#789 - Neil Strauss - Why The World's #1 Pickup Artist Left The Game Behind

Chris Williamson
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Neil Strauss. He's a journalist, writer and an author. Neil was the world's most famous pickup artist who kick started much of the modern dating discourse.

So looking back 20 years later, what has he come to realize about what really matters in life and how to find love and connection? Expect to learn the trajectory of Neil's views on relationships over the years. How Neil reflects on his book the game, why Neil is having a baby with his ex wife. What went wrong with the world of pickup artistry? Why faking status is not such a great idea.

How to measure success in a relationship, how to rid yourself of other people's expectations and much more. Neil is a really fascinating human. He's also the guy that wrote Rick Rubin's book that broke the entire world over the last like two years. He wrote the truth. He's ghost written a ton of best selling books.

I think he did Kevin Hart's biography or autobiography. He is a very insightful guy and I very much appreciated speaking to him today and getting to hear his insight. As someone who's been at the forefront of the world of dating commentary for like two decades. Very, very interesting. Lots to take away from today.

But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Neil Strauss.

Talk to me about your trajectory of perspective on relationships over the last few years. What's the, what's the story arc that you've gone through there? Yeah, I mean, there's, I have like my private story arc and the public story arc and they're kind of the same. And so I'll just tell you the arc the best I can, which is basically, basically what I do is I do the same thing you do. I just try to figure out things in life.

Neil Strauss
And when I get stuck, I just do all the research and talk to all the people as well as have all the experience I need to, to learn. And so the first place I got stuck in my life was just dating. And as a guy who was writing for the New York Times and Rolling Stone about music and around on tour with rock bands, around all kinds of wild decadence, I felt like I was a guy on the outside watching everyone else have all the fun. So the first book, obviously not the first book, I think was my third or fourth, but the game was probably the most infamous one, was me trying to figure out dating and being in this world of, and being fascinated by this world of these pickup artists and all the social implications of that at that time. And so that was me trying to solve the problem.

Let's say of courtship in my life and then great. Dating was a lot easier to solve than the next problem, which is relationships. People complain about their dating issues when it comes to relationships. They dont just complain. They really struggle, grieve, go into locked boxes of stress and trauma and confusion that almost no one else can enter.

Because it's fun to hear people talk about their bad dates, but talking about a rat bad relationship. Most friends, after one or two or three years of someone experiencing the same problem, actually get tired and this person's stuck in this situation. I mean, it's tough. It's easy to stop dating someone. You're.

You have a bad date. You have a bad date with someone who's horrible, you just send them a polite text or I guess ghost them. Right? People do that. But if you have a bad relationship, how do you get out of that?

And does the other person accept your boundary that you want to leave? Usually they don't. Usually as soon as they feel abandonment, they start chasing you and not letting you leave. Even if they don't want to be in the relationship. That rejection is so much to them.

So the game was the easy book. But figuring out the relationship part and especially looking at my own issues and relationships and my own patterns and taking a tough look at myself with relationships and even what drew me to the game and those pickup artists, that was like the next step. So that was the next step of the journey and that's the next book and maybe the third book is. So ended up through everything I learned, having an awesome marriage, have a father of a eight year old, a nine year old now, and it's the best. And I also have an amazing divorce.

So, meaning that I'm best friends with my son's mom, I feel like we really are. Like, I love co parenting. And looking at the other side of how do you. And I guess it's such an amazing divorce that we're actually having another child together with my son's mom.

Chris Williamson
Your ex wife. And you are no longer together in the traditional sense, but are having another child because of how well you get on as parents. I think we're great co parents and I think we get along wonderfully and ready to sort of take that journey together in a new way. Wow. Interesting, right?

That is. I've never heard of that. No, I know. It's funny. I saw your face when I said that.

I've spent a lot of time researching mating behavior and that's the first time. I mean, what an irrational way to look at something as so is your perspective around your previous marriage. We work as co parents, but not necessarily as partners. Exactly. The romantic and sexual energy may not be there, but we're really.

How are you gonna make the baby? The baby's already made. Okay, how did you make the baby? So it's about four months. I'll tell you the old school way.

Neil Strauss
Yeah, I'll tell you about that. I'll tell you about that. Let me backtrack for 1 second and then I'll tell you how we got there. People may have. It'll be interesting, I'll tell you that.

I'm happy to share, but let me talk about the divorce for 1 second because again, I'm always fascinated by what is happening in my life now versus what already happened. And I thought about this a lot, and I haven't heard people talk about this, but learning everything I did about trauma, divorce, I think it can be. It's tough if you're a child of a divorce where the parents are fighting with each other, but it's also tough if you're a child of parents who aren't divorced and fighting with each other. You just don't want parents fighting with each other in front of you, at least. So when we got divorced, I thought, well, how do I make this a positive experience in that person's life, meaning our child's life?

And I thought, he needs a couple things. One is that it has to be a value add to his life, not something being taken away. So what does that mean? So for him, he had a friend who recently moved to a new house, and he thought that house was cool. So I said, how would you like two houses?

So just one house? You're going to get two houses. Now, I remember we trapped him off. Me and his mom brought him together to the new house. And I remember he got out of the car and he was so excited.

He was just like, so happy and like, shit, we're doing this, right. I think the mistake, and again, there's nothing wrong with it. People do what they best they can, is when you sit the child down, you prepare them for bad news. It doesn't have to be bad news. It's great news.

If you're both happy, which isn't always the case, then the second thing I think you need, besides a value add, is no interruption of service and the service being the love of both parents. And so that has to continue or get bigger. And this can be a positive experience in a child's life. So given that we feel like we have a great child and raised it well, I guess you want me to talk about this part, so I'm cool. I'm cool with what?

I haven't talked about it. So we thought, yeah, let's have a child their regular way. But literally, maybe the divorce was maybe five, six. Five years ago. We actually celebrate our d anniversary.

Like, this is all going to be about divorce. You're like, you're going to talk about relationships and dating, and now we're just talking about divorce. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, we celebrate our d anniversary, meaning that I think getting out of a relationship is harder than getting into one. Right.

And so we should celebrate the fact that we're able to, like, compassionately get out of it. So last night was our d anniversary, so we celebrated it together with our son. Wow. Okay. Talk to me about how you made the baby.

Okay. Got it. I know I've been crossed it. I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep pushing.

Yes. So, yeah, so this is the craziest thing. I feel like I'm gonna get some shit over this, but I'm fine with it. It is what it is. Or maybe I won't.

I don't know. But I feel like there's people out there with a certain narrative, and nothing I do will fit anyone's narrative. That's kind of the pattern of my life, but so we thought, well, we're just gonna have the baby the old fashioned way. And it just kind of felt weird. Like, literally, she's like my sister.

We're literally, like, best friends and that. And so it just felt weird doing that with your best friend, your sister. Sometimes that energy just stopped there. And so, syringe in the bathroom. Okay.

With a little cup. Yep. She went in the other room and then syringed it up one shot, and it took. It was the craziest thing. Wow.

Chris Williamson
You went turkey baster. We literally went turkey baster in just one time. Just once. Terrifyingly fertile. Stay away from me.

Neil Strauss
Yes. I don't want to be pregnant. Yeah, exactly. But it made me realize how easy it would be for somebody to just get themselves pregnant with your stuff. Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson
I mean, do not disagree. I think there's even now, there was a video going around on TikTok about how to sort of entrap a man. Like, what you can do. I'm always so skeptical about stuff on TikTok because I think, is this just a conspiracy of a conspiracy? Like, is this someone trying to go viral by saying something that's absolutely insane?

Yeah, but, yeah, that's definitely a risk. That is. I mean, you managed to do it with one cup and a turkey baster, so. Yeah, so someone could easily. Yep.

Neil Strauss
Easily. Easily. I just didn't realize till that moment how perilous. How. Yeah, how.

Yeah. That we should take care with stuff. So talk to me about the common thread through all of those experiences going from. Thank you for changing the subject, by the way. Of course.

Yes. We really went out on a tangent. Not at all. You have inception, the game pickup. It's sort of courtship and dating and validation and sort of casual stuff.

Chris Williamson
Then you have the truth. You have integration, relationships, love, unpacking trauma, then a pivot out of that into non monogamy, then a pivot back into that, then the pivot into divorce is there. So I see nothing as a pivot or as a brand and meaning. And by the way, in between those, I did a book which feels like tragically relevant now, called emergency, which is really about learning the other skill of survival. Like, when the shit hits the fan, there's even an acronym for it in that survivalist community.

Neil Strauss
Right. When the shit hits the fan, what do you do? How do you save yourself? How do you save your family? So the other piece, probably between these things, was realizing that while you, you want to be able to protect your family, and you want to be able to be safe and you want to be, you don't want to be a victim of history, and history is happening right now.

So it's really about how do you do your best to be self sufficient and not depend on the system. We both know Tucker Max, who is ultimate doomer prepper. Optimism, man, only maybe 30 miles from here with a million rounds of ammunition. Yeah. What is the, what was the common thread?

The theater is literally just like, there are stages of life that we go through, and I'm just doing my best to figure them out when, like, the way I was raised or what I learned or what I know don't hold up for me. So if I get stuck, I make it a project, and if the project's successful, I make it a book. And so there's some projects I've started that either they weren't successful, or I just lost interest and didn't take them all the way, or I didn't get a big, big epiphany at the end, and I didn't make that a book, or it didn't feel like worth sharing. Was it difficult or has it been difficult for you to let go of the past versions of you, those previous identities, the game was such a cultural moment that you're now the pickup guy, even though you were kind of. You were doing anthropological observation, basically, of this world, stepping in, observing what was happening, coming back, and telling everyone, how difficult is it to let go of the previous versions of you, especially when the public has an expectation?

I mean, super easy for me, hard for other people. Why? Because it's done literally, if I have an experience and then I write a book about it, that's my best telling and my best version of that experience, and then I move on to the rest of it and move on with the rest of my life. It's funny that it's surprising at all, because how it would be a tragedy to get stuck in a version of who I was and what I thought was right 20 years ago, or whatever it is, and then keep marketing that. I really feel that people try to brand themselves.

Right. They're the. I even look at one of your podcasts, there was, like, someone who was the. They were always the something something, right. The hormone wizard or the decorating guru.

Chris Williamson
Or the fat loss magician. Exactly. Exactly. And then, like. But there's a great saying from Leonard Cohen, the songwriter.

Neil Strauss
And he was speaking at a music festival, and the music festival was like, just. It was going off the rail. It was just kids were going off the rails. And very similar. Our culture always goes to these moments.

