Pod Insights The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett E25: We are the Burnout Generation About this episode This week has been chaotic. In Chapter Five of The Diary of a CEO I flew back to the UK for an incredibly busy week filled with podcast interviews, speaking appointments, pitching to one of our biggest clients as well as filming an advert campaign. The ...
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:11 Steven Bartlett? Once again, this week has been chaos, absolute chaos. And therefore, we've got a lot to talk about. My diary is full of scribbles, little annotations I've made, notes that I can't quite make out. And that's because I've travelled across the world this week because of work and my responsibilities. I've had so, so many things to do. I've had speaking engagements. I've filmed an advert. I've been to a couple of our global offices. I've been on podcasts. I've been pitching. I've done everything in between, all while juggling the challenges, I guess, of my own personal life on top of that. And, and when I have weeks like this, I have more to think about and more to say in my podcasts than usual weeks.
0:56 Steven Bartlett? I have more sort of self-analysis. So this diary entry is definitely, definitely going to be interesting and it's definitely going to be honest. And I'm, I'm actually saying, talking about topics this week that I think even I've been too scared to talk about. Yeah. So without further ado, my name is Steven Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
1:31 Steven Bartlett? Okay. So the first point in my diary this week just says, mental load, de-responsibility, your mind and your life. Full stop. Burnout. Full stop. Why was I so pissed off? Let me just set the context. Let me set the scene for you a second. A couple of days ago, I had a flight to catch to London and in London I had a TV advert to film. I had a podcast recording with one of the biggest podcasts in the charts. I had a speaking engagement on one of the biggest stages in the world. And then I had a pitch with one of our top clients over the phone that I needed to prepare for. And I had all of these other things in between.
2:12 Steven Bartlett? On top of that, I had to go and see my family and a hundred other tasks on my to do list. And on top of that, just for as a cherry on top of that cake, I lost my passport. So in the lead up to getting on the flight, I'm actually running around New York and I realised that I left my passport at a completely different airport on a completely different plane that I just got off. So a lot going on in my mind. On top of that, I've got my general life admin stuff going on. I've got the hundred WhatsApp conversations banging on every single day. And all of my responsibilities that are attached with my personal brand, including filming this podcast, which is late, by the way, because of everything I've just described. So that's the context. That's what my life in that moment looked like.
2:55 Steven Bartlett? And I was on this plane flying to London through the night, realising that when I landed, I literally was going to be already late for things that I had to do. I was already late when I landed and I landed into London. My driver wasn't there. He just wasn't there. So that cost me time. I get to my hotel and usually I just walk straight in and my, my assistant sorted it all. But for whatever reason, I had to wait thirty bloody minutes because the hotel needed one pound fifty. Right, don't fucking get me started. This hotel wanted one pound fifty as a deposit. Right, so that cost me forty minutes. So this is all getting on top of me. On top of that, I've not eaten. On top of that, I've not slept for about two days. Just gonna keep it facts with you.
3:38 Steven Bartlett? And I really lost my cool. I've really just like lost myself. I became a really just nasty, not, I wouldn't say nasty. I became a asshole. That's the best word to describe it. I was incredibly short with people that are close to me, mainly Sophie, my assistant and Laura, my brand manager. I was just short and kind of rude and I kind of almost lost my temper. I was just very frustrated at everything and it all just got on top of me. All of these responsibilities that I had, everything had to happen within twenty four hours. And I just lost my cool and I hate losing my cool because my cool is something that I really pride myself on.
