Nicole Arbour - Dating, Haters & Mental Health | Modern Wisdom Podcast 335

Expect to learn what Nicole discovered after 10 years of chronic pain, what Americans, Canadians and Brits can learn from each other, why Canadian politeness has been weaponised, what the right are getting wrong, how to deal with criticism, Nicole's dating advice to her younger self and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% discount on your first month from BetterHelp at https://betterhelp.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 3.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Follow Nicole on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ibnicolearbour Follow Nicole on Twitter - https://twitter.com/NicoleArbour Follow Nicole on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE7faqz-mqjbUa4UaMZGAvw 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 #nicolearbour #haters #mentalhealth - 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

  There's gonna be haters. It's gonna happen. It's not possible for it not to happen. And the greater the risk that you're taking in your content, in your life, in who you declare yourself to be publicly, the more hate there will be, period.

• 0:16Chris Williamson?

  Is this the easiest time in the world to find inspiration for comedy? Because all that you have to do is just read headlines.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Yes, 100%, 100%. I'm, I'm so overwhelmed with how much material there is. I'm almost like frozen on the spot. It's like my fight or flight is like for comedy right now. There's so much.

• 0:35Chris Williamson?

  It's weird, right? Because you guys haven't been able to do much live stuff. And everyone that's been doing things on the internet, it's kind of made sense because it's all internet stories and then internet commentary.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Yep. I think it's great because I started doing the online stuff five, probably six years ago. And all my stand-up friends were making fun of me. They were like, hmm, that's not real comedy. That's not. And then they were all forced to do it during the pandemic and now they get it and they get how fun it is and they get that we can reach a bigger audience. So I was there first.

• 1:03Chris Williamson?

  And now you have endless content.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's mental. It really is. Well, I guess, because in the UK, we see some of the stuff that trickles through from America, right? And I don't know, it's, it must feel like every single day, there's far too much for you to even comment on.

• 1:19Speaker 00

  There is. That's why I have to stop and focus myself and go, okay, wait, what projects am I actually working on? Because I can go on Twitter and be there all day and just make fun of these headlines or make TikToks or make whatever it is. So I have to, I have to focus myself.

• 1:34Chris Williamson?

  Here's something.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  It's a mortgage board right now of comedy content.

• 1:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, the world is. Something that I realized a couple of weeks ago, because I listened to a good bit of the Daily Wire and I'm mates with some of the producers there, which I know you're in Nashville, right? That's the hometown now for them. And it hasn't felt like they've had to come up with anything to talk about for about a year. Like they're just constantly being, because people don't like being called reactionaries. But when there's more stuff to react to than there is stuff for you to talk about from your side, do you understand? It really feels like the left is kind of throwing everything they have at the world and then the right is just playing defense at the moment.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  I agree with you on that, but I don't think it's the right tactic personally. And I've had that discussion with some of the people at Daily Wire. I actually feel like conservatives as a whole right now aren't necessarily playing the best game that can be played. If we're cool to get into that. Yeah, I don't think being on defense constantly is smart at all. You should be on offense. And I think that we're leading by being defensive, which doesn't work. And if we want people on our team, we should stop shrieking and screaming at people and telling everyone how much they suck all day, every day. And be awesome fucking people and then they'll want to be part of what you're part of. It's kind of like Christians who are wearing necklaces and having bumper stickers, but they're assholes in real life.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  If you're a bit more Christ like or like a cool person, then people will be like, yo, what are you about? And then you can tell them about your religion. But I think conservatives right now, like the whole game needs to shift. And maybe it's new coaches need to come in, maybe it's new influencers, maybe it's someone like myself that doesn't want to be shrieking and screaming all day. And I don't think that's the only representation of conservative women or libertarian women. And I think we can be awesome and be friends and work with liberals. And that's the way to bring people over to our side is by being so awesome, they want to be on our team. And yeah, those are my thoughts.

• 3:33Chris Williamson?

  It's easy though, right? It's like the, if you were picking a fight with someone, you would always pick the easiest fight because you know that it's going to make you look the best. Or if you're going to have a dance off with somebody, you'd pick the person that was the worst dancer.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  See, I wouldn't. I want the best. I want to beat the best.

• 3:48Chris Williamson?

  But that's because you're a cheerleader. So I think that's an unfair fight. But my point is like it's, it's always just the easy, everyone's getting baited out, right? Everybody on the right is getting baited out with stupid stories from the left. But it's causing the right to never make any progress because it's constantly just batting back against what's coming from the other side.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Yes. Imagine we stopped giving attention to their stupidity and just started making awesome shit. How about that?

• 4:14Chris Williamson?

  What would awesome shit look like?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Oh gosh, TV, films, movies, music, being awesome and also being conservative. To me, it's like likened to.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Even Gay Pride Month, which is going on right now. There's people who are like, "I am gay," and that's their personality. Or you can just be awesome and be amazing at what you do and talented and a good human and also be gay, which will make a lot more people comfortable with gay people if they weren't in the first place. I just, I really, really think, from a strategy point, we're not doing it right right now. The right's not doing it right. But who am I to just observe from the outside and step in newly?

• 4:55Chris Williamson?

  You are a new resident of Nashville, so I think you've got just as much, just as much right as anyone else. Is that the me, me, me society, what you just said there?

• 5:04Speaker 00

  The me, me, me society? A little bit, yeah.

• 5:07Chris Williamson?

  What is it? For the people that aren't initiated, what is it?

• 5:09Speaker 00

  The me, me, me society is the, you have to care about who I sleep with. You have to care about what pronouns I want to call myself. You have to care where I want to put my dick, where, where I, all of my personal things. You have to care about me and make sure during your day that you are acknowledging everything that I want to be and be known for. And instead of just being a good human. Like, everyone's so obsessed, not everyone, but so many people are so obsessed with, "You have to call me this and you need to care about who I'm sleeping with. You have to care about all my little idiosyncrasies of my life." No, they don't. They don't have to care about you. Get over it. Make cool shit. Be a good person and go on with your life.

• 5:46Chris Williamson?

  Why, why do you think that people are bothered about that now? Give me a thesis on that.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  My thesis is, it's easier to complain that you're not getting attention for things that aren't attention-worthy than to make something that deserves attention. Yeah, that, that's my thesis. It's a lot harder to create amazing art and things of value than it is to say, "Why aren't you giving me attention for who I put my dick in?" I don't personally have a dick, but if I did.

• 6:17Chris Williamson?

  You'd be saying it.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:19Chris Williamson?

  I red-pilled Michael Knowles on this the other day. I would tell you the same thing. Have you heard of the inner citadel? Do you know what this is? Okay, so it is a way of looking at the world where when you fail to win a game, you decide to claim that the rules should have been changed so that they fit around what you can do. So if you can't get what you want, you have to teach yourself to want what you can get. So for instance, let's say that you lose a leg or something. You can try and fix the leg and get it back on. And then if you can't fix the leg, you say that the desire for legs is misguided and that everybody else that wants legs is completely wrong.