There's right now where we have the. There's always these amazing moments. And he goes. He said this great quote. He said, those who are married to the spirit of their generation are doomed to become widows in the next.

Chris Williamson
What does that mean to you? What that means is, if you just plant your flag and you say, this is it, guess what? You keep evolving. The world keeps evolving. Life keeps evolving, and you're stuck in the past.

Neil Strauss
I've certainly sat there with people who had a big health message that they were really tied to, who no longer believed it, no longer ate that way, but because they have a certain following that expects that they keep doing that. What happens is you get a split in yourself, right? And you're saying one thing while doing another. And I think ultimately, the goal at the end of the day is to just like yourself. Right?

You're not gonna like yourself deep down, if you're a hypocrite or if you're still saying something you no longer believe or moved on for. Cause you're, like, so much of what you talk about, so much of what your guests talk about is just having freedom of choice. And if you're. If you do one thing that's successful, and then your audience expects that, and then you start catering to them like you're not free. It's a horrible way to live.

Chris Williamson
Yeah. And you will begin to resent the people around you as well or the audience that you have, and it doesn't work. And it doesn't work, and people can see through it. I always say, like, your audience only expects what you've done before. Cause they don't know what you're gonna do next, so they just.

Neil Strauss
They don't know that. And so surprise them and give it to them. And I think I've tried to never be afraid to move in whatever direction I feel called to and trust that if I just care about it and I do my best, that it's going to find its right audience, whether it's my audience or another audience, I don't think that way. Is there something that you rely on to continually prioritize that sort of authenticity and that linear path from spirit to sort of world? Because people do get captured, and it's not like they're all doing it, because I've found that talking about keto means that I can make some money, and therefore I'm going to be the keto guy.

Chris Williamson
There's just a fear of becoming someone new. Is there something that you rely on to help you stay authentic when you're looking at moving on to the next phase of life? I would say it's more not something I rely on or something I do. I think it's a culmination of all the things I don't do right.

Neil Strauss
And so I think there's nothing you have to do, but it's letting go of attachment to stories. The story of who you think you are, the story of who other people think you are, the story of what supposedly works. Because the fact is, none of those stories even work. You know what I mean? Like, eventually you're sending the same message, and people get bored of it and sort of move on.

It becomes predictable, or you just seem like you're in the past or behind the times or something. So I don't even think those strategies really work for people. And by the way, side note, there are some kinds of people who really have one message, and that's their message they want to share, and that fulfills them. I've certainly met people, I'm sure you have on this podcast who really have one message to say, and that's really authentic to them, and they don't have this curiosity that you and I have, and so many of your guests have, and that's true to them and that's cool. Right?

But I think it's just about being true to yourself and honoring that above all. Yeah. I mean, even thinking about the transition from the game to the truth, like ex player chooses monogamy is a very convenient cultural narrative. It makes for a great headline, which. Is which and which because they're games we play.

Right? So that isn't what the book is about. So you're talking about the truth. And for sure the narrative was pickup artist chooses monogamy. But the book had nothing to do with being pickup artist.

And the end result wasn't about monogamy, it was about. It was about really choosing. And the message of the book is if you're unhealthy, any relationship style you choose is going to be unhealthy, whether it's monogamy or polyamory or ethical non monogamy or what have you. And if you're healthy, whatever you choose is going to be healthy. Right?

So it's really about and letting go of our attachments to this is right or that is right. In other words, you can be in a relationship and can evolve. And you might decide maybe it's time to evolve and open it up, and maybe it's time to shut it down and really be committed to each other. And I think a relationship is a negotiation and a discussion. In other news, this episode is brought to you by ag 190 percent of Americans are not getting the nutrients they need every day to be healthy.

Chris Williamson
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Neil Strauss
Elaborate on that question a little bit. We have what seems to be ancestrally a monogamish or serially monogamous approach to mating. That somewhere between four and seven years. That's kind of the cycle. It's enough to get a child to be energy independent.

Chris Williamson
They can go off and look after themselves, and then you and your partner are going to go separate ways. Yet we live in a culture that even though casual sex is allowed and even though casual sex is often promoted, I think when children come into the picture, it's like you're supposed to be together for life. There's something sacred about this union. We have confluent, the confluent era of romance. It's not because your next door neighbor has cows and you have goats, and then if your son marries their daughter, then you can combine your lands together.

Neil Strauss
Or something like that is the word for that. So the most recent era is the confluent era. So it's a phenomenal researcher that I had on the show who has done a cultural assessment of romantic traditions throughout the ages. And the confluent era is what he says we're in now, which is we can be in a relationship for as long as you benefit me and I benefit you. And if either of us stop benefiting each other, then we go our separate ways.

That's the era we're in. That's the era that he's defined it as. Here's another theory on that that I heard. I think that's interesting. I don't know about that.

I'll just. I'm thinking on that. So I interviewed Stephanie Kuntz, who wrote a book, a history of marriage, and her take on it is we kind of went from what you were saying that it was this extra workers and inheritance rights and things like that, to this idea of love to now she sees as a pick and choose thing. And I guess I'm an example of that, which is like, okay, do I want kids or not want kids? Do I want monogamy or do I want not want monogamy, kids without marriage or kids with marriage, we sort of have this checklist and we can kind of design the thing that we want.

In my case, like, okay, I'm having a child but without the marriage. And, you know, and I think so she sees it as this sort of pick and choose era. And I don't know if there's a name for it or word for it. But that feels more right to me than the confluent thing is like, I'm with you as long as you serve me and I serve you, and then we. That almost sounds like what it was before, when it was like, well, it serves me to have more workers in a division of labor.

Chris Williamson
Well, you also know that more choices don't necessarily make us happier. The paradox of choice is a big deal. If it's like, okay, here is the one relationship style that people go for. This is the direction that it's in. You have a village of this many people.

Constraints on choice actually enable satisfaction in many ways. Oh, totally. I mean, think if we were, if there were arranged marriages, we're like, and again, assuming there's no emotional or physical abuse, we'd be like, let's find a way to make this work, you and I, with our minds. And I keep saying you and I, because I think we think similarly in terms of having this learning growth mindset be like, okay, I'm going to make it work. I'm going to adjust myself.

Neil Strauss
I'm going to see how we can work it out. So, for sure, I think I agree with you on the paradox of choice. And that's certainly the challenge we're having now with the courtship world as far as there's just so many apps, and these apps are like throwing so many people at you that people are, like, pricing themselves out of the game in the sense that they're just serial daters who go on dates literally all the time. And that's just what they do, because they like that quick validation. And then the thing you're dealing, the interesting thing we're dealing with on the apps, as far as this goes, that I realize we're jumping all over the courtship, relationship, divorce for doing it all backward.

But the interesting thing about apps I find so fascinating. I met one of the, one of the co founders at Tinder reached out to me, and he says, part of the reason we started this app was because I read the game and I thought, oh, that's so much work. Wouldn't it be nicer if you just already knew when someone was attracted? You can take it from there. So it's interesting, but I think it's like you said, I think it is a lot of admin, but the other thing is, if you're hiring for a job, it's tough.

But if you put an ad out because the same unemployable people keep circuing the job pool, they get a job for a couple months and they get let go or they can't find a job. The same is true of the dating apps. A lot of the same undateable people keep circulating and circulating and circulating. So if you're on them regularly, it's easy to get cynical about your prospects. Are you familiar with LMS?

Chris Williamson
Do you know what that is? No. Lux money status makes sense. So it's the triage priority list that a lot of guys in the black pill movement rely on and say is most important. Lux is most important, then money, then status.

Neil Strauss
For men? Yes, for men. What's your thoughts?

My thoughts is it's a sad way to think. It's a sad way to think. And I guess I'm just thinking out loud. I got a bunch of thoughts on the stuff you're saying. But to speak back to what you were saying about what it's like to be someone, I think, like, I think mostly we're all living on our own stories of what it's like.

And I think if you choose to see the best in people, you're going to notice the best behavior. If you choose to see the worst in people, you're going to notice the worst behavior. And I think it starts with the eyes you're seeing the world through. And so down to looks, money, status. I think that I would probably.

I think they got it wrong. I think that there's that. And how would they define status? I guess I'll ask you. I wouldn't be too sure.

Chris Williamson
I would guess something like popularity. So I would say it's high status behaviors. And I mean, I know this because I went and hacked it in the game, right? As a guy who is not that good looking, as a guy who at least at that time, didn't have any, like, you know, wasn't someone recognized, didn't have a lot, didn't have status, didn't have money, didn't have looks, didn't have fame. We realized.

Neil Strauss
And I also, I was a guy who, once I wrote the game, I had the people with the most looks, the most money, the most status, calling me like this fucking five six, big nose, you know, dude who keeps saying, you know, and can't even articulate a really clean sentence, calling me for advice, the same shit I was alone dealing with. They were dealing with the same thing. And I think it really goes down to the story you tell yourself more than money, looks, and status and then how you reflect that story. As a simple example, I've seen a lot of people with money, looks, and status engage in low status behaviors, meaning being insecure, being doubtful, not caring themselves well, not speaking, just always being worried about what others thinking about them. And whatever those gained for them, they lost it.

There's a line, there's like a troubadour poem that, like that something about the. When they were first sort of talking about making romance into art in that era, that's like the eyes go forth to seek an image which they can then recommend to the heart. And so I think the money looks in status. You might get your foot in the door, but after that, it's who you are that enables you to stay in that door. Unless you're dealing with someone who has similarly low self esteem.

Right. And it's just out there looking for a target who has those things because they've got their own wounds. They feel like that gives them safety, I think. Sarah, go ahead. Just one of the interesting reflections that a lot of friends who maybe in the early 2010s were trying to do game and pick up and day game and stuff like that, what they realized was they became quite disenchanted, I think, with the world of dating because they saw what they needed to do in order to be attractive to women and then realized the distance that that was from who they really were or what they thought they needed to do in order to be attractive to women and realized that I can get what I want, but what I want doesn't actually see me.

Chris Williamson
And that distance between the two of. I'm having to tell them about the midget fight outside and do my kino escalation and ignore the. And do all the rest of this stuff that I think caused a lot of them to become very disenfranchised and disenchanted with the world of dating. Yeah, I think, I mean, a couple. Couple thoughts and to go back.

Neil Strauss
So, again, these are like the stories we tell ourselves. I think that there's a learning process and maybe you learn. If I look back on the game, there's so many different issues around it, negative and positive and everything else, but I see it as a lot of neurodivergent people trying to learn how to socially interact, including myself. For me, I needed those little. I didn't know.

Just tell me what to say, how to angle my body. I was so uncomfortable around people. And then once I learned it, that I could let it go the same way you learn anything, which is sort of learning the rules and then throwing them out. So, second, I got three points to make. Again, these topics are so interesting.

