Stefan Molyneux
  • last year
24 January 2024 Wednesday Night Livestream

"If I believe I have no value to offer other people. I'm wondering could you offer some insight into why I believe, think, and feel this way about myself? Also I would like to know why I'm struggling so much to be curious and find an answer to these thoughts and feelings as well. Thank you in advance."

"my wife and I struggle with feeling bad about telling off the people in our lives who wrong us. My wife thinks it's better to feel bad than to make someone else feel bad. how can I help her and myself re-scramble this idea and be more 'self-serving' and focus more on my/our feelings at the expense of others"

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Transcript
00:00:00 "Good evening, good evening, 24th of January 2024, and...
00:00:08 I don't like it when I buy something to help me maintain my system and it keeps
00:00:11 popping up asking me to extend my time. Don't give me your ads when I've already
00:00:16 paid for the product! By the way, freedomain.com/donate if
00:00:20 you'd like to help out the show," he said,
00:00:22 hypocritically. "But, uh, the ads here are nothing. Nothing. All right, let me get to
00:00:31 your questions. Of course, I have topics, but I'm here for you.
00:00:34 Hello from Idaho. Ah, now I want a potato. Of course,
00:00:39 stoked to be at the greatest discussion happening in the world right now.
00:00:42 Thank you, thank you, thank you.
00:00:45 Question. If I believe I have no value to offer other people, I'm wondering, could
00:00:51 you offer in some insight into why I believe, think, and feel this way about
00:00:55 myself?
00:00:57 Also, I'd like to know why I'm struggling so much to be curious and find an answer.
00:01:06 To these thoughts and feelings as well, thank you in advance. I read that about
00:01:09 as badly as a human being could read anything.
00:01:12 Sorry about that. Let me, uh, let me try that again.
00:01:15 Uh, and, and don't be stilted. All right. Sorry, it just, it kept scrolling.
00:01:22 Question. If I believe I have no value to offer other people, I'm wondering, could
00:01:25 you offer some insight into why I believe, think, and feel this way about
00:01:29 myself? Also, I'd like to know why I'm
00:01:30 struggling so much to be curious and find an answer.
00:01:33 To these thoughts and feelings as well, thank you in advance. All right, that's a
00:01:37 good question. I appreciate that. You look good, Steph. You are as I remember
00:01:42 you to be. Well, that's good. I aim to change as little as humanly
00:01:46 possible, and nature has endowed me with a haircut that totally aids in that.
00:01:50 Thank you, Parallax, for your question dealing with anxiety and fear.
00:01:57 Well, I will tell you a little bit about the call that I had today. Really one of
00:02:00 the saddest call-ins. You know, normally it takes a while for me to make people
00:02:03 cry in a call-in. This lady started off sobbing, and it just
00:02:07 went, it went from there. It went from there.
00:02:11 Holy crap.
00:02:13 Right.
00:02:16 Hit me with a "why" if you have questions or doubts about the value
00:02:22 you offer to others.
00:02:26 Hit me with a "why" if you have doubts about the value you offer to others. Now,
00:02:35 this could be at two levels. One, you don't feel like you have value to
00:02:38 offer, or two, you feel you have value to offer, but
00:02:42 other people don't see it.
00:02:44 Now, this way I can gauge how much time to spend
00:02:48 on the topic. All right. We got, we got some people. We got some,
00:02:54 we got some folks. Hi, Dan.
00:03:00 We got some folks. All right. I sympathize. I understand.
00:03:08 And I can fix it.
00:03:12 I can fix it with castor oil, one leg of the Michelin man, and a spork.
00:03:20 Wait, that's the wrong order. Hang on. No, no, that's the right order. That is the
00:03:24 right order. All right. You're dealing with the first one,
00:03:28 not the second one. You're just feeling like you don't have value to offer,
00:03:31 right?
00:03:34 All right. So, Monsieur Fromage Homme, Mr. Cheddar Man,
00:03:43 did your parents take delight and/or happiness
00:03:51 in your existence when you were little?
00:03:54 Did your parents take delight and/or happiness
00:03:58 in your existence when you were a wee bairn, knee-high to a grasshopper?
00:04:07 Yes or no?
00:04:14 Or, to put it another way, if you're still considering the question, let me
00:04:18 sort of gauge the audience here. Minus 10, they hated your existence. Plus
00:04:22 10, they loved you to death. How did your parents perceive you? How
00:04:26 did they interact with you? How did they deal with you?
00:04:28 Minus 10, they hated your existence. Plus 10,
00:04:33 they loved you to death.
00:04:36 I mean, I know it oscillates, but, you know, overall, in general, if you had to
00:04:39 put a number to it, what number would you put
00:04:45 to it?
00:04:47 Plus 8? That's nice. 8-ish, that's good. That's very nice. Nice to hear.
00:04:57 Plus 8, so very positive, very good. 5, nice.
00:05:01 Minus 3, minus 5, minus 8.
00:05:05 I think my mom would switch sometimes from minus 8 to plus 8, which is why I
00:05:13 have such a stable personality base. Oh, 0, so complete indifference, they
00:05:18 didn't even dislike you. Minus 3, 0.
00:05:22 Right.
00:05:30 So, Chatterman, you, I imagine, are in the grip of one of the most
00:05:42 demonic sentences the world knows.
00:05:47 One of the most demonic sentences the world
00:05:51 has, and is the root of most of the suffering in the world.
00:05:57 He says, "For me, when my parents divorced, it seemed like they pretended to like me."
00:06:02 Well, they may have been vying for custody or support or something like
00:06:05 that.
00:06:07 I will tell you
00:06:12 the most fatal sentence to come out of a bad
00:06:17 childhood. I mean, we're just starting right down
00:06:22 at the bottom here, and going further down. There's no
00:06:25 foreplay here. I'm not taking to a movie, I'm not buying you
00:06:29 a card that when you open it, out fly little papier-mâché
00:06:32 butterflies. We're just going straight deep. Straight deep, no loop.
00:06:38 It's just the way the show has started. I'm not going to fight
00:06:41 the momentum of the audience. So,
00:06:45 the most fatal sentence of a bad childhood
00:06:54 goes a little something like this, and you can tell me
00:06:57 if it makes sense to you. And the sentence is, "Well,
00:07:05 if my own parents didn't like me, who could? Who would?
00:07:12 If my own mother seemed to dislike me, who could ever love me?
00:07:20 If even those who brought me to life did not enjoy or appreciate my
00:07:27 existence, who ever
00:07:32 could?"
00:07:35 Does this ring a bell? Does this strike a chord?
00:07:42 Hit me with a "why" if this has done more than cross your mind
00:07:48 over the years.
00:07:51 Just wanted to give a little check here.
00:08:01 It does, right? "But if my own flesh and blood don't like me,
00:08:12 whoever could? If I can't even get a smile from my mom, whoever is going to be
00:08:17 happy that I walk into the room?" Hello! Sorry, I don't mean to mock it, but it's
00:08:21 totally mock worthy. I'm sorry, it is totally mock worthy.
00:08:27 [sigh]
00:08:29 First of all, of course, you know, I'm very sorry that you had these
00:08:37 experiences as a child. I'm very sorry that people didn't take delight in your
00:08:40 existence. I'm sorry. I'm sad about all of that, and
00:08:43 you have my sympathies. But stop it.
00:08:54 I mean, honestly, I know stopping it doesn't help. I'll tell you how to stop
00:08:58 it. Like, real simple, real quick. Now, let me
00:09:02 ask you this. Do you want me to talk about me or talk
00:09:05 about you? I'm happy to talk about you. Obviously, it's a little bit more
00:09:08 theoretical. I'm happy to talk about me. Just say "why" or "am" do you want me to
00:09:13 talk about me or you? What's going to be the best
00:09:18 approach?
00:09:21 [silence]
00:09:23 Me? All right.
00:09:32 Yeah, okay. So, the sentence, of course, you know, when you have your parents
00:09:40 openly say that they hate your freaking guts, which my mom did, and
00:09:43 my father was largely indifferent, but when you hear your mom scream in
00:09:50 the middle of the night, "I hate these effing kids,"
00:09:52 you know, that gives you pause. But the defense against that
00:09:59 is ridiculously simple, and once I point it out,
00:10:03 you'll kick yourself. Sorry, you just will. You just will.
00:10:08 So, neglect is one of the worst forms of child abuse, as you know. I put the
00:10:14 hierarchy. The worst is sexual abuse, the next worst is neglect, and the next worst
00:10:18 is emotional abuse, and the next worst is physical abuse.
00:10:22 So,
00:10:24 if my mother hates me, let's say, and she did at
00:10:34 times, and there were times where she was like,
00:10:36 "Oh, you're the greatest, you're the greatest," but if my, let's say,
00:10:40 at the times where my mother hates me, the basic sentence in my head was this,
00:10:44 "Oh no, a child abuser dislikes me."
00:10:50 "Oh no, an evildoer doth think of me negatively."
00:10:58 "Oh no, an immoral person has a negative view of me."
00:11:06 "Whatever will I do?"
00:11:11 And I thought of being a cop, you know, I thought of myself as a cop, right? I
00:11:14 was a cop, a copper, as they would say in England,
00:11:17 with his trusty nightstick.
00:11:21 If you are a policeman, do you want the criminal, let's say you're just an
00:11:27 honest and fair policeman, do you want the criminals to dislike you?
00:11:33 Do you want the criminals to have a negative opinion of you?
00:11:41 Do you want the criminals to dislike you?
00:11:45 Of course you do, I mean, to ask the question is to answer it.
00:11:49 Now, if you're a policeman and you have a desperate desire
00:11:53 for the criminals to like you, don't you suck
00:11:56 as a policeman? Listen, I want to arrest, I'd like to arrest that guy, I just,
00:12:01 I did just see him beat up that granny, but you know,
00:12:05 I don't want him to have a negative view of me. It doesn't matter.
00:12:11 What do you mean it doesn't matter? What are you talking about?
00:12:17 As a policeman, it doesn't matter whether the criminals like you or not?
00:12:22 What are you talking about?
00:12:25 Ah yes, my lady says, I thought the same many years back, if these two effers
00:12:34 don't agree or like me, I'm doing something right.
00:12:37 A fraudulent policeman. I think, I think I talked about an honorable decent
00:12:41 policeman, so don't don't muck things up, don't cloud it up.
00:12:48 If you are a criminal investigator,
00:13:01 will, and you're good at it and you're effective,
00:13:04 will the people you're investigating that you catch like you or dislike you?
00:13:10 People
00:13:21 who abuse children don't like you.
00:13:28 Good, good. Thank heavens, because
00:13:36 if the people who abuse children like you,
00:13:42 that's really bad.
00:13:46 That's really bad.
