Outworker
Stories of healing, personal development, and inner work. Founded on the idea that the relationship with oneself is the most important to develop, but the easiest to neglect, Outworker shares conversations aimed at helping you develop that relationship.
Outworker
#064 - Gary John Bishop - The Hidden Patterns Controlling Your Life
Gary John Bishop breaks down why transformation isn’t found in insight—it’s forged in action. We talk about the real purpose of self-work, how language shapes your reality, the philosophy behind “Unfu*k Yourself,” and why your life isn’t random—it’s the perfect outcome of your subconscious programming. He explains why everything starts to shift when you return to nothing and how to disrupt the loop you didn’t even know you were stuck in. No fluff, no filter—just the work.
Timestamps:
00:00 Taking Personal Ownership
04:02 Unfu*k Yourself
08:50 Urban Philosophy
11:46 Shift Your Language To Shift Your Actions
15:40 Creating Space Between Consciousness & Identity
22:20 Philosophy On Willingness
27:15 Return To Nothing
36:59 Limitations Of Language
39:40 Reflecting On Musician Days & Learning From Low Moments
47:22 Why We're Always Winning
54:40 Balancing Internal & External Worlds
59:24 It Doesn't Mean Anything
1:01:24 Connect With Gary John Bishop
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What’s up outworkers. Gary John Bishop breaks down why transformation isn’t found in insight. It’s forged in action. We talk about the real purpose of self-work, how language shapes your reality, the philosophy behind “Unfuck Yourself,” and why your life isn’t random. It’s the perfect outcome of your subconscious programming. He explains why everything starts to shift when you return to nothing and how to disrupt the loop you didn’t even know you were stuck in. No fluff, no filter—just the work.
Tim Doyle (00:06.732)
You had a six year journey of what you called doing Navy SEAL training on your brain. What was the push to start that journey and what did that work look like?
Gary (00:16.944)
Bye!
think it starts with...
think a lot of the best kind of transformations start with this kind of sick of your own sh**ness. So I kind of had to, I definitely had a point in my life where I'd done enough blaming, and not even overtly blaming people, it was kind of like surrendering to the drift of life, if you like.
Tim Doyle (00:32.031)
I like that.
Gary (00:52.368)
and this kind of powerlessness and eking out an existence trying to make the best that I could. And I think if you'd asked me at the time, I would have said, I felt as if I was doing an okay job, but there was just something deeply unsatisfying about it, just profoundly unsatisfying about my life. And I think there's a point for everybody. Some people aren't aware of it, maybe not locked into it, but...
There's a point where you're asking yourself something like, know, what's this life for? know, like, is this going to even matter? And so I had that kind of juncture of my life where my bulls**t was no longer flying and I really needed some self-intervention.
Tim Doyle (01:47.938)
And what did that work look like to go into that self intervention?
Gary (01:51.92)
Oh, was only, I you know, I a member of my family had done like personal growth work in development and I'd never, that was a million miles away from me. I'm not doing that. You know, it was like a stereotypical.
Imagine like your cartoon character of a Scottish guy, right? So that was me, right? Like determined, pissed off, single minded, right? Will not be defeated, you know, and don't need anybody, know, wildly independent. And, you know, my brother-in-law said, you know, I do this work and it's great. I'm like.
I'm not doing your work. In fact, I said to him, he said, I did this course, you should try it. I said, I'm not doing your stupid course. Charming. And funnily enough, he said, I'll pay for it. And I said, when is it? And that was the beginning. It was like the first time I'd ever really introspected in a controlled way.
or a way with any kind of purpose or with any kind of direction. I think everybody introspects to one degree or another, but it's all kind of random, you know.
Tim Doyle (03:09.826)
I think the spark that creates a change for a lot of people and it goes to what you were saying and I think it's within my own life as well. It's like, it's not so much that we are motivated by who we want to become that creates change. It's more so of the pain of who we are and dealing with that pain of like, I can be so much better and like, I'd rather deal with the...
Gary (03:25.818)
Yeah.
Gary (03:29.932)
Right.
Tim Doyle (03:37.036)
I'd rather go through the pain of becoming somebody who's much better than I am right now rather than the pain of just staying who I am today. And I really like the just
Gary (03:45.68)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (03:51.392)
Some would say it's crass language or just like to the point language of just like, this is real shit. And you've branded yourself around with your writing, but also just the way you talk with unfuck yourself. And there are a lot of different catch phrases that you use throughout your writing and your speaking. But why was unfuck yourself the overarching idea that you wanted to encapsulate all your work?
Gary (03:55.535)
Yeah.
Gary (04:02.81)
Yeah.
Gary (04:07.087)
Right.
Tim Doyle (04:19.596)
And I would love to parse that out. Like what does unfuck yourself mean to you?
Gary (04:23.952)
You have to remember, when I released that book, there was no books like that on the market. So there was one just starting to come out. We were right there, but he was just a little bit before me, but I wasn't even looking at the marketplace. So one was Mark Manson's book. But that was it. That was nothing. I mean, if you look now, it's almost like his own genre now.
with personal growth and development books with curse words in the titles, right? But at the time, everybody that I spoke to said, don't do it. You can't market it. You can't sell it. You can't advertise it. No one will carry it. Don't do it. A couple of people said, it sounds kind of fun or kind of interesting, but... And...