Right. Second thought, is that another perspective on the LMS thing? You said, which the second perspective is, people don't know what they want, so what they want are the things behind that. So a way to think about, for example, it used to really hurt my self esteem when I read personal ads and everyone wanted a guy who was 6ft and taller. How tall are you?

Chris Williamson
510. Okay, that's great, right? I'm five'six, maybe five'six. And a half at a stretch. Right.

Neil Strauss
And it took me a long time to realize that it wasn't height they were looking for. What they were looking for was safety. I want to feel when it's. When maybe what is. Let's just say, what does money represent?

Money represents some degree of security, competence, and. Competence. That was the word I was looking for. Exactly. Competence.

So if you look at the reasons underneath these, and you embody the reasons underneath these, which anybody can do, the other stuff doesn't matter. Yeah, I think that's where the disenchantment came from, which was not feeling like you had the actual foundation. Realizing that you could create the glitzy sort of mystique. Like, you do not need to see how much money I have. You do not need to see how much money I have.

Chris Williamson
And then going, oh, I can get what I want by pretending to play this game. And deep down, I still don't feel like I'm worthy of it. I don't think that they see me. What they see is this Persona. As soon as you're saying, I don't want you to know how little money I have, you're like the influencer we were talking about earlier, who's promoting a vegan diet while eating meat for dinner.

Neil Strauss
You're creating a split in yourself. So here's the other thing you were talking about is, I think these people. You're talking about the concept of locus of control. There's external locus of control and internal locus of control. And I'm probably going to get these wrong, so apologies if I do.

So the idea is, are the things that are happening to me the fault of others outside myself? Which is a nice thing to believe, right? Women are like that, thus I'm opting out. Men are like that, thus I'm just not dealing with that. And so we're just saying, we're creating this.

It's everybody else's fault. So I don't have to change. I can just hate on them, right? Or b, the way I am and the way I think you are is that, like, this is going on. How can I do better?

How can I change? How can I be better. How can I understand? How can I be empathic? And it's a lot more work, but, man, you're a lot happier.

Chris Williamson
Yeah. I think the benefit from the cynics perspective, the benefit of never trying, is never having to feel the pain of failure. I came up with this idea called the cynicism safety blanket, which is basically that. That's why it exists. It's sour grapes at an existential level.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. And so I noticed myself, if I ever start to. And I don't even do this anymore because I stopped it. Like, if I ever start thinking something negatively about someone who's successful and start comparing their work to mine and why mine, I just stop instantly, and I just think, what can I learn from that for myself? And again, most of your listeners, I feel like, are learning growth minded people.

But I think we can understand that there's certain people, and I've come across them, that if somebody is doing better than you, you can either try to do better or you can try to. Bring them down, bring them down to. Your level, and that's a split in the world. But the people who try to bring them down are the loud voices right now. Correct.

In the culture. Correct. So you, do you still run a men's group? I did for a while, and now I sort of do. Not really.

Chris Williamson
Okay. But you've been tangential to men's worky. Yeah, I'm in a men's group as a participant. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So given the fact that for the best part of 20 years now, you've been, in one form or another, observing men's development emotionally, relationally, spiritually, psychologically, therapeutically, what do you make of the current state of men's friendships, mental health, masculinity, role models? It's a very common talking point. What's your perspective on where men are at at the moment? Yeah, I've heard you talk about it a bit on the podcast.

Neil Strauss
But what's your take now? In a nutshell, out of curiosity, I. Think that men are being made to pay for the sins of a patriarchy that they no longer feel like they're a part of at the moment, they're being told how privileged they are and how fortunate they are to have all of these different advantages. And quite rightly, there are outliers at the top, the Elon Musks, the bezoses of the world, the NBA players, the NFL players. But I don't think that that fully captures the male experience, and I think that a lot of men don't feel like they're they feel like their worries are being dismissed out of hand by a whining class, this sort of chattering class.

Chris Williamson
Meanwhile, suicide, depression, friendlessness, loneliness, sexlessness, health, all of the problems that we know that men have. And I think that it's making them feel quite embittered toward the world, because what they're saying is, I'm suffering and you don't care. So fuck you. I'm not going to play your game. Right.

Neil Strauss
And now, who in this story is you? Who in that story is me? You don't care when you're saying you, who is the you? This might get to the point. I was thinking of the world.

Yes. Okay. So I think we had this split that we think the world is the stuff we receive from our devices and from our computers, and that's a game we don't want to play. So there's an unhealthy game of thinking that the voices that are loud online and the. The TikToks that get fed into our feed and the tweets we see are somehow the belief of the culture, and it can really mess us up.

I've seen you had on the podcast, the woman did that wonderful JK Rowling podcast, and there's somebody who literally, she just got sucked into this hole, and she's now living her life out of her trauma. That was. Again, I'm just really smoking about that. You can get taken off course by just listening to these voices and thinking that the culture thinks it or people think it. It's just one of many stories out there.

And I think it can get confusing if you have less of a grounded sense of self or if it plays into your personal trust. I think the problem that a lot of people, especially young people at the moment, are facing is that their experience is the Internet. Their world is the Internet. You know, if you're spending between six and 8 hours a day on screens online, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, video games, that is more real than the real world. What do you mean, the fucking real world?

Chris Williamson
Like, this is my real world. I'm observing it. Like, what are the. Where are the countervailing narratives that push back against the fact that maybe people do care about the fact that men are suffering. Maybe people do care about the fact that I'm really struggling to get a job or a girlfriend, or I feel I'm neurodivergent and I don't understand what to do.

I can't hold down a relationship, or I don't have enough friends or whatever it is. Like, if you're not going out there into the real world to see the alternate storylines. Yeah. And I think that's exactly the point, that it is very real for people. And when it becomes that real, it actually does become dangerous.

Neil Strauss
And I would say that. I would say it's happening to everybody. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter what your identity is or how you identify yourself. There's some vector of attack that is really making you feel like you're doing it wrong.

You're not enough. If you step out of the line, you get slapped really, really hard.

And really, that's why it's important, going back to what you said, for me to be in a men's group or for me to be in a world in a community of small amount of people who really, really care, who support you in the best way you can, where you can really get that feedback and you can say, you know what, I've seen this stuff online and it's stressing me out in this way. So I think the point being, I mean, all these, there is a real problem in terms of, these are not contributing to anyone's mental health.

And I think a few things are important. I mean, one is to really try to stay out of a victim story to start, because once you get into, there's that saying, and I think it's the most true thing ever, that all perpetrators perpetrate from the victim position.

I mean, look at every war going on. And the main thing is there's a victim. I'm not saying that whatever's right or wrong, but all sides are the victim. Right? That's an interesting point.

Hitler was in encirclement. Putin was encirclement. We're surrounded by enemies, so we perpetrate from the victim position. So the first step is, if you really want to get any reality on it, to stop and get out of the victim story, because this is when people start. That's where that leads to the hate, or that makes it okay to sort of perpetrate.

But we can say there are all these variables around us and how can we curate these variables so they help us? And I do think these. It's insane. It's wild to me that all these companies that pretend to care about people don't have their algorithms working to actually help people versus market to them. Like, I would love something, and it's to the way the system works in capitalism works.

But what if the algorithm was not, like, what can we sell you? Or what can we market to you? But, like, how can we improve your mental health, right? How can we make you. And I think that would help the world and actually create better consumers.

Anyway, so I hear what you're saying, and I get to the point of view that I don't want anyone to tell me what my identity is, what it should be, how I should be within that identity. I probably identify myself on other factors more than I think a lot of. Especially guys, but also girls, increasingly now, are lost. They don't know we're in this completely new world. If you're either millennial or Gen Z or Gen A, your parents don't really have the skillset or the awareness to be able to work out how to exist in this world.

Chris Williamson
What does it mean to be technologically native? What does it mean to be in a world with porn and Tinder and onlyfans and expectations and boob jobs and bbls and stuff? What does it mean to exist like that? So people are quite rightly, looking for archetypes and role models. I want someone to give me some advice to get me out of this.

So I don't disagree. Many people like the idea of agency and sovereignty over their own direction. I don't want anybody to tell me who I am or what I should do or the way that I should do it. I want to feel like I am the captain of my own ship. And yet there are people who also need some fucking guidelines.

How am I supposed to exist in the world? What does it mean to be confident? Where does my self esteem come from? Why should I seek validation and not seek validation? These are questions that people look for, role models.

And unfortunately, I think culture is just offering up very few. And here's my spicy meteorological take for the future. I think that male body dysmorphia will overtake female body dysmorphia, and female crisis of femininity will overtake the crisis of masculinity within the space of about 20 years. I think that we're feeding the seeds of a unbelievably fragile, narcissistic generation of women and a unbelievably aesthetically anxious generation of men. And add to this computation, ad AI is going to create these archetypes that no human being can live up to of perfection.

Neil Strauss
I was seeing some of the. So, like, on one hand, the culture is getting into sort of body posit, body positivity. On the other hand, AI is creating these, like, archetypes that go beyond what. Fibonacci sequence perfect ratio. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Yeah. So it's but here's my thought. I think I'm a big reader. I think you were talking another podcast about reading, and I love reading. And right now I'm reading this.

Amazing. So Penguin did a box set of the great books. It's called the Little Black classics, I think. And there's a box out of 80 of the greatest books throughout history of the last, I don't know, 3000 years. And then there's about 40 or 50 books beyond that.

I'm going through them all in order, right? And what I'm learning from it is whether I'm reading about a monk in Japan, Kenko. I forget what century he was from at least four or five centuries ago to reading Mozart's letters with his dad, to reading Socrates, to reading Camus. These things you're talking about, maybe the language was different. Everyone was still dealing with that.

The trial with Socrates is like, people are telling me who I should be and how I should be. I don't follow the common beliefs. There's all these rumors being spread about me that aren't even true. He's literally dealing with the same stuff. And sure, there's more of it and the devices are different and it's being listed this other way, but I think they're, they're this human nature and these problems we dealt with.

Like there is a timeless quality to them, even though they seem really unique generationally. We'll get back to talking to Neil in 1 minute, but first I need to tell you about Shopify. Shopify powers 10% of all e commerce in the United States. They are the global force behind Gymshark Allbirds and in case you didn't know it, Newtonic Shopify is the global commerce platform and it helps you sell at every stage of your business. They're your no excuses business partner.

Chris Williamson
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Right now, you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to shopify.com modern wisdom, all lowercase. That's shopify.com modernwisdom. To grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Do you think that it's possible to game love or connection in a relationship in the same way as you were able to do it with courtship?