00:13:52 The hatred of evildoers is central to the guidance of virtue.
00:14:07 Maybe respect you, but hate you. I don't know what respect,
00:14:12 the word respect is doing a lot of heavy contradictory lifting in that,
00:14:16 in that sentence. No, they'll hate you.
00:14:21 You catch criminals, you throw them in jail.
00:14:25 Of course the criminals hate you.
00:14:28 Evil child abusers don't like you.
00:14:42 Let me ask you this, let me ask you this, so really throw this into stark relief.
00:14:52 If you had evil parents, immoral parents, destructive, abusive parents, whatever you
00:14:57 want to have, your negative, right, harmful parents.
00:15:01 And this is a real question, I really want you to answer this, if you had
00:15:09 negative, destructive parents, really want you to answer this.
00:15:13 If you had negative, destructive parents, what would you have to do
00:15:18 to have them like you? What would you have to do
00:15:23 to have them like you? If they don't like you, obviously you're doing something
00:15:28 negative to them or negative in their experience. So what behavior
00:15:32 would you change in order to have your parents, if they're
00:15:37 negative or destructive, in order to have your parents like you?
00:15:44 What would you have to change?
00:15:47 You'd have to lie, yep. You'd have to pretend that that
00:15:54 which is evil is good and that which is good is evil. You'd have to pretend to
00:15:58 love and respect people who harmed and
00:16:01 abused you.
00:16:04 You'd have to collude with them, you'd have to appease them.
00:16:11 Self-erasure, but it wouldn't work. No, it's not self-erasure, you'd have to go
00:16:14 the other direction. You'd have to fulfill more of their requests, serve
00:16:18 them more, conform and erase any of my own thoughts,
00:16:23 but go the other way for them to like you.
00:16:27 No, not conform, not conform. Go along with their bullshit and
00:16:34 treat my children the same as they did me. Right.
00:16:38 To have abusive people "like you", it is not enough to conform, you must
00:16:44 also become.
00:16:48 Yeah, you got it Serpenta. Be like them. If they drink or do drugs, join them. If
00:16:52 they think abusing kids is good, you need to think that as well. Call it
00:16:55 discipline. Yeah. So we all know how to get evil doers to
00:17:01 like us. Just do evil. Join the gang, right.
00:17:08 Join the gang. If the policeman, instead of prosecuting
00:17:16 the crime gang, the policeman joins the crime gang, they like him.
00:17:21 Especially if he stays on the police force, right. Misdirects all of the
00:17:26 investigations, loses the evidence, intimidates the witnesses,
00:17:29 lies,
00:17:32 bears false witness. They love the guy. They love the policeman. Who joins them?
00:17:40 Particularly if he does it surreptitiously.
00:17:44 See, the funny thing is, is that you all seem to be in hot pursuit
00:17:50 of immoral parents love, or approval, or positive regard.
00:17:59 Which is a satanic bargain. Because if you got what you say you want,
00:18:07 you'd be evil.
00:18:10 I just want my evil mother to love me. Oh, she'll love you.
00:18:16 But you gotta be evil. I just want to be evil.
00:18:20 I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but you understand. God help you if you get what
00:18:24 you want. God help you if you get what you say you
00:18:28 want. That would be a complete and total
00:18:31 disaster for your soul, for your children, for your family, for
00:18:35 your life.
00:18:37 They also love it if you "forget their bad behavior and put up with it
00:18:43 because they are family." No, they don't love it. They don't love
00:18:47 it. If you just forget and pretend
00:18:51 something didn't happen, there's
00:18:55 relative peace, but there isn't love.
00:18:59 There's an uneasy alliance of unreality, but there isn't positive regard.
00:19:06 Like the guy who's running away from the bank robbery.
00:19:12 He's very happy if you don't call the police, but he's even happier if you
00:19:15 drive him away, if you're the getaway driver.
00:19:21 In the ever-loving levels of Hades, would you want the approval
00:19:26 of evildoers? Why would you want evildoers to love you?
00:19:31 That would be a death strangle, hyoid bone breaking
00:19:36 chokehold on your very soul. If only I could get the good opinions of
00:19:42 evil people, I'd be happy. Sorry again, I don't mean to laugh, but
00:19:46 you see what I'm saying? The fuck do you want?
00:19:50 Bad people to like you.
00:19:53 I really feel that I've cultivated a lot of hatred from a lot of bad people over
00:19:58 the years, and I stand above it like a Minecraft
00:20:02 farmer of infinity. "Mm, smell the crops, smell the manure, the
00:20:08 fertilizer, the fertility. We will make it through
00:20:11 a multi-generational winter with all these crops."
00:20:16 You'd have to say it was good for you. When I did wrong, my parents whooped my
00:20:23 ass and I learned. Yeah, they'll like you.
00:20:28 They'll like you if you praise their evil, but they'll love you if you
00:20:31 recreate it, reproduce it with your own kids.
00:20:33 Right? Because that's their final corruption, right?
00:20:37 Dave says my family would require me to submit
00:20:41 and to be upset on demand so they could soak in my misery.
00:20:44 That is not on my agenda, and if my family liked me, I'd be
00:20:48 really worried. They're super selfish and emotionally abusive, don't need that
00:20:51 junk. This is one of the best lessons I learned
00:20:55 from your call-in a few years ago. Thank you for that. You're welcome.
00:20:59 I mean, look, the communists hate me, obviously, right? The communists hate me,
00:21:08 but when you talk about the 100 million dead from communists and they're like,
00:21:12 "Well, but my capitalism,
00:21:17 well, that number is just too high. Oh, really? So 80 million, 90 million, but 100
00:21:22 million, that's..." Right? So they've got two
00:21:26 fucking things in their sights, right? Two things that they're looking at.
00:21:30 A hundred million innocent, murdered, slaughtered,
00:21:33 tortured people.
00:21:36 Or my podcast. Oh no. See? And why don't you think? A pile of bodies so high they
00:21:44 block out three quarters of the sky. Women, children, pregnant women, innocent
00:21:51 men. Hauled away from their families, thrown in
00:21:55 boxcars, starved, beaten, whipped, tortured,
00:21:59 raped, abused, sodomized. A hundred million bodies.
00:22:05 Or Steph's little podcast.
00:22:11 I don't even know what to say.
00:22:16 I don't even know what to say.
00:22:26 Marx was into Satan. Yeah. Wrote poems praising Satan. Sure.
00:22:31 The guy literally worshipped the father of lies and then people say, "Well, I'm
00:22:39 sure what he said was true though." My moral ideal is the father of lies.
00:22:44 Now, I'm going to tell you nothing but the truth.
00:22:47 A hundred million bodies that we know of. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:22:50 For sure. And that's just the bodies. Doesn't count the mutilations,
00:22:54 doesn't count the stillbirths from stress, it doesn't count
00:22:58 the wrecked and destroyed lives. I mean, gosh, imagine. Imagine you're born
00:23:03 in 1917 and then you die
00:23:08 in the early 80s and you just, your whole lifespan is communism
00:23:12 in Russia. Your sadism series is fantastic. Can't wait to hear what you
00:23:17 have to say next about it. I'm sorry about
00:23:19 that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you're having
00:23:23 such a positive experience of my sadism series. I really feel like I'm not
00:23:26 achieving my goal then.
00:23:29 Maybe the next one will just be me saying I like traffic lights over and
00:23:32 over again. Build up your expectations then truly
00:23:35 disappoint you. Well, actually, I'm glad you're enjoying
00:23:39 it. I think it's great too. We just, I just did part five today. Part five
00:23:44 today.
00:23:50 So don't be in a position of helpless victim.
00:23:54 Well, everybody's got to just like me. Everybody's got to like me.
00:23:59 You judge those who judge you first. Like, your judgment
00:24:03 has to come first. The people who judge you as negative, as destructive, as bad,
00:24:08 as whatever, right? So...
00:24:12 ...never let anyone judge you without judging them first.
00:24:18 It's foundational. Now, as a kid, you don't really have that choice, right?
00:24:21 But as an adult, you do.
00:24:25 I mean, there are lots of moral tests in the world, right?
00:24:32 And one of the things that I've learned is that
00:24:35 you have to be a little bit more open to the world.
00:24:39 And one of the moral tests is if you vigorously defend the slaughter
00:24:47 of a hundred million people, but mindlessly attack the advocate for
00:24:52 peaceful parenting, you are utterly corrupt beyond that
00:24:56 which language can encompass. Like, you're utterly corrupt beyond that
00:25:00 which language could conceivably encompass.
00:25:05 You judge those who judge you.
00:25:08 Can you imagine what a horror show it would be
00:25:14 if my mother genuinely understood and approved of what I was doing?
00:25:20 Oh my god.
00:25:23 Oh my god.
00:25:29 Oh my god.
00:25:32 You know, if you've got a lump on your body, you want to find out if it's a
00:25:38 muscle or cancer. Right? Muscle? Good, I assume. Cancer? Bad.
00:25:44 What are your thoughts and opinions on President Millet?
00:25:52 Uh, capitalists are boob guys, he seems to be one.
00:25:57 And socialists are ass guys. That seems to be a kind of common pattern.
00:26:02 So, my thoughts and opinions. Very passionate guy,
00:26:06 very intelligent guy, very committed guy, a great showman,
00:26:10 and we'll see. I don't mean to make this about me, but
00:26:15 months and months and months ago, actually over a year ago, I predicted
00:26:18 that there would be a freedom portal would open up somewhere
00:26:21 in the world to try and bring people, the Pareto principle productivity people,
00:26:26 to a particular country. You know, obviously I wish him
00:26:30 the best. I wish him the best. He certainly has achieved more
00:26:35 in a month or two than Trump did in four years, but I don't know
00:26:40 what level of opposition he's facing from within the country.
00:26:44 He's strangely not being attacked in general. I mean, of course, the World
00:26:48 Economic Forum is going after him, and Libertarianism is our enemy and all of
00:26:51 that. He could use a better hairdresser. Oh, come on.
00:26:54 Come on. Loudmouth guy with a funny haircut?
00:26:59 That's a template, man. That's a template.
00:27:03 Because when you have an outlandish appearance,
00:27:06 people will take what you're saying less seriously, and they'll think that your
00:27:10 appearance will discredit you because you judge
00:27:13 things by appearance, not by content. And so, his sideburns and
00:27:19 - is that a wig? It looks like a wig. I don't know. His outlandish
00:27:22 appearance and his outlandish speech is designed to have people not take
00:27:28 him seriously
00:27:30 so that he can do the job.
00:27:35 Right, so that's - I wouldn't change a thing about what he's doing.
