What Is Wrong With Modern Women? - Whitney Cummings

Whitney Cummings is a comedian, actress, writer, and a podcaster. Women aren't having a great time at the moment. They're maybe just as lost as men, the only difference is they get a little bit more sympathy. So just where did the trajectory of women go awry and how can they find a way to be happy again? Expect to learn about the social psychology behind the rise of Taylor Swift, Whitney’s thoughts on becoming a mother and the future of motherhood, whether women really can have it all, why more men are attracted to Whitney now that she’s pregnant, what we do about the future of sex robots and much more... Sponsors: Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get 15% discount on the best Colostrum from ARMRA at https://tryarmra.com/modernwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get an exclusive discount from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ Buy my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - 00:00 Intro 00:57 Did Pfizer Bring Travis Kelce & Taylor Swift Together? 10:53 Having an Obligatory Opinion on Everything 14:52 Jada Pinkett Smith’s Confusing Marriage 21:53 Why Young Men Are Dating Older Girls 27:36 Preparing for a Baby as a Woman 32:42 Mistaking Charisma for a Romantic Spark 44:00 Survival Mechanisms in Daily Life 48:18 Benefits of the 12-Step Program 53:52 The Beauty of Having a Child 1:01:42 Being Intentional in Relationships 1:09:16 Dating Someone Who Has an Online Persona 1:21:16 Who to Seek Relationship Advice From 1:25:06 Is There Power in Positively Changing for Your Partner? 1:32:37 How to Take Material for Art From Life 1:46:30 Taking a Life Hiatus for Childcare 1:50:59 How to Survive on Tour 2:02:30 Allowing Yourself to Feel Emotions 2:06:58 Where to Find Whitney - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

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

• 0:00Whitney Cummings?

  Can I just really quick, you feel free to cut this. I love watching you work. I love showing up to meet somebody that I am a fan of already. And I've seen their astronomical rise to success. And then I see why they deserve it.

• 0:15Chris Williamson?

  Why?

• 0:16Whitney Cummings?

  Just watching you operate for the past like five, 10 minutes has been fascinating.

• 0:21Chris Williamson?

  How so?

• 0:21Whitney Cummings?

  You just care so much about what you're doing and you're meticulous, but not in a way that's micromanaging and annoying. And the attention to detail is like very intense, but not in a way that's too far, you know?

• 0:32Chris Williamson?

  Right amount of autism.

• 0:32Whitney Cummings?

  It's the perfect amount of Asperger's. I don't know what word we're supposed to be using right now. But it's not lateral moves. It's actually improving things. Cause sometimes you'll just watch people make arbitrary lateral changes for no reason, just to like throw their dick around or boss someone around or something. It's been like really very endearing to watch.

• 0:50Chris Williamson?

  Thank you. I appreciate that. It's really nice to meet you.

• 0:53Whitney Cummings?

  You too.

• 0:53Chris Williamson?

  Uh, Travis Kelce, we just saw on the TV outside.

• 0:57Whitney Cummings?

  We did.

• 0:57Chris Williamson?

  Pfizer advert. But I guess if you're hanging out the back of Taylor Swift, what do you care? You know what I mean?

• 1:04Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, yeah. Well, okay. So we just saw, what, what happened to you when you saw that?

• 1:09Chris Williamson?

  It's just kind of, it's so strange to see someone that has so much status and kind of embodies a lot of like rebellious nature, which I think, you know, football players, QBs, that like alpha masculine thing. Pfizer, I mean Pfizer's brand equity, it's like, it's hardly cool.

• 1:28Whitney Cummings?

  What's the price? What's the price that makes it worth it? What's the price to someone like Travis Kelce? That makes it worth it for guys like you to go, oh, come on, you got dommed by a pharma company?

• 1:37Chris Williamson?

  One Taylor Swift blowjob. So here's the fucking.

• 1:41Whitney Cummings?

  Do you think dating her is what influenced him to do it?

• 1:45Chris Williamson?

  Get on the internet.

• 1:46Whitney Cummings?

  Being attracted to girls that skinny is a vaccine injury?

• 1:50Chris Williamson?

  You were saying before we got started that there's been a, a big push, body positivity. We need diversity. Barbie movie comes out and Taylor Swift makes a billion dollars on tour. It's like, it's just fucking Nazi Germany.

• 2:00Whitney Cummings?

  Skinny blonde girls are back. Thank God. Take all my money.

• 2:04Chris Williamson?

  Um, no, I, so here's the real fucking conspiracy, right? The real conspiracy is.

• 2:11Chris Williamson?

  Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift's relationship was orchestrated by Big Pharma because they started dating at the same time that he did that Pfizer campaign. So, search volume for Travis Kelce's name went through the roof. And when you search for his name, the vaccine stuff and the Pfizer partnership comes up too.

• 2:30Whitney Cummings?

  So, my question about that, it's like my same thing about aliens and stuff. It's like, I just think people are so weak and so desperate to like, talk to a girl at a bar or get attention, or the wrong person involved in that scandal took edibles. Don't you think someone would have gotten fired and told people about it?

• 2:50Chris Williamson?

  Who? Oh, right.

• 2:51Whitney Cummings?

  It's like with aliens, it's like someone would have snitched. Someone, some guy would have gotten drunk at a bar and been like, hey, like, you don't want to go home with me? You want to see a picture of a fucking alien? You know what I'm saying? Like, don't you think it would have gotten out?

• 3:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I mean, coordination is difficult. And there's definitely two worlds that people are able to hold in their mind at once, which is the government is both so incompetent that they can't organize a piss up in a brewery.

• 3:15Whitney Cummings?

  Sure, sure.

• 3:15Chris Williamson?

  And so competent that they're able to orchestrate this sort of massive-

• 3:17Whitney Cummings?

  I go to DMV and I'm like, if there were aliens, we would have known. Okay, like, we would have absolutely known by now, right?

• 3:22Chris Williamson?

  Well, maybe the beginning and end of their capability is orchestrating a Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift relationship. I don't know.

• 3:29Whitney Cummings?

  It's weird. I also think though, you know, who's she gonna date? That's the other thing. Who's she gonna date? It seems like guys will date down all day, you know? But who's she gonna date? Who's the Jay-Z to her Beyonce?

• 3:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, rough one. I, uh, do you know Meat Canyon? He does illustration videos on the internet. A really, really great guy. And he-

• 3:48Whitney Cummings?

  I thought you were talking about my childbirth thing.

• 3:52Chris Williamson?

  Come on, come on.

• 3:53Whitney Cummings?

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 3:54Chris Williamson?

  Two and a half minutes in and talking about your Meat Canyon. Anyway, he's got a channel called Papa Meat. And on it, he reacted to Swifty TikToks. And it was girls crying, breaking down, crying because they, the Ticketmaster website had shut down after they'd been waiting for six hours.

• 4:11Whitney Cummings?

  Okay, great.

• 4:13Chris Williamson?

  There was this one where- It broke down the finances. I think Taylor Swift's already beaten Michael Jackson for the most revenue generated from a tour ever. It's, I think, at the moment,

• 4:23Whitney Cummings?

  Okay.

• 4:23Chris Williamson?

  three quarters of a billion dollars. This tour is lasting for nearly two years. It's monstrous.

• 4:29Whitney Cummings?

  Okay. Well, she's done a genius thing. She's got kids and I, I'm

• 4:34Chris Williamson?

  Does she?

• 4:34Whitney Cummings?

  Kids, her fans, her fans.

• 4:36Chris Williamson?

  Oh.

• 4:37Whitney Cummings?

  She's not, she's not a mother, but she appeals to children in a way that I think so many, and I'm sure we'll wade into this territory in some capacity, where so many female pop stars, it's all about being hypersexualized, hypersexualized. And like, you know, I'm having a boy when I, you know, have a kid, but it's like, there's certain, you're like, I can't let my kid watch. I can't let my kid listen to this. She's done this genius thing where not only that, have you seen her dancing? I actually, when I get into the conspiracy theories, you know, I think she's very mindful about not being too overtly sexual.

• 5:09Chris Williamson?

  Dials that back.

• 5:09Whitney Cummings?

  The way that, if you, look at how she dances. She's like bad at dancing. It's not sexy. It's like awkward. She looks like one of those balloon man outside of a car dealership.

• 5:17Chris Williamson?

  Waving inflatable arms flailing tube man. Yeah.

• 5:20Whitney Cummings?

  She kind of just is like, sort of awkward and weird. There's never any sexuality about it. There's never any singing about sex. It's always just like getting your heart broken in these kind of relatively like teenage feelings. And I think she's done a really like genius job of that.

• 5:35Chris Williamson?

  Well, I think in a world of Sam Smith wearing nipple tassels and dressing as the devil, the, the original culture, culture is the counterculture, right?

• 5:44Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Chris Williamson?

  Like, if you want to predict the future, what you should do is look at a movement that's happening now that hasn't had the inverse happen yet.

• 5:51Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 5:52Chris Williamson?

  Cause every culture requires the equal and opposite thing, right? It's like the thermodynamics of fucking culture. So, um, 2020, everyone's shut down. No one can go outside. 2021, Megan Thee Stallion does Hot Girl Summer, which is, last year you weren't able to be your free self. This year, get with your girlfriends and do your hair and do your makeup.

• 6:12Whitney Cummings?

  Wet ass pussy was around that time, too.

• 6:14Chris Williamson?

  Maybe they could have come together. And then the year after that, they did Feral Girl Summer. So you had hot girl summer and then feral girl summer was, you know, don't shave, don't brush your hair, wear slouchy sweatpants, don't bother with boys. Yeah, for every culture, there has to be a counterculture. And if you've got Sam Smith doing his thing, you know, Taylor Swift looks like a fucking conservative icon.

• 6:37Whitney Cummings?

  She does.

• 6:38Chris Williamson?

  Comparatively, yeah.

• 6:39Whitney Cummings?

  And then I think that's part of the reason, I mean, country music is also so big. It's country music for the most part is it's kind of like older women, they're wearing like boots and pants, you know, or and then you have Katy Perry with like cupcakes on her tits. You know, it's kind of like, I think country music in general, parents feel safer letting their kids listen to it and going to shows. It's a little more innocent.

• 6:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, but what's the worst thing that's going to happen? You're going to be an alcoholic and get in a car wreck in a truck.

• 7:00Whitney Cummings?

  And yeah, and yeah, and a man might wear a square toe boot, which is a big problem for me.

• 7:05Chris Williamson?

  That's a large, yeah, I mean, I see that a lot in Austin, Texas.

• 7:09Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:09Chris Williamson?

  But yeah, the, um, this Meat County video, Papa, on his second channel, Papa Meat, he's reacting to all of these things. And she, I didn't know, but she released a movie in cinemas.

• 7:19Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:21Chris Williamson?

  Girls are losing their fucking minds with these.

• 7:25Whitney Cummings?

  Bracelets?

• 7:26Chris Williamson?

  No, like a baton, like an LED thing, waving it around. And then the credits were rolling and girls were holding hands, dancing in a circle underneath the fucking screen. It is, they're losing their mind. I mean, I didn't know.

• 7:41Whitney Cummings?

  She's our Star Wars. They have little lightsabers.

• 7:44Chris Williamson?

  That's true. This is Star Wars for girls.

• 7:46Whitney Cummings?

  But she also is very, it's these very easy to understand, like girl boss anthems, you know what I mean? And something she did do that, because I, I don't know that much about her, like music per se. I've worked with a bunch of people that are obsessed with her. She does write all of her own stuff, which is very cool. She's not one of these like industry plants where she's got 15 writers and you go, you know, she really does write it herself. And seems like she plays all the music herself. And she, the way that she engages her fans, she makes them feel really special. I feel like this is something we can learn from you doing a amazing job at engaging your fans. But like she leaves little, little Easter eggs for them and she like really thinks her albums out in a way and leaves these like puzzle pieces for them and these codes

• 8:29Whitney Cummings?

  and, and sends gifts to fans if they've come to a certain amount of shows. Like she's really like. Done this marketing thing that I think a lot of us would think is kind of like corny. And I would, I'd be embarrassed. Like, I'd be like, oh, if you like me, you like me. If you don't, you don't. I'm not gonna send, I'm not gonna do a mailing list. It's like, oh, but she did like what Tim Ferriss did. She like built up a mailing list and engaged with her fans and like, and was okay with going, I want this really badly. Like, she was okay with being like, I want to be really famous and successful. It wasn't like, if you like me, you like me. If you don't, you don't.

• 8:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Whitney Cummings?

  You know, as a way to control if I get rejected, at least it wasn't, you know, it was my idea. But she did this one thing where she got called a snake because she, um, I don't know what it was. There was like all these snake emojis, either someone cheated on someone and some kind of like, you know, Taylor Swift gossip. And someone asked her in an interview, they said, so what do you feel about the fact that so many people online call you a snake? And she went, well, snakes eat rats.

• 9:22Whitney Cummings?

  And I was like, that's pretty gangster. Like, I see why girls like look up to her. Every time people come for her, she manages to sublimate it into something else.

• 9:31Chris Williamson?

  I think Elon Musk did something similar where he got popped for getting one of his staff at SpaceX or Tesla pregnant. And he just reacted to the tweet by saying the, the world's birth rates are declining. I need to do my bit. Like, the fucking Brazilian jujitsu lexical fucking trickery that you've just done there.

• 9:49Whitney Cummings?

  She stunts on every time they come for her. She stunts on them somehow. And I think so much of our job is forward facing people now is figuring out how to handle haters or like how to not respond. Or you can't not respond at all, you know, but you can't care too much, but she just kind of owns it and then she'll put it into her songs.

• 10:06Chris Williamson?

  I think wit is such an underrated skill, just being able to be witty with, with stuff. And you can be charming and not give it too much undue attention. Interesting that, I'd look at this, the fucking Taylor Swift podcast. Like, definitely an interesting lesson there about the fact that she was prepared to do things that other artists of even a smaller size would feel might be beneath them or might be like low status. It's what I think in. The psychology literature would be called a counter signal. So if you look at CEOs now, they'll happily wear Crocs or sneakers or whatever and a hoodie into the office.

• 10:42Whitney Cummings?

  Right.

• 10:43Chris Williamson?

  But the guy who's a middle manager that's desperately climbing, he'll have to wear a three-piece suit.

• 10:46Whitney Cummings?

  Of course.

• 10:47Chris Williamson?

  So it's almost like she can afford to do this because of her excess.

• 10:50Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 10:51Chris Williamson?

  We were talking outside, you mentioned about, like, are you supposed to have a take on the Ukraine? I think you were on Joe's show yesterday and it's like, wow, there's so many people listening, like, am I supposed to talk about something important?

• 11:00Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 11:00Chris Williamson?

  Do you feel that, you know, is there a, an obligation if you get to a certain size of having to talk about important things and stuff like that? Can you not just keep having fun all the way up?

• 11:11Whitney Cummings?

  I think for me, it's like, being a comedian, I think it's really important to, you know, know our place, you know? I think for me, it's like, as long as the take is funny, it doesn't matter, you can talk about anything, you know? But to come in and be one of these, like, Hollywood people, not that I see myself as someone who's in Hollywood, I think a lot of people might see me that way, I can't seriously go, this is who you should vote for, or this is how you should think, or this is what you should believe, or this is, or take the moral high ground. But if the take has some sort of comedic value, it's like, there's nothing we can't talk about. I like to stay away from politics for the most part, unless I'm making fun of both sides simultaneously. That's because I think people, I think it's our job as comedians and, and podcasters is to surprise people. There's just so much content out there right now and so many people are talking about politics and I think you gotta go like, what kind of person is seeking comedy?

• 11:55Whitney Cummings?

  They are maybe bored at their jobs, they, they wanna take a girl on a date, they have their kid at home crying, they've been in a long marriage, they just wanna go to a club, they wanna go to a venue, and here's something different from what they're seeing online all day. And so it's my job to surprise them. So if they show up and I'm gonna start talking about Trump, they're like, I just had to hear my uncle yell about this for two hours. Like, you just, I just have to do whatever the opposite everybody else is doing to try to give them some kind of surprise.

• 12:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. It's, uh, it's strange to think about how.

• 12:26Chris Williamson?

  As people's platforms grow, there's this compulsion to have a take on everything.

• 12:33Whitney Cummings?

  Unless you have a take no one else is saying, there's really no need to speak about it.

• 12:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, unless you're unbelievably educated in something, but I definitely, as platforms grow, there's a, there's almost a pressure to be like, well, fucking, I better talk about something interesting here.

• 12:47Whitney Cummings?

  Well, and talking about platforms growing, it's like you can play the long, short game of the long game. And for me, like, I mean, you know, knowing Rogan for so long and seeing that, like, his, his first thousand episodes were just him and his friends, just talking about bullshit, talking about, you know, comedy and stuff. It wasn't necessarily what was going on in the news. And then that made for this library that was really easy to syndicate. You can go back and listen to episodes of his from 10 years ago, still funny, still entertaining. I always like, in terms of making the podcast, I always wanted to go like, I want to build this library that's evergreen and not too topical. So if people discover my podcast now and they start from the beginning, it's still going to be about, you know, main themes of human nature, relationships, making mistakes, edification, all the kind of stuff that you talk about too, that's a little bit evergreen, instead of someone tuning in and being like, hearing about a candidate that they don't even remember,

• 13:32Whitney Cummings?

  that was, didn't even make the second prior.

• 13:34Chris Williamson?

  I always think about this, so Ben Shapiro is a good example. I listened to a lot of him during COVID, because if there's a rapidly changing news cycle and you've got fuck all else to do, someone that does one episode five days a week, that is always telling you what's happened in the last 24 hours is a pretty good place to go. But I realized, looking back on that, no one's going back to hear what happened on April 20th, 2020, because it was so, you get this huge lift off in terms of interest, but it doesn't necessarily carry through, which I think is, yeah, is an interesting way to kind of look at things.

• 14:07Whitney Cummings?