Neil Strauss
I mean, I think the short version of the answer is any. And by the way, what are your thoughts on that, by the way? Because I know we have a different thought because I noticed you switched the topic, which is fine, we can go to that. What are your thoughts on the idea that. And I can give you some.

I think if someone reads Albert Camus create dangerously, for example, he literally complains about some of the things people are. He's like about some of the things that people feel like they're uniquely complaining about now, like some of the lines could apply to today or. I just think there's probably a set of everything I read, everything I read, and I can send you some of these excerpts. Like I'll mark things that literally sound. Like it's people talking about perennial problems.

Perennial problems. But what are your thoughts? Because I think you see it in a very unique cultural crisis of masculinity and mental health. Well, I think from the gaming level long term connection thing, it seems to me that more people are beginning to wake up to the fact that they probably don't want to sleep around indefinitely and kind of be in this weird Tinder admin liminal purgatory for the rest of time. That probably doesn't sound like fun.

Chris Williamson
But no one really talks about love in relationships. Even a lot of the evolutionary psychology stuff that I've dug into, and I know that you've looked at as well, very sort of sterile, transactional way, its mate value and its offering for status and protection and resources over fecundity and age and fertility and blah, blah blah. And no one ever talks about the actual felt experience of being in love or what it's like to be attached to somebody else and be dependent on them and be in union with them and do things that make each other feel good and stuff like that. It's always a very dispassionate look at what's the ledger, what's the balance sheet of this? And at least as far as I can see, I think that you can quite easily game attraction, but it is much more difficult to game connection.

Neil Strauss
And when you say no one talks about love, you mean like, what do you mean by that? Well, look at the dating advice that you see that's online. Like how much of the dating advice talks about this is what it feels like when you're head over heels, besotted with a guy or girl partner. And this is how you can handle the emotions that come up of jealousy and uncertainty and anxiety and fear of being left and all of these things. No one ever wants to talk about that because it seems in a modern world where we can predict the weather and we can send rockets into space and we've conquered bacteria, and we've got a theory of disease and we've got AI.

Chris Williamson
Love kind of almost feels like God. It's sort of this very unsophisticated wishy washy. And you talk about kind of love or relationships. Just in your case, both. Both.

I just don't think that there's a massive amount of discussion about love or relationships and how to build them together in a phenomenologically consistent way. Yeah, I guess, by the way, in my mind, I actually think there's more out there on relationships than courtship. And I guess maybe it just depends on what silo you're in and what your echo chamber. Where's mine? Yeah, what's your echo chamber?

Neil Strauss
Because a lot of people out there are hurting over relationships. They're hurting over a past relationship they were in, where they're just traumatized from the experience, and they're hurting over one they're in and they just can't get out of. They're hurting one that over one that's over should be over. But this person is still in the court system fighting them for their child. They're hurting because they dated a narcissist or a sociopath or someone with borderline who put them through a living hell and gaslit them and drove them.

So there's so much. There's more pain out there from people trying to figure out the relationship stuff. And consequently, I think more people looking for to books and podcasts and experts and healing around that, at least in my silo, where does the healing? But then the other side of what you're talking about is then there's a flip side of it, which is there's a love being marketed to us through movies and pop songs that is also not realistic to what our expectations of it should be. That.

So maybe I can think of your question another way, which is we're seeing the horror stories and we're seeing the fantasies. You're smiling because I'm agreeing with you. Because we're agreeing. Right? But where are we seeing what really should be a healthy expectation of what a relationship is like?

Which means that a relationship with zero conflict is a warning sign. It's not a great relationship. Right. That means someone is. That's usually what they call a parallel relationship.

Two people living separate lives under one roof. It's okay to have, you know, again, as long as there's no emotional or physical abuse. Conflict is good to me. A healthy relationship is how quickly you recover from the conflict and truly get back to where you were before it. That's a healthy relationship.

Chris Williamson
I've heard you say you shouldn't be using science to decide what to do with your heart. Yes, I do think a lot about how much people are trying to rationally logic themselves into an effective, satisfying relationship. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's true. I think it's fascinating.

Neil Strauss
To the other side of it is people who really have a long list of what they want, and then they just go for the same broken shit every time the list goes away. Or they think they found that thing they want that meets their list. But that was the mask, and they end up in the same horror store they were before. So going back to relationships, I do think the. I mean, I think the healthiest way to have the healthiest relationship learned from experience is literally just.

It goes back to external versus internal locus of control. It goes back to, like, I can control. I love, like, I love the work of always working on yourself. Like, I just love it. And I think if it's a theme or these places where we differ, it's probably.

I'm always blaming myself. I'm always looking at myself. I can't control the culture. I can't control what people think. But what I can do is control how I respond to it.

And to me, it's giving myself the ultimate agency, right? And so I don't want to get into story that I'm upset about something outside myself that I have no control over. I want to give in the story of fuck, I'm reacting to that. Why am I reacting to that? What thoughts am I then having because of that?

How can I not be reactive? And then going back to relationships, here's a. I've never articulated this, but I think it's an important idea, which is you don't know whether you're, again, taking aside the edge cases of emotional physical abuse. You don't know whether your relationship with the problem is you or your partner until you stop reacting to your partner. So if I'm in a relationship and I come with a bunch of complaints and I say, why, it's not working.

But I'm reacting, you know, they're saying something and I'm getting upset about it, or I'm getting hurt about it, or I'm getting resentful or I'm shutting down, or I'm whatever it is, until they can have any kind of response. And I can really just be empathic, I can listen without taking it personally. I cannot defend myself. I can just seek to understand. I'm not able to judge the health of my relationship.

I realized that was a little bit of a tangent. Not at all. Does that make sense? What would you say to the people who do continue to find themselves repeating the same patterns, whether it's their perspective of the world, perspective of relationships, the kinds of people that they are attracted to or attract, what are the first places that those people should look? Yeah, I think there's two sides of it, right?

Or maybe there's three sides of it, right? In a relationship, there's three entities. There's you, there's the other person, and then there's the relationship itself as a third entity. Right. So I think we can kind of look at all three of those.

So one side is understand, again, like, attachment theory is so trendy right now that, that I don't even need to talk about it because everyone knows it. But when I first talked about it, like it was really new stuff, but understanding that we're wired a certain way because we love what's familiar, that's the easiest way to think about stuff. We love what's familiar. So consequently, if you had a narcissistic parent, you're probably going to try to meet some form of narcissist and then try to get seen by them and lead you to immense frustration. Or you had an abandoning parent, you're going to choose somebody who is not emotionally there or not physically there, or replicating that for you in some way.

And you're going to try to heal your childhood through trying to get them to be there, to be seen through all these things. And I think step one is heal yourself instead of trying to expect someone else to heal you. So that goes against. What was that word you said about the relationships where we use each other? Confluent.

Confluent relationships. So step one is, what's that classic book on self esteem that Ayn Rands, like, Nathaniel Brandon, he really said about, we attract people who are at our level of self esteem. So whenever someone's, by the way, I hope I'm not throwing too many ideas all over the place at once. So whenever someone, I just love these subjects. They're so fun to talk about.

So whenever somebody is saying, complaining about their partner in my brain, I'm always thinking, you're dating them or you're married to them. Like, what way? In which way are you equal? That's not that. Your partnership.

You're so emotionally mature and your partner so emotionally immature. You're dating each other. You're attracting your own level of that. Maybe you're the flip side of the same coin, but it's the same coin. So the first thing is raising your own level of emotional health, healing those childhood patterns and wounds, working on the self esteem piece.

You want to attract better people. Just literally become a better person. That list you have of everything that you need in a relationship. Go look at yourself with that list, and you embody those, and you'll find that person. You know, I love Byron Cady's four questions.

And the best part about them is, Byron Cady has those four questions where you can challenge your beliefs. The fifth thing is the turnaround, and that's changed my life. And here's, like, a shortcut for using it. If I ever tell myself a story, that person's annoying, the turnaround is. And I can list the reason I say I'm annoying, then I can think of all the reasons I'm annoying.

Right? I get that my partner's never there for me. What are the ways in which I'm not there for the partner? So if I turn things around, my accusations of other people to myself, I can usually see. We can all see, usually.

But I can usually see I'm not. I'm just as imperfect. So, first step is with yourself. But the challenge in that is the best way to learn about how to. About how to have a healthy relationship is to be in one.

So there's tools and skills you can have in a relationship that you can work on it. So if you're in a relationship that, again, where you're not dating someone who was really toxic or toxic for you, is to work on your own reactions, literally. Relationship is a system. If you change the piece of the system, you control yourself. The whole system changes.

I can't tell you how many times in my experience and other people's experience that if I change how I react to things and just respond instead of reacting, if I change some part of myself, the whole relationship changes. And all that energy. Sorry, man. I've got so much to say on this. No, no, no.

Chris Williamson
I'm enjoying it, honestly. Okay. All that energy people put into changing their partner never works. It never works. It just creates resentment.

Neil Strauss
And you're reenacting a parental figure they had when they were younger that criticized them. Right. They signed up for that. And so if you just take that energy out, you work on yourself, you change, your partner will automatically change. Like, they'll just change because the system changes.

They'll say, what are you doing? You seem happier. What's going on for you in that men's group? Maybe I should be in this women's group where you're doing therapy, who, maybe I should get therapy too. Like, fuck, man.

Just like, it all goes back to. Yeah, it all goes back to like, the better you make yourself, the better relationships you'll be in, and the better the world around you will start to look. What are the modalities that you've found best for unpicking these patterns? Yeah, I think there's a formula that I think of your eyebrows raised. I love you.

This is like podcast goal. Wait, there's a formula? Okay, so it's these three things. I think these work together.

So people always talk about therapy doesn't work, but I think they're talking about talk therapy. And I agree that talk therapy is not great for a change because your problems were developed before you had the intellectual capacity. The wounds happened emotionally. And so I think we need to heal him. It's best to heal them emotionally.

So I think the formula is these three things. So one is deep, intensive, deep, intensive experiences that are, whether they're workshops or things where you're really, really unpacking your wounds and you're just a puddle of tears on the ground. So some container where you can block off the outside world and all that social media you're talking about and really rip off the band aid and just be a. What are some examples of that? Sure.

My favorite. Ill say my favorite, the one that worked for me. And by the way, peoples thing, they say the best is usually the first thing they did that really worked. So my bias and the first thing that really worked for me was at the Meadows, which is a treatment center in Arizona. They have a program called the Survivors Program.

