#840 Let me bore you to sleep - MIDLIFE CRSIS - Jason Newland (30th MAY 2022)

Hello and welcome to let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. My name's Jason Newland.

My website is jasonnewland.com where lots of my recordings are available to stream free and to download free. Yes. So hey, how you doing? What are you up to? Are you well? Did it all work out okay? That's good.

So it's 4.15 in the afternoon on May the 30th. Monday. Yeah, yep, it is.

It really is. Feeling a little... Hmm. I don't, I don't like saying the word bored, but just feeling a little bit, hmm, a little bit you know.

I guess there's always a bit of a come down, isn't there, when you've been away and you come back and everything is the same. It's still the same. And yeah, so just, I've tried to, I've made two recordings today so far.

So this is the third one. So that's good. Been tidying up a little bit, trying to tidy the stuff up and maybe get my office back to some kind of order.

My office is in my living room. The office is basically two desks and a chair and a microphone and, you know, the equipment that I use to make this podcast. I'm thinking of no longer making videos because I just don't like making videos.

Which is a good reason not to, I guess. Yeah, it's weird because I got the equipment and I've got all this stuff to make videos and I don't really like making videos anymore. I like talking into a microphone when there's no one watching me, you know.

I like that freedom to just relax and, you know, I haven't got to get dressed up. I haven't got to brush my hair. I haven't got to put my makeup on, you know.

None of that stuff for the camera. I can just sit here and talk into the microphone and do my stuff and that's it. It feels more real, maybe more genuine and just be myself and, you know, I don't know.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm never going to make a video ever again. Just at the moment, I prefer to just make podcasts, just make the audios. I mean, that is what I've focused on for the last few years, four years, five years or whatever.

I haven't put much effort into the YouTube channel and I'm thinking I might not. I feel a little bit sad about that because YouTube was where I kind of gained my audience to start with, really. That was where I had the first little taste of I don't want to use the word success but, you know, building an audience.

Yet, the podcast audience has grown way, way bigger than anything I did on YouTube. So, you know, yeah, I don't know what that means but when I was getting at the height of my, at the height, you know, of my YouTube channel 10 years ago, whatever it was, I was still only getting 45,000 plays a month, which is tiny, really. But it was growing exponentially.

It was really, you know, going from 30,000 to 30,000. Or 36,000 to 45,000. You know, so every month it was growing by 10, 15, 20,000.

So, you know, I was in quite a good position. I was quite excited, excited. But 45,000 is such a small amount.

I didn't realize that at the time. But, you know, I guess, I mean, realistically, I'd only been doing it for four, four years, five years at that point. Four, four years, maybe.

10, 11, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Yeah, maybe five years it took me to get to that point. I had about 3,000 subscribers and, you know, I was still doing the podcasts as well.

So I suppose, technically, it wasn't, it wasn't going great, but it was going great compared to how it had been. It took a while to build up. It really did.

So yeah, I just, I don't know. I'm not sure. I just prefer, I mean, I guess my ideal job would be a radio presenter.

Having a regular radio show every day for an hour, really. Although you don't get hour slots, normally three hours or four hours on the radio. I don't know if I could do three hours.

I think I could. But I mean, if it was music, with me talking in between the songs in three hours would be very easy. If it was just me talking the whole time, then three hours is quite a long, a long stint.

Although if I took phone calls, then the three hours would be broken up. It'd go a lot quicker. I don't know.

Not sure. I mean, I could, I could kind of look to do something like that here at home. You know, I don't need to be employed by a radio station to have a radio show.

But how cool would that be to get paid to just talk? That'd be groovy. Plus the audience is there. You know, it's a, it's a bigger audience than I have now.

You know, I'd be getting, I don't know, a million plus people a day listening to me. I don't know, I suppose I'd have to be quite popular to get that many. But you know, if it was, um, I'm thinking of LBC radio station, which is a big radio station in the UK.

