450k Q&A - Joe Rogan, NoFap & Andrew Tate vs Jordan Peterson

I think that a lot of people now are just behaviorally compulsive when it comes to spending time on their phone. If you've ever done this, this is part of the compulsion, right? You're on a plane, you pull your phone out of your pocket, you know that you don't have signal, and yet you still cycle through a bunch of the different apps that you would do usually. You know that there's no payoff coming. That's not part of the addiction, that's part of the compulsion. (jet engine roaring) What's happening, people? Welcome back to the show. It is a 450,000 subscriber Q&A episode. I know it's not been long since the 400,000 episode, but it's been a good run this year, okay? And after 500, it's going to be every 100,000 subs that we do Q&As. So this is the last little one that we're going to do. As usual, I asked for questions on Instagram and YouTube and Locals and Twitter, and it took assistant Ben an entire day to put them into a document. So if yours doesn't get answered today, I am sorry. I tried to condense them down so that lots of questions about Rogan or Andrew Tate or whatever have been (laughs) pushed into individual ones. Uh, and if yours doesn't get answered, then next time. 500 isn't too far away. Let's get into it. Noob Gateau, fucking what a username. "Thoughts on NoFap?" I don't know, man. Like, NoFap to me seems like it makes sense for people that are pathological fappers. If you've got your hand on your penis for many hours a day, or you're scrolling through Pornhub a lot, then simply by stopping doing that, you're going to free up perhaps two hours, maybe more. And that's going to give you a lot of productivity be- benefits. However, I don't think that the levitating off the ground and women being able to smell your pheromones and testosterone through the roof... I'm a little bit more cautious around that. So I, I, I don't have a particular aversion to NoFap, but I'm also not a fanboy. Johnny Quche, "You sent an article to Chris Kavanagh about audience capture and other phenomena. Do you feel that any of these are applicable to yourself or are there any that you guard against?" Yes. I think that any creator, Chris and myself included, would agree that audience capture is a big deal that you need to be careful of. For people that don't understand, uh, when you are a creator and you start making stuff on the internet, you find that certain pieces of content end up resonating more with the audience. And that can create a feedback mechanism where you stop creating what you want to create and instead create what the audience wants to see. So this is like the sold out grifter shill, like, red meat for the whatever mob thing that people get accused of. Uh, and the problem is that once you start to go down that path, it's basically impossible to turn back around. Uh, I think that it's permanently a, a dynamic that I need to be conscious of, and I try as best as I can. It's difficult because people can resonate with an episode because it's genuinely amazing and interesting and adds value, or they can resonate with an episode because it's red meat, clickbait, lowest common denominator, limbic hijack bullshit. Working out which ones which is, is kind of difficult. However, being friends with someone like Chris and a bunch of other people helps to keep me in check because they're not going to take my excuse about why I did X, Y, or Z. Uh, and just you have a felt sense, you have an understanding like, look, am I doing this because I genuinely care about what this person has to say and I think that they're interesting and I'm curious about them? Or is it because I know that it's going to get clicks and I don't care about them or it's against my morals? Like, playing that balance is what's important. Alexander Rosenfeld, "What do you invest in? Crypto, real estate, stocks or something else?" So almost all of my spare net worth is in real estate. I've got a bunch of properties in the UK. Massive fan of buy-to-lets, and that's been something I learned from the business partners I had when I was in Club Promo. That was their process for building up cash and then putting it into something which hedges against inflation, which actively earns, which can be capital gains over time. Uh, but I'm not, I'm not super optimized when it comes to the way that my money is moved around. Real, real estate to me is something that's good, but... And then stocks and stuff, I've put some money into the S&P. Crypto, I've got maybe five grand. I had five grand in there, which is probably like one grand now. Um, but yeah, real estate for me is where I like to put my money. I understand it, it's safe as far as I can see. Uh, and yeah, the fact that you have a capital gains generating asset that actually creates revenue in the interim as well is pretty cool. Fuck me. Tadkvi- Tadkviki? "What was it like being on JRE after looking up to him for so long and having listened to so many episodes of his? I found the episode fantastic by the way, so congratulations and well done." Thank you. Uh, it was a little bit surreal being on it, but nowhere near as surreal as I thought it probably would have been. Um, the whole experience was dope. He, we mean, me and him have been texting a good bit since I got off, and I look forward to seeing what happens in the future with him. Like, he's a dope guy. He is an unbelievably competent podcaster as well. Like, you think as someone that knows what they're doing, you think like, "I've done 500 episodes of this, I've got myself to a position where I genuinely understand the art form." And then you step into the arena with somebody like him and you go, "Oh, holy fuck, there's levels to this." His ability to be very casual and meandering with the conversation whilst still keeping it moving. His use of silence is fantastic. Um, his ability to ask questions and push when he needs to, to sit back. He's able to prompt responses with statements rather than questions, which is unbelievably cool. Uh, the guy's a boss and I'm happy that I'm connected with him, I'm happy that we're texting, and I'm really, really happy that he was super, uh, enthusiastic about meeting me and hearing lessons and stuff that I've created. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's been a good few weeks.Lewis, "Lex Fridman is already booked, I hope." Uh, so me and Lex are buddies, but, uh, he is also trying to create a robot army or whatever it is that he does. So podcasting isn't the number one priority that he's got. And given that, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. That being said, the rest of this year has some... I've got three bookings that are just outrageous for the remainder of 2022. What can I say about them? I can say that one will be in Austin, one will be in New York, and one will be in Las Vegas. Those are the three that we've got. Um, they're not dates and timed in yet, so I can't quite release it, but they're beyond huge. And the one in, the final one, uh, in Vegas is just insane. So, yeah, hold on for that one. And Lex hopefully, at some point. Communist Cat, "Is it correct that you're in the Austin, TX area?" Yes, it is. Uh, "I remember that there was a get-together some time ago. It would be cool to do that on somewhat of a regular basis. Maybe once a quarter or every month or two, or maybe virtual in a Zoom-type call." This is from The Locals Community, modernwisdom.locals.com. And yes, we did do a meetup and it was very, very fun. And I did it with Rob Henderson, my good friend, and we just had a blast. And maybe between 50 and 100 people turned up. It was a lot of people, a hell of a lot of people, and everyone was super interesting and super smart. I would be well up for doing that again. So yeah, keep your eyes peeled, I guess, if you're in the Austin area. Uh, also back in the UK in September for a couple of weddings and a couple of other recordings that I've got. So I might try and do something in the UK, but it's probably going to be too tight. So UK might have to be next year. Claire McLeod, "What resources did you use or training did you undertake to develop your speaking and conversation skills for your show?" So I think I might have mentioned this before, but a big part of it was simply just putting the reps in with the show itself. So, you know, 500 and whatever it is, 10, 20 episodes within the space of four years. I can do anything 500 times and you're, you're probably gonna get pretty good at it. Uh, I also started working with a speech therapist, a guy called Miles Usher. If you Google Speak Well, I think is his company, might be speakwell.org or speakwell.co.uk. Um, he's fantastic. I have had some, uh, comedy coaching. I've had a bunch of comedy coaching actually, and I'm considering going to start doing some improv stuff as well. You have to remember that people like Rogan, right, they've greased the groove and sharpened their tools of communication and presence, and yes and style communication. They've done all of that on stage h- thousands of times before they even started doing podcasting. The difference is, if you haven't got that stage-type background where you've had classical training or professional training or whatever, the only way that you can do that with podcasting is to practice in public. And that means that all of your errors are there (laughs) for people to observe and scrutinize and laugh at over time. But one of the beautiful