most resilient parasite is not a

bacteria it's not a virus it is a

thought and it shapes everything he is

an expert on the topic of happiness

google made him the head of google x

the return of

i know people will hate me when i say

this dating isn't entirely an economics

problem when you don't know what you're

looking for then you're advertising

wrong how do you find out what you're

looking for though if you want to find

love it's very straightforward

at the the last line in your book you

say please find the compassion in your

heart to want happiness for my wonderful

son ali why did you bring that up we

were having

an easy conversation

i wrote sulfur happy at a time where ali

had just left our world and he helped me

really really figure things out we think

that this brain is supposed to be there

to make us successful your brain is

supposed to make you happy i feel that

the top three reasons for unhappiness in

the world are

without further ado i'm stephen bartlett

and this is the dire of a ceo i hope

nobody's listening but if you are then

please keep this to yourself

[Music]

the return

of mo gowda oh man

no pressure

i mean i don't really know what to say

so our first conversation as you'll know

as i've said many times to my audience

is still to this date my favorite

podcast episode of all time for so many

reasons

it had everything that i've ever wanted

from a conversation it had the

personal story

delivered in a way with immense honesty

and vulnerability and wisdom

i learned so much from that conversation

and of all the conversations i've had

whenever i'm asked wherever i go i say

that that conversation is the

conversation that's had the most

profound impact on the real fundamentals

of my life than any other

the words that you said then still show

up at pivotal moments in my life when

i'm feeling a certain way or i'm letting

something get the best of me and it's

really really liberated

me of so many things so when i heard you

were back in london

i had to

have another conversation with you

it's an honor honestly thanks for asking

i have to ask since we spoke what's

changed in your life

and how does your life look

now

ah

ever changing uh interestingly i'm on

you know in

2020 was my year of silence and space

2021 was my year of flow

and then at the beginning of 2022 i

asked myself what will this year be

about i take a theme for every year

because it's sort of an interesting way

to

guide your life in terms of where you

want to go i don't like targets it's too

businessy when you come when it comes to

your own connection to yourself

and 2022 i decided it will also be a

year of flow but i called it the year of

joy inflow which is really interesting

so so to me

believe it or not as i worked through

the years on empowering more of my

feminine side and you know creativity uh

paradoxical thinking flow all of those

sometimes appearingly not so disciplined

uh traits are are hyper feminine and

they're very valuable in terms of

enjoying life but also seeing the full

reality of life if you want

i did very well in 2020 with my approach

to flow i went wherever life wanted me

to go but i was still

the same mo you know very targeted very

focused very able to

get the maximum out of everything

around that of course there has been

a lot of interesting

repercussions of our conversation that

basically allowed me to

write more to

connect more i tend to be very personal

when it comes to my presence on social

media so got in touch with so many

wonderful people and i think that's

created waves of flow if you want in my

life

whereby uh by and by end of april i

packed everything up that i had in dubai

put it in a tiny little storage space

i've always been a minimalist anyway so

it wasn't much and now i have no idea

where i'm going from here

completely inflow

what does that mean you have no idea

where you're going from here

i'm in london because of my book

publication

until end of the month and then

we'll find out

there's something quite curious about

that because i think we tend to believe

that we need stability or

a home or i don't know those home

comforts to make ourselves happy so i

think about sometimes in my life where i

where i was a freelancer kind of like

drifting through the world i could do it

for a short period of time but in the

long term i ultimately craved that sense

of home again

so

i think we need both right i think we

need the balance i think the story that

most of us don't realize is that every

one of us wants an adventure and every

one of us wants stability every one of

us wants at a point in time a long-term

committed wonderful connected

relationship and a little and at other

times once the parties and the fun and

uh

you know russian experience and and so

on and i think context is a big part of

what we miss as humans that that through

life

context changes okay and i've i've been

on an interesting journey because of

course you can imagine i have always

been extreme in whichever stage i had

been in my life when i when i became you

know

a business executive i was a very

serious business executive you know that

the 12 14 hour days the you know the

constant

hopping around the world and so on and

so forth when i became an author i

became a very serious author you know i

i started to really really spend a lot

of hours writing and you know

documenting my my thoughts and i write

two or three books at the same time

when you're extreme in those things you

tend to be

quite a bit

blinded if you want by the pace by the

detail you're swamped into it and it

does take uh

um

it does take challenging yourself if you

want to to get to a point where you say

perhaps perhaps this was wonderful for

my last seven years of my life but

perhaps

you know context has changed perhaps i

need to to explore another part of my

life to reach that point where i feel

complete and was there something that

some kind of signal that life gave you

that said it's time to pack up and flow

what was that

for most of us who rush really fast in

life we don't even recognize what we

feel we don't even even recognize what

our hearts what our souls what our

bodies are signaling to us

and and i think there has been a very

strong longing in my life

uh

to to live that idea of uh i call it

half monk

which you know

interestingly again the way we stack

life is quite strange and so you you you

we work really really really hard for

the first 30 or 40 years of our lives

and then we retire when we can't really

enjoy life you know it's like when you

retire you're basically taking your

stick and going to wherever florida or

whatever

when it's actually the way life should

be is that you probably should

take the 10 years of retirement divide

them across the 40 years and perhaps

take three months off every year if if

we were to redesign life you know it

would be wonderful to work seven months

of every year and take three more or

nine months of every year and take three

months off similarly

you know if you look even at the

spiritual path of some uh um

uh some of the most renowned monks in

the world

you go through a certain path through

life and then you stop completely and

then you go become like a monk

you know for a for uh for a while and

then you know you may come back to life

or become something else and i decided

there would be an interesting ambition

uh to

to to investigate the possibility of

maybe 50 of your life as a monk and 50

as a modern-day warrior as i call it

right and i took the number 50 because

that's how mathematicians will work i'll

start from the midpoint and then you

know irritate around it maybe i'll end

at 60 or whatever okay

and it's actually interestingly possible

it's interestingly possible to

uh spend 50 percent of your days

uh

in

in monk-like activities which would be

connection reflection uh you know

some some stillness and silence some

service uh to the world and fifty

percent completely engaged in uh you

know

writings and writing i consider as a

service but you know like business and

business conversations and you know

coaching and whatever it is

else that i do being stuck in traffic

and so on and so forth okay and it was a

stupid ambition but then it started to

become a lot more

viable in my mind that actually i could

do that at 50 percent of every day 50 of

every week 50 of every year could

actually be spent that way and and then

and the thing you need to to make that

happen is to step out of the mainstream

