James Smith: How To Create The Life You’ve Always Wanted
嘉宾：James
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§01Transcript — part 1
The thing I think about most, especially when I’m on the go, but also when I’m sat here in the Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I’m filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do when I arrive is open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is.
The number of screenshots I’ve sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it’s such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. On any given day, if I’m recording hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team who then do the edit.
Fast Wi-Fi and internet is not a "nice to have." It is absolutely business-mission critical. So, when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and Wi-Fi to our new LA studio, which I’m sat in right now, we looked at every single option.
Of all the providers, the one that came back with the steadiest connection, as well as being the cheapest, was today’s sponsor, Spectrum Business. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all sizes connected with fast, reliable internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services. Millions of business owners already rely on Spectrum to keep their operations connected. If you want to join them, head to spectrum.com/business to learn more. Restrictions apply; service not available in all areas.
We've spoken about quite a few things today that I've never really spoken about before.
James Smith: the world's fastest-growing online personal trainer. But he is much more than that.
Like a driving instructor, I should not exist in your life in six months. Why is it so acceptable for people to invest money into fitness professionals and them still be there three years later? If you do your job well enough, your client leaves.
If people were truly happy, I would have been shut the hell up then, and I wouldn't have experienced so much growth from pointing out the inadequacies. I don't like people that present a solution without education. It breaks me to think of the tens of thousands of people who gave up on their ambitions because they went the wrong way for advice. And when they fail the plan or don't finish it, they blame themselves. Where the hell have you come to the conclusion that you would not succeed following your passion?
I just wish that maybe earlier on, someone had said to me, "Okay, you're not doing well here, but this doesn't mean you're not intelligent. There is something else that you could do very well at."
James Smith. The world's fastest-growing online personal trainer. But he's much more than that. He's an author of three books, his third one is about to come out. He is unapologetic, he is outspoken, and he says it how it is. And that's meant that he now reaches millions of people online every single week.
I had an expectation of James. I've seen him on social media, I've seen the types of things he says when he's on telly. But the guy I met today: deeply self-aware, unbelievably humble, and so incredibly wise. And because he's so honest and straight-talking, I walk away with some lessons that I genuinely believe will stay with me for a lifetime. You are going to love this one. Trust me when I say that. Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
James, you've listened to this podcast before, so you probably know that I tend to start in a similar place. I tend to ask my guests about their early years. But when I was reading about comments you'd made about your early years, one of the things you said is that "not much very interesting happened."
Yeah, it's one of those things where I was like, there are so many things to talk about. Let's not go there. As a young child in school, I didn't have a huge amount of friends. I think that primary and secondary school, if you had to pick five people that are never going to accomplish anything in life, I would have been in that group of people.
I was diagnosed with learning difficulties, which have kind of been disputed. I remember Jimmy Carr talking about getting that laptop. It's true; I had to see an educational psychologist and at the end they were like, "James's reading and writing speed is very quick. We think he's just lazy."
Throughout school, I was in the cloakroom, and they give you extra time in exams, which I didn't need because I was so bored. I'd be done in the exam 20 minutes before everyone else and just sat there, not through being intelligent, but like, "I can't be bothered with this."
A lot of behavioral issues at school. If I look back at that, I almost feel like my brain was only functioning at 20% throughout the whole education system, probably up until college and dropping out of university in my first year.
And you were adopted?
Yes. This is an open topic and I even before this podcast I was like, I wonder if any other high achievers are adopted. I found Steve Jobs, Jamie Foxx, Marilyn Monroe was in the list. I was trying to figure out if I could draw any relations to other people that have done it. I've even read books where someone on Instagram is like, "Oh, if you're adopted you should read this," because it resonated with me.
I bought these books and it talks about abandonment and senses of unfulfillment. I didn't really relate with any of those topics. So, I think that as far as a dream adoption story, I ended up in the Smith family. Blond hair, blue eyes, Mom and Dad still together now, each other's first girlfriend and boyfriend. So I was incredibly fortunate with that.
Having come all this way in your life and learned a ton from the books you've written—and I know that's such an introspective process—but all the people you've spoken to, all the DMs you must get, are there any dots you've connected now that have made you realize that being adopted was in any way consequential to who you were to become?
It's difficult. I'm still discovering it. With relationships, I think it's a very interesting one. I've had conversations with other adopted people and they say to you like, you become very attached to people very quickly. Because, it's a very strange thing never seeing a blood relative before.
You might look at your parents and other people look at their parents and uncle—they see features. I've never had that. You never feel like your parents aren't your parents because I'm a strong believer they are who bring you up. But then sometimes in relationships, maybe I'm a bit cold, maybe I'm a bit too intense. I'm always judging that and over-analyzing it. People ask me as well, they're like, "Oh, do you think you're this way because you're adopted?" and suddenly you're overthinking a lot. You're like, is it? Is it not? Is it something that's a big part or a small part? It's very difficult to get answers for that.
When you go through school and you go through the early teen years and then you've got people telling you you've got a learning issue and then they're giving you special treatment and all these things. At that point in your life, having bounced around a little bit and not really fit anywhere in terms of the system, do you think in hindsight you were learning that you were like, not good enough?
100%. And I think that I definitely wore that for the next four or five years where I thought the only place I'm going to be accepted is a bottom position in a corporate gig. 20k a year—I started off on 18—sales department, I'm going to have to cold call people and kind of work my way up slowly.
So, that's what I did for my early 20s. Worked in a sales department, 18k basic, then jumped to another one for 20k basic. I thought, "Oh, well, I'll do this for five to ten years, get to a management role, do that for five to ten years, maybe get near a directorship role."
I think that's what a lot of people who have failed the education system think. They're like, well that's what people do. "Oh, I might try recruitment," which I also did for a year. And everyone said, "Oh, you learn good money but you hate it." I'm 22, I'm like, "How can you earn good money and hate it?"
You hated it?
I did recruitment, it was good money and I hated it. So, it's one of those things where definitely I do feel that if we paint people—when we see people get bad grades at school—we should have a more open conversation about, "Okay, you're not doing well at this, what do you think you'd be good at?"
I mean, even in the last 10 years: "Don't play video games, there's no future in that." Now there is. "Don't spend all day on your computer, there's no future in that." Now there is. So I just wish that maybe earlier on someone had said to me, "Okay, you're not doing well here, but this doesn't mean you're not intelligent. There is something else in a lateral pathway that you could do very well at."
What would you say to someone—and I imagine there's a lot of people listening to this now who are driving in their cars now on the motorway because I see them upload the podcast when they're driving, they're on the treadmill on Monday morning, etc.—and they're in that job where there's that voice inside them that's saying, "You know what, you could have done more," and you've got so much more potential. But they've believed the narrative, the corporate "just climb your way up some shit ladder."
I have two answers to that. The first: so many people are hitting quotas working for someone else's goal. So in recruitment, people go, "Oh, I just don't think I'd be able to accomplish much on my own." I go, "Okay, but you're doing something you don't enjoy and you're exceeding at it. You're excelling at it. You hit quota for three years in something you're not passionate about. Where the hell have you come to the conclusion that you would not succeed following your passion? How have you come to that conclusion?" That's ridiculous.
Now, the second thing is, although this has been disputed, I'm a big believer—and I'm sure you will be too—in income satiety. That after you earn a certain amount of money, there's a tapering off effect. And it's very difficult to say that because straight away people's defense is, "Well, it's okay for you because you've gone past that curve."
I'm still on the way up and I say to them: you're probably working in your career for another 10 years because you think in 10 years' time you're going to have enough money to eventually be happy with your situation. What if that bet is wrong? What if you've just lost 10 years and you're not happy?
I think the two people—there's two ways of thinking. Some people think it's an exponential return where they'll go through misery for long enough and then boom, they're just happy. I said to them, how do you think millionaire CEOs wake out of bed? Like, "Oh my God, life is so good!" It's the exact same. They wake up same as you: "I can't wait to have a cup of coffee."
And then the other one is more of a linear scale where they go, "Okay, 30k this much happiness, 40k this much, 50k this much." I say to them, what if in 10 years' time you're wrong? 10 years is a lot more than 10 years between 30 and 40. 10 years is a lot more than 10 years between 20 and 30. Imagine always thinking in the back of your mind that that bet is going to be wrong. And if you could fast forward to 10 years' time and see that you made the wrong bet, how would you feel? Now think about that before you make a decision.
That's so true. Link Up TV published a video with me the other day and they put the title as "Money won't make you happy," which is not what I said, but I understand why they're doing it—we gotta get them clicks. And I did see the comments that said a very similar thing. It was like, "Oh, it's easy for you to say." I'm like, well, it would take someone that's made a million to tell you that a million isn't it. I couldn't have told you when I was broke.
And also, I have no incentive to put you off getting rich. I'm just telling you, I'm letting you know that up here, my happiness didn't scale proportional to my wealth, to a point. So as you say, 75k per household, apparently it starts to plateau. Just letting you know.
I always say to people, it's very important they understand this: all wins feel the same. All wins. You don't get a super surcharge on dopamine. The way our brain chemistry works—pleasure, serotonin, dopamine—you don't get a 1.7 surcharge because you're wealthy. So, when you secure a deal at a mid-level, high level, or stock exchange level, it's the same dopamine response.
People go, "Oh my God, okay, yeah." And buying a car, whether it's a Lamborghini or a brand new Golf, people cannot comprehend that that win feels the same. And I love to tell them, I'm like, no, it exactly is. And when people set goals—and I don't like the conversation going into fitness—but they say, "I want to lose 10kg." I'm like, lose 1kg, damn it! And then celebrate that, because that feeling of stepping on the scale and accomplishing something is the same at 1kg as it is at 10. You've just denied yourself a long way before you're allowed to be happy, which I think is what human beings are really bad at. We won't let ourselves celebrate wins at the level we choose. Not only do they feel the same, we get to determine where those wins are.
