400k Q&A - Andrew Tate, Liver King & Red Pill Debates

Most people, as far as I can see, aren't introverts, their friends just suck. It's not about the fact that you don't like to be around people. You love being around people when they're the people that get on with you. The problem you have is a lot of the people that are around you kind of suck. You need to find better friends. What's happening, people? Welcome back to the show. It is a 400,000 subscriber Q&A episode, which is insane. You already know that I love you all. I gushed far too much on the 500th episode, so I'm going to save that one for today. I asked on my Instagram and on Twitter and YouTube and Locals for questions and we got hundreds. So, I've tried to condense them down. A lot of them were similar, so I've tried to bundle bunches of them together. If your question didn't get answered, then I think 450 is probably only a couple of weeks away. Uh, so just hold on until then and ask it again. Let's get into it. Naelfer. Look, upfront, before I get started, I suck at saying these names. Your, your, all of your usernames are terrible, almost all of them, and I'm gonna butcher them. Okay? Just put up with it. Na- Naelfer. "Do you think you give off less lad vibes than when you started the podcast?" Yes, absolutely. Uh, coming into the podcast, I'd just finished Love Island, I was a club promoter for 10 years, 12 years, and I'd really sort of maximized that side of me, right? The professional party boy thing, the big name on campus person. And yeah, I think it was just time to grow up. Like, you see this with guys. They get to the end of their 20s and they realize, "Okay, I probably should start acting at least a little bit like an adult now." Uh, and swearing less is also something that I've tried to do. Uh, it just, I don't like the way that it sounds. It's good to use when you need to emphasize something or when you're having a bro-y chat. But less swearing, less laddy vibes generally. That's the direction I've gone in. Billy Brostowski. "I've watched your growth on YouTube and it's clear that you've made a conscious commitment likely in place of other ideas and interests. What is your advice to someone who wants to commit to an idea in the same way, but has trouble zeroing in on what it should be?" Avoid trying to be a perfectionist, right? Perfectionism is procrastination masquerading as quality control. All that you need to do is find anything and commit to it. The best part of this strategy is the committing bit, not the choosing bit. Now, you can commit to something and find down the line that it was the wrong thing to do. But that is better than just spinning your wheels and doing nothing. Now, if you're a little bit later in life, you should be exploiting more than you're exploring, but most people that watch this channel have probably still got quite a few years ahead of themselves. So, just do a thing. Do whatever is the closest approximation of what right now feels like something that could be good for you to commit to, and just do that. Commit to publishing one Substack article a week for the next three months and see what happens, and you will learn so much just by doing that. Or commit to finding a partner, or commit to getting a promotion at work. Jordan Peterson says, "Find one thing in life and commit to it as hard as possible and see what happens." Almost all of the gains come from the committing to the thing, not from the thing itself. Most of the insights that I've learned about the show have come from being narrow and deep on one thing, rather than anything in particular about the show itself. Next one. David Fuller. "How many subscribers do you have?" Thank you, David. If you don't know David, he's from Rebel Wisdom. Uh, no relation, but, uh, he's, uh, a very good friend. Uh, right now, 4,000, 400,000, 423,365. See, when it's a big number like that, it's hard for me to say. Uh, also just not used to talking about the size of the channel when it's this big. 423,365. That's a lot of people. Hi. Uh, Jordan Pettet. "What happened to the bear on your (laughs) bed when you moved and the stack of books in the corner?" So, the bear is still on my bed. I think he should still be there, unless the cleaner has moved him. And the stack of books in the corner. Interesting. Um, this is the closest approximation that I've managed to find in America to what I had before. I'm actually getting one that's gonna be a little bit taller, it's gonna go up to about here. That'll be done pretty soon. Uh, I have no books in America, so if anyone has any suggestions or wants to send some books, uh, please do because I need about 100, or maybe 70, I think, to fill the entirety of this thing. Uh, yeah, but all of those books are still there, they're just not here with me. A.L. "If traps aren't gay, then is sex with a pantomime horse bestiality or a threesome?" (laughs) Um, well, presumably, the pantomime horse is, you're only going to be able to get to the person at the back, uh, unless the horse is somehow doing something to itself with, inside of its own skin. I think it's bestiality. I think it's LARPing bestiality. It's the safest type of bestiality that you can do. Shelby lezgo. "What, who would you want to have on the podcast the most?" Uh, well (laughs) , last time someone asked this on the 350 Q&A, I said Jocko, and then Jocko happened, so, um, Sam Harris is on the list. Uh, I really, really enjoy his work. It would be a different type of conversation again for me. Naval is obviously one that would be up there. I, I think Goggins, for one of the big productions that we do, I think that Goggins would be, again, just that level of intensity, that grittiness, that realness, being able to see that face up close and, and, and really sort of dig into him for two and a half hours, I think that would be pretty special. So, we've put it out into the, uh, podcasting universe now, and we'll see if we can get, uh, Goggins at some point this year. (laughs) Can I even say, can I even say this fucking username? The Pakistani Nuns. (laughs) The Pakistani Nuns, "Would you get Andrew Tate on the podcast?" Uh, so me and Tate have been, uh, talking for a long time. I've been familiar with his work for ages. We've got each other on WhatsApp. We communicate a fair bit. Maybe. We'll see. Hold on tight for that. (laughs) Fucking username. EC, "Were you a club promoter in Newcastle at Riverside Club? I think I may have seen you there." Yes. That was me, stood outside with a huge afro and a, uh... Dean, put a photo of me with an afro up here. Uh, a huge afro and freezing outside. Yes. Uh, Chris Pedroza, "Well deserved. Question, have you been asked to go on Rogan yet?" Uh, no, I have not. Uh, we've never met in person, but he did follow me on Instagram, uh, last week. This weekend just gone. He did follow me on Instagram, which I guess is a good sign. Cyriak, "How'd you manage to get a US visa? What was the process like?" Um, long. It is... The portfolio that I submitted was 700 pages, so it was about three inches thick. And I needed signatories of people from within the industry. Uh, it- it's a very, very difficult process to get into this country legally and actually be able to work. But, uh, the O-1 visa's phenomenal. You can be here for up to three years, bank account, Social Security number, health insurance, all that stuff. Uh, it's pretty good. It's just the barriers to entry are huge. Uh, anyone that wants to get an O-1 visa, uh, Lehache Filipa is the attorney company that I used, and they are outstanding. They only deal with O-1s and they make the process unbelievably slick. Literally just linked them in with Ali Abdaal. Uh, Lehache Filipa, you can just Google them online. Uh, J Continent, "How short is Michael Malice really?" He's not that short actually. He gets away with a lot and is able to be mean because he is small-ish, but he's not that small, uh, certainly not as small as he is mean. Um, not that, not that short, just like a little bit smaller. Uh, Not Rizzley Mabile, "You only get one Navalism, what do you choose?" Take no one's word for it. Someone asked him if you could describe... if you could give life advice in five words. Take no one's word for... I guess that's six, six words. Take no one's word for it just means, to me, that a lot of the things that are, um, default desires or social norms, uh, some of them are there for a reason, but it's worth testing them for yourself just to see. Tagus100, "Do you feel at home and secure within the podcasting sphere or do you feel some form of imposter syndrome and find yourself comparing Modern Wisdom to other podcasters and negatively self-reflecting?" Good question, yeah. Um, I do feel competent now. I can sit down with a Peterson or Heuvelman or a Jocko or whatever, uh, and feel like I'm supposed to be here. We've worked so hard on this show. It's been 500 video, 500 episodes in four and a half years with two, a two-person team basically in, on the publishing side. I feel like I've earned the spot of where we are. I still think (laughs) , I still feel like the channel is wildly under-subscribed. Nothing's changed, right? Nothing's changed in the last pretty much two years, apart from a little bit of better camera quality and me refining a, a bit of questioning. So, it always felt like we had sort of latent capacity or leverage or, or, or ability that just wasn't being recognized. Uh, and it's cool. Like, it's nice to have people that have followed the channel from 1,000 subscribers and now it's this big thing and lots of people listen to it, and it's still the same. Guests are still similar. Conversations are still similar. It's very cool. Um, when it comes to the imposter syndrome stuff, it- it is difficult not to, um, feel a little bit out of place when you're speaking to somebody that's so well known or has got so much reach or is so well regarded within the industry. Um, but for the most part, I'm, I'm getting a