I get a team. It's Halps and Bobby. It's a You project. It's installment one for the great Man. He's back, the man that we love, who's been an integral part of the You project for years, let's be honest, years. He's probably done somewhere in the vicinity of I would think fuf fifty two one hundred shows. You know him, you love him, I love him. He's my weird little brother from another mother. His name's Robert Capuccio.
Hi, bro, I am so happy to be back here with you and all of you. I've missed this. I've missed all of us. Actually, it's technic a little bit of break.
I thinking the other day, how some of my friends like my good friends, and that's you. I really well, it's kind of situational and geographical. It's not through choice, but we do most of our connecting while we're talking to like ten thousand people.
It's just not having to catch up.
Yeah, it's you and me catching up with ten thousand people, just sitting off to our left, just listening, or however many we have. It varies, but yeah, it is a weird kind of relationship in that sense.
I like the voyeurism.
Yeah, well there's that. Let's hope that we have conversations that are actually worth listening to this year. I think we for the most part did last year. So we're recording this. It's my second podcast for the day, folks. So if you go you said that the other day, well that's because it's the same day for me. Right now. I interviewed Professor Chris Evans this morning. If you haven't heard that, listen up, because he's fucking great. But it's
the seventh. It's Wednesday, seventh of January, of course, twenty twenty six. And I just told young Robert that right now in now fine city by the Bay down here in Melbourne. It's in the old fashioned language, the fahrenheit language. It's about one hundred and eleven degrees. Well that's the four forty four degrees celsius, and I had to look it up. I think they used to say something like double it and AD thirty. Double the celsius and AD thirty,
and that would give you a ballpark number. But let's just go with stupidly hot. Stupidly hot.
I don't even know how those form bullas work. I just for the most part just do it in my head. It's almost like operating on two different systems. It's weird, but they both make sense to me anyway.
You've lived in countries with both, so you're kind of very temperature fluent. I would say, so when I tell you forty four, you don't have to think is that hot or not? You know that's hot as fuck. So and Professor Chris, who I chatted to this morning, he said it was where he lives minus one, but not far away from him was minus twelve. I'm like, how does it is imagine that I would not cope in minus twelve?
Now, just given the choice minus twelve forty four? Ah, that is, what would you rather be in?
Yeah, that's a good question. Probably forty four, because like this morning, I got up at four point thirty because I knew it was going to be stupid hot, and I started working at four forty five, So when I started walking it was twenty degrees. By the time I got to Caffeine Central, it was probably a balmi twenty three degrees at six hundred. But I kind of look back now and I've done most of my steps for the day I've been out. I'm lucky that I'm lucky that I live on a main street. Let's put an
asterisk next to that. But what it means is I can walk out the front door and I can walk in shade for like two kilometers like because I can walk down past the shops and the bustling humanity and have shade over my head the whole time, which is a nice thing to do. It's not It's not my idea walking route, to be honest. But for the bloke who's had probably fifteen to twenty skin cancers cut off his body, walking in the forty four degree brutal sun
is probably not a great formula for me. You never had skin you have had skin cancer, not that I know of. No, I could have it now and be undiagnosed. I should probably go. Would you go? But chicked?
I need to the doctor a little bit more than I do. But yeah, to my knowledge, and I've never had I've never had skin cancer. I'm I'm the opposite where I mean, I contradict myself because I've lived in heart environments. I would take cold. I would take freezing cold or scortch and heart any day. I just fare better and cold weather than I do in the heat.
Although here's the thing. If I had to commit to it, if it's like, all right, you've got a year, I would probably take the heat because I know in Singapore when I first was living there, Oh my days, I was miserable. I was like, I think I'm gonna pass out. I felt like every minute of every day was a struggle when I was outside, because I mean, we didn't get to forty four degrees, but you would, you would be in the upper thirties. Like the thirties were pretty standard.
Every day was exactly the same, and it was just so uncomfortably youmid and then after about six months, I didn't care. I was unaffected by it. I just went out and said, oh, it's just a normal day. So I think if I could have enough enough of a chance to acolam, I think I would take the heat. But other than that, I'm a cold weather person.
Well I mean, look, you did we weren't basing that on forty four or minus twelve. If it would say two degrees. I'm choosing two degrees all the time, cause you can rug up, you can go for a walk, you can walk in the cold and still be relatively warm, and you can come back into your home and walk around in bare feet in a seventeen or eighteen degree room, you know, thermistatically controlled environment. So this is probably gripping for our listeners. Hey, what did you do?
