 I wanted to get one, but I couldn't think of a good reason why I just spent $1,200 right now. I just felt like it wasn't a priority. Plus, they're getting so much better, like with every model. Yeah, exactly. It's it's it's I have a selfie stick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. They won't ask why I actually have one in my bag too. The same company DJI just came out with this little thing called the Osmo. It's like this little handheld, like a ball camera. And I've heard it's kind of good. Nice. Thank you. It's all stabilized. Yeah, three axis gimbal. 5488. And it's 4K. Really? And like water resistant. But I'm thinking like the next one should be full waterproof. And like all the bugs will be worked out. So I don't want to get this first one yet. I'm so tempted because it's only 650. Just get it man. Live a little bit. It's like a three axis stabilized gimbal. It's so hard to get a good shot of yourself. How's that? That's pretty good. I mean, I don't want to look too needy, but I do want to see who's. If you keep your hand just like that, you can't even tell you're holding it. Well, you don't have to. You don't have to do that all the time. It's a lot of work. Let's do it like that. There we go. That'll work. Something like that. That's actually pretty good. That's not bad. It's good. All right, cool. Actually, you're pretty... You can just put it up there. And you can just reach down 15 minutes into it and just stop it. It's okay. You just want to... If you're watching on periscope right now, lots of hearts go heart, heart, heart, heart, heart. Let us know that you're here and just write in where you're watching this from. We'll be on for the next 10, 15 minutes. Shall I try to move it up? Yeah, yeah, move it up. Now we're going to find... So wallets are four right? Well, it's out that thing, right? There you go. Perfect. Great job. Is that all right? Cool. I love this stage. That is legit. Too legit to quit. Too legit to quit. You can quit, I guess. I don't think I'm ever going to wear any other glasses. Every time Mark video messages me, he always hits the glass, I'm like, what are these two fucking glasses you're wearing? Why are you wearing these? It's too hot in the afternoon. Now I understand. It's easier on ice. Wow. Oh, it's so painful. Keep me out of the light. Oh, my God. This is going to make me a snob, too. Are we starting? We're on. Let's go. Welcome to the Rich 27 podcast. We're back with our friend James Swanik. And we're matching today with our glasses at least. They look good on you, too. Thank you so much. So James just gave me... Okay, so just a quick backstory. If you guys haven't watched... I don't know what episode this is. It's episode seven or eight. You can talk. This is seven. Six was the one you guys were talking about. Episode six is with our mutual friend Mark. And Mark talked a lot about sleep habits and nutrition and total body optimization. And he talked about these blue-blocking glasses. And James has a company that makes these glasses. And now I'm wearing them and I don't think I'm going to take them off. I'm glad, man. Guys, I don't want to pimp this too much. Where can they get these? Yeah, if you go to swanweeksleep.com. You can grab them there. You can follow it on Instagram as well. Swanweeksleep. S-W-A-N-W-I-C-K Sleep. This is like blatant product placement. Right at the beginning. No, the thing is, if you take these glasses off, the whole world looks a lot harsher. Really, it's nice. It's a joint. Okay, okay. Let's get to the actual... Let's get to the nitty-gritty now. No more plugs. No more plugs. Alright, James, where do we meet? Maybe two years now? Yeah, I think we were introduced by Manish Satie, the creator of Pavlok. He's a good friend of ours. I feel like I'm always wearing my friends' thing. I have a Manish tattoo on my arm, wearing your glasses. This is becoming a trend, and I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with it. I just take a little piece of it on my friends. Well, you've surrounded yourself with the top people. It's obviously rubbing off on you. Obviously. Manish introduced us. Then, depending on how long you've been watching this podcast or reading my stuff, following me, but I actually did an interview with James when I was working at this show called Lit TV, and we talked a little bit on that broadcast about his beginnings, but a lot of you guys haven't seen that, so I want to take it back and rewind a little bit. James is a former ESPN Sports Center anchor, and he has an incredible story about how he got to that point, and I just want to get a little bit background on you, James, and kind of like how you got to this point. Sure. Well, I'm... Australia Energy can tell from my funny accent. What? Yeah, I'm crazy. I was thinking, Rich, obviously from Scotland. Obviously. So, yeah, I grew up in Brisbane, Australia, and I was a newspaper reporter journalist from age 17 through 23. I hustled my way into a copy boy position when I was 17 and then went through the ranks. 23, I moved over to London. I was a sports journalist there. I moved to Los Angeles in 2003 and started interviewing movie stars, celebrities like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, and started setting those interviews back to Australia and England all over the world. Created a PR company, lost that in 2008, 2009 when the whole financial world went into Armageddon. You know, I went down to Argentina and Columbia in the Spanish-speaking countries. Maybe it sounds so cool. Everything is just so breezy for you. Well, hang on. I did run away to Argentina after I lost my PR company, so it was more like I was going there to lick my wounds. It wasn't a vacation. I mean, it was a vacation, but it was more like just get me out of this life. I got to go and just chill out and try to learn some Spanish and dance with some Spanish-speaking girls. That still seems a little bit... It still seems pretty breezy, but okay. And then, yeah, 2010, I became a sports centurator on ESPN. I also quit drinking alcohol. I wasn't a big drinker, but I just decided to quit for 30 days. I felt amazing, and then I just continued on. Now I'm very much focused on my health and optimizing my life and productivity and being living in this fine country for 12 years and long may it continue. Didn't you officially become a dual citizen? I did, yeah, two years ago. It was pretty funny at the ceremony. They make you renounce your... I thought you were a dual citizen, though. No, I am a dual citizen. Well, hang on. In the eyes of Australia, my native country, I am definitely Australian. But in the eyes of the American government, I'm only American. So in this naturalization ceremony, they make you stand up and say this thing. One of the lines is, I hereby renounce my citizenship to my native country. And as I said this, I had my fingers crossed behind me. I'm like, I'm not giving up Australia that easy. Psych. Yeah. That's very American. I feel like that's extremely American of us. Yeah, I know. It's like, you are no longer Australian. And now what of us? You pledge allegiance to the plug. If you actually recite the American pledge and you really think about it, it's kind of creepy. It is. But I tell you, I did pledge allegiance to the flag, but I'd also continued to pledge allegiance to my Australian heritage. Is there like an Australian pledge? Well, no, there isn't. I was born in Australia. Oh, you