Pod Insights The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett E23: I am a Slave, My Fear and Therapy About this episode In Chapter 3 of The Diary of a CEO I talk about the importance of trusting more. I am a real perfectionist and feel trapped between wanting to control even the smallest details and wanting to let go and delegate. I touch on learning to say no, which I t...
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:08 Steven Bartlett? 4:16 AM, Sunday night, all morning, in the cupboard we keep props and client products in, in my office here in Manhattan, New York. I've been up all night, working, thinking, getting things done, and my mind is clear. So that means one thing, and one thing only. It's time for the Diary of a CEO. We've got a lot to talk about this week, so forget the long intro, I'm gonna get straight into it. Without further ado, this is the Diary of a CEO, I'm Steven Bartlett. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
0:52 Steven Bartlett? Who are you a slave to? Let me take you back a second. For you guys that have listened to this podcast for some time, you'll remember this predicament I found myself in at the age of 25. I looked back at my diary from 18 years old, and in my diary I'd written that I wanted a Range Rover to be my first car, I wanted a million quid before I was 25, and all of these kind of like very superficial, like vanity things, right? And in that moment, when I had a Range Rover as my first car, and I had the luxuries of wealth and those kinds of things, this question appeared in my mind: what's the fucking point? And I think, in some ways, I've been haunted by that question ever since then. As a kid,
1:37 Steven Bartlett? when you have nothing, and you're an 18-year-old that thinks that, you know, money caused all the problems in your childhood, and it was the reason why your parents screamed at each other, I was obsessed with this idea that money could solve the problems. And upon, you know, getting money, I realized that money didn't scale happiness, and I wasn't really doing this for money. So at the age of 25, 26, I've asked myself, why the fuck am I doing this? And in this last week, what I wrote in my diary is, who the fuck am I a slave to? Here's my kind of general thoughts. I give my life to my work, right? I'm in the office at fucking, it's now 4:20 AM in the morning on Sunday night,
2:19 Steven Bartlett? I haven't slept properly, I'm pouring my heart into this thing that I'm doing. Why?
2:27 Steven Bartlett? I think this is the most important question. And in the last 12 months, I've started to understand why. I've started to understand that I am a slave, but I'm a slave to something.
2:43 Steven Bartlett? And I think every single person listening to this, when you get up at nine AM in the morning, or whenever you get up and you get in your car and you drive to work, or you drive to the gym, or wherever you're going, it's so important for you to have front and centre in your mind what you're a slave to. Some of us think that we're a slave to Instagram likes. Some of us think we're a slave to compliments. Some of us think we're a slave to our landlord. Some of us are a slave to just getting to tomorrow and getting by. Some of us are a slave to the hamster wheel, right? And all of these things to me are terrible miserable things to be a slave to. They really, really are. You've got to be a slave to the right thing. And I started to ask myself, I guess, over the last like couple of weeks,
3:25 Steven Bartlett? like define to yourself, Stephen, exactly what it is you're a slave to. Why are you doing all these things that you're doing? What, why are you driving yourself forward when you've really got enough stuff? And friends and whatever else to be completely comfortable and just chill? And here's, here's the answer that I wrote into my diary. I wrote, I'm a slave to my own eulogy. Sounds like a fucking weird thing to say. And another word for this might be to some people, like to my own legacy, but I am a slave to my own fucking eulogy. I don't give a fuck, I'm gonna be honest, right? I think about my death.
4:05 Steven Bartlett? That sounds really fucking weird, maybe I should have changed that. I think about my death, right? And I think about sometimes, this is such a strange thing to say, but this is the whole point of this podcast, right? I think about what people are gonna say at my funeral. And that's what I mean by being a slave to my own eulogy. For you guys that don't know, a eulogy is basically the speech they give when you're dead. And I'm a slave to that legacy of what will be written in that eulogy when I, when I die, right? What do I want to be in that eulogy? I want my eulogy to say that I was somebody who gave to so many other people that always gave more than he took, that made other people's lives in the world a better, more productive, overall happier place because I was here.
