson
How cool is that?
- YUYusef
All right. So they're owned by Twitter.
- CWChris Williamson
Twitter bought Medium about f- four, five years ago.
- YUYusef
I love when you just hear about like, "Oh, yeah. Uber bought KFC and..." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) "Twitter bought Medium. Facebook bought WhatsApp." And like, so the Telegram have bought or have created their own version of Medium, which is really interesting, but it's all obviously like blockchain verified and like super tech nerdy stuff that-
- JOJonny
Telegram is just for people who worry a lot, isn't it? Basically.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you been on Signal?
- JOJonny
Or people who are doing
- JGJonny & Yusef (banter segment – primary guests)
We all think.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you been on Signal?
- YUYusef
They've got double speed voice messages. Ah, look, it's the, the perfect feature.
- JOJonny
What did you say, Chris?
- CWChris Williamson
Signal. Have you been on Signal? So it's-
- YUYusef
That's like super secure, isn't it?
- CWChris Williamson
Signal's another step up from Telegram. And-
- YUYusef
That's for like hitmen.
- CWChris Williamson
No, no. So that's Wickr.
- JGJonny & Yusef (banter segment – primary guests)
(laughs) Wickr.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you heard of Wickr? W-I-C-K-
- JGJonny & Yusef (banter segment – primary guests)
It's not for Wickr, no.
- CWChris Williamson
W-I-C-K-R. So you can't have messages that don't delete after five days on Wickr. You can't take s- you can't take screenshots. No one uses their own, their, their real name. You have to have face ID to even access the app. You can't turn it off. Like, mate, it's-
- JOJonny
The thing is like what's the incentive of the person who's created that app? Like, "Let's make something where everyone puts their really top secret stuff in and we'll just tell them it gets deleted." Like, if I was gonna harvest people's data, I'd go to that place. That's who I'd be.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's, it's what Edward Snowden suggested people use for messaging. You know, if you're in some war-torn country and you want to get your words out, organize a, a, a freedom rally or whatever-
- JOJonny
Send an SOS.
- CWChris Williamson
... you're supposed to do, supposed to do it on, on Wickr. Yeah.
- JOJonny
So if you were a government and you wanted to create an app that might warn you about uprisings, might it look something like Wickr?
- 29:08 – 36:26
Morning pages and journaling as ‘decompression’ before planning
- JOJonny
Well, we'll see. We will see. Um, I have been experimenting with morning pages. Has anybody ever done that before?
- CWChris Williamson
By Julia Cameron?
- JGJonny & Yusef (banter segment – primary guests)
I-
- JOJonny
Like the method of morning pages. Like-
- CWChris Williamson
You know who's on this p- who's on the podcast on Friday?
- JOJonny
Is it, is it the lady who came up with morning pages?
- CWChris Williamson
Julia Cameron, five million books sold, translated into 140 languages. Martin Scorsese is the testimonial on the inside cover of her book. Julia Cameron.
- JOJonny
Well, you can ask her, you can ask her about it.
- CWChris Williamson
I can.
- JOJonny
The Artist's Way. It's really cool.
- CWChris Williamson
The Artist's Way, that's where morning pages is from, yeah.
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- YUYusef
So I've, I've bought it and I'm using it every day.
- JOJonny
Chris, should we, should we drop off? We'll have a chat about what he just said-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
... and then we can, we can come back.
- JGJonny & Yusef (banter segment – primary guests)
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I don't think you're telling the truth.
- JGJonny & Yusef (banter segment – primary guests)
(laughs)
- YUYusef
(laughs) Um, I'm not. I just, uh, I just thought it might upset Chris because he bought me a really nice copy of The Five Minute, Six-Minute Diary, and it's just been under my table still in the plastic.
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, I, I, in, in, in my defense, in my defense and your defense, I didn't buy you it. They're a sponsor of the podcast and I got it for free, so...
- YUYusef
Still, it was a heartfelt gift.
- JOJonny
And it was probably a task for you inside The Six-Minute Diary to give him, to give Yousef a copy of The Six-Minute Diary.
