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Ahmad (00:00.69)
Right, Mike, it’s only fair, it’s only fair that I reciprocate because I’ve been on your podcast twice now and you’ve never been on my podcast. And I think you have the honor of being the first podcast that I went on as a guest. So thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Mike Farris.

MIchael Farris (00:28.791)
Thank you for having me, man. I’m sure we’re going to get into this, but thank you for everything you’ve done. It’s no secret. I’ve said this many a times on my show. I’ve talked about you many a times, but it’s amazing how one conversation can change and alter your trajectory. I don’t think people realize that. I don’t think people realize the conversation that I’ve had on my show and how much it’s had an impact on my life right now.

Ahmad (00:47.223)
Yeah.

MIchael Farris (00:55.047)
So thank you.

Ahmad (00:57.09)
Dude, I love you man. So for all those people who have absolutely no idea what we’re talking about, I mean, are we talking about you coming out the closet and accepting the fact that you’re trans redneck? Is it the fact that you’ve come out now and agreed that manmade climate change is an issue and you’re trying your best not to fart to stop global warming? Is it the fact that you’re now totally in love with

MIchael Farris (01:23.319)
Thanks for watching!

Ahmad (01:26.614)
beyond burger and fake meat because you wanna save the planet and you’re a good human being now? Is it the fact that I convinced you to get a booster so that you could save granny and kill yourself slowly? I mean, I don’t know. What was the conversation? Remind everybody, what was it about?

MIchael Farris (01:48.472)
So, so we talked, it was Mother’s Day, so it was mid May. You would you would said to me, because I was, you know, my anti vac status and I and let me let me back up for people that don’t know me. I’ve always my name is Michael Ferris. I’ve always been one who struggled with eating and weight. As a kid, you know, I had the husky, high husky, husky size jeans. Love fast food.

and even in high school, just college, so on and so forth, I’m 45 now, it’s just always been a struggle for me. And I fluctuate up and down, up and down. So you and I spoke in mid-May, and funny is two things that you said to me during that conversation, I throw disclaimers out. When I say I’m 45, I’m single and I’m not gay, because you had asked me if I was gay. And so I always put that out there, I’m not gay, I’m a heterosexual. I don’t care if people are gay, but just so people know. But…

Ahmad (02:41.898)
Neither do I, I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re gay. I don’t care if you’re gay or not. Just like be proud of it. Own it.

MIchael Farris (02:49.559)
Yeah, no, it was just funny. It was just funny. But you had said, we were talking about the anti-vax stuff, and you’re like, you can’t be an anti-vaxxer if you’re going to eat basically like shit. And people have their own definition of what diet is, and their own definition of what they think good food is. But tortilla chips, beer, pretzels, yeah, that’s not good for you.

Ahmad (02:51.5)
Yeah

MIchael Farris (03:16.887)
And so I walked away from that. It was on a Sunday. I met up with some friends after for brunch. And I said to myself, we talked about intermittent fasting, and you had said that 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you’re gonna start with something, start with a 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. So I went down that day, I had brunch with my friends, I had a beer or two, and I came home that night, and I love popcorn, so I made popcorn, but I’m like, all right, I’m gonna stop eating before six.

And from there, I just kept it in that 10 to six range. And I was like, all right, I’m gonna make a go at this. So I’m not 10 to six, 10 to six, 10 to six. And actually I had a friend of mine, there’s a Whole Foods right next to me. And I’ve been going in there for almost 10 years. I was going in there before Amazon bought it. So, you know, it still feels like a local store to me. But he actually, a guy who works in the produce section said to me, you know, you gotta eat a pound, a pound and a half of meat every day. And I was like,

Ahmad (04:07.982)
Mm.

MIchael Farris (04:16.975)
No way. Like, no way. I get like a third, I get like one chicken breast. And I thought maybe even that was too much. She goes, trust me, eat two avocados a day. So then I started doing that. I’d have a big salad. I have pounded pound and a half of meat every day, whether it be chicken or beef or sometimes pork with some bacon. And then a big salad in the afternoon. And then that was it. You know, I’d go to yoga in the evening.

And I was under this preconceived notion, because I always go to yoga, I do a lot of yoga, and I practice yoga at six at night, and then come home and eat. And it’s amazing, man, when you, it’s such a psychological thing, because I don’t need to eat when I come home from yoga.

I don’t eat that late. I mean, yeah, and I run early in the morning, too. That’s my thing. I love to run every day. I mean, I just got done running 10 miles before we came on. You know, I love to do it. Yeah, yeah. So now, I mean, I was 200 pounds when we did that conversation, which I would encourage anybody to go listen to it because, you know, I just, it changes, it changed the trajectory and where I’m going, you know, in my life.

Ahmad (05:08.37)
Mmm.

Amazing.

MIchael Farris (05:31.263)
And I can’t thank you enough for that, man. I ran 90 miles last week. I mean, I’m 151 pounds now. I was 200 pounds when you and I spoke in May.

Ahmad (05:37.991)
Ma- Wow.

Ahmad (05:44.49)
Wow, that’s insane, man. That’s really insane. I mean, the one thing I would say to you now is, I hope you don’t mind throwing this strength training.

MIchael Farris (05:54.727)
No. So I do that three days a week.

Ahmad (05:57.45)
Like you need to fight good, lift weights, man. Lift weights, eat meat, and go to sleep on time. I mean, that’s basics.

MIchael Farris (06:09.675)
There was the other aspect, the other wrinkle of it, not to cut you off. So the other aspect of it, it was a guy at the gym. So when I started it, and I’d lifted weights off and on, and there were, you know, you have periods of your time, I think periods of your life where you shift, I don’t know about you, like you shift maybe more to jujitsu for a while, then you shift more to running for a while, and you shift more to weights for a while, because you just get bored of the same routines. And so he helped me, he’s like, do four sets of 15 in the beginning. Four sets of 15, just, you know.

Ahmad (06:20.031)
Hmm

Ahmad (06:25.595)
Hmm.

MIchael Farris (06:37.643)
do your exercises, but make sure it’s controlled. Don’t be, you know, your back’s coming off the, you know, the bench or, so now he’s got me doing four sets of 10. So I went back, I went down from 15 to 10. And I’ll tell you, Ahmed, I mean, I, I’m amazed that my strength is where lifting when I was 200 pounds, I’m lifting now at 151 pounds and I’m getting stronger.

Like I’m doing pull-ups now. I could never do pull-ups. That was like when I was a kid, I was a husky kid that could never do a pull-up. And they made me go like do something else in elementary school or whatever. Like I couldn’t climb the rope and I couldn’t do a chin-up or a pull-up. I mean, I’m getting, it’s not a lot, but I’m getting four or five pull-ups a set. Now I never could do that.

Ahmad (07:11.235)
Ha ha!

Ahmad (07:23.95)
Amazing. I’m so happy, man. What you’re developing, what you don’t realize is you’re developing proper old man strength. So when I was in the gym doing jiu-jitsu, a young kid, half my age, twice my size, twice my weight, I was rolling with him and mid-roll, he’s like, oh man, you got proper old man strength. And I was like, I don’t know why I take this as a compliment or an insult. I’ll take it as a compliment. But yeah, it was fun.

It was fun. I love running as well, by the way. I love running with my wife in the woods. Um, or just, you know, sometimes I run on my own, just gives, gives me mental clarity and just love it. I love being out in nature. Anyway, Mike, you’re

MIchael Farris (08:10.378)
Yeah, I saw that.

Ahmad (08:12.458)
I was gonna say you’re a bit of an unusual person because I feel weird talking to you because you’re the master, I’m the apprentice. You’ve been doing podcasts since 2018. You’ve done over like 700 episodes. Like, wow. Wow.

Ahmad (08:33.994)
Like, I don’t even know where to begin. Like, you know, yeah, carry on.

MIchael Farris (08:35.26)
It’s, yeah man, it wasn’t.

MIchael Farris (08:41.659)
I said, well, when I started it, the words that now that was never the intention behind any of this, you know, it, um, I was arrogant in my mind, man. I thought, I thought like, Oh, I’ll get a few episodes with a couple of people and it’ll, you know, um, I don’t know. I thought you always have these expectations, which is good. You know, they didn’t go a certain direction. But I wanted to, I was, I was making trips to LA. I love going to LA because it’s short drive or short flight to Phoenix from Phoenix where I live.

And yeah, I mean, I thought I’m like, I’m gonna do food people. I’m going to do runners because I love runners and Flagstaff is like Flagstaff Arizona for people don’t know it’s a Mecca. It’s like an Olympic training ground for professional runners. So I go up there, you know, take my stuff, meet people. They record in person. Uh, I love boxing. I don’t know if I told you that, but I love boxing. So I have Freddie Roach on my show. Uh, first podcast he ever did, um, back in 2018 and, um,

then when COVID happened, man, it just, you know, everything changed. And I had to figure out a way to do things remotely. I never planned on doing things remotely. I was actually gonna go to LA like once a month, and just podcast. I just there’s a plethora of people to talk to there. And I had the guy on from here, it was in the Richard Jewell movie. He started it, Paul Walter Hauser. I had met up with him when I was in LA.

