3.7M Q&A - Fatherhood Plans, Medical Update & New Hairstyle

What's happening, people? Welcome back to the show. It is a 3.7 million subscriber Q&A episode. Before we get into this one, I'm going on tour. This October, November, and December, I'm going on tour around all of North America, Canada as well, and tickets have sold out for lots of places. So Toronto's sold out, LA's sold out, Nashville's sold out, and Vancouver's sold out. But there are still tickets available for New York at the Town Hall on Thursday, October 23rd, for Boston at The Wilbur on Thursday, November 13th, Chicago at The Vic on Friday, November 14th, Nashville is sold out, Austin, The Paramount Theater Thursday, November 20th, that's the adopted hometown show, Salt Lake City at The Complex Thursday, December 4th, Denver at The Paramount Theater Friday, December 5th. All of those have still got limited tickets available, and you can get yours now at chriswilliamson.live. You can come and see me. It's a solo live show, me on stage for an hour and a half, and then there's a Q&A at the end, and there's a meet-and-greet afterward, and this sold out in Australia and in London last year. And it's really good, and I'm never gonna run this show again. So after this particular tour is done, the self-discovery show is going to be binned for the rest of time. So if you want to come and see me live, chriswilliamson.live. All right. Let's get into asking and answering some questions. Insiders22, "What's going on with the hair?" Yes. Fair question. Uh, I've had a lot of comments about this. In the last five years, since I had this hair, which is the hair I had five years ago, go back to, like, pre-early COVID, this is the hair that I had for a decade, uh, to now, it's kind of someone with curly hair that's short on the sides has taken on an entire new meme meaning all of its own. Mark Zuckerberg hasn't helped in that regard. It's like the broccoli hair cut. You have to understand that if you're a person with curly hair, if you're a guy with curly hair like me, you have three hairstyle options, right? You can have skinhead, which I did for the last five years since COVID, my COVID hair- haircut just extended. You can have short on the sides, long on the top, or some version of mullet, right, still short on the sides and long elsewhere, which ends up kind of looking like this. Or, you can grow afro. Those are the three options. Skinhead, (laughs) like ac- newly, like, nomenclatured broccoli haircut, and afro. Those are the only three options. And I was kind of sick of the skinhead thing. I'd done it for so long, and, uh, I quite like having hair for the first time in half a decade. And, I mean, Dean can put up a selection of the different hairstyles that he's known me with since we've been friends for, like, two decades now. And, uh, I've ... To say that this is the most extreme thing I've ever done would be incorrect. Had an afro for very long time. I had this haircut, grew a massive beard, grew, like, twirly handlebar mustaches. I've cycled through looks. I've just been really stable since COVID. Or unstable mentally, but stable at least in terms of my hair. Uh, so that's what's going on with it, and, um, if someone wants to propose an alternative haircut, I am open to suggestions, but there's not that much that you can do with curly hair. Shave it off, grow it in some areas and grow it everywhere, and the grow it everywhere is not an option in the shave it off thing I just did. So that's what's going on. Case closed. Thank you, Your Honor. Ropiliano, "How to deal with procrastination? Do you ever have to deal with it?" I mean, I don't know what human doesn't. Yes, I do all the time. I sit down at my desk and look at whatever I'm supposed to be doing and maybe not even know what I'm supposed to be doing, and just think that there's work to be done and tasks to be completed, and not. I scroll Instagram, watch YouTube, fuck about, like, be on my phone. Like, just not do the thing I'm supposed to. Oh, I'll get up and go for a walk. Oh, I'll go and, like, rearrange the sauces in the cupboards. Like, anything to not do the work that you're supposed to be doing. And, uh, there's people that are way more scientific than me. At least the things that I've found for me, procrastination primarily comes from two places. First is, you don't know what to do, and the second is you don't know how to do it. Um, the first one's real easy to fix, right? Um, you are building a podcast, right? You're re- you're gonna be launch your first podcast. But you don't launch a podcast. You do a series of really tiny next actions that then eventually result in a podcast being launched. So when you say, "I'm gonna sit down today and move myself closer to launching my podcast." Okay. What is that? Like, what are you going to do? You don't know what to do, you can't do it. So you go, "I need to break down this big project into action steps. Okay, I need to, uh, do brainstorming for the name. Ah, hooray. There we go. That's a ta- ... I can do that." You can't launch a podcast, but you can come up with a name. "And then I need to work out who I'm going to use for hosting, so I need to research hosting platforms and make decision and sign up with credit card. Okay, there's the next thing." So, uh, go on ChatGPT and make artwork for thing ... All the graphic artists are fucking tearing their hair out. You know what I mean? Like, you do those. That's the first thing. Second thing is you know what to do, but you don't know how to do it, and then it's just a case of research on the internet, ChatGPT, get a tutor, whatever. And those, really, for me, are the two biggest roadblocks. And when I'm whining about procrastinating or berating myself for not getting things done and wasting my time, it's usually because of one of those two things. So, that's how I deal with it. Avery Christenson, "What shorts do you wear?" I live in one of two pairs of shorts. Uh, these? Eh. Eh. Those, uh, Gymshark Heritage 5-inch Shorts are phenomenal. Out of focus. Hello again. Uh, they are the ... They're by far the best s- uh, sort of travel shorts just day-to-day. They're so comfy. I l- I, I love them. And they've got these new ones with sort of a raw hem edge, which are really nice. I think they're called the Heritage 5-inch.Uh, and then for training, I use what they call their Hybrid Shorts, Gymshark's Hybrid Shorts, and that's it. Like, two pairs of shorts. That's all I need, and, um, I've been around the world in them. There's loads of different colors. They're super comfy. They're like 25 bucks maybe or 30 bucks. They last forever. They're easy to wash and dry. They don't take up much room. They're like... The- the fact that guys get to wear shorts is kind of a bit of a hack. Um, that's it, those two. And gym.sh/modernwisdom, I think gets you access to the page of all of my- all the clothes that I wear from them. Uh, gonna get in trouble from Gymshark for this, but Barbell Apparel have got some really awesome swim shorts. Uh, I really love their swim shorts. And that's it. That's like my entire wardrobe. Colin DeJong, "Loved the Underoath episode." Thank you. "When are we going to see more musical guests?" #Beartooth. Uh, I was with Caleb at Summer of Loud only a few weeks ago, and I- he's kind of balls deep in new music writing at the moment. After Summer of Loud finishes, he'll 100% be coming on. Uh, I am going real hard on the music thing. Uh, s- if you could see the list, my wish list of people to speak to, uh, it's really cool, and if you're into alternative and heavy music or country, uh, we should have some really cool people before the end of the year. And I'm pushing super hard. I loved that conversation with the guys from Underoath. I thought it was phenomenal. And we're making some changes with the direction of the show, which, uh, I'll probably tell you about at some point. Um, and I'm really excited about it. You know, I've done the same thing for a very long time. It's not, m- it's still gonna be the same thing, but just slight adjustments in this sort of direction, and one of them is gonna be pushing into real passions of mine. And Underoath music is, uh, a big part of it, so I'm really glad that you enjoyed it, and yes, there will be lots more musical guests. Rick Beato as well. If you missed that one, you should go and see it. Built By Rob, "If a girl says she wants to take our relationship day by day, how should I approach this?" It does sound quite a lot to me like a lack of commitment. And by the way that you framed your question, I'm going to guess that you would be happy to just straight up commit, that you wouldn't need to take it day by day, that you would be happy to say where you want it to be, where you want it to end up, and then do the things in order to get there without having to let it sort of emerge or unfold. And one of the things I've kind of come to believe about relationships, a lot of disagreements like this, like you're- you're having to navigate this weird discordance. I assume she wants a thing, and you want a different thing, and you now have to be the person, and so does she in some regard. You know, she could ask the same question. Uh, if a boy says he wants me to commit to a long-term plan, uh, but I want to take it day by day, how should I approach this, right? There is sort of two sides to this. Ultimately, I've kind of come to believe that this is just incompatibility, right? If what you want is a girl who says she wants to take the relationship the same way that you do, and then you don't have to navigate anything, this sort of lesson that it's far easier to get a partner who compensates for our shortcomings than it is to fix them, right? Let's say that you're the sort of person who likes to go out partying three nights a week. You love, uh, raves and- and late nights and- and s- seeing DJs play and stuff, and your partner is someone who likes to be in bed by 9:00 PM. There is going to be conflict because what you want and what they want are different, and you have to navigate that, and it's gonna be a cause of tension. Now, if you are in deep, and there's kids or, you know, something, you just love this person for all of the other reasons, then maybe that's one price that you need to pay. But like, let's be honest here, it would just be way easier to find somebody that also wants to go to bed at 9:00 PM every night. Or it would be easier for them to find someone that wants to go out clubbing every night. And I would be cautious, especially given she wants to take it day by day, that suggests that it's an early relationship. Not a red flag, but it's a pretty big amber flag for me, because it suggests that you're in a place ready to commit that she isn't. And I would