• 7:01Chris Williamson?

  The point is, we see this with people who are overweight perhaps. They struggle to lose weight and then they'll say, well, the entire world's idea of health and body standards is completely misinterpreted. Or we see this a lot in the progressive psychedelic culture, where someone will really struggle to maintain a monogamous relationship, then declare that monogamous relationships are for suckers anyway. So I'm gonna go poly.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Open relationships that way, yeah.

• 7:29Chris Williamson?

  Well, is it that? Or is it just the fact that you really struggle to find someone that you can work with? Or maybe you struggle to remain faithful to somebody? So that's the retreat to the inner citadel. And it seems like it's with this as well. It's like, look, I should be liked because I have talent, but I don't have talent. Therefore, the world doesn't like me because of one of these particular grievances. Yes.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah, I think that's exactly what's happening. You're correct. 1,000%. That's exactly what's happening. And it's so easy, isn't it? To just not actually do anything but complain? Gosh, that's an easy way to get a trophy. I'm the greatest complainer on the internet. All of you are doing life wrong. You should bow down to me. And if you don't do exactly what I want and you hurt my feelings, you're a bad person. Cancel you. Ha ha, I win. Like, what a stupid game. Why are we playing it with these people? Like, that's what brings me back to what I think the right is doing wrong. Why are we playing this game with these people? For what? There's no winning this game. They're gonna keep moving the goalposts and it keeps getting stupider and stupider. As if that's a word. Yes.

• 8:33Chris Williamson?

  Roll the clock forward then. What happens next?

• 8:36Speaker 00

  In my perfect world? Okay, in my perfect world, conservatives and libertarians would stop playing stupid. They would declare, "Sure, white flag, you guys win. We're horrible, you're right, alright, good luck." And then we will just make our own films. We will not cancel each other, no matter what, because grace is a virtue that I think we need to have more of. Even if someone says something disgusting 10 years ago, we say, "Hey, that was kinda gross 10 years ago." And then they go, "Oh yeah, that was gross 10 years ago." And you go, "Okay, cool, don't do that again, sweet." And then we move on. And we create culture. We make films and art and sports. And we let sports be about sport again,

• 9:21Speaker 00

  and not about kneeling, or who pretends to be woke but actually supports Communist China LeBron James. You know, we just bring people back to being people and just let them play their games. And just laugh at them like children having temper tantrums, because that's what they are. We're giving way too much effort to a kid having a temper tantrum. When moms know, when you start ignoring that part, if it's not for a good reason. If you just ignore it, they'll stop, they'll cry themselves out, and they'll, "Okay, I'm back to playing."

• 9:52Chris Williamson?

  Have you seen in the UK at the moment that the players taking... So it was an England game a couple of days ago. The players took a knee for BLM at the start of the game, the entire stadium booed. And then again yesterday, it happened and it was really loud. And they took a knee for 15 seconds. 15 seconds of booing is really awkward. And the commentators don't know what to say. But yeah, that's the response in the UK at the moment. What's it... Is that happening in the US? I don't think so, not from what I've seen.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  They aren't really doing it that much anymore, because they got booed so many times, from what I observed.

• 10:24Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I haven't seen that lately, but I saw the NBA's ratings go right on down. I saw... I had a friend actually compare my personal ratings to NBA ratings, and I was beating the NBA multiple weeks in a row with views. Which is ridiculous. When you think of that's stupid. What is 2021?

• 10:45Speaker 00

  But yeah, I haven't seen it that much here, but it's just stupid. It's stupid at this point. We all know BLM is a stupid organization where they have kept most of the money. There's so much fraud within it. Of course, Black Lives Matter, that goes without saying. And if there's anything we can do to help people rectify poor situations, let's do that. But taking a knee does nothing. Let's stop the virtue signal off. You know what I mean? It's like, how many virtues can we signal today? That's the real sport now. It's just dumb.

• 11:13Chris Williamson?

  Well, I don't know. Given the fact that the country it originated in and the incident that sort of kicked it all off has had its anniversary now. If the country that it started in has stopped taking a knee.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 11:27Chris Williamson?

  Why, why is the UK still doing it?

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Because if you take a knee, you are so important and you are better than everyone who didn't take a knee. I can't believe you didn't know that. Like, you're not a good person for not knowing that. I am by virtue a better person for knowing.

• 11:43Chris Williamson?

  Significantly, significantly better person. Yeah. But I mean, there's, there's all sorts of stuff at the moment. There's still Black Lives Matter logos on the side of the time bar at the top of the, the top of the score on the, on the TV. There's different pop-ups and stuff that go on. But there has to be a point at which that stops happening. Like, it can't happen for the, well, I mean, it could happen for the rest of time, but it would be like, you know, in 50 years. So there has to be a point in which it, it does stop, but apparently not yet.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  How about now? I vote now.

• 12:14Chris Williamson?

  Sky Sports, are you listening?

• 12:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Sky Sports, come on now. I have made, I made videos about this while it was going down in the first uprising of BLM and I do feel like so many people have so many valid points, obviously. But I'm not into complaining or putting on a show of the virtue signal without having ways to solve problems. And that's just the kind of person I am. It gets me in trouble. I'm like, okay, how do we fix it? Sometimes people just want to complain, but I'm like, okay, no, but like, how do we fix it so we can move on? And these banners don't fix anything. It's a little back pat, a little acknowledgement, but okay, things have gone horribly wrong in these certain areas. What do you guys need? What do we do? How do we help? That's, that's all I care about. Anything else, I'm just like, be quiet.

• 13:00Chris Williamson?

  Well, I guess as a player as well, there's gonna be so much pressure. You're gonna think, oh god, if I'm the one that doesn't take the knee, especially if the rest of the team are. So you have this sort of crowd mentality that's also creeping in there.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  That would be very strange, because you know that they would be the headline in every newspaper the next day. The one person who didn't take it.

• 13:19Chris Williamson?

  Racist player, yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it'd be great if it was a black person who did it.

• 13:25Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  That, I think that would be the change. If one black player didn't take the knee, and they're like, this is dumb, what are we doing?

• 13:33Chris Williamson?

  That's the ultimate red pill. Have you spent any time in the UK?

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Yes, I love it so much. I love it so, so much. I recorded a bunch of music there. Um, I've been, I'd say to most of the hotspots. So lots of time in London, uh, Manchester, through there, obviously.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  The Isle of Wight was a music festival I went to, which was so much fun, and I got to see Rod Stewart perform. And everyone knew how much I loved Rod Stewart, and it was a big deal. Everyone just turned and looked at me when he went on stage, because I was losing my shit. Um, he was so good, and you wouldn't think that, but he was amazing. Um. Yeah, I've been to a whole bunch of different parts in the UK, and I freaking love it. Canadians and Brits are so similar in so many ways, very similar sense of humor, dry wit that I love. Um, yeah, I love me some Costa cookies, too. You guys have such good cookies at Costa. Like, right when I land, I go to Costa, I'm like, give me a cookie.

