Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
hey everybody welcome to another episode
of conversations with tom i am here with
somebody i think you guys are going to
find utterly fascinating the one and
only michaela peterson michaela welcome
to the show
thank you so much for having me on this
is exciting man of course so uh you
obviously have come to prominence for
two very interesting things number one
is the lion diet which i'm sure we will
get into but is definitely not where
we're gonna start and then the other is
your dad jordan peterson
but you are far more interesting than
either of those two things and so i'm
really interested to talk we've spent
time i've been on your podcast
we've had some business related
conversations going on which i found you
incredibly professional um and easy to
deal with so i know sort of both of your
hats of sort of public intellectual and
you know ceo of your dad's company so
um i've gotten maybe a little bit of a
glimpse into something more than people
would see if they've just encountered
you in the media
and what i want to talk about is
life architecture okay which is i'm sure
i have to explain so the way that you've
built your life to me is
atypical you you have said of yourself
that you're not afraid to be a
contrarian you're not afraid to
um you know go counter to what people
tell you and so you've created a pretty
interesting life for yourself
i think the best place to start to
explain that is in a day and age where
people are having kids later and later
and later in life you chose as a
ambitious person as far as i can tell to
have kids in your 20s
so why don't we start there how
thoughtful was that was that accidental
was it something you put a lot of
thought into
oh that's an interesting place to start
that is a very complicated story
actually
i
scarlet was an accident so i was in
university i'd done two years in
psychology and then i'd switched over to
biomedical science and i was in my
second year
and i got pregnant and i
kept her because i couldn't
emotionally handle any other option
uh and it was
extremely stressful because i was so i
was 23 when i got pregnant and my
life plan was to have kids
ideally before the age of 30
but i'm also like you said very career
oriented and i was
in my second year of university so that
was not ideal for you know when to have
a kid
but
but i decided to keep her and i ended up
dropping out of university
and then
doing part-time work for my dad and
which turned into full-time work very
rapidly when scarlet was about six
months old but
the choice to
have
i didn't really feel like i had a choice
like i i ended up when i when i got
healthy i stopped taking all my
medication including birth control
because you were worried about what it
was doing to you from a gut perspective
yeah well
not even from a from a gut perspective
but also from a psychological
perspective like my mom told me that
when she'd gone on birth control it had
made her severely depressed and she
hadn't recognized that until she stopped
taking it
and i kind of laughed that off but i
started taking birth control when i was
and i was severely depressed so i
thought who cares if you add another
pill on top of it i'm already depressed
which was like an immature way of
thinking about it
as a 14 year old might but when i was 23
and i stopped taking my medications and
i got healthier i was like i don't want
anything impacting my mental function
and so i stopped taking birth control
just in case it was and i do believe
that i was having
i do believe it was causing depression
but it wasn't the only thing in my life
that was causing depression at that
point but yeah i did stop taking it and
that ended up resulting in scarlet who
i'm thrilled to have but it definitely
put a bit of a
kybosh on the direction i thought my
life was going to take however it ended
up not being a negative thing it ended
up being a positive thing but it was
scary
yeah there's a lot of interesting stuff
in that so one is your were you married
at the time or
not i was not and is not married at the
time
yes
so
so on andre and i were um andre and i
were
dating for eight months at that point
and at that point i hadn't i was 23 i
was really looking into my health and
trying to optimize that and i wasn't
really focused on
a long-term relationship because i was
23 and i was focused on other things and
i was like you know what i have time to
figure that out later like i'll figure
that out
uh by the time i'm maybe 26 or 27 or 28
even
and i can start thinking about that but
i ended up having to think about that a
lot faster
because
scarlet came around
now that's interesting that puts a lot
of pressure on a relationship though and
when i think about so i look at you and
i could be totally delusional i don't
know you well but when i look at you it
seems like a lot of thought goes into
the decisions that you make um and so as
you approached marrying andre given the
sort of complexities of having a child
did that weigh in the decision like did
you were you more prone to marry him
because he was the father of your child
or were you like no that doesn't matter
oh no 100
i was really i was really stressed out
about being an unmarried mom
like really really
stressed out and felt you know
societally pressured into it
oh yeah
and you know what um this was a bit
skewed because
if it was me now and i went back in time
i probably wouldn't i certainly wouldn't
have felt that way um but i'm much more
confident now at the time i was dealing
i was actually dealing with
serious this gets complicated serious uh
ssri withdrawal so my anxiety was
ridiculous
so i was thinking about a whole bunch of
things that i shouldn't have been
concerned about and that most certainly
influenced my decision making at the
time because you had an impending sense
of doom
yeah because i had an impending sense of
doom for about
yeah a year and a half two years after i
stopped taking ssris
that is super interesting so now you
guys have obviously navigated those
waters you've been together for years
you're having a second child is that
accurate
that is not accurate we are not
that may be happening in the future okay
so you're not at the moment you're open
