Expelled, Arrested & Somehow Winning At Life - James Smith - #1170

You can spend your entire life solving your problems without ever feeling like you have fewer problems. And the more successful you become at improving your circumstances, the more absurd the problems you find yourself worrying about can become. So I had my insaligment on, positive psychology guy. There's this thing called conservation of dysphoria. So dysphoria, bad feelings, conservation of keeping them at the same level. So as your life gets better, some people look for worries with a bigger magnifying glass. They make small worries bigger, so that the same amount of worries that they had in the past or what they have in the future. But because their life is better, there's actually fewer things for them to worry about. So they start inflating small things into big things. And I thought that you can spend your entire life solving your problems without ever feeling like you have fewer problems. Thought that was really cool. It's interesting as well. There's a concept that a single coin in a vase makes the most noise. So as you eradicate the problems that you have in life, if you boil it down to one, it's going to make more noise than all the others put together. So for instance, they say when you're young, do you have your future to worry about, your career to worry about, finding a wife to worry about? You have all of these things to worry about. But then later on in life, when you've only got one issue, it is crippling because it's radiated and all your focus goes on to that. Like the purple elephant, the more you try to stop thinking about purple elephant, the more omnipresent it is. So there's another kind of synergistic thing there that, yeah, even you can have so much in life. And it's very difficult because when I was younger, I couldn't sympathize with people that had money. I was like, "You've got money, so you haven't got problems." Now I get a little bit older. I'm like, "Oh, it's just one of the different categories. You can still be wildly unhappy and have a good income." I think one of the problems that people feel is who am I to be upset about this thing when there's people that have got it worse than me? Like a velvet prison thing, champagne problems, because not only have you got the, should have put, do not disturb on before I got started, let's ride to war like the great Romans did. 11 labs, reactions still coming in. I think people that don't have obvious problems externally, don't get that much sympathy, and then they feel guilty about having problems, which is a weird one. It goes both ways as well, right? Well, I love to boil things down, and I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm not an adjuhuban, yet. The chemicals that you use in your brain for happiness and sadness, they're the same chemicals, irrespective of circumstance. Now, I try and say to people with happiness, we spoke about this before, that you don't get an Uber surcharge, like a 1.7 ratio on serotonin or dopamine, because you live in a bigger house or you are in a more privileged side of the world or whatever. Like a student having a laugh with their friends, is having the same laugh, and the same emotional thoughts, feelings, chemicals that someone has like a billionaire would. But then the same, so we really accept that, we will go, yeah, of course, you know, a happy student and a happy millionaire of the same, same happiness. But we don't have the same adequate thought processes to sadness, or grief, or to agony, you're like, oh, that person has nothing in their side, that's terrible. Or this person, although they have so much good might in their life, if they're granguage, why are you sad for? Yeah, I love that Uber surcharge idea that you were talking about the first time you ever made money online. UCF has this great story, so my friend who I did a lot of podcasts with early on, he was a doctor, and he was working a night shift in a hospital. And while he was there, there was a lady who was having bowel problems, she wasn't able to sphincally contract to push what was in her bowels out. Lots of discomfort in her family was there saying, look, look at how much pain she's in, this needs to be sorted. There's something called decompacting, and decompacting is putting a gauntlet glove on, and getting into the rectum, and manually pulling this stuff out. So he rings the specialist, the specialist, some South African guys, and goes, no, no, no, I'm not coming in to sort that. You can decompact to yourself, it'll be fine. So he does this thing, spends half an hour, a family shouting at him, he spent all of this time, he gets out, like pulls the glove off, does all of this sanitary stuff, checks his phone, and he sold a PDF that he had written five years ago for seven pounds 50, and realized that net after taxes, he'd made more money from that PDF in the last hour than he had from decompacting his patient. And your idea of the Uber surcharge, I think, where did that come from? What was the first example of that? So I was saying, for instance, put it very simply, $10,000 a month, I was like, wow, this is going to be amazing, I can't wait to hit it, and it was amazing. But then the first 100 came month, you would think, on a linear basis, would be 10 times the enjoyment, but I actually got about an 0.8 surcharge. The 10K made me happier, and I've heard this before on my quote-unquote way up, and I was like, these people are mental, they are all wrong, and the next person to myself, for now is like, they're kind of right in some respects, and there's almost diminishing returns as you go on. But every person will lie to themselves and go, oh, but the next thing will yield to the self. You've already achieved goals that you said would make you happy. Yeah, I mean, it's obvious when you see it with money, and I think people have got a pretty twitchy relationship with talking about money, especially given how completely you're right. I mean, we're in the UK, and I think I saw a poll that was put up earlier on, 74% of people in the UK say that they feel like their quality of life is worse than five years ago. 74% of people say that they feel like it's worse, so cost of living all the rest of it. But forget the money thing, just talk about experiences, but the first time that you got to take a trip abroad with your friends, wide eyed, you're so excited, you're having a beer at 6 a.m. in the departure lounge. Yeah, unbelievable. And then did you have the polo shirts with the team like with the names on the back? We shouldn't afford polo shirts. I'm from a working class family. Mama's Jimbo 23 on the back. Jimbo. That was my name until we went to uni. Okay. I'm glad that went. And then you go on holiday again, and you need this sort of ever increasing dose. This is what habituation is. It's just on a adaptation. I think talking about it kind of like a drug addict or seeing it like a drug addict throughout your life. Before he made the hard right pivot into professional anti-Semite, I spoke to Dambell Zareen about this. And he said, I asked him this question because he's like this guy who's maybe speed ran hedonism more quickly than anyone, at least in the public eye. Like all of the women, all of the drugs, all of the flights, all of the holidays and the houses and the cars and the guns and everything. And I asked, do you ever feel like you sort of went through it too quickly? Do you wish that you could have slowed down? Because once you bought your dream car or once you've been to the dream holiday or once you've got the house that you've always wanted. But where do you go from that? And the same thing is true at whatever level you're at. You basically want to try and stretch out your achievement of different things and goals. For instance, we're in Exeter at the moment. We're on tour. Hello to everyone. By the way, it's a very unceremonious introduction to the tour bus. Look at that. It's raining fucking brilliant. So for the people that are just listening, James is lifted up the window on the tour bus to expose an enterprise rent a van to Persia box. That's a 26 model. That's nice. Um, one, two, three, four, four bifur bins, five non-recyclable, non-recyclable though. Oh, bifur bins out there and a yellow parking. Bullard. Bullard thing. That's lovely. Also took. Oh, hello. That's someone throwing rubbish out. It also took maybe over a hundred point turn to park the bus here this morning. We got to the parking spot on time and we were late for the rest of our day, not because of traffic, but not because of not finding a parking spot, but simply because of not being able to get into the parking spot. 'Cause you got a trailer on the back full of new tonic. At the point you're making before the hedonism thing. Yeah. Permission to be evangelical. Run it. Having kids, and this isn't me trying to say to people they need to have kids. I have done every hedonistic thing to excess. Whatever amount. I've done more dumbbells, Aryan. Like he had the more the the flashier version, the jet you are the working classmate. I had the front three seats on easy jet. That was my jet, you know. So I've run hedonism. I never want you know if you if we sat here or even when we did the pod where I was laying in bed on a pregnancy pillow and you're at your house in Newcastle. If you're in that pod, you said you want to have kids. Yeah. As I know, not really bothered. Then even at 30, 31, 32 at the books had the tours. I had one of these buses. Not one part of my brain was thinking about kids. Then I've had my son since we last had this. And I cannot believe the amount of happiness I'd derived from it. You see me all I do is moan that I'm too far away from my son. So people out there when you talk about a decline of happiness and I know there's this kind of birth rate. I know the correlation things might be like. Yeah. And like it obviously is you can't point causation, but it's crazy to me how many people in the 30s feel a little bit lost. I've never had that. But having my son has been this like this homing beacon something that never experienced. And again, there's got to be a part of it. I've spoken to you about this before being adopted. I've never seen a blood relative crazy. So like never first time you told me that when you pick your son up, it will be the first time in your entire conscious life that you touch another blood relative. Yes, it's mad. And then when I look at him, I'm like, what is what of this is for me? What is it from my fiance? It's amazing. But like it's crazy. It's actually made me a lot less ambitious. Another is my life. And I really love it. So I joke a bit with falling off joking with these boys. Everyone we talked to, I'm like, I used to be relevant, whatever. But like success now for me is such a metric of like my son. So I'm not really speaking about it publicly, but when I had my son, we got pregnant straightaway, boom, no problems, no issues. Now, we're going through secondary infertility, yes, I'm on TRT, but my sperm number's good with my VF clinic. TZ count is great. We are in a beta-region paradox where if my sperm quality was worse or a count was worse, we would