i was failing that was the point for me

where i was like

i need to do things differently

the hardest thing i've ever done

it's james smith great talking personal

trainer he's helping you get confident

some see james's curse-filled rant says

confrontational oh james got me a

narcissist

james good to see you again

self-esteem and confidence is decaying

when you're at that place of feeling

that you don't have enough confidence

it's actually a crossroads it's a left

and a right action and inaction whatever

you're not changing you're choosing

dating is such a big topic because

people either don't have the confidence

required to meet someone or they might

not have the confidence to leave someone

we're allowed to be ignorant of these

things and we're allowed to be wrong but

it doesn't mean we shouldn't endeavor to

get the best possible outcome

what are you not confident about i

constantly have these battles in my head

why did i create this fast why did i

have sweat patches from such a simple

interaction of being uncomfortable i

have the same insecurities the same

fears feelings of inadequacies

sometimes my biggest fear is

losing is not the same as being defeated

you have to be audacious you have to put

your head above the power pit i'm sure

i'm going to be absolutely slammed

saying this

so without further ado

i'm stephen butler and this is the diary

of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but

if you are then please keep this

yourself

[Music]

james good to see you again thank you

very much for having me back it's uh

it's i gotta say we don't have many

guests back but um our conversation was

so

inspiring and

surprising to me

when i messaged you the other day and

said if you're ever back in london i'd

love to have you back on and then i

learned you'd written a book about

confidence

why did you write a book about

confidence

well

it's kind of interesting that through my

entire career i've

learned something personally and then

i've

you know taught other people kind of the

processes so the first book not a diet

book i went through years of fitness

industry [ __ ] we spoke about before

and kind of by the end of it through my

own journeys i was like i could teach

people about this and i didn't want to

write a diet book system i was like

let's you know break down everything put

it into a book then the second book

offer i was like i can't do another one

if i'd written a second book about

fitness it would have said a lot about

the first you know when people do

sequels things i'm like oh you must have

done a great job

and i kind of realized by accident that

my work-life balance was pretty good

and wrote the second book a lot of the

things we spoke about in that last

podcast were based off not a life coach

now

the kind of strange thing that i say to

people is i'm not a very confident

person

i have the same

insecurities the same fears the same

feelings of inadequacies as the majority

of people but i kind of have a

set of values and a way that i see these

problems where i can break them down and

dismantle them and

in the book in the first chapter i say

a lot of people sit back and they think

other people are confident as if it's a

trait like height or

people said it's a superpower but

straight away i actually typed that in

the first part of the book i was like

confidence is a superpower but then

superpowers aren't accomplishable by

mortals it's almost something out of

your reach

and i'm a big believer that confidence

can be within people's reach and

even chatting to people in the same

profession they have a problem or a fear

of judgment of whatever it is and

if i spend five minutes with that person

i can motivate them to

post on social media to

prospect more with their business

whatever it is and i've realized it's

not something people are lacking it's

more so the way they perceive and view

their reality

what are you not confident about people

i think would be surprised to hear that

you have insecurities and inadequacies

and there's things you're not confident

about everything body image which is why

i ended up going down the first

huge

10 years of my life with not a diet book

i was overweight as a kid

even now i constantly have these battles

in my head through

how should i look what should i be doing

shall i be dieting and i think that's

why a lot of people resonate with what i

say because a lot of what i say to them

is also for myself

a lot of

you know i say to people that i know

this is how you're feeling so that's how

i feel myself

and

it's it's an interesting one even with

dating with professional life some of

them i feel like i kind of got lucky i'm

not a massive believer in luck i kind of

tripped over some of the steps to

becoming confident and

even working in door-to-door sales where

working for npower in gloucester

knocking on hundreds of doors a day

it allowed me to perceive issues in

front of me as a numbers game and then

at the average of knocking on 100 to

make a sale suddenly things didn't seem

so daunting and people go oh you need to

be really confident to knock on doors

for a living i was like well not so much

if you appreciate there's a certain

amount of times you need to do something

before you experience success it's not

so scary

email marketing

i knew email marketing would work i sent

emails every day for 10 months no one

bought in 10 months someone bought

finally so it was an appreciation of the

numbers social media

four and a half years i posted near

about every day before

i made any money from it things

aren't so much scary or to be feared

it's how you look at those things in

front of you that really kind of

break down the fear because we're all

capable of doing things but we like to

almost push things further away than we

can reach so that it gives us a reason

not to do it one thing that really blew

my mind

is i had

liver king on the podcast right

this is a man for anybody that doesn't

know him who is

jacked he walks around with us with his

top off

um he's very you know direct and loud

and apparently confident

but at the very end of the conversation

i asked him to tell me something he's

never told anyone before

and what he said blew my mind he said

coming on this podcast today and

speaking in front of people cripples me

to the point that i can't sleep and then

he tells me that between the age of 10

and 14 years old he was bullied

horrifically beaten up every day had no

friends and i i was trying to put the

pieces together that

um

and you kind of allude to it at the

start of your book when you start

talking about the different types of

confidence that he might be confident in

some ways but

the

social confidence was literally knocked

out of him at 10 years old so in social

situations where there's a chance of

rejection from the crowd which is what

happened to him in school he is still

crippled to this day it appears to me

that

there's a real variance in people's um

social confidence which is originates

from their like early

self-story

and really that early self story i'm

trying to understand how much of that

determines

our confidence today because there's

tricks and tips and the five second rule

and all this stuff but if how do we

really have to go back and fix that [ __ ]

