The Art Of Mastering Your Emotions - Joe Hudson

Chris Williamson 0:00 I have been falling in love with your work over the last few months. I feel like it's been very timely for me as I try to feel feelings and tap into emotions, and you're the guy. So I've scraped some of my favorite tweets and quotes from you that I've picked up, and I wanna go through some of those with you.

Joe Hudson 0:15 Okay.

Chris Williamson 0:15 First one, "How to see the matrix. One, name an unwanted emotion in your life. Two, list the ways you try to avoid it. Three, notice that every way you try to avoid it, you actually create it."

Joe Hudson 0:30 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, it's a... Yeah, I call that... I have an episode on that one, it's called The Golden Algorithm. And, uh, and it's basically this idea that the emotion that we f- don't wanna feel is the emotion that we abite- invite in the exact way that we try to avoid it. So the perfect example of this in my life was I, you know, had this experience of being emotionally abandoned as a kid. And so I would just keep on finding emotional abandonment everywhere I looked, you know. It was like a... You know the guy who's like, close their e- close their eyes at a bar, throw a dart behind their back, and they're always gonna hit the wounded woman, and, like, they're gonna be attracted to one another, and that's how it's gonna work? Like, it was... So I always, you know, fa- created this abandonment, and so when I thought it was coming, when I saw the abandonment, even though maybe it wasn't there, I would harden up. I would like, mm, you know, get angry or something, which of course creates a more likelihood of abandonment. So I would try to not feel it, and in the way of not feeling it... Or I would, like, really try to caretake somebody, and that would create resentment in them, and then, then they would abandon me. So every way that I tried to avoid it, I was recreating it in my life. That just goes across the board everywhere, so whether I'm working with a CEO who's, like, trying to avoid their shame, I can, like, guarantee that they will do something to create shame and then have to deal with it in the, in the terms of their company, for instance. So this is, this is one of the realities of our lives. And it's an amazing thing because intellectually you can get it, but what I think people don't get is you can just literally look at every single place where you have pain, and you can backwards engineer it. You can go backwards and go, "Oh, hey. Right, so what am I trying to avoid? How am I avoiding it? How... That's how I'm creating it." Backwards engineer it.

Chris Williamson 2:25 Why is it so reliable that the way you try to avoid it creates it? Like, uh, to me, it doesn't seem, from first principles, like that could be the case. You could a- avoid it in a way that doesn't create it.

Joe Hudson 2:37 Yeah. Um, you know, there's that, the famous saying, "That which we resist persists." So, so i- it's, it's acting under the same principle. So it's not that, it's not that... Uh, i- so for, for instance, if it's... It has to have the emotional catch of, like, you really don't want it. And so therefore, the way to change the algorithm is to actually go, "I can't wait to be abandoned. I can't wait, uh, for someone to be angry at me. I can't wait to feel scared. I can't wait to have anxiety," and then fall in love with those emotional experiences, and then the pattern all goes away. The thing that creates it isn't the fact that you're like, "Oh, that's not something that I want," it's the fact that you're avoiding it. It is the, "Oh, I, I don't want to feel that." So think about it in a workout context. If you never want to feel challenged physically, you are going to be challenged physically. You, on the other hand, you're like, "I like to be feel challe-" and therefore, you're gonna have a longer, happier lifespan of not being challenged physically. So any kind of complex ecosystem, and I think there's a great Quark in the Jaguar, which was written by a Nobel scientist, I think that's the name of it, talks about this and so does, um... You know who else talks about it is, uh, the guy who did Black Swan, the-

Chris Williamson 4:01 Nassim Taleb.

Joe Hudson 4:02 Yeah. And he talks about basically, like, every eco- every kinda complex ecosystem, it needs to be challenged, it needs to have, like, a certain kind of, like, uh, like, it needs to have the strain for it to s- to stay healthy.

Chris Williamson 4:17 Mm.

Joe Hudson 4:17 And so it's the same thing. It's the same principle in action. If you are not leaning into the difficult emotions and learning to enjoy them and finding the gifts in them, then you're just, you're inviting them in the same way you would be with pain, physical pain.

Chris Williamson 4:32 I've got an example story, uh, that involves a horse from, uh, last Saturday. So I went to a retreat called Miraval? Miraval? Uh, so there's one out here in Austin. And for the people that don't know, it's pretty cool. It's like a sort of holistic health five-star hotel meets, uh, meditation retreat kind of all rolled into one, and they've got a million different activities. One of them was equine therapy. Uh, Whitney Cummings told me that equine- that horses n- can sense when you're stressed and you can't be, uh, angry a- around a horse and stuff. And I thought, "This sounds cool. Fuck it. Equine. I'll... I don't have horses on hand. I'll do equine therapy." I kept calling it horse meditation, and the instructor lady really, uh, didn't like the fact that I kept calling it horse meditation, but equine therapy just seemed too wanky for me. (laughs) So I called it horse meditation, and, um, (laughs) she, uh, she introduces you to all the horse. And I, for the people that haven't been around a horse, these things are huge. I know this sounds like such a duh, and people that are around horses will go, "Duh." Yeah, of course. These things are massive, right? And it is al- it is intimidating, especially for the bigger ones, to be around them. But anyway, I found myself sort of quite calm after a little while. They were all super chill. You know, they just stand there and look. They, they're not doing anything. They, th- it doesn't even look like they're breathing or alive. If it wasn't for the fact that they were warm, you wouldn't even know it was alive. Anyway...... the lady was, um, well, uh, educated and sort of psychologically, she'd definitely done her work. And we'd go back into the circle afterward and she asks what came up, and there was one point where you had to try and, uh, get the horse to lift its leg, and you sort of do this by putting your hand on its upper shoulder, and then you sort of ride it down the leg, and you give it a little tug. And if it wants to, it'll show you its hoof and you can use it to clean the hoof with a, a little pick thing. And, uh, I noticed that as I was approaching the horse, I wanted the horse to like me. I really, really wanted this horse to like me, and I'd already set up a success-failure algorithm in my mind that if I couldn't get the horse to do this thing, which the lady had said, "You know, y- it's about being calm and it's about asking for this from the horse..." I was like, oh, y- you know, "If this horse doesn't lift its foot up, that's..." I mean, that's just classic me. That's such a comment on how I am as a person. (laughs) I'm like, "Yo, do not use a horse lifting its foot as the barometer for whether you're a piece of shit or not." Uh, alas-

Joe Hudson 6:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:53 ... here I, here I am, like, hoping-

Joe Hudson 6:55 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:55 ... that the horse likes me. Uh, and I mentioned it, I mentioned it to the group and it really stuck with me. Like, it's kind of a silly example, but I think, um, uh, name an unwanted emotion in your life, I want people to like me, list the ways that you try to avoid it, and, like, that, certainly in childhood and probably now in adulthood, um, i- is definitely something that I could see. Uh, it just happened to manifest in the middle of horse meditation.

Joe Hudson 7:17 Yeah. Yeah, there, it's funny that you say it. There... Somebody recently was watching me do, uh, the kind of quick coaching that I do in courses, and we have some videos on them and, and she was, uh, she was a horse whisperer, you know, someone who basically works with, like, unmanageable horses and, and she's like, "Oh, you do what I do with people." It was an amazing... I was like, "What? Like how..." And, and, and for her, the whole thing was, like, that attunement, like, the energetic attunement w- or, like, nervous system attunement I s- is a better way to say it, like, a nervous system attunement to the person. And, and there's no place you can see that more clearly with like- than raising kids w- if, if and when you ever raise them. Uh, uh, you walk into the house stressed and your kid will take, like, one or two chances to try to, like, get you unstressed. If you miss them, they're gonna be stressed. It's only gonna make the whole situation a shit ton worse.

Chris Williamson 8:14 I know. Kids are like horses, so says Joe Hudson.

Joe Hudson 8:17 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:18 Uh, all right, next one, next one.

Chris Williamson 8:20 The spiritual path for so many is just another way to say, "I am not good enough yet."

Joe Hudson 8:26 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, from my... That comes from s- that comes from my own experience. Uh, you know, I got into meditatio- so my story was that I had a meditation retreat. I didn't do it because of any reason, but I thought it would be a challenge. I had this, like, amazing experience in this meditation retreat, and then I spent a whole bunch of time trying to get it back. And so meditation started to... started for me as a, like a form of management, which is absolute fucking hell. Like, I was trying to manage myself into becoming better. And, and that's just, like, that, that has to start with the assumption that I'm not good enough. And so, so much of this work is like, oh, there's this, uh, deep shame somewhere that says I'm not good enough and I need to fix my... I'm broken somehow and I need to fix myself. Whether it's... And they call it self-improvement, right? Where, uh, the other way of looking at it would be, uh, there's an oak tree. Like, at what point in its life, what point of its evolution, of its development is it not perfect? It just, uh, like, it, it wouldn't particularly make sense. There's an n- th- our nature is to evolve, is to grow, is to change, but it doesn't make us bad before, something that is essentially wrong that we have to fix. As a matter of fact, that concept is what slows down the process probably more than anything else I see these days, is people thinking that there's something broken with them, instead of just noticing that there's evolution that wants to happen.

