Life Beyond Being Shredded | Jamie Alderton | Modern Wisdom Podcast 208

Jamie Alderton is a coach, fitness model and author. Jamie has been to the peak of fitness modelling, multiple magazine front covers, stepping on stage at WBFF Worlds and a physique most men dream to have. Expect to learn what goals you chase once you've completed being lean. Whether dieting to 4% body fat is it worth it, Jamie's favourite mindset strategies, how he's adapted his lifestyle to becoming a dad and much more... Sponsor: Shop Eleiko’s full range at https://www.shop.eleiko.com (enter code MW15 for 15% off everything) Extra Stuff: Follow Jamie on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayalderton Check out Jamie's Website - https://www.jayalderton.com/ 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 #jamiealderton #shredded #fitness - 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.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  Hello friends, welcome back. My guest today is Jamie Alderton, fitness model, coach, author and now family guy. We're talking today about what life is like after you've been shredded. Anyone who grew up in the fitness world throughout 2010 to 2020 will know who Jamie is. Grenade J as he was, Grenade Fitness's poster child, multiple magazine front covers, WBFF World's fitness model, natural competitor, all this stuff. But I wanted to find out what happens when you make the transition from being someone who steps on stage at 4% body fat and has tons and tons of admiring guys probably asking you what your current chest and arm

• 0:43Chris Williamson?

  split is to having a more holistic lifestyle. He box jumped Mount Everest last year for charity and he's now living a balanced lifestyle with wife and child and multiple businesses. And I'm fascinated by finding out how people go through that transition. He's a great guy. I really enjoyed speaking to him.

• 1:06Chris Williamson?

  But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful Jamie Alderton.

• 1:26Chris Williamson?

  Talk to me about what you've been doing. What's your day got in store for you?

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Today, well, at the moment, we're just building our new offices. So we're kind of to and from there. I've got a lot of client work doing because I run two memberships, kind of a B to, I say B to B, so helping Finch Special scale and grow their business and the B to C side, helping people get healthier, happier, fitter and stronger. So you know, spinning those two plates is a full-time job. And obviously, I have no clue about building stuff. You know, I go into the builders and they're talking about, I have no idea. And I just had to say to them, look, I do push-ups for a living. You need to like, you need to get like a whiteboard and draw it out in crayons for me. So they're getting there, but you know, how I've made it this far with stuff like that, I don't know.

• 2:10Chris Williamson?

  There's got to be a point in every man's life where he becomes his dad in terms of capability for DIY. I haven't crossed that threshold yet.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  That will never happen, unfortunately. I still to this day at 35 years of age, but I need a picture put up. My dad will get the phone call. I have attempted, and this office looks really nice, but it's just an office of lies because behind every single frame is holes like and and really deep bits of plaster that's been crisped off the wall. I literally have yet to successfully put up a picture because I only have two tools, Chris. If it doesn't go in with an allen key or hammer, then that's it. The dad gets the phone call.

• 2:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I wish that I could say I wasn't outsourcing everything manly to my dad as well. I don't feel emasculated by that. I think that we are the savant 21st century man.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, my ironing game's on point, but that's what seven years in the army does. So yeah, you're kind of forced to those kind of things. So, so my wife gets me through all the ironing. And to be honest, we share like she, she does the lawn. Now, a lot of guys would think that mowing the lawn is a very masculine thing to do. And like we said, you said with this one thing, I disagree. We, we have, we have like a weird exchange of things, even cooking food. I cook the steaks. Okay. She does the roast potatoes. You know, we all have our roles with certain things and it's just based on the skills that we have. Not, not, nothing to do with gender at all. It's due to who's better at

• 3:51Speaker 01

  that job and do it. And I, for some reason, I've never enjoyed mowing the lawn.

• 3:55Chris Williamson?

  That is a very egalitarian household, right? Equality of access to the, to the ironing board, equality of access to the mower outside.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there you go. I mean, we just find the best person for the job and we both dislike it, outsource.

• 4:11Chris Williamson?

  Exactly. That's it. What, what a wonderful way that you could just scale a family forward now.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we're trying it. We, our daughter's six coming on seven and she's learned, she's, she's getting there with a few things. She actually enjoys cleaning, which has got a big smile on my face.

• 4:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's it. So what you need to do is develop your child into the weakness in both yours and your missus's.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. At the moment, at the moment bribery is working. Trolls World Tour stickers. The only, the only thing is that ATP a pack. Of eight, I think it is. And thing is, is you know, these sticker books, they sound like a good idea at first, but you've got probably about 450 quid's worth of stickers in there. And it's even worse when you get to the end because you're buying all of these packets of stickers and she's already got them. So

• 5:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, the one that you need. Have you, have you pro ratted out what that comes out to at an hourly rate? Cause my business partner who loves a spreadsheet would have done that.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think I'm being ripped off if I'm being honest. I think, I think an hourly wage would be a bit more sufficient because this is, this is bankrupting me Chris, if I'm being honest.

• 5:20Chris Williamson?

  It's the exponential increase in cost, isn't it? Because she's not happy.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  It is. Yeah. It is. What a way to start a podcast though, eh?

• 5:30Chris Williamson?

  I mean, what else are we here for? And so I wanted to talk today about the development of your fitness journey. There's a concept that you might not be familiar with, at least by name, but probably by type, who everyone listening will be. And it's called the fitness menopause. And I wanted to hear from someone who has been to peak condition WBFF Worlds. Am I right in saying?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. 2014 was, was the Worlds in Las Vegas. Yeah.

• 5:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So, you know, top, top end physique competitor. And I wanted to hear about sort of your fitness menopause journey and just get us a riff on, on some fitness industry stuff. So the fitness menopause, I'll, I'll give you a big overview. I noticed amongst myself and my friends that as I got towards my late twenties into my thirties, I became chronically aware of my own mortality. I realized that training purely for aesthetics was losing its appeal, that I was feeling quite unfulfilled. I wanted to have a more robust physique. I also wanted to be able to kind of bulletproof myself physiologically from the onset of aches and pains and stuff that was happening. So I started to pivot my training. I pivoted away from bodybuilding,

• 6:41Chris Williamson?

  fitness style training and into, I started doing Thai boxing and boxing and CrossFit and other bits and pieces. And I found really fulfilled. I actually found that my progress and my training volume went up because I was enjoying what I was doing. And I was no longer focused on these socialized, externalized metrics of success. It was more the internalized, performance-based metrics of success. This I've seen happen across a whole ton of friends that start doing yoga, friends that start doing pilates or free running or calisthenics or whatever it might be. And it just seems to be a very common

• 7:19Chris Williamson?