We're literally talking about the weather first podcast in the new Year. It's like talking so how's the weather out there? Grag. It's like two old books.
Oh god, yeah, what did you What did you do ever? Christmas in the summer? Do you celebrate or are you low key?
Christmas Eve was fantastic where I got to see some really good friends I have not seen in a long time, and you know, I got to go over there and celebrate. And it's amazing because I was sitting down talking to my guard son and it's so weird because I remember holding him when he was a baby and he's a young man in his twenties, like tall, strappingly handsome, extremely intelligent, And it was such a great experience for me. One, I felt really old, that was kind of obnoxious of them.
But two to see like a type of individual this guy has become and that was great and it just felt you know, this is a family that basically adopted me in my early twenties and brought me and has wanted their own. And while they they have families of their own, so they weren't all there, enough of them were there, and it just felt it felt so comforting and nostalgic. Christmas. I made a mistake of going into
uh to a neighborhood in Brooklyn. I'm used to like Manhattan on Christmas, where everything's open, everyone's like eating Chinese food, everyone's at the cinema. There was nothing. It was dead. I dragged my wife all the way to this neighborhood. It was an absolute ghost town.
Wow, it's you and I have you. And I have a similar story in that I have a godson also, who is tall and handsome. Mitchell shout out to Mitchell just turned twenty five. He's a lawyer, and he's you don't you know those people you don't want to get a photo taken with. So he's that person because he's, like, I don't know, five six inches taller than me, one hundred years younger than me. Like not just that he's twenty five, but he could literally be a model, right,
twenty five stupidly good looking, good human. I took a photo of Oh no, he after his graduation I just put up a like a proud godfather. I had a proud godfather moment and went, hey, you on, this is my godson. I don't have any kids, so this is as close as it gets to me being a fucking bragging dad. I put up this photo of Mitchell. It got over two hundred thousand views just because he's fucking stunning. I'm like, what about me? Oh yeah, incredible. Oh it's
it's a value add one hundred percent. Like oh, looks don't matter. I'm like, fucking bullshit. Have you seen it? It's like he's a handsome boy. And it went nuts. And what else was hilarious was and this is something that I rang him and I went, have you seen the stats on your photo? Like it's not me and him, it's him. And he's like yeah, I said, what's the thing that stands out to you? So there was over a thousand people that saved the photo. I'm like, what
is that about? Like, why are all these strangers around the world saving your photo to their phone?
I don't find that a bit weird at all. Actually, wow, yeah that's something they can't say I ever do. But yeah, not saying if you're one of those people that saved the photo. You're weird, I mean just a little bit, but not much, just just just slightly tipping over on the wrong end of the weird scale. But yeah, I think our entire world is based on and I don't know how much of that is commercialism or vanity or maybe it's evolution genetic compatibility, but we are attracted to
all things and people that are beautiful. I think there is something I don't want to say, deeply spiritual. I don't want to go there, but there is something deeply resonant with things of beauty, like not just not just people. I mean not to be like this guy who talks about his cats, but even my cats. If there is something that is beautiful, like a sculptor or they'll stare at it and they'll like tilt their head and it's like, Okay,
I don't know what they're thinking. I mean, I don't know how much of an art critic my cat is. Who knows. Maybe he has very complex thoughts. Maybe he's like a you know, pretentious little muppet, just sitting there, like, you know, like wishing he had a glass of wine and he could say something somewhat intelligent about what he's looking at, or maybe he just see something icy and like me, can't really describe it, but knows that it's compelling.
From yeah, yeah. The beauty conversation is a slippery slope and a tricky door to open in a public forum because on the one hand, we want to say it doesn't matter, which I agree with in terms of you know, a person's whether or not how loved a person should be, or how valuable they are or they work all of that. We get that you're not a better person because you happen to have good genetics and you're born pretty or handsome.
We get that. And so in a world where the kind of the messaging is it doesn't matter, the reality is away from the messaging, people who are attractive and tall men who are tall tend to get rewarded, right, and that we might not like that. That might not be a message we want to hear, but it's the
fucking truth. And you have to look at like the stats on I think it was who was it was somebody recently, it'll come to me, But they were talking about on dating apps, like guys that are tall, irrespective of all of the other variables get significantly more matches so or more interest or more dates or whatever it is.