set yourself a deadline so that you don't just manana, manana, manana this into oblivion. There are so many girls out there. How many girls that are listening to this show right now would love a guy to say, "I am ready to commit to you. I'm just ready to commit. I d- y- y- you don't need to persuade me, I'm just ready to go." Let me tell you, Rob, fucking tons, okay? You don't need to convince, you shouldn't need to convince somebody to commit to you, even in the beginning, if you are ready to commit as well. Like, your goal is to find somebody who's on the same wavelength as you. So, uh, set a deadline after which a level of non-commitment would be unacceptable to you, and then if that happens, there are an awful lot of women out there, many of whom are listening to this show right now, who would fucking snap your hand off to be the person that commits to them. Rafford X, "Have you begun identifying your next Infinity Gauntlet list of desired (laughs) interviews after you finally scheduled Rogan?" Rogan's not scheduled. He said he was prepared to come on for episode 1,000. I'm currently in the process of trying to get him on, but he goes hunting at some point for like elk s- like the most fucking Rogan thing ever. Uh, trying to schedule him for episode 1,000. Hopefully that'll happen. But yes, I had this five-episode, uh, five-guest list. Uh, Alain de Botton, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Naval Ravikant, and Joe Rogan were kind of my, yeah, Infinity Stones Gauntlet thing.... that I wanted when I first started Modern Wisdom, and after Rogan, I've done it. And I go, okay, well, ah, ah, (laughs) I've got a second hand. I can do it. I can put another glove on, and then, you know, two feet as well. Um, have I started to identify them? Some of them, actually, I think Lewis Capaldi probably gets one of the first Infinity Stone positions on that. Um, Denzel Washington, mm, is probably pretty high up there as well. Uh, those are, uh, uh, s- certainly the Capaldi thing speaks to me. I need to do a little bit more thinking. There's a lot of people that are maybes, but it was kind of more obvious when I'd had all of this time not being able to access guests. So many of them I've done, right? Uh, the, the other people that, uh, I would have loved to sp- uh, Matthew McConaughey would have probably been one of the, the potentials, but I got him. And, okay, well, he, I, uh, he can't be a part of the other Infinity Gauntlet. It's already gone. So, um, open to suggestions for who you think would be GOAT guests, but, um, we're moving towards some really interesting ones. Movement and Talisa, "Will you have James Sexton or Saadia Khan on your show?" Saadia's been on twice, and James Sexton's already been on once, and he's scheduled again. Movement and Talisa, do your research, okay? Do your, do your, do your research. Go back and watch those ones. You've got three episodes to catch up on, and then by the time you've done that, James will have been back on. So, there we are. Stipe Wrde, "How do you think the male sedation hypothesis impacts the way society views masculinity?" Huh, that's interesting. So male sedation hypothesis is this idea I came up with, which has been cited twice now in academic journals or studies of some kind. Um, when you have lots of men who aren't having sex, typically throughout history, they cause havoc, um, because women are a domesticating force to men, and they cause them to behave a little bit more. Given that we've got very high rates of sexlessness among young men in the modern world, why are we not seeing tons of incel violence? And why is there not lots of, um, uh, disruption and antisocial behavior that we're seeing, that's, like, kinetic in the way that you might expect throughout history? Uh, and it's my opinion that porn, screens, video games are sedating men's desire to seek mates and achieve goals, and it's, um, giving them a titrated dose, like, a tiny, weeny, little dose of what they genuinely want. It's not enough for them to be satisfied or fulfilled, which is where you get a lot of mental health problems from. But it is enough to sedate them out of ganging up in a big crew, heading out of the house, and going and setting granny on fire, or doing whatever. How do I think that that hypothesis impacts the way that society views masculinity? I, that's a, actually a really interesting question. I think men aren't perceived to be as dangerous as they should be. I know that there's a lot of concerns about women walking home at night and, you know, it's not every man, but it's always a man or whatever. That, that's, like, one very kind of specific part. But men are pretty fucking dangerous to everybody, including other men, including governments, including the legal system and law enforcement, uh, including people who have possessions, the wealthy, including anybody that's in a position of privilege or a position of, uh, uh, uh, of, uh, um, a disadvantage as well, or maybe even more so. I don't think men are perceived as being particularly dangerous in the modern world. And I think that that is kind of because everyone has this understanding in the back of their mind that guys kind of aren't that motivated. They're not that fired up. They struggle to coordinate. They're not super agentic. They're not happening to life. Life is happening to men a lot. And maybe this is true with women too. I don't know. I shouldn't mansplain to them. But I get the sense that the sedation hypothesis impacts the way that society views masculinity by making men appear less dangerous, and that also means making them appear less useful. So men are both kind of, pitied would suggest that there's empathy. I don't think they're necessarily pitied, scorned in a way, um, for being relatively dickless compared with how they could be if they weren't being quite so sedated. And, um, I don't know. Should we have more dangerous men? Maybe. I don't want to have widespread disruption and stuff. Uh, but that's really only because we're in a time of, kind of, peace. If there was some sort of war or confrontation to kick off, you really need all of these guys that can't get themselves motivated to go to the gym, or get off the couch, or wake up on time, or hold down a job, or get into, you know, be a contributing member of society, uh, go to church, or do whatever the thing is that you think that guys should be doing. If they can't do that, they're definitely not gonna be able to go to war. And, um, hopefully, we don't need to. But useless men are only marginally better for society at large than dangerous men. Like, sedated and useless, s- uh, tiny, tiny bit better than disgruntled and dangerous. But, uh, if the, (laughs) if those are the two choices, it's, they're not great options. Frequencybrand, "Can you share a medical update? What's working? What's not? What have you all tried?" Okay, uh-So, I've been pretty sick for the last 18 months now, over 18 months, and it's been a journey trying to work out what's wrong and trying to treat it, and given the fact that you can't immediately work out what's wrong, it's really (laughs) fucking difficult to treat. Um, we're about to release, probably within the next month, the first half of a vlog, almost a documentary, that tracked the entirety of what's been going on with me. Um, Max, videographer, was with me the day that I got diagnosed with Lyme disease, just by fluke. We were starting to film the vlog stuff together that day, and that was the day that I got the call. So, um, you're gonna get to see the first half of it probably up until the beginning of this year, early this year. And then most recently, you may have seen on my Instagram, I was dressed like a hot potato in a hospital bed getting blood treatment done. A lot of people said, "Oh, it's kidney dialysis. I can't believe you're still partying." What? Uh, uh, d- dehydration from being in, uh, in Austin. I guess both... You know, w- you look at somebody who's plugged into a bunch of machines and they've got blood coming out of them, and you think dialysis or you think rehydration, so fair point. Okay. Um, that was what's called an HHO treatment, a hemohyperoxygenation treatment, uh, hyper as in hypothermia. So I was held in a forced fever. My body was at 104 degrees Fahrenheit for four hours, and my blood was being heated, run through a laser, run through a filter, hyperoxygenated with a baby lung, and then put back into me while I was heated on a waterbed wrapped in foil and blankets, sedated, and with a (laughs) f- rehydration IV in. It sounds fucking mental when I say it. Um, so that was my trip to Vienna. I also went and got natural killer cell infusion in Lithuania, which is only an hour and a half away. So I went and did that, that trip. That was only two weeks ago. Um, the most recent medical update for me, in short, is it seems like just overload of the immune system, uh, a lot of dysregulation resulting in some underlying old infection-y stuff, like Lyme, that wasn't really bothering me when I was strong and had everything going on. But then I move into a house with mold, and I get EBV and fucking CMV and heavy metals and BPAs and roundworm, liver fluke, H. pylori, SIBO, candida, uh... What the fuck else? The- a bit more, more stu-... I can't remember what it is. And we've crossed off all of those things, and the stuff that's left is presumably the culprit, and it's been really sad for a long time. But the HHO treatment that I did in Vienna has been the biggest single step change in my recovery. I'm only two weeks after that now, two weeks afterward. Um, however, tentatively, things are feeling the best that they have for a while. Energy is still very low, but mood and cognition have improved, which are two big deals, and they all feed into each other. Um, that being said, I did a, a cortisol test, a really complex cortisol test where I had to spit into a tube, different tubes every two hours for basically 24 hours, including in the middle of the night. And, um, apparently if you're under stress for long enough, your, uh, cortisol and melo- melatonin, uh, rhythm can get turned upside down, and that means (laughs) I wake up on the morning and I have no cortisol to wake me up, which is why I'm knackered, and by the time I go to bed on a nighttime, my melatonin hasn't spiked, my cortisol's through the roof, and I've got no DHEA, so I'm shattered, tired. It's called being tired but wired. Um, this has all been... M- mostly, most of it's been tracked, so I guess this health vlog, for anybody that's suffering with complex illness, chronic illness, um, like, uh, whatever it is, MCCFS or MFCFS, uh, chronic fatigue syndromey type stuff, like, "I'm tired, I've got brain fog, I'm sad a lot, and I don't know