Sunita Sah (on defiance)

Sunita Sah (Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes) is an author, award-winning, tenured professor at Cornell University, and expert in organizational psychology. Sunita joins the Armchair Expert to discuss living up to the Sanskrit meaning of her name, why Milgram’s electric shock experiment pushed her to pursue psychology, and how some of the wildest and offtrack people she knows are doctors. Sunita and Dax talk about how speaking up when you see something happening to someone else is a communal act, how Dax goes straight from tension to defiance, and whether defiance is evolutionarily maladaptive. Sunita explains the five elements that define a true yes, how we can reduce stress by clarifying and acting in alignment to our values, and tells the story of her mother’s defiance that surprised her and taught her hope. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Mouse.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  Hello. Today, we have Dr. Sunita Sah on, and she is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. She has a new book out called Defy the Power of No in a World That Demands Yes.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  I loved this topic.

• 0:23Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  I think it's really important to know how to stick up for yourself and when to stick up for yourself.

• 0:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I see this book as being enormously helpful for a huge amount of the population.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:38Dax Shepard?

  It's very, very, very good. And also, the amount of her own story she includes, and acknowledges how hard it is for her, I think is always helpful.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  What we like on this show is sort of looking at the opposite side of it. And we talk in the episode, and she starts the book with George Floyd and the rookie cops that were there.

• 0:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  And we get into all that, and it's really fascinating and thinking about if you really put yourself in that position, what would you do?

• 1:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. What would you do versus what you think you would do?

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and what you should do.

• 1:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how you, yeah, some tools to make sure you do what you think you would do.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15Dax Shepard?

  Please enjoy Dr. Sunita Sah. We get support from Quince.

• 1:21Speaker 01

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• 1:40Dax Shepard?

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• 1:56Speaker 01

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• 2:07Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm gonna tell you this, it just got chilly for the first First time this year in California and I'm so excited and I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 2:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.

• 2:19Speaker 01

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• 2:42Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  What?

• 3:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I need to talk about something that doesn't get enough respect. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This is not a casual burger. This is a crafted burger. We're talking 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it. No artificial flavors, no fillers, no preservatives, just beef doing what beef is supposed to do. And here's a detail I love. There's a cowbell sound in the kitchen. When somebody orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a cowbell goes off and the grill master throws a fresh patty down. That's like having your own entrance music at McDonald's. I want a cowbell for everything in life. The onions are hand-topped by someone who just knows the right amount. Two slices of cheese laid out in a star pattern, so every single bite gets cheese. And two pickles, side by side, so you're never in

• 3:57Dax Shepard?

  a pickle desert. Every bite is accounted for. Someone engineered this thing with love. I love a Quarter Pounder.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Me too. That's my order. It's a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. I love it. I didn't know they put so much effort that they did a star formation. I should have known because you can taste it when there's effort.

• 4:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the love. Don't tell anyone this, but I'll put two of them back. I'm sitting.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I'm not surprised.

• 4:22Dax Shepard?

  The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only. Only at McDonald's. For a limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery. Fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.

• 4:56Dax Shepard?

  What's more popular, Monica, for Indian kids, to be a Neil or a Monica?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  They're both pretty common.

• 5:02Dax Shepard?

  Because Neil, I'm finding, really is...

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Common.

• 5:05Dax Shepard?

  If I'm life or death, and I've got to guess what someone's name is, I gotta go Neil. It just feels highest percentage.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Really?

• 5:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I think you should go Jay.

• 5:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 5:15Dax Shepard?

  That's the most common?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Do you disagree?

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:19Dax Shepard?

  Because you've been here for 16 years?

• 5:21Speaker 02

  Oh my goodness, has it been that long?

• 5:22Dax Shepard?

  It'll be 17 this year, 2025. 2008, yeah?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  2008. Now, you're making me feel nervous.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  That's no wonder my son says that he's American now, right?

• 5:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Right. How long has he been?

• 5:36Speaker 02

  He moved when he was one. We almost went back to the UK in 2020 during the pandemic. So I got offered a position at the University of Cambridge. We were all like, let's go. And then he said, no, I am American.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Wow, he really planted a flag, literally.

• 5:53Dax Shepard?

  But you all were living there when he was five, when the Olympics came through town?

• 5:57Speaker 02

  We went back. When you said 2008, so that last year, I'd finished my PhD, and I was doing my postdoc down at Duke. We were living in Chapel Hill. And then you get one year of this extra, you can stay. And then the second year of my postdoc, my family didn't get visas. So they went back to London, and I was going back and forth.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 6:20Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy. You travel a lot, even just now, before Monica was here. You're saying you're teaching in Utica, is it, or Syracuse?

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Utica and Roosevelt Island.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 6:29Dax Shepard?

  Those are on opposite ends of the state of New York.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  It's about four hours between, four and a half hours.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh, and you're doing that at the same time?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Occasionally. It hasn't worked that well. Now, just one semester in one place, one semester in another place, because going back and forth is too much.

• 6:42Dax Shepard?

  You grew up in the UK?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and your parents, had they immigrated there?

• 6:46Speaker 02

  I was one when I came to England.

• 6:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  I grew up my whole life there and also in Scotland. So my dad first came to England from India and did his PhD, then went back to India and then brought the family.

• 7:00Dax Shepard?

  You are a polymath. You've done many, many things. You've studied a lot of things. You've done research in a lot of things, but you were first a medical doctor.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 7:09Dax Shepard?

  And so tell me, being a kid, when do we get the idea to be a doctor? And what is that experience before you change course?

• 7:16Speaker 02

  So in our community, medicine is one of the best things you can do, right? So I had the grades. I was a good kid. I asked my dad when I was young, what does my name mean? And he said in Sanskrit, Sunita means good.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  And so I mostly lived up to that. I was a good girl in their eyes. So I did exactly what I was told. I did all my homeworks expected. I was what in Yorkshire they call swatty, which means you're a swat. You work really hard. You do all your homework. Maybe it's equivalent to nerd here.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 7:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I guess if you ask me where the derivative of nerd comes from, I have no clue. Cause I was gonna say, where does that originate? SWAT? What is that an abbreviation for? Who knows?

• 7:54Speaker 02

  I don't know, but when you talk about SWAT now, especially at business schools, it means something totally different. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. That's not what it means when I was growing up.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  So I got the grades and it's like, why wouldn't you want to do medicine?

• 8:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  And I was like, well, I'm not sure. It's really for me. But in the UK, it's a combined undergraduate and graduate degrees. So you basically start at the age of 18, medical school, and you finished, I was on the wards in my early twenties.

• 8:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no kidding. From entering your first intro to biology class to having a patient, how short can that be in England?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Biology, we had to do as egg levels before you go in. At that point, it was five years.

• 8:37Dax Shepard?

  That's it.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  But when you say first seeing a patient, the first two years are pre-clinical. So you're learning things. Then the third year, you're on the wards and you're a clinical. By the time you're 22, 23, you're qualified, you're on the wards.

• 8:52Dax Shepard?

  Wow. Okay. Is that better or worse?

• 8:54Speaker 02

  There's pros and cons. Here you have to work so hard. I got all my. My education for free, which is pretty impressive. There's a small cost now in the UK, but I went through the whole of medical school. I mean, earning peanuts once you start as a junior doctor. But that aspect of working earlier is great, so you can get through. Making the decision so early, questionable.

• 9:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Although I say my career is perfectly planned.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  It's perfectly planned how I ended up here. But suddenly there was a lot of pressure and I lived up to those expectations of going to medical school. And then finishing medical school and ended up working as a doctor.

• 9:31Dax Shepard?

  And did you enjoy being a doctor?

• 9:32Speaker 02

  I knew it wasn't for me. There were certain aspects I really loved, like the analytical part. I'm always analytical. I was always thinking, always questioning.

• 9:40Dax Shepard?

  It's problem solving.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  I'm really fascinated by people as well. So just talking to people, meeting people, learning about their lives. So that aspect was great. I wasn't actually into the blood and gore aspect. And I remember talking to my teachers about that, like, oh, I don't know about medicine. And they were like, it's just two years preclinical, you're gonna do that fine. And then just get through the clinical years and then you can end up doing research.

• 10:03Dax Shepard?

  So when do we get interested in organizational psychology?

• 10:07Speaker 02

  So I was always interested in psychology. So when I was at medical school, I did my two years preclinical. And then I took a year out to do what they call an intercalated degree in psychology. So they basically throw you in the fourth year of psychology and you catch up on the four years.

• 10:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  In that one year, but that was such a wonderful year. It was amazing. That's when I started reading about Milgram Stanley's famous experiments, obedience to authority. I became fascinated with that, who did what we call the electric shock experiment.

• 10:38Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  So Stanley Milgram was really fascinated by why the Nazis in World War Two always kept saying, I was just following orders afterwards when they were being investigated for war crimes.

• 10:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  And so he decided to set up this experiment, which was quite elaborate, where he would bring people in from the community and they would be an actor. It was designed as an experiment on memory. That's what they thought they were coming into and whether sort of giving someone electric shocks would help them learn. Better.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  So that was the setup. First experiments were conducted at Yale in their basement, I think. So people would come in, they would meet somebody else that they thought was another participant, but it was actually an actor that they had. And they would rig it so the actor would be what they call the learner. So then he would go into this room and the participant who was the teacher would see him being rigged up to what looked like an electric chair. And they would feel one of the shocks fifteen volts or something. So it all looked really real. And then the teacher would go to another room and they would be sat in front of this box that was sort of labeled from fifteen volts to four hundred and fifty volts.

• 11:49Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  And it would go up in fifteen volt increments and it would be labeled. So right at the end, it was three Xs, danger, huge shock. Yeah, so they are, they can be lethal shocks at that point. Then the teacher had to read out some word pairs and the learner had to memorize and repeat them back. And if they got something wrong, they would get a shock and then it would go up fifteen volts.

• 12:15Dax Shepard?

  And the test subject would be in charge of administering the shock, right?

• 12:18Speaker 02

  So they had to read out the word pairs and the experimenter was usually in the room just sort of overseeing. And if the teacher protested, they would tell them, you know, please go on with the experiment. They had like four prompts to tell them, please go on, it's essential that you continue, the experiment requires that you go on.

• 12:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  And when psychiatrists predicted beforehand what would happen, they thought that most people would not go past a hundred and fifty volts. And in fact, every single participant in the first experiment went past that.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 12:48Dax Shepard?

  And the actor is screaming.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  About a hundred and fifty volts, there's thumping on the wall and there's verbal complaints, I don't want to go on with this.

• 12:56Dax Shepard?

  I don't want to go on.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Get me out of here, I refuse to go on with the experiment. And it was also told to the participants he had a heart condition.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Really horrifying. They predicted only about one in one thousand would go up to four hundred and fifty volts, but they found that everyone pulled the lever for a hundred and fifty volts. Everyone pulled it for three hundred volts.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  And sixty six percent went up to four hundred and fifty volts.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Holy shit.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Even Milgram was shocked.

• 13:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  He was shocked at the results because he didn't think that he would find that. And he was like, I really thought this was something unique about German culture, but everybody is doing this.

• 13:41Dax Shepard?

  I understand that you're in a class, you learn that. That is intrinsically interesting. I think everyone would be a bit interested in that. But then I also am curious, was there an additional layer for you personally where that is extra interesting?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  As I said, I was always known for being an obedient daughter and student, but I was fascinated by people who could defy. And I was good friends with someone at high school. Let's call her Clara. She was able to defy. I started at St. Joseph's College, which is an all-girls Catholic school at the other side of town. My dad thought that you're gonna get a good education there, so I would catch two buses to go to St. Joseph's. It was the roughest school I've been to.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  So I don't know what he thought, but it was also a lot of fun.

• 14:25Dax Shepard?

  I don't know, Zara, you wanna send your good girl.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  And Clara came in two weeks late. She had moved from Hastings in the south of England to the north. And so she was different a little bit. I was also different. I was just one of a handful of non-white girls at the school. And we became really close friends, even though we were so different from each other.

• 14:46Dax Shepard?

  Were you so attracted to her ability to defy?

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I was like, how can she do that? Because she just walked in. We had this sort of checkered blue and white blouse that we'd wear and a red sweater. She walked in without the red sweater. She just stood out so much. And I was like, who is she? Especially because the headmistress had said before, I want everybody in their red sweaters, because when I look out, I just wanna see a sea of red.

• 15:13Dax Shepard?

  Can I bring up to speed a little bit on our own personal dynamic? Her other best friend other than me is six foot seven redhead.

• 15:22Dax Shepard?

  The most assertive, loud, he's openly gay without any fear of it.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  He's so him.

• 15:28Dax Shepard?

  He's fearlessly himself.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:31Dax Shepard?

  And then I will fit in that box a bit as well. So there's a one thing with Monica and I and the Monica and Jess.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Cause I was also very good.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was gonna say.

• 15:39Dax Shepard?

  You're still very good. You're a good girl.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Is it a good thing though?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Right. And I think I've grown into, I totally defy.

• 15:48Dax Shepard?

  You've transcended, from what I know about your school experience and trying to acclimate and blend in and all those things. I don't see you as that way at all, but certainly you did spend a good deal of your life.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Just trying to be good, just trying to do everything I needed to do to not get removed.

• 16:04Dax Shepard?

  Or singled out.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  From society or singled out. I grew up in Georgia and as you're saying, you were one of the only brown kids. Yeah, you just wanted to be, I did, just wanna be like everyone else. So yes, when there's someone there, I actually commend you for being attracted to that at that time, because if there's someone there who's being so themselves, that at that time would have terrified me.

• 16:26Dax Shepard?

  Well, they might have sucked you in.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, then it's like, then if I become friends with them, then everyone's gonna be so aware of me. I didn't want anyone to be aware of me.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  I remember, I think a few years before that, maybe when I was at middle school, my dad got me these bright red, like warmish. When my dad bought them for me, I was like, I just didn't wanna wear them. They're too bright. Give me black, so I can kinda blend in. And I was like, no, we can't return them now. So I have to wear these things to school and it was excruciating, right? I was trying to hide them with my coat. I was like, no, no, I don't wanna be wearing this. But then I kinda changed when I went to St. Joseph's and when the headmistress said like a sea of red, I was like, hmm. I'm not sure about that. And I had the song of Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd kind of playing, right? So I was getting quite attracted to these kind of things.

• 17:13Dax Shepard?

  Like rebelliousness.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  I was more questioning. Oh, that's right. Why do they want us to conform so much? Because I was so used to obeying, right, and doing and getting rewards for that. I would see teachers doing things that I thought were unfair. So when I was at middle school, I saw one of my. Teachers beating up another kid.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  And that was horrifying to me. And I remember meeting him in the corner shop that we had just down the road. And I was really scared, but he was so nice and friendly to me. And in my child's mind, I basically thought that was because he thought I was good.

• 17:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you were good.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:51Dax Shepard?

  He only beats bad people.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  He only beats bad people.