And its like an exorcism of your childhood wounds. You sit there in a chair like this, and I literally felt like an exorcism. And I remember leaving the therapy, and for the first time, I'm like, fuck, this is who I am without all that shit, without all that baggage I was carrying from mom and dad and all my upbringing. Like, fuck, this is who I really am. And then, of course, you go back to your regular environment and the same shit happenings, and you start having the same response, but now you have a target to get back to.

People love the Hoffman process. I think the Hoffman process is very amazing as well. The difference is Meadows is a psychiatric facility and you're getting one on one work. Hop in process is group work, but it's also amazing.

But here's the thing. I think anything you do where the person and yourself both have the intention of really getting better and it's not a cult is going to work for you. Ensure it is not a cult. Here's how you know it's a cult. It's a culture.

If part of the treatment involves you signing up other people for the work, simple rule of thumb. I've been, because I do so much self improvement stuff, I went to these ones that were culty. It was amazing to see how the brainwashing worked and how effective it was. They create these loops within the self improvement teachings that they then pull the strings on months or years later that get you to follow it like a robot. It's unbelievable.

Chris Williamson
How interesting. But we had one more thought. Sorry. No, no, no. Keep going.

We've got two more stages to get. Okay, so this therapy at the meadows is called post induction therapy. Speaking of cults, the idea is that your childhood is like a hypnotic induction. Your childhood is a cult. I got to show you a drink.

Get it in there. This is how you get these three hour podcasts. That's correct. So your childhood is a hypnotic induction, or you're being indoctrinated into a cult. The cult is whatever your parents believe, right?

Neil Strauss
We all grew up, and so the post induction therapy is unbrainwashing you from this culture you were in for the first 17 years, which I love. What was that? Can you just briefly describe the process of. Was it like acquisition and pruning that happens in the brain? I've ever talked about that before.

Yeah. So I'll tell you what, I'll hit the two other things and we'll talk about that. Okay? So first one, just to round out that first stage of your three step process of becoming the ultimate human deep. Intensive workshop, like just one or two a year where you're just emotionally kind of where you're going through some sort of emotionally purging experience.

Chris Williamson
And what are the principles of that modality? That it's something which is emotionally intensive. Yeah. And multiple days and in just a sort of safe container. Understood.

Okay. There's one meaning that simply you're just trying to let. And then, as everyone who's ever been to an amazing seminar or workshop knows, you get that high post seminar high, and then you go back and do the same old shit, right? So step two is maintenance, meaning we get this change and our brain gets set right, and we go back to our world, and the same stuff is happening. The brain starts to go askew again.

Neil Strauss
So I want to talk about the men. So some sort of weekly accountability, so you can just keep being reminded of what direction your boat should be pointed in. Here's an awesome thing about these men's groups, and I really, and I'm actually not saying, go on instagram and find somebody who's starting a men's group and join that. When I'm actually saying. When I say men's group, what I did was I took five or six people at my level of work, some people, you know, and we're at the same place, maybe we have kids or marriage or divorce, whatever it is.

And then we all chipped in for one therapist. So this is really affordable. It's cheaper than individual therapy, and group therapy has been studied to be more effective. But what's amazing about group therapy is I can sit, say you're the therapist and you have a point of view, I can just say, well, he's wrong. He doesn't know me.

That's just his opinion and how he was taught. But if it's you and four other peers who I recommend, and they're all saying I'm wrong, like, I don't think you guys are right, but you're all saying it, so there must be something there for me to explore. Nowhere to hide. Yeah, nowhere to hide. And with a group, between your weekly sessions with a therapist, you can stay in touch with the group.

So I strongly recommend it. And you need the therapist there just for the accountability. So you don't go off on some. It just becomes a bro evening. Yeah, comes a bro evening.

Or you just start reinforcing some unhealthy behavior. In other news, this episode is brought to you by momentous. You might have heard me say that I took my testosterone from 495 to 1006 last year. And two of the supplements I used throughout that were Fidogia, Agrestis and Tongkat Ali. Hey, I first heard doctor Andrew Huben talk about the really impressive effects, which sound great until you realize that most supplements dont actually contain what theyre advertising.

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Yep, around about one to two a year. Yeah, you know, or for whatever, one or two a year. It could just be one every couple years. You know, I think Vipassana retreats are probably great. I haven't done that thing where you hole up in a solitary confinement therapy.

A couple of friends have done that. Did they like it? Mix bag. I mean, whether it's a darkness retreat, whether it's piedratia did, I think, three weeks of daily psychotherapy, which was basically like him being sort of locked in a. He was adamant, after two weeks, I'm done.

I'm completely sweet. And they were like, you're not done. And he got real frustrated. And then, sure enough, like, day 19 of 21 or whatever was the day that everything happened. But, yeah, there's a lot of these sort of intense retreats, then a men's group or some kind of circling group.

Neil Strauss
Some sort of like, talk accountability. So weekly therapy or just a group. It doesn't be a men's group or women's group can be whatever group. And the third thing is tools to use when you're in the moment of crisis, meaning, okay, one simple tool is, say, reparenting. So my issue in relationships was enmeshment at a really dominant narcissistic mom, as, by the way, a lot of people who were on that pickup artist seduction world did.

So a lot of the idea behind that is I was suffocated by the overpowering feminine. I never want to be victim, go back to that story of the feminine again. So I'm gonna learn a way to empower myself. So besides the neurodivergent narrative, that's another group. And out of curiosity, what was your mom situation?

Chris Williamson
No, I wouldn't have said narcissistic, introverted, tried incredibly hard. I'm an only child, so an awful lot of care and sort of precious attention placed on me. Yeah, so, besides narcissism, there could be a super anxious or super depressed parent would also sort of be enmeshing, because then their needs come before your own sometimes. What is enmeshment? Oh, really?

Neil Strauss
Okay. Yeah. This is, like, the most important idea. So I'll finish the third thing, and then I'll do a measurement, and then there's another thing we're gonna get back to. No worries.

It's funny, I was like, are we gonna. We're not gonna run out of stuff to talk about. I know. We're gonna have to stop at some point.

But again, like, tools to use in. A moment when you're in crisis. Yeah. And by the way, I wanna say one thing. Pay a compliment, which is, you know, when I listen to your podcast, you really let the guests talk a lot, as you're doing so nicely to me, but you're also really connected and engaged and care about what's being said.

And it's a wonderful balance. I was a little nervous because I love conversation, dialogue that's connected, like we're having. And you do a great job of really thoughtfully listening and letting your guests go on for a while. Not at all. I mean, I'm continuing to draw it out of you.

Chris Williamson
You're a font of interesting things. So let's keep going. Okay. So the third thing is tools to use in the moment. So, meaning that, let's say I learned that I was suffocated by the overwhelming parent.

Neil Strauss
So when Ingrid, my wife, at the time, my ex wife, featured my mother, child, ex wife, future baby. So I don't know what it is. This is definitely the next book. Whatever this is. This is the book.

It's the next stage of the life journey. Conscious. Recoupling consciousness.

So funny. This is gonna be a thing now. It's so ridiculous that something conscious. Reparenting. Yeah.

So the reparenting thing is when we get triggered or reactivate something our partner does. Funny that I said parent, because we're reenacting something that comes from our parents. So they're critical or they're. People make up. My partner's making me do this.

They're not making you do anything. They're not making big monogamous. You can literally do what you want. They're just consequences. No one's making.

It's all a choice. So, anyway, anything we react to, we can stop. And so the tool for me was, even if she was hugging me out of love, I'd feel just suffocated by it, because my parents love was so my mom's love was so needy and sucked the life out of me, right? So I would just tell myself, hey, it's okay. She's not your mom.

She's not trying to sell the light. She just loves you and has affection and really appreciates and cares about you. So relax. Just to get into the specifics, there is that you talking to yourself in almost sort of a. I notice something arises.

Chris Williamson
This emotion arises inside of me. I see it, and then I begin to have a dialogue with myself about what that means. Yes. Yeah. Having a dialogue with the part of myself that's reacting, we have.

Neil Strauss
I love, you know, style therapy, and I love these. What's his name? Rem pod. I love looking at ourselves as parts. So I think of, like, there's a CEO, right?

That's just your most balanced, stable self. But what happens is some part of yourself takes over. So in this case, it's like the wounded child, right? I'll try not to say inner child, but the wounded child who is like, oh, this is familiar. I better stop this from happening, right?

And then your executive function, your CEO, your admin, as you say, says, hey, it's okay, I got this. You can relax. She's not your mom, you know, she's. Just notice that that arises and step in. This is something I've been thinking about more.

Chris Williamson
I'm doing my first sort of big pass through therapy, and I've done a lot of time doing mindfulness, right? But I actually found that a strong mindfulness practice caused me to let go of emotions before I actually looked at where they came from. That ability to sort of notice something arises and go, okay, just release and allow. That's fine. And I was very, very practiced with that.

To me, it feels like windscreen wipers. So my practice from Shinzen young is, see here, feel. So I would swipe left to do c. I would swipe right to do here, and I would swipe down to do feel. And that's the way it would feel in my mind.

It's like nothing's happening, right? It's just the way that I come to kind of. I love that. Feel it. I love that.

Neil Strauss
That's really good. That's really good. And what I noticed, and what I've noticed since spending a bit more time trying to integrate emotions and thinking about where patterns come from and stuff like that, is that the mindfulness practice was fantastic at making me more effective. But because it allowed me, the emotions sort of flowed through me like a filter or something like that, there was less resistance that just came up and went out. I never asked the question, why does this emotion continue to come up?

That's it. That's it. And I love what you said. And this speaks to like, it doesn't actually matter what you do. So whether you're doing reparenting or you're doing see, hear, feel, is that right?

See, hear, feel, what you're doing is you're widening the space between the stimulus and your response, correct? Mindfulness gap. Right. Right. So whatever version of that you do, whatever.

That's why like people argue over what method's better. Like literally any method that works is good enough, right, for you. If it's working, just keep doing it. So what you're saying is a great example of the tools. So the three steps then are the deep intensive experiences, the weekly or regular accountability, and the tools in the moment.

Chris Williamson
Give me one more tool that you found that's been high value for you. A couple other tools I love. One is the first tool. One is another version of widening the space between stimulus and response is if I can recognize. So I feel like anytime something goes wrong is like an opportunity to learn about yourself.

Neil Strauss
So I can recognize that if I'm starting to get anxious about something or upset about something, especially I'm in a conversation or dialogue with someone, I feel maybe misunderstood, right? Often maybe it might feel misunderstood and then I'll keep trying to drive the point into them to make sure they get it and all it does is irritate them. And then I feel more misunderstood and then I get more abrasive with trying to make this point and it's just a horrible sequence. Oh, I'm feeling this sort of tightness in my heart and this electricity in my wrist and that's my sign before my mind even knows it, that I'm starting to get anxious about feeling misunderstood. So then what I'll do is I'll just, wherever I'm at, I'll just pause and I'll take a break for 1 second, say I'm on the phone, I'll say hold on 1 second, I'll be right back, I'll walk away.