why," hopefully, will at least provide a bit of perspective, 'cause I've done everything. I've been to Tijuana. I've been to Lithuania. (laughs) I've been to Vienna. I've been to San Jose. I've been, like, to Florida. I've done EBOO. I've done oxygen therapy. I've done red light. I've done every IV under the sun, fu-... And it's basically been a second full-time job, and I've tried not to let it affect my performance on the show 'cause I wanted to be a professional. But it's been tough, and, um, hopefully I'm coming out the other side of it. The reason I wanted to share it earlier was... Or the reason I wanted to track the journey and didn't talk about it was I thought, "Well, this'll be really interesting to have as a standalone piece that people can watch that's self-contained." They still get to enjoy the show and me trying to show up on the show and be a pro. But, you know, by the end of 2024, I'll have finished this thing, and I'll have brought it into land, and it'll all be great. And I got to the end of 2024, and I felt worse than ever. And then I was, you know, in March, um, of this year, and I was about to go on Rogan, and my brain literally felt like it was pouring out of my ears. And I was thinking, "I'm just gonna go on there and just s- m- go, 'Ehh,'" and not be able to speak. And now we're more than half of the way through 2025, and it's still not fixed. So we're gonna do (laughs) what was gonna be a self-contained documentary that hopefully brought it into land and made everyone feel real hopeful, 'cause I would have been fixed. Uh, I haven't been fixed yet, so you're gonna get the first half of that soon. Uh, but maybe we're on the path to recovery. I'm feeling more hopeful than I have for months, so hooray for that. LForReborn, "What do you think are the negative effects of social reality TV on our society and our women? Where do you feel Love Island ties into that?" Ah, yes. I actually, speaking of the hair and Love Island, I was flying back through somewhere in America, and I'd grown this... This was with this hair only a couple of weeks ago, maybe when I was on the way to Vienna, and put my stuff into the bin, and the dude was... Oh, it was JFK. It was flying out and late at night, and I, you know, just asked the guy. I was like, "Hey, you having a good day?" He went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for that," and-... fuck off and go through the scanner. I forgot something, turned back around, my w- watcher or whatever, threw it in the bin. He went, "Hi! By the way, do I, do I recognize you?" I was like, " (sighs) You know ... Lot of ... W- Anyway, yeah, Love Island." I was like, "Fuck's sake!" Because (laughs) 10 years ago, when I did Love Island in the UK, I had this hair, and for the last five years, I've basically not got that at all, largely probably because I don't look like that person. Now, my desire to actually have hair on the top of my head has (laughs) resulted in people in America, presumably, who've got into Love Island in the US because it's been a big show, now going back and watching the UK version and season one, episode one, first person through the doors of Love Island, who the fuck is it? It's me with this hair. So, actually, the Afro or the skinhead is looking increasingly attractive, uh, by the, by the day. Uh, how-uh do I ... what do I think of the negative effects of social reality TV on our society and our women? Where do you feel Love Island ties into that? I mean, it is a fucking cultural phenomenon in the UK. It's actually on the decline, I would say. It's, um, sort of ... it was at its peak probably 2017, 2018, was like peak Love Island, maybe a little bit more into 2019, 2020. Uh, but it's kind of like old news a little bit and a bit of a meme. Fuck me, I didn't watch it a single second. I didn't even see clips, but I knew that Love Island had kind of captured America's, uh, consciousness this summer, and, uh, yeah, Lord help this country if that continues for another five years. Uh, why do I feel that it ties into that, some of the negative effects? Uh, I certainly think that it normalizes people partner swapping and, uh, flimsy levels of commitment because that's the name of the game, right? You go in there, "Well, we're all here to date and switch and swap," and so on, and who's to say that you shouldn't do that? It's like, well, it's slightly different if you're in a villa that's dedicated to trying out other partners and everyone's go- there for the same reason, so you've kind of bought into that. Uh, it's very different to one person earlier on, uh, I ... someone wants to take it day by day, "I feel like I wanna (laughs) be committed." Like, that's ... the person that doesn't just want to take it day by day didn't step into the villa, right? He wasn't a new islander joining the villa, understanding what the name of the game was and, and how the rules sort of exist. Uh, so (clears throat) normalizing partner swapping, for sure. I think, uh, treating people as a disposable, uh, uh, transaction. It's sort of confluent. It's, uh, as long as you can benefit me, then kind of we're in a relationship together. Um, it s- also normalizes people kind of being nosy into others' relationships and feeling like they have a say about how others should behave. "They should have done that. They shouldn't have done that. I would've done differently." And that's kind of human nature, venting and gossip and stuff, but when you do it at a mass scale and it's this popular and it's very aspirational ... I've seen so many girls that I follow in Austin on Instagram, their Stories, like, doing ... talking about stuff that is sort of so Love Island adjacent that it's evident it's kind of a low-key, "I would, uh, you know, if I went on there 'cause, like, obviously, like, that's th- th- exactly, like, how I would fit in, and, like, if I was on there, I would do it totally differently." Yo, look, girls, from somebody who has the fucking veteran not-stolen valor badge pinned to his lapel for having been on there, uh, it is not going to fix your relationship problems, and it's really fucking boring. Uh, it's not that interesting to be on, and what you want is other girls to scrutinize and look at you and think that you look cute in a bikini, not, "I actually want to find a deep, meaningful partnership" from that. I th- I mean, if you look at the success rate of Love Island in terms of the long-term relationships, it's basically zero in the UK. There's been a lot of people on. There's been, you know, maybe 100 people, maybe, maybe 200 people that have been on that show now, and basically, none of them are still together. So, yeah, uh, hold on tight for the next few years in America if that's ... if this summer is anything to go by. Ryan Utterback, "How has money changed your life and how others treat you?" Uh, I don't really talk about money or, to be honest, really even think about it all that much. I suppose that's a luxury, but to be honest, after ... if you come from (laughs) a very, uh, within-your-means sort of low-income background, which I did, uh, like as w- ... the most working-class town that you can get in the UK, uh, with a single-parent income, um, you don't expect much and, you know, me and Mum living on Dad's wage, and then Dad (laughs) also living on Dad's wage, I guess, uh, you just don't expect all that much, so I don't think about money, and that's a real benefit in many ways. Seems to be two paths that people who don't come from money go down w- if they get money. One of them is, "Huh, that's nice. Like, I can get a slightly nicer coffee or a slightly better yogurt, or I don't need to think about whether I have to pay for dinner, eh, when my friends come through," stuff like ... Isn't that great that I don't need to worry about ... And then the other side, which is kind of like the NBA player, uh, arc, and, um, I'm really fortunate that my constitution has put me in the first one. Uh, how's it changed my life? I have just s- whined for five minutes about what's happened to my health. It means that if there is ever a catastrophe of any kind, I can always pay it, and that is unbelievably reassuring that there's basically no issue that you can encou- ... I mean, you know, if you need experimental cancer treatment and it's millions of dollars, like, fuck, that's gonna really, really hurt. But the fact that you don't ever have to worry about whether you can pay for dinner, um ... I mean, there was a time-When I was 19, and I was doing my... No, sorry, when I was 20, and I was doing my placement year in Scotland, and I remember a friend had come up to help work with me. I was running this events company, uh, that I was working for as part of my placement year from university. And there was a day where I didn't have money to eat. I, I literally didn't have enough money to eat, and I probably could have rung my parents and asked them to, you know, wire me 50 pounds or something, but I, I think I was a bit proud to do that, and I didn't have money to eat. And he said... He turned to me, Dino Mitchison, I still remember, turned to me and he's like, "It don't matter, dude. Like, we can just go and steal some food." And that still, 15 years later, sticks with me because it really sort of brought it home of how, just how skint I was. It's like, I'm so poor that I have to consider stealing food, and I'm aware that there are levels of poverty that fucking plunge way below that and don't have the parents that could back them up. But that was a real moment of like, "Fuck, like, I have got myself to the stage, I'm at university, on a placement year from university doing this thing, and I can't afford to eat." Uh, I also did spend my final 10 pounds driving to an Underoath concert and back, uh, when I was 22. So, um, yeah, maybe I wasn't always responsible with my cash. How has it changed how others treat me? I really do not think that I dress in the (laughs) manner of somebody that looks like they've got money, and, uh, I try not to talk about it. Fuck's sake, camera autofocusing. I don't talk about it that much because it's a bit gauche in the UK to talk about money in that sort of a way. It's not really what we do, you know? The, like, Andy Elliot, Grant Cardone pilled approach to things is not... We're kind of allergic to that as a country, uh, or at least where I'm from, we are. So it doesn't change how others treat me really at all, which is fortunate, I suppose. Now, fame and status, whatever micro-niche degenerate fame I've got, that'll change how people treat you. But, uh, I'm guessed that if you were signaling tons of wealth, uh, that would be another challenge that you have to get over, and that would be real tough. AnnieBenEl-Elohim, "What is your best advice for