TRIGGERnometry - Chris Williamson： Positive Masculinity

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00:00:30.780 It's all out there for the taking right now. 0.98

00:00:32.960 If you have a gram of talent and an ounce of hard work, you'll run these pussies over. 1.00

00:00:36.780 And it's like, it's true. 0.97

00:00:38.080 Like there is, the bar has never been set lower.

00:00:41.360 Whatever it is that you're worried about, think about how fragile the average person is

00:00:46.880 and realize that half of the population is more fragile than that.

00:00:51.760 Taking the path that everybody else chooses may seem like the safe option,

00:00:55.000 but it's actually a guaranteed route to a life that you probably don't want.

00:00:58.760 I don't think there's ever been a time where there's been more opportunity and a lower degree of competition.

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00:02:29.080 Chris, it's so good to have you on, man.

00:02:31.560 This has been in the works for a long time.

00:02:34.180 I'm glad we've delayed it as much as we have because you are absolutely blowing up, man.

00:02:39.300 Welcome to the show.

00:02:40.340 Thank you.

00:02:40.840 Thank you for having me.

00:02:41.840 It's really good to have you on.

00:02:43.060 There's really a couple of subjects we wanted to talk to you about.

00:02:46.700 The first one of which is the reason you're so successful, which is mindset.

00:02:51.040 And you not only are someone who works in your mindset,

00:02:55.140 you also interview a hell of a lot of people about how to be effective, how to be healthy,

00:02:59.480 how to be kind of in the zone in many different ways.

00:03:01.860 So what have you learned?

00:03:03.280 What can you share with us and our audience?

00:03:05.900 Yeah.

00:03:06.080 How do we get to a million subscribers is what I'm saying.

00:03:08.660 No, just the arms.

00:03:10.300 How do you get the arms, mate?

00:03:11.360 Okay.

00:03:11.820 The arms is the easy part.

00:03:13.000 An obsessive worker, right?

00:03:14.020 Yeah, it's interesting, right?

00:03:15.320 So I got toward the end of my 20s and didn't really feel like I understood myself or the

00:03:21.340 world around me.

00:03:21.880 I think a lot of young guys and maybe girls too feel this way.

00:03:25.480 They've absorbed desires and goals that are supposed to fulfill them and maybe they've

00:03:31.980 reached them or they're on the way to reaching them and something doesn't feel quite right.

00:03:36.360 So end of my 20s, I've been on Love Island, you know, blue tick on Twitter, free charcoal

00:03:40.780 toothpaste, all that stuff.

00:03:42.900 And I haven't, I haven't, I don't know, like it was a promise that the world gave to me

00:03:48.540 that it didn't feel like it was delivering.

00:03:50.020 So I realized, okay, there's a mismatch here.

00:03:53.900 There's something's up.

00:03:54.780 I'm doing things that I'm told will make me feel fulfilled and yet the fulfillment doesn't

00:03:59.600 seem to be coming.

00:04:00.440 So it was a fortunate time getting to read and listen to guys like Alanda Botton from

00:04:05.520 the School of Life, massively formative for me, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Rogan's

00:04:11.200 show, you know, just real wealth of interesting individuals that were talking about how the

00:04:16.760 way you see the world and the things that you go after can change.

00:04:19.780 The way you feel.

00:04:21.120 And yeah, that I guess was just the journey, the mindset journey that I've been trying

00:04:25.640 to get on because in my 20s, I thought I was depressed.

00:04:29.020 I had technically like acute sadness for short periods of time.

00:04:34.440 And I just thought that was the texture of my own mind.

00:04:36.560 Um, I thought I was lonely, only child, so I always presumed that I was a lonely person.

00:04:42.500 And now I've got to, you know, 35 and the texture of my mind is unrecognizable to how

00:04:48.140 it was back then.

00:04:48.860 And the sort of friend groups that I have and the support that I feel and the enjoyment and

00:04:54.460 the enthusiasm that I have for life and the positivity and the hope that I have around

00:04:57.880 things has also changed.

00:04:59.660 So I think, you know, the proof is in the pudding that I went from someone who was like, not 0.98

00:05:04.180 despondent, but pretty, I didn't think that stuff was like going that great.

00:05:09.620 And this was kind of just life was here.

00:05:11.920 Right.

00:05:12.320 And I wanted it to be here.

00:05:14.320 And it just never really seemed to wobble that much higher.

00:05:18.120 Actually, I think you wanted it to be here.

00:05:20.140 You wanted, because you showed one hand above the other.

00:05:23.140 Actually, I think you wanted to be the real you.

00:05:25.460 Yeah.

00:05:25.700 That's what I think that emptiness and vacuousness that you talk about.

00:05:29.600 I think so many people experience that nowadays, especially in the age of social media, where

00:05:34.160 kind of what you're supposed to be is constantly being beamed into your head.

00:05:37.920 Yeah.

00:05:38.400 By watching all sorts of other people.

00:05:39.960 It's really interesting.

00:05:40.580 But I will say this, of all the people in our space, you were the first person that

00:05:44.760 we encountered who had a really healthy mindset about being friends with the people in your

00:05:51.240 space instead of seeing them as competition.

00:05:53.740 And we've been good friends ever since, I think because of that.

00:05:56.600 Well, you guys have brought this up on Rogan, and I did as well last year, the difference

00:06:01.540 between US and UK culture, right?

00:06:04.020 For the Brits that are listening, the tall poppy syndrome, which is very endemic, this kind

00:06:08.600 of zero-sum mentality, if you divert away from doing something that is the norm, you're very 1.00

00:06:14.200 quickly sort of shot down, that's stupid, that's lame, why are you trying this? 1.00

00:06:18.960 And in the US, you don't quite have that so much. 1.00

00:06:21.540 Now, you do have a problem in the US too, which is that children are promised the American 0.63

00:06:25.680 dream, and when they grow up to become adults, and they feel like reality hasn't delivered

00:06:29.560 that to them, they often feel a sense of entitlement.

00:06:33.880 Why isn't the world this way?

00:06:35.620 And this is why I think that the victimhood culture seems to be more patient zero-y over

00:06:40.100 here in the US than it is in the UK.

00:06:41.960 Because in the UK, what did you hope for?

00:06:44.660 Everyone's like, congratulations.

00:06:45.840 Of course you're a victim.

00:06:48.600 You expected nothing, and nothing came to you, congratulations, you achieved your goals.

00:06:52.860 And this is a really important rule, which is the difference between your expectation

00:06:57.100 and your reality very much is determinant of how we feel about our lives.

00:07:02.100 You know, desire is the thief of joy, comparison is the thief of joy, desire is a contract you

00:07:07.040 make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.

00:07:09.660 All that it's doing is comparing where you want to be to where you are.

00:07:12.320 And that's not necessarily a justification for having low expectations, but something like

00:07:19.380 pessimism in practice, optimism in reality, something like that would be quite nice, like

00:07:28.300 sort of high hopes, low expectations, something like that I think would be kind of cool.

00:07:32.800 But yeah, man, this sort of very virulent strain of people being tamped down in the UK,

00:07:39.420 I feel, and I came up with this idea with a friend, Alex, called The Lonely Chapter.

00:07:43.980 I think it's really important, so I'll teach you guys about it.

00:07:46.320 So on your journey from being the person that you are now to the person that you want to

00:07:52.260 be, especially if it's going to make some sort of a dramatic change between the two,

00:07:56.200 you are going to have to go through a period where you have changed so much that you no

00:08:01.000 longer fit in with your old set of friends.

00:08:02.720 But you are currently not yet developed enough to have developed the new set of friends,

00:08:08.340 right?

00:08:08.640 And this is what we call The Lonely Chapter.

00:08:11.060 And I think it's very important because all of the Genesis origin stories of, I decided

00:08:18.660 that the sales job wasn't for me, or that the girlfriend wasn't for me, or that the life

00:08:23.120 or the city wasn't for me.

00:08:24.100 So I decided to go out, especially because that's dominated a lot by America.

00:08:28.580 It seems like a very sort of smooth journey from making that decision in terms of commitment

00:08:34.240 and self-belief.

00:08:35.900 But the realistic experience of this is that if you want to go from where you are to where

00:08:42.260 you want to be, it's going to cause you to leave friends behind.

00:08:44.820 You're not going to get the new group.

00:08:46.780 This bit in the middle, this lonely chapter, will cause you to be riddled with self-doubt.

00:08:51.020 And you will be uncertain about your future.

00:08:54.380 You will lack self-esteem.

00:08:56.240 And you won't even know that there's going to be glory on the other side of it, right?

00:08:59.780 You don't even know that it's going to work.

00:09:01.880 And that degree of difficulty isn't a bug.

00:09:05.880 It's a feature, right?

00:09:07.200 It is built in.

00:09:08.680 It's baked into the experience of going from one to another.

00:09:12.500 And I think that that, like really viscerally understanding, okay, this isn't a sign that

00:09:18.380 I'm doing something wrong.

00:09:19.180 This isn't a curse.

00:09:19.940 This is actually baked into the experience of going from where I am to where I want to

00:09:25.480 be.

00:09:26.220 And the friends saying, oh, he's on a diet again.

00:09:28.880 Wonder how long you're going to stick to this one.

00:09:30.540 Oh, too good to drink with us, I guess.

00:09:32.060 Like not coming out tonight.

00:09:33.060 I'm going to stay in and like read your poetry.

00:09:35.200 Are you, whatever it is that you're doing, go and do more paintings, bro.

00:09:38.840 Whatever it is that you're doing.

00:09:39.960 I think that understanding this is part and parcel of life, I think is very important.

00:09:45.980 It is very important.

00:09:47.320 And also as well, it's when you're, what I notice is that it happened kind of instantly.

00:09:54.900 Like my old life, and it may have been because of the pandemic, just seemed to collapse pretty

00:10:00.660 much over a period of a week.

00:10:02.520 And that was a real shock because you think to yourself, I'm working, I'm improving, I'm

00:10:07.740 changing.

00:10:08.480 I can keep all of these balls in the air.

00:10:10.780 And then very suddenly it becomes apparent that you can't.

00:10:13.720 And then everything changes in a way that you can't predict.

00:10:16.900 Yeah, it's scary, man.

00:10:19.760 And that discomfort is what causes a lot of people to go back to their old life.

00:10:24.380 You know, you guys, careers, being able to do the fringe and however many hundreds of

00:10:30.540 nights per year on the road.

00:10:32.320 Okay, well, that's safe to me.

00:10:34.720 I have a community.

00:10:35.460 I have people that know me.

00:10:36.280 I've got status.

00:10:36.960 I've got esteem within that.

00:10:38.180 I need to let all of that go to then start at the bottom again in this new industry that

00:10:42.600 I don't even know if it's going to work.

00:10:44.200 So some of it is risk tolerance, which I really struggle with.

00:10:47.220 I struggle with taking risky decisions.

00:10:49.440 But yeah, moving towards things one step at a time.

00:10:52.800 Ryan Holiday's got this great quote where he says, self-belief is overrated.

00:10:57.080 I prefer evidence.

00:10:58.360 Yes.

00:10:58.920 And just one little step.

00:11:01.680 Okay, can I do this thing?

00:11:03.040 Yes, I can.

00:11:03.620 Can I do this thing?

00:11:04.360 Yes, I can.

00:11:05.100 I was riddled with so much uncertainty and self-doubt, especially throughout my 20s, even

00:11:12.120 though I distensibly achieved some success, which made the self-doubt feel even more shameful,

00:11:16.920 right?

