Mo Gawdat: 80% Of Illness Is Linked To One Thing! An Alarming Warning For The Burnout Generation! If You Feel Like This, Quit Your Job Today!

[0] There are only three ways where stress will break you.

[1] But the majority of how stress kills us is because of them.

[2] But this is completely within your control.

[3] Mo Gao, that is back.

[4] And this time, he's on a mission to help millions of people manage their stress.

[5] No matter what, their circumstances.

[6] Stress is very good for you until it kills you.

[7] And what most people don't understand is that it's an addiction.

[8] Stress is a badge of honor now.

[9] It means that I'm wanted, I'm needed.

[10] And the reality is that 80 % of the stuff you do at work is just to prove your life.

[11] But we tell ourselves we're too busy.

[12] That's a lie.

[13] But the truth is that we are getting to the point where this turning into burnout, anxiety, panic attacks.

[14] We're all suffering.

[15] Now, I think the most interesting part of stress is to understand that what breaks us is the long application of obsessions and nuisances.

[16] Newcences are stressors that are triggered every day and there are so many of them.

[17] The first 10 minutes of your day, you get 10, 15 stressors.

[18] And then obsessions create a lot of stress as a result of the lies that you told yourself this is quite serious what do we do about it though so you get stressed in four modalities mentally emotionally physically or spiritually and each of those is a different language so your mental stress speaks to you in a language that is different than your emotional stress but if you learn that language then you can easily deal with that stress when it happens and it's simple techniques so we should cover as many of them as we can.

[19] So, first of all, congratulations, Dari Vaseo, gang.

[20] We've made some progress.

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[22] Our goal is 50%.

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[24] It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get.

[25] Thank you and enjoy this episode.

[26] Moe, how are you doing?

[27] I'm here again.

[28] Love it.

[29] It's always a pleasure to be with you, Steve.

[30] I am doing, I am somewhere between the best time of my life and the most interestingly inviting for change time of my life.

[31] What do you mean?

[32] I think I'm thanks to you.

[33] you, of course, by the way, and many others.

[34] I think my message is getting to a lot of people.

[35] I think that's really, really, really, it feels such an honor to be actually making progress on my mission and what I stand for.

[36] But I have to say, I think the world is changing in so many ways that doing what we've always done may not deliver the same results.

[37] so I feel that I have to revisit very deeply how I can continue to help how I can continue to explain what I think will be probably the most needed in the times to come but also not I think most people don't realize how different the world is going to be in the next five years are you talking about AI again Mo?

[38] It's not just AI, Steve.

[39] We know that.

[40] It's not just AI.

[41] It's not just AI.

[42] What is it?

[43] I remember last time we met, in closing, I was telling you, we're hitting the perfect storm.

[44] Economics, geopolitical, climate, AI, synthetic biology.

[45] Yeah.

[46] And I think the highlight of it is what I call the end of the truth, if you think about what's about to happen in our world.

[47] And I will openly say this is going to be the most stressful time of any generation that we've ever met, you and I. It is so disruptive in so many ways.

[48] It's so disruptive.

[49] It doesn't have to be stressful.

[50] It can be navigated so beautifully.

[51] But it is going to be so unusual, so unfamiliar for so many of us, I think.

[52] what's going to be the cause of the stress the biggest reason is the pace and the unfamiliarity of the change it's not the devastation of the impact if you think about it as I said I think we can all sail through this I mean a big part of my focus this year is to help explain how people can see all that's happening and really and really sail through it in a way that doesn't halt the progress if you want but so much change in such a short amount of time I think the reality is that humans become very stressed when we have a lot of unfamiliar you know change happening in front of us and I think this is where we stand today we stand in a world where I think I think it's led by economics the level of debt in western societies that cannot be fixed with the normal execution of fiscal policies that leads governments to dilute our economies in ways that are affecting, that is, you know, basically everyone feels.

[53] But I have to admit, I think that, you know, the current economic and geopolitical view of the world is leading lots of governments in the world to yeah to to create to create conflicts that are that are going to expand beyond the current horizon I I don't know if this is how you want to start the conversation but I believe you know you know how it is it's wars are not the results of conflict conflict is the needed trigger to start of a war or the illusion of a conflict is the needed trigger to start a war that helps fiscal policy and sets geopolitical stance on situations.

[54] And I think our world is becoming quite interestingly a world where the truth is morphed in ways that you and I are unable to figure out so that we can agree to the leaders doing things that we shouldn't allow them to do.

[55] And as a result of that, most of us are going to be in a dilemma, economically, politically, sometimes safety -wise, and sometimes purpose -wise, very unusual times.

[56] When you think about the times we're living in, more broadly, what is the most important sort of context in your mind for the viewer to understand?

[57] If they're trying to understand how you're seeing the world right now because you've written a book now about the subject of stress and I know that you're someone who's got you know so many different books in your mind and in your soul that you're always working on sometimes for years and years sometimes those books never make it out so for you to commit your energy and time to writing a book about stress for me as someone that knows you well it is a clue of sorts to a perspective you have on the nature of the world what is that nature of the world what is the backdrop there that you're saying.

[58] It is the top topic in my mind.

[59] First of all, I wrote this because of my co -author Alice.

[60] Alice came to me at a point in time and she said, you know, you cannot continue to write about happiness and well -being without addressing stress, right?

[61] Alice herself had a very stressful, you know, stage of her life in her 20s and she learned through it that it's not the events of your life that stress you.

[62] It's the way that you deal with them that does, right?

[63] And so we started to work on this around 2021, but then we suddenly recognized that this probably is the topic of the time, right?

[64] So unstressable is a part of a big strategy to try and get a million people out of stress every year simply because I think the mounting stress, in the world is one, because of events outside most people's controls, and two, it's because stress will cause most stress.

[65] So what is happening in our world today, you walk the streets and you feel it, right?

[66] You know, you can easily see that people are struggling economically, for example, and so they are behaving in ways that are stressing others.

[67] Let's, you know, it's a bit less safe in the city of London, it's a bit, you know, more challenging to make ends meet and so on and so forth, right?

[68] So the truth of the matter is that the events are leading those who are not capable of dealing with stress to a situation where they will be more stressed.

[69] Okay.

[70] And you asked me what is the state of the world.

[71] I think the state of the world is that we, let me try to explain this.

[72] Think of hunter's gatherers.

[73] When hunters, gatherers, when the best hunter in the tribe went out to hunt, you could probably feed the tribe for a couple of days more, right?

[74] When the best farmer managed his or her farm better, you could probably feed the tribe for a month more.

[75] When the best manufacturer, manufactured something, you could probably feed or serve the world for a month more.

[76] Scale continues to grow, right?

[77] But at the same time, the gain of the best hunter was probably two more wives.

[78] The gain of the best farmer was probably millions of dollars.

[79] The gain of the best industrialist was probably billions of dollars.

[80] the award, the reward that you get as a result of automation.

[81] So think of it as the, you know, as the conduit that you put your efforts through to get something on the other side gets magnified a long time.

[82] Now, with what is about to happen from an economic and technological point of view, the gains are going to become massive, right?

[83] So one platform owner, such as Open AI, for example, will almost entirely own.

[84] for a while until they are disrupted the commodity that we call intelligence right they will almost have a plug in the wall where you know you plug in and you get 100 IQ points more right the amount of power that this generates for the company for the country for the economy for the culture becomes prohibitive of every other company and every other culture and so everyone's competing right most people don't talk about that because they're not aware of the scale of the conflict if you want.

[85] So we are about to head into a world where nations that are struggling economically have found an opportunity to get out of where they are at the expense of the rest of society.

[86] And that's going to cause a lot of stress.

[87] It's going to cause stress in the replacement of jobs.

[88] it's going to cause stress economically, it's going to cause stress about the uncertainty of geopolitical landscape, it's going to cause stress around, you know, even I am not able to keep up with the speed at which technology is changing, right?

[89] So that becomes, all of that change, all of that uncertainty, I think, is going to cause a situation where a lot of us are dealing with things that might make us anxious.

[90] I was looking at some of Ray Kurzweil's, He's obviously one of the leading futurists in the world.

[91] And there was a chap called, I think it was called Michael Simmons, that studied his work and produced some predictions based on his predictions.

[92] And he said that if you're 10 years old now, by the age of 60, you'll experience a year's change at today's rate in 10 days.

[93] Exactly.

[94] If you're 40 now, you'll experience, by the time you get to 60, you'll experience a year's change in three months at today's rate.

[95] And in the 21st century, we'll experience, I think he said 10 ,000 years of change, which is a thousand times more or whatever than the...

[96] than the previous century.

[97] I remember thinking about how one can navigate that without, you know, losing their mind, to be honest, if the world is changing at such a speed and you surely would feel disempowered to some degree.

[98] Yeah, I mean, one of the very first principles of unstressable is the idea of limit.

[99] So it's the idea of being able to choose what to let in and what not to let in.

[100] because there is that constant attempt to keep up with what's happening that goes beyond human ability.

[101] And in reality, as I said, I can't even keep up with what's happening.

[102] I don't know if you've seen the latest editions of Chad GPT or SORA or whatever.

[103] You can now have full conversations, full conversations with an engine that appears very human, that changes its tonalities, that answers in a very clever way, that is so political and so well presented, you know, when you ask the difficult questions, it will say things like, oh, no, you know, just is subject to human ingenuity, and when humans do this, they're not seriously.

[104] Like a machine is so good at giving me the answer that politicians give me. And it's quite interesting when you really think that this is, last time we spoke about, you know, AI was, what, a year ago?

[105] Yeah, yeah.

[106] There is a point in time.

[107] where your well -being is not, as a matter of fact, all the time, your well -being is not the result of the events happening in your life.

[108] You know, as I said, the slogan of Unstressable is it's not the events of your life that stress you.

[109] It's the way you deal with them that does.

[110] Right.

[111] And there is a point, we were chatting before we started filming.

[112] You know, you and I make choices, you and I make choices that stresses.

[113] right and and believe it or not we make those choices not because we're not intelligent enough to recognize the impact we make those choices because we are so caught up in that cycle right and that cycle keeps speeding up and you get caught up in it and you and I are the kinds of people that you know think a little too much of ourselves like I can keep I can keep going I can keep faster I can go faster and right I can take more the truth is no I think that I think we're in entering a time of human evolution, if you ask me, where it's about time that you make your well -being your number one top priority.

[114] Your number one top priority, because it seems to me that we are all getting into, forget all of the big picture stuff, you know, economic and geopolitical and so on.

