Former No.1 Pick-Up Artist: “We’re Wired to Cheat After 7 Years”, “I Was In A Relationship With My Mum”, The True Danger Of Porn: Neil Strauss
Guests: Neil
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
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This is certainly an interesting topic. Is it okay to ever check your partner's phone?
It's a form of cheating. Here's what's interesting. I found that Neil Strauss, the former world's greatest pickup artist and best-selling author, he opens up about cheating, monogamy, whose work is insightful and controversial.
Do you think it's natural to be faithful to one person?
In my research, the most evolutionary argument that made the most sense was that we're wired to cheat after about seven years. That said, I realized that all relationship issues are historical. For example, I hurt someone I loved for a sexual experience that wasn't that great. I went to sex addiction rehab, and then the therapist said the reason you've never been in a healthy relationship is because your mother wants to be in a relationship with you.
My mom never approved of a single person I dated. When I wanted to live with my girlfriend, my mom cut me off. She'd come into my room and tell me about how horrible my dad was and that I was the only one who understood her. So you grow up trapped. We call that emotional incest. And then what happens is as soon as you're in a relationship, you want to escape. Having that outlet of cheating or drugs means you're not just trapped with this one person.
And how does one go about unwiring that?
These little things program us, so you’ve got to disengage it. And so what works is... for people that really are struggling to find that love, what advice do you give to them? People have this fantasy about what they want, but you're going to attract someone who’s at your level of growth and self-esteem. Everyone who has that list of "this is what I'm looking for," make that list for yourself and become that person, and then you'll meet that person. That's like just 100% true.
What do you think about masturbation?
I like how you just asked that question. I've never shared this. I'll probably regret it. I did an experiment once.
Neil, I first came across your work when I was, I’m going to say, 17 years old. Your book was the first book I ever read without moving from the moment I opened it. The book covers the life of pickup artists, and you kind of go on that journey with them and then you kind of shine a light on that world. But for me, what the book taught me was a lot about human psychology. And that human psychology was even quite a significant thing in life, business, and everything in between and relationships.
And then I read your second book some years later called *The Truth*. And again, this book changed my life, but for very different reasons. For reasons centered around the fact that I was struggling in relationships, I was struggling with commitment. I thought that a relationship was prison. And your book, *The Truth*, gave me an olive branch that maybe I was wrong and it showed me, gave me a mental model to redefine how I saw relationships. There's a lot of people struggling with relationships.
Yeah, I mean, that's why I wrote it. I was one of those people.
Give me a little bit of an overview of your story up until writing *The Truth*.
I think we're really similar. We were talking a little bit before the show in terms of being a late bloomer in terms of relationships and commitment and freedom being important, and all those kind of criteria. I just thought you kind of think everything's normal and everyone else is strange and you're normal until you hit a bottom and something goes wrong.
And for me, what happened was—it’s super vulnerable to share even though it's in *The Truth*, but it's weird to say it in person—I was dating someone who I thought, "Oh, this is more serious relationship. Maybe this could go the long way." And then I cheated on them.
Usually, people don't learn a lesson when they cheat; they learn the lesson when they get caught. So I got caught. And then you face the reality. That's when the compartment breaks down in your mind and you face the consequences of what you've done. And she, being smart, was like, "I'm done with you. You cheated on me, you betrayed me, goodbye." Which was good for her.
And I felt like just wrecked. I felt like, you know, I hurt someone I loved and cared about. I destroyed my chances for the future that I wanted to have all for like a sexual experience that wasn't that great anyway.
So, and this is in the book, so his name's there. Rick Rubin, the producer, the music producer who's kind of been a mentor to me—he almost produces my life like he produces a record. Where I'm living, everything. He’s someone who can just, the way he looks at music, he can look at your life and see what your logical fallacies are. So he said, "Maybe you're a sex addict."
I'm like, "Well, what do you mean? It's not like I need to have sex all the time. I'm not addicted to it. I'm not like out there doing crazy things." He's like, "Well, look at all the stuff you did in *The Game*. Did that make you happy? You got everything you wanted, did that make you happy? And now you hurt someone you cared about for a sexual experience. Maybe you are a sex addict."
We literally argued back and forth about that for months until he was ready to give up on me. And then I said, "I don't know, but I'll tell you what, I'll go to sex addiction rehab because it's not going to hurt. I'll learn something." I went there very cynically into sex addiction rehab. We did something called a timeline where you write down your most—and you can do this at home, it's a useful thing to do—write down your most impactful experiences, positive or negative, in your first 17 or 18 years.
You kind of write them out. I was going over my positive and negative experiences, and then the therapist goes, "Well, you know the reason you've never been in a healthy relationship?" I'm like, "No, why? Because everything, either I cheated or someone cheated on me or they just didn't work out." And I go, "No, why?" She goes, "Well, it's because your mother wants to be in a relationship with you."
Exactly that look you just had was exactly what I had. I'm like, "What are you talking about?" But logically, but in my body, like everything in my past made sense. Then she said—and this was like a little intense—she's like, there's a word for that. We call that "emotional incest."
And I was like, "What the fuck is that?" But, and almost like I'm feeling it now, like I felt this whole like this cold wind blow through like my entire soul. And like my body recognized the truth that she was right. Like why did my mom never approve of a single person I dated? Why was I grounded for most of my high school life? Why when I wanted to live with my first girlfriend, my mom cut me off and said I wasn't allowed to do that even though I was like, you know, 19 or 20 or something like that? It's insane.
You know, why would I sit while we're watching TV and like massage her hand? It's fucking creepy, but like massage her hands and shit like that. Like literally, and why would she come in my room and tell me about like, you know, how horrible my dad was and I was the only one who understood her? Yes, like it's crazy. And so once I recognized the truth of that, all of a sudden like it just was never the same again.
Basically, there's like three types of parenting, right? There’s functional parenting, which is just a parent that takes care of a child's needs. There's abandonment, when a parent's not there for the child's emotional or physical needs—either the parent's gone, it can be abandonment even if a parent dies when you're very young, you don't know that and sometimes you might think that's about you.
Then there's enmeshment, which is like most people don't know and don't recognize, which is when a parent—when your job is to take care of your parent's needs.
When you kind of start parenting them or taking care of them.
Yes, or, or instead of making choices about what are best for you, they make choices about what's best for them. So the simple version is you're taking care of them. In fact, you can see people who are adults and they call their mom or dad every single day and are always there for the problems that their parents are having and feel guilty if they're not. [08:17] **Neil Strauss:** But then it can be more subtle, like maybe a parent's really anxious and you need to be home and close by and do all these things, but it's not for you to be a better child, it's for them to be less anxious and less worried. So sudden enmeshment is occurring as if you grew up feeling sorry for a parent.
We're born with kind of all our brain cells, but the neural connections aren't made, right? And in our early, early childhood experiences, all that wiring is being put together. So they're like our programmers, right? Like they literally just programmed us. So these little things program us and this woman, Pia Mellody—she's brilliant—she has this great therapy called Post Induction Therapy (PIT). And she thinks of your childhood as a hypnosis, and she's trying to wake you up from that hypnosis.
