The Unspoken Pain Most Men Carry In Silence - Hamza Ahmed

Chris Williamson 0:00 Talk to me about the dangers of monk mode that you've discovered.

Hamza Ahmed 0:03 Mm. So monk mode is an intensive period of self-improvement that loads of young guys have been on recently. It's where basically you'll cut off everyone, even you will start spending less time with your family, your friends, and you'll go hard on self-improvement, going to the gym, meditating, eating clean, journaling. You can grow a lot during that time, but the danger is that then self-improvements becomes detached from social skills, and then you become what I call a self-improvement autist, which is these guys who are, you know, doing the Huberman morning sunlight routine, and they're meditating 15 minutes a day, and they're doing the zone two cardio, but they're just fucking weird. They don't know how to interact with other people, they can't hold eye contact, they can't h- shake a hand, they've got weird body language when they're stood next to people. And I- I've realized how many guys I had actually led to that point because I had been doing those intensive monk mode periods myself, but the caveat was that I had already been like a party boy, and I had those years of social experiences first, whereas many young men have never actually had an intensive social experience like university, college before. So these days, I don't actually recommend monk mode to most young guys, because I think that being able to navigate your relationships with other people, family, friends, being able to be in the middle of like a social event, party, date, whatever, and actually navigate that in a way where you're present and charming is so important. So I recommend something which I- I created instead, which is what I call the Adonis Protocol, which is kinda like monk mode, but we add in at least one social event per week, and if you want to as well, one date with a woman as well.

Chris Williamson 1:37 Yeah. I think, uh, monk mode is a very good excuse for people that are introverted to feel-

Hamza Ahmed 1:45 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:45 ... noble in their introversion.

Hamza Ahmed 1:47 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:47 And it turns something which is like an aversion to going out into the world, an aversion to making friends or putting yourself in uncomfortable social situations, it turns that from something which is a flaw to something which is a virtue, and you begin to get prestige for actually not doing that thing.

Hamza Ahmed 2:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 2:05 And so many people... Uh, there's this idea called The Inner Citadel by Isiah Berlin, and it basically t- says that if you can't get what you want, you must teach yourself to want what you can get.

Hamza Ahmed 2:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 2:16 Um, so, you injure your leg in battle, and if you try and fix it, when it doesn't work, you chop the leg off and announce that the desire for legs is misguided and-

Hamza Ahmed 2:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 2:27 ... must be subdued. So, so many people reverse engineer a life that puts them on a pedestal, the same thing as... How many people that are polyamorous here in Austin, uh, that have tried to make a, um, a monogamous relationship work a couple of times, got their hearts broken, and then gone, "Oh, well, this is because we're not designed to be that way." So people retreat into their inner citadels all the time, and, uh, I think monk mode in- in many ways is that. And you're right. The goal of monk mode is to be better as a human, so the retreat from distraction, from social life, or... And I've done... I did 1,000 days sober, 500 days without caffeine, 1,500 sessions of meditate... Like, I did the things, right? Very, very intensively. But that was with the goal of then reintegrating.

Hamza Ahmed 3:09 Mm.

Chris Williamson 3:10 And the strange thing is that self-improvement can become this sort of recursive cycle where you never actually bother to reintegrate, and you go, "Oh, I've- I've just created myself a new prison now that I just feel a bit more comfortable in."

Hamza Ahmed 3:23 Mm. Well, people do that with all kinds of things, like with money. When I was broke, I was like, "Oh, yeah. Money's not gonna change your life, you know? Money doesn't make you happier." There's a study that said that at 70K a year... It's like, no, but you just don't have it. This is what so many guys in the internet space will be saying about beautiful women, like, "Oh, yeah. All the- all the beautiful women, they're all brain dead. They're all shallow. They're all..." No, no, no, bro. You don't get laid. That's why you're saying this. When- when you start to achieve the thing that you hated on, you realize, oh, it's actually pretty cool. Like, making money is really fun. It's actually super valuable. It's- it's helpful for your family. But when you didn't have it, it's so easy to criticize it because you don't have it, and it's more of an insecurity. It's like the- the guy who doesn't currently go to the gym says to the bodybuilders, like, "Oh, yeah. You guys are just gay." It's like, well, bro, you wish you looked like me. Let's be honest. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:05 Yeah. It's, uh, I had a friend who was training for a bodybuilding competition, uh, that I lived with, and he was like a bit of an introverted guy, and he, through his prep, went hardcore monk mode, but obviously all dedicated toward the bodybuilding competition. And then it finished, but the habits didn't finish. He stayed in the same sort of very retreated-

Hamza Ahmed 4:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:28 ... very insular kind of life, and I thought, "Oh, that's sad." That's- that's someone who has found a way to make something that is- is a weakness become a- a- a noble virtue, and now he's like attached his sense of self-worth to it. And he's probably very nervous to then go back out into the world, and be like, "Oh, I'm g- uh, how do I even do the social thing? I kind of haven't done it for a while."

Hamza Ahmed 4:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:50 "Everything feels a little bit awkward," and you just get into habits as well. It's not even that conscious in that front brain. It's like, "Well, I just go to bed at 9:00. Like, 9:00 is my bedtime," or whatever.

Hamza Ahmed 4:59 It's so easy for the guys who are watching me to say, "Sleep deprivation is really bad, and I have the bedtime, and I stick to it every night. There's a party, I'm not gonna go, guys." And everyone will be like, "Oh, yeah. Legend. Oh, Sigma male." And, you know, people will validate him for that. But they don't realize that if that kid goes to the party, he would have learnt more in th- that five-hour space than him reading 10 books on social skills. For the guy who- who's saying, "Oh, yeah. Women aren't worth the distraction, bro," he'll have more personal development from going on a date with a girl and be... Even if it doesn't go well, let's say even if he gets rejected-

Chris Williamson 5:31 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 5:31 ... than if he just stays at home and then does another gym session, which, you know, he's already in the comfort zone for. So people don't want to be pushed out of their comfort zone, and it's really easy to criticize the thing rather than to just admit, "Oh, yeah. I'm a little bit scared of it going wrong."

Chris Williamson 5:46 When you're doing personal development and it's either guided by yourself or it's in a very controlled environment, which is basically what monk mode or any kind of social retreat is-

Hamza Ahmed 5:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:55 ... you make probably quite consistent progress, but it's very linear. You never have any huge black swan events.

Hamza Ahmed 6:01 Mm.

Chris Williamson 6:01 But-... doing things with other people, like if you go on a night out and you get drunk in Manchester and lose your keys and have a fight with your friend, that's a big-

Hamza Ahmed 6:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:09 ... black swan event. You find out a lot about yourself and about how you deal with pressure, and you, maybe you get into a fight, or maybe somebody tries to, to like rob you, or you, you get into a relationship with somebody and then you have to go through a breakup, or you get jealous, or you have to learn about how to integrate emotions. All of these things are huge, huge step changes in terms of your learning experience. And you're right, like it's people who think that all of life's, uh, goals can be achieved from the comfort of your desk seat, and it's not. That's, that's the training ground. The actual competition floor is out there in the world.

Hamza Ahmed 6:44 I've read a lot of books on social skills, relationships. None of that will compare to the one night out in Manchester where I ended up stumbling across my old best friend who I used to live with, and I had back-stabbed this guy. Like I fully fucking ruined his life. Me and him fell out. We had arguments. I hit his girlfriend. It was like this. We had- we were close to fighting each other. And I remember before I left the apartment we lived in, I sent an email to his mother basically like ratting on him that he had already dropped out of university, that he was f- being a criminal, he was starting fights, he was this, he was this. Like I was just being a, you know, I was just like a dickhead basically, 21 years old. And I stumble across him one night, and- and it's awkward at first, but we're in the smoking area and he comes up to speak to me. And this is like this, this cool Black guy I always looked up to, and he's charming as fuck, he's so much cooler than me, and he bursts into tears. And he's loud, like even in, in front of girls, like I was, you know, holding the composure thinking, "Wait, that's not cool. You're not supposed to do that," right?

Chris Williamson 7:39 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 7:40 And he let it all out and he said like, "I saw you as my brother. You were like a brother to me. I can't believe you did that. That was completely off limits. You shouldn't have done this." He- he didn't hurt me, but he grabbed, like grabbed my shirt like this. He expressed anger. And it was- it was so interesting 'cause in my mind I was thinking like, "Wait, you're not supposed to act like that," you know like, you know like alpha males don't do this. Five minutes later, I could see that he had actually moved on from the situation. He expressed everything he needed to express, and he moved on.

Chris Williamson 8:07 Yep.

Hamza Ahmed 8:08 I kept it in my mind for another-

Chris Williamson 8:09 You're still talking about it now.

Hamza Ahmed 8:10 Yeah, I'm still talking about it right now.

Chris Williamson 8:12 Yeah. Talk

Chris Williamson 8:13 to me about, this is one of my big arcs at the moment, talk to me about what you think the role of emotions and integrating them and using them are for young guys.