that happened to us at 10 years old on

the playground no i don't think so and

that's kind of the important thing i

don't think it's like a trauma that we

need to hold dearly to ourselves but

like you say so for instance if you were

to say james says 3000 people out there

need you to perform a talk with no

preparation i'd like cool but if you

would say hey there's a girl at the bar

and i need you to go approach her on a

friday night and try and get a number

that would be like that's that's scary

to me so it's it's kind of like double

standards like you say some situations

everyone has a certain lacking type of

confidence even the most confident of

people and

that could be because when i was 12 the

first girl asked out said no it could be

that or it could be because i've done

more talks and i think that

at the root core of everything is is a

form of repetition and

people that aren't confident to do

things

they need to find

something they have the level of courage

to do and get to that point and for

instance that's something i don't need

to work on and as i'm in a relationship

i probably shouldn't be working on this

either but if i i'm petrified of talking

to a girl or or a guy from any women

listening or either either for whoever's

this thing

maybe i don't have the courage to ask

for the number but i might have the

courage to go say hello or to compliment

them or to you know do something

chivalrous and if people can then do

that

then maybe from there they can move on

and i think

is one of those things where everyone

has like a gaping hole in their

confidence and for liver king it's an

interesting one at first i was actually

very anti-him because he is obnoxious he

actually has a very similar approach to

what i do like in your face this is what

i believe in if you don't believe in it

that's cool

but

i can sometimes look at him and

appreciate that a lot of people

are not being who they are they're being

who they need to be and i feel i

resonate with that side of him where as

i'm sure you realize on social media i'm

very much like listen mate you know do

this calorie deficit you know [ __ ] off

all of that but really i'm not like that

i portray the person i need to be

it's one of those things where a lot of

the time people need to appreciate that

maybe everyone around them is fearful of

everything like you but they're more

focused about being who they need to be

not worrying about who they are

in the the start of this book in chapter

one you you investigate this idea of

pain points as it relates to confidence

what do you mean by pain points so we

could look at this in the form of sales

as well so i cannot sell to someone

unless i understand their pain points

and i use an analogy that probably is

the one i've had most experience with

with people in the gym they come they

sit down hi james i want to get fitter i

want to lose a bit of weight i want to

tone up and i'm like that's not really

what you want that's not a pain point

that is

a knee-jerk reaction to what you think i

want to hear

when you delve a bit deeper they go up

my husband stop [ __ ] me you know

every time i stand up in a meeting i've

got to pull my top down over the layers

of flap that i have

i don't feel confident in areas of my

life that i should because i'm so

crippled by the confidence i have with

my physique

i'm not taken seriously the pain points

are deep and people need to draw on

those because

the day that you're getting out of bed

and you feel like [ __ ] and you're tired

and you want to give up

i want to be toned isn't going to do it

the fact that your real pain point is

that you're lonely and you're getting

older and you're worrying about the fact

you might not find a compatible

companion ever

that is a strong enough pain point for

you to change

being more toned isn't so

interestingly for some you know i know

people that are in that exact same

situation

and i've debated for many a year whether

someone's you know the situation you

described that i'm getting older i'm

lonely i'm scared i'll be alone forever

i know people in that exact exact same

situation that are exhibiting the fear

of the consequences of a life lifelong

loneliness

but they still don't do anything about

it

is there such thing as like wanting to

want to be someone

is it i'm not sure to answer your

question but

one of the things i would say to that

person is

you're in the and i'm only using this an

example i think dating is an analogy i

love to use i actually use it when i

talk about business talks i say

marketing is like dating you know and

we won't get down that too much but you

look at the person at the bar you you

feel the fear

rather than counting down from five five

four three two one oh my god i've got

the confidence let me go talk to them

they could instead just for a flash of a

moment just think to themselves i'm

lonely i don't want to be lonely what

out of these two things is more

uncomfortable for me the idea of going

another week another month being single

or the idea of talking to a stranger and

surely when you add and level those two

things up the pain point of being lonely

should be much worse than the pain point

of talking to a stranger

if you feel undervalued at work the idea

of talking to your boss and expressing

how you feel that's a pain point you're

like you know that's going to make me

feel uncomfortable

but then the pain point of feeling

undervalued and not being given the

bonus you were promised a year ago you

level them up and you're like there's

always

two directions in which you can go and

you've tweeted and mentioned this before

you say saying nothing is still saying

something

doing nothing is still doing something

and

they also say whatever you're not

changing you're choosing

and these are really important because

that person and again

same analogy whatever it is when you're

at that place of feeling that you don't

have enough confidence it's

actually a crossroads it's a left and a

right it's a dichotomy of action and

inaction

and if you

are controlled by fear and you don't

muster the courage to do what you need

to do especially by using the pain

points to motivate yourself you are

choosing an action by doing nothing that

is a choice

and

people just seem to think that you know

not starting the passion project not

posting or s

expressing something on social media

they seem to think if they do nothing

that it's a void in our reality but it's

not it's still a choice of an action i

used to think of like people ask me

about confidence a lot and it's taken me

quite some time to develop my thoughts

on it because you know when you i think

level one of the confidence

um

[Music]