Did you find that success wasn't what you thought it would be?
Well, this is interesting because—and people don't believe me when I say this—I never intended for this. I never had dreams of being what I would consider wealthy. And people will watch this and they'll go, "No, no, no, the other guy's wealthy." And I'll say, "No, no, no, from a subjective standpoint, I've been able to buy my friends and my family dinner without having to check my bank account for like four years." That's something that I didn't have for the 28 before it. That's wealthy, right?
It's one of those things that I never really wanted. If I'm completely honest, my goal as a personal trainer was 10 clients, three sessions a week, pay me well. I don't want 30 clients doing 30 hours. I want 10 that see me three times a week. I'll be in London or I'll be in Sydney. If they skip a session, it's £150 an hour; they won't mind because they're good high-level clients. That was it. That was the goal.
What happened?
I became process-orientated probably in 2015 where on social media, for the first time, investments don't really interest me that much. And this is another crazy thing people hate me about: the social media investment I did. I will post something useful every day here for years. 10 years, I thought, and in 10 years' time, "Hey guys, here's a book." Ching, make 20 grand, whatever.
And as I was posting into that email marketing—I wrote email marketing emails for 10 months before I made a sale. If you had met me nine months in, you would have thought I was fucking insane. "Hey, James, what are you doing?" "I'm writing emails." "To who?" "300 people." "What about?" "My online PT program." "How many of them buying it?" "Oh, none so far."
Social media, three years in. "What are you doing?" "I'm posting every day." "How much money have you made?" "None." People would have gone, "You're fucking mental." Nowadays they go, "Okay, fair play." But the momentum that I wanted—I just wanted a life where I didn't have to seek clients, they'd seek me. I just wanted a life where I could post about a book and money would appear in my account.
And after doing that for three, four years, I feel like the table's hot and I enjoy being at the hot table. And rather than looking at an exit strategy, I've created a life that I love where I send a marketing email, market my brand so I can get people to email, manage my academy, promote books and write them. I have everything I need. I'm like on a wave that just never seems to end.
And that to me—I mean, Carol Dweck, one of my favorite authors: "Becoming is better than being." I never wanted to be anything in particular, so there's no gold medal depression at the end, right? I remember that from your pod. That's not there for me because I've never set an Everest peak. I've never set that. So this wave that's moving for me, I'm just happy. And you know what? I joke around all the time, I'm like, if this ends tomorrow, what a ride!
And I don't think enough people see it that way. I know you've had the pleasure of taking friends on a private jet. I did that once and I was like, wow. If I die tomorrow, they'll be like, "Rest in peace." Hopefully they'll cry. "He took me on a jet to Ibiza for one night." And if this all came crashing down, I'd be happy with that because I never set it.
There are so many boxers who wanted to be heavyweight world champion, they never made it, they've got to go to the grave with that. I almost feel like there's an element of being unbeatable when I never set a precipice to reach.
Mo Gawdat, which is one of my favorite podcasts I've ever done here, talks a lot about that: unhappiness is in essence when our expectations of how life is supposed to be going go unmet. And he's the—they call him a happiness expert, genius on the topic.
Even billionaires, they have expectations of their steak tasting like Japanese Wagyu perfection 10 out of 10. So if it comes and it's a 9 out of 10 steak, they are often furious. "What the fuck is this? Medium-rare I said!" Whereas you take that exact same steak, you give it to someone else that's on 18k a year, they'll be like—because their expectations are lower and their standards are lower—they will be over the fucking moon. Same steak, two different people with two different sets of expectations.
It's interesting as well where next time you're at a table with people that are very accomplished, I notice that the people that have experienced the steak that much, they're so much more involved in conversations because that's the only thing that can interest them on that night. They've had 10... and this is something that petrifies me where sometimes I feel like I want to be successful but not too much.
Because once you've eaten at every five-star restaurant in London, like you say, your standard has been set. Once you've dated 10 models, the standards have been set. And I almost do feel sorry for sometimes the Bezos, the Bilzerians. I think, "Wow," I'm like, "What are you doing each day to excite you?"
And this is why—not to hijack the conversation—but Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for me is like a nucleus of my focus, my attention, what I care about on a daily basis. Because nothing can really impact that. And I will never be able to get to a status where no matter who I am, what I do, or what I accomplish, when I step on the mats, we get in belt order. For years at my old gym, we all wiped down the sweat after the mats. Black belts, get a squeegee out and we do it.
And it's so important to me that I know that for the rest of my life when I can still train, I will never be too big for that. And I think that there are so many high achievers that love that connection to it. And I feel sometimes for people that are super successful, they're not getting beatings enough. They're not...
For me, I can remember I did a business-to-business event. I flexed when I was there. I was like, "Hey guys," I was wearing a gold Rolex which I actually just sold this morning. I was there, I was like, "Hey, you know, here's what it's like flying first class, we're in obesity." I was flexing on a business talk. Next day, went to compete, lost in the first round. Turned up, I was like, "Wow. Thank you for that." Thank you. My weekend would have been taking off as far as ego if it wasn't for getting beat up on the Sunday.
You know what? So many people had told me about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the way they speak about it isn't like it's a sport or a martial art. It's more like a philosophy for life, almost. It teaches you life lessons. I really fucking need to give this a shot. I really enjoyed it even though it was one a one-on-one session and I was in Indonesia for two hours. I was like, "I need to do this more often."
You know like marketing, social media, email marketing—you are going to be awful for the first six months. You are. But if people persevere through that... and again, I remember where I learned a lot of my business now. I was in Victoria, I was in a DoubleTree Hilton, I was in a room of 200 personal trainers. We all learned the same thing that day and I remember the faces of the people in there and I never saw them again. Never saw them on socials, never saw them on Instagram, on TikTok, anywhere like that.
And I think to myself, we all learned the same thing, just not all of us stuck with it through the painful times. Where in email marketing you spend six months and you don't make money. In Jiu-Jitsu, you spend six months and you don't beat anyone. You have to say to yourself, "Right, I'm happy to endure this because I know come the other side I can reap the rewards." And it's very difficult in this day and age to say to someone, "Let's get you to do something where you physically are going to be powerless for six months."
It doesn't sell well, that narrative.
But then when you get through it, similar to people—I love the email marketing analogy—now so many people in the "new rich" can send an email and that's their day's work done because they persevered, they built the relationship, they managed to cultivate an audience who are ready for it. Same with Jiu-Jitsu. If people just commit to it... and like you say, when people talk about it, you're like, this isn't a coincidence.
I drink less, I party less. I have now ambitions of teaching my future kids. I have ambitions of teaching white belts. When I go back to Sydney, I'll say to my gym, "Hey, if no one wants the fundamentals class, I'll have them. I'll have them." Same with the PT world. I never wanted to train athletes. I like just first-time Sharon, who is a housewife and she has to make sure the kids are at school on time. Teaching her to deadlift? That's what brings me pleasure. And I think that I'll really enjoy teaching the white belts. For so many people, they have so much that they are working for in life, but nothing that's such a slow, gradual progression like a martial art in the middle.
You've highlighted there one of the things that evidently made you successful was that commitment to consistency. And I mean, you would have seen it in your social channels because every successful person I've seen and I speak to says the same thing: first couple of years, fuck all. Then—I mean, that's the laws of compounding—it goes slow then it goes really fast. You would have seen that. So that's clearly one of the things. But what else made you—because there's a lot of people on Instagram giving advice and there's a lot of fitness people and whatever else. Why you, of all of them?
It's interesting where I think that having a conversation with me now, you would probably assume—or you would come to the conclusion—I'm different to my socials. I've always seen social media as a crowded room where, you know, a podcast is where we're sat together driving somewhere for three hours. Let's talk, let's relax, let the conversation wander.
But on Instagram, on TikTok, whatever, I have 10 seconds to capture your attention. And I love the idea of polarizing people. I said in my first book: imagine you invite me to a barbecue in Shoreditch and someone talks about Formula 1 and I go, "I fucking hate Formula 1." And someone goes, "What?" I go, "Look, I just... it doesn't interest me." And someone's like, "Did you see? You brought him the first time and he's shitting on Formula 1."
Ten people at the barbecue, three of them will be like, "You know what, I also agree with you, I think it's shit." And they'll remember me for saying something controversial rather than, "Oh yeah, it's good, isn't it? Oh Lewis Hamilton, yeah, he's so good." So many people want to get in line with an opinion that they're no longer remembered.
So I took it upon myself, and it was almost by accident. I'd do my lives every day, I'd do videos, then something would piss me off. And I'm not a violent person, so I'd just channel it into a video. And it would get a lot more likes and shares, and I was like, "Hold on, what's going on here?"
So again, I would post 10 videos and it would be the one where I was a bit more aggressive. And over time, I learned that there were certain things people wanted in a certain way. And it wasn't the six-packs, the chicken and broccoli, the food prep. It was being passionate without compromise about different topics.
I do swear as a person. I am crass, I am vulgar, and I do make very inappropriate analogies for things. I put that out. Like I said, I only ever wanted 10 clients. Only ever wanted 10 clients. So if half the people that see a video hate me for it, that's fine. Because as long as the other half is 10 people that would do business with me, again I'm invincible.
And I've always had that mentality that I only need 10 people to like me to make a living. And if I do those 30 hours at £150 an hour, six hours between 6:00 AM and 2:00 PM, I can live a dream life and be wealthy—even though it's barely breaking 100k to 200k a year. As long as I can buy dinner for my friends and family, I can be wealthy with 10 people.
And people completely misconstrue social media for that. They go, "I need everyone to like me. I need a million people to like me." You know, I first flew first class with 28,000 followers. And you don't need that many people to like you to do well. And I wish people could understand that because social media's become a popularity contest. This is not a popularity contest. This is a means of you getting people over the line to like you enough to do business with you.
