The Best Moments of Modern Wisdom (2025)

Chris Williamson 0:00 What's happening, people? Welcome back to the show. It is the end of 2025, and to celebrate, I've put together a collection of my favorite moments from the podcast over the last 12 months. Some huge episodes that you probably saw, some other episodes that maybe you missed, and I've put them all together in an interesting flow and pacing, and I- I really loved all of these. I love all of m- I love all 1,040 of my podcast children, um, but these were just some highlights from 2025. Uh, I appreciate you all for being here, I appreciate you all for making Modern Wisdom the eighth biggest podcast in the world, according to Spotify Wrapped this year, which is insane, and, uh, thank you for all the support and all the shares and all the everything. Thank you for staying patient with me when, uh, I've tried to bring in new ideas and guests that you've never heard of. I really, really do work hard to try and curate a nice art gallery that even if you don't know who the artist is, you're probably going to enjoy their work. Uh, so thank you for (laughs) sticking with me as I go down rabbit holes that you didn't know that you were going to enjoy, and commenting and all of the support and- and everything. E- especially this year more than ever, it's meant an awful lot to me. So, uh, yeah, I- I appreciate every single one of you. Uh, before we get into it, you need to do an end of year review, and the review process that I use for myself, that I have stolen from all the best productivity guys on the planet, uh, is at chriswillx.com/review. Hundred thousands, literally hundreds of thousands of people have recorded it and done their work on it already, and, um, you can get it for free. Copy it into your notes app and do your end of year review. So, chriswillx.com/review. Anyway, merry Christmas, happy New Year. Let's get into it.

Chris Williamson 1:52 The worst outcome in the world is not having self-esteem. Why?

Naval Ravikant 1:57 Yeah, it's a tough one. Uh, well, (laughs) I- I- I- I look at the people, and- and I don't wanna offend anybody, but I look at the people who don't like themselves, and that's the toughest slot, because they're always wrestling with themselves, and it's hard enough to face the outside world, um, and no one's gonna like you more than you like yourself. So if you're struggling with yourself, then the outside world becomes an insurmountable challenge. And it's hard to say why people have low self-esteem. It might be genetic, it might just be circumstantial. A lot of times I think it's 'cause they just weren't unconditionally loved as a child, and that sort of seeps in at a deep, core level. Um, but self-esteem issues can be the most limiting. Uh, one interesting thought is that, you know, to some extent, self-esteem is a reputation you have with yourself. Um, you're watching yourself at all times. You know what you're doing. And you have your own moral code. Everyone has a different moral code. But if you don't live up to your own moral code, the same code that you hold others to, uh, it will damage your self-esteem. So perhaps one way to build up your self-esteem is to live up to your own code very rigorously. Have one, and then live up to it. Uh, another way to raise your self-esteem might be to do things for others. Uh, if I look back on my life and, you know, what are the moments that I'm actually proud of, there's very far and few between, and it's not that often, and it's not the things you would expect. It's not the material success, it's not having learned this thing or that. It's when I made a sacrifice for somebody or something that I loved, and, uh, that's when I'm actually, ironically, most proud. Now, that's through an explicit mental exercise, but I'll bet you at some level, I'm recording that implicitly. So that tells me that even if I am not being loved, then the way to create love is to give love, to- to express love, through sacrifice and through duty. And so I think doing things like that can build up your self-esteem really fast.

Chris Williamson 3:44 It's interesting when you talk about sacrifice, because a lot of the time, people say, "Well, I sacrificed so much for my job." It's like, y- yeah, but that was you sacrificing something that you wanted less for something that you wanted more, as opposed to genuinely taking some sort of cost. And, uh, yeah, I wonder whether, if self-esteem is you adhering to your internal, uh, uh, your- your actions and your values aligning, um, even when it's difficult, or perhaps even more so when it's difficult, I wonder whether there is a price that people who are more introspective, high integrity, pay, because you think, "Well, you've got this, uh, heavier set of overheads that you need to pay in some way."

Naval Ravikant 4:27 Well, if being ethical were profitable, everybody would do it. Right? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:30 (laughs)

Naval Ravikant 4:31 So, uh, you- i- at some level, it does involve a sacrifice, uh, but that sacrifice can also be thought of as you're thinking for the long term rather than the short term. Um, for example, the virtues are the set of, uh, uh, virtues are the set of beliefs that if everybody in society followed them as individuals, it would lead to win-win outcomes for everybody. So if I am honest and you are honest, then we can do business more easily, we can interact more easily, 'cause we can trust each other. So even though there might be a few liars in the system, as long as there aren't too many liars and too many cheaters, uh, a high-trust society where everybody's honest is better off. And I think a lot of the virtues work this way, right? If I don't go around sleeping with your wife and you don't sleep with mine, and you know, if I don't take all the food that's at the table first and so on, then we all get along better and we can play win-win games. Uh, in game theory, the f- most famous game is Prisoner's Dilemma, but that's all about everybody cheating and the Nash equilibrium, the stable equilibrium there is everybody cheats, and your for- the only way you can be- you can play a win-win game is if you have long-term iterated moves. But that's not actually the most common game played in society. The most common game played is one called a stag's hunt, where if we cooperate, we can bring down a big stag and both have big dinners, but if we don't cooperate, then we have to go hunt, like, rabbits and we each have small dinners.

Chris Williamson 5:44 Mm.

Naval Ravikant 5:44 So most of, uh... And- and that game has two stable equilibriums, and one could be where we're both hunting the rabbit, and one could be where we're hunting the stag. So the high-trust society is a more- most- more virtuous society where I can trust you to come hunt the stag with me and show up on time and do the work and divide it up properly. So you want to live in a system where everybody has their own set of virtues and follows them and then we all win. S- but-I would argue you don't need to do that for sacrifice, you don't need to do that for other people. You can do it just purely for yourself. You will have higher self-esteem. You willattract other high-virtue people in the system.

Chris Williamson 6:19 Would I go on a stag hunt with me?

Naval Ravikant 6:21 Correct. Yeah, that's right. And if you're the kind of person, if you're the kind of person who long term signals ethics and virtues, then you'll attract other people who are ethical and virtuous. Whereas if you are a shark, you will eventually find yourself swimming entirely amongst sharks, and that's an unpleasant existence. But again, this goes back to the equivalent of the marshmallow test. And by the way, the marshmallow test does not replicate, it's a fake- a fake science. Um... Right.

Chris Williamson 6:46 I saw, it got- it got-

Naval Ravikant 6:46 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:46 ... the replication crisis hard recently.

Naval Ravikant 6:48 Right. But it is about trading off the short-term for the long-term. Uh, and so I think for a lot of these so-called virtues, there are long-term selfish reasons to be virtuous.

Chris Williamson 6:58 Hmm. Yeah. Uh, did you deal with self-doubt in the past? Is that something that was a hurdle for you to overcome?

Naval Ravikant 7:07 Yes and no. I think I- I dealt with self-doubt in the sense that, "Oh, I don't know what I'm doing and I need to figure it out." Um, but I didn't doubt myself in the way of somebody else knows better than me for me, or that, you know, I'm an idiot or I'm not worthwhile or anything that... I- I guess I had the benefit of I grew up with a lot of love. Like, the people around me loved me unconditionally, and so that just gave me a lot of confidence. Uh, not the kind of confidence that would say, "I have the answer-"

Chris Williamson 7:35 Hmm.

Naval Ravikant 7:35 ... but the kind of confidence that, "I will figure it out and I know what I want," or, "Only I am a good arbiter of what I want."

Chris Williamson 7:43 Yeah, that level of self-belief, I suppose, allows you to determine, "What is it that matters to me? My self-esteem, uh, d- should I chase this thing or not?" I can make a fair judgment on that as opposed to being so swayed. But, uh, it's such a good point about even if you think you're not consciously logging the stuff that you're doing, there is some that's in the back of your mind. Was it the daemon? Is that what the, uh, ancient Greeks or something used to talk about?

Naval Ravikant 8:07 Yeah, they, they... Yeah. Also in computer science, like, there's a concept of a daemon, which is a, uh, a program that's always running in the background, you can't see it.

Chris Williamson 8:16 Okay.

Naval Ravikant 8:16 Um, but yeah, it probably comes from the ancient Greek daemon.

Chris Williamson 8:19 Mm-hmm.

Naval Ravikant 8:19 Uh, but yeah, the, uh, what you know that you don't even know you know (laughs) is far greater than what you know you know, right?

Chris Williamson 8:28 All right.

Naval Ravikant 8:28 You can't even articulate most of the things you know. There are feelings you have that have no words for them. There are thoughts you have that are felt within the body or subconsciously that you never articulate to yourself. You don't really... You can't articulate the rules of grammar, yet you exercise them effortlessly when you speak. So, I- I would argue that your implicit knowledge and your knowledge that is unknown to yourself is far greater than the knowledge you can articulate and that you can communicate. And so at some level, you're always watching yourself. That's what your consciousness is, right? It's the thing that's watching everything, including your mind, including your body.

Chris Williamson 9:01 Mm-hmm.

Naval Ravikant 9:02 So if you want to, uh, have high self-esteem, then earn your own self-respect.

Chris Williamson 9:08 Mm-hmm. I had this idea, the internal golden rule. So the golden rule says, "Treat others the way that you should be treated, you want to be treated." The internal golden rule says, "Treat yourself like others should have treated you."

Naval Ravikant 9:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:19 And it was a- a riposte to maybe people that didn't grow up with unconditional love-

Naval Ravikant 9:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:27 ... in that way.

Naval Ravikant 9:28 On the love thing, one of the interesting things about love is you can try to remember the feeling of being loved. So go back to when someone was in love with you or someone did love you, and, like, really remember that feeling. Like, really sit with it and try to recreate it within yourself. And then go to the feeling of you loving someone and when you were in love, and I'm not even talking about romantic love necessarily, so be a little careful there. I'm talking more about, like, love for a-

Chris Williamson 9:54 Can- can... Sometimes it get complex if you're talking about past romantic love.

Naval Ravikant 9:57 Right, a sibling, or a child, or something like that, or- or a parent. And, uh, think about when you felt love towards someone or something. And now, which is better? And I would argue that the feeling of being in love is actually more exhilarating than the feeling of being loved. Being loved is a little cloying, it's a little too sweet. You kind of want to push the person away. It's a little embarrassing. And you know that if that person is too much into it, that you feel constrained. On the other hand, the feeling of being in love is very expansive, it's very open.

