4M Q&A - Alpha Males, Burnout & Motivation

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the show. It is a four million subscriber Q&A episode. It's a very large number, and still sinking in that we've got there. Still sinking in that we're the eighth biggest podcast in the world, according to Spotify Wrapped as well. Um, but anyway, I asked for questions from YouTube community and Twitter and Instagram, and there were lots. And I've got a flight to catch soon, so let's get into 'em. John Hughes 4228, "Well done, Chris. Love your conversations. So what's with the new haircut? Is it from Turkey?" Starting off strong here. And interesting, if any guy grows their hair in their 30s, the natural assumption is that they got a hair transplant. Like, no, no guy in their 30s would choose to have a shaved head. It's just enforced on them by their genetics and their DHT. But I actually chose to shave mine off. This is all natural. Look, I'll- I did this on a- a Q&A a little while ago, but for the people who missed it, I will reiterate. As a guy with curly hair, there are three haircuts available, right? There is shaved head, buzz cut, which I had for a while. There is this one, which is long on top, short on sides, maybe long on back. Like, unfortunately, Mark Zuckerberg, like, owned that haircut and kind of the broccoli kids turned it into a meme. Or afro. There's three. Shave it off, cut it short on the sides, or let it loose. Your hair doesn't get longer, it gets bigger when you have curly hair. It's not a perm. I fucking wish it was a perm, because then if I didn't perm, it would be nice and straight. I always wanted straight hair as a kid, and I thought it would be so cool. Unfortunately not. I am, uh, stuck with this. I think the shaved head will be coming back, certainly as it gets hotter in- in Austin it will. But look, I- I'm just sampling from the follicular delights table, the buffet of three options that I've got as a guy with curly hair. So put up with it for now. It'll be here for a while and then you'll miss it and then it'll be gone and you'll miss it. Or maybe not, but whatever. Iron Maneri 73, just to interject here, if this is one of the first Q&As you've heard from me, much of the time is me spent struggling to pronounce the usernames of the people who submit the questions, because everybody has stupid usernames. Um, just disclaimer up top. "Do you agree that alpha males feel so isolated and so misunderstood?" Um, I certainly think that is the case, yes. Uh, a lot of guys who are hard-charging, grindset dudes will be doing it on their own. Uh, it's rare to be that motivated to sort of have that much agency and upward mobility. And, um, what ends up happening typically is that you are- you're solo rendering it. Like, there aren't- there aren't that many people around you that want to work as hard as you. Now, it depends what your definition of alpha male is, right? Is it sort of the meme definition or is it hard-charging, go-getter type person? Uh... I think it's kind of inevitable if you are doing it in the hard-charging kind of way that you're going to be misunderstood and isolated, because you're doing something that most other people don't do, so they can't understand. And they're not doing it, which means you don't have that many people who are on the journey with you too. I think that's one of the advantages of platforms like Reddit, uh, even Twitter to an extent, where you start to build a community of people around you who are into the shit that you're into, 'cause it makes you feel less alone. Um, also, you know, from a more emotional lens, a lot of the alpha males are working that hard and trying to prove to the world their worth because maybe they don't feel like they're worth all that much themselves. And if that's the case, it's gonna be... They're going to push people away. Their efforts are going to keep people at arm's distance, and, um, the isolation is almost self-imposed in that way. They've maybe struggled to connect with people. They don't feel loved. They don't feel like they belong, so they work real hard, because if the world needs them, that's kind of the same as the world loving them, 'cause the world will want them, but they'll want them to extract stuff from them, as opposed to want them just because they show up as themselves or because they're inherently worthwhile or whatever. Uh, so they start to perform, and the performance causes them to be isolated, 'cause people don't truly see them, and then they start to be this sort of persona that they've created themselves. And the person of who they really are gets quieter and quieter and quieter while the persona gets louder and louder. Uh, so yeah, I think... I didn't know that this was a meme, that alpha males feel so isolated and misunderstood, but I- I could see why that would happen. Ajit Halwal9... Fuck. Fucking fuck. Have better usernames, Jesus Christ. "What question from your tour have you found most interesting?" Okay, you redeemed your username with a good question. Uh, that's a great question. Someone- someone asked, "What is the best non-physical compliment that someone could pay you?" That was really fucking cool. Uh, and my answer to that was, "You made me feel less alone," which made me nearly tear up on stage. Uh, I thought that was- I thought that was a really clever question, and that "You made me feel less alone" response is, uh, very meaningful to me. Then another question, I think it was at Vancouver or Denver, somebody asked, "What does...... sort of child Christopher or little boy Christopher, what would you say to him or what would he... What would you say to him and what would he say to you?" I'm like, I- I- doing inner child work on stage, uh, in front of a few thousand people was not on my, um, plan for the evening, but that was really... That was a really beautiful question. It was a good moment, I think, to see just how brave I'm feeling around this vulnerability thing. You know, it's easy to talk about the importance of authenticity and showing your emotions and stuff, but you really do get to see what you're made of when there's, yeah, a completely sold out, uh, theater looking at you, waiting for you to speak to your inner child (laughs) on stage. And it was a really beautiful question, but, uh, yeah those, those would be, those would be two that come to mind. But, I will say, uh, I will go toe-to-toe with any other audience on the planet. I will put my audience up against any other audience for insightful questions. I've been to a lot of live shows with contemporaries and they're great, and the audience there is great, but the hit rate... Anybody that's been to the live shows this year or last year or whatever, like, have you ever been to a live show that's had such, like, deep, meaningful, resonant questions? Maybe, but, um, I think it's rare. I- I'm gassing you guys up because the questions that you ask, the thoughts that you have, the depth of your insights are, like, so non-fungible and, uh, I'm super proud. I'm really, really proud. I keep feeling more proud of the audience that I've curated, and the people that have gravitated to the work that I've put out, uh, the more that I do the live shows. It's been a surprising benefit of doing the live stuff. All right, next one. Dr. Doom Boat: What's your favorite fiction book? Uh, Red Rising. I'm sorry to say it to fucking Patrick Rothfuss, but he has not released the third book in, uh, King Phylla Chronicles, um, and, and, and Pierce Brown keeps writing, so... Uh, by the way, if you need a list of books, including fiction books, there's 200 list books, 200 book lists that are available. ChrisWillex.com/books and ChrisWillex.com/morebooks and you can go and get them both now and they're free. And if you need to do an annual review, you can go to ChrisWillex.com/review and all of it's free, and you can copy the review over and it'll help you to organize your end of year thoughts and reflect on your lessons and set your goals for next year. And then you've got 2 x 100 book lists that took me fucking ages to do, so go g- go get that, and there's lots in there. But if you want the shortcut, Red Rising is the first one that you should be reading right now. TJ Dooley: How long until we see the new studio? Much love. Good question. It is currently under construction. Um, if you were my, uh, on my top listeners from Spotify, you would have seen that I took a selfie video, uh, panning around in the studio space, which was a fucking shit tip. It was a complete construction site and it still is. But February first, I should be in, and then we'll need to dial all of the lighting in, all of the setting, all... Everything, everything, everything, and that's probably gonna take between a week and two weeks, so by Fe- at some point in February you should have the first episode from there, and I'm so fucking fired up. We're really trying to push the limits with this, which, um, for the cinematography team that I use is saying a lot, so... I, I really hope it delivers. I can't wait to have a space to work out of. I've worked in every bedroom of every house or Airbnb that I've been in for more than a week over the last decade. There's not been a single bedroom that I've had that I haven't turned into a studio like this. Even my bedroom in the UK still has my setup, it still (laughs) has my original podcast setup at the end of it. So, I'm looking forward to becoming a big boy, finally having a place I can go to work. Uh, Rob Mah: Are you aware that you're in your prime right now? Oh, dude, I haven't fucking felt like I'm in my prime. Um, I've felt this year like, like I've been repaying some weird karmic debt, like just comedic levels of nut kicking for me, um, and I don't want... One of the things that I'm conscious of is, this is the golden era. This will be, when I look back, "Oh, do