The Secret to Speaking Without Fear and Anxiety | Zuby

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My guest is Zooby, Oxford-educated rapper, bestselling author, and one of the most uncompromising independent thinkers alive. You'll get Zooby's framework for building a life that means something and why usefulness beats happiness as a North Star and the one practice that turns avoidance into courage.

The worry is something It's something that is stemming from a previous dream. You've got these issues and complications and things you're trying to work out with people or with systems or whatever, but you're like, "How lucky am I to even be able to have this worry?" It's not wrong to be weak, but it's wrong to voluntarily remain weak.

Why is it bad to stay weak?

Because—

So you talk a lot about the struggles of young men publicly. You are obviously a man, but you've also been really outspoken about what you see traveling around the world and talking to increasingly young men that feel disenfranchised. And some of the numbers are real, like, you know, they make up 50% of the population, but 80% of the suicides, almost double the drug overdose rate of women. You know, 1 in 4 young men report having no close social connections under 30. I guess, like, what are you hearing young men say that most people might not even realize?

The biggest killer of men under 50 is themselves, which is very tragic if you think that we're— you're living in a world or in a society or in a culture where the thing that is most likely to end you is yourself. And most people don't even know that statistic, and it's not spoken about very much. And it suggests that despite all of the economic success and progress in various ways that we've made over the decades and centuries, there's still something fundamentally broken in terms of people's purpose and meaning. Now, obviously, this is not the case for the vast majority of people. The vast majority of men and young men, I think, are doing okay, but there's a very significant percentage that are struggling. I think when it comes to men and masculinity, I often like to say that men are always Boys and men are always building or destroying. I just think something about testosterone and aggression and male energy, there are so many positive and wonderful and important civilization-building ways that that can be channeled, and it should be. But when it's not being channeled in those directions, it often becomes destructive. And that can be turned inwardly and be self-destructive, like what we're talking about. And it can also be turned outwardly. And it's very easy to see that at the extreme levels, right? The extreme levels are the mass shooters. The extreme levels are the people who are committing suicide or self-harming in some type of way or overdosing on drugs because they're trying to escape reality or escape the mortal coil. And so I think it's very important that that masculine energy is channeled into something productive. It's channeled into building, building yourself up spiritually, building yourself up mentally in terms of your knowledge, in terms of your relationships, in terms of your relationship with God. All of these things are very important. And a lot of the fundamental building blocks that help to keep human beings of both sexes and all ages sane have been over the time, over the course of decades, maybe really accelerating, probably beginning in the '60s. A lot of those foundations have been kicked out. Faith, family, purpose, meaning, community. It's not to say that they don't exist and you cannot find them. Of course, of course you can, and most people do in various ways. But it's not as solid and as clear-cut as I think it used to be. And I think with young men in particular now, it's not that clear what you're meant to be doing. I think for, you know, one of the big criticisms of the past of human history is that gender roles were too strict. You know, if you're a woman, this is what you do. And so girls are raised this way and, you know, okay, I'm a woman, this is how I fit into the world. This is what I do. If you're a boy growing into a man, it was very clear what your role in society is. Those traditional options still remain open. If you're a man who's just like, my role is to be a provider and a protector and a presider and to do things this way, or if you're a young woman who's just like, I just wanna be a mom and raise kids and look after the family, those roles are still open and available. I think it's important to say that they're actually harder to achieve now than they used to be. So we have this strange thing where the increase in choice, at least on a social and cultural level at scale, it has not actually made people happier or more satisfied. But something has happened where it's had such an effect that it's just kind of confusing. You know, even with a young man, take something very simplistic like, um, who should pay for a first date? Historically, I don't think that was complicated. In most of the world, that's not complicated. Man, right? But if you live in a place that's supposed to be egalitarian and you've got all this feminism and women are doing just as much— in many big cities in the West, women are actually earning more money than men in some cases. So under that rubric, why should the man pay?

Right?

From a traditional mindset, right, it's kind of simple and straightforward. But from that sort of more progressive, it doesn't make sense. So that's like a kind of simple example. But it shows that level of confusion. I think there's a female kind of equivalent to this. But speaking—

should pay on the first date?

Yeah, well, who do I think? The man, especially if he's the one who invited out the woman, which he normally will be. But my worldview is not, you know, I'm not a progressive, I'm not a liberal, I'm not a feminist, right? I'm also not a sexist or misogynist or whatever, right? But, you know, I come from a more traditional viewpoint in that regard when it comes to, you know, what men generally should be doing and what those expectations are, and similar for women. So I just think it's confusing and the messaging is extraordinarily confusing, right? On one hand, you're being told to step up and be a better man and take charge and be a leader and be more masculine and all this. And then 2 seconds later, you're being told that, you know, you're part of the patriarchy and you need to stand down and, you know, create room and space for other people and don't be too domineering, don't mansplain, and, you know, toxic masculinity and all these kinds of things. And it's, I just think it's kind of deranging for a lot of boys and young men to be like, all right, wait, what am I actually meant to do here? Am I meant to be that warrior protector provider? Or am I meant to be this softer, more gentle man who, you know, makes space for women and has this more egalitarian worldview? And I just think it's— there's a lot more going on. But I think that's quite confusing.

Do you think that there's a male version of quiet quitting? Basically for these young men? Are they just opting out because of all of this confusion?

