Modern WisdomWhy You Feel Helpless… and How to Break the Loop - Joe Hudson (4K)
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110 min read · 21,796 words- 0:00 – 11:12
Is It Hard to Live With an Open Heart?
- CWChris Williamson
Joe Hudson, welcome to the show.
- JHJoe Hudson
Thanks, Chris. Good to see you, man.
- CWChris Williamson
Feels different- [laughing] -to speak to you now.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, I bet.
- CWChris Williamson
It feels different.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, the audience will know that I spent a long week with you, uh, at your intensive retreat.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so yeah, to now sit down back in my domain after having spent a week [chuckles]
- JHJoe Hudson
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
-desperately trying to survive in yours feels, uh- [laughing] feels somewhat different.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. It was great to have you there.
- CWChris Williamson
It was a very strange, very meaningful experience, uh, especially given that it's completely sober. You know, there's a lot of talk of how important it is to-- how popular it is, at least, to do the psychedelic trip down to Costa Rica or the Ayahuasca DMT thing.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, y- you can get pretty far without having to add anything in, except for a morning coffee, if you've got the right container and practices.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, the... I don't know if you've ever seen the data on the work, but, uh, we change negative self-talk by a standard deviation across all the participants, and, and all, and the neuroses drops by a little less than a standard deviation. So yeah, cool stuff can happen.
- CWChris Williamson
Harvard, who's doing the study?
- JHJoe Hudson
Uh, there's this- there's a researcher who worked at Harvard. She no longer does. And then we add somebody at, um, Columbia, who's doing it, and then we just now have another person doing another research project on us, so.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it doesn't surprise me.
- JHJoe Hudson
Quantum physics from Oxford-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay
- JHJoe Hudson
... is the new, new person who's at least talking to us about it. We haven't figured out what we're doing yet.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh. One of the questions that came up after we spent a week together was: is it hard to live in the real world with an open heart?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It was one of the first questions that I thought of.
- JHJoe Hudson
It's hard not to, is my experience. I, I don't know anything that, um... I, I don't know anything that feels better with a closed heart. So we have this thing that our brain does that tells us that, "Oh, I'm gonna get hurt, or I'm gonna get in trouble, or I'm gonna get taken advantage of if I close my heart or if I don't close my heart, if I don't protect myself," and but there's not a tremendous amount of evidence for that. Like, Gandhi didn't get taken advantage of, or Martin Luther King didn't get taken advantage of. Um, a really open-hearted mother doesn't particularly get taken advantage of. Some might, some might not, but, uh, they're not really correlated. And so my experience is that if you close your heart down, it hurts. It's just painful. And we talk about it a lot in our society as, like, "If you don't forgive, then you're punishing yourself." That would be, like, the typical way to say it, but my experience is just any time that my heart starts closing down, it hurts.
- CWChris Williamson
Why do we do it?
- JHJoe Hudson
We're scared of love. I mean, that's one of the things that I think you must have noticed in the, in Groundbreakers, is that on some level, you could say almost everybody there was-- had been entrained in love in some way that was not useful, and so now they're scared of it. So, like, love came with guilt, and therefore, love isn't safe, or love came with getting smothered, or love came with criticism, or love came-
- CWChris Williamson
Obligation.
- JHJoe Hudson
- obligation, and therefore, love is scary. Not for what it- but at the same time, we definitely want love. We're born wanting love. Like, little kids are like, "Give me attention, give me love." That's what they want. And so we have this desire for it, but then it... when we get it, it comes with this something that's toxic or not good or... And then we're, "Oh, shoot, we're scared of love."
- 11:12 – 19:07
How Does Heartbreak Change Us?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so I'm, uh, I have this, uh, episode that I recorded in New York a couple of weeks ago-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... a guy called Jon Bellion. He's, uh, one of the most legendary producers of our era. He's done billions of streams, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
He's a solo artist himself.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
He released a, an album called Father Figure. It's about him becoming a dad.
- JHJoe Hudson
Oh, wow.
- CWChris Williamson
It's about his, his reflections on his relationship with his dad, who was a super father, this sort of very strange, um, almost role model. You know, like people talk about, "I have a super successful father, and I need to be as powerful as him."
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
This was different. This was, "I had a really amazing dad-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... and I have to live up to being, like, as attuned and supportive," and this sort of other type of intimidation, I suppose.
- JHJoe Hudson
Oh, wow.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and I was in the shower this morning. I played this song in the car yesterday, but I didn't listen to the lyrics. And it's a song that just passed me by when I was doing my prep for the episode.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I knew I wanted to talk about living with an open heart.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And in this song... So I'm in the shower this morning. I cried at this, I cried at this song every single time I've heard it, so we'll see if it happens again now.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
But I wanted you to-- I'm going to spin the lyrics around, and, uh, we'll play the song. It's also gonna get us popped on YouTube, but I don't give a fuck because it's sufficiently important that I think it, it matters. So... [singing]
- SPSpeaker
[singing] I'm scared to meet you 'cause then I might know you. And then once I know you, I might fall in love. And once I'm in love, then my heart is wide open for you to walk in, drop the bomb, blow it up. So why love anything, anything, anything at all? Why love anything at all? If the higher I fly is the further I fall, then why love anything at all?
- JHJoe Hudson
Stressed and strung out about things that could happen. And I could move mountains with the worry I've done. So I called my father, and he started laughing. [laughing] Said, "You think it's bad now? Wait till you have a son."
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah.
- JHJoe Hudson
So why love anything, anything, anything at all? Why love anything at all? If the higher I fly is the farther I fall, then why love anything at all? Oh, why love-
- SPSpeaker
Why love-
- JHJoe Hudson
... at all? [laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing] Um, give me your thoughts on that.
- JHJoe Hudson
Well, the, uh, yeah, my thoughts are that somehow or another, the, the heartbreak is bad. Like, that, that's the assumption in the song, that, like, somehow the heartbreak is bad, but, uh, like, heartbreak is something I look forward to.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a bold claim.