• 17:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  And so I tried like hell, never to be bad. So I wouldn't get treated like the way that boy got treated. But it really unnerved me, right? It left something there as to why are teachers expecting us to behave in this particular way? And when I realized that people in authority can do things like that, they can be unethical, incompetent and just plain stupid. Then you start to question the people that are in charge maybe don't have our best interests in mind.

• 18:23Dax Shepard?

  The structure has put them there, not their character. And when you kind of realize that like, oh, the principal of the school has a title. Doesn't mean that he's been vetted as a good person necessarily. There's a real dissonance when you recognize, oh, no, they're humans and who knows? I'm friends with a ton of addict doctors and people will be shocked that doctors are addicts. I'm like, do you think they're different people?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  In some ways, it's excessive at medical school, right?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And when I came to the US, it was fascinating when we were trying to find an apartment to rent. As soon as you say, I'm a doctor. Yeah, some of the people I know that are completely wild and off track are doctors.

• 19:00Dax Shepard?

  Of course, yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  There's a lot of stress relief.

• 19:02Dax Shepard?

  Yes, if you want to have a good night party and go out with some nurses or some doctors and it's on.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, we had some good nights.

• 19:09Dax Shepard?

  So I'm really, really interested in that as well. I'm aware of that experiment. And then of course, the Stanford prison one's very famous and people are kind of aware of that. But your book starts out in a really wonderful and timely place. And you start by looking at the George Floyd case. And there were elements of this I had no idea. And it's really something. So you're not focusing on the asshole that had his knee on his neck. What's far more interesting is there are two rookies there. One guy's on his third day, a black rookie. And then the white rookie is on his fourth day at work.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  That really haunted me because they were rookie officers. And the guy with the knee on the neck was their training supervisor. So that image of George Floyd is ingrained in lots of people's minds and it's horrific.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Also, when I think about the rookie officers, I always think, what would I have done? Because they're obeying, they're in a line of hierarchy.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  They've been trained to obey. And even though in the manual, if your officer is asking you to do something unethical and things, you should defy or say something, it's impossible. And people are saying, why did they do that? Why did they not say no? It's so impossible to do that in certain situations, especially if you haven't anticipated it, confronted it before, know how to react, practice it rather than just intellectually knowing.

• 20:39Dax Shepard?

  If we're inclined to judge them, we have the benefit of knowing the outcome of that, which is it resulted in a death.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:44Dax Shepard?

  I think their backstories are really compelling as well. The white cop's grandfather was a homicide detective. His great grandfather was the chief of police of Minneapolis. The black rookie intentionally joined the police force to help change it from the inside.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  To build a bridge.

• 21:02Dax Shepard?

  You want to talk about the right values and intentions? These two have it in spades.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so often our actions just don't align with our values. And we see this time and time again. And this is what I wanted to study in more depth. Why is that? We can sit here in our armchairs, right? And just say, oh, we wouldn't do that. We would act in this particular way. But when you're actually in that situation, it's so difficult.

• 21:26Dax Shepard?

  You're up against a lot of forces.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:28Dax Shepard?

  So you end that description by saying, I'd like to think I would have done differently. But here's a situation I was in that I also would have thought I would have done differently. So talk about going to the hospital with chest pains.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  That day, I had this immense central chest pain. And I hadn't felt any pain like this before, so I was worried about it. And I thought, I need to get this checked out. I was fairly new to having moved to the US. And so I went to the emergency room and immediately there's loads of tests being done. And they did an electrocardiogram, which was the main thing I was concerned about. Like, am I having heart attack or not? And everything was normal, thank goodness. And the pain was subsiding, it was going away. So I thought, great, I'm going to be discharged. And then the doctor came in, she was kind of young and confident. And she just said, oh, I'll need you to have a CT scan before you go. And I was like, why? And she was like, oh, we just want to make sure you don't have a pulmonary embolism.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  P E is a blood clot in the lungs and it has a specific type of pain. And I worked for six months in respiratory medicine, which you call pulmonary here. And this type of pain, when you have an embolism in the lung is what we call pleuritic chest pain. It's a sharp pain. It catches your breath when you breathe in and breathe out. And I didn't have that type of pain. I didn't want to have this C T scan she was talking about because it's on average seventy times the amount of radiation of an X ray. And even though it's still small, why have ionizing radiation, which can cause cancer many years into the future? Why take the risk, right?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  If you know.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I had the knowledge in that situation and I should have said no. And yet I just couldn't say no. And so I was then wheeled into the room with a C T scan and the technician. And I couldn't even say no then. I would just ask questions in this polite way, like, oh, it's not a lot of radiation, is it? Even though I knew, because I wanted them to pick up on my discomfort and say, oh, do you not want this?

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  And that didn't happen.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  So I ended up having the C T scan. Why couldn't I just say no in that situation? It was safe for me to say no. It would have been effective. And yet something held me back. The only reason I had it was because the doctor told me to. So here's the doctor in a safe situation. She's even smiling. I can't say no and I'm a doctor myself. So what would I have done in this situation with George Boyd, with a police officer wearing a gun? That's how difficult this is. It's terrifying when you think about it. And there was a survey of seventeen hundred crew members of commercial airlines. About half of them did not feel comfortable to speak up when they saw an error.

• 24:05Dax Shepard?

  Well, and then there's a really disturbing, not disturbing, actually, it's kind of encouraging that we can figure this out. You can correlate these culturally, there are different fears of power. So then you have this cultural element on top of it, right?

• 24:19Speaker 02

  So there's this psychological process that I call insinuation anxiety that I uncovered in my experiments. But the actual experience I experienced. Experienced it when I was having the CT scan. I knew this feeling for years and years. The name for it only came after I started doing research in it. And insinuation anxiety is this aversive emotional state that we have when we believe that not complying with someone else will be a signal of distrust to that person. So it basically insinuates that the other person is incompetent, biased, corrupt and trustworthy in some way. And you don't want to give them that signal. And so the co-pilots telling the pilots, you haven't observed this, you're doing something wrong here. Like, I don't think we should do that. It's really difficult.

• 25:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  And I see it in experiments in the hospital as well and surveys. Nurses can't speak up when they see their colleague making an error for the same reason.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Well, especially if they're in charge of you, if they're your boss or they're above you. How can you?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Even with physicians in this particular survey, it was less than 1% whether you had a supervisory role of the physician or not. Less than 1% could actually tell them if it was something about the physician's incompetence. You don't want that. You want your co-pilots to speak up. You want supervising physicians and nurses working with physicians to speak up if they see something going wrong because these life and death situations are huge. But even when it's not life and death, and sometimes you don't know, like as the rookie cops, right? They probably didn't know this was going to turn out to be an unfolding murder or a life and death type of situation. But you don't want to end up in those situations because you're so wired to go along with it. You're so socialized to say, okay, I'm going to obey.

• 25:59Dax Shepard?

  Let's start by defining defiance. I think that would be most helpful.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  The Oxford English Dictionary definition of defiance is to challenge the power of someone else boldly and openly. And I shouldn't really disagree with that, having been brought up in English. I do. I think it's way too narrow. And I think a better definition of defiance, considering everything that we've spoken about, is that to defy is simply to act in accordance with your own true values, your core values, when there is pressure to do otherwise.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 26:32Dax Shepard?

  I like that because, you know, part of the social angst of it all is that we all have a relative amount of codependency as well. We're not prone to hurt people's feelings or call them incompetent or insinuate things. But if it's just about you, when you depersonalize that and detach from that, it's just like, no, no, it's actually just living in accordance with my values. Really has nothing to do with that person.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:51Dax Shepard?

  I like that. That feels liberating.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  And also, values can involve other people, too. Speaking up when you see somebody causing harm to someone else is really a communal act, in a way. So redefining, reframing defiance from this negative connotation to being a proactive, positive force in society, because if you think about it, every single act of consent and dissent and compliance, that creates the society that we live in.

• 27:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you say defiance is the exception and obedience is the rule. So let's talk about the forces at play. What happens neurologically?

• 27:23Speaker 02

  So if you're socialized to comply from a young age, if you're rewarded for being compliant, and I know I was, you probably were, I don't know if you were.

• 27:33Dax Shepard?

  I was rewarded for being rebellious.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Really?

• 27:36Dax Shepard?

  I got lucky in that I have a mother that prized that.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  That's fascinating. So for many of us.

• 27:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I think most, I got very lucky.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  That was encouraged, right?

• 27:44Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Can you say, I know what you're about to say.

• 27:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't know if now's the time, but we come from a family with a lot of trauma. We've been victimized a lot. My mother's been victimized a lot. I was victimized a lot. So our family was like, fuck this, we're never getting victimized again. We've paid that price and we won't pay it again. That was the ethos in the house, born out of a lot of victimization, unfortunately, but I do like the results of it all.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  One of the things that I really noticed in the people that I've interviewed is if you have seen your parents defy as well, it's so powerful. And I do have one or two moments where my parents did defy, even though they were compliant most of the time, and that stayed with me.

• 28:26Dax Shepard?

  Way more than the times they were acquiesced, probably.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Yes, and it changed my view of compliance and defiance being personality traits. I realized this is a skill. We can choose to use it or not, because even the most compliant person, my mother, she does all the shopping, the groceries, looking after all the family. I had very neatly put her into the box of. Being compliant. And one day when she was defiant, it just blew my mind. I was like, wow, that's so impressive. She's actually really strong.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  And she can be defiant when she needs to be.

• 29:00Dax Shepard?

  It could be harder for some of us than others, but it's also possible for everyone.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  If I can do it, right, with the upbringing I had, I think most people can learn how to defy. It's just you have to learn that skill set. You have to get out. So if we're talking about neurologically, I was rewarded for being compliant. That's when the neural pathways start to form, like obedience. It becomes our default. We start equating obedience with being good, compliance with being good.

• 29:24Dax Shepard?

  You get good chemicals, you get dopamine, the reward center is activated and it does change the format of your brain.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So we become what I call wired to comply, right? It becomes the default without thinking. Somebody says to do something, we go along and we do it. And so that's really powerful socialization. The messages that we get to obey, to be polite, you know, don't make a scene, don't question authority, listen to them. And that makes a difference to the rest of our lives in a way and our default setting. But if we think about situations where we learn how to defy, we need to really practice so we can change that default setting. The more that we practice, the more those other pathways start to strengthen. For example, I have these five stages of defiance.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  So the first one, like usually when we're in a situation where we want to defy or we think we should, we feel some kind of tension. So our body immediately tells us, we don't think this is quite right. So I felt it with a CT scan. I'm sure you've been in situations where you felt like, oh, I don't know about that.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  And so often we just ignore it. We think it's not worth our doubt.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. Is it worth it?

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:36Dax Shepard?

  You see, you might feel anxiety or nervousness or dread, sweaty palms, fast beating heart, not in the stomach. These are all signals.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  And we probably have our own signs, right? People will probably feel it differently. Maybe for some people it's a headache, maybe for some people it's their throat constricting, maybe it's feeling butterflies. So we all have a sign that comes up. And then the second stage is to acknowledge that rather than disregard it is. Admit it to yourself, right? I'm feeling something.

• 31:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, because I think most people are stuck in a pattern of, so I'm feeling these things. That's my actual cue to push through and ignore and compartmentalize and throw away.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, avoid it. And that's a shame because it's a warning sign. And if we actually listen to it, it could help us because we just need to like, why am I feeling this way? What does it actually mean? I felt it with a CT scan and I was like, okay. But it actually got worse as I carried on having the CT scan. It didn't go away.

• 31:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you didn't push it aside.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  No, and so I felt it more. And then I felt this, I want to regret afterwards, like, how easy would it have been for me to say no? Why couldn't I say no? Actually, it wasn't that easy, but what can I do to make sure I say no next time? And so feeling the tension, acknowledging it to yourself. And then stage three is the real critical stage is just vocalizing it to someone else. And the reason that stage is so critical is because if you tell someone else, you're not comfortable with this. You've stated how you feel. You can't then go back and rationalize to yourself. I was actually okay with it after all, right? You know, it was fine. So once you've said that, all you have to do then is continue saying it. And this was the same in the Milgram experiment.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  So there were people, even though two thirds of the subjects went up to 450 dangerous shocks, and they were called the obedient subjects. Not all of them did this willingly, right? Yes, I'm going to shock that person.

• 32:25Dax Shepard?

  Let's go. I wish this thing went to 700. Let's get some memorization going. Kay will know this on his deathbed.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Milgram called them the moral imbeciles, but they were groaning, nervous laughter. They had these signs of tension, the nervous laughter. Oh, I have that for sure. And then I will smile. I have what a colleague of mine called the crocodile smile. Is that as soon as I'm uncomfortable, be like, yeah, okay. Yeah.

• 32:53Dax Shepard?

  Imani, you'd call it phoning?

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's an appeasement. Okay, I'm not a threat.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:58Dax Shepard?

  I can't let my face betray me.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:00Dax Shepard?

  I'm going to put on the most exaggerated version of my face.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  That third stage, if you could say, I'm not comfortable with this, or that people in the Milgram experiments, is he actually okay? If they had resisted four times, that was the experiment. There was four prompts. Then the experiment would have ended. So you just then need to continue. And stage four is that threat of noncompliance. I can't go through with it.

• 33:21Dax Shepard?

  Can we call that a boundary, like stating a boundary?

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Stage three, you're still in a subservient position.

• 33:27Dax Shepard?

  You're saying how you feel about it. You haven't said you're not going to do it. You're just saying, I feel this way.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  Yes. And then four is stating that you can't. And then five is your final act of defiance.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 33:45Dax Shepard?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every family has that one holiday tradition. Nobody actually enjoys, but everyone keeps doing because stopping it would feel like a federal offense. For me, it was a specific meal situation that I will not name because my family listens. But at some point you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I love it? Or because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Yes, and that question applies to so much more than the holidays. I think a lot of us carry these invisible rules about how we're supposed to spend the holidays. We're supposed to see what it's supposed to look like. And when you start unpacking that with a therapist, you realize half of your stress is coming from rules you didn't even write.

• 34:24Dax Shepard?

  This is where BetterHelp can be a great resource during the holidays. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, which means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recs.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  I just love therapy. I've been avoiding it recently, or not avoiding it, but I was like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I haven't canceled, canceled, canceled. But then I-

• 34:51Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling it.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then I had it this past weekend and I was like, oh my God, I'm just, thank God, thank God for her. Yeah.

• 34:59Dax Shepard?

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• 35:23Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set, looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  I love matching pajamas. I'm literally going to be in coordinating sets with all my friends this holiday season. Because I got them, spoiler to my friends who are listening, the same Skims pajama set I've been living in. They are so soft and cozy and they look cute. So you can leave the house and go get a late night hot chocolate and be cozy.

• 35:58Dax Shepard?

  It's so great how Skims has sets for everyone, too. Women's, men's, kids, even your pets. So nobody in your life has to be left out this year.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I have a bunch of different pajama sets. One of my favorite is the organic cotton sleep long sleeve set.