- CWChris Williamson
What he, he-
- YUYusef
Very clever, isn't it? It's like, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
... started reading it and was like, "Oh, this is, this is actually really well researched."
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Obviously, you had like...... enough momentum to overcome 30 pages of inertia, but you don't start writing until page 60, and he hasn't got another amount of momentum to get him over- (laughs)
- YUYusef
That's precisely it.
- JOJonny
I can, I can imagine like the, he'll be sat there like...
- 36:26 – 40:31
Yusef’s ‘Wi‑Fi off until 10am’ rule and the capture–review–do problem
- YUYusef
... morning stuff, so I've set an automated script, um, on Mac, to just keep wi-fi off until 10:00 AM. So, that means that when I wake up, wi-fi's already off. I don't need to, like, to do that. Admittedly, there's been a lot of emergencies recently where we've had to, we've had to undo that. So-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Desperately tethering it to your phone.
- YUYusef
Yeah, you're like, "Oh." But, uh, yeah, so the, a long, it's along a similar vein of like creating a bit of space in the morning because I think, and luckily we're in privileged position to wake up and be so passionate about what we're doing that you are just, like, pulling at the reins to try and-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
... get started with what you're doing. But it's very easy then to just get pulled off into-
- CWChris Williamson
Urge.
- YUYusef
... either the agenda of your, yeah, urgent inbox or whatever is the first task to come up, and not actually to step back and look strategically at what you're doing. So, one of those-
- JOJonny
What it feels like, just to interject with a, an analogy, you know the, you know on Family Guy where he keeps running into the chicken?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
Do you know what I mean?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
Oh, and gets beaten up.
- JOJonny
Where he always fights. Like, he, like, he's like, uh, "Is that, uh, that's the chicken behind the car." And then for five minutes there's a fight sequence that's really elaborate. That's how most of my days feel.
- CWChris Williamson
Every morning.
- JOJonny
Like, start off with a plan and then the chicken just like (whooshing sound)
- YUYusef
I think particularly this year has been like that so much.
- JOJonny
Amazing.
- YUYusef
And, you know, just 'cause we've got more demands on, on us in general. And, uh, so yeah, we're looking, we're, we're hiring out now. We're, we're doing a lot more in terms of, um, spreading that load. But I've realized that out of the productivity, uh, principles of capture, review, and do, I'm very good at capture and do, but terrible at review.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, me too.
- YUYusef
And that's where things start to tank, because you end up doing a lot and capturing a lot, but it doesn't (overlapping)
- JOJonny
It's crazy.
- CWChris Williamson
But the reason, the reason I think that-
- YUYusef
Yeah, and it takes you off in a-
- CWChris Williamson
... you do that is because of the illusion of progress, right? You're like, "Capturing feels like doing something, doing is doing something by definition, but reviewing just feels like, oh, well I can get by without reviewing, therefore I can do more doing."
- YUYusef
That's, yeah, that's precisely it.
- JOJonny
It is.
- YUYusef
You know, "Well, if I, if I don't review-"
- JOJonny
If you, like the-
- YUYusef
"... then I can do more doing."
- JOJonny
Exactly. Like, review's gonna take me 90 minutes. I don't have time for that. When actually, you don't, what you don't have time for is 90 minutes of doing the wrong things.
- 40:31 – 43:06
Social media strategy: automation + real interaction to ‘play the platform game’
- YUYusef
Sometimes, but I think sometimes that's a lie that I'm telling myself. And actually, and s- so th- this, this actually, this does bring me onto the next thing, which is that there's a lot of stuff that I need to do now daily to keep up with, um, with the social media strategy that we're following at the minute that has to be done offline. Because if it's done online, you end up with too many distractions and low output. Chris looks very confused.
- CWChris Williamson
I just thought that the whole concept of your guys' new social media strategy was that it was done in advance and then, and then m- mostly automated.