4:50 Steven Bartlett? I want my eulogy to be full of kids that are also cut in the same cloth and are great people as well. I want my eulogy to talk about how I made tens of millions of people happier and more in touch with the right things and not the wrong things, the intrinsic things, the things that really count, right? I want my eulogy to say that I made tens of millions of people believe in themselves. I also want my eulogy to say that I built a great, great business and company and organisation that shook the world, reimagined the world and made the world better in every way. I think that's why I care so much about the culture of Social Chain, because I realise
5:34 Steven Bartlett? that we're more than a company. By setting a culture where we try and care about people as much as we possibly can, we're inspiring hundreds and in some cases, thousands of other companies to improve the way they treat their people. And I think that's another way that Social Chain is having a very positive impact on the world without really knowing it. What else am I a slave to? I'm a slave to my family, two families. The family I have right now, my immediate family, for whatever reason, I don't really know my uncles and my aunties and anybody other than my brothers and sisters and my mum and dad, but I'm a slave to them, right? I'm a slave to my brother's newborn baby, Alessandra, because the work I do now can positively impact our life.
6:16 Steven Bartlett? I get tremendous, and I think I talked about this last podcast, I get all of my enjoyment, right, out of buying her something, out of giving my brother an Amazon voucher for £500, £1,000 where he can buy toys for her and buy nappies and those kinds of things. That expense is worth more to me than anything I buy for myself, right? So I'm a slave to my family, my current family, but also my future family, the family I have never, ever met, the kids that I'm going to fall in love with head over heels, and my wife that I will love more than I can even imagine. I'm a slave to these people. And every day that I get up and I go to work and I slog away, I'm doing it because those
6:58 Steven Bartlett? future kids that I love, that I've never met yet, I want them to have all of the freedoms and the possibilities and as much happiness and no money worries in their lives. I'm a slave to my own freedom. I work hard because I am defending my own freedom. I want to build a life where I'm free to choose. My whole life, I've been obsessed with this idea of freedom of choice. And that choice is to go where I want to go, when I want to go there, and do what I want to do when I'm there. Whether that's a selfish thing of going on holiday and seeing other places, or it's a selfless thing of being able to produce as much content as I desire and help as much people as I possibly can touch, right?
7:40 Steven Bartlett? And all those things come down to a level of freedom and resource that I fight every single day to increase, and I'm a slave to that. And I think lastly, I don't know if this is a lastly, but I hope I'm a slave to my own happiness. And this kind of comes back to the original point. It's hard to know in the moment whether you are a slave to your happiness, or whether you're chasing pleasure, or whether you're chasing the wrong things. But my overall hope, deep down in my heart, is that today, all this work that I'm putting in will culminate in happiness in this moment, but happiness in my future. And so I guess my question to you is, all the work you put in, all the ambitions you
8:22 Steven Bartlett? have, and everything you're striving to become, who are you a slave for? What are you a slave to? Can you even answer that question?
