The Dark Side of Fitness: “I Starved Myself Until I Fainted" - Will Tennyson (4K)

You became fat for a day. What was that like? It was a lot more like a trip to the past than I expected it to be. Because you were fat for more than a day as well previously. I mean I mean obviously not to the extent that I was, but the biggest issue that I I had growing up as a kid and I kind of still deal with today is just like people's perceptions of you, how you think other people see you, and feeling like you're always being watched with everything that you do. And I'm I'm I've been getting better at that, you know, as as time goes on, but when I was swimming in that video I just even though I wasn't that wasn't me like it it scared me. Could you explain what you did? Yeah, so I I found this company that like they make obese suits for these medical companies for like nurses, doctors to actually put them on and like to actually understand how to maneuver obese people like on like a on a bed, off a bed, you know, just to fully understand just like the transportation techniques. So I found that and you know, I wanted to experience you know, just what it was like not even at the weight because it wasn't an actual weighted thing, but just more at that circumference and just how hard it is to you know, get into a car and or just to do anything. And um How heavy was the size that you were? Like what would it be the equivalent of? 600 lbs. Yeah. So I've done a fat suit video before and it was just like the belly and I looked pregnant, but this was like I went full out got my face done and um I couldn't even fit in my my truck. Got an Uber XL. Like you walk into the gym, everyone's looking at you either like laughing, smiling or they just they just don't even want to make eye contact with you and then you just feel like you're this this spectacle. No one like no one's afraid to point at you, laugh. And it was very like it it you you can notice my my emotions very much so just completely. Like I I start off joking like I always do in my videos like make it lighthearted and lighthearted but with like not nothing crazy, but then as the video goes I start to actually like get affected by it. I didn't even notice it until I actually watched the footage back and I'm like I really want to get it off. Like I felt like I was like I wanted to like rip it off by the end. Cuz it it's very much so like um took me back, which makes me emotional. What does that make you think you know that the fitness industry has a lot of uh laying at the feet of people that are overweight. Well, you know, eat less, move more. Come on, we've got the opportunity out there. Just stay out of the middle of the supermarket, et cetera. Did it give you a different perspective, empathy for people that are that size? Definitely, because it's not as easy as just like, you know, people say put the fork down, stop eating. There's a lot more [ __ ] that goes on with it. Like one of the things that I talked about, there's a guy named Brentley who I interviewed in the video. He's 575 He was 575 lb. He's lost 250 lb. He's 26 years old. And he was like, I can feel great about myself, but when I go out and see how other people look at me, that influences how I see myself. And then I stop going out and doing the things that I love cuz I feel like people don't want me there. And it's really hard to kind of keep a positive mindset. Yeah. And he said it was something like it was like really like it it was making me almost cry, but he I said, when did you notice like when did you kind of realize that you wanted to lose weight? He said, I was in my grandma's basement. And then all of a sudden I just woke up from this fog. And then I went to the mirror. I looked at myself and I started to to panic. And I I and I wanted to start grabbing all the fat off my body cuz I was so scared of how fat I was. So I think it's just I wanted to show people it's much deeper than just like oh, you're fat, stop eating, go to the gym. There's a lot more that's involved in the situation. And uh that's kind of why I think I was a lot bigger for a long time, you know. It's it's it's very hard to just make that jump to start completely changing your lifestyle cuz we like comfort. You know, we like our usual routine and then the second you kind of start something new it's scary. Yeah, what was your previous relationship with food and weight? Mine's very interesting because even though I gained a lot of weight, I wasn't necessarily eating badly. Like I'd be like the first person that you probably ever hear of like we're at dinner like like we're at the house. My mom makes healthy food, chicken, rice, salad, but she'd be like, "Will, you don't need more salad, man." Like I I I just be overeating salad like I like it'd be like it's just ridiculous. My appetite was crazy. Um yeah, it was just like it was so much food. I'd get home from school. I'd have like dinner like like a like whatever the leftovers were from like last night's dinner. I'd have that, go downstairs, play video games, come back up, have another dinner. And then, you know, a couple hours go by, I'd have a snack. Like it was just never really ending, but then the interesting thing was I was actually like also quite active at the same time. I was playing hockey at a high level too. Like a good Canadian. Yeah, everyone was just like, "This guy's like big, but he's fast and he can hit." And um you know, I was so I was like I was I think I was much I was very like capable at that weight. It was like it was like weird, but I'd always get those comments just especially being like in the locker room. I was always afraid to take my shirt off, you know. What How heavy did you get? So I was at the time high school 5'9". I was probably at heaviest 270 five. 275 17, 18 years old Not even. 15, 16. Well, yeah. Yeah, that's heavy. Yeah. You're a big boy. Yeah. But people look now like you don't look like you struggle with weight or with maintaining lean muscle mass. I struggle the most with my diet. My appetite My appetite is just like super high that I always have to find ways to like cheat the system somehow. What like? Like I'm just always like, always looking for, you know, ways to up the volume on something. Like, if I can cut cabbage into this this bowl to make it look bigger. You know, if I can get like a I bought a Ninja Creami recently because you know, the Halo Tops or those things just doesn't do it for me. It's not big enough, you know, I have to eat like a whole bucket of it. But I think that's just a mentality. And I Well, I So, I had this really interesting conversation with Robert Plomin. So, he's one of the world's leading behavioral geneticists. So, behavioral genetics talks about how heritable traits down through your genes. It's the nurture side I'm sorry, it's the nature side of nature nurture. And he was talking about weight and that as people when you compare twin studies where they've been raised separately, you compare them back with their parents and BMI is 60% heritable. Even when you take them outside of the household. So, so much of it is driven by genetics. And people go, "Oh, genetics is bullshit." But what they think you mean when you say genetics is metabolism. Not talking about that. The way that people get fat is through so many different contributing factors. One of them is leptin ghrelin release. It sounds like your ghrelin is just That's the hormone that makes people feel hungry. Absolutely working overdrive. Other people have got mechanically bigger stomachs or stretchier stomachs that allow them to eat more. Other people get a great sense of pleasure from the stretch sensation of their stomach being full. Other people don't like exercising. Other people don't like waking up early. Some people are night owls, which means, you know, there's a million ways to get fat. And sometimes you have both big stomach and high ghrelin release and I don't like and that's where you get to, you know, the 500, 600, 700 lb. And this is a you know, for the just work harder, nobody cares, bro crowd, it's kind of a difficult circle to square because most people are kind of empathetic and go, "I'm sure that if these people had the choice, they wouldn't be 600 lb, but they are. So, do I feel pity? Do I shame them? Do I encourage them? Do I feel sorry for them? Like, what what is it that I do? And I guess, yeah, as a rehabilitated fat kid, uh that must be like a complex situation to manage so for you. Yeah, I mean, I think I'm definitely lucky with what I do because it keeps me in line in a lot of ways, you know, like to to do this, be on camera, and like just make videos where you tank top and stuff, like it keeps me in check. And it I can it kind of makes me wonder, like you know, if I wasn't What I'd be like, yeah. And like I've I've like come up with like many different, you know, systems that work for me. Like, back when I first started YouTube, I was shredded. Super shredded. And it was easily maintainable for me, but I did I didn't eat till 5:00 p.m. at night. I would fast. I got so used to fasting, and I would eat at 5:00. But then, as like content ramps up, the more I travel, you know, it it just it's not possible for me. So, now it's like, what's the next thing for me? And I'm kind of slowly figuring it out. So, talk to me. Let's say that there is somebody listening who thinks, "That's me. I should be a fat kid. I'm trying to fight it off. He's trying to get out of me or she's trying to get out of me, but I don't want to." What are your best strategies for simplifying fat loss, calorie restriction, increasing compliance, making it simpler and easy? For me, I think for a lot of people, the cravings come at nighttime. Same. Yeah. So, I've noticed I kind of coined this thing called macro fasting, where you don't necessarily have to like not eat at all, but fast the carbs and the fat for later into the day. So, a lot of times when I'm hungry, I'll just I'll make egg whites or I'll have a protein shake, I'll have some Greek yogurt, and that keeps you full. Not a lot of calories. So, I kind of just cruise on that stuff throughout the day. And then, once it hits nighttime, I'm about to watch some TV, it's like, "Holy [ __ ] I got 250 carbs. I got like, you know, 75 fat. I'm going to have some some fun food, but I'm going to still have some make some good choices, too." And I've noticed that when I just go to bed and I can or like I noticed when I watch TV and I have a snack and I'm like I kind of want another one and I can. It it it helps me mentally and then you know, I go to bed and I feel fine. And then the next day I wake up, I have my coffee, stay caffeinated. Mhm. Yeah. So that's not too dissimilar to carb back-loading. Yeah. Yeah. But macro fasting just sounds No, I like it. Yeah. That's cool. Uh what about from an exercise perspective? Uh it seems like you've always been active. Mhm. But are there other things do you need to keep yourself in check? Do you need to hit a 11,000 step count or is that not something that you're too fussed about? I'm a step fanatic, man. Really? Yeah. Wow. I I don't miss a day. Okay. So what's your what's your average? I usually