It's so true. I did a lot of talking on stage where I was looking at people like Piers Morgan and Kanye West and Katie Hopkins. And what you've described there is what I've always said, which is: you don't have to like these people, but the conversation orbits around them.
Now, your barbecue analogy there: by you saying, "Formula 1 is shit," everyone then comes over to you and the conversation is centered around James's opinion. And that brings attention to you. I said to my friends last night—because I did a tweet and it's got 20,000 likes and it's going fucking crazy and everyone's talking about it—I said, listen, you're not going to be able to build a personal brand in 2022 if you're not prepared for someone to call you a cunt.
If you're not willing to accept someone calling you a cunt, it's going to be incredibly hard to get the attention you need for the algorithms to turn in your favor. And that means, in your case and as I've seen from many, just being yourself.
There's a cost. There is, but you can be selective with this as well. So, if I have an argument against the keto diet—I don't advocate the keto diet—so if a load of people that are zealots in the realm of the ketogenic diet hate me, that's fine. I'm starting fire on someone else's property.
Then I support vegans from an ethical standpoint, but I don't like this self-righteous, sanctimonious element of veganism that's been hijacked. A bit like I've often said, like feminism: what a fantastic cause, hijacked by a few to give it a bad, sometimes bad rap. Veganism is the same. But then I can have a little bit of a cheap shot and joke, satire content with a vegan. And suddenly, "Oh, the vegans are up in arms sharing this, this is unacceptable!" Again, I've started fire on someone else's property. And the people you've cultivated to like you go, "Ah, that's actually really funny."
So you can be very selective with who you pick arguments with. I did one about bodybuilding where I said, "Hey, if you want to diet down for six months to show off your insecurities versus someone else's, cover yourself in fake tan and call it a sport, you do you, right?"
The bodybuilder community went mental. And everyone was like, "Is this guy stupid? He's a personal trainer!" I don't coach bodybuilders. Yet thousands of them shared my post. My following went up. And little did they realize it was their followers that maybe invested in them but don't agree with their values. They went, "Hold on, I'm supposed to hate this guy but I agree with him. And now their eyes are on me, not someone else."
Being selectively hated is brilliant. And now I even look to the comment section for new content. Someone goes, "James, well, when are you going to start training chess?" I'm like, "Hey man, when are you going to start, you know, stop going on people's profiles you don't follow to make content?" There are so many arguments now that I can see from the negative comments that I can then turn into content. So again, it's one of those things where people need to appreciate there is a power in being disliked.
If I turn up to an event that's supposed to be fully booked and it's not got bums in every seat, I might go, "Ah, I might need to rein it in and really reconsider what I do for a living." But as long as the talks I do have people in them, as long as I'm still getting support for what I'm doing, I feel like I must be tiptoeing the line enough. Like I say, it's passion without compromise. I'm going to say what I feel and I don't care. I think it was Seneca: "If you do not wish to be criticized, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." And that's how I feel.
And are you being yourself or are you playing a character?
It's always caffeinated James. Me when I've had three coffees, that's who people get. Behind the scenes, I'm a bit more relaxed. I'm quite happy to disagree with people because there isn't an interest in it for me. Someone walks past me on the street saying "I love Formula 1," I'm not going to go, "Hey mate, come back here! You're fat and I hate Formula 1!"
And the same again where I'm not argumentative away from social media. If I see people chatting hate about me, I don't get involved in it. I'm not really that person.
What about Joe Wicks? What about that beef? Stir the pot there a little bit. You said some comments to him about... you said there's some dishonesty there regarding what he does.
So, this is something where I haven't gone back on my word. But about six months ago, I took the podcast I did about him offline. I just felt like I'd been a bit harsh. At the time, I'd got 10,000 followers, I'd had my first taste of growth on social media. And like beef in rappers, you need an arch-enemy. You need someone to be able to go at so you can kind of go back and forth.
I actually emailed Joe about four years ago—five years ago, seven years ago. And I emailed him and I found out that he'd seen one of my videos. And I thought, "Oh shit." I never expected him to see it, ever. I was posting content and I was like, "Oh my God, I might have hurt someone's feelings." So I emailed him. I said, "Hey Joe, just to let you know: one, I will be coming for you a bit, but two, you never get put down by people above you." That's all I said. And he emailed me back ages ago and...
What did he say?
You know what, coming back, I think he said something along the lines of he hadn't had an email like that before. It didn't stop me though. So there were a few things that frustrated me. One: I don't like people blanket-prescribing solutions to people. I don't. And I don't like anyone that presents a solution without education—the "teach a man to fish" analogy.
So, I had clients that were paying me but also bought his plan. Straight away, there was a bit of a conflict. And I remember looking through the supplement stack and I was like, "Branch-chain amino acids, leucine..." I was like, "Well, I don't know why you're popping these leucine pills. For my protein, they're massive—like a pelican trying to swallow each one." I was like, "Unless you're vegetarian or vegan, you don't really need this." Then the branch-chain amino acids, and I was like, "You don't really need to be consuming another six pills with this."
And then I was like, from an ethical standpoint, these people are very over-supplemented for jumping around their front room. Then there was the one-size-fits-all plan. One of my clients was a Type 1 diabetic who got sent it, and I was like, "Don't eat that. This is not specialized for you." And the amount of volume that was being given to people—it's very easy to make people tired.
This is what frustrates me as a trainer: I actually want to stimulate people in the gym, get them moving. And if there was ever a boundary of the maximum they could do, I want to come under that every day. A lot of people are stressed, underslept, undernourished. Smashing people in their front room every day, I don't think is the solution out of this.
So I picked some holes in the programming, picked some holes in the supplement issue there. But the main problem is this: people would have gone there, seen him on TV, GMTV, seen the book sales and gone, "This is my savior." And when they fail the plan or don't finish it—which I think a lot of people do, I'm not saying that objectively—they blame themselves.
And this is what kills me. So many people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, would have done a one-size-fits-all plan, all doing the same exercise regime. I could not sustain HIIT training at 32 every day in my front room. It would break me. When they do eventually fall off that and the meal plan—cooking everything from scratch, which again, I mean we're sitting next to Huel. That's a market that's come off the back of people not wanting to cook from scratch.
When they fail that plan, they're going to blame themselves. And the voices in their head are going to say, "I didn't want it enough. I'm not motivated. I'm not committed. I'm not cut out for this." You hear in my voice now—this is something I'm passionate about. It breaks me to think of the tens of thousands of people who gave up on their ambitions because they went the wrong way for advice. If people love HIIT and they love cooking from scratch, this guy's probably the guy for you—join his plan, not mine. But it almost felt like physics: so many people went to something, it created gravity that other people went to. And it's my feeling that that let a lot of people down. And if it didn't, I wouldn't have experienced so much growth from pointing out the inadequacies. If people were truly happy, I would have been shut the hell up then and I would have just gone away and not existed on social media.
So what's your plan? How is it different?
Imagine we have you, the consumer. The principle of fat loss is a calorie deficit. Right, so we need to create an energy deficit.
Just for anybody that doesn't understand, that means burning more calories than you're consuming.
Exactly. And it doesn't make it a simple science, but let's just say to people, like money in the bank analogy: if you earn too much than you spend, you're going to accrue money in the bank. That is what fat is. It's not from toxins, it's not from whatever you're led to believe.
Now, everything in between those two, how it works in the person, is a method: keto, 5:2, intermittent fasting. All of these are methods that dress up the principle for the consumer. It's almost packaging something for the person. With me, rather than giving them the method first, I put them straight in bed with the principle.
And I say, "Look, this is how many calories I think you burn on a daily basis. I think you should try eating 15% less than that. Here's a protein target. Go away. If it works, we've hit it. If it doesn't, we're still too high. If you gain weight, we've really missed the mark." This is how it works. Really educate people on all the things they need to go.
Like a driving instructor, I should not exist in your life in six months, apart from the guy that taught you to drive. Why is it so acceptable for people to invest money into fitness professionals and them still be there three years later? The PT model is almost flawed in some respects. If you do your job well enough, your client leaves.
So for me, even when my clients that I had face-to-face for years—I was on a gym floor for four years—I said, "Look, you're going to pay me more than the rate that you pay anyone else. But in three months' time, if you can't do this on your own, I'll give you your money back." Because I should be... people arrive at fitness like getting in the car for the first time. They're like, "What the hell is this third pedal?" "That's a clutch." "A clutch? Dad, what the hell is a clutch?" I remember learning to drive. I thought there was "go" and "stop." And rather than just getting in the car and driving, I need to explain to them we need this to change gears. The indicator must be done before we start to break. This is your mirror. And the fitness world doesn't have that anymore. There needs to be some ruthlessness with this where I say to people, "Look, this is the education you need. You need to learn how to do this for yourself."
It's one of those things where I have a big problem with people monetizing and not giving that solution. I think it's so important that we teach people these fundamentally so they understand. And I'm not an extremist. You look at me now—we were talking before the podcast about "Have you been on the front cover of Men's Health?" I was like, "No, no, no, I don't agree with that." I don't think these are physiques that are obtainable to most men in our country. I think, you know, that's like saying, "Hey, you can't be happy till you earn a quarter of a million pounds."
Yes, that's great, but most men won't get there. So how about we set the goal something more realistic? Ant Middleton, another one of your guests, friend of mine—he got criticized for not being lean enough for the Men's Health cover. We got a guy climbed Mount Everest! "Oh, sorry mate, you're not lean enough. You haven't shaved your chest recently enough." So, it's one of those things where I think there's a lot of work to be done with not only teaching people how things work, but also in setting the finish line.
So from entrepreneurship, you—the "new rich" I think is great because we have such subjectivity between how much money your business can make. But once you get the freedom to work remotely and live your life, well done, you've done it. And I think that if someone, especially men, can get to the point where they're happy to go for a jog topless, you've done it. They don't have to have abs. If you can go for a jog topless or you can wear a pair of Speedos on holiday...
