Q&A - Health Update, Sobriety & Finding The One

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show! I had a haircut and hit four point one million subscribers, so let's get into it. Oh, actually, before I get into it, it's nearly Valentine's Day, and I put together a list of fifty of the most evidence-based and viral questions on the internet and from my journal to connect more deeply with your partner, and twenty-five to work out whether or not you should break up. And this has been breaking people's brains on Instagram. The DM replies I've got to some of the samples of the questions are insane. So if you want a list of fifty questions, connect with your partner and twenty-five to work out whether or not you should break up quietly on your own, uh, go to chriswillx.com/valentine. Okay, now let's get into it. Oleks26: What uncomfortable questions should people ask themselves before going for success? I think a really great question that almost no one asks is, do I want to live the lifestyle required to get the life? So, for instance, if you love the idea of being a rock star, you want to be a guitarist that tours the world, well, what does that look like? What does the lifestyle of that look like? It looks like ten years probably playing in your bedroom, learning chords and progressions, and then learning to songwrite. It looks like another five in a van, touring around, making basically no money, with a ton of uncertainty and very little support, and then maybe you start to pick up... That, that is the lifestyle. And even after that, it's do you want to be away from your family? If you want to have a family, friends, community, whatever, you're gonna be traveling the world a lot. You're gonna be spending most of your time in airports or on buses. Is that what you want? If you do not want to live the lifestyle, you have to release yourself of the desire. Whatever your definition of success is, the uncomfortable question you should ask before going for success, what is your definition of success and what is the route to get there? If you do not want to endure the route to get there, you have to relinquish yourself of the desire for the success because it's ju-- otherwise, it is just guaranteeing misery, right? I want this thing, but I don't want to do what is required to get there or what is required en route to get there or to live that thing. It's going to be misery, misery inducing to me. That seems like a pretty reliable way to have a shitty life, so that's a good question. Isabelle van Aswegen. Fuck, I-- every time, dude, with these fucking usernames. I'll do my best, okay? Isabelle van Aswegen, uh: "Have you ever tried the carnivore diet?" Yes, I did, I guess, a version of the carnivore diet, which is meat and fruit, and I did that for pretty fucking strictly from September twenty-four until April of last year, so over six months. Um, I felt great mentally on it. This is when I was going through a lot of brain fog, still trying to detox all of the mold and, um, felt mentally good, but it annihilated my cholesterol. My cholesterol just went through the roof. Uh, lots of people are hyperabsorbers of cholesterol, or they're more sensitive to it. Turns out I'm one of those people. So, uh, the carnivore diet kind of has a lot of people pray at the altar of it, 'cause it makes them feel better, including me. But it can be pretty destructive to some of the important numbers, and heart health, and keeping an eye on LDL levels and stuff is pretty important. So tried it, was okay with it, took some of the principles of it, but back to a kind of intermittent fasting thing, like a sixteen/eight, nothing until one PM and, or midday, and then eat through the afternoon. That's the current approach. A bit more balanced. TommyCochran7156: "Hey, Chris, congrats on your success." Thank you. "Been subbed for three years now. I just turned twenty-five years old and moved out on my own to another state in April of last year to start my career. I'm doing fine at the job, but it does not bring me any joy or satisfaction that I thought it would. I spent a few years working towards this, but I know the career is not for me. Feel kind of lost now and not sure what my direction is or how to find it. I never thought I would be in this situation. Any advice? Thank you." Well, dude, that is a-- that's a real challenge to have dedicated a bunch of time toward a thing that you thought was going to be the genuine outcome that you wanted, and then to have the rug pulled out from underneath you, uh, that's a challenge. So first off, I feel for you, and I think that it's important to just sit with, "That is hard," and to give yourself a little bit of self-empathy, like, oh, God, like that, that, that's gonna suck. Advice on... I mean, you're, you're twenty-five, which means you have so much runway ahead of you. You can go and travel. You can try different things. You could go back to school if you wanted to. I'm aware that this is the oldest you've ever been, which feels like you should have your life together, you're real close to death, y- you, you should be further along than this. There's other people that are your age, and wh- how can I start again? To give you some perspective, I started again, and I didn't launch the podcast until I was thirty, and I didn't move to America until I was thirty-two, and... no, thirty-three. Uh, it is, it is just never too late. Like, w- first off, people have got short memories. Everybody has short memories, including you. Like, you will be surprised at how little you would be able to remember of you a couple of years ago if you made a huge pivot now. In two years' time, you wouldn't be able to remember this doubt or this life that you had because our recency bias is really strong. The second thing, if you're worried about the judgment of others, they're just not thinking about you that much. They don't care. They really don't care. There might be some people who stand on the shoulders of your reinvention, as in they're still moving, and you're having to start again, but it's not about that. You know that you're not happy. It doesn't bring you any joy or satisfaction that you thought it would, and you spent a few years... It's-... some cost fallacy and some loss aversion. It, it is gonna hurt, and it's gonna resonate emotionally. It's gonna feel like your world's crashing down or you've wasted time. You know that you're not happy with this thing, and if you're succeeding in a life that you hate, imagine how amazing you could be at one that you loved. You literally have nothing to lose. Like, y- you go and do something else, and it also doesn't bring you any joy or [chuckles] satisfaction, guess what? You're in the same situation. So I hope that, I hope that motivates you to go and do it. Um, something practical you can do, what is the single smallest step that you could make right now that moves you a tiny-- that... What's the smallest thing that the most afraid version of you could do that would move you away from this life and toward one that you want? I think that would be something good to focus on. Evil89: What did you make of the response to your last Health vlog? Good question. So I did a first episode of the vlog about four months ago or so, and that was tracking the journey over 18 months of me finding out I was living in a house with mold, and that kicked off a whole slew of other things. Everyone has this sort of ambient background health, immune system strain that everybody's got going on, but sometimes you get into an environment where it pushes you over your limit, and that is where all of this stuff comes to the surface. What was interesting about the second vlog was that I didn't put any of the, "Here's me struggling with this thing. Here is all of the evidence that proves that my health is actually in a bad place. Here is testimony from doctors and friends about how much I've been going through." And because the internet defaults to scrutiny, as in, if someone looks okay on the outside, that means that anything that they're proposing or anything that they're going through, they're complaining about, just sounds like the whining of some really fortuitous chattering class. Uh, I didn't get anywhere near as much sympathy. Um, I don't want to have to do this weird throat-clearing land acknowledgement of myself, of my own problems, in an attempt to try and ramp up the sympathy so that I can then talk about how I'm still working on it. It just feels so fucking contrived to do that. So, um, it, it wasn't quite as sympathetic as I might have wanted, um, but I understand why it wasn't. If people haven't seen the first one, it's just some guy that looks like he's in good shape, saying that he's, he's tired and sad, and his brain doesn't work all that much. Uh, I was surprised by the number of people that said, "That's just getting older." Uh, "This is the way that it's supposed to be." That feels a little bit like Stockholm syndrome for bad health, that your tormentor... Y- you've learned to love the fact that your health is declining at a rate greater than you would want to, and you're just saying, "That is what it i-- That is what life is." I'm sorry, I, I just don't accept that you're supposed to get slower, sadder, and more stupid as you get older in your thirties. Uh, and to all of the people that have reached out with chronic fatigue, ME/CFS, C- CMV, EBV, mold, Lyme, H. pylori, candida, SIBO, heavy metals, BPAs, like, whatever it is, a lot of people have reached out, and it's like they, they feel like they've been seen by someone who's going through the same challenges they do, especially the mold stuff. So that has been really nice. Um, other stuff that surprised me was the range of solutions. Y- it was every... A lot of, "You need Jesus," which may be true. Um, I'm unsure how much he can help with mold detox, but a lot of i- "I need Jesus or prayer." Um, "I need to do psychedelics, heavy dose of mushrooms." Uh, "I'm working too hard, uh, and it's burnout, but I'm also, uh, a hypochondriac, and it's nothing to do with anything that's real. Uh, this is opulence, but also because of trying to achieve too much at the same time." Uh, goat milk cleanses were in there quite a bit. Uh, water fasts were in there a lot, a lot of meat and fruit and carnivore diet. There's something about blood at the full moon, I think, as well. There were a lot. There were a lot of sol- There were some enemas in there, um, some g- bleach stuff that I can't even remember the name of. Uh, it, it... Variety of solutions. Um, it was a mixed bag. It was a mixed bag, but I'm gonna keep talking about it because I think it's important, and it's the truth. Ultimately, this is what I'm going through. Uh, so the internet will continue to make their judgments, I suppose. NurseK28: What's in store for 2026? Uh, first off is tour. So I'm going to Australia, New Zealand, and Bali in four weeks, five weeks, and Brisbane sold out. Perth sold out. There's still tickets for Adelaide, Auckland, Christchurch, Sydney, mm, Melbourne, and Bali. Uh, and you can get those at chriswilliamson.live. Just announced yesterday, the UK and Ireland tour, which you can also get tickets for at chriswilliamson.live. We're going all over the UK and Ireland, maybe Germany. I'm not sure yet. So live is a big thing. The new studio, which is gonna be super exciting, that's gonna include a ton of different episode styles that I've been really looking forward to. Studio's been pushed back three times now because I keep making changes to it. Uh, so that might be a me problem. I think it's probably a me problem. What else is in store? More merch, uh, more Mostly Wise stuff, which I'm really excited we're working on at the moment. We are actually working with the designer for Sleep Token stuff, so the guy who does all of Sleep Token's merch. Uh, I managed to schwef an intro. I finessed an intro to him. Uh, so I-- some of the early designs that we're seeing are fucking outrageous. It's so cool. I'm really excited for that. That'll be good. Uh-... book I'm starting to think a bit more seriously about, but I know living with George at the moment, and he's working on his high agency