It's such a great way to think about it, that we're really indoctrinated into this cult as children, right? And that cult is our family—our family values, the family system, the way it is. Mom, dad—like we have nothing else and that shapes the wiring of our brain. Then as adults, so much of our journey is to like just wake up.
So how does that all come back around to this sex addiction?
So if you grow up enmeshed with a parent, well what happens is as soon as you're in a relationship again, you feel trapped. And that trappedness reminds you of your parents and your childhood. And so what do you want to do when you're trapped?
Fly, escape.
Exactly, you want to escape. And how do we escape?
Cheating.
Exactly. Interesting that cheating is a path to escaping, that's quite interesting. And it doesn't have to be—by the way, it's not—some people will act out in some other way, it could be some other type of escape. But often it's cheating because we feel trapped again and we feel we just want to pop a hole in that plastic bag over our head before we suffocate.
And having that outlet of just cheating or fantasy or drugs or whatever it is, something there just helps us escape and not feel trapped. We have our own separate life or we're not just trapped with this one person. It's scary, we feel this like terror. I mean, sometimes like before I did all this work, my girlfriend would like hug me and I'd just feel like my skin crawl. I just feel trapped. And she's just loving me and just to hug me but I feel like just like I wanted to escape.
I can relate in a way because I remember when I would pursue someone that I was attracted to when I was up until the age I'd say about 22, and the minute they showed an interest in me, I would kind of like dissuade them from wanting to be with me. So I would pursue them, then once they were interested in me I'd dissuade them. I would get like my skin would crawl when they showed interest in me. I really had to do a lot of work to get rid of that. Like I was—I had an allergic reaction to someone being interested in me.
Yeah, it's that exact same thing. It's like—and so that's why a lot of people who are avoidant don't recognize their avoidance. They’re like, "No I want love, I want to be in love, that's like my whole goal in life." But yet how does it feel once someone actually returns your love powerfully?
And how does one go about unwiring that or unlearning those limiting beliefs?
I'll give it to you in the way that I think is like the most effective. The first step to heal is humility. Like the number one thing you need is humility and as someone once told me, the same brain that got you into this problem isn't going to get you out of it.
A lot of people think, "Well if I read books..." and I write books, I love books, and I listen to podcasts—I love podcasts and do podcasts as well—but just taking in information you're not going to... you need really humility to say, "Shoot, I don't know the answers. I need to surrender to an expert and just say I know nothing." That's why we're talking before the podcast about AA and the first step is realizing we're powerless. And I think that humility is the first step to change. And it's, man, it's a hell of a step because it's hard for people to really be humble in this world and say, "I don't know."
So from there, this is the three things and I think they work in combination. I really think this is the formula and I'd love if the therapy model was redone around this. Which is: one is you need deep intensive workshops where you're really like an emotional puddle on the ground crying.
This stuff came in emotionally and I think you can only heal emotionally. I think anyone who's listening or maybe even yourself, if you had a moment that really changed, it's something you felt emotionally. It wasn't an idea and you’re like, "Oh, I get it." It's just a behavioral problem and then you change it. The things that you understand and you keep making the same mistake—you know as they call it in NLP, "conscious incompetence"—those are the things where it takes something deeper.
So: deep, intensive emotional workshop. And then everyone goes to these things—the Hoffman Process, for example, is very popular right now. Have you heard of that?
Yeah, I have. My best friend put it into the group chat the other day.
Yeah, yeah, so it's powerful, it's great. The Survivors program at The Meadows or it's the Rio Retreat Center is amazing, more therapeutic. But there are a bunch of... so you go to these and what always happens, or even after any kind of seminar is, you leave you're like, "This is amazing, I totally get it, I see who I am, I'm going to go live my best life now." And then you get around the same environment and the same behavioral patterns start sneaking back in and you're back to where you started.
So you need the big shift and then you need something for maintenance. That's where talk therapy comes in. So step one, deep workshop. Step two is some kind of ongoing maintenance. And here's something I recommend, and it's also cheaper I think than therapy—not everyone can afford to see a therapist every week. So you need something that where every week or every couple weeks, your wrong thinking is corrected.
So as an example, I got a bunch of guys together in my neighborhood, different men at the same level in life. And we all chipped in for one therapist. So instead of you buying a therapist, five, six, ten of your friends can chip out on a therapist. You can do that, you know, skip a few coffees a week. And then we meet every week. We've done this for probably since my, you know, seven years now. Same almost the exact same group of people, a few people come in and out.
And every week we go in there and here's why group therapy I think—and a lot of research backs this up actually, but research can back anything up—is that it works better than one-on-one therapy. If you're having a discussion with me or your therapist, you can just say, "Well, I think you're wrong, I disagree." Even though you have a degree, I disagree. But if that therapist and like eight of your friends all say, "No man, you're wrong," you're like, "I disagree, but if you all say so you're probably right. I'll consider that."
So I think it's really powerful and the other great thing is you don't have to wait every week or every two weeks to see the therapist, you're in touch with all your friends, like you said about your group chat. You're in touch with all your friends all the time. So group therapy—like for example, we know each other's patterns. So I could be in my therapy thing and start to say something like, "I'm starting to see this person and this is going on," and right away they'd be like, "Oh man, you're doing that same thing you did with your last two people you started dating. Why don't you try this new thing?" They see you so well.
So: deep shift, ongoing maintenance—that's where the talk therapy comes in. Then the third thing is tools to use when you're backsliding. As an example, we talked earlier about how someone would—I’d get hugged by my girlfriend and I’d start to feel that, what you said, that same feeling like I just felt like uncomfortable and wanted to escape.
So the tool there was something called "reparenting." Reparenting is like talking to your inner child or talking to yourself and I'd just say, "Hey, she's not your mom. You can relax. I got this, I'll take care of you. She just loves you and cares about you and man, accept that." So I'll just give myself that inner monologue.
And why do you think that works? The reparenting or the tools?
Yeah, I think the reparenting part is this: like there's "inner child" is kind of like a word that if you haven't done the inner child work just sounds like so woo-woo. So another way to think about it is this: when you see something that's familiar that traumatized you as a child or a teen, right away your protective mechanisms from then are going to take over. So you’ve got to disengage it.
And so what works is recognizing it and saying like, "No, this isn't that. This is actually okay so you can relax and just accept love." And that's all quite unconscious, isn't it? So you won't consciously know that the reason this hug with this person is giving me the heebie-jeebies or the creeps, whatever, is because it reminds me of my mother or whatever. But unconsciously that's what's kind of going on. The old circuits are starting to fire but you haven't had a thought yourself, you're just experiencing a feeling. Like I would experience that feeling of feeling like I was trapped, but I wouldn't consciously know why.
