How to Survive the Death of Your Old Self - Charlie Houpert (4K)
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Charlie Houpert identifies a unifying thread in his journey: attending to the greatest problem in his life and learning from others to solve it. Three years ago, he struggled to connect his 20s self to his emerging 30s self. He experienced a second lonely chapter after bottoming out on optimization—starting a business, getting in shape, eating right—while friends remained in that zone.
He began in victim consciousness: too shy, nobody wants to talk to me. Read The Game by Neil Strauss, Dale Carnegie, and others, realizing he could change behavior for different results. At 30, he had the dreamed-of business, girlfriend, friends, and money, but faced unexplained emptiness. Unconsciously broke things because he didn't know where to go next.
Breaking things looked like resenting his dream business. Initially dreamed of $2,000/month in Latin America doing meaningful work; achieved it, then moved goalposts. Complaining about making one video a week (three years prior: "I get to do this"). Annoyed by audience demands, self-set targets for views. Issues arose in friendships and relationships. His soul was waking up—lacked emotional and spiritual nourishment for a decade+, now catching up.
Material success and spiritual connection are not antithetical; the tragedy is thinking you must sacrifice one for the other. Unresolved childhood emotional issues and trauma lead to vows like "I will never experience that again," bending life around avoidance. Started business solving his shyness problem, filling himself up while helping others (e.g., Donald Trump video). But people-pleaser and "you could do better" kicked in, shifting from solving problems to topping previous videos and making more money monthly—endless depressing loop.
Unteachable lessons: We disregard warnings from elders, songs, literature, historical catastrophes, public scandals, preferring to learn hard lessons firsthand despite mountains of evidence. These are big things:
- Money won't make you happy.
- Fame won't fix self-worth.
- You don't love that pretty girl; she's just hot and difficult to get.
- Nothing is as important as you think when thinking about it.
- You'll regret working too much.
- Worrying isn't improving performance.
- All fears are a waste of time.
- See your parents more.
- You'll be fine after breakup; be grateful.
- Okay to cut toxic people out.
These are trite and obvious, yet everyone falls prey. Recent wealthy/famous proclaim them like religious revelations. Internet attacks them as ungrateful. We convince ourselves we're exceptions due to unique mental makeup, wounds, dreams—"I can thread the needle." Then kick a tripwire, share knowing look with others hurt similarly. Voice says, "I told you so."
Pyramid model (top to bottom):
- Results (victim mindset): Wishing for girlfriend, popularity, $100M, but doing nothing.
- Behavior/Actions: Shift focus to inputs (gym, calories, work). Lose friends who stay at results level (first lonely chapter). Still skinny loser at gym initially.
- Emotions: Have everything wanted, but hole remains. Discipline turns emotions into fuel (sadness to rage), but corrosive. Sit with shame, helplessness, grief, rage (via Joe Hudson). Emotional fuel shifts; results dip then recover (second lonely chapter)—business shrinks while others conquer, denying feelings.
- Spiritual/Religious (beneath emotions): Deepest wound—separation from life, God. In America, recent immigrants cut ties with ancestral lands, extended family, community for better life. Ancestrally/spiritually/land-disconnected. Convenient ways to get food/friends mask soul-level pain. Dropping into this layer brings staggering joy, humility, beauty.
Aggressively pulled close people to his development level—inappropriate; people wait at each stage. Spent years on emotions (unlock: more joy); now spiritual level terrifies.
Lonely chapters at each pyramid level: pullback in results as focus moves inward from material to self. Friends leave in first; second highlights others via looking glass self—your change spotlights their stagnation, effortful to update view of you, fear you'll discard them.
People incentivize keeping you same: feel inferior, fear abandonment ("please don't change"). Changer feels terror of forcing new relationship structure, shame/grief. In liminal space, high-congruence achievers (e.g., Donald Trump, Andrew Tate) frustrate—fully ego-aligned, no flinch. Liminal person flinches, tests waters, seeks companionship.
Demonized past-close people as representations of what growing out of. Couldn't undo soul awakening—regress impossible (Peterson: depth of consciousness poisons until turned to tonic; too late to devolve).
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Past grind had congruence/conviction (ignorance-based certainty, energizing aura). Evolution brings misery, doubt, lost certainty. Confidence = trust within self. High conviction authentic then, but expanding self brings terror of untrusted new awareness. Conviction backbone of charisma—internal alignment—but blocks growth (e.g., Conor McGregor: high conviction success, but emotional issues require doubt). Trading proven results/respect for white-belt uncertainty shocking anyone does; choicelessness pulls forward.
I locate myself up here a bit more embodied. I feel my butt on the ground, my feet on the floor, and really the central column, the heart, this piece right here. This is the tender piece. This is the piece that can do vulnerability. This is the piece that can weep and cry and love and hug fully, and this is the piece that has wonderful strategies and it's really cool and I don't want to throw it out. I think that was something I also tried to do for a period of time which was a mistake.