  change that men specifically seem to go through. I think girls actually, as far as I can see, seem to be a little bit more integrated with their fitness. They, if they were a dancer when they were a kid, they're still dancing when they're in their early twenties and they're still teaching dance when they're in their thirties and forties or whatever. But guys definitely seem to have a menopause that they go through. And then after that, there's this sort of whole new world that they step into. So I wondered sort of what your experience has been, how you sort of your fitness journey started and then where it's taken you now.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  So I think my fitness journey started when I was 13. So I used to go to the gym. I used to be a really hyperactive kid and they used to open up the gym in the lunch hour. And one of the P, one of the PE teachers used to go in there. So every lunchtime I was in the gym training. I'd only actually, it's weird, I'd only train legs. I wouldn't train upper body, really weird for a 13 year old, I know. But I had this party trip, I'd get all my mates on the leg press machine and could do 20 reps. So it's kind of like, that's, that's some, some epic school.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  I was gonna say street cred, it's more like school cred there. And that, it's always been a fundamental part of my life, gym and training. Now, when I joined the army, I joined the army at 17. Of course you needed to be fit for duty. So I really got into the gym from the age of 13, but really got it into it in the army. But you had to be able to lift and shift in the army. So it's always, it's no good having big muscles unless you could, you know, carry someone for 200 meters pretty quick with it. So I'd always had that mentality of, you know, being strong and fit and not just kind of.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Show off muscles, so to speak, and it's kind of weird because of course when I left the army, I started competing where, you know, you're not focused on performance, you're focused on aesthetics. And for me, it was always this case where I was a big lump in the army, a big fit lump, there was always training. But I'd look at these magazines and these guys, like, how on earth does somebody look like that? I train harder than that person. And I didn't actually really realise that it was diet. My idea of bulk in the army was going to Burger King with the Land Rover, you know, three times a week. And that obviously wasn't working. So when I left the army, I, you know, I kind of lost a bit of my identity because I'd been a soldier from a teenager and suddenly going, yeah, at the time I was working in IT for a year and I needed to find something about me, you know, oh, that's

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Jamie, he's a soldier, it was always. And instead of this Jamie's working in the IT department, it kind of felt a little bit, you know, a little bit different. And that's when I started getting into competing because it was like a imaginary sergeant on my shoulder saying, you've got to get up early, you've got to eat this and you've got to do that. And I loved it because it just gave me structure and routine like my military life. And my first competition that I did was the BMBF, which was the British Natural Bodybuilding Competition. I came second in the novice, qualified for the British. I didn't place the British, but the week before I won the overall novice Muscle Mania Natural Championship.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  And from then on, it was all about competing and seeing how I could push my body. And, you know, it was never about competing with others, it was always about competing with myself. So I think my journey there was trying to make something of myself, you know, coming out of the army and becoming a soldier. And my identity was very much attached with the way that I look, because of course I was in all these magazines and everything else like that. But that comes with another issue as well, because when your identity is attached... To the way that you look and let's just say you're in an off season or you know you've put a couple of you know twenty pounds twenty five pounds on you you're not yourself because you have created this figment in your head of what you think others view you as even though

• 11:01Speaker 01

  that might not be true. So that comes with its own issues when suddenly you get an email about about a photo shoot and you're suddenly like ten pounds you know off shoot shape should we say and and you go to extremes to get back there to get back to the person who you think you are. So my fitness journey from kind of soldier to competitor was very much about that trying to find what I'm you know what I'm known for beyond being a soldier. And you know as I carried on pushing that two thousand and thirteen was when my daughter Eliza was born and that year was one of the kind of the happiest pinnacle moments in the change of my fitness because although I was still competing for two more years after that, that two thousand and thirteen I gained

• 11:45Speaker 01

  fifty pounds. So I kind of went from a hundred and ninety to like a hundred and thirty six pounds or something like that. It was a great year because I stopped focusing on myself, kind of a very selfish competitor and started focusing on my family, my wife and my clients. And what happened during that year is I was felt really fulfilled, although I wasn't in you know fitness model shape so to speak, I doubled my business because all of my focus was on getting my clients fit and healthy and I had a great home life because I was focusing on you know my newborn daughter. And it was kind of a this thing of Jamie, you know, you don't, your success isn't based on what you look like, it's based on how you make others feel. And that was kind of a oh

• 12:26Speaker 01

  fuck, yeah, you're right here. But I was two hundred and thirty six pounds and I did want to get back on stage again. So I had two thousand and fourteen, I stepped on the world stage which we which we spoke about and got myself back in shape, had a more flexible approach because I'm very much before that hand very extreme. And I couldn't do that with a daughter, you know, my daughter, and I didn't want to have those real bad energy drops. And although, as you do in the last few weeks, I kind of balanced things out a lot. And I'd say ever since two thousand and fourteen, I've been in pretty good shape because it's my habits and routines that keep me there, not the extremes in which I need to go. And I think, you know,

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Fast forward now from say 2015 to today, you know, I maintain a good physique. I've got strong, healthy habits, but I'm a lot more relaxed about things. Yes, I've still got this kind of compete with myself mentality and I channel that in other things that I do fitness wise. But you know, if you're to ask me, would I get shredded and you know, be on shredded again and step on stage, the answer would be no. A, you know, I love gin at the weekends and B, I'm not willing to put my family through the sacrifices that it takes for that to get essentially a plastic trophy and a pat on the back.

• 13:45Chris Williamson?

  What were some of the sacrifices that you had to make to get to the sort of condition where you were walking on stage, which is hyper, hyper peeled?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:54Chris Williamson?

  What did it feel, what does it feel like?

• 13:57Speaker 01

  I would say, like,

• 14:02Speaker 01

  the way, the way I can explain it is that

• 14:05Speaker 01

  natural competitors, one thing that they're good at is suffering. The better that somebody looks natural, you know, I come from a BMF background, these guys are peeled, but they sometimes can't even get out of bed. And in order to get that kind of condition, you need to suffer and it comes at a massive sacrifice. Your kind of mental health gets affected a little bit because you're constantly looking in the mirror. I'd say like now, I'll probably have a glance in the mirror while I'm brushing my teeth in the morning. The next time I glance in the mirror is when I go to bed and brush my teeth. And there, you are literally every car you walk past, everything you walk past, you're always, you know, because your motivation is based on how you look and you're being judged on your,

