Saturn Returns with Caggie - 3.10 Personal Autonomy with Steven Bartlett

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

Entrepreneur Steven Bartlett joins Caggie today to talk about his approach to business and how knowing and analysing himself helps him to succeed. Steven was the founder of social media marketing agency Social Chain, but as well as being an entrepreneur he's many other things, including an author of the Sunday Times best-seller Happy Sexy Millionaire, host of the podcast Diary of a CEO, and the newest and youngest Dragon to appear on popular TV show Dragons' Den. Steven and Caggie discuss failure, quitting, risk, and why he refuses to be pigeonholed or labelled. Warning: strong language in this episode. --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. I can say what I want to say, I can be as vulnerable as I want to be, and the crazy thing which people don't expect is the more vulnerable you are, the more you put yourself out there, the more successful you become. Today I am joined by the very impressive Stephen Bartlett. For those of you who don't know, Stephen is the latest and the youngest ever dragon on Dragon's Den. He is 28 years old. He is an author of Happy Sexy Millionaire. He has his own podcast, Diary of a CEO, and he is the founder of Social Chain, which he started in his bedroom in Manchester. I've been a

fan of his podcast and he is just such an interesting person. I wanted to talk to him because I wanted to know what kind of character he was and to discuss how he got to where he's got in life. As you will tell from this episode, he doesn't hang around. He is on a mission and there were so many takeaways from this conversation that I had on a personal level afterwards. So anyway, I will leave it for you guys to listen. I hope you enjoy it. But before we get into this episode,

let's check in with Nora, our astrological guide for the season. The drive to succeed in astrology is interestingly enough not represented by Saturn or Saturn return or its transit, but more so by the sun and the Mars in our birth chart. When we turn 21, our sun sign, which represents our identity and relates to the solar plexus, the sun at this age matures. Around that time, we're starting to explore ourselves in a less angsty way. We start to explore more who we are, who we want to become when we grow up, which in turn then does relate to our first Saturn return

because astrologically we grow up after a Saturn return. Often this need to know ourselves and do something productive with it provides the drive to go after our goals and anything we identify with, especially around the age of 20, 21, 22. Then as we near our Saturn return at the age of 28, our willpower, which is represented by Mars, starts to shift into a more mature state and we start to question whether we've been using our vitality and our true will in the most authentic way. That's when Saturn's return comes in and helps us peel back all the layer of what came from a sense of

egoic identity and which came from a sense of authentic identity. It's a lifelong quest of course but by the time that we enter our 30s we feel more comfortable with the fact that our identity and drive for success can mean different things at different stages. success can mean different things at different stages. Steve, welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. It's amazing to be here in this beautiful room. It's very... It says so much about you. Does it? It does, yeah. Well, I can see you analysing everything. I'm like, oh my god, we've never met, just to say for everyone. Sometimes you walk into someone's house and it's, you know, because they've either not invested in making it them or, you know, they've just moved in or whatever.

But this is a very good representation of, I feel like I'll know you more from just looking at this room than from spending an hour talking to you. Potentially. What's your home situation like? That's a good question. What would you find in my house? Is it quite minimal

no uh yes and no I I like to bring a lot of like my personal inspiration into my house so if you go upstairs there's what I call like icon hallway where it's like all of my icons that have inspired me through my life um painted on the walls so there's there's about 10 paintings of like everybody from Martin Luther King to like Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Rosa Parks all on this hallway by the same artist. So both sides of the hallway, I think there's like six pieces on each side. Is this to sort of inspire you each time you walk through them? Yeah, I just like to have that energy. I don't know what it is, but I like to, I'm very easily inspired.