self-help guru is like

look yourself in the mirror and tell

yourself you love yourself like that's

like step one and then eventually

hopefully your thinking progresses when

you find the holes in that thinking and

then i arrived at the conclusion that

confidence

as we kind of

like say it talk about it in culture i

know there's multiple definitions and

lots of nuance but confidence as we

describe it in culture is really just

um is based on the evidence you have in

yourself like all beliefs are based on

evidence-based subjective correct or

incorrect evidence

and

therefore if it is evidence-based

the only way to build your confidence is

to go and get evidence

um

and i say this because there's a lot

there's a narrative that you can just

kind of like write down in your book or

or look yourself in the mirror and say

i'm gonna be confident i'm gonna be sexy

i'm gonna be a millionaire which i don't

think is

factually supported by how other beliefs

work

so confidence so when i started writing

the book i wasn't sat there like i know

everything about confidence i was sat

there going

i couldn't answer if you were to say

james what is confidence when i start

writing it again i don't know so that's

why i was so excited about writing it

but one of the

interesting kind of

ways that i wrote about it in one of the

points was if you imagine confidence on

a spectrum with anxiety on one end and

confidence on the other

anxiety is predicting failure and

confidence is predicting success

and

that is a really important thing to

think about because

our expectations

massively influence the outcome of

things and like you say there if people

just go into a room and go i'm you know

i'm amazing i'm whatever it's not really

going to work

even as one of your previous guests said

about interrogative self-talk asking

yourself questions is a more positive

thing

instead of saying i can do this podcast

today and do well

i asked myself can you do well on this

podcast today me answer oh do you know

what i did all right in the last one it

got a lot of downloads so it is one of

those things that is in so many

different spectrums and it has so many

different meanings but

a lot of it points towards predicting

success in things and even if you don't

have the evidence to predict success

we should be able to be wrong

if there's something i want to

accomplish

i can't let my mind and my thoughts take

over i must in some sense be

overconfident and predict success but if

i'm wrong that's fine but what i can't

do is just set

every single

default to being this isn't going to

work because

if you don't think something's going to

work you're already tripped at the first

hurdle and

there's a guy david robinson written a

book called the expectation effect

and in that book

they

got a group of people i can't remember

how big their study was but they lied to

them and said this group have got a gene

that is going to hinder their turnover

of oxygen and this group over here

doesn't they got them to perform fitness

tests and the people that were told they

had this gene mutation performed a lot

better the other people who didn't and

even just being primed with a lie

completely changed their output in a

fitness test so

schools don't teach confidence society

doesn't really breed confidence because

although on one hand confidence is

essential for innovation if we don't

have confident people you know elon musk

he was confident enough to say that

rocket we could land it back on earth

and you would know you know you're crazy

but

society doesn't care if you're confident

or not society doesn't care if you talk

to that person or not society doesn't

care if you get a pay rise no one in the

world is going to come along and care

about your levels of confidence it's

something we need to do ourselves on in

that example of them priming to you know

there's being two groups and they tell

one of them a lie and then the one that

believes that they have a genetic

advantage performed better right yeah so

is is that not the case then for lying

to yourself

so fake it to you make it

i don't particularly like that

terminology in in the book i write about

it because

what's your what's your metric of

success in that to fake it until you get

recognition for something

i think

with that and with the book and with

expectations you've got manifestation

and the placebo effect and they're

intertwined but they're both separate so

manifestation i think is a very

dangerous thing where people think i'm

just going to think about success you

know i'm going to meditate about success

i'm going to get it

but then things like the placebo effect

is also a powerful thing

sham surgeries that were performed on

people they would be cut open they would

do nothing they'd stitch them back up

and up to 50 of people reported feeling

better that's crazy when people take

or 30 people that took the vaccine in

the trials that were given the

no vaccine felt ill afterwards because

they thought they were going to feel ill

i've seen as well i didn't put this on

the book so i couldn't find the study

the size of the pill you take as a

painkiller even with placebos can impact

the levels of pain that people

you know report disappearing so although

we can't say you know i just you know

pretend you're going to be confident

pretend all of this in the same sense we

do need to instill a level of belief in

ourselves that we are able to accomplish

stuff and

if we try

and we falsify that optimism and it

doesn't work out we create another

building block to step on and

behind everyone who's an expert in

anything there is a level of mastery and

failure is put in such a negative light

in society but failure is the

most cases the pathway to development so

even if we do

you know point the dial towards optimism

if things don't go right that's fine

we're allowed to be wrong we're allowed

to make mistakes you're allowed to try

that endeavor that you want and for it

to all [ __ ] up i think that i was just

thinking about that then the i guess the

difference is with the placebo effect

you don't know that it's a lie whereas

if i look to myself in the mirror and

said you are in fact jesus christ i

would know that that was a lie and so

placebo i guess you know the placebo

effects stuff can work and even in that

operation they didn't know they were

being lied to in that in those two

control groups where one of them

believed they had a genetic advantage

they thought it was true the problem is

we can't actually lie to ourselves and

the the example i always give sometimes

when i speak about confidence on stage

is like if i had your mom in a headlock

and i was pointing a gun at her and i

said you have to believe i'm jesus when

she dies everything's on the line and

all you could do is pretend you couldn't

actually believe i was jesus if

everything was on the line you could

only and so

that for me was the clearest

evidence i needed that i can never

really lie to myself about who i am

it doesn't have to be a liars it could

be even just a change in narrative

so

i remember so many times throughout my

life just before i was about to go on a

date with a stranger which i found

incredibly daunting it's one of the

reasons i drank on dates for

the first 25 years of my life

but that voice in your head you don't

have to lie to yourself but the voice in

your head goes what if this is the worst

day i'll ever go on

but all you need to do is change that to

say what if this is the best day i'll

ever go on that's all i'm saying

and

that is a change in expectations it's a

different change in thought it's a

different perspective on your reality

that's upcoming i don't think we should

ever lie to ourselves but we should at

least turn the dial towards optimism

because

we are

inherently

pessimistic with our with our biases

audacity you talk about that being one

of the most important things um

you describe it as being at the

forefront of any of the successes you've

experienced in your life what is

audacity and how do you define that and

what role is it played for you i had a

lot of opinions in the fitness industry

but by airing them you open yourself up

to a lot of criticism you open yourself

up to hatred

five years ago i don't think anyone bar

a couple of my girlfriends hated me all

right you know no one now there are

thousands thousands of people

because you have to be audacious you

have to put your head above the power

pit to really you know put yourself

forward even as we said before with this

podcast

you had to be audacious one day as

someone who'd never done a podcast to go

we're going to do a podcast in here and

you you had to sit there and believe for

a second we're going to make this the

uk's leading podcast

and in some respects

behind anyone's

level of success there was an audacious

endeavor at the beginning

whether it was to do a podcast whether

it was to start a business whatever it

was and i think that

that's again something that's not fully

bred into people you know or someone has

an idea you know go put that idea out

there be audacious with it you know

don't be afraid to be wrong don't be

afraid of critics and