Um, which is a really good movie if you haven’t seen it, but, um, but yeah, then COVID came and I was, I was going to be apolitical. I wasn’t, I was like, well, I’ll just stay away from the politics and just be neutral and you know, and, um, and when all that stuff started happening, I couldn’t be quiet about all this. And that’s when I started going down the political route with, um, Christina Bob was the first person, really the first, uh, conservative I had on. She was working for one American news at the time.

And now she’s one of President Trump’s attorneys. But that’s, that’s where it started.

Ahmad (10:43.158)
Wow. And like, after all these epi… And have you done any face to face? Did you ever do any in a studio or has it always been like over Zoom?

MIchael Farris (10:54.707)
No, I used to do them all in person in the beginning. So until COVID, I didn’t even know how to do it remotely. So yeah, I would go to Flag, I would take my gear up there and then I would go to LA. I mean, I got thrown out of a Beverly Hills hotel recording with a psychiatrist and we had to go record in her car. We parked on the side of the road with microphones so I was in the passenger seat.

But yeah, that was my whole thing, was I wanted to do it in person. And I felt like Phoenix had opportunities, Flagstaff, and then, you know, LA, there was always opportunities for to try to connect with people. I used Instagram before I was on Twitter. I only got on Twitter because of Dr. Li Ming Yan.

Ahmad (11:24.142)
Ha ha ha.

Ahmad (11:40.654)
I don’t even know who that is. So don’t you miss, don’t you miss the face to face? Sorry, you were saying Dr. Lu?

MIchael Farris (11:44.016)
Dr. Limingyan.

MIchael Farris (11:48.523)
I do. No, no, no. Yeah. Well, no, Dr. Luminon is, uh, she was a virologist that was on Tucker Carlson that escaped. Um, you remember her? She was, um, she was on, she’s been on Tucker Carlson a few times, but she had, um, she said create a twit, create a Twitter account or retweet cause she didn’t have Instagram. And then, you know, Twitter is like, or X now is like, you know, just, uh, it’s a dumpster fire, man, but I love it. You like Twitter right now? You like X?

Ahmad (12:17.966)
X, because I get to connect with a lot of people. A lot of people that I wouldn’t normally have met or connected with, I now do. So for example, I saw someone post something on my feed saying how they’re a doctor in Australia and they’ve been barred from their licensing board because they’re using ivermectin. I messaged them saying, I’d really like to connect with you and hear your story. Next thing, boom, you know, on my WhatsApp, hey, this is my number, give me a shout, blah, blah.

I love that. I love that instant response from people. But I was gonna say, don’t you miss face-to-face podcasts? Cause I do a mixture of both. I have a lot of podcasts that are here in my studio. I love that. I love that energy. You can see them, you can eyeball them. You can read their body language. You can feel their energy. You don’t have a lag or the internet.

I feel like the podcasts that I do face to face are a million times better. No disrespect to you over over, you know, over the airwaves right now. But like if you were here in person, it would be so much better. Don’t you think so?

MIchael Farris (13:26.511)
Oh, for sure. Absolutely. But, you know, it’s so great about technology now is like we can reach people all over the world and we’re we have no limits on who we could talk to. And that’s what I love about, you know, about the zoom now. And I like I don’t get me wrong, if I could do them all in person, I would take that. But you think about what we can do now, like what your show is doing, what I’m doing, I mean, we can.

Ahmad (13:38.614)
Mmm.

MIchael Farris (13:55.423)
We can go find somebody and set it up within a day, you know, and get that conversation. And, uh, especially as it’s, you know, we’re talking to like the information, you know, some of the information that like I talk about, or people that I have on that talk about stuff, it expires within, you know, I’ve had a point now, I don’t even like holding on to this stuff more than a day because, you know, if you have somebody on here talking about Israel Hamas or, you know, Russia, Ukraine, or any, you know, political, you can’t hold on to that for a week.

You hold on for a couple hours, because it could change.

Ahmad (14:28.898)
I’ve got a slightly different problem. So I’ve got so many guests and I’ve basically done too many interviews. I’ve got so many people I want to talk to. So I normally have like 10 podcasts already recorded and waiting to go live. And it takes normally two, three weeks to get them out. I think I don’t do that many things that are topical, like current events. My ones are more health.

or things that have happened in the past. And, you know, there’s no time urgency, if that makes sense. So for example, I’ve just done an incredible podcast this morning, call, you know, that I’m going to call Dr. Paul Alexander Unchained. And I’m actually going to release it on boxing day, the day after Christmas. It’s going to be a boxing day special. I mean, cause it is a whopper. You know, he was in the Trump administration. He was having meetings with Fauci.

And it’s like, like people need to hear his story and what happened to him. And so I recorded it today, which is what day is it today? Third, third of December. And, but I’m not going to release it for another 23 days. Cause it’s not urgent. Like nothing will change by then. You know, like what, what he’s got to say. It’s not, it doesn’t matter whether it’s today or tomorrow, 23 days from now. Cause what was done in the past. Um, so I think maybe that’s how your podcast is slightly different from mine, but I’ve had.

MIchael Farris (15:38.57)
Mm.

Ahmad (15:51.69)
I want to talk about like your learning curve. And I want to hear about like what were the most memorable guests and what the challenges are running a podcast and what’s been the hardest thing. And, and then let’s just cross, you know, exchange notes on, on whether the issues that you faced have been the same as mine, because there’s definitely a learning curve for sure, like definitely. Now I’m like 90 episodes in.

And I’m definitely getting to that point where I’m a little bit more comfortable and I can start reading my guests a little bit better. I know when to pause and ask them questions. I’ve accepted the delay in this remote platform. So I kind of know when to jump in with a question, even though I hate the delay. But yeah, let’s talk about your experience first. So.

What’s been your greatest learning curve? What’s the thing that you’ve learned the most you know, doing so many podcasts?

MIchael Farris (16:54.519)
uh… becoming an active listener you know what one of the biggest companies people pay to me and uh… because i don’t feel like i good enough in my personal life is being i’m always wanted to talk and uh… i he well i and people you know people to the compliment like you really let your guests talk and to me that is that is such a i mean i it’s so flattering because i don’t look at myself like that and even in my personal if i try to catch myself and say

Because the more you listen and the more you absorb, the more you can A, get a read on people, and B, you can understand where it is they’re coming from. And that’s to me what it’s all about. So it’s taken me, you know, I don’t know you ever really fully learned that, right? It’s just, it’s always kind of evolving, but the fact that, you know, doing it as many as I have now, that like to be able to just sit back and listen to people and give them the space to talk, because it’s not about me.

You know, I mean, people don’t want to hear from me on my show, they want to hear from these people. And I’m interested in it because I’m trying to learn, you know.

Ahmad (18:03.278)
Nice, yeah, I agree, 100%. But I mean, people do wanna hear a little bit from you. And the thing is, as an interviewer and a host and someone who’s got their podcast, it’s about how you ask questions and how you get interesting things out of your guest. Isn’t it? That’s the key challenge, getting them to be comfortable and open up. That’s what I found.

MIchael Farris (18:31.297)
Yeah, it’s the old sales. I sold copiers a long time ago, 20 years ago, and it’s the whole what, where, why, how, and who, right? The five open-ended questions that when you ask people that, they can’t give you a yes or no. But I don’t know about you. Do you find like how much research you do with somebody when you have some, when you schedule like a person?

Ahmad (18:52.378)
It depends who they are. Depends who they are and their story and their history. I won’t be reading all of their books, that’s for sure. Like, I just don’t have time for that. But I do a reasonable amount. You know, I’ll go through, you know, a couple of hours reading through their website, their past articles or blogs or sub stacks.

I will look up their Twitter feed or Instagram account and see what they’ve been talking about and what they’re interested in. So yeah, a little bit. How about you?

MIchael Farris (19:32.107)
So it’s funny, I used to do all this research. I still do like what you just said, but I would stress out the night before. I remember Freddie Roach in particular, and I’ve known him since I was a kid, but it was the old idea of, it was all, I mean, I was brand new and it was set up through a friend. And we have a relationship with his family. So that’s how that happened. And it was in LA at the wild card gym, where you know, man, Pacquiao, all these great legendary fighters trained.

And so the night before I’m like just got sit in the lobby of my hotel pages and pages of notes and stressed out. I’m like what if I forget something, a stat, whatever. And then a friend of mine who’s an ultra runner who lived in Phoenix, he moved to Austin, but he had been on Joe Rogan a couple of times. And I, you know, when Joe Rogan was in LA and I said, you know, what’s the leg of this, you know, do you have a bunch of notes? Do you have like a hundred pages of notes? He’s like, no.

He’s got a pad of paper and he writes a couple of things down. He goes, maybe the authors, he reads the books or whatever. He’s like, but yeah, he just lets the conversation go where it goes. And if he gets to all the talking points, great. If not, that’s okay too. And when he said that to me, it just kind of alleviated things for me. Now I have a pad of paper next to me and I’ll write stuff down while I’m talking because I just forget if I don’t write it down. But, you know, and I’ll have some things written down like I want to cover, but.