4:22 Steven Bartlett? Being able to hold my head and my composure in the most grueling situations is something that I've always cherished. And I've had harder times, but for whatever reason, mainly because of lack of sleep, I just lost my cool. And a few days later, I read an article about burnout. And this is a topic which I've always avoided. I've always avoided burnout because I'm scared of it. People have always said to me, Steve, don't work so hard, you'll get burnout. And I've always thought, these idiots, they don't know me. I'm untouchable. I'm unstoppable. I can't get burnout. What are you talking about? Burnouts for weak people. I'm not weak. And I'm even scared about talking about it now because people that know me
5:05 Steven Bartlett? always worry about me because of how much I give to my work and my life and all these kinds of things. And here's a disclaimer, this is me being completely honest, as you will tell as this podcast goes on, I'm, I'm fine. Right? I'm not burnt out. I just needed a fucking nap. I'm happier than I've ever been, as always. I'm more excited about life and my career and my job and my business than ever before. I just had a fucking moment. And I read this article on BuzzFeed about burnout. And it talks about how our generation are the burnout generation. And it just felt so true. You are the burnout generation. You listening to this right now, you're not the millennial generation.
5:47 Steven Bartlett? You're not the lazy generation, as other generations have labeled us. You're the burnout generation. We're the generation that have optimized our lives for work. We are obsessed with climbing the proverbial ladder. We are desperate to get to promotion and more responsibilities so that we can keep climbing and keep climbing and keep climbing and then retire and die. And social media has played a role in making us the burnout generation because it's also made us the I want your life syndrome generation. We want everyone's life. Social media shows us this amazing world where people just like us are living their best life.
6:32 Steven Bartlett? I fucking hate, do you know what term I fucking hate? My best life. That is, for the record, something I just fucking hate, right? Because nobody's living their fucking best life, are they really? If we're being honest, like everyone's life could be better. Let's be completely honest. Nobody's living their best life. Like, if what I know about life is true, that it's a journey, that it's constant improvement, that it's exploration, none of us are living our best lives unless we're living the tumultuous roller coaster exploratory life. And that's not your best life. That's life. I much rather the phrase, I'm living life. But anyway, back to the point about being the I want your life syndrome generation.
7:17 Steven Bartlett? We look at Instagram and we see people that have supposedly hit the perfect balance of work hard, play hard. They have the holidays, the lifestyle, they seem to love their job, they don't seem to work much, but they seem to play a lot. And the reason for that is because our own dissatisfaction about the reality of our lives causes us to narrate our lives on social media and we create this illustration, which is how we want our life to look, but not really how it looks. You know, that's the fucking truth. What we put on our social media is often the illustration of how we want our life to look because we're not fulfilled enough with how it actually looks. So we think we can draw a new picture and that kind of becomes true, right? And we're all guilty of that.
8:01 Steven Bartlett? And the truth is, when we see people's lives that we want, we think this generation believe that the answer, the cure for that syndrome, for that itch, for that jealousy is more work. We think I just have to work harder and then I'll get that life that I see on Instagram. I think we assume the more we work, the less problems we'll have. But I would argue that evidence might just suggest otherwise.
8:31 Steven Bartlett? And because of the internet and because of profiles and because we all have LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, we've all become brands, online brands. I used to joke to my friends, you know, I, we have this expression where we say, that's not good for your brand. And what we're saying is like, that's not a good look for you, right? But we all have become brands. And I think this is also one of the reasons why we're the burnt out generation. Because brands never turn off and our brands never turn off. Our brands need constant maintenance online. We are a slave in the coal room of our own
9:09 Steven Bartlett? online brand, feeding the furnace with coal to the beat of an algorithm which threatens to make us irrelevant if we don't throw more coal into the fire. The shovel is your smartphone and the coal is the tweets, the Instagram stories that we create to feed our brand and that online narrative. And it is exhausting. That's the world that this generation live in. It's always, always, always on. And another factor that contributes to the fact that we are definitely the burnt out generation is that we've become more efficient at everything
9:51 Steven Bartlett? than any generation that has ever come before us. We are the most efficient generation. We've made our lives so efficient so that we can do more, so that we can free up time just to fill it with things that will make us more busy, so that we can take more on, so that we can add more notifications and emails and tasks to our to do list. We've replaced quality time with things that take less time. And I live in New York City, right? And New York is known for being the city that never sleeps and the hustle, the bustle, the career and all of those things, right? And so this, this city really is a prime example
10:33 Steven Bartlett? of exactly what I've described. Every bloody food place in New York is like Subway, where you pick 10 ingredients really, really quickly and they'll chuck them in a bowl for you or stick them between bread so that you can get back to your desk and carry on working faster.