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Well done, mate, you've done it. And I think we need to have that approach with fitness.
You're in the business of helping people change their lives, hopefully. That's part of the goal: to help them become a better version of themselves. And a lot of people listening to this will have a friend or they'll have a family member or someone that they want to help change their life. What have you learned about those that actually do take the steps, commit, change their lives, and those that just kind of say it? And are you able to identify them super early and say, "This person's got no chance"? Is there like a warning sign where you go, "This person's just all talk"? And do you give up at some point on people?
Face-to-face, I had to. Because there was a finite amount of energy in which I could give people and I had to sack clients. And I was sorry—someone could take your slot, pay me the same amount of money, but I can make progress with them. And sometimes they come back a different person.
The main thing I learned... I wrote the first book, *Not a Diet Book*, and then I realized there was a precursor. My theory is that—and in my videos and my content, I say fat people, I say obese, and I use the "c" word openly—but I don't think people are gluttonous and greedy. I think that, yeah, from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense that if we're surrounded by copious amounts of hedonic food, we should be consuming it because we have done for hundreds of thousands of years.
But people don't want to be this way. So I came to realize that so many people, before we look at calorie deficit, we need to look at other pressing issues: Do you like your work life? Do you like your relationships? Because if you come home from a work you're not passionate about, from a job you're not passionate about, and you walk straight in through the door to a relationship you're not passionate about, me telling you to eat less means doing less of the only thing you might enjoy every day.
So there's a big life constructionist issue that comes up. And actually, I find as a PT I was asking this. I was like, "You're always moaning about your boyfriend. Why don't you break up?" "Oh, we've been together five years." And since now I now know that's the sunk cost fallacy, where they're making a decision based off the previous investment, not the actual reason if they want to be in a relationship.
So with the second book, I was like, whoa, before we even get into this commitment, wanting it, do I give up on this person? I'm like, right, we've got Steve, repetitive yo-yo dieter, sticks to the deficit three weeks then he falls off. I go, "Steve mate, do you like your job? Do you like it?" "Nah, well I've been there eight years." "Do you like your relationship, Steve?" "Ah nah, my missus is a wanker," whatever it is. And I've come to realize that if we can help change those things in those people's lives, suddenly everything else seems a lot easier. There's a lot less boundaries, a lot less effort.
So in a cheesy way, we almost need to address the foundations that people are building on. Because if you haven't got this... imagine you're in a job you hate on 50k and you take a pay cut and start a venture with your best mate for 30k. You're going to have less pleasure in your life, less expensive trainers, less private jets, whatever. But suddenly you have a job you enjoy. And if you're getting enough satisfaction between seven when you wake up and four when you come home, you won't need to get it from food. And then they drop a bit of weight, and then they start feeling better, and then they go, "Oh, you know what, I could do with a bit of muscle on this arm," so then they start going to the gym and then they make friends there. So this whole conversation surrounding motivation—I don't think it's a positive charge motivation. I think that too many people are carrying a negatively charged career and a negatively charged relationship status.
So you view a poor relationship with your diet or food as more of a symptom of negativity or lack of fulfillment or lack of satisfaction in other areas of your life?
Because I've actually been there. When I worked in sales—and I hate phone calls—it was the wrong job for me. I don't... even now when people call me, I'm like, "What do you want?" They're like, "What do you mean? Are you alright?" "I'm fine, till you called me."
And I used to get to work and I used to have Nutella sandwiches. Two slices of toast. I wouldn't even be hungry. Peanut butter on one, Nutella on the other, put them together. I'm having a 500-calorie bit of toast just to kill time from my mundane existence in my office. Again, there are so many people doing this. And in my time in corporate, I realized people are doing the absolute bare minimum to get by. And I always say to people, the second you join a big corporate business, they're going to pay you the least amount of money for the most amount of your life.
And if you don't construct how you want your life to look, they're going to do it. And a lot of people don't like how that construction looks. And then they wonder why they're feeling malaise or depressed or disheartened. And it's because you let someone else build your life for you. And it's very important for people to unattach from that.
And then, if they can... and this is another thing where I'm sure you'll be able to relate: some of the best things that have ever happened in my life have come off the back of opportunities not going my way and my back's been against the wall.
I'll probably get shot for saying this: doing an event later on this year at Sydney Opera House, which is mad, massive. Which for me is an incredible feat because four years ago, I remember being so skint in Sydney living in a hostel that I went to Opera Bar to apply for a job behind the bar. And they said you have to have a qualification to serve alcohol. I was like, "Ah, I'm not doing this." I remember reading Tim Ferriss's *Tools of Titans* on the ferry back to where I lived. And it goes, "If someone put a gun to your head, would you work harder?" I was like, "Oh shit. Yeah, I would. I would call up all my existing clients, I'd get referrals, then I'd call those referrals and I'd close them for sales. I'd give them money-back guarantees. I would quite literally just do a lot more."
And then I came to realize, "Okay, I'm going to go home and do that." And within five months I joined Fitness First and then bought my way out of it. And it's crazy that people are so afraid of being in this position where they leave a career they're unfulfilled with that they're going to be stuck and lost. But anything, when your back's against the wall, you find another version of yourself that works harder and does more and puts themselves into uncomfortable situations.
And my favorite thing to say to someone is like: how many times have you let yourself down, really, in your life? How many times have you really woken up and gone, "Oh, I've really let myself down"? And even if you have, you got out of it. And most people they haven't. I go, "Why the hell do you think you're going to let yourself down now? Where's that come from? Where's that bullshit assumption come from?" Probably the people you hang around with. Probably the naysayers in your life that maybe are saying it because they want to protect you.
And for so many people in that kind of world of just not fulfillment. And I always say again, please do not mistake passion with being good at something. Because if I get you to do anything for three years, you're going to be good at it. Don't call that passion. You do recruitment for three years and you can close people—"Oh yeah, straight here, FTSE 100, I'll get him top four," whatever. Doesn't mean you're passionate about it; it means you're good at it. And people really need to distinguish that.
There's going to be a ton of people listening to this now that are in that situation. They're on their way to a job this morning that they don't particularly like and they're going to say, "Well, James, I've got a mortgage to pay and I've got a couple of kids." You'll get this a lot, same as I get it every day. "Easy for you guys to say because you're single and you've got all this money now, but I can't just leave this call center, James. I've got Timmy that needs to go to school and I need to buy his books for his book bag." What do you say to those people that are feeling like they've built a wall too big to climb over?
It's a very difficult one and again, I can never say "Oh, just do this." Because when I'm talking now, I'm talking to James of 22. Similarly to how you would talk to yourself at 18. I can't talk to every age group listening to this podcast so I'll try to talk to the one I know best.
But there's two kind of ways out. There's one where some people do need to make a risk because they may see no options now, but where are they going to be in five years? A lot of the time, things get worse with time, not better, in these situations. Unfulfillment, passionless existence—all of these things get worse. If your relationship is on the rocks, you don't just give it four years. Something needs to be done; sometimes you do need to rip the cord.
But to people who are genuinely past it—because people did read my second book and go, "Well, I just can't do this"—I said to them, well okay, make sure your kids know this. Make sure if there's one valiant thing you do, it's fall on the sword and say, "Right, for me, I will sit out the next 10 years, but those kids, every time I talk to them, every day they're at the dinner table, every step they make in life, instill that into them."
My dad said to me like my whole life, he's just always said, "You're a long time dead." He always just drilled it into me my whole life. Every time I've wanted to do something, he's like, "Well, you're a long time dead, son." And it helps me understand there is no time to dwell, to wait, to see things out. And I think that again, that's one of the things that people don't think about enough.
You know, we're all slowly dying. It's such a weird thing to think about. People go, "Oh, I'll just give it a few more years." You don't have that! Time is not on our side. Our existence as a human being is... if the universe could talk, it would laugh at the amount of time we have to live. And for some people, again, what's the worst that could truly happen? You've got a mortgage, cool. Have you got enough to survive two months? Two months. And if you can't give everything to something for two months, maybe don't do it at all.
Personal trainers, as well, they say this all the time at my business talks. "Oh, you know, they're doing minimum wage hours for £6-7 an hour wiping down machines between trying to run a legitimate business and they're afraid to go alone." I go, "If I gave you £7 for that hour and put you on a gym floor and gun-to-the-head mentality, 'You need to make a business or you're going to wipe down machines for your whole life,' of course they're going to do it." The intensity, the audacity, everything they could give to people is going to be incredible. I think it's baffling that people write themselves off before they even make the decision. And in some respect, them going "I've got a kids, I've got a mortgage"—I appreciate all of those things—but is this a bullshit hurdle you're putting in front of making change in your life? I could be wrong. I don't know, but it could be. They need to ask themselves that; I can't ask them that.
One of the things you said that was really interesting: you said, "I don't feel deserving of my success." And I've heard you talk a little bit about imposter syndrome. Do you suffer with imposter syndrome?
I kind of back out of it very quickly every time I feel the emotion. Everything to me is just weird. It's just weird. People want a selfie? I'm like, "Yeah!" I'm like, "This is a weird part of my day, let's embrace it." This is something that up until 27, no one ever stopped me for a photo or acknowledged my work. I'm 32 now—give or take 15% of my life. So for 85% of my life, that never happened. So everything to me is just... you know, I joke around at the speaking events, I go, "Hey, I'm going to get found out soon. Until then, I'm going to milk this for everything I can."
I do, I do feel it a lot. It's a strange one, especially at home. Like I go out with my mom and dad, someone will say, "Oh, James, can I get a picture?" I now chaperone my dad when he goes into London. We went to Twickenham a few weeks ago, and I don't particularly like going to watch sporting events anymore. It's cold, the trains are so crammed, all of this. But if my dad's going, I'll be like, "I'll come with you, I'll make sure no one barges into you." Especially when people are exit Twickenham, I'm like, "Fuck off." Purple belt. Yeah, yeah, watch out mate, you're going.