things is that it means it's tracked, that progression. You know, you can see episode 150, 100, 150, 200, 250, and you can see how that skill set develops over time. Which is cool, 'cause you don't... You know, moving from one movie to the next, it's not sufficiently frequent to be able to see the iterations. Um, but yeah, those are the main things. And it's also been very intentional about it as well. Like, I've genuinely tried to become better at speaking and conversation and getting comfortable with silence and all of that stuff. Sirus, "Is your accent considered to be Geordie? Do you think it'll become more Texan now that you live in Austin?" Um, I would say that it's a twang of Northern. People that really, really know the, uh, Northeast of England as accents go will detect a bit of Teesside in there, uh, rather than Geordie. I don't think that most people would. People in the UK would probably detect that I was from somewhere up North, but they wouldn't really be able to say where. Uh, I definitely do- (laughs) don't think that it's going to become more Texan. I have started picking up some Texan slang. Well, it's more American slang just because it was words that I would have to say twice. So I can't say, um, "Drop me off just outside of those bins there," because there's bins outside of the house that I live in in Austin that... Trash cans, right? Or like outside of those, like outside of the trash. Uh, or talking about, um, dollars, using dollars instead, instead of talking about pounds. Like, just little things. It's terminology that I've had to change. But, uh, in terms of accent, I, I can't see me picking that up. Silent Seeker, "To become the current podcast king, you need to fight either Joe Rogan or Mike Tyson in a no-rules bout. Who would you choose and why? Do you have any martial arts training or would you be eyes closed windmilling in?" Um, fuck, that's a good question. So I watched Joe have his knee... He had a bump on his knee, like a, um, bruise. The first thing that happened when I arrived at the studio was he came in, shook my hand, said hi, and then his nurse that's on site at all times poked a hole in his knee and I watched him squeeze, like, bruise fluid out of his knee for 10 minutes. I really don't want to s- be anywhere near an angry version of that guy. Uh, I think Mike Ty- Didn't Mike Tyson say that he was on the verge of death recently? There was headlines talking about how Mike Tyson was adamant he was nearly going to die. I still think Mike Tyson's gonna be an angry, angry guy. But if I can somehow incapacitate the arms, I reckon I've got him at the legs. So I'm, I'm gonna take Mike. Uh, and strategy, just, just run at him very, very fast, hope that he gets tired, smokes a lot of weed, try and catch him on a Sunday or something when he's blazed out of his mind. I, I, I don't know. Ahead of The Zeitgeist, "Do you think you've been disadvantaged by your looks?" That's a good question. I was, uh, lamenting the difficulty of somebody that comes from a modeling or reality TV background for being taken seriously in the world of...... whatever you want to call this, like, sensemaking or, or, or talking on the internet, right? That it can cause people to have, um, presumptions about what it is that you're going to talk about or about the quality of your insights because you have a particular look or whatever. I've kind of come to realize that it's j- that's just a difficult, like, needle to thread to be able to say, "Yeah, like, the fact that you come from a modeling background actually makes everything more difficult." Like, maybe it does, but it's very difficult to say that a person who came from an ugly background would not be more disadvantaged than someone that came... Like, just because many professors might not have super cool drip doesn't mean (laughs) doesn't mean that they've got a better advantage than people that come from other backgrounds. So no, I think overall, no. The halo effect is real, you know, people that are, whatever, like, classically good-looking or something have better outcomes throughout their lives. It's supposedly. (sniffs) And I don't know, stuff seems to go well for a lot of my friends that are good-looking, so maybe that's it. Maybe it's, maybe all of the intellectual virtue, integrity-building wisdom stuff is horseshit, and maybe everyone's just being judged on their looks for the rest of time. Madeleine Keiley: "What are the main insights you've gained from Joe Rogan Experience?" Um, w- so many. Like, I reflected a lot about this, uh, in the week after I recorded with Joe, uh, a lot of the stuff to do with his ability, and I've tried to bring the elements of that that I think I'm lacking across into the show, so I'm trying to be more casual, more conversational. In terms of actual insights from the conversation, the main one that I took away, which I put in the Three-Minute Monday newsletter, and if you're not subscribed, you can go and sign up right now, it's chriswillx.com/books, free reading list with 100 books that you should read before you die, and it signs you up to my mailing list. And a lot of the things that I spoke about on Rogan, I've written in that newsletter over the last two years. They've been concepts that I've come up with or stolen from elsewhere or pieced together, a- and the one that I came up with there is just because something is difficult to attain doesn't mean that it's valuable. So, Rogan was talking about the fact that, um, a lot of people would hold up in high acclaim the watch that you're wearing or the car that you're driving or the girl that you're with, and people get confused and believe that that is something which is worthwhile simply because it's difficult to attain. But then you attain it and you realize, hang on a second, this isn't actually worthwhile, it's just hard, and the, um, challenge of getting it is used as a proxy for the value of it. And I was like, "Holy fu-" I got there before he finished saying it, and I was like, "This is amazing." So, that was the best insight, that was, like, three and a half hours sat down with him, that one insight was worth it, 100%. Bcouch37: "How do you retain all of the knowledge and insights that are introduced to you on your show?" I don't. Uh, there's this concept from Tim Ferriss called... (laughs) Look at me using a concept from Tim to explain how concepts don't stick in my mind. There's an idea from Tim Ferriss called "the good shit sticks," and that is the best solution that I've found. If you're someone that consumes a lot of content on the internet and you don't have the type of demeanor that has a perfect external brain, personal knowledge management system thing like Tiago Forte or Ali Abdaal, if you don't have that, just allow the good shit, the stuff that resonates with you existentially, to stick about, because it will. The, the insights, like that one from Rogan about worthwhile and valuable, I can't not remember it. Like, I, I couldn't forget it even if I wanted to. And I think a lot of the time, we see something that doesn't resonate with us, and we presume that because it's interesting or cool maybe or said by somebody that we think is respectable or has a good insight about life that we should remember it, because, I don't know, maybe we'll need it in future? And maybe that's true, but for the most part, I think we consume more information, we consume too much, not too little, and given that the golden rule is about filtering, not seeking, so it's about getting signal from the noise as opposed to getting more noise. And for me, the best solution that I've found, and maybe this is a cope, right? Maybe it's a cope that I don't have a structured personal knowledge management system, but just allowing the stuff that really resonates with me to stick about, and everything else just falls away. So, the reason that the ideas that I got to talk about specifically on Rogan but also on the show, the reason that I know them so well is 'cause I genuinely care about them. There's not much that's in my mind that's something that's there simply as a story that I can bring up. It's because it was something that was super meaningful to me, and I thought, "Fuck, like, I need to keep ahold of that." That's the best solution that I've found. Just allow the stuff that you care about to rise to the top. Maybe do a little bit of studying, you know, revisit it every so often. Certainly, the newsletter for me is a hugely important way, because I have to teach it, kind of. I teach it to myself, I guess. I'm only writing to me, there just happens to be, like, 40,000 people on a mailing list that are listening to it too. Having an outlet is great, you know, the Feynman technique of teaching in order to be able to remember yourself. But just allow the good shit to stick. I think that works. Delia Burgess: "How long did you grind away at Modern Wisdom before you felt like it really gained traction?" Oh. Uh. So, I think we did more plays in a single day on YouTube one, like, many of the days so far in 2022 than in the entire first two years, maybe even the first three years, of the entire channel. Uh, I certainly know that I did more plays this week on audio than the entire first year or first two years of audio plays. So, basically forever, like, that's the, um, that's the way that any exponential curve looks, right? That every time that you start to zoom out a little bit more and move a bit further along the curve, the