Chris Williamson 10:02 I have been kind of obsessed with, I think, this question, which is this balance between being and becoming, this sort of delicate, um, interplay between wanting to leave it all out on the field of play in life, to, you know, get toward the end of it and think, "Yeah, like, I fucking did it. Like, I did things. I tried my best. I strived. I, I, I worked hard and I'm proud of the outcomes I got," whilst also not wanting to whip yourself through the experience so much that you don't ever end up enjoying it. And I did this series of live shows last year and, um, probably the most common or one of the most common questions, one of them was, "I don't know if the thing I'm doing in my life and the direction I'm going into is the right one." And the other one was, "I know that happiness is to be found in the present, but I keep working very hard and kind of castigating myself with a, a tyrannical inner voice for the future." And this, the spiritual path for so many is just another way to say, "I am not good enough yet," this sort of perpetual... I also have this theory, I'd be, I'd love to get your take on this, that personal development assuages our low self-esteem because it convinces us that we're not the finished product so we don't ever have to, have to actually judge ourselves. It's like, "Yeah, I might be a piece of shit today. I might not have any self-esteem right now, but I know that I'm moving forward. Therefore, tomorrow or next month or next year, maybe all of this development and the trajectory that I'm on will mean that I'm finally, I finally feel good enough to love myself."

Joe Hudson 11:30 Yeah. So, when I hear that, that... I wa- I wanna give you my opinion on the second thing you asked, but the f- the first thing that struck my, my attention was the difference between being and becoming. If one can't exist without the other, there's no difference. So the idea that there's a difference is, is just a fully just conceptual. Uh, you once talked about this thing you called thought superposition or something like that, where you ha-

Chris Williamson 11:56 Yeah. Cognitive superposition. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 11:58 Yeah. So cognitive superposition...... being and becoming and hold them both for a moment, and then that whole duality just kind of disappears. So that's the first one, like, the, the... And, and I don't think there's really any way that you would not strive. Like, uh, there's no way that I could convince you to not strive. That's because that's part of, like, how you're wired, and, and I don't know any human being that doesn't, like, isn't drawn to evolution, to evolving. The question is, can you, you know, how much can you enjoy that process? That's really the question. And one of the best ways to enjoy the process is not to believe that there's like a, that there's an end, right? That, that's part of, like, the problem with a lot of, a lot of versions is that they, they, they sell you an end that doesn't really ever exist. There's no, you know, there's no billionaire... Well, there are actually some, some, but, but there's no time where you're like, "That's enough money," or, "That's enough power," or, "That's enough spiritual progress." It doesn't work like that. The, there's just a choice that you're making that you get to make at any time about how you wanna spend your time and how much you wanna enjoy it. And the, for me, I really care about efficiency, and enjoyment is just like this amazing way to measure efficiency. So if I'm driving a car and, and it's a really, really, really fast car, I don't call that an efficient car. The efficient car is a car that moves from A to B with the least amount of energy, and somehow or another, like when we think about our lives, efficiency is speed. But if you really think about like, "Oh, I just did that thing and I came out with more energy than when I went in, I did, just did that thing and I had so much enjoyment of it that I left feeling fricking great," that to me is like, that's efficiency, and, and that's the enjoyment. That, that enjoyment is a great measurement of it. And so what I notice is the more I focus on my enjoyment, and not just me, like people, I coach people in the, in the courses I do, I'll see so many people who are stuck and I'll just be like, "Yeah, just focus on the enjoyment." Like make that the priority and their productivity just goes off the charts.

Chris Williamson 14:18 Because everything else will be swimming downstream from there.

Joe Hudson 14:21 That's right. Yeah. So it's like, I would say that the question you asked, being and becoming, is not an, it's not a real question and, or it's a real question, but it's, it's, it's not a, a real context in that... And the answer, so to speak, would be enjoy. Like, how do you enjoy this journey the most and that rather than, you know, how do you get there? 'Cause there's no there.

Chris Williamson 14:44 The presumption is that the process of becoming can't be enjoyable and the process of being is enjoyable. That's the dichotomy, right? In the process of becoming, I posit an ideal, I compare myself to that ideal, I find myself lacking, that drives me to become better. Like that's, that's the assumption, right? That there is no becoming that is enjoyable.

Joe Hudson 15:05 Right. (laughs) Yeah. That's, that's right. And the other assumption in there that's baked in is that if you just focus on being, you're not going to become-

Chris Williamson 15:13 Become. Yup.

Joe Hudson 15:14 ... which is just-

Chris Williamson 15:15 Yup.

Joe Hudson 15:15 ... like-

Chris Williamson 15:15 Yup.

Joe Hudson 15:16 Right? Every meditation teacher in the world will tell you... Well, any good one is gonna tell you that's bullshit because we're just gonna ask you (laughs) to sit here and be, and then that's what's gonna help you become, you know?

Chris Williamson 15:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 15:25 So both of them, both of the two assumptions are false.

Chris Williamson 15:28 What do you think about that idea of, uh, "I'm not yet the finished product, therefore my low self-esteem and, like, subconscious self-hatred is, uh, assuaged?"

Joe Hudson 15:38 Yeah, that's the second part. So, uh, so I think the... Thanks for reminding me of that. Yeah, so I th- My experience of that is, um, the low self-esteem is, there's nothing that the critical voice in the head says to you is true. And so you can do anything you wanna do, but until you see that fact, you're, you're, you're fucked. So not to say there isn't truth to it, but there is no fucking truth. And so one of the main things that the critical voice in the head says, "If I wasn't here, you would just sit around and drink beer and, and fuck off, and so you need me." Like that as an example would be one of the things almost everybody's critical voice in the head says. So, great, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna be your boss for the next like three months, and every two minutes I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna criticize you, right? And then you tell me that's fucking effective. You tell me that you get more motivated. Tell me that you're, like, excited to be doing the work that you're doing, that you wanna work with me, that you need me. There's no way you're gonna do it. Everything that the critical voice in the head says, there's a falseness to it. And, and when you can see that, it's like the cognitive superposition again, it's just, to me, it's not holding two realities as true at the same time. It's holding all of them as true and not true at the same time. And so when that critical voice in your head goes off and you can just see like, "Oh, you're just scared," that, that's when this- this- the safety comes. There is no, there is no self-esteem that gets built by listening to that critical voice in the head and doing what it says. It doesn't work. If it worked, we would all be fucking very, very... (laughs) Have a lot of great self-esteem, but that's not the case. The more that that thing is loud and brutal, the less self-esteem that people have.

Chris Williamson 17:32 Robert Glover said a couple of weeks ago that, uh, he knows a very few people who have managed to convince themselves to change, uh, from a place of hatred. Like just-

Joe Hudson 17:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:45 ... self, self-hatred is, uh, a potent but toxic fuel, especially if you use it for too long.

Joe Hudson 17:51 Absolutely. Yeah, that's, that's a great way to say it. That's lovely. Yeah, I, it's also just, I mean, think about this ex- like a mental experiment for a second. You're now gonna, you're stuck on an island-... and you're- the only people there are saints, you and a whole bunch of saints. And the thing about them saints is they're not perfect people or anything like that, they just love you unconditionally. They love themselves, each other and you unconditionally. You've got food, you've got shit, you've got everything you need but you're stuck there and you're gonna be stuck there for a decade. When you walk out how, how are you? What's changed about you? And yet the critical voice in the head says, "No, well you can't love yourself yet, you've got to blah blah blah before you deserve that." But we all know that if we were on that island we would walk out just completely different. We would be the thing that we hope to become with all that criticism. That's, uh, that's the mental experiment. If you run it, you just see it right away like, oh yeah, th- that, that you're not gonna get to where you want to go through being a really shitty boss to yourself.

Chris Williamson 19:02 Just rounding out your idea of, uh, enjoyment as a measure of efficiency or, I guess, uh, energy return as a measure of efficiency and enjoyment as kind of the- the signal that tells you when it's working right. You say when I- when I do things with enjoyment I use very little energy and often get energy from the doing.

Joe Hudson 19:21 Correct.

Chris Williamson 19:22 Is that... So... Is it your position that leaning into enjoyment will not only help you to, by design enjoy the process, but also get you better results on- on the backside? Is that as simple as it is?

Joe Hudson 19:39 Yeah, it's as simple as it is. I think there's- there's a- there is a subtlety to it though. There's two ways to enjoy yourself. One is choose what you do that's enjoyable, but the other one is learn how to enjoy whatever you're doing. So right now you and I are having a conversation. If we both said let's, "How do we enjoy this 10% more, this conversation?" For me, immediately I put some attention into my body, I'm like, "M- I feel more deeply connected with you." You went and drank some water, you're like, "Oh, you took care of yourself." And so there's that too. So there's an enjoyment. One part of the process of enjoyment is how do I not change anything and just enjoy it more, and the other one is how do I do the things that are enjoyable or do things in a way that are enjoyable?