A large percent are, yeah. I don't know the numbers, but a significant percentage of even millennials, but certainly Gen Z, and maybe this is going into Gen Alpha, are basically just like, well, I don't know what to do and I don't know what society is going to reward and I don't want to be berated, so I'm just gonna chill. I'm not going to pursue much, right, beyond basic survival. As long as I can keep myself okay and I can feed myself. You know, a lot of people have given up hope on ever getting married, given some, some guys have totally given up on relationships, period. Even more people have given up on ever having children. They're, you know, intentionally just like, can't even afford it. You know, if any, if any woman would even have me, like, you know, like, I can't even afford to have children. I can't afford to ever buy a house. All of these things that used to be quite normative are increasingly running away from a larger and larger percentage of the population. So just in terms of affordability, that's completely changed. If you go back just a few decades ago, probably the, the average man could sustain an entire family from a sole income. Whereas now, due to a whole host of factors, that's still possible if you are a high earner or if you are willing to sacrifice a lot of things in terms of lifestyle. You can still do that, but the vast majority of households, whether we're talking about the UK or the USA or any other developed country, they're typically going to have both spouses working normally full-time, but at least one person working full-time, other working part-time just to be able to afford to live. And even then they might be struggling. So we, we're kind of in this strange situation where objectively a lot of good progress has been made in a lot of ways, but it's this strange paradox or conundrum where things that used to be kind of basic and achievable for the vast majority of the population increasingly seem very difficult to achieve. And as a result, fewer people are getting married. Those who do are doing it a lot later. Fewer people are having children. Those who even do have children generally are having fewer of them. So sure, GDP per capita is going up and certain measures are going up. Life expectancy has improved. There are a lot of things to be grateful for for modern society. But if you look at depression rates and anxiety rates and suicidal ideation and self-harm and just a general sense of directionlessness and lack of meaning, those things seem to be much higher than they were previously.

Obviously, we're not the type of people, either one of us, and the person listening is not either, to play a victim to all this. This can all be true and you can still try to triumph in life and you still can. But I guess my one other comment on this is how much of this— I've also heard the counterargument, which is your grandparents could afford to live on a single salary because your grandparents went out to dinner twice a month, They went to a local small restaurant or diner. You know, they largely ate in. They had one landline phone. They might have even had one car. They never traded in the car. There were, you know, no lattes. There were no European vacations. You know, it was just different. We didn't have all of these extra things that were layered first over a home, a house, a family and kids. So do you think that— is that all true? Are we kind of ferreting away our money on all of these material things first, or just categorically no, economically it's not the same for this generation as the two previous?

Yeah, I think your point is absolutely and objectively correct. People's expectations have changed, people's lifestyles have changed.

There are—

most people I don't think spend or use their money wisely, generally speaking. And you know, the average person's lifestyle is, most people are living beyond their means. At the same time, there are objective economic factors, like I said, of the amount people are earning versus how much housing costs.

Yeah.

And what that ratio is. And that has just changed. And so if you look at terms of real wages, I don't know about the US, but in the UK, real wages have not risen. When I say real wages, I'm talking about purchasing power, so accounting for inflation. Real wages haven't risen in about 40 years.

Yeah, it's about the same in the US. We've seen very little. We've seen actually huge productivity gains, so we're producing a lot more, but we haven't actually seen income gains.

Yeah, yeah. So I think all of these things are true, and I think with a lot of these conversations, people try to take multivariate problems and pick their favorite univariate issue.

Yeah.

Whether that is, well, it's just the economy or it's just feminism or it's just, uh, you know, this side or that side or it's immigration, right? It's immigration coming in and that's suppressing the wages and so on. And multiple things can be true at once, right? It's really rare to have something like this and it's just one thing that's true. And if you're talking about issues and solutions, there's always going to be the individual level. And then there's the more sort of systemic or collective level. And it's absolutely true that no matter the issue that we're talking about in society, to the degree it exists on an individual level, uh, if someone is determined and they're strong-willed and they're competent, you can overcome almost any systematic problem unless you are living in like a truly, truly oppressive regime, right? Like, no matter how brilliant you are, if you're stuck in North Korea, no matter how entrepreneurial or creative or whatever we are, we probably, no matter what, can't achieve much, right? But if you're in a country that isn't like that, then as an individual, you can buck the trend, right? You've got to, right? If 40% of the population is obese and 70% plus is overweight, that doesn't mean that you as an individual have to fall into that. Yeah, right. You can, you can buck the trend. But at the same time, if something is not working for across hundreds of millions or dozens of millions of people, it's worth looking at and thinking, okay, is there maybe something that we can do at scale to tilt this in a more favorable direction so that the average person can be doing well and be feeling like, you know, they're at least— it's worth playing the game because at least you've got a chance of winning.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the worst thing you would have in society is a group of young men opting out. I mean, if you live in the Middle East right now in Dubai. And we see what happens when there are young men in the Middle East in a big way, or any developing nation where they don't have ability for upward momentum and purpose. And really all they can rely on is, yes, certainly faith, but also destruction because there's no value creation. There's no economic creation that happens over time in Afghanistan or Iraq. Dubai is obviously an epicenter for growth, so that's a totally different space. But I think it's important to talk about where young men are at today because Lord help us if we have an entire generation of angry, non-motivated, left-out-of-society young men. It doesn't end well for any society. That's usually the case for revolt. As crazy as we broads can be, we're not usually the ones going to war. And so I guess I would like— you have so many quotes that I love, but one that you wrote to Gen Z men in particular, I think, is that it's not wrong to be weak, but it's wrong to voluntarily remain weak. Which seems very apropos for this conversation. Why is it bad to stay weak?

