Sign up to get updates from us
Chris Williamson is the host of the podcast Modern Wisdom. After being a club promoter for over a decade, running more than a thousand events, and most famously appearing on Love Island, Chris, tired of the party scene, started the podcast to expand his purview. Although he still runs club nights, he now spends most of his time hosting his show, a job he can’t believe he is paid to do. He also has a Master’s degree in International Marketing, which he uses to make the most of his events. In this episode, I talk to Chris about his time on reality shows, learning from relationships, and how taking responsibility for your life can be liberating.
Support the podcast https://www.chattingwithcandice.com
Chris’s Website
Chris’s Podcast: Modern Wisdom
Chris’s Instagram
Chris’s Twitter
Support the show (http://patreon.com/candicehorbacz)
0 (0s): This is an uncomfortable truth to say, but like most girls upon having that sort of first blood, when they, when they hit puberty would have been pregnant by the second one, 1 (11s): That's the way that it worked. Hello everybody, your listening to Chatting with Candice, I'm your host, Candice Horbacz before we get started on this week's episode, if you want to support the Podcast, you can go to Chatting with Candice dot com. From there, you can either sign up for our patriotic count, where you get really access to episodes and the occasional bonus content. Or you can click that little link that says, buy me coffee. Both things helped me out a ton, and they are really, really appreciate it. Another simple way to Support Podcast is simply my leaving a five star review and a comment or sharing it with a buddy. If you enjoyed the episode. So this week I'm really excited, please help me welcome Chris Williamson. 1 (57s): So I was really excited to have you on, I saw that you recently did a rebrand, so you had the Modern Wisdom logo. And now that seems like you're kind of trying to make the brand more connected to you, which I think is a great move. So what, who was Chris before? Modern Wisdom? 0 (1m 16s): Yeah. Good question. So Modern Wisdom. Isn't going anywhere. The Podcast is still staying in that brand. It's my baby, but you're right. The YouTube is now my name because I want it to talk about stuff, but I want to talk about prior to Modern Wisdom. Chris was a club promoter for a decade. I've run one of the biggest events companies in all of the UK. I've seen a million drunk people go in and out of club nights. I've stood on the door of I've run more than a thousand events. I was a party that I was a professional party by, for a long time. And it gives you a very unique insight into human nature. Watching people get drunk consistently. And I did some reality TV stuff. 0 (1m 58s): I spent a lot of time trying to grow clout through being on TV and being around the right people and play in that club promo game and so on and so forth. And then just got to a stage where I thought this isn't really aligned with who I want to be with what I want to do, which was an uncomfortable realization to come to as many people get to, I think maybe towards the end of the twenties, I do a bit for men than the manual pause, but they might be an equivalent for girls. I think girls mature a little bit quicker than guys, some times a, but yeah, I got there and spent a ton of time doing self-inquiry. And part of that journey was to start the podcast so that I was exposed to new interesting people and yeah, three years on from that now. 0 (2m 43s): And somehow it's what I spend most of my time doing whatever version of the simulation that we've ended up in, apparently permits Podcast to be a job, which is ridiculous, but I still run club nights. I still stand on the door. I still stand on the door of clubs, just not during a pandemic 1 (2m 58s): Because it's it's fun and it gets you out and socializing. 0 (3m 2s): So originally I did it because I like to party because I was 18 and when you're 18, everybody likes to party. And then I found that I can make a lot of money quite quickly. The costs for events are quite low and you can generate a lot of cash flow very quickly. Then I found most of the competition, the other club promoters that were out there were just, they were just people that like to get drunk and realize they could get paid for it. No one treated it like a business. Whereas me and my business partner, we, we went in with, I did a master's in international marketing and business, and he'd done a degree in business as well. So we went into it with a very much a business mindset, a and we're very competitive. So we moved from being a recreational drinking to professional drinking to professional business. 0 (3m 49s): And after a while, it was almost holding you back a little bit. I think I was being, I was staying in an old version of me. And again, lots of people are listening, may be familiar with this. The thing that you did during formative years of your life, that gave you a sense of identity and meaning. And I, I mean, you'll know as well, you know, you've made a pivot within your own career getting rid of those trappings, right? Like, absolutely. So tell me like how, how has that pivot being for you? 1 (4m 23s): So I was at, so I wanted to get onto this cause it's a very rare that I get to meet someone that has probably faced similar issues. So I would imagine doing reality TV and being this, you know, a professional party boy, that when you launched this really amazing Podcast and you tackle some heavy topics and you have these heavy hitting intellectuals on that, maybe they kind of stigmatized you a little bit or they thought, Oh, he's just, you know, this, this party boy or this Arrowhead, or, and I also didn't know that you were so into fitness up until recently. And then you have your Twitter header where you're just jacked. 1 (5m 4s): So that obviously some people have their, their predispositions about that too, because in a way it's also selling sex or sexual appeal. Right. So I had a similar issue, obviously pivoting from the porn career into podcasting and people like she is just this dumb bimbo. I'm not going to listen to her podcast. So I have had some really open open-minded people. I think GAD sad helped me out a ton. So that was my whale that kind of got on and he put me on his channel and he was just so great about the whole episode that I think it really helped to get a lot of other guests and get some other listeners to take me seriously. 1 (5m 46s): But then I've had some other people that were scheduled. And then I think that maybe their team was like this. Isn't such a good idea. Let's not associate with our brand. And so it's still new. It's been less than a year, but there's definitely been some hurdles. So I'm curious if you've had similar ones. 0 (6m 3s): It's a really interesting question. The first thing is my visibility of why I used to do, and perhaps the extremity of what I used to do. Isn't quite as comparable as your previous career might have been. If you were to Google, if you have to Google my name or like one of my past, one of my past monikers or something in alias that I used to use, it was different things would come up. 1 (6m 28s): But 0 (6m 30s): Yes, it's difficult. It's difficult. It's difficult to dispense with the old characters that you used to have. One thing, he has an interesting conversation that almost no one ever has, right. As a good looking woman, you will understand some of the preconceptions that people have around you when you try and enter into an arena, which isn't using your looks. So specifically something like blood testing, right. We all know about that. Like I'm a superhero movie freak of a girl who happens to be like a 10 out of 10, but also like she's a super genius in quantum physics or something like that. 0 (7m 12s): You know, like the wonder woman type thing. And, but I don't think that there is an equivalent archetype for guys. I don't think that good looking guys have an equivalent level of acceptance because when you are an alright looking, dude, what you get is zero sympathy. The first thing that happens is there is absolutely no sympathy and all that comes for you. And I actually put some thing in my newsletter the other day that I think really relates to this quite nicely. So it says this quote from wilt Chamberlain, nobody roots for Goliath. People largely privileged the emotional States of a low power character over those who have a high power character. 0 (7m 55s): Basically we have a natural affinity to the underdog. I think that's why we live in rags to riches stories, fat people who have got fit and inspirational motivation. It reminds us that if everything goes wrong for us, we might be able to get out of the mock and Maya to that person who is also seen as less of a threat because their success seems less secure. If they came from nothing, then maybe they'll go back to nothing. So we don't need to worry about them competing with us as much. And one of the things like imagine every X factor or singing competition to show that you've ever seen, think about the archetype of the, the guy or the girl who's maybe not super good looking in, and they're kind of, their shoulders are down and this sort of mumbled into the floor and then something bad has happened in the past. 0 (8m 38s): And everyone's like getting behind them and like, look, come on. Let's, let's give them some encouragement here. And then they found out this June and they're like, Oh my God, how amazing, how, how romantic, what a beautiful sort of story to listen to now flip that story on its head and have that person be a really good looking guy or go, everything changes. Everybody presumes that because it would appear outwardly that they've got everything sorted, that inwardly, they should have a sense of self-confidence and self-esteem as well, but that's not the way it works. Your outward appearance has absolutely, but it has almost a zero bearing on what's going on inside. Some of the best looking people that I know are some of the most fucked up ones internally. And that means that your external appearance has very little bearing on your internal state. 0 (9m 22s): So yet sort of to wrap that up, I think there's so many interesting points to talk about. Just not, not judging people's exterior, a state has like some window into what's going on inside and it would make life a lot easier. 1 (9m 40s): I totally agree. There was, there was a point in time where I was on social media and I was being vulnerable about something. I think it has to do with the self esteem thing. I don't know what, what kind of triggered that conversation, but I actually had more negative comments than people that were like, I can relate or thank you for sharing this story. It was the common theme was similar to Wil how dare you complain? Because you're a good looking female or how dare you say that you're insecure can imagine what it's like for someone else that was like, that doesn't matter. It doesn't, I'm not constantly living with a mirror in front of me, if, even if like I was universally good looking, which I don't think anybody is, right. 1 (10m 22s): We all have had these moments where someone tourists down or are, we just felt bad about ourselves. And especially when you're younger in those kind of puberty stages, we're all a little weird and going through changes and some of those things last, so we almost have more sympathy, like you said, for the underdog or the less fit or the not so good looking. But if, you know, if you're a ranked anywhere on a scale, it's like, how dare you be anything but happy all of the time. And that's not realistic. 0 (10m 52s): Well, I get it. Like I, you know, to anybody that's listening, it's like, no, no, we were being good, looking so hard. Like, you know, it's not a very compelling narrative. Like I understand. But if you think that the way that someone looks is a direct indicator of how fulfilled and meaningful they are inside, and you're not a serious thinker, you haven't spent any time really properly thinking about this by that virtue. You'd say that anyone who's ugly can never be fulfilled. And you're like, okay, well, that's not true. So let's flip it on his head. Yeah, it's weird. It's a weird one. But then I also think that, especially in the modern era, there's so much, so much good news and Support around people growing and changing and letting go of old identities. 