- 19:07 – 26:10
Why Does Pain Make Us Resist?
- CWChris Williamson
The word resistance is sort of coming up for me, like the, the pain is in the resistance of that-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
- the fleeing of it. You said somebody that goes into their depression as opposed to away from it.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you talk about the distinction between the two approaches there? The going into versus the going away from, or the resisting versus the leading into?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. So like, when, when I-- like, I hit my depression, I think it was, like, in around thirty-five or something like that. And the way I think about depression is on the intellectual level, it's just extreme negative self-talk, and on an emotional level, it's repression of anger and sadness, typically, m- a lot of it anger. And then, um, there's a lack of connection that's happening in, like, with interpersonal connection that happens, like, you don't feel that depth of connection that occurs. And on a nervous system level, you're just constantly under attack, and so eventually, your adrenal glands give up, and the attack is coming from within. So when that happens for a prolonged period of time, that's w- the way I see depression. So then you're there, and, and when you're there, you have some symptoms, and the symptoms are, "This is never gonna go away. I'm horrible," like, there, there's just all this doom and gloom, and, "Why even try?" And, "Life has no meaning," and all-- that's the symptoms of the depression. And so what some people do is they're like: How do I avoid myself? And the other way to do it is to say: Well, what's actually really going on here? Who am I really? What's, what's... what I'm-- what, what really makes me depressed? What's really... Like, what, what are those thoughts really? Are, do they, are they true? Where do they come from? What do they sound like? It's like a deep wondering, a, a curiosity. And so to some degree, that depression is... There's this great saying that I, I, I've heard recently, which is, um: The best gift we can give to our kids is making them safe to be-- making them feel like it's safe to be themselves. The depression is all the places you weren't safe to be yourself, that you are currently judging. So what is it to lean in and understand those things, those things that you never got to express, that you never got to explore, that you never got to go into, that wasn't safe to be, those emotions, those thoughts, and then s- see what it's like to actually re-parent yourself in that way? That's what's going-- that's what I mean by going into it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Would you say to somebody who thinks, "Okay, I believe you-
- JHJoe Hudson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
" ... I, I, I am convinced that this is the route to go into. I'm sick of abandoning myself-"
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"- but I'm scared."
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That fear, which I think is much of what we were dealing with-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
- in the week that we spent together-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... which is you're scared of doing this thing, and you will find out that if you do it, on the other side of it is nothing to fear. Nothing.
- JHJoe Hudson
Nothing.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe bliss.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe, you know, connection, maybe wonder, or maybe actually just, oh, there was nothing there.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but even now, having had the week intense, you know, twelve hours a day, da, da, da, da, like, it's not as if that lesson has been permanently locked into my brain.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That fear is continuing every single time to come up. I'm like, "Fuck, I'm gonna play this song, and it's gonna make me tear up," and then, like, "What are people gonna say on the internet? I'm gonna look silly, and it's gonna be blah, blah," and like...
- JHJoe Hudson
Right. But you're doing it.
- CWChris Williamson
That fear, what would you say to somebody who is currently paralyzed by, by that fear of-
- JHJoe Hudson
I'd say, "Of course, you're scared. It's okay. Mmm, I'm right here with you." The thing about somebody who's depressed in that way is they're constantly being told that they're not okay the way they are. You know, their friends are coming to them and saying, "You should do this and this and this, and you should, you should go..." And now, now you could listen to what I'm saying and say, "Goddammit, why don't I just stop avoiding myself? I'm fucking up."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm, mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
Like, and but what's not happening is no one's just saying, "You're cool the way you are. I got you," like, "This is it. I don't need you to be different." There's a, a really cool story, and I think I shared it at the retreat, but I can't, I can't remember. But, um, there was this, there was this, um, Quaker guy who was-- had this really strong sense of community, went into a depression, and everybody came over to his house 'cause he had this community, and they would just tell him what he should do to get out of the depression, and none of it helped because he said, "They were just agreeing with the voice in my head that, that, uh, there's something wrong with me." But one guy came in every Tuesday at noon and washed his feet. And he was just giving this expression of, like, "You're, you-- I, I will s-- I will go against the voice in your head. I will go against what you think, and I will show you that you're worthy just as you are." And that's, that's the, that's the journey. The journey is going from, "I have to do something to be worthy and lovable," to, "I am worthy and lovable." And, and when that journey happens, when you-- the weird part is, is that everything that you tell yourself that you aren't worthy [chuckles] and lovable for changes when you think you're worthy and lovable.
- 26:10 – 36:04
Learning to Let in Unconditional Love
- CWChris Williamson
This was this idea, unteachable lessons. I mentioned it to you before.
- JHJoe Hudson
Right. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But yeah.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Fame won't fix your self-worth. Money won't make you happy. You don't love that hot girl. She's just good-looking and difficult to get. Like- [chuckles] ... you, you should see your parents more. You should spend more time in a hammock. You will regret working so much. You can cut toxic people out of your life. Like, all of these insights are cliché, and people roll their eyes at how trite they are, but that doesn't explain why anybody who's recently realized them proclaims them with sort of the renewed grandiose ceremony of someone who's gone through religious revelation.
- JHJoe Hudson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like, if it was so obvious, why does everybody proclaim it so, you know, ardently?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And if u- u- unless there is some weird conspiracy to pull the ladder up after yourself-
- JHJoe Hudson
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, and maybe you could make the, the claim of that around, like, fame and money, but, like, around d- dating the wrong person or around seeing your parents more or something-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... um, it just, it wouldn't make sense. So I, I'm kind of fascinated by this question of can you-- how much can you speedrun this? How much can you leapfrog going through the, "I learned the hard lessons the hard way?" Like, I disregarded the lessons of previous generations, but actually I'm gonna take it this time-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... as opposed to believing you can dance through the minefield without kicking tripwire.
