Q&A: Becoming A Dad, Favourite Peptides & Red Rising

I hit 4.3 million YouTube subscribers! As usual, I celebrated by collecting questions from across social media and answering them directly. Expect to learn my thoughts on having kids in the near future, what my time with the Night Wolf Hawk was like, a quick health update, why I keep changing my hairstyle, reflections from a one-week silent meditation retreat, and much more... - Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get 10% discount on all Gymshark products at https://gym.sh/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM10) Get a free bottle of D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and more when you first subscribe at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Get 15% off your first order of my favourite Non-Alcoholic Brew at https://athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom - 0:00 Has Self-Improvement Gone Too Far? 3:25 How to Know When to Walk Away 7:30 Recovering From a Ruptured Achilles 11:19 Does This Make You Gay? 11:48 When is the Next Debate Episode? 13:09 Dublin Show Opener 14:35 Why Chris’ Hair Keeps Changing 15:11 Chris’ Favourite Fiction Books 17:05 Beliefs That Once Protected But Now Confine 19:46 Chris’ Health Update 24:55 Why We Ask For Advice 27:40 Will the Shadow Force Episode Drop? 28:33 How to Navigate Conflicting Advice 32:00 What It’s Like to Become a Man of Feelings 36:04 Why It’s Painful When the World Can’t Keep Up 41:17 What is Chris’ Favourite Animal? 42:30 How to Actually Do the Thing 48:13 Coming to Term With Health Struggles 54:57 How Has Modern Wisdom Evolved? 59:27 Filming After the UK Tour 01:02:01 Chris’ Biggest Improvement 01:05:55 What Makes a ‘Good Man’? 01:08:02 Transitioning Out of the Lonely Chapter 01:10:59 The Long-Time Listeners 01:12:55 The Biggest Takeaways of a Meditation Retreat 01:20:03 Will There Be More Round Table Episodes? 01:21:10 Imaginary Guesting When Recording Solo 01:22:44 How Chris Treated His SIBO 01:24:09 Should Limitless Ambition Be Tamed? 01:26:45 Originality is Undetected Plagiarism 01:29:38 Distinguishing Between Genuine Ambition From Insecurity 01:32:20 Advice You Give Out But Never Take 01:33:42 What Does the Next 5 Years Look Like? 01:36:47 Is Chris in the Manosphere? 01:38:33 The Secret to a Great Hairline 01:39:19 Does Chris Take Peptides? 01:40:53 Top 5 Book Recommendations 01:41:31 The Best Brands For Protein Shakes 01:42:14 When’s the Next Merch Drop? 01:42:43 Is This the Most Stressed Generation? - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spotify.modernwisdom.com or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.modernwisdom.com Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  Hello friends, welcome back to the show. It is another Q and A episode. And as is tradition, I've asked for questions from Twitter and YouTube community and Instagram, but I also know that you guys have wanted more Q and As. With that in mind, if you go to chriswillx.com/stories, you can submit any story, question, life hack, problem that you're dealing with. You can even submit a voicemail and I am going to use that to speak to guests. I'm actually going to put some of these stories across to guests. So maybe if you submit some business nightmare that you're going through at the moment, Alex Hormozi will react to it or Jimmy Carr can roast your most recent horrible first date, chriswillx.com/stories, that's always going to be open. But if you dump them in straight away, maybe you'll get to be on one of the first

• 0:45Chris Williamson?

  episodes that we do this with. So that's always on, but given that it's a Q and A episode, let's get into it. Bryson Rebels, many of us are becoming sick of the self-improvement space. What's your take on this? Dude, I've been feeling this murmuring for a while. I licked my finger and put it in the air and I felt the winds are changing. I don't know what it's due to. Maybe it's an uncertain future, AI coming to take everybody's jobs, geopolitical uncertainty, but I know exactly what you mean. There is this like self-improvement fatigue that a lot of people are dealing with and also very grind sloppy content of fuck your feelings, just work harder. A lot of the time that feels like burden, homework, overwhelmed.

• 1:30Chris Williamson?

  And I think people, they just need a little bit of a break. One of the reasons that I'm doing more roundtable episodes and just hangs with the boys is I kind of feel like that sneaks some of the self-improvement desire in, but in a rapper that doesn't make you feel so much like it's a task that you have to complete, like another to-do list. Sometimes you listen to a pod and you're like, that's so amazing, but you feel guilty because you haven't made anky flashcards or put a ton of notes down in your Apple Notes for it. And yeah, another interesting insight I learned was that in 2020, the biggest financial niches were all slow investment, 401k, dollar cost averaging, S and P. And this year, over the last 12 months, the biggest financial niches have all been get

• 2:15Chris Williamson?

  rich quick, make money in no time, Calci Polly markets, like vibe betting your way to a quick million dollars. And I wonder whether this short-termist change is sort of contributing to this desire to maybe not think so long-termism from a self-improvement standpoint. I don't know, but I, I feel it and I'm trying to create the balance. The show has always been about helping people to understand themselves and the world around them, but also delivering that in a way that's like, oh, I can just sit back and relax. Like the episode with Alex Petkus, like two, two and a half hours about the Odyssey is straight fire. Like you, you don't need to remember anything that he said.

• 2:56Chris Williamson?

  You can just sit back and enjoy an amazing retelling of the Odyssey by a guy with a beautiful voice for two and a half hours and be like, oh, I don't feel like I wasted my time. I do feel like I learned a lot, but I don't feel now like I'm obliged to go and change my entire life in the future. I'm going to keep on trying to walk that line. I'm glad that you brought it up. I think a lot of people, like even me, like even I'm feeling this way, right? And I'm the tip of the fucking spear of this stuff. So I'm going to try and help as best I can. Yanda O3X, how do you know when it's time to break up with your partner? I'm currently in a relationship with someone who has a really good work ethic and is constantly busy chasing his dreams, which kind of leaves me feeling lonely 90% of the time.

• 3:39Chris Williamson?

  I want to be supportive, but it is hard to be when you're constantly questioning whether your partner still wants this or if he is using busy as an excuse to not spend time with you.

• 3:51Chris Williamson?

  Well, I'm sorry that you're going through that. I, it kind of doesn't matter whether he still wants this or is using busy, because either way you still feel lonely 90% of the time. I don't think that you should be trying to use your brain to convince your heart and your gut and your body and your emotions that you feel a different way to the way that you feel. So much of relationships, especially uncertainty around leaving relationships, is you trying to convince yourself that not feeling good is okay. Well, look at all of the reasons why I should be, okay, he's got a great work ethic, he's chasing his dreams, you know, and yet I feel lonely.

• 4:35Chris Williamson?

  Like this presumably is a guy that's reliable and, and, and hardworking and stuff. All of these things are great, but you feel lonely 90% of the time. I, I don't know what else to say other than that's not what a happy relationship is supposed to feel like. You're not supposed to feel lonely 90% of the time. And you can try and bet on a future where his ambition fuel runs out, but you're basically in love with the potential of someone as opposed to who they actually are, if you do that. And I think that's a, a reliable way to be pretty miserable. But happiness can't exist when you want things to be different. And that means that if you're permanently thinking, I wish I had more time with him. I wish that he was home more.

• 5:20Chris Williamson?

  I'm worried about what the future holds because maybe he's not going to change and this is going to be my life for the rest of time. Like that is not a conducive environment to you being the best partner to him. You feeling whole and being able to focus on yourself. If you're pining after this guy who isn't there, that's not the way that you're supposed to feel. I actually have a list of 25 questions to work out whether you should break up with someone or not. And that's at chriswillx.com/valentines slash Valentine, I think. And maybe that'll help, but I can save you the time of having to go and download all of those, although they are great. And just say, if you feel lonely 90% of the time, that is not how a relationship is supposed to feel.

• 6:05Chris Williamson?

  And it shouldn't be your job as someone who's obviously in this and really trying and wanting to make it work, to convince yourself to feel a way that you don't feel. Like you, you simply can't do that. You feel the way that you do. So I think a good piece of advice would be to sit him down and say, hey, look, I feel lonely almost all the time and I understand that you're chasing your dreams at the moment, but your dreams are kind of my nightmare. And if that's the case, you need to choose one or the other. I, I deserve to feel better than this. And if that doesn't work for you, I'm going to be really sad, but I need to prioritize me. So that's how it is.

• 6:44Chris Williamson?

  Like that is you just drawing an incredibly fair, bright boundary around yourself. And romantic discernment is a kind of preventative healthcare that we should all be undertaking. And at the moment, it seems like you're in a situation that is, is really tough. And because you love someone and you're going to be attracted to their ambition as well, that's great, but you shouldn't be feeding on the scraps relationally of what is left over after somebody does something else. And if they say, well, you got into this relationship with me, you knew what you were getting into, you knew that I was ambitious before we got started. You go, that's true, but just because I wanted it then doesn't mean that I need to continue putting up with it now.

• 7:28Chris Williamson?

  I hope that helps. J Cass 3586, during your Achilles rupture, what was your mental state and how was your comeback to full duty? Yeah. So for the people that didn't know, I can't, there's no way I can't, my, I don't have the, I don't have the bendiness to be able to show you my foot, but I swear that I fully detached my Achilles playing cricket, which is like the most British way to do it in the middle of 2020. It sucked, but I have to be honest, doing a, probably the single worst physical injury that you can get, like common, moderately common, I think one in 5,000 people has ruptured their Achilles. It's a full 12 month rehab. Doing that during a pandemic is about as good of a time as you can.

• 8:13Chris Williamson?

  There's never a good time to rupture your Achilles. However, if you're going to do it, do it during a pandemic because you don't feel like you're missing out on anything. The world's not moving forward without you. There's no plans that you have to say no to. There's no temptation to do anything other than I'm going to spend, I, an hour every single morning. For all the talk, talking about grind slop and like how cringe productivity culture has become now, I had a one hour morning routine that was just rehabbing my Achilles. And the only reason that I have full capacity in my Achilles now, full mobility and full strength is because I was so diligent with it. So, you know, chalk one up for the fucking autistic productivity bros. That's what I say.

• 8:57Chris Williamson?

  That being said, mental state, it was tough because you have to lay up for a long time. There is nothing you can do. You can't speed up the first two to three months of recovery. The worst period was after it had happened and before I had the surgery, because you can't put any weight on your leg and you know that you're not even waiting, you're not waiting for the thing to get better. You're waiting for the thing to begin getting better. And it was 13 days from when it ruptured to when I got the, the, the surgery. And by that time, I'm not kidding, my leg had got a third, it was two thirds the size of what it was normally.

• 9:39Chris Williamson?

  My quad had completely disintegrated, my lower leg had completely disintegrated because I haven't put any weight on it for all that time. It is mad. You know, when you see people in wheelchairs and you go, wow, like their legs look so skinny, people that are wheelchair bound, God, their legs look so skinny. That's so strange to see someone who's, their legs have atrophied so much. It doesn't, it took less than two weeks for me to look down at the difference between my left leg, which was getting a lot of work because I was hopping around everywhere, my right leg, which was getting zero work and go, oh, that's, that is terrifying. It is absolutely unreal. Other stuff I did that really helped, I read The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. I read The Art of Resilience by Ross Edgley and I watched Resurfaced, which is an Amazon

• 10:24Chris Williamson?