ultimately for me

something that i kind of understood was

there are going to be a lot of people

that are never going to be interested in

what you're doing and they're never

going to be interested in

a book that i release or whatever i

can't take their criticisms to heart

and fully understanding that

there are people out there that are

going to dislike me but i can't worry

too much about that because they're

never going to benefit my net equation

they're never going to come to a talk or

buy a book or anything like that

so audaciousness is like a

an essential element for progress in

this but you need to be armed with

understanding that you're going to be

haters that there are going to be people

that are going to

not like what you say or what you do and

there's quite literally no one out there

that doesn't get criticized for

something so audaciousness does have

that dark side to it but

for people again

being audacious with your endeavor what

if it's the worst thing you ever do then

again what if it's the best thing you

ever do

since you came on this podcast last time

i've been asking guests a similar

question which which is about this in

ingredients list of happiness have you

ever heard me say this to anybody i've

heard you say it but okay

just won't just ask that just in case

you had a premeditated response but the

question i ask people is um if happiness

was a list of ingredients

on a

on a recipe um in different weights and

quantities what is missing from your

list of ingredients that would make you

perfectly happy oh john i haven't

thought about this i haven't thought

about this at all

i don't really look at my life and go

what's missing and even

some things i could say was oh you know

a permanent visa for australia

but i quite like the fact it's not

happened yet i'm looking forward to it

if it does come and even if i don't get

residency in australia i kind of relish

the challenge of what i would have to do

to then get it again so all of the

things that are lacking from my life

also seem like little challenges that

i'm excited for

but honestly i know a lot of people have

a facade for happiness

i'm progressing in everything that i'm

doing and as i said before even on the

back burner i love jiu jitsu i'm

competing a bit at the moment i teach

classes

on a friday evening i have that and

so much of my values does revolve around

my work the book doing well my

professional life but then also at the

back burner i've always said this that i

could just get a dog

open a little jiu jitsu dojo with my

savings put it near the beach somewhere

hopefully in australia and i could just

teach people jiu jitsu for the rest of

my life and i look at that and i go

on some days that's better than my

existing life you know so it's one of

those things where i don't really dwell

or use any mental or cognitive ability

thinking about

what's missing i don't think that's a

productive way to use cognitive effort

i think i am i sometimes question the

balance of things in my life and i

i sometimes i wonder whether it's

society telling me that i that the

balance is wrong or whether it's you

know your girlfriend telling you the

balance is wrong it happens a lot

um or whether it's you know something

else but i think more in terms of the

balance of things so for example i might

be going to the gym too much or i might

be

working too much or i might not be

working enough

and those are the kind of things that i

i think i spend some time thinking about

usually upon getting feedback

i foolishly

for a long time used to say that i was

fortunate that i'd never struggled with

mental health problems and in some

respects that's true because there is a

bit of a throw that dice with how you

know our baselines of certain hormones

or whatever in this trauma that can

occur in people's lives

but a friend of mine who suffered with

depression quite heavily he said to me

you are not aware of your habits that

protect your mental health and you need

to go away and think about the things

you're doing to actually

you know uphold this because

the way i see mental health now and this

could be quite controversial is like a

table like the one in front of us with

many legs and the legs can be completely

subjective am i going outside enough are

my family relationships good enough

how's my professional life how's my bank

account whatever it is

and you can kick away one of the legs

and you'll be okay but people if they

don't realize that legs from the table

are disappearing it only takes that one

final kick before it topples over for me

being comfortable

not working too hard not traveling too

much not stretching myself too thin

is something that is really important to

me and

i haven't

drunk in probably about six weeks at the

moment and as i'm getting older i'm

really losing and diminishing my

relationship with alcohol because

when i was younger my values for

happiness didn't sit around productivity

i could play xbox all day but as i'm

getting older my values are changing and

productivity is so important to me the

drinking alcohol now inflicts that

and even now i think to myself sometimes

drinking makes me less happy because it

negates my levels of productivity and

it's only as i'm getting older that i'm

starting to realize how important that

is to me

and i think that when we're younger we

don't quite see it that way we kind of

look to

use alcohol and especially in the

context of confidence

people

can buy bottled confidence and they buy

it in the version of alcohol because

it breaks down those social

struggles that they have it makes them

feel more confident or more importantly

it makes them care less and as long as

we have alcohol available to us people

don't need to work on their inadequacies

when it comes to social interactions or

having the confidence to do things

when you talk about productivity in that

context of you know you value it more

now than ever do you mean professional

productivity in all sense whether it's

having the energy on a sunday morning to

go you want to give me tennis you know

i'm rubbish at tennis but i like you

know you know when you throw a ball for

a dog how happy it is that's me chasing

the tennis ball around the tennis court

i'm awful but i enjoy just doing that or

productivity with work where so many

times i'll be in the shower and i'll

have an idea and the idea really excites

me

and people around me know that when i do

have an idea and i want to do it you

have to leave me alone to kind of hash

it out especially if i have a video idea

we could be going for breakfast if i

have a video idea i'm almost like

i can't enjoy breakfast while i've got

the idea in my head

when i'm hungover or tired or you know

on the road with tours and book signings

or whatever if i'm trying to burn the

candle too much i lose that spark to be

able to have these creative ideas and

four or five days into a stretch of not

having anything creative come in i feel

the pressure i'm posted in a few days

and to me that's important that i stay

on top of those things and you know be

creative and come up with new ideas and

i even have a set of standards it's

pretty peculiar where

i do look through my comments sometimes

although i know comments are the most

poisonous place to go the weight of one

negative comment outweighs 100 positive

but when someone says that's your best

video yet i've accomplished something

that's what i want

so

when i do go these long periods of time

without being productive in that sense

it starts to drain on me and i'm

starting to think

what am i doing

that's making me happy that's taking

away happiness from other areas of my

life professionally would you consider

yourself a workaholic

no but that could be denial because

i like working

and

it's it's a difficult one now where i do

have to distinguish things where i can't

watch a film on my own because i don't

see it as productive but if i watch a

film with my girlfriend that's fine

because i'm it's almost like a blocked

out on the calendar professional time

but then

at the same time i do like having down

time to train jiu jitsu skateboard to

the beach have a dip i'm not like on my

phone all the time i do like leaving my

phone in my car when i do stuff

but

i couldn't think of anything worse than

retirement this is why i kind of feel

everyone is

not brainwashed because i can't expect

everyone to have the same values as me

but when everyone's like oh you know buy

a house pay off the mortgage in 50 years

you can retire with that and i'm sure

that's great some people my dad loves

being retired but me that's my idea of

hell to wake up with nothing to do or no

problems to solve i think people

underestimate the human beings for

thousands of years have been problem

solvers with much worse problems than

what we have today

and the idea of just stopping that at a

point in time just drives me crazy but

then

i'm not sure if i'm just potentially

wired differently to other people and

you talked about your girlfriend

you've been in a relationship for how

long now

over a year

so did john i've always been very

skeptical of talking about relationships

on podcasts because by the time they go