Chris Williamson 10:27 Mm-hmm.

Naval Ravikant 10:27 It actually makes you a better version of yourself. It makes you want to be a better person. And so you can create love anytime you want. It's just that craving to receive it that's

Naval Ravikant 10:36 the problem.

Chris Williamson 10:37 I went to this, uh, daytime house music party in Austin on Saturday. It's called Mushroom Cowboy.

Naval Ravikant 10:42 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:42 So it's, uh-

Tom Segura 10:43 Microdose the kind of event?

Chris Williamson 10:45 I don't know. I think they're kind of hinting at that, but it's in a coffee... Well, it was outside of a coffee shop off Congress.

Tom Segura 10:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:50 So I turn up at half 10, it started at 10:00, and the queue is 250 yards long for coffee.

Tom Segura 10:58 What?

Chris Williamson 10:58 And there must have been 1,500 people there. One guy brought a baguette, he was raving with his baguette. There was dogs, you know, every... Pretty- pretty sober looking from the outside, maybe some people smoking weed. But, uh, I think this is maybe the beginning of us seeing the end of, like, hardcore drink culture. If you've looked at how few of Gen Z now drink-

Tom Segura 11:20 Yes.

Chris Williamson 11:20 ... it's, I think, maybe 20%.

Tom Segura 11:23 The interesting thing is, like, the- the theories on why, 'cause there's obviously the- the- the- there- they have to be theories, right? On- on... We don't actually know exactly.

Chris Williamson 11:33 Yeah.

Tom Segura 11:33 Yeah. Uh, one of them is that people... The youth views drinking as, like, what their parents did, right? So that's like, "Well, that's the-"

Chris Williamson 11:43 Naturally uncool. (laughs)

Tom Segura 11:44 Yeah. Like, "My fucking lame-ass dad drinks."

Chris Williamson 11:48 Yeah.

Tom Segura 11:48 Like, "I don't... I'm not interested." And so that's one thing. The other part of it is that this, uh, group of people, uh, that are the youth right now are so much more informed on what the negative aspects of drinking and what it can do to you, that they're just like, "Why would I?" You know? "Why would I consume-"

Chris Williamson 12:11 Subject myself.

Tom Segura 12:12 Yeah. To- to something like that. And...... that they've found this whole other... You know, when you want to take the edge off, there's a lot more options, and it's also a lot more accepted today than it was 20 years ago. Like, the idea that you could microdose or do edibles or smoke or, you know what I mean? And then there's like all the ketamine and everything is like, oh, I have a, I have different things that I do when I want to have a recreational good time.

Chris Williamson 12:37 Mm.

Tom Segura 12:37 Um, and yeah, but it's, it's undeniable that it's, it's definitely way down.

Chris Williamson 12:42 There's more daily users in the US of weed now than there are of alcohol.

Tom Segura 12:47 Is that for real?

Chris Williamson 12:48 Overtaken, or at least that was the most recent study that I saw. In the US there are now more daily or near daily marijuana users than daily or near daily alcohol users.

Tom Segura 12:56 And that, and that, that thought was just completely, like if you're a c- a teen right now, you don't understand how preposterous that sounds coming from, like, if you were growing up in the '80s and '90s. Like, you were just like, "That is, that," th- those were like fringe people almost, you know what I mean? Like yes it was popular, but i- it was not like s- a respectable person really wasn't doing that, you know? It was like the arts, it was like hippies and, and yeah, it was, s- I mean people thought of it as like the absolute worst thing that could happen. I mean, people from like my d- dad's generation likened marijuana to heroin. They didn't even see like really a difference, they're just like, "You're a junkie." It's like, "But what, for smoking a joint?"

Chris Williamson 13:39 Mm-hmm.

Tom Segura 13:40 And like, yeah, that's the way they viewed it. So the fact that it's that accepted now, it's, it's mind-blowing to me.

Chris Williamson 13:46 I wonder if some of it is that drinking in the house on your own s- feels pretty fucking bad.

Tom Segura 13:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:53 But smoking in the house on your own, you're like, "I'm just watching, I'm playing Call of Duty."

Tom Segura 13:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:57 "Leave me alone."

Tom Segura 13:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:57 But if you're, if you're six beers deep playing Call of Duty-

Tom Segura 14:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:00 ... it's a different story.

Tom Segura 14:02 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:03 And, uh-

Tom Segura 14:03 And you're, and you're not playing well at that, you're just like...

Chris Williamson 14:04 I don't know how well people are playing on weed either, but...

Tom Segura 14:06 Fuck.

Chris Williamson 14:07 Yeah.

Tom Segura 14:07 Yeah, and you're probably more likely to yell out pejorative slurs. Um, yeah I, I think that, um... I mean look, smoke, smoking is still not good for you, so like I, you're probably in, but, but we've discovered that, you know, there's other ways to ingest and like consume, and that's, I, that's what I think is part of like this youth culture thing about staying away from drinking is they're like, "Whatever, I do droplets in this or I, you know, I, I have my gummy" or whatever, however they want to consume. But they're just, they're definitely not drinking, man. They're not drinking like they, like everybody else before them did.

Chris Williamson 14:42 I used to run nightclubs for ages and one of the big downturns we've seen has been in nightlife industry. I think the UK's losing a nightclub a week. They're not like-

Tom Segura 14:50 Really?

Chris Williamson 14:50 ... an unlimited number of nightclubs, it's like one is shutting down pretty much every single week. And I asked a, a friend who's still in the industry why he thought that was the case, and he said, "Smartphones, man." Back in the day, you could be as loose as you wanted, you could sort of have that lairy, louty-

Tom Segura 15:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:04 ... drinking spirit, at least in, in Britain where it's a big deal.

Tom Segura 15:06 That they don't want to be recorded?

Chris Williamson 15:07 Of course.

Tom Segura 15:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:08 Like if you mess up and like shit yourself in the middle of a nightclub in 2002, it's a story that you can deny the next day-

Tom Segura 15:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:16 ... and then after six months, most people have probably forgotten.

Tom Segura 15:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:19 Whereas if that happens in 2025, that's now concretized on the internet for everybody to know and bring back up and make memes out of for the rest of time.

Tom Segura 15:26 I mean it's b- c- imagine like how the pro athletes of the '80s and '90s and early 2000s would just go out and just... (laughs) just destroy, (laughs) just destroy a woman's hopes and dreams. And then now they're all, yeah, they're like, everyone's-

Chris Williamson 15:47 On edge.

Tom Segura 15:47 Yeah, everyone's got a f- phone out, it's just, yeah. It's, it's a totally diff- By the way, do you ever think about why, as I still remember the, like, why was house music and da- and dancing in general so much bigger in Europe than here? People here were never like, "Let's go dance."

Chris Williamson 16:05 I'm not sure. I mean, I guess why does any scene of any kind appear anywhere? We certainly have in the UK like a good house music culture.

Tom Segura 16:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:14 Uh, a lot of people didn't have much else to do other than go out and party and drink.

Tom Segura 16:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:18 Uh, if the weather's bad, then, you know, we're not going to go out to the ranch, we're not going to go and-

Tom Segura 16:23 True.

Chris Williamson 16:23 ... see the sunset, we're not going to go to the beach 'cause all of the, it's fucking freezing cold all the time. So you kind of just zero in on the one thing that's reliable, which is beer.

Tom Segura 16:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:33 Pubs or clubs.

Tom Segura 16:34 Yeah, yeah. No, I used to remember like so many times like being h- in the States and having like European friends who are like, "Why don't you guys, you guys don't like to go dance?" And I was like, "No, no one's f- we're not going dancing, bro." (laughs) Like, like, no. And, and then I would remember like studying abroad being like, oh yeah, we would, that's, that was like a normal thing, just go to a place that was just like packed and everybody just loud music, dancing. It just was one of those things where I was like, it just didn't translate over here.

Chris Williamson 17:00 Mm.

Tom Segura 17:00 I mean there were still clubs obviously, but it just wasn't the same type of, "Oh, I just want to go listen to this and literally dance." Like, that's what people I felt like were doing a lot more in Europe than here.

Tony Robbins 17:13 These are the three decisions that I think everyone makes every moment. First, you're doing it right now, what are you gonna focus on? You could be focusing on my s- story I'm telling you, you could be focusing on the next question you're gonna ask, you could be focusing on how your stomach feels if you've not eaten. There's a million things you could focus on, literally. But we don't experience life, we experience the part of life we focus on. And so the bottom line is, I know my father and I had a different experience 'cause we had different focuses that day. I was focused on his food, you know, what a concept, this is cool. He was focused on that he had not taken care of his family. And I know that because, you know, he said it about 20 times under his breath, and my mother echoed it, of course. Um, the second decision though, the minute you focus on something, your brain has to decide what does it mean? And meaning is what creates emotion, and emotion is where your life is, right? And so the quality of life is the quality of your emotions. If you got a billion dollars and every day you're pissed off and angry, your life's quality is called pissed off and angry. If you've got three beautiful children, a husband or wife you love but you worry all the time, your life is worry, you know? So-... his focus and then his meaning, that was the worst part. The meaning he gave it was that he was worthless and didn't belong here. And that usually leads to the third decision, which is what are you gonna do? And, look, if you think, if the meaning is, uh, something happens and you say, "This person's dissing me," you know, "Disrespecting me," or, "Is this person challenging me?" Or, "Is this person coaching me?" Or, "Is this person loving me?" If you think they're dissing you, you're gonna have a very different emotional reaction than if you think they're coaching you or loving you. And then, of course, that's gonna change what decision you make, 'cause if you're angry, you're gonna make a different decision than if you're playful or generous or whatever the case may be. So, those three decisions control our lives. But, so, your viewers or listeners, I give them an opportunity to take a look at it, 'cause there's some patterns that you can make some simple patterns and change your whole life with focus. So, the first one is, and I'd ask you two questions for you. One, Chris, is what do you think most people's answer to this question is? And the other is, what's yours? If you're ready, ready to play, all right? For it's real simple. We all have a pattern of focusing on what we have and, at times, on what's missing. Which one do you think most people spend more time focusing on, what they have or what's missing?