You wouldn't know, no, of course not. You would have no idea, you'd literally just think, "I'm trapped." And that's why these things all work together. So like the package—the short version of it, because that was a long answer—is: deep intensive workshops, ongoing maintenance through group or talk therapy, and tools to use when the old behaviors come up.
So once you've done that deep intensive workshop and recognized, "Oh shoot, I react like this because I'm getting flashbacks to being like suffocated by my mom or my dad," then you're now you're conscious about what's happening. And then as you consistently use the tools, you get to intervene quickly, right? So the key is like intervening quickly.
I'll give another example that a lot of people might relate to is like when you're in a conflict or you're starting to get upset about something, right? And then if you just stay there you might start to get upset or behave in a way that you don't love. Does that make sense?
100%.
Yeah, so what you want to do is start recognizing the signs of "Oh, my heart's starting to beat fast" or "I feel like maybe there's something you feel in your chest or in your arms." For me, my arms start to get like I feel like a weird tension in my hands. As soon as I feel that, I'll just say, "One second, I'll be right back." I'll step back, bring myself back to Earth, and then come back and I'll never react. So I think one of our goals, I think the goal of self-improvement in this work is to be like non-reactive. Connected but non-reactive.
Masturbation. What do you think about masturbation?
I did an experiment once because there were a lot of people—Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins, for example, doesn't let his band have an orgasm the day of a show or something like that. I think Darren Aronofsky—some director, I don't want to say his name wrong—there were all these kind of artists who I was talking to who by not having an orgasm felt like they could use... and I think Napoleon Hill in *Think and Grow Rich* or something talks about just not letting that energy out and then kind of recycling it and using it for productivity in your life. And I'm sure a lot of Tantric and other teachings say the same.
So I tried an experiment of not doing that. I just felt horrible and I was attracted to everything. I remember watching *South Park* and like Cartman's mom came on and I felt like aroused. I was literally like...
What chapter of your life was this in?
This was like in pre-*Truth*. So the answer is like I don't—maybe I'm not there yet—but I don't have a strong... I think that as long as it's not compulsive, as long as it's not changing your healthy relationship with women or sexuality. And there's a difference between masturbation or pornography.
Pornography. What's your view on pornography?
I don't think it helps. Yeah, but here's—let me give you one last thought on masturbation. This is like a crazy thought. I've never shared this. I'll probably regret it. I'll probably call you later and ask you to cut it out. But I think that everything in your life, I think you can be giving yourself a seminar in your life all the time.
So maybe we'll end here. But one... but I try to—I almost think of it as training. So if I'm going to do it, I'll just think, "Okay, my goal is to like last long" or try to like do it twice or something. So I try to think of everything, "How can I even with that, I'm like how can I train myself to be better?" And so I'm always thinking even in my life on like "How can I... how can I..."
So a lot of people talk about the "authentic self" versus the "false self." And I always think like, "Shit, what is authentic? How can I measure authentic? I don't know what's authentic." I think when I was really inauthentic, I thought I was being authentic. And I realized that a better dichotomy is the "creative" versus the "destructive" self.
So like if you're watching pornography and then masturbating and like you feel better afterwards, was it constructive for you or was it destructive? And so trying to do things that are constructive feels right.
Is that just an excuse though for a destructive behavior? Go ahead, what do you mean? So in the context of masturbation, you're giving it some kind of purpose by saying it's like practice or like it's training.
I might just be sort of deluding myself by giving myself an excuse "this is okay." I guess the answer is like you bite... you know you know the seed by the fruit. So to see if it hurts in my relationship with my sexuality or my relationship with women and things like that.
What about pornography then? Do you think pornography is harmful for relationships, love?
I guess the answer again is like it depends on how you're using it. I don't know, I haven't really thought this out and there are certainly a lot of studies that show the opposite on pornography. But I think if you're—if it's just becoming regular and it's you're doing it too much or... I'm sure you can use pornography in a healthy way with your partner and watching together and maybe getting turned on and then experiencing something together or mixing it up sometimes. And I'm sure there are ways... I think everything can be healthy and unhealthy. You can drink too much water and die.
Do you think it's natural to be faithful to one person for life?
In all my research, I think the person who came up with what I think is the most evolutionary argument that made the most sense was Helen Fisher. She's an evolutionary biologist, I believe, and she said that she thinks it's natural to... and she studied marriage patterns, divorce patterns, and this changes based on the number of kids. But she believes we're wired for seven years for "serial monogamy with clandestine adultery."
What does that mean?
That's what she says. Meaning serial monogamy means one partner at a time, but secretly cheating sometimes on the side. That's how she thinks we're wired. And that the average is about seven years—if you have more kids that lasts longer—meaning that's enough time for the child to grow up and kind of take care of self, and then you get to, you know, have new children with someone else and vary your genes.
That said, that's like the evolutionary perspective. That said, I don't believe like evolution is destiny. You know what I mean? It's probably evolutionary for people to want to take someone's—usurp someone's power and money and I don't know. I'm sure there are all kinds of evolutionary impulses that we have a prefrontal cortex that allows us to make these choices. I mean, if we had to do everything... I think you have a choice whether you want to be faithful or not.
That said, fidelity is different than honesty. Meaning that I think you can be honest with your partner. And for example, I know people whose partner—maybe the partner went through menopause and the sex stopped and they had a discussion and said like, "I still have these sexual needs, what do I do about it?" and they renegotiated their relationship. You know? So I think that we can rethink relationships as an ongoing discussion between two partners and probably the partner with the lowest comfort will generally win out.
I talked to this woman Stephanie Coontz, who's like the biggest expert on marriage—she wrote a book on it. She said the history of marriage was originally it was, you know, for property rights and inheritance and kids were just extra workers, you know? And then it was marriage for love was this radical idea. And she says now we're in this thing where it's just, you know, "tick a box."
Like I was at a dinner the other day and a bunch of people were there talking about their relationships and someone's like, "Well I'm going to have a kid by freezing my eggs, I want to have a kid later and I'm going to do this." And someone else is like, "I'm never going to want to get married and fall in love and have kids." It's like a tick-a-box thing. Do you want one partner or many? You know, do you want monogamy? A lot of people are into ethical non-monogamy now. Do you want kids, do you not want kids? You can just check a box and decide. And so we're in this way where we have so much choice.
Ethical non-monogamy. I didn't know that was a thing now. What does that mean?
Some people call it "consensual non-monogamy" or "ethical non-monogamy," but that's basically you're—you're not monogamous with your relationship partner but you're ethical, meaning you're both honest about it.
You, as you said earlier, you went on a journey to figure out whether that stuff could work for you, like polyamorous relationships, swinging, all those kinds of things. And you concluded that it just—it couldn't work for you. I think you—I remember you saying that you kind of wanted like a half-open relationship at the time.
I think most people probably do. I think that was probably coming out of like a—that was me coming out of a wounded place saying that. By half-open you mean like I can do what I want and they don't or something? I think that usually whoever says that—and I include myself at the time—is probably like a wounded person in terms of like "I just want to do what I want but I don't want to deal with uncomfortable... and you deal with those uncomfortable emotions, but but but you can't do what you want because I can't deal with uncomfortable emotions."