I just yeah, I think that it's it's hardwired into us that we find some things, whether it's a waterfall, or whether or not it's a piece of art, or whether or not it's a human, or whether or not it's a fucking labrador puppy. Oh my god, get me near a Golden Retriever or a Labrador puppy. I'm fucking I'm gone. That's it. I'm done. They're the cutest things of all time. You put me in front of an ard Vark, I'm like, not, fuck your ardvark. Give me
a golden Redream puppy. Shout out to the Ardvark lovers, you know, Like, and I don't want to be It's like I wish that wasn't I wish I didn't feel that way. But it's like, I'm not choosing to find a labrador puppy cute and an ardvark not. That's just something innate. That's part of how I'm wired, you know, just like some people are attracted to men, some people are attracted to women, some people are attracted to both. It's it's how they're wired. Some people, fucking you know,
love motorbikes. Some people are terrified. Like we're all different, and we all are either aroused by, or attracted to, or enamored with, or fascinated with or curious about different things. But it's almost like you're in trouble if you don't agree with the narrative about what you should find attractive.
There's so many things I want to unpack here. First of all, you know, there's I'm becoming less and less invested in whatever the narrative tells me that I should be discussing or not discussing. I know, I had my social media apps on my phone when I was away on holiday because I knew I didn't want to bring my iPad or whatever, and I usually keep everything on
separate devices as a behavior modification tool. So during the holidays, I found myself surfing on social media way more than I normally would, And every message seems like every other message. I don't want to say every message, because there are some really cool and I'll use the word beautiful things on social media I found, but every other message is look at what these people are doing. Aren't you outraged?
Look at how they think? And people come out. Well, I think this, and it's like it's a forum where I don't have to see you. I don't have to empathize with you. I don't need to engage in or demonstrate critical thinking. All I have to do is put something that is emotionally provocative and incite some type of angry or fear based response, and that's that whole engagement there.
I don't really care about that. But you know, talking about like things that are beautiful, and I look at this a little bit differently because, as we know, we've had conversations about this. Growing up, I was not what you would consider beautiful. I mean, I'm no prized now, let's just be clear for the people who have only experienced me on audio, but I was physically deformed. I was disfigured in my face. So for me, beauty was a very interesting subject. I looked at it like, wow,
I didn't even want to be beautiful. I just wanted to be normal, Like I wanted to be a solid five where I didn't evoke a positive or negative response in someone and I could pretty much go unnoticed.
But kind of like kind of like desert boots. Do you know what desert boots. Huh.
We had this conversation, yeah, years ago.
It's a desert boot is kind of your multi functional. It's like it's it's yeah, it's not it's not a dress shoe, it's not an athletic shoe. It's like, it's not ugly, it's not pretty something we would call it. Yeah, so you just aspired to be a human desert boot, just sys functional, just just go unnoticed.
That was my goal to attract as little attention as I possibly could. Then I went ahead and chose public speaking as a career, so that didn't work out very well for me. But there are beautiful attributes in people that transcend appearance, obviously, and I think a lot of the ways that we engage with one another, increasingly engaged with one another has the potential to either draw those out or in a lot of ways, suppress that. And
what surfaces is something far more ugly. I mean, you could be And when people say looks don't matter, I used to get really angry about that because the people that used to tell me that about dating were, for the most part, very good looking people. Wow, looks don't matter. That's like you know that, that's like you know someone who is a deca millionaire telling a homeless person that money won't make it happy. It'll definitely, it'll definitely change
this person's experience of the world today, won't it. And So when I would hear that, I rejected it. But as I'm getting older and as I reflect upon people who I am very attracted to, not just physically but emotionally and psychologically, Yeah, there's so there's so many attributes that do have nothing to do with physical appearance that make you highly attractive, and I think everybody has those
quite honestly. The question is is the environment you're in, is it bringing it out or is it suppressing it in favor of I think which less attractive.
