Finding Your Why - Diren Kartal | Modern Wisdom Podcast 260

Diren Kartal is an online coach and speaker. As we approach the end of 2020, many people will be looking to make changes in their lives. As a coach who assists 100's of clients with their lifestyle design, Diren has a unique insight into this process. Expect to learn why your why is so important, the most common issues Diren is seeing his clients encounter, how he broke off an engagement in Australia with no one to support him, his advice for a successful relationship and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 3.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Check out Project X - https://www.direnkartal.com/ Follow Diren on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/diren.kartal Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #direnkartal #fitness #mindset - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Listen, if you don't travel, if you don't meet different people, if you don't see different cultures, your knowledge isn't going to be great about what the fuck is happening in the world, or what other people are like. So then what happens? You have a kid. What the fuck are you going to teach that kid? What are you going to teach that kid? What have you seen? You know, like you live in England, you've got a British passport, you've got the luxury to travel the world, and you're telling me you're not going to take advantage of that. It's crazy. I know people, yeah, in Turkey that would kill for a British passport just so they can travel.

• 0:33Chris Williamson?

  Darren bloody Cartel, how are you, my friend?

• 0:38Speaker 00

  I'm excited to be here, man. I'm not gonna lie. I was disappointed you didn't have a studio lined up for me in Dubai, but I don't want to talk about that.

• 0:46Chris Williamson?

  A little bit of a different environment to the last time that we were together on a boat outside the Burj Al Arab.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  Bro, how good was that day? I was hanging. I was hanging. But it was such a good day, man. It's just a vitamin D, man. It's good for everything. It, it, it, it solves all problems.

• 1:04Chris Williamson?

  That's one hell of a wake-up call. You get up at finally sort of surface, half past 10 in the morning, and you've got a couple of WhatsApps saying you have 45 minutes to get ready. I need to see you down at the marina because we're getting on a boat for the next five hours.

• 1:18Speaker 00

  Bro, I got the same if I didn't, I didn't know. I was like, yeah, we're going here, we're meeting with who? With the boys, with the guys you know, and those guys are crazy, man. Those guys can drink for days and I, I'm just, I'm just such a lightweight that like, which I'm proud of, by the way. Everyone's like, oh, you're lightweight. I'm like, I'm proud of it. I'm like, oh, you're lightweight. I'm like, yeah, bro. So what have you achieved by saying that? I don't care. But it was, it was a great time. It was a great time. Those lads are funny people.

• 1:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, they are, man. It's when you get that group of people together, it's a, it's a recipe for chaos. So today I wanted to talk about motivation. So we're approaching a new year. People are going to be making resolutions, wanting to change their routines. This is a lot of what you do with your work. My people might even be looking to change their lives, you know, create the foundations upon which their new life is going to be built. What are the principles that you give your clients when they want to make big changes in their lives?

• 2:10Speaker 00

  So I think one thing is, um, a lot of people come to me for fitness and nutrition, right? Cause in essence, I'm a personal trainer. But what I've realised is the programme that I do and the way I train people and do things with my clients. I've actually realised it affects their uh, normal life as well as their health. Because in essence, when you look after your health, uh, other things around your life actually become a lot better. And I think one of the key things about trying to keep my clients motivated is trying to get them to do something that they really enjoy, which I think is one of the biggest issues. People feel like you need to be consistently struggling to be, to achieve, whether it's a fitness goal,

• 2:52Speaker 00

  whether it's whatever you wanna do in life, you know, and I, and I try to make what they see a big problem, a small one, because I feel like when we look at problems as a small issue and look at solving them, the stress about being motivated or whatever you're trying to solve kind of goes away. Does that, does that make sense? Do you get what I'm trying to say there?

• 3:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, man. So talk me through, someone comes to you and they say, hey, coach, I'm wanting to do X, I really want to get a black belt in jiu jitsu, I really want to lose fifty pounds or twenty pounds or get in shape for whatever it might be, but I don't really feel that motivated to do it. Should they just drop it?

• 3:34Speaker 00

  No, of course not. They should, I think they should, they need to ask themselves like why they're doing it, you know? Why they're doing it, what they wanna achieve from it, and what they need to understand is to achieve, to achieve whatever they want to achieve, there are certain steps that you need to go through. So if it's fitness, for example, you're coming to me for fitness, I'm gonna teach you the basic fundamentals. I'm gonna simplify it in such a way to you that you're not gonna see it as a problem. Because I think at the moment with coaches, with personal training, I feel like the delivery of the coach chatting to someone is really important. So if I'm chatting to you, I need to be talking to you in a language that you're going to understand.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  You know, I need to make sure whatever I'm saying to you or how I'm delivering it to you, you need to be paying attention, you know? It's um, it's one of those things where, because I do like group coaching at the minute, um. Each individual is very different, but if you look at it as a group, we all have very similar problems. It's just you kind of have to word things differently, talking to different individuals.

• 4:45Chris Williamson?

  What are the most common problems that you see coming up?

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Bro, at the minute, mental health, man. Like, at the minute, it's like a lot of mental health. And obviously with the pandemic, not being able to travel as freely as we want to, I see a lot of people worrying about tomorrow, worrying about what's going to happen, instead of worrying about today. And I think one thing that we all need to do is what I do is, I'm not worrying about tomorrow. I worried about this podcast today. What's the point of me worrying about it for a week, you know? Not that I was worrying about it, but like, what am I gonna overplan? What am I gonna, why should I worry about what I'm gonna talk about? I'm gonna talk about whatever feels good. I'm gonna deal with

• 5:28Speaker 00

  it however I'm feeling today. And I'm gonna take the challenge or whatever it is in a way that I feel. Because to be honest, I love doing podcasts, man. I love these conversations. I feel like it's one of the best ways I learn. You're probably the same. You're probably similar, right?

• 5:45Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely, man. One of the things I learned from a guy called Andrew Tate, who is a son of a chess grandmaster, he's a kickboxing world champion, he lives in a, basically a fortress in Romania, and he's a millionaire. He's like just a very, very eccentric fella. And um, he has this concept where he says, he has faith that future Andrew will, will save more money. So he'll go out and he'll buy a Bugatti, because he knows that future Andrew will earn the money to pay for it. And this kind of unrelenting faith in the future version of you, is something that I, I've tried to cultivate a lot this year. And when you can fully lean into it and actually believe it, not just say it, but you know, genuinely

• 6:26Chris Williamson?

  in the source code, it's written into your being. When you realize, or when you hopefully take that in, it makes a very big difference. But I think if you don't have sufficient situations during which you have proven to yourself that you can actually perform. Form that you can make a promise and then deliver it to you. Understandably, you have low confidence. And if you have low confidence, you're going to be concerned about tomorrow. Because, well, yesterday I was concerned about today and today I didn't do what I said I was going to do yesterday. So tomorrow, what if I say that, don't do the thing that I say I'm going to do today? And this is how we get into that cycle, right?