00:11:17.180 Because I didn't even have the rampant poverty and despondent lifestyle.

00:11:24.060 I had something outwardly that looked like it was sorted, but inwardly felt like I was

00:11:27.880 chronically unconfident of myself.

00:11:30.080 And yeah, you can really, really break through a lack of confidence by just doing tiny, tiny

00:11:39.200 little things and keeping promises to yourself.

00:11:41.420 And over time, Rogan calls it layers of paint.

00:11:44.240 So each time you just one layer of paint, one layer of paint.

00:11:47.280 And it's so gossamer thin that you never even see it. 1.00

00:11:49.880 But then when you turn around after a long enough time, you go, fuck you, that's a big 1.00

00:11:52.380 pile of paint. 1.00

00:11:53.020 And then it's a mountain.

00:11:53.680 And I find that actually what really helps me is meditation.

00:11:57.340 Now, I always thought that these people who were like, I meditate, I thought, all right, 0.98

00:12:01.180 mate, you're a wanker, right? 0.98

00:12:02.800 But it actually changes your life. 0.99

00:12:05.880 If you meditate in the morning and exercise on top of that, what it actually teaches you

00:12:11.900 is what you have is the moment.

00:12:14.320 So you're not thinking about the future, obsessing about the future.

00:12:17.320 You're not regretting the past, which is frequently what we do.

00:12:21.560 You're just purely in that moment.

00:12:24.000 And if you're in that moment, you can dedicate every single one of your mental faculties to

00:12:28.380 doing the thing, whatever the thing is, which means that the thing is going to be done to

00:12:32.360 the highest possible standard that you can do at that time, which means that you are going

00:12:37.080 to improve exponentially and also you are going to keep improving.

00:12:42.420 Yeah, I think a lot of what we do in life, especially when we have a goal that we're going

00:12:48.740 toward involves dressing up, not doing the thing, right?

00:12:52.720 Like ultimately, yes, there are ways for me.

00:12:55.260 We both spoke, we both trained this morning.

00:12:57.120 We both done like whatever little routine that we've got.

00:12:59.660 And I feel really, really great today.

00:13:01.300 But one of the problems, the perils of over-optimization include someone believing that they can no longer

00:13:08.160 perform unless they go through this elaborate routine beforehand.

00:13:10.920 The goal should be for you to be able to perform whether you're in the middle of a war zone,

00:13:15.180 whether you've not had any sleep, whether you've done whatever, right?

00:13:17.840 I want to be able to work like this and then build myself off the top of that with,

00:13:21.880 oh, I'm great.

00:13:22.460 I managed to get my morning walk in and I managed to train and I managed to do all the rest of it.

00:13:26.920 But there's a degree of fragility that comes with over-optimization because people no longer

00:13:33.320 feel like they're sufficiently robust to do this stuff.

00:13:35.780 And I've got Andrew Huberman coming back on the show soon and I'm going to bring it up to him

00:13:40.540 and say, look, you've given a lot of people science-based tools to improve themselves.

00:13:45.220 But again, what did we say about knowing where you could be versus knowing where you are?

00:13:48.800 If you feel like, oh God, I didn't get 10 minutes of sunlight in my eyes this morning.

00:13:53.760 My circadian rhythm is going to be messed up.

00:13:55.380 I can't believe my adrenals are all going to...

00:13:57.920 That fear of under-optimization, now knowing where you could be at, is a discomfort.

00:14:04.480 And I think for a lot of people that want that control in their lives,

00:14:07.280 that's something that gets felt.

00:14:09.040 So yeah, that's a...

00:14:10.940 Although I love optimizing and I love coming up with ways to be better,

00:14:14.660 certainly one of the things I've tried to do over the last 18 months since I moved to Austin

00:14:17.960 is let go of that as well.

00:14:19.980 Let go of the need for it to be part of a routine.

00:14:23.920 What is it when someone...

00:14:25.640 A superstition.

00:14:26.420 It's almost like a superstition, right?

00:14:28.320 It's no longer a performance enhancer that you just feel.

00:14:30.960 It's, oh, I've got to put the right boot on, then the left boot on,

00:14:32.940 then touch the door as I walk out.

00:14:34.840 It's a form of OCD almost.

00:14:36.720 Yeah, a little bit.

00:14:37.740 You know, like when you watch that Beckham documentary,

00:14:39.900 and he was saying everything has to be like this, it has to be like this,

00:14:42.700 in this particular way, it has to be structured like this.

00:14:46.120 And, you know, that can be great in one sense because it makes you feel comfortable,

00:14:49.260 but like you just said yourself, it's a complete prison

00:14:51.500 because then you feel unless you do the thing, whatever the thing is,

00:14:55.320 that you're not going to be optimum.

00:14:56.980 So you've already told yourself that you're not going to be as effective,

00:15:00.520 therefore you're not going to do the thing well.

00:15:02.320 Yeah, the doing the thing is just, that do the thing is something that I must tweet out about once a week.

00:15:07.620 And it's usually reminded to myself that I schedule in advance for a time when I know in my calendar

00:15:12.060 that I'll need to see it.

00:15:13.660 And yet so much of our lives involve dressing up, not doing the thing that we know we're supposed to do.

00:15:19.780 It's, think about when you've got a bunch of emails that you don't want to reply to,

00:15:24.340 how ridiculous some of the things that you start, I'll clean the fridge.

00:15:27.940 I haven't cleaned the fridge in six months.

00:15:30.200 Why am I doing that?

00:15:31.760 Oh, it's because I'm evading these emails, right?

00:15:34.300 Oh, I'll get another walk-in or I'll have another coffee or I'll make it,

00:15:37.860 I better be hydrated or, oh, there's that one thing that I need to do before.

00:15:40.840 It's like, you're just hiding from the work. 0.88

00:15:42.560 Like, no matter how much you dress it up, the work just fucking needs doing 0.57

00:15:44.960 and there's nowhere to hide from it.

00:15:46.280 One thing I want to come back to, what you guys were talking about just a little bit earlier,

00:15:50.140 is you were talking about burning bridges, essentially.

00:15:53.600 This is why I've never had a problem burning bridges, because it gives you,

00:15:57.760 like, there is no going back to the comedy industry for me.

00:16:01.540 There just isn't.

00:16:02.480 No, you went scorched earth with that.

00:16:04.400 Yeah.

00:16:05.340 And I have fire and brimstone.

00:16:07.220 Fire and brimstone, and I did it on purpose,

00:16:09.600 because that's exactly what I needed to do to make this work.

00:16:12.720 It's just, that's what I needed to do in my own psychology.

00:16:15.800 That's really interesting.

00:16:16.940 I think that it's very much a quirk of your psychology.

00:16:19.200 Oh, definitely.

00:16:22.000 That it's been very rare for me that I've not just let things sort of slowly slide away.

00:16:28.020 You know, the relationships or the connections or the places that I would show up

00:16:32.060 or whatever it is just kind of dissipated.

00:16:35.380 And, you know, it's a lot less uncomfortable than people might think,

00:16:39.360 because everybody is so wrapped up in their own existence,

00:16:42.340 they've got very little time to think about yours.

00:16:44.720 Not in the comedy industry.

00:16:45.700 No, they don't.

00:16:46.580 Okay, sorry.

00:16:47.160 They've got loads of time.

00:16:48.660 They've got loads of time and lots of things to say on social media.

00:16:51.920 The reason I bring it up is I think what you said about having to move on

00:16:57.780 from past relationships, past friendship groups, et cetera,

00:17:01.560 it is so fundamentally true.

00:17:04.000 I mean, the stats, you probably know this better than I do.

00:17:06.180 Like, your income is the average income of the five closest people you spend the most time with, et cetera.

00:17:11.800 You have to, you're, the people who you're going to be friends with, truly,

00:17:17.840 are going to be the people who are on your level mentally, intellectually, in every way.

00:17:23.460 It's just how it is.

00:17:24.280 Otherwise, you're not going to be friends.

00:17:25.960 I think there's a better version of that.

00:17:27.900 You are the average of the five friends you spend the most time with.

00:17:30.520 You are the average of the five podcasts you listen to the most.

00:17:32.940 Probably.

00:17:33.740 I genuinely think that for a good chunk of people,

00:17:35.940 especially the people going through the lonely chapter, you know,

00:17:38.740 they will have a stronger friendship relationship.

00:17:42.340 They will spend more time listening to your guys' show or Huberman's show or Lex's show or whatever

00:17:47.520 than they will with any other group of friends, you know.

00:17:51.220 So, be careful what you're putting in your ears, I suppose, too.

00:17:54.000 I got this idea of post-content clarity, like post-nut clarity.

00:17:57.600 And when we consume stuff on the internet, a lot of the time we don't really think about it reflectively.

00:18:06.840 It just sort of comes and goes.

00:18:08.140 And then if I was to say to you, what were the last five things you watched on YouTube,

00:18:11.900 you're going to really struggle.

00:18:12.980 And if I said, what were the things you watched on YouTube first yesterday,

00:18:15.620 it's basically impossible, right?

00:18:17.080 It just comes and goes.

00:18:17.860 But really what we should be doing is watching content that after we've finished it

00:18:23.740 makes us feel better about ourselves, better about the world, more informed.

00:18:28.340 You know, like you want to go outside and ring a friend and tell them that you missed it.

00:18:32.300 Like, that's how I want to feel after content.

00:18:34.700 And yeah, not all content can be lovey-dovey and there's things that people need to learn that are uncomfortable.

00:18:38.900 I want to feel better once I've finished consuming something.

00:18:41.600 And I realized that so much of the content I consumed was like fast food for my amygdala

00:18:47.340 rather than spirulina for my soul, right?

00:18:49.920 It was just hijacking me limbically in the most bottom-of-the-brainstem way that it could.

00:18:55.400 I'm like, I shouldn't watch this anymore.

00:18:57.860 So yeah, post-content clarity.

00:18:59.120 If someone that's listening thinks, oh, I feel a bit uncomfortable after I use my phone,

00:19:03.800 maybe it's the amount of time you're spending on your phone, absolutely.

00:19:06.100 But very much, I think you can change what you're choosing to consume.

00:19:09.300 Oh, definitely.

00:19:09.780 I would modify that slightly, though, because I think I didn't feel good after watching Schindler's List,

00:19:14.960 but I think it was important to watch, you know what I mean?

00:19:17.700 So when we have someone on, we had Maggie Oliver recently to talk about police corruption 1.00

00:19:22.540 and grooming gangs in the UK.

00:19:24.680 We cover those issues because other media outlets won't cover them properly

00:19:28.540 and won't keep that conversation going.

00:19:30.840 I don't know anyone who tuned into that.

00:19:33.860 Fired up after that.

00:19:35.000 That being said, the way that you guys haven't seen that episode,

00:19:37.840 but the way that you guys probably approached it isn't in some tribal, limbically hijacking way.

00:19:44.140 It's in a luck.

00:19:44.680 This is a really important thing that we need to be connected to that we're not sufficiently aware of.

00:19:48.920 So even in the framing of a difficult subject,

00:19:51.140 what I'm talking about is any show that begins by calling out an out group.

00:19:56.560 If any piece of content on the internet, and whether it be a book, whether it be a creator, YouTube, Twitter,

00:20:04.680 if that person's group is fundamentally held together by the mutual distaste of an out group

00:20:11.200 rather than the mutual love of an in-group, that's a red flag.

00:20:14.160 It's a huge red flag for me.