Chris Williamson 20:21 Mmm.

Joe Hudson 20:21 And- and so you have to hit it on both those levels. If you only try to do the things that are enjoyable you're fucked because that's actually an avoidance and that avoidance is gonna bring the thing-

Chris Williamson 20:33 Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 20:33 ... you're trying to avoid to bear so... So it has to be like both of those two things to get there.

Chris Williamson 20:39 One of the most common answers, uh, around the friends that are at kind of my level at the moment when we're talking about sort of what do you want to do with your... You know, everyone's in their 30s, some degree of sort of financial and professional freedom, um, and a lot of the... You ask, you know, "What is it that you're hoping to really do?" S- The m- the most common by- the most common answer by far is, "I just don't want to do things I don't want to do anymore." Like that's the most common and that is the, uh, either the first or the second version. It's, um, limit- gearing your life and the activities within your life toward things that you enjoy more so. Uh, but you're right that there- there is a whole other world of, first off, inevitable things like you're gonna have a kid, the kid's gonna go to hospital. Like what are-

Joe Hudson 21:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:24 ... you gonna do? You're gonna be sat in the waiting room for six hours and no one's gonna give you an answer? You- th- you need that skill set because-

Joe Hudson 21:28 Yes.

Chris Williamson 21:28 ... there's a kind of fragility to an over optimized enjoyable life because you never actually end up building the skill to be able to enjoy things that aren't enjoyable by design. But I think that on the other side, um, there is like a puritan work ethic that a lot of people in the UK will resonate with where, uh, life being enjoyable or choosing things that are enjoyable feels like i- i- you're undeserving of it. Your needs, your desires, you know, you shouldn't have them, subjugate them, who the fuck are you? This... You know, that- that's- that's not for you. Um, suffer and be- and be grateful for it.

Joe Hudson 22:05 Right, yeah. If you don't- if you don't suffer you're not actually, you don't- you don't deserve it, that kind of thing. You know?

Chris Williamson 22:11 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 22:12 Yeah, both of them are super toxic. I mean if you look at like who, like who's least likely to recover from alcoholism they're gonna be the- an addiction, it's gonna be independently wealthy people who can ch- who don't have to-

Chris Williamson 22:25 Is that right?

Joe Hudson 22:26 There's no... Yeah, there's no flaming field so to speak. There's no... And you see this with, I mean, 'cause I work with a lot of billionaires, you see this trap that happens where it's like, "Oh, I can buy myself out of anything that I don't enjoy," and- and there's a con- there's a consequence to that. Uh, uh, the perfect example that I think about is when I meet somebody who's like dedicated more than five years of their life to caring for somebody, like a mom that has Alzheimer's or a kid who's, you know, born with some sort of, uh, thing that requires them to be cared for full time, there's a softness to those people. I can recognize it. Like I- I- I- I can say to them, "Oh wow, who did you care for for so long? I can see that in you." It's the only way you're gonna get that, some version of that is the only way you're gonna get that, that kind of softness, that- that peace that they have. Like I know many people who've meditated for years who don't have that. Like there's... You know, I hitchhiked up to- to Alaska, which is-

Chris Williamson 23:26 (laughs)

Joe Hudson 23:26 ... a really hard thing to do. I have experiences that I could only get that way and that's- that was extremely uncomfortable for... Like we would sit on the roadside for like, at the time, like five hours straight like waiting for someone to give us a ride. Um, s- so there's just something that like if you are avoidant of things that you don't enjoy there's something really toxic about that and if you think that you have t- you can't enjoy life. And so it feels like it's the- the solution to that problem is how do I enjoy what's happening right now?

Chris Williamson 24:01 Are there any, uh, cues or mantras or- or- or practices that you fall back on when you think... Or w- w- what are the sort of fundamental components of maximizing enjoyment?

Joe Hudson 24:15 Yeah, so, so the way that, like, the w- the work that I do in the world, I try to create as much of it as a set of experiments, right? So because I don't ... Nobody really believes, like, y- I'm gonna have a talk with you now. We're gonna have ideas. There's may- maybe two that resonates with somebody who's listening to this thing. They're gonna be, "That's cool." Maybe they remember them, maybe they don't. That's kind of what intellectual understanding gets you. Whereas if you do an experiment and you run it, you're gonna understand stuff very differently. And so, and, and because I had massive authority issues when I was in my 20s, I didn't, I didn't wanna listen to anybody so I just, like, ran these experiments. And, um, so the experiment I ran is how do I ... I, uh, the first thing, experiment I ran was, I'm gonna go two weeks and not do anything I don't enjoy. And somewhere, like on day seven or eight, I was sitting in front of the garbage can. It smelt like shit. I did not want it in the house, but I did not enjoy taking out the garbage. And I just sat there. I was sitting there, just sitting there, like, "What the fuck do I do?" I h- I have committed to this thing and it's like, hmm. I'm like, the only way that I'm gonna get through this (laughs) is to figure out how to enjoy taking the garbage out.

Chris Williamson 25:27 Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 25:29 And s- and that was, like, the first lesson to me that, oh, enjoyment was a state of mind as much as anything else. And, and so how do, how do I enjoy things? And then that became this new skillset. So to me the, most of my mantras come in questions and because questions leave the mind open instead of, like, closed and it leaves the mind in wonder. So for me, I, the m- would be, the mantras, if, I wouldn't call it that, but would be, uh, how do I enjoy this 10% more? Just a little bit more. And then that just builds over time. It ... Just like working out. Like, you're not gonna get, you're not gonna get all buffed and ripped by, you know, saying, "How do I get to 100% right now?" It's like, "How do I just, like, increase the weights a little bit?"

Chris Williamson 26:18 Yeah. I, I had s- a very similar conversation to this one a year ago with Sam Harris and, um, he gave me inspiration for a realistic path to enlightenment which I think is way, w- way better than most of the sort of permanent non-dual, blissed-out ideas that we presume you need to go to a cave for. And, um, his was just stringing together a few moments of peace throughout the day. You know, okay, you know, if I can have my, my, my mind and my feet rest in the same spot just, just three times today. Okay, and then maybe, you know, in a couple of weeks, maybe that starts to become five. Whatever triggers you want. I've got Post-it notes around the house. Um, uh, and when you realize that just that sequence back to back to back ... And it's the same as this, it just i- Like, are you gonna be able to make everything permanently enjoyable? No, probably not. But what would this be like if it was a bit more fun? What would this be like if it was a little bit more enjoyable, if it was a little bit more easy?

Joe Hudson 27:11 Yeah. Yeah. There's also, uh, just to give you a couple of other ones in that, like, to, to kinda dovetail off of what, uh, Mr. Harris said is, uh, like, here's a, like, a really cool trick. It's like, you're looking at me. We're p- hanging out. We're just having a conversation. Something that makes my life more enjoyable is the question, "What's looking out behind my eyes?" So if you, like, but keep your eyes open and look, like, and we're having the conversation. You still understand everything I'm saying but you just have this question now, "What's looking out?" Yeah. I can see, I see the smile on your face. Yeah. It's just like, what? What? Like, that ... Just that thing can create the peace in the moment and, and it doesn't even require you to, like, go off and sit down and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like-

Chris Williamson 27:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 27:58 There's these little tricks like that. Paying attention to your inner ear when you're listening to somebody. It creates, like, this presence in the conversation? And a l- and a lot of the work that I do is, how do you have something like meditation relationally? Like, how is it that, like, when we're in a conversation, when we're connecting with people and we're parenting or being a boss or whatever we're doing, how does that become our practice rather than our practice as something that we do and then we try to, like, maintain it during life?

Chris Williamson 28:30 Mmm.

Joe Hudson 28:30 And it, it doesn't fucking work. Th- It didn't work for me. It works for some, doesn't work for me.

Chris Williamson 28:34 Yeah, taking meditation off the cushion, as it's called, has been a, a bit of a difficulty for me. I'm almost, I almost feel like I'm, uh, Bruce Wayne in Batman with, uh, you know, where I, who I am on a morning when I'm sat down and journal, breath work, meditate, read, get up and go about my day, and there's that me, and then there's the sort of dopamine, caffeine, nootropic-fueled-

Joe Hudson 28:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:57 ... version (laughs) of me-

Joe Hudson 28:58 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:58 ... that kind of fights fires throughout the day and reads things but reads them with a purpose of kind of bringing them back up and blah, blah, blah. It's very, v- very, very interesting. I wanna come back to it. I wanna get some more of your questions but I got another one here. So,

Chris Williamson 29:09 "Letting go doesn't happen by telling yourself to let go. Letting go happens when it is ready."

Joe Hudson 29:17 Yeah. Yeah. That's a ... That's ... How to explain that one? Uh, I would say, um ... There's this, there's this thing that I do where, like, I ask people to put their hands together like this and I, and I say, "Okay, try to pull your pinkies apart." And so go ahead and tr- But that's doing it. I don't want you to do it. I want you to try to do it. Right? And then feel that whole feeling in your body, that in- that feeling of trying.