to having uh a second child i heard you
in an interview say we will definitely
be having more or i'm definitely gonna
have more i think maybe the more
accurate quote
that was probably a more accurate quote
yes we've been navigating it's difficult
because we've been man like he's been
with me through
me coming off of psychiatric medication
which was a trip and a half that i would
not recommend anybody go through the way
i did so he's been with me through that
he was with me through
taking care of my dad in the last year
and a half and the
trauma and stress that has to do with
those experiences
has been hard to navigate with a
relationship to say the least it's been
tricky
so one thing i'd love to hear more about
is
the growing confidence and i am really
surprised and again this comes back to
just we're really just now getting to
know each other but
i'm really surprised given your public
persona that you felt societal pressure
to get married or to not have a child
out of wedlock
what was it just the judgment of it all
or
something else
like honestly i think the
i wouldn't underestimate the ssri
withdrawal i had i think that the
anxiety and the this this horrifying
impending sense of doom i had like i
said for about two years after i stopped
taking ssris i think i was looking into
aspects of my life to try and identify
what was causing
uh
my reaction because when you get anxious
you try and identify what in your life
is making you anxious and so i had you
know my my dad was
randomly
getting controversially famous which was
incredibly stressful for my family so
that was a real source of stress and
then i had a surprise pregnancy which is
it was a serious real source of stress
and i think i was
partly trying to
reduce the amount of chaos in my life
in any way possible and then yeah i was
definitely
i definitely partially felt pressured
there was some family pressure
and there was some kind of neighborhood
pressure we moved to this
it wasn't a suburb of toronto because it
was still in toronto but it was kind of
on the outskirts and everyone there was
35 and they had kids
and
i was pregnant and they were like
there was judgment there about not being
married and there was also like what do
you do as a job which is a weird thing
to ask a pregnant person which is like
what do you do as a job well like
currently i'm having a child like that's
my job at the moment um so i think i was
just trying to reduce the amount of
chaos in my life by making things as
ordered and structured as possible and
one of the things i thought
might help and my family thought might
help was getting married
and did that help
no
that's interesting just because
the difficulties inherent in a
relationship
yeah and the fact that it was new and we
didn't know each other that well and the
fact that there was
instead of going through you should like
it really is worth going through the
steps of a relationship right where you
get to know each other and then
you have some sort of trust foundation
and you make sure that your
you know your future goals align
maybe those are the steps before you get
married and we skipped a whole bunch of
them and had to do the second parts
after
uh which was and we were young like most
people
i mean it was different before but most
people i know now like lots of people
are getting married in their mid-30s and
having kids
so we could have been easily 10 years
ahead of other people i end ten years
less mature
and just with less you know
experience so
it was tricky it's been tricky for sure
yeah it's interesting i broke all my own
rules which of course i didn't have
rules in my early 20s but i met my wife
when i was 24 she was 21
and we ended up getting married she was
22 still
and i was what 26 so
now i tell people hey you should not get
married until you're at least 30 years
old
and you know i ended up not having kids
but i was like definitely don't have
kids before you're 30. um just because
there's so much
maturation that has to happen there's so
many like coming up with your own rule
set and just having experience more of
life and sort of getting yourself
oriented in a more useful way
so i can only imagine you know what all
of the sort of exacerbations that come
with the you know juvenile arthritis and
all of the crazy immune struggles that
you've had
plus ssris
um plus the
so weird rise of i can't imagine if all
of a sudden when i was you know whatever
23 that my dad became world famous uh
that would be surreal to say the least
yes
it's been tricky the one thing though
about having a kid early is if you
i'm not sure if this happens but if you
wait until you're 30 i feel like a lot
of people go through a lot of
self-discovery and self-improvement
around that age and then if you
get too involved in that
maybe you miss the opportunity to have
kids
but if you're under the age of 25 and
you're still
immature and stupid
that might be
the chance you have um
we'll see what happens with me but
i think i don't know it's tricky it's
tricky because you either do it when
you're young and immature and you don't
know any better or you risk missing it i
think
and you're talking from a biological
perspective people just have such a hard
well oh yeah that's what i mean that's
what i mean i mean women in particular
um but i mean you you wait until you're
smart enough and you're 30 and then you
have a depending on the person because
some people have can have kids later and
there's you know in vitro now but you
can easily miss it and i've had
like parents of friends or family
members miss it
by waiting until they were 38 and then
just being like oh man [ __ ]
now that i've got my head on straight
it's too late so it's hard to figure out
if you should do it when you're young
and stupid
or wait there's got to be a good point
somewhere
you know what's interesting the the
advice i always got from my own parents
and my in-laws who are just crestfallen
that my wife and i have decided not to
have kids they've dealt with it now but
you know when that was sort of breaking
news
it was very hard for them to deal with
but they just kept saying there's never
going to be a right time because that
was my thing like look i'm in full build
my business mode i have no interest in
having a child right now
