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April 10, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:35:41

1326 Ambition, Success, Terror, Stagnation - Convo

What stops you from pursuing your dreams?

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	Hello. Hello. Hi, okay.
	So, I'm not really sure where to...
	Do you want me to explain a bit about what my situation is?
	Absolutely. Alright, so...
	No, wait. Let me start giving you advice having no idea what your situation is.
	No, I'm just kidding. Sorry, go on. Go see a therapist, listen to podcasts, donate money!
	Sorry, kidding. Go on. Okay.
	Well, I... Well, I sent a...
	I've sort of decided to take a break and not go back home for the Easter holidays.
	Go ahead. And so I also...
	So I said I wasn't going back home.
	I think I sent that on the...
	Actually, it's quite some time ago now, about a month ago now.
	I sent an email saying that I'm not going back and Ravi didn't contact me.
	And since then I've got a couple of emails back and they've been sort of saying how rowied, well, for my mother saying how rowied she is.
	And yeah, basically that sort of message and asking me to sort of email back once a week saying this, I'm fine.
	Just to, yeah, just to, yeah.
	and I don't know, I've been having all sorts of...
	It's been making me feel really guilty.
	I've been sort of feeling quite a...
	Sorry, I'm sort of fumbling a bit.
	No, sir. Yeah, there's a bit...
	Also, I've stopped...
	last couple of days I've stopped going, I've decided to stop the therapy because I think my therapist has been sort of, in a way, taking my, well sort of when I explain about my experience she sort of jumps to well sort of when I explain about my experience she sort of jumps to what my parents might be feeling and things and that's really putting me off and it's quite unpleasant so I've
	And so yeah, that's...
	And how are you feeling just now as you're talking about it?
	I mean, I can hear that there's a lot going on under the surface, but how are you feeling?
	Yeah, right now I'm feeling...
	I don't know, I'm feeling quite worried about quite a few things.
	I'm worried about not being able to, because I still haven't got a job, and I'm worried about not getting a job, and I'm just running out of money, and then having to go back home, sort of, you know, asking for money then.
	Actually, I'm not sure I might be a bit I might be slightly sort of dissociated at the moment because time seems to be going past and I'm not really gauging much in my sort of activities and things.
	And what do you mean time sort of going past?
	What does that mean in practical sense in terms of your day?
	Well I sort of get up and before I know it it's sort of evening.
	Yeah, it seems to be going...
	I don't seem to have the time to just try to sort out things or plan to do something but I end up not getting around to it.
	Like I'm not even trying to sort of find jobs at the moment.
	Right, and do you have any idea why that might be?
	I've had some thoughts that maybe...
	Maybe I'm still waiting for my parents to try to help me or something.
	I don't want to actually...
	I don't want to start doing things for myself yet.
	I don't know. Or maybe part of me actually wants to end up going back home but just wants to use this as a way to get back at my parents.
	So obviously something is there which means I don't actually want to find a job or don't want to get things moving properly.
	Does that sound sort of reasonable?
	Yeah, it's certainly possible.
	It's certainly possible. When it comes to looking for work, is there anything that's interesting to you about that process?
	Do you feel that it's going to work or do you have a sense of doom about it?
	I mean, what is the aversion to looking for work?
	What do you think that is? I have a sort of feeling that...
	Yeah, I have a feeling of...
	A bit of feeling of doing it's not going to work.
	And all the things that I'd like to do are always completely unrealistic.
	You've got to start small before you can do ambitious things.
	So I think often I might sort of like, for instance, I'm sort of thinking of it'd be great to do private music teaching or something, but then there's so many things I need to If there's any things I need to sort out, or get experience that, and it'll just be impossible.
	I'm sorry, why is that impossible?
	Well, not impossible, but it's impossible right now.
	Why is it impossible now?
	Well... Well, it will take a long time to sort of get enough people to make money with that way because you have to build up some credibility.
	Well, not necessarily.
	I mean, if you're naturally a good teacher, then you'll get moving pretty quickly.
	I don't think you need to. It's not like taking a jumbo jet off an airline, off an airway.
	I mean, if you're a good teacher...
	You'll have students pretty quickly, and of course, if you're inexperienced, all that means is that you charge less, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm not sure if I'm that good a teacher, because I struggle quite a bit with nerves.
	Well, but you give it a shot, right?
	I mean, you try and so on, right?
	And even if it doesn't make you that much money, it'll certainly make you some, right?
	And that's better than none, right?
	Yeah, I can live quite...
	Well, I'm living quite cheaply now, so...
	Yeah, I mean, I think that story, you know, like it's a big deal and you've got to ramp it up and you've got to get experience.
	I mean, it sounds like you're creating obstacles, right?
	Like, I mean, to take a silly way of looking at it, if there was, you know, like The Amazing Race or something, if there was some reality show that said, you know, we'll give you a million dollars or a million pounds if you can sign up, you know, three people in two weeks who would be interested in lessons, you would...
	Right? You would find a way to do that, right?
	Like if somebody said, I'm going to give you a million pounds, if you can do a successful appendicitis operation in a week, you wouldn't be able to do that, right?
	Or if you can learn, become fluent in Mandarin in a week, right?
	You couldn't do that. But if it was just getting a few students, you would probably find a way to do that, right?
	Yeah, even if it means just walking into schools.
	Yeah, yeah. It's that kind of stuff, right?
	And I'm not saying...
	This doesn't deal with the motivation, right?
	But what we're doing is we're looking at...
	You're a very intelligent and resourceful fellow.
	And if you feel that there's some magical state union barrier to you becoming a music teacher, obviously that's not the case, right?
	And you don't get experience except by doing, right?
	Like you don't have to apprentice with another music teacher for...
	Seven years, right? No.
	No, it's helpful to get some advice, but yeah.
	So anyway, it's technically possible.
	I understand the nerves.
	I really do. I really do.
	But you never know what happens on the other side of nerves, right?
	I was nervous giving my New Hampshire speech and it went pretty well.
	So you never know, right?
	You might find that you enjoy it and you get the right students and you have the right attitude and helping people gain mastery of an instrument was a pretty exciting thing, right?
	Yeah, it's something I've got, I think I've got a lot of enthusiasm for it, it's just sort of hidden away a bit.
	Right, so what this means is that given you're not, like you said, well you've got to start small without big plans, but getting some students for your music lessons, it's not like by this time next week, become master of time, space, and dimension, right? I mean, the plans are not too big to be achieved by any stretch, right?
	Yeah, yeah. So what it means is that you're inventing reasons to not do it, right?
	Whether it works or not, or whether you do this and you find you fail, or you can't get any students, or whatever.
	I mean, but you don't know until you try, and it certainly seems feasible, right?
	Yeah. Actually, this is something I've noticed when I've brought up job ideas with my parents.
	Usually I get to suddenly bombard with a whole list of things I need to do first, and it's normally going to...
	To be perfectly honest, that is all nonsense.
	That's all nonsense. I can say this with hopefully some credibility as an entrepreneur.
	You're not talking about being a neurosurgeon.
	You're talking about getting some people to take lessons from something you're an expert in.
	I mean, come on, if I went to your parents saying, I'm going to quit my job as an executive, I'm going to talk to people on the internet about philosophy, and they're just going to donate money if they feel like it, would they say that's a good plan?
	No, there's no way they would.
	No, of course. They'd say, well, you know, you need to get a teaching job and people won't pay and it'll be too expensive.
	And, you know, why would people want to pay if they've already gotten the value?
	And, you know, who are you?
	You've got no credentials. They would go through that whole list and slowly the life would seep out of me, right?
	And I'd end up with this inert lump of papier-mâché on the floor, right?
	Yeah, that's what it feels like.
	Yeah. Right, so clearly, right, that's occurring for you, right?
	Yeah, but that's what I was hoping was going to happen is when I stopped communication with them that suddenly I'll be able to be freed up to do things.
	Right, like you leave your memory, your history a good deal if your hippocampus and frontal lobes and memory centers behind in a sort of wet pile on the table when you leave home, right?
	Yeah, it doesn't. Taking a break from your family, and again, I can't remember the history if we've talked about it, but taking a break from your family, which I'm perfectly willing and content to accept as a valid and healthy thing for you to do, it's just the start of the process, right? You know, like when you come home from a war, it's not like you can the next day go and see a war movie and enjoy it like you never went to war, right?
	Yeah, yeah. But it's still a huge step up from actually being in the war, though.
	Absolutely. It is a necessary but not sufficient step towards freeing yourself, right?
	You have to stop layering down bad memories and bad stimuli in the situation, and then you can begin to undo the damage that has been done, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, if you're eating a food that's poisonous, you have to stop eating the food that's poisonous, and then you can start to deal with the health problems that came from eating poisonous food, right?
	Yes, that makes sense.