We're going to make a distinction between, you know, So if we're talking about attraction here, let's let's have too care. Let's have the physical attraction where the person might be complete prick. Right. But yeah, yeah, I mean there's lots of people who are fucking stunning, but not particularly nice people, right, I'm sure. And there are a lot of beautiful, amazing people who are physically and emotionally beautiful, right, But I think you know that despite the message, you know it
doesn't matter what you look like. Well, my experience is fat kid, fat kid, fat kid, very few friends, no attention from the opposite sex, nobody interested in me, Da, da da, all of that. And there's no self pity in this, by the way, anyone, So don't mistake the story of self pity. There's none. There's just awareness. And then I get fit, and then I get strong, and I lose all this weight, and I start training, and for my genetic potential, I get in good shape. I'm
now strong, I'm now fit, I'm now lean. I'm not a great athlete, but I'm not the worst athlete. I'm not winning, but I'm going okay. All of a sudden, I'm not socially invisible. All of a sudden, I'm not number thirty on the list of thirty. I'm maybe in the top fifteen now, all of a sudden. And so my lesson was, oh, Craig, when you look different, when
you look better, people like you more, Craig. When you lose weight, when you're lean, when you're less ugly, when you're less whatever, this is my story to me, Then you're more desirable. People want you more, people are attracted to you more. Girls actually notice you, girls even want to talk to you. Fucking hell, this is a revolution, right, And so it's very hard when you go through an experience like you did and I did, where you got
rejected for how you look. And I'm not trying to compare my story to yours, because you had it infinitely harder than I did. But it's yeah, you grow up and you go, oh, well, the evidence tells me that when I look better, I'm treated better. That's my n equals one. Research is like, the data tells me that when I'm out of shape and what people would typically label, you know, or you know back then anyway a fat kid, you know, then in a certain response and then in
shape different. So it's it's well and good, but that the you know, we kind of our beliefs are intertwined really with our experiences more so than what some you know, mouthpiece over the airways tells us.
Yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard to be open to a worldview when all of your experiences have presented evidence to the contrary. And it's not just data, it's experiences that have severe emotional wheat. I think you know, the fact of being wanted and being accepted versus being rejected.
I think that shapes all of us in highly profound ways. Yet, you know, to your point about I've encountered people that are just so physically stunning, but their personalities are just not And I've been about as sexually attracted to them as I am a red eminem you know, totally neutral.
I mean, everybody knows blue eminem's are dead sexy, they are so hot, they're just plain So yeah, and the opposite as well, people who I might not have noticed originally but they were so kind, or they were absolutely witty, or there was something that I found gorgeous about this person, and over time I became extremely attracted to them. So yeah, there's there's I think the point that I'm trying to make is around what is your antidote? I've talked about that, I've talked about that film.
What do you mean today to what?
Well I've talked about midnight in Paris on the show.
Before You're banned from talking about films or producers or books today?
What?
Yeah? Okay, so go on, I'll give you. I'll give you one one joker card if you go.
So one morning I was I woke up, I was in Denver, right, you remember our Denver offices, and my friend Morgan, she was like, hey, you want to go see a film. It's at this Mayan cinema and it's this art deco cinema. It hasn't been it hasn't been changed since the nineteen twenties other than like renovated, but it still has the same look and it's like talk about things of beauty, So like, yeah, let's go see a film. When we went to go see Midnight in Paris,
and there's just there's this one scene. And I've talked about it a lot because what I love about cinema is at its best, any form of art is provocative. It changes the way the way you think, the way you feel. At its deepest level, it changes something out you. And there was this one line where Owen Wilson, who's playing this role of a guy that was a screenwriter who went back in time, so it's this whole magical thing.
He's sitting across from Gertrude Stein and she reads his man, she reads his novel, and she tells him what a beautiful voice he has, but then she chastises him, says, God, but you're such a defeatist, and he's arguing with her about the nature of reality. I mean, she hasn't seen the horrors of the late twentieth and twenty first century. Now, she hasn't seen the rise of the Nazi regime, so on and so forth. But the thing she doesn't argue with him. She agrees. But then she says something, not
gertrue Stein, but herself, but obviously Kathleen Bates. And it was this beautiful line where she said, yeah, but you're an artist, and it's not the job of the artist to succumb to despair. The job of the artist is to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence. And I think that we, and I do mean we me are in an environment where more and more people are succumbing to something, whether it is emptiness or despair, or
whether it's anger or fear. And I think there's got to be an antidote that is so important to you, not that it erases the context of reality, but makes it tolerable and allows you to flourish and engage and be a human being and contribute and form bonds in spite of it, or maybe even because of it, because the stakes are so high. So that's kind of where my mind is going, like what are the things that
make people beautiful to other people? It's definitely not the shit we say about one another and to one another on so social media. That's definitely not it. And you know, I think sometimes somebody will say something that is just so abhorrent and my first response is, how are you a freaking person? Like are you raising kids? Are you teaching them this stuff? Like when you tuck them in, do you tell them to find people who are vulnerable and suffering and injure them for the sheer thrill of it?