10:49 Steven Bartlett? What happened to like, sitting down with friends and waiting for your food to be cooked? That idea of sitting and waiting and socializing in person, as we all know, is sacrilege to the burnout generation. That's like blasphemy, right? This is why the fundamental criticism of millennials that we're lazy and entitled is so infuriating. And this is what she writes about in her article. She says, "We work so hard that we figured out how to avoid time wasting in every respect. We figured out how to avoid wasting time ordering meals, so we have Deliveroo and Uber Eats. We figured out how to avoid leaving the house to go to a shop with Amazon Prime. We figured out
11:33 Steven Bartlett? how to save time meeting loved ones by using FaceTime. We figured out how to make dating more efficient and faster with Tinder, just so we can free up time to fill it with more things to be busy with."
11:47 Steven Bartlett? At any given time, if you look at my life, right, and when I landed in London and I was a bit all over the place and lost my temper a little bit, right, I had five things to do right then, and I was late for five things, while adding five things to my to-do list that had just arrived in my inbox, while cancelling five things that I didn't have time to do because I was busy. We are the generation with all of the tabs open, trying to accomplish 20 things at once, and the internet has made us involuntary, obsessive multitaskers. And Anne Peterson writes in this article that I was reading, that all
12:27 Steven Bartlett? of this optimization of our lives, as children, in university, in college, online, culminates in the dominant millennial condition, which inflicts upon you regardless of how old you are, or how rich you are, or where you live, which we call burnout. And burnout was first recognized as a psychological diagnosis in 1974 by a psychologist called Herbert Friendberger, I think his name was. And he classified it as physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress. Burnout is of a completely different category than exhaustion. Although the two sort of concepts are in some respects related. Exhaustion means going to the point where you can't go any further. Right.
13:12 Steven Bartlett? But this is where burnout is completely different. Burnout means reaching that point and pushing yourself to keep going. Whether for days or for weeks, or in some cases, years. And what's even worse, the feeling of accomplishment that follows an exhausting task. Whether it's passing that exam or finishing a massive work project. The feeling of accomplishment never comes. It never comes because the nature of someone living in the burnout generation is just one task after the other, after the other, after the other. There's no time to feel a sense of accomplishment.
13:53 Steven Bartlett? The exhaustion experienced in burnout combines an intense yearning for the state of completion with a tormenting sense that it cannot be attained. That there is always some demand or anxiety or distraction which cannot be silenced. Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst specializing in burnout, wrote, "You feel burnout when you've been exhausted and you've exhausted all of your internal resources. Yet you cannot free yourself of the nervous compulsion to go on regardless." And there are so many people listening to this right now, which are going to be able to relate to that. And what she writes in the article that I read, she talks about because she's so burnt out with work
14:37 Steven Bartlett? and studying and all those kinds of things in her life. She almost finds it impossible to do the simple tasks, like get your laundry done, iron clothes, go and register to vote. The simple errands in our life, our generation, find it impossible to do because we're so burnt out and exhausted by running our lives and our careers. Right. And if you can relate to that, then. Then I think you need some uh some advice and I was I was looking around the internet and I was looking in books and various other sources for some solid advice I could give you. And the crazy thing is a lot of the stuff you read online about being burnt out or exhausted points to like go do yoga or fucking eat mocha choco fraco lacto vegan bullshit. I don't know.