0 (11m 38s): Now, you know, you can find a niche for anything that you want to do or want to be. If you want to dedicate your entire life to some weird niche comic book from the 1960s, there's probably a subreddit for that. And you've probably got 5,000 brand new friends are going to be your best mate. Or if you want to really get into like competitive speed stitching or something like that, which I imagine there must be something like that is probably a YouTube community of people that do that. So all of these things are actually allowing us to liberate ourselves from the labels that we used to have to think back to our parents' generation. They would have very, very much been stuck with the people geographically that were around them. And if that group of people wasn't going to change and you don't have no Support, I'm going to be very, very hard for you to be yourself thinking about the, the gay man in a Orthodox Jewish community or the, the feminist growing up in a very sort of traditionally conservative community are the conservative that's growing up in a super sort of liberal sixties community, whatever it might be. 0 (12m 32s): You're not going to have any of that Support. Whereas now we do. And the more as well that people like yourself make a profound life pivots the better, like if someone can go from porn to podcasting, like somebody going from, Oh, I might, I might stop doing accounting and move into finance. Like, is that going to be a really, I really think that I might take up my like woodworking or whatever. It's like, yes, you're, you're, you're definitely going to be able to do that. So yeah, I think it's a good way. 1 (12m 60s): So how, what inspired you, I guess, to leave the reality TV world, because I think it's, it's a little bit different over in the UK and Europe, I would assume than in the States, like it's consumed the States. We are the reality TV country, essentially. It just dictates so much of our culture. So it is, it's very alluring. It seems like instant famous Gloria's and then you get sponsorships and you, you know, you get put on this pedestal and a lot of people get sucked in even ones that don't become successful or don't figure out how to monetize the after the show. So how did you have like a wake up moment or what was that, that initial transition like or the decision to transition? 1 (13m 42s): Like 0 (13m 43s): I think he'd be surprised at how similar to the UK is to the us with regards to reality TV. I get, I get a significant number of the proportion of my direct messages are about advice for how to be on reality TV, like remembering these people could ask, tell me about what it was like to speak to Robert Green or James clear, or Aubrey Marcus or Seth Goden or Jordan Peterson on God's side. Like you have these Titans of the world that can teach you evergreen insights about how to live your life. But no, you would rather me try and give you the tips for how to get onto reality TV. And I think the reason for that is that it is, it is very easily gained fame instantly overnight without having to put any work in. 0 (14m 31s): And people know that people realize that, hang on, if I can get this right, if I can do that thing, I'm finally going to feel special. I think everybody inside has this belief, this feeling that they are unique and made for great things. 'cause we all get to see the experience of the world through this really rich consciousness that we have. I get to see all of the different vicissitudes of life as I'd struggled with this thing. And I have these deep thoughts, but even the best person that you know, in the world, you're only ever going to get to see a tiny little sliver of what they tell you about their internal state. So we always believe that our internal state is far richer than everybody. 0 (15m 11s): Else's just naturally cause of what we get to see. And then when somebody is offered basically free fame, or do you want to be plucked out of obscurity and made known nationally or internationally just for existing? Yes. Obviously like why wouldn't people want to do that? But the problem is what is it, the subtext that, that tells other people about how to achieve fame? Is it by consistently grinding away doing the right thing at the right time, working very hard and very well on the creative pursuit that is your calling or is it just being in the right place and sending the right application In and having 5,000 more followers when you apply than the other people or it spending time like curating your Instagram feed. 0 (15m 55s): So I get, I get concerned about what its sort of tells young people is the route to success and how they should identify the success. But I decided to stop because most of the people in that industry of fucking miserable, like the vast, vast, vast majority of people that have blue takes on Instagram and Twitter, there is a, an incoming existential threat, like a meteor that's just circling. And then at some point the menopausal kick in or the girl will decide that she wants to settle down and be a mom and the previous pathways of adoration and praise and meaning that they used to get, which were all externalized, which were funds, which were going out and partying and doing stuff like that. 0 (16m 43s): They are going to have to stop unless they want to be a shit mom and dad. And when that happens there going to have to say, okay, who am I without the adoration of all of these random people in the internet and there going to trip over themselves in to this very, very big whole of existential nothingness and they are going to have to do the work. And I guess I decided that I would sooner get out ahead of that. And that was a sort of, and also I was never really that aligned with it. Like you can play the game, but really I wasn't ever, I didn't love gossiping about like that bird and that guy. And she totally mugged him off last night broke and like, I don't care. 0 (17m 26s): Like that's not what I want to spend my days thinking about it, but that's what you had to do. But yeah, it was, it was fun. Like we do, we do varying gradations of dumb things when we're young. And if the dumbest things that I did was like, go on crappy reality TV shows then. 1 (17m 42s): Yeah. And that's not that bad. And I agree. So I used to try and post little like the, you know, the questions on Instagram. So I would kinda give a hint as to who was coming on and see if anyone had a valuable question, ask the guest. And then I would include that in the last segment of the podcast. And I tried it and I tried it and I tried it because I just didn't want to give up on, I guess my followers. But at some point I had to, because if you scrolled through that comment box, I was like, did you even attempt to ask a question that had anything to do with this guest? It's always, how do I get into porn? And so even though they're very different, there's a lot of similarities and I'm like, that's probably, it's definitely not the path of least resistance. 1 (18m 24s): I wouldn't recommend it for most. I'm having this amazing speaker on and you don't want to take the opportunity to learn or maybe have your answer or your question answered. So it's definitely a little disheartening, but I'm, I'm keeping at it. 0 (18m 39s): One of the things that there is, there's always going to be a lag right? Between what you see of you and what everybody else sees of you. So now people say I went and did they find out when I referenced to do with being on reality TV, you love Island or take me out a big club, promoter people that listen to my show and say, hang on, you are on the violent. Like I would have never started listening to the show. If I'd found out that you are on love Island, but now that there are two deep in, right, they listen to listen three times a week and they can't, they can't extricate themselves from my show anymore, which is great. But I think over time, people's memories are really, really short. Like they really, really are. And especially if you're growing, if you're doing things that acquire new audiences, they'll know you for what you do now and not what you did before and very quickly, you actually end up being in a place that's much more aligned. 0 (19m 27s): I'd also like clouds cloud, you know, like clicks, it clicks no one, no one can tell whether the YouTube view that you got on this episode was 500,000 people that just love porn or 500,000 people who really love God side, you know, like it's okay. 1 (19m 41s): It's like, have you seen that video is a lot of businesses use it for crossing the chasm. So it's that middle ground before you have mass adoption, whether it's an invention is typically used for inventions, but something like this, like a pivot as well. So it's at a hippie festival and it's that one guy and he's everyone has a sitting on blankets and he is just hula hooping, like a maniac all by himself. And everyone's looking at him like, who's this weirdo and then there's a time lapse. And then one person joins. Then two people join. And then by the end of the, the set from the concert, everyone's dancing. So it's, it goes into just like sticking with it because eventually everyone is going to join your crazy hula-hoop party or at least you hope so, 0 (20m 25s): That's it. We're all just, we're all just having our own crazy Hulu Hooper. 1 (20m 28s): Exactly. So when you first started, I know I had a lot of anxiety because I knew people we're going to have, you know, their own idea of who I was based off of the material that I put out there. Did you have to, I guess, struggle with that at all internally, were you nervous about sharing yourself? Because, and it is an example I give is as intimate as my previous career was. I think that podcasting is actually a lot more intimate for me because you're sharing like your essence, the real you in your mind, your beliefs, I like the core of who you are. And there is something a lot more vulnerable about putting that out there to be criticized. 1 (21m 10s): So I guess how did, how did you deal with that? 0 (21m 13s): I think that's an interesting insight. Yeah. It's strange for people to think that girls had a vagina or on the internet or how can she not just talk about what she likes in life, but we all lean toward the things that we find easiest, right? Like to you perhaps after a little while important, it would have just been like, Oh, another day at work. Now it's the most of the people that would seem really weird for me standing outside of the front of an event. That's got 3000 people waiting on Halloween in the center of the city and trying to coordinate all of this to other people might of been stressful. But to me just felt like another night at work personally. It wasn't. I think that my departure from a previous career to my current one isn't as orthogonal as yours. 0 (21m 57s): I think that what I was doing before a lot of the time was trying to teach the young guys and girls that come and work for me. Look, here are some of the lessons. Here are some of the things that you should and shouldn't do, like don't get into our relationship with someone during freshers week. Don't decide the person that you're going to move in and live with for the rest of, for the next two years at university, when you've only known them for three weeks, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And really all it is, all the show is, is just that at scale is just me going. Here's a bunch of things that I did right. Or did wrong. He has a bunch of people that also did some stuff right. Or wrong, take away what you want. So for me, it wasn't that big of a change, but I can totally see how that might have been for you to go, Oh, hang on a second. I've spent a fair bit of time. And I used to being on camera just in a different, 1 (22m 40s): Yeah. So with your podcasts, I scrolled way back. So I've got some of them, I've probably the first episodes and it's really cool to see the evolution of, of the podcast, but also have a view. And I think to have the one's I was watching today, he was just you and a couple of your buddies with a one mic in the middle of the room. And you guys were just talking about relationships and it is that people, I don't know if they have a true appreciation for how brave, something like that is to hit record and then publish it. I think that's really brave. So your first, I want to say three or four that I saw from 2018, where a lot, we're a very focused on relationships. 