This is an iHeart Podcast.
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In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze.
Her husband, Mike, was on his laptop.
What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.
I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing.
And immediately, the mask came off.
You're supposed to be safe.
That's your home.
That's your husband's.
Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Bowen Yang.
And I'm Matt Rogers.
During this season of the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.
Hi, Bowen.
Hi, Matt.
Hey, Elmo.
Hey, Matt.
Hey, Bowen.
Hi, Cookie.
Hi.
Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway.
We are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.
Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What if mind control is real?
If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?
Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?
Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?
Can you get someone to join your cult?
Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming.
Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both?
Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Over the last couple years?
Didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people?
Because of what happened in Alabama.
This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandy B unpacks black history and culture with comedy, clarity and conversations that shake the status quo.
The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019 and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race.
To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Ben Higgins.
This show is for you.
Listen to, If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, everybody.
I'm Gemma Spike and welcome back to The Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast.
It is so great to have you here today.
We have a special edition episode.
We have my yearly birthday episode.
Last year, I think last year, we spoke about birthday anxiety and the year before it was like the fear of getting older.
Maybe
But today we're doing something more classic and I'm going to talk about the 26 lessons I've learnt from the last 26 years of life.
Some of these are really practical, others are more psychological, some are really personal, some are just weird.
Um, but I went out for dinner with myself the other night and I sat down, I brought my little notebook and I just really reflected on what I've learned and it was rather emotional like it was.
I did have a few tears of the waiters were looking at me weird.
I also did have a few martinis, so two of those things could have contributed to each other.
But this last year has just been so mind-blowing.
It's just been the biggest year of my life and My book came out, the podcast on Netflix.
Moving to London.
Those are just the headlines.
And yeah, it's kind of hard to process sometimes.
And I'm so grateful.
And I was just really reflecting on the lessons that I've gained both in the last year but before any of this happened.
Before I was, even in my 20s, when I was 17 16 yeah, 21 things that have stopped me as well from all those experiences.
And it was actually really therapeutic to just like sit down and put them on a page.
So if you have a birthday coming up, I would actually really...
I really encourage you to do this and just to reflect on the lesson, one lesson from every year, from the past, however many years of your life.
It can get pretty emotional, but I want to share them with you guys today.
So without further ado, let's get into it.
Okay, let's begin with lesson number one.
Lesson number one.
This is the most important one, I think.
Every year you will realize more and more how young you actually are.
I remember turning 20 and being like, it is the beginning of the end for me, which is ridiculous.
It's ludicrous.
Like I'd only been an adult for like two years at that point.
But it just felt like time was already starting to crush me and move very fast.
And, you know, then 21 came around.
I felt the same way.
Then 22, 23.
And I felt a little bit less and it's become a little bit less intense.
It was definitely still there last year.
But now at 26, I feel so young.
I feel my age and I feel my youth so clearly.
And I also know I just guess based on experience it just keeps getting better and it keeps getting different.
I've also stopped joking with my friends that I'm still 22.
I used to do that and I was like, you know what?
No, I'm excited about aging.
You know that term youth is wasted on the young?
I think that's what they're referring to here.
Like honestly, when you're young, you obsess over not being the age you were the year before.
And we obsess over getting older, not realizing how much time we're wasting in the prime of our lives thinking about aging.
We think 30 years old and we think 50 or 60 years old when those are prime years.
Like we've got so much to look forward to.
And that has been a huge blessing from my 26th year.
Like I feel my age and my age is young.
Whatever my fears and whatever the fear mongering of society wants to tell me that I'm like seconds from death is like ridiculous.
And I think that's been a very important lesson.
Secondly, it is impossible to waste time.
I don't know where this idea came from of like, I'm wasting my 20s.
I'm wasting my time.
It's like disappearing from right underneath me.
Let's be clear here.
Time is not something you can spoil.
It's not something you can misuse.
It's not a bag of spinach that you left in the back of the fridge.
As long as you are having an experience, every moment is contributing to your story, and Even the time that you spent waiting and the time that you feel like life isn't moving fast enough.
Time is a human construct.
We have to remember there are days that feel like years and there are years that feel like days and days where life is completely going to change all at once and never.
It's just going to feel like everything has just happened in that moment and I used to get so panicked that I wasn't allocating my time well enough, and obviously a big part of that was like a deep fear of regret as well that I was missing out.
But now I know that as long as I'm doing something right, anything with my life, even if other people don't understand it or see the meaning in it, time is being well spent.
And those experiences in themselves, even if they're not exactly the ones I want to be having, they are really, really valuable.
Okay, let's do a little trifecta of lessons here, a three-for-one deal.
Fight with your friends, forgive your friends, We recognize that sometimes you are the asshole.
Let's start with number one.
Fight with your friends.
I said this in our is friendship meant to be inconvenient episode.
But you deserve friends who are willing to fight with you and to really like get it all out in the open with you.
Friends are people that you have no reason to fight with.
Good friends are those you want to avoid fighting with.
Best friends.
Great friends are those that you will go toe-to-toe with.
That is how you know that they're on that next level, conflict is uncomfortable.
It's not as uncomfortable as losing somebody and not being able to have them in your life in the future.