That's great. By lots of different things, whether it's music or theater or it's like i don't know i'll hear a song or whatever and i like to have that vibe in my home it reminds me of like what i'm doing here and how like great i want to be as an individual and who i want to be okay because let's just bring this back for a second because how old are you 27 28 now i turned 28 you've achieved so much in such a short space of time how the fuck have you done it I said I sent some of your stuff to my brother and he simply replied saying I feel like a failure and I was like you and me both bro bad consequence of like of being young and achieving things as people think that you're

either like some super genius or that it makes them feel inadequate which is like not the effect you want to have but um it's a really interesting question because when you asked the question I actually came up with a new answer in my head and I think it's because like in in order of like how do you get far in a short period of time I think it's because I've like been very clear from a very young age and I've been very good at making quitting decisions which means that I won't spend four years doing something that's not working so think about school I stopped going when I was like 15 16 got expelled because I was too busy running

businesses when I was I was running the school's businesses I was running all of their school trips they have vending machine deals and I thought to myself at 16 before like going into sixth form I don't think I'm going to need these grades because if I can influence my peers to buy 300 tickets from me, these are the same people I'm going to be competing with when I'm an adult. And like, so I'm going to be able to influence them then too, like manipulate them in a positive way to buy stuff and to sell stuff. And then went to university, went to one lecture,

looked around and thought, I want to study business. And the girl on my right was sleeping on the desk and she was clearly hungover and I wanted to do business. Last lecture I ever went to never went back because I was like again thinking logically and like my quitting decision was I'm going to get to the same place as she's going to get to and if I get there with the same piece of paper that she's got how much is that paper worth and my conclusion was that it wasn't going to be a positive thing and from first principle thinking if I want to be an entrepreneur who am I going to show this piece of paper to anyway you know if I'm going to be a positive thing. And from first principle thinking,

if I want to be an entrepreneur, who am I going to show this piece of paper to anyway? You know, if I'm going to be my own boss, how valuable is it going to be? And is there another way, a better way to get the skills that I need to start running businesses? Like in hindsight, people make things really conscious and like it was a master plan, but it was more like a feeling I had. And so I quit and didn't care same with my first company got about two years in had a big glass of wine decided it wasn't gonna work quit and then I started social chain and social chain was um a really big success so it's like a quitting framework that I have somewhere inside my head but when I quit these massive things even I just quit social chain after six six seven years companies worth 300 400 million now and it

wasn't hard for me yeah it wasn't hard for me. It wasn't hard for me. It was like I was at peace with it. And that'll be the reason why when I'm 30, people go, oh my God, you've achieved so much at 30. It's like, yeah, because I don't fucking hang around. Because I'm very clear on like what I want for my life and when things... Aren't in flow. Yeah, when they're not in the right thing.

And there's so many forces in your life that will trap you in a situation that isn't ultimately serving you or like delivering upon your potential whether it's your parents idea of how your life's going to be going whether it's society saying you know you haven't got a university degree you're going to fail or whether it's you know if you quit social chain what are you going to do what you're like so all of those things they hold you in a place which deep down you tend to know isn't right for you you've just you've touched on so many things that I need to explore and one of them is you obviously have a huge amount of self-awareness and did from a very young age so I think I always look to like my childhood when I'm searching for

answers because it's the most like impressionable part of everybody's life but um the one when I think about where I where I got that sort of self-autonomy and that independence from my parents but when I got to the age of about nine or ten we're just like never there and so I look at it I'm like what are all the factors that were in play when I was a nine-year-old and a ten-year-old so you've got we were broke I was black I was going to a school where everyone else was white like everyone I was in Cornwall right everyone else was white there's 1500 kids I was different I was broke they weren't broke they were white they had parents around so you've got this kid who's like wants to fit in he wants to have

Christmases and birthdays he wants to go on a holiday he wants to have a nice house like our houses were smashed up and fridges in the garden and whatever but we're living in a middle-class neighborhood so you look at our street you think who the fuck are they right and what the fuck is that car so I'm growing up in that environment where you've put this like kid who already probably feels insecure because he's different then you make him really broke and so he's got this huge demand to fit in and to have stuff and he sees money as much of the reason why he's feeling inadequate and then you take the parents away and which makes this connection of like well if I'm ever gonna feel adequate it's gonna be my own doing mum ain't gonna give me shit and then by removing the parents you actually make him the master of his own destiny I'm not gonna walk downstairs in the morning and there's

gonna be money there for school lunch I'm gonna go have to figure out how we're gonna eat today you know I think that's the those are the factors that create a kid who is like super independent believes his actions result in his outcomes and then also somewhere in there he he he starts doing that which builds these case studies of self-belief like okay if we have an idea and then I like launch it at 15 like the other kids will like give me their money you know and then you build these that's what safe self-belief is it's these case studies that kind of compound for or against you and you mentioned actually before we even started recording but about sort of decision making because that plays a huge part in it as well because it's one thing to have an idea but it's a whole nother story to execute it