Like wow? Like like do you show up at work pretending to be a normal person but you're this? And then I'm like, wait, what is it like to be them? And maybe it's that state in that experience And I'm not excusing any of it, but maybe that experience of being them produces that type of response.
And it's just it's a slippery slope that it's an overused term today, Craig, not your self, but that I'm with you, like what you see people's behavior, you know so much at the moment with the online echo chambers, and You're right, someone will come out and say something that's one hundred percent going to be one way or the other polarizing. And so you're gonna have two groups.
You're going to go the yeah, Bobby, you're exactly right, fuck them, and then you're gonna have the no, fuck you Bobby group, right, And it's essentially that, And it doesn't matter what you say. You're like pro A and I'm pro B. Well, it doesn't matter how well you say A or sell A. I'm never going to jump off the B train onto the A train because I'm not open minded. I don't hear what you think. I just I'm here to just critique you and argue with
you and all of those things. But I this to me is like a It's almost like this unconscious, unhealthy, ongoing form of self sabotage and wasted potential where we are spending countless hours and countless energy on bullshit that doesn't move the needle in a good way for either side, Like there's nothing I understand it. I understand that you're upset, I understand they're upset. I understand you disagree with them. But by the way, it doesn't matter what you say.
No one's going to go fucking hell, Bobby, that's a good point. All these years I've been wrong. I've just had a revelation. I owe it all to you. I've just you are the light in the darkness. Bobby. How my god, I wish I met you five years ago. You've just renovated my mind. You've just that's not happening fucking ever. So we you know, we constantly pay attention to shit that is toxic and destructive and unhelpful, while simultaneously not using our energy and attention and cognitive horsepower
to do things which could move the needle. You know what I'm saying. It's like, oh no, it's much easier for me to winge and bitch and point the finger and complain and point out the fucking flaws in everyone else then for me to go to the mirror and go, all right, Craig, what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing about your bullshit? What do you need to own up to? Craig? And you know, I've been working on me forever, and my list of bullshit I need to work on is no shorter because new things
come up all the time. I was going to ask you, do you think that we are born like it seems to me like three four two three four five year olds. Not that you and I would know because we're not dad's but we've been around enough kids, I guess, and parents and families. Do you think that kids are inherently confidence? I know there's a few variables around that context, family influence, and then they be come less confident. I feel like when I was a little kid, I was very confident.
Then I lost confidence when I started to realize that how I looked was not great. And then I spent much of my life at that point in time trying to get approval from recognition, acceptance, love from people I didn't even fucking know. I cared so much about what people thought. What do you think about that?
That's an interesting question. I don't think that kids are more confident in the way that I would define confidence, But I think they are much less self conscious, right because in part they're more present and they don't have that internal dialogue or internal editor critic turned up at a very high volume until they go out in the world and somebody points something out to them, like I know.
I think I remember clearly the exact day that I figured out I was different and it was the first day of school when I was five, right, because all the kids were asking me why I looked the way I did, but nobody was asking anybody else that question. So I thought, oh, I look different. I don't think that ever. I mean, I don't have that much vivid memories of my childhood before that, but I don't think I ever thought I was different. It didn't occur to me.
So I wouldn't have had my interactions with people as a young child shaped by that knowledge because I just don't believe I possessed it. And then my first day of school, it's like, oh, okay, And then that was my experience every single day from that point forward.
So new people who aren't familiar with you just explain what what they would have seen. I don't know. I'm sure you're okay to talk about this because you've spoken about it, but like there'll be people who today are listening to you for the first time. What what would they have seen?
Those kids, I mean, they would have seen just my lip, my nose. The shape of my teeth was just different. They were just slanted so so like one end of my lip was much higher than the other. My nose was kind of kind of turned sideways a bit, with my nostrils almost stacked one above the other. My teeth were different, the shape of my palate was it wasn't It wasn't a cleft palate. It was something else. But it could be analogous to that, you could say, so
that that's what they would have seen. And yeah, I found a couple of pits, or my wife somehow found a couple of pictures of me when I was a little kid, and yeah, it's not like terrifying, but I was different enough that kids, especially brought it up, and some adults as well, which was kind of interesting. I don't think I can't imagine myself commenting to a little kid on their physical appearance. But you know, it's just the way it happened, So it does It does shape you.
