KAMAL RAVIKANT | How Loving Yourself Can Save Your Life | Modern Wisdom Podcast 135

1. 0:00 – 1:00

   Falling apart even when you “wrote the book”

   1. KRKamal Ravikant0:00

      ... look, you're not alone, you know? But, uh, I think, as you were to explain my depression, it feels so personal, and all of our stories feel so personal. I wanted to say, like, "Look, you're not alone. You reaching out to me for advice, I go through the same thing, and th- but this is what I do to get over it. This is what I do to get better. Again and again, I return to the same thing. And look, I'm the guy who came up with this, and look, I stopped doing it, I got lazy and, and then, you know, when something hard happened, I kind of fell apart." Right? And talk about embarrassing, talk about feeling shame, you know? Like, it's like-

   2. CWChris Williamson0:32

      (laughs) I'm supposed to be the guy.

   3. KRKamal Ravikant0:34

      Well, I never set out to be the guy. But, like, I wrote the book on it, right?

   4. CWChris Williamson0:38

      (laughs) Yeah. You're the guy that wrote the book, yeah.

   5. KRKamal Ravikant0:38

      Like, that was from my experience. And I had wrote it from my experience and, um, and so I wanted to share that as well, like, look, like, we will, there are times when we will, when we fall. What do we do? We step up again knowing what works and we do it again, and we go back at it. That's part of life.

2. 1:00 – 4:44

   Elective surgery turns into bleeding out and a traumatic near-death

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00

      (wind blowing) Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm joined by Kamal Ravikant. Kamal, welcome to the show.

   2. KRKamal Ravikant1:08

      Thanks for having me.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:09

      Absolute pleasure to have you on, man. Uh, I feel like we're gonna have something really special in front of us today, I hope.

   4. KRKamal Ravikant1:15

      I hope to, I hope so too, man.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:17

      Yeah.

   6. KRKamal Ravikant1:17

      Hope to live up to it.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:18

      Yeah, no. Um, so first things first, you had a bit of a turn recently, and you, you were dead for a bit. What, what-

   8. KRKamal Ravikant1:27

      Yeah, for a bit.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:28

      ... what happened?

   10. KRKamal Ravikant1:29

       Uh, this was, uh, this was about two and a half months ago. I was, um, I went in for elective surgery, uh, just to fix an old, old injury. And that involved, like, moving some arteries around and, like, tweaking arteries. And, uh, right before I be- I was being discharged from the hospital, uh, the, the main artery they worked on, the, um, the, um, sutures came off so the whole thing burst and I basically bled to death. And, um, the only thing that saved me was I was still in the hospital and I was, and it bur- it burst so hard that it pooled up in my body and then burst out of my body. Uh, not out of the sutures, just from the force of the blood. And the only thing that saved me was I was spraying blood everywhere. And they did the-

   11. CWChris Williamson2:11

       So you were kind (laughs) a little bit like a garden sprinkler system but just with-

   12. KRKamal Ravikant2:15

       They used, you know, that's, that's a great analogy. That's ...

   13. CWChris Williamson2:19

       (laughs) What?

   14. KRKamal Ravikant2:19

       And, you know, when an artery goes, it's a one-way street. You know, when a real artery goes, it's a one-way street. And, uh, and they managed to get me right away into an OR and go in and, and, you know, fix it. And, um, it was a rough experience, man. Like, I literally w- you know, experienced the whole, like, you know, like, "This is it." Your brain just goes into primal mode and ... 'cause it's trauma. It's not like, uh ... and there's nothing peaceful about it. Just goes into images and feelings and emotions and just, like, horror. 'Cause your mind's not designed to see blood spraying out of your body, like, in, in large amount. And, and you can feel it, you can feel yourself, like, shutting down. You can feel very quickly, like, just the vitality or whatever just leaving. Just, uh, not a- and you're never thinking of those words, it's looking back that I'm adding words to the experience. There's no real words that really happened. It's more like emotions and images. And, uh, that was a few months ago so, um, you know, um, as we chatted before, uh, the podcast, now I'm healing and I'm rebuilding my body and, um, and yeah. So it was a bit of a turn. A bit, a bit of one that I wouldn't recommend if you can avoid it. You know?

   15. CWChris Williamson3:31

       Can I ask where it was coming out of you? Where was the incision?

   16. KRKamal Ravikant3:35

       Uh, lower abdomen.

   17. CWChris Williamson3:36

       Okay, so, like, right in the Alien Versus Predator, like ...

   18. KRKamal Ravikant3:41

       Kinda like that.

   19. CWChris Williamson3:41

       ... the most obvious place for it to happen as well. Man. What a, what a terrifying experience I suppose to have when you are on the cusp of releasing a piece of work that you feel is so valuable and you've worked towards for so long. Was there, were you cognizant, sufficiently cognizant to think, like, "Not now?"

   20. KRKamal Ravikant4:09

       No, you're just, uh, your brain just doesn't know what to do. Uh, I mean, in trauma, your brain just do- doesn't know what to do. It goes into primal mode. Just feelings and emotions and images of who's important to you comes up. Uh, f- uh, real fear. I've never tasted real fear in my life. That was, uh, real fear came up 'cause it's like, "This is it."

   21. CWChris Williamson4:31

       Mm-hmm.

   22. KRKamal Ravikant4:31

       And it's h- and it's a horrible way to go. And, uh, um, and so there were no cognizant thoughts, "Oh, I have this left or that left." None of that regrets or the dying, any of that, 'cause it was too fast.

   23. CWChris Williamson4:43

       Mm-hmm.

3. 4:44 – 5:33

   Recovery, an awkward hospital reality, and rebuilding after massive blood loss

   1. KRKamal Ravikant4:44

      Um, so, uh, but what was interesting was the book, um, when I get out of it, wh- when I ... I was in the hospital for a while, you know, on severe narcotics and healing. And, uh, just to get out of the hospital, and hospitals are terrible places, man. Um, like, you're, you're a healthy guy so you'll get a kick out of this, like, I mean, hospital food in the US, it's like it's designed to give you diabetes.

   2. CWChris Williamson5:08

      (laughs)

   3. KRKamal Ravikant5:08

      You know? Like, I was, I was refusing their meals and they were like, "Why?" I'm like, "Hey, take a look at what you're giving me." You know? It's-

   4. CWChris Williamson5:15

      Making me wood.

   5. KRKamal Ravikant5:15

      It's like, how is this gonna help my body heal? Like, give me, you know, a bagel, a piece of cake, and orange juice. It's like the, it's, you know, you're, literally they're designed to give you diabetes. You go in healthy and you come out with diabetes.

   6. CWChris Williamson5:27

      (laughs)

   7. KRKamal Ravikant5:27

      Um, I was literally, like ... And they were, they couldn't understand why I was skipping meals. I was like, "I can't eat this garbage."

   8. CWChris Williamson5:33

      Yeah.

4. 5:33 – 12:06

   Purpose bigger than pain: quitting opioids to protect the work

   1. KRKamal Ravikant5:33

      Like, I, I, my body needs to heal. And so I got, I got out of the hospital, I think a week later, and I was in immense amount of pain. Um, and I was on severe narcotics for a week and I was supposed to be on it much longer, you know? The surgeon said to me, "Look, if anyone qualifies for these drugs, it's you." You've had, like, uh, you've, you've, your, your, you know, your body nee- you need it. You're in a lot of pain. Um, and, um, but a week later when I, uh ... And look, they definitely helped. They make things easier. Uh, you just kinda, like, lie around-

   2. CWChris Williamson6:06

      Yeah.

   3. KRKamal Ravikant6:06

      ... and, you know-... in, in pain, but you can bear it and you're kind of like in a, in a kind of, like, floating ... not even floating, but it's like it definitely helps. Um, and a week later, I went off cold turkey. Now, why? Uh, I didn't need to go off cold turkey. I mean, I could have weaned myself off. I could have been on them longer. And I went cold off turkey, and I was in a lot of pain, was because I turned in the final draft of this to ... book to the publisher, and now they were sending me the proofs when they lay it, lay it out on the page. And things get changed then. You know? They'd been to copyediters and this and I had to go through and review the proofs. Now, if I didn't, if I didn't do them, like, no one cares as much as the author does. You know? I care down to every single comma. I care about the feel of the words in, in the mind, right? And so I had to ... and I realized I- I was trying to do it with narcotics and I couldn't. My brain was too slippery. Like I'm re- ... I mean, I guess I could have, but it wa- my brain wasn't on it, right? So I went off 'em and I had something bigger. I had something bigger than my pain to focus on that was more important than the pain. So I just went off 'em and then I worked on the- on the galleys word by word by word. And, like, the next one would come and I would work on it word by word by word. And it was something more important than what I was going through in the moment. And it was an amazing lesson as well, you know? I remember I wrote a v- a little Instagram post about it called Purpose Is Bigger Than Pain and, uh, a bunch of people reached out to me, um, privately and said, like, "Look, I was- I was hooked on narcotics, opioids, and- and eventually it took, like, me getting involved in something or caring about something that helped me get off it." I go ... I had one person go very, very mad and say, "You don't understand." You know, like this. And I- you know, I was just sharing my experience and I really do believe that. Look, you know, that's what made me go off 'em. Um, so anyway, that was the experience with the book, but so it wasn't in- in the moment as I was dying.