  If people go like, oh my God, I just discovered, you know, Modern Wisdom, he just had Jordan Peterson on. Oh my God, he had Jordan Peterson on two years ago.

• 14:14Chris Williamson?

  We can go back.

• 14:14Whitney Cummings?

  Let me listen to that, they're going to cover different stuff, like, oh my, and I just learned so much. He had Robert Greene on, you know, so for me, I, I really, you know, I come from making TV and sitcoms. And when you try to make sitcoms that get syndicated, the idea is that they live forever, you know? So if you have jokes that are too topical, you know, they're going to expire and it's going to feel dated. So I always kind of thought like, okay, what's my place in this podcast space? Because there's a lot of really, really smart people doing this, there are a lot of people way more qualified than me talking about politics, that's not, you know, something I necessarily am qualified to weigh in on. I can make jokes about it, but why don't I do these like evergreen shows that people can on road trips just? Go back two years and it's still going to be relevant.

• 14:52Chris Williamson?

  Have you been happy to see the Jada Pinkett Smith meltdown? Because the bar for being a good mother has now been set lower than ever.

• 15:00Whitney Cummings?

  I love that she's like, Will Smith and I have not been married for seven years and I am Jada Pinkett Smith. Smith. It's like, then why aren't you Jada Pinkett all of a sudden? Why does your book say Smith on the end? That whole thing is wild to me and I've been actually thinking about this podcast because I've been a little bit nervous about coming on it. And how I can be like useful in some way to your listeners and because they all seem to be very high performing, striving people. And, you know, I do have this theory that, you know, and it's probably something you've explored before is that like who you marry or date is a business decision. You know, it not in terms of we're going into business together, but in terms of the amount of bandwidth you have. You know, the amount of energy you have, is this person energizing you, is it depleting you?

• 15:42Whitney Cummings?

  It's going to decide how focused you can be in your personal life. Like one of my favorite quotes is the Flaubert quote. Be, uh, what is it? Be organized and orderly in your, no, be regular and orderly in your personal life. So you can be original and violent in your work, you know? So have like, that doesn't have to be boring, not boring sex, you have to be bored of your partner, but it, the most stressful part of your day should be work. Right? So I think that oftentimes the person you choose is a business decision. But I look at them and I'm like, they just wanted to build a business, you know? I think that was always kind of a business arrangement, in my opinion.

• 16:16Chris Williamson?

  I watched the first ever time that I've seen The Rock on a podcast. And he was on Trevor Noah's podcast, which he's partnered with Spotify. And I didn't know this, but The Rock has broken up with his wife, but is still business partners with her. So they have a daughter together.

• 16:35Whitney Cummings?

  Okay.

• 16:36Chris Williamson?

  And The Rock and his ex-wife are now separated.

• 16:39Whitney Cummings?

  Okay.

• 16:39Chris Williamson?

  But still business partners and still have the daughter.

• 16:42Whitney Cummings?

  For his business, like his?

• 16:44Chris Williamson?

  Zohar maybe, or the fucking tequila or what the rum or whatever it is that you just, I don't know what business. But at least one of them, he's still business partners with his, with his wife.

• 16:52Whitney Cummings?

  There's a lot of these things where it's like, you make that kind of money together and then it's like, we're better together as a business. I mean, think about what would, it would be like having to like break up a corporation, basically, you know?

• 17:03Chris Williamson?

  Divorce is easier than a separation of the business.

• 17:06Whitney Cummings?

  Totally. But yeah, it, I.

• 17:09Whitney Cummings?

  It's not for me. I'm one of those idiots that still wants to have like amazing sex with someone and like really feel like I'm best friends with my person and I'm gonna like hold out for that. Cut to me in 10 years when I'm married to Bill Gates or some crazy craven shit.

• 17:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 17:23Whitney Cummings?

  And I'm like, I'm like, we own half of the McDonald's potatoes and the GMOs or whatever. But I, I, I guess that's for some people, but you know, I don't know. I really, that to me seems really sinister and craven. I mean, you know, look, I'm a comic. I'm happy to weigh in and say what happened to the Oscars when, you know, Will Smith smacked Chris Rock in the face, you know, that was, and no one stood up, by the way. No, nobody even stood up. Like that's, you know, as a comedian, people, you know, are like, God, you guys can get away with anything until you get punched in the face in front of, you know, a room of thousand people that don't even stand up to help you. But the fact that he looked back at her, did that in the name of his wife, I'm like, I don't know what

• 18:06Whitney Cummings?

  videos she has on him. I don't know what photo, I don't know what the fuck is going on in there, what kind of who's afraid of Virginia Woolf shit is going on in that marriage, but that's my nightmare.

• 18:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. You know, Ryan Long and Danny from the Boyz Cast?

• 18:17Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 18:17Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, New York. They, I was texting him, they did a really great episode a couple of weeks ago about this. And I was texting Ryan and he was like, dude, I'm, I'm unironically really fucking worried about Will Smith. Like genuinely fucking emotionally invested.

• 18:30Whitney Cummings?

  Have you seen the video where she was filming him and he was like, I need you to stop filming me? And she's like-

• 18:34Chris Williamson?

  Yes, that's a while ago now.

• 18:35Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, but the, his fate, I mean, she's like, he's in a bad mood and she's like, this is my business. This is what I, I'm on camera for a living. I'm not getting paid right now.

• 18:43Chris Williamson?

  Broken man.

• 18:44Whitney Cummings?

  Broken man.

• 18:45Chris Williamson?

  Scary.

• 18:46Whitney Cummings?

  But there are some men that I've seen this before where some men are like, I just need this mom slash wife to like, keep me together, to keep me focused. I don't know. I think when you get famous at a very young age, maybe you become infantilized or frozen or you cling to someone that feels like a safety net to you.

• 19:00Chris Williamson?

  And fix you.

• 19:01Whitney Cummings?

  Cause then you also get to this place where it's like, you know, my wish for guys like you is that you get all the things you want and all the big brand deals and all the huge products and, but don't get targeted on your back famous. Because when you get that famous, you know, like, well, if I go like date a waitress, is this gonna be a lawsuit? Like, is this a nightmare? Is I gonna get accused of harassment? Like, when you get to a certain point as a man, in terms of getting famous, I think it's for women too, it just looks a little bit different. You go from predator to prey.

• 19:29Chris Williamson?

  I saw a really interesting reel from Chris Di Stefano. I can't remember whose show he was on, but he was talking about his dad had given him a piece of advice. His dad sounds like an absolute maniac.

• 19:39Whitney Cummings?

  Mafia dude, yeah.

• 19:41Chris Williamson?

  Sounds like an absolute maniac, by the way. And he was saying, maybe, maybe Chris had become single, or maybe it was before he had these kids, I don't know. And he was saying, you're sleeping with all of these women, and you're having all of this fun. And you know, for every hundred women, 99 of them are going to be great, but there's one that's going to fucking ruin your life. And I don't know what the proportion is, but there's definitely, you know, from men's side, in a post Me Too world, there is a different tenor to what's going on. There is this fear that's out there. And I don't disagree that, you know, a lot of Me Too was necessary to kind of counter some very predatory men that were using their position and their power to gain sexual access in a way that wasn't ethical.

• 20:22Chris Williamson?

  The problem is when that overreaches and goes from trying to sanitize the bad elements of male behavior, and instead it just sterilizes all of it. And everyone's like fucking terrified and working on tenterhooks. And it seems like that, you know, that Chris story kind of alludes to that. It's like, there's, there's a fucking minefield out there, and you've got to be careful where you step.

• 20:42Whitney Cummings?

  Well, I do know in my business, it's backfired majorly in terms of, you know, that less people were hiring women for a long time. Because they're like, I don't want a woman in my office. Are you insane? And then people started putting glass offices in, you know, like glass walls, like this would have been glass, just so everyone sees what's going in here.

• 20:58Chris Williamson?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 20:58Whitney Cummings?

  I would go on movie sets and people would be like, you know, I was, I did a Foo Fighters movie, and there was a sex scene in it. And they're like, but you don't have to, you can, you know, wear your shirt if you want. I'm like, this is a sex scene, you guys. They're like, but whatever you need. And I was like, why are you?

• 21:10Chris Williamson?

  Wouldn't look you in the eye.

• 21:11Whitney Cummings?

  I'm not going to sue you guys.

• 21:13Chris Williamson?

  Like you're a daywalker or something.

• 21:15Whitney Cummings?

  I'm a female comedian on the list of shit that's happened to me. This is like, you know, so I just, I found myself being like, oh, God, everyone is like terrified because, I mean, yes, there were a lot of, and look, yes, I'm sure you could do. Forensics on the fact that why women are so desperate that they got to a point where they needed to sue someone because they were hugged too long at a Christmas party, or what, maybe that's a mental illness, or maybe that's childhood trauma, or whatever it is. Why do women feel the need to be grifters and to take advantage? That's, you know, talk to a, you know, sociologist about that. But, you know, it's been, um, it's been really interesting, though. One side effect I've really kind of, uh, found fascinating is that younger guys kind of want to date older girls.

• 21:55Chris Williamson?

  You said that you've never been hit on more than when your fertility has been on front, front and center. For the people that are listening, Whitney is heavily pregnant, three weeks away from popping.

• 22:07Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, because if I said, like, Chris harassed me, they'd be like, no, you whore. You're obviously.

• 22:12Chris Williamson?

  What's, like, what do you think it is? Were you just a big billboard for your fertility?

• 22:16Whitney Cummings?

  I think there's, I think there's a couple of things. I think, and this is something we've texted about. I don't know why comedians have to do this, where we can't just go into something without going, and we've texted about that. Like, I don't want the audience

• 22:27Chris Williamson?

  to give a billboard. Well, it's in between all of the nudes that you keep on sending me.

• 22:30Whitney Cummings?

  It's right.

• 22:31Chris Williamson?

  Finally got the.

• 22:32Whitney Cummings?

  That's supposed to be on the Confide app. Um, so I think that for me, and I think a lot of women are struggling this right, with this right now. Um, or, I don't know if they're struggling with it, but I think that they're striving to struggle with it. I'll get there. I think I came off so tough and so hard for so long. I think this kind of just softened me in a way that made men sort of, you know, I spent so much of my career, like, trying to be one of the guys, or kind of try to come off like I wasn't a girl, so that they wouldn't, you know, try to flirt with me at work, or so that I would get respect, or so that I could go on stage and command respect from the audience,

• 23:13Whitney Cummings?

  and not show any vulnerabilities. And, um, I grew up with a mother who, and, you know, many people, women of that generation were, who was like, I mean, there's no other way to say it, she was a gold digger. You know, she had to date men for money. And it drove me nuts. Like, there were men in the house that were just. That you have to wear this and I would have to go out to dinners with her and like behave so that I wouldn't mess it up for her. And you know, it was kind of very high stake situation. Her appearance was everything. And you know, back then that was your currency. And I just remember going, I'm never going to do this. Like this is, it's disrespectful to myself. It's disrespectful. I just wanted to be self sufficient kind of before I started dating anybody. Because I never wanted to be thinking about the amount of money they were making. Or I never wanted them to have to take care of me. It was just like too embarrassing, you know?

• 23:58Whitney Cummings?

  And so I think that I worked so hard to be independent and that's what I talked about in my stand up. And so I think that by the time I got pregnant, people were kind of like, oh, like, she does have vulnerabilities. She does have a softness to her. And I think a lot of women right now are afraid to show that side of ourselves, you know? And I think that there's a lot of strength in vulnerability and there's a lot of strength in showing a soft, quote feminine side. But right now everyone's trying to like, come off so tough. And I'm one of the guys that it's just sort of like, I don't think you realize that that's actually weakening you in a lot of ways.

• 24:25Chris Williamson?

  Why do you think they're trying to do that? What do you think they're trying to get out of it? What do you think's the reason?

• 24:29Whitney Cummings?

  I think there's a couple of things. I think for me, I'll be a little bit specific. Like, you know, I, I had a dad that wanted boys. Like, you know, that was for at a very young age, I was just kind of, you know, treated like a boy. It was all about how successful I could be at sports. It was all about how good my grades could be. My dad would wake me up in the middle of the night and quiz me on spelling work. You know, it was all about getting achievements. And there was an awkwardness about my femininity. And then, you know, played sports, was rewarded for being tough, became a, you know, female comic, sort of had to neuter myself in a lot of ways. You know, that's my specific thing. But I think that, you know, women, I think, you know, I think there's like, there's a lot going on.

• 25:10Whitney Cummings?

  But I think that for me personally, I wanted so badly to just succeed in my career without anyone thinking that I was sleeping around or flirting or using my looks to get ahead.

• 25:22Chris Williamson?

  Because the last thing that you would want would be, oh, she shagged her way to the top of the totem pole.

• 25:27Whitney Cummings?

  So I just always wanted to be like kind of extra hard and sort of extra bull dykey.

• 25:32Chris Williamson?

  Compensatory.

• 25:33Whitney Cummings?

  Just kind of like, I'm one of the guys so that no one would ever flirt with me. So there would never be rumors around that I was like sleeping my way or getting anything that I didn't deserve.

• 25:40Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 25:41Whitney Cummings?

  You know, so I think I overcompensated a little bit. Um, I think I was scared um of, you know, having any vulnerabilities. So I pretended to be tougher than I was.

• 25:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 25:51Whitney Cummings?

  Um, I think there was that. I think you're kind of taught at a young age, being a girl is a weakness. It's not a strength. That's what I was taught, you know, it was like you go on the playground and the boys, they let go play and the girls, they go be careful. You're gonna hurt yourself. You're gonna rip your tights. You know, that's like pounded into us at a very early ages. You're more delicate. Um, you're weak. And I always wanted to like, no, I'm not. I wanted to help my dad, you know, I want to get on the ladder and help him fix the roof. And it was like, no, you don't get to do that. Your brother gets to do that. You know, so I think for me, I felt like I had so much to prove. Um, you know, and and then I think that, you know, just fear and insecurity, you know, and I think that a lot of times when, you know, you, I was very ambitious and I'm very open about that. And I think I thought I had to sort of just come off really tough so that people took me seriously.

• 26:34Chris Williamson?

  Are you seeing a new potential advantage of embodying the vulnerable, the feminine? Is this the new competitive advantage that you think you could get?

• 26:43Whitney Cummings?

  I think so. I really think it is, you know. I think that, again, this is probably easy for me to say because I have accomplished a lot of my goals, you know, I, there's a strong argument to say that what I did worked. You know, that I could go in a room full of a bunch of executives and there's three men there and two women there and whatever energy I came in, it didn't threaten the women. Cause I wasn't like using flirting or I wasn't, you know, using feminine advantages or whatever that would look like. Like, I always wanted to make sure women liked me, especially in audiences, you know, and in curating that audience. Um, so it, maybe it worked. There's an argument, you know, to say that it did. And now is the perfect time to kind of be soft and show that side of myself. But I think that I did have to,

• 27:25Whitney Cummings?

  you know, accrue a certain amount of success in order to give myself permission to be able to be feminine and be soft.

• 27:31Chris Williamson?

  Talk to me about that transition because I don't know, I think if I was to make a prediction over the next ten years, I think that we're going to see, uh, maybe, I would put a little bit down, that we're going to see a flip and that. Male body dysmorphia is already on track to overtake female body dysmorphia within about 10 to 15 years.

• 27:50Whitney Cummings?

  Fascinating.

• 27:50Chris Williamson?

  But I think that the crisis from an identity perspective is going to be on women, not on men. I think we have a crisis of masculinity at the moment. I think burbling below the surface is going to be a crisis of femininity. I think that, I would like to think that the guys are going to be okay. I can't do as much for the girls, so I'm unable to put my finger on the pulse. But I would say that men are maybe going to be much more concerned about appearance, and girls are going to be much more concerned about identity. But talk to me about that transition of going from being hard, brash, to now having to kind of soften up and allow that.

• 28:28Whitney Cummings?

  Because I also, like, you know, I grew up in a home that was very rough. I mean, you're English, I mean, maybe, you know, isn't it kind of?

• 28:33Chris Williamson?

  His takeings in our blood.

• 28:35Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, right?

• 28:35Chris Williamson?

  Mockery and sarcasm.

• 28:38Whitney Cummings?

  Roasting each other, there was a lot of passive aggressive shit, there was a lot of alcoholism, there was a lot of, you know, really deep seated shame and biting bullshit. So, you know, by the time I got out in the world, that's also just kind of like how I thought I had to, you know, talk to people, I thought that was normal. And being around male comics all the time, you know, roughs you up a little bit as well. So I had a hard time turning it off, like in relationships and such. But, I'm sorry, what is the question?

• 29:04Chris Williamson?

  Your transition, yeah. How did you find, you've had to go from being that person who is playing the masculine role in some ways, like the masculine feminine role, which is like even over tuning your masculinity. And now you're like, okay, and now I've got to like care about this, I've got three weeks to become a fucking mother.

• 29:23Whitney Cummings?

  You know, it's interesting because it's like my brain gets like a little bit scrambled around this because, you know, in terms of masculine qualities and feminine qualities, it's like, it's, I conflate them sometimes because I'm like, a lot of the qualities that I have used thus far that I think seem masculine have been like, I've been nurturing, I've just nurtured my career. You know what I mean? It's like I treated my career, you know, like a child, or how I should treat a husband or something. And now I'm kind of, you know, I would nurture other comics, I would nurture the writers that I worked with, you know, I was like, I've always kind of had that, but I never really turned it towards myself. Towards a relationship. So now I'm kind of going, I think the main switch for me is that now that I have achieved my goals, I can turn that energy on to a child and a relationship.

• 30:06Whitney Cummings?

  I was very clear in my twenties that I was not ready to attract the man that I wanted. That if he came along, he would not be, he would not be down, you know? So I was very much in my twenties. I was like, I need to become the person that I would want, the guy that I want to be with, that they would actually be interested in.

• 30:24Chris Williamson?