You know, I didn't really feel as if I had much of a say in it. I really felt as if I'm either going to do this book the way I would do it or the way somebody else would do it. And if I'm going to go down in flames, I'd rather go down in flames with my voice than somebody else's. And so, you know, I'm not lying. It's the way I talk. know, like I was born and raised in the East End of Glasgow where there's no such thing as cursing. It's just talking.
There's no distinction. So I was either going to do this authentically, unapologetically, but responsibly. I'm going be responsible for how this might land and how people might receive it. And I'm going to go there and I'm going to take a stand for it and fight that fight.
Gary (06:18.948)
You know, I think the reason why that title, you know, because since people have told me, you know, that's the greatest title, you know, that's the most, you know, I can't, what a title, you know, now it's like, it's all the shit, you know, like I said, right. Yeah. But, but there's, I mean, like with everything I do, there's a, there's a
Tim Doyle (06:33.134)
Easy to say after the fact.
Gary (06:48.758)
lot of philosophy behind the title. The implication with the title, Unfuck Yourself, is that you fucked yourself.
Gary (07:02.96)
So, right, whether you realize or not. And so there was enough philosophical weight in it for me that I thought, that's smart. That's the right place that I want somebody beginning. Because again, even to now, an awful lot of personal growth and development is...
Tim Doyle (07:05.528)
Either knowingly or unknowingly.
Gary (07:29.188)
quote unquote healing which is just about distinguishing who did what. Right? I don't take that approach at all ever. You my works about liberation, freedom, self-expression, coming out of something. In that process of coming out of something you'll get a lot of shit healed. But if you're looking for retribution, karma,
Tim Doyle (07:35.083)
Mm. Yeah.
Gary (07:58.574)
You know, the final word? Agreement? I am not your guy.
Tim Doyle (08:05.802)
It's raw and it's real and I think that's why people connect with it so deeply. And I like how you talked about how it's not just a term, there is a philosophical foundation to it. And I know you were inspired by a lot of German philosophers and that ultimately led you to create your own philosophy that you title urban philosophy. What was the process of building that out and what does that stand for to you?
Gary (08:17.785)
Yeah.
Gary (08:22.574)
Yeah.
Gary (08:29.22)
Right.
Gary (08:34.02)
Well, I mean, I think everybody's a philosopher. If you've thought about yourself and other people in life, then that's pretty much philosophical thinking, right? I was drawn to ontology. It was the first thing I'd ever come across that made sense to me. Like I could logically explain my bullshit.
through an ontological lens. Like it made sense. Like, well, duh. And the more I dived into it, especially with people, I talk about Heidegger quite a bit, but there's Heidegger, there's Gadammer, there's Husserl, there's a bunch of them who, if you're into philosophy, then those are heavy weights, those names.
If you're not any philosophy, people have no idea what the hell you're talking about. But the more that I read ontology, the more I'm thinking, why aren't we using this? Why are we using this to understand ourselves? Why are we using this to kind of get our head around life? What's the problem with ontology? I mean, there's plenty of room for all kinds of stuff, psychology and psychiatry. But where's ontology in all this?
So, you know, and for me, you know, like this was just my lens. This was a place where I looked at it and I thought this is this is a great way to examine why you are the way you are and how to understand it in a way, what if you want to transform it or change it. It's totally doable. So it's since grown since then, though, you know, I mean, I don't, you know, I'm not a
I'm not an academic by a long shot when it comes to philosophy, but I have like a healthy relationship to it. And I really feel as if my job is to put together something that people can find really practical and usable. You know, I call it urban philosophy, but really it's a practical philosophy. It's a way of using philosophy.
Gary (10:55.728)
to impact the quality of life. And the last thing I will say about that is my kind of relationship with philosophy as a subject is that it's a little too self-interested.
Tim Doyle (11:09.934)
I really like the emphasis that you put on language and dissecting language and how creating small nuances in the words that we use can create big changes and practical changes. And it's like, if we want to have a shift in action, we need to have a shift in our language first and the way that we speak and the way that we think. And one of those reframings that you write about
Gary (11:24.984)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gary (11:33.88)
Right.
Tim Doyle (11:39.352)
which I find really interesting is how can living from a perspective of experiment rather than assessment really allow us to see better growth and get into that framework of taking action.
Gary (11:50.8)
Hmm
Well, mean, context is your superpower as a human being, right? You have the ability to shift context. You might not have the ability to change your circumstance right now, but if you shift the context, you will shift how you interact with them. So you won't do the same things with what you're in, right? And so context is why you can have 10 people in the same situation. One loves it, one hates it.
One's bored by it, one's mildly curious about it, it's all context, they're all looking at the same thing. So in life, if you can understand the degree to which you automatically produce context, like automatically you're conditioned, because context will inform you as to how you should interact with it.
A lot of people when they get up in Monday morning there's like a weight in pit of their stomach. That's not Monday morning doing that to you. That's your relationship to Monday morning. That's the context. And in that context you're probably already predicting, here we go, another shit week. I don't want to do this. I hate my life.
Yeah, that's a context, right? That'll give you certain results, experiences, and a kind of limitation of how you can interact with that thing. There's only so much you can do. And you'll mostly spend your time looking for relief, right? So you'll be like finding little windows of what you think are joy, but are really just relief from your own context. People think they hate their job. It's contextual.