00:20:15.560 You know, I always compare this to, because I used to get eczema a lot when I was a kid,

00:20:20.600 scratching your eczema.

00:20:21.820 When you scratch your eczema, it feels better.

00:20:25.200 But then you stop, and it's worse.

00:20:28.220 It just makes you more itchy.

00:20:30.360 It makes you more uncomfortable.

00:20:32.340 And I think that's something more and more that people just need to understand,

00:20:36.560 is what you do in the moment may make you feel good,

00:20:39.920 but later on, it's just going to make you feel worse.

00:20:42.880 And I think so many people, they go online, and they almost get this almost drug-like hit

00:20:51.180 out of a piece of content that will make them feel something.

00:20:55.660 But then you see them like an hour afterwards, and they're still ruminating about this thing.

00:21:00.980 And it's just completely wrecked the next couple of hours.

00:21:05.220 Think about a little bit more, I guess, close to what some of the subjects that you guys talk about are.

00:21:11.960 The desire for performative empathy that is very prevalent on the internet.

00:21:16.840 What people are actually optimizing for with performative empathy,

00:21:19.760 or you should post a black square, and silence is compliance or violence.

00:21:24.760 You know, all of these sort of things.

00:21:26.280 Silence is consent.

00:21:27.280 That's my favorite.

00:21:28.740 Silence is consent.

00:21:30.840 Like, is Jimmy Carr in the room?

00:21:32.240 But they had that slogan going during BLM.

00:21:35.820 Silence is consent.

00:21:38.180 And I was going, have you thought of applying this to other situations?

00:21:41.120 That's a dangerous, very dangerous rule.

00:21:44.460 So, yeah.

00:21:45.100 Sorry.

00:21:45.760 Sorry.

00:21:46.760 There's nowhere to go with that.

00:21:47.920 Awful.

00:21:48.880 So, one of the problems that you have, the reason I think that this is tied together,

00:21:53.320 is an over-prioritization of the present moment, of the now.

00:21:58.560 A fear of discomfort and a pushing away of it.

00:22:01.540 But, you know, given the fact that there are many problems that people feel internally,

00:22:06.440 their internal state, the existential crisis, am I really living my life in the best way,

00:22:11.660 something called intergenerational competition theory, which is if each generation does better

00:22:15.740 than their parents, then inherently everyone feels good.

00:22:18.100 And, you know, millennials, and especially Gen Z, are probably one that even materially

00:22:21.680 has done worse than their parents.

00:22:23.540 So, yeah.

00:22:24.200 You're comparing yourself to where your parents were at your age, and you're feeling like

00:22:27.260 you're falling behind on average.

00:22:28.960 Really, really not great.

00:22:29.920 And what does that mean?

00:22:31.300 It means that when you compare that with a world in which everything can be convenient

00:22:34.700 and you can Uber eats yourself a Michelin star meal while you sit on a couch you Amazon primed

00:22:39.560 and watch a Netflix documentary that won an award, you are very bereft of most immediate discomforts.

00:22:45.880 And when you face them, it feels more like a perversion of how reality is supposed to be

00:22:51.900 rather than just baked into the existence of things get hard sometimes.

00:22:56.680 So what I see with this sort of the victimhood culture and then also people's desire or push for performative empathy

00:23:05.580 is the opposite of not giving Nikolai, your son, ice cream every night.

00:23:12.520 It's like maybe he's not at the age he eats ice cream, but whatever.

00:23:14.960 Like some treat that he would like, it would be something he would enjoy but not be good for him long term.

00:23:20.240 But when people optimize the thing that they enjoy over what is good for them,

00:23:23.920 and they refuse to believe that there can be anything which is not enjoyable but good for them,

00:23:30.660 you end up with an entire society that's basically mentally always eating ice cream. 0.50

00:23:34.440 Well, and when it comes to food, I like to use the ice cream metaphor.

00:23:38.040 It's what Rogan calls mouth pleasure.

00:23:39.680 And I like that he calls it that because that's what it is.

00:23:43.300 You're buying a little bit of pleasure but doing something that's actually harmful to you.

00:23:48.440 And so many things in life, they're not supposed to be easy.

00:23:53.040 They're not supposed to be pleasant or comfortable.

00:23:56.080 And I always say this to people.

00:23:57.680 It's like everything you want is by definition outside of the comfort zone that you're in.

00:24:04.440 Because otherwise you'd already have it.

00:24:06.200 If you could have what you want by being comfortable, you'd have it now.

00:24:10.480 Because you wouldn't need to do it.

00:24:12.800 And you also wouldn't value it.

00:24:13.880 Yeah.

00:24:14.260 Right?

00:24:14.560 That's the other thing.

00:24:15.320 There is one of the really interesting realizations is that a lot of the things that people want to get easily

00:24:22.060 are only valuable because they're not attainable with ease.

00:24:25.540 Right?

00:24:26.200 So if you end up trying to do this, if you did dial down the difficulty of achieving the thing that you say you want to achieve,

00:24:31.660 you would no longer want it.

00:24:32.600 And baked into the difficulty is the value of the thing.

00:24:35.960 That's right.

00:24:36.420 Yeah.

00:24:37.000 And we don't talk about it enough.

00:24:38.860 And also, we talk a lot about being kind to ourselves.

00:24:43.480 But actually, being kind to yourself means going to the gym when you don't want to go to the gym.

00:24:49.300 Not indulging yourself.

00:24:51.480 Doing something that is actually very difficult that you run away from but you know that you must do.

00:24:56.840 But what if a better definition of self-love would be holding yourself to a higher standard than anybody else does?

00:25:03.980 Yes.

00:25:04.400 Yes.

00:25:05.500 Yes.

00:25:06.100 Like what if you are your own biggest champion?

00:25:09.140 Yes.

00:25:09.400 And then what if having friends, good friends that care about you, are people who believe in you more than they pity you?

00:25:18.540 So that when things get hard, they don't pat you on the shoulder.

00:25:21.920 Lex won't mind me telling this story.

00:25:23.460 You came to Malice's house where you guys had a party this week.

00:25:26.480 And I sadly missed.

00:25:28.480 Lex came.

00:25:29.420 And I think maybe the Ukraine war had just started out.

00:25:32.420 And he was trying to keep an ear on that.

00:25:37.100 And maybe he's going to go out and speak to Putin or somebody else.

00:25:39.460 And he's trying to build robots.

00:25:40.840 And then he's trying to do his podcast.

00:25:42.080 And he's doing all of these different things.

00:25:43.800 And he was talking about how he was lamenting, juggling all of these plates to some of his friends.

00:25:51.160 Or maybe even just somebody.

00:25:52.620 And he said, a lot of his friends kind of patted him on the shoulder and said, oh, man, you work so much already.

00:25:58.580 You know, this is like you should be, you should go easier on yourself.

00:26:01.820 He turned and looked at me and he went, I wish people would stop saying that.

00:26:05.100 I wish that they would say, yeah, this is tough, but you're tougher.

00:26:08.840 And I thought, wow, that's so cool.

00:26:11.100 You know, for someone who seeks in their friends, people who believe in them more than they pity them.

00:26:16.020 Yeah.

00:26:16.700 It's just such a, and you know, the self-love.

00:26:18.940 Self-love is holding yourself to a higher standard than anybody else does.

00:26:21.340 Like that is just such a powerful idea and functionally much more useful as well.

00:26:27.340 It is.

00:26:27.900 The challenge comes when you've been raised by parents who, you know, coddle you.

00:26:33.720 Teach you that.

00:26:35.080 Never had that problem.

00:26:38.440 Teach you that actually, you know, you are a victim.

00:26:43.280 And for people, other people will sort out your problems.

00:26:45.460 Other people will rise to the challenge for you.

00:26:49.140 And that becomes a learnt behaviour.

00:26:50.740 And I think that what we need to do is empower children to make them realise that facing a challenge is life.

00:27:01.060 Life is a challenge.

00:27:02.080 If you, as somebody who may be a little bit cynical, slightly blackpilled in any form of the word, whether it be through dating or personal development or career development or finances or social mobility, whatever it is that you're worried about, think about how fragile the average person is.

00:27:20.140 And realise that half of the population is more fragile than that, right? 0.99

00:27:25.680 It's a great rewording of, I think it was George Carlin's line, think how stupid the average person is. 1.00

00:27:30.800 Yeah. 1.00

00:27:31.200 Now realise half of them are even more stupid than that. 1.00

00:27:33.940 Yeah. 1.00

00:27:34.040 Right, so 50% of the population is more fragile than the average person that you know.

00:27:40.280 And you have to work really, really hard to be able to find friends that are super robust and anti-fragile.

00:27:45.920 And you go, oh my God, this is such a rarity.

00:27:47.720 OK, so what you're telling me is that the bar is set low.

00:27:50.860 I don't think the bar's ever been set this low for people to be able to separate themselves out from the pack.

00:27:55.580 The average American is obese, divorced, with less than 1K in the bank.

00:28:01.780 So taking the path that everybody else chooses may seem like the safe option,

00:28:06.120 but it's actually a guaranteed route to a life that you probably don't want.

00:28:09.940 Wow.

00:28:11.540 We'll be back with the interview in one minute.

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00:29:17.940 That's such a profound point, man.

00:29:20.940 That's such a profound point.

00:29:22.600 And actually, when Jordan had me on his show, he did this paywalled section that they do at the end.

00:29:27.700 And he was asking me about my background and whatever.

00:29:30.240 And we talked about when I was homeless.

00:29:33.180 In the secret service.

00:29:33.880 Oh, sorry.

00:29:34.140 We talked about when I was sleeping in the park.

00:29:37.920 And I told the story about I used to smoke back then.

00:29:43.640 And I was just, I had nothing to do all day because that's what it is to be homeless and not to have a job at that time, etc.

00:29:51.680 I was just walking around.

00:29:52.940 And this guy was waiting for a bus and he lit a cigarette. 0.99

00:29:56.620 And I was like, oh, fucking hell. 0.99

00:29:57.720 And the bus came. 0.99

00:29:59.000 So he got upset, dropped the cigarette.

00:30:00.420 I remember picking that cigarette up and in that moment, it was the lowest that I've ever felt, ever.

00:30:07.060 And that was the moment I decided I'd never be there again.

00:30:10.480 I'm never coming back here.

00:30:12.000 And he was like, that's right.

00:30:13.740 When you want to do things in your life, it's helpful to know the heaven that you're going to.

00:30:19.720 But it's also very useful to have a hell behind you that you're moving away from.

00:30:23.620 And that's what you're talking about.

00:30:24.820 This is why I think that's such a great reframe because the alternative to going for it and trying things and doing your best and actually attempting to achieve the thing you're meant to achieve,

00:30:38.560 and I really believe in that sense of destiny in a way, is not comfort and sort of everything's all right. 0.99

00:30:45.580 It's fucking terrible. 0.98

00:30:46.420 And that was a great reframe, man. 1.00

00:30:49.080 I love that.

00:30:50.300 Yeah. 0.98

00:30:50.620 You know, Dana White said, I fucking love that guy. 0.98

00:30:55.280 Me too, man. 0.98

00:30:55.940 We're both big fans of him.

00:30:57.720 Dana, we're coming for you.

00:31:00.580 He had this really great reel that someone repurposed that said, I think he's got sons.

00:31:07.220 He has.

00:31:07.800 Yeah.

