The Truth About Women & Relationships - Neil Strauss, World's #1 Pickup Artist

talk to me about your trajectory of perspective on relationships over the last few years what's the what's the story arc that you've gone through there yeah I mean there's I have like my private story arc and the public story arc and they're kind of the same and so I'll just tell you the arc uh the best I can which is basically basically what I do is I just try to I'm I do the same thing you do I just try to figure out things in life and when I get stuck I just do all the

research and talk to all the people people as well as have all the experience I need to to learn and so the first place I got stuck in my life was just dating and as a guy who is writing for the New York Times and rolling stone about music and around on tour with rock bands around all kinds of wild decadence I felt like I was the guy on the outside watching everyone else have all the fun so the first book obvious not the first book I think it's my was my third or fourth but

the game was probably the most infamous one was me trying to figure out dating and being in this world of uh uh and and being fascinated by this world of these pickup artists and the all the social implications of that at that time uh and so that was me trying to solve the problem let's say of courtship in my life and then great dating was a lot easier to solve than the next problem which is relationships right people complain about their dating issues when it comes to relationships they don't just complain they really uh struggle

grieve go into into uh locked boxes of stress and Trauma and confusion that almost no one else can enter because it's fun to hear people talk about their bad dates but talking about a rat bad relationship most friends after one or two or three years if someone experien the same problem actually get tired and this person stuck in the situation I mean it's it's it's tough it's easy to stop dating someone you're you have a bad date you have a date with someone who's horrible you just uh send them a polite text or I guess

ghost them right people do that but if you have a bad relationship how do you get out of that and uh and does the other person accept your boundary that you want to leave usually they don't usually as soon as they feel abandonment they start chasing you and not letting you leave if even if they don't want to be in the relationship that rejection is so much to them so so the game was the easy book and then but figing out the relationship part and especially looking at my own issues and relationships and my own

patterns and taking a tough look at myself with relationships and even What drew me to the game and those pickup artists that was like the next step so that was the next step of the journey and that's the next book and maybe the third book is is uh so ended up through everything I learned having a awesome marriage have a father of a 8-year-old uh 9-year-old now and it's like the best and I'm also have like an amazing divorce so meaning that I'm like best friends with my son's mom I feel like we really are

like I love co-parenting uh and and looking at the other side of of uh how do you end I guess it's such an amazing divorce that we're actually having another child together with my son's mom your exwife and you are no longer together in the traditional sense but are having another child because of how well you get on as parents I think like we're great co-parents and I think we get along wonderfully and uh and and ready to sort of take that journey together in a new way wow interesting right that is that I've never

heard of that no I know it's funny I saw your face when I said that and uh I've spent a lot of time researching mating behavior and that's the first time I mean what a what an IR rational way to look at something as so is is your perspective around your previous marriage we work as co-parents but not necessarily as partners ex exactly the romantic and Sexual Energy may not be there but but we're really how are you going to make the baby the baby's already made okay how did you make the baby so so

it's about four months um I'll I'll tell you the old school way yeah I'll tell you about that I'll tell you that let me let me let me backtrack for one second then I'll tell you I'll tell you how he got there it's it's it's uh people are gonna people may have it'll be interesting I'll tell you that I'm happy to share um but let let me let me talk about the divorce for one second because like I'm again I'm always fascinated by what is happening in my life now versus what already happened and I

thought about this a lot and I haven't heard people talk about this but learning everything I did about trauma uh divorce I think it can be it's tough if you're a child of a divorce where the parents are fighting with each other but it's also tough if you're a child of parents who aren't divorced in fighting with each other you just don't want parents fighting with each other in front of you at least um so when we got divorced I thought well how do I make this a positive experience in that person's life being our

child's life and I thought he needs a couple things one is one is that it has to be a value add to his life not something being taken away so so what does that mean so for him he had a friend who recently moved to a new house and he thought that house was cool so I said how' you like two houses said just one house you're going to get two houses now and I remember we trapped him off me and his mom brought him together to the new house uh and I remember we got

out of the car and he was so excited he was just like so happy and like [ __ ] we're doing this right like I think the mistake and again it's nothing wrong with it people do what they the best they can is when you sit the child down you prepare them for bad news doesn't happen have to be bad news it's great news if it's if you're both happy uh which isn't always the case then the second thing I think you need besides a value at is No Interruption of service and the service being

the love of both parents and so that has to continue or get bigger and this can be a positive experience in a child's life so so given that we I feel like we have a great child and and raised it well um I guess you want me to talk about this part so so uh so um I'm cool I'm cool with what I haven't I haven't talked about it but uh so so we thought yeah let's have a child their regular way but literally maybe the divorce was maybe five six five years ago we actually

celebrate our D anniversary like this is all going be about divorce you're like you're going to talk about relationships and dating and now we're just talking about divorce for whole time but uh yeah we celebrated D anniversary meaning that I think getting out of relationship is harder than getting into one mhm right and so we should celebrate the fact that we're able to like compassionately get out of it so last last night was our D anniversary so we celebrated together with with with with our son wow okay yeah talk to me about how you made

the baby okay got it I know I've been Crossing I'm gonna I'm gonna keep pushing you yes so yeah so so um this is the craziest thing uh I I'm to get some [ __ ] over this but I'm I'm fine with it it is it is what it is or maybe I won't I don't know but I feel like there's people out there with a certain narrative and nothing I do will fit anyone's narrative that's kind of the pattern of my life but uh so we thought well we're just going to have the baby

the old fashioned way and then it just kind of felt weird like literally she's like my sister we're literally like best friends and that and so it just felt it just felt weird doing that with your best friend your sister sometimes that energy just not there and so uh so so so in the bathroom okay little cup yep she she went in the other room and then syringed it up mhm one shot and it took it was the craziest thing it was like Wow you went turkey baster we literally went turkey baster and just one

time just once terrifyingly fertile stay away from me yes I don't want to be pregnant don't make exactly exactly but but it's but it made me realize how easy it would be for somebody to just get themselves pregnant with your stuff oh yeah I mean do not disagree I think uh there's even now a a there was a video going around on Tik Tok about how to sort of ENT trap a m like what you can do and I always I'm always so skeptical about stuff on Tik Tok because I think is this just a

conspiracy of a conspiracy like is this someone trying to go viral by saying something that's absolutely insane yeah um but yeah that's definitely a risk that is I mean you managed to do it with one one cup and a turkey Bas so yeah so someone could easily yep easily easily I I just didn't realize to that moment how perilous how uh yeah how yeah that we should take care with stuff so talk to me about the Common Thread through all of those experiences going from thank you for changing the subject by the way yes we

really we really went out of the not at all but you have you have Inception the game pickup it's sort of courtship and and and dating and validation and and sort of casual stuff then you have the truth you have um integration relationships love unpacking trauma then a pivot out of that into sort of non- monogamy then a pivot back into that then the pivot into divorce like is so I see nothing as a pivot yeah or as a brand yeah and and meaning and by the way in between those I did book which feels

like tragically relevant now called emergency which is really about learning Sur the other skill of survival like when the [ __ ] hits the fan uh there's even an acronym for it in that survivalist Community right uh when the [ __ ] hits the fan what do you do how do you save yourself how do you save your family so the other piece probably between these things was realizing that well you you want to be able to protect your family and you want to be able to be safe and you want to be uh you

don't want to be a victim of history and history is happening right now so it's really about how do you uh do your best to be self-sufficient and not live not depend on the system we both know tuck Max who is Ultimate Duma prepper optimism man yeah only maybe 30 miles from here with a million rounds of ammunition um yeah what is the what was the the thre the is the threat is literally just like there are stages of life that we go through and I'm just doing my best to figure them out when like

the way I was raised or what I learned or what I know don't hold up for me so if I get stuck I make it a project and if the Project's successful I make it a book and so there's some projects I started that either they weren't successful or I just lost interest and didn't take them all the way or I didn't get a big big Epiphany at the end and then I didn't make that a book or it didn't feel like worth sharing was it difficult or has it been difficult for you to let

go of the past versions of you those previous identities you know the game was such a sort of cultural moment that you're now the pickup guy even though you were kind of a like um you were doing anthropological observation basically of this world stepping in observing what was happening coming back and telling everyone how difficult is it to let go of the previous versions of you especially when the public has an expectation I mean super easy for me hard for other people why because like it's done like like literally if I if I have an

experience and then I write a book about it that's my best that's my best telling and my best version of that experience and then I move on to the rest of it and move on with the rest of my life I think it's funny that it's surprising at all because how it would be a tragedy to get stuck in a version of who I was and what I thought was right 20 years ago or whatever it is and then keep marketing that I really feel that people try to Brand themselves right they're the they're the