out i'm no longer in a relationship so

is is one of those things but yeah i'm

incredibly happy and i think that

there has to come a point where

i actually did a magic mushroom trip uh

probably two years ago and about eight

of us we sat by the beach um we just

thought [ __ ] out and what was crazy was

if we went and got trolled on alcohol

and you know were absolute

caused chaos that's legal but for eight

of us to take some magic restrooms and

sit and think about life and share what

we're experiencing people that was

illegal

and

i had time to reflect on

i do see different areas of my life like

races and i like to be in competition

with people that don't even know i'm in

competition with them for years i'd have

a list of social media competitors that

i'd never spoken to and i'd worked

tirelessly to beat them

uh yeah and you know what

there was an element of envy and

bitterness and that fueled me in some

respects but

i sat there on the beach and i thought

to myself

what if you win the race of having the

most money and the most notoriety and

the most you know fame

but your friends that did the nine to

five and work to retirement got the wife

and the kids and the happy life and also

my mom and dad my family is very you

know traditional i thought

what really are they going to prefer me

coming home in a ferrari or me coming

home with a family and that was a really

big insight in my mind to

what's important to you that i impressed

my family yes because i want them to

think that their investment of you know

even now 33 years is gonna pay off and i

want them to one day sit back and go we

did a good job so it's very important

that i please my parents and i thought

i've really got to make sure that i

don't finish the race of life and have

the money in the fame and realized that

i was in the wrong race

and that was such a big epiphany for me

and i realized at that point that i was

going to have to work harder in

relationships

how many relationships did you have give

me a history of your sort of dating

track record someone just sighed in the

background over there no

i never really respected them or took

them seriously because

i thought that my young 20s and even my

mid-20s were

more important to accomplish other

things it was only as i got to my late

20s i realized hold on maybe these

values

might be good for

professional life but they won't be good

further down the line in 10 years time

in bondi there's a lot of

wealthy older men they've got the sports

cars and the young girlfriends i don't

envy them at all i don't ever think oh

i'd love to be 40 with a 25 year old

girlfriend i don't ever think like that

but

i think it's just been one of those

things where

carol dweck

in her book mindset talks about a fixed

mindset

um and an open mindset and i appreciate

that for so many things you could come

in today

with so many problems of the business

and my mindset is let's do this let's do

this we'll do this we'll turn this up

we'll do better on this we'll be fine

but with relationships i was very

fixed where if something went wrong i

was like ah

this this is your fault and we should

stop this right away and you can

appreciate in some people's lives when

things get tough they either take the

option of developing and becoming better

or they blame other people and

discontinue and i was fixed and i only

kind of realized that when i was older

and

the negatives in your 20s are [ __ ] a

relationship aren't that severe if

anything i was like oh i get to work

more you know i have more time to myself

how long was your longest relationship

probably about a year okay so the the

current relationship is up there with

your longest ever don't tell either but

extra pressure on it but yeah it is and

i think that

especially there's some crazy things

going on in society where

there are more women over 30 without

children than under 30 and i think that

that's that's a statistic that chris

williamson brought up on jordan peterson

when they had a chat and i was like

we're all

not appreciating family life

like the generation before us and i

don't think it's important that we take

their values as our own

but i think it's very easy like a kind

of rip in the sea to get taken out

without realizing that there's so much

in our lives that we can prioritize that

aren't the most important things

and my friends have got married and had

kids and families very early

there are some that feed the

confirmation bias or don't get married

right or you know but the majority of

them are very happy and just before we

started talking

um i was going to mention like the

things called the inner citadel where if

you can imagine that someone

uh for whatever reason is this in

response to the question asked about

monogamy yeah okay so before we start

recording i asked james if he believed

in monogamy so imagine you've got

someone who injures his leg and they

have to chop his leg off i might butcher

this what i'm saying

he then might

end up being angry at people that have

two legs and make up his own reason

actually do you know what two legs is

wasteland you know you don't need that

you only need one leg and because

something didn't work for him or his

his surroundings didn't suit what

happened to him he decided to tear

everyone else's down so when we talk

about monogamy

where there are people that are in open

relationships i often look at them and

you know i was going to say without

causing a fence [ __ ] them

who hurt you you know like at what point

did

is a societal structure being monogamous

but it's because there's a huge benefit

to doing that you're talking about

sacrifice you're talking about you know

primitive urges or whatever it is but at

the base of that you get to support a

family better so

i believe monogamy is good for

loads of reasons i do believe in it and

also my mom and dad are still together

they're each other's first girlfriend

and boyfriend

but i do find that people that come

along and try and tear down your beliefs

of monogamy

they're the people that it didn't work

for them so they want to burn the system

same in the dieting world where you've

got plus size models promoting body

positivity

i think there's some absolute credit to

that i'm a personal trainer so i cross

viewed that six-pack but

i think to them

they got [ __ ] over so much in the

pursuit of trying to get in shape that

they decided to tear the system down for

everyone else you know because it didn't

work for them they have to go around and

influence the way you see it

so i think that's one of the kind of

ways that i see things like monogamy i

think for the majority of people it's

perfect

but you're still going to get

well i'm assuming here but going to get

temptations and you know when we think

about the monogamy discussion i had this

conversation with my friends the other

day

there is

i'm going to stitch them all up i don't

care there's six of them

and it's split down the middle whether

they believe in monogamy or polygamy um

or whether they believe i wouldn't say

polygamy is necessarily that some of

their beliefs it's more like

is one partner for life the right thing

is marriage the right thing or do you

have like a child with somebody maybe

and then

the future you're probably gonna end up

with somebody else um the stats around

around this are showing i believe

that people are struggling to stay in

marriages

um as society develops

how how do we not

like are you not scared that

you'll lose the thing how do you not

lose the spark so remember we said about

the expectation in fact if you go into a

relationship expecting that you're gonna

cheat or you're gonna break up i don't

think that sets a good foundation for it

again i would like to go into a

relationship and potentially a marriage

or whatever

fully believing in it but being happy to

be wrong and if i get divorced later on

in life as long as i tried my hardest

and i committed i can take that i could

take that as a loss or whatever it is

but

somehow in this debate we've lost the

ability to try your hardest at something

and you know what

if 10 15 years down the line you do lose

it be amicable about it don't destroy

someone's life and make them feel like a

piece of [ __ ] because you cheated cheat

them or whatever instead just call a

spade a spade and be like look

we might not be the same people we were

when we met

i think people should try the best and

try and build a stable home to bring up

a child because that's what i've been

exposed to and if it doesn't work it

doesn't work i also don't think the

people should force the marriage at the

point that it's broken because i think

that two people under a house that

resent each other trying to bring up a

family it's probably better off just

having parents in two different

households and get more gifts for

christmas or whatever it is but do you

think cheating is a lack of discipline

in some respect and you know what the

majority of it yes because we do get

urges and i think you know we're we're

[ __ ]

we're monkeys in suits right we we are

chimps at the end of the day we are

organized apes

we have come from a lineage of [ __ ]

