The Dark Side Of A Decade Of Hedonism - Dan Bilzerian (4K)

Chris Williamson 0:00 What happened to you? Where did you go?

Dan Bilzerian 0:02 (laughs) You mean, in the last, like, four things I flaked on, or for the last two years? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:07 Pick, pick whichever you want. (laughs)

Dan Bilzerian 0:10 Um, well, you know, I kind of pulled out a little bit when I did the book, right? That was, like, two years. And then came back pretty strong for, like, a year. I was going back into the whole thing. Um, and it was funny because when I did the book, I realized that the whole hedonism thing wasn't really, uh, my bag and just wasn't making me happy. So, I came to that realization, much like I came to the realization that money didn't make me happy, and then still chased money for a long time. Um, but yeah. I just, I kinda wanted to get off the hedonistic treadmill. And, um, I came back after the book. I mean, there's a lot of, like, people that were talking shit and whatever, and I kinda did a little bit for Ignite, and also just 'cause I was kinda bored and COVID was over. Um, but I definitely realized after going... You know, I did, what was it? I did France, and then we did South Africa, we did South America. I did Dubai. Kinda like a, you know, a whole tour. Maldives, and then I did Thailand. I just realized, like, I didn't wanna travel around with 12 girls everywhere that I went, and I didn't wanna dedicate my whole life to my sex addiction. So, that was just the end of it.

Chris Williamson 1:20 Why? Why didn't you want that? What, what were you believing previously that you sort of disillusioned yourself of?

Dan Bilzerian 1:27 Um, well, the belief part of it, I would say, that pleasure will make you happy, and that hedonism was the answer, and that if I got a ton of pussy and had a bunch of money and did all this stuff, that that would make me happy. And it did, it was fun. Like, don't get me wrong. It was fun to fuck hot girls and do all that stuff. But I just went to the edge of the earth with it, and I think there was a point, I, I mean, there was definitely a point. I was on a yacht, 300-foot yacht, 30 girls, and I'm just like, "I should be stoked." And I wasn't. And, like, my energy was being sucked in a bunch of different directions. Um, I just remember just being way happier surfing with my buddies, doing a couple vacation. Like, all the stuff that I'd kinda done before Ignite. So, I think 2012 'til 2016 was probably the craziest. That was, like, the Motley Crue, Rock Star, like, drug, sex and rock and roll. Like, that was it. I, you know, became famous. It was like chicks were, you know, fucking me in bathrooms. It was just, like, the crazy shit, and it was new and it was fun. And I did that, I did that for a long time. Um, and then I got a girlfriend in, like, '16, and I was just, like I said, much happier doing the couple vacations, surfing. You know, the guys would do the guy shit. Would work out during the day, and then, you know, play cards, whatever. I could fuck my girlfriend at night. There was no distractions, no stress, no headaches, no bullshit. And I was just like, "Fuck, you know, this is much better." And then I decided to do Ignite because I just kinda didn't want to be taking pictures in parking lots for the next 30 years with every asshole that came up to me and not have, like, something to show for it.

Chris Williamson 3:06 Not monetize the audience in some way.

Dan Bilzerian 3:07 I just felt like I should build a brand. I should just do something with it. And so, it was... And also, I, wh- I don't know. I was watching TV, I think it was, like, 2017, and they said weed was becoming legal, or weed was legal. And, um, I was like, "This is perfect." I smoke a lot of weed. You know? A lot of people wouldn't want to touch this space.

Chris Williamson 3:27 I am the market.

Dan Bilzerian 3:27 You know? Let me do this. And so I decided to launch Ignite, and when we did that, it was just everything I had done before on steroids. You know? Literally.

Chris Williamson 3:37 'Cause now you've got a capitalist justification, you got a commercial reason to go and do this.

Dan Bilzerian 3:42 Exactly. And, you know, we'd raised $100 million. It was like, you know, it was just-

Chris Williamson 3:46 Gotta make it work.

Dan Bilzerian 3:47 ... "Let's go do it." You know? "Let's just do it stronger than anybody's ever done it. Let's, you know, kinda, like, do a modern version of Playboy." And it was just kind of, I don't know. It was just, like, all the stuff that I kinda wanted to do when I was younger. Like, I, you know, I, you know, wanted to fucking be like the new Hugh Hefner and do all that stuff. And I did that, and it was fun. You know? The million dollar parties, the traveling the world, all the stuff. But I was already kind of over it from the realization that I was happier having a girlfriend than doing the harem thing, and now I'm doing the harem thing on, like, a crazy scale, like, 100 girlfriends and all this shit. And, uh, yeah. I just... But I, but then I felt kinda trapped, because now I had a brand and now I kinda had to do it.

Chris Williamson 4:32 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 4:32 And it was almost like-

Chris Williamson 4:33 But this is the-

Dan Bilzerian 4:33 ... COVID saved me a little bit.

Chris Williamson 4:34 This is the difference between being homeless and going camping, right?

Dan Bilzerian 4:38 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:39 So, one (laughs) , one is- is sort of mandated upon you, and the other one is a choice that you get to make.

Dan Bilzerian 4:44 Yeah. And it's a lot more fun when it's your choice. You know, you're doing the same thing, but if you're choosing to do it, it's different.

Chris Williamson 4:50 How big of a difference was that sort of framing, the fact that previously this was adventurous, it was on your timeline, there was no degree of pressure for you to be able to do it, and then you come back and you go, "This feels like a job even though it's the least job-looking job that ever did job"?

Dan Bilzerian 5:06 Yeah, it was kinda crazy. Um, I think it was more because I was over it than because I had to do it.

Chris Williamson 5:12 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 5:13 Um, I didn't really-

Chris Williamson 5:13 So you're like a pu- a punch-drunk bong- boxer getting back in the ring for one last go.

Dan Bilzerian 5:17 Kind of. You know? Um, and I also felt like an obligation to do it because, you know, we had built a company and done all this stuff. So, I don't know. I was kind of a slave to my own creation for a while. And then COVID almost saved me a little bit, I guess. Um, 'cause then I took the two years and wrote the book, and zoomed out and looked at my life and things that made me happy, things that didn't make me happy, and, um, you know, that was pretty eye-opening.

Chris Williamson 5:43 Was there an overarching lesson from that? Obviously, you said, you know, "I preferred this thing which was one girl and spending a bit of time with my friends." Was there a, like, deeper insight than just, "Admin to wrangle a squadron of chicks is kind of a bit of a hard day's work"?

Dan Bilzerian 6:00 Well, it wasn't even so much that it was hard, but it was just spending time doing things that I didn't care about. That was a part of it. And then-The big realization was the pleasure, you know, and how it functions like a drug and how you need more of it to, you know, get the same high and then eventually have to do it to not feel like shit, that whole thing. So, um, yeah, I just, you know, I just beat all my addictions when I was writing my book. I beat my sex addiction, my gambling addiction, my weed addiction, which was actually one of the harder ones to beat. Um, and then, yeah, and then I kind of, like, went back into all that stuff, um, and then kind of beat it again. And I think when you beat it a second time, you're just like, "Okay, like, you know, we got the, like, enough," you know?

Chris Williamson 6:39 And where have you landed now? What's life like for you now?

Dan Bilzerian 6:42 Um, well, I spent the last two years working on this course and I spent, um, you know, a decent amount of time developing this new supplement product line and just hanging with my friends. Like I play paintball, I, you know, work out, I mountain bike, I just, I do shit with my boys and I don't hang out with a bunch of girls all the fucking time. And...

Chris Williamson 7:01 What about that differential in the hedonic set point waterline between sort of where you were and where you are? We all know what it kind of feels like to maybe be in a pl- everyone's been on holiday and had peak experiences and then had to go back to their sort of normaler existence and they go, "Oh my God, you know, this sort of feels a bit gray and a bit dull." What was that deceleration like?

Dan Bilzerian 7:25 I would imagine it would be like quitting heroin maybe? (laughs) You know, that was, like, the one drug I didn't do. Um, but yeah, I think it's tough. You know, you ever seen the, um, gambling show Owning Mahoney, uh, the movie?

Chris Williamson 7:39 No.