and they were actually right in the
sense that they said look you're you're
always going to feel like there's some
thing that you need to do first
and i just got i finally had the
realization well if i'm always going to
feel like there's something else i would
rather do
than why have kids and so i was very
open to it for my wife's sake because
you know my sort of read on the
situation was it'll be way more
meaningful to her than it will be to me
but then she ended up going on her own
journey and deciding that she didn't
want kids
so you know that was when we officially
decided not to have them but what advice
knowing that i could not be more open
and trust me will not distress me in any
way shape or form if you're like every
human should have children but what do
you think about that journey like now
that you've done it is it one of those
where you're like
oh my god i never would have anticipated
that this would be this important but
now that i've done it here's what i've
learned
uh
i think i could have easily been one of
the people that waits too long because
i'm so career oriented
um because even at the moment i'm like
oh the podcast is really getting going i
have so much opportunity
i'm working like 12-hour days
and i enjoy it
uh i didn't enjoy pregnancy
like i some women enjoy pregnancy i
didn't enjoy it um
possibly because of the ssri withdrawal
or the new relationship or any of the
other uncertainties in my life but i
didn't enjoy it so
uh so
however
i don't love anything in the entire
world as much as i love scarlet
so
having that is
makes like any of the difficulties worth
it and i don't think i would have and i
wouldn't have gotten that unless
that accident had happened
so
i think i don't know i think that people
who don't have kids probably don't know
what they're missing because i think the
relationship between a parent and a
child is so strong it's unbelievable
but then if you don't know
what you're missing then
does it matter i'm not sure i'm not
entirely sure um i want more kids for
sure just because of the bond i have
with scarlet but the
things i'm going to have to give up is
going to hurt for sure
because i really like work and i'm going
to be able to see opportunity that i'm
not going to be able to pursue because
i'm spending time being pregnant and
breastfeeding and staying at home
even though i wouldn't stay at home for
like
the whole childhood um
but
so it's a trade-off but i mean
everything in life is a trade-off so
what can you do really
yeah that that is an interesting concept
to me um
you know this idea that there is no sort
of right or wrong way there are only
trade-offs there's a guy named thomas
sol i don't know if you've ever heard of
him or not but um i do indeed oh my god
he's so interesting to me and his
obsession is getting people to
understand life is a trade-off like you
can't have he's usually talking about
policies you can't have these policies
and expect a utopia on either side like
it's all just a trade-off and so now
asking yourself
which of these sort of bags of good and
bad do i want um and you know making
your decision in a more sort of
realistic way um is how you have to
think so
as a voice for um
modern women which are in a very
interesting time and i i
may mean that in the way of this sort of
chinese curse of may you live in
interesting times but it is uh
it is a very interesting moment where
you have
two really competing visions you can
take the more traditional path and
prioritize motherhood and
you know give that your time and
attention you can be a total career
person or you can do both
and how do you
think about that like as you talk about
working 12 hour days right there's only
so many hours of scarlet's awake so some
of those hours now are given to work and
aren't given to her and so how do you
find that balance between i don't love
anything as much as i love her including
business but at the same time for some
reason i'm pulled to to have some of
that in my life
that is a very good question and that
was so hard on me um but i've more come
to terms with it now and so what i've
decided is whatever
life i can make for myself that makes me
the happiness happiest
means that when i'm around her all she
sees is a joy-filled mother
and so that's what i want and if that
means fewer hours spent with scarlet but
a happier me that's better for her
the alternative would be me giving up
some of my passions spending more time
with her and possibly ending up
resentful towards a child which is the
worst thing you can do for a kid so i
was like whatever decisions i make need
has to avoid any type of resentment
because being around resentful people is
just terrible
so i talked to some of the more career
oriented women in my family so my
mother's
my mom stayed home with me which made me
feel terribly guilty about doing any
work um
not that my mom didn't work but she was
really was a stay-at-home mom so
it made me feel really guilty about
wanting to pursue work because you loved
it that she stayed home
i didn't know any different and i was
told that that was the right thing to do
so
yeah
i loved my mom being at home but i
didn't have any other experience so i
don't know what the other experiences
would be like
um
my
two aunts were like pharmacists and
nurse practitioner and both of them got
nannies and went back to work when their
kids were fairly little like
two something like that
um and so i had calls with them when i
was really you know what i was doing
actually is i was working
for my dad full time with a baby on me
and i was just like this is really this
is a lot to do
um and so
i got a nanny after talking to
one of my aunts who said you know what
i've talked to my kids you know i've
felt i have had waves of guilt about it
i've talked to them about it and said
you know should i have been there more
did i miss things
and she said all of her kids who are my
cousins who are
super successful like
funny people
not traumatized or anything um they're
like no you were like we saw you the the
hours you spent with us were when you
were happy
and we saw
you know a woman who could go out and
work which was
you know good for them to see and so i
think
i think it depends on the woman i think