Early Stages of Vulnerability
What did that look like? Part of the reason that people, men in particular, have negative associations with sensitivity and vulnerability is because some of the early stages of arriving there where it's not more fully integrated can look like you're just a raw nerve and anyone who touches you, you just cry and there's a lack of containment. There's not a full embodiment of the vulnerability. Part of what helps you have some consistent thread of past future is your head. It's the part of you like you need it to strategize. But the big shift is that this switches from the master to the tool. The mind, the strategy, all of that sort of stuff becomes something that you can deploy from time to time, but not something that when you sit and meditate chases the entire time. You can drop into a quieter felt place more often.
How many people have the choice with this? There are so many guys that are similar who have hit achievement thresholds and moved goalposts so many times. I admire them and I've learned a ton about business from them and I see so many of the influencers in the space. I have this conversation with a lot of people and what I've heard before is 'Oh, wow. The hair on my arms is standing up as you're talking about this stuff. I feel it.' There's some demons that I'm running away from, some stuff in my past that I thought that I could bury that I'm willing to verbally acknowledge but not necessarily dive into. There is a choice at the edge of all of these thresholds just like there's a choice at the edge of results which is hey I've seen that people who take these actions start to get in shape start to earn more money. Am I willing to let go of the safety and comfort of not trying in order to apply myself? Similarly there's a question of am I willing to let go of the certainty and the control that I have by completely managing all of my actions all the time and to enter into this irrational feminine emotional space where I am not totally in control.
Masculinity and Emotional Control
Almost all cross-cultural definitions of masculinity include emotional control or some variant of that. The depth of masculinity is to feel everything but to have a vessel that can contain it, so that it is not just immediate instinctual. You hurt me, I punch you. It's not you hurt me, I just dump on you, I cry. You're still feeling intensely, but there's a system that can feel it, tend to yourself, not abandon yourself, be vulnerable in front of the other person, which would be to show them that you're hurt without dumping it on them, and then choose how to behave.
You can shortcut that though by just not feeling. You can go, 'Somebody insulted me. I don't care. That's a hater.' You can get mental models and all sort of stuff to just cut everything beneath this off and just say well that it wouldn't be practical for me to listen to what the haters say and you can just lose all of the feeling and what you gain from that is an incredible efficiency in terms of getting stuff done. If you look at the wealthiest people in the world they are very good at disconnecting from their feelings most of the time. It's tough to make billions and billions and billions of dollars and stay in the game for that amount of time at that intensity level without abusing your own feelings. You're permanently having to suppress. You can make a lot of money.
An interesting definition of vulnerability, Joe Hudson's definition of vulnerability, telling the truth even when it's scary or speaking your truth even when it's scary. That is very much a lean-in definition of vulnerability. Especially as you transition from results to action and then action to emotions, your outcomes in life are reliably going to get worse and you're going to feel worse and people are going to treat you worse. Why would I do that? Why would I sacrifice the only observable metric that anybody cares about and that I can flex on Instagram and in an increasingly meritocratic rationalist materialist society is the only one that people can judge me based on outwardly. No one knows the peace of mind I have when I go to bed at night. I can kind of forget that. Sure enough, I haven't had a peaceful night of sleep in three years, but look at my car.
Balancing Consensus Reality and Spiritual Calling
There are ways of conceding and if you just become a monk is not available to many people. Technically you could fly to Nepal and wear a loin cloth and hold a cup but that's not a likely outcome for a lot of people. There is this need to exist in consensus economic reality where the opinions of other people affect you. They matter. They have a direct impact on your level of survivability and also just your ability to be social and happy in life. But then there's also the unique spiritual calling that everyone has which is that it's the little voice that you can learn to drown out. It's not a loud voice, but it is a persistent voice and it's always there. Warned you at the beginning of the relationship, warned you midway through the relationship, it's there at the end of the relationship.
What I'm trying to do is to find a marriage of those two things where I am honoring the need to function and live in the world and produce stuff that other people want and like and having attention outwardly focused in order to respect your own evolutionary programming which is you're a social creature. Of course, you need validation, recognition. You don't want to be abandoned by the tribe. You don't want to be so weird and esoteric that nobody can relate to you because that's probably going to be pretty tough to handle.
A huge aspect of communication and empathy is the ability to go where is this person at and meet them where they are. And that requires external focus. Then there's the internal focus which is can I shut it all out? No matter what anybody says or does or thinks or cares, what's true about me? This is hardest in the realm of why am I here? For some people it's what is my sexuality? There's these very challenging questions and there's always this tug. Well, how are people going to respond to it? What will they like? Ah, that wouldn't work financially. To become able to hold or allow both of those currents to exist in you at the same time is the work. There's not like a checklist that I can give you in order to do it. I'm still learning it myself. But you can follow either one and they will lead you to one another eventually.
If I look at the beginning of Charisma on Command was very external focused. How are people like what I'm doing? Does the girl at the bar happy with what I'm saying? All of that stuff. I'll make a video. But it actually took me this roundabout route to this beautiful creative thing that I got to build especially early on in the business. In pursuing this external egoic dream of living on the beach with my friends, doing work that I wanted while doing yoga, I found myself like I found this internal guy. Then I lost him. And then in the last couple years, you can also lean to the internal side, which is you go deeply internal. For a while, I was like, I'm going to do these weird projects. I'm going to make a Dungeons and Dragons show, and I'm going to make stuff that nobody wants to watch. I don't care. This is me me me me me. And then you go, oh this isn't as satisfying. Like I want to serve. I actually do want to give of myself but in a way that is meaningful to other people.