   4. CWChris Williamson8:02

      Mm-hmm.

   5. KRKamal Ravikant8:03

      Um, you don't have that. You don't have time for that when you're ... when it's, like, a really fast thing, when it's like a really fast, sudden, completely unexpected thing.

   6. CWChris Williamson8:13

      What we think, I- I think because the way it's dramatized in movies, right, it's like there's gonna be this moment where I'm able to reflect. The epiphany will come, and I will be able to appreciate all the things. You know, if someone has a near-death experience, which is ... I mean, you had a beyond death experience. Like, if that happens-

   7. KRKamal Ravikant8:31

      Well, it ha-

   8. CWChris Williamson8:31

      ... the ... it- it's dramatized and we get this impression that's what it's gonna be, that it's gonna be this-

   9. KRKamal Ravikant8:36

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson8:36

       ... beautiful thing, but it's-

   11. KRKamal Ravikant8:38

       I ... It could ... I mean, I think it could be if it's ... but I think in trauma, it's different. Your brain just goes into, like, the primal brain.

   12. CWChris Williamson8:44

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   13. KRKamal Ravikant8:45

       'Cause I've had time to sit back and think about it, you know, and, and it literally was. It was just y- going into shock and horror and, and feelings and emotions and realizing your brain doesn't go, "This could be it." Your brain goes, "This is it." And so it's, like, literally trying to stop it, and there's no way to stop it, you know? Um-

   14. CWChris Williamson9:03

       How much blood did you lose?

   15. KRKamal Ravikant9:06

       I didn't count, but they told me a lot, a significant am- amount. I mean, I was spraying blood everywhere (laughs) like, to the ... by the time they got me to the OR, you know? And, uh, and, uh, two ... and it pooled up enough to burst out of the body, which tells you there was already a lot lost, you know? So, um, I'm still quite anemic. My body's still making red blood th- bloo- red blood cells. Um, so my energy levels come and go, but I'm getting better. I'm taking iron supplements, which I've never had to and eventually ... uh, eating a lot of red meat, which, um, it was just funny. A doctor was telling me like, "Eat a lot of red meat. Rebuild your iron stores."

   16. CWChris Williamson9:38

       Yeah.

   17. KRKamal Ravikant9:39

       You know?

   18. CWChris Williamson9:39

       It's str- strange the way that medi- uh, medicine comes full circle. So (clears throat) I think it's so poetically ironic that a book which the process of once helped you to transform your life, which the reflection of twice helped you to take yourself out of a lesson that you'd forgotten and the purpose of publishing a third time has been your reason to transcend the most traumatic experience that you've been through in your life. Like this thing, this book is, is the anchor that you're attached to. At least it seems like that in the recent history of your life.

   19. KRKamal Ravikant10:19

       That's a very interesting way to put it. Um, I don't know if it's an anchor I'm attached to. It's a n- it's a- it's something I feel a strong obligation to. You know? Uh, you know, this version that we're pointing out to, this is the second version of it. The original version was a short little book I put out seven years ago, and that took off and, and changed a lot of lives and saved a lot of lives, you know? I have the emails, and I've met the people, uh, you know, that showed me that. Um, this version is like, okay, I held back a lot, and I, you know, I have the cushions for my readers that show that where they were struggling that I need to sure that ... share everything that works, and even share where it doesn't work with me and why and how to make that work. Um, so it's special. I- it's- it's more of a responsibility, I feel like. And I f- yeah, it's a responsibility, and it's so interesting, man. I- I had, um ... I was having coffee with a journalist today, and I was telling her, um, that, uh, it's so strange that I'm alive that I'm gonna get to see this book go out, 'cause I basically almost exited the planet without seeing it go out. It's so- it's a strange feeling, man. I ... yeah. It's a strange feeling. Uh, yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson11:36

       There's something-

   21. KRKamal Ravikant11:36

       That's the only way to put it.

   22. CWChris Williamson11:37

       I know. It- it's ... there is something, whether it's an anchor, whether it's the wind in your sails, whether it's the kite you're attached to, whatever it might be, there is a, a single lineage, a string that is attached to this particular work that is pulling you through life in one way or another, um-

   23. KRKamal Ravikant11:56

       Yeah. Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson11:57

       ... and giving you that momentum.

   25. KRKamal Ravikant11:59

       That is ... that's insightful, man. I hadn't thought of it that way. That's quite insightful.

   26. CWChris Williamson12:03

       Well, I'm, uh ... hopefully that's not gonna be the last thing that we have an insight about.

   27. KRKamal Ravikant12:06

       (laughs)

5. 12:06 – 16:24

   Why the book is structured as proof, manual, then real-time inner story

   1. CWChris Williamson12:06

      So we've skirted around it for a while. Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It. Um, to the listeners, you will ... I-... often have authors on to talk about their books, and although we are talking about the book today, the purpose of this is not to do a breakdown of, like, how to love yourself like your life depends on it. I think that the way that the book made me feel and the topics that it talks about are worthy, they're more worthy of a deeper discussion, um, and that's not to, you know, lambast discussions that do talk about the book in, uh, in sort of more of a order, uh, transactional manner. But this, this I think has some real far-reaching implications, so I'm looking forward to getting into it today. Um, and the first thing that I would say that I noticed was, or the word that I felt when I was reading it was vulnerability. Like, an absolutely uncompromising degree of vulnerability. It felt sometimes to me like standing on the edge of a building that I knew very well and seeing problems, seeing fears go by. So, talking about the fact that after going through a breakup and making these promises to yourself, even within the time that we're, that we're dealing with, which is only maybe a month or a couple of months or whatever within this particular window that you're writing, you were bringing up the weaknesses that you had. Uh, was weak again today, felt bad again today, this happened again today. And on top of that, it's this complete just opening up of the, uh, uh, of every single emotion that you had. I found it, I found it quite scary to read in a bizarre way. Like, in a very beautiful way, it was, it was quite scary to read, because it reminds you of all of the things, all of the fears, all the mistakes that you make in those sorts of situations, and it was oddly very familiar as well. Um, so yeah, it was a, a unique experience to read.

   2. KRKamal Ravikant13:58

      Yeah, that part is interesting, and there's a very strong reason why it's there, and it actually is very effective. Because the first part of the book is, uh, basically designed to show you just how easily it's possible to love yourself, no matter where you come from. And, you know, showing like, look, h- basically the overview of how I did it. The second part of the book is, okay, now a step-by-step manual, because it's all working on the inside, on the mind. Here's a step-by-step manual, so simple, just do this, and really, within weeks, you'll, you'll know, you'll feel it, you'll be, like, living it, right? But the third part is actually (clears throat) we learn best from stories, right? So, I've showed you from the ph- I've m- I've, I've showed you, like, look, it's really possible for my life. Second, now I've taught you how to do it step by step how I do it and how it's worked for all these readers from the previous version. But the third is like, look, but it's an internal thing, right? Now watch it happen internally. Watch me deal with my own demons. Watch me go through something hard. And this is honest to God true. Every single word in there is true. Watch me go through a really rough time and see how I'm applying this. The point wasn't to share my, my, my fears and insecurities. I don't want the world to know my fears and insecurities. I mean, who the hell does? I mean, I'm not that crazy, right? It's like, oh, and I share stuff about my childhood. Why do, why do I share it? I don't want my friends to know what I went through when I was a kid, you know? I don't want my mom to know some of the things that are in there, right? And, and the, the reason why I did it was because I get the emails from my readers, and I know what they're struggling with. And I, first of all, uh, everyone thinks they're alone in their journey, and I want them to know, "Look, you're not alone. I've been through this. This is what I've been through, and watch. And I'm the guy who came up with this and who applies it, and watch what I'm going through." And, but it's not to show you that, hey, everyone falls apart. It's to show you how to, uh, how I build myself up and from the inside. So, even as I'm building up and even, even as the insecurities are coming up, but the fears have come out, how I'm working on it, and it's literally what's happening in my mind. So, you can see then, and then as you can see, start to see the changes happen, it kinda shows you in a way that prescriptively I could not show you, right? And you can see the nuances. There's a lot of nuances when you work on the inside that you can... the nuances explain that better. In a story, you see them happening. So, by the time it's done, you true... by the time you're done with this book, you truly understand how to do it and also how it's possible even if you're going through a storm of your own.

6. 16:24 – 24:21

   Precision over fluff: what’s wrong with most self-help—and why his is lean

   1. CWChris Williamson16:24

      The context is so important. So, uh, common analogy that I use is it's the reason why motivational quotes on Instagram don't change people's lives.