dealing with very high stress levels for an extended period of time?" Oh, you're talking to the right person. Um, I've been more stressed over the last nine months than I ever have in my life, up until now, to the point where, yeah, my cortisol and melatonin flow is inverted. Uh, everything's constantly elevated. My natural killer cell, my, uh, CD57 plus, which is like this natural killer cell, uh, gauge, is 80% missing. Um, and this is a combination of physiological damage plus lifestyle stress on top, plus then the story I tell myself about needing to keep up with the lifestyle, even as I try to back off, outsource stuff, hire people, do all of the, uh, the things to, like, alleviate that. Still, the smallest amount of effort is so exhausting to me. So I, I should at least have a bit of an idea. Um, certainly, I, I can pontificate for ages and give you, like, wishy-washy concepts and philosophies and quotes and shit, but really you just need something practical. Fuck, dude, try and sleep. Like, please sleep more and walk more. If you walk more and you sleep more, things will probably be a little bit better. Um, now the problem is, if you're in very high stress levels for an extended period of time like you are, you can't sleep because you're tired but wired. Your cortisol is spiking through the roof. Uh, you're ruminating when you're supposed to be relaxing and you've got intrusive thoughts. You're probably waking up throughout the night, um, uh, thinking of things, uh, a lo- uh, you know, waking up with a racing heartbeat, which I would do. I'd wake up and be anxious. Like, "I've just been asleep. What, what am I anxious about? How can I be anxious? I was literally just asleep, the most relaxed that you can be, and did I get anxious while I was asleep and then wa-" So sleep and walk would be two things. Um, try and stick to a routine, because the stress will start to try and expand out and fill all of the gaps in the rest of your schedule. And if you don't have a structure that you lean on, what ends up happening is you default to less productivity, less mindfulness, you don't do self-care, you don't train, you don't get sunlight. So try and create, uh, rigid rules around when the alarm goes off, I'm out of bed within three minutes. The first thing that I do is get... Step outside or look out of a window or go for a walk or do whatever. I'm going to go to the gym every single day, or I'm going to go to the gym five days a week, Monday through Friday. However you wanna do it. Like, set rules, because if you don't do that, you're going to end up, um... The stress is going to make adhering to things through choice so difficult that you need to buttress and bolster your, um, uh, routine ability. And I think that having a, a set plan is a good way to do it. And I know it's tough, but it's not gonna last forever, dude. Like, you will get through this. This isn't going to be life. This isn't going to be for the rest of time. You will recover from this as well. Very high stress levels for an extended period of time, tough. Don't rely on stimulants to wake you up and sleep meds to get you to sleep. Uh, I can guarantee you that that is not a phenomenal strategy. Um, try and do things as naturally as possible. Try and downregulate wherever you can, meditate, breath work, um, stick to a routine, sleep, walk, basics. I don't know. Sorry it's not more complex, but after, like, two years of basically experimenting with all of this shit, that's what I've come back around to. CoolKen23, "What does the next 10 years look like content-wise? What do you think is the biggest thing you will need to adjust to or obstacle you will face in order to keep your content going?" That's a fucking cool question, and I said earlier on that I might tell you about some different directions for the show, and this is later on, so fuck it, I'll tell you now.Uh, I don't know about the next 10 years, but certainly the next foreseeable. I am in the process of buying my first studio space here in Austin. One of the things that I have realized is I really enjoy episodes where I get to hang as much as episodes where I get to, um, deliberately learn. That's not to say I don't learn stuff when I'm hanging and that I don't get to hang when I'm learning shit, but the Underoath episode is a really good example of this. Two guys shooting the shit with me, talking about stuff that we know. Wow, wasn't that deep and interesting and we learned things? But also, I just felt really regulated. I thought it was very fun. The feedback was fucking amazing, and I just, I left the episode feeling lighter. And sometimes with the access I've got now and how deep I am, how nerdy I am with some of the shit that I like to learn about, I, even I get the sense that Modern Wisdom can sometimes feel like homework. And I love it, but you don't want to do homework... Even this shit that d- fires you up the most in the world, you don't wanna be doing that every single day, right? So my current strategy is you're going to see more multi-guest, hang-style episodes. Uh, I find myself listening to All-In podcast; PirateWise with Mike Solana; uh, Flagrant with Schulz; Protect Our Parks' episodes with Rogan; um, Finn Versus the Internet on, or F- Finn Taylor's Finn Versus History; uh, Screen Rot. Um, uh, you know, the- these episodes, this sort of style is very hang-y. Uh, Matt & Shane's Secret Podcast. Even if you look at Tim Dillon, Theo Von, they're a hang. It's just that they're such big personalities that they, even if they do a solo episode, they can like, they can hang on their own. Um, and that to me just seems to be like a really good direction to go in. I think it's gonna help to give me the opportunity to put some personality across because a lot of the time when I'm doing episodes with guests, it's like, I need to put this person on a pedestal and make them as amazing as possible. And rightly so, they've got fucking important shit to say, but I... wanna have a bit more fun. Not that I don't have fun, but like, you know, like that kind of energetic, relaxed, sort of hang-style fun. So that's one path. Um, second path is more solo episodes, so I'm considering doing a monthly Q&A just like this. We're doing it (laughs) based on subscriber count. We did it every 50K up to a mil, then every 100K up to, like, three, and then every two f- or 2.5, and then every 250, and then this is 100 because we weren't moving quite as quickly, and I couldn't be arsed to wait until s- 750. So it's like, I- I shouldn't be doing a Q&A based on how fast or how slow the channel growth is. Um, but I don't know whether monthly Q&As are too much, so feel free to leave a comment and, and let me know if y- you think that that's the, the right cadence. But I really love the opportunity to do that. I really love my lessons episodes. I find the opportunity to reflect on what I've learned and to try and teach them, and I know that they add a lot of value. Uh, and also I wanna have the opportunity to make the show a little bit more about me. You know, I've done a thousand episodes, a millennia of episodes, but all I've tried to do is make somebody else look as amazing as possible, and I've got ideas and, and interesting things that I've been reflecting on. At least things that I'm interested in. Whether they're interesting is to be decided. And I wanna talk about them, so more hang-style, which I guess is one end of the barbell, more solo, which is gonna be the other end of the barbell, and then still in the middle, the bulk of the episodes, you know, 80% of the episodes are going to be interview format stuff. And when it comes to guests, I'm gonna be thinking more out of the box. I think the Underoath episode, the Rick Beato episode, both like really, like orthogonal ones. Jeremy Renner also another one. It's like, huh, I wouldn't have expected to see... Fuck, like Chris got Underoath on? Like, they're not even a massive name, but shit, that was really cool. Or like Rick Beato, like fuck, like where do you get him from or... So I'm trying to be... I- I think what you can expect is a little bit of a pivot. Um, more of the same, but we're gonna make some changes with the way that the channel appears as well, the, uh, copywriting style, the thumbnail style. Uh, hopefully all of this is going to basically come into land around about episode 1000, which will also be when the studio is m- maybe ready, nearly ready, something. And, um, I'm r- I haven't been this excited for a while. I certainly think that I kind of rinsed this format, just that with no variety in your di-... You know, like your favorite meal, the fa- my favorite thing to do is speak to a dusty academic about like some fucking obscure part of human nature in the same way as steak with vegetables might be your favorite meal. But if all you ever ate was steak and vegetables, you'd want a little bit of variety. And I think this is me trying to add a bit more variety. So that's what you can expect. More of the same, elevated, slightly different directions, hang-style, solo, guests, but guests that are a little bit more experimental and, and, uh, novel, I suppose. Hopefully a lot of world firsts when it comes to the guests, and, um, we'll see how it goes. Uh, maybe this is gonna be like U2 trying to release a fucking acoustic album and everybody hates it. But I'm excited about it, and I get the sense that if I'm excited about it, that's the most important thing, because if I'm excited, that will carry the vibe and everyone else will come along for the ride. And if I'm wrong, fuck it, you'll just see me revert back to doing what I did all along. (censored) JP Ganouska, "Do you consider yourself a dino?" (laughs) Um, all right. So I don't know how many people even in the UK know what a dino is. Dino is kind of, it's British slang for a very particular type of guy, um, usually from a working-class area. Um, he grew up not from money and started earning a tiny little bit, and it's, it's every guy that went on Love Island is a dino. Fake tan, white teeth.... uh, veneers in Turkey. Hair transplant, also from Turkey. Girl who's got fake boobs. He drives a gray Audi A3. She drives a Fiat 500. They live in a new build house. Everything's on finance. They like to go to Toby Cavery or to Miller & Carter on a weekend. They like to get a bag in with the boys. They wear skinny jeans. Um, it's like a real archetype. And I guess I would have been kind of like ... I was Dino-adjacent when I was running the nightclub stuff, and kind of king of the Dinos in that regard, given that Newcastle's pretty Dino-central. But I certainly am not anymore, (clears throat) and I never fitted in then, either. Like, two ... a post-graduate degree is not sort of classically Dino. Um, and I had