lot better with that, um, self-reflection, negative self-talk. That's calming down a lot. And that's just a good lesson, I think, generally for anybody that's doing any pursuit and doesn't feel like they're good enough or is in an industry that is kind of, um... has some pretty beastly admirable people in it. Over time, you're... A- a- as long as you're consistent, you're going to become that beast to somebody else. Like, everyone is a monster in someone else's eyes because that's all relative. Unless you're the person that... unless you're Rogan, right, unless you're the, the number one podcaster in the world, there is always someone that's going to be above you. So, you're always going to have a degree of comparison between them, but that's getting less, which is nice. It's a very nice change. Phoenix, "Do you have any advice, thoughts, or insights for aspiring YouTubers? What is your learning and creating process? How do you strive and improve?" I'm only gonna as- answer one of those. Uh, advice, thoughts and insights for aspiring YouTubers. Learn how the algorithm works. Learn how to design thumbnails. Learn how to do titling. Um, be consistent with what it is that you talk about. Be as open and vulnerable as possible. Be as honest as you can. Uh, and talk about stuff that you're interested in. Like, consistency is borne out of you genuinely wanting to do something. If consistency is one of the most important things to do to be a good content creator online, then you need to do something that doesn't feel like effort because that's going to enable consistency the most. Uh, and other than that, there's a physics, right, to the platform that you kind of just need to understand. I've always sucked on Instagram. Like, I, I don't really understand growth strategy. You look at someone like James Smith, right, who's just a...... engine on Instagram. And then he wanted to do TikTok, so he got a million followers on TikTok in six months or something. Um, I, I, I've never really understood stuff in that way, but YouTube's the first platform that I actually spent a lot of time understanding, like I say, kind of the laws of nature of how it works in terms of just what, what's good and what's not. So much of it comes down to packaging of the content and the way that you're playing around with those laws of nature, rather than the actual content quality itself. This is presuming that you've got the content quality to begin with. Like, if you're talking about rubbish stuff, no one's gonna watch or listen or come back. Um, but a lot of people feel like they're not getting the recognition that they want or need, and that, to me, if you're confident that your content is better than the results that you're getting from it, there's a problem with how you're playing the game, uh, rather than the effort that you're putting in and the quality of your content. Uh, gokublack, "Can you please consider getting Mohammed Hijab on the podcast?" Um, so I know that he's huge in the, uh, Islam space online. I don't quite know what I would speak to him about. I'm not massively familiar with Islam. Um, I feel like he's maybe touched on some evolutionary psychology stuff and some dating dynamic stuff. I have seen some videos of him where he's... I don't know. I, I haven't seen him be non-confrontational with many guests or with many of the people that I'm familiar with. Uh, and to bring someone on if, if he was to start shouting about Islam and stuff like that, I'm like, well, I... Bro, this isn't my thing. But if there's something that you think that we've got common ground on that we could have a, an interesting discussion about, that'd be cool. Like, the guy absolutely crushes in that space, and, you know, his conversation with Jordan Peterson I thought was really cool. It was an interesting one. So yeah, I, I would consider it as long as we could find something that we could talk about. "What is more important, saving our species by getting our genetics off this planet or saving the planet from our species?" Uh, saving our species by miles, right? The, the, the planet cannot exist with the degree of protection that most environmentally focused people want it to have unless humans are still going. If you decide to leave all of hu- all of the, uh, natural world to suffer whatever catastrophe, natural or otherwise, decides to hit it, uh, that's going to cause far more suffering than if humans are still around. The priority has to be human first. Like, human flourishing is the most important thing. Now, if you were to say, "What's so special about humans? We should let the entire planet just be back to itself. Humans are a curse on this w- world," we do not have the same view of value when it comes to sentient life. Right? I see the kind of flourishing and enjoyment and fulfillment that humans can get as more valuable than that of a ant or a dog even. Uh, and this gets borne out, right? If you had any animal on the planet or a human and a car was going to hit one of them, anybody that has any sense is going to choose for it to hit the animal. Right? Why? Well, because humans inherently have more value because we have greater capacity for suffering and greater sentience than everything else. So for me, you can not only focus on what has to be or what in my belief should be the most important animal to save, IE ourselves, but also you can then use the fact that you've saved us to save other animals, to bio-engineer the, uh, the world so that it's still habitable, to take them off planet, to create backups of their species and DNA coding and sequencing and all that stuff. I mean, we could literally save, if, if you got it right, you could sequence every animal from now until the end of time, and that would mean that none of them ever go extinct. Right? Ne- ever. Even if they would have gone extinct naturally, we could save them. If we're not here, we can't do any of that. Jonah Kapros, "Could you connect Andrew Huberman to Jordan Peterson? I think that would be a great conversation with you as a moderator. Could you please be that bridge between them for all of us? Anyways, thanks, Chris, for adding incredible value to the world. Thank you." Thank you, Jonah. Uh, they already know each other. Uh, they've already been talking. I don't know whether it's for an episode, but they've already been chatting, so they don't need me to... Peterson and Huberman do not need me (laughs) to, to step in and, and connect them to anybody else. They're super hot shit. But, uh, it would be cool to moderate it. I would be very interested to see what they'd talk about because th- those two worlds really don't... You know, I haven't heard Peterson talk about, uh, life hacks and biological optimization all that much. Uh, and hearing Andrew get into some more existential or philosophical stuff as well I think would be great. That'd be a good conversation. Kristen Demosky, "Can you share your skincare routine (face) " (laughs) as if, as if there's a skincare, I've got a skincare routine for things that aren't my face. Um, uh, yes, I've used the same moisturizer for 12 years now. It's Clarins for Men, uh, Super Moisture Gel. It is kind of expensive, and you do go through it kinda quickly. It's about £30. Now they've put the price up; it's about £40. Uh, and you'll get through maybe a bottle every month and a half, something like that. Uh, and I use their, uh, face wash as well, and that's all I've used. I got this piece of advice from a friend's ex-girlfriend, David Breton, if you're listening, it was from your ex-misses, and she basically said that the number one hack for not aging is to just start moisturizing as soon as you can. And I'm pretty sure she told me that when I was 20 or 21, and I just, from that day, have always had... Uh, that's the be- that's the number one hack for guys at least. Uh, girls, you probably need more complex stuff than I can teach you about. Uh, but for guys, just find a moisturizer that works with your skin and just continue to use it and just lock yourself in for the long haul. It seems to work. It, it, it genuinely does.Uh, Kentucky Bound, "Would you consider having the Liver King on your podcast? Lots of stigma around him, but I think if you sat down and had a chat with him, you'd find him to be a really interesting person. Lots of good to be heard in his message regardless of the savage organ devouring (laughs) . Thanks, Chris. Love the pod, man." Yeah, sure. Uh, he has DMed me. Uh, we've been speaking over DM a little bit and I've been speaking to one of the guys in his team. Uh, so maybe. Um, I haven't seen anybody really push back against him at all, uh, so that would be, uh, one that I would have to prepare for, uh, pretty tightly, and I would probably want to... I'd probably want to really, really try and dig into his background, why he's doing the things that he's doing. But it'd be an interesting conversation and I mean, he's... Liver King is the Andrew Tate of fitness at the moment, I think. Like a, a professional troll that is just crushing every piece of content that he's associated with. Uh, Juan Faburque. I've butchered that. Uh, "Do you take creatine?" Yes, I do. Five grams every day. By Jake Daniel, "Have you brought up Cosmic Skeptic's argument for veganism with Mikaela or Jordan Peterson?" Uh, I looped Alex and Mikaela in together and they have struggled to record a podcast, I wanna say four times now. I can't remember if it's Alex on Mikaela's or Mikaela on Alex's. Uh, they're having a nightmare scheduling, but I'm pretty confident that conversation'll happen, uh, and it'll be really funny. Like, those, those two guys will get on well. I know they already get on well, um, so that'll be sweet. Um, "Given Cosmic Skeptic's influence on you, why aren't you vegan?" By Jake Daniel again. Really good question. Um, my, my diet, my dietary habits are at odds with my ethics. I, I, I believe that, uh, farming, almost all farming, uh, of animals is