Dan Bilzerian 7:41 So it's a true story about this guy and he, um, he's a huge gambling addict and he makes about $20,000 a year and at one point in the movie he's embezzled so much money from his bank that he's betting 70,000 a hand on baccarat, and, um, he's like f- $5 million in debt driving, like, a $3,000 car and he's married and, like, his wife has no idea. And, uh, and then he ends up winning, like, $10 million so he could pay off, like, the four or five million and, like, literally be set for life and this is in, in the '80s when, like, a million dollars was, like, enough. And he ends up losing it all back, like every dollar, and goes to jail and it's funny because they had an interview afterwards and they asked him, they said, "On a scale of one to 100, what would you rate, you know, your highest thrill, um, in life?" And he's like, "Gambling." And he goes, "100." And they said, "Outside of gambling, you know, what's the greatest thrill you've ever had in your entire life?" And he's like, "I think about a 20." And the guy's like, "How do you feel about living at a 20 for the rest of your life?" (laughs) You know? And I think when you do, like, max pleasure seeking, it's tough because you kind of, like, numb yourself even in that moment. Like, I remember having breakfast with my buddy and he's like, you know, "Oh, what'd you do yesterday?" And, you know, it's like, "Oh, you know, I fucked four chicks," or, "fucked five chicks," or, you know, whatever it was, and it was just like, it wasn't even like... It was kind of like telling him you ate Cheerios. It was just, like, zero emotion, none of it, like it didn't... you know, it was just kind of the course of the day. And, um, and I think that kind of goes back to the whole you just get used to whatever your baseline is, and I just set, like, such a crazy baseline of what normal was that, I don't know, anything other than that, like, absolute overstimulation is going to feel like a little bit of a void. But I think at the end of the day, I, I... Look, I got to the end of the earth with it, and if you go to the end of the earth with something and it's not enough, then-

Chris Williamson 9:30 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 9:30 ... it's never gonna be enough.

Chris Williamson 9:32 There's a, a diary entry from Elton John, it might be the best diary entry of all time. He says, "Woke up, watched Grandstand, wrote Candle in the Wind, went to London, bought Rolls-Royce, Ringo Starr came to dinner." That was... (laughs) That's his diary entry.

Dan Bilzerian 9:49 (laughs) I, I can see that. It's just like... And it's probably like... And for him there was probably, like, no emotion with any of that stuff. It was just like, "Yeah, that's, like, the course of my day."

Chris Williamson 9:57 How important is it in order to be able to say, you know, it's the classic rich man telling you that money won't buy you happiness, uh, how important was it for you to sort of push that limit and get, take the cable car to the top of the hedonism mountain? Do you... Is there any shortcut? Could you have seen these things were not going to make me happy without having to go through kind of the trenches of getting there?

Dan Bilzerian 10:20 Absolutely not. Like, I had to do it. Like-

Chris Williamson 10:23 I do-

Dan Bilzerian 10:23 I had to burn this... my hand on the stove over and over again, like, I just had to do it.

Chris Williamson 10:26 I think about this all the time, right? So there's two types of lessons. Uh, Bill, mutual friend, good example of this, 2D lessons and 3D lessons. Reading Die With Zero, 2D lesson, listening to the audiobook, even listening to him on a podcast, like a two and a half D lesson, going to Bill's house and seeing his dialed in system and the chef and the wake surfing and all the rest of it, 3D lesson.

Dan Bilzerian 10:50 I gave him that stuff, by the way, the chef, the wake surfer, and he fought me on the wake surfer for like 10 years.

Chris Williamson 10:54 You designed, you designed Bill Perkins. I, I understand. Um, he's like a mixed race-

Dan Bilzerian 10:59 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 10:59 ... uh, fucking, like, version of you. Um, my point being that there's so many things that you want to be able... The whole personal development industry is based on, "I don't need to do this thing. I can learn it through somebody else." What's that, uh, quote about, uh, like, "Any idiot can learn from their mistakes. I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others."

Dan Bilzerian 11:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:20 Uh, and what I'm fascinated by are these kind of, uh, champagne challenges that are ones that you can only learn the lessons of by actually doing them.

Dan Bilzerian 11:32 Well, there's a caveat to that. I think for me personally, I had to learn them myself, but I don't know if everybody else is wired like that and I also think that if there's a guy like me that told me, I might have listened. You know, like if Hugh Hefner would have told me, I might have listened. My dad told me, "Go fuck yourself."

Chris Williamson 11:49 Why?

Dan Bilzerian 11:49 You know? Because he didn't do it. Like, he didn't fuck thousands of girls, he didn't go down this road, like he doesn't know, so he can give me his theory, which is kind of like the whole dating space. This is my biggest issue with the dating space, there's a lot of, like, theory. These guys haven't done it to the point that I've done it and they haven't, like, absolutely figured it out. It's kind of like poker. Like, in the beginning of poker, there was a lot of theory. Like, we all had ideas of what we thought was the best thing and, like-... then 10 years later, like, the best of us all got together and we agreed on a lot of things. And when the quants and supercomputers solved it, we were just wrong. We were just dead wrong about a lot of things that every ƒ%$#&% of the best player thought was for sure the answer. We're just wrong. You know, and I think that's true in dating, and I think there's a lot of guys out there that think that they're right, and a lot of these female da- dating coaches that are just ƒ%$#&% wrong.

Chris Williamson 12:35 You've got this quote that says,

Chris Williamson 12:36 "Achieving the result is never as good as what you think it's going to feel like." And Tate says something not too dissimilar, uh, which is, "Having things isn't fun. Getting things is fun."

Dan Bilzerian 12:46 Yeah. I agree with his quote actually more than I agree with my quote, because it's kind of in line with, like, the journey is more, um, rewarding than, like, the top of the mountain, you know. And I... And that was the mistake that I made is it was just like, "How do I race to the top of the mountain?" Not like, "How do I enjoy each part of this journey?" And the journey is where it's at. Like, it's not about, like, being at the peak. It's about, like, okay, you know, here we are, 3,000 feet, like, the view's ƒ%$#&% great. Here we are at 5,000 feet, the view's better. You know, here we are at 7,000 feet, the view's better. For me, it was just like, top, top, top, top, top, get to the top. It's like, okay, view's cool, like, what's the next mountain? You know, and I... so I didn't get any of the enjoyment of the climb-

Chris Williamson 13:28 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 13:28 ... really 'cause I was so, like, ƒ%$#&% I don't know, just fixated on getting there as fast as possible. And I think sometimes just enjoying the journey and, like, taking a breath and, you know, and being thankful for, you know, the climb that you've made so far, I think is more rewarding than just even getting to the end. 'Cause a lot of times you don't even get to the end, but it doesn't matter because you enjoy the process and the journey.

Chris Williamson 13:50 What's... You know, we can talk in pithy aphorisms all day. Tactically, how are you helping yourself to take more pleasure in the journey? I think a lot of people feel like this, maybe without having to fuck a thousand chicks, but a lot of people kind of peer over the shoulder of the present moment, looking for what's coming next. You know when I find myself doing this the most is when I'm at a comedy show. So, uh, you're waiting to get in, you're excited to get in, and then you're excited for the first guy to come on, but you're really excited for the next guy to get... and then you're really excited, and you're like, "Hang on, at no point am I actually enjoying the guy that's on." I'm kind of always looking past him. So what do you do? Is- is there anything? Have you operationalized being able to enjoy the journey a little bit more? Are there any strategies that you've implemented?

Dan Bilzerian 14:33 I think being present, like, that's probably the number one thing that you could do is just be present. And I think also being present and being grateful is the answer. I mean, that's, you know, it's not that complicated, but I just think that that's the answer. It's being present and being grateful. So if you do that, then you're, by definition, enjoying the journey. You're kind of focused on where you're at and not where you're going, and I think a lot of people focus mostly on where they're going instead of enjoying where they're at. ƒ%$#&%. And, you know, I do the same thing. So, yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:04 Who would've thought that you and a meditation teacher would've arrived at the same place?