  Prime documentary about Andy Murray's hip replacement. All of these were suggested by friends who'd been through other horrendous injuries and come back from it. You really do need to galvanize like everything, ancestral wisdom, ancestral trauma, pray to, like whatever you need to, because if you've got a 12 month recovery, you know, fucking McGregor, McGregor, for him to come back, like he is going to have to be so locked in. It was tough. That being said, I made a special podcast recording setup where my foot was elevated above my heart and I put the laptop down on my crotch. That, I don't know what episode that is. It was around about the Gad Sad episode in the back end of 2020. And you can see it's like full blowjob angle, just crotch, face, and then the mic arm came

• 11:09Chris Williamson?

  in. So I kept going and I'm really glad that I did, but I don't, I really hope that I don't rupture the other Achilles or this one again. I'd be, that would be, I'd be trez sad. Barrett Wurch, I accidentally looked at a dude's butt today and I was wondering if I'm gay now.

• 11:27Chris Williamson?

  I actually think that that's how they get you. Do you remember in school where you'd say, hey, look down here? And you'd actually have your hand like that. And that meant that they could punch you in the arm. I think that this is how people become gay. It's by accidentally looking at another dude's butt. So, uh, yes, you are. And Tim Dillon and Douglas Murray are on their way to your house right now. That's what's going on. Anonymous 12835, are we getting more debate episodes? And what is the next one going to be about? Yes, you are. And the next one is going to be about AI. So it's Zach Cass, who is pro, Liv Bury, who is, uh, moderately skeptical, and Eric from 80,000 Hours,

• 12:11Chris Williamson?

  who is quite skeptical. And I'm fired up for this. I think lots of people having lots of conversations about AI. Lots of them seem to be very entry level or incredibly technical. And I'm going to see if these guys can bridge that gap. So that no matter where you're at on the AI pilled understanding debate, you can get, you can get a really good insight in a single episode. So that one's going to be on. I wanted to do one about geopolitics, a huge one about what's going to happen with the future of geopolitics. I'm trying to find the right crew to put together for that. Professor Jiang is maybe one. I'd love to bring Peter Zayan on.

• 12:52Chris Williamson?

  Like, my dream would be Balaji, Zayn, and Professor Jiang. But Balaji's locked down in Singapore and Zayn's traveling all summer. So I'm kind of screwed on that. Maybe Eric Weinstein, I don't know. Um, yes, answer is yes. Next one's going to be about AI and I'll keep on cranking more as I can. Max Forbeso, is there any opener for your show in Dublin? Got VIP tickets, can't wait to see the show. Yes, there is. Haven't announced him yet, but there is. And when will I be? I'll be announcing that at some point soon. However, if you want to come and see me in the UK and Ireland, tickets are available now. They're very limited everywhere. Dublin's sold out, so congratulations, Max, for getting tickets. But chriswilliamson.live, all of the tickets are available on there as they are limited.

• 13:37Chris Williamson?

  Edinburgh is October 11th. And then we've got 10 or 12 dates around the UK and Ireland. And I can't wait. I'm so fired up. We sold out everywhere in Australia. The new show, Mostly Wise, fucking rules. I really enjoy it. There's Q and A, there's meet and greet. There's definitely some surprises in there as well. And also, if you've already got tickets to see me live in the UK and Ireland, or if you're going to get them, head to chriswilliamson.live/stories. And you can submit either the worst first date you've ever been on, a problem you're dealing with, or a life hack that no one knows about that everybody should. And I'm going to be choosing some of those and bringing people up on stage to discuss them. Like, why, like, what is this? Why is it? Please explain to me what the fuck I just read out from this card in front of me.

• 14:22Chris Williamson?

  So chriswilliamson.live/stories, you can pick the date that you're going to submit as much or as little as you want. And, um, some of you are going to be a part of the show when I go on tour. So God help all of the people in Newcastle. Arthur Gangi, Chris, why does your hair keep changing? Reliably hair grows. I have the follicular constitution of a golden doodle. And this is, this, this is what happens. This is what happens. I had long hair at the start of the year. I shaved it off. I've got long hair again, long for me. Uh, I haven't subjected you to the Afro yet. I think that's probably a gift to humanity to not make people look at that.

• 15:07Chris Williamson?

  But, um, I only have two hairstyles, very short or curly. That's it. Your Poké Dad, your Poke Dad, started reading Red Rising after seeing recommendations from multiple sources, yours included. Can you do an episode just on this? Or does that exist already? Uh, Red Rising, I think I might be the biggest front end of the funnel drug dealer for people getting into Red Rising, except for the author, maybe, because it's the top of the reading list, chriswillx.com/books. It's like my, one of my favorite fiction books, if not my favorite fiction series of all time. It absolutely fucking rules. Pierce and me texted a couple of weeks ago. I checked in to see how writing was going.

• 15:49Chris Williamson?

  And I think his response was, writing a book is like playing golf, except the holes are oases and the clubs are made of adders. I don't even know what that means. I have no idea what that means, but it was very entertaining. So, um, that's the insight from what Pierce Brown's camp has to say. He's going to come on the show. I'm going to say it now. Dungeon Crawler Carl is very different to Red Rising, but as compelling. And I am so, I'm so addicted to this series. So if you've read Red Rising, or you couldn't get into it or whatever, and you need a different fantasy series, Dungeon Crawler Carl will rip your face off. It is, it should come with a warning label. It is so fucking good. And Matt Dinneman, who writes Dungeon Crawler Carl,

• 16:34Chris Williamson?

  is also going to come on the show. We've been in touch. So yeah, you're going to see some more fiction writers. My dream, my absolute dream roundtable would be Brandon Sanderson, Matt Dinneman, and Pierce Brown. I think, oh my God, or Patrick Rothfuss, I get like, that shit gets me hard to think about those three men in a, maybe, maybe I looked at a guy's butt today. I don't know. Anyway, um, there might be a Red Rising episode coming out soon. It'll probably be with Pierce Brown, but he has to write Red God first. Hold on tight. Kurt Moon 6456, what belief once protected you, but now confines you? Fuck me, that's a good question.

• 17:19Chris Williamson?

  What belief once protected you, but now confines you? Something like err on the side of caution. I think for a long time, I highly scrutinized every decision. And what that, what that resulted in was me very rarely making mistakes. Businesses moved more slowly. I didn't, I wasn't rash with life changes. And that was great, especially when I'm young, because it avoided me making any silly mistakes when I maybe didn't have the ballast to be able to ride it out.

• 18:04Chris Williamson?

  Um, it's interesting because people say that you can take more risk when you're younger, but you can actually withstand more risk when you're older. Like, you've got more resources, more support, more experience, better contacts. Uh, I think that that's one, that's one that comes to mind. Certainly a belief that protected me for a long time. Err on the side of caution. Don't move too quickly. Don't be rash. Ensure that you understand the full ledger, balance sheet of decisions before you go for it. But I read this line from Sasha Chapin earlier on today. And he talks about how it's an intolerance for risk.

• 18:45Chris Williamson?

  And what people call planning, a lot of the time is just catastrophe fantasization. Like, it's the publicly acceptable version of anxiety, where, where if I plan enough for this thing, I'll understand exactly how this situation could unfold. Very careful, I make sure that I've got all of my ducks in a row and, you know, boots are laced well. And you, at some point, that just becomes a protection mechanism from never taking on any risk. So yeah, I'm trying to move with more gut than head now. And that's probably going to result in me making more mistakes, especially given that I haven't been using my gut for a long time. But my gut is telling me to follow my gut.

• 19:29Chris Williamson?

  And I'm going to, I'm going to try and do that a little bit more. That's a fucking awesome, you guys. I actually think, unfortunately, I think question of the day so far has been, I accidentally looked at a dude's butt, does that make me gay now? But that's a close second, Kurt Moon 6456. Constructor 5008, how are your lime and mole problems going? Did the treatments work well? What, what, what was worth it to do? What was, what was worth it to do? Um, yeah, dude, I'm still on the other side of a lot of that stuff. It's still very much in the system. Uh, I think it's mostly the mold now, but it is a fucking bastard to try and get rid of.

• 20:14Chris Williamson?

  You're just, you're taking binders from living in a house that has toxic mold. And the treatments that worked the most, hemohyperoxygenation, which I put in the second health vlog that many of you might have watched. That was me being held at 104 degrees, which is like 40, 40.1 or something like that, 40.5 degrees Celsius. My body was held in a forced fever for four hours and your blood's being filtered and loads of other stuff's going on. That really felt like a step change. But to be honest, there's no such thing as a acute solution to a chronic problem. And this goes for almost everybody that's dealing with chronic, complex illness stuff. It is slow detox over time.

• 20:58Chris Williamson?

  It's hundreds and hundreds of saunas using binders. It's H bot sessions. It's morning walks. It's getting enough sleep. And it's just like putting pennies in the jar over and over. Um, I'm still not a hundred percent. And I haven't, I haven't made a big song and dance about it on the show, really publicly at all. Because I kind of got, I kind of started to feel a bit embarrassed or maybe worried or ashamed about being the guy, the guy that's always got a health problem going on and is always whining, always complaining about it. And like that, I don't know, I just don't want to be a shit hang, especially for you guys.

• 21:41Chris Williamson?

  You know, you give me your time and, and the guest comes through and they want to spend time with me. Or I don't want to be there going, ah, I slept for nine hours last night and I woke up feeling more tired than when I went to bed. Or I, I have no idea what's going on, but my brain is forgetting the thing that I thought three seconds ago permanently. And it's been like that for the last two weeks. And I don't know what, I don't know what has triggered that to happen. Or like my, regardless of what I do, my mood just doesn't want to improve at the moment. Like, who the fuck wants to listen to that? And maybe you guys do, I don't know. But I, I've kind of kept myself, I've kept that to myself. I've kept myself quiet, um, just because.

• 22:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I got, I got, it felt silly. It felt silly to, I didn't want to be the guy that was always saying that, that was always asking for, it felt like asking for attention or making this my entire fucking personality. I'd like to think that I'm more than just a guy who is tired and sad and forgetful a lot. But that's still a big part of my life. It's as big a part of my life as the podcast is. Running Modern Wisdom is a full-time job and fixing my health is a full-time job too. And a lot of what people who are dealing with complex health issues go through is something that feels like their life's been taken away from them. Like, they're spending all of their time getting ready to live as opposed to doing

• 23:12Chris Williamson?

  the job of living. It's just not that fun to listen to. So I've kept it to myself. But I'm still in it. And for the people who are dealing with tinnitus, or pott's, or dysautonomia, or autoimmune mold, Lyme, EBV, CMV, you know, whatever it is that you're going through, like, I'm fucking still a part of the club, even if I'm not whining about it all the time. And this is a problem everybody deals with. Like, how much am I supposed to ask for help from my friends and, and talk about it publicly? And how much is it just me indulging in being a martyr or a victim? And nobody wants to be the latter. So, anyway, I'm still in it. I'm pushing through. Hopefully, this will be some glorious story that I tell about this difficult thing I came over, overcame in a combination of private and public. But right

• 23:57Chris Williamson?

  now, I'm still in the trenches. Did you know your gut controls your energy, your recovery, how well you absorb everything that you eat, and the one nutrient that keeps it all running properly is fibre? Well, it turns out that 95% of Americans don't get enough of it, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Momentous's Fibre Plus. Most fibre supplements are a one-trick pony, one type of fibre solving one part of the problem. Fibre Plus is a three-in-one formula built to tackle digestion, gut barrier strength, and blood sugar stability all at once. I use this every single day. It is kinda hard to get enough fibre just through food alone. And best of all, Momentous offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. So you can buy it, try it, every single day for 29 days. And if you don't love it, they will just give you

• 24:40Chris Williamson?

  your money back. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now, you can get up to 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below, or heading to livemomentous.com/ModernWisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. Carsalujah, why do I feel the need to ask for others' advice before making decisions?