book, the amount of dedication and the size of the context window he's working with, and this is a lesson for everybody, which is if you want to do one large piece of work very well, uh, an album, um, a, a thesis, uh, a, a book, a collection of anything that's sort of a multi-month project, you really can't be trying to do other stuff at the same time. So in order for me to do that, I would need to-- I'd need to make some changes internally in the podcast, so that all I need to do is read for the book and write the book, prep for the guests, record the episodes, and fuck off, because I can't be doing anything else. And for all that, it might look like a big operation from the outside, this is still very much founder mode, startup, spit, and sawdust, and caffeine, energy stuff going on internally. So, um, that's some live tour, Australia, New Zealand, and Bali, then UK and Ireland at the back end of the year, chriswilliamson.live. If you wanna get tickets there, it'd be awesome. Um, new studio, new episode styles, which I can't wait for. I've been planning this for so long. Uh, and it does feel a lot like if you've ever been in one of those long-distance, texting, flirtation relationships for ages, and it's been three months, and you've-- you're finally about to get to meet this person. Those memes that you see on Instagram that are like, uh, when you actually did all of the shit that you said you were going to do to each other, that's me, but with the new studio. Uh, so can't wait to totally bypass all the foreplay. Ha, Visto! It's like, ah, Visto. Uh, "Thinking about quitting drinking. Is it worth it? I currently have a day job and run a business on the side, so every day is eighteen hours of working. Not an office-run business, needs labor, and every time I get occasionally drunk, it affects or nearly stops my enthusiasm and motivation for three to seven days. But also, every time I get new opportunities and insights from customers or partners who I'm drinking with, doesn't also seem socially correct to get together sober. Brackets from Finland." Well, eighteen hours of working every day is... That's really, really serious. That is no fucking small task, dude. Uh, is it worth it? Yes, one hundred percent. I think you would be very surprised at how much you can retain the opportunities and insights from customers and partners that you're drinking with without drinking. First off, if it's a really big deal, you can get a low or no beer, Heineken Double Zero, a Guinness do a good zero percent now, uh, Peroni do a good zero percent. There's, there's loads of LARPing beers, where you can pretend like you're drinking and you're not actually. Uh, doesn't seem socially correct to get together sober. I would be very cautious about outsourcing the way that you live your life to the mean. If you regress back to the mean, you get the results that everybody else gets, and the average American, I don't know about the average Finn, but the average American is obese, divorced, and has less than one K in the bank. So following the path that everybody else follows sounds like outsourcing your wisdom to the crowd, but it's actually a reliable route to a life that you almost certainly don't want. So I don't think that whether it's socially correct or not, that should be your litmus test for how you should behave. Uh, I think you should do it. I think you should commit. I think it's very important to commit for a period of time. Um, six months is my advised minimum. It-- all of the heavy lifting occurs in the first sort of sixty days, and after that it gets easier. But if you only do it for thirty or ninety days, you pay all of the price upfront, and then you don't actually get to reap any of the benefits. I would wager that if you do it, and you take a break for six months, you're not gonna wanna go back to drinking for very long, or at least that's what happened for me. Alex Boy Vibes. See, that one's easy. "I like your mindset. Even when you're in tough places, you seem to have a good vibe. How?" Uh, fuck, dude, I did not feel like I had a good vibe last year. 2025 was the hardest year of my life by far, and maybe I appropriately fugazed. Yeah, I, I think I was pretty open about it. Uh, maybe it just comes across differently, but I felt like shit. Uh, it was really, really difficult. Emotionally, it was difficult, professionally, it was difficult, personally, it was difficult in terms of my health, my energy, my mood, my cognition. It was, it was really, really tough. Uh, I tried to put on and have tried to put on my sort of best face and put my best foot forward w- for you guys. I want to, I wanna be a professional. I wanna show up authentically, so I'm not pretending that I'm in a place that I'm not. But also, w- everybody's busy, including the guest that is giving me their time, who is usually a world expert in whatever I'm speaking to them about, and there's millions of people every single day that are tuning into the show. Uh, I should fucking tie my boots tight and do the, do the job well. So maybe I've put a brave face on it that hasn't come across. Um, but no, I haven't, I haven't. I've, I've cried more in the last year than probably in the previous two decades. Uh, it's not been easy. It's really, it's really, really been challenging, and if that helps to make your low mood in a tough place feel more justified, then-... I would consider that a success. The stuff that does help to keep me in a good vibe is honestly, it's, I fucking wish he wasn't right about this. I really wish he wasn't right about this. Huberman is so bang on when he says, "Just get fifteen minutes of sunlight in your eyes." Like, it is, [chuckles] it is so fucking true. Um, I've been using these AYO glasses. They're called A- A-O, A-Y-O. I can't-- I don't know what the website is. Um, I've been wearing them. They're kind of like light therapy, a light therapy panel, but you wear them above your eyes. Uh, they look really fucking dorky, [chuckles] but I've been wearing them, and, um, because I've been getting up before the sun. That's been good. Sunlight first thing in the morning, avoiding caffeine. Interestingly, uh, I've been using the Neutonic sachets and the capsules as opposed to the RTD, so I took a break from caffeine. Uh, I've actually increased the vegetables that I'm consuming and avoided oxalates, so stuff like spinach, that it seems doesn't agree with me, even though I love it. Like, psychology is biology, man. Train, see friends, drink water, move, lots of walks. Don't spend too much time doomscrolling. But yeah, I, I, I wasn't in a good vibe really at all last year, and I don't know, maybe you can see now... I don't know whether it's coming across in this episode, but my brain is finally fucking working. Like, oh, my God, it was, it was so long last year that I was, like, holding this fucking microphone, trying to, trying to make words come out of my mouth in a way that felt even remotely close to me, and it just did not want to happen. And it was so tough, and I was just-- I missed me. I missed the person that I was, the way that I... The quality of my thoughts, m- my ability to reflect on things and make progress for myself and to improve the show, and it really felt like I'd sort of treaded water for eighteen months up until not that long ago. So the fact that I feel at least remotely close to me now is, like, that is really a good vibe. So today is a bad example of me not feeling good because I actually feel pretty good. Before we continue, I am a massive fan of reducing your alcohol intake, but historically, non-alcoholic brews taste like ass. You don't need to be doing some big reset. Maybe you just want to crack a cold one without feeling like garbage the next morning, which is why I am such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co. They've got fifty types of NAs, including IPAs, goldens, and even limited releases, like a cocktail-inspired Paloma and Moscow Mule. And here's the thing: you can drink them anytime, late nights, early mornings, watching sports, playing sports. Doesn't matter, no hangover, no compromise, and that is why I partnered with them. You can find Athletic Brewing Co's best-selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you, or best option, get a full variety pack of four flavors shipped right to your door. Right now, you can get fifteen percent off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or heading to athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom. That's athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom. Aditchandra08: Do you feel that the academic system failed you? [sighs] Hmm, did it fail me? I-- To be honest, I, I think I failed myself, or I failed it, um, because I was scared that I couldn't see a direct path from the subjects I really wanted to learn, which were philosophy and psychology, to a career. I didn't know what a professional philosopher would look like. I was so sheltered. I was so retarded when I went to university, uh, or when I was picking my courses at university, and I just thought, "Well, obviously, that's not gonna lead to a career, so I have to do business, because business is the most careery thing that you can do, because everything is a business." Um, so I picked, I picked wrong, and then a decade later, basically created my own curriculum on my timeline, only talking about the specific area of specific subjects I wanted to with world experts, with no homework, and then made it into a job. So I-- if this is my repurposed academia, then that's great. Uh, what are the things that I loved about it? I loved learning how to negotiate the, all of the stuff outside of the course, friendships, houses, tenancy agreements, electricity bills, uh, you know, makeups and breakups and that stuff. Um, I did two degrees. I did five years at uni, and I can't remember any of it, and yet, if you gave me the choice, I would go back and do it again. Uh, I'm very... I, I understand lots of people, the formal education system's done. You don't need a degree to go and do the whatever, and I agree with you, but I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for university, and not because of the course, but because of everything around it. And maybe there is a way that you can get the benefits of being at university without having to pay the cost or do the course, but I get the sense it's just easier to go to university. So I'm still, contrarian as it may be, I'm still pro higher education. Pierdoliza: Thank you for sharing your health journey, Chris. What advice has powered you through your toughest days? If given the opportunity, what advice or thoughts would you share with the one hundred percent healthy version of Chris? Uh, fuck! I mean, it is hard, especially when, and this is one of the big problems for anybody with ME/CFS or mold or Lyme stuff. Outwardly, there is no presentation of you being ill, and on the inside, all that you feel is sickness. So if my hand didn't work-... but I had a broken arm, I would be able to show people, "Well, look at the broken arm. This is why part of my function has been taken away from me." And that would engender sympathy and understanding, and it would also help me to legitimize why stuff isn't going well. But when everything's internal, and you can see all of the blood work that you want and go, "Holy fuck! That is four hundred percent greater than the upper bound of what this particular part of your immune system is supposed to be able to deal with. Wow!" But you like, it's, it's arbitrary. It's metrics on a screen. Like, may- may- maybe I should just work harder. David Goggins would get through it. The advice that's helped me through my toughest days, honestly, is just the choice right now is between staying where I am or keeping going to get better. And I am just not going to quit. I'm never ever, ever going to settle. I'm never, ever, ever going to stop. Uh, I would much sooner die trying to feel better than survive letting entropy win. Like, that is the whole game, right? We locally reverse entropy. That's what humans do. The entire universe trying to break apart order, and for a brief eight-decade window, one little