Did you think day one of school, when all of a sudden you were being in undated with questions about your appearance? Were you curious about that? Was it like were these innocent questions from kids or were these loaded questions or was it a bit of everything? Like? Did you both from that? That? Fucking hell? Am I hideous?
What is you know?
What? Did you have both right.
So some of it had, you know, malicious intent, Why do you look like that? Why are you so others were honest questions like why does your face look different than just about every other human being, probably every human life up until this point It's like, oh, okay, well, I don't know. I'm five. I didn't even realize this point there was an issue. But the point is not
about my deformed face growing up. The point is that things are introduced to us that begin to shape us once we're aware of them, whether it you know, whether it would have been oh my god, why do you why is your voice so hideous? Shut up and stop singing, or you know, your paintings don't look as good as somebody else, or any of that kind of stuff. And by the way, I think we need a degree of that, you know, even at a young age and definitely on
our adult life. But there needs to be kind of an equal balance of support and challenge to kind of keep us growing and being confident and self aware and humble enough to kind of continually reflect and evaluate ourselves and move forward. But I think sometimes they're especially things that are threatening to our sense of identity or hurt us. Yes, coming from people we love or people that we look to for some form of safety. Those hold a lot
more weight. So I think mom and dad praising your picture like that you wrote and they put it on the fridge may not inspire you to be an artist. But if dad goes, oh, man, god, this is this is you know, if you could do anything else with your life. I know you're only six, but if you could do anything else, art might not be your thing that can shape you to a much greater degree.
Yeah, that's that's kind of sad and funny. Why do you think even you know, people who are smart must have had Listen is a pretty pretty intelligent, pretty educated one way or the other, and definitely fascinated with psychology and human behavior and understanding the self. But at the same time, I do it less than I ever have in my life, but I still do it. We all know that we don't need people's approval, but nonetheless we
want it. What do you think that is about? And even perhaps more importantly, why do we periodically look from for approval from people who don't even fucking like us or know us? Is that just what is that? Is that a childhood thing? Is that just ingrained? In security.
I think it's all of the above. I don't know if it's that we don't need people's approval as much as we're defined by it, we're deeply affected by it. And yes, I do believe that to a degree, we need people's approval. And when I hear somebody say I don't, I don't give two fox what anybody thinks of me, it's like you're you're either delusional and you're part of the problem, or you're scared and you're very hurt. Someone hurt you, something happened to you. Because human beings need
each other. Because if we didn't need each other, none of us would be here. We would have died out a very long time ago. We are the slowest and weakest animal on the African savannah, no fangs, no clause. All we had are these opposable thumbs. Language and collaboration is what made that whole thing work. The story of humanity is the story of social cohesion and collaboration. So I think we need it. The question is are we defined by it? Can I take your opinion of me,
evaluate it and move forward in spite of it. I think that's the question.
That's a good point I I agree, But also I think think there's a lot of space between I really need attention and I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks, right, Like, I think you can have an awareness of what people think, and of course do I want people to listen to this conversation and think this is a pretty good conversation.
It's pretty relevant. These guys are not idiots. I'm going to keep listening and maybe to put a message, you know, once or twice a year in the postbook, in the typ Facebook page and say, hey, harps love the stuff, right, Yeah, I love that. I want that. But I think you can simultaneously have that level of awareness and enjoy people's approval if it comes, but without being a what's the word hijacked by that need. I constantly oh, look at what I did. I need this many comments, I need
this many likes. I need this much. You know, because a lot of people, obviously, and with the advent of social media, they're metric for measuring acceptance and approval is some number that happens on their Instagram or their Facebook page, or their TikTok page or whatever it is. Yeah, I just I'm with you. We need collaboration. We need to belong, we need acceptance, we need team for one of a better term. But yeah, there's this other thing which is
which I think is all healthy. But then there's this other end of the scale, which I think is an unhealthy psychological and emotional addiction to approval that absolutely fucking destroys lives and healthy minds. I think I think there's a lot of mental illness around people who are hysterically driven to get some kind of virtual approval, you know, online approval.