I also, I never looked at myself as like an interviewer. Like, you know, I don’t, I didn’t go to school for this. I’m just the kind of person who’s, I’m a very social person, even my personal life. And, you know, I just said it, I’d like to talk, like I’m talking to you, like we’re having coffee right now.

Ahmad (21:15.422)
Man, 100%. So I don’t even have a paper pad. I still don’t have that. I’ve got a rough idea.

MIchael Farris (21:21.191)
Oh, you don’t have an apron on? I just forget. You got fancy degrees, man. You got, I mean, you got all the accessories. Hi.

Ahmad (21:34.304)
I think I do have a good memory. So I’ve got a good memory and I don’t stress out. So I never did the whole, oh, I need to stress out and I need to get all the questions and I need to, so I used to be a perfectionist, but I realized a long time ago that the enemy of good is better. And if you’re constantly beating yourself up, oh my God, I need to get it better, I need to get better.

You know what? It’s just not going to work. You just need to chill out sometimes, just chill out and have good vibes. And if I’m chilled out and I’ve got good vibes and hopefully it’ll rub off, the energy will rub off on my guests and they’ll be chilled out and I’ll be fine. So, yeah, I’ve never been guilty of that. Maybe I’m a bit too chilled out, I think sometimes. What else have you learned? What I mean, what are your challenges when it comes to doing podcasting? What’s the hardest thing?

I can tell you my one in a second, but you tell me first.

MIchael Farris (22:33.723)
I think the hardest one, you know, you have people, this actually hasn’t happened in a while, but when I’ve had, when you have one conversation, you have it and you’re like, man, this is not going anywhere. Like this is just not, this is just, this is just, and like, I always put them out. Like I, you know, I always publish them because whatever, you know, but you just like, man, this is, this is awful. Like

Ahmad (23:00.906)
Why is it awful?

MIchael Farris (23:04.223)
I just, there’s like just no rhythm in between us, like, you know, not opening up, like holding back. You know, you try to, you know, get some momentum going back and forth with the person. And I mean, this, I’m trying, it hasn’t happened to me in a long time. You know, where you’re even asking questions and like, with one person in particular, you know, was getting kind of defensive. And I’m like, I’m not trying to like find out anything top secret. I’m just.

trying to understand so we could have a good conversation. And yeah, so, yeah. But you know what’s funny is like, you think they’re not great and somebody’s like, oh, that was really good. I’m like, really? Okay. I don’t know. What do I know? The only one listening to me is you right now. So I don’t know what.

Ahmad (23:48.398)
That’s really funny. So, so I’ve got, I.

So I’m different than you. I’ve done a few podcasts and I never published them. Am I bad? And the reason why is I didn’t think they were good enough. And I think I value my audience listeners’ time. So when you think the average podcast is an hour, maybe an hour and a half,

MIchael Farris (24:05.707)
Why?

Ahmad (24:20.15)
That’s a big chunk of time in someone’s life. We’re all busy people. No one is not busy. Like I, you know, I would really struggle to find anyone who is not busy. You’re either rushing around, working, commuting, you know, doing stuff with your family and looking after kids, cooking meals, cleaning, rushing around. You know, it’s just constant. So if I’m going to expect someone to listen to my podcast, you know, an hour, hour and a half, I really hope it’s worth their time.

I mean, I’m honored and privileged that I’m in their ears. You know, their little headphone is buzzing away and they can hear me. That’s a privilege and I don’t take that for granted. And I think if I’m gonna create content, then it has to be goddamn good and worth that person’s time. Whether they’re on a run in the woods, whether they’re on a painful drive, stuck in traffic, whether they’re in a train.

squeezed and crushed next to lots of people smelling other people’s bio. You know what it’s like, we’re on the train and some guy stinks. You know, whatever it is, wherever position they’re in, they might just be chilling in a car with their other half listening to this. They might be putting their feet up with a bowl of food or something in front of them and say, yeah, let’s turn on the podcast and listen to Doc Malik. Whatever, whatever their situation, you know, I want them to be enjoying it and listening to it. And my…

thoughts are, I’m grateful to you. But if the conversation, and I’ve had those ones where it’s creating, it is flat, it is dead, it is not good, and I’m like, oh man.

MIchael Farris (25:55.226)
You’re reaching for a question because you can’t get any kind of traction.

Ahmad (25:59.278)
Yeah, you just think, why am I going to put my listener through this? This is painful. I’m struggling with this. So what I’ve done in the past and on a few occasions, which I’ve said, by the way, that one didn’t work, just it didn’t work. It wasn’t good enough. Let’s come back, come back and let’s do it again. And if you have a few have.

And it was actually much better. And a few I just didn’t bother inviting back. Maybe I’m just, I’m apologizing to anybody who is in that camp. There weren’t very many, we’re talking about like five, you know, on one hand. Where I just thought the person was just me, me. I like, hmm, I don’t really like that either. Anyway, I had one recently where we were 15 minutes into this remote podcast.

And there was no backwards and forwards. There was no, there was nothing. It was really weird. I had to stop it. I said, is everything all right? And they went, well, you didn’t make me feel welcome. And I was like, what? What made everybody try and feel, make them feel welcome. And they’re like, you weren’t very hospitable and you never asked me any questions. And the funny thing, my opening question was, all right, tell me, tell me about what’s been going on. And that was their chance to get going. But they didn’t, I mean, they weren’t very happy. They sent me lots of Bible quotes.

I was like looking at my phone going…

MIchael Farris (27:29.071)
So it never, it never, it never. 15 minutes. And then you, so you should put, I would love to hear that actually. I would love to hear that.

Ahmad (27:37.85)
You’re weird. Why would you want to hear that?

MIchael Farris (27:41.731)
I hear it here. Here’s the thing, man, because I like listening to you is great. I cannot wait. I’m sidetracking here for a second with you. I can’t wait for you and Dave column. Like that is going to be a fantastic conversation. Like I would encourage anybody. I mean, I just had him back on. I had mine all the time. I don’t like to, I don’t like to bother him. You know, too much, but if that guy is so interesting and to hear you two talk.

Not to hype, not to put pressure or anything, but that’s going to be a great conversation. Block off two hours for that one. That’s going to be a good conversation. But you know, here’s the thing though with that stuff with the ones that you think that might be bad. You never know, man. I don’t know. I just, like, once I record them, you know, to me, in my eyes, they don’t belong to me anymore. I just put it out there and I don’t know. I think it’s…

Ahmad (28:18.254)
Okay, note.

MIchael Farris (28:38.719)
The good with the bad, man, but the ones that I think are good, sometimes people don’t think are good.

Ahmad (28:44.878)
I’m going to release a poll with this podcast on Spotify and say, should I release the BIND podcast? You know, the other thing as well is like, for example, there was someone really funny on Instagram, like really funny on Instagram and really witty and I loved it. And I still think they are. But when we did the podcast, they were just a little bit very, they were quite serious and it was like a different persona. And I was like, man.

I feel like I’ve just booked a date on an app and the person in real life isn’t who I clicked the picture on. Like, what’s going on here, man? Come on, where’s the humor and the jokes and the laughter? And yeah, it was a bit, I don’t know. I mean, this is what I mean by the learning curve for me. I’ve just realized sometimes who you think someone is, their persona on social media isn’t necessarily who they are in real life. And…

Some people actually get quite shy in front of the camera as well. They get quite intimidated. I didn’t really realize that. They find it quite nervous. The other problem that I’ve had is when I reach out to some people who I think are genuinely quite interesting, they go, oh my God, there’s no way I’d come in your podcast. I’m like, why? I’m expecting the worst. And they’re like, you’ve had amazing guests. I’m nobody, I’m nothing. Oh my God, no, I’ve got nothing to say. I’m just…

No, no, like I’m not I’m not important enough. I’m like, what? Don’t be daft like you are. And they’re like, no, I’m just a nobody. And I’m like, I like nobody’s I’m a nobody, but they don’t want to come on. And it’s like, what the heck? Quite I don’t know what to do.

MIchael Farris (30:30.091)
I had somebody like that from a comedy standpoint. And I actually forgot about it, so you just mentioned it. And this person blew up shortly after we talked. Like they were on trajectory to blow up, and then this person blew up. And that was another one of those conversations where I was like, yeah, this just isn’t, you know. I’ve had other comedians, I was a comedian, I’ve had other comedians on in the past that it was a pretty good back and forth, but.

I don’t know, comedians, they’re kind of hit and miss. They can get on stage and they can perform their act, but when you get them on, you’re talking to them interactive, it sometimes just doesn’t translate the way you think it might.