Chris Williamson 29:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 29:51 And then just feel the opposite of it.

Chris Williamson 29:54 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 30:01 Yeah, so the, so we think that we can get to where we wanna go through effort and there's a ... But there's another place that i- like, the, but the idea of surrender or the idea of receiving, whatever words work for you, that allows ...... for a whole s- secondary thing to get done. And sometimes that's far more effective than effort. And so, um, I mean like, so like when I'm lifting weights, as... I keep on using weights example 'cause I know you're, you're into it, but, um, like when you're really doing like a really good set of reps, there's the effort part of the rep and then there's the stretch part of the rep. If you try to apply effort to the stretch, you fuck the stretch. Like, it's, it's about the op-, you know, it's like that moment where the weight is hanging and it's like stretching out the arms, ripping the muscles, and... It's a similar thing that there's, there's something that you, that has to be received into or surrendered into for it, for it to be effective and work. And so what I notice is a lot of people try to let go, and th- y- it doesn't work. They just-

Chris Williamson 31:08 Well, that was you, right? Finding this peak experience in meditation and then-

Joe Hudson 31:11 That's right.

Chris Williamson 31:12 ... gripping tightly onto the desire which immediately creates this success-failure. With... And the entire rea- it was your first one, first meditation retreat-

Joe Hudson 31:20 Yeah, first med- yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:20 ... where it all went right?

Joe Hudson 31:21 First time meditating.

Chris Williamson 31:21 Yeah, where you had no expecta-

Joe Hudson 31:23 First time meditating.

Chris Williamson 31:23 Where you had no expectation, you had no... Yeah. Blah, blah, blah.

Joe Hudson 31:25 That's right. Yeah, yeah. That's right. And, and then a thousand other times (laughs) you know?

Chris Williamson 31:29 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 31:29 Like, the, the too much effort a thousand other times. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:32 I mean, that's-

Joe Hudson 31:33 Fueled by the critical voice in the head, right?

Chris Williamson 31:35 Dude, I think about this all the time. So, um, there's basically no scenario in life that I've ever looked at, or at least for maybe like the last 10 years, where I haven't thought, "More effort will not make this better." Everything, single thing that is put in front of me, if I just work harder, apply more cognitive horsepower, focus better, if I just lean in, if I grip more tightly-

Joe Hudson 32:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:03 ... this thing will work. And I-

Joe Hudson 32:05 Cool.

Chris Williamson 32:06 ... I kind of have a, um-

Joe Hudson 32:07 Okay. So d- can you show me then, uh, how that works with enjoyment?

Chris Williamson 32:12 (laughs)

Joe Hudson 32:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:13 Fucking enjoy it. Fucking enjoy it, okay? You're gonna enjoy this.

Joe Hudson 32:18 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:18 It's like the, uh, it's like the sort of slightly outraged mother on a sub-par holiday telling her children-

Joe Hudson 32:24 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:24 ... "We're having fun."

Joe Hudson 32:25 Why aren't you smiling?

Chris Williamson 32:25 "We're having, we're all having fun."

Joe Hudson 32:27 (laughs) Why aren't you smiling?

Chris Williamson 32:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Smile.

Joe Hudson 32:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:29 Smile. This is fun. Yeah, no, no, this is fun. This is fun. Um-

Joe Hudson 32:32 Exactly. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:33 But yeah, I mean, just thinking about that, that gr- sort of gripping so tightly to things and, and assuming that that is the outcome that you're trying to achieve, assuming that that's the thing th- on the other side of it... Uh, I've got it, it's not fully fleshed out so I might, I might bumble this, but I'll see if I can get it across to you. I got the kind of, um, building out a, uh, an idea about hard work and about why it's so seductive in the modern world. The way that I, I think is that most people, most advice is charitably given to people who probably do need to work harder. Many more people, perhaps on average, need tightening up than loosening off. Therefore, the advice, the David Goggins, Jocko Willink, you know, g- "stay hard, get up early and, and stop hitting snooze and doing all the rest of it," maybe does, on average, improve the lives of most people. But there is a very big cohort of people for whom that gripping more tightly mentality pushes them further into the exact thing that they need to stop doing, that they're already trying to control all of the outcomes, they're gripping so tightly to all of the things that they're doing. And, um, I, I, I, I think the reason that hard work is so seductive is that it reliably makes most things a bit better but can actually, for a very big number of people over the longer term, make it way worse.

Joe Hudson 33:55 Yes, it... I would, I would put a, like a slight spin on that. I, I don't disagree with your, what you're saying in that and then I would spin it a little bit. So I would say the thing that's seductive about like, like, "Let's work harder," is, or, "Let, let me inspire you to work harder," is, one, is it, it rhymes with the voice in the head so that like, it's like I believe... So if you think about the voice in the head as a tyrant, most of us relate to the voice in the head like we're, you know, like they're f- they're, the, the, the absolute person who believes in them, right? Like, so it's pick whatever political figure you like, think about the person that you hate on the other si- the, the person that, the... Sorry. Think about the political figure that you hate and then think about the person who buys into everything they say. That tyrant is the voice in our head and we are the person who believes everything they say. And so when somebody says, "You need to work harder," they're like, "Yes. Check. I got-"

Chris Williamson 34:52 "I knew I needed to work harder."

Joe Hudson 34:53 And they, they hear i-

Chris Williamson 34:53 "I've been telling myself as a piece..." That's so good.

Joe Hudson 34:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:55 It's, it's like a, like psychological confirmation bias.

Joe Hudson 34:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:58 Like an internal confirmation bias.

Joe Hudson 35:00 So that's half of the thing. The other half is this feeling of empowerment. Most people in our society feel very disempowered. They feel like b- they're scared of the consequences of the actions that they wanna take. They're scared of the consequences of, of following their truth, and so they feel very disempowered. And so this gives them a feeling of, "Oh, I've, I, uh, I can have empowerment." And so it's very sexy and very... And the empowerment side, I think, is absolutely right. Like, that we- that is actually, you need to have that. Um, but once-

Chris Williamson 35:32 This belief that agency, you have agency over the outcomes.

Joe Hudson 35:34 Yeah. But once you actually figured out that you actually have agency and empowerment, then the move is love. Then the move is learning to love yourself, love others, be a- unconditional in your love. And, and what you start to find out is that the unconditional love and empowerment, they can't really exist without one another. You can't really... What, what we call love that doesn't have empowerment is like codependence. It's like, "How do I make you happy so that I can feel safe?" It's a fear-based action. And empowerment without love is actually just power and there's, you'll never get enough of it and it can always be taken from you. And so it's really, it's like those two things become one eventually. But so, so-... so I would say that love would help anybody on that whole spectrum, but the sexy thing is, and the thing that they, that they are gonna go for, is that you can be better, you can be empowered.

Chris Williamson 36:32 Dude, you're blowing my mind. All of these are, are really, really great. All

Chris Williamson 36:35 right, next one. "The desire to be special can only exist if you don't know who you are."

Joe Hudson 36:42 (laughs) Yeah. Wow, man. You have been on my Twitter. Um-

Chris Williamson 36:46 I'm picking, picking all of the headlines today. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Hudson 36:48 Yeah. Uh, yeah, fanta- um... Yeah, so there's this idea that basically if you're trying to be special then that comes from a place of, um, low self-esteem, or that comes from a place of, uh, of wanting to improve, wanting to be better. And if you actually know who you are, that, like, that, it, it, you just couldn't. You just couldn't, it wouldn't, it's not a possibility. There's a great Tibetan saying, "If you're, if you think somebody's better than you, then that's comparative mind, that's misery. If you think somebody's beneath you, that's comparative mind, that's misery. If you think somebody's equal to you, that's comparative mind and that's misery."

Chris Williamson 37:42 (laughs)

Joe Hudson 37:44 Um, our society has fallen a little bit into the equality thing now, but, but if I'm not better, if I'm not worse, and I'm not, and I'm not equal, then I'm special. And so then, then I know who I, I know, that would be me knowing who I am. As long as I'm in a comparative mind, I don't, I c- I can't know who I am. That's, that's basically what it's pointing to.

Chris Williamson 38:10 Why would you be special if you're not better, worse, or equal?

Joe Hudson 38:13 Well, I mean, that makes me, if I can't be better than anybody or worse than, you, I'm, I have to be unique. I have to be, I have to be something that's not those things.

Chris Williamson 38:25 So I read that, I read, um, "The desire to be special can only exist if you don't know who you are." (clears throat) I said maybe, maybe, maybe it does, does dovetail, that basically the desire to be special is kind of a fruitless pursuit, because by virtue of the fact that the chance of you being here is so infinitesimally fucking unlikely, and that no one else will ever be born in the exact same space at the exact same time with your genetics and your experiences, uh, and that the most that you can ever hope to know of any other person, even your best friend or wife that you've known for your entire life and shared everything with, is one trillionth daily of what you get to see of yourself. The sort of specialness is imbued in your own experience. The depth of experience you have of yourself is so asymmetric compared with that that you get from other people, that the desire to be special is chasing a thing which is already there.

