and one of the thoughts that continually

gets me to the gym and continually makes

me show up and work hard

is and if you're good at it if you're

great at it

then you might just be great at

everything but for me that really is the

meaning of life

on this week's podcast we're going to do

something very different something i've

never done before but something that

you've requested time and time again

this week i posted online asking you to

ask me any question

about me my life my business whatever

you want to ask me

and i promised that in return i would

give very brutally honest answers

my team went through all of the

questions that were submitted and they

went through and picked ones that they

thought were most interesting

they've written them in my diary here so

i'm going to start from the top and

answer these questions with the

objective of giving you the most

valuable

honest advice that i possibly can so

without further ado

i'm stephen bartlett and this is the

diver ceo i hope nobody's listening

but if you are then please keep this to

yourself

okay so the first question is what is

the most important lesson that this

pandemic has taught you

or reconfirmed for you and for me

that is um it relates back to a podcast

i did at the start of the year and it's

that uncertainty is not predictable but

it's

preparable and i don't actually think

that's a word but here's what i mean

what i know for sure and this relates to

everybody is that your life

is of course going to be full of a lot

of joy and amazing things and

breathtaking moments and rapturous

moments of

of ecstasy right but it's also going to

be riddled with

moments of unexpected uncertainty and

chaos

joy is much easier to handle you just

kind of let go and go with it right the

good times

not a lot of action or thought required

but uncertainty and chaos require a real

rigid set of principles and

for me those principles over the last 12

months have become

acceptance optimism and action and these

three principles have a real linear

connection to the outcome you're seeking

without acceptance when bad things

happen

there's no optimism without optimism

there's no action and without action

there's often no victory or at least

victory is delayed and hard times are

elongated so when bad news visits

whether that's being unexpectedly

fired from your job or jumped by your

partner or evicted by your landlord or

losing a loved one in the case of a

pandemic

you have to do everything you can to

stick to these principles despite the

intense cloud of natural emotions that

will try

to convince you and me otherwise and you

know like i do

a lot of sort of introspective thinking

for a living and even

i am not immune from letting emotion

get the best of me in times of intense

chaos

i like no matter how much i've read or

written in my diary or how many podcasts

i've done

even i fall victim especially in the

short term

to all of those emotions and sometimes

to the the

instructions those emotions give you

which will lead you to um

to pretty dire outcomes so you know you

get dumped by your partner you

immediately think revenge right you get

fired by your boss you think

um you know i'm gonna sue them right i

fall for those traps too

and i don't think i don't necessarily

think it's the aim of all humans should

be to try and avoid

those emotions and that thinking because

i think it's quite impossible but it's

to be better at the response right to

shorten the time that those emotions sit

with you

and to be better in your reaction and i

want to clarify that acceptance when i

talk about acceptance it doesn't mean

being emotionless

it can often mean the exact opposite you

have to accept how you're feeling except

what's happened

and importantly retire from trying to

change the unchangeable

or from wallowing in regret and you have

to do everything you can to get yourself

to a place of optimism i see that as

your responsibility

people won't like me saying that right

people typically especially in hard

times don't like to delegate

responsibility to themselves

so as hard as it can be you have to find

and create hope for yourself

and have faith just like everything else

has in your life that this

too shall pass and then you have to use

that optimism

to drive you into action which is for me

the third principle that i've learned

over the last 12 months if your

partner's dumped you it's time to dust

yourself off and get yourself into the

gym

to fight back and i don't mean fight

backers in bomb their house i mean fight

back

in a mental capacity to stop stalking

their instagram to triple down on your

friendships and

your meaningful relationships to stand

tall and

weather the unavoidable emotional storm

and have faith

and acceptance sit by your side the

opposite

of these principles of course is like

denial is pessimism and is in action

and these are the principles of a baby

gazelle that's decided to fall asleep

with its toes dipped into a

crocodile-infested waters this is a

decision to lose twice and when i say

l right i mean loss and when unexpected

chaos happens like this pandemic which

smashes our businesses and destroys our

social lives and apparently steals a

year from

from our youth the first l we take is

involuntary

[ __ ] happened and you didn't choose it

totally out of your control i get that

but the fateful decision to choose

denial

pessimism and inaction as our response

is a voluntary second l what you're

choosing to increase the chances

that bad times will become even worse

times you can make the choice

not to lose twice the first l wasn't

your choice the second l

well that's the byproduct of of how you

choose to respond

acceptance optimism and action

and i guess the second lesson i've

learned this year is a lesson in the

importance

of prioritization you know this advice

of

which people often given i've often

given of protecting your time and saving

your time really feels somewhat

incomplete to me now because

it's like the first half of the sentence

you've got to then ask yourself

saving time to do what saving time just

to spend more of it doing the wrong

things

saving time to spend more of it being

more productive just so you can get more

work done

i guess better advice is to prioritize

better

if you told 19 year old stephen bartlett

just to save more time he probably would

have

said no to a couple of things and then

just spent that saved time

working alone in his office all week and

all weekend

and that advice would therefore lead him

to a less joyful more depressive

existence and if you told 19 year old

stephen bartlett to

prioritize better the first question

that comes to mind is

what are my priorities and my long-term

priorities as i think is the case for

all of us

are ultimately linked to the things that