1 (23m 21s): Is there a reason that that's where you kind of started and did you maybe have some juicy relationship experiences that led you to trying to, you know, share your experiences with our listeners? 0 (23m 32s): I think relationships are a good, common place to start. I wanted to talk about everything on the show, understanding myself in the world, around me and hoping that the listeners do as well. Think about any TV show that you've ever watched. There is always a love interest. Even if it's a sports film, some sort of sports film, there's always like in the background, there's some loving, trusting going on because it's so fundamental to who we are. It is absolutely crucial to the essence of what's going on. Everybody needs to know about the romantic arc that's going on in something that's totally unrelated to romance. Right? So I just thought I had insights. I've watched a million of the guys and girls who've worked for me, young guys and girls between the ages of 18 and 25 fail face plant in and out of relationships. 0 (24m 21s): And I wanted to try and give some insights around what I thought was some of the lessons that I'd learned. So one of them, I like to talk about does an episode of family guy where Peter is watching Bonnie Joe's wife get changed through the window. So he's got these binoculars up and he's looking through the window at Joe's wife, Bonnie getting changed and stew, he comes over and he said, what are you doing? Fatman and he looks, and he sees that he's looking at Bonnie and he goes, but I don't understand. You've you've, you've got to smoking hot wife at hope. Oh, I get it. It doesn't have to be better. It just has to be different. And I was like, Holy fucking shit. 0 (25m 3s): If that doesn't explain a compulsion that almost every guy that I have ever had worked for me has had it doesn't have to be better. It just has to be different. And when you spend 10 years watching human nature unfold, the new event managers decided to sleep with one of the new hostesses. And when the new hostesses is gone behind his back and is doing this thing, and she's, she's decided to turn lesbian now and fuck guys, and blah, blah, blah. There was insights to be hardened and have them. We did. 1 (25m 33s): Oh yeah, that is really fascinating. So for me, it's, it's always surprising for a lot of listeners or followers, but I was a wildly jealous person growing up to the point where it just didn't make any sense. And then as I've become older and I guess just started questioning more about where that emotion is kind of coming from, whether it's mine or whether it was kind of programmed essentially by role models. When I was little, which is really what it was when I got down to the root of it, I was able to get a much healthier relationship with that jealousy, not to say that it's completely gone in any instance because I'm human. So obviously there are instances where it shows up, but it's being able to understand that men check out other girls, like you could be completely devoted to whoever your, with, and never cheap, but you are. 1 (26m 20s): You're not, unless you're blind, you're going to appreciate another attractive person walking by. And I know many have fights that have happened between couples because, you know, so-and-so caught their, their partner, just the Lansing in the wrong direction. So I guess, do you have any advice when it comes to jealousy and is there a such thing as a healthy level, from a man's perspective for 0 (26m 44s): A man being jealous of women or a woman being jealous, 1 (26m 48s): Just like your take on it? Cause a lot of people ask me specifically about jealousy just to give in who I am. And I would love to have just like a more masculine take on it. 0 (26m 57s): Yeah. It's an interesting one. Two, all of them that are listening jealousy feels a lot more shameful. I think for us to admit that you're jealous is to admit level of insecurity around yourself, which is very unmasculine. You know what I mean? Like there's no archetypes for the jealous man that isn't totally mental, but the jealous girl who quite rightly has the fuck by a boyfriend who didn't deserve her any way, hon, like that's, that's a thing that's, that's a totally perfect stereotype. Whereas for men it's, it's layered with another, another amount of shame, I think, which, which is quite uncomfortable to swallow. I think serious levels of jealousy are a comment that there is something which needs to be fixed within the relationship. 0 (27m 41s): Like what is it that would make your jealousy go away? Is there a level of reassurance that you need from your partner that would make this go away? And for the most part, almost all problems in relationships can be fixed by more transparent communication. I think it might be easy for those of us that have hours and hours of conversations on the internet. And like, what is the, what is the I've left on the table that I haven't said already? Like I've said it in one, a 500 episodes, like it's going to be out there on the internet. I might as well not have any secrets from my partner, but I also understand that previously in the past opening up like that would have made me feel quite uncomfortable. So I think when it comes to being jealous, just letting your partner know, not in a passive aggressive way, not in a overly dramatic way, just in a, Hey, like this thing made me feel like this. 0 (28m 34s): Like I think that if we did this, instead, if, if you're going to turn a break from work, can you text me? Can you just text me and let me know that you're going to be late or that you are thinking about me because then that would get rid of all of the worries that I've got. Okay. Or if you're going to go out with the guys, like just drop me a message and let me know that you're not going to come home or are you going to be late? Are you going to be whatever, for the most part, the problems that we have STEM from a lack of communication, at least I think, yeah, 1 (29m 1s): I totally agree with that. I would push back a little bit because I think there's a difference between if my husband goes out and then he doesn't show up till five in the morning and gave me no reasoning, like, Hey, I'm going to be late or I might not. I'm going to go stay out with the boys. I would be more pissed. I don't think that there would be any part of me that was wondering if he was with someone else or he was misbehaving. I would just be like, that's just rude. Like you're just a rude man right now. So that would be my reaction to it. The younger version of me when I was riddled with insecurity and wildly jealous, I would have been like he's with all of these women and he's disrespecting me and he is cheating on me. 1 (29m 47s): And he's like, that's where my mind would have a trail that would have been chaos. So I think if you're having the other person constantly D like whether or not it's as simple as sending a text, but I, I feel like it ends up getting more complicated. Usually its show me a picture of, to prove that you're for face time to show, you know, it gets crazier and crazier the longer it goes. So I think instead of addressing the issue, you're just kind of bandaging it and I don't know, maybe I'm being cynical. 0 (30m 16s): No, I think, I think that you are right. The, it depends on whether or not you think that that can be fixed fundamentally. But for me, my, my view of relationships have been jaded by seeing so many of them fail. But the vast, vast, vast majority of relationships that I've watched unfold in front of me that have either been friends or employees or just people that come to our events have ended in complete disaster. And you have to presume when you enter into our relationship with someone that that is the most likely outcome. Even if you get married, it's more likely that you're going to be divorced than that. You're going to stay together. And this isn't a marriage. This is you seeing some girl that you met starting to see some gold that you met like four weeks ago in a nightclub Samira like while you were at work in a restaurant or something like that, you have to presume that catastrophe and disaster are on the menu for relationships. 0 (31m 2s): They are the rule, not the exception. When you think like that, I think it actually liberates you from one of the fears because one of the fears around jealousy and around anything going wrong in relationships is a God, well maybe if this thing's wrong than what else is wrong, it's like, well, if you always go in to the interaction with the presumption, that that will be more wrong than right. And it's a case of both of you trying to make each other get slowly less wrong and less wrong and less wrong until your relatively well-formed human beings. Then that might work. Also. I don't know about you, but I was such a prick to girls until the age of 28, 29. 0 (31m 44s): I'm 33. Now I've been phenomenal for the last few years, but I was so bad. Like just the worst immature juvenile sort of all of the, all of the fuck boy, things like everything that you thought a club promoter would do. That is exactly how I would behave. And I see the same in girls too. I don't think that this is purely for guys like girls open until the age of 25, 26 can be unbelievably immature and unbelievably Patti and juvenile. And I wonder whether we need to almost change some of the cultural stereotypes around what people think is like an acceptable age to settle down because for some people, yeah, my business partner and his missus started going out at 20, he got married at 26 and now they've got three kids and two dogs in a wonderful house and all this stuff, but there are a massive acception. 0 (32m 39s): And for the most part, people with relationships under 25 are just stumbling in the way through a minefield of shit. Like it's terrible. Most of the relationships ending catastrophe. And I think that if people just conceded that a little bit more, if we got out of the meat meat, the sweetheart at 18, get married, stay together for life stereotype that pops is being carried on from our parents' era. Maybe we would be less nervous around when things start to go wrong. Maybe we'd actually be able to let go of things in a more healthy way. I don't know. 1 (33m 12s): That's an interesting perspective. I want to say. I can't remember where I was listening to the statistics, but it was that like gen Z are the chances of gen Z marriages ending in divorce was almost 70%. I want to say. And then millennials, I still think is right around 50, maybe a skosh higher, but it's a lot higher for the generation behind us. Do you? And I, I see this even just with regular relationships, like you said, it's not, it's not isolated to just a marriage. Do you think that there's a reason why we're seeing this, this shift because I would have assumed it would have been the opposite. So I always say like our parents' generation was right below 50% for divorce. 