each other up for so long like you go

back a hundred years a thousand years

the wars that we've had all humans have

ever done

is get territorial on bits of land and

kill each other right savages you know

you watch braveheart you're like wow

imagine being a imagine being a soldier

back then or you watched 300 and you're

like wow these guys were spearing each

other been going for lunch

so

you know we are forcing our dna and who

we are into this kind of preset mold of

you know do you take you to be a lawful

of course there's going to be a lot of

people that don't sue that i think at

the moment as well there's so many

options

there's so much availability so many

secret places to slide dm

linkedin private message or your house

app that could be used like tinder

whatever it is no idea you could do that

one so how's that

neither did i

yeah [ __ ] so like uh there's there's

so many different places that avenues

people can go you know back in the day

if you wanted to take someone for a date

when you've got a wife you could be seen

out you could be seen you know talking

to that person i think the repercussions

of being a [ __ ] house are probably a lot

less severe now and

i think that

the way society is going is worrying it

is definitely worrying that there are so

many options and what was that website

was it ashley madison

it was a dating site for married people

all right so if you wanted to be like

look we need to be hidden away at a bar

and have millions of users so straight

away i think it was brought down by that

hacking group anonymous or whatever i

could have got that wrong but

so there are so many people it could

also be

other things like a lack of confidence

in your partner it could be a lack of

confidence in your relationship it could

be all these things but

in my mind

i think better that you you go for

something that feels right if you're

someone that sits here and goes i do not

want to get married i'm not saying you

know it's going to fit everyone but i

think if you're someone that

importantly there are sacrifices and

when i look to get married it's not just

about the relationship i have with that

person it's about creating a stable

platform to bring up children but again

we're almost bred in society like we can

never be wrong ignorance is not a bad

thing we are all ignorant to so much the

majority of people couldn't tell you

anything really substantial about

history you know we don't know that much

about so many things i don't know what

the motorways are called in the north

all of these things so we're allowed to

be ignorant of these things and we're

allowed to be wrong but it doesn't mean

we shouldn't endeavor to get the best

possible outcome

i am i remember my girlfriend said to me

one day in it you know when your

girlfriend says something you kind of

rubbish at the time you deny it and then

later you're thinking about it it's one

of those things she said to me she was

like do you actually want to be in a

relationship or are you doing it because

you know it's the right thing to do it's

a very important question

and it's and it's funny because a lot of

what you were saying was related to you

know you know you should it's the right

thing to do etc but deep in your core

you know you talked a little bit about

the fact that we're all monkeys and what

would the monkey want to do

would do you actually want to be if you

could have an alternative option would

you choose the alternative option where

you have the upsides of the relationship

and also the upsides of being single is

that what you believe most

most people would choose i could be

getting this wrong as well but there's

something called the hot cold empathy

gap i think that's what it's called

where when we're angry it's very hard to

imagine being calm when we're hot it's

very hard to imagine being cold when

you're in one state of consciousness the

opposing state feels very hard to

reconcile

so

when you're single and you're [ __ ]