• 7:03Speaker 00

  But you know what it is? It's that thing you're talking about is the people that can't do that are too worried about being safe, right? The safety element. So for example, I was buying business class tickets with James Smith when I couldn't afford it. You know, thinking, don't worry about it, just buy this. Your money's gonna be, you're gonna have barely anything in your bank account, but future Darren is gonna make that. Don't worry. Just get on that flight, get in that environment, get with those people, don't worry about tomorrow, worry about today, and then we'll deal with tomorrow then and we'll tackle that then. And it's people need to take their mind, depending on what they want to achieve, like if you're happy with where you are, of course, like do what you need to do.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  But if you're not, and if you want to achieve certain things, I feel like you need to take some risks. And the only time you perform is when you have no other fucking option, you know? If, if you have one chance, if you said you're gonna deliver something, right? And you have the only opportunity for you, for you to have a good outcome of this is delivering whatever you're delivering well, you're gonna turn up, especially if you need the money. Especially if you don't want to disappoint people and especially if you, if you don't want to fail. I mean, the fear of failing kind of like it, you shouldn't be scared of failing, but it also gets you doing what you're supposed to do as well, right?

• 8:30Chris Williamson?

  Perfect example of that, I think James would admit when he started writing his first book. Like, he's not an author. I'm aware that he's a two times Sunday Times bestseller now. But when he began writing his first book, he wasn't an author and he wasn't getting it ghostwritten, he was doing it himself. And as soon as you sign on the dotted line with Harper Collins, it's like, okay, they expect a book and holy shit, this needs to be done in the next nine months. I need to, I need to put some words to paper and you will find a way to do it. I would say, in my experience, most people

• 9:06Chris Williamson?

  Underestimate their capacities moving forward. Fewer people are overconfident than underconfident in my experience.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Bro, I think a lot of people, um, mate, your environment and who you're around is so important, but it's so important. And the people that tend to say not make the leap with whatever it is that they want to do is kind of around people that says, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe don't risk it. No, no, no, no, play it safe, play it safe. Or they say it because they don't want you to be better than them, essentially, you know? I like to be around people that want the best for me, want me to win, you know? And I like to keep people around me that are like that. And I'm only around those sort of people because I feel like that's the only

• 9:51Speaker 00

  way to kind of push each other and in a, in a, with the right pressure, as well as with the right people around you when if you need something, you can ask and you know they're there to um, either give you advice, either push you more or tell you that, hey, Darren, that content was shit, bro. What are you doing? You know? And I get that. Like, we have a group chat with the boys and we'll message in there. We'll be like, yo, bro, hey, I'm not gonna lie to you, man. That was probably the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, you know? And then next thing you know, you've got four of your mates grilling you so hard about it, a bit of tough love, the next day, bang, 50,000 views on a video or whatever it is, you know? And I feel like it's just so important to have the right people around

• 10:36Speaker 00

  you, which I think most people don't have, if I'm being honest.

• 10:39Chris Williamson?

  Do you think that's a byproduct of British culture?

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Hmm, you know what? It's hard for me to answer that because although I am in British culture, I'm very much like my dad, who's a Kurd in Turkey, and I've always been around very, um, I've always been around Africans, um, Jamaicans, Turks, Kurds. I've been around British culture, but I've also been in the heart of London where it's so mixed that I, I'm not even sure what the answer to that question is, if that makes sense.

• 11:14Chris Williamson?

  No, I know what you mean. I have a theory that I've been working on this, this year that is.

• 11:20Chris Williamson?

  Because geographically, the UK is water locked, right? It gives people a very kind of insulated sense of life. I don't know, I can't speak for what it's like in France or in Germany or in America or anywhere else. But I know for a fact that there are tons and tons and tons of people that I went to state primary, state secondary, state college with, who are going to be born, live and die in the town that they came up in. So Stockton-on-Tees, which is a lovely place and mum and dad are still there and they love it. But is famous only for having the UK's highest teen pregnancy rating. And they recently, they recently lost that as well. So that was one thing they had that's now gone.

• 12:02Chris Williamson?

  And I remember I was like 15 years old or 14 years old in some older buddy's car from college or something. And we were driving around and I remember one of the kids that was sat in the back saying, as we're going over this flyover in, on the A19 in Teeside. I remember him saying then, Teeside's the best place in the world, man. I'm never going to leave. And I thought even then, I'd never been anywhere except for like Disneyland with mum and dad and Lanzarote and stuff. And I remember thinking then, that is unbelievably short sighted. And I worry about what sort of an influence that has for other people who perhaps have goals, who want to grow, who want to do other things.

• 12:41Chris Williamson?

  Don't get me wrong. It makes for a fantastic family life. I think it promotes a classic sort of British dream. Growing up, having a family, you know, doing that sort of thing. But for an entrepreneur, somebody who wants to grow and experience new things, I'm not convinced it's the best environment.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  I don't think it's best for family either, if I'm being honest. That's because, and the only reason I say that is, listen, if you don't travel, if you don't meet different people, if you don't see different cultures, I'm sorry, but you're not going to be, your knowledge isn't going to be great about what the fuck's happening in the world or what other people are like. So then what happens? You have a kid. What the fuck are you going to teach that kid? What are you going to teach that kid? What have you seen? You know, like you live in England, you've got a British passport, you've got the luxury to travel the world. And you're telling me you're not going to take advantage of that. It's crazy. I know people here in Turkey that would kill for a British passport just so they can travel. You know, not just Turkey, loads of countries, right?

• 13:42Speaker 00

  And I feel like people don't realise how lucky, I think.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  We have it in England with the opportunities that we have uh with the travelling that we could do. Obviously not with the pandemic and all that happening, but it's I think it's so important that if you can travel, you should. And it's not just for you, it's for people around you. Your eyes will open differently. And this is like maybe the hippie side of me coming out that's lived in Bali, lived in Australia, lived in Turkey and all that. But my best skill is probably the fact that I can socialise with anyone, anyone. I can hold a conversation with anyone and I know for a fact that's only happened because I've always been in awkward positions in different countries where I don't even speak the language. But somehow I got out of that situation or whatever it is, you know.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  And like you, for example, you said you didn't travel much, but you go into Lanzarote, you go into Disneyland, wherever it is. You saw something different that you wanted to see more of and that's thanks to your family, right? You might not be in Dubai right now doing a podcast, which you love doing. If your family didn't initially take you on a holiday, doesn't matter if they went on a holiday and had a a uh English breakfast in the morning, but do you know what I mean?

• 14:57Chris Williamson?

  I know.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  I think it's I think it's really important that you take advantage of travelling and it's fun, man. It's it's so much fun. You like you like it, right? I mean, you're in Dubai.

• 15:07Chris Williamson?

  No, I'm not. This is me back home. I'm back home now, but um yeah.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Oh, you're back home?

• 15:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, last year was

• 15:12Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 15:13Chris Williamson?

  Last year was twelve countries. This year, even with the pandemic, did Athens for my birthday, Ibiza when you were there. And then um Dubai, Dubai when you were there as well. You know, this is something that I thought that was really funny. I was like, yeah, I'm trailblazing, you know. Even during the pandemic, I'm being anti fragile. I'm finding myself places that I can go to. I'm like, I'm so unique, like this is and then in each one of those places, you were there. And then Mike Thurston was there as well. And I was like, oh, maybe, maybe I'm a little bit less unique than I thought.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  But you know what? Yeah, it's, um, isn't it amazing? Like when you like, you get on a plane, there's something about, there's something about airports that really are just buzz. I'll buzz it. I'm in the airport. I'm excited. I can't wait to open up my laptop, write an email, do a bit of work, maybe have a beer, like I'll buzz off it, get on a flight. And then you get off, whether it's a hot country or not, you're somewhere different. It sparks so many different ideas that you can do for content, business, meeting new people, whatever it is, so many new opportunities. And initially doing that, I think it's, because I, at 16, I went away and

• 16:27Speaker 00

  I played football in Turkey. So I think from a young age, I was very used to kind of travelling on my own. So maybe I got rid of that fear early on. And I think some people might be worried because, oh shit, I'm 30 years old. I'm too late to travel. I'm too late to do this. When you're not, man, it's never too late.