corner of the universe, you resist that entropy. The single most powerful onward-marching driver of the entire universe versus you. It is unlikely odds for all of us, but I, I really like... I really like the scrap in a weird way. And yeah, I would, I would much sooner keep on pushing than give up, and that's hard because it feels like giving up becomes an option that you could take, and you would not need to get your hopes up so much. Um, I just don't want to settle. I think that's a way to-- that's a good way to summarize it. I really, really, really do not want to fucking settle, and that's gonna cause some pain and some disappointment in a lot of areas of life, but it's cool. I think I'll look back on a life where I, I didn't settle, uh, and feel like I left it all on the field of play, significantly more. KarenM6511: Tom Brady gave you a shout-out today. Well, that's nice. He works with a company, hydrogen water company, Echo, uh, that I'm a fan of, and I think he... I think he works with-- I, I swear he's work- he's just about to sign with somebody else as well that I work with. So, uh, I have no idea what this is. I have no idea what he said, uh, but someone link me below. That would be cool to see. Um, he's a GOAT. He's fantastic. Ma- Mattis1665: Hey, Chris, do you plan on interviewing bigger rockle met- rockle met, rock metal artists like Vessel, Bruce Springsteen, Oli Sykes, Corey Taylor, Elton John, [chuckles] Caleb Shomo, Angus Young, James Hetfield, et cetera? Would love to hear you ask them about touring, mental health, balance in the music business, and much more. I fucking love your episode with Jon Bellion, Underoath, and I Prevail, and I'm really interested in hearing their perspectives on these topics. Best regards. Uh, so Oli and me have been talking about doing an episode for... since I started the pod. Uh, Corey Taylor, I just got looped in with. Caleb, uh, yes, but that'll be after the new Beartooth album drops. We've talked about that, too. Uh, so yeah, I'm trying to lean in. Uh, me and Ronnie Radke have been chatting. Um, who the fuck else is in my inbox? There's a few others, a few other musicians. I really like it. That rock and metal scene has been a huge part of my life since I was a kid, and now I get to sit down and ask people whose music I've listened to for hundreds of hours fucking cool questions. So I, I really-- I'm really glad that you like it. Uh, also, in the new studio, the guys from Yousora and Drumeo are hooking us up with the ability to record live performances. It's not gonna be like what they can do, but we'll be able to record studio-quality guitar, and keys, and vocals. So I'm, I'm gonna try and twist Bellion's nipple a little bit and get him to start shipping me some of his boys through, 'cause he's working with everybody. And, um, who knows who'll come and do a little performance on the pod over the next couple of years? I'm, I'm excited for it. Jinxster9829: Will the merch return? Please, please, please bring it back. I missed it, and I don't know if you responded to a question like this before. Yeah, I'm sorry. It is pretty fucking cool. Uh, yes, of course. Um, we are doing a new drop in March, March, April time. Currently working through all of the designs right now with the Sleep Token guy, and the goal is to get to, I don't know, three drops a year, something like that, or a quarterly thing. I think quarterly might feel a little bit quick. Um, whatever pace people want new stuff at, and I guess I need it 'cause it's all I wear now, uh, which is cool. It is really, really nice to be able to wear my own brand, and, uh, I haven't seen it in the wild at all yet when it hasn't just been a friend that I've given it to, but I guess I need to sell more in order for that to happen. That being said, we did-... thousands and thousands and thousands of pieces on the first one. So it'll be back. It'll be soon. We're gonna come up with a solution to try and do shipping directly inside of the UK to get over the shipping costs. For the Australia tour, we've got limited merch for that, like limited edition stuff that should be done inside of Australia. Trying to come up with global shipping, all the rest of it, fucking nightmare, um, says the guy that wants to write a book. J- I'll get round to it eventually. Two thousand and four Jones: "I'm currently dealing with health problems similar to yours. I, I've been finally diagnosed after over ten years of debilitating fatigue and anxiety with Lyme and two strains of babesia and lead poisoning. I would love to hear more about your journey to get better. I really enjoy your videos, but especially the ones you did about your health. It speaks to me a lot. Thank you, Chris. You're the best." Yeah, well, uh, I'm sorry that you're going through that, ten years of being tired and battling something that you can't see and nobody can see, and you will have doubted every single day whether or not it's real or it's just in your head. And people will have said, "You know, maybe you need to do CBT or ACT therapy. Maybe it's psychosomatic or you're a hypochondriac. Maybe it's your anxiety, maybe it's whatever." And then you see something that legitimates it, and that, um, in some ways is reassuring because it makes you seem a little bit less crazy. Uh, everything about the journey is tracked in those docs, dude. There is nothing else that I'm doing. Um, right now, my goal is working on my nervous system to just retrain it, that life can be safe, and that I have capacity to deal with challenges that come. But I'll keep... I'll keep on recording it and putting it out there and being accused of just working too hard or not working hard enough, or w- all of the, the menstrual blood at the full moon sacrifice, or the goat milk, or the fucking psychedelics. I'm gonna keep doing it, Will, so hold on. A quick aside, do you remember learning about the mighty mitochondria back in grade school? Here's a quick refresher: it's the tiny engine inside of your cells that powers everything you do. But here's what they didn't teach you. As you age, your mitochondria break down. That's what can cause you to feel tired more often, take longer to recover, and wake up feeling like you're never fully recharged, no matter how long you sleep. I started taking Timeline nearly two years ago because it is the best product on the market for mitochondrial health, and that is why I partnered with them. Timeline is the number one doctor-recommended urolithin A supplement with a compound called Mitopure. Basically, it helps your body clear out damaged mitochondria and replace them with new ones. Mitopure is backed by over fifteen years of research, over fifty patents, and nearly a dozen human clinical trials. It was recommended to me by my doctor, and that is why I've used it for so long, since way before I knew who even made the product. And best of all, there's a thirty-day money-back guarantee, plus free shipping in the US, and they ship internationally. So right now, you can get a free sample or get up to twenty percent off by going to the link in the description below or heading to timeline.com/modernwisdom. That's timeline.com/modernwisdom. Steph K. E: "Why do you think the dating scene is so bad in Australia? Finding a husband is impossible." Hmm. I, I have no idea about what the dating scene is like in Australia. I guess I'm gonna go and, and be there in six weeks, so I will scrutinize. I would be talking out of my arse. Uh, I think the world would be a better place if people more often said, "I don't have an opinion on that," and unfortunately, this is one of those times. The dating scene being everywhere, I don't know why it's specifically... I, I, here's something that I can say, okay? I don't think that it's an Australia problem. I think it's a modern West problem. So Australia in the West, whatever, kind of. Kind of the opposite. I think everybody is struggling at the moment, shifting sands underneath everyone's feet about what's expected from both men and women, how to navigate this world, mismatch, coupling, vitality curve, uh, socioeconomic tall girl problem, you know, all of these things. They, they, like, they are not small road bumps to get over. They are fucking massive. It's much more like the wall between America and fucking Mexico. Um, you're not alone in struggling in the current dating market, uh, especially if you're the sort of girl who listens to this podcast, you're probably educated, maybe higher educated, maybe postgrad educated. You're probably earning at least a little bit of money. You're driven, you're reflective. Your standards for yourself are quite high if you're into the sort of stuff that we talk about on this show, which probably means that you have high standards for a partner, or at least you want to be able to emotionally connect or intellectually connect in a way. That, that's a weird kind of standard, and it's one that the internet doesn't talk about that much because they can talk about, you know, six feet tall, six, uh, six-pack, six figures a year. I think a lot of people are struggling with just finding someone that they can really, deeply, emotionally connect with, and they want to feel like their partner is someone who's on their level emotionally and intellectually. Like, dating is just one big, long conversation, and if you're struggling to find people that are into the stuff that you're into, because the same way as if you had a very refined palate, you wouldn't be able to eat in quite so many restaurants because your standards are a little bit higher. Uh, the same thing is true for relating and connecting to other people, and it's very different. I don't see many people talking about, "Well, what you should do is put up with less of a level of connection with your partner." You go, "Well, fuck, like if, if I've done five years of therapy and a thousand sessions of meditation, and I, I've really regulated my nervous system, or I'm curious about the world, or I love to learn-... that's obviously important to you, and if you can't find a partner that can, that is important to them, too, it's always gonna feel imbalanced. And that's, that's a, a kind of a silent epidemic that no one's talking about because, ah, the same as if you've got some chronic fatigue thing, it never appears on a balance sheet. Like, show me where it is on your Tinder profile. You just feel it. It's in a vibe. Um, I think this is a challenge everywhere. There's a lot of structural reasons, there's a lot of objective reasons, and there's a lot of subjective reasons as well. Um, stick at it because, again, the choice is between giving up and staying where you are and keeping going, and things maybe getting better. The, the choice seems pretty obvious to me. Tyler Reynard7326: "How do you approach hobbies outside of work? Any tips for not obsessing over skill when the initial goal [chuckles] was to have fun?" Dude, this is so good. So, um, I have a friend, Justin Nolt, and his coach gave him the task a few years ago of starting a hobby, but he wasn't allowed to try and get better at it. I think he started doing watercolors, some sort of painting or illustration, and as soon as he did it, he went and did a class maybe or, or, or sat down to do it. His type A overachiever brain kicked in and immediately said, "Right, well, I'm gonna go and watch YouTube videos so that I can get better at this, and I, I, I should research what the best watercolors are that I can buy online. And what's the specific, specific type of brush that I need? And I've got these different types of paper, and what I should do is I should really get a coach," and I said, "Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" [chuckles] The purpose of this thing was to just do the task, just, just, just to go through the experience without creating more homework and another barometer with which you can judge your worthiness or lack of worthiness. Um, so I feel you. I, I had this with, with pickleball, and what was supposed to be a Tuesday evening and Thursday evening pursuit, recreational pursuit, turned into, well, I, I-- Zane Navratil follows the show, so I should really get him to teach me how to do