mean if you go and you become a citizen? Yeah, I think it's got to rattle off like the Australia's greatest sports athlete to name them and what, having runs they scored in cricket. If you can get that right, they go, yeah, you're one of us. They'll give you six beers and go, if you can drink six beers and you're one of us. But they don't have like a thing that like school kids do every morning? Is that just an American thing? Well, yeah, at school assembly, they'll play the Australian national anthem and raise the flag. You guys do like, we have to do the whole thing. We're like, hand on our hearts every morning since starting at five years old. I pledge allegiance to the flag. We're not as strict as fucking cultists. And if you don't, there have been a lot of instances where if you don't do it, people get really upset. And if you put the American flag on the ground. Don't ever do that. It's like the worst thing ever, right? Never. I mean, people will come out in their Ford F-150s and they'll just terrorize you. It's a fascinating thing, isn't it? I mean, it's good marketing, I'll tell you. The American government is doing a great job at marketing the wonders that is America. But do you watch that TV show, The Newsroom, with, yeah, in the opening scene of that whole series, that Jeff Daniels plays this anchor, he just rips into America, right? And he says, we're like, who says America is the greatest country in the world? We're like seventh in literacy. We're like the fattest nation on Earth. We owe like more money than any other civilized nation known to man. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. And he was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's un-American. But it's true. And it's fact. But let me say this. This country is amazing. And it's been so good to me. I love it unreservedly. But the American government does a terrific job at feeding Americans that America is the greatest country in the world. And it isn't on many levels. On many levels, it really is not. On some levels, it absolutely is. But marketing, great job, American government. I feel like America is one of those football dads who was like high school or a college superstar. And then, you know, like, eventually he slowly got a little bit older and fatter. But he was still talking about the glory days. And maybe he could still even bust the move once in a while. But, you know, like, we know. We know that China is getting older and, you know, into adolescence now. We know that other countries are well surpassing. Yeah. But I still get chills when I sing the Star Spangled Banner. No, you don't. I really do. Australia has an awful anthem. It's not very, you know, it doesn't get to stir your emotions. But the Star Spangled Banner, absolutely. God saved the Queen and the Marseille. Is it the Marseille? What's the French national anthem? I mean, black people get chills for the Star Spangled Banner too, but for different reasons. Slightly different reasons. We were also naturalized. At least half of my community was. You know, one of your stories I like the most, and I think that people can relate to, you had this period of time where you just moved from, because you moved from Brisbane to London to the States, right? And then there was this period of time where you were in a hostel in Redondo, or Hermosa. Hermosa Beach, yeah. So Hermosa Beach is in California here, and James had just moved to the States, and you were, because you made it sound really, people fucking hate when you're like, oh, I just moved here. I started interviewing celebrities, and then I really was going to start a PR company. We made a couple of million dollars, but I wasn't real sick of that. I was doing Argentinian. People don't relate to that shit like that. I want to know about the nitty-gritty struggle. You were in the hostel, and things weren't working. What was the one on that? So you want to know the struggle? Yeah. Okay, well, let me tell you. The struggle started about a month before I left London when my girlfriend broke up with me. Oh, okay. And that was really the trigger and the catalyst for me to come to America in the first place. This is the one with you. Give us the emotion. Anyway, I had to get out of London, and I was like, oh, man, I'm so depressed over this girl. So I flew to Los Angeles on September 30th, 2002. You remember it? I do remember it, because it was the Australian rules grand final night, the Australian football year grand final night. And I flew in and I went to the cock-and-ball pub on Lincoln down there in Santa Monica. I knew exactly where that is. And I went in. It was full of Australians, right? Because they're all Australian expats in Los Angeles, all watching this Australian... Fantastic every day. Yeah. And I went in there and I just made some new friends, Aussie friends. And these two guys said, oh, there's a party down in Hermosa Beach tomorrow. You should come down. I said, okay. Now, that night I was sleeping at the Monaco Hostel paying $15 a night. Anyway, I went down to Hermosa Beach. It's about 40 minutes south of Los Angeles Airport. I checked into the Surf City Hostel, which is right on Peer Avenue there on the beach. And I went into a bunk bed with six other snoring backpackers from around the world, where I lived for the next 90 days and 90 nights paying $15 a night. I worked on a job site up in Bel Air with these Australians who paid me $75 cash a day. And during that time, I was like, how the hell am I going to live in this country long-term? How am I going to make this happen? So what I figured out was, I've been a journalist. I've been a reporter. Hollywood in Los Angeles is where all the celebrities are. Let's figure out a way that I could interview movie stars and make a living from it. So what I did was I reached out to all these movie studios, Sony Pictures, Fox, Warner Brothers, and I just cold called them. Literally just cold called them and said, hey, I'm a journalist. I want to come and interview movie stars. How do I do it? One publicist from Sony Pictures returned my call and invited me to come into the studio. That's super rare. Very rare and meet with her. Her name was Anna Whelan in the publicity department. I went in there and she told me how it all works. She told me, you need to get a magazine who'll publish your story. You need to prove that you'll be able to get lots of readers who'll read the interview. This is how it works. And I went, great. So anyway, two weeks later, I come back from my job site. I'm all dusty and dirty from working on the job site. I'm in the hostel foyer and there's an internet machine. It's one of those old machines where you stick a dollar in and it gives you seven minutes of internet time. Do you remember this? This is like 2002. Not that long ago actually. It wasn't that long ago. Yeah, yes. And I get an email from this woman, Anna at Sony Pictures. And she says, hi James. It's Anna. We met two weeks ago. I've got an opportunity for you to interview Jack Nicholson next week for the movie Anger Management. Would you be interested? And I was like, hell yeah, I'd be interested. And two weeks later, literally, I went from the job site in Bel Air. I borrowed the construction van from my colleague, drove down to the Armatage Hotel in Beverly Hills on Burton Way. I went into the bathroom in the foyer level. I sort of splashed some water on, put a nice shirt on some other pants. Went up to