[115] But ask me how many of the people that you know, friends, acquaintances, co -workers, whatever, who are not stressed, right?

[116] There are studies now that will tell, you, 70 to 80 % of clinics visits, of doctor visits, are because of stress -related illness, right?

[117] This is quite serious.

[118] And, you know, sometimes you look back at COVID days and you say, this is the biggest pandemic of our time.

[119] It's not.

[120] Stress is the biggest pandemic of our time.

[121] By a very, very, very large margin, almost everyone you know is stressed in an interesting way.

[122] Right?

[123] Now, stress in itself is not a bad thing.

[124] you know, if you have a presentation or a podcast with an important person tomorrow and you're preparing for it, stress is good for you, right?

[125] But the truth is that we are getting to the point where good is turning into burnout, it's turning into anxiety, it's turning into panic attacks, it's turning into, you know, it really is getting the toll on, you know, we're all suffering.

[126] So we have to change that.

[127] We have to find a way where we can actually deal with our world as it is because we're not going to be able to change that world so that we're not as stressed by it as the world is making it, you know, sort of dictating to us that we should be that stressed.

[128] In the book, you described stress as the new addiction.

[129] Why are we addicted to stress?

[130] It's a status symbol.

[131] It's a status symbol.

[132] So there are two ways we invite stress proudly into our life.

[133] One way is, I'm busy is a badge of honor now, right?

[134] It's like, I'm busy means I'm wanted, I'm needed, okay?

[135] It means that look at me, you know, I have enough to do, right?

[136] And sadly, if you're not in that space, you start to tell yourself, maybe I should be in that space, the opposite of sanity, if you ask me, right?

[137] Other is because we're unable to sit with our brains, we're unable to, simply say, look, I'm just going to sit down and reflect on the week.

[138] Because if you, you know, if you start to sit with yourself, demons pop up.

[139] Like, oh, you're not so, you're, you're not good enough.

[140] Oh, you know, they didn't like you when you said this.

[141] All of the negative thoughts pop up.

[142] And interestingly, that psychological discomfort, if you want, one of the easiest way beyond social media, and one of the easiest ways to get rid of it is to keep your brain busy in something else so you keep adding stuff right and and in a very interesting way i think you and i both experience that you make decisions you design your life and then the stress follows two and a half months later okay i know for a fact this is my fourth book right and even though alice is really really really doing an amazing amount of the work that's needed for the book i get burned out every book right publishing a book is just a grueling job simply because people don't buy books because of the content that's in them, right?

[143] They buy them because of the marketing that you do about them, right?

[144] And it's, you know, it's my biggest job if I want to get a million people out of stress to simply make them, make people pre -order the book.

[145] Because if they pre -order the book, the book pops up on the bestseller list and then a million people, not a million, but, you know, 100 ,000 people get to see it every day and think about stress, right?

[146] But the challenge is, you know it's going to happen.

[147] And yet you had a couple of speaking engagements and four podcast recordings and one trip to do this.

[148] And then in the middle of all of this, which actually was my year this year.

[149] And, you know, my mom fell and, you know, I lost my brother and my sister.

[150] And, you know, it was a very difficult year.

[151] But I didn't know that this was going to be the case back in November when I was planning my February and March.

[152] Right.

[153] And so we're going through those cycles.

[154] And then suddenly life pops up and goes like, all right, let me show you what it is.

[155] And yet, you know, on the next book or on the next tour or on the next, you know, work appointment, we just overload ourselves to the point that is beyond human.

[156] It is, if you ask me, it has all of the symptoms of addiction, okay?

[157] You know, it is a, you know, a substance almost that we're using.

[158] because it justifies to us that, you know, this is the way we should live.

[159] So what would my workaholic brain say?

[160] My workaholic brain would rebuttal humor and say, well, if I don't load my calendar and if I don't work 100 -hour weeks, then I'm going to miss out on my own potential.

[161] I'm not going to live the life I could have lived.

[162] I could, you know, if I keep working like this, I'm going to be able to get a, big plane and a mansion and a sports car and I'm going to be free and I'm going to have the best holidays and the best food.

[163] So that's why I'm doing it.

[164] Absolutely not the truth.

[165] You know that for a fact that the week you don't work is the week you are most productive.

[166] You know that for a fact that's, you know, that I mean, think about it.

[167] I could load my calendar with a million podcast interviews and that would never allow me the time to write a book the reason why we we we we you may have a difference you may make a difference to anything to your your your relationship with your loved ones to your career to your you know a contribution to whatever is because you allow yourself those spaces where in which creativity happens in which ingenuity happens in which in which real connection happens, in which, you know, and you know that for a fact, you know for a fact that you're heading to Australia, that you're going to produce nothing in that trip other than consuming what you've produced before.

[168] Correct?

[169] Yeah, it's true.

[170] Yeah.

[171] And so the question is, where is the balance?

[172] Is the balance in me loading my calendar for my potential or is the balance in freeing my calendar for my potential?

[173] So this year, for example, I have, I struggled with two things.

[174] I mean, my team is an incredible team who are very motivated, very, very hardworking, and each carries a separate responsibility, right?

[175] So they'd all pull on my availability, right, to get things achieved.

[176] And so what do they do?

[177] One will pop up and say, I have this incredible guest, you know, this Stephen Bartlett guy's great guy.

[178] guy, you should have him on your podcast.

[179] You're going to be in London that day.

[180] Why don't you invite him off?

[181] And then another will say, oh, but hold on, you know, this newspaper wants to talk to you.

[182] And then a third will say, oh, but there is this customer that wants you to speak and so on, right?

[183] And what ends up happening is that you and I don't blame you.

[184] And every one of us, when presented with opportunities, you go like, come on, man, push yourself a little bit.

[185] Right?

[186] Two things happen.

[187] You push yourself to the point where you end up getting burned out.

[188] okay by the way i say that with love but especially when you get older like your body just can't take it anymore right at the same time what ends up happening is that you're you're depriving yourself of the true productivity the true productivity is that one hour in the morning where you're not stressed where your calendar is not loaded or you sit down and write the perfect email to someone that changes something or make the perfect call to someone that does something for you or you write down a concept that fits in your next book and so on and so forth.

[189] And that applies to everyone.

[190] It is that one hour in the morning where I make my coffee and I sit with Hannah, my wife, and you connect so deeply.

[191] It's that one hour.

[192] And the question is, how valuable is that?

[193] How valuable is that hour as compared to the consumption hours?

[194] All of the hours where you're being used not to realize your potential, but to, but to, but to, but to, react to potentially you've already achieved.

[195] And for all of work, I mean, when I ran my business at Google, I refused to be in meetings openly.

[196] I was like, why?

[197] And by the way, I encouraged my people.

[198] The idea of showing up in a meeting is just to say, hey, by the way, I'm here.

[199] I clicked in in the morning, stamped my entry card or whatever.

[200] I don't know what you call it in English, but I attended, and I am alive.

[201] look at me. I'm sending an email just so that, you know, I exist.

[202] I think in my entire career, 12 years at Google, I sent four emails.

[203] I initiated four emails.

[204] Yes, I responded to emails that basically said, Mo, what do you think of that?

[205] If an email didn't say, Mo, what did you think of that?

[206] I wouldn't respond.

[207] Why?

[208] They're not asking for my opinion.

[209] Why shouldn't you sending initiating more emails?

[210] Because you initiate one email and you get a shitload of emails.

[211] emails back, right?

[212] And what's the point?

[213] Right?

[214] Why don't you just simply tell yourself, hey, by the way, I have no need to prove that I exist.

[215] The proof that I exist is I deliver my numbers.

[216] Right?

[217] And so when I, when I initiated an email people read it.

[218] So how did you get things done then?

[219] Called people.

[220] Phone calls.

[221] Or walks and conversations in the corridors or you know a quick like hey by the way what's up with this and we had weekly reviews and we had you know lots of connections human connections right by the way most of the time nothing requires you to interrupt the flow most of the time to interrupt the flow of the week nothing cannot be discussed in the weekly review on Monday right and I think that the reality is that we're creating you're saying it's an addiction you're creating you're creating all of those circumstances to make it look like everything is so you know like it's so crucial and it's so urgent and it's so important because we can squeeze out that 5 % more efficiency yeah I give up on the 5 % more and 95 % of the efficiency you can achieve with 20 % of the work I'm trying to figure out if there's you have to concede that you will be less innovative, productive if you wean yourself off your stress addiction.

[222] Because this is obviously the battle I think I have with myself, if I'm honest.

[223] I think I tell myself the story that you know, working really, really hard, working all hours and really throwing myself into it is because I'm going to get close to my potential and then someday I don't have to work as much, my life will be free.

[224] And these are the kind of, you know, narratives I tell myself, which as I say them, I know, I'm like, that's embarrassing.

[225] I am so sorry I laughed.

[226] But this is, this is identical to the story of, you know, there is this very, very interesting fable of the billionaire that goes to the beach somewhere and he finds a fisherman.

[227] And the fisherman goes fishing and he gets two fish, you know, sells one in the market and then feeds his family the other one.

[228] And so the billionaire goes like, no, no, no, no, you're wrong.

[229] You're wrong.

[230] You're doing this wrong.

[231] You should, you know, go get four fish or as many as you can.

[232] And, you know, and basically sell them in the market and he goes like, why.

[233] And he says, then you can buy a big, boat.

[234] And what do I do with a bigger boat?

[235] You buy even more, you get even more fish, right?

[236] And, you know, what do I do with that?

[237] You sell all of it and you get a fleet.

[238] And, you know, what do you do with the fleet?

[239] You get even more fish.

[240] And he says, why?

[241] And he goes, like, then you can retire happily and sit on, you know, live in a place near the ocean and go out in your boat every morning.

[242] And the guy goes like, but I'm going out in my boat every morning already.

[243] Like, why are you telling me this story?

[244] We've been given a dream.

[245] We've been given a dream, okay?

[246] And that dream is more is better, faster is better.

[247] We've been given a dream that says, I need to, I need a billion dollars to feel comfortable.

[248] Not really.

[249] I mean, you're not, you're not a fancy guy.

[250] You don't drive a Lamborghini, right?

[251] So the truth is, the truth is we really, really, really can have a much bigger impact.

[252] And impact on what, by the way?

[253] Because if the impact is, I'm going to change the world, is that a better and more important impact than I'm going to hug my daughter?

[254] Because think about it, relatively, I'm going to spend time with my girlfriend or my wife.

[255] I'm going to, you know, relatively, it's you succeed at what you set your priority to.

[256] And is there a balance somewhere?