00:27:41 You want people to look at him and see a buffoon and a clown
00:27:46 so that he can do his work. So they can just roll their eyes and dismiss him
00:27:51 as always just this crazy South American huckster and, you
00:27:54 know, he's like a used car salesman from hell and ah ha ha he's such a - right?
00:27:58 Boom. Like just, yeah, absolutely. You don't want to look like Pinochet.
00:28:02 You want to look like a clown. And no, I don't agree with get a better
00:28:08 hairdresser. No, that's not an accident. I'm not saying it's conscious, but it's
00:28:11 certainly not an accident.
00:28:14 I can't get that kind of - like, I just can't look that kind of way, so
00:28:20 people take me seriously, sometimes too seriously
00:28:24 in a sense, whether they like it or not just based upon my appearance, but he can -
00:28:28 oh yeah, no, he's - it's not an accident. It's not an accident.
00:28:34 Whereas, you know, you see someone like who looks traditionally sort of
00:28:39 Western and conservative, like an icon, like
00:28:44 Ronald Reagan, and then so many of the terrible things that have happened in
00:28:48 America can be traced right back to the executive and
00:28:53 governor pen of Reagan. "Will you do a truth about
00:29:00 masochism?"
00:29:02 I think I'm talking about it wound into the sadism presentations.
00:29:12 "A friend told me a woman, a single mother who played with us at the gym,
00:29:17 mocked me and bad-mouthed me for something I said about looking for a
00:29:20 virtuous woman as my future wife. I answered, 'Good, I'm glad she dislikes me.'"
00:29:24 Yeah.
00:29:26 Yeah.
00:29:29 I have long said to people who are criticizing this show,
00:29:35 like, if they're full of hatred, for what? Science, facts, reason, evidence, truth,
00:29:40 peaceful parenting, like what? What, right? So if people
00:29:44 find themselves full of visceral hatred, for me, which I don't take personally,
00:29:51 yeah, there's, I take it about as personally as
00:29:54 watching a bird attack a mirror. "Oh no, it's pecking my eyes out." No, they're
00:29:57 just pecking. It's not me, right? It's their own moral potential that
00:30:01 they're trying to destroy, not me, right? So I've always said from the
00:30:06 beginning of this show, if you really hate this show, if you
00:30:09 really hate what I'm saying, if you really hate me, for whatever that means,
00:30:12 if you really hate me, please, please, please tell your friends.
00:30:15 Tell your friends how terrible I am. Tell your friends to stay away from me.
00:30:19 Spread as far and wide as you can how terrible I am, because I don't want
00:30:25 you or your friends or anyone who takes you seriously anywhere near this
00:30:28 conversation.
00:30:30 And I don't want people full of hate listening to philosophy, right?
00:30:39 So yeah, it's
00:30:43 you absolutely want to keep negative people, destructive people, bad
00:30:48 people away. And it's funny now how this has
00:30:51 just become such a commonplace. Boy, it sure wasn't when I started. And
00:30:55 of course, like most people who carve new grounds, all you get is arrows
00:31:00 in your back, and nobody credits you when all is done,
00:31:04 right? So, but now every time I'm looking on social
00:31:07 media, it's always like, "Well, you got to get negative to toxic people out of your
00:31:10 life." Well, it doesn't matter who they are. If they're negative,
00:31:12 destructive, toxic, abusive, you got to get them out of your life
00:31:15 in order to get your own potential going. You got to get them out.
00:31:18 Like when I first said this, people thought it was like the second coming of
00:31:22 the horny one, the great hornet toad. But now it's just
00:31:27 kind of taken for granted, and you don't get any credit, and right. So
00:31:33 how about Klaus Schwab's wardrobe?
00:31:37 Dr. Evil is being pretty obvious. He's being pretty obvious.
00:31:42 Like you know that there's, like evildoers have a thing where
00:31:48 if they're pretty obvious about what they do, then it's on you.
00:31:53 Right. It's pretty obvious. Like it's like, then,
00:31:56 then, like if you hire some prostitute to come over and
00:32:02 beat you, that's on you. Right. I mean, obviously, it's not great and all of that,
00:32:06 but it's not a violation of the non-aggression principle because
00:32:09 she says, "I'm a dominatrix for a hundred bucks. I'll come over and beat you." And
00:32:12 then you pay a hundred bucks, she comes over and beats you.
00:32:14 That's kind of on you. Right. So if you know what you're getting into,
00:32:18 if things are obvious and clear, then it's kind of on you.
00:32:22 I mean, it's the old question. If someone says to you,
00:32:27 "I'm going to defraud you. Give me your money. I'm going to defraud you." They say
00:32:30 that right up front. "Here, give me your money. I'm going to defraud you."
00:32:35 Otherwise known as altruistic capitalism,
00:32:40 Bankman Freed. Like if somebody says to you, not that he did, but if somebody says
00:32:44 to you, "Give me your money. I'm going to defraud
00:32:47 you." And you give them your money, have they defrauded you?
00:32:55 It's hard to argue that they have. Right. It's hard to argue that they have.
00:33:02 So if people say, "We want you to live in ponds and eat bugs and
00:33:07 we're going to take control of your sovereignty and all of that."
00:33:11 And you're like, "Yeah, okay." Have they done evil unto you if they say,
00:33:18 "Hey, we're going to do this to you." And you're like, "Yeah, sounds good.
00:33:22 Sure. Yeah, sure." Crunchy cricket legs sounds like about the greatest meal on the planet.
00:33:27 A fraud, well, I think fraud does require a kind of dishonesty, right?
00:33:31 Otherwise, it's just if somebody says, "Give me your money. I'm going to
00:33:36 cheat you and rip you off and never give you your money back." And then you give that person
00:33:42 your money, then it's just a kind of masochism that you're going through, right? You can't claim
00:33:48 to be ignorant and you really can't claim to be cheated. Somebody says, "I'm going to cheat you."
00:33:54 And you're just like, "Yeah, go ahead." Have you been cheated? Not really. Not really.
00:33:59 So, I mean, I love those guys for being so upfront. I love those guys for being so upfront.
00:34:13 Don't love those guys. Don't love those guys. But as far as their up-frontedness,
00:34:19 all right. So, as far as providing value, right? So, make sure I got the guy's question. "If I
00:34:31 believe I have no value to offer other people, I'm wondering, could you offer some insight
00:34:36 into why I believe?" Yeah. So, if you're raised by evil doers, the last thing you ever want to
00:34:40 do is offer value to evil doers, right? So, if you're raised by evil doers, the last thing...
00:34:52 So, the evil doers, you don't want to add value to them and that's how you keep your soul, right?
00:34:57 How do you keep your soul when raised by evil doers? You don't join them in their evil doing,
00:35:00 which means they're going to dislike you. That's how you keep yours. That's a mark of honor.
00:35:10 Now, of course, they will try and implant in you the idea that if we don't find value in you,
00:35:16 nobody will. "We don't find value in you. Nobody will."
00:35:26 Well, of course, they don't know what good people have in terms of value preferences because they're
00:35:34 evil doers. So, they're just saying, "It's just a curse on you." It's a curse on you, basically,
00:35:41 just saying, like, you're in the desert and the water tastes like shit. And then people say,
00:35:46 "Well, yes, but if you try and go across the desert, you'll just die. So, you just have to
00:35:50 put up with the shit water because it's the only water there is." Nobody's going to find value in
00:35:55 you. It's just a way of saying, "Well, you have to stick around with me because I'm the only water
00:36:02 there is around." It's like the abusive boyfriend or girlfriend who says, "Well, if you break up
00:36:20 with me, you'll never be loved. I'm the only chance you've got. Everywhere you go." You know
00:36:25 this thing where people say, "Well, everywhere you go, there you are. And if you run out of this
00:36:31 relationship, you're just going to run into another relationship with exactly the same problems.
00:36:34 You're the common denominator in all these bad relationships and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
00:36:38 blah, blah, blah." It's just a curse saying, "Put up with shit water because everything else is
00:36:43 desert." Put up with brackish shit water because everything else is desert. And of course, I heard
00:36:51 this not in that brutal a fashion, but I heard this when I was younger, like, "Oh, just walk
00:36:56 away. Just walk away like you always do. Just walk away from these problems." Imagine that when
00:37:00 you go, "Oh, you're going to go to some other relationship, but it's got no problems." It's
00:37:03 like, "Actually, yeah, that is kind of what happened. It's kind of what happened."
00:37:07 It's just a way that people, like when they say, "You'll never do better than me," they're saying,
00:37:13 "I'm never going to bother to improve. I'm never going to bother. All I'm going to do is chip away
00:37:25 at your standards rather than raise my own behavior. I have been told I'm the only one who
00:37:30 could tolerate you." Oof. Yeah, that's cold, man. That's cold. That's cold.
00:37:40 But verbal assholes are everywhere, right? I mean, verbal assholes are everywhere.
00:37:47 Nobody else will put up with you. Yeah, who else is going to put up with all your crap?
00:37:52 Who else is going to put up with you? No one. It's me or nothing.
00:37:54 Yeah, so rather than improve your own behavior, you simply break down somebody else's standards,
00:38:02 right? Rather than come up with a better menu as a restaurant,
00:38:08 you just burn down all the other menus in the neighborhood.
00:38:16 Yeah, you're my charity case. I mean, I talked to a woman today.
00:38:24 Her husband wanted kids for four years. They tried to have kids.
00:38:31 She finally had a kid, and he wouldn't touch her. And he said, "I don't
00:38:36 enjoy sleeping with women whose vaginas have been loosened up by childbirth." And that was it.
00:38:44 Yeah, I'm the best boss you will ever have, my father. Yeah.
00:38:46 Yeah, nobody else will put up with you, right? Oh, it's terrible. It's terrible.
00:38:52 It's terrible stuff. It's terrible stuff.
00:38:59 Yeah, I think you keep—I've talked about the migrant crisis before, and I don't
00:39:09 have any particular desire to do that again. All right, I spent decades begging for crumbs,
00:39:15 neglect from family, and no attention or connection from my ex-wife and so many friends
00:39:21 of the similar dynamics. I pushed them all out of my life. Things are better, yeah.
00:39:38 Nobody else will put up with you. Then the question is, of course,
00:39:41 "Why are you putting up with me? If I'm so terrible, why are you putting up with me?
00:39:46 Oh, I guess I have a soft spot for you. I guess I have some like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
00:39:49 It's terrible. Just terrible.
00:40:02 It's interesting, of course, they never did find the transmissible animal for COVID, did they? The
00:40:12 pangolin in the wet market—remember I predicted this, what, three years ago or something?—that
00:40:18 they weren't going to find the crossover animal, and they never did. They never did.
00:40:28 Oh, Lord, it's so hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way.
00:40:34 All right.
00:40:38 Do you think there'll be a World War III? No, I don't think so. I don't think so.