the penthouse suite and I sat down with Jack Nicholson for 20 minutes and interviewed him about his life, his career. And it was amazing. And that was the beginning of me interviewing movie stars for about the next six years. That's amazing. You know, the thing I like about that is that, obvious, I mean, you didn't even have a family here. So what that kind of says to me is that all of us have the opportunity to have sort of like a lucky break. It's not like, because when you talk about your success now, people will say, well yeah, all these things preceding it, that makes it easier for him. But even in the beginning, if you really assert yourself, you can make your own luck in a way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for me, it was, I want to live in this country. I've got to find the way. I'm not waiting around for something to happen. I'm going to make this happen. So I literally just like, how can I do this? Where do I start? Okay, I'm going to start by making a plan. I'm going to call Fox, Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal Dreamworks, and I'm going to call and say, who do I talk to about this? Wait for someone to put you through. Try and convince the other person on the line. One person called me back. Sony Pictures. Oh, it took. And then because I managed to get that interview with Jack Newellson, I had to wait, I had to do the interview, had to type it up. I had to send it off to this magazine in England called Loaded Magazine, which is kind of like a British version of Maxim, if you like, right? I had to wait two months for them to actually publish the article. And then I had to wait another month for them to send the magazine to me in Los Angeles. So I could then walk it up to the Kinkos on Pacific Coast Highway, photocopy it 20 times, and then send it out to the studios that did not return my call. Fox, Warner Brothers Universal and say, hey, I interviewed Jack Nicholson for Sony Pictures. Here's my article. Would you like me to interview your stars and promote your movies? Next thing I know, I've got Universal on the phone saying, hey, would you like to interview Arnold Schwarzenegger for Terminator 3? Which was his final movie that he did before he became the governor. Then I had that published. Then it was like, oh, can you interview Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston for the movie Along Came Polly? And then it just got a snowboard from there. Now I was still doing the construction work for 75 bucks cash a day for like three, four, five months after I did that until that time where I started to get paid and started to get ball rolling. Then I said, I'm not going up the bell. I had to do that crap anymore. Now I'm going to do this. And then I became, you know, a full-time celebrity interviewer. That's so cool because I think that it's easy to underestimate the power of having one connection. We were talking earlier before we started shooting me doing this whole book deal thing. And even in that experience it's been just one or two key connections that have led from me having no influence or anything to me getting in a six-figure book deal. It's just like one or two key conversations. You don't need to have a network of a bunch of shitty people. You just need like one or two good people in your network. You really do. I mean, it's good to go out there and I don't like the word network. I like the word connect. It's good to connect with a lot of people but the quality or the caliber of the conversation or the relationship you have is far superior to knowing just a lot of people. And here's the other thing. The person who ultimately leads to the breakthrough for the most part isn't a really close friend or someone you've got an amazing relationship with. A lot of times it's just an acquaintance. It's someone that you just had a good rapport with on one occasion. Someone liked you. You got into a conversation for five, ten minutes or whatever and then you caught them up and said hey, I remember you were working in book publishing. Who was that literary agent that you worked with? Oh, Christy. You should talk to Christy. I'll connect you. Thank you so much. That'd be great. How can I help you? Well, you know what, I'm trying to lose a bit of weight at the moment as an example. You know what, my friend Mark Dahmer who has this amazing program, I should connect you with him. Maybe you'd be interested in that. Thank you so much. The rule of reciprocity comes in, right? One thing we know about human psychology is that, you know, when someone does a favor for someone we instinctively want to do a favor back for that person. So in anything in life it doesn't mean that you need to know 100 people to get ahead. You only need to know one person as long as you are genuine and you're connecting with that person and you're trying to help that other person they're always going to want to help you and that's where you'll get the breakthrough. That's such a good insight and I'm wondering now you were really like very hungry when you came to the States and you wanted to make things happen for yourself. Do you find that as you get more success you get less hungry or it gets harder to like reach really hard pupils? No, I think of anything I'm hungrier. Yeah, it's you know I'm in a really interesting phase now where I've just kind of broken the back of online marketing and selling information products and really helping people and the more success I get the more success I want to get and the higher my goals become. So if you can help one person all of a sudden you then want to help five people then you want to help 10 and 100 and 200 and so forth, right? You get one Instagram follower and then you want to get 5,000 I really want to get to 10,000 and then you get to 10,000 and you're like, not enough. It's not enough I need 12,000 tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. It's almost annoying sometimes for me personally to never be 100% fulfilled. It's a really tough situation because I had this conversation with a good friend of mine a while ago which was every win that you have, like every goal you see every win is also a lot which sucks because you get to that point right and then you're like hmm, now I've got to go again. What's the next goal? So you lost the satisfaction of having a goal to achieve because you just achieved it. Correct. And the intensity and the power is always for me at the highest point right before actually what I want. Right. Like when I was on Instagram 99.9 100,000 I know it's ridiculous. But you know it's interesting. There's a great book called The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Heimer. I haven't read it yet. It's amazing. It's probably my top three books and he says that done all these studies of the brain and people's happiness over time and this is one thing that's absolutely true you are happier chasing the goal and moving forward towards the goal and making progress towards the goal then you are actually achieving the goal. Human beings need to be making progress. Okay. So as long as you are going like this and you're always moving forward, you will be the happiest that you can be. If you're moving forward then you achieve the goal and then you're stuck there even if it's a million dollars right. Just use an example and you've got there and you stay like that, your happiness level will go down. In fact they've also proven people who