And even I see it in my dad's face. He's like... but he doesn't—my parents don't have social media, they don't exist in that world—but I can tell they're kind of proud of it. And I was like, you know what, if my parents are proud of this weirdness, I'll embrace it. And I'll be happy to embrace it. But yeah, it's just incredibly strange. It's again why I need someone else to negotiate or rate what I get paid in speaking appearances because whenever... even getting the invite for this podcast, I was like, "Fucking hell." I was like, "I hope I can keep up the conversation for an hour." It's even my biggest fear whenever I have guests on my podcast. I'm like, "What if I run out of things to ask after half an hour?"
Where does that come from? That sort of self-doubt and almost insecurity?
I think that a lot of my confidence—not all of it, but a big chunk of it—is a facade. An essential facade. I need to play the character. Confidence to me isn't about who you are, it's about who you need to be. It's about how I need to talk in this interview, how I need to present myself, the things I need to get passionate about.
In some respect, when that fades, you know, I'm just a PT on a gym floor in Bracknell. I worked on a trading estate for three, four years, and the craziest thing is I was happy. I was happy then. You meet me four or five years ago, "Hey James mate, how's your life?" I wouldn't be like, "Oh, you know, fucking hell, I could do with a bit more money. You know, I could do with an expensive watch." I was never like that. I used to ridicule my clients for flying business and buying Rolexes. I was like, "What a waste of money!" Now to my other friends, I'm like, "You should really try business."
And yeah, I've definitely had a complete flip on that. I don't know where it comes from to be honest, but to be honest, it's probably family. I spend a lot of time with my family and my friends. I don't really have any mega-successful influencer friends. Everyone's pretty grounded and we all think that we're getting away with murder charging money for things. So I think it probably comes from that.
But from what you said as well, you spent the first at least 15 years of your life being indirectly told that you shouldn't aim so high and not much is going to happen in your life, right?
It was when I first became a PT that this changed, where I remember listening to podcasts, reading books, studying topics. And one day it clicked. I was like, I'm never going to be in the best shape, never going to be the most muscular, never going to be the most experienced. And I was like, I could be a good communicator. Because these podcasts I'm listening to are dull as fuck. I listened to a 56-minute podcast on caffeine. I managed to turn it into an academy module that was two and a half minutes, right? That's all they needed.
And I thought, there's a gap in the market here. And it becomes a snowballing effect where maybe even the same with yourself, where at the beginning you were like, I understand the operational part of a business, I understand investorship. Then when you see the returns on your efforts, you're like, "Oh, I'm actually quite good at this." And you get all these confirmations that occur along the way. And I think it's more that, if I'm honest. I still struggle to communicate with myself that I'm an authority on things. I actually need external validations still quite a lot, which I've never really told anyone before. We've spoken about quite a few things today that I've never really spoken about before.
And even there are always little battles that can be won and lost. And some days I'm like, I do lose belief in who I need to be. And you know what, actually content creation for me really helps me with that. Because whenever I'm having a day where I'm like, "Fuck, do I really know what I'm talking about?" I will just express something I feel wholeheartedly about and see how it goes. And when it fucking blows up, I go, "Oh, maybe I do know what I'm on about. Carry on."
That's a dangerous game to play because on the other end, if external validation is moving you up, it's like impossible for it not to move you the other way. So if someone DMs you and goes, "You are... you're a... you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, vegans are, you know, this and keto... a keto-vegan is the best way to be," surely that moves you too, no?
It does. And sometimes if I do get a really harsh criticism, I don't take it from an emotional level, I take it from an objective level. I actually do this a lot: if someone criticizes me on something, I go, "Before I think he's a dickhead, he could be right." So I give him the benefit of the doubt and I'll go to someone smarter than me. I'll be like, "Just to double-check, I'm right on this topic?" And I think that's a good way to protect myself from it. Every time someone says "You're wrong on this subject," I don't go, "Hey fuck you, I've got more followers than you." I'm like, "Oh fuck, I best go away and research this." And I actually use the little troll attacks sometimes to reconfirm my position on something. If someone goes, you know, "You swear too much in your content," I will reflect on it. Am I swearing too much? Is this how I got here?
Dangerous game to play that, like we all play it—I'm not pretending. I'm just playing devil's advocate to ask good questions here—but that, yeah, if you're reliant on other people to validate you, then their words can also invalidate you theoretically. So do you struggle with that, being...
Then I would just remove myself from the situation on the social media side of things and I'd be like, "Okay." I'd sit with my thoughts. And again, you know what? I remember you saying this word just before we went live: psychedelics really helped me with this. But psychedelics also got in my head a couple of times. For people that don't know too much about psychedelics, I've always said to people: it's like therapy with yourself. You're not always the guy that holds all the answers, but you're at least the person that has the questions. I remember doing a magic mushroom trip and one of the questions I was poised with was, "Do people like you for who you are or what you do?"
I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna need a few weeks. I'm gonna need a bit of time for this." Because I was like, how many of my followers actually know who I am? That's my first defense when someone criticizes me, I'm like, "You don't know me." Then I'm like, "Oh, if they don't know me, what do they like me for?" I was like, "Fuck." I'm still figuring it out. So I think that there's definitely a lot of conversations and internal dialogues in which I'm still breaking down. And that's another thing that people can't understand about psychedelics—some of the things you're poised with in question can take months, sometimes years, to unravel.
It's one of the things with building an identity, isn't it? You then... it's easy to start to believe you are your identity. And that's not always a helpful thing because it can take you further and further away from who you actually are. And I think all the mental health research is clear that when we abandon ourselves because we've built up a persona, then it can be very costly for the person we truly are. And I actually think that continual faking, from what I've learned from my guests, is really, really harmful. So it must be somewhat difficult, right? Like creating the separation, because you are not the guy that I've met today. You're not the guy that I've seen on Instagram telling me that I'm a fat prick. Like, these aren't the same—I'm joking. These aren't the same individuals. So how do you kind of dissociate from that?
I think Jim Carrey said something about taking the mask off. He goes, "Depression is when you have to take the mask off and say 'I don't want to do this anymore.'" And for me, very fortunately, it's only two, three minutes a day. I'm this person. It's not hours on TV sat in front of loads of people. But then sometimes what I do like is I purposely... I call it a "cunt-sieve."
I do a post that catches all the cunts in a sieve and I sometimes purposely, as hard as I can, try to get people to unfollow me. With I just say something brutally honest, I go in as hard as I can with the objective of losing a few thousand followers. Because then I can kind of tighten the area, the remit of people at which I talk to. And I remember in the middle of summer, I was like, "This is shit. Just honestly, I was like, we're kind of out of lockdown but we're not. Still gotta do tests to go travel. We're pretending it's the new normal but it's not the new normal." And I just expressed my emotions without the facade and no one barely even noticed. And I was like, "That's good. That means there's not this big transient period between I am just... it's not a different person, it's more enthusiasm," which I think again is a very important thing.
Like, part of... I always say that my talks are between a TED Talk and stand-up. I need to ensure that I can tiptoe the line of retaining the audience, keeping them in, entertaining the audience at the same time. So there is a requirement. Jimmy Carr when you met him, you wouldn't... if you listened to that podcast the first half an hour, you wouldn't go, "Oh, he's a funny fucker." You'd go, "This is a very intelligent person." So I completely appreciate where he comes from as well. For me, I don't think there's too much separation. I think you wouldn't sit with me now and go, "That's a completely different person." You would go, "Okay, this is an un-caffeinated James."
You said the word depression there. One of the things you wrote about in your book is anxiety as well and your own experience with anxiety. Tell me about that. Is that something that...
Well, you sleep with people and they can say anything. That's one that creeps up on you over time. Where you can have... I remember once waking up to a message saying, "Relax, this is fine, it's all being dealt with, but one of your ex-girlfriends in a Facebook group community for moms has said 'Do you think it's okay if I make up a story about my ex? I will take the money from the story and give it to my son.'"
So we had that screenshotted, we had that locked down, so if it did go to the press, straight away we can have it taken down. And I was like, "Wow, I thought we were on good terms 10 years ago," or whatever it was. And that then gets your mind working. You go, "What if I rub someone the wrong way? What if someone changes their stance on you? What if I genuinely want to be ignorant on a subject and someone construes that as a facetious attempt to insult someone?"
So there's a lot of anxiety that I carry because not everyone watching is watching you succeed. A lot of people watching you want to see you fall and they're waiting at that very opportunity. And that is quite tough because there are going to be a lot of people that are out to just not see me be happy. So that's where the anxiety stems from a lot of the time.
You have the general life anxiety like, "Oh, I hope I don't get cancer this year." You know, one of those things. I've had friends that never made it to 30. Some of my rugby teammates that, you know, find a lump in their testicle on a Friday, biopsy by Sunday, dead within 10 months. And I think about that a lot. So I think it's important to have that anxiety as well. I'm not guaranteed to live to 60. You know, I'm not guaranteed to see my book release, so for the publisher's sake, they'd better get it finished.
So there are... there are anxieties but I work proactively to override them. You know, Mark Twain: "I've had many worries in my life, most of which never happened." So I think that I've got the wisdom, especially of Stoics, to... these anxious traits are not new. They've existed for a lot longer than we could imagine. So you do carry that around. I get drunk, you know, "Oh did I put something on the story?" You know, I know that drunk James can say things but I know he'd never do things. He's not inappropriate, he's not a groper, he's not disrespectful to women or any of those things. So I'm fine with that. But then I do carry this small amount of anxiety because the higher you climb, the further you fall. And when you feel like your life is a fairy tale, you hope it has the fairy tale ending. And you're like, "I hope I'm not the one that... you know, this is going too well." Like you're at a gambling table, you keep winning on red. Eventually, I'm gonna lose everything. I think about that a lot. So I think that's what keeps me straight.