Chris Williamson 19:31 What's missing.

Tony Robbins 19:32 What do you focus more on?

Chris Williamson 19:34 What's missing.

Tony Robbins 19:35 Yes. It isn't something that comes... The focus on what's missing is not something that comes with someone who is a failure. It comes very much with people who are very successful. And the question then becomes, if you're always focused on the missing, how can you sustain happiness?

Chris Williamson 19:50 You're in a permanent place of lack.

Tony Robbins 19:51 That's correct. So scarcity is there. So you'll have drive, right, to keep staying on the hamster wheel of achievement. But you're not gonna see much fulfillment and not in a sustainable way. It's impossible. And it has nothing to do with you or me, right? It's just software. And we got a soul. (laughs) We're not software. But you run your software so often, you start thinking your mind is you versus my mind is a tool that I'm gonna use. Or if I don't use it, it's gonna use me. So, the majority of people do that. And by the way, during COVID, that number exploded because so many things were taken from people, they were constantly focused on what's missing and that produces nothing but pain. Second question, and I think I know your answer to this one. Which do you tend to focus on more? Which do you think most people focus on more? What they can control or what they can't control? And then which one do you focus more on?

Chris Williamson 20:37 Uh, I think most people would probably focus on what they can't control. I'm an even balance, I would say, between the two.

Tony Robbins 20:46 That's good.

Chris Williamson 20:46 I'm working quite hard to try and-

Tony Robbins 20:47 I was gonna say, you strive as part of, uh-

Chris Williamson 20:49 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 20:50 ... you know, your philosophy, right?

Chris Williamson 20:51 Yeah.

Tony Robbins 20:51 To focus on what you can control, right? So, that's, uh, part of the Stoicism, wh- philosophy of Stoicism, right? So, but most people, you're absolutely right. Now, in my seminars, it's different because I got 15, 20,000 people. I ask that question and the va- vast majority of them say they're focused on what's missing, but the vast majority of them say they do focus on what they can control. That's why they came.

Chris Williamson 21:11 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 21:11 Why would they spend their money and time when they wanna take control of their business or their body or their relationship, whatever the case may be? So they have a different belief structure. If you have both of those out of whack, you got some real challenges. Most people have at least one out of whack, which creates stress. And then the third one, and the- there's many more than these, but just quickie for the people at home and I'm asking them to do this for themselves if they want to. Where do you tend to focus more, your past, your present, or your future? We all spend on all three, but where do you spend more of your time? Where do you think most people do? Where do you?

Chris Williamson 21:38 Let's say that you only had 10 exercises for the rest of time-

Tony Robbins 21:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:42 ... to build the best body that you could.

Tony Robbins 21:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:46 What are you gonna choose?

Tony Robbins 21:46 Yeah, I've got a r-

Chris Williamson 21:47 Talk me through the philosophy.

Tony Robbins 21:48 I've got, I've got a roster set up. So when it go- when it comes to legs, I think that the idea of crazy heavy squats or leg press all the time, as a quad builder, it just wouldn't be it for me, 'cause I've had periods of time where I basically did leg extensions exclusively. Usually when I diet, my leg extension volume increases because, I mean, squeezing-wise, activation-wise, you know, if you slapped electronic pulse indicators, maybe you could get a real read-out of how much they're activating.

Chris Williamson 22:16 Mm.

Tony Robbins 22:17 But for me, like if I had to pick a quad movement, I would just kill it on the leg extensions 'cause you can really pump them up, go a little heavier.

Chris Williamson 22:24 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 22:24 Like they're just... If I had to pick one, it'd be, they, that would be it.

Chris Williamson 22:27 Okay.

Tony Robbins 22:27 Then hamstrings would be, I'd be a little torn, but I'd probably just pick, oh, I'm, I'm very torn. Either seated or laying curl.

Chris Williamson 22:38 Mm-hmm.

Tony Robbins 22:39 But either way, a hamstring curl. Uh-

Chris Williamson 22:41 You've gotta pick one, I'm af- I'm afraid, Sam. You can't, you-

Tony Robbins 22:43 I guess I'd have to pick the, uh, I'd have to say laying. I would've picked-

Chris Williamson 22:47 So you could get a little bit more stretch?

Tony Robbins 22:48 I would... Well, I just like, not even because of that, because you would actually, in a seated position-

Chris Williamson 22:54 If you pull forward?

Tony Robbins 22:54 ... would your, you know, hips not be more rounded over where your hamstrings tie in? So now they're actually more stretched.

Chris Williamson 23:02 Mm.

Tony Robbins 23:03 Like you feel your hamstring stretch when you bend your torso to touch your toes, not when you're laying down.

Chris Williamson 23:08 Mm.

Tony Robbins 23:08 So, like the idea when people talk about there's more stretch on the laying curl, like I don't, I don't even see it.

Chris Williamson 23:14 Well, that depends. If you're sat like this, 'cause often there's handles-

Tony Robbins 23:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:18 ... people press themselves up.

Tony Robbins 23:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that would be-

Chris Williamson 23:21 You've pushed this off.

Tony Robbins 23:22 Yeah, so-

Chris Williamson 23:22 As opposed to pulling yourself in.

Tony Robbins 23:23 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:23 So I guess it depends how you position yourself.

Tony Robbins 23:25 Yeah, so I, I, I guess, but right now I'm on a kick of laying curl.

Chris Williamson 23:28 All right.

Tony Robbins 23:29 I pick laying.

Chris Williamson 23:29 So quad extension, laying hamstring curl.

Tony Robbins 23:32 Laying curl. Mm-hmm. And then for back, I'd probably just have to do regular pull-downs. But you could also cheat them into a row by leaning back extra far.

Chris Williamson 23:41 All right, okay. Yeah, that's-

Tony Robbins 23:42 So you kinda-

Chris Williamson 23:43 ... that's, that's acceptable 'cause you've just got the one machine.

Tony Robbins 23:44 You kinda s- it's the same handles, it's the same setup.

Chris Williamson 23:46 Okay, all right. Yeah.

Tony Robbins 23:47 But for me anyway, I need more lats because I want them to be wider. Like the thickness of my back is actually fine. Like I want them to extend out. Like that's what really gives that sort of look illusion.

Chris Williamson 23:57 What do you think about when it comes to lat pull-down, hand position, cues? What are you thinking?

Tony Robbins 24:02 'Cause then you, you can change it up pretty drastically. Like if I do a lighter set, which is normally toward the end, uh, I can put my hands extra far out and it's a bit- little bit more like rather than pulling my shoulders up and down, which kinda gets, like a lot of my lower lats, a kind of erector, like middle thickness...

Jeff Nippard 24:20 ... rather, you know, having wider sho- hands and rotating around my shoulders. That gets me a little more upper lats. But, or you could also make it super heavy and do a closer grip, and you get a little forearm and bicep just from the nature of a, like that's more of a compound movement-

Chris Williamson 24:35 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 24:35 ... of a row.

Chris Williamson 24:36 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 24:37 But then you can really load it too.

Chris Williamson 24:38 Okay, so quad extension, lying hamstring curl, lat pulldown with a little bit of fuckery on the handle.

Jeff Nippard 24:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:45 What for?

Jeff Nippard 24:46 Yeah, for, for chest, I think I'd have to pick... Oh, I'm a little torn. But honestly, if I had to only pick one?

Chris Williamson 24:53 No, you can, you've got 10 in total, so you can, we can s-

Jeff Nippard 24:56 But you get a lot of muscle groups, so you gotta at least-

Chris Williamson 24:57 All right.

Jeff Nippard 24:57 ... cover your bases.

Chris Williamson 24:58 All right, all right. Hey, okay. Good.

Jeff Nippard 24:59 So I would say there was a time when I would say inclined barbell, if I was on a incline barbell kick. But it, it's a little tricky on your shoulders because of the, it's very like directly-

Chris Williamson 25:10 It's never felt good to me.

Jeff Nippard 25:11 ... mounted. Like, the only time I ever get my shoulders is usually incline barbell. When I like it, I like it, but I wouldn't do it all the time, so that's where I would say dumbbell, but even then, dumbbell's very limited because you can go really heavy and the individual loading and the fact that they can move out the entire way, you'd still squeeze at the top. You can rest a bench with a bar at the top.

Chris Williamson 25:32 Hmm.

Jeff Nippard 25:33 'Cause it's all just going through your bone structure. Not so much with dumbbells. So it's a-

Chris Williamson 25:37 You're always adjusting.

Jeff Nippard 25:37 Yeah, you're al- you're never gonna relax on the top-

Chris Williamson 25:40 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 25:40 ... of a dumbbell. But what I think I'd have to pick now would actually be a, uh, a seated cable press. So if you've ever seen seat here-

Chris Williamson 25:48 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 25:50 ... cable here, cable here-

Chris Williamson 25:51 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 25:51 ... you pull it in.

Chris Williamson 25:52 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 25:52 You go kinda like this.

Chris Williamson 25:53 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 25:54 Because that is-

Chris Williamson 25:55 Do you stay neutral throughout that?

Jeff Nippard 25:56 Pretty neutral, yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:56 Yeah. So you're not-

Jeff Nippard 25:57 So-

Chris Williamson 25:57 ... you're not allowing yourself-

Jeff Nippard 25:58 ... not incline, not decline.

Chris Williamson 26:00 Yep.

Jeff Nippard 26:00 Like kind of hands up a little bit.

Chris Williamson 26:01 Yeah.

Jeff Nippard 26:02 Because that's a much more versatile set, 'cause I can do it really heavy, like a conventional press, but I can als- I can also go lighter and be much more squeeze emphasized.

Chris Williamson 26:12 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 26:12 'Cause those are like the two bases I basically cover for every mo- every body part. If I do a heavy one, I'm gonna counter it with a lighter squeezing one.

Chris Williamson 26:20 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 26:20 And to do only one, I think you'd be limiting your stimulus.

Chris Williamson 26:24 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 26:24 So that, uh, that puts us at what, is it?

Chris Williamson 26:25 There's de- that's, that's four now, so there's definitely on incline dumbbell press, which I think for every guy is always gonna be up there for chest. It feels good on your shoulders.