win the lottery, they say they win 10 million dollars and someone who becomes a quadriplegic loses the use of their legs in a car crash for example. They've done studies that 6 to 12 months after both of those events happen, both of those party resort back to the same level of happiness they had from when the incident happened. So you might think that making 10 million dollars or having a huge win is incredible and yeah you're going to get a spike right? You're going to get a spike in your happiness level but ultimately that's going to come back down again. Likewise with the quadriplegic or the paraplegic I'm not sure what the right terminology is but depression for 3 months right? But then all of a sudden now you've got a goal to walk again or to at least have a you know some kind of control load. Yeah exactly as long as you're making progress your happiness level comes back up again. So it's not the goal it's not achieving the goal that gives you the most happiness it's as long as you're making progress towards that goal so just to sort of wrap that thought up the perfect way to live life really is to always be progressing in terms of happiness the perfect way is what I mean and not be so hell bent on achieving or not achieving the goal because even when you get that it doesn't give you this huge explosion of satisfaction that you think it does. That's so weird because just recently with the whole book thing which I can tell you guys more about later in another podcast I can explain the whole process and we talked about it a little bit. So I mean for years I wanted to do a book and then I got to the point where it was like it was possible I got an agent that was cool when we started doing these meetings I'm like this is really going to happen this might happen and the day that I got the close to the deal I actually felt a little bit sad because yeah I was like I was actually kind of depressed that day and it was a good amount of money and it was like a big accomplishment everyone was like are you pumped? Are you so excited? I was like and I was trying to think in my head what I feel better now if it was more money or what I feel better now if it was like if I was already in New York Times best selling what would make me feel happy and I realized it was more like the pursuit is very exciting so maybe that's something that we should realize before we're on our deathbed right? once you're on your deathbed you'll probably realize that it was never about the goal maybe start thinking about that now I mean I struggle with this I mean struggle not the right word but I go back and forth in my brain about what gives me the most happiness and sometimes I go through a phase where it's like I don't make enough money I haven't got enough people following me on Instagram my 30 day alcohol challenge isn't big enough yet at Dave Asbury's Bulletproof Conference this year that's not enough why haven't I got a TED Talk yet versus like you just spoke at Dave Asbury's Bulletproof Conference you've just changed the lives of hundreds of people to encourage them to reduce or quit alcohol you were a 1000 Instagram followers 2 months ago and now you're at 15,000 you wake up healthy your family's all alive it's not like I'm a healthy guy I eat well I can afford to eat good food I've got good education I can read books like this what else do you want we're so spoiled we're so spoiled right we sleep on a pillow top mattress the room is conditioned to the perfect temperature to wake up in the morning we're a bunch of pussies we used to sleep on rocks rocks and sticks and cover ourselves with leaves now I quibble at a water temperature that's too cold it's outrageous I've been taking cold shower for the first time today it was miserable I was fine were you the one who told me to do this you took the cold shower for the first time today well I mean not the first time in my whole life but like I'm trying to get into it so what I do, maybe it was marked down what Mark was telling me about it too what I do is I'll get in and I'll start at hot and then I'll go to cold at the end of the day were you criticizing me just now when you said it was your first time was that like a critical it was yeah it really was yeah because I would have thought that a man of such productivity and insight would have known this stuff I'm a pussy I don't want to do it it's not fun I've seen you deadlift 500 pounds check that out for me but you start hot though you start hot and cold well I've done all kinds Ben Greenfield is a friend of mine he says for fat loss the best thing to do is go hot cold so you get in the shower do 20 seconds hot and then 10 seconds cold 20 seconds hot 10 seconds cold he only takes cold showers all the time Tony Robbins the motivational coach always takes a cold plunge every morning if he's staying in his place to reduce inflammation it wakes you up it's really really good you know why it wakes me up because I was a little bit angry afterwards it's angry kind of woke me up well here's the thing the best time to take a hot shower is at night time because then you relax so you know when you take a steam bath you're like oh you get really sleepy in your time good time to take a hot shower is at night time but in the morning when you want to wake yourself up and you want to like get all the blood flowing through the system and you want to be energised in fresh cold water but it's no fun when you just go cold I always warm up I always start with warm and then I switch it on to cold for the last like 30 seconds and then I get out and I feel oh yeah it was good see Mark told me Mark told me to just put it on freezing cold and get in there and go yeah well that works as well mine's only half pussy so I put it on cold this morning and I was just trying to get my head in there trying to figure out how I was going to do it and I was just ah and Sarah was like are you okay I'm fine fine it's just cold water I thought I was with someone else but yeah I mean it's I think part of it is just like being able to mentally challenge yourself like first thing in the morning it's hard I did this already well here's some little productivity tips I've learned for first thing in the morning make your bed first thing in the morning right because it sounds so weird but there's actually a great YouTube video from this Navy Seal he went back to the University of Texas which is the Longhorn University of Boston and he was saying that all the Navy Seals the first thing they do in the morning is make their bed and what that does is that it triggers into your brain a win right away in the first minute success so now when I wake up I'll just quickly get up and I'll make my bed even though I'm like and so every time I walk back into my room now I see the bed made and the visual of that oh that's a win wow I'm efficient I've already done something exactly the other thing I do is I put my workout clothes at the end of the bed the night before I go to sleep so when I wake up in the morning I see the view of my clothes there's no way I'm not going to put them on I have to actually step over them to go and use the bathroom so there's no way I can't see it so I instinctively put my workout clothes on which 99% of the time will make me create the habit of going to the gym even on those days where I don't really want to go which is most is I mean for me I still go most mornings I don't wake up and go oh I can't wait