Gary (13:46.392)
I don't doubt that you hate. I don't doubt that for a minute. But sometimes the confusion with people as they think context is just positive thinking. I hate positive thinking. It's a fucking terrible idea. And positive thinking is terrible idea because you don't believe it. Right? So in some way, it has to be true. So if you shift context with something, you'll see that
That is the big, the grand experiment of being alive. Right. And years ago, I read Nelson Mandela's book. It's been a long time, probably about 10 years ago. And he was in prison for, you know, a couple of decades. And he had no experience of being locked up. It was not his experience. Was he locked up? Yeah. But to him, he was free.
That's context. And in life, you know, if you check in and get experience yourself and realize that it's contextual, then you're free to recreate and create context and come at life from new places. That is the grand experiment. Right. That is that is to play at this thing called your life.
Tim Doyle (15:11.288)
Do you think you've created space between your consciousness and your identity?
Gary (15:18.672)
think I've done enough work in my identity where it has less and less of a say in the quality of my life.
Gary (15:33.188)
that
The tricky thing we all look at is...
It takes a lot.
to realize.
the whole of what you've become. So it takes a lot to understand it because you're so wrapped up in the needs and the wants and the resentments and the can't get overs and the never going to get pasts and the hope and there was a point in my life where
Gary (16:09.68)
I realised that everything that was coming out of my mouth was perpetuating this.
everything. Every time I wanted to talk, voice an opinion, ask somebody a question, it was all just this bullshit. And it's pretty deep in parenthesis of work to try and see it.
as itself kind of sitting there in your life, wanting air. It wants to talk. And it does, you know, it does, it comes at, you know. And then there are times, you know, in the kind of quiet of a moment, I might be like, okay, just settle down here. And so it's the balance between kind of what Heidegger would have called the default self.
and what I'm committed to putting on the face of the planet. That's the... and it's not a war or a fight or something, it's just like... it's the game of spotting what's what and bringing it forth. And whatever it is I want to have be there, spoken in the existence, made real, that's a created phenomenon. It's not to fix anything about who I've been or...
stuff I don't like about my own bullshit. Like, it's all independent of that. It stands alone.
Tim Doyle (17:58.796)
What do you think the first step is for people in taking the right direction?
Gary (18:05.624)
not linear you know listen if I could go so step one and then right I'd have written a lot more freaking books than these ones introspection is very organic but but there has to be a point to it
And if you start with a principle, right, just start with a principle that everything you do has a purpose. Everything you do, there's a point to it.
The question is, what's the point of a...
And mostly the point of everybody is just to pretend they're somebody else.
That's it. There's nothing else to it. The whole point of your existence is to pretend that you're not the you that you think you are deep down. Right? It's like a great shame that we have about what people are going to find out. The most revealing thing for me was when I just owned it. I'm just like, I'm just going to fucking tell people. And I wrote about this in my second book, but...
Gary (19:17.506)
my view of myself as I'm not smart enough. So all of my talking is to hide that.
Right, so, but the conundrum of that is...
Gary (19:33.934)
you have to keep proving it too. So like you're hiding it and proving it and you're proving it so that you can overcome it. But then you're hiding it, right? And that's the kind of cycle of it. And that's the exhausting part. So if you can, that's just why like I insist, you know, all of my books are, they're not long and they're they're not dense.
Gary (20:03.696)
And that's deliberately that way. They're spaced out. They're airy, but they're demanding. So I'll hit you with the weight of an anchor around the side of your head. And then you just gotta kinda sit with that. Like, shit. If you just skim through the book, it'll do nothing. But if you sit with it and you think, and you let it talk to you...
Like all of my books, the value is in the gaps between lines and phrases and sentences and chapters. That's the power. The power is in the thinking that happens. But in my second book, ontologically speaking, I think I really gave people a very good doorway into understanding their own machinery.
If you want the most fortuitous way in to examine that, something like my second book, you can find something like that or that book. It's simple, it's easy to understand and when it lands, it'll catch your breath.
Tim Doyle (21:19.31)
theme that I talk about a lot is unwilling pain and going through unwilling challenges and how in the long term, there can be a lot of benefits in beauty and going through that unknowing pain and that entire process. And I'm talking from experience here. I think one of those beauties and why I was able to look back on this pain that I went through
Gary (21:26.341)
Yeah.
Gary (21:36.218)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (21:47.574)
in such a positive light is because yes, it was unwilling pain, but it allowed for me to also be broken down so that I could find that person within myself when I would have been, I wasn't able to willingly or consciously dig down in that person, but because I was broken down and you know, my, my shell broke, it was like, all right, I had no
filter, right? It wasn't as hard for me to do or it wasn't as stressful or as uncomfortable because it was like, well, I went through this really bad pain and that was a lot harder than this work that I'm going to do now to really bring my true and authentic self to the surface. And building off of that and getting more so into your writing, what's your philosophy on willingness and what that means?
Gary (22:17.989)
Right.
Gary (22:21.925)
you
Gary (22:36.184)
Yeah.
Gary (22:49.966)
Willingness comes down to just it's a place you return to So if you can bring forth willingness There's nothing big enough to stop you What's that? Just am I willing and so there's a question I wrote my first book I talked about you know asking yourself that question and One of the ways to ask it would be to ask you ask yourself. Am I willing to keep living my life this way? No
I look, that seems like a pretty simple enough question to ask somebody, but it's loaded. The question is absolutely loaded. Because if you say, am I willing to keep living my life this way? And you answer yes to that.
then you're well aware that you're doing it. Right? This is like, I'm doing it. Right? And you might've lived up to that point saying, well, it's this person in that situation and this thing that happened. So it kind of brings you to responsibility. But if you say, no, I'm not willing, it immediately propels you into what's next.