• 36:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  It is so comfortable, very chic, too. The top is a button down, but very, very soft, easy to sleep in. But as I said before, you can multi-purpose this and look super cute.

• 36:28Dax Shepard?

  Hot chocolate runs. It's like the pajamas we grew up in, except without the scratchy polyester that made opening presents feel more like a hot yoga class that nobody signed up for.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  All the nostalgia, none of the discomfort. Shop my favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select Armchair Expert in the dropdown menu that follows. If you're looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is now open at skims.com.

• 36:56Dax Shepard?

  We get support from No Bull. The holidays can get hectic. You finally hit a post-summer routine and suddenly you're on hosting duty every week.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  That's when you really need to ground yourself.

• 37:09Dax Shepard?

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• 37:45Speaker 01

  And if you're a cardio person and you're running and you also need to be lifting.

• 37:50Dax Shepard?

  And the style is banging. I don't know what to say. Beautiful style, very breathable, very, very comfortable, lots of support. They were built for lifting.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  They also make a great holiday gift. You know, I love gifting, a purposeful one that actually supports someone's goals and routines and it's not a gift that just ends up in the back of the closet.

• 38:07Dax Shepard?

  Stay stronger than the season. Head to nobolproject.com all holiday season to shop new deals every week. We are supported by Squarespace. So here's something I think about a lot. Most people I talk to on this show, the ones doing really interesting things, they all had a version of their work that existed before anyone else saw it. It was just theirs, notes, ideas, projects they were tinkering with. And then at some point they made the decision to share it. That's the part that's scary, right? Going from I'm working on something to here's what I made. Rob went through the exact same thing, building our site on Squarespace and what made it doable was that he didn't have to become a web developer overnight. He just had to show up with the idea. Squarespace handles the rest. Beautiful templates that actually look like you hired someone, built in SEO,

• 38:52Dax Shepard?

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• 39:28Speaker 02

  So, understanding those stages, it might not be linear, you might skip some stages. There are certain situations that I found that I find it easier to define and you can go from stage two to stage five. And we can all find those places where, oh, this is actually more natural for me to do it.

• 39:44Dax Shepard?

  I need to add some of the stages in is more my direction to be better. I go from tension to act of defiance. I'll tell you right now, so you can't go any further with this, you know.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  I think it also just depends on the situation because it depends on the punishment.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  On the consequences.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  The consequence, exactly. Don't you think sometimes it isn't worth it?

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Right, so there are consequences for being defiant, for sure. That's what a horse is back a lot of the time. So, you know, when we think about why don't we defy? Why do we actively even resist defiance? Number one, immense pressure from other people to do what they want you to do. The insinuation anxiety aspect, all those psychological processes. And then, number two is actually, we don't really understand what consent and dissent actually is. We don't understand what defiance actually is, and I'll come back to that. And then the third one is about, once you want to defy and you understand that, you don't have the skill set to defy, so we need to learn it. But the consequences of defiance, people always think about, it's gonna affect this relationship, you know, I'm gonna disrupt the harmony, it might even cost me my job

• 40:49Speaker 02

  or might be some physical danger. So we do need to think about the consequences of defiance, like what type of situation is this? There's sort of two questions we ask, is it safe for me to defy and will it be effective? But what we don't often think about are the consequences and the costs of complying, because there's a lot of costs for continually complying with other people and putting aside your values. If you're always bowing your head to someone else, disregarding your values, it really has an effect on you.

• 41:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so that's where my personal willingness to do this is, is I have two kind of very seminal moments where I didn't defy. And it was both destructive and painful, but beyond the events, the shame and disappointment in myself was so intense for so long. That for me, any other option was worth it. Like, I just experienced such a level of regret and shame and in self-flagellation for not getting myself out of a couple of different situations, that for me, I can immediately go to what that feels like. And so, yeah, this feels uncomfortable, but that feels like a 20. I know what that is, and I can do a very quick cost benefit analysis for me. It's very crystal clear.

• 42:00Dax Shepard?

  It's like, I know what that other thing feels like. So it's very easy for me. I guess that's the benefit of those things.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, if we reflect on what happened in that situation, you in these particular incidents that happened, me with a CT scan, and then think about what factors enable our defiance and what makes it harder for us. Understanding that is really key. But anticipating, even when we think about all the big heroes that defied and had huge moments, like Rosa Parks saying, no, I'm not going to move on the bus. There were lots of compliance moments before that moment. And so, we shouldn't have so much shame. But that rumination is actually really helpful to think about, what is it I wish I had done in that situation? Because if we can then visualize it, if we can anticipate it, then that takes away the surprise, right? So the next time I was asked to go for some more radiation that I didn't need,

• 42:52Speaker 02

  I wasn't as surprised. I was anticipating it. I had practiced what I wish I would have said, and then I was able to say it.

• 43:00Dax Shepard?

  And we could probably get in quickly to the biology of that, which is interesting, which is if you anticipate it versus it comes up on you in a flash and you're not prepared. You've not thought this through at all. You don't have an executive game plan. And now you're just scared and frazzled, and you're in a part of your brain that doesn't do well with that. So, yeah, the benefit of not being taken off guard is half of the battle, perhaps.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. That anticipation is so key. There's this famous saying that's often attributed to Bruce Lee, but it's actually a Greek poet that said, like, under duress, we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to our level of training. And so, that training aspect is so key, and I didn't realize it, right? Because it does change those neural pathways. So anticipating, and we can anticipate more than we actually think. Sometimes we're caught off, but I know because we've experienced situations before when at the workplace, a particular colleague is going to say something inappropriate or they're going to make a sexist remark. We can kind of predict things that might happen so we can start anticipating.

• 44:06Dax Shepard?

  If you've been out to a work dinner with a coworker who has five other times made a sexist joke, pretty good odds that's coming your way again.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  It's gonna come again, yes. Then we can visualize it and practice it. If you don't have like that behavioral training of actually practicing, if it's just the intellectual part, it's not gonna make a difference. So you need to actually practice it. And this presentation workshop I went to, I just love the phrase that they use. If you practice, your ears get used to hearing it and your mouth gets used to saying those words. That's really useful to know that that's what makes a difference.

• 44:38Dax Shepard?

  Can we go back to the forces at play? Cause I want to talk about the social one. Of course, I want to interject kind of my anthropological lens onto it. I think it could reduce some of the shame people experience from not being able to rise to that occasion. I think the primary hardwired evolved state we inherited is we are a social primate. Three hundred thousand years ago, if you weren't obedient, you got kicked out. And three hundred thousand years ago, to not be with your group is death. And that's real evolution. That's actually how your brain's still functioning. So give yourself a little bit of a break. Although it is menial, it's, you know, the person at Starbucks or whatever it is,

• 45:19Dax Shepard?

  your body doesn't know that your body thinks to be excluded from my group right now is death. So you have a very over exaggerated response to what our modern world is. But let's just grant everyone that we're not designed to be defiant.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  Even the insinuation anxiety feeling, as I said, is an aversive state. It's uncomfortable for a reason because your defiance might be causing harm to someone else. Yeah, it's there for a reason that somebody is expecting something of you. What does it mean? Right? So I think understanding that too, sort of naming it and knowing that we have two kind of ideal selves, especially in America, we have this ideal independent self. We want to act on our agency. We want to do what we think is right. But we also have this interdependent self, which is that we want to remain in harmony with everybody around us.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  And there are two sort of ideals, like Hazel Marcus and Shanubu Kitayana talk about these ideal selves. We can't ever achieve one state or the other state, and they're there for a reason.

• 46:23Dax Shepard?

  It wouldn't be great to achieve either state exclusively.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so we do need to think about that. But we also need to hold dear to ourselves, what are our values?

• 46:34Dax Shepard?

  But if you're at home going, I'm a spineless piece of shit. No, you're a social primate. And then you have to kind of transcend some of the stuff that is not useful anymore, or that is vestigial and doesn't serve you. I want to maybe acknowledge, it's not across the board. It's not totally equal for every group of people. And I think we should acknowledge that. It's easier for me to be defiant than either of you.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say earlier when I said, oh, I think you should say, that's what I thought you were gonna say. Some people have a little bit of a leg up doing it with less consequences.

• 47:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I got a double whammy. Like, my sister still will fight anybody over nothing. She came from the same culture as I did, so she got that leg up. But then I have also the leg up of being six, two and male.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  It's what I call those defiance hierarchy. Some people are allowed to defy, even rewarded for it. And others, they have more costs. There's more severe consequences. There's more backlash for being defiant. And it's interesting that the people that are in that category, which is anything from the dominant norm, the tall, white male, anything that deviates from that group, you actually need to be defiant more often because you're expected to be more compliant.

• 47:43Dax Shepard?

  The paradox is you're going to need to be defiant more and you're going to be more harshly punished.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so unfair.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Sometimes I just get so tired. Don't you just get exhausted of having to just constantly?

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Be that person. It can be exhausting. You have those extra burdens that you carry.

• 48:04Dax Shepard?

  But not to put a silver lining on it, you get all the upside of the extra challenge. So you get a skill set. My trauma gave me something too. So it's negative, but also you have an empathy probably that other people don't have. It's a suite of behaviors and thoughts.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  I mean, it'd be interesting what people might choose between those things. It's one where I often describe as being on a balance beam for some people. There's only a narrow set of behaviors that are possible for you to do without being punished.

• 48:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  But sometimes you can get to firmer ground where you can find this is now safe and effective for me to defy.

• 48:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Find places where that is accepted.

• 48:44Dax Shepard?

  What's the difference between compliance and consent?

• 48:47Speaker 02

  So compliance is something that we just go along with someone else. It's usually externally imposed or default. We're not really thinking about it. We kind of slide into it.

• 48:57Dax Shepard?

  I like the word reactive in there as well. It's going to put on you and you're reacting all of a sudden.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Exactly. Consent, I take the definition of informed consent in medicine and I apply it to the other decisions that we make in life, which I find really useful. There's five elements that are required for informed consent. So first of all, this capacity that we have the mental capacity to make a decision. So we're not under the influence of drugs or alcohol or we're not sick. And then knowledge. So we need to know about the situation, have full information about that situation. And third, understanding of that. Do we understand the risks, the benefits, the alternatives? Then number four, do we have the freedom to say no? In some situations, we don't have the freedom to say no. It might be too risky. Your life might be on the line in some situations.

• 49:43Dax Shepard?

  Well, it can be structurally defined. You could be in the military.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  Exactly. You might not have the freedom to say no. Another one is if you're a black guy and you're stopped at a traffic stop, right? That's not the place to defy.

• 49:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  So freedom to say no. And then if you have those four things, the fifth element is your considered authorization of an informed consent. And if you want to say no, informed refusal.

• 50:07Dax Shepard?

  I think that's one of the. Trickier zones. My personal experience with this was my father was dying of small cell carcinoma and it had spread everywhere and we had done all the treatments and it was clearly towards the end. We knew the time horizon was three months to begin with and at the very end of this experience, the oncologist comes on to say he'd like to do brain radiation. And I said, is it worse to die of brain cancer than the lung cancer, the bone cancer, everywhere it's at? And he said, well, yeah, it can be worse. And I said, okay, it just feels like it's another treatment and we're towards the end and it's going to be one of these cancers that gets them. And then I asked my dad and he had been letting me make all these decisions,

• 50:50Dax Shepard?

  but of course I was running them all by him. And I said, do you want to do this brain radiation thing? And he said, I do. And I said, okay, I don't think it's gonna, you know, but ultimately it was his cancer and his, so I backed away, did it. The result was nothing positive and it severely impacted his cognition. And I'm so resentful at that whole experience. Now, I at least have the distance of he made the decision. I did say, I think it's a bad idea. You know, I'm not carrying around a ton about it, but it pissed me off. And again, I think, A, I'm totally up for a confrontation. I'm in the best situation possible for this. Still didn't go my way. But yeah, your average person, there's a doctor telling them this is a good idea and what are you to do?

• 51:31Speaker 02

  And we do have trust in our doctors and it would be a shame if that disappeared, right? That element of public trust. But there's also a lot being written on end of life treatment and how aggressive it can be. But it's really difficult. Again, it's an ideal that can never be fully attained in medicine and elsewhere.

• 51:49Dax Shepard?

  Now, here's a great example of where the anticipation's helpful. So like Atul Gawande would advise you have an end of life plan. What do you want to do in this last few months? Do you want to go out with your kids and have ice cream?

• 52:01Speaker 02

  What's quality of life for you?

• 52:03Dax Shepard?

  Because if you just show up and you get bombarded with all this information you don't understand, you're going to react and you don't really know. But that's a good use of an hour of your life to kind of map out what you want that to be at the end.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  I think if people want to have that conversation and then even as Atul Gawande talks about. People prefer different types of care, right? Somebody wants the paternalistic advice. Just tell me what to do and I'll follow it. Other people want more of a guided, informed, shared decision making. And the doctor to be more of a coach.

• 52:32Dax Shepard?

  I want a buffet of options that are explained to me and then I want to pick.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, some people find that really hard.

• 52:37Dax Shepard?

  And overwhelm me and yeah. What's a true yes?

• 52:40Speaker 02

  So a true yes is consent. So having those five elements there would be your true yes. Or a true no is the same. The informed confusion is just having those five elements. But sometimes you have those five factors there, but you decide to actually do what I call conscious compliance. So you consciously comply because the costs might be too big or this is not the right time to do it. And because, as you said, it's exhausting. Yeah. So you need to choose, is this situation going against my values? Otherwise, we'd be defying every day. We wouldn't get anything done. And we need to really choose what situations are going against our values that this is worth me speaking up and saying something about.

• 53:25Dax Shepard?

  I couldn't help but think of some situations where I felt like I don't know if defiance is productive to the mission. Do we want a battalion of soldiers thinking we should go over the left flank and they think we should go over the right? Are there not some implicit situations where it's like, no?

• 53:44Speaker 02

  I interviewed a few of my students that had been in the military, which was really fascinating to hear their stories. And in fact, one of the first ones, and I remember it really well because we were speaking on Zoom on a Sunday afternoon. I was calling Matthew. He told me about when he went into the military and he did it because he grew up with nine 11. So seared into his memory and he wanted to prove that he's an American, he's a patriot. And he was deployed to Iraq and his best friend got killed in the first few months. And there was an incident where they were on some nighttime mission and it's like, nothing usually happens at nighttime. But there was this flash and then a grenade going off that was too close for comfort. And they immediately started.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Opening fire. Some people went off in his squad and they came back with four prisoners. One of them Matthew had and had to look after. And this person was just screaming out in Arabic and his supervisor said to him, he's talking too much, he's screaming, shut him up. And Matthew said, what should I do? And he was like, oh, it's simple. He didn't make it in the mouth. And so he looked at the man and there was blood coming out from his nose into his beard. So he hit him and the man didn't stop talking and his sergeant said, he's not stopped. Hit him again. Hit him in the stomach. And Matthew just looked at me and he just said, and that's what I did.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  And then later on, he told me that he found out that these weren't insurgents at all. They were young teenage boys.