you remember before I had kids, before the wife, before the, you know, the... All of the, the responsibilities that gave life meaning but restricted freedom? Do you remember how much you maximized that opportunity to experience your freedom?" And unfortunately, my freedom has been restricted this year. I've been going to bed at 7:00 and sleeping for 12 hours, and not being able to adventure as much as I want, not being able to work as much as I want or, or take time off as much as I want. It's been, like, so many, like, hundreds and hundreds of hours spent doing IVs or consultations or fucking blood tests or whatever it is to try and get to the bottom of what's going on. And, um, that, that's not been great, but I, I appreciate the point which is, these are the golden years and I am in my prime right now and I will look back and think about how proud I was and how exciting it was to be in this period. You know, moving to America and doing all of this stuff, it's fucking awesome, and, uh, the gratitude... (sighs) British people are kind of a bit allergic to gratitude. It feels a bit icky and kind of cringe. It's very keen to say that you're happy with something or that you're the... that stuff's going well. You're not supposed to do that, you're supposed to very much downplay how things are going. Um-I'm looking forward to next year giving me- allowing me to maximize that ceiling. Uh, so, yeah. Roll on 2026. TLoe84, "Will you release the Andrew Tate episode?" (laughs) Okay, uh, I get a question about this every Q&A. And I don't know why, but it's re- it's popped up again. I don't know whether it's been resurfaced, the story has been resurfaced at some point. Um, for clarity, me and Tate were talking from 2019, 2018 perhaps, so we'd been WhatsApping for a very long time, had a few phone calls, and then he came on the show maybe end of 2020, start of '21, and the whole conversation was about COVID. The entire- almost the entire conversation was about COVID, at least to the best of my recollection- recollection. And, um, it was during a period where if you were to talk about COVID, you would just instantly lose your channel on YouTube. There was no three strikes you're out, no demonetization. Like, your channel would just be immediately gone. And I thought- I reflected on it afterward and was like, (sighs) like, "Am I- am I gonna put..." 'Cause it's gonna be up for 24 hours, maybe five days, before YouTube just puts the kibosh on your channel. Like, do I... That feels like too... It feels like a silly trade to make. Um, I'm glad that I spoke to him. It's a shame that we couldn't put it out, but I messaged him and I was like, "Hey man, look, with where the platform's at at the moment, I think it's gonna just completely flatten us if we put this out." Uh, I- it's kind of pointless. Like, if you- if you kamikaze the channel in an attempt to try and put a video out on the channel and then the channel gets torpedoed so quickly that the video can't even go out, it- it seems self-defeating. Uh, and he was like, "Yeah, totally get it, man." Or like, he- he was fine with it. And then by the time that the COVID concern thing from YouTube, whatever their guideline was that I never paid attention to, by the time that that had gone by the wayside, it had been maybe one or two years later, and Tate's platform had grown an awful lot. And I thought, "Do I really wanna screw Andrew over by releasing an old podcast episode where he's being, you know, gregarious and out there?" Like, I have no... He said what he said, and I'm sure that he probably still stands by it, but if you're in the middle of a fast-moving global pandemic, it's easy to make a bunch of claims and accusations and stuff that in future maybe don't necessarily come true. And it just felt like a bit of a shit thing to do to him to release something that could be scrutinized with the information of today, but using the f- like, insights or the fact that he had yesterday or, you know, two years ago yesterday. Uh, and I was like, "I just don't- don't get what..." It feels now like it would be a bit of a middle finger to him, and at the time the very platform that it would've been broadcast on would've taken down the channel that would've broadcast it. And apart from the fact that that would've killed my future with YouTube, it also meant that the video wouldn't have got out in any case. That was the whole point, right, of deplatforming people. So, um, no. The answer is probably no. I mean, it's sat in a Dropbox somewhere, and Dean's got the video file, I'm sure. It was done over Zoom. Uh, I think he was back in the UK at some point. Uh, it was all right. I mean, it wasn't... He was good. He's a great communicator and we had a really fun conversation. I actually really, really enjoyed it. But it wouldn't change the world, so for now it's sat collecting dust in a Dropbox. Tiffany Alexis, "Wanted to ask this at the Toronto meet and greet, but I used my question to get you tonic instead." (laughs) "Thanks, by the way. You and your team are top humans. Question is, this body of work you and the Modern Wisdom team put out into the world is objectively art, the art of conversation in a stunning cinematic wrapper. The conversations are structured but never feel rigid, always open for nuance and thought exploration. What does your personal prep process look like, systematically speaking? In short, what's on that iPad?" (laughs) Okay, well, thank you for coming to the Toronto show. That was unreal, and meet and greet finished at quarter past midnight, uh, so thank you everyone for waiting. Uh, the iPad is usually just a bunch of different ideas and topics and jumping off points for me. It's kind of the same as having, um, a game plan, like a tactical game plan going into a sports match. Uh, within the first two minutes of the game beginning, the entire plan may go out of the window. But sometimes the structure and the format help you a little bit, uh, if I've got stuff that I want to remember to bring up. I think for me, I like holding stuff in memory, in short-term memory, and I like playing with the context of what I've got. "Oh, I've got that thing and I've got that thing and I've got that." But after a while it just becomes burdensome, so I would rather have stuff out of my brain just roughly put out on Apple Notes. It's only ever Apple Notes. I don't really ever have anything else. I mean, I've not ChatGPT up, I've not got, uh, I'm not browsing the internet. It's just my notes. So I've got 3,000, exactly 3,700 Apple Notes on my iCloud, and almost all of those will be podca- well, at least 1,000, probably 2,000 of those will be either podcast notes or stuff to do with research for the podcast. Sometimes it's quotes if I wanna read something to a guest to get them to react to. You know, I had that episode with Bernie Sanders and I knew that I wanted to get that quote out from Gwendolyn Bogle at the start that said, "The biggest enemy of the left is not the right, but the far left. The biggest enemy of the right is not the left, but the far right. The idiots of your own side make you look far sillier than the opposition ever could. Give me your thoughts on that." I knew that I wanted to say that to him, but I don't want to have to hold it in my memory, because the- it just seems like an unnecessary burden for me to carry when I could be thinking about, "Ooh, what was it that you just said there? And oh, isn't that cool?" So yeah, it just alleviates a little bit of that. Um, but what I can do-... because of the power of Apple Notes, is if I'm ever looking for anything, I just need to type in the global search, one word. And if that one word is in a quote or an idea or a story or something, it means I can pull that up too. So it's just, it's an external brain. It's a really messy one. SBS1992, "Hey, Chris. Huge fan of your show and, more importantly, the positive impact you've had on young men like myself." Thank you. "Keep up the good work. I want to get into making content that hopefully helps young men, but I'm not sure where to begin. Any advice you would have for someone like me? And more importantly, what, if anything, do you feel like the men's self-improvement space is currently lacking in?" Difficult to give you advice. The advice that I would give anybody who's trying to start content is do what you're interested in, be consistent, reduce the friction that you need to get started. One camera setup and a little microphone in front of you is all that you need. Make it as simple as possible, and, and do it consistently. Do it once a week at minimum. Um, it doesn't need to be on video. You could just start by talking into a microphone. It doesn't need to be on recorded. It could even be written, right? You could start a Substack. Um, but an easier question to answer, or a more interesting question to answer is, what do I feel like the men's self-improvement space is currently lacking in? Uh, for me personally, with where I'm at at the moment, I do not think it needs more hustle and grind, like, just work harder, bro positioning. Uh, that's not to say that there's no place for it, and I very much contributed to that, but I- I'm trying to balance the scales, I think, by getting guys to, uh, look at where their motivations come from. What is it that they're hiding? What are the patterns from their past that are driving them to behave in the way that they are now? And that doesn't mean opening up some Pandora's box of trauma and difficulty, or even really slowing down that much. But it does mean getting real with yourself and being truthful and honest about what it is that you want and why you want it. And, um, for me, what I think it's lacking is kind of more of Connor Beaton's positioning, more of Chris Bunstead's positioning, uh, the direction that even Hormozi seems to be going in, which is to