Hamza Ahmed 8:21 Hmm. Yeah, there's a really good debate about this actually. I feel like in the modern times, men are being pushed to be far more liberal and feminine and expressive of their emotions in ways that isn't actually beneficial for them. Like, for example, they say like, "Open up about your emotions to your woman." And that's problematic because if you have a- a man who then becomes emotional, that's deeply unattractive and it's not valuable to society to have a man who basically can't control his aggression, his sadness, his anger, his disgust. But, what I've learned from the spiritual teachers that I've studied and from like spiritual friends is that we still need to honor the emotion that we currently feel. So we need to be able to say and- and be aware that, "I am feeling angry," but then find the- the discipline to not need to express that in violent ways. So we can feel anger, like I remember a- a breath work teacher actually said this to me. He said, "When you feel anger, let- let yourself like breathe the- the energy, and let yourself honor it and actually think to yourself like, 'Oh, I'm angry, I'm pissed, I'm this, I'm this.'" And when he said that to me, I actually remembered my- my friend I was just talking about, that you're able to say it, and even convey it, but not be violent with it. Because the men who are violent are the ones who either have expressed it immediately in a violent way because they had no control of themselves, basically they were emotional, or the men who bottled it up for so long-

Chris Williamson 9:43 Repressed it for ages.

Hamza Ahmed 9:43 ... and then it exploded as well. So it's like you can go either way. You can just be the- the cute guy who wears the skirt and who's just, you know, expressing every emotion-

Chris Williamson 9:51 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 9:51 ... and you're- you're listening to the modern day advice that they're telling men, which then is- isn't gonna get you to where you want in a happy, polarized relationship. Or you can be way more of the- the traditional man, which then also has the risk of you exploding. And so I think somewhere in the middle where you can honor the emotion, you can be aware of it and think to yourself, "Yeah, I am angry right now," and then unleash that into something that you know with a- a logical mind is safe to do so. So you take that anger into the MMA gym and you go into the- the heavy bag, and you unleash it there for a few rounds, and it's like you're- you're too tired to even care about the situation afterwards.

Chris Williamson 10:24 Mm. Yeah, it's interesting. I had a, last person that was sat in that seat with me was Matthew Hussey. He's probably the number one dating coach on the planet. And he's on a huge arc at the moment, big change from where he was 10 years ago, even from when I first met him. And, uh, he's huge into being as open as possible with your partner, but his openness comes from a place of extreme power, to be honest. Because what he will say is exactly what you mentioned. It's like, "Hey, uh, that thing that happened earlier on, this is how it made me feel."

Hamza Ahmed 10:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:55 But he's not trapped and owned by the emotion, but he's helping his partner to regulate along with him. And I'm not sure whether an emotional man is an unattractive man. I think a needy man is an unattractive man. I don't think that emotions... Obviously the should you open up about your vulnerabilities to your partner thing has been done to death on the internet, but to me it doesn't seem any more powerful or masculine to feel things and then pretend that you don't feel them. Like that to me isn't control. Control is integrating them.

Hamza Ahmed 11:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 11:32 Control is going... Uh, because what else is gonna happen? Let's say that your chick does something that maybe is a little bit petty that you shouldn't find unco- or you feel, there's some shame and some guilt, which is also an emotion. There's some shame and some guilt about the fact that, um, she, uh, stays late on an evening time and you know that her boss fancies her. And you go, "Hey, look, I- I just, I want, I feel like every evening when you stay with your boss, I always feel a little bit uncomfortable. I- I wish I didn't, and I don't really know how to say this, but I- I'm sort of working through this and I don't wanna get ratty with you, I don't wanna say something to you that's gonna, that's gonna piss you off, but I- I just wanted to put that out there. I felt like it was important for me to..." Like that level of truthfulness...... absolutely can turn some girls off. You do not want to be in a relationship with those girls.

Hamza Ahmed 12:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 12:21 Like, it is on them, they are the problem if they can't accept you being open, honest, truthful, direct. Like, that, to me, for a guy to overcome the shame and the guilt and the fear and the concern of saying that, that says a lot more about a man's bravery to face emotions and then to put them out into the world, remembering what we were saying before, not just the monk mode equivalent of emotions, which is the heavy bag, but the integrated version of emotions, which is doing them in unison with somebody else. Because the alternative is that you're just going to continue to, like, eat this shit, th- th- this scenario, this situation that keeps on going. It's like, "Hey, I would really love it if, when I came through the door you gave me a kiss on the cheek and asked how my day was. It makes me feel like, it makes me feel like a king and it's amazing." They want you to be happy. If you're in a relationship with someone that's antagonistic, and I think this is one of the problems with so much relationship advice, both people are trying to play this transactional game where neither of them wants to get hurt, so neither of them wants to invest, so neither of them actually cares about making the other person better-

Hamza Ahmed 13:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:22 ... and neither of them wants to make the other person feel happy. It's like, well, okay, that's w- what ma- maybe many relationships are, but that's not what I want and that's not what anyone that I know that's an integrated man wants. What they actually want is someone who says, "I want to do everything that I can to make you feel better and I want you to do everything that you can to make me feel better," because that's what a partnership is like. That's how a team works.

Hamza Ahmed 13:44 Mm-hmm. Eh, what did Mark Manson say in, in, uh, Models? That vulnerability is one of the most important traits, and it's being able to convey what you actually feel, like authenticity. You know, I can say the m- the most intensive development period I've had in a relationship is when I started to convey that with my anxieties of like, "Oh, I'm anxious that you're doing this. I'm anxious that you might be cheating. Have you ever cheated?" 'Cause pe- previously when I had tried to convey that or I had those thoughts and I kept it inside, it was toxic for the relationship. And like you said, it's, y- you don't want to be bottling that up till in some point it either comes out in a bad way-

Chris Williamson 14:23 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 14:23 ... or even in just the monk mode way where it's just on the heavy bag. You're actually so right there, because when I've conveyed it to the other person, I actually had the biggest moments of transformation with, like, anxieties that I had from childhood. I don't know, I was, I, like, loved inconsistently or something-

Chris Williamson 14:37 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 14:37 ... and that's, it was triggering that, and I was able to really find a, a lot about myself. And the most important thing is, it actually is a great assessment to see if whether you and your woman are actually compatible.

Chris Williamson 14:46 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 14:46 Because if you're able to tell, "Okay, this is how I feel about this situation," if she's got the ick from that, then you're clearly not compatible.

Chris Williamson 14:53 Well, you're not a match, yeah, because you're going to continue to feel anxious about these things and there's two choices. Lie to her or break up.

Hamza Ahmed 15:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:01 Right? And so, yeah, I think a lot of incompatible relationships would be saved much more quickly if people were more open and honest about how they felt. Like, yes, do you need to titrate the dose? Like, you don't need to tell them about your chronic flatulence and athlete's foot on the first date.

Hamza Ahmed 15:18 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:18 But, you know, just as things come up, when the time is right, and ... I get it, you know, there's these videos of like, "I asked him to be, um, open and emotional and honest and then he did it and then immediately I dumped him because I don't fancy..." It's like, hey, darling, you suck. Like, you suck as a partner and no one wants you, so feel free to advertise this to the world. And that guy is now liberated to go and find someone who is emotionally mature, who is going to be able to support him in the right way. Or maybe they're just not the right match. Maybe she wants to be with the old school, like boomer parent guy, like, you know, just drinks his problems away or hits them-

Hamza Ahmed 15:53 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:54 ... you know, punches a couple of holes in walls, and maybe she feels like that's love. But I think for a lot of the people that'll be listening to this, both guys and girls, they'll want something that's more emotionally integrated-

Hamza Ahmed 16:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 16:03 ... something that's more, that's more truthful and, and giving yourself the opportunity to grow from that relationship and in the relationship, it's like, wow. As opposed to just being two people doing personal development that get to cuddle and have sex every so often, you know?

Hamza Ahmed 16:19 Mm-hmm. It depends what you're optimizing for, I think. Like with, with the red pill space, it's all about optimizing just for the, just for sex basically. And if you're just going for that and you want the highest probability to find a damaged girl who wants to have casual sex with you, then you don't show her any emotion, go with full alpha male stoic mode. You're most likely gon- gonna get laid at that point. But if you're trying to actually optimize for a long term relationship where you get to co-regulate with each other and you've got this cute, like long term compatible relationship of someone you actually wanna be next to, you're gonna have to admit, like, these vulnerabilities. You're gonna have to look to her and say, like, "I feel good when you do this. I feel bad." 'Cause it's like why- why the fuck wouldn't you? Like, when she talks to you-

Chris Williamson 16:54 Why wouldn't you say that?

Hamza Ahmed 16:55 ... and it's like, that feels nice 'cause your love language is touch. Tell her, bro. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 16:58 Yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 16:58 Like, otherwise she won't do it

Chris Williamson 16:59 She's not gonna keep doing it, yeah. Train them. Train them. Treat both men and women-

Hamza Ahmed 17:03 (laughs) That's the truth.

Chris Williamson 17:03 (laughs) Treat your, treat your partner like they're a particularly slow golden retriever.

Hamza Ahmed 17:07 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:08 You know what I mean? Like, that's the way to train them. S-

Hamza Ahmed 17:09 Bring on Eminem. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:11 Speaking of the,

Chris Williamson 17:12 uh, uh, speaking of the red pill arc though, Dan Bilzerian, now monogamous. I messaged him the other week.

Hamza Ahmed 17:17 Oh.