1 (33m 56s): And I think a lot of that was there wasn't that open communication where it like this was the, the carved out definition of what a marriage was and you have to fit perfectly into it. You have to have the two and a half kids in the house and the mom stays home and the dad works and it was a very rigid. So there wasn't a lot of flexibility to say, well, actually this is what I need in a relationship. And this is what I need romantically to keep that aspect healthy. There wasn't a lot of that communication or curation for the relationship. And then I think I felt like our generation started having more of those conversations. Like I love you, you love me, but This, this definition of what a, a marriage is, doesn't work for me. 1 (34m 38s): And like, what works for you? What do you, what kind of communication do you need? What kind of romance do you need? Do you want to be in an open situation? Do you want to have, you know, whatever that is, if we have so many more options than our parents did. So I was like, okay, maybe we'll start to see a change. I'm in the statistics because now we're, we're treating marriage as if to individuals are deciding to spend the rest of their lives together rather than this institutional definition. And you actually see the opposite happening. So you have all of this liberation and I guess people were kind of running a fraud away from the traditional aspects of what a relationship or marriage art, but then at the same time, they're failing at a much higher rate. 1 (35m 19s): So I was wondering if you have any insight as to why we're seeing those numbers spike. 0 (35m 27s): I think it's just, it's so tried to say it now, right? But think about the transient, transactional nature of sex that the, all of the, you can do, whatever you want. You can be whatever you want. The fluidity that we're seeing with gender expression and sexual identity is also being matched with not, slut-shaming not, I don't know what the equivalent is for guys. Fuck by shaming. Like people can just do what they want. And this is what happens when you get yourself into a society that casts off a lot of tradition. We think that science and rationality, and there's a utilitarian approach to the world. If we can land a spaceship on the moon, why can't we sleep with as many people as we want. 0 (36m 9s): And I think that the problem that we've encountered is that one of those two things don't necessarily map on top of each other, casting off religion is the explanation for how the earth came to be in how humans evolved and why the dinosaurs aren't here anymore. And stuff like that. That may have been smart, but casting off some of the traditions to do with having social cohesion between you and your local geographical area, around having weekly rituals that allow you to bond with the people that you know, and to actually reinforce the family group a, to have support structures that help families to stay together. All of these sorts of things. These are the secular sides of religion and tradition to have also been thrown out. 0 (36m 51s): So the baby, the bath water and the bath have all gone out together and think about it now, like if it's a one 10 to swipe away from your next relationship, cheating's become easier. The ability to pick up and move has, has become easier. People are as Vance Crowe. My buddy, who has been on his show says people are anywhere. People, not some way people and in any way, a person doesn't care about where they are. They're not invested in the local community. They don't actually have roots sat down. They're just, and I'm all for the digital nomads style of life. Like I, I do it as well, but it doesn't lend itself massively toward being committed to a long-term relationship and settling down roots. This, this quote that says tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. 0 (37m 37s): And when you think about that, you're like, Oh, okay. A lot of the things that we did were there to fix problems that we didn't realize we had. And now that we've got rid of those things, the problems have come back and finding a cohesion in the family unit is one of them. I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all. Do you think that there was a little bit of our parents' generation and ours and far less our parent's generation and the one that is coming on, if you thought that our generation, the millennials were liberal with sex and with the way that they saw men and women's roles within the family and how you can, it doesn't matter. You can remarry at any age. That's only increasing as you get on and an always on connected world. 0 (38m 20s): Like you can take top 10 to swipe your way from half-baked relationship to one night, stand until, you know, until the seventies. Like, you can just keep on doing that. So I wouldn't, 1 (38m 31s): Yeah. I have such a hard time with that because obviously my is going to be a little bit jaded given like just who I am and my experiences. But like, so obviously I'm not in a typical marriage, right? That's a given my, my history with poor and like that most people would not be okay with that situation. A lot of advices or like our parents advice would never to be S to sleep with someone on the first date. Like that is almost guarantees that that relationship never blossoms into anything substantial. Well, shockingly, to probably a lot of people I had never had a, for a one night stand, never had one. 1 (39m 15s): I broke up with a very long-term boyfriend and I was kind of hitting this rebellious streak. I was like, I'm going to find out, you know, who I am, I'm going to just live it up. I'm going to go out and I'm going to have my first one nightstand. Like, that was my goal for that summer. And then I meet my now husband and I was like, okay, it's gonna be that guy. We hook up. And I was so proud of myself. I was unattached. I didn't ask for his number. I was so proud of myself because for me it was a sense of independence after being in a relationship for far too long that I should have left earlier. And then I ended up marrying the guy. So it's funny because that advice is, you know, it'll never turn into something, but also I'm terrible at one night stands. 1 (39m 60s): 'cause that was my only one I've ever had. And again, we are married with a baby now, so I didn't do it so great, but I don't think, I don't think that you necessarily have to be super rigid when it comes to sexuality. In order to say that you're going to get a traditional family, if that's what you want, or if it's going to turn into marriage or whatever, I definitely think there needs to be some kind of parameters around a relationship. Even the loosest relationships still have boundaries. 0 (40m 27s): I think about what you've just said that though, even though you were able to do the one night stand thing, the underlying assumptions, the subtext that you are bringing into it was that of a natural romantic. You were still going into that situation and almost having to create a forcing function to get you to like put blinders on. So you didn't look at the relationship stuff over here. It is that right. One night stand, like don't, don't, don't bother with this stuff like that doesn't matter anymore. And yeah, I think that all that's happened is you've just ended up manifesting your way of seeing relationships, which is something that you invest in. But for a lot of other people, the culture that they are given isn't that it's that like, you know, that the whole clap back movement, like anybody that's talking about how you need to get one over on the person that you are with last, like guys have played this game for ages, and now the girls are doing it as well. 0 (41m 21s): And like fair play it's people can do whatever they want, but we should be very, very, very careful with how we throw to a tradition out of the window, because a lot of the time it's there for a very good reason. And it's going to take us so long to get back there, to get back to, is, is it, is it may be a good idea or not to sleep at the person on the first date. Like every time it may be a good idea to not do it every time that can go out of dating. But do you know what I mean? Like, is that even but to say that now it's like, well guys can do it. I'm like, well, no, maybe for guys as well, maybe for guys as well. It's not a fantastic idea to do it on the very first time that you go out. Now, all of the best relationships that I've been in have been ones where they're has been more game-playing at the beginning, there has been more of a courting period that builds you up to it, and you've had the guts on, right? 0 (42m 10s): And he would know this from an evolutionary perspective. You, what is the signal that you are giving to your potential mate, if you give up sex easily as a woman, and there's a guy, but specifically as a woman In, throughout all of human history, men have been the sexual protagonist's and women have been a sexual gatekeepers. Why 'cause the cost of having sex is significantly higher for women than it is for men. And even if you're not having sex to make children, that context is still continues. That is always going to be the way that is going to be. And if you are a girl that's listening, who wants to get into our relationship, I think it's so fantastic that that's happened for you, but I'm going to guess even you must have thought, fuck, like I rolled the dice here and this kind of came out to now this amazing relationship and I'm super happy and we've got this child and everything's going well, but it could have gone to you the way he could have signaled something that maybe wouldn't have been so, so, so good. 1 (43m 8s): No, I agree. I also I'm someone that believes in fate. So I also think that some of those things happen that are outside of your control and if your kind of living on your path for a lack of better words, and that's when things start to happen for you and not to you kind of mentality. But I also know there's definitely a narrative with my generation or our generation of people not wanting to settle down and to have to have families. I don't know really anyone that has kids. Most of my friends are still single and we're all, you know, almost, almost all of us are in our thirties. And to me, that's kind of crazy because when in history is that happened. 1 (43m 51s): And I know for me, its kind of lonely because you do want people that are at similar life stages at you to share your experience is like what your going through? Like theirs things that only a parent nose or are there things that will be a married couple knows. I think it's really silly when we say that there is no difference between marrying someone. So many people say that to their like, Oh it wasn't any different. Once we got married how's that I felt such a shift. It was very different. I mean we still live together before. It's almost like, I mean, it's going to sound overly simplified, but it's, it's that obvious commitment. It's like this isn't we get into a fight and I kick you out and now we're, we're broken up. 1 (44m 32s): It's there's going to be paperwork. There's going to be lawyers. I live in the South. So when you get divorced to actually have to be separated for a year before you can do is you can't just divorce. Even in domestic violence. That's how strict it is. It's like they want you to go to counseling to try to fix the marriage. It's not, you can't make a rash decision. So there's that level. And then there's, I mean, when someone decides to say, I'm going to try to be with you until we were both old gray, one of us dies, right? Like there's something beautiful and romantic about that. It's not like I'm just here so long as things are easy, fun and sexy. It's like I'm here for when things get ugly and I'm here for things when things get old and boring and you know, we just want to sit across the table and not talk. 1 (45m 19s): And there is just that level of commitment that's that can not be there without marriage, in my opinion, unpopular to you. 0 (45m 26s): Yeah. And we look at what that is. It's symbolic, it's sacred. It's tradition, you know like that's what people are, that's what people are missing. And I, I dunno, I I'm so conflicted about it because I love all of the trappings that we've got with modernity. I love the fact that we have, that the women can choose to be anything that they want to be, that they can decide to have a career or are, they can decide to have children, but the decision of whether or not to have children to have a career is a really difficult one. And now every woman has to make that choice previously, all of the choice, I wouldn't have been their, and that might feel constricting. At least they would have never had the turmoil of having to do it. Now I'm not for like sending women back to the house and taking them out of the workplace. 