• 14:47Speaker 01

  and how you look. So you are constantly checking yourself out to make sure that you look okay. Because if you don't, then it's like, well, hang on a minute, what am I doing all this for? So there's a huge mind game there. And when you get very, very lean, you crave a lot of weird foods. You crave a lot of foods because although you can factor certain ones in, you've only got a certain amount of calories. So there's a lot of things that you can't. And that plays on your mind because when you can't have something, you want it. And you start to crave, you have these mad cravings, you start, you know, stop looking at TV programs, you just watch food programs, you write food lists of things that you're going to eat when you finish. You know, all of these kinds of things. And I used to be what's called a cake sniffer. So I used to actually go buy, buy cakes for other people.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  And I'd be happy just as long as I could sniff them. So it's, it's these kinds of things that affect you. And a couple of weeks before, Um, you know, our daughter, I was carrying my daughter around town and we went from one shop to the other and I was exhausted. I said, I'm knackered. Yeah, an hour later, I was ripping deadlifts off the floor. So there's, there's lots of things that are involved with that. And you think, well, what, what is all of this for? And if I'm being honest, you know, to the untrained eye, you could look shredded, like photo shoot shape. And you could look the epitome of health and actually be the epitome of health. If you've got a good amount of muscle tissue. And for me, my shoot shape is around, let's just say about a hundred and ninety six pounds.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  That was when I was on the front cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine. Yet my stage weight is a hundred and eighty. So if you were to look at me, you know, front cover, I look shredded. But if you were to say, if I was to say, no, actually I need to lose another sixteen pounds, you would like, where, where from? And I'm like, I, I will tell you where for like, this is about another fourteen weeks of being in a calorie deficit and, and training in order to achieve that. So when you understand that, you're like, well. Why, like, if you look absolutely great at that, why would you ever go anywhere below? And the only time you would would be for, you know, for a competition.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Um, and, you know, I've found other ways of scratching that itch now, you know, since two thousand and sixteen. So. That's a lot more selfless. You know, I do every, every two years I do a big charity event. Um, that pushes me mentally and physically. So I always do like stupid things, shall we say? Uh, but it raises a lot of money for charity and uh, raises a lot of money for one of my local children's charities. So. It has a lot of, it has a lot of selfish itches that get scratched, but it has even more selfless because actually other people benefit from it, which. You know, other people suffer when I, you know, when I used to compete, there was no benefit to it whatsoever, apart from my own selfish gains.

• 17:37Chris Williamson?

  Privatized gains and socialized losses, as Naval Ravikant would call it. How much of an influence was your daughter being born on this red pill moment, the menopause onset?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  A lot. I mean, up until that time, I was, I would say I was a very extremely driven, selfish, arrogant person that cared nothing but his own achievements.

• 18:01Chris Williamson?

  Despite having a missus?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, how she still with me, I don't know.

• 18:08Chris Williamson?

  She's a saint.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  I really like, I always say, you know, whenever I do a post, I'm like, because I've been with my wife since 13. Okay. Since the age of 13. And so she's grown up with me. And I think, you know, there's one person that knows the real me, it's my wife. And a lot of people have actually asked this, had, you know, and I is just shifting gears a little bit. But a lot of people said to my wife, how have you stayed together so long? And she said, well, I've married six different men. It's very fascinating how she said that because she goes, well, you know, I got with a boy. I, you know, then grew up with a person who was joining the army and then leaving the army. And then I married a competitor, then I married a business owner and then, and it was this whole transition into that thing. And I've changed as a person throughout that journey.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  And, you know, if you want to know a key to a relationship, it can be evolving and growing together and not staying the same. It can be a very strong thing because, you know, if you'd say, oh, you know, you've been together 22 years. It doesn't feel like it because we've gone through different evolutions of that. So, um, yeah, it's always been a fascinating thing to, to understand that. But going back to what we said, you know, being extremely selfish, I think a lot of that was I had to prove to myself that I was worthy of things. Because I think a lot of people, they stay in this kind of rut of. Teetering between selfishness and selflessness because they're not willing to give their

• 19:36Speaker 01

  complete selfish, you know, complete selfishness to achieve something that's going to make them more selfless, if that makes sense. Um, because in order to help people at a lower level, you need to play it at a high level. And sometimes in order to play and win at a high level, you need to make a lot of sacrifice, um, whatever it is that you're focused on achieving. And, um, I think it was a very, there's a very interesting podcast with Tim Ferriss and Walter O'Brien. I don't know if you know Walter O'Brien is he's, um, basically at the age of six, he hacked, he was basically, he hacked into a computer in Ireland and, um, FBI knocked on his door and

• 20:14Speaker 01

  he was actually downloading, um, NASA, uh, space programs on his, uh, dot matrix printer. Uh, I think he's, uh, he's got an IQ of 197 and fascinating podcast. He was talking about how far we're away from head transplants and what would be required to do that. But he said a quote about in order to, and it stuck with me because it's quite polarizing. And what he said is, it was about Mother Teresa. He said, uh, Mother Teresa hugged a thousand people in their time and they still died. Bill Gates wrote a check which wiped out malaria. And he said, he thinks it's important that you should spend a part of your life being completely selfish. So you could

• 20:57Speaker 01

  spend the rest of it being completely selfless. And it's a very fascinating quote that he said, because it's like, right. So if the answer to be more helpful to people is to be extremely selfish, what is it that you're going to do on this planet for yourself in order to do that? And that, that's one thing that I've noticed with a lot of people when you talk about they've evolved in their fitness. I feel like I've got to a stage where I'm happy that I've achieved enough to be confident, no matter what I do in fitness, I will feel like it's enough, if that makes sense.

• 21:30Chris Williamson?

  There's a quote that completely slots into what you're saying. It is easier to fulfill your material desires than to renounce them.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And, um, you know, I don't feel I've got any more to prove with my fitness journey other than to keep on top of it, to stay on this planet as long as possible. And every couple of years, just, just let people know that I'm not dead yet.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And it's like, you know, the worst thing that anybody could say to me in the next 10, 20, 30 years is you're past it because I will not only come back, I will look you in the face and go, I told you so. And I've been driven by spite for a lot of things. And the main reason being is that I've, back, back when we're talking about when I was 236 pounds, we were at the first European WBFF show in the UK. And I was hammered. I was at the bar pissed, I'd had about 10 pints of Guinness. I was telling all the competitors, I'll be back on the world stage next year, kicking all of your asses. And they laughed their tits off. Yeah, yeah, all right, Jay, whatever. Like, as in you're past it. And I remember, I even remember that now. And I had three of them text me two weeks before the world and goes, fair play. And it was just, didn't need to say it,

• 22:44Speaker 01

  but it's like, yeah. And, and other things with regards to my, you know, my charity events, box jumping Everest, no one had ever boxed jump Everest. I don't think anyone was stupid enough. And in order to do it, I needed to box jump 14,550 box jumps in less than 24 hours. And, you know, if anybody's done 10 box jumps, they'll know how difficult that was. So I had a lot of people, even after I'd done it, saying, I did not think you could do that. And I, and the only reason, well, apart from the most important one, raising the money for charity and, you know, me feeling compelled to do it, because there's no way that I couldn't because I wouldn't let down those children. But that spite of going, just because you said that's not possible,

• 23:28Speaker 01

  somebody can't do it, doesn't mean that I can't. And I think that comes down to complete self belief that if you commit to understanding what it takes to do something, then you're able to achieve it because most things are based on fundamentals. And anything endurance wise, is based on the said principle, which is essentially a specific adaptation to impose demands. You impose enough progressive load on and stress on the body, over time, it will adapt, it will improve, and it will increase. You've just got to know where to push those buttons, how long you need, and essentially have that talent, which a lot of competitors have, and that's the ability to suffer. And that's one thing that I would say, if you, if

• 24:12Speaker 01

  we had, if we were playing Top Trumps, and we had one of those little things, that's what, that's one of my high powers. It's just the ability to suffer for a long period of time.

