Why "If I Just Had X, I'd Be Happy" Never Works (ft. Lawrence Dunling, Enter the Lionheart Podcast)

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This week's episode is a conversation I had on the Enter the Lionheart podcast with host Lawrence Dunling. Lawrence was kind enough to let us reshare it here on Unhooked.

We get into my own unusual path: leaving a PhD program at Duke, training as a Buddhist monk in Myanmar, and eventually building my coaching practice in Thailand. From there we dig into the trap almost all of us fall into, the belief that the next zero in the bank account, the next win, the next relationship will finally make us happy, and why that chase never actually delivers.

We talk through some core Buddhist concepts and how they apply to everyday life: the bliss of blamelessness, the eight worldly winds, and the middle path between renouncing everything and chasing pleasure. And we spend real time on porn and compulsive behavior specifically: why the consequences are often subtle and easy to miss, how it rewires your brain's relationship to novelty and intimacy, and the Rat Park experiment, one of the clearest illustrations out there of why addiction is about an unmet need, not a moral failing.

We also get into modern dating, OnlyFans, the loneliness underneath a lot of it, and why community and close male friendships matter more than most guys realize.

Resources:

Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com

14-Day Slip Reset: unhookedacademy.com/reset

Connect with Jeremy:

🌍 Website: JeremyLipkowitz.com

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremylipkowitz/

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyLipkowitz

📩 Email: jeremy@unhookedacademy.com


Jeremy’s Online Course: Unhooked – Step-by-Step Guide to Quitting Porn: https://www.unhookedacademy.com/