• 14:31Chris Williamson?

  It's weird that one of the things that we can beat America and Canada on is fast food, or like convenience foods. But apparently, apparently we've got that down. Um.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:40Chris Williamson?

  Yes, I think that the Brits and the Canadians have a fair bit in common. Do you think much about kind of, obviously you've got, I guess, cultural leaders in the West, Canada, the UK, and America. Do you ever think about sort of the differences and the little quirks and the similarities between them?

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Um, what I've noticed, like being Canadian and then moving to America, is that there's so much fighting in America, because they take themselves too seriously. Like, individual people choose to be offended, whereas a Brit or a Canadian would laugh at the exact same thing. So, you guys, you know, you take the piss, which I love. That's why I love people in the UK, because y'all take the piss. And it's so much fun. And the same as Canada. I was talking to a friend the other day, and we're like... We grew up different, like we would mock the crap out of each other every day, every different race, every ethnicity. We're all in the same class. My friends were Jamaican and from Trinidad and from everywhere.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  And we would make racist jokes to each other's faces. They'd call me a honky or a cracker or whatever, and I'd laugh. And I grew up on The Simpsons, and I feel like America somehow lost that. Like, they somehow lost the ability to laugh at themselves, or a lot of Americans did, specifically one group of people. Um, but yeah, that, that I think is the difference within it. And I do want us to bring that back. I feel like taking yourself too seriously is a mental illness at this point. Like, just chill. You're not that important. Your feelings aren't that important to everybody. And that's, yeah, that's what I think happened.

• 16:22Chris Williamson?

  That's a really interesting one. I was having a chat with a buddy who's now living in Nashville, actually, a couple of weeks ago. And he was saying, he's a British guy, and he was, we were talking about the fact that as a young person growing up in the UK, if you do stuff that's different, if you decide that you're going to move out to Nashville to start a business, or if you start acting, or dancing, or modeling, or drawing, or poetry, or whatever, the piss-taking can really nerf the edges of your creativity. So it's great because people don't take themselves too seriously, but it also dampens down a lot. So you get tall poppy syndrome, like, very, very badly in the UK. Um, especially because there's a lot of Manchester, working-class town, Newcastle, where I'm from, working-class town. Perhaps a little bit less in London because it's a bit more cosmopolitan

• 17:06Chris Williamson?

  and people of the world and stuff. Um, but yeah, the dark side of that, of the piss-taking and not taking stuff too seriously, is that you don't have the American, you can be whatever you want to be, gas your friends up, the, the support and the yes, Jimmy, little Jimmy, you can go and do it type thing. I understand that that causes, in later life, people to feel like they're owed something and to struggle when they don't get uh, success that they feel is deserved. But in earlier life, definitely in the UK, both me and my buddy said the tall poppy syndrome's pretty real. So I think that you need a balance of the two. What's it like in Canada?

• 17:46Speaker 00

  I think that'd be fantastic to balance those two. I think Canada is, the politeness is a real thing. So it's a-

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. I actually think it's cowardice at this point, though. Uh, this is, we can, we can circle back to that. Which, which point you want me to go on? Those are two different roads. Where you want me to go?

• 18:06Chris Williamson?

  First one.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Okay, we'll stay on the first one. In Canada, it was, uh, yeah, you can do whatever you want if you go to America.

• 18:16Chris Williamson?

  Oh, shit.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Like, that's how I grew up, was believing in the American dream. Our culture, our film, our everything was like, be whatever you want in America.

• 18:26Chris Williamson?

  Over the border.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, go over the border. You've made it if you go to America. It was never, you can make it in Canada, ever, like, in music and entertainment and anything. So, it was, yeah, you do as much as you can here and then get out of here if you want to do it.

• 18:40Chris Williamson?

  Export yourself. How weird.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that was the, that was the whole thing. When I got my US visa, like, my entertainment visa to work in America and be a legal immigrant, it was a big deal. It was like a super proud moment of my life, because I was like, I did the thing.

• 18:56Chris Williamson?

  Now I can start. Yeah, exactly.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Chris Williamson?

  What about the politeness?

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Ooh. I've always prided myself on being a polite Canadian and traveling to Europe and across the world, and people knew I was Canadian before I said I was Canadian, and I love that. But during the pandemic, I believe our politeness has equated to cowardice. And every time we should have stood up, we didn't, because we're being polite. Every time the government told us something that's absolute freaking nonsense. We're still in lockdown in many places in Canada. We didn't stand up because, no, no, no, we don't want to cause trouble. Well, no, that's being a coward. That's not being polite. And now that you've been a coward for a year, your businesses are gone. Your friends' businesses are gone. Your kids are having mental health problems.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  All of these things crumbled around you because you were being polite. It, yeah, I'm not in Canada right now because I'm quite certain I'd lead a revolution and get arrested pretty quick. I swear. I swear to you, I, I would just have none of it. A friend of mine, yesterday, she was on a set working on a feature film. They found out that she had been in America in a few weeks since, like before that rather. And she had an antibodies test and she did have COVID antibodies. She had three COVID tests, all came back negative. They surrounded her, kicked her off set and threatened to kick her out of the Actors Union because she had been in America weeks prior. Not because she has COVID, but she put people at risk because she had been in America.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Like, that's just stupid. You're being stupid. I don't know how to play that. I just, I don't know how to play stupid with these Canadians right now. And every time I'm like, "Stand up!" They're like, "No, we're good."

• 20:40Chris Williamson?

  Is Canada quite procedural? Because one of the things that I see in the UK, we're quite orderly. We tend to, if you look at a queue of people outside, they'll all stand there sort of in a relatively orderly manner.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  You guys love to queue. You love it.

• 20:54Chris Williamson?

  Love a good queue.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  I could just set up a queue anywhere and you guys would just line up in a row.

• 20:58Chris Williamson?

  For nothing, yeah. I've always thought, I've always thought it'd be good if there was a queue appreciation society and people literally queued up for nothing and then high-fived at the end. I'm like, "That was awesome. We've got to go again." And then just go back to the queue and then keep on doing that. You can see that I've been a club promoter for a long time, that I love queues.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, queues, I love that about you guys, that you love queues. But Canadians, it was fantastic at the beginning of COVID that we were so procedural. Because I was there and I saw the mass chaos in America. People fighting over groceries and stuff. And then I went to our grocery stores where everyone, you didn't even have to ask them. They were lined up perfectly spaced out. There was a toilet paper display at the front with a joke on it. Like, "Don't worry, we have lots." There's classical music playing in the grocery store to calm everyone down and everyone's being extra polite. It was utopia. But you know, six months in, when we're realizing COVID isn't exactly what we were told and I can't convince my friends otherwise because procedure, procedure.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  It's, oh, you can't think for yourself. That's a problem. That's a problem.

• 22:00Chris Williamson?