   2. KRKamal Ravikant16:36

      Oh, (laughs) God. Uh, I say that all the t- Like, who, whose life was changed by a Instagram quote? Like, I don't get it. Like (laughs) you know-

   3. CWChris Williamson16:43

      Well, it's, uh, the, the problem is that there is a lot of worth in it. You think this, this one single sentence could be the distillation of a, uh, one of the best minds on the planet's life's work-

   4. KRKamal Ravikant16:53

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson16:53

      ... distilled down over a single aphorism. But because all that you're seeing is booty picture, booty picture, funny cat video, Maxim, booty picture, booty picture, it's like I'm just not (laughs) , I'm not in the, the place for this at the moment, you know? Like, I'm getting t- retargeted by some website I was on five days ago and blah, blah. Like, uh, I'm not in the place for it, and I think that you're right. Context is important, and it helps you to understand.

   6. KRKamal Ravikant17:20

      Yeah, and it, it's honestly, um, the scariest thing to put out, you know, for people to see inside what, like, you know, "Here, watch me fall apart, and watch me rebuild myself," you know? And how I do it using what I've just taught you how to do in the first two parts.

   7. CWChris Williamson17:37

      The, the-

   8. KRKamal Ravikant17:37

      You know?

   9. CWChris Williamson17:37

      ... the thing that I'm thinking there is kind of the, the story of the unwilling hero. So, you think the hero in every story doesn't go and fight the dragon because he has to, uh, sorry, because he can do. He does it because he has to, and he has to because he can, and he can because-

   10. KRKamal Ravikant17:56

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson17:56

       ... no one else can. If you are the person who can do the particular thing and there's no one else to do it, then you have to do it. And that duty w- bears very, very heavy on your shoulders. But the fact that you are able to go and do the thing that helps everybody else, that takes down the dragon, that raises the consciousness of everyone else, that helps them to transcend their own problems, that is why you have to do it, because no one else is there for you to do it.

   12. KRKamal Ravikant18:25

       Yeah, I mean, I was writing that part when I was going through, through that storm. And as ... And I was writing it more as an exercise to myself and keeping record. Um, obviously, it's been ... I've edited, you know, to make it fit for context. Um, and you ... But I say that, um, all I mean is I cut out stuff that didn't belong in the book, right? There's the ... When you now writing, you're writing a book, there's a narrative. You can have ... It has to serve the narrative. Um, and it was near the end I realized, "Oh my God, this is the missing peak, piece of the book." 'Cause I was working on the book and I'd finished ... I'd decided it was gonna be part one and part two, but part three was like, "Look, that's the missing piece. There's no way someone can walk away by the time they finish this book ex- not being convinced and knowing exactly how to love themselves no matter what." That was the point, no matter what. That's where people get stuck in their stories, "But, but, but, but mine is special." We are all special, but like, like the inside is still a shit show for everyone.

   13. CWChris Williamson19:23

       (laughs)

   14. KRKamal Ravikant19:24

       You know, we all go through our storms, no matter how, you know, how great our Instagram posts are, right? Um, so it's like, it wasn't even being the word vulnerable. I mean, I ... That gets used a lot and the people use that with m- with the ... Especially with this book. It was being real. Like there's not a word in it that's not true and that's not real, you know? And honestly, sometimes like I read it, I'm just go, "Oh God, man, I don't want people-"

   15. CWChris Williamson19:49

       Can't believe I put that out. (laughs)

   16. KRKamal Ravikant19:50

       Like, yeah, like can't believe like, "Oh my God, this is so pathetic." But like look, who hasn't felt pathetic? But the point wasn't to show you that I felt pathetic. The showing you was how I'm working, what I'm doing on the inside to get over it, to get beyond it, to get better. 'Cause that's what it's about.

   17. CWChris Williamson20:07

       Yeah. Yeah, it's not a pity party. It's not you signaling with your level of vulnerability. It comes ac-

   18. KRKamal Ravikant20:16

       Oh God, no.

   19. CWChris Williamson20:17

       It comes a-

   20. KRKamal Ravikant20:17

       Oh God, no.

   21. CWChris Williamson20:17

       It comes across as transparency. And transparency that is done, like I say, laying yourself on the fire so that other people can walk over you, is kind of the way that it feels to me.

   22. KRKamal Ravikant20:27

       Well, it's also a point of like, "Let me show you how I get better." The point is how ... Let me show you a practical application of this now.

   23. CWChris Williamson20:34

       It's almost like you're talking, talking in theory about-

   24. KRKamal Ravikant20:37

       Yeah, yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson20:37

       ... whatever it is that you're going on about. You're like, "No, no, no, no. Like I put this in practice." It's seeing the guy that has the crazy diet or does the training regime and sings the song and then goes out and wins the fight or does the race or does the whatever.

   26. KRKamal Ravikant20:52

       Yeah, it's, um ... It really ... I was ... In fact, I was like partially trying to convince the publisher that I wanted to cut that, uh, last third. And that's the one that they love the most, everyone at the publisher loves the most. And they're like, "Look, you've done something special that we beg our authors to do, and you've done it in spades here."

   27. CWChris Williamson21:08

       Mm-hmm.

   28. KRKamal Ravikant21:08

       The level of re-, you know, like the level of transparency that you've shown is ... Like I was actually at one point I was like, "Come on, let's just cut this part. Let's just like ..."

   29. CWChris Williamson21:17

       (laughs)

   30. KRKamal Ravikant21:17

       And they ... You know, it's kudos to them that it's in- it's still there. I was scared. Um, but that's when you know you have something real, you know, when you're really scared of showing all of yourself. Uh, but the point is not to share ... Show of yourself. Uh, look man, there's far easier way to make money and ma- uh, make a living, right?
7. 24:21 – 33:40

   Why loving yourself matters: rock bottom, commitment, and not being ‘that guy’

   1. CWChris Williamson24:21

      And it gives that single string, that one string threaded, woven through each of the different bits of trauma that you've had. So we've ... Look, we, we've-... flirted around it and skirted around it this long. Why is it important to love yourself?

   2. KRKamal Ravikant24:36

      Look, I ca- I ... One thing I'll be very clear of, I'm not a- I'm no expert. I'm just a guy, right? I didn't go to school. I don't have a PhD in loving yourself. You know? Like-

   3. CWChris Williamson24:46

      (laughs)

   4. KRKamal Ravikant24:46

      (laughs) You know? I think I've got-

   5. CWChris Williamson24:48

      I think I know a few people on the internet that do.

   6. KRKamal Ravikant24:51

      Yeah. Well, you know ... (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson24:57

      (laughs)

   8. KRKamal Ravikant24:57

      That's really funny, man. I'm gonna use that. I'll credit you for it, but that's really funny. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson25:02

      That's funny.

   10. KRKamal Ravikant25:02

       Look, I'm not that guy. I was a startup guy. I'm a guy who was in the US military, you know? I was an infantry soldier in the US Army. You know, I ... my, my ... The things ... When I think about the ... my favorite things I've done, I've climbed in the Himalayas, you know, I've done, like, crazy stuff. I d- you know, I like doing things like that. I'm not the guy who sits, um, sits around and says, you know ... I don't have a ponytail, you know, like, I ... Yes, I have long hair, but I don't have a pony. You know, I'm, I, I don't ... I'm not the guy who was ... You know, I was building startups in the Valley. I was building companies from scratch. You know, I'm a doer. I'm, I taught myself to write over years and years and years in rejection letters. Like, you know, studying the greats to be a better writer. Like, I believe in doing and creating things. So, I wasn't the guy who was sitting there thinking this, but this was something that k- that happened when I, I, I hit a bottom, like, seven year- or eight years ago, um, when a company I'd built and had self-funded, after four years, fell apart and I lost everything. You know, like, here I was, I'd done well in my, uh, done well, and I lost every dime I had made. I was living off credit cards, you know? But along with it, I lost my sense of self and I fell apart. And it was ... The loving yourself was something I decided to do in a moment of desperation, and it came from something deep within me that I didn't even know I wanted, but it came from a desperate need. And I set out to do it because I believe in the power of commitment. I committed to myself that I would do it. And, you know, I, I show in the book why that's so important, how to make that commitment, 'cause it's a sacred act. The commitment to self is a true sacred act, and when you go all in, you know, things happen, right? And so, I didn't know how to do it. You know, I didn't grow up with that, right? Um, so I had to figure it out. But the one thing I've always believed in is, like, work on your ... if you work on your inner self, you gotta work on your inner self. Um, and something in me went deep in and just started doing things in my inner self that started to work, and when they worked, I went deeper. If they didn't work, I threw them away. I didn't care. I was trying to save myself. And, and out of that came this, like, basic practice on loving myself. Within a month I really, really was, and it shifted my life. And (clears throat) over the years, I've gotten lazy and let it go, and old patterns and loops start to run again and s- insecurities start to run the show rather than this rock solid base of just, just, just full love for myself. And, by the way, loving yourself does not mean being a selfish prick. Excuse my language. Right? It's so- it's deeper. You know, it's, it ... there's a, there's a, there's a depth to it that, that goes beyond se- you know, it's not selfish, it's not narcissistic. You may make, um, uh, you make better choices for yourself, but you don't make necessarily selfish choices. You make b- um, more thoughtful choices. And so it changed my life. It really changed my life very, very quickly, to the way it was like n- nothing had done ... anything I'd done p- appealed to it, 'cause it was completely transformative. And so I would share with friends and then they convinced me to write a book on it. And so, like, I purposely wrote a very, very, very short book. It was like 40-something pages, you know, on purpose. Very short, very to the point. I put it out on Amazon, self-published, and it took off. It went viral. People will buy a dozen copies and give them out to friends and family. I started getting emails from people who said this stopped, literally stopped them from committing suicide. I met some of them in person. There was like one, one man, you know, he had a gun in his hand when he was reading it and, like, after he read it, he put the gun away. You know, like, I've, I have plenty of stories like that, you know? And then from like young teenage girls to women in their 70s or senior citizens and people have like ... I ... We don't have much in common in life experience, so like ... But what we have in common is we have the human mind. The human condition is the, is the, the fundamental foundation we all have. And, and it showed me just, like, look, it's not just me, but, you know, we all s- have our own struggles and love is such a primal thing we are wired for. Rather than try to work on 30 different things, work on the one thing that matters, the one thing we could always use more of. No one says, "I have too much love." (laughs) You know, if they do, like, bully for you. I wanna study from you.