strangers and you're feeling very numb

afterwards and thinking why the [ __ ] did

i do that post not clarity uh as a lot

of people call it you're thinking car

what i do for a relationship what i

would do to

[ __ ] someone and want them to stay you

know but then when you're in a

relationship you get the opposite when

you're in a relationship you're thinking

oh it could be nice to sleep with a

stranger or whatever it is

i think that we're always they say grass

is greener is very you know cliche but

we're always looking at that opposing

sense of feelings how we're feeling now

and almost curious about it

but i think there are dangers of you

know say you do want to open your

relationship you're opening the door to

catastrophic things should they happen

and

i think that there is definitely like a

a

hard hard wiring side of things where

you know if you want that sense of

freedom on your side cool but they're

going to probably need that sense of

freedom on theirs and yeah it might seem

like a good idea now whilst you're in

the position of only slept with one

person for five years but then when you

experience the polar opposite

realization and reality what if you

realize you made a grave error you can't

undo seeing or knowing or experiencing

that so

again i'm not i'm not they're like this

guy's been in a relationship but yeah

he's giving us all advice no i get it i

i think i've arrived at the same

conclusion i read the game that pick up

artists book and then i read his sequel

to it where he realizes that like much

of what the way he'd chosen to live and

live was wrong you know he becomes the

best pickup artist in the world he then

tries polygamy and realizes polygamy is

actually not the right approach and

doesn't need to happiness and then

decides the monogamy

um and generally when i think about all

the things that are worth it in my life

they come at a

a sacrifice

there's something else i have to choose

instead if i want a six-pack can't

choose waffles every day if i want

waffles i don't get the six-pack and so

the six-pack itself is in fact just a

story it's a story of sacrifice of

discipline it's a story about who you

are and that's why it's perceived to be

valuable i think

for me a relationship is is valuable

because it's a story of commitment and

all the other things you said no to to

say yes to this that's part of what

actually gives it its intrinsic value so

and the six-pack is valuable because

it's hard to obtain that's why we give

it value and the story around the same

yeah they're hard to obtain now they're

they're difficult it requires work like

a six-pack exactly and you've got the

temptations whether it's a chocolate

cake or a single person or maybe not

even single but

you need to really have like a clear set

idea on on what you want and again to

lean on your values and it's interesting

you say about the book the game you

realized in the first

the the call to action wasn't so much a

system but a belief in a system

and there is every chance that the

systems i've put in that book

might not actually hold any weight but

if someone believes they will they could

end up working a bit like the game you

tell someone this is how it works they

have full faith in it and

it's an interesting one that some people

just need to know that it can happen and

for instance

i talk about the link we spoke about

confidence and anxiety confidence and

inspiration also sit

on a parallel with each other because

to get inspired by someone what we

really do is getting confidence from

seeing it happen

so you think about someone like joe

rogan started off with being audacious

he then inspired us by allowing us to

feel more confident about the chance

that that could happen

and

there are two trails that people go with

this and this was really interesting

when i wrote about it people see your

success this success the podcast they go

two ways one they're bitter and they

[ __ ] want to hate you for it or two

they're inspired and you without knowing

it are projecting confidence into the

lives of hundreds of thousands because

you're showing them it can be done i

think it was nelson mandela that said

no one believes it's possible until it's

done and a good friend of mine lucy

lloyd she

bought me a little

card that had it on it and gave it to me

and i stuck out my window when i first

got to sydney

and

it's so important that people do try

their hardest endeavors like

relationships because without knowing it

they're going to be friends even your

group of six people in that group

that you're inspiring them without even

knowing it and inspiration doesn't mean

you have to be the best relationship in

the world but you're showing people it

works

so

i think that the buck doesn't just stop

at sacrifice it also my parents would

have inspired me my dad said the key to

a happy marriage is accepting you're

wrong even when you're right

you talk a lot about dating in them in

the book at different times

chapter six you talk about dating apps

again and your relationship with dating

apps and

how uh

you've been you've had kind of like an

on off relationship with dating apps

when i was thinking about writing my

next book one of the topics i was going

to write about was modern dating because

it appears to me that there's a

generation that have kind of been caught

in the technological transition almost

so what i mean it's it's really it's a

very big topic and when i was writing

the book i was thinking [ __ ] this isn't

the dating book mate there's gonna be a

lot of married people reading this and i

say to them two things i go one

there might be something in there that

doesn't change your life but it could

[ __ ] change someone else's right and

even if you don't have many friends you

could instill that in your kids or

whatever it is and

dating is such a big topic because it is

actually an incredibly big pain point

because people either don't have the

confidence required to meet someone or

they might not have the confidence to

leave someone and

when i spoke about the sunk cost fallacy

people remaining invested in something

purely based off their previous endeavor

whether it's time energy resources

there are so many people out there that

if you ask them why they're with their

partner they give you the amount of time

they've already invested i've been

within four years yeah do i throw it

away so you're already giving people

confidence to leave a relationship and

if you think you've got professional

life home life and health there's three

things

a lot of advice we need to give people

is around dating and

it's been

maybe three years since i've touched

alcohol on a date

because i realized how much alcohol

skews the dating scene as well and even

my girlfriend won't mind me saying this

but

it got to the point where i would drink

to kill nerves before a date and you

might meet someone and straight away

look at my god this isn't going to work

but then three drinks in you oh kind of

all right and then before you know it

you shagged a stranger on a weeknight

you're hungover at work and you put

yourself off dating again because you

know that when you first met them you

didn't want that and the next day you

did and you you're painting dating in a

negative light and

even how i met

my girlfriend now

i would say to people

let's meet and do something whether it's

going for a swim in the sea going for a

walk have you got a dog trying to get a

coffee and i actually like the idea of

moving with someone the two places i

find the most

uh

organic conversations are driving and

walking

driving when you're not sat facing each

other and it's not quite so

interview-esque people really open up

and they're also in a place that's very

relaxing for them and when you go for a

walk and there's movement involved i

feel it feels less interview-esque you

say to me like let's remove dating out

the context i want you to sit with a

stranger and drink alcohol with them

with a small chance they'll be

compatible like no

imagine you know that's ludicrous i

don't want to do that but when you break

it down again like the fear and

insecurities whatever okay if the date

is too much what about getting an ice

cream at the beach okay that's something

i can do and as long as you're not

trying to lose weight

doing a swim on a monday an ice cream on

a tuesday a coffee on a wednesday people

will think you're a bit promiscuous but

you know i mean

then you can get more dates in and again

we're going back into my marketing

analogy

surely seeing five people in a week for

20 30 minutes each is going to be better

for your

general building of prospects than it

would be getting smashed on a thursday

night and shagging a stranger you're

never going to talk to again so even the

way people perceive dating can be hugely

changed and you talk about dating ups

there's one in london it's called

thursday yeah i know yeah where was that

when i needed it

because there is so much small talk on

social media where

oh yeah what you're doing this weekend i

like that idea but

it's giving us one of many walls we can

hide behind because dating is difficult

and it removes sorry i've got a

boyfriend fake numbers

which i must have given my number wrong

uh

people are hiding behind that and

confidence isn't like an award it's not

like a trophy that i give you to go on

your wall well i don't see about it

you're confident it's more like fitness

where if you stop training it you'll

lose it and you'll lose it a lot quicker

than you probably would expect so

people don't realize that

with so many things they're paying into

this bit like fitness but like going to

the gym or going for a run and when you

put up this massive stop like i'm going

to use dating apps although some people

do

find love and

meet their forever person on there

without realizing it they are reducing

them their ability to train that area of

them a bit like when you maybe don't do

work for a week you go back and sit in

front of your laptop how does this work

again

so there is a negative

definitely

that goes along with the positive like

newton's laws where you've got all this

convenience on one side you're

definitely breeding weakness on the

other what is it that you

when you know that someone isn't going

to fulfill what they say they want to do

what are the cues of that like i was

just thinking because i'm thinking about

a particular friend who continually says

says they want to go to the gym and they

continually say they want to change

their life

but there's just no

um there's but there's been no change in

like 10 years

and as a friend i'm getting like

exhausted by you know sometimes i'm like

i talk about a lot in the podcast with

when i have psychologists and stuff on