8:34 Steven Bartlett? Okay, let's go in a different direction. I've just written in my diary, music as a mood setter. And let me explain. There's this expression, which I think my football coach, when I was 14 years old, said to me, and it stuck with me for some time, a very, very simple expression. It's start as you mean to go on. And I've taken that expression, which was meant to apply to the football field as in start the game strong and can and therefore, you know, you'll intimidate your opponents and you'll keep at that tempo. And I've taken it into to my daily routine in some respects. So one of the things that I actively do now, which I've talked about before, is I mood set in the morning, because I think if you wake up in a bad mood, you leave your house,
9:18 Steven Bartlett? you'll drag that attitude through the day, it'll compound and cause more problems and you'll end up having a shitty week, right? So I mood set in the morning and music has become this incredibly important tool to help me mood set. However, here's what I think happens. We use music to amplify our emotions and how we're feeling. So for example, if you've gone through a heartbreak and someone's hurt you, we'll go to Adele, right? And we'll listen to these sad songs to bring out and amplify those feelings. So if we wake up in a shitty mood, we don't put on really, really happy music naturally. We actually default to music that will make us feel even shittier, right? Because music
10:00 Steven Bartlett? is an amplifier of the emotions. So that's the mistake I made with my daily routine previously. And here's how I fixed it. What I've done is I've created a playlist that makes me feel pumped up, happy, you know, motivated, all of these things. And irrespective of how I feel in the morning, I hit that playlist. And while I'm in the shower, while I'm brushing my teeth, and before I leave the house, I finish those three or four or five songs on that playlist. Playlist is about 70 songs, but I finished three or four songs on that playlist. And it has a tremendous impact on my mood, an unspeakable impact on my mood. And music for me has been one of the most powerful ways to get my
10:43 Steven Bartlett? brain in the right state and to get my mood right. And I know a lot of the world's most sort of prolific motivational speakers are advocating this. And so it's just something I wanted to pass along. Don't let your brain pick the music. Your brain will default to amplify your existing emotions. Preset the music in your playlist and get up In the morning and go straight to it, even if you're not feeling like it. I can't, I can't emphasize enough how much mood setting when I get out of bed in the morning has impacted my day. In a life where time is so hard to come by, it's so important that you use every hour of your day in the right state.
11:23 Steven Bartlett? And that's exactly what mood setting has done for me. And I'd highly recommend you do it too.
11:31 Steven Bartlett? Oh, this is a very important point. I've actually written no notes next to this point, so I'm just going to freestyle on it. But I'm so passionate about this and this is so current that I just need to think out loud. All I've written in my diary is perfectionism might be the single biggest thing holding me back. And I know what you're thinking, very simple concept, but no. So let me explain this. Where shall I start? Let me start with my personal brand, because it's something that you guys will kind of understand, because you're on the receiving end of the content that I make, including this podcast. Over the last two years, I've realized that getting to a point where I'm producing more and more content is so important.
12:10 Steven Bartlett? However, anybody that works with me, specifically in my personal brand team, will know that I'm such a stickler and such an asshole when it comes to minor things. And my obsession over the small things, the copy on a post, how an Instagram quote looks, and all these minor things have meant that I probably produce a tenth, 10% of the content that I could produce. And in the game of personal brand, as many people will tell you, volume and producing a lot of content is key. I can't produce a lot because I'm an asshole when it comes to these minor perfectionist details. And I was thinking about this on a much sort of more grand scale about social chain as a business.
12:51 Steven Bartlett? I am so obsessed with how social change should be in every detail, which in some respects has been, I think, hugely beneficial to social chain. But in others, I think it could really risk holding the company back. We have major ambitions, right? I want to go to every market we possibly can with social chain that makes sense. But I worry that I'll spend so much time obsessing over these minor details in markets like the UK or the US or Germany or whatever, that will never reach the scale we could. Because I'm such a stickler for tiny things and I spend too much of my energy on tiny things and what I really should do is trust people more. And I've never been good at trusting
13:32 Steven Bartlett? people. My business studies teacher wrote on my report card when I was, how old was I? I must have been about 15 years old, that Steve is great and he's really, really great at business, but he never ever delegates. And Social Chain, the growth of the business, you know, there's almost 300 members of staff now, has forced me to delegate, but I think I'm still holding on a little bit more than I should. And I think, and this is kind of a world exclusive, that I should take a little bit of a step back from the operations, as I have done, but even more, and focus on the brand, focus on my personal brand initiatives, and focus on the bit that I'm uniquely good at, you know? I think perfectionism is gonna, is holding me back. And the weird thing is, I think perfectionism is also what's got
14:16 Steven Bartlett? me here. So I'm stuck and I need help. What do I do? I actually don't have the answer to this point. I'm trapped. I'm trapped between wanting to be perfect and caring so much about details and knowing that's important, and knowing that I have to let go and step back and trust people more if this thing's gonna grow big. I guess there's a happy medium, or I guess I'll always be stuck. Maybe all, you know, great entrepreneurs are stuck. I actually don't know the answer to this. I like to conclude these points, but I have no conclusion here. Here's my conclusion. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try and let things play out a little bit more and be less involved and trust people more and see how that goes. Often, these thoughts in our head that if
15:00 Steven Bartlett? we aren't involved, if we let go, if we trust, are actually just delusions and they're illogical and they're untrue. And I think this might be the case. Yeah.