0 (46m 8s): My point is that this is a difficult discussion to heart. It's a nuanced and uncomfortable place for everybody to be because you're a biological imperative as a woman is to have children. The only way that you are here is because every one of your mothers had, you all have the one that came before. Yeah. That's the only way that it works. So there's like a very, very strong biological impulse that is continuing to pull us through this. And the same thing goes for the marriage. Like, yeah, maybe, maybe you can get all of the same legal protections and you can own the house in the same way. But there's something about the ritual, the sacredness of actually going through having the family, they're thinking about your planning, the wedding, you know, putting, why do we have any sort of ritual at all? 0 (46m 50s): Like why do people celebrate Christmas? Why don't we just celebrate Christmas in the middle of June? Well, it's because it's on that date and you go through the rigmarole of making the food and putting the tree up and all of these sorts of things. And again, we should dispense with those traditions at our peril. 1 (47m 3s): Yeah. I think that's an interesting point to, because in my generation growing up, it was very girl power. There was a lot of that, a feminist dialogue going on in that you can have everything that you want. You can have the baby, that family and the rock star career. And I think a lot of us are realizing it's not that simple. And then we were also told that biological like that biological clock wasn't I know a lot that was the narrative from a lot of people that were around me and I kind of always knew I wanted kids. So I didn't really fall into that. I'll have kids when I'm 45 thing that they tell you as an option. But what's interesting is I don't think there's enough of that conversation happening with women specifically. 1 (47m 48s): It's you can have it all focused on your career until you are where you want to be in your mid thirties and then go have a family. But the truth is at 30, it starts to tank you like your fertility tanks. And as assuming that your health is perfect, that you are going to the gym, your eating, right. You don't end up getting any elements, like an auto-immune disorder that might make it even more difficult. And they're like, Oh, well there's always IVF. Well, if you don't know someone that's gone through that process, it's really painful. It's not guaranteed. It's hard for both parties. Cause the woman gets really hormonal and she's getting stuck with needles every day. And that's not really the magical way that you want to conceive if you have a choice, right? So you see a lot of older women that passed that window and they're like, shit, I wish that someone had told me the truth. 1 (48m 32s): I wish I at least had made an informed decision about whether or not I could have the career or the family and is not to say it doesn't exist. I have both. But I think I'm a kind of an exception in that, in that role because I get to work from home and obviously make my money that way. So if I were in the real world, I think it's what is it like 40% might be higher of women that have children. Don't go back to the workforce. It's a pretty substantial number. And that's because it's really expensive. Yeah. So I mean, it might seem like a dated conversation, but for a lot of women, they kind of do have to change to choose. And I think that there needs to just be more open conversations so that they don't have regrets either way, you know, when they're older and they can go back in time. 0 (49m 19s): Well, think about what is the worst conversation to have is the worst conversation to remind women that I think is that 95% of your eggs are gone by the time you're 30 and the 99, by the time that you have 40 something like that, it's like basically very front-loaded between the age of like 13 and 30 or something like that. But is it worse to have that uncomfortable conversation? A or is it worse for a significant proportion of women to get to an age when they can no longer have kids and want to have kids? Like we don't need, we don't need to sugarcoat and, and, and cotton wool wrap people in a way from these sorts of discussions. 0 (49m 59s): I think people are far more resilient than others would have. We believe that they are right. Most women can take that conversation. Like it might be an uncomfortable realization, but is it as uncomfortable as never realizing, and then never being able to have kids? Like, I, I don't think so as a, a reassuring statistic last year in the UK, more women had children over the age of 40 than under the age of 20, 1 (50m 25s): But that tells you something I would say, right? Yes. That's a, I think that's a great medical advance. Wonderful. But I think that if you were to look at that, just from a brief, you know, bird's-eye view that says, I wish I had kids when I was 30 or when I was in my late twenties, when, cause most people in that ad that in that age bracket are not having kids naturally. It's just not happening. There was a medical intervention too. So that's really interesting. 0 (50m 53s): I think as well, like from, from a, a woman's perspective, I think about the sort of man that you're going to be attracting. If you are in your sort of mid thirties, like guys tend to date younger, like in most women tend to be attracted to older men as well. Like if you're 35, you don't want to be dating someone who is 26. But if that means that if that means that you're going to be looking at maybe it's someone who is 46 and then you settle down and it's a few more years, and then you're talking about having a dad with a newborn kid whose 50, which again, his is absolutely fine, but these things are all working against biological imperatives. Like this is, this is an uncomfortable truth to say, but like most girls upon having that sort of first blood, when they, when they hit puberty would have been pregnant by the second one, like that's the way that it worked. 0 (51m 43s): That's what a Henry, the eighth was marrying Henry. The eighth was marrying 14 year olds. There was a name, there's a name for the period between the first time that a girl men's rights. And then when she's actually fertile upon the, like a second cycle, there's a name for it in like medieval times. So we're really pushing the boundaries of biology here. And I'm all for people I like. And I can say both things here, right? I appreciate I'm saying, look, maybe most people are under the age of 25 are total idiots in relationships. And haven't got a clue what they're doing and yet waiting until super late in life, like, yeah. Is there a good answer for this? Maybe not. 0 (52m 23s): Maybe there isn't one. Maybe we just need to present people with facts and they need to fit it around their life. Like for me, I'm 33 and I can't wait to be a dad, but I haven't found the right girl for me to settle down with yet. And the situation hasn't quite been there, but I know that I really want to be a dad. And I feel like I'm in possession of most of the facts around what that's going to mean and what that's going to take and how do you need to be prepared and stuff like that. So if, and when it happens then fantastic, like, but I'd much sooner know, well, all of the different options that are available to me than be blinded, 1 (52m 56s): It's a really interesting paradox, right? It seems that we're all maturing far later in life, we're all very unprepared for life compared to generations prior. Right. We had people going to a war. We had people that were creating real, creating the countries that we live in at very young ages. I think like the founding fathers were all in their twenties and now we have people in their twenties that are attached to their phone attached to Twitter. I'm the biggest achievement that they are doing is voicing an opinion rather than actually creating sustainable change. And yet, yeah, we see a decline in people making the decision to, to have kids. 1 (53m 38s): So with all of these, like statistical numbers have a higher likelihood of divorce were like, what are you going to do, I guess, going into your marriage to, I dunno, maintain the health of that relationship. Like what have you learned from all these conversations you've had with like these great minds and just your reading on your free time? 0 (54m 1s): Wow. That is a good question. I'm going to have to put my money where my mouth is somehow now. So I think that, I think communication I've got really good at communicating, like obviously, and I'm also a perfectly fine being open and honest with whoever it is that I'm talking to, whether that would be over the internet, whether that be in a relationship. I honestly think that that will get me pretty far. Maybe that's hopeful delusion, but just being able to understand the texture of your own mind and also as well, here's something that no one really ever talks about. Everyone says like, you've got to love yourself first before you can let somebody else to love you, but nobody ever actually understands what they mean by that. 0 (54m 42s): No one ever actually has prepared to put the money where their mouth is and commit too. Okay. So what you're saying is you need to source all of your shit before you can get into a relationship with somebody else that you want to last a long term, or you need to source most of your shit to be in a place where that person is going to be made better by your existence, not worse. And like Lord knows, I've made girls' existences worse by being in their lives throughout my twenties, because I was a day, like I treated them badly and the same goes for them with me. Whereas now I can't wait to get hold of whatever the family is that I'm going to start, because I know that I've got capacity and I've sought it through most of the stuff that I need to sort through. 0 (55m 24s): And I have all of this latent potential to bring up some beautiful, emotionally intelligent, well-rounded comfortable, confident, loved children. Like I know that I can do that. And I know that I can do that with a wife as well. And I can't wait to make her in to whatever it is that she wants to be to help her go on her path, to become the best version of that she can be. And everybody likes the idea of that. Like in a tweet, it sounds fantastic, you know, like sort yourself out and then you can let someone else love you. Like, you know, that's one of those tweets that goes, that goes viral. But when it comes down to, okay, like, are you prepared to spend a decade or five years of constant introspective work on your own constantly assessing all of the really disgusting, terrible parts of yourself, all of the embarrassing and weird and, and unaligned elements that you've brought through from childhood or from your genetics, from the way that your parents dealt with you all from whatever it might be your past traumas. 0 (56m 28s): Like, are you actually prepared to do that? And then I think something that, that is probably a little bit of an uncomfortable conversation to have. There is like, well, okay, well now I've done that work and you haven't, I don't want to be in a relationship with you. Like I'm not here to fix somebody else. I'm here to find somebody else who's fixed themselves and is prepared to be in a relationship with me in that way. And we can continue to fix each other as we go through. But yeah, people match up in ways where hopefully the level of sort of self development and growth is, you know, come to a similar sort of what line. And yeah, I think communication is going to be key, finding somebody that's growth minded and understanding what it is that you actually want from a partner. 0 (57m 13s): Like so many of the things I spoke to Dr. Taylor burrows, who's a relationship counselor. She'd worked in Florida for years and years. So she has seen all manner of extreme break-ups and make-ups and stuff like that. And she said that in compatibility, between people's values and schedules are the two most common reasons that people break up. It's like, if you're in to the gym, falling in love with someone who loves movies and art might be a bad place to start, but because we have the Disney Pixar world of Love can conquer, roll, and Romeo and Juliet, you can be from different places, different times, different values, different families, different cultures. 