May 3, 2021

Questionable Self Growth Advice

The Wolf And The Shepherd discuss a new subscription app which gives a real man 20 things to do over 20 days to improve themselves. 

Transcript

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today we're going to be

talking about questionable self-growth

advice

now this is actually only questionable

because somehow we've got involved in

the process

well sure yeah i was browsing through my

instagram as i normally do

on a daily basis and uh i came across

this ad

for this real man self-growth challenge

so i tried to put all those words

together still didn't quite understand

it real means real man growth growth

if you're trans obviously this doesn't

perhaps apply to you

if you're just a regular man uh don't

identify as a real man then i

guess it doesn't apply to you um if

you're already really good at self

growth

i guess it doesn't apply to you because

it has the word challenge at the end so

this is

aiming for a specific audience so

basically yeah like

12 people yeah 12 people so um

this i was looking at this app and it's

a 20-day guide to becoming the best man

you can be

which again doesn't really interest me

because i'm kind of interested in maybe

being about 60 percent of the best i can

be the extra 40

looks like a lot of effort well 60

though seems kind of high to shoot well

yeah i was hoping i was starting off on

the basis of 40 and just had to add

like maybe 20 oh okay now that makes

sense

that's probably attainable yeah now 20

days is a lot of commitment

something i'm not sure i'm on board with

in the first place no no

that i don't know if i can make it 20

days right

so there's a lot of these apps around

and for whatever reason they keep coming

up in my feed whether it be

on facebook or instagram and every now

and then i kind of click on them because

i'm quite intrigued about

how you can tune your life around and

well that's why they keep

popping up on your feed because you keep

clicking on them well maybe but

i figured what i'd do to save our

listeners some money

and some time in case they were tempted

to subscribe to these

that we're going to give our input on

this specific 20-day program about the

steps

and to be honest all we've got to go on

is the titles of each day

and they didn't have any descriptions

unless you kind of get the app and

subscribe

okay so they're giving you what you're

supposed to do but you've got to buy the

app to be able to really know how to

work well

i think the first three or five days of

free and then

if you want past the fifth day you've

got to pay for the uh

zen like wisdom they give you on the

remainder of the course gotcha yeah

so this way at least our listeners they

can make their mind up whether it's a

waste of time and the money would be

better spent at buffalo wild wings which

probably so i'm saying yes before we

even start yeah

so we're going to work through these go

through these quickly well some of them

are going to go through quickly because

they don't make any sense

uh day one how to talk to anyone

you think about that well what if they

speak a different language

well i'm assuming they think you've got

an apple watch where you can use that i

translate thing and speak immediately

into it and it speaks out

oh yeah we should use one of those so we

could understand each other yeah

we should no actually we need one to

speak to sandra next door that's true

yeah

so i'm assuming they mean people who you

run into on a day-to-day basis like the

receptionist you like the look of or

your bank manager or something

you don't become the horse whisperer or

get kanye west's cell phone number so

when it says how to talk to anyone

it's not like it's underground phone

directory to talk to anybody you want

this is just how you can talk to people

you run into normally i'm

thinking glad yeah yeah so what do you

think that advice is going to be

how do you talk to anyone what if you're

mute

well that's going to actually hit a few

of the um

days specific topics if you're mute well

that's

that's got to kind of hurt if you're a

mute person and you actually paid for

this app

right and you realize day one is how to

talk to anybody

it's got to be depressing well it gives

you the list of topics for your start so

i think that's your own fault if you do

that yeah but there's a lot of people

that probably

you know buy before they try so to speak

and don't look

or don't yeah read through all the

descriptions and all that stuff so

there's probably a few mutes out there

that have bought this that got

frustrating yeah

some of the apps i saw were actually 60

day programs now how on earth

do you fill out 60 days of different

topics and even if you hear off topic i

can't fill 60 days with topics on self

growth i can't believe we've even

brought ourselves

to devote probably what about an hour is

what this is going to take us to talk

through this i mean that's a lot for us

yeah right day two

the power of habit now i don't know if

this is aimed at alcoholics or those

people who get up to jog at 5am but i'm

assuming it's

forming good habits oh you know well

yeah but see it doesn't

say good habits or bad habits it's just

talking about

the power of habits and yeah some of

them are powerful yes

i mean like with alcoholism you know the

power to destroy your marriage and

friendships and you know

job performance that type things i mean

habits do have power whether they're

good or bad

well but alcoholism could actually make

you

have friends and get along with your

wife and do better at your job

yeah that is true let's be honest it's a

double-edged sword true

both sides can cut you right david it

tastes good when it happens

day three the four hour body now

hopefully this is four hours spread out

across a whole month or 20 days or

better still two months because four

hours a day

to get a better body i'm not no i'm not

gonna do that but

have you done the math problem like four

hours spread over

20 days how much that is yeah it's like

six hours a day

yeah yeah so that makes it worse it

doesn't it yeah

yeah i just couldn't i mean even if i

was trying to

training for something i mean i used to

train for those extreme races you know

like

10 kilometers and about 30 you know

marine type obstacles and

you know my training consisted of like

