#84: How to Turn Pain Into Creativity (Whitney Cummings)

This episode explores pain, struggle, and how to turn both into amazing creative projects. Whitney Cummings https://twitter.com/WhitneyCummings is a Los Angeles-based comedian, actor, writer and producer. Whitney is executive producer and, along with Michael Patrick King, co-creator of the Emmy-nominated CBS comedy 2 Broke Girls, which was recently picked up for a fifth season. She also wrote, produced and starred in Whitney, which aired on NBC from 2011 to 2013. She has headlined with comics including Sarah Silverman, Louis C. K., Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, and others. Her first one-hour stand up special, Money Shot, premiered on Comedy Central in 2010 and was nominated for an American Comedy Award. Her second stand-up special, Whitney Cummings: I Love You, debuted on Comedy Central in 2014 and she is shooting a third hour for HBO this August, which is set to air in 2016. For all links, show notes, resources from this episode, please visit fourhourworkweek.com/podcast https://rss.libsyn.com/shows/52710/destinations/fourhourworkweek.com/podcast ### This podcast is brought to you by MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim. Have you ever wanted to be as powerful as a mullet-wearing ninja from the 1980's, or as sleek as a black panther in the Amazon? Of course you have, and that's where MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim comes in. I've spent the last 2-3 weeks wearing underwear from these guys http://meundies.com/tim 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I've ever owned. Their materials are 2x softer than cotton, as evaluated using the Kawabata method. Check out MeUndies.com/Tim http://meundies.com/tim to see my current faves, some of which are awesomely ridiculous. This episode is also sponsored by Onnit http://onnit.com/tim. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen or in my garage you will find Alpha BRAIN, chewable melatonin (for resetting my clock while traveling), kettlebells, maces, battle ropes, and steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it basically is. A torture chamber for self-improvement! Ah, the lovely pain. To see a list of my favorite pills, potions, and heavy tools, click here http://www.onnit.com/tim.

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

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake.

• 0:06Whitney Cummings?

  Can I answer your personal question? No, we're just sitting in a book, right?

• 0:12Whitney Cummings?

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by a new sponsor, so listen up, folks. This is a good one. Because have you ever wanted to be as powerful as a mullet-wearing ninja from a 1980's movie? Or as flamboyant as Big Gay Owl? Big Gay Owl in South Park? Or as sleek as a Black Panther in The Amazon on the hunt? Well, there's great news, because I've been testing this product that you wrap around your genitals and it makes you feel like a superhero. And it is called MeUndies. I've spent the last two to three weeks traveling with underwear from these guys, and they are comfy. I gotta tell you, it feels like a geisha is giving your groin a hug. And it's not just for dudes, but if you go to meundies.com/tim, that's M-E-U-N-D-I-E-S dot com forward slash tim,

• 1:06Tim Ferriss?

  you can see all of the underwear that I've been wearing. There's some pretty ridiculous ones, and I will also highlight my favorite. You'll probably be able to guess which it is. These underwear are made from Mikromodau, which is extruded from Austrian beechwood trees in the Alps. Yes, fancy. And it's two times softer than cotton. Scientifically tested, using the Kawabata method, developed in Kyoto. You know those Japanese, very crafty. And I will say a few things. Number one, if you go to meundies.com/tim, you get to see all of the spectacular underwear that I've been wearing, and I am a bit of an underwear connoisseur. Socks, fashion sense with sweatpants, not so much. Underwear, I understand. So check 'em out. And if you go to meundies.com/tim,

• 1:49Tim Ferriss?

  you will also be able to see lots of hot ladies wearing MeUndies female underwear. And that's just a lot of goodness for both the men and the women out there. So check it out. MeUndies.com/tim. I love these underwear. And I am going to be packing tonight, probably, six to 12 pair to take with me to Australia. They're great. Check 'em out. MeUndies.com/tim.

• 2:15Tim Ferriss?

  The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Onnit. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen, in my garage, you will find AlphaBrain, chewable melatonin for resetting my clock when I'm traveling, kettlebells, battle ropes, maces, steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it kind of is. It's a torture chamber for self-improvement. And you can see all of my favorite gear at onnit.com/tim. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com forward slash tim. And you can also get a discount on any supplements, food products. I like Hemp Force. I like AlphaBrain. Check it all out, onnit.com/tim. Hello, my dangerous, dainty friends.

• 2:58Tim Ferriss?

  This is Tim Ferriss, and this is another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I try my best to deconstruct excellence and world-class performers. That means interviewing people who are the best at what they do, or one of the best at what they do, whether they're investors, or chess prodigies, actors, athletes, everyone and anyone who fits the bill of top performer. I will try to dig into the habits, the routines, the favorite books, the meals, the meal timing, their sleep habits, meditation techniques, and so on and so forth, to provide you with recipes that you can test.

• 3:36Tim Ferriss?

  So not a whole bunch of highfalutin, abstract concepts, although we explore some deep stuff, but the really tactical tools that you can implement on a daily, weekly basis to become better at whatever you do or want to do. And this episode is no exception. We have Whitney Cummings. Whitney is hilarious. Whitney is a Los Angeles-based comedian, actor, writer, and producer. She's a multi-hyphenate. And let me rattle off just a few things. She's executive producer and, along with Michael Patrick King, co-creator of the Emmy-nominated CBS comedy Two Broke Girls. Not Two Broke Curls. There are a lot of K's. Two Broke Girls. You've probably seen it, heard of it.

• 4:21Tim Ferriss?

  Observed the advertisements for it, It's All Over The Place, which was recently picked up for a fifth season. She also wrote, produced, and starred in Whitney, which aired on NBC from 2011 to 2013. Not only that, outside of television, she has headlined with comics including Sarah Silverman, Louis CK, Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, and many others. Lots of big names. She's famous for some other skills that we'll explore, like roasting other comics and celebrities. That is a fascinating and fun conversation that we dug into. Her first one-hour stand-up special, Money Shot, premiered on Comedy Central in 2010 and was nominated for an American Comedy Award.

• 5:02Tim Ferriss?

  Her second stand-up special, Whitney Cummings: I Love You, debuted on Comedy Central in 2014. And she is shooting a third hour for HBO this August, which is set to air in 2016. In this conversation, we talk about her process for writing, both comedy and other types of writing, difference between fiction and nonfiction. We get really granular on how she develops her jokes. I ask her questions like, if you had eight weeks to take someone, i.e. me, who's terrified of stand-up, no experience, to get them ready for a real performance, what would those eight weeks of training look like? And we also turn back the clock, look at her childhood, look at the things that have

• 5:45Tim Ferriss?

  formed her and informed her, the mistakes that she's made managing other people, lessons learned, because she's had massive teams, hundreds of people, which I did not know. And we even delve into some very esoteric stuff, like equine therapy, using horses for therapeutic work. Really fascinating. I love this conversation. I hope you do as well. And she is a very funny lady, making me laugh. So I hope you enjoy Whitney Cummings. And I usually say, without further ado, Whitney Cummings, but I've said Whitney Cummings like 17 times already in this intro. So Whitney Cummings, Whitney Cummings, Whitney Cummings, like Candyman, enjoy.

• 6:33Tim Ferriss?

  Whitney, dear, thank you so much for being on the show.

• 6:35Whitney Cummings?

  Thanks for having me.

• 6:36Tim Ferriss?

  I caught you opening your beet juice.

• 6:39Whitney Cummings?

  I have a lot. Look, I'm really into beverages. I don't know if you noticed this about me. It's my weird.

• 6:44Tim Ferriss?

  You do have a collection.

• 6:44Whitney Cummings?

  I think I'm a hoarder. I'm really into hydrating, but like sneakily so, like nefarious hydration. It can never be actual water. It's always like something just they cost $8.

• 6:56Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Well, beet juice, I mean, a lot of endurance athletes are big on beet juice.

• 7:00Whitney Cummings?

  Well, that's what I'm here to tell you is that I've made my transition into being an endurance athlete. That's my new career.

• 7:06Tim Ferriss?

  That's why you're grilling the American Ninja Warrior competitor who wandered, wandered through the living room.

• 7:11Whitney Cummings?

  I've been asking him so many questions. And yeah, no, I, I feel like I didn't make a lot of great health decisions in my early twenties. So I feel like I'm overcompensating now with, you know, things like this.

• 7:26Tim Ferriss?

  Better than going the other direction, right? You're like, you know, I was so healthy. I was so orthorexic. I was competitive athlete.

• 7:33Whitney Cummings?

  But do you feel like our parents just kind of dropped the ball? I mean, now that we know so much about GMOs and high fructose corn syrup, I feel like I'm like on borrowed time.

• 7:43Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think that maybe they dropped the ball, but they didn't know they were carrying the ball in the first place.

• 7:47Whitney Cummings?

  Hundred percent. Yes, they didn't know that.

• 7:49Tim Ferriss?

  So they have plausible deniability.

• 7:50Whitney Cummings?

  Right, right.

• 7:51Tim Ferriss?

  They'll be like, it's not my fault that I gave you chicken McNuggets.

• 7:53Whitney Cummings?

  No, I smoked when I was pregnant.

• 7:55Tim Ferriss?

  Krispy Kreme.

• 7:56Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly.

• 7:57Tim Ferriss?

  Fruity Pebbles every morning.

• 7:58Whitney Cummings?

  You wanted Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So I feel like I'm kind of like trying to rectify a lot of that damage that was done.

• 8:06Tim Ferriss?

  So, oh, look at this. I just noticed. So, I love you. How is that on your arm?

• 8:12Whitney Cummings?

  I got that for you. I have something else to tell you.

• 8:16Tim Ferriss?

  This is full of exciting confessions right off the bat.

• 8:18Whitney Cummings?

  That's so funny that you just said, because as what you guys can't see, hopefully, unless you're a weirdo stalker, I have a white tattoo on my lower left forearm that says, I love you. And I don't think anyone has ever noticed it without me having to point it out.

• 8:33Tim Ferriss?

  How is that?

• 8:34Whitney Cummings?

  That's so interesting.

• 8:34Tim Ferriss?

  Produced?

• 8:35Whitney Cummings?

  I have another white one right here. It's an anchor.

• 8:40Whitney Cummings?

  Um, be it's basically, this is like someone who's incredibly commitment phobic, who wants a tattoo, but doesn't want anybody to see it. Um, so that's one of my weaknesses, but.

• 8:49Tim Ferriss?

  Is it, is it done with an electric needle without any ink?

• 8:53Whitney Cummings?

  Nope, with white ink, but it has to go much deeper. So it's more like scarification. So it basically hurts like twice as much.

• 8:59Tim Ferriss?

  So I am fascinated by that.

• 9:01Whitney Cummings?

  You get twice as much pain, but.

• 9:04Tim Ferriss?

  Half the recognition. Sounds like a lot of business ideas I've had.

• 9:09Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly. Worst investment possible.

• 9:11Tim Ferriss?

  The, that's fascinating to me because I've never seen a tattoo like that before. But I read when I was in Japan as an exchange student, my first time abroad. When I was 15, I became obsessed with Yakuza tattoos and sort of deep, traditional tattoos that were associated with organized crime. And I read about this type of tattoo, which is pretty much exactly what you have on your arm. They would only become visible when the skin was flush at, say, the public baths.

• 9:38Whitney Cummings?

  Wow.

• 9:38Tim Ferriss?

  So if they wanted to keep it under wraps that they were organized crime member, but then wanted to scare the shit out of everybody when they were naked in the baths.

• 9:44Whitney Cummings?

  Wow.

• 9:44Tim Ferriss?

  They would have like full back white tattoos.

• 9:47Whitney Cummings?

  That is so cool. It's almost like black light tattoos today or something.

• 9:51Tim Ferriss?

  I don't even know what a black light.

• 9:52Whitney Cummings?

  There's a black light. You can do a black light tattoo. This is mostly for, I guess, people who do LSD and like Special K, but you can do it with black light ink. So you can only see it under a black light.

• 10:00Tim Ferriss?

  This gotta be good for you.

• 10:01Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, that's just so funny because I wrote my senior honors thesis in college on tattooing.

• 10:05Tim Ferriss?

  Really?

• 10:06Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Tim Ferriss?

  So I've, uh, now I think you also have, if I saw correctly, something on the back of one of your arms?

• 10:13Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, I have a safety pin on the back of my right arm, which I always forget I have because I hit it so well that I always forget it's there, but.

• 10:22Tim Ferriss?

  What is the story of the safety pin?

• 10:24Whitney Cummings?

  The safety pin is sort of, um, uh, well, the I love you is first, uh, for you, Tim.

• 10:31Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 10:32Whitney Cummings?

  I wanted to subtly.

• 10:34Tim Ferriss?

  Sort of a requirement for podcast guests? This is what I haven't really divulged. Sign the release, you get the tattoo, then we can talk.