[257] Is there a balance that says, I'm going to limit my life?

[258] to achieve impact but the 95 % give up the 5 % and save yourself 80 % of the effort most people when people go to work I'm going to say this is going to upset a lot of people but 80 % of the stuff you do at work is just to prove you're alive okay 20 % of what you do at work actually achieves the numbers okay that's the truth of all work generated.

[259] And in your own day, you know, can you actually do it with the objective of I'm going to achieve 100 % of my target, 110 % of my target, but I'm going to do that with the minimum amount of effort.

[260] Fairly to my employer, I'm not cheating anyone, I'm delivering.

[261] Is the problem that we don't have a target?

[262] Because I don't have a target.

[263] So for me, it's because I can, I should.

[264] I maximize whatever I can do to achieve financial gains or, you know, followers' gains or numbers on the podcast and so on.

[265] Amazing.

[266] Just add a target and say, and I maximize my well -being in the process.

[267] Suddenly the equation becomes incredibly different.

[268] It enables you to do this longer.

[269] It enables you to do it more effectively.

[270] One of the backbone models of unstressable is something we call the three else.

[271] learn and lesson, right?

[272] And limit, believe it or not, is the absolute core of a lot of what we call nuisances.

[273] So let me try to explain this at the very top level.

[274] The sources of your, of stress in your life, we call them a ton of stress, T -O -N -N, right?

[275] And, you know, trauma, obsessions, nuisances, and noise.

[276] Trauma happens from outside you.

[277] It's a major change in your life.

[278] And it hits you so hard and it breaks you for a short time.

[279] But believe it or not, 91 % of people will face at least one, but often several, PTSD -inducing traumatic event in their life.

[280] That's like the loss of a loved one or, you know, losing your job so unexpectedly to put to the point you have to suffer or whatever, okay, being in a war zone and so on.

[281] Believe it or not, 93 % of them will recover within three months.

[282] Trauma is not what breaks us, right?

[283] The interesting stuff that breaks us is the long application of obsessions, nuisances and trauma and noise.

[284] Obsessions are macro issues that you tell yourself.

[285] Don't exist in the real world at all, okay?

[286] Like I have a belly, a little belly, so no one will ever love me. You can you can obsess about this for the rest of your life, right?

[287] And make it your life story.

[288] and basically create a lot of stress as a result of that script that you told yourself, okay?

[289] Nusances are the little ones, the little forms of that, you know, things that are triggered every day by you passing in front of the mirror as you walk out of the door and you go like, oh man, you're still that or whatever, right?

[290] Believe it or not, most of our stress, however, comes because of what we call nuisances.

[291] Newcences are stressors that don't break you, they're not trauma.

[292] Okay.

[293] But there are so many of them that you include in your life.

[294] So many of them.

[295] When Alice wrote, you know, the limit bit of the chapter, she, she wrote a beautiful script about the first five minutes or 10 minutes of your day.

[296] And she started to count the stressors that you trigger in your life in those minutes from the very loud alarm, right, to the, to the, you know, opening your social media and seeing something upsetting or, you know, opening WhatsApp and getting a message you don't like.

[297] and so on and so forth, right?

[298] And this is five minutes, 10 minutes, before you even had your coffee, you get 10, 15 stressors.

[299] The trick is how beneficial for your life have those been?

[300] And if we're aware, if you're able to look at those stressors and say, hold on, I'm going to take an inventory of all of the things that stressed me last week, a genuinely honest inventory.

[301] And I'm going to tell myself, oh, by the way, I don't need this, I don't need this, I don't need this, I don't need this.

[302] Right?

[303] My commute, if I leave 10 minutes early, would it be easier?

[304] If I leave 10 minutes late, would it be easier?

[305] If I take music or the diary of the CEO podcast with me, would it become easier?

[306] And if you actually attentively, deliberately look at all of the nuisances in your life, how many of them can you limit?

[307] Countless, I promise you, you can limit countless nuisances.

[308] You can remove that friend that's annoying you.

[309] Okay, by simply texting them and saying, I don't want to be your friend anymore.

[310] Or simply winding down the conversations.

[311] Or when they send you something or talk to you about something, you go like, oh, very interesting, right?

[312] Instead of engaging in those things.

[313] Can you limit the amount of junk food you let into your life?

[314] Can you limit the amount of restrictions and control that you apply to yourself in your life?

[315] And millions of little things.

[316] A lot of them feel like obligations.

[317] Do they really?

[318] Yeah.

[319] Yeah, do you want to live out of obligation?

[320] Do you know what I mean?

[321] Friendships feel like obligations.

[322] We've committed to do something, go to an event, take part in a charity, whatever it is, you know.

[323] And they feel like obligations now.

[324] So we feel like we have to see it through, even if it's causing us stress or discomfort.

[325] She's amazing coming from you because you're one of the most shrewd business people I know.

[326] I'm not even talking about myself.

[327] Although actually I am talking about myself because some of the things I was thinking about do feel like obligations.

[328] And I do wish I. I could just...

[329] And how do you do that in business, Steve?

[330] I know you really well.

[331] You'd say a straight no without explanation.

[332] You wouldn't even apologise.

[333] It's the things that I've already managed to tie myself in because, you know, old Steve overestimated future Steve's capacity.

[334] Old more and future more.

[335] Old Steve stitches up future Steve because, you know, old Steve is super ambitious and he doesn't understand there's only 24 hours a day.

[336] And, you know, look, I mean, I'm not immune to this.

[337] It's actually my biggest issue.

[338] My biggest challenge is this beginning of this year, I sat down and I realized I had 18 full -time jobs.

[339] Sounds familiar.

[340] Right?

[341] And I cut them down to nine, right?

[342] And I went to everyone I love and I celebrated and I said, look, I caught them down by 50%.

[343] And they looked at me and said, they're still nine.

[344] You must have had to upset some people.

[345] I simply said that's it, we're not doing this project.

[346] You're going to hurt some people's feelings there.

[347] The truth is, by the way, I think we're talking at your life and my life, but this applies to everyone listening, right?

[348] You have this person that constantly calls you and says, hey, let's go out for coffee.

[349] And the coffee's annoying like hell, right?

[350] And you're like, yeah, but I've known them for 20 years and they're really lovely.

[351] I swear to you, I had one of my really close, wonderful friends.

[352] who was really, really struggling with his ego.

[353] So most of the conversations would be around him trying to prove that he's good enough.

[354] And I had a lovely conversation with him.

[355] I said, at the end of one of those coffee meetings, I said, I think we shouldn't meet again.

[356] He said, what do you mean?

[357] You're traveling.

[358] I said, no, no, every time I sit next to you, you make me miserable.

[359] And he said, why?

[360] And I said, because you're constantly trying to do A, B, and C. Can you change that, please?

[361] Right?

[362] Simple.

[363] If he managed to change it, I would have stayed.

[364] He didn't manage to change it.

[365] We met again and I said, look, I love you very much and I think we should be friends, but not to the point where we meet every Sunday.

[366] It doesn't make any sense for me to volunteer part of my Sunday to suffer.

[367] Right?

[368] And it is actually quite possible to do that lovingly by saying, look, I realize that you are in this stage, it's not my responsibility to take you out of it, by the way.

[369] That's not what friends are for.

[370] My responsibility as a friend is to be there when you ask me a specific thing that relates to what you're going through that I'm capable of providing.

[371] But just sitting there for four hours to listen to something that I'm not able to change doesn't make any sense.

[372] And some of our listeners will be stuck in that relationship, right?

[373] That is really abusive or really not effective And what are they doing?

[374] It's an obligation, you know, we've been together for years.

[375] It's, you know, he or she is not that bad.

[376] And is that the truth.

[377] Is, you know, can you make choices that simply say, I will put my well -being, my mental well -being first?

[378] What is the short -term cost of putting ourselves first?

[379] Because that's often the thing that prevents us doing it, is there is a clear short -term cost.

[380] I understand the long -term gain.

[381] potentially, but the short -term thing is the thing that keeps us in prison.

[382] So Hannah, my wonderful wife is a therapist.

[383] So therapy is not a topic, you know, psychology is not a topic I researched heavily.

[384] So she's stitching me quite a bit.

[385] And one of the biggest eye -openerers for me is that she said, we love consistency.

[386] We hate change, even if change is good for us.

[387] Okay.

[388] So if we, you know, follow a script that says, I am ugly or I am not good enough or whatever changing that script that script is painful but changing that script is more painful because your your survival mechanism says I'm familiar with this pain I know how to deal with this pain I don't want the uncertainty right so you know the way we started this podcast and you asked me what what is the most stressful thing about the modern world is that unfamiliarity of the future where we're unable to know what it looks like and so we resist we resist the change we say look i am in this place i know how to do it very well it's hurting my back it's keeping me on long flights it's doing this it's doing that but i'm really very familiar with it okay i always make a a big joke about this when i was leaving google x so i i i was you know obviously soul for happy was booming one you know my My one billion happy mission was 10 million happy when we started the first print of the book.

[389] And 10 million took eight weeks.

[390] Like you have to tell yourself, sorry for my English, fuck Google.

[391] Like, you know, I have to focus on this, right?

[392] But when I was leaving Google and Google was so kind to me and I was very fortunate and I made a reasonable amount of money, don't have most of it now anymore.

[393] But at the time, I started to tell myself, but what about the future of I am my daughter?

[394] Okay, but what about my ex and her needs?

[395] What about this?

[396] What about that?

[397] Do I have the financial resources to do this?

[398] Typical engineer, I started that spreadsheet, okay?

[399] Put every possible expense, put every possible, you know, a source of revenue and so on.

[400] And it appeared to be okay, right?

[401] And so my brain volunteers to tell me, oh, but hold on, Mo, what if there is a nuclear war because the, you know, the Iranians don't agree with the Americans and that, that the nuclear dust comes to Dubai, so your real estate portfolio in Dubai gets wiped out and what will happen then?

[402] And yeah, if you want to continue to hold on to your, you know, safety mechanisms, you're going to end up in a place where there is always something that could go wrong.

[403] And the answer was, if that happens, I think I'll be a lot more concerned about other things than how much revenue I'm making at the time, right?

[404] And the truth is for every single one of us, We are afraid of the change.

[405] So we stick to the familiar.

[406] And the familiar could be killing us.

[407] And it's quite interesting that we know it could be killing us, whatever scale you are in in the world.

[408] Right?

[409] You know, you're studying something you're not enjoying.

[410] But it's familiar.

[411] I went on that path.

[412] It's been three years already.