causing suffering, uh, and I don't want to cause suffering in the world. But the main reason that I'm not vegan is convenience, right? I, I simply... It is a high price to pay for me to change the way that I eat, for me to try and supplement the protein that I need to get in in order to sustain the performance that I want, uh, by not being plant, uh, by, uh, not eating meat products, right? If I was to go plant-based, that would be a lot more difficult. And (sighs) I think that's the main reason that a lot of people go vegan, or don't go vegan, sorry. If you gave most people the opportunity to switch from their current diet to an equivalent diet in terms of macronutrients and taste that didn't cause animal suffering, I don't know anybody that wouldn't choose that. Why wouldn't you choose that? It's the hurdles that you need to get over. And I think if I was to advise the vegan community at large, without obviously coming to me for my expert advice on dietary requirements, I would say, um, an introductory course of some kind, a, a way to advise people so that they can get into veganism in a more easy way would make a huge difference. I think that the lack of uptake is more down to, uh, barriers to entry, like re- literal barriers to entry of lifestyle change, rather than a pushback ethically for most people. Uh, Shivam, "When are you having Naval?" Uh, you tell me, dude. Like, I, the guy is a digital ghost for the most part. I'm pretty sure he made his, uh, Twitter go private recently. Haven't seen much from him in terms of tweets, uh, but the dude's super busy and I, I would love to have him on. He is one of the most interesting thinkers, and that's, if you haven't heard it, Joe Rogan and Naval is still the best podcast that I've ever heard. It is the number one podcast I've ever heard and I must have listened to it maybe 10 times now. Um, the, the man's spectacular, but he's also incredibly difficult to get ahold of, and he sticks to, uh, his principles, right? He will not... He said he doesn't want to go back onto a podcast for a very long time after Rogan because he doesn't feel like he has anything new to say and he doesn't want to do podcasts where he says the same thing twice ever. So (sighs) a while. Uh, something tells me that I'll be in the queue behind Rogan as well. Claire McLeod, "Any specific tips or hacks you found useful for recovery from your Achilles injury? Practical, physical or mindset? Thank you." Uh, physical, I stuck to exactly what my physio told me to do, to the letter. I reckon I probably did between 90 and 95% compliance on rep range, on frequency, on rest, on e- on, on everything. Um, I also used some peptides, BPC-157 and TB 500 were the two that I used. Um, they seemed to be great. I don't intend on split testing it by rupturing my Achilles again and not using those, but, uh, in my experience of them, BPC-157 and TB 500 seem to be brilliant. Um, mindset wise, I read and listened to a lot of stoicism during that time. Ross Edgley's book, uh, The Art of Resilience, I think it's called. Uh, whatever the one about him swimming around the UK was and, uh, The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. They were pretty big influences. I watched, uh, Andy Murray's documentary resurfaced on Amazon Prime. That was sent to me, uh, by a couple of, uh, athlete friends, Sam Billings who plays for England Cricket. He sent it to me and he said it really helped him when he had an injury, and it really is. You know, when it comes to mindset, I think realizing that it is a long-term process that you're doing and also surrounding yourself with other people that can be virtually or physically who have gone through bad injuries and come out the other side with a positive mindset, huge difference. Let's talk. "You talk..." You, you tuck fluency, I think that means you talk fluently. "You talk very fluently. How did you develop this?" Uh, thank you. It is something that I've been working on, especially since I started this, the show. Um, I always had, uh...I was always all right at talking, I guess. Always. (laughs) Uh, but I worked with a speech coach, a guy called Myles Usher, uh, from Speak Well, and, um, I started working with him because I wanted to nail my TEDx talk, and he identified a ton of diction issues that he didn't like in the way that I spoke. And we just worked on getting rid of some of those. So, still now, I have a tiny, tiny lisp, and working away at that was one of the things. So, I have a- a bunch of tongue twisters that I do that I haven't been doing enough, uh, recently. Sorry, Myles. But, um, those, working on pronouncing my consonants, so people that don't know what the accent from the north of England is like, we drop our T's a lot. So, instead of butter, we would say bu'der. And it's just a lazy way of talking, but if you're speaking to other people from the Northeast of the UK, it's fine. Uh, if you're trying to commu- (laughs) communicate with people that maybe English isn't even their first language, um, probably less fine. So, worked on a bunch of that. I developed it by finding a coach, by working at it pretty consistently for a long time, and by being intentional. So, every time that I was speaking out with friends, every time I was speaking on a podcast, I was thinking about that. One of the problems that I have is that when I focus on the way that I speak, the things that I say become less interesting because it's- there's more friction, right, between my mind and my mouth because I'm being more deliberate with the way that my mouth makes the sounds. Uh, and learning out loud, I don't get to do practice sessions of podcasts. Every single time that I practice, it gets published for the entire internet to criticize, uh, so that's kind of an- I guess, an interesting, uh, dynamic. But even with that, you can do, like, a little bit of work and then pull it back, and do a little bit of work and pull it back, and it seems to be going okay. Nemesis Na, "You did mention having a dog one day. Which breed do you fancy, and why a retriever?" You got it. Golden. It's got to be a golden, right? It- it simply has to be a beautiful, angelic golden boy or golden girl. Cole Campbell, "What guest or subject area do you find the most exciting to prepare, research for, and discuss?" Last few months, man, I've been loving this evolutionary psychology stuff and the dating dynamics. Um, there was a guy who came up to me in the gym in- in, uh, in Austin, and asked what the reason for the focus was on dating recently. And I- I really love evolutionary psychology. Um, The Ape Who Understood the Universe by Steve Stuart Williams and The Moral Animal by Robert Wright are two of my favorite books of all time. I just love seeing the way that we're programmed, and one of the easiest, um, displays of that, I suppose, is the way that we show up in relationships, in dating, the dating dynamics, in the sexual marketplace and stuff. That being said, I would- I would say that I'm starting to maybe move a little bit beyond just the dating dynamics stuff and into, I don't know, trying to mediate between two- two different groups. So, Louise Perry, Nina Power, and Mary Harrington are three examples of where I've tried to bring a woman on to get a woman's perspective of what's going on. Norma Bates, when she was talking about incels, I know that loads of people don't like the idea of a woman- womansplaining about dating to men, but I've learned a ton from them. And trying to bridge that gap a little bit more, I think, is- is what's important for the red pill world, or manosphere space, whatever you want to call it. Um, and that's hopefully what second wave manosphere red pill will be. It'll be much more, uh, communicative. It'll be much more collaborative between men and women. Uh, and if I can nudge it toward that, then that would be it. But that's- that's what I've been super enjoying researching and preparing for recently, and God knows what it'll be in three months time or six months time. It'll be something completely different, and you will all be along for the ride and forced to learn about eFoiling or, uh, professional volleyball or whatever it is that I've got addicted to. Uh, N Nexorable, "After four years of podcasting, what has surpi- surprised you most about the ride?" Um, how long it takes for, uh, momentum to be gained online, I think. Me and Dean have always said that the channel felt undersubscribed. Uh (laughs) , I'm sure some people think it's oversubscribed, but it- it always felt like we were- we were putting a lot of work in and- and it wasn't really being seen online or recognized by the algorithm. Uh, and the most surprising thing, I guess, is just how talented a lot of people are, uh, and how much good content creating there is out there, and yet how little of it makes it to anywhere close to even where we've got to, and there's still a shit ton of headroom above us. So, good quality always wins out, but it takes a hell of a lot of time, so I guess the- the pace that things go at, like, it's nothing. If you watch- if you look at the graph of the plays for ModernWisdom, it is completely flat, basically, and then there's just this huge hockey stick. And yet two years ago, I thought it had been completely flat and I was already in the hockey stick, and it always... That's what an exponential curve looks like, right? Every time you scale out, it just looks- the previous month looks paltry in comparison. Um, the amount of patience that you need to have is the thing that surprised me the most. Nicole Q, "Have you considered doing a coaching program for podcast hosts? It appears you've put thought and effort into your hosting skills and have value to offer here." Yeah, I have. I have, um, genuinely considered this, doing a- a podcast mastery, um, cohort-based course, or perhaps even a passive one. It's the thing that I've got the most skill and experience in, I think, in the world, except for club