Ahmad (31:14.718)
Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re talking about a comedian because I just, I had an interaction with a comedian, someone who I thought was really funny during COVID, was canceled, I wanted to get them on. Someone gave me their number and I rang them. And when I got through to them, they were actually really quite abrupt. Oh, right, okay, I’m busy, just message me. I was like, oh, okay. And then I messaged so many times, dude, like.

million gazillion messages. And like after weeks, then it’d be like one response. Sure. Oh, come on. Send me a date. And then I would send dates and then I’d phone them. They’d decline my number. Like they would literally say declined, you know, and, you know, I’ve left so many voice messages and voice notes. And it’d be like, sorry, busy. Send me a few dates. And it was just like this over literally, you know, this is September, October, November, now December. And I’ve never had this problem with any other guests. Like, you know, literally.

Normally it’s like the next day or on the same day, someone will email me back saying, yeah, I’d love to come on your shows. Thank you so much. You know, what kind of dates are you thinking of? And so after four months, almost September, October, November, December, three months, I said, look, you know, what’s going on? You know, I originally asked you for a date in December. Now, finally you’re saying yes, but I’m now looking at February. Can you do any of these dates? Nothing. And then I said,

Like, I can’t do this. Like, if you don’t want to come on my show, just say so. Um, we’re all busy. I get that, but communication is really important. Like, come on, like, this is like a bit weird now. And straight away at this time, straight away this time, he messaged back. Yeah, I think you’re right. Let’s drop it. I was like, what? It’s a bit weird. It’s like, so that’s my one weird kind of like scheduling situation.

But most, the vast majority of my guests have been amazing and just said, here, here’s my number, give me a shot, let’s book it. And that’s been quite nice. So I don’t know what it’s like for you when it comes to scheduling.

MIchael Farris (33:26.591)
Yeah, you know, it’s, I’m kind of in a, it’s funny now. I’ll say for myself, and then I’m gonna ask you the same question, like, my show’s kind of gone in a different direction now because, you know, I’m finding things to me are more relevant than some other things, you know? And like, I really like, like the Dave Collins of the world, the Tom Luangos, the Jim Kunstler, the people that have.

me they just have a blog but like the people that have like their own blogs or you know they’re talking about things that I’m just very interested in right now you know like I’m really interested in the economic side of things you know I’m very interested in this Israel Hamas I mean I think it’s just this is an incredible story and you know and I haven’t been shy of what my thoughts are on it and you know I haven’t I haven’t been able to I’ve gotten some.

very, very pro-Israel people. I’m trying to get the other side of it. You had Eva Bartlett on, I’ve been trying to connect with her for a while, because I just find that this whole thing, it’s a no-win scenario where this is at. And I’m not gonna call for thousands of people to get killed.

Ahmad (34:41.634)
So what, I’ll send a message to Ava and see if she’ll connect with you. I’ll do that. So listen, tell me, what are your thoughts about Hamas, Gaza, Palestine, Israel?

MIchael Farris (34:57.587)
I think there’s no, I, you know, first and foremost, I’m an American, right? And what’s in the best interest of America to me, you know, for us to be involved in this, another war, we were Russia, Ukraine, which are still somewhat involved in that, even though that’s a loss, that’s lost. Now we’re in Israel, now we’re in, now we’re in this. We’ve got, I’m never going to call for thousands of people to be killed. I’m just not, you know, I’m.

I don’t know if I told you this, maybe I did, but my father was 100% Lebanese. You know, my grandfather was born in Lebanon. My mother’s European, but yeah, I mean, there’s going to be no winners out of this thing and I don’t know how it’s going to go. I’m surprised that it hasn’t spread yet, whether it be to Turkey or to Iran, but a lot of people are going to die.

And, um, you know, I’m just, I’m not going to call for that.

Ahmad (35:59.124)
What’s the reference with your heritage? Why is that of importance? What difference does that make?

MIchael Farris (36:04.211)
Well, well, I’m, you know, again, I’m an American first, but I mean, but I grew up, you know, middle Eastern, I mean, around a lot of Lebanese people. And, uh, you know, so I’ve never been over there. I can’t be like, Oh, I’m, you know, there, but I mean, I, my church, you know, I grew up Orthodox, but, uh, it was a Lebanese Orthodox church. And, um, you know, so, and I have friends here locally that are from Iran and, uh, Palestinian and not.

So I have Jewish friends too, but I, I don’t know what the solution is to all this. I mean, what do you think? I know you’ve talked about it a little bit, or you talked about it a bunch.

Ahmad (36:46.466)
So, okay, I’ll come to that in a second. So, do you speak Arabic?

MIchael Farris (36:52.671)
just the bad words and the body parts on women, the inappropriate body parts on women. That’s what I learned when I was a kid. That’s the truth.

Ahmad (37:02.498)
That is hilarious. So I speak Hindi stroke Urdu like a five-year-old kid would. That’s the amount of vocabulary that I know. I can’t read or write. I was at a wedding yesterday. Do you know Sunil Dand, Dr. Sunil Dand? He’s a British doctor who now lives in America. He got married to this beautiful American girl, Caitlin, and then he had this little reception back home in the UK.

So it was a mixture of Indian heritage, Hindu heritage, and English, British, and American. It was quite nice. Anyway, I was speaking to some people there and I had to practice my Hindi. And I was told I was speaking very well. And I was like, are you kidding me? For like a five-year-old, he was like, no, you’re doing great. That’s the only reason why I’m asking. Anyway, so.

You said you’ve got some things to say about Israel Palestine. You kind of dodged it. You didn’t really say much other than you don’t want to ask for anyone to die. I mean, that’s kind of reasonable, but you got no other views on it. Nothing else.

MIchael Farris (38:05.526)
Well, no, I mean they’re bombing that area, man. Those people, they have nowhere to go. They have nowhere to go. Israel, sorry, Israel is bombing Gaza and those people, they have nowhere to go.

Ahmad (38:11.67)
Who? Who’s bombing who? Who are you talking about? Who’s bombing who?

Ahmad (38:24.738)
But they’re dirty terrorists. They’re Hamas terrorists. We should bomb the hell out of Hamas. And they voted for Hamas, so by default we should kill them all. That’s what the right-wing are now saying.

MIchael Farris (38:26.792)
You know, anyway.

MIchael Farris (38:32.446)
I-I-

MIchael Farris (38:36.115)
Yeah, that’s when people say that I’m like, first of like, like it’s a, like, it’s a fair election. Like they have a fair election over there. And then, and then the other thing is too, is, you know, I’ve had friends say to me, well, they should have, you know, they should leave. They were told to leave. I said, where are they supposed to go? Where are these people supposed to go?

Ahmad (38:53.034)
Well, well dude, haven’t you seen the map? Israel’s tiny and there’s all these green Arab countries, Muslim, they can bugger off over there. That’s what they say. What do you think of that?

MIchael Farris (39:10.231)
I mean, they got nowhere to go. I mean, I’m coming back to that, like.

These people, I mean, they’re poor. I mean, what are they supposed to do?

Ahmad (39:22.798)
Alright, listen, let me answer it for you. So.

MIchael Farris (39:27.151)
Did I answer it right? I don’t want you to think I dodged it. I don’t want to walk away thinking I dodged the question. We talked about this when you came back on my episode.

Ahmad (39:31.79)
I think you did. I don’t, I, yeah, I think, I think I would have answered it slightly differently. I think I would answer it differently. So when, when I ask you, like, you know, these guys, there’s all these Muslim Arab countries that can bugger off there. And the problem with that attitude is, it’s actually fundamentally racist because you’re assuming that all these Arab countries, these Muslim countries are the same people and they’re not, they are not.

MIchael Farris (39:37.355)
We talked about this.

Ahmad (40:01.442)
Just because they speak the same language and predominantly follow Islam, doesn’t mean they’re the same people. Because before Islam was there, before whenever 600 AD, before that, there were actually pagans, Christians, and Jewish people. And they were like in Lebanon, they were the Phoenicians. You’ve got the people in Israel and Judah and the Judeans and whatever.

You’ve got the Egyptians, you’ve got the Canites, you’ve got the people in Iraq and Iran, you’ve got the people in Assyria, whatever, you’ve got people in the Arab Peninsula. These are all fundamentally different people with their own dialects, their own traditions, their own cultures, their own foods. And even now when the blanket of Islam came down,

They’ve actually got their own different variations of Islam and their own different beliefs. It’s not homogenous, just like Christianity isn’t homogenous. You’ve got so many different churches. It’s the same with the Muslims over there. They don’t follow the same mosque in every single country. And even their Arabic is slightly different now and it’s tailored to each country. And ethnically, genetically, they’re different peoples. So telling the people from Palestine…

I will just bugger off and leave your land and go some other country. Is, it’s actually really not fair. It’s like saying to the New Zealanders, ah, do you know what? Leave the island and you know, why don’t you go off to South Africa or Canada? I mean, they’re all English speaking Christians there. Just bugger off back to those countries. You’ve got plenty of places to go to.

Well, no, maybe they think of New Zealand as their home and they don’t want to go to these other countries. That’s not their country. So they can’t go anywhere because that’s their country. And they’re already most of the people in Gaza are like, you know, one million out of 2.3 million or something like that are refugees. So you’re asking refugees to become refugees again. I mean, these refugees are now, you know, you’ve got grandchildren of the original refugees who are now born in refugee camps.