So it immediately brings you into that kind of spot where I'm not willing to keep living this way. So you'll find resourcefulness when you answer it that way. And it's the same with unwillingness, you They work equally well if you apply them in the right measure. But that's another way. Willingness to bring forth willingness is a context shifter, which makes it a game changer.
and it will call upon you to act in your life, which is where all the action's gonna happen and where the change is gonna happen.
Tim Doyle (24:45.452)
And building off of that and to like add another term to it, basically like unwilling, unwillingness in a way where it's like I'm going through unwilling pain. What that brought for me and a lot of the people I talk with is that that unwilling time within their life brought so much clarity and finally brought them to the point of, my gosh, like I wasn't living how I truly wanted to and was willingly to. And once I get out of this moment,
Gary (24:55.236)
Right.
Tim Doyle (25:15.51)
like things are actually going to change.
Gary (25:20.3)
Yeah, there's two little parts to that that I think are interesting. So in my line of work, this would have been close on 20 years ago now, but a lot of the guys who were doing what I was doing were former Navy SEALs. I was in the business of, you know, I was leading workshops and seminars, I was traveling all over the world and I was, you know, impacting people's lives.
And a of the guys who were involved in that with me were former baby seals and, know, green berets and, you know, guys who had, older guys who had seen it all. And we talked about transformation. And so, you you might read a book and like, you know, change my fucking life. And that's good. And, you know, you might do a seminar or a course or something. But when you talk to...
And it's not the same for all people who have done things like Navy SEAL training, for example, right? But some of those guys come out of there, like they are transformed. they are not fundamentally, they're now wired different. Right? They're just not the same. And, you know, it's kind of corny, but some of them just like see the light. You know, they just see the futility of...
all the bullshit and they're fearless with it then because they went all the way down into the dark and came out the other end right some of them get egotistical and la la la but some of them become ego-lite because of it right they come through it and all other spaces and i did had a a navy seal interview actually about a year ago we talked about this maybe a couple years ago
And we talked about this and he never thought about it that way, but it totally rattled him when he saw He saw like, holy shit, I it. went through a transformation. Like I came out the other end like a different person. those are situations where there's like a crisis that demands you show up. Now, I'm always a little hesitant with the idea of
Gary (27:43.044)
finding yourself or showing up or something because if I was to say to somebody okay look at all that you've become
and I say let's set it aside let's take all of that and ball it up and let's set it over here
Gary (28:04.782)
What's left?
Gary (28:11.04)
That's a bit of a mindfuck if you let it. Because what's left is nothing.
Gary (28:20.944)
There's nothing left.
What you're really looking for is nothing. You're not looking for another something. You need to get to nothing.
When I'm at nothing, I have a shot at creating as something. Not finding it because it's not there. I've got to create it. What am I creating? Well, that's when I can finally get my arms around this thing called my life because I have this possibility of creating whatever I want for myself to be whoever I want. I still have.
wheels and cogs that turn in a certain direction but I see them now for what they are and I'm able to let them kind of have their own space but I'm not dominated by them and I'm and I'm now out to bring something forth something of my own volition something of my own creation you can only get to that point in my view though you can't get to that point flippantly
can't get to that point by reading a bunch of memes and motivational books. Or watching your favourite TikTok channel. You're not going to get there. And you won't get there with rah rah rah rah rah either. You won't. It's all bullshit. It's nonsense. It's just fluff. Or as I like to call it, survival with a botox injection.
Gary (29:56.814)
It's not real. It's just feel good. You're not a source of something. There's lots and lots and lots of people in this earth who have done the work, done the work. And when you meet them, you know they've done it. You don't have to. There's no question. You know, there's no, yeah, but you know, so in my life, you know, sometimes I'll come across people who say, yeah, really resonate your work, you know, doing that with myself.
I don't think so. Not to be cynical, but just to say like...
You know, the more it's funny, know, because all of these tropes that you hear, they're fucking true, right? They're all true. So the more I get into it, the less I feel I know. Right. And I've been doing this for a couple of decades now. And I question more and more and more as I go through it, there's less I want to say. Right. I don't want to. I don't do interviews anymore. Right. You're you might be the first interview I've done in well over a year. Right. I don't do interviews. I don't.
I write, I think, I mostly throw whatever I've written because I'm like it's bullshit. I'm not trying to hit a mark. I'm trying to reveal something when I write. I'm not trying to make you buy a fucking book. I don't care whether you buy the books. It's up to you. it's something... I... Language... And this is why language is so critical.
hear them because language is all we have to capture our experience of being alive. We don't have anything else. There's nothing else to capture it. I can't give you anything. Right. People might say, well, body language. I know, but you've still got to fucking read it with language. You know, so well, that's, know, so in language, language creates, it doesn't describe.
Gary (32:02.542)
And that's the great illusion that we think language is just shallow and descriptive when it's in fact rich, deep and creative.
Tim Doyle (32:16.162)
really like that idea of you're not looking to you're not looking for something you're looking to become nothing because that is the place that you're truly able to then create something and create something that feels true and it almost feels like becoming a child again and having that childlike sense of I can do anything and create anything
Gary (32:39.992)
Yeah, there's a point there though that I think is really important.
If you're trying to get to it, you'll never get there. It's like, it's like.
