Modern WisdomHow to Survive the Death of Your Old Self - Charlie Houpert (4K)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 27,623 words- 0:00 – 4:49
The Unifying Thread Through Charlie’s Personal Growth
- CWChris Williamson
You're in a very different place now to when you started doing your thing-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
-online. What's the unifying thread? Is there one between sort of all of this stuff, or do you see it as different Charlies? How do you come to sort of construct the narrative of what your interests have been and y- your personal growth over the last decade and a bit?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Sure. The terror was in not having a thread. So there was a time about three years ago where I could not form a story that connected who I had been in my twenties to who I was becoming in my thirties. And I was thinking about this. I've heard you talk about the lonely chapter, where you go from, "I'm just blending in," to, "I'm gonna take control of my life, and I'm gonna dial in these optimizing things. I'm gonna start my business, get in shape, eat the right food, et cetera." I've, I discovered a second lonely chapter [chuckles] which is when you, you bottom out on the optimizing thing, and your friends are still very much in that optimized zone, and I did not know where to go, but I just knew that it wasn't working.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow!
- CHCharlie Houpert
So the common thread for me was that there was this problem in my life that started with, "I'm too shy. Nobody wants to talk to me." And you start off in victim consciousness, which is, "This is just who I am, and I will just deal with this for the rest of my life." You read The Game, which is what I did. You have this breakthrough, re-read Dale Carnegie, read all these other guys, and you go, "Oh, my gosh, I can change my behavior, get different results." But then once I had all the different results, which was I was thirty years old, had this business that I dreamed of, the girlfriend that I'd imagined myself dating, a bunch of friends, money was coming in. The most cliché thing happened, which is there was an emptiness [chuckles] that I could not pinpoint or explain, and things-- I started unconsciously breaking things because I didn't know where to go from there. So to answer your question, the thread has been I'm tr-- I try to attend to the greatest problem in my life-
- CWChris Williamson
Right
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and figure out who I can learn from to solve it.
- CWChris Williamson
What does breaking things look like?
- CHCharlie Houpert
It looks like I'm in the business that I love, that I dreamed of. There was a... One day, it was like, if I could just make two thousand dollars a month, live in Latin America, and do work that I found meaningful, that's the dream. And I hit that, and then I moved the goalpost, and I moved the goalpost, and all of a sudden I'm complaining, and I go, "I have to make one video a week." Three years prior was, "I get to do this," and it became, "Ugh, [chuckles] so annoying. These people are asking me, and I have to h- hit all these targets that I'd set for myself to surpass views and all sorts of things." I started having issues in my friendships. I started having issues in different kinds of relationships, and I did not know that what was happening, and I would say, is like my soul was waking up. I had no concept of a soul. I wasn't a religious person, but the lack of emotional and spiritual nourishment that I'd allowed myself to experience for the last decade plus had caught up with me, is what happened.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Was the success and the pursuit materially antithetical to spiritual connection?
- CHCharlie Houpert
No. That's the tragedy, [chuckles] right?
- CWChris Williamson
I didn't need to sacrifice one-
- CHCharlie Houpert
I didn't need to
- CWChris Williamson
-to get the other.
- CHCharlie Houpert
I had it. It was... I think the temptation is when you have unresolved emotional issues, which I think we all do from childhood, and you've spoken to people about trauma, I know, and the ways in which we have these events in our past that happen, and we make vows to ourself that I will never experience that again, and then our entire life bends around not having that particular experience again. And so we all have these unconsciously in our lives. And I started off with this business that was-- it was just it. It was-- I was learning in every video. I made this Donald Trump video. I learned so much in doing it, and people liked it. I had both. I was filling myself up and helping the world and making money. And then that people pleaser kicks in, and then that, "you could be doing better" kicks in, and it became, "I have to top the last thing that I did," which was never the early motivation. The early motivation was always, "How can I solve my own problem and help people that are like me?" But it, it devolved into, "Can I have another video that is better than the one before? Can I make more money this month than I did the prior month?" And that endless loop became, uh, deeply depressing [chuckles] to exist in.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Well, you know, when you are at the start of your journey, you have all of the hope that somewhere on the path from the bottom of the mountain to the top of it, you will find a thing that fills the void that you're trying-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... to fix. But when you get to the top of the mountain, you've achieved all of the stuff, and the void's still there.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You go, "Oh, fuck!"
- 4:49 – 14:03
Why Avoiding Mistakes Is the Fastest Way to Stay Stuck
- CWChris Williamson
And this is... Have I-- have you heard me do my unteachable lessons essay?
- CHCharlie Houpert
I may have, but please.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so this is the most robust... I, I chat a lot of shit, right? I come up with lots and lots of ideas and, and insights and stuff like that. Some of them are more scalable and, like, replicable than others. This is, this is maybe, like, the most robust of any of them, and it just keeps coming up, and I think it's because of my age and where I'm at and where my friends are at, people like you or, you know, Dr. K or whoever it is. Um, but this is unteachable lessons.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Hit me.