• 10:41Whitney Cummings?

  Right, right, I've been branded. I got the, well, let me do them in order. I got the anchor right here on my wrist. Michael Patrick King and I created a show called Two Broke Girls, which is on CBS. Michael Patrick King, you know, did Sex and the City. If you had a girlfriend at the time, you probably had to watch it. He did a show called The Comeback, which is a brilliant show. It is so well done, sort of about an aging actress in Hollywood and sexism in Hollywood. And it's just incredibly well-written and performed. And we did Two Broke Girls together simultaneously. I was doing a show on NBC, which was a sitcom, as well as a talk show. So I was doing three shows simultaneously, which doing one is already...

• 11:19Tim Ferriss?

  Just gonna say, glutton for punishment.

• 11:20Whitney Cummings?

  A Herculean task. So I was just, I was having a hard time. I dealt with some, just, you know, as a comedian, you know, you become a comedian because you want people to like you. You know, and then all of a sudden, you're sort of thrust into the zeitgeist as like a public figure. And then, you know, not everyone's gonna like you, which in stand-up is usually a good thing because it means you're being specific, you know, as you, I believe, say. When you try to please everybody, please no one. Right, exactly. So the idea is you want to polarize some people, but then all of a sudden, when it's critics, you're like, wait a second. And then you recreate your childhood circumstances and you're like, dad? I mean, critics just become your dad, who won't accept you, or your mom, whose approval you're trying to get. So you just sort of time travel back into being a kid. And so that was really hard on me.

• 12:05Whitney Cummings?

  And then I just kind of eviscerated myself. I did everything wrong in terms of being a boss and managing my time and managing people's egos and depleting myself, which I've learned a lot in the last couple of years.

• 12:18Tim Ferriss?

  When you were working on these three shows.

• 12:19Whitney Cummings?

  When I was working on these three shows. I was the perfect example of what to never do. This is before I knew about you, before I, you know, had a, I'm in a 12-step program for codependence called Al-Anon, and I do trauma therapy. Now I do all this stuff, whatever. But this was before I had any kind of that recovery or had done any... Work on my sort of neural pathways. I was using a lot of really old survival skills. And I was like people pleasing and caretaking and I couldn't fire anyone and I was terrified to tell someone no. And I couldn't have uncomfortable conversations and I was all of a sudden the boss of like 400 people and I.

• 12:53Tim Ferriss?

  That's a lot of people. That was not the number I expected, but then again, I haven't worked on. I haven't worked on big TV shows.

• 13:00Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, it's a lot.

• 13:00Tim Ferriss?

  And I worked on a TV show, but it was very, very minimal. 400 people.

• 13:04Whitney Cummings?

  It's a lot of people to, I mean, it was just between three different shows. I have three staffs, 200 each, you know, it was probably more like 600 over the year. And they're all looking to you for clarity and being decisive and just saying yes or no instead of, well, I just, I feel like I'm so sorry. It just, I was so apologetic and so, you know, desperate for everyone's approval, which makes a great comedian, terrible boss.

• 13:26Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 13:27Whitney Cummings?

  And, and so I was just having a really hard time and I remember Michael Patrick King, who's sort of one of my mentors. He gave me a ring that had a anchor on it, just sort of that, you know, he was like, just stay grounded, stay in your shoes. Because anytime someone would come to me, I would just like abandon, you know, myself and just jump out of my skin to try and take care of them and manage them and please them. Instead of just keeping my feet on the ground. And then, of course, I promptly lost the ring. So I decided to get the tattoo of it in white, of course, because being on television, you have to go in like an hour early to get tattoos covered. And I don't want to give up, you know, an hour a day, five hours in my week.

• 14:02Tim Ferriss?

  That's five minutes.

• 14:03Whitney Cummings?

  That's right. Every.

• 14:04Tim Ferriss?

  It's very interesting.

• 14:05Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, every, you know, an hour a day times five days a week. Yeah, that's, you know, five hours of tattoo covering, which I just don't have time. So hence the white. And then the safety pin was sort of, um, I grew up in, this is not funny. We're going to get funny.

• 14:19Tim Ferriss?

  We don't have to be all funny.

• 14:20Whitney Cummings?

  In kind of an unsafe environment and my parents would argue a lot when I was a kid. And I used to play with, we didn't have a lot of money. I was poor. Safety pins were my toys. I just remember playing with safety pins and I remember opening them and closing them. And I just remember, I was just, I did EMDR, which is like a, um, a trauma.

• 14:39Tim Ferriss?

  Eye movement.

• 14:41Whitney Cummings?

  Eye movement, uh, de-sensitization.

• 14:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Whitney Cummings?

  You can say that word.

• 14:47Tim Ferriss?

  Desensitization.

• 14:48Whitney Cummings?

  And reprogramming.

• 14:49Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. Which involves using eye movements.

• 14:52Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly.

• 14:52Tim Ferriss?

  For. Overcoming trauma?

• 14:55Whitney Cummings?

  To basically reprogram your trauma in terms of putting them into a, putting your trauma into a different folder, like in layman's terms. So the way that my trauma therapist explained it to me was, you remember the episode in I Love Lucy when there was the conveyor belts?

• 15:08Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 15:08Whitney Cummings?

  Of, was it the bonbons or was it bottles with gloves?

• 15:12Tim Ferriss?

  I want to say it was bottles.

• 15:14Whitney Cummings?

  I want to say it was bottles and she was putting the glove on it. That was in the open. But anyway, so she explains it as our brains take in three billion pieces of information a second, right? So, you know, Tim's shirt is, you know, camouflage and how he feels, how he looks, how this house feels. Trampoline outside, that's a longer story, listeners. There's a trampoline that all I want to do is leave this podcast to go jump on it. Um, and, uh, and then when we get traumatized, our brain freezes, uh, but the information keeps coming in. So if right now someone came in and held up a gun to our heads, the information would still come in, white walls, wooden, uh, apple computer, this cactus, and then it would be filed into the folder of trauma.

• 15:53Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 15:53Whitney Cummings?

  So later, in five years, I'm sitting at dinner and all of a sudden there's a cactus and I'm anxious and stressed out and I don't know why.

• 15:59Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 15:59Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly. And I'm triggered, you know, so it's like reprogramming some of those triggers into a folder that is more benign.

• 16:05Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 16:05Whitney Cummings?

  Essentially. Um.

• 16:07Tim Ferriss?

  And so did the tattoo come after that EMDR?

• 16:11Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. Yes.

• 16:12Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 16:12Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. When I started doing EMDR and sort of like getting into sort of like, um, neurological recovery, essentially from trauma.

• 16:19Tim Ferriss?

  And was the, was the safety pin a trigger for negative feelings? And if so, why did you choose to put it on your arm?

• 16:28Whitney Cummings?

  That's interesting. It was kind of my, and it wasn't necessarily a trigger for me. I think it was more like a symbol for me of sort of a time. And I think this is sounds kind of corny, but like it was open when I was a kid and I would sort of like, you know, not in like a, um, masochistic way, but I would sort of like prick myself with it when things would get, it was just like a tick, kind of like how someone bites their nails or something. And so I sort of closed it. So the tattoo has a closed safety pin that's sort of like, you're safe, it's over. Cause a lot of times if you have any kind of trauma as a kid, you become an adult and you constantly are recreating your childhood circumstances and having these completely obsolete and appropriate feelings to present situations. So I had a, you know, was working with somebody who triggered all these feelings that my. Family of origin used to cause. And it was like, this is a completely inappropriate

• 17:11Whitney Cummings?

  reaction. This is an employee who works for me, who's trying to get a script done. And all of a sudden, I'm like, you know, reliving these historical wounds. It's not appropriate. So I think it was sort of me really trying to put an end to that story and respond to present circumstances with present appropriate emotions.

• 17:29Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 17:30Whitney Cummings?

  If that makes any sense.

• 17:31Tim Ferriss?

  That does make sense. And the I love you?

• 17:34Whitney Cummings?

  I love you is um, couple things. My last special was called I love you. But I actually did that after I got the tattoo. I um, interesting. I'm trying to like, figure out how to say this without seeming like ridiculous, but something that I-

• 17:52Tim Ferriss?

  I sound ridiculous entire time I'm on the podcast.

• 17:54Whitney Cummings?

  Okay, good.

• 17:54Tim Ferriss?

  Feel free to bounce me out.

• 17:55Whitney Cummings?

  You know what? I mean, I'm just admitting like, pretty embarrassing. It's pretty hard to embarrass me, but this, but any kind of vulnerability tends to be a little bit embarrassing for a comedian. I was struggling a little bit with patience and compassion. And again, I'm codependent, or like, I grew up in an alcoholic home, which a lot of times people get, we have a lot of trouble with patience and control, and we want everyone to do what we want to do when we want it to be done. And that's sort of how we survived as children is if I could just organize my drinks in the right row, I'm gonna be fine, you know? And I found myself, and I travel a tremendous amount, as I'm sure you do also, or and I have in the past, and I just found myself getting frustrated with people not doing things my way. I don't know if you've ever-

• 18:39Tim Ferriss?

  It's like every minute of every hour of my life.

• 18:41Whitney Cummings?

  Okay, so I might have a pamphlet for you.

• 18:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 18:44Whitney Cummings?

  But I found myself just being, and I think that's one of the reasons I gravitated towards being a writer and a comedian, is I get to do it all on my own.

• 18:52Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 18:52Whitney Cummings?

  You know, I write the material, I perform it, I critique it, I rewrite it, I tour, I do everything on my own, because when other people get involved, I just, you know, it's inefficient, and I don't like the way you're doing things. I don't like the way you're saying that. I don't like the way you're sitting, like just everything. So-

• 19:07Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds really low stress to have 600 people.

• 19:10Whitney Cummings?

  Constantly just-

• 19:11Tim Ferriss?

  Working on Project Series.

• 19:12Whitney Cummings?

  I know, exactly. Like, is he wearing flip flops to work? I mean, it was just like, just a way to not focus on myself. And I think ultimately, sometimes when we judge other people, it's just a way to not look at ourselves, or as a, you know, way to feel superior, sanctimonious, or whatever. So my trauma therapist said, like, every time you meet someone, just in your head, say I love you, before you have a conversation with them, and that conversation's gonna go a lot better.

• 19:35Tim Ferriss?

  Cool.

• 19:35Whitney Cummings?

  It was just an interesting little trick for 28 days, which is how long it takes to make a neural pathway, a new neural pathway. I would just, when I meet someone in my head, whether it's the lady at the DMV who's making me wait two hours, and essentially, it's just the notion of everybody is doing the best they can with what they have.

• 19:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Whitney Cummings?

  Which is really hard for a lot of us to accept.

• 19:54Tim Ferriss?

  Super hard. This is, I'm enjoying this because I've been trying to work on a lot of these weaknesses that I have, which fall pretty squarely right into the impatient dick category.

• 20:07Whitney Cummings?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:08Tim Ferriss?

  And very perfectionist.

• 20:11Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 20:12Tim Ferriss?

  Very meticulous in sometimes a helpful detail oriented way, oftentimes in a like monkish, overbearing way.

• 20:20Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 20:21Tim Ferriss?

  And

• 20:21Whitney Cummings?

  Which works great when you're writing a book yourself, but when all of a sudden you're getting a relationship or have employees, doesn't work as well.

• 20:27Tim Ferriss?

  Or have other people involved in the process. You become, you know, a problem author, which is sort of my label.

• 20:32Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Tim Ferriss?

  There are pros and cons to being a problem author. You get the cover you want, but then, you know, so and so at the publisher wants to stab you in the face with the pencil.

• 20:41Whitney Cummings?

  Right.

• 20:42Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, repeatedly. And

• 20:44Whitney Cummings?

  I'm just glad people still use pencils.

• 20:45Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not sure, you know, I'm really clawing my way through vocab. I'm decaffeinated at the moment, but the two things that, very related that really helped me were, one, always assuming that people are fighting battles you know nothing about. Right? Like, everyone's fighting some intense battle internally that you know nothing about. Number one.

• 21:07Whitney Cummings?

  And something that is a battle for them might be super easy for you.

• 21:10Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 21:11Whitney Cummings?

  You know? And that's, I think, my dad said something, really, who is not known for excellent advice, but he said something to me, um, once that was super helpful, because I was having a lot of trouble, um, in relationships where I felt like I wasn't getting my needs met. And, uh, he was like, you just have to understand how strong you come off. Like, people don't think you need anything.

• 21:31Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 21:32Whitney Cummings?

  So that's why people don't help you. And it was this interesting thing where I was like, oh, I mean, I have a lot of weaknesses, and I'm bad at a lot of things, but when I'm good at something, which maybe you can relate to, I'm really good at it.

• 21:42Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 21:43Whitney Cummings?