   11. CWChris Williamson29:04

       Yeah.

   12. KRKamal Ravikant29:04

       You know? Um, so I think that's why. Like, it, it's, um ... I never said I ... I'm not the love yourself guy. I'm not the guy (laughs) who sits there and like-

   13. CWChris Williamson29:13

       Yeah, I tell you what, you are now.

   14. KRKamal Ravikant29:15

       (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson29:15

       You definitely are now. (laughs) No, you do not have any choice. And if you're n- if you're not the love yourself guy, then bringing another version of this book out was the wrong idea. Um ...

   16. KRKamal Ravikant29:24

       You know what I mean? Like, I'm not the guy who set out to be that.

   17. CWChris Williamson29:27

       Yeah.

   18. KRKamal Ravikant29:27

       Right? I'm not the guy who's like, "I'm gonna teach the world to love themselves." No, I was just doing stuff and I was trying to get better and then I was just sharing it. That's all it was. Right?

   19. CWChris Williamson29:36

       Discovery.

   20. KRKamal Ravikant29:37

       Yeah. And, you know, here's a little, here's a little interesting irony in life. So while I was building startups, I was teaching myself to write and I was teaching myself literary fiction, you know, which I wanna be a literary fiction writer. And I was writing novels and that kind of stuff, and collecting rejection letters. I was studying Hemingway and all the greats, you know, started with him, on that clean, clear prose. Like, it's much harder to get a deeper concept with simple words than it is a deep concept with large words, right? And I was training myself to be that kind of writer that, like, anyone in the world can pick up my book and with a basic grasp, completely get what I write about. So I was writing travel stuff and this and that and, like, adventure stuff and so forth, and, you know, never went anywhere. And then (clears throat) when I wrote, wrote th- that little book, because I had the craft down, now I could express what I had to say. That little book took off and put me on the map as a writer. So interesting, right? What I d- and- and it's not what I set out to be a writer for.... but because I'd worked on the craft for all those years, it allowed me to be able to do this, and then this put me on the map. So-

   21. CWChris Williamson30:41

       But again, it comes, it comes back to what I just said before, like, you don't get to choose the journey that you are called to do. You don't necessarily get-

   22. KRKamal Ravikant30:51

       Oh, the choice, sure. (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson30:52

       Yeah, you don't get to ch- you don't get to choose that. If you're the one that can slay the dragon and you're like, "Well, I'm not a dragon slayer," and you're like, "Well, you can, so you are. Uh, grab your sword, you're off." And that's the way it goes. Um, certainly one of the things that it makes me think about there is Jordan Peterson's advice about being precise with your speech. And I think that increasingly, as I'm exposed to great podcasters like Aubrey Marcus, who's now a mutual friend of ours-

   24. KRKamal Ravikant31:19

       He's, he's great, man. He's the real deal.

   25. CWChris Williamson31:21

       He is the real deal. Uh, him, Sam Harris, you know, the guys that ... Ben Shapiro even, all of these guys have different speaking cadences, they swim in different waters, they talk about different subjects, but the thing which unifies them is the precision in their speech. There is no more, there is no less than they ne- it is as lean as is, as is possible. It's like one of those Belgian bulls. And it is just lean, powerful, precise speech, like a sniper. And I think, you know, the fact that you had to write or you chose to write such a short book meant, like, there's no time for fluff, there's no time for waffle and extraneous information and all this stuff. It's not, it's just, "This is what I mean to say." And again, uh, who ... I can't remember who it was I was speaking to, Nat Eliason, I think, from the Made You Think podcast, and what he said was, "95% of self-help books," not putting Love Yourself in a self-help category, but it's a good example to use, um, "95% of self-help books are a 5,000-word blog post that has been expanded-"

   26. KRKamal Ravikant32:27

       Oh, they're a tweet. No, no, they're, they're a tweet.

   27. CWChris Williamson32:30

       (laughs)

   28. KRKamal Ravikant32:30

       But look, um, I was actually talking to ... The journalist I was talking to, I was like, "Look, the thing with self-help," and it's kinda ironic, 'cause I, I'm now, now I'm a self-help writer, but I look at myself as a writer who's writing self-help from his experience, right? Most self-help books I read are written by people who want to be self-help people. The book is just a brand thing that they want to get out. It's very obvious. You can, when you read it, you can tell. Especially if you're, care about the craft of writing, right? And they fill it with things. And they fill it with things that don't serve the reader, that just fills pages, you know, which is just lazy, you know? Which is just, if you're gonna put something out, don't be lazy.

   29. CWChris Williamson33:08

       Well, it's because, I think part of it will be signaling, look, if you're gonna spend $14 on a book, you want to feel like you're getting your money's worth. And I think, bizarrely, getting your money's worth means looking at a thick book. But that's actually the wrong way to look at it. You want the book to be as short as is possible.

   30. KRKamal Ravikant33:26

       And, and effective. But, you know, you can fill, you know, a thousand-page book and make it every word effective.
8. 33:40 – 38:57

   From ‘personal curse’ to shared human condition—and choosing hero over victim

   1. CWChris Williamson33:40

      So, we were talking w- we, we were talking earlier on about the fact that loving yourself is a transformative process, and it's a commonality between everyone, right? It's one of the few things that we all need to do. That's what you identified. And I think, I go back to Alain de Botton from The School of Life who's one of my-

   2. KRKamal Ravikant34:01

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson34:01

      ... one of my favorite content creators, and I can say he's coming on Modern Wisdom next year. I've managed to get him in my inbox, uh, so-

   4. KRKamal Ravikant34:07

      Nice.

   5. CWChris Williamson34:07

      ... he'll be on next year, which will be amazing conversation. And what he says is that, he's referring to depression, but this talks about any negative thought patterns. He says, "Depression feels like a personal curse bestowed on us." Like it's this very unique pathogen, this virus that was designed and it's fed to us and only us. Yeah, you might have pain, but my pain's special. My pain is my pain, and you don't know. No, you can't understand my pain because it's this, and you can't, you can't give me the route out of this, because it's not that. And we, the fact that we don't understand how inherently flawed and vulnerable and terrified and winging it, like, how little of a clue everybody has, from the most competent person that you've seen to the biggest blunder on the planet, no one has a clue, and everyone's just kind of winging it as we go through life. But the fact that you feel, because you're so immediately aware of your own experience and you get to see all of your blunders up first, you get to see all of your insecurities, you get to see all of your failures and, uh, uh, uh, and worries and concerns and resentment and bitterness and all of that stuff, you see it at this front row view. And the fact that you're able to see that, and yet you only get a highlight reel of everybody else makes you always feel like the curses that you have are personal for you, they're bestowed exclusively on you. And I think that trying to find a commonality, which is the wind in that sail, it's the kite that you hold onto, the everybody, that's universal. I think that that is really, really important.