I was even looking one of your podcast there was like someone who was the they're always the something something right the the the uh the hormone Wizard or the you know decorating Guru or the the fat lost magician exactly exactly and then like but uh there's a great saying from Leonard Coen the the songwriter and he was speaking at uh at a music festival and the Music Festival like just it was going off the rail it was just the the kids were going off the rails and and uh and and very similar our culture always

goes to these moments there's you know right now where where where uh where we have the there's always these amazing moments and he goes he said this great quote he said those who are married to the spirit of their generation are doomed to become widows in the next what does that mean to you what that what that means is if you just plant your flag and you say this is it guess what you keep evolving The World Keeps evolving life keeps evolving and you're stuck in the past and I've certainly sat there with people who

had a big Health message that they were really tied to who no longer believed it no longer ate that way but because they have a certain following that expects that they keep doing that what happens is you get a split in yourself right and you're saying one thing while doing another and that and I think ultimately the goal at the end of the day is to just like yourself right and you're not going to like yourself deep down if you're a hypocrite or or if you're still saying something you no longer believe or moved on

for because you're like so much of what you talk about so much of what your guests talk about is just having freedom of choice and if you're if you do one thing that's successful and then your audience expects that and then you start catering to them like you're you're not free it's a horrible way to live yeah and you will begin to resent the people around you as well or the audience that you have and it doesn't work and it doesn't work and people can see through it I always say like you're audience only expects

what you've done before because they don't know what you're going to do next so they just they don't know that and so surprise them and give it to them and I like I think I try to never be afraid to move in whatever Direction I feel called to uh and trust that if I just care about it and I do my best that it's going to find Its Right audience whether it's my audience or another audience I don't think that way is there something that you rely on to continually prior prioritize that sort of authenticity

and that uh linear path from Spirit to to sort of world CU people do get captured you know and it's it's not like they're all doing it because I've I've found that talking about keto means that I can make some money and therefore I'm going to be the keto guy there just a fear of becoming someone new is there something that you rely on to help you stay authentic when you're looking at moving on to the next phase of life I I would say it's more not it's more not something I rely on or something

I do I think it's a it's a culmination all the things I don't do right so so and what I and and I and so I think there's nothing you have to do but it's just it's letting go of attachment to stories the story of who you think you are the story of who other people think you are the story of what supposedly works because the fact is none of the stories even work you know what I mean like like eventually you're sending the same message and people get bored of it and sort of move

on uh it becomes predictable or you just seem like you're in the past or behind the times or something so I don't even think those strategies really work for people and by the way side note there are some kinds of people who really have one message and that's their message they want to share and that fulfills them I've certainly met people I'm sure you have on this podcast who really they have one message to say and that's really authentic to them and they don't have this curiosity that you and I have and so many of

your guests have uh and that's true to them but and and that's cool right but I think it's just about being true to yourself and like honoring that above all yeah I mean even thinking about the transition from the game to the truth like ex player chooses monogamy is a very convenient cultural narrative it makes a makes for a great headline which which is which and which and because they they're games we play right so that isn't what the book about is about so you're talking about the truth and that and for sure the narrative

was pickup artist chooses monogamy but the book had nothing to do with being pickup artist and the end result wasn't about monogamy it was about it was about really choosing the and the mess of the book is if you're unhealthy any relationship style you choose is going to be unhealthy whether it's monogamy or polyamory or ethical non monogamy or whatever whatever what have you and if you're healthy whatever you choose is going to be healthy right so it's really about uh and letting go of our attachments to uh this is right or that is right

in other words you can get be in a a relationship and it can evolve and you might decide maybe it's time to to evolve and open it up and maybe it's time to shut it down and really be committed to each other and I think a relationship is a negotiation and a discussion in other news this episode is brought to you by ag1 90% of Americans are not getting the nutrients they need every day to be healthy everybody knows that food is always first many of us will eat well some days even most days but

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or serially monogam monogamous um approach to to mating that somewhere between four and seven years that's kind of the cycle it's enough to get a child to be uh energy independent they can go off and look after themselves and then you and your partner are going to go separate ways yet we live in a culture that uh even though casual sex is allowed and even though casual sex is often promoted I think when children come into the picture it's like you're supposed to be together for life there's something sacred about this Union uh we have

confluent the confluent era of romance you know it's not because your next door neighbor has cows and you have goats and then if your son marries their daughter then you know you can combine your lands together or something like that is that is that is the word for that confluent so the most recent the most recent era is the confluent era so um it's phenomenal researcher that I had on the show who has done a a cultural assessment of romantic Traditions throughout the ages uh and the confluent era is what he says we're in now

which is U we can be in a relationship for as long as you benefit me and I benefit you and if either of us stop benefiting each other then we go our separate ways that that's the era we're in that's the era that he's defined it as here's another on that that I heard and I think that's interesting I don't know about I don't I'll just I'm thinking on that so I interviewed Stephanie C who wrote a book of history of marriage and her take on it is you know we kind of went from you

know what you were saying that it was this you know extra workers and inheritance rights and things like that to this idea of love to now she sees as a pick and choose thing and I'm I guess I'm an example of that which is like okay do I want kids or not want kids do I want monogamy or do I want not want monogamy do I want do I want kids without marriage or kids with marriage do I want we sort of have this checklist and we can kind of design the thing that we want

in my case like okay I'm having a child but without the marriage and you know and I think so she sees it as this sort of pick and choose era um and uh I don't know if there's a name for it or word for it but I that feels more right to me than the confluent thing is like I'm with you as long as you serve me and I serve you and then we move on that almost sounds like what it was before when it was like well serves me to have uh more more workers

in a division of of Labor well you also know that more choices don't necessarily make us happier like the Paradox of choice is a big deal if it's like okay here is the one relationship style that people go for this is the direction that it's in you have Village of this many people constraints on Choice actually enable satisfaction in many ways oh totally I mean think if we were if there were arranged marriages we're like and and again assume there's no emotional physical abuse like we'd be like let's find a way to make this work

you and I with our our minds and I keep saying you and I because I think we think similarly in terms of like having this learning growth mindset be like okay I'm going to make it work I'm going to adjust myself I'm going to see how we can work it out so so for sure I think I I agree with you on the on the Paradox of choice uh and um and that's certainly the challenge we're having now with like with like the court in the courtship world as far as there's just so many apps

and these apps are like throwing so many people at you that people are like you know uh pricings out of the game in the sense that uh I they're just serial daters who go on dates literally all the time and that's just what they do because they like that quick validation um and then the thing you're dealing interesting thing we're dealing with on the apps as far as this goes and I realize we're jumping all over the courtship relationship divorce we're doing it all backward but uh but the interesting thing about apps I find so

fascinating I met one of the this I met one of the co-founders at Tinder reached out to me and he says you know uh part of the reason we started this app was because I read the game and I thought oh that's so much work wouldn't it be nicer if you just already knew when someone was attracted to you and can take it from there so it's it's interesting but I think it's like you said I think it is a lot of admin but the other thing is if you're hiring for a job uh it's

tough when if you if you put a ad out because the same unemployable people keep circling the job pool right they get a job for a couple months and they get let go or they can't find a job the same is true of the dating apps a lot of the same undatable people keep circulating and circulating and circulating so if you're on them regularly it's easy to get cynical about your prospects are you familiar with LMS do you know what that is no lu money status wa it makes sense okay so it's the uh triage

priority list that a lot of guys in the black pill movement rely on and say is most important Lux is most important then money then status for men yes for men what's your thoughts H my thoughts is it's like it's a sad way to think it's a sad it's a sad way to think um and uh I I guess like I'm just I'm just kind of thinking out loud I got a bunch of thoughts on the the stuff you're saying um but to speak back to your speak back to your what what you were saying

about what it's like to be someone I think like I think mostly we're all living in our own stories of what it's like and I think like if you choose to see the best in people you're going to notice the best behavior if you choose to see the worst in people you're going to notice the worst worst behavior and I think you're it starts with the eyes you're seeing the world through uh and so down to looks money status I think that I mean I think St it would probably I think they got it wrong

I think that I think that there there's um that and how would they Define status I guess I'll ask you I wouldn't be too sure I would guess something like popularity right um so I I would say it's high status behaviors and I mean I know this because I went and hacked it in the game right as a guy who is not that good-looking um as a guy like who at least at that time didn't didn't have any like you know wasn't someone recognized didn't have a lot didn't have status didn't have money didn't have

looks didn't have Fame we realize and I also was a guy who once I wrote the game I had the people with the most looks the most money that most status calling me like this [ __ ] 56 big nose you know dude who keeps saying you know and can't even articulate a really clean sentence calling me for advice the same [ __ ] I thought I was alone dealing with they were dealing with the same thing and I think it really goes down to like how how you your the story you tell yourself more

than money looks and status and then how you reflect that story as a simple example I've seen a lot of people with money looks in status engage in low status behaviors meaning being insecure being doubtful not caring themselves well not speaking just always being worried about what others thinking about them and whatever they had whatever whatever those gained for them they lost it there's a line there's like a trador poem that like that's something about the when they were first sort of talking about Bing romance and art uh in that era that's like the eyes

the eyes go forth to seek an image which they can then recommend to the heart and so I think the money looks in status like might get your foot in the door but after that it's who you are that enables you to stay in that door unless you're dealing with someone who has similarly low self-esteem right and is just out there looking for a Target who has those things because they've got their own wounds they feel like that gives them safety let's go s go ahead just one of the interesting Reflections that a lot of

friends who maybe in the early 2010s were trying to do game and pickup and Day game and stuff like that what they realized was they became quite disenchanted I think with the world of dating because they saw what they needed to do in order to be attractive to women and then realized the distance that that was from who they really were or what they thought they needed to do in order to be attractive to women and realized that I can get what I want but what I want doesn't actually see me and that distance between

the two of I'm having to tell them about the [ __ ] fight outside and do my Keno escalation and ignore the and do all the rest of the stuff that I think caused a lot of them to uh become very disenfranchised and disenchanted with the world of dating yeah I think I mean a couple couple thoughts and and to go back so again these are like the stories we we tell ourselves like I think that there's a learning process and maybe you learn I if I look back on the game you know there's so

many different issues around it negative and positive and everything else um but I see it as a lot of sort of neurod diversion people trying to learn how to socially interact including myself right and so so for me I needed those little I didn't know just tell me what to say and like how to angle my body I was so I was so uncomfortable around people and then once I learned it that I could let it go the same way uh you learn anything which is sort of learning the rules and then throwing throwing them

out y um so second I got three points to make what you're again these topics are so interesting right uh second thought is that another perspective on the on the LMS thing you said uh which which uh uh the second perspective is people don't know what they want so they might what they want are the things behind that so a way to think about uh for example it used to really hurt my self-esteem when I read personal ads and everyone wanted a guy who was six feet or in taller how how how tall are you