So, so I think that the answer is... I think there's like three entities. There's you, there's your partner, and there's the relationship. And I think the right answer is something that makes all three better. So for example, when I was in those scenes, there were a lot of couples and it wasn't a—sometimes it was the woman leading the charge, sometimes it was the guy leading the charge—where one partner was letting the other partner be more open so they didn't lose them. And they were just silently suffering. That’s not good for the person or the or the relationship.
But I think if you can find a way where like—for example, one person I met, he—he thinks his partner's fabulous and other men get in... he shouldn't just get to hog all that fabulousness to himself. Like he wants to share that, other people can get to experience that. And so that's right for him and right for her and right for their relationship.
And you’ve met people that are in that sort of polyamorous situation that are like really, really, really happy?
Yeah, and here's what's interesting. I found that just as many people cheated in polyamorous relationships as monogamous relationships. And I'll give you an example. Like one of the first people I met, like maybe they have a boundary like "Oh you're not allowed to do this specific sexual thing with other people" or "You're not allowed to do this." Like they would still break—they can literally do like 95% of what they want and 5% is restricted and they'll cross that boundary. I found just as much cheating in that as monogamous. And the idea really being if you're healthy, whatever relationship you choose will be healthy. If you're unhealthy, whatever relationship style you choose will be unhealthy.
And maybe there was something in just breaking the boundary that people find somewhat appealing. So it doesn't really matter what the boundary is, but there being one... you going back to that avoidant nature of trying to stop yourself from being a bird trapped in a cage. People just breaking a boundary is part of the thrill.
Yeah, there's someone I met, probably the wisest person I met—I forget his full name, his name was Pepper—and he had two big thoughts. And one was that intentions are better than rules. And then his second thought was your partner has to have an abundance of you before they can sort of be with other people.
So explain both of those then.
Sure, sure. The intention is like, well what are our intentions? To honor each other, to be honest, to respect, and to have sort of intentions which are discussion points. Versus "Well you can do that but you can't do this," and behind those rules is an intention. For example, what’s behind the discomfort of someone sleeping with someone else is the intention is safety. "I feel unsafe if you're off with someone else because I could lose you."
And so the intention maybe might be safety, and maybe there are other ways to get that need met. You know, you know as a short guy who—who's like literally like 5'6" and you know and people are always looking for someone who's like six feet or over a guy and you're like, "Oh man, I'm like six inches below the mark." I realized oh no, what they want is like safety there or security being with someone who feels bigger or stronger helps them feel safe. And I'm like, "Okay, I can do safe, I can't do tall, but I can do safe." Interesting.
So that's the idea of intentions. Then the idea of a partner has abundance of you means a lot of people are like, "This relationship isn't working, we're fighting a lot, like maybe we should split up or maybe let's try polyamory." That's not going to work versus... or it's just if your partner has enough sex, has enough love, has enough connection, then you're with someone else there's less of that fear because they're full. Your partner should be full first.
Third thing for people who are considering doing this in case they're... I'm sure some people are like thinking maybe this'll work for me is—is I think it's called the "burning period." Which is that if you do open up a relationship, there's probably a period of six months or whatever that you—there’s a lot of discomfort and awkwardness and it requires a lot of communication to work through it.
A lot of insecurity I imagine.
Yeah, our biggest fear as a child is abandonment because what happens if our parent isn't there? We don't get milk or water or food and we die. We can't take care of ourselves. And so we're fear of abandonment. A great—a great line from *The Truth* is I think about this all the time when people are scared in a relationship about being abandoned. This therapist named Lorraine said, "Unless you're a child or dependent elder, no one can abandon you except yourself." Meaning like you're not going to die if the person you love leaves you, it's just going to hurt and suck.
Right? But that's how it feels, right? On a psychological level it feels like we are being... because that—that emotional reaction stems I guess right back to I don't know, being thrown off the island by our tribe or something. And when we think about the physiological consequence of loneliness as well, like the body completely changes. We go into self-preservation, we don't sleep as well, just when and that's just when we're lonely.
Yeah, no you nailed it. I think there's two sides. There's the abandonment like if a child's abandoned, maybe that child doesn't survive and that's obviously happened to children historically. And then the other side, like you said, if you're kicked out of the tribe—and this is why people are so fearful on social media and all these things—if you're kicked out of the tribe, well you can't survive on your own out in the wild. So we are afraid of abandonment and social rejection.
There's abandonment and social rejection and loneliness. Your first book, *The Game*, I think—I think it spoke to some men who feel that way. Like because I think those men—I think I was probably maybe I was one of them where I was a young man who wanted to figure out how to be loved. And *The Game* appeared to give me a code to that. In a world where figuring out how to be loved and finding someone to love me was kind of this like complicated, you know, thing that didn't make sense.
And I reflect on where—I don't know how many years we are on from *The Game* now, maybe 10 years or something—but in terms of men feeling like they understand what masculinity is and loneliness and the statistics around the amount of men that are sexless... we've gone in a worse direction. Like there are more men now that feel isolated, lonely, that are struggling to find love and a partner.
We've had dating apps emerge I think since *The Game*, pretty much sure since *The Game*, which has confused the whole dynamic of how do I find someone that loves me, where do I find them. Roughly about 50% of people now meet online. So there's this new generation of men and women that are struggling now to find—to find that love.
Yeah, it's interesting. Like you raise this question like "Why is it when we're more connected than ever that we feel more disconnected?" I think that maybe one of the issues... I think it's really tough to all be connected because we thought that technology would—this idea of the global village, Marshall McLuhan and stuff like that—that technology is going to just create a global village. Which it did, but we forgot that the village—it sucked to live in the village.
Because in the village, everybody's gossiping, you know? If you step out of line you're—as you were saying earlier—you’re kicked out of the village. Everyone tries to keep everyone down because it's petty and it's jealous. And if you're different or express yourself in some other way, you're like an outcast. It used to be that you know if you left high school and went to college or moved somewhere else, you get to just create a whole new life. And now we're all in this fishbowl staring at each other and it's uncomfortable and maybe feels less safe.
On top of that, I think there's some statistic a few years ago that 25% of marriages start in the workplace, and now you can't really date in the workplace anymore, so that's kind of off the table now. And then I think the other thing is people—I noticed that on the apps, people sort of have this fantasy about what they want, and then they might be with someone, start dating a few times, and say, "Oh you know, that one thing's just not quite right in what I want." And there's so much abundance that they can just go back to the dating pool instead of working—working it through or or or riding it out.
In other words, before you met someone out, you exchanged phone numbers—that was like exciting thing. You got their phone number and gosh, oh man, should I call? I guess I'll wait two days to call, and then you call and oh my god, I'm going to see them in four days, you know? And there's so much excitement around that. And now you literally just—you go back on one of these apps and within like 24 hours you have so many options.