15:23 Steven Bartlett? And the truth is none of that's gonna help. There's no fucking yoga class or like treadmill desk or whatever that's gonna cure your burnout. And this is what the article says. And I couldn't agree more. It's much, much deeper than that. It was taught to you when you were in school. We were conditioned and cultured to work and to climb that ladder. And I see no easy way out for our generation. I just, I just don't. But I saw a comment on the article which offered some advice and I wanted to share that with you as well because I think it's important to leave you with some advice, not just be Debbie Downer and say that you're fucked, right? So there was a guy that commented on the article and he wrote some really great words which I wanted to share with you as well.
16:07 Steven Bartlett? He wrote, "Go and look up the phrase directed attention fatigue on LinkedIn. This is literally a biological phenomenon rooted in the lack of sleep in which a chronic state of mild to severe sleep deprivation causes the brain's executive function to deteriorate and reduces the capacity for decision making. When you don't get enough sleep, your brain doesn't get the time it needs to consolidate memories, to restore itself, to repair tissues and flush out toxins. The ongoing result of mild sleep deprivation coupled with a constant sense of urgency is the descent into a permanent fog of low-grade anxiety worsened by dulling
16:47 Steven Bartlett? at the edges." That is 100% what I fucking felt. Because of my mild sleep deprivation, I was all over the shop and my mood took a massive, massive L. You know, the likely reason millennials feel the more this more intensely than any generation so far is because the ratcheted up pressure to succeed in everything we do is coupled with the overwhelming presence of sleep-robbing technology.
17:15 Steven Bartlett? The CEO of Netflix said that his greatest competitor for Netflix, the one thing that Netflix is competing with is your sleep. The reality is, all of the technology we have in our lives is constantly robbing us of sleep. And in some level, that is our enemy. That is what's destroying us. Millennials want to have it all. We all want to have it all, to post it on Instagram, to tell the world we did it and we made it and to love us. While simultaneously fearing that we will slip into the ravine of failure. And this fear, the failure in our minds, is not having the best job and not living the best life and not having the best love.
17:56 Steven Bartlett? As a result, we are treadmill addicts, like hamsters, slowly running ourselves into the ground through the lack of rest, mild anxiety and a desire to climb a fucking ladder. You know, this all sounds quite grim, but the article in the comment below it says that the simple answer is to unplug and get more sleep. And to be honest, it's not that simple at all because finding more time for healthy sleep and rest goes directly against the grain of having it all. And that's what we're programmed to do. And we're programmed to be the super worker who has a super social life, who never misses that hot new episode on Netflix or whatever it is. And, you know, you just can't have it all.
18:39 Steven Bartlett? And the pursuit of trying to have it all, which I'm more than guilty of, results in having very little to be proud of. And in that moment, I wasn't proud of my fucking mood, right? I was an asshole and I did go back afterwards and apologize to Sophie and Lauren and that and just say, listen, I need to sleep. I need to make sure I take care of myself because if I don't, I'm going to find myself in a really bad state of mind and that bad state of mind is going to cause me to become someone I don't want to be. But it's also going to be the one thing that stops me from actually being successful and all the things I want to be successful in. I guess the moral of this elongated point is to take care of yourself. Stop sweating about having it all and being it all and achieving everything and climbing the ladder.
19:21 Steven Bartlett? De-clutter your mind, de-responsibility your life, simplify everything. The only way our generation are going to win is if we push back on this conditioning, on this culture and on society, which has made us the to-do list burnout generation. And we actively, actively, and this is kind of ironic for me telling you to work on something else right now, but we actively work on simplifying everything and maybe go back to our roots. I talked to one of my previous podcasts about one of the main causes of depression and mental health, according to a lot of the books I've read, and specifically a book called Lost Connections, is the lack of psychological needs that we're getting from the world
20:03 Steven Bartlett? we live in today, the lack of exercise for friends and family, love, our tribe, nature. And the efficiencies that we've produced by being part of this generation are the things that have robbed us of those things, those psychological needs. So a lot to think about there, but I hope something nice helped you because this whole journey has definitely helped me. And once again, for my friends and family and you guys that listen to this, I'm completely fine, okay? I always get, the funny thing is when I record this podcast, I always get loads of messages of concern because I speak openly about things that I'm thinking. I've never, ever been concerned for myself because I am so deeply happy, but this podcast
20:46 Steven Bartlett? is the journey of me exploring ideas and exploring myself. And I think for the last six, seven years, everybody has said to me, Steve, you're going to get burnout, Steve, you're going to get burnout, Steve, you're going to burn yourself out, don't work so hard, you're going to get burnout. And I've always just shrugged them off and told them, saying, oh, you don't know me, I'm invincible. That's what I've thought in my head when they said it. Burnout isn't for me, burnout's for weak people. But I've changed my mind. I think there is a chance that I could get burnout and I don't want that to happen. So I'm going to fight it, okay? And I think you should fight it too.