If I look at the arc of what charisma meant to me, there was this who do I have to be in order to get what I need from the world which is a foundational question I think of every child, every adolescent. Entering into maturity is about recognizing oneself as capable, still interdependent, but the love comes from me. The love is who I am and I radiate that. It's not how can I get love, it's how can I return to the love that I am. And when you do that, a different kind of economic activity comes online, which is service. For the first time, the energy of the questions that I'm asking isn't merely how can I people please and serve and yes, I'll get some money from that. It's what's the most honest true way that I can meet this person where they are and still tell the truth.
What about the one that's in between? You've gone how can I get the outcomes that I want in the world that I assume that there's one that's in between those two, which is how do I serve other people, which is how do I serve myself? Like how do I learn about me and do the inner work thing? I think that serving oneself is a wonderful point at any stage anyway because they eventually become the same. You don't go straight from there to service. They're all levels of self-service at the level that you're capable of doing it. Self-service looks like when at that level of awareness if you will I need something they have it who do I have to become and be to get it that's me serving myself now it's an interactive way of doing it.
Then service becomes I'm tired of doing that I want to be more honest about my emotions so self-service is taking a break slowing down withdrawing for a period of time going inward there's this dark night of the soul if you look at the hero's journey you know if you look at it like a clock there's the lower half of the clock which is the trials and tribulations. Those mythic stories have this period of time, as Jordan Peterson would say, the belly of the whale, where you are compelled to acknowledge the darkness inside, the pain inside of yourself. So that is what self-service looks like is something keeps tapping me on the shoulder, telling me that I got to pay attention. I'm going to go attend to that. Joe Hudson is wonderful for this sort of thing.
I love mythology these days. I think Carl Jung is perhaps the most brilliant man of the 20th century and I think deeply underrated even his thing. I look at Jordan Peterson and the impact that he had on society and there must be a union giving us some lessons somewhere. We crave it as a country in the west because it is the synthesis of the analytical mind thing that is so popular in the west materialism with the eastern spiritual side. Carl Jung is that bridge for many people. Then you have Joseph Campbell who comes and creates this hero's journey arc.
These occur in 12-year cycles roughly. The first 12-year cycle for me was starting Charisma on Command. The entire idea of the hero's journey is that you enter into a part of yourself that you didn't know existed. You come out with a treasure and you bring it back to the world. The entering into the hard part the first time around was I have to dig deeper, work harder, take financial risks, all that kind of stuff. And what I bring back is this way of being with courage. That was like the gift that I had to share, which is you too can go to Brazil and start your own business and talk to that person that you're attracted to. It's a spiritual gift that you're giving and it can come through the medium of YouTube or whatever.
Descending into it this time. The gift that I'm finding is through reconnecting with all the split off parts of myself. If one connects with as many of the split off parts of their self, which means going into the times that someone was cruel to you, that you were cruel to others, the pain in your life, the grief that you haven't processed, all of those sorts of things. As you bring more of those together, you find an abiding love that is there. That's for me was the turn from the emotional inquiry, which is really tough to sometimes describe the value of it because you're like this is really challenging, but I would say the other side is it's like, oh, I know peace. I know I cried listening to a song on the way over here twice because music is beautiful. I watered flowers the other day and they came more back to life and I cried because it was so beautiful to participate in something so lovely and the world is just more stunning and it's not like oh that's stunning if I get 10 million followers or it's stunning if I win the prize or if the girl likes me. It's like no no like it's all stunning. Sitting here with you today watching your growth path is beautiful. The word that comes to mind is like wholeness or enoughness. That's exactly it. It's wholeness.
Fragmentation and Recovery
If we fragment ourselves in order to effectively fit in as children, we've got this eclectic weird interest or we have a sexuality that doesn't fit in with our so we go that's not me, that's other people. You see it come through in all kinds of projections. So often in some of the most strict religious communities, they have these pastors or these priests, and I'm not saying all priests, but are some of whom who are most likely to be vocally anti-gay, but have secret dalliances on the side because they've split off that piece of themselves because they believe that their community and God does not approve of who they are. We all do this in different ways. Our community doesn't approve of our sadness. It doesn't approve of our sensitivity, of our artistry, whatever it is. In recovering all of that wholeness, you get back more of yourself. And what that looks like is more creativity, more connection, more joy. You stop trying to impress the people that you've been so caught up on for the last 10 years and actually start hanging out with the people that have loved you all along and are there. You become aware that there are more people like that all around you. I know that I spent a lot of time focused on the person who was just out of reach, like as you described in your zone of proximal development socially or relationally.
The question is to try and get people to think about what their definition of success is. Like what does getting the outcome that you want look like? At each level of resolution or depth or the outcome that I want is to be financially secure. The outcome that I want is for the people that I admire to admire me. The outcome that I want is to be attuned with my emotions and be able to feel things. The outcome that I want is to truly know God, whatever it might be. The conflict that I see comes between people who have differing definitions of the outcome that they want for their life.