running three times a week for about 45

minutes

when i think about extreme racing i

think about trying to get from here to

dfw airport

yeah gran turismo right day four

rich dad poor dad which i think is just

a fiscal snapshot of before and after

divorce

yeah that's what that sounds like yeah

rich dad poor dad yeah yeah don't have

any

kids well yeah i mean rich dad is when

the baby's like

born and then about two days later

you're poor

and you never get to be rich again yeah

so well you see this is the thing isn't

it because you can't be a dad without

having a child

true but i guess if you relinquish your

responsibility towards financially

supporting that child you can remain a

rich dad

you know the ironic part about that rich

dad poor dad is there's a lot of

2b dads right that go and spend a bunch

of money on a bunch of baby stuff before

the baby even comes so

they're actually getting poor before

they even become a dad

yeah so day five the five

second rule that stupid we all know

about that yeah anything other than

sushi if you drop food on the floor

within five seconds it maintains its

edibility so

nut salsa now salsa's a bit rough

although you can still dip chips on it

you shouldn't really scoop it back on

the plate

right but you know i like to scoop the

salsa that's gonna be

more difficult i i can't believe they're

paying for well that's part of the three

days actually those that first five

things how to talk to anyone the power

of habit

the four-hour body rich dad poor dad the

five-second rule

that's all free okay so we're going to

enter into the

premium content okay right so we're

we're day six yeah if there's any

listeners who actually work from this

work for this company who have actually

picked up by now that we're going step

by step through their program don't

bother suing us because we're just given

the titles you made freely available on

the interweb

yes yeah so day six the power of

now should we also preface this that we

could have

maybe wrote them down wrong because we

don't pay that close attention to

anything

no i did i made a point of writing these

down properly is this why it took you so

long to get all this prepared yeah i

mean you've been working on this one for

like

four days i have been working on this

hard because i

wanted to do it justice so day six the

power of now now given you and i are

like two of the greatest procrastinators

on earth the better title would be the

power of wait in a few months

absolutely yeah yeah and the power of

later i like the power of later today

what you can put off until tomorrow

absolutely this week or hopefully long

enough that the person who you're

supposed to be doing it for has

forgotten about it so you don't have to

at all right that's my favorite motto

well kind of like this one we were gonna

record it

i think what last week and we're just

getting around to it so

there you go yeah day 7 the 10x or 10

multiply rule

so this is either about an abnormally

large t-shirt or multiplying something

by 10 which i'm figuring it's the last

thing but

i'm betting it's going to be one of

those things which is impossible to

achieve and you

you'd have more chance of buying that

10xl t-shirt at a jenny craig convention

or something

yeah but here's the problem i have with

day seven yeah

the ten times rest yes well no why

didn't they wait till day ten

right it'd have been easier to remember

i i think this is

some lazy writing i mean how did they

not figure hey let's throw this on day

10. i don't know why they didn't put a

rest day in there as well yes you know

what i mean

even to celebrate your halfway through

well

seven days are you halfway through right

yeah yeah that's halfway through to 14

and this is 20 yeah

almost almost there day 8 unlimited

memory

now somebody used to build their own

computers there's no such thing as

unlimited memory right

so there's either a small chance they

could be referring to enhancing the

hippocampus in your brain's temporal

lobe but i'm pretty sure they're just

exaggerating the technical

specifications of the xbox series x yeah

probably so uh unlimited memory i'm just

not getting that

at all because i already forgot what we

were supposed to do on day one

um that's so you can talk to anybody oh

that's right yeah

and then with the unlimited memory you

can remember everything they say

so they'd probably be better off putting

this as step one wouldn't they so that

way by the time you

spoke to anybody you could actually

remember what they say

well yeah but why wouldn't they put this

one on step one so you could remember

all these steps

if we would have started this one at

step one i wouldn't have forgot what

step one was

yeah i'm i'm finding a lot of flaws in

this ad

i really am they're not going to see my

9.99 well

not only that but i'm glad they didn't

like reach out to sponsor us and give a

review

because this would have kind of been bad

for him right

so here we go this is the day which

really pushes me over the edge and

this is my official quit dave i've made

it this far wait what day are we on day

nine day nine day nine

twelve rules for life so you consider

the right this is a 20 day program

right day nine introduces another 12

things i've got to take into

consideration

well don't they need to add more days

then well no there's 12 rules you've got

to fit in one day

that's too much you've got to remember

no that's too much 12 new rules do you

like

too much to do on that day now i've also

got to admit i'm going to use my same

argument that i did on the 10 rules or

10 things or 10x or whatever it was

yeah why didn't this come on day 12 if

it's 12 rules

right exactly well day 10

limitless now i'm not sure this is

supposed to cheer you up after day 9

with all the new rules you're supposed

to adhere to

right and unless it's referring to all

you can eat tacos

it sounds suspiciously to me i think

like

one of those things where it says like

oh just spend an extra 22 hours a day

and you can

earn an extra 5 on your income type

stuff right

yeah limitless and never it never is

limitless whenever i see those programs

oh earn unlimited income

right you know do you want to earn an

extra twenty dollars a week

no no no no i'd like to but not

yeah just for free yeah i just want it

for free yeah

right 11 this one day 11. day 11.