- JHJoe Hudson
I-- Yeah, that's a great... [exhales] The-- I do think there are lessons that you just have to learn yourself, like you have to go through it, for sure. [chuckles] Um, I think about, like, to some degree, when I think about what we're doing for that, for the week-long or really any of our courses that are all equally intense, um, what we're doing is we're showing what true north is.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
We're like, "Oh, you've tasted it now."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JHJoe Hudson
You have the taste, so you know it's possible, and we have total faith that you will slowly get there or quickly get there. But once you know it, you're like: Oh, I'm, I'm-- I don't wanna live a different way, right? I-- once I see it, I don't wanna live a different way. So to some degree, that's, that's the experience that we're, we're doing in, in those... Like, we're, we're giving that experience so people can know that it's possible for them. But for that, because you can only learn a lesson by actually experiencing it-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JHJoe Hudson
... at the same time, there is kind of a, there is a weird hack, which is if you f- feel deeply loved and accepted, it, it, like, you don't have so many mines in the minefield.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
Right? Whether you're loving yourself or you happen to be one of those very lucky people with a great father who showed that unconditional love to, to, to the person, or you happen to have a friend who gives you unconditional love, like, that can ch- speedrun a whole bunch of stuff because you see, "Oh, oh, that's actually what I'm looking for."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
"The other thing, I'm not really looking for."
- CWChris Williamson
I suppose if you've had a belongingness desert, uh, if you've been sort of bereft of that-
- JHJoe Hudson
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-
- JHJoe Hudson
Most people
- 36:04 – 40:02
Are You Angry or Sad?
- CWChris Williamson
Can you tell that story about y- your, one of your daughters was crying in the bathroom, and you asked if she was pissed off?
- JHJoe Hudson
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I... This is-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
This fucking blew my head off, and I think I, I really want you to tell it.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. So my, my-- So it's my youngest daughter. She's in the bathroom. She's crying. I go in to hang out with her, and at some point, I'm like: "I don't think you're sad. I think you're pissed." And she goes, "I am." I was like: "Well, how often when you're sad are you really pissed?" She's like, "About half the time." She's, she's, like, nine. And I was like: "Well, why? What makes you-- Why, why don't you get-- Why don't you just be pissed?" And she said, "Because if, if my..." Esme, the older daughter, "If I get pissed, she just hits me, but if I get sad, she does what I want her to do."
- CWChris Williamson
Bro. [chuckles] I don't think I've- I don't think I've ever heard a better explanation of why people transmute anger into sadness. They don't get mad; they get sad. They turn this displeasure outward to displeasure inward because sadness is pro-social, and it causes people to come and take care of you, whereas anger is antisocial, and it causes people to run away.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... fucking brilliant.
- JHJoe Hudson
Which is strange because I think, w- like, there's a, I'm sure a lot of your audience, they are or they deal with somebody who is, who is, um, angry, h- has, like, a temper on them. And one of the things that I've noticed is that w- when somebody has that temper, and then somebody gets scared of the anger, then the anger usually grows.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JHJoe Hudson
Because what's happening there is the person who's angry is like, "I'm out of control. I don't feel safe. I, I, I, I, I feel helpless, and I don't want to feel helpless, and so I'm getting angry." And then they're getting abandoned, like, oh, and then they get even more angry 'cause they feel even more helpless.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. I think there's a difference as well. I had this... I was telling you about this conversation I had with Charlie Houpert, and he's talking about people that move from victimhood status to act- action, agency status to emotionally in tune status.
- JHJoe Hudson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And it looks like you're actually going backward because previously you were also kind of ruled by your emotions, but not through transcending and including and alchemizing them, but through them just being the winds of the day that sort of blew you around without you being able to step into them. And I think maybe sort of raw, unaware anger is not too dissimilar to that.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, somebody who's raging and breaking things and unable to sort of hold themselves together. Uh, I, I'm interested in the, that arc between, like, instinctual anger and intuiti- uh, like, intuitive anger, perhaps.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe that's the wrong terminology.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, so I... The way I think about it is, like, we have these emoti-- let's call it like a tube of, of an energy running through us, and we'll call this one anger. And then if you kind of kink it one way, it's, "Nice dress," or-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing]
- JHJoe Hudson
... if you kink it another way, it's, "I'm gonna be late, and, and I'm gonna be passive-aggressive." You kink it another way, it's yelling, it's screaming. But a- in any of the cases, there's shame around the anger.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
Instead of what the anger actually it is when you-- when it starts moving fluidly in your system, is it's a cause for action and a cause for boundaries.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
So when I notice that I'm angry now, I'm like: Oh, I'm angry. I'm like: Oh, there's a boundary that needs to be drawn. I know there's an, a boundary that needs to be drawn somewhere. There's some way in which I am-- there's something I care about that I'm not standing for, and I need to stand for it.
- 40:02 – 46:03
What Do Healthy Boundaries Look Like?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I... Let's talk about boundaries. Um, pop psychology, favorite word of the world, people weaponizing it from their couples counseling-
- JHJoe Hudson
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
-to their, "You've crossed a bou-- This is me holding a boundary. No, it's not you being an asshole," like-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, what do good, bad boundaries look like? How do slippery, malleable, pliable boundaries turn into anger? Give me the, give me the equation there.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. So, uh, boundaries, the, the, the two easy ones to say for boundaries is, the first one is that you're not ever telling somebody else what they're supposed to do. That's a power struggle. It's not a boundary. It's you telling them what you're gonna do.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, can you give me an example of-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... the former and the latter?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. Uh, I'm gonna draw what I would say is a, um, a power struggle boundary, not a real boundary, would be, "Every time you get angry, I'm gonna punch you in the face," or, "Every time you get angry, uh, you need to leave the house. Every time you get angry, you need to, uh, apologize-
- CWChris Williamson
Stop yelling.