00:31:08.300 I tell my sons, it's all out there for the taking right now. 0.98

00:31:12.040 If you have a gram of talent and an ounce of hard work, you'll run these pussies over. 1.00

00:31:15.440 And it's like, it's true. 0.97

00:31:17.320 Like, there is, the bar has never been set lower.

00:31:19.900 And I understand, you know, if you wallow in Reddit and the dark recesses of Twitter, that you can believe that you are a genetic dead end as a man and there is nothing that you can do.

00:31:30.600 Or as a woman, that the culture is, you're kind of at the mercy of the culture in a way.

00:31:34.800 And you maybe feel like you missed a time of glory or that was more appropriate for you. 0.97

00:31:39.360 Maybe it was the 1950s or maybe it was the fucking Middle Ages. 0.98

00:31:42.740 I don't know. 0.98

00:31:43.260 But, right, you feel wistful for a life that you never got to lead.

00:31:47.200 But the truthful fact is, I don't think there's ever been a time where there's been more opportunity and a lower degree of competition.

00:31:58.020 Agreed.

00:31:58.360 Like, we've just said, the average American, that's the average American, right?

00:32:01.880 Yeah.

00:32:02.020 Obese, less than 1K in the bank and divorced, right? 0.66

00:32:05.900 Like, just, it's so low.

00:32:08.300 And I understand that it can seem like you're talking from an ivory tower of, oh, well done, you had this sorted.

00:32:13.160 But I didn't have it sorted.

00:32:14.160 I didn't have it sorted for a very long time.

00:32:15.540 You know, I had days where getting one foot out of my bed onto the floor was a task so great that I couldn't do it, right?

00:32:25.720 That I just couldn't bear to open the curtains.

00:32:27.700 I couldn't bear to speak to anybody.

00:32:29.460 And ostensibly outside, I had the entire life sorted.

00:32:31.900 Okay, so what does that tell you?

00:32:33.220 It tells you that material conditions don't actually always determine your internal state.

00:32:39.680 So don't presume that the things that you're chasing for are actually going to fix whatever your internal problem is.

00:32:44.140 And also, don't use your external state as an excuse for the way that your internal feelings are.

00:32:49.320 That's not to say that you can't get to a state of destitution where it's pretty much impossible to be happy.

00:32:53.620 Yeah.

00:32:53.780 But.

00:32:54.440 We all know what you mean.

00:32:55.560 You know, the one thing that I worry about is having kids, and I'm sure the two of you will have kids at some point as well, is how do you pass?

00:33:05.800 Like, we were talking earlier before we started about, like, you're a dog.

00:33:09.280 You were saying this to me, like, you have really high standards.

00:33:12.060 It's true.

00:33:12.700 I do.

00:33:13.240 And that's partly because, like, I've been right at the bottom and I'm never going back there.

00:33:17.980 I'm just not.

00:33:18.600 But how do you pass that on to somebody who's your entire mission, you think, is to provide a great life for?

00:33:26.560 I love this.

00:33:27.400 I love this question.

00:33:29.860 And I've asked it to a lot of successful young dudes who've got young kids.

00:33:33.820 Ben Francis, CEO of Gymshark.

00:33:36.260 His net worth is three times Drake's, right?

00:33:39.140 He's tripled the net worth of Drake, like, 2.5, 2 point something billion, sorry.

00:33:46.960 Ryan Terry, another guy, both working class backgrounds. 0.85

00:33:50.820 Ben Francis's grandfather works, still works, I think, in, like, some smelting place in Birmingham, like it's fucking Peaky Blinders. 0.89

00:33:58.880 And then. 0.97

00:34:00.260 It would have been enough just to say Birmingham, mate.

00:34:02.400 Yeah, true.

00:34:02.860 And then Ryan Terry's dad and then him, both plumbers, I think, like, really bad plumbers.

00:34:11.340 He's a bad plumber, according to some friends.

00:34:13.620 And both of them really, really valued the lessons that their working class upbringing gave them, you know?

00:34:21.040 Really, like, spit and sawdust and you, like, eat what you kill type mentality.

00:34:26.380 And yet, what was the point in working this hard if you're not going to give your progeny the benefits that you have worked for?

00:34:37.060 Like, what was the point of doing this?

00:34:38.920 Yeah, there's legacy and impact and all that sort of stuff.

00:34:41.140 But presumably the greatest impact you want to have is on the people that have your genetics, right?

00:34:45.780 Your kids, the people you care about the most.

00:34:47.400 Okay, so tell me, how are you going to balance this, I want them to learn the lessons of things being hard, with, I want to be able to afford them the opportunities that I never had.

00:34:58.960 And I, these two worlds, I genuinely don't know how they fit together.

00:35:03.520 I don't know how easily they do.

00:35:05.120 I guess this is going to be a challenge that you're going to have to face in some regards as well.

00:35:08.820 But I know for a fact that Ryan pulled his kid out of private school.

00:35:13.200 His kid was going to a private school.

00:35:14.740 I think he's maybe only, like, three or fours of preschool, private school, something.

00:35:18.140 And, like, there was, like, a non-zero number of children that arrived by helicopter each day. 0.79

00:35:23.760 So kids, like, just getting dropped off by, presumably, the fucking nanny or the assistant or whatever it is, ushered off and then they'll fly away. 0.86

00:35:31.960 And he was like, I just can't, I couldn't, I couldn't do it. 0.98

00:35:34.900 I couldn't, I didn't like the work ethic of this particular school.

00:35:38.320 By helicopter?

00:35:39.380 By helicopter. 1.00

00:35:39.900 That school's like a cunt factory. 1.00

00:35:41.280 Just stamping them out. 0.99

00:35:47.640 Guaranteed we're not going to get monetized on this episode.

00:35:49.760 No, we're going to bleep that out.

00:35:51.060 We won that sweet, sweet advertising dollar.

00:35:53.400 Kevin Hart has got a great story about this.

00:35:55.320 Obviously, Kevin Hart came from a really, I think it's Chicago, a really poor part of Chicago.

00:36:00.000 Really desperate poverty there.

00:36:02.160 Made his way to Hollywood.

00:36:04.800 Comedic superstar, comedy superstar.

00:36:06.500 And he said to his kids, right, I want you to understand where I came from.

00:36:10.980 I want you to understand daddy's struggle.

00:36:12.900 I want you to understand how daddy worked.

00:36:14.940 I'm going to take you back to where daddy came from.

00:36:17.020 So he took him to what he calls a ghetto, showed them around.

00:36:20.340 They did it two hours.

00:36:21.660 They went and met people.

00:36:22.820 And he went, right, what do you think?

00:36:23.960 And they both went, we love the ghetto.

00:36:25.380 And he's like, no.

00:36:28.520 That's not what you were supposed to take from this.

00:36:30.900 Because, yeah, because to them it's novelty.

00:36:33.740 It's novelty.

00:36:35.060 And the worst part about growing up in that place isn't that you grow up in that place.

00:36:39.980 It's this knowledge that chances are you ain't going to leave.

00:36:45.780 It's the difference.

00:36:46.880 It's fundamentally the difference between going camping or being homeless.

00:36:49.760 Yes.

00:36:49.980 Yeah.

00:36:50.560 Right.

00:36:50.820 One is a choice.

00:36:51.900 The other is a necessity.

00:36:53.400 It's homeless faced.

00:36:54.120 Yeah, it's like homeless face.

00:36:58.320 Was it Christopher Hitchens that got waterboarded?

00:37:01.220 Or Peter Hitchens, one of them.

00:37:02.820 It was Christopher who got waterboarded.

00:37:03.760 It was Christopher.

00:37:04.480 Peter did by Alex O'Connor.

00:37:07.620 That will be out soon from what I gather.

00:37:09.940 Or by the time this has gone out.

00:37:11.560 Or did he waterboard himself?

00:37:12.780 By the time this has gone out, this will be super viral.

00:37:14.320 Everyone will know.

00:37:14.980 That will be old news.

00:37:15.940 But, yeah, Christopher Hitchens was like, let's check if it's torture.

00:37:19.920 I'll go and get waterboarded.

00:37:21.180 And I'm like, you can stop it at any time.

00:37:23.520 And you know it's going to end.

00:37:24.640 It's completely not the same thing.

00:37:26.080 Yeah.

00:37:26.480 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:27.000 So how you do that with kids, probably not waterboarding, but short of that, is how do

00:37:31.380 you create that?

00:37:33.120 And I genuinely don't know.

00:37:35.060 Get divorced.

00:37:37.120 That'll teach him.

00:37:40.260 You've got the material conditions, but you're going to be bereft of love.

00:37:43.460 Yeah, exactly.

00:37:44.580 Daddy doesn't love you.

00:37:45.520 Here's your pause.

00:37:47.880 No.

00:37:49.080 No, I don't know.

00:37:50.140 Because I think your point about Kevin Hart and going to the ghetto is that reality is

00:37:54.460 you have to have difficult experiences.

00:37:56.400 And this is a big source of tension between my wife and I.

00:37:58.900 And for women, it's like she's carried him inside her for nine months.

00:38:04.800 And then he literally fed from her breast for however many years.

00:38:09.780 And after that, you want him to go and get smashed over the head by life?

00:38:13.360 Yeah. 1.00

00:38:14.360 That's fucking hard. 0.99

00:38:15.400 Yeah. 0.99

00:38:15.560 Especially when you have the opportunity to stop it.

00:38:18.180 Right.

00:38:18.720 But on the other hand, if you've never been smashed in the face by life, how are you going

00:38:23.700 to deal with the inevitable fact that life will smash you in the face?

00:38:27.580 It doesn't matter if you're a billionaire.

00:38:28.920 Life will smash you. 0.77

00:38:29.620 Someone's going to die.

00:38:30.760 Someone's going to get injured.

00:38:31.960 Some accident's going to happen.

00:38:33.180 You're going to get a disease.

00:38:34.660 Your business might fail.

00:38:35.760 Your business might fail.

00:38:36.920 Someone's going to leave you.

00:38:37.540 Global pandemic happens.

00:38:38.620 Global pandemic.

00:38:39.300 Anything. 0.89

00:38:39.920 You're going to get smashed in the face by life.

00:38:41.620 There's no getting away from it.

00:38:42.720 Right.

00:38:43.080 And it's probably not helpful that the first time that truly happens is when you're 30.

00:38:47.380 It's probably not helpful because you want a little bit of life smashing you in the face

00:38:51.120 when you're a kid so you know how to deal with it.

00:38:53.880 How do you build resilience without being tested?

00:38:57.240 Yeah.

00:38:57.600 I've thought about this a good bit.

00:38:58.980 I was quite heavily bullied when I was a kid and I was an only child and I didn't fit in.

00:39:03.180 And what I realized reflecting on that experience, which I held as a chip on my shoulder for

00:39:08.420 a long time, like I proved these people wrong or just like resentment or bitterness

00:39:13.000 or still feeling like they were right about me, right?

00:39:15.840 That they had some sort of perfectly balanced insight into me.

00:39:19.660 The first thing I realized was I probably should stop caring about what other people think about

00:39:25.060 me, given that most people don't even like themselves.

00:39:28.520 Right.

00:39:28.800 Most people don't even like themselves.

00:39:30.620 Why on earth would you give anybody else that power?

00:39:33.520 Secondly, the blame finger.

00:39:35.300 Wherever you point the blame, this is why I am the way I am.

00:39:37.680 That's the same place that you point the power.

00:39:39.600 Right.

00:39:39.780 Oh, right.