• 25:03Chris Williamson?

  Because you don't trust yourself. You feel like you need the legitimacy of somebody else to tell you that what you're thinking about doing is okay, or not okay. So it's a lack of self-assurance. It's a need to be legitimised by other people to outsource a sense of decision-making. And it's common. This is not something that you should be ashamed of. I think lots of people have an intuition that they just need to bounce it off, that needed to bounce it off somebody else. My last business, when I was running nightclubs before, so much of

• 25:44Chris Williamson?

  what mine and my business partner's role was to just be a sounding board, so that when we say the thing that we think we should be doing, they go, "Yeah, of course. Hey, I'm thinking about, this is a new piece of copy that I'm thinking of doing. Is this, am I being a dickhead, or is this good? Oh, no, of course it's good. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, I knew it was. Thank you. Good." And then you go about the thing. And then vice versa. Sometimes, he would come to me and be, "Dude, I, we've got this problem with the pricing, and we need to make this amendment on the, on the accounts. What do you think about if we change the way that the early bird structure hap-" Uh, actually, I don't think, I don't think that's gonna, I, yeah, I fucking knew it. It's so much of it is just

• 26:22Chris Williamson?

  needing to hear somebody else give us a, an alter perspective, an ulterior perspective on the thought that we're having. And a lot of the time, it gives us permission to confirm the thing that we felt already. But ultimately, your decisions are gonna come into contact with the real world. I don't think that you should feel too much guilt for asking a trusted part of the real world for some feedback before you commit to doing whatever that is. Very rarely, I get the sense, we would have been making decisions in isolation. Like, you weren't going to leave your tribe 30,000 years ago, just off, on a whim. You would

• 27:04Chris Williamson?

  go with a huge group of 15 or 30 other people from one pod and leave the 150 Dunbar number tribe. But you would ask a lot of other people before you did that. "You're right, okay, I'm gonna make this, I'm gonna leave and be a fucking solo saxophone player on the other, in the other valley." It's not gonna happen. So be gentle with yourself. I think if you can try and make small decisions without asking for other people's advice, that's a nice way to do a bit of exposure therapy. And, yeah, that would be, that would be a way to get yourself more used to using your gut as opposed to your head. PaintItReds84, "Quis, where is my Shadowforce episode?" Uh, okay, so, for the people that

• 27:49Chris Williamson?

  don't watch shorts, I've been putting out these clips with a guy called Doug Baldwin, who plays Night Wolf Hawk as his character, who is a part of Shadowforce, this imaginary American, but luxe Japanese, secret spy, super spy agency. And we filmed a couple of months ago, and we've been bleeding these clips, which are in the studio on the podcast. There is a full episode, but it was, Shadowforce stepped in and said that it needed to be redacted. So we've been forced to only put it out in short clips. And I apologize, but I'm not going head-to-head with Shadowforce. And if you're brave enough to try and publish the full video on the internet, you're a better man than me.

• 28:33Chris Williamson?

  RBA0115, "Congratulations on the continued success. Your podcast is incredibly valuable and important. Hope to continue seeing you, enjoying the work you do." Thank you. Question for you. "I've heard that the bar is so low, that all you have to do now is take care of yourself, have a job, and you'll be a catch. And also heard, men are expected to have it all together, be extremely emotionally intelligent, make a high income, be a provider, and, as per the research, be tall. So, which do you think it is? When navigating the world, and there's so much conflicting information out there, it feels like even if you do some things well, it's not enough. I appreciate everything you do." Yeah, I get the sense that this is the real world versus what you hear on the internet.

• 29:17Chris Williamson?

  Do women want a man who has it all together, is emotionally intelligent, makes an income, or enough of an income to be a provider, and is not super short? Yes. On average, all of these things, true. That being said, you have to remember, the average American adult is obese, divorced, and has less than 1K in the bank. So the bar can be low, and the internet can tell you that it's insanely high. If you go out and spend any appreciable amount of time with women, I don't think that they're going to have this list of insane laundry list items. And if that woman does have it, that is a massive mark that she's

• 29:58Chris Williamson?

  not the sort of person that you want to be dating in any case. So I get the sense, the bar is incredibly low when you reach the real world. When you're taking the top 1% filtering of who are the biggest influencers on Instagram and Twitter and YouTube, yes. It may seem like the odds are stacked against you, but really, the competition is incredibly, incredibly flimsy. And that's not a reason, it's not like, "Look at how shit everybody else is, you can just mail it in too." But if you're doing a lot of the work that you think you're supposed to, given the fact that you're, what, half an hour into a Q&A on this podcast, something tells me that you're quite diligent and thinking about yourself in a careful way, and trying to improve, and tell the truth, and, you know,

• 30:44Chris Williamson?

  that, you are in such a fucking rarified strata. Everybody that is working on themselves, trying to tap into their emotions, trying to be honest and virtuous, and improve themselves and the world around them, like, that is so rare. It is so rarified to have people that do that. And then you look at, there's this huge list of things that everybody needs, and I'm worried that I don't have them, without realising that if people were to look at you, you would be one of the people they would consider as being in that bucket. So, yes, the bar is low. Also, the internet has some deranged ideas about just how high the bar can be. Also, the sort of people who have those internet beliefs and take them into the real world are kind of doomed to be forever miserable. So if you do meet

• 31:27Chris Williamson?

  somebody, and you, as a person who has a lot of it together, feels like, "I don't feel like I'm enough with this person, despite, I think I am enough," you don't wanna be in a relationship with them anyway. Like, just because someone's got insanely high standards doesn't mean that they're a catch. Sometimes it can just mean that they don't understand their own value, and they're trying to sell a shit sandwich for the price of a McLaren.

• 31:51Chris Williamson?

  I think you'll be fine. Just spend as much time in the real world, especially when it comes to dating as possible, and most of the insanity kind of just dissolves. Intimate, fuck me. Intimate revenue, intimate revenue. Fuck. Your transformation from super cool macho grinding hustler into a man who has feelings and tries to live as a human being is great to watch. Thank you. What is the best thing you gained from it? What is the worst, hardest, most painful one? My name is Charlie Greenberg. To make it easy for you to read my name. Thanks for burying that at the bottom, Charlie. Thanks for your work and showing up every week. Okay. What is the best thing that you

• 32:34Chris Williamson?

  gain from becoming a man who has feelings? And what are the worst, hardest and most painful ones? Well, the best thing that you gain from it is that you're actually connected to your life. You feel when things happen. Successes feel real to you. And that's beautiful. As opposed to always looking over the shoulder of whatever you've just succeeded in accomplishing, waiting to see what comes next. It's no surprise that a lot of the guys and girls that pray at the altar of fuck your feelings, just work harder. Also a surprise when they achieve, but they don't feel. You're seeing cause and effect happen there. You're denying

• 33:17Chris Williamson?

  yourself connection with your emotions. And then when emotions are supposed to come along and they don't, you complain about it, or you feel insufficient because of it. The best thing is that you're connected to your successes. The worst thing is that there's nowhere to run from your failures. Because when something goes wrong, it actually hurts. You, you're unable to detach in a way that sometimes might actually be healthy. And a lot of the time, I think people that are the most successful have become successful because they've learned to detach themselves from pain. And that detachment from pain means that they can

• 34:02Chris Williamson?

  continue to push themselves. It also means that they don't get to celebrate when they win. And it's kind of a, it's a question that you can ask yourself. Is it worth not feeling my successes if I don't feel my pains? And maybe if you were being very transactional, you could say, well, it depends on how many failures and how many successes you're going to have in your life. In a life where you've got more failures than successes, maybe you should be detached. And in a life where you've got more successes than failures, maybe you should be connected. But yeah, Chris Bumstead a couple of years ago, when I had him on the show, has this line about you have to feel the bad and the good. You don't just get to pick one. And I think that that's true with this too. Super cool macho grinding hustler.

• 34:47Chris Williamson?

  Definitely an archetype that I aspired to for a long time. And I still do, but I want to be able to turn it on. And I'm still so fucking sure that this is the way to do things.

• 34:59Chris Williamson?

  I might look back and regret opening up the like chasm below my neck so that I can feel stuff. It's definitely made so many things harder. Like when I was away on meditation retreat, it would have been significantly easier if I'd just turned up and done the transactional thing, as opposed to like having all of this stuff come up as you're sat silently with your thoughts for six or eight hours a day. But it also really makes you feel alive. And I think a lot of the time, people walk through life existing, but not feeling like they're actually living. That sounds trite, but I think you know what I mean, which is you sort of float through your day. You're like a ghost inside of your own life. Stuff happens and maybe it's good or maybe it's bad, but it doesn't, it doesn't feel like it's in three dimensions and it doesn't come into contact with you. And I really do not

• 35:44Chris Williamson?

  want that to be the way that I live my life, for better or for worse. So yeah, you feel your successes and it's beautiful and you feel your failures and your pains and it's agonizing. And it's cool. It's different. It's what, it's what feeling alive is supposed to feel like, I think. So I'm going to keep going. Ella Lindsey 972. Advice for the period when you've done so much inner work, but your outer world has yet to catch up. The mismatch is painful. Yeah, this kind of lonely chapter stuff, the monk mode latent leverage thing, where you can imagine sort of pulling back on a slingshot, pulling back and pulling

• 36:26Chris Williamson?

  back and pulling back and pulling back. And eventually, when it gets let go, it's got enough momentum to catapult you forward. The reason that it's painful is that you're constantly looking to the outer world for reassurance that the work you're doing is worth it. Because the work is hard and you want the outer world to go, yes, good job. Keep going. You know, pat on the back. There's some encouragement. You're moving in the right direction. If the outer world feels indifferent to your inner work, you go, well, maybe this is fucking stupid. Maybe I'm making myself worse because things are harder than they were in the past. I used to be incongruent. I used to be aligned previously, even if now I feel like I'm better at what I do. I'm a more virtuous person. I'm a more capable person, but I've got all

• 37:11Chris Williamson?

  these doubts in my mind because I've had to change myself from what I was to who I am. And in that change, you lose your congruence, right? When you think about what you think, feel and do, right? What your mind, your heart and your reality kind of come into confluence with. If those things are aligned, regardless of whether you're a good person or a bad person, everybody in the world seems to love you, right? Donald Trump, Andrew Tate. It doesn't matter what you think about those guys. They are high congruence people. There is no bit of fucking doubt, right? Their actions, their thoughts, everything is in alignment. And as you start to make change, inevitably you are changing, which means

• 37:54Chris Williamson?