make our life meaningful which

are friends the joy of work our

relationships the satisfaction of

pursuing our goals

the challenge you know achieving greater

freedom

knowledge the pursuit of knowledge

health and fitness and i guess i would

have reviewed the allocation of my time

through that lens i would have saved

time only on the things that aren't

connected to my

macro priorities and reinvested it in

better places

and this year because we've you know

been forced to realize what matters

in many cases um i guess

now i'm not trying to save time just for

the sake of spending it more on

optimizing my productivity

i realize that that's an incomplete

sentence and really the most important

thing is just to prioritize all of my

time better

and allocate it to those things that

ultimately will matter the most

okay so the next question in my diary is

how do i maximize

my earning potential let me tell you a

little bit of a story

based on a friend of mine and his

company my friend has

a business which is listed on the stock

exchange

in germany one of the very small stock

exchanges in germany

and having spoken to banks and from my

own knowledge of how the stock market

and the public markets work

him and me both know that right now his

business is worth 1 billion

dollars because of the stock exchange

he's on if he moves his business

to the new york stock exchange the banks

and everybody knows that the valuation

will be four billion dollars it's the

exact same company

the exact same team the exact same

products the exact same mission

everything's exactly the same

but because he's on the wrong stock

market because he's on the wrong stock

exchange

the value is 25 of what it would be if

he just took that same business

the same people in the same products the

same skills the same experiences

and just moved it to a different stock

market and i i reflect on this analogy

as a wider

broader sort of life analogy because if

i look at

my career decisions over the last i'd

say 10 years i remember working in one

call center

in plymouth in devon where i was getting

paid about four pounds per hour

and for whatever reason i decided to

move to a different

call center with the exact same skills

the exact same experience and i got paid

10

times while i was getting paid at that

call center and this is what i've

started to notice in my own life is

i've had this particular set of skills

whether it's social media storytelling

marketing brands whatever you want to

call it

for the last i don't know maybe six

seven years

and as i've moved into different rooms

and different markets and different

companies and different industries

i've noticed that that exact same set of

skills is valued

completely differently and this made me

reflect with that story of my friend's

business in mind

that one of the questions you have to to

ask yourself sometimes in life isn't

just

you know how do i improve my skills but

it's like how do i maximize the earning

potential

for my skills and where are my skills

going to

give me the greatest reward let me give

you another analogy just to just to

cement the point

my ex-girlfriend my ex-ex-girlfriend is

a flight attendant and she currently

flies for emirates right

and emirates pay they pay okay right a

lot of lifestyle perks there but they

pay okay

she's told me that she'll get paid

up to ten times more if she manages to

get a job flying on private jets

because of tips and things like that the

same set of skills

ten times the return for the same set of

skills

if she can move her skills to a

different theoretical stock exchange if

you get what i'm saying

and this is just like one of the the

principles i've learned about life over

the

really over the last year um because

skills i was paid you know x amount for

a couple of years ago i'm getting paid

10 20

30 40 50 times for the same

set of skills just because i found a

market where those skills are more in

demand

they're higher valued and they're

probably more rare

and so that's something i think we can

all ponder which is asking yourself

where your skills

will reap the greatest return okay the

next question is do you have imposter

syndrome have you ever had it and can

you relate

and then there's a little question

underneath which is and how do i shake

this off

here's the thing whenever somebody does

something that's

outside of their zone of comfort and

that they don't have a ton of experience

in doing

we all feel the same thing right we all

feel that sort of

low-key inadequacy or that slight fear

but the reaction that everybody feels

and the way that we label that feeling

is completely different i actually think

it's how you label that feeling

that determines how you perform in that

scenario so some people will say

okay this is an exciting challenge i'm

going to learn i'm going to throw myself

at it i'm going to use that energy of

that i'm feeling those nerves or

whatever it might be

to focus some people will say oh my god

and they'll implode and they'll

try and retreat back into their zone of

comfort right

and so the response to that the feeling

is human

the response to it is optional if you go

through your life

avoiding situations that give you that

feeling of imposter syndrome

then i would bet everything that i have

that you aren't going to reach your full

potential

i genuinely believe the feeling of

imposter syndrome is both healthy

natural and a sign that you're putting

yourself in a position

where you're there's pressure which will

make you grow

and i've literally i can't think of a

moment in my life if you look at any

sort of two-year period in my life

where i didn't feel out of my depth

however that feeling of being out of my

depth never meant that i retracted from

the challenge it meant the exact

opposite it meant that i attacked the

challenge

i put more hours in i focused on it that

reaction is ultimately the reason why

you can hear my voice now it's the

reason i have this podcast

i very very unfondly remember the first

day

ever where i tried to make a video down

the lens of a camera in the microphone

and oh my [ __ ] god was that [ __ ] show

my friend tells me we should make a

youtube video it's about something

political so i sit in his house he turns

the cameras on puts a microphone on me

and i sit there and try and get just two

minutes of

spoken word out down this camera of the

lens and i sit there for seven

hours so much so that at the start of

this two minute video it's light outside

and it's sunny it's like the morning

by the end of this two-minute video if

you were to watch on youtube it's dark

outside and you can see stars

it took me that long right that long

because i was sat there feeling like an

imposter people aren't gonna give a [ __ ]