of your steady life okay so i had a

wonderful conversation with my uh

manager munir who uh you know really

wants our success and the success of the

mission but that sometimes makes him

push me very hard to add stuff in my

calendar and i said can you allow me the

life of a creative

so can you cram my tuesdays and

wednesdays to the point where i start

hating you

but then leave my rest of the week free

with one day that is negotiable between

us okay and that basically is even

better than 50 50. and so so in those

two days i'm completely a modern day

warrior completely engaged in you know

whatever the modern world wants from me

but then that allows me the rest of the

week if you want to do the other things

that may allow me to

find and reflect and maybe maybe figure

something out that is so much better for

the days where i get uh engaged right so

if my if my work is to spread some ideas

then silence to find those ideas is

actually useful for it

and so that was the the feeling you said

what what what was the the signal the

feeling has been there for quite a bit

of time and then when the landlord said

hey by the way want the apartment back i

was like great let's do this let's leave

the mainstream

okay let's go somewhere

and see where that takes us see where

where serendipity will

will show us i think that's an

interesting place to be

are you single

ah

i am single and not single i think oh

that that may get a lot of people

judging me

uh so i again in an interesting way

uh

found that

my current lifestyle does not qualify me

if you want for a committed relationship

okay but that a committed relationship

is one specific definition

of relationships that i think our world

has stuck to for a period of time that

evolved okay there are multiple multiple

multiple definitions of relationships

today i think if you if you look back 20

years

30 years at most you'd realize that that

singular

traditional model excluded all same-sex

relationships all by sexual

relationships all this and all of that

it also included uh it also excluded

relationships that were not uh till

death do us part and so on and so forth

i found and i say that with

worry that people will judge me i found

that what i'm doing is more important to

me at the moment

than a

traditional committed relationship okay

simply because i feel that an hour spent

with one person

could also be an hour that i spend

helping a thousand people okay and even

though that hour for me

uh uh is definitely enriching and

fulfilling and so on and so forth

it becomes sometimes

um

the commitment associated with it

doesn't make it an hour normally makes

it several hours makes it a big chunk of

your life that i

lived for 27 years and loved and i would

say it's the absolute best way

to live altogether right but it's

definitely not something that from

a current phase of my life where the the

focus of where i want to put my

chips if you want my hours of my life is

where i want to be

and so i end up when in in very very

connected very deep very uh wonderful

and loving relationships

that are

super honest but

not lasting

uh you know if my life will take me

from here to somewhere else

i will not consider sticking around here

as a prerequisite to find or you know

being a prerequisite to find a

relationship more important than my

journey of finding where i need to be i

i learned that interestingly when i

spoke to my dear friend matthew ricard

on on slo-mo so so matthieu is uh is

probably one of the most renowned monks

in the world he uh was a phd in

molecular biology if i remember

and he quit his life and went and became

a monk and he had 60 000 hours of

lifetime meditation which reconfigured

his brain in a way that that was

publicly a very very interesting science

study he was called the happiest man in

the world because of that and i asked

him and i said why matthew why why would

you leave your life and your girlfriend

and your you know your

he was french living in paris and your

phd and and go and become a a monk and

he

he said it would be very unfair

uh to

have someone in my life expect me to be

there all the time when what i wanted

was my pilgrimages and to be next to my

teachers and my time of isolation and my

alone time in my hermitage and so on and

so forth he basically said it's not a

promise i can make if i make it i would

be lying

and i think that probably was a very

enlightening moment for me because there

are many things i give up on in my life

that would make my life richer

but they're perhaps not on my path at

least not for the time being

is this uh do you view that as a phase

in your life would you view that

definitely everything is a phase in your

life definitely definitely i think

that's the the the changing context

steve is probably the biggest failure of

humanity

the changing context is

we have a tendency because we are

designed as survival machines

to

want things to remain exactly the same

if it's comfortable if it's safe

let's keep it right i want my same

coffee machine every day because i know

that machine i know it really well i can

make amazing coffee with it right and so

of course when it's time to pack things

i needed to hug that machine and say

okay baby i'm not going to see you for a

few months

but the truth is there are many places

all over the world that will make an

amazing coffee too right at that

attachment is one of the biggest reasons

for unhappiness in life

it's the idea of

i want my glass of water i don't want a

glass of water i want my mug i want my

glass of water i want my streets i want

my

commute every day i want my job security

and so on and so forth

which is beautiful and by the way every

single one of us needs to

live that for a phase of our life for a

season if you want okay

but that failure to recognize the

changing seasons

sometimes results in a narrowness of our

life

that makes us stick to one path

when when when we spoke about you

you you started as a ceo of a marketing

very successful business and now you're

a podcast host you're an author you're

on dragon's den and so on and so forth

that's a recognition within you

that this phase has served its purpose

and there is something else i need to do

with my life and by the way you could go

back to that same phase right you could

become a ceo again at a point in time

and it's that seasonal view of life and

and big part of flow

you know where i'm trying to live my

life now is to recognize those seasons

is to say look

i had an amazing amazing woman for 27

years right and i had a family i have

been there i have done that i've enjoyed

it tremendously it enriched my life but

it left gaps behind that need to be

fulfilled or completed with other phases

and other seasons okay and and i think

the game here is to be able to allow

yourself

to rather than plan and say my safety my

security my everything to allow yourself

to sit back and say what where is what's

what's life saying

is life hinting that i should be in

london

i can be in london let me be in london

right let's see maybe at the end of that

season

nothing's going to happen you're going

to go like oh it was just very good

coffee and a conversation with stephen

right and and it could be that you know

oh my god it was the best coffee of my

life and the best conversation i ever

had right and and i think that uh wisdom

if you want

uh

it depends on if you're spiritual or not

if if you believe that there is a part

to you that is not physical

call it consciousness or call it a soul

if you're spiritual

that part is

senses things that are a little bit

beyond the limitations of the physical

they it might sense

you know a need for the rest of being

someone else somewhere that may benefit

from my presence in london or maybe a a

need in within me to get a little bit of

rain which i hadn't seen for i don't

know right and if

the way the way that other part of you

communicates to you is through intuition

it cannot plant a

text message in your head and say by the

way by the 14th you need to be in london

it just gets you gives you that feeling

of

something is

missing from here and something needs to

be attended to there do you want to

investigate

and i found from the spiritual teachers

and happiness teachers and actually

business teachers that i worked with in

my life

that those who are abe who are able to

go like let me find out

okay let me find out let me check this

out

normally stumble upon some of the