  that you're uncertain, which means you have no idea if this is going to work. Advice for the period when you're doing it. For want of a better term, I think you need faith. It's great if you can find a way to make external some of the stuff that you're doing internally. So let's say that you're doing a sobriety stint and you're not going to drink for six months because you, that's going to be the foundation. It's going to allow you to have a bunch of other good habits. If you hit that six month mark, you should celebrate it. You should go out with friends and have a dinner, probably not get super pissed. But that would be a good way to have the outer world catch up to some of the inner

• 38:34Chris Williamson?

  work. Same thing goes for accomplishing milestones professionally or in some art form that you're pursuing. You finally recorded a song or published your first Substack post. I don't think, if we think that celebration is gratitude in action, having other people around you that you can celebrate with is a really great way to try and make inner stuff feel more real in the outer world. The mismatch is painful, I understand. And I'm sorry that you're going through it. But to be honest, this is the reason that it's glorious. If there wasn't uncertainty and self doubt and challenge, why would it be

• 39:17Chris Williamson?

  that grand of an accomplishment in any case? This is precisely one of the reasons why people stop doing the work. Because they go, oh, well, it just seems to, no one cares in any case. It's not made my life a better place in any case. So I might as well just quit. And you could say it's survivorship bias. I'm more inclined to say that it's just the entry price that you need to pay to go from where you are to where you want to be. And eventually, when you get there, you get to look back on this amazing journey, full of all of the self doubt and the uncertainty and this little whisper in the back of your mind that kept on saying, no, I think that this is right. I think I'm moving in the

• 40:00Chris Williamson?

  right direction and I'm going to say fuck you to all of the things that keep on making me feel uncertain about it. Yeah. I'm sorry that achieving your dreams wasn't quick, easy and stress free. Alex Hormozi. This episode is brought to you by Gymshark. If you're going to spend an hour in the gym, you might as well look hot and feel comfortable while you're doing it. Gymshark makes the best men's and women's training gear on the planet. And here is something I realized a few years into training. When you actually like what you're wearing in the gym, you show up differently. You train harder, you stay longer, you get way more high fives. Their hybrid shorts are unreal. They're the perfect length. They're super lightweight.

• 40:42Chris Williamson?

  They're easy to wash and dry. And their sleeveless t-shirts are basically what I've trained in every day for a year now. They're the ideal fit. They're breathable and they hold their shape perfectly. So no more looking like Adam Sandler's, your stylist. Basically, everything they sell is unbelievable, well-designed, high-quality, and you get 30-day free returns globally with global shipping, plus a 10% discount site-wide. Right now, you can get 10% off everything by going to the link in the description below. I'm heading to gym.sh/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM10 at checkout. That's gym.sh/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM10 at checkout. Auraborus 9218. Hi, Chris. What is your favorite animal? Mine is an otter because they are so cute and are good swimmers. Fuck it. That is the question of, that's the question of

• 41:26Chris Williamson?

  the day. Unbelievable by Auraborus. What is your favorite animal? Mine is the otter because they are so cute and are good swimmers. That is the most adorable question that I've read all week. And what is my favorite animal? I mean, otters are pretty cool. I'll take your otter and raise you a platypus because platypuses are like freak alien otters. Also cute, but have weird venom. I'm pretty sure they're halfway between a mammal and like a bird or a reptile. They also lay eggs, but they're kind of mammaly as well. I'm going to do, I'm going to do an entire breakdown about what platypus is. Today, it's platypus, but realistically, it's a golden retriever, which by the way, is not a dog. That's a

• 42:10Chris Williamson?

  different, golden retrievers are their own animal. There are dogs and there are golden retrievers and a golden retriever is not a dog. They're separate. In the same way as an otter is kind of like a platypus, but not. Golden retriever is kind of like a dog, but also not. So if I could breed a platypus with a golden retriever, that would be whatever that freak animal is, that's what it would be.

• 42:31Chris Williamson?

  Griff, Anne, how do you get over constantly thinking about starting things, but never actually doing them? Sheer willpower never seems to work. And I feel when I think about starting something new, project, hobby, business, et cetera, I get the satisfaction about doing it by just thinking about how life would be and the benefits from it, rather than actually taking action, which usually leads to never starting. Yeah.

• 42:55Chris Williamson?

  Talking about the thing and doing the thing vie for the same resources. Allocate yours appropriately.

• 43:02Chris Williamson?

  It is very, very perilous because you neurologically, you literally get the same little kicks. You get a titrated version, a tuned down version of the dopamine and the reward that you would get from doing the thing by talking about it and thinking it and planning it. It's that big fucking list of like, talking about the thing is not doing the thing. Making time to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Writing a bang a tweet about how you're going to do the thing. Think about all of the adoration fantasizing, isn't doing the thing.

• 43:36Chris Williamson?

  The reason that that essay hits home is that it's all of the obstacles that people put in the way of themselves, just sinking in and doing the work. It is significantly easier and safer, safer existentially, because you don't have to face failure. There's no such thing as failure in planning, but there is.

• 43:54Chris Williamson?

  If you plan for so long that you never get around to doing it, you fail by default. So you've inoculated yourself from failure publicly by assuring your failure privately, but you're not going to be judged for it. How do you get over constantly thinking about starting things, but never actually doing them? There's a few. A commitment device would be one way to do this. So a group chat with a bunch of friends, working out what small steps would be to starting something. And every single day, having a habit group. If you get a dollar or a, it needs to be a note. So whatever the lowest denomination note in your country is.

• 44:36Chris Williamson?

  And if you tear up $1 and throw it in the bin for every day that you don't do the thing that you said that you were going to do, especially if you've got a habit group with other people and you're just ranking, okay, how many days out of this month did I do it versus them? That reliably has, I mean, that's gotten people off cocaine. That $1 thing has got, so what's that $30 a month? Has gotten people off of $1,000 per month cocaine addictions because the social shame is so high. And the fact that you can, the Uber black Excel version of this is to video yourself tearing up the dollar bill and throwing it in the trash.

• 45:16Chris Williamson?

  That is a good way to use supportive, but social pressure to keep yourself going. Also, what is it that you're trying to do? Can you iterate on it a little bit? Like, I want to become a writer. I want to write a book. Okay, before writing the book, why don't we try and publish one Substack post or two Substack posts a week for four weeks? Let's see if we can do that. What's the smallest version of something you can do? Project, hobby, business you're talking about here? Like, you need someone, if it was me, I respond really well to social pressure. I would just get someone to do it with me. You want to go to the gym? Okay, have a training partner. Training partner is free, it's literally free, but it is one of the best commitment devices you can ever have.

• 45:58Chris Williamson?

  Co-working with someone for whatever your new business or project is, they can sit next to you and you only need, you're already doing nothing. Right? So the bar of doing something is zero. It is as low as it could be because you're never actually doing them. So there is no such thing as starting too small. And everybody has this, oh, fucking 30 pushups a day, what's that going to do? It's like, well, it's 30 more than you're doing now, dude. And by facing up to how small the first step is, a lot of the time you feel kind of shame. Oh, look at how feeble, look at how silly and weak I've become that this is to be considered an achievement. It's like, you're in a situation where that should be considered an achievement if you're

• 46:43Chris Williamson?

  never actually doing anything. Sheer willpower can work. I mean, if you wanted Lone Ranger, if you're like, I've got no one around me or what it is that I want to do, I can't find someone else to do it with me. You can do the habit group, you can usually get people involved. If for some reason that's unavailable, there's a pain pleasure principle that you can use from Tony Robbins, which is really great. Think about what not doing this, not committing to these projects has cost you in the past, is costing you now and will cost you in the future. How much life have you missed? How much progress have you missed? How much shame have you got around not doing it? How much wasted time do you spend every single day not continuing to do it? And how poor will your future be when you think about not starting anything?

• 47:28Chris Williamson?

  And how much less development and success and fulfillment and connection to your life you're going to have if you don't? And then think about the opposite. Think about past, present and future pleasure. Just how proud of yourself would you be if you could do this? Just how much more connected to your life would you be? And try and bring that, you want to feel the pain as viscerally as possible, then you want to feel the pleasure as viscerally as possible? And just write it down, like past, present, future, five minutes, 10 minutes? What's it cost you? And then the same for the pleasure thing.

• 48:02Chris Williamson?

  That has convinced me to make an awful lot of very difficult decisions and rereading that every morning is a good way to do it. But my social pressure thing, I think, is, is number one.

• 48:14Chris Williamson?

  Lifting food fun. How have you come to terms with having health struggles so young despite living well?

• 48:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, it feels, uh,

• 48:28Chris Williamson?

  it feels karmically very unfair. It feels like some cosmic kick in the nuts by the universe, but the nutcake was meant for someone else. Like, I, I don't feel like I deserve it. And I'm sure that everybody feels this way, like even a serial killer that gets fucking cancer probably feels this way. But not smoking, not partying for over a decade, basically, spending an awful lot of time, like really trying to be a good person and make the world a better place and commit to projects that I think are like really valuable and that I'm proud of and looking after my health and training and, you know, regular sleep and wake time, just

• 49:14Chris Williamson?

  tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Meanwhile, there's some bloke in fucking Wyoming, 65, smoked every single day of his life in perfect health, just totally fine, oblivious to the fact that mold and Lyme disease are even a thing. And

• 49:35Chris Williamson?

  trying to construct some bigger narrative about whether I'm, whether this is justified karmically or I'm worthy of it, or this is part of some grand story thing, uh, can kind of drive you a bit insane. And in my experience, having tried to do it a lot, can also reduce agency. It can make you feel like, well, if these unfair things keep happening to me, what's the point in trying in future? It's actually quite a apathetic, like an apathy inducing nihilistic worldview. So you go, if it's outside of my control, then that means that the fixes are also outside of my control. And even if there is nothing that you can do to speed it up, which there almost always

• 50:19Chris Williamson?

  is, the belief that there is something that you can do is more useful than the impact of doing the thing. Like just believing that you have some agency and that you're happening to life as opposed to life is happening to you. But regardless of whether it's I'm happening to life or life's happening to me, life happens through me is not something that I've been able to feel for a while, which fucking sucks. Like, if you think about,

• 50:44Chris Williamson?

  if you think about being ill or, or anything going wrong in life, right? Financial catastrophe, breakup is like you going against the grain. You're on a surfboard, but you're swimming out. You're trying to, you're just getting smashed in the face over and over by waves and you're trying to swim out. And then

• 51:04Chris Williamson?

  you happening to life is you being able to do that swimming effectively and then sit on your board where you want. But life happening through you is you actually being able to surf the waves and you move, you flow, you don't actually end up thinking all that much. Stuff just seems to happen. And maybe this sounds way too esoteric. Maybe this is because I've spent too long at a gay meditation retreat with a bunch of people from San Francisco, which is fantastic, by the way. I did look at dudes, but, and.

• 51:34Chris Williamson?