  That's so interesting because we think all of the stuff that we're talking about here, something that's good or cool or interesting has a dark side to it on the other end, right? Whether you're talking about-

• 22:10Speaker 00

  I guess.

• 22:11Chris Williamson?

  Yes, yeah, precisely, yeah. Whether you're talking about the orderliness of the UK and Canada, which means that at least in the beginning, it gives you more procedure, but then on the other side, it makes you more compliant. Or the fact that in the UK and Canada, you don't take yourself too seriously, but you get tall poppy syndrome, or in America, you get- It's like, it's like people, right? There's no one that you know that's got all of their attributes maxed out at 100. For every 100 that they've got, they've got something that compensates for it.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure. I think that's what's great about people. And that's why I'm so against cancel culture is, oh, we expect everyone to be perfect, to your likeness of perfection at all times. Got it, imperfect person, got it. Like, I think of tweets, for example, that I wrote 10 years ago when I was on painkillers, hot, like hardcore painkillers, just to survive and nerve damage and things. I tweeted crazy shit that I thought at the time made sense.

• 23:11Chris Williamson?

  Roseanne Barr stuff?

• 23:12Speaker 00

  Oh, probably. Roseanne should have never been canceled. That one really pissed me off.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, she was on drugs and she didn't know that the woman who looks visibly white was black. That's a really strange reason to cancel someone. But with myself, when I was in a lot of physical or emotional pain, I would post negative things. And sometimes it would have been the same as I would have done in stand-up, that it's kind of like heckling the crowd back or like poking fun at the crowd. But I couldn't do that, so I'd do it on Twitter. And out of context, you can take anything out of context and then label someone a horrible human being. So I just think it's, it's just stupid. And it's for people who completely lack grace or humanity to be trying to cancel people over anything. My thoughts.

• 24:01Chris Williamson?

  You had this huge back injury, which is where that chronic pain for a long time came from. Can you tell us that story?

• 24:08Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  Two thousand eight, I was in the middle of shooting a feature film, my first, that I was a larger role in and I had a whole bunch of other ones booked. And my one night off, went to go do some karaoke, got out of a taxi and we were rear-ended as I was halfway out of the cab. So, my body was completely twisted, I was halfway getting out, crossing my legs like a lady, and we got hit pretty hard from behind, which meant that my spine jutted into my nerves all the way down, because I was twisted. And, head injury, neck injuries, TMJ so bad, I- What's TMJ? Uh, the, the joint in here, like the jaw pain, where you clench so bad because

• 24:54Speaker 00

  you're in a lot of pain, or, I don't know the exact word of it, or was it TMJ? But it's, it's the jaw thing. So basically while I was sleeping, I was in so much nerve pain and chronic pain, that I was cracking my own teeth in my sleep and swallowing them. I know, disgusting. Yeah, I would wake up missing teeth. It was, yeah, bodies are strange. Um, my SI joint, like near your hips, it was crooked, lower back pain was the worst, uh, because it shot down my feet and into my legs. And, when you combine all of those things together, and then from the neck, it shoots down your arms, so I had claw hands for a long time. Uh, when you combine all of that, plus the cognitive issues I had from the head injury,

• 25:37Speaker 00

  it was disaster for almost a decade. And, I struggled to live, and then I struggled to work, I struggled to communicate, and then eventually I ended up on disability, living at my grandma's house on the floor. And, that's where I spent good part of seven years, which is crazy, because I lost a lot of my life. And, I smile when I say this story now, because I, I do think it's the best thing that ever happened to me.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Because I learned so much about getting back up. And I know that it's my legacy now is that I went through all of that and wanting to commit suicide. Not because I didn't want to keep going, but because of the actual physical chronic pain. It's maddening. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Nerve pain is maddening. Waking up, not knowing my address, not knowing where a purse, why my purse is in the fridge. Or just all, it's a trip. It's a trip when you have a head injury that bad. That you're in your head and you know you have a head injury. Like my real voice was in there and I'm like, Nicole, you're not okay. That's fucked up. You just put your purse in the fridge. You're, you have a head injury. But then I couldn't function.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  But I went through all these things and I feel like I just had the last step in all of it recently. Cause I had a surgery to remove the scar tissue from around my back. And I felt like a different person on that surgery table. And I had one of those weird surgery moments that people talk about. Where I could just like feel the trauma coming off me. And it was very interesting. I decided to stay awake at the last second. And I was supposed to be put out and I literally at the last second, I was like, you know, I think I want to stay awake. And they'll just, they orally sedated me instead. And I didn't watch what they were doing, cause that's gross.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  But the doctor was like such a happy person and the nurses were happy and they were playing like rock music and pop music like super loud while they're operating. And just watching these really happy people that love their job. Take this stuff out of me. I just felt like I was finally closing a chapter and I could literally feel it coming off of me. And I swear I could hear God, I don't know what you believe in, but I could hear God be like, okay, here you go. Let's go. And I was like, oh shit, it's go time.

• 28:06Chris Williamson?

  How many procedures have you had then since the accident?

• 28:10Speaker 00

  That was my only operation, cause I said no to all of them. So, cause I knew that the downtime would be bananas. So I did things like, like every treatment you can think of that wasn't surgery, I have done. And I mean, all of it. Uh, everything from like physio to nerve block injections, which I really think saved my life. Nerve blocks, have you ever done them? Um, for those of you who don't know, uh, they take a needle, hopefully the one from Japan cause it's thin, it's about this long and they inject you throughout your nerves with the same stuff that they put in your teeth at the dentist to freeze you. So it's super painful to get it done and you probably go into, there's a good chance you go into shock. I went into shock multiple times after it was done.

• 28:53Chris Williamson?

  They can't sedate you sufficiently to stop you from being able to feel that?

• 28:59Speaker 00

  Well, I'm awake when they do it. So you're usually awake when you do it. I had to do it so often. I don't know. That's just the way they did it.

• 29:07Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  Cause yeah, I, I don't know. I didn't even get the option. No one in this clinic got the option of going under.

• 29:13Chris Williamson?

  Cool.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  But I'd go into this clinic, they'd be like, are you ready for this? I'm like, let's go. It's like an X-Men hospital and they would inject me throughout my body and in my jaw and my neck and down my back and stuff. Uh, it was every three months for quite a while. It was closer together at the beginning and then it would last a bit longer, a bit longer, but I had to mentally prepare to, okay, your body might go into shock. Get ready.

• 29:39Chris Williamson?

  What's, what happens when you go into shock?

• 29:42Speaker 00

  You start shaking uncontrollably. My jaw would chatter. Um, like your whole body could convulse. They have to strap you to the gurney type of thing. Uh, but it's just because you hit a level of physical pain that your body's just like, we're tapping out. And then I, I think it like took me to a different level of consciousness, actually, where I just interpret things differently now. And I, I wrote one full song that's going to come out soon while that was happening. I wrote the whole thing in my head. I saw the music video and it's going to come out soon. It was kind of cool.

• 30:15Chris Williamson?