Transcript

 Almost all of us have this pervasive idea that if I just had X, Y, or Z, then I'll be happy. If I just had another zero in my bank account, if I just got this sale, if I just had this car, if I just had that girlfriend, then I would... If I just had a six-pack. And the thing is, it never actually works. You know, you can get whatever it is you want, but if you don't have the tools of actually appreciating what you have, being grateful for what you have, practicing contentment, you know, and there's all these other things that actually genuinely lead to real happiness, like compassion and being of service and protecting others and all kinds of things. But this idea that if I just had this, then I'd be happy, it, it never works A single theme is too narrow for great minds and daring hearts. Get ready to enter The Lionheart with your host, Lawrence Dunling Jeremy, I'm so glad we got connected because you exemplify living an unusual life. While half the people around the world are trying to get to the US, you graduate in California, you're a Calif- uh, you're an American guy who decided that the life you were living wasn't the one for you and you end up going to Asia. You're doing... I think you went to Myanmar and you were trained to be a Buddhist monk, and now you're a coach in Thailand. So I think that's so awesome and I- my favorite people in life are people that live an unusual path, and that's you to a T. Yeah. I've got a, got a very unusual life story, a lot of twists and turns and, you know, all kinds of different, uh, side quests. You know, I started a tea company at one point, was working on a PhD in genetics. Um, you know, moved to Thailand about, oh, God, how many years ago? 10 years ago when I first moved to Thailand. So it's been an interesting journey, but happy with all of it. So can you take me back to when you were doing your PhD? You have so many years getting to that stage and you decided that you had to, you know, make a change, 'cause I think that's so hard. The pressure I'm sure you had, parental pressure, your own pressure, like, "I've, I've come this far, I just wanna finish it." So that takes a lot of courage just to do that, and I, I always love those kind of stories because I think there's nothing sadder than people that keep going down a path they know isn't right because of what society expects of them or what they expect of themselves. Yeah. It was, there was quite a lot of pressure, to be honest. I mean, I had spent my, my whole adult life up to that point training to be a scientist, training to be a professor. Um, and I was on, on a good trajectory. You know, I was at Duke University, you know, very well-respected university. I had a full ride scholarship, not just from the university, but also from the National Science Foundation. I had their graduate research fellowship. Um, and I was on track. I was doing well. My professors liked me. They liked my work, and I was four and a half years into my PhD program, so I was quite a long way into my program. On top of that also, my mom is an academic. She was a professor at UC Berkeley, uh, in the sciences as well. And so I had also a bit of this family pressure of, you know, follow in your mom's footsteps and be an academic, be a scientist. Um, but to be honest, when I made the decision to leave my PhD program, it wasn't a difficult decision at all. It was actually one of the easiest decisions of my life. And to explain a little bit of, of context there, I had realized when I was in undergrad, just at the end of undergrad, I'd finished my degree, before I went to grad school, I'd realized that I was addicted to porn and that it was harming my life and having all these repercussions. And through that exploration of wanting to understand my addiction, wanting to understand a way out, I got- interested in things like neuroplasticity- Mm ... positive psychology. Um, and that led me to finding Buddhist philosophy. And Buddhist philosophy just totally changed my life 180 degrees. Um, I ended up traveling to India, learning how to meditate, started going on meditation retreats. And then when I came back from India, after having learned a lot of these meditation techniques, that's when I started my PhD program. So I had already learned meditation. I had already started down a path of, of spirituality or personal development. Um, but I was doing my PhD on kind of because that was my trajectory. Mm-hmm. At the same time, when I started my PhD, I also started teaching meditation to other graduate students and to other undergrads just be- You know, to be totally honest, it was a way of keeping myself accountable. Knowing that meditating is difficult to be consistent with, I decided to set up a, a free morning meditation on campus for anyone who wanted to, to join. And I... It started with me just kind of saying, "If you wanna come join me, I'll be there meditating." Mm. But over time, people would come, and I would say, "Hey, do you know how to meditate?" If they said no, then I would give them some basic instructions. Over time, I started guiding meditations. And then throughout my time in my PhD program, that just kept growing, that part of my life where I started teaching more about meditation, and I just realized I was way more passionate about teaching people about their minds, understanding where happiness comes from, where suffering comes from. And I got to the point where I realized I don't wanna be a scientist. I don't wanna be an academic for the rest of my life. 'Cause I saw the people I was supposed to look up to. Mm. I saw my professors, the postdocs I was working with, and most of them were pretty miserable, despite being some of the smartest people in the world. You know, they were stressed and anxious and insecure and big egos, and it was all kinds of things. And I realized that if I keep going down that path, I probably won't be that happy, and instead, I could devote my life to teaching meditation. So I ended up quitting. Had a few kind of interesting journeys in between there. I started a tea company that was gonna be this meditation space, tea house, yoga studio. Um, but it eventually ended up traveling to Thailand and getting a job teaching mindfulness at a school. Uh, and that was the beginning of my, my journey in Thailand. That's so interesting because I had that exact same thought when I was watching a TV show about multi-millionaire traders, and they just seemed so miserable. And I remember this is after I'd already became a self-made millionaire trading, lost all my money, transitioned to real estate, but I just had that same realization as you. When you watch someone, uh, like y- if you're chasing money as the goal and you look at people that have reached their success, they're wealthy beyond wealthy, .001%, but they're so stressed and miserable. It's, it's such a... That's such an insightful thing you realize, like if, if this trajectory keeps going, I'm gonna be like these people, and they're not the people I wanna be with, so I've gotta change my trajectory. And there's so much wisdom there. I feel like so many people, and I've spoken to and I've met and I've been friends with a lot of people that have done that, where they're not where they wanna be in their career and they just think, "If I keep going, if I keep making more money, eventually I'll be happy." And that, we all know that's just a fool's errand, you know? You're just gonna c- It's gonna be more of the same. Yeah. If you're, if you're not happy now, you're not gonna be happy with a few more zeros in your bank account. But I think that's- Exactly. Yeah. But Jeremy, I still think that's so impressive because- Was there a part of you where you were thinking about if you had graduated, sounds like that you were gonna be kind of made, you would've probably got some great offers at, at different universities. You would've been set financially. Whereas the journey you took, I'd imagine, was there a bit of financial uncertainty, financial stress? You know? Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, I, I wouldn't say that if I had continued on in my p- ... It wasn't... You know, the academic path is not... People don't do it for the money. They do it for the ego and the prestige and the, the validation. You know, because a- academia, you make okay money, you know, 100,000, you know, uh, you know, maybe 150 a- as a professor. If you go into industry, you can make much more. But the real reason people do it is more for the, kind of the prestige and the, the scientific, you know, curiosity- Right the exploration. M- my, you know, to be totally honest, when I... I remember in grad school thinking, "Only 1% of the graduate students here are really in it because they love it." And it felt like 99% were in it for, for ego reasons or for validation. There were, like, 1% of my peers who I could just tell they were just thirsty for scientific inquiry. Mm-hmm. And those were the ones I loved. You know, you could tell they just loved doing the science. But to come back to that question, you know, was did I move to economic uncertainty? 1,000%. I went from being, you know, a, a highly respected... I'm a PhD student at Duke University with a full ride scholarship. I'm an intelligent person. And when I quit, in order to pay the bills, I got a job at a donut shop. So I literally went from, "Hey, I'm a, I'm a PhD student at Duke University," to, "What kind of donut would you like, sir?" You know? And it was a big 180 degrees. So for me, you know, the hardest part of that wasn't the decision to leave, but it was dealing with the, kind of the, the ego issues that came up of, you know, who am I and i- if I'm not a smart, intelligent person, you know, if that's not something I'm wearing on my sleeve and can promote, then, then who am I, and what makes me a person? So there, there were some struggles around that. Yeah, it's like that where so many people, if you're at a cocktail party or a dinner, the first thing they ask you is, you know, "What do you do?" And so many people get their validation from their job title. So I could imagine- Yeah ... going from, like you said, a prestigious university, full-ride scholarship to w- working at a donut shop is, is a little hum- humbling. But I really think- Mm ... Jeremy, 'cause I went through it. I went from my first year in real estate at 35, I made, after all my expenses, what I could have made in my 20s in one good day trading. One good day, and that was a whole year of work. And that was 'cause when you start a new business, you have crappy leads, no... You don't, you don't have a reputation. You have to... You're trying to learn the skills. So I didn't even care about money. I was all about just taking the worst business just to learn and be busy. So I knew it was a bit of a process, but it was such a crushing, humbling thing for my ego that it was, at the time, really tough. I kind of went in a bit of a dark place. But now, 12 years later, when I look back at that moment, I'm so grateful for it 'cause I feel like I grew so much as a human. And I think I was... I'm, I'm a quite a, I'm, I'm quite a pro-Bitcoin guy, but I discovered it late. And I think if, if I had discovered Bitcoin early and I was a Bitcoin multi-billionaire, I think I would have missed out on all the, the growth on a human level. So I'm so glad that didn't happen. But it's so easy to think, say, you, you know, you're going through tough times financially. You think, "Oh, if I just had money, everything would be great." But it's like, it, it's something that I'm realizing. When we look back now, I think we're both in our mid-40s. Is that right? We're similar ages. I just turned 40, uh, like a couple weeks ago. Oh, darn. You- you're a couple weeks younger. So yeah, technically I'm in my 40s. Yeah, yeah. We're, we're, yeah, we're both over 40. You start to look back at these things, you know, when you're 25, when you're 30, and you realize that sometimes the worst things that happened to you at the time, you're so grateful for now. And that's something that I'm still getting my head around that because it- it's so refreshing that any time you're in the midst of just what seems like an awful situation, it's so weird to think about that your future self in five, seven, 10 years could be grateful for this misery. And it's such a weird thing- Yeah to get your head around, but it's so true. I found it so true in my own life so many, in so many different times. A thousand percent. It's something I resonated a lot with with, with my own story, particularly around porn addiction, which used to be a source of huge shame. It used to be a, a big secret that I had in my life, and I was just so ashamed of it, and I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. And now I can look back and really recognize that the experience of being addicted to porn was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it forced me to really investigate a- and examine my life and what really leads to happiness. And it's the thing that got me into Buddhist meditation, you know, deeper questions around the meaning of life. And