the wrong car, so I would have never fitted in. But that's a fucking great meme that I totally forgot about. And, uh, yeah, long live the Dinos, man. Um, they're still powering my, uh, ex-business partner's business, so please, don't, don't badmouth them too much. T- Tloifg, "If you had two children, and you had to name them after cities you've been to, which would you pick?" That's cool. Athens is a fucking sick name. I mean, it's just ... Y- you, you ask a guy this question, and he thinks about, you know, like, Warrior, and, and, and Sword, and, you know, like, just f- like, random aggressive names. Athens is kind of cool. Uh, Bali probably makes for a pretty shit name. Um, what else do I like in terms of that? Mm, Paris is pretty sweet, I guess. Uh, a ton of all of my friends that I've known throughout the years that are called Paris were pretty fucking cool, so if you wanted to guarantee a cool kid. It's kind of hard to give a kid a cool name and have an uncool kid. I wonder if that's a, a way to future-proof your kid from being too nerdy. Uh, let's say Paris and Athens. Also, both European, so America can take my taxes but not take my children's names. Just Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, Nicky? Mm, Inky. I've been screwed over there. How do I get over the shame of being rejected by a guy who used and ghosted me? Yeah, I'm sorry that that happened. Uh, it is unfortunately very common. Maybe less in reverse, but happens both directions, and, uh, that sucks. I'm sorry that that, that was something that you went through. It's gonna be difficult, because you'll have placed some of your self-worth into this person, and the fact that they didn't choose you is going to make you feel unworthy. Um, you're gonna wish that if only you'd been better, or you're gonna think if only I'd been more, bigger, if I'd been more electric or more, more, uh, alluring in some way, uh, then they would have stayed. They wouldn't have rejected me. Uh, they wouldn't have used me, and then they would have, at the very least, given me the respect to have said, "This is over," or whatever. It's gonna be really hard to ... get past the emotional side of this. So I can give you a logical answer, which is if you've been rejected by a guy who used and ghosted you, if he's the sort of guy that uses and ghosts you, that's not rejection. That's a very fortunate early warning system from somebody that has a psychological makeup that you would not want to be in a relationship with long-term. Like, that is not the sort of guy that you want. That's ... Is that the sort of son that you would want? Absolutely not. Okay, your kids are going to be made up of the genetics of the partner that you choose. Do you want those genes? Do you really want ... Would you want ... Would you have preferred that he'd stayed with you, being the sort of guy that could use and ghost you? I'm gonna guess that he's a little bit younger. Um, unfortunately, this is the peril of dating in your twenties. I mean, I will hold my hand up. I did that to girls. I did that when I was in my twenties because I wasn't brave enough to tell them what I meant, which was, "I don't want to be with you," or, "This is over," or, "That was something that was casual, not something that was long-term." And maybe I did or didn't. Maybe it was wishful thinking on your part, or maybe I even was a little bit, um, obfuscatory about what my intentions were and made you think that it was gonna be longer term. Like, these are all ... These are just the things that both parties do when they're so scared about telling the truth, and they don't know how to open up. Um, so it's not a rejection if it's somebody that you would have hated being in a relationship long-term. You've been saved by the fact that this guy behaved that way. The shame comes from feeling like, "I need to make myself more or different in order to be loved in future, because I evidently wasn't enough this time, and if I don't change myself, it's just gonna happen again." I would say what the issue was there was bad partner choice, not an issue of you. Uh, now, you may be awful, uh, but the used and ghosted thing, like ... (sighs) That, that isn't a you thing. That's a them thing. So trying to remember your goal is not to find somebody ... Your goal is to find somebody who will treat you right as you, not to make yourself into the sort of person that someone who would reject, use and ghost you won't do, simply because you've sort of super squirrel, fucking, like, Jedi Mind Tricked them into seeing you as somebody else. Your goal should be to be as unapologetically yourself in a relationship and have that be chosen by the other person.... because anything short of that is going to result in you playing some sort of a role, or curbing off different parts of yourself, or making yourself smaller or making yourself bigger, uh, having to perform, and that's just not good. So, I hope that helps. Andrew Grumke, "Merch date! Even just some T-shirts, we really want to support and rep Modern Wisdom." Thank you. Yes. We are close. I promise you we're close. I actually have designs, we've got the blanks that we're going to use, they're fucking sick. The caps that we're going to use are awesome, the hoodies. We've been through so many samples of different things, um, it just sort of goes to show... I mean, James Smith has talked about the difficulty of working with me and Utonic. This is the same thing again, but without a James there to actually step in and say, "All right, that's enough, mate." Um, it'll be this year. It'll be before tour, uh, because we'll have shit available at all of the live shows, chriswilliamson.live. Hey. Um, we'll have stuff before then, uh, and the designs are awesome, and I can't wait to drop them, so, soon. And sorry for the wait. And it's a different brand. It's actually a separate brand to Modern Wisdom, and it's maybe the best piece of copywriting that I've done in quite a while. If everybody hates it, I'm going to have egg on my face, but I think it's fucking well cool, so hold on tight. Beyond_the_Pale_22, "I'm 33, and I found someone I love deeply and genuinely see a future with, but I still find myself craving other women, and I don't think that part of me will ever fully go away. How do I reconcile the part of me that wants long-term love with the part that still wants to experience more?" That (clears throat) is a doozy, and I think it's something that a lot of guys feel. I certainly know that I did for a long time, and that was the reason that I was a bastard in some previous relationships, and, you know, was playing away, and, like, just behaving in ways that were really not... that didn't make me feel proud, because I was so... I wanted love, but I also had this desire for novelty, and I couldn't square that circle. I couldn't, I couldn't keep my dick in my pants, but I also wasn't sufficiently prepared to be honest with my partner and say, "Hey, this is over. I need to go and fuck someone else." I couldn't say that. So, uh, uh, you end up in this messy middle ground. That's the worst place to be in. Um, I think a few things that you can try and think about here. First off, you're not broken as a guy for finding other women attractive, and the fact that other women are attractive is not an indication that there is an issue with you and your partner, especially someone you love deeply, genuinely see a future with. Uh, David Buss told me this story, that a guy sent him an email saying, "Thank you very much, Dr. Buss, you saved my marriage. Before I read your book, I thought that because I was still attracted to other women, walking down the street with my wife who I love and the kids who I love, and this life that I- I- I found really fulfilling, I would look at other women and find them attractive, and I thought that that meant there was a problem with this relationship. And your book said there is an area of the brain in men that does not exist in the same way in women, that rewards us, gives us reward signals for looking at anything that's sexual." Even a, a couple of rocks that look like a pair of boobs, guys will look and be like, "Yeah, nice rack." And get a little bit of, uh, reward in our brain from that. His point was, "I thought that the fact I found other women attractive was an indication that my relationship was broken. What you told me was, this is something that's just ingrained." It's not, it's not a, uh, indication that there is an issue or some sort of, uh, shortcoming with the partnership I have right now. It's just the way that men are wired. And it doesn't mean that I need to act on it. It doesn't mean that I have an issue with my wife. And it alleviated him of all of this guilt, and it sounds like there's at least a little bit of guilt going on here. Um, practically, you need to kind of make a decision about what it is that you want. Do you more want the love deeply, or do you more want the novelty? And you can try and do the polyamory thing, I suppose, but I, I have very limited, uh, hope in that for most people. I think it is a fraught and difficult foundation to build a relationship on. And I think that for most guys, the sort of girls who would be okay with an open, a one-sided open relationship, are typically not the sort of ones that you want to marry long term. And this is most guys, most girls. There is a cohort of people who will go to swinger parties, put the keys in a bowl, you know, come out not knowing who's put what bits of their fucking anatomy into each other, and be totally sweet about it, and just go to work the next day and still love their partner. That's sweet. But for most guys, I think, most of them are wired in a way where that's just not... it's- it's not gonna work. I just really don't think it's going to work, unfortunately. Um, if you don't think that this part of you is ever fully going to go away, and that might be true, can you live... This is a really simple question, actually. Can you live with the fact that you're going to find other women attractive, but you can't fuck them if you want to be loyal to your partner? If you can live with that, you lean into the David Buss sort of pilled approach. Doesn't mean there's a problem with your partnership, just something that's there. The same way as you might be hungry when you're on a diet, but you choose not to eat the junk food. It's like, "Huh, fuck. This is gonna be have to be a- a thing that I decide to, uh, control." Uh, I certainly will say, uh, mm, the change that I noticed from age 30 to now, age 37, in terms of my, like, desire for, uh-... sexual variety and my, my, uh, this might be a better way to put it, my challenges with loyalty, uh, because of a wandering eye, um, have gotten much