biggest changes

to to our lives all of us not dutch just

their lives

and you know and it's it's quite

interesting because um

if you really look back at your life

really

most of the events that actually shaped

you that actually changed your lives

were not planned at all

you know they're probably those were

always those surprises and often were

the surprises you didn't want

okay and then somehow you go through

with them

and you end up in a place that suddenly

you recognize and go like ah

that's why i've been walking for the

last 14 days and by the way the game in

my view i i say life is a quest it's not

a journey okay and the difference

between a journey and a quest is when

you're on a journey you've sort of

plotted your path okay i'm gonna take

that flight i'm gonna go to this place

i'm gonna stay in that hotel um it's a

journey right and it will eventually end

up in a destination right a quest is

very different the quest is christopher

columbus taking a crew on a ship and in

the middle of the

you know fog

not knowing where the new world really

is okay that's a quest you know you

don't really know where the destination

is

you're basically taking a couple of

steps forward and then stopping and then

looking at the fog and then assessing

and then reflecting and then saying

maybe i should take a step left and then

you take one step left and then you say

okay how does it feel now do i want to

go to forward again or do i want to go

one step back and by the way there's

absolutely nothing wrong with taking two

steps forward assessing going to the

left and then saying uh left wasn't what

i was supposed to do i'll go back and

take a step to the right and and see

what happens

but like christopher columbus you

you set off on your quest i'm sure as

christopher columbus did

for

a reason you wouldn't load up the ship

and put all those men on the ship and

get a boat and

there has to be some kind of inspiration

or some kind of reason why you set off

that's the question i want to ask but i

was also compelled by you said you were

in a relationship 28 years and

eventually

there's something missing

yeah

there's always there is always something

missing what was what was missing

so let's talk about the big picture

first because i think people need to

understand that there's nothing wrong

with having anything missing okay but we

are a very complex being

that is made up of so many emotions and

so many reflections and so many traumas

and so many

stories and backgrounds and desires

and we live in a very very very very

unsimplifiable

world okay

and yet we try to simplify it rather

than try to enjoy it fully

okay when you when when they tell you uh

sweet and sour chicken in a chinese

restaurant

it's not just a little bit of sweet and

a little bit of sour there is a ton of

flavor happening within all of this okay

there is there are layers of complexity

that creates a life that's worth living

and for all for every one of us it's

that attachment

it's the attachment of but i like this i

don't want to change this that deprives

us of all of the other flavors right

nibel and i i i believe nibel made me my

my ex-wife she we met when she

was 18 in university

we fell in love madly we got married uh

the day she finished university uh you

know we spent 22 years together uh with

our beautiful children and then life

changed context the context changed ali

left our world my son

and when ali left our world i hit the

pedals and went double speed

when ali left our left our world nibel

on the other hand looked at her life and

said

for the first time i can now focus on me

my my children left one went to

university in canada area and ali left

the world to his next journey and you

know simply she she looked at herself

and said okay it's my time

i'm not gonna define my life by you

anymore i can't travel the world with

you because of your passion and your uh

mission and what you've now assigned

yourself as the new task i'm going to

find

what i want to do with my life and i i

think that's wonderful if you're if you

ask me that's definitely what everyone

should do

now with that contradiction

it we became further and further apart

remember love and relationships

are not ever taken for granted i always

say this openly i fell in love with

nibel six times

okay i fell in love with that cute girl

that i met in university then i fell in

love again when she became my wife

because when you're

your girlfriend and your wife you're two

different people and by the way i was

her boyfriend and her husband these are

two different people too and now

suddenly we're left with those boyfriend

girlfriend gone and the husband and wife

looking at each other and saying where's

my sweetheart

right and then suddenly you know most

people would get into that stage in one

of those

constant changes and and say hey you

know i don't like this i want my

sweetheart back you know it's an

attachment

or you can go like okay the sweetheart

is gone but oh my god this one is so

cute

right and when when you actually see it

that way you fall in love again with a

totally different person and then again

and then again i i believe i counted six

times okay

and then eventually when we wanted to to

have our different

focuses in life

i would call that falling in love again

but slightly differently because you see

the the the the thing that we

miss in life is

we define love

love is too big

if you ask me as a concept to fit within

romance

okay we've we've narrowed love down to

that story that hollywood told us which

is love is just romance okay it's a it's

a romantic relationship between two

people it has intimacy in it and it has

to be this and that and they have to

live that way okay the truth is no i i

believe there are 20 ways two partners

can enjoy and benefit from the company

of each other and grow together uh two

of which are sex and intimacy and we've

defined love

uh a per as per sex and intimacy okay

so if you if she's not your woman as in

as in you're sleeping together does that

end the love in any way okay uh you know

as a matter of fact if if it ends the

love then it was never love if you

really think about it huh and and so we

we define

our

our relationships that way and i i think

that's a recipe for disappointment

because in reality every every

relationship will always go through

those changes there will be times where

sex won't be great and there will be

other times when your spiritual

connection is at its best and you know

it really is entirely around again the

layers and the flavors and how you can

choose each one of those and embrace it

and grow it and and and make it a a

prominent

live it as much as you can with that

person

and yeah if if one of them

ends

my feeling is that the rest should not

end the rest should grow

you more than anyone though after those

20 plus years of being in a committed

relationship will understand the value

of that committed relationship and

um the place that it would i'm presuming

add value to your life now but i guess

there's an equation you're doing about

what you would what would come at the

expense of that and it sounds like

from my perspective the thing that would

come at the expense of that is your

mission your freedom which you are also

spending some time to really

indulge in

no i'm as i i think we all make those

choices all the time it just suddenly

becomes

quite contentious when it's about love

and relationship okay but you know what

you you know i left an apartment that i

enjoyed

because i needed to do something else

right i am here in london where when i

could be

in uh silicon valley for example because

they wanted me to talk about innovation

there because i need to be in london

because i want my next book to succeed

right so so we me we all make those

uh you know choices all the time

and and

life sadly is a question of compromise

because

you know you you you you often say that

the best of both worlds doesn't happen

you can't you cannot have best of both

worlds you can you can either say i'm

living

fully

as my number one priority to achieve a

and i'll achieve as much as i can of b

as long as it doesn't contradict a or

you can say i'll go for b and you know

i'll sacrifice a bit of a for that right

and and it's interesting because most

people especially the romantics will say

how can you sacrifice love you know love

is the most important no a billion happy

is more important than love

in all honesty for me and my to my