[413] Right?

[414] And I'm not saying jump and say, that's it and start over.

[415] That consistency matters.

[416] but tell yourself I have one more year to finish I'll finish this year with the minimum effort to achieve the result and I'll start to look at other parts of my life by reinvesting my hours you're stuck in that relationship but dating is horrible I don't want to leave that person around yeah but you know if it's not working that sooner or later you're going to leave the person right and I think my story and your stories are great examples of what happens when you leave that person I mean, not yours, but mine.

[417] Like when you're available so that when the right person shows up, you're there.

[418] Your true obligation to yourself is to put yourself in those situations of uncertainty that you chose calculated risks rather than let the world push you.

[419] You know, like Alice constantly speaks about, the world will always push you to either heal or change direction.

[420] Quite interestingly, the way we write both of us is very, very, interesting because Alice is so soft and feminine and spiritual in her writing and I'm a freaking engineer like everything to me is an equation and a bullet point and so on so I always say the world will push you to change direction or to learn brainiac she says the world will push you to change direction or to heal they're more or less the same but learning is like sort of the brainiac process of it and and healing is the so why not why not get yourself in the place where the world wants you to be so that you hear or change direction.

[421] Why not make that decision yourself?

[422] So many of us contend with loss aversion, don't we?

[423] And this is, you know, Daniel Kahnman, he passed away, I think three or four days ago.

[424] And he's, yeah, he's a real, I mean, he's the pioneer.

[425] He was an amazing writer, an amazing thinker.

[426] He was incredible, really, really incredible individual that's inspired so many people, including myself in so many ways.

[427] But I remember that paper he produced, I think in the 1980s about loss ofversion.

[428] I know, the paintings.

[429] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[430] And in that work where he discovers this term loss aversion, he talks about how humans need the gain to be two to three times bigger than the thing they lose.

[431] The possible loss, yeah.

[432] Yeah, so the pain we experience from losing £10 on the floor or $10 on the floor isn't equal to the pleasure we experience from finding 10.

[433] We'd have to find 20 or 30 to equal the pain of losing 10.

[434] And that speaks, I think, in some part to why people stay in the situation they're in, because for me to go after a better relationship, it better appear to be two to three times better than the one I'm going to lose or the job.

[435] It has to appear to be two to three times better than the one I'm sacrificing.

[436] And that almost keeps us pinned down.

[437] I actually did a bit of research a couple of years ago as to why we have lost aversion, like what's the evolutionary basis?

[438] And the best answer I could find was that we come from a background of trading with like other rapes and stuff.

[439] And there's often a risk that the person might not trade back or the, you know, so we factor that into the trade.

[440] Yeah.

[441] We factor in the probability that it won't be an equal trade.

[442] Life's not an equal trade.

[443] We pursue things and we don't get them.

[444] And I think that's part of what's holding us in situations that aren't serving us and in the stress you describe.

[445] It's surprising, though, if you look back at your life and you really take a factual view of the history of your life, most of the time when you lost something, you opened up a space that allowed something else to walk in, right?

[446] This is the truth of life, right?

[447] If you, you know, if you lose a job, that's the only time where you're allowed to actually find another job.

[448] It's a shame hindsight doesn't have the wisdom of foresight.

[449] Because your brain is a survival mechanism.

[450] Your brain is constantly ignoring all of that you've learned and saying there could be a nuclear war.

[451] Right?

[452] And it's quite interesting when you really think about it because I always say, if your worst fear fears have ever fears have ever happened you wouldn't be here right now okay and by the way if some of them happened surprisingly you're still here isn't that interesting so yes your worst fear happened and you made it because you never factor in the reality of how resilient you actually are and I think that the trick really is not is also not the fact that we should be a little conservative and concerned about certain things things.

[453] But how much of our life should we be concerned about?

[454] Like if you if you really rank the things that are important in your life, how many of them actually matter enough so that you don't make the change?

[455] Four, five, right?

[456] But we hold on to 200 ,000 other things below the four or five, 200.

[457] Let's say 2 ,000.

[458] Realistically, for each and every one of us, that you know my Hannah when Hannah came to my home the first time she looked at my home and she said oh Hannah Hannah is my wife yeah I fell in love badly badly and you know and again because I had space in my life just remember that we're going to talk about that later are we really are we going to talk about unstressable at all the when she came to my home the first time she said oh because she follows my podcast and she knows my work and so on.

[459] She said, oh, you're not a minimalist.

[460] You're a minimalist want to be.

[461] And I said, what do you mean?

[462] Because I am reasonably minimalist, right?

[463] But she has that, you know, attitude to things where she says, it's only going to come into my life if I truly love it, truly love it.

[464] Like, you know, I have 16 types of tea in my cupboard.

[465] Some of them have never tasted, right?

[466] She has two, but she really loves them.

[467] Right.

[468] And I think that's the trick.

[469] The trick is when you rank life, you hold on to that, you know, box of Earl Grey that you bought a year ago and, you know, you're like, yeah, I'll drink it one day.

[470] Will you really?

[471] You hold on to that friend that you met when you were four and, you know, yeah, this changed you changed.

[472] Right.

[473] But we hold on to those things.

[474] And the trick is can we actually let go of those things?

[475] Can we leave the space for other things to come in or for us to chill and find expansion in our life, right?

[476] So I, you know, I used to have that attitude of trying every Saturday to throw 10 things away from my home.

[477] Okay.

[478] Believe it or not, endlessly.

[479] Endlessly, you can throw 10 things or give away 10, give away 10 things from your home.

[480] You know, last Saturday, I had this beautiful humidifier, you know, just to make the room a little more humid, okay?

[481] And I was like, should I keep it?

[482] Should I throw it away?

[483] Should I keep it?

[484] Should I throw it away?

[485] And then I plugged it in and it didn't work.

[486] I haven't used it for like a year and a half.

[487] And you have to imagine that so many of those things are there.

[488] They're bugging you down.

[489] They're stressing your life.

[490] So if they're not used, they're stressing you.

[491] And you can choose to leave them, just leave them behind.

[492] Do you believe that?

[493] Do you believe that if you're not using it, even if it's just sat there, then it's stressing you out?

[494] 100%.

[495] And it's actually, and you're depriving it of the opportunity to live.

[496] So think about, I know this is philosophical, but a humidifier is supposed to humidify.

[497] Right.

[498] It's not supposed to sit there and look pretty.

[499] If you're not using it, someone else will use it.

[500] And believe it or not, the simple impact of when they're using it, you save them the need to actually buy another one.

[501] Right.

[502] And in doing that, you might have contributed a tiny bit to our planet.

[503] And, you know, the hoarding that we have in our lives, the number of things that we keep.

[504] You know, I love Arabic incense.

[505] And like everything.

[506] And you see sometimes silly things, like, you know, so what, each of those like $10, I had like 14 different cents, right?

[507] And then I realized, you know what, any time I light an incense, I light one.

[508] Okay.

[509] And when I need to order another one, I'll get it within one day.

[510] So when this one is about to finish and I've really enjoyed it, really loved it, I'll order another one.

[511] Limit.

[512] You're supposed to constantly limit the number of things in your life.

[513] By the way, you know, you may think it's not taking away from your life, but it's taking space, it's taking attention, it's taking the space of something else.

[514] It's, you know, requiring you to deal with it, clean it, dust it.

[515] it's just why is this what you refer to in that stress quadrant from unstressable as noise noise no noise is what happens from within your head so it's little stressors that you don't that don't happen in the real world okay it's little stressors that you know when I'm when I'm looking at myself in the mirror or when I'm driving and thinking about oh you messed up on that thing, right?

[516] It's generated.

[517] So the ton of stress is very straightforward.

[518] It is external and internal, macro and micro.

[519] So if you look at stress coming from within you or from outside you, right, internal and external, and if you look at it coming from a small reason of stress or a big reason of stress, the great example is trauma is macro external, macro meaning it's a very very high stressful impact you know very significant comes from outside you we don't cause ourselves trauma something else causes that trauma right that trauma trauma capital t here and and and yeah so it's noise is micro it's like that constant nagging in your head like you know you you you need to your hair is starting to show white like so constant nagging it's like you're getting old okay it's It's small, it doesn't kill you, but if you say it every day, it starts to become quite significant, which actually is really, I think the most interesting part of stress is to understand that stress is very good for you, right, until it kills you.

[520] And I think what most people don't understand is that there are only three ways where stress will break you.

[521] One is trauma outside you, but we said you'll recover very quickly.

[522] The other is burnout and the third is anticipation of stress.

[523] okay and these two are completely within your control so trauma is outside your control but 93 % will recover in three months 96 % will recover in six months and most of us will actually get post -traumatic growth so post trauma you'll be fine okay the majority of how stress kills us is burnout which is a large a very large number of small stressors so the burnout equation as I wrote it in the book is the number of stressors multiplied by the intensity of each multiplied by the time of application of each multiplied by the frequency of application.

[524] So take a commute, for example.

[525] If you commute is one stressor multiplied by if it's a two hours commute and it's very annoying and you're surrounded by people, it's very intense.

[526] And if you have to do it twice a day, it's very different than if you do it four times a day.

[527] And if you have to do it every day, it's very different than if you have to do it once a week.

[528] so you add all of those up the sigma of all of those when that reaches the breaking point of what you can carry as a human you'll break right and and normally you'll break because of a tiny thing like your best friend goes like hey chubby and you go like what I can't take this anymore and you cannot take out go out of bed anymore you know previously you would go like yeah skinny whatever you would just laugh about it and I think the trick is is to save yourself from burnout, it's not that one last stressor, right?

[529] It is all of the other 400 stressors that piled up so that when that last one is applied, you break.

[530] Right?

[531] And it is quite interesting because we normally never break because of stress.

[532] It's not the event that breaks us.

[533] Okay.

[534] So one of the interesting topics and unstressable is, is, of course, Alice, in her very spiritual soft, you know, practice approach, you know, wrote her parts of the book and I was like, Alice, I just still don't get it.

[535] And she said, what don't you get?

[536] And in my approach, I said, in physics, right, stress is very defined.

[537] Stress is very clear in physics, right?

[538] An object is stressed when you stress an object, you apply a force to a square area, to the cross -section of the object, right?

[539] The object, the stress is not just the result of the force.

[540] It's not the external stressor, the external challenge or threat that we face that stresses us.

[541] It's your square area that also plays in that equation.

[542] So basically, our stress as humans, if you apply the same concept of physics, is the intensity of the challenges that you face, divided by the skills and resources and the abilities that you have to deal with that stress.