510 okay that's great right I'm I'm I'm I'm 5'6 you know may 5'6 and a half at a stretch right and it took me a long time to realize that it wasn't height that they were looking for what they were looking for was safety I want to feel when they when maybe what do let's just say what does money represent money represents that some some degree of you know security competence uh and competence that was the word I was looking for exactly competence so so if you look at the reasons underneath these and you embody

the reasons underneath these which anybody can do the other stuff doesn't matter yeah I think that's where the sort of disenchantment came from which was not feeling like you had the actual Foundation realizing that you could create the glitzy sort of Mystique like you do not need to see how much money I have you do not need to see how much money I have and then going oh I can get what I want by pretending to play this game and deep down I still don't feel like I'm worthy of it I don't think that they

what they see is this person as soon as you're saying I don't want you know how little money I have you're like the influencer we talking about earlier who's promoting a vegan D diet while eating meat for dinner you know you're you're creating a split in yourself um so here's the other thing you were talking about is I think these people you're talking about you know the like the concept of locus of control like there's external locus of control and internal locus of control and I'm probably going to get these wrong so apolog apologies if

I do um so the idea is like are the things that are happened to me the fault of others outside myself which is a nice thing to believe right it's just women are like that thus I'm opting out men are like that thus I'm just not dealing with that the world you know and so we're just saying we're creating this this it's everybody else's fault so I don't have to change I can just hate on them right uh or B the way I am and the way I think you are is that like this is

going on how can I do better How can I age how can I be better how can I understand how can I be empathic and like it's a lot more work but man you're a lot happier yeah I think the benefit from the cynics perspective the benefit of never trying is never having to feel the pain of failure yeah that's I came with this idea called the cynicism safety blanket which is basically that that's that's why it exists it's sour grapes at an existential level yeah and so I noticed myself if I ever start to

and I don't even do this anymore cuz I stopped it like if I ever start thinking something negatively about someone who's successful and start comparing their work to mine and why M you know I just stop instantly and I just think you know what can I learn from that for myself and uh again most your listeners I feel like are learning growth minded people but I think we can understand that there's certain people and I've come across them that if you're if somebody is doing better than you you can either try to do better or

you can try to bring them down to your level and that's like that's a split in the world but the people who try to bring them down are the loud voices right now correct in the culture correct so you do you still run a men's group uh I I did for a while and now I sort of do not really okay yeah but you've been tangential to men's worky yeah I'm in a I'm in a men's group as a as a uh participant yeah yeah okay so given the fact that for best part of 20

years now you've been in one form or another observing men's development emotionally relationally spiritually psychologically therapeutically uh what do you make of the current state of men's friendships mental health masculinity Role Models it's a very common talking point what what's your perspective on where men are at at the moment yeah I've I've heard you talk about it a bit on the podcast but what's your kind of take now in a nutshell out of curiosity I think that men are being made to pay for the sins of a patriarchy that they no longer feel like they're

a part of at the moment they're being told how privileged they are and how fortunate they are to have all of these different advantages and quite rightly there are outliers at the top the Elon musks the bezos's of the world the NBA players the NFL players um but I don't think that that fully captures the male experience and I think that a lot of men don't feel like their they feel like their worries are being dismissed out of hand by a whining class this sort of chattering class meanwhile suicide depression friendlessness loneliness sexlessness Health all

of the problems that we know that men have uh and I think that it's making them feel quite embittered toward the world because what they're saying is I'm suffering and you don't care so [ __ ] you I'm not going to play your game right and now who in this story is you who in that story is me no you you don't care when they when you're saying you who is the you this might get to the point I was thinking of the world yes okay so I think we had this split that we think

the world is the stuff we receive you know from our devices and from our computers and and that's a game we don't want to play so there's an unhealthy game of thinking that the voices that are loud online and the you know the Tik toks that could fed into our feed and the tweets we see are somehow the belief of the culture and and uh and it can really mess us up and and I've I've I've seen you have on the podcast the woman who did that wonderful JK rolling podcast and there there's somebody who

like literally just she just got sucked into this sucked into this hole and she's now living her life out of her trauma that was again I'm just really smoking about that that um you can get you can get taken off course by just listening to these voices and thinking that the culture thinks it or people think it it's just one one of many stories out there but and and I think it can get confusing if you have less of a of a grounded sense of self or if it plays into your personal trauma I think

I think the problem that a lot of people especially young people at the moment are facing is that their experience is the internet their world is the internet you know if you're spending between six and eight hours a day on screens online Tik Tok Instagram Twitter video games that is more real than the real world what do you mean the [ __ ] real world like this is my real world I'm observing it like what are the where are the counterveiling narratives that push back against the fact that maybe people do care about the fact

that men are suffering maybe people do care about the fact that I'm really struggling to get a job or a girlfriend or I feel I'm neurod Divergent and I don't understand what to do I can't hold down a relationship or I don't have enough friends or whatever it is like if you're not going out there into the real world to see the alternate storylines yeah and that and I think that's I think that's exactly the point that it is very real for people and when it becomes that real it actually does become dangerous and and

I would say that I would say it's happening to everybody you know what I mean like it doesn't matter what what your identity is or how you identify yourself there's some Vector of attack that is really making you feel like you're doing it wrong you're not enough if you step out of the line you get slapped really really hard and uh and and and really that's why it's important going back to what you said for me to be in a men's group or for me to be in a world in a in a community of

a small amount of people who really really care who support you in the best way you can where you can really get that feedback and you can say you know what I've seen this stuff online and it's stressing me out in this way so I think the point being I mean the all these there is a real problem in terms of these are not contributing to anyone's mental health um and and I think a few things are important I mean one is to really try to stay out of a victim story to start because once

you get into there's that saying and I think it's the most true thing ever that all perpetrators perpetrate from the victim position I mean look at every war going on and the main thing is is there's a victim I'm not saying that whatever is right or wrong but all sides are the victim right interesting point whether it's Hitler was encirclement Putin was encirclement right we're surrounded by enemies where the vict like so we perpetrate from the victim position so like the first step is if you really want to get any any uh reality on it

to stop and and get out of the victim story because this is when people start that's where that leads to the hate or that makes it okay to sort of perpetrate but we can't say there are all these variables around us and how can we curate these variables so they help us and I do think these it's insane it's wild to me that all these companies that pretend to care about people don't have that algorithms working to actually help people versus Market to them like I would love something and it's just the way the system

works and capitalism works but what if the algorithm was not like what can we sell you or what can we Market to you but like how can we improve your mental health right how can we how can we make you and and I think that would help the world and actually create better consumers anyway so so so I hear I hear I hear what you're saying um and I get to the point of view that I don't want to uh um I don't want anyone to tell me what my identity is what it should be

how I should be within that identity I probably identify myself on other factors more than I think a lot of especially guys but also girls increasingly now are lost they don't know we're in this completely new world if you're either Millennial or genz or a your parents don't really have the skill set or the awareness to be able to work out how to exist in this world what does it mean to be technologically native what does it mean to be in a world with porn and Tinder and only fans and and expectations and boob jobs

and bbls and stuff what does it mean to exist like that so people are quite rightly looking for archetypes and Role Models I want someone to give me some advice to get me out of this so I don't disagree many people like the idea of agency and sovereignty over their own Direction I don't want anybody to tell me who I am or what I should do or the way that I should do it I want to feel like I am the captain of my own ship and yet there are people who also need some [

__ ] guidelines how am I supposed to exist in the world what does it mean to be confident where does my self-esteem come from where should I seek validation and not seek validation these are questions that people look for role models and unfortunately I think culture is just offering up like very few and here's my like my S of spicy Urological take for the future I think that male body dysmorphia will overtake female body dysmorphia and female uh crisis of femininity will overtake the crisis of masculinity within the space of about 20 years I think

that we're feeding the seeds of a unbelievably fragile narcissistic generation of women and a unbelievably aesthetically anxious generation of men and add to this add to this computation at a I is going to create these archetypes that like no human being can live up to a Perfection I was seeing some of the so like on one hand the culture is getting into sort of body posit body positivity on the other hand AI is creating these like archetypes that go like beyond what Fibonacci Sequence perfect ratio like yeah yeah yeah I know exactly what you mean

yeah so so it's like I we we're we're uh but um here here's my thought I think there's there's an I'm I'm a big reader I think you're talking another podcast about reading and I love reading and right now I'm reading this amazing so penguin did a box set of the great books uh it's called the little black Classics I think uh and it's there's a box set of 80 of the greatest books throughout history of the last I don't know 3,000 years and then there's about 40 or 50 books beyond that I'm going through

them all in order right and and what I'm learning from it is whether I'm reading uh about a monk in Japan the kko I forget what century he was from uh but at least you know four or five centuries ago to reading uh Mozart's letters with his dad uh to reading the Socrates to reading Kimu like these things you're talking about maybe the language was different but we were everyone was still dealing with that the Trib of Socrates is like people are telling me who I should be and how I should be I don't follow

the common beliefs uh you know there's all these rumors being spread about me that aren't even true like he's literally you know dealing with the same stuff and sure you know there's more of it and the devices are different is being blissed this this other way but I think they're they're um their this human nature and these problems we dealt with like there is a Timeless quality to them even though they seem really unique generationally we'll get back to talking to Neil in one minute but first I need to tell you about Shopify Shopify Powers