Dan Bilzerian 15:06 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:07 Um, so, uh, do you remember, me and you had a, uh, a dinner at Bill's house. I think it might have been the first or second time that we met, and I wrote an insight after that, which I've wanted to talk to you about since then. So, trajectory is more important than 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're selecting for only the people who are trendy right now, which really is 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 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 one to be? The one that's still climbing. That doesn't just work for status, but possessions, achievements, wealth, sex, everything. It's not just how we see other people, it's also how we see ourselves. We know when we're moving up or down, when life is getting better or worse. Tate said, "Having things isn't fun, getting things is fun." Another way to look at it is this, and this is what me and you spoke about. Any accomplishment is just a new higher bar for you to get over in future. I see this in my own work. Let's say we do a new episode that hits a million plays in a day. Amazing, that's very exciting, a new record. Wow. Also, that means that every video in future is now going to feel unimpressive until we hit 1.1 million or higher. In this way, rapid increases in success are more a curse than a blessing. So here's the theory, slow success strategy. Even though we might want our goals and accomplishments to arrive immediately, maybe a smarter strategy is to stretch out the achievements of our dreams. We shouldn't wish for overnight success, as we would then need to be able to beat it pretty soon, lest we feel like we're declining. Instead, slow, consistent progress is a more reliable way to maintain satisfaction. Purposefully aiming for slow success strategy may actually ensure that you always feel like you're going in the right direction.

Dan Bilzerian 17:20 Yeah, I like that a lot. I think it's kind of similar to the Chinese farmer parable, which is that you kinda don't know what's good or bad. Like, you could have instant success, like you could win the lottery, but a lot of times that makes people depressed, more so after a year than losing their arm, right? So, ƒ%$#&% you know, sometimes people think, "Oh, I got a, you know, big promotion," or, "I won a ton of money," or, "I did this or did that," and they think it's great, but you don't really know until, you know, 10 years, 20 years down the line, deathbed, whatever, like, was that actually-

Chris Williamson 17:46 What did it do to me?

Dan Bilzerian 17:46 ... good or not. Yeah, exactly. So, I- I mean, I like the idea of the slow success because it's kind of like a constant climb. And I always- I always said, like, if I were to plot my life and I could just... if this was a simulation and I could just do whatever I wanted, it would be like start at the absolute ƒ%$#&% bottom and just slow road up, you know.

Chris Williamson 18:05 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 18:05 But what I did is I, like, started here, went here-

Chris Williamson 18:08 (laughs)

Dan Bilzerian 18:08 ... went here (laughs) you know what I mean? It's just like-

Chris Williamson 18:09 And now try to reset it to make there not actually feel like there.

Dan Bilzerian 18:13 Yeah. And I, I said this to Bill, I actually said, um...... that I wanted to bet him or whatever, like, I don't know, a million dollars. It was something where we would go work a regular job for, like, six months at Walmart or a valet. Yeah, I think he actually offered me, like, a million bucks to be a valet. But it was, like, in the summer in Vegas for three months.

Chris Williamson 18:34 The most miserable-

Dan Bilzerian 18:35 I should have done it.

Chris Williamson 18:35 Yeah.

Dan Bilzerian 18:36 But, like, those sort of things will give you a reset. Just like when I went to boot camp, that was, like, a full reset because I was thankful for all the things that, you know, I took for granted. So I think having those resets is actually good. So, you know, if you were to-

Chris Williamson 18:49 Writing a book.

Dan Bilzerian 18:50 Yeah, yeah. I mean, something that just kind of, like, grounds you out and then even going to jail for, like, three months, you know, whatever. Just some shitty experience because then after that it's like... You know what I mean? Like, if you were to be thrown in jail tomorrow for three months or four months, like, you might think that'd be terrible.

Chris Williamson 19:06 If you spent a million bucks, I bet you could get someone to make a jail for you for three months.

Dan Bilzerian 19:09 I think MrBeast-

Chris Williamson 19:09 It'd be the most, like-

Dan Bilzerian 19:10 I think MrBeast is tough, yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:11 Yeah, it'd be like the most champagne homeless solution to this ever, but...

Dan Bilzerian 19:14 Yeah.

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Chris Williamson 20:15 What about the public scrutiny? You kind of mentioned it earlier on. There seemed to be a period, I can't remember when it was, maybe like four or five years ago or whatever, when it just felt like people criticizing financial statements, "This is where Ignite is. This is actually what's going on behind the scenes." So what happened with all of that and how accurate have those predictions been?

Dan Bilzerian 20:35 Yeah, I mean, it's funny. Like, I think it was like four years ago that like, you know, "Dan Bilzerian going broke," like he's, you know, fleeing the country, he's going to jail, Ignite's going bankrupt. It's like all this stuff. And it was just funny because I think I was worth like 375 million at the time or so. I was, like, worth more then than I've, like, almost ever been. Um, like Ignite was actually doing really well at that point. Like yeah, we'd lost 50 million, but a lot of companies, you know, they spend a lot of money on marketing and we've done like 100 million in sales at least every year for the last, like, three or four years just in vapes alone. And so, you know, you know, like I think Uber lost like 5 billion in a quarter or something, you know, and they were like never profitable. Like I- I just don't think people understand companies. Um, and we were also in the wrong space. We were doing weed in a, in a environment where the government was like heavily taxing the people that are doing it legally and nobody's making money. Um, but whatever, you know, it's like, it was one of those things where all these YouTube people were making all these like crazy claims and this clickbait and because of that they were getting a bunch of views because, you know, you can just say whatever you want. That's the thing about a celebrity is, like, you can say whatever you want, like literally whatever you want, and there's no recourse. You can't really sue them. Like, at best you could get a retraction. But like the legal language, unless you say that they have AIDS or something, you know, like medically, you could say whatever the fuck you want. And so I was in a weird position because my v- my videos were getting like 50 million views and my stories were getting like eight to 12 million views a story, and my Snapchats were getting like three million. So it was like, "Do I want to shine a light on all these retards?" Which is probably what they want, you know what I mean? That's why you make clickbait in the first place, and address this stuff. Or do I just want to like focus on my book? And I just kind of like focused on my book and just ignored all the nonsense. Um, but it was shocking like how much people believed. Like they were just like, "Oh, like, you know, Dan's going broke." And I'm just like flying around in my jet, you know, like I have fucking house paid for, like all this crazy shit and it's like, "The fuck?" You know, like I've got $4 million in watches, but I didn't like flex that, I didn't like sh- I just didn't give a fuck. I was just like, "Whatever dude." Um, but it's funny like the, the, you know, the people just believe kind of like whatever they read. And see, I think they're getting better now because of COVID and because how many times the media has lied to them. They're starting to figure it out. But I don't know. I mean, it was a weird thing. And so then that's kind of one of the reasons that I did come back a little bit and I started posting a little bit again because when I stopped for the book, that was kind of the time when I realized like, you know, and reflected on my life, I was like, "Okay, like I kind of don't want to do this anymore," whatever. Um, but I, you know, for the company I was like, "Okay, like, you know, we'll go back and you know, give them a quick 'Fuck you'" and that's what I did. And then after doing that I was like, "Okay, now I want to go back to like being a normal person."

Chris Williamson 23:11 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 23:12 Um, but yeah, it's, it's surprising, man. People just, uh, you know, they'll just believe what any YouTube video says and there's not really any regulation. I mean, if I were to make the laws, it would be that if you knowingly like, you know, said something on a media outlet that you knew was false, there would be repercussions. But there's just not.

Chris Williamson 23:31 It's going to be very difficult to prove that you knew that it was false as well, right? "I thought that the numbers worked that way." I guess it's going to be kind of slippery.

Dan Bilzerian 23:38 Yeah, yeah, I suppose so. But I think there is like an element of responsibility when you have a big platform. Like, you know, Piers Morgan just went crazy on Tate the other day because he, you know, said something that wasn't true. It's like, where were you during COVID when you were telling everybody else to get the vaccine and all this other stuff? It's like, you know, do you, you know, like condemn the media? Do you condemn this? You know, like Piers is such a fucking hypocrite. It's so funny watching him. But, um, it's funny because there is no responsibility. Like the media doesn't have any responsibility. Like Alex Jones says something that they say is, you know, false and, and hurts people and he gets fined a billion and a half dollars and the media says a bunch of stuff that kills a bunch of people and there's no repercussions. Like, how does that work? You know, like at what point is there repercussions and at what point isn't there?

Chris Williamson 24:24 How did that-... Period of life feel, given that you were going through this deceleration transition, um, detoxing or whatever you want to say, like rehabbing from hedonism, uh, whilst also going through this public scrutiny, whilst also there's a global pandemic which has kind of shut the world and your lifestyle down. Did that get to you?