• 55:14Dax Shepard?

  Wrong place at the wrong time.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  They were fifteen or sixteen years old. He couldn't understand what they were saying. And he felt really bad about it. And he said, in that instant, he just trusted. He had no option. The next time they were on some kind of mission and they stopped and they basically formed like a circle. What they do in war, right? And what he told me is that you're not supposed to get out and just spray and pray. You have to have a target, otherwise you can hurt civilians. And he said, but they just got out and they did spray and pray. And in that moment, he did not do that. He kind of turned around and looked at the desert behind him. And later on, his superior said to him, what were you doing? And he said, oh, I was just providing security. I was looking at providing cover. And he said, that was the only thing he could think of for not doing it.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  But it actually was because his feelings were getting really complicated about whether he was doing the right thing or not. And he didn't describe his actions as defiant. He even said they were kind of cowardly. If he had actually said what he felt, he would have gone to military prison. And he said, and maybe they'd be right. But that one incident that he said was half conscious. He did start becoming a little bit more defiant. So I call that quiet defiance way and not actively saying no to someone else. But you're not going against what you think is the right thing to do.

• 56:35Dax Shepard?

  You're not betraying your own ethics in service of this other person.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  So later on, then he became less quietly defined. There was another nighttime mission that he thought was way unsafe. It involved going out at the nighttime with goggles, very close to a cliff edge. And he went to see his superior and he just said, I don't think we should do this. It's far too dangerous. And his superior was just like, shut up. Do as I say. Are you disobeying me? He's like, no, but I'm adamantly against the idea. And of course, the mission went ahead. People came back after half an hour. It didn't work out. It was too unsafe. But he wasn't rewarded for that. He was basically punished. He didn't get his promotion, but he said it was the right thing to do. And he became a little bit more comfortable with sort of saying those things. But yes, in the military, I hear time and time again from my students that have been there, it's yes, yes, yes. And one of them said, you are trained to do, not to think.

• 57:23Dax Shepard?

  And it's very complicated, right? So you're talking to a guy who's seemingly intelligent and thoughtful. And then there's also a dipshit there who shouldn't be doing a ton of thinking. So it's a very complex situation. It's not clean.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. So in war, that type of compliance is very helpful on the battlefield, for sure.

• 57:41Dax Shepard?

  I was thinking about something much more benign, which is a movie set. So what is a common conflict between an actor and a director? And both have very legitimate points of view is the director will go to the actor and say, okay, let's do it again, but this time don't be so sad. And then the actor will say, that's what my character would be in this moment. My character would be this sad. And now the director's juggling the entire movie, not the moment, not the scene. If you cry in this scene, your next scene, we need you crying at a 10. For the arc of your character, I need this to not be what is true to you right now, because we have to service this broader thing. So that's like a very benign example.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  That doesn't feel too much like a values.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Values driven.

• 58:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I think so. If you've dedicated your life to being an actor and you went to Juilliard and your commitment is to tell the truth every time you open your mouth, that's your north star.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's many situations where it is complicated. That's why we struggle with it too. If it was that simple, then we would get it right every single time. And we don't.

• 58:40Dax Shepard?

  I've had it on a set early in my comedic career where you would still make homophobic jokes. That was standard. And I remember getting in a huge fight with one of my directors, like, I'm not. Saying that there's a 12 year old kid gonna watch this who's gay in Michigan.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  That makes a ton of sense. That to me is like, that's so value driven. Not as an actor, because that's an identity we place on ourselves.

• 59:00Dax Shepard?

  It's an occupation.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  It's an occupation. A value of I refuse to take someone down.

• 59:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  That makes a ton of sense. And I think that is fully worth defying.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  I think that's definitely what I'm with you.

• 59:13Dax Shepard?

  You have some good historic and contemporary kind of examples in the book. Is there any that you would like to share with us that are your favorites?

• 59:21Speaker 02

  So when I said earlier on that there's some stories of my parents defined that have really stayed with me. And one of my mom is one that really I think was transformative. So I was about seven or eight and I was walking back from the grocery store with my mom. And it was quite a long walk back and we had this rickety shopping cart. And we were rolling that back home and we decided to take a shortcut through what you call in Yorkshire a snicket, which is just a narrow alleyway, right?

• 59:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you gave that adorable name, yeah. Snicket, Yatzi, what were you?

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Swatty.

• 59:56Dax Shepard?

  Swatty.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  Swatty, yeah. When I went to elementary school, I was not supposed to go through that snicket. That's exciting.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  See, you were, you were telling me.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  I just realized that.

• 1:00:10Dax Shepard?

  It was blowing in the whole time.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  It was there. But anyway, mom and I, we went through the snicket and we were confronted by about seven or eight teenage boys. And they blocked our path and they started shouting out some stuff to us, like some racist comments, go back home.

• 1:00:27Dax Shepard?

  We're trying to.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, really, we're on our way right now.

• 1:00:31Dax Shepard?

  Shitty carriage, you're the snicket.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  But my reaction was instant, which is what you had described before, right? Immediately, eyes down, averted. All I wanted to do was not look at them and maneuver my way through and get home as fast as I could. And my mom, she's petite, she's smaller than me now. She was taller than me at the time, but she's like 4'10". She had like her hair very neatly plaited back, single braid at the back. And I had thought of her as completely compliant person. And she did something that really surprised me that day. She put the shopping cart up vertical and she put one hand on her hip and she looked at them and she said, what do you mean? My fear was going up at this point, so I grabbed her arm even tighter and I started whispering to her. I was like, come on, ma.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  And I wanted to be the compliant person and that and she shook me off, right? She was like, no. And she looked at them again and she said, what do you mean? They stared at her, she stared at them and then she said, oh, you think you're big, tough boys, right? Big, strong boys. And she started telling them off in broken English.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  And they like, just looking at each other, thinking, what's going on here? And one of them just said, let's go.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  And they just dispersed.

• 1:01:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  And I was like, what happened? My mom grabbed the cart and she walked as fast as she could through that snicket. I never thought the day would come that she would tell off a group of boys on the street in that way.

• 1:02:05Dax Shepard?

  There's something sad and beautiful about it, which is people will do that for their children.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:02:11Dax Shepard?

  Because even before the social primate evolution.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Protection, responsibility and people do, like I can defy for my son so much easier than I can defy for myself.

• 1:02:20Dax Shepard?

  And isn't that sad? That's the sad part. The beauty of it is.

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  There's something beautiful about having responsibility for someone else.

• 1:02:26Dax Shepard?

  I do too. What's heartbreaking to me is that you can't advocate for yourself.

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  But you can tap into that.

• 1:02:33Dax Shepard?

  That's a tool even. Imagine this is being said to your.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  Exactly. Just a loved one. What would you do in that situation? I say that to my son at times when he gets stressed about things, like what advice would you give a loved one? What would you tell someone who's in ninth grade right now, how to handle a situation? But what that really taught me was that defiance is a skill set, is a practice, is not a personality. And even though compliance might be our default, it's not our destiny, so we can change. I had seen her come home several times and she would be muttering away. So I'm pretty sure she had seen those boys before and not said anything. But now I was with her and she showed me that. And even though it might have changed her, because I do. You think defiance changes your brain, how you react.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  It also changes the people that observe it because that had a ripple effect on me and made me feel like we can all be defiant if we want to be. And that does give quite a bit of hope.

• 1:03:28Dax Shepard?

  One part I like about your book too, is whether it's explicit or not, you do it by example. It's also a good call to monitor yourself when you're doing it to other people. So you have this example where you want your five year old to see the Olympic torch pass.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  Yes, we were in London and we were on our way to see the flame that they held. And it was like, oh, this is a once in a lifetime experience. And he's like, not impressed with this at all. And he just wouldn't walk there and he sat down on the pavement. And I was like, no, come on. I was like pulling his arm and trying to pick him up. And I could only get a few steps. He was heavy at that point. I was like, no, I can't carry you. And we just completely missed the whole thing. And we went home and he's just not realizing this moment in history that I have now made.

• 1:04:16Dax Shepard?

  It's lost.

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  Forever. And I said to him, why can't you be good? And that kept me up at night. I was like, why did I say that? When that's what I learned, right? This whole obedience equals good and defiance equals bad. And here I was just repeating it. That really took me back to, why is it so strong? Even when he was a baby, I would have relatives asking me, is he good? He's a baby.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Right. There's no such thing.

• 1:04:44Dax Shepard?

  No, he's bad. We got a bad one.

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  And what they mean is like, does he sleep?

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Is he crying?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:04:59Dax Shepard?

  This episode is supported by Helix.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about how November is basically survival mode? Between the holidays, the travel, the hosting, the cooking, the everything. Sleep is the one thing keeping me from completely unraveling.

• 1:05:12Dax Shepard?

  It really is the foundation. And I think people underestimate how much a bad mattress is quietly ruining their day. You wake up stiff, your back's angry, you're already behind before your feet hit the floor.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  That was me before Helix. I took their sleep quiz, which is so fast. It took me like two minutes and they matched me to a mattress that actually fits how I sleep. Not a guess, not a firm or soft coin flip. It's a real match. I have a midnight mattress and I really like it. I was noticing it because I actually had to sleep in one of my other beds.

• 1:05:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Recently.

• 1:05:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  That doesn't have a Helix mattress on it. And I really could tell a big difference in my sleep.

• 1:05:46Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  It was a mess.

• 1:05:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  I need a new one.

• 1:05:49Dax Shepard?

  Look, they've got over 20 mattress models. So whether you sleep hot, need extra back support, or you've got a partner who moves around all night, there's one built for you. Plus free shipping and a 365 night happy with Helix guarantee. That's a full year to decide.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

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• 1:06:11Dax Shepard?

  Right now, Helix is running their Black Friday sale with up to 30% off. Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. Helixsleep.com/armchair. We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left. What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up.

• 1:06:55Dax Shepard?

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• 1:07:33Dax Shepard?

  We get support from ZipRecruiter. Oh, get recruiting. So I went down this rabbit hole the other day on real holiday jobs that exist and I couldn't stop. Somebody out there is hiring a ham glazer, a professional ham glazer. Another place is hiring a lead elf, implying a whole hierarchy of elves I had never even considered. Here's the thing, these jobs need real skills. People like that are hard to find. Whether you're hiring for one of these roles or any other role, the best way to find qualified people who are genuinely excited about your role is on ZipRecruiter. And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/dax. Plus ZipRecruiter has a new feature that

• 1:08:14Dax Shepard?

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• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  It's amazing what we equate with being good, which is not being a bother to someone else at all.

• 1:09:09Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, you say it really explicitly and beautifully. You say, "To be good is for him to do what I want. I want him to sleep through the night. I want him to eat on a schedule. Those are my wants."

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  And sometimes that's how we feel in organizations, right? When we work. Managers love the yes man or the yes woman. Do as I say, don't question it. And we then just sort of narrow our vision to how well we are pleasing the boss rather than the wider. Like, what is it we're actually doing that has a value to the world?

• 1:09:39Dax Shepard?

  What kind of tools other than anticipating is a good one and kind of... Modeling what you're gonna get into, but are there some other things that you could recommend?

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  One of the major things that was really crucial to sort of changing how I thought about defiance is getting rid of some of the myths that defiance has to be aggressive, loud. You have to have a larger than life personality.

• 1:09:58Dax Shepard?

  You gotta be me.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  You gotta be you, right?

• 1:10:00Dax Shepard?

  Tattooed up ideally, too much muscle, let's go.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  Monica and I are never gonna be you.

• 1:10:03Dax Shepard?

  Don't rule that out. I can put you on a program.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  We can find our own way, right? We can be defiant in a way that's unique to us. So, understanding that defiance isn't just for the brave or the extraordinary, right? It's available and it's necessary for all of us. I think that's one mindset shift that we can really all use and understand. And then the other is what I call the defiance compass, which I think is very useful, which is when we're faced with a situation and we're trying to decide what to do. We have that tension, then we take the pause and we try to understand. These three questions came from James Marsh, who's a sociologist. But I've sort of adapted them to be not just three questions that we ask implicitly for every decision, but to put them in a circle because I think it is a circular thing.

• 1:10:50Speaker 02

  So the first question is, who am I? And that's really connecting with your values. So if you aspire to be someone who's fair, compassionate, has integrity, that's what you really need to think about. That's who you are. Because that's really important. If you've not found that out, spend some time doing that. Because people that clarify their values are more likely to act in alignment with them. And also there's research showing that it reduces your stress and cortisol levels if you actually know what your values are. So really know, who am I? You can ask yourself that. And then the second question, so that's internal, then you go external. What type of situation is this? Is it safe and effective for me to defy? And then the last question is, with these particular values, fair, full of integrity, all those things,

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  what does a person like me do in a situation like this? If you believe you're one type of person, but you're never acting in that way, you want to sort of start thinking about whether that really is who you are or not. And I've found those three questions really powerful in terms of knowing this is what I would like to do. Really tapping into our aspirational selves. I want to decrease that gap between the intention, what we think we'll do in a situation and how we actually act.

• 1:12:01Dax Shepard?

  Also, that first question, I think all of us would go like, I know who I am. But then we haven't actually listed it because I remember I got judoed by a therapist like 20 years ago. Because I was laying out this list of grievances I had about my father. And on this last trip, this happened, he smashed my truck, he did this and that. And I said, you know, at this point, I just don't know that I really need to have a relationship with him. I just don't think I want to do this anymore. And he said, you're totally entitled to make that decision with this list of things you've just given me. But very simply, do you think you're the type of person that doesn't talk to their dad? And I was like, oh, fuck, I don't think I'm the type of person that wouldn't talk to their dad.

• 1:12:44Dax Shepard?

  That's very incongruous with this thing I want to do. But yeah, in a very simple way, do I think I'm the type of person that doesn't talk to their dad? I don't think I'm that type of person. I don't want to be that type of person.

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:12:56Dax Shepard?

  So I guess we're just gonna have to do a lot harder work to figure out how I am not that person. Yet I don't come out on the wrong end of all these interactions.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  Right. And that's fascinating.

• 1:13:06Dax Shepard?

  I was telling him this, thinking he'll sign off on this and I'm never talking to my dad. I worked it all out in my head.

• 1:13:11Speaker 02

  But you wouldn't have felt good about it in the long run.

• 1:13:13Dax Shepard?

  No, it was the simplest question I wouldn't have asked myself.