• 16:46Chris Williamson?

  That's bullshit. Dave Driscoll is 42 and that man's still getting naked every morning and then going and running Wanderlust's CrossFit.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  Bro, he's in ridiculous shape for his, he's in ridiculous shape, mate. Such a good looking guy as well, man. So much charisma, mate.

• 17:01Chris Williamson?

  He's a good human. Here's one thing that I

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, he's a good guy.

• 17:05Chris Williamson?

  That I realised after Dubai, I put it in my email that went out today. Um, you know, Ollie Olsson, right? You're part of our little cabal of, of, of guys that Luke knows. And he taught me about breakpoint, which is in the SAS, they'll land somewhere and they'll either fight or sneak their way to an objective. Let's say that they're going to breach a room. And before they breach the room, they'll stack up outside of the door. So you can imagine like proper Tom Clancy Rainbow Six shit. And they're stacked up outside of the door and they take a moment while they're there and they just breathe, reset, recalibrate. They take themselves through the plan that's going to come up. And then they breach the room. And it's this interlude between two periods of chaos, right? So you've got two periods of intense action and you have this one period.

• 17:50Chris Williamson?

  That just gives you a chance where you can move between the two. And I was in Dubai for three and a half weeks, which is the longest I've been anywhere in quite a while. Last year I did a road trip across America, which was a similar amount of time. But I was still working while I was out in Dubai, I was still recording the show, still doing all of this stuff. And I came back and honestly, last week was the best that my mindset's been in the UK in pretty much as long as I can remember. And obviously I was curious as to why that was the case. I'm thinking like, what have I done? Was it that I got some sunshine? Was it just like defeating a little bit of seasonal affective disorder because it's so dark and cold and grey here? And what I came to is I think it was like a personal breakpoint that I went away. And it was just an opportunity to see something different.

• 18:34Chris Williamson?

  It was an interlude between two periods that were very similar and very chaotic. So everyone this year has spent Groundhog Day over and over again, looking at the same four walls. Rightmove had its busiest ever day in history for properties just toward the end of the first lockdown. Because people are sick of the houses that they're in. They've realised that I hate not having a garden. I hate the partner that I'm living with, so I'm going to split up with them, whatever it might be. Tons of houses got listed, tons of people wanted to move. So yeah, what I took away from it was that being away, still working, still doing what I do. But in a new environment, new stimulus, seeing yourself, seeing all my buddies out there, going and seeing MK play live, going and, you know,

• 19:16Chris Williamson?

  all of these different experiences had given me an opportunity to come back with a fresh set of eyes and new clarity. And if that's not a good advertisement for travel, I'm not really sure what is.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Bro, I mean, think about it like this, I spoke to you, we spoke a bit on the boat, right? That day.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  And when I spoke to you, I was like, I'm rating what you're doing with your podcast, mate. Every day you've got an episode, you've got something happening, I rate, I rate how organised you are. And I was like, I need to do more fucking episodes, you know? Like, it sounds crazy, but this is how I think. Maybe me being in Dubai or whatever, me just chatting to you for like five, 10 minutes, is gonna push me to do another 20 or 30 episodes in the next six months. That 20, 30 episodes can help so many people. That 20, 30 episodes can help my growth or whatever it is, you know? And I think that's. That's why I love travelling so much, man. And there's something about being somewhere

• 20:13Speaker 00

  different and talking to someone, right? It's like every sort of, whether it's ego that you had back at home, whether it's the comfort that you have, whether it's the fact that you know you can swing your dick around and talk freely because you know your friends around the corner. When you're away, you're nicer. People are nicer when they're away. You know, when you're not in your hometown, you know to be nice because you've got no other option.

• 20:41Chris Williamson?

  That guy might have eight massive mates.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. So it's like, it's just such a nice environment to see people and connect with people, you know. But I love Dubai was great, man. And it's good to see that you did that travelling as well. And it's good to see that's helping you out, brother. I love it. I love it.

• 20:58Chris Williamson?

  It really is. One of the things that I hate that really, really irks me, and I think this is part of that British culture thing, is when I'll hear someone make a pejorative statement about America, Americans or Australians or Turkish people or French or whatever it is. And I know for a fact that they've never been to that country. It's like, what, what are you talking about? How can you say that? You've lived in Westerhope, just north of Newcastle for the last 27 years. And now you think that you an authority on all of these different countries?

• 21:34Speaker 00

  Bro, it's mad, you know, because like, you get, I know, I know, like, people, because I've, I've had like few DMs, I've had a few trolls like troll me, right? And like, I just know when it's racist. I know I can feel it, man. I can feel it. Like, they'll say something about the way I talk or something, and I feel it, man, and I see it. And I don't doubt myself one bit. And I'm like, you prick. But you're there, you say something like that to me. But then you go to the kebab shop and then you order food from there. You know, like, how does that even like, what, what goes in your racist minds? And then you go and order a kebab from a Turkish man, you know, it's funny. And it's, I guess, it's mad, isn't it? Like, the whole Brexit thing, I don't know. Like, people don't even know

• 22:18Speaker 00

  what they're voting for. People don't know what they're doing. People don't know what's even. Good for them. I swear to God. People, some people don't even know what's good for them. So they're kind of doing what everyone else is doing, or what they're provoked to say, or what they're provoked to decide, you know? It's a bit scary, actually, how media and everything can manipulate so many people. It's, it's fucking scary.

• 22:41Chris Williamson?

  Terrifying, man. It's absolutely terrifying, especially when you think, so going back to what we were talking about there, about motivation and people losing motivation with certain things. You have to consider that a lot of people don't do things they want to do. They do things that they think they want to do. And the things that they think that they want to do, very often, are values that they've adopted from their parents, from their friends, from their culture, from their local town, whatever it might be. But these aren't consciously designed decisions. These are things that they've, like a fucking dirty sponge, just absorbed and then made the lowest common denominator of that. But how many guys do you know that do purely bodybuilding style programming?

• 23:25Chris Williamson?