promo, uh, and the market for people that want to become club promoters at the level that I was at is pretty small. Um, I have considered it quite seriously, um, maybe. We'll see. Uh, if people want that, I don't know, leave a comment or something and-I'll get Ben to tally them up and (laughs) if there's loads, maybe it'll push me slightly more toward doing it. Cosmic Skeptic: "Hi, Alex. Uh, does transcendental idealism offer a plausible account of the nature of spatial extension?" Mate, you- you're not impressing anybody. It, it just makes you sound like somebody that has never had sex. That's all that that question does. So, I, I, I don't know. I don't know what you mean. Um, please go outside. Animal Bates: "What kind of conversations do you have at parties?" Uh, Chris, you know exactly what sort of conversations I have at parties because I've had them with you, and we stand around a table at a party filled with interesting, good-looking people, and weird anyone out that comes within about 10 feet of what we're talking (laughs) about. Uh, it was me and him, uh, and one of our friends called Ben, out here in Austin. We're at a party, sat and stood around a table, and we went from AI sex robots to simulation theory to, "Are aliens out there?" to whether you can crush a watermelon between your thighs. And anybody that tried to (laughs) join in was there for about 15 seconds and then just thought, "This is just a bit weird, this. Bit strange," and then left. So, that's, that's the sort of conversation that I have. Uh, Pastorinico: "What did you have to give up in order to get to your current position?" Uh, this is a smart question 'cause it's similar to what I ask a lot of the guests, which is, "What is the price you pay for being you?" Um, a lot of time, to be honest. Like, the show is still so effortful. Like, it is a huge lift by me and Dean, uh, with assistance by Ben. It is hours and hours and hours and hours every single week to get the episodes up. And so I guess spare time. Time with friends, time in the gym, uh, time in nature, time relaxing outside, um, trips away. Uh, friend, may- I would have made more friends and stuff, I suppose. Um, this, this kind of really rubber meeting the road of why you're doing the thing that you're doing. You know, what are you optimizing for? Are you optimizing for just success or growth at any cost or whatever? But at the moment, it d- it, uh, I'm not far off pushing way too hard and burning out, but I'm just below the surface of it, so I can keep going with where we're at at the moment. But at some point in the future, we're gonna need to get a producer in or, or something because (laughs) it's- doing three episodes a week the way that we do is kinda hard. Um, and I'm looking forward to, after having put, you know, probably five years of work in, completely solidly, uh, the first three years of that, or the first two years of that being whilst running a business. Uh, I'm looking forward to having a little bit more time to kind of, I don't know, do other things or indulge, whilst still the show delivering the way that it needs to. Uh, l- l- oh my god. Lee Aksdidathsaigis... Fuck. "What is the most important difference in mentality between males and females?" Ooh, that is a good question. What is the most important difference? Uh, I can't give you the most important, but I can give you one of the very interesting differences, which is that I think... In fact, here, here's an interesting one to go over the top of all of it. I think that a lot of the differences between men and women come from motivations rather than capacities. So, on average, men and women are mostly the same at most things, right? Whether you're talking about their, uh, ability to be nurturing or their upper body strength. There's some differences there, but across most things, most men and women are mostly the same. However, they show up in incredibly different ways. So, what does that say? It says that it's less to do with capacity and more to do with motivation. I think 80% of the people that work over 50 hours a week are men. That's got nothing to do with capacity. Women have the same number of hours in a week as men do, but they don't choose to work more than 50 hours. That's a motivation thing. Like, men can hold a baby just as well as a woman. Uh, I mean, they can maybe even hold a baby slightly better, better for longer (laughs) , like at the one rep max of baby holding. Uh (laughs) , men can hold a baby, uh, just as well as women do, and yet they tend not to. So, why? Well, motivation. So, I think the biggest differences between men and women lie in their motivations rather than in their capacities. A- Akr- akritising, uh, "Any tips for meeting people organically rather than through dating apps?" Yes. Read Models by Mark Manson, and he will tell you that the best place to go is to think about, "What is the sort of person that I'm wanting to meet? Where do they go?" And go there. If you're into chicks that are fit and do CrossFit and have big legs and big bums and stuff, go to a CrossFit class. Go to multiple different gyms throughout the month and find the one that's got all of the hot chicks in. Or if you're after a guy that is into musicals or into books or poetry or whatever, go to a theater or a library or a book reading or a poetry gig or something. Like, it's pretty easy. If you want to find someone that has something that's a core part of their being, where would that sort of person go? And just go there. That's like (laughs) ... It is a bit of a no-brainer. Uh, "Is there a mindset..." Ray, raymonzagpig. Uh, "Is there a mindset an introvert can have to make approaching socializing more bearable?" Um, it is kinda difficult, to be honest. Uh, finding people that you like to be around is a big part of that. M- most people, as far as I can see, aren't introverts. Their friends just suck. Like, it's not about the fact that you don't like to be around people. You love being around people when they're the people that get on with you. The problem you have is a lot of the people that are around you kind of suck, or they don't vibe with you.You need to find better friends. That's the easiest solution. Just ... And what did we say before? Like, what is the sort of friend that you would like to spend your time around? Where would that sort of friend spend their time? Go there. That would be my best piece of advice. Spooner Sean, "What have you learned about yourself since hitting record on episode number one?" Uh, episode number one was with a guy rowing naked across the Atlantic, uh, (laughs) uh, four and a bit years ago in my old office in Newcastle. Um, what have I learned about myself? Dude, like, everything. The personal development or self-understanding in the last four and a half years has been supercharged since before then. Um, I guess one of the main things that I've learned is that I'm a lot more confident than I thought I was. Um, I just had never had something that had reflected back to me. I'd al- ... I always had this excuse when it came to Club Promo that the success that we had w- wasn't mine. It was like a manipulation of the market in a way, that I- I was too many degrees of freedom removed from the success that the business had to be able to feel like it was mine to bear, right, that my ability and my capacity had actually caused something good to happen, uh, and I think that this is maybe ... Anyone that's got a self-critical mind will find a way to explain away the, uh, things that they've done and their achievements. They'll blame it on luck or timing or whatever. And, um, since doing something where my effort and input is directly related to the results, uh, and not just in terms of plays, but the messages that I get that, uh, f- ... inform me far more than the number of plays and stuff, that has really changed a lot, because I've finally got something where I think, "Oh, wow." Like, "I- I actually do have competency here. If I put in work, I can see the results." Which I always knew from the gym, but it was- ... Uh, no. It w- ... Tha- that was a big thing, I think. I'm m- more confident than I need. I'm more confident than I knew, I just needed something that would kind of reflect it back at me. Tommy McNee, "Are you still doing club promoting?" Uh, no, I'm not. So I'm still ... Right now, I am still a partner at Voodoo. That may change in the not-too-distant future, uh, but Darren, my business partner, is still crushing it in Newcastle. He's got his bar, 2020. If you're in Newcastle and you want to go out on the big market, go to 2020. Say that I sent you (laughs) . Say that you're here from Modern Wisdom, and I'm sure that he'll do something nice for you. Uh, and all of the stuff that we've done, uh, Jamie and Kier and, uh, all of the guys that have been at the company long term are still crushing it. I love that world, but it was, uh, it was time for me to take on a new challenge, I think. Uh, Flec- FlexingFletchyT, "Will you get Andrew Tate on your podcast one day?" Uh, I didn't combine these two together. Dude, I- I- I think that what Tate's doing at the moment, I mean, it's- it's wi- ... Having watched him for so long, it is wild to see that the world is only just kind of getting a hold of how interesting that guy is. Like, say what you want about what Tate does, right? He's an interesting guy to watch and he's a very compelling person to see on the internet. You do not need to agree with him, but you watched a lot of his content. So, really is weaponizing eyes and attention at the moment in a way that very few other people are, except for maybe Liver King. I- I reckon that's it, man. I reckon Liver King is the Andrew Tate of the fitness world, 'cause they're both professional trolls, they both do not care about what the world thinks about them, and they're both making a shit ton of money. There it is. Uh, George J. Kennedy, "Not a question, but I can't wait for the day that you go on