0 (57m 54s): It doesn't matter because if you love each other, that will be fine. It's like, all right, you, you tell me if Love is going to get past the fact that fundamentally the things that you want to do with your spare time, a different 10 years deep into a relationship, and then think about how much easier it would be. If the things that you want to do fundamentally are the same. Like there's practical implications here that people need to get past. So finding someone whose schedule aligns with yours, if you work nights and they work shifts, it's not going to be a very functional relationship. If they love the gym and you love comic books, you might have a little bit of difficulty there. So Mark Manson has this fantastic piece of advice. He says, what is a sort of person that you want to attract and where do they exist? 0 (58m 34s): So we think, okay, I really want to try and find a girl who does X who's in a cycling. Okay. Why would a girl that does cycling go, Oh, well maybe she joined a local cycling club. Okay. We'll go there. Like, cause they'll probably be there and you just continue to roll that forward. I think that finding compatibility with a schedule, with values and with a life plan as well, like as soon as you've settled down with someone, especially if you're thinking this is someone I want to be with for the rest of my life, do you need to have a couple of conversations? Like, do you want to have kids? Because if they do and you don't have a vice versa, like that's it it's over like that. So all of these things, but what the basis for all of this stuff comes from good communication, not stepping into the discussion with an agenda or trying to make you the person feel stupid or trying to get one over on them. 0 (59m 23s): Just look, here's a thing that I wanted to know a genuine, you want to know 'cause you are an important person in my life. And I would like you to tell me, so tell me, and then the chips can kind of fall where they may, after that. I suppose 1 (59m 36s): I think it's tough. A lot of people, I know so many people that avoid that really hard conversation with their partner. They don't want to have that conversation with themselves as to what their values are, whether its, to have kids are to not have kids or where they want to be in five years, because it's scary once you make that decision and maybe it's not the same as the person you're dating. And that means that relationship is over. So rather than find out that conclusion, you just kind of keep it going a little longer and a little longer until you realize like the decision is going to end up being made for you. I never understood because for me I value time so much and I'm like a little bit of a perfectionist. 1 (1h 0m 18s): So, and I loved to plan ahead. I it's actually something I'm trying to not do as much. I'm trying to be more present, but I would spend way more time in five years from now or 10 years from now. And then I wouldn't today. So it would be like, well, why, where do you see yourself in 10 years? How many kids do you want? Where like, where do you want to live? All of these things. And a lot of people kind of take it. But I think that that was a great filtration system with back when I was dating, because it showed me who was serious and who wasn't serious and who was just wasting my time. So I know like a lot of people that I was in neurotic, especially when you're in your twenties. But to me it was really important. And again, as someone who believes in, you know, fate to a really great extent, I think anyone that's supposed to be in your life is going to be there. 1 (1h 1m 2s): So you shouldn't be, you know, scared or ashamed to say what you want out of a relationship. 0 (1h 1m 7s): I have a buddy who always buys. He is doing quite well for himself. He always buys stuff. And he has this little catch phrase where he says future Andrew will pay for him. And his point is that he has so much faith in his ability, in the future that he is prepared to put his money on the line in the now. And I think that that can kind of be the same. If you have the faith that you do, if you think that things are gonna work out, he can unapologetically pursue just you just doing you and the things that you want to do in the way that you want to do them because you have faith that future Candice all sorted out. 1 (1h 1m 44s): Exactly. So are you someone that believes in fate or destiny or are you a strictly freewill kind of guy? Okay. 0 (1h 1m 54s): So mom is a Reiki master of like 15 years. So she is big into astrology and spirituality and stuff like that. I think I would class myself technically as the spiritual, but not religious crowd, which is massively growing at the moment I tend in terms of fate. I tend to believe the, I always make things work. I I'm hesitant to put the things that happened in my life up to a higher power or to anything else because I know how many times things go wrong and I'm still managed to make it go. Okay. 0 (1h 2m 35s): So a lot of the time, what people may say is I left this last job of mine, but everything worked out in the end. So leaving that job or that job, me being fired from that job, it was meant to be because if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be where I am now. To me, one of the problems that I have with that is it takes away the agency that you have of how hard you worked and how well it was that you were the reason that this went well. Let's flip that situation on its head and say that it wasn't fate, that that did it, but it was U the alternative is not only did I lose my job, but I made all of this good shit happen. And look at where I am now, all of this pride that I have in myself. 0 (1h 3m 15s): So I don't know. And really it's, it's a, I don't really care or mind whether it is predetermined for me, but there is some sort of string that I'm following through through life, like walking back to the minor toes maze type thing. I don't really mind if it is that, or if it is complete locus of control, personal sovereignty and upward agency, I don't really mind which one of those to it is what I value is the ability to make my own choices and to take my life in a way that I want it to go. And if I'm either pushing it forward, or if I'm being pulled from the front, I don't really mind which one of those to it is. I just want to always get the outcome that I desired. 1 (1h 3m 55s): No, it totally does. And I think the locus of control is an interesting bit too. So I think two things can exist at once when it comes to that, I think that you can have destiny or fate, but then you can also have a vast amount of free will. So I think that there's a bunch of options, right? Like your life can go in all of these trajectories. And then those individual decisions kind of depict where, what lane you fall into. So when you have an X, which, which one is that we haven't talked about this in so long, but the extra and all the locus of control where that's like, everything's happening to you, right? Like victim mentality. 1 (1h 4m 36s): And then there's this kind of a locus, which is I'm, I'm responsible for these things. And depending on which one you fall into, your reality is vastly different, right? So if you're in that victim mentality, you tend to be one of those people that constantly has things happening to you, right? Like in your life, of course, this is just my luck. How many people do we know that say, this is just my luck, but there is almost a law of attraction that's happening because you're living in this low vibrational place that you are literally shaping your reality to be bad or to be negative, or to have bad luck. Your identifying as someone who has a bad luck, where's the other person is like, this is an opportunity. 1 (1h 5m 17s): How can I use this to get to where I want to be? Like, there's some kind of golden nugget here for me to learn from and that's actually going to help me. And that's something that I've had to remind myself a ton with this year I've had. So like, again, I'm a planner. So I've had a lot of things that didn't go according to plan are people that would cancel last minute on me. And then I would let my negative. Self-talk you'd be like, you're not good enough. You're stupid. You should just stop podcasting. Right? So you, can you take that one? That's one option. The other option is like, there, this is a gift. For some reason, this is a gift they canceled for me. So maybe they weren't some maybe, you know, even though they don't want to be associated with me outwardly, maybe this is to my benefit because maybe my brand shouldn't be associated with them. 1 (1h 6m 2s): Right. So there's always an option of, if you want to look at things, you know, as a gift or as a victim or, you know, woe is me, I'm powerless. So again, I think that is part of the free world, right? Those decisions, where do you want to live? You're head space. And then your reality shifts to that. And then that's your lane that you're going to be in. If that makes sense. I know its kind of a long-winded 0 (1h 6m 25s): No, it really does. I M I have this theory that I've been working on it, put it in the newsletter for a little while ago. So you are the common denominator in your life. Everything that you encounter, if you encounter it consistently, it is more likely that it's because of you, not because of the world. So you may always break up from your last relationship and it ends really bitterly. You may always start a new job. And the boss that you get to know, never really seems to like you that much, or you might seem to always be looked after when you go abroad. 0 (1h 7m 5s): People, always a warm to you for some reason, whatever it might be. What's more likely, is it more likely that every single one of your ex is just happened to be a total bitch or a deck that was really better upon the entry or the exit of the relationship? Is it more likely that throughout all of the different jobs you've had through your career, all of the bosses, just really that they're not nice and they've got some sort of prejudice against you, or is it more likely that the entire world, every single city that you visit, everyone that you meet happens to be nice, or is it that you are the common denominator that you are the person that is causing this thing to occur. And when you start to see life in that way, it's really liberating. Firstly, because if you get consistent results, you can say that it's probably because of a consistent input, that's come from you. 0 (1h 7m 50s): But also it allows you to liberate yourself from feeling like it is your fault when somebody else does something to you, which doesn't often happen. So for instance, I have a couple of friends and every time that have conversations with these different friends, there's always a particular sort of tone or a tenor to the conversation, right? Like with one of them, it's always a very defensive with another one. It's always, I'm quite a measuring competition around what's been going on recently, but I don't have that conversation with anybody else. I only have that conversation with that one person. And that was the one person. So the common denominator and sure enough, it came up. I'm one of the guys that I was talking to was talking about this thing. 0 (1h 8m 31s): And I had a little bit of a, sort of have a jokey day about something that we were talking about. And I said, man, like, I bet that you have this conversation with a lot of people, don't you? Like, I don't have this conversation with anybody else, but I bet that you have this conversation all the time is I? Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, okay, you are the common denominator in your life. And again, it reminds us that the locus of control is internal. We create the things that happened to us on what's the alternative. Like what's the alternative to having an internalized locus of control to just lie there in a pool of feces, like just waiting for the end to come. Like, that's not a thing. 