In your—in the last two decades you've met so many people that are like struggling in relationships and love. And I guess my question is like what advice do you give to them? The people that really, really are struggling. And it's different issues for men and women because there's—there’s different dating dynamics in play there. So for—for those, let's start with men.
And I've had many guests on the podcast talk to those—speak of the statistics around young men and also around the suicidality of those young men. And I mean, some of the really crazy stats are around suicide—I think I've shared a few times before that in the UK alone, someone dies by suicide every 90 minutes and 76% of them are male.
Look at some of the other stats. The number of unmarried men in the United States has increased by 50% since 1970. The number of men who are reporting that they are lonely has increased by 50% since 1980. The number of men who have had sex by the age of 20 has decreased by 20% since 1990. The age men have their first kiss is now getting later and later. The number of men who are reporting that they have been victims of sexual assault by another man has increased by 20%.
So the stats tell a pretty horrific story. And then the same—the same here for women. In 1970 only 13% of women over 30 were unmarried; today that number is nearly 50%. The divorce rate for women over 30 has doubled in the past 50 years. And I can go on and on and on. So clearly there's something going on with relationships, dating.
Let's—let's hold two ideas. One is there's something going on, and the other one is stats. So when I wrote—when I wrote *The Truth*, I went through like I started the book with these with similar stats—you know 50% of marriages end in divorce. But I'm like, I got my start, one of my starts as like a fact-checker at the *Village Voice* before I was like writing these books and things. And so I'm like, I just really rigorously checked facts.
And if you really dig deep, you'll find that probably 50% of statistics are made up. You'll literally—to the degree that most of them I couldn't keep the stats because either they didn't—they never existed. In one case, we called the actual researcher on I think the divorce stat or the infidelity stat and they're like, she's like, "I never said this, this is not from my research. My name's always attached to this and I don't know how to stop it."
So, so what happened—so a lot of these things, first of all, but I think the sense of all this is very true. I'd be slow to jump on a stat. It's funny, I did a piece for *Rolling Stone* on—on Elon Musk and similar thing happened where I told him the statistic and he's like, "I'd have to see how they did that study before I could even comment on it."
That said, I think we're in a crisis and I think what we're speaking of is a—like we're really like there's a real mental health crisis. And if you think about when you were a kid, like how often did you have doctor's appointments?
Gosh, not often. But I don't know, maybe twice a year.
And how many times a year did you have dentist appointments?
The same, I think twice a year.
And how often did you have like therapist or psychologist appointments?
Oh, none.
Exactly, right? And that's our culture. Our culture is your teeth better look great, got to make sure everything physically is fine, but no concern for mental health. No teaching of mental health. No... so we have no foundation to build on and then we get to our age where all those wiring and all those patterns are set. And either... and then if we want to heal, we better have a lot of money because it's—it’s a rich person's game to heal because insurance and nothing covers it.
So like if we really want to work on this, and again like if I could be sort of a crusader—and maybe I should be, I don't know maybe I need to be—is it would be for taking like mental health as seriously as we take physical health. Because guess what? Obviously stress leads to all kinds of diseases and also so many—so much self-harm and other harm are related to obviously mental health issues.
And we have this idea, I mean we all have some sort of mental health issue, you know? Like everyone does and if you don't think you have a mental health issue there's something going on. You know, look in the mirror we're still... we're all wounded from the way we were raised. So so we really need to get the culture and the system to take mental health as seriously as they take all the rest of education.
But we're clearly just finding it harder just to meet each other as well.
Yeah, there's a great—there’s a great Japanese writer named Kobo Abe and he wrote this *Woman in the Dunes*, which is a great book and movie. He has this great line, he says like, he goes, "We're wired for this tribal existence, and the city is the first place where we had to meet a stranger that's not an enemy." And we're still not used to that. Strangers are scary.
I think most people—people are scary. I mean even now back in the dating thing, I'm like I'm meeting someone on an app and I don't know who they are. Like before if I met someone they were kind of in my scene or in my peer group or somehow we shared these interests but there's just a random person on an app that literally like maybe they're a scammer, right?
Are you—are you in that phase now where you're dating again?
Yeah. How's it going? And what's—what's new in terms of like since last time you were in the in a dating phase of your life? Let's see. I just ended like a—like a short but serious relationship, which was interesting. And I guess what's new is just the things we talked—things we talked about. I think I'm—I’m with my son like Fridays to Mondays. So so it's hard I think for someone who's not a single parent or doesn't have a child to sort of understand that maybe I'm less available.
You could react one of two ways when you recognize you're getting older, right? You can go buy a flashy car and start dating like, you know, people who feed your ego and you can just feed your ego till you're dead and that seems like a horrible way to go. I remember my first time in LA, like when I moved to LA, I was in this like nightclub and there was this guy in a wheelchair with a—older with a mask to breathe, he was like very old, like 70 or 80. I don't know, he was at death's door and he was surrounded and he had these two like, you know, very young plastic surgery women around him. And I'm like, "Oh man, like you know, I don't know whether to feel sorry for him or or what." But I was like, "Oh that's—that’s like, that's I guess that's his life choice and and good for him," you know?
Some—so you can kind of chase that validation. He liked dating multiple women because he liked women competing over him. That felt good when there was drama, like it made him feel wanted. So you can live out basically you're living out your unhealed wounds, right? You can either live out your unhealed wounds or you can sort of heal your wound and see what else am I here to heal or what else am I here to do, what's going to... what are the few things that make me happy and the few things I can contribute.
I've got close friends of mine that feel somewhat similar from conversations we've had with them where they're in a relationship with someone and it's almost like they're torn into two pieces. It kind of takes me back to maybe the start of your journey into *The Truth*, which is they love this person, but at the same time they just can't stop the urge to be with to either cheat or think about other people or to text other people, etc. And they're almost tormented by it. Yeah, I know some people that are really tormented by that.
Yeah, then you have to look at yourself—and I do this all the time—is what part comes out of a wound and what part's like authentic. Right? So there's one part where, yeah, other people are attractive. Like if you're in a relationship and you find other people attractive or hot or like might even think someone's a better match for you, like that's healthy. You still have eyes, you still have a comparing mind a little bit and that's okay.
Does it take the right person in your view to make you commit?
It takes you being the right person. Okay. It takes 100% takes you being the right person. And even to the degree that you're going to attract people—you're going to attract someone who's at your level of growth and self-esteem. So like literally everyone who has that list of "this is what I'm looking for," like make that list for yourself and become that person and then you'll meet that person. That's like just 100% true.
And but but then the other side, like you said, then there's the part where it's agonizing where it's like, "Oh god, I—I mean I can speak from experience that once I did all that work we talked about in *The Truth*, I was like really happily monogamous with Ingrid. Like I didn't look at other people, I didn't chase that other stuff, like everything was clean."
What changed?