- JHJoe Hudson
-to me. You need to stop yelling."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
That's, that... Whereas the other one is, "Every time you get angry, I'm gonna leave the house. Every time you get angry, I'm going to ask you to stop yelling at me, and if you don't, I'm gonna leave the house, and I'm gonna come back in twenty minutes, and then we can continue the conversation, un- unless you yell at me again, and then I'm gonna do the same thing." So one is, "This is what I'm gonna do. I'm in-- I'm, I'm the one that gets to choose for me. I'm not choosing for you." So that would be one really good thing about a boundary. If you're doing anything where you're telling somebody else what they have to do, it's not a boundary.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JHJoe Hudson
It's, it's a power struggle, and it, and it just shows that you're in fear and shame, and you're basically passing fear and shame back and forth in the relationship. The second one is, and this is the one that will bend people's minds when they try it, is, "Whatever the boundary is, it, it, it makes it that I'm more capable of loving you, no matter what your response." So it opens my heart to you. A great boundary opens my heart to you because it, it's very, very hard for us to love anything that we think oppresses us.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
So if I draw a boundary that opens my heart, it means that I no longer see you as the oppressor. It sh- sh-- Oh, I have the capacity to do what I need to do here and take care of myself, which means that you, you can't oppress me.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Mm-hmm.
- JHJoe Hudson
So that's how I, that's how I, I... That's how I teach how to draw boundaries.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And what happens when you don't enforce the boundaries?
- JHJoe Hudson
Well, there's nothing to enforce 'cause it's just what you're doing.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Well, what happens if you don't do what your boundary would suggest that you're supposed to do, or don't say that that's going to happen? What happens when they're too pliable? Like, what's the-
- JHJoe Hudson
Uh, yeah, so that's a, that's a... Okay, so that's a cool thing about boundaries. So what happens is, if somebody is scared that they're not gonna maintain their boundary, what typically they'll do is they'll either do it really, really harsh. They'll be like, "Grr, this is the-- I'm, I'm gonna leave you every single time. You yell at me, I'm gonna-- I'm out of the door."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
They'll do something like that, which unfortunately makes it harder for the person who's hearing the boundary to hear the boundary and more of a resistance going on. So you're saying, "Oh, I'm scared I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna flake, and therefore, I have to be really, really strong about this."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
And then, um... And so, so that's, so that's typically what's happening. The reason that people are usually scared or, or-
- CWChris Williamson
... Oh, I'm freezing in here.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay.
- 46:03 – 52:53
Why Do We Suffer in Silence?
- CWChris Williamson
Why are more... Or why are people more comfortable with silently suffering than being seen sometimes?
- JHJoe Hudson
Uh, it's shame. It's shame. It's like the, it's the, the general thought process that there's something wrong with you. Like, that's, that's the, that's the thing, and, and, and vulnerability is the cure for that. Like, if you-- whether you think about it as, like, 12-step programs, where the whole thing is, I'm gonna say all the things that I'm ashamed about, and I'm gonna be able to be loved in that shame, and I'm gonna see that other people are going through that, and have done that, and I can see that they're good, lovely people, um, who made a mistake. And so I can also be a good, lovely person who made a mistake.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
That's the antidote for the shame. So the, the biggest issue is that when people keep all that to themselves, there's no real s- air for the shame to decompose, right? So it's, it never becomes the compost for a better life. It just becomes this rancid thing that's-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's interesting
- JHJoe Hudson
... buried deep.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a cool analogy.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. You've got this line, uh, "The strongest smoke signals that you're avoiding an emotion: number one, looping thoughts, endless overthinking."
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
"Number two, binary decisions, feeling stuck between two options. Number three, harsh judgments of others."
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"Most inner work fails because it's done from the same self-rejection it's trying to heal." I feel like those are, are linked together.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. Uh, the fear one's interesting 'cause, well, I said binary thinking there, that you think of things black or white. Buy the car, don't buy the car. Do the podcast, don't do the podcast. L- leave the girl, stay with the girl. That's an immediate... Uh, that's fear unexpressed. That's what that is. So when we, when we're scared, we go into binary thinking.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
We-- and it's why fear is really not a great ally for good problem-solving or getting the most out of a situation because you start limiting your, your perspective to binary.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JHJoe Hudson
And so that, that one, that one's particular binary, uh, particularly fear, the binary thinking one. The one on judgment, that's really-- there's no time that we're judging somebody when there, when what's actually happening is there's emotion we don't wanna feel.
- CWChris Williamson
Could you give me an example?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. So I am judging, uh, somebody for hawking LMNT on the thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JHJoe Hudson
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Rightly so.
- JHJoe Hudson
[chuckles] Not-
- CWChris Williamson
We love LMNT.
- JHJoe Hudson
Not, not at all. Yeah. Um, uh, uh, what's actually happening there is I, if I sit with it, I'm like, "Oh, if I couldn't feel that judgment"-- that's the question you ask: "If I couldn't feel that judgment, what would I have to feel?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
And what I would, might feel is jealousy that you have a, a, a, a great sponsor who's aligned with you, or I might feel like s- uh, I might have this idea that any time I'm trying to se- sell myself or make money, I'm bad.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
And since I don't allow it in myself, I can't allow it in you, so I'm feeling that own-- because, um, of course, we're all selling ourselves on some level, so of course, I feel the shame of selling myself. So maybe it's the shame, but there's always something underneath the judgment that we're not feeling, and if you ask yourself that question, it's like an immediate resolve of judgment.
- 52:53 – 1:03:02
Aligning Your Heart and Actions
- CWChris Williamson
[wind whooshing] You have a decisions course?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I haven't done it. Uh, I've already heard you talk about you can't make a decision without emotions. If you are some patient going through some weird like quasi-lobotomy thing, it takes you half an hour to choose which crayon to write with or what sandwich you want or-
- JHJoe Hudson
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... et cetera. Uh, I think people are usually pretty familiar with those sorts of experiments. Um, what, what is a little deeper about the relationship between making good decisions or making any decision and your relationship to yourself, voice in the head, your emotions?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. So the, the, the, the emotion side of it is the e- is the easiest to think about. Um, so i- we are making decisions to feel a certain way, where, how do I, um, how do I feel good? How do I feel like a winner? How do I not feel rejected? How do I... This is what makes us make a decision. We wanna feel right or, like, not wrong, whatever it is-
- CWChris Williamson
Safe
- JHJoe Hudson
... Safe. And so that's, that's what we're making decisions for, and if you think about it in a very minute way, why am I doomscrolling? Why did I decide to doomscroll? I decided because I don't wanna feel whatever angst that I'm having. This is gonna help me not feel that-
- CWChris Williamson
Loneliness-
- JHJoe Hudson
... thing
- CWChris Williamson
... boredom.