I think it's wrong to stay weak because it is your moral and ethical duty to have strength and be competent and to use that strength and competence for the betterment of humanity. I think that's why it's wrong to stay weak. So when I say that, I'm not simply just talking about like how much you can bench press or, or deadlift, right? I believe we are all created in God's image to begin with. And I think that each person has a unique set of personality skills, interests, talents, and it's your job to do your best to fulfill your potential. And then to act in service to other people. And if you choose to sit on that, to me, that's not neutral. You are depriving your fellow men and women of what you could be doing. And as a result, the world is a worse-off place than it would be if you didn't do that. And if you at least tried to fulfill some of that potential. And then I think specifically for men as well, I do believe that men are the ultimately, as a bottom line, are the guardians and protectors of society. Certainly if you have a wife, if you have children, but even if you're just part of a community, look, we don't live in a time where, thank God, we're not living in a time where we constantly have to be defending the village from marauding tribes or anything like that. There's parts of the world where that's still the case, But even if you're not having to do that in the literal sense, there's a— what's the right word? There's sort of a metaphorical version of it that we do face every day. And the stronger you are and the more capable you are, the better you are at guarding against all the negativity and all the potential problems. And the better you are at Guiding and guarding the people you love and care about. And ultimately, look, any city, any state, certainly any nation, these are made up of— they're all just made up of individuals. So oftentimes we talk about these large entities as if they're— at some point it's like they become their own personality almost, right? But the USA is a large group of people. Any company is a group of people. A family is a, a group of people. And so if individuals are empowered, then as a result, it makes the family better and that makes the town better and that makes the city better and that makes the state better and that makes the country better. And then beyond that, there are bad people in the world. There are horrible people who do horrible things and they can be aggressive and they can be violent and they can be criminal. And you don't want— there has to be a defense against that. It's why nations have armies. Generally speaking, you don't have armies and military because you just want to rampage and kill and take over stuff. But you recognize that, hey, we need to be able to defend. And so yeah, that's why I think it's a moral duty to be strong and capable.

Well, it's also a great point. I always think about like what a tragedy it would be if you get to the end of your days and you go stand before your version of God and that version that he sees in front of him is like half of what he had planned for you. It's such a travesty. Sometimes I think like what happens when you stand before your God and your God is like, God, I gave you so many more crayons to color with and you chose black and white. And there was like a Mona Lisa in there. And because you wanted to play small and because you didn't go bigger, you never actually fully realized. And maybe that's not how it actually works and maybe everything is in God's plan. But it seems to me that there are so many people sleepwalking through life.

Well, it's like the parable of the talents, isn't it? Yeah.

Right.

And so actually the more talent And the more opportunity and the more privilege you are blessed with, actually the expectation is even greater, biblically speaking. If you know, so you're not meant to just sit on that.

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Okay.

Because I think there's this perverse maybe focus on talent or bettering yourself that I've never— I've never seen in both sexes to the degree I've seen right now. What do you think about lookmaxing? I see it mostly with young men today. I just learned about it and I was like, this sounds criminal.

Okay. Oh, it's so funny. I don't think that word has ever come out of my mouth. So maybe I'll say it for the first time on this podcast. Looksmaxing. Yes, it's a strange term.

Explain what it is first.

I'm not an expert. My understanding is it's just maximizing your physical attractiveness. Particularly, I mean, women have done this forever, but specifically from a male perspective. Although maybe it's not gendered. So number one is I think it's kind of like, I think it's quite, I think it's very overblown. Right? I don't think, I don't look at Gen Z or Gen Alpha men and see that like, oh my gosh, all of them are just like beating their jaws. No, no. Like I have, right? And it stands out because it's such an outlier. With that said, I mean, I think the term is silly, looksmaxing, but I do think that it's important how you physically present yourself. Do I look smexy? I don't think so. But I mean, I've been going to the gym for 20-something years and I take pride in my appearance.

Do you have those little things you push off your shoe on it?

No, I don't.

You just lift weights.

Yeah, I lift weights. I try to keep my head nicely shaved and keep my beard not looking too scruffy and wear clean clothes and so on. So I do care about my appearance and rightly or wrongly, Human beings are very visual. So it would be just a lie to say that looks don't matter, or, you know, nobody ever judges by looks or so. It's like people judge by looks all the time, even people who don't think they do. We all get first impressions of people. And if people didn't— if looks didn't matter, like, no one would wear a suit to an interview, right? You just— why would you go to an interview in your pajamas?

Right?

Because, you know, how you're going to make an impression, right? So yeah, can it be taken too far? Of course. And when it's taken too far, that becomes vanity, that becomes pride. And also, it shouldn't be a replacement for actually developing a personality or developing skills and that type of thing, right? When taken to an extreme, it's like, I mean, homosexuals have perhaps always done that. Like, it's strange for a straight man to be like, fully, fully, fully obsessed with his looks. I also think a lot of women might not necessarily find that attractive, if that's what they're even trying to do. You know, 80/20 rule, right?

Like filler on a straight man, like that would be— that's a lot.

That's strange, right? Or putting on makeup and so on.

It's interesting. I'm so curious, because a lot of times I think we're on the curve. Like women for a long time have been doing crazy things with their appearance. But I don't know, the last 100 years or so, it seems crazier. Even during my lifetime, we went from you should be anorexic skinny such as Kate Moss from the UK, and then it went, we should actually be voluptuous such as the Kardashians, and so let's get all these BBLs and everything. And then it went back to actually you should be really fit and let's be jacked. And then it went to sort of anorexic, which is a little bit where we are now, except if you're in Miami where you are right now, which The women there, you know, that's a curvier type of crowd. So it's interesting to see if, if men will go the same direction, like might men obsess with it as much as women do? In a weird way, I don't think it'll ever reach the level.

Yeah, I don't, I don't think the focus on male looks would ever— I don't think it can ever reach the level of the female obsession with looks. And men, generally speaking, care a lot more about like pure looks. Than women do when it comes to finding the opposite sex.

It's true.