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mean I think I think my short the short version of the answer is any and by the way what are your thoughts on that by the way because I know we have a different thought because I noticed you switched the topic which is fine we can go to that what are your thoughts on the idea that and I can give you some I think someone who reads Albert Kimu create dangerously for example he literally complains about some of the things people are he's like about some of the things that people feel like they're uniquely complaining

about now like some of the lines could could could could apply to today or uh I just think there's probably a set of everything I read everything I read and I can send you some of these excerpts like I'll mark things that literally sound like it's people talking about perennial problems perennial problems but what what are your thoughts CU I think you're you see it in a very in a unique cultural crisis of mass humidity and mental health well I think from the gaming level long-term connection thing it seems to me that more people are

beginning to wake up to the fact that they probably don't want to sleep around indefinitely and kind of be in this weird Tinder admin like Lial Purgatory for the rest of time that probably doesn't sound like fun uh but no one really talks about love in relationships you know even a lot of The evolutionary psychology stuff that I've do to and I know that you've looked at as well it speaks in a very sort of sterile transactional way it's mate value and it's offering for status and protection and resources over facundity and age and fertility

and blah blah blah uh and no one ever talks about the actual felt experience of being in love or or what it's like to be attached to somebody else and be dependent on them and and and be in Union with them and and and do things that make each other feel good and and stuff like that it's always it's always a very dispassionate look at how what's the Ledger what's the balance sheet of this uh and at least as far as I can see I think that you can quite easily game attraction but it is

much more difficult to game connection and when you say no one talks about love you mean like what do you mean by that well look at the dating advice that you see that's online right like how much of the dating advice talks about this is what it feels like when your head over heels boted with a guy or girl partner and this is how you can handle the emotions that come up of jealousy and uncertainty and anxiety and fear of being left and all of these things uh no one ever wants to talk about that

because it seems in a modern world where we you know we can predict the weather and we can send Rockets into space and we've conquered bacteria and we've got a theory of disease and we've got AI love kind of almost feels like God it's sort of this very unsophisticated wishy-washy you talking about kind of love or relationships just in your case both both both I think I I just don't think that there's a massive amount of discussion about love or relationships um and how to build them together in any in a phenomenologically uh consistent way

yeah I guess I guess in my by the way in my in my mind I actually think there's more out there on relationships than courtship and I guess maybe just depends on what Silo you're in and and what what you're yeah what your what Your EO chamber because uh because like a a lot of people out there are hurting over relationships they're hurting over a past relationship they were in where they're just traumatized from the experience and uh they're hurting over one they're in and they just can't get out of they're hurting one that over

one that's over should be over but this person is still in the court system fighting them for their child they're hurting because they did it narcissist or you know sociopath or someone with borderline who put them through a living hell and gaset them and Trove them so there's so much there's more pain out there from people trying to figure out the relationship stuff and consequently I think more uh people looking for to books and podcasts and experts and healing around that at least in in my Silo where does the healing but then the other side

of what you're talking about is uh then there's a flip side of it which is there's a part of there's a love being marketed to us through movies and pop songs that is also not realistic to what our expectations of it you know should be that um so maybe I can think of your question another way which is we're we're seeing the horror stories and we're seeing the fantasies you're smiling because I'm agree because we're agreeing right but but but where where are we seeing like what's what really should be a healthy expectation of what

a relationship is like right which it which means that you know a relationship with zero conflict is a warning sign it's not a great relationship right that means someone is that's usually what what they call a parallel relationship two people living Separate Lives Under One Roof it's okay to have you know again as long as there's no emotional or physical abuse it's conflict is good to me a healthy relationship is how quickly recover from the conflict and truly get back to where you were before it that's a healthy relationship I've heard you say you shouldn't

be using science to decide what to do with your heart yes and I do think a lot about how much people are trying to rationally logic themselves into a effective satisfying relationship yeah yeah yeah I think it's true I think like it's it's fascinating to the other side of it is people who really have a long list of what they want and then they just go for the same broken [ __ ] every time the list goes away and or or or they think they think they found that thing they want that meets their list

but that was the mask and they end up in the same Horror Story they were before so so going back to relationships I do think the I mean I think the healthiest way to have the healthiest relationship learned from experience is literally just it goes back to external versus internal locus of control it goes back to like I can control I I I love like I love the work of always working on yourself like I just love it and I think if it's a theme or these places where we differ it's probably I'm always blaming

myself I'm always looking at myself I can't control the culture I can't control what people think but what I can do is control how I respond to it and to me it's giving myself the ultimate agency right and so I can't I don't want to get into a story that I'm upset about something outside myself that I have no control over I want to get in the story of well [ __ ] I'm reacting to that why am I reacting to that what thoughts am I then having because of that how can I not be

reactive and then going back to relationships here's a I've never articulated this but I think it's an important idea which is you don't know whether you're again taking aside The Edge case of emotional physical abuse you don't know whether your relationship with the problem is you or your partner until you stop reacting to your partner so if I'm in a relationship and I come with a bunch of complaints and I say why it's not working but I'm reacting you know they're saying something and I'm getting upset about it or I'm getting hurt about it or

I'm getting resentful or I'm shutting down or I'm whatever it is until they can have uh any kind of response and I can really just be empathic I can listen without taking it personally I cannot defend I cannot defend myself I can just seek to understand um I'm not able to judge the health of my relationship I realiz that was a little bit of a tangent not at all does that make sense what would you say to the people who do continue to find themselves repeating the same patterns whether it's their perspective of the world

there perspective of relationships the kinds of people that they are attracted to or attract what are the first places that those people should look yeah I think there's I think there's two sides of it right there or maybe there's three sides of it right in a relationship there's three entities there's you there's the other person and then there's a relationship itself as a third entity right so I think we can look at I think we can kind of look at all three of those so one side is understand again like attachment theory is so trendy

right now that that I don't even need to talk about it because everyone knows it but when I first talked about it like it was really new stuff but understanding that we're wired a certain way because we love what's familiar that's the easiest way to think about stuff we love what's familiar so consequently um if you had a narcissistic parent you you you're probably going to try to meet some form of narcissist and then try to get seen by them and'll lead you to immense frustration or you had an abandoning parent you're GNA choose somebody

who is not emotionally there or not physically there or replicating that for you in some way you're to try to heal your childhood through trying to get them to be there to be seen through all these things and I think like so Step One is heal yourself instead of trying to expect someone else to heal you so that goes against what was that word you said about the relationships where we use each other confluent confluent relationships um so so Step One is like um what's that class book on self-esteem that a rans like Nathan Nathaniel

Brandon uh he really said about we attract people who are our level of self-esteem so whenever someone's by the way I hope I'm not throwing too many ideas over the place at once so so whenever someone I just love these subjects they're so fun to talk about uh so whenever somebody is saying complaining about their partner my brain I'm always thinking you're dating them or you're married to them like what way and which way are you and equal that's not that your partner is you're so emotionally mature and your partner so emotionally immature you're dating

each other you're attracting your own level of that maybe you're the flip side of the same coin but it's the same coin so the first thing is raising your own level of like emotional health U healing those childhood P patterns and wounds uh working on the uh um self-esteem piece like you want to attract better people just like literally become a better person right all those that list you have of everything that you need in a relationship go look at yourself with that list and you embody those and you'll find that person you know I

love Byron Katie's four questions and the best part about them is by Byron Katie has those four questions where you can challenge your beliefs but the fifth thing is the turnaround and that's changed my life and here's like a shortcut for using it if I ever tell myself a story that person's annoying the turnaround is and I can list the reasoning I say I'm annoying then I can think all the reasons I'm annoying right I get that my partner's never there for me what are the ways in which I'm not there for the partner if

I turn things around accusations for other people to myself I can usually see we can all see usually but I can usually see I'm not I'm just as imperfect so first step is with yourself but the challenge in that is is um uh the best way to learn about how to about a how to have a healthy relationship is to be in one so there's tools and skills you can have in a relationship that you can work on it so if you're in a relationship that again where you're not dating someone who was really toxic

or toxic for you uh is to like work on your own reactions like literally relationship is a system right and so if you change the piece of the system you contr control yourself the whole system changes and I can't tell you how many times in my experience and other people's experience that if I change how I react to things and just respond instead of reacting if I change some part of myself whole relationship changes all that all that energy sorry man I've got so much to say on this no no no no I'm enjoying it

honestly okay all that energy people put into changing their partner never works it never works it just creates resentment and you're reenacting a parental figure they had when they were younger that criticized them right they signed up for that and so if you just take that energy out you work on yourself you change your partner will automatically change like they'll just change because the system changes they'll say what are you doing you seem happier what's what's going on for you I you're in that men in that men's group maybe I should be in this women's

group or you're doing therapy who maybe I should get therapy too like [ __ ] man just like it's all goes back to like yeah it all goes back to like the better you make yourself the better relationships you be in and the better the world around you will start to look what are the modalities that you've found best for unpicking these patterns yeah I think there's a there's a formula that I think of your eyebrows raised I love you this is like podcast called wait there's a formula Okay so so it's the it's these

three things I think these work together um so people always talk about therapy doesn't work but I think they're talking about talk therapy and I agree that talk therapy is not great for a change because your problems were developed before you had um the intellectual capacity they the wounds happened emotionally and so I think we need to heal them it's best to heal them emotionally so I think the formula is these three things so one is deep intensive uh deep intensive experiences that are whether they're workshops or things where you're really really unpacking your wounds

and you're just a puddle of Tears on the ground so so some container where you can block off the outside world and all that social media you're talking about and really break rip off the Band-Aid and and just be a what are some examples of that sure my favorite that I'll say my favorite the one that worked for me and by the way people's thing they say the best is usually the first thing they did that really worked so so my bias and the first thing that really worked for me was the at The Meadows