How do you defend yourself from being cancelled? What's your sort of philosophy for that? For me, my thing—and Ant Middleton I think reaffirmed this for me, Jordan Peterson reaffirmed this for me as well—is if I never try to convince anybody that I'm something I'm not, if I never try and convince them that I'm like a really good guy or that I'm like morally perfect, they'll never be able to call out contradiction. And really, a lot of the time, people getting cancelled is because they tried to pull the wool over your eyes about their like moral compass.
And it explains why Jimmy Carr can sit here and go—I mean, this is slightly different because it's comedy—but Jimmy Carr can sit there and go, "Oh, fuck the over-70s, the Delta variant wiped them out," or rappers can talk about all the misogynistic things they talk about, whatever. No one's going to leave any hate on their videos or on their because they never gave us the expectation of other otherwise. It's usually the people that, quite often it's the people that are our Prime Ministers or our politicians or have inherited this moral high ground that we go, "Oh, you had a Christmas party!"
I stand with very controversial opinions as well surrounding... I'm very pro-drug legalization. I think that, you know, I've got family members in the police force, I wish they were dealing with real crime. And I think that we could abolish a lot of drug-related crimes by legalization, I think we should tax and we should quality control. I don't think it's going to be a net positive for society, but I don't think exactly right now it is any better.
So with standpoints like that and people go, "James, have you done cocaine?" I go, "Yes." You know, "Have you done MDMA?" "Yeah, last weekend." You know, I will always be honest with people. And that does give you a drop-off of followers. But the cunt-sieve: I filter them out early so that they can come in, they can go... and that's not to be sexist or to talk about female genitalia; that is to use another polarizing word.
So I'll be transparent with that. Similarly to Danny Dyer got caught on CCTV doing a line and everyone's like, "Ah, it's just Danny, you know, what'd you expect?" So there is the anti-cancelable effect of that. You know, even when single, being very transparent with needs and wants through messages so that if someone was to look through a trail of it, you'd be like, "Well, he's made it very clear that was the position he was in." So I'm always trying to maintain an anti-cancelable thing.
I haven't got a TV, I haven't got a radio. I've actually probably had 12 minutes of TV time in four or five years. I think because a lot of TV networks don't want to get cancelled. So if you were to pull the plug on all my media tomorrow, I'd probably see a 1% drop-off on engagement. And you know, I'm very honest with all my clientele. The people that really matter to me are book buyers, academy members, and talk attendees. I don't believe that any of my actions would ever deter them from their interest in me, which kind of makes me uncancelable. Yeah, and I'm not too worried about that.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the types of imprisonment in life. There's physical imprisonment—you can put me in a jail. And the other type of imprisonment, which I think is probably even worse, is like the mental imprisonment, which is: we're going to decide what you can think and say and who you are. And like, I really don't want that. So how do I have to design my life to make sure that I never get mentally imprisoned, I never go to mental jail?
And one of them is building enough resources so that even if you turned off my revenue streams—the ones you could turn off—I'm still good. The other is things like this, which is: this is my own show, don't sell it to Spotify or someone else because then there is a guy that could pull the plug. And I really... I've really started to think about this idea of like designing an uncancelable life so that you could be mentally free in a world where we're all fucking virtue signaling and trying to fit in and be correct. You know what I mean?
"Mental jail." I like that. I'm putting that in book three.
Yeah, yeah. I'll beat you to it. We'll race, we'll see if you can get it in the book first.
I think, yeah, you're incredibly correct. And I think that, you know, I don't have a huge amount in savings but I think I could live three years on that. I went to Asia for six months when I was younger and in six months I spent £3,500. I wasn't staying in the nicest places, but I spent time there. So sometimes I'm like, "Hey, if the world goes to shit, I got 10 years in Thailand, let's go!" I'll just train Jiu-Jitsu, won't cost me anything. Laundry, whatever.
So I always do that. And I actually wrote about this in my book. I remember I ate in a steak restaurant in Sydney once on the beach. And the waiter that served us—really nice guy, young guy—and I looked at him and I went, "Oh, I could have your life, you know." You probably serve steak in the restaurant, probably get good tips here in Sydney. You probably work 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM most nights, maybe five, six nights a week. I could surf during the day and get a dog and train Jiu-Jitsu. If I was to do that every day for the next 30 years, I would have a better life than 99% of people on the planet.
So with the cancelable thing, I almost think like, if I was to get cancelled, oh well, I wouldn't have to use my phone as much. As long as I can get into a country that I genuinely love... I always say to myself, I'll open a Jiu-Jitsu dojo in a small town in Australia. I've got door-knocking experience; I used to door-knock for Npower. I used to have to knock on 100 doors to sell gas and electric to people that already had gas and electric. How much easier would it be to sell Jiu-Jitsu memberships? "Hey, come down, first week's free," whatever. I in the same way, not only like to have the uncancelable life, I like to have a get-out plan that can sometimes be better than my current existence. So it's one of those things where I was like, yeah, I do think about that a lot. And that's why I have family trusts, isn't it?
Exactly. But no, I think it is one of those things where, especially with Dragons' Den and you being on BBC, there is an expectation of who you are. And the mental jail you talk about, I experienced in the corporate world where I was in recruitment—high-end recruitment. They'd say, "What'd you get up to the weekend?" The truth was, I was in an away bus to Exeter playing rugby and I got "dick of the day," so we had to do Edward Ciderhands where they duct tape bottles of cider to my hands and I had to drink about three liters of cider pretty much to break myself free. They put a bin bag around me and I puked in it for the most way back. I was like, "Yeah, just went out for dinner with my friends."
And then having that same conversation with everyone. "Good weekend?" "Oh, lovely, thanks. Went out for dinner with my friends." I couldn't even express myself, which is... you do feel like you're behind bars. And I used to have to wear a shirt and tie, clean-shaven. I wasn't even client-facing most time and I'd get shit for not shaving. And where I just wanted to go, "Why do I need to fucking shave?" I'd be like, "Okay, yeah, of course. I'll get the Bic out tomorrow." It... and that builds up. That angst builds up. And for a lot of people that do suffer mental jail, I think that's another reason martial arts saves them. They can save that angst, they can save that frustration and channel it later in the day. I have big worries over people that don't have an outlet for breaking out of jail.
Oh yes, yeah.
And they probably then turn to alcohol and violence and getting in punch-ups or whatever it is. So I feel that human beings, I believe we're quite combative. I think that you watch kids have play fights—they're not trying to hurt each other, sometimes they are—give them a set of rules, get them into it, let them express that. But yeah, the two things: one, if people are in that mental jail, they need a way out to express them. And if they are in a mental jail, they need to create long-term solutions to not be in there. Because not expressing yourself in life... like you say, I've never thought of it like that. I think that's really profound. Mental jail, where in some sense, being mentally behind bars must be harder than...
Even worse. Yeah. You see it in one of the examples I've given on this podcast a number of times is in the LGBTQ community where because they are... when people are unable to express even their sexuality, the suicide rates go up, you know, before they've "quoted" — I don't like the term — but "come out of the closet." And when you look at the things that are prescribed in the more holistic mental health treatments as being good for mental health, it's things like creating music or doing art or even like dancing and like things like yoga. And expression for me is something that I learned later in life is actually—writing books or doing a podcast—I mean, that's therapy, right? That's when people go to therapy, they do cognitive... they express themselves, they let it out. Look at men that don't express themselves. It's the single biggest killer of suicide.
So let's think... so we know mental prison is a real thing and we know the consequences are severe. The question becomes: how much are you imprisoning yourself mentally? How much are you doing that in your day-to-day life? How much... like, and you're completely right and I'm so glad that's where you went with it, which is like: you need to find a way in your life where you get a chance to express yourself. The cell walls are closing in on that jail. You've got to find a way, whether it's... fucking... this is why I've got a bit of a problem with the nature of social media and the... you're marked on how correct you are, not how true to yourself you are. It's all about correctness typically. It's funny because it's actually not, but it feels like it is. We've seen it. I mean, the reason part of the reason why you are identified as winning was because you weren't correct. But it feels like the rewards are reserved for those that are correct. Piers Morgan's the same. The most incorrect person you'll meet in our... look at the fucking numbers he—this guy does, you know. So I just, I don't know. I'm very passionate about that topic of...
It's interesting you say that because today, if people go back and actually listen to me talking about adoption, they'll see that I'm struggling to talk about it because I've never... I've spoken about it maybe 10 times in my life to that extent, ever. Online, offline, whatever. Yet we've never met before, but the medium in which we've decided to communicate, being podcasting, has allowed us both to express our true deep emotions surrounding situations, which is... this dynamic in which has been created with the listening world of people that are interested in two people colliding, I think it's great. And like you say, it's incredibly therapeutic.
And it's so difficult now to create a medium of distractionless conversation where, you know, it's almost a dying breed but at the same time being re-energized by people looking to sit down and do it. Conversations dying—I two years ago went away to Melbourne with two friends. I said, "I'm fucking sick to death of social media. We're going away with no electronic devices." And I couldn't believe how deep our conversations were at dinner. No phones. And we get to Melbourne and my friend comes around the corner, he's just had a pee. He goes, "Mate, this looks like a comedy sketch." I'm there with a Sudoku book. He thought I was... he's like, "Mate, I thought you were taking the piss. I thought you were trying to make me laugh as I came around the corner. You're genuinely in a Sudoku book." I was like, "Yeah mate, what am I going to do for the rest of the day?" We went to the cinema without our phones, we went out for dinner without our phones. And the conversations we were having were so much more in-depth. I was uncovering problems that my friends were having. I was like, "I live with you and you've not told me this."