• 24:21Chris Williamson?

  It's interesting to see what happens when you break down a big accomplishment into small steps. Like you could, if you were given enough time, you could walk to Mars. You know, like if you're given a couple of eons, you could walk to Mars. It's just one step in front of the other. Can you take a step? Yes. Right. Okay. That's all that walking to Mars is. It's just a whole bunch of steps. The same as your box jumping Everest. 14,000 and a bit box jumps, 22 and a half hours it took you?

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was right. Yeah.

• 24:48Chris Williamson?

  Tell us about that. Tell us how that felt.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  So I've done a few. This was my third big 24 hour event that I've done. And so I had a bit to compare it to, but I would say out of the three, it was, it was the hardest one that I'd done because the other two, I could slow the pace down. So if I was feeling a bit tired, I could just reduce the pace down. So, you know, I pushed a sled for 24 hours. And for that, you know, you adapt to it, but also you, for the first four or five hours, you can pick up a higher pace. So when you're exhausted, you can pick up those lost laps from the beginning. But this, you needed to hit 660 per hour, or you weren't going to get the record. So there, there was no, oh, I just need to slow down this hour. You

• 25:33Speaker 01

  had to hit a threshold and that threshold was between 13 and 15 box jumps every minute.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  So that's a lot of pressure because I had a couple of hours there, hour nine and hour 10. My quad went into a spasm, my calf had gone and I just, and it was the most excruciating hour where in your head, you're like, you've got 12 more hours of this. And it's the narrative that you put in your head. And as you were saying with breaking things down, I didn't look at it as, oh, I've got 10 hours left. I'm like, you've got 36 more rounds before you can take a 10 minute rest. Cause our effective strategy, which we realized was that we need to give ourselves adequate rest. So instead of trying to do 660 box jumps in an hour,

• 26:25Speaker 01

  We need to do 660 box jumps in 50 minutes. So we need to go a faster pace, just so we can get that 10 minutes to feed, go to the toilet, rest, recover and sort out any niggles or injuries that we've got. So that hour, it was just, yeah, you've got, just got to, you've just got to smash through these 36 rounds and then you can sit down, you can get a massage and then you can get ready for the next evolution. And that's something that I loved hearing about. I love that talk, I think it's General McCravy or McCravy talking about never ring the bell. And he says, basically with Navy SEALs, you go through hell week and you basically don't sleep

• 27:07Speaker 01

  for five, you get about two hours sleep in five days, which a lot of people don't think, well, no, you don't just get to, and like you do, people don't think that it's possible for a body to stay up that, well, there's plenty of SEALs that will show you that that is true. And he says, the ones that make it is, you know, if you, if you want to quit at any time in those five days, you just ring a bell. And he says, the people that passed that, there, there was never a bell in their head. There wasn't a bell there. It was just can continue to go on. And I think if I'm kind of breaking that down, my, my second charity event, I actually put a bell at the start line and I painted a picture saying there is no bell. So that was a great reminder from my last one to say, look, you know, I passed that bell every single lap and I was never going to ring it. But I've always had that in my head is just like,

• 27:52Speaker 01

  right, it's not, you've got to continue on, you've just got to do the next hour. And it comes down to this one chapter a day analogy that I do with a lot of things, you know, small thing, we all know that small things done consistently turn into big results, but people just aren't patient enough to hit the small things consistently. And what I say to people is that if you're committed to reading one chapter of a book a day, the average self-development book, 11 to 12 chapters means you're going to get between 30 and 34 books read in a year. But if you just go in with a mentality of, here's the 34 books that need to change my life, I'm just going to try and get through them throughout the year, you probably only get five or 10 done. And it just comes down to that strategy, as you said, Chris, people aren't willing to be patient enough for results and persistent enough to

• 28:35Speaker 01

  hit a small, minimum effective dose every day.

• 28:39Chris Williamson?

  Ethan Suppley, the actor from Butterfly Effect and Wolf of Wall Street and the huge, huge guy from Remember the Titans, who's now 236 pounds, he's lost 300 pounds and is 10% body fat. It'd be amazing to get on your show, actually. I can do an intro if you're interested. He's a phenomenal dude, amazing guy, big into his training, big into his health and fitness. And he had a martial arts instructor for a movie that he was doing. And this sensei guy, he was wearing this t-shirt and this t-shirt said, "Kill your clone" on it. And I was like, "What's that?" And he's like, "Oh, it's my sensei's little saying that he's got that every day you wake up and you have to have a fight with you from yesterday, it's a clone of you.

• 29:21Chris Williamson?

  And if you haven't made that marginal gain, if you haven't slept slightly better, become slightly more mindful, become slightly fitter, become slightly smarter, whatever it might be, if you go to bed worse than when you woke up, your clone kills you." He's like, "That's not the way it works." It's like you kill your clone every day. And, you know, everyone that's been on this show, James Smith, good example, someone who, from a business and notoriety standpoint, has done some fairly astronomical celestial things. But he says himself, "What I do isn't that impressive. It's just my consistency at doing it over time effectively." James Clear's been on this show, author of Atomic Habits, my favorite book from the last couple of years. And he says the same thing. It's just like, "Just show up. Just do the

• 30:04Chris Williamson?

  thing. The minimum effective dose. Go to the gym and do a press up and then go home. Go to the gym and do two press ups and then go home." And the same with what you've done. The progressive overload is king in all areas of life. And that's like the best thing, I think, the best unifying principle that I learned from bodybuilding and fitness training is the concept of progressive overload, like really, really understanding what that means. That just that tonnage each week, can I do that with reading? Can I do that with the precision in my speech? Can I do that with the relationships that I have with everybody else? Because that is, that is what development means in a very, a very sort of pure sense. The capacity to do more than you

• 30:46Chris Williamson?

  were previously able to do. I had a guest on who had a other interesting view on it. He said, "Self-development is the ability to hold more complexity than yesterday," which is a part of that, but also a little bit of a nuance, which I love. But yeah, man, progressive overload, king in everything.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, a lot of things that I used to do, it's just because, you know, it's very easy to be consistent with things that you enjoy doing because you become more motivated. And I think one of the biggest things that happened with it, you know, a lot of people would say to me, oh, you know, how did you deal with lockdown? And I'm like, well, I think you go through different phases. But also, you know, I kind of started in a really euphoric mood and it kind of went down a bit. And then it went back up.