Part of that is also number two forgive your friends, right.
Obviously there is a level of where you probably can't.
But I lost a lot of friends in my early 20s over stupid mistakes that I couldn't forgive people for, and I would have made those same mistakes as well, and I regret it all the time.
I wish I'd had the foresight to realize like wow, that was really small and minuscule and those problems like that, that's nothing, but the damage had already been done.
Yeah, by them, but also by me, because I couldn't forgive and I didn't feel like I could go back and say hey, maybe I was wrong because I was so headstrong in my judgments.
Now I definitely have a much more, a broader forgiveness policy, which is sometimes less than healthy.
I feel like sometimes I do let people get away with things, but I...
I just like to see the good in people and I think that's important.
Most people aren't malicious.
Most people are just careless and a lot of their actions are forgivable if you remove your ego from it and see that I don't know, I guess not everything is about you.
Okay, number four.
Sometimes you are the asshole.
Recognize that you are the asshole.
And you have to stop looking for reassurance and stop telling the story 30 40, 50 different ways so that it makes you seem like you weren't the villain and that you were the good guy.
And spinning the situation so that you can feel in the clear.
You weren't the good guy.
You know you weren't the good guy.
The next best thing you can do is to admit you screwed up and be better.
I feel like there is so much ego protection going on in these situations where all we want to do is survive with our identity intact, and we want to survive feeling like we are a good person.
And the thing that good people do is that they admit when they were wrong.
And they aren't just aware that other people make mistakes.
They're aware that they make mistakes as well.
And that's just a part of life.
And holding it against yourself too tightly and too strongly actually means that you can never admit it.
You can never admit that you have done something wrong, because that in itself would injure your ego and injure your self-esteem so gravely that it's easier just to pretend and to convince yourself that you're always in the right.
And you're not.
Sometimes you're in the wrong.
And life gets a lot easier when you are able to admit that, especially in friendships, especially in relationships in general.
Okay, I kind of like this trifecta thing.
So speaking of relationships, let's do one more like three for one deal.
I have one specific relationship, that there was one specific relationship in my 20s that informed so many of the lessons that I have on love.
So I'm going to thank him and say, sincerely, I hope you're doing well.
But these tips all came from this and I think they're so valuable.
Don't get into a relationship right after a breakup.
Just because you're thinking about someone doesn't mean they're the one.
And allow yourself to get mad at the people who break your heart and equally stand up for yourself when you're not being treated right.
So I want to start with this first one.
Don't get into a relationship straight after a breakup.
I feel like a lot of you guys can relate.
Everybody has to make this mistake at some point.
I think it is in many ways a little bit of a rite of passage.
But I did this and I remember being like, oh, no, I'm totally healed.
I'm totally fine.
I'm totally ready for this.
And that's just absolute nonsense.
Like I had not processed a single thing properly.
And getting into a new relationship was just an excellent form of avoidance that looked like the opposite.
It looked like moving on because it was the thing that was the most obvious form of moving on.
But I was just finding myself in the same situation, conditions and the same yeah, the same conditions of feeling cared for this guy I don't think he really cared for me, but feeling affection and thinking that that was like going to make my life better.
The thing is is that you'll have all this unresolved stuff that is going to come out in that relationship.
That is going to just mean that by the end of it, you're processing two heartbreaks all on top of each other because you've never processed the one before.
When this relationship inevitably ends, Everything comes to the surface.
Everything from both those situations becomes just like so apparent and it's going to hurt.
I say it's a lesson.
Would I do it again?
I would.
I do think that it was really valuable and it was very valuable in getting me to where I am now.
Both of those breakups are a big part of like the history of the psychology of your 20s.
That second part of that trifecta just because you're thinking about somebody doesn't mean they're the one.
I feel like there were so many times where I would have a dream about somebody I used to be with, or their name or the thought of them would pop into my head and I would read so heavily into it that it would dictate my behavior.
And understanding the psychology.
Now that I didn't back then, I know that it's just my brain and that was my brain, trying to figure out where to put those memories and trying to figure out where to place that person.
Back then I thought every dream, every thought, every thing that reminded me of somebody was a sign that this was destiny and we were meant to be together.
Now I just realize it's just a coincidence.
So if you're having those thoughts right now of like, oh my God, maybe they were the one.
You think about a million different things every single day.
This is just another one of those thoughts.
It's your choice whether you read into it or whether you move past it.
And my final point in this trifecta of like semi-relationship advice and to be honest, I don't know if it's good, but it's just the lessons I've learned
Allow yourself to get mad after a breakup and allow yourself to really say what you need to say, to stand up for yourself.
I was having this conversation with my friend the other day who's recently ended a relationship, or somebody has ended a relationship with her, in a very unfair and cruel fashion.
And she was like, do I say something?
Do I reach out to him.
And I said to her and I'm being totally honest if there is something that you wish you had said or still want to say, you should say it.
And you should allow yourself to get angry, because a lesson I have learned from having done that and not having done that in certain certain situations is that when there are things left unsaid, whether those are good or bad, you're always going to come back to it and linger on it.
So if there is something like really heavy on your heart and somebody has really hurt you, it's they're allowed to feel that pain.