personal love okay because in in in my

capacity to

to feel love for a billion people okay

and actually try and dedicate my life to

as many as i can reach with that

i tend to believe that's

that

prioritizing my own comforts and my own

life and my own

settlement if you want being settled

is selfish to be honest it's it's a

different phase it hopefully will happen

in two three years time but it's not the

phase now it's not the right time for it

at all okay and yes i wish i could get a

b again get a and b and maybe i'll

stumble upon that wonderful woman that

is completely aligned and you know

spends the that my trips with me and you

know supports this

and if i do that's amazing but if i

don't what would i prioritize it's life

is a question of choices

you could be doing anything with your

time

you know

you're clearly someone that is make

being very intentional about the use of

your time and making sure that every

hour of your time is allocated towards

what you want whether that is playing

video games whether it is writing a book

so why did you choose to write a book

called that little voice in your head

i feel that the top three reasons for

unhappiness in the world

uh

without competition beyond that like

they are by far

bigger than all of the others are

ego

lack of self-love and actually in order

it would be lack of self-love ego and

that little voice in your head okay and

the little voice in your head

as i as i say at the beginning of the

book that i would dare say that there

has never

been a moment in your life

where any event had the

power to make you unhappy until you

turned it into a thought okay so so

anything could happen

it's the story you tell yourself about

it that makes you unhappy it's not the

event it's the story right and so if my

if i'm true to my

commitment to try and

make the world happier then i need to

talk about those three topics in three

different

books if you if you want or maybe some

content of some form but but that's not

the point the point is what's tag what's

what struck me and really really puzzled

me was that i realized uh when i wrote

scary scarysmart and you know scarysmart

was entirely about technology and where

technology is going and so on i realized

that we humans

have the ultimate technology in our

heads a brain that is so sophisticated

so capable of doing things that are

really really beyond the capacity of any

supercomputer still today

and yet we know how to use our

smartphones and our devices better than

we know how to use that brain

most people get trained on how to use

excel but they never really get trained

on

how to streamline the thoughts in their

head okay and and that appeared to me to

be a very interesting engineering

problem and so the idea was to create

that analogy between neuroscience and

computer science so the book in my mind

was if i can show people that those

brains the neuroscience of them is is

actually similar very analogous to

computer science and the devices you

have in your hand

because people already know how to use

those devices then that knowledge would

allow them to use the brain

as good as they use the devices

the basics here

which is the the title of the first

chapter of your book

and it's and it feels like the first

chapter really kind of introduces some

of the

inspiration behind you why you wrote

wrote the book you talk a lot about your

wife and the illusions that you live

under

what are the illusions that you you live

under

or you lived under

again let's

think about the bigger picture first

everything that we have you haven't

visited and investigated

and arrived at a competent confident uh

conviction that this is your own view

is probably an illusion

okay which is quite striking because for

a man like me who

spends a lot of his time reflecting

uh we're surrounded we're submerged in

illusions okay everything from the value

of uh

you know a branded bag all the way to

you know what the tv is telling us what

the government is supposed to do and all

of that stuff

unless you've reflected on it and said

okay i'm being told this

i'm

you know behaving this way which might

be contradicting what i've been told but

i'm feeling that way which might be a

third contradiction and where is my

reality

it's safe to assume that this was an

illusion so a big part of that little

voice in your head is an admission of

all of the mistakes i made using that

machine in my life or not all but many

not even many but many mistakes that

i've made using this machine not all of

them there are many more mistakes

one i think the biggest of them was a

conviction in my early years that my

kids were a burden my family was a

responsibility okay

which does happen

when they come to life when you're very

young i mean i had ali when i was 25

i was

just turned 26

and and uh and uh and uh you know i got

married when i was 25 so basically

you start to feel responsible you start

to prioritize work you start to go out

in that treadmill uh you know the

hedonic treadmill and just run run run

run run run okay and and the pressure

that you that you put on yourself when

you do that

makes you start to think

okay

they are the reason why i'm working so

hard they are the reason why i'm

stressed okay when in reality if you had

asked them they would have said papa

just come play with us right we don't

want more than what we have it's me

losing context and running like crazy

that made me think that way and the

basics of the challenges we have with

our brains

is that we believe what our brains tell

us okay so when my brain tell me they

are

the the burden they are the challenge my

whole being responds to that my whole

being starts to behave that way okay

and and i think what the reality

that we miss when we do those things

becomes

uh what you have seen in the if you if

you like the movie inception um you know

when she when his wife

had that

um

thought uh you know we're waiting for a

train or train you know basically that

kept playing in her head over and over

and over that convinced her that this is

not the real world that they are in a

dream and that the way to go out of it

is to die that actually led her to

committing suicide and and and you know

big opening of the movie that my

favorite movie line of all time is what

is the most resilient parasite okay and

the most resilient parasite is not a

bacteria it's not a virus it is a

thought that you implant deep in your

brain and believe in it over and over

and over through your life and it shapes

everything

shapes everything interestingly without

you even knowing

why you're doing what you're doing is

because

because of that thought because of that

belief because of that ideology

and people do the weirdest things i i

have a very very dear friend who is a

brilliant engineer brilliant engineer

who had that thought in his head uh he's

now in his early 60s

that

if i tell my ideas to a businessman

he's going to steal it

so every startup he ever attempted he

wanted to be the engineer and the ceo

okay and as a result everything he

started failed even though the ideas and

the engineering the the the rigor was

incredible

but he just couldn't get that idea out

of his mind and and you can go all the

way to people who have ideas that lead

to wars or to destruction or to

terrorist acts or whatever it's just one

idea seeded deep enough in our head that

really leads us to become who we are and

digging out that idea and finding it

that's the basic

the basic is to find those thoughts

and how you can deal with them so that

you eradicate them so that you can

actually live through to who you are not

the thoughts that have been implanted in

your brain

and how does one go about even knowing

where to start that search for those

sort of limiting or imprisoning thoughts

that are

have become the satellite navigation of

our lives it is um

it's a moment of truth it's a moment of

honesty you know i i think you started

with that very

uh i can't believe i spoke about that

about the very personal question about

my relationship choices

right but that's a moment of truth it's

not that i don't want someone in my life

but it's that if that someone

contradicts priority a then priority a

is actually what i stand for right and

and you get those by comparing what

you're thinking

to what you actually do and what you

actually feel

and it's a very interesting exercise if

you're coherent in something if you say

i am vegan for example okay if if you