- YUYusef
Half and half, so-
- CWChris Williamson
What's the, what's it, 'cause I've seen you replying to stuff more. Like, you replied to Tiago Forte saying, "You don't need to, like, low-key pretend that I'm one of your secret gurus or something." (laughs) It was so-
- YUYusef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It was like, but just not a sort of tweet I would've thought that you guys had done. So are you trying to do more automation plus more actual, like, viral organic, like, on the-
- YUYusef
Yeah. So, so I, I think you have to have a combination because, um, the platform wants you to play the game as it's intended to be played. And so if you are always doing tweet threads, it's not really how Twitter's intended to be, you know, it's meant to be 140 characters. So, uh, and if you're always scheduling stuff, again, it's, it's off-platform-
- CWChris Williamson
You don't get any inter- you're not interacting, are you? You're just-
- YUYusef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... broadcasting.
- YUYusef
And if, you know, if you're not, uh, if you're taking people off platform a lot, it's also not ideal. So it does need it. I think, like, I see it as the embers are the, the scheduled posts, and then you go in at strategic times of the day and you bulk respond, uh, or you do Instagram stories or, or whatever. So creating that content in bulk, I think has to be done offline and just sit down, in the same way that you would write a blog post, you know, to write a lot of tweets. Um, so that's been, (clears throat) that's been my main shift at the minute, and it seems to be working. Like, uh, the Propane Fitness Twitter, have a look at it on there. Uh, we've, we've just been, it, it's just quite a nice platform once you get out of the weird corners of where everyone's just flexing about their Lamborghinis and, uh, how much-
- CWChris Williamson
Have you tried unfollowing a big chunk of people?
- YUYusef
A-a-anyone that mentions coffee or cold showers in their tweets, or like si- seven-figure, uh, or beta-
- CWChris Williamson
That would be Johnny. That would be J- if you had a Twitter, Johnny.
- YUYusef
I like both those things.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
But it's, so it's precisely that I don't have a Twitter. I'm too busy drinking coffee and having cold showers-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
... which I think is the point about- Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Those are the real, those are the real cold exposure motherfuckers, the ones who are so cold that they can't even type.
- YUYusef
Yes. I'm just in my brain stem-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
... so often that I can't, like Twitter's pointless.
- CWChris Williamson
Breathe into the brain stem.
- 43:06 – 53:26
Discomfort culture: Wim Hof stories and the Conor Murphy spiral
- YUYusef
When are you gonna get Wim Hof on the podcast, Chris?
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, fuck knows, man. Uh, I met a girl who works at The School of Life, uh, shout out to Janelle. Um, met a girl who works at The School of Life, and their Christmas, (laughs) she told me this story, man. Their Christmas party organized by Alain de Botton, um, who is, uh, he's like owner and CEO as well. I didn't realize he's, he's like everything to that company. Um, he organized, and she was telling me, she's just like a normal girl, not really into sort of self-development or whatever, and was just like, "Oh, so, he organized this Christmas party and this guy turned up and he had a beard and he made us do lots of breathing." I was like, "Hang on a second."
- YUYusef
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"Can I just get a photo op of a man with a beard who does some breathing and can you tell me if that's him, please?" And, uh, she's like-
- YUYusef
"Yes, yes, yes."
- CWChris Williamson
... "Well, you can do, but I fell asleep three minutes into this, like, studio group work." So, he got, he got them all to lie down on yoga mats, there's like maybe 20 people, and, uh, so I'm like, "Okay, can you text someone who didn't fall asleep, please, and ask them if it, the man that gave you small group coaching was Wim Hof?" Texted them, reply came back, "Yes, it was." I was like, "You fucking fell asleep to the number one breath coach on the planet." She's like, "Yeah, yeah. Well, I was a bit hungover and w- we were going on a night out that night and this, that and the other." I was thinking, "Oh."