drills and the drop shot and all the rest of it. Yes, there is joy in getting better, but when that turns into a, like a tormentor or a taskmaster, um... One thing that you could try would be to do something in a group, so something like-- something where the performance or the outcome is a little bit more poorly defined. This would be a way to get around it. Um, if you do pickleball, you win or you lose at pickleball, you win or you lose the point, you hit the net or you get the ball over the net. Something that's a little bit more difficult to define would be yoga or, uh, dance, salsa dancing or line dancing or something. Yeah, I mean, you can, like, get the move or not get the move. You can look stupid or not look stupid, but it's just a spectrum of looking more or less stupid. And with yoga, there's a spectrum of it being more or less difficult, and that might be a good way around it, to do things that have slightly less well-defined outcome goals. Uh, that, that, that-- you're speaking to the crowd here, dude. I, I've done it myself with pickleball. My friend's done it with watercolors. The overachiever mindset runs deep. BrownEyedGirlB: "Where does one find a good man with moral values and ambition? He's rare in Australia." What the fuck is going on in Australia? This is, this is two, two out of three questions about the dating scene in-- Oh, maybe I was wrong. Maybe Australia's fucked. Uh, what's the birth rate in Australia? ChatGPT. ChatGPT, what is the birth rate? What is the birth rate in Australia? [sniffs] If this comes back at nought point four... Uh, what the fuck number is this? One point four. Okay, uh, that's, that's not great. I mean, it's tracking the rest of the world, but one point four is not good. One point four eight, so one point five, I'm gonna have that. Uh, moral values, and again, I'm not-- I feel like I'm doing a campaign either for or against Australia here. I'm either defending it or persecuting it. Uh, good man with moral values and ambition, just, i- it's the same advice for every person who says, "Where do I find a person like...?" Think that you weren't doing this for yourself. Where do people like the people you want to date hang out? Where would they go? Moral values and ambition. Maybe at a Modern Wisdom live event at chriswilliamson.live. Uh, maybe at a yoga class, maybe a meditation class. Maybe at some sort of business mastermind or a conference, maybe in a library, uh, maybe at some sort of run club or a meetup or something. Those are the, those are the kinds of places where people like the person that you want will hang out. Just go there. They, it-- I, I'm amazed at how obvious this is, and that's not for me to say that people disregard it, it's just that they haven't thought about it. It's like you're looking in places typically where these people don't hang out. It's like you're swiping through something with no preselection, like Raya or Tinder or Hinge, or you're going to bars and clubs because that's where people meet or something. Or you're doing it even at work, but it's your work. Like, does your work select for moral values and ambition? Maybe not. Fucking go to the places with people like the person you want to date. That's where you go. [sighs] Ranjan Candle2924: [chuckles] "Another congrats, Chris. Been thinking about this one for some time now. Do you have any tips on how to unattach or unlearn something-... or habits. It's a very abstract intention, but one I feel is very important for me to move forward. I cannot seem to come up with anything that I can put into action to directly influence my attachment with some habits and attributes of my life, except for replacing certain things with focusing myself, time, into aspects of where I want to be, and then go really deep, removing certain desires, which is extremely difficult. Any thought? That is a fucking... Okay, uh, unlearn habits. Um, it is a hundred times harder to unlearn something than it is to learn something, which is why not accumulating bad habits is more of a priority than accumulating good ones, and there is no such thing as not drilling a habit. You are always learning a habit. It simply depends on what you're learning, right? So if in one version of the world you wake up and go to the gym, and in another version of the world you hit snooze, that is the habit of hitting snooze. There's no neutral habit, right? One version, you eat healthily, in another version, you eat neutrally, right? It's not unhealthily, but you eat neutrally. That is, you're drilling the neutral eating habit. It's not you not contributing to the habit thing. You have a conversation with your partner. This one is super regulated, this one is super shouty, and then you have one which is kind of a little bit detached. It's not super dysregulated, but it's not, it's not your best self. Any one of those is drilling more of that thing. So first off, unlearning habits is not a small task. Secondly, my current belief around this, I'm sure that there's a way to actively unlearn the habit, d- deprogramming stuff, maybe the, uh, NMDR thing, that eye tracking shit. Maybe, maybe that might work. Um, NSDR. Uh, I, I get the sense that the best way is just to get a, a better habit, a stronger habit with deeper grooves cut into it. So I think about human behavior, kind of like water moving through a landscape, and there is a path of least resistance that the water cuts through, and that is typically some combination of effort and pattern. So how hard or easy is this thing to do, generally, independently of how much you've done it before, and how much have you done it before? If something is... I- it is always going to be easier to stay in bed than it is to go to the gym, and if you have stayed in bed a lot, that groove is going to be cut more deeply. All that you need to do is build a groove which is even deeper than that, and unfortunately, that means doing the hard thing. That means applying a fucking ton of effort to rip this new habit off the launch pad, one inch at a time, and you're gonna fail. The best rule for this is don't miss two days in a row, because one day missed is a mistake, but two days missed is the start of a new habit. Set that rule. Don't miss two days in a row. Do the new thing, and what is the opposite of the habit that you want to get rid of? If you don't want to scroll on your phone at night, the phone needs to be outside of your bedroom, and if you don't scroll on your phone at night, every single day that you put a repetition in where you don't do that, is you drilling that habit. Now, will the old habit always be there, lurking in the background like a monster hiding in the cupboard? Yeah, probably, and that is gonna suck, but over a long enough amount of time, I get the sense that you can drill those grooves so deep that even if the other one has some patterns and objectively is easier to do, it's the most seductive, low-friction one, I still think that you can beat it by just building new habits. So honestly, unlearning for me is all about relearning, basically, or, um, overwriting what it was that you did previously with something new. That... I, I, I'm yet to find a way to unlearn anything that doesn't involve doing something else instead. This episode is brought to you by Gymshark. You want to look and feel good when you're in the gym, and Gymshark makes the best men's and girls' gym wear on the planet. Let's face it, the more that you like your gym kit, the more likely you are to train. Their hybrid training shorts for men are the best men's shorts on the planet. Their crest hoodie and light gray marl is what I fly in every single time I'm on a plane. The Geo Seamless T-shirt is a staple in the gym for me. Basically, everything they make, it's unbelievably well-fitted, high quality, it's cheap. You get thirty days of free returns, global shipping, and a ten% discount site-wide if you go to the link in the description below, or head to gym.sh/modernwisdom and use the code MODERNWISDOM10 at checkout. That's gym.sh/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM10 at checkout. The Big Lad Podcast: What do you see wrong in the hustle culture, especially coming from the podcast space? Yeah, man, I mean, I, I have not become... I'm, I'm definitely not f- flavor of the month with that world. The "fuck your feelings, just work harder" thing, um, I don't know whether there's been anyone who's done more of a rail against it over the last twelve months than me. Uh, so many of the episodes that I've done are me trying to show the importance of emotion and connection and resonance with what you're doing, as opposed to just working until your eyes bleed. Now, the problem with this is, if you're somebody who has gone through the wringer and come out the other side, speaking to people who, for the most part, which is almost everybody, are still on their grind, it sounds an awful lot like me talking from an ivory tower about how basically pulling the ladder of hard work up after me, and that's a really difficult tightrope to walk, and it's one that I've realized I, I essentially can't... I can't do. I can't tell people to work less hard. What I can do is say, "Hey, this is a place that I think you're going to get to during this journey that you're on, or at least it's one that I got to." Uh, what do I see is wrong in hustle culture coming from the podcast space? It is a total disregard of how you feel.... over a long period of time, ignoring how you feel is super powerful and literally a superpower. But presumably, the reason that you're working hard is eventually to get to a state where you feel good. And if you start to reach escape velocity from all of the work that you did and from needing to do the work, and you're still tormenting yourself to never actually connect with your emotions and to not slow down if your body tells you to slow down, to not enjoy it if your body tells you to enjoy it, you will become very successful and very miserable. What is your definition of success? Mine is not to look back on a series of miserable successes. So that's, that's one of them. There's quite a few more. I think unfortunately, there is a transactional nature to a lot of the friendships that are kind of proposed. You know, you're supposed to only hang with people for as long as they're of service to you or useful to you, even if they're useful in contrast or in sort of regulation. Uh, should you be with people that make you feel good and are energy inflows? Yeah, absolutely. But, uh, speaking as someone who's spent two decades networking, hardcore networking, right, which I never talk about, but my entire last life was that, and the only way that a podcast grows is by you getting yourself into the right rooms and for the right people to know you. Treating people like commodities that you trade and trade up and get in with and ignore, and it, it, it does not go well. It will not go well. So those are, those are two issues. BradCooper1343: "After listening to your recent episode, I found myself grappling with a question that has occupied much of my thinking lately. How does one reconcile the tension between unfulfilled potential and contentment? As an ambitious twenty-three-year-old who has recently qualified in what society would deem a successful career, I find myself paradoxically dissatisfied despite these achievements. I recognize the harder work required for further advancement, yet I consistently defer it. I'm caught in a persistent internal conflict. I possess clarity about what's necessary to progress, yet I fail to execute. I find myself succumbing to procrastination and squandering time, all while maintaining an acute awareness of its irreplaceable value. This disconnect between my stated values and my actual behavior has become increasingly difficult to rationalize." That is question of the fucking day, dude. Congratulations, you win question of the Q and A. That is a wonderfully written question. So first off, you should try a career as a writer because that, that is beautiful. "How do I reconcile the tension between unfulfilled potential and contentment?" You're ambitious, you're qualified, you're dissatisfied with what you've