It was worldwide, but it's, you know, based in the UK. And to, to work for a station like that would just be a dream. Well paid, and it'd be fun.

And yeah. In reality, everyone does three hours each. You know, there's not really any vacancies and I'm not known.

I wouldn't even know how to go about it. But I think it'd be fun. I guess I'd have to be less, I'd have to be less boring.

Because, you know, no one's going to, I mean, I don't think anyone's going to listen to a show called Let Me Bore You To Sleep. You know, the word boring has to kind of be out of the title. I'm assuming.

Yeah. I mean, you know, there is a degree of, I don't know, I mean, these podcasts aren't completely boring all the time. To everyone.

I mean, they are boring. But they're not always boring. If that makes sense.

That's what I'm told. That's what I'm told by people. I mean, some people listen, they tell me because it's company.

It's like a friendly voice, a regular and familiar voice. Regularly, you know, daily or every however often I do it. But because I've been doing this for years, some people have been listening to me for years regularly.

Right from the start. From four years now, this podcast over four years, four years and two months, I think this podcast has been running. This let me bore you to sleep.

Here's a phrase I learned in Thailand. I heard this quite a bit. No money, no honey.

Yep, I picked up a few things in Thailand, hopefully not too many things. What other words? I said it so many times. It's thank you.

See, I said it. And I've forgotten already. It's only been three days and I've forgotten.

I think means yes. Because this person I spent time with she kept going. It sounded sarcastic, though.

If I'm honest. And at one point she said means yes and no. Means yes.

But means no. That sounds a bit too conveniently. Conveniently.

Making fun of me, I think I got an itchy groin. That's another thing I can't do on camera, at least if you know it's very unprofessional to scratch your balls when you're on camera making a YouTube video. Because the audience can know that you're scratching your balls.

But when I'm making a podcast, I can do that and no one knows I'm doing it. Unless, of course, I mention it. I just realized, yeah, apart from that bit, you wouldn't know.

Perhaps I should stop mentioning it. Because as you know, anyone that listens to me on a regular basis, you'll know that I'm a very professional person. I really take an effort to be professional.

I can't say that with a straight face. I'm probably the least professional person there is. It's ridiculous, isn't it? It's, I might do better if I was more professional.

But in the same way, I don't think I'd enjoy it. But then when I make a hypnosis recording, I do try and be professional. You know, I don't muck around.

I do a little bit sometimes. But it's only in these recordings or the boring objects. I made one today, by the way, on punch bags.

I uploaded that so you can listen later if you're, if you've got nothing else to do. I suggest you find something else to do because it's very boring. What's the other thing? Oh yeah, the bedtime story time, Jason's bedtime story times.

But that could be not necessarily particularly boring or professional. That's what I was going to talk about. We're talking about professionalism, wasn't I? Yes, that's not particularly professional.

However, when I do the deep sleep whisper or the relax and sleep hypnosis daily, they're professional. Well, kind of. They're me.

I don't mess around when I make the recordings. So you know, that's, that's about as professional as you're going to get from me, I guess. Anyways, it's not a job.

It's not a career. It's not, you know, not earning a living doing this. This is just doing it, not doing it just for fun.

I'm doing it to try and help people try. I'm not sure how successful I am, because I don't get huge amounts of feedback. I do get feedback.

I get messages sent to me every now and then. I don't really ask for feedback very often. But I mean, it's only a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people will go out of their way to send a message.

I mean, it's very, I think YouTube's easier, because the comment sections there, you could just post a comment, type it in there. And then with podcasts, it's a little bit more to do, you know, you mean, if you're with me, you might go to my website, and then go to the reviews and type in a review, you know, so that's a little bit more effort, perhaps. And most people don't, they don't want to put the effort in, or they've got better things to do.

I mean, let's face it, I'm not, I'm not judging anyone. I am judging everyone. But some, you know, it's, I'm the same, exactly the same.

You know, if I do a course, or if I go somewhere, a restaurant or wherever, and they're asking for feedback, like go away. I don't want to fill forms in, leave me alone. I've had that from, I've had counselling sessions.

