the elixir of authenticity

0:03You are now experiencing the Nectar of Time. I had a guy in my business once upon a time, and he had the worst things happen to him all the time. Always just had the worst luck, I guess you could call it, right? And one day he came into work and he looked — I just thought I'd give him a bit of a compliment. He, you know, quite nice shirt, looked really crisp, and he had a tie on. And I said, "My, Isaac, you look great today." He goes, "I didn't fucking do it for you, did I?" I was his fucking boss. And that's what he said to me. But still, he did. "I didn't fucking do it for you. I did it for myself." I loved that. I mean, I really loved it. He got up in the morning, ironed his shirt, made himself look great for him and not for anybody else. If anybody else thought it was great, that's a bonus.

0:50Fantastic. But I loved that. And that to me was authenticity, from that young guy in my business who just said, "I didn't fucking do it for you, Colin. I did it for myself." We are right over the San Andreas Fault, and experts on finance say that it is surely going to crumble. And if we treat each other this badly in a time of prosperity on borrowed money, how are we going to treat each other when the trouble comes? And I don't say the trouble's coming. The people who spoke this morning said — now, Weimar was mentioned once, and I think you know what Weimar was the

1:38prelude to. And if the excrement is going to hit the air conditioning, the Nazi thing will start here. And that's what we're meeting about, is how the hell are we going to fight that, if we can't stop this damn fool depression that's going to come along now, to hear the experts talk. It was like the mobilization for World War I. Once the mobilization began, there was no stopping it. There was no speech you could give. There's no speech you can give now to prevent this collapse. If you could create a personality for yourself, a new one, a fresh one, what attributes would you choose for yourself? What recipe would you concoct? Perhaps you might add

2:25courageousness, decrease fear, subdue pain, and inject a heavy dose of unconditional kindness. See, that might sound good, but it certainly does not sound real. Just describing a person as such alludes to a lofty or even saintly individual, someone biblical, someone of myth. But as a mortal, it's as manufactured as it gets, and candidly quite boring. Asymmetry is magical. It's like Japanese kintsugi pottery, repairing broken pieces of ceramic with gold. As Kipling put it, to "watch the things you gave your life to,

3:12broken, and then build them up with worn-out tools." Today's episode is about authenticity. That is to say, today's episode is about imperfections, the true hallmarks of beauty. These blemishes are insignia of the sublime. For the next hour or so, forget about the ideals you hold so dear. Break the paradigm and sit with the raw parts of yourself as we explore the power of real authenticity. No optimizations, no calibrations, just the art of being yourself. We are fortunate enough to have Colin Gerrard with us today. Colin is an entrepreneur, film producer, and

4:00musical artist. He earned his stripes building companies around the world, learning and perfecting the art of sales and communication, something critical to his success. Colin is a black belt communicator and says exactly what's on his mind, whether you like it or not. This episode has a different flavor than usual, but that's precisely the beauty of the Nectar of Time. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the Nectar of Time, Colin. Cheers. Cheers.

4:50Colin, thanks for coming on my show. Pleasure. I want to talk about a few different things today, but what's on your mind? What's on my mind? Probably more than anything at the moment is the same thing on everybody's mind, which is which way is the world going at the moment. I mean, I'm sure that I've heard it and seen it in past movies where they said, "Oh, this generation's the worst, and that one's the worst, and this one's the worst." I just think the generation that's coming along these days has got this mentality of entitlement, and an attitude that they should be deserving of something that they haven't earned. And we all got brought up a different way. I mean, I was brought up, you know, working-class, in the sense that, you know, you want something, go and get it. And funny thing for me is that the best two pieces of advice I ever got was from my

5:38grandfather. You know, he said it to me just before he passed away, 'cause my father passed away when I was two. So he sort of looked after me till I was about nine. And one day we'd gone out for a walk or something, and he just stopped out of nowhere and he said two things. He said, "I'm going to tell you two things, boy." And the first one was, "Don't ever grow old." And the second one was, "Don't wait for anything, 'cause it's not coming." And I never realized that sort of stuff. It sort of infuses into you and maybe becomes a part of you, maybe doesn't, you know. But I mean, years later, when I started running a business, I realized that was really the topmost, the uppermost, when it comes to the right mentality. Don't wait for anything, 'cause it's not coming. And you know, I think a lot of it these days, there is this kind of mentality, and I talk to a

6:25lot of people, that they expect things. They've done nothing to earn it. They've done nothing to create it. You know, and there's a big throughout Europe right now. It's very, very big at the moment. The UK also, and countries like Sweden and things like that. They've let in a lot of migrants over the years. They did the right thing. You know, that was allowing people to have a better life. The problem is that if you don't integrate people well, and if you don't work with them to become part of your society, then they become against that society. And this is what's happening at the moment. People are bringing their mentality, their mores, their attitudes to somebody else's country with different mores, different attitudes, different mentalities, and they're clashing really badly. And then there's this whole group of people that are sitting around, sort of, you know, fanning the fire, you

7:13know, people that have no idea what they're talking about. I mean, the best part is all the protests right now, when they sit and they actually interview people, they haven't got a fucking clue what they're talking about. I mean, they really don't fucking know at all. This is what's gone on. It's all about the feelings of somebody and not about the facts, you know. You can always bring your feelings into something once you know the facts, you know, but nobody cares about the facts. It's only about their emotions and their feelings that they're upset about, or upset on behalf of somebody else that isn't upset. Right? So there's a few interesting ideas here. One is separating the facts from the feelings, and the feelings do not magically crystallize into hard evidence, into hard fact, into hard reality. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't make it so. And

8:02it's beautiful to project your feelings in art and to make that known. Of course there's, you know, Dante — Dante Alighieri from Florence. He's known for his Beatrice. Beatrice is this beautiful woman, his muse. And he never even met the girl. He met her once, but they never got together. Now, if Dante had not written La Vita Nuova, which was his first book, and if he had not gone into the Divine Comedy and written those, which were both about Beatrice, and Beatrice had clear roles in both of those stories, right? What would he have done if he wanted to take those feelings? Who knows what he would have

8:51done to some — I don't know, like the whole incel movement, for example. "Oh, why doesn't this woman love me back?" But his turning reality, or him controlling reality, was not about telling other people why he's the victim, why he can't be with this woman. It was him sharing a piece of his heart and saying, "Well, I'm not in charge of destiny. That's for greater powers than I am. But what I can do is share with the world my love, my pain." But you know, the biggest problem is most legends are built on lies. You know, it's somebody's fantasy of themselves that they promulgate, and they put up there and get people to get excited about who they are, you know. But the fact is, though, that's what the problem is more than anything. People are building their futures on

9:40lies and not on actual understanding of what the truth truly is in a situation. You know, we get a lot of this. I mean, I'm not a religious person, that's all. But at the end of the day, I mean, these are books that were written through what we commonly call in the UK Chinese whispers, or the telephone game. You know, when you're a kid at school, somebody whispers in one kid's ear, they go around the circle. By the time they get to the last child, it's completely different from what the first child heard. But for me, that's what it is. I mean, most of these books were written years, sometimes centuries, after the person that supposedly had the vision or whatever it is died. You know, it wasn't around, and some of the people were ignorant and illiterate. How is that possible, that you can actually put that into something where people are supposed to believe in that and supposed to live their lives

10:26around it? Right. I think in many cases we're talking about a lot of dogmatic stories here that cause people to misbehave in the current times, is sort of what you're referencing. Yeah. But I'm referencing it all. I mean, you can pinpoint any religion you want and find fault in it, or find positives in it too, right? I mean, not all the Bible is bad, but if I definitely want to have an interesting evening of sex and violence, I'll read the Bible, you know? A lot of these books, you know, they have some great things in them, and that's fantastic. But you got to really dig deep to find — as they used to say, diamonds aren't on top of the ground. You got to dig down deep for them. And there's some great words in all the books. Quran, doesn't matter, the Torah, the Bible, Buddhism, all, there is some great stuff in there. But the fact is it gets twisted by human beings, and

11:13it always does. And particularly, like it or not, men, you know. Men will find ways to twist something to make sure it sits in with what they're after and what they want. Yeah. For ego. Yeah. For power. Probably ego, power, you know. I mean, you know, some of the biggest hypocrisies I've ever seen come from religion, you know. But at the end of the day, it's not all bad. For me, when it comes to religion, I try to pick out the good bits, or the bits that actually speak to me to a certain level, by saying that's a good thing, or that's a good way to live your life, or that's a good way to maybe understand your life better, you know, or give you a little bit of comfort, if that's what you're after. 'Cause I mean, most things by human beings are made up at some point, you know, or created at some point. Listen, we thought the earth was flat for a long

12:01time. We thought that — I can't remember all the ones, but I think the sun was supposed to go around the earth or something, and all sorts of crazy stuff. I mean, one of the most incredible human beings ever — these are the people that aren't talked about these days. They're talking about people like, you know, influencers and stuff like that. These people that have absolutely no weight when it comes to actually giving you any information, except how to put more Botox in your face and how to make yourself look, you know, 25 years younger. At the end of the day, the people that really mean something in this world are people like Isaac Newton. I mean, you know, this guy did stuff like the gravity, all these, developed calculus and all before the age of 26. Yeah. Einstein, all his theories all came before the age of 26

12:48also. Yeah, that's right. You know, but these days the people — I mean, we did a film, or I did a film, almost 10 years ago now called I Know You, and we basically invented a character. And this character was invented, walked through the streets of Italy, stuff like that, and we made him famous, and it was incredible what we got away with. We created a famous guy out of nothing, right? But this is what people rely on. And the reason, the idea for the movie came from an article that was in the Daily Mail in 2010. And it was asking schoolkids between 14 to 17, and they had a 25-year difference in the gap, right? So 25 years before that there was, you know, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" You know, and that's, by the way, I never hear that anymore. When I was a little kid, all the time people'd come, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

13:34I never hear that at all anymore. So they asked all these kids, and they said, you know, 25 years before that time, you know, "What do you want to be?" "I want to be a doctor, a solicitor, a lawyer, whatever." You know, the fire brigade, the police, you know, a teacher. There were aspirations to vocations that were available. They asked different children in 2010, between 14 and 17, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" 48% of the kids that they asked said, "I want to be famous." So the next question was, "What do you want to be famous at?" "I don't care. I just want to be famous." Right? And that's what it's got to. And that was before TikTok, where now it's even easier to be quote-unquote famous, when the fame is so temporary. Well, I got a bit of grief at the gym the other