And yeah, it's one of those things where I'm very grateful to podcasting because it allows me to get a lot off my chest as well. Yeah, and like you say, there aren't the mediums for people to get things off their chest, whether physical or verbal. And I just hope that the way the world's moving becomes more like that. And again, if you want to express yourself on social media, for me doing that was the win, not the followers that I was accruing from it. That was a bonus, that was like salt and pepper on top of the meal. Just putting something I felt strongly out every day made me feel good. That's what I got addicted to. The same way, email. Writing the emails is what made me feel good. The what happens after that from a business perspective is erroneous, irrelevant, doesn't really matter. So for so many people out there, even if you do a podcast and 10 people are listening, mate, you've won the battle before they've downloaded it. And I think that the more people that can understand that, the better.
Let's talk about love then. You mentioned love a couple of times. You referenced that you weren't so good at it by what you were saying there in terms of romantic relationships and love. What's your... what's James like when it comes to that department?
Well, this is interesting because I feel already—do you ever criticize yourself before someone's criticized you? I get in there early. People are... I always think about what they're going to say.
Yes, okay, yeah.
So then they go, "Well, in the last 10 years you haven't had a relationship that lasts over a year." Correct. Does that make me bad at relationships or good? Because I will not... I will not... and this could be an idealistic, utopian desire that I'm... I could be completely wrong on this, but whenever I have the feeling that "this ain't it," I'm out. I could either be a genius or I could have a fixed mindset when it comes to relationships. This is what I'm figuring out.
Business, something goes bad, I'm like, "Mate, leave it with me. Give me a laptop, Pret baguette, and a coffee. Let's do this. Give me my phone, I'll sort it out." Relationships, I'm like, "Nah, there's no hope. There's no hope. Sorry." I've also... I've got shit before for breaking up by text. Sometimes I'm like, I just need to deal with this now. They're like, "I'll meet you tomorrow." I'm like, "Nah, I can't sleep until I deal with this. Sorry, this isn't working out. We can meet tomorrow if you want, but I'm ending it now."
So it's a two-sided sword where: one, I think that I have these utopian standards that one day I'll be able to turn around and go "I was correct, this is what I wanted." And the other side, the other part of my consciousness is like, maybe you're not willing to do the work like you would in other areas of your life.
Do you value the—I guess the idea—but do you... would you value a romantic relationship in your life?
Yeah, I would very much like... So, a psychedelic experience I had in the last year was... really helped me decide I want to have kids.
You do want to have kids?
I do want to have kids. Like, one, because when I have a child, it'll be the only biological relative I've ever met, which is a powerful thing. I think that that's going to be incredible for me. Like, to see my features in another human? That blows my mind. And it gets me very excited. So there's that.
And I remember me and my friend—and some people straight away will be angry that I'm talking about illegal drug use—but me and my friend put our phones down for 10 hours, went to a park with a picnic, had a speaker, and we sat opposite a lake and we just talked shit out. And I remember this dad coming by with his kid and they had bread to give the ducks. And I was like—I was kind of watching, not in a creepy way—and I thought to myself, like, this is what life is. The dad at some point gives it over to the son, the son then gives it over to the duck. And I was like, "What a shame it'd be if the kid refused to give the bread to the duck." I was like, "What a sad ending to the story that would be."
And I went off in my mind thinking about life and thinking about the opportunity and my parents sacrificed a lot for me. You know, they had to go to the adoption home, spend years. They had to... my mom was infertile, she couldn't have kids. They went through so much trauma to get Day One with me. And I thought, "Fuck." And then from Day One until now: the school runs, the me being a dickhead as a teenager, my puberty was bad—like, all of these things. And I think everything I have now that I love is because of the sacrifices they made.
And with life, I think soon my time will come to make that same sacrifice. I have to pay this forward. I think that I'll be hard-wired to want to. So sometimes when I'm 32 and I'm thinking, "Shit, I need to start focusing on love more," because I don't want to be 40 with the most money, the most followers, and have no one around me. When all my friends settled down and had families and I'm the creepy fucking uncle who's banging hot 22-year-olds every weekend. I don't want that. So I need to make sure that I don't arrive at the wrong finish line. That's a very, very important thing. That'd be the worst thing in the world.
Why?
Because I think ultimately the only way we can really enjoy things is to share them with people. And this is my favorite thing I've ever done with my money: buy people ludicrous things. You know, I... with my friends, I lie to them. I say to them, "Oh, I'm banging a girl who works for BA, give me your flight details, I'll get you upgraded." And then I'll upgrade them and they hate me for it. They're like, "You fucking prick, you shouldn't have done that," you know. But then when they land wherever they got, and they're like, "Mate, that was the best flight of my life," I love doing that.
And I'd love to do that in a family setting as well. The look on a kid's face when they go on holiday or whatever it is. And for me, that's an integral part. Spending money on yourself is a short-term fix. I think if you buy something for yourself, it's pleasure; if you buy something for someone else, it's happiness. If I buy myself a Lamborghini, I'll be excited for three months. If I buy someone else a Lamborghini, I'll be excited for the whole time they drive it.
So the prospect of family to me is not only a long-term investment into their lives but the long-term investment into my own happiness. And you know, it's like an ultimate project for me that I'm really excited about. And I think that one of the most important and integral things I value about financial freedom and working only a few hours a day is... my dad said this to me once and I'll never forget him saying it. He goes, "I wish I'd spent more time with you when you were growing up," to me and my sister. I was like, "Fucking hell." I was like, "Dad, like, you know..." He commuted to the City every day for 50 years. Worked in the same company on King William Street, 50 years. And so he would leave the house at 6:30 and get back at 7:00 PM. And when I heard that, I was like: one, I never felt that way, but two, I won't make that same mistake. So for me, it's going to be a big part of my life in time to then set someone else up to experience everything I've experienced. Because if I do that right, dying won't be such a big problem.
Like, now my biggest problem is if I did—you know, and hate to say it, don't want to jinx myself—if I did get cancer next year, my biggest regret would not be having kids. I hate to talk about tragic illnesses or whatever. But one of my very good friends, his name's Paula Lima, he was very badly affected by COVID and he had to be hospitalized. He was in hospital bed, which is funny because he's quite literally a fitness model. If you look at the Maxi Muscle tubs of protein, he was the six-pack on the front, really. So incredible shape, all of that. And I said to him, "What was it like?" and he goes, "I'm just so happy I had my kids and that they'll be looked after." He was... he almost had a sense of accomplishment on quite literally what could have been his deathbed. I thought, "Fuck, I could do with some of that."
It's so remarkable how you see people's lives and priorities switch when they have kids. And you just... you know it's coming because all of my friends that have had kids, they always say, "Oh, I wish I'd done it sooner," or "Oh, you really wish it would," you know, that kind of narrative of like, there's this profound sense of meaning that we're yet to discover.
§02Transcript — part 2
Have you ever thought about... so, let's say human beings as we know them have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. The lineage, the amount of grandparents, great-great-grandparents—how many times has been a baby been produced in that lineage? Thousands. All it took—all it would ever take through hundreds of thousands of years of lineage—was one person to not want to do it. Or you know, they obviously didn't have quite the choice back then. But all it would have taken was one person to break that chain, and so many of us wouldn't exist now.
I think about this all the time. Like, my biological mother who gave me up for adoption—she could have ended the chain there. If anything, you know, I'm still very much pro-choice and I feel like I have a voice to say that because if my biological mother had chosen to abort me, then I wouldn't have a life. All it would take is one breaking in that chain of lineage for me not to exist. And I'm like, that's too much hard work that's gone on before me. You think that the majority of the human race has existed in poverty, in the cold, in famine, in all of these things. I'm like, "I can't stop the buck here. For what? A selfish life, you know? For lay-ins and to get a full night's sleep?"
I once asked my followers on Instagram whether they regretted having kids. And the poll substantially was more in favor of people regretting it.
Really?
Yeah, it was quite literally "If you could go back and not have kids, would you?" And it was like a 49/51. But it's circumstantial. I can imagine they're like, "Yeah, you know what, the grass is always greener, right? You have kids, they keep you awake, the little shits," or all of this. "Stop having sex with your wife," whatever it is. And it's all too easy to just go, "Ah fuck, yeah, you know what, I wish I had my young life yet." But I've never truly met a rich, successful single person without kids with a life that I envy.
I mean, like even Dan Bilzerian, right? Yeah, I quite... I don't idealize him. I've just listened to some of his podcasts. He's like, "Yeah, you know, like I have multiple girlfriends, I'm the only guy they've ever... you know, I've never been lied to by..." I sometimes look and I go, "I feel sorry for you a little bit." I feel sorry for you. And I even joke to my friends, I'm like, "I have the perfect amount of success." It I almost I'm worried to have too much more. Too many temptations, too easy... you know, when things become... We live in an age where our devices are too replaceable. You know, a new iPhone comes out, suddenly the old one's "obviously see you later," whatever it is. I never want that to be the same with people. And that's where I feel that successful, wealthy men go when they don't... you're falling on the sword to have a family. It's sacrifice. It isn't always a net positive decision for your lifestyle, but there's more meaning to it than people allude to.
And I think when faced with the decision myself of whether or not I want to do it, I need to say, well what's the opposite? What... what else am I going to do? You know, there's pleasure and happiness—again, so different. I say to people that everyone has access to happiness. Some don't know it, but they do. All have access to happiness. Not everyone has access to pleasure. And you can live a life of happiness without pleasure, but you cannot live a life of pleasure without happiness. And the second you try and fill your quota of happiness with pleasure, you end up going down dark holes: drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever it is. And people being unaware of that decision to be proactive in the pleasure pursuit when really, the getting woken up by the kids, the taking the kids to school, your kid going through puberty giving you shit—that was really the happiness under your nose the whole time that you never really knew about. So I don't have an anecdote to unhappiness, but I think I have a good clue on what would bring me a life of happiness. Like, I've had enough pleasure so far. I'm tired.