so without that, you know, I wouldn't be the man I am today. And this is true for all the clients I work with, the guys who are also struggling with porn addiction. So many of them go through this journey where they can then look back on the addiction and say, "This is the best thing that ever happened to me because it finally... It was the breaking point that allowed me to become the person I'm supposed to be." And like you said, I mean, this, there's one theme that just comes up over and over again, whether we're talking about addiction or, you know, business and what it means to be a man in our society, but w- we, almost all of us have this pervasive idea that if I just had X, Y, or Z, then I'll be happy. If I just had another zero in my bank account, if I just got this sale, if I just had this car, if I just had that girlfriend, then I would... If I just had a six-pack. And the thing is, it never actually works. You know, you can get whatever it is you want, but if you don't have the tools of actually appreciating what you have, being grateful for what you have, practicing contentment- Yeah you know, and there's all these other things that actually genuinely lead to real happiness like compassion and being of service and protecting others and all kinds of things. But this idea that if I just had this, then I'd be happy, it, it never works I know you're interested in positive psychology, and I'm a huge fan of that too. But coming from your genetics background, are you also, like, an evolutionary psychologist? Are you interested in that kind of thing too? Because I just wonder from an evolutionary perspective, we, we just... Our brains are not equipped to handle porn, especially as a man. Yeah. It's just, it... So I just wonder. I don't think I've ever had a porn addiction. Uh, I don't- Yeah ... I don't think I have a addictive personality, luckily. But I had a friend in college, shout out to Dave if he's listening. He, he used to joke that he had to get rid of his laptop in the last year of college 'cause, 'cause he was looking at too much porn. And back then, you know, you didn't need to have a laptop to, to graduate. But it's like, it's, it's a real thing that I'm sure... I can't imagine. I guess I can't imagine, Jeremy, what it's like to be a 15... If I was a 15-year-old kid with a smartphone and porn, 'cause I wasn't in that situation, thankfully. But I, I have a five-year-old son, and I do think about that. I think about what age is he gonna be when he first... Hopefully it's not gonna be too young, but they, it's getting younger and younger. When's he first gonna see really graphic porn in high definition on a cellphone? And even if he's so innocent and sweet and he doesn't have a cellphone, he's gonna have friends that are gonna show him stuff obviously. You know, it's so pervasive now. So- Yeah ... because, because it's your field, can you talk a little bit about just how widespread is porn addiction of, of, of all the addictions? You know, how bad is it, I guess, 'cause I don't really know Yeah, it's hard to gather data on it because it is, it's a, it's a very sensitive topic. It's very shameful. Um, but what we know is it's way more pervasive and way more common than, than anybody really thinks. I mean, it's very hard to even do studies on people who haven't watched porn because it's very hard to find those people. And so when you ask young men, I mean, it's almost 100% who have seen porn at some point. Um, they're getting younger and younger, the, the first kind of time of exposure. I mean, fif- you said, you know, maybe he'll see it at 15. Chances are he'll see it at eight or nine. You know, most kids are starting to get curious about this, you know, i-i- in a very innocent and natural way. You know, we are sexual beings, and there's nothing wrong with that. And so that genuine, innate curiosity leads us to wanting to look at it. Like you said, I mean, imagine if you were eight, nine years old and you had a cellphone and you went into your bedroom at night. You know, you would be looking at all kinds of stuff as well. And so the accessibility is a huge issue, not just for young boys, for young girls as well. I mean, young boys are watching this, but young girls are watching it and learning, quote, unquote, "learning about sex" through that. One, and one of my favorite quotes on that is people say, "Well, it's, you know, people need sex education about w-what sex is like." And one of my favorite quotes is, uh, "Learning about sex by watching porn is like trying to learn how to drive by watching The Fast and the Furious." It's just a really poor kind of example of what healthy sexuality and healthy intimacy looks like. Um, and so it is, it's just a very pervasive thing, whether you're 10 years old, 15 years old, or 50 years old. You know, guys in their 50s and 60s can get equally addicted to this. And so it's a, it's a very big issue and one that sadly we don't talk about enough. Well, you spent some time... I, I don't quite know how it was. W- did you graduate as a Buddhist monk? Is there like a graduation, or is it just you go through a certain amount of training? Can you talk a little bit about that? And also, what is, like- Yeah ... um, uh, Buddhist monks, I know from when I was in Thailand, they're not even allowed to touch women if, if I'm, if I'm remembering correctly. So I'd imagine they're- Yeah ... completely celibate Yes. Yeah, they completely celibate. Buddhism, so first it's important to understand there are many different forms of Buddhism. You know, Buddhism in, in the West, you know, in places like the UK and the US is very different from Buddhism in Thailand, which is very different from Buddhism in Japan or China. Um, so there are many different forms of Buddhism. And in many ways, Buddhism at its core is not really a religion. You know, there's no God that, you know... It's, it's not believed that the Buddha is a god that you kind of pray to and he's up there watching you from, from heaven. Buddhism at its core is really more a philosophy of life, like how to live in a way that brings more happiness and fulfillment, and how to live in a way that reduces the suffering you experience. So it's really focused on that. The Buddha was just a person, just a, a normal guy like you and, you and me, who started to examine his mind and look at the factors of his mind that led to a sense of suffering and the factors of his mind that led to a sense of dissatisfaction and, you know, what led to happiness. So in, in terms of, like, becoming a Buddhist, you know, it really depends on where you're practicing. You know, certain things you can, like ... But essentially to become a monk, uh, you, you can go to certain countries and you can ordain as a monk. Essentially, you give up your possessions, you, you know, shave your head. Fortunately, I had that part covered already, you know, it was quite easy for me. And then you, you take on the vows of, of being a monk. And you ... In, in some traditions, it's meant as a lifelong commitment where you ordain as a monk, and the idea is that you're planning to spend the rest of your like- life as a monk, monk. But in many cultures, temporary ordinations are very common. So for example, in Thailand and in Myanmar, a temporary ordination is, is not just an okay thing, it's actually very celebrated. It's almost seen as like a rite of passage for young men to go spend a month at a monastery, ordain as a monk, spend a little bit of time living in that way. So that's what I did, um, later in my life. I spent many, uh, many days and years before that going on retreat. So these 10-day silent Vipassana retreats, these are things you go to and you spend 10 days, no reading, no writing, no talking, no journaling, no electronics. You're not making eye contact with other people. You're really just being with yourself and your own experience and practicing mindfulness 24/7 for anywhere from five days to 30 days The standard one is about 10 days. So that was really my, uh, kind of my background was more of these silent meditation retreats, and I started doing them first when I went to India, and kept doing them about once a year, uh, throughout my life. Um, but I did ordain as a monk just for, for a month while I was on a month-long silent retreat in Myanmar. Wow. So, uh, I'll, I'll pause there. I imagine... I don't know if that answered your question. No, that's amazing, Jeremy. So I, um, my, my college girlfriend was from Thailand, and, uh, she was the one I spent the first couple of months after college when I, I traveled with her in Thailand. And she, both her brothers, um, were telling me they did that. They, I think for about a month, they, they lived life like a monk, and it just... It's like you said, it's a rite of passage, but also she was from a very wealthy family. Her parents owned resorts. So you can only imagine how great that is for the sons of a very wealthy man to have that humility and live that kind of life where they just give up nothing, and they're... I think they were begging for food and just... Or they, they, you know, beg for food. They get given, given food, but they literally have nothing for a month. I think that's so great. What about in terms of just, I'd imagine... So I'm very tied to my... One of, one of my big struggles, Jeremy, is I work in real estate, and real estate, if you're successful, is a bit of a 24/7, 365 days a year. You know, certain holidays are slow, but even when I travel, and I love to travel, I do tend to work a few hours a day because it's, you, you always have certain amount of deals, and for everyone buying and selling a, you know, a million dollar building or something, it's the biggest transaction of their life. You can't just say, "I'm out, I'm out of touch for three days," you know? So one of my biggest struggles is, is trying to... Is I leave my cellphone downstairs and I'm outside with my son, but my, as soon as I relax, all these thoughts pop in my head. You know, "Oh, I forgot to text this guy back. Oh, I never replied to that email," you know? And one of the reasons I love podcasting is you and I can have a conversation, my phone's off, and just be pr- There's so f- there's fewer and fewer times in Western life where you have this kind of, you know- lack of interruption where you can actually connect with people. Even when you go out, you know, you see people at dinner where everyone's on their phones, and you, you see it all the time. So what is it like to, to have 10 days where it's not just you're not looking at screens, it's you're not talking, you're not reading? I just can't even imagine that, but I think... I'm just thinking out loud, as a reset to your, I guess it's your dopamine or whatever it is, it must be so good and healthy just to calm everything down and just reset everything to baseline. It must be so healthy for you. It's so healthy, and it is so good, and it's also the, the most horrible experience you'll ever go through. I mean, yeah, a lot of people when they first hear about it, they don't think too deeply about it. They think, "Wow, that must be so relaxing," like 10 days you just... But the, the problem is it's 10 days of nothing to distract you from the craziness of your own mind. You know, you're not journaling, you're not checking the news, you're not checking your notifications. You're just there with your own mind, which can be, you know, a horrible place to be sometimes. And so it really forces you to learn how to be with what's happening, how to be present for your life, and it is... I mean, it's incredibly rewarding. It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. It's why I did so many of them. Incredibly valuable but also incredibly challenging. Uh, so i- if anyone does have the time to do it, I highly recommend, you know, planning it and, and taking that time out of your life. It's worth its weight in gold. I mean, every little bit of time that you can take to go on a retreat and learn how to be with yourself, uh, will return to you tenfold in terms of what you get back with y- self-awareness, the amount of self-discipline, just all the things that you start to learn about yourself when you go on a retreat like that. But it's incredibly challenging a- and in part just because of how busy the lives are that we lead, you know? Constantly feeling we need to be connected. Oh, but I can't go away for, I can't go away for 10 days. I can barely go away for 24 hours without feeling like I'm falling behind, right? And the problem is if we live a whole life that way, it's not a, a very healthy way to live a life where we're constantly in a state of crisis and in a state of panic of did we forget to send the email to someone? And so it teaches you how to drop into the present and how to just be where you are rather than always thinking into the future The, the closest that I came to that was I ran a marathon in Antarctica, and I went there to run a marathon, but actually had an incredible week. It was my wife and I, and we went with two... It was two other couples. So, and we didn't know them. We met them when we went there. And they