Can Men & Women Be Friends Again? - James Smith - #505

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Bonjour, everybody. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is James Smith. He's an author, podcaster, online trainer, and not a life coach. Many men and women no longer see each other as on the same team with a common goal, and instead view themselves as adversaries who don't play well together. But given that humanity has continued successfully for hundreds of thousands of years, this can't be how it's always been. So why is it now? Expect to learn how James got in trouble for saying she's a 10, but how convenient activities often get mistaken for enjoyable ones, whether guys can look at girls in the gym or not, whether Elon Musk not buying Twitter is a huge win, whether TikTok is a dangerous influence, what you can learn about yourself from the tasks you're avoiding, why people fearing ignorance is making them stupid, and much more. I like talking to James. He has got a lot of insights into gym floor culture, and most of his audience is female. So he also provides a different insight, I think, a guy that is very, very familiar with what women feel about themselves, about their bodies, about what they want from life. Giving insights from a male perspective is not something that you come across all the time. So I very much appreciate James for coming on, and he will be back on later this year to talk about his new book, How to Be Confident. So stay tuned for that. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome James Smith.
James Smith, welcome to the show.

**James Smith** (1:50)
Hey, it's good to be back. It's been a bit of a long stint since I've been on it. It feels like I was on a couple months ago, but it's been nearly a year.

**Chris Williamson** (1:57)
It's been a long time, yeah. What's going on?

**James Smith** (2:00)
I'm a different man.

**Chris Williamson** (2:01)
Why?

**James Smith** (2:01)
I'm completely different. Look at this setup. For a start, we were just talking about this offline. Last time, I'm embarrassed of the version of myself a year ago.

**Chris Williamson** (2:13)
Technologically.

**James Smith** (2:16)
In many ways, professionally, technologically, personally. Last time we did this talk, I was wearing a broadcaster headset, which at the time I thought was innovative podcasting. I was like, I've got a mic, got headphones connected. Now, a Shure SM7B, the pinnacle of podcasting microphones. I've got three of them in it, a DSLR, which, you know, I never fully appreciated the power of podcast clips an hour ago. The game has changed.

**Chris Williamson** (2:47)
Yes, sir. Well, how long have you had in TikTok now?

**James Smith** (2:52)
I've had it for two years, but I've only started respecting it as a platform probably six months.

**Chris Williamson** (2:56)
And you've got how many followers?

**James Smith** (2:58)
1.5 million.

**Chris Williamson** (3:00)
Out of nowhere.

**James Smith** (3:02)
I did 580,000 in a week.

**Chris Williamson** (3:05)
What was that due to? What did you talk about?

**James Smith** (3:08)
There was one video that really booted off, which is a subject that I've actually spoken about for years. So when I did the video on it, it kind of reeled off the tongue, which is the swimmer's body illusion, where I don't ever say this to shit on fitness people, but I'd say to people in the video, look, imagine there's a person who wants to get in shape and they look at different physiques, they want to, you know, idealize. And they go, I would be a runner, but then I'd probably be a bit skinny and look a bit miserable. Or I could be a bodybuilder, but then I might be a little bit too big and look a bit thick. So then they go, oh, swimmers, I love a swimmer's physique. So I'm going to start swimming. Then three, four months pass and they like realize it's an illusion. Swimmers don't always look the way they look because they swim. They swim because of the way they look. Similarly to me, the people always go, oh, it's right for you. You're big and broad. And that's why you, you know, that's because you play rugby. And I was like, no, I'm big and broad. So I play rugby.
When 50 lads in a year play rugby, the big, broad, dense, heavy guys stay on and enjoy it. And the people that don't don't. And in the gym, people that lift weights to six months and don't build muscle, don't continue the endeavor. And they start picking other sports. And there's always that adage that you don't pick your sport, your sport picks you. And so many people in the fitness industry, there are people genetically who have a much easier time getting in good shape and maintaining good shape. And when they say they tops off on holiday, rather than people going, oh, you're empathetic, intelligent, you care about people, you should be a coach. They go, wow, you're in great shape, you should become a PT. And that's unfortunately the state of affairs of the fitness industry largely, is people don't look the way because of what they preach, they preach what they preach because of the way they look.