what i think

i'm an idiot i'm not sat there sweating

and ultimately it was my decision not to

let that sort of

knock me back and to swerve that being

in that uncomfortable situation ever

again

that's taken me to this place today

where i'm doing this podcast and there's

all these people that listen to it we've

got this youtube channel and all of

these wonderful things

and that is the defining thing it's not

about avoiding imposter syndrome that's

a very human thing

it's learning the art of embracing it

quick one starting from the minute the

lockdown is lifted we're gonna start

bringing in some of our subscribers to

watch how this podcast is produced

behind the scenes

means you get to meet the guests meet

myself and see how we put all of this

together

if you want that to be you all you've

got to do hit the subscribe button

okay so next question is how do you do

things you don't want to do

i've had i've had this crosstalk in my

mind a lot lately and i'll tell you why

because

i've committed myself to working out in

the gym downstairs

every single day and i have been going

every single day

for many many months now i think the

first time i started going gym

consistently was actually

march last year when all of this

craziness was uh thrusted upon us

but some days as i've talked about this

podcast i know people get tired of me

talking about the gym but it's just a

place where you learn so much about

yourself and discipline

and and your body and your brain and all

of that

so i always refer back to it but some

days i just

can't be bothered i can't be bothered to

go i can't be bothered to train hard

when

i'm there and um in many ways that's

kind of like synonymous of life there's

so many things in life that i just don't

want to do

and one of the thoughts that continually

gets me to the gym and continually makes

me show up and work hard

is this principle i live by which is

comfortable

and easy are like really short-term

friends but they're long-term enemies

and here's what i mean by that

comfort in the short term makes me feel

warm and fuzzy but then it might lead me

to being obese and having arthritis and

having high blood pressure and having a

heart attack in the long term

so like comfort and easy i just view so

anything that's comfortable and easy

like super comfortable and is you know

inherently avoiding

hard work or discomfort i kind of view

that

that decision or that thing with

skepticism i think you're trying to [ __ ]

me in the long term aren't you

and i genuinely cognitively have that

thought process sometimes when

my brain flutters and flirts with the

idea of oh just skip it steve you know

you don't really want to do that just

you know get an early night and swerve

that thing um

i think that's going to stab me in the

back one day in 12 months time or

10 years time that decision to choose

comfortable and easy as my friends

well they're going to become enemies and

they're actually not on my side

if you're looking for growth my general

principle

is to choose the challenge i'm not

saying choose the thing that you [ __ ]