00:40:51 Arguably, it could be even worse. All right. There's another question here
00:40:58 that I wanted to get to. "Any suggestions on dealing with anxiety and fear, owning a business,
00:41:05 the stress of meeting payroll and other business concerns, as well as racing and being involved
00:41:09 with children?" Okay, well, let me ask you this, right? Let me just get the right person's name
00:41:22 here. Wait. Oh, no, he didn't tip. Okay. Well, "How long has your business been running?"
00:41:40 That's the first question that I have. "How long has your business been running?"
00:41:48 If you're still around. If you're still around.
00:42:12 17 years? No.
00:42:18 Your business has been running for 17 years,
00:42:29 and you still are worried about meeting payroll? What?
00:42:39 Why? That blows. That bloweth and sucketh simultaneously. It is a vortex.
00:42:47 17 years, and you're still struggling to meet payroll? No. Come on, man. What are you talking
00:42:56 about? I'm sorry to put it this way, but how bad are you at business that after 17 years,
00:43:01 you're still struggling to meet payroll? How bad is the business? How bad is the environment? Or
00:43:06 how bad are you at it? Divorce. All right. I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
00:43:13 Now, you got payroll, other business concerns, racing, being involved with children,
00:43:21 divorce. Just throwing all this shit at me, man. I don't know what to say about any of this.
00:43:26 But, oh my God. If you're not succeeding early, why would you keep doing it? Again, I'm
00:43:37 sort of trying to understand. 17 years, and you're still not meeting payroll?
00:43:41 Holy crap. That's terrible. That's terrible.
00:43:49 I have serious concerns about this business. I have serious concerns about this business.
00:43:57 I mean, also, I assume you had this business long before you had kids.
00:44:05 So, okay. Let me give you business advice 101. I've started a bunch of businesses, and
00:44:11 business was compromised following divorce. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what
00:44:16 he's saying. At what point would you have cut your losses, Steph? Man, you kidding me?
00:44:23 Long before 17 years. So, here's the thing. So, I've started a couple of businesses over
00:44:31 the course of my life. They've all been successful, and they're all still running.
00:44:36 I haven't been involved in many of them for many years, but they're all still running. Now,
00:44:39 you have a business, you love the business, and what do you do at the beginning?
00:44:46 What do you do when you're starting your business? What do you do when you care about your business,
00:44:52 and you care about it, you love it, it's your dream job, your passion project? How long,
00:45:00 how much, how deep, how hard do you work at the beginning?
00:45:06 What do you do at the beginning of a business?
00:45:22 I don't know. Sell, save, invest, insurance? I don't know. Well, you all take it too long to
00:45:38 type. So, what you do is you work like a madman. You work like a madman. I mean, let me tell you
00:45:45 about my day. So, this business has been running 18 years. So, today, I got up, and I did the truth
00:45:55 about sadism, part five, and then I gave it to the researcher to listen to, and then I processed it,
00:46:04 and it's all ready to go. And then, I had lunch with my family, and then I did a call-in show
00:46:13 with a woman whose daughter is self-harming. And then, I chatted with my family,
00:46:21 I dined with my family, watched a little bit of a show, and now I'm doing this show.
00:46:26 So, this is my third show today.
00:46:30 I've never started a business, but I'd work nonstop. I think about it all the damn time. Yeah,
00:46:37 absolutely. You work insanely hard when you first get a… I mean, I'm still working pretty hard.
00:46:45 And you do that so you find out if the business is viable.
00:46:57 Right? You do that to find out if the business is viable.
00:47:04 So, if the business is viable with you working 80 hours a week or whatever you're doing,
00:47:09 if the business is viable with you working 80 hours a week,
00:47:12 then you've proven that the business is viable, and then you start to outsource
00:47:17 what needs to be done so that you can focus on your core competencies, you can outsource stuff,
00:47:22 and then you just keep outsourcing as the business keeps growing.
00:47:25 Now, you may have a stall down in the business, there may be a plateau in the business,
00:47:30 you know, lockdowns or whatever, some recession, and then you have to cut back on your payroll,
00:47:35 but you work like crazy to find out if anyone's going to buy anything from you, right? I still
00:47:41 remember the first donation I ever got. 10 bucks. Holy damn! Future opens up. 10 bucks. If I can
00:47:47 make 10 bucks, I can make more, right? So, you just work like crazy. You try and provide as much
00:47:52 value as humanly possible, and you make payroll. Well, first of all, you don't have a payroll
00:47:57 because it's just you, right? But then you start making payroll, right? So, you break your ass.
00:48:04 And then you know that the business is viable, it's just a matter of how much work are you going
00:48:11 to put into it. Now, if it's more work than you can do, then you hire people to do the work for
00:48:16 you or to offload some part of your work, this kind of stuff, right? I mean, how many business
00:48:21 people do their own taxes, right? And the reason you work your 80 hours a week is so that you don't
00:48:31 look back with regret and you say, "Well, I shouldn't have played that video game," or,
00:48:36 "I shouldn't have watched all those movies," or, "I shouldn't have, I don't know, learned how to
00:48:39 crochet. Like, I should have just..." Because you throw everything. Now, if you throw everything
00:48:42 into your business and it doesn't work, then you don't have any regrets. It's like, "Well,
00:48:50 it's the wrong business model, the wrong time, the wrong idea, the wrong argument,
00:48:52 couldn't provide enough value," whatever it is, right? Whatever it is. Dave says, "All businesses
00:48:57 require lots of upfront and beginning energy. You earn your money way before you get paid.
00:49:01 It has to be driven hard to get it up and running." Yeah, of course. Businesses can get to
00:49:09 cruise control, but there's a lot of uphill pedaling that starts off that way.
00:49:14 So, the idea that you have... And I tell you, the worst kind of businesses, to me,
00:49:31 the worst kind of businesses... So, I want you to think of a plane and a runway, right?
00:49:38 Now, if you take off, great. If, for whatever reason, you're too overloaded and you just can't
00:49:46 clear any air, you just don't, you just stop, right? But here's the problem. Here's where
00:49:50 you're going to crash, is when the airplane is like, "It's kind of up, and then it's kind of up,
00:49:55 and I think I can clear those trees." That's when you're in danger, right? If you take off,
00:49:59 fine, you're good. If you don't take off, you just can't get off the ground, you turn the engines
00:50:04 off and you go back and whatever it is, right? But it's the start, stop, the maybe, maybe. And
00:50:09 this is the same thing with relationships as well, right? "Seth, when you started your business,
00:50:14 did you already have a client or did you start and then look for clients?" "I didn't have any
00:50:18 clients when I started this show. I didn't have any income when I started this show.
00:50:21 And there was no real path to income when I started this show way back in the day, right?
00:50:27 Because there was no ad infrastructure and online payment processes were only getting started. So
00:50:33 there was no path to profitability. In the software world, yes, I had a client. I worked like crazy
00:50:41 and then got another client and then worked like crazy, got some investment and then got offices
00:50:48 and just, we were away to the races. And then it felt like before we knew it, we were doing
00:50:56 millions and millions of dollars a year. I had like 25 employees and it was good. It was good.
00:51:02 So I think most people's businesses need to be profitable immediately.
00:51:09 Well, it depends what your capital costs are, right? Not if you're building a computer chip,
00:51:19 right? So it depends. I mean, it really depends. If it's a labor-based business, then yes, right?
00:51:25 I mean, if you're doing plumbing and you're a plumber, then your business needs to be fairly
00:51:29 profitable fairly quickly, but not if you are doing something that requires a lot of
00:51:35 upfront investment, a lot of capital costs, right? For 17 years and you still don't know
00:51:44 if it works or not? Holy crap. That's a Simon the Boxer if ever I've heard of it.
00:51:52 When did you start the show? 2005 is when I first started publishing articles
00:51:56 and then I went full-time, I think at the end of 2006 or something like that,
00:52:01 but I didn't make any income until shortly before then.
00:52:20 So as far as you've got anxiety because your business is still not very successful after 17
00:52:27 years, I would be on the side of your anxiety about that. I would get behind your anxiety and
00:52:35 say, "Yeah, maybe your anxiety has a point here. Maybe your anxiety has a point here.
00:52:41 Maybe it's trying to tell you something." That either you're not working hard enough,
00:52:48 you're too distracted, you're doing something wrong in the business.
00:52:53 It's not you who meets payroll. You know this, right? You as a business owner,
00:53:02 you don't meet payroll. Who pays your employees? Who meets payroll? Who pays your bills?
00:53:13 Not you, unless you're breaking your kid's piggy bank to make payroll.
00:53:19 You don't make payroll. Your customers make payroll. Your customers give you the money,
00:53:25 which you then, like I would say, I'd say to my employees, "Yeah, you don't work for me. You don't
00:53:29 work for me. You work for the customers. I mean, I'm the flow-through mechanism, but you get paid
00:53:34 by the customers. So don't think about pleasing me. Never think about pleasing me at all. Think
00:53:39 about pleasing the customers. You please the customers, I'm thrilled." Right? I mean, I do
00:53:50 this even now, of course, especially even now. What do I start to show with? What do you guys
00:53:53 want to talk about? What's on your mind? How can I best help you? So if you are having trouble
00:54:01 making payroll, it means that your customers don't value your employees enough. That's all
00:54:09 it means from a business standpoint. If you're having trouble making payroll, it means your
00:54:13 customers don't value your employees enough. What that means is either you're undercharging for what
00:54:18 your employees do, you're choosing the wrong employees, your employees aren't being productive,
00:54:22 somebody else is out-competing you. So there's a mismatch. Something's not working. If you're
00:54:27 still 17 years in trying to make payroll, Dave says, "Every successful business guy I've talked
00:54:32 to has stories of Herculean efforts and scary, almost broken scenarios in the beginning. All
00:54:37 hands on deck, wives jump in, kids jump in. You push and push, then it can run and run like a
00:54:41 machine without the crazy efforts." Yeah. Yeah. I remember to produce a custom system for one,
00:54:53 all of the customers I worked with, all of the businesses I worked with, you'd know them all.
00:54:58 I won't talk about them because it's a long time ago, but you'd know them all. They're all Fortune
00:55:02 500 companies. I had a delivery and the delivery was Wednesday.
00:55:07 I went in Monday and started work. I stayed all night Tuesday, had a cat nap,
00:55:16 sorry, I stayed all night Monday, all night Tuesday and delivered the system on Wednesday.
00:55:21 Then I went home and slept for like 17 hours. I mean, that's how hard you have to work
00:55:27 to get it done. At least, and I'm pretty efficient. I mean, you guys can see I'm
00:55:34 a pretty efficient person, but that's how hard you have to work to get it done.