What changed was I wasn't afraid of going deeper into intimacy anymore. Meaning that that like who—like I would just look at her and I wasn't—I just had walls up that kept me from getting closer. That to really loving her and really accepting her. So you can either do the work with another person or you can do the work against that person.
And "against that person" is acting out and fantasizing in your head and resenting. Or the other thing is you can work on yourself and work on how can I get deeper with them and how can I learn to accept them and how can I realize the issues I have with them have nothing to do with them. There's a saying, I'm pretty sure it's a saying, but that all relationship issues are historical. Meaning it's not about them, it's about something that happened with mom or dad. And the things you're trying to change and fix are things that you needed from your parents.
How important do you think it is to be completely honest in a relationship? i.e., your partner should have the pin for your mobile phone or there should be no pin on your mobile phone. That complete honesty where they are able to see and know everything.
Yeah, great, great question. I think the ultimate balance is they have the pin for your mobile phone but they never use it. Checking your partner's mobile phone behind their back is a form of cheating. And I think a relationship needs both honesty and trust to work. Honesty means one partner's being honest, but if the other partner just trusts, it's going to go just as badly.
Do you think that if you cheat on someone and they and they never find out, do you think—what is the harm to you?
So if you—if you cheat on someone, the harm to you is all of a sudden you've taken the relationship and you just like drove a cleaver through it and now you're living in a separate world than they are. You can't get back to the same intimacy that you had before because intimacy is showing who you are and your vulnerabilities to someone else and being accepted. Right then, you're lying in bed, you're thinking about that other person, you're worried about them texting, you start behaving a bit different—a little different around your partner. They sense that and they feel like something's wrong, maybe it's wrong with them and they behave different and it sets—it sets off a whole, you know, invisible chain into motion.
And you can never authentically connect whilst you're cheating on someone. If you're cheating on them, you can never really—it’s not a real connection, is it?
Because you're hiding and compartmentalizing something. Some people are so good they hide it from themselves, you know? There's a great line—this is also from Rick Rubin—and he said, it's in the book so, he said, "I don't trade long-term happiness for short-term pleasure."
I don't trade long-term happiness for short-term pleasure. Interesting.
Right? It's really good. And I—here so I became of the mind of this. Which is in terms of guys like you and I and other enmeshed and women too who feel trapped in their relationship is: I recognized that they're not keeping me from sleeping with anyone else. I can actually go ahead and sleep with whoever I want. I really can. I can sleep with whoever I want, but I have to be honest and accept the consequences.
So if sleeping with that person is more important than my relationship, I'm free to sleep with them. It's actually my choice. So no one's being—you’re not being made to do or forced to do anything. It's all your choice. You just have to accept the consequences that well that sex with that person better be more important than your relationship. And so you can still—no one's keeping you from doing anything. You made an agreement, if you don't like that agreement then make a different agreement for your relationship.
You wrote Rick Rubin's book, but you also—you wrote Kevin Hart's book. Yeah. What did you learn about Kevin Hart?
Oh man, I love—like he's one of—like I learned a lot from him. He's really one of my like favorite people. Like what you see is what you get, he is who he is. What I learned is this—and this is like more of a business thing—but he has no resistance. He has no resistance to everything at anything. Meaning that we have a plan and we want things to work out and there's an obstacle—you had Ryan Holiday on, *The Obstacle is the Way*—there’s an obstacle or someone's just being difficult to work with or whatever it is. He just takes the call, he deals with it, he hangs up and he doesn't get into a story about it. And so I don't know if it makes sense because I haven't seen this like written anywhere as a principle.
But when things go wrong or there's something he has to do that he doesn't want—doesn’t want to do, he doesn't have resistance to anything. He just does it, rolls through it, and moves on. And he doesn't think, "I'm like one of the biggest actors and comedians in Hollywood, why do I have to deal with this?" He just deals with it.
Doesn't procrastinate?
He doesn't procrastinate, he gets it done, he does stuff himself, he doesn't blame others for bothering him. He really is like—and he has this strength of positivity. He's even if he's—I've seen him like quote-unquote yell at his kids but he's so positive and accepting. Interesting. When something happens we get right into a victim place right away. Right away we think "Why me?" or "God, why do I have to deal with this? This is supposed to be like this." And he doesn't have that story and he just does it. And going back to how we're raised, he was raised with a very strict mom and like, you know, and and he applies that strictness into his life as a discipline and it works.
And what about Rick? Rick Rubin. What have you learned?
Man, I mean that book, *The Creative Act*—I originally didn't plan to write it. I just said, "I'll do all the interviews for the book and you can find a writer because I don't want to... you know, we're friends and it's okay, like you need to find the right person for your book." But I just wanted to do all the interviews because I wanted to learn from him because he's produced what, everyone: Kanye, Jay-Z, like Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, like Johnny Cash. And he's so wise.
And so I just wanted to learn from him and this is what I think the main thing I learned and it's in the book: I'm not trying to make a book be something. I'm almost listening to the work and trying to hear what it wants to be. So I really learned to take the ego out of the creative process and surrender to the moment and understand that there's something being called into existence that's not about me and I'm just trying to guide it there and not get in the way. And it was a whole new way of thinking. It wasn't an artist-centered form of creation, it was an art-centered form of creation.
Interesting. So if you're making a book or a podcast or whatever else, it's you kind of get you—you out of the picture to allow the thing to become what it wants to become.
Yes. As an example, *The Truth* was going to be like against monogamy and trying to maybe create a new form of marriage that works better because as you were saying earlier it's all broken. But instead it became a book about healing my own trauma and I sort of listened to that and that's why maybe the book's impactful.
Well, it goes back to what we were saying earlier. You said the first point of what they were calling a sex addiction was humility.
Yeah, or anything. And that's it, and it's really having humility in the face of of the universe. There are so many other great points in that book. One of his great—one of his great lines in there is is about—and this is great true is true of bands—is business relationships. You know, people get in conflicts. Or do you have like a business partner? Do you kind of do it all yourself?
Oh, I—yeah, I used to have a business partner in my previous business.
Yeah. And he said, "If you're disagreeing on things and not seeing things the same way, that's great. Because if you both think alike in a partnership and want the same things and want to do things the same, then one of you is unnecessary."
Hmm. So true. So true. We were successful in our business relationship because we were so fundamentally different, so there was never a crossover. Yeah. And we—we knew each other's responsibilities were. You could—a piece of work could come in and we wouldn't have to speak, we knew whose job that would be based on skill set.
Yeah, it's great and you're able to do that when and not everyone can do that. You know, they're like it's it's a hard thing for them.
What's your mission now in life? Like you're—you’ve done so much. You've, you know, you've been successful in so many areas of your life. What are you aiming at now?
Yeah, it's interesting. And it's funny man, when I was when I was like a kid, what I would say like in college, my whole goal—there was a newspaper called the *Village Voice*, which was like the cool newspaper in New York. I just wanted to write for the *Village Voice*. It was like, you know, the center of the art scene and the culture and I started writing for them when I was like in my early 20s. And then everything after that has been a bonus.