Jeff Nippard 26:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:39 It's always-

Jeff Nippard 26:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:39 ... one of the first movements that you do when you get into the gym. You feel like it's building the bit of the chest that you want, which is up here.

Jeff Nippard 26:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:45 Um, but if you do a really light set, you just don't feel it-

Jeff Nippard 26:50 There's nothing there.

Chris Williamson 26:50 ... the same-

Jeff Nippard 26:50 Yeah, there's nothing there.

Chris Williamson 26:50 ... as you do if you're on cable. So I understand that tension, especially 'cause you're being pulled that way, not that way, right? It's-

Jeff Nippard 26:57 Yeah, so you always have that kind of, you know, widening force-

Chris Williamson 27:01 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 27:01 ... even at the top.

Chris Williamson 27:02 Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a good point.

Jeff Nippard 27:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:04 All right, so there's four. So extension, curl, pulldown, cable press.

Jeff Nippard 27:10 Press.

Chris Williamson 27:11 Yep. Is that on a, on a little incline, 30 degrees?

Jeff Nippard 27:13 Just, just flattish.

Chris Williamson 27:14 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 27:14 Basically flat.

Chris Williamson 27:15 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 27:15 Flat loaded.

Chris Williamson 27:16 All right.

Jeff Nippard 27:16 'Cause then you could also put your hands up a little and get more upper chest, put it down a little and get more-

Chris Williamson 27:21 You're being very cheeky here. Okay, number five.

Jeff Nippard 27:23 Yeah. So, uh, five and six for arms would be, uh, well, for triceps first, I'd, f- w- I'd probably have to pick just a s- easy bar curl pushdown.

Chris Williamson 27:33 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 27:34 So not the V-bar.

Chris Williamson 27:35 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 27:35 Like 90 degrees is too much. Straight is also a little too much on your wrists. So a little camber, more like a 120.

Chris Williamson 27:42 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 27:43 That's about right.

Chris Williamson 27:44 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 27:44 'Cause I can also do that light and squeezing, or you can really like get into it and have some heft.

Chris Williamson 27:48 What are you thinking about with cues for that? Are you more upright? Have you got a little bit of bend in the hips?

Jeff Nippard 27:54 Eh, pr- decently upright.

Chris Williamson 27:56 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 27:56 But if you're, if you stand too upright, well then now you're like turning it into an ab exercise 'cause you're loading your arms downward and you have to keep yourself tense to stay there. So I, I hu- I'll hunch over it.

Chris Williamson 28:08 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 28:08 Or if I'm doing a hard one, I'll put my head to the side of the cable and kinda like wrench it a little like that. Not for all of them, but for some of them.

Chris Williamson 28:14 Mm-hmm. Okay.

Jeff Nippard 28:15 A- and then dumbbells is just dumbbell curls. Like it's, it's hard to beat.

Chris Williamson 28:19 Seated, standing, supinated?

Jeff Nippard 28:22 Would they, would they count as different movements?

Chris Williamson 28:24 Yes. Gotta pick one.

Jeff Nippard 28:25 Well, I guess I'd have to just pick standing.

Chris Williamson 28:27 Standing supinated?

Jeff Nippard 28:30 So more of a regular, a classic twist of neutral at your, you know-

Chris Williamson 28:35 Yep.

Jeff Nippard 28:35 ... at your hips into supinated.

Chris Williamson 28:36 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Nippard 28:37 'Cause just the, with some movements, being able to change the load completely changes the style of the movement. 'Cause I could do the 30s and really hold it and squeeze it. Or I could try to do like the 70s and have it be a much heavier kind of brunt sort of thing.

Chris Williamson 28:52 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 28:53 So that's, uh... All right, we're getting close to the end there.

Chris Williamson 28:55 Up to six now, so you got four left.

Jeff Nippard 28:57 Yeah, so six now. I can chill on shoulders 'cause I don't, I haven't done a real shoulder workout for like years at this point. 'Cause they're just, they're already big.

Chris Williamson 29:06 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 29:07 Like they don't, relative, my arms need to grow. So I'd, I'd, I would wanna add a, uh, forearm curl cable.

Chris Williamson 29:13 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 29:13 So you hold the 1D handle, you know, cable up here, I'm loading it down this way. Like this is the force.

Chris Williamson 29:19 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 29:20 And I'm just doing this.

Chris Williamson 29:22 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 29:22 And it's not a huge movement-

Chris Williamson 29:23 Yep.

Jeff Nippard 29:23 ... but it's like enough where you're actually kind of picking this up.

Chris Williamson 29:26 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 29:27 And I used to do a ton of that, and then my forearms got big enough and then I never did it again. At least now-

Chris Williamson 29:31 Now you're back on it because the arms have caught up.

Jeff Nippard 29:33 Now I'll add a little more. But it's, uh, yeah. And honestly for just, I think it was a, a joke that Hugh Jackman or someone or Stallone worked their forearms like crazy 'cause when you're acting, you're not always shirtless, but you're usually sleeveless.

Chris Williamson 29:50 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 29:50 And having big forearms makes you look extra cool.

Chris Williamson 29:53 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 29:53 So, uh, I guess after that I'd probably have to add a calf raise just because.

Chris Williamson 29:57 Standing, seated?

Jeff Nippard 29:59 Ah, seated. Seated's a little bit better.

Chris Williamson 30:01 Okay. Even though you're gonna be hitting... I always get these the wrong way around. Gastrocnemius-

Jeff Nippard 30:05 Yeah, they say the soleus whatever.

Chris Williamson 30:06 Yeah.

Jeff Nippard 30:06 For me, I feel it in my calves will grow from it. So I've got my own anecdotal evidence of it worked.

Chris Williamson 30:11 Okay. Got two left.

Jeff Nippard 30:13 So the next one has to be the cardio bike, which not many people would add-

Chris Williamson 30:17 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 30:18 ... 'cause they're thinking, "I don't even need to do cardio."

Chris Williamson 30:19 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 30:20 'Cause it's not in their mind. But that's, uh, yeah, so seated and then the pedals are like where my feet are over here. It's kind of a reclined-

Chris Williamson 30:27 So they're a little bit further back.

Jeff Nippard 30:28 It's a reclined position.... and it's the easiest one-

Chris Williamson 30:31 Little backrest.

Jeff Nippard 30:31 ... because my torso does not move, so I can pedal as much as I want and I'm just sitting playing with my phone for 30 minutes. Like, you can do it and also make it easy.

Chris Williamson 30:39 Have you got a preferred machine for that? Like, do Precor-

Jeff Nippard 30:43 It's-

Chris Williamson 30:43 ... make a particularly good?

Jeff Nippard 30:44 Just an- some of them, they have ha- little handles. Sometimes the handles are too close to where your knees are, and you'll bump your knee on them. That's the, that's my only gripe-

Chris Williamson 30:53 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 30:53 ... but I'm not, I'm not picky. The one I have at my house is like, uh, I mean, it's the equivalent of one that you would get for free if you picked it up from, like, the side of the road.

Chris Williamson 31:01 (laughs)

Jeff Nippard 31:01 But it, it still works.

Chris Williamson 31:02 Okay.

Jeff Nippard 31:03 And actually, that one's harder on a, um... Well, it reads harder, 'cause sometimes the math that they do to calculate calories burned, it- it's not completely... 'Cause if someone like me pedaled for 30 minutes at X difficulty, at X speed, an Olympic cyclist or, like, a marathon cyclist could do it at the same speed and the same difficulty, and he would actually burn less calories-

Chris Williamson 31:28 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 31:28 ... 'cause he's more efficient-

Chris Williamson 31:29 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 31:29 ... and I'm less efficient. So it's not necessarily always aim for the same number. It's like, I know the feeling of, like, this is hard, but i- it's not too hard.

Chris Williamson 31:37 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 31:38 Like, this is the right energy expenditure level.

Chris Williamson 31:40 I did that on a, I've been getting into incline treadmill walking to get to zone two. Zone two for me is really hard to hit.

Jeff Nippard 31:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:47 It's, like, way faster than a normal walk on the road-

Jeff Nippard 31:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:50 ... and it's way slower than a jog, and...

Jeff Nippard 31:53 Yeah. Yeah, my incline preferred is, like, 3.5, 5%.

Chris Williamson 31:58 Three point... Oh, for me, 3.2 at 15-

Jeff Nippard 32:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:01 ... is, is nice, but I don't know what the metrics are of the, uh, whatever the machine is that was in the UK, and it was 3.2, 15, and I was like, "This doesn't feel right. Okay, I'll just keep going up four." Like, "Four still doesn't feel right. Five? What the fuck is this number?"

Jeff Nippard 32:19 I think the speed-

Chris Williamson 32:19 It got to 5.3, I'm like-

Jeff Nippard 32:22 Yeah, the spee-

Chris Williamson 32:22 ... "About there." Yeah.

Jeff Nippard 32:22 ... the speed was off. Is that miles per hour or kilometers?

Chris Williamson 32:24 I don't know. I- 'cause it wouldn't be kilometers over here 'cause it would still be miles per ho- i- whatever it was-

Jeff Nippard 32:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:28 ... I, the, the exact same. You go, I can go to a new machine and after you've done... You don't even need that many sessions. What? 20, 30 sessions before you go, "I kind of understand how I'm supposed to feel and where my heart rate's supposed to be at, like, just by a sense of breathing."

Jeff Nippard 32:42 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 32:42 Okay, so you got one left. What's left?

Jeff Nippard 32:44 Yeah, one left.

Chris Williamson 32:46 What haven't we done? We haven't gone, you haven't touched abs, you haven't touched glutes directly, you haven't touched shoulders directly. What else is missing? I think that's it.

Jeff Nippard 32:56 Okay.

Chris Williamson 32:56 Lower back, I guess? Th- the, if that's a-

Jeff Nippard 32:59 Yeah, in, in a body building sphere, you'd w- you'd want your lower back developed enough-

Chris Williamson 33:02 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 33:03 ... where it's got, like, a little texture. But if it gets too big, it'll take away from your waist, 'cause the whole point is this illusion of wider shoulders and a smaller waist. So now that they're already developed, I probably wouldn't, like, I don't hit my abs because they get worked, you know, kind of secondarily from, like, even doing dumbbell curls, I'm keeping myself stable. Like, once they're there and you're actually still working out, they're not going anywhere 'cause you're... And then every time you look at yourself in the mirror, you're gonna flex them.