  Because I've just worked really hard at it. So, I'm really good at things that a lot of people might not be, and vice versa. So it's like, I'm like, how come he hasn't finished that book yet? How could he? It's been two days.

• 21:53Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 21:54Whitney Cummings?

  And it's like, okay, not everyone reads a book, or whatever it is.

• 21:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 21:56Whitney Cummings?

  You know?

• 21:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 21:58Whitney Cummings?

  Being, having compassion for everybody.

• 21:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, not something that comes naturally to me at least. And it's not that I'm a complete apathetic serial killer or whatever it's. But the impatience is really pronounced.

• 22:10Whitney Cummings?

  One of my favorite quotes, one of my favorite people is Katharine Hepburn. And in a Philadelphia story, I think it was Cary Grant said to Katharine Hepburn's character, "You have no tolerance for human weakness." And I remember that resonating a little bit.

• 22:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Which is, it's easy to rationalize, at least I find ways to rationalize why it's acceptable. But you just leave this sort of string of collateral damage. And the, the two things that that brought to mind for me were, one, I remember somebody told me, "If you walk outside and you go about your day and you meet an asshole, that person's an asshole." If you walk outside and everyone you meet is an asshole, you're the asshole.

• 22:52Whitney Cummings?

  I love that. I love that. That's great.

• 22:55Tim Ferriss?

  And so whenever I have one of those days where I'm like, "Man, everybody's so ungrateful and they're such assholes." I'm like, "Well, wait a second now."

• 23:01Whitney Cummings?

  Wait a second, I'm the common denominator in all these interactions.

• 23:04Tim Ferriss?

  This is more my problem.

• 23:06Whitney Cummings?

  That was exactly, so that was my way of, just, it's a shortcut. And it's, as soon as I meet someone, in my head, I just say, "I love you."

• 23:15Tim Ferriss?

  That's the starting thing.

• 23:16Whitney Cummings?

  And then, "Yeah, I love you. Can I please get a diet coke with a whatever?" I mean, for everybody.

• 23:21Tim Ferriss?

  Mr. TSA, can you please not drop my computer?

• 23:23Whitney Cummings?

  Right, I'm getting felt up by the TSA guy.

• 23:27Tim Ferriss?

  You too?

• 23:27Whitney Cummings?

  Another, well, I'm TSA pre now, so.

• 23:32Tim Ferriss?

  That's like third base.

• 23:34Whitney Cummings?

  I get felt up with my shoes on. And another thing that was super helpful, because at least in my field, I don't know the case for years, I can't speak to it, but a lot of people who are in a performance-based field, whether it's writing, acting, as this is a huge generalization, but you can sometimes assume they didn't get... A ton of attention as a child or need more attention than most. They have a compulsion to be, need to be seen and heard and appreciated. And humor is usually developed as a shield slash defense mechanism. So what were they defending against? We don't know, but it was something. Everyone had a thing they had to defend, defend against as a child. My last name is Cummings. That was probably what I was managing as a child. And whatever

• 24:19Whitney Cummings?

  was going on in my household. So you get a bunch of really fragile people who have all these defense mechanisms in one room to constantly show up every day to be rejected because you're in a writer's room. All you're doing is pitching and the boss is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. And you're just hearing no all day. You're not good enough. You're not funny enough, which is what we all translate to. So a bunch of really fragile, sensitive people in one room and who may or may not have done the kind of recovery that I've committed to or therapy. We always assume everyone works as hard on ourselves as we do. They don't, you know?

• 24:51Tim Ferriss?

  Well, that, that brings up a couple of things for me. One is I have at points tried to chill the fuck out and that takes many forms. Meditation has been very helpful. I do have a simple sort of daily morning meditation practice. After two of my friends were just like, you're being an idiot. Maybe you should try.

• 25:11Whitney Cummings?

  High-stung?

• 25:12Tim Ferriss?

  Sitting, sitting still. Uh, just, I find sitting still and focus, returning my attention to something, whether that's breath or sound or a word for 20 minutes a day allows me not to feel overwhelmed.

• 25:26Whitney Cummings?

  Yep.

• 25:27Tim Ferriss?

  That is due to over responding to things imaginary or outside of my control. But what I wonder is for you, I've sometimes thought, you know what? I'm impatient, but I don't want to totally fix it. I want to dial it back, but I don't want to totally fix it because there are a lot of benefits that come from being impatient.

• 25:45Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 25:45Tim Ferriss?

  Sometimes.

• 25:46Whitney Cummings?

  It's a strength in moderation.

• 25:48Tim Ferriss?

  Or sometimes in extremes. I mean, in the, then we could, we could dig into that. But do you, do you worry or have you experienced that doing the work that you've done has negatively impacted your comedy in any way?

• 26:04Whitney Cummings?

  Doing the work I've done, has it ne- oh, the work I've done. I see.

• 26:08Tim Ferriss?

  So like removing the, removing the shield or reducing that codependency.

• 26:12Whitney Cummings?

  Great.

• 26:13Tim Ferriss?

  Has it removed some of the magic?

• 26:15Whitney Cummings?

  Great question. Um, I think the short answer is no. Uh, one of my biggest fears when I went into a recovery program and intensive therapy, like not talk therapy, like trauma therapy, which is actually kind of the opposite of talk therapy, because talk therapy largely, I'm not, um, disapproving of therapy, but for me personally, um, mine has more of a neurological perspective, which is when you have some kind of trauma and you talk about it, you just re-embed the trauma and it actually makes it worse.

• 26:43Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 26:43Whitney Cummings?

  Um, so I do like, I can't talk about a certain topic for 28 days. I have to replace a negative thought with a positive thought for 28 days. I mean, it's like a pretty hard work. I got really worried. I was like, you know, talking to my, um, therapist and a bunch of people on my program. And I was like, I'm just really afraid that I'm not going to be as funny.

• 27:00Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 27:00Whitney Cummings?

  If I'm not as dark and in pain all the time. And it was actually the opposite because I waste so much time trying to manage, you know, unhealthy relationships and the, you know, having low self-esteem and my perfectionism, which can be really paralyzing, you know, perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis. So I could go a couple of days without getting any writing done because my self-esteem was too low. I didn't think I was good enough. And just these old sort of obsolete messages and, uh, survival instincts. And, um, I think that it has given me so much more mental energy, physical energy. Um, I have much more balance in my life now and I'm much more productive and much more vulnerable, which as a writer, you have to be vulnerable. I think before I was so overworked.

• 27:44Whitney Cummings?

  I was such a chronic workaholic, um, that I didn't have a life.

• 27:51Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:51Whitney Cummings?

  And in order for art to imitate life, you have to have a life.

• 27:54Tim Ferriss?

  That's a really profound statement.

• 27:56Whitney Cummings?

  For me, art was imitating art because I was, all I was doing was working.

• 28:01Tim Ferriss?

  Which turns into this weird like recursive funny land.

• 28:04Whitney Cummings?

  Self reflexive, yeah. And then all of a sudden, I'm just in like, it's just so meta. And I'm sitting in there and I remember being in the writer's room in the second season of a TV show about sort of relationships. And someone's like, oh, what if they go to a baby shower? And I'm like, no one goes to baby showers. And everyone in the room was like, you don't. But most people do on a Sunday, go to a baby shower. And I was like, oh, my God, I was just so work, I was so myopic. And I was so, I hadn't had a conversation, you know, this is gonna come off bad, but I'm just gonna be honest. I hadn't had a conversation with someone that I didn't pay in months.

• 28:37Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 28:38Whitney Cummings?

  Which is scary.

• 28:39Tim Ferriss?

  Now, pay not meaning you've paid them to talk to you, but an employee.

• 28:42Whitney Cummings?

  I've been, yeah, I only talk to their friends. No one else is allowed to listen.

• 28:46Tim Ferriss?

  Here's your script. You'll note the compliments are all in column B. And proceed.

• 28:51Whitney Cummings?

  Memorize it before you. I don't hate that idea. That's how sick I am. But yeah, I didn't, I hadn't had like an organic, healthy sort of conversation with someone. Not that the people that I hire are like obsequious to me and won't, you know, walk on eggshells around me.

• 29:06Tim Ferriss?

  Good word.

• 29:07Whitney Cummings?

  That is a good word. That is a good word.

• 29:10Tim Ferriss?

  You just GRE'd my ass.

• 29:11Whitney Cummings?

  Not bad, not bad. I don't use it often, but that felt like the right context for it.

• 29:14Tim Ferriss?

  But when I do.

• 29:15Whitney Cummings?

  But when I do, it comes in with aplomb. It comes in art. And so I felt like, um, you know, it was really important to me to have balance. Like, I didn't have any hobbies. Like, I, I had, I got assigned homework from my trauma therapist that I had to do two,

• 29:31Whitney Cummings?

  two hours a week chunks of something that was purely fun with no work motives.

• 29:36Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 29:37Whitney Cummings?

  Purely. So I took up equine therapy and like some other hobbies and stuff, but it was really a struggle. I was like, I can do that. And I mean, good hour in, I was restless. I was, felt unproductive. I felt like, you know, I was making notes in my phone. I'm like, working, I realized like.

• 29:53Tim Ferriss?

  Working on the material.

• 29:54Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, my God, I'm doing bits with horses. What's the deal? I mean, I was like, it was, it was a struggle. And I mean, even like listening to podcasts, or I was always a motive of like, oh, I can get a joke out of this, or if I listen to, you know? And it was, it made me realize how work driven I was.

• 30:10Tim Ferriss?

  What was the, so going from? Burning the candle at both ends, workaholic. What was the kind of defining moment where you're like, no more? Like, I can't continue this way. What was the conversation of the day or the experience?

• 30:25Whitney Cummings?

  By the way, in the workaholism, and you know more about this than anyone, a lot of it was busyness. It wasn't actual work. I was taking on a lot of tasks that I had no business doing just because I had been so sort of, I think one of the most important things you can do as an artist or in any field, I can really only speak to comedians, actors, writers, performers, is to get a handle on your issues. Like, but you will never be successful if you're dysfunctional in your relationships and with your employees and stuff. If you have trust issues, if you have abandonment issues, if you're a narcissist, whatever it is, you know? If you are controlling, because I found like, I remember when I was, I was so apologetic and I was so afraid to ask for help, that I was doing everybody's job, which ends up disenfranchising them.

• 31:09Tim Ferriss?

  They get pissed. They feel, they feel micromanaged.

• 31:11Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, they feel micromanaged.

• 31:12Tim Ferriss?

  And then you can't ultimately pick up all that slack.

• 31:15Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, and I'm exhausting myself and making them feel bad. No, everybody loses. And I remember I was like punching holes in a script and there was like literally 40 other people in that room who wanted to do it. I mean, I just had a bunch of employees that were like, can we please do something? We're so bored. And I was like, I got it, I got it. I was just so, coming from stand-up comedy, I'm so used to doing everything myself, that asking for help, I realized how hard it was for me. So, there's no point in having a great script or being a great writer or actor if you can't let people help you. So, I, I think a lot of, I, I realized, because again, being like you and I, just in terms of your, you know, impatience and all that, like, it works really well up until a certain point.

• 31:59Whitney Cummings?

  So, all of these defects had worked really well for me until I had a staff.

• 32:03Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 32:03Whitney Cummings?

  Until I had people who were, I had to collaborate with. And all of a sudden, I'm like, Um, was sort of a codependent mess.

• 32:10Tim Ferriss?

  What's wrong with you people? Oh, wait.

• 32:11Whitney Cummings?

  I know. Why doesn't every, if you were all just psychic and did everything my way, everything would be fine. Um, and so I think that when I realized that I couldn't fire someone, like, I mean, I literally would get a pit in my stomach when I had to tell someone that I, you know, didn't like their script or didn't like their joke. I realized I was like, I can't believe how hard it is for me to feel like I'm disappointing someone or just to tell the truth, quite frankly, I had so, I was so apologetic and afraid of people not liking me.

• 32:37Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 32:37Whitney Cummings?

  That, uh, it was really paralyzing and really, uh, unproductive and slowed down the writing process. Uh, confused employees. I remember in the room, like, you know, people would pitch jokes and I would just say yes to all of them because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. And then I have to go later and change it. And then all of a sudden the script comes out and their jokes aren't there and they feel betrayed and lied to and you know, a phrase that I love that when I first went into Allen and I heard someone said, uh, people pleasing is a form of assholery. Which I just loved.

• 33:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Whitney Cummings?

  Because you're not pleasing anybody. You're just making them resentful because you're being disingenuous and you're also not giving them the dignity of their own experience and assuming they can't handle.

• 33:16Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 33:17Whitney Cummings?

  The truth.

• 33:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 33:18Whitney Cummings?

  It's so, you know, patronizing. Um.

• 33:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a bandaid that hurts a lot when it gets ripped off.