The person that's action-oriented is saying well you are trading the thing that I want which is outcomes for the thing that you want which is emotional presence connectedness sense of peace and I think the reason that we have this bit of self-doubt in the back of our minds as you're the person that's moving through it is you turn around and look at the person who is congruent who has the thing plus the confidence and conviction that you used to have and you're like, I've lost all of those. I've had to let go of all of those. My real world results are falling backward. They don't respect me as much and I'm less effective in the world and I also have self-doubt about whether or not the thing that I'm doing is the thing I'm supposed to be doing. Where in there is the reward?
At each level, it's the same as you're telling me that I'm not going to sleep in, which is something that's comfortable for me to do in order to get up and do my meditation or go to the gym on time. And I'm going to be ostracized by my friends because I can't go out. My drinking buddies aren't my drinking buddies cuz I'm not drinking no more. And I don't have my gym buddies yet because I haven't gone to the gym enough to get respect from the people that go to the gym and I haven't worked out how to speak to them and what their culture is. At each different level, you're becoming less effective in the paradigm that you know on the sort of plane of existence that you're aware of. To go through dark night of the soul to then come back out the other side.
Do you remember when Jordan talked about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table? They have to go and get treasure from the dragon. They all set off on a journey. In order to get to the dragon, they have to go through the forest. Each man enters the forest at the point that looks darkest to him. What is your particular pathology? What is your particular fear? Because that's the thing that you're going to face. Is it your people pleasing? Is it the inability to sit with silence? Is it the fact that you desperately need the validation of other people? Is it pick your mental malady of choice? That's the thing that you end up facing. For every level, there's a devil.
Sacrifice vs. Travesty
Brian Weton has an interesting framing. A travesty is when you give up the higher for the lower. Travesty is when you trade your inner peace for money. Sacrifice is when you give up the lower for the higher. You give up the utter freedom of being a bachelor to start a family or something like that. This is Abraham. This is the sacrifice. This is the willingness to give up the lower for the higher. And that story is pretty horrifying in a lot of ways because he ties up his son and is about to kill him. But the underlying idea is that there is a higher there is a command inside of me that I'm not going to deny. I'm terrified of it. I don't want to do it. Soren Kierkegaard wrote Fear and Trembling which is exactly what you're expected to feel when you have that divine call tell you leave your job, exit this relationship, marry her. That's terrifying. Have a baby. Like when that call from this place as you get familiar with it calls it asks you to trade in your identity of who you were and it is an ego death every time every single time that little identity must die and something else is born and there's not like the guarantee even though we can rationally go I'm still going to be alive and all these things but that's the feeling is ego death.
Dig into the fear and trembling because a lot of people, the sort of people that have made it this far into this episode, I assume are either going 'What the fuck?' Or they say, 'Oh, there's something here. I'm resonating and there's something here.' That fear and trembling, that peering over the precipice, that sort of existential vertigo where you go 'Holy fuck.' That's what more is there to say about that sensation and about stepping into it and about the first steps and the biggest steps? You don't have to force yourself. It will call. It will call you. And if you're going I don't know, I kind of just I really encourage and love people being where they're at. So I think a mistake that I had made which is
Everybody needs to move quickly through these phases. The optimizer idea is to speed through them. Your time will come. This is not something your ego does. You participate and say yes at some point. You'll have a choice, but the call will come. You can ignore it about 10 million times. It keeps ringing, and consequences get more dire. Ignore it once, you get a difficult relationship. Ignore it for 20 years, you're in a loveless relationship with kids and divorce. Consequences erode actions, results, emotions.
So, the good news is you don't have to do anything.
One way or another, this realization arrives. What do you think is going on? Do you think about it in material terms or as the universe ramping up the volume of the lesson until you say hey?
Fundamentally, you are much more than you are aware of. We recognize this implicitly. If asked your blood pressure or what's happening in your liver, there are pieces of you unaware of and not in charge of. When you sleep, they keep humming along. Massive psychological and spiritual pieces exist that you're unaware of. It's taken care of for you, but it's still you. This has always been the case. You're waking up to it as you can swallow it. Intense psychedelic experiences can crack or break you if too fast. Enjoy the ride rather than speeding through.
Believing optimization and getting everything by 25-27 was the end-all. Some of the happiest times were doing that. You can't go back. You can't step in the same river twice. When you're like 'it was so good, why can't I go back?', you can't. You know too much, learned too much, come too far.
Too bloody late.
You've got to move forward. Help people at paradigm shift points, lonely chapter moments, move gracefully into the next phase. It's a bear. Nobody encourages it in your current sphere. Love to hold space for people to make those leaps. Privilege to watch someone exit victim consciousness, go to the gym, dial it in.
Movement from action to emotion is unsexy, unlike results to action. Every underdog movie has a montage of discipline. Few show deeply learning to get in touch with inner child, crying at Christmas movies. If shown, it's redemption for being too masculine, a karmic correction to rebalance people around them. A man getting in touch with emotions is not in service of him, but others. Hollywood portrays it as his wife needing him attuned when he's on his phone at dinner. Low resolution view.