Chris Williamson 33:28 Mm.

Jeff Nippard 33:28 Like, they get worked enough to be maintained, so that's, uh, like, that's why there's not a lot of ab workouts, 'cause I did a lot before and now they're just not gonna go anywhere.

Chris Williamson 33:37 Mm.

Jeff Nippard 33:37 Like, same with shoulders. So... Oof. I'd have to... I, I'm a little reluctant, but I can't think of anything else I would want to do. I'd, I'd pick the adductor machine, 'cause that's where you're squeezing your legs together.

Chris Williamson 33:51 Okay. Why?

Jeff Nippard 33:53 Makes your legs look a little thicker in the middle, 'cause that's, it's this whole kind of, like, system of, uh, like, kind of... It tie ins, it ties in kind of below your knee, more hamstring, but it's this sort of just piece right in the center where if your adductors were completely undeveloped, and you'd sit up straight with your knees straight, you'd have a really big gap-

Chris Williamson 34:13 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 34:13 ... between your legs.

Chris Williamson 34:14 Mm-hmm. And you think you wouldn't be able to fully get that with the extension?

Jeff Nippard 34:17 Uh, well, the extension's just quad.

Chris Williamson 34:19 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 34:19 'Cause that's a qu- like, a knee flexion.

Chris Williamson 34:21 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 34:22 And this is, uh, like, leg... Well, you know, w- well, I don't even know what you'd call it.

Chris Williamson 34:27 That.

Jeff Nippard 34:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:28 That. Yeah.

Jeff Nippard 34:28 The, uh, yeah, the joke is the... Uh, well, it's... I don't know. There's, like, two versions of a joke-

Chris Williamson 34:37 Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nippard 34:37 ... 'cause they'll call that one the ball crusher 'cause that's where, yeah, that's when you're squeezing your legs together, but the older, like, the joke that people would say before was that was either the good girl or the bad girl machine.

Chris Williamson 34:47 Ah, one's forcing it apart, one's forcing it together.

Jeff Nippard 34:49 'Cause o- once... Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 34:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Jeff Nippard 34:50 'Cause I don't, and I don't really, I don't want to perpetuate that name-

Chris Williamson 34:53 (laughs)

Jeff Nippard 34:54 ... but that was, that's kind of a reference to, to those.

Chris Williamson 34:56 Okay. Very good.

Chris Williamson 34:58 The single greatest skill you can develop is the ability to stay in a good mood in the absence of things to be in a good mood about.

Alex Hormozi 35:05 I think that tweet has been my theme for 2025. Um, it's been, it's, it's funny 'cause that was the most shared tweet I've ever had. Um, and it was so, it was like (laughs) , it's, it was almost, um... (sighs) not the opposite of ironic. It was fitting, right? It was completely fitting for the year, and it's been because, like, this year I've had a, a just, I, I would say, a series of unfortunate events, um, that has occurred, and it's really tested my tools, right? Tools in the tool belt, um, for reframing reality so that I can make my experience less, you know, miserable. And so, I thought about that. It's like, if I were to, if I were to boil everything down, um, of all the skills that you can learn, if everything that we do eventually becomes irrelevant, then the single greatest skill that you can develop is being in a great mood in the absence of things to be in a great mood about. And so one of the other frames on this is most people don't question someone who's in a bad mood. Like, "I'm just in a bad mood." So it's like, well, if you can be in a bad mood for no reason, it's like, you might as well be in a good mood for no reason (laughs) 'cause that one at least serves you. And so I've been trying to exercise, like, 'cause there's, on one degree, there's like, let's count things to be grateful for. On the other side, it's like, why do I have to have things to be grateful for in order to be in a good mood?... like, why is trying to find things a requirement of being in that mood? Like, can I not find things and still choose to be in a good mood? Because I've certainly not had things to be in a bad mood about and been in a bad mood.

Chris Williamson 36:35 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 36:36 And so I've been trying to flex that, which is, like, sure, we can find things to be grateful for, and when those things pop up, yes, and of course it's a pr- you know, it's a practice, you get better at it. But, like, what if I could just be in a good mood? (laughs) And so I've just tried to- tried to break that- that relationship between the two, because then it makes it contingent on something that I can find.

Chris Williamson 36:52 How successful have you been at that?

Alex Hormozi 36:54 Mediocre. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 36:56 (laughs) Well, look, I think it's a, it's a, uh, lovely idea-

Alex Hormozi 37:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:00 ... in isolation-

Alex Hormozi 37:01 Sure.

Chris Williamson 37:02 ... uh, in theory, but I'm not convinced about how effective it is in practice, for the reason that humans have a negativity bias. You know, it's our psychological entropy.

Alex Hormozi 37:10 100%.

Chris Williamson 37:10 And your ability to detect things that are a risk to you significantly better than your ability to detect things that are just pleasant. Like, this morning I texted you, and I was like, "Hey man, like, I really love the feeling I have of anticipation on a morning before we do a podcast." That's a normal, boring, mundane source of pleasure to me.

Alex Hormozi 37:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:31 If I'm not really, really training myself to notice that-

Alex Hormozi 37:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:36 ... I just f- it just fucking falls away with the fact that, huh, I asked for almond milk, and I bet this would have been better with, like, whole milk.

Alex Hormozi 37:44 (laughs) That's the thing that ru- that ruins the day. And the thing is, is you do notice it though.

Chris Williamson 37:48 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 37:48 Right? You do notice that. Um, so I've had, um... One of my themes this year has been focusing on moments, and on both the positive and the negative. And so, like, when we think back on... If I think back on the last year, right? I don't remember probably 95% of the year. Like, I, you know, I did s- the same things, and so it's like it just didn't get recorded. Like, nothing notable happened. Um, and so really, like, when we think about a year, we really just recall a handful of moments, and that's it. And those moments in time are usually very short. And so I've been trying to think about, um, the bad, you know, seasons as, well, maybe it wasn't a bad season. Maybe I had five bad days, or really five bad moments that I then thought about for the (laughs) entire season, and turned what would have otherwise been five minutes times five into an entirely bad year. And so it's like, okay, well if we can do that in the negative, can we do it in the positive? Which is, you know, obviously the thing to- to exercise. But to the point that you said earlier about our- our ability to detect threat and risk at such a- such better accuracy than our ability to d- detect good things, it's so interesting, because if you use that side of your brain, um, not to derail us, but like, I think that has been one of the things that's helped me a tremendous amount in business. Because when I think about a business and I want to grow it, for example, I would think, okay, what are all the things that can destroy this business? And this is Charlie Munger. This isn't me. Um, but basically he says, "Invert, always invert." And Einstein said that too. And it's because, like, you get to use this- this way stronger horsepower engine of, like, "How do I grow my b- my business?" That's a, uh... you can obviously think that way. But the alternative would be like, "How would I absolutely destroy this business in the fewest possible moves?" And then when you list out those moves, you're like, "Cool, now let's do the opposite of that."

Chris Williamson 39:37 Yeah.

Alex Hormozi 39:38 And that has been, um... Honestly a lot of the- some of the sources of my greatest kind of creative moments have come from these apparently obvious things that would kill us. Well, what if we did the in- even more obvious thing and did the o- the opposite of what would destroy us? (laughs) Um, and it's worked, it's worked, um, better than I deserve.

Chris Williamson 39:56 So this is the problem.

Alex Hormozi 39:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:57 Uh, you can be rec- rewarded professionally-

Alex Hormozi 40:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:01 ... for focusing on things that you do not want to focus on personally. And Ryan Long taught me this. He was talking about how he sp- he's a comedian, Canadian comedian, really funny guy. Spends all of this time, you know, dialing in these bits and obsessing over-

Alex Hormozi 40:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:18 ... how it could be better, and then he says to himself, "Yeah, but I don't want you to do that in your relationships." You know, can you let that go-

Alex Hormozi 40:25 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:25 ... when it comes to the way that you show up for your partner, or your friends, or your b- body image, or whatever.

Alex Hormozi 40:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:31 I mean, you don't get to compartmentalize stuff like that. And it is a very unfortunate irony of the world that the skill set you often need to become successful in business-

Alex Hormozi 40:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:46 ... is the one you need to get rid of to be happy in your life.

Alex Hormozi 40:51 Yes. So I was, I was thinking about what you were saying earlier with regards to risk and our ability to detect it. So the other part of that that's been really interesting is we also, not only do we detect more threats, we also overemphasize how catastrophic they could be. And the converse of that is we rarely identify the upside, and when we do, we typically underestimate the upside. And I think this is something that a lot of people don't talk about as much. Um, obviously I always have a business, you know, hat on, literally. (laughs) Uh, and, but I think about this because I think this is where, like, you said at the very beginning that people complain because they cannot accurately view reality. And so if we tie that to this concept, then it means that people will disproportionately blame the universe and then perceive significantly greater risk for them asking a girl out, starting a business, taking a loan, uh, you know, a- asking a stranger to buy something-

Chris Williamson 41:51 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 41:52 ... making a podcast and for fear of what other people in the internet will say, or people who know them, right? And so we, we catastrophize this side, but the flip side is... And s- you hear this a lot when people, you know, do make it and whatnot. They're like, "I never dreamed it would be this big." Now some people are obsessive and, like, absolutely have thought through everything. I fall more on that side. Uh, (laughs) but, but, uh, on- on- on the other hand though, a lot of people do get there and they're like, "I never thought it was gonna be this big." And it's because we typically just underemphasize the upside, which is where, from the business perspective, it's like that's where the alpha is. That's where the outperformance exists, where most people think, "Hey, this bet, uh, it could go to zero." And you're like, "Uh, I don't think it's gonna go to zero, but even if it did go to zero, I have a 10X here. And so if I have a 50% shot at a 10X and the other 50 is zero, I should take that shot every single time-

Chris Williamson 42:39 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 42:40 ... knowing that I'm gonna be wrong half the time."... it still makes sense to take.