average 12,500. Wow. That's a Minimum. That's so much. I love it though. I love walking. I very much enjoy So what are you doing when you're walking? Um now I have a puppy so I walk the puppy. Right. Yeah, that's fine. But when I'm walking I hate to admit it but I'm thinking. Right. I'd rather just kind of be you know, present looking at the You're not listening to stuff. You're not working. You're not on calls. I'm I'm just thinking. I'm like what's the next video? What's next month look like? You know. Um It's kind of therapeutic. Mhm. I guess to to to for me to go for a walk. Um But yeah, it's something that it's always going to be part of me. It's brought down from my mom. My mom's always been a step counter. And my mom's a fitness fanatic. It's the behavioral genetics of step counting coming through there. What do you make of the modern world of male body image and such? You're obviously at the forefront of this at least from a YouTube perspective. There's 3 million young guys probably that follow you and Yeah. a few chicks. I think it's so sad. I think that like it's crazy cuz I think that a lot of guys do it for the attention of women. But you're not going to get the attention you just need the attention from where you're not going where you're not going for. You know what I mean? Like it's I to me I think sexy is healthy, happy, you know, going out to eat when you want to eat. And that's kind of what I preach on my channel. I feel like I actually don't really associate myself with the fitness industry. Everyone's like, "Oh, like, what What do you think the state is of the fitness industry?" Well, I'm like, "I think the fitness industry is split. I think there's fitness entertainment, where there's me and a select few of people who go like, "I'm going to tackle this like trending topic with a fitness twist." But then there's like the fitness side where it's like heavy-duty bodybuilding steroids, which I don't necessarily agree with that. And I think this is like the side that all these kids are are going to. And I think that just comes with time. I think once you mature and you realize that the gym isn't everything. Cuz when I was younger, when I was 21, I almost went on steroids. I bought it. I had it. And I'm just so thankful I didn't. Cuz I don't think that people really People don't show like the negatives to it. Like I had a lot of friends in university that would just be like, "Dude, it's amazing. Like I take I take Anavar and like it's no side effects." So I'm like, "Oh [ __ ] this is me, too." And then you like realize after they have like they get some sort of like cancer or like tumor and you're like, "Oh, you know." So I think you have to realize like you're not just making a decision for yourself right now, it's but it's also for your future self. Have you had friends that took stuff like Anavar early and had bad health outcomes? Yes. Yes. I have a lot of friends who went on it who were were jacked and I would like admire them and now I see them and I'm like, "I don't even recognize you cuz you're so skinny cuz you quit the gym because you're so depressed that you can't use it anymore." Because the gains came so easily when they were enhanced that as soon as you try and do it not enhanced, it sucks and you don't Yeah, like when I was when I was 16, I went to the gym and there was another guy there and I grew up with him and all of a sudden he blew up, looked great, he was obsessed with it. Then he just disappeared. And I I didn't see him for like 6 years. Then I was at the gas station and I see this guy walk out. He's like, "Will." And I look at him. Didn't even I didn't even recognize him. Just like nothing. And he he's just like, "I can't go back in the gym. I can't do it." He's like, "Cuz cuz you got addicted to that feeling of being on and the second that gets taken away from you is not worth it anymore." Yeah, I suppose the advantage of being natty for quite a while before you do that is that you develop a love for the gym right with heavy gravity and then you get to lighten the load a little bit. Um But yeah, I I had a guy called Scott Griffiths on who is a male body dysmorphia researcher out of Australia. He said that male body dysmorphia is on track to overtake female body dysmorphia within the next two decades. So the trajectory of that is increasing more quickly than women like just think about how mental that is to think that women whose primary source of value to the world is their beauty and their youth uh that's going to be overtaken by guys. Uh yeah, I I I'm also uh concerned. Yeah, it's not good. What would you say to I know young dudes who maybe like you were or whatever are dissatisfied with their body and you know follow the Cbums or the Israetels or the Tennysons or whatever? What are some of the insights that you wish that you'd known when you were a little bit younger about where sort of confidence and self-esteem comes from especially if you like the idea of being a a muscular guy? I think you just have to realize that you just you have to do it for yourself. And that's such that's such a thing that's like very difficult to understand. It's one of those things that you hear it and it sounds obvious but it's it's it's really hard to put into practice. Um I had an eating disorder when I was when when I got fat and then I lost like over 100 lbs. How long? Very rapidly. Couple like under a year. Yeah, it was I was starving myself. Like I was fainting and and all that stuff but the reason that it got so bad and it like like got to the point that it was just Yeah, it got um [ __ ] I don't talk about this much. Yeah, there um Sorry. Yeah, the um the reason I got so bad was um I go to school and uh my friends would be like, "Yo, you look really good." And like "I love what you're doing. Like it's like it's like it's like it's great." And not like "Do you like are you okay?" And like It was like I was losing it so fast and I got addicted to like seeing that scale drop. And it started it started like my weight loss journey like started healthy. My mom was like putting me through all like the right things. Like, you know, like watching what I was doing. And I was like really happy with what I was doing. And then I started trying to prove it to other people. I wasn't doing it for myself anymore. So I lost sight of my journey doing it. And I just wish I could kind of go back and be like "Stay locked in. Remember why you're doing it. Don't think about you know, what other people are saying because they don't really know what you're going through." And um that's a huge one that I would um recommend to people. I'm sorry you went through that. Thank you. Yeah. It's it's hard to talk about. And it's I feel like I have gotten over it, but it always brings emotion out of me. Mhm. Yeah. Well, you know, if you're sad or sorry for that previous version of you that had to go through it, why wouldn't you be? Yeah. I think a lot of the things I do now are are for that version of myself. If someone says to me like "What is the reason you do what you do?" It's for kids like me. Or cuz like for me like my like escape was YouTube. When I was younger I didn't have a lot of friends, but so but I when I came home I'd watch like the you know the Guzmans like Max Tuning and those guys and I would I would kind of like be able to escape from like [ __ ] that was going on in my mind and just kind of like lock in for 18 minutes, smile, laugh. So that's kind of like what my goal is with my channel, which is also why it's so light-hearted and like so like you know, jokes. I want you to kind of learn, but I want you to laugh. And I think there's a lot of pressure that I put on myself starting all this being like every video that I make has to have you know this huge impact on someone's life, but I feel like people put too much pressure on themselves for that cuz I think a laugh is a huge thing. If you can provide somebody with a laugh and you don't know what they're going through, that's a win for me. And I get so many comments like that and for me that's my driving force right now. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, you know, the best thing I think that you can do is make content for the version of you that was 10 or 20 years ago. You know, that's very much what I've done with this channel. It's the podcast that I wanted to do that didn't exist. Um, answering questions that I still largely need answers to, but I definitely wanted answers to 15 years ago. And uh that's a good point that does everything need to have this peak or inspiring philosophical takeaway that you know pierces your reality and breaks open your fracturing understanding of the way that the world No, like you can just have 18 minutes where you're not thinking about your boss that's a dick or the stress that you've got with your relationship or whatever. Um, you know, people talk about the bad sides of escapism on the internet and certainly for a lot of people that is a problem. If you're compulsively checking TikTok for eight hours a day, that's probably too much. But if you've kind of got a bit of a shitty life or you feel like nobody really understands you, to have this idea you may have heard me talk about before called the lonely chapter. No. Okay. So I think this will resonate. Um the lonely chapter is a period in everybody's life where they start to do personal development or change or go to the gym, and they begin to become so different that they no longer resonate or can relate to that old set of friends, but they're not yet sufficiently developed or different that they've built their new set of friends, and they kind of get stuck in this middle section, this lonely chapter, and you're so different you can't resonate, you're not yet different that you've developed a new one, and it's like you know, in the movies the Rocky montage is 90 seconds, but in your life it can be 5 years, and you have no guarantee of glory, you have no understanding of whether or not it's even going to work. You're doing this thing, watching these videos on the internet, going to the gym, trying to dial in your diet, trying this protein is it isolate or is it is it concentrate or is it is it pea protein or do I have the maltodextrin or am I do I have the dextrose and do I am I supposed to do like push pull legs or am I supposed to do German volume training? And you're doing all of these things, and you're meditating or you're journaling or you're you're watching these podcasts, and you have no idea if it's even going to [ __ ] work. And it's you know, from the outside, especially in retrospect, this is the thing that gets missed with most people's origin stories, that in retrospect it sounds like a unwavering belief that you were always going to make it, but at the time what it feels like is just chronic uncertainty, and this desperate desire to change, but you you don't even have the glory of knowing that it's going to be you're going to be victorious on the other side of it. You end up in this bizarre it's very mundane, it's very sort of self-deceptive, it's like narcissistic but in a sad way, you know, you're always thinking about you and about whether or not