  I think that's a pretty noble way to look at developing yourself generally. I've got a friend, David Perel, uh, who is still, I think he's been with his misses for girlfriend. For two years or so, and he's fucking besotted with it, like absolutely in love with her. And, uh, I went for lunch with him when I first moved to Austin about eighteen months ago. And we sit down and he's super successful and he's got this big online business and he does lots of stuff and he's helping people's lives to be better, becoming better writers online.

• 30:49Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Chris Williamson?

  And, uh, he said, uh, not a realized, I spent most of my thirties making myself into the dad that my future kids want. It's like, wow, that's fucking cool.

• 30:58Whitney Cummings?

  I love that.

• 30:58Chris Williamson?

  Even though he didn't have the relationship, he didn't have the kids. Now, I mean, love and that honeymoon period of a relationship. Will do all manner of crazy things to someone's mindset. So who knows that he's not just in like a oxytocin fever dream. But yeah, he said that and I was like, that's really lovely. And kind of doing the same thing of turning yourself slowly over time into the person that the partner you want to be with in future would be attracted to. Seems like a cool thing.

• 31:23Whitney Cummings?

  And it's like the idea that, you know, like I want to have my shit together. I didn't want to be some mess that he had to clean up, even though a lot of you guys love a mess. And I get a little frustrated sometimes because there's times where, you know, the meat guys that I'm talking to and they're like, and then my last girlfriend this and I have to get her, I'm still paying for her therapy and then I'm still, and I'm like, I might not be crazy enough. Like if you need to clean up a mess, like I'm not your person. I tried so hard to have my shit together. So by the time a man came along, I didn't seem like a hassle. Or like, it didn't feel like I was their daughter or some weird shit. Um, and, uh, You know, but I I do think that like, you know, I had a situation where both my parents were sick. They both had strokes, very young. So my entire like late twenties and thirties, they were in beds. And I was like, you know what, parenting doesn't start when you have

• 32:08Whitney Cummings?

  a kid. Like, you should start parenting your kids when you're in your twenties. Start taking care of yourself. So your kids don't have to take care of you when they're in their twenties. So I started thinking like that at a very young age. And I started going like, being a wife doesn't start when you meet your guy. Like, let me start that now. Let me not have a bunch of like weird exes around. Let me not have a bunch of like, let me just start taking care of myself and not having a bunch of messes that they have to clean up and a bunch of weirdo guys that are gonna be, you know, I always like, thought that way, very early on.

• 32:35Chris Williamson?

  There's something, I had this conversation with the director of relationship science at Hinge, and she wrote a book, really interesting lady.

• 32:44Whitney Cummings?

  Wow.

• 32:44Chris Williamson?

  And she was saying, maybe related to that, you know, people find, and you did this with friends, too. You meet someone, you're like, oh, my God, we've got such a connection. There's such a spark here. But what you don't realize is that person's sparky with everybody. It's just called, like, really, really overtuned charm or charisma.

• 33:03Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, which is usually a red flag. It's a coping mechanism.

• 33:05Chris Williamson?

  It could be fucking anything, but it's not you that's special necessarily. That's not to say that sparks don't exist. Some people do come together. But a lot of the times, like, okay, is this person like this with me because of me? Or do they do it to the barista that serves them the coffee and the parking attendant that helps them with their ticket? Like, are they just, you know, causing this all over the place?

• 33:25Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, that's a really interesting one. I mean, that brings up something that really bothers me when I see online or like hear girls be like, he love bombed me and then I didn't hear from him. It's like, or he just liked you and you got whack. And then he stopped, you know, or, you know, or is it this pathological thing of what you're talking about, where someone comes in and tries to like razzle dazzle people and that's just their thing?

• 33:48Chris Williamson?

  There's definitely something alluring about aloofness. Again, just, you know, it doesn't need to be about relationships and friendships. There is something where you're, someone that's too keen with anything, like you call them a keynote, it's like, oh, dude, come on, stop texting, stop, stop calling, stop doing whatever.

• 34:03Whitney Cummings?

  But if it's the right person, is it cringy?

• 34:07Chris Williamson?

  I don't know what causes two people to become intertwined romantically or, you know, socially or whatever. A lot of different ways that can happen, but there's definitely a way that you can make yourself more or less alluring by, you know, not just being present all the fucking time.

• 34:25Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Chris Williamson?

  Right? If there's someone coming along, this is definitely something I've realized since, how would you say, like socially batting above my average over the last few years and constantly being in rooms with people where I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ, like, hold it together, hold it together. As that's happened, the best thing that I've learned is just to like, leave the room or say goodbye or say fewer things than you think that you need to.

• 34:47Whitney Cummings?

  Interesting.

• 34:49Chris Williamson?

  And I've definitely noticed that with myself is like people's behavior has changed at least a little bit over the last couple of years to me, as they now start to see whatever the fuck they think they see, which is to me just still like this weird guy from Britain. But their behavior has changed. And I also noticed that when someone's like, you know, they use brevity and they're brief and they're, hey, man, just wanted to say whatever, whatever. And then they're off. You're like, yeah, that guy's nice. Supposed to the, oh, it's a little bit.

• 35:15Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, I wish I, this podcast existed when I was in my twenties because I was the cringiest. And you're making me think of some of the most successful people allow others to project onto them. So.

• 35:29Chris Williamson?

  What do you mean?

• 35:29Whitney Cummings?

  Just say as little as possible and let people just project on someone. Start with the fact that someone already likes you. Right? And then it's all downhill from there. The more you try to over talk or over apologize or control them, you know, look, look at your motives and what you're saying and what you're saying. Hey, how are you? Good to see you. If that's just all it is, hey, are you okay? Do you need anything? Then it just turns into being unctuous. Then it just turns into you're trying to make them like you. And people feel it. Like people feel that energy, that desperate predatory energy. And like Paris Hilton fascinates me because she will say as little as possible publicly. And she just allows us to project onto her. She doesn't, Beyonce, never speak. You never hear her speak. She's done a couple interviews. She's done Oprah here and there. She did a documentary,

• 36:11Whitney Cummings?

  but she says as little as possible. Adam Sandler doesn't do interview, I mean Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't do interviews. And as someone that just talks for a living, there's times like where I will try to, you've already kind of said everything you need to say. Now you're just confusing people, trying to control them, micromanage them, or just fill space because you're nervous.

• 36:32Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's the space for people to kind of show you who they are or what they are, no matter who it is, right? In the fucking person on the street or the person that's ringing you. Definitely thinking about, thinking about what happens when someone tries too hard to be,

• 36:56Chris Williamson?

  not forthcoming, but they're like pliable in a way. And I think this is fundamentally why simps, simpy behavior amongst men in particular is so, it causes even in men and some women, apart from the women that are benefiting from it, it causes so much sort of aversion and discomfort because there's a sense that if this person is this pliable with this girl, what is there to say that they're not just going to, you know, sneaky fucker syndrome, I think it's referred to in biology, where the, it's a slipstreaming effect where like the lesser male will try and do sneaky shit to try and like get access, sexual access to females. And yeah, there's something about

• 37:40Chris Williamson?

  being super, super pliable that makes someone feel unreliable. Like you want to know that your friend, even if they're your best friend, has limits.

• 37:48Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 37:48Chris Williamson?

  Because if they just continue to fold and it's like, okay, so where are you? If I just keep digging and digging and digging, do I hit anything solid? Or do I just come out the other side of you because you will continue to fold around me? That's not what you want from a friend. That's not what you'd want from a partner. It's not what you'd want from a parent. It's not what you'd want from a member of your community. You would want someone who is courteous, but firm, right? Like, here's my, here's my boundaries and I'm going to care about you up until the point at which you get to something that appropriates like my limit.

• 38:18Whitney Cummings?

  There was this, I actually learned a lot about my own energy and like probably what I give off on like dates or this or that. Because sometimes when I try to go like, don't try too hard, don't try too hard. That's the thing about trying to be soft or whatever, like.

• 38:32Whitney Cummings?

  You know, I can't, I can't like try to be like, sometimes I'll come off like silly. I'm like, just, just be who you are. I, I know I already have like an intense energy about me. I, I do actually, if anyone is looking for some kind of way to, you know, look in the mirror about your energy, equine therapy is a miracle and there's ways to do it where you don't have to own a horse, you know.

• 38:52Chris Williamson?

  Hang on, hang on, hang on.

• 38:55Whitney Cummings?

  Or just work with prey animals.

• 38:56Chris Williamson?

  Fucking you, right.

• 38:59Whitney Cummings?

  You knew we were gonna.

• 38:59Chris Williamson?

  Are you talking to horses?

• 39:00Whitney Cummings?

  You're not talking to horses. Basically being around horses are because they're prey animals and they're herd animals. Their only reward is serenity. Any other emotion besides complete serenity boils down to fear. So if you're truly doing equine therapy with a horse that's not been, you know, broken, that doesn't have a bit on or a bridle where it's being forced to be near you, it will choose to be near you only if you're emanating complete serenity and being present in the moment. So if you're next to a horse and you're like, what, I gotta take a picture because I want it to, that just boils down to fear to them. So they're just like, I feel fear. Is there a?

• 39:32Chris Williamson?

  They walk away?

• 39:33Whitney Cummings?

  Is there a mountain lion? Yeah. They start to go like, well, I gotta take it. There's a problem, right?

• 39:36Chris Williamson?

  Hang on. So can you go to a ranch that will do therapy with horses? Is there such a thing as a therapy horse?

• 39:44Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 39:45Chris Williamson?

  Is this like a fucking, whatever it is, emotional support animal?

• 39:48Whitney Cummings?

  What was this?

• 39:49Chris Williamson?

  My friend, my friend, Daniel Sloss, Scottish comedian.

• 39:52Whitney Cummings?

  I love Daniel.

• 39:52Chris Williamson?

  He's, he's fucking fantastic.

• 39:53Whitney Cummings?

  The best.

• 39:54Chris Williamson?

  He's got a bit about all of the different weird animals that he's seen, seen in emotional support peacock. And he saw, he's got this bit about an emotional support hamster that this woman uses like a fucking stress ball. And then when she kills it, she throws it away and takes another one out of her pocket and starts going. So whenever I think about emotional support animals, I do this. Um, yeah. So you can do equine therapy.

• 40:13Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 40:13Chris Williamson?

  With trained horses.

• 40:15Whitney Cummings?

  And it's very simple. Like literally, I mean, you could even if you have, if there's a ranch near you, you can ask to volunteer and go just stand in a stable in a paddock with a horse. I know it's, I know it sounds crazy. See if the horse wants to be near you. See if the horse wants to gravitate towards your energy. If you're being in the present moment and you're not unctuous in any way, you're not needy in any way, you're not trying to get the horse's attention, you're not trying to get the horse's love. If you're just taking care of yourself, they will move naturally towards you. They don't need anything from you because they're prey animals. They're grazers. They can get grass at any time. Where dogs want to be near you because they're waiting for food that. Dogs aren't loyal, like they're, I love them, but they have a vested interest in being near you, right? I'm like, my dog loves me. And then a stranger opens their car door and

• 40:56Whitney Cummings?

  my dog jumps inside. I'm like, wait, horses have no need and no allegiance to you, right? So this is an amazing exercise that had really helped me work on my energy because I'd be like, standing next to this horse, standing next to me, they're grazing, everything's good. Then I'd be like, okay, well, are they going to move soon? Because like I just, what if, what if they notice something different? Or what if they, and then the horse starts moving away. And then I start going, ah, it moved away. I'm such a piece of shit. They moving for, they just want to be as far from you as possible. And then when I start going, okay, well, this isn't going to work. I guess I should just, okay, what should I do later? I guess I need to go home. I need to work out. And then all of a sudden, the horse is coming back to you.

• 41:29Chris Williamson?

  Do, do you need someone or do you get someone when you do equine therapy to help you integrate? Because it's not like the horse is going, hey, hey, chill out.

• 41:37Whitney Cummings?

  We need to work on your energy.

• 41:39Chris Williamson?

  Chill out a little bit. Like, you need to think less about fucking the house.

• 41:42Whitney Cummings?

  It's just a great way to see the energy you're giving off.

• 41:46Chris Williamson?

  It's like a thermometer.

• 41:47Whitney Cummings?

  It's exactly it. And I didn't realize that I was giving off a desperate needy energy. And that, I mean, people listening are like, yeah, we, we could tell, you know, I'm a comedian for a

• 41:57Chris Williamson?

  Didn't need a horse weather vane for that.

• 42:00Whitney Cummings?

  I'm like, um, you know, I'm go on stage for a living and I'm like, love me, love me, like me, like me. And then, you know, I would move, which is a very important skill is being an entertainer, is making sure that people on stage like you. But as soon as you get off stage, like you can't be bringing that energy at people. So it's about being self-contained and it's about going like, I'm just going to be in the truth of this present moment with this person instead of trying to control whether they like me or not. Because when you're trying to make someone like you, it's very repellent.

• 42:25Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And it's interesting that the horses were able to pick up on it. That being said, the mental fucking gymnastics that horse girls will go through to just be able to spend more time on a ranch. It's like my horse is doing

• 42:35Whitney Cummings?

  I thought you were going to say on the back of a horse.

• 42:36Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. No, my fucking, my fucking horse is doing therapy with me. So I actually need to go, I actually need to go and see my therapist at the moment.

• 42:42Whitney Cummings?

  I would find I would go to a therapist and just lie to them because I would try to make the therapist like me or try to impress them or try to be their most fucked up or try to be the most recovered or whatever it was.

• 42:51Chris Williamson?

  Jimmy Carr told me this thing while I was with him, saying, the true definition of an entertainer is if you don't like me, I don't like me. Outsourcing your self-worth to the crowd is comedians desperately want to be loved, but entirely on their own terms.

• 43:06Whitney Cummings?

  Too real, Jimmy. It's too real.

• 43:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Whitney Cummings?

  It's way too real, you know, so I think it's like, you know, what you do for a living. We're all, you know, we're reading the comments. We want to make sure the people listening to us like us. We want to be perfect. We want to get it right. But then you go on a date and you're like trying to ace the test and you're just trying to ascertain if we like have good chemistry. And we can be, you know, alone together kind of thing. So I found that like I had a really hard time ascertaining the kind of energy I was giving off.

• 43:31Chris Williamson?

  This person from the other side is just seeing someone performing. You're just performing for me here.

• 43:35Whitney Cummings?

  And then you perform and then and then you get them.

• 43:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And then they're in love with someone that isn't you. They're in love with the person that's on stage or the the equivalent of the stage now.

• 43:43Whitney Cummings?

  And then they go, I love you. And you're like, you don't know me.

• 43:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you're in love with that version of me.

• 43:47Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, you you've never met me yet. And then or one day the jig is up and you're exhausted and then you're yourself and like.

• 43:53Chris Williamson?

  You've never met, you've never met me yet is such a an awesome line. That's really, really cool. I did a I did this breathwork class in Austin on a on a Thursday and I went last night. And if you've ever, it's not super intense breathwork, but it's enough to like regulate the nervous system. And one of the things, if you've never done it for an extended like half hour plus period of time. It's a little bit like psychedelics. It's a bit more difficult to hold on to control or you just see patterns arise a little bit more easily.

• 44:21Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 44:21Chris Williamson?

  Uh, and my executive function, you know, that's what you kind of noticed as you came in. It's like me pottering around saying, hey, man, can we just do this and blah, blah, blah. Like, that's always on. And um, I wonder, I think this is probably quite a common pattern for the sorts of people that are listening that you can afford to listen to us waffle on, you know, talking about human psychology or whatever. That there's a degree of like wanting to do it right. Am I doing it right? Like, is this, could I do it better? How can I optimize this? Am I, I I wonder if I breathe a little bit more quickly, would it be if I breathe a little bit more? I hope that the the lady that's teaching the class thinks that I'm doing it right. Like if she comes near with the thing like that. Energy of just, it's like an insecurity in some ways.

• 45:05Chris Williamson?

  And one of the weird externalities that comes from this is it can be very, very successful. Right? It drives you to be so detail oriented, to focus on things to a.

• 45:18Chris Williamson?

  Degree of minutia that gives you an unbelievable competitive advantage. But the felt sense of that can be you tripping over these tiny, tiny little things and permanently being vigilant, right? Like the prey animal thing, you're being vigilant for what's the next thing that needs to be fixed. And the Mandy, the lady that takes the class yesterday, pipes up every so often. It's fucking great. It's like sound healing with breath work. And then the final 30 minutes, she just lets you do whatever you want. So I pay, I pay someone to watch me nap on a Thursday for a good amount of time. Yeah. But she said, at the very beginning of the class or partway through, she said, don't forget you're not fixing a problem. And I was like, fuck, that's good. Like, you're

• 46:02Chris Williamson?

  not trying to fix a problem. You're just doing the thing.

• 46:05Whitney Cummings?

  I also think that these are survival mechanisms that served us really well. And it helps. I'm in a 12 step program called Adult Children and Alcoholics. It's basically if you grew up in an alcoholic home, in order for alcoholism to be present, alcohol doesn't have to be present. So if you didn't see drinking, it's fine. If you grew up around any kind of chaos as a child, you became a parentified child. So if in any way you had to parent your parents or take care of yourself too young, you know, we're the kids that were so mature for our age and we were the old soul and we're the ones that made our own lunch. And you know, it basically went, I'm on my own here. These adults are, you know, do not have their shit together.

• 46:37Chris Williamson?

  It looks like mature, but what it actually is, is just survival.

• 46:40Whitney Cummings?

  That's correct. So I grew up in alcoholic home, divorce, things, a lot of fighting. I had to be hypervigilant. It served me really well as a child. My mom was going through a bad divorce. She, you know, drank a lot. She was, you know, didn't have the tools we all have. That generation didn't have podcasts like this, you know, they didn't have, you know, these.

• 47:00Chris Williamson?

  Fucking Headspace and.

• 47:01Whitney Cummings?