I say correct the lie, I'll correct the lie with the truth. Hey, you're not being misunderstood. They probably understand you and it's all good. Just like maybe understand them. Cool.

Then I took off the phone. Sorry about that. So what were you saying? Or if I'm going to say I'm in the conversation here, I'm like a step away to go to the restroom, let's say I'm a conversation I can't leave. Like, we're here on this podcast, right.

I think to my head, I'll just switch my position and I'll think new moments. And over here, there's a new moment over here, and I can be a new person. It's reframing a little bit. Yeah. So isn't that funny?

Chris Williamson
That relates so similarly to what you were doing in the game, but it's like an internal reframing as opposed to an external reframing looking to create this different sense for me that I feel this way, as opposed to how I want someone else to observe it. Right. The difference is, when you're doing this to yourself, you're in on the manipulation, right? Yeah. You know, the magician's trick.

Neil Strauss
Right. And going back to what you were saying about, you asked the question earlier, which we didn't get to, about relationships and the game and is this stuff okay to do in a relationship? I think any form of manipulation where the other person isn't aware of the game and the end goals is spiritually wrong. Hmm. Okay.

Chris Williamson
Was there a final modality that you liked from that one from the third season? Oh, yeah, yeah, there's another one, man. It's my favorite thing. Like we could do. Let's just make a note to do a whole podcast out in the future.

Absolutely. It's nonviolent communication. Do you know that? No. Oh, man, it's great.

Neil Strauss
I'll do like a 1 minute thing. And then we can do it. Don't research it, let's do a whole thing. Okay. This is a useful tool to teach people.

Chris Williamson
I'm done. It's literally the greatest thing. And every principle is radical. So, first of all, the problem with nonviolent communication is it's a horrible name. If you're on a date, you meet someone on, you meet someone in Rio.

You propose a date of nonviolent communication. Where's your set point? Violent communication. Exactly. Exactly.

Neil Strauss
It sounds like something for violent offenders.

And then the book by Marshall Rosenberg is incredibly boring. I literally couldn't finish the book. I couldn't finish it. But he does have an audio kind of program, I think it's billed as an audiobook. There's a picture of a hand holding a peace sign on it.

1st 20 minutes are really boring. And then it gets revolutionary. So it's a system of communication that, as he would say, violence is when we are trying to criticize, judge, control, make right and wrong, punishment, reward or diagnosis. Like, this is what's wrong with you. This is why you're doing that.

And as anyone who's ever been in a business or personal relationship knows, once you start, even if you're right, once you start criticizing, accusing, judging, the other person gets defensive and the conversation doesn't go well. So it's a form of communication that's really, really simple to learn. We could do the discussion, everyone will be experts. But it's hard to do and resist our impulses to start defending ourselves or blaming others. And it allows somebody, it honors what's alive in someone else.

So it honors what's alive in someone else. So as an example, if you're in a relationship and your partner says, hey, you don't pay enough attention to me. And you could say, what do you mean I don't pay enough attention? We were together on Tuesday. Wednesday we woke up and had breakfast in the morning.

On Thursday, we just went to Sedona for the weekend, literally. What are you talking about? That's not honoring what's alive in them. That's defending and making them wrong. So NBC would be saying, it sounds like you're upset.

You'd be like, yeah, I'm upset. It sounds like maybe you need more connection. Yeah, I do. I need more connections. And so for you, what are some things that maybe we could do that would bring more connection to our lives?

I'd love that too. Yeah. It would be nice if we could just do this. And then you can say, well, I don't know if I have the time to that just because of work right now, but what if instead, as soon as I finish this project, we do that? Oh, that would be amazing, right?

Isn't that a much beautiful, more beautiful way to relate? We'll get back to talking to Neil in 1 minute. But first I need to tell you about nomatic. Nomatic make the best luggage on the planet. This travel pack backpack is a complete game changer.

Chris Williamson
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So this is the last backpack that you'll ever have to buy. And I'm not the only one who thinks that nomatic products have thousands of five star reviews from real customers that all love their gear. Right now you can get a 20% discount off everything site wide by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to nomatic.com modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's nomatic.com modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. One of my favorite things to do with criticism for the podcast.

If someone says you haven't had enough people from x perspective, opinion viewpoint on if it's someone that I think deserves a response a lot of the time, I'll say, interesting piece of feedback. Who would you suggest? Like, who do you think would be really good from whatever it is? And it almost always neutralizes any of the antagonism that you see online. And I think it's because so little communication that we are used to now is done in a collaborative way.

And you can have that sort of adversarial, antagonistic relationship bleed into your relationship, to your intimate relationship, because you want to be right. And if you see that your partner is mis viewing the world and reality in some way, you're going to think, well, if I can just get them to see the truth, my truth, which may not be the truth at all, obviously. Exactly. And even if you do get them to see your side, that's not their perspective. Their perspective is their truth.

That is what they're seeing. So yeah, that's very interesting. You just nailed it. That's it. Their perspective.

Neil Strauss
What's true is they're thinking and feeling that. And you can honor that truth without ever making them right, without ever saying that's happened or making that wrong. I would imagine that people probably have a concern about, for want of a better term, indulging a delusion. You know, this person, maybe you are right, and I have spent a ton of time with them recently. Some people would be scared that by not correcting that incorrect view of how they're seeing the world, that this person is going to continue to sort of see this non representative perspective.

Whether you do it or not, they'll always continue to see it, because it's just a narrative. I think we all know if we've ever dated somebody who had real abandonment fears, that there's no amount of behavior on us that's going to change the way they feel about your lack of presence or not being abandoned. You know what I mean? You could be with them 7 hours a day and they're like, oh, you're on your sorry 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you check your phone once, and they're like, I just felt so disconnected when you did that. Why'd you check your phone like that?

And then you can decide. But if you just honor what's alive in them and you're. And this keeps going on, it's a pattern. Then you can have another discussion, in a way, just say, hey, I love this. And this is the thing that's challenging for me.

Can we discuss it? But we'll dive deep into NVC because there's a little formula and there's a lot of radical thoughts attached to it that you can use when the energy's coming at you to discharge it, and also so you don't set someone off. I'll give you some examples later where things literally just created, took a tense moment and created peace. That's awesome. I think a lot of people want that.

Yeah, yeah, it's great. And all the ideas attached to it are just mind blowing. So your other question was enmeshment. Right. But let me ask you.

You said you were going through this therapy, which course? Or this? I'm just doing therapy twice a week. And what are the things you're doing? Just talk therapy.

Chris Williamson
Classic psychotherapy. It's psychodynamically informed in some ways, I guess. And I could probably lean into more of the psychodynamic stuff if I asked to. I could get on the couch and point in the other direction and do the things. And it's just the first time that I've ever done it consistently, so it's been a bit of an eye opener, I guess.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. Yeah, I'd be interested. Have you ever done one of those things like we're talking about, like the meadows or the Hoffman process or anything like that? No, I'd like to. Yeah, I think it'd be great.

I think it'd just to crack yourself open a little bit and see what's there, because what's your cause? We were talking about parents and stuff like that. You seem to have something where you're, I don't know, perceive you as having two parts of yourself that you're wrestling with. Like a very, very analytical part that's trying to understand things and with this great weight and this other part of yourself that's just emotional part that wants to be free. Yeah.

Chris Williamson
I think I've done quite a lot of reflection on this, and I realized that I'm a way more sensitive person than I let myself believe for most of my twenties. So I didn't like the idea of being sensitive or emotional. I was a club promoter for 15 years. This leader of one of the biggest events companies in the UK. I'm stood on the front door of nightclubs.

Everyone's cool or in vip, and they're wearing expensive watches and it's, you know, like house music and hip hop and bottle service and all the rest of it. Like, that's not the place to very easily show your sensitive side. Plus, I think I'd associated sensitivity with fragility and vulnerability. And I didn't want to feel weak. I wanted to be seen as a man.

You know, I was unpopular and a bit bullied in school and socially quite awkward until like, probably my mid twenties, to be honest. And then I think that meant that when I got into my twenties, I denied the sensitive aspect of myself. And then it also. Another reason that I didn't do it is that it didn't fit with the way that I presented. So, male model, club promoter, DJ, reality tv person, a couple of years later, also kind of sensitive cries at Christmas movies, kind of desperately wants connection and affection and attention.

And those two things didn't seem to make sense and I wanted desperately to be understood by people. So when there was discordance between what I felt and how I looked, I was prepared to nerf one of those so that it fitted in line with the other one. So I think I denied the sensitive side of myself for a very long time. That's something that I'm still working through at the moment. And the other side, so that's the emotional side that I'm trying to integrate.

And on the other side, the analytical side is just straight up fear of lack of safety. And if I can understand the exact process of how to gain muscle or improve my health, or be more productive or become successful or make money or do all the rest of those things. Things. The chaos of uncertainty out there in the world is brought under my control. That's why I'm such a fan of intentionalism and agency, because that gives me control over the path that my life is going forward.

I'm no longer at the mercy of the whims of whatever the world is going to throw at me. I have control. And these two things are in conflict, right? Because not exclusively, but much of it is in conflict, because I want to embrace emotions and have a nature, whilst also being the author of my own Life and the architect of the direction that I'm moving forward. And I think that for a lot of people, especially guys, but also girls too, this is an odd duality to kind of admit.

I have sensitivities and emotions and needs, and I want to be seen and I want to be, like, affectionately validated by the people that I care about and people that I respect. And also, I don't want to. I want to author the direction that this goes in. So it's kind of like these two things are in orbit with each other. Yeah.

Neil Strauss
And do you think it's control or the illusion of control? I don't know what the distinction would be. Right. I mean, you know, as an example, I think a lot of people who have super strict diet philosophies, in a lot of cases maybe grew up in a household that was a little bit out of control. And I'm not saying this is you, but.

But they feel like, well, I can't control this outside world for whatever world, but if I control exactly what I eat, I feel safe. I'm just putting that around the health thing. It's not that much of a big deal. But one of the areas that it is more of a big deal is with regards to success and validation and sort of being requited by the world around me, offering something so that I am needed. Not quite the same as being wanted, but it's functionally pretty similar.

But it's kind of a losing game. In fact, it's an out of control game, because how people respond to you is out of your control, of course. And so you're almost giving them your agency. So I think we know what trauma's at work in something when what we want is giving us the opposite. Right.