  It seems to be true, whether it is true or it's not. Everybody has an understanding of what I'm talking about. There are times when it feels like you're dancing in rhythm with the music of life. And there are times where it feels like, what the fuck beat is this? Why, I've got two left feet and it's a three over four beat that I just fucking can't catch a break on. And when it's been that way for a while, it really sucks. So one thing that it's done, and one thing that I was told by Daniel Schmachtenberger, actually, this beautiful long voice note that he gave me was, there's no one that I know of

• 52:07Chris Williamson?

  who has become a truly humble and empathetic person without going through a period in their life where they literally didn't know if they could get any better. And this is the difference between just going through a hard time

• 52:23Chris Williamson?

  and genuinely having your entire worldview changed. Everybody's going to go through difficulties. Everybody is going to face some time where stuff is hard, but not knowing if you're ever going to be able to get out of it, if it's ever going to improve, kind of changes you on a fundamental cellular level emotionally. And I felt that I'm so much less judgmental. I'm so much less

• 52:51Chris Williamson?

  castigating and dismissive and callous about other people going through things. Like other people can really fucking suffer. And from the outside, it looks like nothing. And from the inside, it feels like their world's falling apart. And we don't want to indulge martyrs or victimhood culture, but

• 53:12Chris Williamson?

  people can really eat shit and tell no one about it. And giving as much care

• 53:21Chris Williamson?

  just generally to the fucking world

• 53:24Chris Williamson?

  is something that I didn't realise I wasn't doing enough of. And

• 53:32Chris Williamson?

  the last two years or so have really,

• 53:37Chris Williamson?

  they've really brought me back down to earth with that. And it's a part of me that feels really connected. It's a part of me that feels like it was, it was eroded out of me. I think it is for a lot of us that if you fully take on board just how much suffering there is, that other people, other areas of the world, those that are close to you, people that you don't know, like just how much lots of people struggle and how hard it is.

• 54:01Chris Williamson?

  It's overwhelming. It's really, really difficult. And going through it yourself makes it impossible to ignore. It's absolutely impossible to ignore just how fucking hard life can be if it's been hard for you too. And you need to be a flippant and dismissive asshole to not take that and realise, okay, I should probably treat other people with way more fucking care than I am. So that's a long-winded way to say it fucking sucks. But at some point in future, I'm going to look back on this and feel more proud of myself than I ever have for continuing to do the project, for not stopping, for not giving up, for things being hard, but just keeping going. And if that's a story that I get to tell with genuine stripes on my uniform of, oh, I did it.

• 54:47Chris Williamson?

  I was in the trenches and I came out the other side. Fuck, like,

• 54:54Chris Williamson?

  it's a beautiful opportunity. And that's what I'm trying to hold on to. Joel Greaves 495. Hey Chris, going from recording videos on the sofa to having a full team in different sets is a big change. How has your focus and time shifted as the pod grows? Are you still reading just as many books and researching for the next guest? Or have these tasks been delegated to employees? Longtime listener of the pod, can't wait to see you in Manchester. Keep it up. Thank you, Joel. I'll see you in Manchester too. Yeah, I mean, it is a big difference, but keeping myself in touch with coming up with ideas, choosing the guests and working out what I want to talk to the guests about, that really is the core of what I do. And reliably, when I've seen

• 55:38Chris Williamson?

  other creators take their eye off the ball and not be in touch with that, which ultimately is what the show is, right? Who's on? What are you talking about? And what are the ideas that you have in your mind that you think are important? That's, that is what the podcast is. That is what content is. And sure, maybe you can get people in who are amazing writers or researchers or resurfaces of content and information, but that can't replace your taste. And the times when I have tried to play about with being fed more information from even aggregate news websites and stuff like that, it feels like someone's put their hand inside of my ass.

• 56:20Chris Williamson?

  And like marionetting me, that's, that's puppeting, I suppose, or marionetting me from above.

• 56:27Chris Williamson?

  I don't, I've never liked that. Things have changed an awful lot, but those areas, the prepping for the guest, the reading, I mean, my reading time has been squeezed an awful lot, but that's just a discipline thing. It's the same as saying that my time in the gym has been squeezed. When I get up on time and I'm disciplined, I've got enough time to read. You don't need to read that much to come up with really great ideas. I read four pages of that Sasha Chapin article earlier on today. And I had like three things that I can't wait to talk about on the show. From four pages, I mean, it was a very, very good article, but

• 57:09Chris Williamson?

  yeah, reading time's been squeezed, but outsourcing stuff like that is basically the beginning of the end for most shows, in my opinion, unless the guest, sorry, unless the host sucked from a taste perspective and a discernment perspective. But

• 57:26Chris Williamson?

  I enjoy coming up with ideas. I enjoy choosing the people that are coming on the show. I just now get to have other people make that stuff happen. I want to bring this person on. Okay, let's see if we can speak to his management. Let's try and find a date for him, as opposed to it being me, right? I bucked the first 700 guests, myself, no, 800 guests. I bucked, no assistance on the show. Outreach, time, scheduling, calendar, send over the link, send over the address. Like it was, it wasn't done by anybody else. And so I've served my time and if I can just choose who I want to come on, that gives me more time to focus on taste. But there is always shiny object syndrome. There is always something that I can do that's going to distract me, that's going to be sexy or cool, something.

• 58:11Chris Williamson?

  And as opportunities become more attractive and more seductive,

• 58:17Chris Williamson?

  saying no becomes a more difficult task. So I'm like hypertrophying my no muscle as much as I can. I've learned from over a thousand podcast episodes that the easier you make your health routine, the more consistent you'll be. It's like golf, right? You want to keep it simple and not mix a bunch of pills. You want the eye of the tiger, not the DUI of the tiger. That's why I'm such a huge fan of AG1. One scoop contains 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food sourced ingredients in a single daily drink. And now they've taken it a step further with AG1 Next Gen, backed by four clinical trials. And in those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well.

• 58:59Chris Williamson?

  Gone are the days of needing to buy a load of pills in the gym parking lot from some juice bro in a cyber truck. But if you're unsure about it, AG1's got a 90 day money back guarantee. So you can try it every single day for three months. And if you do not like it, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get a free AG1 welcome kit that includes a bottle of D3K2, an AG1 flavour sampler and that 90 day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below. Heading to drinkag1.com/odinwisdom. Hazdow, will you be doing UK podcasts when you're here on tour? Yes, I fucking will, Hazdow. I am going to do a huge run at the end of tour. So if you look at the tour schedule, chriswilliamson.live, you'll see we've got four days back to back, which is heavy.

• 59:45Chris Williamson?

  But we've got four days back to back, which include going from Edinburgh, which is the middle of Scotland, to the most southerly show that we do in England. So we've got tour bus. That's the only way, it's going to be an overnight sleeper tour bus. And then we've got two more. And then we have a little break and everybody was like, hey, we've got these six days off. Why don't we, we can either fit some Germany shows in or you can, you can, let's do a cinema run. I was like, dude, I've just done four fucking shows in four days. The last thing I want to do is get up and go, it's time to prep for Alain de Botton. Alain, tell me about why my head's still at my ass from the last four nights. So this is my genius plan. Genius plan is get out to the UK a little bit early. So I'm as prepared as possible to get buttfucked by four in four.

• 1:00:29Chris Williamson?

  Do the entire run. We finish in Dublin or Belfast, one of the two. And then we have one day off in London. And then I'm going to do a full run for probably seven or 10 days in London after tour. No rush, nothing coming up at some point in future. And I'm going to rip the ass out of that. Definitely Finn and Horatio again, definitely Alain, definitely Bugsy Malone round two.

• 1:00:59Chris Williamson?

  Brian Cox, I want him. Mary Harrington will probably come back on. I might try and do a round table with Freya India and her. Who knows, Bonnie Blue round two. We'll see. Who the fuck else is on that list? There's a bunch of people. There's a lot of people, probably almost certainly another Rory Sutherland, maybe David Deutsch, guy that wrote Beginning of Infinity. Fuck. You know, I used to, back in the day, I used to always be very, I was so tentative. I wouldn't ever say who I had that was coming on the show because I was terrified of some other podcaster realising what my upcoming guest list was, or, or me wanting to like keep it secret from you. I think it was mostly me wanting to like jump scare you with exciting guests. But now I think it's just cooler to go, fuck, like he's going to have Brian Cox on. That's going to be amazing. So that's my, that's my genius plan.

• 1:01:45Chris Williamson?

  Get fist fucked by the show and then get fist fucked by the cinema production. And in the middle of that is Halloween. So if you've got some advice for a good Halloween party on Saturday 31st of October in London, we're going to be there. I will dress up like Spider-Man, come and see him. Mind Fox, Mind Fox. What do you notice you have improved most on when looking back at old episodes? Been watching since 200k subs. That is fucking insane. 200k would have been.

• 1:02:16Chris Williamson?

  The start of 2022. What do you mean the start of 2022? Cause Peterson in the Alamo, the day that I moved to America was mid February and that was 250. So you have been here a long time. That is, in the grand scheme of the show of eight years, not an insane amount of time, but 50%, early 50%, crazy. Isn't that also mad that we're at whatever 4. something million subs? And 50% of the duration of the show was 200K. Like it's just for anyone that's like, oh man, I'm doing this thing. It doesn't seem to be growing that quickly. You go, okay, half of the time of this podcast got me to 200K subs and the other half got

• 1:03:00Chris Williamson?

  us like 4.1 million. So yeah, it just never fails to be a law in that way. What do you notice you've improved on most when looking back at old episodes? Ah, man, so much.

• 1:03:15Chris Williamson?

  Probably my confidence sitting down with a guest. I did a screen test with, there's a production going on and they wanted me to test for a scripted role. And as I was doing it, I realized just how nervous I was despite the fact that there was no one watching. No one will ever see this except for some nameless, faceless fucking casting director somewhere. And I was so fucking nervous and I realized this because I have no experience doing this. I don't know what I'm doing. And just the reps of sitting down in a room, I'm speaking to Elon at the moment, I'm back on Rogan at some point soon. And sure, that'll, those will give, I call Rogan my, the final boss of my social anxiety.

• 1:03:56Chris Williamson?

  That will give my heart rate a tickle, but fuck me, it is so different to the first time that I ever spoke to Jordan Peterson. I remember I was doing breath work, like walking around near where I lived in Newcastle, like trying to fucking get my heart rate under control before I sat down to speak to him in 2021. And now the third episode, fourth episode that I did with him, I was like bored waiting. I think he was a bit late and I was like, hey, fucking Jordan, come on, what's going on? It's, that's really cool because that level of comfort socially was something that I definitely didn't have. And the other thing is ability to sit with silence. A lot of the time people ask what sort of makes a great conversationalist, at least one that's recorded.

• 1:04:41Chris Williamson?

  And just being able to give people room, you're scared because it doesn't sound like you're adding value. But if you're having a conversation, even if you're having a conversation on stage, some fireside chat with your CEO or, or some partner, or you're listening to someone, you're listening to your girlfriend or your boyfriend talk to you, like just being able to sit in the silence and give them some room. It is almost like there is a third participant, even if there's no audience, there's always a third participant when you're doing the show, because it's you, the guest, and then the people that are listening. They need time to think as well, but there's almost a third participant one-on-one, which is like their brain. They're saying things, just going through the motion.

• 1:05:23Chris Williamson?

  Like that little pause, if you don't interject and feel like you need to say something reliably, people will have something, they, it's very appreciated. Silence is really appreciated. So patience, comfort with patience is one of them and confidence socially would be the two, two of the biggest ones. That, and if you go back and listen to the first ever episode, I didn't understand that you could nod silently. And I thought that every time that I nodded, I had to go, mhm.

• 1:05:50Chris Williamson?