Guest 42:43 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 42:43 And so I think, um, people are not good at making those risk-adjusted return bets, um, obviously financially, but even in the very micro aspect of our lives. And so the- we talked earlier about, uh, you know, cosmic irrelevance-

Guest 42:55 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 42:55 ... and the frame of the veteran. But there's a third frame that I think about a lot which is, I call it play it out, and so it's like let's- no, let's- let's sit in there because again, fear exists in the vague, not in the specific.

Guest 43:04 And in the resistance.

Alex Hormozi 43:06 Yes. And so, like, when we have these, um, these spec- specificities of like, okay, I'm gonna start a pod- I can't start a podcast. Like, okay, it's this big vague thing. But no, like, let's play it out. Like, let's see what actually would happen. So I'm gonna upload something, and then people don't listen to it. Okay, well, they didn't listen to it. Okay, well then that's not a problem. Okay, let's say people- let's say tons of people listen to it, which I don't know how that magically happens, but let's say tons of people listen to it and they all hate it. Okay. Immediately you have this anxiety that r- no, no, no. But let's play it out. Like, what happens next? It's like, okay, uh, is it gonna change what I eat? Is it gonna change where I sleep? Okay, let's say, uh, let's say I- all of a sudden I lose all the money that I have. It's like, okay, well, I probably have a bunch of people that if I really needed to sleep on their couch or in a spare bedroom, I could do that. Okay, so I'm not really gonna be homeless, and if I really didn't have enough money for food, I can go to a homeless shelter and get food, right? So it's like, wait, so my worst case scenario is like, I have shelter and I have food and I'm still breathing air? So that's the downside and so there's this catastrophizing that we, 'cause we- our brains are meant to- are meant to keep us alive. We literally think if we fail, we die. (laughs) Like, everyone will- will ostracize us from the group, and we will be alone and die.

Guest 44:22 Yep, yep.

Alex Hormozi 44:23 And so just actually playing it out, not one step but, like, two more steps after that, you're like, okay, so my actual downside risk is nothing, but my upside is everything I've wanted. And even if I- even if I'm at 50% off on that, it's still worth the shot.

Guest 44:39 It's very healthy to have, um, an inner critic, but it's also- it's the- there's the golden rule and then there's the- there's the platinum rule, right? There's the treat others as you want to be treated.

Alex Hormozi 44:52 Mm-hmm.

Guest 44:53 And then there's the treat yourself as you treat others.

Alex Hormozi 44:57 Mm.

Guest 44:58 Most people are very kind. Like, you're nicer to me than you are to yourself.

Alex Hormozi 45:03 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Guest 45:04 Like, it- it- if you said the shit you say to yourself to me, we wouldn't be friends. Um, and I think that thing of, like, the- the inner critic has to be- it's, um, as long as it's process driven, I think it's- it's very, very healthy.

Alex Hormozi 45:21 Mm-hmm.

Guest 45:21 It's that imposter syndrome. It's, yeah, okay, feel like an imposter for a while. As long as it gives you- as long as you can get back to a granular level where it gives you something to work on. Like, the inner critic can't just be- it can't just be, like, "That's bad."

Alex Hormozi 45:35 Mm.

Guest 45:35 It's gotta be, "Oh, that- that didn't work, so we need to change it," or, "That one's- that one's not gonna work, so we're gonna write something new." It- it's gotta be something that's like, uh, you're working towards something, you're aiming up. Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 45:49 And I think criticism's very important. I mean, Walt Disney used to do this thing where he had, like, the- he had three rooms. You know this thing? Of like, one for creativity, uh, one for sort of, um, management, like how would you do the idea, and then it was only in the third room that you were allowed to be critical. It's kind of fun idea of like going to sort of compa-

Guest 46:11 No bad ideas.

Alex Hormozi 46:12 ... compartmentalize. Well, I do think that thing of, like, never refuse the muse. If you're working in anything creative, just write it down.

Guest 46:20 That's...

Alex Hormozi 46:20 Something comes to you, you just, yeah, you write it down.

Guest 46:21 That's the Naval one, right? Inspiration is perishable, act on it immediately.

Alex Hormozi 46:25 Yeah.

Guest 46:27 Yeah, there's a- uh, Tim Ferriss says, "The world rewards the specific ask and punishes the vague wish." And I think that sort of inner critic voice can expand out into, "I don't feel good about the thing I did." Okay, well, that's probably the first place that everybody gets. I'm not- not really too sure about why, but there's some sense of discontent about something that just happened or something that I'm about to do. Probably very normal. You don't know where it's coming from and you don't know what it's about, and you don't know what to do to fix it. Okay, so how about we get away from the vague critic and we move toward the specific coach with regards to this? Okay, so what precisely is it that you're concerned about? "Well, I don't feel fully prepared for the presentation I've got to give tomorrow." Okay, is that fair? Do you know that it's true? Do you think that you haven't prepared enough? "Well, actually, I've prepared quite a lot. To be honest, I think this is probably just my fear trying to be sneaky and sort of turn itself into a way that I'm gonna believe it." All right, well, what are you gonna do about it? "Well, I'll just check my notes a- a few more times, and actually, huh, it seems like I do know this pretty well."

Alex Hormozi 47:35 But the- the- yeah. The inner critic, it's not often wrong, just you can say it in a nice way. You know, it's- it's- it- it- sometimes it's right, sometimes you fuck up, sometimes it's not- it's not- it wasn't good enough.

Guest 47:49 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 47:50 And that's okay. It's like- it's the, um, it's the idea of like going, um, it's not repetition, it's iteration.

Guest 47:57 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 47:58 It's like lots of different- you know, doing the same thing again and again doesn't make you better, but tweaking it and knowing what to tweak is that- that's- you have to listen to an inner critic. I think the- the- um, uh, is it Hormozy? Uh, it- it's- Hormozy's so good for quotes. But it's- I think it was, um, uh, self-confidence without evidence is delusion.

Guest 48:21 Mm-hmm.

Alex Hormozi 48:22 Some version of that. Uh...

Guest 48:23 Confidence- uh, confidence without competence is delusion.

Alex Hormozi 48:26 Yeah. It's- it's so true. And you do meet people along the way that have that incredible confidence or they- they- they sort of exude that, and then they- they don't have the- the confidence.

Guest 48:37 Anything to back it up. Yeah.

Alex Hormozi 48:38 And you go, "Well, no, no, you need to- you need to be able to back..." So finding that, I think it's very- I think without that inner critic...

Guest 48:44 ... I think we would all be kind of delusional and wandering around going, "Yeah," you know.

Chris Williamson 48:47 Yeah. George says, uh, "Does someone with half your talent but five times your self-belief making 10 times the money?" (laughs)

Guest 48:54 Yes. And that's- that's true for- for every British person, there's an American-

Chris Williamson 48:58 Exactly. Well, I mean-

Guest 48:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:59 ... look, I- I think for the perennial overthinkers, reframing this very well-trodden landscape of inner criticism, a lot of the way that you can look at that is, "I'm fragile," you know. "My- my self-belief exists on a knife edge. It feels like I'm tightrope walking confidence," perhaps. But I think a better way to look at it is, "You're not fragile, you're just finely tuned." And in the same way as a Ferrari can go really, really fast, especially around a track, but if you don't treat it very well, it's probably gonna break down quite a lot actually. And if you treat it really well, it's still gonna have a couple of hiccups and days where it doesn't fully operate rightly.

Guest 49:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:45 But, yeah, "You're not fragile, you're finely tuned," is a nice refrain.

Guest 49:49 It's so easy to be kind to other people, and sometimes so difficult to be kind to yourself. It's like, you wouldn't let someone else speak to a friend like that. You just wouldn't stand for it.

Chris Williamson 50:00 Mm-hmm.

Guest 50:00 And yet your inner critic, you're just like, "Yeah, yeah. Say terrible things to me."

Chris Williamson 50:03 Just accept it as it comes. Yeah. I, uh... That idea on... You had, uh, position and disposition.

Guest 50:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:10 This has happened a couple of times. I misremember things that guests, uh, tell me, and then I write about the thing that I misremembered.

Guest 50:18 Right.

Chris Williamson 50:18 And what you realize is that you've actually built on something that they didn't mean. And I think I told you about this before, but I'm gonna- I'm gonna tell you about it again. So, uh, this is after our first episode, mm, 18 months ago? Something like that. "My chat with Jimmy Carr a few weeks ago inspired an idea. I've been reflecting on how your trajectory is way more important than your position. If you're number two in the world, but last year you were number one, that is way worse than sitting at number 150 but being on a huge upward slope from 300 12 months ago. There's a few reasons for this. Recency bias. If your value is increasing right now, that means you have to be popular at the moment. By looking at recent trajectory, you are selecting for only the few people who are trendy right now, which is really all that we can remember. We can also romanticize where someone will be in future if they're currently hot stuff. How high might they climb? Who knows? Maybe to the top, maybe even beyond the top. Humans struggle to realize that everything is temporary, including growth and decline. Instead, it's easier to label people as heroes and losers based on what we know of them right now, so we don't have to predict a messy future. There's an old saying, saying that there's three types of people on the ladder. One at the bottom, one at the middle, and one at the top. Which one is the best to be? The one that's still climbing."

Guest 51:30 Yeah. No, I think- I think it's fantastic. It's very well put. Um, yeah, I think that... Especially in show business, trajectory really seems to be such an important metric, and it's like, you could be half the size of some other comic but they've been around 20 years-

Chris Williamson 51:46 Mm-hmm.

Guest 51:46 ... and they always sell out the arena, so who cares?

Chris Williamson 51:49 Mm-hmm.

Guest 51:49 It's like, it's-

Chris Williamson 51:50 Novelty, dopamine, this is new-

Guest 51:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:52 ... recency bias.

Guest 51:53 Yeah. I think there's a, there's a thing this year where, um, Oasis are playing.

Chris Williamson 51:58 Mm-hmm.

Guest 51:59 Uh, and it's a big deal. People are very excited about it. And I think Coldplay are doing, I think it's 10 or 11 nights at Wembley Stadium.

Chris Williamson 52:08 (laughs) And everyone's like, "Chris Martin, bored of you. Been around for ages."

Guest 52:13 Yeah. Well, of course you are. Yeah. They're a big band. But it's like, but it's not like, uh, an event culturally in the same way that Oasis coming together is. There's a- there's a narrative to that and a trajectory of kind of where they are-

Chris Williamson 52:24 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Guest 52:25 ... that's... And Coldplay have just been steadily... Uh, listen, and if Taylor Swift does 15 nights next year, it'll be a, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Of course."