	Okay, so then the question is, in my opinion, and we can talk about anything that you want, of course, and again, as you know, this is all just my opinion, but the question is, why is there this approach to In your family to ambition.
	What is the knee-jerk wet blanket situation all about?
	Well, I've actually had some thoughts about it today.
	I think that maybe a lot of things, this comes from my father, I think, who's taken a Well, basically, the way he's told me the way to live life is just sort of two things one step at a time without thinking about goals and just, you know, things happen.
	Yeah. And I think it might be that he doesn't want...
	I'm sorry.
	Let me just... Sorry. I just want to make sure I understand this.
	So you just sort of step...
	Blindly off a cliff and there'll be a bridge there.
	I mean, I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand what this means.
	Well, yeah, I don't think he would put it that way, but that's sort of what he says.
	Yeah, and that's not so convincing for me.
	I'm sorry, I apologize for interrupting again, but I'm just trying to reconcile...
	That with what you were saying about what your parents would say, if you wanted to become a music teacher, they'd say, well, you have to get experience, you have to do all this, that, and the other, right?
	Isn't that planning ahead and taking steps with a goal in mind?
	Yeah, yeah, it is.
	So, yeah, actually, that's...
	I'm not saying you're confused, I'm just saying...
	Yeah, I know. I'm a bit confused now, actually.
	Because it's... Maybe what they say is a bit incoherent, actually.
	Well, it sounds like, and again, I'm just extrapolating from what you're saying.
	Actually, it's when my father said the thing about taking one step at a time, I think it's when I was...
	It's when I was...
	Doing my degree and I was sort of stopping and worrying about whether I was going the right direction or worrying about whether I was doing the right thing.
	So at that time he was saying that you should just sort of go forwards without thinking.
	And if you think too much you end up in a very bad situation.
	And that was, sorry, that was relative to what goal?
	That was, I'm not sure if it was, relative to the Sorry, what do you mean?
	Sorry, when your father would say to just walk blindly ahead and don't have a goal, was that in reference to something you wanted to do?
	Not particularly.
	I was doing a degree because I thought I was the only route to get a reasonable job, get an interesting job.
	And Yeah, and I think he...
	Oh, and he's sort of like, you do your next assignment, you do your next exam, and...
	Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, but that's, yeah, so basically he's attempting to oppose in that situation doubts that you might have about the value of your education, is that right?
	Yeah, yeah, I think so, yeah.
	And then when you want to become a music teacher, then it's all about, well, it's a big step, and you have to get experience and so on, right?
	Yeah, well I've talked about several different things and it's always the same sort of doing the preparations, a huge amount of preparations for it and I don't know, of course there's some truth in that but it feels like a train.
	There's no truth in that relative to your goals, right?
	Like if you said I want to become a doctor, I'd say well yeah there are steps you have to take, right?
	But becoming a music teacher is not bad, right?
	No, yeah. Let me tell you a little bit about what I sense from all of this and you can tell me then if I'm just completely off the mark.
	But this is sort of what my gut is telling me and I'll share it with you and see if it's at all helpful or clarity.
	There are certain types of people or personalities in the world and they're tragically fairly common.
	What they do is they don't have any particular philosophy, but what they do is the moment that they see someone exercising choice or willpower in any situation, they feel an instinctive urge to oppose that choice or that exercise of willpower.
	And it doesn't matter what you're doing or what it is that you want to do, right?
	You could say, well, I want to be a neurosurgeon or I want to go backpacking in Asia or I want to, you know, go and work on a freighter or I want to go and check out Somalia or whatever it is that you want to exercise willpower about.
	And it can be willpower in rejecting something too.
	Say, well, I want to break up with this girl or I might want to not finish this degree or whatever.
	Whatever it is that you want to exercise your willpower about, These people oppose that.
	And they will make up whatever sounds believable or sounds compelling or sounds reasonable or sounds thoughtful.
	But what happens is, no matter what you do, there's an undermining and an opposition and sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt.
	Right? Yeah.
	Like if you want to quit school, it's like, well, I don't know, it's tough out there, a degree really helped, fear, uncertainty, and doubt, right?
	And if you want to become a music teacher, it's like, well, you need experience and it can take a long time.
	All they do is they're just...
	Yeah, and the current economy is a perfect way of, perfect excuse for them to blame, you know, say it's not the right time in the economy to do anything ambitious.
	Right, right, right. Yeah. Right, right.
	And so when you're around these kinds of people, and no matter what you want to do, I mean, I had a friend who was like this.
	I'm not my friend anymore, but I had a friend who was like this, you know.
	Oh, I want to be an actor.
	Well, you know, acting is a really tough profession.
	98% of people don't make it this, that, and the other, right?
	Oh, okay, well, oh, I want to be a director.
	Oh, you know, well, directing...
	I want to be an entrepreneur. Well, you don't have any business training.
	It's just like, no matter what I wanted to do.
	And then, of course, if I said to him, I want to sit in my room and stare at the ceiling all day, he'd be like, well, that's kind of not productive.
	No matter what I wanted to do, any exercise of any choice or any willpower created He just had a knee-jerk opposition.
	It was unconscious. I'm not saying he sort of sat there.
	It was just like swimming against the tide all the time.
	And I just gave up discussing anything with him.
	Because it was just too clammy.
	It was just too...
	Yeah. Was it also something about if you choose to take his path, then he'll be supportive?
	Yeah. Well, but this is the thing, is that his path was not very enviable, right?
	Yeah, like I think my father sort of wants me to sort of follow his path.
	And what was his path? I mean, just in general.
	Well, he's a statistician and he works in the civil service.
	And it's sort of a...
	Yeah, I think it wants me to take that sort of formal retirement either going to work in the civil service or government or working in a big company or something where you formally get promoted and doing something scientific.
	I get that.
	I think that sort of thing.
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm going to just have to take a break.
	My baby's getting kind of fussy.
	Can I call you back a little bit?
	Thanks, man. Yeah, that's fine.
	Sorry about that. Hello?
	Hey, how's it going? It's good, yeah.
	Yeah, sorry about that. It's been a bit off and on.
	But I do remember where we were, if you'd like to pick up from there.
	Yeah, sure. It's actually been quite useful having a break, so think about it.
	Yes, I think that I've come up with some hopefully vaguely useful stuff as well, so let's see if that's the case.
	Okay, so... So this is what I've thought of, and then you can tell me...
	Or do you want to go first?
	I don't want to...
	If you have thoughts you wanted to share first, that's, of course, perfectly fine.
	Well, one thing I thought of was that...
	So far we haven't really...
	I sort of felt afterwards that I hadn't really learnt...
	I'm not sure if we're going quite deep enough because I haven't really learnt anything that I talked about anything which I didn't really already know.
	Right. Like I sort of had ideas which I say because I'm worried about getting a job and I sort of expected you were going to say, but it's possible because you've done it and people have done it, so I haven't really got to the root of it yet.
	Right, right. And I'm going to take a stab and say that I think that the root is not psychological but philosophical.
	And that may or may not be the case.
	Because, I mean, there's nothing I can tell you probably about, you know, your history or my sympathy or, you know, what's happened to you as a kid and so on, right?
	So I'd like to take another approach and just see if this helps at all.
	Now, let me ask you a couple of questions about your father, in particular, if it sounds like he's the one who's a little bit more oppositional to your will, as we were talking about last time.
	Is that fair to say, or is that unjust?
	Yeah, I think it's fair.
	Okay. Now, your father is, as you said, he's a statistician, he works for the government, so he has a pretty secure, but we might say, a tad dull career, right?
	Yeah. Now, has this brought him happiness and, you know, contentment and excitement and whatever in his life?
	No. No, he's constantly getting stressed, actually.
	Right, right. We all have these fantasies, and Lord knows I probably have more than my fair share, but we all have these fantasies.
	I don't know if this ever happens to you.
	We were in a store the other day, Buying a bouncy chair for Isabella because she's sort of getting to be that age.
	And just about everywhere I go, it's weird, I have this sort of fantasy or this idea like, you know, I'd like to be a stock boy in this store.
	To learn everything about this store, to become really good at being a stock boy and to have a stress-free life.
	Show up to work, move some boxes around, help some customers, have a drink or two with your fellow workers after work and so on, right?
	Yeah, I know what you mean.
	And I don't have it like when I'm at a hospital or whatever, right?
	I don't sort of look that, oh, I'd really like to be a neurosurgeon.
	It's always these, in a sense, down market jobs that I look at, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. Like when we were driving to New Hampshire.
	I'll just give you one more example.
	We were driving to New Hampshire and I stopped off to get some gas and feed the baby.
	Feed the car, feed the baby.
	There was this guy in this little kiosk.
	This is like 2 in the morning.
	He's just in this little kiosk and he's there to sell you gum and whatever it is that he's doing there.
	And I thought, oh, what a great life.