And at the end of the counselling sessions, they sent me a form asking for me to review, you know, leave a review. And how did I find it? It's like, go away, leave me alone. I don't fill forms in.

I don't do questionnaires. So yeah, I'm probably, probably not the best thing to say when I'm asking other people to maybe leave a positive review. I mean, don't bother leaving a negative one, because it won't, that'll just be deleted.

So it's completely a waste of time. And I've had a few, it's, I've been quite lucky, I think, bearing in mind how, I don't know how rubbish I am, I've been quite lucky that I've had mainly positive feedback. Mainly, I'd say 95% positive, if not higher, over the last 16 years.

So whether it's on YouTube, whether it's on Facebook, whether it's on the various different podcast hosts that I've had over the years. It's, yeah, on my website, it's about 95% positive. Positive.

There are some negative stuff out there. Some people moan, I think. Some people just don't like what I do.

Or they don't like a specific thing. So some people go out of their way to sort of say how much they dislike whispering. And they say, oh, don't like whispering.

It's creepy. And I wonder to myself, why are they listening to a recording that's called deep, was it deep sleep whisper hypnosis? It's got whisper in the title. Why are they listening to a podcast that had whisper in the title? If they don't like whispering, it's beyond me.

Don't really get it. You know, I don't eat peanut butter. You know, it's, it's, it's like me eating peanut butter and saying, I didn't want to eat that.

Why did you eat it then? Well, it was a jar there and I just ate it. I didn't know it was peanut butter. But it says peanut butter on the jar.

This is just yeah. I mean, I think the most complaints have been almost tongue in cheek kind of complimentary kind of complaints. Some people say, Oh, I just want to listen to you and I keep falling asleep.

I want to listen to what you're saying. Or you're too entertaining. That's nice.

Maybe not today. But you know, previous recordings, not this one, but previous ones. So yeah, it's, it's nice to get some feedback, especially sometimes when I'm sitting here, and I'm on my own most of the time.

And I do wonder, is there any point at all? I mean, at all in me making any of these podcasts? Is there a point to it? And I'm not someone that I can't do stuff just for the sake of it. There needs to be a reason for most of the things I do in my life. I need a reason.

I'm not I can't just sit and do nothing or, you know, some people can just sit around watching TV, but nothing, it doesn't matter what's on TV, they'll just watch it. I can't do that. I have to be watching a specific program.

Or if I'm sitting in a room with someone, there needs to be a reason for that interaction, like a conversation about something. I can't just sit in a room drinking. I can, but I generally don't just sit there for the sake of it.

There needs to be a reason, a purpose for that particular activity. That's just how I like things to be for me. So the idea of making recordings just for the sake of it does not fill me, doesn't fill me full of custard, if you know what I mean.

It doesn't make flowers grow out of my ears. It doesn't give me, why would it? I don't know, it just doesn't fill me with puppy love, you know? It just, there needs to be an emotional connection with what I do and why I do it in order to motivate myself to do it. Now, I know people listen to my podcasts, so there's that.

I mean, if no one listened, I wouldn't do it. At this point in my life, I wouldn't. If I was just starting out, yeah, I'd like, okay, I've got 100 people listening.

Yesterday it was 70, or last week it was 70, now it's 100, it's growing. You know, that would be my attitude, and that is how it used to be, you know, years and years and years ago. As long as I could see that things were growing, that the, I was getting maybe some positive feedback, and hopefully I was improving, then that would give me the motivation to continue even if it was, you know, not a large audience.

But if, I think if I was going and doing it, and I had, you know, let's say I had 100 people listening, like in total, in a day, unless it was like an off day, you know, or, because I've had days like that when the stats have been really low, and then I'm thinking, oh, uh-oh, what's happening here? What have I done wrong? And then there's a message from the podcasting team, who host a podcast saying that I've had an issue, a technical issue, and they haven't collated the statistics correctly.