So what work would you have to do then, in terms of getting yourself into a romantic relationship? When I think about my... my self, I think, well, probably if I'm going to be the kind of guy that could offer what I imagine my wife would want me to offer, I'm probably going to have to change this or be a bit more like this, I have to work on this thing that I do because I'm a bit of a dick there. What are those things for you?
So this is an interesting one. I think I need to start working on myself and being a better human. I don't think I've been a great human in a lot of my relationships. I think that I've been selfish, and I think that I've made bad decisions, and then I've blamed the other person for it because I haven't... I haven't accepted that it was me being a bad person that caused that emotion. Certainly something... I've been reading some books like I read *Attached* and came to terms with my avoidant relationship style.
It's something I really want to work on. And I think that moving forward, I need to yes, respect my partner, but I need to respect myself and hold myself to a higher standard. I think that if I can hold myself to a higher standard, I will quite simply be a better human. And I think that I need to start taking more responsibility for things. Because so many things in life you can work your way out of and you can, you know, change and develop and build to it. And I need to put that attitude into relationships. And it's not saying it's easy, but I'm saying it's... it needs to be done.
So, I think that I have work to be done and I think I just need to communicate that to whoever I'm with. And just say, "Look, if you look at my books, I'm great. You look at my academy, I'm great. Live talks—get me to sell out the O2, I'll be great. Relationships? I've got some fucking work. I'm coming with baggage." So, you know, as long as someone is open and accepting of that, I think that's the first hurdle. I don't think I've ever sat that down before. I think whenever I've arrived at relationships before I'm like, "Well babe, you're going to be a lot more interesting than anyone else you fucking dated." And that has to go.
You say you need to be a better human. Give me just a couple of specifics when you say a "better human," because that's quite broad.
You get quite a lot of options being well-known, having an Instagram inbox. You have a lot of temptations. You have... there are quite frankly women that I've even met on nights out and I say, "Hey, I've got a girlfriend," and they go, "I don't care." And they say, "I'm not going to tell her." And having that means that you have to raise the level of who you are. You are no longer just a 32-year-old warm-blooded male. You have, you know, options in front of you that are more difficult to say no to because one of the biggest issues I believe men have with the dating scene is they need to win a woman's trust. When you are well-known, they already have the trust.
It's danger lurking at the door. It's opportunities, it's... you know, so many of these things. To rise to that challenge is no easy feat and that's why I believe so many men have fallen. It's a self-destructive pattern as well because so many men have amazing families, beautiful wives, and great kids, and they just lost that ability to be a strong man for one hour. And it's gone.
It's a tough ask. It's a tough challenge. But then everything has been so far. None of this has particularly been easy. It's been enjoyable, but it's not been easy. So that's something that I'm going to have to work on. But I want to revel in that because my mom and dad are still together—that's, you know, something that I'm grateful for. And it's something that they still argue, they still have bickers. You know, my dad made my mom cry the other day saying she's going shopping too much because of the COVID rates. And I was like, they're... it's crazy to see... my dad can't even watch the gory part of a film, but fuck is he a strong human. He stayed in the same business for 50 years, he stayed in the same relationship 50 years. I think it's about time that I like took inspiration from them on things outside of business.
Lastly, you're writing a book about...
Confidence.
Confidence. I let you say that first just in case I was letting the cat out of the bag. But you're writing a book about confidence. Why are you doing that? And what have you learned from starting that process?
It's something that really... I wouldn't come at it from a place of, "Hey, my name's James Smith, I know everything about confidence." My sweat patches wouldn't say that, but... it's something so inquisitive. It's a tool in which I've used. And you know, when I was writing the first chapter, I called it a superpower then I deleted that because superpowers are unobtainable. This is obtainable.
And I've come to realize—and during the writing I'm learning a lot as well—I'm like, is confidence genetics? And I go into heritability, and then I go into, you know, what different types of confidence are there? How does it affect us? You had Mel Robbins on recently, so I started listening to her book, *5 Second Rule*. So, *5-4-3-2-1*, I'm still shitting my pants asking this girl for a fucking number! So like, and I like to get into these systems. I go, "That might work for someone, but that doesn't work for me."
And during this process—I'm not releasing it until January next year—I'm going on these journeys, I'm asking myself these questions. I'm very happy to go to external experts in that field. There's quite a bit of nonsense out there, I feel. And similarly to the world of fitness: I'm not the most fit guy, but I took the field and I provided clarity. I'm not the expert in life design, but I went out, I created a book on clarity. I wouldn't want to come into a place of confidence and go, "Hey, I'm the most confident person on the planet," because so many of us that are very confident in certain realms have gaping holes in our confidence. Every one of us. You and I, alright: you're doing O2 Arena, 16,000 people in there, do your thing. We'd be like, "Let's go!" You're in Soho House on a Friday night... "That girl's giving me the eye. Go ask for her phone number." "No, no, no, no, I'm too scared."
So if we can help people identify their gaping holes, give them understanding for it... is it merely a perception of our external reality? Is it something that's nature? Is it nurture? It's... I wish I had more for you right now, but I'm still learning. And again, someone goes, "Why should I buy your book on confidence?" I go, "It took me a year and a half, it's 12 quid. Don't fucking buy it then!" So, yeah, it's one of those things. It's a very exciting project for me. And even now I enjoy talking to people I admire about it because they'll say something and I'll be like, "I can't wait to research that and go down the rabbit hole and have 20 browsers open on my laptop." It it is an exciting process that I really enjoy.
Well listen, James, you know, we've got one more thing to do which is a tradition of The Diary of a CEO, which you might have seen before if you've watched a podcast before, which is the previous guest asks the next guest a question. And they never know who they're writing it for. And also, I never know what the question is until I read it. So... what is your definition of luck?
When preparation meets opportunity. I disregard luck when people talk about it. People say, "I got lucky," I say, "Fuck you." I'm like, "No you didn't." And I hate the way people connect people's dots. I hate it. For yourself, someone goes, "Ah, right age, right time, right education." Fuck you. You know, I hate it. No one's lucky.
And I think that although there are certain privileges people can have, please never underestimate someone's work. Because connecting the dots is a primitive thing that we do. And you know, the better people can suppress the notion that they're lucky—they could be fortunate in some respect—but this luck, I don't... let's not undo people's work.
I completely agree. And I also think that, to add to that, when you start to believe in this religion of luck, what you're actually doing is disempowering yourself. You're handing over the reins of your life to this force outside of your control and you're just sitting there aimlessly hoping that it falls in your favor. And I—so when people... sometimes I like to wind people up on my stories and the things I'll post are like... honestly, the easiest way to wind people up is just to talk about personal responsibility. "Okay, you weren't to blame for what happened, but you are now responsible."
One of my guests—who was it? Mark Manson. He said, "Okay, if someone leaves a baby on your doorstep, not your fault, but it is immediately your responsibility." And people just fucking hate the idea of like taking responsibility for your life. But I think that any other choice—pointing at luck, pointing at privilege too much, despairing that the Tory government are in power so that's why you're poor—is a way to choose your puppet master as this invisible force that gets to call the shots.
Thank you so much. You were nervous, you said, to come and do this today.
You know what, I actually about two, three hours ago I stood up and I said, "I'm not nervous, I really care about this podcast." Because for me, when I got the invitation, it got me excited. The opportunity to talk. I know this platform, I know... I think I have a good idea of where this podcast is going as well. And for me to have an opportunity to not be Instagram James meant a lot to me. So it's more of a fact that this was important to me. I wasn't scared for it.
Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's amazing. And you know what, I personally just took a screenshot of you after seeing you say something online and sent it to my team I think about two weeks ago and said—and I never do this—right? What happens... the way the podcast typically works is the team will come up with people that they know that I would like and they'll send them to me to approve or not. But it worked the opposite way round with you. I saw something you said, I thought "This guy's truthful, he's honest, he has... he's smart, really smart. Probably way smarter than I think people give you credit for," because honestly this is one of my favorite conversations ever.
Thank you.
And it's not because you have a... you know, just because you have a great story, it's because you have the wisdom to point at the lessons you've learned. And you have the humility also to point at them with impartiality. So I... I was like, "Can you reach out to this dude and please ask him if he wants to come here?" And that doesn't always happen.
So again, it's for me when you say your... this was important for you, and I saw you did an Instagram post saying "I'm going on a podcast that's really..." You know, for me that is like the most... it's the greatest thing that we hear. I just want to say thank you because, honestly, one of my favorite conversations ever on this podcast. And I mean that. I don't have to say that. I don't gas people up if I don't have to. I just say "Oh thank you, goodbye." But no, I genuinely mean that. It's a really, really, really amazing conversation and I also now understand why you've been so successful. So, thank you for your time. Thank you for blessing us with your wisdom and yeah, gonna keep watching you grow and grow.
Cheers. Thank you very much.
Cheers.
The thing I think about most, especially when I’m on the go, but also when I’m sat here in the Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I’m filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do when I arrive is open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is.
The number of screenshots I’ve sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it’s such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. On any given day, if I’m recording hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team who then do the edit.
Fast Wi-Fi and internet is not a "nice to have." It is absolutely business-mission critical. So, when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and Wi-Fi to our new LA studio, which I’m sat in right now, we looked at every single option.
Of all the providers, the one that came back with the steadiest connection, as well as being the cheapest, was today’s sponsor, Spectrum Business. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all sizes connected with fast, reliable internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services. Millions of business owners already rely on Spectrum to keep their operations connected. If you want to join them, head to spectrum.com/business to learn more. Restrictions apply; service not available in all areas.
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When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower... your cat seems thirstier? Or your puppy is acting clumsier? Day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. Veg ER for pets. Veg: the better, kinder ER for pets.