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95 min read · 18,680 words- 0:00 – 5:34
Why You’ll Never Have Fewer Problems
- CWChris Williamson
You can spend your entire life solving your problems without ever feeling like you have fewer problems. And the more successful you become at improving your circumstances, the more absurd the problems you find yourself worrying about can become. So I had Martin Seligman on, positive psychology guy. There's this thing called conservation of dysphoria. So dysphoria, bad feelings, conservation of keeping them at the same level. So as your life gets better, some people look for worries with a bigger magnifying glass. They make small worries bigger so that the same amount of worries that they had in the past are what they have in the future. But because their life is better, there's actually fewer things for them to worry about, so they start inflating small things into big things. And I thought that, uh, you can spend your entire life solving your problems without ever feeling like you have fewer problems. Thought that was really cool.
- JSJames Smith
It's interesting as well, there's a concept that a single coin in a vase makes the most noise. So as you eradicate the problems that you have in life, if you boil it down to one-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JSJames Smith
... it's gonna make more noise than all the others put together. So for instance, let's say when you're young, you have your future to worry about, your career to worry about, finding a wife to worry about. You have all of these things to worry about. But then later on in life, when you've only got one issue, it is crippling because it's radiated and all your focus goes onto that.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
And like the purple elephant, the more you try to stop thinking about purple elephant, the more omnipresent it is.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
So there's another kind of synergistic thing there that, yeah, even... You can have so much in life, and it's very difficult 'cause when I was younger, I couldn't sympathize with people that had money. I was like, "Oh, you've got money, so you haven't got problems."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JSJames Smith
Now I get a little bit older, I'm like, "Oh, it's, it's just one of the different categories." You can still be wildly unhappy and have a good income.
- CWChris Williamson
I think one of the problems that people feel is, "Who am I to be upset about this thing when there's people that have got it worse than me?" That like, uh, velvet prison thing, champagne problems. Because not only have you got the... Should have put do not disturb on before I got started. Let's ride to war like the great Romans did. Eleven Labs reaction's still coming in. [laughs] Uh, I think people that don't have obvious problems externally don't get that much sympathy, and then they feel guilty about having problems, which is a weird one.
- JSJames Smith
It goes both ways as well, right? Where I love to boil things down, and I'm not a neuroscientist. I'm not Andrew Huberman yet. Uh, the chemicals that you use in your brain for happiness and sadness, they're the same chemicals irrespective of circumstance. Now, I try and say to people with happiness, we've spoken about this before, that you don't get an Uber surcharge, like a one point seven ratio on serotonin or dopamine because you live in a bigger house or you are, you know, in a more privileged side of the world or whatever. Like a student having a laugh with their friends-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- JSJames Smith
... is having the same laugh and the same emotional, uh, thoughts, feelings, chemicals that someone who's like a billionaire would. But then the same... So we, we, we'll accept that. We'll go, "Yeah, of course," you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
A happy student and, and a happy millionaire-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JSJames Smith
... have same, same happiness, but we don't have the same adequate thought processes to sadness-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JSJames Smith
... or to grief or to agony. You're like, "Oh, that person has nothing. They're sad. That's terrible." Or, "This person, although they have so much going right in their life, if they've got anguish, oh, what are you sad for?"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I love that Uber surcharge idea that, uh, you were talking about the first time you ever made money online. Yusef has this great story. So my friend who I did a lot of podcasts with early on, he was a, a, a doctor, and he was working a night shift in a hospital. And while he was there, there was a lady who was having bowel problems. She wasn't able to sphincteri contract to push what was in her bowels out. Lots of discomfort, and her family was there saying, "Look, look at how much pain she's in. This needs to be sorted." There's something called decompacting, and decompacting is putting a gauntlet glove on and getting into the rectum and manually pulling this stuff out. So he rings the specialist, the specialist, some South African guy, he goes, "Um, no, no, no, I'm not coming in to sort that. You can d- you can decompact it yourself. It'll be fine." So he does this thing, spends half an hour, the family's shouting at him. He spent all of this time. He gets out, like pulls the glove off, does all of the sanitary stuff, checks his phone, and he's sold a PDF that he had written five years ago for £7.50 and realized that net after taxes, he'd made more money from that PDF in the last hour than he had from decompacting this patient. And your idea of the Uber surcharge, I think, what... where did that come from? What was the first example of that?
- JSJames Smith
So I was saying, uh, for instance, put it very simply, $10,000 a month, I was like, "Wow, this is gonna be amazing. I can't wait till I hit it." And it was amazing, but then the first 100K month, you would think on a linear basis would be 10 times the enjoyment.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JSJames Smith
But I actually got about a nought point eight surcharge. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
The 10K made me happier.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
And I've heard this before on my, quote-unquote, "way up," and I was like, "These people are mental. They are all wrong." And then I experienced it myself and I was like, "Oh, they're, they're, they're kind of right in some respects." And there's almost diminishing returns as you go on, but every person will lie to themselves and go, "Oh, but the, the next thing-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- JSJames Smith
... will yield the same-"
- 5:34 – 8:00
You Can’t Speed-Run Hedonism
- CWChris Williamson
living, all the rest of it. But like forget the money thing, just talk about experiences. Like the first time that you got to take a trip abroad with your friends. Wide-eyed, you're so excited, you're having a beer at 6:00 AM in the departure lounge.
- JSJames Smith
Malia '07.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Unbelievable. And then over-
- JSJames Smith
Did you have the polo shirts with the team, like with the names on the back? Jim-
- CWChris Williamson
We couldn't afford polo shirts. I, I'm, I'm from a working class family.
- JSJames Smith
Mine was Jimbo, had 23 on the back.
- CWChris Williamson
Jimbo.