It's like.
Tim Doyle (32:53.72)
And I think that's where the unwilling pain comes into it because, you know, speaking from my experience again here, like I would not have been able to get to that nothing point. Like you're saying on my own, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have been able to do it.
Gary (32:56.429)
Yeah.
Gary (33:04.686)
Yeah, yeah, I think there's something remarkable about our capacity to...
persist in lives we don't like or maybe even we hire them. So there's that big thick muscle for overcoming and this ability to overcome whatever shit's coming my way. And sister, it's like a kind of primordial wiring we've got from however many tens of thousands of years ago. But...
But we're so wired for survival, we're so wired to drive our lives in... It's not even in directions of the safe, it's in the directions of the predictable. Right, so... Life is basically fighting the same battle over and over and over and then you die. It just feels like you're not fighting the same battle but you are. And until...
Tim Doyle (33:59.576)
Mm-hmm.
Gary (34:15.856)
This is why, know, like I don't, I just want bumper sticker my work. want, you know, it's serious work. The titles might seem a little flippant to you, but what's in there is deadly. You know, it's deadly. It's to the bone. I mean, I just finished a new book. I'm saying finished, there's probably another round of edits to go, but we're about 98 % there with it.
But it might be the most unbridled I've ever been on the page. I'm just like, fuck it. You're either gonna love this or you're gonna hide it, but the ones that gonna love it, they're gonna get everything out of it. So that's I'm aiming for. And I'm not gonna argue with if you disagree with it. Okay.
It's a big universe, go shout somewhere else.
Tim Doyle (35:16.022)
And at this point in your writing career, do you feel like that's just naturally how the writing came out and the ideas came out? Or did you have the conscious awareness of like, hey, I want it to sound like this.
Gary (35:27.472)
I've never written a book to make money. So I've never done that. I've never written with the idea, hope this sells a lot of copies. It's useless. It's pointless. You're trying to write a book to ghosts. So your book should be, my view,
should serve a purpose, it'd be something that it fulfills in the universe. So if you look at it wide enough and far enough and you say, okay, what's something that needs communicated right now? That's what I'll write, I'll come from there. But with this book, probably this may be a first for me or...
Certainly in the fullness of this book, this is a first. I've had very little experience of actually writing this book. My experience is it's coming out. It's not like it's effortless, because it's not effortless. I don't have to, like everything that I want is just coming up and out.
And then there's how to language that. There's some things in the book, I even say it in the book where I was having an experience of something, but I didn't have the language to give it to you. I don't have the words to give this to you so that you're like, oh shit, yeah, I get that. I couldn't find it. And everything that I tried to do with it just sounded so thin and pointless. And so I was talking to a former colleague of mine. One of the things that...
We kind of stumbled on the more abstract something becomes, the more kind of a little kind of thick it becomes, but it's hard for me to give it to you.
Gary (37:32.016)
It's almost the only way you can give it to somebody is like, it's kind of poetic. has to like, you have to envision something, you know, you can't just give it to somebody like that, that, that, that, that. It just never communicates. So there's parts of the book where I found myself just kind of like, I mean, that's kind of really vivid there, but it's a little too.
It's a little too outwith how I would normally write something, but it's the only way I can get some of these ideas out there.
Tim Doyle (38:05.046)
I had on a doctor, Dr. Eben Alexander. He's most well known for having a near death experience, a truly spiritual experience that he had. And one of the things that he learned throughout that experience is
Gary (38:12.037)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (38:21.548)
The written language and how we understand language, yes, it can be very powerful, but like what you're saying as well, there are limitations to it. Where like the way that you feel about those thoughts and understand them can't possibly be shifted to the reader the way that you're able to feel it.
Gary (38:30.489)
Yeah.
Gary (38:42.04)
Right, so I think there's a real power though, I think this is something for people to understand. The more you can give language to the way that you've become, the more power you'll have with it.
the kind of significance of the mystery of it will always weigh heavy on you. And so that's why, and I talk about this in this new book, and it'll be a while before this book's out, but like being able to explain something or categorize something doesn't mean you're at the source of it. It doesn't mean like you've got it.
Because even though you can describe it, it might still have you. It might still have all the say. So there's something, I think the example that I used in the book was I talked about love. Like I can't package love up, say it and then you get it. It doesn't work that way. It will never capture your experience of love.
And the more you try and capture the experience of love, the further away you get from it. Like you can't. It's almost like it has to arise on its own, right? But when it's there, you freaking know it. Right? And if somebody says, well, you like, well, don't I'm kind of like, you know, I don't know, I'm having thoughts, you know, it's, but, you know it when it's there because it's a presence. So something's here that I don't quite have the language for.
And ultimately, think that's that kind of introspection, that kind of deep dig with yourself is that kind of thinking is what allows you to unpack and see things and start to give certain things language. And the more you give it language and the more you say it, actually, the less power that has with you.
Tim Doyle (40:45.294)
I really like that. And yeah, it's that creative release that feels so fulfilling. And so to take you back to your, your past life a little bit here, you used to be a musician and it was your ultimate dream to headline at the whiskey, a go-go in West Hollywood. And you end up fulfilling that dream. But after your first performance there, you said it was one of your lowest of low moments. When you look back,
Gary (40:50.362)
Yeah.
Gary (40:57.594)
Right.
Hmm.
Right? Yeah.