14:21day in London. I was at the gym and this guy was trying to film himself in his mega muscles and whatever else he didn't have really going for himself. And I happened to do the sin of walking past his camera. He goes, "What you doing walking in front of me?" I said, "Are you fucking kidding me? It's a fucking gym." I won't tell you his name, but it's a gym, say, you know, So-and-so's Gym. I said, "It's available for everybody." I said, "If you want to go do that shit, go do it at home." Yeah. I said, "I'm just here to work out." But it's, if I don't get that little bit of attention every day, if I don't get those people giving me thumbs up, if I don't get hearts on that, I'm not validated as a human being. And that's what it feels like more than anything to me these days. People don't feel they're validated as a human being, or as a person, or someone that's got something to say, unless they can use either somebody else's words or somebody else's

15:08situation that isn't their own. So all of this is setting a beautiful foundation for what I wanted to discuss today, which is the topic of authenticity, or the lack of authenticity, which is endemic in modern culture. Right. Right. There are a host of groups and people and communities and books and thought leaders around the subject of authenticity. However, you know as well as I that the vast majority of the people involved in these groups, the people involved in quote-unquote self-awareness, the people involved in

15:55reading these books, that are addicted, obsessed with learning about themselves through books, through courses, through seminars. These people are at fault almost at a higher degree than everyone else in society. Because all they end up doing is adding one veneer to the next veneer, adding one layer of masquerading to the next layer of masquerading. These people are so inauthentic, I find, yet they project authenticity. They say, "I am authentic," right? I noticed this, I just noticed this with groups online, with groups in person. I've dabbled here and there just to see. They could be men's

16:44groups, women's groups, this group, that group. And the more stringent the group is, the more fake it is. And I'll give you an example. An example would be, as you go up any hierarchy in any organization with respect to belief, religion, philosophy, whatever it is, there are more rules associated. You have to hit this checklist and that checklist and that checklist, and then you get to that level, and then you get to that level. But I find the people that you meet at the highest levels are sometimes the most out of touch with who they are, because they're hellbent on keeping up appearances to reach the next level. Now, I'm speaking sort of in a bit of an abstraction in order to cover all bases here, in order

17:32to cover everyone. And what you end up getting with these hierarchies is you end up getting a very, very sophisticated fake person, but not an authentic person. Like politicians, for example. You go up and up and up. You create bigger and bigger lies, and you start believing those lies. So it comes off as maybe authentic to the untrained eye. But to people like you, you know, you can see right there. But it's almost like a mental Ponzi scheme. That's exactly it. It's a mental Ponzi scheme. And I find that fascinating sometimes, when people will buy into just about anything that they hope. I mean hope. And I'm not using the word yes or no, or it could, or you can, or you will. I'm saying they hope, or they pray, that that's going to get them to some other

18:18sort of level in life. But the fact is, it's just about grafting and hard work that gets you somewhere. And we were always taught that as kids. You want something, go and get it. And what's hard work? Yeah. But that's the thing, what's their mentality of hard work? Well, you know, the mentality of hard work from some guy that comes from, let's say, India, comes to Canada, and he comes from nothing, from zero. I haven't seen any Indian guys sitting on a street corner begging here. 'Cause when you come from something that's really a lot worse, or unfathomably worse, than what you're used to, you look at something like this and go, "Wow, what an opportunity. I can actually work. I can actually do something every day. I actually have an opportunity to grow as a person, not nothing." And that's why immigrants, when they come to a lot of countries, know how to take advantage of things, and they take

19:05advantage of things by saying, "This is an opportunity. I can't waste this, because I'll never have this opportunity where I came from." But they're not looking at that these days. Now it's getting to the second generation of those people that came here, and they're starting to say, "Yeah, but I want all of that too, but I don't want to do anything for it." And it's also the fault of the parents sometimes. You know, a lot of parents sometimes, when they had nothing and they get something, they try to give as much as possible to their children, because they feel it's the right thing to do. But sometimes it's the wrong thing to do, because those children don't know anything about earning and what they need to do to earn something in life. And so bringing that back to the self, what does that hard work look like, to know yourself? Well, you know, the thing is that, you know, they used to always say — I remember reading something one time, years ago,

19:52about Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and when they started Microsoft, you know, they didn't invent the original program, DOS. They bought it from some fella for $600, and I'm sure he felt pretty strong about himself. "Got a little bit of money for software in my pocket there. No one's ever going to do that. What a pair of wankers these two are. My God." And they took DOS, turned it into Windows, and turned it into the success. And also Bill Gates, whether you like him or not, he was that guy running around telling everybody, "I'm going to be in every computer in the world." "Yeah, of course you are, Bill. Yeah, tell us another long story, mate." But he was — at one point 91% of computers, I think, in the world had something to do with Windows on them. But the fact is, though, it wasn't about the idea. It was what was behind the idea that made it successful. And that's what I call hard work. That's the difference. The difference is not

20:40being able to come up with some great idea. We all come up with great ideas. You ever sat there watching something on telly, on the television, some new product comes along, and you go, "I fucking thought of that shit 10 fucking years ago." Yeah, but what the fuck did you do about it? And that's what it is today. That's the mentality. "I'll wait. I'll see what comes along, and then be able to jump on that train and do something for nothing." And that's not what gets you where you want to. And then you get to this point, of course, down the line, that you feel you've cheated yourself, or you've been cheated, or you try to find someone else to blame it on, you know. But I only know a few little things. I mean, the things I got taught in quote-unquote business over the years was — and luckily a guy that was sort of kind of a mentor of mine, he said to me, "Whatever you do, don't fucking lie, Colin. Just don't fucking lie, 'cause you'll get caught at some point." To others or yourself. To yourself, to others, to

21:29anybody. Just keep it as real as possible. You don't have to be, you know, the banner or the poster boy for honesty in the world. It's not the point about it. It's the point about, when you're putting something out for somebody to look at, you're putting something out for somebody to be involved in, make sure you tell them exactly what's going to happen. Sometimes when I do interviews with people, I said, "This is what I'm after. This, this, this, this, this, this, this." And then I'd ask the interviewee, "What are you after?" Mhm. I have to know something about that guy to decide whether that person is maybe too ambitious for me, right? You know, or maybe not ambitious enough, or whatever in that area, and I need to be able to ascertain that by finding out something about that person. But these two little things, that thing I learned from my grandfather, the other things in business that I learned was, you know, one of my favorite things ever was 50%

22:16of success is where you do right, and the other 50% is where you stop from going wrong. It's just a simple little thing. And the other one was, most things are 99% attitude and 1% ability. Mhm. I mean, as incredibly intelligent, and with forethought and greatness, as Isaac Newton maybe was, he still at some point had to garner what the idea is, and then put the work and the effort and the time. I mean, he couldn't figure out a problem. This is what's incredible. He couldn't figure out some sort of problem. Went away and invented calculus. I mean, instead of crying about it and saying, "I have a problem. I'm never going to figure it out. The universe is not going to happen for me," he said, "Well, fuck it. I better do something about it." Right? He went away in another room. I don't know how the fuck he did

23:03it, but he went away and invented calculus. So real work is involved in making yourself the right person, not lying to yourself, not lying to others. Okay. So I'm going to interrupt you for one second there. I did a little experiment one time in my business. These guys were coming to me talking about — what's that geezer's name again? The guy that sort of invented himself. Oh, I've forgotten his name now. He was really big on television at one point. Big tall fella. Motivational speaker. Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins. That's it. Right. So this guy was coming to me telling me Tony Robbins is the bee's knees, is amazing. "You got to read his book. It's incredible. It's changed my life." Dude, who was still doing shit when he was doing sales, but still he was telling me how this has changed his life. "I'm fantastic." All right, that's a key point. He was still doing

23:50shit while doing sales, yet his life was changed. Okay. Well, the thing is that people don't realize that the reason why that sort of 1% of the world is more successful than — and it depends on what your level of success is. I mean, one of the reasons why I love Italians, they have an expression called bella figura. And in Italy, it's just about family, friends, food, life. What does that translate to? Bella figura is like, more like a kind of a happy life, you know, a good life, or our life, or whatever like that. And what's great about it is that it's just kind of — and the exact words don't actually translate to what exactly it is. But there's a certain mentality there about their way of life, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a nice way of life, and you can have the ambition to have a great family. You could have the ambition to have, or go to, a great restaurant that

24:38weekend, or whatever. Those are ambitions that are also important too. It doesn't have to be the ambition to become a billionaire or a millionaire, or whatever the fuck you want to have, you know, down the line. But so, the experiment that I did in the business at the time. I said, "Okay, well, let me find out." I went to the shops and I went to the self-help section and I bought five books, just random. One was Tony Robbins. That was the main one. And then I put four other ones. I won't tell you who they were. It doesn't matter. And I did a little experiment. I got most of my people together in that office, right? And we sat down one night and we started reading. I gave the five books out to five different people, and I asked them to start reading them, and then we would switch the books with everybody, and different people would read the different books, and we actually found out that these five books had basically the same fucking information in every fucking book. It's called the realization that if you actually wake up in the fucking morning,

25:25believe the fact that the world doesn't revolve around you, but you have to create a spot in the world for yourself, then you'll do great. At some point you'll do great. It's like saying to some poor fellow — you say to a geezer that's working in a warehouse, "I'm never going to get successful." Well, that's not true. It depends on how you want to live your life. And the problem is, we have this disposable society where, if I don't get the new iPhone tomorrow, I'm going to blow up. You know, if I don't get that new thing, I'm going to blow up. You know, people don't even fix shit anymore. They just throw it away and buy something new, you know? So the mentality of these books, and this self-help stuff that we went through, and all this reading of how these things can change your life — basically, it was the same answer in every single fucking book. And it was pretty simple. Have a good attitude. Don't give up. Work hard. You'll be successful. Right? The same