hate i'm not saying choose the toxic

thing that's going to destroy your

mental health

i'm saying if you're looking for growth

and you're looking to

achieve the future that you you know you

envisage in your mind your ambitions

then you should choose the challenge and

and that's the thing that i continually

come back to

every time steve you know it hits 6 30

and i know i've got to go to go to the

gym in half an hour

and i'm manically busy and everything in

my head is saying make an excuse

no one will know go tomorrow just tell

yourself you'll go tomorrow you'll do it

another time

procrastinate or when i get to the gym

and i don't really want to show up and i

don't

want to work hard the same little

thoughts whisper in my brain but then i

think maybe that's the enemy

is that has have those thoughts really

got my long-term ambitions and my values

in mind

they nearly always haven't and that goes

back to the podcast i did with neil

where he says that you know when we try

and procrastinate or we convince

ourselves to do the things we don't want

to do

it's because of some kind of

psychological discomfort because i know

that these weights are heavy

and i know that it's uncomfortable and i

know that i'm tired and

those are if you are able to overcome

those moments

where it's easier to quit those are your

growth moments those are in fact the

most

valuable moments and this again comes to

another point which i always think which

is

the moments where i want to quit right

the days that are the hardest to get

myself

up and going are probably by definition

the most valuable moments to overcome

because that's probably

again thinking logically where most

people decide to stop

so you know that's where the greatest

returns are and i it sounds like

fluffy [ __ ] in hindsight no i think

this i think i think that in the moment

i think it before i go to the gym i

think

yeah this is this is the day when most

people wouldn't go

you know after the week you've had right

so hopefully that helps and

the conclusive point here is like you're

connecting yourself to who you want to

be

in those moments you're reminding

yourself of the person you want to

become and this

you know i read this on twitter i think

nine months ago but it stayed with me

ever since which is

how would the person you want to become

behave right now

and if you ask yourself in those moments

how would the person i want to become

behave right now what are the decisions

the person i want to be

would be making um that's usually a good

way to decide what the best answer is

right hope that helps okay so the next

question is a very

deep question it's what is the meaning

of life

very good question something i've

actually pondered a little bit over the

last

over the last year or so as i've i've

got more into

elon musk's work and space and his

motivations for wanting to

to understand meaning he actually says

that when he was really really young

he started pondering the meaning of life

and actually made him depressed and it

wasn't until he read hitchhiker's guide

to the galaxy that he

found some meaning um and optimism but

to to answer that question myself

i would say the meaning of life is to

create and live a meaningful life

i know that sounds like a bit of a

cop-out right but

in what you consider meaningful is

totally subjective and nobody can tell

you what that is or what it isn't

but i think you can spot it

when you get that feeling inside

yourself that your efforts are resulting

in progress

or outcomes that feel deeply worthwhile

and fulfilling to you

in any facet of your life whether it's

raising your dog or whether it's your

relationships or your work or whatever

it might be

and some people find that sort of

connection and meaning in building their

businesses

in writing in hobbies or you know

training their body through exercise or

raising kids or practicing their

religion one of the most important

things i've learned on this podcast

from interviewing guests and asking them

about the toughest moments in their

lives specifically guests that suffered

with

depression i remember we had dan murray

on the podcast who

had lost his father and talked about how

it wasn't until he did ayahuasca and saw

that the world was interconnected that

he refound his meaning

and we also had ben williams on the

podcast who said he was suicidal and

considering taking his own life

until he saw an advert to be a military

commando and

went off on that journey to pursue his

his intrinsic

career ambition of becoming a commando

that he found meaning in his life and

stability

and also from writing my book there are

some just crazy

mind-bending studies that i read about

in the preparation for my book

that totally changed my my thought

process on this

one of them right is studying johanna

hari's work

and the work he's done to understand the

true causes of depression and anxiety

and his work continually points to the

fact that depression and these

depressive feelings and this sort of

lack of orientation in life comes from

people who have had something happen to

them often who have lost

a sense of meaning through trauma in

their life not what's wrong with them

not because of some sort of chemical

imbalance in their brain

the other really sort of example that i

just can't shake that's in my book as

well

is this study they call rat park very

very simple

they took a group of rats they put them

in cages and they took all meaning from

their life

literally just a white cage on their own

and they gave them a choice do you want

to drink

heroin water or do you want to drink

normal water

the rats that are stuck in a white cage

alone become drug addicts right

then they have rat park which is this

rat utopia where there's

you know female and male rats there's a

little running machine where you can

exercise there's food there's a space to

to roam around and to explore

there's toys for stimulation and those

rats

don't become drug addicts when they're

offered either heroin or normal water

they avoid the heroin

if you zoom out a little bit and apply

the same thinking to humans

the science says that over the last two

years the life expectancy had dropped

between i think it's 2018 and 2019

because of opioid related deaths because

people are getting addicted to opioids

and that's resulting in their death and

and again that is because we have an

epidemic of meaninglessness

of purposelessness um that's what my

podcast has

taught me and that's what um that's what

my research in my book has taught me as

well

commonly prescribed antidepressants do

work for some people i think it's

important to

to sort of caveat my points with that

but adding additional meaning

and connection to your life does seem to

be one of the most powerful

antidotes for those feeling lost

depressed and unhappy and lacking that

orientation

and just to relate it to what we're

going through now with this pandemic

you know a lot of my friends have been

calling me and telling me that they're

feeling down

right they can't particularly describe

what exactly is causing them to feel

down but over the last three months in

particular as the uk has gone into this

i think third lockdown

i've really grown concerned about some

of my friends and the advice that i

continually give them

centers around the point i've just made

which is to find things

that will give them meaning life before

pre-lockdown

gave you meaning you you wake up in the

morning you go to the office you've got

colleagues and friends and then you

you know you go to the the club you go

to what's your favorite football team

player you go and see your mum and your

dad your grandparents

life was full of meaning before now it's

been pulled from you

so now it becomes your responsibility if

you want to you know maintain those

good feelings to go and get that meaning

right to go and create that meaning in

your life

you can't assume that it's just going to

show up like it used to so we and this

goes back to one of my points which is

when you really have to fight back you

have to go and get it and

you know i'll give you an example that

relates to me personally

the weekends right so my team and me we

work you know in this building through

the week

the weekends come around i have [ __ ]