  They didn't have sound bath classes and stuff. They were just drinking and white knuckling through it. And so anytime I had a need or a want, she was very overwhelmed. She was crying at a very early age. It was like, don't have any needs. Constantly make sure that, you know, you're self-contained, self-deprived. Make sure this is okay, because if she comes home and sees that this is messed up, she's going to have a conniption, then I'm going to have to deal with that. So it really helps. There's a step in the program that really helps you kind of like, you sort of anthropomorphize these voices and be able to do this little exercise where if, you know, I'm in the sound bath class and it's like, are you doing it right? And what if the instructor doesn't think you're doing it well enough and they don't think they're good? And I'm going, I know what that is. Don't need you right now. Gonna need you to sit back on the bench. Thank you so much.

• 47:43Whitney Cummings?

  You helped me out when I was six. Bye bitch, you know? So you're kind of able to sort of like, like personify it in a way. Some people call it their shadow, their inner bully, whatever the fuck you want to call it. But there's some times that I come off stage and it's like, that wasn't good enough and da, da, da. And like, thank you. I want to be better at this vocation. That is actually when I do need you. So yeah, get in the fucking game because I'm shooting a special in a week. And let's like crush this, you know, but I don't need it when I'm in meditation class. So I like have those little exercises I do that help.

• 48:15Chris Williamson?

  What are the modalities that have helped you go from where you were in your twenties to someone that feels like they've got their shit sorted now? Or at least a little bit close to being sorted?

• 48:25Whitney Cummings?

  Oh God, a 12 step program really helped me. I just feel like people, you know, talk about it when it's like AA or NA, when it's like, you know, recovering.

• 48:33Chris Williamson?

  What's NA?

• 48:33Whitney Cummings?

  NA is Narcotics Anonymous. Like I think people really talk about these 12 step programs when it's recovering from a substance. But when you're in ACA or Al-Anon, it's more about recovering from the internal drug cabinet, which is cortisol and adrenaline. So the drama addicts, right? The sort of, you know, if you grew up in an alcoholic home, you know, you might gravitate towards being in relationships with people that you have to fix or rescue, or you're in these toxic addictive relationships that, you know, aren't really good, but you can't really get out. And you're finding yourself being the person that's like, I hate drama, but you're always in some kind of drama, you know? So for me, I really had to get a handle on that because I was in relationships with people that I had to rescue.

• 49:15Whitney Cummings?

  I was dating people I had to fix. I thought I had to take care of everybody. I was taking care of friends. Like I was just always the crisis person, you know, you feel alive in a time of crisis. That's just our comfort zone. That's really served me in some of my work situations, but not in my personal life. It's a giant waste of time, wasn't taking care of myself. Um, you know, the three M's we call it, mothering, micromanaging, martyring. You know, we're putting everybody else first, putting yourself last. That just came naturally to me. Doing that program really helped me to not have guilt saying no to people, being able to stand up for myself, not doing anything out of obligation, because I was wasting so much time.

• 49:52Chris Williamson?

  Are you finding yourself people pleasing a lot?

• 49:54Whitney Cummings?

  Yep. And people pleasing, we say, is a form of assholery. Because you're doing something out of obligation, you know, like would if I said to you like, hey, will you come do my podcast? And you were like, oh, I have to do it. Don't do me the favor, because that's so embarrassing to me. Do you know what I mean? It's like patronizing. It's like, you know, so it's a lot of, it's a lot of people pleasing. You know, they call us the exploding doormats, you know? Super nice all the time to everyone. And then one day you just fucking snap. And you know, you're actually secretly keeping score, you know? It's like, and you're doing it to make other people like you, da, da, da. So I had to like, un, you know, rewire a lot of that shit. I got a lot of it from my mom. And like deprogram what I believed was expected of me.

• 50:34Chris Williamson?

  Neil Strauss, guy that wrote the game. Now, like fucking reawakened, you know, totally aligned sort of meditation person, it seems. I saw a tweet from him a couple of weeks ago that said, unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments. Jesus Christ.

• 50:54Whitney Cummings?

  Yep. He said codependence breeds resentments. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So it's like being in relationships and going like, like little adages. I do well with platitudes. Like they just do complicated brains, I think, do really well with little things, you know?

• 51:07Chris Williamson?

  Maxims, maxims and aphorisms are a huge way to synthesize down a bigger message into something that you can remember. Right? Like, here is this very large idea about how the story we tell ourselves largely determines our experience of it. Because if your heart rate's high after you've done a workout, you feel great. But if your heart rate just randomly was high in traffic, you would go to the hospital. And then there's this bit from Marcus Aurelius that says, the whole universe has changed. And life itself is but what we deem it. Life itself is but what we deem it. I think it's like nine words, the most profound nine words in philosophy. Life itself is but what we deem it. Encapsulates all of this big thing.

• 51:45Whitney Cummings?

  Yep.

• 51:46Chris Williamson?

  So like, I understand that quote porn and that fuck bucocking people with all of these different, these different references is, I don't know. Maybe, maybe it does get tiresome, but for me, these are the way markers that remind me, it's like a little mantra. It's like, right. Okay, there's my fucking. Desire for unproven self-esteem again. And I remember Ryan Holiday saying, self-belief is overrated. Generate evidence. Fantastic. There we go.

• 52:11Whitney Cummings?

  I'll just. I know what to do.

• 52:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, exactly. And it's, I know, if you're lost and the world's kind of confusing at the moment and people really don't know where to find their meaning from, and should I do the career, do the mother thing? Should I rely on a partner? Can I trust relying on a partner? Is he or she going to be fucking baking in porn or fucking Kardashians or whatever it might be? So, all right, we'll find somewhere firm and firm things can be little philosophies and principles that you rely on. So, yeah, I'm.

• 52:36Whitney Cummings?

  Did you say baking in porn?

• 52:38Chris Williamson?

  Maybe, sure.

• 52:39Whitney Cummings?

  What's baking mean?

• 52:40Chris Williamson?

  I don't know. Like, just like fucking immersing themselves, like.

• 52:43Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, got it, got it, got it, got it.

• 52:44Chris Williamson?

  Marinading in fucking porn.

• 52:45Whitney Cummings?

  Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. I thought you meant she was in porn.

• 52:49Chris Williamson?

  That would also happen.

• 52:50Whitney Cummings?

  Okay.

• 52:50Chris Williamson?

  Actually. Okay, so you said this ALA thing was one of them.

• 52:55Whitney Cummings?

  ACA, total miracle, because it's also free medicine. It's totally free, working with animals. Started rescuing dogs, fostering dogs. I know this is going to sound like crazy animal lady, but it really helped me because I realized I had such self-esteem stuff, self-esteem stuff, and I didn't have a dog. Like, I didn't have something that was just giving me unconditional love, you know? And it kind of, that really helped me. I had some intimacy stuff and I realized a lot of my toughness had to do with being scared of intimacy, being scared of being loved, maybe being scared of being rejected, or if you actually see me, you're gonna reject me, kind of thing. So animals really helped me with that because it gives you, like you, you know, just said there, Ryan, a little bit of data. Like, this dog kind of, you know, I kind of had to start there.

• 53:39Chris Williamson?

  No matter how much of a piece of shit I might think I am and how much I fear that the world thinks I am, my dog still loves me.

• 53:44Whitney Cummings?

  I'm doing pretty good. Yeah, this thing that I think is cool.

• 53:47Chris Williamson?

  He's alive. He seems to be happy that I'm here. You had this, I heard you say this quote, I think it's to Chris, having a kid, or maybe it was him, having a kid is the opportunity to finally love something that isn't just yourself.

• 53:59Whitney Cummings?

  I can't wait. The clarity that comes with just even being pregnant right now has been so and the emotional maturity that has come with it. I highly recommend being pregnant ladies. It really does. Well, because you kind of just

• 54:10Chris Williamson?

  Pregnancy is a therapy device. That's a fucking hot take.

• 54:14Whitney Cummings?

  Well, because it's like, I mean, I spend so much time like going like, should I do this? Do I need to do this? And I think that I've always had this ticking clock on my brain as a performer. It's like, I'm a woman, I'm getting older, am I going to expire? Or am I just going to get tired? Like, I know I didn't want to, you know, work like an animal forever. I knew that like in my twenties and thirties, I was like, I'm going to grind like an animal. And then I'm going to have a personal life. I always saw it that way. And maybe that's a little bit like psycho. I mean, in my twenties, like I was in a couple of relationships that were kind of like two people kind of both trying to avoid intimacy sort of thing. But I wasn't wasting a lot of time dating. I just, I, I didn't know what to do with myself in terms of dating. I know that I wasn't ready to be serious with anybody. And I was like, let me just check all these career boxes and then I'll be able to do the personal life thing. I couldn't manage doing both at once.

• 54:58Chris Williamson?

  I always remember, I had this thought when I was 16 and I was doing martial arts. I was doing like Kung Fu or something. And there was this retreat that we went to. And one of the guys that was there was in the army and mum had beaten it into me from very early age. I was going to go to university. First person, I think first person in my family to go to university. Like fucking big extended family, but one of the only few people to go. And she'd always said, you're going to university, you're going to university. But there was this point when we went to this retreat for Kung Fu and this guy was there who was in the army. And he was maybe a few years older than me and he was just explaining about what life was like. And even then, I was 16, before social media, before telephones, before anything, right? Before telephones, before mobile phones. And so a significantly less complex world than the one that we find ourselves in now.

• 55:42Chris Williamson?

  And the one that many people that are listening might only know.

• 55:45Whitney Cummings?

  Right.

• 55:46Chris Williamson?

  And I remember looking at this guy who was explaining about his experience in the army and thinking, wow, I would love to do that purely because all of my efforts would be committed to one thing and I would never need to make decisions about life. And that kind of makes me think about the same energy that's coming from the opportunity to finally love something that isn't yourself. It's like, all I do. Keep this thing alive, make it happy.

• 56:10Whitney Cummings?

  Yep, yep. And you know, and it's it. And really quick, just in terms of the animal thing, I also think that we waste a lot of time, you know, trying to, you know, as we say in program, like, you know, don't try to meet internal needs with external things, you know, whether it's drugs, whether it's alcohol, whether it's people. And for me, I was never a drugs and alcohol person, but I was definitely a people person with if I just have this many friends, if this high status person likes me, maybe I'm worth something. If this guy is attracted to me, maybe that means that I'm not, you know, totally nothing. But like, having a lot of emotional needs met from animals really did, I think, keep me out of a lot of trouble. And I think we're, you know, I've heard on your show, talking about like, you know, people not dating as much anymore. I know that's in a lot of ways, a bad thing. But when you're in your twenties, like, how

• 56:55Whitney Cummings?

  do you get your emotional needs met? So you're not wasting time and hurting other people and hurting yourself being in relationships you shouldn't be in, you know? And I think I kind of accidentally hacked that by fostering dogs. I had like, all these animals I was always fostering. And I'm like, crazy dog lady, but like, at least I didn't have a kid before I was ready. At least I didn't marry someone I had no business marrying. And I feel like that could have happened.

• 57:16Chris Williamson?

  Right. So you had your emotional needs met by surrogate children.

• 57:19Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 57:20Chris Williamson?

  Furry, furry surrogate children.

• 57:21Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. But now it's like, you know, I gotta say, a lot of the things that I've been working so hard to try to get this clarity of like, am I in this friendship because of obligation? Am I in this friendship because I'm confusing love and pity? And then you get pregnant, and you're just like, yeah, I, I, you're a once a month friend. You're not a once a week friend. You might be like, a once a year friend, quite frankly, or like, do I need to buy this person a thank you gift because they had? No, I texted, thank you. That's enough. You know, there's like, just sort of a calm.

• 57:46Chris Williamson?

  Simplicity.

• 57:47Whitney Cummings?

  There's a simplicity that comes over you. There is a relief of bondage of self, like, you know, what we do for a living, there's just kind of this narcissism, you can't escape of like, I wake up every morning, I'm like, how can I improve myself today? How can I create something today? What do I need to do to stay relevant? You know, just, you're like, you know what? For today, I'm just gonna eat well, I'm gonna take care of myself. And then like, really commit to all these routines that I've kind of pretended to commit to for so long, you know, in terms of taking care of myself. For me, I, you know, there's a lot of work about like, the inner child and like nurturing your inner. Now that I have a literal inner child, it's kind of, it really is all started to come together. So when I see people who have a kid, and then their lives just get amazing, I'm like, oh, I get that, because you really start walking the walk.

• 58:30Chris Williamson?

  That's so interesting. It's very illuminating to think about, you know, like the forcing function of the kid bringing all of your bullshit to bear. It's like, look, you can't, you can't be bothering. Again, I heard Chris talk about this when you guys spoke, where he said, um, when he, when his kids were young, his boys would be messaging back and forth in the group chat. Did you see that such and such a person did this? And he doesn't even, he's like, I'm not even fucking got time to read this. So all of the extraneous bullshit gets filtered. But I wonder whether, and I certainly see this with work, I saw this with uni as well,

• 59:06Chris Williamson?

  that the adrenaline of having something very important and time demanding and, and on a deadline and dependent on you, whether that be a career or an education or, you know, a political ideology that you're fighting for on the internet or whatever it is, it's exhilarating.

• 59:25Whitney Cummings?

  Yep.

• 59:26Chris Williamson?

  Right? It, it is almost like a surrogate child in a way. And you're applying an awful lot of pressure and a lot of attention toward this thing. And there is a sense of like, yes, like I'm bringing something to bear, like this is manifesting in the world. But it's, I know it's like a simulacrum of what, what you're actually working toward, right?

• 59:45Whitney Cummings?

  And it's also, it's like no one, if you and my, in, when I was in my twenties told me like, hey, money and fame is not going to do it for you. I'd be like, fuck you. Yes, it will. You know, like it, everyone's like, it's really just about family and you can't take the money with you. And you're like, okay, I'm poor. So I don't, I like, none of that shit matters. No one wants to hear that shit. So that's not what I'm about to say in any capacity. But to me, I kind of go like, yes, I've accomplished all of these goals that I had. I've had success. I'm financially solvent. And you're like, and now what?

• 1:00:14Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 1:00:15Whitney Cummings?

  And now what? Okay. Now am I just, I think you've talked about this. You have like one person you're doing your career at.

• 1:00:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Whitney Cummings?

  You know what I mean? Like I'm doing, I just did a sick special. I'm like, this, was this just for this other female comedian to know that I did another one? What is it? Like pick your enemies?

• 1:00:31Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the question of, and now what?

• 1:00:35Whitney Cummings?

  And now what?

• 1:00:35Chris Williamson?

  Is so fucking interesting. Like just keep running that, keep running that back, right? Okay. What are you doing? Okay. Well, I'm doing the career thing. Okay. And, and then, oh, I'm, when I do this career, I'll get the promotion. Okay. And then, and then I will be able to afford the house. And then, and you just keep on running it all the way forward and you go. Oh, yeah, there's nothing, there's no there there eventually.

• 1:00:57Whitney Cummings?

  Did it like, did it, did it work? Did it make your dead dad love you? Like, did it? Because I go like, what's the thing I'm going for? Like, okay, both my parents are dead. Tried to get their attention. That didn't work. Okay, it didn't unbreak my heart from when I was, you know, thirty one and that thing happened. It didn't make me not getting asked to prom go away. You know, it's like, you're kind of like, didn't do, oh, right. Now what? And I feel like I was working towards all this to be able to go, I need to check all these boxes. So when I have a family, I'm not resentful. And I'm not still running around trying to get these boxes checked because I did watch a mother try to have a career and I was slowing her down. I felt it. I absolutely felt it.

• 1:01:34Chris Williamson?

  How much of that, you know, it's a really lovely narrative that you've got woven together here, which is I did the hard things in my twenties and part of my thirties that enabled me to be a mother now. Can you remember how much of that was planned in advance and how much of that is you post hoc rationalizing it now? And being like, well, this is a cute story that puts a bow on the top of this box.

• 1:01:56Whitney Cummings?

  That's, that's very interesting. I mean, I think that I, you know, I think that at the time, I presented as one of these women that goes, well, I don't want kids. I always said it. I don't want kids, which is thou doth protest too much, obviously, right? We all become what we hate, whatever. But I definitely presented as, no, I'm not having kids. I'm focusing on my career. Ah, like, I'm never gonna, I mean, I had a TV show that was about how I was afraid of commitment and didn't want to get married, you know? This was, I was just broadcasting my damage to everybody in some way, maybe to ask to be healed or, you know, whatever it was, or I was, you know, very much like, kind of grew up in public. So I did get a lot of feedback, which was interesting, like, it's interesting to grow up in front of people and show all your wounds and then have

• 1:02:38Whitney Cummings?

  people kind of confront you about them. It was weird. Like, I wanted to get better. I wanted to change. I wanted to grow. But I, I definitely knew I didn't want to have a family in my twenties. I was like, because I don't want to do what my parents did and I'm too afraid of what's in my, I'm too broken. You know, was my narrative. And then by the time my thirties came around, I was like, I got engaged, wasn't quite right. Um, I was really trying, but I just wasn't, I wasn't healed yet. I just wasn't healed yet. And I think that I always had, maybe it was my codependence was saving me because I didn't want to hurt anybody. Like, I really don't want to hurt anyone. I really, when I'm in relationships and I know it's not.

• 1:03:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's interesting that you were almost people pleasing the imaginary partner that you hadn't yet met. I don't want to hurt them. I know that if I try and do this thing and it's not going to go well, then they'll be sad. And if they're sad, I'm going to feel like an absolute fucking piece of shit.

• 1:03:23Whitney Cummings?

  And I can't fake it. I just, I can't, I can't lie. I mean, I think it's being a.

• 1:03:26Chris Williamson?

  I'm a terrible fucking liar.

• 1:03:28Whitney Cummings?

  It being a comedian, like I see these people that are like, if you have 80% of what you want, you should settle for that. And I'm like, but then how do you, I, I'm not going to lie to this person because then I won't respect them because if they believe the lie, then I lose respect for them. I'm like, you just bought that? Like, I just, I guess I might be too much of a romantic, which is not how people would see me, but I kind of like, really wanted this thing where two people could be totally authentic together. And I wasn't capable of being authentic until fairly recently.