- JSJames Smith
That was my name until I went to uni.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Uh, I'm glad that went. And then- You go on holiday again and you need this sort of ever-increasing dose. Like this is what habituation is. It's hedonic adaptation. But I think talking about it kind of like a drug addict or seeing it like a drug addict throughout your life... Before he made the hard right pivot into professional anti-Semite, I spoke to Dan Bilzerian about this, and he said... I, I asked him this question 'cause he's like this guy who's maybe speed ran hedonism more quickly than anyone, at least in the public eye, right? Like all of the women, all of the drugs, all of the flights, all of the holidays, and the houses, and the cars, and the guns, and everything. And I asked, "Uh, do you ever feel like you sort of went through it too quickly? Do you wish that you could have slowed down?" Because once you've bought your dream car or once you've been to the dream holiday or once you've got the house that you've always wanted, like where do you go from there? And the same thing is true at whatever level you're at. You basically want to try and stretch out your achievement of different things and goals. Like for instance, we're in Exeter at the moment. We're on tour. Hello to everyone, by the way. It's a very unceremonious introduction to the tour bus. Look at that. Oh, it's raining. Fucking brilliant. So for the people that are just listening, James has lifted up the window on the tour bus to expose an Enterprise rent-a-van, uh, it's a Peugeot box. That's a '26 model though. That's nice. Um, one, two, three, four-
- JSJames Smith
Four Biffa bins
- CWChris Williamson
... five non-recyclable, non-recyclable though-
- JSJames Smith
Oh
- CWChris Williamson
... Biffa bins out there, and a yellow, uh, parking-
- JSJames Smith
Bollard
- CWChris Williamson
... bollard thing. That's lovely. It also took... Oh, hello. That's someone throwing rubbish out. Uh, it also took maybe over 100-point turn to park the bus here this morning. Like we got to the parking spot on time, and we were late for the rest of our day, not because of traffic, but... and not because of not finding a parking spot, but simply because of not being able to get into the parking spot.
- JSJames Smith
It's 'cause you've got a trailer on the back full of Neutonic.
- CWChris Williamson
That is true.
- JSJames Smith
The point you were making before, the hedonism thing.
- 8:00 – 12:41
The Danger Of Waiting To Have Kids
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JSJames Smith
Uh, permission to be evangelic.
- CWChris Williamson
Run it.
- JSJames Smith
Having kids, and this isn't me trying to say to people they need to have kids.
- CWChris Williamson
Same.
- JSJames Smith
I have done every hedonistic thing to excess. Whatever amount, I've done more. Dan Bilzerian, like he had the more, the, the flashier version, the jets.
- CWChris Williamson
You had the working class version.
- JSJames Smith
Mate, I had the front three seats on EasyJet. That was my jet.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
You know, uh, so I, I've run hedonism. I never wa- You know, if you, if we'd sat here or even when we did the pod where I was laying in bed on a pregnancy pillow and you were at your house in Newcastle. If in that pod you said, "Do you want to have kids?" I'd go, "Nah." I was like, "Not really, not really bothered." Then even at 30, 31, 32, had the books, had the tours. I had one of these buses. Not one part of my brain was thinking about kids. Then I had my son since we last had this, and I cannot believe the amount of happiness I derive from it. You, you see me, all I do is moan that I'm too far away from my son. So to people out there, when you talk about a decline of happiness, and I know there's this decline in birth rate, I know the correlation-
- CWChris Williamson
I think those two things might be linked.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah. And like obviously it's... you can't point causa- causation, but it's crazy to me how many people in their 30s feel a little bit lost. I've never had that, but having my son has been this like, this homing beacon to something that never experienced. And again, there's got to be a part of it. I've spoken to you about this before. Being adopted, I've never seen a blood relative.
- CWChris Williamson
Crazy.
- JSJames Smith
So like never-
- CWChris Williamson
First time you told me that, that when you pick your son up, it will be the first time in your entire conscious life that you touch another blood relative.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's mad. And then-
- CWChris Williamson
Insane
- JSJames Smith
... and then when I look at him, I'm like, "What, what is... what of this is from me? What is from my fiancée?"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
It's amazing, but like it's crazy. It's actually made me a lot less ambitious in other areas of my life, and I, I really love it. So I joke a bit, uh, with falling off, joking with these boys. Everyone we talk to, I'm like, "Oh, I used to be relevant or whatever." But like success now for me is such a metric of like my son. So, uh, I've never really spoken about this publicly, but when I had my son, we got pregnant straight away. Boom. No problems. No issues. Now we're going through secondary infertility. Yes, I'm on TRT, but my sperm numbers are good with an IVF clinic. Uh, Tay's egg count is great. We're in a beta Asian paradox where if my sperm quality was worse or her egg count was worse, we would've started IVF sooner.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
But because everything's fine, the IVF clinic are like, "Yeah, just keep going. Just keep going." And, um, so we're now experiencing difficulty in, uh, conceiving. By the time this goes out, it could be different hopefully. But a lot of my friends now, they're like 34, 35, they've told me their whole life they really want to have kids, and they're like, "Oh, but I, I want to buy a house first," or, "I want to do this. I want financial security," and all of these things, which I, I get, and I'm not saying that their values are, uh, you know, not worthy or whatever. But I said to one of them, "If you knew it was gonna take you two years to get pregnant, would you start now?" They went, "Of course." I went, "Well, you don't know that you're gonna fall pregnant straight away."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
"So why not start now?"
- CWChris Williamson
Talking, talking as a man who's currently going through some fertility complications.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah. And, and now I'm just looking at my friends and I'm like, "Oh, if, if you, if you could relive my life, and you could say to me like what could be the worst thing that could ever happen to me?" Can we imagine we do decide eventually to have a child and we couldn't.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
There is no amount of... And this is coming from someone that was indifferent about having kids.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
So the reason I'm saying this and kind of being vulnerable and talking about my personal affairs is there'll be people listening to this, potentially teens, 20s, 30s, maybe even 40s, who, if you're anything like me, felt indifferent to the idea of having children. I'm now telling you, it is my... and family, I would say, is my sole driver of happiness. Everything else is noise. I want to be wealthy for my family, for my child. I want him to be spoiled.
- 12:41 – 14:12
Why You Still Feel Like A Teenager
- CWChris Williamson
that, there's a line that I learned from Dr. K a couple of weeks ago, "Growing up is abandoning what works over and over again. Growing up is abandoning what works over and over again."
- JSJames Smith
I've got another one for you.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JSJames Smith
On this. It's a quote, and I'm probably gonna butcher it 'cause I can't remember it. It was a person looking at a picture of their parents who were the same age they are now-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JSJames Smith
... when they were a child. They go, "Now I look at my parents and realize they were just old teenagers that didn't know what they were doing."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
Because they now as a teena- or they as a parent now feel the exact same.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JSJames Smith
So myself, as a father, feel like a teenager plus 20 years [laughs] .
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JSJames Smith
Just guessing as well.