26:13shit was in every book. I mean, if I wanted to, and what I should have done at the time, which I didn't do, was to cover the front of the book with just a piece of paper or something, and just say — and you'd find — but we found at the end of it, didn't really have to do that, like a Pepsi taste test with the books. But we really didn't have to do that at the end. We found every book was bloody the same. I mean, I even said — but I also know some of the motivational guys are absolutely full of shit. I mean, I remember going to a meeting one time, and this guy saying, "Yeah, you don't have to be a rocket scientist. By the way, I was a rocket scientist at one point." I'm like, "The fuck?" Actually looked the guy up, and this guy was so full of crap. And everyone in the crowd going, "He was a rocket scientist. Oh my God. And now he's doing this. This is incredible. This is blowing my brains out." I'm like, "Come on, mate." You know, there's also got to be that realization that there's a little bit of shit behind

26:59some of the motivational crap that's out there, you know. But you usually, down the line, can find the people that you should listen to, because they normally are the ones that don't talk about it. They actually do it. Yeah. Well, that's true. Many don't make it that far, or you get caught in a community, in a group, that the doing it is just doing more of what you're already doing at a higher level. So, for example, that person, let's say, read five books by Tony Robbins, let's say, or whoever. Then they're going to meet someone who's read 50 books by, and now not only have they read 50 books, but they also put a course together, and they also went to India for five years, and they

27:46meditated with a monk in wherever. And so all of these things, they give the appearance of results, they give the appearance of enlightenment, but at the end of the day, if you put them in that situation where it requires real resolve, right? That's the ultimate test of whatever model you're working with, is resolve in the real world. And in sales and in business, you need resolve. You'll know very quickly if that book that you read is making a difference or not. And the thing about sales, though, is the communication factor. And the thing is that people just don't know how to fucking communicate these days. Sometimes I introduce somebody, they'll introduce a kid to me, and I go, "Oh, this is Jeff." And he's like — it's in my phone, my personality. Let's say that's a distraction. But how much

28:34of the inability to communicate is a lack of the ability to be authentic? I agree with you. See, most people that understand real eye-to-eye contact — it's not trying to burn some, you know, try to be a tough guy and burn into the soul of the other guy. But it's actually listening to what the person has to say, thinking about it, then commentating on it, and deciding where your vision of that person's attitude is the same as yours. But the thing that is worrying me more than anything is that people just don't really listen at all anymore. They hear the bits they want to hear, not the bits they should hear. Mhm. And you know, it's like the kid saying, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "I want to be famous." "At what?" "I don't give a

29:20shit. I just want to be famous." But that's not a concrete idea. And the thing is that, you know, I don't hear stuff like that except these motivational speakers. But, you know, a lot of the people that I see doing exercise stuff, I like a lot of them, because they're a little bit more real when it comes to the motivational factor. When you say exercise, you mean? Well, there's a young lady, I'm not sure what her name is. She does these things on bicycles now, but she's very — I give her credit. She's extremely motivating. I don't know her name. And she's extremely motivating because she does this thing. She's on the bicycle, and you could tell it's hard work, you know? It's definitely hard work, but she's not running the whole gamut of telling people to get fired up and "You can do it." She's just having a lot of fun doing it. Mhm. And realizing that, you know, exercise can be fun and make you feel better about yourself, and it doesn't have to be there just to make sure you look like the right guy on the beach. You know, I used to box when I was younger, and

30:07I'd always see the guys, and the guy that ran the gym in London with me — he ran the gym, sorry, the gym I went to — he was great. He wouldn't allow anybody doing juice or steroids in there at all. And he said, "Those guys are uncontrollable. They're doing it for a reason that's about vanity. It's not about health. It's just about vanity." And he said, "I can't have that in my club. I'll go and have people that are not here for the health and they're only here for the vanity." He used to say, "If you're here for your vanity, go to fucking Playboy magazine." I go, "Is that for the guys, too?" Yeah. But the thing about all of that sort of stuff, and when it comes to motivational factors, is you are always looking for somebody that normally will say what they're going to do and then do it. And that's the rarity for me. You can talk till the cows come home. We

30:54used to call these people VD people. And it's not the venereal disease part. We just call them verbal diarrhea. You know, they'll come up with all this crap and spew all this shit, but never do anything about it. Right? It's great that you can talk the talk, but you know that old expression, it's better you walk the walk. You know, and that's the ultimate litmus test for me, is in order to judge a tree, you have to judge it by the fruit that it bears. And if the tree is just saying, "Oh, I'm this. Oh, I'm that," yet everything's rotten underneath it, they're projecting a totally different reality than what everyone else can actually see. Oh yeah, you're talking about politicians now, right? There's a whole lot of folks that can fit that category. So how does one become — so there's this illusory authenticity that you can get from courses and seminars and blah blah blah.

31:41And one thing on the self-help: there's this famous Mexican-American businessman, somewhat controversial, Dan Peña. He's quite funny, actually, when it comes to motivation, but his style of motivation is to tell you how full of crap you are. And his line about the motivation industry is that self-help is the biggest scam of all time, because they tell you you're getting better, yet there's no performance indicator that you're able to track. You can't actually track yourself getting better if you believe that you're getting better. The simplicity of it is, it is so simple, being successful, that — I mean, Woody Allen used to have that expression, "80% of success is just showing up." Yeah, he's fucking right. I mean, it is. I mean,

32:29people — it doesn't mean that just because you're present, you're showing up. Doesn't mean you're actually there. You may be there, and you may be physically there, but it doesn't mean you're mentally there. Certainly the actual advice itself is very easy. It's the packaging of it, that they will package it through their system, and their system is the way. You know, it's so funny, because when you get caught up in these groups, they don't realize that outside of their little group, the entire world is being successful and has never heard about their technique, about their technology, about their book, and even about their leader. You can get on with your life by doing the simple things that maybe your mom or dad taught you, or maybe your boss taught you, or maybe you read it in a newspaper, or maybe you read it in a novel. It's not that complicated. But

33:16it's funny what you said about packaging. That was a really, really — that hit the nail for me, because this is an analogy part of it, but years ago I used to go to China to source products all the time for my company at the time. And they would always say to me, "This is the product, this is the price I can get you. If you get this amount of volume, I can get you a cheaper price." But then we would talk about packaging, and there were some products — and I didn't always sell the most glamorous products in the world — but there were some products I had where, by the time I got done with the packaging, the packaging was more expensive than the product. But that's part of it, though. It's all how people — you know, perfume. The thing — Yes, perfume. The thing is that if you can put nice curtains on something and make it look a little bit better, there's nothing wrong with that. But if there's no content and there's nothing structurally behind

34:03that, then you're just building a wall of shit, you know, nothing that's going to be there for somebody to hold on to. And people want to know that when they do dig the surface long enough, and they do actually find those diamonds, those diamonds are real. They're not zirconium. They're actually real diamonds that they dug down deep for. And that's part of the problem with some of the motivational stuff. They'll do everything they say, but they don't get the results they're expecting. But that's also the Einstein, the old Einstein term, you know, doing the same thing in the same way, expecting a different outcome, is the definition of being crazy, right? Or insane, or whatever. And that's part of it. Again, people are doing the same thing the same way, complaining about it. And that's the biggest thing I got taught when I was a kid. Don't complain. Mhm. You're breathing, you're eating, you've got a roof over your head, you've got nothing to complain about. And we'd always go,

34:49"Yeah, yeah, yeah," like that. But it's true, compared to lots of people in this world. And that's why people are getting frustrated with the migrant situation around the world, because most of the people that are trying to come to these countries are just looking for a better life. Of course there's a smattering of shit. There always is. There's a smattering of bad people. There's a smattering, and our problem as countries is we're not actually detecting that properly. We're just saying, "Let them all in first, then we'll figure it out afterwards." But if we actually did our borders properly, then probably 95% of the people that want to come here would get in. And we'd hopefully find the 5% that are bad for the country and not let them in, you know, so to speak. But that's not an investment. Again, people are not investing in the country. They're not investing in the first line of defense, which is what we are as a nation, or who we are as a

35:38nation. What makes us tick, what makes us a great country. I mean, Canada is a great country, no question about it. But I think, personally, every time I come back to Canada, I think they're losing their identity more and more and more and more and more. This is true. Although I want to keep us on track, and I want to play devil's advocate for a second. Let's say I don't really care, and this podcast does not really care, if you're successful or not. This podcast is not a self-help podcast, but there is something in that topic that's very interesting, which is that thread of authenticity. And if you're a villain — let's say you do complain all the time, let's say you're a villain in society, or you're a villain in a novel, you're a villain in a story — you want that villain to come off as authentic. You don't want that to be a facade. You know, a lot of these, a lot of crimes that we see, they're about

36:26small, broken people that want to be the villain, because they feel, "If I'm the villain, then I'll finally get my recognition," right? And then they do that, and then they become, you know, infamous for a couple days, maybe a couple weeks during a trial, and then they get locked up for the rest of their lives. That is obviously a horrific byproduct of our society, and I don't want to get into that, but I do want to give credit to at least — if you are complaining. Take Seinfeld. You mentioned Seinfeld, you know, before we started recording today. We were talking about the show. Seinfeld is full of complainers, but they're all authentic, which makes them actually likable in a weird way. You're right. Right. So maybe we wouldn't hire any of them in our companies, right? But we might be friends with them. We might

37:14write them into a story, as Larry David did. And so for me, I guess, when I meet with people, I don't really care so much about where you're going. Where you're going is up to you and Fortuna and your fate. That's not my business. It's not my business to proselytize and tell you, "Hey, you really need to start working out three times a week and waking up at 6 a.m." I don't give a shit. You're an adult. You do whatever you want. But what I do really appreciate in people is the authenticity. And I would rather a friend that is very authentic, speaking from the heart, and not on a track of success, than someone who is on a track of success, yet they are optimizing every area of their life, where you don't know

38:01when you're going to be on the chopping block, because maybe they're just going to recalibrate around you, and all they care about is themselves. It's funny you said that. When you mentioned the film Eli, there's — talking about authenticity — besides the chap that I met here. He was an incredible character that, you know, got out of — he was in Bergen-Belsen. They came to his house in the summer of '44 in Hungary, and his father disappeared. He went with his mother and his little brother, and him, right in front of Mengele. Mengele said left, right. His mother and his little brother went one way, he went the other way, and never saw them again. And this guy still talked about his fight to be able to live, and to be able to grow, and to be able to be a person, you know. And that authenticity is really a strange thing,