• 31:32Chris Williamson?

  Why were you euphoric at the start?

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Because being a soldier, an ex-soldier, when lockdown happened, I kind of switched gears into, there's going to be a lot of people that need my help. This shit's easy for me, you know, doing six-month tour of Baghdad. We were, you know, sleeping in a tiny little porter cabin with six other lads for six months, with mortars dropping left, right and centre of us every single day. I'm like, this is nothing. I'm sitting in my house with Netflix, with a high-speed broadband. I live 15 minutes from the beach and I'm allowed to go for a sea dip in the morning. I'm fucking good, but I know a lot of people who need my help now.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  And that's why I was in a like, oh, this is the only time where I feel that the world has slowed down and I can kind of get ahead a little bit. And I did, but one of the mistakes I think I made is that I did, and I'm only kind of coming out now is the fact that I was getting back into those habits of doing too much. Not having a day off, ultra-productive and kind of being very selfless to the wrong people and not selfish to the right people. And I learned a lot from 2016 and doing that. So I saw the commonalities between that and kind of was like, whoa, hang on a minute there, Jay.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  There's lots of opportunities here, but don't forget why you're doing all this for. And it's for a better life for your family, not just for you. So it kind of like backed off a little bit. I was drinking quite heavily as well. I'm a big, I mean, ex-squad is always a drinker. There's always an excuse to get drunk, but. I've kind of probably a month before, probably no more than that, but six, seven weeks ago, I was just like, no, stop this, Jay. Focus on your fitness, focus on your health and you're so much better at what it is that you do when you're sober. Well, yeah, when you're not having a few drinks and it's very easy. Like we talk about habits, you know, having a few beers at night makes you feel awesome. It does because you don't really wake up with that much of a hangover.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Um, I get quite creative after a glass of wine as well. I very much like when the missus is out having a bottle of Malbec to myself and a good book. Cause then I fill out three, I fill out like three or four pages of notepad. And sometimes that can be a bad justification for doing something that, you know, you, you end up having a bottle and then you adapt to that. And then it's not a bottle on a Friday night. It's a bottle three times a week. And then it's like, but yeah, but a bottle every night. And if you can clang on, yeah, if you can clamber onto a justification for it that's productive. Then you can keep that habit and you allow yourself and something that I learned a lot about my own habits is just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  And I remember reading an article about high, um, so you hear, hear the word functioning alcoholic. People who can still just about do their job and function as, as one. And I remember reading this book about high performance, um, function, high performance functioning alcoholics. And these are athletes, you know, these are Ironman athletes and people who are literally alcoholics, but also they're just gifted in what they do and it doesn't affect them. And, and it made me ponder, it's like, well, I'm not an Ironman. I'm not an ultra marathon runner and this. But I get where their tendencies come from because there, there's no negative feedback loop in what it is that they're doing. And sometimes you need to actually just say to yourself, fucking stop.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Uh, and that's the hardest thing to do when there's nothing, there's no cue to say. That this is detrimental. And I found that with a lot of things, especially with my fat loss, because I've been training from the age of 13. It doesn't take me long to get back in shape. You know, I say, say to people, six weeks of tracking macros and that, and I'd be on the front cover of Muscle and Fitness, because that's what I did for six weeks before, before actually being on there. But that's what happens when you've been weight training for 22 years. You develop a decent amount of muscle tissue and habits during that time. So it's a lot easier to do. You know, you just stop drinking on the weekends and increase your output. And, you know, stop eating Macky D's three times a week. And

• 35:55Speaker 01

  there you go. So I always have to kind of check myself before I wreck myself with these things. And that's one thing that I found, that level of self-awareness is key, not just to myself, but to everyone. Because no one's like, I've said for the last five years, write shit down. But people still don't. And it's some, it's a practice which I think every single person should do to get that stuff out of your head, onto a piece of paper makes such a difference. And this is why you're just looking here, I've got three whiteboards, and I can just see three notepads with different things on my desk for different, for different reasons. So I've got a pondering notepad,

• 36:36Speaker 01

  I've got a notes notepad, and I've got an education one, which I make notes on for stuff that I want to progress in my business.

• 36:45Chris Williamson?

  A lot that you've covered there is stuff that everyone listening will be familiar with. I'm a huge advocate of sobriety as a productivity tool. I'm a club promoter by trade. So I've watched millions of people go into nightclubs, but found a few years ago that if I went sober, I had more time, money and calories to spend on things that I care about. So again, if the people listening haven't got bored of me saying it already, sobriety is a wonderful productivity tool. You're looking at someone who has a lot of different plates to continue spinning and Jamie appears to have. Have you gone full sobriety now? Just absolutely?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 37:16Chris Williamson?

  Weekend only? What's the rule that you went for?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  I've toyed with the idea, because I think I said to myself, what would be the hardest thing for you to do? And I was like, don't drink for a year. And I've, I've said to myself, look,

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Having a drink is a fundamental part of my life and and people could argue that it's not. But I genuinely enjoy it when it's, you know, if you're a per- I've always been a fan of reduce or remove. And I can genuinely, and I have done for for a long time, to have routines and rituals in my head. That gets results and saying to myself, not drinking on a school night, which is Monday to Fri- well, Monday to Thursday. And no more than like a bottle of wine with the misses, or if you're gonna go out, one gin and tonic or two. And having these kind of, if I'm getting in shape for three months, you're not allowed to get drunk. You're allowed to get tipsy but not drunk, and that's maximum two drinks.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  And that mean, that gives me the the benefit of it, but none of the disadvantages. So if you're able to do that, then yes. And if you're not, and you know, I I've had these these moments. Then you need to go to extremes to do it. There's an interesting um interview I saw of Richard Branson. And he was talking about alcohol. And he said, when he's had a, when he's been, you know, drunk a bit too much and he's been a bit hungover, he instantly ha- has no alcohol for 12 weeks. Because it makes him realise someone in his position just doesn't make sense to be unproductive for a day. Because that, that to him at his level affects so many more people.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  You know, it affects others' lives because his decision, his decisions, you know, he's putting up bloody rockets to Mars for Christ's sake. Uh, so, you know, when you start thinking about others for that, it gives you motivation to to kind of stop. And yeah, it's always been a, an interesting one for me, um, alcohol, because, you know, a lot of it comes from a military background. I do have a, you know, me and the misses do enjoy a bottle of wine on the weekend and, you know, I'm a big fan of gin. But it's, yeah, I think it's so important to notice your bad habits too. Um, and I would say like, if I was to say, right, what are your, you know, worst habits, Jamie, I'd say, right.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Definitely alcohol is one of them, most certainly. Um, impatience with others probably another one. Um, and.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  I think what Stoicism has taught me is the ability to control what you can control and let go of things that you can't. So that's always a thing which is a narrative in my head, what I do, you know, when I'm starting to feel frustrated because someone hasn't done something or got back to me, which has affected my own thing. I'm like, well, is it that important, Jamie? And the answer is usually no. So it's the, I think it's, it's pulling these different mental models in your life to be able to perform and understand, you know, your own life and your own progress.