- CWChris Williamson
We were walking around. We're at... I said we're in Exeter today on tour. This is the tour bus. It's a bit of a shit tip, sorry. Um, we were walking around the university today, and I look at students, and I'm like, "Yeah, that's me. That's me." But it's evidently not. It's me 20 years ago.
- JSJames Smith
How old do you feel saying that? I remember when I was young, people were like, "Oh yeah, just you wait when you get older, lad. In 20 years." I'm like, "Shut up, mate. I'm 20. I'm invincible."
- CWChris Williamson
It's quiet, unc.
- JSJames Smith
Mate, I am... Do you get a... I get this, like, weird anxiety now where if I have a pain in my side-
- CWChris Williamson
Cancer
- JSJames Smith
... that's, yeah, I'm, I'm gonna die.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm dead.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah. I get a toothache now and I'm like, "It's probably a brain tumor." At 20, anything would happen, I'd be fine.
- CWChris Williamson
Made of rubber and magic. I'll sniff it away.
- JSJames Smith
In Laos, you know there's people dying drinking the ethanol in Laos. I drank out of a tub with a dead gecko in it. It was pretty much ethanol. I got a free vest. I was buzzing. What are you laughing at? [laughs] Mate, in Laos I'd do anything. The whiskey was cheaper than water.
- CWChris Williamson
What
- 14:12 – 24:25
Crazy Experiences In Asia
- CWChris Williamson
were you doing in Laos?
- JSJames Smith
Uh, tubing. You know about tubing?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JSJames Smith
Vang Vieng.
- CWChris Williamson
What's that?
- JSJames Smith
[laughs] Oh, I get to teach Chris Williamson something. You go to this town, and there's gonna be some old boys nod along to this. So you, um, usually start in Thailand, then you go into Laos. The best way to describe Laos is instead of chilling their beer, they just put ice in it, right? You got this, uh, area called Vang Vieng, uh, and Luang Prabang. Great words. And in Vang Vieng they have this tubing, and you see people, they've got, like, the, the tubing vests on. You get a rubber insert from a tire.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JSJames Smith
They pump it up. You go downstream, then you jump in the river. The river goes downstream. You're floating in a rubber tire.
- CWChris Williamson
Like a lazy river.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah. Then there's bars, shacks at the side.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JSJames Smith
They chuck out ropes. You grab them.
- CWChris Williamson
Pull you, pull you in.
- JSJames Smith
They pull you in.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JSJames Smith
Drinking games.
- CWChris Williamson
This sounds great.
- JSJames Smith
Straight, straight arm in pints.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JSJames Smith
You get absolutely smashed. But Australia had to shut it down because too many Aussies were dying. Rope swings-
- CWChris Williamson
I thought you were in Laos.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah, but the Aust- I pretty sure-
- CWChris Williamson
How did Australia get and shut it down?
- JSJames Smith
Because the insurance companies, the travel insurance companies, they were breaking their backs, breaking their legs. You're a five-hour trip from the nearest hospital. There's rope swings-
- CWChris Williamson
Nightmare
- JSJames Smith
... but the river depth changes. So as we're going downstream, I'm catching my ass on rocks. Then the rope swings are massive. So these Aussies are like, "Yeah, fucking hell, mate. Let's go fucking tubing." That, that's what they're like. You see them in Bali, they're just going nuts. They were doing rope swings into shallow water, fucking themselves up. But anyway, as you go down, you look at the prices, and, like, the whiskey was, like, almost free. But you drank it, the next day you didn't have a hangover, you felt like you'd been poisoned. But genuinely, people have gone blind, they've died from drinking these fucking mixtures.
- CWChris Williamson
Exciting. Exciting.
- JSJames Smith
You know, like Thailand full moon, you get the, the bottles with all the same safety c- tops. It's like that. But no [laughs] funny thing you don't know about this town, the town where you're hungover, I don't know if it's the same now, you've got maybe, like, 20, 30 cafes, and all of them play Friends all day, every day.
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- JSJames Smith
It's just what they do in the town. And you go in there for breakfast hungover.
- 24:25 – 30:21
Manipulative But Loving Dating Advice
- JSJames Smith
On the train
- CWChris Williamson
Talking about advice for relationships do and do not do. George from the Tin Men posted this thing, which was, uh, asking a bunch of men who've been married for quite a while, ad- advice for guys on how to navigate your relationship. And lots of them were quite silly and quite cute, and I thought that one of them was really interesting, which is, when you're trying to help your girl decide what to wear for the evening, a lot of the time there might be a, a fashion show that happens, and after a while it can delay you to the point where you're late for the meal, and that's not good, and she might get frustrated. So one of the pieces of advice was, when your girl comes out in the first outfit, you say, "Darling, that looks... You look fantastic. This is, this is gorgeous, but I, I do wanna see another one. Like, can I see, can I see what your second choice would be?" Then when she comes out in the second one, say, "I mean, this is, this is stunning, but I did prefer the first one." Save yourself three more outfit changes.
- JSJames Smith
You do realize that every single time a man does that now, they've listened to this podcast. I know what you're doing. You're manipulating me.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. If you're listening to this in the car, it's not gonna work. A lot of couples listen to this either in the car or separately. We hear this a lot at the live shows where they'll come up and they go, "We listen to you all the time. Like, I... When I go to work and he goes to work, and then we talk about it over dinner on a nighttime." And if you now try and use this... So basically, boys, if you've listened to this one before your girl has, you need to say, "Ah, don't listen to that one with Chris and James. It's actually... They, they... It's kind of bullshit. They're sat on the bus. It's a... Yeah, it's a mess. It's a bit of a mess. The Guardian's gonna do an article about it. You don't need to listen to that one." Get her to skip over that, and you can keep that hack for you. But I do think, what was, what were some of the other ones? If she-
- JSJames Smith
My dad, my dad's got one where he said, uh, "The key to a long, successful marriage is accepting you're wrong even when you're right."
- CWChris Williamson
That sounds dismissive, though. Chicks don't like it. But then it's not just accepting that you're wrong even if you're right. It's making it convincing that you actually think that you're wrong because otherwise it's... You, you're just being dismissive.