You don't have to be the only one who carries what you've, what you've experienced, and if there is an opportunity for that kind of closure, I don't know if it's the healthiest thing in the world.
I still think that you should take it, because I think there is some healing in just saying your piece about how somebody has hurt you.
In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze.
Her husband, Mike, was on his laptop.
What was on his screen would change Saskia's life.
Forever.
I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing.
And immediately the mask came off.
You're supposed to be safe.
That's your home.
That's your husband.
To keep this secret for so many years, he's like a seasoned pro.
This is a story about the end of a marriage, but it's also the story of one woman who was done living in the dark.
You're a dangerous person who preys on vulnerable and trusting people.
Your creditor might go up in good.
Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Bowen Yang.
And I'm Matt Rogers.
During this season of the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.
Hi Bowen, hi Matt.
Hey Elmo.
Hey Matt, hey Bowen.
Hi Cookie.
Hi.
Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.
Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What if mind control is real?
If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?
Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?
When you look at your car, you're gonna become overwhelmed with such good feelings.
Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?
I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.
Can you get someone to join your cult?
NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.
NLP, aka neuro-linguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology.
Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain about engineering consciousness.
Mind games is the story of nlp it's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits.
He stood trial for murder and got acquitted.
The biggest mind game of all nlp, might actually work.
This is wild.
Listen to mind games on the iheart radio app, apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you?
I'm ben higgins and, if you can hear me, is where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation.
Each episode i sit down with people from all walks of life celebrities, thinkers and everyday folks and we go deeper than the polished story.
We talk about what drives us, what shapes us and what gives us hope.
We get honest about the big stuff.
Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore.
Loss that changes you.
Purpose when success isn't enough.
Peace when your mind won't slow down.
Fake when it's complicated.
Some guests have answers.
Most are still figuring it out.
If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you.
Listen to, If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world.
But in 2017, the FBI got inside.
This is Special Agent Regal.
Special Agent Bradley Hall.
This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him.
But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary.
Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast.
I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life.
And that's a unicorn.
No one had ever seen anything like that.
It was unbelievable.
This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.
Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay, I feel like we need a lighthearted one after that.
I feel like that was very intense.
So number nine, practice some magic and don't neglect your spiritual practices.
Long-term listeners know that I had some really, let's say, intense experiences with the church in my teen years.
I used to be very religious, used to be a big fan of Jesus.
But after some kind of poor encounters with some people, I kind of dropped away and lost belief.
And that actually created a lot of emptiness.
I think as humans, it's important we believe in something.
And after 26 years, I feel like I now know that having spiritual practices and having a spiritual routine is just as important to me as having an exercise routine or having a budgeting routine or a social life.
Without it, I slip.
I slip fast.
So I really think that it's important that, whether you are part of a religion or you're not, whether you're spiritual or not, you do have some kind of practices that unite you to something bigger and unite you to others and allow you to see the thread that pulls all those experiences together.
Some of the things that I do is I still sing worship songs sometimes.
I like to sing.
And honestly, worship music is amazing.
Don't obviously believe everything that they're talking about, but it's amazing.
And I think that having that musical connection is important.
I also like to...
Practice picking one person who has annoyed me or frustrated me like once a week.
And I like to think as many good things about that person as possible and wish like everything good comes true for them.
And I like to imagine like a bubble coming out of me and surrounding them with positivity.
I don't know, that's a really spiritual practice for me that keeps me grounded.
Something my church did as well that I still do, even though I don't believe in it anymore is when you get paid.
Before you spend, you have to give back to others first.
Or when you get served, you have to give the first piece of meat to somebody else first.
I know like in the Mormon church, for example, they encourage people to give 10% of their earnings.
Some pagan traditions also have a similar thing of like serving others first or giving to others before you give to yourself.
That's important for me, especially given the state of the world right now.
And just having a good gratitude practice is important, so essential, like hold tight to that stuff.
That's a big lesson.
You need it.
You need spiritual practices to make you feel nourished, similar to this when you are feeling terrible about the world, be kind to small creatures.
This is such an important lesson.
Again, with the state of the world right now, it's very easy to feel very despondent duh, it's very easy to feel terrible about the world.
I like to imagine that humanity is this big experiment and there is this higher power who is judging our experiment on whether it was good or bad and whether humanity is succeeding or failing.
It's my job every single day to do something that proves the experiment is working and to do something that proves the hypothesis that humanity is good.
And there is.
This is going to sound a bit weird, but I imagine that there is this like tiny telescope or like microscope on me and they are watching me positively interact, or watching people positively interact with each other, and checking it down as evidence that people are good.
And taking care of small creatures, honoring their lives, appreciating them is a way that I do that.
Life is hard for little things.
Life is hard for small creatures.
And sometimes knowing that not just killing the ants that are in my house or not just killing the fly that's in my car, or stopping for birds or saving a pigeon or something like that, knowing that like I have kindness for them, makes me feel like a higher power will have kindness for me, and I don't know it.
Just it makes me feel connected to what's around me.
That's an important lesson.
Lesson number 11
If there is an opportunity to go to the beach, you should always go.