it's going to work, and then you don't have the people and all of your friends are going well, this isn't going to work this time, or maybe the the the people that you're trying to be friends with don't even know who you are yet, and you're in this place, you're in this town in [ __ ] [ __ ] nowhere, and yeah, that lonely chapter I think is for so many people, especially the sorts of people that watch your channel or listen to podcasts like this one, it's a refuge for people in their lonely chapter. It's Oh, someone else thinks like me. Yeah. And they don't think like me in the northwest of England or in the northern parts of [ __ ] Canada or Albert, wherever it is that they live. And they find somebody on the internet that makes them feel less alone. And they go, okay, this hopefully gives me proof. But that's the bit that gets missed. The bit that gets missed in most people's origin or come-up stories or development stories or the hard pivot or whatever is the amount of uncertainty that you just wallow in. You're just like drowning in in a lack of belief that this is even going to work. And uh yeah, I think that lonely chapter is like an important concept that more people should know. I can definitely resonate with that. I always tell people like I I've said it many times on my channel, like for those people, just because you're not happy with where you are, it doesn't mean that you can't change. Cuz when I was going through that chapter, you know, you don't see it as a chapter, and you just see like that is it, life. You're like, high school is where I'm peaking. High school is the most important thing in the world. And like it can't get better than like it can't get better. But just you got to let life go on and as you get older, you get wiser. And I think for me a lot of a lot of the um improvements that I've made personally have been through YouTube, but just also just like growing up and just realizing and like around you that nobody cares. And that's like the biggest thing for me, that nobody really cares. I partnered with Function Health because I wanted a better way to track what's happening inside of my body. They run over 100 lab tests each year covering heart, hormones, nutrients, thyroid, and even detecting 50 types of cancer at stage one. That's five times more testing than a regular physical, and all results are charted over your lifetime and explained in one simple dashboard. Lab testing like this would usually cost thousands, but with Function, it's only $500. You get a streamlined, evidence-based system that tracks your health trends over time and gives you real data to optimize your lifestyle. I rely on Function because it's evidence-based and run by a team of expert physicians so that you can trust that the data and insights you receive are scientifically sound and unbiased. Plus, Dr. Andrew Huberman is a scientific advisor and Dr. Mark Hyman is the chief medical officer. Function has a wait list of over 300,000 people, but every Monday they open a few spots for Modern Wisdom listeners. So, right now, if you go to the link in the description below or head to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom, you can bypass that wait list today. That's functionhealth.com/ Modern Wisdom. You mentioned before that you had this ambient sense of surveillance or that people are watching you. What would you say to people who feel socially anxious or awkward or like they are being uh surveilled by everyone else? You're not. You're really not. Like the amount of times that it's it's kind of like in the in the the obese video, I was talking to another guy and he was also fat. And he said the first time he went to the gym, he felt like everyone was looking at him. But that's just an internal thing that you think. So, that's that's your own battle. But you just have to realize that like you're just like everyone else. Like it like back in school, I was the one kid who I would get a note for not doing presentations cuz I would not go up in front of the class. I was terrified. So, I always make videos and that's how I fell in love with YouTube. Cuz all of my projects, I would make a video for it. But no one like it to to me like it was almost the same thing. Like just being on a video versus being a person, the more that I think about it, it's it's just it's still you. It's only you. Everyone's watching you. And when you look around the room like I'm when I'm watching like when I think about it now, I I look back a lot now with like, you know, hindsight. You look around, no one's laughing. are you now? I'm 30 I just turned 30. I'm a realist. Thank you, yeah. Which is a weird one. It's my strategist over there, the one with the unnecessary pair of glasses on inside. It's his 30th birthday today. Happy birthday to you. I actually had a hard time with that one, to be honest. Why? Um this might get kind of dark. But um I've always been somebody like especially in my 20s where your birthdays kind of just mesh together. And um I've also never been one to think about death ever. But as I turned 30, I started to think about it a lot. Like I've also like I've like been like obsessing with it. And um not sure why. And um I kind of see things completely differently now. Like I think when I was in my 20s, I kind of just saw like I'm this is my life and if I walk down the street and I see an 80-year-old, that's just someone in my life and that's just who they are. They're just an object in my life and I'm never going to be that. But the second I turned 30, I'm like holy [ __ ] I'm going to be that one day. So like I'm kind of like finally, as weirdly as it sounds, like seeing the fact that I'm aging. And it's um it's made me kind of like, you know, reflect a a lot. I've thought about that a lot recently. I've had this conversation a couple of times, but as a guy basically until you're probably about I think it was about 32, 33 for me. Uh you're just not aware of mortality. You're not aware that you're aging. And then probably 34 was the first time I was like, "Oh, I've got like a couple of gray hairs on my beard." Oh, and workouts actually take a bit longer to recover from. And if I have a late night, even if I'm not drinking, that kind of hits me the next day like a mild hangover. Like what I used to be made of rubber and magic. What is this? This is weird. And it's a conversation that I'm really keen to have more about what it means to age gracefully as a man. Because everybody talks about it for women and rightly so. Again, their primary source of value to the world in many ways is their beauty and their youth. Uh but I think we have quite a well-established conversation about that for women. But for guys, what does it mean to know that you're never going to be as lean as you were before or as muscular as you were before? And because dudes aren't supposed to take their sense of self-worth from the way that they look, what does it matter if you've got wrinkles? You're not a sign of being a man. Skin care is for [ __ ] Like just [ __ ] you know, take the sun in the face with no UV protection. Uh but especially given that young guys are having more body dysmorphia problems and that everybody is, whether it's uh Zoom face or just the ubiquity of social media or even just photos, the fact that everybody's taking more photos of themselves and what's going on, everyone is able to scrutinize their condition and their age much more. Um So, yeah, I think it's a weird Did you have cuz I had this shame around being bothered about the fact that you were noticing that you were getting older? Like you shouldn't This isn't a masculine embodiment in order for you to think about this? No. Right. I'd say I'm quite Just me. I'm an open book with my emotions. I would say like I'm I think one of the main reasons why a lot of people enjoy watching my content is because I'm so okay with making a fool of myself. I'm so okay with not being the best and I'm just a great person to just be like, "Okay, like I'm just going to go and and learn and just like be a fly on the wall and just watch you do your thing." Like I was just shooting a video yesterday. And we were doing this like mobility test. And I know that I was probably the worst person that he's ever seen. And me and me and me being in the fitness space, I'm I'm like I'm okay with it because it's just like it's not that serious. Yeah. And I think just like men take themselves so seriously, they're not allowed to feel. And I just I just I just don't understand. Like for me, I think like showing your emotion is sexy. You know. Being playful is definitely a really good uh pressure release valve. I think. Uh so, Charlie Houpert, that does Charisma on Command, teaches people how to be more confident charismatic, especially in communication. Uh he taught me this thing he probably 3 years ago now. And he taught me about how people don't always want the right answer to a question that they ask you. So, for instance, uh somebody asks you um what did you do for a living? And you make up some really elaborate rude, and you take them on this, you know, I used to work as a vet, but then I saved this one particular dog that I had to take back to Jamaica, and I just decided I was going to sell Lucy cigarettes on the beach for Actually, no, that's a lie. Like I work in finance. Um I know that that's such a lame joke, but so few people are prepared to not answer a question trying to get it as right as possible. I think this is drilled into us partly from school, and then also from wanting to be seen as serious thinkers, as somebody who's sophisticated and has insight, and you know, can be efficient and on the ball. Uh but so many of my friends that I love being around the most give me the most wrong answers. So, they regularly regularly will make a joke about something. I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I [ __ ] all right. But what really?" Thank you about that. But their first go-to is not necessarily the right thing. And I think that kind of in YouTube the same thing. If somebody takes themselves too seriously, or even around work, like people know this. If there's an opportunity for you to lighten the load a little bit, I think it's good for everybody else and a service to them and a service to yourself to kind of just be a little bit lighter. So, I have written, you know, this is a big thing I'm working on in the show at the moment trying to add a little bit more sort of playfulness, which I think is like the best term, like being playful with it. Um and I've got written on a post-it note just above where the camera sits, play. I've got that just to remind me, you know, you can make this conversation a serious academic topic or whatever. Try and find the element of play in it. And we realize that play is something that you're supposed to do with sports or with pickleball or you know, what a what a dance or whatever it is that you're doing. We don't think about it in day-to-day communication so much. So yeah, I think that injecting more play into serious or unserious topics is a a pretty good way to go about it. I just think that when you get older, you feel like you can't. And I was just walking