Ahmad (42:12.118)
and I’ve never gone back home. You’re asking these people to displace again? Like you honestly think they’re ever gonna then get back home? Of course not. So that was my argument to that. And about the bombing of Hamas, listen, I’m no fan of Hamas. I’m no fan of any fundamentalist Islamist group. I’m not even a Muslim, right? I just don’t believe in any religious theocracy, whether it’s Christian, Muslim or Jewish, right? I just don’t believe in that stuff.

just you should separate state from religion. And I don’t think those Hamas people are good people. And I think they must have known what was gonna happen when they went out and did their thing. They knew there was gonna be this massive disproportionate use of force that was gonna punish mainly the civilians and the young and the women. And that was wrong. Like what were they hoping to achieve by doing this? It’s ridiculous. But the argument that the Palestinians voted for Hamas and therefore we must bomb them is the most ridiculous.

ridiculous, unethical, stupid thing you can ever imagine. I mean, nowhere where there was election was Hamas ever in the majority, in any of the parts of Gaza where they voted, none. I mean, elections weren’t done, were done, for example, I think back in 2006, 2007. I mean, most of the kids now were born after those elections. They never voted for Hamas. There’s been no free elections since then.

You know, and Hamas has been supported and sponsored by Israel and the West. They wanted it to be a, you know, a division between Fatah, the secular kind of movement, and have an Islamist group in that were basically the bogeymen, the nut jobs that they could say, look, you know, we can’t have a peace deal because, look, there’s no one for us to negotiate with. Who do we negotiate with? Fatah? PLO? Hamas? Ah, see, they need to sort out their shit.

and until they do, we’re gonna carry on doing what we do. We’re gonna keep building settlements. We’re gonna keep doing the status quo. So it was wonderful for them. So that whole argument of, you know, let’s punish collectively a whole group of people because they voted for Hamas is ridiculous. I mean, it’s like saying, it’s like saying what Osama bin Laden used to say, you know, you Americans voted for Bush.

Ahmad (44:33.398)
So you’re guilty and we’re gonna go out and kill all the Americans. Yeah, I mean, people vote Bush, but Bush didn’t have the majority. Even if he did, his actions don’t mean that the population should get punished for it. No one voted for a war. No one voted to bomb anyone else. Our politicians do things all the time without our permission. And you just need to look at COVID as an example.

I never voted for lockdown mandates, experimental mass injections. What now, I should be punished because I voted in the last election, or forget the fact I even voted, because they’re my leaders and my representatives, I should be punished because they’re my political leaders. I mean, come on, this whole argument is just BS. The reality is the whole thing stinks. That’s my take. But let’s talk about solutions.

You must have an idea of how to start out this mess. I think people always talk about problems, but no one actually talks about solutions. Do you have any ideas how to get out of this mess?

MIchael Farris (45:39.575)
Well, one thing I just want to add something before I answer that, you know, which I’ll be curious. I don’t think you and I talked about it when you came on my show last is, you know, Israel, when you talk about vaccination, they were requiring all of their people to get vaccinated. Didn’t they have like one of the highest percentages of vaccination rates?

Ahmad (45:58.253)
Yes.

MIchael Farris (46:01.823)
Don’t you find that interesting that the government was requiring their people to get these poisonous shots and now all of a sudden it’s protecting the people? I said that to somebody and they’re like, I don’t think that’s relevant. I’m like, I find that very relevant.

Ahmad (46:18.57)
Yeah, I think it’s 100% relevant. I think these politicians, wherever they are, Hamas, Israel, wherever, the States, they don’t actually frankly give a damn about us. They don’t give a damn about us. We’re pawns in their games and their scheming. It’s as simple as that. We are pawns and they don’t give a damn. Anyone who literally thinks that these politicians and governments care about us, I’m sorry, but you’re a schmuck.

Here, schmuck. All right, let’s go back. Solution, what’s the solution, buddy?

MIchael Farris (46:55.119)
That’s where I’m in. I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t know how these, how can they coexist? The two solutions state, I don’t think it’s possible. So where do you go from here? How does this thing, how does it get resolved? I mean, I have no idea. I don’t know what the solution is to this. And that’s why I’d love to get somebody on the other side of it because

Ahmad (47:20.776)
I think so.

Ahmad (47:26.25)
Well, I think the solution is a one state. I think it’s a one state where they learn to live together and share the land. Where it’s like a United Republic of Israel and Palestine, where it’s not, um, as a state for Muslims or Jews or Arabs or Israelis, it’s a state for all of the people there and the idea of telling.

all the Israelis to go back to their European countries or wherever their grandparents came from is ridiculous. The idea of telling Palestinians to go and move to Egypt and Syria and whatever, even though that’s their land is ridiculous. I think everyone now should just live in that land and it should not be a theocracy. It shouldn’t be an apartheid. Everyone should have equality and it should be decentralized.

Respect should be given to individuals and their rights and their property rights and There should be no bullying no violence on any side There should be no Islamist state there should be no Sharia law, but there should also not be this religious Jewish state either it should be a just a state for everyone and the official religions will be Judaism Christianity Islam and Druze

But actually, if you’re an atheist or agnostic, you should have exactly the same rights as everyone else. And I think, you know, it’s possible. It was like that for centuries. It’s like that in many countries still. And this idea that people just hate each other is absolutely nonsense. So I’ll give you an example. So the conversation I was having with this 91 year old who said my Hindi was very good. He was born in a place called Peshawar.

Peshawar is in modern day Pakistan. But him and his family were born in Peshawar and were Hindus. And they had to move to India during the partition. And he tells me his family, his parents, they lived side by side with the Muslims and the Christians in India and the Sikhs. And communities were mixed.

Ahmad (49:48.27)
They all went to each other’s weddings. They all looked after each other’s kids. They had the same food. They wore the same clothes. They spoke the same language. But guess what? Some people went to a temple. Some people went to a church. Some people went to the mosque. Fundamentally, you know what? They all just got on well. And then the British Empire came along, and then the British came along, and they partitioned and divided this country. And so you then had people fighting each other. Now, if you go to Pakistan now,

and say, what do you think of Indians? They go, oh, we hate the Indians. If you go to India and say, what do you think of the Pakistan? They go, we hate Pakistan. Now, I was born in Scotland and I grew up, you know, in Scotland for 26 years and then I moved down south to England and I live here now. And I have met so many British Indians and Indians who’ve come over from India. Sikhs, Hindus, J, you know, you name it, Jane, you name it.

All sorts. And I’ve never seen anyone not get on well. And I found that the Muslims and the Hindus and the Pakistanis and the Indians and the Sikhs, they all get on really well. And at the weddings, they’re all there. They’re all eating the same food, speaking the same language, cracking the jokes, Punjabi jokes or whatever jokes. They’re all just having a blast. But when they go back to their own respective countries on holiday or whatever, it’s like, oh no, that’s the enemy, it’s the enemy.

What I’m trying to say is the people all can get on fine. It’s the governments, it’s the leaders, it’s the people at the top that cause all the problem. People just want to get on just fine. Like no one, I don’t know anyone who has, is like they’ve got this bitter enemy kind of like philosophy in their head. Oh, I hate those people, I want to kill them. That’s BS. I mean, you might have some tiny minority of weird fanatics, but like.

The vast majority of people don’t give a damn about any of that. They just get on fine. They just want to get on with nice, like-minded people. It’s governments and their leaders that cause problems. That’s what I think. What do you think?

MIchael Farris (51:57.579)
So knowing that, right? I agree with you, but is that realistic? Because these governments are never gonna allow that, especially at this point. You come to America right now, the United States. This country is so divided, and most people aren’t involved in all this, these types of conversations like you and I. I mean, you’re much more on the, you are in the field, man. I’m in the stands. I’m not in the fire the way you.

know, what you’ve been subjected to with being attacked, your income, your ability to make a living. So I’m not, you know, I haven’t experienced any of that. But, you know, people, regular people just want to, they want to go to work. They want to have, you know, raise their kids, meet somebody or whatever, have some extra money to go do stuff and, and not be bothered by this. But now these governments and if you know COVID showed us now.

They are never going to leave us alone, especially in the United States where I live. They’re not interested in allowing people going back to normal, quote unquote normal, which I hate that word now, by the way. So so like in theory, yeah, that’s the way it should be in the Middle East. Is it possible? I don’t see how that’s possible because these governments are just not going to allow it. So we take a step back and say, all right, what’s

Ahmad (53:18.37)
Dude, dude, don’t be so negative.

Sorry, I’m saying, don’t be negative. Everything’s possible.

MIchael Farris (53:24.202)
I don’t see it.

MIchael Farris (53:29.315)
How do you get rid of these government officials? Like how do you, how do you, at this point, these people at the top, to me, the system, like in the United States, like these institutions are just so far gone. I don’t think you can go your way out of it anymore.