	You just show up there from your 12 p.m.
	to 8 a.m. shift. You sit back there, you read a couple of magazines, or you listen to an audiobook, and you chat with some people, and you sell them some gum, and then you have 16 hours where you don't have to take your work home with you and so on, right?
	Yeah. And it's got its appealing side.
	But of course, the reality is that we know that that would actually probably be the most stressful job in the world for me, right?
	Because I would get restless and I would feel like I was wasting my life and so on.
	But there's this fantasy, you know, that if you get to the right, secure, dull, safe place, that life is going to be...
	It's going to be fine, right? But it's not true, right?
	I mean your dad, obviously he's a professional, he's educated, he's well paid, he's got job security, but it's not the paradise that we imagine, right?
	No, no. So it's not an answer to say you should go for a secure life, right?
	Yeah. And I think that's the challenge, right?
	So I'm going to put three broad categories of people out there, and this is all nonsense, but I think it might be useful as an allegory.
	So the first type is the type of people who look for their opportunities within the world that exists, right?
	So they say, well, you know, civil service is good and so I'll go to the civil service and, you know, there's a course here in statistics or a degree in statistics, so I'll take that.
	They basically, they look at life like a buffet.
	And they just say, okay, well, I'll take a little of this and a little of that.
	And it's not, and I have no judgment about the rightness or wrongness of any of this.
	I'm just sort of, this is stuff that I've observed over the years.
	And the second type of people are the people who say, well, I'm not that happy with anything on this buffet, so I'm going to come up with my own dishes and put them out there.
	The entrepreneurial types, right?
	Who aren't particularly happy with this, right?
	And then there's a third type of people who basically say, why are we even eating at this buffet?
	Maybe the whole buffet idea isn't very good.
	Maybe we should become farmers or we should all eat at a restaurant or whatever, right?
	And so the first would be the majority of people and the second would be the entrepreneurs and the third would be the philosophers who ask the essential questions.
	So the first type of people pick from what's available.
	Within the current system, the second type create new stuff within the current system and the third type create new systems completely, right?
	Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.
	I think it's a reasonable way.
	And of course, it's like 80% to 90%, 10% to 20%, 0.00001%.
	And none of these are better or worse.
	And I've sort of gone through the three scales myself, right?
	I started out putting the New York Times together in a bookstore when I was 11 on Sunday mornings and getting free books.
	And that was sort of the beginning. And that was pretty much choosing from what was available.
	Then I became an entrepreneur.
	And then I work in philosophy.
	So I've sort of gone those three steps.
	And each has its advantages and disadvantages.
	And it's not a better or worse.
	It's not like everyone should be a philosopher or everyone should be an entrepreneur.
	But if you are raised by people who have a heavy emotional investment in their way being the right way, so if someone is picking from the available opportunities and thinks that that is the right thing to do, that that is the best thing to do, Then you're going to face problems with that person because it's an irrational standpoint.
	And I'll say, just to continue the buffet metaphor, the reason it's an irrational viewpoint is to say, well, you should only pick from the buffet that is.
	You should not try to create new dishes, right?
	But the problem with that logically is what?
	Yeah, there wouldn't be any dishes in the first place if people didn't create them.
	Exactly. Exactly.
	Right? So your father drives a car, right?
	I assume. And if no one had said, I'm not happy stepping in the horse crap left by the buggy situation, right?
	At the turn of the last century, there'd be no cars for him to drive, right?
	He probably uses email.
	So if somebody hadn't got...
	Hadn't had the ambition to create that sort of stuff or television or DVDs.
	So he is immersed in a buffet of new things and yet he says, if I understand it correctly, that the best thing to do is to not create anything new.
	Yeah, basically. To look at the available options, take the best one in each step.
	And that's fine, but at least have some respect for the people who aren't doing What you're doing.
	I mean, this is what I would say to your father.
	It's like, hey, if you want to pick from the available buffet, no problem.
	Not everybody's cut out to be an entrepreneur, and that's not a good or bad thing.
	We can't all be entrepreneurs, right?
	You've got to have some Indians as well as chiefs, right?
	But why is it bad?
	To take these risks, since he's benefiting from other people.
	I mean, somebody, Pascal or whatever, had to invent statistics.
	And he had to do that by breaking with tradition, carving his own path, being his own man, slowly going insane.
	But let's just deal with the early part of his life, right?
	A calculus, I think, or probability he came up with.
	But someone had to Take these huge steps which your father is now cashing in on.
	So he can't logically say that taking risks is bad because he uses and lives in an environment that is largely created by people who took the risks that he is now enjoying the fruits of, right?
	Yeah. Now, the last thing I'll say before I'll...
	And is this useful, this sort of way of looking at it?
	Yeah, I think so, because maybe I'm focusing too much on a very narrow way of looking at life, but now we're looking at jobs.
	Yeah, I don't actually know.
	I don't know if it's going to open up new things or not.
	Well, I'll tell you what I think is the case, and this is nothing to do with anything that's true, right?
	This is just a foggy theory that may have some use.
	In my experience, Dan, the people who are the most negative towards these other groups, right?
	So the philosophers who scorn the entrepreneurs, right?
	That's usually where leftism comes from, right?
	Leftist sort of stuff, right?
	Anti-capitalist, anti-business stuff.
	Or the entrepreneurs who scorn the sheep of the customers and the drones and the people who go to work at a cubicle nine to five and so on.
	Are people who aren't content with their choices?
	Yeah.
	Actually, yeah.
	Go on. Okay, it sounds like you got it.
	Yeah, I thought this way that if he's not convinced of his choice, then he would want other people to want me to follow the same choice.
	Because if I make a different one, then he might feel that he made the wrong choice earlier on.
	So if he gets me to follow his path, then he won't get that...
	He won't get that, he'll be enforcing the idea that his way is the only way.
	Right, right. So if he has ambitions, or had ambitions, or had capabilities, and they may be completely illusory, but if he believes that he had these capabilities, or has them, or could have done differently, and then you start to go down that road, it's going to provoke some kind of anxiety in him.
	Yeah. You might want to check out a book by Steve Martin that came out recently.
	I think it's called Born Standing Up about his life.
	And it talks about his father.
	His father tried to be an actor.
	And of course, Steve Martin is a very successful comic actor and dramatic actor to some degree.
	And his father was very negative towards his life.
	Acting, right?
	When he took him to see his first movie, The Jerk, right?
	His dad was, well, you're no Charlie Chaplin or whatever.
	Just some cutting, nasty, undermining comment, right?
	And, you know, if you didn't know that Steve Martin's father had tried to be an actor, but you heard that comment, you would know that Steve Martin's father had tried to be an actor, right?
	Or had tried to be something in the creative realm, right?
	Because why would you feel hostile, right?
	I mean, if you've always wanted to be a singer and your friend goes to American Idol, you get anxious, right?
	And you kind of want to talk your friend out of it if you're insecure and you don't want to take the risk, but at the same time you feel like you could and so on, right?
	You're going to try and get them to not do the things that are provoking your anxiety, which is basically your desire, right?
	Yeah. And the reason that I think this is important is that if you get a sort of bird's eye view of the psychological topography of your family, I think it's easier than going into, well, I felt this when I was six and I felt that when I was eight, but instead you get the sort of psychological landscape.
	And if you are, I can't remember, I'm so sorry, you're taking a break from your family at the moment, is that right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	You can have this conversation with your father, obviously without him necessarily having to be there, right?
	You just do it in a dialogue or whatever, right?
	But for sure, it would seem to me almost for certain that your father has some form of unfulfilled ambition or some belief that he has undershot the mark, so to speak.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's a very interesting thing to think about.
	I'm not... I'm not absolutely sure what it is, but it's sort of...
	I can imagine that being the case.
	Like, this sort of feeling that he's generally sort of given up on ambition and that sort of...
	You know, given up on trying to find...
	I don't know how to find the right way to live, or...
	I don't know, but...
	Yeah, that might be something that's interesting.
	And it doesn't mean that he's this Bill Gates who was thwarted, right?
	Yeah. I mean, some of the people who have a belief that there could be something different or something, you could say, greater or whatever, more ambitious or more risk-taking than what they are, it's usually not the case that it's true.
	But they kind of have that belief that Although it's not true.
	And the reason that they avoid actually acting on it is because they deep down know that it's not for them.
	But they can't stay contented with that, right?
	Because they've got some story about it, whether it's better or worse to be an entrepreneur.
	Like if your father believes it's better to be an entrepreneur, but he's not a born entrepreneur, then he's going to feel a lot of tension around the topic, right?
	Yeah. As opposed to, hey, some people like it.
	I prefer a 9 to 5.
	I have a friend who works as a programmer.
	And he says, look, I... I'm not staying late.
	I'm not coming in on weekends. I don't live to work.
	I work to live. I put in my eight hours.