  Mhm.

• 1:05:52Chris Williamson?

  Fucking infuriating. Thankfully that's gone as well.

• 1:05:56Chris Williamson?

  Z726, hey Chris, love the show. It's almost the only podcast I listen to regularly. What advice would you give to boys aging from 18 to 24 who wants to become a man? What makes a good man? Much thanks in advance. Thank you very much. Uh, what advice would I give to boys aging 18 to 24 who want to become a man?

• 1:06:21Chris Williamson?

  I don't think you need to speedrun becoming a man, dude. I think we spend most of our childhood unable to wait to become a grownup and most of our adult years trying to become a child again. And I don't think you need to rush this. Like it's a beautiful period. 18 to 24 is a fucking sick time. Ask anybody in their 30s or 40s, like, ah, man, like it was so fun. I had no responsibilities. I was just able to explore. If you spend all of your life wanting to be somewhere or something that you're not, you will miss your life. You will permanently spend your days floating through the things that you're doing, thinking about the thing that is going to come after it, or wishing that you were a thing that has come before.

• 1:07:06Chris Williamson?

  I don't think that you need to hurry up becoming a man. The manhood thing will come along for the ride. And what makes a good man?

• 1:07:14Chris Williamson?

  The best definition that I've heard is a guy who knows where he's going, is having fun while he's going there and is comfortable in his own skin.

• 1:07:27Chris Williamson?

  Like those three things, I think reliably make the sort of man that other people want to be around. Filter it through some wisdom, make sure that the thing that you want to do, the comfort that you have in getting there, isn't getting there to fuck over a bunch of people in business or to be exploitative or manipulative or a liar or something. But for the most part, comfortable in his own skin, knows where he's going, having fun while he goes there. Like it's a pretty good start.

• 1:08:03Chris Williamson?

  Dang it, Dave. Three pieces of advice for someone transitioning out of the lonely chapter. Well, if you're coming out of it, presumably that means that you've started to feel some

• 1:08:15Chris Williamson?

  reintegration with people that are like the person you're becoming or you have become. I would be gentle with yourself if you're a bit socially inept, because you've basically been in monk mode isolation for, you know, maybe a moderate amount of time, maybe a very long amount of time.

• 1:08:34Chris Williamson?

  I would also say, don't judge too quickly people that don't seem to be like the person that you're like now.

• 1:08:46Chris Williamson?

  If you could imagine that you had a more refined palate, right? If you were a foodie, a food reviewer, expert chef or something, it would be likely that there may be fewer restaurants that you could go to, that you'd enjoy, because your discernment, your ability to work out what's going on and your standards have raised to a degree.

• 1:09:12Chris Williamson?

  The same thing kind of happens when it comes to development. And that's not to say that someone who's done more meditation or more breath work, more journaling, more emotional work is like better or more worthy than someone else. But it does mean that there are going to be fewer and fewer people like them. And that means that like a person who has a refined palate, trying to find somewhere to eat, there's going to be fewer restaurants socially that you're going to be able to go to. So be gentle with yourself if you seem to be cycling through people, despite the fact that you feel like you've arrived, at least at this chapter of the lonely chapter, or this pause point, this full stop in the lonely chapter. It's still going to take time to work out, I, I thought this person was like me, but they're not, they're not like me, they're not like me at all. Maybe that means I've done something wrong. Maybe that means I'm still, I need, I should go back.

• 1:09:55Chris Williamson?

  It's like, no, no, no, no, just go steady with it. So be gentle with yourself if you're socially inept. Don't hurry when trying to find people that you want to hang around with. Don't use, don't have the discordance of you connecting with them as a indicator that you need to go back or that you've done something wrong.

• 1:10:17Chris Williamson?

  And celebrate, dude. That'll be the third one. And going through that, fuck, I need to make a change. I'm going to have to leave things behind, patterns, ways of operating, friend groups, the weekly routine. And now you've got to a new stage. Like this is, coming out on the other side is one of the best things that you can do. And not, not fully indulging in that will be a waste because at some point soon, if you keep growing, you're going to have to do it again and you're going to wish, fuck, like I just want to be there. And now you're there, like you've done it, you've made it. Just enjoy that, enjoy the, I've arrived, I can take a bit of a breath.

• 1:10:59Chris Williamson?

  Ms. Holly Berry, I've been listening before 100K. Just want to say thanks. You're one of the reasons I changed jobs. Well, thank you. Uh, I hope you changed to a job that you enjoy. It sounds like that. And before 100K is even more fucking insane. That is the start of 2021. Because me and Dean got balloons for 100K and invited my ex-girlfriend around. She thought she was coming around so that we could hang out. I needed to hold the camera. I needed to hold Dean's camera and take a photo of us and put the photo up. Uh, so that is five years. That's five years that you've been here.

• 1:11:43Chris Williamson?

  So I appreciate that I haven't either turned you British or made you go insane since then. Jared, have you ever considered that you might have a drinking problem? I don't consider a lot, Chris. Well, you drank an entire case of Athletic Brewing Co. last night. But they're non-alcoholic.

• 1:12:01Chris Williamson?

  And that's not a problem? Sorry, man. I, I just kept chugging, waiting for the regret to creep in. Never happened. See, most people like Jared, don't want to change what they drink. They just don't want the next day to be a complete write-off. And that is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co. They make the best NA brews on the planet.

• 1:12:23Chris Williamson?

  You can find Athletic Brewing Co.'s best-selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you, or best option, get a full variety pack of four flavors shipped direct to your door. Right now, get 15% off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or heading to athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom at modern wisdom at checkout. Near beer terms and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all times. Bottoms up.

• 1:12:56Chris Williamson?

  Zai Nutritionist, how was the meditation retreat? Takeaways, downloads, highlights and biggest challenge? Fuck, all right. I haven't really talked about this much, I guess. So I did a meditation retreat called Journey with an H. It's a Jhana meditation practice. Jhana is very different to mindfulness because classic mindfulness, Vipassana to me, feels a little bit more cognitive and it's a bit more aggressive. I mean, fucking aggressive meditation technique really goes to show just how gentle they can become. But you're pushing away thoughts to a degree. A thought arises, you notice it, you release it. Like in the releasing of it, there is a degree of pushing.

• 1:13:40Chris Williamson?

  And then, you know, you come back to the breath, you come back to your counting, you come back to waiting for CCE, if you're using Shinzen Young's, where's the concentration clarity equanimity thing.

• 1:13:52Chris Williamson?

  Jhana is significantly different in that you are inviting these emotions in. So something arises, there's a thought. For instance, a thought might be, I'm distracted. And then a judgment around the thought of being distracted. I was thinking about work and now I'm judging myself for being the sort of person that thinks about work because I should be focused on the meditation. In the Vipassana, you probably wouldn't investigate that too deeply. You would, there's a thought and a related thought and you would sort of release it. With Jhana, what was beautiful was you say, oh, here's a part of me that's thinking about work. Like invite it into you and go, I'm so fuck, I'm, I'm really happy that there's a bit of me that's so diligent and cares about what it is that he does.

• 1:14:36Chris Williamson?

  How, I'm really grateful for that bit of me that works so hard. Come here, come on, come into, some people have a sauna, some people have a hot tub, some people have a bed, either bed. Like inviting that part of you in so that it feels like it's valid. And then, oh, I've got this shame, I've got this shame around the fact that I'm being distracted because I want to do the meditation, right? Wow, look at this bit of me that just, he always wants to, he always wants to do things well. Like he's got such high standards. That's so far, you're like, hey, come, you come here too, you come and chill out in the bed as well. And that, it really feels like a cohesive way to work. Anyway, that's the, the Jhana thing is in Northern California. It was also the Global Reset Week for OpenAI,

• 1:15:17Chris Williamson?

  which meant that there were shit tons of AI programmers going straight from like the most autistic, like lock, super duper locked in, making the future of the world stuff to, and now think about the breath. And now relax and sit with your thoughts, no screens and silence for seven days. So some takeaways, I actually put a bunch in a newsletter a couple of weeks ago. For many of us, goals are contracts to self-criticize until we succeed. Like running away from a monster that never gets tired. This contract makes permanent success necessary to avoid being swallowed by misery. That, to me, goals are contracts to self-criticize until we succeed.

• 1:16:02Chris Williamson?

  Just was so palpable when you're trying to speed run through something that just takes time. You're just sitting on the cushion, waiting for stuff to occur. And the judgment of whether you're doing it right or not, the desire to hurry it up. All of that is just criticism that is making you miserable. And the appetite that that monster has is endless. Another one, forgiveness is choosing to no longer suffer the things that you cannot change. Forgiveness is choosing to no longer suffer the things that you cannot change. It is simply to give up on the hope of changing the past. It's awfully useless to cling to the idea of altering history. You forgive to lighten yourself.

• 1:16:46Chris Williamson?

  So one of the big practices we did was on forgiveness. And that includes forgiving yourself and that includes forgiving yourself, forgiving yourself for not forgiving yourself yet. And this like endless, you can maybe tell how compassionate, like deeply, deeply compassionate and understanding this practice was, which for a lot of people, compassion, especially self-compassion, especially self-compassion for not having enough self-compassion is fucking alien. Like lots of people that were in there were trying to find their, the foothold or the handhold where they can use some part of

• 1:17:26Chris Williamson?

  underperformance or not enoughness to propel them forward. How can I get to the next thing?

• 1:17:32Chris Williamson?

  That, that forgiveness piece was really interesting to me. What else was in there? Your best decision-making does not come from your head. For most of the important decisions in life, your heart decides and then your head makes it happen, not the other way around. And a lot of the bad decisions that we make, I think, come from when we have too much head, especially for people that listen to shows like this one, when we have too much head and not enough heart. Sure, there's a lot of people out there that are rash and that make impulsive decisions. I'm going to guess that that's not you. You can talk yourself out of pretty much anything, especially if you're clever. And if you're not careful, you can talk yourself out of something that your heart and your gut knows is true. And then

• 1:18:12Chris Williamson?

  this is a final one I'll give you. Suppression is not the same thing as strength. People who say you should have gotten over your wounds by now, assume that development comes with age, not work. And that we don't keep accumulating wounds. There is this sort of assumption that by adulthood, you should no longer be having to deal with the same sort of challenges that you did in the past. That this thing, this slight, this problem, this pattern, why is it that this is still driving you? Why is it that you're still struggling with this? And if you have spent a lot of time grinding, focused outwardly,

• 1:18:53Chris Williamson?

  being responsible for other people in your life, providing, working on yourself, but not necessarily reflecting on yourself. Like, yeah, there's going to be a huge fucking gap there. And you need to spend a lot of time just gently thinking and allowing that to come up. So yeah, the judgment of you should have sorted out your wounds by now is, it is assuming that the main development comes from just aging as opposed to actually working on yourself. Biggest challenge was

• 1:19:28Chris Williamson?

  dude, just fucking like long sits, one and a half, two hour plus sits per day, multiple times per day. It, it's a really unique kind of effort because you're not doing anything. You're sat on a cushion, cross-legged, right? Noticing thoughts arise, bringing them in, doing a bunch of other stuff that's part of the Jhana practice. It is like really, really fucking effortful, really effortful. But there's some things, I highly recommend Journey, I think they, they rule. And if you're the sort of person that wants to work on self-compassion, it's, it's about as good as you can get. Josh C. Mitchell, please do more round the table episodes with friends. You fucking jumpscared me with the, the, round, round the table.