identify yourself as vegan

but you crave eating animal protein

and you feel that you're

pressured then you're not a vegan

okay you could be a striving vegan

you're trying to be vegan you could be

an ideologist vegan you want you believe

in the ideology of veganism but you're

not

don't call yourself i am a vegan okay

you can then change that thought and say

i want to be vegan

okay that's a different thought than i

am vegan

and and you can apply that to everything

to every part of your life i am in that

partnership

i love her and i want to stay with her

forever

but i'm looking at every other woman and

i feel that i'm in jail okay great have

that conversation

with yourself have that conversation

with yourself because what you're

feeling is contradicting what you're

doing is contradicting what you're

thinking so much of my life is filled

with contradict absolutely

what does that say so i'm thinking about

you know i i say that i want to be in a

committed relationship but then i s what

i do

is

work all the time and want to work all

the time

and choose work all the time

um so what does that mean

what does that mean you can tell me on

the camera i'm not gonna cry

it is uh it's it's really it is look

you're not alone all of us are and it's

not on one topic it's on every topic

okay so so there are as i always talk

about there are three compartments in

our brains okay one compartment is what

i call compartment one which are things

that are true and we know are true okay

the other is compartment three which are

things that are that are not true and we

know they're not true okay and the

majority of what's happening inside us

is what i call compartment two which are

things that are needed undecided we

either don't know them or we know that

they're not aligned but we can live with

them for now we don't prioritize them

what matters is not solving them

what matters is marking them as

compartment two if you mark them as

compartment two in your head you go like

okay hold on this topic is unresolved

it's not within my priority today but i

need to come back to that topic just as

just like my choice of relationships

right you know it takes a long time and

a lot of experimenting after my

separation with my with my wife to try

and get to a point where i actually know

that i'm going to put in the time and

investigate where i am in life

during throughout that time i i

acknowledge to myself and i say this is

compartment two i don't know what i want

i don't right and the point is so many

of those exist if you live assuming that

it's compartment one you're completely

messed up

right because your actions are not

matching your your feelings and your

feelings are not matching your thoughts

okay you're not you're not complete

you're not

full you're not settled you know we we

you know that that idea of

equilibrium

most people the easiest way to imagine

it

visually is to imagine a pendulum right

if your life is in equilibrium it's in

total balance

that total balance is the point at which

uh

minimal effort is needed to live

if you're in balance you're not

struggling okay just like the pendulum

depending on when it's at it's a

equilibrium point

you literally need zero force to keep it

in the equilibrium point forever you

don't have to apply any force to it you

want to push it a little bit to the

right

you have to apply a force and keep that

force for as long as you you want it to

stay within that place and that's what

we do with our lives all the time that

our nature our balance our equilibrium

is not exactly how we're living and so

we're constantly applying effort we're

constantly trying to be in a place

that is not our natural place to be we

want to be there so we apply the effort

is there anything wrong with that

absolutely not because life is cyclical

okay and life is all compromises as we

start but the the trick is to say

when i am in that place

i am aware that this place is not my

natural tendency and i am okay with that

because that place gives me a b and c

there is a utility to that place

at the same time i want to tell myself

openly that i'm heading from that place

to that point of equilibrium

could that could be by saying in the

next seven years i'm not going to do

anything about it but in seven years

time i'm going to start to head in that

equilibrium or you could say i'm going

to take a step every day for the next

seven years whichever way you want and

or you by the way or you can also tell

yourself

i don't care

i know it's not my equilibrium but i'm

going to do it anyway because that's

what i believe in i think that's very

much at the state i'm in okay if you ask

me i'd like to be in you know 50 percent

of the year doing absolutely nothing

okay with someone i absolutely love

with some a very simple life but that's

not my life every day and i know that to

be true and i will do it for a while to

go you know because i have a i have

assigned myself something that i believe

requires that effort

okay the other thing that humans do most

of us is we leave a lot of pendulums out

of it out of equilibrium so so it's

actually quite easy to tell yourself

look my number one pendulum is my work

okay i'm going to put that in

equilibrium

then my second uh uh

importance is relationship or reverse

them if you want the third is my impact

the fourth is my friendships the fifth

is my health and so on and and then the

game is if you want your work to

actually benefit

put the others in equilibrium

okay or acknowledge to yourself that

they're not but you but don't complain

about it don't feel bad about it okay

and if you do that you manage to then

simply focus yourself on the one that is

your most priority and then life is in

an interesting way linear that way in in

physics it's basically it's instead of

the parallel processing of trying to fix

all of them at the same time you're

simply saying i'm gonna

process them in series i'm gonna fix

this work element pendulum first and

when it's done i'll fix the next one and

then when it's done i'll fix the next

one and it's a constant journey so

you're not alone i'm exactly like you

constantly constantly searching and

constantly

reflecting and investigating and finding

that equilibrium

just going back to something you said

there about what you'd probably want is

it a case that you don't believe you

could live a life where you have

priority of your mission

one one billion happy

and

a partner who is

is not impeding on the mission

no absolutely not i believe it's 100

possible just not met the person yet

absolutely okay okay the economics of

love and romance are quite

shocking most people don't understand

how that works you know if you have if

you have one requirement in the if you

have zero requirements in the person

that you need in your life

uh walk out of your door

the first person that you meet is that

person right because you have zero

anything that this person is is okay for

you if you have one requirement and and

say one of every 10 people in the world

has that requirement

okay brunette yeah yeah yeah or

something deeper you know let's start

you know i am straight so i need a woman

okay that by definition removes 50

percent of the population yeah okay uh i

i'm you know i need a certain age

bracket in my life that by

by itself removes maybe 70 percent of

the remaining population and so on so

every layer that you add to your

requirements

sadly follows the n squared problem okay

so the n squared problem is if you're

looking for a person with one criteria

and one in every ten persons have that

if you add another layer of criteria

it's not one in twenty it's one in a

hundred

if you add the third criteria it's one

in a thousand if you add a third fourth

criteria it's one and ten thousand right

so it's constantly ten to the power off

right now

if if you take anything that you want

i'm i'm looking for someone for example

supportive of my mission and free to

travel

whatever that is

if

if that person

is you know is described by six criteria

you're now talking about one

in a hundred thousand do they exist

absolutely

absolutely hundred percent

do i have the time to spend looking for

one in a hundred thousand

i don't

i do but it's not my priority

do you understand and we do that with

everything in life you you invest in

your six-pack

i invest in my little belly right

why because for you

the i the ability to prioritize the

six-pack at your age with your current