so we're in the second half of the

program right this one

again i'm a little bit suspicious of it

says think and grow rich now i'm gonna

crap on this one immediately

well yeah i overthink everything and my

fiscal situation hasn't changed a bit

that's right and you know what i we do

this step all the time

yeah we just think about ways to make

money but we never follow through with

them and we never get

any money well it doesn't say how long

you actually have to wait after you've

fought to get rich oh well that's a good

point

maybe we just haven't we've already had

all our thoughts

yeah maybe we just haven't waited long

enough i didn't know if it was one of

those have you heard of the laws of

attraction or the law of attraction

where you're supposed to think

things into being and i know it's got

various different formats they throw

that into

isn't that what that movie the secret

was about or tying the red string on

your wrist or something like that yeah

i'm not sure i know some i know there's

some charities some christian

evangelical churches who

do this i think they're called word

churches or something and like

you know you're supposed to like call

money into being that you demand

money and it will suddenly appear not

like out of thin air because

you know obviously evangelical

christians are against magic tricks and

stuff but

right you know that money just comes to

you from all these amazing different

sources just because you've said you

know give me some money or something

is that why they never have a magician

come and pull the easter bunny out of a

hat

yeah it might be i don't i don't

understand why uh

christian church is so against magic

tricks and illusions and all that anyway

because like

they're fun you know if they believe in

magic then

all right cool can you tell us a little

bit more about that in next sunday's

sermon and if they don't believe in

magic then it's harmless anyway

right right yeah and it makes sense i

mean they even wrote a song that do you

believe in

magic yeah we've not sat at a church for

a while actually yeah

and not only that but i mean i guess

they don't play that at

church weddings yeah right so day 12

this is a confusing one

not as confusing as day 13 but day 12

right well don't get ahead of ourselves

now simply labelled quiet quiet so this

is at last a day i can achieve at least

in them now so

so the opposite of right now as we're

recording

and you hear sandra yelling in the

background next door

yeah even though we've got walls

separating us we can still hear sandra

yelling

yeah they get so excited about insurance

yes i worked in insurance briefly and

i was not remotely excited it's not nice

it's not exciting yeah did you know

there are podcasts about

insurance how boring must that be i know

really especially if it's like an entire

season i can understand a one-off right

right

you get like insurance auto insurance

yeah you get a person somebody

tells you funny stories right you know

just somebody who genuinely comes in and

helps explain

all the different types of insurance

very basically right you know without

trying to sell you something i think

that would be good

but yeah just quiet i think it might be

directed towards one of those

listen before you speak type things all

that other crap which derails me from

trying to be the center of attention

right like the think before you speak

thing also not just like the listen

before you think but the thing

or listen before you speak think before

you speak or

whatever yeah makes sense right day 13

this is the most confusing one of all of

them it's just simply entitled

not nice so i don't really know where to

start this one maybe it's about not

saying or doing mean things i don't know

oh yeah like hey don't be not nice

yeah be nice be nice couldn't they have

spun it positively

wouldn't that have made more sense yeah

i mean not nice i mean what a title

right not only that but i mean they once

again missed the boat about

talking about luck i mean they should

have put lucky 13

yeah you know using luck buy lotto

tickets

yes it's your small chance of getting

rich that's right which you're not going

to do by buying this app

but i think um ah but the people that

made it are

well maybe i don't know do you think

when they wrote this they had like 20

people in the office they gave them each

a title and said all right

you're each in charge of coming up for

something

one day i hope not i hope this didn't

take 20 people to make yeah

here we go day 14 the 80 20 principle

so this was my generally my first

thought this was my philosophy in

partner working lab class

they put in 80 of the work i'll do the

other 20. right yeah i thought that's

how that

worked yeah so that's the 80 20

principles so i think this is basically

telling you

if you can like get involved partner up

with people in work

who will do most of the work and you

have to carry a little load but still

get the same reward

it's a good way to do it because it

takes the stress off you other people