Joe Hudson 39:26 Yeah, it's not what I meant by it, but, uh, it's really beautiful.

Chris Williamson 39:29 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Hudson 39:29 (laughs) I, I can't disagree with that. I, I think the way that I would say it is more, like, if, if you go back to Sam Harris, the, in the process of understanding yourself or what some people would call awakening, you know, there's the moment of, "I am nothing," and there's the moment of, "I am everything." And when you see yourself clearly in that way, that you are the same as everyth- like, you and God, you and nature, you and humanity, you are the same, and when you see that you're nothing, like, how does the idea of not being special and/or being special, like, can, how can it even exist?

Chris Williamson 40:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 40:07 That would be another way to say it.

Chris Williamson 40:09 Why do you think people want to be special? Where do you think that drive comes from?

Joe Hudson 40:13 They weren't loved as kids in a way that was deeply attuned. That they were told that they had to be of value, that they couldn't cry, that they couldn't get angry, that they, whatever. That the, that who they were was, needed to be managed, and so that they are looking for somebody to say, "I, I, I love you," but then it never works out, because even when you get it, you become the superstar. Everybody loves you, but then it doesn't work out. And so it's, the only way it really works out is when you learn to love all those parts of yourself, and therefore love all those parts of other people. It's the only way it gets there.

Chris Williamson 40:56 I've got the word, I've got the word "enough" coming up as you say that. The, the, like, someone, you are enough, you as you are. No more, no augmentations, no accolades, no fanfare, no nothing. You as a child, you as an adult, you are enough, is this thing.

Joe Hudson 41:12 Even the idea of enough-ness seems like the, it is limited in some way. I don't know how to explain it. There's this thing that, it's, it's, it's similar to th- you know, one of the teachings that they have, I think it's a mistranslation of, like, "Oh, accept your emotional experience." The idea is that you're supposed to accept yourself. And that doesn't, like, that do- uh, at least in my language, that doesn't really fulfill. What fulfills is welcome, of like, "I can't wait to have the experience of being abandoned. I, I welcome it." I have a, uh, a quote that's, "Joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions, and she won't come into a house where her children aren't welcome." And, and it's welcome. It's not accept, where you accept her children. You know what I mean? And-

Chris Williamson 41:55 Who are the, who are the children of joy?

Joe Hudson 41:57 The family of emotion, so all of them. So the more that people are willing to welcome the anger, the fear, the, the, the helplessness, the sadness, the grief, the excitement, (laughs) which is also incredibly hard for people to feel, um, the more that you can welcome those and more joy just as a natural part of existence.

Chris Williamson 42:24 One of my favorite sto- it's a dark story, but one of my favorite stories is about Tiger Woods. And, um, his father was very tyrannical, especially when he was a kid, sort of this, this guy who just drove Tiger to be the best that he could at golf. And there's an e- a video of H- Tiger, I think, is maybe two and a half or three, playing golf on some late night TV show. Uh, and his dad would, uh, during, uh, coaching and training, he would racially abuse him on the golf course. He would say, "These white people are never gonna let you h- let you play here. You're not a, you, you're like, it's, you, you're n- not performing well," like, real, just heavy, heavy, heavy. But they had a safe word, like you do during rough sex, and he said, "Just, if you ever need me to stop, just say the E word. Say the E word, and it'll all be over, and I'll stop doing it." And he never once said it throughout all of childhood, and the E word was enough.

Joe Hudson 43:15 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:17 Terrifying, man. And look at what came out, look at what came out. You know, you have a guy, potentially one of the greatest golfers of all time, but-

Joe Hudson 43:24 Who was, who was-

Chris Williamson 43:24 ... a broken human.

Joe Hudson 43:25 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is the... right? And, and, and then we tell the story that that's what's necessary to be the greatest of all time.

Chris Williamson 43:37 It's just such a-

Joe Hudson 43:37 And there's definitely ex- counterexamples of it.

Chris Williamson 43:40 Who, like?

Joe Hudson 43:42 Um, I mean, okay, so to say that no human has trauma, I wouldn't go that far. So, there's always, like, levels of trauma. But there's not that level of trauma, um-

Chris Williamson 43:53 Racial abuse on the golf course, probably.

Joe Hudson 43:54 Exactly. So, uh, there's a guy I met recently, he's now, like, a... boy, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't... Trum- he's, uh, worked, he was with The Warriors, he was a really great player in The Warriors, and he, um, but didn't start playing basketball. He's from Africa, and now he's a news cot- broadcaster. I'm sorry, I can't remember his name. Um, but I was at a party and I met him, and his story was, like, "I just wanted to go to college, and I came from Africa, and so I played basketball 'til my fingers bled so that I could get the scholarship." And he tells this story, and he tells about, like, the love of his parents and how that pursued him, how that... And I don't know too much about, like, a LeBron James, but my understanding that his mother and his relationship was definitely not Tiger Woods and his father's relationship. So, there's definitely places where the, that level of trauma's not required to...

Chris Williamson 44:45 Well, um, th- this, this question, um, sort of, I guess, the, the power of low self-esteem or the, the, the power of this need, uh, is probably the thing that's obsessed me the most over the last few years. Because when you look at someone like Tiger and you think, "Well, you know, look at what he achieved," and you go, okay, but your definition of achievement is s- the art of achievement, the art of accomplishment, uh, is, is so narrowly defined. It's just within this very one small domain. Is that what you want for your life? And I'm watching, um, Tour de France Unchained on Netflix at the moment. Have you seen this?

Joe Hudson 45:21 Uh, no, no, not at all. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:22 I highly recommend watching it if you're obsessed with, sort of, human performance and, and the narrative. It's like a behind-the-scenes, kind of like that Formula 1, uh, Drive to Survive series.

Joe Hudson 45:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:32 And, um, you just see these guys that are sacrificing everything. A guy died in twen- two, l- last year on the, uh, Giro d'Italia, like, the-

Joe Hudson 45:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:40 ... the, the Italian one. He died, because these guys are doing, you know, nearly 100 kilometers an hour downhill, uh, on wheels that are-

Joe Hudson 45:48 Wow.

Chris Williamson 45:49 ... that (laughs) that thick wearing Lycra. If they come off, at the very least, there's m- broken bones and there's skin grafts that are needed, and all sorts of stuff, and this guy died. Uh, the point being, if you want to become the absolute best within a narrowly defined pursuit, there are a lot of e- weird externalities and prices. And really, what you're looking at is a game of who is prepared to, who is prepared to sacrifice everything else in their life the most in order to be able to win at this one thing.

Joe Hudson 46:18 Yeah. I think, also... So, I obviously work with a lot of incredibly high performing people in the business context. And, and so I think with athletics, I think we like to use that, like, athletics and Navy SEALs. Like, I think we like to use that place. And, and I think that's, it's true, but it's also only one example of greatness, is physical greatness. And we're in a day, and we're in a modern time where there's, like, you're competing with seven billion people for that particular kinda greatness. And so, I think... And there's only 5% of the top 100% that are ever gonna be known for their greatness. And so, I think that that's a particular thing, whereas something like business or art or... Like, I'm not sure if that same kinda thing is required. Um, like, I would, if, if I was, if I wanted to bet on an artist that would, gonna be, succeed and... For me, it'd be the person who would, like, more likely enjoy their work. And when I work with super high powered CEOs, my experience is that when they start learning to enjoy what they're doing, they become far more effective. What's interesting is, I don't think that's, uh, like, I think that if you're in certain bureaucratic positions, you might not rise through the ranks as quickly. You may, you might just leave. But particularly the CEO position or the C-level position of a company that would, say, doing more than 100 million in rev, those folks, when they s- when they turn that switch on, it totally... 'Cause they're not, they're not in their... They get to control a lot of their day and what they choose to do to be effective. So, I think there's something about the physical performance, in particular, that's nuanced there that maybe isn't-

Chris Williamson 48:01 Well, it's that, it's that hard work thing again, right? It's that gripping tightly. It's the assumption that in a domain where performance is, uh, uh, easy to quantify, um, there are established rules around working hard and game tape and diet and, sort of, thinking about it three, th- 365, 24/7. Um, but you're, you're totally correct. Like, if you were to look at... Uh, b- take podcasting. Um-

Joe Hudson 48:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:25 ... the best podcasters in the world are not the ones that live and breathe podcasting. They're the ones that have sufficiently interesting lives that-

Joe Hudson 48:30 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 48:30 ... they can actually talk about it on a podcast. There's work-

Joe Hudson 48:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:33 ... to be done, you know?

Joe Hudson 48:33 Yeah. Exactly.

Chris Williamson 48:34 Diction and networking and, and conversational skills.