0 (1h 9m 11s): Like you can't do that. So yeah, I is difficult. Is it is easy and seductive to ask like, why is this happening to me? But the world in time, we're going to continue taking in any case. So you might as well try and do something with it. That is going to be at least beneficial to this situation. 1 (1h 9m 32s): That's really interesting point. So I don't know that I've ever heard of anyone making that connection, the, the, the latter connection. So I think a lot of people steer away from it because they feel there's too much responsibility. If I'm, if I'm responsible for my reality, then there's a lot of accountability that I have to face with that. Especially if you want to change it. And especially if you're in a space that you're not, you're not happy with. Right. It's not the highest version of yourself, but I think it's really great that you added, it's almost a good barometer for those instances. Like you said, with your friends and be like, Oh, this is interesting. I don't usually have these types of interactions with people. 1 (1h 10m 14s): Let me see if maybe this is common for them. And then they say yes. And you're like, okay, this isn't me. I'm not being the Dick in this situation. Yeah, no, because there's a huge major upside. I think also the upside is that if you can make your life shit, you can also make it great. So it gives you that sense of control to whatever extent that you may or may not have it. But yeah, I love that because I actually had a similar runnin with, with somebody and I'm like, I don't, I don't have this with anybody else. I know that because I I've, I do believe that people are mirrors, right? And often the things that we see that bother us has more to do with us than that other person. 1 (1h 10m 55s): That's usually the case. Again, it goes back to a learning opportunity. What is, what can I learn from this icky feeling that I have when I have an exchange with this type of person, right? Like maybe it's, I'm like your brother or something and every time your, and your brother, you get really angry, but what's that what's that about myself. But there are those rare occasions where you're like, Oh, this doesn't, I, no, this doesn't, this feeling doesn't happen anywhere else. So where's that coming from? So it gets, it's a good separator of what is something that you can work on within yourself. And, and what is just kind of an outlier as far as human exchanges go. 0 (1h 11m 29s): Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree. I think I'm just becoming aware of the texture of your own mind is quite important as well. Like realizing I'm a bit angry right now. I am a bit sad to right now I'm a bit anxious right now. Like simply just being able to notice when the happens is so important. And if there's, if I get no closer to Nirvana than simply being aware of what have been lost in thought, which is a thousand days of meditation has given me so far, like if I get no more peace in life than that, I'll class meditation as a win, simply by being able to notice that the texture of my mind has changed. I've got, I'm going to be annoyed by that thing. Oh, it was made to feel a bit uncomfortable. Buy that thing are embarrassed by the thing I'll pick your happy, joyful, whatever. 0 (1h 12m 15s): Like, just knowing that is so powerful because it means that you can step into your own programming and yeah, sadly, I see a, see a lot of the people that are around me or were around me in the past that are still kind of running on autopilot with regards to that sort of stuff. And it's not nice because you were at the mercy of whatever thought comes careening interview. But for all of the people that are listening, they don't get to control the next thought that they think any more than they get to control the next set of words that comes out of my mouth. But that's actually the way that it works. You are not your thoughts. You are the person that, here's your thoughts inside of your head. 0 (1h 12m 55s): So when you're walking around and when you tell yourself that I need to make the bed later on, well, should I make the bed later on? Or I can do it now? Who the fuck are you talking to? Like really? Who are you telling? Who are you telling that you need to do the bed to sow you are not your thoughts and the less that we can identify with them, the more that we can notice when we become last in them, the easier life becomes. And that happens linearly for me the less than I identify with the words that I hear myself say. And as well, you talked earlier on about sort of some of the, the past traumas and these narratives and stuff that have come up from previous exchanges. We've had, especially in our formative years when we were kids, almost all of the voices that are in your head of some sort of authority teacher figure from when you were a child. 0 (1h 13m 43s): So maybe a parent, maybe a grandmother may be an older brother, a sister may be a teacher that he spent a lot of time with something like that. Like why, why would you allow that voice to be the one at 33 years old, that he's still telling you because you may be able to deprogram some of that. But a lot of what I think is the source code has kind of been built in and you can slowly degrade that over time, but it's going to take a long time. What you can for more quickly is just decide not to associate with it. Okay. That's cool. Like Mrs. Wilkinson from third grade when I was like 11 years old or whatever, like, Oh, that's cool dad. 0 (1h 14m 23s): When he was, when he was angry <inaudible> and something has gone wrong at work, or he was stressed with like money or whatever, it might be like, you can hear these things come up and yeah, again, from like the family side, I think that this is why we need to be increasingly careful with how we speak to our kids. That the voice that you use with your child as they're growing up is the voice that they are going to hear in their head for the rest of their life. And if that's the case, then you need to be incredibly careful. What is the sort of voice that you want your child to have in their head for the rest of their days? Do you want this bizarre Poltergeist, eco version of you? That's like some fucking ghost haunting around in the back of this skull, just like singing these words out from S from the corner of the room. 0 (1h 15m 10s): Do you want that to be an encouraging voice that tells them that they can do what it is that they want to do that is encouraging and living and accepting of their failures, but expecting more from them in a way that motivates. But do you want this, or do you want it to be you snapping at them? Because you've had a bad day because you expected more from a child and yeah, I think that's something I can see myself getting far more, but I, I don't have kids. I don't, I've got no horse in this race yet, but I can see myself getting like, super, super passionate about telling other parents to do that because I already am. 0 (1h 15m 50s): And yeah, I think we should. Nothing just, we should be very careful with the, the things that we tell our kids when the weather is. 1 (1h 16m 2s): No, I couldn't agree more. I was thinking, as you were saying, all of that, Holy shit, that's so powerful. And also it seems so obvious, but when you say it, there's that sense of nuance, like, no, not a lot of people are viewing parenting this way or viewing ourselves this way. Right? So many of our beliefs are because of how we were raised. And what we were told is a little kid. And if, you know, even half of the people spend that much time thinking about parenting before they became parents, what a world that would be, right. How happy would people be? Like we w we would be starting from a different baseline than what we currently are, because I don't think our parents' generation was ever challenged to consciously raise children. 1 (1h 16m 47s): It was just something that you did. It was something that was expected. You, you kind of looked at them as little mini adults, which is not the case. Their brain is so unformed, right? Like it's just, it's waiting for you to manipulate it and hopefully the best way possible to make them into this great person. But you don't realize that if you're being, you are manipulating it into a bad space to where there have that negative self-talk and that low self esteem. I know I've said this in a previous episodes, but for the first seven years, kids who are in a high theta state, so their brain is almost purely running on theta waves. 1 (1h 17m 28s): And that's kind of what happens when you S when you sit in front of a TV is you start getting Hi Thetis. So that makes you really susceptible to programming so that it almost kind of takes that critical thinking off in that filtration off. And it's just like, okay, digest, digest, digest. This is all just true. So if you tell your kid, you are stupid, or you are not good enough, or, you know, you are not worthy of my time, these things sink in, and they are there forever. So you have the two levels of your brain. You have your conscious mind and your unconscious mind, and your unconscious mind is almost like a perfect permanent record of your existence. Every single interaction you've ever had is in there. And just because it's not, you know, in your existence, it's not in your memory bank right now, doesn't mean that your subconscious isn't taking hold of that. 1 (1h 18m 15s): And that's so much that explains so much of our behaviors in our relationships and whether or not we're happy, our careers, everything that makes us us is every exchange we've had. So if you're consciously going into parenting and saying, I'm going to be hyper aware of my energy in a way that I speak, and the words that I use around my kid, you're just making that subconscious a little less messy and a little less scary so that their inner dialogue can hopefully be a lot healthier. So I'm curious, do you think that that inner voice is that, is that ego, would you say, would you categorize it that way, or would you say kind of how you previously stated that it's, it can be, you know, Mrs. 1 (1h 18m 57s): Mrs. Sanders from third grade or your uncle at one time, or your dad, that one time we're going to be a combination of who's living in your head space. 0 (1h 19m 6s): I don't know. I've got John Peterson on the show later this week. I guess I'll probably be a good question to ask him and seems to be a pretty good into the developmental stuff. For me personally, I can hear the tenor and the tone of the, of the people that were formative in my childhood years. Like I know who those voices are, and for some of them, for some of them, they're not really that helpful, but for the people who have had a, for the people that are listening to have that, that have those voices, that they are the least gracious parts of them, the ones that are disparaging, the ones that are negative, the ones that tell them that make them feel insufficient, or make them feel like they're not enough, or that they can't do enough for that. 0 (1h 19m 48s): There should be anxious or nervous, or any of those things. Like you can change this with enough work and it is possible to do it. Maybe your starting from a little bit more of a back foot, maybe that could have been a version of you where you wouldn't have had to deprogram a mean older brother or a, a, a really neglectful grandfather or whatever it might be, but you can do it. And it is going to take time, but you can certainly get there. And this kind of thing loops right back to what we were saying at the very beginning about looks and in a state, because no, nobody at the age of seven years old is being treated better or worse by their parents because they happened to be pretty or because they happened to be ugly. 0 (1h 20m 39s): A very few of them are. So what that means is that, okay, everybody is walking around with this bizarre record, the unconscious mind, as you said, this was our record, like the sediments of rock of everything that's happened, all of the different, all of the tree rings, and you can cut through it and see, okay, here's, here's the moment when they did really well in swimming when they were 10 years old. And here's the moment when mom and dad split up and here's the moment when they left home because they got kicked out because they were a part in too much In here's the moment when blah-blah-blah all of these things that they are right. And they are just this accumulation of a very complex, nuanced interconnecting actions and histories have occurred. 