easier. I don't know whether that's a change in my programming. Uh, it's certainly not a decrease in my fucking testosterone level, but change in values, perhaps? Um, if you're the sort of guy that wants kids and wants a family, that is going to be such a strong pull, I do think it's gonna overshadow the challenge that you have with this. Maybe it won't ever fully go away that you're going to look at other women. But if you're okay with just clamping that bit of you down and being like, "Hey, there it is. I'm hungry for that food. Don't need to eat it. That's good." And if you find yourself getting tempted to go and eat the food, you don't have it in the house. The equivalent of that would be, if you're the sort of guy who can't keep his dick in his pants and you really, really want to be loyal to your partner, you don't go to nightclubs and drink. You don't go on, uh, stag dos and get smashed in party towns. You're with the group that's a little bit more quiet and goes to bed early. Uh, does this sound like a more boring life? Well, maybe in some ways, but you're kind of treating yourself like a sexual drug addict who isn't to be trusted if there's an open bag of cocaine near them. And if you're in a club at 2:00 in the morning h- having your, all of your inhibition, inhibitions gone after ten drinks, that's a high-risk environment. So design your life so that this risk doesn't have the opportunity to manifest. Um, you want long-term love, allow that to flourish. Uh, spend your time, like, consuming content that nourishes that part of you. Get good dad inspo on YouTube and, um, think about all of the ways that family life's going to be amazing. And (sighs) I get the sense that as you grow up, that is going to come down into land. So hopefully that helps. Einzaby, "Any advice for women your age trying to navigate dating life? I'm 37." Women trying to navigate dating life at 37 is a... fraught, because... presuming that they haven't got something they're bringing along with them, like kids or a divorce or whatever, or even if they have the divorce thing, as long as it's not kids, it's a... it's a minefield out there. Because there is this sense of needing to hurry up that you're gonna have to go through. And even if you have got kids, uh, you're like, "Fuck, like every, I want it, I want it, I want it to be the thing. I want it to be the, the relationship for the rest of time." Um... (sighs) I would be uncompromising with what it is that you, uh, like two or three things that you really, really want. I want a partner who is peaceful. I want a partner who makes me feel safe. I want a partner who can provide for me, uh, financially. That... Sick, all right, he doesn't get to be six foot. You don't get to complain about his body. You don't get to complain about his education. Like, like, you... If you are 37 as a woman (clears throat) , if you're any age, that you really shouldn't have more than about three things that are fucking super, super non-negotiables. Because you've all seen that ho math, like, delusion calculator thing for women. It's like, "How tall does he need to be and what's his body fat percentage and how much does he need to earn?" And before you know it, you're down to .5% of the entire population from a small number of things. Um... I would say pick the things that really matter and learn to be flexible about the other ones. I would prioritize something like psychological stability, so how long after you've had a, uh, psychological perturbment are they able to get back to baseline and be calm? Uh, that's real important. Um, are they loyal? Are they trustworthy? Do they make you feel safe? Like, do you, when you're around them, do you feel regulated or are you uncertain? Can they make, communicate their feelings well? Like, all of these things, like, are so fucking accessible and really predictive of long-term relationship success, and most people are optimizing for other things. They're optimizing for how tall they are. They're optimizing for what their education level is, or they're optimizing for, like, the car that they drive or e- e- even other stupid t- like how cool they are. Like, "Oh, he's, you know, cool." Coolness is basically extroversion plus openness to experience, uh, and, uh, like energy, I suppose, like high-energy vibe. You go, all of those things, really, really great, totally non-predictive when it comes to your partner. In fact, you want a partner that's a little bit less open to experience. You want a partner who's, like, m- just moderately open to experience, because too open to experience causes them to stray and look for other partners. So pick a small number of non-negotiables, stick to those, be flexible with the other ones. Focus on the things that predict relationship success long term. Tai Tashiro's got a great book on this. So has, uh, uh... oh, not Scott Barry Kaufman, not Steve Stewart-Williams. Fuck. Who was the dude that did Don't Trust Your Gut and Everybody Lies? Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. Choosing, like, all the fucking triple-barrel Jewish names that I can think of (laughs) . Uh, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, uh, Don't Trust Your Gut. Wonderful book. What are the predictive, um, areas that you should be looking for? Merge those with your own preferences, you're off to the races. "In Spidey Evolution, how to build a podcasting team and what roles did you fill/have filled and in which order?" I did not do it in any form of gold standard way, I'm afraid. Uh, first hire was an editor, Video Gardin, who's still with me now. Did everything full stack, graphic design, uh, video capture, edit, um, thumbnail, not necessarily design but thumbnail creation. Uh, second was, uh, an assistant, um, largely administrative assistant but also did personal stuff and a little bit of EA things too. They were just picking up correspondence, uh, helping to make sure that posting schedules were kept too, doing QC, quality control. Uh, fourth member of staff, there were now at this point, like-... five years into the show, right? We've done 700 episodes, and I get my fourth member of staff. (laughs) Um, fourth member of staff was a YouTube, uh, strategist who helped me with the copywriting, because at three episodes a week, I was having to come up with every title, every thumbnail for every clip into every episode, multiple across time. Then we got, I think, a audio platform manager who also helped out with ads, and an ads guy that was from an external agency. Remember, these aren't necessarily all full- full-time members of staff. You can just pick up contractors. But really, the, if you can get a great full-stack editor, um... I mean, ideally if you can get an editor who is also a producer, like Young Jamie for Joe, uh, you're laughing, because that's like five roles in one. Um, you need an assistant of some kind, an administrative assistant. It doesn't need to be in person, although it would help if it is. Uh, and then someone who does ads, because it's, there's just so much correspondence. It's sending invoices, and, "Oh, this person hasn't paid, and we need to change the read for that," and, "Oh, the deal for whatever the, whatever has changed." (clears throat) And then you can start to build up from there. But that would be my stripped-back version. Tshiamok9n, "How do you feel now at 37 seeing youngsters clubbing and partying away their 20s, given that that was the life you lived for 15 years before turning yourself around?" I don't know how many youngsters are clubbing and partying away their 20s. All the stats are about Gen Z d- don't leave the house. They want to be in bed by 10 PM. They're all addicted to weed and Netflix. I don't know. Mm, the ones that I do see that are doing that... (sighs) The only concern I have is if you get sort of deep into your 30s and you're still doing it, and it's still your primary source of wellbe-... Actually, probably, uh, t- toward the end of your 20s, um, I think it's... Fuck, I- I had a great time partying. I had a great time running nightclubs. It was really fun. And I learned an awful lot, especially about business. I'm aware that not most people are running the clubs, they're clubbing and partying that just like attending, but (sighs) it makes for cool memories, as long as you're not doing dangerous levels of drugs, uh, or, uh, spending money (clears throat) to the point where you do lasting damage like bankruptcy or credit ratings and things like that. As long as you're, like, moderately responsible, I don't think it matters. But I started to see through kind of the veil a bit at 27, 26, 27. Did Love Island at 25. No. Did Love Island at 27. Fuck. 28, 29 was when I went sober, stopped drinking. 30 was when I started the show. So it was a big transition period, the menopause, the end of my 20s. If you're getting toward 30 and that's still where most of your self-worth comes from, um, um, and most of your enjoyment, I think that's worth a bigger question. But up until 25, 26, 27, send it, have fun, and then it's out, hopefully it's out of your system like it is for me. I have no desire, I have (laughs) no, like, unfulfilled, unrequited dreams of going to Ibiza and partying. I did it 30 times, and sniffed my head off. Like, "Okay, we're done." Like, I don't need to go and do that. And I think in some ways, in some ways that's good, not cutting yourself short, so... Bit of partying, small, good dose of partying with a deadline. TypicalRevHead8364, "I caught a story a few weeks ago of... I caught a story a few weeks back of you drifting at a drift school. So cool. Are you going to continue the arts?" (laughs) Uh, oh, TypicalRevHead, uh... Uh, I fucking loved that. Texas Drift Academy, if anybody is near Austin and wants to learn how to drift a car, they are... I, I went from having never drifted a car apart from accidentally to pretty competent at drifting a car in the space of six hours, and, uh, like stringing together multiple drifts. It was wild. It was really, really cool. And will I continue doing it? Uh, probably shouldn't do it in the 6.2-liter V8 2SS Camaro, because it is only meant to go in a straight line, and it doesn't really do that all that well. Uh, but the modified 350Z, 370Z, sorry, with, like, locked rear diff and the, you know, the e-brake and stuff, that was cool and easy. Um, I'll go back, but I'll probably do it with friends next time, I think. It was good to get a session in and learn, but it's a, it's like 90 minutes away from me, so, mm, big ask. If it was closer, I'd do it more. MimoCriminelle8592, "How do you deal with the regret of wasted time and potential?" (screen whooshes) It's a tough one, man. Um, thinking, "Where did all of that time go? I could have done more