nothing to do i'm a single guy

i have nothing to do it's me and my dog

right and he's not

a barrel of laughs to be honest he's

very simple guy so

he doesn't do an awful lot and so what

i've started to do on the weekends is to

really take time to pursue some of my

hobbies

which i would never normally do i've

started to dj all the time i'm now

learning to dj i do a dj lesson every

single weekend via zoom

i'm reading books that i used to love

reading philosophy books and i'm doing

this

actually not because i want to but

because i know i have to keep my life

full of like intrinsic

passions and meaning especially at a

time when so much of that has been

robbed by this pandemic so that's the

long way around the houses but for me

that really is the meaning of life

to create a meaningful life and um as i

say

in these times it's more important than

ever that you fight for that meaning

okay so the next question is a really

really great question which is

what is something you miss about being

poor that you think you'll never get

back

the stoic people used to talk about this

concept of

hedonistic adaptation and the hedonistic

treadmill and i'll give you

an example that's really easy to

understand i remember at 23 years old

when i took my first flight to thai i

think it was 20 21 years old

to thailand with my business partner dom

and i remember getting on that plane and

just like because because i'd never

really been on a plane before other than

when i was a baby coming over from

africa

i remember like being so in awe of the

fact that we were on this like

metal ship that was flying across the

ocean and they were like giving me

snacks and free water and do i want to

coke and i'm sat there in the economy

section

just like oh my god right

totally like full of like joy and

appreciation for everything

and the principles of like hedonistic

adaptations say that once you've been

exposed to a certain level of joy or a

certain level of like

i don't know gluttony or like you know

um material possessions

your satisfaction starts to decay over

time

and obviously as i got you know more and

more money and i got on flights every

week and then eventually i upgraded to

business class and then like first class

and

you know even got myself on a private

jet a couple of times your appreciation

for the small things

wanes the stoic people would take the

good things out of their life

as a practice just so that they would

appreciate them again and i think that's

one of the things that i definitely miss

i've got nice things all the time and

that is a

blessing and a curse imagine some rich

guy talking about

he's sick of nice things but there's

there's truth to that like you you lose

appreciation for

for things that used to mean so much to

you and when you look at

hedonistic adaptation in the hedonistic

treadmill you now require

even more to give you that same level of

thrill

and joy and satisfaction that's a really

sad thing it's kind of an unavoidable

thing to some degree

but with all things in life you can

really make a conscious effort to be

grateful

and to take moments not to let life pass

you by all these wonderful things pass

you by

so the other point is you know there's

that phrase ignorance is bliss and it

totally applies to

this question as well when i was 18

years old and i thought the meaning and

point of life

was to buy fast cars and to have a

million quid in the bank account and

to pursue those kinds of things there

was some bliss to that

i thought i had it figured out i thought

i understood that the pursuit of greater

happiness was just

more stuff more money and that was quite

blissful i didn't have it now

at 18 i didn't have it so i thought okay

that creates real meaning in my life

all i have to do is get more money and

then my life will be more meaningful and

you know full of joy and then upon

getting the money i realize that that's

not the case

and i i remember watching an interview

by the founder of

spotify danielec where he says the exact

same thing he's an insecure kid growing

up bit of a geek

and then he gets all this money not from

spotify but from the business before

and he has this deep existential crisis

where he's like

oh my god this wasn't it and

he had to then go on the journey of

finding out exactly what mattered to him

and i i'm still on that journey like i

still this is why i talk so much about

meaning and purpose in this podcast

because

i'm still figuring out like where i

should be prioritizing my time in order

to reap the greatest returns as it

relates to fulfillment

and i i think i didn't think about those

things when i was 18 and i was broke

but getting what you aim for is the best

way to find out if it's actually what

you wanted

and i was this young kid chasing

material things and and

probably passion mistaking it for

happiness as i got closer to it it moved

off into the distance like a

like a mirage or something or a rainbow

we all know that guy who like you know

has a two bedroom house

um in a small area he's married to his

wife one kid two kids

um looks forward to you know going to

the pub of the weekends and supporting

his favorite team

those individuals who live the most

simple lives and who are happier with

less

to me from my experience generally seem

to be much more fulfilled

than my friends that are successful

billionaires and my friends that are

billionaires

but also intellectuals and sort of like

low-key philosophers

are the most [ __ ] right because they

really have

got pretty existential and ask

themselves what is the purpose of life

that's what i mean by ignorance is bliss

and my third point in answer to this

question relates to

challenge when i was 18 years old

starting out in business living in moss

side in manchester

i had absolutely nothing i just dropped

out of university and i'm basically

stood at the bottom of this big

ambitious mountain that i've told myself

i'm gonna climb and i've told myself i'm

gonna accomplish

and i'm looking up at it excited

terrified

um but hopeful and yeah excited that's

that's the key feeling and then you

climb the mountain right the mountain

for me was like financial freedom it was

accomplishment

maybe for my ego it was like recognition

to some degree i have all of those

things now

and so when you get to this point where

you've

accomplished many of your goals you have

to

make a very conscious active effort

to create new even bigger goals goals

that will

match the same level of excitement and

challenge

that you had when you're 18 and it's not

easy because you don't become

financially free twice unless you lose

it all

right so my goals have to be way bigger

to give me that same level of like

hunger and uh grit and you know

determination that i need um to

to to to stay stabilized and to be to be

happy

and i guess it's a crazy thing to say

but to some degree

i miss like not being at the bottom i

miss not having those

massive this just mount everest in front

of me

and this is what i've seen in you know

many of my friends who are entrepreneurs

and even some of my idols is

when they get to that point when when

elon sold paypal or when

you know bill gates sold microsoft they

then go and take on some of these

tremendous you know philanthropic

challenges it's no surprise that every

billionaire becomes this crazy massive

philanthropist and tries to take on

some of the world's most existential

problems right it's no surprise

that elon is doing you know trying to

save the planet and take us to a new one

because he will not be able to find a

sense of fulfillment and happiness

in doing another paypal he just won't

find it and in many respects this is why

i think people who are tremendously

ambitious

have a bit of a curse i've spoken to a

lot of my friends that run businesses

you are obsessive about progress and

challenge and ambition and

reaching the next milestone and i think

a lot of them would actually if they

could just press a button

and trade their life for a much simpler

life someone who doesn't wake up every

single day and

check their whatsapp for 30 different

messages about their business on fire in

five different countries if they could

press a button and live a simple life

and be content in that life i think most

of them probably would

many of them would if they wouldn't

maybe they're twisted enough not to not

to realize that the meaning of life is

to be happy so if i gave them a

happiness button

maybe some of the psychopaths would

still opt for their current life

i've got one particular friend in mind

who i won't name