- YUYusef
It's like someone's parked a Ferrari in your back garden and you're like, "Oh, that's a nice new garden shed." And you start, like, putting your spades in it and-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
... and you're like, "Yeah, it's, it's been, it's been an all right shed. It's a bit, bit cramped, but, you know, it does the job." He did a, he's done a new... You know the, have you both seen the VICE documentary with him on? I imagine you both have.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, quite a while-
- YUYusef
It was a while-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- YUYusef
He's done another one with a YouTube channel, a very well-known YouTube channel that are known for, like, discomfort and stuff. So, he just puts them straight into a nice cold river with very little prep. So, like, normally it's like three days of breath work-
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck.
- YUYusef
... building up your cold exposure. So he's like, "This can be done with just the brain."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
And puts them straight into 10 minutes of an ice cold river in, like, the middle of Poland.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's-
- YUYusef
One guy's clearly, like, right on the, right on the limit. He's like, sat, si- looking concerned and Wim's just going, "One minute." Oh, yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So, Wim's in with them, is he?
- YUYusef
Wim's in with them, just not fazed, and these guys who, like, find discomfort for a li- for a living-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
... and document it, are struggling.
- CWChris Williamson
Jeez.
- YUYusef
You know, like- So mad. Have-
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck, man.
- YUYusef
... have either of you guys heard of Conor Murphy? Conor Murphy?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- YUYusef
So, he is a YouTuber that does a lot of quite vapid videos that are just him going round, a bit called like, shirtless prank or whatever. So he's in-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- 53:26 – 1:05:39
Sleep gadgets and supplement experiments: earplugs, masks, CBD, magnesium, NAD/NMN
- JGJonny & Yusef (banter segment – primary guests)
A little net.
- YUYusef
So-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, what, you sleeping things?
- YUYusef
I got some-
- JOJonny
Uh, I saw an Instagram ad for them.
- YUYusef
... titanium ear plugs.
- JOJonny
I s- I saw an Instagram ad for them this morning.
- YUYusef
Did you? You've probably been re-targeted, 'cause so, yeah, I'm, I'm getting some really good Instagram adverts at the minute, you know.
- JOJonny
Me too.
- YUYusef
Like, they're all stuff that I'm like, "That is bang on what I would like."
- JOJonny
Me too. I was talking to Becca about this yest- the other day. Like-
- YUYusef
I'm coming round to your idea, Johnny, that like, you know, people are like, "Oh, I don't want Facebook knowing my ..."
- JOJonny
Mm-mm.
- YUYusef
Whereas I'm like, well actually, if they get me cool stuff like this ...
- JOJonny
You don't want a shit advertise-
- CWChris Williamson
You do know that you two have the same Instagram.
- JOJonny
Yeah, I know. That's what's most impressive about it.
- CWChris Williamson
But you're, like, you're both-
- YUYusef
Well, we're the same person basically.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, both of your interests are quite aligned. Like, both of you would look at a pair of titanium sleeping ear plugs and go, "Yeah. Yeah!"
- YUYusef
The only difference between me and Johnny is one's paid and one's organic. But, like, apart from that ... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I thought one was, one was Arab and one was Aryan, is that not the difference?
- YUYusef
Well, yeah. One's Syrian fire, dry roasted, and the other is-
- JOJonny
I think one's, it's one-
- CWChris Williamson
Carbonated.
- JOJonny
One's paid, and the other one tries to use ad credit vouchers.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
(laughs) That's the ... I'm sorry, that was, that was mean. Low blow.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so tell us, you've got, you've got some ear plugs. What are they?
- YUYusef
So, you know I was saying on the last episode that my neighbors have the loudest sex at all times of day. The guy is some kind of stallion, going at it like f- 45 minutes at a time, just like ramming the headboard. (laughs) I can only assume it's that. It might- they might be doing like the Joe Wicks, um, daily bash furniture around-
- 1:05:39 – 1:12:08
COVID-era information chaos: incentives, media editing, and conspiracy psychology
- CWChris Williamson
Well, isn't it, isn't it the case that, and this is something that, um, keeps on being brought up by Ben Shapiro which again, man, I- I'm not, I'm not gonna be a Ben Shapiro fan for the rest of my life, I'm not gonna be like an avid listener, but fuck me at the moment during COVID he's such a great wealth of information.