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  So powerful.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  I also like the last question because it sort of depersonalizes it. If you're saying, what does a person like that do in this situation? It's not like, what am I gonna do in this situation? It's what does someone that holds those values do? You can remove yourself and I think that's really helpful.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And in experiment after experiment, I've seen people say their one thing and then behave in a different way. So anything that helps us reduce that gap.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Gosh, I wonder if they repeated that experiment and before going in the shocks.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  They made them write down their values. I wonder if that would have impacted it.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  The people that could defy, they're really fascinating. So, I mean, I told you this or basic setup of the Milgram experiment, but when you look at all the different. Deviations that they had, that's where I find the work really fascinating and the people that defied, what was it about them that they defied? And many of them, it was because of responsibility. So one was a professor of the Old Testament. So values, right, were there and very high on that. So even though he was stuttering and things, when they said the experiment requires you to go on, he kind of asked, does it like maybe if we're in Russia, but not here.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:32Speaker 02

  So he was be able to stand up to that because he'd done so much thinking about those types of values and humanity and not harming another person. And then the other person that really stands out for me was an engineer that had the knowledge of how powerful these shocks are.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  And he lived through World War Two, and so he was fascinated by this afterwards. And he said, he just felt really bad that he went as far as he did before he stopped. Because he's like, if you throw the responsibility onto someone else and just say you were taking orders, that's really quite a cowardly thing to do. You're the one that's causing the shocks to someone else. And I know what kind of harm those shocks can do. And there was another participant, a woman that said the same thing. I don't want to be responsible for causing harm to another person. So I do think that responsibility element is really powerful when we think about what does a person like me do in a situation?

• 1:15:25Dax Shepard?

  There's so many variables, though, as well, because even engineers, they overindex on disagreeability on the personality test, right? So it's like you start with, there's been a filtration.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:15:36Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  I'm just saying that because my son wants to be an engineer.

• 1:15:40Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and your son, when you tell him not play his Xbox, he walks right in there and plays his Xbox. It's in your book.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  And he won't go to the.

• 1:15:46Dax Shepard?

  Not be bothered by the Olympics.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  Not as defined as me.

• 1:15:50Dax Shepard?

  Of course he wants to be an engineer.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  Well, my dad always says this, engineers are hyper focused on seeing problems. That's the whole point of the job, because a building will collapse if they don't do that. So it is looking at the world with a critical lens, which I do think can come with some defiance.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. The critical thinking element of it is key. Of knowing actually when to defy or not to defy.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:16Dax Shepard?

  Have they ever done versions of this test? So my assumption about the electrocution test is that the participants were probably students?

• 1:16:25Speaker 02

  No, they weren't actually.

• 1:16:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I guess you just listed some people that weren't students.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, members of the community came in. They had different races and he ran a bunch of experiments, but there was one experiment that was all women. And in that experiment, same rates of compliance as the other ones. There wasn't a gender difference, surprisingly.

• 1:16:41Dax Shepard?

  Right. So what I was curious about as we're sitting here talking and learning about it is I wonder if they looked at age. I have some intuition that as you get older and older and older.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  You're more likely to defy.

• 1:16:51Dax Shepard?

  You're more likely to be defiant.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe because you have more knowledge, more experience.

• 1:16:55Dax Shepard?

  You have more knowledge, you've lived through more stuff, you see the racket, you care a little less, you've achieved your social status, you have cultural capital, you have raised your kids. Like anecdotally, talk to some old people, they'll tell you like it is.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Dax Shepard?

  They're not seventh graders. What's everyone doing? They've somehow transcended that through life experience.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  I think that would be interesting. Those rookie officers, if they had that situation again, wouldn't do it. So how can we learn from the experience of other people?

• 1:17:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  And that's really fascinating because I was speaking to another rookie officer and he was trained during the time that the incident with George Floyd took place. And he thought about it a lot. And so when it came to a situation that he was on this night run with his partner and a few others, and they wanted to go and search a garage for stolen bicycles, he said, no, we can't just go in there without permission of the homeowner to go. And they were like, no, we're just gonna go in. And he said, no. So he went and knocked on the door and it was about four o'clock in the morning, no answer at all. But the car was there and the neighbor said, oh, I think he's there, he's just asleep. And so he was the only one as this rookie officer that refused to go in.

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  And the reason he did that wasn't because he was brave or anything like that. He said he was motivated by fear because he saw what happened to the rookie officers. And in his mind, he went to the worst case scenario that we're gonna go in there and we don't have any standing to go in. In there, there's no blood, there's nobody screaming.

• 1:18:25Dax Shepard?

  No probable cause.

• 1:18:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so he knew the law and he'd just been trained. And then he was with police officers 20 years older than him saying, you were telling us what to do. Eff it, we're going in. He refused to go in because he thought the homeowner is going to come out with a gun.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  Something terrible is gonna happen.

• 1:18:40Dax Shepard?

  Over some bicycles.

• 1:18:41Speaker 02

  So he said no, and homeowner came down and actually thanked them and everything. So everything was fine and the ride back to the station for him was just awful. And within an hour, he was called in to see his supervisor. And it was a bit like, read this, you got it wrong. And he was like, no, with all due respect, I knew that we didn't have any standing and we shouldn't have gone in. And he said to me, you know, his childhood stutter came back, but he knew in this job, it was going to be difficult and he was going to be asked to do some things that weren't right. And because he'd seen the George Floyd thing.

• 1:19:16Dax Shepard?

  Anticipating.

• 1:19:17Speaker 02

  Anticipating.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:19:19Speaker 02

  He thought, I'm not going to be that police officer. But he was ostracized for a bit. He said the whole thing went around the station, even though he was right. But he ultimately got transferred to another unit where he said they were younger officers, but they had more understanding of the law and he's very hopeful and very optimistic about a new era of policing. So that was great to hear, but it also shows that learning from other people, I think, would be wonderful.

• 1:19:45Dax Shepard?

  Well, it's a wonderful book. I so appreciate you coming in. This has been wonderful. Unfortunately, I need a book that says, just fucking get with the program. I need like the opposite book, but I still very much appreciate it. And I live and love so many people that have a really hard time with it and I can see the amount of weight on them.

• 1:20:00Speaker 02

  I'm thinking, is there a thing as being too defiant? Because I'm not talking about defiance as in knee jerk reaction to defiance, but more considered defiance. So maybe that's what you need.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  As opposed to just get with the program. She's saying like.

• 1:20:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Instead.

• 1:20:16Dax Shepard?

  I think what I could do is give a lot more benefit of the doubt to people around me and not assume from my past that everyone's trying to get one over on me. It's all my own baggage.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  Healthy amount of skepticism, but not too much.

• 1:20:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I have too much. The book is called Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. I think so many people will be very empowered by this. And I think you make it very simple to follow how you could start advocating for yourself and staying true to your values.

• 1:20:46Speaker 02

  I appreciate that.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  It's a great topic. It's important.

• 1:20:48Dax Shepard?

  It is. Thanks so much for coming.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  Thank you. This is wonderful.

• 1:20:56Dax Shepard?

  Hi there. This is Hermium Hermium. If you like that, you're gonna love the fact check with Ms. Monica. Steady, are you ready? What's going on? You don't know that song, do you, soul to soul?

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  You sing it a lot.

• 1:21:12Dax Shepard?

  I do, but you don't know the source, do you?

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  Um, no.

• 1:21:15Dax Shepard?

  Does it ring a bell when I sing it? Doesn't, right?

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  I don't know it. I didn't grow up on it.

• 1:21:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It was hot and then it disappeared.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  One Hit Wonder?

• 1:21:23Dax Shepard?

  Keep on moving, don't stop. They had two, two hits.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Two Hit Wonder.

• 1:21:26Dax Shepard?

  Does that ring a bell? Keep on moving, don't stop?

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:21:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Really nice. Really nice. I guess maybe neo soul, dance music, 92.

• 1:21:35Speaker 01

  Ooh, 92. I was five. I wasn't listening to music then.

• 1:21:40Dax Shepard?

  You weren't going out dancing much when you were five?

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  Not that I know of.

• 1:21:43Dax Shepard?

  You may notice I'm feeling a little energized because I just blew past one of my goals and I'm just feeling incredible.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  What was it?

• 1:21:52Dax Shepard?

  Well, I got these bike riding goals.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:21:54Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna back up. I had an issue with my bike that I love. It's so beautiful. The chain got sucked into the sprocket. It bent the sprocket. Now it's having a really hard time staying in gear. So when I ride it and I'm putting a lot of force on it, it's hopping gear. It's rough.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:22:11Dax Shepard?

  And I bought it used a while ago and I decided on Sunday, perhaps.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Sustainable.

• 1:22:16Dax Shepard?

  Sustainable.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  That's a good job.

• 1:22:18Dax Shepard?

  Yes. Well, then you'll like where this story goes. So then I was like, okay, I'm, I'm, I've proven that I'm into this. I need to get a bike with clip-ons and the whole nine and really commit.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:27Dax Shepard?

  Looked online, is gonna go to Pasadena, found a bike store, was looking at all the options. They looked, it's really funny if you've ever priced a bike. These bikes are imperceptibly the same. One's $15,000 and one is 1,900.

• 1:22:42Speaker 01

  This is like sweaters.

• 1:22:43Dax Shepard?

  And I'm like, what? I can't see what's different. I mean, presumably one's carbon fiber and all this shit.

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:48Dax Shepard?

  So I'm looking at it and I'm already going through my game plan. Like I'm gonna get there and go, listen, Buster, I know you think I'm here to buy an $18,000 bike, but I'm not. I don't care. I just wanna be able to change gears.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  You had your sword in your belt.

• 1:23:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was all fired up to go to battle with a salesman. And then I thought, okay, my friend Jeff McFarlane, who I love, shout out Jeff McFarlane, he's helped me navigate many a things in life. He's not too dissimilar than me. He loves cars, he loves things.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  You don't love things. I'm gonna go ahead and say that. You love cars, but I don't, I would never classify you.

• 1:23:25Dax Shepard?

  He loves motorcycles and he loves cars.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  Motor stuff, but I, I don't think it would be fair for you to say you like things.

• 1:23:32Dax Shepard?

  Right. I don't have, whatever. The point is.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  I'm trying to be nice and say that.

• 1:23:36Dax Shepard?

  Thank you so much. I appreciate you defending me to myself. But Jeff competed in Ironmans, which there's a huge biking portion.

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Dax Shepard?

  Knowing him, it just crossed my mind. I'm like, I bet he has a lot of bikes.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:51Dax Shepard?

  Cause you have all these different applications, right?

• 1:23:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:54Dax Shepard?

  And also, I know that he is downsized. He is 61 now. He's just been appointed a judge. He has been a lawyer.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Congratulations.

• 1:24:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm so happy for him. So he's gonna be an LA superior judge, which is really cool.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 1:24:11Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna go to the swearing in, but at any rate.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 1:24:13Dax Shepard?

  I know he's like, he's like, he's getting older, his kids have moved out and he's like, he moved into a smaller place. And then I thought, I wonder if he wants to get rid of bikes. So hit him up. Hey, by any chance, do you have any bikes that you wanna get rid of? And he said, as a matter of fact, I do. Come over. So I go over and I go into his garage and there's three hanging on the wall.

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  What colors?

• 1:24:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh, man. Couple that are like black carbon fiber and then this one that is like silver and orange.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Ooh, Flames.

• 1:24:43Dax Shepard?

  Not Flames, but still silver and orange. And as I'm looking at them, I'm realizing I'm in the same situation I was with the bike shop, which is I know these are, these are to compete in Ironman.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Dax Shepard?

  And I know what these price tags can be.

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:24:59Dax Shepard?

  So, once I look at them, I go, I go, Jeff, I realize this is a disaster because I was gonna spend basically blank on a new bike and I, I don't want to try to rip you off.

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:10Dax Shepard?

  And he said, dude, the bikes are 10 years old. I, I don't know how else to get rid of him. He's like, I'll give you one for 2,500 bucks, which is what was gonna be my budget for it, to be honest.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:21Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, okay, well, I'll give you more. The bike is, was hand-built. It's a cra- he's like, everywhere you go, people are gonna wanna talk to you about this bike.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Is it the Flames one or is it a black one?

• 1:25:32Dax Shepard?

  No, no, I got the Flames one.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:34Dax Shepard?

  All to say, I have this insanely beautiful, hand-built bike.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:25:40Dax Shepard?

  I don't even wanna say what it costs, brand new. It was like a $22,000 bicycle.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 1:25:47Dax Shepard?

  So, the thrill I had of getting a bike that expensive that I myself would have never bought.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:25:53Dax Shepard?

  Just put a-

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Pep in your step.

• 1:25:55Dax Shepard?

  Yes. So, I'm so excited about the bike and I come home and now I need to buy the shoes that go into the clip-on pedals. So, I ordered those. They're coming on Saturday, but I'm too impatient today. I'm like, I wonder if I can ride it with the clip-on pedals, but just with normal shoes.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 1:26:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I can't, I just can't wait, basically.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:12Dax Shepard?

  So, this morning, I went, that's why I asked if we could record a little later.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, yeah.

• 1:26:16Dax Shepard?

  I had a hunch I might do this. So, I went all the way up to the observatory. Then I went on a road that's closed. You can bike on it. Up to the Hollywood sign, down the backside of the mountain, into Burbank.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:27Dax Shepard?

  To Travel Town.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:26:29Dax Shepard?

  Then all the way through Griffith Park, past the zoo. Then out onto Los Feliz Boulevard, past your house. I looked over as I was pedaling. I mean, that was, that was the end of, I was like an hour and forty-five minutes in at that point.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  Holy shit.

• 1:26:41Dax Shepard?

  And so I was a little, I looked over and then I was like, I was in a state by that point.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Wow, that's so long.

• 1:26:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so I did that.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  You're like a bona fide biker now, bicyclist.

• 1:26:53Dax Shepard?

  Now I have to because I have this absurdly special bicycle that I got for such a deal.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  I understand. This can be the chicken or the egg with items. This is a lot like fashion.

• 1:27:03Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Like you, sometimes you go on the RealReal, great website, not sponsored yet.

• 1:27:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  And there's like a, a very fancy purse, let's say a purse.

• 1:27:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  That you know is outrageously expensive.

• 1:27:17Dax Shepard?

  Like was originally ten grand or something.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  Yes. And then it's there for one grand.

• 1:27:22Dax Shepard?

  One grams.

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  And you, and you start doing this whole like, oh my God, obviously I have to get it.

• 1:27:27Dax Shepard?

  You think you're making nine thousand dollars? Like when I left, I was like, oh my God, I just made eighteen thousand dollars.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, shopping map. See, you get it. You get it. And then you have the purse and it's like, well, I have the purse, so I guess I gotta get the scarf so that I'm, I'm this person. Like I'm this person now that carries this bag. So now the rest of me has to fit.

• 1:27:47Dax Shepard?

  You have to live up to the item.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a slippery slope.

• 1:27:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you remember when my therapist Mark had said that, like, often you change to accomplish something. And other times you get something that you have, that will force you to grow into it or you'll lose it. And I thought that was interesting.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  I like that. That's true. Yeah.

• 1:28:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so that was really exciting. And then I, I got back and then I, and then I lifted weights.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:28:11Dax Shepard?

  Because I'm going to Detroit and I have to look as swole as possible.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:28:14Dax Shepard?

  Because that's where all the guys that wanted to kick my ass live.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  You think you're gonna run into them?

• 1:28:18Dax Shepard?

  I hope so because I'm ready.