• 33:25Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, there's, there's a very short book called Lying by Sam Harris, who's a PhD in neuroscience. It's been on the podcast, which digs into a lot of this in a very interesting way where you think.

• 33:36Whitney Cummings?

  Don't we tell like 30 lies a day or something?

• 33:38Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I'm sure it's, uh, I, three, 330, who knows? Thing, it depends on the, it depends on the person or which politician you're listening to. But the, um, the point being like, when you tell white lies or you omit certain things, uh, they can ultimately have the same negative impact as an outright kind of bold faced lie to someone. Uh, so I apologize for interrupting.

• 34:02Whitney Cummings?

  No, no, that's super, uh, I love that.

• 34:05Tim Ferriss?

  The.

• 34:08Tim Ferriss?

  I want to come back to one thing you mentioned, which is, actually, before I do that. So was there a particular breaking point where you're like, I need to address this?

• 34:17Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, and again, I wish I had, I wish I lied more, actually. I probably should lie into your response to this question. I got pneumonia and I didn't notice. And it got really bad and turned into something called Costco chondritis.

• 34:36Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds bad.

• 34:36Whitney Cummings?

  Which is, you get it at Costco. The good news is it's really affordable. And it's, basically, the infection from the pneumonia gets in the muscles of your chest, which is called pleurisy, which people got in like the Civil War. I mean, it's like, nobody gets this. Like, you have to go so long without taking care of it.

• 34:59Whitney Cummings?

  Polio. It's like, and then it gets, inflames the cartilage under your rib cage, so it starts to just sort of, your chest is really sore. And essentially, I just wasn't taking care of myself because I was so busy. I mean, I was sleeping like four hours a night and was in, had to be in every meeting and every editing session. And when I rewriting, I was writing four scripts at a time and I was just super overextended. I had some family things happen. My mom had a stroke. I had a family member going to rehab and I just had no concept of boundaries. And you can't give what you don't have. I was the queen of giving everything away. All my energy, all my time, all my money, all my, you know, I was like, I would cook a five course meal for you, but then I wouldn't eat dinner, you know? And so I think, you know, I had this doctor say to me, you know, he's like, you're killing yourself.

• 35:44Whitney Cummings?

  You know, like, you really like, need to figure out a way to be healthier. Because, and that's when I kind of learned about neurology and stress and cortisol and adrenaline and epinephrine and how damaging they can be on your body. And, you know, I was like, I'm 27 and I have three jobs. This is awesome. But then it's all fun and games until, you know.

• 36:04Tim Ferriss?

  Until it's not.

• 36:04Whitney Cummings?

  Until, yeah, you have leprosy.

• 36:08Tim Ferriss?

  Till your lungs

• 36:09Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:10Tim Ferriss?

  Fall out of your armpits.

• 36:11Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, like I just

• 36:11Tim Ferriss?

  It's all fun and games.

• 36:12Whitney Cummings?

  I just remember being like, and I think that to that point, I remember, you know, being at the doctor and having this realization because, you know, I grew up on Roseanne and Mad About You and Three's Company and like these like multicams and I love comedy, I love comedians. I remember being like, I'm living my dream at 27. I have everything I wanted for my whole life and I'm not enjoying it. I'm at the doctor and I have pneumonia and I'm like, you know, managing people's egos instead of just like having a great time.

• 36:40Tim Ferriss?

  What's allowed you, or what are the things, and this comes back to something you said about being very, very good at some things and very, very, very bad at others. And I'd be curious to know what you think the factors or beliefs or behaviors were that allowed you to get to that point at 27. I mean, a lot of people will say, holy shit, that's really young. How would you get to that point from a success standpoint professionally?

• 37:10Whitney Cummings?

  Right.

• 37:10Tim Ferriss?

  What were the things that contributed to that?

• 37:12Whitney Cummings?

  That got me to success?

• 37:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Whitney Cummings?

  I failed so many times and wasn't deterred by it. I, for whatever reason, saw failure as practice instead of as the end, the finish line, you know?

• 37:26Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:26Whitney Cummings?

  If that is, makes any sense, like

• 37:28Tim Ferriss?

  That makes sense.

• 37:29Whitney Cummings?

  I wrote three pilots before anyone even read a pilot I had written. I

• 37:36Tim Ferriss?

  Now, pilot for those people who are not sort of in the business, that's, is that a single episode on spec?

• 37:42Whitney Cummings?

  It's a single episode of like, basically the first episode of a TV show, which is sort of has to introduce all the characters and it's just a little different than a traditional episode and it has to be introduce the world and be very specific. So I wrote one about the news in 2040. And it was like about a news station and the news in 2040. And it was kind of this apocalyptic take on what the news was going to be like. And the screen was like all covered in ads and all of the newscasters dressed like NASCAR drivers with like brands all over them. And, you know, they, literally every other sentence they said, you know, they'd be like, you know, so Costco's, you know, Cincinnati is 72 degrees. Like every state was sponsored by an ad. It was just kind of a

• 38:27Whitney Cummings?

  ridiculous, sort of hyperbolic, sort of

• 38:31Whitney Cummings?

  Thing and sort of about, you know, there's a drought and there's no water and it was like 180 degrees out.

• 38:38Tim Ferriss?

  Which may end up not being far from the truth.

• 38:40Whitney Cummings?

  It might just be a documentary. So I, and everyone thought that was kind of insane and, and no one really read it. And then I wrote, um, one that was, uh, based on this book called, um, uh, uh, it was about something about, it was like a psychology book. I think it was called, uh, the, uh, I don't remember, but it was about the 14 different kinds of personalities, you know?

• 39:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 39:04Whitney Cummings?

  And, uh, and I wrote about three sisters that had the same mother, but three different fathers and how those three different personality types produce different sort of girls.

• 39:13Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 39:13Whitney Cummings?

  And their relationship. Fox didn't pick that up. I wrote, um, a pilot for Comedy Central, uh, which I still today, till today, I think is the best thing I've ever written. It was about, it was based on me and about a, a just me, uh, falling in love with a guy who's in AA and he can't date anyone outside of AA. So I pretend to be an alcoholic to get in his life. And I go to AA and pretend I'm getting sober to like get in his life. And then I fake a relapse in, to get his attention in the pilot and then have to like drink all, and then actually become an alcoholic. It's this really ridiculous premise. And, uh, and they didn't pick that up, but that's what Michael Patrick King read that

• 39:57Whitney Cummings?

  made him interested in me to write two books with him. So everything that I, and then I wrote a spec for a pilot that didn't even go, that was Dane Cook's pilot or something. So I was just constantly, you know, I see.

• 40:09Tim Ferriss?

  Back at the wheel, back at the wheel.

• 40:10Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. I see comedy in writing like med school. It's like, this is the only profession where people think they should be famous and be making millions of dollars two years in. It's like doctors go to med school for 10 years, 12 years. Like, it's not that different.

• 40:21Tim Ferriss?

  That's really interesting. I had, uh, Adam Gazali, who's a neuroscientist at UCSF on the podcast and he was like, I was in school for 18 years.

• 40:29Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 40:30Tim Ferriss?

  And it's just like, wow.

• 40:31Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 40:31Tim Ferriss?

  That is.

• 40:32Whitney Cummings?

  I have comedians come up to me now, cause with YouTube and how famous everyone gets so fast or some visibility, which I think is great, the democratization of comedy and entertainment, but people like three years in are like, I just, I'm working on a sitcom and I don't have an agent. And I'm like, You should, in six years, we'll talk.

• 40:50Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 40:50Whitney Cummings?

  Get good and then we'll talk. There's this entitlement now of I have 10 minutes of jokes and like, where's my sitcom?

• 40:57Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 40:58Whitney Cummings?

  You know, it's like, it's like a doctor going to school for two years and being like, I think I'm ready to operate. It's like, no, like, I'll see you in 10 years.

• 41:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, there's a, there's an expression in, I think I'm getting this right, in Japanese, it's just like, hiyasi samayasu, which is like, gets hot eas- well, that which gets hot easily gets cold easily. But I mean, it's, it's, it's usually referred to people who find a passion that they're really excited about, and they go all in and then quickly drop it, which is kind of, I guess, my entire business model. But the, the, I think that can be applied to so many different industries and skillsets. And so, for instance, I get asked all the time, because I've written a handful of books that have, that have done decently well, how do I hit the bestseller list? And my point is, you can game hitting the bestseller list.

• 41:49Tim Ferriss?

  You cannot game staying on the bestseller list. And the latter should, the latter should be your focus. And they're like, well, how should I market my book? And I'm like, it starts with writing a good book. Because that is how you sort of perpetuate the popularity and get the word of mouth. And I think it's, it's, I mean, that's a sort of a content.

• 42:09Whitney Cummings?

  Cause the lesson you want is to make the bestseller list and everyone really, yeah, it wasn't that good.

• 42:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 42:13Whitney Cummings?

  You know, cause that's like the hype syndrome of like.

• 42:15Tim Ferriss?

  And then it drops off. And I think that if you haven't built that foundation, it's very hard to have any sustained success. Which is why certain people like, I mean, Justin Bieber, very impressive, that he came out of that sort of YouTube.

• 42:28Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 42:28Tim Ferriss?

  Farming, you know, scout, scouting area and has been able to sustain it as long as he has. I mean, granted, I'm sure he's dealt with his own.

• 42:35Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 42:36Tim Ferriss?

  His own stuff, but.

• 42:38Whitney Cummings?

  No one should be famous at 20. Can you imagine if you were famous at 20?

• 42:41Tim Ferriss?

  No.

• 42:41Whitney Cummings?

  The things you did when you, and by the way.

• 42:43Tim Ferriss?

  My judgment, my judgment was bad enough.

• 42:44Whitney Cummings?

  Imagine you at 20 with $50 million.

• 42:47Tim Ferriss?

  Well, right. It's kind of like, take every bad decision and pour gasoline on it.

• 42:50Whitney Cummings?

  If I had been, had $50 million at 20, so many people would be dead. Horrible things about that.

• 42:58Tim Ferriss?

  When you do your best writing, whether that's the pilot that you mentioned that involves AA or anything else, when you do your best writing, what does the process look like? When you look back at like the best stuff you've done, what contributed to that writing?

• 43:18Whitney Cummings?

  It's awful.

• 43:20Tim Ferriss?

  It's awful.

• 43:20Whitney Cummings?

  It's awful. Writing is awful.

• 43:22Tim Ferriss?

  I agree with that.

• 43:23Whitney Cummings?

  It's not sexy. It's not glamorous. It's not easy. It's the more I've done it, the harder it's gotten. You know, because you don't want to become a parody of yourself. You don't want to keep, you know, doing the same things. You get sort of disgusted by your own instincts. You know, I've written that joke. I've written that character like, and then, you know, it's gotten a little bit better because my inner monologue is a little bit nicer to me these days. You know, I've worked on that. I've worked on detaching from my negative, beating myself up. But writing is, um, writing's nasty, you know? And, you know, I've also gotten better as I've learned about neurology in terms of like,

• 44:05Whitney Cummings?

  not trying to multitask, not, you know, my internet's cut off when I write. I don't have my phone near me. I don't try to edit and write simultaneously.

• 44:14Tim Ferriss?

  Do you do sort of brainstorming or first drafts on a computer or by hand?

• 44:19Whitney Cummings?

  I am really very meticulous, which I think a lot of people have shame about. A lot of people want to be like, no, I just like, I don't. I'm not like a I don't wing it. I write things out. I'm very dorky. It's note cards. It's, you know, 30 pages of a Word document of just all my thoughts. And then I put my dialogue into, the entire script goes into a Word document before I even open final draft. So I'm pretty much done with it in a Word document. With the dialogue, because I don't like to write in final draft because it's just harder to go back and edit.

• 44:54Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, got it.

• 44:54Whitney Cummings?

  And because writing and editing are two separate parts of the brain, going back and forth is just kinda paralyzes me.

• 45:00Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 45:00Whitney Cummings?

  It's, it's, I'm very easy to, it's very easy for me to collapse. So I really, I just, I think the, the most important thing is just knowing your strengths and weaknesses. So I know that it's hard for me to stay focused if I'm looking at a, a, a final draft document and seeing the names of the characters. I feel like, oh my God, I'm screwing this up. This sucks.

• 45:20Tim Ferriss?

  Too many inputs.

• 45:21Whitney Cummings?

  I like it to suck in Word. So the aesthetic of it is, oh, this is just a rough thing. It doesn't have to be good yet.

• 45:28Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right, right.

• 45:28Whitney Cummings?

  When it's in final draft, I'm like.

• 45:30Tim Ferriss?

  That's interesting. The aesthetic.

• 45:32Whitney Cummings?

  I'm like, oh.

• 45:33Tim Ferriss?

  Makes you feel like it should be better.

• 45:35Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly. When I see the form of final draft, it's like, oh my God, I suck.

• 45:38Tim Ferriss?