Chris Williamson 17:17 Yep. Massively monogamous, had this big, uh, big video that went viral. I messaged him about it and he was like, "Yeah, man. Like, you know, I'm j- it's weird but I'm kind of really enjoying it. It's, sort of sex is better and-

Hamza Ahmed 17:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:27 ... and I feel happier." And, uh, Tate said, like, "Is it not that fucking all of these women is gay?" Like, "Do you not think it's gay, dude, like just, you know, fucking all of these different women?" So I can't tell, from, from Tate's perspective, I can't tell whether that's, like, kind of the new optics thing, 'cause I do think, like, a lot of what's going on is kind of optics as opposed to, like, genuine, "This is where I'm at with my life and this is how I'm moving." I, I don't know how-

Hamza Ahmed 17:53 What do you mean optics?

Chris Williamson 17:55 So, uh, the way that he's positioning himself, I don't know how much of what he says is, like, "This is actually a personal transformation that I'm going through and this is something that sounds cool on the internet."

Hamza Ahmed 18:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:05 Right? It, it's such a, it's the WWE character thing. Like, I'm, I'm, I feel pretty confident that Dan Bilzerian actually thinks the things that he thinks. Even if they're wrong and even if he's, maybe he might be, uh, like doing denialism or he's, you know, uh, self deceptive or whatever, um, I think he believes what he's saying. I'm not sure that the same is true of Tate. But my point being, there are lots of-... former red pill-

Hamza Ahmed 18:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:28 ... -ish people that are now talking about the virtues of marriage and, or of long-term relationships. Uh, and then there's still a good few that aren't.

Hamza Ahmed 18:38 Yeah. Who's ... I mean, this is from the start of the red pill. I'm trying to think back of the original guys who were ... Like Roosh, he was like one of the first major pickup artists, then he disappeared, and-

Chris Williamson 18:48 Now Christian and married-

Hamza Ahmed 18:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:50 ... Neil Strauss-

Hamza Ahmed 18:50 And then, um-

Chris Williamson 18:51 ... living here in Austin.

Hamza Ahmed 18:52 Rollo Tomassi's married. Um, Tate's-

Chris Williamson 18:55 Tucker Max?

Hamza Ahmed 18:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:56 Tucker Max, the guy that created the frat ire genre. I hope there's a beer in hell. He wrote, like, three New York Times best-selling books about having sex with girls and throwing up on the floor in nightclubs.

Hamza Ahmed 19:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:05 Now five kids and a ranch out in Bastrop, Texas.

Hamza Ahmed 19:09 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:09 A million rounds of ammunition, and he's just gone, like, full sort of doomer optimism-

Hamza Ahmed 19:13 Confirmative.

Chris Williamson 19:13 ... prepper mode. Yeah, did-

Hamza Ahmed 19:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:15 Did five years of daily psychotherapy.

Hamza Ahmed 19:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 19:19 Five years of daily psychotherapy. How many content creators on the internet would call that gay?

Hamza Ahmed 19:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:26 Like, I, I'm gonna say, I'm pretty sure Tucker Max has been through more chicks than you do. So, like, pick ... And this is one of the things, it's so funny, I had this conversation with, uh, Hormozi. I know you just got back from Vegas. Congratulations winning the School Games.

Hamza Ahmed 19:37 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 19:38 Um, uh, I had this conversation with him. When you get into kind of a weird unnecessary, uh, competitive streak with somebody, maybe it's on the internet, maybe it's someone that's one of your friends or whatever, there is a, a masculine urge to want to try and beat them at a game that they care about, even if you don't care about it, but you know that you can beat them at it. And, you know, it's like the whole, "Well, I, I, uh, well, I'm stronger than you are, I'm richer than you," because you know that that's a thing that they care about. Or, "I, I'm gonna go to the gym, and I'm gonna get really big and ... Because he cares about being big, and if I can get bigger than him, then that will make him feel lesser." Obviously, you've immediately lost before you've even started, because they made you change the game that you were playing. But I do often think with like, the Tucker Max thing, how many people think that that's, that's like a suboptimal existence. Meanwhile, he knocks fence posts in, retired off the back of a huge company, and just gets to chill out and homeschool his kids. Like, I ... Who's managed to reach success more, the person that's still playing the game, that's still comparing themselves on the internet, or the dude that doesn't even know that it's happening?

Hamza Ahmed 20:45 Mm. It's interesting that y- I see this bridge between the red pill guys, where they start off and they're basically always the little nerd, loser, virgin, childhood (laughs) trauma, learn the skills to pick up girls, red pill, go out, nighttime, day game, basically life, th- your head's on a swivel finding the closest girl you can go cold approach to and, and you know the highest probability lines and the peacocking (laughs) colors and everything. And then it's like, you enjoy that, you indulge, and you get to the point where you start becoming sick of it. And then, that's when the fantasies of, like, monogamy, that's when the fantasies of a good girl comes in. 'Cause, uh, um, Myron said this, he said, "Now that he understands girls, he can't respect them." And I think there's truth in that, but I, I think it's just slightly misguided. It's that, it, it feels like many of us men have been sold a lie of what women are. And I really do think that when you do go through the red pill arc, you, you, you understand they're not the princesses that they were made out to be. You see, like, the, the dark, feminine energy. You see how quickly she'll, uh, certain girls will get into bed with you. You'll see how certain girls will speak about their boyfriend and husbands. And I think some men need to go through that. Or, like, you know, men who were born into amazing households with no trauma, they get a girlfriend when they're 16 years old, get married, okay, sweet, awesome. But there's guys who, like, there's, there's guys who were born fucked up, right? There's guys who had the dad in and out of the house, alcoholic, cheating, mother's cheating, this, this, this. And it, it feels like, I don't know, you have an incessant need for the intimacy of more than, of, of what more than one woman could ever give you-

Chris Williamson 22:27 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 22:28 ... because of the inconsistent love that you received from your mother.

Chris Williamson 22:31 I agree. I, that to me is, uh, there's two fixes, right? You can either continue to satiate an insatiable hunger-

Hamza Ahmed 22:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 22:38 ... or you can stop being so hungry. And stopping being so hungry is self-work, therapy, uh, if you need it, the meditation, the breath work, the spending time actually unpicking and unpacking those patterns. Why is that I don't seem to ever feel validated by the world-

Hamza Ahmed 22:54 Mm.

Chris Williamson 22:54 ... no matter how much I achieve? Why is it that I never feel comfortable or safe and secure with a par- with one partner, so I need to go and see five or 10, I need to be dating as many as possible at once? Like, what is it about me that needs that void filling inside of me? And there's two ways you can do it. You can continue to feed the beast, or you can stop the beast from being so hungry.

Hamza Ahmed 23:16 Mm. Were you red-pilled at one point?

Chris Williamson 23:18 Uh, I don't even know what that means.

Hamza Ahmed 23:20 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 23:21 Um, I have never identified with that group. I've never been a part of the manosphere. I know Eve Psych. I, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person from the manosphere that's actually spoken at a symposium for, like, human behavior and evolution, which I did last year. Um, I understand the dynamics. I disagree with most of the methods, even if most of the diagnoses are correct.

Hamza Ahmed 23:43 Mm.

Chris Williamson 23:43 It's like, it's w- the classic thing of, like, the diagnosis is, is in many ways accurate, and the, uh, prescription is fucking atrocious.

Hamza Ahmed 23:51 Mm.

Chris Williamson 23:52 So, it, it is what it is. Like, it, it's horses for courses. I think a lot of the time what people are doing is just confirming their biases. You know, if you're someone that's an avoidant person that needs an awful lot of validation, you will find a life philosophy that allows you to feel noble in your ... Same as the monk mode thing. It's the guy, it's the introvert that just wants to retreat into spending his time in the house, "Oh, but this is a virtue now."

Hamza Ahmed 24:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:11 "I have prestige because of the thing that I already was."

Hamza Ahmed 24:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:14 It's just like an amped up version of that. It's like, hey, if you just need endless amounts of validation from the world, while only chasing pussy and money and status, well, that's a really good way to make the thing that you already were the thing that everyone is supposed to want to be.Does that make sense?

Hamza Ahmed 24:29 Mm. Well,

Hamza Ahmed 24:31 okay, you're saying that the prescription of the red pill is bad. What would your prescription be for a 16-year-old right now? He kinda wants to date, but he's heard that women aren't worth the distraction and that there's degeneracy everywhere, but then he wants to have sex and he doesn't wanna watch porn, and he also would like to find a good girl, but he doesn't wanna be distracted. What would you say to him?

Chris Williamson 24:48 I would say to do what feels right. I don't think that at the age of 16 you need to be overthinking the way that you're going with your life plan. And it comes back to what you said at the beginning, which is you will learn so much more by just experimenting with things. Anytime that I get ... M- my audience is older than yours-

Hamza Ahmed 25:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:04 ... but anytime that I get a message from someone in their teens, like, 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds that send questions in for the Q&As that we do, I'm like, "Bro, just exist." Like, you're already evidently very self-reflective.

Hamza Ahmed 25:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:16 You're introspective. You're doing the rumination thing. You're going to assess your behavior. You're going to reflect on the things that you did. So for me, I'd just accumulate as many experiences as possible. I wouldn't do it forever. So I'd be like, "Okay, well, I'm gonna try dating. I'm gonna see what this is like. And maybe I'm gonna try monk mode. I'm gonna play around with that. I'm gonna be super social for a while, maybe I'm gonna get into the gym." Like, what do I like? You don't know what you like. I'm still find- I'm 36 and I'm still finding out things about myself that I like, about how I like to regulate, about what I want to spend my time doing, about what the perfect day looks like for me.