38:49because the thing is that people are reading so many things, or trying to get involved in so many things, but if they get to the end of it and find out that it's not authentic, or it's not real, or the person's been lying to them, or the person's a hypocrite, saying one thing and doing something completely different for themselves, that's what hurts it all. And we've had so much of that in this society, more and more and more. People, I guess, are struggling to find something to make them different, you know, or to separate themselves from the crowd. And they're not just — you know, a lot of people will do that in America. I noticed: "Well, what part of America are you from?" "Well, I'm Irish American." "Oh, you're born in Ireland, then." "No, no, I'm just Irish American." I'm like, "But yeah, but you're American. You were born in America." But it doesn't matter. I understand their perspective. I really do. They're trying to get something to make themselves feel

39:36a little bit more authentic, a little bit different maybe, than everybody else doing the same thing day after day. But authenticity is a very strong word. And it's so rare these days, because at the end of it, you get to this point. And in the film Eli, the fella, the original character, the whole story revolves around the fact that everybody's got some kind of story deep down. Maybe it's a good story, maybe a bad story. The other day I was noticing your Rubik's Cube there, but I met this kid in London, and he does Rubik's Cube blindfolded. And I didn't ask him about his background. I didn't ask him where he came from. I didn't ask him whether he was, you know, the star of the new gaming magazine. I asked him, "Can you show me how you do it,

40:23mate?" Mhm. That's all I wanted to know. Not that I didn't believe that he was doing it or anything like that, but when he did it, and he did it blindfolded, I'm like, "What a skill." I mean, some people may think that's stupid, but maybe it's just a tiny skill that he can do a Rubik's Cube blindfolded. And he just looks at the cube for, I guess, maybe 30 seconds altogether, like this. Put blindfold on, done in seconds. Incredible. But I think that's a great skill. I don't think it's a bad skill. I think it's a good skill. Something you could learn from somebody else. And he's authentic. He does what he's supposed to do. And maybe it's not going to change the world. It's not going to make the world a better place. But I do agree with you more than anything. I think authenticity is so far out the window these days. It's just kind of — it's hiding what the

41:14issue is. People hide their imperfections. Social media, you hide your imperfections. Authenticity is about showing your imperfections and continuing to be yourself despite your imperfections. Why Botox was invented. This is true. I'm not joking. But you can even take Botox and still be — the authentic point is that when somebody asks you if you took Botox, you just say yes. Right. Right. That's the authentic part, is you're not hiding anything. You're not tucking things away. You're open. And that makes for more trusting friendships. It makes for just higher-fidelity conversations. You can be more open. You can connect with — again, with sales, connecting with people is about being open, right? It's not about lying to them and having some canned line. When it does come to authenticity,

42:01though, it is a rare thing. And when you do find somebody like that, that you think is authentic, or you hope is authentic, and you follow that person, or you adhere to that person, or you listen to that person — well, I think it's a great thing, but I think it goes back to the old philosophy they used to say when I was a kid, you know: you got two ears and two eyes and one mouth. You should be doing twice as much listening and twice as much paying attention than you should be talking. And people just don't do that. It's, "I need to be heard. I need to be listened to. Someone has to." But, you know, most of the time you're never going to learn anything if you're just spewing all your feelings out and not actually paying attention to the facts, which is authenticity. So what do you do about someone — let's say you're back in your role as a sales manager, right? And — or let's stick to this example, and then

42:50we can sort of extrapolate other examples. This example, you have someone who's a — you see the potential in them, yet you know there's a veneer. You know they have this mask. They have this veil that they can't fully — like, they're trying to impress you, for example, and they're trying to say the right thing constantly, and they're worried about misstepping on their words. And I know that the script is great as a guideline, but the gravity of a single word in a script doesn't matter. You could replace it with anything. You could put duct tape over your mouth. You'd still figure out a way to sell the thing, right? So how do you take someone that is green, that has it inside of them, but they need to break that veneer? You need to get to know the person. And here's how you do it. You know the problem with

43:37what I find in most sales companies? They have these motivational meetings every day. "Come on, get out there. Do it. You're gonna die. Sell, sell, sell." It's the worst fucking thing you can do in the world, because these people, you don't know them. You don't know what motivates them. I've had some people I brought over to my office, I threw shit at them, screamed at them, threatened their lives and all the rest of it. They went out and did amazing. I've had other guys come in, and I say, "Come on, you can do better. I know you. You want a cuddle?" Next day they do amazing, because I got to know them a little bit, about what makes them tick. I would take certain people out to dinner, and the one thing I would never talk about was the business. Zero. Maybe at the very end of the night, I'd say, "Well, have you got some goals for this year? What do you want to do?" And all of that. But normally I would talk about them, or ask them questions about themselves and about their lives and about what's going on. And if you have any educational understanding when it comes to the psychology of human beings,

44:25which you should do as a human being, then you'll know, you know what, that's not the kind of guy I can scream at. He was bullied by his dad and treated like shit. I mean, I'll give you a great example of reverse motivation that kicked me in the butt one day. I had some failure in my office, in one of my offices in Belgium, and we had this campaign we were doing for a large telecommunications company, and everyone was doing shit on it. I mean, no one could do a fucking thing, except one guy. This guy was doing fantastic. And I don't know what it was or whatever. So I said, you know, it's time to do my motivational thing. "I've got you, big man," and he's going to be my next fella, right? So I pull this poor fellow into an office and I start going off on him. I go, "You're amazing. You're fantastic. You're the only guy setting the pace. You're incredible. I

45:12could see you as my next manager." This guy starts, bit by bit by bit, as I'm doing my thing, he starts hyperventilating, until at one point I'm like, "Mate, are you all right? Call 999, 911, or whatever it is." You know, this poor — he was trying to get words out. "I don't want to be a manager. I don't want the responsibility." Sure enough, I ruined it. The guy ended up quitting two weeks later. But it taught me a lesson. I didn't know the guy. I sat there trying to do my shtick on him, or whatever you want to call it, you know, and get him all motivated and fired up, and all these types of, you know, expressions that you use in the sales world sometimes. And the fact of the matter, it was my own fault. I blew it. It had nothing to do

45:59with him. It was completely, 100% my fault, that I hurt that guy, because I didn't get to know him at all. Right. And I found that's the best thing when you want to find authenticity in a person. You have to get to know them. Then you know how to motivate them. So this is really interesting, because you've basically just detailed how you break someone else's veneer, how you break someone else's mask, in order to build that connection. What happens if there isn't a Colin Gerrard in the room? How can that person in the mirror at home break it themselves? What do they need to do in order to see themselves? I mean, and I'll preface this by saying this is an incredibly difficult question, one that basically has been attempted to be answered over millennia by various groups, various religions, various philosophies.

46:47The most famous one being, let's say, Gautama Buddha trying to figure out the self, right? Ultimately, the purest form of authenticity. I am what I am. Exactly. Yeah. From a pragmatic point of view, from a practical application, what can someone do? Like, how do you see your blind spot? Well, you know, I had a manager one time I worked with, and he nailed me pretty quickly, and he did it in a very smart way. He brought me into his office, said, "You know what I like about you, Colin?" I go, "What?" He goes, "You love to make excuses." And right away he put me on the back foot, and he knew what he was doing. And I knew what he was doing also, but it didn't matter. I had a part of me that, when you tell me I can't do something, or I'm not good

47:35enough, that motivates the hell out of me. It just does. And you can be as blatant about it as possible. "I know what you're doing. I know what you're up to." But doesn't matter. I'm going to fall for it anyways, because I'm like, why does that person think they're better than me? Why does he think he's a better person, in his life, in his, you know, human existence on this planet, that he gets to be better than me? So are you saying there needs to be a catalyst for someone? Well, there needs to be something for you. What's in it for you? And that's the thing, and that's what I used to do in interviews. I would tell them what's in it for me, and then I would say, "What's in it for you? What are you after?" And the thing is that most people don't understand what they really want. And you know, if you've got a goal in mind, something that you really want, you should do your best, with all your might, to not make it monetary. Don't make your goal to be a

48:24billionaire. It's the worst fucking thing you can do. The goal of Bill Gates was not to be a billionaire. The goal of Bill Gates was to be the number one software guy in the world, and have the best idea, and let everybody know about it, which in turn made him a billionaire. Right? You can name all of these guys. It's the idea that counted for them, not the money. It was the idea that got them motivated, about them being authentic about this idea. It's like that girl — the guy that — the girl that got busted. She's in jail now, saying she'd invented this blood thing, you know, and she was just so — about it. But again, there's authenticity for you. Everybody believed in that girl, all the way down to the 11 years she's now serving in jail for making up a fucking thing about — Yeah. Theranos. That's Elizabeth Holmes. Yeah, Elizabeth Holmes. Bad Blood. People all believed in her, and they thought she

49:12was authentic, and she ran around telling everybody how authentic she was. She is the antithesis of authenticity. She's the polar opposite. She has not ever sniffed the scent of authenticity. But it's a shame, you know. There's also these little people out there that put money into the stock market, too. They're not all these huge Wall Street guys, and maybe they got a few extra quid, or a few extra dollars, or whatever like that, and they're going to put it into something, and that's important for their future. But I remember my stepfather, who's passed now, but he said to me years ago — I remember one time, I guess, the shares or whatever — he goes, "Yeah, Apple's going to come and knock on my coffin, tell me the stock's up finally," you know. And he's right, you know. That little bit of money that he had at the time, that he put into that, was supposed to be his future. That was supposed to be the authenticity that he was believing in and respecting and investing in, you

50:00know. And when that goes down, or that goes pear-shaped for people, there's another point they start losing grasp, or losing trust in reality, and also losing trust in society. So for the sake of argument, let's say someone doesn't have lofty aspirations and doesn't have any aspirations. Let's say they — how do they become real with themselves and stop putting up a veneer? There's this one book that I mentioned on the podcast previously, by Japanese writer Dazai, and he writes characters that have no aspiration. Particularly one character has no aspirations, is constantly made fun of, is constantly the butt of jokes, and he himself then begins to make himself the butt of jokes, because that's

50:48how he can sort of — that's his coping mechanism. He is very — he's struggling, and the only authentic thing he feels is that he's miserable, right? And that's obviously an example just to bring us back to the other pole. But how does someone without any major aspiration, someone that maybe is in a moment of struggle, how do they look in the mirror, compare themselves to the version that they want to be, and realize there's a gap between where they are and where they want to be? And let's say authenticity is the bridge that they need to cross to get there. Whether it's with, you know, the opposite sex,