you know a lifestyle and so on is

actually taking a certain amount of

investment from you that's justifiable

by the roi

okay for me if i wanted to achieve your

six-pack i'd probably take double the

time maybe double the effort right and

at the same time i would require a

lifetime that has a lifestyle that has a

consistency in it

that i may not be able to to achieve now

and you look at it and you go like damn

you steve i want a six-pack but then at

the same time i tell myself but then you

mow you're traveling everywhere and

you're really really being true to

yourself that's fine it's a reasonable

compromise okay so so the question just

to be very specific everything exists

but the probabilities

of them happening if i'm the luckiest

person on earth

okay

i would walk out of here and she's the

first person i meet right but if you

count that and say no reasonable

probability you will say you'd have to

encounter 50 000 encounters for that

person to show up if you're unlucky not

unlucky and not lucky

right suddenly it starts to become

interesting you tell yourself and i know

this sounds really weird for the

romantics by the way i'm i'm completely

a love

you know

junkie

but but but there is a reality to life

that sometimes gets you to prioritize

things differently it's really

interesting because i've never heard

anybody describe it in like a

mathematical way before

yeah

you know so there is mathematics

underlying everything i mean think about

that idea of one in a hundred thousand

right the mathematics of that it is it's

true when you see the mathematics

doesn't mean that you have to

act in a way that's not human but it

just allows you to understand how the

system is working so that you can fit in

so the example i gave is you're if

you're into shelby cobras right if you

want to sell that one car among a

million other cars on on on a site

that million other that car will have

very little chance of being found on a

general site but for the fans of a

shelby cobra if you go to a show of

shelby cobras everyone there a hundred

percent of the people there are

interested in it okay so the interesting

bit is that you can actually increase

your probability of being found quite a

lot if you're true to yourself

if you start to advertise yourself

exactly who you as as who you are and

mix with the people that you believe are

the people that you want to be with

right that's

it changes the probability drastically

actually

that's so very very true

that's very very true kind of goes back

to what i was saying when i did your

podcast about my

hairdresser who was dripping head to toe

in the material position

he's advertising himself to a certain

audience that he doesn't actually want

to attract and if he is successful in

that advertisement he'd attract

something that makes him unhappy and

gives them shitty relationships so

you get exactly what you advertise and

that's the interesting thing you know if

if a young lady wants to to find a

committed partner but goes to the pub

every friday evening or the or the club

every friday evening to find that

partner you know dressed in a certain

way

acting in a certain way she's gonna get

the person because people are you know

we don't see beyond what you're

advertising so if that's what you're

advertising the person who's interested

in this will show up right if you're

into tango dancing

and you sho and you go to a tango class

the people there will be interested in

tango

and and those people will be the ones

that you want to create that

relationship with and yeah of course

there are not a million people in the

city that are interested in tango but a

hundred percent of the people that are

in that class are

so i guess you get what your

advertisement attracts so be careful

what you advertise absolutely and and to

advertise correctly the one thing you

need most is to know actually who you

are

what are you as a product right most

people don't know that i still don't

know who they are absolutely you don't

you don't know what who you are

multiple multiple uh layers of confusion

you don't know who you are

you don't love who you are

you know or love who you are

but you're advertising differently

because you think others are more

interesting

okay

uh or by the way you don't know what you

want so one one of the most

eye-opening one of the chapters so i'm

writing all of this in a book called

finding love one of the most interesting

chapters is all the models of love okay

and it's so eye-opening today someone in

my generation only believed that the

only way to be with with with someone is

to have a traditional relationship

look at all of the models that are

available in today's world you know

with all the way from hookups to our

lifetime commitment everything's

available all you know and and when you

when you when you don't know what you're

looking for then you're advertising

wrong how do you find out what you're

looking for though again it's the

triangle

what is what am i thinking what am i

feeling and what am i doing

okay so

openly

some of us will say especially if you

may say say for example you're

a woman in her 30s

okay uh and you want a child you want a

child you you feel it in you

but you're so

you know so so when you look at the

triangle what you feel is i want a child

but your actions are you're dating

people without talking about the topic

okay and then what you're thinking is

maybe if i if i tell them i want a child

they will not want to be with me

which is quite interesting because yes

if they don't want to be with you when

you don't want a child you don't want to

be with them either

right and and accordingly there is a

contradiction

if you want a child you want to

advertise to the world openly to say

when you meet someone before you get too

involved you say what's your position on

the topic

isn't it so funny that our strategy

tends to be the total opposite it's

false advertise until we get them

because the false advertisement's going

to get more people

and then once we've got them switch up

gradually

um well i don't even know if it's a

conscious decision to switch up

gradually but it's an inevitable

inevitability you can't act for years so

eventually once we've got them on the

false advertisement of who we think we

they wanted us to be

then we'll change and that's when all

the conflict and relationships happen is

when absolutely

this is not what you wanted at all yeah

and you've attracted you're

you attracted the wrong person and

you're stuck by acting yeah but but the

more interesting part of this is

uh

we we're prioritizing for the wrong

target so remember you if you really sit

with yourself and you say what do i want

from a relationship i want a committed

partner that wants to have a family with

me if you if you come to that choice

you would behave very differently but

interestingly you have this other

conflicting

thing of but i want reassurance that i'm

interested interesting and people are

still you know men are still attracted

to me so i'm going to go out dating

others who are not

just to make sure that when i find this

guy i'll i'll be i'll be you know still

still

ready to to grab right that doesn't make

any sense at all because by the way the

ones that you're attracting are not

resembling a sample to what you're

actually looking for

and i know it sounds really weird when

you talk about those things in

mathematics and probabilities and sets

and subsets and so on but believe it or

not it's entirely and i know people will

hate me when i say this dating is an

entirely an economics problem it is

economics economics meaning

in my days when i met nibel she was one

of 14

friends i knew okay the economics were

very straightforward of the 14 nibel was

the one that matched my soul most she

was the most beautiful woman on the

planet for those 14 and everyone else

and so i said i'm after this one

right

today from a supply and demand point of

view you're talking about 14 million

people at any point in time that are in

a market that is so complex it's like

the nasdaq market

okay literally if products are on the

market instantly all the time

and and the game isn't a game of

economics sadly the more supply there is

the less the value of a product

right so if if you simply said to

yourself you know a um

this camera is now going to be uh we're

going to make 14 million copies of it

because it's easier for the factory to

make 14 million copies than to make 4

000.