who sat me down about two years ago and

he's very very successful he's

probably a billionaire by now and he

confided in me that he wished his life

could be simpler

he wished he didn't have the level of

ambition he had he he

told me this one story about going

around to someone's house and they're a

very very normal family with not very

much at all and they just sat there

drinking tea and he said

i was sat there thinking i wish this was

my life this is a billionaire

with more sports cars than i've ever

seen in my entire life in one driveway

wishing he had a simpler life but

realizing that he is

infected with this virus which many of

us have

the ambitious the most ambitious amongst

us which stops you from

being happy with out pursuit

and without climbing that mountain

breaking news i have a new favorite

flavor of huel

about a month and a half ago they sent

me in the post

this white bottle with this sort of

sharpie red pen on it that said

top secret and i took it out i sipped it

probably shouldn't have because if

people send you things in the post like

that you probably shouldn't drink it as

your first reaction

you should confirm that they sent it but

i took it out i drank it

and it tasted amazing and now i'm i'm

very happy to announce that my new

favorite flavor of the hule ready to

drink

slow release carbs 20 grams of protein

vitamins minerals 27 essential vitamins

7 grams of

fiber per bottle is banana

which has just gone live on cure

and my friends know that i'm a massive

hulu again so they've been messaging me

all this week saying steve how good is

it is it good

and i've been telling them this is my

new favorite flavor which i think says a

lot so barry is now number two

and the new banana flavor ready to drink

huel

is my number one so yeah give it a taste

it kind of tastes like banana milkshake

but um banana milkshake isn't usually as

nutritionally complete so that's win

win win try it fiverr fiverr.com

i've talked about this a lot in this

podcast and um i just wanted to give you

a bit of an update i've

really really got into using fiverr over

the last couple of weeks and i think

if i was to estimate i've now had six

different

tasks completed on fiverr in the last

four weeks i've had two website builds

i've had

two decks made from designers that are

all around the world one is in venezuela

the other one is in

iceland i've had one logo made and one

video made

and to be honest i just wish i knew

about fiverr sooner in my career because

i think i would have been able to

accomplish more

in a much more cost-effective way okay

the next question i have here is what is

the most valuable skill you've learned

and how does that serve you now

um my mind bounced around to a few

different things when i read that

question but it came back to this this

this one

answer which kind of summarizes all the

other little points which is

sales and i genuinely believe sales

however you kind of want to define that

is the single most important skill in

the world i don't mean like selling

rolexes out your coat or

selling double glazing to a grandmother

on the phone

i mean the art of being able to persuade

other people to take an action right and

this is a skill that you will deploy in

a nightclub when you meet someone you

fancy

with your teams when you're trying to

build businesses with investors

every time you communicate in some

respect if you're trying to achieve a

certain outcome you are a salesman or

woman

and the art of being a good salesperson

is broken down into a bunch of different

factors there's

an understanding of you know having the

self-awareness to understand

how you're coming across having the

awareness to understand what the person

you're speaking to is after

it's how you carry yourself it's your

body language it's the way you speak

it's the energy you bring when you're

talking it's all of these small things

which are

very hard to to train into somebody but

for without shadow of a doubt sales is

the most important thing because

it's the skill that i use every day the

most right

and i want to answer the question like

how did i learn how to sell things i've

raised investment maybe 20 times maybe

more

probably more if you consider some of

the road shows i did when we took our

company public

one of the most important experiences i

had in my whole life was

i started working in a call center in

plymouth when i was

16 years old selling double glazing at

everest call center

and then i did that job until i was

about 18 and then moved to manchester

dropped out of university and then my

next 10 to 12 jobs

were all in call centers whether it's

because of my voice

or because um because of my skills with

selling i was just so good at that job

and i genuinely believe that that tele

sales experience i've had and i

genuinely would work in a telesales call

center

for three months make so much on the

bonuses that i'd quit this is why i've

had 12

teddy sales jobs i'd quit i'd spend the

next two months trying to build my

business

i'd then go back to another call center

make huge bonuses then i'd quit and i'd

keep doing that

but i genuinely believe that that

experience working in call centers

where you're honing this particular

skill which is calling someone

usually completely cold out of the blue

and

having to persuade them in less than a

minute to give you a chance or to buy

immediately

but to give you a chance to sell them

something that they didn't need

we all [ __ ] hate tele sales people

including me i just hang up immediately

these days because i'm so time poor

but if you got a chance to do one job in

order to improve your sales skills i

would highly highly recommend you do

either that

or even better which i did again when i

was in plymouth

door-to-door sales because that

introduces sort of

body language and other sort of more

physical communication skills

which uh which are even more relevant to

the world we live in today so

yeah sales is definitely the most

important thing and i often say to

people when they're

when they tell me that they've got an

offer to take one of two jobs

i'll often always prefer the sales role

especially if they're young and they

need to develop in that area because i

think it will

yield the greatest returns over the long

term i think getting good at selling

stuff

when you're young will yield tremendous

returns as a skill as you get older and

as i said at the start

sales applies to everything everything

and if you're good at it

if you're great at it then you might

just be great at everything

or at least be able to convince people

you are okay so the next question is

what is my greatest weakness and when i

first read this question

um a bunch of different things came to

mind in different sort of parts and

areas of my life so

i'm just gonna share as many of them

with you as i possibly can the first

thing that comes to mind

is i'm really bad at prioritizing

against the things that really matter to

me and i know that will matter long term

i've talked about this a lot in this

podcast i don't call my parents enough i

don't see my family enough

i probably don't give enough time in

person to like

meaningful friendships and connections

and those kinds of things and i know i'm

completely totally convinced that those

things are really really important

it's not that i don't understand the

importance of them it's that like my

work priorities always seem to be

just one you know one step higher on the

to-do list

my work has urgency to it there's no

urgency with calling my mom

right and that's kind of one of the

things i know is a weakness in myself

that i that i continue to strive to

to be better at is trying to prioritize

things that aren't urgent

but in the long term are really really

important the next thing

is in relationships i'm like really

self-centered i

i just want to do what i want to do and

i like

i am generally like really unwilling to

compromise

and that's an awful thing because

relationships are all about compromise

apparently so i've been told many times

um but i know it's a weakness of mine i

am

kind of like i kind of live the world in

my own head and if i want to just get up

and go and dj or walk down the street or

go in my room and just look at my laptop

and watch youtube videos doing that is

quite

hard when you're in a relationship and

you've got someone else to consider you

have to consider what they want and

you know the things that they want to do

that day and and also

in relationships generally i don't want

to do much because nine to five like

throughout the week my brain is [ __ ]