Joe Hudson 48:37 And wasn't there also, like, the best biathlete in the world? If I have this right. I don't... I was told this story, I don't know if it's true, but some Norwegian guy, and, like, he sits on the couch, like, six hours a day 'cause he's like, "My body needs to rest if I'm gonna be high performance."

Chris Williamson 48:50 That wouldn't surprise me. But, uh, uh, and the further that you get away from that, uh, into poetry, into art, into any, any creative endeavor, those, those things, business, those things don't come about through sort of force of will. Even writing, I know that whatever, uh, inspiration is for amateurs, professionals just show up and do the work. Like, that's true, I think, for the fact that most writers maybe need tightening up, not l- not loosening off, but also, where does their inspiration come from? Their inspiration comes during the walk that they have or the nap that they needed in the middle of the afternoon.

Joe Hudson 49:26 Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so it's an interesting balance of, like, how, how tight does this string need to be in your particular profession. Um, but there's also the question of, like you said... So I know plenty of people who woke up at 60 who were like, "I'm a billionaire, I'm successful, and I'm absolutely fucking miserable."

Chris Williamson 49:48 That's a nightmare. That's, uh, th- that's the future that everybody should fear.

Joe Hudson 49:52 Yeah. And it's, and it's, it's incredibly prevalent. I, I, like, I, I... (laughs) You know, like I, I have another quote that's, um, "The problem with managing your life is that you have a life that you need to manage." And, and that's, that's... I just see that happen for folks is that they've, like, managed themselves into this area, and now to maintain it, they have to continue managing themselves.

Chris Williamson 50:16 Mm.

Joe Hudson 50:17 And then, th- at some point, they're like, "That, that hurts. It sucks. I don't want that anymore."

Chris Williamson 50:22 "People who repress their emotional experience are fragile. They get stuck on decisions more easily, and they are slower to heal from experiences." Why?

Joe Hudson 50:30 Yeah. So we talked about the... At the beginning, we talked about the matrix and the golden algorithm. So the reason that I came up with that is because I was looking for effective ways to get people out of patterns or habits that they were in. And so... And including myself. And so what I noticed is that when people s- all of a sudden welcome, like in my case, the abandonment, then the pattern stops. And so the, the way, the way that we... Like, if you have emotional stagnation, shame is one of the best forms of emotional stagnation. Guilt, another form of emotional stagnation. Judgment, another form of emotional stagnation. When you don't have that emotional fluidity, then you're gonna start repeating these patterns over and over and over again. And, um, and so as far as the decision-making one, which is slightly different... So there's a book, 2012 book called Descartes' Error by a neuroscientist who basically... It's now become more nuanced, but I'm gonna do the un-nuanced version of it, which is basically the em- the, the decision-making part of our brain is the emotional center of our brain. If you take the emotional center of the brain out of your body, your IQ stays the same, but your life falls apart because it takes you a long time to decide what color pen it takes you-

Chris Williamson 51:48 Oh, I've, I've heard... The, there was a guy, there was a guy, didn't he have to choose a s- a, a date for an appointment, and the, um, uh, interviewers or whatever were just looking at him, and it took him 45 minutes because he has no value set?

Joe Hudson 52:02 That's right. Yeah, so, so we make emotional decisions, and it's really easy to see in your own life, not that way, but, like, how many emotion, how many decisions did you make to not feel rejected or to feel loved or to feel like a success or to not feel abandoned or rejected? You know what I mean? There's... So you, so we make all these decisions on an emotional basis. We don't make logical decisions. We use logic as a way to try to figure out how we'll feel based on a decision, and so... So I notice that w- like, the, the proof is in the pudding. If somebody is having a hard time making a decision, we find out what they don't want to feel, they feel it, the decision gets made. I cannot tell you how many people who are, you know, slightly depressed and feel stuck when they get angry, they have absolute clarity on the other side of the anger, just like, boom. It just, it, they're, they've, they've been black-and-white thinking, binary thinking for, you know, months on a subject, they get angry, and then it's like 100% clear. So they're... So what we're doing is we're trying to avoid an emotion by m- in the decision that we make, and if we love all of the emotions, we have clarity in our decision-making. Yeah, I'm okay with the fact that some people might hate me on that. I'm okay with the fact that I might be abandoned. I'm gonna follow my truth, and I'm gonna be okay with the consequences, which is the real empowerment that we're talking about. And so that's why... And so if we... It doesn't matter if you're, like, you know, a world leader or the, a billionaire with a massive thing. If you're trying to avoid certain emotional experiences, you know, like, you're predictable, it's easy to beat you, and, and, like, and, and you're gonna be stuck in that pattern.

Chris Williamson 53:49 I get the sense as well that a lot of people that are high performers rely so much on their cognitive cerebral horsepower, and it's proven in the past... Look at all the things it's got you. Look at how great your models are.

Joe Hudson 54:02 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:03 You should try my models. I mean, y- y-

Joe Hudson 54:04 Yes.

Chris Williamson 54:04 ... you had, if you had access to my models, you'd be, your, your life would be-

Joe Hudson 54:06 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:07 ... as well.

Joe Hudson 54:07 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:08 So, you know, you have this, um, very sterile approach to, uh, decision-making and to moving through life, uh, and then you're told the exact thing that you're scared of doing-

Joe Hudson 54:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:22 ... that you have no experience in doing.

Joe Hudson 54:25 Yes.

Chris Williamson 54:25 You now to, uh, uh, need to stop being the fourth-degree black belt in this particular modality, go back to being worse than a white belt, like absolute beginner at this thing that you don't even have any evidence that it's going to be good-

Joe Hudson 54:40 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:40 ... up against all of this evidence from fourth-degree black belt modality that says, "Look at how fucking impressive I am. The world loves me."

Joe Hudson 54:48 Yeah, yeah. That, you're describing, like, my first meeting with a ton of clients. Yeah, so, so the intellect is amazing, and I love it, and it's really, really, really useful, and-... it's not your whole intelligence. So, like, if you-- my work really has an idea that there's, like, the mental intelligence, loosely prefrontal cortex, human emotional intelligence, emotional fluidity, loosely mammalian, and the kind of the, the gut intelligence, which is more like, um, in the reptilian side of things. And, and if you really wanna have change and change yourself, you, uh, you work on all three. You don't work on one or the other. But most of us are highly developed in one, not very developed in the other. So you get a lot more transformation for the buck focused on the place that you suck. Yeah, so it's not abandoning the models, but hey, learn to go from zero to one in e- emotions, and that's gonna 10X your models as compared to, you know, go from 100 to 101 in your model. Like, it's good, but, but eventually it's like, um, the way I think about it is it's like three pencils with rubber bands and there's always tension between them. So if one's really low, then at some point it's just- you are holding more and more tension.

Chris Williamson 56:10 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 56:10 And so for me, it's you have to work on all three if you want real transformation. The emotional experience is just the one that i- is mostly abandoned by our society. We've been told, "Be logical, don't have- don't make emotional decisions," and we've experienced emotions as something that was bad that made us feel out of control that hurt our relationships. And so we immediately went to trying to manage them instead of learning how to harness them and instead of learning, like, the beauty of them and, and how they actually work, because they don't work rationally. Like, how many people have I worked with who are like, "Yeah, I'm, I'm angry, but it's not rational." It's like, yeah, that's a- that's fucking emotions, man. Like (laughs) they, they are none of them are rational, but they are incredibly wise if you know how to listen to 'em.

Chris Williamson 56:56 I've been big into evolutionary psychology for the last four years or so and have had a lot of conversations about relationships, mating dynamics, and stuff like that. And, um, I've got a, uh, blog post brewing in me about how even evolutionary psychology that tries to be all-encompassing when it comes to mating and mate selection misses the most important thing, which is the phenomenon of falling in love with somebody, because it's not rational. And, uh, you know, the way that I and all of my friends and colleagues have talked about this for forever is in terms of mate value and exchanges and, uh, mate guarding and, you know, uh, par- male parental uncertainty, and it's, you know, it's this amount for that, it's trading resources for safety and so on and so forth. And you go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nice, that's nice," and I can put it on a spreadsheet and all the rest of it. But what about the way it feels? And, you know, how many times... I'm, I, I, I went through a, uh, a breakup a couple of months ago so I'm kind of slowly reintegrating myself back into the dating scene, and there's so many times I've found with friends that are dating, uh, a-and myself as well, where I'm like, "Dude, on paper, this chick's amazing." Like, so all of the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick all of the different things, why, why don't I feel like this is, uh, something that can continue? Why don't I feel like this is something that works? And you go, "Well, because you don't get to choose that. You don't get to choose that. That's not so much."