every one of those copies to manage to

sell 14 has to go down in price

okay because otherwise peop only people

who uh can afford the four thousand

would buy and then you'll be left with

the other ten

and that's what's happening in the

dating and romance market is that there

is so much

supply out there that nobody values that

relationship anymore everyone is like

okay i'll try anyway you know it's gonna

what it's going what's it what is it

gonna take a couple of dates but then

that's not what happened you go on a

couple of dates and then it's a nice

case and then you stay a little longer

and then right and and all of that

basically you realize that you've spent

seven months of your life to figure out

that this person is not interested in

children for example if we take that

example so what does that mean in real

time say that i was single

and i was looking

right

i'm someone you know who what i'm like

i'm someone that's deeply interested in

ideas and thoughts and you know

self-development and all of these things

you know what i'm interested in we've

talked long enough for you to have a at

least a gauge of that where would i

go

is it a place

and where would i not go

it could be i mean if you want to find

love do what you love

very straightforward if you're into

reflection and personal development go

to personal development conferences sit

with personal development uh people like

me i'll buy you coffee anytime uh you

know and or or or

you know go to a retreat for example the

people that will go to the retreat will

be the type of person that you're

looking for i'm i gave that advice to

one of my dear friends and colleagues

when i worked at google she was part of

google in poland and i told her that i

said if you want to find love do what

you love so she went and asked herself

what do i love i love tango

went and started you know attended the

tango class ended up marrying the the

the instructor right it's simple you you

want someone that matches you go to the

places where those things happen those

places could be physical places they

could be online okay they could be

serendipitous because you're searching

for those things but just know

what you stand for

i'm you know

not a party animal i'm never gonna find

my

match in a party

so so do i go to parties no i don't

really i mean i i go sometimes when

there is a reason to go but otherwise no

that's not how i spend my time

quick one we bring in eight people a

month to watch these conversations live

here in the studio when we're here in

the uk and when we're in la if you want

to be one of those people all you've got

to do is hit subscribe

you asked me a question about money and

then

you said you know what does money mean

to me and then when i asked you you said

you think you've come to learn that you

think money is one of your illusions

what do you mean by that

money is an illusion at every every

level

money doesn't exist you and i know that

anyone who understands fractional

reserve and how money is printed and

generated money does not even exist you

walk into a bank and you ask for a 50

000 pounds loan for a car and they

literally write the numbers five zero

zero zero zero in a spreadsheet and poof

money comes out of nowhere that money

never existed before you borrowed it

okay and will only exist when you work

your backside off to pay it back right

and interestingly that in that illusion

uh was created to make our lives easier

and then it ended up create making our

life a lot more difficult now

why because most of us

are so chasing the revenue side of money

without a full understanding of the cost

side of money

let me try to explain

for you to get a job in london that pays

you a hundred thousand pounds

just for simplification of the

mathematics you have to live in london

which costs you

seventy thousand pounds for example i

don't know london very well but let's

say these are the numbers but on top of

the seventy thousand pounds it also

causes costs you str your stress

it also costs you being far away from

your mom if your mom lives elsewhere it

costs you you know your time which is

your most valuable resource the only

thing you really have in your life is

your time and it costs you so many other

things right and so most people uh uh

don't understand the the cost

uh benefit relationship to start now you

you take that and then you add a louis

vuitton bag or a fancy car and suddenly

your money is not even going as far as

it could because you could get yourself

a bag

that is beautiful and everything for 100

pounds but then you choose to to buy one

for several thousand pounds and then you

have to work harder which makes you may

pay more costs and that and the cycle

becomes even more vicious right you

continue further than that and you start

to say so i save some of that my

some of my money in the future but your

savings are suffering inflation so you

save a thousand pounds they become 900

they become 800. when in reality by the

way you've saved the thousand pounds

when you could have bought borrowed them

by entering some numbers in a

spreadsheet the entire recipe around

that story is wrong everything around

money is not what we believe in it is

okay which basis basically makes it an

illusion now the biggest part of that

illusion believe it or not is and i know

you have money in the bank

is that you have nothing i i don't know

if you realize that i most most people

don't understand that if i have a

hundred pounds in the bank i literally

have nothing i have nothing the bank has

my 100 pounds and the bank can decide

whatever they want to do if they wanted

to take it away from me okay and it is

only my money

when i choose to buy an iphone or

something with it

for that one instant

that money is mine

and then once i get the iphone it's not

mine anymore i now have the iphone

right

you basically

assign that money that is never yours

it's the banks until the minute you

spend it to spending it on things that

most of us don't ever ever interact with

i mean look at your own home anyone

listening to us and how many things you

have in that home

that you've not ever used ever you know

you you saw that pair of shoes in the

window and you were like oh my god i

have to have them spent several hundred

pounds on them or several tens of pounds

on them and then ended up taking them

home never ever putting them on

right now all of that waste along the

way the cost of earning the money the

things that you spend it on the actual

value of the thing that the things that

you spend it on basically tells you that

there is one truth

to money which is i have basic needs

i have basic needs and my basic needs

are to be reasonably covered

reasonably fed uh reasonably safe and so

on and so forth

and in in isla in the islamic culture we

call this risk which is different than

income

risk is not what how much money you earn

it's the good that that money brings you

it's did you eat a meal today that is

actually what you're looking for in life

it's not the money that gets you the

meal okay what you're looking for is the

meal could you actually buy something

for your daughter today the thing is

what you're looking for

it's not it's not the money that got the

thing