- CWChris Williamson
"No matter how arduous or costly or effortful it is going to be for us to find out for ourselves, we prefer to disregard the mountains of warnings from our elders, songs, literature, historical catastrophes, public scandals, and instead think some version of, 'Yeah, that might be true for them, but not for me.' " [chuckles] "We decide to learn the hard lessons the hard way over and over again. Unfortunately, they all seem to be the big things, too. It's never insights about how to put up level shelves or charmingly introduce yourself at a cocktail party. Instead, we spend most of our lives learning firsthand the most important lessons that the previous generation already warned us about."... Things like money won't make you happy, fame won't fix your self-worth. You don't love that pretty girl, she's just hot and difficult to get. Nothing is as important as you think it is when you're thinking about it. You will regret working too much. Worrying is not improving your performance. All your fears are a waste of time. You should see your parents more. You'll be fine after the breakup and will be grateful that you did it. It's perfectly okay to cut toxic people out of your life. Even reading this list back, I'm rolling my eyes at how fucking trite it is. These are all basic bitch, obvious insights that everybody has heard before. But if they're so basic, why does everyone so reliably fall prey to them throughout our lives? And if they're so obvious, why do people who have recently become wealthy or famous or lost a parent or gone through a breakup start to proclaim these facts with the renewed grandiose ceremony of someone who's just gone through religious revelation?
- CHCharlie Houpert
[laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
It's also a very contentious point to say on the internet. If you interview a billionaire who says that all his money didn't make him happy, or a movie star who said her fame felt like a prison, the internet will tear them apart for being ungrateful and out of touch. So not only do we refuse to learn these lessons, we even refuse to hear the message from those warning us about them. Even more than that, for every one of these, if I think a bit deeper, I can recall a time, including right now, where I convinced myself that I'm the exception to the rule, that my particular mental makeup or life situation or historical wounds or dreams for the future render me immune to these lessons being applicable.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
No, no, no, my unique inner landscape would be fixed by skirting around the most well-known wisdom of the ages. No, no, no, I can thread this needle properly. Watch me dance through the minefield, avoid all the tripwires that everybody else kicks. And then you kick one, and you share a knowing look with somebody else, the kind that can only occur between two people who have been hurt in exactly the same way.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And a voice in the back of your mind will say, "I told you so."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm, mm, mm. [inhaling] Yeah. [laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing] Yes.
- CHCharlie Houpert
The... So I've, I've wrestled with this, 'cause the- you close with, "I told you so," and I actually think that is a part of the trap, which is you're not supposed to make the same mistakes that everybody else makes. You're supposed to listen to your elders, and what I've seen is that it's kind of like grades. Like, you're not supposed to skip counting on your fingers to jump to mental math.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
You are supposed to bump your head. You are not supposed to listen to other people tell you that it hurts to bump your head or burn your hand on the stove. As much as it hurts to have done, I think there's something beautiful about the process, and part of the most difficult thing for me was that I kept beating myself up for exactly the reason that you were talking about.
- CWChris Williamson
Why didn't you foresee it?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Everyone told me this was gonna happen, right? Why didn't I catch it?
- CWChris Williamson
Such an idiot.
- CHCharlie Houpert
So there's a, a model that is... It's not uniquely mine, but it helps me understand it, that I think of as a pyramid, that I think is appropriate here and is somewhat related, which is we start, if this is a pyramid, at the very top thing, which is with our attention on results, and this is sort of victim mindset. Which is to say, we're in, uh, junior high, high school, wherever, and we go, "Man, I wish I had that girlfriend," or, "I wish people liked me." And we talk with our friends, and we pontificate about what we would do if we had $100 million, but we do nothing to make it happen, right? When you leap from that to the lower level, which is foundational to it, which is behavior, you don't get to bring all your friends with you, right? 'Cause some of them wanna just stay there, and this is what I think you were talking about with this lonely chapter idea. As you shift into, "I'm gonna take action, I'm gonna start going to the gym, I'm gonna start counting calories, I'm gonna start making sure that I do enough work every day," and I'm not just gonna go, "Did I get the result that I want?" I'm gonna go, "How are my inputs, my, my behavioral inputs?" You lose people, but you gain something, which is, as you focus on this, this stuff just ha- it, it occurs. It's secondary to that. But then the journey that I think I started probably ten-ish years ago was, you have everything you want [laughing] and it's- and the hole is still there. So you start paying attention to the emotional layer, which is underneath that. Because at the action level, it's all about discipline. Don't wanna go to the gym? Just do it. Feeling sad? Turn it into rage and make- [laughing] and, and propel yourself forward, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
But you start to realize that those corrosive m- emotions are a type of fuel that just hurts, and you can get all of the actions in place and all of the results can flow, but you will feel crappy. So you start tending to your emotions. Joe Hudson shows up in your life, right? [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
When the student is ready, the teacher appears. [laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
Motherfucker, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And you start sitting with shame, and you start sitting with helplessness and-
- CWChris Williamson
Grief
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and grief. Oh, grief! Rage instead of just anger, right? And so as you get in touch with all of these, your emotional fuel starts to shift. You're taking not exactly the same actions, but you're still taking effective actions, and then over time, your results come back, but there's a dip in between every one of these levels. When you switch from results to actions, you're the loser who's going to the gym and is still skinny. When you switch from actions to emotions, you're the guy whose business is shrinking [chuckles] while everyone else is kicking butt, and why are you lagging? They're having so much fun conquering the world.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm, and denying how they feel.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And yes, and the problem that I did and everybody else does, is you try to drag people who don't wanna take that journey. So I, I was, uh... I realize now, at each stage, I have been very aggressive with the people closest to me in trying to incentivize and pull them to the level of development that I feel called to, and it's not appropriate. There are people waiting as you achieve these levels, even though it feels like there's not.
