Dating, Finances & Happiness - James Smith - #362

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
What's happening, people? Welcome back to the show. My guest today is James Smith. He's a PT and not a life coach. We are talking about finding success in dating, finances and happiness. It's a weird time to be alive. The rules are completely out of the window for dating. Finding a balance between socializing and work is basically impossible. There are a million different ways to organize your personal finances, and that's before you even start to throw Tinder into the mix. Thankfully, me and James have obviously led flawless lives where we've never made any mistakes and have this perfectly laid out life plan. So today we're going to put the world to rights and give you our best advice. Expect to learn why James is actually glad to be back from Australia, the optimal approach for getting a kangaroo to tap out in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, what's interesting about being a guy in your 30s without kids, why James doesn't want to invest his money into property, and much more. If you are new here, or if you're a long time listener, make sure that you have hit the subscribe button. It is the only way that you can ensure that you will never miss an episode. And it makes me very happy and it supports the podcast. So just open your little app and press the plus button in the corner or press follow or subscribe in the middle of the page. I thank you. But now it's time for the wise and wonderful James Smith.
James Smith, welcome to the show.

**James Smith** (1:44)
Thanks for having me back.

**Chris Williamson** (1:46)
Difficult second album today.

**James Smith** (1:49)
Why do you say that?

**Chris Williamson** (1:49)
Well, the difficulty, you have a good debut, and then the second one, you've got to keep up with the talent, you know?

**James Smith** (1:55)
Dave, you're thinking about films as well. Often the second one is never as good as the first, but I've got faith because we were saying, just not fair now, I've got a proper setup. I'm sat at a desk, I feel professional. I've got a professional microphone. I'm ready.

**Chris Williamson** (2:10)
Yes. Even if what you're saying is bollocks, at least it looks the part.

**James Smith** (2:14)
As long as I've got good hand gestures, people watching on YouTube, and I can command the conversation using those, we should.

**Chris Williamson** (2:20)
Like a guy doing the weather, like a weather guy. We've got a cold front moving in from the north, and some interesting points coming in from the south. Obviously, you are now subscribed to my newsletter like everybody else should be. In it this week, I identified the percentage of Britons that thought they could beat different animals in a fight. So 45% of Brits think that they could beat a goose, 38% think that they could beat a medium-sized dog, 18% thought that they could beat an eagle, and then 5% thought that they could beat a kangaroo. What do you think is the largest animal that you could realistically beat in a fight?

**James Smith** (2:55)
Before we do that, we need to set the ground rules of what victory is.

**Chris Williamson** (2:59)
The animal either runs away or it's dead, or it's immobilized.

**James Smith** (3:04)
Okay, because I'm a purple belt in Jiu Jitsu, so if I take the back of a kangaroo and I've got a seatbelt, under over, I've got control over that, I've got two hooks in behind the legs, no rotational control of the kangaroo, there's not going to be a verbal tap.

**Chris Williamson** (3:19)
So the kangaroo is dead.

**James Smith** (3:22)
I want to, no, no, no, I've just got control. I want to look at the adjudicator and be like, have I won? Because if you want me to kill this kangaroo, then there's going to be a conflict of interest there. I don't think many people have been really looking at the rule set. Being a BJJ practitioner, I need to know the rules. Where am I going to accumulate points? With some animals, like a goose, I might pull guard, slide in on my bum, take away the threat. Then that goose steps into the guard. Next thing you know, half guard, deep half, get a sweep, end up on top.

**Chris Williamson** (3:54)
I think that most of these animals, the advantage comes from behind. But the problem is, especially with a goose and a kangaroo, their reach, you're going to have to try and fight the reach because kangaroos do that sort of double, like the drop kick thing. And that's going to be challenging for you because you're not going to be used to striking at BJJ.