  That's really fascinating.

• 45:40Whitney Cummings?

  So I've, I've learned how to sort of like quell my own fears and anxieties. It's a lot of pacing. It's a lot of eating. It's a lot of going on walks. It's a lot of.

• 45:50Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have a set time or did you like when, during these periods where you, where you felt like you put out really good work and that could be now, obviously, but morning, night, middle of the night, coffee, wine, like what's the cocktail look like?

• 46:04Whitney Cummings?

  The whole thing. I do not drink pretty much. When I'm writing, I try not to drink at all because I think since I've started eating so healthy, my body just metabolizes out. I mean, I used to, I'm 32 now. Something happened to me when I turned 30 where I just could not drink the way I used to. I, on my 30th birthday, someone sent me two shots of tequila and I'm pretty competitive. So he's like, I bet you can't drink those faster than me. And I was just like, boom.

• 46:31Tim Ferriss?

  It's like the oldest dude trick in the book.

• 46:35Whitney Cummings?

  I didn't know that.

• 46:37Tim Ferriss?

  No, it's not that I do that, but it's like.

• 46:39Whitney Cummings?

  That's so funny.

• 46:40Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I, I can recognize it. I'm like, oh my God.

• 46:42Whitney Cummings?

  I, I bet you can't take these two roofies faster than me.

• 46:46Tim Ferriss?

  Let's have a roofie eating competition.

• 46:48Whitney Cummings?

  I just was like, and I was like on an empty stomach and literally I woke up in my bed the next morning and I had like 30 missed calls and texts and people were like, did you go home with John Mayer? And I was like, oh my God.

• 46:59Tim Ferriss?

  And you're like, I hope so. I know, I'm kidding. Did anyone get photos?

• 47:03Whitney Cummings?

  I don't even remember seeing John Mayer. I was just like, okay, I, I can never drink tequila again, certainly. But so I'm just like honoring the fact that, okay, I just, I can't be as productive and prolific when I drink. So I don't drink when I'm writing. I wake up, um, I have like 30 minutes online. You know, I, I really try to keep it to like four basic sites.

• 47:24Tim Ferriss?

  What are the, what are the sites?

• 47:26Whitney Cummings?

  I always do Huffington Post. I do Salon. I do Slate.

• 47:30Tim Ferriss?

  Ashley Madison.

• 47:31Whitney Cummings?

  Ashley, Ashley Madison, Laura Ashley, Ashley Madison. Um, and then One Kings Lane, which is like my sort of, you know, um, thing. And Dig sometimes, and it kind of depends what I'm working on. Cause it's also if I'm writing right now, I'm writing a pilot for HBO. That's sort of about gender and, and it's got a lot of science in it. So I'll go to Psychology Today, Jezebel, The Frisky, which are kind of, um,

• 47:58Tim Ferriss?

  The Frisky?

• 47:58Whitney Cummings?

  The Frisky is like a, it's like a website for girls. That's got a lot of like studies and this many women admit to having orgasms and masturbation is good for your health, sort of like edgy.

• 48:11Tim Ferriss?

  It's like Cosmo with some citations?

• 48:13Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 48:15Whitney Cummings?

  Smart Cosmo.

• 48:16Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 48:17Whitney Cummings?

  That's really funny. It's smart Cosmo. And, uh, so if there's anything that's relevant or, you know, and, uh, I'll look at Twitter, you know, I, I sort of follow all the major news things on Twitter. But I, once I get into that, it activates a part of my brain. That's a little too self-conscious and what's everybody else doing?

• 48:35Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 48:36Whitney Cummings?

  So I, I try to not do that because I do know that all of this is an addiction. And I have to sort of keep it under control.

• 48:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 48:42Whitney Cummings?

  I do coffee. I do vitamins.

• 48:45Tim Ferriss?

  How do you do your coffee?

• 48:46Whitney Cummings?

  I do my coffee, um, in a Keurig.

• 48:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Whitney Cummings?

  I do Keurig.

• 48:51Tim Ferriss?

  Keurig, that's a hard one.

• 48:52Whitney Cummings?

  Keurig. I know. I couldn't say, uh, this is, what was it? Desensitization.

• 48:57Tim Ferriss?

  That's a lot of syllables.

• 48:58Whitney Cummings?

  That's bad. I need to do.

• 48:59Tim Ferriss?

  But you did nail up secrets.

• 49:00Whitney Cummings?

  I need, I'm going to do, I did, I hit that one out of the park. Um, I do, uh, with almond milk and this something all natural sugar. I had this woman come in and take all the carcinogens out of my house. So I'm like making my own almond milk like an Amish slave these days. It's really.

• 49:15Tim Ferriss?

  Those Amish slaves make amazing coffee.

• 49:19Whitney Cummings?

  So but I

• 49:20Tim Ferriss?

  As long as they tie those beards back.

• 49:21Whitney Cummings?

  That's right, that's right. And I try not to do too much coffee and then I do a smoothie, which you've heard about, but it's it's like, kind of like everything I need for the day. So I'm not worrying later about what do I should eat for lunch.

• 49:32Tim Ferriss?

  Now, what time are you waking up generally?

• 49:34Whitney Cummings?

  Um, usually about, depending on how late I'm doing shows. Right now I'm touring to get ready for my special. So on the weekends when I am on the road, I'll wake up more like 10 or 11. But when I'm writing, I try, I try to wake up early and and when I was writing a script last year, I would wake up at like 5 a.m. and try to work from like 5 to 9 and go back to sleep. Because isn't that when our brain is the most kind of

• 49:56Tim Ferriss?

  For a lot of people, yeah, it depends. I mean, the of the writers I know who are really prolific and put out good work, it seems like they all, there are a couple of exceptions and I hate them because I can't do what they do, which is like, they're like, oh, yeah, from 1 to 2 p.m. I'll kick out an article.

• 50:11Whitney Cummings?

  No, no.

• 50:12Tim Ferriss?

  Can't do it.

• 50:12Whitney Cummings?

  No.

• 50:13Tim Ferriss?

  These writers, the more common case, I they write when other people are asleep.

• 50:18Whitney Cummings?

  Yep.

• 50:19Tim Ferriss?

  Whether that means staying up really, really late.

• 50:21Whitney Cummings?

  Which I can't do.

• 50:22Tim Ferriss?

  Or waking up really, really early.

• 50:23Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 50:23Tim Ferriss?

  And I was always the night owl version, but

• 50:25Whitney Cummings?

  But yeah, it's great to wake up at 5 a.m. because you're not getting emails, you're not on the mass emails and whatever, you know?

• 50:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Whitney Cummings?

  So I would do that and then go back to sleep.

• 50:34Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 50:35Whitney Cummings?

  Um, which was super helpful because my circadian rhythms are

• 50:37Tim Ferriss?

  How long would you sleep for?

• 50:38Whitney Cummings?

  Um, I, my nap game is pretty strong. I believe very strongly in naps.

• 50:44Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so wait, let's so let's revisit that time period then.

• 50:47Whitney Cummings?

  Okay.

• 50:47Tim Ferriss?

  So you wake up at 5.

• 50:49Whitney Cummings?

  5.

• 50:49Tim Ferriss?

  You do a four hour

• 50:51Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 50:51Tim Ferriss?

  writing session.

• 50:52Whitney Cummings?

  Blitz.

• 50:53Tim Ferriss?

  Blitz.

• 50:53Whitney Cummings?

  Blitz.

• 50:53Tim Ferriss?

  You go back to bed.

• 50:54Whitney Cummings?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:55Tim Ferriss?

  When do you wake up?

• 50:56Whitney Cummings?

  I'll go back to bed at like noon or 1. A lot of times I'll sleep for like 2 hours and then take another nap from like 7 to 8. Because then I'll go do stand up at night.

• 51:08Tim Ferriss?

  Ah.

• 51:08Whitney Cummings?

  So what I usually try to do is break my day into 2 days, like 2 mini days, because I, I, I mean, I don't know how can I, I think a lot of comedians sleep really late, but if I'm going to wake up at 8 and then I have to perform at 10.

• 51:20Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 51:20Whitney Cummings?

  By the time it's 10 o'clock, everyone else is winding down and then all of a sudden I have to be like hilarious and charming. So I'll usually take a nap at like 6 to 7 so that I wake up and like, I'll have a little bit of coffee and then like, go do stand up.

• 51:31Tim Ferriss?

  Game on.

• 51:32Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, game on.

• 51:33Tim Ferriss?

  It's very Arg- very Argentinian. That's what they do in Argentina.

• 51:36Whitney Cummings?

  It is kind of.

• 51:36Tim Ferriss?

  For the, for the Tango. So I lived in Argentina for 9 months and the, in the Tango world, nothing really gets started until 11. O'clock at night or midnight.

• 51:46Whitney Cummings?

  I don't know how people do that.

• 51:47Tim Ferriss?

  And so people would do exactly what you're describing.

• 51:50Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 51:51Tim Ferriss?

  The, okay, got it. So then during that four hour blitz, you wake up. Are you still doing the 30 minutes of internet in the beginning?

• 52:02Whitney Cummings?

  I guess I do. Yeah, I'll do it in the morning.

• 52:04Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 52:05Whitney Cummings?

  To me, that's always my, I, because I know how many interests we all have and how many priorities we have. So it's, we want to know what the news is. We want to put nutrients in our body. We want to connect with our parents or loved ones or whatever it is. So I'll try to get that all done as early as possible. So it's not looming over me all day. So it's like, if I've just checked all the news, okay, I know everything.

• 52:28Tim Ferriss?

  Checkbox.

• 52:29Whitney Cummings?

  That I checkbox. I have my smoothie with all my nutrients in it checkbox.

• 52:32Tim Ferriss?

  Can you, now, I know during the sound, the, the sound check, which was spectacular. I made a solemn promise not to use that. So could you elaborate on the smoothie?

• 52:42Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. Okay. So I, um, uh, this woman, uh, her name is Lori Cohen Peters. She's pretty amazing and she comes to your house and tells you everything in your house that's killing you. Basically your cleaners, your food. I mean, I thought, I was like going to, um, this super all natural grocery store. And she literally, I mean, I had almond milk and hummus and raw enema. I mean, I think I'm nailing it, right? And literally I'm like, this one's going to come over and I'm going to get a refund. She opens and she looks at me like, like horrified. And she was like, you're eating this? And I was like, what almond milk? She's like, it's full of leithsin and blah, blah, blah. So, cause I was also having some trouble with, um, at my energy level.

• 53:23Whitney Cummings?

  And my liver was a little inflamed and I wasn't converting folic acid properly. There was like a couple of things that were up. And, uh, so she put this smoothie together for me that it's, uh, uh, kale, of course. Vegetable of the hour, the zeitgeist vegetable. I was in Savannah like two weeks ago and someone was like, are you eating kale? And I was like, kale's officially made it. It's in Savannah. People know about kale. It's officially, it's officially in the zeitgeist. It's kale, carrots, kiwi, raspberries, avocado, olive oil, flax oil, some kind of green powder. And then we put all my sort of pills in there.

• 54:07Whitney Cummings?

  Which is like adrenal support, cod liver oil.

• 54:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, good stuff.

• 54:13Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, that's good. No mercury, vitamin K, alpaloic.

• 54:19Tim Ferriss?

  Alpaloic acid.

• 54:20Whitney Cummings?

  Okay, thank you. Desensitization.

• 54:26Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, I think, oh, CoQ10. And I think that is maybe

• 54:33Tim Ferriss?

  That's plenty.

• 54:33Whitney Cummings?

  Like 2% of the.

• 54:34Tim Ferriss?

  That's 2% of it.

• 54:37Tim Ferriss?

  And then we actually make the shake.

• 54:38Whitney Cummings?

  And then we add the ingredients.

• 54:40Tim Ferriss?

  Right, that's step one.

• 54:42Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And, um.

• 54:46Whitney Cummings?

  So then I feel released of like, okay, I can kind of eat whatever I want all day and I've gotten everything I needed because I could be so, I don't know if this is the case for you. If I need somebody to be done, I can't stop thinking about it until it's been accomplished. So I just have to do it right away. I can't be like, oh, eat a healthy dinner because then I'll just like worry about it.

• 55:03Tim Ferriss?

  Obsess on it. Have it on loop.

• 55:05Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, so I know my limitations and I try to just.

• 55:08Tim Ferriss?

  And so, so let's take, uh, if you think, well, let me ask a couple of kind of rapid fire questions, just for people who want to get more familiar with your stuff. So if, if you could recommend that someone listen, listen or watch five minutes of your material of your stuff, five to 10, let's just say, what would you point them to?

• 55:31Whitney Cummings?

  I would first tell you to put your kids away.

• 55:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Whitney Cummings?

  Um, I would point them to my last standup special, uh, as you can see on my arm. It's called I Love You. It's part of the advertising campaign.