were both, one was from Israel, one was from United Arab Emirates, and they were both incredibly successful, um, entrepreneurs, very, very wealthy. And one of them had a company with 10,000 employees, and he was so happy because he had a week with no cell phone. No one could get a hold of him. And he said he didn't realize how stressed he'd been, but on the last day, he was just dreading the fact that he was gonna-- we're gonna fly back to Cape Town, turn our phones on, and just get inundated with these messages. And so he said after that trip, he said he's gonna try to go one, one, one trip a year where he just can't be... He can't get service if he tries, so it forces him to have some kind of isolation. But I just got s- And we, we... There was so much connection between the, the six of us because we were just so isolated. So I went there to run a race, but I got so much more out of it. I just got a real appreciation for human connection and not being... So it's, it's like, it's a very poor man's version of a, of a 10-day silent retreat, but it was that same kind of thing. So I can only imagine what you get out of it. One, one thing about you, Jeremy, is your energy. I can... I'm a big believer in People's energy, I'm learning to listen to it more and more. So for instance, I'll give you an example. I had a guy that screwed me over in real estate in 2020, just b- um, just after COVID happened. And when I look back at the relationship, we were, we were business partners. He invited himself to my wedding even though we never hung out socially, which was a bit awkward. But, uh, he, he was one of those guys where after he screwed me over, stole a bunch of money, left me with five years of lawsuits and all these headaches. When I analyzed the relationship, I realized that every time I was around him, there was some energy where I just wanted to, to, to conclude whatever business we had to, whatever discussion, decisions we had to make, and then I wanted to get as far away of, uh, uh, of him as I could. And it was the weirdest thing because he used to tell me, he's like, "Oh, yeah, I talked to my kids about you, my business partner," and they're always like, "Oh, when can we hang out?" And I'm... He's like, "You gotta come to the house for dinner." And I would always be like, "Yeah, sounds good." And then I'm thinking in my head like, "No, there's no way." But I couldn't tell what it was, Jeremy, because he had everything right on paper to be, to be my partner. He was in construction. I was the money guy. He was the, the builder. And I was just like, "What is wrong with me?" I was like, I, I thought there was something wrong with me. Like, why, why don't I like this guy? And of course, when everything happened, it turned out that he was just a, you know, just a nonstop liar and a shady guy and a selfish guy and, you know, had no character or backbone. When all that stuff came out, I realized like, that's something I have to listen to. So even just connecting with you, I can tell that I don't know how easy it came, but you're an incredibly centered person. And I guess what I'm so curious is, one of my really good friends is a, he's kind of mo- modern-day philosopher, lives in Perth, Australia. And he's always telling me, he says, "Happiness is found in being very calm and not being emotional." And I'm, as my wife likes to joke, my son and I are both fire signs, so we have like a big temper, but we'll yell and, and then two minutes later we're fine. We get it out. Whereas there's other people where they'll just brood silently for like two days. Whereas we just, you know... My son's the same. Like, he'll yell at me, I'll yell at him, and then five minutes later he'll come up, "I love you, Dad." I'm like, "I'm sorry." I'm like, "I'm sorry too." We just get over it, you know? So I'm trying to be much more even-keeled. Do you think you're a lot happier being so centered because of all the internal work you've done? A thousand percent. A thousand percent. I, and just to go back to what your friend said about, you know, what really leads to happiness is being calm, not being emotional- Mm-hmm ... the nuance there that I would maybe add, just my own personal opinion on this, is it's less, it's not about not being emotional, but it's about the inner calm or the inner peace, regardless of whether outwardly it looks emotional or it looks centered. It's the, the inner tranquility, the, the kind of the sense of inner peace and inner groundedness that's more important. You can have some people who are very extroverted and emotional, but there's a sense of, of, of groundedness within that emotional expression, if you get what I'm saying. Right. So it's not about the lack of emotion or, you know, is someone look like a kind of a monk who just never talks and is, has this Buddha smile on all the time. It's about that sense of inner peace and inner tranquility that you can sense. I mean, you talked about this, like you can sense that in people. Mm-hmm. And there's a little part of you that even if they have it on paper, even... And, 'cause there are some people that seem calm on the outside, but, you know, your spidey senses can be kind of tingling, like something's a little bit off about this person. And usually it's because there's some inner battle that they're masking. There's some- something that they're hiding or concealing. And so, you know, I think it's really, it's the inner work, the inner peace that's, uh, really important. There, there's a concept in Buddhism that I absolutely love, and it's lays the foundation for a lot of the work I do personally, and a lot of the work I do with my clients. But it's a concept called the bliss of blamelessness. And what it is, is this concept of when you're living a good life, when you're living a life in alignment with a set of values, an ethical framework, when you're not cheating people, you're not harming people, you're not harming yourself, there's a bliss associated with that life of blamelessness, where you can walk down the street with your head held high because you know you have nothing to hide. You can look somebody straight in the eyes and have a conversation, and you don't need to look away because you know who you are and you know you're living a good life. Mm-hmm. And, and that life of integrity is worth more than any amount of zeros in your bank account. It's worth more than any kind of title in your business. That sense of groundedness on the inside, the bliss of blamelessness, is so valuable, and it's what most of us really want, is to feel at peace inside. Mm-hmm. You know, to be comfortable in our own skin and to know that we like who we are and we're living a good life. So a- a- and that, it just takes training. I mean, that's what Buddhist philosophy really is, is how to cultivate inner peace and inner fulfillment So, I'm so glad we connected. So I gotta tell you, when I, I grew up in a, a very unusual household in the sense that my mom is from the south of France on the Italian border, which is very Catholic. So she grew up Catholic, but she wasn't super practicing. They sent me to a very Christian, uh, school growing up because it was a very good academic school, and I could walk there. It was down, it was like half a mile up the road. And, but it was, it was very religious. Like, I had to go to church every other day. We'd pray in the morning, pray in the evening. But even as a young kid, I remember arguing with the priest when I was like nine years old, like, "Where's the evidence for God," basically. So I realized that I wasn't, I just, I just... You know, you can't fake it. As a young boy, I just, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't believe in Christian values. Then I loved, I guess I loved Asian philosophy. As a teenager, I'd, I'd read widely. And then when I was in Thailand the first time, I was y- I was 22, and I ended up, I don't know how I ended up there. I ended up at a funeral, and I was chatting to this older Thai lady, and she took a liking to me. And after we were talking a little bit, she said, "Stay here. I wanna give you something." She came back with a beautiful book on Buddhism, and at every page, on the left was Thai, on the right was English. And I remember I read it on my trip. I was in Thailand for two months. And I thought, "This is such a great framework for living my life." So for the longest time, I said, "I'm a Buddhist." I loved the Buddhist philosophy of non-attachment, and for many years I believed that. And then I got to the stage where I became a dad, and I had my son, and I read from some Western philosopher, and he said, "The problem with Buddhism is, and the idea of non-attachment is you can, you can have nothing and not be attached, but the purpose of life is to have attachment and lose them and to suffer." Like, that, that was his argument. He was like, you know. And I think about that now, the way I live. Like, I know I'm gonna have a lot of pain in my life. It, I just, I- but I believe that I'm gonna have a richer life than if I just Renounced everything and said, "I don't wanna have a girlfriend. I don't wanna have kids. I don't ha- I don't wanna have any attachments. I don't wanna have anything that can hurt me." So I guess that's my problem. Yeah. I still believe in a lot of Buddhist philosophy for happiness because I s- precisely because kind of what you said, I see the other side of it. I see these people with zeros in their bank account that are unhealthy. They don't have a, they don't have a quiet mind. They're miserable. They're just, you know, chasing the wrong things in life. So I do... I, I love that philosophy on, on Buddhism, but I just have such a problem with the attach- the non-attachment thing. Yeah. Fantastic. I love these questions because there are so many misconceptions about, about Buddhism because we, we get it filtered i- in through, you know, kind of movies and, and media and, and we get these ideas, oh, Buddhism means giving up all your possessions and not being attached to anything. And, and the truth is, you know, the, the reality of what Buddhism kind of is about is much more in alignment with what that Western philosopher was talking about, that it's not about giving up all your possessions and becoming a monk in the mountain. Like, there are some monastics who choose to do that, but 99% of, of Buddhists are laypeople, people who live, you know, uh, i- in the world and have jobs and have families. And what it's really about... You know, the story of the Buddha is really fascinating, just historically kind of what his life was. He started as, as a prince in this village- Mm ... and he grew up in this way where his, you know, his family kind of just showered him with pleasure, and he had courtesans and music and good food, and he was shielded from anything negative. And he realized that, okay, that's, that's not satisfying. There's a whole world out there. So he actually left his princedom and went to be an ascetic in the forest and wander with these kind of traveling ascetics where they starve themselves, and they meditate for 12 hours a day, and they become skinny like skeletons because they're fasting all the time. And that is the path of complete renunciation, of, of n- complete detachment, pushing everything away and saying, "I don't want any possessions." But the Buddha realized that also didn't lead to a fulfilling life And so what he realized is what's called the middle path. That was actually what was kind of revolutionary about his approach, is he realized pushing everything away doesn't work, but neither does completely indulging in our sense pleasures and just thinking, "I just need more pleasure all the time." Mm. And he said, um, the middle path i- is the right path, where there's nothing wrong with enjoying food and enjoying sex and en- enjoying music. It's the attachment to needing it to be that way that causes suffering. Mm. And so you can have music, you can have money, you can have a family, and you can even kind of care for them, but it's this feeling that I need to keep it this way forever, and I need to only have good things happen, and when bad things happen, then I, I lose my inner peace. That's what causes suffering. And so the real i- insight of Buddhism was having this equanimity of understanding that anything that arises passes away. Anything you gain will eventually be lost. I mean, it's inevitable. At some point you will die, and you will lose everything that you have. And so trying to hold onto and grasp onto it, the grasping is what causes us suffering. Mm. The, the, the feeling it, it can't go away. Whereas the real inner peace is having kind of a healthier relationship of understanding just the way of the world, that things come and things go. There's, there's another concept. I just l- there's all these amazing concepts in Buddhism that I love. There's one called the eight worldly winds, and it's a beautiful teaching. It's basically there are these eight things that happen in everyone's life, the eight worldly winds, these winds that pass through everyone's life, and they're four pairs of