- JSJames Smith
He got-
- CWChris Williamson
And that's not good
- JSJames Smith
... 52 years married. He, um, he-
- CWChris Williamson
Can't argue with the outcomes
- JSJames Smith
... I had a bit from the last show where, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Can't argue with the outcomes
- JSJames Smith
... I was talking about death row meals, where I was saying it's kind of mad that you do the most heinous crimes of rape and murder and whatever, and when we do execute you, we're gonna let you pick your, your last meal. And I joked that my dad's been married to my mum 52 years, and he doesn't get to pick what's for dinner [laughs] . So, like, why is it the people that... Anyway, so, like, if we're gonna kill... Sorry, mate, we're go- we're gonna kill you because you're a, a heinous murderer, but what do you fancy? We'll make it happen.
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, think about that lady, the one, the first person in history to have had the lethal injection twice in the same session and survived it.
- JSJames Smith
It gives me a good idea of a new way to torture people. So let's say someone's on death row. Let's just inject them with saline and keep doing it and go, "Goodbye, Chris."
- CWChris Williamson
But they're on death row.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah, yeah. But then we just-
- CWChris Williamson
But you're not supposed to torture them.
- JSJames Smith
No, no, no. But it's only saline, Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JSJames Smith
We're just gonna make a psychological trauma to make them feel like they're about to die. And then be like, "Ah, got you. We do it again tomorrow." And then they... Like Russian roulette.
- CWChris Williamson
This sounds like Guantanamo. This is like John Kiriakou's stuff. You can't be doing that. I'm friends with John Kiriakou. He's gonna sh-
- JSJames Smith
Oh, no. Whatever. You know me
- CWChris Williamson
... He's gonna shout at you. Other advice, other bits of advice. If she can't decide where she wants to eat, tell her you've decided but it's a surprise. Give her one chance to guess where you're going. Whatever she says, say yes and go with it. 99% of the time it's where she really wants to go.
- JSJames Smith
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
It's so manipulative. I can't work out if this is horribly misogynistic or, like, actually a beautiful way to just cut through a lot of the mess of a relationship. Here's the final one. Um, just order fries. She's not hungry, sure, but she'll eat the extra fries. Have you seen those videos where... This is so... This is ruthless. You can't do this. Uh, guys will ask their chick whether or not she wants a snack. Say, "Do you wanna go out? Should we, we should go for a drive-through. We could get ourselves a little treat. Why don't we go for a drive-through?" And when then, when they pull up, say, "Oh, you, you can order. What, what, what is it that you want?" She orders, and then when the person asks him, he's like, "I'm all right. I'm not eating." [laughs] It drives people... But the, the same thing is true. In a relationship you are allowed to gain weight, but only relative to your partner. Like, you and your partner's level of fatness or fitness is supposed to oscillate together. When you start to-
- JSJames Smith
It's a massive point of friction. Coaching people over the years, I used to call it the relationship saboteur, where if one party wants to lose weight and the other doesn't, they will not succeed because-
- CWChris Williamson
I think that's, I think that's now called a fitness gap relationship.
- JSJames Smith
Oh, God. Look at that. I'm, I'm trying to teach him stuff. I'm learning back.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you're ahead. I'm just giving it nomenclature.
- 30:21 – 34:31
Getting Kicked Out Of School
- CWChris Williamson
What did you think of that guy? So we just managed to finesse our way into Exeter University Gym. University of Exeter Gym, which for a high-class sporting university ... was actually a bit of a shitty gym
- JSJames Smith
Bit mid
- CWChris Williamson
It was, yeah, j- not enough machines. I can't get a pump on. Everyone in there, probably very fit, probably great at the sports that they do. Not massive, right? But also 19. So-
- JSJames Smith
Put you best in
- CWChris Williamson
... we brought the average age up by-
- JSJames Smith
And the average free testosterone level
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, you did. The average free testosterone doubled just by you walking in. Uh, but as we were walking back, this is a question that's been asked a bunch at the live shows, and we got to do it in person today with one of the guys who came up and said, "Ugh, I'm a first year. I've been at uni for w- a month?" So he's only been at uni for a month. It's the fucking middle of October. He hasn't been at university... He's been at uni- university for-
- JSJames Smith
Maybe freshers, September
- CWChris Williamson
... six weeks
- JSJames Smith
Maybe six weeks
- CWChris Williamson
Been at uni for six weeks, and I, I, I feel like I'm not making any progress, and I want freedom. Uh, so should I just sack it all off? He was-
- JSJames Smith
Studying business and he's like, "I suppose the dilemma here is you're like, well, if I'm studying business, am I gonna learn as much as I would running a business-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- JSJames Smith
... or being in a business?"
- CWChris Williamson
You're 18. You can't go and run a business. Anyway, what... When people ask you that question, 'cause they've asked me it a lot 'cause I, I do the Q&A, uh, what's your perspective? 'Cause you tried uni. You-
- JSJames Smith
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
What was-
- JSJames Smith
So-
- CWChris Williamson
Give me your perspective on this
- JSJames Smith
... um, I, I told you a little bit about, uh, on that reel the other day that I got kicked out of school. So I got kicked out of school. Technically, I didn't get enough grades to go to sixth form. So, uh, went in, spoke to the teachers, and they, they didn't wanna have me on into the college 'cause I only had four GCSEs. You're supposed to have five.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
Eventually they go, "Right, we'll do it, but you've gotta be on your best behavior. You've not been a great student." Two weeks in, get kicked out.
- CWChris Williamson
What'd you do?
- JSJames Smith
Uh, so actually this is gonna be crazy. Uh, when I was younger, I wanted to be in the military, so I was in the army cadets. Um, applied to, uh, Welbeck College. My dad said I could only join the army if I went in as an officer. So you have to go into, like, officer training and, uh, in essence, usually you have to be well-qualified, which I wasn't. My school grades weren't good.
- CWChris Williamson
You can go straight to Sandhurst with a degree or you can do OTC.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah. So Officers Training Corps. The Welbeck College was where I was gonna try and go. That's pretty much my only way through, and, uh, on my interview for that, had a little police report coming up where I got in trouble when I was younger for shooting someone with an air rifle, but we'll glaze over that. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Check James' Instagram for the full story
- JSJames Smith
... yeah, so I go [laughs] yeah, I go to sixth form. I had pretty bad behavior problems. Imagine this, I had a really cool lock knife that I used to use 'cause we used to go off on-
- CWChris Williamson
What's that?
- JSJames Smith
Like, where you flick a knife out and then it doesn't come back.