  Because that's all that their mates do. But if they were to take up endurance racing, or BJJ, or CrossFit, or functional fitness, or yoga, or Pilates, or whatever it might be, they would be so much happier. They'd be so much more compliant with training. They'd be fitter, they'd be healthier, all of this stuff. But they'll continue to grind away because all that they know is bodybuilding.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, um, it's mad. And I think one of the, one of the problems is, I'll tell you what it is, is when people, if people don't know, if you don't know what you're supposed to do, yeah, if you're listening to this, if you don't know what you're, what you're supposed to do, if you don't know what you want to do, that's fine. Right? That's okay to not know, right? Cause I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm kind of kicking with the wind. I'm loving what I'm doing. But I don't know what I'm gonna do in five years. I don't know what I'm gonna do in 10 years. I might fucking hate doing podcasts and social media and PTing. I might do something, I might be selling cars. I don't know. You know, and people worry so much about, uh,

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Feeling either not a part of something or feeling like not doing anything is a waste of time because they're judged. If you don't, for example, if you don't have a job or whatever it is, or if you don't have a job where you wake up at four AM and you don't work fourteen hours, it's like, oh, you don't know what hard work is like. I'm like, shut the fuck up, bro. I mean, just because you work hard doesn't mean you're like, you're actually working efficiently. You're actually doing something that's making a big difference, you know? So for people that are worrying about not knowing what to do, I mean, that's okay. Like, that's okay. Don't force something you don't like or what someone else has told you to do because you don't know.

• 25:10Chris Williamson?

  There's a paradigm that James Clear uses called explore exploit. And his argument is that earlier on in your life, or in periods where you're finding yourself a little bit lost, you should explore. You should do lots of different things. Travel's a perfect example of that. Go and join a new sports club. Go and join, try out a new hobby. Go to a public speaking event. Go to like just mad stuff. Just say yes to adventures. Because coming out of those adventures, you will probably learn so much so quickly about what it is that you do and don't like, that you're then able to exploit, i.e. narrow down into the channels of stuff that you do like, so much more quickly. But again, people have these fears, I don't want to do something new. What if I suck? What if I'm silly? What if

• 25:55Chris Williamson?

  nobody likes me? So they don't. They just stick to doing that same habitual stuff.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  That's my, the biggest issue is, uh, people worrying about what other people think. That's, that is what stops everyone.

• 26:08Chris Williamson?

  How do you get past that?

• 26:12Speaker 00

  How did I get past it? How did I get past it? I got past it. To be honest, I kind of got past it looking at how my dad is. My dad says what he, my dad says what he thinks. And I know it gets him into a lot of trouble, but it also gets him to a lot of good places. And I was like, I need to stop being, because I played football, right, for a very long time. And I think one of the reasons I wasn't successful is I was a bit nervous on the pitch. And I think it's, I cared too much. I cared if I make a mistake. The coach's not gonna play me again. I cared that if I pass the ball wrong or whatever, that player's not gonna pass the ball again to me. I cared too much.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  And I was like, instead of worrying about what people are gonna think about whatever I'm doing, I just need to worry about doing the job that I'm supposed to do and doing what I enjoy and actually concentrating on just myself, instead of basing any decision that I make on anyone. Any decision that I make now is based on what I want to do. Like, I will sit somewhere, my mum and dad sometimes, they've took, sometimes they would drag me to family meets. I'm like, mum, I'm going, I've ordered an Uber. They're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm not happy here. I, I wanna go. This is wasting my time. I've said hello to everyone. I've spoke to people, um, I've showed my respect.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  I've catched up with everyone. I'm going. I'm wasting my time. I'd rather be on my laptop at the minute and do something productive. You know, so I'm basing every decision on what is best for me and that is kind of helps me pass through that. If that makes sense.

• 27:48Chris Williamson?

  You said in a podcast recently that people like you more now that you're being selfish.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:53Chris Williamson?

  I'm guessing that's the, I'm guessing that's the same thing.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, people like me more. People, people can, like, I even know, people don't ask me for stuff because people don't ask me for stuff. They know I'm not gonna say yes to you. They're like, I, I know, like, my cousin will be like, should we ask it now? Probably not. He ain't gonna come. He knows. We know he ain't gonna come. You know, because he's got his thing he needs to do. They know because when I'm there or when I'm doing something, they know because I truly want to do it. You know, like, again, I'm gonna give Smith as an example. He knows, uh, me, I'm flying to Australia. I'm gonna do two weeks quarantine in a room.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  In essence, I'm going for his tour, right? But he knows that I'm going for me as well because it's gonna make me happy. You know, so there's no feeling of where he's gonna feel guilty because, oh shit, I've made Darren uh stay in a room or he knows Darren's coming because it's gonna make him happy. You know, and it's the same vice versa with him or with anyone, you know? And that's why people just need to prioritize and not be afraid to be selfish. Being selfish isn't bad, man. Being selfish is, being selfish is, is good because it's good. Because in the long run, not even in the long run, like it doesn't have to be that long. You make other people around you way happier because you're happier.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Because you're doing what you like, what you want to do, you know?

• 29:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that confidence, I think, is born out of someone who has a very, very strong why. If you've got a strong enough why, I know what I want to do. Then everything else is gonna move out of the way because it has to. But so much of our time, and this is something that I've only learned in the last couple of years. It's very, very rare that we actually sit back and assess how are we doing our lives? How are we spending our lives? What are our values? It took me until I was thirty one years old to define my core values in life. Sat down, spent two days doing Taylor Pearson's core values exercise, which everyone who's listening will be familiar with. And if you're not, search Taylor Pearson core values. It'll take you probably half a day, but it took me two days.

• 29:58Chris Williamson?

  Um, and I've sat down and did that and I was like, hang on, I've lived my life for thirty one years.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:03Chris Williamson?

  Without knowing what the basis values that I live on uh are. And then as soon as that happened, as soon as I realized what they are, curiosity, adventure, selfless development, excellence and self care. I'm like, okay, everything that I do in my life serves these five things. One of these five things are multiple within it. It made everything else easier, but because I was so caught up with the important tasks, sorry, with the urgent tasks. I never got to the important ones. Answering emails, spending too much time on my phone, just being busy responding to people, whatever it might be, just dicking about wasting time on stuff that doesn't properly move the needle. As soon as I did, the difference downstream from that is night and day.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Mate, it's like, small example is.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  This, I've got three, I've got four fucking, three, four, five, five notifications already, right? Like on my phone. I'm not gonna fucking reply to them till tomorrow, you know, because I've got shit to do. And I feel like so many people feel the pressure of, oh shit, I need to reply right now. I need to reply right now. And they lose valuable time, you know, which is, is so important to really focus on yourself and what you're trying to do instead of, again, worrying about other people's problems. Because a lot of the time, people are just bitching instead of getting things done, you know?

• 31:30Chris Williamson?

  Think as well, if you've, if you've got such a weak why, if your goal, your end goal that you want to achieve is so poorly defined and doesn't have any affinity to who you truly are, you're going to answer the text.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:44Chris Williamson?