with my wife and um I saw this little kid and he was just running on the field screaming. And I was just like oh, I wish I could do that. And she's like, then why don't you? And I'm kind of just like oh yeah, why why can't I? out by your wife there. Yeah, yeah, like why like why not? And I feel like you get a certain age and I think that's what's wrong with this world. Did you then run toward the child screaming? Cuz that's the sort of thing that will get you. Yeah, I know. Arrested. Yeah. Have you seen Nikocado Avocado's recent I have. I have. Give me your thoughts on that. That's insane. And it's I'm just like what what was going on? Like cuz they said he posted a video 7 months before that one. So how much was he shooting in advance? Like what was like like was he doing it the right way? Did he get liposuction? It looks like he has no loose skin. At least around the face. Yeah, I mean even when you see him like kind of with the t-shirt on. T-shirt's quite snug and so you don't see any um loose skin. So it's it's pretty crazy. I'm almost like a loss of words cuz you don't really know. I'd love to know. Like did he do it? Did he work out? Like For the people that don't know what we're talking about, Nikocado Avocado was a mukbang eating video on YouTube influencer who got How heavy do you think he got? I think it was 411 lbs. Right. Okay. 400 lbs at not that high of a not that tall of a a height and then released a video the other day the most Luke I am your father semi sociopathic like semi semi staring down like saying that it was you have all been part of the biggest social experiment in history so I mean like one of the best YouTube videos I've seen in a long time like awesome like really oh this isn't Mr. Beast dropping a Lamborghini into a car crusher that's kind of unique or whatever this is outright insane he has like 40 million views too and uh no one knows really how it's happened I mean I I wish he would share that I think that'd be super cool I think he he has to how he can't just leave that loop open surely I mean based off what we saw I think he might he just seems like that type of guy he just likes the mystery of it all how hard would you have to work to get from 411 pounds down to 160 170 something like that that'd be life consuming like you'd have to change every aspect of your life like it'd be like cuz I feel like 411 pounds like not many people can do that cuz I can I think I think for a lot of people like people don't really realize how hard it is to get that fat like we get to like a lot of people get to 250 and you you're stuffing your face but then you just you can't possibly maintain the increase hm hm so I think to get to that level of like fat like like you are doing some like serious [ __ ] man like it's like you're you're like having IV of freaking like chee like cheese in your like while you sleep like like so everything that he does has to has to be completely changed so I I can't even imagine how hard that would be yeah you've lost a person you've lost a person and a bit off you couple people I would say yeah uh Yeah, I mean it's very impressive. Uh and also kind of concerning that everybody was sort of drawn into this same thing. One of my favorite writers, Gwenda, wrote the definitive audience capture article about Nikocado. And he's a smart guy. Gwenda's really, really smart guy. And I sent him the video and he said, "Oh, I saw the most recent mukbang he did." I was like, "No, no, no, no. Did you see the video he dropped yesterday?" And he went on and was like, "Oh my god, like this is the most wild, incredible twist to the story." I really don't know, man. I mean It's quite remarkable that if if this was all planned and he's like, "I'm going to get to this and then I'm going to get down." The guy has balls. If he's got uh definitive proof, you know, holding the newspaper up, so to speak, uh that's wild. Yeah, cuz that's what I'm also thinking. I'm like, is this is this like way in the past? Like, you know, I don't know. Oh, that he could have released the video It could have been a video that was recorded. I mean, even that. So, like there's only two ways that this has happened, right? Either he recorded that before he got fat and is now releasing it. But I think he's got different hair. Uh so he recorded it before he got fat to then release it now he is secretly fat but hasn't told anybody. Or he actually did get fat and has now lost all of the weight and is talking about that. I don't know which one's more incredible. I don't actually know which one's more shocking. crazy. Wild. Nikocado, if you want to come and talk about it on the show, you know where I am. Um They're just so so fascinating. But yeah, to see a normal dude, relatively normal dude, go through that. And going back to your videos, what's the hardest challenge that you've done? Ooh. I did one recently. I went to Denver. Just going to Denver was hard? Yeah. But uh man, um I went to the the North America's highest gym. Okay. And I was it was in Alma, like an hour and a half out of Colorado. And um where Denver I don't know. What's the Yeah. But, um I did this challenge where I would have I had 10 challenges and they get progressively harder. And then at the altitude it was also my first video. So, I landed and we went. And uh I had to do like I like maxed out on squats. Then I maxed out on overhead press, maxed out on bench, did like um all this cardio. And by the end I was on this thing called the Jacob's Ladder. Yep. For like the for the 10th challenge. And I'm on it. And this is the first time ever where I thought my body was like shutting My body was shutting down on me and I couldn't control it. And I was like I was going and then I'm I'm pretty sure like a lot of it I kind of don't remember, to be honest, cuz I I I kind of I blacked out. I like I blacked out and I kind of came back up cuz I wanted to finish it so bad. Mhm. And then once the once that was done, I I almost couldn't walk. And I just started profusely crying. Once the once it was done and I couldn't control like my emotion. I just started crying. And the guy was like, "Holy like are you okay?" And I'm like, "I don't know." Like I I just I was like, "I don't know if I'm okay." Like I just I felt like such a traumatic experience for some reason. And it took me like a long time like a couple weeks to actually feel okay again. Wow. And then a lot of the comments were like, "Dude, like that was [ __ ] dangerous." Like because I I got like my blood oxygen level tested was like 80. Not good. Not good. Yeah. I didn't really know at the time. So, I was like, "Okay, whatever. Like I'm making a video. Like it's going to be cool. The worst it is the better." Kind of like that's my thing. And then everyone's like, "Dude, like that's really dumb. You could have had a heart attack." How high is it? Do you know? Um 10,361 ft. That's really high. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I got home. It's a gym on a mountain. Yeah. Yeah. My my wife yelled at me. "What if we want to have kids and you go do these stupid videos? You won't be here." I was like, "I'm not doing it again. Don't worry. Yeah." We'll get back to talking to Will in 1 minute, but first I need to tell you about AG1. Over the span of about a year, I tried pretty much every greens drink that I could find trying to work out which one was best, and I came across AG1 and have stuck with it for over 3 years because it is the most comprehensive, highly tested, and rigorously formulated on the market. AG1's formulation is built to improve your health not just when you take it for a week, but this every single day for years, and that is why I've stuck with it. Since 2010, they've improved their formula 52 times in the pursuit of making the best foundational nutrition supplement possible through high-quality ingredients and rigorous standards. There's a 90-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it completely risk-free, use it every single day for 3 months, and if you do not like it, they'll just give you your money back. So, if you want to replace your multivitamin and more, start with AG1. Right now, you can get a year's free supply of vitamin D3 and K2, plus five free AG1 travel packs, and that 90-day money-back by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkAG1.com/modernwisdom. That's drinkAG1.com/modernwisdom. What's it like What's life like sort of stringing all of these challenges together? You're gaining 20 lb in a week, waking up at 4:00 a.m. to do Mark Wahlberg's morning routine, just eating protein bars for a day. Is that not a high personal price to pay? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a blessing and a curse. I say I think it's like a blessing. Like sometimes I al- almost every video or every video that I shoot, I always have a moment where I kind of stop and I'm like, "I'm doing this for a living right now. It's so it's so fun. It's so cool." But then, I'm a person who I thrive on routine and schedule. And I take I take my lifting quite seriously. So, when I go away for traveling and I I can't do it or like I'm doing someone else's routine, it it it throws me off. So, it's it's a it's very difficult to like kind of stay on track with all that stuff. And again, it kind of like similar to me being fat, where would I be if I didn't do this? I'm kind of like where would I be physically like in terms of the the gym if I wasn't doing this cuz I take it I take this stuff pretty seriously in terms of like the lengths that I'm willing to go to make a video like travel, do a lot of stuff. I posted very consistently. And I put I very much put that first before myself. Which is probably not the best thing to admit. I don't know. I You know, we did the same thing. There was a period just before COVID started and then straight in I kind of had the inclination before COVID and then when COVID began, you know, I still remember the message that I I should print it off and put it on a wall beside play. I sent this message to my editor Dean who was There was only me and him for 500 episodes. Then there was me, him, and a moment assistant for like 650 episodes. And then finally, we actually got a team. Uh but I remember I messaged him and I was like, "I want to turn pro with the show. I want to stop messing about. I want to dedicate everything that I have to becoming as good as possible. This means learning YouTube, learning thumbnails, getting a speech coach, getting a comedy coach, getting an improv coach, working on my diction, working on my questioning, getting better guests, getting better advertisers, working on all of the stuff everything. I want to dedicate everything I've got. And then, you know, a pandemic shutting down the world isn't great for many things, but it's good to focus your attention and stop distractions." So, I know what you mean that you put it ahead of other stuff and it might not be a I don't know. I think it's a good thing to admit in that you're dedicating yourself to a pursuit. Yeah. Um I think there's a fine line. Like for me, I had this I had this I dedication or compulsion. Yeah. I mean, I I started my channel with my dog Ollie. Like he was