Dan Bilzerian 24:43 It, it felt like I was going through hell. But honestly, not because of any of those reasons as much as the edit of the book.

Chris Williamson 24:50 (laughs)

Dan Bilzerian 24:50 (laughs) Because I did 37 edits of this book, and every time I finished an edit, I was positive that it was done. And then I would re-read it, and then I would start changing shit, and I would start fucking with shit, and it was just like, I just felt like I was in purgatory. I literally felt like I was in hell. Like, I felt like, I felt like every day I had, like, an overwhelming homework assignment that I was never gonna be able to finish, and I had to go to school and, you know what I mean? It was just like, I don't know, like school without ever getting summer break or a weekend off or whatever, 'cause I did it every single day, I took no days off, and it was like 12 hours on, I would sleep for like, whatever, four hours, then I would do like eight hours, then I'd sleep for... You know, it was just like, I didn't even get like a full night's sleep, it was just like constant. And what I found is that if I worked for more than like eight hours without sleeping, then my mind, I would actually do like harm, I would do more harm than good, and then I had to re-edit, (laughs) you know. And it was just, I don't know, it was, it was a lot. But I, but the crazy part is, the talking shit, the pandemic, the, all this stuff, like none of it was as bad as the, as the book. I mean, quitting all the stuff and the, and kind of like the, I guess, um, like just a lack of dopamine, because if you go from just having just massive spikes all the time, I don't know, it's kind of like having withdrawa- I mean, you do have some kind of withdrawals. I mean, the s- not smoking weed, like an- and I was smoking weed every day. Like, I went a period of like three or four years where I never had sex without smoking weed, and I was fucking like three to four times a day every day. I wouldn't even work out unless I was high. It was just like a lot of weed. And so, (laughs) you know, I think your body just gets used to that. I- people say that weed's not addictive, but I think it's like one of the most addictive things. And so that was a hard one to quit. The sex addiction wasn't quite as hard because I did have, you know, like this, you know, hot 18-year-old girl running around like, you know, in lingerie all day like, you know, begging me to bang her. So I didn't really kind of like stop, and it's not like I stopped having sex, but I stopped with the craziness. Um, but it was a tough time, you know, that was like a pretty dark time, you know. It was like you go from this like top of the world pleasure spe- seeking dopamine spike over and over and over and over again all the time, every time, you're the man, you're the greatest thing and all this shit, and then, you know, like having to deal with negativity and then also the pandemic where you can't do shit and the world's in chaos, you know, we've been, never been more divided, we've never been more racist, like the country's just like tearing itself apart, and I'm kind of like locked in the house and I'm doing this edit, and it was just like, it was a lot.

Chris Williamson 27:26 Just you and a Word document for comfort.

Dan Bilzerian 27:28 Yeah. Yeah. And an 18-year-old (laughs) in lingerie-

Chris Williamson 27:31 Wow. Yay!

Dan Bilzerian 27:32 ... occasionally, and my two cats, you know. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:35 Ah. Fucking everything's got a silver lining. Um, what's your approach when it comes to sort of public scrutiny? You, you know, do you get sort of sad or riled up or, or, um, does your self-esteem or confidence or whatever take a hit from things like that? There's very few people that spend so much time crafting a public image to then have it be derogated rightly or wrongly or falsely or legitimately or whatever. But for that to then happen and you not feel indignation at it being wrong or you not feeling shame at it being right.

Dan Bilzerian 28:14 Yeah, I mean, it was one of those things where, you know, I've been famous for 12 years and like on a pretty large scale to where every country and every place of the world, like people are coming up to me all the time non-stop. And I feel like in the beginning of it I didn't deserve it and like all these people were telling me all this stuff and I was just like-

Chris Williamson 28:32 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 28:32 ... you know, I don't think I'm the greatest guy on the planet.

Chris Williamson 28:33 Imposter syndrome.

Dan Bilzerian 28:34 Like I don't think I'm, you know... Like yeah, I'm doing it, you know, but I'm also, you know that kid that didn't get a lot of pussy in high school and whatever and, uh, and you know, everybody's got their insecurities so you don't feel like you deserve as much praise as you're getting. And then it got to a point where I felt like, you know, I was the man, I was throwing the best parties in the world, I was fucking the hottest girls, I was doing all this shit and I have been doing it for a super long time and so maybe I do deserve it, but I don't really care. And I think during the entire process like I'd gotten a ton of negativity. Like honestly like my biggest spikes in fame were from negative things like throwing a girl off, you know, throwing a girl off the roof. Like I just like am chucking bitches off the roof like it's something to do. Like it was like a Hustler photo shoot, they asked me to do it, like this girl like held onto my shirt, you know, and almost killed me in the process. But it wasn't my idea, it wasn't just like I was just randomly doing this drunk on a Tuesday. Like this was for a photo shoot, controlled environment where they asked me to do it. But that, that wasn't the headline, right? But whatever. You know, like I said, I got a lot of negative press, um, and then all that negative press kind of like catapulted me forward and I was doing this social experiment to see how much, you know, how famous I could get and whatever and it was kind of like went off the rails and it kind of turned into its own thing and um, and then I would say around maybe 2021-ish or so, kind of the time that I was getting a lot of the shitty, um, press or whatever, I actually had... I think I've developed more confidence in the last like three or four years than I've ever had in my entire life because I don't need anybody telling me that I'm great, it doesn't really bother me if people tell me that I'm not, and I have like a higher, you know, self-value than I ever had before because I know what I've accomplished 'cause I spent two years reflecting on it and writing about it and like realizing like how much, you know, effort a lot of this stuff took and I also kind of like, you know...... got a lot of confidence in, like, who I was as a person and, like, the things that I've done and the fact that I haven't sold out and I haven't done, you know, I guess, things that would compromise your value system for money or for fame or whatever. Like, I think a lot of other guys have done that.

Chris Williamson 30:49 Have you got any times where

Chris Williamson 30:51 there was a, an offer on the table that was tempting or that you would have thought, "Oh, well, I mean that's, that's a lot of something for me to compromise my values"?

Dan Bilzerian 31:00 Yeah, all the time. I mean, I got offered $3 million to do one post about a crypto coin. You know, I got offered millions and millions of dollars to do an NFT post, you know, and things that I felt like would lose people money or whatever. Tens of millions of dollars for gambling sites or whatever. Um-

Chris Williamson 31:16 Come and be a stake.com Kick partner and-

Dan Bilzerian 31:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:19 ... livestream you playing Plinko bowls or whatever.

Dan Bilzerian 31:21 All that shit, you know? And it's like, I really feel like gambling is a net negative. Like, I think it's just bad. Obviously, the house ends up with the (censored) money. It's not the answer. Um, a lot of guys want this get rich quick thing or whatever.

Chris Williamson 31:33 It's an inte- Just to sit on that, it's a really interesting point that, um, everybody gets accused and gets the finger pointed at them for all of the bad things that they do and some of the bad things, uh, that, that they have been accused of doing. But nobody ever gets given plus points for the bad things that they didn't do.

Dan Bilzerian 31:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:56 You know, no one knows the podcast guests that would have done huge plays and many of the people brought on but ethically I didn't feel were, uh, virtuous. Like, I don't get any points for the bad things that no one knows that I didn't do, all of the stuff that you say no to. And that's an interesting point. You know, during the NFT and crypto phase where anybody... I mean, that would have been the whatever, like, Billscoin or some (censored) shit would have been a huge cash grab. The distribution circulation that you would have had with that, I tot- I totally didn't think about it, but that's a... Yeah, yeah, that's like a, a, a testament.

Dan Bilzerian 32:38 Well, it's different if you do your own coin because then you have some control over it. But just promoting somebody else's rug?

Chris Williamson 32:45 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 32:45 That I wouldn't feel right about. You know, that I think is fucked up because, like, they're gonna pay me because they're gonna rug it and they're gonna take the money and the people that I'm gonna send to invest are gonna lose. So it's kinda like-

Chris Williamson 32:56 All of those people are your exit liquidity.

Dan Bilzerian 32:58 Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I, I... Look, I mean, there's, there's been plenty of coins that have done well, you know, like Doge, you know, (censored) that made a bunch of money and-

Chris Williamson 33:07 Shiba Inu, blah, blah.