	I do good work. And then I go to judo.
	And then I go to poker games.
	And then I go and do X, Y, and Z. Because I go to work to put in my time like a farmer goes to milk the cow so that he can have the milk.
	Not because it's so intrinsically fulfilling or whatever, right?
	Hmm. And if people are content with that, he's never said to me, well, Steph, you know, your entrepreneurial stuff is bad, right?
	And I've certainly never said to him, you know, John, you should go and found your own company, right?
	Because, you know, why?
	Why would he have to do what I did and why would I have to do what he did?
	Yeah, yeah. So, um...
	So this is about trying to work out what type I am?
	Do I not need to do that yet?
	Well, no. We know for sure that you're not just the cubicle guy.
	Because if you were just the cubicle guy, you'd already be working a floor below your dad or something, right?
	Yeah. And you certainly wouldn't be interested in FDR, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. So that's not your thing, right?
	But I think it's important to unpack, and you can do this without having to talk to your dad, because we know everything, right?
	But I think it's important to unpack the mythology around ambition and risk and success and failure and so on.
	People... Who end up not achieving a lot in their life.
	And by that I'm just talking professionally.
	Maybe your dad is a floret flamenco dancer by night and he just goes to work during the day.
	So this is not a judgement about someone's whole life.
	But if somebody has underachieved professionally, It doesn't mean that they have this big yearning-burning ambition and so on, right?
	If you have contentment with your own choices, you can be open and curious about other people's choices.
	But if you're discontented with your own choices, then you're very likely to – that discontent is going to spill over into other people and their choices.
	And you're going to be kind of claustrophobic.
	So what I would suggest as a possibility is that your father is actually trying to recreate his relationship with himself with you, which is to say his relationship that his father had towards him when he was ambitious or whatever.
	But he's trying to – in a sense, he's trying to communicate to you what it's like to be him.
	Whenever he gets an impulse to do something different or try something risky or quit and go and work on a steam trawler in the Mediterranean with your mom or whatever, right?
	That this is the claustrophobia and cramping in a sense that he experiences.
	It doesn't have anything to do with you, is sort of what I'm saying.
	It doesn't have anything to do with an evaluation of your choices or whatever.
	Because when we get those kind of knee-jerk reactions, it's not about us, it's about the other person, right?
	Yeah, so if I work for that, then I'd be sort of more freed up myself to not have, well, to be able to think without any sort of jump into conclusions like I was doing before.
	Yeah, I mean, one of the key aspects of freedom, Dan, that I have found, and again, this is nothing true, right?
	But one of the things that I found about with freedom...
	And this is one of the things that's so harmful about destructive or dysfunctional family environments, is really hard, really hard, to fight your way free of other people's preconceptions of you.
	You know? But if we can't, we just end up running other people's defenses and mythologies.
	Yeah. Like in my family, I was considered, mostly by my brother, but I was considered to be Well, I had sort of two poles.
	My mother thought I could do anything, but she gave me mixed messages.
	She said, oh, you can do anything you set your mind to, but whenever I would do something, she'd get all anxious and cautious, right?
	So it was a real whiplash situation there.
	But my brother had very negative feelings or thoughts about me.
	He felt that I was a whiner and a manipulator and self-pitying and played the victim and so on, right?
	And The thing is that I found it really hard, and I don't think it's because I'm not constitutionally strong mentally or emotionally or whatever.
	I found it really hard to be around people who believed much less of me than I did.
	Because it's like trying to swim with an anchor.
	I mean, maybe you could do it for a while, but it gets really tiring.
	Yeah, and you end up sort of believing it.
	Well, it's hard. You end up fighting it.
	Even if you end up not believing it, it's still exhausting, right?
	Because you have to fight it. Like, I had friends...
	Yeah, you're fighting. Yeah. So I had friends who, when I started Free Domain Radio, I had friends who were like, it's just a hobby.
	You can't make money from a blog.
	You can't make money, you know, maybe some beer money.
	But, you know, you've got a career as an executive.
	That's where you should know. And they were like, well, it's not, you know, this is just a hobby.
	This is just, you know. And, I mean, how could I have...
	You know, plunged, mad, headfirst, kaplunk into Free Domain Radio if I'd have had all of these voices of skepticism and caution and negativity and so on, right?
	And I have a choice. I either can't discuss this With my friends, or if I'm going to do it, I have to talk to them about their negativity, and if they can't overcome it, what's my dedication?
	Is it to the mental limitations of my relationships, of those in my relationships, or is it to the possibilities that I believe in for what I can do?
	Hmm. Yeah, but if you end up having to ignore what everyone's saying, then how can you work out if your idea is holistic or not?
	Well, sorry. Wait, wait.
	I think you just did a quick black and white switch there.
	Oh, yeah.
	What was that black and white switch?
	Yeah, because... Well, yeah, that's mentioning that other people know more about it than you do, for one thing.
	No, that's not it. Do you want to try again, or should I just tell you?
	Okay, just tell me. I said there were certain people who were negative and skeptical.
	Oh, you said certain. Yeah, yeah.
	I didn't say everyone, because if it was everyone, you and I would be talking, right?
	Yeah. Well, as you went and you said, well, okay, but then if you don't talk to anyone, right, because that's the black and white switch, right?
	Oh, yeah, I didn't even notice I did that.
	Yeah, I didn't think you did, and that's why I wanted to sort of stop and point it out, but sorry, go on.
	Yeah, so what we need to do is find the people who can, find people who will give you advice and be helpful.
	Right. Right, where you share your dreams and your goals, right?
	I mean, as I've said a million times, I could never have done this without Christina's support, right?
	Because if she'd have been, well, you know, we're trying to have a kid, we bought a house, I don't know that we really want to go into this really risky entrepreneurial situation, right?
	You know, have it as a hobby, maybe...
	A couple of years, you know, when Isabella goes to school or whatever, then you can think about doing it full-time or whatever, right?
	But she was, no, you should, you know...
	You should absolutely do it.
	In fact, she said, and I won't let you not do it.
	Right? Yeah.
	Right? Because I had all these fears, right?
	Like, oh my God, I mean, if it doesn't work, and I'm out of IT for a year or two burning through our savings, then I'm going to be, you know, that much further behind.
	And I was only at my last job for like six months, and, you know, I won't get good references, and I'll be out of date technically, and, you know, what am I going to do?
	And she said, listen, I mean, if you do this, no matter what happens, I promise you, you will never have to go back to work in a corporate job, ever.
	Even if I end up being the sole provider and all you do is take care of Isabella, you will never, if you don't want to, you will never have to go back to a corporate job.
	I mean, I could not have done it without her.
	I mean, that's just one of a million things that she's done to support.
	Now, I mean, to be fair, I mean, I got her out of working for a government hospital and helped her set herself up as an entrepreneur.
	So it's nothing other than what I did for her, with the difference being, of course, that she actually had a marketable skill and a known business model that, you know, this nonsense about I'll yammer and people will give me money is not even a business model.
	It's more like But I couldn't have done it without her, and certainly if I'd been surrounded by people who were skeptical or hostile or indifferent or whatever, it wouldn't have been possible.
	Okay, yeah.
	Now, you have something to do with that, right?
	I mean, in terms of the way that you approach these things.
	Because if you're like, well, I'm thinking of doing this, but I'm scared, it's risky.
	You know, if you're like the living sepulcher of ambition, right?
	The sarcophagus of future possibilities, then you will almost certainly invite people into your life who will help support your being down upon what is possible.
	Yeah, yeah. So, I still feel I'm just going to go away and still have this...
	Well, okay, I'll give you three things.
	You might want to write these down, because I know we want to get to something practical, right?
	Okay. Is that right?
	You wanted to get to something more practical and tangible?
	Yeah, yeah. So these are the three things that I think I've thought about since we last talked to do with your situation, and you can tell me if they're helpful or not.
	The three things that people are afraid of when they look at risk, there are three things that people are afraid of when they look at risk, in my opinion, and maybe there's more, but this is sort of what I've been whittling it down to.
	The first is that they're afraid of failure, obviously, right?
	The second is that they're afraid of success.
	And related to being afraid of success is the fear of disapproval from those around them.
	If they succeed, usually, or if they fail.
	So people are afraid of failure, they're afraid of success, or they're afraid of disapproval.
	Why would you be afraid of success?
	I'm not quite sure if all of that.
	Oh, well...
	Because success brings with it additional stresses, right?
	So, for instance, I mean, not to sort of tap my own horn, right?
	But if FDR had failed, I would have gone back to the corporate world and, you know, got a real job and so on, right?
	There would have been no, you know, the stresses that come along with this kind of life would not be there.
	I'd be writing a paycheck, you know, 9 to 5 or whatever, 9 to 9 or whatever it was going to be.
	Success does bring with it certain problems, right?