integrate the way that he's feeling, his understandings of his own limitations, shortcomings, the fact that he needs to sort of nurture the recovery part of him as well as the output part of him. Um, and this is certainly the pivot that I've made over the last 18 months. And, um, you know, I had some formative experiences with this. I did that retreat with Joe Hudson, which really kind of snapped me in half. Um, a lot of reflection. Obviously, if you have a down period like I have this year, you end up being more reflective. And, you know, this is going out on New Year's Eve. Hey, Happy New Year's Eve. Happy New Years, I guess. Um, well done for making it into 2026. Uh, but during this period, we- you start to think, "How's this year gone?" And if you realize that it's been a little bit more challenging, you start to ask, "Well, why? What- why am I going against the grain of life?" And you start to feel the sort of texture of what you're pushing up against a bit more keenly. It's kind of like if, if you're in a lazy river, one of those big tubes, and you're sort of floating down it gently. You don't really notice much because you and life, or you and the environment are moving at the same speed. But if you accidentally leave something on the shore and you're still in it and you need to get back up there, you're just feeling the pressure of the water moving up against you. And I kind of think that reflection in life is a lot like that. We tend to reflect way more when things are going badly than when things are going well. 'Cause when things are going well, we don't question stuff. We just allow it to carry us through. And if stuff sucks a bit or a lot, you ask a lot of questions. And it's painful, but it really expedites growth, and I think this is why, for the people who came to my live show, um, one of the lines in that was, uh, "Every big period of growth in your life has germinated from your lowest points." And I think this is why, because during your lowest points, you're forced to reflect so much to try and get out of the pain, to try and work out what's going on, that that becomes the next springboard that you bounce off to get to your subsequent evolution as a person. Uh, so I think the emotional piece for me is massively missing, uh, in the men's space. And it is not for all men. It's not even for many men, perhaps. Um, but it is for me. And I get the sense that it's for the sort of people that listen to this show, and, um, I'm gonna keep hammering on it. I think it's important, and I- I'm usually right but early on this shit. I was right but early on a lot of different things, and I'm gonna keep going on this one. And at some point in future, I'll get obsessed with something else. But for now, that's it. So maybe, maybe consider that. How the fuck do you pronounce th- how do you- how do you pronounce X-L-E-B? Xleb? Xleb69, "We want more fun chill podcasts with the boys." Yes. Fucking yes, Xleb. Um, I agree. And you will be getting that next year. Fun chill podcasts. There will be... I mean, I- I've already, uh, opened my skirt, uh, with regards to the, the plan, or the trench coat, I guess is the guy equivalent, uh, with regards to the plan for next year. Very simple. Build studio that's cool. Bring in more group episodes. Do more solo episodes. So you will still get the usual Modern Wisdom stuff that you already do. Some of that will be replaced by more, uh, in-person group episodes with multiple guests. Um, not necessarily debate style. I'm still working on what that format looks like, but I've got some really fucking cool ideas and some great lineups for guests. And then I'm going to do some sort of an equivalent of what used to be Life Hacks, uh, what Rogan would do with Protect Our Parks. You know, a consistent group of me and a few of my boys-... and it will be largely unstructured and probably a total mess. But I think one of the, one of the best criticisms, or the fairest criticisms, which even I have about Modern Wisdom, is that sometimes it can feel like homework. And I love it because you open up an episode and you go, "I'm gonna learn so much. This is one of the best in the world at fucking evolutionary pediatrics," right? Uh, Paul Turk, the unbelievable episode, and it's so good, but it can feel heavy sometimes. It can be a dense meal, and that's fucking fantastic and I do not want to lighten the load of those episodes. But the same way as it wouldn't do to always eat steak, no matter how good the steak is, it's nice to have ice cream every so often, and I'm gonna provide some ice cream, uh, hopefully with this. It may end up falling flat on its face, but I think I'm right about this one too. I think I'm right about everything. No, I think I'm right about this thing in particular. So, um, you will have more fun chill podcasts with the boys. They will be coming, so hold on tight. Jawdaniel974, "Would you do a live show in Newcastle?" Yes, I would, and I am, and I don't know the fucking date but I think it's in October next year. Um, I'm coming home. Homecoming, baby. Uh, Newcastle show. It's gonna be so much fun to go back and, uh, run another event. I wonder if I have to give out flyers. I might give out wristbands before people come in. That would be nice, throw it back to the old club promo days. (inhales deeply) But yeah, I'm doing a live show. Uh, I'm doing a full UK and Ireland tour, and maybe even a couple of shows in Germany in autumn, autumnish time next year, and, uh, I'm super fired up. It'll be great. Don't know the dates yet. I... They, they exist, I just don't know. Um, but hold on tight. They're coming. Um, Sa- Sa- Sara Alesan, uh, "What inspired the Modern Wisdom apparel designs?" Metal, metal bands, me being fuck boy metal, um, like, what I wore as a teenager. I basically wanted to make what would 17-year-old me think if he was 37-year-old me he would design as a T-shirt, and, um, I kind of did that, and we sold so much fucking merch (laughs) . We sold so many pieces, it's insane, and, uh, I really worked hard on it. And the reason that I care is 'cause I worked so fucking hard, like I spent so long researching, like in trying on myself in my living room, and Jonathan, ops guys taking photos from the... "Oh, do we like the feel of this cotton? Well, oh, yeah, but you can't get that in Australia. But we need to do the thing with the print. Ah, is it gonna be too heavy on the GSM? Oh, I don't like the length of that." Every single different fucking piece and every single different design I was personally involved in, like me and the fucking designer going back at 11 o'clock at night. Then we did the shooting, we did... It was a, uh, very personally involved project, and I really, really think that the stuff rules and it looks fucking great. And I... Everybody that's had it and has been wearing it is loving it, and all of the shipping will have been done by now so you should have had it for Christmas, which is sick. And we'll be doing another drop probably thr- through end of February, end of March, something like that. There will be another drop. It'll be available for 48 hours or 96 hours or something, a few days, and then once it's gone, it's gone, and then we'll do it again in a few months. And it's, it's sick. I love wearing it. I love wearing the stuff. And yeah, it was metal bands and my own sense of style, I suppose, so... I never thought I had a sense of style but it seems like if you just do fuck boy metal T-shirts, uh, people wear 'em. Uh, Lewis The Voice, "Does your red bracelet have meaning?" Okay, so... if I can hide it in my face. There we go. Uh, yeah, it does, actually. Um, this was the bracelet that I got after finishing Joe Hudson's retreat, and I can't say too much about, like, the process of, of getting it or whatever, um, but it's really meaningful to me, and, uh, it is a reminder of a version of me that I aspire to regularly get back to. Um, somebody who is brave in the face of sensitivity and doesn't see suppression as strength, but sees sensitivity as strength, um, and is honest and open. And it's nice. I know, look, it fucking pisses me off sometimes when I'm trying to type shit, but, um, I haven't taken it off. I've not taken it off since, since I was there, and it's been three months now, so now you know. Smar... Fuck. Smarivaldsson, "Have you visited Iceland?" Yes, I have. I went with Johnny, I went with Johnny and Yousef in 2016, 2017 maybe? We went... we went to Reykjavík, and I trained at Anní Thorisdóttir's gym 'cause I was full CrossFit bro mode, and we did the Blue Lagoon, and we did the Golden Circle Tour. Is that Hawaii? So the- whatever the, whatever the tour is where you go and see that, that waterfall. And me and Johnny went out in November in Iceland in just a shirt and jeans because we were, "I'm hard as fuck, me, don't matter. I'm northeast of the UK. Fucking now, now to worry about." And, uh... Oh, there was something to worry about. That was, that was another level of cold. Johnny thought that he got, um, hypothermia because he was waiting for a taxi, and-Then for a while, I dated an Icelandic chick, who I met while I was there, and, uh, she was lovely, uh, and very blonde. That was it. It's good, I like it. Roll on Iceland. @guilhermarcaron: "4 million subscribers and over 1,000 episodes. I love the show, don't get me wrong, but do you see yourself doing this for another (laughs) 1,000 episodes? Is there that much more self-discovery left to be done?" Great question, dude. Um, I would like to think yes, because as I evolve as a person, my interests do as well. Um, you're hinting at a truth about the show, which I've said a bunch of times but maybe bears repeating, which is this is a very selfish project. It is a, a thinly veiled autobiography masquerading as a podcast that I am trying to understand the challenges that I am facing in my life right now, and I've fortunately managed to construct a world in which whatever I am struggling with or whatever I want to learn more about or my pet interest or that thing that I saw yesterday that I need explaining to me, I have access to the best people in the world to be able to get them to (laughs) teach me about it. And then put it out on the internet, and you guys get to watch and listen and learn as well, and I get to call it a job. Um, that being said, I can't wait to be a dad. I'm very much looking forward to dad life. When that happens, guess what? There's gonna be a lot of child content. There's gonna be a lot of child rearing and attachment and, and baby health and all of that stuff. And then there'll be education system stuff, and then there'll be training-as-an-agent-guy stuff. So, because I'm a moving target, I think my curiosity and the self-discovery is a moving target too. Uh, that being said, a lot of the low-hanging fruit was picked up in the first 400 episodes when no one fucking listened, which is so annoying to me. Like the amount of (laughs) loads that I blew prematurely because I knew exactly where I wanted the show to go but there was no one (laughs) to listen, I, I think it took... It took 400 episodes to get to 100,000 subs. 400. 