- 34:31 – 44:36
When James Shot Someone In The Face
- JSJames Smith
So, um, the British Army rifle is called an SA80. The ones that we use in cadets is called an L8- L89A1 GP Cadet Rifle, and basically it has an iron sight instead. I could still strip one blindfolded and put it back together.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JSJames Smith
I still remember, yeah, we had to clean the barrel. I still remember you would do drills where even as you're checking the barrel's empty on the weapon, you do a sweep with your hand underneath the magazine cover to make sure there's no magazine in it. Like, we, even as a cadet, as a 15-year-old, you do these drills-
- CWChris Williamson
Become very proficient
- JSJames Smith
... I've been to Arborfield, Pirbright. I've shot on some of the, like, the best ranges in the country. I've even used one of the, like, digital ranges. This is what? 20 years ago. So I was, like, obsessed. I loved it. But one day I was just like, "Oh, I'm just gonna take the knife to school and show my mates." Got caught. And me, as-
- CWChris Williamson
Sixth form
- JSJames Smith
... no, this is 13, 14. It was just after I'd been arrested.
- CWChris Williamson
So you shot someone-
- JSJames Smith
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... got out of it-
- JSJames Smith
Yeah, so it was-
- CWChris Williamson
... then took a knife to school
- JSJames Smith
... it's criminal damage and it would've been-
- CWChris Williamson
It doesn't, the optics-
- JSJames Smith
It would've been actual bodily harm 'cause-
- CWChris Williamson
... do not-
- JSJames Smith
The guy had s-
- CWChris Williamson
... look great
- JSJames Smith
... se- seven stitches in the face. And have I told you about the ballistics report?
- CWChris Williamson
Can you just give... Y- we... Let's tell the story from start to finish, 'cause I wanted to take the piss out of you on Instagram for this story, and I couldn't do it.
- JSJames Smith
So we would, uh, we'd break barrel air rifles. We'd have the pellets. We'd have the sharp pellets.
- CWChris Williamson
Who's we?
- JSJames Smith
Me and my neighbor. And, uh, we would shoot different things, and then we wanted to kind of raise the stakes. And at 13, you know, a freeway going past with cars driving, moving target, in our heads we'd be like, "Oh, that'd be cool." It didn't really occur to us in our brains that we were committing damage on cars. Like, imagine you're driving and someone shoots a pellet at your car. That is-
- CWChris Williamson
Would it leave a dent?
- JSJames Smith
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Would it go through? Wouldn't go through it.
- JSJames Smith
Wouldn't go through.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JSJames Smith
Significant damage.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- 44:36 – 51:16
Mumps, Parties & Dropping Out Of Uni
- JSJames Smith
college. So I did four years at college. Loved it. It was great. Lived at home. Then for my third top-up year, to go from a foundation degree to a full degree, you have to do a top-up, and that's why I chose Hartpury College. Now, Hartpury College is a rugby college. I thought I was pretty good at rugby until I went there. So I was like Berkshire under 20s captain, playing like adults rugby was good.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
When I get there they're like, "Oh, you can try out for the third team." I was like, "Pff." One of the hardest games of my life. We had like England under 20 boys in the second team. And, uh, when I got there, freshers, a load of us got mumps. You ever had mumps?
- CWChris Williamson
I got mumps on one side in my first year of uni, yeah. Do you wanna explain what mumps is?
- JSJames Smith
Uh, I first of all woke up thinking I'd been in a fight, 'cause I don't remember the night out and my jaw was killing me.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
So I'm asking my mates like, "Did we get in a scrap last night?" And then I went to go see the nurse on site and she was like, "You've either got ca- glandular fever or I reckon you've got mumps." Now I had it in both sides, "And you look like a hamster."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JSJames Smith
Is it your lymph glands?
- CWChris Williamson
Whatever there's, whatever's under here. I'm sure people in the comments will tell us, but yeah.
- JSJames Smith
So from freshers I got sent home, but like all the rugby team got down and we said-
- CWChris Williamson
Because it's super contractible, right?
- JSJames Smith
We said it was from sharing water bottles, but we were just all snogging birds on freshers, you know what it's like. And this is before camera phones. So boys connect like 10 birds and two blokes in a night, and that's, that's a heterosexual male. One time me and another bloke-
- CWChris Williamson
Sometimes you just miss the target, I suppose
- JSJames Smith
... I, I remember one time me and another bloke snogged each other to prove to the girls we were good at kissing. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs]
- JSJames Smith
And, and in rugby that was like, that's, that's just normal. Like, just imagine giving someone a smiley shout, "I'm really good at kissing." "Prove it." "Dave, come here." [laughs] Um, not my, not my proudest semi. Uh, but anyway, so I got mumps, had to go home and, uh, I was home for like three weeks. I lost a lot of weight. I lost maybe like eight or nine kilograms.
- CWChris Williamson
I remember I was in the trenches.
- JSJames Smith
The fevers are, are terrible.
- CWChris Williamson
Brutal.
- JSJames Smith
Then just as I got good and it passed, it went to my nuts, and my nuts-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. I've heard about this
- JSJames Smith
... got massive. So I go to Heatherwood Hospital again, same place as the first moment when they got shrunk off. And, um, they were like, "Yeah, you, you just gotta like hold them." So I was worried I was maybe gonna be infertile from it, 'cause it's really bad for your fertility.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
So I go back to uni. This is a long story, by the way. And I'm looking at like my cohort, my, uh, my year, whatever, and I go to my first lecture, but I've been off campus for three weeks. So I expected when I first walked into that lecture someone would go, "James, welcome. Where have you been?" I walk in and everyone just stares as if I've walked into the wrong room, when I know fully well this is my lecture theater.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JSJames Smith
And they're like, "Can we help?" And I paused for two seconds and just turned around and left, because I, I was really embarrassed that it was... it wasn't what I was expecting.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
So-
- CWChris Williamson
It wasn't as welcoming as you hoped
- 51:16 – 58:28
Early Outcomes Don’t Predict Your Future
- CWChris Williamson
explosive device.