Gary (41:12.046)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (41:14.58)
on that moment now, what does it represent to you and what did those music days really teach you?
Gary (41:20.346)
Ahem.
mean the music was fucking awesome. was what a life, was brilliant. Living on 50 bucks a week or something for nine years. I was fully committed all in. I loved being a musician, I loved playing in a band, I loved the whole. And there was like.
At the time, if you'd asked me, I'd have said no, but there was a lot of stuff I was trying to get over. I was trying to get to a point. this is the same for all of us. We really believe that when I get to that point, that'll be golden, right? When I get there. So if you ask anybody, you know, what it was like when they finally got their degree.
they'll have hit the kind of flat point after it. You know, is that it? Or you got the job or you got the boy or the girl or you got the, you know, whatever it might be. It's the kind of point where you're like...
Shit. And what you realize is it didn't fix what you wanted it to fix. It never done it. So you're kind of screwed. And so at that point, and you know, we meet these little, these little stops in life frequently, fairly frequently, but especially people who've got a big game in mind and they do it, you know, and they actually do it.
Gary (43:04.654)
And then you're sitting there like, this is not what I thought it would be. And the reason why it's not what you thought it would be is because you're still you.
Right? So I'm sitting in the green room at the Whiskey a Go Go after having played there on a freaking Friday night and sold the place out and it was packed and it was amazing. We headlined and it was everything. And I'm just sitting up there like flat as a pancake. Because I'm just like. OK, now what? You know, like I put so much into this. Here I am.
And then the thought of just like, well, the next place or the next show or the next album or the next, you know, it's just like, like there was no, because it didn't fix. don't, you don't, you don't realize it when you're doing it, but you are, especially when you're younger, you are trying to fix yourself.
Tim Doyle (44:02.722)
Getting into the nuance of language again here. I think this gets into the relationship of needing to ask yourself, do you want it or do you want to get it? It's like, do you want the actual thing or you like the chase? And I think for a lot of people, it's the chase.
Gary (44:14.32)
for him.
Yeah.
I think if you say to them, what do you think this will fix about you?
Gary (44:26.872)
It'll reveal itself. Maybe your first answer is usually always the bullshit that you've been telling yourself. So you have to get like three answers in. So the first answer will be, well, I'll be accomplishing. I'll be finally recognized for my talent. OK, keep going. And then you end up, get to a point where you're like.
Yeah, I think I'm a piece of shit and this is what you know, it's something like that. And there's nothing wrong with feeling like you're a piece of shit, by the way. And I really mean that. There's fucking nothing wrong with that. So what? I feel like I'm a piece of shit. I feel like I'm a loser. I'm never going to do it in my life. I feel like I'm a bum. Okay, I get that. You know, giving your past, that makes fucking sense. Right. But the next question is, now what?
Tim Doyle (44:56.386)
Hahaha
Gary (45:22.906)
You're right. we get that. Now what? Where do we go from this point? Now that you've just told me all that, where do we go?
Tim Doyle (45:31.726)
What was that for you after having that conscious awareness of feeling not good after those performances?
Gary (45:37.828)
I mean, my career rumbled on for a number of years after that, but it was such a milestone because I recognized it as something, but I didn't quite know what it was. But it struck me as weird.
Tim Doyle (45:52.108)
Mm-hmm.
Gary (45:54.736)
Why am I so flat after? mean, everybody around me was all, they were all going to the rainbow after, they were going to meet all these people and all these famous people were coming. And I went back to the shitty motel alone. And when went.
Tim Doyle (46:11.672)
similar to, you can relate that to the writing as well, I guess, like right at the start where you didn't have the words to describe it, but it was just a feeling of being off.
Gary (46:21.028)
Right, right. so, but it was so, you know, I assert like, you don't remember all the things in your life, but the ones that you do remember, the items that you do remember, you should take the case that you made some decisions at that point, especially in your young life, right? And that's another great way to track your kind of involuntary evolution, right?
would be to look at some of those incidents from your childhood and ask yourself, yeah, huh, what did I come out of that with? What decision did I make? And you'll have made decisions, that's why you remember it. And sometimes the decisions are about yourself, sometimes they're about other people, sometimes they're about life, but you'll have made some decisions. Once you hit your mid-twenties, all of those decisions are basically your logic now.
That's what you're going to go with. You're going go with that. So when you're in your mid-20s, you're still hopeful. You're like, yeah, I can get this done. And then you hit your mid-30s with your logic, and you're redundant. You're in the midst of this crisis of identity where you can push all you want, but nothing's moving.
And sometimes it's about later, some people go all the way into their 40s and their 50s with that and then they hit the wall. And some people just buckle to it and shuffle on and others they see it as a full blown crisis. And so people call it a midlife crisis. don't. It's the absolute redundancy of identity and everybody's going to hit it at some point.
Tim Doyle (48:11.414)
Yeah, and it's like, it's not a crisis. It's like, look back on how things have unfolded here. This was kind of just like the natural evolution of things. And this was kind just the next step in the process for you.
Gary (48:19.748)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, everybody's fighting for the fucking tragedy. Instead of, you know, maybe releasing the significance of that and instead of using it to direct what's next, you know, try creation, try creating something about what's next, you know. But I know that's not easy, what I'm saying, but it doesn't mean to say it's not simple.
Tim Doyle (48:33.358)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (48:49.804)
Yeah, I like the deeper underpinnings of your ideas on how we're always winning no matter what and how our subconscious mind plays a massive role in that. Can you explain that further?