Dan Bilzerian 33:08 Yeah, I mean, 'cause, 'cause the whole premise of crypto is, like, kind of this decentralized thing that allows people to bet on... Like, the stock market's rigged and people that... You know, they saw it in the GameStop stuff. Like they those guys, like bad. Like, they halted trading, they did all this stuff. Like, finally, like, the good guys are gonna win, you know? And they still fucked 'em. So, exactly. So it's kinda like... Crypto is maybe, like, one of the last things that isn't really a rigged market, if, if done right. And I think that's some of the appeal. Um, and you can't inflate it like the government's inflating the dollar and whatever. So I, I do believe in crypto but, yeah, I, I wasn't gonna do any of the, um, you know, the bullshit promo stuff. And, uh... But I think the confidence that I have is just in kinda, like, knowing that I'm a good person, not necessarily... You know, I mean, like, not doing bad things I think is important too. But, like, I think you get your real confidence from knowing that, like, you will suffer for the right thing, you will not quit. You will have follow-through. You'll do the things that you, you know, believe in. You'll stand for the things that may fuck you. You know what I mean? Like, you'll say what's on your mind regardless of the outcome. Like, that's the stuff I think that you get real confidence from because, look, anybody can do things that are easy. You know, it's like, how do you behave when things are difficult or when the shit hits the fan? That's what defines you, not like, you know... Are you the nice guy? Do you take a bunch of photos when everybody's sucking your dick, you know? It's like not, do you, you know, uh, whatever, wave for the crowd. Like, you know, it's just... It's easy to behave well when things are going good. Um, but I think it's, like, how you behave when you know there's gonna be negative consequences for what you do or what you say. And I think when you stand up for what you believe in regardless of the consequences, even when you know the consequences are gonna be bad, I think that's when you get the real confidence.

Chris Williamson 35:02 It's interesting that your desire for self-esteem or your lack of confidence originally is one of the things that drives you to make a ton of money and then sleep with loads of women and then have all of these peak experiences. And then you end up... It's like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho where you end up going all the way back around to just stick to your word, say things that you believe are true, do hard things when you can. It's basically like a philosophical equivalent of Navy Seal Hell Week.

Dan Bilzerian 35:28 Yeah, like King Solomon. You know, it's like, I, I, I think you have to have some real insecurities that drive you to go to the ends of the earth. You know, like the David Goggins stuff, like he has to have some demons. You know what I mean? Like, it's just one of those things where... And, you know, and back to the Chinese farmer.

Chris Williamson 35:46 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 35:46 It's like, you know, sometimes those insecurities-

Chris Williamson 35:48 You don't know where it's gonna wind up.

Dan Bilzerian 35:49 ... help you, you know? Sometimes those are good things. Sometimes they drive you, um, sometimes they give you the motivation to continue when you otherwise would have quit. So-

Chris Williamson 35:55 That's one of the, I guess, liberating or reassuring or maybe, uh, actually disenchanting things of the last few years of my life, meeting more and more successful and rich and famous people and realizing that on average, most of them are more miserable than the average person. That a lot of the people are driven by a sense of insufficiency or a requirement for validation or a, you know, a parent that didn't care enough about them or what the bullies said in school or whatever it might be. And, uh, Andrew Wilkinson, guy that founded Tiny Billionaire, he says, "Most successful people are just a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity." And, uh, I think, you know, there's definitely outliers in there. There's tons of people that, uh, have managed to find the correct balance between hedonism, between what they lo- look for from everybody else, how they feel about themselves, the world's view of them, their view of them. Uh-But it's, there's definitely a kind of irony in the most admired people often having the least admirable internal states. You know, if you could just take a little holiday to their mental landscape as their head hits the pillow on an evening time and go, "Holy . No thank you. I do not want that at all." Like, there's a great interview Lex Fridman did with Elon Musk maybe last year, and Elon sort of very solemnly looks Lex in the eyes and he says, "Most people think that they would want to be me. They don't want to be me. They don't know. They don't understand. My mind is a storm." You're like, "Holy fuck, like this is the robot dancing on stage at Japan convention Tesla firing rockets into space guy?" And meanwhile he sounds like he's having an existential crisis. And you go, well yeah, because what is it that drives somebody internally and what do you see of them externally? And it doesn't, a lot of the time I don't think you would pay the price that you would need to to be the person that you admire.

Dan Bilzerian 37:48 Yeah, I mean, there's that, and also just money doesn't solve the problems. Like people don't, people think that it does. It actually perpetuates a lot of problems. Um...

Chris Williamson 37:56 How so?

Dan Bilzerian 37:57 Because it exacerbates them. It puts them on a larger scale. More people are, you know, wanting something from you. It's harder to determine, you know, people are there for the right reasons. Um, you know, you've got more staff, you've got more responsibility, you've got more things pulling your energy. Now you've got, you know, four houses to, you know, manage. You've got a jet, you've got, you know, I mean I have like 22 staff members, you know, it's like...

Chris Williamson 38:19 Private life is just as complex as your pers- uh, your professional life.

Dan Bilzerian 38:22 I mean, managing staff is just like managing girls, you know? It's like eventually you just get to a point where like you don't want to manage all this shit. Like you don't, you know, and so then you hire somebody to manage that. You know what I mean? It's like all, it's outsourcing, outsourcing, outsourcing. But you're basically like running a company. Like I've got multiple chefs, I've got, you know, the, I've got, you know, house cleaners, I've got a bunch of assistants, I've got, you know, just all this staff, right? But then the staff has to manage the staff, and it's a whole thing, right? (laughs) And what is it all for? Just so you don't have to make your bed and cook your food...

Chris Williamson 38:53 Yep.

Dan Bilzerian 38:53 ... and whatever, 'cause like last week I just went up to Minnesota, saw family, had, uh, my grandmother's funeral, and then I went to Canada and we live basically like in the woods. We had a, we got a cabin up there but there's, um, you know, we have to use propane and there's an outhouse and, and you know, we have power only 'cause of the generator.

Chris Williamson 39:09 Friction. Nothing.

Dan Bilzerian 39:09 You know, it's a, it's a lot. You know, like I, it's basically like I'm cooking my own meals. I was doing all my own shit and I just realized like how much, how many things were done for me. But at the same time, like, I didn't really need it, you know? Like it was just kinda nice to be able to just be self-sufficient for three or four days, and my f- there's no cell r- service so I never looked at my cell phone. You know, it's kinda nice, like it was just good to unplug and just realize like I don't actually need all this shit.

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Chris Williamson 40:37 have you learned about where money does... or wha- how you can spend money well?

Dan Bilzerian 40:44 Lot of ways. A tool. I mean, it's a tool to get what you want. It's a tool to save time, it's a tool to, you know, um, set up an environment to, you know, bring what you want to you. Like, you know, it could help you with women, it could help you with a lot of things. Um, and so it's- it's just, um, it's- it's one of those things where I think people want it for the wrong reasons, or, and I think a lot of people that get it don't know how to use it. Um, but it- it's valuable. I mean, it allows you to, you know, travel the world when you want, allows you to tell people, "Fuck you." That, that's the biggest thing, honestly, like that's the reason I always wanted money is just to tell people, "Fuck you." And I, it's- it's always funny to me to see guys like The Rock or whatever that's like still like punching the narrative, still doing what he's told, still, you know, like giving the speeches, endorsing... You know, like just like, "Who's your master? Like what the are you doing? You got $400 million, 500... Like what the is wrong with you?" Like why are you answering to anybody? Like why is anybody influencing what you say? Like be your own person. You have enough. Like when you get to a point where like you can't spend your money, the idea of like being a slave to money is crazy to me.

Chris Williamson 41:49 I heard you say not long ago, maybe within the last few years, that you wanted to make a billion dollars and that that was this kind of you knew arbitrary sort of pointless number to get to. Is that still on the list? Is, or is that something that you've been able to deprogram?

Dan Bilzerian 42:07 I've been able to deprogram it. That was one of the things, and- and I saw this in my life, like I was sure that a million dollars was like enough, like I needed a million dollars and then it was five million, and then it was 10 million, then it was 50 and then it was a hundred and then it was like 500. You know, it was always like a fucking nother number and it was never enough and it's never gonna be enough. And you know, I- I just realized that I got happiness from like helping other people and doing things that I enjoyed doing. So I need to focus on that. It's actually pretty simple. It's not like a real complex problem.