  Shit the bed. Okay. So you're going through this. You managed to get yourself to the stage where what? Halfway through you're unable, there's no sort of future ahead? You don't think that you're going to get any better?

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Thank you for leading me in this story because I'm really awful at telling it because there's so many details. Um, I got to the point where the doctors gave me a disability certificate for life, which is.

• 30:40Chris Williamson?

  Do you still have that?

• 30:42Speaker 00

  No, I ripped it up. I ripped it up that day that I got pissed. Uh, it might be somewhere in my, like in my documents, but I ripped it up. That's a pretty boss move. Thanks. Like, that was my moment of fuck this, fuck no, and I'm gonna get better. And they told me, like, it's really hard to get a disability certificate in Canada, which means the government's gonna pay you for life to live, because they don't believe you can have meaningful employment or do it consistently. And when I got that, I just, I lost my shit. And I just went, no, this is not, this is not my life. This is not the end of my life. And I took myself to a bookstore with the tiny little bit of money that I had that I scraped from inside of a couch and changed from my purses.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  And I bought a Louise Hay book, which I had never heard of Louise Hay. And I just went, you can heal your life. Okay, let's try that. And I got another Louise Hay book and a little candle. And I just went on this crazy journey of extreme positivity. I put sticky notes all over my entire house that were like, you can do it, you look better every day, your nerves are healing, uh, you're amazing. Everywhere I could see them. So every time I'd have a negative thought, it would be automatically countered, and it works. Um, I remembered that I'm a cheerleader, which I know you've, you've seen a bit of my talk on that. Is, I wasn't a model anymore, because I couldn't model, I couldn't do acting.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  I couldn't do any of the things that I'd known myself to be my whole life. But I'm a cheerleader, and that has nothing to do with my palms or dancing or anything. That's who I fucking am. And when I remembered that, I was like, let's go. Biggest cheer in my life. And I started literally cheering myself back to life and prepped myself that there will be bad days. For every good day I'd have, I'd have five to 10 bad days, and I'm ready for it. And I would have charts and I would give myself ticks for good things that I would do. And, okay, you did physio and you didn't pass out after. Yeah, you did. And I took out all the negativity. I stopped watching the news. No horror movies, no CSI, no negative podcasts, none of it.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Cut it all out, flooded myself with motivation, positivity, inspiration, tons of sermons every single day, which I still do. And it started to work, and I did all the alternative therapies, but...

• 33:07Speaker 00

  It was a mindset shift that I will not, also, this is so important for people. I fired, and I say fired because I believe you hire and fire your medical team. I fired every doctor who said I wouldn't get better. And I was like, you're wrong. And then I left. And I only had people on my medical team who believed I could get better and who were supporting me in that journey. And I think we all need to do that. And I think doctors who tell people they won't get better need to not be doctors anymore. Because it's a really big mental challenge to overcome when you hear it from a medical professional. And having a team around me that were like, okay, will you do this? I went on a strict alkaline diet. I'm like, yep, let's do it. Inflammation went down.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  I started with all different kinds of supplements to help with my mind healing. I stopped looking at screens a lot during the day because my mind, literally my brain needed to heal. I did everything I had to do and now I'm back. And yeah, having gone through that, like, I'm fireproof. I walked through the fire. So I know we were maybe going to talk about this, but when I get haters online, it can hurt my feels, my little girl feels for a second, but I'm like, bitch, I've been through real pain. This ain't it. Like, this is not real pain. I have been in shock. I have crushed my own teeth. You saying fake untrue things about me to try and hurt my career because you see me as a competitor does not do it.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  You will not stop me. And I think it's kind of cool that I've been through that and I can help other people get through their shit now because you can do it.

• 34:43Chris Williamson?

  It's one of the best ways to transcend suffering, right? You do, you go through something, it's terrible, it's awful, and then you realize, hang in a second, that's now set the bar for whatever, anything in future. This is what I say to people that suffer with depression. Like, look, if you've been really, really badly depressed and you've been the architect of your own misery, right? If you've been your own torturer, you can walk out into the world and be essentially bulletproof. Because what's your boss going to be able to say to you that you haven't said to you a million times better?

• 35:14Speaker 00

  I just hit my head on a thing because there's a clip in my hair. That's exactly what I say. I'm glad that was fun for you. That's exactly what I say. It's like, nobody on the internet in the world in anything can say something to me that I haven't said to myself already. I've said it all. I believed it too. I laid on the ground for years in that hole. This on a carpet that smelled like cat pee and I was like, oh, this is my life now. Nope, you got nothing. You got nothing on me. So I think it's such a freaking superpower when people will take that moment and harness that superpower. Just harness. I think depression is such a freaking gift if you can switch your mindset and look at it. Because when you pull yourself through it, and I believe everybody can, I really do.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Then you're set. You're set. You can always go back to that and be like, oh yeah, I remember when I overcame that huge thing. This is nothing.

• 36:07Chris Williamson?

  Do you find it hard now to connect with people because of what you've been through? So your worldview is changed quite profoundly, right? You go through this very extreme intense experience. And then out the other side of that, you have to try and speak to people who haven't been through that. Who haven't or haven't been through something analogous to that, right? Their own version of self-work and discomfort and stuff like that. Does it sometimes feel like you're talking on different levels? Some of the times that I see you talking to people or some of the comments that I see you making online or some of the videos. I appreciate some of the places that you're coming from and I also appreciate why other people don't necessarily get it.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. My mind went in three places on that answer too. So first one is, I believe on this playing field we call the earth. We're in different grades and it's just like school. And some people come here and this time around, you're in kindergarten. And that's cool. They're genuinely happy. Their, their, their spirits are good. They're the last ones at the bar. They're drunk as fuck. They're falling over. They're happy people. They're fun to be around. There's some people who are coming here and they're in grade eight. And there's some people who come here and we're going to be in university. We're, we're going through all the grades. For me to be in university and be mad at someone in grade six not understanding me talking about algebra is stupid on my part.

• 37:33Speaker 00

  Uh, will I try and communicate as best as I can to reach as many people as I can? Yes. But I can't reach everybody and I'm okay with that. I'll do, I'll do my best. Maybe they'll like one of my dance videos and that will inspire them because they know I've had a hurt back but now I'm dancing. But I don't, uh, I don't try and tailor myself to reach everybody because I don't think that's authentic. And I'm not mad at people who don't get it. I'm genuinely not mad. And then when it comes to, uh, you know, what we were just saying, uh, sorry, go back to, I, you triggered something.

• 38:04Chris Williamson?