if you want to stay home with your kids
stay home with your kids that's going to
be great for them but if you want to do
something else and then you end up
staying home with your kids and then
you're resentful at home that's toxic
so do whatever that helps you avoid that
and i'm fortunate enough and i work hard
enough that i'm able to
work and have a nanny and then the other
point i'd like to make is the nanny we
have right now her name's uli uh and
she's not like
she's not a normal nanny
she's one of my best friends she's
somebody i trust with my child she's
absolutely incredible she's really smart
so we seriously lucked out and before we
found uli i was not that comfortable i
was
more guilty and not as comfortable with
leaving scarlet with other people i was
like you know what
she'd probably be learning more from me
i don't know if these people no offense
to them but i don't know if these people
are very smart maybe
you want your kid to be around smart
people right um so finding uli was just
unbelievable so now i'm like
scarlett doesn't care she has fun like
every day she just has fun all day she
learns a ton of things she goes out to
museums
and then she comes home she has fun with
me like she goes to bed
we get up in the morning like
she's thrilled about everything she's
the happiest kid i've ever seen which i
credit partly to
her diet
but
things i've managed to work it out so i
think that you can do both but it's way
harder than choosing one and there's
gonna be pitfalls either way
now
do you get shade thrown at you
for having a
nanny
yeah
but i don't care about those people
like those people don't know i do for
sure but or or you get told well there
are some things that are true though
right you get you get
i've read statistics about you know you
leave your kid in daycare and it can
cause certain problems growing up
or or getting a nanny is bad for kids
because of ex or having a separated
family is bad for kids because of ex
but
at this point i really believe that what
i've set up here is more like having
extended family so i think if you can
set it up so that it's more like
extended family there's nothing wrong
with that i mean people used to live in
groups peop like this isolated
two-person couple with no grandparents
and no aunts and uncles and no cousins
is abnormal for humans like people used
to grow up with a whole bunch of other
kids and with cousins and aunts and
uncles and grandparents lots of kids
were raised by their grandparents and so
expecting one couple and particularly
one mother to do that entire job is
absurd so i think if you can
if you can especially if you're lucky
enough to be able to hire people that
you trust and that your kids like
and then it turns into more of a
extended family
i don't see what's wrong with that so i
get some hate but i mean i get a lot of
hate from morons that i don't really
care about
it's interesting to me i've heard you
talk a lot about people that throw shade
at you and you'll do exactly what you
just did which is you know i don't
really listen to the people that are
you know just attacking me but actually
there some people come at you with
things that are real and you're so
um sort of even-handed about that which
i find
that that's why um
in dealing with you in business and the
other encounters that i've had with you
it's it's always very even keel so it
was the same thing so i don't know if
you know but i originally i didn't your
dad
somebody had presented your dad to come
onto my show in the early days of my
show and i said no because my marketing
director at the time was like no no he's
really misogynistic and i was like well
[ __ ] i don't want somebody misogynistic
on my show and then i went and actually
watched his videos because his name just
kept coming up
and i was i realized i had formed an
opinion about somebody without knowing
anything about them so i was like let me
just go check this guy out there's no
way he's coming up this often if he's
just like a total psychopath
and i started watching his content and i
was like huh like this guy is so even
keel like i don't understand how people
have created this sort of weird
caricature of who he is
i found that very very surprising and so
in the face of sort of all that
criticism to be able to be even keel to
be able to say well 80 of that argument
doesn't make sense seems you know ad
hominem they're just attacking me for
whatever reason but hey that there's
actually 20 in there that's interesting
and i need to pay attention to that how
do you keep that open mind is it just
something that
you've you're i mean given obviously who
your parents are do they train you to do
that like
where do you come to that
open-mindedness
um i mean part of that's got to be
personality um i know with my i know i'm
extremely open uh to new ideas
however i think what happened was when i
started to delve into diet and i ended
up putting my autoimmune disorder into
remission with diet which is something
that i was repeatedly told by the
medical system was impossible
wasn't even worth looking into
when i managed to put myself into
remission
i didn't believe anything i used to
believe
so i thought if i'm wrong about the most
important aspect of my entire life what
else am i wrong about
like what what else am i
looking at that isn't real so then i was
like it got really bad for a couple
years where i didn't trust anything i
thought like i was like
i i don't trust the government i don't
trust any figures of authority
like i don't trust what they're teaching
in universities i don't trust medical
school like it was everything uh and i'd
gotten a little bit better since i've
it's gone a little bit better i'm still
fairly
distrusting of
institutions and authority figures
but it's better
so when i get criticism i'm always
thinking okay well i could be wrong
and it was always what i was most sure
about that i was wrong about
i was like no this is definitely this
way if i ever had that like
i don't know i can kind of identify the
feeling now it's like an emotional it
has to be this way
then that's where i'm that's usually
where i'm making an error so i'm i'm
pretty careful um that being said i
think that my online
presence is far more even keeled than i
am in reality