The older you get, the more you realize the healing power of water and the healing power of nature.
It's called the Lassa therapy.
I'm a big proponent and I'm going to say nothing more about that lesson.
I feel like that one's pretty obvious.
Lesson number 12, work hard at something, even if it feels meaningless, whatever it is.
Typically, I feel like we save all of our hard work for others.
I honestly think we save all of our hard work for our boss, for our parents, for our co-workers, for people we want to impress.
Save some of that hard work for you and use it for things that feel personally meaningful.
There is so much good that comes from working hard, even if at the time, it seems like there's no point or like nothing is going to come from it.
Working hard on a novel, no one's going to read.
Working hard on improving your running, even though you're never going to be a professional.
Working hard on perfecting a recipe just for yourself or whatever it is.
So much personal reward for me has come from the joy I've just found from working hard for things that i care about and at the time, were just fun.
But you never know where it's going to take you.
Um, this podcast is a great example.
Like i didn't know this was going to happen, i just liked working hard at it and i just have a deep belief that the universe, or the forces that be, reward hard work and like to see passion, and so when it sees somebody working hard, proving that they will work hard in the future for no reward, just for joy and personal pursuit and personal passion.
Good things come to those people because of those practices.
It is a reward in itself to care, but I also feel like...
When you put yourself in the place where you do care, people like to see other people who care.
And they like to see people who are passionate about something, and you'll find that opportunities come so much more naturally to you.
People rally around you when...
Yeah, when there's something bigger than you that you're invested in and that you're willing to work hard for.
So if there's not something in your life right now that you are working hard for, even if it's only working hard for 20 minutes a week, I really think your life would benefit from finding something that you want to give that time to.
Okay, number 13.
Lesson 13.
This is a lesson that I didn't want to... I was hesitant to learn, but it was too obvious to ignore.
You are always going to feel better if you don't go on your phone first thing in the morning.
Why did this take me so long to learn?
I don't know.
Obviously, our phones are addictive.
That feels like a cop out.
That feels like an excuse.
There's all this buzz around like going analog and the digital detox and being social media free and offline activities.
And having really tried to be in that space, it is really incredible.
But if that feels too big, I feel like this is the simplest thing.
I tried to do the flip phone on weekends.
I tried to give myself social media boundaries.
It worked for a while.
I think I went too big with it.
This is a great starting point.
Just not going on your phone first thing in the morning will change the course of your entire day.
Because the moment you put that phone in front of your face, it's like you're immediately sucked into someone else's world.
You're immediately...
I guess a little bit brain dead, to be honest.
And I'm saying this as somebody who still does it occasionally.
It's like if that's the first thing you look at, how are you expected to then go forward with the rest of your day being curious or being entertained by the smaller things or noticing things, when it's like, it's like you're hooked up to this like IV drip of entertainment.
So give yourself at least 20, 30 minutes to just experience being alive without a phone and without this thing that contains the entire world inside of it.
Yeah, at least first thing in the morning, I think you will notice a difference.
I definitely did.
Okay, so lesson number 14, another really important one, but a little bit more serious.
Stop trying to be them.
Whoever them is to you, it doesn't matter whether it's a celebrity, a friend, a nemesis, a parent like.
You'll never be successful when the goal is imitation and you will drive yourself mad trying to correct and police and mold yourself into an identity that doesn't come naturally, because it's not yours.
I did this for ages.
I was so easily influenced because I guess there's just something really alluring about people who seem to know themselves and who have an identity or who have a brand, who have a distinct thing to them that's attractive when I didn't have that.
Guess what?
By trying to imitate them, by trying to be them, I actually knew myself less, because I would constantly compare the beginning of my own new self and my own identity to their complete one.
Guys, it's so cliche, I know, but I fully believe, I fully believe there is a unique version of us.
We are all here to be a unique avatar and we are all meant to be individual and we're meant to grow in a specific way and we are meant to exist in a specific form and live a specific life.
And imitation is one of the main things that's going to block us and that's going to stop us from living out our mission and living out our identity and living out our role in the world.
And I know this episode is getting so woo-woo, but Just notice it in yourself.
There is an identity.
There is a version of you that you just feel constantly drawn to and drawn back to and drawn into.
And it's like such a powerful force.
Stop trying to suppress that.
Stop putting imitation in between you and that version of you, that new version of you.
Okay, lesson number 15.
Sometimes you are the bad day and you need to call yourself on it.
This is probably the most recent lesson on the list.
Probably a lesson I only learned a couple of weeks ago, if I'm being completely honest.
The other day, I just had, I said this terrible day the other day and my boyfriend was snoring.
I love him but I don't know what he like turned 27 and suddenly like nasal congestion is his middle name.
I love you tom, but hopefully he doesn't hear that.
But he was snoring and so i had a really bad night's sleep.
And then i went to like transfer money onto my uk card and it wasn't working.
And then i went and got a bagel at the like the corner store and my bagel like fell apart on the street and this like little dog came up and like ate tuna from my tuna bagel like from where it was on the floor.
And then I went to meet my friend and I was running late and I couldn't get a line back.
And then when I got a line back, it was broken.