00:39:40.720 Okay. 0.99

00:39:41.020 So the reason that I don't have confidence in myself is because of fucking Tom at school. 0.98

00:39:47.500 So I guess Tom's opinion of me is more important than my desire to have confidence. 0.98

00:39:53.440 Third thing, and this is from Rick, from Rick and Morty.

00:39:56.780 He walks into this big like rock festival.

00:40:01.060 It's kind of like a Tony Robbins thing, but it's an alien, obviously.

00:40:03.560 This alien.

00:40:04.280 And he walks in and everyone starts going, boo, boo, Rick, boo.

00:40:07.940 And he turns around and he says, your boos mean nothing.

00:40:12.120 I've seen what makes you cheer.

00:40:14.020 You go, oh my God, it's such a mic drop.

00:40:17.200 My point being, I went through this period of thinking like, right, okay, I'm kind of

00:40:20.540 at the mercy of these people's opinions.

00:40:22.020 I've got this chip on my shoulder, all of these things.

00:40:24.360 I've been held back by even the negative experiences.

00:40:28.380 But when I look at so many of the things that I care about and I value in myself now,

00:40:32.400 they're the light side of the dark stuff that I developed in that in any case.

00:40:36.700 Like, the only reason that I was able to make the move to America on my own to see if this

00:40:42.280 thing would work is because I'm so used to solitude, because I was so fucking lonely as 0.83

00:40:45.420 a kid, right?

00:40:46.600 The only reason that I pay so much attention to the different things that are going on

00:40:50.840 and to conversations is that I obsessed over why other people had friends and I didn't

00:40:54.540 when I was in school.

00:40:55.540 I used to believe that it was because of the particular way that they tied their tie or

00:40:59.480 the type of shoes they had, or they carry their bag on their left shoulder and I carry

00:41:03.120 my bag on my right shoulder.

00:41:04.200 That's why, right?

00:41:05.520 So I was so, I just couldn't understand why other people had friends and I didn't.

00:41:09.500 So I spent so long obsessing and deconstructing them, even though I wasn't purposefully doing

00:41:14.300 it.

00:41:14.420 It was just like a byproduct of wanting to be wanted and wanting to be a part of something.

00:41:17.980 And I rolled the clock forward and I think, well, so much of my childhood was spent listening

00:41:22.440 to story tapes in my room playing on my own.

00:41:26.400 What's the 2023 equivalent of a story tape?

00:41:28.580 It's a podcast.

00:41:29.540 Like I'm still doing, I'm still that kid in my room.

00:41:31.620 I've just got to do, I've got to do it on my own terms now.

00:41:34.300 So I, when we're talking about difficult situations, would I go back and say, save me from those

00:41:42.940 experiences?

00:41:44.180 That's a really hard comment because I know I suffered.

00:41:46.760 I know that it was uncomfortable.

00:41:48.120 I know I was sad.

00:41:48.820 I know it made my parents sad for me to be sad.

00:41:51.740 I know they felt like it reflected on them somehow that I wasn't able to connect and I

00:41:56.800 wasn't happy with kids and stuff like that.

00:41:59.360 And yet there's no way that I would have managed to get to the point that I'm in a life that

00:42:04.520 I really value had I not have done that.

00:42:07.320 So I think we should be cautious around the impact of bad and good things.

00:42:13.120 And this is one of the reasons that I really don't like people that use the word like it

00:42:17.640 was meant to be because it completely removes the agency from the situation.

00:42:21.900 Okay, you get into a car accident, you lose one of your legs and you meet the love of your

00:42:25.840 life who's the nurse that treats you while you're in the hospital bed.

00:42:29.720 You get married and you live a lovely life together.

00:42:31.520 It was meant to be.

00:42:32.400 Had it not been for that accident, I would have never met the love of my life.

00:42:34.860 Okay, how about this?

00:42:36.900 You were in a shitty situation and you managed to alchemize it from lead into gold. 0.63

00:42:42.400 You managed to turn something that could have been a destitute situation into one that

00:42:47.320 was beautiful and one of the most important things that's happened in your life.

00:42:50.320 And that's a much more powerful story.

00:42:52.040 And I think internalizing this locus of control, super important. 0.99

00:42:56.040 And not being too concerned about, fuck, I'm going through something bad. 0.93

00:42:59.560 All right, this is maybe your hero story, right? 0.98

00:43:02.680 Like this is main character energy fuel for you.

00:43:05.960 Agreed.

00:43:06.540 Yeah.

00:43:07.200 And it's interesting what you made the point about only child, because I'm an only child as

00:43:11.940 well.

00:43:12.560 And I think with only children, we spend so much time on our own that we tend to go one

00:43:17.960 of two ways, which is the, because you are in a sense under socialized, you either become

00:43:23.300 more of a loner or you become hyper social, which is what I did.

00:43:28.540 And that's where the humor came from.

00:43:29.920 So, and also things going on when I was growing up, I got very, very good at walking into a

00:43:35.840 room, testing and seeing what the atmosphere was like and knowing how to diffuse it quickly

00:43:42.340 all the time, all the time, all the time.

00:43:44.840 Now people will say and go, well, that's not healthy.

00:43:46.780 A kid shouldn't have that.

00:43:48.280 A kid shouldn't be, you know, experiencing that on a day-to-day basis.

00:43:51.420 Probably not.

00:43:52.600 But actually what it has given me is the ability to walk into a room.

00:43:56.700 I'm a very, very good judge of character.

00:43:58.840 But I look at people, I can work, I go, okay.

00:44:01.100 You've had to be vigilant for so long.

00:44:02.980 Yeah.

00:44:03.200 So you have to be vigilant for so long.

00:44:04.920 And you know, when there's a tension in the room or something happens, bam, you can say

00:44:08.560 something, laughter, it calms it down.

00:44:10.960 Do you find yourself people pleasing?

00:44:12.660 Yes.

00:44:13.200 Yeah, me too.

00:44:13.960 A lot.

00:44:14.540 I work all day, every day to unknit that from my personality.

00:44:20.660 I've only learned about this about myself over the last month or so.

00:44:23.520 So it's, this is like my new thing.

00:44:25.060 You know, like that availability bias.

00:44:27.960 Like the thing that you've learned about, you just bought the car and now you see the

00:44:30.500 car everywhere.

00:44:31.160 This is like my mental model that I've just learned about myself and now I'm seeing it

00:44:34.640 everywhere.

00:44:35.160 But yeah, people pleasing, that people pleasing nature comes from it.

00:44:40.260 It's so interesting to think about you deconstructing a room and going in and realizing, okay,

00:44:46.640 exactly like what am I attuned to?

00:44:48.540 And then like playing that game.

00:44:49.760 It's kind of like speed running likability or growth hacking resonance, right?

00:44:56.440 That's what you're doing.

00:44:57.700 And although it sounds great, what it can end up and what it did for me was I got toward

00:45:02.580 the end of my twenties and the persona had subsumed the person, right?

00:45:07.240 I was playing this role, so frontward facing, that felt discordance with who I was really.

00:45:15.540 And I would run these club nights.

00:45:18.520 I've met like a million people on the front door of nightclubs and run a thousand events

00:45:21.760 across my career as a club promoter.

00:45:23.980 And I loved my business partner.

00:45:25.040 I loved all the guys that I worked with, but I'd met a million people and had a handful

00:45:28.680 of friends, right?

00:45:29.760 So my funnel of friend exposure to conversion ratio, there was something off there.

00:45:35.100 And there was a period, especially toward the end of my career, where I would set the club

00:45:39.880 away and I would make sure that the boys were happy and like all the managers and stuff

00:45:42.840 that we had working for us.

00:45:44.240 And then I'd go and sit in my car and I'd like watch School of Life videos.

00:45:48.380 How was I not screaming to myself, like, this is obviously you, there is a discordance in

00:45:55.000 the force or like there is a murmuring in whatever the Star Wars reference is.

00:45:59.040 It wasn't right.

00:45:59.920 And it wasn't right because I, despite being in a crowd, I felt lonely.

00:46:08.160 And despite having victory, I often felt hollow.

00:46:11.160 So it's like, yeah, if you don't have that resonance and there's something again to kind

00:46:15.320 of hammer it home, there's something particularly shameful about knowing that other people have

00:46:21.360 it way worse than you in terms of their material situation and you're still upset or unfulfilled

00:46:29.540 or whatever, because there's no glory in, I know there's not much glory in picking up somebody

00:46:35.800 else's cigarette butt off the ground, but there's something that feels like it's actual rock

00:46:39.640 bottom, right?

00:46:40.640 There's something there. 0.98

00:46:41.760 It doesn't feel as like bourgeois and fucking highfalutin. 0.98

00:46:46.040 Like, oh, the existential weight of living, bro. 0.97

00:46:48.740 Like, am I enacting my logos?

00:46:50.900 And the shame that you layer on top of yourself may be almost as much as the shame of picking

00:46:55.920 up someone else's cigarette off the ground.

00:46:58.120 Absolutely.

00:46:58.920 You mentioned the word lonely a lot.

00:47:00.600 And one of the things that you talk a lot about and interview people a lot about and think

00:47:04.240 a lot about, and you and I have talked about this privately as well, is the dating situation

00:47:10.520 and the men and women situation at the moment.

00:47:14.260 And when you had me on your show, you sort of playfully accused me of giving tradcon talking

00:47:20.060 points about...

00:47:20.840 We're a tradcon, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:21.520 I probably am a tradcon, to be honest, when it comes to that sort of thing.

00:47:25.880 But I'm also open to the possibility that, well, it's not a possibility, it's a reality

00:47:30.000 that I'm 40 years old.

00:47:31.120 I've been married since I was 20.

00:47:32.740 I may not know all about it.

00:47:34.640 Yeah.

00:47:35.020 So, what's going on?

00:47:39.080 Am I the canary in the coal mine?

00:47:41.300 Yeah, it's a...

00:47:42.180 I don't mean with you, personally.

00:47:43.420 Yeah, I understand.

00:47:44.380 Why aren't you married?

00:47:45.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:47:45.900 Make children now.

00:47:47.140 We need your genetics.

00:47:48.200 Yeah.

00:47:50.340 It's very fascinating.

00:47:51.820 It's a very interesting time for dating.

00:47:53.300 I think it's probably by far the most interesting time for human mating dynamics that there's

00:47:57.660 ever been because...

00:48:00.700 And this is shown in how many people are talking about this on the internet.

00:48:04.400 Even though it's largely still a subculture, a lot of people are trying to deconstruct.

00:48:09.140 Exactly why is it that marriage rates are down and birth rates are down and coupling is

00:48:13.660 down and happiness is down and all of these sorts of things.

00:48:17.060 And there's a bunch of different flavors of what's happening.

00:48:20.360 So, I think before you even get to the topic, talking about who's talking about the topic

00:48:24.200 is kind of important because I have to wipe a lot of manosphere slime off me before I have

00:48:31.660 to counter-signal with, and I'm not saying, and we must remember that women are able to, 0.98

00:48:36.320 and da-da-da-da-da. 0.99

00:48:36.980 I have to, like, prostrate myself on the fucking, like, crucifix of I'm not a bigot 0.99

00:48:42.780 before I can get to my talking point, right? 0.99

00:48:45.860 My point being, both sides, as far as I can see, the big broad buckets that would be kind of like 0.92

00:48:51.460 whatever the newest wave of TikTok feminism boss bitch culture is, 1.00

00:48:55.000 and the manosphere breaking into red pill and black pill, like, positive view transactional 0.97

00:49:03.760 and negative view, like, avoidant.