I think we can define this conversation as being a self authoring individual, self authored life. I am not dependent upon your opinions or your approval, but I'm also not completely self directed where I'm ignorant to it, you know what I mean. So I'm not dependent on it, but I'm not completely insensitive or unaware. And the only voice that resonates with me is my own. The only opinion that really moves me is the frame from my own perspective. I can. I can take in opinions, I could be
shaped by them, I could pay attention to them. But still, at the very same time, I have this inward understanding of what's important to me and who I am who I want to be, and how that allows me to incorporate yet at the same time transcend those opinions and still move forward and you know, act with a level of autonomy.
I was talking to her mum recently and she was telling me about she's got I think thirteen and a fifteen year old girl. Two girls, and those girls do not give a fuck about what their mum thinks, Like I don't give a shit if she endorses or supports or approves. They don't care. But they they care the most about what their girlfriends think about what boys think.
It's like they care about what some boy that they don't really know or some girl that they don't really know thinks, like one thousand times more than their own mother. Like and as she said, I hope it's a phase because and they're just like you know, these two is.
When you think about why we need each other. I mean, you know, life was pretty different a long time ago. I mean, yeah, thanks Captain obvious. But if your social reference group, if you're tribed in approve of you, you are likely going to be eaten very soon or you were going to starve to death. So you know, social support and people's opinions. I mean, for the most part, I think when people go through that stage, they know that mom loves them very deeply, and they've got mom,
you know. I think it is a phase because so much of their identity and sense of psychological safety anyway, is shaped by the PEP, by your peer groups. So obviously you would have an over index sensitivity to that.
Not saying you should be insensitive to the feelings or opinions of your parents, but I mean we all go through to one degree or another, some type of phase with that, and it usually in a lot of cases come to an end and you realize, oh wow, one mom was right, how irritating of horror and two yeah this is this is one of you know, the most important people in my life. It's probably a fairs.
Yeah, yeah, It's that whole interpersonal social dynamics, how it works, how it works at different stages of people's journey, you know, teenagers versus people in their twenties versus even now. I I think sounds I don't know how it sounds, but I'm quite careful about who I spend personal time with because in my work and in my kind of incidental
bumping into people, seeing people around. I really try to be present and be of service and value, and there's not many days that go by where I'm not out and about and I don't get asked a question by somebody right, or multiple questions, or somebody wants to talk to me or say al which I'm very grateful for, very thankful. But then away from work and awake from Craig the whatever, I am bloke, I just don't want to invest too much time in just for me, meaningless
just interactions. I'm like, I don't want to. I wouldn't tell who, of course, but there are some people that they're lovely. I just don't want to hang out though. I'm like, ah, this just doesn't and it's not all about me clearly, But you know, when you get to the point where you go, I don't have a lot of free time. I don't have a lot of personal quiet time, and so if I do have that, I either want to be alone. I want to be with somebody that I actually really am glad that I'm there.
I'm like, oh, this is good. This is better than being alone, you know, because for me, often sometimes I'm in a situation a lot where I'm like, definitely being alone is better than this. Do you ever feel like that?
Yes? Yes, all the time. I mean I avoid situations where it doesn't it doesn't have meaning. And sometimes what has meaning, Like spoke to a friend earlier today and we have these incredibly powerful and insightful work conversations, but there's also this nonsensical banter between the two of us. I find that highly meaningful. I find her company provocative in all respects. But there are just, you know, other types of interactions where I don't get physically moved like that,
I don't get emotionally engaged. It's like why am I even doing this?
Yeah?
And one of the things I struggle with is, you know, because I've discussed this before, I think secretly because it's not an attribute that I'm aware of. A lot of the time, it's usually things that upon reflection, I notice, Oh that's what that that was? Where I do I do seek approval sometimes, which is so odd because the way my mind operates doesn't put a high value on approval seeking. Yet I still do it. And I have a hard time saying no to things when I know
I should have said no to that, not yes. So I'm becoming a little bit more discerning and a little
bit more willing. Like I told somebody off over the holidays that normally, you know, I just sit with it or try to discuss things with them, And I was pretty harsh, and for a while I felt bad about that, and I was like, no, you know what, I don't have to sit here with this person out of any sense of obligation or because I feel bad and listen to this person's demeaning, disgusting perspective on other human beings. I just don't need to do that. Yeah, and I
was just clear as day. But you know, normally I think I would have tried a different path. But yeah, the short answer is the alder I get, the more discerning I am about who I spend time with and what that time consists of.