Hamza Ahmed 25:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:51 And I've been playing with this for a decade. So just live life and find through experimentation. And I think trying to have too much ... Certainly, are there things that are better for you to do than others? Yes. Should you have a physical practice? Yes. Should you be trying to eat clean? Yes. Should you avoid, uh, getting drunk five nights a week? Yes. But does that mean that you shouldn't ever drink? Does that mean that you shouldn't ever miss a training session? One of the things that you do, which I do as well, is you care a lot about your routine and about getting dialled. You wouldn't come and do a podcast with me in London because it would drop your HRV too low.

Hamza Ahmed 26:25 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 26:26 Um, but there is a peril of over-optimization, because you then become a prisoner of all of that stuff. And if you get yourself to the stage where the things that are supposed to serve you now own you, what life are you living?

Hamza Ahmed 26:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:39 Like, who's in charge here, you or your Whoop strap?

Hamza Ahmed 26:41 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:42 Like, is your Whoop strap there to tell you how life is going on or to tell you how to live life? I think you need to get it the right way round.

Hamza Ahmed 26:49 There's a quote I've been saying to my students recently, "All of the greatest men were sleep deprived."

Chris Williamson 26:54 (laughs)

Hamza Ahmed 26:54 So here, here we are. Okay, Huberman said I've gotta get sunlight in the morning and, and don't get blue light. I'm wearing the orange glasses (laughs) and stuff like a nerd. Uh, the Whoop strap is red, so I'll take the day off training and stuff. There is no great man in history who had perfect sleep all the time. Not even, not even, like, great sleep all the time. Most of them, I am sure, would've been deeply sleep deprived. They had sleepless nights. They had ... They were awoken at, at 2:00 AM because that's just the things you need to do to sometimes get to the, the top level in a chaotic world. And we love these routines. And this isn't ... Like, people have taken this the wrong way and said, "Oh, but Hamza said sleep depr- sleep's, like, bad for you," or something. No, no, no. Sleep's amazing for you. Of course it is. But obsessing over it is not what the greatest people do. They have a great routine, which allows them to usually get pretty good sleep most days of the week. But if they miss a day, they don't view it as, like, this, oh, this horrible thing that's happened. Rather, they're actually ... I can imagine they actually enjoyed it. Like, th- there's times where I'll wake up at 1:00 AM and I'll randomly be full of energy. And instead of being upset thinking, "Oh, but my Oura stat's gonna be all fucked up now," I'll just get up and work for, like, an hour. I end up, like, having this weirdly peaceful time where, you know, everyone's asleep.

Chris Williamson 28:02 Weird. It's strange when you try and work at one in the morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 28:04 It's so nice. And then you do that for, like, an hour or something (laughs) , just me shouting in my (laughs) -

Chris Williamson 28:07 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 28:07 ... in my house with a bathrobe on-

Chris Williamson 28:09 Yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 28:09 ... waking everyone up. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:11 (laughs) Let's get another video out.

Hamza Ahmed 28:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:13 Um, but, yeah, dude, I- I think that you're really right. I think that, uh, looking at how you become a prisoner of, uh, what you want to optimize-

Hamza Ahmed 28:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:24 ... is so dangerous. And it, it speaks to me of, like, massive fragility.

Hamza Ahmed 28:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:30 It's like, oh, y- you think that your constitution balances on such a knife edge that one bad night of sleep, that you can't even survive that?

Hamza Ahmed 28:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:39 Oh, you think that going out and drinking once is going to be the beginning of the downfall of your thing? This is coming from the guy that did 1,000 days sober, but I periodized it. And then after that I reintegrated and I did other ... Like, it, it is all about chunking things, I think-

Hamza Ahmed 28:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:56 ... into manageable blocks. How

Chris Williamson 28:59 many guys have you got that are, are part of your community thing now?

Hamza Ahmed 29:03 This morning we have 1,865.

Chris Williamson 29:06 1,865. What are the young guys in your community struggling with a lot at the moment? Because we hear stories-

Hamza Ahmed 29:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:15 ... of what is it that Gen Z and Gen A are, are ... Uh, what are the problems that they're finding? But a lot of this is coming from self-reports in, uh, survey data. And the kind of surveys that are going to be asked are gonna be things to do with, um, uh, the beliefs around the LGBT movement or whether they support abortion or whether they're s- skewing to the left or to the right or whether they're dating or whether they're not and why they're not. But you have, like, ethnographic qualitative data. It's the conversations-

Hamza Ahmed 29:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:45 ... that you see between people when they've kind of got their gloves off a little bit. What are you seeing? What are young guys worried about? What are the problems they're encountering? What are they fearful of at the moment?

Hamza Ahmed 29:55 Mm-hmm.It's very difficult for them to find anyone else like them. Only with the newest content creators and communities are they finding like-minded people, and it still isn't really scratching the itch. So, for example, in, in Vegas, I just did a little meet-up with some of my community members, and 15 guys randomly turn up. I, uh, I didn't even give much notice, but they turn up, and the youngest guy there was 13 years old. He came with his father. They drove for 30 hours to get there. They came from, like, Ohio. And I, and I only gave the notice about 30 hours before we met as well, so they literally saw the post, got in the car, and drove to come see me. And he was a, he was a young killer, 13 years old, only eats red meat. We were all racing each other, but he was faster than all of us as well, which was, like, fucking absurd. He, we literally... I raced him as well, (laughs) and I wasn't gonna go easy on him, and he's-

Chris Williamson 30:49 Yeah, twice his age.

Hamza Ahmed 30:50 ... still one eighth, yeah. I mean, I had like triple his body weight, which is a bit unfair. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:53 Yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 30:54 And he, um, he said as well, it's like, he, I think he's getting homeschooled now, but he mentioned when he was in school, he's not gonna fit in with anyone. He tried to get a few friends on self-improvement, and he said, like, you know, they, they kinda got it and watched a few of my videos, but they didn't take it seriously, and they were never gonna meditate. It's just, uh, at least with my community, the problem is they don't find other people who are on self-improvement, who aren't being degenerates, who are going to the gym, meditating, journaling, eating clean, not touching plastics and stuff. It's, it's quite, like, a rare group of people that I've brought together who normally we wouldn't have ever been able to find each other. So, at least with my community, the biggest thing is finding like-minded people. But then in, just in general, let's say the average guy who maybe doesn't watch my videos, but who maybe has just discovered them recently, then it's the st- the stereotypical problems that you already know. It's like they're watching porn. They're in video games. They, they feel, like, horrible. They're not getting girls.

Chris Williamson 31:44 I looked at, uh, I think you posted a poll a couple of days ago on YouTube Community, and it seemed like being awkward and cringe, worrying what people think about me, insecurities, and the way that I look-

Hamza Ahmed 31:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 31:55 Those are the things I took away from that.

Hamza Ahmed 31:56 Yeah. Looksmaxxing is very popular these days.

Chris Williamson 31:59 What is looksmaxxing?

Hamza Ahmed 32:01 It's kinda like you get onto a protocol to look, like, cuter as a guy. And so I have a free community. We have like 100,000 people in there. I had to make a post, and literally saying, like, "Guys, I'm not gonna lie. This is kinda gay, but these kids (laughs) are joining." And literally, we had about 100 posts a day of guys posting selfies and literally asking like, "Do I look cute? How can I h- make my hair look cuter?" And I was thinking, like, "Do you guys watch my videos?" I'm there in an angry bathrobe, like buzz-cut head on, like shouting about, "Yeah, like, you know, we've gotta be strong guys, you know, testosterone." And all these guys are coming in like, "How, should I make my eyebrows like this or like this? Should I do my hair like this?" They really care right now because, uh, like, young men are realizing just how important their physical appearance is in the modern dating scene where it's all judged on Tinder and Instagram. And so there's a huge level of, of, I don't know, need or pain right now for the young guys who, who basically aren't fitting in with the, the TikTok boy stereotype that seems to be like the meta of attraction these days.

Chris Williamson 32:56 Yeah, you said cute. Why'd you say cute, not better looking?

Hamza Ahmed 32:59 That's w- So, uh, what I found is the youngest guys are optimizing for, like, teenage girl gaze, which is the TikTok boy meta. Once you get to, like, 21, 22 years old, like, you'll, you'll-

Chris Williamson 33:10 And be a man.

Hamza Ahmed 33:11 Yeah, you'll agree with this. It's like n- women d- aren't attracted to the t- cute-looking TikTok boy with the fluffy hair and stuff. Any woman who's above, like, 22, 23 years old isn't looking for a guy like that. But when most of these kids who follow me are 13, 14, 15 years old, they're on Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok, and they see their, the, the girls in their classroom who are posting about those TikTok boys, so it seems to be that's like their-

Chris Williamson 33:33 Timothée Chalamet. It's...

Hamza Ahmed 33:35 I wouldn't know, but... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 33:36 Timothée's the guy from Dune, like, the lead actor from Dune. He's, like, quite a, quite a feminine guy, like, a skinnier sort of dude.

Hamza Ahmed 33:43 But hair is like...

Chris Williamson 33:44 Yeah, big floppy hair.

Hamza Ahmed 33:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:46 Curly stuff.

Chris Williamson 33:47 All right, so young guy comes to you, says, "I wanna looksmax." What do you tell him?