achieved so far. You know that you need to work harder in order to advance further, and yet you're putting it off. There's conflict. You know what you need to do, yet you don't execute. You're procrastinating and squandering time, whilst also feeling fear and pain at the fact that you've done it. It's irreplaceable, and the disconnect between your stated values and your actual behavior has become increasingly difficult to rationalize. This is one of the fucking perennial personal growth challenges. I've done something that's supposed to be really p- satisfying to me, and yet I, I was objectively there and subjectively absent, is a way that you could think about it. Holy shit, I did the thing! Hang on. Why, why didn't I feel anything? Why... You're looking around. Oh, that's-- it's... I more, I need more. It's, it wasn't one gold medal. It was, it's, but I have to do it twice because I need to prove that it wasn't enough. It wasn't two, it was, 'cause two, it, it's three. That is the human condition. The perpetual chase is the human condition. If you caught an animal or gathered some berries or protected your tribe once and were perfectly satisfied, you would be very dead very soon. First off, this is how you are wired. You are wired to always achieve more. If you are the sort of person who is a Type A overachiever, like it sounds like you are, this is going to be even more. It's gonna be tuned up because in the modern world, you can make objective stuff, which used to be subjective. We have quantified status in terms of followers, qualifications. We have quantified resources. It's money, and you can even compare it with somebody in China or Taiwan or England. The need to work harder with the deferment of it, to me, there's a little bit... There's two things going on. One is you're dissatisfied with what you've achieved, and the second thing is you want to work harder, and you're upset that you're not. I get the sense that these two things might be linked. If you allowed yourself to celebrate your wins a little bit more, I feel like you would be motivated to go and achieve the next thing. But at the moment, you worked hard, achieved a thing, didn't feel satisfaction about it, and are now asking: Why can't I make myself work harder to go and achieve a thing that is, based on current evidence, just going to make me miserable again or be unfulfilling? That doesn't seem to be the way. If you were training a dog, that wouldn't be the way that you trained the dog. It did something good. I didn't reward it. I'm trying to get it to do something else good. Why is it not listening to me? Well, we, we, you, you didn't ever reward it about the thing that it did first. So solutions for this, I can spew pithy fucking homozy aphorisms at you all day.... The first thing, celebrate micro wins, especially with friends. Uh, if you've qualified in what society would deem as a successful career, did you go out and celebrate? Did you make a big deal out of it? Did you encourage your friends to make a big deal out of it? So it's Zach Talander's album launch party in a week and a half, and you should go and pre-save it on Spotify, because it's fucking awesome. It rips. Uh, that is the day that I fly back from St. Louis. St. Louis? St. Louis. Um, I'm gonna throw him an album launch party. Maybe it's gonna be at my house. Maybe I'll put it at a bar somewhere. I want to do that for him. I mean, that's obviously, his album launch is huge. But you, a twenty-three-year-old who recently qualified in a career that society would deem as successful like that, you should be celebrating that. And the same thing goes for you bought your first house, it's your birthday, you got a promotion, you made the sale, you didn't get fi-- like, just there is no... As far as I can see, there is no achievement too small to be worthy of celebrating, and the threshold that we have to hit, we believe that we have to hit in order to say that we're gonna celebrate about something, just keeps on being raised, and I think that that's bullshit. So the first thing, celebrate micro wins. Second thing, ask yourself, "Really, what is the price that I would need to pay in order to get to the next level?" Like, really, really ask yourself, what would that look like? And do you want it? Do you really, really want it? A much more difficult thing to face might be, well, maybe you don't want it that much. You recognize the harder work, and yet you constantly defer it. Maybe you don't want it that much, and that's okay. You have worked really hard to get to the career and recently qualify. You've really sort of had to work, uh, aggressively. I don't think that it's you leaving things on the table. If you're able to work hard and you're only twenty-three, something tells me that you've got a huge amount of runway to just keep on sending it, but maybe you're pointing in the wrong direction. And that's a really difficult question to-- uh, what was one of the first questions today? Somebody who doesn't feel like they're moving in the right direction. It feels like they did all of the things, got to the place, and now maybe they don't want it anymore. That is a really difficult position to be in. It is way easier, actually, to say, "I'm on the right path. I'm just too unmotivated," than, "Oh, fuck! I climbed up a ladder and it's against the wrong wall, and I need to climb back down and start again." So ask yourself, do you really, really want it? If you do really, genuinely, one hundred percent want it, not just because of loss aversion or fucking momentum or sunk cost fallacy, if you really, really want it, what are the steps required to, to get there? And then send it. Like, go for it. That's when you can actively say that you're being a pussy. You're being a pussy if you genuinely want something, you've got all of the capacity to go and get it, and you're choosing not to because of a lack of resilience or laziness or whatever. But also, if you're not allowing yourself to celebrate the wins along the way, what the fuck are you doing it for? Like, what's the point? How are you motivating yourself? So I love your question. It's a problem that a lot of people deal with. I think you need to pat yourself on the back more, make sure that you're pointing in the right direction, and if so, take a fucking flamethrower to the candle and burn all of the ends of it. That's how I'd do it. Martin Lenders: Questioning things, awareness of self, and long-term conscious thinking seem rare. Why? Because they're hard. Uh, because it's effortful. [chuckles] Um, because it is easier to hide in momentum and to outsource to the crowd, to rely on the paths that other people follow, rather than having to determine your own. Awareness of self is terrifying because you regularly ask the question: What if I'm doing it wrong? That feels uncomfortable. It's much easier to continue down a path that is the wrong direction than it is to stop and ask about whether or not you're pointing in the wrong direction. I mean, that's-- this is-- it could be the same question as, as I just answered. The way that I see it, if you're the sort of person who asks the why question, you don't have a choice about whether or not your self-awareness is going to be there. It is going to be there. You really only have the choice about whether or not you're going to become friends with it. And given that it is going to be there [chuckles] forever, you might as well become friends with it. Like, to genuinely treat it like a welcome visitor in your house or like a couch that you can't get rid of or something. Okay, that is a fixture. The fact that I question, the fact that I've got awareness of self, the fact that I have long-term conscious thinking, all right, that's a part of me. How can I use that to my advantage, and what are the areas in which it's no longer, or it, it should not be applicable? Uh, unlearning things is a hundred times harder than learning them, and this is even deeper because it was never learned. Typically, it was never learned. It's part of your programming. So it's like you opening up the terminal on your MacBook and trying to undo the source code. Like, it-- I just, I don't think that you can do it. So it's rare because it's hard, and it slows people down, and it makes them seem less cohesive from the outside. I've got an episode with Charlie Houpert coming up soon, which is so good and all about this, so I'd advise listening to that. Taylor Markser, "Favorite Sleep Token song?" Thank you for getting me into them. Dude, the number of people that come up to me and say I was the person that introed them to Sleep Token, I think I- I've talked about them on the show. I've won the T-shirts. I think the first time I ever did it was I shared the album on the newsletter, and-... I mean, it, it's a huge credit to the fact that they are so resonant and so good, and obviously emotionally connect with so many people, that a, a little suggestion creates a huge outsized impact, and it becomes such a big part of people's lives that they're then able to say, like, "You, Chris, gave me this gift." I'm like, "Made you aware of somebody who created a gift, perhaps?" But yeah, um, favorite Sleep Token song, it changes. Missing Limbs is one, Euclid is another. Uh, I think it's the, the final track of basically album one and album three. Uh, those are two. Um, are you really okay? Caramel, although it's so earwormy that I can't get rid of it, and I, I just didn't like the last forty-five seconds of that song. I, I, I, I didn't, I didn't like it. Um, those are three. Those are three. If I had to pick one today, Euclid, 'cause Zach sent it to me earlier. In other news, this episode is brought to you by RP Strength. This training app has made a huge impact on my gains and enjoyment in the gym over the last two years now. It's designed by Dr. Mike Israetel and comes with over forty-five pre-made training programs, two hundred and fifty technique videos. Takes all of the guesswork out of crafting the ideal lifting routine by literally spoon-feeding you a step-by-step plan for every workout. It guides you on the exact sets, reps, and weight to use, most importantly, how to perfect your form so every rep is optimized for maximum gains. It adjusts your weights each week based on your progress, and there's a thirty-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it, train with it for twenty-nine days, and if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get up to fifty dollars off the RP Hypertrophy app by going to the link in the description below or heading to rpstrength.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's rpstrength.