And I was like, this day just sucks.
And I was in such a terrible mood and I was so angry.
And I was like, what did I do to deserve this?
Like, this is just such a terrible day.
And I was like, yeah, but I'm being the bad day.
Like all those things are annoying.
But what's really the problem here?
Oh, like how terrible.
The man that I love, who loves me, who is like the most glorious, beautiful person I've ever met.
Like he snores and that disturbs my sleep.
And like oh, I have enough money in my bank account to transfer it onto my British card because I had enough privilege to move overseas.
And all the bagel that I could afford, getting it takeaway rather than having to make it at home, fell on the street.
And I got to meet a dog who was eating my bagel.
And like, oh, my friends, my friend who has made plans with me, I'm late to and like, where was me?
And I was just like, I'm the bad day right now.
Like I'm reading way too much into this and I am investing too much in my identity here as a victim.
When actually, like all of those things that I've experienced that I thought were like the worst things that were going to happen to me that day, are just like privileges and just wonderful things that I don't know people would kill to have those inconveniences.
So just recognize when you're ruining your own day and just try and pull yourself out of it.
Number 16, another quick one.
Take your medications regularly and as scheduled.
And that goes for antibiotics antidepressants Panadol, pain relief, anything prescribed to you by a doctor.
Listen to them.
And bonus, 16.2.
Just go to the dentist.
Go to the dentist.
You know you need to.
I put off going to the dentist for six years, and I'm ashamed to admit that.
But it's because the last time I went, it really hurt.
And I was really scared.
And guess what?
Guess what that got me when I went last year?
Seven fillings 3000 worth of dental work.
That could have been avoided if I just went more regularly.
The older you get, the more you stop taking your health for granted.
And the more you realize that there are people who train for many, many years to be experts in this and to know what they're doing.
Listen to them and take care of yourself.
Take your meds as scheduled, go to the dentist.
17 when somebody is mean to you or short with you, the best defense, and the only defense that will work in your favor, is to be disgustingly kind back.
And I learned this through trial and error.
But when people were like, used to be mean to me, or you know, when people make those slight jabs, like they're trying to get under your skin and they think you don't notice and they're trying to like, bring you down a peg.
I used to get quite, I wouldn't say mad, but I would just...
I would have a certain reaction like I would either avoid them or like I would try and be smart back or I would like try and make other people realize what kind of person they were.
And then I just realized the best thing that you can do and I talked about this in our episode on how to not take things personally it's just to be so nice and so kind and so generous and so forgiving with them That they have like no choice but just to have this mirror placed in front of them that makes them directly see how weird and gross and terrible their behavior is.
This doesn't mean permissive.
I don't mean you have to continue to let them in your life and continue to let them walk all over you and continue to give in to them.
Be kind, be nice, still set boundaries, but it is genuinely like one of the most powerful things that we can do psychologically to just cut someone's cruelty off and to just essentially stop them from yeah, thinking that they can treat you that way and thinking that their behavior isn't a problem.
Number 18, you don't need to help everybody.
I know that, like a lot of these tips have been like, be kind, be generous, be nice forgive, be good friend.
Some people just don't deserve that.
Some people just don't deserve your help.
And part of being a good friend, part of being a good member of the village, member of the tribe, the community that you're in is knowing that you can't give everybody everything that you have.
And one of the most generous things that you can do is to take care of yourself first, so that you can show up for the people who really deserve you, rather than doing favors for everybody.
You know putting yourself out there for everybody, saying yes to everybody.
To the point of exhaustion and when the time really comes to be there for those who would do the same things, back for you, being so burnt out that you're not able to do that.
And I feel like this is a very specific lesson that you learn in specific circumstances, especially if you are very hyper-independent, especially if you are an eldest daughter or an eldest daughter high achiever type.
Eventually you learn that there are some people who just don't need your help, not because they don't deserve help from anybody, but because you.
And your energy and your time is a precious resource.
Similar to this is lesson number 19.
Trust your gut when to say no, when to not go to the party, when to not help your friend with some crazy idea they have.
Obviously, you want to be a good friend and you want to give back, but there are just some things where you're allowed to just be like I don't have time for that.
And especially when it's for people who would never do the same thing for you in return and who you resent constantly for not returning the favor.
That is a sign that, like they're taking advantage and it's okay to just, it's okay to just take a step back and to not give them everything you've got and to say no.
In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze.
Her husband, Mike, was on his laptop.
What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.
I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing.
And immediately, the mask came off.
You're supposed to be safe.
That's your home.
That's your husband.
To keep this secret for so many years, he's like a seasoned pro.
This is a story about the end of a marriage, but it's also the story of one woman who was done living in the dark.
You're a dangerous person who preys on vulnerable and trusting people.
Your creditor might go up in good.
Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Bowen Yang.
And I'm Matt Rogers.
During this season of the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.
Hi Bowen, hi Matt.
Hey Elmo.
Hey Matt, hey Bowen.
Hi Cookie.
Hi.
Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.
Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What if mind control is real?
If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?
Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?
When you look at your car you're gonna become overwhelmed with such good feelings.
Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?
I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.
It's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.
It's about engineering consciousness.