with it. I'm on the back foot. I feel like I need to play catch-up. I should be further along than I am," and that's difficult thing. Um, certainly a few things you can think about. You, you made the decisions that you could with the information that you had available at the time. And even if they were the wrong decisions, you now know that going forward, and that's a lesson that you've learned, which means that you now have more information. Hooray. You also don't have a fucking time machine, which means that you can't go back and change it. So you did what you could with the information you had available, and you can't go back and change it. The regret really doesn't have much place. And, you know, that's largely a treatise on not regretting things. But, uh, people are gonna regret everything they do, even with that piece of knowledge. However, your concern is around wasted time and potential, and you are wasting your time and your potential with your regret. So not only did that thing in the past waste your time and your potential then, it's continuing to take up your time and your potential right now, even though it's not still going.That is a special type of hell. That is you being puppeted by an error from the past in the present, making the thing that you are regretful of from the past still continue right now. That should be a fucking solvent that dissolves whatever it is that you're dealing with. "Oh, my regret is causing the problem I'm trying to get over to happen again. I need to get rid of it. I just need to focus on action." Action's the antidote to anxiety, so you just lean into whatever it is. Make a plan, stick to it, stop thinking about the past. Tuk Oak five six thirty: "Do you have any recommendations for books or authors that you find wise and helpful for personal growth?" Well, Tuk Oak five six three zero, uh, I just released the second Modern Wisdom reading list. First one I did, 100 Books to Read Before You Die. Second one I did, 100 More Books to Read Before You Die. Very, uh, creatively titled. Uh, it's available at chriswillx.com/morebooks. M-O-R-E B-O-O-K-S. chriswillx.com/morebooks. It's 100 more that you should read before you die. There's tons in there, fiction, non-fiction, real-life stories. There's a bit more fiction in this one, but they're fucking fire? And you can go and get the first one at chriswillx.com/morebooks. There's 200, and it took ages, and 300,000 people downloaded the first one. So, it- it can't be that bad. And I get lots of messages from people... Actually, that's one of the coolest things. People come up and say nice things, sometimes in the street, and one of the coolest ones, I got stopped by this dude, like Guido-looking guy, tank top vest thing on, in the Upper East Side of New York, and stopped by the side of the road, "Yo, Chris!" I was like, "Oh, hey man. Hey, nice to meet you. What's your name?" "Uh, my name's John," or whatever. Like, str- I can't do this strong New York, like Italian accent. And he started to say, "Thank you for, uh..." And I'm thinking he's gonna say, you know, the episode with Alex Hormozi, the- the- the one with Matthew McConaughey, for the podcast, for putting o- uh, for being honest, for doing... And he's like, "For the, uh, the- the reading list." And I'm like, "Huh, I wasn't expecting that from tank top-wearing Guido here." But, he's, and a few people have said that, and I'm like, "Shit, like, that's cool." 'Cause they've found lots of things that are interesting to them as this tiny little thing. So chriswillx.com/morebooks, you can go and get it. It's awesome. YouTubegeeko: "Advice for men who crave a female partner but are terrified that their arsent- authentic self will be rejected or isn't worthy of love." Ooh, that's good. I kind of said it earlier on, your goal l- your goal really in relationships is to find the person around whom you can be your most, i- i- you feel most like yourself. You're not self-censoring. I guess it's two- it's two ends. You feel like you can say things without censorship, as freely as possible, and you feel like you can sit in silence and not need to fill it. If you have both of those things, you are pretty resonant with that person, right? You are in, you're vibing with them. They are on the same sort of level as you. And that's wonderful because we have to put on all kinds of acts and personas to get through our day-to-day existence. We have to behave differently at work and in meetings and around our parents, and that's exhausting a lot of the time. And if you can't even be yourself around your partner, I fear that it's such a huge drain on you. And what's, what does it teach you? It teaches you the lesson, I cannot be myself anywhere. Like if I can't be myself with my long-term partner that I'm supposed to be, you know, that's supposed to see me and love me for who I am... So again, it comes back to what I said earlier on, this compatibility thing. If you can't be yourself around your partner, just find someone that you can. So, "Advice for men who crave a female partner but are terrified that their authentic self will be rejected or isn't worthy of love." Your authentic self will be accepted and is worthy of love, just from the right woman. And your goal is to continue to show your au- your authentic self over and over again so that every single person who it is not for rejects you, or you reject them. That should be your goal. Your goal should be as many rejections as possible from you or from them while showing your authentic self. Because it means the person... If you're not showing your authentic self, the person who would have loved you is not going to because you're not showing up as you, and the person who ends up loving you does not love you because you haven't fucking shown yourself. It's like s- it's such basic maths that when you realize if you play a role, the person that you're with doesn't fall in love with you, and their love doesn't ever actually come into contact with your sense of self-being because you know that it's not love, it's praise. They're praising this role that you're playing. "Oh, well done for doing the little act that made me giggle over dinner." But what you know is that that joke wasn't actually what you meant to say. You had this other monologue in the back of your mind that you muted, and then you did this little performance, you did this little dance, and they giggled, and you gave yourself a kind of a congratulation but it's so hollow because it's not love, it's praise. And your goal should be to be your authentic self over and over again, and be rejected or reject as many times as possible until you find the person that you can be your authentic self around, and then you do everything in your power to hold onto them. That's the way to do it, I think, as the (laughs) s- not-married person (laughs) of 37. Um, I think it is. And that's when I feel happiest as well, when I'm being my authentic self. So hopefully that-I, I guess the, the one caveat here is there is such a thing as your authentic self kind of being an asshole, and that requires you to do some personal development. Your authentic self, if you say, "You know, I'm a farter. I've always been a farter. I'm gonna continue... My daddy was a farter, my son will be a farter, I'm a farter. Because I'm a farter, I'm gonna make sure on my first date that I'm, um, I'm my authentic self. I'm gonna fart my way through this first date." It's like, ah, maybe you should get rid of that. Maybe that's not the best place for your authenticity to come out. Maybe actually that's a part of you that you need to improve and... You need to work out what are the areas that you do not want to compromise on, that you feel are very close to your sense of self, and what are the areas where you think, "Huh, this person who accepts a lot of the bits of me but doesn't accept that bit of me, I actually don't like that bit of me either, and they're getting me to transcend it and include it and alchemize and move past it." Wouldn't that be wonderful? So hopefully that helps. Uyathandwa665, "As the only child, do you wish you had siblings? Why or why not?" Uh, I think I do. Um, I was very well-supported by Mum and Dad. Um, but it's difficult to be socialized in the same way as kids who've had siblings. Millions, mill-, uh, multiple millions of tiny, tiny interactions that you have every single day for a decade and a half with your sibling that help to socialize you and teach you what it means to have an argument and then make up afterward, and have somebody that's always in your corner or have to learn to share, or... Y- you just, uh, so many sort of fundamental lessons that you have to construct. You have to go out and find friends or play sports or even learn from parents. It's just not the same. So I think it would have expedited a lot of my learning. But on the flip side, it made me very, um, independent, um, very resilient to solitude, uh, very prepared to do things without permission, because there was no one around to ask permission from, um, very single-minded. Uh, so a lot of the things that I, I'm really valuable, I, I find valuable in myself and I think are very useful and have given me a life that I'm pretty proud of, a lot of those have come out of it too. So, um, I wish I'd had siblings. I'm fine with the fact that I didn't. But, uh, my intention when I start a family is to, uh, have more than one, so... Trevor Criskey, Criskey, Chrissie, Criskey: "What are your thoughts on traveling alone?" Big fan. Done it a lot. I, I think if you're ever struggling for answers in your life, uh, you don't know what your next life direction should be, obviously you need the money and the f- you know, time and whatever to do that, but, uh, presuming that you've got the cash to get you on a flight to Thailand and back, you can afford to go, 'cause once you're there, it's $5 a day, um, I loved it. I did Thailand on my own, Bali on my own, America road trips, Hawaii. I, I went to a lot of places, including all around the UK, uh, on my own. And it taught me a lot about the world. It exposed me to things that I wouldn't have done otherwise. It gave me new perspectives. Uh, it is a real step change in how you see yourself and how you understand the world, and it teaches you what you want, and it gives you insights into how other people live their lives in good and bad ways. It's phenomenal. Connor K Performance: "Being in Austin, what are your thoughts on the hybrid athlete?" Ah, yes. Uh, Austin's kind of the Mecca for the hybrid athlete at the moment. I think Nick Bare and Lucy Davies and George Heaton always coming out here, and Jake and the guys, they, um, they're making it kind of the center of the universe for the mustache, the Go1More