to work out sometimes I like it but sometimes you have to force yourself to go well you know there's a little hack to that as well because what I get addicted to is not working out in the gym what I get addicted to is the hour after I've been working out of the gym when the endorphins are flowing through and when you're eating that breakfast and you're having that drink and so when I don't want to go to the gym in my mind I look forward an hour and a half two hours to that time and that moment where I've showered I'm exhausted but I'm making my breakfast or I'm eating that breakfast or I'm sitting out in the sun having a coffee or whatever it is post workout and then I'm imagining like this morning for example like what I got on today right I'm eating Daniel at eleven okay sorry at one I got these other things I want to make sure that when I'm doing that interview I feel amazing so it was a lot easier for me to like go to the gym this morning even though I could have taken a day off and right now I feel amazing I'm still getting the benefits of those endorphins it's true yeah I mean even with the even with jujitsu which I do every day every morning five days a week I a lot of times I'll get up and I'll be like you know I don't feel like getting choked today it's just not like top of my list but as soon as I get in there like it's into it like man this is really great I'm feeling like super strong if you're fast flexible I'm good about my life and you know I get home and then the rest of the day is set yeah yeah so I mean it always it always feels better you know once you get into it but it's not I think I think one of the take-homes for me on that is that sometimes you play mental games with yourself and it will help but sometimes you just have to do things just to maintain your consistency right you know sometimes you will be in the gym and it won't be an optimal day but you just go in there so you don't do it it's all consistency yeah like I mean I I since about five years ago when I quit drinking just for health reasons I became very health conscious like I started focusing on paleo and how heavy my weight should be and how often I should do it and sleep and all those kind of things the reason why I feel like feel so amazing today in terms of my physical health is that I've been consistent over five years and that consistency is at least four or five times a week exercising and the way I stay consistent is that the benefits of working out consistently far away you know not not doing it right and I get addicted it's not a it's not that I'm using the word addicted a little bit too quickly because it assumes that I have an addictive personality but I love feeling good all the time so much that I make consistent exercise a must it's not but should it's a must right it's a non-negotiable it's a non-negotiable if there's an important business meaning I'll skip it because I won't skip it I'll find another way to do it you'll make it happen I'll make it happen but the non-negotiable is daily exercise and because of that I feel great you know so it's kind of like I was just you know I have a YouTube channel James Swannick and last week I consistently put up a video every day then guess what Sunday Monday Tuesday it's now Wednesday I haven't put up a video and I'm angry at myself because I haven't remained consistent and because of that my viewing numbers don't go up they just stay the same so I know like you have to be consistent with everything consistency is king so so that's I'm curious now when you were talking about the Passover usually optimizing your health what's going on there's no drinking thing this is part of the movement that you're creating and I'm curious to know what this is what this is about well I was always just a social drinker you know I drank a few beers during the week a bit more on the weekend sometimes I get drunk and it was a lot of fun there was nothing too crazy I was not an alcoholic but everyone suspects that you are when you say you don't drink everyone's always so suspect there's stereotypes about Australians drinking a lot right and actually last time I was in Vegas I was hanging out with a bunch of Aussies and they were really good at drinking yeah we do drink a lot as a nation as a culture I don't know if that's everyone but damn yeah we do drink a lot and there were times when I drank a lot and it was fun as hell quite frankly however I got to about 35 34 35 and 40 now and you know I put on a bit of weight slowly but surely I got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired from hanging out I was sleeping 10 or 11 at night in the morning rather my skin was really dry I just looked in the mirror and I just felt really mediocre and average like I was just existing in the world that's almost worse than feeling bad feeling mediocre is almost worse because it just means you're not really trying at all right yeah so it was just it wasn't like it wasn't like I was so it's so terrible I was just blah like a 5 out of 10 and so I took a 30 day break well actually what happened was that I woke up with a hangover in Austin Texas right I was at the South by Southwest festival and I had two gin and tonics the night before only free drinks from the bar was a party going on I woke up had this terrible hangover and I and I went to have a hangover breakfast in an international house at Pancakes the IHOP the best place to do it and I went in there I sat down and in IHOP they have photos of the food that you eat on the menu and these big bright colors of like pancakes that make syrup and eggs and bacon and because I was hungover I had a headache and I was tired I was like oh that just looks horrendous and then I look over to the right there's a guy who couldn't have been less than 500 pounds right and he's just tucking into this all you can eat like pancakes I'm looking out the window there's a freeway on the right hand side it's dark and gloomy it's like 10 o'clock in the morning I'm like this is the pits man like this sucks and I was like I got a change here I'm pretty sure this is just life story so I was like you know what I'm just going to take a break from alcohol I'm just going to see if I can do 30 days I'm going to just go for 30 days and it was just to see if I could do it you know and so I just went after seven days I was like I'm sleeping pretty good here I feel a lot cleaner a lot better after 14 days I said wow I think I've lost a little bit away here day 21 I started getting up earlier on a Saturday and Sunday like 7 or 8 in the morning started exercising going to the gym and after 30 days I've lost 13 pounds of fat in 30 days and all I'd done was just stop drinking alcohol but it wasn't just not drinking alcohol it was I wasn't eating the late night burger or fries or the kebabs because you know you're doing an alcohol I'd saved all this money and everything was just like I feel pretty damn good right now so I went I'll see if I can do 40 days then I was like I wanted to do 50 days then after about 60 days I'm like you know what I'm starting to hang out with a high caliber of person now I'm starting to have deeper conversations oh my god I'm still attracting women and I'm not drinking and not only am I attracting women but I'm attracting like a high caliber of women I see where you're going there that was clever I see where you did there so I just kept going I just kept going and I went for I went for one