previous however long looks paltry because it's just flat. Everything becomes flat, flat, flat, and then it's just this hockey stick. So forever, basically. Like, we've, me and Dean have worked in-... relative silence and darkness for three years, three and a bit years, probably until the Peterson episode, but Peterson was like episode 360 something, I think. So (laughs) we've done a hell of a lot of work up until the point at which we're no longer completely invisible. And then even looking at- back at the plays that Peterson got back in the day, whatever, April 2021, th- what we do now, now makes that look tiny. So basically, if you want to do something like a podcast or a YouTube channel, don't expect immediate results but expect huge results if you keep on sticking at it five years down the line, because most people have already given up by that point. "Lewis, why don't you have more followers? All of the content I've seen of yours is of highest quality with stimulating conversation between thoughtful individuals, even after the mecca that is Joe Rogan. Keep up the hard work. Cheers." Cheers to you, Lewis. Uh, I don't know, man. Like, uh, th- literally what I just said, it's a very, very long game to get to any appreciable size of growth. And especially on YouTube, you have to think, even though you guys that are listening and me, I adore long form conversations. I can sit and listen to Lex go on with somebody for four hours or Rogan do a big episode, but that's not what most of the internet is after. Most of the internet is bored by TikToks. You know, like there's comments on the YouTube channel that says, "Who's got the time to sit and listen to an hour and a half conversation?" Well, obviously not you. So it's still an unbelievably niche, um, medium to be pushing stuff down. Think about even TV hasn't caught up with this. TV needs to split up segments into two to three minutes so that they can get to the next ad break within the next 10. I think that we will get there, I'm confident in the conversations, the skill set that me and Dean have built up, the workflow that we've built up, like everything's there. It's just a case now of continuing to enjoy the ride, find new interesting people, get better at what I need to do, network more, bring on fantastic guests, try and do new different things like the high quality productions and bring in people that no one's ever heard of before. That's it. It's just a case of playing the time game. The more followers will come, and it's got to the stage now where I'm pretty confident that that's going to happen. So I don't have anything to worry about. Like, more followers are going to continue to arrive. We've passed the threshold where I think I could even stop them from arriving, so all I've got to do is enjoy the journey, I think. NotLeoTolstoy, uh, (laughs) "Thoughts on TikTok? I saw a couple of podcasts, read their policies, even your Instagram pinned video talks about that. Do you think it's manipulative and making a generation addicted?" Yes, absolutely. I do not like TikTok. I do not use it. Uh, the m- social media guys that look after the short videos that I make post on it on my behalf, and I do not- I don't like going on there. It is perfectly designed to keep people on there. I'll never forget, me and George Mac were in Dubai two years ago, and there was this girl that George was talking to in a bar, and, uh, they got onto screen time or something and he said, "Oh, can I- can you show me how much time you spend on your phone?" And this girl spent 12 hours a day on her phone, and George went and had a look, and it was eight hours a day on TikTok. Absolutely fucking wild. Like how... on earth anybody thinks that that is a good way to spend your time. And it- it's not just an addiction, it's a compulsion. And this is a difference that I've learned from, uh, Andrew Huberman that the addiction involves a payoff. The compulsion doesn't have a payoff on the other side of it, and I think that a lot of people now are just behaviorally compulsive when it comes to spending time on their phone. Like how many times... If you've ever done this, this is part of the compulsion, right? You're on a plane, you pull your phone out of your pocket, you know that you don't have signal, and yet you still cycle through a bunch of the different apps that you would do usually. Well, you know that there's no payoff coming, that's not part of the addiction, that's part of the compulsion. So yeah, I- I don't like TikTok. I think that if the opportunity was there, it's 100% a net negative, just burn it to the ground. MMA Wrapped Up, "Why do men have OnlyFans?" I'm gonna guess that you mean why do men pay for OnlyFans as opposed to why do- why are there men on OnlyFans selling their nudes. I think it's sad, lonely men that are being commercialized by girls that can do. Like, um, part of you thinks, "Well, is it on the girls to not do that? These guys are willingly paying them." Uh, they- it's like the virtual girlfriend experience thing, but it's a sad state of affairs, the fact that we've managed to get ourselves to that- that position. And for all of the talk of the patriarchy and capitalist greed, I think it's l- like 10% of OnlyFans models make 95% of the income, something like that. It's hugely skewed towards the top few. And you have to think that this is basically the reverse of a polygynous society where you would have one man with many women, because here you have one woman with many men. And a lot of these men are actually going to feel, I don't know, some sense of obligation or connection with this woman. So there's a power dynamic that's been changed there, which is pretty interesting. Eddie Fresh, "Do you consider yourself to be part of the manosphere?" I don't know what that is, to be honest. I brought it up to Joe, he laughed. Um, I really don't know wh- it would all depend on whose, uh, definition of that it is. If manosphere means people that are having interesting conversations on the internet about the roles of men and women in modern society, yes, that would be me. If it's men being (sighs) assisted in understanding their place in the world and how to moderate their behavior given the new, uh, stimulus and the new environment that we have, yes, that would also be part of it.... but, like, the whole red pill, black pill, incel, MGTOW, fresh and fit, PUA stuff is not... that's not my vibe. Like, I'm not bringing on girls to berate them and tell them that they're hypergamous and all of that stuff. But, I do want there to be an interesting conversation about how men can have a firmer place to stand in the world. I think that that's a valuable conversation to have. I think that it means that women will have better men to get into relationships with. Women are the ones that are single because men are the ones that are unable to get into (laughs) relationships. Like, it- it's not good for anybody at the moment, and I do think that women are, on average, doing better than men. That doesn't mean that women need to be brought down. That means that we need to be able to help to raise men up. And I think that a lot of the manosphere is focused on bringing women back down as opposed to helping men, to focus on just, look, get as better as you can. That's not to say that men don't have problems. That's not to say that there aren't, um, asymmetries in the way that the world is designed or that, um, particular groups have been raised up. My point is simply that men need to do as well as they can, and they need to be playing a positive sum game as much as possible in collaboration with women. And that communication across the board, from men to women, is one of the reasons why I keep on bringing on girls on the show, Nina Power, Louise Perry, Mary Harrington. I'm talking to women about men's problems in a desperate attempt to s- to show that you can have conversations about this. I think that's very important. AndyFarrell5, "Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate need to have a conversation. Thoughts?" Do they? What would they talk about? What would, what would Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson talk about? Like, Andrew is blowing up on the internet at the moment. He recently got mainstream mediaed. Uh, they were trying to cancel him because of some stuff that came out a long time ago about Big Brother. That, I'm a Jordan Peterson fan, and me and Andrew have known each other for a long time. That conversation doesn't excite me. There's conversations that I would be interested to see Andrew have. I would be very interested to see him to s- talk to Logan or Jake Paul. Uh, I would be interested to see him sit down one-on-one with HasanAbi. Jordan Peterson doesn't excite me. Mark Speakman, "How did you feel receiving the (laughs) invite to Rogan/how did you prepare the night before?" Okay, so he DMed me on Instagram. So I'm recording the 400K Q&A in here for you guys, right? And I'm saying, "Someone asked, uh, when are you going on Rogan?" I was like, "Look, he followed me on Instagram, but I don't even know if the guy knows who I am." I honestly thought that it was an accidental follow or something. Then I finish that, I go to training, and I come back, and I find out that as I was saying, "I don't think Joe Rogan knows who I am," I received a message from Joe saying, "Hey, brother. Let's record a podcast," on Instagram. I was like, "Holy fuck," put the phone down and honestly looked