hat, the Gymshark shorts, the Saucony running trainers. Uh, it's not for me. I'm not built for distance. Um, I mean, the, everybody know... It's, like, such a fucking meme now, but that a hybrid athlete is a runner that's a shit lifter or a lifter that's a shit runner. Um... It's cool that people are thinking more holistically about their cardiovascular health. It's certainly better for you, I think, than CrossFit is or was, because it's less complex, there's less, like, insane loads that are being done under duress, uh, and extreme fatigue. That's, I'm all in for that. Um, CrossFit was fun. I kind of went through my hybrid phase with CrossFit, I guess, like the OG hybrid athlete, and now I'm out the other side. I'm getting into running a little bit, but I do not intend on doing high rocks at all, so sorry. Kyle McCallum: "Why don't you use phone cases?" Uh, that's true. Here we are. Look at this. Um, as James Smith said, "I like my phones how I like my sex, bareback." (laughs) No, he, uh... I don't know. I, I, I remember... I can't remember who it was. Someone said, you know, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars of engineering going into creating this beautiful device that you have that's perfectly designed. And then you go and slap a 15-pound case from Amazon on it and destroy it, (laughs) and it feels horrible and it's clunky. If you've... I mean, and to... Look, to continue the bareback analogy, once you have lived with a phone that doesn't have a case for a while, when you pick one up that does, just doesn't feel the same. So I'll leave that one there. PhoenixPrince99: "Honestly curious why you still dress like a student. (laughs) Seems asymmetrical to your online presence." That's a fair point. Uh, look, I dress for comfort. Um-I really prioritize feeling comfortable, and that means that some variation of kind of pajamas (laughs) at all times, publicly acceptable pajamas, uh, is usually my approach. Should I be elevating my style? Should I have a stylist who's stepping in and, and putting me in trendy clothes and having a signature look and stuff? Probably. Um, but at least for what I do, m- so much, almost 95% of what it is that I do is how in the moment am I when I'm writing or thinking or having a conversation with someone. And if I'm not comfortable, that detracts away from the big thing. That's not to say that I can't dress well or not like a student, and also that, like, I have to be uncomfortable. It's, uh, I'm aware that that's not necessarily something I have to do. I haven't thought about it that much. I'm being honest, the last five years since the beginning of COVID, actually probably the last six years, I've just had my head down, kind of grinding away, trying to reach some sort of escape velocity with the show. Um, so maybe I'll start paying more attention to my (laughs) appearance. Uh, I, I... Like, look, I get stick on the internet for being all style, no substance, and then that usually gets replied to with, "What? You think he's got style?" So I'm like, okay, no style, no substance. Fantastic. Thank you. Um, because the ex-male model thing, because of the Love Island thing and all the rest of it, you would not believe how little time I pay paying attention to my appearance. Uh, I hadn't looked in a m- I'm not kidding, I would not look in a mirror before leaving the house when I had my previous haircut, uh, hairstyle. Now, with this, I have to at least a little bit. 'Cause if I've slept on one side too much, I end up with this sort of, like, I don't know, bad guy from an '80s action movies thing going on. Um, maybe I should pay more attention to my, to my appearance. Applications for stylists available below. The Scot Barney, "You've taken the advice of literally every guru you've ever interviewed. You're jacked, sexy, wealthy, wise, and yet the last and most important piece of advice you've probably received a hundred times is to get married and have children. You don't have any more excuses. When are you going to settle down and have kids?" Um, that started off so nicely and (laughs) then became a fucking intervention. Um, soon, man, I hope. I've said this before, I, I hope that I haven't made a mistake by focusing on different things in my 20s and in a chunk of my 30s as well. I focused on myself. I was very selfish, because I could be, and I wanted to see the world, and I wanted to experience things, and I wanted to build a business and become financially free, and I wasn't ready. I, I, I, I mean, many people may say you never become ready to be a parent. You just sort of take the leap, and it happens. But I certainly know that the person that I was, even five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, would have been a significantly worse father than I will be. And I like the idea of all of this time that I've spent being, for more than just my own vapid need for recognition and to improve myself and feel cool or smart or peaceful or whatever, that all of the t- additional time that I made my kids wait, arriving on this planet, has been spent turning their dad into the sort of person that's really gonna be there for them and can really help them to navigate difficult challenges in life and will show up for them in a way that I couldn't have done previously. So, um, hopefully, I don't regret that. I mean, I have frozen my sperm now. Like, yeah. Uh, and I'm getting varicocele surgery a week on Tuesday. So this is going out on the Saturday. A week on Tuesday, I'm getting literal ball surgery, uh, again, to improve fertility and also improves testosterone. I'm gonna do a vlog about it. Of course, ball surgery vlog. Uh, but I'm paying a lot of attention to it, and I look forward to being a dad. I look forward to having a family, but I'm glad that I closed the loop on a lot of things first. You know, I don't feel like I've got unrequited dreams from my 20s, from partying, from being liberated, from, you know, being able to have adventures and stuff in that way. And, um, the show as well is stable now, and it wouldn't have been that way. If I'd done it earlier, it wouldn't have been that way. So I've reached a particular type of escape velocity or momentum that I can take advantage of. So, uh, when am I going to settle down and have kids? Soon, hopefully. JHanson04XD, "How much do you credit this success, your interview with Finn Taylor?" Uh, 100%, actually. It's very interesting that you say that. Um, I am kind of the last guy in the human centipede with Finn Taylor being at the front, and any scraps of success that I have managed to achieve, uh, are downstream from him. Uh, that being said, Finn Versus The Internet is one of the best new podcasts that I've listened to. Everyone should go and check it out, and also, if you haven't seen me on Finn Taylor's show, just search Finn, F-I-N, Versus The Internet, uh, Chris Williamson, and you will watch me get roasted harder than I ever have been for a full 30 minutes straight. So if you feel like you hate me for some reason and want to see a really witty comedian tear me apart, you can go and do that, and maybe that'll make you feel happy. Casper11, "Are you going to see Sleep Token on their upcoming US tour?" Yes, I am. I will be at the Utah date. I think it's on Monday, the somethingth of October.Um, I am. I'm gonna see Architechs this weekend in Dallas and Houston. I'm gonna be (laughs) taking the tour bus with them from date to date. Uh, I'm seeing Bring Me in Dallas and Houston in a couple of months, and then I will be at the Utah date of Sleep Token, so say hi if you're there. Lorenzo, Lorenzosasalones3759, congratulations you get the most difficult to pronounce name after the Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey. "I just got diagnosed with tinnitus. Heard you have it too. Any tips?" Sorry about that. Um, mine comes and goes. I've had it and had, did have it for a long time, and it is fucking ruthless. So first off, it sucks, and I'm sorry. Um, I have to say, for me, carnivore (laughs) diet, I sound like Mikhaila Peterson, carnivore diet made a big difference. Um, being low inflammation, low blood sugar helped me a lot, and I got out the other side of it, and beyond the sort of background hum that everybody kind of has a little bit. Um, tips for dealing with it. Uh, tinnitus is happening because there is an absence of sound. I sleep with earplugs in, which means that's a nightmare. Try white noise machine, um, and crank it up a little bit. Uh, get a fan or an air doctor or some sort of room filter that makes a bit of noise, background hum. That'll actually sometimes bring the tinnitus sound down, because it helps your brain to not have to fill in the gaps and the silence 'cause there's less silence. So white noise, fan, something like that, that might help too, and low sugar diets. Maybe try meat and fruit for couple of weeks, see how you get on. David Skadron, "Who wins in a fight between you and Lex Fridman?" Lex is Russian and black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. We all know how this is going to end up. Uh, I'm gonna leave it there. We've d- I've done an hour and a half-ish. Um, one thing I do want to say actually, before I finish up. It's like just the OGs at the end. You know, this is 2:55 AM in a nightclub just before they're about to put the lights on, and everyone's desperately looking around for whoever's left and sober that they can, uh, not even sober, whoever's left and c- conscious that they can go home with. Um, you might have noticed, or at least I have, today on this episode, um, that my words per minute have been higher. I've made fewer speech errors. I've laughed more. Um, I've been more energetic. I've seemed in better spirits, and I'm just reflecting on the fact that I haven't really got to feel that for quite a while. I've been in real maximum sad boy energy for over a year now. I lived in hotels for four months last year. I did a lot of things that fucking sucked, right? All the health bullshit. And, uh, what a, what a nice treat, what a joy, even if it's just briefly for this time before the hyperthermia treatment reverts me back to whatever else, whatever horrible baseline I'm going to live in for the next however long until we fully fix this thing. Uh, I really enjoyed doing this today, and it's the most I've enjoyed anything in a little while. So I, uh, hope that came across, and I hope it enlivened your day, that you learned something. And tickets, ChrisWilliamson.live. Come and see me. New York, Boston, Denver, Nashville, Austin. No, Nashville's sold out. Austin, Salt Lake City, bunch of other places, Chicago. ChrisWillex.com/morebooks for a list of a hundred more books that you should read before you die. And I'll see you very soon. All right, peace.