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 1:28:21Dax Shepard?

  I've already had a fantasy, because you know Kid Rock picked a fight with me one time.

• 1:28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Dax Shepard?

  Years ago. And he was with two buddies and I did stand up to him and then it got, it got kind of mitigated or, or de-escalated.

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:33Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, oh wow, you know, he'll likely be at this game.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Oh, you're saying?

• 1:28:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he's from Detroit.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  But does he go to all of them?

• 1:28:39Dax Shepard?

  I don't know enough about them.

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, me either.

• 1:28:42Dax Shepard?

  But it did cross my mind. You gotta be ready. Who knows? You bump into Kid Rock, he takes another run at you. And I'm ready.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 1:28:50Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  You're allowed.

• 1:28:53Dax Shepard?

  Yes, this is like Kristen is only greenlit.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:57Dax Shepard?

  I've only got a couple of green lights where fighting is okay.

• 1:28:59Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:29:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm fine with that.

• 1:29:01Dax Shepard?

  It's a bummer actually, because I love Kid Rock's music and I wish he wasn't.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  You do.

• 1:29:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh yeah, there's some great stuff.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  You love "Ba With The Ba."

• 1:29:08Dax Shepard?

  No, I don't love that one, but he likes southern rock and I grew up loving southern rock.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  I know you're trying to find middle ground, but let's be, his, no. "Ba With The Ba" was on TRL number one for so long and I, I hated it so much.

• 1:29:26Dax Shepard?

  I can imagine it was a very scary.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  It's the, it's, I mean.

• 1:29:31Dax Shepard?

  So white dude with long blonde hair and a trans am.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, he hated me then and he hates me now. But yeah, and that song was just so, it was so aggressive, like it's exactly.

• 1:29:43Dax Shepard?

  But I think the Lions are bringing people together because Aaron told me that, of course I was talking to Aaron about this.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:48Dax Shepard?

  Um.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Is he ready? Is he pumping?

• 1:29:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, he knows what, yeah. And he said, oh yeah, now, now Kid Rock and Eminem are friends. They've become friends. And I think because of the Lions.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 1:29:59Dax Shepard?

  And Kid Rock had to say that. Right. Aaron informed me that they are, they're friends officially and that Kid Rock said, we don't have the same political views, but we, we have found common ground as friends. So I think Lions are bringing people together.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  That's nice. I mean, sports will do that.

• 1:30:18Dax Shepard?

  Sports have that power.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  They do.

• 1:30:19Dax Shepard?

  Okay. I have some more updates.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:22Dax Shepard?

  I did something really cool last night.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:25Dax Shepard?

  I saw on Instagram, I don't even know how I saw this.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:30Dax Shepard?

  It was a video of a man meeting a guy in the 7-Eleven parking lot to receive a pizza.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:37Dax Shepard?

  And then the guy opened it up and it was the most gorgeous pizza. And then he took a bite and he's like a pizza reviewer.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:30:43Dax Shepard?

  And he said, yeah, it's the best pizza in LA.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Wait, it's like. Black market?

• 1:30:48Dax Shepard?

  Yes, the guy makes them in his house.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  No, I want this.

• 1:30:52Dax Shepard?

  I'll turn you on to him. So I see that. So you have to order through only through Instagram. There's like no number to call. So I DM the guy. The guy is incredibly sweet. He's got a sourdough he uses. Then I was like, okay.

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  And you ate it?

• 1:31:06Dax Shepard?

  If I am ever to eat bread, it is very, it's best to eat sourdough because it has the lowest gluten content.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:31:12Dax Shepard?

  In fact, I think you can almost make sourdough without any gluten and it has no brewer's yeast, which is also, some people like Eric is not gluten insensitive, but he can't have brewer's yeast, which is, it's in everything with gluten virtually, but not sourdough. So I was like, okay, I love the idea of meeting in a parking lot and a guy opens his trunk. It's very, my drug deals back from the old days. So I arranged this whole thing. I was supposed to get on Wednesday, the night the fires broke out.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:31:42Dax Shepard?

  That was my first appointment.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:31:44Dax Shepard?

  And mind you, it's at six and I gotta drive to Sunland, which for people don't know. To Sunland.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  He doesn't drive to the east side?

• 1:31:50Dax Shepard?

  No, no.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:31:51Dax Shepard?

  He's got a dude that works for him that drives a very short distance from wherever he's making them.

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  Well, they gotta say hot?

• 1:31:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they're piping hot. And he tells you, take a bite of, and he wants you to take a bite of a very specific pie.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:32:03Dax Shepard?

  So I got four, the four different varieties he makes. And he said, take a bite of the hot piggy immediately.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  Hot piggy?

• 1:32:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  What's on it?

• 1:32:11Dax Shepard?

  It's pepperoni with, I think, a little bit of, um, hot honey.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 1:32:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Monica. So.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, that sounds so good.

• 1:32:19Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so this kind of worked out brilliantly. Lincoln had a soccer game in Westlake.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:32:25Dax Shepard?

  Which is virtually like driving to Santa Barbara. Westlake is very far away.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  God, okay.

• 1:32:29Dax Shepard?

  So we left at two, took an hour to get to the game.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Yesterday.

• 1:32:33Dax Shepard?

  Yesterday.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:32:34Dax Shepard?

  Then watched the game. I think that's an hour and a half. Get back in the cart 4:30. And now we gotta get to Sunland by six, which is not going to be an issue. I think it's only supposed to take an hour and nine minutes. It said on my.

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  Oh, this is miserable.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Oh my God. Thank God you got pizza reward.

• 1:32:50Dax Shepard?

  Side note, all of Simi Valley didn't have any power.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Still.

• 1:32:54Dax Shepard?

  Well, so yes, I thought still, but this morning, not even this morning, seven minutes ago, I was in the shower. My hair is still damp, if you don't believe me.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  I didn't, I couldn't tell because your hat.

• 1:33:05Dax Shepard?

  And it looked like you didn't believe me, so I had to show you.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:33:08Dax Shepard?

  I was like, God, maybe they actually turned the power off intentionally because it was the last day of the Santa Anas. That would have been smart. So I don't know if they, they lost their power or they preemptively.

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:33:19Dax Shepard?

  Turned it off, which would have been very bright. Couldn't help but notice because it's a strip mall after strip mall. Nothing's open.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:25Dax Shepard?

  Anyways, Lincoln's got to pee. I'm telling you way too much shit. Tried to stop at a Starbucks. Someone blew up both Starbucks bathrooms. Both were inoperable from duty.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:33:33Dax Shepard?

  So then they had to go to the grocery store.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  A bomb.

• 1:33:36Dax Shepard?

  I mean, they, they painted the place.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:33:43Dax Shepard?

  So it's a whole saga to get to the toilet in this strip mall in Sunland. Then I was getting nervous. Oh my God, we're gonna be late. I thought I was gonna get there a half hour early. The girls were gonna get impatient. I was gonna have to put them in an Uber to send them home while I waited for the pizza. But as it turned out, it took so long to find a bathroom. We've rolled in. They're like 5:59. The appointment was at six. Six o'clock, guy in a black car pulls up. I get out. Fucking cash. Pay, get these four pies, get in the truck. I did exactly as he instructed. First one was.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  Bring your gun?

• 1:34:17Dax Shepard?

  Hot, I didn't have my gun.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Just in case.

• 1:34:22Dax Shepard?

  I gotta tell you, it was, as I said, it was very reminiscent of the old days in, in a very good and healthy way. It's like, I'm meeting a guy in a parking lot that I don't know. I'm gonna pay cash and then I'm, something really good is on the other end.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  You're still getting that high, but it's healthy.

• 1:34:36Dax Shepard?

  It's a high that it comes with no cost.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Does your voice change when you talk to them?

• 1:34:41Dax Shepard?

  I'm here for more pieces like that.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  No, like more. Like you're trying to be scary.

• 1:34:45Dax Shepard?

  I'll be there at six. And it was all on text.

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 1:34:48Dax Shepard?

  No, I was very nice to the guy. There was another guy there that was also picking up some pies, which is really funny. It's like me, two dudes, me and the drug dealer at the same time. That's funny. Get in the car, open it up. Right away. It's so beautiful. The pepperonis are so tiny.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I love those tiny ones.

• 1:35:03Dax Shepard?

  They're dished in the cooking process and there's oil in them. And there's, I can see the honey and I take a bite and by God, it's fucking so good. Oh, you got a picture of it? Oh, baby.

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I'm starving.

• 1:35:20Dax Shepard?

  I got the girls that pineapple Hawaiian, which was outrageous. I don't even like Hawaiian pizza, but that was my second favorite. We got umami hot pepper pizza, which was a million peppers. And it was very good. And then the hot piggy. And I said umami. And then, yeah.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  Is that their cheese? Is that just like a cheese one?

• 1:35:40Dax Shepard?

  That's a great question. What's on the upper far right?

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  It looks kind of like.

• 1:35:44Dax Shepard?

  A margarita.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:45Dax Shepard?

  I should ask him about that because I'm going back.

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  Looks so good. It looks so crispy.

• 1:35:50Dax Shepard?

  It's great.

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  Ooh, I'm gonna have to go. Looks delicious.

• 1:35:55Dax Shepard?

  So the car ride home is long from Sunland at six o'clock on a weekday.

• 1:36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  And I ate, and then, well, Kristen had two pieces of hot piggy. I ate the remainder. So I ate three quarters of the hot piggy.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:10Dax Shepard?

  And I ate a third of the Hawaiian.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:36:14Dax Shepard?

  And then I had a slice of hot pepper and a slice of umami. So I had like a pizza and a half or two pizzas.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  That's a lot of pizza.

• 1:36:23Dax Shepard?

  No wonder I tackled that hill today and kept going.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  It's probably because you had all the energy, all those carbs.

• 1:36:29Dax Shepard?

  Fuel, glycogen. So that was really fun. That, that was, I really liked it. That was a fun experience for the whole family being in that parking lot and the guy rolling.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  Very fun.

• 1:36:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  Ooh, yum.

• 1:36:43Dax Shepard?

  Lot of updates. Are you watching Bad Sisters, season two?

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  No, I didn't watch the first season.

• 1:36:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you didn't?

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  I started it. It seems so good. I'm sure it's fantastic. I'm sure it's fantastic.

• 1:36:54Dax Shepard?

  What happened?

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  You know, I sometimes don't like.

• 1:36:59Dax Shepard?

  British content?

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I guess this is Irish in this.

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  I know, but it's the same.

• 1:37:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  It gives me the feeling.

• 1:37:06Dax Shepard?

  They would not like that, but yes.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  As far as the feeling I get, it's the same. And.

• 1:37:13Dax Shepard?

  Can you articulate the feeling?

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's.

• 1:37:16Dax Shepard?

  The feeling.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've talked about it a lot on here. The only person who really gets it, gets it is Anthony. He can always, he can always tell me, he's like, that's gonna give you the feeling. Don't watch it. And then I watch it and it is exactly right. He like knows.

• 1:37:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  And it's just really hard to explain. There are a few things that I know that trigger it. Suicide stuff often triggers it.

• 1:37:37Dax Shepard?

  I don't think there's any suicide, but continue.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Okay, but British and now I guess now Irish stuff. Often does, which is weird because I love London so much. I love it.

• 1:37:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  I don't get the feeling when I'm there. It's all like media, it's movies and TV and stuff. And then the first time I identified this feeling was.

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  Was Wonder Years when I was young.

• 1:38:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's the origin of the feeling.

• 1:38:04Speaker 01

  The OF.

• 1:38:05Dax Shepard?

  Original feeling.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  I don't know, I just feel, it just makes me feel really like, really uncomfortable. And Anthony says things that are overly earnest.

• 1:38:14Dax Shepard?

  You liked Fleabag though.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  I did, I loved it. So some things make their way through. I don't know, it's hard, it's hard. But I started Bad Sisters and it gave me the feeling. So I had to stop.

• 1:38:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  I'm making a new mocktail that my friend Maddie taught me about. It's called, it doesn't have a name, but it is seltzer water. I've been using Perrier and a little bit of 100% tangerine juice.

• 1:38:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, is that hard to find 100% tangerine juice?

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  The brand is Natalie's, shout out. Oh, shout out Rob. And it isn't that hard to find. I found it at Lazy Acres.

• 1:38:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great, okay, 100%.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:59Dax Shepard?

  Is it rich?

• 1:39:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not sweet at all.

• 1:39:03Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it's not?

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  No, it's very citrusy.

• 1:39:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:39:08Dax Shepard?

  Crisp, clean.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  Nice, it's nice. Maddie invented it, I need to give her.

• 1:39:11Dax Shepard?

  It's just seltzer and 100% tangerine juice?

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay, what, what, what ratio?

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  I just do a splash of the juice.

• 1:39:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  And mainly the drink, the seltzer.

• 1:39:21Dax Shepard?

  And how many of those will you have? Ice cubes?

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  No ice cubes, but I do freeze the glass.

• 1:39:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  I do, I ventize it.

• 1:39:33Dax Shepard?

  And is it satiating your cocktail urge?

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  It's helping.

• 1:39:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  It's helping. Yeah, what's been interesting is, so I think we talked about it. I'm trying not to drink Monday through Thursday.

• 1:39:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  Then the world got really turned upside down.

• 1:39:48Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, topsy turvy.

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, I said, fuck that. So I drank last week, I think Wednesday and Thursday. And Saturday and Sunday.

• 1:40:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  I think, I forget all the days, but I definitely didn't stick to my thing.

• 1:40:06Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  But what has been interesting, and you told me to do this in my journal, I've been journaling. To like, it's a good place to tally and mark.

• 1:40:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yes, yes.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  So I've been doing that and it is in my head when I'm about to drink, like, well, tomorrow I'm gonna have to put zero.

• 1:40:25Dax Shepard?

  Or you have to write one, day one.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Well, I-

• 1:40:29Dax Shepard?

  You'll go day zero.

• 1:40:30Speaker 01

  I do zero. Which is, it's like, back it, nothing, you know?

• 1:40:36Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  And I think about that, and even just the thinking about it for a second

• 1:40:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  is nice. It makes me really make the decision, like, do I really want it?

• 1:40:46Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  And-

• 1:40:47Dax Shepard?

  I think it makes you just acknowledge there'll be a tomorrow.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:51Dax Shepard?

  I will have to account for this decision.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:40:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  And sometimes the answer is, yeah.

• 1:40:58Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  I don't care if I have to put a zero, I want it. Zeros are fun. And other times I'm like, I don't really, I don't really need it. I don't really want it. So overall, even though I've broken my goal, I am drinking much less.

• 1:41:11Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Which is helpful.

• 1:41:13Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna make a small pitch for not zero.

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:41:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay, because it is the morning.

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:23Dax Shepard?

  And it is day one of being sober.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Hmm, I see.

• 1:41:27Dax Shepard?

  It's not day zero, day zero doesn't exist.

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:31Dax Shepard?

  So day, day one, it's, this is the date and this is day one and I'm not gonna drink today. This is a one.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:41:38Dax Shepard?