21:22 Steven Bartlett? Okay, so the next point in my diary, I've just written reminder. And here's what the reminder says, it says, there's so much uncertainty in life. But the one thing we know for sure is the inevitable. And here's what I mean, we know that there are so many question marks in life. And part of the reason this podcast exists is because as the CEO of a company that runs a pretty high intensity life, as you've just heard from the previous point. I have tons of questions that I explore every single day. But there is one thing that I know is certain. The only thing certain is that you are 100% without a shadow of a doubt going to die. 100%.
22:07 Steven Bartlett? Your heart is 100% going to stop. Your brain is 100% going to shut down and you're going to be dust in memories. You're going to be dead longer than you were alive. And with all this in mind, the most important reminder, and I guess a lot of this is inspired by Steve Jobs and what he said at his commencement speech is, you know, what matters? Steve Jobs said at that commencement speech, he said, you know, we're all already naked. We've all got nothing to lose, we have to follow our hearts. But I guess my question is, what matters? And for me, this is a reminder that I kind of bestow upon myself regularly. There are two things that matter. There's kind of two parts to our story as humans.
22:52 Steven Bartlett? There's life and there's death and there's two things that matter. And when you think about this from a more sort of philosophical perspective, only one of those things is in our control. Life.
23:05 Steven Bartlett? And the decisions you make, the way you behave in your life will unequivocally determine the legacy, the memory and the impact you continue to have following your life in your death. So because the only part in our control is my life, let's just focus on my life. What matters in my life?
23:24 Steven Bartlett? There's two things that matter in my life, me and other people. So on the point of me, the thing that matters most is my happiness. And as it relates to other people, my family matter. And it matters that I use my existence here on earth while I was alive to make the existence of other people more happy and fulfilled. Those are the two concepts that matter, me and other people. My happiness and making sure that because I existed, the happiness of other people is improved. And I guess this is a really sort of simple idea. But I don't think you believe it. I don't think 99.99999% of people really know they're going to die.
24:10 Steven Bartlett? I don't think they live like that. I'm being completely honest, I do not. I don't for a second think that you think you're gonna die. But it's 100% guaranteed that nobody makes it out alive. Because if you really believe that, if you really believed that fact, I don't think you'd live your life how you're living it. If you really thought those things mattered and you really knew that you were already naked, I don't think we'd spend so much time sweating the small stuff, caring about strangers' opinions, asking for permission to live our own lives. And so for me, this reminder is a really, really powerful liberating one. And it's one that I reflect back on whenever I feel myself getting consumed by bullshit that really won't matter.
24:55 Steven Bartlett? I will be dead longer than I was alive. And so, you know, ain't got shit to lose.
25:04 Steven Bartlett? Okay, the next point in my diary, I've just written, there are no rules to success. This is a really fucking weird thing to say because a lot of the people that listen to my podcast or listen to my content or watch my YouTube, I guess what we're all looking for is a bunch of rules that we can apply to our own lives to help us achieve results that we're looking to achieve, right? And I think one of the revelations I've had is that there are really no rules to success. There can't be rules to success when all of the subjects are different. You are different to me. So the rules that are applicable to me for my success and the way that I get to where I want to go can't also all apply to you, right? Because we are completely different jigsaw pieces. And it's hard because in life, we're always looking for rules.