So if you're saying, well, I need to control these things to be safe, are we really safe? And are we giving away our control by being dependent on these things and dependent on other people's outcomes and things like that. And meshmen. Yes. Then the other thing I wanted to ask you was, oh, the emotional part of it.

And I'm just kind of guessing, so you can just correct me if I'm wrong or right here, but what I was picking up is that growing up in your household, I think it was just you and your mom. You said no, undead. I guess my thought was, was there any version of, like, there wasn't space in your household for whatever your needs are? That would be correct. I think I subjugate my requirements and my desires in order to keep the peace, in order to make everybody else okay.

Chris Williamson
Like, it doesn't matter about me, I'll happily be unhappy in order to not make someone else unhappy. And what was the okay you needed. In your household just to not have. It's not that this was what was needed, but functionally, what ended up happening was that I wouldn't make a fuss about things that I needed, especially emotionally. Boom.

Neil Strauss
Well, that's it. That's where it's coming from. That other stuff are just symptoms of that. You were taught early on that your emotions, you're making a, quote, fuss is a burden to other people, or it has negative effects on the household. And so not making a fuss and keeping that in is.

You're wiring. Right? That's the way you're wired. So it wasn't that being a bouncer and a male model and reality show, this is what I had, the mask I had to wear. That was a mask that was comfortable and familiar to you.

So when the job called for it, there you are to put it on. Enmeshment. Enmeshment. Yep. Tell me.

I'll tell. Okay, we'll do a measurement, and then if we want, we can do the brain thing, and then we can wrap there. Sound good? Cool. Okay.

Chris Williamson
Awesome. Right? So it's interesting. Like, enmeshment is such an important concept, and so few people still know it, which is enmeshment is the opposite of abandonment, and that's why we don't recognize it. So if you're abandoning, we all know what abandonment.

Neil Strauss
I think we know what abandonment is, which is there's an absent parent. But abandonment also is when a parent is emotionally absent, they can just be there present for you all the time. But just, like, being out there emotionally, whether it's because of addiction, whether they're just shut down emotionally themselves, would they just, who are tough and don't show love or don't show emotions, this is what you're working on. So you could be a great non abandoning parent.

So, in abandonment, a parent's not there to meet your needs, whether emotional or physical. There's the short way of saying it. An enmeshment. What do you think that is then? An over reliance on each other for emotional needs and support?

Well, the child needs to rely on the parent. That's healthy parent. Healthy parenting is the child relies on the parent for their emotional and physical needs, and they get them met. Right. And so the enmeshment is when the child's role is to meet the parents needs.

Here are some examples. Right? And so we don't recognize this because abandonment is disempowering. Like, at least those self. I'm like, if I mattered, that parent would still be.

If I mattered, they'd care. They'd be here. Sometimes if we're like four or five and a parent passes away and we're too young, maybe three or we're too young, we can still take responsibility for that. There are a lot of things that might. Whatever the parent's intention is, it's the way we receive it.

So enmeshment is. Examples are so examples in which children meet their parents needs. Could be one is a parent who's really depressed and you're trying to cheer them up. I remember interviewing Jay Leno for Rolling Stone, and his mom was super depressed. He was always trying to cheer her up.

And thus he becomes a comedian. Right. So a sign of abandonment is feeling sorry for yourself. Sign of enmeshment is feeling sorry for the parent. So a highly anxious parent.

So an example is if a parent is saying, if a parent says, come home at this time because they feel like that's a good boundary to set. Sounds like healthy parenting. The parents saying, come home at this time because I'm going to worry about you. That's making your worry their problem. And then the same behavior can be sort of enmeshing.

So highly anxious, highly depressed. A lot of times a parent, in my case, makes a child your surrogate therapist. The parents coming to you and complaining and talking about their life, and you're fulfilling the role of a therapist or of an emotional partner. Right. So you could have a dad or a mom.

I'll give you a quick story of this. When you're, when they make you their best friend or they make you something that's reflected on their self esteem. Daddy's little girl, mommy's little man, whatever it is, this is enmeshment. I remember I was doing makeup for a tv thing, and the makeup artist was saying she'd never been in a healthy relationship. And she just, at some point, her partner gets too needy, and she breaks away like, oh, interesting.

I bet you were enmeshed. And I tell her what it is. She rolls up her sleeve and has a tattoo that says, daddy's little girl. So basically what it is, when you're forced to parentify or adult yourself too soon, it could be just you're taking care of the family, you're filling that role, or you're managing their divorce and making the peace in the family, you lose a part of your childhood. And so when you experience love again, you're like, oh, no.

Oh, no, I'm not doing this again. This is familiar. I'm not going to be free. And so consequently, people who are enmeshed and tell me if this is your pattern at all, they'll choose. They see the role.

It's hard for them to have true intimacy because they see their roles to help and fix. So they date projects. They date people they can help and fix. Because if I can't help and fix you, what good am I? That's my role.

Chris Williamson
Right. And then what happens after a while is they realize they can't help and fix the partner. The partner's too needy. They get resentful. They start to break away or cheat or act out in some other way or just get resentful.

So that's how do people unpick enmeshment? Undo enmeshment? Yeah. In adult life? Yeah, I think, like, sure.

Neil Strauss
I think the steps are, first is the. And this goes for anything. First you need the self awareness. Right. Number one is you need to say the self awareness, saying, this is how I raise, this is how I respond.

Self awareness is the hardest step of everything, because when we're self aware of shit, we usually keep doing it. Then we just beat ourselves up afterward. Right. So the next step is what we talked about earlier. Something.

Some sort of release, some sort of deep, therapeutic work where you just release that energy. And then the other steps were kind of what we talked about doing, the reparenting piece. And I think there's a forgiveness piece. People put it too soon, but I think that forgiving yourself and forgiving the other person and letting go of that energy. So I think we can sort of.

I forget exactly the way I think about it. There's four or five steps of healing that starts with awareness and sort of the release and accountability and the reparenting and the forgiveness. So, interesting man. Looking at why we behave the way that we do. Again, as someone who's such a huge fan of being the author and architect of my own direction and then realizing that there's these patterns, maybe even pre verbal, maybe even things that you can't remember that are marionetting you probably beyond the infant grave.

Yeah. It's like parental, it's cultural. It's, you know, genetic, it's ancestral. There are all these strings. And I do think one of the goals of life is to recognize the strings and cut them and be free.

Chris Williamson
I think a lot of people, again, especially guys, are struggling with authenticity, with working out who they are. Like, I think a lot of people would say something to the extent of, I don't really know who I am. Yeah. And you don't you can always keep learning. And I think I don't like the authenticity, by the way.

Neil Strauss
I do understand authenticity in terms of who I'm presenting on the outside is who I am on the inside with appropriate boundaries. But I think when I talk to someone who's saying, I'm trying to find my authentic self, I'm like, man, it's a mental game. How are you ever going to find your authentic self? How are you going to know which part of you is authentic? Because you and I, for example, have been through many phases in our life, and each time it felt very authentic.

Now we're relating authentically, and I can only hope that four years from now we listen to this conversation. God, what nonsense. What the fuck is I doing talking about? So I have another way I think about it, which is because it's easier to quantify. So you'll appreciate this, right?

How do you measure authenticity? Right? What's the. So the creative self versus the destructive self. So the destructive self is, you know, harmful to myself, harmful to others, making a mess of things, right?

Breaking relationships, beating myself up, versus the creative self, which is good to myself, good to others, putting great things out into the world. And so I just think, am I. Is the behavior. If I can quantify creative, destructive, it's an easier way that I can find a path of certainty or a more certain path. There's no certain path, but find a more clear path to move on.

Chris Williamson
My favorite question around that is, what would you tomorrow want you today to do? What would you tomorrow want you today to do? You have this decision in front of you whether or not to eat the cookie or not eat the cookie, whether or not to sleep with that girl or not to sleep with that girl, whether or not to say this particular thing in this particular way or reply to that tweet. What would you tomorrow want you today to do? I like that.

And I like the perspective. Yeah. Tomorrow is easier than thinking at the end of your life. It's too hard. It's way too hard.

What's going to be on? Do you really want this on your epigraph? I don't fucking. No, dude. Like, am I.

I don't know when I'm gonna die. I don't know what next week's gonna bring, but you can quite easily think I'm gonna wake up tomorrow with this decision in front of me that I'm considering making right now. Yeah. It's a way of asking yourself, really, like, is this, after this, am I gonna have shame or not? Correct.

It's regret minimization, but it's done on a time scale that's sufficiently tight in a feedback loop way that you can probably make it work. Yeah, I like that. I think that. I think that's a really. I think it's a really good.

Neil Strauss
That goes to that list of tools, right. Like, just having ten nice tools that work for you and doing these other things is awesome. And so I'll answer your last question, then we'll wrap. Because I don't want to be conscious on the exhaustion at which. Not exhaustion, but I really feel like.

I don't know how long we've been talking, but I really approaching 2 hours now. Okay. I think that's plenty for everybody else. I could go and talk to you forever. I want to have mercy on the people listening to the 1.5 speed on their podcast app that you were talking about.

The brain. Your other question. I think that I've got to all your questions. I'm such a storyteller that I always want to close all the loops. Of course, I try to remember the things we don't get to.

But you were asking about the way our brain is wired and the pruning and everything. Right? And my caveat is, if this is not scientifically correct, then consider it a metaphor and a useful way of thinking. The fact is, again, I hear people on the podcast and they always throw out research, and sometimes you challenge them and ask where it's from. But literally, most studies aren't replicable and everything we have a feeling and a thought, and then we look for facts to back it up.

Almost no one works the other way around, and the very few people who do are really amazing, but we just look for facts to back up the way we already feel and think about things.

So this is my rationalization for my philosophy on how we're wired, which again, is true if you read the right articles, like everything else, by the way, I think the world needs a healthy sense of doubt about everything. You know, I think uncertainty is another form of freedom, too. Yeah, it's difficult for that to not tumble into cynicism, though. I think a lot of people have confused appropriate doubt for I can just be as cynical as I want. But cynical is a position.

I think the other side of it is a spiritual position to say. I don't know. I'm not sure. But I hear what you're saying is really important to you, and that's something you really believe in. Those studies did those things.

That's really interesting, right? Cynicism is just saying it's like denial, right? Believing is acceptance. And I think saying, I don't know. There's a line.

I did that creative act book with Rick Rubin, and he has this line, which I love and I think about all the time, of connected detachment.