   6. KRKamal Ravikant35:44

      Well, you know, it k- it kinda goes back to what you were talking about, you using the metaphor of the hero. Um, and something I write about in the book, it's like, look, I think that as an adult, we get two choices. Uh, whatever story we're going through, let's look at it as a story, 'cause fundamentally it is. Memories aren't facts, memories are stories created in our mind. It's, it's, it's ... The, there is no facts i- in the human brain. They're all stories crated ar- around events that are actually very malleable stories, right? And, and th- we only have one simple choice. Am I going to be a hero or am I going to be a victim of this story? And it's our job to create and make ourselves hero of that story. And how you make the, the hero of the story is not, not the one who just sits there eating bon bons at the beach all day. The hero of the story is one who steps up, makes a stand-... since I'm gonna get, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make my stand. I'm gonna be, choose something better, choose something bigger and get through this, and I'm gonna come out of it. I'm gonna, you know, whatever I care for is gonna come out of it. That's how you become the hero. So, so through all of this, we can use this to become ... Whatever it is you're going through in life, whether it's good or bad, we can use it to become the hero of that story. And then, when you start to feel as the hero of your story, when you start to actually see the changes that you made and then their effects, I mean, talk about self-confidence. Talk about how good you feel about yourself, you know, and y- it's, it's all you, you know. It's a beautiful thing. I love that metaphor you're using, by the way, you know. And, and it's something, um, I've used as well and and I use in the book, and I talk about my childhood. I'm like, "Look, (clears throat) like, I, you know, I could, I could, uh, point to all those things and say, 'Look, I was a victim,' you know." And sure enough, children can get away with, uh, being a victim, you know. I mean, at some point, yes. But I'm an adult now, and look what I, look what this child chose to do. Because of this child, I'm here, you know. How damn proud I am of this child. You know, he became the hero of the story, and I'm, I'm here as a result of him becoming the hero.

   7. CWChris Williamson37:46

      Man, how amazing. So there's a million different doorways open at the moment in my mind. Um, I want to come back to the fact that the entirety of the book, to me, feels like a, a letter to yourself or a memoir to yourself, as if it was written by another you, as if it was written outside of your body and it ... Treat yourself as if you are somebody you are responsible for helping, right? Another Jordan Peterson-ism there. The fact that you are able to, uh ... Do know the statistics about, uh, c- dogs completing their antibiotics courses? Do you know this?

   8. KRKamal Ravikant38:18

      No, but that's an interesting thing to bring up.

   9. CWChris Williamson38:20

      All right, so-

   10. KRKamal Ravikant38:20

       I'm, I'm curious.

   11. CWChris Williamson38:21

       ... uh, if you have a dog, the likelihood of it completing its course of antibiotics given to you is about 90%. The likelihood of you completing your course of antibiotics-

   12. KRKamal Ravikant38:31

       It's much less.

   13. CWChris Williamson38:32

       ... is 50%.

   14. KRKamal Ravikant38:33

       Yeah, yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson38:33

       Why? It's because it's much easier-

   16. KRKamal Ravikant38:36

       Um-

   17. CWChris Williamson38:36

       It's much easier to care for something else than it is to care-

   18. KRKamal Ravikant38:39

       Oh, interesting.

   19. CWChris Williamson38:39

       ... for ourselves. And-

   20. KRKamal Ravikant38:40

       Interesting.

   21. CWChris Williamson38:41

       ... why don't we think about what happens in an aircraft malfunction? You're told to put your mask on first.

   22. KRKamal Ravikant38:48

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson38:48

       Because if you are suffocating, you are of little use to anybody else, including the ones who need you the most, even though you don't know that they're there.

   24. KRKamal Ravikant38:56

       Yeah.

9. 38:57 – 48:52

   Chris’s burnout confession and the ‘life happens to/for/through me’ ladder

   1. CWChris Williamson38:57

      That's why you gotta, you got, you gotta sort your own shit first and you have to treat yourself as if you are someone that you are responsible for helping. So, that's one. And I wanna k- I wanna kinda come back to how, how I think all of that links in. But I had a, um, I had a, uh, a bad couple of weeks recently, um, and it was, started last week, actually, as I began reading the book, and the book was one of a number of different influences which occurred at the same time, but it was something that I needed to read. Um, and what I felt at the time was I was very much at the mercy of what was happening in life, that I, I'd, I'd piled a lot on. This podcast is a, uh, uh, uh, absolute labor of love and it is one of my, one of my primary passions, but it is a punishing schedule to release two episodes a week. It is challenging. I have a number of other businesses. I have this, that, and the other. I'm not singing the Woe Is Me song. I'm trying to give you context, that's all. And I just, it got too much and I was like, "Look, like, I just want to, I just wanna put my hands in the air. I just wanna give up." I'm like, "I'm just, I'm just sick. Like, I'm just gonna go to bed. I'm just gonna go to bed and I'm not gonna bother checking my phone, and I'm gonna feel bad about the fact that I'm in bed, but I'm gonna do this." Like, that, that's me. That's my defense mechanism. Like, "Now fuck it. I don't need to." I don't have a boss. I run my own company. I'm single at 31 and don't have any financial liabilities that, the, I can do whatever I want and the company continues to go. I don't have any kids. I'm not, um, you know, I have no reason to generate my own meaning during the day, right? No reason at all.

   2. KRKamal Ravikant40:26

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson40:27

      So most people, "I gotta get up. My boss will shout at me at work. I gotta get up. I gotta get the kids to school."

   4. KRKamal Ravikant40:31

      Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson40:31

      "I gotta get up. My missus is here." And that structure that they have, that help gives them momentum. It gives them that pull, right? It's the wind in their sails to pull them through. And I was just like, "Do you know what it is? I'm fucking sick of creating ... I'm sick of getting over my own inertia." Like, every morning, I gotta get up and it's, "Fuck, this sucks." Like, there's no one here telling me, like, gassing me up. Like saying, "Yeah, man. Let's come on. Let's get it. Let's get after it. Now go to the gym. It's still working for you. It's da-da-da." It's like, no. Like, it's me that has to do this to myself and if I don't do it, no one is there to say, "You should've done it," except for me and my own feelings of loathing and guilt and self-referential-

   6. KRKamal Ravikant41:10

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson41:10

      ... fucking, "You sh- you shit house. Why didn't you get out of bed?" And I was like, "Ah, fuck." Like, this is just ... I, I can't be assed. Bollocks to it. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do this, and that's like I'm sort of flip-flopping around, just going to the shop maybe like, fart out, half a gym session, go home. Not really do anything, just wallowing, being, feeling shit. Uh, and it's been a while, it's been a while since I felt like that. And I was like, "Fuck, this, this sucks." Like, this is, this is a place that I thought I'd conquered. I didn't think that I was gonna end up having to deal with this again, again, again for the fucking however months' time. I'm 31. How is it that life, just life ... What's the problem, Chris? "Oh, well, um, kinda, I just got a little bit too many projects on at the moment, and the amount of agency and the vastness of choices that my life has g- gives to me is, um, it's weighing heavy." And you're like, "Okay, there's starving children in Africa. There's people who are literally bleeding out of their abdomen and it's spraying everywhere like a garden hose, like in America and blah, blah, blah."

   8. KRKamal Ravikant42:17

      Like a sprinkler.

   9. CWChris Williamson42:18

      Yeah.

   10. KRKamal Ravikant42:18

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson42:18

       That's it. Um, like, what, what, what are you doing? Like, why is this a big deal? And I, I, I was just, I was so sick. And one of the things that you say in the book, which verbalized something that I'd been feeling for a long time, was talking about how life happens to me or life happens through me.

   12. KRKamal Ravikant42:40

       ... three stages. To me or for me or through me.

   13. CWChris Williamson42:43

       Through me.

   14. KRKamal Ravikant42:43

       Yeah. It's, uh, it's almost a step by step. You're leveling up.

   15. CWChris Williamson42:47

       Yep. And it, what, what is that, that particular dynamic? It's from victim to actor to hero? Probably something along those lines?

   16. KRKamal Ravikant42:58

       That's ... Yeah, yeah. It's more of an internal thing, and the, and, uh, and the expression of it being external. It's something I've learned, um, you know, like, life happens to me is, is, I think it seems to be a modus operandi as human beings. We think, uh, uh, we're ... Everything happens to us, but that's where victim mindset comes from, and that's a very standard thing, you know? With like, life happens to me. Life happened for, for me is, that happened as I started to love myself. It just felt like life was starting to just turn, like all of it was just turning in my favor. And that's something that other people notice too as they start to do this. It's very interesting, as within so without. You know, the old saying. And then I think the next higher level as you go deeper is, it's almost like you start to feel like, like what your inside is starts to become, your expression starts to become, uh, sorry, your outside starts to become an expression of your inside, and you almost feel like you're just flowing through life and life is flowing through you, and it's, um, and it's wonderful. And I'm not saying it's always easy, you know, because we are human beings, and we're living, living a human life, but it's a beautiful ploy, way to experience life, and it, it's not one that you force. It's not one that you intellectually say, "Okay, I get it, and I'm gonna ..." It's not a matter of intellectually getting anything. It's a matter of living it, you know? Um, so, it's, it's something that happens as you start to do this, as you start to ... And look, you can choose something else besides loving yourself. You can just be, be just work on something that makes you better on the inside and you'll notice the same things. And we all have. We all have gone through like maybe flow in our life and things just start to work, and if you look at it, it's, it's a reflection of your inner state.