Joe Hudson 58:23 I'm gonna argue there. I think you do, but it's not a short-term choice. So there's two thought processes. One, I love what you're saying about evolutionary psychology, and, and I have this model that I use for, like, emotional evolution, like how we evolve emotionally, and, and we can get, get into that, because there's so little literature done on there's like, this is how emotions work and this is what we can measure. But there's not like, "Here's how you develop cognitively." That is out there, Piaget and a hundred others. But there's no like, "Here's how we develop emotionally." But, but on the love thing, so, so here's what I notice is people fall in love with the folks who have the pattern that they need to heal in them. So you had a critical mom, say, then there's a good chance you're gonna fall in love with a critical woman and that, like that's where the heat's gonna be. That's... And, and I've listened to people have their first dates and I'm like, "You're just listing off what you're gonna do to each other." Like, it's an amazing experience if you're listening to it from that. They're telling each other about themselves, but they're really saying like, "This is how I'm gonna relate with you and this is how I'm gonna relate with... This is like, we're gonna just paint this all forward." If you heal that stuff, then you're gonna be attracted to other people. You're not gonna, uh, be attracted to that anymore. And so my experience is like a, a good relationship is it starts with, "Here's my trauma, this is your trauma." They're well mated, we have something to learn from each other, the exact thing we're here to learn, and we're both willing to do the work on ourselves to learn it. And you put those two things together and you have a long-term successful relationship. Without them, it's questionable.

Chris Williamson 1:00:03 Yeah. Uh, uh, Alain de Botton says that, uh, on your first date you should ask... Uh, there's one question that should always be asked which is, "In what ways are you crazy?"

Joe Hudson 1:00:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:13 (laughs) I think that's a short, a shorter version of what-

Joe Hudson 1:00:18 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:18 ... what you're asking.

Joe Hudson 1:00:19 Exactly. Are you my kind of crazy?

Chris Williamson 1:00:21 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:00:21 Yeah. And I mean, for me marriage was marriage and ch- child-raising were the most important spiritual practices of my life or self-development practices of my life. Like, I, like, we were, ju- we, Tara and I just got really lucky, uh, and Tara was really the person who... Like when, when I asked her to marry me, she said, "Yeah, we're gonna travel through Southeast Asia for six months together in backpacks. If we can survive that, we're gonna s- see a therapist and we're gonna do a meditation retreat if we're gonna get married." These were, like, the requirements.

Chris Williamson 1:00:54 Got it.

Joe Hudson 1:00:54 So-

Chris Williamson 1:00:54 It was like your Navy Seal hell week, but just-

Joe Hudson 1:00:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:56 ... attracted a little bit more.

Joe Hudson 1:00:58 And it was just like this beautiful thing that set the course for our relationship as a way to understand ourselves.

Chris Williamson 1:01:04 Grow.

Joe Hudson 1:01:05 ... and to grow, and then that, that was always the purpose of our relationship. And, and the love was there, and the love just has only deepened. And it's no longer like a ... It's not like the kinda hot love of the first three to five months, but it's, like, so much better.

Chris Williamson 1:01:21 Yeah. I, I even had that. I was on the bike this morning thinking about this idea for, uh, what evolutionary psychology gets wrong about relationships, and one of the things that came up was, you know, you d- describing this transition from passionate to companionate systems and blah, blah, blah. And you go, "Yeah, I know, but what does it feel like? Tell me what it feels like. Stop describing it in terms that can be written in a journal." And, you know, I guess this is maybe where, you know, the limits of science actually, in some ways, do, and maybe you need to look elsewhere. Maybe you need to look to art and music and, and, and c- conversation and poetry and, and things like that, experiences.

Chris Williamson 1:01:57 All right, next one. If you can't say no easily-

Joe Hudson 1:02:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:01 ... you can't be trusted. Why?

Joe Hudson 1:02:04 So we have this experiment we run in some of our retreats, where your job is to try to get someone to do something, and, and at the end of it, we'll ask, you know, "Was there anybody who, who didn't get a no?" And there's always somebody where someone said yes to them. So they're, I- in pairs, and somebody's like, "Will you do this?" And they have to ask you to do something that you can do right there in the moment. "Will you do a pushup? Will you blah, blah, blah, blah?"

Chris Williamson 1:02:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:02:29 And somebody always doesn't say no, and you'll ask them, "Hey, do you trust them?" They're like, "No." You can't trust somebody ... L- like, if they say no to you, then you know they're in their truth. Otherwise, you're ... Like, what's actually happening under there? What's actually, what's actually going on for you? And so it's just as simple as that. The, I thought the quote you were gonna say was, um-

Chris Williamson 1:02:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:02:54 ... "If you can't say no, then you can't find your yes," which is also something that I say. And I think they're completely related. It's like, if you're hanging out with somebody and your experience of them is that they're always there to please you, then, well, you can't trust them 'cause you don't know them. You can't ... Like, because they, they don't even know themselves enough. They've, like, completely lost themselves in you. And any time that that relationship happens, it always ends in resentment. There's no relationship where somebody loses themselves in somebody else and there's not resentment that follows.

Chris Williamson 1:03:27 Neil Strauss, last year, the best quote of 2023, "Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments."

Joe Hudson 1:03:34 (laughs) That's a good one.

Chris Williamson 1:03:35 Fucking monster.

Joe Hudson 1:03:37 Ah, that's a great quote.

Chris Williamson 1:03:39 Why is it ... You know, w- w- we're often told, uh, especially as kids, but as we grow up as well, about the dangers of being selfish and, and, and, and, uh, uh, focusing on ourselves too much and that we must give, so on and so forth. If that's the case, why do we find it so hard to make our own needs a priority? Why do we subjugate our desires and the things that we need in order to please other people? How do we hold these two things at the same time?

Joe Hudson 1:04:07 Can you repeat that question? I think I heard you, but I wanna make sure. Did you say we're told not to be selfish?

Chris Williamson 1:04:12 Yeah, when we're growing up. Like, "Stop being so selfish," you know?

Joe Hudson 1:04:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:15 "Gi- gi- give the toy to your little brother." Right?

Joe Hudson 1:04:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:17 Spend time with them. We're in a world of solipsistic narcissists and all the rest of it-

Joe Hudson 1:04:20 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:04:20 ... and yet, in the same sentence, we're somehow often subjugating our needs. "Our desires don't matter. I don't make myself a priority. Please, please, just like me, love me."

Joe Hudson 1:04:30 It's 'cause we learn from mimicry more than we learn from what we're told. And when a parent says to their kid, "You're being selfish," it's the parent being selfish. But a parent ne- never says to a kid, "You're being selfish" unless they're not doing what they want them to do. That's when you call a kid selfish. So what the ... So verbally, they're saying, "Don't be selfish," but the emotional system, the gut system, the guttural system is saying, "Be selfish, like me, right now. This is what adults do. We're selfish. As a matter of fact, we're so fucking selfish, we're gonna tell you, we're gonna shame you because you're not doing what I want." So we have that conflict inside of us, and, and then it just, like, goes everywhere in our life because we haven't actually resolved that internal conflict of ... Oh, I had a, a great example of this is I had a friend who was Catholic and, um, uh, he had just a wonderful tradition of faith in him. But at one point, he said to me, he said, uh, "Joe, I, I have a hard time knowing when I'm supposed to take care of myself or if I'm supposed to, um, sacrifice for others, and I don't know when I'm supposed to do that." And I said, "Oh, oh, I didn't know. Your god's a sadomasochist." Set up a world where there's a difference between those two things? That makes no fucking sense to me. In my experiences, that when I'm truly doing what's best for me, I'm also being highly compassionate for other people. Like, there's, there's very little time ... L- like, occasionally, like in business deals where it's like, it's just now arbitrary about how much money is going to who, th- the, the principles of it have worked out. There's a couple places like that, but in almost all situations, if I'm really, really taking care of myself, it is also the compassionate thing to do for others.

Chris Williamson 1:06:20 And that includes saying no?

Joe Hudson 1:06:22 Yeah, exactly. It mo- almost most importantly, it is saying no, 'cause then I'm not breeding a relationship of resentment. So, so, uh, and so what y- typically people mistake for being compassionate is, is like, "Did I make the person uncomfortable? Am I being nice?" It's not compassion at all. Like, a compassionate act might make somebody really, really uncomfortable. And so usually when people are saying, "Don't be selfish," they're saying, like, "Make me comfortable." And so, but being actually ... When you're doing what's actually best for you, it's just not always gonna feel good. If you're doing what's actually best for other people, it's not gonna feel good in the moment. Long term, it will, but in the moment, it isn't.

Chris Williamson 1:07:03 People don't want you to be perfect. What they want is to feel connected with you.