Chris Williamson 52:34 Accepted.

Guest 52:35 Yeah. So that thing of, like, other people getting excited about it. And I think... I don't know what it feels like to be, uh, you know, in Coldplay at the moment, and maybe people aren't making as much fuss. I hope they're celebrating. I hope they're, I hope they're taking time to go, "This is fantastic."

Chris Williamson 52:51 Has no longer having the Olympia impacted your drive and passion in other areas of your life? You know, you've got the dad/husband thing, business, k- uh, d- desire to work on yourself in a sort of from a personal standpoint. How have you found drive and motivation separate and also wrapped up in what you were doing previously?

Guest 53:17 Mm-hmm. I wouldn't say it directly decreased because there's no Olympia, but I think almost as like a byproduct of what the Olympia was for me, of like a schedule of a year, of like the first half of the year is X. You have some time off, you can recover, give yourself a break, and then you start to ramp up, you travel, focus on business, and then near the end you go inward, you figure out what's driving you, what's pulling you back right now, self-reflect, spend time away from bullshit, focus on yourself, be selfish, work, it's intense schedule. And like it was this like organized routine, and then all of a sudden it was all gone. And that on top of the singular goal of being like, "Where do I put my energy now?" I think definitely left me in a place of feeling a little bit lost of not figuring out like where do... Do I still have the passion for anything? Where do I find that energy to put into something? What do I put it into? Does it even exist? Will it exist again? And then it kinda led to me... Then I had an injury, I stopped working out for a while, and I just started to wake up in the morning exhausted and not knowing what to do. Going in and helping with this business, going on this trip for that travel, a meeting here with the distribution center, blah blah blah, all these little things for all these other things that weren't really, like, driving me. I didn't have like an important big role in them, I was just like kinda coasting through. And I started to wake up and feel pretty lost in general of like, "Where do I pro- where am I progressing to?" essentially. And that was when I was kinda like... What I'm w- honestly, I'm still working through it. I don't have this answer but w- I-... thing I'm working for is just, like, empathizing with myself that I don't need to be constantly progressing towards something, that I don't need to be getting better and have this big goal and doing X, and I can just sit and rest for a while, and, like, truly just, like, do nothing, uh, and be good enough as that is, and let something come and figure it as it goes. And that's a- that was tough for me. It l- it- it is tough for me-

Chris Williamson 55:14 Mm-hmm.

Guest 55:15 ... and speaking in proper-

Chris Williamson 55:16 Mm-hmm.

Guest 55:16 ... verbiage of figuring that out.

Chris Williamson 55:18 Mm-hmm.

Guest 55:18 And the funniest little thing of what has made me feel better recently was working out again on a schedule and eating five meals a day and weighing out my food and having that little bit of structure of, like... And not having to as well. It's like all this stuff's going on in my life, I don't know, I'm kind of lost, what can I do? Well, I can go work out again.

Chris Williamson 55:36 Mm-hmm.

Guest 55:37 And I don't have to-

Chris Williamson 55:38 Mm-hmm.

Guest 55:38 ... so now I'm choosing to. Well, why are you so working out so hard? Why are you training so hard? It's like, well, I just because I love it.

Chris Williamson 55:43 It's why-

Guest 55:43 I feel good.

Chris Williamson 55:43 It's why I used to do it 12 years ago.

Guest 55:45 Exactly. And that's all of a sudden I'm getting more and more excited to go back in the gym, or even in prep last year I started to be, oh, I have to go work out. And then all of a sudden I just start to feel better day to day, and it's these little changes, and I realize this is truly how I fell in love with the gym-

Chris Williamson 55:59 Mm-hmm.

Guest 55:59 ... and why I'm such a big advocate of weightlifting. Like, I honestly kind of hope I don't inspire people to get into bodybuilding because it's tough, it's fucked up, it's not good for your health, but I do want to inspire people to go lift weights, get in the gym and want to get jacked, because it's such like, "Oh, I'm lost. I don't know what to do." Just go work out. Apply some discipline, work hard, find something you love that's, like, difficult, that shows you progress, builds confidence, and just go do it. And then from there, then you can clear your mind a little bit, have self-confidence, start looking around a little bit more clear, start looking inward and figuring out what is next for you, and finding that next goal and working towards it. So for me, that's why I like... I just fucking love the gym so much, and I'm so grateful that I'm back to a point of like-

Chris Williamson 56:36 Mm-hmm.

Guest 56:36 ... loving the gym.

Chris Williamson 56:37 This is the cash value or this was the price that you pay in retirement, I think. You know, 'cause what you're talking about, it's going to be difficult and things will be hard and you won't have the, um, the drive or the goal that you used to in the past.

Guest 56:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 56:50 All of those things are kind of fluffy concepts, but they come into land, they actually sort of meet reality with, I woke up on the morning and didn't know what to do. I felt tired a lot. I didn't want to train. I was short and snappy with my business partners. I- I found myself getting distracted with lots of little tasks because it made me feel important-

Guest 57:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:16 ... and like people needed me. I packed my calendar out and did... 'Cause a lot of the time in advance of something happening, we probably have a good idea about what it's going to be like in the macro, but what we don't know is how it's actually going to appear, manifest in life, and it's navigating those things. So for instance, I've been sick for the last 18 months or so, and that's been hard, and I knew based on what the trajectory was going to be, what was going to be tough, that I was gonna have a lot of self-doubt, that I was going to lose confidence and self-esteem, that, um, I would feel like I was moving backward. Uh, all of these things. Uh, but the way that that actually appears, like the individual building block thoughts that you have, like that mean random little voice or that one night where you ruminate about that one thing, or you're more sensitive to criticism and that one comment from that person, or just can't really focus on your meditation as much. Like none of those are, I am going to lose confidence.

Guest 58:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:18 They are the individual incidents that contribute to my confidence has gone down.

Guest 58:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:22 Even if you knew it was gonna happen in advance, and even if in retrospect you can say, "Oh wow, both of these things converged," each of the little steps that occurred to make that happen kind of come out of nowhere a little bit because you don't know the effect of each little thing. Does that make sense?

Guest 58:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:36 Yeah. So it's, uh, th- the packed calendar, the lots of travel, the I'm tired, I don't really want to go train, I don't really... I'm not weighing my food, I'm maybe eating w- weird diets compared-

Guest 58:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:47 ... with what I used to, and this lack of structure feels alien and uncomfortable to me, but it also feels like r- relapse or, or, uh, rest or, uh, change or variation, but that's also uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar, and yeah, each of these little building blocks is contributing to that. Like, like, I don't feel like me. I don't feel like me.

Guest 59:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:11 And, and not in the way that I wanted to either.

Guest 59:15 Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it, uh, it creeps in like that and you have absolutely no idea-

Chris Williamson 59:20 Mm-hmm.

Guest 59:20 ... that it's coming until one day you're like, "I don't feel good."

Chris Williamson 59:23 Mm-hmm.

Guest 59:24 So it's definitely interesting, and I feel like you need to, you need to... I've needed to treat myself like a science experiment of like taking and removing pieces and see what's important. It's like, okay, bodybuilding was creating a bit of pressure and stress in my life. Is it everything related to that?

Chris Williamson 59:44 Mm-hmm.

Guest 59:45 Mm-hmm. Or was it the whole? You know, so like as I pulled out, I was like, well, I'm not competing anymore. I don't need to eat on a schedule. I don't need to train at the same time. I don't need to leave my phone outside the gym and be locked in and focus as much. I l- I don't need to wake up with my alarm. I can kind of sleep... I can do all these little things that I can let go of 'cause now I don't have to, because the goal is different. But then I started to not feel good and it was like, okay, it wasn't those things that weren't making me feel bad. Those were actually making me feel good. It was the outcome, like I said before. So now taking those things out from bodybuilding, putting them back in my life for me and thinking, oh wait, the structure and the discipline makes me feel better. It fills me with more confidence and ability to go do other things-

Chris Williamson 1:00:21 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:00:21 ... rather than taking away.

Chris Williamson 1:00:22 Regardless of whether it's in service of becoming Mr. Olympia.

Guest 1:00:25 Yeah. And I mean, I know those things, but like you said, it was... All of a sudden it was like, oh, well I'll just cut one meal out 'cause like I'm busy now. Oh well, my shoulder's injured so I'm gonna do my rehab, but like, I don't really want to, you know. I'm gonna take today off.

Chris Williamson 1:00:37 I'm not com- I'm not competing this year. Like who even cares? It doesn't matter that much, right?

Guest 1:00:39 Who cares, yeah. I'm busy, I'm gonna reply to emails in between sets. I'm gonna sleep in 'cause I went to bed late last night. Like all these little things. Next thing you know, you're like, "Oh, I feel like shit. I don't want to do anything." And you're way harder to pull yourself out of that-

Chris Williamson 1:00:50 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:00:51 ... than if you'd cut it earlier. So that's life though, you know. There's no direct ascent to the top. It's ups and downs and-

Chris Williamson 1:00:58 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:00:59 ... building a new self as you go.

Guest 1:01:01 ... as a dad, you got one job, love her. If you wanna raise successful kids, especially boys, you have one job, love his mom. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:10 That's so sick.

Guest 1:01:11 It's crazy, but it's great in its way. It's beautiful in its way.

Chris Williamson 1:01:15 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:01:15 And it's, it, what, what, look, and see here's the funny thing. I mean, people often ask, like, you know, "What do I do? What should I teach my kids?" It doesn't matter what you tell them. You could talk to them in a foreign language.

Chris Williamson 1:01:25 Show them.

Guest 1:01:26 All that matters is what you do. So the number one predictor, for example, of kids growing up and practicing your religion is whether their father practices a religion. There's like a 40% point difference in the father and the mother practicing on the predictive abil- on the predictive capacity on how, on how the kids are gonna grow up and behave.

Chris Williamson 1:01:41 Mm.

Guest 1:01:42 And there's almo- it's almost certainly the case, it's because, I mean, when I was a little kid, I thought my dad was, you know, s- I thought he could lift the corner of the house.