and if you start to chase that

something very different happens right

suddenly you start to ask yourself hmm

is buying that thing

worth the 17 hours of work i'm going to

put in them

right is it which of those which would i

prefer if i gave you the two choices and

said buy this bag

or spend 17 hours with your friends

if you see it that way you may make very

different decisions leaves us with the

very big other illusion which is but

money is safety mo you know it's not

like i want money because i want more

fancy things i just want to feel safe

because the world is unpredictable

sadly when the world is unpredictable

money is not going to save you okay and

i think my story has been very very very

big eye opener i had enough money

i you know i had enough connections and

enough influence and i you know failed

to protect my child's life when it was

time for him to go right i you know i

think we know many stories of someone

that maybe falls and breaks your back

what will your money do for you safety

is a much bigger thing

than just a little bit of money in the

bank and by the way safety is an

attitude it's an idea to tell yourself

when i need it i will make it when i

need it i will have it perhaps the

answer is i don't need so much of it

anyway and i think

you know again like everything in in

life you you want to to have the skill

of making money money is is power you

know again when you were speaking on

slo-mo you basically said i love the

idea of being able to build this setup

for the podcast of spending on my show

and so on that's wonderful okay money is

power

but

it's power as long as you own it and it

doesn't own you

the minute money owns you and lack of it

starts to distract you and looking at

how much your your other friend has and

he has a little more than you you know

hurts your ego once it gets into that

realm

then money works against you it doesn't

work for you do you think it's a noble

cause that when i answered that question

and i said

um for me money is basically the fuel of

my mission it enables me to i said i put

on my my diary overseer live tour it

cost me about 600 000 pounds to book

these 10 venues to book the london

palladium for three nights to book this

massive choir of you know 40 people to

book this big music there was about 100

of us 100 people i had to book and pay

for to put on that show

at the end of the show i break even but

without the that tors you know reaches

almost 20 000 people it's the most

thrilling fulfilling and uh biggest

honor that i've ever had to be able to

do that in front of all of those people

and to share that message which is very

much in line with my mission

and i look at money and said if i didn't

have the money it would have been much

much harder not impossible but much much

much harder to do that

absolutely so is do you feel like that

is a noble relationship with with money

look uh

we agree on this

nothing is good or bad nothing is right

or wrong everything is both right and

wrong and everything is can be both good

and bad it depends on what you want to

do with it and one of the messages i

constantly tell everyone in the world is

absolutely become successful become

powerful become rich

because the biggest problem with our

world is that the most successful most

powerful then and the richest are the

worst of us

okay and i don't generalize and say

that's the truth but it's actually

easier to make money if you break some

rules than if it than it is if you're

ethical and so as a result of that

a good chunk of the big money in the

world is not super ethical right and if

if i have

more money i can fuel my one billion

happy mission and that's a good thing

for the world that's by the way owning

money not letting it own you right so

what if i if i can get to the point

where i make it and actually give it to

one billion happy then that's amazing if

i get to the point where i make it and

then suddenly go like oh let's wait a

little bit grow it a tiny bit and then

give it to

1 billion happy then i'm not doing the

right thing having said that

you know of course you know how i admire

you and respect you

this is your

zoom lens of the world okay for someone

else

four pounds

some sticky paper and a couple of

scissors and spending an hour with her

daughter doing something beautiful okay

is as impactful maybe even more

impactful than the entire show because

that one daughter

with the sticky paper and scissors might

end up becoming one of the most

pronounced artists in the world

prominent enough to change the world

with four four pounds scissors and a

piece of paper right now we we somehow

especially those of us like you and i

who

who had experiences in life where they

put effort and the effort rewarded them

okay we think

that we're the ones that are changing

the world or making a difference or no

we're not okay the reality is we need we

need to understand that

again i you know i admire you and i know

you'll you'll you'll not feel upset but

half of what you know is wrong half of

what i know is wrong

absolutely right and it's it's just an

attempt it's just an attempt with you

know

whether that attempt

uh uh steve is is is an attempt because

of money or is it it's an attempt

because you just

spend time with your driver talking

about something or you know

you you you were telling the story

all of those things

i think the game is

i'm going to do the best that i can

to acquire the resources that i'm good

at acquiring to direct them in the

investments that i have accessible to me

okay if if you are a cashier uh you know

at a supermarket and you're making

enough money to

spend wonderful time with your daughter

to be you know to to do a bit of art and

that in itself is a form of contribution

that changes the world and you'll never

know that one daughter might cure cancer

it's interesting i was i was bouncing

around in my head back and forward about

like

about the role that

a lot of my i don't know maybe my

traumas and insecurities are playing in

driving my decision making around these

things obviously putting on a big show

you have lots of people there that are

clapping for you there's lots of

admiration it's very like it's very

massaging of the ego so one might say to

themselves well i'm serving the world

when in fact it's more of a selfish

thing and you're like you know what i

mean it's that that constant battle i

find in my life where the the greatest

service that i do to others is also

woven in there with loads of like

absolutely insecurity so even this

podcast like i'm sure the people

listening enjoy listening i'm sure they

get a tremendous amount of value from it

but there is still this guy in me that

is so desperate to be number one and to

win right and it's almost i'm almost at

peace with the

conflicting forces because

i know

i think as we sit here the podcast is

number one in the apple store pretty

sure of that

and i know it wouldn't have been and it

wouldn't have reached as many people if

i wasn't someone who was desperate to be

the best

but i also know that there's this that

pursuit of being the best is also quite

an ugly one because it comes means you

end up sacrificing a bunch of things in

the pursuit of being the best that might

make you more fulfilled