00:55:38 The business is still running and still profitable and all of that. I haven't been
00:55:45 there in 20 years. Good, good. Because I trained people. Sounds like a residency. Well, I think
00:55:53 they do it on a more regular basis, but yeah, it was rough. I barely exercised for years.
00:55:59 Of course, I traveled. I was saying to my daughter the other day about how I spent a
00:56:07 month in China doing business. I remember doing one pretty hard-ass negotiation across a table
00:56:12 where there were women underneath the table who were massaging our feet. It was just wild.
00:56:17 It was wild. Plus, China was stuck in the 1950s when it came to the three martini lunch stuff.
00:56:23 Dave says, "I shopped for a business after I was bought out by my ex-wife from a marketing
00:56:31 agency. So many businesses with history are on the edge or organized like a charity for the staff.
00:56:35 Many, many businesses are barely profitable." Yeah, you know, everyone talks about small
00:56:39 businesses, the engine growth of the economy. Small businesses are extraordinarily unstable
00:56:43 and waste a lot of resources in terms of people don't follow through. If you can't find a way
00:56:48 to make your business sustainable and to have effort reductions over time, you're not successful.
00:56:58 Just muscling through and working your 80 hours a week and struggling and striving and pushing,
00:57:03 that's not a successful business at all. It's not a successful business. A successful business is one
00:57:09 that has its own momentum, its own customer base, and where you as the owner/manager has
00:57:16 transferred your knowledge to other people to the point where it could theoretically run without you
00:57:21 and grow without you. Because you want to hire people to replace you. You want to hire people
00:57:27 who are going to do fantastic stuff. You want to hire people who are enthusiastic and energetic.
00:57:33 You don't want to hire these deadwood dunderheads who are just going to come in and do their seven
00:57:37 hours. Businesses have to serve the owner, the staff, and subcontractors, and the clients. All
00:57:44 three sets of people have to be served or it won't work. So I don't like subsidies. I don't
00:57:50 like subsidies. I don't like a business that requires government subsidies and workaholism
00:57:55 is one of the ultimate subsidies for businesses that makes it look like a business when it's not.
00:58:01 Right? Workaholism can make something look viable when it's not. It's sort of like if you have a
00:58:09 girlfriend who just constantly demands that you praise her and buy her stuff then you can spend
00:58:13 your whole day praising her and buying her stuff and I guess the relationship continues but it's
00:58:18 not a real relationship. Whoa. What? Whoa. What? What did I say that's whoa related?
00:58:26 And people who work too hard are managing anxiety that they're chasing. The purpose is the anxiety
00:58:41 because otherwise you'd say you'd have the self-respect and care for your own health to say
00:58:46 no this isn't working. So I need to do something different. Maybe I need a consultant. Maybe I need
00:58:54 to change out the business practices. Maybe I need to shake things up. Whatever. Right?
00:58:58 Could FDR continue without you? Well no. Well no of course. Right? But that's like saying can
00:59:07 Shakespeare continue without Shakespeare. This is not a business. This is a me. Can Brad Pitt continue
00:59:14 without Brad Pitt? Well I guess with AI maybe. Hey maybe AI will do it. I don't know. Never heard that
00:59:19 workaholism take. Unique. Oh I've been there man. I've been there. It's not a real business if you
00:59:27 have to work 80 hours a week year after year. That's not a real business. So many businesses
00:59:35 would stop immediately without the owner showing up for a day or two. Well and I don't know if
00:59:39 you remember about two plus years, two and a half years ago or whatever. I took a couple of months off.
00:59:48 I didn't produce any new shows for a couple of months.
00:59:53 What about Mr. Musk? What about Mr. Musk?
01:00:03 He's a complete workaholic and he'd be the first to admit that.
01:00:11 And he is subsidizing his businesses by taking his unique productivity abilities which are
01:00:19 singular on the planet. The man's productivity abilities are singular on the planet.
01:00:24 There's a genuine force of nature. He started like half a dozen massively successful
01:00:30 multi-billion dollar, not just businesses almost, but industries.
01:00:38 So he is a workaholic and he massively subsidizes his businesses by working so hard on such a wide
01:00:49 variety of businesses that he's like cloned himself. Are they going to be sustainable
01:00:55 afterwards? Who knows. But he's not going to be able to appoint another Elon Musk to take over.
01:01:00 Are you planning any vacation soon? Yeah I think this summer. I mean honestly this job feels like
01:01:07 a vacation so it's hard to say I need a break from something I love to do.
01:01:10 Was missing you by the end of those couple of months. Oh thank you. Dave says yeah an owner
01:01:16 doing 80 hours and being twice as effective as any staff is like having three employees for free.
01:01:20 People don't see it until they want to sell it and it's too late. The business is useless. It's
01:01:25 a bad. Yeah can you sell the business? I couldn't sell this business. I couldn't sell free domain.
01:01:30 I couldn't. How could I? How could I?
01:01:34 How could I?
01:01:41 Or you get your kids to do the work. You get your family to do the work and it's all just
01:01:45 massive subsidies. Right? It's all just massive subsidies. You have to aim for the business
01:01:57 to be fairly self-sustaining.
01:02:02 Yeah I mean it's just a yeah it's uh no it's not like a lawyer or a doctor because you could have
01:02:14 a health clinic or a law firm and slide in and out. I'm you know I'm like being I'm like a movie star
01:02:20 like I'm like an individual that way. It's like can Stephen King continue without Stephen King?
01:02:26 Right? Can Brad Pitt continue without Brad Pitt? Can what I do continue without me? No. Somebody
01:02:32 else will do something. Hopefully something. Musk is totally government subsidized though. No not
01:02:36 totally. Come on. Come on. And Dave you can't hold that against the guy for heaven's sakes.
01:02:42 For heaven's sakes. You can't you can't you can't possibly hold that against the guy.
01:02:53 As opposed to who? As opposed to who? Who's not government subsidized? I mean
01:02:56 obviously me or whatever. But who's not who's not government subsidized?
01:02:59 And you understand that you can't be a good business manager if you don't take government
01:03:04 subsidies. It's fiduciary misconduct. You could actually get sued for not taking government
01:03:08 subsidies. Because if you've got two companies and one takes government subsidies and one doesn't.
01:03:13 But he's used roads. Yeah I don't know just this. Nah. He does this. I don't know. Purity
01:03:20 tests are boring. None of us pass them. None of us pass them. Do you know that I have taken flights
01:03:29 in my life? And it's the FAA. F doesn't mean Freddy. Federal aviation agency that keeps my
01:03:40 flight safe. And do you know I've seen concerts in amphitheaters that were built by sports teams
01:03:47 that were subsidized by the government? God the nitpickers. The nitpickers. Celebrate the guy.
01:03:57 God he opened up fritz. I mean the free speech here is largely over on twitter but man
01:04:01 for a while there it was pretty wild. It was pretty wild.
01:04:06 It was pretty wild. What do you think could be done to deal with the high rate of youth
01:04:14 unemployment and what would be the long term social effects of it? Well I mean
01:04:21 youth unemployment. I mean a lot of immigrants are doing the jobs that teenagers used to do right?
01:04:31 So the teenagers. Now of course they want the teenagers carved out of the market because
01:04:35 everybody. You remember where. I remember. Everybody remembers where they were when you
01:04:38 get your first real paycheck and you're like holy shit. What black hole has been eaten through my
01:04:44 income right? So they want to keep young people away from taxes as long as humanly possible right?
01:04:56 Because when you're on the receiving end of government largesse it all seems like magic
01:05:03 uncle money right? But when you're on the paying end it's a whole different kind of thing right?
01:05:06 How do you choose what to. Oh and the other thing too is that
01:05:12 there seem to be a lot of people complaining
01:05:18 about having to work. Is that kind of a thing these days? I don't know if you have. If you're
01:05:26 managers and you're employing younger people you can let me know but there seems to be quite a lot
01:05:31 of people who seem to be quite unhappy. Like it's overwhelming. I can't believe I have to do this
01:05:37 for the rest of my life. It's like uh. I mean that's how you. I mean I got my first job when I
01:05:46 was 10 and I was thrilled to get it. Why? Because I could afford some stuff. I could go to the
01:05:50 movies. I could go out to eat once in a while. I could buy some cool clothes. Well not for a while
01:05:58 but eventually I got there. But there's all this like oh my god how do people do this? It's like
01:06:06 it's very strange. I mean I remember spending a long weekend moving furniture. Moving and
01:06:11 assembling furniture into a building. Like the cubicle furniture. Putting everything together.
01:06:16 It's like oh my god. You pinch your hands. Like it was heavy. Your back hurts. Like oh my god.
01:06:20 But I was thrilled to get the job. I made like six bucks an hour at that job. Man that was fantastic.
01:06:26 Or complaining they can't afford their own place. Young people never did that.
01:06:32 Well but housing prices have gone mental. I mean housing prices have gone completely
01:06:38 mental for entirely predictable reasons. But yeah housing prices have gone completely mental.
01:06:42 How do you choose what to make a business about? Your passions choose you. Your passions are a
01:06:50 vehicle by which they use you as a flesh puppet to get things done. If you just think. If you
01:06:56 think you're going to will everything in life you're using entirely the wrong muscles for
01:07:01 entirely the wrong propulsion. You know will everything in your life? No. You keep doing
01:07:07 shit until you get a kind of permanent life seizure that your passions and your instincts
01:07:12 and your talents and your brilliance uses you as a meat puppet to get things out. You don't think I
01:07:18 feel a lot of the times like philosophy has jammed its hand up my ass and it's just making me say
01:07:22 shit. Sometimes I'm like whoa I said that? Holy shit that was a bad idea. No no it's like speaking
01:07:29 in tongues. It's like possession. Okay philosophy I'll be your meat puppet. What do you want me to
01:07:36 say today? Okay can I have a normal life? No. I'm using you to get philosophy out into the world.
01:07:43 My ventriloquist dummy. I'll do all the philosophy. You take all the heat. No isn't it isn't it the case?
01:07:51 Isn't that the case?
01:07:57 You ever have this thing where
01:07:58 something just grips you like you're exposed to something something just grips you
01:08:05 and that's it man. Like you hear this about oh the first time I picked up a guitar I'm like this is
01:08:13 exactly what I want to do.
01:08:14 Now this all big slow motion epilepsy of the universe grabbing me to hurl me into the
01:08:23 years of mankind. Sometimes against what I want to do what I need to do what I prefer to do or
01:08:28 what's damn well safe. Okay I can either say no and say nothing or I can say yes and say shit that
01:08:34 gets me in trouble. I can't say nothing. I already had that when I was younger. I know that doesn't
01:08:44 lead anywhere.
01:08:49 I'm a philosopher. Nope I'm used by the spirit of philosophy
01:08:53 to say scary syllables to the world.