15:11 Steven Bartlett? This is a super, super quick point that I've written in my diary, but it's, and I've said it before, I know I have, but it's so fucking important. And I've learnt it even more this week. I'm gonna keep it short because it doesn't need to be longer than this. Just trust me on this. As an entrepreneur, if you want to be successful, if you want to go far, learning to say no is the most important thing. I've had this whipped into me by the 13 investors that I've had in my business career. Saying no, even though something looks like it's incredibly tempting, is the single most important thing. And there's a certain billionaire, in fact, the billionaire that runs boohoo.com, Mahmud Kumani, that taught me a very, very valuable lesson.
15:53 Steven Bartlett? He said to me, very simple sentence, never drop the pie reaching for an apple. And what he means is, as you go through your life, especially as an entrepreneur, a business person, or really anybody, there will be things that look incredibly tempting. Apples in the tree. Say no to the apple. Never drop the pie in your hands, reaching for the apple. No, no matter how tempting the apple looks and how juicy it seems. And this week, more than ever, there's been so many great opportunities thrown at me and social chain to go to new markets, to do new things, to start new business ventures. And I was proud of myself because the whipping that I got at 18 years old,
16:36 Steven Bartlett? when I told one of my investors, Alistair Milne, that I wanted to start another business within our business and he slammed me, the learning showed up on that day and I was able to say no. And I just think this is so important. It doesn't seem it in the moment, right? Because things are so tempting, but it's so important. Speaking honestly, and I hope she doesn't mind me saying this, my mum taught me this lesson accidentally. You know, my mum, as I've grown up, has probably started 10, 15 different businesses. And she's gone from one business to the next because people have told her that there's an opportunity in something. And because of that, she's not been able to build something substantial. And so the lesson I've said to my mum over the last couple of years is the same thing. Mum, you have to learn when to say no. I love you, but you've got to say no more.
17:21 Steven Bartlett? I think she's, I think she's really getting somewhere now because, you know, she's, she's learning to say no a little bit more. And as entrepreneurs, we want to say yes to everything. We're ambitious. We think we can do everything. But the real art, and an art that you just have to believe me in, an art that I can't prove to you on this podcast, is that if you learn to say no, and if you can be someone that focuses, I promise you, I promise you, I can't think of many more things that will take you further. Saying no and focusing will define you.
17:56 Steven Bartlett? Okay, I've written in my diary, what have I got to unlearn? Let me take you back on this thought a second. I spent my early life believing that I would become a successful person, a successful business person, a great entrepreneur, if I could only just figure out what I needed to learn. And I made lists of things that I thought I needed to learn. I made lists of books that I needed to read, and I read those books, I listened to these, you know, motivational people, I learnt skills, I did courses online, I did everything, watched YouTube videos. But I still made some mistakes over and over and over again. And I'm not just talking about business, I'm talking about in my relationships, right?
18:40 Steven Bartlett? I'm talking about with friendships, I'm talking about business, I'm talking about everything. I made some mistakes repeatedly. No matter what I read, no matter how much I learnt, I made the same mistakes again and again and again. And so one day, after a little bit of inspiration and understanding psychology and cognitive behaviour therapy, I realised that there was a different list I needed to make, and that every single person listening to this podcast needs to make. And this list is called Things I Need to Unlearn. Your childhood, heartbreaks you've experienced, toxic thoughts, toxic comments
19:20 Steven Bartlett? people have made to you which have created toxic thoughts, bad habits that went unchecked for years have taught you a bunch of stuff as well. We don't only learn through good things and through knowledgeable people, we learn through bad things. And some of those things need to be unlearned. Some of those things I've talked about on this podcast, you know, watching my parents scream at each other while I was growing up taught me the lesson that relationships are really, really bad news and that they're toxic and that it's prison and that you should always run the minute someone mentions relationships, right? That is something that I've had to actively unlearn. And I went into every relationship and
20:00 Steven Bartlett? failed miserably because I refused to realise that I had to unlearn some shit. In the same way, people might have said things to you when you were younger. They might have told you that you're incapable. They've made you feel like you can't, right? These are delusional, incorrect ideas that are destructive. If you do not unlearn them immediately, they will hold you back more than lessons you can learn will take you forward. What have you got to unlearn?