  And see now, if you write zero in some weird way, there's almost nothing to lose. Cause if you drink later that night, but when you write one, you're also committing to this is, this is day one of not drinking.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:41:50Dax Shepard?

  Does that make any sense mentally?

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:41:52Dax Shepard?

  It's a commitment.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:41:54Dax Shepard?

  Cause on this date, I'll have had one day of not drinking, which is true. I didn't drink that day. That's day one.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  In the morning though.

• 1:42:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So you gotta make it through the night. But it's true. So long as you don't drink that night.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think that makes sense.

• 1:42:10Dax Shepard?

  And then it's a little more positive.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I guess for me, it's not, it's because I'm not trying to be sober.

• 1:42:18Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  Trying to get to day four, really.

• 1:42:21Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh. I see what you're doing.

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  I'm more, I mainly just like.

• 1:42:24Dax Shepard?

  You're saying I have zero days of sobriety in the morning.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, it feels a little, I don't know why it feels a little like intense to call it sobriety. Also because that's not really what I'm.

• 1:42:34Dax Shepard?

  Sober. What do you wanna say? Clean? No drinky poo?

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:37Dax Shepard?

  Like you have one day of no drink.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. I didn't drink last night.

• 1:42:45Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  That's what it is. It's like, yeah, that, that I didn't drink, I did drink. So I'm at zero days as opposed to one day that I didn't successfully.

• 1:42:57Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  Anyway, what else? Anything else? Let's see. Are you reading any new books?

• 1:43:03Dax Shepard?

  I'm listening to We Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong's book. As I told you, I was listening to Immense World over and over again. And then I decided to go and try the first book.

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:12Dax Shepard?

  Or anyway, it was his first, but the previous bestseller. Oh, it's mind blowing.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Oh God.

• 1:43:18Dax Shepard?

  It's all about microbes and your micro.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Biome?

• 1:43:23Dax Shepard?

  Biome. Thank you. Microbiome.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  He's so brilliant.

• 1:43:27Dax Shepard?

  Your body has so many, it says nine pounds. Did I already tell you this?

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  Mm-mm.

• 1:43:31Dax Shepard?

  Every person has nine pounds of microbes in them. And there's, there are many animals that couldn't even exist without the microbes. They would die.

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:41Dax Shepard?

  The microbes perform all these tasks. They really, they've evolved with the microbes and they, they themselves can't even exist.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:43:48Dax Shepard?

  Then there's this, all this weird stuff where they raise these rats completely free of microbes, which is almost impossible, but they're born into a hermetically sealed case.

• 1:43:58Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 1:43:59Dax Shepard?

  And they don't ever accumulate any microbes. And they can eat however they want and they don't gain any weight.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:06Dax Shepard?

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 1:44:08Dax Shepard?

  And then they introduce different microbes and then they'll eat way less food and gain way more weight.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 1:44:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  Weird.

• 1:44:16Dax Shepard?

  And then all the health stuff, like there's so much health stuff.

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:20Dax Shepard?

  And then talks about, you know, this kind of scary proposition that you're supposed to get all, as we know, all these microbes from your mom's vagina as you come out.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:30Dax Shepard?

  And then the other huge source is breast milk.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:33Dax Shepard?

  And a third of children in the US are now born cesarean section. So they're not getting the vaginal microbes.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:40Dax Shepard?

  And then if they also don't breastfeed.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:44Dax Shepard?

  You know, they're, they're ripe for some issues. A lot of allergies and a lot of different things.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I went to my acupuncturist, that's the first thing she asked.

• 1:44:55Dax Shepard?

  About your gut health?

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  No, if I was born vaginally.

• 1:44:58Dax Shepard?

  That was her first question.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  I was.

• 1:45:02Dax Shepard?

  And you were breastfed?

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:04Dax Shepard?

  I was not.

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, you were.

• 1:45:06Dax Shepard?

  And I have an autoimmune disease and allergies. That's right, and heroin. Don't forget the heroin.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  And heroin. Not to get controversial, but I, I do, I feel like I'm. Pro animal testing.

• 1:45:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, you gotta be.

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  I know, but people hate that.

• 1:45:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, some people hate it. Some people.

• 1:45:25Speaker 01

  Like, how will we learn anything?

• 1:45:27Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. If you subtract animal testing from our history.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  We just lost a lot of listeners, but I think it's true.

• 1:45:35Dax Shepard?

  I don't think so. I think it's a very fringe group that do not want mice to be tested on.

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:39Dax Shepard?

  Now, a lot of us.

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  I'm a mouse, so I can say that.

• 1:45:43Dax Shepard?

  Yes. It's kind of preposterous to think you should test on humans.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:45:47Dax Shepard?

  Instead of mice, which you can, they procreate so quickly. Their lifetime is very short anyways. Blah, blah, blah. Now, I think it's a sliding scale. I think probably most of us don't want to see chimpanzees tested on.

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:01Dax Shepard?

  Right?

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  And I guess it's a scale of what you're testing. Like, I know, like, the beauty products stuff, that's bad.

• 1:46:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  And I do think that's bad.

• 1:46:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  But like, learning about our bodies.

• 1:46:14Dax Shepard?

  What microbes would eliminate obesity before you'd ever even need Ozempic?

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:21Dax Shepard?

  Or would eliminate allergies or eliminate, of course, we must do that.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:46:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I don't think any rational person has that point of view.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, people have all kinds of points of view.

• 1:46:32Dax Shepard?

  They do. They do. And they're entitled. We have a country that has free speech, so you can think anything you want.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:46:38Dax Shepard?

  It's great.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  I'm rewatching Sex in the City, and I, it's been a long time since I watched it, and it is funny. There are some things that are very ahead of its time, like some of the things they're talking about.

• 1:46:50Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  And I don't know, it's been really interesting to watch. But also, separately, they have two episodes where they're in LA.

• 1:46:58Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  And, and it is so funny, because they're, they're like, pointing out the differences between LA and New York, and it's so cliche.

• 1:47:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, New Yorkers love to do this. It starts with Annie Hall.

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. They're being so extreme.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  But then I had to recognize, like, they make a joke about this guy. Miranda comes and visits her old friend, who now lives in LA, writes for a TV show and used to live in New York, and he's really positive. And she's like, what's, what happened to you? We used to hate on everybody. And he was like, yeah, I just am so much, I am so much happier here.

• 1:47:38Dax Shepard?

  I know. Somehow people don't, they distrust that, or it's like fake. You know, the big thing on the East Coast is calling someone fake. It's a huge thing. Remember, like, in even Jersey Shore, to be fake was as low as you can get. I don't even hear people in LA ever say that as a pejorative or a put down.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  I mean, I say that about people, some, some sector of the South.

• 1:47:58Dax Shepard?

  Oh, would it be more, okay, do you think it'd be more accurate to say, like, insincere? Aren't you really saying, like, a lot of the hospitality feels obligatory and insincere?

• 1:48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  But that's just another word for it.

• 1:48:13Dax Shepard?

  I guess. Fake is a total character assassination. It's like, they're fake.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:19Dax Shepard?

  They're a fake.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  I think that's what they mean. But anyway, it was just so funny because he, um, he was like, I'm so much happier here. And then he ordered, he took her to this, like, macrobiotic sandwich shop, you know, someplace that I was like, ooh, that does sound good.

• 1:48:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:48:38Speaker 01

  And then he was like, let's go on a hike. And that was like the, the culmination of the joke.

• 1:48:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay, right.

• 1:48:43Speaker 01

  Like, let's go on a hike. And I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm here. I'm indoctrinated.

• 1:48:48Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  It's funny.

• 1:48:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. We're into health. We're being positive.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  Into health.

• 1:48:54Dax Shepard?

  We're feeling good and eating good and exercise. And that's true.

• 1:49:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know why anyone would be mad about it.

• 1:49:02Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. I can't really lock into the why that's frustrating for people. I think, like, the Woody Allen joke, if I have it remembered correctly, is like, in LA, their definition of culture is the right to turn on red. Which is great.

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:19Dax Shepard?

  I like it.

• 1:49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:20Dax Shepard?

  We have no history. I mean.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  We do, but.

• 1:49:23Dax Shepard?

  It's not fair to say to the indigenous folks or.

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 1:49:27Dax Shepard?

  Spanish missionaries that were here.

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:30Dax Shepard?

  But, you know, we don't have, we don't have New York's deep cultural history.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I suppose.

• 1:49:37Dax Shepard?

  But once we got in the mix, boy, we really started shaping it.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  I was thinking about when we did our first fact check of the year while you were gone. And we were doing it virtual and I was saying that I was. This is the first time I was calling LA home.

• 1:49:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  And not Georgia home, even though we realized I was calling everything home.

• 1:49:55Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  But in light of what's been happening the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about that.

• 1:50:01Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:50:03Dax Shepard?

  Like maybe leaving?

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  No, God, no.

• 1:50:05Dax Shepard?

  I think a lot of people are debating whether they're gonna leave or not.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  I under, I understand why, but I don't feel like that at all. I feel more, I feel like doubled down.

• 1:50:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, great.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  And that I love it here and I'm so happy to be here and grateful. And it is funny, this is not to disparage any other place and how they handle situations. But in a lot of places, when bad things happen, there's a lot of requests for prayers and.

• 1:50:40Dax Shepard?

  For God to intervene?

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Yes, and for, you know, meeting at the church and X, Y, and Z. And that's great. Like, I have nothing against that. We didn't have that. I didn't see, I saw maybe like one person say it.

• 1:50:53Dax Shepard?

  Well, John Mayer say he's gonna say a prayer.

• 1:50:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he said, I don't do this, but.

• 1:50:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, this'll be my first time doing it.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And, and I, and like some people I do know are religious and, and were. But overall, the city, no one was saying.

• 1:51:09Dax Shepard?

  No one thought the solution was gonna come from.

• 1:51:10Speaker 01

  No, and, but what is so heartening is like, I've never seen a city mobilize so fast. No one was asking for prayers. They were asking for meat here, give this, do this.

• 1:51:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  It was instruction and it was specific. It was action.

• 1:51:28Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  And I really, I was like, yeah.

• 1:51:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:31Speaker 01

  That's, that's in alignment.

• 1:51:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  With me. So, anyway, um. All right.

• 1:51:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, let's get factual.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  Let's get facts.

• 1:51:40Dax Shepard?

  Oh, one last thing.

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:51:42Dax Shepard?

  Many people in the comments suggested this, and I want to tell them, we had already done it. So a lot of people were like, invite Nikki Glaser on. I just want to say, we, the second after we had that long talk on the previous fact check, we were like, we should definitely invite her.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:56Dax Shepard?

  So we have invited her.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  You even said, you said it on...

• 1:51:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I did?

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did. And then we did. And we're trying.

• 1:52:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:05Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:52:11Dax Shepard?

  We get support from our sponsor, Lilly. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight-related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundo or for Gleepran. Foundo is a once-daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 1:52:37Speaker 05

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• 1:53:21Speaker 05

  5.5-milligram, 9-milligram, 14.5-milligram, and 17.2-milligram tablets. Learn more at foundo.lilly.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundo.

• 1:53:40Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is for Sunita.

• 1:53:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Which I just thought was a great episode. I love her message.

• 1:53:51Dax Shepard?

  I experienced it.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  Oh, it's here.

• 1:53:53Dax Shepard?

  I just experienced it. Yeah, I was getting blood drawn and the nurse basically told me that the doctor that they work for forced them to get a flu shot and they didn't want it. And I thought, yeah, here's a nurse who is

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Who knows?

• 1:54:06Dax Shepard?

  Very qualified opinion. It's not like they're ignorant. They've probably made some analysis and probably she would have liked to have said no somehow.

• 1:54:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really tricky and especially in that situation with her. I don't know the details of how that works, but he's her superior, I would assume.

• 1:54:26Dax Shepard?

  Employer, yeah.

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  And that it's so, it's so hard. It's, it's so much easier said than done.

• 1:54:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:36Speaker 01

  To stick up for yourself when your job is on the line or when your employer is upset with you. Or, I mean, there's just things that you, that honestly put you into fight or flight.

• 1:54:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  And it's, it's intense.

• 1:54:52Dax Shepard?

  I find myself, I don't want to say it's hard because it's not. And, and again, I'm the beneficiary of having not said no and it haunted me for the rest of my life. So that's like, that's a huge gift for me for the rest of my life. I just don't, you know. And I have so many options.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:12Dax Shepard?

  Like if this person is pressuring me to get this shot, I don't want it. Like I have options. I can go to another doctor. I can, you know, I, I, I'm gifted with a ton of luxuries.

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:22Dax Shepard?

  And so, and even me, I'm like, okay, we gotta say no and we gotta hold our ground. Like, you know, it's a thing.

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  It's really hard. I too have been thinking a lot about what, what are my true beliefs and values? Kind of what she said. She's, you know, she said, think about your values, then ask yourself, what would a person with these values do?

• 1:55:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  Not what I do.

• 1:55:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  But really, you know, force yourself to sort of be objective about who you want to be.

• 1:55:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:59Speaker 01

  And what actions match that? And

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  And yeah, I think it's good to know the parts of yourself that you're unwilling to forego for peace, really. I mean, that's what it, that's what it can come down to, and that sucks. But at the end of the day, all you have is you and, and those beliefs and those values. So like, you really just can't let people take them.

• 1:56:27Dax Shepard?

  Also a good moment to check your own pushiness as a person.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:56:32Dax Shepard?

  You know, like when you're in a position, what people do with their kids all the time. Like I watch kids, people force their kids to do these things.

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:42Dax Shepard?

  That really don't have much of a significant impact on their life. It's how they did it.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:56:49Dax Shepard?

  And they would like it done that way.

• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:51Dax Shepard?

  Uh, it's very tempting.

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:53Dax Shepard?

  But you know, and, and probably, you know, a lot of people are bosses.

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:57Dax Shepard?

  And it's very tempting and easy to want to keep pushing. So I think it's also a call to everyone of us who

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  Are in charge.

• 1:57:04Dax Shepard?

  When we have that role that we check our own pushiness.

• 1:57:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, also for people in charge to think about why, like why there's a pushiness or why you're forcing the nurse to get the thing. Like there can, I think that's also an element of control. And maybe there's a lack, there's a feeling of lack of control. And so there's a grasping for it.

• 1:57:32Dax Shepard?

  I think a lot of people feel this way, and I have felt this way as a parent many times. Like you feel like if you let this go, it's going to be a domino effect. And then you'll not have any say in anything.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:44Dax Shepard?

  It can be kind of misleading in that moment.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Totally. So yeah, I thought this was a great, great episode. Um, okay. She was talking about visas, the types of visas.

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  Um, I wanted to go through because I was sort of dumb enough to think that you could just like ask to come here and it would take a while, but that like you could.

• 1:58:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  And you can't, you have to have a reason to come. You have the student visa.

• 1:58:13Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  Tourist visa, business visa, transit visa. So that's a temporary visa that allows travelers to pass through a country for a limited time.