Gary (48:56.783)
Yeah.
Gary (49:02.638)
Yeah, your life's not a mistake. It's not some fucking grand error. It's all going according to plan. Right? That's kind of hard to get your head around because you're like, hold on a minute here, I've just been divorced and yeah, well given who you are, that's, it's not unpredictable. It's not like, shit, you. No, it's fairly predictable. Given.
who you are, how you see things, who's in your life, who's out your life, who you invite into your life, who you keep out of your life. It's not some random concoction, right? You weren't just, this isn't just you going around in life and people just showing up around you and, well, I'll go with this. No, mean, people are getting handpicked. You don't realize it, but they are, because they fulfill
a certain role for you in how you see the world. So that's when you can start to see the purpose of a destructive tendency. Because on the surface of it, a destructive tendency seems so, just so unnecessary, right? Just why would I do, why would somebody who's, you know, married, found the person of their dreams,
you know, living in the home that they always wanted to live in and now they're like snorting coke in the bathroom or they're having an affair with a neighbor's dog, right? Like whatever the hell they're doing. But given who you are and what you want in your life, those are not weird. You might be somebody who needs the crisis, who needs the upset, who needs the comeback.
So it's all going according to plan. You you're building the comeback. But in order to get to the comeback, there needs to be the come down. So it'll seem like it's all random and just, you know, shit's happening and then this happened and then... No, it's all going according to plan. Why? Because you've been building the context all along.
Tim Doyle (51:06.19)
Mm.
Tim Doyle (51:18.914)
whether that's consciously or subconsciously and I think that's.
Gary (51:20.944)
No, it's mostly not conscious. mean, I think as much as they can study this, but I think the last thing I read was somewhere between, or daily actions are somewhere between 95 and 98 % unconscious. 95 and 98%. You're not even saying it, you're just doing it.
You don't wake up in morning like, okay, I really need to remind myself to be Tim today. There's no, there's none of that. You're just getting up and doing it and doing what Tim would do and, you know, turning on the TV that Tim would or wouldn't turn on or that radio station or go for a walk or a jog or a run or not. Or you're doing what Tim would do and what Tim would do comes from a set of rules that Tim made up.
that he didn't know he was making up, he wrote, didn't know he was writing. And he set the stage for himself to go on and live his life. And in that stage, there's certain players that must be there. And there's certain outcomes that has to happen. Why? Because Tim has to prevail, right? And so it's just like, it's the big fucking giant existential joke, you know?
Tim Doyle (52:34.86)
I think that's the most powerful reframe that I personally got from your writing. And I think that a lot of people could benefit from is obviously we always talk about the relationship between winning and losing. And this gets into that shift in language where no, it's not the relationship between winning and losing. It's the relationship between your conscious mind winning or your subconscious mind winning because we can get into this mindset of, I'm a loser. You know, I suck.
Gary (53:00.112)
Right.
Tim Doyle (53:04.706)
But it's like, no, you're actually really powerful. It's just that your subconscious mind is dominating your conscious mind much.
Gary (53:10.288)
Well, like I said, you're always winning. So, you know, you're always getting the outcome you're looking for. Even when you think that's not what you're looking for. There are obviously some exceptions, you know, there's the randomness of the fucking universe, of course, right. But by and large, human beings are driving life in their direction.
Tim Doyle (53:37.144)
So building off of that, are there any tools that you recommend for shifting our subconscious mind to work in a way that is more aligned with our conscious mind?
Gary (53:47.25)
man, I mean, I think I'd be a lot more significant in this world if I was able to answer that question. I think you have to look at what Nietzsche called it, what Jung called it. awareness is simply bringing to the surface that which was once in the unaware. Right? So
Again, you can't think of it like some battle that's going on. It's not a battle. It really is a discovery. And the more that I bring to the light, it's not a fucking problem. I just need to bring it to the light so that I can know what I'm playing with, right? Know where I'm going to be compelled to go because it will feel like it's life, but it's my own compulsion. And so...
So it's really like, I think the phrase that I used years ago, I used to say to people, this is about interrupting the drift. And it's interrupting the drift of who you've become. And even if you can interrupt that in a moment, if you can take a new action in a moment, you've interrupted the drift of your life. You've done it in a moment. And it might be relatively inconsequential, but you did, you intervened. You took another turn.
Sometimes where people get a little messed up with that idea, they think it's the opposite term. Which it's not. The opposite term is just more of the same. I'm just now using the same blueprint to determine the outcomes of my life. Like if I said to everybody, just go into work tomorrow and just be loving with everybody. People are like, are you fucking kidding? At work? I'm like, yeah, just go in and be loving. Just tell people you think they're great and it's awesome to work with them.
And they'll think I'm high or something. I'll be like, I know, because you're not being you. You're being somebody else. And notice how uncomfortable you are with the idea of that. Notice how fucked up you're getting by the idea of not being you. Which sometimes blows things apart for people because they see what they've really been after as just a better version of themselves, not some transformed phenomenon.
Tim Doyle (56:12.694)
I had on Dan Millman recently to talk about his work and his writing and we discussed about the relationship between a person's external world and their internal world and just navigating the relationship between building those two worlds. And you say in order to improve your internal world, you have to start by taking action in the external world. Do you think the opposite is true as well?
Like do you think in order to improve your external world, you have to start by taking action in your internal world and like, can those two processes coexist or it's kind of like a chicken or the egg type situation.