20:31 Steven Bartlett? Okay, next point in my diary, karma. Here's the thing, I posted about this this week. So let me talk about karma. A couple of years ago, I think it was about eight years ago, I reached out to a guy on Facebook. I'm just going to call this guy John, because I don't want to mention his name. And John helped me when I was 18 years old and I was broke and I was absolutely nobody and I could offer him nothing. He helped me so much. He gave me advice. He even came over to my halls of residence in Manchester, where I was living as a student, and sat in the kitchen with me and talked to me through a bunch of stuff. And John never ever asked me for anything in return. Not once. Not once. And as I climbed in my profession and my career and my businesses
21:16 Steven Bartlett? grew, John works in a restaurant bar in a managerial role, and he sees me all the time and he just waves and says, well done. And he's super, super nice and super sweet and kind. He helped me when I was absolutely nothing and could give him nothing. And something really funny happened a week and a half ago. One of my friends that runs one of the biggest brands in the food restaurant industry called me and they said, Steve, we've just had this guy apply for a job and I can see you're connected to him on a number of different platforms, your mutual friend, etc, etc. What do you think of him? And that guy was John.
21:54 Steven Bartlett? Eight years ago, this guy helped me when he had no reason to. And now, someone is asking my opinion on whether they should give him a very, very good job, which would be a very big step up for John in his career. Weird serendipity. And so I told this person, my friend, what John did for me eight years ago, selflessly, he had no reason to. That's the kind of guy John is. And I would fully endorse John for this role. I'd put my reputation on it. And John got offered the job. What's the moral of this story? Quite clearly, it's karma. And you know, sometimes, when I had a karma explained to me, it was this supernatural force where we're all kind of like puppets. And there's this puppet master that's, you
22:39 Steven Bartlett? know, seeking revenge and rewarding people and all these kinds of things. It's higgledy piggledy nonsense, right? I don't give a fuck about all that crap. Karma is a very real logical thing. And think about it this way. Every single day, all of us are planting seeds. We're planting seeds in the people we interact with. And those seeds can be kindness and selflessness, or those seeds can be nastiness and negativity. And at some point, these seeds are going to grow. They're going to grow. Some of them might not grow, some of them you'll never see, but the chances are, some of these seeds are going to grow. And the negativity and the destructiveness that some of these seeds were planted with
23:21 Steven Bartlett? will hold you back in ways that you will never, ever see. And some of the seeds that were planted in people with goodness and kindness and selflessness, in the case of John, will take you forward in ways that you will get to see. And I just can't emphasize enough that karma is such a real thing. It is so, so real. It is not higgledy piggledy nonsense. It's working in your life right now. It worked in your life yesterday, next month, two years ago, without you even knowing.
23:53 Steven Bartlett? There's another really interesting example I want to tell you as well. When I was 21, I think it was, a young kid at university messaged me and said, hey, Steve, can you come to London, sit on a panel and be a judge for this thing that I'm doing at university? I said, sure. I got on the train, drove to London, even though I was so busy, at this point I did have a business. And I sat on this panel for this kid in London, LSE, I think it was, and I judged for about three or four hours, his Dragon's Den style event at his university. I did it for free, didn't charge him anything, gave it everything I could, left. Five years later, we get a chance to pitch to Google and YouTube as a company. And it's a really big pitch, a really big deal.