  Because why wouldn't you? You've got nothing better to do. Whereas if you spend that time, I'm going to explore before I exploit, I'm going to try new things, I'm going to work out something that I love, and then I'm going to really, really get into it. I'm going to find out who I am. And then I'm going to commit myself to being the best version of that person that I can be. If you do that, you're not even going to notice the messages. You're not even, you're not even going to realise that the notifications have come. People are going to ask you to come to the shit that's important, but not the other stuff, because they know that you're on your path. And as well, as a final thing, you, I think that you're right, that some people are nervous about not compromising what they do to keep other people happy. But think yourself, who is it that you're

• 32:27Chris Williamson?

  most gravitated towards? Who is it that has that real social gravitas, that renown? It's people who are on a journey who have a mission. That's who compels you. Why do people listen to James? It's because he is a guy who has his very, very, very clearly defined values, bright lines in the sand about what he will and won't accept. And he's iterated on that a thousand times in different posts and videos and live streams. So people resonate with a person who is on a journey, more than they resonate with someone who compromises their values at the first moment to make them happy.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. It's funny, when we're, when we do a lot of travelling and stuff like, we become, um, We we're like very careful with kind of not not careful like with who we hang around, but anyone that kind of hangs with us, they end up becoming friends and very quickly you see like the influence on what now they they get influenced so much, they start fucking wanting to do this and I love it. It's so good to see someone like kind of evolve like that, you know, it's such a powerful thing. And you're right, we are you're grabbed and you can feel it in a room when someone walks in, you can feel the energy, bang, they're like, oh, I don't know what he's doing. I don't I don't know what it is, but it it feels right, you know.

• 33:43Chris Williamson?

  Bro, so here's a perfect example of that. I'm in Dubai and I'm going out for dinner with George, the buddy that I was out there with. He used to work for Social Chain, big social media company, he was owned, used to be owned by the CEO Stephen Bartlett. So Stephen's Diary of a CEO, quite sort of big time now, and has just become on the board of Huell. So we're going in for dinner in this private dining room in Salevee on the fifty fourth floor of this huge tower overlooking the Burj, right in downtown Dubai, crazy expensive restaurant, beautiful. We walk in and we sat down in this room and it's an oval table, right? So everyone's facing inward. But I noticed I sat down and after about sort of twenty minutes or so, everyone, everybody's sat in there and Steve's

• 34:28Chris Williamson?

  there and his manager and his video guy and his social media manager and his assistant and me and my mate and a couple of other people. And I noticed that even though it's an oval table, everybody had subtly shifted their chairs slightly toward him. So he was at the head of the table. Even though it was circular, he was at the head of the table and he was the guy that was commanding the room. Even though it wasn't a work meeting, he wasn't there with like to control or even do business, but everybody had subtly moved themselves. And I was like, that's such an interesting symbolic representation of where the gravity is coming from, where the power lies within this room.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  He's leader, you know, and you can feel and you can feel that with some people. It's just an with some people, it's a natural thing, man. You know, it's a natural thing. And I think it's. I feel like it's something that you have, like you said, when you know your why, right? Or you naturally have it. Some people naturally have it. And some people have it because of what they do and knowing what they're doing.

• 35:29Chris Williamson?

  I get, I get really, really jealous of people who've stumbled upon their why, just with no work. Like it happened, you know, you think about any, any sportsman who's done their sports since they were a kid. Like you happened, England, a couple of nights ago, won the Autumn Nations Cup. Like all of the guys that are playing that game were probably went down and played kids rugby at 10 years old or something. And then 15 years later are winning the Autumn Nations Cup on the biggest stage in the world for England. Like that's not necessarily their choice to find, they just stumbled upon it and then they went all in. For other people, and I think that's probably really interesting, an important point for people to remember that

• 36:15Chris Williamson?

  those people that you see, yes, they are living their why. Yes, they're bearing a very difficult and hardworking and emphatic how. But that's not the same as you. Just because they didn't have to work at finding their why, they found it when they were 10 years old somehow. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't compare yourself to them. There are international level athlete that's played this sport since they were a child. They probably can't remember life without playing this sport. Or a musician, you know, that's come about and was naturally talented and sang or a dancer or anybody that's done something from when they were young. Perhaps you have to work, perhaps the price that you have to pay to find your why.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:53Chris Williamson?

  Is putting the work in.

• 36:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think, I think that happens quite a lot because I think parenting comes into play there. You know, I think it's really important. I, I know when I'm a parent one day, hopefully one day, I will know where my kid's playing, that is, is gonna be, is gonna have, is gonna have my genes. So there's gonna be something in there that I know I'm gonna, I'm gonna recognize from whether it's the way he or she moves or what they say, it's, it's, it's coming from my gene pool, right? So I will know if I see him do something and they hate it, I'm not gonna force them to do it, you know? I feel like smart parenting will put and.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Advocate their kids when they see something that they love or they love doing. And then they kind of push them towards that instead of getting them to do things. Where um that they dislike, like all those rugby players. Their dad or whatever must have been a rugby fan, wherever it is, not maybe not all of them, but majority probably, right? I saw football because my dad loved football. I saw football because my dad loved football, you know, and um. With them, um they didn't kind of have to work with their wife, but as soon as they found it and they loved it. They just carried on, carried on and it's probably it's to those athletes, it's not work to them, you know? They hustle hard, they know their why.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  And which is why they are where they are, you know, and like you said, it doesn't matter how old you are, wherever it is. If you need to work for it, you need to work for it, you need to find it and anyone can fucking find it. It's just. If you say you can't, it's just it's kind of excuses really, like you can't, it's just excuses.

• 38:34Chris Williamson?

  Spending enough time as well, exposing yourself to new cultures, as we said earlier on, is such a great way to do it. Spending yourself, spending your time exposing yourself to new uh experiences. The number of people who complain about not having a purpose or about being a little bit lost in life. Without doing anything new.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  How would you know?

• 38:56Chris Williamson?

  But it's like your judge, jury and executioner on a guilty verdict. It's like, hang on a second, like I I'm causing this problem and then complaining about the problem on the back end.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:08Chris Williamson?

  The only way that you're going to do this is if you do the explore time.

• 39:12Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. You need to, you need to explore, you need to explore different countries, you need to explore, you need to explore talking to different people. Like there's people with the same fucking friend circle since they were five years old. I'm like. Well, step outside a little bit, meet someone new in it, stop like get out of that little clique. I mean, if nothing's happening, it's probably you're. You're probably not in the right group. If you're the smartest in the room, you're in the wrong room, you know, just get out there, you know, and I think. Yeah, it's just one of those things. I think people, again, the fear of changing, the fear of maybe upsetting people, the fear of. What other people think of you? Yeah.

• 39:47Chris Williamson?

  You said something to me that stuck in Dubai. You said that calling off an engagement that you had.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:54Chris Williamson?

  Was one of the best things that you ever did in your life. Can you, can you explain why and take us through that story?

• 40:01Speaker 00

  Oh, basically, um, I was with the, I was with this, I was with this, I was with the same girl since I was seventeen to like twenty five, right? And she was a good person, like a good person, not, had nothing to do with her. She was a great person. It was good timing for her. For me, it wasn't. I was too young. I, I kind of knew my why. I knew my why. I was always, I'm, I was always, I've, I've always been driven. I've always wanted, I wanted to accomplish big things. Um, I've never really seen myself or been lazy, whether, either if I'm living in a different country or whatever it is, I always like try to tackle a problem and

• 40:39Speaker 00

  uh, still achieve whatever it is I want to achieve. But there came a point where someone else's happiness was really affecting mine. And I felt like I was like a part of a show where I wasn't getting no bonuses, where I wasn't getting paid. I was like, I feel like I'm a part of the show. I feel like I'm the main guy of the show, but I'm not getting paid. I'm not happy.

• 41:07Chris Williamson?

  What's that mean? Oh, you're not happy?