JRE." Uh, me too. I need to find something to talk to him about first. Uh, Lucy, Lucy Viagne, Viagne, "What are you unwilling to feel?" Um, lazy or like I haven't fulfilled my potential. That's probably the most accurate one. I'm unwilling to feel like I haven't fulfilled my potential, and that's one of the things that drives me forward. It should be more positive. I know ... Uh, me that did the episode, right? I did the episode with Dr. Benjamin Hardy about the g- ... the gap and the gain, about the fact that you need to be living in the gain, not in the gap, you need to be comparing yourself to who you were yesterday, not who you want to be tomorrow or who somebody else is in 10 years' time. Uh, but at the moment, I still really struggle to deal with days when I don't fulfill everything that I should or I don't perform in the way that I want to, uh, so I'm unwilling to feel that and I do everything to try and avoid it. Uh, Makdargahg. Can everyone please just change your usernames for the day that you submit the questions to something which is easy for me to pronounce? Because I- I actually feel like somebody that's trying to eat food and speak at the same time. "What- what's your training split like and weight you use for big lifts?" Training split at the moment is, uh, about six days a week and it is a ... kind of like a push-pull legs, I suppose, and then on the other few days I will do, uh, spinal, um, rehabilitation stuff for my coach Larry over at Active Life Rx, uh, and that is to continue to try and fix some of the problems that I've got, some of the, uh, pain and discomfort that I've got in my lower back. Uh, weight that I use for big lifts, I'm really not pushing that hard at the moment, so I'm not squatting, I'm not deadlifting. I haven't done for a very long time. Uh, when it comes to, I don't know, the heaviest stuff that I move around, between 40 ... between 40 kilos and 50 kilos on dumbbell press, uh, benching at, whatever, two plates a side, ish. Um, but there's not that many big lifts that I'm doing at the moment. Uh, Grange Gram ..."Thoughts on Adam heading back in to Love Island?" Mr. Collard, how are you? Uh, I think that it's hilarious. Uh, I think that it's surprising. I think it makes sense, uh, that they would do it because for all of the previous Islanders kicking up a fuss and saying, "We were told that, that nobody was able to go back in. And, and, and, and now he... Why, why aren't I in?" It's like, look, the guy obviously fits the narrative that they're trying to put across of a, whatever, a, a, what's it called? Fly in the ointment. And he's crushed it. Like he's gone on, he's caused one of the guys to leave within the space of one or two days. Uh, he's made a ton of uproar and everyone's talking about it. Like you needed someone in there that was going to be the bad guy. He's not going to win. There is no way that Adam can win, but I think he'll have a lot of fun while he's in there, and I'm looking forward to catching up with him when he comes out. It's hilarious. Uh, Marco Stott, "No phones in bedroom. When you wake at 3:00 AM what do you do instead of audiobooks or podcasts?" Uh, so I've got Kindle next to my bed. I tend to very rarely wake up at 3:00 AM. Uh, I think if you're waking up at 3:00 AM something is going wrong with either your day or your night, uh, and you probably need to look at your routine because there is no reason... If you're getting up at a normal time and going to bed at a normal time, and getting enough sunlight and food and training and social contact, and all the rest of it, you shouldn't be waking up at 3:00 AM. But if I was to wake up at 3:00 AM, I would do, um, I would try and go back to sleep, right? (laughs) I wouldn't do anything else other than try to sleep and hope for the best. Uh, Zzz, okay that, that username literally doesn't have any vowels in it. Zzz- Zzziftors, "Do you get Botox?" No, I don't. Just told you my, uh, skincare regime for my face, uh, it's all due to that. M- Melaninfit.bg (laughs) "Just a fan from across the ocean. You are awesome. I mean, how do you keep your face serious?" I don't know what that means. I have no idea what that means. The, Thebrojacomics, uh, "How well would you handle yourself in a debate? Politics, red pill, veganism, ethics, et cetera." Uh, there's not a ton of things that I would make an unbelievably, um, partisan stance on. Like I don't... I- I- I'm not going to stand here and have some huge argument about conservatism versus liberal values, right? I don't care all that much. The same goes for veganism like, uh, I think that there are elements that I take from both sides. Uh, ethics as well. I'm happy to have a discussion, but like a, a hardcore debate, I'm not sure. When it comes to red pill stuff I have a alright bit of an understanding when it comes to that. Uh, there was a girl who did some reaction video, Mune Cat, I think she's called, and, um, she did, "I debunked the entire manosphere world," was the video. And she used maybe three seconds of a clip from us. She didn't mention the channel at all. I actually thought the video was, was pretty good. I'd be really interested to have a discussion with her 'cause she seems pretty reasonable, she seems well researched, she's British as well. Um, so I would be interested to have a discussion with her around it. But even with that, like the concept of going into something as a debate is that somebody's got a position that you need to con- convince the other person of. I'd be much more interested in going, okay, so why is it that you think this particular way? Why is it that upon seeing similar evidence to the stuff that I've seen that we've come out with very differing points of view? I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything really, apart from the fact that you don't need to live your life by default. You can live it by design. That's something I'm trying to convince everybody of. But there are very few universal truths that... I think that you need to have strong opinions loosely held, not loose opinions strongly held, right? And that means I'm always open to changing my mind about stuff, and I'm like chronically aware of my own fallibility. So yeah, maybe, maybe I, I think I do pretty well when it comes to discussing eve psych stuff and dating dynamics. But beyond that, I'd just be interested in having a discussion. Andrea Lavy, "What are your top three favorite books?" I have a reading list of 100 books that you should read before you die, and you can get it if you go here, and if you go to chriswillex.com/books. Three that everybody should read, The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart, Endurance by Alfred Lansing, and Don't Trust Your Gut by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. That isn't even in the 100 books list. Nate Witt, PT, "Will you be attending IFS 2022 in Lisbon?" Maybe. Uh, I'm currently speaking to Luke, one of the guys that runs it, and James Smith, who is on the show pretty soon. Uh, and we're going to be discussing whether I can get myself over from Texas to go to Lisbon for that. Uh, last year was a lot of fun and uh, I was bouncing around with a gram and a half of mushrooms in me for most of the weekend, so it was very enjoyable. Andy Lacey, "Why is it important to share what we learn? Why do we feel the need to help people?" This is a cool question. So my belief is that a lot of the things that we go through in life that hurt us, that are challenges that we, in retrospect, maybe wish hadn't happened, you can transcend the suffering of those by teaching other people how to get past them as well. This thing came up against you, you thought it was going to end you, and it didn't because you got through it, and it's not going to get the other people either because you're going to use what you went through in order to expedite their success or help them to avoid pitfalls. And...I know, it's, it's a, it's a really good way of sticking your middle finger up at parts of life or people in your life that have done things that you wish that they hadn't. It is one of the best ways to transcend resentment or bitterness or whatever it might be. You take ... It's like a, it's like alchemy, right? You take something that was really, really painful or uncomfortable or difficult or embarrassing or saddening or traumatic or whatever, and then you turn it into something that makes the world better. Like that's fucking power. That's power. Uh, Els, "What's your criteria for choosing guests?" The same as it has been since the first episode, which is anybody that I find interesting. This show is a sequence of conversations with people that I think are interesting, and you guys get to listen in. Like, that's the way it works. I don't want to be trying to choose guests based on, I don't know, someone else's idea of who I should be talking to, who would make for a responsible discussion. Now, that's not to say that there aren't times when you need to bring other voices on to learn more about a conversation that you've had. Let's say that I have someone that's anti-fossil fuels. Having someone on that's pro-fossil fuels means that I get to understand more. But if I'm not interested, it's not gonna happen. Like I, uh, (laughs) the show is my curiosity being dragged forward and if I had somebody on the show that I didn't care about what they were saying, it's gonna be an awful conversation. So, the criteria is, who am I curious about and what have they got to say? Uh, Rick Falder, "Any luck finding a cricket team in Texas?" No, not yet. So, if you run a cricket team in Texas, please reach out. Lisa Smithe, "Not a question. Soz. You are awesome." You are awesome, Lisa. L- L- Lug- Lugexo, "Have you considered writing your own book? Just a curious thought." Um, so yep, there is a, a ... I've had a book offer, uh, I've had a couple of book offers, but at the moment we, I just don't have any spare time. The show, three