• 1:20:12Chris Williamson?

  I love them, they're my favorites. I have so much fun. We have got, it might be, it might be coming out very soon after this, but I've got one of the maddest round table setups coming soon. I find them so enjoyable. I think they're a great way to like sneak personal development in while it sounds like you're just listening to a bunch of the boys chat shit. So expect more multi-guest episodes. If you've got any suggestions for people that you want me to bring on, that's great. I have to say, the Huberman-Makuska-Sigura, mostly Wise episode we did, I thought was like just chef's kiss, fucking perfect. One of the best things I've ever done and like totally un-magnificent in every way possible. We started off talking about whether every man should take erectile dysfunction medication and then

• 1:20:59Chris Williamson?

  rinsed Huberman for having six girlfriends. It just, it does not get better than that. For me, that's all I want to do at 2:00 PM on a Wednesday afternoon. So yeah, expect more. Kerber, Kerber, Kerber English classes. Naval said that when he plays podcast Naval in his head, you are on the other side. Who is on the other side when you record the episodes alone? For the first thousand episodes, it was a bedroom window with curtains in front of it or a wall or an Airbnb.

• 1:21:35Chris Williamson?

  I think you're talking figuratively. To be honest, man, no one, anyone that's ever tried to look down the pipe of a camera recording solo and just felt this like, oh, I'm looking into the void, it's black nothing. It is fucking terrifying. It never, it never goes away just how absurd it is that there's this weird sort of black circle and you're just spewing things into it.

• 1:21:59Chris Williamson?

  When I imagine myself guesting, I mean, to be honest, the show that I've guested on the most in my life is Rogan. Like I've done episode five recording in, in August.

• 1:22:11Chris Williamson?

  I don't think I've done any other show, done Stephen's show twice. And maybe some of my friends' shows, like Propane Fitness back in the day. So probably Rogan, to be honest. But when I'm here, it was for a long time, it was a bedroom wall or an Airbnb or a hotel window or like a toilet, wherever, whatever, wherever room in, spare room in a house I was recording in, that was what it was. And now it's Jared, Jared, Jared sits there silently and giggles every so often when I say something fucking remotely interesting. John Mojda, what was your treatment for SIBO about to do the breath test? I did my breath test yesterday, so enjoy that. Four hours, five hours of your life breathing into a fucking tube.

• 1:22:56Chris Williamson?

  SIBO, for the people that don't know, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. It's one of the most common like gut maladies. H. pylori and candida, probably the other two. I think pretty much any guy that's ever tried to be a bro-lifter has got SIBO just because the turnover and the fermentation of food in your stomach kind of,

• 1:23:17Chris Williamson?

  it can get a bit gnarly.

• 1:23:20Chris Williamson?

  My SIBO was just, I think the classic antibiotic protocol. I've done so many fucking protocols over the last couple of years, it's hard to remember. But you'll get your breath test back, it'll tell you whether it's, whatever it is, fucking hydrogen based or ethanol based or whatever. And then just go through the standard process. SIBO is relatively easy to treat. I think it's kind of linear. H. pylori and candida significantly more gnarly to treat. So if you need to go and do a GI map of some kind or a total tox test or something like, you know, stool sampling things, very sexy, so this is what happens, you get an hour and a half into a Q and A episode and we start talking about poop.

• 1:24:01Chris Williamson?

  The breath test is painless and easy, it's just fucking annoying. But follow the doctor's advice, do the antibiotics and then see how you are on the other side of it. Sage Russell, what's the secret to taming my limitless ambition? Lately, it's difficult to enjoy little moments.

• 1:24:17Chris Williamson?

  Honestly dude, I don't think you need to fucking tame it. It's gonna go away. In five years or 10 years' time, you're gonna look back at this period where you were completely obsessed and driven and riven by your desire to achieve things and go, oh fuck. Working at that same work rate now is so much harder than it was back then. I wish I'd embraced it more. So let it climb inside of you and wear you like a fucking parasite, like a skin suit. Just what if you didn't have to push back against it? Lately, it's been difficult to enjoy little moments. I get it, that's hard. You're always looking for what's coming next. You're comparing who you are to who you want to be. There's always gonna be a gap between them. What if you just let it ride itself out?

• 1:25:00Chris Williamson?

  What if it was more like a, what if it was more like a fever than an Achilles rupture? That there's nothing you can do to speed it up. You can just sit in it and try and enjoy the ride as much as you can. And eventually it's gonna calm down. As opposed to, I need to, I need to be in conflict with this thing. I must be in tension because I am not enough. In 10 years' time, when this level of ambition is maybe dissolved a little bit or evaporated, you're gonna think you're not enough because you're not ambitious enough. We're permanently living in this gap between who we are and who we think that we should be. And what's interesting is those things can flip. You can have the exact opposite problem in the exact same dynamic facing in different directions

• 1:25:44Chris Williamson?

  in not that long of it. I'm traveling so much. All I'm doing is traveling. I'm not spending any time in my routine. And within a month, you go, do you know what it is? Life's boring. I haven't been anywhere. I mean, you know, I traveled last month, but what have I done this month? You're like, hey dude, you've literally got this problem pointing in opposite directions about the same issue within a short space of time? I think let it fucking ride itself out, dude. Like let it wear you, take advantage of it. It's the freest discipline and motivation that you're ever gonna get. And just enjoy that. Yes, the enjoyment of the little moments may be difficult. But what's more difficult is you thinking that you have to enjoy the little moments and then beating yourself up for it and the shame and the frustration at the fact that you've got shame and the resentment, your frustration about the fact that you've got shame

• 1:26:28Chris Williamson?

  and your boredom, your resentment about your frustration at the shame. That's where most of the pain comes from. Just try for 30 days for me, give it a crack, Sage Russell, of just fucking letting it happen and not trying to stop it. Because it's not gonna be there forever. Mr. Benson 25, M. Benson 25, sorry, M. Benson. You've talked to so many people. Are any of your thoughts or frames even your own? I don't think that pretty much any idea that anyone has is their own, regardless of how many people they've spoken to. Like originality is just undetected plagiarism because everybody is inspired by their experiences.

• 1:27:10Chris Williamson?

  The way that you saw some guy walk down the street toward this bus and you thought, huh, he seems really nervous. Isn't it strange that people get nervous when they've got nothing to be nervous about just walking for a bus? Oh, well, that's, that makes me think about what happened when I was, and before you know it, this new fucking idea has come out. Okay, so is it, was the genesis, the guy walking, is, does he own that idea? But look, as an aggregator, curator of many people and I guess this, this central hub thing for the wisdom versy insights over the last eight years, it's definitely allowed me to sort of be a tractor, like a gravitational well

• 1:27:51Chris Williamson?

  for all of these thoughts and frames and insights. But you filter them through what you think is important, right? Like it's not necessarily about, is this idea completely from start generated by you? Like if you read James Clear's Atomic Habits and you take his habit process to improve your life, does that mean that all of the thoughts and frames that were developed off the back of his habit structure aren't yours there because of his? Were all influenced by the people that came before us? It's a great question and I, I don't think that I'm necessarily like a fucking saint.

• 1:28:33Chris Williamson?

  I certainly like using aphorisms and pithy short sentences because they're like idea handles that allow me to grab onto something and pick it up and remember it. So I don't forget shit that's important to me. But originality is just undetected plagiarism. Anybody that thinks that they've had, basically no one's had a fucking original thought because you're speaking in a language that wasn't created by you. So even that is constrained. You only know the words that you've learned by reading or hearing other people say things, unless you're creating your own language, which, fair play. I don't feel shame or insufficiency

• 1:29:16Chris Williamson?

  because I've taken the best of what other people have already figured out. I think that's one of the coolest things that we can do. And it's certainly one of the quickest ways that you can make development. It's that line, "Any idiot can learn through mistakes. I prefer to learn through the mistakes of others." So I use somebody else's idea to rebut your idea. How about that? Joe P. CDB. "How do you distinguish between genuine ambition and insecurity disguised as ambition as they can produce exactly the same behaviors, working hard, money, et cetera? Looking back, what were the signs you were building the life you actually wanted rather than the one you felt you had to earn?" Honestly dude, I, I think that the genuine ambition piece

• 1:30:01Chris Williamson?

  and the insecurity disguised as ambition, the outcome is really what matters here. Sure, the fuel that you're using can be more or less toxic. You want to be using genuine ambition. I just love this work. As opposed to, I'm running away from not being enough. I, I have to forge myself into something so that the world will love me. Please, please, just see that I'm valuable. I get it. It doesn't feel the same from the inside. But so many people have more pain than they do pleasure, especially in early life. And I think that a lot of what we're doing is like alchemizing all of this bad stuff into good stuff until we get to the point where we go, all right, I've tried the external validation to fill an internal void thing. I've realized it doesn't work.

• 1:30:45Chris Williamson?

  Now I can turn and face what's, what's happening inside. Facing and looking at what's happening inside before doing that, I think is so much tougher because you still feel worthless in the eyes of the world. And it's way easier to have the world tell you you're worth something and you not feel it, then go and go, okay, they've done it, they've said it to me, I still don't feel it. I need to work on myself. As opposed to, the world still hasn't told me this thing that's a fear. I'm gonna somehow like gymnastic flip my way out of this without any evidence to the contrary. So looking back, signs when I was building a life that I wanted rather than one that I felt like I had to earn. A lot of it is, am I celebrating my successes?

• 1:31:29Chris Williamson?

  Or am I feeling relief at a lack of failure? Like, is it joy or simply the abatement of fear when things go well? That's a big one because that basically tells you, when you succeed, am I coming into this from a place of negative framing or positive framing? Am I happy that it went well? Or am I happy that it didn't go badly? And that, I think, is what are you running away from versus what are you running to? That was the biggest indication for me. But honestly, man, like if you're ambitious, if you're achieving things in the real world, after a long enough time, if you're introspective, you just run out of that fuel. So I think like with a man that had the ambition tearing him up inside, I think just keep going, keep going and that fuel will run out.

• 1:32:13Chris Williamson?

  And then like a rocket ship taking off, the fucking booster rockets fall off on the side and a new fuel source takes over. J66. "What's some advice you give to others but never take yourself?" Fucking hell. This feels like being asked, how long do you last in bed? Um, incredibly personal. Some advice that I give to others, but I never take myself. Fuck, I mean, fearless is one of the ones that I, I almost say it to other people. First off, because I think that it's an important lesson to be reminded of. But more so because every time I tell it to somebody else, I want to be reminded of it myself.

• 1:32:53Chris Williamson?

  Like shit is probably not going to go anywhere near as wrong as you think it is. And worrying is a horribly useless way to spend your mental energy. And no amount of anxiety is going to make any difference to anything that happens. So I keep on telling other people, but that, what if something goes wrong? How can I fix this? What are the ways that this could be an error? That sense, that fear-based framing is very prevalent. It's been very prevalent for me and I'm getting better at it. I've gotten better at it. But it's not something I never take myself. But I probably need people to say it to me more. That might be a good start.

• 1:33:39Chris Williamson?