01:08:58 Hello Steph. It's been a long while since I watched your content especially on YouTube.
01:09:10 If it's any cancellation it's a long time since anyone has watched my content.
01:09:15 If it's any cancellation it's a long time since anyone has watched my content on YouTube.
01:09:20 I have a question what are your thoughts on Ireland as far as entrepreneurship versus USA?
01:09:23 I haven't been to Ireland since I was in the single digits and I've... USA?
01:09:41 I think you'd need to talk to somebody with experience business experience in both
01:09:45 places. Ireland has some pretty favorable tax stuff. Ireland has some pretty good import
01:09:50 export stuff. The USA is just where all the talent migrates and there's a huge pool of people.
01:10:07 Yeah you can poke around but basically your life chooses you.
01:10:12 You can poke around but you're like it wasn't like... Sorry to use this poking around analogy
01:10:21 but with my wife it wasn't like I like went through all of these pros and cons and yes
01:10:26 she's the one for me. Like I really loved her company and I remember I don't know two months
01:10:31 after we started dating we went on a hike and I was watching her climb a hill and I'm like
01:10:35 yeah I'm not doing better there's no there's no upgrade from here. So then within short order I
01:10:40 asked her to marry me and we got married within 11 months of first meeting. But that's an instinct
01:10:46 right? You date people and then you wait for that lifelong oxytocin seizure to happen that
01:10:53 is called pair bonding.
01:10:59 But if I were looking to start a business and had the choice of anywhere I would probably look at
01:11:16 local IQ scores because IQ is just so important when it comes to complex jobs.
01:11:20 Dave says building structures was like that for me I love figuring it out.
01:11:28 My wife and I struggle with feeling bad about telling off the people in our lives who wrong us.
01:11:32 My wife thinks it's better to feel bad than to make someone else feel bad because she's a woman
01:11:38 right? How can I help her and myself re-scramble this idea and be more self-serving and focus more
01:11:42 on my our feelings at the expense of others? I gotta tell you just to share my experience
01:11:49 of the live stream I don't know just look at the tips. I'd have been better off serving your
01:11:59 breakfast individually. So just pointing it out you're asking me some very deep powerful questions
01:12:04 I'm sending out scatter shots of blinding insights and if you'd like to tip I think it would be a
01:12:10 fair and reasonable thing to do. Worked pretty hard and this is of course the accumulation of
01:12:18 many decades of thoughts and experience which I'm trying to distill into a usable format for you so
01:12:23 you can tip on the app you can tip on the website you can go to freedomain.com/donate
01:12:28 to help out the show but I'll answer the question I'll answer the question
01:12:33 but it is interesting to me that people ask me sort of these foundational life relationship work
01:12:40 business income questions and thank you I appreciate that la la la la I appreciate that
01:12:49 I mean I literally told everyone how to get over being disliked by bad parents
01:12:56 which is it was a huge issue that everyone had I asked everyone it's a huge issue that everyone had
01:13:00 told you how to get over it oh my gosh all right my wife and I struggle with feeling bad about
01:13:08 telling off the people in our lives who wrong us right who wants to take a guess at what I'm gonna
01:13:20 say who wants to take a guess consult your inner Delphic's death what am I gonna say about this
01:13:32 my wife and I struggle with feeling bad about telling off the people in their lives who wrong us
01:13:36 what am I going to say
01:13:47 whose parents are still in the picture no no
01:13:57 he said people not parents could be parents but
01:14:04 do you struggle with telling off abusive parents no right those are good questions and
01:14:09 maybe that maybe you're right but that's not what I'm about to say
01:14:12 come on but we don't have them in your life well but based on what standard right what what standard
01:14:27 how much do you rely on those people so the question I have so the guy says
01:14:33 my wife and I struggle with feeling bad about telling off the people in their lives who wrong us
01:14:37 okay do they know they wrong you do the people in your life who wrong you do they even know they
01:14:43 wrong you or are you trying to teach them the ABCs of empathy which ain't never ever ever ever ever
01:14:50 ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever gonna work do they know they've wronged you
01:15:02 you can tell me do they know they've wronged you
01:15:06 do they even know they've wronged you why do you have to tell them like either you're so
01:15:17 hypersensitive that you just take offense at everything right in which case you don't want
01:15:25 to tell people off because you're crazy you're too sensitive right he looked at me funny how do you
01:15:30 know right so somebody who wrongs you do they even know
01:15:36 so you have hesitations to tell off people who wrong you
01:15:45 because if they don't even know let's say that they wronged you and it's
01:15:50 a legitimate wrong in that any reasonable person would be wronged by that
01:15:59 well what are you trying to do by telling someone who's wronged you obviously and who doesn't even
01:16:08 know that they've wronged you what are you trying to do by telling them what
01:16:14 what's the point of that
01:16:23 like let's take an example right somebody's coming over to your house
01:16:28 and they they they have a big truck and you have a small car and they smash into your car and they
01:16:36 come out and they come into the house hey how's it going what's new right
01:16:47 what do you do i'm so mad at that person why well they smashed my car no you're not mad at them
01:16:54 because they smashed your car because someone else could say oh my gosh i can't believe i did that
01:16:59 that's terrible i'm so sorry listen i'll pick the car up tomorrow i'm gonna get it fixed i'll pay
01:17:04 for everything my gosh i'm so sorry i don't know what happened i'm gonna get my eyes checked right
01:17:10 and then you'd be you know mildly upset or whatever but you'd know it was going to be fixed
01:17:14 and whatever right and it wasn't going to happen again or whatever would happen right but somebody
01:17:19 smashes into your car comes into your house and say hey what appetizers do you have right
01:17:26 what are you supposed to say
01:17:29 what do you what can you say
01:17:38 look you're wearing a beautiful white shirt or a white dress and a guy uh is gesturing and he
01:17:46 splashes red wine which is really stainy right not as bad as blood no but he splashes
01:17:53 red wine all over your top and he's like whoa i guess you got a skill issue you shouldn't have
01:17:58 been there it's your fault for standing there what are you supposed to say
01:18:06 what are you supposed to say
01:18:07 well no it's not terrifying you say they're so oblivious it's terrifying it's not terrifying
01:18:17 it's not why is it terrifying
01:18:32 is it terrifying why is it terrifying some guy smashes your car spills
01:18:38 red wine on your expensive tablecloth or top or couch laughs at it laughs it off why is that
01:18:46 terrifying clearly they don't have any empathy they don't have any emotional processing they
01:18:52 are narcissistic or selfish or just assholes or whatever you want to call them right
01:18:56 that they're assholes why is that terrifying why is it terrifying that there are assholes in the
01:19:01 world i'm genuinely curious why is that terrifying and i'm not trying to be facetious here why is that
01:19:08 terrifying it seems domineering the fuck it does because they will feel justified in whatever
01:19:22 verbal assault they would go on if i called them out on for it no assholes aren't intimidating
01:19:28 they're liberating oh my gosh really assholes are liberating
01:19:34 they're liberating even if you decide not to say anything because they're morally insane or
01:19:42 selfish or cold or weird or no empathy or whatever you get through dinner you tell them on their way
01:19:47 and you never invite them again you're done they're liberating i don't understand what's
01:19:51 terrifying somebody treats you that badly that weirdly it's liberating
01:19:58 because people retaliate to even mild criticisms with extreme harshness
01:20:05 so why would you you know why would you criticize assholes
01:20:08 why would you criticize an asshole why would you criticize somebody
01:20:14 who has no empathy who's incredibly selfish and obviously volatile or whatever right
01:20:21 why would you criticize someone
01:20:22 why are you hoping to fix them with your little criticisms yeah good luck with that
01:20:35 so that's not going to work so why would you bother criticizing them if somebody is that way
01:20:47 so why does the original poster need to tell this guy off because you think you can help them
01:20:52 no because if you think you can help them you're not terrified of them come on come on some old
01:21:00 woman falls down on a slippery road and you help her up are you terrified of her no you can think
01:21:04 you can help her up you're not terrified of her you walk her to a car or you walk her to her
01:21:09 house or right some some woman is struggling because she's got a baby at groceries and you
01:21:14 hey let me help you with your groceries and i'll put your cart back for you you're not terrified
01:21:18 of her so why would you be if you think you can help them why would you be terrified of them
01:21:22 tons of people you i mean i try to do call-in shows where i help people i'm trying to help
01:21:28 people in my live stream i'm not terrified of you guys
01:21:30 you
01:21:32 what does a rational analysis say how does a rational analysis okay what if the asshole
01:21:53 continues destroying things which i think is escalation oh my gosh man okay so let's say
01:22:01 some guy comes over smashes your car doesn't apologize won't make restitution you somehow
01:22:05 get through the evening you you get him home and you just don't have him around
01:22:10 well what do you mean he continues destroying things wouldn't you have to keep inviting him
01:22:19 over i don't understand it's your property like wouldn't you just not invite him over anymore
01:22:24 what am i missing here maybe i'm missing something i don't understand what if the
01:22:29 asshole continues destroying things which i think is escalation well i mean if he starts
01:22:33 smashing up your house you're gonna have to call the cops right i mean but you get him out
01:22:38 you
01:22:40 like yesterday's live stream i have to invite him into my life first yeah
01:22:53 you know these vampires that i keep inviting me and keep biting me oh i wonder what the solution
01:23:00 is to that i'm going to try and talk the vampires i keep inviting into my house i'm going to try
01:23:04 and talk them into not biting me um you know they can't come in without you inviting them in right
01:23:10 if they only knew this was causing problems they would stop
01:23:22 instead they just learn a button they can push you
01:23:33 you you cannot teach selfish people to be unselfish you cannot chat them into it you
01:23:42 can't reason them into it you can't talk them into it you can't bully them into it you can't
01:23:46 yell them into it you can't debate or argue them into it you can't do it
01:24:00 let's go back to this guy's question we struggle with feeling bad about telling off the people in
01:24:06 our lives who wrong us why are you telling off the people who wrong you if they know they've
01:24:09 wronged you they should be coming to you to solve the problem if they don't even know
01:24:12 they've wronged you then they're so abysmally selfish that
01:24:14 they won't have any clue what you're talking about
01:24:17 i'm not gonna i'm not gonna try and talk somebody who's bottomlessly narcissistic
01:24:26 into thinking of others it's a hardwired problem
01:24:30 you know like people with character logic disorders right which is not where you're
01:24:36 a normal person with a hiccup it's like everything about you is bad wiring
01:24:40 so you understand that people who are like narcissists or whatever or bipolar or
01:24:48 bipolar a little bit but certainly things like borderline personality disorder nobody knows how
01:24:53 to fix them nobody knows how to fix them so even if you're narcissistic and you have a vague feeling