opposites: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute, so fame or having a bad reputation. And these eight things, these eight pairs of positives and negatives, happen to everyone, and you can't control the winds that come into your life. You can't control when you get praised or blamed. Sometimes y- you could give a perfect seminar to a room of people, 99 people might praise you and say, "What an amazing seminar," and one person might blame you, and you can't control that, right? So trying to control the winds is what causes us so much pain, thinking that we can only have pleasure and praise and, and gain things and, you know, have a good reputation. But learning that, okay, things come and go. Sometimes I gain things, sometimes I lose things. And we can still try to, you know, gain things. Of course, we want things to be pleasurable, but it's the, it's the feeling I, I need it to be this way in order to be happy. That's what causes suffering. Oh, that's, there's so much wisdom there. Thank you for sharing that. That's one thing I've really been... Th- there's a bunch of really good, like, Netflix shows on biographies. So a lot, a lot of my friends are like, "Oh, you've gotta see this show on Arnold Schwarzenegger's life." It's like a four-part series. Then there was a recent one everyone's talking about, you gotta see this, the Hulk Hogan show. I was never like a wrestling guy, but I just, I just watched the Hulk Hogan one a couple of days ago, and you see this guy who was, like, beloved by everybody, then he was hated, and you just, uh, you... I see that cycle again and again, you know. In MMA, Conor, Conor McGregor was, like, always winning and on top of the world, then he's gone through this crazy slump, and then he had these scandals, everyone hated him. You, and, and it just makes me think, whenever I see someone who's winning at life but they're incredibly arrogant, I always- I'm so sad for them because I know that a fall is coming, because it always does come. So, uh, that, that's something that I'm well aware of in my own life, that when things are great, I feel like I'm riding this beautiful wave of life, but I know that the ride's gonna away and I'm gonna fall in the water at some point. It's gonna happen, and I'm trying to be more- Yeah ... I'm trying to not tie my happiness to those things. Um, I'll give you a silly example, but I know maybe you can shed some light on this, Jeremy. So I'm a very disciplined person. I try to exercise every day. I work hard every day. I try and spend time with my family every day. But in the summer where I live, I'm a 40-minute drive from my friend's house, who built a house on Lake Michigan, and he has... It's not a private beach, but it's basically a private beach, and he has two paddleboards. So now the weather just started to get, to warm up here, so I'll get up early, work out, work maybe in Chicago for four or five hours, drive home, pick up my son, drive there, and we'll spend the afternoon on the beach and I'll go out paddleboarding, and I'm just so happy. He's on the beach playing. My wife gets a break. No screens. I'm out in nature. I'm paddling. I'm just like, "This is life." But I have n- that's in the s- in the summer. I have nothing like that in the winter. In the winter, it's really cold in the Midwest, gets dark really early. I don't have any escape like that, and I hate the idea of, of me living for a season and not enjoying all the seasons. You know, I wanna... I wish I was a skier, for instance. My friend lives for ski season. So I'm trying to figure out how I can enjoy my life regardless of the seasons, but I know to an extent, kind of what you said is, there's always gonna be highs and lows. And I guess wisdom is being happy regardless of where you are in these different cycles Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you nailed it, but you also brought up a really, not a conundrum, but it's something that, that confuses a lot of people. It's-- There was, there was this, uh, really famous Buddhist teacher, Suzuki Roshi. He, he was one of the very influential peoples, people who brought, uh, Zen Buddhism to the West. He, he started teaching in California, this old Japanese meditation master. And so he started teaching in, in San Francisco at the Zen Center and he started giving all these talks, and this one person who had been coming to his teachings a lot raised their hand and said, "Suzuki Roshi, I just don't understand this Buddhism thing." He said, "Is this a path of kind of becoming the best version of yourself a- and learning how to be the best version of yourself and who you are and cultivating all, like, the best qualities and letting go of bad qualities of yourself? Or is this a practice of learning how to love yourself just the way you are and not try to improve yourself? Just learning this deep acceptance of, oh, I'm, I'm already okay, and I don't need to improve myself." He said, "It's-- It seems like it's both, but I don't get it." And Suzuki Roshi said this beautiful reply. He said, "You're perfect the way you are, and there's still room for improvement And I love this 'cause it, it, it doesn't really answer the question, but it points that both can be true at the same time. And what I mean that for you is, like, you can also say, "Yeah, I don't wanna spend the winter in, in Chicago because it's cold and miserable, and I wanna actually be somewhere where it's sunny and, and I feel the warmth of the sun, and I can go outdoors." And that's an okay desire to have. There's nothing wrong with that desire, and there's nothing wrong with taking the steps to move your life in a direction that brings more, more joy and pleasure in that way. Mm-hmm. And at the same time, when you can't control it and when it hasn't changed yet, to be at peace with that, to not lose your marbles or lose your shit when it's not the way you want, not to not lose your inner tranquility or your inner balance thinking, "I shouldn't be in this cold weather. It's... Ugh, I've messed up in some way." You know? So it's the balance there of do what you can to improve your life, and when it's out of your control or when it hasn't improved, can you also be at peace with the way things are? That's so fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. It kind of reminds me of something that I've been going through the last few years where from when I was about 22 to 44, all I was doing was pushing myself in every aspect of life, like competing physically and trying to make money and, and trying to establish myself. And the last couple of years, I've taken a step back. I temporarily retired from all physical competition, I guess you'd say, and I've been really just almost relishing... I have a friend text me, like, oh, you know, a picture of, of one- me at one of my fights 12 years ago. And I'm like, "Man, I did that." That feels like a different person. Like, I was a badass, you know? Now I'm like a peaceful, loving dad, but, you know, I was a fighter back then. And I've been, I've been almost relishing looking back at some of the things I've done, almost like it's another person. But I guess that's kinda what I'm struggling with, is the idea of if so much of what drives us as people is we think if we do the action, happiness will result in it. And I realize that- I definitely got a lot of happiness through the, the challenge and the striving to do difficult things and things that scared me. But at the same time, do I have to do that for my whole life, or have I done enough of that and can I just enjoy the small things in life and I don't have to keep pushing it? And what I keep going back and forth with this dilemma, I'm sorry, this is, this is therapy hour for me Jared. I'm trying, I'm trying to pick your wisdom here, is I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out is how much of that is me just being a... kind of being lazy, like be- being inwardly lazy, not pushing myself like I used to, and then trying to, trying to square the circle of I got a lot of happiness from pushing myself and doing things that scared me, and I shouldn't say just because I'm in my mid-40s that should all stop now because I've achieved a certain amount of success and I'm a, I'm an old dad now. So I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out is I like to think, I love the philosopher Naval Ravikant, and he said, he said, "If you're, if you haven't lived a life where you're happy, you're not an intelligent person." Meaning like, uh, I think he said it a bit more eloquently, but the, the idea is if you're smart and you're miserable, you're not really smart, 'cause if you're really a smart person, you're gonna craft a life that gives you happiness. Um, and I also love his other, his o- his, his other expression where he said, "A cal- a calm mind, a fit body, and a loving family can't be bought. It has to be earned." And I'm a big believer in that too. Like, the things that are really priceless, like you talked about, like all the effort you spent to get that calm mind, there's no billionaire that could buy that. That had to be... That was won by, you know, 10, many 10-day silent retreats and all the incredible stuff you did to get to where you are. So I love that too. Yeah. I guess that, that, um- Yeah ... I, I don't know if that makes sense. I'm kind of feel like I'm rambling, but- Yeah. No, no, I love it ... I'd love your thoughts on that. Yeah. Yeah, I, I love what you're saying. I mean, a couple quotes come to mind. Um, one is from the Buddha and one is from Eliud Kipchoge, who was the, the first guy to run the su- sub two-hour marathon. Mm-hmm. And so he, he has this famous kind of viral Instagram reel going around that says, "Only the disciplined ones are free. Only the disciplined ones are free." And it... What he means is discipline is actually one of the things that leads to inner freedom and happiness because we're not just, you know, slaves to, you know, just following our desires. And the Buddha said something very similar. It... There's a, a quote from the Dhammapada that said, "A disciplined mind brings happiness." And a lot of people just think, "Oh, these external things will bring me happiness. The billions of dollars will bring me happiness. The sitting on the beach with a margarita will bring me happiness." It's a, a disciplined mind brings happiness. And, like, to really understand, you know, you could be a billionaire and miserable because you haven't learned how to discipline your mind. But the, the other thing I'll add is you can exert discipline and it won't necessarily lead to happiness if you're not smart about it. In the same way that Naval Ravikant says, you know, it's, to be, to really be smart means to be disciplining in a skillful way. You know, 'cause you can discipline yourself to make more millions of dollars and you can discipline yourself to get a six-pack in the gym, but you might still be miserable if you're always focused on what you don't have yet. If you, if you constantly feel like, "I need more and I don't have enough yet," i- if you never learn how to cultivate gratitude or appreciation or patience or contentment, then no matter how much you discipline, you'll never be satisfied, 'cause you'll always think, "I'm not there yet. I'm not good enough." Mm. There's a, a Buddhist teacher, a Western Buddhist teacher named Tara Brach. She calls it the trance of unworthiness, which is this feeling, this trance that we fall into that we feel like we're never good enough. No matter what we do, no matter how many fights we win or races we get our PBs in, no matter how much money we have, we never feel like we're good enough, and that's the trance of unworthiness. So part of living a skillful life is learning how to love yourself and say, "I am good enough, and there's still room for improvement, and I still know that pushing myself brings me joy." Yeah, th- those two things together. That, that's one thing I've noticed is if I'm happy, I tend to be happy basking in all the hard work I've done in the many years preceding today, and I'm l- a lot less driven. But if I'm at my most accomplished, I guess you'd say, I'm not the most happy because I'm, I'm striving so much for more. So that duality of being happy and centered and proud of yourself and loving yourself, and also there's more . That's such a beautiful thing. I mean, that's... The fact that you shared that with me is, is incredible. Jeremy, let's talk a little bit about porn addiction. Um, anyone that's listening to this, like you said, it's kind of a, it's not what, uh, I'm sure a lot of people would wanna admit. But if people are suffering with it, can you talk a little bit about how you overcame it, how you help other people overcome it? Because from a purely evolutionary perspective, the fact that things are available so easy to us is just, it's, it's against everything that we've evolved to be. So I, I do, I really do feel for kids today growing up with technology. I think it's, it gives them so many more problems than you and I grew up with. You're, you're seven years younger than me. So how old were you when you got your