- 14:03 – 24:47
The Brutal Truth About the Lonely Chapter
- CWChris Williamson
so I'm interested in... There's a bunch of, uh, like, ideas that are being mapped here. So I love what you said about the unteachable lessons thing, that it's kind of your job to burn your hand, and the reason that I like the term unteachable lessons-- And o- one bit that's probably missing from that essay is to reassure people that the voice in the back of your head that tells you, "I told you so," that's a prick, and you shouldn't be listening to that. The reason that these lessons are unteachable is that nobody learns them.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
So the fact that, uh, you supposedly know that it's going to happen, you disregard it, it happens, that is the lesson. The lesson is that everybody doesn't learn the lessons-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
-if that makes sense.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And that should hopefully rid you of at least a little bit of the, "I told you... I should have told you so" shame.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"You should have known that this thing was going to happen."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, that's the first thing-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Beautiful
- CWChris Williamson
... which is great. Um, I love your, uh, hierarchy of results, actions, emotions, spirituality, and that at each level, as you try and pull somebody through, there is a lonely chapter that comes along for the ride.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And there is a pullback in terms of real-world results because you have p- you have moved ever out of outcomes and ever more inward.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? Ever more from the world, from the material, to something that's a little bit deeper, a little bit closer to self, a little bit like, um, w- more central, right?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's increasingly sort of turning you-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... inside out, and, um, at each level of this that you move through is interesting. Uh, for me, a few things come up. [clears throat] First off, the first lonely chapter, which I think is accurate, your friends are gonna leave you behind because of that pivot. There's another side to the lonely chapter, too, which is, uh, your actions throw into harsh spotlight other people, so the looking glass self-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... right? That you are observing yourself through the influence and the, uh, expectation and the perspective of other people, and they have an incentive for you to not change-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... because it's effortful for me to update my opinion of Char- Charlie's the charisma guy.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, Char- y- you know, he's like Russell Brand videos and Donald Trump, and like, you know, fucking Robert Downey Jr.
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Like, that's... I know Charlie. Charlie's the opin- the, the, the charisma guy. Oh, fuck, Charlie's changed. I don't like that. First off, it means that if he can change, I can change-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- 24:47 – 35:46
Why Men Struggle With Emotional Control
- CWChris Williamson
What, what did that look like?
- CHCharlie Houpert
So this is where I think part of the reason that I think people, men in particular, have negative associations with sensitivity and vulnerability is because it, uh, some of the early stages of arriving there, where it's not more fully integrated, can look like you're just a raw nerve, and anyone who touches you, you just cry, and there's, there's a lack of containment. There's not a full embodiment of the vulnerability.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And so part of what helps you have some consistent thread of past, future is your head. It's the part of you-- like, you need it to strategize. But I think the big shift, and again, I'm very much a student in this, I'm learning from people far ahead of me, is that this switches from the master to the, the tool, right? The, the mind, the strategy, all of that sort of stuff becomes something that you can deploy from time to time, but not something that when you sit and meditate, chats the entire time. You can drop into a quieter, felt place more often. And again, I'm, I'm a bit above my pay grade here 'cause I don't live there. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
I'm talking about the thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
How many people have the choice with this?
- CHCharlie Houpert
This is another thing that upsets me, is I had the impression that there are so many guys that are, like, similar to you and I, have hit achievement thresholds and moved goalposts so many times. And I admire them, and I look up to them, and I've learned a ton about business from them, and I, I see so many of the influencers like you and at, in the space, I feel like they're there. I have this conversation with a lot of people.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And what I've heard before is like: "Oh, wow, the hair on my arms is standing up as you're talking about this stuff. I feel it. It's... Yeah, there's some demons that I'm running away from, some stuff in my past that I thought that I could bury, that I'm willing to verbally acknowledge, but not necessarily dive into." And so I do think that there is a choice at the edge of all of these thresholds, just like there's a choice at the edge of results, which is, hey, I've seen that people who take these actions start to get in shape, start to earn more money. Am I willing to let go of the safety and comfort of not trying in order to apply myself? I think similarly, there's a question of: am I willing to let go of the certainty and the control that I have by completely managing all of my actions all the time, and to enter into this irrational, feminine, emotional space where I am not totally in control?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And I think that there's a, a lot of people have that choice today. I think we all have choices.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, the, the raw nerve thing I think is an interesting analogy because almost all cross-cultural definitions of masculinity include emotional control-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... or some variant of that.
- CHCharlie Houpert
You can shortcut it. So, so the way to sh-- I think the depth of masculinity is to feel everything, but to have a vessel that can contain it, right? So that it is not just immediate, instinctual, "Ah, you hurt me, I punch you!" Right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
It, it's not, "You hurt me, I, I just dump on you, I cry, I this..." That you're still feeling intensely, but there's a system that can feel it, tend to yourself, not abandon yourself, be vulnerable in front of the other person, which would be to show them that you're hurt without dumping it on them, and then choose how to behave. You can shortcut that, though, by just not feeling. You can just, you can just go, "Somebody insulted me. I don't care. That's a hater." [chuckles] You know? Like, like you can get mental models and all sort of stuff-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep
- CHCharlie Houpert
... to just cut everything beneath this off and just say, "Well, that-- it's wouldn't be practical for me to listen to what the haters say, and it would..." And you can, you can just lose all of the feeling.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And what you gain from that is an incredible efficiency in terms of getting stuff done. I mean, if you look at the wealthiest people in the world, they are very good at disconnecting from their feelings most of the time. It's tough to make billions and billions and billions of dollars and stay in the game for that amount of time at that intensity level without abusing your own feelings, [chuckles] right?
