The Struggle and Triumph of Living Authentically with Dan Munro (Round 4)

Dan Munro is back for a fourth conversation, and this might be my favourite one yet. Dan is a coach and the author of "The Naked Truth", and his whole project is honesty: what it costs to tell the truth, and what it costs not to. This time Sami Marcus from Beyond Stoicism joins me to dig in.

A lot has changed for Dan since his last visit. He has become a father, which has forced new questions about what honest parenting actually looks like and how far you take it with your kids. We get into honesty in dating and relationships and the fallout it can cause, how impermanence has reshuffled his priorities, and why he has moved his work toward courses and short-form video. Sami and Dan both share where this has cost them personally.

Dan Munro's newsletter, The Daily Dose of Integrity: danthecoach.substack.com

Dan's book "The Naked Truth": on Amazon

Sami Marcus, Beyond Stoicism: instagram.com/beyondstoicism

Also mentioned, "No More Mr. Nice Guy": on Amazon

Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co

The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

So, Dan, I think it's been a few years since we had our last podcast. This is officially podcast number three. And I I remember the last podcast, we were specifically talking about The Naked Truth, your book. And I think it was just about to be released or was being released at that time. That was roughly the time period that it was released. So I'd like to just start and just ask you like what's been going on for the last few years. You know, what have you been up to since the book release?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I think uh my life's kind of been revolving around fatherhood uh since then. Yeah, so having a kid's been a big change for me, or a big shift in focus, I guess. I've gone from trying to save the world to just being a dad, you know. Um which is a a more realistic goal, I think. Um and that's you know, and that's I guess related to the book, you know, being an honest parent since Chloe started to be able to interact and listen to me and stuff, and trying to practice what I preach in like a real high-stakes environment, like raising a kid where I can't kind of like fuck around and use her as a guinea pig. I actually have to really be sure that this is the right way to do things. So yeah, we've we've both m my wife and I are both big on honesty and we've been applying that as a parenting technique, I guess. Or the absence of techniques is probably a better way of putting it. Um so far, so good. It's a case study of one. I can't draw any major conclusions, but I'm not seeing any massive trauma wounds. Um so yeah, so being a dad, and uh it's been a struggle because um Chloe doesn't sleep very well, so I've been sleep deprived for like three years, and uh in Czech Republic it's just us. We don't really have much in the way of family support or anything, so just been kind of battling it out, coming out of that a little bit now. Um and then I you know getting COVID and having a hellish couple of months, but other than that, it's it's getting better.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I want to get into parenting with you. Um my son just turned five, so I have some questions. Um it's a big topic for me over the last few years. Um but what I'd like to also get an update on what you've been working on. Has anything changed? Have you has the way that you've created content changed, or you know, in terms of your work, how has that evolved over the last few years too?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah, I think uh I was kind of joking around not trying to save the world anymore. Um, it's not really a joke. Like I had an epiphany when my wife was pregnant, uh, that kind of the world can't be saved, and it's like this ego thing that I hadn't seen that was driving a lot of my work was actually wanting to be this big impact, you know. It was actually stoic stuff, you know, as Marcus Aurelius, you know, we're all dust and everyone forgets the people who remember us, that kind of thing. Kind of got to me. I did a reread of meditations on the holiday. I was like, oh fuck, what am I doing? Like trying to save everybody, what am I doing? You know, can't I just be happy like just coaching a few people, having a bit of an impact on some people, and just you know, doing my thing, especially just can I just focus on being a dad, maybe just try and get that right, that like that's hard enough, you know? I can't saving the world on top of that. Um so that was a big shift for me mentally, and so it changed kind of it took away this, I don't know, I don't know if neediness is the right word, but ambition certainly. But not a healthy ambition, kind of uh driven by unseen trauma wounds type ambition. It took that away, just took it away overnight pretty much. Took a weight off my shoulders, like, oh I don't have to do that actually, I can just live a normal little forgettable life, and that's actually I'm actually totally cool with that. So that was nice. Um yeah, and so that that focused me on just being a dad more, and in terms of my content, I started putting out the one-minute type videos, shorter stuff, because I've got so many I've got like uh whatever the opposite of writers block. I've got like floodgates open. Like I just endless ideas, it drives me insane, it's like being schizophrenic. And if I can put out a little piece of content every day, I can actually get a lot of the ideas out, you know? Um so I started doing the short content just to like get it out more, just to clear the slate, and uh and also started focusing on making online courses because I figure I can sort of it suits my style more, and I was just spread too thin doing all this different stuff. So I've given up on books mostly, on podcasts. Even the long videos now are just cut from my courses, like I'm just doing this daily short thing and then courses. So that's been quite a big shift actually since we last spoke for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, that and I I it makes sense. I I'm kind of in a similar position where I used to do a lot of writing, but now I just prefer expressing, you know, just trusting that the message will come through to the right person. Um, it's way more economical with time, and also people tend to like prefer that anyway, right? A lot of people now like to listen and watch rather than um read like super in-depth articles, you know, that are like 5,000 pages. Um yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. Um, on the topic of uh being an honest parent, I watched a funny Instagram reel the other day that was kind of joking, and it said the guy said before he was a parent, he was like, I'm never gonna lie to my kids. And then it was like after being a parent, and it's like, no, the park is closed. Um, you know, like yeah, Santa Claus comes down the chimney, and you know, and it's like so many little lies just to avoid the meltdowns. Um, because it is hard, right? It is hard when you can sense the meltdown coming and all hell is about to break loose, and you have like path A, which is tell a little kind of white lie to prevent the meltdown, or be like direct and then experience the meltdown. You can see a well of parents tell those white lies. So, you know, I'm just curious what your take is on that.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, like first and foremost, I'm I'm not really criticizing any other parents from a distance. Like, I don't know what they're going through. I just know that this shit is hard, you know, it's way harder than it's like advertised to be. You get into parenting expecting one thing and then it just fucking hits you like a truck, and you're like, oh my god, what the fuck? Right? I thought this is not what I saw posted on Facebook, you know? Um so I get it, I get why. I mean, there's there's there's a scale here, there's people who outright manipulate their children maliciously to mould them into some convenient thing, and we're not talking about those. We're talking about parents are trying their best, they want a good life for their kid. Yeah. They're hoping for the best, and there's some times where it's just I've got to take the easy way out today because I am just dying here. And I get that. Unfortunately, I do think it is a trap that actually begins with the lying. Now I can only speak to my own experience with my kid, but this is one of the theories I had that is backed up by some of the scientific research I've looked into and various parenting kind of influences I've looked into. Which is if you want your kid to be able to process emotions well, you're better off starting them with the truth and letting them learn how to process that from a very early age, and then yeah, the payout comes later, where they're better at processing hard truths. Whereas if you kind of prop them up every now and then with lies, it creates a kind of fragility in them so that they're less inured to the truth. And I get it, you know, almost every day I'm tempted. I've been pretty solid with not doing it, but there are days oh, there's been a couple of times where I've had to like backtrack, so I've said something about ah that was bullshit, I'm just trying to get out of something here. I don't want anyone to think I don't have the sympathy for why we would be tempted to tell these these lies to avoid the meltdown. But also the meltdown is not always gonna be a meltdown. I don't think we give kids enough credit for you know, I think we do a kind of projection thing. We think that kids are gonna react how we would react to disappointment or things being taken away. We don't realize that they're pure, they haven't been tainted by trauma and all sorts of fucked up shit yet. The reason we're sensitive and fragile is actually it came after we were raised, you know, like kids they've got no frame of reference. You tell them this is the truth, they're like, alright. They don't have anything, they've got no expectation. They've got very little expectation, I should say. And so we project that idea, like if I told an adult this, they would be very upset, so I should not tell her that or whatever, but yeah. Like I said, I've been practicing radical honesty with Chloe. And you can see her, she does those processing things, and sometimes she has meltdowns, but the meltdowns aren't actually related to the truth. Meltdowns are because she's tired or overstimulated or hungry. If she's kind of doing well, she can accept anything. She can accept the park being closed or that she's not allowed ice cream today or whatever. And actually, lies don't prevent something like being overstimulated or being too tired, or one of the common reasons that a kid would throw a mouth down, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah. Um, no, this is great. So um I really like what you said there about like giving the truth as like the foundation, and then that equips them to be more resilient with the hard truths that come when you're an adult. Um that makes a lot of sense. Um, getting into the weeds of this a little bit, and this is something I've talked to my other like dad friends about. You know, sometimes parenting can make you sleep deprived, or it can make you just sort of like sometimes you can just have those long days where things get just tough and the hours tend to like trickle by really slowly, and then you have multiple like power battles, and you know, it can get hard and grueling. It's a real test of resilience. And sometimes you can really believe that like something a child does is their fault. You know, you could kind of forget that it's actually age-appropriate, right? And maybe anger can come up or frustration. But then if you were to express what you considered to be the truth there, that could be potentially traumatizing for the child who's just doing what that age should be doing, right? And so there is like an element of kind of putting your best self on a little bit, you know, kind of like being gentle and being that kind of like maternal or paternal, that kind of positive energy, and not just being like, you know, I'm pissed off today and you're gonna know about it because that's the truth in my world. So, like, how do you I'm not talking about specific sentences that are true or not true, but what about the kind of persona and authenticity in that area?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Well, there's a couple of elements to this. One is that, you know, honesty can be done well or it can be done poorly, it's a spectrum of how you express yourself. I talk about the uh concept of powerful honesty as opposed to say weak honesty. And one of the the principles of powerful honesty that I made up is responsibility. So there's a big difference where if I say you're making me so fucking angry versus me saying like I can't control my anger right now. Right? They're actually both true. Yeah. But one of them is like I take ownership of my emotions, I don't blame a kid for the way I can't regulate. It's not a kid's fault. Kid I was like this before the kid was born. Come on. So it's not actually true that the kid's making me mad. That might be the story in my head, but it's not actually true. The other element to bring into this is we we're raised with this idea that it's good to protect children from seeing their parents having emotions, that their parents should be this just you know, calm falsely positive thing. But that's a setup to fail. I mean, talking to a guy who's, you know, came from nice guy syndrome, I mean when in my household there was like a small band of emotions that were accepted, and the others were basically out of bounds. And that was role model to me. And so that didn't do me any favors. And I could see that because my wife came from kind of the opposite extreme, where emotions run high in her family all the time and nobody moderates themselves. But one of the upsides to that is she's comfortable around any type of emotion. Whereas even to this day, anger agitates me. I can't just be comfortable around anger, where she is, because she lives in the house with people to shout it at each other all the time. That's just the way things were. I'm not saying that's super healthy. But what I'd say is you could set a goal for yourself to get the best of both worlds where you want to be honest to your child about the way you feel in such a way that role models healthy expression of emotion, as opposed to hiding that emotion from them. A kid will only think that they're at fault for the emotion if you word it that way. But and and I've done that, I've practiced this with my own child so often, and I'm not saying I'm perfect at parenting, I get shit wrong, don't ever make that false assumption, but I'll sit down with them and be like, you know, daddy's gotten all stressed out today because he he worked too much, you know. So if you see me get with my grumpy face, it's because I need to stop working. Right? I can tell her that, and you can just see her go like, oh okay, yeah, that's your problem then. You know, and you can see her like and then she's oh she's wonderful. Now she's really empathetic. And I wonder if it's either just luck or it's part of us doing this. We should be like, Daddy, you you're stressed, I can see it, you're working too hard. She'll say stuff like that. You know, and she's right when she says it too. Like she's she's putting pieces together of what facial expressions mean what. And then when we snap and we get it wrong, which we do, um, then we explain it to her afterwards. We at least try to redeem it. So be like, I shouldn't have shouted at you there. That would you didn't do anything wrong. Like, I don't like that you spilled the water on the floor, but I know it was an accident, and I was just, you know, I I couldn't control my anger there, or I shouldn't have shouted at you that wasn't right. You know? And you can see her just kind of like okay, and she figures it out and sort of rewrites history a little bit. Um, so I do think it's possible to be emotionally honest with your kids without scarring them. Yeah. But it's all in how it's expressed, and particularly where the focus of responsibility lies more than anything else. Like if the kid thinks they caused it, that's where trauma starts. If the kid thinks that they need to manage your emotions for you because they are a source of pain for you, that's how kids get fucked up. But if the kid knows like you're gonna handle your business, and the kid starts to get that modeling of like, okay, our emotions are ours to deal with. Like, we are the ones that need to learn how to regulate them and so on, and she's only gonna learn that from modelling. You can tell her everything you want, but she's just gonna watch how you do it, and that's where she's gonna learn, you know. Yeah, but it's it's really fucking hard, but I can't think of a better place to practice in terms of like a training dojo, right? Because the other thing I've noticed, I gotta say this, and yeah, I've always been quite sympathetic to children being children and not taking it personally. Like, I've I'm strong with that, but what I'm learning now is what's the difference between a child and an adult, really, in this regard. Like, now I watch adults being dicks, and I'm like, well, that makes sense, actually. And like this is no different to what a kid does. This is an adult version of a tantrum, this is an adult version of being overstimulated and being overtired, like it's a bit more nuanced and sophisticated, but still the same kind of you know, just dysregulation, right? Um, so it's just a side note that's been fascinating for me is I'm starting to like see adults as far less separate from children than I did earlier, you know. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