Hamza Ahmed 33:52 If we want him to get as much attraction from girls as possible, and he's a teenager, which is important to mention, then there's five steps. Number one, most importantly, is muscle mass. If he can build up the first, like, noob gains in the gym, the 10 pounds, it's the easiest time you'll ever build muscle is the first year. So, rinse that out. There's no excuse why any man should not have h- activated his noob gains in the gym. But along with that is then his body fat percentage, especially the younger you are, especially for the guys who are teenagers. Being closer to, like, 10% body fat, having the, the jawline. They, like, you've got very good, like, jawline, cheekbones, and stuff. But what seems to be the meta for these young guys is that TikTok boy look, and all of them... You're not gonna see a TikTok boy who's got like a, f- like-

Chris Williamson 34:31 Chubby cheeks.

Hamza Ahmed 34:32 ... skinny, skinny fat Indian physique. (laughs) Like, a knob-bred physique.

Chris Williamson 34:35 You.

Hamza Ahmed 34:35 Yeah. (laughs) It's all, it's all gonna be like, you know, like s- lean, lean skater boy kind of jawline, cheekbones, so low body fat percentage, 10% ideally. The hair, if you're a teenager, you go with the TikTok boy hair. It's like the fluffy, like... I, I don't know what they call it, like the broccoli-style looking hair that are, like, very attractive to, like, 14, 15, 16-year-old girls. And then the style, the kinda clothing you wear, again, it's like copy the TikTok boys. They're always wearing, like, um, boot camp cut pants which are up to the belly button. It's like a white vest and, like, you know, the hair and then the little jacket or something. It's like-

Chris Williamson 35:10 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 35:10 ... the cute, fashionable style.

Chris Williamson 35:11 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 35:11 And then also, the h- the huge one, which makes it very easy to attract girls these days is followers, social media presence, preselection. This is for, like, let's say, guys who are teenagers first of all.

Chris Williamson 35:23 Mm-hmm. Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 35:23 Then if we t- we... It's similar, but once you get to about 21 years old, the game changes. If you're not trying to date, like, underage girls (laughs) and you're trying to date, like, women, they're not attracted to some of these things. Women who are 22, 23 years old are not attracted to TikTok boy hair. They're attracted to more just of the masculine style, especially... Basically, how polarity works is the more masculine you are, the more feminine of the women you will attract. So, if you wanna date a feminine woman who, for example, is more nurturing and you h- you'll have this sexual polarity with her, you feel like more of a strong, traditional, masculine man next to. She's gonna be attracted to more of the, the dimorphic, traditionally masculine traits of shorter hair, which...... that shows off like your skull shape, for example, a thicker neck. You still want good things, like for example, muscle mass, but you can actually have way more muscle mass now. When you're younger, you want like, you know, a little bit of a lean physique, whatever. Now, you're talking 200 pounds and they'll s- like the more feminine wom- women might still want you to be a little bit bigger. For, for dating women, you don't need to be anywhere near as lean. And in fact, it's kinda nicer if your body fat percentage is a little bit bigger, because then you are just, you, the size of you is bigger. What I'd say is i- in general, if you wanna be attractive to older, not older, but like women women, 21, 22, t- 25 years old, think about just being more of a primal caveman, especially if you wanna go for more of the feminine girls. So, for example, if you, if you wanted some of the most feminine girls ever, you would wanna look like a caveman, Dagestanian cauliflower ear type of guy, because that's probably as, as masculine as you can look in the modern day. You still want the followers, the intellectual chad, like archetype that you've got is probably what I would say is the meta, where it's like you're a very attractive, handsome guy, but you're not like the stereotypical du- dumb chad who's just attractive, but he's braindead. So, it's like when you can show off your intellect in like a podcast, you basically got... If I had to rate right now, you have the 10 out of 10 funnel of attracting women right now.

Chris Williamson 37:19 (laughs)

Hamza Ahmed 37:19 I'm like, I wonder what your DMs are like. I'm sure that there's a lot of women who cope-

Chris Williamson 37:21 It's fucking chaos in there.

Hamza Ahmed 37:22 ... and they're like, th- there's women-

Chris Williamson 37:24 Chaos.

Hamza Ahmed 37:24 ... I can, I can imagine, right? They'll say like, "Oh yeah, you know, your podcast is like this. I know it's supposed to be for guys and stuff, but I'm a girl and I like it too." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:31 Yeah. The, uh, when I first started the podcast six years ago, my friends used to call it groundwork at scale. Uh, so-

Hamza Ahmed 37:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:40 (laughs) ... um, yeah. I- it's e- one of the weirdest things in the world, like in terms of an arc. You know, as a guy who early 20s, didn't, didn't really feel very confident, didn't really know his position, there wasn't the kind of advice and content online that we have access to now. So, there wasn't the same kind of guidance. And I remember thinking like a decade ago or whatever, like, "Oh, it would be so amazing to be a Gymshark athlete. Like, could you imagine if I was a gy- 'cause then that would be g- that's validation, that means that everything's cool and that, that would be good. Oh, it'd be so great to get a blue tick. It would be so great to like-"

Hamza Ahmed 38:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:13 "... have the this thing, to have the that thing." All of those things are apparently available if you just have sufficiently weird conversations on the internet.

Hamza Ahmed 38:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 38:21 Like the easiest route to becoming a Gymshark athlete is to not actually care about the way you look and to just have interesting conversations. The easiest route to getting the blue tick thing, all of that. But I, I think fundamentally what that is, is what is your competitive advantage because of your predisposition, the thing that you like to do, and a capacity that you have? And you just lean into that, because I'm not gonna beat Cbum at like being jacked. Uh, I actually probably can't beat him at, uh, the emotional thing either, 'cause he's like pretty, he's pretty good at that. But, I can, uh, hold a pretty good conversation with him. All right. Well, that's my thing, so I'll just lean into my thing. And it's weird how stuff ends up coming full circle, all of the dreams and goals and things that you wanted so long ago, even if they feel kind of like petty or juvenile now, you, there is usually a p- a much quicker way to get the things that you want with far less resistance by swimming downstream rather than upstream.

Hamza Ahmed 39:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:13 You know what I mean?

Hamza Ahmed 39:14 If I wanted to set up like a wife funnel, like a, a, a protocol to attracting wives-

Chris Williamson 39:20 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 39:21 ... I'd basically do the exact same thing that you're doing.

Chris Williamson 39:23 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 39:23 I first would've started with like chad archetype, I go to the gym, I'm on Love Island, whatever, I party and stuff, but then I would've stopped at the shore-

Chris Williamson 39:29 Rehabilitate.

Hamza Ahmed 39:30 Yeah. Like, "Oh yeah, I'm mature now, guys." (laughs) Like, but, but you know that I slay like-

Chris Williamson 39:33 You right. This is all one, all one big con.

Hamza Ahmed 39:37 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:37 It's a massive psyop.

Hamza Ahmed 39:38 The, the... Literally. And, and the 10 out of 10 topics I'd be choosing is like, "Oh yeah, you know, the sexual revolution's kinda crazy, guys. And you know, you shouldn't be taking the pill." (laughs) Like, "Message me when you're on your period." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:47 Hormonal birth control. Yeah. Honestly, dude, it, you are right. You've actually called out my meta there-

Hamza Ahmed 39:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:52 ... which is fucking terrifying. Um,

Chris Williamson 39:56 it's, it's really strange. I think the whole world of like, especially for young guys at the moment, is it young girls that have got it worse? Is it young guys that have got it worse? I don't think it really matters.

Hamza Ahmed 40:04 Mm.

Chris Williamson 40:04 I think that everyone is kind of lost and this obsession with looks is so interesting-

Hamza Ahmed 40:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:11 ... to me. Because it, we definitely had it, you know, I'm, I'm 36 now, so I guess from your audience, it's like two decades, which sounds like a long time and really was, we weren't as obsessed-

Hamza Ahmed 40:23 No.

Chris Williamson 40:23 ... with the way that we looked. And, uh, for girls, there's at least a bit of like nobility in vanity-

Hamza Ahmed 40:31 Mm.

Chris Williamson 40:31 ... for them. Like, you know, you, women that are in their 50s get cosmetic surgery, in their 60s get cosmetic surgery. They use makeup, they wear heels, they accentuate their body shape by wearing certain dresses. Like, it's in, kind of in the lines, it's, it's part of the lineage of your sex. The same isn't quite true for men, you know? So, uh, there's an interesting stat that says male body dysmorphia is on track to overtake female body dysmorphia within the next two decades.

Hamza Ahmed 40:57 Mm.

Chris Williamson 40:58 That doesn't surprise me at all.

Hamza Ahmed 41:00 With men becoming more and more feminine, lower testosterone, societal pressures to not be as masculine, I'm not surprised that so many guys are getting into like, "Am I looking cute or not?" 'Cause quite frankly, bro, when I was in high school, and I'm sure it would've been even w- more so for your generation, it was gay. Like we, we saw Justin Bieber, and the first thing that any of us said was he was gay because he had this kinda hair.

Chris Williamson 41:23 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 41:23 And it wasn't even us trying to be like homophobic and trying to make it like a, some kind of actual point. It was just like, guys don't do that. But these days, the younger generation are. And I think it's because they're taking on a lot of like feminine traits. Like, like I, every now and then I'll, I'll scroll on Instagram or something, right? The algorithm gets me too. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 41:42 Yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 41:42 And, and there'll be like videos I'll see of guys who it should be a girl who's made it. He's like looking into the camera and he's putting on like, like cream or some shit. Then, he's doing his eyebrows, he's doing his beard, and looking cute.