00:49:07.900 Both of them, I think, are missing the point here, which is largely...

00:49:11.000 Chris, before you delve into it, just define a little bit more for people who are maybe

00:49:15.360 fresh to the conversation.

00:49:16.900 Cool.

00:49:17.380 Red pill and black pill.

00:49:18.460 The black pill is the incel-type stuff, where we're drawing, we're not going to connect

00:49:22.320 with women.

00:49:22.880 The red pill is a little bit more difficult, because it's a broad church.

00:49:26.000 There's many people that class themselves as that.

00:49:28.560 So, yeah, it's from the Matrix.

00:49:30.780 The red pill is seeing the truth.

00:49:32.300 The blue pill is kind of living the lie.

00:49:34.220 So, in dating hierarchy, blue pill is guy doesn't understand how mating dynamics work.

00:49:40.580 They don't understand that women have a hypergamous nature, where they want to date up and 1.00

00:49:44.720 across socioeconomically.

00:49:46.020 They don't understand, they believe kind of in the one true-itis, one true love thing.

00:49:50.880 It's this sort of renaissance delusion that they have in a little bit of a way about kind

00:49:55.180 of, like, sacred love.

00:49:56.760 Then taking the red pill would be seeing the world for what it is, but in between those

00:50:00.160 two is the purple pill, which is people who know the truth but refuse to accept it.

00:50:05.180 That's what I get accused of being a lot.

00:50:07.000 Somebody who still has, that is seen by the manosphere as being too pliable when it comes 0.98

00:50:14.640 to not pointing the finger at women, which is bullshit, because I'm so bigoted that I'm 0.99

00:50:19.560 a misogynist to Guardian readers, but I'm so cooked that I'm like a purple pill wanker 0.99

00:50:24.020 to the manosphere people. 0.97

00:50:24.980 So, I managed to split the difference.

00:50:26.420 You're a dating centrist.

00:50:27.460 Ah, yeah.

00:50:29.340 So, the red pill would be people seeing the world as it truly is.

00:50:34.340 That is, understanding mating dynamics, understanding that women are fundamentally attracted to super

00:50:39.480 chad at the top and that they're going to leave the guy that they're with if a better

00:50:43.080 option comes along, so on and so forth.

00:50:45.080 And then the black pill at the bottom would be, they would see it as being even more truthful.

00:50:49.320 Like, the black pill, the self-identified black pill guys genuinely see their worldview as 0.94

00:50:53.480 being more accurate than the red pill, and in some ways it actually is, but the net result

00:50:58.360 of the black pill is very much often super avoidant relationships, specifically with women.

00:51:06.680 MGTOW, men going their own way, is a part of this. 0.72

00:51:10.680 A lot of those guys are men who have been in relationships and maybe suffered with divorce

00:51:15.680 court, separation.

00:51:17.860 Some of them are people who've just had a lack of success with women generally.

00:51:22.280 But the main reason that it's interesting is you have a huge changing of the guard

00:51:27.100 socioeconomically between men and women.

00:51:30.060 You know, fundamentally, I think the biggest change that's occurred has been liberating

00:51:36.600 having sex from making babies and women entering the workforce. 0.94

00:51:39.860 Those two things changed the dynamic of mating forever, because before that, marriages stuck 0.98

00:51:47.180 together, and no one wants to talk about, very few people want to talk about this, many

00:51:50.960 marriages stuck together because the wife was essentially like a financial prisoner of their 0.92

00:51:55.400 husband.

00:51:55.980 If you can't support yourself and potentially loads of children as well, guess what?

00:52:01.020 You're staying in that marriage no matter what happens.

00:52:03.760 Then the pill comes along and liberates women from having to have children with men that they 0.96

00:52:08.220 didn't want to.

00:52:08.800 Interestingly, I'm sure you've spoken to Mary Harrington about this, it increased the number

00:52:13.720 of single mothers. 0.91

00:52:14.940 The introduction of the pill increased the number of single mothers because prior to the 0.99

00:52:18.580 pill, a man getting a woman pregnant was seen as his responsibility, and after the pill,

00:52:23.660 a man getting a woman pregnant was seen as her choice, right? 0.73

00:52:26.680 You could have been on the pill.

00:52:28.040 Okay, so now we've decoupled having sex from making babies. 0.63

00:52:31.320 The next thing we need to do is decouple this pesky, historic, vestigial attachment that

00:52:37.900 women have. 1.00

00:52:38.700 So even though the having sex and the making babies has been separated, it's frustrating. 0.82

00:52:44.980 They keep on getting attached to these men that they have sex with, so we need another 1.00

00:52:48.000 technology, which is a cultural technology, and that one is sex-positive feminism. 1.00

00:52:53.800 True liberation for women is working like your father and having sex like your brother, right? 1.00

00:52:59.060 That's truly what it means to be, and you can be free to do it as much as you want. 0.75

00:53:04.180 Articles in Cosmopolitan, I know Louise Perry talks about this, like how to sleep with him 1.00

00:53:08.600 and not catch feels, basically how to disembody yourself from doing something that previously

00:53:12.620 was seen as sacred.

00:53:13.900 So we've used all of this, and what it's resulted in is an awful lot of men who feel

00:53:17.880 like they're invisible to women, an awful lot of women who feel used and discarded by 0.84

00:53:22.000 men that they pine after or struggle to find men that are sufficiently mature, and both

00:53:27.700 sexes continue to move further apart.

00:53:30.120 This is reflected in the numbers on dating.

00:53:33.040 It's like huge percentages of men under the age of 18 to 30, like 60, 70% of men aged 18

00:53:39.420 to 30 aren't in any kind of committed or long-term relationship.

00:53:44.060 Like nearly half of men in that age bracket say they're not looking for it.

00:53:47.480 45% of men aged 18 to 25 have never approached a woman.

00:53:54.740 Huge.

00:53:55.320 It's just, it's two broad buckets of people that have very little interest in trying to

00:54:01.140 talk to each other, whether it's because of fear or avoidance.

00:54:04.440 Can I go full tradcon here?

00:54:06.260 Hit me.

00:54:06.580 Never go full tradcon.

00:54:07.820 No. 0.99

00:54:08.020 I always thought, and I know this is not a fashionable view, but I don't give a shit, 0.97

00:54:15.300 that the point of dating is to find that romantic, blue pill, one true love for you, right? 0.98

00:54:20.880 And then former bond, and then stay together for the rest of your lives.

00:54:26.120 That does not preclude me from recognizing that men and women are different, and many of

00:54:30.620 the things that red pill people say about relationships between men and women are simultaneously true. 0.95

00:54:36.400 So you can be in a relationship where it's your one true love and recognize that your

00:54:41.880 wife will want you to earn more money than her, and that in certain situations she'll 1.00

00:54:46.020 want you to lead, and in other situations she'll need this, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:54:50.940 What's wrong with that worldview?

00:54:53.040 Nothing.

00:54:54.300 Nothing.

00:54:54.560 And this is why I agree with many of the things that are put forward by guys that are in the

00:55:01.060 red pill.

00:55:01.400 Well, the main issue that I take with the red pill is not their insight around evolutionary

00:55:06.740 psychology, which is largely accurate.

00:55:09.360 Hypergamy is a genuine thing. 0.88

00:55:11.720 Women prefer a man that is decisive. 0.93

00:55:13.600 Women date up and across socioeconomically.

00:55:15.860 My main concern, my main issue, is that they treat women like an adversary to be used and 1.00

00:55:21.740 discarded or avoided entirely.

00:55:23.140 But that ignores the first part of what I said, which is the point of dating is to find

00:55:27.380 your one true love blue pill style, right?

00:55:30.200 What's wrong with that?

00:55:32.000 Is there anything wrong with that?

00:55:33.220 Nothing in particular.

00:55:34.360 I don't think so.

00:55:35.260 I mean, if you...

00:55:36.160 I certainly do think that if you take the genuine red pill, which goes all the way down,

00:55:42.100 which is humans evolutionarily weren't wired to be monogamous for life, were wired to be

00:55:48.520 serially monogamous, monogamish, it's called, which is why many couples will feel a three 0.55

00:55:55.040 to seven year itch.

00:55:57.340 It's a very difficult period for a relationship to get to.

00:56:00.380 Why?

00:56:01.040 Well, it's because around about that time, the child is sufficiently grown that the man

00:56:06.580 can move on or the mother can move on to another partner. 0.99

00:56:09.420 It seems like that is the way that we are evolved to be.

00:56:12.540 For a very, very long time, it would have been just straight up polygyny, and then it

00:56:18.160 pivoted into this sort of serial monogamy thing. 0.92

00:56:20.600 So a genuinely uncomfortable red pill is that we are fighting our natures by having lifelong

00:56:25.800 commitments, but we have an awful lot of control over the way that we feel.

00:56:30.940 And when you weigh up, do I want to be 40, 47, 54, 61, still getting back out there onto

00:56:42.700 the market because I can, is that really the life that you want to lead?

00:56:46.840 And I think on balance, you end up in a worse position as a man.

00:56:51.540 Like, make no mistake, marriage for men is one of the best deals that you can get from

00:56:56.380 a physiological perspective.

00:56:58.320 Married men live so much longer than single men. 0.98

00:57:02.300 The problem that gets put forward is divorce courts are really prejudiced against men as

00:57:08.740 are child's, whatever it's called, like whoever.

00:57:12.600 Custody.

00:57:13.140 Custody, child custody courts too.

00:57:15.000 So you're rolling the dice.

00:57:16.580 So the argument against, the red pill argument against your blue pill, one true itis viewpoint 0.56

00:57:21.900 would be, yeah, that's all great, well and good, but only if you thread the needle through

00:57:26.260 this minefield of potential risks.

00:57:29.360 Half your money's gone and you're never going to see your kid and blah, blah, blah.

00:57:33.180 And this many percent of marriages end in divorce.

00:57:36.860 So it's a bad deal for men.

00:57:39.040 But again, as soon as you move that to college educated men, everything changes.

00:57:43.500 As soon as you move that to people who have got, like, at least quasi-religious worldview,

00:57:50.140 that changes again, you can stack a number of worldviews on top that actually helps to

00:57:53.920 get those numbers to change, but it's a mess at the moment.

00:57:57.660 And it's also, there's this thread I've seen in modern women of misandry, which is, you 1.00

00:58:03.100 know, all men are bastards. 0.99

00:58:04.840 I heard that, I remember towards the end of my time in the comedy industry, where women 1.00

00:58:09.140 used to drop that literally in front of you, just go, yeah, all men are bastards. 1.00

00:58:12.420 Who's that Australian comedian lady that's not a comedian? 1.00

00:58:15.720 Hannah Gadsby.

00:58:16.140 Hannah Gadsby.

00:58:16.880 Thank you.

00:58:17.500 Yeah.

00:58:17.840 Her.

00:58:18.020 Yeah.

00:58:18.920 And I was just, and I just used to listen to this and everyone was like, yeah, they

00:58:23.340 are, or, you know, they just used to brush it off.

00:58:25.640 And I just found that abhorrent.

00:58:28.820 Is that your worldview?

00:58:30.140 Is that the way you see the world?

00:58:31.580 And then you go on stage or then you talk to your mates and you complain how all men are 1.00

00:58:35.440 bastards and yet you're single. 0.99

00:58:36.980 Do you not see why there is a kind of mismatch here? 0.99

00:58:40.380 Yeah.