like you guys aren't seeing the tweets
i'm deleting
so
that's probably just because i don't
know that's just because you guys aren't
seeing the inside picture
but even that like the ability to talk
about that i find uh incredibly
interesting i just interviewed do you
know who danny trejo is the actor
yeah i do
for people that don't know the name they
would certainly recognize him he's the
most killed actor in cinema history so
he's died some just ungodly number of
times on screen
and
he wrote a biography which is really
good and he does not make any attempt to
make himself look good he's just like i
mean he he was a violent criminal when
he was young
and he just like lays that [ __ ] out lays
out his drug use
late i mean just like
crazy crazy stuff
and
there's something so disarming about
that where you're like okay i actually
believe the things that he says about
himself that i admire because he was so
honest about the things that don't make
him look great and you've talked a lot
about being a volatile personality uh i
i'm assuming that's what you're talking
about do you actively try to manage your
volatility or do you just go hey that's
a part of me and it is what it is um
both so i i think that i wouldn't be as
volatile except that i took ssris for
like the developmental years of my life
so age like 11 to 22. do you think that
made you more volatile or the immune
reaction 100
no i think it was the ssris it's hard to
say because i went on ssris because i
was exhibiting psychiatric symptoms that
needed to be treated right so it wasn't
like i was just randomly medicated i was
suicidal when i was in grade five
and i think that was probably from the
inflammation and the autoimmune disorder
in my body just freaking out
um
but then i was medicated and over the
years i got more and more and more and
more and more volatile and i've spoken
with hundreds and hundreds of people
who've taken psychiatric medications and
volatility specifically seems to be
something that happens with ssris or
snris
so i i think that i got medicated
pretty heavily through my developmental
years and that exacerbated my volatility
because it it doesn't feel quite right
like when i kind of spike and i know
people get angry and they spike but my
spikes seem to come sooner than they
should so i'm pretty
i'm getting more and more aware
of when it happens but
it's um it's still difficult to navigate
and i have a lot of a lot of trauma from
being sick and watching my family be
sick
and so
at the moment yeah i'm actively trying
to navigate oh that's a response to
like i i know people people hate on
trigger warnings and things um which i
understand but i am identifying what
kind of behaviors trigger me and then
send me into kind of a stress mode and
if i go into stress mode it's
interesting this is something i've just
recently figured out is
something stressful will happen and i'll
be like ah that's weird i'm fine and
then 25 minutes later about i'll get
this brain fog
and i'll be like okay i can't think
anymore like i can't think it's like my
brain has like left my body
and now i'm just like walking around in
this haze of fog and so that's a
specific stress response i have now so
i'm trying to figure out how to
hop out of that fog haze or how to
identify a stressful situation before
that 25 minute period has passed and
then the brain fog kicks in so
i have ways like exercise and wim hof
breathing and cold dips and saunas
um and i write
and i do things i like like podcast
but
it's tricky to navigate like brains are
so complicated and i was medicated for
so long that i didn't have a chance to
learn my response to things
and now i think it's been colored by
ssris but that's me now so i'm okay with
that
that's really interesting trauma is
utterly fascinating uh in terms of
especially if it occurs early the way
that it actually rewires your brain
um
i've never heard of the delayed sort of
brain fog that's really interesting
um is it a similar type of brain fog
that you would get when you have eaten
something that's thrown your immune
system out of whack or is it more like
fight or flight
it's not fight or flight anymore
i'm not sure if it used to be fight or
flight but
it took me a while to figure out because
what i would do is i get into a
stressful situation and then it'd be
like this delayed brain fog thing would
happen and i thought i had eaten
something because it felt exactly the
same i was like oh i'm having a response
to something again but then
i only eat like i eat like two things
so then i started being like well maybe
there was something on you know the meat
i was eating
but then that stopped clicking i was
like okay there's nothing on this so why
am i having this brain fog and that's
when i started realizing oh it's because
i had this freaking stressful
stressful day or stressful conversation
half an hour ago
but that's so that's annoying it's
really annoying to deal with like these
aren't things i want to deal with i'm
like could that just not happen i don't
have a couple of hours to figure out why
i'm stressed out why i have this brain
fog to like go back and figure out what
stressed me out and i don't have a lot
of patience
with myself probably and emotional
reactions to things
so i'm like that's i'm too busy for that
i don't have time for that um
unfortunately
my body disagrees you have an obscene
amount of self-awareness though which i
have to imagine is extraordinarily
helpful as you work through these things
um have you always been aware is that
something that you've cultivated later
in life
that came after the putting my
autoimmune disorder in remission because
when i was monitoring like i was
monitoring my body like a science
experiment so i was taking science in
school i was tracking like 14 different
body symptoms
twice a day on a spreadsheet rating
rating them out of 10 twice a day and so
i had to like detach and monitor myself
from the outside and i did that
every day for like
maybe four years
so i started to identify like every tiny
little thing that was happening so
that's that was not natural like i think
growing up sick i actually
actively avoided what was going on
inside me otherwise i would have just
been like you know help i'm in pain all