And I really think in terms of projects. Like I was thinking before your show, I was looking at your the podcast thing and it was like the relationship expert, the sex expert, the this expert, the number one this, and I was thinking, what do I do or what am I? And I believe I have this saying like that "Don't brand yourself." Like let the world try to brand you while you keep moving forward. And I really just think in terms of projects. So I have no goal other than I want the next project I'm working on, I just want to do really great at it and share it. And then move on to the next project that I'm really excited about.
The difficulty with labels is we pick them up when we are successful at something.
Yeah, and then we get stuck. Yeah. I mean how many people do we know that especially say the health industry, where someone's like they stake their health reputation on some something that's really true in the moment and now maybe the research has changed and then they're still—they don't want to lose their audience so they're saying something that maybe they don't even believe anymore? Because we grow and we evolve and if you label yourself as something, well man, it's hard to move on. And so we have to be really—I think we have to be really careful about that.
Some people, by the way, there are certain people they have just one mission and that's their mission and they and that's great for them. And they're people like you and I who are very growth-oriented who keep changing. Like you had one identity before this podcast, you have a completely new one and I no doubt that in like five, seven years—maybe what's that saying, seven years on all our cells recycle and we're completely new—you're going to be doing something equally amazing and unexpected and cool.
What's that been—what was that like for you? Because your book was so successful, *The Game*. It was so successful. So you become the "Game" guy.
Yeah. Yeah. And my—my thought was, and if I thought was, okay, I have to do something else that's strikes people so powerfully I become the whatever guy. Right, yeah yeah yeah. Logically that's what I would think. I think I just have to do something bigger and then they'll know me for that. Right. And then there are other people who are still doing that who are literally the people in that book *The Game* who are out there still doing the same thing.
And with a—with a book, it's not like a social media post where it just kind of falls off the timeline. Yeah. It's selling every day.
Yeah. And you're really fortunate to be thought of as by other people as the whatever guy. Yeah, because most people never even are known as anything. Yeah, so it's like I'm really grateful for it and that I'm like how can I what what what's next. Again, going back to Rick Rubin, his thing is as soon as you finish a work and you his for the once you share it, you just move on to whatever's next.
Why was it so resonant, that book *The Game*, in your view?
I don't know. It's a weird thing, it was really out of my control and it's funny because I really feel the book—I feel like you get the book. Like to be, I was really writing about male insecurity. Like it isn't a book about like—as you were saying, you were lonely, felt disconnected, you didn't know how to connect. That's what you said, right?
Yeah. It was like—I remember it was the girls at school. Like I didn't know why that dude over there was really successful with them and I was less successful than that guy over there. And I didn't realize that there was this whole kind of psychology about my posture and how I could present myself. And honestly, one of the big things that I came to learn—I don't think I've ever said this before—was: at 18 years old I was very unsuccessful with the women that I wanted.
So whenever I wanted someone, I couldn't get them. Right? It didn't mean I couldn't get, you know, girlfriends or whatever. But whenever I wanted them, I couldn't get them. Which is obviously quite—quite annoying. So there's like five people—girls in a row—that I wanted and I couldn't get any of them. I could get other people, I was doing fine, I don't want to make it seem like I wasn't doing fine, I was doing fine. And I always wondered why that was.
And then reading about the psychology of *The Game* and understanding that there's this sort of social proofing thing and that I portray my value to people in everything that I do: how I speak, how I hold myself, how desperate I am, whether I lean in in conversations and "peck" them, and how to just be a little bit more composed.
Right. Which you do very well, by the way.
Now I do! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe not so much then. And then I saw this really interesting thing which was: by 25 years old when I was actually secure in myself, my mannerisms all changed naturally. And I fell more in line to what in *The Game* you referred to as a "natural." As in like I did the high-value things naturally, and then I was successful.
Yeah. Because I think of it as like a really shallow path to to self-improvement or self-esteem. And it's nothing and I think it's interesting, I felt like the I think it did well because I think the culture thinks of it as like the "douchebag's Bible" or something like that. And for me it was really like about male insecurity and and that that feeling "less than" and and then sort of finding this very shallow path that also like—it’s a path that can go in the wrong direction if you keep... like you did, you the goal is to become a natural and let go of all those things. Almost like when someone's learning to play to paint or play tennis or whatever it is, they're following the form and then they let go and step into who they are. But people get lost in that.
Yeah. And then I didn't need any—funnily enough, I didn't need any tips or tricks or strategies or little games whatever when I was secure in myself.
Yes. What's the book you'd write then instead? If like, if the goal is to get to a place where you're secure in yourself, what is the who what kind of book would that be?
Yeah, I mean I think there couldn't be any other book because that was a the path I took. And B, like somehow I thought female validation would get me there when it really needed to be my own validation.
Yeah, like how do we get to—that's what I'm saying—like how do we get to what's the book on our own validation?
Yeah, yeah. I think—I think it's... there’s a couple great books on that, but I also think there's no shortcuts to this stuff. Like again, blessings to everyone who does plant medicine and I'm not against plant medicine in any way, but I think like like you can't just... I don't and again there are plenty of exceptions to everything I'm saying. But I think like doing one Ayahuasca like journey is not going to, you know, or doing one of the workshops that I doing the Hoffman Process or doing anything. We all were in this culture where we want these shortcuts. But like it's always that long cut, it was like the many-year journey part—the many-year journey we went on to to figure this stuff out is where we got there. So I think maybe there's no other path other than the one we took and if it was a shorter path we wouldn't have gotten there.
That's exactly what I think I—I wish I think men specifically like young disillusioned single men that are like looking for love and not having much success need now is—is a book about the "long cut." The long route.
There you go, the long cut. That’d be your next book, *The Long Cut*. Oh gosh, yeah. I'm not an expert on the subject matter enough to write about it, but but like what is what does the long cut look like? Because the long cut to self-esteem is like going to the gym, working on yourself, working on your mental health, being of service to society, friendships, emotional expression, those kinds of things.
You just did the table of contents to your book, we're getting there. That doesn't... I don't mean that lightly, that list you gave is really great. And it's funny, with my son who's in the in the room, we have Sunday Service days where we do something of service because I think that's like that I love that you mentioned that. Like we try to do something... so I think those I think I think it's true that it's really combination of stuff. And some people just look at one path, but it is a little bit of of all those different components of working on your psychological health, feeling like "Why do I feel less than?"
What was the thing... what's great what's great about like the stuff in your past looking at your childhood is you see that it's not you. I always thought it was just me, like somehow I'm not enough. And then I realized oh no, I feel like not enough because these experience, you know my mom calling me all these different names, I internalized that and thought that's who I was. And then I can say "Oh that's not who I am and now I get to change."
So it's nice to look back and see how these seeds were planted so we can say "Oh that's not me, that was just some programming," and then I can run a virus scan on myself, right, and quarantine the virus. So I think like the long cut to self-esteem is figuring out why what those reasons are and then working on them and then all those different components you said of I think the easiest step is being other-oriented instead of self-oriented. Being of service. Instead of saying "I expect everyone to make me feel good," how can I make others feel good? And how can I make my my job is to feel good about myself.