One of the kind of thought exercises I sometimes do, if I find myself being a bit judgy towards an adult, I sometimes imagine being their dad, you know, because I have that dad like imprint now in my brain, which I didn't before. Um, like I'm the dad of this adult. Um, and it just immediately changes things. You just like you kind of see things from their perspective a bit more, and it's like a bit more understanding and what have they gone through. Um, and that idea that you mentioned about making mistakes and then kind of repairing the relationship by kind of acknowledging it, that's also a form of really good modeling, right? Like could because children will make mistakes and we're showing them how we can make amends and and get things back on track, which is really good. I I was reading a book uh on parenting quite recently, and I did think of you as a as as I was reading it, it was something like 15-minute parenting. I'll put a link in the show notes. And the author made this point that uh uh there are something called pro-social lies. That's what she kind of made the claim about. And when I whenever I'm listening to a book and I hear lying honesty, I just think of you and I'm like, oh okay, I I want to talk down about that. I'm fine. And she kind of gave the example of um magic for children. Like it tends to exist within a quite a short space of time. You know, when you're like 40 and you're working a full-time job, magic isn't as available as when you're three or five or seven, right? And you, you know, you learn about wizards and witchcraft for the first time. And so she was making the point that it's good to kind of protect that phase of a child's life where they can genuinely experience magic. Um and now it's December the 15th, Christmas is approaching, and there's a lot of this sort of stuff going on where people are hiding elves around the house and pretending they're naughty elves and Santa is coming. And I'm never quite sure now that I have a child, like to what extent the child really believes it, if that makes sense. It's I I don't know if they believe it the same way that they believe that the sun is in the sky, you know. I I don't know whether they kind of really, really believe it. Um I'm I'm undecided or whether they're kind of playing along. But yeah, I'd like to just get your thoughts on that, on the idea of uh not telling the truth to children as a way to kind of make their life a bit more magical.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, I uh I have some opinions on this that aren't always well received, put it that way. Yeah. Um one of the sort of gentler ways I can put it across is there's a difference between fiction and lying. And like with a magic show, I'll start by talking about with adults. The reason I don't call a magician a liar is because when you go to a magic show, you know you're gonna be tricked. Right. The fact that you know you've been tricked makes it magical. It's not like you know, if we actually thought it was magic, we would shit ourselves. Right? You know, we'd be burning them at the stake, right? But because we know it's a trick, but we don't know how the trick's done, that's the magic. I was like, how the fuck did he find that card? Like, it blows our mind that we know that nothing magical happened. That's the that's the magic of magic sort of thing. And and I've seen this with Chloe, um because well they don't have Santa here in Czech Republic, they got baby Jesus, right? They don't have Santa, so I've not no resistance from my wife on not doing the Santa like, because she doesn't have that one anyway. Um but I have you know I've had that debate with a lot of people like why would you take a kid away from Santa? And here's the problem I see is that again this is adult projection. We think we need to lie to create magic for kids. We don't, their imagination does all the work for you. Right? I watch my like my kid's big on dolls, right? And I haven't pushed that on her, she's just a social as kid and she loves dolls, and she has these conversations with them back and forth. At no point do I need to exert any effort into pretending the doll is real. Um I can play the game with her, but it's like uh we're joining, like you said, you suspect like they don't really fully believe, it's some different kind of belief. Like she's looking for. Doll. Like she likes to get me to make her toys talk. So she has just had her bath and my toy I'm being the toy talking to her. I know she doesn't think the toy's talking. I don't even change my voice. But this little pink doll I'm like, hey, how's it going? Right? She she doesn't need me to do anything. She I'm just like, I just provide the canvas, she just paints on it with her imagination. And it's there are other things I do think she believes, like if she watches a movie, I think she thinks it's real, you know, to some extent and so on. So I don't know, it's hard to tell.

unknown 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

But what I'm saying is like, I don't need to. I don't need to lie, but I don't need to steal her imagination away either. I don't go like, well, that's not real. You choose what's real for yourself. Right? Like, I'll play along if you want, but I'm not going to go, you know, let's say I'm playing with a doll and I'm making it talk, and now it's time for the game over, baths finished or something. I'll be like, alright, we're finished with the game now.

unknown 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

And quite often I'll say things like, oh, let's pretend that this is this. And I don't need to actually like enforce the reality of it. I I can just say, let's pretend, and she she's fine, she doesn't need me to con her into this. She can do it knowing it's a pretense and still have bundles of fun with it. And I think back to being a kid, I used to play with G.I. Joe's, you know, and I'd have entire adventures with these things out in the garden, climbing trees with them and talking to each other. I'm like, I didn't need someone to come and tell me that they were real fucking people. I don't need that. Um So I think I think the mistake that parents make with this is just that idea that you need to create something to bring magic into a kid's life. It's like, no, we just think that because the magic's been taken away from us.

unknown 24:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

It's been beaten out of us over the years. We've forgotten what it's like to be a kid. You leave a kid alone in the room, he'll turn everything into a living creature. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. They don't need us to to make shit up for them. They don't need elves on shelves or anything. They can they can do it with a block. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Oh yes, I like that insight. So it's it's like we we are forgetting what it's like to be a child and then kind of like using our clunky method to kind of infuse magic into a space where there already is magic anyway, naturally occurring, right? You know?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Well, I've got a yeah, and there's a harsher point. This doesn't apply to everyone doing this. Most people are just doing this out of good hearted, like, isn't this what good parenting is? You know, they're trying their best. But there's also some people where if they were truthful with themselves, they'd see that this isn't really for the kid. They want to create the joy in the kid to be the cause of it. Right? They want that like credit, that validation. And this is, you know, that's what I'm saying. Like, you leave it alone, the kid will do it all by itself, but you won't get the credit. You won't be the one that brought the amazing magic into their life. They did that themselves. But I do suspect some parents, like I can see especially I don't know, grandparents do this a lot more than parents, maybe. It's almost it's like forced. Like, look how awesome and fun it is to be with me because of all this magic I create. Or actually like you could just sit there and do nothing, just be the observer, and the kid will do the work, you know. And I don't know, I think sometimes some people struggle to let the kid be the star of their own little world. Yeah. But that yeah, that one gets some blowback on it. I bring that up.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

You know, like your all of your views are welcome here, and you know, we don't need when we hear an opinion that doesn't merge with our own, we don't need to respond with hatred and anger. We can respond with curiosity, like, hey, that's cool, that's interesting, but you see things that way. Um, although that's kind of rare and hard to do for most of us. Um but yeah, I really I really appreciate you kind of being honest, no surprise, uh, with your views there about magic. Um I'd like to uh bring Sammy into the conversation now. Um so here's a little background with Sammy. And Sammy, you can introduce yourself in a moment. Uh I've been working with Sammy for about a year. Um Sammy joined one of my courses um yeah, about a year and a half ago, roughly, and yeah, we've just been chatting, and I republished one of our older conversations on my podcast, Dan, and Sammy just started listening to it and then got the book, the audiobook, and just started reading it. And I was getting these updates from Sammy in messages, and it was like it was almost like he was going through a kind of crazy, multi-week and still in the process kind of psychedelic trip where his whole reality was being like flipped upside down. That's how I felt, and it was just like bomb after bomb after bomb after like what what is real? Who am I? What what what is the life that I've been living? But yeah, Sammy, I was wondering if you could um kind of share your experiences on uh on this.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah, it was kind of funny because um I was in my car uh going to see my therapist, and uh I I hadn't listened to any of John's podcasts for a while, you know, because he's coaching me like every week and we are in contact all the time, so it's like I've been listening and then I see this one about um honesty, and I I I just start to listen to it, and it's the one with you then. And um I I I just become super intrigued. So I I listened to half the podcast on my way to the therapist, and then on my way home, uh I keep on going. And I'm gonna be honest now. I was actually driving, downloading Audible and buying a book. And and because I was just like, I have to listen to this stuff. You know, it was like uh John's been saying, uh, when are you gonna get Audible, Sammy? And I'm not like um, I don't need it, I don't listen to books. But this was the only way I was able to get the book. So yeah. I started listening to it. Uh and and uh I would say the first week was an identity crisis deluxe. Oh. So it was like um total breakdown of who I thought I am. Uh and I mean it's already started a while back since I got into like stoicism and um then with the coaching with John and uh doing meditation. I have quite a lot of trauma from my childhood that I haven't known how to dealt deal with, and I know it has affected me in different ways. Uh so um what I loved about the book was the anecdotes basically, because that was what made me see myself uh in in the stories. Uh I could recognize myself uh in there.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

That's uh cool, man. That's that's the whole point of writing the book, you know?