• 41:10Speaker 00

  I'm not happy. Yeah, like I'm not getting paid. I'm not happy. That, that, that, that's what I mean by that. And I wasn't happy. I was like, hold on, she's happy.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Their family's happy. These people are happy. What the fuck am I doing here? Why am I here?

• 41:26Chris Williamson?

  What did, what did not happy feel like? What did it mean? Were you?

• 41:30Speaker 00

  Bro, it was, it was weird. I, I've never, I, I don't think I've ever been depressed. I, I kind of don't even know what depressed is.

• 41:38Chris Williamson?

  You're annoyingly positive, Darren. You're annoyingly positive. That's what you are.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  I, I know, but it's like, I know, but I'm not even like, I'm not even trying.

• 41:47Chris Williamson?

  I know you're not. That's what makes it annoying.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know, I know. Cause you know what? There's nothing more annoying than that fucking positive guy. But look at the positives.

• 41:55Chris Williamson?

  You, that's you.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, but honestly, I'm not like, at least you know it's not fake, you know? At least you know it's not fake, right? And I was trying to look at the positives and I was like. Hold on, so this is the moment where I thought about the future, right? When all, when all this was happening, I was like, okay, so what? I'm gonna get married. I don't know why the fuck I proposed in the first place. I just thought it's pressure from other people, pressure from her, you know? Hey, anyone that's listened to this, any guys? If your partner is telling you, bro, looking at rings and giving you subtle fucking, tell them to be quiet. And if, if the time is right, if you wanna do it, you will do it anyway, you know? And it's those sort of pressures that got to, got me to a point where I was doing,

• 42:40Speaker 00

  taking action on other people's happiness and other people's decisions, right? And I was so unhappy at that point and I was like, all right, let me do some calculations here. I'm in Australia. Cause uh, the girl was Australian, uh, that's why I had such a connection to Australia. Uh, that's why I've got residency in Australia. I was in Australia, I was like, okay, I'm living on the suburbs of Sydney, not even in the city of Sydney. I've moved from the heart of London, I'm such a London city boy. And you've took me to the suburbs where

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Jimmy Billy Bob is calling, yeah, Darren, Darren mate. And I'm like, no, it's not Darren, it's Darren, man, it's fucking Darren. My name is fucking Darren, bro. Like, get it right, get it right, fam. You know, I'm somewhere like, somewhere called the Hills, uh, the Hills area, which is like, I was in like Balcom Hills in Sydney and I was like, okay, so I'm gonna get married.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  I'm probably gonna be forced to have kids, right? I want the kids, but there's, I want kids when the time is right. I'm gonna buy a house, I'm gonna get a mortgage, I had like a deposit. I had a deposit at that point, I was twenty five, man, I had a deposit in that, I had a deposit with her in my bank account. You know what I mean? But wait, spending that after was the best time of my life, I'll get to that in a minute.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  So I like sat there and I was, I was, I was doing these calculations and I was like.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  I don't know when I'm gonna see my family. My family live in um in London and I'm twenty four hours away and I'm really close with my family. I'm really close with my family. And I know I've got the power to be able to do things in my life where I can look after my whole family. Which is one of my priorities. I want my sister to live good. I want my mum and my dad to live good. You know, I want. I want them to experience things that I've experienced, you know. And for me to do that, I need an element of freedom. I need to be able to. Take off. I need to be able to do whatever is I wanna do without basing no decision or worrying about, oh, if I say this or if I do this.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  It's gonna upset this person. Well, I can't move like that. You know, if you wanna, if you wanna achieve something, then there is that bit of a barrier, right? So I was like, no, fuck this. I can't do this. Ended up calling off a wedding um. How did that conversation go down? Bro, it was mad. It was mad. It was, I was crying. I was upset. I couldn't even, I couldn't even say the words because. I was talking to someone that was my best friend at the time and I was talking to someone trying to tell them that. The problem is not you, literally isn't you. It's just that I need to do certain things in my life to be happy in the long run.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Because I don't wanna be that forty year old that's hiring prostitutes and then coming home and kissing my wife, bro. I didn't wanna be that guy. You know, and the truth is, I would have been that guy and I would have been that guy, you know, and I didn't wanna be that. So when that conversation went down, it was kind of a conversation where she knew she kinda said it. And I was like, I just need time to think. I need time to think. I need to go off. And I, I kinda ran away from my problems a bit. That's where I would need up twenty four seven came up. I was doing like thirty four, thirty, forty thousand steps a day not to go home. It was crazy. Running from your engagement. Mate, running from my problems instead of tackling them, you know. And I was younger. I was, I was younger, obviously, so.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  I wasn't as I wasn't as mature as I am now. So I would have had that conversation very differently now, but it doesn't matter. But um. I went to Perth, saw some friends. I didn't have anyone around me that was close to me that could actually understand. The closest person was her and her family.

• 46:20Chris Williamson?

  I want to go back just a little bit. So you're very insulated in this situation. You're in a relationship that you've decided is wrong. You don't necessarily have anyone or many people to support you in that decision. What got you over that inertia of getting to say? The words, because I think that is an element that a lot of people get stuck on. Maybe more guys to girls, they just see them as so fragile, even though they're not, they would be much, they would be absolutely fine dealing with it. They'd be upset, but they would get over it. But I think guys, speaking from personal experience, a lot of the time I I'll obsess over the the breakup conversation because I'm so terrified that it's going to destroy them.

• 47:04Chris Williamson?

  First off, it's like incredibly egotistic to believe that you you leaving their life is going to absolutely destroy them for the rest of their lives. It's like they will get over you. It might take a little while, but they will get over you. And and secondly, I just think it it it kind of. It stops us. It stopped me for a long time from having a conversation that I knew that I needed to have. So I'm fascinated as to you, how you, as someone who didn't have that support structure, found the courage to say it.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  Bro, it was like, honestly, I was like crying. I couldn't breathe. Like, I couldn't breathe, bro. I was like, the words weren't coming out my mouth, you know, it was mad. And like, she was sitting next to me and she was like, it's okay, you can, it's okay, you can tell me. And I was like, and I told her, the worst bit is that.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  That she's a good person and I knew it would fucking hit her hard and I knew. And and I know a lot of people have anxiety and all that shit and I knew what sort of. Outcome it would have for a certain amount of time and I know how much it would affect her more so than me. You know, don't get me wrong. And I'll say this loud and clear, I didn't get a boner for like three weeks, mate, I was so depressed, you know, my head was, my head was gone. My head was gone, you know, I couldn't function, I got to the stage where. I was coming into P T and I couldn't even, I'm like, I've realised at one session, I was like, I'm talking about my fucking problems to my client, I said, I need a week off, I can't be doing this, I said, this is bad service. This is, although my clients loved me and they they kept asking me if you're, I'm okay.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  I just didn't wanna be that guy. So when I had that conversation, going back to that.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  I told her, I said, I don't wanna get married, I don't wanna get married. She said, why? I'm like, because. It doesn't feel right, it just doesn't feel right. I'm like, I'm sorry, but. I I wanna, there's a lot of things that I wanna accomplish in my life and the truth is. I can't act freely with having the pressure of paying a mortgage, worrying about someone being home alone. Worrying about. How um what they might think, what their family might think, you know.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  Worrying about, oh, let's all go on a family holiday, all the family, oh, less kids, let's go to family, I don't wanna fucking do that, I don't wanna do that, man, I don't wanna come and listen to, I don't wanna do that, you know. I'm just telling everyone that's listening, what most of the guys that wanna achieve something. That's what, that's what it is, they don't wanna go, so don't force people. To do what they don't wanna do because it ends up in shambles, you know, and I've said it like that. And obviously, listen, and any couple, any person that's listening to this, no matter how much you think that person loves you, no matter how much you think their decision, everything they do is for you, it's a fucking lie. Everything that most people do and what

• 50:06Speaker 00

  they should do is for their self, right? Me being there and being there for that person is gonna make them happy. So that's why they want me there, right? And you have to calculate that in your head. And yeah, it's maybe a bit egotistic, but the truth is, you have a value, which is why they like you so much. And if you're not getting that back, then it's a shit contract to be in. You know what I mean?