Chris Williamson 41:53 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 41:53 Then, he puts on hair product and he's like doing this. And it's like he'll have loads of likes, validation, girls who are attracted to him, guys who are looking up to him. But, it's very interesting that that's like, that's how a girl would be posting on, on Instagram right now.

Chris Williamson 42:05 But don't think that... I, I, I guess that-A lot of the stuff that guys typically do when they're young doesn't probably come across that well on TikTok.

Hamza Ahmed 42:12 Mm.

Chris Williamson 42:12 Like, it's just you and your boys playing Xbox in your pants, your pajamas, like, in your, in your bedroom in your parents' house. Like, why is that... That's not very exciting. I wonder whether this is downstream, at least in part, from MeToo, and women being more concerned about aggressive-

Hamza Ahmed 42:29 Mm.

Chris Williamson 42:29 ... dominant men, especially when they're young and vulnerable. Maybe they haven't had sex or maybe they're starting to become sexually active and they're thinking, "Actually, if I'm with someone that seems, like, halfway like a best friend, that's almost like a, like an anime character cuddle toy equivalent of a boyfriend..." I wonder whether they feel more, like, sexually safe and secure. That would be something that I could absolutely see.

Hamza Ahmed 42:52 And then with them, so many people taking birth control, they're more likely to be attracted to more of the feminine features-

Chris Williamson 42:57 More feminized men, correct. Yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 42:58 ... which is deadly. We had a, a kid in a Adonis School actually who, who said his girlfriend went off birth control and it's exactly what you had spoke about with Louise Perry, that his, um, their sex life went to shit, and she... They watched your podcast. I sent them the link, and they said that that's basically what's happening right now.

Chris Williamson 43:13 Yeah. I had a friend-

Hamza Ahmed 43:13 Which is brutal.

Chris Williamson 43:14 ... who, uh, a, a girlfriend who swings both ways, mostly lesbian but bisexual.

Hamza Ahmed 43:19 What's her name?

Chris Williamson 43:20 Uh...

Hamza Ahmed 43:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:22 She'd eat you alive. You don't wanna... Y- y- you don't wanna... You don't wanna step into that, into that war game.

Hamza Ahmed 43:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 43:27 Um, and, uh, for one week out of every month, she says that she's straight again.

Hamza Ahmed 43:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:34 Like, she's not on hormonal birth control, but for the-

Hamza Ahmed 43:36 Right.

Chris Williamson 43:36 ... week that she's ovulating.

Hamza Ahmed 43:37 Okay, yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:37 Yeah, so that, that change in, that change in hormones. And this is one thing that I don't think guys really understand just how aggressively women get ragged around by that internal, uh, manipulation. Like, guys are very hormonal in short bursts.

Hamza Ahmed 43:53 I was talking to them about it.

Chris Williamson 43:53 And it's not reliable. Like, you can't track it based on the moon's position. Uh, but we are, not in the same way that women are. And women, I think, for the most part, are a lot more controlled by emotions. They feel emo-... They tend to feel emotions more deeply, both as a predisposition, and then socially, it's more acceptable, so they don't tamp them down as much. Like, it would be re-... Like, if we could swap places, I would hate that. Like, I've just got... You know, I'm, I'm looking on my calendar and I'm like, "Oh, yes, I've got the podcast with Hamza on Tuesday, and then I've got the podcast with Owen McManus on Wednesday. Oh, fuck."

Hamza Ahmed 44:25 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:25 "Like, I start my period on Thursday and it's gonna kill..." Like, I don't want that.

Hamza Ahmed 44:29 Mm.

Chris Williamson 44:29 I wouldn't want that. Uh, but yeah, it's, um... It'll be interesting to see what the next few years have in store. I wonder whether... Well, actually, that's a question. If, if it's such a case that young guys are optimizing for this super pretty boy TikTok look, why did Andrew Tate resonate so much with that same age group?

Hamza Ahmed 44:52 'Cause it's the guys who aren't optimizing for that. So it's like, let's say-

Chris Williamson 44:55 The counterculture.

Hamza Ahmed 44:56 Yeah. Whatever percentage it is of the guys who are going for the sort of femboy look and they, you know, being proper cute, wearing the dress and saying, "Yeah, this is positive masculinity," whatever, there's an equal or even greater number of guys who have just been silent and, you know, living the quiet lives of desperation where they feel like that's odd, but they've not been able to speak up about it because they know that that's hate speech. And so when you see Tate go viral, he said basically the things that most men have wanted to say but haven't had the courage to do so. So, he's just attracted a, a different audience compared to the likely femboys out there.

Chris Williamson 45:28 Yeah, for every cultural movement, it- in- in fact, I can teach you to predict the future. For every cultural movement that occurs, if there hasn't yet been a count- countercultural movement, that's what comes next.

Hamza Ahmed 45:40 Mm.

Chris Williamson 45:41 So 2020, you have COVID, everyone gets shut down, no one can go outside. 2021, Megan Thee Stallion releases Hot Girl Summer, "You didn't get to party last year, so glam up, make the most of yourself, go out with your girls, have casual sex, have a fun time."

Hamza Ahmed 45:56 Mm.

Chris Williamson 45:57 2022, you have Feral Girl Summer, like, "Don't shave, don't wash, no one cares about what you thi-" Every single time. For every, like, simp, there's a sigma. For every alpha, there's a beta.

Hamza Ahmed 46:08 Mm-hmm. Vegans and carnivores, yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:10 It's... Every movement has to have... It's like a thermodynamic law of culture.

Hamza Ahmed 46:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:14 For every movement, there has to be a counter movement. For every left, there has to be a right. And yeah, it's, uh... I, I think you could quite easily predict it. If... And I didn't know that that sort of underground, more femboy trend amongst teenagers was happening. But if that's part of the fashion, it absolutely makes sense that Tate comes in and... I mean, presumably, he doesn't know about it either, but he just managed to, like, strike at the right time.

Hamza Ahmed 46:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:38 One of the other things you've been talking

Chris Williamson 46:40 about a lot recently is the life cycle of a creator, the perils of audience capture, stuff like that.

Hamza Ahmed 46:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:45 What have you reflected on that?

Hamza Ahmed 46:48 Being a content creator who goes viral, especially when you're young, is kind of like being the, the hot guy in the gym. So you'll, you'll recognize this. (laughs) Okay, look, you're the hot guy in the gym, let's say you're secretly taking steroids as well. You go in there and y- you say hello to the first gym girl, then the PT, then the other guy, the old guy, you fist bump everyone. You know, you're, you're feeling nice and relaxed, and this is your environment, you're the king of this location. You go over, there's other guys there who are copying you, there's girls who are looking at you, there's guys who are asking if they can join your workout, you're hot shit and you know it, and it feels awesome. That's like when you're popping off on the, the algorithm, that's what it feels like. Everyone wants a piece of you, your DMs are being flooded, it's so cool. That guy realizes that steroids are actually not that healthy for him, and so he makes the hard decision to take a step back from that. And he walks in, he's still got resi- like, residual attention and the same people are still into him, but it's kinda starts going down and down and down. That girl's not really into him anymore, that guy's not paying attention to him anymore, those people are copying someone else now. The, the new gym Chad walks in, the one who's still taking gear, and that's when it really disrupts you, your mental health. "Shit, this is someone else popping on the YouTube algorithm in your space that you were, like, the king of."

Chris Williamson 47:57 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 47:57 So there's, like, you know, other creators who are popping off in self-improvement or masculinity. And this is when you get...... really fickle and emotional, "Okay, maybe I should do like that. Maybe I should take, start taking g- gear again." And you do it for, like, two weeks and you're, like, back to doing that thing again. But then you stop, stop it again 'cause you realize it's unhealthy. And it's like your brain's all fucked up thinking, "Wait, how do I get these people to like me? W- what... I, I, I don't actually care about them liking me, but, like, w- it'd be nice if they did like me again." Like, you know, when was the last time I posted a video and it said one out of ten on the YouTube algorithm? It's, it's like crack, I need it again. There's like... You've still got, like, your, the OGs who are still watching and, and, you know, that's nice. But it's not enough. You're still the guy who, for example, you come in and there's five people watching you in the gym. You're still the guy who posts and there's 100,000 people who are watching you, which is more than basically every stadium out there. But it's not enough, because you used to be hot shit. You used to be the guy who gets 500K, one million. You used to be the guy who, who, you know, had a lot more subscribers. And so it's, it, it's... It can drive a person insane getting that, the peaks and troughs of the content game. And I'm in the, the trough. From last year, I basically took a massive step back from YouTube. I posted every single day without fail for maybe about a year and a half, which barely any other creators have ever done that daily upload streak that I did. And my videos had animation, like custom animation. People don't realize, like, it was costing about, like, $1,000 per day to put one of those videos out there. And my business was suffering, I was literally losing money every month making these videos, but I thought it was, like, a very purposeful thing to send out this message to the young guys of self-improvement. And in the end of 2022, I decided that I just wanted to stop the entire thing. I let go of my team, I stopped posting to YouTube. I started posting to, like, maybe once every few weeks or once a month or so, and I put all of my focus into Adonis School, which is, like, my online community. That's, like, kind of like where I bring guys in and we help them with teachers and support, and they get advice from me every single day. And I put so much effort into that, that I just didn't really have the bandwidth to also grow YouTube at the same time, even though I wanted to. So I became that fickle entre- entrepreneur, the fickle YouTuber who, like, I'd start posting again daily for a few weeks, but then I'd lose the bandwidth because my priority is the, you know, the guys who were paying the money. So I'd go and stop it again. Then it's like, you know, I look like I'm, I'm, like, I don't know, fickle, emotional. I'm on and off, I'm bipolar as fuck. Like, ADHD where I'll go hard on YouTube again for a little while, then I'll drop off again. Then I'll go hard again, then I'll drop off again. And I don't really have the regrets because I've been able to build, like, a wonderful product. I just won a massive competition, I met Alex Hormozi, Sam Ovens. But it's, it does fuck with your head when you're not at the, the top of your space anymore.