Ahmad (53:45.418)
Right, right, okay, I’ll answer that. So first of all, it’s.

MIchael Farris (53:48.351)
I got called a positive doomer. Dave Collum called me a positive doomer. I can get those made up into coffee mugs. Positive doomer, positive doomer. That should be good merch.

Ahmad (53:54.574)
There’s too much doom and gloom here. You should. Yeah. Well, listen, we need to change that. We need to change that doom and gloom thing. So first of all, yeah, it’s interesting you said you’re trying to get through to Ava Bartlett. You know, are you sure you want to do that? Because it was her conversation that I did a clip of on my Instagram that got me canceled from my latest hospital. Now, the question is, is the hospital just…

simply using that as a pretext to get rid of me. Because frankly, you know, they’ve all got it in for me. They don’t like the fact as a consultant surgeon, I’m calling out the BS, I’m exposing all the lies, deceit, fraud and scam that’s been going on. And they wanna punish me. And there’s a playbook, you know, you investigate someone, you discipline them, then you suspend them, then you sack them, then you financially ruin them.

If that’s not enough, then you discredit them, you smear them, you drag their name through the mod, and you ridicule them so that no one will take you seriously. And I expect that’s gonna be coming for me around the corner, by the way. Remember I said that. And then if that doesn’t work, then they try and basically kill you. So, you know, I got suspended from a hospital because I posted a clip of Ava Bartlett.

Now bear in mind, I’ve had someone on pro-Zionist defending Israel, Professor Fenton, and I’ve had people on, you know, talking about the plight of the Palestinians and, you know, some who are not Zionists. I’ve been trying to be quite balanced and just giving her a platform and giving her a voice on my social media account was enough for the hospital to suspend me and investigate me.

I mean, this is a crazy loony world that we’re in now. And I’ve talked about this on my sub stack, but the punishment is the process because as long as I’m suspended, I’m not earning. I can tell you right now, I’m not earning anything. Now I’m literally like, you know, a very nice salary that I was getting, working three days a week as a orthopedic consultant.

Ahmad (56:16.898)
Gone, right? Overnight. And now I’m totally reliant on a few hundred sub-stacked subscribers, which is not meeting even a fraction of my costs and bills and mortgage and whatnot. This is the price you pay now in the world that we’re living in. Just for having conversations. Not even, you know, anything controversial, nothing really heated, you know, no. Nothing, I mean, there’s nothing in there.

And this is the price that we’re paying. Now, moving back about being doom and gloomy, what I would say to you is, Israel and Palestine actually offer an incredible opportunity. Because the forces that they’re facing are the same dark forces that the rest of us in humanity are facing. These people who want to control us, subjugate us, brainwash us, propagandize us, have us fighting each other constantly,

profiting from our misery, enslaving us. And trust me, the people in Israel are just as much enslaved. They’re starting smart cities there, 15-minute cities. They’re doing the whole shebam there. The people in Israel are not free. They’ve got gagging orders and laws that if you say anything that can damage the morale of the country, we can arrest you. I mean, does that sound like a free and open democratic society? I mean, anything could be

judged to be harmful for the morale of the nation. Hey, Mike, you’re a bit of a doom and gloom kind of guy. We don’t like your podcast. You’re damaging the morale of our nation. We’re gonna arrest you. I mean, like, what kind of BS is that? So the people in Israel are now living in fear. They’re told constantly that the bad Arabs and Muslims wanna kill them and decapitate them and they hate them. They need to sign up.

to the army and live in this constant state of fear. They’re being told to other, this group of people, that they are to dehumanize them. And when you dehumanize another group of people, guess what, you get dehumanized yourself. So I feel sorry for the Israelis. Now I know I’m gonna get a lot of hate for that, but I think they’re victims. I genuinely think they’re victims. And then if you, but it’s slightly different. You know, the bombs aren’t falling on them quite like they are in Gaza.

Ahmad (58:41.826)
but they’re still victims, Mike. And the people in Gaza, I mean, they’re obviously victims. The children dying, you know, women dying, innocent people dying, and their little open air prison camp is now being reduced to rubble. I mean, they’re obviously, but, I mean, is this looking good for Israel? I mean, is this looking good for them? Is this gonna help fight antisemitism, which is a real problem? I don’t think so. It’s gonna make things worse for them.

So everyone is losing as far as I’m concerned. I’m concerned. No one, this is not a win-win situation. And then the question is why is this being allowed to happen? Why are we being shown all these images? Why is the media doing this to us? We’re all being manipulated one more time, again and again. It’s a simple playbook, guys. Hey, everyone, look there. And the military industrial complex profits, the politicians profits, the little puppeteers profit, but the normal human beings suffer.

and there’s a lot of suffering going on. Now the moment people realize this and overthrow the tyrants that are there, Hamas, Israel government, as they are in our countries, the moment we can overturn these centralized, authoritarian, brainwashing, propagandizing regimes and replace them with, you know.

a society where it’s all about local community and it’s about decentralization and honesty and accountability and love and respect and a currency that’s based on something with value, which is finite. We’re not relying on fiat money anymore, where love and spirituality is most important, where you uphold truth. There is only one truth, not my truth, not your truth,

reality, the world that we live in, and we overturn this clown world, the moment you can get that kind of situation in Israel and Palestine and have genuine peace, then you know what? The same will spread across the whole of humanity. I mean, it really is important. If we can get peace in Israel and Palestine, get all of those people to put down their arms and live together in peace and love and harmony and respect,

Ahmad (01:01:03.214)
Do you know what? The whole of humanity will heal. But the opposite is also true. As long as that wound on the face of the planet is just the scab is kept being scratched and the blood is bleeding and pouring out and the wound can never heal, humanity can never heal. That’s the way I look at it, my friend.

MIchael Farris (01:01:28.391)
Yeah, I think that, again, I’m talking in relation to the United States here for a second. For America, I mean, we have to, in order to bring people together, you have to have that common, the commonality, and that would be suffering, right? Like during the Great Depression, people, nobody had any money, nobody cared about money because nobody had any money, and there was community feel. And people would ask me, you know,

Ahmad (01:01:52.462)
Hmm.

MIchael Farris (01:01:54.695)
what should I do, what should I do, what should I do? And I said, that’s, to kind of add to what you just said, as an individual, you know, within our own little communities, that’s what we can strive for. Because on the federal level, on the top level, there’s only so much we can do as individuals. It can’t impact what these governments are gonna do. But the stronger your little community is, then you’re self-reliant and you rely less on these institutions. And…

Yeah, so I don’t, you know, I, somebody posted this past week, uh, hopefully have mom, he, uh, to talk about this, but he was saying how he wakes up, wakes up every morning between three and four and, uh, and it actually is what I do and has this feeling of dread. And, you know, I’ve talked to other people and share that with them and ask them like, you know, do you feel that way? Why do you feel that way? And so I, I wake up.

literally between three and four every morning. Naturally, I don’t have an alarm or anything. And I have that feeling of dread, but not like I don’t wanna, I wanna get out of bed. I mean, I’m not, I haven’t given up, but I also feel like where we’re at, where the system is, the system financially is fake. And I just don’t think that like…

Ahmad (01:03:17.102)
Dude, you know what?

Ahmad (01:03:21.294)
Don’t live in dread. That’s not nice.

MIchael Farris (01:03:29.491)
I mean, again, it’s not like I’m laying in bed and I don’t want to get up in the morning and I don’t want to, you know, like I have, it’s not like I have no purpose or anything like that. But I also, I feel like, you know, something bad is coming. Now, I’m still cheery, you know, I mean, I’m smiling right now, positive doomer, but you can’t help how you feel though. You can’t help how you feel. You know, it’s one thing to say don’t live in dread, but this is how I feel right now, you know.

Ahmad (01:03:46.946)
Good.

Ahmad (01:03:55.814)
Yeah, so look, I have ups and downs and 100%, but I always recalibrate myself and I always say be a happy warrior. And just look at the timeline of humanity. There’s been so many ups and downs. And I’m just grateful that at this point in time, I am on the right side of history that

I have not given up on my principles and morals. I haven’t sold out. I’m grateful that I’m brave and courageous. I’m grateful for my health. I’m grateful that I’m able to set an example, a good example for my children and that I can show them the way. And I will bathe in the love and the light. I’m also comforted by all the lovely supporting messages I get on a daily basis from my listeners.

and I know I’m not alone and that there’s millions like us. And do you know what? Yeah, things are not great and we’re living in a clown world and it’s probably gonna get worse. But as sure as day follows night, my friend, things will get better, for sure. And the thing is people like you and I hopefully will be remembered in history for the right reasons.

whereas many others will fade into nothingness or be remembered for all the wrong reasons. So we’re living in quite monumental times. You know what? It’s an interesting time to be alive, buddy. That’s the way I look at it. And you know what? Some people think I’m crazy. I was at this wedding yesterday afternoon and then a birthday party last night. I met three doctors.