• 50:33Chris Williamson?

  I always think about it, I always think about it like getting on a roller coaster. So before you get into a relationship with someone, you're kind of watching from the outside. You obviously only know a little bit. It's like you're stood in the line. I know you watch a little bit of the roller coaster go by and you're like, holy fucking shit. That looks so exciting. Look at all the turns. Everyone's having a great time. It looks so exciting and new and different. And then if you wait in line for ages and finally get yourself into a relationship to find out that it's like the little ladybird ride that the three year olds get to go on, and it's just a loop that does the same thing all the time, it does exactly what you want. That's not why you waited in line. And if it is what you wanted, if you waited in line to get on that particular roller coaster, looking at it being exciting, in an effort to wrangle it down and turn it into the ladybird

• 51:18Chris Williamson?

  ride, then that's not really a very successful foundation to build a relationship on.

• 51:23Speaker 00

  It's not, man. And the problem is, your happiness, my happiness shouldn't be relied on someone else making me happy, which is the biggest problem, right? And it puts pressure on both parties. It puts pressure on the person that has to kind of keep him happy. That's what happened. You make me so happy. You complete me. That's fucking bullshit, bro. It's bullshit. It annoys me so much when I see this online. I'm like, you're lying. Stop commenting under that picture because you're sitting next to her. Say it to her face, bro. Don't say I love you on the picture. Say it to her face, man. We see it already, you know? And I'm so like. Passionate about this because I see through bullshit, right?

• 52:09Speaker 00

  And I just can't help call it out. And my friends are like doing, no, no, you're just, it's from your experience. I'm like, it's not from my experience, but well, yeah, obviously from my experience I've learned. But I can see it. I can see it. If the part, if you, whoever you're seeing is not happy with what they're doing and their whole happiness is relied on yourself, then um at some point it's gonna crash. I think you need to find a best friend that loves what they're doing. You love what you're doing. You can have fun together. There's no pressure between each other, you know? And you bring it together like that. If one party or the other party relies on you for happiness,

• 52:51Speaker 00

  I just think it ends up, I think it ends up in shambles. And I'm not, I, listen, I'm not a relationship expert. I'm not, but I, I think I'm quite smart with reading into, not reading into people, but seeing things. And after experiencing things, I have a better idea of things, you know? I don't want to come across as this, oh, who the fuck is this relationship guru? I'm not.

• 53:11Chris Williamson?

  Not a relationship coach.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Um, yeah.

• 53:14Chris Williamson?

  Think about what that sentence says, you complete me. The converse of that is I am incomplete without you.

• 53:23Chris Williamson?

  That's not right. That's not the way that it should be. So I, I, I had Daniel Sloss, Netflix comedian who did Jigsaw. He has a tally of how many breakups and divorces he's, his specials caused on his Twitter bio. And um in that he says, people will prefer to choose a partner who is a terrible fit than be alone. He also says that you need to learn to love yourself before you can let somebody else love you. And he also says that the vast majority of people don't choose someone who's right. They choose someone who's there. And when you combine all of those things together, all of which I think are perfectly true.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:00Chris Williamson?

  That with pressures from mum, dad, their side, your side. My mates got married or why don't we move in? We should get engaged. It doesn't surprise me. I think the divorce rate's like sixty five percent at the moment. So more than half of the marriages that begin end in separation. Why?

• 54:21Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't, honestly, again, I'm not being anti whatever. I'm not trying to be negative. The positive guy here is not trying to be negative, but like. When you sign a contract to get married, right? Right? How is that fucking different? What are you treating them differently? How like if you're treating them differently after you sign the contract to say that you're married, then that is wrong, you know? Like it shouldn't make a difference at all. All it does, it gives the other party safety and safety in my eyes is.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  It's not good. I don't think it's healthy. I feel like you don't need to be on your toes, but you need to be.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  Keep the spice in it. You've got to keep the spice somehow. And when people get comfortable, when it's like, yep, the old ball and chain and that's it, you know? We're together forever. But no, you tell someone that you're getting this forever. The work rate is going to drop. You know what I mean? Imagine, Chris, imagine if they said to you, your sponsors said to you, we're going to be paying you forever. Your podcasts, episodes will probably go down. You might naturally get lazy. You might because you're guaranteed for life now, bro. You know? So what's the point of putting more effort in? You know? And it just, it upsets me because I see so many friends. With such potential to like do amazing things. And it's not their partner stopping them.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  It's them stopping them, you know? It's their selves stopping their selves. And again, this isn't me. If you have, listen, if you have the right person there for you, then you can achieve a lot of things. Don't get me wrong. Like I'm not trying to say you can't achieve anything being in a relationship. I'm not saying that at all. All I'm saying is. You shouldn't base decisions and you should be happy on your own first. Cause when I first did what I had to do and I moved out, I got kicked out of my flat. Yeah, I've got kicked out here. It was a madness, like get the fuck out. I was like, bro. I was like, shoot.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  Okay. Uh, when that happened and I found a new place on my own. Families in London, I've got friends in Sydney, but it's family's different, right? First time I moved in, I moved all my stuff in, but I sat down and I cried, but that was the first time I was alone, like I was alone.

• 56:38Chris Williamson?

  First time since seventeen, now twenty five.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was alone, like I was alone. I was sitting down, I was alone. Like I was alone in the room, I had no one to text, you know? I had no one to text. I had no Instagram followers either. So there was no DMs coming through, Chris.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  There was no DMs, there was no DMs coming through. And so I was like, fuck. I was like, this is shit, bro. I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go get my knee up twenty four seven. And, but then, I enjoyed my own company and since then, I love my own space. I love my own space, lad. I love it, I love it. I love my own space. And yeah, so that's that, yeah.

• 57:20Chris Williamson?

  You can imagine, there's a different world, a different universe where Darren doesn't have that conversation. Where Darren's still in a relationship, he's now living in Perth or Sydney or Adelaide, two kids maybe, house mortgaged up to the eyes.

• 57:34Speaker 00

  But it, it makes, it scares me a little bit. It scares me a little bit. It scares me a little bit because I didn't, I didn't do the what most typical people do from seventeen to twenty five. I didn't do it. So I felt like I missed out, you know? I felt like I didn't make the mistakes. I didn't do stupid things. You know, and again, it's not even, like, don't get me wrong, man. It's the, when I talk about freedom, I'm not talking about trying to go, bang everything that I see. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about going, I'm booking a fucking flight today. And I'm off because I don't have to answer to no one. You know, that's what I'm talking about. I don't want people to misunderstand that. I'm not trying to, that, that, if you're doing it for that, then I think it's the wrong reason.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  And if you want to, I guess you can, but like, I'm not saying it for that reason. I want to make that clear.