- CWChris Williamson
Because you're permanently having to suppress?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes, and you can make a lot of money doing it.
- CWChris Williamson
But that's in the way, right? This is, this is one of the reasons why an interesting definition of vulnerability, Joe Hudson's definition of vulnerability, uh, telling the truth even when it's scary-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... speaking your truth even when it's scary.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- 35:46 – 41:50
What Do You Achieve From the Hero’s Journey?
- CHCharlie Houpert
What about the one that's in between? So you've gone, "How can I get the outcomes that I want in the world?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
The h- I, I assume that there's one that's in between those two, which is how do I serve other people, which is how do I serve myself?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Like, how do I learn about me-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and do the inner work thing? And I think I get the sense that that's the last seven, six-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- CHCharlie Houpert
... five years or whatever it is for you. So is, uh, is that right to say that there is a kind of a middle-
- CWChris Williamson
I, I b- I think that serving oneself is a wonderful point at any stage, anywhere.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
'Cause they, they eventually become the same, serving oneself-
- CHCharlie Houpert
On your journey, though, with this, I want the outcomes I want in the world.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Got some, fuck, that didn't get it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Ah, you don't go straight from there to service.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- CHCharlie Houpert
You do this-
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're all levels of self-service at the level that you're capable of doing it. So self-service looks like when, at that level of awareness, if you will, "I need something. They have it. Who do I have to become-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yep
- CWChris Williamson
... and be to get it?" That's me serving myself. Now, it's an interactive way of doing it. Then service becomes, "I'm tired of doing that. I want to be more honest about my emotions." So self-service is taking a break, slowing down, withdrawing for a period of time, going inward. There's this dark night of the soul. If you look at the hero's journey, you know, if you look at it [chuckles] like a clock, there's the lower half of the clock, which is the trials and tribulations.
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and we can talk more about that. But that, those mythic stories have this period of time, as Jordan Peterson would say, the belly of the whale, where you are compelled to acknowledge the darkness inside, the pain inside of yourself. And so that is what self-service looks like, is something is m-- keeps tapping me on the shoulder, telling me that I gotta pay attention. I'm gonna go attend to that. And we could talk about specifically what that might look like, but I know you're talking to Joe Hudson. He's wonderful for this sort of thing.
- CWChris Williamson
I wanna get your perspective-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Sure
- CWChris Williamson
... on, on both of those things, the, the, what do you say? The3 PM to 9 PM-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
Of-
- CHCharlie Houpert
3 PM to 9 PM.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- 41:50 – 47:04
The Dark Side of Chasing Success
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. So the, the question that I have, and I think is kind of an important one, is to try and get people to think about what their definition of success is. Like, what does getting the outcome that you want look like?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And at each level of resolution or depth, or the outcome that I want is to be financially secure. The outcome that I want is for the people that I admire to admire me. The outcome that I want is to be attuned with my-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... emotions and be able to feel things. The outcome that I want is to truly know God, whatever it might be. Um, and the conflict that I see comes between people who have differing definitions of the outcome that they want for their life.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
So the person that's action-oriented-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... is saying, "Well, you are trading the thing that I want, which is outcomes, for the thing that you want, which is emotional presence, connectedness, sense of peace." And I think the reason that we have this bit of self-doubt in the back of our minds, as you're the person that's moving through it, is you turn around and look at the person who is congruent, who has the thing, plus the confidence and conviction that you used to have, and you're like, "W-... I've lost all of those.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I've had to let go of all of those. My real-world results are fucking falling backward-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and I no longer appear as certain, and I don't have the certainty myself-
- CHCharlie Houpert
I don't feel it [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... to carry myself through. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So they don't respect me as much, and I'm less effective in the world, and I also have self-doubt about whether or not the thing that I'm doing is the thing I'm supposed to be doing.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
You go, "Well, uh, w- wherein there is the reward?" And at each level, it-- the same as, um, you're telling me that I'm not going to sleep in, which is something that's comfortable for me-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... to do, in order to get up and do my meditation-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... or go to the gym on time, and I'm gonna be ostracized by my friends-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... because I can't go out. My drinking buddies aren't my drinking buddies 'cause I'm not drinking no more, and I don't have my gym buddies yet because I haven't gone to the gym enough to get respect from the people that go to the gym, and I haven't worked out how to speak to them and what their culture is.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So at each different fucking level-
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... you're becoming less effective in the paradigm that you know, on the sort of plane of existence that you're aware of-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- 47:04 – 54:56
The Leap of Faith Most People Are Too Afraid to Take
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, d- dig into the fear and trembling because I think a lot of people, the sort of people that have made it this far into this episode-
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, I, I, I assume are either going, "What the fuck?" And-
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... or they say, "Oh, there's something here. There's-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... like I, I, I'm, I'm resonating, and there's something here."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Neutonic. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Exactly. There is something here.
- CHCharlie Houpert
There is something here. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Fucking a evidence-based, very tasty, zero-calorie energy drink. Um, that fear and trembling, that, uh, peering over the precipice, that sort of-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... like existential vertigo-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... where you go like, "Phew."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You're like, "Holy fuck!" Like, that's... Uh, w- what more is there to say about, about that sensation, and about stepping into it, and about the first steps and the biggest steps?