  Connecting, so when you're connecting with people, yeah, and you sometimes struggle.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah. It got me in trouble, actually. So, I woke up one day and I was like, okay, I'm gonna start making these videos. I'm gonna start saying all the things that when I thought I was going to be dead or, or commit suicide, that I wished the world knew. That the things that we fight about, the things that we lie about, which I think is the number one problem in life and in the world is we lie constantly. And then we get mad at our, at the results of our own lives. I'm just gonna tell the truth and I'm gonna tell it over and over and over on all these different topics, back to frickin' back to back. I make it funny so it's more palatable as, because that's what I do.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  And I made my plan and I started making these videos and they hit viral, viral, viral. I knew they would too. But March of 2014, I believe it was, I took myself off disability against the doctor's orders. I'm like, don't send me a check. I'm not disabled anymore. Thank you very much. And then by September, I was the most viral comedian in history. So, I had a major culture shock, suddenly being back in the world. I hadn't been out of the house in a very long time and then suddenly I was on The View. And suddenly I was at the Royal Palace, performing like a private event. So that was like super culture shock for me. So that was one thing. That aside...

• 39:31Speaker 00

  I've gotten, I'm gonna say in trouble, a lot in the last few years because I automatically, I can see everybody suffering. I can see it. I have a radar for it now. They don't have to tell me. I can feel it. A guy recently was like, he's going for a run and he's running this much today and running this much today. And I'm like, so what are you running to or from? I haven't decided. And he was just like, he knew I knew. And I always know. And I've been around some gents in the last few years, I'm gonna say this as politely as I can, where they had some pretty big issues that they were going through. And my automatic reaction was to say, it's okay. I'll love you as a person anyway. And it bit me in the ass so

• 40:15Speaker 00

  hard every single time. Because I'd hang around people that I probably shouldn't have been around because I didn't want them to feel alone because I had felt alone when I went through stuff. When really, those people weren't in line morally or in integrity with who I am and what I want to be about. But I just didn't want them to feel what I felt. So it got me in a lot of trouble.

• 40:35Chris Williamson?

  That's a really interesting insight. I think if you've been through dark places, depression, or injury, or whatever.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:42Chris Williamson?

  And you've come out the other side, you, that hero story inside of yourself is something that you want to see or inspire or initiate in other people.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:54Chris Williamson?

  And that gives you faith, unwarranted faith, sometimes, that other people are going to be able to reenact that particular story.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  You're 100% correct. And actually, this is something that it first sparked when I was speaking with Jordan Peterson. I went, I was trying to like, think of some things. I've had issues with dating and different stuff like that. And that's really what it boiled down to.

• 41:21Chris Williamson?

  Seeing the good in people that isn't there.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yes, 100%. And refusing to be nasty in the face of nastiness, it can get me walked on. And I'm not doing it anymore. But that's exactly what it was. I saw the good in people that was not there because I hoped it was there. And I believe it probably was there at some point. And then the world knocked it out of them. But I can't save everybody. That's not my job. My job is to lead. Ah, conservatives, libertarians, listen to this part. My job is to lead in the direction that I would like the world to go. And those who want to follow me will come with me. That's what I'm gonna do now.

• 42:02Chris Williamson?

  Talking about the fact that you'd lost probably most of the things that you valued as a human, right? So your cognitive capacity, which was your cognitive nimbleness, your agility, your ability to come up with funny things and speech, your looks as a young girl who was cheerleading and modeling and dancing, looks, body, all of that sort of stuff. Has that reframed the way that you see sort of physical beauty now? Do you judge physical attractiveness in a different way in yourself and in other people?

• 42:34Speaker 00

  Yes. And this is not a feel bad for me, but I'll explain the odd little spot that I'm in. Is that the way that I look is such a juxtaposition to who I am and what people expect me to be, based on the way I look, that it can kind of get tough. Like, when it comes to dating or friends or anything, is, you know, people might assume I'm gonna be a bitch. Or I'm so, I care so much about these external things. Like, makeup and hair is fun, but I really don't care. Like, I care about people and I love people and I want to hang out and just be chill. And like I told you, put on a baseball hat and go to the bar. So that, I actually think...

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Made it very different for me because I was so superficial before. I admittedly, I was superficial AF. I bought into all of it. I thought this is what I'm supposed to be like, look like. I fell into it a little bit in LA again when I started to do well because I'd spend eight hours getting ready to go to some award show and I'm like, that was a waste of my day. Like for what? I don't need to get my hair and makeup done by this top person and sit there for five hours. I don't give a crap. Put my hair in a bun. Sure, do my makeup lovely. This dress, awesome, thank you, beautiful design. But I don't care. I don't want to be at the opening of every envelope to pretend I'm special. I don't care. I want to make cool shit.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  So it did change me in that way and I don't, not I don't think, I know I'll never go back because the things that people care about a lot, or we've been taught to care about, like superficial beauty and money, just for having money, not for the, using it as a tool that it is. Like things, objects, I don't care. And it's hard to convince other people otherwise when they have been kind of brainwashed into putting their value with the value of the things that they have.

• 44:29Chris Williamson?

  The juxtaposition's an interesting insight, right? So I did reality TV. I was on the first season of Love Island here in the UK and a club promoter and blue tick on Twitter and feed charcoal toothpaste and all that sort of stuff. And still now, people that watched me on Love Island don't understand what I do my podcast about and think that it's a gossip channel. And then people that know that I've done the podcast don't believe that I was on Love Island. So it's so bizarre how people-

• 44:54Speaker 00

  Growth? How dare you?

• 44:56Chris Williamson?

  Well, yeah, I know. Like, how could you not be the person that you were four years ago?

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:01Chris Williamson?

  It's so weird how people rely on archetypes, right? So we watch TV shows and the nerd has glasses and the villain wears black and the hero has big muscles. Why do they do that? It's so that they can shortcut you having to understand multiple things about someone. They're just this perfect pigeonhole cliche of a human. You know one thing about them and from that one thing, you can accurately extrapolate everything else that there is to know about them. One of the problems that you come up against is when you have somebody who's been an ex-model or done reality TV, but now wants to talk about whether- Aliens are real, or somebody that used to be a cheer-

• 45:36Speaker 00

  Obviously, they're already here.

• 45:39Chris Williamson?

  We'll wait and see. This 60 minute thing needs to finish up first. Or somebody that used to be a cheerleader and now wants to talk about politics. It is, that contradiction is interesting to some people, but it's off putting to others as well.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  It is, but are we going to shrink? That's not fun. I was shrunk for most of my life and admittedly, I have shrunk again multiple times since my car accident, even getting better because I was like, oh, I'm being too much. Or I'd have agents or managers or whatever be like, you can't be this plus this plus this plus this. Well, guess what I fucking am? Guess what? I'm releasing music and it sounds like Linkin Park. And my other music, I rap and it sounds more like a Gwen Stefani type of thing. And I do comedy and I'm going to talk about politics. And if you can't handle a well-rounded person, that's probably a reflection of you, not me. So whatever, like, we're on this ride. Why aren't we going to

• 46:36Speaker 00

  ride it? Everybody should do that. I've been shrinking and I don't want to do it anymore. It's not fun. I think that's why we get depressed too, is we're trying to fit into these little shells of humans that we're told to be. And then we're like, oh, why am I depressed? It's because you're not being you asshole. That's why. It's like, pretty easy.