24:39 Steven Bartlett? And we're preparing our pitch, we're going to fly to San Francisco potentially to go out there and pitch YouTube. And I get an email. It's that same kid. That same kid that I went and sat on a panel for at his university and didn't ask anything from him is now working at YouTube in San Francisco and I'm pitching to him and his team. And he emailed me and he actually emailed me on the same thread that he asked me five years ago to come and help him at his university on, just to kind of prove a point. Man, this stuff happens all the time. And it just comes to sort of revalidate the importance of every interaction. You never ever know.
25:25 Steven Bartlett? In the same respect, I'm going to close this on one last point. There are people that laughed in my face when I told them that I wanted to start a business and about my plans and my ambitions. And we've had so many instances, more than I, I've literally just got goosebumps thinking about it. We've had so many instances where those people that laughed in my face, that belittled me, that patronized me, that were condescending to me, have applied for jobs, have asked me for favors, have asked me to help them with things that they're struggling with, etc.
25:56 Steven Bartlett? And in those moments, you can't not remember how they treated you. I made the decision on a very sort of deep, personal way that I would never, ever, ever let how they treated me affect how I treat them now. So in those instances where people that laughed in my face and belittled me and talk shit about me, come and ask me for help five, six years later, now that social chain is big and all these things, I will help them as if they were my best friend. And it's just a choice I've made because I don't believe in revenge. I believe in total forgiveness. And I think that forgiveness and that doing good, again, could loop back around and become my own karma.
26:36 Steven Bartlett? Okay, so I want to keep this point short. I've just written in my diary, you can. I think I probably write this in my diary every fucking week. Every week I get messages from young people all over the world that have been told by somebody that they can't do the thing that they're aspiring to do. They can't build that business. They can't get in shape. They can't do this. And this is just a really simple thing. I can't be asked to explain this to you, but just trust me, right? Trust me. All of that stuff you've been told that you can't do is actually just bullshit. The only reason you can't do something is when you start to believe you can't, right? That is the biggest danger to your ability to achieve it, the belief that you can't.
27:18 Steven Bartlett? And the truth is, as I've come to learn, as someone that was, you know, doesn't come from money, that doesn't have qualifications, was living in a rough area in Moss Side, isn't particularly intelligent or good at anything, I just believed I could. And so I did. Every time I hit one of those obstacles that you will hit, I thought that I could get past it. And so I did. And so the single most important thing is actually just believing you can, not actually being able to, right? And so here's a message to all of you people out there that are listening to this podcast right now, that have had someone in your life tell you you can't or made you feel that you can't. Listen to me when I say this, okay? Get your ears real close to the earphones or speaker or whatever you're listening to this podcast on. Here is the truth.
28:04 Steven Bartlett? You can. Okay?
28:08 Steven Bartlett? That's the fucking end of it. No more bullshit excuses. You can, okay? Stop messaging me telling me your fucking mum, your dad, your sister, your dog has told you you can't. It's a lie. It's a dangerous lie that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy if you buy into it. Once again, you can. You can. That's the end of it. It's not easy, but you can.
28:33 Steven Bartlett? Okay, I think I got my point across.
28:37 Steven Bartlett? Okay, second to last point before I talk about love and all that crap that I always end on. I've just written in my diary, you're defined by what you're scared of. Here's the thing, we're all scared of stuff, all of us. I'm scared of shit. I know I sometimes seem like I'm scared of nothing and I'm fearless, but I'm scared of stuff too, right? The stuff I'm scared of is just different. We're all defined by what we're scared of. I am scared of being average. I am scared of my eulogy being read out to one person and then just saying, he was all right. I'm scared of not being great and achieving great things. I'm scared of being in jobs that I absolutely fucking despise for forty years of my life. I'm scared of being in shitty relationships. I'm scared of being broke. This is what I'm scared of.