chaos so

on the weekend i'm not really all up for

doing much you know that's my down time

and that's become a real weakness of

mine and it's made forming

romantic relationships harder because on

the weekend i don't want to get out of

bed and if i do i just want to do some i

just want to do nothing

or something very very simple but the

problem i have there is through monday

to friday

i've spent all my time on my work so

saturday and sunday by definition like

logically have to be the time that i

commit to you as my partner so this is

why

i i continually struggle in

relationships because monday to friday

it's not about you

and on the weekend it's about me it's

about me and my down time watching

manchester united play

and i have to i have to learn to

compromise i'm sure a lot of people can

relate to that

the last thing would be because i'm so

mentally bombarded with a billion things

i have to do at all times

over the years the one thing that i've

definitely noticed in myself is i get

more and more

arguably rude

and to the point which is like when at

the start of my career i was very

i had more time and there were less

things like less tabs open in my brain

so i could take more time about how i

respond to things and i could be a

little bit more

fluffy and soft and whatever but when

you have

tons of urgent priorities your brain is

so funny i was i was talking to a friend

about this this morning in fact

and i was just giving some feedback to

one of the teams i'm working with

at another company because the ceo had

basically got in touch

and requested that all comms become much

more streamlined

because when we when the team were using

extra words

he basically to some degree gets you

know gets a little bit frustrated with

that because we're trying to move fast

as an organization

and i totally related to that i noticed

myself getting annoyed when anything

takes longer than it should and

this is something that's really changed

like totally changed in the last couple

of years

so i guess the thing that i have to be

aware of is that even in the situations

where i'm just desperately trying to

save time

is that i don't compromise on being a

decent human being

and i can't explain to you how hard this

is because we tend to have a philosophy

for how we act and how we behave and

that philosophy sits deep within us and

it whether it's a landlord showing me

around a new apartment or a new office

or whether it's an email or whether it's

a phone call

the philosophy tends to be the same

right and you it's hard to switch

between different philosophies

so i tend to treat very personal things

sometimes

in my personal life whether it's a

landlord showing me around an office

with the same rapid urgency

or my mum having a conversation with me

with the same rapid urgency that i might

treat business things and i need to get

better at like switching between the

context and

behaving differently in each scenario

and realizing that in some scenarios

the saving of the time is not more

beneficial than just remaining a decent

person and like engaging in the

situation

it's hard and i say it's hard not just

because of my own experiences

but i've seen pretty much pretty much

i'd say over 70 of the highly successful

people i know

become so incredibly impatient that it

almost verges on looking like rudeness

like they don't care about you um and

like they are

not present when you're with them now

this is a really hard point to explain

but i think people who are incredibly

busy will understand this

over the last couple of years i've

noticed that i've got incredibly

impatient with

um any request i get and it's something

i've noticed not just in myself but in

some of my friends who run very very big

really really sort of ambitious global

businesses who are constantly bombarded

with stuff

they are some of the most like

anti-social slightly rude people i've

met

you just can't get 10 seconds of their

attention and like just to give you

context of what's going on in my head

now

right now as i'm making this podcast i

know that i'm missing this phone call

with this pr firm

i know that i've got this major ipo

coming up with this one company i know

i've got this board meeting coming up

with this company i know i've got this

ipo coming up got this other

conversation about joining this board

and this other ip coming up

and i've got all these other personal

things going on in my life and this you

know i've got to record this podcast my

brain has just got all these tabs open

so when my pa walks up to me and she

goes hi steve how's your day going

you know shall i buy pablo some dog food

it just

it's just it's almost the only way i can

describe it is the question is like an

irritant

um and what you what i've got what

learnt over the years is like

i have to understand that people don't

understand

and i have to try and respond on that

basis which sometimes

especially when i'm like really tired

can be a challenge um something i've

really

tried hard to work on but i'm still like

really not that great at is

remembering to be like gracious and just

a decent person

irrespective of what's going on in my

head and treating people and being super

polite and trying to be my best self

every single day

in every interaction you know i i talked

on this podcast

once upon a time about the day i got on

a plane i sat in business class and i

look up and it's that guy from man

versus food

and we were running at the time one of

the biggest food publishers in the world

love food

and so i messaged the love food team

there was about 150 people that got this

message in the social chain chat at the

time

they said oh my god that guy from um man

vs food is on the plane

and they all said okay go up to him and

ask him this like famous social chain

question we have which is what's your

favorite sandwich

long story short when you join social

channel you get asked the question

what's your favorite sandwich

so i jump up and i walk over to his seat

in business class and i say

hey uh um i got quite boom shuts me down

not right now

like shouts in my face so i like slowly

tiptoe back to my seat in business class

i'm like slouched down

and then i have to message 150 people

saying oh by the way that guy we all

really like is an [ __ ]

um and he would have had no idea that he

was speaking to somebody who ran

at the time the biggest food publisher

in the world and had

hundreds of employees and at some you

know some point in the future might have

wanted to do some business with him or

work with him but now thinks he's a

total

[ __ ] and this for me that moment i'll

always remember

of as teaching me how important every

interaction is even the ones that don't

seem that important

um and i try and bear that in mind if

you've ever come and watched me speak

anywhere in the world which i'm sure a

lot of you have because i was a bit of a

speaking hoe over the last couple of

years

then you would have known that i never

ever would leave a venue before

everybody's got a chance to like

take a photo or meet me or ask me a

question i would be the last one to

leave my own talks

um because i that's the way that i would

want someone to treat me someone that i

followed and admired

that's how i would want them to treat me

and i'm scared of being an [ __ ]

um yeah and it's much easier to be an

[ __ ] when you're

when you've achieved some level of

success right powerful people find it

the easiest to be an [ __ ]