Chris Williamson 42:39 So it's not m- I was gonna say, uh, one of the themes here is definitely sort of simplifying rather than adding complexity. Lots of goals, lots of complexity, lots of staff, lots of complexity, lots of money, managing that.... obligations, the, this party that I need to run or go to or whatever. I've heard you say that, you know, it's, most of the parties that you ran when you were in that phase in LA, you didn't really get any chance to enjoy yourself because you were the guy in the door and making sure that everybody else was having a good night, and you're, you're organizing this and organizing that, despite presumably a fucking ton of the staff or whatever that are there to help you. Um, and increasingly, you know, the, it- it seems to me that the best ways that people who have money spend money is to actually simplify life rather than make it more complex. But the natural sort of root of having money is more things and more people and more complexity.

Dan Bilzerian 43:29 Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, like, you realize that you value peace, you know? (laughs) Like just not headaches, not stress, not girls fighting, not energy being pulled in a million directions. Um, and so yeah, I would say I prioritize peace more now than I did before. I had, like, no peace before. So I don't know, man. I'm not, like, an extremist. I just go all the way this direction, all the way this direction. And, uh, yeah, doing these parties is a nightmare. I mean, there was, like, one point, I- I- I distinctly remember one point when I actually enjoyed the party, and it was maybe for 10 minutes. But I was-

Chris Williamson 44:09 (laughs)

Dan Bilzerian 44:10 ... I was... (laughs) And I'll never forget it because it was like, and I ended the book on it. It was, I was in a day bed and I had like 20 girls crawling all over me, grabbing me, and I was like, you know, my Quaalude had kicked in, and I was happy, and Alesso and Carnage and Diplo were all fucking DJing all at the same time. And like, it was like, I looked out, there's nothing but hot chicks and a few celebrities and whatever, and I just like, I just realized at that moment, like, I had thrown, like, one of the best parties that's ever been thrown in the fucking world, like hands down. I know it for a fact. And there was, like, some sense of accomplishment there, you know? And, uh, but I realized, like, this was the top. Like, you, I couldn't do a better party. There was 3,000 girls, there was like 300 celebrities, and it was just like, there wa- You couldn't have done a better party. There was like the best DJ and the best whatever, all this shit, Cirque du Soleil performers. And, um, yeah, I d- th- I was like, that was, that was a mountain that I wanted to climb. Like, I want-

Chris Williamson 45:02 You have attempted to spin it up for one last time?

Dan Bilzerian 45:06 I mean...

Chris Williamson 45:08 There it is.

Dan Bilzerian 45:08 Maybe one more. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:10 There. (laughs) It is.

Dan Bilzerian 45:10 You know, like, that's not... But it's, but, like, just to do it, just like, "Fuck it, why not?" But not 'cause I feel any obligation to do it. And I feel like I did it because of obligation before. I mean, it's- it's- it is fun to throw a good party because, you know, people have a good time, and it's- it's something that, you know, they remember. But it is a pain in the ass, man. Like, it's, you know, to do it the way I wanted to do it, I lost a lot of friends, you know, 'cause like I wouldn't let guys come in there. I wanted the ratio to be right. Like, pissed off a lot of celebrities, um, but they were great. You know, the parties were awesome, I mean, for the people that were there. So, and that's what I want to do. I always wanted to, like, go to a Playboy party, and then I went to a Playboy party and it was cool, and I fucked a girl in The Grotto and I thought like, "Man," like, "I've done it." And then I threw a party that was better than the Playboy party, and then I was like, "Okay, now I've really done it. That's enough."

Chris Williamson 45:58 Did you

Chris Williamson 45:59 pivot to monogamy?

Dan Bilzerian 46:00 I did.

Chris Williamson 46:01 How's that?

Dan Bilzerian 46:02 But I'm not s- but I'm not like some proponent that, like, you have to be monogamous. I just found that it's just, uh, the natural state. Like, and I, and people want to always say like, you know, "The only animals that are monogamous are gay-ass dolphins and all this shit." But like-

Chris Williamson 46:18 (laughs)

Dan Bilzerian 46:18 ... you know, whatever, it's like a natural thing in the animal kingdom for the alpha male to all the chicks. And like I get it, you know, like I argued that too. And I did, you know, I fucked a lot of chicks. (laughs) But I think that when you actually really like a girl and when she really likes you or you're in love or whatever, it's not worth the pain that it causes her to fuck other girls. That's what I landed on. So it wasn't so much... And I also didn't need it too. Like, I didn't need to fucking stick my dick in a bunch of girls. Like, I've done that, and I think that because I've done that, it actually gives you a unique ability to be monogamous 'cause I think if you're some dude from Wisconsin and you're married after sleeping with two chicks and some hot chick hits on you, the rest of your life you're gonna be like, "Damn," like, "What would that have been like?"

Chris Williamson 47:01 I wonder what.

Dan Bilzerian 47:02 Exactly. Like, w- and I was, and I, and I think it would almost be impossible not to be like that versus if you've had sex with a lot of girls, you know what you like, you know what you don't like, you probably appreciate the girl that you landed on more so, and um, and you just won't have the wandering eye. So I'm also a proponent of getting out there and, you know, hooking up with a decent amount of girls, seeing what you like, dating around, figuring it out, not putting pressure, not getting married because society tells you you should get married. I'm not saying I even agree on marriage. But, like, a monogamous relationship, I think, is probably the goal, is where you should, you know, want to end, because I think that's where you'll be the happiest 'cause you can focus on your shit, you're not distracted, um, and it's pretty easy to keep one girl happy. (laughs) You know, which I did, I did it with like 100. So like one is, (laughs) one is peace, one is very simple.

Chris Williamson 47:48 I remember one of my friends when I was back in the UK was sort of really hardcore into pick up artistry and kino escalation, and when, you know, Neil Strauss and The Game and Mystery and all of that stuff was coming around, and I remember him saying over dinner one evening, he said, uh, "My future wife better appreciate all of this effort I'm putting in." I'm like, "You're gonna have to explain to me how you, like plate spinning 15 WhatsApp chicks at once is, m- an investment in your future wife." He says, "Well, look, when I'm walking down the street with my two and a half kids and a golden retriever and my wife, I don't want to look at a Brazilian chick and think, 'I wonder what it's like to fuck a Brazilian chick.'" So he's like, "Really, I'm doing this for my future wife." And I'm like, "Uh, maybe some roundabout kind of logic." But a- as you're saying here, you know, there are some lessons for some people, like unique constitutions, and so for one person it might be money, for another person it might be fame, for another person it might be women, for other people it might be all of them, that you need to check boxes in order to close those loops.

Dan Bilzerian 48:44 There's that, and then I think also you get more confidence. Um, and I think a lot of people cheat out of insecurity. Um, and so I think...... by dating a bunch of women and by getting confidence and realizing that, you know, women are attracted to you and they like you. This may not have been as true for you, you know, Mr. GQ model growing up. You probably didn't have trouble getting pussy or whatever.

Chris Williamson 49:03 I was a very ugly-

Dan Bilzerian 49:04 Oh, were you? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:04 ... very ugly guy until I was about 19. So, yeah.

Dan Bilzerian 49:07 All right. Well, anyways, for, I think for most guys, there's probably... You know, because there's a lot of different attraction triggers. There's the common ones that guys think about, but there's a bunch of other ones that are actually really powerful and, you know, like pre-selection, for instance. Like, just having a bunch of girls around you that are interested in you will absolutely, unequivocally make hot girls want to fuck you. And I've seen it, you know, more so than good looks, because I went on vacation with Bill, you know. Here's a good-looking guy worth $500 million, funny, smart, like all the things that guys think that they need. He went four days on a deserted island with 36 hot girls and didn't fuck a single girl. And not for a lack of trying. He literally tried to every single girl there-

Chris Williamson 49:47 (laughs)

Dan Bilzerian 49:47 ... and they all said no, okay?