Mind Games is the story of NLP, its crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits.
He stood trial for murder and got acquitted.
The biggest mind game of all?
NLP might actually work.
This is wild.
Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you?
I'm Ben Higgins.
And if you can hear me is where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation.
Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life celebrities, thinkers and everyday folks.
And we go deeper than the polished story.
We talk about what drives us, what shapes us and what gives us hope, and We get honest about the big stuff.
Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore.
Loss that changes you.
Purpose when success isn't enough.
Peace when your mind won't slow down.
Faith when it's complicated.
Some guests have answers.
Most are still figuring it out.
If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you.
Listen to, If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world.
But in 2017, the FBI got inside.
This is Special Agent Regal.
Special Agent Bradley Hall.
This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him.
But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary.
Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast.
I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life.
And that's a unicorn.
No one had ever seen anything like that.
It was unbelievable.
This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.
Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
You do actually feel better when you exercise more and drink less, which sucks.
See, i like, i like, i like alcohol.
I do, i like alcohol, i also i like, i like exercising, but i wish i didn't have to do them as much as i do.
Or i wish i wish that, like i could go to the gym like once a week and drink every night and feel amazing and it's just not how your body is right.
When I was definitely when I was younger, when I was like 17 18, 19 and I was at university, I would like we would.
We would like binge drinking.
We were like drinking every single night and nobody was blinking an eye.
And we would like go on like one 5K run or like play some like Frisbee once a week.
And I remember being like, oh, why do I feel so tired?
And like, why am I exhausted all the time?
And why do I feel disgusting?
And then slowly, like as those habits became more and more difficult to maintain and more and more repulsive.
And you start adding some exercise back in and you start realizing that drinking on a Monday with your pals is probably not healthy.
I was like, wow, I actually feel better.
And my habits are a reflection of, like the quality of life that I want and how I want to live my life.
So that's definitely been an important lesson.
One that I wish wasn't true, but unfortunately is.
You do feel a lot better to go on a completely different direction here.
Lesson 21, Wait 24 hours before making an impulse purchase.
I feel like these are all tips of just like learning impulse control and learning what it means to be healthy financially emotionally, physically.
I had a real impulse shopping problem when I was probably 18, like 22, 23 in my like early 20s, when I first got like a proper job and I would just buy the most ridiculous stuff because I would see it, think I needed it and because I now had access to adult money.
I could just buy it And genuinely like I think about how much money I wasted on multiple pairs of black jeans or just like silly things that nobody needs.
Now, this was the best thing I did for all the impulse shopping tips that you may get, for all the budgeting tips.
If there is something I want and I feel like I immediately need it.
24 hours.
24 hours before I can make the decision.
And I think I've spoken about this before, I have a list in my phone.
Often by the time I get to that 24-hour mark, I've forgotten about it.
And the haze of the emotional pull of dopamine, of buying something and getting it delivered.
That kind of fades a little bit.
And I can kind of self-regulate.
I also feel like impulse dropping drinking, saying yes to everybody, those last three tips.
Often those are forms of avoidance.
I've definitely found that.
And so learning how to regulate your emotions without those things.
The older you get, the more important that becomes.
Lesson 22, talk to your siblings more.
Honestly, I found that because me and my sisters had such an age difference and because I moved out when they were so young, like I think they were like 12 and 10.
Like they were still children.
I don't even have like memories from when I was 10.
I just didn't form the relationship with them that they form with each other.
And I was very, very jealous of that for a long time.
And it definitely was reflected in my relationship with them where I just felt very left out.
And that felt weird because I was the older sibling.
I meant to be the cool one and I would go back and they wouldn't really want anything to do with me.
And for a couple of years, I was like, well, fine, I'm just going to hang out with my friends.
And I didn't really have a relationship with my sisters.
And then I think last year I really started seeing them more and I started realizing what an important relationship the sibling relationship is and how important They are just like an inbuilt amazing, cool best friend.
And you just relate to them on such a beautiful, simplistic, carefree level.
And I think I started to really appreciate my sister's personalities and all the things about them that are so cool and that I love.
And now I talk to them all the time.
And that has been a huge, huge blessing for me and just a huge... a huge gain in the past year.
So if I was to go back three years, I'd be like, freaking call them, call them on the weekends, like text them, have a relationship.
I regret not investing in that sooner.
And I feel like I missed a lot of their teen years, trying to figure out my late teen years and my early 20s and being really selfish with it, and now I feel like I've orbited back around, right as they are orbiting out, and I just hope that our relationship stays strong within that, because it is just such a beautiful, one-of-a-kind special relationship.
Lesson 23 celebrate yourself.
Don't be afraid to make a big deal out of the things that you're proud of, even if nobody else is going to do it for you.
Throw the birthday party for yourself.
Organize the dinner with your friends for your job promotion.
Make a big deal out of what feels like a big deal for you.
Think of my children.
We're so used to our parents being so in our business or like our school or whatever.
It is like a mentor aunts, grandparents celebrating us.
And then you get older and you realize like sometimes you've got to do that for yourself and people want an excuse to party, people want an excuse to be excited for you.