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yeah, and I mean you said earlier, like you said earlier, like uh becoming a parent, you prior uh you get different priorities, and and and it's not about saving the world anymore. And and but it's like you can't save the world, but you can save one person at a time, and and I'm seeing that happening here with me. So I have to say the book is awesome. I have almost finished it. I haven't followed your rules like doing one chapter and do the exercise. I just went through it. I don't think even I would. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and um there's been so much just like um things that I immediately changed after um after having listened to the book, which was this like I I started to test this honest thing in situations where people would say uh you know, uh you shouldn't be honest there. Even John sometimes would say that that you don't have to tell the whole truth. And and this is sometimes what I find a bit uh maybe difficult, is that it's like I'm a uh either zero percent person or a one hundred percent person. So it's like either uh I'm very like close up and uh careful or I'm super open. And and uh I think about honest, like is there any like grayscale in there, in your opinion, that that does it have to be zero percent or one hundred percent? Or or is there something like can you be 90% honest and okay with that? What's your like like I mean you have your experiences which which uh I mean you talk about being uh like a super people pleaser and even lying. I've never been at that level. I've been a people pleaser, but I've never lied to people about who I am. Uh so I'm maybe not been at the 0% dishonest, uh, and I've had other aspects of my life where I've been actually like radically honest, and then of course been punished because the way I've expressed that honesty has probably been not in a good way. But what's your opinion on that?

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yeah, look, it's it's it's not as black and white as like a percentage. I think it's more about the delivery so how it's expressed makes a huge difference to how it's received. That being said, there's no way of expressing that guarantees a positive reception. And if you can let go of that, then at least you can play with with the uh options. What I'd suggest more is that like I talk about in the book, the powerful honesty principles, the more powerful your honesty is, the more you can kind of get away with it. Um another, I think, really important element is reciprocation. So I got I was reading between the lines a little bit with what you're saying, which is that there might be some oversharing on your part. And oversharing doesn't mean you're being too honest, it means the interaction's not balanced. So there's no such thing as oversharing with somebody who shares as much as you do. It's like by definition, it's not oversharing. But if I, let's say I'm talking to you and I just stack like one personal point on top of another, I'm just like you're my therapist, I just download on you. It's not the truth that's the problem, it's the quantity and the fact that you're backed into a corner and you don't have a voice. Whereas if I share one thing with you and right at that line where it's starting to get uncomfortable, I stop because I'm done. And then you share equally and we play that sort of tennis match, which I probably talk about in the book, I can't even remember anymore, then the concept of oversharing doesn't exist. You can't be too honest. Again, it comes down to that how it's shared as well. If I'm like, Whoa is me, my life's so fucking miserable, and they're like, I don't know, dude, did you want fries with that? Like, what are we doing here? Like there's ways of saying it that land really, really well with people, while simultaneously also being very repulsive to the kind of people you should be repelling. Now one thing I get like with guys I'm like coaching with honesty, they go through what I call the transition phase, which is it's like Navy SEAL's how week or something. It's where you you're being more honest, but in a world that you had created with dishonesty, and so there's a big jarring like reset. So all your friend circle and your job and everything was created by the dishonest, largely dishonest person that you were, and that you're bringing this fresh guy in there, and he doesn't really know how to say it properly or anything, he's just like testing it out. The only way to learn, yeah, you're gonna get some blowback on that. And there's just I don't think there's a way to do this without having at least some of that mess being made. But what I noticed, yeah, I say just in my own experience, is when I started being really honest with my friends, yeah, I lost like 70% of them. But now, on the other side of that transition, I'm like, I didn't lose anyone that really matters. I didn't the in fact the people who stayed, it just validated how good they were in the first place. I was like, they were always good friends, actually. I could have always been honest with them if I just had the balls. They would have been very receptive to that, as proven by their reception now. As the same, some people will be honest and they get fired from their job and they're just like, oh my god, that was a disaster. Like really? A job that fires you from being honest? Shouldn't you maybe not be in a job like that? Isn't this like you really don't think you're ever gonna get another one? And once you're through the transition and you're now like, if you meet me for the first time, you get honesty straight away. A whole new life gets created. You very quickly repel people who are anti-honesty or no whatever, anti you. And you're very attractive to people who like you just the way you are with no effort. Even down to the point of like a job interview. I I have all my clients get real into real honest in job interviews. And basically the job interview either lasts five minutes, or it lasts three hours, and it's the best company they've ever worked for. And there's kind of like nothing in between, pretty much. Whereas if you play it nice and do all the correct amount of lying at a job interview, what you usually end up doing is getting hired by a company that likes what you pretended to be, and now you've got to either keep being that, or you've got to try and like work in this new version of you with a company that didn't want to hire that in the f so on, right? Um But I think, yeah, that just because you're getting a bad reaction to your honesty doesn't mean that you're being too honest. However, getting a bad reaction to your honesty might be related to your delivery. This being said, if I'm gonna be like completely straight about this, if someone is a really good fit for you and they're just a good, genuine person to have in your life, they are not gonna punish you for an awkward, stumbled attempt at being honest. They're not. If anyone is cruel to you in your attempt to be honest, even if you're like, yeah, I've got like clients that are on the autistic spectrum and they've got to work on this bondness thing that they do, you know, they come off as real judgmental and shit. But I always think like, hey, if you talk like that to me, I'm gonna love it. Like there are people out there that are actually cool with that. Unrefined, untrained honesty. Um So what I'd find as long as you're reciprocating, then you can be reasonably sure that the other person's reaction is a pretty good sign of whether or not they should be in your life. If their reaction is negative, consistently negative, it might not actually even be about your delivery, but about you know, the bad fit.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

That's interesting. Uh and that brings me to another um topic actually, which is uh narcissists. Because I've ran into uh many of them in my life as uh people pleaser and and uh they're extremely skilled uh when it comes to like observing people's emotions and and um like especially if you're a people pleaser to use you in some purpose. And and what I've noticed is that uh um when I'm talking with someone that I don't know first that they are like a narcissist or they have a narcissist personality. Um I do sort of yeah, of course, I treat him as any human being I would meet and have a conversation or whatever. Um but it's like oh I'm sorry. I'm gonna be honest now, I totally lost the thread.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Now it's just meeting them for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Was it to do was it to do with um like them using your honesty against you? Something like that?

SPEAKER_02 40:41

No, it's more like uh almost like being subject to their some like the they uh are like super open about things. Uh and they're like revealing things about their life, and it almost becomes hard once I've understood that they are a narcissist, it becomes hard for me sort of to be honest, because uh I'm still like thinking about their reaction because there might be some other context around that might affect me negatively. And I know this is uh what you're talking about in your book. It's like okay, it shouldn't matter. Uh I mean, if that negative thing happens, okay, life will go on. But I have like a quite recent example of this, uh and um it's like I've tried with this person to be more and more and more and more honest. And the scary thing is that the more honest I get, he's still around. So so you were like saying that when you get like uh super honest, then people back off. Uh he's still around, and I'm like bringing up things that I mean, if I heard them, I wouldn't want to be some type of friend with me in that case. Because I'm I'm like getting to that level, you know. I have to like just be brutally honest with it. I just have to tell him that maybe he's the person that's fucking up things, you know. Maybe it's not the rest of the world. But you know, somehow it just doesn't go into him that there could be anything wrong with him. So it's like the honesty doesn't work with him. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

I guess we can talk in general uh to some extent about dealing with manipulation and how honesty plays a role in that. Um, first and foremost, if you're actually dealing with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder or an antisocial personality, you're not gonna change them. Even if they want to change, you need extensive professional support over a very long period of time. Um there are like there's a new wave of aware narcissists these days where they actually quite happy to work on it, they didn't even know they had a problem until this word started getting thrown around, right? But if you're talking to someone who sort of gaslights and you know shifts the blame and all that, then they're not one of those ones. Your honesty's not going to convince somebody else to be better. And that attachment to outcome will actually undermine your ability to be honest. Honesty has to be about you, not about the other person. So if I'm working with a narcissist, you know, or if they let's just say there's a manipulative, abusive type person in my life. Right. I'm not looking to change them with honesty. I'm looking to protect myself. And so what I want my honesty to do is create a kind of deal breaker with them where I express very clearly what I need from them so that I can measure very clearly whether or not they're providing that. And then I'm the one that will create the break. I'm the one that will create the distance. They don't have to do anything. I will just measure the respect that I get or don't get based on my boundaries being asserted very strongly. So that the honesty is this very assertive boundary setting, but it's not a it's not an attempt to change the other person. It's more like an attempt to find their true colours. So if I was, you know, as you appear to be talking about, if I kept trying to be more and more honest with someone and their behaviour stubbornly remained harmful or unpleasant to be. Around well then I'll just cut contact with them. I'm not gonna wait for them to do that. Right? And this is that kind of the the nothing to lose mindset and being honest, they're like parallel work, they go together. The more honest you are, the less you care about the outcomes, the less you care about the outcomes, the more honest you feel safe to be, and they slowly inch up together. But I've never seen anyone just do a dramatic shift to 100% on either of those overnight. I think they're actually kind of like two guys propping each other up and walking along, they have to go together slowly over time. I'm at a point now where I care very, very little about the outcomes. You know, like I'm quite happy with total hate from lots of people. Um, but I'll still be a little bit sensitive about say whether my wife's doing well with what I've said, right? So there's still room to move for me. And I don't know, maybe getting 100% nothing to lose isn't a totally safe place. I don't know. Um yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

That was uh great question, Sammy. I really appreciate that. Um I just have another question. Um about I had this insight because I I I've been practicing jujitsu for a number of years, and I realized that when you're playing certain types of sport, such as like a martial art, there's almost like an agreed upon level of dishonesty within that sport. So I may trick you, right? Like I may grab your uh arm and I really want your collar, right? And it's it's a form of misdirection or trickery or dishonesty, but it's within the context of we're following the same rules, right? So there's respect, but like dishonesty within the kind of overall honest framework. Like we're not gonna cheat, right? That would be bad. But we're allowed to mislead each other in this in this sport, and that happens in a lot of different sports. Somewhere else where that also happens sometimes is dating. You know that initial flirtation period? It's it's it's almost like I'm not talking about actual lies, you know, where like you say you're a football player and you're not like a blatant lie, but almost sort of like acting, maybe a bit cooler than you really are. Um, there's a kind of almost an agreed upon uh element of we're gonna put our best selves forward, you know, to some extent. Um, you know, maybe be a bit more playful, be a bit more humorous. Um and so I I I would just love to get your thoughts on that. Um in that sort of initial dating flirtation period, it may be um not not even um like bad, but almost like a social error um to just like lead in with, hey, I saw your photographs, um, you seem attractive, but to be honest, I don't really think anyone is real until I've met them. So, you know, now I'd like to just ask you some you know what I mean? Like and just be like bluntly honest. That person may have been a good relationship for you, but now you've just screwed it up because it's almost breaking the kind of social rules, right? Where it's kind of like you've got to be a bit playful and a bit light. So yeah, I'm just curious what you think about that honesty within that framework.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