	Which is why people who are very successful, particularly in the art world, tend to have, you know, some of them or a significant number of them have these self-destructive streaks, right?
	Yeah. So there's a fear of success, and the fear of success usually has to do with breaking out of the limits of the family model that you were brought up in.
	That it brings anxiety to be more successful than your parents.
	And that's the disapproval.
	Yeah, and we're afraid of the disapproval, whether it's voiced or not.
	And there is disapproval that comes with success, right?
	I mean, success causes anxiety for people, right?
	For those around you, if you succeed.
	Particularly if you've really grabbed life by the nuts and given it a good squeeze, right?
	As far as risk and so on goes.
	Yeah. But even if other people are supportive, there is anxiety, because to succeed is almost always an unfamiliar state, right?
	For everyone, because success is so rare in life, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Well, particularly you have to fail many times before you get your first success.
	Right, and then it's really hard to replicate, otherwise every one of my videos would be the True News 13, the Matrix video, right?
	Every one of my videos would be 130,000 views rather than 4,000 views, right?
	Well, doesn't that depend on how you classify success?
	Like, you classify any video goes above 1,000 views as success.
	Well, but it moves, right?
	Constantly moves, right? So my first video is anything over a couple of hundred was great.
	Now, you know, the second biggest video I have is Statism is Dead Part 5, which is at 50,000 views or whatever, right?
	So it's raised the bar, right?
	And that's how we are as human beings, right?
	I mean, whenever we master something, that becomes the new baseline, and we move on to something else, right?
	And most of us, anyway, most of us who have ambition.
	So... Sorry, I can't remember where we started on this.
	Oh, God. I'm trying success.
	Oh, yeah. So not only is it very hard to achieve success, and as a thinker, it took me almost 25 years, about 20 years, to come up with FDR. Now, it's good that it took me 20 years so that I had a chance to think through some stuff and not make any massive and egregious errors, which I then would later have to apologize profusely for.
	Rather, now it's just a series of minor errors that I apologize profusely for.
	So success is almost always an unfamiliar state, right?
	And, I mean, you know, otherwise Paul McCartney would have had, you know, a hit in the last 30 years, right?
	Because he knows he could do it or could have done it or whatever.
	But the creative life for an artist seems to be about 15 years and after that it's just, you know, repetition.
	But... So I think anytime we're in a state that's unfamiliar, there is a certain amount of anxiety.
	And that's not bad, but there's a certain amount of anxiety that is attended to it, right?
	Because it's an unfamiliar state.
	Like if you just wake up in a foreign country and you don't know where the hell you are, you might be fascinated, but you're also probably going to be slightly anxious, right?
	So any kind of unusual state is something that is going to make us alert or slightly anxious or whatever, right?
	And success is an unusual state for...
	You know, for just about any human being.
	Like, I mean, real success, not just, you know, like I tied my shoes today, right?
	But it is a startling and fleeting thing, right?
	I mean, because every time you get success, you just redefine that as the baseline and now you have something new to shoot for, right?
	Like now I want to come up with a video that does half a million hits or whatever, right?
	Whereas I never would have thought of that before.
	So, there is anxiety around success simply because it is something we aim for and therefore we feel that it's not good when we don't have it, right?
	Because we aim for it, right? And then when we do have it, we're aware that it's risky and fleeting and so we become concerned about losing it, right?
	Okay. Does that make sense?
	There's just a lot in anxiety.
	It's the model pimple thing, right?
	Like, if you and I get a pimple, it doesn't really matter, right?
	But if you and I are close-up makeup models, we get a pimple, we could lose $100,000, right?
	Yeah. Sorry, you're crackling quite a bit.
	If you could just check your mic settings.
	Oh, just check your jack.
	That's probably better. Sorry, I don't mean to go into a whole philosophy of success thing, but I just wanted to sort of point this out, that there's a lot of anxiety associated with success, right?
	You work hard to achieve it because you want it, which means that you feel less good than if you had it, because otherwise we wouldn't be working towards it.
	The moment you get it, you feel fantastic, and then you start to worry that you're going to lose it.
	And then you work to maintain it.
	And the more successful you are, the more risks you end up taking, right?
	Because if I got like 50 bucks a month for FDR, then I never would have quit my job.
	So I wouldn't be that stressed about FDR. But because I got enough that, oh, you know, with Christina's support and if I could grow it or double it within a year or whatever, I might be able to make a go of it.
	Because there was enough success...
	To give it a shot, I ended up having more anxiety about FDR. Now, I had less anxiety about a corporate position and so on, right?
	So you have to balance these things out.
	But success is not an easy thing, and it is not a, you know, it's like everybody fantasizes about it, you know, if I'm rich or famous, but it's like winning the lottery.
	If you actually look at the statistics of people who win the lottery, most of them are broke, divorced, and miserable within two years, right?
	No matter how much money they win.
	And it's the same thing with success, right?
	We certainly can't point to people who've achieved professional or career success and say, well, that is, you know, without a doubt.
	They never get divorced. They're always happy.
	They never have drug problems.
	It's not the case, right?
	It's not the case. If you're presenting it this way, why would you strive for something if the happiness it gives is so short and fleeting and the amount of stress it gives is enormous?
	And why would you... But why is it a good thing to aim for?
	And that's a great...
	You did a little bit about that there, right?
	Oh, yeah. Because if the stress is enormous, I never said the stress was enormous, I just said that there is some anxiety associated with success.
	Because we all know the good stuff of success, right?
	I mean, the fact that I can talk about ideas, hopefully do some real good for the world, educate tens or hundreds of thousands of people about some important ideas, do my bit to bring some philosophy to the world.
	What a fantastic and wonderful way to live my life, right?
	So from that standpoint, success, the value or the goodness of success is kind of a given.
	It's like the goodness of health, right?
	We all want health, and when we don't have it, we're anxious about it.
	But when we do have it, if we've had problems with our health, we're anxious about losing it or whatever, right?
	So the success, the happiness of success is a given, right?
	There are a number of strategies.
	I mean, I don't want to go into them in great detail because it's not the core of what we're talking about.
	But there are some strategies that I have put forward, which is to recognize that it's a fleeting state.
	So you don't try and hold on to it, you know.
	Like, you know, you have a great orgasm.
	You don't say, well, I hope I'm still feeling this in four hours, right?
	Because if you are, you're probably in hospital, right?
	So you recognize that it's a fleeting thing and you enjoy it while it is, knowing that it's going to not.
	Last, right? I mean, after I did the speech in New Hampshire, I was like, I was over the moon.
	I went up to my hotel room and played with Isabella, and I was just thrilled, happy, right?
	Now, if I'd have said to myself, I can't believe I'm going to feel this way for the rest of my life, no matter what happens, right?
	No matter if I stub my toe or sleep badly or whatever, right?
	That would have been an unrealistic...
	So you recognize that it gets your expectations to be realistic about success.
	You enjoy it, but also you don't let it define you, right?
	So... So it's not like, I am so happy that I did a great speech that if I had done a bad speech, I would be self-attacking, right?
	So you enjoy it, but you don't invest your entire identity in it, if that makes sense?
	Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
	Actually, if I know I'm not going to self-attack, that will relieve a lot of anxiety.
	It's one of my fears of failing.
	It's not failing, but self-attacking afterwards.
	Right, right. Well, absolutely.
	Because failure is a word that really doesn't have any meaning, right?
	You know, everybody over the age of 18 is failing, right?
	Because we're all getting, you know, our cells don't regenerate that well anymore and we start to age, right?
	So what does that mean? I mean, oh my god, I'm 42, I can't have any fun because I'm aging, whatever.
	It doesn't make any sense. So failure to me is, you know, you didn't get what you wanted, plus you self-attacked.
	And if you don't self-attack, Then you just didn't get what you wanted, which is not the same as a failure, right?
	It's just an opportunity for learning, for adjusting your expectations, for trying something new, for...
	You know, without self-attack, there really is no failure, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. Yeah, actually, I think if I didn't have the self-attack, then I would be...
	I don't know if I'm sort of trying to blame it all on self-attack now, but I sort of imagine if I didn't have it, then I wouldn't be...
	I'd just feel a lot more free to do...
	to try out things.
	Well, the stakes are too high with self-attack, right, for us to enjoy trying to succeed, right?
	Yeah. Right, because it's sort of like if I said to myself, if I don't do a good speech in New Hampshire, I'm going to cut my big toe off on my left foot.
	I mean, there's no possible way that I could have done a good speech, right, because I'd be too frightened about thinking of my toe rolling over the carpet, right?
	Yeah. Or some guys are standing, you know, out back, you know, and they're gonna rough me up if I don't do a good speech.
	Clearly, that's not gonna be a situation where I can have the chance to do good speech, right?
	Yeah, I know that.
	Yeah, and we all have that.