40% of the show, 100,000 subs. This is 4 million, right? I don't even know what that is as a percentage. What's 100,000 out of 4 million? Fucking, it, it's like, such a tiny amount proportionally. So... Oh, 2.5%. 97.5% of the audience (laughs) didn't get to see those, (laughs) and it's so annoying. Um, but I might just run it back. Fuck it, I might just bring Peter C. Brown on again to learn Make It Stick, now that I've got a, hopefully a better bedside manner for podcasting. Um, but on top of that as well, I'm changing some of the formats. I'm coming up with new ideas, right? This roundtable group hang style episode, the one with the proper guests and the one with my boys, I think, I think that will really enliven a whole new type of satisfaction and interest and curiosity for me. Um, or maybe you're right. Maybe the- maybe I've already hit the wall. Maybe I'm in the, you know, podcasting equivalent of menopause. Um, but I don't get the sense that I am, and the more that I spend time reading, the more stuff I get interested in, and my curiosity is so fucking nuclear. I don't know. Um, I did this long before anybody listened, and I'll continue to do it no matter w- n- no matter what happens with regards to an audience. So for me, it's always been a very personal project that I love, and, um, I don't know. I don't intend on slowing down anytime soon. @karuchi912: "How small of an effort is considered too small to be worth doing, even if you're doing it every day in an attempt to move the needle just 1%?" Great question, and d- literally nothing. I mean, there's been days, dude, in my 20s where I was sad and low and burned out and depressed from work, where I didn't get out of my bedroom bathroom front door to get, like, Uber Eats. And this wasn't, oh, I'm having a slow, lazy day. This is, I don't want to open the curtains, I don't wanna speak to people, I'm making excuses at work so that people don't know that I'm not doing the thing 'cause I'm supposed to be the leader of this company, and if they know that I'm not doing the thing, then how embarrassing is that gonna be? I'm supposed to be the guy that drives everything forward and I'm so ashamed about this thing but I can't be bothered to get up, and I'm so... I just don't wanna see people, I don't know why, I feel sad. (sighs) The first day that I broke out of that burnout or, you know, acute micro-depression thing, um, each time that I would (breathes deeply) come back around and take a big breath was... Getting out of bed was a big deal, and opening the curtains was a big deal, and going for a walk was a big deal, and putting my shoes on was a big deal. Going to the gym, driving to work, those things were big deals. And, um, I think... The habituation thing, like hedonic adaptation but this is personal growth adaptation, if you're used to moving at a really high clip or if you see other people that are, you compare yourself to what you can do previously or what other people appear to be doing now, and it makes your efforts feel microscopic in comparison, and that is not great for motivation. In short, there is no such thing as too small. Yes, you can have high standards, but if you're pointing in the right direction and you're doing the right things, even a single step does move you closer to your goal. And yes, some days maybe you'll run an ultra-marathon, and other days, you'll crawl half a pace.But each day is moving you toward that thing. And at the very least, it's not sending you backward, and it's probably more akin to being on a, a treadmill than it is running a race, actually. Because if you don't do anything, that's not stasis. That is moving backward. Your body is fighting entropy. Your mind is fighting entropy. You are fighting against life and, um, there's no such thing. So read the lesson or the essay that I wrote about the shame of simple pleasures and the shame of small fears. Um, both of those kind of relate to this thing, and I think... Keep moving. Just keep moving. Uh, Naveed Shaizhadtaga. "What do you do when you feel sad or disappointed?" Hmm. Well, I've felt a lot of that this year, which, uh, isn't super sexy to talk about. And I know as well, I appreciate you guys for sticking with me as I've been in my sad boy energy this year. Um, fuck, it's been, like, I've got bored of me. I've got bored of me whining and I've tried to show up as a professional on the show and let the realizations about what I'm interested in and I've been reflecting on and I'm struggling with come out in the show without it just being this total mope fest, although it may have been at some points. Um, so I- I appreciate you guys, um, the patience that you've had because I want to be higher energy than I have been. I want to feel in a better mood than I have been. I want to be more positive sum than I have been and that's been hard. It's been hard for me and I felt this expectation or this obligation or something to perform, keep- keep you guys, keep- keep the energy up or something. And yeah, it's important to be authentic, but also if I'm just eating shit for months and months on end, it's not... It's not very alluring to have this person that is supposed to just turn up and do a job largely, like, constantly whining about stuff. So anyway, I've tried to strike a balance and my point is thank you for, uh, sticking with me. I appreciate it. Uh, what do I do when I feel sad or disappointed? Um, my go-to, if I don't step into my own programming, is, uh, isolate. Um, isolate, ruminate, lie in bed, watch Netflix, uh, uh, scroll on my phone. Um, like, negative self-talk. Like, it's very inward-focused. It's very, uh, "You are the problem. How shameful that this is something that you're going through. You should be better than this. Time is slipping away. Your life is passing you by. You're gonna regret this in future." There's a lot of that in a monologue. Um, when I do interject and step into my own programming, it's much more, uh, "Okay, I'm going to lean on a friend," and this is really a skill that only this year I've- I've fully, fully been able to develop. Fucking 36 years old, it was the first time that I really realized I needed to do this. Um, the weight of sort of sadness and disappointment was so high that I, I couldn't lift it myself, and that was the first time that I'd ever encountered that. And, um, I relied on my friends more this year than I ever have, and the amount of support that I got when I actually allowed people to show up for me is crazy. Um, if you look like you've got it all together, and I think a lot of guys and maybe girls that listen to this show too, appear to other people in their friend group like the most competent person in the room. And the problem with that is that (laughs) if you think that your friends always got it together, who the fuck are you to step in and help them? Like, what are you gonna... What- what are you gonna add? Like, they help you, right? Um, so you need to ask for help. So, uh, I've got better at asking for help. Got better at leaning on friends. I've got better at, um, finding coaches and, uh, guides and therapists and stuff like that if I need, um, more heavy-duty insights. Um, breathwork and reading are the isolated good versions of some of the stuff that I do. I feel really good if I read. I feel really, really great if I walk for a while. Uh, ringing friends as well. So those are some things. That's how I do it right and how I do it wrong. J- JimmyMcGills5572. "Can you give an update on your health journey and do you believe you have long COVID?" I'm almost certain that I had long COVID. Uh, a lot of the markers that came back said yes, and I caught COVID two years ago just before I went on tour with James Smith and that was the beginning of pushing me over the edge. I'd already been in that house that was filled with mold for about six months, maybe a bit more at that time. No, a year and six months. Fuck. Wow. Yeah, I'd been- I'd been- I'd been in that house for quite a while and, um... The long COVID thing, almost certainly. Where I'm at now with health journey, um, I'm fighting with some nervous system stuff, which is so fucking annoying, dude, 'cause I've, like, handed the baton off from, uh... Inflammation-cum-infection stuff, beat that, and then just at the fucking finish line, that's pivoted into some, like, quasi-disorder nervous system disruption stuff. So I'm working on that. Uh, I've got a great couple of guys helping me with it, which is really wonderful. Um, and I'll beat it. It's just gonna take time. Um. Yeah, it's so fucking funny being- having-... health problems that are really