- JHJoe Hudson
Boredom, whatever it is. So, so we're making our decisions to feel and to not feel certain ways. If you start to learn to fall in love with all the emotions, which basically means not resist them, which basically means accept all the parts of yourself that weren't accept- accepted as a kid, so that you can actually be yourself, then decisions are just automatic. They're just-- they're simple because this is my truth. I wanna do this. I'm okay if it means that I have to mourn something. It's okay if people get upset at me. It's okay... And this is what creates, like, hyper success in people, too, which is interesting. If you look at the, if you look at the evidence, people who are okay being disagreeable or disagreeable on the OCEAN scale, meaning that they're not trying to make sure everybody's happy, they're okay if people are upset with them, are far more likely to be successful in a, in a hyper-successful way-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JHJoe Hudson
... than people who need everybody around them to be happy. Um, they're also gonna get paid more money. There, there's a whole bunch of, like-
- CWChris Williamson
They'll ask for the raise. They'll go up to the person at the meeting.
- JHJoe Hudson
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Blah, blah, blah.
- JHJoe Hudson
They'll do a- all the things because they're okay with somebody. And so you can either do that by being like a stone-cold asshole, or you can do it by... And that works, no doubt. Or you can do it by actually falling in love with all of your emotions, and then you're like: "Oh, cool, like, this is my truth, and I'm okay with whatever emotional consequence there is to it."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JHJoe Hudson
And you can't do that without an open heart. So you have a closed heart-... you have a closed heart, you're trying not to feel. Open heart basically just means I'm feeling everything. That's what it means.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it-- I, I, everybody has a recency bias. Uh, I guess it's strange because my recency bias, the order of things that I've learned on the show is not always the order of the way that they're published. [laughing]
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. [laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
So sometimes I'm like, fucking, uh, Christopher Nolan's Tenet, and I'm like, you know, looping back on something. But I, I, I keep thinking about this Charlie, um, conversation I had, and he talked about congruence, this beautiful idea about congruence.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You look at, uh, the person that's the victim, uh, their sort of head, heart, and loins are kind of aligned, even if they're miserable and at the mercy of the world-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... because they're doing the thing that they feel. It's rough-hewn and uncrafted and unrefined, but-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... it's happening. Then you move into action, and you're like, well, head, heart, and loins as well. You would look at like a Trump, a Tate around this, and you'd think, "Say what you want about them, they're fucking fully in congruence." Like, there is no doubt I am doing the th-- "I'm the best, the best ever," like, you know, like, fucking hardest guy on the pla..." Whatever it is. Like, they're in congruence. But then when you start to move into the open heart thing, the valley of despair, total white belts-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- 1:03:02 – 1:10:45
How to Feel Confident in Yourself
- CWChris Williamson
I'm interested of how people navigate, and I think this is what I said about living in the world with an open heart-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... is some of this different level communication thing, and you're speaking in not only different dialects, but totally different languages with people.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and that can—it can be easy to be mocked, to feel silly. How, how do you, how do you think about navigating that? Because it would be lovely to just have a, a perfect, beautiful, supportive container or your own amount of self-belief, so much that-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... the container no longer matters.
- JHJoe Hudson
[laughing] Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But you're going to, you're going to interact with that, like, you know, alpha chad or alpha boss bitch lady or m- guy at work around the water cooler who's like, "Fucking gay, that dude!" Like, whatever.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you think about navigating that spikiness-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... of the world with the sensitivity, open heart, truth, boundary, like, all of that stuff?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. So there, there's a couple ways I think about it. The first, the first way I think about it is, imagine you are... I'm gonna get in trouble for this, but you're an ISIS terrorist, and you have a whole bunch of ISIS terrorist friends, and-
- CWChris Williamson
They're gone.
- JHJoe Hudson
Uh, [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
It's fucking, uh, Hezbollah now, right?
- JHJoe Hudson
Hezbollah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JHJoe Hudson
Uh, Hezbollah terrorists or whatever. You're, you're with a whole bunch of terrorist friends, and one day you're like: "Oh, I realize I probably shouldn't be blowing up innocent people." Well, as it turns out, and then you- and then you're asking me: "What do I do when all my friends are like, 'No, you should blow up people, innocent people?'" It's like, yeah, that, that, like, to some degree, w-what it is, is that there's some people who judge you and who think you're dumb for working out. There's some people who judge you, who think you're dumb for needing as much of attention on a podcast. Some people think you're dumb for being on a reality television show. Some people think you're dumb for being a guru.
- CWChris Williamson
All right, Joe Hudson. Yeah, yeah, but [chuckles] point taken.
- JHJoe Hudson
[laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
That's the problem with actually bringing someone on who really knows you. Yeah, fine, fine, fine. Yep.
- JHJoe Hudson
Um...
- CWChris Williamson
[chuckles]
- JHJoe Hudson
Uh, or think you're dumb for, like, uh, teaching the emotional stuff-
- CWChris Williamson
Prostitizing about blah, blah.
- JHJoe Hudson
Exactly. So, so there, there's always gonna be some people who do that, and so the question is, how do you handle that in all the places that it's already happening, and what makes this particular place being emotional, the sensitive place?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
Because I see you do it, and everybody do it on twenty other things, but, but then there's this one thing that it's, like, hard to do it on. And it's usually an indication- indication that that's where you're judging yourself. If you're not judging yourself, then they say: "That's, like, emotional blah, blah. Like, you're just a pansy," and the response is, "Yeah."