which is uh Treatment Center in Arizona they have a program called the Survivors program and it's like an exorcism of your childhood wounds like you sit there in a chair like this and I literally felt like an exorcism um and I remember leaving the therapy and for the first time I'm like [ __ ] this is who I am without all that [ __ ] without all that baggage I was carrying from Mom and Dad and all my UPR bringing like [ __ ] this is who I really am and then of course you go

back to your regular environment and the same [ __ ] happening and you start having the same response but now you have a Target to get back to people love the Hoffman process I think the Hoffman process is very is amazing as well um the difference is it's it's this Meadows is a you know a psychiatric facility and you're getting one-on-one work uh hop in processes group work but it's also amazing um but uh but here's the here's the thing I think anything you do where the person and yourself both have the intention of really

getting better and it's not a cult is going to must ensure it is not a cult here's how you know it's a cult it's a cult If part of the treatment involves you signing up other people for the work simple rule of thumb I've been I've because I do so much self-improvement stuff I went to these ones that were culty it was amazing to see how the brainwashing worked and how effective it was they like create these Loops within the self-improvement teaching that they then pull the strings on months or years later that get you

to follow it like a robot it's unbelievable how interesting we had one more thought sorry no no no keep going we've got two more stages to get through okay so so this therapy of The Meadows is called post-induction therapy speaking of Cults the idea is that your childhood is like a hypnotic induction your childhood is a is a cult nice is that I got to show your drink by get it get it in here a little bit more energy this is this is how you get these three-hour podcasts that's correct right um so your childhood

is a hypnotic induction or you're you're being indoctrinated into a cult the cult is whatever your parents believe right we all gr up and so the post-induction therapy is un-brainwash you from this cult you're in for the first 17 years which I love what was that can you just briefly describe the process of was it like acquisition and pruning that happens in the brain I've you talk about that before yeah so I'll tell what I'll kit the two other things and we'll talk about come come back to that okay so first one just to round

out that first stage of your three-step process becoming the ultimate human deep intensive Workshop like you know just one or two a year where you're just emotionally kind of where where you're going through some sort of emotionally purging experience what what are the principles of that modality that it's something which is emotionally intensive yeah and multiple days yep and um in just a sort of safe container understood okay there's one um meaning that simply you're just trying to let let and then then as everyone who's ever been to an amazing seminar or Workshop knows you

you get that high post Seminar High and then you go back and do the same old [ __ ] right so step two is maintenance meaning we get this change and we get our brain gets set right we go back to our world and the same stuff that's happening the brain starts to go a skew again so I want to talk about the men so uh some sort of weekly accountability so you can just uh keep being reminded of what direction your your your your boat should be pointed in here's an awesome thing about these

men's groups and like I really um and I'm not saying go on I'm actually not saying go on Instagram and find somebody who's starting a men's group you know and join that when I'm actually saying when when I say men's group I what I did was I took five or six people about at my level of of work some people you know um and uh and we're at the same place maybe we're have have kids or marriage or divorce whatever it is and then we all chipped in for one therapist so this is really affordable

it's cheaper than individual therapy and group therapy has been like studied to be more effective but what's amazing about group therapy is I can sit say you're the therapist and you have a point of view I can just say well you know he's wrong he doesn't know me like that's just his opinion and how he was learn how he was taught but if it's you and four other peers who I recommend and they're all saying I'm wrong like I don't think you guys are right but you're all saying it so there must be something there

for me to explore nowhere to hide yeah nowhere to hide and with a with a group between your weekly sessions with a therapist you can stay in touch with the group so I strongly recommend it it's it's it's uh and you need the therapist there just for the accountability so you don't go off on some it just becomes a bro evening yeah becomes a bro evening or you just start reinforcing some unhealthy behavior in other news this episode is brought to you by momentus you might have heard me say that I took my testosterone from

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a checkout B change workshops yep around about one to two a year uh yeah you know or for whatever one to two a year just it could just be one every couple years um you know I think vas and Retreats are probably great I haven't done that thing where you hold up in a solitary confinement therapy couple couple of friends have done that do they like it mixed bag uh I mean whether it's a Darkness Retreat whether it's um Petra Tia did I think three weeks of daily psychotherapy uh which was basically like him being

sort of locked in a he was adamant after two weeks I'm done I'm I'm completely sweet and they were like you're not done and he got real frustrated and then sure enough like day 19 of 21 or whatever was the day that everything happened um but yeah there's there's a lot of these sort of intensive intensive Retreats then a men's group or some kind of circling group some some some sort of like uh talk accountability so therapy or or just a group it doesn't be a men's group or women's group can be whatever group and

the third thing is tools to use when you're in the moment of Crisis meaning uh okay as like a one simple tool is like say re reparenting so so my issue in relationships was in mment at a really dominant narcissistic mom is by the way a lot of people who were on that pickup artist seduction world did so a lot of the idea behind that is I was suffocated by the overpowering feminine I never want to be victim go back to that story of the feminine again so I'm gonna learn a way to empower myself

so that's besides a neur Divergent narrative that's another group and out of curiosity was what was your mom situation uh no I wouldn't have said narcissistic introverted um tried incredibly hard I'm an only child so an awful lot of uh care and sort of precious attention uh placed on me yeah so could so and besides narcissis there could be a like a super anxious or super depressed parent would also sort of be in meshing because then your their needs come before your own sometimes what is enmeshment oh really okay yeah this this is like the

most important idea so I do I'll finish the third thing and then I'll do enmeshment and then there's another thing we're g get back to No Worries it was funny I was like how we gonna um we're not going to run out of stuff to talk about I know we're gonna have to stop at some point um but again like uh tools to use in a moment when you're in crisis yeah and by the way I want to say one thing pay a compliment which is um you know when I listen to your podcast uh

you really let the guests talk a lot as you're doing so nicely to me but you're also really like connected and engaged and care about being said and it's a wonderful balance I was a little nervous because I love conversation dialogue that's connected like we're having it like just um and uh and do a great job of of really thoughtfully listening and uh letting your guest go on for a while if not at all I'm en I'm continuing to draw it out of you a font of interesting things so let's keep going okay so so

the third thing is tools to use in the moment so uh so meaning that let's say I learned that I was suffocated by the overwhelming parent so when uh INR my wife at the time my uh ex-wife future my mother Future Baby M I don't know what it is this is definitely the next book whatever this is this is this is the book uh you it's the next stage of the life Journey so conscious recoupling conscious so F so funny it's going to be a thing now it's so ridiculous that reparenting yeah so uh so

the reparenting thing is when we get you know triggered or reactivate something our parents our partner does funny that the I said parent because we're reenacting something that comes from our parents so they're critical or they're we make we people make up my is making me do this they're not making you do anything they're not making big mon monogamous you can literally do what you want you just they're just consequences no one's making it's all a choice so anyway anything we react to um we can stop and so the tool for me was if even

if she was hugging me out of love I'd feel just suffocated by it because my parents love was so my mom's love was so needy and sucked the life out of me right so I would just tell myself hey it's okay she's not your mom she's not trying to sell like I mean she just loves you it is affection and really appreciates and cares about you so relax just to get into the specifics there is that you talking to yourself in almost sort of a I notice something arises this emotion arises inside of me I

see it and then I begin to have a dialogue with myself about what that means yeah having a dialogue with a part of myself that's reacting we have I love you know gyle therapy and I love these um uh what's his name uh rampo I love these I love looking ourselves as Parts I so I think I think of I think of like there's a CEO right that's just your that's just the your most balanced stable self but what happens is some part of s takes over so in this case it's like the the the

the wounded child right I'll try not to say inner child but the wounded child who who who is like oh this is familiar I better stop this from happening right and then your executive function your CEO your admin as you say says hey it's a okay I got this you can relax she's not your mom you know she's just you need to notice that that arises and step in this is something I've been thinking about more I'm doing my first sort of big pass through therapy um and I done a lot of time doing mindfulness

right but I actually found that a strong mindfulness practice caused me to let go of emotions before I actually looked at where they came from that ability to sort of notice something arises and go okay just release and allow that's fine and I was very very practiced with that it feels to me it feels like windscreen wipers so my practice uh from shinan Young is see here feel so I would swipe left to do see I would swipe right to do hear and I would swipe down to do feel and that's the way it would

feel in my mind it's like nothing's happening right it's just the way that I'd come to kind of I love that feel it I love that that's really good that's really good and um what I noticed and what I've noticed since since spending a bit more time trying to integrate emotions and thinking about where patterns come from and and stuff like that is that the mindfulness practice was fantastic at making me more effective but because it allowed me the the emotions sort of flowed through me like a a filter or something like that there was

um less resistance they just came out came up and went out I never asked the question why does this emotion continue to come up that's it that's it I love what you said and this speaks to like it doesn't actually matter what you do so whether you're doing reparenting or you're doing see he feel is that it see feel um what you're doing is you're widening the space between the stimul and your response correct mindfulness Gap right right so so whatever version of that you do whatever that's why like people argue over what method's better

like literally any method that works is good enough right for you if it's working just keep doing it so what you're saying is a great example of the tools so the three steps then are the Deep intensive experiences uh the um weekly or regular accountability and the tools in the moment give me one more tool that you found that's been high value for you couple other tools I love one is is uh the first tool one is another version of of widen the space between stimulus and response is I if I can recognize so I

feel like anytime I get anytime something goes wrong it's like an opportunity to learn about yourself so I can recognize that if I'm starting to get uh anxious about something or upset about something especially if I'm in a conversation or dialogue with someone I feel maybe misunderstood right often maybe I'll might feel misunderstood and then I'll I'll keep trying to drive the point into them to make sure they get it and all it does is irritate them and that I feel more misunderstood and that I get more like you know abrace it with trying to