yeah is that something that is innate in your character that you just think of something and you go for it it's it's definitely a learned thing it's got to have been a learned thing because I'm quite different from my my siblings and I grew up in a slightly different time to them because I was the youngest and they all got raised by my parents but my parents get to a point where when you're the youngest they kind of feel like they've done the job of raising the kids so they they like piss off you don't get the rules in the same no no rules my my sister couldn't leave the house when she was like 15, 16. Like super strict, whatever. But then when I was 10 years old, I could leave the house for three days and no one would even know.

Because they were at work when I was, when I woke up and they were at work when I went to sleep. And my mum just started sleeping in her shop at one point because she was like that hardworking and stuff. Did you rebel? I was never a bad kid, but I rebelled in the sense that I wanted to write my own rules from a very young age. So like, I decided that I didn't have to go to school and that I wouldn't need grades. Not in like an, so you think when you hear a kid gets expelled, you think he was throwing chairs. I was like very polite about the fact that I was going to make my own rules. I've been back to the school to speak three or four times now. And the teachers will say to me, they'll be like, you're the nicest guy, but the worst student.

And my attendance, I think at one point hit 30%. I would not do homework I like didn't believe in it so you say you struggled with authority definitely to some degree I struggle with being controlled and at any point in my life where I feel like I'm being controlled by something I will typically decide that I'll go do something else does that apply in a personal aspect of your life as well as professionally? Yeah, it does. And I've had to kind of, I've had to mature there a little bit. Like when it comes to relationships and stuff, just you've got to learn to compromise.

And I'm very much like a man of my own decisions. So in relationships, you have to do things you don't always want to do. And that was a struggle for me because I thought, I just did I want everything my way and then you meet someone and you're like well that's not how it works and you learn yeah and also I think an understanding that that doesn't compromise your autonomy I think that's always a good one how does that reflect in your sort of professional um relationships and a lot of people probably look at you and they aspire to achieve what you have but you talk quite a lot about how it's actually more crucial to have the day-to-day and the team around you that you enjoy the company of. Yeah I mean once upon a time I

think I saw life as what we call like a finite game where you're playing for an outcome or an end so like a finite game is basketball or like football there's 90 minutes finite game where you're playing for an outcome or an end. So like a finite game is basketball or like football. There's 90 minutes on the clock. You're trying to score as many points as you can in those 90 minutes. And at some point I realized that like life is really more of an infinite game. And the only way that you leave the game is via death and that you're not playing for a trophy within a certain amount of time. And so you start to design your life in a way that can be sustained over long periods, like decades or, you know, 80 years, as opposed to just like, I want to achieve this goal and then I'll be happy or I'll be done.

And I changed my company on this basis, Social Chain. I rewrote the rules of the company and said, we're no longer going to operate by comparison. So we're not trying to be the best. We're not trying to be number one. How did you know that there was like a gap in the market for that and that that's what you wanted to do so there's a really like unhelpful belief that like entrepreneurs sit down and write business plans and they just have this like perfect moment of genius which I just I think is 99% of the time

nonsense usually what happens is someone will be doing something and then the world will say to them whisper in their ears so there's a huge demand for this and I really don't know many entrepreneurs that sat down wrote a perfect business plan and then executed on that and that became the thing with us I was at my first company trying to figure out how to get a million people to come to my website that I owned that's my first business and I tried newsletters I tried posters and then I found this thing called social media and like in 2013 and the numbers were just bigger and and so I thought again this is going back to this like first principle thinking and not allowing convention to write the script I was like the numbers are bigger here so why are we printing the flyers okay first principle thinking can you just explain yeah so first principle thinking is

um whenever you encounter any problem in your life whether it's deciding whether you want to get married or quit a job or which career path to go in you kind of have two choices typically you can just allow convention to decide for you like convention in my life would have said go to school go to university get a job go get married get a mortgage or you look at the things that you know to be fundamentally true in that situation and you reason up from there to create a completely new solution. So for example, social change company culture,