- CHCharlie Houpert
You don't have to force yourself. It will call. It will call you. And if you're going, sitting here, and you probably haven't made it this far, but if you're going, "I don't know," I kind of just... I really encourage and love people being where they're at.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
So I think a mistake that I had made, which is everybody needs to move as quickly as possible through these phases. That's old optimizer idea. Your time will come. The... If, if, if what I am saying is true, this is not something you have to do. Like, your ego is not gonna be the one doing this. It's going to, in s- many ways, you have to participate and say yes at some point. You'll have your choice, as we talked about earlier-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... but the call will come, and you can ignore it about ten million times. It will, it will keep ringing for you.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And the consequences will get more and more dire. You ignore it once, you know, you go out, it's a little bit of a difficult relationship. Ignore it for twenty years, you're in a loveless relationship [chuckles] and now you've got kids and a divorce on your hands. Like, all of that sort of stuff. The consequences of, of not listening begin to erode the actions, the, the results, the emotions anyway.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
So the good news is, you don't, you don't have to do anything. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. One way or another, this-
- CHCharlie Houpert
It'll get you [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... realization is gonna arrive. Uh, w- what do you think is going on there is that, do you come to think about it in material terms? Do you come to think about it as the universe having to ramp up the volume of the lesson-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- 54:56 – 1:11:30
How to Navigate a Life Transition Without Losing Yourself
- CWChris Williamson
What if... I know that you mentioned, um, basically, the volume of the lesson will get turned up until you start to hear it-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... would be a way to maybe-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... say that. Um, or you die.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Or you die.
- CWChris Williamson
Let's say that there's someone who goes, "I feel like the volume's, like, kinda loud already, and the fleeting thoughts and the little whispers are kind of-... I, I feel ready to pay attention to them, but I'm still scared of making that transition. You mentioned that you want to be kind of a, a careful shepherd. Who was the, who was the boatman that helped get Dante across the, the river?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Who's that dude? You know, Dante's Inferno.
- CHCharlie Houpert
It's, it's not Charon from-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes
- CHCharlie Houpert
... Greek mythology. Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Um, so he's blind, I think.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, sadly, I've forgot my fucking mythology glossary. [chuckles]
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, you wanna be this, like, boatsman-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... shepherd thing. You're like: "Hey, you're going from this bit of land to this bit of land here-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and let me make it at least a little bit less scary-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... that this is a journey that you can do with grace."
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? Graciously, I think was-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, one of the ways that you said. B- if someone is, like, on the precipice, they're on the cusp of-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... "I feel like this is a evolutionary step that I'm prepared to take, and I'm kind of, like, ready," without pushing-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- 1:11:30 – 1:21:43
Why Men Are Terrified of Their Feminine Energy
- CWChris Williamson
What have you learned about... E- the, the language of masculine and feminine is not one that I am super familiar with, and I think maybe part of it is that there's a good amount of shame-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... attached to that, as you suggested. Like, what man- the- i- it's cool to say attuned-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... connected, dropped in-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... aware, uh, um, transcending, including, like Wilberian language-type stuff as a guy.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, that still feels-- it's the same as Joe's vulnerability definition, right? It still feels, like, kinda strong. But to say, "Oh, I need to embrace my feminine energy," like, do f- go fuck yourself, man.
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles] My irrationality.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
That's a big one. Irrational, yeah. This-- I mean, this is the critique that men have of their wives and girlfriends. "She's so irrational!"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
We are irrational. I think this is one of the big tricks that men play on themselves, is they pretend that the women in their lives, and they project all of the irrationality onto them. How irrational is it to try to get more and more and more money and more and more status past a certain point? That is hyper irrational.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Like, to what end are you-
- CWChris Williamson
You have proved to yourself that the thing that you are attaining is not the thing that makes you happy, and yet you're still trying to attain more of it.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Deeply irrational. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Well done, dude. Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles] Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Super, super fucking clever.
- CHCharlie Houpert
So the, those is-- those pieces, feminine, irrational, singing, dancing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... flowing, uh, enjoying one's body, right? I think even from what I hear and have experienced with myself, part of what men get out of their sexual relationships is many times they're able to be with someone that is more capable of pleasure than they are, and they're able to vicariously participate in the pleasure, and they're making it happen, and that's good enough for them.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Now, they're not experiencing it at the same full-body level that their partner is perhaps capable, but they're close to it.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, think about that, you know, if you wanna really fucking point the finger at guys. How many guys during sex treat sex as another business that they need to-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... successfully exit?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- 1:21:43 – 1:34:21
Where Does Success Lie For Chris?
- CHCharlie Houpert
How-- I'm so curious. You've asked me. Without trying to say it for this conversation, like, where are you in your s-- using maybe some of the models that we've talked about-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... like, where does success honestly lie for you these days?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Uh, it depends how juvenile I'm being-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, and how brave I feel.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, so for me, a lot of it is around courage. It's the courage to step into listening to that intuition, those fleeting thoughts, and those whispers in the back of my mind. It's the courage to let go of patterns that I know have given me things that I desperately wanted in the past-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... validation from people, recognition, a sense of mastery, admiration from people I admired, uh, respect, um-
- CHCharlie Houpert
You know, it's crazy. I, I-- sorry to interrupt.