   17. CWChris Williamson44:41

       It is. So yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about the amount of discomfort and just general angst and all this sort of stuff, um, and then, uh, I woke up one more morning and I was like, "Do you know what it is? I'm sick. Like I'm, I'm absolutely sick of feeling like I'm at the mercy of my life, I'm at the mercy of my thoughts." Like this is not, this is absolutely not the hero's journey. This is absolutely not the way that this was supposed to go. Um, so I started to reframe things, and there isn't, there are certain things that you can do which change course very quickly. I'm hesitant to talk about like this one thing, it came down from the clouds and like, you know-

   18. KRKamal Ravikant45:23

       Right, right.

   19. CWChris Williamson45:23

       ... my life, my life changed upon this, this single moment. But I was able to reframe my thinking, and it made a very, very big difference very, very quickly. And one of the main things was, yeah, perhaps there are some quirks of my own consciousness, perhaps there are some quirks of everybody's consciousness that's listening, and with those come some benefits, with those come some curses, right? Like it is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply. The depth of my consciousness causes me to suffer all of these little aphorisms that you hear.

   20. KRKamal Ravikant45:57

       Mm.

   21. CWChris Williamson45:57

       But the point is, that i- this is the vessel that I've got. This is the vessel I've got. This is the mind I've got. And to the people that are listening, it's the consciousness that you are in, that's the one you've got. Like, you know, whether you believe in re- reincarnation or something sort of a little bit more exotic, that's cool, but right now, the only thing that you've got is the brain that you're living in. So you've got to work with it. Like there has to be something. You have to make it work, because the alternative is just lying in bed and, and eating biscuits. And like, that, that sucks. Like that's not a cool way to spend a day. So I thought, "Right, I need to, I need to really try and, uh, uh, and reframe what's going on," and there's some concepts that came to mind, leaning into discomfort from Ben Bergeron on Chasing Excellence where he talks about leaning into discomfort as if you invited it through the door. It's like a good friend. It's like, "Okay. Yeah, yeah, cool. This is, this feels like a little bit, a little bit uncomfortable to me, but that's cool. This is why I'm here. This is because it's a place of growth for me, and this is part of my process." And the fact of the matter is, the, the way that I came back to it was, "Yeah, maybe I've got to get over my own inertia. Perhaps that's, perhaps that's just part of life. Perhaps it would be great if there was this big support structure that kind of brought me through everything. Perhaps it would be brilliant if there was someone gassing me, like a hype man, you know, like DJs have got on stage, like just hyping you up-

   22. KRKamal Ravikant47:19

       (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson47:19

       ... every morning, like, "Yeah, man! Let's get out of bed. Let's go get it." How's that ... But I don't. That's, that's, that, that's not the situation that life has for me at the moment. So I, I got to make this work, and I have to work out how I can make this work, and taking control, taking agency over the things that I can control, because there are some things that I can control. And doing that, and being proud of the things that I am able to do, being proud and, and, and feeling happy with the person that I've become. And it, you know, when you talk about the traumatic experiences that you've had, through childhood, and then putting them out on display for ... Fuck knows how many people are gonna read this book, (laughs) like a lot of people. The, the fact that someone is, you're prepared to do that, I'm like ... You need to be able to own everything it is, all of the failings, all of the scars, all of the trauma, all of the good and the bad, and you have to, because the alternative is lying in bed eating biscuits or worse. And that's not-

   24. KRKamal Ravikant48:26

       Look, if you're gonna put something out to the world, you gotta give it your best, otherwise don't do it, if you want it to last, you know? That's one of the, I mean, the, the stuff that's in that book is there for a reason, you know? It's purely designed to be of value, you know? Um-So when, when you start looking at that way, it makes it- it makes the choice much easier.

10. 48:52 – 54:23

    The core method overview: self-forgiveness, a vow, and daily practice

    1. CWChris Williamson48:52

       Getting on to the second section of the book, which is where you actually start to talk about the process, would you be able to go through that? Would you be able to explain the process of, of going from-

    2. KRKamal Ravikant49:02

       Yeah. (clears throat)

    3. CWChris Williamson49:02

       ... forgiveness?

    4. KRKamal Ravikant49:04

       I'm happy to. You know, the one- the one caveat I would give is, the reason why I wrote the expanded version was because-

    5. CWChris Williamson49:09

       (clears throat)

    6. KRKamal Ravikant49:11

       ... there's a process here. You know, this is a process that I have refined over the years. So, to try to s- give a quick synopsis, I would say it'd be like telling someone on a podcast how to do a squ- how to do squats and deadlifts. I would say, like, you know, like, mm, you know, if you're gonna do it, you know, like, th- like, really pay attention in the book because there's nuances and those nuances matter. They make it easier and they make it faster and they make it last. Um, but fundamentally, it all starts ... uh, it almost- it, it starts with (clears throat) if you're gonna leave the- if you're gonna go to the future, you gotta leave the past behind. So it's an exercise that I've done over the years to forgive myself, a pure- a very simple exercise of self-forgiveness, and it works. And then, like, I- everyone I know who's done it, it works. It's very simple, and it's literally you start to realize the weight of what you've been carrying and it's time to let it go. You gotta let go- b- before you really ... 'cause now we're stepping into the future where we're gonna be loving ourselves, so you gotta let go of the past. So the first is doing that exercise. Then the second is, uh, the power of commitment. You can't just say, "Okay, I'm gonna love myself," and then do ... you know, when we say things like this, especially with things we're not used to, if you've been eating bonbons all your life, you can say, "I'm gonna go, you know, train for Mr. Olympia, you know, be Mr. Olympia," you gotta- you better have a plan of action. You better have committed. You've- some serious commitment, right? You don't just do- go to the gym when you feel like it and eat your, you know, chicken breasts and broccoli when you feel like it, you know, whatever Mr. Olympia eats.

    7. CWChris Williamson50:37

       (laughs)

    8. KRKamal Ravikant50:38

       (laughs) You know. Um, but you get- you know, it- it takes s- significant commitment and, and I think for the- for the- th- most importantly for mindset. This fundamentally is a way to, like ... is a mindset. It's a- if I can use the word heartset, it's working on your heart and your mind, right? That takes ... the way to really shift it fast is to make that commitment. So I show how to- how I made my vow to do it and how you can make your vow. So it's a forgive yourself, make the vow. Then the rest is, you gotta keep your vow. And then the rest is the practice that I- you know, of, of loving yourself, and it's a very simple practice based on (clears throat) (coughs) how to make yourself feel it on a consistent basis. And then even little things like, you know, throughout the day, 10 breaths, where you stop and you make yourself feel it and how to do that, and using the concept of light. I found that the- for me, the concept of bringing light in as I did that for some reason always really helped. We are- you know, we're wired for love, we're wired for light, you know, so wanna go where we're wired for. And ... so it's a very simple practice and, you know, it basically involves your breath and some of your thoughts during the day, which- both of which you're gonna be doing regardless. But what you're doing is you're taking that- that monkey in your mind, you're putting reins on it, you know? Or, like, let's say it's a horse and it's a wild horse and you're putting reins on it and you're training it to go where you want it to go, until it eventually starts to walk in there on its own. That's all it is. And it's training. It's mental training. And it's n- It feels a little foreign in the beginning because how often have- have you been taught that, you know, to just work on the mind itself? But it- it is the most important thing we got. It is the one that affects everything. You can have everything going great in your life, but you could s- inside feel horrible, you know? Or vice versa. Or just be steady, you know? I was talking to my brother about this, um, maybe a month after the whole experience, and I was like, "Man, it's kudos to my mindset how I'm just like, how my state of mind is through this whole experience." Like, kudos to the work I've done, it shows, you know, how my mindset is about this whole thing. I mean, look, there were some really hard moments. Some really, really hard moments. Really challenging. And, you know, I get through them quickly and boom, I'm back to solid, you know? Um, I- you know, but that comes from- that comes from, like, the work I've done on myself, you know? It's kudos to that. It's like, it's like- You know your body when you work out. If you go to the gym every day for a year, for 365 days, you know, and you're eating, like, lean and healthy, your body will show. There's no way you can hide. No one- people are not gonna ... You know, you see someone today and see them 365 days from now and you've done that, they'll be like, "Oh my God, what happened?" Right? Imagine the same with your mind. Right? And the- the mind is the one that starts it all.

    9. CWChris Williamson53:26

       You have to lead with that mind first. You have to have that mindset that you want to have the change and what I really like is ... it's not ... The, the, the idea of loving, loving yourself is not simply a concept. There is a structure. There is a framework that you can instantiate into your daily routine, into your daily practice.

    10. KRKamal Ravikant53:48

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CWChris Williamson53:48

        You know (clears throat) , James Clear, Atomic Habits, "We do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems." And that's a system there. That's how you take the concept. This is the system that you follow, and here's a story which drives the nail home with a sledgehammer that's like the size of a house.

    12. KRKamal Ravikant54:07

        And shows you also the nuances. You can do that in stories that you can't do otherwise, um, that the mind will tune out. That you cannot really get it, so like if you hit that point in your head, you know, it's okay. You know? Here's what I need to do.

