Lessons In Creating A Successful Life - Steven Bartlett | Modern Wisdom Podcast 301

The most intrinsically rewarding way I could probably live my life was to resist my labels. Elon Musk or Kanye West, I don't love all of their ideas, but the thing I love and- and admire most about those individuals was they didn't let their past or a label or anything define, define them. And that inspires me. I think that's a free way to live. I think everybody, the vast majority, 99% of people, don't live freely. They live confined by words that, you know, their mum or dad or themselves have given them. (whoosh)

First off, mate, I need to say thank you for dinner because the last time that we were together, we were overlooking Downtown Dubai, and you invited me and a buddy out for a really wonderful evening dinner. But then as you left, I was in the toilet, so I haven't actually got to say goodbye. So-

(laughs)

... thanks for dinner, mate, and also welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. I, I left abruptly because I had a, a flight to catch that night and my suitcases were actually downstairs. So when my PA grabbed me and said, you know, "You've got to go now." I just, I quickly scrambled and, uh, e- exited the building. But yeah, thank you. It was good to, good to meet you and catch up with you and such, and I'm excited to be on your podcast today.

Yeah. Me too, man. So why did you write a book? You've got a lot of stuff-

(laughs)

... online already. Like, why do you need a book as an outlet?

This is a couple of... You, you make a really good point. Um, we live in an era of, you know, instantaneous feedback. And, um, I, I'm a, I'm a connected from birth, um, I'm part of the connected from birth generation where I've had, you know, some form of online connection for my whole life. And things have got even more, um, superficial and ephemeral, um, as I've, as I've got older. So you're right, I've got millions of followers online. If I've got a message to communicate, why don't I just do an Instagram story or something which gives me that sort of instant feedback? And I think, in fact, that was, um, paradoxically why I needed to write the book because of the way that the world was, is heading and the, the lack of meaning and how shallow, um, uh, and surface level things are getting. And for me, the book w- if... The book is the antithesis of that. It is depth, it's meaning, it's something you, you spend two years doing, and then once you're done, you still have another year's wait until it's published. And, um, it was a chance to really... There's so many things with books that I came to learn that you don't get with social media as well. One of the real big things which I think changes the way you create your ideas is you... Because you don't get instant feedback or pretty much no, not a lot of feedback at all, there's no comment section, you write with a certain level of freedom, which is quite rare these days. So I got to go deeper than I've ever gone before. Y- I know that if I write a page, um, it's not going to be discussed instantaneously, and I think that allows f- thoughts and ideas to connect in a different way. So just, uh, for me, it was a bit of an experiment, to be honest, something I put off for a long time. But, um, just to conclude that point, there was one day where I looked at my diary from when I was 18 years old, and in the front page of it, I'd basically written that I wanted to be a happy, sexy millionaire. And I, I read that when I was 26 and I, you know, built this massive business and I was traveling from one country to another, and that was the moment where I thought I wanted to write the book because it dawned on me how dumb I was to aim for that and how many other people are.