they can therefore also probably do the

most damage by being an [ __ ] but also

get away with it a lot of the time

i believe in being a good person as much

as i possibly can be and i'm like

clearly

imperfect in many many ways and i still

struggle with this but i'm doing my very

best to be a good person

um and to be kind and to you know

to never forget who i am and where i

come from okay so the next question is

i'm scared to post my business

online at the risk of failure or

humiliation

do you have any advice this is a very

interesting thing that i don't think

people talk about enough

especially when they're starting out in

business which is how do you overcome

the sort of public transition from just

being steve

to now being this entrepreneur who's

running this business and raising money

and

giving people advice and has has a

podcast how do you like square that with

especially in your friendships and your

personal circles with the person that

they

they knew first right and when we

started the business when we started

social chain my business partner dom

who's come on this podcast to talk about

it

was ridiculed by his friends privately

like

you know those kind of jokes that people

do where it's like a joke but it's also

not a joke

so he would post on his facebook page

saying we've just started social chain

just about this business it's going

really well or whatever he'd say

and like five or ten of his best friends

in the world

from his hometown would jump on there

with these kind of snide

jokey like patronizing

bantery comments uh but they were like

inherently mean comments

and i remember back in the day

continually jumping into his comment

section and trying to defend him and i'd

get some of my other friends to jump in

there and just be a bit nicer

he was posting his achievements and

being like ridiculed with like

not funny kind of funny banter and for

me as i reflect on what that actually

was

and the psychology behind his friends

and knowing his friendship group back

home

i'll be completely honest i think his

friends saw him changing

and somewhat didn't like who he was

becoming because

his success kind of alienated them and

nobody this is just a principle of

psychology that i've actually written a

little bit about in my book

people are most envious of people

who they can relate to so if you're you

know colleague at work or your friend or

someone your age is achieving

huge amounts of success and they look

like you and went to the same school and

came from where you come from that

inadvertently shines a mirror on you

it means you've got no excuse and that

your you know

success or lack thereof is probably a

consequence of your own actions and as

humans we just don't like that thought

and so dom's my business partner dom's

social circle back home many of them not

all of them there was one or two key

exceptions

we're trying to rein him in and saying

you know you're one of us

stay here don't become something that we

can't resonate with

and if you find yourself in the scenario

that dom did you basically have a really

simple choice to make it feels

complicated and it feels like a bit of a

minefield but it's not

the central question and the most

important question you have to ask

yourself

is who do i want to be and what makes me

happy

whether and this is a point you can

extrapolate to any sort of area of your

life even those outside of your career

who do i want to be and what makes me

happy and decide what that is

and pursue that thing anybody that you

lose in the pursuit of your happiness

is probably not someone you needed or

wanted in your life anyway they're

probably not someone that had your best

interests

which by definition are you being happy

at heart

they're probably someone who was riddled

with a little bit of jealousy

who didn't want you to become everything

you could become so that's the framework

in which you make your decision which is

who do i want to be and what makes me

happy

pursue that and be open to losing people

who no longer resonate with you pursuing

your happiness

along the way and i distinctly remember

going through this myself which is

facing

ridicule and banter and little snide

comments behind the scenes i remember a

day

where i posted something on facebook

like one of my quotes whatever it was or

some of my content on my daily vlog and

a friend of a friend

had made some snide little comment about

like who the [ __ ] does steve think he is

the friend had told me and it's those

moments where you can make that decision

to like fall back in light

line and conform and to avoid criticism

had i can you imagine my life if i'd

done that if i'd let a couple of

comments

stop me from pursuing my my career and

producing all this content which gives

me so much intrinsic joy and fulfillment

can you imagine if i let the fear of a

few comments

hold me back from my potential and the

things that make me happy

i'm so glad i didn't and in that

particular case

where that guy was ridiculing me behind

my back that same person four years

later

um when he went through some troubles in

his life and some mental health issues

reached out to me

because he was in love with my podcast

now and

uh met me in a sushi bar in london and

just sat there and asked me advice

because of something i'd said

on the podcast that he initially

ridiculed

and that kind of shows that that teaches

me a lesson that you know even some of

the people that ridicule you at the

start

you've kind of got to forgive whatever

it is in their nature

that's making them try and hold you back

but you've also got to understand that

it's not a you problem it's not your

responsibility to control what people

think of you in their head or

the image that they've created of you in

their mind that's not your

responsibility your central

responsibility as a human being is to

pursue

your happiness your truth and the things

that give you the most intrinsic joy

that's your responsibility and one of

the things i've come to learn about

success generally in life is that it's

the small

seemingly invisible seemingly

insignificant decisions

piling up over time that have the

greatest impact on you

it's not our big life choices it's the

small ones the ones that are easiest to

do or not to do

and it's the same with bending under

public pressure or criticism it's easy

if you see a friend of a friend slagging

you off just to stop doing that thing

if you allow these small seemingly

insignificant comments just

nudge you just one day at a time away

from the person you want to be and the

person you want to become

can you imagine how far you're going to

be from that person in 10 years time

it doesn't bear to think about people

ask me for book recommendations all the

time

and i finally got one for you it's a

book called happy

sexy millionaire which is authored by me

there's this crazy thing when you write

a book because you spend so much time

pouring your heart and soul into it and

everything you know and all of the

revelations you've had in your life

and then there's this barrier which is

that people have to buy the thing

in order for them to get that thing that

means so much to you i wish that wasn't

the case

it's just the way the industry is and in

order to get that distribution and to

get it on shelves you need a publisher

so

please please please if you can if

you've ever liked anything i've

ever produced this podcast my instagrams

anything i've ever said

read this book there was no ghostwriter

i wrote every single word myself there's

some real surprises in there it's an

honest sometimes hilarious incredibly

vulnerable

hopefully valuable recount of my life my

journey

everything i've learned across across

the way and really the answer to being

fulfilled to being happy and to

achieving success

it is the most important important thing

i've ever created so i implore you to go

to amazon now or wherever you get your

books

and get that pre-order if you get that

pre-order i'm going to put you into a

group with everybody that's pre-ordered

it

and i'm going to send you some exclusive

stuff so the first things i'm going to

do is a series of voice notes which i

think

are um are going to be pretty powerful

i'm going to give you access to some

tickets which nobody else will have

and i'm going to do everything i can to

thank you for for giving me that sort of

nine quid of your money or whatever it

is

happy sexy millionaire you can pre-order

it everywhere now and if you do get that

pre-order please do dm me because i'd

love to thank you myself

thank you so much for listening i feel

like i didn't i i don't say that enough

to all of you guys it means a ton

to me and honestly there'll be little

moments where i'm in the street or in

the gym or someone will say something

about the podcast

and it just puts this tremendous fire

under my belly to continue to do it

it requires a huge commitment and the

driving force behind that commitment is

all of your feedback

if you're listening on youtube hit the

subscribe button if you're listening on

the

the spotify or the podcast or hit the

subscribe button it means a ton to me

and it's more fuel for this movement um

and yeah it's the reason why we can keep

bringing you these episodes

and i'll see you again next week for

another installment of

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