we're trying to hire 1,000 people in 2021, let's say. The world in 2021 is completely different from the world 30 years ago. If you accepted convention's answer for the solution, it would say everyone gets in at nine o'clock. They work Monday to Friday. They leave at 5.30. They get 28 days holiday. They sit at a desk. You know, they have like all these line managers. But in the modern world, that solution is no longer effective because social media has created this glass window into everyone's companies now. I can see that Jenny got cupcakes today at work. I can see how flexible her work environment is. So if you're rigid and conventional, you're not going to be able to hire or keep

people. So in 2021, you say, okay, what are the fundamental first principles? What are the things that we know to be true? Let me give you a couple of truths. If people love their job, they're more likely to fight for it. Just a fundamental truth, right? So we're going to try and make people love their job. There's a huge amount of options now for young people in the workforce because they can now work globally because of remote working. People have a greater demand for flexibility in their work. And so instead of just accepting the rule book of how a company is meant to be run, you build a completely new solution based on these first principles it's what Elon Musk did with electric cars so that's what I mean don't accept convention just go to the things you know to be true right now and this is super hard it's almost

impossible because the convention let's talk about marriage convention is something which offers people comfort a nice blueprint security yeah but it doesn't but the problem is it's highly ineffective because the world has changed so when i think about marriage i go back to first principles if you men in black where they have a little thing which you flash yeah and it raises your memory yeah if i flash that right now think about how many things wouldn't come back the same science would come back because it's like irrefutable it's science religion would never come back you would never know about star signs ever again just being honest you would you'd never know about it ever again it breaks your heart marriage would never come back the same way these are old constructs which have survived the test

of time by like chinese whispers and so think, what would the working world look like if I flashed it now in 2021? It would be completely different and it would probably be more effective for today's challenges. So flash it and say, what would a relationship look like? Would you go and sign a legal document in a church? So I'm getting the subtext here is that you don't believe in math. No, people always think this.

No, but I'm just saying it's not the irrefutable answer for all people in all situations well i think like like you say what 2020 and 2021 has taught us is that actually like we should question the why a bit more yeah we should go back to like the origin of why something if you want a better life if you don't then go ahead like go ahead if you if you want a better life for yourself in your career your relationships everything and Elon says this as well he's like it's so hard to reason from first principles and create new solutions because when you're going outside yeah it feels risky and it's like it takes a lot of mental energy it's so easy just to go okay well that's how marriage works and that's

how work works and this is how my life should work and mortgage this is what I should be doing okay well let's talk about that a little bit risk versus reward because I think a lot of people in every aspect of life we want the reward but we don't want to take the risk would you say that a lot of your life is revolved around taking big risks yeah but we have two different ideas of what the risk is okay for me the risk was staying in university for four years and then getting a shit job somewhere i hate for me the risk was losing my soul at school and for me the risk was working in a call center which way like what i believe is the risk is actually following convention and and look at me i'm like happy successful like i'm genuinely the

happiest person i know i'm so i'm fucking killing the game out here. I know it worked out for me, whatever. And there's like a bias in that. But I actually think 99% of the time, the risk is the thing that you think is the safe thing. Of course it is, because it leads down the same fucking path that everyone else is going.

And it's usually determined by social conditioning or social validation or external opinions and it seems like you have a fear of becoming complacent as well yeah I think that comes from like I think I think I have a an increasing sense of my own potential and I want to make sure that I reach my potential that's not a success thing it's just like happiness and yeah I think my biggest fear is unfulfilled potential and I think it's something that we witness with people around us sometimes like at a certain age where you think you just know that they have that knowing or that niggling awareness that perhaps they should have taken that risk or like quit that job or changed

course it's a big fear of mine and I feel like sometimes rather than just hearing that call and going for it I go back into that um using linear thought and logic too much but it sounds like you use those things to take you out of yeah the status quo whereas I use them to stay in it yeah so it's again it's that reframing of like what the risk is I think is a really big thing people say like oh my god you've got so much courage I was like no no courage would have been staying in university or a job I hate that takes huge courage I did the easy thing I was like I ain't doing that shit because I hate that and that's gonna make me sad and like I'm gonna not enjoy this so I'm just gonna go do stuff I enjoy super selfish super super um risk adverse if anything but the problem