51:35whether it's, you know, in dating, or it's with the job, or it's with family, or whatever it is, they know that every time they open their mouths, a sort of mask comes out, not the real feeling. They're calibrating their words to suit the other person. They can't be real with themselves. They only ever feel the realness when they go to sleep at night, and they say, "I wish I said that. I wish I was more like this. I wish I was more like that. I wish I had the confidence." How does that person, who doesn't have the support around them to make that happen — what's like an initial thing that that person can do to take the first step towards authenticity, instead of just, you know, appeasing? Well, I think more than anything, you

52:24need a pen and paper, and you need to write down what is it that you want in your life. What is it that's going to make you happy? Maybe it's just finding the right girl, the right guy, whatever, the right one to get married to. That's what you're after. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, my mate, he's a builder in the UK. And I have such respect for him, because he's one of the builders out there that's really noble. He thinks building a house is a pretty cool thing, and it's someone's forever place to live, or whatever, or someone's going to purchase that house and it's going to be their family in there. And he thinks that's a hell of a great thing to do. And so do I. And I think we've lost a lot of that. A lot of people have these aspirations and ambitions to be, you know, the biggest pop star, or the biggest movie star, or this. And we've created that ourselves as a society. Our ambitions, and the things that we want to

53:11look forward to, all seem to revolve around either power, money, or fame. Right? That's it. Power, money, fame. Those three things are what we've been told, or are telling our kids, a lot of the time. "This is what you need to aspire to." Instead of saying, how about being a great teacher, you know? How about being a great solicitor, I don't know, a lawyer, being a great police officer, a great fire brigade person? How about being a great human being, and have friends that you actually spend time with, that you want to spend time with? You have to decide and find the root of what you are after. What kind of — 'cause I mean, happiness is a funny thing. You know, there was a great thing in Ricky Gervais's show called Life After Death, and there's a bit when he's

53:59talking about his wife, who's passed away, and the girl says, you know, happiness is a great thing. Even if it doesn't happen to you, it's still a great thing, you know. And he said — and there's a line in it that says, and it's from, I've forgotten who the author was, but it says that, you know — I'm paraphrasing, so it's probably not the exact quote, but it's, you know, men will finally realize what life is all about when they plant trees of which the shade they will never see. So they're doing something actually for the future of other people, because that's what's supposed to happen on the planet. You're supposed to — you know, we all know we're not going to last on this plane forever. So what we do and what we leave behind is super important for the people. But if you don't have a

54:46family, and you don't have any friends, that's the point when you understand that you don't really care about — what you leave behind is of no interest to you. Having a child changes your life completely. It puts you into a situation, if you feel you want to be a good parent. Because I believe that a lot of the societies, you know — the fact that things are not authentic these days is the parents don't give that authenticity to their children. You know, they're not sometimes aware of what they say to their children, and how one line can destroy that poor kid for all of his life. "You're never any good at that. You've always been fat. You're always this and that." And it can destroy a child. I mean, trust me, I know. I've had lines — didn't necessarily come from my family, but came from people when I was a kid — that really changed the way I looked at things. So that word,

55:34authenticity, finding it is not going to be something you could ever really write down. It's something you have to do. It's something you have to be, you know. But writing down a goal, or something that you'd like to have in this life, or some things that — you know, sometimes there's nothing bad about having a good and bad list. "These are the things I need to work on in my life. I procrastinate too much, or I don't do this. I don't really text back my friends when my friends are texting me and asking me how I am. I leave it for a week or two." You know, that's disrespectful. And making a little list of things that you need to work on a little bit. And then the other list is going to be a lot smaller. The things that you want and want to be should be a lot smaller than the list that you've got problems with. Right. So this is a common thing. It's not a to-do list. It's a to-stop-doing list. Exactly. And people don't — you know, they'll say to themselves, "I need to do this."

56:21Never fucking do anything about it. And wonder why it's still the same 10 years later. Yeah, you know, and listen, it's not easy these days, 'cause everybody's got — you know, it's not the sort of pre-arranged life that maybe it was 50 years ago, where, you know, you went to school, you know — they used to call it, in the UK they call it, you know, birth, school, work, death. That's what you have to look forward to. Birth, school, work, death. But the fact is, though, in between, you're supposed to be having a bit of fun with your mates. You're supposed to be having a good time with your family. And it's not like that, because it's gotten pulled apart. You know, in the old days, the wife stayed at home, the missus was in the kitchen, you know, and did her thing like that, looked after her man, who sat and worked all day and came home and sat and expected his meal on the table at 6:00 or 7:00, whatever it is. Well, now that

57:09woman wants to have a career of her own. She wants to be somebody. She's got thoughts and aspirations of being authentic, and saying, "Well, I don't want to just adhere to some guy that expects me to have my dinner — his dinner — on the table at 6:00. I want to be something also. I don't mind doing that. I love him. I care for him. He's my man," or whatever like that. "But at the same time, what about me?" And that is the problem. And that's why you see these divorces 10 years later, because they forgot to say, "What about me?" And that's the key to a person that wants to be successful. You have to ask that question. What about me? What about me? And that will get you on the path to authenticity, because you're being real. Very much so. And it could be the smallest of things. I mean, you know, there's that great story about the fellow in 1978. He invented this thing called the Pet Rock, and it was — I mean, normally, if you sat in a meeting

57:58and said, "I've got this idea, lads. We're going to get a box, stick a couple of holes in it, call it a Pet Rock, stick a rock in there, put some fake grass in there, put some information about how to care for that rock, and sell it for whatever it was at the time, five bucks or something," you know, like that. And everyone at the table will go, "Are you fucking — the stupidest — get the fuck out of my — stupidest idea ever." This guy didn't listen to anybody. Invented. He'd done it sometime, I think, in the summertime of that year. By Christmas time, he was a multimillionaire, and the product was dead and gone by that time, but it didn't matter. It may be a stupid little idea, but those little ideas don't hurt. If you're taking $5 from somebody, unless they're in a situation where $5 is going to change their family, which in a lot of cases, that's true. But if it's sort of a throwaway $5, that person's feelings aren't hurt. They've

58:46got a stupid Pet Rock in the corner, and whatever. And the other guy gets to go wherever he wants to go after that. Yeah. You have to practice it. I think it's like a muscle, this authenticity, brain expression. Yeah. And I remember, you know, early on in my 20s, I would — you know, let's say when it came to dating or something — if I was giving a ride to whichever girl, if I was seeing a certain girl, I would give a ride and she'd be in my car. And then I remember reading this article, and it was talking about why — like, why are you changing the music in your car to suit the person sitting in the car with you, to suit the girl? You're asking her what music do you like, and you go to that? You're fucking great, and that's really good. That's authentic, 'cause you know what you're doing. You're not compromising, which everyone — you, amazing —

59:32go, "Why are you doing that? Why are you bending over backwards?" You're just adapting, and there's a big fucking difference. Those words are not synonymous, compromising and adapting. You're an adapter. And I fucking love that. I do the same thing. I'll ask somebody, "Do you like that kind of music? You like that?" Why is that going to fucking hurt your feelings, to make somebody else happy for 20 minutes in your car? But wait a second. You're giving me props for the wrong thing. I'm saying I twisted the corner a little bit. That's what I was doing, which is not a bad thing. It's nice to be like that, for sure. But in that moment, I realized — I was reading that article, I was realizing, wait a second, she's coming into my car. Maybe she wants to know what I like to listen to as well. Also, and that's the right thing to do. But, you know, you also don't want to get yourself where you start to get this sort of, like, a Mexican standoff, as they

1:00:19used to call it, right? Where, "You can listen to music." "Oh, I don't know. You listen to whatever you want to do." "I don't know." And it starts turning into a really wimpy, disgusting — "Make a fucking decision and tell me what you want to listen to now." Exactly. Well, I think this goes into the people-pleasing category, and not just people pleasing, but validation seeking and approval seeking. If you like something, stick by it, and you like it, and that's it. And if it happens that this person's ears are going to bleed, then maybe you can compromise on a different song. Or maybe next time you say, "Hey, you know what? I really love this album. Next time we're going to listen to the album that you like." But it's all about being very confident and secure in what you care about. And it comes down to that list that you were

1:01:06talking about. Write down the things that you care about, or just think about the things that you care about. Think about the things that you won't compromise on. And that's what makes you an interesting person. For a while I would be obsessed with self-help books and this and that. And I realized the more self-help books I read, the less of a personality I had. That is exactly right. I agree with you, 'cause that time I did that experiment with the five books, by the time I ended up reading all five of them, I'm like, "Jesus, why am I wasting my time with this?" It's because the thing about success, to me, is basically two words. It's common sense. Yeah. That's what success is to me. It's using your common sense that you get. It's like saying you come to the traffic, why is there a red, amber, and green light? Well, it's common sense. Common sense is drowned out by all of the people in your life

1:01:55that have either hurt you, or authority figures, or whatever. And this is nowadays the whole trauma therapy, whatever. But the point is, if you're doing therapy, if you're doing all these programs, you have to understand it's just a means, and it's not the end. For a lot of people, that therapy becomes the end. They obsess over it. It's just a means. It's a tool. Maybe you have a friend that can be that therapist for you, but the vast majority of people who have friends, they're just as fucked up as you are. And so they're going to give you interesting refractions, but they're not going to give you very good reflection. And the refractions take you and put it through their filter, put it through their biases, and give you information. But what you really need is to develop a mirror. Yeah. And over time you develop that muscle where you can be

1:02:43your own mirror. But sometimes you need to go through a process of someone holding a mirror to you, whether it's your boss, whether it's a mentor, whether it's a therapist. But you have to go through that process to eventually start to see yourself. Then I think once you see yourself honestly, truly, for the first time, you can then begin to make changes. And there's also a bit of that car crash mentality, right? You're standing on the northwest corner, I'm standing on the southwest corner. We see the same car crash, but we see it from different angles, even though it's the same car crash. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. Yeah, there is a good thing, but that's what really the bottom line of all of this is, is that, you know, your authenticity as a human being is going to be the actions that you do and not the words that you say. And you know, that's one of the oldest expressions in the world, is, you know, actions speak louder than words.