year I was back in Austin I went into the Luster Pearl Bar on Rainey Street in Austin and I went in order to Budweiser I'm like I'm gonna drink this vampire I'm gonna celebrate one year without drinking and I went to get one year without drinking with a drink yeah that's right okay right to celebrate because I still equated the alcohol with celebration right yeah as society does and I went to put it to my lips and I smelt it it smelled bloody good it really did oh that smells good but something stopped me I just put it back down I slid it back over the table to the bar and I said you know what give me water ice and a piece of lime instead and I drank the water and I haven't touched the drop of alcohol since and I feel amazing since then I became a sports center anchor on ESPN I achieved that lifelong goal my health has improved I didn't know that the ESPN sports center thing happened while you were in the transition of not drinking so that was one of the reasons like I'm convinced I wouldn't have got that job if I if I had still been drinking not that I was drinking a lot but not drinking gave me so much more clarity and so much more focus and so much more energy that when the opportunity to become a sports center anchor on ESPN presented itself I went for it I had clarity energy focus and I just went I am gonna make this happen and I did it I wasn't waking up hungover like maybe I'll call that producer today or so no big deal if I get it or if I don't get it it was like I'm making this happen that's really smart do you find that in the beginning you were maybe lacking confidence because it's such a social crutch I mean massively I mean drinking alcohol people think they can't go out if they're not drinking they think you can't fit in if they're not drinking they think they can't walk up to a pretty girl if you're a guy and if you're not drinking so yeah I had those those doubts but you know what after like 30 days after like doing it and after just getting used to going out I realized it's all just in the brain it's all a nonsense that you like like I have more fun now I dance more I sing more I have the most fun of most people out of party what the most fun of anyone at the party I should say from not drinking I'm pretty sure that you're singing isn't as good with us my singing sucks quite frankly so you probably shouldn't listen to me singing anytime the point is is that once you realize you don't need it your whole world opens up you save money you have more energy your skin looks better here's a warning okay if you just quit drinking for 30 days you will get better looking I'm warning you you will get better looking so I'm warning you out there if you want to get better looking okay quit alcohol or if you don't want to say get better looking just keep drinking alcohol because it shows up in your face right it's a poison the toxic it's true and so you look weathered you get crow's feet the wrinkles in your forehead start to be more pronounced you just look old before your time I mean it drives you up one thing that I think even people who are going to drink I think you massively underestimate the amount of water you need to replace what you're dehydrating yourself of right I don't drink a lot but when I do drink I load up water beforehand and afterwards and Sarah and I do this too if we're going to drink that night we might drink a gallon of water first and then we might have our drinks which is we'll have a few drinks and then we'll just massively load the water afterwards and that for me has prevented any hangovers I don't get hangovers anymore in the past I have experienced I mean have you ever woke up from a night of drinking and your lips are just tight chapped dry crusty face you're just like oh what's going on I look miserable you know I looked great last night I look miserable now and your breath just feels like dragon's breath and just gross man your muscles are real sore but it's not because you worked out it's because you just feel like shit I mean it's not a pleasant feeling and the thing is you can have so much fun the night before just by drinking water or non-apoholic drink and then the beautiful thing is you wake up the next day and because you've been drinking water mostly you're refreshed, you're hydrated, your skin looks good, you've got energy, you've got clarity and then you can seize the day I think that's something that we were talking about before we started rolling was you get so wrapped up in the culture of needing to have a drink that you don't even get a choice as a young adult to decide if that's the best thing for you Well it's ingrained in your mind from a very young age it's like a rite of passage that when you turn 18 in Australia in Australia anyway there you go mate 21st birthday party drinks, lots of drinks lots of drinks, oh there's a wedding champagne romantic dinner almost like a bottle of wine now this is all fine but whoever said that you need the bottle of wine to have a romantic cantaloupe dinner whoever said you need champagne to toast celebration, whoever said that you need alcohol to be part of a tribe you do not need it but it's ingrained in our society it's ingrained in our culture by clever marketing companies who are always trying to reinforce this idea that if you want to fit in and if you want to be part of a community and you want to have pleasure and fun in your life then you must be drinking alcohol but I challenge that, you can have fun you can create pleasure, you can have amazing experiences without the alcohol there's a billboard up on Sunset Boulevard at the moment, George Clooney has released a tequila brand and he's there on a motorcycle, he's got a black leather jacket and he's looking really cool and you look at this, I'm studying this billboard, I'm looking and going so what that billboard is essentially telling you is that if you want to be cool like George Clooney ride a motorcycle and we rock and roll and just be handsome and have you shit together then you should be drinking this tequila but why the hell do you need the tequila to be wear a black leather jacket and ride a motorcycle and be cool you don't need it, psychology man just links them together, that's the psychology it's the same thing with like pool parties, the hotels in Vegas trying to get you to stay at the hotel you've got girls in bikinis with glasses of champagne or wine, you've got guys with beers young attractive people standing around imagery of them drinking having a good time is it to suggest well if you want to have a good time you have to drink you don't need it, I've been having a great time for five and a half years with girls in bikinis while sipping on water they probably thought it was a lot of things sometimes I mean sometimes they do but sometimes most of the time they're like oh you don't drink some people are gonna like you an alcoholic other people are like really tell me about it and other people are like whatever I don't get here's a question I'm wondering is there any value in having like an altered state that will make things a little funnier get a little happier is there any value in feeling what you feel when you drink alcohol the good stuff the good stuff that you're alluding to is temporary pleasure and here's the thing it's not even pleasure I'm gonna explain this just give me one minute to explain this when you drink alcohol you think that you get this pleasure but all it is is