It's so funny. I know it was just a throwaway example that you sort of made up off the top of your head. Yeah, that's a brilliant way to open a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

All right, okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Um look in jujitsu, it's literally a combative, competitive sport where it's understood that trickery is part of the sport. So it's like the fiction example, it's like a magic show. It's like going to a stand-up comedian, you know those stories aren't real, you hear a laugh. Right. And you'll go, fuck, did that really happen? Or if you are, you're an idiot, right? Um if you go to jujitsu and you're like, oh you you grabbed my arm, it's you know, you shouldn't be doing jujitsu, right? But I do not think it's comparable to dating. And in fact, like I've done recently I've done a lot of study into divorce and deep dive, and it starts in the dating period. A divorce begins in the first three months. It might take twenty years, or on average eight years according to the stats. But the problems with the especially like deal breaker misfit problems that are glossed over at the start to keep it smooth in that early period. Where actually if it was brought up nice and early, you'd be like, Yeah, we're not having a second date, and you're not missing anything. You just dodged a train wreck. It's very hard for people to see this. Um I I can't speak to some of the scientific evidence, but I coach a lot of guys with dating and relationships, and when they switch to this sort of fully raw, honest approach, uh that's where you get like 40-year-old virgin when I met him and married when we're finished, right? Because if you start honest, you never have to adjust later. There's a big crash and burn that happens between the three to six months period where the real person finally starts emerging and you can't keep up the act anymore. Unless you're a nice guy like I was and you can keep up the act for years, but it's a fucking nightmare to try and do it, it's very exhausting. Well, most people they start to be like, okay, by the way, I play video games six hours a night. I didn't tell you that before, but now you're officially my girlfriend, so good luck with this, you know. The thing is, there's a girl out there who wants to play games with you for six hours, but you missed her because you went for the other girl who wants to do outdoor hiking and you pretended you were into that. Now, this is not the same as just being genuinely excited and a little bit amped when you're dating someone. And it's not forced, you're not pretending to be your best self or anything. You're just like, oh shit, jeez, this is exciting. And so you're, you know, you're a bit uh kind of um activated. I I don't know what the word is. That's fine, that's not actually dishonesty. Right? It's like uh if I have fun with my kid, you should see me. I'm silly as fuck. I don't sound like this when I'm playing with my daughter. I'm not putting that on for her. I just like I get to be a kid again. Like I can't wait till she's old enough for Lego, I'm gonna force that on her, you know what I mean? Like um anyway, I do think it is an absolute fucking myth that you have to play a game at the start, but it's an intersubjective belief, which is everybody believes it, so we've kind of made it true. Even like at the start, like your example, like I've seen your pictures, you're implying that we're meeting on an app and stuff. Right away, that the app's dishonest. Right? You can't really meet a person online, you're automatically you're getting a moderated, curated version of them of what they think will be the most attractive on an app that has an algorithm that plays games with everybody, and like good luck having any reality in that situation. Whereas, you know, as I might work with a client, you meet a girl at your cooking class that you go to every week because you love cooking, and you just talk naturally throughout the class about cooking and everything like that. We don't need to worry about photos and stuff, you'll just feel attraction naturally, and if you're being very honest, things will escalate or they won't, depending on reciprocation. Yeah. You know, I I I I I mean this is how I met my wife. I just told her, like, oh, you're my favourite to dance with, and that got things kicked off, you know. If she wasn't the right fit for me, that would have been like ugh for her, as maybe it has been for other girls to set that too. Um you know, so I think a lot of people really do believe that they have to play this game, and I get why they believe it, and they just haven't tried the other way to see what actually happens, but it's a whole new paradigm. It means you don't meet people on apps or at a nightclub when you're drunk and stuff. You don't meet people in an environment where honesty's hard to do. Um, it's a completely different paradigm. You wouldn't even really I talked about this in a recent piece I did, you don't even call it dating. You just connect with people, and if there's romantic sexual feelings, they will naturally escalate because you're gonna be honest all the time. So if you like the way she looks, you're gonna talk about that, you know, and if you want to kiss her, you're gonna say something like that, and you're either gonna get a green light or a red light, so you don't even need to really date. Um, I know like most people don't share those views, um, and I can't back it up with hard data or anything like that. But I can say I've worked with a lot of people who tried the other way for a long time and they've kept having hit and miss relationships with bad fits, and then they went raw honesty, and like it really I'm not exaggerating. Like, a lot of the guys that I do this with, the next girl they meet that responds positively to their honesty thing, that's their last relationship. Like, that's it, it just goes to the moon from there. And the girls actually, there's a whole niche of girls out there right now. I'll speak to the guys, they're so used to guys being dishonest that when they meet an honest one, they're just like, whoa, like that's attractive. Yeah, they're just they're so used to guys playing games that when the guy on the first date is like treating them like they've known each other for 10 years, it just blows their mind. They've never experienced that before. And conversely, if you get a girl who responds really negatively to you doing that, well, she's gonna meet that guy in three to six months anyway. You think the reaction's gonna be any different? She hates you on the first day, she's gonna hate you in six months' time and try to change you, but now she's got sunk cost velocity and she's invested, so she'll drag it out for a few years and just henpeck you with criticism and whatever. It's like save yourself the pain, you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

I remember in one of our earlier conversations, you said a line that re really stuck with me. It was something uh paraphrasing it, something to the effect of your wife now, when you first met her, you were so honest. It was almost honesty to the point of pushing her away. And you knew that um if she would stay even after that, she would be the one, right? So like so, I I I almost think that's like a really cool approach to almost like be so honest that like if you're not really well suited for me, you're just not gonna stick around. You know, that's like one of the best ways to because you know, if you want a life partner, you don't want someone who's just like I'm kind of half in, right? You want someone who's all in. So yeah, I thought that was a great but great principle that I've kind of kind of kept in mind. Um, Sammy, do you have anything to add to this or any questions on this topic?

SPEAKER_02 55:53

I think I find the uh whole topic very interesting right now. I am dating. And and uh I mean, I started dating and then I ran into your book and uh I've continued dating. And uh it actually made me change a bit uh because I was like, you know, like everybody else, learning the pickup game. You know, you're supposed to do this and this and this. So uh instead of I noticed sometimes when when when I got like okay, I live in a place where there's not a lot of people that live here. Uh I don't meet people daily. Uh I don't get uh into contact with people regularly on the countryside, in Finland, deep in the forest, you know. I don't run into people. And if um there's something to do, I have yoga class like once a week, and it's like these old ladies. So my option, only option is actually the dating apps. But the the whole problem is I think that um when you play that game, and I've noticed this, you go on the dates, um uh the the women are suspicious. You know, is this person really this person is pretending to be uh online. And I've noticed that uh adding more honesty in the communication with them quite quite soon uh is actually like like you say that uh if they don't like that, okay, then they're not fit for me anyway. Uh so I'd rather not even go out on a date with them in that case, because then I'm wasting my time. I could do other things or meet someone else. So so it's been a sort of an experiment, you know, starting to add that. But like one one one classic thing is that um I have these uh questions that I ask like for screening questions, and I usually get the same answers, and then I answer them, uh, and I answer them honestly, then they change their answers back because they haven't been truly honest in the that first interaction. And I find this very interesting when you mention that like it's so fake a lot of these uh things when you do these online things. So but just spicing it up actually with a bit of honesty, the whole thing becomes different.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Yeah, look, on that note, you you picked up on something, which is the leadership element to honesty. Especially in that scenario that you're talking about, like online dating stuff, people got their guards up that have been hurt before. There's a lot of con and stuff that goes on there, they need to keep themselves safe. And what you often get in a situation, even with people are sort of consciously trying to be honest, is they're waiting for the other person to go first. It's like, well, you know, you talked about some screening questions. One of the best ways to get someone to open up is you be the first to open up. Now, we always keep in mind this reciprocation principle. I've talked about this a lot with people over the last year because it seems to be a real deal breaking or make or break factor. As long as this goes both ways equally and nobody's oversharing, nobody's stacking on top of points and having more than one turn at a time. As long as you keep that in mind, then basically you can go really honest right from the start and make it safe for them to do so. You know, I uh when I was back in I I got heavy into the pickup stuff. There's always this idea of like leading and escalating when it came to the sexuality of it, their touching and so on. And it's funny I've discovered this dynamic which is actually you can lead with words and they will lead physically. You make it safe for them to touch you. And this keeps you totally safe with any sort of hashtag me too type fears that you have. If you say to someone like God, like I just keep thinking about kissing you. If they like you, they're going to kiss you. You've just made it like rejection proof for them. And it's the same for emotional stuff. If they say, How's it going? you're like, well the depression sort of came back a bit last week, but I'm coming out of it now. How about you? They're free to talk about anything now. Right? You've just made it like this this is there's no way I'm gonna judge you after I've said something like that, right? It's kind of like uh you can think of it almost like a blackmail situation. Like if you and I both hold secrets about each other, neither can blackmail, you know? I can't I can't do anything to you if if you've got information on me as well. So give them the information that they could use against you, sort of metaphorically, and then they'll be safe to give you similar information. Well and this is what I found like the way to get people to open up to you is to go first. And then they their reaction will be basically it's kind of a green light or a red light. Their reaction will either be like judgmental or they don't reciprocate or they're weird about it or whatever or their reaction's more like, oh thank fuck, now I can do it, and brrh. And that's the person you're gonna spend more time with. And the person who's like, geez, I feel like I'm pulling teeth just to get any truth out of this person, move on, stop pulling those teeth, right? Go find the person where it's like, oh my god, it's like this tennis game, we just go back and forth. And you can even, especially in dating, it's a very powerful kind of meta discussion to talk about honesty itself. You know, to actually go on a date with someone and say, look, I'm gonna try something here, I'm gonna try and be just totally honest with you. Um, because I'm sick of this gameplay shit that always happens on these dates. And so if you walk away after three minutes because you hate me, that's fine. I'm just gonna be transparent, we'll just see what happens, and you're free to do that too if you want. Or whatever, you can talk about the actual difficulties of being honest during dating. And that in itself, I mean, my wife and I in our dating phase, that was like a whole night we talked about that once. We just talked about like our previous dishonesty, and that in itself was just very powerful sharing. I basically we basically shared our techniques on how we would manipulate each other if we were going to, which means we couldn't now, right? So it was like, oh fuck, we're just we've got no weapons now, we're just totally exposed. It's like playing poker with the fucking cards up. I was like, I can't bluff now, you know? And that was actually a really powerful connecting experience for us.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Yeah, and I mean uh there's so many profiles when you when when when you are into online dating, you know, they're looking after an honest man. Which I I I I think is pretty funny because what what I've actually done now, Dan, is that when I've been on a date, I've said, Yeah, I'm reading this book called The Naked Truth. It's about shameless honesty. And bang. You know, and you know what I get is that some people they are just like, Oh, I I can't do this. Even though it says that they want honesty, they can't do that kind of honesty. Uh uh I find it super interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:32