Chris Williamson 1:01:49 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:01:50 My dad was a math professor. He could not.

Chris Williamson 1:01:52 (laughs) Now I realize he was a nerd, but at the time-

Guest 1:01:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:57 ... I thought he was cool.

Guest 1:01:57 Nerd? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:58 Yeah. (laughs)

Guest 1:01:59 Now that I'm a nerd, I recognize that. But, uh, and my dad was a very proud guy. I mean, he never would've bent the knee to any other man, but he was on his knees on Sunday.

Chris Williamson 1:02:07 Mm.

Guest 1:02:07 And that had a big impact on the little dude. There's something bigger than my dad, and I saw it. And it like, it's in there, right?

Chris Williamson 1:02:15 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:02:15 That's really important in every part of life. If you wanna teach virtue, practice virtue. Be the person you want your kids to actually turn into, and they will become that. Generally speaking, they'll become that person.

Chris Williamson 1:02:26 Yeah, I, I was thinking about, um, you know, w- this generation, both millennials and Gen Z, are the progeny of parents who didn't have the tools to sort of relate or navigate in the same way as an infinite number of w- evidence-based k- relationship coaches and, and the-

Guest 1:02:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:44 ... podcast world and the self-help and all the rest of it. Uh, I think, I wonder how they should go about thinking. Well, I didn't necessarily have the best example in front of me, because there was challenges here, and we did have, uh, uh, changing dynamics and, and motivations around the acceptance of divorce. And maybe I did grow up in, in a, a non-intact home and such, uh, but that sets expectations for what a good relationship is-

Guest 1:03:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:13 ... supposed to be now. And there's this interesting, uh, not a burden I suppose, but a responsibility, opportunity to be a circuit breaker.

Guest 1:03:23 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:03:23 And to think, you know, uh, uh, Goggins talks about this. So, you know, he explains about how, um, his dad hit him a lot-

Guest 1:03:31 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:03:31 ... as a kid.

Guest 1:03:32 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:03:32 And he had a, uh, a, a brother, and sometimes Goggins sort of took the beatings in place of his brother. But he also found out that his granddad would make his father stand in front of an open stove, and if he moved, he would hit him with a belt.

Guest 1:03:47 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:03:47 As a kid.

Guest 1:03:48 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:03:48 So you have this lineage-

Guest 1:03:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:51 ... this like ancestral, literal ancestral trauma, but physically being passed down.

Guest 1:03:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:55 Plus also probably epigenetically being fucking passed down as well.

Guest 1:03:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:59 Uh, and I asked David, I didn't even know that this was the case, it was really kind of beautiful of him to say on the, on the podcast. I said, uh, "If you had a child, how would you hope to raise them?"

Guest 1:04:11 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:04:11 He said, "I do have a child. I've got a 22-year-old daughter." He'd never mentioned it previously-

Guest 1:04:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:15 ... but he brought it up on, on the episode. And he said he basically sees himself as kind of like a dam, sort of a breakwater-

Guest 1:04:21 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:21 ... with his circuit breaker thing in between it, the series of mistreatments of people-

Guest 1:04:27 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:04:27 ... like, no more.

Guest 1:04:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:29 I kind of think, I o- I often think about that example when it comes to stuff like, um, your parents didn't necessarily have the tools, you do.

Guest 1:04:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:36 You didn't have an example, but you have the opportunity.

Guest 1:04:38 Mm-hmm. And you have the meta-cognitive ability to manage your emotions so they don't manage you. This is the mo- most important thing to keep in mind. I mean, we're talking about the psychology being biology, but we also have will. We also have a prefrontal cortex for a reason. That's the most important part of the neurobiology of all, is the C-suite of your brain where you're actually making decisions notwithstanding your, your proclivities. I mean, you got these urges. We all have these urges. You know, you, you look at a woman who's not your wife and you go, "Oh, man. She's really, really attractive." And all that. And then your prefrontal cortex, which is the, is the, the behavioral activation system, the behavioral inhibition system, that's in the prefrontal cortex, BIS and BAS-

Chris Williamson 1:05:16 (laughs)

Guest 1:05:16 ... behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation, right?

Chris Williamson 1:05:18 Hey.

Guest 1:05:18 And behavioral inhibition is more important because, you know, you, I wanna hit my son and my, my prefrontal cortex says, "Uh-uh. No," because my father hit me and I'm not my trauma. That's a perfect example of meta-cognition. That's a perfect example of being, of being a, the, the master of yourself. And we actually can do that, but you gotta have knowledge. You have to be strong, but you also actually have to have knowledge. And that's why all this stuff matters. That's how I teach happiness.

Chris Williamson 1:05:45 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:05:45 Is happiness is really a process of understanding the science, practicing habits that go along with the science, and then teaching it to other people so you ingrain it in yourself. And that's anything that you wanna do, anything you wanna get better at. If you wanna become a better golfer, learn about golfing, golf, and teach golf. You know, doctors, when they're becoming surgeons, they always say, "Watch one, do one, teach one." That's how you become a surgeon. Anything in life actually follows that basic pattern.

Chris Williamson 1:06:12 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:06:13 But you must have the knowledge such that the habits that you practice are not the habits that are just kinda lurking in your limbic system and-

Chris Williamson 1:06:20 Mm-hmm.

Guest 1:06:20 ... being epigenetically expressed from the misbehavior of people six generations ago, or some crazy thing like that. We should not be prisoners of that.

Chris Williamson 1:06:28 Yeah, there's this gorgeous idea from, uh, Robert Wright's Why Buddhism is True.

Guest 1:06:32 That's a nice book.

Chris Williamson 1:06:33 Fuck, dude. Blending evolutionary psychology...

Guest 1:06:36 I know.

Chris Williamson 1:06:36 ... with Buddhism. Uh, 'cause the, the book that got me into, uh, EP was, um, uh, The Moral Animal.

Guest 1:06:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:43 Actually from 1991 or 1992 or something. And it still, it is some of the stuff's a little, uh, i- uh, replication crisis, but most of it's shit hot.

Guest 1:06:53 Why? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:06:53 And I loved it.

Guest 1:06:54 The replication crisis, a big problem in my field. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:06:58 Yeah. A lot of people made their careers on-

Guest 1:07:00 If it's too good to be true and grandma would've said, "Uh..."

Chris Williamson 1:07:02 Uh...

Guest 1:07:03 I mean, I can find you a, a study that shows that, that conjugal infidelity will bring happiness.

Chris Williamson 1:07:07 (laughs)

Guest 1:07:08 I mean, I'm sure I could. Right?

Chris Williamson 1:07:10 It's a motivated reasoning by a researcher-

Guest 1:07:11 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:07:11 ... that, "Darling, darling, honestly, I only did it... Not only did I not love her, but I did this for us."

Guest 1:07:17 (laughs) I know, exactly. S- and besides, studies show.

Chris Williamson 1:07:19 And I-

Guest 1:07:20 So, and anyway, so, but, and, and, and, but the whole problem, i- if a, if a study, and this is, like, you're, you're talking about evolutionary psychology all the time, and biology all the time, and this is my stock in trade as a behavioral scientist. For everybody watching, if your grandma would hear this result and say, "That's wrong," she's probably right.

Chris Williamson 1:07:37 Why do you think so many girls are drawn to therapy culture?

Guest 1:07:41 Oh, I think it's a lot of things. Um, I do think this is kind of a cliché thing to say now, but I do think therapy culture has replaced religion. Um, and that's not a new thing to say. People have been saying that for a long time, so... Christopher Lash was writing about that in the '70s. Uh, Frank Furedi writes about it really well now. But in recent years, since social media, I would say, therapy culture has just escalated, um, to the point where I think young women don't see it as a worldview. They just see that as kind of life, so they interpret everything through this therapeutic lens. So their lives, their relationships, their emotions. Um, and I think it has elevated to the level of religion. Um, so you think of, you think of all the kind of characteristics of religion, we just mimic them with therapy culture, so instead of praying, we just repeat our, like, positive affirmations. Um, instead of, like, seeking salvation, you'll go on, like, a healing journey. Um, instead of, like, you know, resisting temptation from the devil, you'll reframe your intrusive thoughts. Um, and so I think the young women in particular who are becoming less religious, this kind of therapeutic worldview has completely replaced that void.

Chris Williamson 1:09:02 What does a therapeutic worldview consist of? What, what, what does that mean?

Guest 1:09:06 Um, like seeing problems in your life, kind of pathologizing problems and experiences as something medical rather than, "I'm just experiencing this emotion or kind of age-old anxiety." Now it's become a medical issue. Um, so things like talking in the language of attachment styles, uh, and, and trauma and losing the language of just ordinary hurt and disappointment and things like that.

Chris Williamson 1:09:37 And for some reason, this is giving some kind of solace or comfort-

Guest 1:09:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:09:43 ... so, uh, order being brought out of chaos?

Guest 1:09:48 I think it gives the comfort religion gives, and the consolation of, like, you, like, you see p- young women on TikTok saying things like, um, like, they won't pray to God, but they'll give a request to the universe-

Chris Williamson 1:09:59 Mm.

Guest 1:10:00 ... and like, have faith in that.

Chris Williamson 1:10:01 Yeah.

Guest 1:10:02 And so I think it gives all the comfort of religion, but it takes away the inconvenient parts, so the, any actual demands on you or kind of restrictions on your freedom or anything like that.

Chris Williamson 1:10:13 Mm, being held to standards of behavior-

Guest 1:10:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:15 ... et cetera.

Guest 1:10:16 So it has what women are craving in modern life, I think, which is belonging and security in something and faith in something, but it's, it's a much easier version of religion.

Chris Williamson 1:10:28 Slippery religion.

Guest 1:10:29 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:31 How many of these girls are in therapy, do you think?

Guest 1:10:34 A lot. Um, there, there was a study recently showing that 32% of all 12 to 17-year-olds in America have either had therapy, been on medication, or had some kind of treatment in 2023. Um-

Chris Williamson 1:10:48 In a s- over a single year. Yeah. One-third.

Guest 1:10:50 Which is insane. And I w- was talking to someone about that statistic, and they were like, "Oh, that's great. That's amazing," and I was thinking, "That's a bleak statistic." Um, so yeah, I think there's, there's the girls that are in therapy, which is a lot,