at a wall for about three minutes, just didn't know what to say, and then (sighs) messaged Dean (laughs) and it was half 12. Messaged him a ton of times on Facebook Messenger. I was like, "Dean, are you up? Dean, are you up? I need to speak to you. Dean, are you up?" (laughs) He's like, "Yeah, what's wrong? What's happened?" I was like... sent him the screenshot. Uh, so it... kind of terrifying. It would... the m- the, the most scary thing of the whole Rogan process was the invite, because that was the biggest change, I think, in, um, expectation. Because you go from 0 to 100 on that. Everything else, you know, the preparation, the sitting down, the going into the studio, the meeting Jamie, all that stuff, like, that's just... once you're, once you're on the roller coaster, that's just part of you continuing down the tracks, right? Like, the invite was the most terrifying part. Uh, "How did you prepare the night before?" I got a taxi back from Dallas at f- midnight, and I got into Austin at 4:00 AM two days before, right? So, I was trying to fly back from Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia, flight canceled. Moved my flight to Newport News. Flight canceled. Moved my flight to Richmond, Virginia. Drove for an hour and 45 to get there, all thinking, "If I can just get to Austin tonight and sleep in my bed, I'll get one more night's sleep, and then I can do Rogan the next day." Got there. F- flight from Richmond gets delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed. Finally, actually managed to make it, and I'm thinking, "For fuck's sake, if I wake up in Richmond tomorrow morning with Rogan the day after that, I'm gonna feel... I'm gonna be worried. I'm gonna be concerned. I need to sleep and feel good, blah, blah." Got into Dallas at midnight, and then got an Uber for four hours from Dallas to Austin, which (laughs) cost 320 bucks, which wasn't that bad. But the guy drove a Tesla, so he had to stop twice en route. And, to be fair, the dude that gave me a lift was an absolute legend. Young kid, r- just did everything and anything that was needed to get me back. Uh, was doing push-ups and lunges during the break, so he's obviously into personal development. And if I ever see him again, I'm gonna buy him a beer, because h- that was a big part of it. Uh, woke up the next day, uh, and then managed to move myself into a, like, relatively okay sleep cycle. Got to sleep that final night and then, yeah, trained on the morning, felt great, went to Rogan's at, whatever, 1:00 PM or something, and then cracked on. Herseagrow, "Heard 350K pod, you mentioned not wanting to go past the level of fame. Any change?" Okay, yeah. So there's this, um, article from Tim Ferriss called 13 Reasons Not to Get Famous, and you should go and read it once you've finished listening to this, because it's very, very cool. He basically talks about what happens if you blast through a ceiling of fame. I actually told Rogan about this after the podcast when we were chilling out. And, um, r- I don't think it's a concern for me right now. I mean, I'm (laughs) not even small fr- I'm, like, so small. I'm like nano Fry. Um, but there definitely is a, such a thing as too much fame. Um, and I wouldn't like to go past it. The problem being that how do you stop? You know, if the thing that you do that you really value and care about is continuing to grow, what do you do? Do you try and...... be less effective at the growth of the thing that you really care about because maybe in two years time, you're going to be moving at such a speed that you can't stop it when you blast through some ceiling of fame that means that you can't go to public gyms anymore or whatever. It's such an interesting conversation because so few people have this problem. So few people have the problem of breaking through that and then for the people that do, there are basically no mental models or accepted wisdom ab- around how to deal with it. And also it's like a boo, it's like the, um, is it a disadvantage being good looking or whatever? Um, boohoo, who's gonna cry for the person that's got too much status or too much fame or too much recognition or money or something? Basically no one. But it is an interesting challenge. I mean, Andrew Tate has definitely blasted through way too much fame. Liver King, too much fame. You know, when you can't go anywhere without security, to me that seems like that's a heavy price to pay, uh, and you need to make sure that you have resources, like monetary resources, that allow you to live a life that is still comfortable, um, and not constrained by the constraints of fame. So for instance, if you don't have... If you can't go to the gym, a local commercial gym because you're gonna be mobbed by people that want photos or to ask you questions, you need to have had enough money come in in order to be able to build a gym at home, and maybe have a personal trainer or bring your friends round to do whatever. And the same thing goes for dinners. Like, you need to be able to have a private dining area every time that you want to go out if that's the thing that you want to do. It's a fascinating discussion. I really want to do a podcast with somebody about this. Uh, right now, not a concern, but definitely something that I keep in mind. Nick Rombuskis, "Favorite clothing brands?" I wear a lot of Zara, tons of Zara. That was... That's kept me going for probably a decade now. Uh, that is the only place in America (laughs) that I've managed to find that is, um, like, consistent with the European styles. A lot of the stuff that gets made for the American market, the sizing's different, the styling's different. It's kind of big and garish. And when it comes to sportswear, at the moment, I am all over the place because I'm in between sponsors. However, there will be a new sportswear sponsor coming on for Modern Wisdom very soon, uh, and I'm gassed to start working with them. Uh, but I've got stuff from Reebok, they're fantastic. ASOS, man, ASOS crush. ASOS own label for pretty much everything. I think it's called A506 or something, 4506 it might be. Yeah, 4506 is their sportswear brand and they make awesome shorts and they're £12 or £13 or something, and I got one of every single different color. I'm that guy. Jose Vargas, "What are your thoughts on Bitcoin and can I have half of what you own?" Uh, Jose, as I said earlier on, I maybe owned five grand of Bitcoin and there is not going to be very much left. So you can have, you could have all of it and it probably wouldn't touch the sides of your bank account. Tuono Carter, "You are so very British. How does that feel?" Uh, imperial. Ms. Q, "How old are you? I thought you were in your late 20s but you recently said something to make me think this is off." I'm 34, uh, but I'll take the compliment. Uh, the same week I think that I spoke about the moisturizer thing on this, the last Q&A, I got accused again of having had Botox, which is funny. Y- Yu... Joo-Yoon Jung, "What color is your Bugatti?" I need Tate to buy me one, apparently he's buying everyone one, so fuck it. Alvin Rivera, "I heard you're/were a creepy club promoter. Is it true?" I was a club promoter and a lot of club promoters are creepy. I think one of the problems that (laughs) you have as a club promoter is that your entire, um... the currency that you traffic in is direct messages, right? So you're messaging individual people saying, "Hi mate, are you out tonight? Hiya darlin', you out tonight? Hi mate, you out tonight?" Like that is literally how you get people from not being in a venue to being in a venue. If that constitutes being a club promoter, then I was the creepiest of them all but it also meant that we were the most successful, so par for the course. Aloo is Urky, "Russell Brand please." Uh, beginning to circle the outside of Russell Brand's stuff at the moment, but he's kind of gone a bit, like, New World Order, "They're coming for you. You won't believe what's happened. This is just the beginning." Like, I don't know. I would b- be very interested to have a sit down with him and go, "Look man, like, is there any way that you can ratchet down the volume that you're putting (laughs) out online? Because holy shit, like it's so spicy, like everything is the most extreme." So I don't know. Um, he's obviously got an, like a kind of an extremist personality that's somebody that went to the complete extreme of drug use, the complete extreme of dedicating himself to film. Did he have a sex addiction or was that only in the film Get Him to the Greek? I, I, I can't remember but interesting guy, lots of things to talk about. Would love to have him on the podcast but would also definitely need to challenge him about, "Come on man, like let's just fucking... Let's bring it down a little bit. A little bit of peace, you know?" Uh, LJ22, "Congratulations on 450,000. Apologies for the strange format of the question but hopefully it makes sense. Narrative one, Glastonby 2022 was headlined by an 80-year-old with special guests who were 72 and 53, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl respectively. In the same week this took place, Kate Bush was number one in the UK charts with a song that had originally been released 37 years earlier. Youth culture is suffering and these places, headlining Glastonby/occupying number one in the chart should be the preserve of p- people who aren't drawing a pension." That was in quotes. Narrative two, quote...""The content