Attractive. Doesn't mean that women don't care about looks. It doesn't mean that men don't care about things beyond looks. But generally speaking, like, men are just more visually stimulated than women are, right? It's why, you know, to be blunt, it's why male pornography is visual and female pornography is like, you know, smutty novels and that type of stuff. Generally speaking, right? Like, it's true. Yeah. Men and women are just, are just wired differently. And With all these things as well, it's fine. A lot of things that are just hardwired in us, of course things can be taken too far and things can be used in a bad way and things could be channeled in the wrong direction, but it's okay to recognize just the way that we are wired. I think a lot of derangement in the modern West is coming from the constant attempt to fight biology. And to like force, kind of force the square peg in a round hole, right? And try to— we're trying to force like everyone be this way, or force people to do this. And it's like, look, there, there's a lot of variance and diversity in human beings.

Yeah, or make holes where they shouldn't be. There's a lot of things happening, sometimes literally.

Um, and, and look, there's a lot of diversity in the human species. So if anytime you're making generalizations about any group, let alone men and women, which are like categories of billions of people, you're going to be speaking with a broad brush. Yeah. Right. But it is absolutely true that if you take the 3.5, you know, 4 billion girls and women in the world and the 4 billion boys and men in the world, like you will see some very distinct traits that exist among these groups. You know, within them, people are kind of floating around and A lot of people just seem to— they have this kind of blank slate view. And to them, all of this is problematic, right? We need to just completely flatten everything, right? There's people who almost don't even think that these are— though gender is even just socially constructed thing, right? There are people who genuinely believe that if it were not for socialization, there wouldn't be differences between men and women.

I know, I see them in the comments section.

They think it's all socialized, and I'm like, have you even hung out with Hang out with a 3-month-old boy and a 3-month-old girl, like they're different. Hang out with babies, with little kids, like they naturally gravitate just towards different things. And this isn't bad. We just need to make sure that you're raising good human beings and that you are channeling their natural proclivities and interests in, in a healthy, positive, and pro-social way.

And 100%. So what would you say? Let's like Let's say that there is, you know, a young man, or maybe it's a young person who is trying— if you're like, you're trying to gain your self-respect back, you're trying to be a strong member of society again, what do you do?

Well, I think the first thing is, this is where things fortunately or unfortunately really start with parenting and families. Because that's where you're meant to get a lot of those fundamentals from. It's not meant to be coming from podcasters and social media influencers and people on TV. It's really meant to be coming from your parents and from your family, and then beyond that, your communities that you're a part of.

But what if someone doesn't have that? Because I think a lot of people today, parenting social structures are different. Like you said, we've lost that nuclear family to a big degree. We haven't lost it, but it's hyper-diminished. Diminished. Exactly. So like, what would you say to a young person that was sitting across from you? Like, I want to be strong. I want self-respect. What do you do?

You have to earn it. You can't bypass competence. And with competence comes confidence and comes self-esteem. Maybe downstream of that should be, okay, if you are that valuable and you are that worthy, then within yourself, within your own brain, within, within your own heart. Um, recognize that firstly you treat yourself that way before you expect other people. If you don't respect yourself and you don't think you're valuable and you don't think that you're worthy of care, like it's going to be, you're going to project that onto other people. And most people aren't going to care about you more than you do, especially complete strangers. So I think treat yourself that way. And when you treat yourself that way, it doesn't mean just staying the same. It means going, oh, okay, well, okay, well, I've got this body and I've only got one of them. It's got to last me my entire life. I should respect my body. I should be careful about what I, what I put into it. I should make sure I take care of it, right? I shouldn't run it into the ground. In terms of your knowledge, in terms of your skills, your abilities over time, work on them, develop them, hone them. And then I think a lot of people, I actually think a huge problem in our society is people actually strangely focusing on themselves too much. I think it's a big cause of what people call mental health problems, right? It's like a self-obsession, which might kind of sound strange to say, but when you focus more outwardly on, okay, how can I be useful? How can I be of service to others? How can I, you know, worry about others more than I worry about myself in a way? Then it gets you out of your own head and it stops you kind of just focusing on all of your own emotions and your feelings and all these temporary things. And it's just like, cool, like, let me get out there and create something, build something. It's important to stay in motion, both physically and metaphorically. Just to always be working towards things, building things, creating things, being amongst people, all of that is very valuable. And I think you can snuff out a lot of the negative talk and thoughts just by diving into these things and being a part of them.

Yeah, it's an interesting point. We were talking about Elon before this and I remember seeing a video somewhere from him and he basically said, I don't do self-reflection at all. He's like, I don't do that. And then Mark Andreesen sort of parroted that. And in some ways I understand that. I mean, we're sitting in Austin, Texas, the capital of self-help and ayahuasca. And I have so many friends that have been on 37 mushroom journeys with a shaman and done the thing in Peru and whatever. And I think you should do you and whatever you're into, that's great. But a weird thing starts happening, talk about similarities, where they look so much inward. There's like this belief that they're God all of a sudden. I've seen it again and again. And people that I know really well and respect in many ways will say, well, like, I have the answers, sort of I'm God, I know what's coming. And then they will also just obsess on their own journey. It becomes much less building anymore. Building becomes less interesting to a lot of them. Become less motivated and less focused, I think, on how to help other people beyond trying to get them to do mushroom journeys and shaman trips and wear feathered hats and whatever you're into. And so it's interesting you say that because we've seen this huge proliferation of self-help and mental health therapy, and yet we're more unhappy than ever. And so it's like, do you need to talk to a therapist or would some vitamin D and some strength training help as well? And I'm not qualified to say one versus the other, but seems like a reasonable question.