They're like, oh, you know, there's been times like that, and there's occasional days when it'll be a low day. I mean, on my relax and sleep hypnosis daily, I had a really low day the other day.

Admittedly, I hadn't made a recording for 20 days, but even still, it was really low. It's like, wow, what's going on here? And, but it's gone back to normal again. It was just some weird anomaly.

Well, just people weren't listening on that day. Some people did, but it was low, very, very low. So I think if I couldn't, I don't, I wouldn't want to go back to having, like, really, really low numbers, and then sort of having to start from scratch almost.

I mean, there'd be some fun in that, I guess, you know, starting from scratch. It's new, building something new, but then I could do that with a new podcast. You know, I don't have to, I don't want to start everything from scratch.

I'd like to. Where did the scratch come from as well? Starting everything from scratch? What does that even mean? What's scratching got to do with anything? I don't know. I didn't make up the word or the saying.

Starting from scratch. Why not starting from poo, or starting from breathing, or starting from tap dancing? Why scratching? I don't know. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone listening? Hello? Hello? Really, I'm not sure.

I mean, when I make a new podcast, which, you know, I did with the Boring Objects, you know, it takes, what I normally do, this is what I normally do, if I've got an idea for a new podcast. So let's, let's use Boring Objects as an example. What I do is, because it fits into certain categories, it's a relaxation, boring, perhaps sleep podcast.

Although I don't put, perhaps I need to put that in the title, because anyone listening on my podcast would kind of probably guess that's what it's about. But those that don't know, and just see the word, just Boring Objects. Yeah, there's no clue what it is, is there? I need to change that.

Maybe put a little description. Anyway, I'm glad we've discussed this. It's really helped a lot.

I feel fantastic now. See, I think, yeah, when I started that one, I didn't build a podcast to start with a new podcast, I just did a few episodes and added it to my Let Me Boy To Sleep podcast, just to see if anyone liked it, if anyone listened. And they did.

And then I started sharing it with some of the other podcasts and people listening to it as well there. And coming back and re-listening and listening to the new ones, to the point where I think I've done 27 recordings now, 27 episodes of that podcast. And then I built a podcast just for it.

And I still get hardly anyone visiting the actual podcast directly. They listen to it on my other podcasts. Strange, isn't it? I've had a few thousand, but it's just really low.

It's not really quite sure. I was hoping that it would sort of grow on its own, but it hasn't. Yet people do listen to it on the other podcasts.

Yeah. So that's what I did with that. And I did the same with the Jason's Bedtime Storytime.

A similar kind of situation. I think that gets more views, or more listens rather, on the actual podcast, because I think it's self-explanatory, the title. If it isn't, shouldn't it be? Bedtime Storytime.

I mean, what do you mean it's not about curry? I thought it was about food. No. I thought it was a food podcast.

No. It's not about hot air balloons. No, it's not.

You just... I think it's self-explanatory. I do hope. If it's not self-explanatory, I don't want people... Anyone who doesn't find it self-explanatory, the title, then I kind of don't want them listening to it.

It's just like, come on. You just... No. If you don't know, you won't appreciate it.

If you can't... Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, the idea of going... Going backwards. Starting from scratch.

No, I don't like that idea. I do a little bit. But I don't.

There's a little bit, a little part of me does a little bit like, okay, let's get rid of everything and then just start all from scratch. Let's delete everything. Like, no, let's just not... Get that idea out of my head.

I've done too much work. I've made too many recordings to be doing that. Way, way too many.

I mean, what is this? 838 or something. I think this is episode... of the Let Me Boy To Sleep. We should do something special on the thousand... thousandth? Thousand... Thousandth.

Is that a right word? Thousandth. One thousandth. That doesn't sound right.

On the 1000th episode. The 1000th episode. We should do something special.

Like a... I don't know what. You could send me presents. That's a special thing to do.