We live in childlike or adolescent culture. 'Unsexy' is what adolescents care about. Into 20s, 30s it's fine. It's not sexy, it's loving. Sexy is 'do others find me attractive and want me?'. Loving is 'do I feel love and radiate it to myself and others?'. Romantic interactions shift from sexy, cool, physically attractive, status-helping to who/what do I love. Dramatically changes relationship quality.
Volume of the lesson turns up until you hear it, or you die. For someone feeling the volume loud, fleeting thoughts and whispers ready to pay attention but scared:
Be a careful shepherd, like the boatman (Charon) who helped Dante across the river in Dante's Inferno. Make the journey less scary, with grace.
For someone on the cusp of evolutionary step, ready without pushing or waiting for volume up:
- This is normal. You're not broken. Take spiritual pride: you're advanced, moving quickly, even though hard.
- Entering stage more irrational, feminine, intuitive than familiar. Terrifying, associated with victim stage: tumbleweed, no command.
Evolution feels like devolution. Optimizer sees intuitive work as who they were 10 years ago, miserable. Difference between listening to craving vs. intuition. Turn up, experiment, explore feminine irrational intuitive callings.
Degrees of safety/risk. Go with intuitive one that seems interesting first:
- Standard meditation
- Breathwork (Wim Hof, Stan Grof)
- Therapy
- Men's groups
- Psychedelics
- Sound healings (bowls, vibration)
- Long walks in nature
- Strenuous physical activity not rigidly structured (sports, recreational vs. gym; drop into zenless zone)
- Music
- Singing, dance
All reconnect to joy, feelings, emotions. From breathwork/therapy: realize need conversation with dad, call person to say love/apologize/upset. Clean up untended messes pretended okay. Be gentle: not immediately after. Do again in a day or two, less raw, more containment for vulnerable conversation without exploding.
Intuitive hits: make Dungeons & Dragons show, phone call, do this thing regardless of cost. Experiment in little ways.
Example: Playing Hades 2 video game. After levels, choose upgrades with percentages. Optimized math for damage. Clicked: turned game into job, not exploring. Chose purple one (objectively worse). Results:
- Remembered to have fun.
- Unlocked new build paths, escaped local minimum. Optimizers optimize known world; exploring finds longer levers.
- Noticed stunning artwork. Smell the roses.
Went through life rushing to next end, even in video games. Letting go revealed: wanted myths of Aphrodite, Ares for ChatGPT reflection. Intuition led to game, artwork, myth exploration. Remain in contact with intuition.
Intuition gets bad rep: knew shouldn't enter relationship but 'felt calling', explodes 3 years later. Actually, intuition dinged at month 1, said get out at 6 months. Listened tiny bit then bailed.
Intuition != analytics. Mind backward-plans from end goal. Intuition gives next step, keeps foggy destination (greater than imaginable). Stick with it through steps. Terrifying for control: playing video game waste? Looking at artwork? Builds deeper self-trust: trust analytical mind and intuitive flowing feeling.
Perennial overoptimizer/insecure overachiever/walking anxiety harnessed for productivity (Andrew Wilkinson). Hyperoptimizers know permutations, prepare, constrain uncertainty, create order from chaos. Leaves 'I'm ready'. Anxiety is uncertainty/ambiguity. Minds abhor uncertainty, prefer nightmare (even physics-breaking) to open choice space.
Overoptimizer keeps branches open, prepares all: antithetical to 'I trust myself, whole now and enough, okay whatever comes'.
From victim to optimizer via agency/intention: hero's journey, Rocky underdog movie. Gets to level 3:00.
Masculine thread: order from chaos, analytical, structured, initiating. Feminine thread: receptive, listening (what life wants), feeling, flowing.
Not just feminine (LA woo woo spiritual coach follows bliss, can't pay bills). Unify. Carl Jung's hieros gamos: sacred marriage of divine masculine/feminine.
Society: men do masculine, women feminine, union via marriage. Problems: women in workplace find meaninglessness (men's issue); men slaving without family connection. Now women see masculine costs; men feel feminine hurts, want care/systemic ease.
Cultural flip: women in masculine roles get benefits/costs; men in feminine. Opportunity for integrated individuals (masculine/feminine inside) to meet, form greater. Avoid dependency/resentment/control in traditional roles.
Old advice: don't relate until whole. Means integrate masculine (achievement, initiation, structure, analysis) and feminine (flow, receptivity, intuition, feeling) inside self.
Learned about masculine/feminine language. Shame attached. Cool to say attuned, connected, dropped in, aware, transcending/including (Wilberian), vulnerability (Joe's definition) - feels strong. But embracing feminine
Need to embrace feminine energy. Critique that men have of wives and girlfriends: "She's so irrational." Men project irrationality onto women. Pursuing more money and status past a certain point is hyper irrational—proving it doesn't make you happy yet continuing.
Feminine pieces: feminine, irrational, singing, dancing, flowing, enjoying one's body. Men in sexual relationships often vicariously participate in partner's fuller pleasure, not experiencing it at full body level themselves.