• 55:46Whitney Cummings?

  And I would, I would just do the first five minutes of my last special.

• 55:52Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 55:52Whitney Cummings?

  The first or the last, first five minutes or the last five minutes.

• 55:55Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. So if we, if we take a look then at the first five minutes, and I don't want to give away any secret sauce necessarily, or the punchline, literally, I guess, but if, if we look at that, where did it start? Like, what was the, the kind of development process of one of the?

• 56:13Whitney Cummings?

  First five minutes?

• 56:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Or of like one of the bits, if that's the right word.

• 56:17Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 56:18Tim Ferriss?

  In those five minutes, like where did it, where did it come from or, or, uh, I'd love to just kind of track the

• 56:23Whitney Cummings?

  Sure.

• 56:24Tim Ferriss?

  The growth and development of that idea.

• 56:26Whitney Cummings?

  Came from. Pain.

• 56:28Tim Ferriss?

  Uh huh.

• 56:28Whitney Cummings?

  It came, my stand up is, um, always comes from, uh, sublimating or alchemizing really painful situations into figuring out how to make it funny.

• 56:40Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 56:40Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, and so I went, I was in a sort of really codependent, unhealthy relationship.

• 56:45Tim Ferriss?

  I'm gonna ask you an embarrassing question.

• 56:46Whitney Cummings?

  No.

• 56:47Tim Ferriss?

  What does codependent mean?

• 56:48Whitney Cummings?

  Codependent, there's actually.

• 56:49Tim Ferriss?

  I've heard it used a lot and I'd never been a hundred percent clear.

• 56:52Whitney Cummings?

  That's actually a great, uh, question because most people use it wrong. Most people think codependence means spending a lot of time with people or I can't be alone or whatever, which could be an element of it. Codependence is essentially that you look to other people to decide how you're feeling. So I go up, Tim's in a bad mood. Uh, okay, now I'm in a bad mood. It's like essentially you're a reactive person and you put other people's needs before your own.

• 57:13Tim Ferriss?

  I got it. All right.

• 57:14Whitney Cummings?

  It's basically that. So, you know, I have a doctor's appointment. Tim asked me to drive him to the airport. I'm gonna drive you to the airport.

• 57:19Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 57:20Whitney Cummings?

  And I'm gonna forego my doctor's appointment.

• 57:21Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 57:22Whitney Cummings?

  Your comfort comes first, essentially.

• 57:23Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 57:23Whitney Cummings?

  And it usually, codependence breeds resentment.

• 57:26Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 57:26Whitney Cummings?

  So I'm gonna do this for you and then two weeks later, you're five minutes late. And I'm like, well, I drove you to the airport. And you're like, well, I didn't want you to. You offered.

• 57:33Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 57:33Whitney Cummings?

  You martyr yourself, essentially.

• 57:35Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 57:35Whitney Cummings?

  Um, which is, it's pretty nefarious because you're, uh, masquerading as really kinda nice. So everyone, when I was in the height of my, my codependent glory days, uh, I was like the nice person who would help you move and I'd pay for the bill. And I was like the nicest person, yet people pleasing is a form of asshorey. So then I was like annoyed at everybody for not taking better care of me.

• 58:02Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 58:02Whitney Cummings?

  And keeping score of all the, you know, it's not a truly nice thing if you're expecting something in return.

• 58:06Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 58:07Whitney Cummings?

  You know, so it's just a way to victimize yourself.

• 58:09Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 58:10Whitney Cummings?

  And a way to, um, like, I don't know if you've ever dated someone like this or had an employee like this, or someone that does nice things for you and then gets mad at you for not receiving the gifts the way they wanted you to have them.

• 58:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 58:20Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, which is a way for, you're like, you just started this fight.

• 58:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:25Whitney Cummings?

  And made me a jerk.

• 58:26Tim Ferriss?

  Don't do me a favor I didn't ask for and then lord it over me.

• 58:28Whitney Cummings?

  I just made you a four course meal. It's like, I didn't ask you to do any of those things. Why are you, you know, and then you get mad when they don't appreciate it the way you want them to.

• 58:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 58:37Whitney Cummings?

  So codependence breeds resentment. So, but it's a tricky thing to catch and recover from because again, your story is I'm just being nice.

• 58:44Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 58:45Whitney Cummings?

  Um, so I was kind of in a, in a relationship like that, uh, With someone that sort of recreated my childhood circumstances. So it just felt familiar and um, I yeah, so that's the answer to that. But I can't remember.

• 59:00Tim Ferriss?

  The material, the bit in the five minutes. And so you pull it from your painful experiences.

• 59:04Whitney Cummings?

  So I had all this rage after I got out of it. Not rage, but just sort of like I was disrespected in a relationship and I just took like, you know, for I, I, I, the reason I think I'm proud of that first five minutes is because that was my sort of more, I think getting your heart broken is really important. If you're an artist, I encourage you to get your heart broken, get hurt, fall on your face, make mistakes, um, thaw the ice, break through the defenses and get vulnerable. Because I think that there's a difference between getting your heart broken and getting your heart broken open. And when it gets broken open, you know, you can really, that's where the meat is. That's where, that's where you write great characters. That's how you get vulnerable. And it's important because I think comedians,

• 59:49Whitney Cummings?

  we pride ourselves on how tough we are.

• 59:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 59:52Whitney Cummings?

  But, you know, we're porcupines. Under there, it's all marshmallow. Just get to the marshmallow because that's where the gold is. I promise, if you just tell the truth and get your heart broken as a comedian, you will have a house.

• 1:00:03Tim Ferriss?

  That's, that's, that's a cool way to put it.

• 1:00:05Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. So I think maybe in a lot of professions, being tough is what's valued in comedy being weak. It's like power through vulnerability.

• 1:00:13Tim Ferriss?

  The um, uh, the speech that brings to mind for me is a commencement speech by a writer I really admire named Neil.

• 1:00:21Whitney Cummings?

  Neil Gaiman. Love him.

• 1:00:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Make good art, right? Cat exploded, make good art. This happened, make good art. And uh, I think I'm quoting him correctly. This is paraphrased, of course, but.

• 1:00:32Whitney Cummings?

  I think I know that knew that you liked him because on one of your podcasts, you brought him up before.

• 1:00:36Tim Ferriss?

  I'm a big fan.

• 1:00:37Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37Tim Ferriss?

  I'm a bit of a fan.

• 1:00:37Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, I like him.

• 1:00:38Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, yeah, a bit of a fan is like understatement of the podcast. Uh, but he, um, amazing guy too. I met him for the first time, uh, in SF, very briefly. And I'd heard his audiobook. So it was extremely surreal to hear him sound so erudite and extremely British in person. And I was like, am I listening to an audiobook right now? This is amazing. And but the line was something along the lines, I'm saying lines a lot.

• 1:01:05Tim Ferriss?

  I'm on the line, on the line theme. But he said, when you start to feel extremely uncomfortable, like you're walking down the street naked, then maybe you're starting to get it right.

• 1:01:16Whitney Cummings?

  Love it. Love it. Oh, that's so great. That's my favorite.

• 1:01:20Tim Ferriss?

  And when I put out, I've experienced that in my own writing where I'll spend a disgusting amount of time on a given blog post, let's say, that I think is going to kill it.

• 1:01:29Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Tim Ferriss?

  And it just flops, or it's just crickets. And then when I have that extreme discomfort, and I hesitate drafting it, and I hesitate publishing it, those are almost always the pieces that do the best. So even outside of comedy, in writing, I find that to be true.

• 1:01:49Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so you have, so you take this pain.

• 1:01:51Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:52Tim Ferriss?

  Did you, did you take notes on the pain as you were experiencing it? Or did you recall it in one of your writing sessions?

• 1:02:01Whitney Cummings?

  I remember.

• 1:02:01Tim Ferriss?

  And put down the bones?

• 1:02:02Whitney Cummings?

  I remember actually, and this might be cheating a little bit, and, or not cheating, but I actually remember sharing in an Al-Anon meeting, something that was really hurt my feelings. And I was like, and then he did this, then he did this. And people started laughing. And I was like, is this like, and I realized, oh, my God, this is funny because it's happened to other people.

• 1:02:28Tim Ferriss?

  Ah.

• 1:02:28Whitney Cummings?

  And people are relating and it's resonating. And when you tell the truth about your embarrassing moments and show your shadow, catharsis happens, which is what laughter is, which is people go, me too, you know? So it was basically like, I was like, the whole premise of that first five minutes was, what does love mean? Because I feel like my whole life, love has been a very, I think, just in our culture in general, love is a very confusing, vague, manipulative. Word, right? And, um, you know, this is why I love working with animals so much is that you only, um, communicate through behavior, not through words, because words can be so confusing. Words mean something different to everybody, you know?

• 1:03:06Tim Ferriss?

  And they have no thumbs, so they can't get, they can't open your doors, steal your stuff.

• 1:03:10Whitney Cummings?

  That's true, that's true. They can't read your blog and say, this wasn't as good as the last one. They just love, they're your biggest fan. Um, and, uh, and so love, I, I, I kept being in these difficult relationships where it was always like, but I love you, but I love you. And then it was like, it would just undermine all of the bad behavior. And I feel like I was, you know, the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. I was like, I keep, I kept justifying being in bad relationships because of this vague, amorphous thing called love, which I was like, so love means you hate, I love you means I hate you, basically. Like, I just was, so I was like, we need to all agree on a universal definition. I think that was my sort of solution. I was like, we should, because I see so many people getting hurt and disappointed because their definitions

• 1:03:54Whitney Cummings?

  are different. And then I sort of laid out what I think my definition of love is, and it should be very simple. I'm not gonna like be hacky and do the bit, but it was like, I, I was like, my definition of love is being willing to die for someone that you yourself want to kill.

• 1:04:11Whitney Cummings?

  That, in my experience, is kind of the deal. And, uh, and if you love me, don't do these 10 things that I had been through. Like, if I'm in the shower with you, don't pee. It was like, stuff like that. Like, is that so much to ask? Like, things like that. Like, and I just listed all of my grievances. And I was like, it's so great to be able to, um, you know, that is what is great about comedy, is every time something bad happens, I'm now conditioned to go like, oh, this is gonna be a great joke. So, everything that sucks ends up being a gift somehow. Like, um, when I first had money, like, I grew up without any money, and I, uh, got a car, like, seven years ago, maybe it was, I got my first car that I paid for myself. It was a Lexus Hybrid,

• 1:04:55Whitney Cummings?

  and the first day I got it, I filled it up with diesel fuel.

• 1:05:00Whitney Cummings?

  And

• 1:05:01Tim Ferriss?

  So I assume, yeah, not the right thing to do.

• 1:05:03Whitney Cummings?

  Just destroyed it. I mean, it costs like six grand or so. It was awful. And I got this great joke out of it, though. I got like a seven minute bit that, you know, probably paid for all the damage, you know. So now I'm in this place where when something bad happens, I'm like, oh, good, I can use that.

• 1:05:16Tim Ferriss?

  Material. This is good material.

• 1:05:18Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly. So that is

• 1:05:19Tim Ferriss?

  Organic.

• 1:05:19Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, is the upside of being a comedian.

• 1:05:23Tim Ferriss?

  And, um, I was going to dig a little bit further into that. Uh, but maybe I can take a step back. I was looking on Wikipedia, which as we all know is

• 1:05:35Whitney Cummings?

  Always

• 1:05:36Tim Ferriss?

  Always 100% factual, factual. But it said genres, observational comedy, blue comedy, insult comedy.

• 1:05:44Whitney Cummings?

  Oh.

• 1:05:45Tim Ferriss?

  And I wasn't sure what blue comedy was, quite frankly. The other ones seemed a little more straightforward. What is blue comedy?

• 1:05:51Whitney Cummings?

  Blue comedy, um, I mean, I take, uh, offense to that. It's kind of, I, it's not

• 1:06:00Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not saying it's true. I don't even know what it is.

• 1:06:01Whitney Cummings?

  To me, because, and I'll tell you, blue comedy is thought of as like dirty cop, edgy comedy, you know, and

• 1:06:08Tim Ferriss?

  Dirty, edgy, like

• 1:06:09Whitney Cummings?

  Dirty, edgy.

• 1:06:09Tim Ferriss?

  Dan Carlin, uh,

• 1:06:10Whitney Cummings?

  George Carlin.

• 1:06:11Tim Ferriss?

  George Carlin. Dan Carlin's a podcaster I idolize.

• 1:06:14Whitney Cummings?

  Oh.

• 1:06:14Tim Ferriss?

  Hardcore history. George Carlin.

• 1:06:16Whitney Cummings?