1:03:30And it's more true today than at any other time ever, I think, in the history of the planet. Because at the end of the day, if you're going to get something done, then you want to do something. It's the actions that you do and not the words that you say. And I like those guys. Sometimes there's these guys — I've met people before that, you know, they're very smart. And you know, somebody said to me, if you get something great sometimes, just shut the fuck up about it. If you find a great relationship, or somebody that you love, or some great situation, just shut up. Shut up. You don't have to fucking jump on social media and tell the whole fucking planet about the fact that you were able to open a door without tripping over your own fucking shoelaces today. Good for you. But at the end of the day, though, I think that stuff is really great. I mean, those little steps. There's a guy on TikTok right now in the UK, and he's just — I can't even think of the right words. He's a

1:04:20I guess you can call him motivational, but he helps people with cerebral palsy, and kids that have had accidents, or kids that have had brain damage, just to be able to walk two steps for the day. But he doesn't have kid gloves with it. He's like, "Come on, get off your fucking — oh, come on, mate. You can fucking do it. What the fuck are you doing? Sit in that fucking chair." And you know, a lot of these kids that have severe mental challenges and severe handicaps laugh, too, during it, because they know. And some of them cry, and some of them get upset. He makes these people feel that their life is fucking incredible for being able to take two steps in a row today. Two steps. And he's showing that person that even two steps can be a great fucking thing. And that's fucking authentic. And that's great, because sometimes the smallest achievements can be the greatest, you know? And I think tough love is better than fake love at the end of the day. Yeah. I don't like your beard, by the

1:05:08way. I think you need to trim that. Is that tough enough for you? 'Cause one day you'll be able to grow up and have a manly beard like across the other side of the table. Wow. So off camera, you compliment the beard. On camera, you disparage it. I know, I'm weak as a person. Very inauthentic. I want to change the — You know, I don't care what anybody says about you. You know, I like it. Thank you, Colin. Are you familiar with Alan Watts, the British philosopher? Yes, to a certain level, but I haven't really read much of him. But I am familiar with him, but I have not really read much. Passed away, I think, in the '70s or '80s. He didn't treat his body very well. I think he was an alcoholic. But he was this famous professor that taught Eastern teachings, all of the Eastern teachings, all the Eastern religions,

1:05:54philosophies. Also very well-versed in the Western, but his specialty was Eastern. And he went to California. I think it was San Francisco, LA. I was trying to interject. You just made me think, that's the other — three most important words I ever learned. What's that? Which is — you just asked me about Alan Watts. I said, "Well, I've heard of him, but I don't know him." The three most important words I ever learned was "I don't know." Yeah, you're so afraid to fucking say that, and say something — "Oh, Alan, yeah, I know who he is." Yeah, no, I've heard of him, but I don't know who he is. But "I don't know" are three of the most important words you can ever learn. So there's tacit approval, and then there's tacit agreement, and even preemptive agreement. One of my big pet peeves is people answering and agreeing with me, or people agreeing with my statement — "Oh, yeah, I agree with you" — before I finish it. Exactly. Just like that. Because you don't know if I'm

1:06:42going to say, "Oh, yeah, and I love killing innocent women and children." And then you're stuck. I had a guy do that to me. I was driving in Holland one time, and all the baby lambs — they call them lammetjes there, right? And he had a great punchline. I mean, to people that are offended by this, please don't be offended. It's just about a little bit of meat, but still. So I was going — 'cause I love animals. I'm a huge animal fan. You can't hurt any animals, to me. I prefer animals over humans any day of the week. With all these baby lambs running around the field, I went, "Oh, look at the baby lambs. They're so sweet." He goes, "And nice with mint sauce." You fucker. But you're not a vegan. You're not a vegan. No, I'm not, but I'm not a big meat guy. I'm just a huge animal fan. Well, one of my grandfathers was a vet. And ironically, he never had any pets of his own, but he

1:07:29did teach me about the respect of animals and how great they are. Sorry. And I interrupted you, so let's go back. Thinking about lamb chops. Yeah. With mint sauce. Disgusting. Really? What kind of attitude are you? Little Bo Peep on a plate. That's not very nice, mate. Little Bo Peep is a nice, you know — I don't know which Peep. The Bo Peep. So Alan Watts was especially interesting to listen to, because he was never proselytizing. He's never converting you to Buddhism, Hinduism, whichever — Confucianism, Taoism, whichever one he was talking about. He's never trying to convert you. He's simply stating the facts. And he's charismatic and entertaining, and you ultimately are enchanted by him, and start reading and start caring about it. But to me, that is the pinnacle of influence, when you can just say the

1:08:17things as they are without having to sell to someone, which is quite rare in many organized philosophies, religions nowadays, where people are always proselytizing, trying to convince you why they're the best, why you should convert. He was so secure in himself, he didn't give a shit if you converted. If you don't convert, that's even better. That's — maybe you have more interesting ideas. He'll be interested to hear those. So Alan Watts has many, many lectures. One lecture is called "This Is It." And I have this beautiful intro here, or preface, where it begins. I'll just read it, because it wouldn't be a Nectar of Time podcast without having a little excerpt here. So bear with me with this excerpt, and I'm curious to sort of get your opinions on it. It's

1:09:06going to take it in a slightly different direction, but that's what a podcast is for. So: "Although written at different times during the past four years, the essays here gathered together have a common point of focus, the spiritual or mystical experience and its relation to ordinary material life. Having said this, I am instantly aware that I have used the wrong words. And yet there are no satisfactory alternatives. 'Spiritual' and 'mystical' suggest something rarefied, otherworldly, and loftily religious, opposed to an ordinary material life, which is simply practical and commonplace. The whole point of these essays is to show the fallacy of this opposition, to show that the spiritual is not to be separated from the material, nor the wonderful from the

1:09:54ordinary. We need above all to disentangle ourselves from habits of speech and thought which set the two apart, making it impossible for us to see that this, the immediate, everyday, present experience, is IT, the entire ultimate point for the existence of a universe. But the recognition that the two are one comes to pass in an elusive, though relatively common, state of consciousness which has fascinated me beyond all else since I was 17 years old. I am neither a preacher nor a reformer, for I like to write and talk about this way of seeing things as one sings in the bathtub or splashes in the sea. There is no mission nor intent to convert. And yet I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more

1:10:41universal, the pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter. We should see at once that the high ideals for which we are killing and regimenting each other are empty and abstract substitutes for the unheeded miracles that surround us, not only in the obvious wonders of nature, but also in the overwhelmingly uncanny fact of mere existence. Not for one moment do I believe that such an awakening would deprive us of energy or social concern. On the contrary, half the delight of it — though infinity has no halves — is to share it with others. And because the spiritual and the material are inseparable, this means the sharing of life and things as well as insight. But the possibility of this depends entirely upon the presence

1:11:29of the vision which could transform us into the kind of people who can do it, not upon exhortation or appeals to our persistent but constantly uncreative sense of guilt. Yet it would spoil it all if we felt obliged by that same sense to have the vision." I'll just pause there, because it goes a little bit further. But when I read this, it sort of reminds me of your views on life, in the sense that, you know, he's asking everyone — that if we could just figure this out, we would just dissolve in laughter, right? That it would, you know — it goes against the serious business of life. The pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of life. Well, that's a Colin Gerrard statement. I find

1:12:16something funny in everything, and I know that it upsets people sometimes, and I try not to disrespect people. I'm not necessarily an apologist. But sometimes, if I've offended somebody, I'll turn to them and say, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I apologize for that." But it depends upon what you feel, or what they feel they're being offended by, right? You know, and that's the problem. And these days, people are taking offense for other people's problems or misdeeds or whatever, but it's got nothing to do with them at all. So why are you offended? It's not that serious. Or, as the kids say, it's not that deep. Yeah. And the thing is that, you know, as you grow older, you start to realize all these politicians and stuff are really no different than you. They're still politicians. They're still human beings. They just got themselves in a position. But there's this lofty shit that goes on. You know, this kind of crap that they build

1:13:03around themselves. Like, Putin will build a long table, sit at one end of it, and have a group of generals all sitting at the other end of the table. Why is it? Is it because he has a bad smell about him? Or is it just because he wants to create this image that he's this omnipotent sort of, you know, guy above everybody else? Trump's been doing it for years. I mean, you know, more pretentious nonsense. And I think America has grown. I mean, he's the second person of color in the White House now in the past 20 years. It's great. So yes, exactly that, and that's what comedy is, right? Comedy is when you're discussing the serious business, but removing the veil of seriousness and realizing what it actually is. It's just, you know, a bunch of — There was a really

1:13:51good thing. I swear there was a really good thing the other day. I watched this interview with a Navy SEAL. Mhm. Which Navy SEAL? I can't remember his name or anything. He had a — well, they all had a big beard. Okay. Wasn't quite as attractive as you and me, but he was a Navy SEAL. Anyway, so he's doing this interview, and he's talking about the British SAS, which is sort of the premier — like it or not, no matter what anybody says, people always say their watchword, or their example to live by, is the SAS. No question. SAS is similar to SBS. SBS. Well, SBS is Special Boat Service, Special Air Service. So — but they're the same sort of, like, sometimes you'll go to one, go to the other. I guess people that are a little bit more interested in the water. One of my cousin's mates, he was in that. He was in the SBS, but my cousin was in the British — all my friends in the commandos. But this guy

1:14:40from the Navy SEALs was great, and he was talking about the first time he — he was kind of a newbie, and he got put into the — I'm not sure whether it was — or what, the, like, week. Yeah. Well, it wasn't like the theater — which theater of war it was. But he was in there, and he was kind of, you know, a newbie. So he had to wait and see the other guys. And he said, "I see these guys go out with the SAS guys, and they come back with long beards, and they look bigger than life." Even though some of the guys were smaller than me, he goes, "They look bigger than me, bigger than life. And I hear them talk about these firefights and these stories and the rest of it." He said, "But the British guys were the best." He said, "I love them, because despite whatever terrible things could be happening, and bullets flying around you, and rockets and bombs and people dying, they could always find something to lighten the mood just a bit." Right? And he said