Many guys treat sex as a business to successfully exit—sequence of steps like building and exiting a business, with blueprints and tricks. Turned loving presence into something to optimize, build, and exit.
Early Charisma on Command and Charlie driven by deep people-pleasing, especially directed at women—shaping habits, exercise routine for female attention. In sex, trying to make it good for the other person leads to exhaustion: "I'm tired of trying to make this other person happy," creating shadow frustrations, resentments—obsessed with meaning, not accessing pleasure.
Frankl's inverse law: If pleasure doesn't come easily, dismiss it as for suckers and focus on meaning—grinding through life via slow accumulation of progress toward well-meaning goals, seen as more objective, forward-projected outcome. Meaning provides limited chaos, limited uncertainty. Pleasure is right now, unpredictable, no long-term guarantees.
Obsession with masculine thread: future orientation, driving toward something vs. being present, accepting lack of control.
George Max's 30th birthday in Miami: Playing foot tennis competitively but not beautifully. Changed to team across net, goal fanciest tricks—pass to ex-champion freestyle footballers for three round-the-worlds. One guy tried reverse-engineering with counting: "No, you're doing the thing again."
Pickleball in Austin, Texas: Co-ed game, 1-1 into final, vs. guy and girl. Strategizing backhand weakness, dinks wider, deeper service. Partner (21-year-old girl): "Yeah, let's not forget to have fun."
Moment of enjoying now. Exceptions like neurosurgery, but definition of success matters: optimizing for maximum objective outcomes (photo album, bank account, followers) leads to hypervigilance, mind never resting where feet are.
On tour, Regent Theater in LA this Saturday. Can do near-perfect show but not be there—part flow state, but need pauses: "Fuck, I'm there." Remembers presence moments, pattern-breaks (e.g., sound out in New York, freestyled to 1500 people with stage wedges). Remembers: walking back to baseline about to have fun, making foot tennis beautiful.
Presence may drop performance from 100% to 95/90 or boost to 101%, but adds joy, awareness. Why do things? To create enjoyable emotional state—why ladders to "because it feels good." Access directly: "I'm here. Holy fuck, we're alive. That shit rules."
Success depends on juvenile/brave days. For Charlie: courage to listen to intuition, fleeting thoughts, whispers; let go of past patterns giving validation, recognition, mastery, admiration, respect.
Feminine thread enables receiving—pursuing validation/money because can't receive what's already heaped on. Example: Called 4-5 years ago when Charlie had <100k subs, he had 3M; too confident, precarious setup on bureau, finessed friendship. Channel from 200k subs 4 years ago to 4M this month; team from 3 in Messenger (Charlie, Dean, Mormon) to now unable to name all.
Growth hides patterns; slowing momentum amplifies whispers. Rock stars release slammers endlessly, external validation drowns internal signals until consequences rise.
Took emotion red pill ~1-1.5 years ago (summer last year), got ill—market correction after bull run. Podcast back end last year: interested in emotions, less emotionally decapitated, feel below neck.
Theo Von Sean Strickland video ~20-33% of shift: nourishing like Atomic Habits, Peterson's stand up straight, clean your room—from results to action, now action to emotions. Untenable lesson: remembering everything isn't answer.
Planted flag as optimizer (life hacks, note-taking, spaced repetition, Ebbinghaus, flashcards, 5 steps to talk to girl)—public tether/leash. Undoing publicly.
Retreat with Joe: challenging/beautiful, sober psychedelic dose. Like stairlift to mountaintop via meditation/consciousness work (vs. heavy psychedelics). Unexplainable experiences.
Theo Von Sean Strickland: Sean cries on abuse, hiding under dad's bed, says "I stopped believing in God"—core wound. Abuse horrible, but that's the wound for many. Speaker had atheist book pre-Hitchens' God Is Not Great, admired Chris, Sam, Alex.
Mountaintop experiences beautiful; now integrate into treating people/self/business.
First leave farm (7 days, 12hrs/day deep work, 11 others +4 facilitators): beach, cried at sun, moon, dog, nearly seagull. Separation from stars/moon travesty.
Blood red super moon 2021/2022: In 3-month US Airbnb, watching Peaky Blinders, texted about moon—balcony, huge bright pink, sobbing floods. Shame: broken? Weak?
Post-retreat: bodywork advice. "Emotion sick" (emotional hangover, spacey, psychedelic). Thai massage parlor overwhelming—waterfall, music, form, woman at desk. Waited outside. No one drove, talked, or shopped (Whole Foods exit empty-handed: can't know what/where, people in...)
I don't know what to buy. I don't know where to go. There are people there. It was too stimulating and overwhelming. The main realization was how many patterns in life are compensatory mechanisms for a world that is not gentle with someone who is an open vessel.
Watching Love on the Spectrum, observing autistic people stimming while dating, rocking because noises are too loud—this is someone without coping mechanisms for a world where the volume is turned up too loud. Gifts connected with autistic people: one guy plays music immersively; another is obsessed with buttons, seeing what others don't. They struggle to fit into a world that is not sensitive.