- JSJames Smith
But the good thing is I got this all out the way. So like up until 23, 23, 24-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JSJames Smith
... I was a fucking liability. It's the only word. Nothing was impressive I've ever done. Like even on rugby tours, puking on the back of a bus, necking a bottle of wine-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JSJames Smith
... being a degenerate. Like really the university for me was just-
- CWChris Williamson
It's a-
- JSJames Smith
... learning the skills of drinking
- CWChris Williamson
... it's a really interesting archetype 'cause everyone that's gone to school, college, sixth form and university in the UK knows like that kind of archetype of, of person. I certainly do and I was facilitating it for much of my time in nightlife. I don't know what the equivalent is in America. I imagine that there will still be that maybe like Greek-
- JSJames Smith
Frat little jock
- CWChris Williamson
... life. Yeah, like soror- But I... They take their sport so seriously. Once you get... If you're talking college university, you d- you're a pro athlete. You're bigger than some pro athletes, right? The following that you have, they've now unlocked all of the sponsorship stuff. So Nike and Gatorade and Neutonic can come in and, and sponsor college athletes. If you're a college athlete that fucking rules. We want to hear from you. Um, that archetype of person that you just think this person should not be allowed near anything that requires responsibility.
- JSJames Smith
Can you imagine these people I went to uni with now? They're like, "He's, he's-"
- CWChris Williamson
That guy
- JSJames Smith
... "He's got what?"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that guy.
- JSJames Smith
A $100 million drinks business.
- CWChris Williamson
I think, uh, this is one of the things that's been interesting for me to like reflect on. The... When you're young you have no perspective over whether or not you're going to amount to something in future and I think that we're able to make predictions based on how people perform in school because that's really the only merit that you have. Even in sport, right? You, you knew that kid at 15 that played for England under 17s. I did in cricket, right? Which was my sport. Uh, or there was... Because cricket's not a physical sport in the same way that rugby might be or even football, um, it means that you can speed run the adult game as well. So you can have some superstar. Scotty Borthwick who plays for, played and I think still plays for Durham County Cricket Club. I remember he was 14 playing seconds, county seconds, right? This is something that men do full time and he was still in secondary school. So you look at these very precocious young guys and girls and you're like, "Wow, they've speed ran success. They're so much closer to this." And I think that it can create a sense of helplessness in young people. They go, "Well look, this is the time when my future is being predicted by my present. What's happening right now is going to be indicative of where I'm going to end up." And when puberty comes online one of the things that you do is you start looking around and comparing yourself to everyone that's nearby because you're getting ready to become an adult in the world and this is one of the reasons that trends seem to, uh, be particularly permeable. Like they seep through groups of especially girls but also guys in puberty through college, through university and you can think, "Fuck like I'm not gonna amount to anything. Like how can I amount to anything?"
- JSJames Smith
That guy was what? 18?
- CWChris Williamson
18. Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
And I-
- CWChris Williamson
He's been at uni for six weeks
- JSJames Smith
... I said to him, I was like, "Mate, like not to say that I'm gonna be your role model but 18 I, I was still not allowed to go to uni at your age. I was house bound. I was on house arrest by my parents."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
Then at 20 I went to do freshers. Then by 21 I was failing my third year at uni having the biggest booziest year of my life. I was like then 22, 23 still lived in Gloucester. Did door knocking. I was 22 when I did the door knocking. 23-
- CWChris Williamson
And Empower
- JSJames Smith
... did a year in corporate. Then Empower. Yeah, there was door knocking for Empower. So I was like, mate- If in three years you're not door knocking in GL1 selling gas electric-
- CWChris Williamson
You're ahead.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah, yeah, you're ahead.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JSJames Smith
Then '24, I didn't become a PT 'cause I wanted to run my own business. I did it because I just hated everything I'd done before. It was a move of desperation. I was like, "Oh, if I can charge three people £30 and make £90 a day, I could live off that." And I could get that done between 9:00 and 1:00, and then, cool, I'll go home and play Call of Duty. The... Everyone seems to think retrospectively like, "Oh, it was a strategic move." I was like, "No." Fell into it by accident through hating my job. And here's another thing. In corporate, no one really does anything. So for instance, in a sales job-
- 58:28 – 1:07:52
Why You Can’t Speed-Run Success
- JSJames Smith
that's-
- CWChris Williamson
Why do you think it is this sort of speed running, trying to skip past it mentality? Is that a social media comparison thing, being able to see people of your age or even people that are outside? 'Cause your exposure, I don't know, but maybe 'cause you come from, uh, an area that was much more affluent than mine, uh, I was never exposed to anybody that had sort of entrepreneurial gumption. I never felt like I was compare... I was comparing myself to my peers, that they were better at me, uh, be- better than me at cricket. They were, uh, getting more time. They were batting up the order in firsts, or when I went to university, you can compare your grades with other people, et cetera, et cetera. But it didn't feel like the same fervor. Do you know what I mean? Like this rushy, desperate need to speed run childhood and early adulthood into maturity.
- JSJames Smith
I think it's, uh, status signals have changed. So for instance, like I said to you before, came home with a gold Rolex and my dad was like, "That's nice." Come home first class, my dad goes, "That nice." Come home with a son, my mom and dad like... My dad cried when I told him that, uh, Tay was pregnant. So, like, the status signals of their generation, the child was the biggest accomplishment.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
Like, they would rather have one child than three number one bestselling books, I assure you, rather than 1,000. So now I do think that young people... And, and again, I play into this a bit, but young people at 18 shouldn't know what a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ is, and they shouldn't be-
- CWChris Williamson
But you knew what a, a Nissan GT-R Skyline was like, right, when you were growing up as a 14-year-old.
- JSJames Smith
But I don't think I knew how much it would cost and how much money I needed to earn to then have the revenue to do it. I didn't have ChatGPT to talk to and say, "How can I afford this car?"
- CWChris Williamson
It feels a little bit more like the dream... It's, it's almost like being a fan of, like, Harry Potter or, or a sports team, like having Messi as a poster on your bedroom wall and thinking, "I love Messi," not, "I'm going to be Messi." And the same thing for whatever the fancy car is, because we would've had, like, Fast Car magazine and stuff growing up.
- JSJames Smith
Pictures of birds from zoo.
- CWChris Williamson
It was a great... Fast Car magazine in the UK, I don't know whether... There must've been equivalents in the US, was a wonderful way to, for a teenager to buy soft core porn under the guise of being interested in cars.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's what that entire industry was based on.