[543] Right?

[544] So the stress equation is your, you know, the challenge divided by the resources.

[545] Okay.

[546] And that's why someone, you know, like you may be able to carry things that would make someone freak out.

[547] It's the reason why someone like me would, you know, laugh about things that made me freak out in my 20s.

[548] Right?

[549] Because you, not be, because the event is different, it's because you increased your resources.

[550] So how does someone increase their resources?

[551] Because I think everybody listening to this now, either they're that person, or they know someone who flaps.

[552] Yeah.

[553] When things get a little bit tricky, they flap.

[554] And when I'm saying flap, if you don't know what I'm saying, I mean, like, they panic or they worry or they have like a bit of a meltdown.

[555] But panic and worry is a different topic.

[556] We should absolutely cover that, right?

[557] So panic and worry is breaking down under the anticipation.

[558] of threats.

[559] Yeah.

[560] But when it comes to dealing with stress, right?

[561] You know, I don't know how to say it, but someone in at work when I used to be in the corporate world would walk in and say, oh, the CEO has changed.

[562] You know, we've been working on this deal for the last nine months and the CEO has changed.

[563] Everything has collapsed.

[564] And I'm like, no, it hasn't.

[565] No, I've done 200 deals in my life where the CEO has changed and have to rebuild your network and you have to do this and that and so on.

[566] I mean, I think the most valuable example I remember in my life is to the 2008 crisis.

[567] So when I joined Google, my boss, which I really adore at the time, he was so direct and very shrewd.

[568] And so the introduction, when I joined the management meeting the first day, is he says, hey, everyone, this is Mo. He's bringing the average age of the company up.

[569] And I was like, one more sentence, please?

[570] Like, please say something else he didn't.

[571] That was it.

[572] The introduction is he was bringing the average age of the company up.

[573] But when the economic crisis of 2008 happened, Google completely panics.

[574] And the older group goes like, it's not the first time.

[575] We've seen economic crisis before.

[576] It's cyclical.

[577] This is what happens.

[578] Maybe we should behave this way, right?

[579] It's the same event, but you have more resources because you've seen it over and over.

[580] Right.

[581] So it's your accountability as a person to tell yourself that I need to learn the techniques, okay, that I need to understand to be able to manage.

[582] stress.

[583] And the way we wrote them in unsressable is we said you get stressed in four modalities.

[584] You get stressed mentally, get stressed emotionally, physically or spiritually.

[585] And each of those is a different, I don't know how to say, a different language course.

[586] So your mental stress speaks to you and responds to you in a language that is different than your emotional stress.

[587] It's different than your physical stress.

[588] That's different than your spiritual stress.

[589] Okay.

[590] But if you learn that language, then you can easily deal with that stress when it happens.

[591] And it's simple techniques, like, you know, we probably should cover as many of them as we can.

[592] But take the simplest thing.

[593] Mental stress is the kind of stress that wakes you up at 4 a .m. at night because a thought is running through your head.

[594] You can't stop it, right?

[595] Simple techniques are write the thought down, okay?

[596] Promise yourself that you're going to think about it in the morning before you go to bed.

[597] Most of the time, if you simply let the thought reside on paper, it won't reside in your head, okay?

[598] And keep the promise.

[599] So when you wake up the next morning, actually think about that thought that you made the promise to your brain, that you will.

[600] Simple technique, and there are hundreds of those.

[601] Like, you know, we have in the mental stress space, for example, we have something we call the gym, GY, M, M, M, M. So eight different practices, right?

[602] And the trick here is learn that technique, apply that technique, and you will be able to deal with stress a little bit better.

[603] And creating a support network, your ability to question your thoughts.

[604] You know, I have a technique that I call Meet Becky, the idea that you allow your brain to express things and share them rather than block them and so on and so forth, right?

[605] And that skill in mental stress is very, very, very different than emotional stress, okay?

[606] Because your brain speaks to you all the time.

[607] It rarely ever, if at all, ever tells you the truth.

[608] That's the language that your brain speaks.

[609] It only tells you what it thinks is the truth, okay?

[610] Your emotions speak to you all the time, and it's always the truth, right?

[611] So if you're afraid, you're afraid there is no, there's no lying about that, okay?

[612] But the problem is that emotions are so subtle, they're so blended, they're brush strokes of multiple emotions overlaid on each other and we're told not to acknowledge them at all so we don't even respond to the language right your body speaks in in aches and pains okay why that's mine before you go to Australia right but but yeah but we ignore it completely we go like this is normal this is not it's normal to have aches and pains you know I'm traveling for 16 hours must have aches and pains right No, you must not.

[613] You have aches and pains because you're stressing your body.

[614] But if your body is your priority, you're not going to have the aches and pains, right?

[615] Your spirit would cry through its intuition.

[616] I mean, spirit here is not a religious thing, right?

[617] But your non -physical part, call it your consciousness, the part that doesn't relate to your physical form.

[618] It sends you signals all the time related to your purpose and what you're supposed to be doing through your intuition.

[619] how many of us listen to our intuition when we're running through life and so these are skills this is the entire body of the book the skills of how do you build your resources in terms of spotting by listening to the language that the modality speaks to you spotting that you're being stressed and then how do you actually speak back to it and deal with it with the resources that you need so that you're not that stressed anymore how do we know how do we spot our own stress because it's hard isn't it when we've told ourselves a different story about the feeling or that sensation we tell ourselves different stories about it we say you know this this is this ache or pain is good because it means growth or this burnout or this anxiety is good because it means you know productivity but how do we truly know that we are we've pushed ourselves too far and I think the the easiest one to recognize believe it or not is physical stress physical stress is undeniable it is when you when you when you when you when you have a sore throat you know something's wrong yeah and you tell yourself something's wrong okay when you have back pain you know something's wrong yeah but you don't tell yourself something's wrong okay and the sim the the the symptoms of physical stress are very straightforward you know digestive issues headaches you're unable to sleep very well you're unable to rest when you you sleep and so on.

[620] So it's very simple.

[621] Your body theoretically is a machine that should work seamlessly.

[622] Unless there is a disease or an illness or whatever, it should work seamlessly.

[623] It should simply be like a luxury car.

[624] You run it and it runs.

[625] If it starts to shake and it's not performing well, you have to stop and say what is going on.

[626] And every stress will give you a slightly different physical signature, right?

[627] Anxiety is felt in your stomach, right?

[628] You know, fear is all over your body.

[629] You just want to run.

[630] You feel that, like you can feel it.

[631] The trick is how do you get embodied?

[632] How do you allow yourself to sit with your body and say, so, you know, Alice writes about a very normal practice is a body scan.

[633] And so few of us do it with you, you know, on a long flight, you should sit with your body and go like, okay, close your eyes, you know, take a deep breath and scan your body from your top of your head all the way to your toes and see where it hurts, right?

[634] And ask yourself, how much more effective in your mission would you be if it doesn't hurt?

[635] I think this is the part that a lot of workholics, you know, you described it as an addiction earlier.

[636] Now, if you sat down with someone who had another form of addiction and told them this, like logically, they'd refuse it.

[637] Yeah, they'd say, yeah, I know this, injecting this thing in me is bad, but addictions are complicated emotional states, aren't they?

[638] They're like deep psychological emotional states, and obviously there's a chemical element to it, but often we find that there's a trauma or there's an underlying issue with self -esteem or whatever it might be that's causing it.

[639] So although there's many people listening to this now, including myself, that I go, okay, I know what you're saying is true, but part of me thinks I'm a little bit dragged and not very driven, so I never had much good drive.

[640] You?

[641] But that's kind of what I imagine a lot of people's rebuttal is to that.

[642] It's like, yeah, I know this.

[643] Like someone said to me before that, you know, I'm embodying the listener now.

[644] People have told me that I need to stop.

[645] And I'm thinking of some of my best friends.

[646] Some of my best friends are literally like, they're killing themselves because of their work.

[647] And, like, objectively, if you ask them, they'd say, I'm killing myself because of this work.

[648] What's your favorite band?

[649] I think is Kanye.

[650] And I have to separate the art from the individual for any reason.

[651] But it's the art. It's the pushing boundaries, making things that are unapologetically unique, you know.

[652] This already makes this episode quite a very useful one.

[653] But theoretically, if Kanye is performing in London tonight.

[654] Yeah.

[655] Would you go?

[656] Yes.

[657] You'd find the time.

[658] Yeah.

[659] It's a lie.

[660] We tell ourselves we're too busy.

[661] It's a lie.

[662] We're not.

[663] Anyone who's too busy has not watched Game of Thrones.

[664] Because if you allowed yourself to watch Game of Thrones, that's like 600 hours of your life.

[665] Okay?

[666] You're not too busy.

[667] Anyone who's too busy.

[668] This is the interesting bit.

[669] The interesting bit is if you are.

[670] too busy, okay, when you get home, you're unable to do anything, right?

[671] And you waste three hours binge watching something or completely brain dead.

[672] Right?

[673] The truth is that those three hours are wasted three hours.

[674] You could actually waste them during the day.

[675] They're wasted anyway and use them differently when you get home.

[676] The truth is not, we're not too busy.

[677] And the problem is this.

[678] And I rarely ever use threats as a motivation.

[679] But the problem is you're going to put in the time.

[680] You're going to put in the time by working on your stress beforehand or lying in bed when you're burnt out.

[681] That's the truth.

[682] The truth is the body keeps the score, you know, the book, right?

[683] Eventually your body is going to go, say, I can't do this anymore.

[684] Right?

[685] Your mind is going to say, I just can't deal with this.

[686] and even I'm you know I'm theoretically trained in this my whole life I've managed very very complex very stressful jobs I run so many things at the same time and I will tell you openly I burn out at the end of every book launch I'm hoping this year I'm not okay but but that's the truth the truth is I will eventually after running really hard for three weeks I will eventually spend a week and a half unable to do anything.

[687] On average, that means I work the week and a half.

[688] So why do you keep doing it to yourself?

[689] I work because of what you're, because of what you and I struggle with.

[690] We assigned to ourselves things beforehand, right?

[691] This year I'm saying I may not get there.

[692] Why?

[693] Because when I'm publishing, so we're filming this long before I'm stressful.

[694] Right?

[695] And at the same time, when the publication date happens, I'm doing nothing during those two weeks or two and a half weeks, nothing but unstressable.

[696] Very unlike the typical me, right?

[697] The typical me thinks of himself as Superman.

[698] I'm super old man now, right?

[699] And it's quite interesting because at the end of the day, if I plug so many things in my life, eventually, eventually, believe it or not, you balance it out.