What happens when you take your armor off: you realize you're sensitive as hell. To function in a world that's too loud, too brusque, with bumps, you've learned effective armoring and coping mechanisms that work but cost the beauty and deepest gifts.
Being a transparent vessel for this stuff is antithetical to operating in the world, requiring openness not typically rewarded. Example from today: recorded a beautiful episode with favorite tracks, but upload error took it down after 10 minutes. Notifications pinged, people tried to watch, it got taken down, had to re-upload. Felt like flubbing the release.
Instead of saying "fuck, why did this happen, we need a solution, five-step process," the armored response, the honest response was: "Ow. That hurts. I loved that thing, felt proud, wanted others to feel it too, now worried fewer will see it." Didn't say that—went straight to solutions. If always open, you get ouch-ed a lot; lots of ouches out there.
Credit to Joe: say "ouch" out loud when hurt. Did this entire ride over after a phone call: "Ouch. Ouch." Got to: didn't feel love from this person, and that hurts. They don't have to give love—it hurts anyway. Choice: feel the pain without cutting off that aspect of self. Sacrifice of not feeling pain: lose the essence, e.g., treating the next project more efficiently but less beautifully to avoid fragility pain.
Autism relates to entering the world with intense sensitivity. Look to autists not to become them, but for pains and gifts of sensitivity. Still have armor for board meetings, etc., but ability to say "Oh my god, it's so loud." Attention dials in, tunes out—but tuning out misses beauty of flowers, cars, cicada noise, how awesome everything is.
Mythology connects emotions to the god thing, dealing with archetypal realm that's understandable. Carl Jung bridges emotional level with divine. Myths like Cassandra. Use ChatGPT: "What's the myth of so-and-so?" Powerful if it pops up.
Broad view of religion/spirituality: mystics like Jesus, Muhammad, Rumi get it at various levels. Tough to translate honestly. Someone without the experience codifies it for everyone. Big books contain mystical insight from deep getters, hard to speak/write down 60 years later. People project mother/father onto creator: upset, punishing.
Don't treat Bible as every word literal truth, but repository (mistranslated sometimes) of brilliant mystic who got it. Same for other texts—some level of understanding/integration that's why they survived, meaningful even if indescribable.
Greek/Egyptian pantheon gods useful for archetypal emotional patterns. Story of Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus: Hephaestus (craftsman god, lame leg, brainiac, only crippled god) wed to Aphrodite (beauty), but she cheats with alpha macho Ares. Hephaestus learns he's cuckolded, builds cage above bed, drops it on them during sex, brings other gods to laugh.
Archetypal exploration: pain of academically inclined guy hurt by aggressive masculine man taking what he loves, then shamed in his intellectual zone.
Brennan Lee Mulligan (Dungeons & Dragons guy, smart) story: smart kid, tough kids pushed him, he got good at insulting to cut them to core.
Archetypes like Rorschach tests: which calls? Curious about Ares? Look up story, reflect. Recognizes patterns existing thousands of years.
Key (Jung, Peterson): metaphysically real, not just metaphorical/symbolic. Near-universal structures in human psychology (father, mother)—not blank slate. Recurring patterns (evolution or "this is what it is to be woman"). Relating to archetypes shows missing pieces. If no great mother/father, archetypal good mother/wise father reconnects to what should have been, explains pain.
Hero's journey inspires young men: sacrifice, rocky montage. Stories give steps: what's missing, what's next.
Joseph Campbell's hero's journey: clock—start 3:00, meet mentor, descend underworld (belly of beast, Garden of Gethsemane), return up, divine revelation, back to community. 12-17 stages. Charted self: at belly of beast, utterly lost. Next: temptation of the woman.
Odyssey: Odysseus after Trojan War (13 years), 600 men dead, washed up, defeated, can't get to Ithaca. Lands on island with nymph Calypso (goddess wants marriage/sex, stay). Temptation of feminine. Stays a while but decides: no, must go home despite brutality.
Faced buy offer for Charisma on Command: ride off into sunset, frustrated, take money. Knew journey stage, refused: want struggle, home calling.
Next: atonement with father, apotheosis (divine connection), ultimate boon. Now at return/refusal to return: after grail/lamp, hero comfortable in inner world, doesn't want to bring back. Sometimes chase pulls them out. Podcast maybe Chris inviting back.
How to talk about charisma now? Understood as "what people like about me," steps to get approval. But charisma Greek word, etymology same as charity/Charites (goddesses). Divinely given gift, often speech, but God moves through: speak/dance/paint/love/hug charismatically.
Perfect company name to grow into. Serve core audience tips/tricks, expand to how God moves through you: intersection of radiance and authenticity.
Charisma University day 1: don't say "fine/busy/good" when asked how doing—say phenomenal/wonderful/incredible. Pyramid levels:
- Results: say phenomenal regardless, act to feel it.
- Emotional: be with shame/grief, say "rough day" but emanate.
- Spiritual: remember God, radiate incredible.
Grew out of shell. Core stays, but more. Grow Charisma on Command into more. Challenge: bring audience, leave some behind. 6.9 million subs. Market for pickup lines vs. touching feminine/dancing without shame not same. Jordan Peterson: Jungian, started politics but Genesis/Pinocchio/Lion King. Public needs Jung speaker, myth.