Yeah, well, somebody can say they want you to be honest, doesn't mean they want to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Exactly, exactly. But then I've seen the other side of it too, which is actually what you said, that that um uh I think you can combine this honesty thing with the fun and games. You know, it doesn't have to be all like super serious, super honest. You can also have a bit of fun, laugh, and you know, have that part in it. So so I'm trying to see a bit like, you know, okay, I'm learning the I've been learning the pickup game and and and uh now I've been learning shameless honesty. How can I combine that into something very interesting? Uh and by using shameless honesty in that pickup game, uh I have noticed exactly what you said, which is that once you once I open up, they open up Yeah, look, I think it's important to note that honesty doesn't mean serious every time.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

Yeah. That honesty is like this like intense therapy discussion every time. In fact, when you get really shameless, it's naturally funny. Like some of the principles that I'm talking about with powerful honesty are actually good like stand-up comedy principles too. Uh if you were to apply them. You know, so I I'm not gonna try and be funny now, because now I'm under pressure, I'll just come out stupid, but like I can say something in a really miserable way. Right? And say like, oh I got COVID again, I've got the fucking worst luck ever. Fucking universe hates me. I can say that, and that would be a version of like I'm not making this up, I have kind of but you know Or I could say like uh you know I've got COVID and uh that's what I get for kissing my wife, you know? Now they're both true, but one's playful, and the other's like this horrendous like, oh my god, why do I always talk to these people at the party? Like, what's wrong with me? And and the th the th that's the thing about shamelessness is first you go through being ashamed of it as you say it. And then eventually the shame's gone, now you can just say it. And it's still a very powerful and intimate truth you're sharing, but you're used to saying it now, it doesn't come with that like static attached to it. You know, it gets to a point like like I used to get um arrest erectile dysfunction from social anxiety, performance anxiety. And the first few times I talked about that with girls, I just wanted to die. Like it was such an uncomfortable conversation, especially it was usually in the context of it happening and ruining our night, right? So that was just up, but I was like going through similar transition that you're probably going through now. I'm like, like pretending this doesn't happen isn't working. Let's let's try this other way where I just cards on the table. But eventually it got to the point where you know, I might be, I don't know, chatting up a girl somewhere. And I'd be able to say something like, let's go back to your place. I mean, you're super hot, so I'm gonna get erectile dysfunction, but let's give it a go anyway, you know? And I'd say that it's all completely true, and she would laugh, right? And we'd have fun with it. And then if it happened, we'd be like, Ah, see, I told you. I guess it's just massages tonight, you know, nothing but cuddles. And it would become this fun, playful thing, this thing that used to ruin my life that I ruminate on every night going, oh my god, even if I wanted, like even if I had an opportunity with a girl, it's not gonna happen. It would eat me alive. Now it's like, ah, if it happens, we'll fucking have a laugh about it. I'm like the same thing still happening. And of course, ironically, when I finally got to that stage, it stopped happening because it was the pressure that was causing it in the first place. But it's a great example, like a guy who's currently suffering from it can't imagine joking about it with a girl. It's the most serious conversation topic in his life. But by the hundredth time he's talking about it, it's not anymore. You know? And so that's an important thing. Like that the transition phase is so important where a lot of the honesty that will be playful in the future is going to be serious now as you work through your demons. But it's you expressing it that's gonna take the fucking sting out of it. The more often it's said, the less it becomes this like it won't have that tone and that weight that they have to receive. You know, and stand-up comedians are great to watch, especially the more honest stand-up comedians, you know, the Louis C.K. types, yeah. Where they're talking about actual problems they have in their life, and it's just hilarious. But they're not actually making anything up, they're not even really exaggerating, they're just they're okay with it, they're at peace with it, and that's kind of makes it funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

Yeah, I love that. Another I another angle, I don't know if you agree with this, but sometimes I think uh children can be really good teachers. Um, and sometimes children are very good at being honest in a way that is disarming and sometimes outright hilarious, you know. And like a few weeks ago, my son, I didn't see my son for a couple of days, and I said, I miss you. Did you miss me too? And he's like, Not really. And I was like, Okay, that's you know, as long as you were happy, you know, that's fine. But it's just like, you know, but it it's you can't not love someone who's like that, right? They're just like, that's them, and they were just telling you as it is, and there was nothing malicious about it. As an adult, you might be like, Oh my god, like I have to tell this person, like, you know what I mean? Like I didn't miss them, and it's a serious thing. Why not be like the kid, right? Like, to be honest, I didn't, you know, I was too busy. Um, but I'm glad I'm with you now, right? You know, and there's something kind of disarming about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:26

Yeah, and I I I think something key here is that that for me at least, who has been like a been a people pleaser and I'm trying to work myself out of it, just hearing uh and getting that idea now that hey, honesty can be fun. Or honesty is actually fun. It doesn't have to be serious. I think this is a big issue that when we start to talking, you know, okay, John, we're gonna have an honest conversation now. That that's like the idea people have that it has to be serious, it has to be super deep, or it has to be something real, super real. But honest that honesty can be something else actually. And I I think this can be really helpful for people that uh have trouble with this, to just change the frame, you know, just reframe it into okay, when I talk about being honest, and I think I've had this problem, and this is definitely gonna change the way I'm gonna behave up ahead when it comes to honesty. I'm actually gonna have fun with it, instead of taking like this super serious thing, should I say this or not? Instead, like, yeah, I'm gonna say it and just see what happens and enjoy it.

unknown 1:10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

Yeah, look, sometimes honesty does need to be negative and serious. So sometimes you gotta sit someone down and set them straight. But I think people have a idea in the head the connotation of the word honesty is like this is when you start to have those conversations we'll call it an honest conversation. There's two kind of practical, I think, tips I can give you here. One is to make it about us rather than about me. Um oh god, I'm gonna lose my track of the second one. Maybe it will come to me as I talk, but I think I've lost it. But the us rather than me thing is let's say I've got a problem. If I talk about it like it's a human problem rather than it's my problem, it automatically becomes more connecting and more playful. You know, so I could be like, oh I'm fucking down because my boss has been mean to me or something. I don't know, I'm making this up. Or I could be like, oh, you know that thing when your boss is just on your ass all fucking week and it just drives you insane. Now it's us. Shared experience. Right? And that changes the tone of it completely. It also helps you quickly identify whether or not the other person resonates and relates to you. You know? If you share the thing like this is a thing that happens to us and I'm one I'm I'm having my turn right now. You know, um it automatically there's something playful and humorous in shared tragedy. Right? They kind of uh detachment that comes when we step back and look at like, oh, this is just part of life, you know, isn't it fucking gloriously tragic? I think what a lot of people do with serious stuff in their head is they make it like I I call uh it's actually Mark Manson calls it reverse entitlement like I'm negatively special like it's just me that suffers this way. And that is very rarely the truth. You know, no matter what hell personal hell that you think you're going through, there's others out there too, and this is just common, you're not special. When you talk about like you're special and negative and serious, it creates that kind of very off-putting tone, and it's just not actually truthful. If you're so woe is me the special punishment that life's given me, it's like nah dude, you're a human, welcome, welcome to the club. You know, we all got this shit in various ways. You might have a very unique context, but the suffering is just general. We all suffer. You know, and that's one of the my favorite sort of ways of expressing something negative that's also playful and connecting, is to be like, I'm doing that thing, you know, I'm doing that human thing, like I'm doing that thing where like I'm in a down mood and I'm trying to find a way to blame my wife for it. Yeah. I'm doing that thing we do where I'm trying to like displace my anger on someone else, or doing that thing where I try to excuse my bad behavior by blaming the government. You know, you do this thing like I'm doing that thing that we all fucking do. You know, that thing I'm right in the thick of the action right now, I can't believe it. And that's really playful and again very polarizing. You know, if you're on a date, you'll say, I'm doing that thing right now where you know I'm getting myself all nervous and hope that you like me, even though I don't even know you, so I don't even know if I should want you to like me, and then I'm doubting myself now, you know. You know what I mean, right? And they're either gonna be like, or they're gonna be like, fuck I'll do that as well. Okay, good. Right? And you're gonna get those one or two, either the date ends now, or the floodgates open and everyone can just fucking relax. Because you just made it okay to be fucking all the weird things that happen on a date, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

Yeah, I would uh this is great. This is really great. There's so many like sound bites from this. It's crazy. Um, I have I have this kind of desire to switch topics a little bit at the moment. Um, something that we've talked about at the beginning of this conversation, you talked about when you read Meditations, it kind of changed your ambitions in in a kind of radical way and kind of grounded you. Um in a previous uh podcast we've done, you talked about essentialism and how you were working on kind of cutting off a lot of the non-important things and focusing on what matters. I'd love to just get your current approach towards productivity and getting things done. You know, like there are different schools of thought, you know, some people are like hyper, you know, build a second brain, you know, be like super neurotic about getting everything lists within lists within lists, obsessing over the perfect to-do list app, um, trying to use different techniques to stay focused, and and you clearly create a lot, right? You're a prolific creator coach, you're creating courses, you're doing your kind of daily dose of integrity. Is that the the current thing? Yeah, daily dose of integrity, you have a substack. Um what is your kind of, you know, when you have a work day, what is your thought process and system for getting things done?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:07