that the majority of young people will have consumed in the last 24 hours will have been created in the preceding 24 hours, hyper-novelty on a social media carousel, traveling at the speed of light, content that cannot claim legitimacy and cultural stamina as it won't have the opportunity to endure and be tested." End of quote. In your opinion, from a societal perspective, should both of these things cause us concern or does the existence of both simultaneously mean that there is no issue? Hmm. So narrative one is about the fact that older people and older pieces of content, i.e. like Lindy stuff, is popular at the moment. Narrative two, the concern is that most of the content everybody consumes is not Lindy. Um, I think that both of these things can be true without fixing the problem of the other. I don't have any issue with, um, like older musicians crushing it because young musicians are definitely crushing it. Like Beyonce's albums just come out, it was the most streamed album by a female ever in a single day, you know, lots and lots of young artists are doing absolutely fine as far as I can see, might be wrong. Um, totally sweet for Kate Bush to be number one in the charts with a 40-year-old song. That's pretty cool. The content that the majority of people have been consumed in the last 24 hours, being created in the last 24 hours isn't fixed by the fact that the stuff at the top of the tree is Lindy. Like you can have 99% of the content that's consumed to be not Lindy and then the 1% to be Lindy, i.e. like proven over a long period of time, that be the stuff that's the most visible or important or highest status and then the 99% be almost everything else and it'd be complete dross, just total limbic hijack bullshit, that, both of those things aren't f- there's no problem with the, uh, top end stuff that is not, that is, that fixes, sorry, there's no assistance at the top end stuff that fixes the bottom end stuff. No, basically we need to try and dial down how much content we consume. We need to encourage people to make longer, long form or at least long lifespan pieces of content that hopefully everyone is actually going to enjoy over time. Most of the stuff that everybody creates, they wouldn't even want to see or even remember in two months time and yet you've spent five seconds or 10 seconds or 15 seconds watching it. It's like, (sighs) that by definition is mindless. So I don't think that there is no issue. I still think that there is an issue and no amount of Kate Bush number ones is going to fix the fact that almost everything everyone consumes has been made in the last day. Malcolm Larry, "How many new subs/downloads after JRE?" Uh, don't know yet. Uh, right now today when I'm recording this, Modern Wisdom is number two in all podcasts in America which is fucking insane. Number two in all podcasts. It's number two in Canada ahead of the Full Send podcast and the Neltboys just had Elon Musk on their podcast? I have no idea what to think about that. But the YouTube is already doing great. Uh, that's been flying pretty much all year. Um, like there's spikes for sure, but it just increasing the growth trajectory. It's not, um, it was a big bump on audio, but video on YouTube is just a beast all of its own at the moment so, yeah, long live the growth trajectory. Uh, 51North, "Did you watch Love Island 2022?" I saw tiny snippets on, wha- i- nothing outside of Twitter. I saw stuff on Twitter and then my boy Khalad went on, so I watched a little bit of him. Um, he seemed to get on great. We've got a call later this week which should be cool to catch up with him, but no, I've never watched, I didn't watch my entire season through, the one that I did, whatever, seven years ago, I didn't watch that back. I haven't watched any of the other seasons since then. It would have been very easy to have just done Love Island reacts stuff, especially as an ex-islander. That would have been a way to have, I guess, kickstarted the channel. We did a What It's Really Like On Love Island thing which was the first episode that ever blew up. And we could have, that would have been audience capture, right? Going back to what I said at the start, had I just turned into Love Island re- Wisdom, uh, that would have been audience capture. But I have no desire to spend... I lived it, right? I spent a month living on Love Island. I don't, I don't need to go back and then voluntarily watch more of it. I've spent more time in that villa than almost anybody, (laughs) anybody that's watching it, so jumping in and then deciding to watch it again is like, okay. Cameron4987, "How sexy is your Modern Wisdom episode with Rogan going to be?" If and when we get him confirmed, I asked him on the show at the end of my episode on his, like, "Man, like I'd love to bring you on the show," and he said yes. If and when that happens, we will do something very special. We'll do something that looks fucking spectacular for that. Michael Jag, "Where are you shopping for wavy new garments in America?" Dude, honestly, Zara is the only place. Like it's the only place I've managed to find that I can shop in so far. That and ASOS and I'm pretty sure that ASOS is a British company that just happens to fulfill in America. Mindful Mitch, "A Senegalese pirate has both your parents captive. What's your tactic to get them back?" Ring Tim Kennedy. Got Tim Kennedy's number. Ring Tim. Say, "Tim, I need you to go and help me kill a Senegalese pirate." And I imagine that that's the sort of thing that Tim literally lives for. Ring him, watch chaos ensue.Uh, Nathan Mars, "Was Joe Rogan subconsciously part of the plan when moving to America?" If it was subconscious, wouldn't have known about it. Um, there's certainly a good ecosystem that's been built up in Austin because of him being here, and Malice and Lex and Alex Jones (laughs) , like, he who shall not be named. Uh, and everybody else that's here, Drinking Bros, Aubrey Marcus, Tucker Max. Like, there's a lot of creative people that, that crush that live here. Uh, I don't know. I mean, he is the guy that makes this industry at the moment. He's the trendsetter, I suppose, and getting that exposure is pretty perfect. But I, it definitely wasn't part of a formal plan at all. Erwin Bueche, "When will you hire people to free up time for yourself?" Fantastic question, Ewan, Erwin, sorry. Uh, I- I'm s- I don't know. I mean, I really could do with a general manager now that just picks out all of the bits of grit from the operation and is sufficiently familiar with the way that the creative industry works, podcasting, ads, all that stuff, because it is very, very, very effortful. That being said, and this is something that I've been thinking about more and more recently, like, sometimes I get (laughs) , not mocked, it's, like, friendly mocking, I suppose. But a lot of other podcasters that find out ... a lot of other podcasters that find out how much work I do for the show kind of scoff a little bit, because it is a, a bit dumb to still be the person that comes up with the thumbnail design brief for the designer, which is Dean, the person that titles the episodes, the person that writes the show notes, the person that records the intros from the show notes, that edits the audio, that uploads the audio, all of that stuff. But that being said, one of the reasons that we've had such good growth this year has to be attributed to the fact that I'm paring, paying a lot of care and attention to the stuff that goes out. Like, the titles perfectly match up, or at least I, I try and make them perfectly match up with what the episodes are about. Because I was the one that recorded the episode, I have to be the person that knows what's in the episode better than anybody else, because I was the one that was there. I researched it, I recorded it, I've listened back to it. So part of it is, I know, inefficient, and it would be fantastic, and it will be fantastic when I get a general manager in who can start to open up operations a little bit and make it more slick and at least alleviate some of the workload from me. But on the flip side, there's a, a desire for people to utilize leverage and delegation before they're actually in a place when they should do. And I think that those are the people that aren't necessarily getting the results that they want, because maybe the people they've delegated to are, you know, 80% or 70% as good as they are. But what they've freed up their time to do isn't adding as much value as if they took over the stuff that makes the biggest difference. And the biggest difference is who's coming on the show, how well are they researched, how rested do you feel, what's the titling and the thumbnailing look like? All of that stuff, like, the, the stuff that makes a really big difference. So I actually quite ... Maybe this is a cope again as well about the fact that I just fear delegating responsibility. I don't know. Um, but yes, uh, if you know someone that's an unbelievable operator, a really slick operator with years of experience of dealing with chaos, uh, and understands the podcasting and YouTube world unbelievably well, there will probably be a job listing for them coming up pretty soon. And on the flip side, in the meantime, I am more than happy to continue eating shit, because I think that that is what's setting the show apart, amongst other things, from everything else. Uh, The Average Savage, "Episode on JRE really resonated with me and what