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout. Sunmotes, what's your current morning routine? What are some protocols you do weekly? Uh, I'm getting back into very rigid morning routine. For people that are relatively new to the show, I did this stupidly opulent, very luxurious, bourgeois, retarded solo monk mode thing for a long time. It was three hours long, basically. Get up, walk, journal, breathwork, meditate, read, yoga, prep food, train, although kind of out of morning routine then. But anyway, by the time that I'd got back from training, it had basically been three hours, and then I would begin my day. Um, is that ridiculously out of touch? Is that undoable for most people? Yes, as the internet's told me a million times. Did it detox me from a very, very long time of never looking inwardly, and never having quiet, and never slowing down, and never asking myself what I thought? Yes, both of those things are true. I had a lot of unearthing to do, and I was in a very fortunate situation to do it, but I don't fucking care that it, it, it, it somehow feels unfair that I had the opportunity to do that. What-- would you rather me disregard the opportunity that I had to do it and go straight into scrolling or imagine that I had to raise a kid that I didn't have simply because... It, it is such a, it is such a stupid argument to say, "Oh, well, try and do that with a..." I get it. I'm not saying that you should do it. I'm simply saying that that's what I did, and that was my life situation. These are the same people who will say, "I had a, a, a, a, I got married at twenty-five, and we've had beautiful kids, and all of these things are amazing." I'm like, "Well, good, lucky for you to say. I was stuck doing a morning routine." Uh, people have chosen different life paths. There have been opportunities and challenges presented to each person that has done that. Some of those l- life paths have been imposed on us. Some of those life paths we have chosen ourselves. Morning routine. Right now, I'm getting stuck back into it. Get up at six, six-ish, walk with my Turbo Nuns glasses on, uh, because the sun's not rise yet. Uh, come back, Om, breathwork, HRV, resonance breathing, om.health. These lamps are so fucking good, dude. This is-- resonance breathing is gonna be the next big thing. I, I can already see it. It's super cool. It is basically hypertrophy training for your vagus nerve, and I think it's awesome. So I do between ten and twenty minutes of, uh, resonance breathing using the Om, then meditation, inside timer, unguided, doing Shinzen Young's Five Ways to Know Yourself, which is the only-- really the only unguided meditation I know. I might try and get into Jhana meditation soon. Uh, Johnny Miller is threatening to teach me, uh, and to put me in touch with one of the best teachers. That would be really cool, and I'll probably do an episode about it if I start doing it. If I do guided, I use Waking Up from Sam Harris. Then I'll read, usually for about ten minutes, and that's pretty much an hour. That brings me into land at around about an hour. Is that ridiculous and out of touch? [scoffs] Probably, but I don't care. Um, all of those things are, are things that I need to do at some point during the day, and stacking your morning routine with a ton of the, the thing... This is, this is where I disagree with Hormozy's take, that, um, spending lots of time to get ready to work is less efficient than just getting into work. I agree, if your only goal is to get into work, but if you were to say, "I need to do breathwork, and meditate, and go for a walk, and read," there is no easier time to do any of those things than on a morning. One of the best ways to do habits is to stack them together, and as soon as you open up your phone, it makes everything harder. So if you can just give yourself an hour in a morning to do those or whatever it is that you want to do, but for me, that is, that is a supercharged day.... I've got some movement in and some light in my eyes. I've done some breathwork, which has got nervous system dialed and also makes the meditation better. I've meditated, and I've learned something. And then if I go straight from that into training, f-- and I'm training with somebody or with a, a training partner or a coach or whatever, I try to teach them or explain to them one thing that I read that morning. Uh, that just locks in so much of the learning as opposed to it being a bit more passive. Uh, it means that I always read stuff that I'm really interested in because I'm excited to talk to somebody about it. Uh, it fucking rules, dude. That-- this morning routine I've got right now, I love, and, um, it's not that hard to stick to, so highly recommend it. Nico Brons: "Why do women leave you the moment you start loving them?" Fuck me, that's dark. There is a certain category of people who only see value in something which is hard to get. It's a playground dynamic that I want what I can't have, and as soon as that thing feels like it's available to me, there's a strange ick that starts to build inside of people. That is a very undeveloped approach to understanding the value of humans, and it's a shame, and it's not universal. So some women will leave when they feel like you're no longer a challenge, and some men will leave when they feel like you're no longer a challenge. They're not the partners that you want in your life. I know it hurts, and I know that it sucks, and it's a horrible trick of human nature and our psychology, that things that are hard to get are seen as more valuable. But that is not the person that you want to be in a relationship with at all because that dynamic was going to come out now, or when you got engaged, or when you got a dog, or when you got married, or when you had your first kid, or when you lost your job, or when they lost theirs, or when you got a promotion, or when you got ill. You've been saved. You've been saved by somebody who wasn't sufficiently emotionally developed to be able to hold you, switching off when the challenge was no longer there. Uh, it's really tough, and, uh, I-- whoever has felt this dynamic... And it, it's so, it's so constant, right? This, I want it when it's difficult. I think part of the, part of the underlying assumption here is that that person doesn't feel like they're particularly worthy. If you had high self-esteem, I don't think that you would be turned off by somebody liking you. I think what is being revealed there is not somebody's judgment about you, it's somebody's judgment about themselves, that if somebody doesn't see themselves s-- a human that is lovable, when they are loved, they don't ask, or they don't think, "This is amazing." They ask: "What is wrong with you that you like me in a way that I don't like myself?" I'm sorry, but there are an endless number of women out there who are not going to behave like this, and they're probably in the comments now asking who you are. And, and don't mean to victim blame, but why do women leave you, as in more than one, as in multiple, as in this has happened to you quite a bit? You are choosing these women. So there is something about your selection criteria that is causing this to happen. So have an ask of what it is that you're looking for and, uh, why that keeps being something that you're selecting for in a hidden manner. Even if you don't want it and you don't know that it's going to happen, you are choosing these women, so scrutinize appropriately next time. Daniel, Daniel K Real Estate: "Help us find a cure for ME/CFS." Dude, fucking I, I would love that. Um, chronic fatigue is so ruthless, man. I got a message off physics girl, A- Amy? Fu-- someone, somebody physics girl, and I watched her video, and her video was the, uh, final straw justification for me releasing my first health vlog, and she DM'd me this week and basically said that she'd seen [chuckles] she'd seen... It was like the human centipede, but it was just two people like this. Uh, she'd seen mine, and she was-- she felt less alone, and I'd seen hers, and that was the reason that I did it, so it was cool. Um, so much more research needs to be done into this. It is fucking insane that there are people who don't even know that they're struggling with chronic fatigue, and they-- it's just a, "Oh, this is part of getting older. This is just the byproduct of becoming a..." It is fucking not, dude. Yes, aging is a real thing. Yes, you locally reverse entropy. Yes, the universe is trying to crush you into tiny little smithereens. Fuck you. Nobody's stopping. This is not the way that you're supposed to feel, and it is a silent epidemic that is absolutely wrecking people. I, I, I feel because I'm still in it-... it feels weird for me to start trying to do some sort of power campaigning thing for it. I can see at some point in future, me really getting deep into probably to start mold, uh, making mold testing more available, more convenient, making the protocols more widely known, um, because I think a lot of people are dealing with, um, toxic mold exposure that don't know about it. Maybe as many, if not more, than are dealing with chronic fatigue. But I got a, like, the FBI's most wanted list, I've got a hit list of things once I get out the other side of this, that I really want to try and take the head off, and, uh, ME/CFS is on that, so I'll try. Dakshkumar7255: How and why do you have such big forearms like Popeye? I do have... I do have slightly chunky forearms. Uh, I don't know. It's genetic. I've trained them a total of twice directly. Both times were captured on video, and both times with Mike Israetel last year. I, I-- Everybody's got one body part that is just freakish and grows no matter what you do to it. Some people's shoulders, some people's glutes, some people's calves. For me, it's forearms and, uh, it's good, except for when you need to wear a suit or a shirt, then it's a nightmare. Navid1759: Being the introspective person that you are, was it hard to form intellectually engaging friendships in the transitional phases of your life when old friends are not immediately available anymore? Thanks for being the beacon of authenticity in the age of mediocrity. Your cognitive flexibility is both an object of my admiration and an ideal I aim for. Respect, sir. Thank you, Navid. It's hard to form intellectually engaging friendships full stop because of that question that somebody asked earlier on, which is, it's, why is it rare for people to be thoughtful and have long-term thinking, reflective? Um, it is just hard, full stop. But it's particularly hard in transitional phases because of the lonely chapter. You're different, you're moving on, you can't resonate with your old set of friends, but you're not yet in the place where you are so developed that you've built your new set of friends, and during these transitional phases, you're very incongruent. Kind of obsessed with this idea of congruence at the moment, so thoughts and actions, uh, and beliefs all aligning. Uh, you know where you're going, you know how to do the things that are required to get there, and you're not doubting yourself in the process. When you're going through a transitional period, all that you are is doubt. You've left behind the things that used to give you a sense of satisfaction and reassurance. You haven't yet got to the stage where you know what the new ones are. You don't have the skills of the new ones, and the skills of the old life are, uh, left behind, they're, they're useless. And you're just asking... You're swimming in this milieu of uncertainty, and it tarnishes the whole process, and it's not fucking fun at all. Like, this is the journey of personal growth. The journey of personal growth is not-- At least fifty percent of it is asking, "What the fuck am I doing?" And then the other fifty percent of it is doing the fuck that you're doing. [chuckles] Uh, especially if you move quickly. So I'm in another transitional phase at the moment. Um, I am going from passive to active, which was, I don't know, twenty-six to thirty-two. That was that period. Twenty-seven to thirty-two was going from passive to active, asking myself questions: Who do I want to be? What does that consist of? Learning agency, taking control of myself, g- grabbing life by the nuts, and, and, and doing the thing. And then that was good up until about eighteen months ago. And then I tried to-- I am currently still trying to make the transition, passive to active and now active to emotional. And that from the outside, uh, that objectively should be evolution, but from the outside and from the inside, it feels like devolution. It feels like going back to where I was, um, because all of the, "Fuck your feelings, bro, just work harder, use more caffeine, sleep less, forget how you feel, disconnect from what is happening below the neck, don't care about whether the success was or was not worth it. You're just... Stay on mission," um, rationality, uh, a ruthless, single-minded focus, largely solo. All of those lessons that take you from passive to active are no longer usable when you go from active to emotional. And it's way harder because you're trying to heal all of the patterns that you only just started to rely on, and the world gave you all of this fucking admiration for doing it. And from the outside, what it looks like is someone who doesn't know what the fuck they're doing and who wants to be around that person? So no matter whether you're going from, uh, like victim to agent or agent to healer, passive to active, active to emotion, uh, at each stage, your congruence is out of the window. You don't have the same tools that you used to. You don't have the support group that you did. Yes, it