29:23 Steven Bartlett? And so what you've seen in my life is the manifestation of my fears. And I think in everybody's life, in your life, what we're seeing is the manifestation of what you're scared of. Some of you are scared of trying. Some of you are scared of risk. Some of you are scared of going outside of your comfort zone and losing your comfort. And it shows. Your life is the manifestation of your fear. What I'm trying to tell you is you might just be scared of the wrong thing. Because what we're scared of equates to our actions and our actions equate to our happiness. So all I'm saying, I know mummy's opinion and the outside of your comfort zone, it's all quite scary. But it might be the wrong thing to be scared of.
30:07 Steven Bartlett? And I want to just leave that thought with anybody listening. This has been a point in my diary that I've contemplated over some time. And I just want to make sure I live my life scared of the right thing.
30:20 Steven Bartlett? Okay, all of my podcasts end in the same way, which is talking about my love life and my relationships. You know, I, I suck, don't I, you know, all this stuff. I suck at being considerate and compromising and all that jazz.
30:39 Steven Bartlett? I'm working on it, okay? I want to be better. I want to be nicer. I want to think about more things other than just my business and how busy I am. And I'm working on it and that's all really I have to say. So, you know, someone said to me, they DM'd me and they said to me that I should get therapy on not just my relationship side of things, but just in life in general. And you know what? Here's a fucking exclusive, a world exclusive. I was reading their message and I think I probably should. And here's why I think I should. I, I don't have a mental health issue at all, right?
31:17 Steven Bartlett? But I just feel like if you can get help with your mind from professionals to unpack things and understand things and to talk, then why wouldn't you? Like, your mind is driving everything at the end of the day. Your thoughts are driving everything. And when I spoke in this podcast about things I need to unlearn, maybe there's some unknown unknowns. Some things I don't know that I need to unlearn. And also, there's been such a stigma for so many people about therapy and speaking to a counselor and a therapist. And I think if I went and spoke to a therapist and shared that with everybody, then I would set a really good example as even someone like me wants to chat to somebody, you know? It's a weird, it's a weird thing. I was in the gym when I read the message. It was a DM that someone sent me.
32:00 Steven Bartlett? And I, and I've always, you know, I've always thought, I don't need fucking therapy. I'm, I'm great, like my mind's fine, you know? But why not? Why not try it? Why not see what happens, you know? It's the stigma, isn't it? We don't, none of us want to be seen as being crazy or like weak or anything. But I think it'll help more than me in that regard. I think if I go and do it and I share that experience with my audience, then it will de-stigmatize therapy for people. And if I fucking come away a better person, then win, win, win, win, win, win, you know? Anyway, I love you guys and thank you so much. If you've got to this point, thank you so much for listening. It really means the world to me. I love this podcast more than anything that I do and you guys are awesome. You know why I say at the start of this podcast,
32:43 Steven Bartlett? I hope nobody's listening and if you are, don't tell anybody and all that stuff. Please do tell people, by the way. Well, you know, I do want more people to listen, but you know, at the same time, just, you know, maybe don't write any articles slamming me on Huffington Post or anything like that. Just keep it to your friends, but no, do tell your friends. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do leave a five star review in the podcast story. It means the world to me, helps me a lot as well. The more people that review the podcast, the more of them I can do, the more resources we can put into it because the higher it ranks and everything. So please do leave a five star review. I'll go through them again and read out on my Instagram or on my livestream, as I did last time, the people that have left five star reviews and your names. Just leave your Instagram or your Twitter handle in the review. And yeah, listen, post on this podcast
33:25 Steven Bartlett? on Twitter and tag me and let me know what you think. And I'm going to retweet as many of them as I can and do the same on Instagram. Put it on your story and tag me with your thoughts and I'll upload it to my story. So, you know, mutual exposure. Yeah. Thank you so, so, so much. If you haven't subscribed to this podcast, please do. It comes out every single week on Sunday, Monday, so you'll be the first to know when it drops. And yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you. I'm so tired. It's now 5:20 AM here in New York and I've got to be up at 8 AM to go drive to the bloody airport. So I better go. See you later. Bye bye.
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