first cellphone? My first cell phone, I think I was in high school. I must've been 14 maybe And that was probably like an old school Nokia phone, right? It wasn't a smartphone. Yeah. Yeah, I think smartphones came about- Around 2000 when I first was, was going to college. Around then Gotcha, so you're a bit older. Okay. Yeah, it's just that the- Yeah ... the thought of... I- I know there's that move- movement, I'm forgetting his, the, the author. Um, I think Jonathan Haidt maybe, The Anxious Generation. He- Mm-hmm ... he's trying, trying to start a movement saying just don't give kids smartphones until I think they're 17, 18. Um, 'cause so many parents- Yeah ... they're like, "No, no, m- I have to let my kids contact me," and they give, you know, a 10-year-old a smartphone and they, who knows what kind of rabbit holes they're going down. But yeah, I'd love to kind of- Yeah ... pick your brains on, on the porn addiction, and also not just 'cause I'm sure a lot of it is gonna be not just porn addiction, but addiction in general. Just, you know, unhealthy habits- Mm-hmm ... that so many people have. Yeah. A few things to say about that. One, this can be applied not just to porn like you said, but to, to any kind of unhealthy compulsive behavior. And it might be porn for some people, it might be video games, it might be social media. You know, just the compulsive use and constant engagement in Instagram or, you know, Twitter, whatever it is that people do. But it could also be anything else. I mean, sometimes for some people it's work addiction, you know, kind of getting just sucked into work and not being able to have a healthy relationship with it. So it can really be anything. Regarding porn specifically, though this does apply to everything else, one of the things that makes it really hard to work with is that a lot of the consequences of watching too much porn are very subtle and hard to detect unless you know what to look out for. And so this is why there are a lot of guys out there who have this feeling of, "What's the big deal? It's just porn. It's not harming my life. You know, I've been watching it since I was young and it hasn't seemed to affect my life too much. What's the big deal?" And so a lot of guys just don't even notice the ways that it's harming their life because the consequences for many of these things are, are subtle, they're long-term, they're downstream. They're things that might build up imperceptibly day by day, but over the course of 5 years or 10 years have a really profound impact on your life. So just as an example, you know, the, the subtle, the subtle ways it starts to erode your dopamine signaling. You know, it's, like you said, it's not a natural substance we would find in nature. It's what we call a super- supernormal stimulus. In nature, you would never find that kind of intensity of dopamine, uh, where you can just sit there for hours pushing the dopamine button and constantly having, you know, that variation, that novelty to sit there for hours and hours without ever getting bored. And it can just completely fry your dopamine system, which a lot of people don't know this, dopamine is not just... A lot of people think dopamine is just involved in pleasure, it's what gives you that sense of pleasure. The truth about dopamine is it's, it's much more involved in motivation than anything else. Which it's also involved in your motor functions. I mean, just the motivation to move. requires dopamine. And so at a very kind of visceral level, it's the desire to do things, the desire to move or get something or accomplish something is what dopamine is about. It's the wanting. And so when you screw with that wanting, this is why a lot of guys experience this feeling of apathy after a long porn binge. They feel like, "I have no motivation- Mm ... to accomplish my dreams, to work on myself." And it's because you've screwed your dopamine up and you don't have the motivation to accomplish things anymore. So I just, I really like to highlight that a lot of guys aren't even aware of the consequences because they might not know how to look for them. Mm. And that's what you're see- you said about it, you lose your motivation. I think that's wh- on all the studies saying young people are just, you know, so many of them haven't had, you know, people i- people in their 20s haven't had sex in over a year, and they, they just don't have motivation to date. Probably a lot of that is linked to just staying home and looking at too much porn and just losing that motivation to live and, you know, go out and meet real women. Yeah. It's, a- and it's com- it's partially that. It's also partially the fact that porn is a risk-free way to, quote-unquote, "get your needs met." I mean, you basically, you can sleep with any woman you want to whenever you want to and have any position you want to without taking any risks, without the fear of rejection. And it's, you can do it from the comfort of your own home. Whereas going out into public and approaching someone and saying, "Hey, I think you're beautiful. Could I get your name or your phone number?" Is incredibly scary for these guys, and they'd rather not risk that humiliation. And so it's easier for them to get a false sense of their needs met. So there, there's a lot of things wrapped up into why it's screwing with them, but also the ways that it... This is one of the things that I was noticing. The way it screws with your perception of intimacy. It screws with your expectations of what bodies are supposed to look like. I mean, it gives you the most unrealistic expectations of, of bodies. You start to think that everyone I sleep with should look like a porn star who's 20 years old, you know? And then you get into real life and you realize, oh, people have zits and, you know, body hair, and sometimes they fart and- Yeah they have a little bit of cellulite and, oh, it's, it's not this kind of unrealistic expectation. So that can also creep in. The other big thing that porn really damages is when you get addicted to porn- One of the things you're getting addicted to is novelty. You are training your brain that what gives you a sense of dopamine, what gives you the sexual excitement that you're looking for, is seeing something new or seeing someone new. Because very rarely do guys watch the same porn video over and over for years, right? They think, "Oh, I need a new video. I need to see a new girl. I need a new scene." And your brain starts to learn that, oh, what, what sexually arouses you is something new. And that makes it very corrosive for building a long-term, deep, fulfilling relationship with one person. Because after a while, you start to think, "Oh, well, you know, my brain for the past 10 years has been telling me that what really excites you is seeing something new." Mm. "So I don't want the same old person day after day." That can be another one of the harms. That, that's so interesting. Y- when you were talking, I just had the memory of just before I met my wife, I was on... It was just when online dating was kind of becoming a thing, and I remember I was in my old apartment, and I just was swiping on one of the dating apps, and I swiped, like, you know, 100, 200 women or something. I'm just swiping. I'm like, "Ugh." And I just remember thinking, "This is so messed up." I was like, we evolved in small towns. You know, I'm from England. You know, my ancestors probably grew up in a small town where you pretty much knew everybody, and there was probably a handful, if that, of eligible women to marry, and you had a choice of five, and you pick one, and that's it, you raise your family. And now we're in this stage where you can just, in 10 minutes, swipe hundreds of women's faces, and it's just, it's so... It just f- I remember, I remember the feeling just like this is so, it's so against everything we evolved to do, and it's messing with my brain. I remember that distinct feeling. And then I see my friends now. I would have thought, if I hadn't talked to them, my single friends that are in their 40s, they, you know, they're pretty successful. They look good. They have some money, and they- they're successful with their careers. I would think, man, they'll be cleaning up on the dating apps, and they'd have all these hookups and what. And it's the opposite because what every guy thinks they're so cool because they're talking to six different women, they don't realize that a good-looking wom- woman has 100 guys messaging them, and it's just all this chaos and noise, and it's just, it's so unnatural and unhealthy. And then you throw on top of that, and I don't know if you do a lot of work with this, um, with your helping men with porn addiction, but there's some crazy statistic that, um, of the young demographic of women, there's something like, you know, 10 or 15% or maybe it's more on OnlyFans, and it's... That's a whole nother thing, and I was chatting to one of the girls that was on OnlyFans on my friend's boat, and she was telling me, she's like, "Yeah, I have so much anxiety because I make all this money on OnlyFans, but it's not even me. It's some, some- someone in Asia who's pretending to be-" Bot center. "... who's," yeah, "who's chatting to all these, these guys," and she's like, "I have so much anxiety that every time I go out, there might be someone that thinks they've been talking to me for months and months, and they see me out, and they're like, 'That can't... I was just talking to her two minutes ago or 10 minutes ago.'" And it's just like, man, like, that just speaks to... 'Cause OnlyFans is so interesting because it's, there's all this free porn, so you realize that so many men are not as- they're not after the f- the physical release of, of, you know, jerking off to porn. They're after the, the human connection, and they're missing that, and they're just so lonely, and that breaks my heart. You know, I've- I, uh, I had a friend of mine, he said, "Lawrence, this girl wants to see this million-dollar apartment. She's a friend of mine. Can you show her this place?" And I'm like, "Okay." And I meet this girl, and later on I found she made a fortune through OnlyFans. But I was talking to her, I'm like, "Hey, you know, have you spoken to a lender?" She's like, "Well, you know, I already have a place I bought in Miami." And I'm like, "Oh, you bought a place?" And went, "Oh, no, I'm renting the place." She was like all over the place. I'm like, "I don't think this woman can even get a loan." So I was like, you know, I'm kind of wasting my time here. Then I found out that one of her clients is like some prince in Malaysia, and he's just sending her like hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. You know, she's making all this money. And you think, God, it's just, it's so sad that so many men are doing that. I just, it... What's so interesting, um, Jeremy, J- do you have any kids? No. No? Okay. So one thing about being a parent that's really changed for me is you start thinking, you start worrying about things that you don't worry about for yourself because maybe you've overcome it. Like, I don't, I don't really worry about myself getting addicted to porn because it's not really been a problem historically. But you start thinking about, well, what happens if he has a problem with porn? Or what happens if, you know, every, every girl that, eligible woman is a, an OnlyFans girl when he grows up? You start, you start having all these worries based on the way society's going. And I guess the, the OnlyFans thing in America is, is, I feel like it's a huge problem because there's so many... Talking to my single friends who I think are catches, they have a lot of good qualities, these, these women just expect a guy who's charming, and intelligent, and good-looking, and successful, and loyal, and in shape, and generous. And they're just like, you know, the completely unrealistic ex- expectations. And then I'm sure, like you said, on the male side, you know, especially if they're looking at porn, they want every woman to be physically a 10, and they want them to be charming and funny and, and nice to hang out with. And it's just, I feel like I see it both with my wife's single friends and my single friends. I think a lot of them have so many... They, they want everything, and they're not looking at themselves. And my wife's a therapist, and she's always s- saying to people, she's saying like, "Stop focusing on what you want and start focusing on what you can give." You know, like, "How much of, how much are you offering to a potential partner? The more you can work on yourself and you become a real catch, then you're gonna attract the person that you want. But if you just focus on what you want without focusing on what you can give in a relationship, you're probably gonna end up really struggling to meet somebody." So again, I feel like I'm rambling here, but I just, I just think it's such a, it's such a tough environment, not just for the... I, it's a tough environment for young kids growing up with, with access to porn and all these other things. But I just think the platform of OnlyFans in America