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- CHCharlie Houpert
The feminine thread is so important here because it's the feminine thread that is capable of receiving. So there's-- part of the reason that we keep pursuing validation and money is 'cause we haven't been able to receive what has already been heaped upon us-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... because we haven't well developed that ability to just go [inhaling] and, yeah, without forcing it on you, man, I mean, I come in here. [laughing] Dude, y-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
You called me. I'll just-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
You called me four years ago, five years ago?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
I had three million. You had less than a million.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, it was like less than a hundred thousand, yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, and you were way too confident for your size and [chuckles] like, like really gregarious and friendly.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
You're like, "Let's get on the phone. We get it."
- CWChris Williamson
Assumed a bunch of familiarity with you-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, it was great
- CWChris Williamson
... that, like, finessed you into being my friend.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And you were-- I think you probably had your computer on a bureau.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- 1:34:21 – 1:44:37
Why Sensitivity is Difficult in a World That is Too Loud
- CWChris Williamson
The first time that we left the farm that we were on, so we'd been there for-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... you know, seven days, pretty much twelve hours a day of unrelenting, very deep emotional work-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... with this one group of people, eleven other people, plus four facilitators. The first day that we left, uh, we were advised, "Go and do..." Uh, the, the actual first day we left, we went to the beach. We went to the beach, and I, uh, cried at the sun, cried at the moon, uh, cried at a dog, and then nearly cried at a seagull.
- CHCharlie Houpert
It's a supermoon tonight. It's gonna be rad, dude.
- CWChris Williamson
I-- well, there was something happening-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Super full moon
- CWChris Williamson
... last night. It was-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Super full moon
- CWChris Williamson
... pretty big last night-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... right, when we talked about the-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Tonight's the full moon.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Fucking-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
We'll be, we'll be ready.
- CHCharlie Houpert
We'll be ready. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but then the-
- CHCharlie Houpert
You know, but just sorry to interrupt. The separation from the stars and the moon is a profound nationwide, mostly citywide, travesty.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Like, the inability to locate yourself in something that eternal-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... which isn't eternal, but it's like that durable. Oh, my God!
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. Tremendous loss.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I was watching-- That's actually another... Look at me, just my-- this is my crying diary. Uh, the blood red supermoon that happened in twenty twenty-one-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... or twenty twenty-two, I remember where I was. I was in the Airbnb that I lived in for three months when I first moved to America, and I was watching Peaky Blinders on my own. So I could not be more, like, engaged in this historic period drama thing, and someone texted me and was like: "Have you seen the moon?" And I go outside onto the balcony of this Airbnb that I'm staying in, and I look up, and it's this huge, bright pink moon, and just immediately I'm like, floods, like floods of tears-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Hmm
- 1:44:37 – 1:52:20
How Mythology Can Help Modern Men
- CWChris Williamson
And w- what do you, what do you think about sort of mythology? Is it a, it, it's not the full dose of religion-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... with some of its sort of stodginess and inaccessibility?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. So here's, here's my broad view of religion, spirituality, et cetera. There are these mystics all around the world: Jesus, Muhammad, Rumi, you know. Uh, they get it at various levels. It's tough to translate. It's-- I, like, how do you say it? First off, how do you- how does it come out of your mouth in a way that is honest to your experience? Extremely challenging. And then for somebody who hasn't had that experience, they're gonna write it down now in a book and codify how everyone else needs to be. So I think that's what's going on with a lot of the big books, is that there is a mystical insight from somebody who got it at a very, very, very deep level. Difficult for them to speak, difficult for other people to write down sixty years later.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And then we're a lot of people that aren't, uh, directly connected with that experience, projecting their mother and their father onto the creator of the universe, that He's upset with me, and He wants to punish me, and a lot of that made it into the text, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
So I don't treat the Bible as, uh, literally every word is true. I, but I treat it as a repository that has been mistranslated some of the time of a brilliant mystic-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... like somebody who was, who got it. And I treat other texts like that. Like, there's some level of understanding, integration that the person who came up with this had. That's why it survived so long. That's why it was so meaningful to people, even if they couldn't describe why it was so meaningful to them. So Greek, Egyptian, these pantheon gods are really useful for relating to you the archetypal emotional patterns of life.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
So for instance, the story of Ares, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. Hephaestus is the craftsman god. He's, uh, got a lame leg. He's a craftsman. You might call him a brainiac. Uh, he's not a physical powerhouse. He's the only god that is crippled. He is betrothed and wedded to Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, but she cheats on him all the time with the alpha Chad, Ares. [chuckles] Right? So they have a bunch of kids, but the story of Hephaestus and Aphrodite and Ares is that Hephaestus learns that he's being cuckolded. He creates a cage above the bed. Ares and Aphrodite go at it, he drops the cage on them, and then brings in all the other gods to laugh at them. And it's like an archetypal exploration of the pain of the, uh, academically [chuckles] inclined guy-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... who is, uh, try-- who is hurt by the aggressive masculine man, who takes something that he loves, and then re- moves into his zone of power-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep
- CHCharlie Houpert