episodes a week, is ... it eats me alive and, uh, if I was to write a book now, it would be ... uh, I, it would not be anything close to the quality that I would want it to be because I would pushing myself way, way, way beyond my capacity. That's not to say that it's not gonna happen in future, and I know that, um, the, um (laughs) , I know that the publisher would love that I hurried up that realization or that, uh, delegating of control so that we could get started, but I think it will happen. In fact, I'm almost certain that it will happen. It's just a case of when. Mr. Daniel Stephens, "Any theories on why songs get stuck in peoples' heads (laughs) on a loop? I find it happens when I'm tired." So, during my research for the Huberman episode, he spoke about the fact that first thing in the morning, our brains are unusually responsive to inputs, and I think that you might be finding that when you're tired, something similar is happening here too. It's the same reason why I don't listen to music on the radio alarm clock that I use on a morning, because if it's any song with any sort of catchy tune, for the next hour that's all that I can hear looping in my head. Uh, I mean, that might be a me, like a m- my brain mindfulness problem rather than music on the radio problem, but it's easier for me to get away from it. Um, yes, unusually responsive to inputs on a morning, and presumably your brain state is going to be similar when you're tired on a nighttime as well. Uh, Josh Sanchez, "Why did you start getting therapy? Has it been helpful? I'm nervous to get into it." Yeah, I mean, I've, I've done a bunch of different things. I wouldn't say that I'm super, super well-experienced with therapy. I've maybe done 20 sessions or something in my life, uh, but the guy that I work with now, Vinny Shulman, is a hypnotist, he's a performance coach, and he is great with timeline therapy, with a bunch of interpersonal stuff too. Um, uh, you, you just simply don't know what you've got lurking in your mind that could be holding you back, and until you start to speak to somebody ... Like literally, we, we have PTs. Everybody understands the value of a PT for getting the body in shape. The mind is infinitely more complex than the body, and yet people don't go to a therapist when they feel like they need to do some work on their mind. So, I think that's, that's the most compelling, uh, analogy that I could use. "Uh, 500 days of caffeine, what were your positive takeaways?" I think that means 500 days off caffeine. Uh, 500 days of caffeine would've been the exact opposite of what I did. Um, I had better sleep. I had, uh, no more ... The, the most important thing actually, the best takeaway from doing caffeine-free for a year and a half was that I completely deprogrammed my need for caffeine. It's the same main takeaway that I learned from, uh, alcohol, from going 1,000 days without alcohol, was that a lot of why you take the substance isn't because of the effect of it, it's because of a compulsion that you have. And now, when I want to have caffeine, I do. It hits me like an absolute train. So, I've got, uh, 90-mg, um, energy drinks rather than 150 that I think is in a Nocco, 200 that would be in, uh, like a Celsius or 300 that would be in a Bang, I've got a 90, which is like a medium cup of coffee, and it still takes my head off. Um, that's, that's the, the best takeaway. I no longer need it. I can choose to use it when I want to, and when I do use it, it is like rocket fuel. Um, "How present, who presents a better X risk, Russia or China? The British public currently believe they are equal." Uh, I would say China. I think that over the next 50 years, they're a huge threat, and then in about 50 years' time, they become a much less big of a threat because their population is just wrecked now. Like, they just do not have enough young people to support the old people, and in 50 years' time, all of the current young people are going to be old people and there won't be enough more young people to keep them going. Young people are the ones that buy things, they're the ones that make things, they're the ones that actually keep the economy going.... and they're going to be really struggling. But they're going to know that, which means that the next 50 years are going to be particularly precarious as they try to future-proof themselves from civilizational or, uh, demographic collapse over the next however long. MD Performance Psychology, "No question, would love to see you engage with a high profile Muslim on your podcast. I'm a big fan of your work." Well, Mohammed Hijab has been suggested. I just don't know ... I don't know what I would talk to him about. Um, like ... I, I know so little about Islam, like apart from Ramadan and stuff, like what am I ... I just don't know what I would talk to him about. But I, again, I'm open to having a discussion with a high profile Muslim, uh, if they want to talk about dating dynamics or, or existential risk or fitness or something. Uh, k- kj- k- j- ... God, I can't even make that ... What, what noise does the letters K-J-H-E-N-G-R ... What, like what is that? Kj- kjeng ... "Why/how did you move to the US? Why Austin?" Uh, why was because I had, I, I'd, I'd done everything there was to do in the UK, and I felt like I needed a change and I wanted to be somewhere that was social, with good weather, with a lot of fitness and health and wellness and stuff, and I had a ton of friends that were already here, and all of the things that I predicted that would happen have happened, uh, which makes me ... My self-righteousness feels, uh, vindicated and super satisfied. Uh, "I.B. Andy Vickers, is woke over? Are we coming back from the extreme forms of left and right to being sensi- sensible again?" So woke isn't over, but I do believe that we've passed peak woke. Uh, I think that peak woke was around about June or July of 2020, and I think now, if you look at almost anybody that isn't an insane super lefty, they understand that transing their kids or, um, allowing a toddler to come into nursery and say that they're a different gender and encourage them to do that and not tell the parents, I don't know any person that thinks that that's genuinely ethical to do. However, it is going to take a very long time for that to happen, and we also need to be careful about too much of a flip-flop back to the other side, where you could see, uh, right-wing, uh, ideas that are also pretty bad extreme right-wing ideas coming through. Um, yes, I think that peak woke is ... W- we've reached apogee and we're coming back down now. I think there's a long way to go and I think that we need to be concerned about how much we swing back to ... Uh, BrettJMCC, "Has COVID increased divorce rates?" Um, maybe. I don't know. Someone post the stat below. Someone will have this. Post the stat below if you know. Ryan Kustan, "Thoughts on the Tate Brothers?" (laughs) Uh, I didn't do a good job of bundling these together. Uh, they're interesting guys. That's why I ... What I have to say. Rob Van Der ... That's a good one. Rob Van Der, "Now you're in Texas, do you want to own a gun in the near or distant future?" I've been shooting a lot. I shot ... Uh, I did some training, I did some competitive shooting, and it is ... I can completely see why people think it's fun. Like, these pieces of machinery are unbelievably precise and powerful, uh, and focus your attention a lot. If you've got a gun in your hand and you're treating it with respect and not waving it around like a dickhead, if you have a gun in your hand you think about nothing else other than the fact that you've got a gun in your hand. And there's not many things that you can hold in your hand that cause (laughs) ... that cause that to happen. Uh, Adam Dickson95, "How much do you drink alcohol now? I know you took significant breaks in the past." So ... Over the course of about five or six years, I was probably sober for maybe four and a half of them, and now I will drink pretty infrequently. Uh, there was a couple of weekends in a row where I ha- was drinking Saturday, Sunday out here at pool parties and stuff, but I also have recently done a couple of monthlong breaks that I just felt I needed to do if I wanted to focus on episodes. Didn't drink in the lead-up to Hube and Ojokko because just cutting out alcohol makes such a difference to your mental agility, your sleep quality, your recovery, everything. So, it is just a tool, the same as the Pomodoro Technique or fucking putting your phone on do not disturb. It's exactly the same now. It's just a tool that I can drop into and drop out to ... Drop out of as much as I want. Jivanti, "Are you a full-time YouTuber/podcaster now? What advice would you give to people in 20s?" I guess I am a full-time YouTuber or podcaster now. It is the main passion project, it is what I go to sleep thinking about in the nighttime, it is what I spend all of my waking hours working on. Uh, what advice would I give to people in the ... To the people in 20s ... What advice would you give to people ... Give to the people in 20 ... I don't know. I don't know what I would give to the people in 20s. Um, what I would say to people that are in their 20s is, work hard, see what your tolerances are for, um, high amounts of work. What does too much feel like, what does too little feel like, and then that gives you parameters. I know the limits of how hard I can work and I know just as I'm about to touch them and then I can back off, which is what I've done consistently for about two years. The only way that you can know that is if you've really pushed it too hard, and you can't really afford to find that out when you're 42 and you've got kids and a wife. Like, you can't be burned out because you've pushed yourself too hard, or you can't be dissatisfied with life because you're not pushing hard enough. Learn those boundaries, I think, in your 20s when you've got the freedom to be able to