was hard. This is a long answer to a relatively short question. Yes, it was hard to in-- to form i- intellectually engaging friendships because you don't necessarily know what you like, what you want. Other people who are also in this transitional period, they're trying to cross the river from one bank to another at the same time. I'm fortunate that I, I just lucked out. George, Zach, Yusuf, and Johnny from the UK, um, a lot of the people, Luke, James, a lot of the people are-... pretty much at the same trajectory that I am and facing the same challenges at the same speed. Charlie Houpert's another one of those, Dr. K is another one. These people keep appearing, and then there's people that are further ahead, uh, Joe Hudson, uh, Dr. K probably as well. Uh, it's tough, dude. Just stay the course. I- I'm aware that the Rocky cut scene was three minutes in the movie, and it's been four and a half years for you, but again, the choice is between giving up and staying where you are or keeping going and maybe getting to the next level. Eric Grillo: "What part of your life became worse as you became more optimized, and how do you decide when optimization has gone too far?" What part of your life became worse as you became more optimized? [mumbling] Sleep is a good example of this. Uh, there was a wonderful study done where two groups were brought into a sleep lab. One group was paid based on how quickly they could fall asleep, and the other group was not. Guess which group fell asleep faster? The group which wasn't paid, because sleep is one of these weird things in life, like being ill sometimes and having limited capacity, where trying harder makes it work. There are very few situations in life where trying harder makes something worse, but trying harder makes going to sleep worse. If you can't force yourself to sleep, that is the antithesis of what you need to do, which is relax, and this is how people get into insomnia spirals. They're scared of the pillow. When they get into bed, they know that they're not gonna fall asleep. "Well, here it is. It's happening again. I'm not gonna fall-- I'm gonna be so tired tomorrow. I should fall asleep. Why can't I fall asleep? I'm gonna do the thing." Also, the stress of trying to be perfect probably will kill you more quickly than your imperfections. There is a limit to this. The stress of trying to perfect your non-cocaine addiction, uh, probably a good idea. Trying to perfect your s-- reduction of your gambling habit, also probably a good idea. Um, but most people are going from zero to one, not minus one to zero. Uh, the over-optimizers are over-optimizing, not just optimizing. Sleep is one of them. [sighs] Training is actually another one of them, that what you want... And I, I, I think the, the broad rule here is that optimization often removes enjoyment because you start to do what is prescriptively, uh, preferred, as opposed to what the vibe tells you is most enjoyable. But ultimately, the biggest determinant of any optimization protocol is compliance, and compliance is usually determined by how you feel about it. So what you should do is get close to right-ish and then exclusively optimize for enjoyment, 'cause first off, it's gonna be more enjoyable, which is the whole fucking reason that you're here on the planet. But secondly, it means that you're gonna be more likely to stick to it. So you're gonna do the thing more, which will gain you more results than trying to squeeze out an extra few percent or maybe even many percents per iteration, but way reduce down your compliance. So that would be a good way to decide when optimization has gone too far, when stuff stops being fun, when it stops being enjoyable. Not everything is going to be enjoyable, but let's say that, uh, going to the gym used to be great because you trained on an evening time, and you had a great training partner, and everything was awesome. But then you learned that training on a morning, actually, you've got five percent more motor units recruitable, and, uh, it means that your caffeine intake and your beta alanine, and you can get the post-workout window for your nutrition dialed in. So you stop training with your friend, you start training on a morning. Have you-- you have optimized the iteration, but you have completely reduced down the likelihood of you sticking with it over time, or you're gonna use that will... You're gonna have to tap into willpower, or it's just fucking less enjoyable. So, um, sleep and training, two areas that you can easily over-optimize. I'm sure that there's tons more. And, uh, deciding when optimization's gone too far, there's probably a way better answer than this, but I get the sense that when stuff stops being fun, that's a, it's a good place to begin. The Fun Bin: "Hey, Chris, I've been following you for years. Thank you for leading by example in turning pro and showing up so consistently." Thank you. "I'm forty-one, going through yet another breakup and struggle to feel I am enough financially. I'm fit, funny in my own way, a little neurotic, attentive, attractive, and caring, but I fear my lack of industriousness is pushing women away after their initial swooning period. Do I need to be exceptionally financially successful to keep a girlfriend?" This is a good question. Um, I think lots of... Guys will often fall into one of two categories: the sort of objectively successful, but subjectively don't seem to have what is needed for women to feel good about them. But you're in a different camp. You're in the camp that seems to be subjectively pretty dialed, but objectively, uh, at least in one area, the resource provisioning, uh, struggling. Um, look, for each of these different buckets, the more of them that you can fill, the better. You do not need to be exceptionally financially successful to keep a girlfriend, but if you were financially successful, your potential market, your TAM, would probably open up a little more. Now, do you want a girlfriend who is very sensitive to your financial successfulness? If not, this is actually, in a weird way, gonna be a good selection criteria because you're going to choose a girl who is very, very unmaterialistic 'cause you ain't got no materials to give her. I, I would say if you've got all-- and presumably, it sounds like initial swooning period, and then you're laying at the feet of your lack of industriousness and your financial success.... previous girlfriend's attraction. You fear that your lack of industriousness is pushing women away. That is what you're saying. Um, I would make sure that that is the case. I would maybe even text your exes if you've got a good relationship with them, or fuck it, like, just text them anyway. "Hey, I just wanted to, I just wanted to ask, how, how big of a deal was my financial success in, in how attracted you were to me? I could-- I just... You don't need to sugarcoat it. I'm just-- I'm asking for myself. I really, I really wanna be a good man for the next woman, and I, I, I really hope that I've left you in a better place than I found you. Can you just-- could, could-- feel free to Voice Note me or say whatever." And I would just do that for all of your exes. That'd be a cool, that'd be a cool personal development thing to do. It'd be good at keeping your ego small, and you might be surprised at what you find out. They might say, "Actually, do you know what it is? Like, the neurotic thing, uh, it was actually a bit much for me," and that might be what you need to work on. Um, so that'd be cool to ask. Uh, I would say, financial success, if you're in your forties, is especially if you've got this fit, funny, neurotic, attentive, attractive, care... Like, if you've got those things, it, it's not gonna be that hard for you to start to grind a little bit more. Squeeze. You've got no dependents, it sounds like. Going through a breakup, single. Um, you can wring out the fucking wet towel of resource provisioning and crank it, side hustle, do a, do a few things, and within the space of a few years, presuming that you don't have some dependents or you're living in a really expensive place, you will be able to get... I would much sooner back you, somebody who just needs to potentially become more financially successful, than back someone who needs to become more attentive, attractive, caring, fit, and funny. [chuckles] Like, you have got-- you've got all of the raw materials, and you've just got this one bit. If this is true, again, if this is... If they come back, I mean, it's weird, like, a girl come back: "Yo, yeah, it's because you earn forty grand a year. That's a, to me, it's a real turn-off." It's like, what, with every past girlfriend? I don't know, maybe, but find out what it is. If so, fix it. Thomasjh10: "I'm four years clean from gambling, but still paying off gambling debts. About sixty thousand pounds left." Wow! "What advice would you give for trying to pay this off as quickly as possible? Currently, a teacher." Well, dude, I'm really fucking proud of you for beating gambling addiction. Four years from gambling. Gambling is such a silent, like a, a huge, silent epidemic that, that nobody sees. It is massively gendered, right? As a lot of addictions are, actually. Uh, and I think if people don't have that particular keyhole that gambling taps into in their mind, they just can't understand. I, I can't understand. I've got, uh, a few addictive bones in my body, but none of them ever got, whatever, uh, uh, addictive sockets in my body, but none of them ever got plugged into. Uh, it just turned into work and, and, and, and building businesses and fucking thinking about stupid ideas. Um, and I'm really fortunate that that was the case, but I, I really applaud you for doing it. It's fucking awesome. Um, sixty thousand pounds is a lot of money. That would be, what? Eighty-five thousand dollars, maybe, maybe ninety thousand dollars. Currently, a teacher, I'm gonna guess that that means you earn probably thirties, thirties-ish, uh, depending on how long you've been doing it for. Um, fuck, man. I mean, being a teacher is not a small lift. Uh, you've got, you've got your, uh, holidays and things. What would be good? I mean, you can try and do the side hustle thing. Take James Smith's G- G- how to become an online fitness coach thing and, you know, do that. I, I would actually say that from an hourly standpoint, especially if you can do it, becoming a PT is really not bad, 'cause in the UK, that can be twenty-five, thirty, forty pounds, even fifty pounds an hour if you are able to sort of build up the momentum and do it in a, a high-income area. That would be a good side hustle. Um, I know what you don't want. Well, what's easiest for me to say is just chip away at it, dude, you know, sixty thousand pounds left, batten down the hatches. But if you're battening down the hatches with what? F- let's say five grand a year, you're able to chip away, that's twelve years. That's a fucking decade of this thing hanging over your head, and if there's gambling debts that are accumulating interest, that is just... It is gonna take, it's gonna take time, and presumably you want to be liberated of this, or else you wouldn't be asking me. I mean, obviously, you need to get your burn rate down. Um, you, you, you can't spend that much because every pound that you spend on something is a pound that you don't spend on that. But then, do you also want to look back on a life where you spent all of your time just paying off this debt and didn't enjoy your youth when you had it? Um, my... I, I'm sure financial planners would say otherwise. My feeling in situations like this is to just try and increase the inflow of cash. Um, that was the way that I got-- I mean, there was a, a period in uni when I was twenty where I didn't have money to put into my car to drive to work, and one of the guys that was living with me was stealing food from the Tesco 'cause neither of us had money. Uh, I did-- I, I was too proud to message my parents and ask them for cash. I'm sure they would have given it to me. I'm sure I could have got a loan from the guy that me and Darren were working for for the franchise, but I, I, I didn't want to seem so... I don't