Yes. Send me presents as a celebration. And what I'll do, if you send me the presents, I'll open them on the podcast and I'll talk through opening them.

Send me cake and I'll eat it while I talk. Send me gold bars and I'll count them while I talk. Yeah.

Nice. It's a landmark, isn't it? A thousand. I've never made a thousand recordings in any one particular... for any particular podcast.

I mean, I've made thousands of recordings overall, but you know, I never thought I'd actually get even close to having a thousand different episodes on a podcast. And I'm not far off it. I mean, three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen... six months.

Six months away. If I do a recording every day for six months, so that takes us pretty much to what? November. Was it June? Yeah.

So by the end of the year, because I might not make a recording every day, but by the end of the year, I will try and make one every day. I promise. I will try.

By the end of the year, I should be... I've either reached the thousand mark or be close. You know, be 982 or something like that. How cool would that be? Don't you think? I don't know.

I just think it's groovy. It's very, very, very, very groovy. Groovy and nerd.

Very groovy. Oh, they're talking about us having blackouts at Christmas. Oh dear.

On the news, they're talking about in England, well, I don't know if it's the United Kingdom, about having power cuts. No electricity over Christmas. I mean, come on, really? Cut the electricity now.

You know, do it when it's in the summer, when we don't need the heating on. And I don't know, a couple of hours a day in the afternoon or something like that, just for the next couple of months and then leave Christmas alone or leave the winter alone. The trains are all perhaps about to go on strike.

Brilliant. It's all gone weird. It's all gone very strange.

Very, very strange these days. I watched the boxing on Saturday night. Well, it was Sunday morning.

That was good. I struggled a little bit to stay awake because I was tired because I don't sleep. I don't stay awake at night anymore like I used to.

For years, I was awake at night. Now, I'm not. I'm not quite sure why or what happened, but I just tend to wake up early in the morning and go to bed fairly, I mean, bed by 11, 12, 11, sometimes even 8 in the evening, but generally like 10, 11.

I wake up about 4, 5, 6, something like that. I just go through periods, go through periods. It's weird.

I'm not quite sure why. I mean, just it's almost like my, my routine just flips on its side. Although it hasn't been hugely noisy today.

I say noisy because it's summer. There's more activity, more people mowing their lawn and neighbors playing in the garden and shouting and stuff like that. But today, I mean, it's been overcast all day.

It was sunny earlier, but it's been raining and stuff. It's been very quiet, which is part of the reason I've been able to make a few recordings today without the outside interruption. And even though sometimes it's not loud necessarily, and it may not even be picked up by the microphone, I can hear it.

And that's enough. It distracts me a bit sometimes. It's nice to just have it be peaceful.

Very, very, very, very peaceful. It's nice. I like that.

I like it ever so much. Yeah, it's nice. Be at peace and quiet.

Didn't have much of that for two weeks. But it's nice to just, it was kind of nice just to have nothing happening. Yeah.

Yeah. Not a lot occurring. I am looking to tidy up a bit more.

I just want to make the place just tidy. It's not hugely messy. I mean, it's a lot less messy than it was.

But all it is, is just letters and unopened mail and bits and bobs that I've stuck on the table. The books that can go on back onto the bookcase and headphones and go back onto the headphone case and microphones that I can put away and, you know, streamline everything just for the podcasts. And also preparation for the hypnosis podcasts, because I want to start getting a bit more prepared.

Being a bit more focused, a bit more professional. That's kind of where I'm looking to go. Just making that's high pitch, isn't it? Just just make improvements.

Just make improvements. And continue to hopefully get better. Hopefully, can get much worse.

But yeah, it's as I was saying earlier, I just sometimes wonder, I mean, I know people are listening. Some people. Five.

But I know, I know that people are listening, but I just don't. I don't know, it's kind of why are people listening? And what? I mean, I'd like to be able to improve what I do. But at the same time, I don't want negative feedback.