have started IVF sooner, but because everything's fine, the IVF clinic is like, yeah, just keep going, just keep going. We're now experiencing difficulty in conceiving. That time, this goes out, it could be different, hopefully. But a lot of my friends now, they're like, 34, 35, they've told me their whole life, they really want to have kids and they're like, oh, but I want to buy a house first, so I want to do this. I want financial security and all of these things, which I get, and I'm not saying that their values are, you know, not worthy or whatever. But I said to one of them, if you knew it was going to take you two years to get pregnant, would you start now? They went off course. I want, well, you don't know that you're going to fall pregnant straight away. Yeah. So why not talking as a man who's currently going through some fertility complications? Yeah, and now I'm just looking at my friends, and I'm like, oh, if you could relive my life, and you could say to me, like, what could be the worst thing that could ever happen to me, it'd be imagine we do decide eventually to have a child, and we couldn't. There was no amount, and this is coming from someone that was indifferent about having kids. So the reason I'm saying this, and kind of being vulnerable and talking about my personal affairs is, there'll be people listening to this, potentially teens, 20s, 30s, maybe in 40s, who if you're anything like me felt indifferent, the idea of having children, I'm now telling you, is my family, I'd say, is my soul driver of happiness. Everything else is noise. I want to be wealthy for my family, for my child. I want him to be spoiled. Well, it gives you a purpose beyond just this, like, selfish, self aggrandizing, please, me, me, me, fill, fulfill me more, fulfill me more. I totally get it. And yeah, it's a ruthless realization that there might be complications down the line. Again, we spoke about those brain chemicals. We got dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. Now, those we can get from video games, we can get them from scrolling on TikTok. We can get them from, like, a mirror out of things, but synthetically, it's never been easier. And I think the people are filling their cup with those things from, and I'm gonna say, do you know what? I sound a discussion with Will Store, and I kind of said to him, like, oh, scrolling on social media, nice, bad. He goes, well, well, explain that to me. And I try to explain to him, and he goes, do you enjoy scrolling on your phone before bed? I go, yeah, he goes, what's the problem? What's the problem? And I think that so many people can get so much from their devices, from their phones, from movies, from Netflix, whatever. Is that the reason that people, if you sat in an empty house with just three TV channels, there's nothing else to do? You're probably gonna crack on and get some other stuff done. Speaking of that, there's a line that I learned from Dr. K a couple of weeks ago, growing up is abandoning what works over and over again. I've got another one for you. Yep, on this. It's a quote, and I'm probably gonna butcher it, because I can't remember it. It was a person looking at a picture of their parents, who were the same age they are now, and they were a child. They go, now I look at my parents and realize they were just old teenagers that didn't know what they were doing, because they know as a teenager, or they as a parent now, for the exact same. So myself, as a father, I feel like a teenager plus 20 years, just getting around, I said we're in Accident today, on tour, this is the tour bus, it's a bit of a shit tip, sorry. We were walking around the university today, and I look at students, and I'm like, yeah, that's me, that's me, but it's evidently not, it's me 20 years ago. How do you feel saying that? I remember when I was young, people were like, oh yeah, just shoot where you get old, I'm 20 years, I'm like, shut up, mate, I'm 20, I'm invincible. Quite young. I get this weird anxiety now, if I have a pain on my side, cancer. That's, yeah, I'm going to die. I'm dead. Yeah, I get too thick now, and I'm like, it's probably a brain chuno. At 20, anything would happen, I'd be fine. Made of rubber and magic, I'll sniff it away. In Laos, you know, there's people dying, drinking the ethanol in Laos. I drank out of a tub with a dead gecko in it. It was pretty much ethanol. I've got a free vest, I was buzzing. What are you laughing at? Hey, in Laos, I'd do anything, the whiskey was cheaper than what? We're doing in Laos. Chubin, you know, that chubin, dang Vien. What's that? Oh, I get to teach Chris Williams and something. You go to this town, there's going to be some old boys, not long to this. So you usually start in Thailand, then you're going to Laos. The best way to describe Laos is instead of chilling there, be at each place in it, right? You got this area called Vang Vien. Under Wang Prabang, great words. And in Vang Vien, they have this chubing, and you see people, they've got the chubing vests on. You get a rubber insert from a tire. Okay. They pump it up, you go downstream, then you jump in the river, the river goes downstream, you float in a rubber lazy river. Yeah. Then there's bars, shacks at the side, they chuck out ropes, you grab them for you in, drinking games. This sounds great. Straight arm in pines. Yep. You get absolutely smashed, but Australia had to shut it down because too many Aussies were dying. Roads in Laos. Yeah, but they're pretty sure. I was Australia getting shut it down. Because the insurance companies, the travel insurance companies, they were breaking their backs, breaking their legs. You're a five hour trip from the Airsoft hospital. There's ropes in there, but the river depth changes. So as we're going downstream, I'm catching my arse on rocks. Then the rope swings are massive. So these Aussies are like, yeah, fucking hell, mate. Let's go to fucking chubing. That's what they're like. You see him in Bali, they're just going nuts. They were doing rope swings into shallow water, fucking themselves up. But anyway, as you go down, you look at the prices, and like the whiskey was almost free, but you drank it. The next thing you didn't have a hangover, you felt like you've been poisoned. But genuinely, people have gone blind. They've died from drinking these connections. You know, like Thailand, for when you get the bottles with all the same safety cups, tops, it's like that. But no, funny thing you don't know about this town. The town where you're hungover, I don't know if it's the same now, you've got maybe like 20, 30 cafes and all of them play friends all day, every day. Why? It's just what they're doing the town. And you go in there for breakfast. You have friends in the national sport. Yeah, but you sit down and then suddenly you're having a bit of food, then you're there. And then someone's like, let's go out on my, it's the most racial saga. They're like, you've seen it four times. And then like, you're in there, but then the funny thing is all the workers in the restaurants have American accents, and they can speak along to it because all day, they've learned English from friends. But then they mime across to it, and they sound more like Roskela than Roskela sounds like Roskela. So all the people they've done to you been so they shut it down because too many people were dying. You went back in, it was a lot more tame. I remember one night, it was so drunk, it got dark. I'm going down a river in the dark. And these took took so like, and you just get scared and you pull in, you pay whatever to get back in town. Because you don't have to be left stranded in the middle of the water. So quick story for you here, cool off the new tonics hit. I was backpacking six months. I did six months in Asia, I spent three thousand pounds like it was unreal. And I probably spend that in pret on this tour. So we definitely spend it on Nandos. We get to the Wang Prabang and we've got to decide that we get to Hanoi going to Vietnam for the first time. And who are you with? An ex classic fell in love with the girl from Uni. She wants to go back to Asia. I said, I'll come with you. I saw more Venomagan for this. Got it. R26. R26. Oh no. Venomagan R26 for me. One addition is the. We both had the same car. Both had the same car. If I can find that in left hand drive, I would import it to America today. They'll have them in France. I'll be able to get a French one. That would be the best thing you could do. Mate, could you imagine Camero R26F1 again? Recallro bucket seats. Yeah, Alcantara though. I do worry if you went back, it's not the same. So we had to decide whether or not we're going to go across. And you make friends funnily enough, one of the friends that I made traveling sent me a picture of drinking a tonic in the day. I was like, this is weird. Unreal. But we decided we're going to fly. But the flight was 51 pounds. That's a lot of money for a backpacker. But I was like, let's just go. I think it's like a 12 or 15 hour bus journey. And you get the sleeper buses when you go around. But a sleeper bus can be a nightmare. On the way to Chiang Mai, someone at the door open and all the mosquitoes got in. So you love Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai. You just get in a tap by the mosquitoes. Kurt's anyway. So we arrived there and I look at the people that got the bus and I was like, did I make a mistake flying? They look at me. They go there with these two beautiful French girls. But they had a stomach bug on the bus. Mad diarrhea. They kept shitting in the toilet. They blocked the toilet. They're supposed to shut in the bus. The bus driver comes back, locks the toilet. They had to shit themselves in their seat. And I'm talking, like, 15 hour bus journey. I'm sure that you can't keep going. But I guess it is Thailand. They don't give a fuck. Between Line Pro Bang and Hanoi, it's like mountain roads. Everyone talks about dangerous the cliff roads are. The drive is just trying not to get you killed. So he's like, I don't give a fuck to shit yourself. So they're to sit there with beautiful French girls that shut themselves for hours. Some people could be into that. I did Chiang Mai to pie, which is-- That's the place to learn a moped. One of the most northerly cities, towns, I guess-- Beautiful town. Did you do pie? Oh yeah. So that-- That's where you go to learn how to ride a moped because you fall off and they're like, you're in pie. The bus that you take up there, what is it? It's called a vomit alley. 