- 1:10:45 – 1:26:52
Why You Should Listen to Your Emotions
- CWChris Williamson
I'm interested in the listening to yourself portion of this, uh, to just harp a little bit more on the difference between irrational instinct, being at the mercy of-
- JHJoe Hudson
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... and cultivated intuition.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Listening to the fleeting thought, the quiet voice of-
- JHJoe Hudson
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... because those two things can't be the same. The person who is swept away by their anger and blows up and does all of this stuff-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... um-
- JHJoe Hudson
Well, seen, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Y- do you get the, the tension that I'm talking about here?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, I get it. Yeah, totally.
- CWChris Williamson
And again, I'm-- what I'm really trying to drill into, again, my recency bias with Charlie, is the fear... This is my journey. This is my journey right now. My journey right now is I've spent a long time in action. I felt helpless for a lot of my life. I then decided to step into no longer feeling helpless.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm now going from that to, "Okay, unteachable lessons, you've butt-fucked me enough. Like, I, I get it, I get it, I get it." Like, there is more, there is deeper to go. What's the next journey? The next journey is to go into feeling everything-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... as opposed to just acting everything.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, okay, there was a part of being swept away by emotion previously.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? A lot of it was suppression for me, but for other people, there may be tons and tons and tons-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... of like emotion.
- JHJoe Hudson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So irrational instinct to sort of cultivated intuition.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about that, like...
- JHJoe Hudson
So it, it doesn't really matter in the long run. So long run, it, the, the-- if you're aware, and you're bringing awareness to the, to your actions, you're gonna very, very l- very, very quickly realize that when you are swept away by emotions, and you're not-- you're in your pattern, it's gonna be painful. And in the long run, when you listen to that intuition, it, it's gonna feel right, it's gonna be more right, it's not gonna bring all the drama. So on some level, you can listen to either one of them and do it because you immediately will realize, or within a week or two, realize that wasn't that. Like, there's a big distinction that being swept away by the emotion didn't actually serve me, and listening to that intuition, deep intuition, did, and you'll start to make a distinction in your body.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
So in the long run, it's like, the way I would say it, it's like if you're working out wrong, if you're working out in a way that hurts your body, your body's gonna get hurt, and you're gonna realize that, and you're gonna then change the way that you work out-
- 1:26:52 – 1:32:19
How Joe Has Switched Up His Content
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, you've mentioned your business too many times for me to not do this.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, I'm, I- I'm gonna have an intervention with you.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
You've done enough to me, so I'm gonna put the shoe on the other fucking foot for a second.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Have you spoken to your team after the call that me and my YouTube guy had?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, man, we are so grateful.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you, did you listen to a recording, or did they give you a full breakdown? Did they talk to you about what I want as your new vertical for content?
- JHJoe Hudson
Uh, we've already recorded two.
- CWChris Williamson
How did they go?
- JHJoe Hudson
We recorded three. That tells you how it went. Two of them are good.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JHJoe Hudson
Two of them I think are great.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- JHJoe Hudson
One of them was the golf one that I think you recommended.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, yes, Scottish.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, that was actually really cool.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JHJoe Hudson
And then there was o- one... So, so context for everybody listening-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- JHJoe Hudson
... you wanted me to do reaction videos, too.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I'll, I'll, let me, I'll give context to your context.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay, great.
- CWChris Williamson
I had a conversation with Mike Israetel about three or four years ago. Who was on that call? Was it Dean? Me and... Or maybe it was just me. Anyway, um, Mike is, uh, probably the fastest-growing channel in all of health and fitness, has been for the last three or four years. I mentioned it on the call with your guys.
- JHJoe Hudson
He's, like, the, the big guy bald?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, big-
- JHJoe Hudson
And you did a, like, a workout thing with him at the gym.
- CWChris Williamson
I've done a number of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay, cool.
- 1:32:19 – 1:37:11
Success Comes From Loving What You Do
- CWChris Williamson
S- Scott Scheffler, Schiffel's, uh, golf speech, like, whatever it might be, like-... you have an infinite amount of growth-
- JHJoe Hudson
That speech-
- CWChris Williamson
-like literally a vertical amount of growth to do from that.
- JHJoe Hudson
That speech is, is phenomenal.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you wanna give a little, like, summary for the people-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... who don't know what we're talking about?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, so it's this-- I, I, I'm not a golf follower, but this is the, the, the preeminent golf guy now, like, just amazing, apparently. And he basically talks about winning and how the feeling of winning lasts about two minutes. And then, then [chuckles] he literally goes, "And then you guys are just asking me," he's go-- so he's talking to a bunch of reporters. "You all are just asking me, like, how am I gonna do on the next one?" So, like, it's gone. Like, all this winning doesn't mean anything. But what he says, which is the, the secret of it all, and the, and, like, he says it, like, three or four times, he just keeps on saying: "I'm just a guy who loves to practice. I'm just a guy who loves to practice." And that is the-- like, what makes him so successful, is that he loves the doing of it, not the-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JHJoe Hudson
... not the reward of it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
And so, so many people are sitting in their i-- their rooms right now, listening to this or doing something and going, "I want the reward of fame. I want the reward of money. I want the reward of a great girlfriend. I want the reward of..." And it will last two minutes. You gotta love the thing that you're doing if you're gonna actually have the success and maintain it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
Right? You love having conversations with people. And I, I'm actually, I-- uh, when I leave here, I'm gonna s- talk to a, uh, a woman at UTA who runs the, the literary department there, and we're talking about a book. And, and she asked me, she's like: "Well, what do you want from the book?" And I said, "I won't do anything for money that I wouldn't do for free."
- CWChris Williamson
The best story I've learned from you around that... I mean, this me- this meme needs to go so much wider than it has with you just, like, flicking it onto the floor, like you're tossing, like, a bit of offal into the bin or something. Uh, your daughter came to you and said: "I've got my first billion-dollar idea." And you said, "Oh, wow, it's an idea that you can sell for a billion dollars." She says, "No, no, no, it's an idea that I wouldn't give away if someone offered me a billion dollars."