Because I'm quite a little sensitive soul at times. So to improve something kind of needs the feedback. I mean, you know, if you've got a restaurant or a nightclub or a theater or whatever, you can I don't know, it's it's people almost give their review with their bums.

What do you mean? I mean, bums on seats, that's what I mean. They're there. If you got a full restaurant, and it's full, and then the next day, it's full, and every weekend, it's full.

Then there's a really, really good chance that you're doing something right. I mean, there's 100% chance that you're doing something right, doing lots right. Now, it wouldn't be full if the food was awful.

It wouldn't, it'd be, the food has to be good for a restaurant to be full all the time. And there may be exceptions. I mean, if you're the only restaurant in a town, and there's nowhere else to go.

And, you know, but even then, I don't know how busy you'd be if it's if the food's not good. But there's always room for improvement. I mean, the food might be brilliant, but and even the staff might be great apart from one, there might be one really bad member of staff, one waiting staff who's rude, but they almost get away with it because everything else is so good.

But that person does need to be removed. Or, you know, trained, retrained or whatever. I've been retrained a few times.

It's really just a way of saying, we want to sack you. But we're going to give you one last chance. We want to sack you, but we really can't afford to lose a member of staff right now because we're busy.

We're super busy. But as soon as we get over the busy period, you're gone. But in the meantime, we're going to retrain you.

Yeah, I mean, I'll be 52 this year in August. 52 everyone. Let's all say it together.

52. I just don't know. It's just weird.

There's no preparation for it. I mean, you'd think that being 49 would be preparation for being 50 and being 51, being 50 would be preparation for 51, so on. But I've not found it to be that way.

Nothing's really prepared me for being this age. It's a very weird age. I'm not old.

I don't feel old. I don't think I look old. I do compared to some people, obviously, but I'm not young.

But I haven't felt young for a long time. I didn't, not within myself, but in comparison to others. As soon as I hit 30, I almost felt like I was older.

Especially working with a lot of really young people at that time. So I felt a bit old. And now I realize 30 is young, young, young, young, young, young, young.

I didn't appreciate it at the time. But is it going to be the same when I'm 70? I didn't appreciate being 50. All I did was moan about it.

If only I'd known. I'm 70 now. I'm 72.

Or I'm 75. I don't know. Who are you? What's my name again? Anyway, when I was 50 or 52, I didn't know.

I was born. I had still world ahead of me. And I didn't know.

I could do anything. I used to be able to walk upstairs without planning it and phoning for help. I don't know.

Just hindsight is a is useful. I mean, I suppose it is useful if you can gather a little bit of hindsight ahead of time. So not wait until I'm 70.

To have the hindsight of, you know, I should have done that. Maybe go ahead now flip, flip forward in time, look back and think, Oh, I've kind of got my faculties, I think, kind of, although I forgot what an elbow was called yet a couple of days ago. I was pointing to my elbow and I forgot the word.

Wait a minute, that wasn't me. So I just think, is it time for a midlife crisis or have I already been through one? Because I think you're only allowed to have one, aren't you? Isn't there a rule that you're not allowed to have more than one midlife crisis? Which seems a bit unfair. Be unfair.

And what are the rules? How long can they last for? Is there a time limit? You know, is there a list of things that I ought to do? You know, buy a new car, dye my hair black, get rid of all the greys, get a really, really young girlfriend. Is that part of it? Well, I don't know. Driver.

Well, I can't get a new car because I don't drive. And I'm not going to dye my hair black because well, first of all, my hair isn't black anyway, I've got brown hair. And yeah, I've got greys as well.

But it's still majority brown. Although the greys are increasing over time. But if I dyed it black, everyone would know that I dyed it black and it would look silly.

I would look silly. Especially if anyone knows me because everyone knows that I've got grey in the hair. So I just turned up rolled up with jet black hair, pretending to be Elvis.

It would look really silly. Very much so. So I can't do that.

What people used to do in the 80s is highlight their hair. As soon as they started getting grey hairs, they'd highlight their hair. So almost like, you know, I've done this on purpose.