1:15:28one of the best bits is, they're all standing in the chow line, as they call it, the food line. He looked at all the SAS guys, and they all had American flags stuck on their thing. He said, "What the fuck is that, man? You got American flags?" "Yeah, you got to blame it on somebody, mate." That's funny. But he said the key that he loved about these guys, and the camaraderie that he felt about these British guys — bullets could be flying all over the place, and they're saying, "For fuck's sake, you fucking — move over there," or whatever. And he said his respect didn't lessen. It grew and grew and grew and grew with these guys, because of the fact that these guys had a goal, had a mentality, had something to do, but they always understood that human beings are human beings. And that's another line by Alan Watts, where he talks about people taking life seriously, as

1:16:19opposed to taking life sincerely. And that's exactly what it is. Sincerity. Sincerity is authenticity. It's understanding what's going on in a lighter way, not in this heavy, fake, pretentious type of way. It's so funny that we draft these emails that are probably the fakest emails, corporate emails, yet, you know, people will end it "Sincerely," you know, or a letter, "Sincerely," where it's the most insincere thing you've ever written, and then you end "Sincerely." So it's this oxymoron of words. But everyone's got this kind of — I've seen some of these people. I've met people before that can be the most calm, understanding, authentic, cool-as-a-cucumber people, but everyone's got some kind of trigger

1:17:09somewhere along the line. I mean, I have a trigger — and not that I should spread this all over the place, but I used to fight when I was younger — but my trigger is pulling my hair. I don't know why it is that, but if you pull my hair — I mean, you could be having the most lovely conversation about love and life and beauty and everything. You pull my hair — I broke a guy's jaw once. Why are they touching your hair? I don't know. He was joking with me, and he pulled — like, they just came over. He was, like, giving me a headlock like that, as a mate, you know. And I guess he turned over and he pulled my hair like that, and I went spare, and I leaned, I gave him an uppercut and broke his jaw. And I felt terrible afterwards, but it was my little trigger. I don't know what it is, where it come from, from when I was a little kid or something like that, but I've got this trigger of pulling my — But everyone's got this little trigger. I mean, I've seen it before. I've seen

1:17:56some people with the most — I mean, you know, you'll get a lot of religious people, I guess, and people that are sort of the head of their religion, I guess, or whatever you might want to call them. There's certain forbidden territory. Yeah. And all of a sudden you can say just the wrong thing, and they can go from being the most wonderfully lovely person into the fact that they would like to drop a bomb on your head. Well, yes, that's the human dark element that is probably for a different podcast, but that's it right there. You said it right there. I mean, like it or not, no matter how lofty people feel, whether it's a politician, or a religious person, or whatever you think you may be, the fact is you're still a human being. You haven't changed the DNA of the human race at all. The fact is you're still human. You feel like I do. You get upset. You have jealousy. You have envy.

1:18:44You have all sorts of the same emotions that I do. It just depends upon how you can control those emotions, to make you a better man. Yeah. And I think there's also an argument to be made that those that pretend like they don't have the trigger are just very disciplined in not retaliating, or holding back, which is to say they are still feeling the trigger. Do they get merit for holding back? Perhaps they get some social merit for holding back, but does it make them a better person if they're feeling the same feelings inside and just not showing it? You know, to some degree it makes them inauthentic. You know, it's a great combination, those two. I know they're mates, I think, in real life, but it's Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, and Kevin Hart. I know it sounds really odd, but they're hilarious, because Kevin Hart — I love him. Yeah. He finds humor in everything there. It

1:19:32could be anything, and he'll find humor in it. Well, the Rock — and they were all doing this chat show one time, and you could tell that the Rock was getting a little bit annoyed with Kevin Hart. But Kevin Hart didn't give up. He kept going, going, going, until finally you could see the Rock got his — so at one point he's talking about the fact that the interviewer — I think it was the girl, what's her name, has now been blocked out of society — Megyn Kelly? No, the interviewer, she had her own chat show during the day all the time. Blonde hair, comedian, can't remember her name. Ellen? Oh, DeGeneres. So they were on her show. I guess she was asking the questions, but she was a little bit out of her element, because these guys were each — Right. And so at one point Kevin Hart goes — or the Rock says, "Y'all, he just had another baby girl." And she says, "Oh, congratulations, Kevin."

1:20:20"All that man can't produce any boys," or that, man, like that. And you could see Dwayne Johnson just getting a little bit annoyed, but not to the point where he wanted to crush him. He turned around, he goes, "Wait till Kevin finds out the father of his boy." That's funny. They'll wait till the cameras are off. But what was brilliant about that, though, you could tell that he was a bit annoyed, but he still went in with it, and that's his mate, I guess. And you know, obviously, you know, one guy's 6'2" and huge, and the guy's 5'2" and tiny. But still, I don't think it's going to take a lot — some guy's pumping himself with steroids and whatever, there's going to be some sore spots there. He did say one thing in a movie one time. I think it's the same movie, actually. The thing, it's called — I mean, and these guys are trying to bully him at a bar or something like that, and he takes his one drink, and he

1:21:07says, "I have to tell you one thing before we start. I don't like bullies." And I always love that line, because I always grew up that way too. I got picked on a lot when I was a kid. I got, you know, I guess, marginalized, picked on, whatever. You know, kids can be — as they used to say, you know, children are mean and teenagers are cruel. Well, you know, they find ways to pick on you, whatever, you kid. But either you've survived through it, or you get stronger from it. That's a fact. You really do. I mean, you know, I guess Nietzsche wasn't completely wrong. I don't think everything that is not going to destroy you is going to make you stronger. But a lot of things definitely do. That's the question. And being bullied as a kid made me stronger as a person. It didn't make me weaker. It made me stronger. When I got bullied — I got bullied mercilessly as a child, and picked on, and beaten up. And that's why I got stuck into boxing when I was a kid, because I got beat up. But it didn't — I

1:21:55mean, even the fact I didn't have a dad, you got bullied for that as a kid. It's the oddest thing, you know. It's all part of the character. But I agree with you. It's all part of character development. I think that now it's all this thing — "Well, that child, we have to hold him and hug him and give him a special class, and maybe he needs to be called a different pronoun or something to make him feel better about himself." But it's not that. The truth is that the bullies, of course, should stop, especially the more egregious ones. But coming out of it and not being the victim, or being the victim for a certain period of time, and then eventually growing out of that, and realizing how that can help shape you and make you stronger, and so on and so forth. But I want to move to sort of the final sort of — That's a really good word, by the way. You really hit on something very strong there, about people feeling

1:22:42they're the victim all the time, and that's the worst thing in this world. People feel they are victimized all the time, and they put themselves in a corner by saying, "I'm the victim," when they're not. You know, at a certain level of abstraction, from, let's say, a purely intellectual, academic perspective, we are victims in a sense, because none of us asked to be here. So if you want to play that, sure. The whole point is that it's not going to avail you anything. It's not going to get you anywhere. But that's the thing, though. People might feel victimized in their life, but life is a gift, like it or not. But you know, the fact — your chances of being on this planet are so minute and so tiny. It's billions and billions and billions to one. And the fact is, it's the same with us. You know, if you really want to get through it, and you go to that guy — we'll keep this short — but I love this guy in the UK now. He's

1:23:30called Brian Cox. He's a — Yeah. Yeah. Brian, he's the physicist, theoretical physicist. And they asked him a question one time: "What is it, as an astrophysicist, what is it that really blows you away about the universe?" And he sat there for one second. He said, "It's the size of it." He said, "It's the size of it." He just put it down quite quickly. He didn't go too long. He said, "In this galaxy, the Milky Way, there's anywhere between 100 and 200 billion stars. In the average galaxy, there's between 200 and 400 billion stars in each galaxy." Okay? "In the known universe, that's the universe we can see, there are 2 trillion galaxies." Okay? With all those stars in them. Yeah. And you're telling me that — it could be quite incredible, but even if it's just in our universe, or, pardon,

1:24:18in our galaxy, being alone in this galaxy is an incredible thing. And we don't look at that enough sometimes as human beings. It's a fucking gift that we have. It's a massive gift. It's a chance that is so rare, for you to be on this planet breathing, that we have such little respect for that. Sometimes it blows me away. Yeah. I mean, that's the part that, again, in any of these conversations — and this is something that I'm noticing more and more with my podcast, with Nectar of Time — any of these conversations, there is a sort of frame, there is a line, there is a border where you have to have the conversation within. And the conversation today is within a border of, hopefully, practical application that people can

1:25:07take home, use it. But let's say we went full philosophical. It's very difficult to know what rules we are playing by. Because what about motivating yourself, though? It's not about — you know, a lot of people will spend their time expecting, or hoping, for that dream to come along to motivate you, but it's tough to talk to yourself about it and say, you know, "I'm a fucking idiot. I should have got off my ass. And why didn't I go to that job? Or why did I do this?" But my point is, whether you're an idiot or you're not an idiot, it doesn't make any difference, ultimately, at one level of abstraction. At the level of abstraction where we've decided that, you know, we're going to have this conversation under the rules and regulations of base reality, that you're a person on Earth with a mandate to do something useful with your life, because that way you're going to live a better

1:25:54life, and then for progeny it will ultimately, you know, work out better for them, and, you know, for posterity, right, to just continue on. But if you don't abide by those rules, right? If you decide, as many philosophers do, and lose their minds in the process, the lines become very, very blurred, and it's difficult to continue playing, or to continue having these types of conversations. We'd have to go to different arenas. So I think it's very important to — you know, when we're talking about the universe — I love talking about the universe. I love talking about the billions and trillions. I find it fascinating. But for a lot of folks, the billions of universes doesn't pay the rent. The billions of universes, or the billions of g— maybe billions of universes, the

1:26:42billions of galaxies, doesn't get the girl, doesn't get the guy. It is funny that on this planet that we're on, the only species that charges rent is humans. That's funny. Lions don't do it. They don't steal the other lions. They just fight them to get the fuck out of the territory. If they were as intelligent as us, they probably would, you know. But I want to move to — and this is a really nice segue, because I want to move to Kurt Vonnegut. So I brought a couple books here of Kurt Vonnegut. One is Galápagos. The other is The Sirens of Titan. I know the books. I've not read either one of them. The only book I read is Slaughterhouse-Five, which I love, that book. It was a fantastic book. Before I mentioned Kurt, you mentioned some — before we started, there were some — Oh, one of the best insults ever. Kurt Vonnegut was brilliant at insults, but one of

1:27:30my favorite ones is, "Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut." That's actually — I don't know why, but now I want to eat a donut. Oh, it's the best. "Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut." I love it. It's just the best. Well, you're in the right country for donuts. Apparently the Canadians, per capita, eat more donuts than anybody else in the world. That's possible. Although the Americans have better donuts. But to stay on track with Kurt, I brought Kurt today. Now you talked about donuts, mate. Kurt's out the window now. I like donuts. I know. I know. Well, you brought the donuts. No, I had something today I'd never had before. They're called — I know we're remembering Kurt Vonnegut, I won't go too off track — they're called Timlits, or Timbit. No, Timbits. Timbits. You've never had Timbits before? I never had a Timbit before. Timbit is the — is

1:28:16the middle part. I mean, it's a donut hole. The Canadians are very smart, incredible people, because they don't waste anything. They've taken the hole of the donut and made something else out of it. You get 10 in a packet for $3.19. By the time I'd walked to my brother's house, I'd eaten all 10 of them. And I felt ashamed of myself, but also quite pleased. Well, that I ate a donut that looked like a — I really want to eat a donut, but it's Passover right now for a few more days. But I'll get you a donut. Give me a free — What would you like? I need a free pass. Like a Biscoff donut. I'll take any of that. Do you know where the term Biscoff comes from? Biscoff. Biscotti and coffee. No. Oh, close. You're right. Biscuit and coffee. Yeah. Biscotti, by the way, the Italian word biscotti basically means biscuit. It's not — they don't all look like that.