... which is intellectual, and shames him.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And you see this play out. I've, I've heard Brennan Lee Mulligan, who you might be familiar with, he was a Dungeons and Dragons guy, very smart, tell his very personal story of he was a smart kid. The tough kids pushed him around, made fun of him, but he got really good at insulting them, so he could just cut them to the core because he was smart enough to do it.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And so there's these patterns that if you look at these archetypes, almost like Rorschach tests, which is: Which one is, is calling to me? I don't know. There's something about... I'm curious about Ares. I'm curious about this. You look up the story, you read it. What do I make of it? Is a beautiful way to start to recognize some of these archetypal patterns in your life-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... because they have existed for thousands of years before you.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And I could go on and on and on and about all the different ones that have been valuable to me. But-
- CWChris Williamson
So symbolic, there's, the, it, the story is more than just the story. It's less literal. Is that kind of the... W- what's the key?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Okay, so the key that Jung, Peterson, et cetera, would say is that these are, these are, [chuckles] like metaphysically real in a way that is not just metaphorical or symbolic. That there are... How, how can I describe this? That there are near universal structures in human psychology, for instance, for father and for mother, that we do not come in utterly blank slate, and there are recurring patterns based on, you could call it evolution, or if you're spiritually based, just like this is what it is to be human. That by relating to these archetypes, seeing how they strike us, we can learn the pieces of ourselves that are missing. So maybe we didn't have the world's greatest mother or greatest father, but if we relate to an archetypal story of a good mother or of a good-- the wise father or something, we can get- we can re-come into contact with the piece of us that we felt should have been there when we were kids, but we couldn't put our finger on, we couldn't describe, and so we can't explain the pain that we're experiencing of the loss.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
These stories help us reconnect with that. In the same way that the hero's journey inspires young men to go out, be heroes, understand that there's a sacrifice and a rocky montage that they have to go through, these stories give you steps, uh, and, and relationship with, "Oh, that's what was missing," or, "Oh, that's what's up next for me." I'll give you one small example of this is I was re-- Joseph Campbell has this hero's journey that he charts out, and it's basically a clock, where you start up here. Three o'clock, you meet the mentor. You descend into the underworld. It's the belly of the beast. It's the Garden of Gethsemane at the bottom. You come back up, you get the divine revelation, you come back to the community. I had been charting where I was, and he's got, like, basically, I think twelve to seventeen different stages, and I found myself [chuckles] I was like, "Oh, this is belly of the beast. I am lost, utterly lost." And shortly after that, I was like: What's up next? Temptation of the woman. So in the story, The Odyssey... And stop me if I'm rambling here.
- CWChris Williamson
No, dude, I want more-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Okay.
- 1:52:20 – 1:56:46
The Journey Behind Charlie’s Charisma
- CWChris Williamson
How the fuck do you talk about charisma anymore?
- CHCharlie Houpert
So it was really hard, and I said at the beginning, I'm sorry that this has been so disjointed. One day I'll have this smooth. I had understood charisma to be what do people like about me, and I still will make videos like that. How do they... What steps do I do, say, think, et cetera, yada, yada, yada, to get someone to like me? It was all based on if I was behaving in a way that was approved of. That was my understanding of it. But as I get deeper into myth, charisma is a Greek word. The etymology of charisma is from the same word as charity and the charities, which are the goddesses. But charisma is a divinely given gift, often associated with speech, but associated with someone from, that God moves through. And so you can speak charismatically, but you can dance charismatically. You can paint charismatically. You can, like, love and hug, and y- y- you can live charismatically. So as I go, "Oh, wow, I picked the perfect word. I picked the perfect name for this company for me to grow into," I just didn't know it at the time.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
And so I am learning now how to serve the core audience that wants tips, tricks, all this-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- CHCharlie Houpert
... kind of stuff, but I need to expand it into how does God move through you? And for me, that looks less like, here's the phrase, here's the thing to do, but finding the intersection of radiance and authenticity.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
I think in the past, I had been like: Look, I wanna be authentic, but... I'll just give you an example. The first day of the course, Charisma University, that we have, I think a lot of this stuff could be used, but is when somebody asks you how you're doing, don't say, "I'm fine." Don't say, "Busy." Don't say, "Good." Be better than that. Be phenomenal. Be wonderful. Be inc- you know, and you can treat that at any level of the pyramid. You can go to the results level, which is I-- no matter what I'm feeling, I am going to say I'm phenomenal, and I can betray my emotions. I can take actions to start to take steps in my life that I've worked out that day, and I've gotten something done, so I'm more likely to actually feel phenomenal when someone asks me. I can treat the underlying emotional level, [chuckles] which is have I been with my shame, my grief, my et cetera? So then no matter what I say, I'm like: Dude, it's kind of a rough day, there's still something emanating from me. Or I can do it at the spiritual level, which is like: Oh, my God, I remember God. I feel fucking incredible, [chuckles] and I can radiate it that way. So for me, it's, it's more about just like I had to grow out of the shell that I was in. It's, it's yes, the co-- the, the same piece stays, but it's also more than that. And so that's how I have come around to being like: Oh, I did want Charisma on Command. I wanted to grow it into much more than it was-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and have it mean something significantly more than it did. And there's a challenge of bringing the audience with me and leaving some of them behind, and, uh, I'm a weirdo, and all that kind of stuff is a stress.
- CWChris Williamson
How many subs you got? Six million, seven million?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Six, between six point nine or something.
- CWChris Williamson
Right, seven million subs.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The market for I want to say cool things to get girls to be attracted to me-
- CHCharlie Houpert
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... and the market for I want to get in touch with my feminine and be able to dance without shame-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, to music in my bedroom-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Uh-huh
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, not quite the same.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yes, and look at Jordan Peterson. Look, core, core, he is a Jungian psychologist who the, the first thing, yes, he came on the scene for politics, but it was Genesis. It was all of this unsexy-
- CWChris Williamson
Pinocchio.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Pinocchio, Genesis, Lion King. I truly believe that the public needs a Jungian, [chuckles] a speaker for Carl Jung-
- CWChris Williamson
Wow
- CHCharlie Houpert
... to be present. Like, we need myth.