And they’re all like, oh, you took your dog, Malik, you took Malik. I’m like, yeah. Oh my God, you’re a legend, you’re a hero. Oh my God, I love what you’re doing. I love your stuff. I’m totally with you. Everything, climate change, transgender, the vaccine, everything. I’m like, oh, that’s great. Thanks, thanks. What are you doing about it? Oh, we’re not in a position. We’re not in a position to do anything. It’s really difficult. It’s really hard. You know, just, you know, I’ve got to look after the kids and the family. And I’m like,

Ahmad (01:06:16.162)
How is my position any different? I’ve got a mortgage, I’ve got kids, I’ve lost everything now. How is it any different from you? They all without a fault looked down at their feet. They’re all quite tall actually. I’m like this little midget next to them all. They’re all, three of them were like six foot something. And they were just looking down at their feet. Like they didn’t know what to say. And I was like.

You know, you’ve got kids. One day, your kids will ask you, Dad, what did you do for us? And when it does go pear shape, are you gonna just say, I didn’t do anything because I was worried about the car installments on my Tesla or my fancy holiday abroad? Or are you gonna say, we made sacrifices so that you had a better future?

And again, they had nothing to say. And they just quietly nodded. So yeah, it might be tough for me, and it’s pretty shitty. We’ve told the kids, mama and daddy are not getting Christmas presents, and you’ve only got one present each. We’ve still got food on the table, and I’m hopeful my subscribers will go up every day, and hopefully, maybe in six months time, we’re breaking even. We won’t be in debt, and it’ll be all right.

It’s unpredictable. It’s a little bit scary. But you know what? I just feel like I’m in a better place than these other people. I looked at those other three guys. Oh, there were three guys. They don’t look happy. They’ve got the money. They’ve got the job security, but they’re living a lie. And they know that they’re ultimately cowardly and fearful.

Whereas I’m really happy. I’m loving what I’m doing. I love the fact that I’m spreading like the truth and honesty and reaching out and creating this beautiful community and all these people who felt lost and isolated and depressed and crazy because the world’s gone crazy but they haven’t, so maybe they’re crazy. They’re suddenly realizing, hey, actually,

Ahmad (01:08:47.49)
We’re not crazy. We’re actually fricking normal. Doc Malik has created this community of like-minded individuals spanning the globe. And that’s pretty fricking cool. And you’re doing the same. So next time we chat, I hope you’ll say, Ahmed, dude, I am a happy warrior now. No more doom and gloomy business. Ha ha ha.

MIchael Farris (01:09:13.981)
I come across, I mean, I just, you know, I don’t have the optimism in terms of the short term of like where this is all going. And it could it could last beyond my lifetime. I don’t know. But, but, you know, I will say like, personally, for me, and you know, we touched we talked about this in the beginning, like, where I’m at right now, in terms of like physical, because that’s the other thing, too. You know,

I’ve learned over the last few years since COVID and going forward, I mean, people have to really rely on their own self wellness and health. You can’t rely on, I mean, I don’t trust these health systems and, um, you, you have to be, you know, you have to put yourself in a position where you rely less on this. And that’s what I’ve tried to do or not tried. That’s what I’ve done over the last six months. And, um, it’s funny, man. I, um, uh, you know, how many people like,

fit shamed me since I’ve done this. People have fit shamed me. Yeah, I heard that term and I thought like, oh, that’s so true. Nobody ever says in you when you’re getting fat, right? Somebody, I’ve had people come up to me and ask me, and I say people like in the gym that don’t know me, that have seen me over the last six, seven months, people in the gym that have come up to me and just said amazing things to me. But.

Ahmad (01:10:10.446)
Bit shamed.

MIchael Farris (01:10:35.891)
you know, people like that, they asked me if I’m sick, you know, I’m like, no, I was sick before when I was 200 pounds. I asked that I was sick. And, you know, or don’t lose too much weight or I mean, I have one person every time I see her don’t lose too much weight doing smooth and I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve kind of gotten snappy like, stop saying that to me. I’m tired of hearing that like, you know, I mean, I’m 151 pounds, but I’m five five, like I can easily be 145.

I could probably get to be 140 and still be fine. You know, and the whole notion of, you know, I ran 90 miles last week and people, oh, your knees, your knees. And I just want to be like, I’m going to put this on my next post. Bitch, you know, when I was 30, you said my knees would be shot at 45. Well, here I am, I’m 45. My knees are still intact. They’re still here. Do I ache a little bit more?

I tore my quad 10 years ago in like a freak accident in my kitchen. I don’t know if I told you that, but so I have achiness from that.

surgery because they had to reattach to the quad muscles. But other than I mean, I feel really good, man. Like, so you know, it’s just this whole notion of people like, just trying to, you know, bring you down. I mean, I haven’t had a drink since May. And it’s not I don’t know.

Ahmad (01:11:58.145)
others.

Ahmad (01:12:02.094)
Sorry, you’re saying you haven’t drank since May and what?

MIchael Farris (01:12:04.707)
No, I haven’t. I haven’t. I haven’t. I had one beer a week after we you and I spoke. I had that couple of beers that day and then one more a week later and I haven’t had anything since and I’m not saying I’m never going to have one. I’m not righteous about it. I don’t have a coin or you know some variety or anything like that. But I’ll tell you, I mean at 45, if I can’t go out and be social with somebody, if I need a drink to have a conversation, part of my language is pretty fucking pathetic.

It was one thing when you’re 21 or whatever, but even going out to restaurants, you know, I have gone to, I’ve gone out to eat. I was, I was traveling in July, so I had to go out to eat. But since then, I had one salad out and I’ve met people at restaurants and this is straight from you and I’s conversation. I eat before because I don’t want to overpay and the quality to me doesn’t compensate what I’m paying for that. I need a lot of food.

Ahmad (01:13:05.494)
I was starving today because…

MIchael Farris (01:13:06.239)
But I can go out, I’ll pay a premium for a cup of coffee. That’s fine. I’ll pay $3 for a cup of coffee to sit and chat. But I like coffee, so.

Ahmad (01:13:17.602)
I was funny, she said that. So at the wedding, the food was meh. At the birthday party, the food was meh. And I hadn’t really eaten properly. And I was like, you know what? I was saying to my wife, you know, we go out like once every six months. It’s that rare. And on this day, we were going out twice. We had babysitter booked and everything. And I was saying to my wife, I realized why I don’t wanna go out very often. It’s always a little bit disappointing.

And the food’s never as good like from what you can get at home when you cook your own food. It’s never as filling and it’s so expensive. Expensive for just rubbish. Like, you know, at that birthday party, you know, we were ordered some food and at this restaurant, I was just like, oh my God, it’s so disappointing. It hasn’t filled me up and it’s just garbage. And you know, the quality is not as nice.

MIchael Farris (01:13:54.163)
So expensive.

MIchael Farris (01:14:05.867)
So you did eat, did you, let me interrupt you a second, did you actually ate out yesterday?

Ahmad (01:14:11.91)
Yeah, not good. Very disappointing.

MIchael Farris (01:14:16.523)
So what do you do when you’re out like that then and you do have to eat out? Because that’s what I always struggle with.

Ahmad (01:14:23.038)
So I try and have like just meat or whole foods, right? So at the wedding, I didn’t really eat much. It was like chicken tikka cubes and stuff like that. I was just mad full. I was really not like, I was, my eating window was six hours yesterday. So normally my eating window is like three, four hours max. So I had a longer eating window. I had this little bit of food. We didn’t…

stay very long at the wedding. We left early before actually the main meal came. We only had starters. And then we went to the birthday party. We dropped the kids off and went to the birthday party. And then there I ordered some chicken wings and Padron peppers. Yeah, and that was it. That was it. I was hungry. So today I made up for it. And you know, I had lots of lamb kofta, which was amazing. I had some leftover beef mince.

Um, I had a bit of sourdough bread that I’d made. So I toasted that. So I had beef mince on that. I had, um, fried eggs and lamb koftas. So, you know, quite meaty carnivory type thing and it was delish. It’s really good. But yeah, I mean, sometimes people do try and. Sorry, you’re saying?

MIchael Farris (01:15:31.388)
Do you still stay with?

MIchael Farris (01:15:36.743)
No, I said you still stay away from like my biggest, still my biggest thing right now is like I love like sugar like local fudge or Like i’m gonna go visit my mom in a few weeks and I know she’ll make pumpkin bread and I mean I’m gonna eat it. I mean, I just you know, my mother’s making it like how can I could tell her not to but You know, it’s christmas my mom, you know, i’m visiting her and

Ahmad (01:16:01.186)
Dude, I think the key thing in life is just be relaxed. I mean, stress is also a killer. So if you’re stressing about these things, that’s not great. So I’ll give an example. Yes, I ate all that big heavy plate of meat, but my wife baked up some beautiful banana chocolate chip cookie muffins, all right? Chocolate chip muffins. And so, you know, very low in sugar, dark chocolate chips, you know, it was just delicious.