The reason I've got white hairs in my hair is because I've highlighted it. When the fact is they had grey. But people don't tend to do that these days.

And I'm pretty sure a lot of people do dye their hair and they, you know, they won't allow grey. But I don't think I'm gonna go down that road. I don't think I think I'm fairly fortunate that I haven't got a full head of grey hair.

And plenty of people do by my age. So, you know, I don't think it, well, it would bother me. I'm saying it wouldn't bother me, but it would.

Because I just, I guess I'd look a lot older. Maybe I don't know. Maybe I'd look younger.

Maybe some people would think that I'd dyed it grey on purposefully to be trendy. Someone said that about my beard once when I was working in this call center. And she said, have you grown your beard as a bet? I said, what? Have you grown it for a bet? Is it for charity? What the hell are you talking about? It's like just being rude now.

And she said, no, no, the, the beard thing in, is it called a Movember? Where people grow moustaches and beards during the whole month of November to raise money. And they stop drinking or I don't know, whatever. Anyway, they grow a beard for a month or moustache for a month to raise money for charity.

And I really, it was actually in November, she said it to me. I thought she was just being rude. What do you mean I've grown it for a bet to raise money for charity? Almost like that's the only reason that I would look like this.

If it was raising money for charity, it's like participating in the London Marathon wearing a big fat suit. Oh, you're wearing a fat suit to raise money for charity. No, I'm fat.

Leave me alone. Stop picking on me. My beard, now my belly.

What's next? Well, your hair. No, I didn't, I didn't mean it literally. What's next? Just leave me alone.

If you dyed your hair again, I never dyed my hair. Some people have said that to me in the past. Do I dye my hair? Some people have said, have you got lipstick on? Because I've got pink lips.

I mean, okay, not everyone's got pink lips, but haven't a lot of people got pink lips? You know? Yeah. Midlife crisis. What shall I do? Maybe I've done it, but then I didn't do it.

I didn't do what I could have done. Yeah, weird. I think I've just changed as a person or become as boring as I make out I am.

Maybe making these boring podcasts has turned me into the boring person that I portray. Although I don't really portray anything. I'm just me, I forgot about that.

Oh, no. Maybe I really am a really, really boring person in real life. I mean, I was walking on the beach.

Okay. In Thailand, and it was four in the morning. You know, I couldn't sleep.

So I went for a walk. I think I was jet lagged, I think whatever. And this woman comes up to me, she starts talking to me.

And it's, it's loads of lights on. There's a lot of people about at that time in the morning. Still.

So I'm walking down the beach long walk. And it's pretty cool. You know, it's not as hot any that time of night.

So it's all that time of the morning. So it's nice. And she walks up to me and basically offered herself to me.

Because she needed money. Yeah. She told me how much money she needed money.

So I gave her money to go home. I got a taxi and I gave her money so she could go home and get some food. What kind of weirdo am I? Is this like, strange? Some people might be thinking, well, that's that's the right thing to do.

Well, yeah, but I was more concerned about her safety and making sure she was okay, because she was vulnerable, and clearly had issues. But after talking to her, I realized it was like a more like a counseling session. And I just wanted to help her.

So I just want to sell it. I want to say a joke, but I'm not. Because literally, I just I took her What did I do? I got, I got some food, there was a food stall, so I got something to eat.

And then I walked her to the taxi, motorbike taxi, and just made just asked her to make sure she got home safely. And I gave her 1000 baht, which is about 25 pounds, still fair bit of money, you know, to just give away. About four in the morning, she'd been there all night, you know, all evening.

And she couldn't get home, you know, until she'd earned some money. It's just, I was not really sure what to say about it. Just weird situation.

And she was, I saw her twice, actually, I saw her, because occasionally I'd walk up late at night, because it was the coolest time of the day. This was a bit earlier, wasn't late, late, probably maybe one, two in the morning. And I saw her again, and she was like, Oh, she.