i'm like am i overstepping my mark for

even wanting to

help them it's a difficult one i'm the

same where i've actually found myself

turning into an [ __ ] yeah i don't

want to be an [ __ ] with my friends

because i feel like maybe there's that

point i'll get to where i finally will

click and then i realize i'm actually

ruining the relationship a little bit

amen i'm like are my friends now

resenting me because i'm trying to help

them

and

yeah it i had a bit of a not falling out

actually having a chat with a friend and

he said to me oh it's all right for you

and we were living together at the time

and i said well i didn't live with

someone who had a [ __ ] million

followers when i was starting my

business

you know like and i said that to him and

i said when i was starting out as a pt i

didn't have any friends i could lean on

to do stuff and i was trying i said i'll

do anything you want for you to start

this business i'm here for you you can

have my instagram for a week and promote

your business whatever it is like

but then you say yeah the the talk and

the actions don't always add up and then

you get to a point where you're like do

i want what's best for them or do i

preserve the relationship in that

situation what do you think the blocker

is belief

belief yeah i think they want it but

they don't really think they can do it

confidence is that this similar

yeah and they they portray confidence in

some areas of their life tremendously

but i i think the main thing is belief i

think they want to believe they can do

it but they don't truly believe it and

unfortunately action must come first and

you must actually prove to yourself that

it can be done and that requires a lot

of work without any gratification people

don't realize that

you say about everyone knowing how to

lose weight on the outside it's almost

like a macro cycle but really the micro

cycle is the tiny habits in between so

someone can go i need to eat less and

move more but like that's nuanced really

we dive that down we go

okay

let's go

no food till 1 pm let's go

you know two big meals maybe one snack

whatever and then we go okay 10 000

steps a day although that does attribute

to the macro the big thing that's

happening we still must give them the

small steps whether it's with a business

where you say like they you know their

big macro strategy is to post more on

social media but the micro is one post

every day answering someone's questions

doing this doing that i think that if

people's first stepping stone to where

they think they need to go is too big

they'll never take the step

and what i do as a coach

in many facets of my life is to make

that first stepping stone so small they

have no other option to take it super

interesting because what you said there

you know the start start of that was um

about how you in essence people people

want evidence in order to start but

the truth is

when you start you get the evidence

and i see that a lot in people you know

people coming up to me saying i've got

this business idea they'll come up to me

in the gym all the time and say i've got

this business idea and then you'll hear

the next thing they'll say is all the

excuses that they've put in front of

them starting and i really mean that

like it literally is like i've got this

great idea i think it's going to change

the world

but and then they explain all the things

they're imperfect about timing or

funding or i just need to wait for this

or this or whatever

and really under underpinning all of

that is a lack of belief and like you're

right like when i started i'm sure when

you started um i didn't have evidence i

didn't have sufficient evidence that i

knew what i was doing but i gained the

evidence which resulted in belief from

stumbling forward in a very messy way

for some reason people a lot of people

need the evidence first and we have this

as well with imposter syndrome and some

people rebuke imposter syndrome but

we need to realize that every single

person is going to feel like an imposter

you get someone macho going no not me

but we will and

i like to point out to people that you

will at some point be an imposter

objectively even being a parent for the

first time

you have no previous experience bringing

a child into the world so the beginning

you need to pretty much lie to yourself

and go i'm a good parent and then after

three months and your young baby your

child hasn't got any bruises on his head

you're like well i've got evidence i'm a

good charge you know he didn't fall over

and hit his head on a table or whatever

and the same in any endeavor your first

podcast you did on diary ceo you would

have had to say

i'm a good podcaster with no evidence

that you are but then a hundred episodes

and you go [ __ ] i'm actually all right

you are very good by the way as a

podcast i think i just acted like one

but then again you're being the person

you need to be yeah and that's a massive

part of confidence as well the the first

thing that people need to have a real

clear vision on is who they need to be

and that was the first thing that

projected me from

not being an inherently confident person

should have seen the sweat patches i had

from the last episode you know and i'm

not trying to masquerade that fact i'm

not trying to hide it up or be you know

dishonest with people instead i have so

many internal conversations with myself

about who i need to be today because we

do need to become a persona in certain

situations like being a father for the

first time like doing your first

business sales pitch like

starting your first podcast or your

first

first day as ceo when you get promoted

from a business you might go from

director to managing director there is

an element of you having to be an

imposter but you have to take it upon

yourself with beliefs that you can do it

because you can't get the evidence that

you're good at it before you start

if i spoke to your girlfriend and i

asked her i said what does james need to

work on

what would she say

oh

oh yeah nice pattern i uh

patience

interesting i have a very active mind

and i'm actually in the process of

trying to arrange getting an adhd test

as an adult because people i know that

have been diagnosed in their older life

say it's

really benefited them understanding how

their mind works

and

sometimes i get so excited of doing

things

that will please me

i have blinkers on to other people

whether other people want to relax right

now or other people you know don't want

to be in the room while i'm filming

content or whatever it is and i feel

that sometimes i need to be more patient

and go okay here's the idea write it

down and do it tomorrow that's one of

the things that

it's only after i've done it where i

think i had no consideration for anyone

else then because

i created a pain point in my head that i

wanted to action that

and i always break down our

personalities and this could be a really

weird way to think of it like a tribe

you know whether you've got lefties and

you know people on the right whether

you've got aggressive people or calm

people we're all part of an ecosystem

that we need the audacious people that

you know are gonna be impatient and do

things we need the critical thinkers and

people that are more logistic with that

but if you look at the 16 personalities

none of those personalities are

confident confident isn't a personality

trait you've got debater entrepreneur

one of these things

so people need to appreciate that even

though as an ecosystem we all need to be

vastly different confidence doesn't sit

as a personality trait it sets it's

almost like a set of values that each

and every person can have because some

things that we have are predetermined

like heights and yes height can be

influenced by the amount of nutrition

you get growing up or whatever

but

ultimately it doesn't matter if you're

introvert extrovert whether you're

patient impatient

everyone

really confidence is your

almost set of beliefs you have

surrounding something based on previous

experiences

i could get you the most least confident

person ever so i'm shy timid sat here

i go what do you like at driving

93 of people say they're above average

at driving which doesn't make sense as a

statistic human beings are massively

capable of being over confidence

machines most uh exoneration cases are

from faulty eyewitnesses so whenever

anyone's exonerated i think maybe 70

the reasons why from 40 eyewitnesses if

i said was that guy wearing a red top

you go yeah yeah it definitely was so we

do have the ability to be overconfident

we're just not utilizing it in all the

areas of our lives that we should

that kind of brings you back to that

point about um about evidence when you

said the thing about driving because if

i've never crashed a car

i would i think i've got evidence of um

being good at driving but then in other

facets of my life i might not have that

evidence yeah i think i'm really trying

to understand that that point about

evidence is confidence just a

a result of the evidence we do or

subjective evidence whether correct or

incorrect that we've gained in different

areas like i could be

you know if i'd crashed my car every day

i could be really confident on stage and

on podcasts and in dates and whatever if

i've had loads of positive reinforcement

in terms of evidence there but really

unconfident in cars so uh in part of the

book i come up with my own kind of

theory with this and i say that we must

take into account that the history of

someone will have an

influence on

how they perceive the world but that

doesn't mean it's fixed so you might

have you know

asked some people on a date and never

got a successful wave face to face but

that doesn't mean you're doomed forever

you know you might go oh you know my

ability to talk to someone to get the

number it's just not that good or how

many people have you asked that number

are three it's not something fixed that

we can never develop on the other side

of things where people will be

overconfident in certain scenarios it's

also

the availability bias turns into this as

well where we make decisions based on

the information that's available to us

so

i've had a fun deep dive with this where

people

have a fear of flying much more people

have a fear of flying than they do fear

of driving but driving that same

distance as far as fatality is much more

dangerous your chances of dying driving

are tremendously higher shark attacks

again in australia everyone goes you go

in the sea it's really dangerous i go

mate you're like

so many times more likely to drown than

you are to get bitten by a shark but no

one's getting in the water being afraid

of drowning and that is the biggest

cause of death i believe on bondi beach