• 1:03:55Chris Williamson?

  There was a, a guy, super successful guy who completely stopped doing all online content to switch to a different sort of a business. And I was at a retreat with him a few months ago, maybe four months ago, something like that. And I was talking to him and I was saying, you know, he, he stopped doing the online content thing because he had a bigger project and a bigger business that he loved. And he felt like he was contributing to the world in a better way through. But another thing that he said to me, which is really fucking stuck with me was he found himself saying things not only as content, but also to his friends. And this is one of the reasons why he stopped being quite so social. He found himself telling people's stories in public.

• 1:04:34Chris Williamson?

  That he then felt like he needed to live up to in private. So he was weaving, and that was the reason I asked about the beautiful bow that's upon the box. It's like, this is a nice story, right? But how much of it is just a good thing that not only you can tell yourself, but it sounds great on a podcast? And how much of that is really there? And it's really hard, you know, it's not the sort of thing that you're going to unpack like that. Um, but that, that one fucking sentence, I was sitting at Jacuzzi with like fucking 16 guys, the gayest thing ever.

• 1:05:07Chris Williamson?

  And he says this thing, and here's me having like a mini fucking existential crisis. It's the heavens open. I'm like, wow, that's super profound. I must remember to write that down. And yeah, I was telling myself stories and telling stories in public that I had to live up to in private.

• 1:05:21Whitney Cummings?

  Okay, then I'll tell you the ugly parts that that don't have the bone necessarily is I do think that, you know, and and I sometimes I get a little bit wishy washy about saying things that I feel like only apply to forward facing people. You know, I'm like, God, is this not applicable? But everybody now has social media. Everybody now is a public in some, you know, kind of way. And there's a sort of micro version of what we do for everybody. And I think that starting a podcast, I, you know, look, I had done a special a year was kind of, you know, what you do as a comedian, you tour around the country, then you start a podcast and you're kind of broadcasting all of your personal details of your life. You're talking about dating people, you're talking about sexual stuff.

• 1:06:01Whitney Cummings?

  And I think it hurt me. I definitely think I had to start really looking at that and just going like, would the guy that I want to be with sign up for this?

• 1:06:13Chris Williamson?

  And me being completely open about all of my sexual conquests in the past and so on and so forth.

• 1:06:19Whitney Cummings?

  Which I, which is half the time you're we're joking, we're whatever it is, but I just kind of was like, I don't know if the guy that I want to be would want to be with a public figure.

• 1:06:29Chris Williamson?

  Let me give you this. So one of my smartest friends, Mary Harrington, one person you need to get on your podcast is Louise Perry. So she wrote the case against the sexual revolution.

• 1:06:36Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 1:06:37Chris Williamson?

  Mary is like, she's just another version of Louise, basically from from the UK, very smart lady. And she came up with this idea of digital modesty. And digital modesty, she says that there needs to be boundaries about what people share on the internet. And she's got different ones. She's like a little bit more kind of reclusive and she's a writer rather than a podcaster. So I guess that makes a little bit of a difference as well. But, you know, she talks about, I'll never post photos of my kids where I live, the places that go to like, but but but like, she's got this big list and it's a set of principles that she doesn't cross. I don't think a partner exists on the internet. Brett Cooper just got engaged from the Daily Wire. I think the first and last time anyone on the internet is going to see her. Fiance, future husband, it's like the back of his head in a photo of them getting engaged

• 1:07:22Chris Williamson?

  in Rome or wherever it was. And she came on and she said, I got engaged and it was this thing. She spent maybe four minutes talking about it and then said, and that's the last time that I'm going to talk about my partner. And it was like, he's not on the internet. He doesn't want to be on the internet and I love him for it. And it's like that digital modesty. But you're totally right as well. You can be a person who is living the most normal, non-public facing life in the world, but you've got, you know, 2,000 followers on Instagram and your friends from school are still keeping up to date with what you do via Facebook.

• 1:07:55Whitney Cummings?

  Of course.

• 1:07:56Chris Williamson?

  Like you have these rules too. And in some ways, those people are even more intimate in your lives because they've been a part of it for so long and they know your cousins and they know where mum and dad live and blah, blah, blah.

• 1:08:07Whitney Cummings?

  And it was hard to develop intimacy with people when I have such an intimate relationship with the people that have read my book and listened to my podcast. And then you sit down with someone that you've been with for six months and they're like, I didn't know you struggle with eating stuff. And I'm like, well, I wrote a book about money. And you're like, oh, wait a second. Like, you haven't heard everything that I've said, you know, like, and then it's this weird thing where you're like, you're like, am I attracting people that want to be with someone that's like this? And then I have to live up to the person.

• 1:08:35Chris Williamson?

  You also have a degree of like narcissism guilt about the presumption that people would have seen the thing that you do. It's like, what? You didn't read my fucking book?

• 1:08:43Whitney Cummings?

  But I didn't, but which, by the way, thank God you didn't. You wouldn't be here if you had. But also, it's more like, oh, I don't want to make the assumption, obviously, that you didn't. But I also, like, we can talk about other things too. And I've already talked about this too much. I don't even, but then they feel like they're left out of things. They'll be at the airport and someone will be like, I loved your book. You moved me so much when you talked about this.

• 1:09:01Chris Williamson?

  What book do you write?

• 1:09:02Whitney Cummings?

  And then, yeah. And then they're like, wait a second, when you were engaged? And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, it just hasn't come up.

• 1:09:07Chris Williamson?

  Page, page 235.

• 1:09:08Whitney Cummings?

  And then, yeah, totally. And guys are like, why do these strangers know more about you than I do? And I'm like, well, because I don't.

• 1:09:13Chris Williamson?

  I mean, this is why I think for a lot of people, regardless of how big or small the platform is, as soon as you start to broadcast things about yourself on the internet, even to your, you know, thousand.

• 1:09:23Whitney Cummings?

  And people.

• 1:09:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, thousand, thousand friends on Instagram. You then create another you out there. There is you that is this. And then there is the you that is the online persona. And people will make judgments about that. Tell you who I think is patient fucking zero for what we're talking about.

• 1:09:41Chris Williamson?

  Fucking, what's her name? Alex Cooper from Call Her Daddy.

• 1:09:44Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Chris Williamson?

  Like, yeah, this is a girl who built her platform, talking about like the gluck gluck 7000, how to give a good blowjob on episode, whatever of her podcast.

• 1:09:54Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:54Chris Williamson?

  And just rolls forward, extolling the virtues of casual sex and no strings attached detachment.

• 1:10:00Whitney Cummings?

  Sure.

• 1:10:01Chris Williamson?

  Treat him like you don't like him. And this is what I got up to last night. And marriage is a con and you don't need to get into a relationship and familyhood. And you can do the girl boss thing and sisters all sisterhood forever. And then for the last three years, it's been dating this guy. And then like fucking, like a transition, just fucking gender reveals herself to be like a fucking matronly. And goes, there was rose petals and the proposal was so beautiful and stuff. And I'm like, do you know the wake of the cultural like aftershock?

• 1:10:33Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Chris Williamson?

  That's occurred behind you downstream of all of these girls believing this ideology. That you, for a good amount of time, for like two or three years, weren't doing.

• 1:10:42Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:43Chris Williamson?

  You know, and that must have caused, I'm sure that in her, like she'll be able to feel that discord. It's too easy for me to say, you know, she was saying one thing and doing another and fuck her for that. Because, you know, I'm, I'm sure that she's struggled internally with that, unless she's a complete narcissist. And I don't think she is, but there is a bit that goes like, dude, come on. Like, think about all of the fucking girls that have cast off relationships and done the casual sex thing to allow guys to use and discard them.

• 1:11:10Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Chris Williamson?

  Thinking that that was true feminine liberation. Meanwhile, you were getting ready to get engaged.

• 1:11:16Whitney Cummings?

  Right, right, right. That is wild. I didn't, it's interesting because, you know, as someone that in my stand up, I talked a lot about that stuff in my twenties, but I'm actually really shy about that stuff. Other like sex, otherwise, like I'm weirdly shy about it. So, you know, I haven't heard all of it, but yeah, I mean, you know, look, Snoop Dogg said, you can't make a hoe a housewife. Maybe you can. I don't know. I don't know, but I definitely do feel like one of the, you know, biggest problems people do now, we were kind of talking about it right as we came in, is they over pathologize themselves and kind of trauma bond. On the first date, all of a sudden, people are talking about their depression and their anxiety. And this is what happened to me when I was a kid and my ex cheated on me. And it's like, why the fuck are you doing this on a first date? Like, this is not first, I mean, that's something

• 1:11:58Whitney Cummings?

  you share way, way later. And I think people are getting relationships way too soon because they're trauma bonding too soon. But I do feel like because I tend to kind of overshare for a living on podcasts, that's what we do, you know, to try to help other people. And then I'm like, oh, God, I hope any guy that I could ever date would never listen to any of this.

• 1:12:14Chris Williamson?

  Well, there's something else about that digital modesty side, which is if you're already showing all of you on the internet, where is left to go that has additional intimacy beyond that?

• 1:12:25Whitney Cummings?

  But then you just go like, am I changing everything about my career for this one person? And the answer is kind of yes. You're going like, I'm not going to post this video in case this one person I'm interested in might see it, which is a wild sacrifice to me, you know, this might not even work out. But like, if he scrolls past this and sees me being like, glug, glug, or whatever, I don't know, whatever Alex was doing, like, I'm gonna lose the guy, this is, this would make the kind of guy that I want, probably recoil and flee and go like, no, thanks.

• 1:12:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's, well, I mean, you know, we were talking, you mentioned before about people pleasing. And what you're basically doing there is saying the words that you think the person wants to hear without thinking the things that justify the thing that you're saying. It's like, I'll say yes to going to the party despite not wanting to go to the party because I want to please the person, even though if they could see the inner texture of my own thoughts, they would be like, they would just feel so patronized and disgusted at the fact that I don't think they're able to take the news.

• 1:13:26Whitney Cummings?

  And then also, by the way, like, what, you think they're gonna cancel the party? The insecure narcissism, that I'm a piece of shit in the center of the universe of that of like, well, if I don't go, they're gonna what? Cancel it? They'll be fine. We obsess about what other people think about us till we realize they're not thinking about us.

• 1:13:41Chris Williamson?

  I think that's the same with people trying to go through breakups in relationships and they're like, how would they ever be able to live without this? You know, I mean, they're entirely, yeah, it's like

• 1:13:52Whitney Cummings?

  They're gonna be fine.

• 1:13:54Chris Williamson?

  They may even be better.

• 1:13:55Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, the hinge lady wrote a book. They'll be fine. But I do think there is a point where it's like, I see people going like, well, I'm ready to be serious in a relationship. I'm like, does your social media reflect that you're ready to be serious relationship? Do your dating apps reflect that you're ready to be in a serious relationship? It's like the idea of like, before you're ready to get in something, you gotta make sure you have made space for it. Like, a lot of people are like, dating a bunch of people casually, or they're kind of in something and they're like, I want something real. It's like, you gotta really be ready. And I had to get to a point where I had to go like, I have to go delete all these photos from my, I have to delete all these videos.

• 1:14:26Chris Williamson?

  Did you go on a cleanse? You sanitized your Instagram?

• 1:14:28Whitney Cummings?

  I had to, I mean, look, I had blue hair for like a year. I had

• 1:14:31Chris Williamson?

  What happened there? Did you, did you have a, did you go fucking crazy? What did you do?

• 1:14:34Whitney Cummings?

  I guess I kind of did. I, okay, so during the pandemic, you know, stand up was the first thing to go. I mean, in California, I don't know when you came, were you in California first?

• 1:14:42Chris Williamson?

  No, no.

• 1:14:43Whitney Cummings?

  Or you just went, came to

• 1:14:43Chris Williamson?

  UK and then back end of 2021, I came here.

• 1:14:46Whitney Cummings?

  Nice. You came straight here. Great. So in California, it was like shut down, right? And so stand up was the first thing to go. And I had just spent so much of my career as like, you know, someone in television and stuff is having to sort of be this person. And, you know, you're trying to make this like executive have a crush on you to get this job. I just was like sick of trying to be this perfectly castable person. And then on top of that, you know, knowing that I had a year off, and then a bunch of my friends started losing their jobs. Um, hair artists, makeup artists, stuff like that. And then I had one who, you know, was gonna have to move back home, lose her health insurance. And I was like, that's the most expensive thing we can do. And she's like, let's dye your hair blue. And I'm like, fuck it. I'm an entertainer. Why not? You know, I'm not shooting anything right now. I didn't realize that when you have blue hair, everyone thinks you're like a lesbian on ketamine.

• 1:15:32Whitney Cummings?

  I think that probably set me back in the dating, in the dating pool for a while.

• 1:15:36Chris Williamson?

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:15:36Whitney Cummings?

  What, why, why can't you have blue hair? Guys just, they're just like, she's nuts.

• 1:15:40Chris Williamson?

  I have, I think that blue hair especially, like that color of hair is just, it, it's got bad, bad brand image. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:15:49Whitney Cummings?

  But you know what's weird about it? A lot of guys started showing up at my house that thought I was some anime. There's like-

• 1:15:55Chris Williamson?

  You were cosplaying as-

• 1:15:57Whitney Cummings?

  There's some, there, it's a really big fetish in some Twitch communities and, and people that think we're in a simulation.

• 1:16:04Chris Williamson?

  Low cut top and started playing League of Legends. That would have been, that was your new career.

• 1:16:07Whitney Cummings?

  There was, there's some video game character. That is so funny. That's truly-

• 1:16:12Chris Williamson?

  Stay on your lap.

• 1:16:12Whitney Cummings?

  It's never happened to me in a podcast, not one time.

• 1:16:15Chris Williamson?

  Is that your ringtone?

• 1:16:16Whitney Cummings?

  That's why, yes, that's-

• 1:16:17Chris Williamson?

  It's the most like California new agey.

• 1:16:19Whitney Cummings?

  Really?

• 1:16:20Chris Williamson?

  Like, yeah, it's like some fucking binaural beats as a ringtone.

• 1:16:23Whitney Cummings?

  That's like the first ringtone. That's like the one that comes with the phone, I thought.

• 1:16:26Chris Williamson?

  That's crazy.

• 1:16:27Whitney Cummings?

  I just got the new phone and I, I don't know how to use it. But, um, yeah, I did make the mistake. But again, if I wasn't a public figure, I was, didn't put it on social media, like, you know, people are like, oh, she's got blue hair. And I'm like, how many like great guys were like, never mind, you know? So I think it was just about going like, I've spent most of my career trying to appease fans and being entertainer. And I have to just go like, I'm gonna have to take a hit in my career if I really want to have a personal life.

• 1:16:51Chris Williamson?

  Well, I think, you know, for a lot of people, again, that aren't necessarily in media or whatever, there is a, a degree of feeling like you need to live up to whatever expectation it is, the norms of this time, this generation, your parents, your past traumas, the paths of least resistance, the confused chemical signals of your body, like whatever it is that you're kind of being dragged by at the moment and asking yourself the question, all right, so what's me? Where am I inside of this? What's deeper? If I dig a little bit deeper, do I hit anything solid? Or, or am I just this concatenation of a bunch of assumptions and, and projections of my idea of what other people actually want from me? It's like-

• 1:17:37Whitney Cummings?

  You just made me realize something, which is like, I was arrogant. And there is this, well, I'm just gonna be authentic and I have blue hair and I do this and I talk about sex.

• 1:17:46Chris Williamson?

  Still performance.

• 1:17:47Whitney Cummings?

  And you take me or leave me. If you don't like me, you don't fucking get it. And it's like, no, the person that would have been attracted to that, like, is not the kind of person I want to be with either, you know? So I don't want to gravitate batshit, gravitate batshit crazy people either. So like, I can't behave batshit crazy all the time, you know? And expect to vibrate a person at the frequency of what I want. So it's like, a lot of people go like, like, this is what I want in a man and this is what I want in a woman and it's like, well, what are you willing to give up? And I wasn't ready to make that list. I had my list of pros, my list of cons, my list of red flags, my list of green lights, but I didn't have, what are you willing to give up? Are you willing to give up those photos that are like silly and your ass is out?

• 1:18:30Whitney Cummings?

  Are you willing to give up those videos where you're going like, men making fun of men? Are you willing to not put up that standup clip from when you were 22 about squirting?

• 1:18:38Chris Williamson?

  Like, so what's interesting there is, uh, for each culture, there's a counterculture, right? So I think that's not far off, like, uh, sacrifice culture or something like that. It's realizing that your partner, there are things that you can do that can make your partner more and less happy. But there would be a big, uh, part of the internet, perhaps the like, uh, female empowerment, authenticity, boss bitch internet that would say, well, if your partner can't take you as you are, that's their insecurity and their problem. And you go, okay, well, do you agree that there are ways that you can make your partner feel better and worse? Do you think that that's a thing? Yes, there are. On average, do you want to try and do things that make your partner feel better without compromising yourself and becoming totally pliable? Yeah, probably. That would be something, it's like, right, okay.

• 1:19:22Chris Williamson?

  So we are on the same page. It's just a difference of degree, not a difference of kind. So how many things, like, are you going to go out every single night partying with the girls and never see your partner? Probably not, right? That's not going to be a good relationship and they're going to feel uncomfortable with it. All right, so as soon as we accept that, it's one straight line to, there were things that I will put on the internet, the digital modesty thing again, there are things that I will say about myself, there are ways that I will act, there are things I'll say behind their back, you know, to my friends that I will and will not say. You know, there's degrees of, um, confidentiality and openness about what we get up to in the bedroom or about, you know, what his fears are, about what she's been doing. Like, all of these things are. Like, I don't know, it seems kind of noble to me to do that.

• 1:20:04Whitney Cummings?