is they're like they're not really weighing weighing up what the risk is and what the consequences are of reaching 45, having a midlife crisis because you became a lawyer because mummy said so, and you fucking hate that. And you wanted to go dance in the hills of Costa Rica. The science and the psychology and all studies that I've done say the biggest risk is living a life untrue to yourself. That is the biggest risk it like I just spent you know the last two years writing this book and looking at the studies and going way back and looking at these like Swedish philosophers from 200 years ago and it's really really clear like look at Bonnie Ware she sat down with people that are about to die and she asked them what's your biggest regret and they all said the same thing number one they said I wish I lived a life more true to

myself like I wish I'd gone and been that ballet dancer that is the biggest risk and also there's this other really important factor which is you're gonna die regardless of what you do you you speak about thinking about your death quite a lot yeah i think it's such a motivational it's such a liberating thing you're gonna die anyway what's the upside in playing it safe like you this is i don't people don't realize they're gonna die they they don't no one doesn't like to think about their own mortality so they play as if they're gonna be here forever which means like playing it safe and like this all this shit makes sense if you're gonna live forever but if you know in 50 years it's over anyway why are you playing it's like playing it safe until you die like so what you know craziness

okay so what you're talking about essentially is like having that strong sense of self and living in alignment with those values yeah but i i think you know in saturn returns that whole thing is basically about a lot of people reach a point and whether you believe in astrology or not but approaching 30 and they suddenly think i have not been living in alignment with my truth and authenticity and they suddenly have to rethink their relationship their career whatever it might be the emancipation from their parents they've been living under their shadow have you always had that sort of understanding of your own truths and values and acted upon that from a very young age because I know it's probably annoying when people say that you're young to be as successful as you are, but those things kind of run in tandem a little bit.

No, I was never that self-aware of it, but it was happening. But it's taken me some time to realise. And to like, so I had a bunch of suspicions and hunches which grow over time. So one of them might have been that, like, maybe you can just create your own life. This is a hunch when you're very young. You don't have any evidence for it yet. But then as my life has gone on and I've built these case studies,

I've come to learn these things. So that now I can communicate them in a way which makes me feel and sound really self-aware. Like I've always known these answers, but now I've definitely learned these from reading stuff, but also from my own experiences. What I wanted to ask you about was like your daily habits. Do you have like a very set structure of how your day goes no no no never not really

what time do you get up whenever I wake up like really yeah yeah you never set an alarm for the set not unless I have to not unless I've like got to go to an airport or something but no it's not very structured well I just like the light to wake me up and I think that's the human I think that's a human thing I think like like I just and i'm i'm the boss so i don't have to jump out of bed at seven o'clock and be in the office like i'll just do what i want to do do you meditate uh so like i think when people think about meditation they think of like sitting still and like um but we all meditate in different ways like i meditate while i'm working out i meditate when i'm having a massage.

I have lots of massages. How many massages? Just, like, probably three or four a week. Not now, because of all this coronavirus stuff. But whenever I can, like... And that's my moment of, like, switching off in meditation. Like, you know? And then at the gym, I find it really meditative

if I'm, like, doing, like, a repetitive exercise. My mind goes to that same place. And can you talk to me about the book yes when did you decide to write it and how come you did write it and what are your sort of hopes with it um so my publisher my agent was trying to get me to write a book for a long time I just kept like I probably spent two years just like oh god no I don't know what to do don't have anything to say and then it was one day when I looked back at what to do. I don't have anything to say. And then it was one day when I looked back at my diary from when I was 18 years old.