even know why, but it, it... I know what it's... For a short period of time, I know what it's like to be really worried about money. My solution to get out of that was to just overwork. Um, and I get the sense that-... anxiety really hates a moving target, and dialing your burn rate down is good, but dialing your inflow up will probably feel better and be more motivating. Yeah, it's gonna be more tiring, but it's gonna feel like you're doing more. As long as you can keep a, an eye on how much you're spending. Evening job, I-- fucking, [sighs] local retail, uh, somewhere that's twenty-four hours, uh, a petrol station kiosk, uh, QPPT stuff, especially during summer holidays, uh, that, that's where I would go. I wouldn't be doing it from investment. I think just increase the inflow. But dude, congrats. Uh, I'm really, I'm really happy that you're doing it. You are gonna get there. Um, just stay the course. And also, like I say, the action is the antidote to anxiety thing. Um, something tells me that if you're working really hard, the likelihood of you relapsing into the gambling is probably gonna dip down too. El Moroo: "When are you coming to Hamburg?" So we have a gap in the UK and Ireland tour between f- the fir-- we do four dates back to back. It's insane. [chuckles] We do those four, and then we have a window, and I'm either going to do cinema shoot and do some episodes, or we're gonna come to Germany. I have no idea whether we're gonna come to Hamburg, but Germany is the fifth biggest market of listeners for Modern Wisdom. I think it's America, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany. Uh, so I know that there's lots of German people there. We're also coming to some video game conference thing with Neutonic, I swear. And, uh, we might do it around that. That's at the end of September, maybe, or August. Uh, I will try and come, uh, in the next-- I will try and come in twenty twenty-six. Gaia Maria: "Hey, Chris, how much have you worked with Joe Hudson, and how well do you guys know each other? You seem close. Loved your podcasts together. Love." Thank you. Joe is a GOAT. He's so good, and, um, [inhales] I- I've not done that... I mean, I spent that week with him. I did his retreat, I did Groundbreakers, uh, I've done the communications course from Art of Accomplishment. We talk maybe once a week, once every couple of weeks. He's legit. There's very few people on the planet that de- deserve the title, Master Coach, and he's one of them. Um, and we are close. We are. And, uh, to be close to somebody who I think is such a good person, significantly better person than I am, is, is cool. It's cool. Uh, my desire for w- what a good friend looks like or the, the people that I admire, um, the criteria for people that I admire has changed an awful lot, and, uh, somebody like Joe, who's so calm and regulated and introspective and caring and, and, and smart and wise, uh, he is, you know... That's why I love Chris Bumstead. That's why, in a weird way, that's why I love Joe Mosey as well, even though, you know, if you were to take Joe Mosey [chuckles] and Joe Hudson, you've got two very different demeanors. Um, I learn a lot from him, and he's, he's a, he's a, a, a great guy. So I, I really hope-- I should have done the decisions course. It's happening right now from Art of Accomplishment. Everyone that was in my Groundbreakers group is telling me how great it is, but I just... I couldn't, I couldn't. With all of the health stuff that I'm trying to do, it would have just felt like more burden. So maybe next year. Coach Math: "What kind of questions do you prefer or not prefer at the Q and A? I've got VIP tickets in New Zealand." Fucking sick, dude. I've never been to New Zealand, so I'm excited to go. [inhales] Uh, mm, I prefer the question that you really want to ask. You, you're not performing for me, I'm performing for you, and whatever you're interested in, what, what is the burning question that's really true? One, I want the question from you that is scarier than the one that you think you're supposed to ask. It's the one that's more revealing. It's the one that makes you go, "Oh, am I really gonna say this? I've got this mic and a few thousand people in front of me. Am I really gonna say this to this guy whose podcast I, I watch?" That's the question I want you to ask. So other than that, whatever you're interested in. Logan Bissett: "If Pinocchio said his nose is going to grow, what would happen next?" [chuckles] Uh, if Pinocchio said his nose is going to grow, what would happen next? I... something tells me there's a Reddit, a thread that is four thousand comments deep, explaining th- this. I get the sense that it would grow because he doesn't know if it's going to grow. So the nose grows because of him lying, not because of his accuracy at telling the future. He does not know if it's going to grow, unless he does. Fuck! I, I don't know. Dark Mode Kyle: "Why did you stop working out? You used to be so fit." What? What do you mean? Why did you stop working out? You used to be... What's the used to be? What do you- I still work out. Someone just gave me the compliments on the forearms. I, look, I have lost a little bit of muscle mass, but I've been sad and ill, okay? Fucking hell, Dark Mode Kyle. You really are fucking dark mode. Didn't stop working out. Still fit-ish. Fit-ish.... mean question. I'm not gonna finish up on that. I was gonna finish up, I'm not gonna finish up on someone accusing me of going skinny fat, even if I have been. Bexod Zasson, uh, Za- Zassanov5743: "Do you have any plans about writing a book? Because it seems to me and the majority of the listeners that you have enough resources to write one, right? And we are looking forward to it." Well, thank you, and yeah, I, I do know that I should get on with it. Um, this deal has been there for a long time with Portfolio from Penguin. Adrian, the owner, is really wonderful with me and has allowed me to put my delivery date back, uh, three times already, I think. [chuckles] Tell you what I'm struggling with. I'll be completely open with you. What I'm struggling with is the, what's called the idea set. Um, I could call it Modern Wisdom, and that would be cool, and it would be a-- it would pass the subway test, which is, would someone want to be seen reading it on the tube? Modern Wisdom, book title, like, whoa! Great. What's a-- What is the idea set of Modern Wisdom? It's not a single thrust. It's not The Psychology of Money, it's not Atomic Habits, it's not High Agency, it's not The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. It's not an idea set. Uh, it is more like an almanac-style book. And although that's great and kind of is what I do, right, curating different ideas, it means that you don't get to own a particular area of cognitive real estate, and I think that's important. I also think if the first book that I do is simply me naming it after the podcast, which is already the thing that I'm known for, what it sounds like is, "Oh, that podcast guy wrote a book about his podcast or about what he learned on the podcast or something." And even if the podcast has been the big vehicle for my learning, I think that reduces down the legitimacy of me as a writer. Like, make no mistake, I've, I've written over a quarter of a million words in the last five years. Since I launched the newsletter, I do a thousand words every single week, three hundred thousand, three hundred and fifty thousand words in a fucking Apple Note on this laptop. I'm a writer, and if I [chuckles] release a book that's the title of my podcast, I feel like that kind of diminishes the legitimacy of, "Oh, he, he really wrote a book. He really put forward a thesis, he had an idea, and he, you know, crafted the direction of this book to deliver that," as opposed to, he just repurposed ideas from the pod, even if it was brand-new material, even if I qu-- didn't quote a single other person. I don't know. So I'm... The idea set, there's so many different directions that I can go in. Do I want to talk about how to not miss your life? Do I want to talk about the balance between success and happiness? Do I want to talk about lonely chapter? Do I want to talk about unteachable lessons? Do I want to talk about, uh, obsession? Do I-- You know, what-- the single direction, there's so many that I could go in, but that also is a problem. So I've got the fucking paradox of choice and curse of, curse of not even competence. I've never written a book before, but curse of options, at least at the moment. Um, yeah, I, I, I am looking forward to it, too. I'm just gonna have to get my life to the stage where I have sufficient launch velocity to get away from it. I mean, if you have an idea for what you want to see me write, fucking leave it in the comments below, because there are so many things that I can talk about. Um, yeah, what would you, what would you want to see me write about? That would be, that would be an interesting one. All right, I'm gonna love you and leave you. Uh, that is an hour and forty-five. I, I did this last time, um... I think I did this around about Christmas, where I got to the end of the episode and I did a little reflection about sort of how I've been genuinely, genuinely how I've been feeling recently. And, um, I, I said a while ago, if someone could do a sentiment analysis, you know, pace of words, tonality, energy, speech errors, I would lo- [chuckles] I'd love that to be tracked over time because there would be this weird sort of, uh, increase in all of these issues as my brain started dripping out of my ears and I wasn't sleeping, and I had all of this stuff going on personally, that I was, you know, trying to, trying to deal with. And it feels really good to have a tiny little bit of me back, and I appreciate all of you for sticking with me through this because I know, I-- even when I look back on the, the conversations I had last year, they were amazing and insightful and, you know, one of my favorite years with the podcast, but there was a sort of dour, sad undertone to them because that's how I was feeling. That was the energy that I was bringing in. I was asking a lot of questions about tapping into emotion and navigating downtime and, you know, overcoming challenges. And in some ways, that's inspiring, hopefully, but in other ways, it, you know... I, I leak into the show a lot, and that's beautiful because it's real. But it does mean that if I, if I'm having a bit of a down period, you guys come along for the ride, and I, for the first time in a long time, have just got a little bit of breathing room. My brain feels like it's starting to work, and I'm coming up with ideas, and I'm beginning to write a little bit more fluidly, and I'm prepared to have a bit of... not bravado, confidence. I'm prepared to have a little bit of confidence, which I haven't had for, like, nearly two years. Like, proper, proper, "I feel like I'm good at the thing that I do," as opposed to, "I fear that I'm going to be found out for not being good, as good as I used to be." And, um, I just wanted to say thank you for everyone sticking with me. Um, I'm really, really gonna fucking rip the hinges off this year. Uh, I'm gonna do it gently to start with, because if I feel a bit better and then start loading too much load onto the, the work plate, uh, that will go badly. So I'm gonna try and titrate the dose, but, you know, I, I... The early signs are good, and, um, I just wanted to say thank you for everyone for being here with me, for giving me a reason to get out of bed on days when I've really, really, really fucking not wanted to, for supporting the show. Uh, it's really- it's super meaningful, and these Q and A's and the questions that you guys ask are so cool, and they're really... I'm proud to have you as an audience, and that's it. I'll stop fucking... guffawing and venting all over you. I appreciate you. chriswex.com/valentine if you wanna get some questions to connect with your partner or make yourself squirm. chris williamson.live for the tour stuff. Mostly Wise merch is gonna be coming out soon. Lots of episodes coming up. New studio, Australia people. All right, I love you all. Bye.