• 58:22Chris Williamson?

  I have a buddy who was big, big into pick-up artistry for a long time and was doing day game and night game and sleeping with a bunch of girls and stuff. And I remember asking him, I was like, fucking hell, man, like you're really, you're really passionate about pick-up artistry. He's like, yeah, man, like my future wife's gonna be so thankful. I'm like. Okay, I can't wait to see you try and justify this one to me of how your future wife's going to be thankful that you're shagging literally everything. He's like, well, think about it, man. I'm 45 years old and I'm walking down the street, holding my wife's hand. We've got our two kids in a stroller and a Brazilian chick walks past. I don't want to think in the back of my mind, I wonder what it's like to fuck a Brazilian chick. I want to know. And I want to,

• 59:04Chris Williamson?

  I want to tick off all of the different sexual desires that I have, all of the different adventure desires that I have. And I wonder whether now, we've still got quite a classic model for relationships. People look at someone who's 30 or in their 30s and still single and it's still a little bit like, all right, mate, like fucking good timing, but the, you know, the clock's ticking a little bit. If you were to look at wider society overall. But we also have this wanderlust, entrepreneurial, Gary Vee hustle and grind, go and get it, you can make anything of yourself that you want world. So we have, we have this very traditional world for

• 59:46Chris Williamson?

  relationships smashing up against this very new wave world for careers. Those, those two things don't combine. And I wonder how much that's contributing to this current dissatisfaction and divorce rate that we're seeing in, in relationships.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Bro, I'm not gonna lie. When I told my story, when I told my story first on my podcast, it, um, I had so many messages saying, Darren, I just broke up with my partner. I was like, oh shit. I was like, oh shit. I was like, why? Because what you said is exactly how I'm feeling. And I was like, well, good for you then. You know what I mean? You've got to do what's best for you. You know? And that's, and that's the truth. You've got to do what's best for you and you've got to be selfish. And even if you have a family, kids, go make sure you're happy before you make the kids happy, you know? I mean, there's a reason when you're on a flight, they give you, you get the oxygen first, right? So I think that's how you should look at it, if I'm being honest.

• 1:00:44Chris Williamson?

  I agree. Uh, have you changed your mind on anything this year?

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  Have I changed my mind on anything?

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  Uh, that's a good question, you know, I like that, bro. That's a sick question. Have I changed my mind on anything? I think I've stopped biting back at trolls as much.

• 1:01:06Chris Williamson?

  Why?

• 1:01:07Speaker 00

  Because it's a waste of fucking time. It's a waste of time, man. And I've realised, like, what's the point of wasting my energy to that when I can use it for more useful things, you know? When it, when, when the time is right, I, I still bite back when I need to for a message.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  But I, I don't bite back as much as I used to. And um, my manager had a conversation with me once after I saw something that really frustrated me and I wanted to fight back and I wanted to like, I wanted to go hard on this troll, but he was like, no, what's the point? And he, he kind of dropped me a few words and I was like, you know what? You're right. What's the point of me even wasting my energy to this when I can use it for good, you know? So I think that's one thing I've changed my mind on this year. I'm a lot more chilled with um trolls that come at me, which isn't that, that many actually, but when they come, they come pretty solid.

• 1:01:58Chris Williamson?

  There's a, a point that you get to in terms of exposure where you start to attract a little bit of criticism online and then obviously that goes right up to the, the full deep trolling. And um, there's no training course on that. Like, you know, you just kind of get dropped into it. Yeah, maybe that's part of the price that you have to pay if you want to have a platform and you want to build up a, a brand or whatever. But it's not like, it's not like someone, as soon as you get blue ticked or as soon as you get to a hundred thousand subs on YouTube or whatever it is, it's like someone just arrives with a media pack that helps you to deal with the inevitable increased criticism that you're going to get. And I think um,

• 1:02:44Chris Williamson?

  I, I definitely think that letting it go is a good one, man. So if that's something that you've learned from this year, I think that's a a pretty good lesson to take away and it's going to make your life much easier. So what about next year? Is there anything that you're going to improve on? Anything that you're going to work on yourself personally?

• 1:02:58Speaker 00

  Uh, next year, um, I want to make uh my project X product. I want to, I want to be the best, I want to be the best accountability platform as a coach. Online and I'm going to make it, it's going to happen. Like, there's no other way about it's going to happen. I'm going to make sure people, I want to make sure I can get my message across as many people as possible to help them with. Not only their, not only their health, but their mindset as well. And I think if you have, okay, I, I, I don't like, I don't like the word influence, but like, who gives a fuck? We influence people, right? We've got the power to influence people. I feel like if I don't do that as much as I can, I feel like it's a bit of a waste. So that's my goal. My goal for next year is to get my message

• 1:03:42Speaker 00

  across to as many people as possible, uh, whether it's my podcast, whether it's my, um, program, whether it's, uh, live events, uh, I want to be able to talk and get myself out there as much as possible and travel more.

• 1:03:57Chris Williamson?

  We've got to get COVID, got to get COVID out the way first. Man, I, I really like it. You know, it's a, it's a pleasure watching you and James and, and Paul and the rest of the guys kind of go on this little journey. I think it's a cool, it's a cool little community. We've got, although we're spread across the world, you know, like Sonny and James are over there, me, you and everybody else is stuck in the UK at the moment. But, um,

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I think it's, I think it's nice. And like, again, one of the best things that I think's happened within the last two to three years has been this movement toward, how would you say?

• 1:04:30Chris Williamson?

  Realistic, effective training and diet. You remember like five to 10 years ago where it was bodybuilding.com and it was kind of just, everything was bro science, even the science was bro science. And now, now it's much more about how can we make sure that you're compliant, make sure that you're integrating your training plan, make sure that you're doing it every single day, that you're sticking to your rules and that it permits you to have a life. You're not trying to be a fucking professional athlete. You do not need to be 8% body fat. And here is 2,000 pieces of content from different people across the world telling you that that's the case. And I think, um, I think that movement, like long may it continue, man, you know, as someone who's been in and out of the fitness world for a long time,

• 1:05:11Chris Williamson?

  I think it's a really, really good movement. So, yeah. Anyone wants to find out more about you? Where should they go? What do you want to plug?

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  Oh, um, you'll find me Darren Cartel on Instagram. It's A L with a cartel, not E L. If you need me, www.darrencartel.com. I've got my podcast, The Darren Cartel Show. You can find it everywhere. And yeah, that's it really. YouTube, all over. If you search Darren Cartel anywhere, you'll see me. Um, bro, thank you for having me on, man. It's been a pleasure. I really enjoyed this one. You asked really good questions.

• 1:05:43Chris Williamson?

  Thank you, man. Until next time, we'll, we'll have to plan another trip out to Dubai.

• 1:05:47Speaker 00

  Hundred percent, bro.

• 1:06:05Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Ravenette.

• 1:06:22Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You start, you freeze to death. That's what.

• 1:06:26Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:06:29Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.