like this little little fellow and he was like very much so a character. All I'd do intros with him and stuff. And um he's he's like I've only ever remembered life with him. He was 16. So, he passed away. Or yeah, he passed away, but like I was at the house and my dad was like we have to put him down. Because it was just getting like so bad. I fainted. Like I like I've never fainted. I'm not one who to faint. I fainted in the kitchen and I was like so devastated. The next day I shot a video. I just I had to like I swallowed it and I went and I shot because I was like I have this on my schedule and I'm going to shoot a video and I like I put it down and then once I was done, I just like burst out crying. But then the thing is I just I kept on putting it down. But then I never dealt with it. So, like I then you deal with it like years later. So, I dealt with it this year. How was that when it finally came back around? F- horrible. Like so like and then it makes me kind of upset. I'm like, "Yo, like this is like this this animal that was like my I got my brother was such a huge part of my life and I just like didn't take the time to like like appreciate that aspect of my life to go shoot a video. That's just like for a week of my channel. You know, it's not like anything significant and I couldn't even do that. So, it made me it really made me reflect and it's kind of given me a better relationship now with how I approach things. How so? I will never you know, put YouTube in front of myself anymore in terms of like how I feel mentally. Yeah. Or I think like that um a huge part of that's because of my wife. Like she's very much so like very she's like a hippie. Spiritual, meditation. She's like yo, just like Sounds like a good uh counter balance for you. Yeah, she's very much like she's not really into like the social media stuff. So, she very much so like grounds me and she's like you like you have to like touch some [ __ ] grass. Yeah, take care of yourself and you know, when if you do that like if you pull back a bit you're actually making progress. You're going you're going forward. And like I never really saw it like that, because I think in social media specifically, we see like you know, when you're not posting, you're failing. You know, and the more that you post, the more views that you get, you think everybody loves you. And the second you kind of go away, it's like you're like you kind of get a little bit you get a little bit worried. And then I kind of tried like going like I used to do two videos a week. And I was like, okay, I'm going to do this week, I'm just going to do one video a week. So I I used to post Thursday and Sunday. I stopped I didn't post a video on Thursday, and I just stopped there and I hit 10:00 a.m. And I'm like, okay. It's It's It's okay. You know, there was like nothing happened. You know, so it's kind of just like again, it's like learning. Like you're you're just like you're you're maturing in this space. Deconditioning yourself. Yeah, so it's just like realizing that it's like it's not the end of the world. Like you have a life outside of this and and just, you know, make it work around around you. Tim Ferriss talks about uh decentralizing your identity. So uh the worst times or some of the worst times of his life were when all of his sense of self-worth was taken from Tim Ferriss the podcaster or Tim Ferriss the author or Tim Ferriss the whatever. And now he wants to be Tim Ferriss the friend and Tim Ferriss the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner and Tim Ferriss the wood whitler or whatever it is that he's doing. And he's Yeah, talks about decentralizing your identity. I think that's really cool. That you don't put all of your sense of self-worth into this one thing. Because on one side, that's where obsession comes from, which gives you an awful lot of success. But on the other side, it makes you kind of fragile in a way. It would be like having your entire net worth just invested into one stock. And I'm not convinced that that you're just going to get ragged around by the market. Oh, we're up 10% today. Oh my god, we're down 20% today. Supposed to having a so ETF, index fund trading portfolio, and multiple things. The multiple groups of people. One may be up, and one may be down. The gym may be going great, but maybe business is a little a little back. My relationship might be fantastic, but maybe family life's a little bit off. Whatever it might be. Um I think that's a good way to think about it. But, on the flip side, that's a luxury that I think you have and that I have it to some degree, too, because we've reached some form of escape velocity to get out to the platform size and kind of the momentum that you need to. So, this is the thing that again, talking about the lonely chapter and I really love discussions like this where we talk about the real sort of hidden pain or the the unsexy nuance. The unsexy nuance of most advice is that what somebody who is big enough for you to care about their advice is giving you is probably not the tactic that they did when they were at your level. 100%. So, for me and you to start talking about work-life balance, which by the way, I don't have, but for you to start talking about work-life balance is all well and good. But, you didn't get to 3 million subs by doing that. You didn't So, what everybody needs to think about that's taking advice from the internet is not what does this person say that they would do now? Because they are not you and this isn't Don't look at what somebody says they would do now. Look at what they did when they were you in the past. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely, yeah. And I I It's funny that you say that cuz I have what I watch a lot of podcasts and I was watching Mr. Beast's podcast and then they're asking him how would you start a YouTube channel? To like people and he's just like I'd just focus on making the best video possible. And you know, just only put put the best video possible. So, like what he does now. But, it's like no. It's like you got to like can you even speak in front of a camera? Like get get the reps in. Start uploading. Get comfortable in front of the camera. Like, you know, just just like be kinder to yourself. Like take things like slowly and then, you know, build up over time. So, I I definitely feel like people take on the advice of the people who you know who have made it. They're talking to themselves now and not to themselves when they started. Exactly. Yeah, and that's what you know they I think that unsexy but actually what should be quite inspiring nuance is that if you're sufficiently obsessive and if you just don't stop you'll end up being successful. Right, that's it. Like the main reason that people fail at things is that they just don't keep going. And the reason that I in some ways I've got this new perspective on the Jocko, Goggins, Hormozi sort of hard work uh is all that matters perspective of the world. The reason that I think that's really interesting is that if you were to ask somebody what is it that's your X factor that's caused you to be so successful in whatever domain and they were to say it's this, you know, muse. It's this talent. You I sort of just take inspiration from whatever. What that sounds like is something that's really easily accessible and not that hard. But what it actually is is ineffable and [ __ ] inaccessible to everyone. If they say, "Ah, I'm not that smart or that like diligent or that talented. I just didn't stop." You go, "Well, that anyone can do that." Problem is it's difficult. So in a weird way someone who takes most of their success or derives most of their success from working really really really hard yes, it's a very long journey, but the route is perfectly mapped out for you as opposed to someone who's relied on talent or some kind of blessing or I'm just naturally funny or I just did or whatever. Like something that you can't replicate. You go, "Okay, so maybe the distance that you went is shorter, but I have no idea how you got there." You know, does that make sense? yeah. So I think about how or the advice that I would give to sort of someone who's I'm prepared to do whatever it takes in order to reach escape velocity out of lonely chapter or whatever it is. To all right, obsess over it, don't stop. I think it'll be on obsess. There has to be a good reason as to why you want to do it. Like you look at a lot of you ask a lot of kids in high school, it was it was something crazy like 80% of them want to do social media. Kindergarten. Yeah, yeah. But it's like if you ask almost 100% of them, I don't want to speak for all of them, it's probably for the wrong reasons. They probably like, "Oh, like I want to do YouTube fitness because all I do is work out and eat." No, you don't. Like coming to this for like couple weeks, you probably are going to quit because you don't really realize this is more than a full-time job. It's literally life consuming. It's all you do. Planning videos, scripting videos. is the smallest part. Exac- exactly. Like no one understands like it's actual production, it's actually a business. Like people people don't It what what annoys me is that people don't see social media as an actual real job. And I'm like, certain types of social media are not real job. There are certain types that aren't. Like what would that be? Um if you were doing I've I've seen a lot of vlogs where it's "This is my hot girl walk afternoon in New York City." And all that you do is get up, have a pumpkin spice latte, you're filming yourself, there's no editor, there's nothing that needs organizing. It's a day in the life It's permanent day in the life vlogs over and over and over again, but there's no travel. The complexity of going to the highest gym in the world or putting on a fat suit that you've had to get from some medical website that's supposed to be for doctors and then working Okay, so am I allowed to li- am I licensed to film it? You're going to Paris soon. You need to get visa to be able to go there. You need to check if you've got the rights to be able to film there. You need to be able to do DIT to manage the footage that comes out of there. You need to have everything backed up, blah blah blah. The the increasing complexity. So, yeah, anybody that's thinking about doing YouTube as a career or any kind of social media, it's like, "Hey, guess what? The actual YouTube bit is the smallest part of that job." All of the other stuff, it it's lots of flights, it's lots of packing and unpacking. It's lots of email. A ton of email. Yeah. It's that. That's what the life is. The amount of people, like my parents' friends, like they would call my parents up and be like, "Is Will ever going to figure it out? Is he still doing YouTube?" Like people just don't understand. They just go like, "Oh, he's just making He's making cute videos." You know, that's just It's It's just crazy. It blows my mind that people can't see there's a lot of effort that goes into running stuff like this. on the Yeah. On the flip side, that's a kind of moat that you build around you. You know, it's the same as um some uh musician, artist, or