- JSJames Smith
But I think this is the crazy thing, though, to those... I, I, I don't know, can't speak on behalf of 18-year-olds, but I think those metrics have changed so much that people go, "Okay, well, if I'm gonna have that at this age, like that person does," 'cause there are 24-year-old millionaires that live in Miami.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JSJames Smith
The Matt Armstrong's rebuilding that car from the Alex FG, the, the... He teaches people at F- foreign exchange or whatever By fixing that car, it's-
- CWChris Williamson
How old's he?
- JSJames Smith
23, 24.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Iman Gadzhi was super young when he did his thing.
- JSJames Smith
Iman Gadzhi's 24.
- CWChris Williamson
Still?
- JSJames Smith
Hundreds of millions. He's 24, 25. Ro- Matt Marshall is 24.
- CWChris Williamson
Fucking hell.
- JSJames Smith
He's young, bro. He's got... So you think they will set the benchmark as that and go, "Right, the only way I get access to these signals is not through employment. It must be through having my own business."
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think the vaping adds to the ambiance?
- JSJames Smith
Uh, yeah, it's like having a smoke machine in the background.
- CWChris Williamson
It's cool, isn't it?
- JSJames Smith
Es- especially if I'm talking, they're like, "Wow, they've got the smoke on."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JSJames Smith
So the, the status signals, I think, have changed, and I think the people now reverse engineer it.
- CWChris Williamson
It's only a tour thing. Jared, you ever considered you might have a drinking problem? I don't consider a lot, Chris. Well, you drank an entire case of Athletic Brewing Co. last night. But they're non-alcoholic. And that's not a problem? Sorry, man, I kept chugging, waiting for the regret to creep in. Never happened. Didn't you end up going home with that chick with the lazy eye? The eye didn't seem lazy to me. See, most people, like Jared, don't actually want to change what they drink. They just don't want the next day to be a complete write-off, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co. They make the best NA brews on the planet, so you can still have something cold and tasty, just without the usual trade-off. You can find Athletic Brewing Co.'s best-selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you, or best option, get a full variety pack of four flavors shipped direct to your door. Get 15% off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or heading to athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout. Near beer. Terms and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all times.
- 1:07:52 – 1:12:37
Your Worth Is Not About Performance
- CWChris Williamson
from Joe Hudson: "Most people believe confidence comes from being really good at what they do or never messing up, but unshakable confidence comes from knowing your worth isn't tied to performance." And it feels a little bit like managing to detach those two things. That switch of worth being tied to performance, especially in the status realm, which is now being quantified on social media, in the financial realm, which you're now able to compare more easily because of transparency online. All of that being made more obvious and broadcast is what I think the switch that got flicked for me when I was in my 20s. It was like, "Ah, I now have a metric to compare myself to, and I should be ahead." And we're doing it now. And the, the, the interesting lesson is if you can't unpick that knowing that your worth isn't tied to your performance, if you can't unpick that, I think you'll always feel lacking because the game just gets bigger. Look, we're going to announce this most recent valuation and raise and all the rest of the stuff that we've done for Neutonic. We're about to announce... We will by the time that this goes out have announced Walmart, H-E-B, uh, Morrison's Daily. Look at that. Isn't that cute? We got, for the people that are listening, we're holding up, um, custom woven-
- JSJames Smith
Neutonic? Custom... Yeah, someone gave us that
- CWChris Williamson
... coasters that we were gifted by-
- JSJames Smith
Someone gave that.
- CWChris Williamson
We've also got... There's a bunch of, uh, Easter eggs that we have managed to slot into this scene. Let's see who picks up on them. [inhales] The game just gets bigger, and you keep on fighting with harder and harder, uh, opponents or, or, or rivals or whatever it is, and it's like, oh, you thought that your Nissan, uh, your, uh, Renault Megane R26 F1 was nice. Well, I know a guy who's got... What's Greg's car? What's that stupid thing that I was in?
- JSJames Smith
Uh, super fast.
- CWChris Williamson
Ferrari.
- JSJames Smith
Uh, what is it?
- CWChris Williamson
S- Summit28?
- JSJames Smith
Is it? No.
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JSJames Smith
Is this, um, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
It's absurd. Whatever it is. It's silly and fast and two-- like $1.2 million. Smart car. It is a smart car. Thank you.
- JSJames Smith
But do you know what's interesting? I will say off the back of that. Um, as you're saying this, there's a meme in my head where you got, like, black and white, two portraits of two people. One guy's got loads and loads of money, and he's pointing... No, you got a person with a family and a wife pointing at a millionaire saying, "You're rich," and the millionaire's there on his own pointing at the people with two kids going-
- CWChris Williamson
"And you're happy"
- JSJames Smith
... "You're rich."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
Like, the, the wealth subjective, we alw- we always say it's like money, money, money. Uh, but when I meet people, sometimes, like you say, people are, aren't in the career they want, they're not earning the money they want, they're not driving the car they want, but they still have so much. And I think in a world now where we're not really told like, "Hey, you, you've got a wife that you guys still get on after being together for 10 years, and you've got-
- CWChris Williamson
Pretty fucking cool
- JSJames Smith
... two kids, and despite having the normal struggles everyone else has and half-term being expensive or whatever." Like w- w- the... I wish we counted that more as success.
- CWChris Williamson
But there's a rebellion at the moment. You know, for, for all that this can sound like, like needless nostalgia or, uh, two guys trying to overintellectualize what just the challenge of being human and, and trying to sort of weave through that, the competing priorities that everybody has, there definitely feels to me to be a rebellion that's coming, at least in part at the moment, which is as both men and women, men in the past, recent past, and women right now are able to socioeconomically get to where they want to. Maybe they don't have the spending power that they wish that they had, but they're able to, like, achieve a lot of things and, uh, get a new job position and so on and so forth. I think that a lot of the backbiting and the scrappiness and, and the sort of discomfort and, and the finger-pointing that's happening is people completing things that they thought would make them happy only to realize that the problem that they thought they were gonna solve is still there, despite the fact that the antidote to it has already been ingested. Like, I have got to the place that I thought would be escape velocity from my issues. I've already achieved the goals that I said would make me happy. Fuck, maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I did something wrong. And one of the wonderful... And, uh, it's very hard to thread this needle. The original live show that I did, that I wrote to go to Australia with was all about the arrival fallacy. Uh, you call it, uh, you have a similar thing, end of history-
- JSJames Smith
End of history illusion
- CWChris Williamson
... end of history illusion. So arrival fallacy, the view from the top of the mountain is not as good as you think it's going to be when you're on the climb up. If you're at the top trying to tell people who are still climbing that the view isn't that good, it sounds like a fat guy telling a starving man that food isn't very tasty.