Chris Williamson 50:30 Mm. Well, I think definitely one thing to take away from that is the most popular job that young kids want. They're in school, primary, primary school kids, is they want to be a YouTuber, a content creator-

Hamza Ahmed 50:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:43 ... influencer of some kind. It's like, well that right there is what... That's if it goes right.

Hamza Ahmed 50:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:49 That's what your future has in store. That's, that's the best that you have to hope for.

Hamza Ahmed 50:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:54 Unless you, you absolutely thread the needle and then, you know, hit the top and then just keep going. Uh, so yeah, I think everybody has this in microcosm. It doesn't matter whether you're a content creator or someone that works at, at a normal job. You get a degree of self-worth from the content that you put out on the internet, even if it's just your photos, your family photos from the weekend or whatever. Like, you, you outsource your sense of self-worth to the crowd. Everyone knows kind of what you've gone through. Everyone's had one post or one video that's, that's kind of popped off on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. They're like, "Oh, yeah, that was ni-... Maybe, maybe content creation is my thing. I am kind of funny." And...

Hamza Ahmed 51:31 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:31 (laughs) You realize, you realize how quickly audience capture comes in.

Hamza Ahmed 51:36 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:36 And, you know, if you're going to rise with other people's, uh, inflations, you're gonna fall when you're on the other side of it too. Uh, you

Chris Williamson 51:44 kind of used this analogy about taking steroids and then stopping because you realized that they're not good for you.

Hamza Ahmed 51:49 Mm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:50 It seems to me like you were trying to draw some sort of analogy that you, like, transcended some more toxic type of content that you were producing previously.

Hamza Ahmed 51:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:58 Uh, what, what was that? What was the message that you disagree with your previous version of yourself about?

Hamza Ahmed 52:03 The videos that got me viral were, one, heavily edited, and so, like, high dopamine videos. Which when I look at it, like, you know, I'm supposed to be helping these guys live a better life. And I was making the kind of videos that are, like, sapping their dopamine by... I had, like, hit markers and shit come up. I added, you know, explosions, green screen. I add all these, like, extra animations, effects, everything. And so I felt like I was almost making the, the situation with, like, people's poor attention spans even worse. And so that was one thing.

Chris Williamson 52:30 I don't... Just to interject there, I, I don't think that you necessarily were. I... There's a, uh, an idea in internet marketing that you'll be aware of, which is, uh, sell people what they want, teach them what they need.

Hamza Ahmed 52:40 Mm.

Chris Williamson 52:40 And, like, you can come for whatever you think you're going to get. Like, because you are the... At the end of the day you are competing with the best on the planet at limbic hijack, right?

Hamza Ahmed 52:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 52:53 Because if they don't watch you, they are watching MrBeast. And MrBeast is going to continue to play that limbic hijack game. He's gonna have the escalating, ever-increasing set of stakes, and there's gonna be tension, there's gonna be explosions, and his are actually real. And I think I, I would be... I, I, I would spend some time fact-checking just how true that was-

Hamza Ahmed 53:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 53:13 ... for yourself. Uh, it's a good story, uh, and I don't disagree that, like, fully pushing the dopamine button isn't a fantastic idea. But if that's seven minutes or 10 minutes that someone spent learning about themselves or about meditation, or that's the thin end of the wedge that then gets them into some more meaningful stuff, I don't think that that's a disservice. Like, we do it very differently, but we often use inflammatory titles or thumbnails. We very rarely do both. But it's like, "Come for the clickbait, stay for the insights." Like, um, "Why are seven million American men unemployed?" These men are not working." It's a really in-depth conversation with a demographer that breaks down exactly why you have this massive unseen group of, of guys that are, uh, unemployed, not looking for work, and not in education, employment or training, the NEETs.Phenomenal conversation, but like why are seven million American men not, like, unemployed? It's a kind of a spide-, "It's because of the, the, why should we contribute to a world that doesn't care about them? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, I am, "I will push that button all fucking day long," because people are going to come and they're actually going to be like, "Wow, I walked away from this having a great understanding about this topic." So just t- to interject that, I- I- I wouldn't do the previous version of you so harshly-

Hamza Ahmed 54:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:29 ... with that. And the same thing goes for everyone else as well, like, this is an insight from Sam, given that you've just seen him, I can teach you this one. Sam Ovens, uh, was kind of like one of the original personal development wealth influencers, he had this penthouse apartment with a motorcycle in it, I have no idea how he got it up there. Uh, all he drank was LaCroix and Quest bars.

Hamza Ahmed 54:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:54 Um, (laughs) and he's like an OG of internet marketing, he now owns School.com which you have a platform on and Hormozi just invested in. Um, and I w- went to a retreat with him in August last year, and I was asking him why he stopped uploading content, and he said, "Because I felt like I had to live up to in private the things that I was saying in public." And that made the fucking hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Hamza Ahmed 55:16 Mm.

Chris Williamson 55:16 "I felt like I had to live up to in private the things that I was saying in public."

Hamza Ahmed 55:21 Wow.

Chris Williamson 55:24 I really think that you need to be careful about the stories that you tell yourself about things.

Hamza Ahmed 55:27 Mm.

Chris Williamson 55:28 Uh, you know, you say a lot of stuff with conviction, which I appreciate, but you need to fact-check your own certainty as much as possible, because if you're smart, you can make yourself believe things, right? It's one of the problems with being clever. One of the issues with being clever is that you can convince yourself of stuff that isn't true, right? That's really fucking vicious. So with looking back and going, "Oh, yeah, the d- you know, playing the dopamine game, maybe that was like, it was like cheap or it was tacky or it was whatever," and it's like, all right. That- that's a nice story. But is it true? Like is that actually what was happening? Or is there a different angle that I can look at this from? And, uh, I think that's- that's worthwhile refraction.

Hamza Ahmed 56:08 Mm.

Hamza Ahmed 56:11 Yeah, what you've just said about Sam has, um, I don't know, it's made me f- have like a- an insight. I feel like I don't really even know who I am. Like I remember speaking to you once, probably around two years ago where you mentioned it casually that I had gotten a great deal of- of fame and attention when I was still fairly young, you know, I was 22 when I started YouTube, I was 23 or 24 when it popped off and it was on a global level, and I even caught myself a few days ago wondering like, "What do I want and what are my v- morals and values compared to what I know will get me views on YouTube?" And it's very hard to distinguish between the two, because it's also my business, it's also my financial livelihood and my family's. And so it's- it's a very difficult game to play when you've got the judgment of thousands of people. And, you know, a lot of people think that the- the hardest part of being a content creator is the hate. I always thought that that was the problem I'd have to deal with. The hate is like, it's fine, just close your eyes (laughs) , just d- stop reading the comments, it's fine, honestly. But it's actually the positive comments that- that will steal your soul from you, because you're getting the- the positive reinforcement for a certain kind of behavior from potentially thousands or even tens of thousands of people, and suddenly you start acting like that c- type of person again and again and again. When that might not have actually been your real value, but you-

Chris Williamson 57:40 Live up to in private the things that you say in public.

Hamza Ahmed 57:42 You d- you're looking around and everyone's patting you on the back, it's like, "Well, I'm gonna keep doing that thing," right? It's like every pat is like a- a dose of crack for me, of course I'm gonna keep doing the thing. And it gets years later and you realize, "Wait, like I'm- I'm not even an asshole, I don't know why I'm speaking like this (laughs) on camera, I'm actually a nice guy (laughs) like..."

Chris Williamson 57:56 Yeah. Yeah. Dude, well let's unpack this a little bit. I- i- it's something that I wanted to go through with you, obviously you've been through this sort of recent relationship breakup.

Hamza Ahmed 58:03 Mm.

Chris Williamson 58:03 And, uh, there's definitely been a lot of pivots, like hard pivots that I've watched you make over the last couple of years since we've known each other.

Hamza Ahmed 58:09 Mm.

Chris Williamson 58:10 You sort of went to Dubai for a little while, dropped out, and was gonna go and be a fighter in Thailand.