powerlifter that steps up to their stage of choice, and everyone goes, "Oh my god, did you see how easily Jamal just lifted 1,000 lb or whatever?" And you go, Yeah, I mean, it looks easy, but there was a lot that went into that one 5-second display of strength that you've just seen. Or some musician that goes and plays a phenomenal song, and you go, "Man, he's just got such a great voice." You go, "He's trained a great voice." Yeah. Which is different. Uh Another video you did, you were one of the first people to break Bryan Johnson into the mainstream. Yeah. What do you make of that arc? Do you feel responsible for him being everywhere now? Oh, man, I don't know about that. Cuz I feel like he's just a very interesting guy in general. He has his like quirks that he's bound to be He's bound to be out there, but that was such a cool experience. I don't know if you've ever met him. I have. You have met him? Yes. Yeah, he he was such a great guy. And I was kind of like a lot of people are I just don't know what to expect when you go into situations like this, but he was just he was equally like crazy, but just also like just normal. Like you would just like Like when the camera's off, you just you just like talk to him. He didn't Like I thought he was going to be like some like Could I even like communicate with you? Mad scientist. Mad scientist, yeah, but just such a a good dude. Seems so happy. Like the team that he was he was with just seemed so great. But that day was just like insane. What was it like? It was just like it was crazy because like it was so like we couldn't talk to him leading up to it. We had to talk to his assistant. Mhm. And um it was like, "Okay, you have to be here exactly at this time. Like we cannot be a second late because he has to be gone at 11:00." It's like we don't you don't have much time. There's no reshoots. So like we got to go and do this. This is all on live. So like we barely cut it. And uh we go we show up. We open the door the video starts. And I'm like, "Oh, okay." So like I actually get in the video I'm like quite I'm like kind of like frazzled cuz I wasn't expecting it cuz usually we kind of talk a bit, but it was just like, "Let's go. Let's get into it." It was like non-stop. Genuinely went through his morning routine. That took us a couple hours with not even a second of break. It's like, "We're going to take these 60 pills. We're going to put this on your head. We're going to measure this. Oh, like the the sun UVs this. I can't go outside. Like it's just crazy. I cut my water at noon." He stops drinking To uh enhance his sleep? Yeah. Wow. So you must consume an awful lot of water in the morning. Yeah. Yeah. In order to be able to get sufficient water across the day. Yeah. And it that opened my eyes to like I began starting to take sleep way more seriously cuz he said in the video he's like, "Sleep is one thing in your life that should be non-negotiable." And I never really kind of got it. And he's like, "You have to go to bed at the same time every night. Wake up same time. For me I'm religious 10:00 p.m. bed, 8:00 a.m. wake up." In other news, this episode is brought to you by Hillsdale College. In a world where truth and knowledge feel harder to find, Hillsdale College stands apart. They believe education should be about more than just a degree. It's about understanding what truly matters, liberty, character, and the pursuit of truth. Hillsdale offers over 40 free online courses to help you learn the timeless ideas that have shaped our world, so you can think critically and live freely. Whether you're diving into history, politics, or philosophy, Hillsdale's courses are designed to give you the tools to think for yourself. need a place to start, you can check out their introduction to Aristotle's ethics. You'll learn Aristotle's teachings about human nature, the meaning of the good life, and the virtues necessary for happiness. If you want to learn more, head to the link in the description below or go to hillsdale.edu/modernwisdom to enroll. There is no cost, and it is easy to get started. That's hillsdale.edu/modernwisdom. It seems like sleep consistency is arguably maybe as important as sleep duration. It's getting It's pretty close. Absolutely. Duration and consistency would be one would be one and two. And um Yeah, I It's funny you say about the UV thing. I was in Roatan off the island of Honduras at the start of the year for this biohackers conference, and I knew Brian was going to be there for day and a half, and we'd been WhatsApping, and I saw him walking back from maybe breakfast or a morning walk or whatever. He had an umbrella. And it must have been because the UV was too I've always wondered why the [ __ ] did you have that umbrella with him? It must be because the UV was too high, and he didn't want it to hit his skin. Yeah, and then when I was there in LA, that was during the time of the fires. Right. So, it was something to do with like he didn't want to breathe the outdoor air. there. So, like he's like, "I haven't been outside in 5 days." And I'm like, "This is kind of like This is kind of crazy." And then it it makes you kind of wonder like, "Is it worth living your life like this to potentially We don't even know live is the thing I've thought about that question a lot. The sacrifices that he makes in order to live longer, sacrifice of quality in order for quantity. And I think the thing that people don't realize about Brian is that he, at least on the outside, I'll never know the inner workings of his mind. I think he takes so much pleasure from the process of doing this thing. It's the same as people that look at Hormozi and go, "Why would you work so much? That sounds like hell." You don't understand what he does for play is his work. His work is his recreation activity. So, it'd be like me saying to you, "I can't believe that you play so many video games. You must get tired and want to do some work." And you go, "No." So, for him, that's the way it works. And the same for Brian. There is just this inherent, like, embodied enjoyment that he has. Oh, and you can see it, like, we're in the kitchen at the end and the the the nurse comes down. "Brian, we need your semen sample." And then he's just all like giddy and like happy and he like looks at me, he's like, Well, I mean, if you were to I'm trying to have a stronger erection than my 17-year-old You'll see the sample, you might also be giddy and happy, you never know. True. That's true. Yeah. He was going for a stronger erection than a 17-year-old son and I'm like, that's that's great. Have they measured them both? I wouldn't be I wouldn't be surprised. than his 17-year-old son. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, he did transfuse infuse blood, right? They swapped Well, I don't think he gave his son blood, but his son gave him blood. Yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, look, it wouldn't do for everybody to be Brian, but I'm very glad that there's someone who's pushing Yeah. Because we we're going to be able to take a lot from that. coming back and telling us what he's learned. Yeah. Very is very very interesting. He also invited me for lunch. And in Roatan, he invited me for lunch. Uh but I didn't realize that lunch was nutty pudding. And I was expecting a nice sandwich, you know, maybe some fries or something like that. And I I turned up and I had nutty pudding nutty nutty pudding. pretty good. I liked it. It was okay. It wasn't his, it was made by some chef. So, they'd repurposed it with local cacao and whatever they [ __ ] they'd done. Uh one of the other pivot that we've seen is this sort of ascendancy of hybrid training online, which as far as I can tell means lifting weights and running, I think. Yep. What do you make of this sort of new world of I was thinking about that a lot. I didn't really understand, like, there's so many people who I know that would be like, "Yo, there's no way." I could see them running and all of a sudden they're running. And uh I think it comes down to, like, a lot of us have been lifting for so long that to get progress is so hard to come by that we need another outlet to gain progress. And when you start running for the first time, like your your your time's going to start increasing like you're getting those Because you sucked so bad at the beginning. like you're getting those noob gains again. And I just think that people are falling in love with that process to see like the actual progression. And then people are actually liking running better than the gym because the gym is just so once you get to a certain point it's like you're scraping for a few pounds versus weekly you're you're beating your time by a minute. So I I don't know if I don't know if this is going to be something that lasts very long or it's I don't know. What do you think? I wonder I honestly wonder how much of it is downstream from Nick Bare. I just feel I I there is an entire generation of young guys on the internet who just see this jacked as [ __ ] guy waking up before the sun rises, sprinting around a track, and goes, "Okay, I want to look like him, so I'll do what he does." Everybody wants to Everyone wants a bodybuilder physique. There's just a lot of questions about how you get it. But the difference is that Nick had that physique before he started running. He was huge. He's actually like significantly downsized. Has he really? He still looks like a big boy to be going around the running track. Oh, he's a big boy. I mean, like he used he like I He's like 230. Now he's like 195. But he's still peeled out of his Peeled peeled, yeah. Uh so, yeah, I I don't know Do you know Hyrox? I got in trouble for calling Hyrox professional burpee broad jumps uh a couple of weeks ago. Have you done one of those? No. I've heard a lot about it, though. Yeah, I mean, it's it seems to me that CrossFit really dropped the ball. And, you know, they had it. They had the methodology, they had the gyms, they had the brand, they had the dudes with their tops off and the chicks in booty shorts. They had they had it. And then just the most spectacular public face planting of a brand culminating in somebody dying at the games. I'd what a nail in the coffin was terrible, I think, uh literally. And yeah, I I think Hyrox has filled in the hole that CrossFit was for a lot of us. So, I got this idea of the manopause or the the training manopause which a lot of dudes go through. They get to 28, 29, 30. They're tired going up a set of stairs. They can't touch their toes. Their flexibility's not so good. They're like, "Oh, my elbow." You know, I've been putting it off for 5 years, but anytime I go to the I look at the W bar and an easy curl machine and I think, Um, so they find a new training modality which is maybe a little bit more holistic, community-oriented, uh, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to Thai boxing, yoga, Muay Thai, uh, Hyrox, running, run clubs, whatever. And, uh, that I think is pretty reliable. The only difference is that we had CrossFit for maybe 10 years ago. So, like my I'm 36. Like my era was CrossFit when we got to that age. And now the ones that are coming