are taking the stress

so no makes sense i actually kind of

agree with that one yeah that

sounds like the way that you should live

your life yeah you know all right so

all right finally we agree on one right

so day 15 the five love languages which

i know there's a book about this

is that hearing seeing smelling tasting

and touching right yeah

yeah no that's the five bedroom love

languages

oh yeah okay no this is just the five

love languages

i didn't actually read this book but i

think my girlfriend did and so i can

remember these quite

succinctly actually food sleep pets

xbox and flowers i agree with four of

the five

yeah i mean you left out beer well this

i would replace the flowers with the

beer and i think we're winning this no

this is the way to love your partner not

self-love oh well i don't care about

that

yeah that's nice i mean this is supposed

to be about self-improvement right

so how am i improving myself by

improving somebody else

well as i think it's going along the

theory that if you're nice to them they

might be nice to you back which

you know is very hit and miss it seems

random to me it is very random

so day 16 the 5 a.m club not joining

that

no it is no stick that up with that so

if i hadn't quit on day 9

day 16 is the next spare trap oh yeah

i'm not getting up 5 a.m

i i'm gonna i'm going to admit i don't

think i could have even made it to day 9

but day nine i'd have probably quit and

if i'm looking at this one and it's

telling me now i gotta wake up at five

nope now i'm done well i mean like if i

woke up at five and the house was on

fire i'd still wait to 6 45 to get out

of the house

well yeah you want to wait till the sun

comes out right yeah who wants to go

outside

out yeah i'm too old for that day 17

another confusing one

and it's terrible advice in the age of

covered or if you've got bad breath

it's just simply entitled lean in

no i don't feel any better i don't feel

like i have self grown no by leaning in

actually you know what when i did that

my back kind of hurt a little bit

yeah so day 18 this is confusing but i

like the title

it's just simply entitled elon musk no

kidding

yeah so is elon musk behind this app

doubtful i mean is that why he hadn't

successfully landed one of those

starships yet is because he's been

building this app no he's

too smart of a man to get involved in

this crap ah but he could have subbed it

out to somewhere

overseas to make and then he just wanted

to sneak his name in there

like buy dodge coin well i think your

mouse well throw in like batman and

other people you'll never be however

hard to try to be honest

i mean why can't they just choose like

martin the general manager at the local

bed bath and beyond or something not

elon musk

right nobody's going to be elon musk or

jeff bezos or whatever

i think even elon musk has a tough time

being

elon musk sometimes jeff bezos though

that poor guy he got screwed on that yes

he did yeah actually what was his now

ex-wife's name

yeah i think her name was sharon yeah

but there there was some study done

about her that she is

actually the best investor

of all time right because of how she

pulled that off

yeah you know what good for her yeah and

i guess she kind of looked pretty

because if she had all that money

pretty much anybody can look pretty

eventually well not anybody you can take

that back

not anybody we've seen some people yes

but i think most people even if they're

kind of like a 4 out of ten can knock

themselves up to seven or eight out of

ten

with a few hundreds of millions of

dollars

yeah absolutely i mean there's

definitely at least a couple number

boost in there

i'll go with a couple numbers just on

their face yeah so

yeah i mean you're not going to get to

tulsi gabbard level but you're going to

be

now maybe a solid seven yeah if with

millions of dollars

sure so day 19. imagine if tulsi gabbard

had millions of dollars

maybe she does now i don't know but mind

you probably not because she's not

not a corrupt politician right but we

don't know what she did before she

became a politician so she maybe was

she was oh wait she wasn't she yeah she

was in the army or whatever

so yeah you're not making millions of

dollars in the army if i had

millions and millions of dollars i'd

give her a million dollars

yeah live with me sure so day 19

thinking fast and slow

or are there any other speeds to

thinking i don't know i'm beginning to

think the second half of it was written

by somebody with some

easy access to edibles really what's the

advantage of slow thinking

i don't know i mean it hasn't hurt joe

biden but i mean generally speaking

what is the advantage of slow thinking

what's the advantage of fast thinking oh

so you can solve a problem quickly yeah

but yeah oh

okay so here's the immediate damaging

consequence you can avoid it by fast

singing

but think fast on your feet sure but

think about this

slowly if you think things through

slowly you don't have to think about as

many things

so now you have more time maybe it's