do it, and then that'll inform you moving forward. Fayoz Umar, "Bro, what do you think about people, me, who are interested in random subjects?" Uh, you're my favorite type of people. That's ... The, the people that only have one obsession when it comes to curiosity, to me, it is so strange. Like, this is one of the reasons that I absolutely love the podcast. Modern Wisdom is the show that I would listen to-... if I was an audience member because I feel like everybody has, everybody is a multifaceted human, right? We all have tons of things that we're interested in. We got obsessed about UFC Knockout, or we got obsessed about, uh, 19th century poetry, or we got whatever, right? There are tons and tons and tons of things, and we're these multi-layered, multifaceted creatures that have loads of different interests. Why, uh, why not reflect that in the content that you make? Th- there's this common held wisdom or whatever in content creation world, especially in podcasting, that you're supposed to niche down. Niche down super hard, you capture that niche because you can make a name for yourself in a small pond much easier than you can make it in a big pond. And then once you've captured the niche, you then broaden out from there. Now, I don't know, maybe, maybe I've made an error by not doing that. Maybe we could have got here to where we are quicker had I have done something different, but I don't want to do that at all. There is no part of me that wants to spend 150 episodes a year just talking about dating or just talking about culture wars or just talking about health and fitness or philosophy or mindfulness or mindset or growth or resilience or anything. I want to be able to talk about all of them, and then if I find something new like Bret Johnson, the world's most, uh, America's, FBI's most wanted man and, uh, uh, the biggest hacker on the planet, I want to be able to have a conversation with him. And I don't want to bring him on and have to start asking him about what he thinks about hypergamy, right? Like (laughs) putting everything through one frame or even a couple of frames just seems, it's boring. I don't wanna do that. I'm interested in lots of things. If you're interested in lots of things as well, you're probably super interesting because you can find common ground with so many more people that you speak to. It's a superpower. It's not, it's not a weakness. Not having a narrow band of interests is something that you should be proud of. Uh, nbolton13, "Do you still keep in contact with anyone from Love Island?" Uh, so from my season, uh, little bits here and there. I've bumped into Josh Ritchie. If that guy is, like, anywhere that I go on holiday, he, he, Josh Ritchie permanently lives on holiday, right? And he only lives on holiday in the places that I'm going to, apparently. He was in Ibiza when I was in Ibiza twice. He was in Dubai when I was in Dubai. He was in Manchester when I was in Manchester. The, the guy is everywhere. Uh, John, I speak to, uh, very rarely. Um, Max, we speak moderately regularly. I saw him in Newcastle at one of our events toward the back end of last year. Um, and then Collard, uh, obviously can't keep in contact with him at the moment 'cause he's on the island, but those are, those are the ones. Uh, knowknowthereforthememes1, "I am a fan of the Red Rising series. Two/first trilogy. Ever tried to interview Pierce Brown?" So Pierce is in my Instagram DMs, and I will pr- almost certainly get him on. I will definitely try to get him on once the new book comes out, once book six comes out. I will definitely try and get him on. I think he's a fascinating human. I love the fact that he takes all of his ideas from history, uh, from real battles. All of the naming of the character, it's so immersive. If anybody needs a fiction series right now, go and buy Red Rising on Kindle or buy the book. The audio series is great as well. It is the most addicting series that I've ever... Anybody that I send it to, it should come with a warning label. It should come with a, like, "Warning, this product is highly addictive," because it is, it's next level. Uh, yes, I will get him on. rorygillespie, "Would you have Ben Shapiro on the show?" Yeah, sure. Uh, I would be interested to speak to him, uh, Ben, a little bit more about his personal views on stuff. Culture wars stuff, for me, it, it, it's great for, um, gaining plays and having a laugh at kinda crazy stuff that you've seen on the internet. But I would be much more interested in hearing about Shapiro's motivations. He works incredibly hard. He was s- similar to me. He was bullied, uh, a fair bit in school. I'd want to know how that informs the way that he shows up now. Uh, loads of stuff. I, I, I'd love to find out about his typical daily routine. I'd love to find out about how he prepares for episodes. There's so many things that, like, Shapiro particularly would be really fascinating to talk to about that no one ever asks him about because everybody just wants him to, I don't know, dunk on trans people or, or whatever. And, uh, I think that there's more, there's definitely more to him, uh, than that. So, yeah, hold on. Uh, rorygillespie, you have asked a lot of questions, and I haven't, uh, I'm not, I'm not gonna answer them all. Um, patthojbyc, uh, "Do you have plans to update your reading list? What's the best book currently not on that list?" Uh, yeah, I'll do it eventually. Um, I feel like there's still a lot of people watching this podcast who haven't downloaded the reading list yet. If you go to chriswilkes.com/books, maybe I'll get another one out soon. Um, best book currently not on that list. Um, so I'm reading How to Think Like a Roman Emperor Again, which is Donald Robertson's, which is just amazing. Um, probably what I said earlier on, um, Don't Trust Your Gut by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. That's great. Oh, actually, Uh, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry, just outstanding. I think it's out in America now. So if you watch that podcast and you didn't get the book, go and buy Louise's book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution 'cause it's really, really good. Um, caseyben, "Do you have to h- do you have to achieve the thing in order to realize the thing won't make you happy?" Overall, yes. I think so. I think Naval is right when he says that it is far easier to achieve our material desires than to renounce them. Um, it's much simpler for you to not care about having a banged-up old car if you know what it feels like to get inside of a Ferrari. There's just an open loop element of, of humans, and we are naturally statusable creatures. This doesn't mean that you can't do some mindfulness work and reduce your ego down and stop playing Keeping Up with the Joneses and, and, and the comparison game and stuff. You absolutely can.But for a lot of things, I genuinely think it might be easier to just, to just do the thing, to just achieve the thing, and then you can absolutely let go of it and completely transcend it. Um, Rory Gillespie aga- look, this is a good question, Rory, so I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you two, but you... You've asked so many questions here. How the fuck did these get through? Anyway, this is a good question, so you can have two. "Uh, best advice (laughs) you could give to teens/young adults who worry about still being a virgin?" I'm gonna guess that this is for men, um, or for guys. Dude, I wouldn't worry, at all, like especially if you're in your teens. I lost my virginity s- like, well into my 17th year. Uh, no sorry, well into the year of being 17, so my 18th year. Um, I was hopelessly lonely and uncool and just... Uh, uh, you, (laughs) if there had been a, "Who is going to stay a lifelong virgin?" uh, vote at school, it would've almost definitely been me. This is one of the things... WheatWaffles, I saw him do a conversation with First Man, uh, not long ago. WheatWaffles is this big sort of black pill YouTuber and, uh, First Man does red pill stuff. And one of the things that I haven't heard talked about much from people that are worried about still being a virgin, or incels that are young, is, look, you do not know what your future has in store for you. You honestly, you don't know how you're going to look. You don't know how comfortable you're going to be around other people, how social you're going to be, the money that you make, the status that you achieve. That m- m- maybe you turn gay. Maybe you, you become so comfortable with yourself that you, you just get this animal magnetism or whatever it might be. Like, you have... I sound, literally sound like my parents, "You have so much time, it doesn't worry, blah, it doesn't, there's no need to worry, blah, blah, blah." But it's a little bit more nuanced than that. You simply can't track the trajectory of your life that well. When you're young, everything that's happening right now feels like that is all that there's ever going to be. You have no idea of the optionality and of the different life paths that you could take downstream from here. Ha- just have faith. Like, almost all people are going to be completely fine, and you're probably going to be one of them, so just don't obsess over what it is. Uh, Mindful Mitch, "Would you fight a polar bear with three limbs or three what- Rottweilers? What's your tactic?" (sighs) Well, I mean, it's gonna have to be a polar bear with two legs and one arm, so I'm fighting a polar bear with one arm because there's no way that I could do it with one leg. Or three Rottweilers, I don't know. I mean, how bad are Rottweilers? They're the ones that can lock their jaws around your arm, I think. That would suck. I, b- I mean, the polar bear's just going to maul you alive. It's gotta be the Rottweilers. Tactic? I think you come out of the gates hot. I think you come out hot, really hot. You try and, uh, a lot of kicking. You need to volley the first one