  George Carlin, but it's tricky because it's like, what is, again, what is love? The definition of love? What is the definition of dirty? So for me, it's like, if you're talking about doing airplane jokes, but using curse words, is that dirty? Or is talking about sex without curse words dirty? Kind of, you know what I mean? What's dirty to you? And in our sort of puritanical society where sex is still this really taboo, uncomfortable thing, it's so interesting to me because it's like, I do talk about, I don't talk about sex. Like it's, I just talk about my personal experiences and my confusion because to me, sex is about power dynamics and it's about masculinity and femininity and, um, and just so many primal things. And it fascinates me because I think we think we have so much more choice than we actually do in a lot of this stuff. And it causes the most of

• 1:07:00Whitney Cummings?

  us the most amount of pain of any other thing in our lives.

• 1:07:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03Whitney Cummings?

  I mean, You know, being cheated on or being in love and getting heartbroken. I mean, this is like, I mean, every movie plot, every where every, all the money is spent on Valentine's is all about this. So to me, it's like, how can anything be more relevant? So the fact that I talk about sex and someone calls it blue, I'm like, this is all anybody cares about. Why is this still taboo?

• 1:07:22Tim Ferriss?

  Why blue?

• 1:07:24Whitney Cummings?

  Blue. Oh, good question. Like in terms of why is blue? Cause blue is usually the symbol more for sadness. Oh, yeah. Blue comedy. That's a good, I don't know.

• 1:07:35Tim Ferriss?

  I will look that up.

• 1:07:36Whitney Cummings?

  That's an interesting ideological, ideological conundrum. Ideology?

• 1:07:42Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, not sure.

• 1:07:43Whitney Cummings?

  The, the, the words, words?

• 1:07:46Tim Ferriss?

  Uh.

• 1:07:47Whitney Cummings?

  The study of words?

• 1:07:48Tim Ferriss?

  Morphological?

• 1:07:49Whitney Cummings?

  Oh.

• 1:07:50Tim Ferriss?

  There we go.

• 1:07:50Whitney Cummings?

  Now you're pushing it.

• 1:07:51Tim Ferriss?

  No, no.

• 1:07:52Whitney Cummings?

  I said obsequious. Let's not forget that.

• 1:07:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's true. I was an East Asian Studies major, so I can pull out the linguistics words every once in a while. Uh, morphological. I haven't probably ever used that in a spoken language before. Uh, so, okay, that's blue.

• 1:08:06Whitney Cummings?

  That's blue.

• 1:08:07Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, let's talk about insult comedy. So, uh, you've done roasts before, participated in roasts. Which, which roasts, what are some roasts that you've participated in?

• 1:08:19Whitney Cummings?

  I did Joan Rivers, I did David Hasselhoff, I did, uh, Donald Trump. And now roasts are, I mean, just if.

• 1:08:29Tim Ferriss?

  Those seem like treasure troves of material.

• 1:08:32Whitney Cummings?

  Well, it's interesting because whenever someone thinks that, that is always a trap because.

• 1:08:37Tim Ferriss?

  Because it's too obvious.

• 1:08:38Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, it's too obvious. So Donald Trump, everyone's gonna do hair jokes, the first comic's gonna do all the hair jokes. So by the time I go up six, I have to have some other angle that nobody's even.

• 1:08:46Tim Ferriss?

  You have to think of like the butterfly effect.

• 1:08:48Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, exactly. So I.

• 1:08:50Tim Ferriss?

  We start with the hair, but we're gonna end up.

• 1:08:51Whitney Cummings?

  For the, you know, Russian mail order bride, wife. I have to go to like a totally different angle or, you know, you're.

• 1:08:57Tim Ferriss?

  Went straight for the pick of the nuts.

• 1:08:59Whitney Cummings?

  So I, totally, I've gotta go to this like weird angle and, you know, Joan Rivers, everyone's gonna go after the same thing and, and, um, and David Hasselhoff was actually kind of tricky because he's just more of a general, he's just silly, you know? Like what, like what, you know, so the angle on him was tricky to get, but then there's a ton of other people on the dais too. I did that in, in early. So I was a writer on the roasts before I was a performer on the roasts and, um. You know, I think it's tricky because I guess I get defensive around that because maybe I have some shame. Because I do feel like they've gotten really mean.

• 1:09:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:33Whitney Cummings?

  And the way that roasts originated was actually the Friars Club roast, which is a bunch of comedians roasting other comedians.

• 1:09:39Tim Ferriss?

  Friars Club.

• 1:09:40Whitney Cummings?

  Friars Club, yeah, in New York. And it was all comedians roasting other comedians. It wasn't comedians roasting.

• 1:09:46Tim Ferriss?

  Non comedians.

• 1:09:46Whitney Cummings?

  Comedians are very different than

• 1:09:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:48Whitney Cummings?

  normal people. Their, their brain chemistry is different, their amygdala is different, their, I mean, it's I have this theory that comedians should not be let out in public. They're dangerous. They're like

• 1:10:00Tim Ferriss?

  Armed and dangerous.

• 1:10:01Whitney Cummings?

  Armed and they're just not safe. I mean, it took me a

• 1:10:03Tim Ferriss?

  Silver tongued.

• 1:10:04Whitney Cummings?

  It do.

• 1:10:05Tim Ferriss?

  Maladjusted.

• 1:10:06Whitney Cummings?

  It just took me a long time to realize you can't talk to regular, well-adjusted people the same way you talk to comedians because we're like, hey asshole, what's up? And we just make fun of each other and that's sort of, it's not healthy, but that's sort of how we show love to each other. Is that we rip each other and make fun of each other. And, uh, you know, and it's, it's, it's funny because actually you'll know this is that, you know, Brian Callen, which is how I know you, which you met him on, what was it? Thrupple Tinder?

• 1:10:30Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, uh, yes. We, well, we first connected. It was, it was, uh, it was very funny. First we met on Grindr.

• 1:10:37Tim Ferriss?

  And there, most of his photos did not involve his face. And then, uh, then we met again on Thrinder, which is Tinder for threesomes.

• 1:10:46Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:47Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, finally we're like, you know, not that attracted to each other, but we share a lot in common.

• 1:10:52Whitney Cummings?

  Let's just

• 1:10:52Tim Ferriss?

  Let's go read some comic books and drink some coffee and be friends. Uh, I actually don't know, I don't recall how I first met Brian. I, this is like a common issue for me.

• 1:11:00Whitney Cummings?

  He just sort of creeps into your life in a very insidious way.

• 1:11:04Tim Ferriss?

  It's like mildew.

• 1:11:04Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, he's like mildew or like an STD. He shows up, you don't know why, and you just spend the rest of your life trying to get rid of him.

• 1:11:12Whitney Cummings?

  So I remember him, you know, he and, uh, Brendan have a podcast, which I think you've done.

• 1:11:17Tim Ferriss?

  Fighter and the Kid, great show.

• 1:11:18Whitney Cummings?

  And I remember going on the podcast and Callen and I, I was just, we were trashing each other. I mean, it was like, Bad. I mean, and then Brendan, who's not a comedian, and I'm trashing him.

• 1:11:30Tim Ferriss?

  He's just like, what the fuck are you guys doing?

• 1:11:31Whitney Cummings?

  And I know, and he's like, are you guys in a fight? I mean, it like, it does look awful. And then I'm sort of treating Brendan the same way. And Brendan was like so insulted and upset. And I was just, I was like, oh my God, like, sorry, it's a completely different language. So the roasts again initiated with comedians roasting comedians. And then when it got on Comedy Central, all of a sudden they start bringing in like Pamela Anderson. And, you know, just these perfectly nice people with feelings who aren't numb to the core and who aren't sociopaths.

• 1:12:02Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:12:02Whitney Cummings?

  And so when you start mixing that, that's when it started getting, you start seeing people getting their feelings hurt and, you know. And also, again, comedians actually are more sensitive than anyone. So when you start having people who aren't comedians making fun of us, it's like, oh no, you haven't earned the right.

• 1:12:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you don't have your stripes.

• 1:12:17Whitney Cummings?

  Jeff Ross can call me a whore. You can't call me a whore. It's like all of a sudden we have these boundaries.

• 1:12:21Tim Ferriss?

  Well, that's, well, that's, it's funny you mention that because it's like, I am okay. There was this piece in the New York Times, which was a, uh, sort of, it, it wasn't a takedown piece because it was too funny. It was a, like a parody piece, uh, related to Four Hour Body. And the guy was like, it's like the, the New England, uh, what would he say? It was like the, uh, New England Journal of Health or something like that was hijacked by the Sky Mall catalog or whatever. And it was like, actually very funny stuff. Didn't bother me at all.

• 1:12:48Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:48Tim Ferriss?

  But then there's someone who tries to be funny, but is not a good writer, who slams me. And I'm like, no, no, no. If you're gonna do it, yeah, if you're gonna do it, do it well.

• 1:12:57Whitney Cummings?

  I always say, uh, in order for a roast joke to work, it has to be funnier than it is mean.

• 1:13:02Tim Ferriss?

  Ah.

• 1:13:02Whitney Cummings?

  So if it's not funnier than it is mean, it's always gonna bomb. So it's like you're walking this tight rope of like, if you're gonna make an AIDS joke, that better be an A plus joke. If you make a C AIDS joke, you get a boo. If you make an A plus, which is sort of what I like. Excuse me, I'm getting attacked by bugs. Um, something that I loved about the roast is sort of the math of it. Cause those jokes are all math jokes, you know, which I think.

• 1:13:22Tim Ferriss?

  What do you think about that?

• 1:13:24Whitney Cummings?

  Adding and subtracting a word can completely change the response. They're basically tight cat skills jokes. For example, one of my favorite jokes, because I won't say my own jokes because that would be narcissistic and give me shame. So I'll say one of my favorite roast comedians, Jeff, the late Greg Giraldo. He had a joke for Ice T once. He said, Ice T, you're so old, you used your first residual check to buy your freedom, which is just a brilliant joke. But it's all math, you know? It's just set up, turn, you know? Those were the kind of jokes that, you know, we do with the roasts where it's like if you did, any other word combination would not be as funny.

• 1:14:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:03Whitney Cummings?

  You know, you change one word. I remember some more, I wrote this joke that was, it's a horrible, really dark joke. But I said, it was a Flavor Flav roast. I was right around that. And it was, the joke was Flav, you look like what Magic Johnson should look like right now.

• 1:14:23Whitney Cummings?

  So I wrote that joke and she delivered it in a way that it bombed. She was like, you look like how Magic Johnson should be looking right now.

• 1:14:34Tim Ferriss?

  Just too many words, like three extra words. It's not sharp. It's a dull knife.

• 1:14:38Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, I love the economy of words. You could take two words out. It's the difference between laughing and applause break.

• 1:14:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Whitney Cummings?

  So that kind of stuff is.

• 1:14:45Tim Ferriss?

  I feel like Twitter is good training for that.

• 1:14:48Whitney Cummings?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 1:14:49Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, and I've, I've been astonished when I've tried to draft something and I'm like, god damn it. You know, negative 23, red. And I'm like, oh.

• 1:14:57Whitney Cummings?

  How do I get that?

• 1:14:57Tim Ferriss?

  But I want to keep it, I want to keep it. And then I trim it down and I'm like, it's so much better.

• 1:15:00Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, concision is.

• 1:15:01Tim Ferriss?

  So much better.

• 1:15:02Whitney Cummings?

  Yep, 100%. So I love, that is sort of something I loved about the roast. Ultimately, you know, I think that roasts, I think it's important to know when to, to stop doing something. You know, one of my favorite Steve Jobs things is what I don't make is just as important as what I do make.

• 1:15:18Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:15:18Whitney Cummings?

  Right? Like what you say no to is just as, has just as big of an impact on your career. So I did three of them and it felt like. You know, that was, I was getting known as the roast girl and I was getting known as this insult, mean insult comic, and I'm not like that at all. I'm like this super fragile, sort of scared person and I would have, I'd be in the airport and someone would be like, "Hey cunt," and I'd be like, "Whoa, it's two o'clock on a Tuesday."

• 1:15:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:41Whitney Cummings?

  Like, people just thought they could talk to me like that.

• 1:15:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:43Whitney Cummings?

  And it would really freak me out.

• 1:15:45Tim Ferriss?

  That's crazy.

• 1:15:45Whitney Cummings?

  People would say the words like that to me on the street.

• 1:15:48Tim Ferriss?

  It's so wild. I mean, it's, it's very unusual dynamic, obviously, when you're public facing and people feel like they know you intimately.

• 1:15:55Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:55Tim Ferriss?

  And in some cases, they, they might, right? If they've read all your stuff, watched all your stuff, they actually probably know quite a lot about you. But you can have that type of experience, right? I'll have guys come up to me in the, like, I'll be taking a piss at a urinal and some guy will like, come up and like, give me a slap on the back and start like, kind of breathing into my ear, talking to me as if he's like my buddy from high school.

• 1:16:17Whitney Cummings?

  Speaking of Grindr, yeah.