I've been going through. Thank you." Thank you, man. It's been, I've had a lot of messages like that, especially the last hour and a half was exactly what I wanted to get out on that show. And, uh, very, very glad to hear that a lot of the stuff that we spoke about has made people feel, um, less alone. P Novel3, "When Lambo?" You tell me, man. I don't even have a car out here in America. I literally don't have a car. So, um, I, the Lambo would just be for show, for show. It would just be f- (laughs) it would just be for show, for show. Why can't I say it? For show. Whatever, I wouldn't be able to drive it, and I, I don't know. Lambo would be cool, but I think just getting a driver's license and a car in America would probably be a pretty good idea. Also, Americans are awful at driving. There's some of the worst drivers that I've ever seen in my life in Austin, so Lambo might be a bad idea. Like, Prius may be better or s- like, a battering ram of some kind. Uh, Tommy McNee, "Have you now given up promoting in America full time?" So I'm gonna do a full episode or a full video at least, like, a, a YouTube video on this soon. The, my position within Voodoo is slowly being dialed back, and there will be, uh, like, a full exit from that, I think, pretty soon. Darren has everything on lock in the UK, and I'm super, super proud of what we've built there. And I couldn't be happier that I'm now able to do something that I really love, and he is now able to make more money doing something that he is unbelievably competent at. And the, it's opened up roles for some of the young lads to come through as well, and they've taken on more responsibility. Like, everybody's won from this situation. But for more full details and stuff once we've got everything signed, sealed, and delivered, I'll probably do a video about that. And it'll be cool, 'cause there'll be some interesting lessons, I think, about exiting a company and letting go of a sense of...... connection, like, existential connection between you and something you've created. And that's difficult, but it's kinda beautiful, but it's kinda sad, but it's kind of awesome at the same time. I- it's interesting. Uh, brettjmcc, "Is Reading List V2 coming? Just bought Four Thousand Weeks, you have mentioned a few times." Yes, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is a fantastic book. Everyone should go and check that out. If you haven't got a copy of the Reading List, I've already told you about it once, re- chriswillx.com/books. You should go and get it. Uh, V2, maybe. Maybe toward the backend of this year. I would want to have at least 50 books in, just 'cause I think if you're gonna download something, you want it to be a big- a big chunky boy, right? That you can continually refer back to. I've probably got maybe 30 that I think would, uh, be worthy of going on there. There's some that I forgot about on the first one, I guess, so maybe it's up to about 40. Um, but yeah, I will do a V2 soon, um, definitely that before the Life Hacks. I think that the Reading List makes more sense than another Life Hacks thing 'cause a lot of the Life Hacks are kind of joke bits and they don't add quite as much value. They're funny to listen to, but I think that the Reading List is like... As far as lead magnets go and something that's free that takes, you know, a month or whatever to put together, but is basically evergreen and adds shit tons of value to people's lives, I think it's- there's nothing better than it. hookbookduck, "When Sam Harris?" Bro, Sam, I'm ready for you. Triggernometry boys just got him. Triggernometry lads went out to, uh, LA and recorded with him and Bill Burr and, uh, Adam Carolla after they'd been on Rogan, after they'd recorded with Theo Von, and they had someone in New York as well. Those boys are crushing at the moment, um, so I- Sam appears to be in the mixer and I've got, um, one degree of separation away from him. But i- it'll happen. It'll happen eventually. Like, I've got complete faith, um, no reason to rush it. Uh, rgeezz, "Pick one, simulation or God?" Simulation. Connor Kendall, "With so many goals I have in life, I find myself crippled at times with anxiety." Advice? Just pick one of them, man. This is the last 30 minutes of the episode on Rogan. You can be anything you want, but you can't be everything you want. Pick a thing and know that it- this isn't the only thing for the rest of your life. Just pick a thing and get good at that for 90 days or 6 months or a year, and then go, "Okay, where am I at? Do I still want to do these other things?" So, if you were to say, "I have all of your goals, which are the ones I'm most certain about? Which is the one that I think is really, really important to me?" Just do that one first. And if you can't do that because it sounds like you're struggling to prioritize, just pick anything and commit to it. That's the way to begin. You have to do a thing. Doesn't matter about the thing, just a thing, and start moving forward from there. productivitytrajectory, "What nutritional supplements do you use to make s- to stay mentally sharp?" Okay, um, Athletic Greens every single day, LMNT first thing in the morning, um... Links to all of these will be in the show notes below. There'll be discount codes and stuff like that. I work with partners that I use because it's super easy to talk about why I like them if I use them every single day. LMNT's first thing in the morning, Athletic Greens is every day, um, Qualia Mind, which is a product by Neurohacker Collective, um, is the nootropic that I use. I don't use nootropics all the time, or I don't use their product all of the time, but I do use it. I've used it today, any day where I just want a little bit more. And the thing that I love about Qualia Mind is that they have a caffeine-free version. So, I'm recording this at 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM and I took maybe four tablets two hours ago and I have no problem sleeping because there is zero caffeine in them. They do the caffeine version, which is like a big kick up the ass, but the fact that there's a caffeine-free version is dope. So, I think those and then actually, you know, fish oils, I guess, would be part of that. Vitamin D would be part of that. Those would be from MyProtein. Um, I think that's it. I think wa- like water, food, dietary, stuff like that. But in terms of supplements, those are them. And they'll be linked in the show notes below and there'll be discount codes if you wanna go and check out any of the things I've mentioned. kbendixton, "When did you first link with Michael Malice?" I cold tweeted Malice and he tried to clown me on Twitter two and a bit years ago. Then he thought that he was gonna come on and just totally, like, run rings and make a fool out of this himbo, uh, and we ended up (laughs) within the space of 60 minutes, we ended up becoming really close friends and then spent the next two years talking to each other, and then I moved out to Austin and now we're mates and we see each other every week. So, that was the first experience I had with Mr. Malice. Uh, prashanth sai sankar, "What do you not like about Austin so far?" The heat, bro. It is, I mean, this is, like, the most awesome thing to say, but it is 38, 39, so 100 or 102-ish pretty much every single day. And there's been 57 days over 37 degrees or 100, 100 degrees, like triple figures, in Fahrenheit, and it's pretty unbearable. That being said, we're in August now. I go away for a week and then I'm back in the UK for three weeks, and by the time I get back it'll be the end of September and it'll be sweet again. So, it's not a bad price to pay. mustlearnmore, "Do you feel a paternal instinct kicking in in your mid-30s, or is fatherhood still a no-no as yet?" Dude, I can't wait to be a dad. I keep on saying this, I cannot wait to be a dad. Um, and the difference between father, me as a father at 34 versus me at 24 or even, like, 28, is worlds apart. I can't wait to be a father. Um, just need to sort my life out first.Jade Holinski, 1990. "Do you ever feel like no one really gets you even though they're your best friends?" This, I think, is the fundamental asymmetry that we have with the people that are around us. You get to see your existence from a front row seat, right? The richness of all of the different problems that you have, the way that you feel, the- the unbelievable detail that you go through stuff with. And all that you ever get to hear of anybody else is what they tell you, which is such a lower bandwidth version of what they feel. And what they tell you isn't everything of what they feel because they filter some of the stuff that they feel to what they say, so you only get to see, like, this tiny little soda straw view of their world whilst seeing yours in 1080p. So, of course you're going to feel alone. Of course you're going to feel like nobody gets you because there is always this asymmetry there. That being said, you can also be around people or be in a- a community that just doesn't seem to understand you genuinely on a fundamental level, and there was elements of that for me in the UK, which is one of the reasons why I moved. I think that what you're dealing with is incredibly normal. I don't think that that means that it should be something you either accept or, um, don't try and fix. But don't treat it like a personal curse, right? This is just par for the course of being a complex individual that has genuine