Would carry that burden, honored. Experimental videos do less well, sorting how to talk. Graceful transition.
If no stake/cameras/expectations: pulled toward fun. Integrates ancient past like club promoting. Multi-guest episodes (monthly): me, George Mack, Zach, another—hang style. Titles: Smoke Break, Office Hours, Drop In. Relinquish control: unsure outcome/topic, not 24-hour news slop (Tucker Carlson beef with Nick Fuentes/Ben Shapiro).
Opportunity for more personality vs. pedestal for guests' ideas. Subjugated self. If not now (1000 episodes, quarter million newsletter words in 5 years), when? Ideas have veracity.
Past: making small avoided bullies (smart in class drew eye of Sauron). Humbleness/self-deprecation seen as non-threat. Internet same.
Core idea: just accepted emotions important, now saw psychedelics-level vision. Like Apollo rocket: launch pad fuel, then boosters kick in at altitudes, fall away. Was accepting boosters, now new stage throws spanner.
Lean into pride of sensitivity: strength in sensitivity/emotionality. How navigate feelings and get outcomes? Balance real-world results with inner enoughness. Core theme next 12 months.
Funny story: Myron Gaines (Fresh & Fit), ate shawarma/Middle Eastern food in Miami ~2 years ago.
18 months ago, before starting to think about this, sat down with a gregarious guy talking animatedly about ideas, past, and future. Asked, "How did that make you feel?" Conversation stopped completely; he paused 5 seconds and said, "I've never really thought about that. No one's ever asked me." Credit to him for seeing it real. Noticed shift from super forward lean-in dopamine energy to excavating the person beneath. For first five years of the show, interested in the shell—outside action and results. Now interested in poking deeper, not to make someone cry or unnecessarily emotional, but fascinated by the marriage between outcomes and feelings, and the tension between them.
Sitting with someone crying is a failing and strength. Learned during Groundbreakers with Joe Hudson: if someone else cries, I cry a lot seeing pain, discomfort, sadness, or happiness. Have shame around it. Steven Bartlett holds space on his show without crying in response; seen many guests cry on his show, but not him. Wonder if he's numbed, insulated, or dropped in alchemizing it—full Joe Hudson framework: experience presence. That's black belt to hold space impartially and empathetically without changing them or getting into their emotions.
Dr. K called a year ago: something happening around masculinity, not time yet but soon; mentioned your name. Said keep phone on, look for the bat sign. Two waves of manosphere:
- First wave: pickup artistry (Neil Strauss The Game, Mystery, negging, "have you seen the fight outside?"). Shift from results (handsome/wealthy) to actions for attractiveness to women.
- Second wave: post-#MeToo sanitized version (red pill, black pill, blue pill, soy boys, cucks, simps, betas, alphas). Emerged from PUA hate (people who tried pickup, found strategies didn't work or revealed self-worth issues: need elaborate performance for women to like me). Emotional undertone of red pill is pain; Dr. K said everyone in red pill is a hopeless romantic. Denied sensitivity, as masculinity supposed to look commanding.
Writing about vulnerability and emotions. Current working title manopause or third-wave manosphere: Mack, Murphy, William Costello, Rob Henderson (academic lens, postgrads/doctoral), Alexander Datesy, Dr. K, Joe Hudson (master coach east-west modalities), you with psychedelic lens, speaker ancillary in bro sphere—credible there, important. Tucker Carlson conversation identifies problems.
Arc through mating stuff points back to self. Stats on sexlessness/matinglessness scary → evolutionary psychology (proximate/ultimate motivations: mate-guarding, jealousy, male parental uncertainty, resources, intrasexual/intersexual competition). Then environment mismatch (modern environment vs. ancestral programming)—current red pill conversation spot. Next step: even knowing demographics, ancestral programming, and mismatch, people interact relationally, mediated by emotion (Gay Hendricks, No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover). Tip of the spear: emotion felt when partner outearns you as a man. Problem because of feelings.
Autistic Avengers combining info/vibes for holistic development.
Love dad but didn't want to be him; role model desert growing up, now worldwide for male-female relationships in suburbia that feel good. Generation lost boys. Opportunity: decried loss of ritual/male connection → be digital mentors 5-10 years ahead, or digital-physical hybrid (like Groundbreakers with Joe: missing older brother/younger uncle archetype). Live shows/tour fulfill this. Jordan Peterson filled father role: "I believe in you, but you can do better." Not ideal, but tremendous service. Issue: people may not want to be Joe Hudson, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan (audience ~34, hard to relate to 20 years senior). Bring closer: older digital brother/uncle. Jordan talked high-level male-female dynamics but not tactical (met wife in elementary school, not recent dating). Content from "what do I text her" to "how do I propose, be with her, be good dad"—ladder of male development, enter at levels, see next stages, older brother/uncle gone through it. Tim Ferriss gave "how to do it," not "I see you, I'm there, this is what it feels like."
Feels oddly exposed, tide gone out and pants off. Control over edit. Future: chaos, excited to find out. Charlie Houpert introduced; also check Scott Galloway.
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