	So that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
	Then you end up beating yourself up because you're so scared of beating yourself up, right?
	So that's natural.
	And the only way, and this is the last thing that I'll sort of touch on before, and I do want to hear more of your thoughts.
	I don't want to yammer away the whole time, but...
	For me, you know, the way to...
	I did this video and podcast on public speaking which is about, you know, it's about the audience, it's not about me, right?
	It's about getting the ideas into the audience, right?
	You know, it's like if I want to get Isabella to sleep, to put her in her crib, it's not about how I feel, it's about whether I get her in the crib, right?
	And at some point it'll be about whether I get her to eat her peas and carrots or whatever it is, right?
	And so for you, if you think about being a music teacher, it seems sort of monomaniacal a little bit the way that you approach it.
	Like, how am I going to feel about being a music teacher?
	Am I going to succeed? Am I going to do well?
	Will people want to have me as a music teacher?
	Will I be any good? It's sort of a universe of one as far as that goes.
	And that's not ever going to work, in my humble opinion.
	Because the thing that's important is, can I help others develop a love for music?
	When I think of it that way, I have thought of it that way before, and that always gives me a boost of enthusiasm.
	Yeah, make it about them.
	I want to share my love of music.
	And so with the speech, I was like, I want to share my enthusiasm and excitement about these ideas.
	I want to give people tools that allow them to be more empowered and effective in debates.
	It's about them. It's about their happiness, their excitement, their enjoyment.
	It's not about, am I doing well?
	I put the focus on them, not on me.
	And so with the things that you want to do in your life, if you make it about the good that you can generate, the excitement and the happiness that you can generate in others, then it's less about, how am I doing?
	And it's more about, how is the other person doing?
	Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really helpful.
	So, tell me what...
	Because, I mean, I've done a lot of talking, given a lot of ideas and thoughts about it, but I want to make sure sort of where you are.
	Like, you're not just saying, oh, here's a bunch of things which are sort of interesting philosophical things, but now I'm going to go back to staring at the ceiling or whatever, right?
	What's... How's it been for you or is there something you'd like to talk about or do you feel like you have anything practical or has it all just been like abstract nonsense?
	I think I might need to thick it through a bit actually.
	Nothing sort of suddenly, there's no sort of fireworks going off in my head but it's not fitting complete.
	It doesn't feel like it's been a complete waste of time either.
	Ah, excellent. Not a complete waste of time.
	I'm just going to put that down for a podcast review.
	Yeah, no. Not a complete waste of time.
	No, that's valid, right?
	Because I do get the sense that we're not getting to something that is a spark for you, and that is usually the goal, right?
	Yeah, yeah. But I don't know whether I'm going to be able to reach a sort of spark right now, now yet.
	What would the spark look like for you?
	Sorry, what would the spark look like?
	How would you know if it was like, holy shit, this was really satisfying?
	Well, I think I'll just feel a boost of energy, or feel a sort of, a sudden, a sudden example, a sudden sort of lift in my, because at the moment it feels like a whole sort of cloud in my head, and if that suddenly lifts, then that would be the sort of thing I'd be looking for.
	That the cloud lifts, and what is the cloud specifically, or even approximately?
	I think it's partly based upon worrying about a different thing.
	I don't quite know.
	It's sort of... might be a slight sort of dissociation from my motivation.
	I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but it just feels very grey.
	Go on. Yeah, just any sort of thinking about anything new seems to just feels like it's going to take a lot of energy in LB. Worn out.
	I'm not quite sure how to explain.
	No, a lot of energy. Go on.
	Go on. That's important. Yeah, and it's going to...
	Yeah, I'm going to feel...
	Completely worn out afterwards and end up forgetting about it afterwards.
	Forgetting about what? Forgetting it.
	I was trying to think about ideas and I'd probably forget about, or not forget about them, but lose any sort of, or dismiss them afterwards.
	Oh, you mean ideas like what you could do with your future?
	Yeah, yeah. Okay.
	And do you have people around that you can share your thoughts or ideas about this sort of stuff with?
	Yeah, well, I'm spending a lot of time in the chat room here, and there's lots of people I talked about at DSL, and they're really helpful.
	But not helpful enough for the fog, right?
	Now, but tell me, Dan, what's on the other side of this fog, right?
	So if the fog lifts, what do you see?
	I imagine it's going to be completely, really, I just imagine a sort of real, sort of excitement and a real drive of them looking forward to, or sort of, I don't know. I think I'm naturally quite ambitious, but it's all sort of covered up.
	Okay, so if the fog lifts, you feel that there's this enthusiasm and that sort of stuff?
	Okay. So let me ask you this.
	This is going to be an odd question, but I'll ask it anyway.
	What are the secondary gains of the fog?
	In other words, what does it cost you to lift that fog?
	In other words, why are you hanging on to the fog?
	Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question.
	Why do you prefer, at the moment, and this is not an attack, oh, bad fog person, right?
	But why at the moment does the fog taste sweet?
	Why do you prefer the fog?
	Because there's something in between the fog and the enthusiasm, right?
	Because, I mean, to lift the fog and be enthusiastic, you know what to do, right?
	You just go out and start to do stuff, right?
	But there's something in between lifting the fog and that enthusiasm that you don't want to see.
	Yeah, this could be to do with other people, maybe.
	This is not something you'll think.
	This is something you've got to connect with, right?
	Because I know, I mean, A, you're British, right?
	And B, you're kind of dissociated, right?
	So you're like, let me go into my abstract land of platonic theories about the possibilities and let's map those out from the orbit of the space station, right?
	But I'm saying, what do you feel with the fog lifts before you get to the enthusiasm?
	What is the feeling that you're avoiding?
	Well, I've, um, I think I'm quite frightened of the forklifting.
	Okay, so don't tell me I think I'm quite frightened, right?
	You feel fear.
	Yeah, I feel fear. Don't describe to me, right, in abstract terms like a character in a novel or a third person, because it's not going to help you with not feeling, right?
	Because the fog is not feeling, right?
	Yeah. So, what do you feel when you think of the fog lifting?
	Before you get to the enthusiasm, what is the fog hiding?
	What feeling or feelings?
	Maybe I'm angry, actually. - I You know, if you keep thinking it's a question or a possibility, you haven't gotten it.
	Yeah. No.
	Alright, so if...
	I can't seem to...
	Okay, no problem. Think of doing something.
	Think of doing something, right?
	So if you had to hang up the phone right now and call 20 people or go to 20 schools to offer your services as a music teacher...
	How would you feel doing that?
	Or getting ready to do that, if you had to do that?
	I'll just... I'll just...
	absolute terror.
	Go on.
	I'll be I'll be afraid of I'm just going to...
	I'll just sort of break down, I think.
	Break down, go on.
	How so?
	I'm going to panic or something.
	And it's going to...
	I don't know, it seems so...
	I find it difficult to imagine it because it just feels so...
	it just feels so impossible.
	Well, imagine it. Come on.
	You're an intelligent fellow. You've got an imagination.
	Picture it. Picture walking down the stairs.
	Picture asking the person at the front desk where you can put up posters.
	Picture printing out those little things with your phone number at the bottom.
	Picture it, right?
	Because if you can't picture it, then you can't get to the feelings, right?
	Yeah. How does it feel to say, I'd like to put up my ad as a music teacher?
	What is the expression on the face of the secretary?
	What is happening?
	Well, the main thing I'm getting is a sort of fear that I'm just going to mess it up or I'm going to...
	No, no, no, no.
	That's abstract.
	So you're saying you've got your papers in your hands that you want to stick up on a bulletin board at this music school or whatever, right?
	You go into the secretary and you're saying, I would like to put up an ad for my services as a music teacher.
	where do I do that?
	What is her reaction going to be?
	Well, it might be a sort of...
	Don't give me might be.
	You have a picture of this.
	You have a picture of this.
	Because if you didn't have a picture of it, you wouldn't be avoiding it.
	You understand? This is not a theoretical exercise.
	You already know this. What is the expression on her face when you want to sell to the students at her faculty your services as a music teacher?
	What does she look like? What are her feelings when you say that?
	Yeah, they'll...
	A sort of...
	No, not sort of.
	You feed the feelings.
	You already have them, I promise you.
	I'm going to be really annoying with you here.
	What is she doing when you want to hand these things to her?
	her what is her reaction going to be okay we'll try another way because You know that you're avoiding this, right?
	Because it's not hard to hand out a piece of paper.
	So if you're not doing it, it's because you're expecting a reaction from her or from someone else.
	What is she going to say?
	Is she going to say, who the hell are you to teach our students?
	Is she going to say, we don't allow that here.
	Are you kidding me? How inappropriate.
	Is she going to curl her lip with disgust?
	What is she going to do?
	It might just be for something very subtle.
	Okay, subtle is fine.
	What is she going to do then?