• 40:23Chris Williamson?

  I think that would be an interesting challenge for you to do. I think six months of sobriety would be an interesting, eye-opening experience for you to go through.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  I mean, I've done six and eight months before because of competing. Because, yes, as soon as I compete, that's it. I do not have alcohol. You know, it's, it's, it's literally a switch and it's done. And I am that kind of person that will just go, right, done. But if it's not for an outcome-based reason, this is what I need to touch, kind of really do some work on and challenge myself.

• 41:00Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Because yes, okay, there are sacrifices in. But to be honest, what you're saying to, you know, in certain situations, what you're saying is that you can't enjoy the environment that you're in without it. And it's like, well, you can do, you've just got to change your mindset around what it is that you're trying to get as an outcome from it.

• 41:16Chris Williamson?

  Listening, everyone. Are you listening to the same words I've been saying for the last three years coming out of Jamie Olden's mouth? Yeah, absolutely. Alcohol is a social performance enhancing drug. And without the, without a concentrated period where you're forced to do the things that you usually do with alcohol, without alcohol, you'll never develop that confidence to go up and speak to that girl, the ability to be, to feel like you are as interesting, extroverted, capable of dealing with a boring situation. Like, you don't realise that your friends, big group of your friends, you're only friends with them because you get pissed together. Like, it's one of these things. And I think... That kind of removing that veil, it'd be interesting to see where your internal work goes with that, man.

• 42:00Chris Williamson?

  I will be, I'll be really, really interested to see sort of what, what that journey goes through. And I think as well, not having the goal, like when you were going through full monk mode and you're like, right, no cake, sniffing cake and no alcohol and this, that and the other. It's a very different pathway to, I'm going to do this for the reason that I want to see what life is like without it and et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, that'll be, that'll be an interesting one. But so the, um, the alcohol thing was, was an interesting part that you brought up there. And then just breaking stuff down, man, you know, breaking things down into small manageable chunks.

• 42:38Chris Williamson?

  I wonder, as your sort of fitness journey and business journey and stuff like that now continues to mature. What do you think's next? Have you got your next big charity event thing organized? You got any ideas what that might be?

• 42:54Speaker 01

  So this, this year has been a rest, rest year from that. And then next year I'm focused on something.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  And I've kind of set the bar with the box jump. I was looking at a few things. There was, I'll say one because it's not going to happen.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  I watched a documentary on Captain Webb, who was one of the first person to breaststroke the, um, the, the English Channel back in nine.

• 43:22Chris Williamson?

  Am I right in saying the reason that he did breaststroke was because?

• 43:27Speaker 01

  He was ungentlemanly.

• 43:28Chris Williamson?

  It was unbecoming of a gentleman to put your head below the water. And it was like Chavy to do the front crawl.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and if, you know, and it was like, right, hang on a minute. So I've ticked some boxes here. Uh, I don't front crawl. I don't, I'm, I'm a breast stroker. So that, that's good. I'm a strong breast stroker. I go for a dip in the sea every single morning without fail. And, you know, it kind of falls in line with the things that I, you know, just following a, a legend and it's got a story and a narrative. But it was just that my, my good friend Ross Edgley, swimming's his thing. And, you know, I'm very much like, I need my own thing. And although it's totally different, obviously he swam all the way around the UK. But he, you know, it's not, it's, that's his thing. And it's, and it's always find it strange

• 44:18Speaker 01

  because there's a couple of people training to do my box jump Everest now. And I, I, I just find it amazing. Go for it and wish you the best of luck. But it just, you know, it's just not something that I'd want to do. Like I'd be inspired by someone, but do your own thing. So that thing, I mean, I'm toying with the idea of getting a rickshaw and setting a, do you know what I mean? A rickshaw, you know, the old Chinese transportation.

• 44:47Chris Williamson?

  Well, it's a, it's a wheelie one. Like it's a, it's a bicycle with a cart on the back.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I want to do a 48 hour endurance event with that. I just got to try to think of a good beginning and end for it. And it has to be challenging enough to do.

• 45:03Chris Williamson?

  Are there people in it? No people in the rickshaw?

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, people in the rickshaw. Yeah. So I, that's the, that's the thing that's toying in my head at the moment. I, I don't know the distance, you know, I'm probably about 70 miles from London. So it might be a good thing to do, especially finishing London. But I don't know. That's the thing that's in my head at the moment. There were the two things that that might just be totally something different, but I'll have determined that around the Christmas time where, you know, the December time is my ponder time and ponder and plan for the next year. So there'll be something that comes into my head. Then it has to be some, it has to be something that someone says that can't be done. And I think, you know, if I was to say I'm going to put a rickshaw to London, I think most people would think I could do it, which means I shouldn't do it.

• 45:48Chris Williamson?

  Got to push it a little bit further. I've got to come up with something a little bit more ludicrous.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. I mean, I've got over 18 months to kind of figure it out. So whatever, whatever it will be, it will be.

• 46:00Chris Williamson?

  That's cool, man. Looping back to the journey through fitness and this kind of, I'm really interested in this dynamic between the externalized, socialized measures of success and the internalized fulfilling measures of success. What would you say to some of the people that are listening, perhaps who are still very heavily attaching their self sense of identity and their sense of self-worth to their condition? Are there any sort of lightbulb moments that happened for you or anything that you, any sort of lessons that you'd pass on to those people?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, no one cares. No one cares at all.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Imagine if you will that you can't swim and I've chucked you in the deep end and all you're doing is flapping your arms trying to get breath. Now imagine 7.5 billion people doing that metaphorically every single day. Your wants and needs are your wants and needs. Everybody else has got so much shit in their life that even if you were a passing thought, you'll be you'll be quickly forgotten with the amount of problems that that person has to solve each day. So if you're hindering yourself based on the things that other people who aren't even considering you are thinking, then you're doing yourself a disservice because

• 47:19Speaker 01

  no one cares. And that has enabled me to completely change my view of doing things because I do it for me, not anybody else. And the reason that I do these things is to explore myself, not what other people's opinions are of me because they don't matter because they don't care because it's a passing thought.

• 47:42Chris Williamson?