Chris Williamson 49:51 (laughs)

Dan Bilzerian 49:51 So that was one of the things that like, you know, in deconstructing this course that I realized was, like, the things that guys think they need is not what they need, because I've seen guys with every single... And it- and it's not like he didn't get pussy. I mean, I fucked 10 girls with him at one time before that, you know, trip. So like, it's not like he wasn't confident. He was a D1 football player. The guy got girls. So he had all the things, confidence, experience, whatever, that guys, you know, s- setup being on a deserted island with 36 girls that can only him. I mean, I think the security guard got laid, but (laughs) anyway, the point is, he was doing the most common thing that guys do, which is he was overcommunicating interest to women. And what he did is, he just overcommunicated interest and he hit on women in the traditional sense that guys think is correct to get girls. He hit on them, gave them compliments, whatever, but he blew himself out with every girl because he overcommunicated interest. And what I told him in the fourth day was like, "Dude, you need to just chill the out. Like stop overcommunicating interest, stop acting, you know, you know, reeking of desperation. Stop acting like if you don't get laid, you're gonna die," you know? And on the fourth day, sure enough, he chilled the out, he fucked four girls, you know, and like met his wife (laughs) , had a few threesomes, like everything was good. And you know, and it was just a small shift. And so that's what I've seen is like, you know, small shifts can have a big impact on the outcome, and I just think a lot of people are just doing the wrong thing.

Chris Williamson 51:11 What is your opinion on modern advice for men? We're talking about crisis of masculinity, men struggling with their role in the world, whether it's financially, professionally, existentially, with women. What do you make of the current landscape of advice for men?

Dan Bilzerian 51:27 I think it's a fucking disaster. Like an unequivocal disaster. The current landscape is atrocious, which is why I spent the last two years doing this. And like, I talked to you about this about a year ago. I actually didn't even know who the fuck you were. I was like, you know, he's a sharp guy, he's at Bill's house, probably a good dude, whatever, and like, you know, we rapped about this, and then, you know, and then I found out that, you know, you were famous too and you had a podcast and all this stuff, and you know, you knew about this stuff and you were interested. But like at the time we talked, it was just like, you know, two guys chopping it up about this and like, you got it. Like I- I- I saw that like you understood the problem, and I don't know, I just, like I look out and I just see them getting the wrong advice, doing the wrong things, having bad results, and then the problem is they're quitting. Like that's the biggest problem, is not that they're not getting pussy but that they're quitting. And I think the problem today is that guys have maps with the wrong directions. And before, 40, 50 years ago, even when we were kids, like we didn't really have directions, (laughs) you know? It's like we saw some shit in the movies, right? We had some good stuff like what James Bond did and then we had the bad stuff, the romcoms. But like, we didn't really have like the bad directions that we have today and this attack on masculinity and all this stuff, which is like just a recipe for horrendous results. And also coupled by the fact that women, because of social media, now think that they deserve like this crazy guy that they, maybe they could fuck but that's not gonna date them seriously. And then they have experiences with those type of guys, you know, which exacerbates the problem-

Chris Williamson 52:49 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 52:49 ... and then they end up marrying some guy that's worth $100 million that's just like happy because they're hot and doesn't realize that they've like fucked half the, you know, NFL football team and whatever, you know? And then the girl doesn't really respect that guy because she, you know, has all these other previous guys to compare him to, plus the fact that she doesn't really think of herself as being like, you know, that high value because she hasn't been able to date any of the guys that she actually really wanted-

Chris Williamson 53:11 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 53:12 Right? So it like creates this landscape of unhappiness on both sides for men and women.

Chris Williamson 53:15 Skewed expectations, cynicism. Yeah, there's a big trend of cynicism around dating advice for guys, and I think as you said, a lot of them are checking out. How cynical or hopeful do you think guys should be when it comes to the dating market?

Dan Bilzerian 53:30 I mean, if they do the right things, there's hope for everybody. I mean, look, I- I was not a guy that was supposed to get hardly any pussy, and I didn't. Like in high school, like I lost my virginity to a Mexican hooker, you know? (laughs) Like, and then we went a couple years out of that, you know, (laughs) we finally figured it out, like and had sex again, but like not much. You know, in the military I'd like did terrible. I would like go up to every girl with the typical like, "Oh, I think you're beautiful, you know, can I buy you a drink," line, and obviously that's gonna do terrible because that's like just setting yourself up for failure, overcommunicating interest. It puts the girl in a position of like, "I can have this guy, you know, do I want him?" And when you look at something like that, it's like all the flaws magnify. It's like when somebody tries to sell you something, they pitch you really hard, you automatically look at all the reasons why you potentially shouldn't buy this, right? Well, it's no different in dating. So when a guy comes up and like lays it on real thick and he's just like, "Oh, I'm just gonna be honest, I'm just gonna tell her how I feel," and like all this bullshit and like, you know, and it just runs her right the off, because she doesn't respond to that because in her, you know, past experience, all those guys that have come up are usually like the needy guys and whatever-And so I had the wrong approach and I got shitty results, and then, you know, in, in college I kind of started to figure it out because the ratio was better and my approach was different. And so wh- when I started, like, you know, not over communicating interest and we had these situations where women would come talk to us, like, I had a glimpse of like, "Okay, I'm the same guy here and I'm the same guy here, but I'm getting way better results here. Why?" And that was, like, the first time and I read The Game and so I got a little bit of an insight on it. And I, I would say The Game was kind of, like, similar to, like, our poker theory in the beginning. It's like, it's an idea. Some of it's right, you know, but some of it's really wrong too and I, I don't think that, you know, people are even close to figuring out what is, like, actually effective. I, I did a pretty good job. Like, I laid out, like, a good framework of, like, the common mistakes that guys are making, what you can do, you know, correctly, you know, hacks, like, you know, just mindset shifts, like-

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Chris Williamson 56:26 know, what are the common assumptions, the biggest ones that are holding guys back when it comes to attracting women? Um, what are the reframes or the best strategies that you've deconstructed from yourself?

Dan Bilzerian 56:38 Okay. So the most common problems I would say would be some mindsets, like, you know, limiting, um, limiting beliefs is a big one. Like, thinking like, "Oh, I'm not tall so women aren't gonna be attracted to me," or, "I'm not rich so I can't get women," or, you know, like, all these reasons why they're not attracted to women-

Chris Williamson 56:51 Do those things not matter?

Dan Bilzerian 56:53 No, they don't matter at all. Like, at all. Like, the things that actually can make a woman pursue you or chase you or be interested in you, like, you know, Bill is a perfect example. He had all the things. Not one, not two, not three. He had every single thing that guys think that they need to get women and he-

Chris Williamson 57:09 Plus a desert island.

Dan Bilzerian 57:11 Desert (laughs) island with 36 girls. Like, you couldn't get a better scenario. So, like, that is literal proof that, like, all these things, you know-

Chris Williamson 57:19 Still didn't get laid.

Dan Bilzerian 57:20 Exactly. That's not gonna solve your problem 'cause here's a guy that had all those things and he still didn't do it, right? And I, and I have another sample of a bunch of guys in my fraternity that were short, that didn't have money, that weren't that smart, all this stuff, and they got a ton of pussy. So, like, I- I just know that it's not the traditional things that guys think that they need. That- that's a part of it, but I think, like, like I said, when I kind of, like, deconstructed it, the biggest epiphany that I had was the difference of when you are chasing a woman or you're pursuing a woman versus when she's pursuing you and, like, the flaws disappearing on both sides. When a woman's chasing you, your flaws disappear, her flaws magnify. Just like when the, you know, when the really, you know, stage five clinger girl hits you up all the time, it's, like, you're not interested in her, maybe she can suck your dick on a Friday night if you strike out at 3:00 AM. Right? But, like, you know, the same thing's true for women is, like, when these guys massively over communicate interest they know they can have them and then it's, like, a conversation of do they want them? And when you're looking at flaws, you're gonna find them. Like, you've got flaws, I've got flaws, like, everybody has flaws, right? So when you're looking for flaws, you know, they stand out. But when you're pursuing something, you know, like, think an auction. You know? Like, five guys want something, five guys are bidding for something and, like, you really want it and you have this, like, you know, idea in your mind of, like, when you wanted something and you didn't get it and this fear of loss. You're not thinking about what's wrong with it, you're just, "How do I get it?"