Yeah, like I said, I think, as I said, I think a lot of fundamental pillars have been knocked out for millions of people and they're doing all sorts of things and exploring all sorts of avenues to try to replace them. The religion one is a really obvious one and I get, I understand, look, not everyone's a Christian, not everyone's religious at all. People have all sorts of different beliefs and they're entitled to them. But it's kind of fascinating to me how many people will kind of reject traditional religion and the idea of God and so on, and then spend sometimes years or decades basically trying to substitute it with something that is— they're kind of going around all these very roundabout ways to try to get back to the same thing. This is very much the, you know, the, "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual" kind of thing. And like you said, all of these journeys and all of these views and they're taking from this one and this one and this one. And I'm kind of like, you're just taking a really long path to kind of get back to that basic. If we talk about community, what you mentioned about therapy is really interesting, right? Because not so long ago, and certainly in most of the world, your quote unquote therapists are predominantly your brothers, your sisters, your parents, your friends, the people who are around you, the people in your community, the elders, uh, your pastor, whoever it might be, right? These are the people, oh, I've got these problems, I have these worries, these concerns, I need this guidance. I'm not going to pay a random professional stranger to sit down and talk to them. And I understand there are niche situations where therapy probably makes sense. If you've been to war and you've been seeing all this horrible stuff, or you've been the victim of some horrific crime or something, and you need like very specific niche help, I understand that. But I don't think like the average middle-class, you know, 16-year-old or 26-year-old or 36-year-old who hasn't been through some like real trauma or has a major issue, I think the idea that they all sort of need to be in therapy is very foreign and bizarre to me.

Right. I think that's why, like, I mean, at least the point of what everything that we focus on here is like, we always say like you should talk to the person, like that one person who's listening to us, they can change their life. They could skip spending all the money on therapy consistently and just go build something starting with their body, maybe starting with a business. I mean, I had, I had an employee here who was actually a really high performer. I think really highly of her. And one day she came to me and she said, you know, I've been going to therapy I'm talking to my therapist about work and I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. And my therapist says if this is causing me anxiety, I should just quit and I should take some time to think about what I want and I should just go figure that out. And I go, let's just play this because I actually think she's a high performer. And I said, you should do whatever you want to do. And this is like a life path for you, but do you want to hear my two cents? And she said yes. So obviously I yapped and my response was, What is going to make you— you have to touch the world in order to understand and change things. So if you go home and you sit in your apartment and you don't talk to other people about their career paths, like what is the natural inclination that you're going to find what you actually want? And if something is hard, do we have to stop it? And I thought it was so fascinating because she kind of went to therapy every Wednesday or Thursday every week. And I said, how long have we been going to therapy? Well, you know, 10 years, the same therapist. Interesting. Do we have a deep-seated issue we have to handle? No. What is it? Well, anxiety, and I kind of don't know what I want to do next. Why can we not deeply figure this out? Why can you not figure this out? And why do you have to kind of like secede all of your thoughts to this other human that you have to pay to listen to you? It's a very weird construct if you actually think about it. Stranger gives advice on life they don't have to live with no repercussions for actions. Not a great incentive alignment. And so I think it's really interesting. I guess one of the other places I'd want to go with you is like, I think part of these issues are that it's scary being against the norm. And you had a quote that I loved that was basically like, most people would want to be with the majority instead of be right. And I remember when I first started following you online, I was like, God, he's got balls, you know? And I bet that like you just, you were willing to say things, especially at that time, that were so outside of the norm. And of course it resonated with a lot of people, but a lot of people just went to battle against you. And so my circle back here is I think people are scared. And if they found out how to have more courage and less fear, then maybe they would be able to change their lives. And I don't know if that's right, but maybe it'll help one person. And so I guess I would ask you, what do you do when you're scared to say something or do something? How do you do it anyway?

Do you want a real answer? Yeah. I fear God. I don't fear man. I'd rather be canceled by man than canceled by God. So the strength of my faith and the worldview that's derived from that it snuffs out a lot of the day-to-day fears that I think a lot of people deal with. So in terms of the, "Oh, I might get a negative comment," or, "I might get backlash," or, "I might be called this name," or whatever, if I believe that righteously and morally what I'm saying is important and needs to be said, then I'll say it.

Is there anything you do fear or that still creeps in despite your faith? And what do you do when that happens? Is there a prayer you say to God? Is there a walk that you take?

Yeah, well, I mean, I think I've heard, I think I've seen you tweet that, you know, every time that you fear or worry, you're practicing atheism, right?

Which is often true. I'm still a worrier.

And I love that quote. And so look, I'm a human being, right? I'm not bulletproof literally or figuratively, right? Of course I have my fears and my concerns for the world at large and for humanity and myself. I have a wife and child now, Lord willing, many more to come. So I have the basic human fears and concerns. But, you know, I have a lot of trust in God, and I have a lot of trust, I guess, in myself and my ability. So whatever comes down the pipeline, I believe that I'm capable and competent enough to deal with it. So when I zoom out and I think, okay, whatever I'm worried or concerned about, If I zoom out—

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Codie, it's so silly that in some cases the worries and concerns that you or I may have are a result of— the worry is something that is stemming from something that was like a previous dream, right? You're running a company, and with that comes responsibility and pressure and challenges, and you're trying to do all these cool and amazing things and so on. Sure that you've got these issues and complications and things you're trying to work out with people or with systems or whatever, but you're like, wait, to even have this problem, how lucky am I to even be able to have this worry? Right? Like how many people even have that, right? Like this is what I dreamed of. This is what I wanted. This is what I, this is what I fought for. Um, right. So that, that's how I frame things. This is literally what I wanted and what I chose.