There's a great line, I mentioned Pia Mellody earlier who's this amazing therapist and author. She says like self-esteem should come from the inside out, not seeking it from the outside in. And so like you said, going to the gym—I think doing something physical, you know, like doing something meaningful, having friendship, social relationship connection, all those things having looking at those different areas of your life and keeping them full. And then looking at the things that are destructive in your life: how often are you doomscrolling, you know, how often are you comparing yourself to others, how often are you chasing things you don't really want but feel like you should want, and all those other things.
Your son comes to you at 21 years old and says, "Dad, I'm struggling. I'm single, I'm lonely, nobody's interested in me. Women aren't interested in me." Which book do you pass him: *The Game* or *The Truth*?
Yeah, good, good question. Yeah, I don't know. I mean first of all he probably would never... I feel like I don't know. I don't know, I feel like *The Game*... maybe I give him neither. I don't know, maybe I maybe I sort of just talk to him and listen. Yeah, I feel like you almost have to read both to to like get it because *The Game* can be seductive in itself. But also *The Game*'s not a—*The Game* doesn't necessarily end well even within *The Game* for the pickup artists. Yeah, so I don't know which I'd give him, maybe I'd talk to him.
Those characters from *The Game*, do you know where they are in their lives?
Yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah I talked like I sometimes see hear from Mystery who's out there doing his thing, doing workshops in Europe right now I think. Yeah. It's funny, like a lot of people still doing it or going through just still being them, doing them, right? Going in and out of relationships and how like I think it's hard, how do we stop doing ourselves if ourselves isn't serving us?
So you will be writing a third book in this series? I know you've written many, many, many books, but a third installment of Neil's kind of journey in love.
§02Transcript — part 2
Or or maybe not. Back to the idea like it feels natural that I do the next installment because that's what I do. But how often are we trapped what we've done before? Yeah. Like lately I've been doing these podcasts, true crime, these true crime podcasts. And I'm feel like I'm hopefully helping people and making a difference and storytelling in in another way and trying to like help people locally. So, so maybe I don't do that, but I don't know.
We talked about labeling. Yeah. And that’s kind of linked in with identity. What what do you what do you want to be known for? And I think this is an interesting question because I think if someone asked me that, there's like a bullshit answer and then there's probably like the truth. Like if I could choose what people knew me for, I would be known for the businesses that I've built. I guess these the podcast as well, but for me like I I have a preference towards that part of my identity for some reason. What about you?
Yeah, I mean I really like I always always want the books to be known more than me. Like I like you'll notice in the books my picture's not on them or anything like that. I don't like I really want the books to be known so I would just I guess I would like it like "Oh that's a new Neil Strauss thing, I can't wait to read it or listen to it or watch it." I just I just want to be known as like "Oh if he does something it's worth noticing or reading or paying attention to." So maybe that's as a writer or a storyteller or something, but but really like I'd rather the projects be known. Like the new podcast series I'm doing which is different than the rest. Like in my head I'm just thinking I just want it to be awesome and people to be like really excited by it.
When's it coming out?
I think January. I'll tell you about it offline, it's crazy.
Really? Yeah, it's crazy. Because when I saw you were doing a true crime podcast, I thought does that mean you're like reading out stories from cases that were, you know, a couple of years ago or something?
Yeah.
Okay. I'm a big true crime fan, it's the only thing I listen to. So I don't listen to any other genre, I don't even listen to this podcast.
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for you is: "Describe a moment in your life when uncertainty was dominant. How did you navigate this uncertainty, and how did it change you?"
After 9/11. And then after Hurricane Katrina. I think we had a certain thing in as Americans that we felt we were just Americans and not touchable or something like that, nothing bad happened. And then when 9/11 happened and we responded in the way we did as a country and felt like the whole world hated American terrorists and, you know, you had yellow, red, all these alert levels. Then when Hurricane Katrina happened and you saw bodies floating down the street of an American city and here was a disaster the government knew was coming and there was nothing we could do about it.
I think I felt this existential uncertainty which is like—which everybody feels now, by the way. The whole world feels it now because no one trusts the system, no one trusts the government. But this was like it felt new then, it's crazy how now everybody feels this way. But uncertainty I felt was like, "Fuck, you can't rely on the system to protect you. You're on your own."
Is that why you wrote the book about prepping?
Prepping, yeah. That's how I wrote—I wrote the book about prepping. And then what I did was prepping is basically preparing for the worst possible day so like doomsday or, I don't know, like a world war or a nuclear bomb so you start stockpiling in your house stuff that will mean that you can survive on your own. Yeah, learning kind of survival skills.
So I guess the way I felt with that un—so I felt that existential uncertainty in a way I did that was doing the things that would allow me to feel safe and give me like peace of mind. So the idea is when I feel the uncertainty, I try to take the steps that give me peace of mind and are constructive and not destructive. Sometimes it feels like we're in such an uncertain time then people do things that are giving them peace of mind that are destructive to themselves or others like all a lot of hatred and division and things like that.
But recognizing I think that that uncertainty maybe comes from within. So what I did I guess I guess I guess the answer is when I feel the uncertainty, I go on a journey that becomes a book—whether that was *The Game* with uncertainty about dating and relationships, or *The Truth*, or uncertainty about the world was *Emergency*.
And are you—are you still a prepper?
I'm prepped. But but at the same time, I also recognize there's only so much you can prep for. You know what I mean? We don't know when this these disasters are coming and we don't know how it's going to come or what it's going to look like. We had a pandemic, so we think we're preparing for the next pandemic but the next thing that's going to happen is nothing we're ready or we're concerned for. So I think the best thing you can do is be like mentally prepared for the unknown and crisis situations. But but I did get like a second passport and all those things in case I need to get my family to safety. So second passport maybe the answer.
Neil, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for writing *The Truth* because this book has certainly helped me to... I I said to you before we started recording there was a part of this book where you describe a bird in a cage and that's exactly how I felt. And then you go on to reframe that notion to make me understand that I'm not trapped in a cage and that I am consciously making a choice to be in the relationship that I'm in, and at any point if I wanted to leave I can.
And for me, that idea in this book is part of the reason that I've been in a wonderful, successful relationship for the last four years that has enriched my life. So thank you so much for that. Your writing style has always been something I've admired so much. And even when I became an author, I remember that being front of mind that you were able to take me on these incredible journeys and in through the journeys I learned something. And that's how I've aspired to write. We can do a whole another podcast another time about your writing ability because that is profound and evidenced by the fact you've written Rick Rubin's book, which is behind me, and Kevin Hart's book and many others that people don't know about. So thank you for the inspiration, it means a lot to me. And thank you for your generosity today.
Thank you. And I'm excited for where your journey takes you and for the next conversation on parenting.
I look forward to that. Thank you.
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