- CWChris Williamson
Is this a pivot that you're potentially-- you would, a, a burden you would potentially carry yourself?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah, a hundred-- I would deeply be honored, love to pray for that opportunity. I, I-- and I am trying to learn how to gracefully make that transition, and I have put out videos where I'm more experimental. They don't do as well, but I'm still in this zone of sorting through how to talk about this stuff. And perhaps I should have come in here and just been like: I got my list of myths, and I'm gonna tell them to you. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
No, no, no, no, no, no. This is-- This, I mean, this has been one of the most intimate conversations I think I've ever had on the show. Uh, you've got something-... You're there with something, and Dr. K is there?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm. There's-- Well, let me ask.
- 1:56:46 – 2:06:31
What’s Next For Modern Wisdom?
- CWChris Williamson
few months now.
- CHCharlie Houpert
So let me, let me ask-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- CHCharlie Houpert
... 'cause I-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
If you were able to take that stake out of the ground-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and didn't have that tether-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and the cameras could disappear for a moment-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... do you, and it's okay if the answer is no, 'cause I know I didn't for a long time.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Do you have any direction of where you would head, walk, do without the expectation?
- CWChris Williamson
[exhaling] There's a few. Uh, I'm, I'm pulled towards fun, at least in part, at the moment, and that-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Love that for you, by the way.
- CWChris Williamson
Me too.
- CHCharlie Houpert
I love things that integrate ancient past, which for you is, is being a club promoter.
- CWChris Williamson
I-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Like, I love when things-
- CWChris Williamson
And-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... the way that that will come through is multi-guest episodes. So me, George Mack, Zach, and another person are gonna do a sort of regular, probably monthly, something like that, hang-style episode.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Current working title is Smoke Break or Office Hours or-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... whatever, uh, Drop In or some shit close. Um, I like the idea of that because it is part of a, uh, releasing of a lot of the control. Like, what is the outcome that we get from this? Well, I'm not too sure.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and what is it we're gonna talk about? Well, I'm also not too sure.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- 2:06:31 – 2:16:14
Is There Room For Emotion in the Manosphere?
- CWChris Williamson
Here's, here's a couple of frameworks. Here's a couple of frameworks that might be interesting for you. Uh, as far as I can see, we've had two waves of the manosphere so far.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
First wave of pickup artistry was Neil Strauss, The Game, Mystery, it was negging, and, and, and like, "Have you seen the midget fight outside?" And it was-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Which was also like, that was a switch from results to actions with regard to being attractive to women.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-huh.
- CHCharlie Houpert
'Cause prior to that, it was just, you're as handsome and as wealthy as you are, and that is your outcome with women. And it was like: Oh, you can behave-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- CHCharlie Houpert
... in a certain way.
- CWChris Williamson
Then, second wave manosphere was post-Me Too, because-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... pickup artistry was never gonna survive the wave-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... of, of sort of calling to account men for using position to coerce people into-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yep
- CWChris Williamson
... into sex. And then we got a kind of sanitized, slightly adjusted version of it, and it was red pill, black pill, blue pill, soy boys, cucks. It was like simps and betas and alphas.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And it was, like, that whole world.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Which interesting, a- and I'm, I'm, I'm kind of projecting, but is these guys started to feel upset about the things. They were getting bothered, and they said they took a almost more feminine approach, which is, "We're gonna talk a lot about our problems-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, don't forget that-
- CHCharlie Houpert
... and ask the world to be different." [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Don't forget, don't forget that, uh, the, like, incel, black pill, red pill community came out of PUA Hate.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, PUA Hate was the original Reddit.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And PUA Hate was people who had done pickup and had found that the strategies had n- either not worked or worked and made them aware of their own shortcomings. "Look at how much I need to perform in order to get women to like me."
- CHCharlie Houpert
That's really frustrating.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
"Oh, fuck! Like, I am, I, at core, am so far away from what women want-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- 2:16:14 – 2:17:08
What’s Next For Charlie?
- CWChris Williamson
Bro, this has been so much fun.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It-- I feel, I feel, uh, oddly exposed-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... as well. I feel very like the tide's gone out, and my pants are off.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Well, you have control over the edit, so you do whatever you want. [laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
That's, that is, that, that is true.
- CHCharlie Houpert
[laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
We will see how, we will see how much of it, uh, makes it in, um-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Well, thank you for sharing with me, and yeah, it was-
- CWChris Williamson
What can people expect from you over the not-too-distant future?
- CHCharlie Houpert
Hmm, what can they expect? Chaos. I don't know. I'm really excited. I don't-- I won't even put my stake in the ground. I'm excited to find out myself.
- CWChris Williamson
Unreal. Charlie Houpert-
- CHCharlie Houpert
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I love you. Thank you.
- CHCharlie Houpert
Thank you, man. [upbeat music]
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you very much for tuning in. Uh, personal conversation there with Charlie. I, I, I really loved it. I think he's brilliant, and if you enjoyed that one, Scott Galloway is also fantastic and available right here. Bye.
Episode duration: 2:17:08
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Transcript of episode 6SNJK_p2GRo
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