1:29:02It's any kind of biscuit. Those particular ones are called — there's another term for them. They're called color-something-or-other. I've forgotten. The ones that we call biscotti over here. Anyways, it's Kurt Vonnegut. Sorry. Vonnegut. I mean, listen, we could talk about cookies all day. You've got my number if you want to talk about biscuits and pastries. And something about Kurt. So when it comes to authenticity, which is what the topic was for our podcast today — you know, what I'm trying to do is always, you know, always tie in novels, authors, interesting references that I can bring in. To me, it feels like there's no one better that encompasses authenticity than Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut, both as a human

1:29:50in his own life — but if you see his talks, if you see any speeches or seminars, lectures that he gave, he just comes off as so real, and so funny, and just such an interesting character. I mean, the guy lived in New York, right? I don't know if he was from New York originally, but a lot of folks from New York, I find, are actually very authentic. No, he's great at taking the piss. I mean, did you ever see that? Taking the piss. Exactly. This is a very interesting thing. Specifically in Canada — you know this as someone from England. Taking the piss is banter, right? Australia, great. Used to be called taking the mickey, but we — taking the piss. Taking the mickey. You have this in many countries. Australia is known for it. England's known for it. A bunch of places are known. Texas, they're quite good at it. New York is quite good at it. Canada, awful. People

1:30:40don't banter here. When you talk to them, when you joke with them, they don't really say anything back. Did you ever see the thing that Kurt Vonnegut did? Bless him. That's what shows what a great guy he is. He did a — what is it called when you do a — he did a cameo in a film one time. Oh yeah, he did. That's right. In Back to School, with Rodney Dangerfield. And there's a bit where his son is studying in school, and his father's very wealthy. So he comes to the school and he basically sets up a whole huge place for his son and all the rest of it. At one point he says, "I don't understand this Kurt Vonnegut." He hires Kurt Vonnegut. He comes to the door and says, "Hi, I'm Kurt Vonnegut." He goes, "What?" It's brilliant stuff. I did. Yeah, I did hear about that. Yeah, but his characters in his books are so flawed. That's why I love the guy. Yeah, that's why — he has human beings in his books. He does have human beings, almost to the point

1:31:28where they come off as almost alien in a way, because they're like, "Well, why are they so — like, why are you telling me this? I want to make them a little bit more perfect. Like, they're too flawed." But then that grips you. And he brings other characters, and shows you the failures that they have, and the mistakes that they have, and the mistakes that they're so confident in. I mean, hubris is a huge theme in a lot of his books, right? In the books I read, anyways. I know some bits of the stories of the other ones, but not — I mean, if you love Slaughterhouse-Five, you'll love his other books. These are in particular, like, my favorite of his. Although there's still quite a few that I haven't read. And so what this all shows me is that, you know, if you want to make an impact on someone, if you want to not be an NPC, as they call it, a

1:32:17non-playing character, you have to have something unique. And your uniqueness is a composition of your talents, your special skills, and your special mistakes and imperfections. It's all of the above. If someone is just fully talented, it's almost boring. If someone is fully imperfect — which I'd argue doesn't really exist. Both of those don't really exist. These two polarities are not interesting. It's interesting when you have your own thumbprint of your mistakes, your talents, your attributes. But when you hide that, that becomes a problem. It becomes a problem in your relationship.

1:33:03It becomes a problem in your career. It becomes a problem when you're making friends. No one's going to write a story about you. It's not interesting. But don't you love that part? The one part about it, back to the theme of being authentic, is, as I'm getting older, bit by bit by bit, I'm starting to learn more about myself that I already knew, but I didn't admit. Yeah. Okay. I knew certain parts of my character. I knew why I did certain things, but I never admitted it to myself. And now I'm starting to admit it to myself. I'm not falling over from it. I'm just accepting it, which is even better. And I'm embracing it too, because not all of your idiosyncrasies, or bad things that you think are bad parts of you, are bad. They can be fantastic sometimes, depending upon how you harness those feelings, or harness those qualities, or bad qualities, or whatever.

1:33:50You can harness things in a great area sometimes and make yourself a much better person. And it's not that — I mean, for want of a better term, I just want to be a better guy, you know, a better person for myself. I'm not talking about anybody else. I'm not talking about whether the person next to me, or that I'm talking to that day, is going to be better because I spent time with them. What I'm trying to say is — what I see definitely in Slaughterhouse-Five, too, is how he was not having any friends, but learned how to make friends, in a sense, during the story, even though it's the terrible bombing of Dresden and all the things that happened in there. But still, at the same time, that's kind of a cool thing for me now. And I actually kind of realized it literally the other day. I was thinking about something about my character. And I've learned how to start talking to myself a little bit. I used to think that was

1:34:37only mentally crazy, out-to-the-woods guys. And now I actually talk to myself about stuff, and I reason with myself sometimes about that. "Is that a good thing for you, Colin? Or should you be doing that? Or is that the right path? Or is that guy really a friend? Or is the fact that they never text you back at all, after you text them 10 times, and they just bloody ignore you — that's not really a friend. Maybe that's a bit of toxicity. Do I need to unload that out of my life, or try to find a way to fix it?" You know, and that's what's really been great for me lately, to be honest. When you come down to this point of being authentic, it's I'm trying to learn how to be an authentic person for myself, not for anybody else, and not for whether it — I had a guy in my business once upon a time, and he had the worst things happen to him all the time. Always just had the worst

1:35:24luck, I guess you could call it, right? And one day he came in to work and he — I just thought I'd give him a bit of a compliment. He, you know, quite nice shirt, looked really crisp, and he had a tie on, and I said, "Wow, Isaac, you look great today." He goes, "I didn't fucking do it for you, did I?" I was his fucking boss. And that's what he said to me. But still, he did. "I didn't fucking do it for you. I did it for myself." I loved that. I mean, I really loved it. He got up in the morning, ironed his shirt, made himself look great for him and not for anybody else. If anybody else thought it was great, that's a bonus. Fantastic. But I loved that. And that to me was authenticity, from that young guy in my business who just said, "I didn't fucking do it for you, Colin. I did it for myself." And I loved it. And to this day, I've mentioned that 20, 25 years later to people, 20 years later,

1:36:11you know, about that's being authentic, saying, "That's right for me. That's what I want to be." Do it for yourself. I think that's the best way to encapsulate authenticity, is do it for yourself. Say it for yourself. Act like it for yourself. You don't have to piss anybody off along the way. Just do your own fucking thing. And like I said, we were talking about before, when you find something great, just shut the fuck up. Just go and do it. Let the actions, let your values, your actions, and what you're doing speak for itself. You don't have to speak for it. It should be able to speak for itself. I mean, I would love — I'm doing music now again. And I would love it that I would send some music, and they would just fall over backwards and go, "You're the second coming, and we need to have you now. Here's the $50 million. Sign the contract immediately." But it's now become more of a process than anything. Bit by bit by bit, I'm getting them to like me. Bit by

1:36:59bit by bit. And you know, unfortunately, those industries are based around money. That's all there is to it. Most people think they want — I remember hearing these two guys in Los Angeles. So I'm not trying to veer off the path too quickly, but I heard these two guys in Soho House over there talking: "Give me a million bucks, I'll give you a fucking number one single." He's right, though. You can buy a number one single any day you want. Speaking of number one singles, Colin is also, I think, as I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, a musician. So, Colin, where can people find you, for following your music? Well, being in Vancouver at the moment, I tend to be along East Hastings during the evening time. If you just approach me on the corner at 6, I could probably accommodate you. But

1:37:46besides that, if you want to find me, I'm on Spotify, etc., under Col Gerrard. C, and then Gerrard, G-A-R-D. Or Gerard, as you say. Hastings is the Rodeo Drive of Vancouver. Absolutely. Particularly East Hastings, and the people are very friendly there, and very nice, and very kind, and very giving, and wanting at the same time. Thanks for coming on my show. Is there anything that you want to leave people with, or you want to — No, it's a pleasure. I will tell you, before we did this today, I watched a bunch of podcasts in the middle of the night last night, to see what the sort of comparison would be, or what it is, or what's going on. People like Joe Rogan and those types of guys, who's very successful at the moment. You'll do great, 'cause you're very good at getting the best out of

1:38:34people, and to me that's the epitome of a great podcast. So that's the best thing I can tell you right now, is that if you want to do a podcast, I'd come down to Yaletown Podcasts, 390 — 896 Cambie, or 396? Which number is it? 896 Cambie. 896 Cambie. That's okay. They'll find us. No, no, no. I'm helping. And there will be a free cup of tea that tastes kind of like dishwater, but they really do care. No, it's been great. You know, you're a great person to talk to, because you see a lot more than what's on the surface, and I appreciate it. Well, that's what Nectar of Time is about. So, okay. And I don't care what anybody says about you. You know, I like it.

1:39:22Appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming on.