You know what's true as a business owner? Courage is needed too. Not in speech, maybe, but in the meeting where you admit cash flow is tighter than revenue makes it look, or in the courage where you finally ask, is my team strong enough for what we're trying to do? That's why we built Growth Boardroom. Growth Boardroom is for business owners that need to make decisions that are too expensive to keep making alone. You bring your real problems— hiring, cash flow, sales, marketing systems, expansion, whatever is actually blocking growth. And we bring our advisors to help you with weekly coaching, quarterly planning, and a 50-tool operating system to help you find the next lever in your business to unlock your next growth. So if you want to make more revenue and profit, our members end up seeing 25 to 50% growth in their business when they follow our proven system. Why would you guess when you can steal somebody else's homework? You can steal ours. Please apply here at the link if you have a business that is trending to do at least 7 figures in revenue. We want to then invite you into the boardroom. I need to put that on my screensaver. You know, I do think it's, you know, it's like training a muscle, you know, and the first couple of times you do the bicep curls, you can't do very many and it hurts and it feels awful. And then after a while you keep lifting heavier and heavier and it seems the same way with your mind. And so I love this idea of like sort of first zooming all the way out, which is that God is the only thing to fear, then zooming out with most humans have it harder than I do. And then zooming in a little bit, which is, remember you asked for this. And it takes me to that other quote of like, my husband sometimes quotes it at me and I'm like, but he'll say, don't get mad when there's a lot on your plate because you said you wanted to eat. Of course. And I'm like, you're right. Don't use that with your wife. That's not very romantic.

I might use it in a song. All right, put it in a rap song.

Oh yeah, it's not mine, so you could use it. That's like public. But that's really helpful, actually. And I guess, you know, one other way that I would be curious your take— sometimes it's, it's not the random haters and the people on the internet that hurt. It's like, how do you overcome the people that you love wanting you to live a different type of life? And I think these days, if most people are going for less God, less family, less success, less building, you're going to have people who love you, but they want you to stay the same and they don't want you to change. And the ones who discourage you sometimes are even the closest to you. And I'm sure it's happened to you too. You know, what do you do when somebody that you love and care about actually feels you're disappointing them, but you believe you should be?

Well, I think it's important to— actually think it's important to listen to everyone. This is not— I know a lot of people say you don't listen to people. I actually think you should listen to everyone, but it doesn't mean that everyone is correct or you need to take everyone's advice. If somebody genuinely loves and cares about you, I believe it's always worth hearing them out. If you know that someone has your best interest in mind, then generally speaking, they are going to be coming from a perspective of what they think is best for you in terms of protecting you and keeping you safe. Those things probably primarily, they're probably thinking more about your safety and security than your, uh, success or dreams being fulfilled type of thing. So I say with those individuals, certainly listen, but then it's up to you to decide what to take on board and what to discard. And what to do differently. And it's also up to you to live with the consequences of that. If you wanna go out and do something that is weird, out of the norm, strange, it could just be starting a, starting a company, becoming a creative, making whatever YouTube videos you want, pursuing something that's unorthodox. There will always be people who warn you against them. And that doesn't come from a bad place because statistically speaking, most people who pursue those things, it's certainly not a sure thing, right? And most people are like, are you sure? So, um, I would recognize that it's not coming from a malicious place with those type of individuals. And then, um, and then do what's, what's best. And also recognize that sometimes people won't believe in you until you prove them, until you prove that you can actually do it. If you say you want to do this crazy thing, even your parents, even your siblings, even your close friends, there'll always be that person who like, believes in you maybe more than you do and eggs you on. But a lot of people won't believe you can do it until you actually, until you actually do it.

Was there ever anyone who said something to you that really stuck when you were building? I mean, you've had multiple careers, you know, and from an author to a rapper to a business builder to a podcaster to an internet personality, many things. But can you remember somebody who said something that stuck with you about how you weren't going to make it? And like, does that fuel you or do you just ignore it?

Or— It's a good question. The honest answer is no, at least not anyone whose opinion I particularly care about. Yeah, I'm very fortunate and blessed that my family have always supported me, even when I knew for sure that they had doubts or they thought that I was being a little bit crazy. You know, so to give, to give the most obvious example, I mean, I quit my job in 2011. So I've been self-employed now as a creative entrepreneur for 15 years. So, and I quit my job when I was 24. Okay. So I went to Oxford University. I studied computer science. I graduated when I was 20. Obviously there's a lot of, a lot of things I could do. Um, I went into the corporate world. I was a management consultant for 3 years. And then at the beginning of going into the 3rd year, I made a decision that by the end of that year I was going to quit. And I wanted to become a full-time rapper. And to an outsider, that might sound completely insane. To someone at the company, that might seem nuts. Like, what, you're gonna— why did you even get that degree and do all this if you just want to become a rapper, right? Like, it seems very strange to people. But, you know, and I've actually know people who were kind of in similar positions who wanted to do something more unorthodox. And actually, they let the people around them, sometimes including their very own parents, discourage them to the point that they either didn't pursue the thing at all, or they started and then they quit. I thank God that my parents are— especially being Nigerian parents. Nigerian and African and Asian parents in particular have like a, you know, you must be a doctor, a lawyer, like, you know, accountant, that type of thing, right? Like, people have that viewpoint because there's so much focus on education and traditional achievement and so on. And again, that's about that stability and security. It doesn't come from a bad place. But I think, um, I don't know if it's just that, like, I'm the fifth child and my parents were like, well, we've already got four successful kids, so, you know, we can let Zooby go off and pursue his crazy thing. But, you know, I just, I just think genuinely they, um, they believed in me and they also just knew they, You know, certainly when you're a kid, your parents probably know you better than you do. And my parents often comment on like how from a very young age I was always very determined and like I would pursue what I wanted and I didn't give up and so on. So I think they just knew like, look, whatever Zuby sets his mind to, he's going to achieve some level of success. So if he wants to be a rapper, if he wants to start a business, if he wants to climb the corporate ladder, whatever he does, if we give it time, he's gonna he's gonna succeed at it. So I think they, they just had that belief in that faith. And, um, you know, like, my— every single album I've put out, my mom's been the first person to buy.

Love that.