25:47 Steven Bartlett? We're looking for undeniable rules for this puzzle. Rules on how to become successful, on how to be happy. And the great epiphany I had when I was flying on this plane the other day is that there are no rules for all of us. So studying another human, following their steps, is in fact really dangerous. There are only rules for ourself and our own lives. We're all different. How could there be a rule for all of us? In fact, every time we try and treat different things the same, history tells us this amounts in failure. If you look at the education system, teaching all kids in the same way, the same thing is fucking kids up.
26:32 Steven Bartlett? I'm one of them. I slept through all of my classes, I was expelled from school, I was probably considered a failure to many people. And I turned out okay, but this education system perceived me as the same and it taught me in the same way and it gave me the same rules and I didn't come out very well, according to them, anyway. And I think the same about success. I think, listen, I've said this before, but I love Steve Jobs, but I'm not Steve Jobs. Right? And the way that Steve Jobs made it is the only way Steve Jobs could have made it, but it's not the way I can make it. And as I said before, we are so good at confusing admiration with aspiration. You can admire someone and not want to aspire to be them, not try and copy the footsteps
27:16 Steven Bartlett? that they've taken. I talked on this podcast a while ago about a young kid that follows me that desperately wants to be an entrepreneur. And I don't know how to put this. He was really inspired by what I do and my story and my journey. So he's tried to emulate it almost exactly. And because of that, he's resulted in a lot of failure. He's living at home with his mum currently. He's getting older and older and older, but he's still trying to copy the blueprint of my life. And the problem is, that was me. I'm not saying I was special or anything. I'm fucked up in so many bloody ways. And because I'm fucked up and because I'm crap at things and because I'm good at some things, the jigsaw piece that resulted in my overall success is a certain shape.
28:00 Steven Bartlett? That's the piece that fitted me. And what I'm saying to you is the piece that will fit you won't look like the piece that fits me. So instead of trying to carve out that piece and stick it in you to see if it completes the picture, I'm asking yourself to look at yourself first, to look at your own shape. And once you understand yourself, once you build that self-awareness about what you love and what you're good at, and what you're bad at, and what sucks, and what your talents are, then you can carve out a piece to fit your jigsaw and to complete that picture. I promise you, it's so fucking dangerous trying to copy people that you admire. You know, you can learn from them, but to try and emulate them,
28:42 Steven Bartlett? that's a dangerous old game. The secret is self-awareness. The secret is knowing yourself.
28:49 Steven Bartlett? Okay, so the next point in my diary, I've just written, social media, work, chemical imbalance. No, people are one of the biggest burdens to your mental health. And here's what I mean. You know, growing up as a very social person, and then going and starting a business and employing a lot of people, one of the things I've definitely done is I've got to meet a lot of people. And I've met great people, I've met not so great people. And I've had people close to me, sometimes involuntarily because of work, that have been, in some respects, toxic. They have hurt my peace. And I think everybody listening to this podcast right now has somebody in your life that is hurting your peace.