01:24:59 that something's wrong and you go to therapy you work really hard nobody knows how to fix this
01:25:03 professionals thousands of years of people being harmed by these people trying to figure out how
01:25:09 to solve this you can't fix them you're trying to talk them into changing their height or eye color
01:25:15 well if i just talked to you long enough maybe i can take you back to when you were first born
01:25:23 and reparent you for say the first five years of your life that's how powerful my syllables are
01:25:28 because i'm magic no you're not no i'm not nope nope nope nope nope i'm sorry i don't mean to
01:25:37 laugh why on earth would you want to tell off people who haven't who're not even aware that
01:25:42 they've wronged you i so my wife thinks it's better to feel bad than to make someone else feel bad
01:25:53 no that's not even remotely true
01:25:55 my wife thinks it's better to feel bad than to make someone else feel bad
01:26:01 no because she's making you feel bad by not letting you confront the people who or yell at
01:26:07 the people or tell people off right so she's not your wife is these people this is your wife's
01:26:13 thinking guaranteed i'm guaranteed like it's not a lot i'm certain about two and two make four and
01:26:17 this is what your wife is thinking so when people and this is true for women a little bit more than
01:26:22 men but when people say well you don't want to make people feel bad what they're saying is there
01:26:26 are dangerous people around we have to appease and i'm going to screw your interest to appease the
01:26:30 bad people because you're a better person that's all it is all it is it's just appeasement well
01:26:35 the bad people who are volatile and dangerous i'm going to say i don't want to upset them because
01:26:39 they're volatile and dangerous you my friend you my husband you my boyfriend whoever you're not
01:26:43 volatile and dangerous so i'm not scared of you so we're going to appease the people i'm scared of
01:26:48 and i'm going to not be honest about it and i'm going to say i just want to don't want to
01:26:52 upset people it's like no you just don't want to upset volatile dangerous people
01:26:55 uh zimp says i have an entire life history that proves what you're saying yeah
01:27:04 it's not the greatest addition to repeat jokes that everyone's heard a million times before
01:27:14 how can i help her and myself re-scramble this idea and be more
01:27:17 self-serving and focus more on my our feelings at the expense of others
01:27:21 uh okay let me ask you this let me ask you this this is going out to everyone
01:27:27 it's going out to everyone
01:27:30 how many people do you have in your life right now
01:27:42 that you fight with how many people do you have in your life
01:27:45 that you fight with i don't mean have criticisms or disagreements i mean any kind of chronic conflict
01:27:53 how many people do you have in your life right now that you fight with
01:28:03 big fat goose egg a bagel
01:28:09 one zero one zero okay good that's good that's good okay so four oh that's very specific one
01:28:26 all right now how many people will end that i'll just put a line here
01:28:33 how many people do you have in your life
01:28:39 that you don't have any conflicts with now because you could have conflicts with people
01:28:42 but not fight with them because you appease or you avoid or you push down or you just avoid them or
01:28:47 whatever they're still in your life but you don't fight with them even though how many people do you
01:28:50 have in your life that you have disagreements with that are more than just minor
01:28:56 that you may mentally grumble at that you whatever right
01:29:02 so
01:29:12 five a few two one i think you're underestimating it could be wrong but of course you know people
01:29:27 at work there can be people at work who are difficult people in the neighborhood people in
01:29:31 sports teams or clubs or something like that for at least five ish not counting work right
01:29:36 two and i'm resolved to move out from those roommates probably a good idea
01:29:44 all right let's do a line here last question about 10 i think you win about 10 you have a ton yeah
01:29:55 okay now how many times has fighting with people produced a permanent positive outcome
01:30:09 how many times has fighting with people or having conflict or
01:30:18 telling people off how many times has telling people off resulted in a permanent positive outcome
01:30:23 zero
01:30:25 yeah zero of course it's zero
01:30:37 now i don't mean that you know have you ever had a conflict with anyone that ever had a positive
01:30:44 outcome but in general this sort of chronic stuff right okay so if you are doing something that
01:30:50 doesn't work it's working for someone else it's my little maxim of the day if you're doing something
01:30:56 that doesn't work for you it's for sure working for someone else it makes sense
01:31:00 so fighting doesn't work for you so who does it work for having conflict telling people off
01:31:10 getting mad at them trying to fix them it doesn't work for you
01:31:14 must work for someone or it wouldn't happen
01:31:18 so why does it happen if it doesn't work for you
01:31:26 who does it work for and why and how somebody says from rumble once my dad
01:31:35 apologized profusely and fundamentally changed his ways that's great that's great to hear
01:31:42 would you like to know the mechanics of why you fight with people who don't change
01:31:46 would you like to know the mechanics of why you do that and why that happens
01:31:49 i mean this is even people online trolls and
01:31:58 and all of that i'm just not pissed enough that's funny that's funny
01:32:08 you would okay rights
01:32:11 so let's take the guy who crashes into your car
01:32:22 comes in and uh whatever a big no big deal or whatever right it's fine why is he doing that
01:32:29 he's doing that to dominate you he's doing that to assert dominance over you
01:32:36 he does something outrageous and you see this happen with trolls all the time right
01:32:40 he does something outrageous
01:32:41 and you can't win after that because if you don't bring it up he's dominated you and he feels
01:32:50 happiness and a sadistic pleasure and and strength and he's won and you've lost because you're too
01:32:55 scared to bring anything up so he's dominated you but if you bring it up and say you just smashed
01:33:00 my car this is a big deal what does he then say what does he say if you call him out on it
01:33:08 and you tell him off and you get mad
01:33:12 stand up for yourself and you fight for what's right and what does he do what does he say
01:33:18 we all know this one's why we don't do it right or at least shouldn't i guess right
01:33:27 what does he what does he say oh you're overreacting stop overreacting it's not a big
01:33:32 deal i'll take care of it oh god if it's such a big deal for you blah blah blah blah right
01:33:36 you you parked in the wrong place it's not my fault you know
01:33:40 why do you have such a chick car anyway
01:33:44 right so once he does the outrageous thing you can't win
01:33:49 you can't win
01:33:52 you can't win it's just a car don't get so uptight don't be so big don't ruin the evening
01:34:04 just relax you gotta learn to roll with things stuff happens blah blah blah right
01:34:07 what are you gonna do about it if he's super asshole yeah yeah
01:34:12 that's probably not the case unless you're i don't know in a really bad section of town
01:34:20 so he wins no matter what
01:34:21 right either you don't say anything therefore he's dominated you or you say something and he
01:34:28 laughs and minimizes and makes you look like a fool and you've lost again unless you torch his
01:34:33 car then he still wins then he still wins because he'll sue you or he'll press charges because his
01:34:40 was an accident yours was arson so don't do that because then he'll win even more you can't win
01:34:48 you can't win with with selfish people you can't win
01:34:52 but i've got to figure out the right sequence of syllables to win you can't win
01:34:58 and your wife is clearly saying you can't win
01:35:09 what do you want to tell people off for you can't win if people have no idea what's going on
01:35:18 no respect for standards or moral behavior or decency or politeness or empathy or sympathy or
01:35:24 response if they don't have any boundaries or standards or rules
01:35:28 then they'll just appeal to the idiot mob to say oh he's so hung up right
01:35:34 you just can't relax you said look how so tense god relax man there's a a bit i remember from a
01:35:43 very very good show from i think it was the 80s maybe it was the 70s looked like it was the 70s
01:35:48 but i think it was the 80s a show called wkrp in cincinnati a very very very good show incredible
01:35:55 acting and very funny writing and very imaginative writing and in this show the dj named dr johnny
01:36:04 fever has a daughter who's dating an idiot his daughter is dating an idiot and he tries
01:36:15 that the dj the dad tries to get the son to do something sensible and the kid is like whoa power
01:36:23 trip man you know power trip right can't win eric tarlek was brilliant oh they were all gordon
01:36:35 jumpers fantastic i still remember things from that show many many years uh later it was really
01:36:43 really a good show as god as my witness i thought turkeys could fly yeah alessio nesma i mean it was
01:36:52 brilliant absolutely brilliant um they just don't make him like that anymore sadly but well maybe as
01:36:57 well because i get more stuff done but justin i think this boy's boyfriend's name was justin
01:37:05 you need to and it's like and at one point johnny fever is like he just gave up
01:37:08 he made he gave a good speech about a sensible thing that the kid should do and the kid's like
01:37:14 power trip man you're on a power trip in case you can't win
01:37:18 lonie anderson sorry no simp ah too much helmet hair for me she had a nice figure but
01:37:28 and andrew travis was a skinny guy with truly hypnotic hair but no lonie anderson was too much
01:37:36 of a uh helmet hair for me too too much hairspray she's probably responsible for half the ozone layer
01:37:41 i've had countless times if only i could find the right way to tell them yes
01:37:50 i'll be outrageous you come try and fix me i'll put you down i'll be outrageous you come
01:37:58 try and fix me i'll put you down i'll be outrageous you come try and fix me i'll put you down
01:38:02 people with no control over themselves always end up trying to control others
01:38:11 it's a guarantee people with no control over themselves always end up trying to control
01:38:19 others so when you're caught up in somebody else's psycho web it's because they have no
01:38:23 self-control and they're simply seeking power for their own preference with no rules attached
01:38:29 100
01:38:40 no self-control
01:38:42 nothing yeah you're right nothing you say will make them care they don't have the capacity to
01:38:53 care all they have the capacity to do is to seek power and seeking power means not having rules
01:39:02 not having rules means humiliating anyone who ever tries to impose rules on you they won't
01:39:08 impose rules on themselves empathy is fundamentally about rules they won't
01:39:13 impose universality on themselves empathy is fundamentally about universality
01:39:16 they don't recognize foundationally the existence of other people except as prey
01:39:21 predators and prey that's the selfish people live in a world of predators and prey and that's it
01:39:26 because they're animals narcissism and selfishness is mammalian
01:39:35 with the caveat that the least mammals tend to be somewhat sympathetic towards their own offspring
01:39:42 there's predators and prey i dominate you or you dominate me they're either at your feet
01:39:49 or they're at your throat there's nothing in between win lose dominate be dominated control
01:39:56 or be controlled there's no other there's no self there's no negotiation there's no equality there's
01:40:01 no universality there's no empathy they don't recognize you as another person with needs like
01:40:05 their own or i guess you could say they project their own win-lose mentality onto everyone else
01:40:11 and they damn well aren't going to lose so they gotta win yes says corain corinne sorry i generally
01:40:20 find people who lack empathy unpredictable with and potentially dangerous but would allow myself
01:40:23 to be shamed with words like avoidant coward judgmental grateful that's gone right so
01:40:33 you've got people in your lives who wrong you