I would always feel a little bit cringe being like oh, i'm gonna plan like a birthday party or like i'm gonna play, like i want to celebrate this and i and now i don't feel any shame about it And having that space to invite people into my memories and knowing that I'm going to look back at those really cool things and they're going to be in those memories with me, that is so important and that is so valuable.
And I just feel like celebrating yourself.
We don't do it enough and we don't make a big deal out of what a pleasure and a surprise and a beautiful thing it is to be alive.
And the fact that we work really hard and we do really cool things, things that younger you could not have imagined you doing.
You are allowed to just be your biggest fan and your biggest cheerleader and make the space for other people to enter into that with you if they want to.
And if they don't, that's okay.
You get more cake.
You get more champagne, you get more flowers.
Make sure you make your big moments big for yourself.
Lesson 24, you can truly DIY your dream life.
If you just commit to learning how to do things for yourself and learning how to do them badly, then a bit better, then good, then amazingly, this is like the the hack.
This is the life hack that everybody needs to know.
If you want to do something oh my god, i'm this sounds stupid now that i'm saying it but if you want to do something, you should just do it, and you should just do it as simply and easily as you can possibly do at that point and then get better.
Everybody I know who was really successful and who I really admire and who I now get to call my friends, just went into it with this like do-it-myself attitude of being like nobody's going to hand this to me.
Nobody's going to give me the keys to the life I want.
Nobody's going to build the home I want for myself or the career I want for myself.
I have to do it myself.
And I have to be in those meetings and I have to be in those emails, cold emailing somebody to see if they have an opportunity for me.
And I need to be creating my own product, creating my own business, creating my own podcast.
And the universe will reward that.
And I think it's similar to that previous tip of like do things just for the sake of it.
Experience hard effort just because hard effort is enjoyable for you when you're doing something you care about.
This is very similar to this.
When you truly realize that you can DIY, do it yourself, make it from scratch your dream life in the most rudimentary way possible, using whatever tools you have possible, your life seriously changes.
And I don't like bragging, but I do feel like there's points in my life, as kind of evidence of that, where I don't know, I just didn't see a job for me.
I didn't see a system that I enjoyed.
And I was like, okay, well, I'll just make it myself.
And if it works out... great, amazing, obviously that's what I want.
And if it doesn't, at least I can say that I did it.
At least I know that the opportunity wasn't out there waiting for me to arrive, waiting for me to get to the point where I was ready.
Lesson 25, I actually think this one should have been before, but I'm sneaking it in at the end.
25, not every person you date is your soulmate.
And it doesn't mean the relationship wasn't worthwhile.
Additionally, when you are in your 20s, date as much as possible.
I feel like I've learned this both through myself and through other people I've seen who have dated one person and been like okay cool, that seems like good enough.
And then seven, eight years later been like oh my God, I actually never got to experience what else was out there.
And I know not everybody agrees with this and people have different, you know, perspectives on it.
But as much as my heart was broken many times and I was literally reflecting on this the other day like all these guys, I completely forgot about.
And as much as like it really hurt to be hurt by them and to be rejected by them.
I'm so glad I did it.
And they all taught me important lessons, and every single relationship that I've had, even the ones that were a disaster, have been worthwhile because they brought me experiences that I otherwise would have had a lot of what-ifs swirling around.
I know again I feel weird saying this because I know people might take it the wrong way of like just date for the sake of dating and like use other people for experience.
No, I'm just saying, put yourself out there.
And even if you're not entirely sure if this person is or isn't the one, give them a chance.
Have fun, experience each other, experience life together, even if that's for two weeks, two years, 20 years, and take the experiences you can get from really caring about somebody else, really having important memories with them, even if you know it's not going to be forever.
I have two final lessons, a silly one and a serious one.
Let's start with the silly one.
Dye your hair at least once in your life.
Try a weird hairstyle, even if you think slash know that it's going to be ugly.
I cannot recommend this enough.
I have dyed my hair black.
That was a terrible decision.
I have bleached my hair more times than I can think of, and it was often related to how I was emotionally doing at that point.
But, like I have just done the craziest – stupidest things to my hair and I think I don't know.
I think it's fun and I I think it's like a broader metaphor for like just being willing to try anything once in life and just to give it, just to give it a go.
Um, it's a great reflection of that and I think if you haven't done it, you've got to do it, and when I did it last, I haven't dyed my hair for a while, but I
I dyed my hair black in like 2023.
I'm blonde.
It was a terrible decision.
I really look terrible.
Like I'm glad nobody said something, but I really slash I'm not glad.
I'm still on the fence as to whether somebody should have pulled me aside and be like.
This is not the color for you.
But there's just like this unique beauty and like this unique feeling of looking back at those photos and being like God.
That was a terrible hair color.
God, that was like an awful style.
But I'm so glad.
I'm so glad that I did it.
I'm so glad that I gave it a shot.
And now when I have kids, hopefully I can be like, yeah, that was the year of this.
So that was the year of that.
And it just feels like hairstyle and that expression and doing everything once is really tied to a good story.
And it's tied to having good memories and having that kind of free fall, openness to life that feels more and more worthwhile every single year.
In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze.
Her husband, Mike, was on his laptop.