[700] what about the people who really don't have a choice is there anybody that doesn't have a choice you know I'm thinking about the people that work on the factory line and they're providing they're working two jobs providing for a family that are you know struggling what about those people first of all I think these are the most honorable commended people that we can ever talk about but I will before I talk about them I'll ask you to think about how blessed you are okay and everyone who's not in that position anyone who's not in a war zone anyone who was not born to a very very difficult circumstances if you're not one of those then ask yourself why are you pushing yourself so hard right now if you're one of those people remember it's limit learn and listen okay if your external circumstances don't you're not able to change them you can change your ability to deal with the stress.

[701] No, I have to ask you a question.

[702] You know me. You've come to know me. We've known each other for years now.

[703] You know, you've observed my life.

[704] You kind of understand all the pieces in my life.

[705] You understand what I do here.

[706] You've also seen behind the scenes.

[707] You know how obsessive I am about the things that I'm involved in.

[708] What is the bullshit that I'm telling myself?

[709] Of all the people that could like, do you know what I'm saying?

[710] I've actually ponded this for some time because I do have moments where I go, So, Steve, you don't have to work anymore.

[711] You don't have to, you're not going to, like, nothing I'm going to accomplish in my life is going to make me any more, anything, really, to myself.

[712] It's not going to make me happy, that's for sure.

[713] It's not going to mean that I can live better in any way.

[714] So why am I like, why am I doing this?

[715] What is the bullshit I'm telling myself?

[716] You don't have a ceiling.

[717] Your structure doesn't have a ceiling.

[718] So I told you before we started this conversation.

[719] So you and I make a reasonable amount of revenue from speaking engagements, for example.

[720] So my policy was very straightforward.

[721] When I started my mission, One Billion Happy, I openly said, I'm going to go to any place that has more than 50 people and I'm going to speak for free.

[722] Right.

[723] And then I met my wonderful business manager, Monir.

[724] And when you said, that's not right.

[725] I said, what do you mean?

[726] And he said, if it's a profit -making organization, okay, that's going to hire you, or if it's a paying, event so they're going to use you and then sell tickets you should charge them okay that's the cycle the complete cycle of life otherwise go and speak for free right and that tiny change created revenue right the question is how much revenue is enough because i was willing to do it for free remember that so in my conversation with monier very very professional also a brother to me said monier he said This is the target for this year.

[727] I said, if I give you the restriction of 20 travel days for the year or 20 trips, basically, would you be able to make that target?

[728] He said, well, in that case, we're going to have to change the dynamics and we're going to have to maybe, can we make them 25?

[729] No, I said 20 trips a year.

[730] Okay.

[731] Everything else I can do online, everything else I can do.

[732] The question is, where's the ceiling?

[733] The boundary.

[734] Where's the boundary?

[735] Right.

[736] And boundaries are not.

[737] set by the world for you.

[738] The world will keep pushing you.

[739] You and I talk about our lives, which are not typical lives.

[740] But where's the boundary, if or any of our listeners, where's your boundary with your friends?

[741] Okay.

[742] Where's your boundary with the arguments with your partner?

[743] Where is your boundary with, you know, the challenges that you are willing to accept at work, right?

[744] Where's your boundaries?

[745] Let me play devil's advocate then.

[746] So you made a limit.

[747] You know, you said, I'll do, what's it, 20?

[748] Yeah, 20 trips a year.

[749] You'll do 20 trips a year.

[750] Okay.

[751] So devil's advocate would be, well, Mo, if you did 40, or if you did 30, you'd make X amount more money, and that money can be put towards your mission of making a million people unstressable.

[752] If you just did a little bit more, you'd be close.

[753] to achieving your mission?

[754] The truth is, if I made only 20, and I created a program online, I'd create more revenue from that, and I can put that revenue to unstressable, but it would reach more people at the same time.

[755] Do you think part of this, I was just thinking, as you started to interrupt, but I was thinking, I think part of it with me is I'm really good at measuring, and it's really easy, if we use the case of speaking appointments, it's really easy to measure the gain, and it's very difficult to measure the loss or the cost.

[756] Yeah, you're constantly driven by opportunity cost.

[757] Yeah.

[758] If you sell your health and well -being for revenue, it's always opportunity cost.

[759] It's always opportunity costs.

[760] It's always, but they're paying me X. How can I leave that on the table?

[761] Okay, you leave that on the table because you don't need X, right?

[762] And two, because X, the true cost of X is not three hours.

[763] or an hour that you speak.

[764] The true cost of X is your well -being, your health.

[765] What you're selling is your time, is your joy, is your health.

[766] That's what you're selling.

[767] You're not selling your intellectual property.

[768] And your relationships.

[769] And your relationships.

[770] Okay.

[771] I told you I fell in love.

[772] And suddenly everything became very different.

[773] Because in all honesty, yeah, I'd lose it.

[774] the speaking engagement to spend an extra day with my wife.

[775] We have the most incredible conversations, right?

[776] She enlightens me on so many different ways.

[777] And I can promise you, you know, finders, keepers, my book about love, when I sit with Hannah and she teaches me about psychology and the impact of psychology on dating, that wasn't part of my approach at all.

[778] Okay, so believe it or not, that day is eventually going to create a book or a training or whatever that's going to change more people's life than anything I could do with money.

[779] Remember, by the way, the other side of this is that our biggest resource, you know, when we were at Google, I had this conversation at a point in time with people and I said, why does Google .org contribute money?

[780] why don't we contribute code we're so much better at producing code than any other organizations that can contribute money can we write disaster recovery software can we write this can we code that that becomes our contribution what is your contribution I would say I love you you're so dear to me I'd say you're not observing the season your first contribution in your 20s was you with your energy with your drive I mean look at your books more and more and more maturity more and more deliverables very cleverly thought through look at what you do here if you don't mind me saying Steve this is your biggest contribution right this could happen in a week a quarter now you do two a week yeah yeah mad absolutely mad absolutely mad i love you but two a week you're stressing yourself and you're stressing the listeners the only reason why you what you do two a week is because it gives you more views where's the rush and it's your life that's being traded for listeners so you're saying i'm sorry i i know you really well you know how you love your girlfriend How much time did you spend with her in the last quarter?

[781] Not enough.

[782] And how much of it was completely attentively restful?

[783] Oh my God.

[784] Even less.

[785] Yeah.

[786] I flew over here with my daughter.

[787] So my daughter was in Dubai.

[788] She came to London with me. Best nine hours ever.

[789] Ever.

[790] Okay?

[791] What would I have been doing with that time on the flight?

[792] Writing, thinking, responding to emails.

[793] What a waste of life?

[794] what a waste of life you see the trick is we said the stress equation is the external challenges divided by the resources you have to deal with them how many of the external challenges do we create how many of those do we invite in our life how many of those are the result of us not setting boundaries and the question is to achieve what to achieve what right i i had a very dear friend of mine that was in a relationship that was horrible okay and i said why are you there she said well we share the same apartment can't leave him because you know i can't afford rent on my own i said roommate like where is how is that challenging okay how is that challenging why would you allow yourself to go through this when there are alternatives.

[795] I was wondering if people's childhood plays a big role in their bias towards, you know, this workholism, this sort of self -inflicted stress disease that many of us put ourselves through.

[796] Because, you know, like first and second generation immigrants who, where their mother or their father was fighting for survival, they almost like inherit that belief that life and work is about survival.

[797] even though it's not objectively true anymore.

[798] It's not objectively true for me, but I still feel like I've got my mother's survival thing in me. And coupled with that, I've got a lot of shame from being different when I was younger and trying to fit in and being the only black kid and chemically relaxing my hair and listening to the cooks and the Arctic monkeys to pretend I was a white, you know, rich person.

[799] Those are the only two bands I know because those are the ones I used to pretend to listen to.

[800] And I just wonder for those people, it feels like, you know, when I said how am I bullshitting myself earlier to you, I was expecting you to say something about you think I, you would say to me, I think that I've connected my work to my self -esteem and my self -worth in some deep way and I'm still trying to fight for my like sense of self -worth.

[801] I'm still trying to convince myself that I'm enough with my work and people, you know, this is this is in some respects why we all just like take the promotion.

[802] we take the opportunity.

[803] I think about this.

[804] How many people decline a promotion because they consider the implications of it'll have on their family or their, you know.

[805] Of my favorite chapters in Happy Sexy Millionaire was how you quit your CEO job.

[806] Yeah.

[807] And when you really look at that, you basically were saying, it's killing me. There was no joy in it anymore.

[808] Yeah.

[809] And it's quite interesting.

[810] The challenge for most of us humans is that we're very capable on achieving what we set our mind to.

[811] The question is always what do we set our mind to?

[812] Okay?

[813] If you ask me, you're in a treadmill.

[814] Yeah.

[815] You're like, you know, that hamster wheel.

[816] Yeah.

[817] Okay?

[818] And there is no ceiling.

[819] So the hamster wheel is basically saying, I'm here, I'm going to run like mad.

[820] I'm really, I'm a very good hamster.

[821] Okay?

[822] And as long as you're in that wheel, you're going to run like mad and you're very capable.

[823] You keep running.

[824] To achieve what?

[825] That's the whole question.

[826] When do we put our well -being in the equation?

[827] Later.

[828] Yeah?

[829] So I'll tell you very openly.

[830] One of the most interesting thoughts I have in my life, who did I interview recently?

[831] I don't remember, but remember when we spoke about heartbeats.

[832] Yeah.

[833] heartbeats are your only resource this is the only asset you come to the world with right and you may think you know you're healthy your athletic that you have let's say 40 more years of full energy truth that's true but how many more years do you have in your twenties none gone right and the question is is how many more years will you have in your 30s?

[834] Because this season of life is very different.

[835] I hope I'll be able to continue to contribute for maybe 10, 15 more years, right?

[836] How many will I be able to contribute with the same sharpness of mind and the same ability to beat the machines?

[837] Right?

[838] Three.

[839] That's when it starts to become.

[840] quite interesting.

[841] I told you this story before when my son, Habibi Ali, died.

[842] Ebel sat next to me, my ex -wife.

[843] She was flipping through a photo album.

[844] She said, oh my God, he was such a beautiful infant.

[845] And then he died.

[846] I was like, what is she talking about?

[847] Like, he died when he was 21.

[848] And she said, and then he became this beautiful child, as she's flipping through the album, and then he died.

[849] And then this young man showed up the teenager.

[850] And then the teenager died.

[851] Right?