	She might sort of... Sort of intentionally misunderstand what I'm saying and I have to repeat it again.
	Or generally just sort of...
	And why would she do that?
	What would the goal of that be for you?
	Like, what was she trying to do to you?
	What is she trying to do to you when she does that?
	She's trying...
	Well, she's trying to stop me doing it all.
	Trying to... No, no, no, no.
	Because it's to stop you to do it if you say no.
	I can tell you what she's trying to do to you if she's pretending she didn't understand you.
	I was just trying to make me feel that I'm completely mad at what I'm trying to do or trying to show me that I'm not the right sort of person for this.
	Yeah, this is all such an abstract description.
	She's trying, Dan, to humiliate you, right?
	Can we get to that core?
	And not this, she's trying to make me feel like I'm not this right sort of person about that, right?
	Let's get, you've got to get to the emotional core here, and I know we're burrowing through the fog here, right?
	But this is what you wanted, so this is what we're going to do, right?
	Yeah. So if you go to try to sell your services as a music teacher, you feel...
	That you will be humiliated?
	Again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, we're just trying to get to what the fear is that you have about this process.
	Yeah, no, I'll be humiliated, yeah.
	Right. And listen, I mean, I understand this.
	You're not crazy for feeling this, right?
	I was selling my books, trying to sell my books, trying to get magazine articles published, trying to sell software, trying to sell myself in the job market.
	I mean, it's tough, tough stuff, right?
	I mean, when Christina had to go and start handing out her business cards and brochures to doctors, right, because she gets referrals from doctors, I mean, she was literally in tears in the parking lot and I was talking her through it because it's really scary to put yourself out there because we're afraid of being humiliated, scorned, rejected, right?
	I mean, particularly if we've grown up with overbearing or negative parents, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Yeah, that makes sense now.
	That's what I would feel.
	Yeah. But you're still not connecting with it, right?
	I'm starting to. I'm starting to.
	Okay, tell me about that.
	I'm starting to feel a bit of emotion now.
	Or in England, as it's known, a smidgen of passion.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, so, and look, I mean, the British culture is really tough on entrepreneurs, right?
	I mean, there's a reason it didn't become Silicon Valley, right?
	Because there's a scorn, a negativity towards commerce and towards entrepreneurship, at least in my memory and experience of that, right?
	So there is, and people, petty people in authority can be really brutal in any culture, but I found particularly so in England.
	Like, they look down, they notice you, right?
	Yeah, they don't say anything directly to you, it's just a very subtle sort of body language.
	Right. Or not that subtle.
	Right. Quite clear body language.
	Yeah, very clear, very clear, right?
	And they will do things like intentionally misunderstand you, so that you end up having to stammer and repeat and they'll just stare at you and, you know, it's a real, it's a nasty situation to be in, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, because you get that sort of misunderstanding, even if you're doing something fairly normal, you know, fairly sort of everyday.
	Right, right, because shame and embarrassment is the fucking cancer of British society, right?
	Yeah. It's cringeworthy.
	I'm embarrassed for you.
	You're only embarrassing yourself, right?
	I mean, embarrassment is the toxic mercury of the British social sewage system, right?
	Yeah. And do you know what's great about that, Dan?
	Yeah, what's great about that?
	I'll tell you what's great about it, is that if you overcome it, you're going to face a hell of a lot less competition.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
	A high barrier to entry means that once you're in, you're in, right?
	Yeah. I mean, not many people want to quit Not many people want to quit their executive software positions in order to podcast over the internet and beg for money, right?
	Which means that I'm not going to face a lot of competition, right?
	And not many people are going to want to quit a secure government job at a hospital to go pounding on the doors of probably or possibly hostile doctors who might already have 10 therapists who visited them that day, right?
	So the great thing is that since it stops 99% of people, the 1% who get through, it's fucking easy pickings, right?
	Yeah, you hear that?
	So that's the good side about getting through it, right?
	Yeah. And then you build up a base of clients, right?
	So I have a bunch of people who listen to the show, and they come and they go.
	But I think what will happen is that other people will come to say, oh, I'd really like to do a philosophy podcast and ask people for money, right?
	And they'll come and they'll do a search for a philosophy podcast.
	And they'll come across Free Domain Radio and they say, are you fucking kidding me?
	1500 podcasts, 6 or 7 free books.
	It's been running for 4 years.
	The guy does it full time.
	He's, you know, he obviously can crank out material.
	He's obviously got some technical expertise.
	Maybe I'll do another topic.
	Maybe I'll do something else, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like you're out of Microsoft philosophy.
	Yeah, that's right.
	And so for you, right, if you get through this thing, which is awful, I understand it, right?
	I mean, it has to do with your family, obviously not the secretary, right?
	And fundamentally now it has to do with yourself, right?
	But if you get through it, then you'll be, you know, 99% of people get stopped, therefore the 1% of people who get...
	Through, you know, it's easy pickings, relative, right?
	And then you get your referrals, you get people saying, yeah, he's a great teacher, and I really got enthusiastic, and I made great strides.
	So, you know, it's like if you've ever seen the movie A League of Their Own with Tom Hanks.
	No. Rent it.
	I mean, it's not a great film.
	And the first half is good. The second half is not so good.
	But at one point, he says, this woman says about professional baseball, she says, it's really hard.
	And he's like, well, of course it's hard.
	If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.
	So setting yourself up as a music teacher, working a couple of hours a day, enlightening people about music and seeing their progress and being your own boss.
	Who wouldn't do that?
	Who's interested in philosophy or ideas?
	Who wouldn't want to be doing what I'm doing?
	Get paid to basically sit around, make videos, do research and talk to people about important topics.
	No commute, get to work from home, spend time with my baby.
	I mean, who wouldn't want to do it, right?
	But the reason that I'm the only one doing it, it's really fucking hard, right?
	Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	And it gets easier, right?
	Once you get over the hump, and it gets easier, right?
	But that hump is huge, right?
	And it's almost like it's there for a reason, right?
	To keep people in the cubicles and so on, right?
	But what's on the other side of dealing with this is a great life.
	Yeah. The harder it is, the better it is to get over the hump, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay. That's because I don't think you have enough.
	You obviously don't have enough of a carrot to brave the stick, right?
	No. Right, because clearly if you saw the benefits that were on the other side of it, you would find a way to do it, right?
	But you can't even see the benefits like, oh, well this is going to be horrible and it's going to be humiliating and I'm going to fail anyway, so what's the point, right?
	Yeah, sometimes I sort of imagine being on the other side, but then I'm imagining that's sort of too far ahead.
	Well no, but I bet you when you imagine the other side, you imagine a lifetime of being scorned by secretaries, right?
	No, actually I imagine...
	The other side has been quite good, but that's already when I've sort of gone over the first parts.
	But I don't know if that's...
	Well, it's not good enough for you to do it, right?
	And I would say...
	Well, it's too far off.
	It's like in 10 years' time or something.
	Oh, my God. Evan, are you kidding me?
	Oh, no. No. You could be doing this in two or three months.
	Yeah. Guaranteed.
	No, I was exaggerating then.
	Yeah. But that's what I'm saying.
	Like, it's that close, right? Midsummer, you could be over this hump and you could be doing it, right?
	Yeah. No, no, you don't see it, right?
	No, no. It's April.
	May, June. End of June, right?
	Well, May, you could get your...
	April, you could get your shit out there, right?
	And you could be, you know, it may take a while.
	You might need to pound the pavement and so on, right?
	But you could start to see some significant progress by, you know, June, July.
	Or, at the very least, you've eliminated it as a possibility, right?
	So let's say you put everything into it and nobody calls.
	Because everybody's given up on musical instruments, right?
	And then you say, okay, well, I'll lower my price, or I'll do it for, you know, first three lessons free, whatever it takes, right?
	Nobody's going to turn down free, right?
	Yeah. So, and of course, once people experience you as a teacher, if you're a good teacher and you enjoy it, then they'll pay, right?
	Yeah. Right, Christina talks with people on the phone before, you know, she doesn't charge them if they say no, right?
	It's not a session or anything, right?
	But, and of course the podcasts are all free, right?
	So you can pay when you want, right?
	Yeah. So you could, I mean, nobody's going to refuse free lessons.
	You could absolutely get people who would be your students and you would start to be able to charge them at some sort of sliding scale if you wanted, you know, by sort of mid-summer, late-summer, right?
	Yeah, the amount I can just get done in one day could be amazing.
	Right, and if it doesn't work, if nobody even wants free lessons, then at least you won't be thinking it could work, so you can do something else, right?
	Right, so before I started FDR, Christina, when she started working on entrepreneurial stuff, it took a while for her stuff to get moving, as it always does, right?
	What she did was she sent out all of my novels to every conceivable agent and publisher that was remotely connected with someone who might be interested, right?
	And we got no positive responses.
	I mean, one or two, but no commitments, right?