Cool. Uh yeah, that's um I think essentialism is still the key there. Only uh before I was maybe not entirely sure on what it meant, even though I'd bought into the idea. I wasn't really living by it uh as much last time. But I had uh about five-week break this year. I haven't had a break from work in like ten years, and so I took five weeks off, and this just backlog of of reflection, everything came flooding in, and it made me realize that I'm just really spread thin. So I guess you'd say I doubled down on the essentialism idea. Uh you know, what I realized is that I can get sort of a lot done with a little effort, and when it comes to something like, say, creating a course, when I put my effort into that, all the other stuff comes from it. So I can create videos from the courses to put on YouTube and so on and so forth, and I could do this kind of repurposing thing. Anyway, so I had all this kind of breakthrough about essentialism, and I realized I just want this very clear thing that I just do the same every day. Because my biggest problem was before I just want to do different stuff all the time, and I never really like saw anything through. So I realized I've got too many ideas and I have to get them all out or I'm gonna fucking lose my mind, and that's where the daily dose of integrity thing came up. And those are based on a one minute video I do each day. So that's literally a minute's worth of work, and then with the help of my wife, we turn that into the newsletter that goes out, and that just gets repurposed everywhere. So what looks like a lot of content is actually very little work. Like I said, my gift and curse is I don't have writer's block. You know, all those one minute videos I put out there, one takes, uh the ideas I've been pondering for years, and I finally get to speak, and it's actually been a fun challenge to see how concise I can be with an idea, try to get something out in under a minute. Um and then other than coaching clients and responding to people and emails and stuff, uh I just the rest of my time is creating videos for the courses. Um I give I probably give the the appearance of prolific creation, but it's more like high leverage. So I do a small amount, I spread it out as far as it can go. And one of the reasons I focused on courses is actually partly a business reason. Like most of my clients are people who have binged on my videos, and so I'm like, well, a course is a video binge, but structured and ordered and the course itself can be valuable, whether or not I coach the person. So I got the kind of highest leverage value for the lowest amount of effort. But yeah, and I've had to say no to stuff. I'm not writing any books at the moment. I very rarely do a podcast, it's just if an hour becomes free and I get the urge. I don't do separate stuff. A lot of my uh posting is copy and paste done by my wife now rather than me scrolling and bullshitting all the time. And I just keep my head out of the comments section these days, and I stop starting new projects and new collaborations and all the stuff I used to do every week. I used to do I just said yes to all the different ideas that occurred to me. And now I'm going through a very rigorous and actually quite challenging self-development phase for myself, which is just saying no to all these new ideas that occur to me. It's actually one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I just every day I've got new brilliant fucking ideas of what I could do next, and I just have to be like, nah, stick to the basics, just go do your daily newsletter and your daily work on the courses and coach your people and shut the fuck up about it. That's all you're doing indefinitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:19

Yeah, uh God, that's yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, I I totally see what you mean about kind of making um your kind of work go further. Um that's just come, I guess, comes from just experience and time and working in this space and knowing yeah, not like knowing how much your time is worth and where to spend it. You see a lot of people that are new to content creation, they spend way too much time on the wrong stuff. It's like you wouldn't pay yourself if you were you were your own boss to do those things you're doing. So why are you spending like 10 hours doing those things yourself, right? It doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:56

Yeah, there's a there's a lot of wastage. I mean, anyone who's followed my work for a while knows that I don't spend too much time on like quality of production or anything like that. Um and I don't have a huge following or anything, I'm not some big influencer, but I do I you know it creates a lot of coaching work for me. You know, uh it's I think one of the things about me not putting effort into stuff like that, the kind of I don't want to say materialistic, but more like the surface stuff, is that if someone does come to work with me coaching, it's really similar to the video they just watched or or whatever. It's like I haven't fancied it, it's similar to dating. What you get on the video is what you get in the coaching, it's like you just get me all the time. Um and yeah, there's a there was a lot of time I was wasting, and I didn't see it until I got my head out of it and had a look at my work, and I'm like, how am I so busy? you know, and it's just amazing how much time I was just getting eaten up by just crap, and that's the thing about being an entrepreneur, like in real life, nine out of ten of your ideas are not gonna work out. Yeah, but the key is to understand that once you find the one that does, then double down on that. Don't keep adding new shit because the success rate on new ideas is terrible. Um, at least for me, maybe I'm maybe I'm not actually speaking for others here, but I've been doing this for like 10 years now, and it took me a long time to fucking learn this lesson. I think it's just that schizophrenic mindset I've got of just every new idea sounds like the most awesome thing I've ever thought of. And I keep falling for that.

unknown 1:22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:38

I I I tend to encourage people, if they obviously feel aligned with it, to create content and to put things out there on the internet. Um, if they if they feel like they have that kind of teacher capacity within them or they have ideas that they want to share, um, just because the kind of bang for the buck of doing that, if you're a naturally creative person, is just so high, um, and even beyond financial reward, right? Like just opportunities and network. Um, I'd love to just hear how like some of the benefits uh outside of money that doing the work you've been doing has kind of provided to your life, you know, putting your ideas and work and writings out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:26

Uh I think there's a huge confidence growth thing and just expressing yourself honestly. Obviously, I've got a big thing with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:38

But creating content means taking that to a higher level, you take the risk of being judged by an audience as opposed to one-to-one. And the backing of yourself that occurs when you publish something. You know, anybody who's created content knows there's a big difference between creating the content and publishing it. That line horrendous to cross the first time, you know, just for some people every time. And there are times where I've still like uh it's aware the the stuff I most hesitate to publish usually goes down fine, and then the other stuff I'm like, this will be alright. I'm like, oh my god, look at the blowback. You know, you wake up to all the notifications, oh fuck, here we go. Um but when you believe something is true and you believe it's helpful, and then you express it and you take the risk of that rejection and negative feedback that you are gonna get if you are being really honest. Um that's like getting encouragement from some invisible father to go and do what you think is right and say you speak your mind. Except you, it's just you, you're the father. Um the more I speak my mind and publish it, uh the more I feel worthy, really. And it's not even so much that it's proven to me that it's valuable to others, though that has also happened. It's just you know, I had uh one coach, he put it to me really well. Um I was I was struggling to publish publish naked truth, actually, and this guy said like a single sentence that got it published. So the reason you're reading it is because this guy said this thing to me basically. I was fucking dragging my heels on it so bad. And he asked me sort of why, and there was a big I can't remember the whole conversation. It's actually a conversation you could watch online. It was a live coaching session that was recorded and published, so you can watch me just get grilled to fuck. And um anyway, I said something like I feel like I got the cure to cancer, right? When I talked about the honesty thing, because it is what it feels like to me, whether I'm deluded or not, I'll never know. I'm too strongly into the delusion, I guess. But I feel like I've got this thing, it saved my life, I've seen it save the lives of others. I feel like I should share it. And then he said, uh what he said, you're a selfish bastard. I was like, whoa. So what do I hire you for? Um He's like, How selfish is it to have the cure of can't cancer and keep it to yourself? What kind of selfish bastard does that? You know, that was the gist of it. Like I said, you can actually go watch the I'll find the link, you can watch him do this to me. Please do. Yeah, and uh and that's what I realized. Like, I mean, if we get real for a second here, like I have had people message me saying that they saw something of mine and it changed their mind on suicide. Right, like they were on their way and then they stepped back from the edge because of some message I got out there. And I realized like, well, every time I haven't published, haven't spoken, I mean, was there someone who needed to hear it, but didn't? Maybe not suicide, but maybe you know, go into a bad relationship or put up with a bullying boss for another year or something? Like, is there something bad that happened because I was selfish in my fear of rejection? Right. And that's the thing, if you really think you've got ideas that will help people, if you're in that teacher capacity, that sort of it doesn't even matter, it doesn't even have to be non-fiction. I mean, I've been rescued, my life was rescued by fictional books, by entertainment, stand-up comedy, movies. Imagine if those people never put that out. Like, you think of your favorite movie or the movie that just moved you, I don't know, something like Fight Club. Imagine if everybody like, nah, this wouldn't make it this movie, fuck it. And that's kind of actually what happened with Fight Club, like uh Chuck, however you say his last name, the writer, you know, he had to really push for it and battle to get it made. Um but what a groundbreaking thing that was to watch, especially for guys like us who are struggling with masculinity and seeing this kind of I mean, we first watched it, we just wanted to go fight, but then we sort of watched it a another eight times and we get it. You know, there's so much uh think of all the books and stuff you've read that just moved you. Does it matter that other people thought the book was shit? You know? And that's why I thought, you know, when I talked before about my epiphany about not changing the world for everybody. What I realize more is there's a few people, maybe like Sammy in it, like yourself, which what I got to say at that time in their life is just what they need to hear, right? Like it's just perfect. And then, you know, seven other people give me a one star review on Amazon for their book or whatever. You know, that's the price. I'll pay for that particular piece of publishing perhaps. And I get that all the time. Like I I I have to stay out of the YouTube comment section now, especially with short videos. Because it's just like blistering hate I get sometimes. But then you get occasionally one dude's just like, oh, this fucking solved everything with my shitty boss. Like thank you so much. I'm like, well that'll do one dude. That's worth publishing. That's worth the five, six minutes it took me to put this out. Like I don't need him to pay me. I don't even need him to actually make that comment and let me know he he exists. It's good enough just knowing that that may happen. Right? It's just good enough like sort of lighting up a little corner of the world briefly for like one person, giving them a chance. Um especially if you combine that with kind of empirical testing of the idea, like you're pretty sure what you're saying does work based on evidence. Well then share it around. If other people don't like it, they won't use it. Fuck it. If they do and it works for them, then it was very uh it was very giving of you to put that out there. I think that answers your question, but I've been ranting for a bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:07

No, that's I was uh I was not expecting that answer. Um that's such a good like such a good story. Um yeah, I I'd never thought about it that way. You know, every time you don't publish something that could help something, something that helps you by publishing it as well, you know, you don't you don't often think about that. It's often like the small self that is like, but what about my feelings? Um that's like, well, you know, maybe there's something bigger to look at here. Um the other question I was curious about, um, Sammy, you can uh go in in a moment, is you come across as like kind of very grounded and streamlined. I don't know how else to kind of describe it, but like you don't seem like you have that much neurotic chaos bubbling around upstairs, you know? Um I'm sure every human does, but that's something I've also observed in my own kind of growth. When I've spoken to younger people, um I I've realized, you know, the big difference to me and you, I've actually said this to someone, is I just have less bullshit thoughts, you know. Like I tend to just have less of that kind of noise like going on, right? And it's more just kind of clear and essentialist. So I was just curious what kind of content you consume, you know, what kind of influences um do you like to look at to give you ideas and inspiration, and you know, and that can also include to help you when you are having a stressful day or something like that as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:43

Uh yeah, I mean I'm I'm big on um podcasts and stuff. I like guys like uh Lex Friedman, even yourself. Um I get into the stoicism stuff pretty heavily. Um but really the actual you know, this the answer to why is it that I appear I guess centered that's the honesty thing. That's been the biggest game shift for me because neuroticism used to be my life in a sense. I don't know how I appeared to people, I probably didn't appear that neurotic, but that was because I was trying so hard not to. Um but what honesty does is it really just cleans everything out of your head because you speak your mind all the time, you find out what actually happens and how people actually feel about you and so on, now you're not guessing anymore, and that's half of your thoughts gone, because most of them are just guessing what other people think of you. And then the more like especially with creating content, especially with writing books I found, but even the videos and the podcasts, the more you speak your mind, the more you understand what it is you believe and what you think, and the easier it becomes to talk about, the easier it becomes to put into sentences and paragraphs, so it actually sounds like you've written this out before, because in a way you have, you've practiced it.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:03