00:58:40.980 Well, I mean, the women who are saying in the same sentence that men control the world and 1.00

00:58:51.480 have everything sorted and are also all bastards, but where are all of the good men at, are committing 0.98

00:58:59.220 like dating logic seppuku, right? 0.98

00:59:02.060 You're going, okay, the exact dearth of eligible partners that you're complaining about is facilitated

00:59:07.520 by the lack of sympathy that you're giving that helps to raise men up.

00:59:10.740 Like, make no mistake, men are really, really struggling at the moment.

00:59:12.820 Like a man under the age of 40, the single biggest risk to his own life is his own hands, right?

00:59:20.160 Why?

00:59:21.860 1990, the average number of close friends that a man could call on in an emergency, the percentage

00:59:27.840 of men that said it was zero was 3%.

00:59:30.440 30 years later in 2020, it's 15%.

00:59:33.560 It's 5X, right?

00:59:35.240 The most common answer to the question, how many friends do you have is zero, right?

00:59:40.960 It's not the average, but it's the most common answer.

00:59:42.840 More men say they have zero friends to call on in a situation that would be an emergency

00:59:48.380 than any other number. 0.99

00:59:49.900 It's fucking terrifying. 0.99

00:59:51.140 And yet, yeah, the punching up, punching down thing, men have been in this position of power 0.99

00:59:56.100 for sufficiently long, therefore we can continue to push back.

00:59:59.140 And it's just, it's childish thinking.

01:00:01.740 It's not realistic.

01:00:02.860 It doesn't reflect the experience of almost all of the men, I think, that are suffering.

01:00:07.080 And a lot of men are being made, or they feel like they're being made to pay for the benefits

01:00:13.680 of a patriarchy that they no longer are a part of, right?

01:00:18.660 That their fathers and grandfathers got an advantage that they no longer are, and yet they're

01:00:27.740 still having the finger pointed at them.

01:00:29.020 And they go, well, look, like, I haven't been able to get a girl to go on a date with me

01:00:33.120 for however long.

01:00:34.420 We're just clipping that.

01:00:37.240 Good, rightly so.

01:00:38.520 That being said, and, you know, this is why it's very difficult to kind of get this point

01:00:43.340 across perfectly well, because it's nuanced.

01:00:46.200 I can say many men are suffering, and it is really, really hard, and we need to give them

01:00:50.340 sympathy.

01:00:51.180 And in the same breath, I think that many men have a victimhood complex, and that they're

01:00:55.120 too cynical and negative about the world.

01:00:57.920 I think that many men would benefit if they had a more internal locus of control.

01:01:02.040 All of the stuff that we talked about in the first half.

01:01:03.780 Well, this is what I was going to say is, is it sympathy that men need, or do we need

01:01:07.720 to be that friend that goes, you're stronger than this, you're better than this, there's

01:01:12.720 never been a lower bar, there's never been a situation where it's been easier for you

01:01:16.940 to stand out.

01:01:18.000 Sympathy is not one.

01:01:18.440 This was the point I was making on your show, and we were having a back and forth about,

01:01:21.500 because ultimately, like, when I look at my son, I'm not scared of his future, because

01:01:26.560 if I can, I'm going to teach him this is the moment in which it's never been easier

01:01:31.300 to stand out.

01:01:32.360 One of the problems, at least, that some guys would say is, that's all well and good

01:01:36.120 for you, as somebody that's a learned, well-rounded father.

01:01:40.420 I didn't have that father.

01:01:43.100 This generation- 0.95

01:01:44.420 I didn't have that father either.

01:01:46.660 True.

01:01:46.880 And my father didn't have a father at all, right?

01:01:50.400 So-

01:01:51.880 Well, you have to be a breakwater at some point.

01:01:54.380 A breakwater at some point, right?

01:01:56.340 It's like one of my friends, Corey Allen, he's a meditation coach, and a lot of the time

01:02:01.360 when he sees somebody that's angry, he sees that anger and wonders, where is that trace

01:02:08.140 back to?

01:02:08.920 Who gave it to the person that gave it to the person that gave it to the person that gave

01:02:11.640 it to you?

01:02:12.820 And I asked Goggins this. 0.97

01:02:14.400 David Goggins had this tyrant of a father, really abusive, awful, awful guy.

01:02:19.060 And I asked him, you know, do you see part of your mission in life to be a circuit breaker

01:02:25.800 for this generational aggression and mistreatment?

01:02:31.360 And he's got a daughter, and he said, yeah, like, you know, that's a big part of what drives

01:02:35.660 me.

01:02:36.380 So I don't disagree.

01:02:38.020 But yeah, so men, absolutely, maybe encouragement rather than sympathy would be, or belief would

01:02:44.100 be better.

01:02:44.480 So, but on that point, 45% of men aged 18 to 25 have never approached a woman.

01:02:53.040 It's like even more for 18 to 30 that haven't approached a woman in the last year.

01:02:56.440 It's up above 50%, I think.

01:02:57.980 Okay, if not getting a partner is the thing that makes you feel really bad about yourself,

01:03:05.000 it doesn't matter how much you think that the world is out to get you and all of these

01:03:09.480 problems and culture and feminism and all of this stuff.

01:03:11.740 It's like, dude, you're not doing anything about it.

01:03:15.100 Like, you haven't approached a woman in the last year.

01:03:16.780 What did you expect?

01:03:17.500 They're just going to waltz through the living room?

01:03:19.600 It's fundamentally not going to happen.

01:03:21.440 Through your parents' living room.

01:03:22.920 Yeah.

01:03:24.080 But it's like, you have to be out there and you have to be doing things and be excited

01:03:28.580 about things and be creating things.

01:03:30.640 Like, I'm married, but I don't have that many problems like meeting interesting women who 1.00

01:03:35.920 would date me if I were single.

01:03:37.820 Yeah.

01:03:38.180 Because I'm out in the world doing stuff.

01:03:40.160 You know what I mean?

01:03:40.660 I mean, that's really the answer.

01:03:43.000 I think finding a partner that you admire is just such an amazing heuristic that downstream

01:03:51.460 from it, almost everything.

01:03:52.980 Because admiration runs a...

01:03:54.840 You can admire somebody that's really great with people, you know, that's really nurturing

01:03:58.560 and caring.

01:03:59.120 You can admire someone that's really competent at a sport.

01:04:01.240 Admire someone that's really dexterous with their thoughts.

01:04:03.260 Admire someone that's really virtuous and tells the truth.

01:04:05.480 Many different ways that you can find someone to admire.

01:04:07.840 And ultimately, your goal should be to craft yourself into someone that is admirable, right?

01:04:13.600 As opposed to trying to...

01:04:14.880 This was fundamentally the problem with the pick-up artist movement.

01:04:17.640 So pick-up artistry in sort of the 2006 issues when the game came out from Neil Strauss and

01:04:23.080 it had maybe about eight years or so of like really high popularity.

01:04:27.640 They used neuro-linguistic programming and a bunch of other kind of interpersonal tools

01:04:31.880 to be able to get women to go to bed with men that they otherwise wouldn't have done.

01:04:35.680 And the problem with pick-up artistry was it taught men that the person they needed to 0.61

01:04:41.500 be in order to get women to sleep with them was so far away from the person that they were 0.94

01:04:45.160 naturally that it made them despondent.

01:04:47.160 In fact, the original, I think the original MGTOW or Blackpill subreddit was called like

01:04:52.640 Redpill, P-U-A hate, r slash P-U-A hate, because it was men who had been through that

01:04:59.820 and had either found out that it didn't work for them, which made them super despondent,

01:05:04.480 or found out that it did work for them.

01:05:06.320 And they were so distraught at, oh my God, this is what... 0.99

01:05:10.620 These bitches, they don't like me for me, even though I can do it, I'm not that person. 1.00

01:05:16.260 And again, we were talking about, you know, the persona subsuming the person. 0.99

01:05:19.520 It's very uncomfortable when you realise the world wants this and I am this, and oh my God,

01:05:26.140 what do I do about it?

01:05:27.540 Yeah, and that is such a profound point, because if you feel that the world only wants this

01:05:36.020 from you and you're this, then what you're essentially perceiving is that you have no

01:05:40.540 value unless you lie.

01:05:43.800 And that's a pretty desperate place to be.

01:05:46.520 Aubrey Marcus, guy that founded Onnit with Rogan, taught me this on the first ever episode

01:05:50.080 that we did, stuck with me, such a good quote.

01:05:52.400 He said, the persona is incapable of receiving love, it can only receive praise.

01:05:57.140 And I think that this is precisely how you feel alone in a crowd and hollow in victory,

01:06:02.420 because if you're only playing a role, people aren't applauding you.

01:06:07.360 It doesn't ever hit you, right, emotionally, viscerally, on an existential level.

01:06:11.960 What it feels like is, well done reading that script, right?

01:06:17.960 Not you, it doesn't ever hit you.

01:06:19.960 And this was the sort of vacuousness, I think, that at least contributed in my 20s to me being

01:06:25.740 like, done the Love Island thing, kind of like the, you know, championship league final of 0.97

01:06:32.180 champions league final of being a fuckboy. 0.96

01:06:34.100 And like, I've done it and still nothing, right? 0.98

01:06:37.260 There's still no there there.

01:06:39.140 Because there was nowhere else for me to go on that journey beyond that. 0.99

01:06:43.380 And then I thought, fuck, I thought this was going to be the thing. 0.97

01:06:45.760 And it wasn't the thing. 0.98

01:06:46.560 But yeah, rolling into this, I think online dating has done an awful lot of damage.

01:06:53.200 There's certainly very poor outcomes for both men and women on online dating.

01:06:59.180 Women, it's unpopular to say this because it seems like women's issues aren't issues of 1.00

01:07:05.760 scarcity.

01:07:06.440 They're issues of abundance, just the very wrong kind of abundance.

01:07:08.740 But if you want to see what it's like to be a normal woman on many dating apps and just

01:07:16.720 get them to go through their message requests, you'll see just how like awful and juvenile

01:07:23.540 many men can be.

01:07:25.600 And it doesn't need to be even most men, right?

01:07:28.080 It only needs to be a relatively small cohort that smears the rest.

01:07:32.460 And this is the whole like, not all men, but always a man thing falls down because it

01:07:38.100 misses the fundamental point that sex offenders, it's one man in a thousand doing a thousand

01:07:44.280 things, not a thousand men doing one thing each.

01:07:47.360 This is David Buss's work from Bad Men.

01:07:50.320 Such a small number of men are predators in that way.

01:07:54.260 And yet they commit such a huge number of incidents.

01:07:58.820 And also they're so disproportionately painful.

01:08:01.240 And these news stories, you know, quite rightly cycle around.

01:08:05.120 I mean, here's another thing.

01:08:06.700 There's something called Gamma Bias from John Barry.

01:08:08.920 Have you heard about this before?

01:08:10.060 Okay.

01:08:10.360 So this is really interesting.

01:08:12.160 It's kind of something that once you see, you can't unsee it.

01:08:14.080 Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

01:08:22.140 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs

01:08:26.900 you love, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

01:08:31.660 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.

01:08:35.740 The Neil Diamond musical, A Beautiful Noise.

01:08:38.380 April 28th through June 7th, 2026.

01:08:41.560 The Princess of Wales Theatre.