make this point and it's just a horrible sequence so I can see oh I'm feeling this sort of uh like tightness in my heart and this um sort of this electricity in my wrist and that's my sign before my mind even knows it that I'm starting to get anxious about feeling misunderstood so then what I'll do is I'll just whatever I'm at just pause and I'll take a break for one second same on the phone I'll say hold on one second I'll be right back I'll walk away I'll I say correct the lie I'll correct

the lie with the truth hey like you're not being misunderstood they probably understand you and it's it's all good just like maybe understand them cool that I pick up the phone sorry about that so what were you saying or if I'm going to conver say in the conversation here I'm like a step away to go to the restroom let's say I'm a conversation I can't leave like we're here in this podcast right um I think to my head I'll just switch my position and I'll think new moment and over here I'm just there's a new

moment over here I be a new person reframing a little bit Yeah so not funny that that that relates so similarly to what you were doing in the game but it's like an internal reframing as opposed to an external reframing looking to create this different sense for me that I feel this way as opposed to how I want someone else to observe it right the difference is if when you're when you're doing this to yourself you're in on the manipulation right yeah you know the magician's trick right and going back to what you're saying about

you asked the question earlier which we didn't get to about relationships in the game and is this stuff okay to do a relationship I think any form of manipulation where the other person isn't aware of the game and the end goals is spiritually wrong okay was there a final modality that you liked from that one from the third set yeah yeah there's another one man it's my favorite thing like we could do let's just make a note to do a whole podcast on in the future absolutely uh it's nonviolent communication do you know that no

oh man it's the great let's let's I'll I'll do like a one minute thing and then don't research it let's do a whole thing on like just as a useful tool to teach people I'm done um it's a it's literally the greatest thing it's and every principle is radical so first of all the problem with nonviolent communication is it's a horrible name if you're on a date you know you meet someone on you know you meet someone in RF you propose date of nonviolent communication what is your set point violent communication what you do exactly

exactly it sounds like something for like a like a like like something for like violent offenders um but uh so and then the book by Marshall Rosenberg is incredibly boring I literally couldn't finish the book like I couldn't finish it but uh but he does have like a audio kind of program I think it's buil as an audiobook there a there's a picture of a hand holding a PE side on it first 20 minutes are really boring and then it gets revolutionary but so it's a system of communication that as he would say violence is

when we are trying to criticize ize judge control make right and wrong punishment reward or diagnosis like this is what's wrong with you this is why you're doing that and as anyone who's ever been in a business or personal relationship knows once you start even if you're right once you start criticizing accusing judging the other person gets defensive the conversation doesn't go well so so what this it's a form of communication that's really really simple to learn we could do the discussion everyone will be experts but it's hard to do and resist our impulse is

to like start start start defending ourselves or blaming others um and it allows somebody it honors what's alive in someone else so it honors what's alive in someone else so as an example if you're in a relationship and your partner says hey you don't pay enough attention to me and you could say wait what do you mean I don't pay enough attention we were together on Tuesday Wednesday we woke up and had breakfast in the morning on Thursday we just like went to Sedona for the weekend like literally what do you talking about that's not

honoring what's alive in them that's you know defending and making them wrong so NBC would be like would be saying it sounds like you're upset you like yeah I'm upset it sounds like maybe like you need more connection yeah yeah I do I do I need more connection and so for you what are some things that maybe we could do that would like bring more connection to our lives I'd love that too yeah you know would be nice if we could just do this and then you can say well that's I don't know if I

have the time to do that that just cuz it work right now but what if instead as soon as I finish this project we do that oh that would be amazing right like is that much beautiful more beautiful way to relate we'll get back to talking to Neil in one minute but first I need to tell you about nomatic nomatic make the best luggage on the planet this travel pack backpack is a complete GameChanger if you haven't tried properly well-engineered backpacks and Luggage it can change your life the team atomatic make the most functional durable

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love their gear right now you can get a 20% discount off everything wide by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to nomatic docomond wisdom using the code modern wisdom a checkout that's Nom matic.com wisdom and modern wisdom a checkout one of my favorite things to do with criticism for the podcast if someone says um you haven't had enough people from X perspective opinion viewpoint on if it's someone that I think deserves a response a lot of the time I'll say interesting piece of feedback who would you suggest like who do

you think would be really good from whatever it is and it almost always neutralizes any of the antagonism that you see online and I think it's because so little communication that we are used to now is done in a collaborative way and you can have that sort of adversarial antagonistic relationship bleed into your relationship too right your your intimate relationship because you want to be right and if you see that your partner is misvie the world and reality in some way you're going to think well if if I can just get them to see the

truth my truth your which may not be the truth at all obviously exactly uh and even if you do get them to see your side that's not their perspective their perspective is their truth that is what they're seeing yeah uh so yeah that's very interesting you just nailed it that's it their perspective they're like the they kind of what's true is they're thinking and feeling that and you can honor that truth without ever making them right without ever saying that's that's happen or making that wrong I would imagine that people probably have a concern about

um for one of a better ter indulging a delusion you know this person maybe you are right and I have spent a ton of time with them recently some people would be scared that by not correcting that incorrect view of how they're seeing the world that this person is going to continue to sort of see this uh non-representative perspective whether you do it or not they'll always continue to see it because it's just just a narrative like I think we all know if we've ever dated somebody who had real abandonment fears that there's no amount

of behavior on us that's going to change the way they feel about your lack of presence or not being abandoned like you know what I mean you could be them seven hours a day and they're like oh you're on your you know sorry 24 hours a day seven days a week and you check your phone once and they're like I just feel so disconnected when you did that why did you check your phone like that and then you can decide but if you just honor what's alive in them and you're and this keeps going on

it's pattern then you can have another discussion in a way just say hey I love this and this is the thing that's challenging for me can we discuss it but we'll we'll we'll dive deep in NVC like because there's a little formula that's and there's a lot of radical thoughts attached to it that um that you can use to when the energy is coming at you to discharge it and also so you don't set someone off it's I can give you I'll give you some examples later where things like it literally just um uh uh

created took a tense moment and created peace that's awesome I think a lot of people want that yeah yeah it's it's it's it's great and all the ideas attached to it are just mind-blowing so your other question was in meshman right um but let me ask you you said you were going through this therapy what you course or this I'm just doing therapy twice a week and what's your what's your what are the things you're doing uh just talk therapy classic Psychotherapy it's like psychodynamically informed in some ways I guess and I could probably lean

into more of the psychodynamic stuff if I asked to I could get on the couch and point in the other direction and do the things um and it's just the first time that I've ever done it consistently so it's been a a a bit of an eye opener I guess yeah yeah um it' be interested if you ever done like one of those things like we're talking about like The Meadows or the hoop in process or anything like that no I'd like to yeah I think it' be great I think it like just to crack

yourself open a little bit and like see what's there because what's your cuz it we were talking about parents and stuff like that like it you seem have something where you're uh um uh I don't know I like perceive you as having two parts of yourself that you're wrestling with like a very very analytical part that's trying to understand things and with this great weight and this other part of yourself that's just um emotional part that wants to be free yeah I think I I I've done quite a lot of reflection on this and uh

I realized that I'm a way more sensitive person than I let myself believe for most of my 20s so I didn't like the idea of being sensitive or emotional I was a club promoter for 15 years this you know leader of one of the biggest events companies in the UK I'm stood on the front door of nightclubs everyone's cool or in VIP and they're wearing expensive watches and it's you know like house music and Hip Hop and bottle service and all the rest of it like that's not the place to very easily show your sensitive

side plus I think i' Associated sensitivity with uh fragility and vulnerability and I didn't want to feel weak I I wanted to be seen as a man uh you know I was unpopular and a bit bullied in school and socially quite awkward until like probably my mid 20s to be honest and then I think that meant that when I got into my 20s I denied the sensitive aspect of myself uh and then it also another reason I didn't do it is that it didn't fit with the way that I presented so male model club promoter

DJ reality TV person a couple of years later also kind of sensitive cries at Christmas movies you know kind of Desperately wants connection and affection and attention and those two things didn't seem to make sense and I wanted desperately to be understood by people so when there was discordance between what I felt and how I looked I was prepared to Nerf one of those so that it fitted in line with the other one so I think I denied the sensitive side of myself for a very long time that's something that I'm still working through at

the moment and the other side so that's that's the emotional side that I'm trying to integrate and on the other side the analytical side is uh just straight up fear of lack of safety and if I can understand the exact process of how to gain muscle or improve my health or be more productive or become successful or make money or do all the rest of those things the chaos of uncertainty out there in the world is brought under my control that's why I'm such a fan of intentionalism and agency because that gives me control over

the path that my life is going forward I'm no longer at the mercy of the whims of whatever the world is going to throw at me I have control and these two things are in Conflict right because not exclusively but much of it is in conflict because I want to embrace emotions and have a nature whilst also being the author of my own life and the architect of the direction that I'm moving forward and I think that for a lot of people especially guys but also girls too this is an odd Duality to kind of

admit I have sensitivities and emotions and and needs and I want to be seen and I want to be like affectionately validated by the people that I care about and people that I respect and also I don't want to I want to author the direction that this goes in so it's kind of like uh these two things are in orbit with each other yeah and do you think it do you think it's control or the illusion of control I don't know what the distinction would be right I mean you know as as an example I

think a lot of people who are who have super strict diet philosophies a lot of cases maybe grew up in a household that was a little bit out of control and I'm not saying this is you but but uh but they feel like well I can't control this outside world for whatever world but if I control exactly what I eat that I I feel safe I'm just putting that for me thankfully around the health thing it's it's not that much of a big deal but one of the areas that it is more of a big