[852] And I just couldn't get what she's saying until eventually she said, and then there was this handsome, tall, wonderful man. And that actually really died.

[853] Okay?

[854] And the truth is, my son as an infant was there for two years.

[855] If you pass those two years, you never get them again.

[856] Never get them again, right?

[857] Then, you know, he starts to mess his words and is so funny and so loving and so, you know, cuddly.

[858] But he does that for two years.

[859] And then they're gone and you never get them again.

[860] And, you know, you get the child, but then the child becomes the teenager and you never get any of them again.

[861] And yet we tell ourselves, yeah, fine, fine, fine.

[862] When I'm done building whatever it is that I set myself as an objective to build I'll hug them oh my God I promise you I was sitting I hope Aya doesn't listen to this I was sitting next to Aya on the flight asking myself why the F did I not take her on every flight your daughter yeah why did I not take her on every flight like what more joy could I get in life and the reasons why are because of illusions that we tell ourselves.

[863] Oh, no, no, no, I'm busy.

[864] Oh, no, this is expensive.

[865] Oh, no, you know, she needs to focus on this.

[866] Oh, no. And by the way, I'm not being the stupid romantic.

[867] It's like, oh, it's all about connection.

[868] It's not.

[869] But you need a certain balance of connection.

[870] I looked at Ayah and I said, you know, we've been working with Aya recently on her financial, you know, capabilities and how to manage money and how to invest and la la la right that's why should that prevent me from taking her shopping like one of the biggest joys i always had when she was in canada and i used to go visit her was we would go out shopping and she'd buy those that beautiful pair of jeans or whatever those shoes or whatever you know adidas made this new thing it's going to make a bit of buy it baby right and i was capable of of doing that and and the trick was Why did I stop?

[871] Because I changed my objective.

[872] So why do you do what you do, Stephen?

[873] It's because your objective is set to maximize without a ceiling.

[874] Your objective is driven by your young years.

[875] I say that with a ton of respect that said there is a possibility that there is nothing at all.

[876] So I might as well have as much as I can.

[877] okay it doesn't matter you know i i always said that about ali i used to i used to save for ali invest for ali issue insurance policies for ali and start businesses in the majors that he used to go through in university right so ali changed majors three times every time he he changed majors i would start a business in that major so that when he graduates he runs it okay and then ali dies.

[878] How many assurances, how many of those assurances work for Ali?

[879] How many of those assurances allowed me to spend the time with Ali?

[880] Do you realize that?

[881] Do you realize that?

[882] While life is supposed to be lived, we spend most of it planning to live it.

[883] And once again, I hope that this doesn't alienate people because that applies at every single level.

[884] It applies at the level of that fisherman.

[885] that goes out to buy to get two fish one for his family and one for his business and two is enough the fear of i'm not going to get fish tomorrow is what would drive him to get three okay but by the way if you get three you might get you might not get fish tomorrow and after tomorrow so now you need four but what if you don't fish for a week where is the ceiling are you saying as well then in order to create that ceiling or boundary we all need to know We need to know our ceiling, but we also need to know our minimum.

[886] You need to know what you need.

[887] Yeah.

[888] What do you need?

[889] What do I need?

[890] You black t -shirt, guy.

[891] What do you need?

[892] Gosh.

[893] Well, it somewhat depends because when you're running a bunch of different businesses and stuff like that.

[894] Do you need to run a bunch of businesses and different businesses?

[895] No. No, I don't need to.

[896] But when you are, you kind of raise what you need, right?

[897] because you then need to make sure you bring in certain amounts of capital and you can pay you everybody but I don't need to start the businesses in the first place.

[898] So if I just did this podcast and I stripped it all back, I wouldn't need much.

[899] I'd have so much free time, it's unbelievable.

[900] If I just did this podcast, oh my God, so I'd have like, well, of the seven days a week, I'd have about five spare.

[901] Correct.

[902] You'd basically film for two weeks a quarter.

[903] Yeah.

[904] Two podcasts or three.

[905] three podcasts a day and that's it.

[906] And then what, but the problem is with that free time, I'd just fill it.

[907] Ooh, that's the other one.

[908] I just start writing books and I'd just make, you know, I'd find something else to do.

[909] The question is, the real problem is we're not able to sit with our brains.

[910] Yeah.

[911] Yeah.

[912] So we keep ourselves busy.

[913] But there's studies that show this.

[914] You remember that famous study where they ask people if you'd rather sit and wait for 15 minutes or give yourself an electric shock and a staggering amount of people.

[915] gave themselves the electric shock because they brought some stimulation and sitting with...

[916] Did I ever tell you the story about my entry into L .A.?

[917] Oh, my God.

[918] Jack, the passport thing.

[919] Oh, well, I went through that a week ago.

[920] Did you?

[921] They put me in immigration for five, six hours.

[922] I lost my passport, but I've been in there twice now and you can't touch your phone.

[923] You can't touch your phone.

[924] So they sat me down for nine hours to find the reason why they shouldn't let me in.

[925] and then they put me in detention for 37 hours best 37 hours of my life because I walked in and I immediately said silent retreat I'm just going to meditate and sleep and relax and rest and I would do eight hours of silence and then get up and joke with the wonderful security people by the way it's the system that put me there it's not the people and I would get up and joke with them and then sit for eight hours of silence practically though how does someone who's listening to this now that has built that life you know where they're in the corporate world and they're the managing director of this fund or whatever they are they're listening to this now they're on the way to work on the tube or the plane or the train or whatever and they've built up all of these like commitments so they're getting the WhatsApp they're getting the emails they're getting the Pilates instructor checking you they've built that noise into their life how do they set about unpacking it without like destroying their life you can do it granular or you can do it at macro levels so limit remember limit learn and listen limit the first module the first ability is what can i limit 80 % of that person's life is not needed okay 80 % of the money unless you give your money to charity is a waste of resources because you cannot buy you cannot enjoy two cars at the same time you cannot enjoy two beds at the same time you cannot simple really huh And the trick is this.

[926] You can add the micro level, tell yourself, I met when I was in my chief business officer of Google X, I met this wonderful CEO who, you know, basically I appeared so chill.

[927] And I asked him and I said, how are you so chill?

[928] And he said, I do only four meetings a day at most, each is an hour.

[929] Okay?

[930] Nothing less, nothing more.

[931] And I said, how?

[932] And he said, I'm a CEO.

[933] If I do meetings that are shorter than an hour, they're too operational.

[934] If I do meetings that are longer than an hour, they haven't figured it out yet.

[935] Okay?

[936] I'm so sorry, Steve, but how much of your business can be run by Oliver?

[937] Okay.

[938] You know, your CEOs should run that business.

[939] But again, I don't want to limit this to the top business people of the world.

[940] How much of your life?

[941] as a salesman.

[942] So my sales team would work, would walk into my review meetings, and they would present 12 opportunities every week.

[943] And I would go like, okay, I'm going to focus on number one and number four.

[944] Don't talk to me about the other 10.

[945] They go like, why?

[946] Why?

[947] This is like a billion dollars of business.

[948] And I'm like, yeah, but this is enough.

[949] Those are more difficult.

[950] Those customers are interested.

[951] We can serve them better.

[952] If you serve them better, you're going to close the deal.

[953] right go do two and by the way if there are 12 we should hire more salespeople but if you focus on two you'll do 110 % of your target what's better than that and normally what ends up happening is they focus they continue to focus on all 12 and you know what happens that portfolio approach reality hits you're running a portfolio so that 10 of them will fail and two will run will happen you lose the 10 that's the reality right you're spreading yourself so thin that 10 of them are not getting your attention anyway.

[954] They're just bothering you in the back of your mind.

[955] And you lose the 10.

[956] Instead of to run 3, 50 % buffer.

[957] Okay, devil's advocate again here.

[958] I'm thinking about the listener who every entrepreneur that they admire, every person they admire.

[959] Lies.

[960] It's lies and you're contributing to it, my friend.

[961] No, but I'm trying to.

[962] How many of those people, we know all of them?

[963] How many of them are happy?

[964] Oh my God, that's a different question.

[965] How many of them are well?

[966] So here's what I was going to say is when you hear about the people you admire and that first year or two in starting the thing that they went on to do that, maybe even gives them fulfillment now, you know, all of those people will say there was no work -life balance at the start.

[967] We had to work really hard and that's just the way it is.

[968] I was working in a call center, I was building my business on the side, I had to work until midnight or else.

[969] I would expect that.

[970] I couldn't have left the call center.

[971] I respect that.

[972] That's me. That's why I tell people.

[973] You're not working in the court center anymore.

[974] I'm not, no. But for that first year or two.

[975] Fine.

[976] If you want to do a year or two, fine.

[977] Okay.

[978] But the lie is it's never ending.

[979] I told you openly for every one of us, not just you, there's no ceiling.

[980] There's no preview.

[981] There's no pre -plan of when I reach this, it's enough.

[982] 20 trips is enough.

[983] Yeah.

[984] okay you know what happens when you when you limit yourself to 20 trips your value becomes higher yeah you make the same amount of revenue okay you know what happens when you limit yourself to two deals you serve the customer better you know what happens when you limit yourself to five friends they become real friends you go out and meet them instead of text them so you're saying cancel the third podcast a week who are you going to launch are you going to do a third podcast a week Look at your face.

[985] I struggled with that too because I've been trying to build an Arabic podcast for a while.

[986] Yeah.

[987] Which I have to say is needed in the region.

[988] Yeah.

[989] Really needed the region of 350 million people.

[990] And in reality, I'm one of the few that can run an Arabic podcast that's as successful as slow -mo, right?

[991] But the cost of that podcast is my health.

[992] So there will be a moment in my life where one of my projects will be handed over, the Arabic podcast will show up.

[993] but I sat with the person that I was working on this with and I said, look, it's not going to be right if I do it now.

[994] 52 more episodes a year beyond my capabilities.

[995] Think about one kick -ass diary of the CEO a week.

[996] Does that slash your sponsorship revenue by half?

[997] I wouldn't even know.

[998] I wouldn't even know.

[999] This is the truth.

[1000] people might not believe it's the truth but um the sponsorship revenue is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things i think when we started for the first three years we said i said to the team and the team know this because they all get to see the bank accounts and stuff i said to them if we make any money from this we put it back into the show now we've obviously we make more money than we can put into the show so it's like i see the message in our slack channel that we've made this much money from the podcast or whatever else but obviously the impact of that is i mean what does it mean we can hire more people we can have a student in L .A. and in America at the same time, we can buy a big boat or buy a fleet.