11. 54:23 – 1:05:27

    Why people don’t love themselves—and why fixing beats theorizing

    1. CWChris Williamson54:23

       Why do you think that so many people aren't loving themselves naturally?

    2. KRKamal Ravikant54:30

       I don't know, man, that's the hu- I think it's part of the human condition. Um ... I honestly don't know. Like, I mean, uh, we all can have theories about it, but I can have theories about my own, you know? But, like, I got to the point ... Like I said, I co- I- my, my mindset is more of a doer.... so my mindthat, mindset is how do I find a solution to this, rather than try to figure out why the problem exis- exists. That's theory. I could spend a whole lifetime going there, right? I just wanna fix it. I want practical. So, that's, that's my bias. (clears throat) So, to, I'm at the point where I think I, I, uh, I remember in the book I wrote, like, when I first wrote it, when I was first coming up with it, it's like, you know, I was, I wondered about why my mind wasn't going to those negative places, but it's like, you know, when you're on fire, you don't need a lecture on the nature of combustion. You just want water, water, right? And that's what I believe in, like, just, just, like, put yourself out of fire. Think, uh, that matters. You, yeah, you know, the human condition can be a shitshow. Okay. How do I make it better? How do I make myself better? You start with yourself, as you seen over the, with the airplane analogy, and then you, you start to make others better around you just naturally. It's pretty, it's really interesting how that works. You make yourself better, the ones around you start to get better.

    3. CWChris Williamson55:45

       So, the-

    4. KRKamal Ravikant55:45

       It's just a natural ripple effect.

    5. CWChris Williamson55:48

       During the podcast that I did with Aubrey, he used this analogy th- that was fantastic, and he said that in order to serve you have to be fit for service. And that was manifest as you do not serve others from your cup. You serve them from the saucer which overflows around your cup.

    6. KRKamal Ravikant56:12

       Oh, interesting. That's a, that's a very interesting metaphor. Interesting.

    7. CWChris Williamson56:19

       If you haven't sorted your own shit, it's difficult to help-

    8. KRKamal Ravikant56:22

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson56:22

       ... other people with theirs.

    10. KRKamal Ravikant56:25

        Yeah. Even, like, the forgiveness thing, the self-forgiveness exercise, you know, it's like, look, forgive yourself first. Y- if y- you know, especially we, we, you know, we're taught to forgive others, but you can't forgive others unless you're able to forgive yourself. Truly forgiveness, true forgiveness starts f- with the self. When you start, uh, becoming someone who just naturally forgives themselves, you start to forgive others much easier and it becomes more of a natural expression of it. And look, forgiveness only... I mean, the lack of forgiveness only hurts us.

    11. CWChris Williamson56:59

        We're carrying enough baggage day-to-day, right? You don't need to carry the baggage of the past. There's enough challenges that are going to come up. There's enough things which need fixing. There's enough people who c- who we can help.

    12. KRKamal Ravikant57:10

        Yeah, I mean, look, we carry enough in us anyway and we keep on adding more along the way, you know. No one's perfect, you know. No, like, there's no, um... It's a matter of how do I just be a better human, you know? With, w- given the operating system I got, how do I just be better and better and better?

    13. CWChris Williamson57:29

        One of the points that you bring up in the story is the, the fact that you are annoyed or upset at yourself for being back in a place that you thought that you had conquered, and also, one that you had essentially become a, maybe not an authority on, but at least some sort of leader within the space of loving yourself, and you'd let that slip. That is such a, an interesting situation, I think. So many people who do work on themselves fall back into old habits, but when you fall back, not only have you got the old habit to deal with, but there's the second order referential guilt of, "Fuck, I thought, I thought I'd, I thought this was done with."

    14. KRKamal Ravikant58:16

        Right, right. Right.

    15. CWChris Williamson58:18

        And it was the first time that I've ever read a story where someone dissects that.

    16. KRKamal Ravikant58:23

        Yeah, it's, uh, it's a... Thanks, man. Li- look, I'm human, right? I wanna, like, I, I never promise my own perfection. Like, my fake- imed perfection serves no one. And I wanted to show, like, look, 'cause I have all th- I have so many em- emails from readers, man. I don't know, tens of thousands. It's, it's, like, a significant amount, right? And I read them all. I respond to them. I've star- I've got to understand what their challenges are. I wanna show them, like, "Look, you're not alone." You know? But, uh, I think as you were describing my depression, it feels so personal and all of our stories feel so personal. I wanted to say like, "Look, you're not alone. You're reaching out to me for advice. I go through the same thing and th- but this is what I do to get over it. This is what I do to get better. Again and again, I return to the same thing. And look, I'm the guy who came up with this, and look, I stopped doing it. I got lazy and, and then, you know, when something hard happened, I kind of fell apart." Right? And y- and, and, like, talk about embarrassing, talk about feeling shame, you know? Like, it was like-

    17. CWChris Williamson59:22

        (laughs) "I'm supposed to be the guy."

    18. KRKamal Ravikant59:24

        Well, I never set out to be the guy, but, like, I wrote the book on it, right?

    19. CWChris Williamson59:28

        (laughs) Yeah. The guy who wrote the book, yeah.

    20. KRKamal Ravikant59:28

        Like, that was from my experience, you know? And I wrote it from my experience, um, and so I wanted to share that as well, like, "Look, like, we will, there are times when we will, when we fall. What do we do? We step up again, knowing what works, and we do it again, and we go back at it." That's part of life.

    21. CWChris Williamson59:50

        There's people who don't have that rule book. There's people who don't have that, those tactics, those frameworks to fall back on. Um, I've had a couple of friends over the last few years who have, uh, taken their own lives, and thinking about them, they are people who had a complexity of mind which caused them to suffer, but who didn't have tools to deal with the suffering. That's, like, a commonality between them. A lot of them were people who they wanted, they wanted to become better, but didn't have a route out of it. They didn't have something prescriptive. They didn't have that wind in the sail, the kites flying limp, and it seems to them to be only one way out after that.

    22. KRKamal Ravikant1:00:50

        Yeah, I understand it. I've lost friends. I've been there, man. I've been there close to it, so I understand. Um, it's hard. It's, uh, you know, to be or not to be, the ultimate question, right? Sometimes when you hit that very close, it becomes almost appealing. Um, but it's just another pattern. It's ano- another, um ... I said it can even be an, be an addiction to go there. You know, like, I, I have lost friends too. It's ... But the way you put it was very, was wise in describing, like, who, you know, a lot of th- their condition. (sniffs)

    23. CWChris Williamson1:01:24

        So going back to what we were talking about to do with viewing yourself as someone else, it is, it's obvious that we're able to give compassion to other people that we struggle with for ourselves. We give advice to other people that we struggle to do for ourselves. Now, the number of times that I've given someone a piece of advice that I wholeheartedly could have done with heeding myself is like, it's almost like you're proj- it's like what, it's kind of like projecting, but it's advice projecting. Like you're not projecting your insecurity, it's pr- you're projecting the answer to your own insecurity or your own problem onto someone else, but you still don't listen. It's so bizarre. It's so bizarre. And then thinking about love yourself like your life depends on it, it almost sounds like a sentence you're saying to someone else, not to yourself. But you can say it to yourself, right?

    24. KRKamal Ravikant1:02:12

        Yeah. I mean, it, that, that sentence actually came from a talk I gave, um, which actually led to the writing of the original version of the book. And, um, it really was. I was like, look, if you go at it that way, it changes your life, if you go at it with that kind of intensity. Like, if you're hanging off a cliff and w- with just your fingers and it's loving yourself that's gonna save you, how just, how hard would you do it? That's, that's kinda ... When you go all in on things, it's th- that's what I'm trying to say. Basically, the whole concept of go all in. Commit, go all in. Commit, go all in. You know, that's where transformation happens. And so loving your- love yourself like your life depends on it, ultimately is, that's what it is. Commit to it, like truly commit, go all in, and watch transformation happen. It's-

    25. CWChris Williamson1:02:58

        What's-

    26. KRKamal Ravikant1:02:58

        ... pretty beautiful.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:02:59

        There's no reason to do anything else, right? You know?

    28. KRKamal Ravikant1:03:03

        Meaning?

    29. CWChris Williamson1:03:03

        By, by all provable thoughts of what is going on in the world at the moment, you have this life. There might be something else, there might not. But the one thing that we do know is that we have what's here and now, so why go half in? The only reason is perhaps because it's too difficult to go all in. But like, if the only thing that you need to overcome is difficulty, and that's the difference between you taking control and life happening through you or life happening to you and being the victim and, and playing that, that role, you need to commit.