- JSJames Smith
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
That's what it sounds like.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, it's a luxurious position to be in. No one wants to hear it, et cetera, et cetera. And it's a bit trite. And I saw Jake Humphrey talk about it, and then it kind of killed the, like, glamour of it because it doesn't sound contrarian anymore when it's kind of like, you know, really hitting the mainstream. But
- 1:12:37 – 1:14:10
The 3 Paths For People Who Still Aren’t Happy
- CWChris Williamson
there is definitely a big group of people who are achieving success in the way that society told them that they should be satisfied and realizing that it's not scratched the itch that they hoped for, and there's two choices. You're sort of... When you are faced with that thing, you are offered one of maybe, like, three routes. One of them is gold medalist syndrome, where you think, "Ah, it wasn't, it wasn't regional manager; it was national manager." Or it w- it w- it wasn't, it wasn't getting the bachelor's degree; it was getting the m- it was getting the M.Phil. That was the thing that was missing. So you try and run it back. The dose wasn't sufficient in order to f- complete that. The second route is to sort of rail against the system generally and say this whole thing is broken. That's when people get really spiky about it, I think. And the third one, which At least at the moment, my bro science brain is telling me is the one that is more accurate is to be more reflective and say, maybe the whole game of this beyond what do I need to be able to survive and get myself to where I want to and, and satiate my desire for like status and respect from people because we're a social species, right? We need to be validated by the world through getting some accomplishments. I've closed those loops. I shouldn't run it back. I shouldn't say that someone somewhere is oppressing me and like, like limiting my happiness. I need to actually turn it inward and look at what is the part of me that is always feeling dissatisfied no matter what the dose is that I get that's in return of this. And, uh, speaking as two guys that are trying to build a billion-dollar brand for whatever reason it is.
- 1:14:10 – 1:20:05
Why Life Needs To Be Gamified
- CWChris Williamson
You know what? Actually, on this, to give you your flowers, one of the best frames, and I was so jealous of this when I first heard you say it, and it was a long time ago now. You used to talk about success on sh- social media as a game. It's just game points.
- JSJames Smith
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And today I, like, didn't play the game quite so well. I lost some points, and in other days I played the game a little bit better. And, um, that frame of once you have got yourself to a level of comfort that is accessible for most peo-- maybe it's not palatial, maybe it's not, you know, even house ownership, but it's like, okay, like the... w-we're moving and we're grooving here
- JSJames Smith
But the, the, the skills here are actually very simple to break down. So for first thing you need to consider, leveling up your character is one of the best messes in a game. So for instance, uh, GTA, you might get access to money, which gives you access to weapons. Uh, when you use-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, that'd be great for you
- JSJames Smith
... when you use the cheats, it's not as fun. So if I could give you a million-
- CWChris Williamson
That was a funny joke
- JSJames Smith
I'm sorry. [laughs] If I could give you a million followers tomorrow, it wouldn't be as fun-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- JSJames Smith
... because you would use the cheat codes.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- JSJames Smith
Uh, the second thing is just pure volume and repetition. So if we're doing shotty snipes on Valhalla Halo Three... Anyone know about that? You ever play shotty snipes on Valhalla? All right.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JSJames Smith
Call of Duty, um, whatever it is, if you wanna get a headshot mastery, nothing is gonna beat pure volume. And everyone can say, "Oh, get the new controller, change your settings," and yes, you should push your sensitivity up, but nothing beats pure volume. So then you have that as well, where no bit of advice you could give someone on starting a podcast would beat doing four hundred episodes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JSJames Smith
So you've got leveling up your character, which m- might be getting a better microphone, choosing a better camera, researching before you do a pod, working on hooks, looking at what other competitors are doing. All of these things come from gaming. Then you've got cooperation in gaming. When you work together as a team to work towards the same objective, even though you're separate characters, that can then put you into a team player. And, and an organized team in a game of Call of Duty are gonna win the war zone better than four people playing on their own.
- CWChris Williamson
Also tends to be much more enjoyable because you get to celebrate the wins together, and you also get to mitigate the losses together.
- JSJames Smith
Exactly. And gaming and reality have so much... 'Cause also, if you have a bad day gaming, you don't let it ruin your day. It was just a tough day.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JSJames Smith
If you die on a level, you get another opportunity to recover.
- CWChris Williamson
That is unshakable confidence comes from knowing that your worth isn't tied to your performance, and what you're doing with the game analogy is unpicking performance and worth.
- JSJames Smith
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? Unless you're a pro esports player, but again, your worth is t-tied up in this thing. I love this analogy. When I started doing, uh, speech coaching, a lot of people, I think maybe even you did this, uh, maybe you didn't. Some of my friends said, "But what about your lovely natural speaking voice? Like, are you not worried that it's going to sort of take that away from you?" And I thought it was really interesting. I wasn't really too sure how to feel about it. And then I realized that if you're a pianist and you go and take piano lessons with a teacher, you're a amateur pianist, no one goes, "Well, what about your lovely natural piano playing? Are you not worried that the teacher is going to take that away from you?" And what I learned is that there are certain things that we feel is very close to our sense of self. It's very sort of central to who we are as a person. And then there are other things that we see as like pursuits or augmentations or like presentations of how we put our true self across. Accent, way that you speak and communicate, very close to your sense of self. Way that you play piano, less so.
- JSJames Smith
I would challenge this, but only from a pure, um, giving another point of view to this. So there's an interesting thing there where, however, sometimes speaking too perfect could be a reason not to listen because you're bridging the gap too far.
- CWChris Williamson
No, I agree. I agree, but that's, that's just another game of mastery.
- JSJames Smith
Here's a concept that I've got, another one that I was talking about, where in jujitsu we've got our belts. Everyone seems to think it's best to learn from a black belt. And yes, I agree, because they've got a plethora of experience and lived experiences, whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
Ooh, plethora. Hey, good man.
- JSJames Smith
Good word. Thank you. However, sometimes I think as a blue belt, you're best to learn from a purple belt.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JSJames Smith
Because although they do not have the answers to everything, they're much closer to where you were than the black belt. The black belt hasn't been a blue belt for ten years.
Episode duration: 1:20:05
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Transcript of episode 3FULQiLpRfk