So we just sat and had a chat and stuff. And there was this weird, strange. And I remember she was leaving my hotel room.

And I said, No, I'm joking. She didn't. She's still there.

Just make sure she got home again. It's weird, very. She's not, not her, but just very strange.

Those kinds of situations. To have the blatancy of someone sort of saying, I want money, I need money. It's, it's a different type of, not person, but yeah, kind of, it's a different group of people, let's say, that tend to be the ones asking for money in the streets where I live.

And some of them, yeah, they need the money for certain things or whatever, which is their business, not my business. But it really seems to be for food, you know? Sometimes it is, but it doesn't seem to be that reason. Often, and I know some of the people, I know, I know kind of what their situation is.

But here's almost, I remember walking down the beach. And we got these, me and this, this lady that I met, a different lady. She helped me give out this food.

And it basically sticks with bits of meat on, almost like little skewers or kebab, you know, sticks, tiny, you know, big sticks, but, and the meat was cooked. And it'd be three in a pack. And they were 10 baht each.

And I bought, I think we gave out 10 baht, 10, 10, 100, I don't know, we, I think I bought 100 of them, of these sticks, and then we gave them out to just give them to people on the beach. There was a lot of people sleeping on the beach, not, not foreigners, not, not tourists or anything, just people that lived there. So we kind of went and didn't wake anyone up, but if they were awake, we'd give them some food.

And they took it and they were really, really hungry. I was like, wow. It's very different, very different to anything I've, I've experienced before.

But it's also a weird situation, because it's never enough. Maybe that maybe that's just the way it is in life. You can never feed everyone.

And not everyone you give food to is gonna, that's going to be enough for them. Not everyone you give food to is going to be grateful for the food. Not everyone you give food to is going to want the food.

Some people did say no. So it's just, yeah. I really, I haven't processed really everything that happened when I was away.

Not that anything big happened, but just those experiences. You know, how do I feel about them? I'm not sure. I mean, it is there.

Yeah, I mean, it felt nice. It's, for me, there's, there's no better feeling than helping people. That, that's the best feeling in the world and the best thing to do for me to do.

But at the same time, I don't, I have no, no part of me thinks that other people should do it, because other people do what they want to do. I'm not, I'm not here to tell other people what to do. I'm no one's judge.

But I know for me, it's the thing that feels the best. The best feeling is, especially giving someone food when they're hungry. I mean, that's it.

That's an immediate solution. Okay, temporary, but, you know, temporary can put the end to a permanent situation, can't it? You know, feeding someone when they're hungry. Yeah, they might be hungry again tomorrow.

But if you didn't feed them today, they might, you know, who knows what's going to happen. So that'd be quite cool. Travel the world feeding people.

But you gotta get the food from somewhere and it costs money. Money, money, money, money, money, money. When I was out there, I did think, should I ask people to help? Ask my listeners, maybe post videos on YouTube, show people what I'm doing and just ask and try and feed people in the cheapest way I can, you know, not cook it myself, but maybe get someone else to to cook the food and pay them and just, you know, try and do it as cheaply so that I can feed as many people as possible each day.

I thought about it. But then I start thinking about my own country and shouldn't I be helping people here first? However, however weird that sounds. But you know, having a degree of loyalty to your own country, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I'm not a nationalist or anything. I'm just, there are people that need help here. But then I think, well, I'm helping people.

I'm not feeding anyone by making podcasts and helping people maybe to relax, maybe to sleep, maybe to, you know, feel a bit better about themselves. I'm not, maybe less lonely, even, you know, if you're listening for company. So I'm not giving you food.

I'm giving you food for thought. I'm not giving you food, not giving away food, but maybe, you know, what I'm doing is enough. I don't know.

That was very thoughtful of me, wasn't it? You know, I knew that I'd think about something one day. It just happened to happen during this recording. My brain started working.

Who'd have thought, eh? So I'm going to go. Thank you very much for listening. I will be back again tomorrow.

Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye.