Make it 1% Better! Sweating the Small Stuff Leads to Success: Lessons from Steven Bartlett

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders past and present.

Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was recorded on d rug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life. I'm Cut, I'm Laura, I'm Brittany. Do you know what I just did?

Farted? No?

Is it a rhetorical question or do you really want me to guess?

I mean, I don't think you will ever guess it, so I'll just come clean. I went to the bathroom. It does have to do with the bathroom, but nothing to do with farting. I went to the bathroom, I pulled down my pants and then I realized my underwear was on back to front. But at no point this morning did it feel uncomfortable, which says a lot about the state of my vagina.

No. I think that just means that your butts the same size as your vagina.

Which is a problem.

It's a problem if the back of your underwear can comfortably support the front and the front of your underwear can sit at the back.

Yeah, there's some problems.

No, I don't think it's a problem. It just means you got juicy lips. I think you know what, it's actually the roosed ones. You know, the ones that like where it's spens be a bit roosed in the bump crack. It was just rooted in the front crack. And not one single part of me, not one single part of me, found this experience uncomfortable until I looked down and I saw the tag at the front, and I was like, wow, that's not the way that the underwear goes.

But god, it feels good.

Does you mean the rouchine where it like makes it look like it all comes up like jump into the butt crack.

The rushing out of the backside crack is currently at the front And do you know what, I didn't turn them around.

So you didn't notice that that was up your fanny. No, so not only you're fanning the size of your butt, but it's tight lips like that's not getting in, nothing's penetrating.

It's like a fort. It's like a cantle thought, nothing gets in or around.

I just felt like my volver was comfortably supported today.

I'm happy for you. It was cushioned between the rushing and you. You obviously you have to sign and you like it enough to leave it. I persevered.

Well, no, I just it was the whole effort of having to take my shoes off, take my jeans off, and then turn everything around that I was like, look, we've come this far, We've come this.

There is nothing worse like. I find it so uncomfortable. But I guess this is different people's vaginas, they're different shapes.

But for me, volvers volvers.

For me, I find it wildly uncomfortable and I have a lot of problems with front wedges.

That's my story.

Well apparently I don't, so yeah, anyway, I look, it was a surprise.

I know that things have changed down there since in.

The last couple of years after two kids, but it definitely was a surprise to look at my own underwear and be like, oh, that looks like that should be uncomfortable, but it's not.

I love that for you, Thank you. Well, I just think dumb this morning. Actually it was really annoying.

It should be my suck well to say it now. I went to get a coffee with Delilah in the morning before we come here, take her out so she can do a poop. I get my coffee and then I go to work for the day. So I got my coffee, she did a big poop. I was also facetiming, but at the same time in one hand, so I had which is this is probably gross, But I had the coffee in one hand like that, and then underneath, with my bottom two fingers, I was holding the poo bag.

Say, we've all been there, you know what I mean.

So the top two fingers were holding the coffee and then the bottom fingers were holding the poo bag, and my other hand had the phone.

You should have gone phone and poobag, not coffee and poobag like that would have been a safer orientation.

Yes, well, okay, I think I did do that.

But then I went to lift up an auto bind to put it in the bin.

So I had them both in one hand and I lifted it up to.

Obviously, I couldn't compute in my brain that I only needed to let go of two fingers to drop the poo bag. So I opened the bin, held the coffee in the poo bag over But I couldn't work out hard to drop.

The two fingers. You're doing too many tasks.

So I opened my whole hand and my coffee, whole brain, new coffee, and the poo bag went into the o bin.

Well, I thought what you were going to.

Say was is that you took a sip of your coffee and smacked yourself in the face with a poo bag.

Funny story. No, I have to say that didn't happen. That's a shame. You didn't tea bag yourself with a bag of poof.

Do you know what I have done before? And this is this is actually I've got to stop doing this stuff. But I figit a lot. As you guys know, I'm always moving around, I'm always clicking my hands and whatever. I talk a lot with my hands. So often I walk with the pooh bag until I find a bin. But I'll just be like spinning it around subconsciously, even though it's produced.

Is Keisha's nodding, She's like, you always spin the poo bag. I was spinning the poo bag around and it flung. The bottom had a there must have been a rock solid shit. The bottom tore.

Open and the pooh flung out across my body and like just missed another human by about half a meter and then splattered against a wall. That was why I did. I was like, going like this and it just flu. The bag must have had like a really loose seam and the poo rocketed across and nearly knocks someone out with other shit.

I was like, I'm so sorry, Like, well, you gotta sp spin of that around. I was like, I don't know what I was thinking.

Wow, okay, wow, Well I don't know how we got here, but here we are. I know you had a very big weekend. I mean we've gone from the highs to the lows. Yeah, but on last week's episode we were talking about your egg freezing second round journey, and on Saturday you had your egg collection and.

I know that that didn't go.

I mean I know because we've obviously spoken about it, and I know that you wanted to talk about it on today's episode. Brit on Saturday sent a text message to both Keisha and I updating us on how that egg retrieval went.

And I don't think I've ever seen you so upset.

We both did have big weekends, yeah, but very different weekends. You and producer with Keisha got drunk at Keisha's birthday and we were drinking, I have drugs.

We were drinking Marga readers and brit sent us a message and I was devastated.

Do you know what I did?

I looked back at that message and I was almost embarrassed because I was I think you can tell I was still hey. So what happens is you come out of your egg retrieval. I had a general anesthetics, so you're still high, but you're still computing enough of the information, but you don't really realize you're high. But looking back, I.

Could tell and.

It did not go well for me, which was really shocking because I hand on my heart, there's no part of me that thought it would be bad at all, like this bad. So two years ago I did it and I got fifteen eggs, you guys might remember, And this time the doctor came in and I could just tell by the look on her face, and she said, I'm sorry, sorry, it didn't go well. We only got three eggs. Well, we actually got four, but then one was dead, you know, like four came out and one

One egg two eggs. Three eggs, So I don't want to say, you know, this is so bad, but it's not great.

And anyone that knows the statistics around egg retrieval and the success rate knows that.

Three eggs is really bad.

So for the fifteen eggs I got last time, she told me that that might equate to one live birth, so three is not amazing. And she just basically said, we're gonna have to do it again.

Yeah, as soon as I can do it again.

And I was just so upset because I think I wasn't expecting it. I think if I had known that it was likely, it wouldn't have hit me as hard.

And you were really hoping that would be the last time you'd have to go through this egg freezing process. Also, it's expensive, and it's painful, and there's you know, it's emotional.

Yeah, and it's not like not that I was hoping it would be my last time.

In my head, it was I was like, oh, I'll smash out one more collection, not the ten to fifteen eggs.

And would be good.

And I immediately was so overwhelmed and upset, and I took a video and sent it to Keisha and Laura to give them the update, and I was just beside myself and I looked back at that when I came to a few hours later, and I was actually so embarrassed that I sent that to you guys. I was like, such a shitty thing to do, because it.

Not at all.

I think it's because it was like you guys were, you know, at Keisha's party, and I didn't really I didn't cross my mind.

I couldn't comprehend where what was happening.

I just think I needed to tell And I sent it to Ben too, because I felt really upset that like might not be able to give Ben kids, and like even when I watched it back, I was crying at how upset I was, like, it wasn't me, Like I was watching it like that's so heartbreaking for that person,

Were empty, little fuckers.

They were all empty, So I mean I only had seven, but only three had an egg in them, and the rest were just like fake.

They were already baby little follicles. And then they didn't even bring an egg.

Yeah.

No, they made it to the right side eventually, so they were too small. They got to the right side, but then they were still empty, so you don't know that until you take them out.

I also just want to say, like, I mean, I know we can often do this, like when we be vulnerable and be upset, and then you can have like that vulnerability hang up where you like feel almost ashamed or humiliated. You've let people see you be sad, especially because you know I don't use that.

So I was like, when I look back later, I was like, why.

Did I do that? That is like no one, I never want you to apologize.

And this is like as a friend, but also just for everyone listening, like it's so important that sometimes we share that part of ourselves because it's the only way that people actually know when we're struggling, because otherwise, if you're always the person who shows up in relationships and shows up being.

Like I'm fine, everything's fine.

If you embody toxic positivity in the moments when you're not fine, you then don't get help because people just assume that since you've been saying that you're fine, you're fine, And like, there is something that's really powerful in showing when you are not and it's okay to be not okay,

Yeah, And I guess the reason I want to, I mean, the whole reason I documented the whole process was to make people feel better about it, make them feel like they can take their own fertility into their own hands. And you know, if it's going to make you feel better to go and put your eggs on eyes, do it. If you have never found out what your fertility your

But if you're in your thirties.

You're not sure if you want kids, or you're not ready, or you've never done the test. All I can say is just go and start the process. It's just a simple blood test to check your levels and get it going, because the worst thing that can happen is you don't investigate it and you get to the.

Point where you decide it's time and then you can't.

And for me, my AMH was actually the same as three years ago, so that's the level of eggs you have. Mine was the same, it hadn't changed, so we were expecting the same results. But then to only get three, which is highly likely it doesn't even result in a berth down the track is really shocking. So I would pay for anyone to get to that point and wish that they did it sooner. So it's just, if anything, it's just a reminder to.

To go and check it out. Yeah, Because also I mean, if I got this wrong.

When they thaw the frozen eggs, not all of them thowt correctly. It is that right, like you'll lose eggs in the thawing process as well.

Because it's only one cell.

It's only this one cell, so it's not overly stable to survive defrosting, Whereas when you make an embryo and freezing embryo, because there's so many more cells involved, it's more likely that it survived. It's more stable, so it's more likely to survive the defrosting and then take in the womb like when it's actually time for IVF, which is why they say freezing embryos is generally better than freezing an egg if you can.

But not a lot of.

People are in that position. You know a lot of people are doing this because they're single or.

For whatever reason.

Yeah, to try and like, yeah, safeguard the long term strategy around like how they're going to be able.

To have kids.

Yeah, And the reason quickly, the reason that like, if you have fifteen eggs, you know, my specialist said that could be one birth, is because half of them won't survive to frosting. Then half of them won't be good

I was like, wow, I did not see that coming. Yeah.

I just want to add one thing in that. It was a message that you sent to me yesterday, and I.

Actually like, I'm looking.

I'm gonna deliberately not look at you in the eye right now because I know I'll get upset because when I read it, I was like, Fuck, that was just such an insight into how you're feeling about yourself right now, and I really want to change that narrative. You sent a message and I can't remember the exact words of it, but it was along the lines of I can't even produce eggs, like I'm such a failure that I can't even with the addition of hormones and all of this

About yourself like that.

You know.

We recently had Chloe Fisher on the podcast, and that was something that she really battles with, with this idea of like, why the fuck doesn't my body work the way that it's supposed to. It's not a failure of you,

But I also think that's such relatable feeling. Like I think anyone who's had a miscarriage, or anyone who's on their fertility journey but their body hasn't done what it's supposed to do. I think every woman who's experienced that has felt that feeling of like, well, I'm failing as a woman, you know, I'm failing as this life purpose that I've been sold my whole life that you know

Wrong with you totally, and I'm not ruling it out. I will still try naturally on that one off chance that, you know, I drop an egg that isn't empty, like a follicle that is there, Like, I'm still gonna try.

I'm still gonna do another round.

It's not to say I haven't spoken to my specialist yet, so it's not to say that the next time isn't better.

Yeah, I mean, we don't know. If the next time is the same, that's when it you know.

But I know you're right, Keisha, And it's just like immediately you go to is like, wow, I just had twelve months of drugs happening in one month, like twelve months of fertility to happen in four weeks, basically three weeks, and I still can't produce it with all the help of science.

There is a.

Party that's like fucking how to do it on my own if science can't even help me.

But Ben's been so amazing.

I know this is me and my journey, but it's not just me because you're in a partnership and with somebody that wants kids and obviously something you do take on, you know, and I have to consider him at a point. But he's just like a dream boat. He's like, it doesn't change anything. Maybe we take a different route when it's time. Maybe you know, there are always different options, and he's just been like an absolute dream boat. So that's my update. Sorry to be a downer, but not a downer.

You're just real. There's our headline. I'll tell you the name of the episode.

Hang on, should we tell you what the episode's about?

Yeah?

And it is a biggie today now keeps just jumping on because I didn't get to be here for this interview.

What a shame, What a shame.

We interviewed well, Keisha and Brittany interviewed Stephen Bartlett from Diary of a Ceo.

So Diary of a CEO. If you don't know all Stephen Bartlet. He is one of the biggest podcasters in the UK and Europe collectively but you would have.

Heard of it because almost every week, apart from sleep, it is Keisha's vibe, so she has I mean, I think if there was ever a pall pass that came in podcast form, it is Stephen Butler for Keisha.

I don't even think it needs to be in podcast.

Well.

I think in terms of podcasting for us, Steven is one of those people that every podcast can only hope they get to speak with because he's so good. He's so successful, he's so intelligent. He's an amazing entrepreneur and an amazing businessman, and he has been since his early twenties.

Like he's just one of those overachievers.

He speaks to the biggest people in the industry around the world, and he doesn't speak to people in a certain area, like there's no ground he doesn't cover, and there's no ground he doesn't touch on. He's incredible. We've all listened to him for a very long time.

He's all been on.

Our bucket list. But Keisha in particular, I think she's slipped off a seed.

A few times.

So this happened because Laura was up in Magnetic Island celebrating your dad's birthday, and there was no Wi Fi, and so we actually had to do this interview at like eleven pm at night because he was in the UK. But I remember saying to Laura, I was like, Laura, I just I don't even know if I want to do this interview because they say don't meet your heroes, because in my mind, I was like, he could not possibly live up to the level that I have created for a human being. Of like he is just he's

Better, which I love.

Anyway, we got off this call and I turned to brit and I was like, I don't even know how, but he was better.

Than I ever could have wished.

We were given a really limited timeframe with him, which Britta and I definitely pushed the boundaries of Thank you Stephen, like double it just a little bit of a heads up his WiFi connection was not great, so the audio is not the most clear that you would expect, but you know what we did what we could.

What do you think that was the biggest takeaway from the interview?

I think there were two main parts.

For me. Stephen really went into detail of how he thinks he's become as successful as he has, and it's all about sweating the small stuff. So he's all about the one percenters. And what I really liked about that is that if you apply that to your own life, it's like if you tried to make your life or your business fifty percent better in the one go, that's a really hard thing to do, but maneuvering one percent

Business much more successful. I really liked that.

And the other part that I absolutely loved it was from this new law that he's written about in his book, was that you should never disagree. I'm quite interested in the psychology of communication, and I think anyone who listens to Life on Cut would be as well, because we talk about communication literally every episode, and so he has this philosophy that for you to have a really good relationship or even a business relationship.

It could be a friendship.

Going into a conversation and being like, actually, I disagree with you or I disagree with that, you're never gonna get the outcome because they've scientifically shown that people's brains shut down and they're not as open to hearing alternate ideas if you're just like no, I disagree with that. So the way that he speaks about how you can kind of sidestep those conversations and have your point be heard and have the other person feel heard and.

Understood, it was really, really, really good advice.

I feel like women have been doing this to their husbands for years. It's like where you suggest something, but you lead them to believe that it was their decision.

In the first half. I you're like, well done, honey, that's great. I'm glad you got there. So like that you came up with that. Another thing he talks about is the idea that you should piss people off.

You have to piss people off to grow and to be successful. And we talk about the why, because I think most of us want people to like us, and we want to go into a meeting or Instagram stories. Whatever we want to go in smooth calm, get people on board. If people agree with me and they like me, they might follow me. That that's going to lead to business growth. But he turns that idea on his head. And it's

His question was I want you to ask each other.

How you could both people to send that up?

Now. I found this really interesting because it is a really hot take to sweat the small stuff, because we're so often saying don't sweat the small stuff, it doesn't matter, it's irrelevant, And his idea is it one hundred percent matters. So what is something that you can change your life that will make you one percent better?

I mean, before I get into the thing that I think would change my life more than one percent. I do think that sometimes we look at people who are attention detail orientated, it's like it's a negative trait. There's such a perfectionist is the word that we usually use to describe people who are detail orientated, who do sweat the small stuff, And it's not really said it as a positive. I know, obviously detail orientated is kind of like what shows up on preasure Maze, it shows up

All that we don't leave.

We don't leave like there's a lot of fat that gets left on the cutting room floor, and I think that that is such an important thing rather than thinking people have the perception that podcasting is just you rock up in a room and you just chat and then you record for an hour and then you put that out. I don't think many people are aware about the nuances that happen within many many businesses or businesses, which is what makes them successful, and it is the detail stuff that really count.

You're right, I don't think a lot of people see that. I think a lot of people see not for you, but in life in general, a lot of people see this extra attention to detail, and sometimes it can be too much, Like in some jobs, it can be not necessary for the task, for sure, and it.

Can also be debilitated.

It can stop you from actually taking steps forward if you spend so much time worrying about something being perfect before you take the next step. It is often for a lot of people debilitating, and it means they never actually get that project off the ground, they never start their small business whatever it is, because they're too busy worrying about something being perfect rather than just being good and being enough to get it done.

It's a very fine line.

I think for me, two things that I thought about for one percent, how I mean two things. It was hard to narrow it down. That was a final list.

How can you make it?

How can you make your life one percent better?

You're like, well, here is seventy things, and it would be seventy percent better totally.

But this is what he says, Right, you write all these things down, but if you're doing one percent a day, it quickly adds up one percent a week.

Whatever it is.

You make one of these little changes, and it makes so much sense. But I think two things for me, no brainer. Put things in a diary more, be more organized, of course, like that's so obvious to me. But the other thing I think I should start doing, and you hear almost every successful person say it is that they wake up earlier and they wake up at the same time of day. Without doubt, you get more done when

I think even with kids, like the days where I've gotten them up and gotten them out of the house and gotten them to daycare. You know, when daycare opens seven thirty or eight o'clock, my days are infinitely more organized. They are infinitely better because I've been able to get two hours of work done.

Yeah, So I think for me, getting up earlier, so making that if there's no work, the same time of day every day and routine. So maybe it's now to start to wait, whether at six am, seven am, whatever it is, to wake up and do my exercise first thing, because I find I'm not as productive if I get up later. Three quarters of the day's gone before I'm getting my head together and my shit together. And then because my work day starts later, I don't exercise that day.

Whereas the days that.

I got up earlier, I accomplish so much. So for me, it might be starting to get into routine, set an alarm early every single day, and getting my shit together in the morning.

I think that's my one percent.

I think my one percent pertains to more my relationships rather than my work, but it affects everything. And this is something that I think over the past six months, I've become increasingly worse at as my workload gets busier. I often will then stay up past when I finish my work, just sitting on my phone on Instagram, just scroll like doom, scrolling right. And I think sometimes it's because like that's my billy to garner back a little bit of time for myself, and it's completely mind numbing.

We're not even trying because we're on Instagram.

But you know what, it's not even necessarily the conversation.

I totally agree.

And maybe there's a rule now that you put your phone away at ten o'clock.

I know, And look, that's so obvious, it's so cutsy, and I know that every fucking podcast under the sun's like, what your phone away after seventh?

But we are still still realistic. Everyone still does it.

Everyone knows the things that we're supposed to do to be able to garner more quality time with their partners, and yet so many of us are still so guilty, especially if you're in a long term relationship and you've got kids, of just using it as escapism.

Well, what I was going to say is not like I know that you said, yo, fuck, what else is that to talk about at ten o'clock at night? But it's connection tot you could not say a word, but maybe instead of sitting on other ends of the lounge, you're spooning watching a movie. But there's physical affection, there's contact, there's intimacy without verbally communicating, which I think is super important. Like just that intimacy without talking works one day totally.

And the other thing is is when you're in your phone. And I don't know if other people experience this. When you're in your phone, even if it's not productive, if someone is talking to you or they're asking you a question, it's hard to completely go, oh, okay, I'm gonna stop what I'm doing. Even if what you're doing is totally non productive. If you're watching a funny video or you're scrolling Instagram, you are not fully engaged with what that

Kisha, You're one percent is not allowed to have anything to do with sleep.

I'm vetoing it. No pillows, no sleep, no like.

I have this amazing sleep spray which I have been We know about it.

He had an alleged reaction to it last night.

I don't know if I can keep using it, Laura.

I think I had two that kind of sprung to mind where I was like, I could be a lot better in these ways. One of them is definitely being more deliberate with my time, which is very much related to like the phone usage and being present and all

Just got to give them a bit grace.

Isn't funny how your reaction to something can so fundamentally ruin your day and the other person walks away not even not even being affected by it, you know, whether it be fucking something like road rage, or whether it be that an email has pessed you off. Like we can ruminate in our bad reaction to something in our bad mood, and the person who may have been the instigator of that doesn't give a fuck, does not care,

One hundred percent.

And so that's where my one percent needs to be better. At the moment, I think I just need to kind of maybe attempt to lose that irritability and be a little bit more water off a duck's back. Little things annoying me, because I've found that in the last couple of weeks they've just been little things, But there might be five little things and so I'll be in a bad mood with myself, I'll be in a bad mood with everybody around me. I've definitely taken it out on my boyfriend.

Check and she's talking about our work emails.

To be fair, though we have had a lot of email, particularly because of the live show coming up, There's just been so many little things that I'm like, yep, I need to turn that understanding back on and also just give people a bit more grace for things that I may not know that they're managing.

I would love before we get into this chat with Steven Barlett, I would love you guys as listeners, to all have a little think about what is that one percent that you could do in your life, whether it be in terms of your work. I think that there's like, let's go for the two percent. What is it that you could do in terms of your work, and what is it that you could do in terms of your personal life that you could change that would make your

I think it'd actually be really cool to even do it for fair to do it with their kids, Like, I think you can ask your kids these questions at school in their day to day like they obviously going to have completely different answers. But I think Laura maybe ask Marley if she can ask her, is there one thing today you could do you think that would make life better? It'd be so interesting. I think it's gonna be a funny response to It'd be so interested to

In literally the world.

He's an incredibly successful businessman and entrepreneur. He's also an author and an investor on Dragon's Den. Now Dragon's Den is like the UK version of our Shark Tank. The reason for this is he's been the CEO, founder, co founder, and board member of four industry leading companies that collectively, at their peaks, reached a valuation of more than one billion dollars. And this was all before the age of thirty. Stephen, Welcome to Life Uncut. We're very excited to talk to you.

Do you have one?

I have a few. They're all involved my mother.

I think my most is aunt. How old I've been about seven years old. I climbed onto the roof and started running around on the roof naked with my brother, and so my mom came home and she spanked me.

In front of crush on.

So this across the street and I write about it in my first book, Like this girl across the street was in my house and she was like making eye contact with me while my mother was spanking me naked in front of her, and I like, really really well, And from that moment onwards, I never saw that guy again.

Steven, why were you naked though? Like that was a choice.

With your seven you're always naked. And yeah, the spanking in front of the past, Like, imagine being spanked in front of the person you fancy you have a crush on. It's really you can't come back from that.

I mean, speaking about your childhood, you weren't born into immense privilege, given you know, a small loan of a million dollars by my father, like Trump was, So what was your life like growing up?

Like?

What was your upbringing like?

We came from Africa when I was two or three years old. When we came here from Africa to the UK, and we moved to pretty much all white area, we were pretty much the poorest family in that area, and we were pretty much the only black family that I can recall in that area. So we understand the value of anything by the context.

In which we see it.

So you know, if you go to an electronic store in this three televisions, your brain actually uses the really expensive TV and the cheap TV to understand the value of all the TV. So it's the same when you go to a restaurant and you see like three stakes on the menu, you're actually using the context to understand that this one is really nice and expensive, this one's probably not going to be great, and that one's probably a nice balance of the two. And in the same regard,

So do you feel like the reason you're so successful now and the drive behind your success as a child, even as a child businessman, was to fit in?

Yeah, I guess in a way, I think it's really the thing that invalidates you ends up being the thing that you seek validation from. So if you're invalidated by how you look, you probably grow up trying to seek validation from how you look. And if you're feeling validated by by money or not being like other people, that will become your drive or the thing that's dragging you. And in my case, I certainly felt that the biggest problem in my life was that I was poor and

Stephan, I'm really curious about this because I think that when you're the type of person who wants to seek validation out of any type of situation or relationship. Often, when you actually get the success, it doesn't measure up to what you expected it to. So when you became successful, you know, your first business was very, very successful, did you feel that sense of validation from that success or did the goalposts just shift?

Yeah?

So it tends to be the case with most people that And this isn't quite an unfortunate thing that if the force that's dragging you towards validation is really really strong, for most people, they're going to require their hypothesis to fail them, so that dream to fail them. And when I say fail that, I mean for it to not give you what you thought it was going to give you, for you to understand that it wasn't the right dream.

Off in the future.

And when I started to realize that having my dreams fail me because they didn't deliver on the euphoria I was expecting, I realized that the ambitions I'd had in my life were fake ambitions. And most of us are living out fake ambitions, and we don't even know we're living out fake ambitions. I see it so much in young people when they come up to me after I've spoken on stage and they say I want to be a public speaker, and I go, what do you want

Well, you know it's uh because they want the glory.

Yeah, And we confuse so easily aspiration with admiration. We admire something, so we aspire to be. They're two very different things. Admiration is like I love what Oprah Winfrey does. Aspirations I want to become Oprah Winfrey. We should keep them separate. You know, you could admire someone with that aspiring to be somebody. And really, when I dig down into that guy that comes up to me after I speak on stage, he doesn't want to be a public speaker.

It's funny we say the same thing. We did this podcast for a solid year before we made a dollar, and I remember we made our first five thousand dollars and we were celebrated. We were now We thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. And everybody kept saying to us, why are you doing it? There's no money in it, You're never going to make it anywhere, and we just thought, well, because it's our passion. And I really do think there's something in If you follow

Honestly, like, not at all, because the same or in my life other than my girlfriend ten years ago, the same people in my life now. And I mean it helps me pay for stuff for my parents, but outside of that, there's been no change. My five best friends and my five best friends, they were my five best friends ten years ago. And I don't go to celebrity parties and shmooths. I don't accept the invites to all of the fancy places. I just don't see a huge

I was about to say, I don't think I've ever seen you in anything other than a black T shirt.

It works, doesn't it?

On my coloring?

I wear this to work, and then I go from work to the gym, so and this is called twenty four to seven, so it's like it's gym material. So then the same with my trousers and my shoes that someone out for every day, and I have forty of This outfit represents something forty versions of.

If it don't break, don't fix it exactly.

Like I'm not playing that game. I'm not trying to be a fashion like on you know what I'm saying. It's not my game. I play other games. I play this game, podcasting I do. I play the business, game Marked and game I write. Those are the games I'm playing. So this can just be localgnitive expense.

Love that.

Well, speaking about you writing, you are releasing a brand new book. It comes out today. It is called The Diary of CEO The Thirty three Laws of Business and Life, and Britta and I were very fortunately sent an advanced copy of this to read through, and we had all of twenty four hours to do so, what we did and something that I really I was very interested by.

To have to agree to disagree.

But in your book, one of the laws that you wrote is that you must never disagree.

Yeah, so we're all guilty of hearing something and on a jerk reaction to something you know that's in conflict with our beliefs or something we didn't want to hear, is to say I disagree and then to make our point. And I just think it's important to realize that from a neurological perspective, when you do that, the other person's brain essentially shuts down. And this is what they've proven

Been a game changer for me.

Like I'm in a relationship, it's difficult, you know, when your partner says something, it's difficult to listen. Sometimes it's difficult to understand. And it's difficult. For the first thing, that when my partners, you know, upset for me to repeat exactly back what she said to me, which is what I do to make sure I understand. And it's funny because I've been in relationships before where oh my god, old Steve, you said to me once here and I'll just come back at you you say it to me twice.

That might be one of the best relationship bits of advice I've ever heard.

I had Matthew Hawsey on the podcast No Don't Tell Matthew hows to that.

I'm in a long distance relationship. My partner lives in Scotland and he's Swiss, and I can't tell you how many times last night was a point of contention, but how many times we say to each other, you're not listening, like you are not listening, and they say something back and doesn't matter how many times.

I mean, we have different barriers.

Obviously we don't see each other physically, and there's a language barrier. But maybe this is something I need to take on and like, we need to approach this in a different way.

I hear you, I see you. You're wrong, but let's look at it this way. You don't say you're wrong disagreeing. I know, yeah, Stephen.

One of the laws that I absolutely loved was this law where you said you must piss people off. And I love that because I feel like, without trying, I probably do piss a lot of people off. Why do you think we need to go through life and have people pissed at us?

Explain that a little bit.

So it's not that you should try and piss people off. It is the thing that you should try and do has an unavoidable side effect of pissing people off. So in any regard, whether you're a brand, whether you're trying to be heard and understood, the byproduct of that pursuit is you're going to piss people off.

And here's what I mean.

If you're a brand and you're in you know, let's take I don't know, a make brand for example, because there's some makeup on my table here. I didn't wear it today, but sometimes I wear it if I've got really bat skin.

But I thought you were looking very conto it.

This is just a great filter from this software that we're using. But I do have this makeuppey. So say you're a makeup brand, the way that you pierce through a saturated market where everybody is saying the same things, but everybody's saying we're environmentally friendly, we are cost effective, we're good for your skin. All of your competitors are going to say the exact same thing. Therefore, the consumers are all going to have heard the same messaging over

We had Mark Manson on the podcast a little while ago for those listening, the author of The Suddle out of Not Giving a Fuck.

Do you think that this is a big reason.

Obviously, his book's incredible, but a big reason he had such cut through at the beginning is because of the language he used in this title.

One hundred percent.

You know, I talk about that in my book that authors started swearing on the front covers for this very reason, And when you've spoken. When I spoke to a couple of people that publish these books, they said the same thing. They said, we realized that a lot of people are going to be annoyed by the swearing on these books. But the upside is that we'll capture attention and we'll

You know that he's not indifferent.

Oprais on that outrage culture, doesn't.

He Yeah, I feel like outrage cultures having a real moment. But maybe it's not genuine outrage. Maybe what we're seeing is people that just want to create some noise, hate or love. Because the old any publicity is good publishing.

In your book, you wrote and I'm quoting this in business, sports, and academia, and individual's personal philosophies are the single biggest predictors of how they'll behave now and in the future. If you know someone's philosophy or belief so you can accurately forecast how they'll behave in any situation. From this, I'm really interested in what some of your philosophies are and like how in the business world you have created values that have led to consistent behavior within yourself.

I mean, I've got so many important personal philosophies. I would say that the most important one, as I believe it now, is to sweat the small stuff. I genuinely believe, like, if people think the podcast that we've done is big this month, the thing we'll do my thayth for million downloads. We just hit three million subscribers on YouTube.

Yes, Sam songratulations.

Funny thing is not perform a good podcast host. And I said this on LinkedIn the other day. It's not because we have the most talented team in the world. Because when Jack joined, he was the first employee. He'd never done this before. He was a freelance felance of that recorded stuff, but he wasn't it never made a

And that's an interesting right.

So, like that's an interesting thing because you go, like the table I'm sad at now is the table I record the podcast. Act underneath this table, which you can't see, there's a track pad, an Apple track pad glued to the underside of the table. And when I'm doing the podcast, if the guess is something interesting, I just click it.

And I'm going, have you got any friends you can call? Steve?

So I called this guy called Dad, who was a mate of mine. That is episode like seven. No one was interested When you have seven thousand subscribers on YouTube, like, no one's interested in it, wanted to come on. But the thing and if you thok the last ninety days, we've had a million more subscribers in the last ninety days, so the laws of compounding sake goes really slow, and asked did and then it went like the Burj Khalifa.

Isn't that easy to do? One percent?

I feel like that's what we're going to have to call the name of this episode, one percent better. Yeah, Stephen. Something I'd love to finish the podcast is in the same way that you do your guest, pose a question for your next guest without knowing who it's going to be.

What would your question be? For all of us?

Like listening to think about an answer between ourselves interesting.

So I want you to ask each other how you could both be will to send better?

Okay, I'm only thinking about it.

So I remember Simon Sinek. One of the things that me and Simon Sinic always do with each other.

My favorite episodes.

Yeah, we give each other critical feedback, so he calls it like notes. So we'll do something together and I'll turn tim and say, Simon, how could I have been better today? And he'll tell me honestly, and I believe that a good criticism coming from a good place is worth its weight in gold. It's much more useful their five star review. So I would you two tell each other how you both could be better?

I love that, as in you give pical feedback to each other.

Yeah, I love that because it quite uncomfortable conversations, which I think and more important.

We're going to slide it back into dem and let you know how we're going to be better.

Stephen. We are going to let you go.

But I have one last question, and that is if you possibly can do this. Out of every interview you've ever done, has there been one that's really stood out where you've walked away and you're like, I've learnt so much, I'm a different person now, something that's sort of at the forefront.

Yeah, I'd say it was episode one hundred and one with a guy called mo gor Dat. It was actually the and he's not a list he wasn't a famous person. So when you find out that in twenty twenty two, I'm going to say it was the most shared podcast episode in our country on Apple. According to Apple, they released the data at the end of the year and episode that episode was the most shared, and that's a key thing shared. That means one friend passed it to another.

They just got engaged.

She's like sipping the champagne. She's putting on the s Dave, Dave, look at this, They've got robes. She is over the moon that used to be me an economy?

Where did that go?

Where did my happiness go? When it went out the door with my expectations. I've got used to my life and through that process of what I called earlier on that habituation where we just get used to things in our lives. Unfortunately, we get used to the emotions and the emotions leave too. So if we want to hold on to that joy of life and not let it go out the door when we become more and more successful, like your podcast is going to take over the world.

And you're going to be there one day, You're.

Going to hit ten gazillion subscribers and you're going to feel zilch because you're going to like, if we're unconscious, we expect gratitude and euphoria to show up, whereas the truth is about Euphorian gratitude is we have to it has to be a practice.

We have to.

Like so when I got on a plane, now I stop before I walk in the plane, just when you get to the little door part of the plane, I stop, and I remind myself how absolutely unbelievably mental it is that I'm about to go and sit in that really push section at the front of the plane. And that's Steve Barler's six years ago is stealing pizzas to feed himself and working in call center. Isn't it absolutely mental

Yeah, perspective truly is the most beautiful thing. It's definitely the thing that I love the most from doing this podcast and speaking to different people. These are the conversations people need to hear just to reconnect with reality and be present and grateful for what you've got. But Steven, this has been one of those moments for us in our career. We thought, if we can ever speak with you on the podcast, that's going to be one of

We'll be cool on the podcast.

But we can't thank you enough for your time. We know you're a very busy man. Say thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much. You guys are great.

I'm so wanted to be invited on and everyone's told me about your show and how special it is so wonderful that.

I could coin and speak.

Yeah, of course they have. I don't really do podcasts. I didn't do that. So a lot of people said a lot of nice things about you guys. So everyone, so thank you for having me.

Thank you so much everyone.

The Diary of CEO The thirty three Laws of Business and Life out today everywhere.

You can get your books.

Appreciate it.

You guys know we don't finish an episode without our suck and our sweet the highlight, the low light.

Laura Burne, you want to kick it off, all right, So my suck for the week.

Last week it was a hairy, scary, touch and go whet there with little Lola Ellis Johnson. I just forgot my child's middle name for one second. No one ever uses a middle name Lola el.

I actually don't even know if I knew that when you just said that, that was foreign in my brain because she's just Melon, Lola Melon Johnson.

Totally.

Why was everyone our age they all had one of three names, Anne, Louise.

Or Jane. I'm sorry, no one's had Mayo.

Yeah, I don't have brit sits outside of like the norm, well and truly outside the box. But my middle name is Anne and my sister's middle name is Louise. Like, we couldn't be bigger cliches. And this generation, our generation of children, every single person has a middle name may and everyone says it's a family name.

It was my name, blah blah blah. I get it.

Every single every single kid in Molly May's daycare is may.

Ben goes to me, So, just so I understand, does our kid have to be called male?

It's a family name?

I was like, yeah, that's how is that interesting?

Okay? I feel like you might need to explain this for people who haven't heard you talk about it before, because when I first heard I truly thought it was a piss take.

But it's not so if you haven't heard it, my middle name is Mayo, like the condiment.

Why is it a family name? Rumor has it, legend has it, and I don't know.

Legend has it that one of my relatives was involved in the Mayo Clinic, which is the renowned medical clinic, and so it was something that went off the back of that.

I don't know. I just know that one kid each generation. So my mum had it.

She's one of four, and her mum had it and she was one of four. So it's just like one of those things.

I don't know. Fuck, my kid's gonna be Mayo. I hope they never ask me why. If my kid says, Mum, why do I.

Have Mayo, I'm gonna say, your grandparents use mayonnaise instead of loop.

Please don't say that. Don't terrible sex education? Really imagine that legend going on through the next generation. That's terrible.

Okay, Well, anyway, look back to my suck for the week. But my suck for the week is Lola had a terrible is The ear infection started when we were in Magnetic Island. Were told it was just like a viral thing. She didn't need any antibiotics. Turns out the kid needed some antibiotics. We just had like four nights, consecutive nights of her screaming and being possessed like the devil, like levitating up from the bed, and then on the fourth night of that last week.

You did the exorcism.

No, her ear drum perforated overnight. And I think anyone who's got little kid who's had a terrible ear infection, it like absolutely peaked with pain for her. And then the perforated ear drums like all this gunk just oozes out of their ear.

So I came in the.

Morning and it was all over her pillow, all down her neck, pussy, ear wax, And anyway, after that happens and the pressure is kind of relieved, they start to feel better really really quickly. But also then their ear drum is open, so you've got to be careful with antibiotics, and they you got to keep him away from water and blah blah blah blah blah. Ear infections are sucky. My sweet for the week is that yesterday we had some of our really close friends over for a lunch

So they did that exactly that they mind you.