You know, they're subscribed to my YouTube channel. They look like, you know, someone writes a hate comment on my Facebook page, my mom might be jumping there in the comments, right? My mommy.

Sometimes she'll send it me too. Like, you know what, Ashley's a real bitch. I don't know Ashley. I don't know. Why are we? Yeah.

So, so I'm, I'm so fortunate in that regard that I haven't had to like fight against my loved ones and have that like extra uphill battle to, you know, pursue the things that I do. But you know, there have been times, especially over the last 7 years where I've been a lot more publicly outspoken, you know, there have been things that I've posted, which have like, gone viral where, you know, it's gone so viral that it's like reached my siblings' workplaces or it's reached like my parents' community or whatever. And people are sending, oh, is this your son? Like who said this thing, especially during like, you know, the COVID time or whatever, you know? So I have had things where they're like, oh, you know, like, what did you, you know, maybe they maybe felt that one was like a little bit too much or something. And like I said, I will always listen. Um, and you know, sometimes I'll be like, yeah, okay, maybe I could have frame that one a little bit. Maybe I was a little bit harsh there. But other times I'm like, yeah, I know people didn't want to hear that, but ultimately that is what I actually honestly think.

Yeah. But I think that's good because these days people say, like, there's one real aggressive side of the equation, which is like, I think I hear a lot of young women say like, I have boundaries. I don't need to listen to feedback. You know, if they don't support me, they're not on my side. And that's really actually isolating.

Yeah.

Because I've never met another human that I agree with 100% of everything they agree on. And so, um, that would be— could you imagine if you could only be friends with people that you had to agree on every single thing? That would be ludicrous. And so I think it's kind of liberating to say you should— it's funny from you too, because I think if people didn't meet you and they just listened to you online, they might think, he'll be tough, he doesn't listen to the trolls, don't read the comments. But in fact, you're kind of the opposite. You're like, if I believe that your opinion is valid, I'd like to hear it.

Yeah. And even if I don't think your opinion is valid, sometimes I find it funny. Like, I've read some— I've received some hate on the internet, which genuinely makes— sometimes it's so good and I share it with my audience, right? I'm like, guys, you check out this one. I've added them to my bio before, right?

Me too. Can I tell you my favorite? It's so inappropriate. It's cussing. But one time I said I don't like to pick up people from the airport, which I stand by. I will send you an Uber. I don't want to come to the airport. I will do many other things for you, harder things, I think. But apparently the internet finds that unbelievably rude and they think that I am the worst. And so I really kind of got a kick out of that. And so one of the retweets was great. It was like, no wonder this cantankerous has no friends. And I don't know why I— first of all, I think we should use the word cantankerous more. And you're British, so you guys actually use the C word. I don't think Americans were allowed to. Okay, no, I know you're good. I'm good. Um, it really gave me a chuckle. Yeah. And so you're right, the kind of— it's like, uh, hear people's opinions but let them rest lightly.

Yeah. And when it comes to strangers as well, because I do get a lot of questions from people about how you, how do you deal with the online hate or whatever. First of all, a lot of it is not real. But secondly, it's remarkable how many people allow— I have another quote. I say like, never let the opinion of a stranger on the internet ruin your day. You have to remember a lot of it is, a lot of it has nothing to do with you. There are right now as we speak, let's see, there's 8 billion people in the world, about 5 billion on social media. I would say right now, There's at least 200 million people in the world right now scrolling social media looking for somebody to be mad at. Right now. At least 200 million of them. Right now. They're looking literally on Instagram, X, they're looking for somebody to be mad at. And sometimes you just come across. Sometimes your face just pops up. Giving your take. Saying your hot take. And they're like, Fuck you. Sometimes you're just that person. And so it's not about you personally, it was someone was having a bad day and you just happened to pop up and maybe your thing was generating a lot of conversation and you just catch their ire that day. So it's not about you, it's genuinely about them.

Okay, I do want to end with two things.

Sure.

So we've talked a lot about you know, what's happening with men. We've talked about not being fearful. I want to talk about the other side for a second, which is how do you live a meaningful life? Like, in your mind, if a young person is searching for meaning and purpose, what is the way to lead a meaningful life that actually matters?