And so this I'd say in terms of the content I consume, what I'm really looking for is people who appear to be at least very, very honest. There's even people who are quite controversial figures and people don't like them. Uh say someone like Jordan Peterson. There's a lot of stuff he says that I don't agree with, but I would argue he's one of the most honest people in the the sort of high profile sphere that currently exists. Whether or not he's right or wrong is a different discussion, but I have very little doubt that what he says and what he thinks is almost perfectly aligned. There's nothing hidden. And I I'm quite I just I get my kind of uh it's relaxing for me to see that there are others. Because one of the most difficult things, and you know, Sammy, this is something you'll be going through, is when you start being really honest, is you realise not many people are you know, I've made a piece before about being honest in a dishonest world. I mean from the bureaucracy of having to deal with like getting your immigration sorted out through to just everyday conversation with people on the street, like there's a lot of bullshit. And it's it can feel lonely to be honest. It really does. I can be at parties sometimes where I'm just like, fuck, I'm like not just the most honest person here, but the only one. Like everyone else is just playing, everyone else is fucking wearing a mask. I feel like an alien, or I feel like they're aliens or something. Feel like I can't break through. So when I meet someone who is, or I see someone on a podcast who is or whatever, you know, see Jim Carrey doing an interview or something, you know, recent Jim Carrey, you know, where he's kind of let go of all those things. I'm just like, oh god, yeah, there's others. You know, that's nice. That's good to know. And and they seem to be received rather well. I I really do think other people want this. I think, you know, I am seeing a wave of that it's kind of a wave both ways, there's like increase in dishonesty going on publicly. People are getting more and more full of shit. But also I think there's a real yearning for transparency these days. Like it's so rare that people really love it, and there's certain like pieces of content stuff that are going viral because someone's just being really fucking real. Yeah, just saying what everyone thinks but no one talks about stuff, and it does seem that there's objectively there's a real yearning from people for that kind of honesty. Which gives me uh just validates what I already believe, but for people, say like yourself, Sammy, wondering like, oh, can I get away with this kind of honesty on dating and stuff? You can take some encouragement from the fact that you know, with online podcasts and everything, you see, people really do seem to dig it when it's at a distance and safe. So maybe they would want it face to face as well. Maybe they're actually looking for that. And in a world where like the politicians and the celebrities and all the high profile people seem to be bullshitting to us all the time in quite severe and ways where we just can't even trust media anymore and all that sort of stuff, so refreshing to meet someone where you like I am very sure that they're telling me the truth right now. Like, there's no way they would say that if they were trying to manipulate me like they must be out in the open. It's like uh John, you're saying before, you know, if your kid comes and says, like, oh, I didn't miss you for two days.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:39

It means that when they do say I missed you, that it's true. Yes. It's so much more meaningful. Like it's very hard to accept compliments from someone who's positive to you all the time. But if you know that person will be right on your ass if they've got a criticism, then when they compliment you, you're like, This person doesn't bullshit, like they never try to make me feel good. So this compliment's real. They actually like me, you know. Um, and that's why I think like being too say smooth in the dating phase and being too agreeable or positive means that they can't trust you. They can't trust if you say I like you that you actually mean it. But if you say, like, oh, is that your favorite music? Yeah, I can't stand that, you know. But God, you look so hot today. They'll be like, Oh, I must look good today, right? So anyway, I'm kind of going all over the place, but to answer your question, like what keeps me grounded and stuff is really it's just the honesty stuff. Yeah, being honest, seeing others be honest, try to help people be honest. Like, what is honesty but alignment with reality? So if you're talking about being grounded, it's about being aligned with reality. Honesty is like the the verbal version of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:45

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And I I love uh sometimes I see in your posts you do almost like breakdowns or an analysis of different kind of public figures, and you kind of do deep dives. I think that's really cool. Um, and I think uh the Stoics used to do that as well, you know, actually use case studies and stories of actual people and refer back to them and you know, like what can we learn from this person and how did they do well and what didn't they do well? Um, and yeah, that that to me makes the lessons sink in a lot more than just you know theory, right? It's like here's the theory, here's how someone's embodying it or not, and here's what we can learn from it. Um so yeah, I really appreciate that about some of your posts. Um Sammy, did you have anything to add?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:30

Um not really more than that. I feel extremely egoistic right now because I'm not producing the content I've been talking about producing for the last year. I mean, I I do feel I have something to give back to a lot of people about considering everything I've been through. And I mean, that was really encouraging, Dan, when you when you said that um, you know, not doing it is actually it's it's like I'm focused on myself, my own emotions, my own feelings, uh rather, and uh and actually thinking that if I do this, I might might impact one person uh positively and and uh make a change, a difference. And um that's super encouraging.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:19

Well, you know, this is a point you made before, Sam. You're talking about how the anecdotes in the book more than anything else were kind of like the key. I sweat the fucking examples when I'm writing men because they're the bits that matter. Like I can talk of this theory idea, and then the the example's gonna be the one that goes like, oh is there what are you fucking talking about? Yeah, I've been there, I've I've done that one. And me and my editor go to head to head over the examples. She always because I've always got 50 in each chapter and she needs to cut it down to like three. And I'm just like, I can't let them go, they're my babies, like without this, this you can't make the point. But if you've got the most powerful kind of fucking honesty in terms of publishing and content is your story, especially if it's one about struggling. If it's about suffering, if it's about pain. Because the one of the best gifts you can give is for someone else who thinks they're a freak and that they're alone in this. They hear someone else talk about like, fuck that's me, exactly. And that's half their suffering gone. Just like that, where they just go, Oh, I'm not alone, this is normal. At least like one other dude gets this. They don't even need you to know it, they don't even need to talk to you, they just need to know that someone else gets it, somebody else understands. And then they can start going, like, maybe it's not me this problem. Like, let's say somebody's been abused, for example. You'd be amazed at how many people thought that was normal until somebody else comes on and says, This happened to me and it's abuse. And they go, Wait, is that abuse? Fuck, I've always sort of felt weird about it, but it was just normal in my family or whatever. And you know, that's some of the most sort of popular content you see online now in the more authentic space is the stuff just someone saying like this happened to me. This horrible thing happened to me. Um And that's why I found like my my most popular stuff is either me answering someone's question from their real life, so it's a real life example I'm dealing with, or a personal story from my own life. And not one where I'm the winner either, necessarily. But just one where like a lesson was learned. And it's amazing to me still to this day the feedback I get where someone's just like, oh I'm just glad to hear it happen to someone else. Or like say with Nice Guy syndrome, like, oh this thing has a name, that's good. Okay, I could put a face to this fucking beast that's been ruling my whole life that I couldn't see because it was my life, you know. Um so yeah, if you've if you've suffered and been traumatized and you've got stuff to share about that Yeah, there's somebody out there right now who thinks they're absolutely unique and it's only happening to them. They can't say a word about it because everyone would know that they're a freak, and they have no idea that they're part of a big group who'd completely understand and have been through it too. And a little video from you could flip that for them, you know. Yeah, I think it's worth the risk of other people thinking you're a dick or that you sound funny or that your you know content isn't cool or whatever kind of comments I get.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:36

But I mean it's a step-by-step process, and you bring that up also in the book, uh, which I think is important um because I'm gonna do mistakes. And I have to accept that. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to accept like rejection, I'm gonna have to accept a lot of things going wrong here. Because I know I already did mistakes being honest in the wrong way. You know, you talk about different ways of being honest in the book. And and I I was like in the middle of what you were just describing as the power honesty. Um but uh in the moment, um I was still sort of proud afterwards that I I did that. I was honest in that moment. It didn't work out well, uh, it wasn't well received, and I could see uh what I had done wrong afterwards. Okay, I I I I should have talked more out of my perspective, my feeling, and and less blame and and and you know, just learning from the process.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:45

Yeah, that's the only way to learn, man. You can't do this in your head. That's why I call it the transition phase. It's actually a term I've only been using about the last year or so. But after 10 years of coaching, I'm like, man, it seems like everyone goes through this rough patch first, you know? Yeah. And I was like, actually, it is everyone going through this. And it's just the combination of like bringing a new person into an old environment and just you know, unsteady, just you don't know how you're doing this, and the only way to learn is to do it. It's very similar to learning like a martial arts. Like, if you do jujitsu, you know that you're gonna be choked out for the first year before you even get like a tap, you know. So that's just part of the process of mastering it. But I'm always excited for guys like you because in that transition phase is actually the worst. It's actually even it can be more painful than being honest, uh being dishonest, sorry. It can, you know, at least being a nice guy, I might have been suffering on the inside, but everyone thought I was cool, you know. And I went through this phase where I'm honest and that's really uncomfortable, and everyone seems to hate me. I'm like, Jesus Christ, I'm not getting anything out of this. But like you, like I'd feel proud of it after it was done and stuff. I got a sense like, yeah, this is right, like the results seem kind of awful, but that's what got me addicted to this in the first place when I just started experimenting with honesty. I wasn't getting amazingly positive reactions to it most of the time. But I just felt good after, like, even after an absolute like train wreck, I'd be like, fuck, at least I said it. I'm not gonna be lying awake tonight thinking I wish I had said something. I'll just be lying awake going, fuck, I shouldn't have said it like that, but anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:22

Yeah, that's the thing I think is key here because uh there there are so I've experienced during my life so many regrets, you know, about so many things. Why didn't I say that? Why didn't I say that? Then I also experience regrets about you know saying that thing, but but it's like at least when being honest, uh you know you haven't been lying. You haven't been dishonest with yourself. And I think that's something that's valuable to learn. It's that it's that it ha it doesn't have to do with the rest of the world. It has to be I think that's what the book really opened up for me was that I'm dishonest with myself. Even with that narcissist I'm talking with, it's with me I'm dishonest standing here. I'm not trying to even come almost convince him of changing his behavior. It's me changing my behavior when I'm dealing with this kind of person. So, you know, it's a perfect example of me just like stepping up the game and just like going, okay, now I'm gonna be that train wreck and we'll see where this goes, but I'm gonna go there and and just face my fears.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:38

Yeah, definitely, man. It's it's I think it was uh Christopher Hitchens that says that um it's just about choosing which regrets you'd rather have. You know, you're gonna have regrets, so make sure they're ones that you don't regret having, kind of thing. And that was the thing, I spent the first half of my life regretting being dishonest, so I thought, well, let's let's see what regretting being honest looks like instead, you know. Uh and it was not as bad, so I stuck with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:05