350 turns in a six hour journey. So it just happens all the way up. And then when you're coming back, you'd think that the going up would be worse, but it's not because it's slower. It's the coming down in an 18 person shithouse sprinter van, some Thai sprinter van. And on the way back, I was with my business partner's sister. We were going back together. So we were sat together in the two Chinese students behind us. And they were, I could hear-- Like that. And all that happened, bus drivers sat there. You know, the classic bus driver, underhand pose, like holding the bottom of the steering wheel. You know exactly what I mean, like this. Like Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like somebody that's got like sources, giving out or derbs, but he's just controlling the bus. All that he did didn't even look back, he just heard that-- - Like that, one hand off the steering wheel. It's grabbed two plastic bags. Just went like that. Just put them behind, we passed plastic bags back and they just threw it. - How long are we in Thailand for? - Month and a half. - So there's this rumor when you're there, that the big chang bottles to be careful 'cause they're stronger there. And have you heard this? You heard this team? So, I didn't know if it was true, but one day-- - Test it. - This girl that ends up going traveling with, by the way, if you're thinking of going traveling with your girlfriend, absolutely do not do it. - Just hold the relationship. - My mom told me before I went, she's like James, you are making a big mistake. I was, I'm sorry, mom, you're all right. So we just, I mean-- - Comes are always right, dude. - So if we're arguing, I just get hampered. So we're in Thailand, I think we're in Kosovo, and I'm just necking these big bottles of chang. The next thing, I black out, but a wake up, oh, I kind of remember, you know when you black out, you just suddenly you just got memory. I'm walking down the side of the road. They found me, and the first thing they say to me is you've been in a mobed crash. And I'm like, what? And then I look, and all the skin is off my shoulder, all the skins of my leg. They get in the idea now, they're rubbing me down. They're like, you've obviously ridden your mobed, and you've crashed. And I'm like, oh shit, I don't remember anything. No helmet, nothing. This is crazy. Then we get back, and we find my mobed. There's not a scratch on it. And we have no idea where I've been or who I've been with. They just said, you just walked out the hotel, you've been gone like two hours. I must have-- - K back missing half of your skin. - But with the craziest thing, it was kind of scary in Thailand, you go drinking for a bit, that I could have broken a leg, lost a leg, got concussed, crazy. The amount of times I've done stupid shit like that, I made it out alive. Then the locals come out with the ID and get it on you so you don't get infected. - I had to leave Bali for that. My first time in Bali, I came off a mobed after seven days, laid up in a bed, taking Trasadone, which was not Trasadone, Tramadol, which is fucking lovely. That was fun. But apart from the fact that you get really acclimatized, I can see why people get addicted to that stuff. Came back and I couldn't get it anymore. I was like, oh, well, that's an easy way to get it. It was like the Vietnam vets that were on heroin while they were away and they came back and they're like, but yeah, I got infected and had to fly home. Mementus just made one of my favorite products, significantly better and $50 cheaper. They have reformulated their sleep packs with a better and more research back form of magnesium, making the new formula even stronger than before. 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That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S. com/modernwisdom, a modernwisdom, a checkout. - You know, we're like on status now. - Right. - Where we were just helping a guy pick his huge chunk. - He got it. - We've been walking around with students, giving him a life advice for a lot of today, but I now, when I'm in Bali, we'll find people getting on their iPads and some to wear home. Where the one time in Vietnam. - The least cool person in Bali. - Yeah, the funny thing was, in Vietnam, I'm pretty sure. It was, yeah, I was turning right. Yeah, my driver left in Vietnam. I can't remember, but anyway, I was packing bags to get to a bus to move on in Vietnam. So I'm one of my parents, I'm shutlin' back and forth. I put all my bags on me and then I had to put a bag under the seat and my helmet was there that I never wore. So I was like, oh, fuck sake, I'm gonna have to wear my helmet on this run. So I put my helmet on. A local thought I'd left my indicator on. So I'm slowing down to turn. He's overtaking me as I've turned and T-bone me. And I remember just cracking my helmet on the floor. I was wearing all the backpacks as well, which worked out like-- - Body armor. - Yeah, that body armor. I got up and screaming at this local guy and these Americans come out and they're like, bro, you're fine. You're fine. My moped was written off petrol all over the floor. People put it in the sand on it. The one time I needed a helmet was when I put it on for safe, safe equipment. I didn't wanna lose the helmet and paid whatever it was. But now, every time I go around, I just imagine if there was no helmet on for that, my brains would have been over a road in Denang on a train. - Talking about advice for relationships, do and do not do. George from the Tin Man Posted Disting, which was asking a bunch of men who've been married for quite a while, are the advice for guys and how to navigate your relationship. And lots of them were quite silly and quite cute. And I thought that one of them was really interesting, which is when you're trying to help your girl decide what to wear for the evening. A lot of the time there might be a fashion show that happens. And after a while, it can delay you to the point where you're late for the meal and that's not good and she might get frustrated. So one of the pieces of advice was when your girl comes out in the first outfit, you say, darling, that looks fantastic. This is gorgeous, but I do wanna see another one. Like, can I see what your second choice would be? Then when she comes out in the second one, say, I mean, this is stunning, but I did prefer the first one. Save yourself three more out for changes. - You do realize that every single time a man does that now, they've listened to this podcast. I know what you're doing. You're manipulating. - Yeah, if you're listening to this in the car, it's not gonna work. A lot of couples listen to this, either in the car or separately. We hear this a lot of the live shows where they'll come up and they go, we listen to you all the time. Like, when I go to work and he goes to work and then we talk about it over dinner on a night time. And if you now try and use this, so basically, boys, if you've listened to this one before your girl has, you need to say, "I don't listen to that one with Chris and James." It's actually, it's kind of bullshit. That's not on the buzz. Yeah, it's a mess. It's a bit of a mess that Guardian's gonna do an article about it, you don't need to listen to that one. Get her to skip over that, and you can keep that hack for you. But I do think, what was some of the other ones? - My dad's got one way. He said, "The key to a long successful marriage is accepting you're wrong even when you're right." - That sounds dismissive though. Chicks don't like it, but then it's not just accepting it you're wrong, even if you're right. It's making it convincing that you actually think that you're wrong. Because otherwise, you're just being dismissive. And that's not it. - You've got 52 years married. You can't argue with the outcomes. - I had a bit from the last show where I was talking about death row meals for what I was saying. It's kind of mad that you do the most heinous crimes of rape and murder and whatever. And when we do execute you, we're gonna let you pick your last meal. My dad's been married to my mom in 52 years, and he doesn't get to pick cross for dinner. So like, why is it the people that, anyway? So like, if we're gonna kill, sorry mate, we're gonna kill you because you're a heinous murderer, but what are you fancy? We'll make it happen. - I mean, think about the lady, the one, the first person in history to have had the lethal injection twice in the same session and survived it. - It gives me a good idea of a new way to talk to people. So let's say someone's on death row, let's just inject them with saline and keep doing it and go goodbye. - But they're on death row. - Yeah, yeah, but then we're just-- - But you're not supposed to torture them. - No, no, no, but it's only saline, Chris. - Right. - We're just gonna make a psychological trauma to make them feel that they're about to die. The blood, I got you, we're doing it again tomorrow. And then they, a lot of Russian relapse. - This sounds like Guantanamo. This is like John Kerry account stuff. You can't be doing that. I'm friends with John Kerry account. - Oh, no, whatever, you don't. - He's gonna shout at you, other advice, other bits of advice. If she can't decide where she wants to eat, tell her you've decided, but it's a surprise. It's so manipulative. I can't work out if this is horribly misogynistic or like actually a beautiful way to just cut through a lot of the mess of a relationship. Here's the final one. Just order fries. She's not hungry, sure, but she'll eat the extra fries. Have you seen those videos where this is so ruthless? You can't do this. Guys will ask their check whether or not she wants a snack. So do you want to go out? We should go for a drive-through. We could get ourselves a little treat. Why don't we go for a drive-through? And when they pull up, so you can order what is it that you want? She orders. And then when the person asks him, he's like, "Am I right? "I'm not eating." (laughs) And true right to people. But the same thing is true. In a relationship, you are allowed to gain weight, but only relative to your partner. Like you and your partner's level of fatness or fitness is supposed to oscillate together. When you start to. It's a massive point of friction. Coaching people over the years, I used to call it the relationship saboteur, where if one party wants to lose weight and the other doesn't, they will not succeed. I think that's now called a fitness gap relationship. Look at that. I'm trying to teach him something. I'm learning back. When you're ahead, I'm just giving it a nomenclature. So I come up with a cool name for it. You came up with the concept. I don't know what that means. But yeah, in essence, they'll just find ways to sabotage. Oh, I just got a securry. I'll be an arm-dicing, yeah, but this one has Friday night. Like Friday night? Yeah, you've got to be on the same page together. You have to. From a health and fitness perspective, you have to be on the same page. When do you reckon this is one for you? Like, you know the Russians, you stab those like umbrella tips with poison in. They should give you that. Oh, you in the back of the leg. Yeah, didn't some guy that happened in the UK, right? They did all some. Yeah, it's all free. Yes. So I'm thinking we get those, but we probably probably try to try it in it, right? Just jab unsolicited jab people with retta. They would be fat family members. So this is an intervention from within the family? Yeah, fat uncle. Okay. So fat uncle Trevor, he's just a walk-in bloody NHS heart attack. You get the little number? 