pretty well. Like, as it's coming towards you, you're gonna have to time it and you're gonna ha- because you're hopefully gonna get it in the midsection, you wanna come in with a lateral kick, right, around the side. That means its head is going to be perilously close to your jewels. So, nice sort of sidekick into the first one, show them that you mean business, and then, uh, from, it's just a scrap from there. That's, that's the best I've got. Reader1226, "Advice for guys in their 30s struggling to find purpose." Um, (sighs) dude, I don't know. It's, th- this, this was me, like, um, toward the end of my 20s, start of my 30s. This was me. I didn't have something to contribute to and, for the most part, e- everyone is making it up. Um, purpose is something that is really, really difficult to, to work out. You'll know when you've got it when you have a reason to wake up in the morning. If you wake up and you want to get out of bed, that's because you've got purpose. Purpose comes from aligning your capacities internally with demands externally, and if you are struggling to find it, a change of scenario might help, a two-week holiday somewhere that you've never been or a, a, a trip to see a friend that you haven't caught up with for ages. Like, if you're struggling to find it, it means that the current stimulus, the current inputs that you've got, aren't working. So yeah, maybe you go away on holiday and it's totally shit, or maybe you go and see your friend and he's turned into a dickhead. But you know that the strategy that you're using at the moment doesn't work, and that one's different. So, try and do different things, go to different places, meet different people, and when you find something that approximates anything that you could be interested in, just dedicate yourself to it and then change from there. It goes right back to one of the first questions. Uh, Cameron4987, "Where next for the podcast? How do you continue to iterate and progress?" (sighs) I don't know, man. I mean, 400,000 subs is so many. It sounds... It's a huge number. Uh, I, I, we always f- I always hoped that we would be up there with huge shows, because I felt like I worked hard and the guests that I brought on were super interesting and the conversations we had were really valuable. Um, I don't really know what's next. I mean, continuing to find more fascinating guests? Um, getting on more and more big people, big names, you know. Goggins this year would be unbelievable. Schultz as well this year would be unbelievable. Um, more of the big productions, I love them. I think that they look phenomenal. I think that it's the best-looking podcasts on the internet, and I will challenge any person to show me a better-looking podcast. The Jocko Willink Podcast is the prettiest podcast that I've ever seen. Happy to see other ones, but it is.... gorgeous. Why not just keep doing that? But I just need to... I don't know. Someone link me up with Sam Harris, someone link me up with David Goggins, someone link me up with Andrew Schultes. We'll, we'll take it from there. Uh, in terms of other stuff, just keep platforming people that I think have got interesting stories. This is the best thing. For almost all of your career as a podcaster, you're riding on the coattails of the people and slipstreaming their fame, and then after a while the power flips and you can be the person that's a platform for other people. So, Louise Perry, Case Against the Sexual Revolution, that episode did quarter of a million plays on YouTube and a ton on audio as well. And she got to, uh, number one in gender studies on Amazon, and she sent me a screenshot on Twitter and said, "This is all because of the episode that we did." Like, she, uh, she must have been able to track the sales or, or something. And, um, that's so cool for me to get someone that is... Well, they've already done it, right? She's super talented, the book's amazing. All that she needed was that signal amplifying a little bit. That makes me feel... It's pretty cool. Um, so continuing to find underground heroes that nobody knows about and continuing to find the best and the brightest and the biggest names, uh, and put unbelievable, ridiculous productions on... I wanna do a podcast in the Arctic, actually. We're talking about this with my producer, uh, the one that does the, the big episodes, Colton. Uh, I wanna do a podcast in the Arctic, so snowy scene, complete flat backdrop, maybe mountains in the background, totally outside. We'd have to bring a generator. You'd have to travel out for ages. That'd be, that'd be pretty cool. Um, Rasul Navi, uh, "You grew quickly in a short amount of time. What do you think helped you grow the most?" Uh, clips, man. Like, utilizing clips, understanding the physics of the system on YouTube and stuff, uh, and just consistency. We're 500 episodes in. Like, is it that quick that we've grown to 400,000 subs in 500 episodes? Like, it's not actually that many. It's less than a thousand subs per episode, plus all of the clips on top. Clips help. That's a, uh, a big part of it. People often don't want to commit to a full podcast, but they're happy to commit to a, uh, short clip. And then from there, you've got them and they, they go down, but yeah, just stay consistent. And if you know that you've got, uh, a format that works or a talent or whatever, just don't stop. Uh, "In your opinion..." TomGMurray94, "In your opinion, is there an appropriate way to approach a woman in the gym, or is it a no-go zone?" It depends what sort of gym. If it's a Gold's Gym where everyone's training with their earbuds in and doing glute bridge, it's a bit more difficult. If you're in a CrossFit gym or a functional fitness place, it is so social. This is why, if you like fitness guys or fitness girls, just join a functional fitness gym because it's so communal. You'll be dating in no time. Uh, Paul Nadhirus, "Modern Wisdom merch out soon? Wouldn't mind a nice blue Modern Wisdom tee." Yes. So we've got designs done by 99 Designs, and we got some absolute monsters. The, the designers are so good. Uh, so I can't wait. We're gonna do that. That'll be pretty soon. Um, I'm gonna guess T-shirts mostly. Hoodies kind of doesn't make sense at the moment, we're still in the middle of summer, and then maybe some hoodies this winter, but yeah, it'll be, it'll be happening. If you've got ideas for what you want to see, um, throw it in the comments. Uh, Christogram621, "What's Douglas Murray like after a few drinks?" Spectacular. Absolutely spectacular. That man is a, a very, very funny person to have at a dinner. I went to the Petersons' wedding and was sat next to him. Uh, we've spent a bunch of nights in New York drinking Manhattans until 3:00 in the morning. The guy is a lot of fun. Uh, and he gets... When I drink, I don't get any more witty. I get slurry, right? Douglas somehow gets sharper once he's had a bit of booze in him. I actually think that it might be a performance enhancer for him, so he might be drinking before he goes on Fox. I don't, I don't know. "A lot is analyzed into what makes a happy life. How can you sum it up in a line?" HarryKeenan37. Hmm. I think Naval probably got it pretty right that... Take no one else's word for it. Or maybe not. Maybe, maybe Morgan Housel. Look at me, repurposing everybody el-... This is what I do. I'm not... Uh, look, I've made a career out of being the dumbest person in the room. I'm never gonna say one of my ideas, am I? I'm gonna say someone else's (laughs) . Um, Morgan Housel has this idea that, um, wealth gives you the ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, and no one can tell you otherwise. The main thing that I see that's a common theme with a happy life is freedom, right? It's the freedom to do what you want to do, and also the freedom to know what you want to want. Those are the two things. The freedom to be able to do what you want to do and to know what you want to want. That's it. CGeveritt, "What would you tell the Chris Williamson with 5K subs back in the day about your career journey?" It's gonna happen, man. Y- y-... Everything that you are doing right now is investment in the future, and thank you for doing it. Uh, HarryKeenan37 again. No, not twice for you. Sorry, Harry. Um, Ibrahim Mohamud, "Let's get married." Sure, man. Let's, let's, you know, let's do it. Let's do it. Uh, final one. I'll do one more. J Todd, "How much knowledge/insight do you retain from interviewing all of your guests, and what are some practical applications of it?" Dude, it's hard. It is hard having this volume of content pushed into my face on a weekly basis. I love it, um, but, I mean, it... There's definitely more that I'm learning than I can retain or implement. Um, Tim Ferriss has this idea called the good shit sticks, and it is the best, most freeing way to think about consuming content. It's like, look, you can listen to 10 podcasts in a row, and if nothing stands out, it didn't need to stand out. You don't need to remember it. If you listen to three podcasts in a row and there's 10 things from each of them that you... That are life-changing, that's why. Like, just allow the natural evolution of the ideas that you retain and the ones that hit you and you, you clip or screen record and send to your friends or take a screenshot of. Those are the things that matter. The good shit will stick. It'll rise to the top, and that's the same with the, the show. That's not to say that every guest has something interesting, right? All of the people that I bring on have got something interesting. But maybe it's not the right time or maybe it doesn't resonate or whatever with me. Just all I do is focus on what's the stuff that I can't not remember. That's it. Look, I'm gonna leave you there. I appreciate the hell out of all of you. Uh, I feel like 450K is probably not gonna be far away, so we'll do this again soon, right? Bye. What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.