  We would care far less about what other people think about us if we realised how infrequently they do.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And I very much love a lot of the Stoic philosophies with things. And the view from above is always a great one where you kind of you you you lie down and you kind of look up 100 feet in the air. And then you look at what you can see and then you go 1000 feet in the air and then you go 2000 miles above and then you go to the next galaxy and you realise you're fuck all. You're a speck of dust which is gone in a second. So if you are, you know, having those doubts and thoughts and fears which are hindering you, it adds to that. It doesn't care because you're gone and you're

• 48:33Speaker 01

  gone in a bleep. So just make the most of it.

• 48:36Chris Williamson?

  So what should people spend their time on if they're not spending their time on on the things that other people that they think other people are bothered about? What should they spend their time doing?

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Things that give you happiness and fulfillment. Fulfillment has come from progress, becoming a better version of yourself, making mistakes and fuck ups and failures, being able to do things which you you couldn't fathom that you could do before and you can do now. Doing difficult things and also doing things regardless of how you feel because the outcome is more important. Focusing on those things have made me very content and happy.

• 49:17Chris Williamson?

  Because doing, doing things for other people as well, as you mentioned before.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  And I think that's the thing. I love the quote, give and forget, receive and remember. I think with, with business and marketing, everyone understands a reciprocity. You, you, you scratch my back and one, you know, you'll scratch yours. But I think the people who make a difference is that they're basically back scratchers. They don't want their backs scratched. They just want to give out good things to the world and it's rare to find those people. But when you do, make sure that you're mates with them because they don't want, you know, something I say to a lot of my friends, you know, that I do a lot of things for people and they're like, what do you want? I'm like, look, I'm good. If I want something, yeah, I will ask you directly for it, but I'm good. I can figure it out. You know, I prefer to figure it out for myself and if I need a little nudge, just point me in the right direction.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Cause it, you know, it feels good to do, you know, when you've got skills and talents that help other people, you get such a selfish benefit from it that they don't know about.

• 50:17Chris Williamson?

  It's the oddly circular thing of doing things for other people that it's very much for yourself. There's a study that says it's a 10x return, giving a gift as opposed to buying it for yourself. You spend a pound on yourself is the equivalent as, and spending a pound on someone else is like spending 10 on you. And yeah, it is, it is bizarre that the most selfish thing you can do is be selfless.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and it's so counterintuitive, you know, if I have a, a coach or that that's been struggling, that suddenly have picked up a few hundred clients and their business has doubled. And now they can take their wife and kid on holiday or they could, you know, and it's just like, that's what it's all about. And for me, you know, that's transitioning the B to B market with helping people. And that's a strange market to be in because, you know, everyone on surface level looks like they, they're wanting to do the same things for people, but they.

• 51:12Chris Williamson?

  Building a business of competitors. Yeah.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's just like, well, that's what it's all about. Yeah. There's a great book, The Go Giver, which I love. And it has a huge business narrative in that about, look. Doesn't matter if they're competitors, you know, if you are good and you're even as a competitor, pat them on the back, they'll always remember that if they're the right person that you mentored. So that's all good, you know, success breeds success. And if you're not caught up by it or intimidated by it, everybody wins. And it's having that mentality and practicing that and listening to your own thoughts and feelings about others as well. So I'm very much motivated by envy. I think envy can be a help and a hindrance in life where you see things that other people want and you want them for yourselves. And I think the

• 51:59Speaker 01

  mistake that a lot of people make is that they're looking at materialistic things rather than kind of holistic things. I had someone say to me, oh, so and so is doing so well, you know, he's got all these clients, he's on all these things. I'm like, well, in order for you to have what they have you, and this comes from Naval Ravikant, actually, in order for you to have what that person has, you need to completely change your life. And I said to my friend, well, you've got two kids and a wife. In order for you to have what that person has, you have to give them up too, because you can't just pick the things that you want from that person. You've got to pick the life. And when you realize that it's like, it allows you to think the things that you do have, because I think when you're

• 52:40Speaker 01

  envious about a person, you'll just focus on one variable without the entire package that comes with that.

• 52:46Chris Williamson?

  You don't know what the, you don't know what the price is, man. I did, I wrote an entire article around that one quote from Naval on the Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish. You cannot take part of someone's life, you have to take the whole. You don't know what the price is to be Elon Musk. You don't know if he's disgusted when he looks in the mirror, if he can't go to bed at night, if he's got rampant erectile dysfunction, if he doesn't have a relationship with his father where he can't speak to him. You don't like, you love the idea of being Conor McGregor, but do you want to spend years and years rolling the same techniques and throwing the same combinations whilst living in your parents' like attic in Ireland? You want to be that Instagram influencer, but do you really, do you know what they're like? Like, what if they haven't had an orgasm in months? What if they can't bear to eat food without feeling sick about themselves? What if they're terrified

• 53:31Chris Williamson?

  that they've leveraged their entire sense of self-worth? To outsource to a bunch of people who they don't even know on the internet. Like, all of these things are the unseen prices that you would have to pay to be that person. You can't just have Elon Musk's work ethic and his and his money. You have to take the entire package. And I think realising that it's a bit interested about what you said about envy there, about how it's useful. I certainly find myself now being envious of perhaps your ability to deal with discomfort. Your ability to be resilient to setbacks and have that third party perspective. That's the sort of thing that I I agree there is a degree of envy where it can be useful.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  It's the right, it's the right thing to be envious of, not a Ferrari or a house or, you know, how many followers you have. And I think that's understanding, you know, like, why, why are you envious about that thing, you know? And it's a lot of the things that people are envious about is of having that thing of how it looks to other people. And it comes back to that thing of you're trying to impress people that don't care.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  And they don't, and you don't actually like, you know, and.

• 54:45Chris Williamson?

  How much of that, so how much of that realisation is just getting older?

• 54:49Speaker 01

  I, do you know, I, I, I think it's this, it's this kind of thing. I think it's that realisation that, you know, like, I, I started on TikTok last year and I didn't realise I was old until I joined TikTok. And I was just like, fuck, so people are calling me like, all right, boomer. And I was like, fuck, I'm like, Jesus Christ, I'm old.

• 55:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  And I think, yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with it because, you know, as you do get older, you do get what, you know, older, wiser. But then you've made more mistakes and you've got more experience. And, and I think as well, as you, I, I think the true wisdom will start to come when other people around you are dying of old age. When other people are getting sick and ill and you actually then realise that life is short. And I think, you know, a lot of people are scared about getting old and I'm so looking forward to it. I obviously don't want to fast forward my life towards it, but I just think, you know, in the, in the, in my 50s and 60s, it's going to be incredible.

• 55:48Chris Williamson?