deal is with regards to success and validation and sort of being requited by the world around me uh offering something so that I am needed it's not quite the same as being wanted but it's functionally pretty similar but it's kind of a losing game in in fact it's an outof control game because how people respond to you is out of your control of course and so you're almost giving them your agency so I think we know a traumas at work in something when what we want is giving us the opposite right so if you're saying

well I need to control these things to be safe are are we really safe and uh and are we giving away our control by being dependent on these things and dependent on other people's outcomes and things like that so so and meshman yes meshman but then the other thing I wanted to ask you was um oh the emotional part of it and I'm just kind of guessing so you can just tell correct me if I'm wrong or right here but like what I was picking up is that growing up in your household I think was

just you and your mom you said no UND done I guess my thought was and was there any version of like there wasn't space in your household for whatever your needs are that would be correct I think I subjugate my requirements and my desires in order to keep the peace in order to make everybody else okay like it doesn't matter about me I'll happily be unhappy in order to not make someone else unhappy and what was the okay you needed in your household just to not have I it's not that this was what was needed

but functionally what ended up happening was that I wouldn't make a fuss about things that I needed especially emotionally boom well that's it that you did that that's where it's coming from not that other stuff are just symptoms of that you were taught early on that your emotions you're making a quote fuss is a burden to other people or it has negative effects on the household and so not making a fuss and keeping that in is your wiring right that's the way you're wired so it wasn't that being a bouncer and a male model and

a um reality show this is what I The Mask I had to wear that was a mask that was comfortable and familiar to you so when the job called for it there you are to put it on and meshman and meshman yep tell me yeah we'll hit I'll tell we'll okay do a measurement and then if we want we can do the the brain thing and then we can wrap there sound good okay awesome all right so it's it's interesting like invesment is such an important concept um and so few people still know it which

is inment is the opposite of Abandonment and that's why we don't recognize it so if you're abandoning we all know what abandonment I think we know what abandonment is which is there's an absent parent but abandonment also is when a parent is emotionally absent they can just be there present for you all the time but just like be not there tionally whether it's because of addiction whether they're just shut down emotionally themselves whe they just are tough so so and uh and and don't show love or don't show emotions this is what you're working on

so you can be a great non abandoning parent uh so so so in abandonment a parent's not there to meet your needs whether emotional or physical there's the short way of saying it in in mesh what do you think that is then an overreliance on each other for emotional needs and support well the child needs to rely on the parent that's healthy parent healthy parenting is the child relies on the parent for their emotional and physical needs and they get them met right and so the enmeshment is when the child's role is to meet the

parents needs here are some examples right and so we don't recognize this because abandonment is disempowering like at least those self I'm like if I mattered that parent would still be if I mattered they'd care or they'd be here sometimes if we're like four or five and a parent passes away uh and we're too young maybe three or two what we're too young we can still take responsibility for that you know there are a lot of things that might whatever the parents intention is that's the way we receive it so so enmeshment is examples are

um so examples in which children need their parents needs could be one is uh a parent who's really depressed and you're trying to cheer him up I remember interviewing Jay Leno for rolling Stone and his mom was super depressed and he was always trying to cheer her up and thus he becomes a comedian right um so so sign of an abandon the sign of Abandonment is you know feeling sorry for yourself sign of enmeshment is feeling sorry for the parent uh so a highly anxious parent so an example is if a parent is saying if

a parent says come home at this time because they feel like that's a good boundary to set sounds like healthy parenting but parents saying come home at this time because I'm going to work worry about you that's making your worry their problem and then the same behavior can be sort of a mesing so highly anxious highly depressed um a lot of times a parent makes in my case makes a a child your surrogate therapist right the parents coming to you and complaining and talking about their life and you're filling the role of a therapist or

of an emotional partner right if you're so you could have a dad or a mom when I'll give you a quick story of this when you're when you're when you're when they they make you their best friend or they make you like something that's reflected on their self-esteem daddy's little girl Mommy's little man whatever it is this is a mment remember I was doing makeup for a TV thing and the makeup artist was saying she'd never been in a healthy relationship and she just like at some point gets res her partner gets too needy and

she breaks away like oh interesting I bet you Wen in meshed and I tell her what it is she rolls up her sleeve and has a tattoo that says daddy's little girl so like so basically what it is when you're forced to partify or adult yourself too soon right it could be just you're taking care of the family you're feeling that role or you're managing their divorce and making the peace in the family um you lose a part of your childhood and so when you're experiened love again you're like oh no oh no I'm not

doing this again this is familiar I'm I'm not GNA be free and so consequently people who are meshed and tell me if this is your pattern at all they'll choose they see the role it's hard for them to have true inpen because they see the role is to help and fix so they date projects they date people they can help and fix because if I can't help and fix you what good am I that's my role right and then what happens after a while is the they realize they can't help and fix the partner the

partner's too needy they get resentful they start to break away or or or cheat or act out in some other way or just get resentful so that's how do people unpick and mment undo and mment yeah yeah in adult life yeah think like sure I think the steps are first is the and this is goes for anything first you need the self-awareness right number one is you need to say you the self-awareness saying this is how I raise this is how I respond self-awareness is the hardest step of everything because when we're self-aware of [

__ ] we usually keep doing it then we just beat ourselves up afterward right so the next step is what we talked about earlier something some sort of release some sort of you know deep therapeutic work where you just release that energy and then the other steps were kind of what we talked about doing the doing the reparenting piece and I think there's a forgiveness piece people put it too soon but I think that forgiving yourself and forgiving the other person and letting go of that energy so I think we can sort of I forget

exactly what the way I think about it there's four or five steps of healing that starts with awareness and sort of the release and accountability and the reparenting and the Forgiveness it's so interesting man you know looking at why we behave the way that we do again as someone who's such a a huge fan of being the author and architect of my own Direction and then realizing that there's these patterns maybe even preverbal maybe even things that you can't remember that are marting you from you know beyond the infant grave yeah it's like parental it's

cultural it's you know genetic it's ancestral they're all these strings and I do think one of the goals of life is to recognize the strings and cut them and be free [Music] I think a lot of people again especially guys are struggling with authenticity with working out who they are like I think a lot of people would say something to the extent of I don't really know who I am yeah and and you don't you you can always keep learning and I think I don't like the authenticity by the way there's I do understand authenticity

in terms of like who I'm presenting on the outside is who I'm like how who I am on the inside with appropriate boundaries you know but I think when I talked to someone who was saying I'm trying to find my authentic self I'm like man that's just like it's like a it's like a mental game how are you ever going to find your authentic self like how you going to know which part of you is authentic because you and I for example have been through many phases in our life and each time it felt very

authentic right right now we're relating authentically and I can only hope that four years from now we listen this conversation and I'm like God what non the [ __ ] I talking about so I have another way I think about it which is because it's easier to quantify so you'll appreciate this right how do you measure authenticity right what's the so the creative self versus the destructive self so destructive self is you know harmful to myself harmful to others making a mess of things right breaking relationships beating myself up versus the creative self which is

good to myself good to others putting great things out into the world and so I just think am I is the behavior if I can quantify creative destructive it's an easier way that I can um find a path of certainty or a more certain path there's no certain path but find a more clear path to move on my favorite question around that is what would you tomorrow want you today to do what would you tomorrow want you today to do you have this decision in front of you whether or not to eat the cookie or

not to eat the cookie whether or not to sleep with that girl or not to sleep with that girl whether or not to say this particular thing in this particular way or reply to that tweet what would you tomorrow want you today to do I like that and I like the perspective yeah tomorrow is easier than thinking at the end of your life it's too hard it's way too hard what what's going to be on do you really want this on your epigraph like I [ __ ] no dude like how am I I I

don't know when I'm going to die I I don't know what next week's going to bring but you can quite easily think I'm going to wake up tomorrow with this decision in front of me that I'm considering making right now yeah it's a way of asking yourself really like is this after this am I going to have shame or not correct it's regret minimization but it's done on a time scale that's sufficiently tight in a feedback loop way that you can probably make it work yeah I like that I think that I think that's a

really I think it's a really good that goes to that list of tools right like just having 10 nice tools that work for you and doing these other things like is is awesome um and so I'll just answer your last question then we'll wrap because I don't want to be conscious on uh um the exhaustion at which uh I not exhaustion but I really feel like um I don't know how long we've been talking but I I I really approaching two hours now okay I think that's plenty okay for for everybody else I could go

and talk to you forever I want to have mercy on the people listening to at 1.5 speed on their podcast app um that uh that um you were talking about the brain your other question I think that I've got to all your questions I want to I'm such a Storyteller that I always want to close all the loops I try to the things we don't get to but um but about the way you were asking about the way our brain is wired and the pruning and everything right and um and my calat is if this

is not scientifically correct then consider it a metaphor and a useful way of thinking the fact is um again I hear people on the podcast and they always throw out research and sometimes you challenge them and ask where it's from but literally like most studies aren't replicable you know and and and and everything like we we have a we have a feeling and a thought and then we look for facts to back it up we don't most people almost no one works the other way around and the very few people who do are really amazing

right but we just look for facts to back up our our our the way we already feel and think about things right so um so these are the this is my rationalization for my philosophy on how we're wired uh which again is true if you read the right articles like everything else right um I think by the way I think the world needs a healthy sense of doubt about everything you know I think uncertainty is another form of Freedom too yeah it's it's difficult for that to not tumble into cynicism though I think a lot

of people have confused appropriate doubt for I can just be as cynical as I want cynical is a position I think it's spirit the other side of it is a spiritual position to say I don't know you know I'm not sure but I hear what you're saying is really important to you and that's something you really believe in those studies did those things that's really interesting right cynicism is just saying and is is like denial right believing his acceptance and I think saying I don't know there's a line I did that creative act book with