the time which isn't ideal so i think i
kind of avoided that and then i when i
was trying to figure out the autoimmune
problems i went
you know all in and
did that for about four years so that
was definitely cultivated and now i'm
probably
no i don't think i'm too aware i don't
know if you can become too aware you can
overreact to responses i might overreact
to some of my like the brain fog being
like oh no it's a food reaction when
it's like oh no that's stress that's
just stress
yeah that is really an interesting
question and my gut instinct is somebody
who i i went from very unself aware in
my sort of teens and early 20s to hyper
self-aware in my late 20s early 30s
and you really can
and maybe the way you're framing it is
better but you really can get
functionally too self-aware now maybe
it's just you're investing in it too
much
but
there's no question like i used to do
stand-up comedy and i found it very easy
before i developed hyper self-awareness
and i found it very difficult after i
became self-aware you just become so
aware of like every nuance of yourself
how you're coming across what that
person might think
and so my life has been this sort of
weird
uh roller coaster of not self-aware and
actually had a lot of really good things
come from it and then realizing oh
actually this lack of self-awareness has
damaged these areas of my life i'm now
aware of them let me repair that but in
and i would not change it for the world
i am much better off sort of on the
hyper self-aware side it's it all of my
business success is due to that my
ability to sort of constantly
self-improve
but whoa it is you know going back to
the idea of trade-offs
there's a trade-off
yeah there definitely is i think
i was lucky to not lose certain aspects
like when i so that
year period after i stopped taking ssris
i couldn't i really couldn't do anything
like i the things that i loved i
couldn't do anymore like i'm pretty good
at public speaking just kind of off the
cuff and that went away but that was
now like i know what that was and that
was
stopping ssris suddenly um after that i
kind of kept the self-awareness in
regards to my body but i don't have that
as much i don't think for better for
worse uh
i i didn't seem to lose that for social
speaking or
for talking to other people so i didn't
have that hyper awareness about how i
was looked at and i think that's
probably helped because of all the
criticism i've had online or i'm like
you know i don't care i still think i'm
cool like
so that part
didn't switch it was really physical um
which is why i've had a hard time i
think figuring out my emotional state
because i've been
identifying it too much with physical
problems
when it's like when some of it is just
the experience of emotions
which is physical too but you know
speaking of physicality we're living
through an utterly fascinating moment
and my wife has some of the similar
topics to deal with that you do
so
here i'm having these business exchanges
with you but if i go to your instagram
page i'm going to see this combination
of business and bikini photos same with
my wife she runs a multi-million dollar
company is
is an unbelievably gifted entrepreneur
but she's also sexy and it is so
interesting to watch
women navigate that
and how do you think about that like
what
i know you get a lot of um
hate
for
the fact that those photos exist but
i've also heard you talk about and i
went and audited your account and it is
absolutely true
that they get a massively
disproportionate level of interaction
how do you think about that and and and
here's my real question
when somebody as intelligent as you
understands the power of being sexy how
do you deal with that
okay so it used to make me angrier
and especially
being in charge of my dad's business
and having
business conversations with
particularly with men but it's not just
men it's also with women
because of the way i look
i'm immediately put into this category
of like stupid young blonde woman who
has
only
only had any type of influence because
of her dad
right so i i immediately know what kind
of little box i'm put into
and it used to make me really frustrated
and angry
and now i just find it funny mostly so i
played up the like we had a times
just a terrible article written about my
dad and i and i was in that article way
too much in the times earlier this year
and she called me some sort of what did
she say pouting barbie
and i and
and so
i've decided to embrace it really like
you know what yeah okay fine i can do
both sorry if that makes some people
angry but is it bad like is it worse
than just doing one like if i'm smart do
i have to be like frumpy
like
is it just one and
instagram is tricky so
it's tricky because you're navigating
like how to spread
awareness about your brand
and so i can put out these podcast clips
which is 95 percent of my content is
podcast clips uh and they get
interaction and people enjoy them people
share them but then
if i you know every freaking i don't
know two months or three months put out
a bikini photo
then
you know a quarter of the comments or
people like how could you do this how
could you do this
and then
the other but then it like i i said it
gets like 10 times as much engagement
and then my followers grow and then more
people become aware of my podcast
so i think i'd be stupid not to plus i'm
actually really really proud of the fact
that i look okay because
i didn't look okay for a while like i
had my hip and ankle replaced my skin
was
like dying i was really not okay and
i've managed to pull myself out of that
like
exercise eat on this really strict diet
to keep myself healthy and i look good
and so i also want to show people that
hey i went from you know that to this
and you can too it's not just me
and
showing how my body looks is a really
effective way of doing that
man here is the dirty secret nobody
wants to talk about and i don't
understand why nobody wants to talk
about this humans care about bodies a
lot they care about their body they care
about other people's bodies we we are
we are hardwired to give a [ __ ] we are
hardwired to care about the bodies that
we see on other people and we are we are
wired even more deeply to care about our
own bodies