varied interests in the modern world. There are seven point however many billion people out there. You can find people that you will resonate with. You need to go and do the work to find them. HeyDaniMiranda, "What was unexpected about your appearance on JRE?" Um, how comfortable I felt, I think, which is a big credit to Joe and his ability to ease people in. Uh, I actually tracked my heart rate. I haven't got it up. I should have done it before now. Uh, I tracked my heart rate on my Whoop throughout to see if I had any peaks to see how high it went, um, but I just felt super, super comfortable, uh, eased into it (snaps fingers) , started off straightaway. Um, that was the biggest surprise. Uh, if I shit myself on the s- (laughs) on round two, if I go back on and- and just can't get my words out, then I'll know that I used up all of the calm charm that I had on the first one. But that was the most unex- unexpected thing, for sure. Daniel. "Daniel, here." Hi, Daniel. Uh, (laughs) "I love your podcasts and always listen to them while I go bike to the gym. You have set the bar for me of what a genuine conversation looks like and listening to these conversations makes me want to talk to people in a s- in that sort of manner. What do you recommend people to do if they're working on themselves, but they have a hard time making friends?" Kind of similar, I guess, or a second part to the question that was just above, you need to think about what the sort of people that you would want to be friends with are like and where those sorts of people would hang out and go there. If you want to be friends with people that are always talking about CrossFit, you need to be in a CrossFit gym. If you want to talk to people that love comedy, you need to go to a comedy class. If you want to... Yoga, improv, martial arts, what- whatever it is that you want to do, there is a way that you can find people that select for that. Whether it be dog grooming at some dog show somewhere or cars at some sort of car, like a- a, what's it called? A drive-by. Not a drive-by. What's it called? Like a car rally type thing. Just, there are people out there that have those interests. Reddit forums are fantastic, you know, joining the Patreon or a locals community of whatever your favorite creator is. You need to try and select for the people that are like the people that you are like. They're out there, but for the most part what you're trying to do is probably retrofit the people that are around you to be like the stuff that you consume on the internet or the people that you want to be like, and they're not. Like, you've gone out of your way to find an unbelievably unique creator or whatever that has some niche that you care about. Why would you think that that person's going to be around the corner or just completely, like, easily accessible? They're definitely not. So, go out of your way, try and find somebody that you think, or go to a place that you know that those sorts of people are going to be in. That would be my advice. Pancake, "You've spoken a lot about how you went through an introspective journey of self-discovery at the end of your 20s. When introspecting, how can you be sure that you're getting a balanced and accurate view of yourself? It's difficult to tell whether you're being too harsh or not harsh enough on yourself." Very, very good challenge. So, the line between, um, giving up because you are close to burnout or injury and giving up because you are leaving some on the table and being a bitch is basically impossible. The only person that can know would be you if you were able to run that existence, like, five times over, right, and iterate some study. "When introspecting, how can you be sure you're getting a balanced and accurate view of yourself?" It's simply a case of putting some work in, going and then trying out whatever it is that you're doing, whether it be, um, relating to other people, dealing with difficult situations, building better habits. Did the work that you do end up actually making the real world you better? And if it didn't, then something is wrong and you will be able to tell. You know if you've pushed too hard or not hard enough when the results do or don't come. It's in the moment that you usually don't know. So I think, um, keep on reflecting is a good way to look at this. Also, consider what you're doing over very, very broad, uh, time horizons. The guy from earlier on that was saying, um, he has so many different goals and he couldn't work out which one to focus on, like, over a broad enough time horizon you can pretty much do most of the stuff that you care about. It's within the space of five years that you can't do it. So, um, continue to reflect, check in on how the work that you're doing is actually showing up in your day-to-day life, like reality, how does it make you feel, and what are the sort of results that you're getting? And broaden your time horizons.J. Huelsman. "Do you find it more difficult to relate to the generation older than you or the one younger? I'm a generation ahead of you and find your insights helpful when dealing with younger generations, one of the many reasons why you are my favorite podcaster." Well, thank you very much. I do find it difficult actually to relate to Gen Z a little bit. Um, there is... And the audience that listens to this podcast, like, brushes the top of Gen Z, but isn't super young. And I think that it kind of makes sense. A lot of the problems that we're talking about here to do with existential (laughs) crisis and, uh, like, concerns about meaning and, you know, broad social structures and the human mind and nature and all that stuff, I would not have been interested in when I was 21 years old. And if that is you, then bravo, because you're ahead of where I was. When I look on TikTok at, like, check-ins to see how the content's getting on, the, um, like, canary in the coal mine difference between a short video that I'll post on my Instagram, one that goes on YouTube... Bad form. Bad form not turning my notifications off. One that goes on Instagram, one that goes on YouTube, and one that goes on TikTok, the response, the different response between each of those is so dramatic, it is insane. So, people just simply will not see the same video. They'll... It'll be a completely different response and it is so stark that it makes me feel... You know, TikTok is what I'm using as a proxy for Gen Z. I struggle to understand the motivations of those people more than any other. I struggle to understand the motivations of many comments on the internet, and I think we don't know what it is that drives people to respond in the way that they do. But the people that respond on TikTok a lot of the time are like people from a different planet, as far as I can see. So yes, older generations, I find... I mean, you know, I've just sat down with Rogan for three and a half hours, and the guy's like 20 years older than me. Twenty years older than me. Absolutely sweet. Maybe he's an outlier. But, like, sitting down with my dad, fine. Watching stuff on TikTok and trying to decode what's going on with that culturally is nada. Not for me. Fielding Z. "Hey, Chris, I have a question on my mind I've been struggling with. I've been going through a bit of a rough patch mentally with anxiety and depression. What I find myself struggling with the most is the desire to do something I love and the desire to do something lucrative to ensure financial success. Any suggestions on how one can come to try and find the proper balance between bending to the world for profit and staying true to oneself?" First off, dude, the, uh, anxiety and the depression stuff is something that a lot of people deal with. I did throughout a big chunk of my 20s. You need to look at what you're doing physically first, and you need to make sure you're going to bed at the same time, that you're getting enough sleep, you're getting u- You need to train. Even if you've never trained before, like, you have to f- find something that you will enjoy. A yoga class, a spinning class, some sort of martial arts, a CrossFit or a functional fitness workout or a training partner that can get you into the gym to do bodybuilding. Make sure that you're eating right, make sure that you've got enough water in your, in your, uh, consumption throughout the day. Like, if you do those things and this still exists, then there is a, uh, a discussion to be had around the existential difficulty of, like, where am I going with my life? My point being that if you don't have that foundation, you are starting on a very, very rocky place. So, make sure that you've got that, okay? Um, the balance between basically, uh, selling out and doing something that you care about, the goal is to find something that is at the intersection of what the world needs, what you're good at, and what you can be paid for, right? Like, that's ikigai, or whatever it is, straight in the middle. It may be that the things that you're great at, the things that you're interested in, and the things that you can be paid for, like, uh... Uh, sorry. The things that society needs, the things that you're great at, and the things that, uh, you can be paid for, that they don't intersect for you. There may be three completely different circles. So, perhaps you're gonna have to make a, um, some concessions around that. I would say that once you have made a sufficient amount of cash, you can pretty much go and do whatever you