  I a hundred percent agree. And it's also, there's a difference between, you know, I've spent a lot of time with magical thinking. And that's what magical thinking is. I'm gonna go out with my girlfriends three nights a week. And if he doesn't accept it, he's a, well, then you're gonna get a certain kind of man. I'm at a point, again, I have nothing to prove. Like, I think for what I say to women is like, get to a place where you have nothing to prove, so you can totally submit to your man. And it doesn't feel like you're like a bad feminine. There's this thing now where you can't, like, if you cook for your man, you're not a good feminist. I'm like, you're dealing with knives and fire. It's cool. Like, being able to feed yourself and your family is like a bad thing now. Like, I, you know, I just, I think it's like so noble to be able to go like, I can show my love for you by giving up all these other things and I just want to make you happy.

• 1:20:47Whitney Cummings?

  Like, it's what I do on stage. It's what I do with crowds. It's like, I want to do it with a man. Is that weak? Is that?

• 1:20:52Chris Williamson?

  It's investment, right? It's, it's so strange that a woman who would give herself over and, and a man that would give themselves over to a corporate employer that doesn't give a fuck about them is somehow seen as being a virtuous, like, self-defining, independent person. But someone that does that for a partner that's going to spend the rest of their life with them and genuinely care is seen as a simp.

• 1:21:15Whitney Cummings?

  I had a, I also think that a big mistake women make is like, women go to advice about men to their girlfriends, go to advice about men to your guy friends. And also don't go to your single girlfriends for advice about being in relationships. Go to your married friends.

• 1:21:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, all of your single friends want Tequila Tuesdays to keep happening, which means that, that, you know, even if they're not aware of it, and even if they're fantastic friends, there is a part of them that thinks, it's kind of like, there's this idea in the black pill incel world of ascending. And ascending is becoming a viable mate for women and maybe, maybe even getting into a relationship. And it's very heavily discouraged because if one of the guys within a group that are supposed to be genetic dead ends that have no hope. Does do something that creates a pain of, oh, well, this could happen to me. And as soon as you believe that this could happen to me, maybe the reason it's not happening to you is your fault. Maybe it's not determined already. And it's kind of the same with the singleton thing.

• 1:22:13Chris Williamson?

  Like, if you're going to go and ask for advice about intimacy with someone who never really seems to be intimate with anyone, they're going to, first off, not have a particularly fantastic perspective, I don't think, unless they're unbelievably incisive. But secondly, there's going to be a little bit of a perverse incentive that they don't want their friend to start to pull away from them.

• 1:22:31Whitney Cummings?

  Ah, oh, so interesting. I'm going to give you the advice that makes what I'm doing seem like a good idea.

• 1:22:38Chris Williamson?

  And also keeps you as a compatriot so that we can both continue to do this together. You know, where the sisterhood, like, you know, girl, you don't need him, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, well, maybe that is, yeah, maybe that's, maybe that's true. But like, if you are unable, guy or girl, is unable to get yourself a partner or unable to find friends, like, no, dude, you don't need that friend anymore. It's like, the subtext of that is you can hang out with me. I'm your people.

• 1:23:03Whitney Cummings?

  When I was, um, I don't know, gosh, I was probably my late twenties and I dated a, and I, I'm only saying what he does for a living because it might make people like, it'll make, make you understand why I took it so well. Professional athlete, great at what he does. I just think a lot of times professional athletes, they don't, they can't, there's not a lot of room for emotion to be involved. It's either true or it's not true, or you're going to get your neck broken, you know? And he, you know, dated a lot of, you know, could date whoever he wanted or sleep with whoever he wanted. And I remember, I was just in my arrogance and in my, like, you know, we were like arguing about something and I was like, well, like, why would you date me if, like, I'm the person you date if you want like a challenge?

• 1:23:47Whitney Cummings?

  And he just went, why would any man want a challenge in their relationship?

• 1:23:55Whitney Cummings?

  And it was like, I was like, thank you so much for saying that. Cause I guess I grew up watching parents fight, watching.

• 1:24:03Chris Williamson?

  Conflict is love.

• 1:24:04Whitney Cummings?

  Conflict is love. I guess that's what I saw. I guess I thought it was sexy. I guess I thought.

• 1:24:10Chris Williamson?

  This is what passion is.

• 1:24:11Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. I don't know what I was thinking. And I literally in that moment was like, oh my God, I'm so. Like, I don't know what I, I thought it was like hot to you. I thought it was like what guys wanted. I thought it was like feisty, like, you know, I apologize.

• 1:24:26Chris Williamson?

  Well, especially if you're dating somebody that is high performing in any realm, has goals. You know, if you're working that hard in the office, do you really want to come home and be like, right, there's that to do list done? I wonder what fires I need to fight when I step through the front door as well.

• 1:24:41Whitney Cummings?

  And now I'm kind of at this point where it's like, I'm good at business. I'm really good at what I do. I love the idea of being with the man where I can be like, how can I help you make your, like, how can I be your business partner? Like your silent business partner, whether it's like, I can have dinner waiting for you. I can.

• 1:24:55Chris Williamson?

  Dwayne The Rock Johnson probably needs a second one of those.

• 1:24:57Whitney Cummings?

  I mean, look, I, this is so crazy to me. They probably, I want, do, I mean, state of California woman, the, she gets half for, after 10 years in a day.

• 1:25:08Chris Williamson?

  Strange if you did, even with a prenup?

• 1:25:10Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. You'd be surprised how few people have prenups. I mean, remember.

• 1:25:14Chris Williamson?

  He's got that fucking, whatever it is, what's his, is it rum?

• 1:25:18Whitney Cummings?

  Emotional support. Oh, uh, his rum brand.

• 1:25:20Chris Williamson?

  It's like tequila or rum or something.

• 1:25:22Whitney Cummings?

  Something.

• 1:25:22Chris Williamson?

  And, uh, I mean, he's.

• 1:25:24Whitney Cummings?

  I heard he might warrant for office too.

• 1:25:26Chris Williamson?

  I'd vote for him.

• 1:25:27Whitney Cummings?

  You know, cause that's another thing. It's like, like, I'm into that ride or die. How can I make your dreams come true? Like that's, I've made my dreams come true. Like it's, I'm into that kink of like, how could I make your dreams come true? Like, can I?

• 1:25:38Chris Williamson?

  Being in service is, is cool, especially if it's, and this is something that we spoke about before as well, like, not doing it coming from a place of desperation. I want to make your dreams come true or make your life better because I think it'll make you love me. But there's almost something extra.

• 1:25:55Chris Williamson?

  Sexy or seductive about somebody putting their nature, especially their public facing nature to one side in order to do something that seems opposite or different to that privately, because it it seems like the love that you have for me is causing it's so strong that you're having to overcome something that you do publicly. You know, it's the same reason why the high powered male lawyer wants to be tied up and and spanked by the dominatrix, right? It's it's the polarity of the life that makes it interesting.

• 1:26:29Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 1:26:29Chris Williamson?

  And that's the difference between coming at it from a place of desperation and weakness. Like, I want to do this because I think it's the only way that you'll love me versus I am fine on my own and I'm okay with being independent and I have all of this stuff going for me and I still want to, you know, be the homemaker, build a family, do the whatever. And it's the same for the that's why like the Chad to Dad pipeline is so alluring, I think, to women. It's why so many stories, all of the dark romance novels are about a man who has everything, who is completely independent and ruthless and and domineering and prestigious and is softened over time by the right woman because his love for her pulls him in. And it's the same as a beautiful friendship story, right?

• 1:27:13Chris Williamson?

  There is a friend who who struggles to connect, but you see something in them that's amazing. And then you become friends together and you do you know the Michelangelo effect? Do you know what this is? Fucking brilliant. So

• 1:27:25Chris Williamson?

  it's a psychological effect that describes how over time, two people, often in a relationship, will craft each other into the idealized version of what they want. So I make you more like what I want and you make me more like what you want. And I am happy to become more like what you want and you are happy. And the reason it's called the Michelangelo effect is you can imagine Michelangelo looking at this huge block of marble. And from the outside, it's rough hewn, but over time, he chips away and creates the statue of David. So he sees inside of something which isn't perfect, the perfection that he wants. And over time, is able to craft this thing out of it.

• 1:27:59Whitney Cummings?

  This is something that's making me think of of something I think that actually would be helpful to people and is I feel like when you're in a relationship with somebody and there's things that you want to change about the person, there's this new thing now where you just can criticize your man or criticize your person or someone comes home and it's like, yeah, so you're just gonna walk in the door and not say hi and da, da, da. And this is where the, you know, my having more intimacy in relationships with animals than humans actually comes in handy where positive reinforcement is pretty much, I believe, the only thing that works. And I think that I'm not seeing it on either side right now with men or women. So if like your girl comes home and she's rough or she's going out with her friends too much, whatever it is, just experiment with like, just say, instead of getting in a fight about it, like

• 1:28:43Whitney Cummings?

  just, you know what I love? Like, I love when you come home, I come home and you're here and you're like on the couch and you're barefoot. It's just the sexiest thing in the world to me when I like come home and you're here, you know, and like kiss her on the forehead and just see if anything changed. Same thing with my girlfriends, like, and I just told him that he needs a fight. And I'm like, are you insane? You can't talk to people like that, you know? This isn't like you're not in a fight on the fucking subway. This is your man. Just tell him like, you know what? I love it so much when you like, I don't like that he wears this thing. When he wears the other thing, just tell him how hot it is and suck his dick. What, why is this so hard to understand? And you can't wear those fucking crocs around. When he wears the other shoes, just suck his dick.

• 1:29:25Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:25Whitney Cummings?

  And tell him how much you love the shoes.

• 1:29:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:28Whitney Cummings?

  And kiss him and it's over, you know? So I just think that we're not doing enough positive reinforcement. I think maybe it's this like perfectionism generation or maybe we're all standing up for ourselves and I'm gonna make a boundary and I'm gonna tell you all the things that I don't like because I'm gonna be authentic and da, da, da. Omissions are not lies. You know, I just think that for every criticism we have, it's just like, like, just try positive reinforcement. Try that. You know what I love? I love when your phone is off and I just get to like, we just get to like-

• 1:29:52Chris Williamson?

  As opposed to, why do you always have your phone out on the table? It always makes me so annoyed.

• 1:29:56Whitney Cummings?

  That's it. Don't even say that one. Just when there's no phone out, take that opportunity to tell him how great it is. Like this to me is about, like, that's what it means to be soft, I think. To just like bite your tongue, shut your whore mouth. You don't have to just be roasting your man all the time. I mean, I see it and there's certain rules to me that I live by in relationships now. It took me a while to learn, but you never gossip about your man. Ever. Ever. If there's a texting with some other girl, you don't, I'm like, you don't tell any of your girlfriends. You take it to a therapist, you take it to a 12 step meeting, like, don't ever gossip about your person. Don't ever make fun of your person in public. I see people a lot, like, that women that don't understand why relationships aren't working.

• 1:30:39Whitney Cummings?

  And then you go out on a double date and like, cause he fucking can't get on. And you're just like, what the fuck are you doing?

• 1:30:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:44Whitney Cummings?

  Like, you're embarrassing your man in front of a bunch of people, you know? And so I see this stuff. And as someone who's a female comic, you would think that, you know, that's, that's not how I am in relationships in the slightest. And I think that we're just getting a little too comfortable. You know, I did this movie that was about, it was based on a book called The Female Brain. And I met with this female neuroscientist and I said to her, I was just like, what's the main advice you have for me? Like, if I leave here knowing one thing today about the difference between the male and the female brain. And she just went, your girlfriend is not your boyfriend.

• 1:31:14Chris Williamson?

  What did you mean by that?

• 1:31:14Whitney Cummings?

  Don't treat them the same. So if you want to talk about how ugly the bridesmaids dresses were at Marcy's wedding, call your friend Lydia. Don't call your boyfriend about it. You know, just like be a little more cautious about the stuff that you, cause then you come home and you're like, can you believe what happened at work? And this, she was wearing this blouse and the guy's just like, you know what I mean? It's like, well, you don't listen to me. How come you're not paying attention? You don't want to hear me talk? It's like, this isn't a subject.

• 1:31:39Chris Williamson?

  Dude, you're boring.

• 1:31:39Whitney Cummings?

  You're fucking boring, dude. Call your girlfriend. So it's like, to me, it's always a big red flag when girls don't have girlfriends. Cause that means you're gonna have to hear all the boring ass shit. So like, girls know what to take to your girlfriends and know what to take to your guy friends. Or to your boyfriend.

• 1:31:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:54Whitney Cummings?

  You know, I think that's a really important thing that a lot of girls don't do. They expect their boyfriend to be their girlfriend. You're not gonna come to fucking Nordstrom with me and hold my purse while I change? That's not the man, that's not my guy, you know? And don't make your guy do shit like that. You know, I just, I just think that like, you know, little things like that, I think make a really big difference. And if you are doing that, chances are you might not respect the person and that's not the person for you. And I think people really forget about respect. It's like, I'm attracted to him and he's smart and he has this, but do you respect him? Cause if you're going, I want you to spend your Saturdays sitting on a fucking velvet puff at Nordstrom while I try shit on. Unless it's like a fun kinky sex game, that's a different thing, but like, that's not respect. You don't respect your man's time.

• 1:32:31Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's again, the pliability thing. And that's why having boundaries is so important. You said this other thing, I listened to you say this other thing, I thought was so fucking interesting. You said, in order for art to imitate life, you have to have a life.

• 1:32:43Whitney Cummings?

  That's it.

• 1:32:44Chris Williamson?

  And this is. Definitely something that I see in high achievers, high performers, people that are sort of on that grind where the creativity and the space that they had to be able to think about whatever it is that they're going to do, whether it's business or career moves or writing or an online coaching platform that they're trying to start or content creation or whatever. And after a while, you take up so much of your days doing that thing, that the font, like the pool from which you withdraw in order to be able to present shit is just barren. It's dry.

• 1:33:25Whitney Cummings?

  That's exactly it. I mean, you see it with comedians all the time. You see this great comedian, amazing observational comedians. They get more and more famous, more and more successful. All they're doing is touring and then all of a sudden they're only doing jokes about airplanes because they're only on airplanes, you know, or they like have nothing to talk about because they don't do anything. I remember I was in a writer's room for a sitcom that I made and I was running three shows at one time, three television shows, which was very, you know, taxing. I was working all weekend, you know, 20 hours a day, not sleeping. And we're in the writer's room and I'm like, we need to pitch on like something that the couple does like on a weekend. And someone was like, oh, what if they like went to a wine tasting? And I was like, no one goes to a wine tasting. And then like, what if she like had to go to a baby shower? I'm like, no one goes to a baby shower. And they're like, no, Whitney, you don't go to a baby, like you don't have, you know, and I realized

• 1:34:08Whitney Cummings?

  like I was limiting myself and how, you know, I'm like, well, what if like they're at work and this happened? Like I could only pitch on workaholism, like and every character was all of a sudden a workaholic. I, you know, and so to me, it's like, you know, especially being, you know, a standup comedian. I'm like, I gotta go out in the world and I gotta do things. And that doesn't mean be mercenary when you do, because there are times where I'm like, I really have to do something social this week and I'll call friends and I'll be like, can you guys make sure I don't turn this dinner into work or turn a hobby into a business? Because that's the other thing is that I'll get a hobby and then I'll turn into a business.

• 1:34:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:37Whitney Cummings?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:34:38Chris Williamson?

  Spin this thing up and sell it.

• 1:34:39Whitney Cummings?

  I'll start knitting and I'm like, oh, this will be good merch. And I'm like, no, can't do that.

• 1:34:43Chris Williamson?

  There's an idea I came up with for that called productivity purgatory. So it's one of the things that you do for fun and done purely to like, you go for a walk in nature, not because you want to calm down and just have a good time, but because you once saw an Andrew Huberman podcast that says your productivity increases by 15% if you spend 20 minutes a day with sunlight in the eyes or whatever, like productivity purgatory, everything that you do is in service of this, of this thing.

• 1:35:06Whitney Cummings?

  I literally got the Apple watch because the phone is just a camera at a certain point. And I would go on these hikes and then I would. Be like, I gotta do a video about there's a plant and I gotta do a bit with the plant. I'm like, nope, I gotta just not even bring my phone with me on walks anymore. So I will find a way to make a TikTok or, or I'll be writing down a thing. I'm like, I gotta just like, you know, so I really have to play defense on that because I will slip into that workaholic shit. Or I mean, just being on a date with a guy and being like, that's not a just stop. Nope, that's not a joke. You're just in the moment and you're not gonna make, write a scene. You're not gonna get a movie idea. You're just gonna be in this moment, you know? And I think that for people that do all kinds of things, it's not even just creators. If you're someone that's like building an app or this, you have to go out in the world and see how people behave and see what they do.

• 1:35:51Whitney Cummings?

  And you gotta like, go to the zoo is basically, I call it going to the zoo. You gotta go out to a restaurant and see like, okay, I'm, I'm building my, my whoop band. Okay, people usually wear it on the left side, you know, you just have to like be in the world. And I, I, I didn't, I always thought that socializing, doing things that were fun were like a waste of time or that I was falling behind, you know? But now I know that it's like an integral part about being creative and staying relevant. And it's good to have fun every now and then, like you've earned it. I think that I used to operate from such a place of like guilt and you're such a piece of shit and you're never gonna make it. And that served me really well. It just doesn't serve me anymore.

• 1:36:25Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, there's, I've got this idea about a fuel that you use, that kind of a fuel, that very anxious sort of toes, toes down, forward thing is potent for probably about five or 10 years, but toxic if you use it for much longer than that.

• 1:36:41Whitney Cummings?

  I'm also big, my new thing is doing nothing.

• 1:36:44Chris Williamson?

  Okay. How do you, how are you getting on with doing nothing?

• 1:36:47Whitney Cummings?