is, is really causing dating a lot of, a lot of problems. Yeah. Yeah. OnlyFa- I mean, it's not just in the US, it's, it's a worldwide phenomenon. I mean, it's, it's all over the place. And like you said, a lot of these guys, it, it's quite, it's quite insightful, you know, that a lot of these guys could have free porn- Yeah ... you know, instantly, but they choose to pay because they feel like they're having a real connection. And it shows that what a lot of these guys really want is that sense of connection. And I think that's really important to understand. You know, we're not here to, to demonize m- porn watching, you know, but to really understand it and say, "Okay, what is this telling us about, you know, what's missing in a guy's life?" Because that's what addiction is. Uh, are you familiar with the Rat Park experiment? Mm. Have you heard of that? Not sure. I don't think so. Okay. I'll, I'll explain it to, to your listeners and to you 'cause it's a f- phenomenal, uh, kind of, uh, experiment. They were studying addiction back in the '70s and '80s and, you know, kind of looking at how addiction works, and so they would put these rats in cages, and they'd put a bottle of water with morphine inside of it. And they found that these rats sat there and drank the morphine water and got so addicted that they would not do anything else. They wouldn't go exercise. They wouldn't eat. They wouldn't do anything. They just sat there and drank the morphine water until they collapsed and sometimes died. And it just showed how powerful addiction was. But this one researcher had a really interesting insight and, and said, "Well, these rats are living in these miserable conditions, these cages with no friends, no exercise wheels. It's not a natural environment. What if we put them in something like a rat park?" So they got them addicted to the morphine water first, and then they placed them in a rat park which had other rats to play with and to interact with. They had running wheels where they could exercise. They had greenery and shrubbery. And they found out that the rats barely touched the morphine water after that, that when they were living a fulfilling life and getting their needs met, addiction didn't have anything to sink its teeth into. Mm. And that i- is a really important lesson for anyone struggling with addiction, is that the addiction itself is not the problem. It's a sign of an underlying need that's not being met or some underlying issue that hasn't been addressed. And if you want to break free from addiction or compulsive behaviors, it's not about just stopping the behavior. Because if you never address the underlying reason why you developed the addiction in the first place, you could stop the behavior, but you'll just reach out to some other coping mechanism. You might stop watching porn and then develop an addiction to, to junk food or to e- escorts or to dating apps or anything. And so the real way to approach addiction is to say, "What's underneath this?" You know? "What's at the root of this behavior?" I, I have heard of that experiment. I just didn't know what it was called. And it- that's fascinating. It's so true. I'll give you a story. Shout out to my buddy Brad. I remember I went through a tough breakup, and I was... My buddy Brad said, "Oh, you'll be fine, Lawrence. Give it a bit of time. You'll be fine." And I said, "Well, why are you so sure?" And he said, "Because you're doing all the right things. You're still working hard. You go to the gym, you exercise, you eat good food, you see your friends. You're doing everything right. So it's just a little bit of time. You'll get over it. You'll be fine." And sure enough, he was right. And that's, that was so insightful to me. Whenever I go, you- like we talked about, you know, the highs and lows of life and the ways of life, when you're going through a tough patch, as long as you keep doing the right things, you're gonna get through it, and you'll be okay. But the problem is, is when you stop doing the right things and you, you spiral down, and that's when you go into really dark places that it's hard to get out of. And it's, that's so insightful about any type of addiction. It's not that you're addicted to the porn. It's m- it's more so that your life is out of balance, and you're not getting happiness and fulfillment in these other ways, and, and so you're seeking it in, in addiction. So I think that's, that's really... That, that's actually very inspiring advice for people that are struggling with addiction, is just try to spend more time doing things that we all know is positive, you know? And I don't know what it's like in Thailand, but I know in the US there's a big issue with... The, I think the strongest correlation between happiness is how, especially among males, is how many friend-friends you have. You know, close male relation- you know, relationships. And that's something that I moved to the US 25 years ago, and I think through the different careers I had, through trading, through martial arts, through real estate, through life, just people I met in life, I've been so blessed with meeting so many awesome people that I, I ha- I don't have enough time to hang out with all the friends that I want to hang out with. And I always think that I'm so lucky to be in that position, just having met so many wonderful people, 'cause I know there's the other side of that coin where people, you know, maybe they're in a bad marriage for many years. They get divorced, and they never really nurtured any relationships, and then they're in their 40s, and they just don't have any close friendships, and I can't imagine what that's like. So that-that's one thing. You know, you used to do jujitsu Jiu-jitsu is so interesting as a, a t- analogy of my life, Jeremy, because I've been doing it for 25 years. And when I started doing it, I hated jujitsu, but I had a dream about fighting in MMA one day, and I was a boxer. So I was like, "Well, I better learn jujitsu so I can survive." Then I retire from fighting and I'm like, "Well, I still want a competitive outlet, so I'm gonna do jujitsu because of that." And now when I go to jujitsu, it's because I want a break from the stress of my life, I want to see my friends, I want to do some exercise that's fun. Like, it's... So I'm doing the same thing for years, but the reason I'm going there is changing, and it's some- the, the community around jujitsu is something that I never even realized until you start seeing people that just have so little, little friendships, and you realize how lucky you are to have this, this circle of friends where a lot of the time it'll literally be a couple of minutes after training, a little chat here and there in the change rooms and when you're showering. But it, like, nurtures me. Like, I, I had a big fight with my son a week ago. I lost my temper on him. He was being a little monkey and I just lost it on him, and I felt really bad about it. And I went to the gym. I was teaching. It was in the morning, and I was teaching a class at noon, and I saw one of my friends with two older kids, and I was telling him about it. And he's like, "Lawrence, it's fine. We've all been there." And it was just like, oh, just took the weight off, you know? Like those, th- those little things, they're so small. Like, it's... And that, that's actually another reason I love, I love podcasts like this. Like, I'm gonna re-listen to this, and you said a few quotes, and you're just talking, and in 20 seconds of you talking, I'm gonna think about what you said for months. Like, there's so much distilled wisdom in there, and I'm so grateful we connected for this. But there, there's, there's so much power in that, and, um, I'm just, yeah, I'm just, I'm really grateful that- I've, I've been around so many wonderful people, and I'm also grateful to have the, you know, a podcast where I get to c- connect with people like you all around the world. Um, I think it's awesome. I gotta pick your brain on Thailand a little bit, because coming from Europe- Before you go to Thailand- Oh, sorry ... just 'cause I, uh, it's, it's so important what you just said, and it, it's... I just wanna speak a little bit about the, the community piece and the social piece, because that is so, so valuable. It- it's something I feel similar to you, you know, that my, my exercise and kinda the sports and communities I have around... Like, it's Wednesday morning, and, you know, Tuesday nights is my night to go to the track, and I love it not just because of the runs that we do on the track, but because of the community that shows up there every week. And it feels... That's the main reason I look forward to Tuesday nights so much, is I love the people who go, and I love just being around those people who are living healthy lives, and that sense of community and connection. And also, in the porn recovery process, and in any kind of recovery process, one of the reasons that in my program, the main thing that we do in my program is the weekly calls with the community where guys just get together, and it's a chance to get support and to open up. And so many times people tell me just showing up and listening, they have that exact experience that you, you described where you said somebody says, "Hey, man, we've all been there. You're not alone. Like, you'll get through it." And that, knowing that you're not alone, knowing that other people have experienced what you're going through, that alone does so much of the healing work on its own. Just to know, "Oh, I'm not alone. You guys have been there before also. You've gotten through it. Oh, okay, I'm not alone in this." And that, that's more powerful than anything. So I just wanted to highlight that, 'cause it's, it's such an important part of not just of recovery, but just life in general. Like you said, the connections that you have, the friendships, it's invaluable Uh, and I'm a big evolutionary guy. I remember when my brother was... My older brother was young, when we were kids, when he was I think like late teens, he had a bad breakup, and he went down this rabbit hole of just reading everything about human psychology to kind of understand women. But he started reading a lot about evolution and evolutionary biology. So he read, I mean, he read every book out there, he- and he gave me the, the top 10% or whatever it was. So I read, you know, 40 or 50 books on this stuff. So I find it so fascinating. But if you think about how we evolved, we evolved to be, you know, to, to pair bond to raise kids, but we would go off, men would go off and hunt together, and you'd, you'd just be a- be around men and you'd, you'd be away from your family. And I think about the l- you know, when I was on the trading floor, there was 150 people packed in this tiny space. We're all... We were competing against each other for trades, but we were also became brothers. And it was such a weird environment. You have... I was in my early 20s when I moved to Chicago and I was on the trading floor, and most of the average age there was probably mid-30s. There were older guys. And the, the, the friendship we had from just being so, like, intimate, like they're, they're literally, you know, I got a guy each side pressing into me. I've got a guy's butt in my, in my crotch. I got a guy's belly in my back, you know, 'cause you're all pressed in there. And, you know, in the downtime you're all just talking nonsense and, and bonding, and it's just... And then you get the same thing from, from combat sports, from fighting. Even though when you go to the gym you're competing against people, you're trying to kill each other, y- that, that's some of the strongest friendships that develop from that. So I just think I've been so lucky to, to be around so many, like, you know, alpha-type personality men that are just been s- just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful humans. So I think that's awesome. The reason I was starting to say in Thailand is because I've, I read a lot of books as a new parent because I felt like I n- wasn't around younger brothers, younger cousins. I wasn't around... I didn't know the first thing about being a parent. So I read a lot about parenting, and I read a lot of books on parenting philosophies from Europe, and it was so interesting how different they are to, to US. And also just coming from Europe, living here, I see there's a lot of similarities, but there's a lot of different things, too. So it's something you being a, an American guy living in Thailand, there must be some things that you've, you've taken on as, as the way you see the world or, or the philosophies that you, you put into your life, the way you see life, that are very different to how we are in the West. So I'd love if you could talk a little bit, share some of the wisdom on, on... There's a reason that you moved to Thailand. You're a smart guy, you know. You, you, you saw a, a, a... You, you're gonna flourish in that environment. So what is it about that environment that you love so much? 