29:31 Steven Bartlett? And as I reflect on maybe the last, let's say, five years of my life, I can literally think of
29:39 Steven Bartlett? Say I knew 3,000 people, three people in my circle who have sucked the peace out of me. And you know, social media gets a lot of the blame for mental health problems and overstressing and work and burnout, as we've just talked about, and chemical imbalances and all of these things. But honestly, I think people in your circle are one of the biggest causes of mental health issues. And let's call it peace robbery than anything else. One of the best things I ever did in the last decade of my life was mustering up the courage to remove certain people from my life and not like half removing them. I read
30:24 Steven Bartlett? this quote earlier on, which I posted on my Instagram. And it says that when you take the trash out, you know, you empty the bin, you go and put the bin bags by the door, it still stinks your house out, even though you've put the crap in a bin bag. And I'm guilty of that at my place here in Brooklyn, right? I put all the crap into a black bag and I stick it by the door and then my house starts to stink. You've got to take the bag out. And I reflected on that quote because there are people in my life that I removed completely. I cut them out completely. And it was hard and it cost me. It cost me friends. It cost me, some cases, professional opportunities. In some cases, it meant that someone would go and talk shit about me for 12 months, unwarranted. But I had to cut them out for
31:03 Steven Bartlett? my own peace. And I think cutting out a handful of people from my life has had an upside, which is undescribable. So I'm throwing this back on you, listener, whoever's listening to this wherever you are. Is there someone in your circle that is robbing you of your peace? That is making you anxious? That isn't treating you how you think you deserve to be treated? We do this a lot in business where there's just that one rotten apple in our circle or in our company or in our business. They've got too much of an ego. They're rude. They make people feel bad. They're selfish. They're obnoxious. They don't think we know their agenda, but we do. And as in a business context, sometimes they're offering. Great skills, sometimes they're talented.
31:47 Steven Bartlett? And the worst thing we can ever allow in a business context is a talented asshole to corrupt our culture. And the same applies for you. How many talented assholes? How many people have you got in your circle that are well-connected, are valuable in one respect, but they are peace robbing in another? Here is my message to you. This fucking year, we remove them. All of them. This year, we cut out all of the talented assholes in our circle. All of the peace robbers. Right? I did this in my life and it was one of the best things I ever did. And I just hope the same for you. Okay, the next point in my diary, I've just written, name someone that doesn't have haters. Let me, uh, let me back up a second, give you some context on this.
32:32 Steven Bartlett? So, over the last couple of years, I've put myself out there more. I've built my, as they call it, personal brand. And I've made more content online, on Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, et cetera, Instagram. And because of that, I've picked up a shitload of haters. Whenever you put yourself out there in the world, you'll pick up a bunch of people that just fucking hate your guts. And to be completely honest, I'm pretty sure there's some people that listen to this that fucking hate me, because that's just the way of the world, right? And naturally, nobody wants that. Nobody like wants to be hated. Nobody wants to have like that 1% of people that talk shit about them behind their back, because we will have our egos and we will want to be loved, right? That's just a human thing. So I think at one point last week, while I was in the gym, in fact, it crossed my mind,
33:16 Steven Bartlett? what would I have to do to not be hated? While still being myself and putting myself out there and trying to achieve the things I want to achieve? How would I have to behave? And the answer was, there is no way. There is no way for me to behave that will result in me being able to achieve the things I want to achieve, while still being myself and fulfilling myself and being happy and not getting haters. It just doesn't exist. Name for me someone on the face of planet Earth that doesn't have haters, that has achieved anything, that has been themselves. I I thought of names. The first name that comes to my mind is someone that I think
33:56 Steven Bartlett? everybody loves, Obama. Fifty percent of people fucking hate him. All of the Republicans hate him. Then I thought, okay, who else? Maybe a sporting legend, Ronaldo. People hate Ronaldo. In fact, all of the opposing clubs' fans, every time he plays, hates Ronaldo. They boo him, they shout shit at him. All the Messi fans hate Ronaldo. You can't, I can't name one person on planet Earth that's got through life without being hated and achieved something. So, listen, they're going to hate you anyway. They're going to talk shit about you anyway. And sometimes I do think, I think because I'm younger and I'm fairly new in my industry and our company's done really well and we're disruptive and we speak honestly and all these
34:41 Steven Bartlett? kinds of things, people fucking hate my guts. And some people do. And I hear about other agency CEOs. There's one in particular in Manchester, I've heard about that. Apparently, they just fucking hate me. Never met me, have no idea who they are, have no idea who this guy is, absolutely hates me apparently. And upon hearing that, it's definitely not very nice. No one wants to be hated. But, you know, what choice do I have? We all get this in life. This isn't just a situation unique to myself. We face this resistance that comes from others, whether it's strangers, whether it's your mum, whether it's your dad, your brother, your sister, your sister-in-law, whether it's a stranger that works in a competing business, that's two decades older than you, that is clearly a bit pissed off that you've done a right for
35:25 Steven Bartlett? yourself. That is the resistance we all face. And that resistance tells us to get back in our place. How dare you try and be successful? How dare you try and be yourself? You better get back in line and be a sheep. That's what the resistance wants from you, right? But the problem is standing in line is a really unhappy place to be. So I have to come to peace and I have to be happy outside of the line. Outside of the line is where all the shit talk takes place. That's where people try and tear you down. And a lot of the time they tear you down because they wish they could step outside of the line too. So they're shouting from the line, get back in line, who the fuck do you think you are? And Gary Vaynerchuk, I've seen him be torn down in this way.