  And in saying it to other people, it bounces back to me. Toz wrote this. "How do you think your role will change in the next five years?"

• 1:33:51Chris Williamson?

  Well,

• 1:33:53Chris Williamson?

  Big Golden keeps on trying to psyop me into buying a dog. I stepped out this morning, morning walk, four Goldens within the first five minutes. So they're really turning on the taps now. For those of you that don't know, I believe that I'm in the Truman Show, but it's an entire industry of people trying to get me to buy a golden retriever.

• 1:34:14Chris Williamson?

  I want to become a dad. I can't wait to become a dad. Like, I've got full-on preparatory dad brain. And

• 1:34:26Chris Williamson?

  a lot of what I've done up to now has been building this person, life, business, inner and outer cathedral of good things and bullshit.

• 1:34:40Chris Williamson?

  I think I've done a pretty good job of kind of becoming ready to be a dad. But I, that's... Dude, if I look back in five years' time and what I've got is a couple of golden retrievers and three kids, I'd be like, that was a huge win. But what else is there? What else is there now?

• 1:35:00Chris Williamson?

  Other things, you know, the more sexy answers. Neutonic. I, I think that can be an insanely huge company. And I don't really care about the money. It'll be fun or whatever when we get the big exit. We've already turned down one. So I'm way more proud of the fact that we turned down an offer to buy us, like 18 months after we were launched, from some company that would have come in and, you know, made us honorary fucking members of our own baby.

• 1:35:31Chris Williamson?

  I'm way more proud of that than I will be of the fact that we get it to the size that it's going to become. That'll be cool. The pod, having more exposing, deep, sincere, earnest conversations, doing things, bringing people together so that they can just have a laugh and fucking relax and let you guys feel

• 1:35:51Chris Williamson?

  the weight of the world relieved from your shoulders a little bit. I think that's... There's not much else that I can do with my time that isn't going to be that, that useful. But to me, all of that is secondary to golden life and dad life. And you better be ready, by the way, because when I become a father, it is ju- when I become a dog father and a real father, it is just going to be fucking farmer's dog and a toxin-free baby grows and fucking flame retardant, but completely healthy paint for the nursery. It is unrelenting father content. You're going to be disgusted and I can't wait. And everyone's going to get pissed off and it's going to be awesome.

• 1:36:35Chris Williamson?

  So two Goldens, three kids, more pod, more Neutonic.

• 1:36:44Chris Williamson?

  Hopefully fucking fix my health. That's the next five years.

• 1:36:48Chris Williamson?

  Ed Diddyong, are you more of the manosphere type guy? What do you have to say about the Andrew Tate situation? Hey, if I'm being fucking roped in as Andrew Tate's defense here. I, I saw a video from, I think it's his lawyer at the moment. And there were a few, I know he's a fan of Trump. I loved the press announcement thing. He sort of walked out, Justin Waller was with him. And he sort of stood in front and did this thing. And he pointed, he must have got some more people from different law firms to join the case or whatever. He says, we've been joined by these guys, very esteemed guys, best guys, best guys, wonderful guys. And I was like, you've watched too much Trump.

• 1:37:33Chris Williamson?

  You've watched way too much. He's like, they're the best, they're the best. It was just like a little, he didn't do the accent, but there's just a little bit in there. Wonderful guys, best guys. We've got a great team, best team.

• 1:37:46Chris Williamson?

  What do I have to say about the Andrew Tate situation? Extradition to the UK is no fucking small thing, dude. Like, if he gets pulled out of the U- I mean, there, there is a big case waiting for him in the UK. I haven't watched that big potty did, talking about, did we get a whiteboard, breaking down how the case is, all of this bullshit and a billion dollars from Romania and all this stuff? I don't fucking know what's going on with any of that. Am I more of a manosphere type guy? I don't know, dude. It depends who you ask on the internet. I'm either the middle of the manosphere or a gateway drug to dangerous ideas or a blue-pilled cuck feminist. And it literally just depends on which algorithm on Twitter that you're looking at. I, I'm all of those things.

• 1:38:31Chris Williamson?

  I'm like trisexual in that way. JLJ603, what is your hairline secret? Are you just young enough to not see the future yet? Or are you like me, a fellow curly-haired northerner fighting the impending retreat of the follicles?

• 1:38:47Chris Williamson?

  I'm holding fast, I'm like fucking William Wallace, dude. It's just not, it's not going anywhere. I'm afraid, much to James Smith's chagrin, it's not going anywhere. Somebody asked, like, what's, what's James Smith's haircut? Like, how does James Smith get his haircut? And I was like, just genetically.

• 1:39:06Chris Williamson?

  It's just his gene, his genes cut his hair. So, you know, one of us, one of the people in Neutonic has to have a hairline. And he's got the racist accent, I've got the hairline. That's the way it works. Liam Mackie nine, do you take peptides? If so, which ones? Yes, I do, have been for a long time trying to fix health. I probably wouldn't if it wasn't, there's something to fix. I don't know.

• 1:39:32Chris Williamson?

  I like to use sort of therapeutics and stuff to fix problems as opposed to enhance things when it comes to like more medical style shit. I mean, look, is five migs of Tadalafil daily? Okay, yeah, probably halfway between pharmaceutical and supplement. Anyway, BPC157, TB500, thymus and alpha and SS31. So recovery and gut, more recovery because I had a tooth extraction a little while ago and I'm trying to regrow a bone in my face.

• 1:40:06Chris Williamson?

  Immune support with the thymus and alpha and then mitochondrial support with the SS31 because I'm tired all the time. Last year I tried C-Max and C-Lank. I tried, fuck me, Frag23.

• 1:40:20Chris Williamson?

  God, so much, I even tried like PT141, that was an interesting experience.

• 1:40:27Chris Williamson?

  Lots, I've tried lots of them. I do know that TB500 and BPC helped a lot when I ruptured my Achilles. That was six years ago that I was taking it. But

• 1:40:37Chris Williamson?

  this is not medical advice.

• 1:40:41Chris Williamson?

  I have liked some of the effects of them, but you need to make sure that what you're getting is actually what you're getting. Because so much bullshit, grey market horseshit is out there. So please be careful. Stan VD Bersla, classic one, top five book recommendations. Stan, I've got two fucking reading lists, my brother, and they've got five books at the top that are the most important ones from the list of 100. chriswillx.com/books and chriswillx.com/morebooks. So that's 200 and there's a top five in both, there's a top 10. Today, it's Red Rising. One that isn't in there is Dungeon Crawler Carl. And another one that everyone should read is The Precipice by Toby Ord. However, there's fucking 200 there.

• 1:41:26Chris Williamson?

  So chriswillx.com/books and chriswillx.com/morebooks, okay? Ckumar073, do you drink protein shakes? If so, what protein do you use? If not, why not? Yes, I do. Momentus, their way is money. Grass-fed, non-GMO, European cows, healthy, NSF certified. Like Olympians can use it, really great, really clean. Then RTDs, I use Pioneer Pastures. They, imagine Core Power, but made from A2 milk, super healthy, no gnarly shit. Tastes amazing, 30 grams of protein. Pioneer Pastures fucking rules if you want a ready-to-drink.

• 1:42:10Chris Williamson?

  And if you need a powder, Momentus is the best.

• 1:42:15Chris Williamson?

  Lane Furman, when's the new merch coming out? Dude, check it. What are you talking about? Huh? Uh, I think it's just finished yesterday. So it came out, it was out for six days and now it's gone. So if you didn't buy this, unlucky. However, go to MWmerch.com and you can sign up for the next drop and you'll get it before it's gone.

• 1:42:41Chris Williamson?

  Okay, one more, one more. I'll do this final one. Skirt McGirt, several guests claim that modern life is more stressful than previous eras. And you've always asked, how is that possible when we used to worry about Viking invasions and saber-toothed tigers? I never feel like you get a good answer. What do you think? Fucking great question and it's certainly something that I think about. You know, previous generations were fighting off wars and worried about whether or not the cold would kill them and their family. And today we're concerned about being kicked out of a group chat or about someone ghosting us over text. I think the problem is that we have a nervous system that was designed for bears and is now concerned with isolation socially.

• 1:43:25Chris Williamson?

  And it's, it's not updated that ancient system is still working in a way. It's like adapted to the new ecology and the new ecology is safer and more sedate. But that means that smaller concerns feel bigger. We don't know what it's like to be chased down by a saber-toothed tiger. We don't know what it's like to maybe be killed by an invisible tiny little microbe, which is germs and dirt that we didn't know that we were supposed to clean. We don't know what it's like to worry that the fucking crops will fail next autumn or that we're going to be killed by the cold this winter.

• 1:44:02Chris Williamson?

  That kind of doesn't matter to our nervous system because it's not aware of just, i- it's not taking a

• 1:44:13Chris Williamson?

  era-based, lifetime, like generational perspective. It just knows what your life's like. And yeah, a nervous system that was built to run away from predators now feels like prey when we have to set a boundary with someone. Because there's, that is what our life is. Our life is playing very different games. They're not games of survival, they're games of social acceptance. And unfortunately, we don't have many of the ballasts that would have kept us and the stabilizers that would have kept us in place. Families that aren't going to abandon us, people that love us regardless of how we can show up. We're in a meritocracy, which means that you're only as valuable as your ability to contribute to the world. So yeah, you feel shame at your small fears when you look across the expansive time.

• 1:44:58Chris Williamson?

  But you can't deny how you feel when something bad happens, even if it's small and silly, like compared with your ancestors. And a lot of that shame of, fuck, I shouldn't feel like this. I'm silly for feeling like this. This is stupid. If I'd not, like, hey, okay.

• 1:45:17Chris Williamson?

  You haven't had the opportunity to be chased down by a saber-toothed tiger. You haven't had the opportunity to worry about a Viking invasion. And because of that, it means that there's nothing else. Here's the bottom line, you're allowed to feel the way that you feel. If you feel anxious about having to set a boundary with your partner, if you feel concerned about having to tell somebody a piece of news that they don't want to hear, if you are worried that a friend didn't text you back or have got this imagined concern about speeding through a red light earlier on today and maybe the, the traffic camera is going to get you and then there'll be three points and I'll lose my car and I'll be...

• 1:45:51Chris Williamson?

  You're allowed to feel that way. And trying to dictate to yourself or judge yourself or shame yourself for your feelings is a very reliable way to make someone who's feeling bad and doesn't want to feel even was.

• 1:46:03Chris Williamson?

  We have systems that were designed for times that we're not in and they've updated themselves to be sensitized to the modern world. That's it. But don't try to shame yourself too much. All right, I love you all. ChrisWilliamson.live for tour tickets, UK and Ireland later this year in October.

• 1:46:20Chris Williamson?

  chriswillx.com/stories. If you want to submit your stories, including a voicemail that I can play to some of the guests and ask them questions. Everything else I've gone through, I love you all, bye.

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  If you've got an insurance question, you could talk to your nana. But she'd probably just tell you how she insured her couch from stains by covering it with plastic. Or you could talk to your local Geico agent. They'll give you a different kind of warm and fuzzy with personalized assistance for all your insurance needs, like how you could be saving on your policies. So let your nana cover her couch in plastic and let a local Geico agent help cover you, but not in plastic. To find a Geico agent near you, visit Geico.com-local.