Seems to be working out pretty well so far. I really like the analogy to the martial arts you gave. Um, I remember when I first started jujitsu, um, like an older purple belt. I was just drilling with him and I was really new, and he just said to me, like, hey, just so you know, you won't have a clue what you're doing. Everything will be invisible and unconscious to you for the first six months, just letting you know. And even though that was not necessarily like encouraging, in my mind I was like, Okay, I gotta show up for six months, cool. Like it gave me that goal, you know, just keep showing up and don't take it personally. Um, and I think, yeah, I just I've always taken that on board with jujitsu. It's like you have to spar, you can do all the theory you like, but if you're not actually getting into the mix, making mistakes, learning, um, getting tapped out, you're not really learning. Um, and I think that kind of transition period is really similar, you know. You have to put yourself out there and actually apply the techniques with different people, and your brain will start to sort it out and figure out the path forward. Um, yeah, I I kind of uh I feel like the conversation's nearing uh a natural conclusion. Um but I would love to point people into specific uh places where they can like sign up to your newsletter or uh attend a course or do a course that you've done, if there are any that stand out in your mind, or if people want to get that one-on-one high-touch contact with you. I don't know if you have any spaces for coaching, but yeah, if you know I'm sure people listening to this will will want to go further.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:45

Sure, yeah. Um yeah, the newsletter is probably the best starting place because all my other stuff is you know promoted or talked about through that anyway. Yeah. And you'll get a good sense through that within the first week, whether you like me or not, you know. Um and people can just contact me by email uh if they want to get directly in touch. I'm not so big for my boots that there's some barrier, you know. I talk to anybody. Um and that's probably just the best way to get into it. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:18

Yeah, that's simple. Gives people uh something they can do. Uh and your newsletter is that primarily on Substack that you do that or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:27

Yeah, yeah, that's where it's hosted. I'll give you a link for your show notes or whatever. Um yeah, there's a free and a paid version. It just paid version gives you access to all the courses as well. But the free version gives you all the newsletter stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:41

Oh, okay. So if you if you upgrade to the paid version, you get access to the courses as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:46

Yeah, yeah, you get the it's like uh 20 bucks a month, and you can just do all the courses you want, basically. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:52

Yeah, that's really cool. That's awesome, yeah. Okay. Well, I use Substack a bit, so I'll also recommend uh recommend you on that as well. Um and yeah, I'll put all of the links in the show notes and I'm gonna dig out that coaching session as well, so I can link to people on it. Um I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me for the third time. I know it's pretty late where you are right now in the Czech Republic. Yeah, I'm just getting on a bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:20

So it's awesome to be here, man. I always enjoy our chats. And uh I've actually had quite a few clients come to me from your podcast specifically. Nice. So I guess we're talking about the right things to the right people, you know? And yeah, it's it's uh that's why I was like, I'm doing this whether it's COVID or not. Partly because I just love talking to you, but yeah, the clients I've had come from our conversations. I don't know, because they're into stoicism or something, they're just such good dudes to work with. Yeah. Um but uh yeah, I think uh normally when I'm talking uh When I'm a guest on other people's podcasts talking about honesty, it's like for the first time I'm having this conversation and they have heaps of resistance to it. But when I'm talking to you, it's like you're already on board with integrity and stuff. So we're just chatting a lot. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:08

Yeah. And I think um I think one of the first kind of stages in training to become a stoic has to be taking a look in the mirror metaphorically, you know, like looking at who you are. If you don't do that first, it's pointless looking at different kind of resilience techniques, right? You've got to look at where you're at and start being honest. So I can see this as being like a really important stage if you're an aspiring stoic, either coming at it a bit later or if you're just starting off, why not start with honesty, right? Like there's no better way to start than than there. So yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:43

It's pretty hard though. Like I always think it's kind of a battle of both awareness and courage. Like there's not knowing what you don't know, that's half the problem. And then the other half is like you know, but you don't want to go there, which is the courage problem, you know. Um but being uh yeah, I think it was there's a Dostoyevsky or somebody talked about how being no Nietzsche being dishonest with yourself is the main problem, you know, being dishonest with others is relatively uh rare because by the time you're lying to others, you've already convinced yourself of the lie, so it feels like it's speaking the truth, you know. Um and that's what you know, like my nice guy syndrome and stuff. I believed it. It wasn't like I was some con artist behind the scenes and knew that everything was a scam. I thought this is who I was. I was as conducting, I was more fucking I think other people believed it even less than I did, you know. I was absolutely sold on the idea that I'm just this funny, high-achieving guy who doesn't care about anything. Despite the fact that I was just tormented all the time. So I th I this why I love this work, is I still admire anybody who can look in the mirror metaphorically, you know, and just go, okay, this is who I actually am, this is what I really think and believe, and this is how I actually especially this is how I behave. Let's face facts, like this is what I've been doing. I'm not gonna keep lying to myself about that. These are my patterns of behavior, this is what I say I am versus what I actually do. And just to face that difference, you know, between that sort of preferred self-image and then your actual consistent behavior, um, it's it's incredibly brave to do because it's it's humiliating. Fucking humiliating, even if no one else knows about it. When you look at yourself and you're just like, man, I can be a bit of a piece of shit, to be honest. Like shit, man. Like I that's that's not who I tell people I am. That's not what I tell myself I am. Like, I can't believe I just did that. You know, especially with the people pleasing when you see the manipulation of it, and you see like fuck, I'm just I'm like getting inside people's heads and creating a false reality just so I don't have to get into an argument. Like, what the fuck? What am I doing? Like, this is despicable, but I didn't even really know I was doing it. I'm part of the con, I'm the victim and the con artist. Like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 1:54:07

It's horrible, it's horrible doing it first, you know. Yeah, and I mean that was I mean, the first third part of your book that was the identity crisis. That was exactly what happened. At least for me, reading that, you know, it was a pure destruction of what I thought I was. The nice guy. But I just realized I'm dishonest. I think one of the first messages I uh sent to John was like, I'm fake. I'm so fake, you know. It's like unbelievable. But now understanding that, and I've re-listened to the first third of the book again, I'm not getting that reaction anymore. Like it's like, okay, it it's in there now, and I'm starting I'm starting I'm I'm working on it. It's a progress and it's gonna take time, but I'm processing it, I'm processing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:58

Yep. No, look, that's that's the effect I wanted the book to have, even though I know it's brutal. But that's what happened to me. I had my brutal wake-up call, and I think some part of us knows the truth always. Because why else would we reach for a book like that? Why would we keep reading? Like for me, it was No More Mr. Nice Guy. That was the book that did that to me. And I was reading this, it's like, fuck, this is really uncomfortable. Like, my idea of myself being this awesome dude is just getting raked to death right now. Like, oh my god, it's the opposite. I'm the opposite of what I thought it was. I'm a horrible fucking person. But it wasn't, it was it was like half of me was getting the shock treatment, and the other half was like, yeah, I fucking told you. And now I feel like that other half that always knew, now I feel like that's the dominant voice in the conversation in my head. I feel like the one who knows what's real, like I get really uncomfortable being dishonest now. You know, the same exact discomfort I got from telling the truth earlier in my life. I'm now if I'm like, I still got this compulsive habit where I'll accidentally exaggerate a story. It's from my it's like a leftover bit of nice guy thing, because I used to tell funny stories and I'd really like sell them, you know, and it'd be full of fiction. Um I'll you know, I'll just tell the story to my wife and I'll I'll sell it to, you know, because she's hard Eastern European, like it's hard to move her with interesting stories. So I'll sell it. And I'll walk away, I'm just like, fuck, that was bullshit. You added like three times more of what actually happened, go back and tell her. I'll be like, yeah, that thing I made sound true, I actually made it up. I don't know if that's true or not, or whatever. And I can't stand it, I can't sit with it anymore. Um and so it's it's great to see like the other half take over like that. I feel like the the person who should have been in control all along has finally got the power. Um, and that's why I don't feel bad for people going through the transition phase as horrible as it might be. Partly because I know you can't help but go through it. Like you can't go backwards now. Once you've opened the truth about who you are, you can't convince yourself of the lie anymore. So now you're fucked.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:25

I kind of try to warn people when I'm coaching them and stuff. I'm like, if you start being honest, you won't be able to go backwards, and then you're trapped.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:32

Like the gates of hell have opened.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:35

I'm sorry. No, that's exactly what it feels like, man. But but then you can learn to live in hell and then you can survive and then you start to thrive and then you recreate it. And then you have a life that like you're honest all the time, and it the life suits that now. You know, I I don't have as many friends as I used to. I used to have like fucking hundreds of so-called friends. I'm not exaggerating, I mean it'd be triple figures of people I call friends. And now it's like a dozen maybe. Right? And maybe like three or four of them I'm actually real close and in good contact with regularly. Um but I don't have to try at all. I can just be whatever the fuck, I can be any mood, I could be depressed, anxious, doesn't matter. I don't have to entertain them or make them laugh. And I'd rather have that.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:32

Yeah, that's uh that's inspiring. Yeah, that's uh and also I think it's really uh nice when a coach focuses on honesty because one of the things that makes me squirm is when someone is the role of a coach, but they're also trying to kind of get money from you, you know, and it's kind of like half salesperson, half coach, which doesn't there's nothing high integrity about that, and it's and it's I get it, it's tricky, right? Like they're often very talented, have a lot of uh compassion, want to help people, but then also they gotta kind of get by, right? And so they kind of try to sell their coaching. But when someone is like, hey, I'm just gonna be honest, whether you like it or not, right? And that's me. Um, and I'm a coach, and here's how it's gonna work there's there's immediate trust, right? There's immediate trust, and it's kind of rare. So many life coaches you see now in social media. You're like the the first post you see from them is there's like dishonesty in the post, right? And that's how you're starting the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:37

Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I first started coaching, it wasn't completely straight, that's for sure. You know, there's tactics and stuff I might use to say sign somebody up. Um but I'd say they're all but completely weaned out of me now. Because uh part of it is also once you really get on board with honesty and it's happening a lot and you're shameless about it, then it actually works as well. Right? It is actually attractive and it is you know, clients love that honesty and they sign up with you because you're honest and so on. And so this idea that like honesty is this complete sacrifice of reward is not actually accurate after the transition phase. It's a different kind of r it's a reward that suits you, right? It's an alignment reward. So now you'll get the right kind of friends, and you won't have to date very much because you'll find a great partner, and you might not make billions of dollars, um, but the money you get will be honest money, you know, you get it from people who aren't being tricked or manipulated or have buyer's remorse in any way, and it's just it is a trade-off. Yeah, you can get more quantity with dishonesty, I think. Um but quality, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:00

Yeah, okay. Well, um I th I I feel like we could talk for another five hours. But uh let's uh let's save this for uh uh part four in the quadrilogy, um if not more. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:16

Maybe let's see where I am in one year then.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:20

We'll keep tabs on that. Um and I'm I'm recommending I've got a few other people that are actively reading The Naked Truth now as well, that are having similar experiences to Sammy. Um so yeah, this is awesome. And I I I I'm sure that a lot more people listening to this are also gonna like how could you not want to get on that book immediately after listening to Sammy, right? It's gonna happen. So um Yeah, even when you want to have an identity crisis, they've agree in it. Great. Well, thanks Dan and thanks, Sammy. Thank you.