normal. You know, the- none of these things, EBV isn't that weird, mold isn't that weird, Lyme's isn't that weird, heavy metals, BPAs, gut dysbiosis, like none of this stuff is that odd. But all of it together, as a young person who is in good health, is- it's such a strange experience. I- I'm still trying to work out sort of what it means, um, but it's taught me an awful lot. It's made me much more, uh, empathetic toward people who are struggling in that way. It's fucking certainly humbled me. Jesus Christ. I mean, like listen, I'm sure someone could do a sentiment analysis on ChatGPT of the bravado and the ego that I would have had 12 months, 24, 36 months ago, uh, compared with now. And Alain de Botton had that line on the podcast I did with him where he says, "The best men are the ones who've been broken by life," and, uh, this is a year that I've been broken by life. So, maybe that turns me into the best man that I can be. We'll see. Zach Hall, "What is the most frequent reoccurring thought you have, Chris, and why do you think this occurs?" You're not doing this right. You should be, you should be better. I don't know what I'm supposed to be better in, but it's something like that. If you were stronger, more resilient, harder working, more diligent, smarter, fitter, this challenge that you're facing would not be of concern to you. And the fact that it is of concern to you is an identification of your insufficiency and your inferiority, and if only you pushed harder, it would be fine. Uh, why do I think this occurs? Because I learned that if I perform successfully, problems in life seem to go away. And what that means is, as soon as you stop performing, you have a fear the problems are gonna come back, even well after you've reached escape velocity and you're just floating out in space, way away from all of the problems that sort of birthed this fuel source, this motivation. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think it's that. Um, that being said, I'm getting better. I'm getting a lot better at this. Uh, when you go through a low period, these patterns, like they come back up. And it's what I said before, that when- when life is going great, nobody, (laughs) nobody really questions what they're doing. You're able to hide fleeting thoughts and insufficiencies under ego and bravado and momentum. Fucking hell, if things slow down, you really have to contend with the shit that you've been hiding from. And there was shit that I'd been hiding from, and it's not big shit. It's nothing massive. But it's sort of f- like fundamental ways that I see myself or talk to myself, and they weren't good enough. They're not good enough. Uh, look at me whipping myself for like, um, I'm being ungrateful about my own gratefulness. It's been a really, really interesting year. It's been a very, very reflective, high growth year, and I'd had a good run. I'd had a really fucking good run. I think this happens in about seven-year cycles. It seems to me to happen in about seven-year cycles. The last one was probably closer to 28, I guess, so like, what, maybe eight, nine-year cycles. I was due a little bit of a pullback. I'd been on a bull run. Stock had been going nicely. I was due a little bit of a pullback, and I've had a pullback. I've learned what I need to learn, and um, I'm ready to kick 2026 in the dick. LuckAndFineTruth, "Congrats on four million." Thank you. "You sit in a rare position, an extreme outlier in both visibility and wealth. Two levers that less than 0.01% of people alive won't have at your scale, neither individually, let alone at your intersection, both which contribute to identity. As your success continues to compound, what is your experience with identity, attachment, and ego?" Great question. Uh, I think being British is a fucking huge performance enhancer for this. Because we (laughs) are so allergic to ego and that getting too big for your boots thing, that it really helps to keep your feet on the ground. If you didn't ever anticipate becoming much or anything, ever, then it just feels all like bonus. I guess that could metastasize into some other like horrible, egotistical version of it, where you are ungrateful for the things that have happened. But for me it's much more like, "Whoa, what the fuck? Like, I won the lottery. I literally won the lot- This is so great. Like, how fantastic." Um, identity is a slightly more different one, a slightly more difficult one, because the world begins to treat you in a way that you don't see yourself. If you don't believe you're on hype, or at the very least, if you've got the British fucking high gravity feet on the ground, tall poppy thing, you- you are being treated by the world in a way that doesn't comport with how you see yourself. It's li- it's like, um, identity dysmorphia or something. What you see in the mirror is not necessarily what the world sees. And even the world might not see what they're supposed to see, right? They might see you as this like high flying resource to be extracted from, and you just want to live a quiet life. Or the reverse, they might see you as this meek individual, and actually you want to be super gregarious and outgoing. Um-... at least for the moment, I think I've got a good balance. I don't feel, uh, of all of the psychological wells that I'm diving into, uh, my ego is not one of them, and I'm really, really fucking glad about that. The identity thing, the thing I'm so fortunate about is that I don't- I have an audience of people who are like the people I want to hang out with, and they don't expect me to be anything except for myself. At the live show, no one comes up, I mean, people come up and go, "Fucking hell, your forearms were a bit bigger in real life than I thought," whatever. Um, but no one expects me to be anything else, and I think the more that I do this solo stuff, and that's one of the reasons I want to do more solo episodes next year, the more of me I can actually let out there. And, um, hopefully that makes you feel less alone, and, uh, it certainly makes me feel less alone when I get to talk about it, and it makes me feel braver. So, gonna keep going. Aayush6610, "Congrats on four million." Thank you. "What advice can you give me about feeling lost in life as an 18-year-old who is just entering college?" My brother, you are 18. I'm not trying to be patronizing in the way that every 37-year-old was to me when I was 18 as well, but you're supposed to be lost in life. Like, you're not supposed to know your direction. You've just been in full-time education, you're at this huge pivot, and this is going to happen to you at every different pivot that you encounter. It's going to happen to you when you leave college. It is gonna fucking flatten you. I will promise you now, it is going to completely flatten you because you have been in full-time education up until that point, and now you're freewheeling in the world. And the same things happen, maybe you're moving away from home, you're not gonna be in your parents' house anymore. "Oh, my God, what does this mean for my identity? What does this mean? I need to find new friends. I need to find... Ugh, so I'm gonna leave my girlfriend at home, or I gotta find a new one when I'm there. Or like, I- I gotta cook for myself. I've gotta fucking wash my pan- how do I wash pants? Where do I get the, how does an iron work?" All of these things are big questions, but the feeling lost is where the growth comes from. That is what you're looking for, because you find cool stuff when you're lost. So, don't worry about it. I- I- I know that you're worrying about it, but it's okay. So, what would I leave you with? What would I leave you with? What if it was okay to feel lost? What if feeling lost, what if feeling lost is what you want? What if that's a good thing? Yes, you don't have direction. You're about to go to college. That seems like a pretty fucking good direction to me. Just allow that to happen, because you will look back in two decades' time when you're just past my age, and you will go, "Fuck, I wish I'd, I wish I'd not worried so much about being lost and I just enjoyed it, because I can't go back and enjoy it anymore." So make sure that you're present. Make sure that you're there for this experience. It's not gonna last forever. The same thing's true for every part of life. JoshWhite47, "For the Q&A, hey, Chris, congratulations on the success of your podcast." Thank you. "Been listening in for a while now. I discovered that I have the MET/MET gene about a year ago (laughs) and it helped me to understand a lot about myself. I've heard you talk about having a MET/MET/comt gene mutation and was wondering if you regard it and everything (laughs) that comes along with it as more of an advantage or a hindrance in your life. Keep doing you, man. You're great." What a fucking cool question. Yes, Josh White. Uh, so the MET/MET/comt variant is, um, we clear catecholamines, adrenaline, and dopamine more slowly than most people. Uh, this means that uncertainty, ambivalence, ambiguity, uh, high-stress situations take more time to come down from. Uh, it also means that obsession, rumination, um, working hard, um, are available to you, in a way. Um, I would make a poor soldier, but a pretty good coder, for instance. Uh, predictable, reliable, structured, um, obsessive? Good. Uh, chaotic, uh, uh, um, highly, uh, uncertain, um, big pulses of energy? Not good, for me. Um, is it an advantage or a hindrance? It's both. It's both. This year, I've been so uncertain and, and swimming in this fucking challenge emotionally for me, uh, it has shown me that my preferences for peace and stability and predictability are not just preferences, they are like water or, or air to me. They're the hydration, the fuel that I run on. And without it, I can push through, and that's fine, but it, it fucking ruins you