01:40:40 so either they know that they wrong you in which case and they're doing it anyway in which case
01:40:53 they're sadistic and they're trying to invite you into being outraged at them so they can further
01:40:57 humiliate and put you down or they don't even know that they've wronged you they don't even know
01:41:03 that they've wronged you
01:41:06 i mean i remember once this was a uh this was an omen if ever there was one i had some
01:41:14 beat-up old car that i was driving around for a little while back in my 20s
01:41:18 and i drove
01:41:22 to a girlfriend's place i got out of the car
01:41:27 had dinner with my girlfriend and her family it was okay it was fine nothing bad and i came back
01:41:34 out and i realized that a dead bird was stuck in the front grill of the car
01:41:50 and i had to pull it out and i thought the head was going to come off and it was
01:41:54 pretty gross but i didn't even know i'd hit i had no idea i'd hit the bird i had no idea
01:41:58 i think nature was trying to tell me something
01:42:05 so i didn't know that i'd wronged the bird didn't know felt bad afterwards but at the time i didn't
01:42:14 know are you like that they just driving around doing their thing they don't even notice
01:42:20 so if they don't notice they're incredibly dangerous because they're unconscious right
01:42:33 if they notice but they don't say anything or they minimize they're incredibly dangerous
01:42:40 do you know how much better the world would get if we stopped trying to fix people
01:42:45 who don't especially the people who don't even admit that there's a problem
01:42:51 do you know how much better the world as a whole would get if we stopped trying to fix people
01:43:04 get if we stopped trying to fix people put repeat criminals in jail sorry three strikes man
01:43:12 we gave it a good shot just not getting along society is going to have to break up with you
01:43:18 i'm afraid if we stop trying to fix all social problems with government force just imagine
01:43:31 just imagine
01:43:32 how much better the world and in particular your world would be
01:43:40 if you stop trying to fix people who didn't even admit they had a problem
01:43:46 now here's the thing the reality is you're not even trying to fix them
01:43:53 you're not even trying to fix them you're trying to fix your own anxiety
01:43:59 about having them in your life and not fixing them
01:44:04 if i choose to live with a tiger i better bloody well tame it or i'm in constant danger i gotta
01:44:12 tame the tiger is it because i love the tiger no i just don't want to get my ass eaten i want to be
01:44:16 able to relax and get some sleep put my feet up you got dangerous people in your life you want
01:44:21 to have this fantasy you can fix them so that you don't have to break with them so you're managing
01:44:29 your own anxiety it's not about them you're managing your own anxiety which is why it never
01:44:33 changes you can only fix people if they acknowledge their problems first
01:44:38 can't fix them either i haven't fixed anyone i can people say to me oh you stepped your show
01:44:46 it's done great good for me and i'm very happy to hear that and pleased to hear that but i always
01:44:50 say the same thing you did it not me maybe i wrote a diet book you changed your diet you did all that
01:44:54 work can't fix anyone you can be an example you can provide some answers but you can't be in the
01:45:02 job of fixing people because fixing people is a multi-year process
01:45:11 unless i just happen to be really slow at it but it's a multi-year process
01:45:16 from when i first started dating to when i got happily married
01:45:23 it wasn't 20 years but it wasn't 10 either
01:45:27 i was a lot of work i was really dedicated to it and i went to therapy for three hours a week and
01:45:36 i did journaling for eight hours a week and i spent so much time on it
01:45:46 you can listen provide some feedback here and there that's their job
01:45:51 you understand that i want you to get this like net this deep into your soul
01:46:00 absolutely essential please please net this deep into your soul
01:46:03 it is easier to fix someone's body than their mind
01:46:13 it is easier to fix someone's body than their mind now let's say you want someone to get muscular
01:46:20 like not maybe super muscular but you want them to get muscular
01:46:24 you want them to lose weight you want them to exercise and you want them to get muscles
01:46:29 maybe a hint of a six-pack maybe some veined arms some chest webbing
01:46:41 what do you do you say hey i think you should work out
01:46:45 can you work out for them nope can you diet for them nope
01:46:52 can you go there every day with them to the gym for the next two years to make sure they exercise
01:47:01 nope because then you don't exercise
01:47:06 because then you don't exercise change and growth is five to ten to fifteen years easy
01:47:17 a lot of headwind a lot of problems a lot of backsliding a lot of
01:47:23 mess a lot of challenges a lot of sabotage from the people around you it's
01:47:27 a quest of the gods
01:47:34 it makes the stroll to Mordor look like a hammock in the woods
01:47:39 so when you think of changing someone say okay i'll tell you what if you think if i think i can
01:47:47 change someone this is my mindset i say okay if i think i can change someone maybe what i'll do is
01:47:52 i'll first get them to start working out six hours a week i get them if i can get them to work out six
01:48:02 hours a week maybe just maybe i can do something with their mind and but it has to be like a lifelong
01:48:12 habit then so you look at people and you say uh you know i think i think you're a little soft a
01:48:21 little doughy i think you should i think you should exercise now if the person oh i'd love to hear more
01:48:26 tell me more tell me about your magical protein shakes and what's creatine all about and tell me
01:48:31 about this that and the other and what's the right technique and what gym should i do right give me
01:48:35 books okay yeah i mean you can pass along some knowledge and so on right and oh then i gotta go
01:48:39 buy her a personal trainer i'm gonna get myself a weight and i'm gonna track my progress all right
01:48:44 okay so if they keep that up for two years if you're able to get that going and they keep that
01:48:48 up for two years they lose the weight they become muscular they became get a six pack okay then
01:48:52 you've had a big effect on someone how many times has it happened in your life that someone you know
01:48:59 is flabby and lazy and becomes hard lean and muscular because of what you did
01:49:06 how many times has that happened where somebody has taken good advice from you
01:49:15 and dedicated themselves to it it's a semi-part-time job for years because that's what
01:49:21 self-improvement is kid yourself it's not a one and done i'm still working on it still working on
01:49:28 it i'm happy to be working on it should be the alternative but zero of course zero my god 98%
01:49:35 of people who lose weight gain it can't change people i mean to hell with changing people man
01:49:45 work on yourself work on yourself if you want people to exercise you at least have to be fit
01:49:55 yourself and then see who's interested see who's interested
01:50:01 because we when we try to change someone
01:50:09 we think they have the problem and we are there to help them but the reality is we have the problem
01:50:18 we have we are addicted to managing our anxiety by pretending we can change people
01:50:26 we have magic language magic words magic thumbs magic syllables we are the addict the addiction
01:50:32 of trying to change people is the real problem in the room you let go of that addiction you're fine
01:50:38 you're fine stop trying to change people hey and if people are so easy to change surely you should
01:50:47 give up your desire to change people like that it'd be easy because people are easy to change
01:50:53 well if other people are easy to change or capable of change then surely you
01:50:57 can change your perspective to align with facts reason and evidence but the empiricism of the
01:51:02 fact that we don't change people it took me 13 years to figure that out
01:51:06 well all the crappy people in the world want us to believe we can change them so that we'll stick
01:51:14 around stick around and be feasted on and prayed on every night the vampires knock on our door and
01:51:22 say you know one more lecture man i'll stop being a vampire we let them in we fall asleep they suck
01:51:29 our blood and they come back the next day oh after your wedding oh geez oh geez all right
01:51:40 comments
01:51:47 tips i dare say tell me this hasn't been a cavalcade of intense utility tell me
01:51:54 exchange value for value right
01:52:02 thank you zombie lots of time plants and trees inoculated with truffles thanks to your perspective
01:52:10 throughout the years i bounced ideas off imaginary stuff i definitely could lose some weight well
01:52:16 i hear you i hear you i i still miss being able to eat whatever i wanted to eat
01:52:20 i've told this story before but just you'll be tipping when you get paid well thank you if you
01:52:26 can afford it if you can afford it but when i was a student a broke student uh there was a hot dog
01:52:33 vendor and i used to be able to get probably easy thousand calories off the hot dog right you just
01:52:38 get hot dog and you just widen it out and you put on the olives and you put on the the cheese and
01:52:45 you put on the bacon bits and you put on the like you just you just jam it up high right just jam it
01:52:50 up high and thank you for the tips and i had a professor we were fairly close uh he directed
01:53:00 me in a bunch of plays i was in harold pinter's a slight ache i was in tchekhov's the bear i was in
01:53:05 a variety of of plays and we were fairly close i liked him and uh here i am mowing down right
01:53:15 mowing down on this big giant ball of carbs and fat and mystery meat and i'm eating it and he's
01:53:24 like oh man and he looked at me with a funny look right i guess i i mean i was like 20 or whatever
01:53:29 and he was in his i guess late 40s mid 40s or whatever and he's like wow man enjoy it while
01:53:35 you can i eat that i die oh yeah enjoy it while you can
01:53:42 so yeah i now now i'm in it i can't eat that oh i can't eat that oh i can't eat that oh i can't
01:53:50 eat that oh i can't eat that and all of that and so and my daughter's cleared out all the candy
01:53:55 won't eat sugar won't eat it barely eats carbs she's just very into uh well she wants to fit
01:54:00 into all of these great dresses and uh all of that she's got dances and all kinds of cool stuff
01:54:05 to go to so part of the first step of the codependence anonymous i accept that i am
01:54:15 powerless of others yeah i don't like starting with the powerless thing you have power over
01:54:20 yourself you have the power to dispel your illusions i have full power over myself
01:54:27 which is true for everyone you can universalize that right dapple dandy plewitt's a pure candy
01:54:32 um either you're telling me something or you're having a stroke all right well um low tip day but
01:54:38 we'll survive we'll survive of course i was uh doing a show yesterday too so maybe i went to
01:54:43 the well once too often i will remember that but of course if you're listening to this later
01:54:48 freedomain.com/donate to help out the show it really really really would appreciate that
01:54:54 freedomain.com/donate remember there's a bunch of hungry mouths to feed here now that there's three
01:54:58 of us on the show really would appreciate it help me make payroll or i get stressed i'm kidding
01:55:04 but if you could help out i would really really appreciate that part four truth about sadism part
01:55:11 four coming tomorrow and jared is also reminding the story of your enslavement video and audio
01:55:16 enhanced coming soon in english russian spanish and portuguese portuguese i think i've got that
01:55:21 pronounced portuguese port port starboard there we go port starboard uh thank you steph i'll
01:55:32 resub soon i appreciate that i appreciate that uh for those who know the war will end
01:55:37 when it's fulfilled its purpose the war has end when it fulfills its purpose and the purpose is
01:55:42 not victory the purpose is spending so all right thank you so much for a wonderful evening lots
01:55:48 of love from here i will talk to you soon and thank you again for everyone who supported the show
01:55:54 over the years into the present i will talk to you guys friday and again sunday at 11 am so friday
01:56:00 7 p.m sunday 11 am lots of love take care