relieving you of your withdrawal so let me not try to explain this alcohol is a poison right it's a toxin right when you drink that regularly even if you're just a social drinker your body then craves more of it because it is a poison it's a toxin your body craves more of that drug so at the end of the day when you're tired and you're like oh I should really deal with the beer I'd love to smash a beer right now it's not because the beer makes you feel good it's because you're trying to relieve yourself of not feeling good that beer to relieve your craving for the beer so then when you drink it you're like oh you get this temporary kind of little boost and you go oh right and now you think that the beer tastes good you think the beer gives pleasure but it's all it's doing is just relieving you of your withdrawal relieving you of your craving does that make sense makes sense so people who never drink or people who quit or reduced they don't have that craving they don't have that need for pleasure because they don't have the drug in their system so it's not calling them to drink let me tell you this five and a half years I haven't drunk I've had more pleasure physically emotionally partying going out there not drinking than I had in ten years before drinking I had some great times drinking it was fun I'm not saying give up drinking forever I'm just saying reduce or quit for 30 days see how amazing you feel and then choose what you want to do after that it's a good point I don't know if you know Ryan Holiday he made a good point that he said because he also doesn't drink for similar reasons and he made a good point where he said that if you look at it objectively alcohol doesn't taste good think about the first sip you ever had Daniel do you remember it look how your body just recoiled there when you imagined it right it does not taste good there you go it doesn't taste good the first time it's a foreign substance that we shouldn't be drinking but what happens is because it's a drug we build up a tolerance for it our body starts to crave it because as the drug leaves the system it leaves you wanting more of the drug to satisfy it so then it just becomes like oh great wonderful have you drunk scotch straight? it's terrible it's beautiful because all it's doing is relieving it I'll tell you one other thing which is fascinating did you know that it takes 4 and a half minutes for the brain even to register that you've had alcohol so if you drink a sip of it or have a glass or whatever you're on the clock 4 and a half minutes before the brain even recognizes that you've just had alcohol that's how long it takes to go to the system so all these people who are like oh my god I need a drink and they take a big sip and they put it in and they go oh I feel so much better it's a massive placebo effect it's all mental because the brain doesn't know that you've had the alcohol it takes 4 and a half minutes all these people are like oh yeah I need a drink it's the same thing with caffeine I'm alert it doesn't work like that it's like a bloodstream system issue where you need a few minutes to work in but as soon as I taste the bitter coffee in my mouth I associate it with feeling alert caffeine produces the effect of feeling alert which is very interesting I mean look the more I study health and psychology and things like that the more I realize everything that we think is right is wrong everything that we've been told has been ingrained into our head about culture and stuff is wrong it really is, I remember growing up in Australia 18th birthday party get a whole lot of beer, 4x beer get drunk, throw up I remember throwing up on my 18th birthday party from drinking half a bottle of Zambuca you know that licorice thing and I remember I was wearing my Bon Jovi t-shirt I'm vomiting all over myself I remember my mother standing on top of the stairs of the house where I was having it watching her son vomit into over himself and into the bushes saying oh James you know like I'm so proud but what is the point of it I didn't have a good time well done mate, yeah good on ya well alright, then the next day I was like James was sick last night what a great party it was shit else I was vomiting all over my Bon Jovi t-shirt I love that shirt now but like society says that's what you should do that's true, you know if you zoom out if you zoom out too and you look at society we're kind of just little apes and if you look at it objectively we're pretty we're pretty ritualistic and we're pretty like we don't really always pay attention to what we're doing, we kind of just do things without thinking why we're doing them because the rest of the herd, if we're a sheep we just follow the rest of the herd you know even like the courting process in America it's like how you date someone here, you invite them out pick up the girl, you take her to dinner and you sit opposite one another that's a very ritualised courting process is it different from Australia in Australia it's more relaxed and chilled and it's not so much you're sitting across having dinner, you might go for a walk or you might do an activity together whereas here it's very much like the girl's the prize and there's this whole kind of like ceremonial thing where you you ask them out and then you pick them up and then you sit them down and then you have the interrogation interview, you know where you're facing one another in an adversarial tell me about your family and so that's a culture it's interesting and even down to the fact that a man should be the one courting woman is a cultural thing as well like it's inherently in our brains I like it that way by the way, I'm not challenging that but I'm just using it, I like to be the one who's pursuing and chasing but I'm just illustrating the point that these things are naturally come to us like culture and society friends dictate our behavior but you really have to look at does your behavior serve you, you know, is it really serving you and then you've got to be strong enough to break free from societal pressure, break free from the herd and really forge your own path this is something that I talked about with Mark and it's a good place to kind of tie it all up talking about self-awareness self-awareness is probably one of the most valuable traits that you can develop but it doesn't come or not, you have to work at developing your self-awareness what's maybe an insight that you've learned over the past few years that you could tell our viewers about becoming more self-aware, how can we become more self-aware? Well I actually took my first psychotherapy lesson last week and I'm going to be doing my second one tomorrow, psychotherapy is just one form of like a psychiatrist if you like, they can't prescribe medication but you just, you know, you talk to someone and have a conversation that was really therapeutic I have to say just in one hour and all she really did this woman was asking me questions she didn't really comment on it, she just asked me questions but the questions that she asked me brought up certain answers which made me think in a certain way now I'm not saying that everyone should go and do psychotherapy what I am saying is the quality of your ability to understand yourself comes down to the quality of the questions that you ask yourself or somebody else asks yourself okay so for example if you write down on a piece of paper what are my strengths what do I love about