eventually. Um, MET/MET/comt is, like, pretty, I- you're either gonna be really fucking great or it's, it's gonna be hard. Um, I- I see it as more an advantage. Would I love it if some emotional perturbment didn't play on my mind for the next couple of hours? Yeah, sure. But if I meditate enough and I do enough breath work and I counterbalance that, it doesn't really matter. What else did it mean? Well, it means that I'm super reflective. It means that my depth of thought is something that I really value, and I love asking the why question, and I love finding out the why answer. So, I've learned to love it. Uh, I mean, I only found out that I had it, like, 12 months ago. Um, and tons of people have got this. This is part of the behavioral genics of, uh, behavioral genetics of your psychological makeup. So, um, what is happening from a genetic perspective to influence your neurobiology that then manifests psychologically, and this is l- slow dopamine, adrenaline, catecholamine clearance, more catecholamines dumped into the, into the bloodstream. Something happens, spikes, takes a longer time to come down. Uh, avoid stress. Um-Don't marry somebody that is going to cause a ton of drama in your life. Uh, don't stick around friends who are unpredictable and always in a, a fucking catastrophe nightmare. Um, listen to Anjunadeep, Deep House, meditate, breath work, go for walks in nature. You will have to pay a price for this. It is a hindrance, in some regard, it is a hindrance, but it is a fucking unreal fuel as well. So, if you can create the conditions for this to flourish, it's wonderful. Sometimes life is gonna come in and smash you in the face and you don't get to choose that, okay. But all of the prep and the nervous system regulation and the building of that window of tolerance is you getting ready for those times, 'cause they're coming. And in the interim, you will have a greater depth of thought, you will be able to work harder, you will be able to focus way more than everybody else and, if you use it right, if you treat it like a... it's a way I would think, you are not fragile, you're just finely tuned, would be a wonderful way to think about it. It's like a, like a Formula 1 car, um, like it's n- it's not a Toyota Camry, it's not as reliable, it's not as reliable as a RAV4, it's not gonna get you as far, but fuck me, if you can tune it just right, it's, it's powerful, so... hope that helps. Emmett Higgins, "If you could go back, would you have still gone to university?" Yes, I would've done. Uh, I fucking loved my time at university. I get it, it's uncool, everybody thinks you can just learn it on the internet, permissionless apprenticeship dude, it's expensive and rah, rah, rah. For me, I was so under-socialized as a kid that, uh, I needed Navy SEAL hell week for learning how to be an adult. Like I didn't know until I was 18 that you were supposed to knock on other people's doors before you went into their room, because it was me and Mum and Dad and, like, they would go to bed after me and wake up before me, so when, what, like, I, whose door did I need to knock on? Um, I think it's good. I learned an awful lot. I started two businesses while I was there. I ran one of those with my business partner for the next fucking 17 years, 15 years, something like that and, uh, it was great, so yeah. I'm very pro. DM Acid Racing, "Fellow only child and Borrowboy," wow, this is starting horrendously, uh, "it's great seeing your success and positive impact on so many people," thank you, "even more so when I speak to a few guys who know you and they say you are still sound." Uh, that means, uh, good, like solid, in, uh, non-Northern language. "My question is related to Middlesbrough, as I too moved away for opportunities like you. Based on your improved knowledge and experience, considering you now have the resources and influence beyond when you left, what are the three improvements you would make to improve the area and opportunities for the people?" Okay. Three improvements I would make to improve the area and opportunities for the people. (sighs) I would love a cultural intervention. I, I really do not like... my biggest problem is not structural, it's cultural. Didn't like the way that there was a, a big skepticism of anybody trying anything new, especially in the northeast of the UK. Um, I would love to have more role models and conversations from people to youngsters there who say, "Hey, if you've got a big dream, you can actually maybe go and fucking make it happen." That would be the first thing. Um... probably improve the fucking train line. Um, if you could get to Newcastle more quickly, you would be able to experience more of that city, or maybe Leeds or Manchester as well, that would probably be good, so something to do with transport, but like what the fuck do I know about transport? Um... I would li- I mean, anything that I think of that you build, pickleball courts or, you know, like after school park places or all the rest of it, I immediately think about the young teenage yobs that are gonna go and break it or spray paint stuff on it. Like this is, this is not an exaggeration, by the way. Anything nice that's in and around the Teesside area just gets broken within days or fucking melted down and sold at some scrapyard. So I think the intervention, I don't think you'd need three, I think you just need to intervene in the culture. Like you can be more, you can do things, you can make shit happen. Uh, I've been trying to think about how I, how I could go back but like who am I? Some bloke that, uh, did a podcast. I, am I really? I'm not fucking Richard Branson, I can't go and inspire a ton of people but I- I don't know, I would love, I would love to come up with an intervention but, um... yeah, that's... and if, the third one, the fucking weather. Change the weather. Someone, someone intervene with that. Kaizer Sose 9857, "What's your favorite thing about yourself? Talk your shit Chris you've been killing it." Uh... well that's nice, it's an opportunity to not fucking speak badly about myself which I've done for most of this so far. What's my favorite thing about myself? (clicks tongue) The way that my mind works. I really fucking love it. I really love playing with thoughts inside of my own head and I did that a lot as a kid. You know, an only child playing in his room listening to audio tapes, story books. Um, I just got really used to that and I actually really enjoy my own company. I really, really fucking enjoy my own company. And that's great because... now I have this wonderful platform where other people get to hear a slightly censored, filtered, polished version of the stuff that I get to say to myself as I walk around the house. (laughs) That's cool. I guess the other thing is, especially this year, it's a new type of bravery. Um, I don't think that... I think we have a poor definition of bravery, and my preparedness to do and face deep emotional work, uh, is one of the things that I'm most proud of that's recent. Um, and that feels much more self-authored. Like, the thinking thing is cool and I'm sure that lots of you love playing with ideas inside of your own mind, but in many ways, you don't get to choose that. That's just, like, the thing that you love. Um, it's not hard. It's like eating an ice cream or something. It's really enjoyable. Uh, something that is hard and I'm really, really fucking proud of, or one of my favorite things, is that I've been prepared to show up this year and, like, face emotional challenges, and I've not hidden from them. I've not run from them. Uh, sometimes I've put them off and delayed, but I- I've dedicated myself in a way this year and I've shown up open-heartedly, uh, in a manner that I never have before. And I'm really, really fucking proud of that. Moilefrites931, "Why do you think your reach is so wide? I'm French, living in a small town in Normandy." Uh, bonjour. I don't know. I... (laughs) Me and Dean always had this thing for ages where we said the channel is criminally undersubscribed, and you know, we're cranking away at 10,000 subs after two years and 100,000 subs after four years. And I just couldn't... I'm like, "Fuck, am I missing something here?" 'Cause I really think these conversations are important, but I still think that they're important. I still think that trying to work out how to live a good life, not taking it too seriously, striving for a lot, but this new angle I've had over the last sort of 24 months or so of realizing that life's happening right now and taking it steady. I think that's... I think it is a delicate balance that's not very sexy. It's not, it's not superbly sexy as a, like an offering modern wisdom, I don't think, if you actually listen to what it is fully, truly about, because it's not sufficiently reductive to be hustle grind set mode. It's not, like, flimsy and whimsical enough to just be sort of philosophy bro abstract idea mode. It's not super optimizer enough to be Hubermanitia Brian Johnson, but it's also not laissez-faire enough to be fucking Finn Versus History. And I sit somewhere in the middle of all of this stuff, but I think, at least for me, that complexity of I want to strive for a lot, but I don't want to miss my life. I want to optimize, but not, like, become a perfe- a perfectionist and over-optimize. I think this is a lot of people. I think it's more people than has been priced in by the market, and I'm just... I'm speaking to them and hopefully they're growing with me. Ayoubguerziri, uh, "Tell us about your push-ups on stage." Some dude fucking said, have I trained today? And I hadn't, and he said, "Do you wanna do 50 push-ups with me?" So we did 50 push-ups, and I realized that that would turn into a David Goggins moment. Uh, and it did, and it was cool, and I'm glad that I did it. Idmar Janelia, "Do you get jealous?" Yeah. Yeah, all