Rick ribbon uh and he has this line uh which I love and I think about all the time of connected detachment what's that mean connected Detachment to me means I'm detaching from all my I'm connected in a way that I care and I'm relational with you but I'm detached from whatever my thoughts and opinions and the way I think things should be so I can stay connected but detached from all these layers of Stories We were talking about that's the way I mean I think he was talking about a different context in the book but

I love that idea of connected Detachment that that's a goal because it's easy to just detach I don't know so I'm not going to get involved versus connected attachment like I really care and whatever the outcome is we don't know it be good or bad you know we can be giving the best advice possible but someone it could lead to something bad for someone lead to something good for someone else we don't know um so anyway long prologue so so we were talking about the way and this is the way I think about trauma and

this is the way I think about behavior and this is the way I think about myself which is you know we're born with certain predispositions and you know genetic uh um predispositions and I talked to one of the leading geneticists who said most things are most a lot of Gene expressions are turned on and off by the environment itself so you might have the gene for example for being a sociopath uh but maybe some trauma has to happen to switch that on whatever so we're born with certain predispositions and uh um resilien resilience um and

then we land in this family and and uh and basically we have our brain like all the neurons it's going to spit a little while so I might get some of the facts wrong but all all the neurology the brain is there all the neurons are there but the connections AR made so very early on the brain starts wiring connections at a really rapid rate right so you're so so most of a lot of stuff happen Prem memory but we but the pattern Remains the Same with our parents so like we we're in bed and

and uh and and our parents have maybe a Cried Out philosophy right so they have a Cried Out philosophy means we're crying and we're hungry but our and our needs aren't met and that after a certain amount of time becomes a pattern which is no one's going to meet my needs I need to meet them myself and these said people who are afraid to ask for help let's say so so for the first three years the brain is like putting these neural connections together at a rapid huge rate they're just they're just the the I

think the three-year-old brain has more noral connections than the adult brain and after three this process and again roughly this process called pruning takes place where the connections you don't need start disappearing and then this brain where you built all these connections removed what you didn't need now becomes the prison you live in and so can you start to recognize that this thought this belief this Behavior I have was wired in because of these certain things and now I can make the choice going back to agency and control to say how can I can rewire

this with these tools that every time here's a tool uh and and being compassionate with ourselves because these were wiring for 17 or 18 years so it's going to take a little while to to to to get the new Behavior going and and sometimes you'll backslide and fall back and get cynical and say what's the point and and just if you're patient with yourself and you're consistent you can really really change your beliefs about yourself in the way you think and I think that's one of the purposes of Life what's your advice for people who

want more self-compassion in that way a lot of the people listening to here's a tool for that here's a tool for that I think one thing we do is when you were saying earlier about being a bouncer and you were saying or you're saying I'm not someone who like expresses I forget what you said was an eye statement like I don't really express myself emotionally right I'm not the person who does that I think anytime you're making an eye stat statement um you can actually correct that cuz that's not who you are you're your you

can say is uh express myself emotionally wasn't something that was encouraged or I felt safe doing my household consequently I don't do it now and then you're not owning that anymore to lack of identification with it right so so in the same way something I did is I real let's say I'm I'd always Sam parking or something I was when I moved to LA I was a horrible driver and I'd always hit the curbs my friends called me Kirby because I always hit the curse when I was driving so I be driving hit the curve

be like oh God I'm such an idiot right so as soon as I catch myself talking to myself in a non-comp passionate way I'll stop um and I'll literally imagine throwing the thought out of my head sometimes I even make the gesture with my hand of throwing the thought out of my head a little correct it with the with the truth which is you're just learning to drive and you hit the curb and that's okay and so when we talked about reparenting earlier most of us who don't who lack self-compassion or being the parents to

ourselves that we had whether that parent was critical again maybe it's for the right reasons I'm not saying your parents are doing the best they can we're not blaming the parents we're just looking at these as variables that make us who we are there's no blame um but so a critical parent they might want the best for you again I was reading mosart letter with his de father and oh my God his father is a [ __ ] you got to read there night his father's just always criticizing for everything he's always doing everything wrong

he's always catastrophizing and Mozart's even like hey hey Dad don't worry about this the dad's like you tell me not to worry but I need to worry because you're like this and you're going to do this and so consequently um we talk to ourselves like the parent we had and the the um workaround is we want to talk to ourselves like the parent we needed not the parent we had so self-compassion is talking to yourself like the parent you needed and not the parent you had yeah any inner voice I think is usually the echo

unless you've done a ton of self-work is almost always the echo of an outer voice that you once heard I've got this great story about Churchill that need to tell you yeah tell me in September 1893 Churchill was admitted on his third attempt to the sandur Military College he wrote to his father I was so glad to be able to send you the good news on Thursday his father a former Chancellor of the ex Checker and leader of the House of Commons wrote back a week later you should be ashamed of your slovenly happy go-lucky

Haram scarum style of work never have I received a really good report of your conduct from any head master or tutor always behind incessant complaints of a total want of application to your work you have failed to get into the 60th rifles the finest regiment in the AR in the Army you have imposed on me an extra charge of some £200 per year do not think that I'm going to take the trouble of writing you long letters after every failure you commit and undergo I no longer attach the slightest weight to anything you may say

if you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle useless unprofitable life that you had during your school days you will become a mere social wasil one of the hundreds of public school failures you will degenerate into a Shabby unhappy and futile existence you will have to bear the blame for all all such misfortunes your mother sent her love Churchill was 19 wow by the way you read that so well that I I almost felt the heat the sting of the discipline did you have a was your was your father disciplin no uh no M was

more the disciplinarian I think yeah but you read you read it so sternly I felt it it's just I think any anyone that's been held to high standards uh I certainly was held to high standards and that's that's something that resonates the reason that that story sort of really hits me is you know you've got maybe one of the greatest greatest leader of the 20th century uh being told happy [ __ ] Haram scarum style of work you're going to be a m social wastal like I no longer attach even the slightest sense of honesty

or truth to anything that you're ever going to tell me and uh makes me feel sad for Churchill you know whatever it was June 30th 1945 vday and I bet that even after defeating the Nazis he probably still didn't feel like he was enough and this is the next book I'm writing so I might use that letter in there if that's cool AB it's okay with turill but thank you for that because ler the next book I'm writing and this maybe we'll wrap here is called It's called The Power of low self-esteem I love that

title yeah wow and it's really about how these a it's how these great figures had really low self-esteem and we do great things because we it's okay to not feel like you're enough and let that inspire you to do to do great things you know and W dude I love the title I absolutely adore the title of that and so maybe the greatest self-compassion we can have for ourself is being compassionate for ourself when we don't have self-compassion for oursel meaning meaning and meaning that like listen we're never going to have control over everything as

we were saying earlier we're never going to be perfect we're never get rid of all our trauma we're never going to always love ourselves we're never going to feel like we fit in belong and and accepting that there's like that that there's a reason for that and it's great to some f you don't belong feel like you don't belong cuz maybe you're nicer to people because you want to belong it's great to feel maybe like you haven't done enough cuz going to want to do more and improve the world so all these things instead of

striving for for Perfection we can see the gifts in them dot dot dot and that's okay I think that's it's very i' I've spent so much time over the last probably three or four years being obsessed by the price that Elite performers pay to be the person that you admire uh you know Elon Musk was on Lex's show about six months ago and he you know you're talking about richest man in the world doing robot dances on stage in Japan and sending cars into space and stuff and Lex asks sort of what's the texture of

your mind like and Elon thinks for a second and he says my mind is a storm most people would think that they want to be me but they don't know they don't understand and I I'm obsessed with that question about the price that people that we admire pay to be the person that we admire that's exactly it you said about Elon can go back to having empathy so some people might say like what's he doing on Twitter this is toxic that whatever it is some people whatever your opinions may be you can say okay here's

a person who needs to be in chaos and intensity just to feel normal and he's replicating that and it's not about anything else Neil Strauss ladies and gentlemen Neil I really appreciate you it's been so great to catch up it's been a long time coming what should people expect from you over the next however long what are you working on um uh yeah man I've just I've just do it just the the next new books I'm really into the we didn't even talk about these uh podcasts where I kind of find missing people or MH

mhm I love them why should people go what's that one called uh the new the new one's called to die for it's like about a Russian uh Seducer a woman who was trained in seduction but the reverse side of it to like get the secrets from men and sometimes kill them wow and it's fascinating by the way which is so when I interviewed her uh she hot um you have to watch it okay but uh but um she in this case like anything else it doesn't it's how you use what you have let's say but

a lot of things she was learning in like the early 2000s in the FSB the kind of successor to the KGB was like exactly what the pickup artists were doing at the same time wow she's the female Neil yeah it was fascinating but more vicious and deadly yeah that's awesome so uh people can check that one out what's that called to die for to die for and you've done some other oh To Live and Die in LA was just like a missing again like I think I just follow my whatever I'm excited and curious about

I just follow there's no bre it was just someone missing in our my neighborhood and myself and uh ingred my wife at the time and a couple neighbors uh Mike who you should have on the show Mike ener from Incubus he's a great brilliant guy him and his wife who our neighbors and Marie we uh just try to help and and so so uh that was this to Live and Die in LA podcast people should also follow you on Instagram I very much appreciate your uh pithy aphorisms on there my favorite one from last show

which I must have repurposed a gazillion times unspoken expectations of premeditated resentments and that by it's a quote from a therapist in the game that's fine you were the one that repur but such a good line and we close to because it's a good thing to think about unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments it's so so deep I love phenomenal Neil I appreciate you thank you man thanks Chris thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode with Neil you will love my three-hour long conversation with Jordan Peterson which you can watch right

here