myself and you write down I'm strong I'm powerful I'm handsome, I'm fit, I'm creative I'm intelligent I'm such and such you will feel amazing about yourself if you believe that stuff if you say any of those words and you don't believe it well you've just got amazing insight into your life and now you can go and work on that likewise if you're in a problem in your life like oh my god I'm not making enough money I'm only making like $15 an hour or $20 grand a year I can't support my kids I can't get this business going you can sit there and ask yourself one question which is why, why is this happening why is this not working or you can be a master questioner and ask yourself who am I going to reach out to for advice what am I going to do right now in this moment to get out of the situation how am I going to get out of this situation when am I going to do it this is very forceful well I'm trying to make the point but like if you just sit down with a white board or a pen and paper and you just go who, what, how and when just ask yourself those four questions the answer comes to you like the answer out of any situation comes to you ask yourself those questions so coming back to being self aware ask yourself the questions like what am I doing currently that's getting me this result what do I have to do to change this result how many times am I going to do it who am I going to talk to and then maybe have someone else reach out to people and say hey what are three of my strengths and what are three of my weaknesses let's do the game right now what are three things brag about yourself for a second here try and call brag Wednesday, what's three things that you admire about yourself three things I admire about myself I'm a very consistent person so once I commit to doing something I'm really good at doing it even when I don't want to so I'm very good at that I'm very good at motivating other people so I can get a vision that I have and get other people to also see that vision push that forward whether it's for business or for a personal reason and then I'm really good at really good at trying to go against the grain of trends so I can look at something and say I don't like it like that but I can think of a better way to do it then I can actually have success with that one so I'm very good at that so now you're becoming even more self aware right and now you've put it out publicly you've said it to me, you've said it to your listeners and the viewers and the people in the room that was a little bit awkward and you are periscope so now you've got those three things three great strengths that you verbalize and now you can build on those strengths so if I was to ask you what do you consider three weaknesses of yours what are three weaknesses of yours attention to detail I tend not to care too much about small details I just take a big picture a lot of times so I don't things like grammar, I'm pretty good at that stuff but I don't I don't get things perfect so I need to have people helping me timeliness man 15 minutes late for everything I blame my mother and it's another one can be pretty selfish at times pretty selfish and then I'll use my own psychology to say that it's best for people around me okay thank you for being honest let's deal with the second one just as an example simple case, you're late so let's do become a master question let's go how, what who and when so how are you going to improve this this lateness what can you do to improve your tardiness I can so if I'm trying to arrive somewhere in a specific time there are two there are two clocks that I have in my head one is the clock that is the supposed amount of time it will take whether it's a map or I'm just routing it in my head another is the clock that I how much time I really know it's going to take and in order to sometimes delay having to leave or stop whatever I'm doing I will ignore the clock that I know it's really going to take and I'll leave and then this is interesting and then I will get mad at Google or traffic or anything else because it's supposed to only have taken 20 minutes look at the map it's what it says I can't believe it took me 45 minutes it's technically you knew it was going to take longer I knew it was going to take longer but then I will purposely delay leaving or stopping because and then I'll say so what could you do to change that I mean I think I have to start listening to my first the first inkling that I have and also trying to stop the let's say I have to meet somewhere at noon why do I have to arrive right at 12 o'clock why can't I arrive at 11.45 so that's good so you've got some ideas you've got some insight right now what are you going to do to ensure that that happens there's a few things one knowing my own psychology put some padding around times so if I see a time like 11.30 for me if I have I should start thinking 11 o'clock okay you know so changing my own time frame then the second one is I have this weird thing where like I like if I'm getting ready to go somewhere you're really digging into my I haven't thought about this a lot if I'm getting ready to go somewhere I think maybe it's like an avoidance thing where if I have to be somewhere at 12 and it's 11.30 and I should be walking out the door right now I'll see a dish or something in my house needs to be like straight down but I'm like let me just straighten out real fast I can just I don't want to come back to a dirty house let me just straighten it out 10 to 15 minutes straight on that dish and then I'm in rush yeah fuck so I need to not be distracted by the little things because I think that there's like some sort of avoidance or resistance to doing activities and I try to distract myself with other things so who are you going to get to hold you accountable on this or who can you talk to about further on this who can hold you accountable on this I think it has to be my girlfriend she's living with me 24 seven and she sees me do this and she points it out so what conversation are you going to have with your girlfriend I think I just need to tell her like look we're not going to be late because of this mental block I'm having anymore so when we're getting ready to go somewhere don't let me be distracted because she'll even do this thing now we're going to say we're ready to go we're ready to go right now we're ready to go and she'll go put on our shoes and she'll be at the door and then she'll see me do other stuff she'll sit down I'll just wait and while I'm running around like picking up clothes and she's like are we going to go what are you doing so at that point she needs to be like you're not you're not putting that away you're going okay so you're going to have a conversation with her when are you going to have a conversation with her about this can you text her Daniel want to get home what time do you get home today I'm really getting specific here like you cannot hit a target you don't see so good but we got to get specific I'll be home at 6.30 so that's what time you'll be home but what time will you have a conversation with her I mean 7 at 7 o'clock okay and then at 7.30 who are you going to text to tell that you had the conversation with her James Swan okay so so now we've gone from okay now you're self-aware right oh it's too I don't like it it's creepy okay well sorry I didn't mean to we'll call it no worries at all I feel too vulnerable and aware so there you go you've just become