the time. I- I... Someone criticized my use of the word jealousy. Uh, it, I think it's envy, not jealousy. Jealousy is not wanting someone else to have something in case they take it from you, and envy is wanting what someone else has. I can't... I don't quite know. Um, yeah, all the time. All the time. I have envied very much this year people who have had the energy that I haven't, who have got to, uh, live exciting lives in a manner that I feel I deserve to and have worked to, but it's been taken from me. Um... I, for a good while, uh, envied people who had the freedom to travel because I was tied down by a, a very intense job that, you know, running my own company. Uh, and I still am, but now I just get to travel too. So yeah, I- I- I do get jealous, but, um, I try and direct it in the right ways. And when, when I'm on my meditation and stuff's going well, it doesn't really come up that much. I'm pretty happy. I'm pretty happy with, like, where things are at. I have work to do on the sensation of happiness, but I'm pretty happy with where things are at. Kerhails, "What is your biggest accomplishment in 2025?" Huh... Not giving up, not stopping, not giving in, not compromising what I knew to be true and the direction I wanted to move in, simply because it was gonna be painful in order to get there. Um, it's not been easy. It's not been an easy year, and that's fine. Not- they're not all supposed to be easy, but I kept going. I kept going with my health. I kept going with the emotional work. I kept going with personal life. I kept going with professional life, and uh, I held it all together. And sometimes it slipped through my fingers, but I- I managed to grab ahold of it again.Veronica Danner: "How do you find the balance between having high standards for yourself and being rigid or unforgiving with other people? I push myself hard and expect a lot of myself. While I know everyone isn't like that, I struggle with being patient and understanding of people who are undriven and complain about how their life isn't what they want it to be, especially when they try to give me a hard time for trying hard because, 'You don't have to do that, you know.' How do you honor your own drive while still respecting other people's not-so-driven attitude?" "Especially when they give me a hard time f- a hard time for trying because you don't have to do that, you know." (sighs) Yeah, yeah. Well, what's happening here, there's a couple of things going on. So, um, this sounds a little bit like externalized perfectionism, so I think there's three different types of perfectionism. Go back and listen to the perfectionism episode, which I did about six weeks ago. It's really great. There's also an article in Variety which might help with this. Um, externalized perfectionism, uh, is, as far as I can see, like, fear. "If I need those people to do it in order for me to feel supported." Another part is, um, this sense of being on the outside, of being judged for something that you know is virtuous because you're doing high standards, pushing hard, completing a lot, and other people are slowing you down. They're literally, like, chipping away at your own motivation. "You don't have to do that, you know." Um, I think a great boundary to set around this... Th- there, there are sort of two elements. The second one is an easier boundary to set. Uh, you saying, "You don't have to do that, you know," it's so easy to give some snappy reply which is like, "Well, you wouldn't be able to do it anyway, so fucking someone has to." It's so easy to just give this, like, very bitter, backbitey, passive-aggressive sort of reply, and I- I'm sure that you don't wanna do that. With that one, I would just, I would just call it out and say, "Hey, um, I really need more support from you than I'm getting. When I am working hard, even if I'm complaining about doing this, what I really need from you is for you to believe in me and enthuse me and tell me that I've got this and that I can keep going. That's what I need from you, even if you're not doing it. And if the way that I'm showing up and the way that I'm working is triggering something in you and you don't feel comfortable with me behaving this way, I would rather that you didn't say anything or didn't comment about it. Um, I'm sorry I'm trying to achieve big things, and I don't want to make you feel not enough for not trying to go after them yourself, but motivation's a tenuous thing, and I really want, I really want you to be there for me, and I would love to bring you along for the ride too. Uh, but if you can't do that, I understand, but I can't have you... You are not allowed to remind me that I can have lower standards for myself." I think that would be a cool boundary to set and should be sufficiently, uh, enthusing to other people if they really care about you. Um, if you say as well, "I would love to do this with you. I would love for you to come along with me," like, this offering, this opening up, I think especially in relationships, if you're in a relationship with someone and you wanna do a ton of personal development and they're worried because every time you do personal development you change, and what if you change and you leave them, if you say to them, if you just open up the door to say, "I really think that this would be great for us to do together, I want us to do this as a team, I want you to be a part of this, and I would love for us to... Why don't we start, uh, g- g- getting up and going to the gym early? Why don't we start a run club? Why don't we sh- we should go to a run club together," or whatever the fuck it is that you're trying to do. "Why don't we learn together? Read a book together before we go to... before we watch Netflix?" You can do this with friends as well and try and bring them in. That would be a way to raise them up. If that's not an option and you're just, "I am frustrated with the fact that other people are lazy and not that motivated," it's a tough one, and I get it, but you just need to get over it because they're not gonna change. People do not change when you tell them to. They will almost never change when you tell them to. You can give them the advice. You can sort of show them the way, but it's very rare that they're gonna change if you start pointing the finger at them. They'll just dig their heels in more. So set your boundaries around yourself. Uh, realize that your way is not the way for everyone. Um, try and make light of it would be another one as well. Just laugh. It's like, "F- fuck. I... Here I am again. Like, all my friends are out at dinner, and, uh, I- I- I guess I'm gonna spend the evening reading this fucking book." Cool. All right. Here we go again. That's fine. That's fine. It'll be worth it. Han... Hane- Hanifa Oba: "Hey, Chris, the magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding, and the answers you're looking for are in the silence you're avoiding, are ideas I feel got hammered into my head because of you this year. For context, I'm in my early 20s. At this point in my life, how can I know the difference between avoiding something because something needs to be done about it and avoiding something because it has caused enough pain to know it needs to be avoided for your own sake? (laughs) To clarify..." Thank you. Uh, "How do I know when I'm avoiding something because I need to face it to grow versus avoiding something because it's genuinely harmful or draining me? P.S. Congratulations on every milestone you hit. I hope you celebrate the big wins as well as you do the smaller ones." Awesome question. Okay. Super easy. Well, no, sorry. Super easy analogy and really fucking difficult to deal with. Spoiler alert. Um, how do I know if I'm, uh, not doing this next repetition in the gym because I'm being a pussy? How do I know if I'm not doing it because this next repetition is going to injure me? Um, unfortunately, this is a question... First off, this is a question I get asked a lot. Um, the fear that I might be a bitch is, uh, present in the mind of every overachiever, and it is not an easy... It is not an easy decision to make.The way that I do it has been through experience. Uh, you're in your early 20s, um, what it seems like you're trying to do here is work out intuitively, uh, something that you have a limited amount of intuition around. In my early 20s, my intuition did not exist. I was really struggling, because I didn't, I hadn't accumulated sufficient life experience to be able to tap, what- what fucking intuition am I tapping into? I don't have any i- intuition. So, what I would do if I was you is just set rules. Set rules for yourself. Um, you're going to stick to this thing, this new habit, this training protocol, this- this... You're gonna give this relationship a chance for this amount of time, and then you're going to step back. So, think system two versus system one, in Daniel Kahneman speak, right? Deliberate versus automatic. And you're gonna have to be very deliberate the earlier that you are in life, because you can't use as much intuition as me or as much intuition as someone who's 57 or 87, because you haven't accumulated the repetitions yet. So, think about system two, be procedural, set yourself structure, rules, learn, go on ChatGPT, go on YouTube, listen to my podcast, listen to some old Peterson, whatever it is that you're looking at, go, "Okay, I can kind of outsource my thinking a little bit here." But once you have, you need to construct rules. You need to construct a little framework, a blueprint that you're going to follow. And over time, after you've done that, you will know what too much and too little feels like. But you're trying to, uh, find an intuitive balance answer to something that you do not have enough experience trying to balance on it yet. Um, now you may have fucking tons of experience and I might be