Gary (56:53.922)
Now you gotta watch you don't end up picking fluff out your belly button for the rest of your life.
What's going on with you internally can unlock some doors. No doubt. But it's no place to dwell.
That's not what life is happening. Life is not happening between your ears. Right? Life is happening out here. Right? And the more you kind of get out here, the less of a concern you'll have for this. The more you get curious and inquisitive and interactive with the world around you, some for some people, there'll be an initial bit where they have to kind of get beyond their personal concerns.
But when you get beyond that, you're free as a bird because you don't, you have no real care about what's going on with you internally. It's not that fascinating. It's really not. It's kind of boring and predictable and mildly annoying. Some people are absolutely fascinated with what's going on with themselves internally, like it's some fucking snow globe. And it's not.
It's like just a knot of old decisions and conclusions and ideas and things you believe to be true and it's all intermingled with some remnants of feelings and emotions from the past and things you said you're never going to do again or nobody's going to ever do to you again and blah blah blah blah blah blah and here you are. It's not complex, it's not...
Gary (58:35.662)
you know, sophisticated. It just seems complex and sophisticated because life is moving and you keep applying the same principles to life. So it seems like the principles are moving, but they're not. It's just the same template. Life's moving, but you keep bringing the same noise.
Tim Doyle (58:55.724)
Very, very important point, I think, to make right there, especially in today's day and age, because I think this personal development work, whatever that even means, we have this perception that it's actually like pushing the ball forward in our life. And it isn't necessarily doing that. Like personal development work is very different than doing like actual work. And
Gary (59:06.436)
Yeah.
Gary (59:12.601)
Yeah.
Gary (59:22.725)
Yeah!
Tim Doyle (59:24.59)
The funny thing is, it's like when you do actual work, a natural byproduct of that is personal growth and personal development.
Gary (59:31.184)
Right, so it can absolutely be that way. And that's being external, right? That's like I'm working on something outside of me. I've got concerns that are outside of me. I've got promises and commitments that are outside of me. I don't want to hold myself to that stuff, but it lives outside of me where there's no opinion, no judgment. So I got to go deal with it there rather than in here. But I think there's a...
Tim Doyle (59:35.714)
Yeah.
Gary (59:59.652)
I think that as a fascination with self that if you don't watch, can end up... What is it? Somebody said to me a long time ago, know, yesterday's transformation is today's ego trip.
Right, so you got to, whatever you got, whatever insight you got, whatever you got from reading the book or watching your interviews, go and do something in your life that represents what you got, right? Go talk to somebody, make a shift, make a move, do something, make a decision, sign something, whatever it is, begin your life and alter your reality from your insight.
Don't you sit there picking fluff at your belly delighted you go to the inside, right? Cuz that's, now you're just an inside junkie, know. I knew there was a Tana Panty in this game.
Tim Doyle (01:00:53.518)
100 % Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of clutter that you have to sift through within this space, whether it's on social media or different types of books. And with that being said, do you feel like within your own work? Is there one truth that you find yourself always coming back to to keep yourself grounded?
Gary (01:00:58.416)
Yeah.
Gary (01:01:03.503)
Yeah.
Gary (01:01:15.098)
Yeah, you know, every day, hundreds of times a day, it doesn't mean anything.
Tim Doyle (01:01:23.182)
Hmm.
Gary (01:01:26.64)
So no matter what I'm in, it doesn't mean anything. It's fucking meaningless bullshit. There was a phrase in Shakespeare and Macbeth. There was a really famous part in Macbeth where the protagonist says, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllables of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted foals the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow.
think there's just like people need to understand this, what I got from Shakespeare.
Gary (01:02:17.528)
It's all bullshit. It's all this nonsense running around creating dramas, chasing things, pursuing things. Life is but a walking shadow. It's a fucking poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then he dies. And all that noise means nothing. So, Sartre said it, you know, I think Descartes said it, so many great philosophers have said it.
We live in an indifferent universe and we're the ones bringing all the noise. So every day it doesn't mean anything. It just doesn't mean anything. So whatever noise I've got myself into, whatever shit I've got myself into, it doesn't mean anything. And that always gives me a chance to get perspective when they come back and be like, okay, take a breath. And then I can act from there.
Tim Doyle (01:03:15.022)
And then it's a beautiful place to stop the conversation, especially what we were talking about earlier, where when we got broken down, it's not that we're looking for something, we're looking for nothing. And wasn't expecting to end the conversation with you reciting Shakespeare, but I think that was beautifully put. Gary, where can people go to see more of your work, your writing, if they want to connect with you?
Gary (01:03:29.337)
HEN
Gary (01:03:37.424)
You know, go to the website garyjohnbishop.com, can follow me on Instagram. on Facebook with those of a more tender generation. And I'm also on threads and I post stuff fairly often on those platforms. On Instagram, I do Instagram Lives. I used to do the podcast on Fuck Nation. There's hundreds of those episodes out there.
I'm just not doing it right now. might go back to it. We'll see. I'm writing, writing, writing right now. And yeah, yeah, just I'm out there. I'm active. And by the way, what I'm always doing is giving people stuff for free. You know, don't company my stuff and you don't have to buy anything. You know, can just interact and get what you need.
Tim Doyle (01:04:29.44)
Awesome, Gary. Great talking with you today.
Gary (01:04:31.48)
Awesome. Thanks for having me.