01:08:43.400 Get tickets at Mervish.com. 0.86

01:08:45.300 In the media, if a woman does anything positive, it will be sexed. 1.00

01:08:51.600 If a woman does something negative, it will be de-sexed. 1.00

01:08:54.300 If a man does something positive, it will be de-sexed. 1.00

01:08:56.780 If a man does something negative, it will be sexed. 0.94

01:08:58.620 So Sarah Everard is killed by a British police officer as she's walking home, maybe five years

01:09:03.960 ago, something like that.

01:09:04.960 And it is all over the press.

01:09:06.940 And quite rightly so.

01:09:07.720 It's horrific.

01:09:08.840 And there are placards in the street and people walking, we do not feel safe on our shores

01:09:14.940 and we should not be made to men, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

01:09:18.520 One week later, a man drowns, saving a woman, jumping into the Thames.

01:09:23.940 So he jumps in, saves her and dies.

01:09:28.160 Londoner dies saving somebody, right?

01:09:32.760 So the sex of both of those were hidden.

01:09:35.160 Sarah Everard case, police man kills innocent woman.

01:09:42.040 And what you get is this skew, which I really don't think is very beneficial to women either, 0.50

01:09:47.480 that the world is a scary place.

01:09:49.900 These Jim TikTok videos, right, where girls are doing a glute bridge and in the background

01:09:54.500 a dude glances over three times in 90 seconds and she says, this is predatory behavior, 0.97

01:10:01.720 the male gaze, toxic male gaze.

01:10:03.720 There was even a thing on the London Underground.

01:10:05.920 I think men were told that they shouldn't look at women for longer than some amount of time

01:10:09.960 or else that was predatory.

01:10:11.160 I'm pretty sure that Netflix has got a policy that you're not allowed to have your eyes linger

01:10:14.140 for more than a certain amount of time too.

01:10:15.980 So they're really trying to like nerf down the male gaze and see it as something that's

01:10:21.520 really, really concerning.

01:10:22.520 Now, that video ended up, the big video on TikTok maybe two years ago, ended up with most

01:10:29.020 of the internet saying, that's out of order to the woman, right? 1.00

01:10:31.980 That this poor man is in the background of your video and you've used him for clout.

01:10:36.880 I don't think that what he did was predatory.

01:10:38.760 But if you'd shown me the video in isolation and not shown me the comments and said, how do

01:10:42.400 you think this was perceived?

01:10:44.120 It would have been a coin toss for me to go, it could have gone either way.

01:10:46.940 I could have seen this guy getting flamed. 0.93

01:10:48.820 Yeah, he's a predator, all men, blah, blah, blah.

01:10:50.860 This is an acceptable behavior. 0.82

01:10:52.800 But here's the really important thing.

01:10:55.000 A situation like that happens, which is a cultural flashpoint.

01:10:58.800 Downstream from that, many women will use that as a formative experience to set a bar 1.00

01:11:04.620 for what they should and should not see as acceptable behavior from men.

01:11:10.520 Had that have happened, many women would have then gone into the gym and said, if a man glances 1.00

01:11:15.820 at me more than three times in 90 seconds, that means that he's being a pervert and I 0.64

01:11:19.580 should feel unsafe, which is kind of like a one-way street that permanently makes women 1.00

01:11:25.280 more and more fearful of the world, more a sense of vulnerability, a victimhood mentality.

01:11:30.960 And forget the fact that it pushes them further apart from men.

01:11:35.660 Just their felt sense of life is much more scared.

01:11:39.320 Their ambient anxiety all the time because this is going on.

01:11:42.360 And this shows up in sort of the post-MeToo dating world, which is kind of a difficult

01:11:47.380 needle to thread, but I'll see if I can do it.

01:11:49.200 So 86% of women say they want a man to make the first move.

01:11:54.440 74% of men say that they are afraid of making a first move for being seen as creepy.

01:11:59.320 20% of Gen Z say that a man approaching a woman always or usually constitutes harassment.

01:12:06.240 And 50% of 18 to 30 men haven't approached a woman in the last year.

01:12:11.320 So let's square this circle, right?

01:12:13.740 Women want to be approached, but are scared of being approached. 0.99

01:12:16.780 Men know that if they don't do the approaching, nothing is going to happen.

01:12:19.620 But if they do, they're maybe going to make women feel uncomfortable and potentially be 1.00

01:12:24.100 part of some MeToo scandal.

01:12:26.320 There's some good cohort of young people that believe that any approach from a man is basically

01:12:31.400 unacceptable.

01:12:32.040 And yet the outcomes from online dating aren't particularly good either.

01:12:35.740 So this is a very uncomfortable realization that I think MeToo sought to sanitize the toxic

01:12:44.360 elements of male behavior.

01:12:45.780 And instead, it just sterilized all of it.

01:12:48.960 So that all being the case, Chris, what advice would you give young men nowadays?

01:12:53.640 First thing would be find a group of people near you that want to grow and want to change,

01:13:02.740 especially for the people that are in the UK.

01:13:04.860 I think that's very important because, again, as we said, the tall poppy syndrome thing can

01:13:09.580 drag you down.

01:13:10.440 The internet is a negative enough place already.

01:13:12.640 So find a group of people that want to grow with you and make the statement almost public,

01:13:17.200 like a credo between you, right?

01:13:19.140 Like this is, we are here because we know that we all want to try and make this progress together.

01:13:23.040 Maybe it's one friend.

01:13:24.180 Maybe it's a couple of friends.

01:13:25.420 I would be hesitant about making it a very big group because someone will drag that group 1.00

01:13:29.480 down.

01:13:30.160 So I would keep the circle small.

01:13:32.560 That would be the first thing.

01:13:34.020 The second thing would be trying to overcome approach anxiety.

01:13:37.360 There's some really great science-based tools like cognitive behavioral therapy.

01:13:40.520 The guy that created CBT made it for overcoming his approach anxiety.

01:13:45.080 That's what he was actually designed for in the first ever.

01:13:47.540 That's fascinating.

01:13:47.900 So it's purpose-built for precisely this problem.

01:13:51.440 On top of that, realize, again, how low the bar is set.

01:13:55.220 45% of men 18 to 25 have never approached a woman, or right?

01:13:58.160 About 50% of men 18 to 30 haven't in the last year.

01:14:00.840 Okay.

01:14:01.660 So that means that for you to approach a woman, you are already 51th percentile, 51st percentile, 0.98

01:14:09.180 right?

01:14:09.540 Of all of the guys.

01:14:10.620 If you do that once a year, okay, bar is set low.

01:14:13.340 Well, great.

01:14:15.120 I think that there's something interesting for women here that they can, if they want 1.00

01:14:18.980 to be approached, receptivity is something that I would probably try and promote in them.

01:14:25.940 You've heard about the handkerchief.

01:14:27.920 A woman would drop her handkerchief, right? 1.00

01:14:29.600 In the aristocratic world in the UK, in Britain.

01:14:32.940 Why would that happen?

01:14:33.720 Well, it's because it gives the man an opportunity.

01:14:36.040 It's like an in.

01:14:36.940 It gives him permission as well.

01:14:38.120 Yeah, precisely.

01:14:38.860 So, you know, if as a woman you're thinking, why is it that guys aren't approaching me that

01:14:42.840 much more?

01:14:43.500 Well, maybe try and like, if there's a dude in the bar that you like, like, let your eyes

01:14:47.040 linger on him a bit more. 0.99

01:14:48.020 You cannot overestimate how dumb some guys are, especially ones that are scared of women 1.00

01:14:53.660 from these kinds of signals. 0.99

01:14:55.200 So being a bit more forthcoming, again, for both men and women, go to a place where your

01:15:01.640 skills are valued and your qualities are valued.

01:15:05.300 So if you played tennis in college to a moderate standard, you're probably going to be better

01:15:12.280 than almost anybody at pickleball within two months, right?

01:15:15.500 So maybe join a pickleball, especially if you like hot guys and girls that are athletic 0.96

01:15:20.080 and wear shorts and go outside and get a tan and stuff.

01:15:22.860 If that's your sort of person, crack on.

01:15:24.980 Or if you've got an interest in ancient Eastern philosophy, find a book club, wherever it is.

01:15:30.600 It's like, you want to inhabit places that have people like the person that you want

01:15:35.100 to date inhabiting.

01:15:36.380 And then a final thing would be the sex ratio is very important.

01:15:40.840 So in any local ecology, the rarer sex always has the power. 0.97

01:15:46.080 So if you are a woman at MIT, guess what?

01:15:50.640 You get to determine the rules of the game.

01:15:52.640 If you are a man at some liberal arts college, guess what?

01:15:57.060 You get to determine the rules of the game.

01:15:58.760 This isn't an argument for me to say, move your career around.

01:16:01.380 But certainly, you know, if you live in a city, I think New York is very heavily skewed

01:16:04.800 toward women.

01:16:05.800 There's other cities that are very heavily skewed toward men.

01:16:08.200 If you're really serious about this and you want to become an intentional dater and try

01:16:11.220 and find someone to build a life with, it's a small price to pay, right?

01:16:15.240 Go to a place, find that, be certain that you're going to be able to then make the life

01:16:18.940 work once you've found the person.

01:16:20.340 But that would be a final thing for everybody, right?

01:16:22.360 Like date intentionally, right?

01:16:24.660 You just, no one presumes that their career is just going to fall into their lap.

01:16:29.380 No one presumes that they have to turn up to work and acquire skills and qualifications.

01:16:33.480 And they go to college or university for years to be able to do this.

01:16:37.220 And yet we just presume that serendipity will give us our partner.

01:16:40.660 It's like, I think that a bit more intentionality would probably be useful.

01:16:44.520 Chris, it's been an absolutely superb interview.

01:16:47.240 Thank you for coming on the show.

01:16:48.580 And join us on Locals, where you get to ask Chris your questions.

01:16:51.400 And we're going to talk even more fascinating things.

01:16:54.420 But before that, we do always ask our last question, Chris,

01:16:57.580 which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:17:01.260 Birthright decline.

01:17:02.660 We are talking about it.

01:17:04.200 Yeah, but not many people are.

01:17:05.900 Not many people are.

01:17:06.940 Yeah.

01:17:07.440 Get dating. 0.71

01:17:09.220 I nearly said get shagging. 0.98

01:17:10.260 Get shagging. 0.99

01:17:10.940 Make some babies. 0.98

01:17:11.880 Make some babies.

01:17:12.640 Don't use protection.

01:17:14.500 What?

01:17:15.300 Well, you want babies. 1.00

01:17:18.080 I mean...

01:17:20.400 Sure.

01:17:21.120 It's a great way to sign off.

01:17:25.440 Of the people you've interviewed,

01:17:26.900 who calls you to change your mind or to orbital your outlook the most?

01:17:30.140 Broadway's smash hit,

01:17:37.800 The Neil Diamond Musical,

01:17:39.220 A Beautiful Noise,

01:17:40.640 is coming to Toronto.

01:17:42.080 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn

01:17:43.920 destined for something more,

01:17:45.600 featuring all the songs you love,

01:17:47.340 including America,

01:17:48.640 Forever in Blue Jeans,

01:17:49.820 and Sweet Caroline.

01:17:51.340 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful,

01:17:53.160 the next musical mega hit is here,

01:17:55.420 The Neil Diamond Musical,

01:17:57.020 A Beautiful Noise,

01:17:58.080 April 28th through June 7th,

01:18:00.160 2026,

01:18:01.260 The Princess of Wales Theatre.

01:18:03.100 Get tickets at mirvish.com.

TRIGGERnometry - November 12, 2023

Chris Williamson： Positive Masculinity

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Transcript