talking about

you know not making rash decisions and

thinking about it to give your brain

time to come up with possible problems

well that could be yeah we should have

written this guide to be honest no i

wanna i'm gonna

think slow i wouldn't have to think

about less things

yeah so day 20 steal like an artist

steals and like be a thief yeah so

already it's broken one of the ten

commandments so yeah yeah

steal like an artist so i'm confused

christian church we're gonna have to

span this for your uh parishioners we're

uh we're gonna have to slowly think

about this one yeah

so i thought actually about renaming

this last one

steal from an artist and attaching a

guide to our website on how to use

bittorrent to download albums for free

but

it might not have really meant that and

this title will still be lovable

school from ours doesn't still think

sounds better so feel like an artist

so i just want to give you a recap of

these and then what then i want to ask

you

a serious question okay about how you

would put together a

workable self-growth plan which only

takes

three days three days right so here we

go just uh

just a recap for our listeners day one

how to talk to anyone day two the power

of habit

day three the four hour body day four

rich dad poor dad day five the five

second rule

day six the power of now day seven

the ten times raw day eight unlimited

memory

day nine twelve rules for life quit on

that day

day ten limitless day eleven

think and grow rich day twelve quiet

day 13 not nice day 14

the 80 20 principal day 15 the five love

languages

day 16 5 a.m club day 17

lean in crap advice day 18 elon musk

day 19 thinking fast and slow day 20

still like an artist so that's your uh

ten dollars a month right there

so oh wait you never said that there was

a monthly fee oh it's 9.95 yeah because

i think they add like extra videos and

help on these topics so

you know how you can lean in i thought

it was just like a one-time

app purchase you're saying there's a

subscription for this well

it's free for the first five days

then it's um then you have to pay to

unlock the other 15 days

although maybe you can get a discount if

you skip

day nine with the 12 extra rules and

then you pay a

subscription where on these topics they

introduce you know like people talking

about it or

videos oh like little ted talks yeah

yeah that type stuff so that's what you

get for your

uh subscription so if you have to write

a genuine

three-day self-growth advice

program and assuming that you actually

think you could keep to these things

what would you what would you do your

three days on i would have to say

day one would be rest yeah

day two would be slow thinking

day three would be rest you aiming this

at the sloth

community yes yeah yeah because i think

that would improve myself if i had two

days of rest and one day of slow

thinking

i think i'd be set yeah i just honestly

i can oh and i would charge twenty

dollars a month for my three day one

yeah if they're

because look i can do it in three days

they're doing 20 so you owe me 17

leftover days yeah right i honestly

don't know

with this self-growth thing because

there's a lot of books been written

about it over the last 20 30 years

everybody's kind of jumped on the

bandwagon

i don't know if a lot of the things in

it are common sense the stuff it tells

you because

i'm always kind of skeptical of these

people who like

let me share my secrets with you of how

i made you know a million dollars in one

year it's like well why would you share

that because

surely that dilutes your ability to be

able to replicate making that same

amount of money of now everybody else is

jumping on the bandwagon

right right well yeah but then you got

the guy that wrote that book on amazon

that said how i made 400 000

selling books on amazon and he has one

book available for four hundred thousand

dollars

so you know there you go yeah i mean we

get i mean we get hit up by people all

the time trying to sell us

you know kind of programs on how to

increase the listens on podcasts

how to market how to pay people to edit

it

and produce it and all this stuff and it

seems like the moment you get started on

anything somebody wants to come along

and

sell you a guide and nine times out of

ten

or maybe even more you've not heard of

those person you look at

what they've done and achieved in this

area and it's not really anything

particularly substantial and they're

trying to sell you a guide on it

why hasn't any president wrote a book to

say how to become president

right yeah because it must work right i

mean talk about a niche market right

you've only got

45 people that have ever became

president right so

well 46 as soon as kamala pushes joe

down the stairs true

probably gonna happen pretty soon yeah

well with all that said thanks for

tuning in to this episode of the wolf

and the shepherd

and we will catch you on the next one

thanks for listening to this episode of

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