Chris Williamson 58:39 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 58:39 Right? Just like, you know, and this is a co- th- probably the most common mistake guys make is they're like, "This girl's hot. How do I fuck her?" You know? That's the thought process. Like, "Oh my God, she's so beautiful. Like, I would marry that girl." How many times you heard a guy say, like, "Oh my God, she's so hot. I would marry her"? It's like, what if she has AIDS? What if she's a pathological liar? What if she's fucked, like, 95,000 guys? What if she's just, like, a, you know, a serial cheater? Like, w- you know, what if this girl has master problems? What if she's bipolar? What if she's got a massive alcohol problem? Whatever, right? Like, dig a little bit deeper. Like, be discerning. You know, like, go into the interaction, like, wanting to find out more about the girl, not just accepting her looks as being enough. And I think that's the biggest problem that guys make is that they just like, "The looks are enough," and then, then the conversation's like, "How do I get her to like me?" So you're already going in there with a handicap. You know, like, when a salesman comes in, like, he's already coming in from a handicap versus, like, when somebody goes into the store because they need milk, they just go to the aisle, they find the milk and they buy it versus if you show up at their door and you try and sell them milk, they're gonna be like, "Oh, well who is this guy? Is the milk old? Can I trust this?" You know what I mean? Like, the difference, like, when you want something it's just, like, "How do I get it?" It's not, you know, the same conversation. And so, that would be the biggest thing and I, and I, and I figured that out because I had a big sample size of girls that wanted to fuck me that I screwed it up with and a big sample size of girls that wanted to fuck me that I also had sex with. And I think that's, like... Look, in a s- in a experiment you have to have the control group. Right? Most guys do not have the control group. Like, I literally had girls sending me butt naked photos on Instagram, "I want to fuck you," and I screwed it up with those girls. So I'm just saying, like, only in, like, cross comparing what worked and what didn't work with two sample sizes of girls that both wanted to sleep with me could I figure it out.

Chris Williamson 1:00:20 Given that you're the same guy to both of them.

Dan Bilzerian 1:00:22 Exactly. 'Cause, like, you know, there is girls that just, like, wouldn't wanna sleep with me 'cause I'm-... Armenian, or I have a shitty haircut, or whatever, right? Like, there's gonna be girls that just, like, wouldn't fuck me, period. So because I had that sample that I knew that they wanted to sleep with me and I screwed it up, I was able to, like, figure out the things that I was doing wrong. And, like, one of the big things that I was doing wrong was, like, I was over-communicating interest. I would have problems with the girls that I was like, "Oh, damn," like, "This girl's hot." You know, "She's different." Or, like, you know, or, "I really like her," or whatever, and my approach would change. And because my approach would change, my results would change.

Chris Williamson 1:00:54 What about, you know, the sort of treat them mean to keep them keen/not signaling sufficient interest that that person, that girl doesn't actually end up responding to you at all. The thing where she's not interested, so this doesn't, this doesn't go anywhere.

Dan Bilzerian 1:01:09 So I wouldn't say treat them mean. I would say change your default setting from nice to challenging. You know? Because, like, a lot of these guys, like, they aren't really nice guys. They're like, "Oh," like, you know, you know, "I just wanna be ni-" It's like, you're not that nice to the fat chick. You're not that nice to the janitor. You're nice to this girl 'cause you wanna fuck her. You know? So, like, this whole idea of, like, "Oh, I'm just being myself" or, like, that's another one. It's like, "I just wanna be myself," like, "I want her to like me for me." And it's like, okay, well, there's different versions of you. There's a version of you in an Armani suit, and there's a version of you dressed like shit. You know, there's a version of you where you, like, take care of your diet and work out and, like, you know, work at your job. And there's a version of you that just, like, succumbs to every one of your, you know, impulses. Like, you know, like, I drive by McDonald's and, like, you know, I just wanna eat fries.

Chris Williamson 1:01:52 Mm-hmm.

Dan Bilzerian 1:01:53 But I don't. You know (laughs) ? Like, I wanna have Snickers all day, but I don't. You know? Like, you can make yourself better. And I think, you know, a lot of guys don't do that. Like, a lot of guys are just like, "I want a girl to like me for me."

Chris Williamson 1:02:04 So get tactical for a moment with regards to guy has girl that he thinks she's hot, she's interesting, I wanna pursue her. What is a better tactical way of moving toward that? What should they do?

Dan Bilzerian 1:02:19 Well, I mean, I would not start the interaction by over-communicating interest, number one. So I would go up and, you know, have a conversation with her. You know, I mean, I've asked girls crazy stuff. I take, like, a pretty extreme approach, and I wouldn't recommend this for, you know, all guys. But, like, I'll ask girls crazy questions. Like, me and my buddy were having a conversation the other day, and, like, he was like, "I think it's..." I was arguing that I think you have a lower chance of getting a serious rejection if you put a girl's hand on your dick than if you go for a kiss. And this is after a girl's into you, and, like, you guys have been on a date or whatever, and there's, like, you know, some chemistry or whatever. And he was like, "You're out of your mind." Like, this, that, and the other. And I was like, "Okay, well, let's ask some girls." So, like, I just would go up to a girl and I'd be like, "Hey," you know, like, "This is the c-, this is the question." Like, you know, "What are y-" I wouldn't frame, like, who was on which side. But, like, they wanted answers, so they gave their answer, and now all of a sudden we're in a sexual conversation with a girl where I haven't communicated any interest to her at all. And I've almost, like, disqualified her because I'm asking her this question that, like, you usually wouldn't ask a girl-

Chris Williamson 1:03:14 It's not about you.

Dan Bilzerian 1:03:15 Exactly. That you wouldn't ask a girl that you're trying to, like, hook up with, because it's, like, a crazy question too.

Chris Williamson 1:03:20 Yep.

Dan Bilzerian 1:03:20 And so I'm not saying that that would be, you know, the optimal approach, but I'm just saying, like, that's something that, like, most guys wouldn't think to do, but that it's more successful than going up, over-communicating interest, putting a girl in a position where, like, she has to decide, like, accept or reject. And usually when they're, like, forced to accept or reject, usually reject is the default. And if it's not, then they're probably a whore if they just, like, accept every guy that comes up to 'em.

Chris Williamson 1:03:40 So this is your, uh, chasing versus choosing paradigm?

Dan Bilzerian 1:03:44 Well, yeah. So, so, you know, get into the interaction. And, and, you know, the caveat to that is, like, what you say to a girl isn't necessarily how important. It's, like, how you say it. So you could go up and say some really stupid shit to open the conversation. It doesn't really matter. Like, as long as you get in there without massively over-communicating interest, right? And then I would say be discerning. You know, be challenging. Like, you know, ask questions, dig deeper, get a little bit of information about her, you know?

Chris Williamson 1:04:10 What, like?

Dan Bilzerian 1:04:10 Um, I mean, Neil Strauss had a good one when he was on with Jessica Alba, and he said, um, you know, uh, "You know, looks are common in LA. Aside from your looks, like, what would your friend say are the three, you know, best qualities about you?" And, like, in that one question, he immediately, like, pulled away her looks, which was, like, one of her strongest attributes. Like, nobody give a about Jessica Alba if she's ugly, right? So this is literally like her superpower. He just sucked it right out of the conversation. He's also digging deeper, and now he's got her in a position of, like, qualifying herself to him and selling herself to him. She's telling him why she's good, you know? And so that would be a much better start of an interaction than, like, you know, "I think you're so beautiful," like, "I just had to come over here and, you know. And by the way, I'm a doctor, you know, and I drive a Lamborghini," (laughs) and, like, all this bullshit that guys, like, you know, they try and brag about themselves. They're doing all these things, and the girl's just, like, in a position of, like, "Okay," you know? Like, "Do I want this guy?" That's, that's the conversation usually between guys and girls, is like, the girl's like, "Okay, do I want this guy?" It's like playing poker, and the guys just, like, turn over their cards. And so I would say, like, you know, dig a little bit deeper, be discerning. Like, find out about the girl. Like, you know, decide. And then if you wanna give her a compliment, give her a compliment on, like, something that's unique about her, something that's, like, she earned or, you know, not just, like, she was born with, you know? Like, if she has pretty eyes, I'm sure she's heard that from a million guys. Like, don't tell her she has pretty eyes. You know? Like, just be different. I mean, I guess, like, a big epiphany I had too was, like, when I became famous, you know? And I, I just talk about this in there too, is,