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Fucking yes, money.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Such money, and that's what you're talking about in the book.
- JHJoe Hudson
That's what I'm talking about.
- CWChris Williamson
We're gonna talk about the book before you leave as well. Don't worry.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
I've got, I've got things that I need to say.
- JHJoe Hudson
Okay. [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Um, James Clear.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"It doesn't make sense to continue wanting something if you're not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result, but not the process, is to guarantee disappointment." To crave the result, but not the process, is to guarantee disappointment.
- JHJoe Hudson
Guarantee disappointment.
- CWChris Williamson
Doesn't make sense to continue wanting something if you're not willing to do what it takes to get it. I want fame. Fame sounds great. I wanna be a world s- world touring musician. Okay, do you want to spend ten years in your bedroom playing guitar?
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- 1:37:11 – 1:44:57
What Do All Fights Boil Down to?
- CWChris Williamson
You mentioned, uh, the similarity between telling a company the motivation and the context for why something is about to happen and the importance in relationship.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
This is from you: "Every relationship fight boils down to three things.
- JHJoe Hudson
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Number one, I don't feel seen. Number two, I'm trying to change you. Number three, I need to defend myself."
- JHJoe Hudson
[chuckles] Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"Shift any one of those, and the fight will shift, too."
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah. Yeah, so the, the way I see most fights is, uh, I, I have a, a theory called the shame hot potato, which is basically I don't feel good about myself, so I'm gonna throw shame at you, and now I don't feel good about myself, so I'm gonna throw shame at you, and then we're just, like, passing the shame back and forth. This person feels like they're always defending themselves. This person feels like they're always defending themselves. But my def-- this defense feels like an attack to this person, and this defense feels like an attack to this person. So it's like, "You never do the dishes." Like, I am ashamed that I can't keep up with the housework and that I'm keeping score. "You don't do the dishes." I feel like I'm defending myself. "Look at all the things that I've done. Why aren't you?" I feel like you attacked me for not doing the dishes.... and back and forth, it just goes like that. And so this person's response is, "Well, I work all day, and you don't-- you, you only work 35 hours a week." "Oh, I don't work enough? I've been attacked. I'm ashamed," and off it goes.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Mm-hmm.
- JHJoe Hudson
And so every single one of those things that you said there, that, that, that you read there, are an expression of that cycle that's going on. "I really see that you need more help in the house, and you feel overwhelmed, and I don't want you to feel overwhelmed." Fight's gone. That's the being seen part. "Oh, you're right. I don't do the dishes." Fight's gone. I, I don't need to defend myself. So all-- every single thing is just basically unlocking that shame hot potato that's going-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
-which is basically people feeling unloved for who they are and not being able to love themselves for who they are.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
I, I just love the phrase that it's like i- if you're trying to change somebody, you're not loving them. You're basically saying, "You need to be different to get my love."
- CWChris Williamson
Huh.
- JHJoe Hudson
And, and that usually typically means for the, for yourself, if you're trying to change somebody, is that you're trying to also-- there's also some part of yourself that you're not loving.
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- JHJoe Hudson
[sighs] Let's say I-- early in the relationship, Tara was very big, and I would get embarrassed, and it was not about Tara being big; it was about me trying to be seen as normal, being f- fit in everywhere, not stand out.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
It has nothing to do with her.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
So that part of her that I'm changing is, like, the part of me wanting attention that I wasn't allowing myself to feel or have. So typically, that's the thing, and it-- and, and it's, and it's also just like that old phrase... My mom actually had this on needlepoint in the wall. I don't know, like, she needlepointed this phrase. It's just something that happened with American moms in the '70s, apparently. [chuckles] And, um, it said, uh, "Trying to move a mountain or change a man, I'll move a mountain. It's easier." So it's also just redu-- like, it just hurts a relationship because the person will resist you.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, people don't respond well to being told, "You need to change."
- JHJoe Hudson
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JHJoe Hudson
Including ourselves, and yet we do it to ourselves all the time.
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about that.
- JHJoe Hudson
"I should work out more. I should stop smoking. I should be more truthful. I should run a bigger business. I should be famous." Like, all those things are the things that you can look back on a decade and haven't changed. The more we're forcing ourselves to change, the less that change happens.
- CWChris Williamson
Where does change come from, if not from motivating ourselves?
- JHJoe Hudson
The same place it comes from when a little kid goes from crawling to walking. It's our wants. It's our-- it's, it's like being able to listen to and fully feel the want that is in our world.
- 1:44:57 – 1:50:34
The Difference Between Efficiency and Awareness
- CWChris Williamson
"So much of today's world is focused on efficiency and optimization, but efficiency without awareness is just a faster way to burn out." [chuckles]
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, that's coming from Silicon Valley. Um, so what I notice is that people are interested in getting-- First of all, efficiency, typically in our society, in work, means faster. It doesn't mean efficient. So typically, like, if I have a car, there's a car behind us, the Ferrari, that's not an efficient car. Nobody would call that an efficient car, but it's a very fast car. So efficiency, I think, is, is better, is, is more about how much energy you're putting into it to get it done than it is about how quickly you're getting it done. But we really think about it as far as speed goes. And so if we are trying to become f- quite quicker at everything, right? That, that idea of efficiency, without knowing why that's the case, then you're just gonna burn out. So I'm talking to a CEO yesterday who's interested in having me coach him, and we were having the discussion about how it's one fire to the next fire, to the next fire, to the next fire, and how all this has to get done really quickly. And so we spent some time to talk about hiring people and how if he hired four great people, how many fires would be left? "Well, what makes you not do it?" "Well, 'cause I have to get this stuff done quickly. I have to be efficient about, you know, making sure that we s- land this contract, we do this thing." I'm like: So you're ignoring the thing that makes you more efficient for the immediate efficiency, and that's what I mean. And he's gonna burn out that way. Whereas if he took-- looks at the bigger efficiency of hiring those people. And so we're just sitting there, basically just getting dopamine fixes. Sent the email, sent the email, sent the email, sent the email. We're not thinking about, "Can I send that email so I never have to send another email on that topic again?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
"Can I do this task in such a way that I don't have to do ten more steps, I only have to do five?" And I think that's the difference between mastery and, and, and, like, competence and mastery. Competence is, "I can get it done effectively." Mastery is, "I can get it done with very little effort, effectively."