And in the front cover of my diary, I've written, bear in mind, when I wrote this, I was an 18 year old kid that was broke and like disowned by my parents. And like, you know, like trying to like scam Just Eatin' to give me free food by like pretending I ordered something or whatever. I was broke. Right. And I was hungry. Living in like a shithole part of the city. I wrote in my front page of my diary that by 25, I'd be a millionaire. A Range Rover would be my first car, a Range Rover Sport. I didn't have a driving license,

but at this point. And I would work on my body image because I was very, very skinny and I thought, you know, I don't want to be this skinny and small. And I'd have a relationship with a woman. Like I think I wrote, like I'd have a long-term relationship and when I reflected on that I was you know this insecure kid that was broke and very self-believing clearly um wanted to be a happy sexy millionaire that's what I took from it like I wanted to be happy sexy and I wanted to be rich

and at 26 or so when I look back at the diary and you know by 24 a range over sport was my first ever car I was a multi-millionaire I was in a relationship at the time I'd started going to the gym every day I'd achieved all of those things I like I wasn't buzzing about it because I was quite ashamed that those were the things that I'd wrote even though I'd got them and even though I'm happy I was like why did you write that what when you wrote that well this is where you got to get the book like it's what I should have written and I'm not someone that's going to tell you not to be rich because being rich is much better than being poor like just being honest it's much better because books are like oh mini doesn't make you happy like you know something disingenuous about that it's not a book telling you not to get money

it's telling you how to get all of those things the truth about how you get those things and really what I should have written instead and like what I'm writing in my diary now as my goals for the next five years of my life and what are those goals you're gonna have to read the book what you just touched on something when we weren't recording this a new venture of yours would you be are you able to speak about that uh so one of the things I talk about in the book is this idea of like resisting your labels. I've just come out of a company. I'm really well known in my industry. I was voted the number one most influential person in my industry at social media, marketing, media, commerce, whatever you want to call it.

So the like really tempting thing to do, I noticed, is to go and do more of the same. Yeah. And then like be the label. Like everyone has labels, whether it's black broke rich poor mum dad entrepreneur tv star whatever it is you have a label and so the temptation is again coming back to convention being the safe blueprint to just keep doing that thing because it you know it's safe and then I thought about how I like reasoned along and I'm like well having done that challenge and knowing that so much of life is about setting yourself meaningful challenge having completed that challenge would it really make me fulfilled to just go do the

same thing again and keep you know living this label for the rest of my life and I thought no so I thought let's just go back to first principles and think about the stuff that I'd really love to do had I never done social chain had I did not have this reputation or these labels and I was like I want to DJ that'd be fucking dope I love music so I started these labels. And I was like, I want to DJ. That'd be fucking dope. I love music. So I started learning to DJ. And I've got two shows this year. One of them's a big festival in the UK. And one of them's a private show I'm doing in London called Unlocked. And yeah, I was just like, I want to be a DJ.

I was like, that's part of the reason why I did the book. I was like, I'm going to complete this book and be an author. Because that's dope. And I love writing. And I love the theatre as well. I just recently got into theatre over the last two or three years after seeing like Hamilton and the Book of Mormon and so I thought I'm gonna do my own theatrical show and I launched it I just love this so much because of everything that you've achieved you'd never expect that that's the direction you're gonna go

in and I've spent the last seven months working in a biotech company that's solving mental health disorders that's I invested a million quid a couple of months ago and then I've spent the last seven months working in a biotech company that's solving mental health disorders. I invested a million quid a couple of months ago. And then I've been basically full time now. I'm working like at least 50 hours a week there. And there were three billion now. So I thought, cool thing to go learn about. And that is for helping people struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD, schizophrenia.

And there's one more which I've forgotten. Oh, opioid use disorder, addiction. And that's taking up a lot of your time. I'm like full-time now. But I'm full-time at a lot of places. So it's like... How do you have the time?

Find more hours in the day. You know, be more efficient. How many hours do you sleep for? I sleep... My sleep is fine. There's so many myths here that I hate to... I love to bust,

which is like perfect routine bullshit myth. Yeah. No. I wake up when I want to wake up. So does like Jeff Bezos. They all say like like i don't set an alarm um this like it's very liberating this conversation because i think people just presume that these things are so structured yeah because they have to do because then they can sell you stuff and they can say tips and

tricks and techniques i'm like i'm super unorganized my sleep is great i sleep for as long as i want to sleep yeah and that's not why you make the wins in your life it's like you're not gonna become some super successful amazing super person which actually doesn't exist but you're not gonna get there by like waking up at 6am drinking green juice doing like one hour of journaling it's like nonsense it's like just do what works for you 100% so the same it's sort of echo what you said about failing faster you just learn faster I guess maybe if you if you're also very analytical about what just happened like it's one of the things I'm definitely good at is I constantly think about how I've