'Cause I love the Thai people. I think they're some of my favorite people in the world. I've been to Thailand five times. I love, I love hearing the Thai language. I love the climate. I love the food. I love the history of Thai boxing. I love everything about Thailand, but I'd love to hear some of the, some of the- Yeah ... you know, I've never lived there, I've just traveled on vacation Yeah. I lo- I love living in Thailand. I mean, I- if I had to boil it down to maybe the number one thing, um, th- there's a bunch of reasons why I love living here, and I, I can go through a couple of them, but one of the most important is just the sense of safety that I feel. I mean, for me, living in a place where I feel safe, where I can walk down the street without worrying about, you know, somebody, you know, coming at me with, with a gun or a knife. Thailand is the safest country I've ever lived in. You can be man or woman, you can walk down any street at 3:00 in the morning in one of the biggest cities in the world, and you don't have to worry about anything happening. I mean, it's just the culture of safety here, of knowing that it's not a violent place. I mean, even, even petty theft, like you can leave your laptop on your table in a cafe and you can go out to lunch, you know, for an hour and come back and your laptop will be sitting there. Thai people do this. Whereas in the US, to think about leaving a multi-thousand dollar laptop on a cafe table and walking out for a couple hours and coming back, it just doesn't happen. Um, I come from the Bay Area where there's a lot of... You walk down the street, you, you park your bike and lock your bike on a, on a post, and all the bits and pieces will get stolen. You know, you'd have to I remember you'd have to actually remove your bike seat because if you didn't take your bike seat with you, somebody would steal your bike seat. So, um, for me, the, the safety is one of the big, uh, reasons But you can feel it in the people as well. There's a gentleness here. Mm-hmm. There's just a sense of, of kindness. I mean, they call it the Land of Smiles, and it really is a friendly place. Um, on top of that, I love the food. I love spicy food. Like, if I don't have something spicy in my meal, I feel like I haven't eaten. So the food is amazing, the weather's amazing. The cost of living is also a huge thing. I mean, in the US, you know, I, I don't make a lot of money in my business, but I'm very happy because I, you know, I have enough to, to live very comfortably. Whereas in the US, you know, I would have to make probably five times or 10 times more to live just as comfortably. And so the... What that does to my nervous system, where I know that, hey, I can actually... I don't have to make a million-dollar company, I can just live a, a normal peaceful life and still get my needs met and live comfortably. Um, and then of course the nature. I mean, there's, there's so many things I love about living in Thailand. The other thing I'll say, this is just total side note, we can geek out about, uh, this little thing. When I tell people I live in Bangkok, if somebody hasn't... Even if somebody's come to Thailand, when they hear Bangkok, they think skyscrapers and rooftop bars and parties and people going on, you know, bachelor parties and just having a crazy wild night. And that's what a lot of people's experience of Bangkok is when they come for two or three days to visit as a tourist. But life here as an expat is almost 180 degrees from that. The people who live here, you know, for the most part, it's really healthy people. It's entrepreneurs, people who like going to run clubs. There's HYROX gyms, there's Muay Thai. I mean, the, the number of gyms and cold plunges and saunas and places where you can get healthy food that tracks your macros, I mean, it's just amazing for living a healthy lifestyle. Mm-hmm. Um, and it's one of the reasons I love it. There's so much physical activity, and it makes it so easy to live a healthy lifestyle also. So one thing I, I've had some great times in Bangkok, and I've never, I've never been s- I went to Thailand five times. I've never been as a single guy, like partying. It's, it's always been different kind of trips. Um, it is still a huge city with some pollution. So what, what is it about living there as opposed to living in, you know, Chiang Mai or one of the other places where it's a bit less- Yeah crowded? So I lived, I actually lived in Chiang Mai for three years, um, three and a half years almost. And that's... So when I first moved to Thailand, I lived in Bangkok for a year, uh, teaching mindfulness at this school, and then I ended up moving to Chiang Mai and teaching meditation there for, for three years. Chiang Mai is a wonderful place. It, it's one of the most amazing... For people who haven't been to Thailand, it's up in the north in the mountains, so it's not a beach destination. It's more, you know, mountains and elephant sanctuaries and temples, and it's still a massive city. I think it's the second biggest city in Thailand, but it's a much more peaceful, slower paced life. You don't get these kind of crazy party vibes up there. The, the subtle downsides to Chiang Mai, the biggest one is the, it's called the burning season, where the pollution just gets incredibly bad every year for a few months because of all the agriculture on the area burning their crops. And this is not just from Thailand, this is also from Myanmar and, you know, all the surrounding countries and all the pollution. It just gets hazardous, like really bad pollution levels up there. So it's not a great place to live year-round because of that But the other big issue for me is that healthy lifestyle component. Mm. I love... My number one hobby, you know, it's almost like my, my whole life is, is the gym. Exercise, HYROX, paddle, you know, all these things, and Bangkok just has the best infrastructure for... There's just gyms everywhere, and people are living healthy lifestyles. Chiang Mai is a bit more of a kind of a slower, you know, maybe digital nomad, backpackers- Mm ... people figuring their lives out, going for a couple weeks to go on a retreat. Bangkok is... it's a first world, you know, city. Yeah. It's more modern. You know, it's got the best hospitals in the world, it's got movie theaters, big grocery stores. You can just live a... A, you know, I'm here in, in my beautiful condo right in the center of the city. I walked outside my condo, you know, five minutes away is a amazing cafe where I got my, my flat white, and after this I'm gonna head to the gym, you know? And it's just, like, it's a really lovely lifestyle. There's parks, run clubs, um, and, and you just don't really get that as much in Chiang Mai. And then the islands is a whole different story. Islands are a great place to, to go on vacation, but living there, it's, you know, it's, it's not a real life. It's like a playground for adults. Totally understand that. What about, I remember back in the day I'd always hear people, they would get a three-month tourist visa and then go to one of the, you know, Laos for two days, and then do the, well, the passport run. You've been there for many years. H- how have you done that with, uh, you know, the immigration status? How- Yeah ... difficult? Yeah, when I first came there... So first I was on a work visa when I was working at the school, and then when I went to Chiang Mai I was actually on the education visa. Um, and so actually I went to class and I actually learned how to speak Thai, so I can speak Thai fairly well, um, because I was on the education visa and actually going to class and learning how to read and write and speak. Now they actually have something incredible. It's called the DTV visa, and what it is, it's a five-year visa and it costs $300 to get. And it's not open to everyone, but there, there's a lot of different ways to get it. I'm on the entrepreneur, business owner version of the DTV, so if you have any kind of business on your own. Um, but you can also get, like, a, a Muay Thai, uh, DTV or a cooking DTV. But essentially you get a five-year visa- Wow ... and you just get to come in whenever you want, and every stamp gets you six months. So every six months to a year you have to leave and come back, but it's a very easy process. So, the, uh... Yeah, in almost every country there are ways to, to, to make it work. Do, do, do you think far out? Like, do you see yourself retiring in Thailand? Do you even think that far, or do you just kind of take it year, year at, year at a time, you know? I take it more a year at a time. I- there's potential I could see myself living here long, long-term. The only question for me is, um, I do wanna have kids someday, and when that happens, I, I'm not sure exactly where I would wanna live. It would really depend on, on a lot of things, the state of the world. And I would want... The one downside to Bangkok is, um, limited access to nature very close. There's a lot of nature within a few hours away. Yeah. But in terms of, you know, 10 minutes outside your backyard you're on a mountain, that's, that's not really possible. Chiang Mai it is. I mean, Chiang Mai, one of my apartments, I was 30 seconds from a trail going up the mountain. So there's a lot of places in Thailand where you can get nature, but Bangkok is not one of them. It's, it's so interesting. One of my very successful, he's actually a very successful Bitcoin guy, and he lives in Colorado with his wife, and he called me a couple years ago. And he was like, "Lawrence, I just figured out the secret to life. It's six months in Colorado, and then when the weather's not great, I'm gonna have a place in Asia." And I was like, "That's great, but I have a, a son in, you know, he's just starting school, and I've got two dogs, and it's not... You can't just, you know... I got, I got things tying me down," so it makes it a bit less difficult. So I'll say to you, because you don't have a family yet, I think it's amazing you're doing what you're doing, and I think it's really great that you're only looking one, one year at a time because there, there's no point in planning when, you know, things like you said, the state of the world can change so much. One thing that, like, I bitch about the Midwest winters, but I think I have the perfect setup in the sense that I work in Chicago primarily, which is an hour drive, and I'm on the phone for work, so it's not really a, a commute that I hate, and I live on eight acres on a street with two good friends on the same street, and one of them owns a jujitsu school where my son trains at, and I'm 40 minutes from a beach. I have backyards. My, my eight acres goes into just woods behind me, so it's not like I have... I have, I essentially live on about 30 acres. You know? Uh, in front of my house is farmland. It's very peaceful. So it, it's got a lot of pro- positives. And I guess bringing this conversation full circle, I realize that you're never gonna... There's always gonna be pros and cons to everything in life, including where you live, and so you have to just be happy with the pros. And like you said, you had a couple of cons of, of Bangkok, nature not being on your, on your back s- you know, back door and things like that, but in general, you've made an amazing life there, so I, I think it's really cool. I... One of the things that's so cool about this, Jeremy, is we got connected, and I'd like to think that maybe we can share a dinner in Thailand or maybe you can take me for a workout one day, 'cause I know it's only a matter of time before I'm there, which is so cool. But before we wrap this up, and thank you so much for starting your day with me. It's been such a pleasure. Is there anything that you wanna talk about that I missed that's kind of passionate, passionate, you know, for you? Uh, honestly, it, it was a fantastically fun conversation, so I don't think there's anything I missed, um, or anything we missed. Uh, if anyone's interested in, in, in kind of learning more about the porn addiction stuff, just, you know, to know that I have my own podcast called Unhooked, um, where they can get more free resources about how to break free, so. But aside from that, I mean, that was, that was a, a fun conversation. Well, I, I'm so glad we connected. Stay on the line so I can chat to you after, but, uh, I'll put links to everything in the show notes and, uh, anyone that's listening that wants to be their best selves and they're looking for someone, I, uh... You're the real deal, Jeremy. It's, it's, I'm really glad we connected. I get there's so many, you know, people out there trying to be coaches, and you can tell they're kind of, you know, they've never really got it together and they're just trying to fake it before they make it or whatever it is, but you have such an awesome backstory and you can tell just the way your energy is and, you know, your centeredness and your intelligence and your, I mean, everything. You- you're the real deal. So, uh, I'm really grateful we connected, and hopefully, you know, you're gonna keep thriving, and I have no doubt, no doubt you will. But I really appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you as well. Thanks for having me on.