160 over 110. Yeah, absolutely. Fucking get up to him. I'm going to go, what was that? Oh, sorry, I'm, you know, I didn't see that. Do that once a week, 2.5 milligrams start off, whatever. But then I'm thinking we're moving to all, I think they've got all a zemp here. Ah, you're looking for the bill. gate solution. So I'm wondering, imagine in the future, I'm just saying. That's a deep cut. Imagine you're a little wife. You've started training. You're in your fitness. Your husband is dragging on a little bit behind and he's not losing the weight. Imagine seeing there could be just a little genus aqua going in. Well, seasoning. You put it in a grinder. Yeah. And then he's dropping away and be like, yeah, do you know what, you know, Trevor's looking amazing. Is that going to happen? What did you think of that guy? So we just managed to finesse our way into Exeter University Gym, University of Exeter Gym, which for a high class sporting university was actually a bit of a shitty gym. Bit mid. Yeah. Not enough machines. I can't get pump on. Everyone in there probably very fit. Probably great. The sports that they do. Not massive. Right? But also 19. So we brought the average age up by-- The average free testosterone level. Yeah. The average free testosterone doubled just by you walking in. But as we were walking back, this is a question that's been asked a bunch at the live shows and we got to do it in person today with one of the guys who came up and said, I'm a first year. I've been a uni for-- A month? There's only been a uni for a month. It's a fucking middle of October. He hasn't been at university. He's been at university for six weeks. He's been at uni for six weeks and I feel like I'm not making any progress and I want freedom. So should I just sack it all off? He's studying business and he's like, I suppose the dilemma here is you're like, well, if I'm studying business, I'm going to learn as much as I would run into business. You're being in a business. You're 18. You can't go and run a business. Anyway, when people ask you that question, because they've asked me a lot because I do the Q&A, what's your perspective? Because you tried uni, what was your perspective on this? I told you a little bit about-- on that real the other day that I got kicked out school. So I got kicked out school technically. I didn't get enough grades to go to 64. So I went in, spoke to the teachers, and they didn't want to have me on into the college because I only had four GCSEs, supposed to have five. Eventually they go, right, we'll do it, but you've got to be only best behavior. You've not been a great student. Two weeks in and get kicked out. What did you do? So actually this is going to be crazy, but not as young as I wanted to be in the military. So I was in the Army cadets, applied to, well, but college, my dad said, I could only join the Army if I went in as an officer. So you have to go into officer training and in essence, you usually have to be well-qualified, which I wasn't. My school grades weren't good. You can go straight to Sandhurst with a degree or you can do OTC. Yeah. So officer training called the Wabat College was where I was going to try and go. That's pretty much my only way through. And on my interview for that, and a little police report coming up, I got in trouble and I was younger for shooting someone with no rifle, but we'll glaze over that. Check James' Instagram for the full story. Yeah. So I go to sick form, I had pretty bad behavior problems. And I was in this, I had a really cool lock knife that I used to use because we used to go off, like where you flick a knife out and then it doesn't come back. Okay. So we used to go camping. That's cadets. You like go out, face paint. You get like an assault rifle. The barrel's concreted, but you don't have live rounds on you. If you shoot a live round on someone's face, half their face is coming up. So like, it was super cool, by the way. I don't think people would do it. I went in Cub Scouts, cadets, then I won't go into the Army. So I could strip. You had such a tarot way, you had all of the guard rails to be highly disciplined and well behaved and you shot someone at 13 and had a police report. Well, this thing, I was excited to join the Army. I sure wanted to go shoot. So excited that you shot someone. Somewhere along the way, low energy just gets accepted as a part of getting older. Turns out, there's a reason for that. As we age, our mitochondria, the parts of our cells that power us, become weaker and make less energy, which is why I'm such a huge fan of timeline. They've developed this that helps to clear out your damaged mitochondria so your cells can actually renew themselves. 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The ones we're using connects, it's called an L8-9AIGP connect rifle, and basically, it has a 9-site instead. I could still strip one, blindfolded, and put it back together. I still remember where to clean the bow. I still remember you would do drills where even as you're checking the bow's empty on the weapon, you'd just sweep with your hand underneath the magazine cover to make sure there's no magazine in it. Even as a kid, as a 15-year-old, you do these drills. It becomes very profession. I've been to Arbourfield, Parabuy, I've shot on some of the best ranges in the country. I've even used one of the digital ranges this 20 years ago. So I was like obsessed. I loved it. I was just like, "I'm just going to take the knife to school and show my mates." Got caught. And me as. Sixth one. Now this is 13-14. It was just off. I've been arrested. So you shot someone? Yeah. Got out of it. Yeah. So it was. Then took a knife to school. It was criminal damage. It wasn't the optics. It would have been an actual bodily harm because. Do not. The guys. Look, great. Seven stitches in the face. And I've told you about the ballistic support. Can you just give. Let's tell the story from start to finish, because I wanted to take the piss out of you on Instagram for this story, and I couldn't do it. So we would. We'd break bowel-air rifles, we'd have the pellets, we'd have the shoelops, me and my neighbour. And we would shoot different things, and then we wanted to kind of raise the stakes. And the 13, you know, a freeway going past the cars driving, moving target, in our heads would be all that would be cool. It didn't really occur to us in our brains that we would commit and damage on cars. Like, imagine you're driving and someone shoots a pellet at your car. That is. But it would leave a dent? Yeah. You wouldn't go through. It's significant damage, but we were just pissing around. And then one day. So where were you pitched up? Outside of our house. Outside of your own house. Outside of our own house. Right, cool. Because my brain hadn't developed. At the same time in my life, I took a knife in school with some of my friends. The teachers were like, "James, you don't understand that you can't bring a knife in school." And I was like, "Why?" They were like, "In case you're stuck, I'm not going to stop someone." They were like, "But James, it's school. You can't bring that here." So shooting cars and thought nothing of it. One day I played an age of empathised to my mum walks in and she threw out great game. Throws like yellow pages. She's crying. She's like, "What have you done?" The yellow pages. Like a phone book. Why? She was obviously trying to call someone when the police came. So call who? I don't know. But she's come to the. She was obviously in the middle of doing so. Police were at the front door. Said to my mum when I. And the closest projectile that she had to exact her outrage on you. Was the yellow pages? Yeah. So, okay. So my mum was like, "I don't remember. It's turning around. It can't." And she was like, "What have you done?" And the police said it again. I couldn't tell you. Okay. The adrenal was bummed. So, go out and there's just two police officers sat in the front room and they know it pads. And I had to talk to my parents about this afterwards. It was like, "What did they say?" They said, "We're looking for some kids. Maybe they've got airwifers. My mum was like, "They'll be my son." She wasn't like, "Oh, don't know what you're going about. She was like, "They'll be my son. Come in." So I come out. She's a good citizen. What have you been doing? We've been pissed around. We didn't mean to shoot. Well, kind of. Anyway, you go, "My mum's in hysterics. My dad's come home from work." He's like, "Don't say anything to you. You've seen a lawyer." Good man. I've already done everything at this point. And the police officers knew we weren't trying to hurt someone. So they were like, "Oh, so you were shooting items. You're shooting objects. You obviously missed. I'm not correct." They actually were helping them because they knew we weren't bad kids. They knew the neighborhood, whatever. We didn't go out that day to try and hurt someone. So they go, "Yeah, unfortunately, someone has been shot." Currently, I had the wood. They're having stitches now. So. Headwood. Headwood. Headwood hospital. So I asked Scott's biggest hospital. So they were like, "My mum and dad have seen the state. So they go, "Let's do this tomorrow. Come to the police station. But you're everything there." So I was like, "Oh, God." Mum and dad were not happy. Next day, go there. And as you get into the police station, I was like, "I'll about to get a tell it off." And I remember the police officer going, "Are you ready?" I said, "Yeah." He was like, "Okay." You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say at 13. Maybe used to get into your court law. "I'm there. I'm a mum." What does that mean when they say that? You're under arrest. I'm under arrest. So I'm going in. There's a 13-year-old. Fingerprints, DNA, mug shot, the lot. So you can't commit a murder in the UK now? Interrogation. Interrogation. My friends at school didn't believe I'd been arrested because they were like, "Oh, you just lying." So one of my friends who'd been arrested had an ankle tag. He was like, "He's like, tell me about the interrogation." You've all been a really nice area. That's how it begins, mate. He was from Ashford. My school was in, sorry. So, anyway, I said, "Take deck. Two tapes. Two red buttons." He was like, "Oh, you did get arrested." So, yeah, I came back and basically the police officer was like, "Look, you're going to meet the guy who's shot." And you're going to apologize. And he's not going to convict you. He's not going to press charges. Who was it that you shot? How did you hit someone? So, before we met him, they took us to a ballistic report. So he went and said we're in hospital. He said I've been shot. The doctors then have to call the police. There's been a shooter. Yeah. If the sentence is proclaimed, "I've been shot." All hell breaks loose. Armed response. So, the guys that came to the door didn't have guns, but they were armed response and ask for this. So, that would have been why I said, "Mom, I'm done seeing them." Full ballistic report. He was passenger. So, this is in England. There's wife's driving. Back window was open on the right side. Missed his son. Hit him in the face in the passenger's home. So, the police are like, "You could have shot the wife, blinded the wife." He was driving. He crashed the car. Could have caused the son. And then. Could have hit the son. And they were like, "Have you heard