and i grew up in a morbidly obese family
the people that i love the most in this
world are morbidly obese so i don't have
any judgment i love those people whether
they're in shape out of shape whatever i
literally couldn't give a [ __ ] i don't
love them more or less
so to me it's not about worth or value
it is about guys
we're all playing a game of psychology
and one of the most potent elements of
that is
is the the physical body that we walk
around in and the way that people
respond to it and i will just speak to
guys for a second since i don't know
what it's like to be an attractive woman
though i feel like i would rule the
world if i was an attractive woman
but
when you add muscle
not only do women react differently to
you guys react differently to you and
any guy
that is unwilling to admit the following
truth when you get into an elevator you
go which of these [ __ ] could i
beat up and which of these guys would be
a problem for me and i like in the
boardroom everywhere everyone is like
there's that just subconscious routine
that like it is it is an echo of
evolution but the reality is it's there
and so
i feel
very differently about myself when i and
i hate the gym but i feel very
differently about myself when i'm strong
and can lift heavier weights and when i
look better
and and i haven't told this story in a
long time
but there was one point i was so
hardcore about my diet
that i was ripped six-pack abs the whole
nine
i was at a pool party a woman swam
across the pool crawled up out of the
pool turned to my wife and said can i
pet his abs and i was just like this is
the most like i i've done incredible
things in business nothing compares to
the woman crawling out of the pool
asking my wife if she can pet my abs it
was crazy and it's like it's so petty
and maybe i shouldn't
but it was amazing and so yeah like
looking at my wife and being like look
you're super hot do your thing like
be both right be both intelligent and
show people that you know what you're
doing running a business but don't be
afraid to be beautiful or sexy like i
don't understand people that try to shut
that off
yeah it's interesting because it seems
to be the same it's funny it's funny so
the people i usually get criticism from
from are more conservative
men and women it's not just men
conservative men and women
that like give me [ __ ] about bikini
photos
and it's also conservative men and women
that are like you know why are why are
women nowadays why do they have short
hair that's dyed blue
like what happened to femininity
it's like you can't have both
you're gonna like make fun of someone
for
trying to
i don't know portray femininity
or or be
you know marilyn monroe-esque
or
type of barbie or like whatever
you're going to give them criticism for
that but then also complain about the
fact that women are shaving their heads
like choose one but anyway it's probably
different people complaining about the
same thing but
yeah i don't know i'd say do both if you
can do both and people are hardwired to
look at attractive people people are
hardwired
to think that attractive men are smarter
than they are
right like there's a correlation between
yeah there's a correlation between how
attractive you are and how intelligent
you are partly because how good looking
you are and how intelligently you're
perceived or there's actually a
connection between good looks and
intelligence i don't know i won't i
won't wouldn't be able to comment on
that
from what i remember i'm gonna go out on
limb here
no i'm not i'm not gonna say that
from what i've read
men go after attractive women and women
go after smart men so logically speaking
you'd end up with
hotter smarter people if that's how it
works but i don't think at least not
recently i don't think i've read a study
that actually confirms that
the difference between hearing like one
study that comes out with this really
fascinating finding and then can it be
repeated that's a whole different thing
but uh
going back to people will find other
people attractive on my first date with
my wife i was like look i'm always going
to find other people attractive and if
that freaks you out like you're not
dealing in the real world and if you are
asking your partner to pretend that they
quote unquote only have eyes for you i'm
like you're going to be so insecure
because you know that you find other
people attractive and so if you know you
find other people attractive then you're
going to assume that they find other
people attractive but they always say no
no i only have eyes for you it's like
that's how people get into these deeply
insecure states so i told my wife look
i'm always going to find other people
attractive but i'm not going to do [ __ ]
about it because i'm
into you like i want to be in a
relationship obviously i didn't say i'm
committed to you on date one but like as
we got serious i was like look there's a
difference between sexual attraction and
commitment i said one day you're going
to be a bag of wrinkles homie and i'm
still going to be committed to you right
because i want to share a life with you
and that's like the commitment that i'm
making is
will there be a hotter
person coming along at some point yes of
course
am i going to chase that person no i am
not because i want to know what life is
like sharing this life with you
but the other day we were taking a
shower together and i was just like you
know i want to say thank you you're in
your 40s you're still hot you work your
ass off to be in shape and i wouldn't
love you less if you didn't but i'm like
sincerely grateful
that she takes such good care of herself
and it's like i don't know that's
taboo or whatever but to me it's just
that's just reality
yeah well that makes total sense i think
you have to fall in love with somebody's
brain right because
the brain is gonna well
gonna stick around hopefully for as long
as possible
um and looks aren't but yeah you can
definitely like you can be up if you get
your diet right and you exercise you can
be hot for a really really long time
like i i think a lot of the
and this is definitely taboo to say but
a lot of the oh you know as soon as you
hit 40 you're not hot anymore i think a
lot of that is from people not eating
properly and not exercising and so yeah