  Can you imagine how much wisdom you'll have accrued by that point? How, how mindful you'll be, how capable of helping others you'll be. I, I agree, man. That's the, the beauty and a common theme that some of the listeners may have pulled out of this conversation is that having a growth mindset bulletproofs you against a lot of things. It's bulletproofed your relationship with your misses from like children to 22 years down the line because you've both allowed yourselves to grow together. That has been a common theme. The same thing with your physical pursuits. Yeah, maybe the specifics, like the flavor of it has changed, but the, the direction and the journey has kind of stayed relatively the same, so on and so forth. That having a growth mindset is a superpower, as is being curious, as

• 56:33Chris Williamson?

  is a couple of other, a couple of other elements that you can add into your life. But man, I am, I really think, I, I keep asking myself this question. The reason I asked about the getting older thing is with the advent of so much self-development, I can see Seth Godin and James Clear's Atomic Habits just behind you on the desk. With the advent of self-development, what we're trying to do is hurry the onset of this wisdom, right? We're trying to expedite our access to wisdom at a younger age. So it's why some of the people that are in my Modern Wisdom Big Dicks group that help with the project, they're like 24 years old. This guy George, 24 years old and he's just, he's a motherfucker. He's like some sage fucking Silicon Valley, like foresight, clairvoyant guy. And I'm like,

• 57:16Chris Williamson?

  at 24, I didn't know my ass from my elbow. And we are trying to expedite this, but I wonder how much of that is just repackaging people getting older. You know, like how when a medicine is released and they need to control for how much better someone's recovery would have been simply due to time?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:40Chris Williamson?

  I feel like that's the equivalent with some personal development. I'm like, yeah, this is great. But like after three or four years, I would have hoped I would have stumbled upon some of this stuff in any case. Do you know what I mean? Trying to separate the two of how much you can expedite and how much is just a byproduct of existing for a bit longer.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the way that I look at it is unfortunately, some people will never experience it. But I think it always, it always comes at the right time. And in the right time at the beginning feels like the wrong time. Because any, any massive change in my life has come from immense amount of pain. And I think it's very hard to find that young age wisdom unless you've been through a lot of pain. And it's, and I think some of the, you know, some of the younger generation that I've spoken to, they've been through a lot of pain. They've been through a lot of things in their life, you know, like the reason that I got kind of experience and why as quick as I joined the, joined the army, you know, I remember getting on a train at 17, throwing up and crying because I was just about to change my life and be away from my family for the first time in

• 58:41Speaker 01

  17 years. But that I grew up with, you know, having to be more independent. And then my first operational tour in Baghdad, yeah, hugging my dad and saying, I might not be back. Because you don't know what's going to happen. And it's all these things that you process at the age of like, you know, a very early twenties that enable you to have perspective on other things that happen in life. But then you'd look at someone like my brother, who's would, would have been, you know, hasn't done all of that experience, doesn't have that kind of level of knowledge. And it's fascinating because you, you know, you're looking go that, not disrespect my brother, but that could have been me. Like,

• 59:22Speaker 01

  you know, this could have been my mindset with things, had I not just shut this fucking mouth and open these ears. But I think as well, a lot of, I think one of the talents of younger people, which is a superpower, if you can find someone, is just the ability to not be distracted and to listen.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of people, a lot of people listen to respond, not listen to understand. And that's what I think the biggest change for me was when I discovered this podcast button on my iPhone in 2011, because it was the first time I shut the fuck up and listened. And it had a huge impact on my mindset by listening to people who knew a hell of a lot more about life than I did. And I think that was the pinnacle change for me, sort of nine, what's that, nine, yeah, nine years ago.

• 1:00:21Chris Williamson?

  And look at you now, man, killing it in the podcast game, creating content, helping other people, helping other people to do it as well.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think because I realised the power of just shutting up and listening to people. And I wish I'd knew, I wish I knew that at school. That's, you know.

• 1:00:40Chris Williamson?

  I think that's a byproduct of the curiosity as well, man. I really do. The genuine hunger, the desire to find out why or what or how or who, like that actual genuine desire is so unique and so powerful. And it sounds, it's like the pithiest fucking, most like wanky quote in the world to say something like that. But it genuinely, genuinely is. And you go back to like your mum and dad saying, well, you've got two ears and one mouth for a reason. And you're like, oh God, parents were always right, like in one way or another, weren't they?

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of things all gear back to a very few amount of fundamentals. And it's just, as with anything, you know, what will you understand when it comes to fitness and fat loss? It just comes down to eating less than you burn if you want to lose weight. But just understand that there's many different ways of being able to achieve that. And I think, you know, when you discover what the fundamental of happiness is, then there's many different ways to achieve it. But there's so many people saying, oh, this, that and the other. And it all comes from finding. People that you listen to and, and, and, you know, understand quotes, you know, people say, oh, it's so cliche, this and that. I'm like, yeah, but it's, if it works for you,

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  then, then do it. Um, and everyone, you know, I live my life through analogies and quotes. That's how my brain functions through parables and stories. Because any part of my life that I'm struggling with, I'll have found a parable to answer it. Um, and that's why I love books like Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield. Um, and, and a lot of other, um, very much the old ones that you hear at school. You know, Aesop's Fables, some of those are probably the key fundamentals of life, especially the, the tortoise and the hare. You know, that just solidifies James Clear's Atomic Habits book.

• 1:02:38Chris Williamson?

  Aesop, Aesop was James Clear before James Clear was James Clear. Couldn't agree more, man. Like we, we're symbolic beings, right? Uh, Jordan Peterson, when I went to go see him live, he said, why does Thomas the Tank Engine need a face? Like he's a, he's a tank engine. Why do you need to personify this tank engine? It's because we, we personify everything in life, you know? You give your car like a person. Oh, she's a bit this today. She's got these little quirks. It's like, it is, it is by its very nature, an inanimate machine.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And people, but people put fucking eyelashes on cars.

• 1:03:10Chris Williamson?

  Have you done that?

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  I know I like, it's one of my trigger points.

• 1:03:16Chris Williamson?

  Do you feel very strongly about this?

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  I feel incredibly strongly about putting eyelashes on cars. It's one of, that and Android phones are my non-negotiables.

• 1:03:24Chris Williamson?

  We are, you are friends here. You are, you are among friends here. Dude, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for your time. What do you, where should people go? They want to, they want to find out more about you or they want to check out your products. Where, where do you want to plug?

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  I would, I would say the best place to go is just, um, head on over to Instagram at Jay Alderton. I post most of my stuff there. I get back to most of my messages. So, um, you know, if you are listening to this and something resonated with you, I'd love to hear what it was.

• 1:03:53Chris Williamson?

  Unreal, man. Thank you so much for your time. Everything we've gone through will be linked in the show notes below. I'll try and find the article that I was talking about to do with Naval Ravikant's jealousy. And obviously Jay's fantastic Insta will be linked there as well. For now, man, thank you.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Chris, thank you.