	And so what I said was, hey, I'm not going to be a novelist.
	If I've been working at it for 15 years and I have five or six novels and no one's interested, I'm either going to self-publish, which is going to be pointless, because who's going to buy some random novel off the internet?
	Or I don't do it.
	So I gave up on art, on fiction.
	And that opened up the door for me to I do nonfiction, right?
	Which was the start of the articles that I began to publish, right?
	Which led to Free Domain Radio. Yeah.
	So you put your all in to find out if it's possible.
	If it's not possible, you've had the experience of putting your all in, which is a damn good thing to do.
	You've overcome the fear and anxiety, or at least you've confronted it, right?
	Yeah. When I imagine this, when I imagine that they're not succeeding, I imagine that is being really crushing.
	Okay, so be crushed.
	So what? Yeah, so be crushed.
	Seriously, be crushed.
	So what? So you're crushed.
	You're not going to die. It's not going to give you cancer, right?
	Your legs aren't going to fall off.
	You'll be crushed. Of course you will.
	But this is life, right?
	If you ask a girl out that you like, she might say no, and you'll be crushed.
	And if I produce a fantastic podcast that gets four views, or a video, I'm disappointed and hurt, right?
	Of course, right? If I put out books and nobody seems to care about them, then that's unpleasant.
	Sure. But tell me, what is the alternative?
	What's wrong with being crushed?
	It just means that you care.
	Yeah, I don't know why I imagine it's so bad.
	And you can't be so hypersensitive, and I don't mean this in any critical way, right?
	But you can't be hypersensitive.
	If you're that hypersensitive, then go and get a statistics degree and work in the government, right?
	But that's not who you are, because if it was, you wouldn't be stuck here, right?
	Yeah, there's no way.
	Right, so it's okay to be crushed.
	I promise you.
	You'll survive. I mean, I've been kicked down, beaten around, dragged through the media.
	I mean, everything that you could imagine, right?
	People portraying me as the most horrible, child-destroying ogre since the Pied Piper of Hamlin, right?
	Yeah. People writing the most unholy stuff about me all over the place, right?
	Yeah. It's like, ooh, typing, you know?
	I mean, I'm not saying I'm indifferent to it.
	I'm not saying I don't care, but so what?
	You know, that's the price of doing business in the world.
	Yeah. Every time you lift a finger, there's going to be 10,000 people yelling at you that you should have lifted your thumb, right?
	Yeah. So, be crushed.
	So what? Because, see, the thing I'm trying to get you to see, Dan, you're already crushed.
	You're not solving the problem of being crushed by sitting around in your house all day.
	Yeah, yeah. Your dad didn't solve the problem of being crushed by taking a government job, right?
	You're already crushed.
	Might as well get paid for it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah. I still don't...
	You say you're afraid of failure, but you're already failing.
	Yeah. Yeah. So if you can live with this, you can live with rejection.
	Because you're already failing.
	It's like you've jumped out of a plane and you say, but I'm afraid of falling.
	But you're already falling.
	So pull the fucking parachute.
	Do something. Because everything that you're afraid of, you're already experiencing.
	Everything you, oh, I'm afraid of being crushed.
	You're already crushed. Oh, I'm afraid of failure.
	You're already failing. There's nothing that you're afraid of that isn't happening ten times worse than you're seeing in your life at the moment, right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	And you're surviving this. Yeah.
	So there's not that much to be afraid of.
	There's no failure out there that's looming that isn't already in your life in the worst possible way, right?
	Because you're failing without even the chance of succeeding.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Because you're staying home and down the chat room, right?
	So you're failing in a way...
	I mean, if I said, here's something you need to do and it's going to guarantee you failure with no chance of success and no income whatsoever, you would say, well, fuck, that would suck, right?
	But that's what you've got!
	At least I'm saying here, you get a chance to be crushed and maybe make some coin and have a life.
	Yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
	But, yeah. It's not...
	What? I'm actually not there.
	There's nothing you can do.
	I don't need to...
	That's perfectly clear.
	I don't know why I'm not getting a...
	No, that's okay. I mean, I don't want to keep bringing a dry towel, right?
	I mean, we've certainly had a pretty good chat about it.
	I hope this is okay for you as a podcaster, but have a listen to it again, right?
	And the key thing to do, make a list of all the benefits that the FARC gives you.
	Don't have to test myself.
	Don't have to fail. Don't have to confront anxiety.
	Don't have to face rejection. Don't have to stammer.
	Don't have to be embarrassed. Don't have to be humiliated.
	Don't have to this. Don't have to that, right?
	Because I guarantee you, I mean, this is all stuff that, and they're not irrational.
	Second, it's not crazy.
	It's not wrong. It's not irrational, right?
	But there are you hanging on to this thing like grim fucking death, which it is, right?
	And that just means...
	Sorry, go ahead. In a way, I am sort of humiliating myself at the moment now.
	Well, not sort of.
	Not sort of. Yeah, definitely.
	Right? There's no humiliation like not standing up to fight, right?
	Because we're like, oh, well, if I don't try and pursue what I want, I won't be humiliated.
	But then you don't pursue what you want, that's the most humiliating thing.
	Yeah. Because you have no chances.
	It's the other way you have a chance of success, right?
	I mean, if you were in a plane that was heading straight towards a mountain, you'd jump, right?
	You say, well, shit, I mean, maybe I'll land in water, maybe I'll land on a haystack, maybe I'll land on snow, or at least I got a chance.
	I know for sure if I go into the mountainside, I'm dead, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	But you're hanging in that plane saying, I'm afraid of dying.
	Well, if you're afraid of dying, you have to leap.
	And if you're afraid of humiliation and failure, you have to try, because that's where you are.
	Yeah, I can imagine being in a plane and not leaping.
	Right, and that means that you want to fail.
	And if you want to fail, then go out and strive, because that's the best way to really achieve that, right?
	Because you will, as we all do, right?
	But that's, see, that's the, that's, and I get a sense of, I mean, we're laughing a little, but I do get a sense of despair and depression at the core of that, right?
	Can't win, don't try.
	Why lift a finger, right? Yeah, yeah.
	And that's emotional, that's history and so on, and I know you have some concerns about your therapist and you might want to switch or whatever, right?
	But that's the stuff.
	You need to look at the part of you that is so full of dread and despair and has been crushed to such a degree that you would rather go into the mountain than take a chance jumping.
	Yeah. And that means not you, it means other people would rather you go in the mountain, because there's no human being who sits there and wants to develop that tendency.
	It means other people would rather you go into the mountain, because if you jump, they go into the mountain.
	I know we're stretching the metaphor here, but it means that if you take a risk, other people experience a kind of spiritual death, right?
	And you want to protect them.
	Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
	So I would focus on how where you are benefits other people in your life.
	Because it's not, I mean, when I said your secondary gains, I mean, in a way, it's a kind of twisted tribute and protection of those around you.
	I would say particularly your parents and maybe even more specifically your father.
	But it is, you are protecting someone from the consequences of you taking risks, pursuing your dreams and getting what you want, or at least trying.
	Yeah, I think if my parents are going to feel if I become really successful, then they'll...
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Not if you become really successful.
	Or just...
	If you try at all.
	If you have any... Yeah, try at all, then they'll feel...
	Yeah, they'll be completely crushed by because I manage to do it by leaving them.
	Well, or that you manage to do it at all when they believe that it's not worthwhile or possible, right?
	Yeah. So look at the people who benefit from you not succeeding or not trying.
	We can't control whether we succeed.
	And you said, well, if I achieved a great success, my parents would feel this.
	But then you'd feel fine until you achieved a great success.
	You'd achieve a small, medium success and feel fine, right?
	But you're not even able to start, right?
	So it means that somebody doesn't want you to start.
	Yeah. Yeah, mate.
	That's right. And they've, you know, they've had their life, they've made their choices, right?
	If they chose the safe route, they chose the safe route that has no bearing on what route you choose.
	Right? If they don't like it, well...
	Sorry, but, you know, this is my life, right?
	It's my life. It's my choice.
	It's my future. You've made your life.
	If you chose a safe route, if you chose to work for the government, if you chose to have a boring cubicle job, that's your choice.
	And I have no particular issue with it.
	I mean, everybody has their own threshold for risk and stress and this and that, so fine.
	But it has no bearing on what it is that I'm going to do with my life.
	Hmm. Those are your choices and these are going to be mine.
	and the relation is not even close.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Well, I think I will step back from the already flogged horse, and I do appreciate the time.
	I know it was a long call, but we definitely had to make a few swings at the piñata, so to speak, and do let me know how it goes.
	I really do care about where this goes for you, and I'm sure that it will go to a much better place.
	Yeah, thanks. Thanks for sort of pushing on when I was giving resistance.
	No problem. No problem. Just let me know how it goes, man.

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