the son?" All of a sudden. You could hit the sun and they were like, do you hear the sun? six or seven. They're like, if you hit the sun, he's convicting you. You had seven stitches across his face just under his lip. They are needed from the shop. Who shot it? You were your mate. We don't know. Right. Obviously. Must've been him. Must've been him. I'll give you everything. But you can imagine a world crashing down you for what seemed like just being idiots, just shooting out and moving objects. So go through the ballistic report, have to meet the guy. Like, obviously, like so apologetic, but there's nothing you can do at this point. Afterwards, we don't get the conviction. I have a police reprimand until I'm 18. So in essence, if I get any more trouble, I'm fucked. Like bring your knives to school. Yeah. So then we have been brought to my unit. Yeah. So we had that. But then it meant that when I was out drinking, being like a job when I was like 14, 15, 16, you know, in the police pull over and you've got alcohol on you and they're like, you're loud scoppers. Yep. What have you got? WKD, four fosters. What did you do? I put it down the drain right now. I just didn't want to get in trouble again. Yeah. Where my mates were going, oh fuck off mode. I was like, yes, sir, no sir. Goody two shoes. Yeah. And um, so that was a bit rough. Then got my 4G Cessies. Then I couldn't even get into sick form. So then we're pissing around one day in sick form. We're bunking. I'm already like two weeks in and solution school in church. He there's a school hall. And there's a drama department, all this props behind the stage. And we thought that'd be a good place to bunk. We smoked cigarettes. We smoked in there. It was less likely to get caught in the drama hall than you would be outside. Anyway, we dressed up in the props. We're fucking around. And I shoved my mate. He's on a sofa that's got wheels on it. I shoved him off the stage. But he's holding on to the curtain and the curtain's going, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't rip it off. It's like a time and Jerry cutting. I'm pissing myself. I turn around at the back of the hall cross arms in my head of you. He's just been watching us smoking and pushing someone off a stage and a wheelie sofa. I think at this point I'm 16, just turn 16. So go to my head of year and then make you sit outside. Some sat outside of my aunt. God, then my mum comes in. Another yellow pages. Sit in there. This is like what, two years after I've been arrested, three years after I've been arrested. And also, I didn't get the grades. My mum double liked me to go get a job. Sick form was my way to not get a job. So my head of year was like, we can expel James formally. We have the grounds for it. Or you can take him out today. Like, you remove him from school today. We don't expel it. That was pretty much the ultimate. It's either leave or we fire you. Yeah. So getting the car, drive on the way home. My mum takes like a slightly different route. We're not going home. She takes me to Bracknell job center. She pulls up. And as we're walking across to the job center, I'm walking behind her and I'm in Nokia. And I'm texting my mates. Like, I've just been expelled. She gets my phone just smashed in the road. Just smashed it in the road. I've never seen that in my parents' lives before going to the job center. She turns me. Don't come home without a job. That was it. Oh, my God. So I went there and I sat down. And one of the questions was, do you want to like keep going in education? Was that one of my options? There was an agricultural college doing a B-tech in sport. I was like, the most canonical. Like, can I qualify for that? They said, yeah. So I came home and I had to try and barter to my mum that I wanted to remain in college. So then what was good there was all my subjects were PE because of sports coaching. So that went pretty well. But then I got a B-tech. And actually, I just got on really well with my lecturers, played rugby for the college. I did a lot of sport. I used to give rugby kit that I got from playing for county to my lecturers. And they give me extensions on my work. So it was cool. I was like, oh, mate, I'm going to the river. I can't do the coursework because you need to play sevens always. That water proof looks quite nice as I gave you one. You were bribing your teachers with good merch. And it's the same as us now. It's the same with Newtonic. And the college I was at is called Barkshire College of Agriculture. They had like a grave digging course on site. So the teachers we'd like to dig graves and we have the sports part. Then it was a question. But then at the end of that, you can top up and do something called a foundation degree. So you can turn your B-tech into a first year of uni foundation degree. FDSC, it goes down as. And so I applied for that. But my mum and dad originally were like, we're not letting you go to uni because we know you're fucking off. We know you're getting debt. So I actually literally didn't trust you to go to university. Yeah. I was I want to go born with. They're like, no. So what do you mean, no, I'm 18. They're like, no. So I continued up my college. I haven't been arrested for like three years now. So I did two more years, technically university, technically boxing uni and Buckinghamshire. But the campus for it was my existing college. So I did four years of college. Love it. It was great. Lives at home. Then for my third top up years, go from a foundation degree to a four degree. You have to do a top up. And that's why I chose Hartbury College. Now Hartbury College is a rugby college. I thought I was pretty good at rugby until I went there. So I was like, bark. So I'm just when he's capped in playing like I don't see rugby was good. When I get there, they're like, oh, you can try out for the 13. What's up? When the hardest game is my life. We had like England under 20 boys in the second team. And when I got there, freshers, load of us got mumps. You've had mumps. I got mumps on one side in my first year of uni. Yeah. Do you want to explain what mumps is? I first of all woke up thinking I've been in a fight because I don't remember the night out. My jaw was killing me. So I'm asking my mate's like, did we get in a scrap last night? And then I went to go see the nurse on site. And she was like, you've either got glandular fever or I reckon you've got mumps. Now I had it in both sides. And you look like a hamster. Is it your lymph cleanse? Whatever's under here, I'm sure people in the comments will tell us, but yeah. So from freshers, I got sent home, but like all the rugby team got down and we said it's super contractable. We said it was from sharing water bottles, but we were just all snogging birds on freshers. You know, it's like, and this is before camera phones. So boys connect like 10 birds and two blokes in the night. And that's a heterosexual male. One time, me and I'm sometimes you just miss the target, I suppose. I remember one time, me and another bloke, snogged each other to prove to the girls we were going to kiss him. And in rugby, that was like, that's, that's just normal. Like, just imagine giving someone some any shout out, I'm really going to kiss him, prove it. Dave, come here. Not my, not my proudest semi. But anyway, so I've got mumps, had to go home. And I was home for like three weeks. I lost a lot of weight, lost maybe like eight or nine kilograms. I remember I was in the trenches. The fevers are terrible. Then just as I got good in the past, I went to my nuts and my nuts, I've heard about this massive. So I go to heaven with hospital again, same place in the past moment when they got a spot. And they were like, yeah, you just got to hold them. So I was worried I was maybe going to be in first half of next. It's really bad for your fertility. So I got back to uni. This is a long story, by the way. And I'm looking at like my cohort, my, my year, whatever. And I go to my first lecture, but I've been self-campus for three weeks. So I expected when I first walked into that lecture, some of good James, welcome. Where have you been? I walk in and everyone just stares as if I've walked into the wrong room. When I know fully well, this is my lecture theater. And then like, can we help? I like pause for two seconds and just turn around left because I was really embarrassed that it wasn't what I was expecting. So as well coming in. Yeah, we'll deal with this another day. And then I never went to a lecture again. Sorry. A quick aside, you probably heard me talk about element before. And that's because I've started every single morning the same way for the last five years now, which is a cold glass of water with elements and element is an electrolyte drink makes with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. It's a science-packed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium and magnesium, no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients. It reduces muscle cramps and fatigue, supports brain function and helps to regulate your appetite throughout the day. I genuinely notice the difference when I take it versus when I don't, which is why I don't shut up about it and also why it's used by everyone from Dr. Andrew Huberman to Olympic athletes and FBI sniper teams, either the good sniper teams, not the bad ones. Also, I have no questions asked for refund policy. So if you don't like it for any reason, they'll just give you your money back. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of elements, most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below, heading to drinklmnt.com/modernwiston. That's drinklmnt.com/modernwiston. When did you leave? Well, this is the thing. At uni, I was told, this may not be true. If you don't hand in your coursework, they kick you off campus while living on campus, but someone said if you hand in a blank cover letter with every bit of coursework, they can't. So I did that. Have that work out. Why didn't get kicked off campus? I, um, so remember I told you earlier that my name was Jimbo. So Lucy Lordy met last night, knows me, knows me as Jimbo. So everyone at uni knew me as Jimbo. No one knew me as James Smith. My last week of plan rugby for heartbreak, one of the coaches went, "Are you James Smith?" I went, "Yeah." He goes, "Mate, I'm your dissertation supervisor." He's like, "None of us know who you are. I only know you as Jimbo from plan rugby." You Jason Bond yourself. Yeah. And he was like, "The university." He was like, "Mate, where have you been?" I was like, "Oh, mate, yeah, I went to my first lecture and like, no one ever let me in." He's like, "We've been emailing you." I go, "Yeah, I've never got my logins." I never even got into my student uni account to log into it. And, yeah, that was my one year at uni. And the issue was though, did you have to do stats and research? Yeah. Stats and research was 7 a.m. on a Thursday. The show show was on a Wednesday night. So it was never going to work. I was never going to pull an all-nighter in liquid Gloucester. I had my one pound cheeseburgers on the way home and get up at 7 a.m. for stats and research. I didn't even do