• 46:54Chris Williamson?

  I think you're right. You were talking earlier on about some of the criticism and feedback that you get online, obviously both good and bad. What are some of the lessons or insights or tools that you've learned to be able to deal with that feedback? Because it's something that you care about, right? No matter how many awful situations you've been through, when you put something out that you have put some effort into and you get criticism, you're going to notice it. So how do you deal with it?

• 47:19Speaker 00

  Again, twofold answer. First, I would say, when I get criticism, I go, one, is this true? Is what they're saying about me, is it a criticism of what I do for a living or is it a personal attack? If it's a personal attack, is it true? No? Okay, then I don't care. Then this is a reflection of that human, not me. Um, why would they be coming at me? Oh, they heard that I have my own show coming out. They think I'm gonna be a competition. They're trying to cut my legs off. Got it. Or like, you know, take out my, my credibility. I get it. Shady, but I get it. Um, and then, you know, if it is true what they're saying, then there's something for me to learn within that. And that's dope. Thank you. Even if you said it in a dick way, thank you.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Because I grew up with hardcore gymnastics coaches, ballet teachers from Russia. Tough love is what I'm used to, so that's cool. So, is it true or not? And then you decide from there. Um, when it comes to criticism of my art, you're more than welcome to. Sure. Yeah. I know that the latticewoods do come from the cheap seats, so that's one thing. But if you don't like what I do, that's cool. Go find someone that you do like. It doesn't bother me, because I like what I'm doing. And everything I do isn't gonna be the best thing I've ever done, and that's okay too. Uh, Beethoven's first song probably wasn't that great. That's okay. We only talk about the hits, you know? So, I had a video a couple of years back, uh, This Is America.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  And I redid Donald Glover's This Is America. I like did my own like parody, but really just like a different version of it. I was like, whoa, what would it look like to take this exact thing, pivot it this way about women? People lost their shit. They were like, that's racist. You're taking away from the message of This Is America. There was all this crazy negative press about me. TMZ of all people came in and like rescued me. And they were like, she's not racist. She just made a video. We don't like it, whatever.

• 49:15Chris Williamson?

  Thanks TMZ.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  You know, like of all the people who came to help, it was TMZ, which I thought was frickin' cool of them. Uh, they've actually done that a couple of times over the years. Uh, but then, I, and I started to take it in. I started being like, oh my God, I did a bad thing. I was racist, I'm whatever. What, and I talked to black people. I literally went up to strangers in restaurants. I'm like, hey, can I ask you a question? Group of black people. Hi, I'm Nicole. Would this, is this offensive to you? I made a remix of this song and they were like, "No." I'm like, "Alright, cool." And then I went and I literally surveyed random black people in LA, because this is the kind of person I am. And nobody said it was offensive. One person was like, "Oh, I see how maybe people could get upset because it's about the history of black people in America."

• 50:02Speaker 00

  They're like, "It was probably just too soon." Turns out, they were right. It was just too soon. Hundreds of other remixes and parodies came out. So many that Billboard made a list of the top 10 remixes of This is America.

• 50:16Chris Williamson?

  Why did you come?

• 50:17Speaker 00

  They didn't put me on the list. I was the only female who did it. I was the first person who did it and I had the most views on my video. And I took all the heat. Wasn't even on the list. Yeah, but, "Oh, but this is, this place is okay. This is, this thing is okay. Should the song have been mixed properly?" Heck yeah, the song was trash. But the idea was freaking genius. And the video quality was great. So, yeah, I learned some lessons from it. But what I really learned was I've been ahead of the curve a bunch of times and then I take all the heat for it. And then other people come in after and whatever, so.

• 50:51Chris Williamson?

  That's an interesting thing as well. First mover advantage doesn't really exist in the content creation industry. Almost anyone that I know that's in content creation doesn't care about being first. Because the person that's going to be first will make a ton of mistakes. And then fourth, maybe, or fifth, you can iterate on that, make a few adjustments, let the first person trailblaze, catch. Yeah, maybe that first person will get a little bit more press attention, but their content quality is going to be so much lower than yours. And then when you can come in and make it. No one cares about the fact that an LG phone has a bigger megapixel camera, because Apple comes in and they do it right. They don't do it first, they just do it best, right?

• 51:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 51:32Chris Williamson?

  Another thing to do with people getting, you allowing criticism to bounce off you because you're doing something that you really, truly enjoy. I think that one of the reasons that some people get triggered by criticism is when they're doing something that they know isn't their true calling. When they're trying to be somebody that they're not, their concern is, "Fuck, I've put so much energy into this persona and it's not working."

• 51:59Chris Williamson?

  Like I

• 52:00Speaker 00

  You were preaching. Yo, that's true. That's just, that's facts. Yep.

• 52:06Chris Williamson?

  Well, they do all of this work and it's like an Easter egg, right? You wrap it around, but it's hollow in the middle. You hit it with a little bit of pressure and it breaks. So that's why I think the people that you can tell that are in Jordan Peterson language, speaking their logos forward, right? They're being them true selves, speaking their truth. When they're doing something that truly is them, it's like, well, okay. So the foundations of that are always going to be deeper than you pretending someone else trying to be Nicole Alba or someone else trying to be Chris Williamson. That's just, that's never going to feel as strong or as stable as just doing what you're supposed to do.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  Exactly. Which is why when I do get criticism and I get it today, I'll get it tomorrow. I'll get it in five years from now. It's fine. When I get criticism, I go, all right, well, you think I'm going to shrink? I'm not going to shrink and stop being me. I'm just going to shine brighter every time. It's all like, I feel like the more punches I take, the more, more hits I know how to take. And then I just go into the world and I shine brighter because if someone says something negative about me like, oh, she's a mean person or she's a bitch or whatever. The way that I live my life will be proving that differently. So I don't worry about it. Eventually those people will see me as who I am. So I don't care. If they don't like my content, that's a different story and I wish you well and find someone that you love because life's too short to watch shit you don't like.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  But it just, it really doesn't need to bother you. But what I think people forget, and I'm actually writing about this in my book right now, is that there's going to be haters. It's going to happen. It's, it's not possible for it not to happen. And the greater the risk that you're taking in your content, in your life, in who you declare yourself to be publicly, the more hate there will be, period. And that's just the formula. It has nothing to do with you. So stop being so egotistical, take yourself out of the equation. This is life. Fucking get over it. And that's it. And then you can deal with it when you know it's going to come. It's just like your muscles are going to hurt after a workout.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  You're building muscle. So you know it's going to come, deal with it. You don't cry and quit because your muscles hurt after a workout. Give it a couple of days, go again.

• 54:18Chris Williamson?

  How much is your team professionally and your friends around you? How much are they a buttress to assist you with periods of low motivation and dealing with criticism and stuff like that?