pandering and- and- and talking down to you. You might be the most experienced early 20-year-old in the world. Um, but even if you were, this lesson still holds true within your life. You will have better experience in more time. So, do the learning, create a structure, follow a blueprint for yourself that's, you know, done from a place of love. And, um, I think that you should be able to work out... Like, I- I wouldn't be doing, "Does this feel good or not?" I would just say just fucking commit to it. Um, draining is fine. Genuinely harmful is different. If it's draining you, you're, uh, fucking 23. It doesn't matter. Like, you will be fine. You can be drained for the next decade and still have so much in the tank. Uh, genuinely harmful is slightly different. And that is... If it's- if it's plaguing you for nights and nights on end and you're staying awake and you're angry about it, that might be a little bit too much. Andrew Bire- Bir- Biriched9555. Fuck. "Congrats, Chris. I have a question about this Freud quote you mentioned during a show in Toronto." Great to see another person from Toronto. "'One day, in retrospect, the struggle will strike you as most b- beautiful.' Are we doomed to never enjoy the journey, to only look fondly at the struggle when it is a distant memory, to never recognize and appreciate the good days until they're forever out of reach in the void of the past? If not, what tips do you have to help us stay anchored in the present and find beauty in the struggle here and now?" Ah. Andrew, what a fucking great question, dude. Yeah, that Freud quote, "One day, the struggle will strike you as most beautiful," it's brilliant. Um, unfortunately, there is a part of you that is going to experience and enjoy the past more than you did when you were going through it, at least as far as I can see. Um, one of the reasons is, in the moment, you have lots of fears and they're distracting, worries and concerns, and uncertainty, and that causes you to not enjoy stuff as much as you could. In the future, you are able to see all of the fears, the million fucking panoply cornucopia of fears that you could have worried about. None of them or one of them came to pass. So, you realize that all of your fears didn't need to be something to worry about. And all of the enjoyment that you can see how you should have enjoyed it back then was actually where you should have placed your time and your attention. Certainly, one of the problems that you come up against here is that you can romanticize the past, and you can grieve over not being there for experiences in the way that you wish that you were. Uh, and also, you can see them with a type of rose-colored glasses which they're not accurate. That's not actually how you felt at the time. You didn't feel that peaceful. You didn't feel that regulated. The sex wasn't that good. Uh, because of your fears, because of your uncertainty. And what you're basically saying is, "If I hadn't been me and my experience of life at the- in the past hadn't been that experience, could I go back and experience it differently? Because now, I don't feel the way that I did then emotionally, and I see the situation, and I wish that I could have enjoyed the situation then how I see, uh, with the equanimity of my emotional experience now." But right now, you're in an emotional experience which is, in some way, tarnishing or, uh, damaging what you're going through. So, what can we do? Tips to stay anchored in the present and find beauty in the struggle here and now. Remember that your future self is going to look at you right now through your memories. And whether it's with regret or fondness depends on how gentle and how present you can be. Spend less time on your phone. Find people to share it with. Laugh as best you can at the absurdity of the struggle. Uh, journal when things are good, not just when things are bad. Because there will be things that you have forgotten about how good they were-... not just bad things that you have forgotten about how bad they were, and now shout at yourself for having been so selfish as to have not realized that they should've been bad. I do think that this is kind of a curse of the thoughtful person that you are, you are going to not necessarily see the beauty in the struggle until after it's happened, and if you've got a really chronic version of this or an intense version of this, you won't see the beauty in the experience until after it's happened. Like, how many people that are performers, I know tons of performers, musicians, artists, stuff like that, that are on stage, and, uh, if I ask them about, like, what happened during that show, they wouldn't be able to tell you anything. They don't know anything about what happened in Berlin in 2024, but there was a thousand people there in front of them. 10,000, 50,000. How could you not remember that? Mm-hmm. Because just becomes this sort of whitewash thing. Maybe they were worried about a relationship that they were in or maybe they, their parent was ill or maybe they were just tired that day or maybe they'd had, like, a weird email from someone from their past. You go, "God, I missed my life. I missed my life," during that moment, that month, that year, that decade, 'cause I was so distracted by that thing. So one other thing. What are the things that you know are detracting from your experience in the moment? What are the persistent thoughts, the repetitive, boring, uh, overdone thoughts that are regularly causing you to be distracted and not in the moment? Happiness can't exist when you're uncertain, and it can't exist when you want things to change much. If you want things to be different, it's gonna be real hard to be happy, and if you don't know what the future brings, it's gonna be real hard to be happy, so work on those two things first. That's a great question. Clicksy, "I know that my tendency to fall in love is a lot quicker than others because of my childhood and always feeling like I needed to beg for attention or love. Father divorced seven times," holy fuck, "I never got to see what real love should look like. How do I know if I'm leaning into my preset conditions that are embedded in me from a child or if I've actually found true love and the one for me? Is the spark real, do you just know right away, or is it something you build? Am I falling too hard because it's easy and comfortable and is allowing my inner child to feel loved, or is it because it's actually meant to be?" Dude. Oh, what a fucking cool question. Father divorced seven times. Well, first off, man, I, um, I really feel for you, you know? That's, that's not an easy environmental or genetic preset to, to deal with. Um, there is a malady or, not necessarily a malady, but, like, a psychological disposition where people tumble through the levels of attract- of attachment more quickly. Arthur Brooks spoke about it. If you listen to my Arthur Brooks episode from halfway through this year, you'll be able to find out about it, he explains it. Um, here's what I would do. Set a bunch of negotiable and non-negotiables for your partner. Typically, this doesn't work. Like, people say you can't have a yes and no list for a decision like this. You need to, uh, y- you just, when you know, you know. Problem is, and you've identified it brilliantly, a lot of self-work and reflection here which I'm really impressed by, your attachment system is so finely attuned and becomes turned on so quickly that your ability to discern almost immediately gets thrown out of the window. So, I would, I would set up a bunch of rules and, and, and preferences and I would use way more scrutiny early on in the relationship. You should treat yourself in love like a drug addict. You will at some point in the not too distant future after you meet this person if you keep seeing them and keep enmeshing yourself with them, you will become a drug addict and they are the drug, and you will not be able to think straight and you will not be able to use your reason. So while you still have your faculties intact, you need to scrutinize aggressively. So, uh, I would keep dates short, I would actually limit contact early on, um, I would have your set of rules, and I would do the scrutiny thing. Um, I would basically do the inverse of that, like, list of questions, uh, to make somebody fall in love with you. I would be as deep as you like to be, but I wouldn't push it too quickly to just give yourself, (gasps) just a tiny little bit more breathing room, and then, uh, what that should do is allow you to just stave off a tiny little bit more, then you're gonna check against your list, what were the lessons that you learned from the last time this happened that went well, that went badly. Um, but, dude, I, uh, when you find the right partner, when you find the right one, which you will, you are going to be able to fucking blow her off her feet because of how deeply you feel. You just need to treat that depth like a, the precious gift that it is. Um, all right. I'm gonna love you and leave you. Um, fuck. 2025, what a, what a mad 12 months. Uh, thank you all for being here. Happy New Year. Happy 2026. New studio is going to be here soon, new merch shop will be here soon. Annual review at chriswillex.com/review. Reading lists at /books and /morebooks, and new tour Australia, New Zealand, and Bali in March and April, the UK and maybe some Europe and Ireland in October, and I'm gonna keep going, and I'm not gonna stop, and I'm gonna keep on, I'm gonna keep on showing up, and I'm gonna keep on asking important questions of myself and of other people. And I really, really, really appreciate you all being here. It means an awful lot. You've changed my life with the device that fucking sits in your pocket. And, uh, going into the next year feeling super grateful, and I hope that you do too. All right. I love you. Bye.