you're not going to be hot but there are
a lot of 25 year olds that also don't
eat properly and don't exercise and are
also not hot so i think if you stay
healthy i mean who's that man there's
one woman grace and frankie
grace what's her name oh the show
lily tomlin and jane fonda
jane fonda
she is
she's hot it's crazy it's really old
cinderella she's got this crazy diet
yeah she's got this crazy diet she's
realistically she's probably had a
facelift but who hasn't
so she's got this crazy diet
and uh she exercises all the time she's
still hot so it's also how you act too
church in fact let's go back to your
notion of confidence i remember in
college there was a heavyset girl in our
class when i say that woman was sexy
like she was so confident i was just
like damn like the confidence was sexy
so you had said okay i wasn't confident
i became confident what was that process
like
well i've got this weird type of
confidence where i'm insanely
self-conscious like insanely absurdly
self i was not this self-conscious
before
i don't know what happened but one of
the things i lost i guess maybe with
this introspection or whatever you want
to call it was that type of
self-confidence
so i can do public speaking but i'm very
self-conscious about how i look maybe
that's from being
on
social media
that doesn't i'm not entirely sure
but uh
i don't know i i i don't have like the
pure
like i think if you saw me in person i
wouldn't i guess depending on who i was
talking to i'm not sure if i would come
off as that like self-confident person
as much as social media makes it seem
maybe i'm wrong i don't know i don't
really know what i look like from the
outside
to answer your question
badly i'm not even worried about what it
looks like from the outside what i find
interesting is so to me confidence comes
from competence right like you're good
at something and being good at that
thing gives you a sense of
so it's the exact way that i respond to
people when they say hey what do you do
when you don't have self-worth and i'm
like the honest answer is you have to go
do something you think is worthy because
once you are doing something where
you're like hey
i don't give a [ __ ] what other people
think i'm out here helping people i'm
working hard to be valuable not only to
myself but to other people and like for
instance if you've poured yourself into
scarlet and she's doing well and she's
thriving and she feels loved and you
know she feels loved and you know sure
she has her challenges but she's working
hard to overcome them and you can just
see she's got emotional stability and
then somebody comes along and says
you're a terrible [ __ ] mother you're
just like look it stings i don't like
that somebody's telling me that i'm a
bad mother but to be honest like you're
not getting into my heart on this one
because i know
what's going on in her life i know how
much i pour myself into her so there's
always going to be the sting of somebody
saying that you're a loser you're dumb
you're whatever but when you know
you and you are confident in you meaning
i believe doing these things are
valuable and i do these things right
and
when you do that
now you have a sense of self now you
value yourself because you do things you
think are valuable
and that to me is the only way it's
always going to hurt a little bit when
people say something but it doesn't
devastate a whole day or a week i mean
it used to really [ __ ] me up for a long
time when somebody i respected said
something negative about me because i
didn't i wasn't doing the things i
needed to do
to value myself
that's fair i think i would still have a
hard time if somebody i respected said
something negative about me but yeah um
i think it's important i've done
so
much hard work
but i'm also i'm 29 so this is this is
very recent right like when i was i
started working for my dad when i was 20
six i just turned 26 and that's when i
started full-time work for my dad
and so
i had no idea what i was doing like i
honestly had no idea what i was doing
for a long time and i learned really
quickly and i talked to a lot of people
and i was
pretty obvious and blatant and honest
about the fact that i didn't know what i
was doing so i was really i was like a
sponge about learning things
um and then it took about i
think two years and i was like okay now
i'm talking to people and
i might know more than these people i'm
talking to
so once once i had that awareness then i
think i got more confident and i've and
i'm around
people that i trust now who i think have
a better
more honest perception of me than i do
from from being me
and so i can listen to those people and
they
you know the positive ones anyway you're
like oh no you're you're competent
you're a competent person you're good at
this
and so i'm starting to listen to more
of that uh but it's been tricky i
usually identify and compare myself to
people who are like it's really stupid
like even for this even for podcasting
i'm like damn it i've been doing this
podcast for like a year it hasn't been
for very long right and
and i'll i'll go to i'll go compare
myself to somebody who's been doing it
for 15 years and is like 10 years older
than me
and i'll be like why am i not there
and which is completely unreasonable so
i don't even know if that answered your
question
i don't know how good i am at having a
view of myself from the outside i think
i'm probably too hard on myself but i
also don't really know how to do kind of
self-improvement and work on things
without being a little bit too hard on
myself i think it's better to be a
little bit too hard or even maybe a lot
too hard then
to end up going too easy on yourself and
then not accomplishing anything although
you might not even be the type of person
that wants to
accomplish a whole bunch i don't think
there's anything wrong with that either
if that's not what floats your boat
homie you are right in the middle of
like the conundrum because it's so
interesting so as somebody that's you
know whatever a quote unquote influencer
the thing that i think a lot about is
hey
be careful taking advice from me because
there are certain things i want from my
life and if you want the same things
that i want then my life will make