performed and how I've behaved and like how I could have been better without judgment yeah like yeah yeah so like I will look back on this conversation in my mind and think about how I could have been better or not in like a critical way I don't this doesn't particularly useful to put myself down it's just like or I'll do it in my diary but I'm learning faster because I'm looking back at things and asking myself could I have been more polite or when I walked in here was I like welcoming enough to you or was I a bit too cold and and how do I want to be better in the future based on that and that accelerates your learning people say you're very wise for like a 28 year old I'm like well no I've just I've learned more from the experiences that I've had because I've looked at them again I tend to think that's what's

happened we've all had the same experiences I've just taken more from mine because I've been like quite not critical makes me sound like I'm beating myself up I'm not well I think we we are live in a culture where it's we put a lot of shame with that sort of thing you know we associate shame if we look at ourselves and question our decision making we have to sit with that discomfort which we don't want to do most of the time it's very true and I think people therefore just want to carry on into the future so when you do do that do you feel uncomfortable about it or is it more separate I definitely don't feel uncomfortable about it because I'm trying to be better so I look back on my relationships and say oh man you're such a scumbag like why did you treat that person like this or why did you but just don't make that mistake again

learn from it try and understand why you did it okay so the reason why when you chased that girl for two years and she said she would be in a relationship with you and then you ran off why did you do that that's very strange why did you do that well because my parents used to scream at each other for seven hours a day and at 10 years old I was learning that relationships were prison and hell my dad just sat there my mum would just bark in his face and so they taught me the model of like when a man is in a relationship with a woman it is prison so I pursue this girl when I'm 16 she turns around and says I'll be in a relationship with you I go fuck off because that thing from my childhood I started I felt like a

bird in a cage and then and he goes so where did that come from Steve oh yeah because your parents taught you the first model of relationships you learn was that it was fucking prison so you get okay well how do i overcome that steve you know and stop so that doesn't sit in the back room running the show for the rest of my life how do i like bring it out and put it in front of me and try and overcome it and that's the way i've been it's like being curious super curious and like having a diary is a good way to do that as well people go to therapy and the therapist will help them like bring it out from the back room and put it in front of them you can do it yourself my podcast helps me do it it holds you accountable yeah and there's this other other element which is because I am my own boss and my own man and no one can cancel me and whatever else I don't give a fuck

I can say what I want to say I can be as vulnerable as I want to be and the crazy thing which people don't expect is the more vulnerable you are the more you put yourself out there the more successful you become for so many reasons people gravitate towards you they want to follow you they want to follow your podcast you gravitate towards things that are actually right for you so then you become more successful because it's much easier to be successful at things you love doing and it's that like being more vulnerable that um just it feels like it's a risk but actually it turns out to be just like the most beneficial thing you can do would you say that your vulnerability is actually your strength

100 yeah and like i yeah i just don't really care if people like if i say something that i something i used to do or that i used to think or feel or mistakes I've made I say on my podcast in a very honest way I just don't care have you ever received criticism for that kind of things that you've said because we are living in a time of cancer culture it's like a real problem I'm sure the worst is to come I'm pretty convinced about that what that something yeah because I've got this really big show coming out what show I can't talk about it I'm like sworn to secrecy yeah yeah and I've got this really big show coming out what show I can't talk about it I'm like sworn to secrecy yeah yeah and I've got this really big show going on and tell me about I'm really intrigued about the theatre production so you said about you not wanting to be labelled which I think is a really really key point here because

when people become successful in a certain area and they look at their peers in that area that are doing well and doing certain things and you think at their peers in that area that are doing well and doing certain things and you think okay well just i'll mimic that and i guess this is my space and i guess this is like who i am yeah whereas it seems that you did that and then you're like this is not who i am i'm going to completely go in a different tangent because this is actually what i want to do and this is the step i want to take next. So like, again, one of the things that you should, you should truly get into the habit of, I think, is always question where the bullshit, your mulling over comes from.