It's an excellent question, and I genuinely do think that the answer is different for different people in terms of the specifics, at least. And I think, Codie, I think that if you think of it, for most, for the first 20 years of most people's lives, they're kind of just on train tracks that they didn't create for themselves. You don't choose your family, your parents, where you were born. You probably didn't choose what school you went to. You probably didn't choose what subjects you studied. Like at the beginning, you're kind of just cool and go to go through the school system. And other people make all these decisions for you. And I think as a result of that, a lot of people get to their late teens or sometimes even their early 20s, and they've never genuinely, like, deeply thought about what they want and what they value. And so this is where, uh, you know, that therapist you mentioned earlier, you know, this is like the tidbit I'd say, like, where I think there's something to be taken from that is to, is to genuinely think of like, okay, not just what society or my parents or my family or my school has told me, like, what are the things I genuinely value? And what do I, what would a meaningful life look like? You know, what would it, what would it look like? What would it look like to you? Because different people value different things in different orders. And life is full of sacrifices and trade-offs. We don't like to talk. We, I wish our society would talk more about trade-offs. Because almost everything is a trade-off. Literally, by you and I being here, it means right now, it means that we're not somewhere else. Um, by marrying one person, you're not marrying everyone else. By living in one city, you're eschewing all the other places that you could live, right? So before you go about doing that blindly, I think it's very important to think about it consciously. So if you've just— say you're a higher achiever, you're someone who's always gotten good grades, you went to a good university, so on. You can automatically unconsciously be put on a track to think that career and/or money are the top priority when actually for you they're not, right? So you're on this pathway and you're just trying to maximize career and money, and in doing so you're sacrificing lots of other things, perhaps your health, perhaps your relationships, maybe you're living somewhere you don't want to do, perhaps you're sacrificing hobbies, sacrificing dreams and so on. Whereas in reality there are other things you care about more. So I think it's important to take that pause and go through that exercise, I guess, of really thinking, okay, what are the things like I really, really care about? So for me personally, I realized early on, like 20-ish, that I really, really value my own— how would I call it— personal liberty, autonomy, ability to make my own decisions when I want. To the degree that I value money, I value it mostly to the degree— firstly, to the degree that will enable that. And then to the degree I also knew, um, I care a lot about family. I care a lot about my preexisting family that I come from, but I also care a lot about being able to create my own family. And I, I, before I ever had children, I spent a lot of time thinking of like what I wanna do for my children and be able to pass on to them and so on. There's only 3 ways money motivates me. One, being able to have that freedom and autonomy, even in terms of geography, in terms of where I live and so on, and not to have to be constantly worrying about being able to meet basic needs. That's the first. Number two is being able to provide for a family. I've told people for years and years, God willing, I'd love to have at least 5 kids. First conversation I ever had with my now wife, how many kids do you want? Right? If you're all like, I don't know, this is not going to work. Right? Um, you know, I want to be able to provide for them and to be able to give a good life. And then number 3 is I'd like to have an abundance to be able to give and help a lot of people. And so I thought about all this early. So it may— once you do this, it makes it a lot easier to make decisions because you know what serves your purpose and what doesn't. And it makes it easier to, um, prioritize. And prioritization is very important because depending on what your goals are, and how you pri— how, um, how those things are ranked, you, there are some life paths you, you, you don't want to take. If you're someone who does this, if you're a 20-year-old man or a woman and you decide, okay, you know what, like actually the number one thing for me is like I wanna get married and have kids, then it would be very foolish and self-destructive to pursue a path for the next 10 or 20 years that steers you away from that, that makes those things even harder and harder to achieve, right? And again, everything is, everything is trade-offs. So if you prioritize this one, you might have to deprioritize this one, at least for a time, for a season. Doesn't mean you can't do multiple things. You can, but you can't realistically do every single thing at once, right?

You know, it's, it's interesting because I think most of us fall into mimetic desire, right? And so we just, we become an amalgamation of all the things around us. Like a mirror in a hall of mirrors. And so then you end up having this life that you didn't architect, you don't actually want, turns out actually doesn't make you very happy because introspection is hard when it's real. When you're actually asking yourself the very tough questions, aka one trade-off versus another. So I like that. But you're also really an inspiration in that way because a typical career path is not Oxford, rapper, uh, author, weightlifter, podcaster, internetter. You know, that's not normal, really, actually. And so, and then to go even more into ideologically, once you want to say something.

Yeah, a lot of people might look at— hear what you just said and look at all the things that I do and have done and think it's kind of random. Um, it's all the same thing. My goal has been consistent since I was 19. I want to use my voice and my words to positively impact millions of people. That has been my explicit goal since I was 19. That's why I wanted to become a rapper. And so whether I'm podcasting, whether I'm on stage, whether I'm on TV, I'm doing an interview, I'm writing a book, all towards the exact same purpose. So it might look different and scattered to someone else, but it's all the same thing.

Yeah, well, I think the more interesting part is that you can't have looked at somebody else's career and thought, "Oh, I'm gonna mimic that," because you didn't really exist. Now there are now rappers who have written books, and there are probably authors that have become rappers, although I don't think that's as common. And so anyway, I think that part's cool. And it just goes to show if you're listening right now and you have a weird thing you want to do in the world, weird as in not normal for everybody else, there's a way to do that. And I think you're an inspiration in that way. I guess the one part I want to end on here is for that person listening who maybe feels a little lost or isolated in this world, If you're here to share, you know, words to change people's lives, what are the words you would leave them with?

Life is very much worth living, and it has its ups and downs, and the downs can last a long time. It can feel unbearable at times. But I always just tell people, it sounds cliché, but man, just keep on going, keep moving forward. If you're going through something difficult, If you keep going forward, you will, you will get through it. It will pass. Time does heal things. Um, and there's just so much goodness and positivity that already exists and which you can also create and contribute to. So rather than focusing on the darkness all the time and all the negativity, do your best. I know it's hard to do 100% of the time, but Do your best to focus on the light and focus on the positive and be a part of it.

What's your favorite rap lyric you've ever written? Oh, do you have like a hot one-liner?

You like a hot one-liner?

Is that what the kids say?

Oh gosh, when I was 19, I wrote that, you know, you can call it masturbation because I'm feeling myself. I thought that was— I thought that was—

that's not on brand for you.

You're like, "Fine, God, I'll sue Bastille." I wrote that one when I was 19. It was funny.

It was funny.

No, I'm trying to think of something deeper. Okay.

What's your favorite rap song you've written?

One of my favorites is a song I made just called "Perseverance." And it's basically about, in all, everything we're talking about.

Yeah.

Just persevering and just continuing doing what you're doing and trying. That's really what it's about. It's just, um, it's just about hope.

Okay. I like it. Zooby, where do you like people to follow you? A lot.

I am on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, all @ZoobyMusic, Z-O-B-Y Music. And you can find my podcast, Real Talk with Zooby, on all platforms. And you can find all my music on all platforms. Just search Zooby, Z-O-B-Y. Um, Easy to find. I have a lot of stuff out there, so pick and choose.

I love it.

Whatever you find value in.

Well, thank you so much. I happen to subscribe to all of them. My favorite is X.

Thank you.

And, uh, and also I like your YouTube, and I like your Instagram too, because it's more personal. Thank you. Um, so thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing this, and thank you for being really loud about opinions that need to be said in the world.

I appreciate it, Codie, and you too.

God bless, man.