want. And again, like, one of the common themes we've had today is this broader time horizon. So, if... I don't know how old you are, but I'm going to guess that you're probably in your 20s or 30s. If you broaden that time horizon out and you decide to double down, make a ton of w- a ton of money, and then you can ease off the gas once you've done that, or perhaps you can do something that makes you a ton of money and begin to build up a side hustle, which is what I did, that is a very good way to ensure that you keep yourself feeling existentially satisfied whilst keeping the lights on, right? Because being a starving artist is only really cool in movies. Being a starving artist in the real world is just kind of sad. And for the most part, if you get bankrupted or whatever, you're setting yourself back, so you need to make sure that you keep the lights on first and foremost. So for me, the way that I did it was I front-loaded all of my 20s with work and with accumulating capital so that it would give me more leeway to be able to do stuff that I wanted. This, this wasn't, um, by design, by the way. Like, this just happened to be what happened. I didn't, um, create this beautiful, perfect plan. That being said, the principle that I followed was if I accumulate capital and if I'm financially secure, I will be able to do more things in future. I didn't know what those things were, I didn't know how it was gonna work out or whatever. But I think that chasing, um, financial success and wealth and wealth-generating, uh, assets when you're young is a good way to go about things, but you need to make sure that the physiological stuff's sorted. Sleep, training, diet, social connection, water, all that stuff. Like, that needs to be done.Uh, Vas- vatsa 98, "Congrats on the milestone, Chris." Thank you. "Question, how to get into the dating scene without signing up for a dating app? Based on the videos I've seen of yours, I don't want to get into that mess." Okay, um, yes. Very similar to the person that needs friends and doesn't know where to go, like, what are you into, what is the type of person that you would like to date into, where would that type of person hang out? That's, it is such a simple solution, such a simple equation, and it's Mark Manson's models that I learned this from. If you're into fitness guys or girls, go to places where they hang out. If you're into people that do chess, or World of Warhammer, or whatever it is, just go there, right? You have to remember that so few people are approaching, especially if you're a girl, I don't know if you are, but guys as well, so few people are actually making the first move at the moment. There is a massive competitive advantage available just for someone that's prepared to say, "Hey, what are you into?" That's, that is, you've already selected yourself out from probably 70% of men and probably 90% of women, if you just do that. Go a place where there are people like the person that you would like to date and be the person that makes the move. Like, there you go. Greg Dandy, "How did you get into club promoting? Asking as someone who's interested myself as I go to uni next year. I'm not a party animal, but I think it would be interesting to try, especially as I'm expecting to be in great shape by then. Love the show, mate. Keep it up." Thank you, Greg. And good luck at uni and getting in. Yeah, dude, uh, anybody that goes to university that is okay with partying and wants to have a robust social ecosystem around them, get into club promotion because you will immediately have between 100 and 400 brothers and sisters that all kind of know you, you're part of a shared vision, you'll understand about business, you'll understand about dealing with inner turmoil and politics and all sorts of stuff. It will expedite the learning of a ton of stuff that you need for your adult life whilst you're at uni, in any case. It'll help you earn money, uh, i- it's fantastic. Um, Greg, wherever you're going, if it's anywhere in Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, that's it, if it's any of those, then there's a job with Voodoo waiting for you. If it's anywhere else, it will not be difficult. Just when you get to the freshers fair, have a look around and spot the different promo companies. They'll want you to sign up to work for them before you go to the events. Go to the events first to make sure that they're not, um, selling you on a company that's three months old and doesn't have a portfolio of nights that's successful. You want to work for one of the biggest companies in town because you'll get the best benefits, you'll be one of the coolest people. Your job will be easy because people will come to you because they'll need your guest list. Uh, so just do that. If you're in the cities up north that Voodoo's in, speak to the guys, say that I passed you on, and you'll get sorted out. Uh, and if not, and you're going somewhere else, just have a look at the freshers fair, see who it is that's around. Or when you start going to nights, the nights that you enjoy the most, just go and say, "Hey, who, who's the promo company that runs this?" Ask for one of the guys. The reps will snap you up. They need to get guys like you, uh, so yeah, you won't struggle. Smelly Cat, (laughs) "Yes, sir. Well done, my dude. Question for you. As you were building your podcast early on, how did you find the energy to do more work for no money when hardly anyone was watching after you just worked your regular/survival job? Or did you have money saved from the show/your promotion business to where you could just do your thing, no side job? Congrats on the 450K subs, man. I would love to see you skyrocket to a million in a few months." Thank you. So would I. Um, yeah, this is kind of back to what we were talking about earlier on that if you are looking to do something where the payoff isn't immediate and you're relying on the dopamine hit because you don't necessarily love the process of doing the thing, it's, y- you are going to have a uphill battle, right, or an upstream swim. And for me, it wasn't, it never felt like I was swimming upstream. I enjoyed having conversations. I got to speak to, James Clear was like episode 30. Robert Greene, I think, was episode, in the 30s as well. So I was speaking to people, uh, Dave Castro, director of the CrossFit Games, episode three or four, Dan Bailey, episode five. So I was picking up people that I'd wanted to speak to for a long time, and I enjoyed it. This, again, like it's such trite wisdom to say, "You know, just find something that you love and you'll never work a day in your life." That's fucking bullshit. At an all-hands meeting, no, at an internal Apple meeting, someone asked Tim Cook about whether or not the things that you love should actually be difficult, and Tim said, "At Apple, I've learned that the things that you love in life you will not find easy, but you will work harder at them than ever before. The difference is that the tools will feel light in your hands." And that's the kind of obsession that I think is causing people to have fantastic outcomes because not only do they get the dopamine kicks of external rewards and accolades and growth and, you know, money or whatever, but it's coming from a place of something that they genuinely would do in any case. Like, if you can find a thing that you would do for free, and to everybody else looks like an absolute grind, that is the point of highest leverage because they're, in order for them to outwork you, it is basically going to be impossible. You're going to continue to have fun while that person has fallen asleep and banged their head against the door because they're sick of doing the work. Like, that is your point of highest contribution. Re- relowcop."How was meeting and interviewing Jocko Willink inspired you in your life? You were sat opposite the modern-day version of Marcus Aurelius and Sun Tzu. I would love to know how that has impacted you. Your channel is the friend I never knew I would have in this life. Love your work. You're doing great." What a beautiful message. Thank you. Um, the biggest difference, I think, and I just- I hadn't got this before I asked him the question of, "Do people overcomplicate motivation?" was the difference between discipline and motivation. I'm aware that this is his thing, but it just hadn't landed until I had a big Navy SEAL saying it five feet away from me, that discipline eats motivation for breakfast. And a lot of the time now when I wake up on a morning, if I- getting up is still my, uh, Achilles' heel, getting up on time, and when I don't want to wake up or I can convince myself that I'm tired or whatever, it pops into the back of my head that discipline is doing the thing that you said that you would do long after the state that you said it in has passed. Discipline eats motivation for breakfast. Are you disciplined or are you just motivated? Because if you're only motivated, you're only going to do this thing when you feel like doing it. I'm disciplined. I'm getting up and I'm gonna go and do this thing. That's the biggest difference. And, you know, sitting and hearing that from, like, the Discipline Guy (laughs) , uh, just drove it home. So yeah, my discipline has been the biggest change. I'm significantly more disciplined with stuff now. Don't get me wrong, I could still observe my inefficiencies from a front row seat every day, but for the most part, it's- it's better.