Yeah, so like when you are the Bachelor or you're a contestant on the Bachelor, you get given a minder, and it's the person who means that you can't have your phone, like they can't stop you from getting access to.

The outside world. They basically babysit you.

So Falcon was Matt's babysitter for the entire time that he was a bachelor. And now he's gone on. He works for Hay Mission Zoe Blake. He's their pa. He's such a cool and interesting person and he is so beautifully generous and he organized this unbelievably incredible gift. So he organized his friend who is a chef, to come and do homemade pass with Marley.

She got to create Nyocki. It was all very Italian and very like.

It was beautiful but his name was Chef Johny, and he came and he just like brought so much food, to the point where every single person that was there, like all our families and friends, were sitting there with their pants underne.

I had to undo my belt as a step one, and then step two was I had to take my jeans down.

All right, what is your suck? My suck?

I said it at the start, But nothing's going to overtake it. This week is just my eggs or my lack thereof that's it. I mean, I've already spoken about it, but it was just a real shock and I wasn't expecting it, which made it worse. But I guess now moving forward, the expectation would be there. I think i'd expect less, so anything that I get that's more is a bonus. So rough week, and a lot of people messaged me. I didn't say this at the start of chat.

A lot of people.

Messaged me their journeys with egg freezing. And my heart goes out to all of you, because not all of them most successful. Some people didn't even make it. Some people didn't get any some people, you know, lots of different problems. So I guess, just know that everyone going through it might feel like you're the only person that is having.

These results, but you're not.

There are so many other women that are experiencing this as well. So my thoughts are with everybody going through it. My sweet I'm not going, you know, we don't have to revisit it. But my sweet is pasta, the four Courses of Pasta. It was like all my dreams come true as someone that would have pasta for breakfast. I frock the whole Thing's sweet.

It was also Falcon Monte Cristo.

My Sweeden is also Falcon Monte Cristo.

Tisha my suck for the week.

Last night, I was having a shower with my boyfriend. And there's this thing about like apartments in Bondai are disgustingly overpriced. Right, my apartment doesn't even have skirting boards, It's got no fly screens. It is such a bare bones apartment. But I pay a lot of money for it, as we all do. Anyway, one thing about the apartment, and I've just gotten to the point where I'm like, I can't live like this anymore, is that you have specifically five minutes of hot water.

Yeah, that's rough. Whoe to go I cannot my hair in one go.

I've got to stop the hot water halfway through and let the conditioner soak in.

So what I'm hearing is you're trying to get freaky.

Last night, like I was so hungover. It was not a sexy shower.

It was just that two people needed to shower and he was in there for about three minutes before I got to the shower, and so I had to like shower in the cold, and I was just like, how am I thirty years old paying this amount of money for an apartment that I cannot.

Even have a funking shower in. That's really upsetting. Do you know what else is upsetting?

I would have thought that your suck for the week was the fact that because all these photos of you with your face and a bucket and.

Your ass out, I would have thought that that was your suck.

I blocked it out to give a bit of context that I had a celebration and this is my sweet I've had two of the best weekends of my life back to back. You guys are big parts of that. Because we've hung out on both of those weekends. I have gotten to do things to celebrate my thirtieth birthday. We're speaking about how I wasn't really a birthday, but I just have had such a beautiful reminder of how phenomenal the people that I have in my life are.

And so we went and had lots and lots and lots of mugs.

On Saturday, Kisha celebrated it with bottomless margaritas, and let me tell you, it was bottomless by the end of the night.

I have seen the photographic evidence of that bottom.

Toblerone took a picture of me and I can't remember this, but I've got a jumper on and I'm laying over my bed and yes, look I did have my head in a bucket.

It wasn't my best moment.

And your whole bare bum is showing and it's like it's not hot anyway.

It looks great.

It was a good bar and the light was hitting it. After threat angle it was quite shimmery. It was like a shimmery, smooth, tanned butt.

Honestly, if you were ever going to have a photo of someone vomiting with their face in a bucket, like it was a beautiful bomb.

By the end of it. She goes, Hey falcom Onte Cristo, I want to see mask.

Yeah, that was a particularly low PoID and I had the seediest hangover yesterday, but all worth it. I just had. I've had two the best weekends of my life. It's like you said, it's the people you have around you, people like Falcon that would just make you feel good after tell your presents.

You don't even know him that well, and Falcon's a person you say over Laura and I who he's been every day with.

Falcon is also caciou sweet. Anyway, guys, that is it from us today. We hope that you love the episode. We hope that you learned something, and like we said, please go and do the one percent chat with your family or with your friends or with yourself and figure out what is that one thing that you can change that will incrementally make your life better.

And if you have loved the episode, share it with a friend.

Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify wherever you listen to your podcast, so that is always dropping into your feed the moment that it is released.

And let Stephen Bartlett know that you really enjoyed him being on My fun cut and then he might come and join us again.

Tag him he's tag and tag him, share this episode, tag, tag, tag, tag, oh yeah, please. The thing that really helps us and the thing we really if you do one thing this week is to share the episode, put on your story, tell a friend, word of mouth, anything, but we really appreciate you share in the love. So don't forget Tell your mom, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends, and share that love.

Because we are love. I share that love really really like brought it home today. I get thrown so easy, I said one where different. Laura's eyes were like no. I was like, what are you doing? Why and share that love. I'm just trying something new. Bye, my babe,