Hamza Ahmed 58:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:15 Then you came back, then, "I'm in my dad era." I remember seeing a video from you that's like, "I'm in my dad era, in- up in the Scottish Highlands basically completely isolated, you and this chick," and then that doesn't work, and "Now I'm in this next era, like I'm in the money-making era," and it seems to me like that's kind of the thing that's captured you a lot at the moment, like money is the god- basically, more money is always going to make you better. I've heard you say that, uh, desire is good because it creates dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction is good because it creates success, but it only creates a very narrow band of success. It creates success exclusively in terms of chasing resources, it doesn't take, uh, give you peace or fulfillment or solitude that you actually care about. So, one of the things that, you know, from a guy that's about 10 years older than you, I'd just tread carefully with your convictions. Like I know that what... Your audience comes to you, and we are often attracted to people that sound like they have certainty. There's a guy called Peter Zeihan who's a global geopolitics expert, that guy has the most fucking conviction of anyone I've ever heard, and people pray to him like he's a god, because he just says things like, "This is what's going to happen with oil over the next five years, this is where China is heading and what will occur by 2050. This is the state of the WEF right now and this is where we can see that they're goi-" Like, it does no, "It seems like," it's caveat. It's like, "This is what's going to happen," and people will be seduced by your amount of certainty.

Hamza Ahmed 59:40 Mm.

Chris Williamson 59:41 It's like, "I, th- this is what you need to do, these are the steps that you have to take, this is the way that it has to be." But I think the problem you have there is, as soon as you posit an ideal, you can then compare yourself to that ideal. And if this ends up being wrong, like if actually the thing that you need to do is become a fighter because fighting men have always been warriors, and then three weeks later you're like, (sighs) "I don't know, fighting's not for me," and then it's like, "I'm in my dad era, like I can't wait to start f- ah, relationship's gone." Like, the more...... hard the stake is that you hit into the ground, the more difficult it's going to be to pull back out. So, if I was to give you advice, I think that, like, treading more carefully and being open and honest about, "Hey, look, this is what I think feels best at the moment, and this is what I'm experimenting with," and treating things like a game, and treating things like an experiment or a hypothesis to be tested, as opposed to-

Hamza Ahmed 1:00:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:32 ... like, a commandment to be proved, um, I think would make life a lot easier for you. Um, and, you know, I- like, I- I wanna see you do well. Uh, I do. But I also can see how you rile other people up. I can see why there are comments on the internet that's like, "Fucking why would you take relationship advice from Hamza?" Because it was so certain.

Hamza Ahmed 1:00:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:52 Like, if you'd gone in and you'd said, "Dude, I- I- you know, Everything feels really great with the missus at the moment, and I- I- I can't- I- I think that this is what's right, but, you know, there's also this that's in the back of my mind, and I'm thinking about this and all the rest of it." Uh, I feel like you're bringing people along for the journey, but no one likes anything more than tearing down someone that was certain they've got it wrong.

Hamza Ahmed 1:01:15 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:15 Right? You know? It's the smart arse in school.

Hamza Ahmed 1:01:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:18 It's the guy that has every single answer, and then he puts his hand up, says the wrong thing, and you're like, "Ugh."

Hamza Ahmed 1:01:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:21 "All right, mate." Like, so, yeah, I think- I think treading carefully would-

Hamza Ahmed 1:01:27 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:27 ... would do an awful lot to just dampen that blow, and it would also allow you to be more open and honest about things. Because your living up to in private what you say in public would begin to converge more, because you will have uncertainties.

Hamza Ahmed 1:01:41 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:41 You will be chronically uncertain all the time. "What is it that I need to do? Like, how- how should I look to move forward?" So, I don't know, there's some insights.

Hamza Ahmed 1:01:49 Mmm. I fear that if I don't speak with that certainty, that my advice won't be taken as seriously.

Chris Williamson 1:01:57 That may be true.

Hamza Ahmed 1:01:58 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:58 That may be true. You're not going to be a messiah who comes in and says, "Well, this water might become wine and nah, we might turn this fucking, like, one fish into 5,000, but nah, you know, it might only be five." Uh, I- I don't disagree, but, like, what are you here to do? Are you here to make popular lies, or are you here to tell people on the internet to track the journey that you're going on? Like, you've already got more money than you need, th- than you ever thought that you were going to earn.

Hamza Ahmed 1:02:22 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:23 You're already more popular than you ever thought you were going to be, so why not have the next period of the arc be, "Okay, I'm just gonna tell the truth"? And especially if, as it seems, you know, this is one of the perils of young fame, if you haven't worked out who you are before you have incentives from people on the internet encouraging you to be somebody else, you're never going to work out who you are for as long as you're owned by the people on the internet.

Hamza Ahmed 1:02:45 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:46 So, ultimately, what are you looking to ... Like, you're looking to bring this into land at some point. I know that you wanna have a family, I know that you want to get into a, you know, like, a committed long-term relationship. Like, do you want to continue to play this game where you're like, "I'm 36." You're- y- you become 36, and you're like, "I still don't really know who I am." Like, do you really want to do that? Because I don't see at what- unless you begin to be prepared to be more open and honest online, I don't see the moment at which you're able to separate yourself from the content. It's- it's so immersive, you're spending all of your time in the- in the forums. And again, like, for the people that are listening, this is you every single time that you compromise the things that you do or the things that you say in order to appease the people that are around you. And the reason that I can talk about this is because this is what I did for, like, 15 years, right? When somebody asked me a question, I would not think, "What do I think?" I would think, "What does Hamza want to hear me say so that I will become as high status and popular and well-liked in his opinion?" And I'd gotten to the top of the top of the professional party boy industry, the Love Island thing, all the rest of it. But you're never-ending ... You're never going to connect with the things that you do or the successes that you have in your life, because they're not real. They're not you. Like, you didn't do those things. The persona that you made did those things. Like, the persona doesn't receive love, it receives praise. You're al- always existing one- one layer away, you're one degree separated from your accomplishments and the work that you do. And even if someone says, "Dude, I fucking love- I love when they did the thing," you know in the back of your mind, "Yeah, but that's not really me."

Hamza Ahmed 1:04:32 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:32 "You don't see me."

Hamza Ahmed 1:04:34 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:35 You see the role, you see the fucking mystique. You know, like, "You do not need to see the real me. You do not need to see the real me." Like, that's what you're doing. So it's like, "Fucking well played, Russell Crowe as Gladiator. Well played, Chris Hemsworth as Thor." No one's applauding them, they're applauding the actor, right? They're applauding the actual character that they play. And that's why people feel hollow in victory or alone in a crowd, because no one sees-

Hamza Ahmed 1:05:02 Wow.

Chris Williamson 1:05:02 ... them. They don't see what they're-

Hamza Ahmed 1:05:04 Mmm.

Chris Williamson 1:05:04 ... doing.

Hamza Ahmed 1:05:05 Th- the most common compliments I've ever gotten is, "You've changed my life." And it's from guys who tell me deep stories. They were suicidal, they were depressed, they were anxious, whatever. And when I get that compliment, it does nothing to me, and I've always wondered why. Like, I don't give a fuck. When someone says this to me, it does zero things to me. Even any compliment I get with my work, it often does noth- it only does something because I use it as a way to get status and recognition from other people. You know, it's a screenshot worthy of other people.

Chris Williamson 1:05:35 Mm-hmm.

Hamza Ahmed 1:05:36 And I've always wondered why that is, and I think you're- you're so right, because what they're really saying is, like, "Your persona helped me. Like, Cult Leader Hamza helped me."

Chris Williamson 1:05:44 Right. But that's not you.

Hamza Ahmed 1:05:46 It wasn't actually me.

Chris Williamson 1:05:46 Yeah.

Hamza Ahmed 1:05:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:46 And it ... You know, I think for the guys that are a bit older, at least from what I can see, uh, the message is great, the positioning is great, the optics are great, all of that stuff's great. But you wouldn't be working this hard at trying to do personal development if you weren't, like, tearing yourself up inside trying to find out who you are. So if that's the case, like, what are we doing here pretending that this is a fucking messiah? Like, you don't have the answers. And that's fine. Yes, people will come to you, and you're going to g- grow the platform from that, but I think you have an opportunity...... over the next few years to really make a hard pivot into, "I can be uncertain about things. I can be fearful, I can be vulnerable, I can be open, I can be scared, I can be ashamed, I can be guilty, I can be all of those things, and I can still be proud of myself, and I can still be successful." And I think that you'll really connect with what it is that you do. And this is ... Again, I'm s- saying this to you, and you might as well be a mirror of what I'm saying to myself. This great quote from Neil Gaiman that says, "The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself, that's the moment you may be starting to get it right." And I think he's true. I think that's the way it works.

Hamza Ahmed 1:06:58 Wow. Well, thank you for saying that.

Chris Williamson 1:07:02 It's my pleasure. I, I wanted t- I wanted to get this across to you, uh, today, because I think that you have the opportunity to be a really good influence on the guys. But-

Hamza Ahmed 1:07:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:11 ... crucifying yourself on, like, the cross of your own platform, I don't know. I, I, I think ... I don't think that's noble, like, to do that, to play some, like, massively ... not that you have been, but like, some slightly deceitful game for like a fucking decade, and then come out the other side of it and be like, "Ah, I don't, I don't care about it. Like, I didn't, I didn't feel like it was me. I didn't do that thing." And again, this is every single person who, at the water cooler when asked a question of like, "Hey, how's ... Uh, like, t- give me your opinion on this thing. Give me your opinion on the new Dune movie," and you're like, "Do you know what it is?" "I actually really didn't like it. Like, sci-fi kinda ... it's just not my thing." If ... Dune's popular at the moment, right, and most