Joe Hudson 1:07:08 Yeah.Yeah. So that's the weird part, right? So I don't know how many people get a... (laughs) They get, they, they get so hung up around the act of being perfect. First, the first thing about perfection is there is no such thing. There's, like, your idea of perfection, my idea of perfection, so it's an unachievable place. And, and if you notice, with the critical voice in your head, the idea per- of, of perfection, it, it, it's a moving target. Like... And typically, if you really start listening closely to the voice in your head, it'll tell you contradictory things. It'll say, like, um, you know, "You really have to work hard if you're gonna get your goals," and then it'll say, "You're abandoning your mom and dad 'cause you're working too hard." Like, there'll be all these con-... If you really, like, write down all the shit it says and you look for the contradiction, it's amazing. Just like that politician we were talking about, and the person's like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say." Like, they're contradicting themselves all over the place as well. And so, and so that... So since you can't hit the target, you're never gonna get there, but somehow we think if we get it right then we'll be loved, but people actually wanna feel connected. Great products, great podcasts, great friendships-

Chris Williamson 1:08:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:08:24 ... great marriages, great businesses, all are built on connection. Great athletic performance is built on connection to yourself, to your body. There's no way someone's gonna have athletic intelligence without a deep connection to their body. So connection is the thing that actually... But somehow or another in our minds, because of the voice in the head, we think that perfection's gonna get us somewhere it doesn't. And, and if you literally do that work of saying, "Okay, like, how do I make this podcast more connective with me and with other people?" it'll be a better podcast.

Chris Williamson 1:08:59 So true. When I first started doing this six years ago, I thought that the job of a podcaster was to be this sort of ruthless indexer of information, that basically the goal was to kind of extract as much wisdom from the guest as possible and then put it on the internet, like, like a live version of Blinkist, I guess. Uh, and it took, I don't know, probably 400 episodes for me to realize that you're much closer to a vibe architect than you are to a synthesizer or essentializer of information. And, um, the more... That's one of the beautiful things about pursuits that are a little bit more artful, that there isn't perfect, and that's one of the problems, again, of using, uh, sport as a, a rubric. There's very tightly defined rules, right? We know what 300 kilos on the bar. If you pick it up and I don't pick it up, you win, in powerlifting. Okay. Like, all right, that's... We know exactly what that is. But what does it mean to say that this was a better blog post, or this is a better piece of music? What does that even mean? Uh, and there's even sports, stuff like bodybuilding, in which it's not so much about the quantifiable metrics. It's about this sort of weird, like, ethereal way that it's all put together into an experience, and there's the, the movement, and there's the song choice, and there's the, you know, the fucking color of the tiny pants, all of the different bits and pieces. But yeah, um, uh, first off, that, uh, I love that idea, um, of, of, uh, uh, of perfection. And then the second one, I had this idea about, uh, reverse charisma, uh, and there's this famous, um, story about Winston Churchill's wife, I think, who gets to meet the two presidential candidates for America. And she says that she left the first dinner with the first one feeling like he was the smartest person on the planet, and she left the second dinner with the other, saying that she felt like she was the most interesting, smartest person on the planet. And, um-

Joe Hudson 1:10:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:50 ... I realized, I realized that, uh, what we think we want when it comes to charisma and being around a table, or what we think that other people want from us is for us to be impressive and, and, uh, sharp and witty and cool and funny and all of the rest of it. But when I think about the people that I like having around my dinner table the most, it's not those people.

Joe Hudson 1:11:12 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:11:12 It's the ones that make me feel like I'm that person.

Joe Hudson 1:11:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:16 And if you go, "Okay, well, if that's how, uh, if that's what I want from other people, I can just be that to other people." And reverse charisma is way easier to achieve than actual charisma.

Joe Hudson 1:11:26 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:11:26 Reverse charisma's just being interested in the other person.

Joe Hudson 1:11:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:29 So yeah, the, the, I, I think, uh, so much from that. People don't want you to be perfect. What they want is to feel connected with you.

Joe Hudson 1:11:36 Yeah. And that's the, that's the place where I talk about love. So, like, if you learn to unconditionally love all the parts of yourself, it's really easy to unconditionally love the parts of others. And so all of that benefit of what you call reverse charisma comes with it, which is really quite, which is really quite sweet, but it also comes with it not from a place of like, "Oh, look what I got," which always falls apart. Like, it's not like, "Oh, I've accomplished a goal." It's just like, "Life is a dream that I never thought possible coming true." It's a whole different thing, you know? The thing about reaching a goal and having happiness there is it's only happiness because there's a moment where you don't have a goal that you're defining yourself by. That's why you get that happiness when you reach that goal. But there's this other kind of goal which is like, "I'm not... I don't define myself by what I do." I do shit. I do it well. I like it. I enjoy it. It's fantastic. But I'm not defined by that. And then some sort of joy comes from that, back to that original prompt of, of, of how... I forgot, gosh, what... You had a quote that you used of mine, but I can't remember what it was.

Chris Williamson 1:12:46 Which one? The, the spiritual path for so many, I am not good enough yet?

Joe Hudson 1:12:49 Yes, exactly, yeah, exactly. Back to that quote about spiritual path being not good enough.

Chris Williamson 1:12:54 Mm-hmm. Yeah, one of the, uh, uh, one of... My business partner in the productivity drink that I make, James, took some psilocybin and sat on a, a cliff in Australia, and this question came to him which was, "Does the world love you for who you are or for what you do?"And then, uh, I told this to Mark Manson and he said, "Here's an even harder question. Do you love you for who you are or for what you do?" And, um, that, uh, that's really stuck with me. It's a very, very difficult question to answer, right? You know, we- you- you almost promise, or you feel like you've been promised this value trade with the world. "If only I can be sufficiently impressive. If only I can be smart, or rich, or sexy, or successful, or admirable, or- or- or kind, or giving," or whatever the fuck it is, "then..."

Joe Hudson 1:13:42 Then only half the people will hate me.

Chris Williamson 1:13:44 (laughs)

Joe Hudson 1:13:46 Like... Like, look at all those people. Half the people hate them.

Chris Williamson 1:13:49 (laughs)

Joe Hudson 1:13:49 (laughs) Like, it's just like... Yeah, there- the story that I have that's like that is, um, was told to me by a guy who, like, started these big retreat centers. His name escapes me. But he- but he was talking about, like, this near-death experience he had, and he had these two people walking towards him in the light, and he's like, "Oh, they're gonna- they're gonna judge me. I'm here to be judged. I wonder if I'm good enough." And when they got there, they basically looked at him and said, "So, have you been good enough?" And, uh, it's like, I remember it, how much chills it gave me at the time, because it's like, right, yeah, this is... Like, this is- the moment isn't- it's- it's- there's no outside that's gonna give you any kind of validation. There's- you know, like, look at- look at the people who have all the validation in the world, like... They're in- in (laughs) horrific rap battles w- with doing disstrack.

Chris Williamson 1:14:45 (laughs)

Joe Hudson 1:14:45 (laughs) There's- there's no-

Chris Williamson 1:14:46 Trying to get a horse to lift its foot up.

Joe Hudson 1:14:48 (laughs) They're trying to get a horse to lift its foot up, that's right.

Chris Williamson 1:14:52 Uh...

Joe Hudson 1:14:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:14:53 Yeah. So

Chris Williamson 1:14:54 one of the big journeys that I've been doing for the last sort of seven or eight months now, um, facilitated through therapy, uh, but required by the rest of my life, was trying to feel feelings properly, trying to fully connect with emotions and tap into that. Just from a basic level, what is it about feeling feelings and emotions that's caused so many of us to struggle to just get there?

Joe Hudson 1:15:24 Yeah, so there's a couple of things that get in the way. So if you're a kid who was physically abused, and I put, um, a quarter in one hand and a key in another hand without telling you what's in what, you wouldn't be able to know, because your- you've s- killed the sensations in your body enough, because it was too intense for you to feel. So if you had enough physical violence, you can't feel your body the same way anymore. So it's the same thing with emotions. So, like, when I was a kid, as an example, when I was a kid, I would be made fun of every time I cried. And, um, I was, uh, 20-something years old and I was going through a photo album and there was a picture of me crying. And I remember, I was, like, crying, my parents threw a pity party to make fun of me, they even took a picture, and then they put it in the photo album to be like, "You know, see?" That- "You don't wanna be that." I was like, "Oh, shit, that's probably why I haven't cried in, like, 16 years." So I took the photo from the photo album, I put it on my desk, and I was like, "I'm gonna learn how to cry again." Uh, six months, eight months later, I still hadn't learned how to cry (laughs) . I was like, I didn't have any- you know, internet was just getting started, I didn't really have any resources. And so I, um, I would go- I lived in Los Angeles at the time, I'd go up to 10,000 feet, and then I would, like, hike on a trail, and then I'd hike off-trail. So where nobody could see me and I'd practice crying. I would fake it. I'd be like, "I'm an actor just trying to cry." And I did that for, like, three months, twice a week, until finally, like, it broke and I could actually have authentic tears. So the first one is that we just suffered some sort of a- abuse. And that abuse could be really outward, like what happened to me, but it could also just be like every time you were sad, Mom fed you. Every time you were- boys don't cry, girls don't get angry, you got ignored, you got, you know, bribed out of them, whatever. So- so, uh, very few parents are just like, "Oh, cool, I'm gonna sit with you while you're having a big emotional experience and- and be in loving attention of that and attune to you." It's a very rare thing. Gra- if you're a parent, go to, um- get a book called Listen, it's a fantastic book on this, and one of the greatest practices-

Chris Williamson 1:17:38 This is for parenting?

Joe Hudson 1:17:39 Yeah, yeah, for