  It's weird. I mean, a lot of times it's kind of just like sitting outside and just, I get to look at nature, chilling. But there's just no such thing as doing nothing. I think-

• 1:36:55Chris Williamson?

  Being around horses wouldn't class because that's still doing something.

• 1:36:58Whitney Cummings?

  If I'm, well, that still counts as doing something, probably a little bit, but doing nothing next to a horse, they really like you.

• 1:37:04Chris Williamson?

  Uh, Dr. K, a healthy gamer. He's a- Psychiatrist, psychotherapist, eastern and western trained and he helps with young people that have got um screen addictions, gaming addictions. He also works with some of the biggest Twitch streamers on the planet. He's done it with every big Twitch streamer, XQC and Charlie from Penguin Zero and all that stuff. And um, one of his exercises that he gets his like Discord group to do is stare at a wall for thirty minutes. And some of the things that apparently people break down crying, they start screaming at the wall. You're like, dude, it's staring at a wall. I haven't done it. I haven't fucking, I don't dare do. I don't know if I'm gonna, it'd be a total fever dream. I don't know what's gonna go on.

• 1:37:45Whitney Cummings?

  I, it's tricky because I was almost too embarrassed to say it, but a lot of times I end up crying. If you're just like being alone with yourself because you're like, what's, what am I running from? What feelings am I trying to not feel? What thoughts am I trying to not have? Or what comes up when I stop anesthetizing with busyness, with action, with productivity, right? And it might just be like, you know, that agent that did it like, it's right there. It's right there. Oh, that person that said that thing or that YouTube comment, like it's right there. And to go like, okay, this is stuff I need to work through. This is stuff that I'm carrying. This is stuff that I need to purge. This is someone I need to forgive.

• 1:38:25Whitney Cummings?

  Like this is something like a mal, I'm, that I'm um, trying to get, a feeling I'm trying to get out of, right? That is haunting me or it's something that's taking up real estate in my brain that has no business being there. That if I don't feel this feeling, it's just gonna, you know, alchemize into something unhealthy. Anger at someone else or some kind of shame or bullshit. So it's like, it's like, I kind of sit there and sometimes have to feel my feelings. And a lot of times it's shame, it's cringe, it's, oh god, why did you say that thing to that person? You know, sometimes it's to forgive myself, whatever it is, but like, you know, there was um, I don't know if you ever saw that. Show Cheer on Netflix?

• 1:39:02Chris Williamson?

  No.

• 1:39:02Whitney Cummings?

  It's about the best cheerleading. It's such a great documentary about the best cheerleading team in the country. Novero, it's actually in Texas. The coach is incredible. It's so great. Such an amazing show. It's about, you know, these cheerleaders, they work their-

• 1:39:16Chris Williamson?

  Wasn't there a big scandal?

• 1:39:17Whitney Cummings?

  There was a scandal. One of the guys sent some texts he shouldn't have sent and asked for some photos he shouldn't ask for, but it's still incredibly inspiring. It will inspire you not to send those DMs.

• 1:39:28Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay, yeah.

• 1:39:29Whitney Cummings?

  And to never, never DM somebody without having seen their driver's license. And, and why am I bringing it up? Why am I bringing it up? Oh, so one of the girls on it, they all got really famous off of it. The show was really big and this girl's just like 18 years old, famous cheerleader. You know, she's getting all these brand deals. She all of a sudden has four million followers from being on this Netflix show, being this, you know, athlete. And I'm in, in Austin with some friends and we go see, they do this live show and I, you know, the show came out like a year and a half ago and I asked her, I was like, so what did you do this summer? And she was like, oh, I'm gonna take a couple of months off just to, you know, process. And I was like, what? She's like, I just need to like process all this. And I was like, I don't get, like, I didn't even know what she was talking, I was like,

• 1:40:14Whitney Cummings?

  oh yeah, I need to schedule time to process things. I've never thought about that before and it made me start to take time every week to just process what happened.

• 1:40:24Chris Williamson?

  So I, I'm incorporating in America. It's taken ages because your guys' tax system and legal system and everything. I only got a social security number two months ago. Anyway, started working with a accountancy firm. So I've kind of got a part-time CFO. Part-time CFO, fucking, all he does is finances. And I was at dinner with him a couple of nights ago and he said, yeah, every Friday, I just have the entire day to think. Like, yo, you live on Excel. Like, what thinking is there? It's just numbers in, numbers out. Like, am I doing deals as this person paid their taxes, blah, blah, blah. Like, what thinking is there to do? And the- Accountant guy, the head of this accountancy firm is like, I spend every Friday just thinking. Obviously, that's a luxurious position to be in, but like the rule I think is right.

• 1:41:06Chris Williamson?

  I used to, I used to have this, again, another problem. You guys have a license equivalency between the US and the UK, which means I need to take my theory test, my theory driving test again in Texas, a place that has by far the worst drivers I've ever seen in my life. And I've been to Rome, right? So I, I have to do that again, but I used to love when I was back home, a really great hack.

• 1:41:31Whitney Cummings?

  Sorry, we don't give half of our money to a queen.

• 1:41:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, that's true. Well, she's fine. Not anymore.

• 1:41:35Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:41:38Chris Williamson?

  It's a tough day.

• 1:41:40Whitney Cummings?

  Sorry, our, our leaders aren't born into power.

• 1:41:45Chris Williamson?

  If you had a genetic pool about that big.

• 1:41:47Whitney Cummings?

  Sorry, we don't have inbred mascots running our country.

• 1:41:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay. All right. Okay. There we, there we go. I'm sure you're going to need to sell some tickets in the U K.

• 1:41:54Whitney Cummings?

  I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah, I love you guys. Love you guys.

• 1:41:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:59Chris Williamson?

  Driving in the car with no music or podcast on. What a fucking like, wow, what a crazy thing.

• 1:42:06Whitney Cummings?

  What comes up?

• 1:42:08Chris Williamson?

  And it's great because you've got the front of you. It's like doing nothing when you're washing the dishes. You, front of the brain is nice and, nice and occupied and the rest of the brain is just free to do its thing. Really great, really great.

• 1:42:18Whitney Cummings?

  I do have a tool that really works for me where I schedule worrying about things.

• 1:42:21Chris Williamson?

  And schedule worrying about things.

• 1:42:23Whitney Cummings?

  I schedule worrying about things. So it's like, if it's like, I have to make this decision about whether I'm going to do this thing or not. Say the deadline is November 12th, I'll go, okay, November 10th. And I'll put it in my calendar. I'll say 10 a.m. to this, I'll worry about it instead of just constantly perseverating it until, about it until then.

• 1:42:39Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting.

• 1:42:40Whitney Cummings?

  I will just schedule when I'm going to worry about it.

• 1:42:42Chris Williamson?

  Do you do that with somebody? Do you find it's easiest to worry in with a right hand or with a like?

• 1:42:50Whitney Cummings?

  If I know I need to run something by someone, I'll go like, hey.

• 1:42:53Chris Williamson?

  Come and worry with me.

• 1:42:53Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. Can you?

• 1:42:54Chris Williamson?

  The worry party.

• 1:42:55Whitney Cummings?

  Can we go panic together? Or if I'm like, because it gives me time to also go, who are the best people to reach out and ask about this? Like, I feel like it's also your life starts getting better when you know who to ask advice from, you know? Again, go to married people to ask advice. You know, podcasts, go to someone who knows what they're talking about, you know? So for me, it's also instead of just talking about it to everyone all the time and getting bad advice from people, getting sort of mixed data, just constantly worrying about something. I'll go like, you have two hours to worry about this in three weeks. And then I also will schedule making decisions about things. I get really bad decision fatigue. So it's like, we were just talking about like making decisions about, you know, sponsors and stuff like that, you know, I can go like, okay, I'm going to make this decision on this date at this time. I'm not going to think about it until then, but this is what I'm going to schedule thinking about it.

• 1:43:39Whitney Cummings?

  And so that's like, I think a version that works for me of what your CFO kind of did. And I'll put it in my calendar. It's like, and then I can't talk, I'm like, I can't talk for the next hour. I have to think about this thing.

• 1:43:50Chris Williamson?

  Busy worrying.

• 1:43:50Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, I'm busy worrying or I'm busy doing my pro and con list. But instead of just constantly worrying about five or six different things all the time, I will schedule it and that really helps. And then I now schedule processing because like there are times where you look back, you're like, why did I say yes to that? What was I thinking? Oh, I just automatically said yes. I just went into my default software, you know, like, which we do. It's like you move into a new house, like you're going to drive to your old house for the, for you for like a couple of months, just for like habit, you know? So to me, yes, I have the, if it's not a hell, yes, it's a no. I have like posted notes all over my desk that are like, the answer's probably going to be, but sometimes I'll just fucking say yes. And I'm like, why did I do that? Like, and I'll just go through, I'll go through my calendar. That's a big thing is like, I'll sit down and like really get thoughtful about my calendar and be like, I need to cut 30% of this out.

• 1:44:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:35Whitney Cummings?

  Period, the end.

• 1:44:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, there's a couple of interesting things that if you find yourself continuing to say yes to stuff, and then when it comes around regretting the past version of you that made future you go to this thing, when you get asked again, ask yourself if this was tomorrow, would I say yes? Because we, you know, there's this hyperbolic discounting. So like you, one pounds tomorrow is worth 20 pounds in a year's time in the way that we see it. And the same is kind of true with what you're prepared to oblige yourself to go and do. It's like something that you'd say no to tomorrow, you feel a little bit more okay saying yes to for six months.

• 1:45:11Whitney Cummings?

  But I, first of all, take a good look at yourself and make sure first you're not addicted to dread, which I think.

• 1:45:17Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 1:45:18Whitney Cummings?

  Which I believe I was, right? Number one, and number two, I would go, oh, well, I have nothing that day.

• 1:45:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's three and a half months away.

• 1:45:28Whitney Cummings?

  This is better than nothing. That's what I'm saying about this plan.

• 1:45:32Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:45:32Whitney Cummings?

  I have nothing that day.

• 1:45:34Chris Williamson?

  Busyness addiction.

• 1:45:35Whitney Cummings?

  But why don't I want to do nothing? Why am I like, well, I gotta do this thing because otherwise I do nothing. And then, oh God, I'd be alone with one of my thoughts. Let's just fill it with something, you know? Like, what are you really saying when you agree to a plan that you don't want to do? Are there kind of like, ah, about like, I'll do it. Like, how little do you respect yourself? And how little do you respect your time? You know, that you're saying yes to that? Like, I really had to look at that. And then I didn't go like, well, by then, and then the lack of faith in yourself, like, what if I have a person by then? What if I'm going to need to be making dinner for my guy that are going to the farmer's market that day? Like, I need to hold that day because what I'm saying is my life's not going to be any better by this day. And the best I can do is this fucking thing where I don't even really want to do it. Like, what a wildly self-destructive instinct.

• 1:46:20Whitney Cummings?

  What a sloppy, you know, death by a thousand cuts of just fill your life until you die.

• 1:46:27Chris Williamson?

  How do you think you're going to get on, given that you're going to have to take a pretty big baby hiatus? You know, it seems like you're, the cascade of hormones has manipulated you appropriately.

• 1:46:39Whitney Cummings?

  As I said, I feel like I've been like, making no sense during this interview. I feel like I've been.

• 1:46:43Chris Williamson?

  I've, dude, I have really, really, really enjoyed this.

• 1:46:47Whitney Cummings?

  This is like the first time I've been like, I think I have mom brain. Like, a couple of times we're talking, I'm like, wait, what was the question? Like, I feel like I must sound like.

• 1:46:54Chris Williamson?

  I've really, I've really, really enjoyed this. I think it's very surprising. You know, I've watched a good bit of your stuff. But this is a side of you that I think is, is like, really, really useful for more people to hear about.

• 1:47:03Whitney Cummings?

  There are a lot of things that I, and I did not want to come on your podcast and waste your time and your, and your listeners' time. Obviously, I'm like a fan, but there are a lot of things I said that I have not said before or even articulated out loud. So I do find myself being like, being a little bit wobbly about it.

• 1:47:19Chris Williamson?

  I'm just your only therapist. So, yeah, take me through. You know, you've got this three weeks pop. And then you, for all the busyness and all the rest of it, have you considered what you're going to do when the, like, work demon arises in the back of your mind? It's like, oh, like, fucking, he's asleep. Like, let's see what emails I can blah, blah, as opposed to just. Are you, how you, how do you think you're gonna?

• 1:47:41Whitney Cummings?

  Won't do it. I mean, it's, I just, my, that's a form of alcoholism and that's what my parents did to me, you know, and I just like, won't let it happen. I have basically six months I'm taking down from touring entirely. And, you know, for me, it's, it's actually really helped me to talk to people who have had kids. Again, it's like to be regular and orderly in your personal life. So you can be brave and violent in your professional life. Some of the people I admire the most have kids and they got better creatively. It's not why I'm having them, but I really just stay focused on them.

• 1:48:09Chris Williamson?

  That's fucking productive.

• 1:48:09Whitney Cummings?

  I know.

• 1:48:11Chris Williamson?

  It's pregnancy purgatory.

• 1:48:12Whitney Cummings?

  I was like running out of jokes about being single, guys. I'm gonna get a new hour out of this. But, but, you know, Donald Glover, for example, you know, I'm sure Donald Glover, brilliant. We used to tour together and he was always a great stand up, was always a great musician. And then one day, you know, he makes Atlanta. I'm watching Atlanta. I'm like, this is one of the best shows I've ever seen. And then he, you know, is on Fallon, singing Redbone. Someone sends me the link to him. I thought it was Marvin Gaye. I call him, I'm like, dude, what happened? Is this Adderall? Like, what are we doing? He's like, oh, I had a kid. And I was like, he was like, it just took my creativity.

• 1:48:43Chris Williamson?

  This is a performance enhancer that no one ever.

• 1:48:45Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, I know exactly. So it's like, I, he's like, it just took me to another level creatively, you know? So, you know, I was talking to a friend the other day who was like, let it change you. And so to me, it's like, I think my role is to just let it change me and to be the mom that I didn't get to have. And, you know, there's all this, I think, sort of healing dynamics around, you know, being able to have the, redo your childhood.

• 1:49:09Chris Williamson?

  Here's, here's, here's one thing, maybe that might resonate with some people. It certainly resonates at least in part with me, which is, let's say that you've gone from a type of person that you weren't so proud of or weren't so happy with. And you've worked quite hard to get yourself to the stage where you are someone that you think is more aligned, existentially, all the rest of it. You're speaking your locos forward, but. When another set of changes comes along, there is maybe even a bit more resistance because now you got something to lose.

• 1:49:37Whitney Cummings?

  Mm hmm. Yes.

• 1:49:38Chris Williamson?

  Previously, you were a piece of shit that didn't understand the world, whereas now, like, I've already, I've found some degree of safety and security and certainty and understanding in this me.

• 1:49:48Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:49Chris Williamson?

  But letting go of this, this me to get onto that this me is like, oh my God, like that's, that type of evolution is even harder because the bank account isn't empty.

• 1:49:59Whitney Cummings?

  That's right. That's right. And I think for me, it's like, you know, I want my kid to be proud to, for me to be his mom, you know? Oof, it's gonna make me cry. And so that's how I think now. And it's kind of cool. You know, and I found myself even in this interview being like, oh, what if your kid watches this one day? You know, it's a kind of, it's made me stutter and be a little bit, you know, I'll get used to it. But I like that directive. I like that, you know, what's, when your kid is 10, 15, whatever, in school, are they gonna be like, Winnie Cummings is your mom? Or they're gonna be like, Winnie Cummings is your mom? Like, I want the second one.

• 1:50:33Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:33Whitney Cummings?

  You know, so it's, I feel like I've been kind of floating through space for a while. Been like, well, this makes people laugh and this makes people laugh. And like, they bought that and they bought this special, but I'm kind of like, is my 15 year old gonna be proud that I'm his mom?

• 1:50:46Chris Williamson?

  That's fucking cool.

• 1:50:47Whitney Cummings?

  That's really helping me make decisions.

• 1:50:49Chris Williamson?

  I am going on tour next week for the first time.

• 1:50:52Whitney Cummings?

  Whoa.

• 1:50:54Chris Williamson?

  I know. This will be out after the tour. So for the people that all came, thank you for coming. What are the do's and don'ts of surviving on the road?

• 1:51:05Whitney Cummings?

  Okay, the do's, the women in the lobby, no lobby.

• 1:51:09Chris Williamson?

  No, no, no.

• 1:51:10Whitney Cummings?

  No, I'm kidding.

• 1:51:12Whitney Cummings?

  The red flag of they're waiting in the lobby. The do's and don'ts, I would say, make sure, I mean, I'm gonna get really technical, sorry, too. The music that is playing when they're loading in is, the show starts as soon as they walk in the theater. You know, the way you want them to feel, the music you're going to be playing when they come in. Or are you playing videos of you, you know, so that when they're coming in, they get to see you doing outtakes? They get to see you doing stuff. The experience starts because they're going to be, you know, sitting in those seats for thirty, forty minutes before you actually come out there. So that's always something that I feel the need to say because the show starts before you come out at all. Um, I also think, um, being able to, uh, move around on stage, like, are you doing a handheld? Are you doing like a?

• 1:51:51Chris Williamson?

  Uh, yeah, headset mic, pretty big, pretty big stages, so I should be able to bounce around. Leicester, you done the Leicester Square Theater in the UK?

• 1:51:57Whitney Cummings?

  Huh? Ye- yes, I have.

• 1:51:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, so I got Saturday, Sunday, next week, and that'll be fun.

• 1:52:02Whitney Cummings?

  That's incredible. I would go out and do the sound check, like, you know, go out, test the lighting, see it. I mean, I've seen the way that you operate before you go on, like, you'll be fully prepared. But, uh, is you're going to be just like doing, are you going to talk to the audience at all?

• 1:52:15Chris Williamson?

  Uh, yeah, there'll be a Q and A at the end, so it's forty-five minutes interval, forty-five minutes Q and A.