• 1:58:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:58:24Speaker 01

  Work visa, immigrant visa, a visa for people traveling to a country to live permanently. So I don't really know.

• 1:58:31Dax Shepard?

  Is that kinda like?

• 1:58:32Speaker 01

  That's kinda what I thought.

• 1:58:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like I just like, I like it there. I would like to live there.

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I don't think we have that here in the United States.

• 1:58:40Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 1:58:41Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 1:58:42Dax Shepard?

  We have to, because we have tons of legal, um, Latino immigrants that didn't get here on an H1B or a student.

• 1:58:54Speaker 01

  They probably got a work visa, maybe not H1B, but there's different kinds. I think H1B is specific to tech, maybe.

• 1:59:03Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:59:04Speaker 01

  Let me see, actually, because now I'm curious. Okay. Oh, God, so many news articles.

• 1:59:09Dax Shepard?

  How would you feel about one that was just hot?

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  Hot? If you're hot, you can come?

• 1:59:14Dax Shepard?

  Of course, if you're incredibly intelligent and have a skill set that would benefit the country, come on in. We want that, clearly.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:21Dax Shepard?

  What about hot? If there was one that was just like, you're a smoke show?

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  I'm for that.

• 1:59:25Dax Shepard?

  Let's keep this place full of gorgeous people. If you're single, that's a great point.

• 1:59:30Speaker 01

  If you're single and hot.

• 1:59:32Dax Shepard?

  That way you could, you could, you could.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  Procreate.

• 1:59:34Dax Shepard?

  You could procreate and you could lift.

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  That's right. Bring people up.

• 1:59:38Dax Shepard?

  The whole, yeah.

• 1:59:39Speaker 01

  The whole aesthetic.

• 1:59:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the girl who was half Indian.

• 1:59:44Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  We need more of that.

• 1:59:46Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:59:47Speaker 01

  Okay, H1B status is available to a person who has been offered a temporary professional position by a US employer. Bachelor's degree or higher in a related area is the minimum educational level. Okay, so it's not tech, it's just any, but the degree. I guess it, duh, because my. My dad and my grandpa got H1Bs.

• 2:00:08Dax Shepard?

  But engineering we were not?

• 2:00:10Speaker 01

  That would be tech, but my grandpa was a professor.

• 2:00:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay, alright.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Although he came on a student visa, I guess.

• 2:00:16Dax Shepard?

  And just stuck around, got a job as a professor.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:19Dax Shepard?

  Then got a work visa.

• 2:00:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Then became a citizen.

• 2:00:23Dax Shepard?

  Then became very patriotic.

• 2:00:24Speaker 01

  He did.

• 2:00:25Dax Shepard?

  Then became xenophobic.

• 2:00:26Speaker 01

  No, never. He did become very patriotic.

• 2:00:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I bet.

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  Okay, anyway, so can't just come here.

• 2:00:35Dax Shepard?

  Right. Can't see, I like the weather and that's why I'm going.

• 2:00:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, swatty. Swatty is the nerdy term, it's the term for nerd in British. And it started as an army slang, meaning sweaty. I think it's a variation of sweaty, but slang referring to hard work.

• 2:00:57Dax Shepard?

  And we're nervous about it because it sounds very much like a derivative of swastika.

• 2:01:01Speaker 01

  And twat.

• 2:01:02Dax Shepard?

  And twat.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:03Dax Shepard?

  But also we think a swatty potty would be a very cool.

• 2:01:07Speaker 01

  Invention.

• 2:01:08Dax Shepard?

  Invention.

• 2:01:09Speaker 01

  For the Brits.

• 2:01:10Dax Shepard?

  For the Brits, for the brainiac Brits.

• 2:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, Stanford Prison Experiment, the guy's name is, fuck, I want to.

• 2:01:17Dax Shepard?

  William Randolph.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  I wanted to see if I could remember it.

• 2:01:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  And I can't, again.

• 2:01:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that's okay.

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  Fuck.

• 2:01:24Dax Shepard?

  He's not relevant, the takeaway is what's relevant.

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  No, don't say that about him. Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo.

• 2:01:32Dax Shepard?

  Zimbardo, it sounds like a football coach.

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  It sounds exactly like Anthony's last name.

• 2:01:36Dax Shepard?

  And a football coach.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  And a football coach. And a Cubs pitcher, Carlos Zambrano. Okay, so between the three of us, why don't we remember it?

• 2:01:43Dax Shepard?

  And a Cubs, I've already declared I'm not even committed to memory. I'm committed to knowing about the Stanford Prison Experiment and what the result was. That's important for me to know.

• 2:01:54Speaker 01

  Wouldn't you be sad if everyone remembered arm tracks, but they didn't know it was you?

• 2:01:59Dax Shepard?

  That's fine, again, that's fine.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:02:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  I guess you're dead, so who cares?

• 2:02:03Dax Shepard?

  I'm dead.

• 2:02:04Speaker 01

  Rob, can you, can you join me in a pursuit to remember his name? Yeah, yeah, maybe we can write it somewhere and like touch it every time we leave. We have to memorize it. Yeah, we'll see it though and commit to it.

• 2:02:17Dax Shepard?

  Is it like I have to play a role? I'm gonna have to ask you guys sporadically.

• 2:02:20Speaker 01

  Randomly, yeah.

• 2:02:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, okay, alright.

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  Okay. He recently died.

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  Just recently? October 2024.

• 2:02:28Dax Shepard?

  Whoa.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:02:30Dax Shepard?

  Whoa.

• 2:02:31Speaker 01

  I feel bad for saying he's dead. I mean, he is, but just recently.

• 2:02:34Dax Shepard?

  Feel bad for being right?

• 2:02:35Speaker 01

  I almost was wrong.

• 2:02:37Dax Shepard?

  You feel bad a lot.

• 2:02:38Speaker 01

  Feel bad for assuming he was dead?

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  I care. Charles Dunn. What's the guy's name who invented podcasts? Christopher Lyden. Christopher Lyden.

• 2:02:55Speaker 01

  Okay, the Greek poet that said, "Under duress, we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training," that's attributed to Bruce Lee, but it was a Greek poet, Archilochus. I don't know if that's how you say it, but...

• 2:03:12Dax Shepard?

  And you're not gonna try to memorize that, right?

• 2:03:14Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:03:14Dax Shepard?

  See, this is interesting. It's very arbitrary.

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  Fine, I will. Archilochus. I'll remember everything. I mean, I like to remember everything I can.

• 2:03:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. It just, if I have to choose whether I know an individual's name or I know a concept, I'm gonna definitely favor the concept, because that's gonna help me process the reality.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:37Dax Shepard?

  Someone's name's not gonna help me do anything.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:03:39Dax Shepard?

  Other than seem well-read at a party.

• 2:03:41Speaker 01

  I think I'm, I think overall, I'm pretty good at names.

• 2:03:48Dax Shepard?

  It is impressive.

• 2:03:49Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:03:50Dax Shepard?

  I am often impressed that you remember someone's name. Actually, more than I'm impressed, I'm just grateful, because I'm trying to reference the person and I don't, I don't have their name.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hung Van Gogh, that's a name I know.

• 2:04:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. What's that? Who's he?

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  He's a makeup artist.

• 2:04:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Hung Van Gogh?

• 2:04:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's great. I watch his videos. All right. Do engineers over-index on disagreeability? According to research and common perception, engineers are often considered to be the lower end of the agreeableness, geez, agreeableness spectrum on personality tests, meaning they may sometimes be perceived as disagreeable due to their strong focus on logic, data, and problem-solving, which can sometimes lead to a more direct or critical approach when discussing ideas or solutions.

• 2:04:36Dax Shepard?

  Do you think that's a kind of, just a long way to say, because they're generally right?

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, sometimes, yeah.

• 2:04:42Dax Shepard?

  I think that's really what it is.

• 2:04:45Speaker 01

  It says, however, this is not always the case. An individual personality is very greatly within the engineering field. They, AI had to say that.

• 2:04:51Dax Shepard?

  I'm glad they put that caveat on it.

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 2:04:53Dax Shepard?

  I'd hate for anyone to.

• 2:04:54Speaker 01

  I do think, though, there is, my dad and I have talked about this, because he.

• 2:04:59Dax Shepard?

  He's disagreeable.

• 2:05:00Speaker 01

  He's disagreeable, he's.

• 2:05:02Dax Shepard?

  My stepfather, both stepfathers that were engineers were highly disagreeable.

• 2:05:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is picking apart everything.

• 2:05:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:10Speaker 01

  And.

• 2:05:10Dax Shepard?

  He's looking for a flaw.

• 2:05:11Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:05:12Dax Shepard?

  His job is literally to look for a structural flaw.

• 2:05:14Speaker 01

  Yes, or things will collapse and that will be on his shoulders. People will die, so he, and I, we talked about this once, I was like, is it chicken or the egg? Were you drawn to the career because that's your personality? Or has that job made you like this? We don't really know.

• 2:05:30Dax Shepard?

  I think egg.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  I do too, he thinks B.

• 2:05:33Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, it implies more growth on his end.

• 2:05:36Speaker 01

  Well, but actually.

• 2:05:37Dax Shepard?

  It's more flattering. We like to think we, we achieve this thing, not that we were just born with it. All of us, you know, and your dad's not unique.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  No, I know, well, he is, he, I've been kind of like, what are you doing? Because the sim's been rowdy.

• 2:05:51Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, but that's all part of it.

• 2:05:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's.

• 2:05:53Dax Shepard?

  There's no highs without the lows.

• 2:05:54Speaker 01

  That's true, and then yesterday I was doing connections.

• 2:05:58Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 2:05:59Speaker 01

  And one of the answers was big, Mr. Big from Sex and the City, as I was watching it.

• 2:06:05Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 2:06:06Speaker 01

  So he was trying to make up for it a little bit.

• 2:06:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, just saying, hang in there, I'm still, I'm still watching.

• 2:06:11Speaker 01

  Still here.

• 2:06:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  Anyway, yeah, he, if you talk to my uncles, they, my dad doesn't really let them talk too much about this, but they, like, have all these stories about my dad. Like, I think he was more like my brother.

• 2:06:27Dax Shepard?

  No kidding?

• 2:06:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:29Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:31Dax Shepard?

  Huh.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  And.

• 2:06:32Dax Shepard?

  I don't believe that.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  Well, they knew him.

• 2:06:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:36Speaker 01

  When I didn't, like, as a kid.

• 2:06:37Dax Shepard?

  Are they older?

• 2:06:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're older.

• 2:06:39Dax Shepard?

  That's why I don't trust you.

• 2:06:40Speaker 01

  He's the youngest.

• 2:06:41Dax Shepard?

  Right, older brothers, you can't trust their opinion.

• 2:06:45Speaker 01

  Well.

• 2:06:45Dax Shepard?

  Because they, they see him as a baby and incompetent and all these things. And, and all they're really seen as an age difference, but they don't realize they're seeing an age difference.

• 2:06:54Speaker 01

  That's a little bit fair, but there's also personality traits that come with being the youngest.

• 2:06:58Dax Shepard?

  Don't start with little brother stuff. I do not have little brother syndrome.

• 2:07:04Speaker 01

  They have a version of his personality that I don't know, that I never saw. And I think that's interesting and sort of lends itself to maybe he did grow into a lot of these traits.

• 2:07:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:16Speaker 01

  Or, or they just got sharpened, probably.

• 2:07:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I'm gonna go along with whatever. I just, I really feel in my heart, he's, he's exactly who he was.

• 2:07:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's probably right. That's probably right.

• 2:07:30Dax Shepard?

  My dad was always a salesman.

• 2:07:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:32Dax Shepard?

  My dad was born to sell shit.

• 2:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:34Dax Shepard?

  He didn't grow up. I mean, he got better at it.

• 2:07:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:07:37Dax Shepard?

  But he was a salesman. He wanted an extra slice of cake. He figured out how, you know, he, he was charming. He got what he needed.

• 2:07:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I guess you can tell down the line, right? Like, I have a lot of those qualities that he has. And I'm not an engineer, so I probably got it from him.

• 2:07:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:56Speaker 01

  Which means it's just genetics.

• 2:07:57Dax Shepard?

  You're disagreeable, yeah.

• 2:07:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:00Speaker 01

  I'm, um, I'm doing what Sunita tells me to do.

• 2:08:04Dax Shepard?

  You're already, you're already at the finish line for that.

• 2:08:08Dax Shepard?

  Can you think of times that, though, you did go along with stuff?

• 2:08:10Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. I think I spent a lot of my life not going along with, I mean, going along with stuff.

• 2:08:19Dax Shepard?

  Because you divine yourself as being someone that never succumbed to peer pressure.

• 2:08:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. That is true, but I was walking a line, right? Because I also, I wasn't gonna at a dinner table with my friends whose parents had much different political views than me, or even just things I thought were wrong.

• 2:08:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:41Speaker 01

  If I'm at a dinner with them, I'm not gonna say, oh, actually, I disagree. Like, I'm gonna agree. So I can maintain that friendship.

• 2:08:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:50Speaker 01

  Kind of like you, who, you for different reasons, much different reasons.

• 2:08:57Speaker 01

  You feel like you are rewarded for speaking up for yourself.

• 2:09:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I just as an ethos, I'd rather have been wrong. And I'd rather be the victim of a bad decision. So long as it's my decision.

• 2:09:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:12Dax Shepard?

  And some people don't feel that way, which is totally fair.

• 2:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:15Dax Shepard?

  And I just do, I would rather, again, if I'm gonna die in a car, I better be holding the steering wheel.

• 2:09:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:09:20Dax Shepard?

  No fucking way am I letting, you know.

• 2:09:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, I think I have a lot of that too. For these other reasons, like, I'm not gonna.

• 2:09:31Dax Shepard?

  And also, we might just genetically be this way.

• 2:09:33Speaker 01

  Maybe. Again, so hard to.

• 2:09:37Dax Shepard?

  It's hard to know.

• 2:09:37Speaker 01

  So hard to know.

• 2:09:38Dax Shepard?

  It's hard to know.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  Anyhow, that's it.

• 2:09:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, I loved her.

• 2:09:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 2:09:43Dax Shepard?

  I hope I didn't make her do anything she didn't want to do.

• 2:09:47Speaker 01

  Hopefully, she would have stood up for herself. What if you.

• 2:09:51Dax Shepard?

  What if I was manipulative and I was, yeah, and I planned a test?

• 2:09:54Speaker 01

  Let's start doing weird stuff.

• 2:09:55Dax Shepard?

  Don't miss out on trying that coffee, it's the world's best.

• 2:09:59Speaker 01

  Drink it.

• 2:10:00Dax Shepard?

  Drink it now.

• 2:10:02Speaker 01

  Why didn't you drink it, drink it?

• 2:10:04Dax Shepard?

  A man made that and brought it here on a bicycle, he rode it 60 miles to bring you this coffee.

• 2:10:12Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.

• 2:10:13Speaker 01

  Love you.