[1001] I'm never going to buy a boat because I'm so busy.

[1002] I'm talking about the fishermen.

[1003] Oh, right.

[1004] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[1005] Yeah, yeah.

[1006] Okay.

[1007] So the real question is, if you allowed yourself to measure a different objective, not the number of listeners, but the impact on every listener.

[1008] Okay, interesting.

[1009] Not the number of guests, but the question.

[1010] quality of guests, right?

[1011] Not the number of topics, but the topics that you believe in.

[1012] And how does that look over the long term?

[1013] So you're saying you'd get to the same place over the long term.

[1014] You'll not become Steve Jobs.

[1015] When I say get to the same place, my rebuttal in my brain was like, because we built a platform, people like you, when you've got something good to talk about, like your books, you came and we had that incredible conversation episode 101, my favorite of all time, that was a byproduct of us fighting hard to build the platform where you felt or whoever's decision it was.

[1016] I'm assuming that so you're saying that because you're doing two episodes a week, by the way, when I did one 101, it was one episode a week.

[1017] But because you're doing two episodes a week, you're enabling more people to have a channel to speak.

[1018] Right.

[1019] There are 62 ,000 books written last year.

[1020] You need to step up.

[1021] up your game.

[1022] If you want to serve all books.

[1023] No, I don't want to sell all books.

[1024] I just want the best ones.

[1025] So the question really is, again, what's the ceiling?

[1026] How many good books can you spread a year?

[1027] Right?

[1028] I mean, when you look at slow -mo, I do the opposite of what you do.

[1029] So a very interesting part of what I do with slow -mo is I rarely ever get a celebrity.

[1030] It's a podcast by the people for the people, if you want, sort of.

[1031] Like a lot of people who will listen and say, I can relate.

[1032] to this.

[1033] This is part of my story.

[1034] And the game here is that 7 .8 million possible guests.

[1035] Billion, sorry, right?

[1036] That's impossible.

[1037] Impossible.

[1038] Okay.

[1039] The question truly is, what do I want to stand for?

[1040] I mean, there are so many ways I can grow slow -mo.

[1041] Is that what I stand for?

[1042] Why do I want to grow it.

[1043] I mean, look at my Instagram and your Instagram.

[1044] This is a very interesting conversation.

[1045] My Instagram, I think, is 150 ,000 people or something.

[1046] Yours is what?

[1047] 15 million, gazillion, gazillion something like that?

[1048] I don't know, but it's a very large number.

[1049] Right?

[1050] What difference does it make?

[1051] Well, you said to me, you said, do you want to make a million people unstressed?

[1052] Yeah.

[1053] A billion people happy or whatever it was.

[1054] It's my ambition.

[1055] But do I have to do that?

[1056] or do people listening to this, are people listening to this going to tell other people about this so that they come and listen to this, right?

[1057] But, you know, if this podcast had six listeners, you probably wouldn't have chose it for your book tour.

[1058] I would have chosen a thousand of them.

[1059] No, it's fine.

[1060] But the question really is very straightforward.

[1061] The question is, you're there already.

[1062] Yeah, I understand that.

[1063] This is why I ask, like, what's the bullshit I'm telling myself?

[1064] Because I do realize that there's some kind of bullshit I'm telling myself at a deep level about why I need to work hard.

[1065] And it's clearer to me now more than ever that the cost is significant and the reward is not clear.

[1066] It's diminishing.

[1067] Yeah, like, well, I don't even know what the reward is.

[1068] The most rewarding thing I do you've identified is this.

[1069] Yeah.

[1070] It's the most impactful thing I do.

[1071] It's the thing people appreciate the most.

[1072] Open so many minds.

[1073] It's a wonderful.

[1074] part of people's life.

[1075] It is this.

[1076] So I asked myself, why don't I just do this?

[1077] Because there are 40 other companies that I'm involved in as an investor or six or seven that I founded.

[1078] And, you know, before you were sat there today, there was a founder, an hour before you arrived of another business that I'm involved in, and I'm a co -founder of.

[1079] And we were talking about funding in this plan and this plan and this plan.

[1080] And I do go, like, what insanity is this?

[1081] And I know it's not just me. It's a lot of people out there that have engaged in this like voluntary insanity of overstressing their lives, the addiction of stresses you describe it in the book.

[1082] And a lot of us, as I said earlier, like we know it's insanity when we zoom out and think about it on a piece of paper.

[1083] But there's something so tempting about the addiction.

[1084] It's the only script that you know.

[1085] Yeah.

[1086] So I keep telling myself, when there was a time, if you really dig deep back in, probably 2009.

[1087] I did a public talk somewhere and it was filmed.

[1088] And they asked me, what is your life's purpose?

[1089] And I said, my life's purpose is to help startups build technology that is as complex as Google outside the Western world.

[1090] So specific, you very, very interesting thinker.

[1091] Truth is, I am not that person.

[1092] Why did you say that?

[1093] Because at the time, I was in a system where I was very good at helping startups.

[1094] But it wasn't my life's purpose.

[1095] Okay?

[1096] And as a result, I coached 50 startups a week.

[1097] When I used to go to California, I used to tell me from the number of startups that needed my time, I used to say I'm going to be in Blue Bottle Cafe on University Avenue between 11 and 6 p .m. or 5 p .m. on Sundays, come over, catch me, and I'll try to help you.

[1098] And I would meet 15, 20 of them every single week, right?

[1099] Why?

[1100] It's not my life's purpose at all.

[1101] I focus my life now on things that are very different.

[1102] Happiness, well -being, you know, and it wasn't me that chose this path, by the way.

[1103] That purpose was, chose me by Ali leaving the world.

[1104] And at a moment where I was ready.

[1105] Okay, that's what, that's, and what does that mean?

[1106] It means that I had to leave Google X. I had to leave a career around being an angel investor and being this and being that.

[1107] And, you know, now people text me and say, Mo, I have this new startup and I really need you to invest.

[1108] And I say, I don't invest.

[1109] Period.

[1110] Why?

[1111] Because investment is not giving someone some money.

[1112] Investment is a call every four hours.

[1113] Hey, we have this opportunity.

[1114] We have, who wants that?

[1115] Okay.

[1116] And the real question is, and I say it with worry that a lot of people might have already switched off the podcast by now.

[1117] It's a big lie.

[1118] The whole endless cycle of growth and progress is a big lie.

[1119] It's the reason why we're allowing AI into our life without thinking of the dangers of AI.

[1120] Because it's a big lie.

[1121] More is better, faster is better, more progress is better, is it?

[1122] is it is it there is a point until which we've done really well with increased life expectancy because of technology from I think it was 37 100 some years ago to now 70 some or 80 some I don't know right we've increased human life expectancy but when my wonderful friend Peter Diamandes wants to increase life infinitely or Ray Kurzweil says, you know, the technology can make us live forever.

[1123] Really?

[1124] Do I want to live forever?

[1125] Right?

[1126] Why do I want to live forever?

[1127] Is there a fear of death that I need to deal with?

[1128] Is there a childhood story that I need to look into?

[1129] Okay.

[1130] And the real question is, everything is positive until you have too much of it.

[1131] Stress itself is positive unless you let it linger forever.

[1132] really is going to change the world.

[1133] And it's interesting how this kind of coalesces with the subject of stress.

[1134] I saw what the founder of Klarna said recently about his company.

[1135] He said that AI is now doing the equivalent of 800 customer service jobs at Klarna.

[1136] And there was a report that came out in the UK saying that about 8 million UK jobs were vulnerable to AI.

[1137] And it's now, we're now moving in into an area where things are going to be apparently a lot easier.

[1138] And ease has always been the temptation that lures us into easier for who for the ones that are hiring the AI or the ones that lost their jobs well I was thinking about the we talk about productivity when we're saying easier we say oh you know companies are going to be more productive people are going to be more productive what does productive mean more more create more for less so that the so that the consumer gets it cheaper or that the founder makes more money.

[1139] I guess the promise, as I hear it, is both, will be able to bring down the cost of things, you know, so that...

[1140] I mean, I love how the simple lie of the true value of money is ignored in all of this.

[1141] You see, the whole idea of less or more.

[1142] I mean, how much is a British pound?

[1143] Is it, you know, one and a bit dollars, or is it for free when your bank prints it on their machines through fraction of reserve to give it to someone so that this someone pays it back with interest?

[1144] What is money?

[1145] And the real question is, could our economies, when you really strip our economies from money, could our economies behave, operate on the fact that we mine, something turn it into something give it to someone and the entire if we changed all of the of the economic chain of the currency that's going through from dollars to something else would that make any difference at all the the reality of the matter is that if you if you created a company that built products sold them at the end of the year paid all of the salaries of the employees and gave you a reasonable profit.

[1146] Why does it have to grow 2 % every year or 5 % or 20 %?

[1147] It has to grow because the economy based on debt requires that we create more GDP next year than last year so that we pay the debt.

[1148] If you add it all up, if you're borrowing a thousand and he's borrowing 1 ,000 and the economy this year needs to pay 1 ,200 next year, the GDP next year needs to become 1 ,200 instead of the 1 ,000, right?

[1149] So we're all following a cycle, and we're in that big lie that says, we need more productivity, we need more productivity.

[1150] No, we don't.

[1151] Before those cycles of money, if we really are talking about changing the world, before those cycles of money gripped us, all you needed to do as a shoemaker is to make two shoes so that you can trade them for 14 eggs, and the guy that had the hands needed to create 28 eggs, so that he can get one shoe and a couple of vegetables, right?

[1152] And that was it.

[1153] There was no inflation.

[1154] There was no, you see, the whole trick is that we get engaged in the details.

[1155] And I don't undermine technology in any way.

[1156] It's changed our life.

[1157] It's the reason you and I are able to talk to people now.

[1158] Until a certain point of growth and progress, it's useful.

[1159] Beyond that certain point of growth and progress, it works against you.

[1160] Too much of anything is bad.

[1161] If you could press a button now and stop AI, I would 100 % do it.

[1162] Really?

[1163] 100%.

[1164] We talked about this last time, but obviously a lot's happened since we last spoke in the last nine months.

[1165] I mean, there's become a real AI race globally, Microsoft, Facebook.

[1166] Have you used chat GPT recently?

[1167] Yeah.

[1168] I used the audio one.

[1169] The voice engine one they released yesterday.

[1170] Well, I've used it through a software called 11 Labs.

[1171] I actually invested in a company called Wonder Labs, WonderCraft.

[1172] Sorry, Wondercraft AI that do voice synthesizing, etc. But did you see yesterday at OpenA