- CWChris Williamson
What are the misconceptions people have about overwhelm? I feel like that's a pretty endemic sensation-
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... a lot of people.
- JHJoe Hudson
Typically, it just means emotion- emotions haven't moved. Oftentimes, um, it also means that there's something that you know needs to be done that you're not doing, and those are typically the two things that create that level of overwhelm. And we think it's because there's so much going on. "Oh, my gosh, I got this going on, and this going on, and this going on," but what's typically happening is, "I'm really excited, and I'm not allowing myself to feel it. I'm really scared. I'm not allowing myself to feel it. I'm really angry. I'm not allowing myself to feel it." And so that-- So we're cycling quick-- Our minds are cycling quicker and quicker and quicker-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- JHJoe Hudson
... as we discussed before. And then on top of that, there's things that I know I should be doing that I'm not doing. And there, and that doesn't mean... That could be, "I know I should be resting. I know I should be having that hard conversation. I know I should be firing that person." It doesn't mean always, like, I know I should be doing the thing that my voice in my head is saying, "You should do this. You should do this. You should do this."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Is that why people always feel like they never have enough time?
- JHJoe Hudson
Overwhelm seems to create that as a symptom of lack of time, uh, which is kind of the weirdest thing in the world because we always have the exact amount of time. I was typically-- [chuckles] I was just-- I was having this realization yesterday, and it kind of flipped me out. My life has gotten really busy recently, and, and then there was a, um, a moment where I had, like, three days where something canceled, and so I had free time. And I found myself doing stuff that I haven't done in months because I... And I was like: Why am I doing this? Like, why, why am I-- Like, I got so busy that there was things that I wasn't doing, and now I'm realizing I'm doing them, but they're not necessary, because for the last three months, I didn't do them, and everything worked out just fine. And so there's this weird phenomenon that happens, which is when we have what we think is a compression of time, it just requires you to do the most important things if you're gonna be effective. And so the other way to look at the world is to say, "I'm just gonna do the most important things that all the time. I'm not gonna do the, the little stuff." So typically, what we're doing is we're saying, "I don't want chaos to reign in my life, so I'm gonna do a whole bunch of things, get a lot of dopamine hits of doing those little things so that I don't have to feel that chaos." But if you're okay feeling the chaos, then you can constantly just focus on doing the most important thing. And one of the things that I've noticed of, like, super, hyper-successful CEOs is that they are really good at focusing on the two or three most important things and letting chaos reign everywhere else, if necessary. They know that's the thing, that if that domino falls, everything else is taken care of. I am gonna spend almost all my time pushing on that domino.
- CWChris Williamson
I suppose that's a skill, to be able to discern.
- JHJoe Hudson
It's a skill to discern it. It's a skill to be able to be okay with the chaos.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Mm.
- JHJoe Hudson
There's a book called The One Thing, and he talks about this pretty well. He talks about if you're gonna focus on the one thing, then you have to be okay because some, some part of your world's gonna go into chaos. And what I notice is, when people can't handle the chaos, they, they can't focus on the one thing.
- 1:50:34 – 1:52:57
What’s Next for Joe?
- CWChris Williamson
Joe Hudson, ladies and gentlemen. Joe, you're great. You're so fantastic. I'm, uh, let's say, intrepidation for what the next few years is gonna look like for you. [chuckles] Uh, from book to YouTube, to the courses, to everything else, it's, uh-... I'd strap in if I was you.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, I, I think you scared me the other day on that one. You got me really good, was you were talking about what it's like for you as fame has increased, and how the Amazon truck guy will come out and be like, "Great, great podcast." [laughing] And, and he's like, but you said to me, "In your world, though, the Amazon truck guy's gonna jump out and say, 'Hey, can you coach me real quick?'" [laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing] Yeah. No one comes up, no one comes up to me expecting anything other than just like, "Dude, loved that episode with Charlie recently," or, "So good to see you talking to Huberman again," or whatever.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Whereas with you, it's gonna be like, "I, I have this problem with me and my girlfriend. I got this thing, that ancestral trauma. Oh, my God, Joe, please, can I start praying in front of you?"
- JHJoe Hudson
[laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
Well, look, you know, I couldn't... One of the, um, very good counter signals that you put out as a part of the time that I've worked with you and everything else is like a, "I am not your guru" type sort of energy.
- JHJoe Hudson
Yeah, for sure.
- CWChris Williamson
And I think that's very important because there are a number of people who are, uh, without the legitimacy of you claiming to have it, so to have the legitimacy of you claiming not to have it, I think is good when it comes to the bullseye of, uh, focused on the mission, not on the person.
- JHJoe Hudson
Al- also, super, it, it just doesn't work the other way. Meaning, like, if the person isn't their own authority, it doesn't work. Like, you can't... You, you, we can't- we can for a little while, but it doesn't sustain to, like, give your authority to somebody else. And so if someone's trying to take your au- trying to be your authority, it's a really, really, really good sign not to trust them.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Art of Accomplishment, YouTube, podcast, courses, everything else.
- JHJoe Hudson
Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
And fuck you, Joe Hudson, on Twitter. [laughing] F you, Joe Hudson. I appreciate you, man. Until next time.
- JHJoe Hudson
Pleasure. Pleasure. [upbeat music]
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you very much for tuning in. Uh, Joe is still an underground hero. He needs to be known by more people, so I really appreciate you watching through all of that. I think he's fantastic. I love his work. Uh, someone else's work I love, John Delony. Come on, watch him. He's brilliant.
Episode duration: 1:52:57
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