I have about five or six. They just happen to be blokes, but male friends that I have more than that. And these are not best friends, but they're guys that I know, or I've known one or two of them since school. Some of them you know, but I've known all of them for years and years, and maybe it's I think it's four. I'm trying to picture them all right now. But essentially with these guys, they have asked me, between them, hundreds of times the same questions, and it's
always something about how do I get in shape? How do I get lean? How do I get muscle? How do I get jacked? How do I get big? You know, it's always it's never the fucking meaning of life? Or you know, can you explain metaperception? Or can let's talk about what right? The nature of reality? It's always like how do I get in shape quickly, painlessly and without much effort? And you know, or they'll go, oh, I want to talk to you about food or oh, and
I just go to all of them. No, I go no. You and I have had at least thirty or forty conversations where you've asked me all these questions. And for years I've given you my time, my energy, my intellectual property, my knowledge, and my kindness, and you haven't done anything with it. When you go and do something with it, and I see that you have, for three or four months supplied the shit that I've already told you, then come back to me and we'll talk about phase two.
But until then, shut the fuck up. I don't have any new information and they're like, oh, and I mean you know they're friends, right, So I'm not trying. I go, you fucking know what to do?
No, I don't know.
You go, okay, so should you eat this or that?
Oh?
Well, of course this. Should you sit on your ass? Or should you do thirty minutes cardio day?
Oh?
Well, are you doing it?
No?
Are you eating that? No? Okay? Well there's two things you know, we both agreed on that you're not doing. Do those get back to me in three months. You know, there's just I just think there's pointless, fucking exhausting, redundant conversations that don't help either person, you know. And I go, dude, when you ready, when you are ready to actually do it, not talk about it, not pretend, not lie to me, not lie to you. Just do it, and don't tell
me you doing it. Don't ring me, don't fucking message me. Just send me a photo in four months when you look like a fucking weapon or whatever it is that you want to do. But shut the fuck up and do the work, because all this talking is fucking annoying and achieves achieves nothing. Have you ever done a version of that?
Well? I just realized two One, yeah, because I can completely relate to what you're saying. Two, I myself need to hit the gym a lot harder because I used to get questions like that all the time, but I don't anymore, so clearly, Like and I used to get that, not just from people I knew but I don't know what's going on out there, but just walking around. I used to get all these questions from random strangers. Like I would sit on the plane and the food would
come out, and people would go, do you hear that? Anyway?
People would just not, by the way, we can't hear it. What is it?
Oh, it's my wife just screaming like, hey, hey, I don't know who she's on the phone with. And she's like there's this like very loud cackle laughter.
So we go in there and tell us stop fucking heaving fun.
She is definitely having a better time than that conversation. God. Anyway, Like strangers used ton't go on the plane, Oh I see you didn't eat your muffin? Should I not eat my muffin? It's like, oh you didn't. It's like, look, first of all, it's none of my business what an adult does with their muffin or doesn't do with their muffin. Second, it's like I would never be able to get anything done or get any peace, Like I would have to tell people when they asked me, So, what do you
do for a living? Hoping it's around exercise, I'm a fundraiser for a religious cult. Would you like to discuss this more? I think you'd be perfect, and then I could just like at least have them leave me alone for the next couple of hours. But that kind of stuff came to an abrupt end. I don't know when, but I don't seem to get those questions anymore.
So I think we're going to call this episode muff and guilt. Might It's always good to catch up with you. Love seeing you, love hanging out with you. Where can people find you and connect with you?
Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn not all the time, but I am there. I will get back to you, not straight away, but I will get back to you as soon as possible.
Well, I hope you enjoy the winter that you're in the middle of. What's the Well, you're in California, right, so it doesn't really get cold, Like what is it there today? It's like what it's seventies, it's like sixty.
It's like twenty degrees during the day, and then no, it does drop to like twelve degrees at night.
So are we talking, are we talking Celsius or.
Does this yeah, oh heavens no, not fahrenheit. I was just then twelve degree Fahrenheite weather over in New York City. That's that's quite a bit chillier. But yeah, it's pretty it's pretty tamperate out here.
Well, it's always good to catch up with you. I hope you have a great year. I'm looking forward to lots of awesome conversations with you in twenty twenty six. And you're loved and appreciated. See you next time.