up now, yours is Hyrox, run clubs. So, I think it has a lot to do with like the longevity kind of like trend now. People want to be like not just a meathead. I want to be functional. I want to be able to like, again, go go up the stairs like you're saying and be able to breathe. So, I I think it I actually do think it's a it's a it's a change for the better. Mhm. What advice would you give to people who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of fitness information that's available on the internet? Choose one. Because it's like a lot of things. I mean, even for me, like you would listen to what one person says, you like that person, but then you watch another video and that person's slightly different and then you're like, "What what the hell am I going to What am I going to do?" So, I think just find a source that you believe, that you trust, and try it. And give it a couple weeks. And like don't don't like deviate from that. I think it's it's it's even hard now. Like even if I see a video where it's like, "Oh, like you're an idiot if you don't do this chest exercise." And then I see it and I'm like, "Should I swap out what I'm what I'm doing right now?" But it's like if what you're doing right now is working, stick with it and then keep that like in your toolbox for a little later. So, it's kind of just find one person that you enjoy, try it out for a bit. If you don't like it, okay, well, you tried it, now you know. Find somebody else. What are your or who are your favorite sources of fitness information? I got Mike Israetel. He he very much so inspires a lot of how I train. You know, um when I when I got to work out with him, was cool experience cuz you really like you're you're not just you're you're you're like you're move you're bodybuilding. You're not just moving the weight. Like you're feeling every single second and like you're making every rep last. Definitely definitely him. Love the mile reps. I don't know if you did any of that with him. Yeah, Jeff Nippard, good friend of mine. Um I like the science approach to fitness. I don't like any kind of guesswork. I'm not into like the bro style of training. I like when there's a like a scientific backing. It makes me feel like I can like rest at ease. Reassured. Yeah. But, again, this is kids nowadays just simply don't know what it was like 15 years ago trawling bodybuilding.com forums. And there's some guy that says that he grew his delts by doing this one particular exercise and taking blueberry extract in an algae bottle with dextrose. And you go, "Yeah, yeah, that's what I need." But, now you have the Manuel Hanselmans, the Layne Nortons, the Israetels, the Nippards. Like you have people who peer-reviewed evidence-based diet and training. And you know that what they're saying is backed up with something beyond what the big guy in my gym once said, dot dot dot. Uh so, yeah, there is this degree of reassurance. The the flailing around, I don't know whether you ever felt this, of if your training had plateaued and you didn't know why and you also didn't know what you were supposed to do to fix it, that kind of is largely gone now. You just know, "Okay, there's an answer out there." Yeah, exactly. Very quickly Google what happens if my arm gains plateau. Oh, well, you're going to do this. You're going to deload and then we're going to come back with whatever I'm going to use the RP strength app or whatever. Uh it's a really different world, which I think is good. Really good. But then at the same time like a lot of people who I like you know I I hang out with sometimes like film with jacked, huge, the incredible shape. 20 years old. I'm like, "Okay, so what are we doing today? I'm doing your workout. I'm going to follow your program." They're like, "What do you want to do?" I don't know. They they don't know idea what they're doing. Totally They're like, "How many reps?" I don't count. [ __ ] those guys. Yeah, and I'm like, "Shit." Yeah. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Gymshark. You probably need some new gym kit, and my favorite shorts in the world that I've ever tried on and all I will ever wear for the rest of my life are Gymshark's studio shorts. 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That's gym.sh/modernwisdom and MW10 at checkout. You mentioned exercises earlier on and chest exercises. If you only had 10 exercises that you're going to choose for the rest of your life to build and maintain as much muscle as possible, what are you going to pick? Full body. Everything. Physique is being held together by 10 exercises. How do you choose? Okay. Why? Quad mean mean quad builder. Okay. Glutes. Hack squat's interesting. All right. Yeah. I love hack squat. Yep. Romanian deadlift. Okay. Barbell? Yeah. Barbell Romanian deadlift. Incline barbell bench. Classic. Yeah. Preacher curl. Also W bar? Yeah. Yep. Pull-up. The squat of the upper body. Yeah. I actually I would argue overhead press, which I'm going to say overhead press. Mhm. Also good. a lot of axial load so far. I'm a huge compound guy. Right. Yeah. Overhead press. Uh lateral raise for sure. Mhm. And overhead tricep extension. Mhm. Have I not hit everything? Hamstrings. Romanian deadlift. Yeah, true. I want to say a calf raise to be politically correct, but I don't know if that's Wait, you can you can choose to have little calves for the rest of your life if you want. Yeah. Be aware you're locking yourself in. Yeah. I probably do some sort of a a chest supported row for the back. Mhm. Yep. Like a a horizontal pull. Yeah. Okay. Yep. And maybe a weighted dip. That's a that's a [ __ ] good selection. That's nice. It's old school. Yeah. I very much like that. I think I've asked that question to maybe 10 people. Do a lot of them overlap? Yeah. I think uh you're maybe the first person that hasn't said a incline dumbbell press. But I'm pretty sure everybody's put laterals in. Yeah. Uh hanging leg raise is the most popular ab exercise, which is pretty interesting. Uh and just even Israel Hal said the same thing. Ryan Terry, who's maybe got the best midsection in the history of physique, said the same thing. So I'm like, listen to you. Uh the hack squat I never even think. It's a machine in the gym that I just ignore. I could just it's I think it's every gym bro's favorite leg exercise. I have to think. Like I I I That's the You might be right. Uh I avoid actually a lot cuz I got a bad back. So, I'll do walking lunges, reverse lunges, step-ups, leg press. I just refuse to bend right at the waist. Uh and if I keep a neutral spine, I can hammer my legs. But, yeah, it like single leg uh like Romanian deadlift. I like that. I do like that. Uh Israel told me through a couple of workouts this week. Have you done his lying down uh like front raise thing? So, you lie on the floor, you put a cable machine on the very bottom setting. Okay. And then you lie like this and go like that? Do you do you know what I mean? Can you imagine what that is? I can imagine that, yeah. Yeah. So, you're using the friction of the floor on your ass cheeks to stop you from sliding toward the machine. Holy [ __ ] But, that was That was a weird one. What else did we do that was a little bit So, you know what I'm saying? I I'd watch that video and be like oh, I got to throw that into my routine. But, that's cool. Like when you have someone that you trust But, then again, it's just trust. Yeah. You know, you've got a person. I have reliable evidence that this guy knows what he's talking about. That's Do you remember uh Jeff did that short about maybe three or four months ago that lean away single arm uh cable raise? Yeah. I promise you that next week I went into Gold's Gym and did it in Austin, Texas. Three different dudes in there. I was like said to my trainer, I'm like we should try and do this thing. One of the guys came over, he's like, "Yo, you watched that Jeff video about the side delts?" I was like, "Yeah." So, everyone's watching the same thing. thing with a video of Jeff. And um we did a reverse pec deck variation I've never seen before. Okay. I go to the gym the next day. And everyone's doing it. Everyone's doing it. It It's It's really cool to see, though. Yeah. Yeah. But it also shows that the still and you know, it's a good argument for X market is saturated and we there's no place for me to get in it's like who would have said 3 years ago that there was room for kind of nerdy but jacked evidence-based guys to come in and just dominate all of YouTube. Very few. So I think uh Trying to deconstruct what the principles are. Certainly one of them is the legitimacy of what you're saying has to be there. That's the fundamental thing that it's removed a lot of the guesswork. Uh most of them are quite personable. And sort of likeable, enjoyable to be around. They don't take themselves too seriously. Yeah. Um What else? What else do you think contributes to it? I think they have to have like a strong resume. Legitimacy, credibility, credentials. Yeah. But it's it's funny cuz you have you then you have that side of the spectrum, but then you can have the other side where you're like if you admit that you have no idea what you're doing and it just works for you. That also could work. Trend twins. Versus being somebody who who just shows you and doesn't say anything. Mhm. Like if like if for a lot of my videos when I do like workout advice ones I'm very quick to be like yo, I don't know at all what I'm doing. Like I I just take I'm like I just take in information from people who I I work with and it and it works for me. And people appreciate that. And then then I think there's a lot of bios skis. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to the mental health piece. How is your mental health now? You know, you had this concern about surveillance and vigilance and people staring at you and then you decide to spend an entire career having people watch you. Yeah. But you're also 30, so there's this a sense of self-expectation. I'm supposed to have my life together by now. I surely I should be an adult by the time that I'm 30 years old. What's your relationship with your mental health like now? Very good. Like when it comes to stuff like that and like how I with with with the stuff that I do. Like I don't I don't I it's crazy how I'm like I don't give a [ __ ] Like with the with the obese video my grandma's like, "You went into the mall like that?" I'm like, "Yeah." And she's like, "You couldn't pay me to do that." So I feel like I'm very like I'm willing to do anything and I I kind of don't really care anymore. And a lot of people ask me like, "How did that change for you?" And it's just I I don't even have an answer for it. And I think YouTube and doing this and having people like follow me and support me has allowed me to feel okay with who I truly should be and who I've always wanted to be. Um the biggest thing I struggle with now is I have insane imposter syndrome. Insane. Mhm. Like even me being on this podcast right now like on the way here I was like "Why?" And that's something I've always had about myself. I'm just always a person who I can never appreciate anything that I've done. I can never feel like I'm worthy of anything and I feel like I don't deserve it and I feel like it's going to get taken away from me. Mhm. And um I've always felt like that even like trying out for hockey teams. It's just like I shouldn't be here. And that that I don't know I don't I don't think there's ever going to be something that goes away from me. When you talk about imposter syndrome, how does that cuz it seems like there's two things going on. One is the inability to congratulate yourself on a job well done, yeah, but the other is a feeling of not being worthy of the opportunities or the rooms that you get yourself into. Is it both of those things? those things heavily. Do they happen kind of separately or are they just kind of congealed into one? Congealed into one for me. Right, okay. Yeah. So very very much so like very intense for me. Okay. Yeah. Like I I have a hard time like even like meet and greets. I'm always like wow. Like people are going to line up to meet me? I don't understand why. And I I don't even know how to explain it. But given that you enjoy your content so much and given that uh you have limited self uh awareness or concerned self-consciousness, why do you think that this thing still lingers? It feels like you've conquered a lot of the challenges mentally that you had when you were a bit younger, but there's this one vestige, you know, bad monster looking under the bed that's still there. Why Why do you think this one's still there? I That's something I got to unpack. I really don't know. It's um the biggest regrets in my life are because of it. Where I was a again, I was I was a high-level hockey player and I I didn't go and pursue certain things because I feel like I didn't I wasn't worthy and I couldn't do it. And I feel like I just shouldn't have been there because I felt like other people deserved it more and were better than me. And um that has very much stuck with me. And I I don't know why. And it's something that I hate. So, the inability to congratulate congratulate yourself on a job well done I'm intimately familiar with. The imposter syndrome thing has actually largely dissipated over the last 18 months to me. Something that I was intimately familiar with, but I don't don't really feel anymore and I don't know not really too sure where that came from. I think uh the live tour that I did last year helped quite a bit with that because there was nowhere to hide. So, it was me on stage for 90 minutes with there wasn't even slides. It's just me talking to a room. Um and I think that was just such a like Navy SEAL Hell Week of inescapable, if you mess up it's on you, if you do well it's on you, thing. Um I think that was kind of a formative experience. And then suddenly being in the room, so to speak, of the guests and then their, you know, sort of very nice comments. And then doing Rogan uh twice helped a lot with that. Um Had it have gone badly, I don't know how I would have felt. Maybe it would have Maybe I would have like that would have proven to me that I didn't deserve to be in the room that I knew all along. Uh and there's also a little bit here where you think, well, hang on. Should your imposter syndrome really be fixed by other people's even uh your own judgments on your performance? Should it not come from some inner place where I just believed in me and so on and but I don't know. I get the sense that we all want validation. And we want to be respected by people that we respect. So trying to have some ascetic man in a cave just sort of meditating his way through, I don't need worldly possessions and I don't need to be told by the world that I've done a good job and so on and so forth. I think that's just unrealistic for most people's psychology. Uh maybe it would be the best way and, you know, it's the gold standard where you just do it and you don't give a [ __ ] what anybody else thinks. I don't think that's realistic most people. It very much could be an unaware defense mechanism for myself. Where, you know, just in case something ever happens. It's a protection. It's kind of like I I expect it to happen. Something like that. Like even like a lot of my It's got that door open. Yeah, like even my achievements, like through all this thing, like it's like I've I've achieved things that I've never thought I could in my life. Um because I thought so like poorly of myself. And when I hit them my dad's like Dude, like oh my god, congratulations. And I'm just like Thanks. Like yeah. I never like take a moment to be like like to appreciate the wins and I think it's just maybe me just being like I don't know I don't know when this is going to end for me kind of thing. Mhm. So, I was writing the other day. I haven't got round to uh finishing it off yet. I think you and me are in slightly different ways pretty good role models for people that don't believe that they can do a thing. But they end up doing it anyway. I I didn't have a massive amount of faith. I just sort of enjoyed the thing and then before you know it you've got some degree of success that the world sort of bestows on you. But presuming that you need to be able to believe that you can do it before you do it is like such a fallacy to me. Like yes, would it be great? Would it be even the gold standard for you to just believe it and then see it and then go and do it? Yeah, fantastic. But so few people If you're going to be waiting until you believe that you can do it you're going to be waiting forever. There's some people with some sort of pathologies and lack of self-belief. Uh so yeah, I kind of like the idea of being a a good example of someone that never really had faith that it that anything was going to work and just kind of experimented and [ __ ] around and then found out. a a benefit to me, I don't know about you, but I think a lot of people who maybe you probably talk to who end up being YouTubers and stuff are living This is what they wanted to do. And it was either like this is the route I'm going to take and there's no other option. For me, this is not even like on my radar. I want I wanted to be a chef. I was going to go to culinary school. And a fat kid. Yeah, chef and a fat kid. Yeah. But I was going to go to culinary school and um again, my passion from just making projects at school was making videos. And I didn't have Once I finished school, I didn't have an outlet to make videos or anything. So I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to like make vi- I literally made videos myself on my own time with no intention for any- anybody to watch them." Hm. And I didn't even know anything about YouTube, didn't know it was really monetizable. I just started putting them out there. Are they still out there? They're not. God damn it. No. Yeah, thank god. Thank god. Yeah, thank god. Yeah. But I I just started putting them out there and it was just a I think it was a thing of like there wasn't a direction I was going with it. I had no expectation for myself. I was like purely just doing it cuz you enjoyed it. For fun. So I enjoyed it. And then I started in June 2019. And then you by January 1st I had 100,000 subscribers. And it kind of just all happened like so fast. So I I don't think I I necessarily even like ever had a chance to even like doubt myself. Hm. Like until I got to a point where I'm like, "I guess I'm not going to culinary school. I'm doing this." You've already reached Escape the Lost City. Yeah. Yeah. I And again, the difficulty and motivation for stuff like that is that you've set up a success fail binary based on the outcome of the thing that you're doing as opposed to you were making videos before anybody watched them. I would happily have these conversations if no one was. Uh so there is no all of the judgment of success and failure kind of doesn't really matter, which makes you largely immune to it in some ways. And uh yeah, it is a kind of a superpower to do something that you would do if no one else knew that you were doing it. And that's why it's very hard for me to see my progress cuz I very much still see myself, which I think I should, as the the guy the kid who like started on his iPhone making videos. So I don't really recognize a lot of like my progress, which I also think I should be recognizing it, but I just think it's it's all kind of happened so so fluidly that I'm still very much in that mindset. Do you associate sacrifice and pain and discomfort with a good job being done? Do you sort of draw that line between the two? That if something happens that's good or successful but that it doesn't come with an associated bucket of pain that it wasn't as worthwhile? Yes. Right. So that's a a huge pattern that I had and still have. Yeah. Uh so I think that's one of the one of the odd patterns that you build especially if you grind away for a very long time doing something before you get any public recognition for it is that you almost learn to love the discomfort and then you have this weird version of kind of like survivor guilt where if something good happens but you haven't had the discomfort that you had in the beginning that you think it's undeserved or it shouldn't have come along that way. You know what I mean? Uh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's a very strange like reverse blessing a curse that you've kind of given yourself. You build this habit in the beginning that you can't dispense with even though you no longer need it anymore. You don't need to be whipping yourself through this thing. And it and it still sticks with me like into a certain degree I'm like I'm a big like for some like kind of sick reason I'm like the more that I am on the brink of dying in some way in a video it's going to do better. So I'm like my blood oxygen is 80 perfect. 79? What about 78? like better. You know what I mean? Like I'd be like even better and like that's a horrible mentality to have. dynamic doing what you do. Yeah. And then on the other side if it's like if a video was too easy I get anxious. I'm like you know this was this is this can't do well. It was too simple. Yeah. So I'm like I'm sitting with my like my buddy who works with me and I'm always asking for reassurance. I'm like is it? Is Is this okay? Like is is this is going way too smooth, like it can't be like this. Strange one. Interesting dynamics. What's happening next? What are you doing next? I am going away to the UK for the first time to shoot some videos. UK and Paris. Yeah, going to shoot some videos with uh Ngannou, Francis Ngannou. Uh Eddie Hall Magnus Midtbø. Couple of people I've been wanting to do for a very long time. So it's cool to to see it all kind of coming together. That's fun. Yeah. Will Tennyson, ladies and gentlemen. Where should people go if they want to keep up to date with all of the stuff that you're doing? Yeah, you can go to Will Tennyson on YouTube, Will Tennyson on Instagram. Those are the only two. Mainly just post on YouTube. Very inconsistent on Instagram and everything else. Heck yeah. I appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me on. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, you will love my full-length conversation with the one and only Dr. Mike Israetel. Just here.