You know, and I cut it, cut the muffin open down the middle, put a slab of butter in there and ate it. I’ve got no regrets. And that’s the thing as well that I love about intermittent fasting, which is, you know, I don’t have any guilt. I had this horrible relationship with food for such a long time, I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t like my body, I didn’t like my weight, I didn’t like the way I looked, I didn’t like the way I felt. I was addicted to sugar, had high insulin levels, had…

diabetes, you know, it’s just craving sugar all the time. And I didn’t like it. Whereas now with intimate fasting, I’ll restrict myself, you know, in terms of how long I eat. I only eat typically in a three, four hour window. In that window, I eat wholesome food that’s mainly cooked by ourselves. And you know, some people might say banana chocolate chip muffins don’t sound very wholesome, but you know what? My wife made them all from scratch.

very little sugar in them. I mean, a lot of people would say, wow, this is very bland and not sweet. Yeah, because once you don’t eat sugar very much, you don’t need much of it to get that sweet sensation. So it was plenty sweet for me. I don’t need it to be any sweeter. And you get used to that, you see. And everything else is just whole food, like mints and eggs, fried eggs. And even the bread, the one slice of bread was homemade with organic flour and whole flour.

my own starter. And that’s just so much healthier for you. And when you finish eating, and I had a big plate of food, the difference is I’m full, but I’m not bloated. I’m full, but I’m not drowsy. I’m full, but I’m not sluggish. I’m full and I’ve still got energy. And that’s different. And I’m not craving. I’m not craving other foods. This will carry me on for the next 24 hours. I don’t have these highs and lows.

Ahmad (01:18:24.482)
that you get when you’re eating mainly processed food and you got insulin resistance and you crash and burn and you have the spike with the sugar rush and your mood fluctuates. I don’t have any of that because I run on ketones. My metabolism is on ketones, which is a much more steady state fuel and equally then your, and it’s optimal brain fuel as well. So these kinds of things have changed my life, I’ll be honest with you, you know?

I mean, can I just talk about, because we’re gonna wrap up soon, I need to tell you something. So one of the big challenges that I have is getting my guest to send me a nice picture from my website and my podcast thumbnail. So I’ve got a certain look, which is front-facing head and shoulders. And I say to my guest, can you send me this picture up to date? Oh my God, this can be the biggest nightmare. And it’s like, I didn’t know. Like a lot of people get quite vain about their pictures are quite…

just send me these really blurred pictures, side profile pictures, like stock photos from like 20 years ago. And I’m like, dude, this doesn’t even look like you for God’s sake. Someone will be like, who the hell is this person? That’s not your podcast. And so sometimes there’s several emails, backwards and forwards, and then they go, this is the best I can give you. And I’m like, oh God, all right, I’ll take that. So actually that is my hardest thing that I find on the podcast, just getting decent pictures. So can you please send me a decent picture?

MIchael Farris (01:19:45.823)
Thank you.

MIchael Farris (01:19:53.121)
Yeah, we could talk about it after if you want. You know, whatever you want.

Ahmad (01:19:59.274)
Yeah, amazing.

MIchael Farris (01:19:59.707)
I mean, I take pictures of me out in the desert running or whatever. You want before or after I got, I got the, you know, it’s a

Ahmad (01:20:04.331)
Just a high.

High resolution picture, high resolution, good quality, sharp, facing, front facing, head and shoulders. That’s all I need. Sweaty post run picture is probably not ideal. Ha ha.

MIchael Farris (01:20:09.312)
Hi, what?

MIchael Farris (01:20:24.439)
Alright. Yeah, I’ll send you some.

Ahmad (01:20:28.822)
All right, thanks. So any other things running a podcast that you would give me advice on?

MIchael Farris (01:20:38.099)
No, I think I mean, for what it’s worth, I mean, you’ve won, you don’t need any help from anybody like me because you’ve you know, you’re established, you know, people know who you are. But I would say, you know, I would limit yourself. I don’t know if you’re doing this, but I would expand it out into other areas, you know, guns, gold, economic.

MIchael Farris (01:21:08.803)
That’s me. That’s what I just, I’m interested in like a lot of different things. So, um, you know, bouncing around, I think is good, you know, cause things change and things become relevant. Things become less relevant and then they become relevant again. And so I’m, you know, I, it’s funny. I said this earlier, you know, I’m like right now I’m just not like the 24 election that stuff just doesn’t, just doesn’t interest me right now.

But all the economic stuff I find just fascinating. Like I’m hoping I’ll have a, you know, real estate, residential real estate, Melody Wright who I’ve had on here a few times. Hopefully she’s coming on this week. I want to get back in the commercial real estate space. There’s a guy in Canadian residential real estate that I’m interested in talking to. And then more on this Israel Hamas, you know, as this, as this, depending on where this goes.

Ahmad (01:22:01.454)
Hmm. Yeah. I think I’m all.

MIchael Farris (01:22:04.915)
And who knows, man, who knows what the next curveball is?

Ahmad (01:22:08.194)
Oh God, do you want to tell me about it? Man, I just, I just don’t know. I don’t know. Anyway, listen, mate, it’s been really nice catching up on you. God bless you. And thanks for having me on your show. And thank you for coming on my show.

MIchael Farris (01:22:27.447)
Thank you for having me. Thank you for everything you’ve done. Thank you for everything you’re continuing to do. And yeah, man, we gotta, first of all, you knew you and I were gonna talk more than an hour. I mean, we could talk for three hours right now. I knew when you said an hour, I’m like, there’s no way. Like, I mean, I think one of our conversations when you’re on my show, I think it was two hours. How can we do that? We can’t, there’s so much to talk about with you and I. But yeah, I look forward to following your work and.

Like I said, man, I can’t wait for that Dave Collum. When’s he coming on?

Ahmad (01:22:59.63)
When is he coming on? I need to check my diary. I’ve got so many guests booked, mate. I just, yeah, I’ll let you know.

MIchael Farris (01:23:08.059)
I can’t wait to hear you guys talk. That’s gonna be a fantastic conversation.

Ahmad (01:23:13.142)
Mate, I will keep you posted. Dave Colum. Anyone who doesn’t know, he’s a professor of biochemistry, I think, in Cornell University, and he’s very outspoken, very intelligent, very sharp, got a very active ex-account, very opinionated, and seems like a fun guy and a smart guy. So yeah, you’ve had him on, and so people can always listen to the conversations you’ve had with him.

MIchael Farris (01:23:44.915)
Yeah, he’s yeah, I just I just had him back on a couple of weeks ago. And yeah, he’s just you just sit back and listen to what he says. And it makes me think of things a lot differently. You know, and that’s the other thing was, you know, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, you know, like I say, everybody I have on everything they say isn’t always right, but it’s not always wrong either. And it’s all about just thinking differently so you can make an informed decision.

Ahmad (01:24:14.034)
Yeah, 100%. Man, I don’t know anything. I’m just questioning everything. The more I learn, the less I know.

MIchael Farris (01:24:20.663)
Well, if you don’t know anything, if you don’t know anything, then I don’t, then I don’t know anything at all. If you don’t know anything, cause you’re, you know, I, I’m not the smartest guy. Um, I, I can, it’s a lot, you know, I use a critical thinking, common sense seems to be gone in our, in our world. And I don’t know where I learned it. I didn’t think I ever learned it until this, all this COVID stuff started. And, uh, cause there are people have a lot more degrees than me, you know, a lot more success in business, entrepreneurship, all of that, that just fell for this stuff.

hook line and sinker, especially the vaccines man. Like I had people say to me that I had, I mean these are people that I looked up to at one point in my life. They were like, oh I got selected. Like they got like they won a contest. It was unbelievable. You know there was an empty restaurant next to me. The line was around the building when they started rolling those out. And I’m like where the fuck, where am I? Where am I?

Ahmad (01:25:10.339)
Oh god.

MIchael Farris (01:25:17.192)
for masking up again.

Ahmad (01:25:19.29)
Oh man, yeah, well, let’s just, yeah, let’s just not talk about that anymore. I’m so over COVID. I actually do not enjoy talking about COVID. The only reason I keep the flame alive is that so people don’t forget and I want to expose the BS that happened. I don’t want the people to get off the hook that orchestrated it. So, you know, I hate the topic, but I keep it alive because I think it’s really important that people don’t forget. People don’t forget and that

It’s constantly there in the back of their minds. And, you know, one day hopefully we’ll see some justice. I mean, whether it will happen or not, I don’t know. But I’m not going to let it lie. I’m not going to forget about it. I’m certainly not forgiving them. But I don’t enjoy the topic, I’ll be honest with you. All right, my friend. Well, listen, have a lovely, lovely Christmas. And we’ll touch base again in the New Year sometime, OK, buddy?

MIchael Farris (01:26:07.588)
Yeah.

MIchael Farris (01:26:15.301)
You too. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year to all your listeners and keep supporting keep supporting Doc Malek, man. He’s doing some great work and you know, I’m just you know, it’s an honor and privilege to not only be on your show, but to know you. Excuse me to know you. So thank you.

Ahmad (01:26:32.13)
I love you, man. Thank you so much. Dude, I…

MIchael Farris (01:26:35.389)
I love you too.