• 1:52:21Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:21Chris Williamson?

  It's solo and there's bits and I've been working this out. I haven't really told, we, we announced it and sold the tickets, but we haven't really like spoken about this. I've been doing work in progress shows in Austin for the last two months.

• 1:52:33Whitney Cummings?

  Cool.

• 1:52:34Chris Williamson?

  East Austin Comedy Club, so I've done like this routine, I've done five times now and we've got rid of stuff and we've written it extra bits.

• 1:52:42Whitney Cummings?

  Send me a recording, I want to listen to it.

• 1:52:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I've got it.

• 1:52:44Whitney Cummings?

  Like, like that would help me to be able to know.

• 1:52:46Chris Williamson?

  I'll send you, I'll send you the stuff. There's some fucking monster bits in there. There was one, there's one bit that everybody will hear, um, the, the timing of it. I had to get Ryan Long to like explain the comedic timing of how I could make it work.

• 1:52:59Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:00Chris Williamson?

  Really fucking great, but it's super, I felt it was complex. I'm sure it'd be like walk in the park for you. Um, okay, so.

• 1:53:05Whitney Cummings?

  By the way, if it goes sideways, just go, you know what I'm saying? Because then the audience gets to see something go sideways and that's even cooler sometimes.

• 1:53:11Chris Williamson?

  That's funny too.

• 1:53:12Whitney Cummings?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:53:12Chris Williamson?

  What about, here's one question I've got for you. How do you wind down after you've done something, uh, emotionally agitating? Uh, this would be useful for people that have got a big job interview, but it's also useful for me after I step out on stage in front of, we're doing one and a half thousand people in Dubai in two weeks' time.

• 1:53:27Whitney Cummings?

  Crazy.

• 1:53:27Chris Williamson?

  Um, so I'm gonna have to, but I want to go to bed because I need to be up the next day to get ready for the next thing, right? So how do you get rid of the agitation?

• 1:53:36Whitney Cummings?

  This is going to be a hot take. I say enjoy it till you're tired, you know? It's you've worked so hard. This is shocking to me. Is that, I'm like, I'm literally, I, I, this is, they, I got the new iPhone. I, usually if you just turn the ringer off, it's off. I don't know what's happening. Power moves. I I just go to sleep when I'm tired. I know that's a really hot take. I used to take Lunesta and then I would take, smoke weed. It's like a sleeping pill.

• 1:54:02Chris Williamson?

  Like Ambien or whatever?

• 1:54:03Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, it's Ambien is, I can't believe that shit's legal. Lunesta is like a little more.

• 1:54:06Chris Williamson?

  I had my first Ambien a couple of weeks ago.

• 1:54:08Whitney Cummings?

  How was it?

• 1:54:09Chris Williamson?

  I was, I was on a plane. I asked, the first question I asked, is this gonna make me start tweeting racist shit?

• 1:54:15Chris Williamson?

  Could you imagine, could you imagine if?

• 1:54:17Whitney Cummings?

  You know that I was working on Roseanne at the time that that happened?

• 1:54:20Chris Williamson?

  I didn't, but if I'd been Ambien, I 100% would have been Roseanne Barr, your new fucking partnership. Like, let's make, let's break the internet. Let's break the internet with this partnership. Could you imagine that? Ambien would just go down as the most legendary fucking brand, like fucking racist tablets, like.

• 1:54:41Whitney Cummings?

  The racist films.

• 1:54:42Chris Williamson?

  Are you finding yourself being too unbigoted? Take an Ambien and a couple of glasses of wine.

• 1:54:47Whitney Cummings?

  Biting your tongue. We got you. Wanna get fired from that job and don't know how?

• 1:54:52Chris Williamson?

  Ambien.

• 1:54:53Whitney Cummings?

  Wanna get uninvited from Christmas with your family? I mean, I, but it's, I mean, I took Ambien once and I woke up the next morning and he, there was a chicken carcass on my dining room. I had eaten an entire rotisserie chicken. I had no recollection whatsoever. Like had cuts in my mouth.

• 1:55:09Chris Williamson?

  It's monstrous.

• 1:55:10Whitney Cummings?

  That shit's wild. But I would like try to sedate myself and I would kind of like, I think something that happens when you get successful is you start trying to get it over with.

• 1:55:19Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 1:55:19Whitney Cummings?

  This is what you got here. This is it. You're here.

• 1:55:21Chris Williamson?

  Really great point.

• 1:55:23Whitney Cummings?

  You're here. You come off stage. It's like, talk to the audience, go to the meet and greet, like, feel it.

• 1:55:30Chris Williamson?

  High five you, boys.

• 1:55:31Whitney Cummings?

  That's it, because that's a form of gratitude. And it's like, you know, telling, I know this is gonna sound like whatever dumb or Abraham Hicks or The Secret or whatever, but it's like, when you're feeling the feelings you wanna keep feeling, don't try to stop feeling them. It's like your brain needs to start practicing that elation of like, this is my new normal. Is that I just did this amazing thing and people loved it and I just, people just paid money to see me talk. Like this is what I've been working towards.

• 1:55:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:55Whitney Cummings?

  Then I see people like, well, how do I get to bed? I'm like. Sleep tomorrow.

• 1:55:58Chris Williamson?

  Do you want to get to bed?

• 1:55:58Whitney Cummings?

  Sleep tomorrow. Like you'll sleep when you sleep. You know, I know as a high performers, we all have to like sleep eight hours and see the sun at this amount of time. But every now and then you gotta just like celebrate.

• 1:56:06Chris Williamson?

  That's a really, really like fantastic point. There's this, I always use this example, but Conor McGregor fought for the lightweight title twice. Maybe it's the featherweight title twice. I think it was featherweight. So the first time he does it, the guy that he's supposed to fight pulls out with an injury and he fights for the interim title against Chad Mendes. It's a way harder fight. You remember he knocks out Aldo in 13 seconds. It's that super famous knockout and it's like everyone, ah, everyone loses their shit.

• 1:56:33Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:56:34Chris Williamson?

  But the first time is much more of a war against Chad Mendes and there's a lot more pressure and so on and so forth. And, you know, McGregor's also earlier in his career and he hasn't had this first victory at a super high level. And he gets interviewed in between the first interim title success and then the subsequent like combined title success or whatever against Aldo. He's like, what are you going to do differently this time as part of your preparation process? And he says, this time I'm going to enjoy it. And there's this really famous photo of him standing like that. And he's got that tattoo running up the back of his neck. And he stood with his arms out in front of the weigh in, the ceremonial weigh in. And it's just this arena of people that's there for him.

• 1:57:15Chris Williamson?

  And he said, the first time he did it, he couldn't remember it because he was just, you know, looking over the shoulder of the present moment to see what was coming next. And he was like, what the fuck am I doing? Like if I can't stand a decade and a half, rolling sequences in some bullshit gym in Dublin, Ireland, sleeping in the attic of his parents' house for that moment. And he's so concerned and fearful about the next thing that's coming, that he can't even be there. The place that he meant to get to all along.

• 1:57:45Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. And which, by the way, like when you get there, know you're there, you know? And I'm sure that that part of his brain is why he's who he is and we're both like that, you know, what's next, what's next? But I think celebration is a form of gratitude and it took me so long to be able to just enjoy this. Like this was. This was literally my dream growing up and I'm here and I'm just like, okay, well, does anyone have a Benadryl? Cause I need to get to bed. Cause I have this other, I have to get to the airport tomorrow. I'm like, you know, so I think it's like every now and then we gotta just go like, we like, we did it, you know? I think it's, um, it trains our brain, uh, I think to be in that space more and prepares us for more of that. Cause then you're kind of like.

• 1:58:22Chris Williamson?

  But how many, how many like, you know, situations does this happen? And you spend so long searching on AutoTrader for the car that you want to buy and you go to the dealership and you test all of the different versions and you realize it's that kind of trim that you want. It's the Alcantara, not the leather seats. And you want to get it with the red trim on the steering wheel, not the plain, and you want to get the this. And then you finally get it. And the first thing that you start thinking about is like, what's the next thing? You're already this amazing story from Morgan Howson, great writer, fantastic new book. Everyone needs to go and buy it. Same as ever. It's available now. And he, he told me this story. He'd been planning this holiday with his family for ages. And he's a busy guy and he owns a fund and he does, he's an author and he does all this other shit. And he finally

• 1:59:06Chris Williamson?

  gets there. And one of the first thoughts he had on the first night, he's there on the balcony and they've planned for ages and the family's there and they've got everyone. There's been kids and all the rest of the stuff. And one of his first thoughts, he stood on the balcony was, wow, it would be so great if we came back next year. Like, this would be so great if we came back next year. So even during the experience of experiencing, he was already trying to get the anticipation in again.

• 1:59:31Whitney Cummings?

  That's, I have the same exact story. I'm at a hotel at a wedding with my girlfriend, Dory, and I was like, this place would be great to like, come, like, spend a weekend. And she was like, that's what we're doing. And I was like, oh, like, didn't even dawn on me that I was in that moment. And I think something that, again, little aphorisms, adages, little cute little things help me sometimes. It is my goal in life to not be a sore winner. And I see a lot of sore winners.

• 2:00:00Chris Williamson?

  What's a sore winner?

• 2:00:01Whitney Cummings?

  A sore winner is someone who's won. They got everything they wanted and they're like, all right, we're gonna get back to the hotel and da, da, da. And you're like, we're here.

• 2:00:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's like joyless joy.

• 2:00:09Whitney Cummings?

  You won. Know when you've won. Even if it's a little micro win, if you just had that great date and it might not end in marriage or but just like enjoy that, feel those feelings because it teaches your brain to keep feeling those feelings.

• 2:00:22Chris Williamson?

  There's a book called Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson, which is precisely about that.

• 2:00:26Whitney Cummings?

  They, that's the smarter person that'll say it in a more elegant way than I'm trying to say it.

• 2:00:30Chris Williamson?

  Neurons that fire together, wire together.

• 2:00:31Whitney Cummings?

  Train your brain for happiness because we're kind of like, oh, if I just do this thing, then I'll be happy. And then you do the thing and you're like, well, now I need to do another one to be happy. And it's one too many, a million not enough. And you're like, well, that's when the difference between it's a, is it a goal or is it an addiction?

• 2:00:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, how many things have you done that you said would make you happy? One of my friends, Alex Homosy, has this fucking monster quote where he says, you've already achieved the goals you said would make you happy.

• 2:00:56Whitney Cummings?

  Oh.

• 2:00:58Chris Williamson?

  Get fucked, dude. Get fucked saying that to me.

• 2:01:01Whitney Cummings?

  Now what? Now what's your excuse?

• 2:01:02Chris Williamson?

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 2:01:02Whitney Cummings?

  Now what's your excuse?

• 2:01:03Chris Williamson?

  You said that the next car that you would buy would make you happy and your happiness evaporated. You said that the next house you would buy would make you happy and your happiness evaporated. You said that becoming a moderator on the Hustlers University Discord would make you happy and your dad took away your credit card, right?

• 2:01:21Whitney Cummings?

  So I would say like to calm down after your show, like tell everyone at the theater, hey, I'm going to this bar after and like.

• 2:01:28Chris Williamson?

  Chill out.

• 2:01:28Whitney Cummings?

  And just get, you might only be able to stay for 10 minutes because you're going to be getting mobbed and it's going to be chaos, but just like show up and see how much joy, like to see the people, you know, in person that you're affecting every day. Like that, that's another level of euphoria.

• 2:01:46Chris Williamson?

  One thing that kind of come up a little bit throughout this conversation.

• 2:01:49Whitney Cummings?

  Sorry, really quick. I don't want to interrupt you.

• 2:01:51Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 2:01:51Whitney Cummings?

  People can go, oh, I'm gonna listen to him at the gym. When they get in their cars and book a babysitter and buy tickets and show up like these are like the fan fans and these are like your fam, like you started a cult, sorry. And you're about to meet your like that, that's one of the greatest.

• 2:02:08Chris Williamson?

  It's interesting because I've got an all white robe and I've got this long wig of hair that I'm gonna do.

• 2:02:12Whitney Cummings?

  But these are people that have been listening to you talk for four hours a week.

• 2:02:15Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:16Whitney Cummings?

  Do you know what I mean? But then the ones that show up in person, there's nothing like that feeling when you get to meet them. A couple might try to kill you, but you're very strong. You'll be fine. I didn't want to interrupt you.

• 2:02:25Chris Williamson?

  No, not at all. Uh, yeah. One of the things that's come up in like throughout this conversation is kind of not feeling feelings or the aversion to emotions arising. And, uh, do you know what the Overton window is? It's like the window of acceptable speech. So if you imagine, um, from naught to 100, uh, all of the things that you could say, right? From the most reprehensible in one way to the most reprehensible in another. And then the Overton window kind of describes this into quartile range within that. Which, uh, is acceptable speech. And if you stray outside of that, uh, then it's like unspeakable. So for instance, uh, saying the word retard, right, is like right on the fucking border. I guess I've just pushed you over the window.

• 2:03:06Whitney Cummings?

  I don't know. Okay. I'm a comedian.

• 2:03:07Chris Williamson?

  Comedian, so you get to say it all the time.

• 2:03:08Whitney Cummings?

  We're a little off. Yeah.

• 2:03:10Chris Williamson?

  But you know, there's, and that's slowly squeezes in. But I always think about that as like, okay, so naught to 100 are from the worst to the best emotions that you can experience. And it feels to me like that into quartile range is getting really, really squeezed. Because people are able to, you know, sedate themselves from feeling feelings even through their phone. You know, I've got friends who, if they're having a bad time, their coping strategy is to just open their phone and distract themselves by scrolling. You know, that'll get you away from your feelings and it's strange, you know.

• 2:03:44Chris Williamson?

  The desire, the innate tendency that we have to neuter good feelings. It's like, this is just an intense feeling and I don't like it because I am, I, I spend almost all of my time in this fucking pod, bleeping away and Uber eating foods to me. Therefore, anything of intensity just feels alien. So I'm gonna, I must neuter this. I must hide away.

• 2:04:07Whitney Cummings?

  I always like to say to myself, never miss the opportunity to feel a feeling that's going to motivate you to do something great. Like never, never miss out on that feeling, you know, whether it's, you know, something you don't want to feel like jealousy or hurt or pain or something like that. Like those can be transmogrified into great things. Like, I mean, I look at most things I've ever done and they've come from kind of gross feelings of wanting to get out of a feeling or, you know, having gone through pain or having to need to prove someone wrong or try to get someone's attention. Like, you know, to me, I kind of try to look at feelings just as motivation for the most part to make a better choice. So if I'm constantly anesthetizing myself, I'm missing out on that fuel to do something, you know?

• 2:04:52Whitney Cummings?

  And so that's how I try to look at it, you know? And then I go like, okay, I want to look at my phone right now and I want to anesthetize and I want to check out. Even though to me, I mean, it's playing the slot machine. It's really what you're doing. It's a gambling addiction at the end of the day, right? You're playing for that one dopamine hit. You got that one time when that one girl made that comment that you liked, you know, whatever. It's all just bullshit, you know, from then on out, trying to achieve that same level of dopamine, it seems like. But I go like, is it worth the shame I'm going to feel in 20 minutes? When I have just been on Instagram for 20, you know what I mean? It's just not worth, like, I know how this story ends. So I'm able to kind of walk myself through it and be like, I'd rather feel this feeling of right now than shame in 20 minutes.

• 2:05:32Chris Williamson?

  I've got this bit that appears in the live show where I, I talk about. The story that you tell yourselves about the decisions that you made lasts for far longer than the impact of the decisions.

• 2:05:42Whitney Cummings?

  Love it.

• 2:05:42Chris Williamson?

  So you being the sort of person who eats a cookie, like, yeah, there's calories in the cookie and you'll feel nice and then like you might be a bit fatter tomorrow or whatever. But the story that you tell yourself about being the sort of person who is or is not a cookie eater, basically lasts for the rest of your life.

• 2:05:56Whitney Cummings?

  That's it. And I, and I don't have willpower and I'm just gonna eat the cookie anyway and why, you know, so to me, it's like, I can really, you know, and this is something that we, you know, talk about in programs every year that you're in this 12 step program, you get to have a second of pause, you know? So it's sort of like, I've been in for, you know, almost 10 years now, so I have 10 seconds of pause before I, you know, I like to respond and not react is the goal, you know? It's like, I want to pick up my phone, it's like, I have 10 seconds to go like, is this a negative contribution to my future self? Is this, I know how the story ends, is this-

• 2:06:26Chris Williamson?

  Really seems like you've done the work. Really, really does seem like you've done the work. Even if inwardly, it feels like you're just a catastrophe that doesn't have their shit together.

• 2:06:35Whitney Cummings?

  Well, to me, I like to, like, just say that to people, you know, and just share that on podcasts. So, cause I think people would probably think like, oh, look, she's achieved all this stuff. And I like to go like, I've had to struggle with all this stuff, you know?

• 2:06:45Chris Williamson?

  No, it really does seem like you've done the work. I've been very, very impressed with you today.

• 2:06:48Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, gosh, that's so nice.

• 2:06:49Chris Williamson?

  Crazily impressed.

• 2:06:50Whitney Cummings?

  I feel like I've been like, sort of rambly and confusing and not-

• 2:06:54Chris Williamson?

  Been very, very incisive. Why should people go? They want to check out more of your shit and you're gonna be absent from the road for at least six months.

• 2:07:00Whitney Cummings?

  I am. I have my sixth special just came out. It's on OFTV, OF.TV slash Whitney.

• 2:07:06Chris Williamson?

  Amazing.

• 2:07:06Whitney Cummings?

  Totally uncensored and totally free.

• 2:07:08Chris Williamson?

  Where else? What else is, what else is happening?

• 2:07:09Whitney Cummings?

  Whitney Cummings, my podcast is Good For You. That's it. I'm embarrassed to promote myself. I'm not good at it.