36:08 Steven Bartlett? There are like a cult of people that are just Gary Vaynerchuk haters. And if you tweet something negative about Gary Vaynerchuk, you'll get 200 retweets on Twitter. Because people want, they love to hate him. There's no fucking reason to hate Gary Vaynerchuk. Honestly, there's not. I've met the guy four or five times. Nice guy. I text him quite often. Nice guy. He's trying to make the world a better place and his intentions are good. People fucking hate his guts. And this is the world we live in. And the choice you have is this. This is the choice all of you have, okay? You can either take the hate, be yourself, do it your way, chase after your fulfillment,
36:49 Steven Bartlett? be unapologetic, live your life on your terms and have no regrets. Or you can retreat under your duvet, turn the lights off, lock the door and just wait to die.
37:04 Steven Bartlett? That's the choice as far as I see it. And I think about that every single time I see that hate. I think, oh shit, maybe I should act differently so that people won't talk shit about me or won't be critical. And I just think I can't be fucked to get under my duvet and turn the light off and lock the door. Cause you know, I'm going to die anyway. That's the fucking punchline, isn't it? That's the punchline. I'm going to die anyway. So none of this stuff is going to matter. None of your fucking opinions are gonna matter. Your mum's opinion won't matter. None of this shit will matter. You know, I think if there was, if I had a mission in life, right? And I had to say, what am I trying to do to the people that watch me, listen to my podcast, come to like, listen to me on stage?
37:47 Steven Bartlett? It would probably be, I just want you to be you.
37:53 Steven Bartlett? I want you to be comfortable in your own skin and just being you. Isn't it sad that that's so hard? Just to be you. Unless you're a fucking racist, of course, then I don't want you to be you. I want you to go and go to church and repent for your sins. But if you're a nice person and the world could do with your value and you've got a unique take on life, then I want you to be you. Not racist and bigots and all that. I don't want you to be you. I want you to find Jesus, but yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna end the podcast there. It's 2am here in New York City and I talked about sleep in this podcast, so I better go get some. I'm in the cupboard in my apartment here in Brooklyn, New York.
38:36 Steven Bartlett? I'm surrounded by glasses and a blow up bed and a big exercise ball and I've got work in the morning. So I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. If you have, then please message me, tweet me, tag me on Instagram. I'm gonna go through the podcast reviews again and anybody that's rated it five stars and left their Instagram handle or their Twitter handle, I'll be dropping you a DM just to say thank you. I'll pick five people and send you a voice note as well and answer some of your questions. So thank you so much as always for listening to this podcast. I know you don't have to and I appreciate you allowing me to rant and get all this stuff off my chest and I really hope anything I've said helps you because if it does, then that helps me as well. So have a wonderful day, have a wonderful week and I'll see
39:20 Steven Bartlett? you again next Monday.
Previous E24: Tom Bilyeu - From Zero Drive to a Net Worth of $400m Next E26: Johann Hari - We Have Lost our Connections Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