my foundation degree properly. I swapped rugby stash with people when you're at college to get the first part of the degree. So then that was it. And then I had one year sending it a uni. And, yes, to your life. And didn't get the degree. So that guy backed full circle half an hour. We pretty much said to him right. like you're away from home, you're building independence, you're learning how to feed yourself from washroom clothes. That you're away from uni for me, like accelerated my, or didn't do that well. - Sorry, my maturity. - I say maturity and I've got a back track on that. So you have a plate centurion. - Yeah. (laughing) - I got bound. - You're gonna have to explain for the Americans. - I got bound from the prom. So we had a game, we board one day at uni, we were like right, every minute on the minute you gotta do a shot. So we do a shot of beer, so we had like proper decent pint glasses, and we've been drinking a bit before, and all our members kind of blackened out again. And in Hartbury College, you've got these different campuses, and the one we were in was one they show people around, and so I get woken up by like a head of year at uni, knocking on our door, where I was, took us to the block we've been drinking in. I'd been using cans of deodorant to graffiti windows, but I've been drawing cocks. - Okay. - That's how everyone noticed me. You know, super bad when they draw cocks and everything. That was me at uni, but I don't even know how I did this. I somehow put a knife in a fridge door. - Everyone was stuck it through it. - What is it about you and weapons? - I don't know, me. - But it seems like a consistent, you know, we run new tonic for four years now, and I haven't seen you with a weapon once, I'm worried that you're going to turn up one day with an improvised explosive device. - But the good thing is, I got this all out the way. So like up until 23, 23, 24, I was a fucking liability. That's the only word. Nothing was impressive I've never done. Like even on rugby tours, puking on the back of a bus, neck in a bottle of wine, being a degenerate. Like really, the university for me, - It's a really interesting archetype, 'cause everyone that's gone to school, college sixth form, and university in the UK knows like that kind of archetype of person. I certainly do. And I was facilitating it for much of my time in nightlife. - I don't know what the equivalent is in America. I imagine that there will still be that maybe Greek football job life. Yeah, like they take their sport so seriously. Once you get, if you're talking college university, you're a pro athlete. You're bigger than some pro athletes, right? The following that you have, they've now unlocked all of the sponsorship stuff. So Nike and Gatorade and Newtonic can come in and sponsor college athletes, if you're a college athlete, the fucking rules. We wanna hear from you. That archetype of person that, you just think this person should not be allowed near anything requires responsibility. - Can you imagine these people are into uni, but now, they're like, he's got what? - Yeah, 100 million dollar drinks, business. - I think this is one of the things that's been interesting for me to like reflect on the, when you're young, you have no perspective of whether or not you're going to amount to something in future. And I think that we're able to make predictions based on how people perform in school, because that's really the only merit that you have. Even in sport, you knew that kid at 15 that played for England under 17s, I did in cricket, right, which was my sport. Or there was, because cricket's not a physical sport in the same way that rugby might be or even football, it means that you can speedrun the adult game as well. So you can have some superstar Scotty Borthwick who plays for played and I think still plays for Durham, County Cricket Club. I remember he was 14 playing seconds, county seconds. Right, this is something that men do full time and he was still in secondary school. So you look at these very precocious young guys and girls and you're like, wow, they've speedrun success, they're so much closer to this. And I think that it can create a sense of helplessness and young people they go, well, look, this is the time when my future is being predicted by my present. What's happening right now is going to be indicative of where I'm going to end up. And when puberty comes online, one of the things that you do is you start looking around and comparing yourself to everyone that's nearby because you're getting ready to become an adult in the world. And this is one of the reasons that trends seem to be particularly permeable. Like they seep through groups of especially girls, but also guys in puberty through college, through university. And you can think, fuck, like, I'm not going to amount to anything. Like, how can I amount to anything? That guy was what, 18? 18, yeah. And that's been at uni for six weeks. I said to him, I was like, mate, like, not to say that I'm going to be your role model, but 18, I was still not allowed to go to uni at your age. I was housebound, I was on house arrest by my parents. Then at 20, I went to do freshers. Then by 21, I was failing my third year at uni, having the biggest busiest year in my life. I was like, then 22, 23, still lived in Gloucester to doorknocke. It was 22 when I did the doorknoc in. 23 pound. You're in court, yeah, there was a doorknoc in friend power. So I was like, mate, if in three years, you're not doorknoc in in GL1, something gas in my dick. Yeah, yeah, your head. Then 24, I didn't become a PT because I wanted to run my own business. I did it because I just hated everything I'd done before. It was a move of desperation. I was like, oh, if I can charge three people 30 pounds and make 90 pounds a day, I could live off that. And I could get that done between nine and one. And then cool, I'll go and play Call of Duty. The everyone seems to think retrospectively like, oh, it was a strategic move. I was like, love, fell into it by accident through hating my job. And here's another thing. In corporate, no one really does anything. So for instance, in sales job. There's a lot of input and a lot of out-can. I won't name the company RSA security, part of EMC. There, I was in the inside sales department. And my job was marketing would bring in the leads. I would qualify the leads on the phone and find out the size, past it to a digital resale. So similar to our model, although we do sell direct, you don't buy a mask bottle from Mars. You get it from Costco or you get it from your local corner shop. And I had a set commission amount. And I had to make a certain amount of phone calls every day. And I said to my boss, oh, I've hit target, it's April. Is there any way we can expand my commission? She goes, I'm sorry. I was like, well, what am I supposed to do for the rest of the year? She was like, look, as your manager, I just need you to hit your phone calls. I was like, and I'm not going to get anything else. So I would call up call more county council every morning at the same time. And basically, it would have press one, press two, press three, press four. And if nothing happened, it would go back to press one, press two, press three. So I'd leave it off the hook for like 50 minutes. Then at the end of the day, I would just keep putting the phone down and bashing it. So then the statistics-- Total number of calls, total time on call. So I did something similar when I worked at the AA. So I was doing outbound, warm, tele sales, upgrading people to get a vehicle cover. So if you got something broke that wasn't the engine and wasn't the timing belt, the AA would be prepared to cover it, but it was really specific. It was very hard to actually end up getting it covered. So I realized that when the other person put the phone down, if I didn't close my call off, I could just leave it for 15 minutes, and they look at your dead time. They look at how much time in between calls that you do, but they don't look at how much time-- they weren't able to log that the other person was off the call. So they would see that my ratio-- and then someone caught and done to what I was doing. I worked at the AA for like nine months during my placement year. And someone caught and done to that. All of this together is to say, I don't know whether outcomes in early life-- I don't know whether outcomes are even in like middle early life in your 20s-- are that predictive? Like Greg Leveckier, for the people that don't know him, he's the CEO of-- Is that a 22? Look at the age to a bit. 2,000 nanograms per desk leader of Testosterone will do that to you. But the interesting thing here is that with that office job, not only was I like gaming the system, from April to December, I did nothing. So I would just sit on my desk. I had to do 40 hours a week, sat at a desk doing nothing. And it was the worst torture. If you gave me the opportunity to go back there, that was worse than my busiest of times now. And I remember we were next to a building that was empty. I was there for a year. And if someone came through maintenance with a ladder, I was like, oh, I've been in my chair. I'm like, this is interesting. After just meeting novelties, so desperately. That pure boredom actually set me up. And you know I was saying to you that, I hit target in a job that I hated. If I have this mindset to a job that I love, I can do-- It's one of my favorite lessons from you. So like if you're achieving it a life that you hate, imagine how good you'd be at one that you would have. It's almost the 18-year-old. He doesn't get to just skip to the successful part, because he needs the job that science. He needs to be bored. He needs to have the managers. Why do you think it is this sort of speedrunning trying to skip past it mentality? Is that a social media comparison thing? Being able to see people of your age or even people that are outside, because your exposure, I don't know, maybe because you come from an area that was much more affluent than mine, I was never exposed to anybody that had sort of entrepreneurial gumption. I never felt like I was comparing myself to my peers, that they were better at me, better than me at cricket. They were getting more time. They were batting up the order in firsts. Or when I went to university, you can compare your grades with other people, et cetera, et cetera. But it didn't feel like the same further. Do you know what I mean? This rushy, desperate need to speedrun childhood and early adulthood into maturity. I think it's stasis signals have changed. So for instance, like I said to you before, came home with the God-wild-lex. My dad was like, that's nice. Come home first class. My dad goes, that's nice. Come home with the sun. My mom and dad, my dad cried when I told him that I was pregnant. So like the stasis signals in their generation, the child was the biggest accomplishment. They would rather have one child than three, number one, that's what it looks. I'll show you, from then a thousand. So now I do think the young people, and again, I play into this a bit, but young people at 18 shouldn't know what a Lamborghini event store