And, you know, you said like who I am. Like, so I go down to the root and I say, who am I? I am a guy that has a bunch of interests and skills. I can apply them to multiple challenges throughout my life. That's who I am. I'm not my of the awards I won or my reputation I'm not that my reputation by definition is just everyone else's opinion of me that's not who I am all right so you bring it internal again and you make an extrinsic thing

and say okay who am I I like music I like this I like challenge and so you start doing loads of stuff and the theater thing is of course I shouldn't be doing that I don't have the right to be doing theatrical production and starring in it. But when you look at the things I enjoy and the things that I consider myself to be somewhat good at, why not? Who's your boss?

You're your boss. You do whatever the fuck you want. And at the moment, it's just you've got the first show sold out and then what your aspirations are just kind of, or whatever. While you were doing this, while we were having this conversation,

my team sent me a photo of um the royal outlet hall because they know that that's the next place we're gonna do it so oh my god so basically when you have these ideas you then find the best person to help you execute yeah of course yeah yeah and i just like i i realize i can't do all ideas that I have so you have to weigh them up and say like can I do this and how much does this mean to me and how quickly can I get to the point where I fail or find out if this was a good idea or not that's amazing how do you portion your time like with all these projects or do you? Do you have any time to do anything? Like, I don't know. Are you always working?

I work a lot. But when you enjoy what you're doing so much. It's not work, yeah. Yeah, that's such a cliche thing. But it's like, it doesn't... Some people talk about work-life balance. I'm not trying to get work-life balance. The two aren't... Mutually exclusive.

Yeah, they're not on different ends. It's like, my life is my work. It's like work-life harmony. They're at harmony with each other. I enjoy my work so much. It's you know like imagine playing your favorite video game it's like that's what I'm that's what my work is it's like playing my favorite video game and I think that's the real key is to make your work at harmony with your life not like do this one 50% and clock off and then do this one like they're at total harmony with each

other so my friends are at my work I love the people I work with which means that I get like the social element from my work and then I'm doing things I enjoy so I'm getting like my passion from my work as well and it's all just one harmonious thing so when people ask me about like when do I get time to do things for myself I'm like well every single day every hour like that's the point yeah So I don't need a break. I don't need a holiday. Like I don't feel, I'm not going to get burnt out doing shit I love every day. My mind just blown off this conversation. So just, I guess the final thing I want to ask you

is what's next for you? I don't know. You have no idea. Do you just kind of like make it up as you go along? Yeah. Just like take every day as I can. And like, I never had a business plan at social chain because you know the world is going to change and opportunities are going to come up and being too rigid about how your future look is actually

going to hurt your chance of capitalizing on whatever happens so it's just this thing was like Steve can you do your best today and try and do that every day some days I don't do very good but still it's fine and that and that is a really, and it's not hoo-hoo, ha-ha, nonsense, bullshit that I'm just coming up with. It's like, no, I will, in moments when I feel myself overthinking and worrying or whatever, I'll just remind myself, like, your best is all you're capable of doing. And do that, then go to bed and wake up tomorrow and try and do it again. All right, thank you so much. No worries. Thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure.

All right, thank you so much. No worries. Thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure. I think what I loved about this conversation the most was Stephen's attitude, his conviction and his self-awareness, but also his awareness of others and his surroundings. He's constantly picking up on all the details around him that inform his decision-making. It definitely resonated with me, this idea of not limiting ourselves, not being pigeonholed by what society says we can or can't do, this idea of not being labeled.

I also found what he said about taking risks really interesting. You know, I'm someone that looks for 100% certainty and it's often not there. So being able to reframe your mind just to have enough certainty like 51% that's enough make a decision and fail fast that was a massive takeaway for me I think he thinks that it's possible for anyone to be like that and maybe it is maybe it is but I don't think he realizes how sort of unique he is

and it was very inspiring I hope it inspires some of you you can find Stephen on Instagram at Stephen and that's Stephen with a v or on Twitter at Steve Bartlett SC and you can find links to his book podcast stage show on his website stephenbartlett.com you can also follow our astrological guide Nora on Instagram at stars incline and you can follow me at kaggy's world if you enjoyed this episode I would love it if you could share it with a friend who you think might find it useful Saturn Returns is a feast collective production the producer is Hannah Varel and the executive producer is Kate Taylor. Thank you so much for listening and remember you are not alone. Goodbye.