Chris Williamson
What's that mean? Connected detachment to me means I'm detaching from all my. I'm connected in a way that I, Karen, I'm relational with you, but I'm detached from whatever my thoughts and opinions and the way I think things should be. So I can stay connected but detached from all these layers of stories we were talking about. That's the way.

Neil Strauss
I mean, I think he was talking about it in different contexts in the book. But I love that idea of connected detachment, that that's a goal because it's easy to just detach. I don't know. So I'm not going to get involved versus connected detachment. Like I really care.

And whatever the outcome is, we don't know. It could be good or bad. We can be giving the best advice possible, but someone, it could lead to something bad for someone. It could lead to something good for someone else. We don't know.

So anyway, long prologue so we were talking about the way. This is the way I think about trauma, and this is the way I think about behavior, and this is the way I think about myself, which is we're born with certain predispositions and genetic predispositions. And I talked to one of the leading geneticists who said most things are a lot of gene expressions are turned on and off by the environment itself. So you might have the gene, for example, for being a sociopath. But maybe some trauma has to happen to switch that on, whatever.

So we're born with certain predispositions and resilience, and then we land in this family, and basically we have our brain. Like all the neurons it's getting. It's been a little while, so I might get some of the facts wrong, but all the neurology of the brain is there. All the neurons are there, but the connections aren't made. So very early on, the brain starts wiring connections at a really rapid rate, right?

So a lot of stuff happened pre memory, but the pattern remains the same with our parents. So we're in bed, and our parents have maybe a cry it out philosophy, right? So they have a cry out philosophy means we're crying and we're hungry and our needs aren't met, and that after a certain amount of time, becomes a pattern, which is no one's going to meet my needs. I need to meet them myself. And these are the people who are afraid to ask for help, let's say.

So, for the first three years, the brain is putting these neural connections together at a rapid, huge rate. I think the three year old brain has more neural connections than the adult brain. And after three, this process, and again, roughly, this process, called pruning, takes place where the connections you don't need start disappearing. And then this brain, where you built all these connections, removed what you didn't need, now becomes the prison you live in. And so can you start to recognize that this thought, this belief, this behavior I have, was wired in because of these certain things.

And now I can make the choice, going back to agency and control, to say, how can I can rewire this with these tools that every time, here's a tool. And being compassionate with ourselves, because these rewired them for 17 or 18 years. So it's gonna take a little while to get the new behavior going. And sometimes you'll backslide and fall back and get cynical and say, what's the point? And just, if you're patient with yourself and you're consistent, you can really, really change your beliefs about yourself and the way you think.

And I think that's one of the purposes of life. What's your advice for people who want more self compassion in that way? A lot of the people listening to. Here'S a tool for that. Here's a tool for that.

I think one thing we do is when you were saying earlier about being a bouncer, and you were saying, or you're saying, I'm not someone who expresses it. I forget what you said. Maybe it was an I statement. Like, I don't really express myself emotionally, right. I'm not the person who does that.

I think anytime you're making an I statement, you can actually correct that, because that's not who you are, you can say, is, expressing myself emotionally wasn't something that was encouraged or I felt safe doing in my household. Consequently, I don't do it now and then you're not owning that anymore. The lack of identification with it. Right. So, in the same way, something I did is, I realized, let's say I'd always say I'm parking or something.

When I moved to LA, I was a horrible driver, and I'd always hit the curbs, and my friends called me Kirby because I didn't always hit the curbs when I was driving. So I'd be driving, hit the curb, like, oh, God, I'm such an idiot, right? So as soon as I catch myself talking to myself in a non compassionate way, I'll stop and I'll literally imagine throwing the thought out of my head. Sometimes I'll even make the gesture with my hand of throwing the thought out of my head. It'll correct me with the truth, which is you're just learning to drive and you hit the curb, and that's okay.

And so when we talked about reparenting earlier, most of us who don't, who lack self compassion, were being the parents to ourselves that we had. Whether that parent was critical, again, maybe it's for the right reasons. I'm not saying your parents are doing the best they can. We're not blaming the parents. We're just looking at these as variables that make us who we are.

There's no blame, but so a critical parent, they might want the best for you. Again, I was reading Mozart's letter with his deaf father, and, oh, my God, his father is a fucking. You gotta read their night. His father's just always criticizing for everything. He's always doing everything wrong.

He's always catastrophizing. And Mozart's even like, hey, dad, don't worry about this. The dad's like, you tell me not to worry, but I need to worry because you're like this and you're going to do this. And so, consequently, we talked to ourselves like the parent we had. And the workaround is we want to talk to ourselves like the parent we needed, not the parent we had.

So self compassion is talking to yourself like the parent you needed and not the parent you had. Yeah. Any inner voice, I think, is usually the echo, unless you've done a ton of self work, is almost always the echo of an outer voice that you once heard. I've got this great story about Churchill that I need to tell you. Yeah, tell me.

Chris Williamson
In September 1893, Churchill was admitted on his third attempt to the Sandhurst Military College. He wrote to his father, I was so glad to be able to send you the good news. On Thursday, his father, a former chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, wrote back a week later, you should be ashamed of your slovenly, happy go lucky, harum scarum style of work. Never have I received a really good report of your conduct from any headmaster or tutor. Always behind incessant complaints of a total want of application to your work.

You have failed to get into the 60th Rifles, the finest regiment in the army. You have imposed on me an extra charge of some pound 200 per year. Do not think that I am going to take the trouble of writing you long letters. After every failure you commit and undergo, I no longer attach the slightest weight to anything you may say. If you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle, useless, unprofitable life that you had during your school days, you will become a mere social wastrel, one of the hundreds of public school failures.

You will degenerate into a shabby, unhappy, and futile existence. You will have to bear the blame for all such misfortunes. Your mother sent her love. Churchill was 19. Wow.

Neil Strauss
By the way, you read that so well that I almost felt the heat, the sting of the discipline. Did you have a date? Was your father disciplinary? No. Mum was more the disciplinarian, I think.

Yeah, but you read it so sternly, I felt. It's just, I think anyone that's been held to high standards, I certainly was held to high standards, and that's something that resonates. The reason that that story sort of really hits me is you've got maybe one of the greatest leader of the 20th century being told, happy go lucky, haram scarum style of work. You're going to be a mere social wastroll. Like, I no longer attach even the slightest sense of honesty or truth to anything that you're ever going to tell me.

Chris Williamson
And it makes me feel sad for Churchill, whatever. It was June 30, 1945. V day. And I bet that even after defeating the Nazis, he probably still didn't feel like he was enough. And this is the next book I'm writing, so I might use that letter in there, if that's cool.

Absolutely. It's okay with Mister Churchill, but thank you for that. Literally, the next book I'm writing, and this, maybe we'll wrap here. It's called the power of low self esteem. I love that title.

Neil Strauss
Yeah. Wow. And it's really about how these a. It's how these great figures had really low self esteem. And we do great things.

Cause we. It's okay to not feel like you're enough and let that inspire you to do great things, you know, dude, I love the title. I absolutely adore the title of that. And so maybe the greatest self compassion we can have for ourself is being compassionate for ourself when we don't have self compassion for ourself. Meaning, meaning.

And meaning that, like, listen, we're never gonna have control over everything. As we were saying earlier. We're never gonna be perfect. We're never gonna get rid of all our trauma. We're never gonna always love ourselves.

We're never gonna feel like we fit in and belong and accepting that there's like that there's a reason for that. And it's great to someone feel like you don't belong. Cause maybe you're nicer to people because you wanna belong. It's great to feel maybe like you haven't done enough because you're going to want to do more and improve the world. So all these things, instead of striving for perfection, we can see the gifts in them.

Chris Williamson
Dot, dot, dot. And that's okay. I think that's, it's very interesting. I've spent so much time over the last probably three or four years being obsessed by the price that elite performers pay to be the person that you admire. Elon Musk was on Lex's show about six months ago, and you're talking about richest man in the world doing robot dances on stage in Japan and sending cars into space and stuff.

And Lex asks, whats the texture of your mind like? And Elon thinks for a second and he says, my mind is a storm. Most people would think that they want to be me, but they dont know, they dont understand. And Im obsessed with that question about the price that people that we admire pay to be the person that we admire. Thats exactly it.

Neil Strauss
You said about elog can go back to having empathy. So some people might say, what's he doing on Twitter? This is toxic, whatever it is. Some people, whatever your opinions may be, you can say, okay, here's a person who needs to be in chaos and intensity just to feel normal, and he's replicating that, and it's not about anything else. Neil Strauss, ladies and gentlemen.

Chris Williamson
Neil, I really appreciate you. It's been so great to catch up. It's been a long time coming. What should people expect from you over the next, however long? What are you working on?

Neil Strauss
Yeah man, I've just the next new books. I'm really into the. We didn't even talk about these podcasts where I kind of find missing people. I love them. Where should people go?

Chris Williamson
What's that one called? The new one's called to die for. It's like about a russian seducer, a woman who was trained in seduction, but the reverse side of it, to get the secrets from men and sometimes kill them. Wow. And it's fascinating, by the way, which is so when I interviewed her, she.

Hawk. You'Ll have to watch it. But she, in this case, like anything else, it doesn't matter. It's how you use what you have, let's say. But a lot of things she was learning in the early two thousands in the FSB, the kind of successor to the KGB was exactly what the pickup artists were doing at the same time.

She's the female, Neil. It was fascinating, but more vicious and deadly. Yeah, that's awesome. So people can check that one out. What's that called?

Neil Strauss
To die for. To die for. And you've done some other. Oh, to live and die in LA was like a missing part again. I think I just follow my.

Whatever I'm excited and curious about. I just follow. It was just someone missing in our name, my neighborhood and myself and Ingrid, my wife at the time, and a couple neighbors. Mike, who you should have on the show, Mike Einsiger from Incubus. He's a great, brilliant guy.

Him and his wife, who are neighbors, Anne Marie. We just tried to help. And so that was this. To live and die in LA podcast. People should also follow you on Instagram.

Chris Williamson
I very much appreciate your pithy aphorisms on there. My favorite one from last show, which I must have repurposed a gazillion times. Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments. By the way, that's a quote from a therapist in the game. That's fine.

Neil Strauss
Yeah, yeah. You were the one that repurposed. But such a good line and we're close to because it's a good thing to think about. Unspoken expectations, our premeditated resentments. It's so, so deep.

Chris Williamson
Phenomenal, Neil. I appreciate you. Thank you, man. Thanks, Chris.

Neil Strauss
Thanks, Chris.

#789 - Neil Strauss - Why The World's #1 Pickup Artist Left The Game Behind

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Episode Chapters

1: Introduction and Background

2: Personal Transformation

3: Critique of Pickup Artistry

4: Co-parenting and Relationships

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