    30. KRKamal Ravikant1:03:39

        I think, honestly, a lot of our difficulty, I'll speak from experience, is, is self-created. A lot of our internal difficulty is just self-created, just stories, right? But look, it's easy to say that. How's that gonna help anyone? You know, we all know that. So ... But look, going all in is the secret, and c- committing, going all in is the secret to greatness, you know, like in entrepreneurship and, and sports. Look at athletes, you know. How many of, uh, like amazing athletes half-ass their training all their life? You don't get that. Why is that? You know, there are always outliers. It's the outliers who change the world, and they're always the ones who really go all out. You can have talent, but talent will only get you so far. It might get you early wins, but then when you're in the pros, all of a sudden, you know, you need way more than talent. You need a lot of practice and skill. You have to have like really worked on your, on your sport. It's the same thing with the inside, you know? Like, it, it, it really is committing and going all out, or you can use all out or all in, you know, I ... When I was editing the book, going through edit process, I had to like confer (laughs) and sometimes use all out, all in, just-
12. 1:05:27 – 1:09:04

    Promises, trust, and rewiring grooves: commitment as the engine of change

    1. CWChris Williamson1:05:27

       The ability to make a promise to yourself and fulfill it I think is such a powerful and underrated, simplistic way to help people move forward, right? Like, how many people that are stuck in a rut just struggle. Th- th- they've broken promises to themselves so many times. "I'm gonna ... Tomorrow, I'm gonna start the diet. Uh, uh, this week, I'm gonna go to the gym. I'll stop smoking. I'll be nicer to my partner. I won't cheat on my par-" "I won't do this, I won't do that." Like, how many time... And then every time that that promise gets broken, it's like, uh, we're coming back to it being like there's two people. You're looking at yourself like another person. It's like if you had a friend who was consistently breaking promises to you, you'd be like, "No, man, I don't tr- I don't trust you. I don't, I don't ... You, you're not gonna do that. You're not gonna, you're not gonna, you're not gonna stop smoking, you're not gonna do whatever." But the difference is, you can't not have that thought because it's inside of your own head. So that dialogue begins to make it harder and harder and harder. So I'm a big, um, advocate for sobriety for productivity, 'cause I think it's a massively underused tool that people can do to give themselves more time or more money or more calories to spend on things they care about. And the thing is that if you, in the 21st century, surrounded by a culture where everyone's partying all the time, especially in the UK, like big drinking culture-

    2. KRKamal Ravikant1:06:54

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:06:55

       If you can go sober for 90 days or six months, say, like what else can't you do? Like the deck of cards just tumbles after that. It's like you- you were the- the one person that was on a night out that wasn't drinking for six months. Or you d- pick your po- pick your challenge, right? Like, once you've done that one thing, it's all right. "Well, hang on. I- I- I made a promise to myself and I kept it. Shit. What- what else can I do? What else can I promise myself that I'm gonna do? How- how- how much more momentum can I start to build up?" And you talk about this, right? You talk about- about greasing the groove, about a river, about sort of carving the- the path of a river and our thought patterns-

    4. KRKamal Ravikant1:07:39

       Correct.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:07:39

       ... our thought patterns being deep and our thought patterns needing to be recreated.

    6. KRKamal Ravikant1:07:44

       Yeah. I mean, like, look, you know, the classic neurons that fire together, wire together. Th- these are mental loops and groups that are running the show. So it's about creating, like, just new grooves that's- that run the show. And we gotta do it consciously. We have too many that we created unconsciously over our lives. It's just- it's, you know, taking over the reins and doing it consciously until the horse walks the- you know, starts walking in the direction where you want it to go- go naturally. That takes training. Uh, the horse doesn't just do that on its own, right? Um, yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:08:15

       It's a horse that's incredibly disobedient. Incredibly naughty horse. But yeah, uh, you know, that- that idea of making promises to yourself and keeping them, and having faith in your own word and having trust in-

    8. KRKamal Ravikant1:08:29

       It's a great path to self-confidence. You know, if you trust yourself, y- you know, like I have a fundamental trust in myself and that's like- that's something special. And how did I do that? You know, I just started making and keeping commitments to myself. You know, and so- and you learn. I'm not perfect. Sometimes I break them. Uh, you know, it's- but you, like get up and you- you know, you recommit and you go at it again. You know, you don't quit. Right? You don't give up. You learn from it and you recommit and you go at it again. You go at it again.

13. 1:09:04 – 1:12:22

    Relationships and self-love: not opposing forces, but a better way of being

    1. CWChris Williamson1:09:04

       One of the things that you bring up, so the story at the end of the book is about a breakup, and inherently with that, you need to let somebody else into your life, you need to allow someone to be a part of your life. But what we're talking about here is loving yourself. That's inherently quite an independent thing. This is you on your own. How do you marry those- those two things together? For the majority of people listening, they will either have or end up with some sort of significant other, hopefully very happily for a long time, but they also need to have that framework in place that is just them, but they need to be sufficiently open to allow that other person to permeate into it. How- how do those two things blend?

    2. KRKamal Ravikant1:09:48

       Oh, there's- there's nothing... There's nothing, um, opposing about each other. One's just a way of being. And when you're loving yourself, you're way more loving to others naturally, you're way more accepting, you're way- you're l- I mean, you just are. There's nothing, uh, you know, that doesn't fit there. Um, it's not being separate for someone, it's not taking time away from someone, it's just a way of thinking, a way of being inside, and that has nothing to do with, um... We have enough thoughts about ourselves inside. All this is doing is just channeling it to something that serves you and serves your life. And if it serves you in a such a positive way, it's gonna serve the ones you're around. You know, it just is. There's nothing about it that's not compatible. You know, no matter what, even if you're like wrapped around someone 24/7, you're still gonna be having your thoughts, you're still in your head.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:10:41

       Mm-hmm.

    4. KRKamal Ravikant1:10:42

       And so what's gonna be happening inside that head? What's gonna be happening inside that head when it's a shitty day, you know? Not all days are great days. You know, what's gonna be- what's gonna be the solidness in there? That's yours. That's your choice, and that's for you to work on. And, like when you work on that and making that better, like who you're around, who you're wrapped around 24/7, you're better with that person.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:11:08

       It's easy to see the problem that you came up against, and I have as well many times, you call it coasting. "I got comfortable, so I coasted."

    6. KRKamal Ravikant1:11:18

       Or lazy. (laughs)

    7. CWChris Williamson1:11:19

       Uh, yeah, yeah. Pick your- pick- pick your semantic.

    8. KRKamal Ravikant1:11:22

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:11:22

       But, um, yeah, I got- I got comfortable, so I coasted. I- I- I- I no longer did the practices that I know that are good for me, and it's easy to see how that happens, right? And the particularly interesting thing about your story is it is, for many people, uh, rug flip day is the nightmare scenario. It is the number one thing, a partner saying to you, "You haven't done anything wrong, but this is no longer happening," is... It's the- the worst day of their life. It's- it's- that's exactly what they're fearing all the time. And someone being comfortable before that, letting those frameworks go, no longer doing the things which give them the strength and the structure to get through a situation like that, that's where that weakness lies, right? And that comfort and that

14. 1:12:22 – 1:17:58

    Avoiding ‘coasting’: fear pushes, commitment pulls—and opioids show the stakes

    1. CWChris Williamson1:12:22

       coasting before. So, what I wondered was the motivation for not coasting. Is it out of fear of what might happen? What's- how does someone continue when things do get comfortable? How does someone continue to have the drive from when things were uncomfortable?

    2. KRKamal Ravikant1:12:39

       Um, yeah, 'cause that's the point I hammer home again and again, 'cause that's been my biggest weakness and that's been the weakness of a lot of the readers that reach out to me, right? So it's like I- something I wanna drive home. And like, that's why I make- I... The part two of the manual creates a practice out of it, creates a consistent practice that you can do again and again and creates, like very simple things, like the ten breaths, that you can do no matter what. So you always continue going forward.... right? Is it out of fear? No. But after a while, it becomes, like, "Look, I just want my life to be this way. I want my inside to be this way." Uh, 'cause fear only brings you so far. You run out of energy when you... Your fear can only take you so far. You'll burn out. Versus, when you're doing something that's, that just f-fundamentally is making you better. And... But it takes conscious choice, it takes conscious recommitment. And I talk about that too. You know, you don't just commit once. You don't just commit when you're 15 to, uh, to work out at the gym. You're like c- you know, you're doing these unconscious commitments, you know, uh, where you're stepping up and doing things if you wanna be in better and better shape. But you are doing these commitments, and it's a p- it's a process of recommitting. And sometimes you know you'll coast, it's... And it's part of being human. But then, when you realize it, then recommit and go back at it again, because you will be better and your life will be better. And, look, if it's out of fear sometime, then all right, use that to drive you, but that will only take you so far. Commitment is what's gonna get you... It's gonna... What... Fear will push you and you'll run out of energy. Commitment pulls you forward, you know. It was my commitment to this book that pulls me forward, gets me out of bed, uh, even though I'm, you know, recovering and I'm in pain, gets me up, and gets me doing what I need to do, no matter what. It's not fear. Fear won't do that. Fear won't get you off narcotics that easily. And they're alluring, man, I'll tell you.

Episode duration: 1:20:32