• 54:32Speaker 00

  There are a very tight crew around me, like a very, very select few. I would actually say Danelle Delgado, I'm not sure if you know her. She is freaking incredible. She's known as the millionaire maker. She takes businesses from zero to a million, like, like fricking that. Really good friend of mine and she, if I do have a low period, or I can just call her and she gets me back in five minutes. Tim Grover has cheered for me multiple times in amazingly different ways, in a way that only Tim Grover can. I'm talking like a single sentence text where it's kind of like a, it's a bitch slap. It's like, you know, like kind of like, are you gonna give up? And I'm like, oh, fuck, fine, Tim, you know, like, okay. Like, he'll be, you know, he'll be like, step on their throats. I'm like, you're right, let's go.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  There's a couple of select people that are in my tight, tight personal crew too. But I find that I'm mostly having to cheer the other people up around me. And I get a lot of guilt. When there's hate at me, I feel guilty for the people around me because I can see it hurts them. And they can't take the hits the way that I can because they haven't been in the ring training the way that I have. So, you know, even in dating, like throughout being famous, famish, whatever you want to call it, I feel like I've had to console people that I've dated when other people say negative things about me because it hurts their feelings because they know who I am and they're like, hey, that's not whatever. But they can't spend their whole day proving wrong. And I'm just like, it's okay, don't worry, like, it's okay.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  I'm really sorry that this hurts you. I'm gonna step away so that you don't feel this because I can see it affects you. And yeah, that's, that's kind of how I deal with it.

• 56:14Chris Williamson?

  What lessons do you wish you'd known about dating a few years ago?

• 56:19Speaker 00

  It's different for me because of what I do for a living. But I wish if I were much younger, I would have focused more on my career first. I spent a lot of time, when I think about it, like dating lots of guys. Cause like, that's what was cool. Like Nicole, how many guys are you dating and whatever? What a waste of time. I got some good material, but what a waste of time. And I would say now, I wish I could tell, I guess I can right now. I wish I could tell guys and girls that when you date someone and it doesn't work out, like if you're looking for an actual partner, you have to move on. I see every day, like this is like a Nicole observation of pain with my little da da da that I have now.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  It really hurts people that people have a trail of everyone they've banged in the last five years behind them, only like one step behind them. And it's like you're introducing the new girl that you're dating to thirty other girls you hooked up with in the last year. What are you doing? Or you're liking all the other girls bikini photos that you've been hooking up with the last few years. What do you think that's gonna do to your current or future relationship? And it's not about jealousy, it's about integrity and romance and fostering something new. Like that didn't work, let it go. You don't have to hate them, but you're spoiling everything else. You're putting mold on the new bread. What are you doing?

• 57:45Chris Williamson?

  How much of that do you think is just guys and girls being pricks in their twenties though? Because I see a lot of people hit thirties and this ego game in relationships tends to drop away. Hormones are a hell of a fucking drug.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Right? So true. Um, I feel like it's being, I think it's getting worse actually because it's being, being toxic is being promoted as like cool and trendy. And I don't know if you see it, it's all over TikTok. Yeah, clap back all over TikTok. It's, oh, I'm gonna bang all his friends because he liked this girl's photo or he whatever. Or like, always have a side dick, always have a side chick, like just in case they screw up. It's promoted as like cool in culture now. It's not cool. I don't think degrading other people is cool. I don't think making someone feel unspecial is cool. That's the opposite of what we're supposed to be doing here. Sure, there's that, you know, that thing we all go through, the hormone raging, whatevs. But as you're moving on in life,

• 58:48Speaker 00

  it's not cool to not be cool to people. I don't like it. And we really, again, the way to combat it is with our actual efforts and to show healthy relationships and to show, you know, being a good person and having a good relationship is okay. And that's cool, too. And you're allowed to have fights and you're allowed to have disagreements and you're allowed to move forward together. And you don't have to have a big blow up every time. And that's, that's what I think.

• 59:18Chris Williamson?

  There's a thought experiment that Bret Weinstein did with Heather Heying on Rogan a couple of years ago. And he said, can you imagine someone who is hot but not beautiful? And then can you imagine someone that is beautiful but not hot? And the distinction between the two is what we signal on when we're younger, we signal of hotness, right? With the very easy to observe signals of fitness, adaptive evolutionary fitness, right? But beauty is something that's timeless. It doesn't wane with age, actually increases with age. It's grace, it's poise, it's loyalty, it's kindness, it's peace, it's so on and so forth. And that actually can manifest in the way that people move. You can see

• 59:59Chris Williamson?

  the girls, here's one for you. Any girl that wears a, one of those kind of like suit jacket things that they wear on nights out over the top of a dress, but without their arms in the sleeves, every single one of them is going to start a fight. Every single one of them's a bitch. So that's a signal, that's a signal.

• 1:00:17Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, that's a great observation. You're right. Wow.

• 1:00:22Chris Williamson?

  When you stand on a lot of nightclub doors, you see things like this. So yeah, stuff like that, right? You see people in the way that they hold themselves, in the way that they move. And you're like, I can tell something about you outwardly reflects something that is emerging from you inwardly. And um, Yeah, that beauty and hotness thing, I often think people just get that backward. And I understand, like, you know, I went through my twenties, I made the mistakes.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've seen you in your bikini photos, too.

• 1:00:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But my point is that the sooner that you can realize I need to signal off of beauty, not hotness, the quicker I think you're going to find yourself into a relationship and a situation with friends as well. Right? It's not the friend that's got the fastest car or the most money. It's the friend that's going to be there for you when you need them. And if they've got a fast car, then sick.

• 1:01:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. I had that revelation as well as I started to do well because I had all these people around me. They were so rich. I was at their mansion. They had all these cool things and they're pieces of shit. They're assholes and they hate their lives and they cheat on their wives and husbands. And they're not happy internally and they're popping painkillers and antidepressants. And I'm like, why do you think you're doing that? Because you're full of shit. And none of it mattered. And I went, I don't care about your house or your cars or your whatever. Are you a dope person? Am I comfortable around you? Like genuinely, because you get that little weird uncomfortable feeling around some people. And I don't care how many famous friends you have. If I'm uncomfortable around you, I don't want to be around you. I want nice human beings.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, beautiful people.

• 1:01:57Chris Williamson?

  Nicole Arbour, ladies and gentlemen, why should people go there? Want to check out your stuff?

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  I would love them to go to Instagram, letter I, letter B, Nicole Arbour. I'm IB Nicole Arbour on TikTok, Facebook.

• 1:02:08Chris Williamson?

  What's the IB stand for?

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  Well, like, like IB Nicole, but actually someone stole my name years ago. Glad that makes you happy. Someone stole my name years ago on Instagram and tried to sell it back to me. I can't remember, it was like $20,000 or $30,000. And I'm like, no, out of principle, I will start another account. And IB Nicole, you be fake Nicole. So that's what that was. I'm Nicole Arbour on Twitter and I'm Go Team everywhere. If you, if you write hashtag Go Team, you'll find me.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  On October 2nd.

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Ravenant.

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stalled, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:03:02Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

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