SVJ is. And they shouldn't. You knew what Nissan GTR Skyline was like, right, when you were growing up as 14-year-old. But I don't think I knew how much it would cost and how much money I needed to earn to then have the revenue to do it. I didn't have Chachibiti to talk to and say, how can I afford this car? It feels a little bit more. Like the dream, it's almost like being a fan of like Harry Potter or a sports team Like having messy as a poster on your bedroom wall and thinking I love messy Not I'm going to be messy and the same thing for whatever the fancy car is because we would have had like fast car magazine and stuff growing up Pictures of birth from zoo. It was a great fast car magazine in the UK I don't know if there must have been equivalents in the US was a wonderful way to For a teenager to buy soft core porn under the guys of being interested in cars Yeah, that's what that entire industry was based on but I think this is the crazy notes those I don't know can't speak on behalf of 18 years, but I think there's metrics have changed so much the people are okay Well if I'm gonna have that at this age like that person does because they're 24 year old millionaires Never mind me. Yeah, the my Armstrong's rebuilding that car from the Alex F.G The teach people that if foreign exchange or whatever by fixing that car. I will see 23 24 right Iman Guadsey was super young when he did his thing 24 24 25 run metmasters 24 the young boys got so you think they wouldn't set the bench markers that I go right the only way I get access to these signals is not through employment It must be through have the amazing ads to the ambiance. Yeah, so I can have a smoke machine in the background It's cool isn't especially if I'm talking about they've got the smoke on yeah, yeah, so the the state signals Nothing you've changed. I think the people now with us engineer. It's only a tool thing Jarrods if you ever considered you might have a drinking problem I don't consider a lot Chris what you drank an entire case of athletic bronco last night But they're not alcoholic and that's not a problem. Sorry, man. I kept chugging wait for the regret to creep in never happened Didn't you end up going home with that chick with the lazy eye? I Didn't seem lazy to me See most people like Jarrod don't actually want to change what they drink They just don't want the next day to be a complete write-off, which is why I'm such a huge fan of athletic bronco They make the best any bruise on the planet so you can still have something cold and tasty just without the usual Trade-off you can find athletic broncos best selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you or best option Get a full variety pack of four flavors shipped direct to your door get 15% off your first online order by going to the link in the description below We're heading to athletic brewing dot com slash modern wisdom using the code modern wisdom a check out that's athletic brewing dot com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom a check out near be a terms and conditions apply at that brewing company fit for all times If you're because I remember a hundred K a year was you made it that's why I thought granted I didn't know anybody that earned a hundred K when I was growing up So then I think the great and when I was growing up was like cool if I can get there before I'm 35 and 40 Sweet and then that's it. I remember my goal was personal training with six hours a day 60 pounds an hour. I remember when I saw you do your how to make money as a personal trainer What was it get in at six to two hours 15 minute break six some 15 830 930 then 1045 45 and you're done by one don't know how to do two hours two hours two hours What's the matter what's the matter less into all this because it's fun and it's interesting stories, but what at least for me trying to It might feel a bit like needless nostalgia largely Anglicized needless nostalgia as well for people the rest of the world that don't understand it Well, at least can't I directly relate to it one of the things that at least comes up for me is a reminder of how Unpressurized My childhood and even young business time felt I didn't feel the pressure really sort of turn the taps on Until probably about 10 years ago. It was probably 2015 1617 okay like this is this really feels like I am competing with the world I didn't have a massive amount of ambition beforehand, but I just I don't know I wish that I could gift that young kid that we saw today fucking young kiddies 18 I wish that we could give like gift like all of the freshers that we've seen at these events that have come out to see us Just the liberation of not feeling like it needs to be done right now. I've got a concept. I've been working on it I've been trying to explain it a little bit because you're writing a book at the moment Yeah, this actually I actually just said it to someone given them advice and I said oh someone record that and We're talking it was actually Ed Lauren's asked me the most important financial metric to aim for as a business owner And I call it head above water. So you write down what's my rent? What's my car finance? What's my Holiday fund. What is it? What is that amount now? What is that per month now? As a business owner you work towards it and actually there's a rowing coach that I work with and him and his wife have a glass of champagne every month They hit the number they need to survive and sometimes they do it on the 20th day But sometimes they do it on the 7th day and if the 7th day of the month they've hit enough Might they're invincible for the rest of the month. Yeah, no matter if they don't it's quite a short term window to be thinking every month They get sit down on a glass champagne and the harder they work the sooner they have it And it's like and then if you have it on the 29th day, babe, we still hit it and I thought that's amazing But the head above water thing a lot of people think the potentially I don't give a fuck online I do give a fuck I give selective fucks, but actually ever since I started my business in 2015 2014 I've made enough money for my head above water and that's made me invincible So my first brand deal came to me and I told them to fuck off because I had 1,300 pounds in my monzo I said you can't buy me. I got 30 in 100 pounds of my monzo mate and if people only realize that your head above water level changes Obviously your needs your wants they'll show him whatever, but once you hit that you are really invincible from the world and People don't look at that that line in front of them They don't look at that line in the sand and go as long as I hit that I'm fine Their line is fucking miles ahead of them. I'm realistically far ahead They feel that void with depression and anxiety and reasons to be unhappy and we even do that I don't know why I'm giving this advice. I can't take it myself But really if they just look to that number and said right as long as I hit that I'm fine That that's it and as a student this guy's number for his head above water is a tiny amount And I said bro the whole world of business and everything you've got ahead of you How much work or how much services or how many product stuff to sell to that number? It's not scary and big and as daunting as you like then if you supersede that number hey, you can have more cool stuff Wealth is just reality Minus expectations, right and by that definition a lot of billionaires broke If you explain that to me again wealth is reality minus expectations So if you are over-achieving what you expect from life you're wealthy Okay, yeah, yeah, if you are under-achieving what you expect from life or what you want from life your desires Minus what your reality is delivering to you everybody always wants to grow They always want things that are beyond whether out at the moment But there's a difference between expecting it from life and desiring it from life And I think that if you are permanently reminding yourself of all of the things that this other person has got that's Your comparison group the problem is that our comparison group has been spread out so much more And it's interesting being around students today We gave out unsolicited gave out a ton of new tonic cans in the middle of the Exeter Student Union today What did what I say to the guy who left I went up to him. I went bro. You're six foot two and bond You are you've won the lottery brother. I said mate. You could have been born any country in the world Statistically most likely to be born in Africa followed by Asia. You're in Great Britain I was like by the sound of your voice your parents grew up in an afternoon area. You're six foot two There's what three percent a men taller than you plus if you get any taller than six foot two I reckon you start see negative returns because then you're two tall then you've got bloody knees touching the seats on easy jet Not that I know and I was like bro You you have so much already I was like you haven't even accomplished anything and you've already won the lottery I was like so everything from here on in it's kind of cool and sound like you don't go for there's it He did there's a line from Joe Hudson most people believe confidence comes from being really good at what they do Are never messing up but unshakeable confidence comes from knowing your worth isn't tied to performance and it feels a little bit like managing to Detach those two things that switch of Worth being tied to performance especially in the Status realm which is now being quantified on social media in the financial realm which you're now able to compare more easily Because of transparency online all of that being made more obvious and Broadcast is What I think the switch that got flicked for me when I was in my 20s is like Ah, I now have a metric to compare myself to and I should be ahead and what doing it now? And the interesting lesson is if you can't un-pick that knowing that your worth isn't tied to your performance If you can't un-pick that I think you'll always feel lacking because the game just gets bigger But we're going to announce this most recent valuation and raise and all the rest of the stuff that we've done for newtonic We're about to announce we will by the time that this goes out of announced Walmart HB Morrison's daily look at that isn't that cute we got for the people that are listening we're holding up custom woven Coasters that we were gifted but we've also got there's a bunch of Easter eggs that we have managed to slot into this scene Let's see who picks up on them It the game just gets bigger and you keep on fighting with harder and harder Opponents or or rivals or whatever it is. It's like oh you thought that your Nissan your Renem again our 26 F1 was nice. Well, I know a guy who's got what's Greg's car? What's that stupid thing that I was in? Ferrari's what is it summit 28 is it? No, it's absurd. Whatever it is silly and fastened to like $1.2 million Smart cut. It is a smart cut. But you know what's interesting. I will say after the back of that As you're saying this there's a meme in my head where you got like black and white two portraits of two people One guy's got loads of