What was on his screen would change Saskia's life.
Forever.
I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing.
And immediately the mask came off.
You're supposed to be safe.
That's your home.
That's your husband.
To keep this secret for so many years, he's like a seasoned pro.
This is a story about the end of a marriage, but it's also the story of one woman who was done living in the dark.
You're a dangerous person who preys on vulnerable and trusting people.
Your creditor might go up in good.
Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Bowen Yang.
And I'm Matt Rogers.
During this season of the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.
Hi Bowen, hi Matt.
Hey Elmo.
Hey Matt, hey Bowen.
Hi Cookie.
Hi.
Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.
Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What if mind control is real?
If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?
Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?
When you look at your car, you're gonna become overwhelmed with such good feelings.
I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.
NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.
It's about engineering consciousness.
Mind Games is the story of NLP, its crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits.
He stood trial for murder and got acquitted.
The biggest mind game of all?
NLP might actually work.
This is wild.
Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you.
I'm ben higgins and, if you can hear me, is where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation.
Each episode, i sit down with people from all walks of life celebrities, thinkers and everyday folks and we go deeper than the polished story.
We talk about what drives us, what shapes us and what gives us hope.
We get honest about the big stuff identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore.
Loss that changes you.
Purpose when success isn't enough.
Peace when your mind won't slow down.
Faith when it's complicated.
Some guests have answers.
Most are still figuring it out.
If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you.
Listen to, If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast.
This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families.
Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime.
He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground.
He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator.
Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years.
I'm like, Lord, this can't be real.
I thought it was a mistaken identity.
The best lie is partial truth.
For 22 years, only two people knew the truth.
Until a confession changed everything.
I was a monster.
Listen to Burden of Guilt, Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
So I'm realizing I'm actually going to finish on lesson 27, which is one more than I promised you.
But I think this is my hopeful takeaway from next year and the thing I'm currently learning, which is you don't have to suffer.
And I know that...
That's really, it's very serious compared to our last lesson.
But I think I just spent way too long thinking that how my brain was and how my life was was something I couldn't change.
And the things I kept doing that were honestly self-sabotaging and that were causing me more pain than they should have and that were making me unhealthy and unhappy, like I felt so imprisoned by them because that's how I'd always done things, and I'm just realizing more and more like my life doesn't have to be bad.
I don't have to suffer more than what I'm already gonna naturally suffer just by being alive, And I have a choice in a lot of that.
I have a choice to go to therapy.
I have a choice to get on medication.
I have a choice to changed my mindset, to have healthier habits.
I have a choice to prioritize and deprioritize relationships and certain things in my life that are making my life harder, and I just felt for so long like everything was just being handed to me and I had to accept it.
And maybe the biggest lesson from my 26th year and hopefully again my 27th year is that that is not true And I can opt out of the circumstances and the things and the patterns of behavior that are making me suffer and that I don't want anymore.
And it's hard and it's difficult and I definitely make a lot of excuses.
But I'm at this point where I'm like, I want to live a life of ease.
And I want to live a life of being as carefree and stress free as possible, not as busy and successful and brash and loud as possible.
And I just think that's been a huge, massive priority change.
And maybe that's a lesson that you're learning as well.
Or that's a lesson that you need to hear.
You don't have to. to suffer.
You don't have to suffer more than life is going to make you suffer.
Those are my 26, 27 lessons from 26 years.
I hope that they've, I don't know, taught you something that you've related to them.
Maybe it's validated an experience that you're having.
If you are listening on Spotify and you have made it this far, I want to know give me a lesson that you have learned in the past year, past six months, that wasn't on this list, that you think other people could learn from.
I feel like every year there's this new knowledge popping into my mind and I've definitely forgotten things that were important lessons, but I'd love to hear from you guys, and I'd love to hear your experience.
Make sure that you are subscribed, following, wherever you are listening.
If you are in the US or Canada, you can listen to this episode on Netflix.
Actually, should I say you can watch this episode on Netflix.
I'm so used to saying listen, but you can watch on Netflix and I would love it if you did so.
Make sure that you are as well following us on Instagram.
And thank you for listening to this episode and for being a massive part of the last five years of my life.
Almost all of my 20s.
I don't know.
I'm getting closer to 30.
I have to decide if I'm going to do the psychology of your 30s or what's going to happen.
So I guess time will tell.
But be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself.
We will talk very, very soon.
In the middle of the night, Saskia awoke in a haze.
Her husband Mike was on his laptop.
What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.
I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing.
And immediately, the mask came off.
You're supposed to be safe.
That's your home.
That's your husband.
Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Bowen Yang.
And I'm Matt Rogers.
During this season of the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.
Hi Bowen, hi Matt.
Hey Elmo.
Hey Matt, hey Bowen.
Hi Cookie.
Hi.
Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway.
We are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.
Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What if mind control is real?
If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?
Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?
Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?
Can you get someone to join your cult?
Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming.
Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both?
Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Over the last couple years?
Didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people?
Because of what happened in Alabama.
This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandi B unpacks black history and culture with comedy, clarity and conversations that shake the status quo.
The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019 and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race.
To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty.
This show is for you.
Listen to, If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