- YUYusef
Magnantly.
- CWChris Williamson
Bro, honestly. And the fact he speaks at two times speed means you don't need to put two times speed on which is, you know, also, also a good benefit. Um, one of the things that he's talking about at the moment is this Doctor Fauci, um, who's the guy that's guiding most of the epidemiology for America being criticized for the fact that he says that reopening is going to increase deaths. But there's a, um, was it perverse incentives going on here? Because Doctor Fauci, if he says that doing something won't cause deaths and then some deaths happen, he fucked. Whereas if he always errs wildly on the side of caution, like no one is ever going to string him up for saying that people shouldn't do something then them not doing it doesn't cause de- and, and the deaths don't occur, you know?
- YUYusef
That's, that's a very good point. Like if the economy collapses he can be like, "Well, I was just giving medical advice, so..."
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But that's the thing. Also, that's the thing. That's the thing. The thi- the point is that virologists, epidemiologists, public health experts, their job-... is not to get the economy moving, their job is to try and reduce the number of infections. They don't care about the collateral damage because that's not their specialty. Like the specialty for ... I mean, who is it? Is it an economist or like a, a guess like an industry?
- YUYusef
Uh, yeah. Well, uh, just like all the policymakers. Speaking of which, did you see Trump talk about, um, inject, was it injecting disinfectant?
- JOJonny
Like bleach basically, yeah.
- YUYusef
Oh, yeah. So funny.
- CWChris Williamson
That's-
- JOJonny
People died because of that, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
... that's been kind of spun a number of times. Shapiro again has gone through that in, in fairly big detail. And this is the real insidious thing that's happening, most of the problems that were caused by Trump talking about either, um, ingesting sunlight or this hydroxychloroquine stuff, or-
- YUYusef
Which has now shown to increase all-cause mortality because of cardiac arrhythmias.
- CWChris Williamson
Um-
- JOJonny
All-cause mortalities are horrible.
- CWChris Williamson
It's so bad, isn't it?
- YUYusef
Well, sorry, not all-cause. Uh, yeah. (laughs)
- JOJonny
It's risk of death.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. But, uh, the, most of the problems that came about from that wasn't what he said, it was then the media taking what he said, extrapolating that out-
- YUYusef
Extra, and cutting to the guy's face while he was saying it.
- CWChris Williamson
... extrapolating that out into worse things. People reading, people reading what they'd said about what he'd said that wasn't what he'd said, and then when you take something which is on the knife edge of potentially being bad advice and, like, use nefarious language to then push it well, well into the territory of bad advice, it's like that's your fault. That's not his fault.
- YUYusef
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, don't get me wrong, the, the guy says some idiotic and reprehensible shit every so often, but you were the delivery mechanism for this particular fucking social virus.
- JOJonny
The trouble is most, most media outlets are, are profit-driven and they just need circulation, views and attention. So like their In- their incentive is not necessarily to provide the m- best, like, most balanced, most researched piece of information, which is why something like that ... Like, I, to, to, to me, like, a sum- I think one of the journalists said to Trump while he was saying it, like, "People aren't tuning in to these briefings to be given, like, speculative this might work." It's, it's, like, basic advice that you should be g- like, advice that is, that is applicable to everybody, sh- reassuring you're on it, you're doing the right thing. Don't mention, like, "Maybe, you know, you're looking into that, aren't you? Uh, bleach works, doesn't it? You're looking into that, aren't you?" And then, like, s- spins to the, the scientist who's like, "Uh, um, yeah, m- no? Yeah?" And then, like, it's t- like, if you give the, the media some- like, a file, a video file where they can snip it and make it look shit, like that's-
- YUYusef
They can do what they want.
- JOJonny
... but it's still kind of his fault.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I mean, uh, the line, the line between that and just deep-faking now is becoming increasingly more blurred.
- JOJonny
Yeah, true. Yeah.
- YUYusef
I'd love to see impact of deep-faking.
- CWChris Williamson
I sometimes think that it's the, the, the, the, you know?
Episode duration: 1:18:54
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