loads of money and he's pointing no you got a person with a family and a wife pointing out a millionaire saying you're rich and the millionaire's there on his own pointing at the people with you and you're happy. You're rich. Yeah. Like the the wealth subjective we always say it's like money money money but when I meet people sometimes they say people aren't in the career they want they're not only the money they want they're not driving the car they want but they still have so much and I think in a while now we're not really told like hey you you've got a wife that you guys still get on after being together for 10 years and you're pretty fucking cool. Two kids and despite having the normal struggles that one outside and half time being expensive or whatever. Like I wish we counted that more. But there's a rebellion at the moment you know for all that this can sound like needless nostalgia or two guys trying to over intellectualize what just the challenge of being human and trying to sort of weave through that the competing priorities that everybody has that definitely feels to me to be a rebellion that's coming at least in part at the moment which is as both men and women men in the past recent person women right now are able to socioeconomically get to where they want to maybe they don't have the spending power that they wish that they had but they're able to like achieve a lot of things and I've got a new job position and so on and so forth. I think that a lot of the back biting and the scrappiness and the sort of discomfort and the finger pointing that's happening is people completing things that they thought would make them happy only to realize that the problem that they thought they were going to solve is still there despite the fact that the antidote to it has already been ingested like I have got to the place that I thought would be escape velocity from my issues. I've already achieved the goals that I said would make me happy fuck maybe I made a mistake maybe I did something wrong and one of the wonderful and it's very hard to thread this needle the original live show that I did that I wrote to go to Australia with was all about the arrival fallacy you call it you have a similar thing end of history end of history illusion. So arrival fallacy the view from the top of the mountain is not as good as you think it's going to be when you're on the climb up if you're at the top trying to tell people who are still climbing that the view isn't that good it sounds like a fat guy telling a starving man the food isn't very tasty that's what it sounds like it's it's a luxurious position to be in no one wants to hear it etc etc and it's a bit trite and I saw Jake Humphrey talk about it and then it kind of killed the like glamour of it because it doesn't sound contrary and anymore when it's kind of like you know really hitting the mainstream but there is definitely a big group of people who are achieving success in the way that society told them that they should be satisfied and realizing that it's not scratched the itch that they hope for and there's two choice that you're sort of when you are faced with that thing you are offered one of maybe like three roots one of them is gold medalist syndrome where you think it wasn't it wasn't regional manager it was national manager it wasn't it wasn't getting the bachelor's degree it was getting the man it was getting the m fill that was the thing that was missing so you try and run it back the dose wasn't sufficient in order to complete that the second root is to sort of rail against the system generally and say this whole thing is broken that's when people get really spiky about it I think and the third one which at least at the moment my bro science brain is telling me is the one that is more accurate is to be more reflective and say maybe the whole game of this beyond what do I need to be able to survive and get myself to where I want to and you just satiate my desire for like status and respect from people to social species right we need to be validated by the world through getting some accomplishments I've closed those loops I shouldn't run it back I shouldn't say that someone somewhere is oppressing me and I like limiting my happiness I need to actually turn it inward and look at what is the part of me that is always feeling dissatisfied no matter what the dose is that I get that's in return of this and speaking as two guys trying to build a billion dollar brand for whatever reason it is you know what actually on this to give you your flowers one of the best frames and I was so jealous of this when I first heard you say it it was a long time ago now you used to talk about success on social media as a game it's just game points and today I like didn't play the game quite a while I lost some points and in other days I played the game a little bit better and that frame of once you have got yourself to a level of comfort that is accessible for most but maybe it's not palatial maybe it's not you know even house ownership but it's like okay like we're moving and we're grooving here but the skills here are actually very simple to break down so for first thing you need to consider leveling up your character is one of the best messes in a game so for instance GTA might get access to money which gives you access to weapons when you will be great for you when you use the cheese it's not as fun so if I could give you that was funny joke I'll say if I could give you a million followers tomorrow it wouldn't be as fun because you would use the cheat codes right the second thing is just pure volume and repetition so if we're doing shotty snipes on Valhalla Halo 3 anyone know about that you have a play shotty snipes on Valhalla all right call it duty whatever it is if you want to get a headshot mastery nothing is going to beat pure volume and everyone could say I'll get the new controller change your settings and yes you should push the sensitivity up but nothing beats pure volume so then you have that as well where no bit of advice you could give someone on start the podcast would beat in 400 episodes yeah so you've got leveling up your character which might be getting a better microphone choosing a better camera researching before you do a pot working on hooks looking at what are the competitors are doing all of these things come from gaming then you've got cooperation in gaming when you work together as a team to work towards the same objective even though you're separate characters that can then pick you into a team plan and an organized team in a game called juicy going to win the war zone better than four people playing a lot also tends to be much more enjoyable because you get to celebrate the wins together and you also get to mitigate the losses together exactly I'm gaming and reality have so much because also if you have a bad day gaming you don't let everyone in your day it was just a tough day if you die on a level you get another opportunity that is unshakable confidence comes from knowing that your worth isn't tied to your performance and what you're doing with the game analogy is unpicking performance and worth yeah right unless you're a pro esports player but again your worth is tied up in this thing I love this analogy when I started doing speech coaching a lot of people I think maybe even you did this maybe didn't some of my friends said but what about your lovely natural speaking voice like you're not worried that it's going to sort of take that away from you and I thought it was really interesting I wasn't really too sure how to feel about it and then I realized that if you're a pianist you're going to take piano lessons with a teacher you're a amateur pianist no one goes well what about your lovely natural piano playing you're not worried that the teacher is going to take that away from you and what I learned is that there are certain things that we feel is very close to our sense of self it's very sort of central to who we are as a person and then there are other things that we see as like pursuits or augmentations or that presentations of how we put our true self across accent way that you speak and communicate very close to your sense of self way that you play piano less so I would challenge this well only from a pure giving another point of view to this so there's an interesting thing there where however sometimes speaking too perfect could be a reason not to listen because you're pretty good I agree but that's that's just another game of mastery here's a concept that I've got another one that's talking about where introduced we've got about everyone seems to think it's best to learn from a black belt and yes I agree because they've got a plethora of experience and lived experiences but a plethora thank you however sometimes I think as a blue belt you're best to learn from a purple belt because although they do not have the answers to everything they're much closer to where you were than the black belt the black belt hasn't been a blue belt for 10 years this is model the rise not the result like you don't want to be learning from the person and what they're doing now you want to learn from the person who knows what they were doing when they were where you are so to the pianist thing if you have a grandmaster pianist yes they will know so much but actually someone that's maybe only two years ahead of you might have more familiarity and you're still learning right you're still making developments so with the voice thing I would just make sure that and I don't know whether you do this rather or not you might start putting in little idiosyncratic ways of speaking to the perfect test so for a long time episode if you go back and we'll look at like 200 to 500 I got worse as a communicator because I was thinking so consciously about the way that I speak about tongue position when I was saying S and L because I've got a slight list so I need to work on that I want you to work I want you to get rid of that I wanted to get rid of filler words wherever I could I wanted to stop saying mm-hmm yeah who's that Jefferson guy what's his name Jefferson Fisher that's it great wonderful communicator James Jackson same thing but they've got idiosyncratic ways of speaking that are still precise they're not the sterile I feel like he's a witch he is a little whizzler because he's so good at speaking I'm like get off my screen because he's going to do's nlp and get into my mitochondria and he's going to is going to make me buy some yeah because when he's off flight so when he's talking to me sometimes I'm like no all right we need to fuck off I can see all of the boys twitching because we need to go and sound check on stage this is the first and maybe final podcast that we're ever going to do in a tour bus if you don't drink new tonic every person doesn't drink new tonic your neighbor's cat will die save for your neighbor's cat drink new tonic available the same for his mildew warm up he be he be gelsons vitamin shop GNC morrisons morrisons daily and morrisons fuel stations motor fuel group if it's a good petrol station it'll be in there if it's not buy you fuel somewhere else bingo all right good bye maybe it is