0 (1h 21m 23s): And then people look at someone and think that they can make some sort of a judgment about what their internal state is. Oh, it's easy for you because you're a good looking, it's difficult for you because your ugly, like, no, it's easy for you because your rich, poor black, white, like any of these sorts of judgments is just completely stupid. That you're not a serious thinker. If that's how you believe that the world works. And the people who are the most it's developed the most self-actualized or the one's who've done the work, but not the ones who were just given some perfect combination of genetics and then lounged around for the next 25 years, 50% of what you are is genetics. 0 (1h 22m 3s): But the other 50% of what you are is from nurture. So people have had to go and do that work. And there is for the people that are listening, who have a negative in a monologue who have a disparaging voice that tells them things that they don't want to here. I can promise you, we can get rid of it. Maybe not entirely, maybe not forever, maybe in your less gracious moments at the times when you stuck in traffic at the time, is when you're angry with your kids, with your partner, when you feel nervous or depressed or whatever it is, maybe that's the moment when they'll come back up. But for the most part, you can turn the volume down an awful lot. And like, that's one of the most liberating things that you can know that something that you thought was so much a part of yourself, that it was the voice that you heard. 0 (1h 22m 46s): It's the, the sound that your mind makes when you want to think that the accent that, that has, can be changed into one, which is more supportive of you, as opposed to one that you feel is destructive to you. And I'm like, if that's not justification for why people should take self growth and development seriously. And I don't really know what is, 1 (1h 23m 7s): I know, I, I always find that fascinating, the people that are like, self-help won't work on me, or I'm just not into self-help or personal development. And what do you mean you're not into those things? I think it's, there's this quote that says, if you're not embarrassed, if the person that you were a year ago, you're not doing enough. And that really resonated with me because I think the beautiful thing about podcasting or a Twitter or a journaling or anything, that there is a hard proof of who you were. It's like, man, I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I tweeted that. I can't believe that's what I thought. And you see a shift on an identity almost, and that can be in as little as, I mean, for some people, I'm sure there are, there can be a day, you have a monumental breakthrough. 1 (1h 23m 53s): And all of a sudden you're like, Holy cow, where have I been living? I know you've mentioned to journaling on other podcasts. And I think that that's such a great outlet. I think everyone should have some form of journal. Whether it's you use your Twitter feed, is that because you maybe want it to be more open in public or maybe you have a notepad, whatever it is. But I think it's such a powerful tool in personal development. And if you want to get a little bit, woo, woo. It's like, it's very powerful for manifestation and those kinds of things as well. And, you know, from a practical guide, even just goal a goal orientation, I know a lot of people don't do it because they think it's either feminine or it's, you know, it's too girly or it's too immature. 1 (1h 24m 32s): But I think it's a really powerful tool that is underutilized. 0 (1h 24m 37s): Yeah. Suzanne to Holland is one of the world's most successful positive psychologists. And she said that gratitude is the foundation upon which happiness is built. And I'm like, okay, fine, fine. And this is episode 20 or something, and we're on 301 now or something like that. How is that? Right? I'm going to give it a go. And then there is a six or seven diaries down there with a full like six or seven half a month's diaries that I've completed. And it's just a part of your day, you know, like it's the same as the, your dad's used to wake up and have a cigarette first thing in the morning. Okay. Like it's just a ritual it's just to sit down and, and, and write some stuff down. I mean, anybody that thinks that that doing gratitude is to girly needs to have a word with themselves. 0 (1h 25m 22s): Like, w what else are you here for it? If it's not to be grateful for the things that are happening, but there's nothing masculine about being depressed about, like, that just sucks. And this is not mine. It's not being masculine. It's just life sucks. 1 (1h 25m 35s): I totally agree. I wanted to ask if we are allowed to get any peaks into your TEDx talk. Cause I know that happened. The last that we were a, we were talking like, can you give us a little, a little trailer of what you talked about and what that experience was like? Because to me, I would be so nervous that just, that is such a big accomplishment. So first congratulations and anything that you can, you can tell us, I'm all ears. 0 (1h 26m 5s): Thank you. Yeah. I got invited to do a TEDx talk with 10 men, 10 weeks to prepare most of the time. It takes about 10 months. So it was nice to have a forcing function that pushed my focus and directed it. To be honest, it was fine. I think anybody that needs to give a talk, if you've never done public speaking before I never had M you can do a 20 minute talk and learn it from scratch in 10 weeks, it'll take an hour a day or a couple of hours every other day, but you'll be able to get it done. I wanted to do something that was really meaningful to me. Hopefully I'll get asked to do multiple TEDx talks and maybe it a tad eventually, but I figured that it needed to be something that was super meaningful to me. 0 (1h 26m 50s): And one of the common themes that goes through a lot of the stuff that I talk about is embracing your weirdness for a long time. I buried the person that I truly was under so many personas that I didn't know who I was anymore. And this is why the journey from a self inquiry for a lot of people, myself included, begins with kind of just digging away all of the assumptions that you have. It's like a, I, okay. I believe there's thing. Is that true? We know it's not that I can get rid of that. I believe this thing is that true? No, it's not right. Okay. And you just keep on going. You just keep on throwing away all these different assumptions and ideas about yourself and about the world and about what you want and about the way that you should believe and live and all this sort of stuff. So I did a how embracing your weirdness will improve your life. 0 (1h 27m 33s): And it starts off as we're talking about the chances of you being born. So the only reason that you are here is because of a precise combination of 4 billion years of survival and reproduction of every single one of your ancestors going, right. Right, right, right. Back to a single selves pro cryogenic to Ukraine, Arctic bacteria. And the only way that your specific combination of genetics exists is if every single one of those mates and some smart people run the figures and worked out that the odds of your specific combination of genetics existing is one in 10 to the power of 2 million, 685,000. Not numbers, not just bigger than all the particles and the universe, it's bigger than all the particles in the universe. 0 (1h 28m 14s): If each particle was itself, another universe, it's bigger than the likelihood of the entire 2 million person population of Northern Ireland, all rolling, a trillion sided dice, and each getting a seven. It's basically zero, the chance of your existing zero. And the synopsis of the talk is that you have this cosmic miracle, which is what's birthed view. The likelihood is, is basically none of the fact that you are here for this brief window of time in between to eternity, as of nothingness is unbelievably unlikely. And yet you're going to allow status games are social norms or internal fears to curb the person that you are like, it's your duty to the universe and the human race at large to do what only you can do because only you can. 0 (1h 29m 4s): So I give this example about Salvador Dali, who has this very eccentric guy. He had the mustache in the dress sense, and he, he wants that to be wrenched out of a deep sea diving suit, mid seminar because he arrived and it malfunctioned. And he started suffocating on stage. So he is a super, super eccentric artist. And if he hadn't embraced his weirdness and created his work, the world would have never received it. Michelangelo was brilliant, but he didn't do Darlie and DaVinci. He was brilliant and he didn't do Dolly. So anything other than the absolute truest manifestation of Darlie's inner being, I would have left a world fundamentally less. I'm going to try and get across to people, is that that's the imperative, which we all have. 0 (1h 29m 46s): It's your duty to do what only you can do because only you can. And if you don't paint your Dolly, no one else will. So that's what I did. And we did some research and a HUD, some fun examples. And then I gave it and I didn't mess up. It was one, take one and done. There was no audience. They're just a team of audio, visual people with masks on. So it was quite non typical for a Ted talk, but yet it'll be up in a couple of weeks and I'm really like super, super excited to, to get it up. It's really meaningful to me. And I'm very happy that I chose that as my first Ted. 1 (1h 30m 25s): Yeah. I think that's beautiful. I can't wait to listen to it or watch it. I feel like is it that doesn't give someone hope? Like what will, if you don't listen to those numbers or the impossibility of your existence and you don't leave that so hopeful and excited and just filled with energy. I don't know what will, so I think that was a, I don't think he could have done better for your first one. Definitely not. 0 (1h 30m 53s): Yeah, I am. It's a, it's an interesting one. There's like this. So I put it into three sections. I said, the people hide the weirdness because they're scared. They're, won't be as competitive. That won't be as popular and they won't be as fulfilled and progressively throughout the talk. Hopefully I managed to break all of those things down and yeah. If it, if it affects other people has profoundly is writing, it affected me. Even if it affects them, like 1% of that, then I think it it'll be a good job of it. 1 (1h 31m 22s): Okay. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful. Again, thank you so much for giving me your time. I know you're very busy with recording. Can you tell the listeners how they can support you, where they can find your podcast, your socials, and any projects that you are releasing soon? 0 (1h 31m 41s): Cool. So just Modern Wisdom, wherever you listen, Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, et cetera, a search Chris Williamson on Instagram. I'm not the anti-sematic MP from Darby. There's another British person called Chris Williamson, who was recently recently part of a new scandal being anti-sematic. So I'm not that one. I'm the other one. And I said to my, my sole goal for 2021 is to Google search rank higher than Chris Williamson, but we'll wait and see how we go in with that. And yeah, if you want to check out what I'm, what I'm doing, just follow me on Instagram or Twitter. That's where I put most of my stuff. And then the podcasts, Modern Wisdom work. 1 (1h 32m 21s): Awesome. Well, thank you again. Let's do this again soon. That's it for this week's episode, if you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button that you can also share this podcast with a friend and it helps my podcast to grow. And I really do appreciate it. I hope to see you next week.