• 1:16:18Tim Ferriss?

  I have never, yeah, speaking of Grindr. I did, granted, I did respond to that for a good time call on the inside of the bathroom stall.

• 1:16:25Whitney Cummings?

  I was in an airport bathroom.

• 1:16:27Tim Ferriss?

  You know?

• 1:16:27Whitney Cummings?

  Well, I mean-

• 1:16:28Tim Ferriss?

  Which surprised me, especially in the airport. I'm thinking, "Security, the guy must work here." Isn't that a violation of some kind of TSA regulation, but...

• 1:16:35Whitney Cummings?

  It is very interesting because I think, you know, when, it's so rewarding to be able to share the intimate details of your life with people and help people laugh at it, or in your case, help them, you know, with their confidence or their business or their goals or whatever.

• 1:16:49Tim Ferriss?

  Help people laugh at me.

• 1:16:50Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly, people laugh at you. And then to sort of compromise this level of privacy, it's, it's, it's usually okay for me, but I just don't have very thick skin and I, I have this theory that the third thing someone says, a stranger says to you is always an insult. "Hey, such a big fan, love your work. You're so much bigger in person." Because the third one is always their honest re-answer. The first two is just their adulation. So I always try to just get out after the second compliment.

• 1:17:19Tim Ferriss?

  That's really, that's really funny.

• 1:17:21Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:21Tim Ferriss?

  It's very funny. I was listening to, I'm an avid consumer of, of stand-up, deathly afraid of ever doing it. That's, that's something we can maybe talk about, but I think it was, it was either Dimitri Martin or Mitch Hedberg.

• 1:17:35Whitney Cummings?

  Love.

• 1:17:36Tim Ferriss?

  I think, when they're saying, you know, "When I, when I take photos, I like to count to five, because that's when people get real."

• 1:17:43Tim Ferriss?

  Like one, here it's coming. Two is almost here. Three, smile. Four, what? Five, what the fuck? And then they take the photo.

• 1:17:51Whitney Cummings?

  That's great.

• 1:17:52Tim Ferriss?

  So funny.

• 1:17:53Whitney Cummings?

  That sounds like Dimitri.

• 1:17:54Tim Ferriss?

  Oh my god, Dimitri's hilarious.

• 1:17:55Whitney Cummings?

  He is great. He has a lot of great photo jokes. He was, he's like, I love camera phones, because you can reminisce immediately. We were so young.

• 1:18:03Tim Ferriss?

  He has, he has a lot of good wordplay jokes, too. So it's like-

• 1:18:07Whitney Cummings?

  Very clever, delightful, playful jokes, yeah.

• 1:18:10Tim Ferriss?

  Like the silent, the silent G. Yeah, we use that to screw up foreigners. Like in Foreigner, I'm right there, you know? So clever.

• 1:18:18Whitney Cummings?

  It's such a, you know, there's a lot of different kinds of comedy. I had a sort of argument about this with someone recently. He was like, I don't understand why comedy's so negative, you know? And it was like, there's lots of different kinds of comedies, just like there's lots of different kinds of music and art and whatever. But, you know, Dimitri and Zach Galifianakis and Mitch Hedberg and Steven Wright are in this sort of echelon of this playful, tickling, sort of, I mean, like Dimitri, one of my favorite jokes of his is he's like, you know, it's like, people always want to show me photos of their kids, and then I show them photos of their kids and they think I'm weird. I mean, it's just little stuff like that, that's sort of this fantastical, surreal comedy.

• 1:18:57Tim Ferriss?

  There's such an economy to it, I mean, which I really like, also. It's like-

• 1:19:01Whitney Cummings?

  Precise.

• 1:19:02Tim Ferriss?

  Haiku comedy. It's very, very precise.

• 1:19:04Whitney Cummings?

  And it's repeatable. There's something democratic about it, because you can, you can't rehear, say one of my bits to someone that's long and convoluted and-

• 1:19:11Tim Ferriss?

  Requires too much, it requires too much narrative practice.

• 1:19:15Whitney Cummings?

  It's physical, you know, there's also a guy named Dan Mintz who tells the kind of jokes that you can easily-

• 1:19:20Tim Ferriss?

  How do you say, uh, spell it?

• 1:19:21Whitney Cummings?

  Dan Mintz, M-I-N-T-Z. He wrote for Louis CK's show on HBO. He's doing something now, but he has a great joke. He goes, uh, it's a little bit, you know, blue, but he goes, um, he goes, you know, it'd be really confusing if someone was performing an abortion and someone ran in and yelled, abort, abort.

• 1:19:41Tim Ferriss?

  Oh God, that is blue.

• 1:19:43Whitney Cummings?

  It's very blue, but it's obviously a joke, you know, but it's just one of those just you hear it once and you can repeat it at parties forever, you know?

• 1:19:51Tim Ferriss?

  It's like the one, not, not to make this the, uh, Dimitri Martin show, but, uh, the, uh, the one, uh, I think this is all on the same album too. And I'm blanking on the name of the album, but, uh, he says, he says, like, you know, it's along the lines of, you know, like, what is it? What does a Dalmatian think when he sees a cow?

• 1:20:13Tim Ferriss?

  Am I high right now? You know, and then the cow's like, he looks amazing. Yeah, my tits on the ground over here, you know, like.

• 1:20:21Whitney Cummings?

  It's just like a part of your brain that's never activated, like things where you're like, I've never thought about that. But I mean, think about it, people like us and anyone who's listening to this is probably an over thinker, but we've thought of everything, you know? We've overthought everything 50 times. And so when someone puts something, a visual in your mind that you've literally never entertained, it's just so like, it's like being a kid again or something. That's what I feel watching Dimitri.

• 1:20:43Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, the, um, the roast, yeah, I was thinking roasts, part of what makes them so

• 1:20:50Tim Ferriss?

  different now, aside from the fact that you have non comedians being like harpooned by 20 professionals.

• 1:20:56Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:20:57Tim Ferriss?

  Is, uh, that it's preserved. So instead of being in a club with an expiration date that is the end of the night.

• 1:21:04Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, good point.

• 1:21:04Tim Ferriss?

  It's on YouTube, Comedy Central forever.

• 1:21:07Whitney Cummings?

  Good point.

• 1:21:07Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, very different sort of persistence.

• 1:21:11Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. Well, also I see the roasts as more of a sport, like it's like watching boxing or football or something where you're watching someone, you know, get schooled and someone comes back and fights him back. And, you know, it's, I think that activates that very primal part of your brain of kick his ass, you know? And I think I, you know, it started getting so nasty and, and I think that roasts were better, they're better when you're the underdog, you know, and people like to see Rudy come out, you know, so I first, but in my first roast, and it was like, who's this girl? And then I, you know, came out of the gate and like, knew what I was doing. And then when I. I started to sort of, it was like my, I had an acumen for it and people started to expect, all of a sudden when people expect you to be good.

• 1:21:50Tim Ferriss?

  Nothing but downside.

• 1:21:51Whitney Cummings?

  Then they think you suck. You're like, wait a minute. You thought I was great when you never heard of me. Now you've heard of me and now you want, you know, everyone wants to build you up so they can just tear you down.

• 1:21:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Whitney Cummings?

  And then I felt like, okay, it's good to know when to go out and I'm sure she'd be fine with me sharing this, but in the last, the Donald Trump roast, Lisa Lemp and Ellie and I, we just cried after the roast. We were like, it was just too below the belt. It was like,

• 1:22:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:15Whitney Cummings?

  You know, the go-to for me. And again, I've been in the writers' room of the roast. I know the math of it. I know that it's like, we're gonna make fun of what you look like. I try to not make fun of things about people that they can't control as a general rule.

• 1:22:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:29Whitney Cummings?

  Cause it just feels a little too mean. Um, with the exception of some jokes I wrote about Carrot Top, but come on. Um, uh, but I regret those and I feel bad about them. Um, and that one was just a little below the belt. It was like, people were calling me a slut. Like I was in a relationship at the time. It was just like, what are you doing? Like this is gonna cause an argument. Like it was just, it's so salacious and incendiary that I felt like I, it was, I was so, it just hurt my feelings after a while. And Lisa Lemp and Ellie and I were both, like she had just lost all this weight and they used to make fun of how, you know, that she was overweight and she had lost weight and now they're making fun of her skin. It was just like, oh, you can't win. It's whack-a-mole.

• 1:23:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:10Whitney Cummings?

  You know? So, uh, we were like, I think it's probably good to

• 1:23:14Tim Ferriss?

  Switch, switch sports.

• 1:23:16Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. Switch sports.

• 1:23:18Tim Ferriss?

  What, um, what would you do if you had, say, this is all hypothetical, obviously, eight weeks to take someone who's never done stand-up,

• 1:23:28Whitney Cummings?

  Oh.

• 1:23:28Tim Ferriss?

  but has spent a little bit of time on the stage?

• 1:23:30Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, let's call that person a friend of mine.

• 1:23:36Tim Ferriss?

  I E. Just wondering for myself. Eight weeks to get them ready to do. Five minutes on stage. At like an open mic.

• 1:23:45Whitney Cummings?

  Right.

• 1:23:47Tim Ferriss?

  What would you do?

• 1:23:48Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, that's a great question. I would get them on stage the first night.

• 1:23:53Tim Ferriss?

  The first night?

• 1:23:53Whitney Cummings?

  Yep.

• 1:23:54Tim Ferriss?

  First day of eight weeks.

• 1:23:55Whitney Cummings?

  Yep.

• 1:23:55Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:23:56Whitney Cummings?

  And this entire, every night for all of the eight weeks, whether they have material or not. Because yeah, the material is like. 10% of it. Being comfortable on stage is all of it. You know, so I would say just get on stages. I say, always say the first. Year and a half, two years of stand up is just getting comfortable on stage. Your material doesn't matter. Like, it's like, um. Uh, boxing or whatever, you know, um, but, uh, I would just say get on stage as much as possible and, um, because your material in the first, the first couple of years is never gonna, no one's ever gonna see it, you know, it's just an excuse to get up there. Um, and. I would also ascertain where they are in terms of their self-awareness and, and opinions. Like, I would ask them.

• 1:24:38Whitney Cummings?

  50 questions about where they're from, what makes them different, because I think a lot of people have this. Dysmorphic view about what's interesting about them. So I have this girlfriend, she's a comedian. Uh, and what was the thing? Oh, uh, she goes on stage and she was talking about like smoking pot and hooking up with guys and, you know, she's sort of a younger comedian and. It was just sort of everyone kind of does that. And then later I found out that she was a competitive diver in college and I was like. Why don't you talk about that?

• 1:25:03Tim Ferriss?

  Why haven't you mined that?

• 1:25:05Whitney Cummings?

  And she's like, oh, no, I mean, it just seems boring. I'm like, no one else. Has that. Like, I'll do it if you don't do it. I'm stealing it, you know, like, a lot of people, a lot of times people don't know what's interesting about them. So it takes a while because I think we all, you know, are so sick of ourselves in some ways, or we inflate things and deflate other things and. Have denial about things. Um, so tap into what's makes you you and why, what's interesting about you, also help you figure out. It took me a long time to realize that as soon as you get on stage, you need to address what the audience is already thinking.

• 1:25:36Tim Ferriss?

  I was just gonna ask if you like, if you grab the gun and shoot yourself with it before they can shoot you.

• 1:25:41Whitney Cummings?

  Yep. So they, I don't know who says this quote that comedians become comedians so they can control why people laugh at them.

• 1:25:48Tim Ferriss?

  Ah, I like that.

• 1:25:50Whitney Cummings?

  So for me, I realized.

• 1:25:51Tim Ferriss?

  I wish I could do that. I need this skill.

• 1:25:53Whitney Cummings?

  I realized right away that people thought my last name being Cummings was funny.

• 1:25:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:58Whitney Cummings?

  And I didn't ever understood. So I get on stage and I start talking and then I'd be like, oh, my last name is Cummings. And everyone start laughing like she just put the needle in the balloon. Now we can move on, you know?

• 1:26:08Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I saw your tweets. What was it? I wouldn't let any husband take my last name unless his first name was Dick. Thought that was pretty good.

• 1:26:16Whitney Cummings?

  Well, because Zoe Saldana's husband took her last name. I think I was like thinking about it. You know, because I always say like, people are like, do you want to get married? I'm like, I just want to change my last name. You don't have to marry me, but can I just take your last name? We don't have to sign anything. Can my last name be Ferris, please? But I have, I am grateful to that last name because I think at a very young age, I had to learn to defend myself against ridicule. So I, I, you know, had to get quick witted.

• 1:26:40Tim Ferriss?

  So how would you do an inventory for someone to figure out what those things are?

• 1:26:44Whitney Cummings?

  About them, yeah.

• 1:26:44Tim Ferriss?

  So you can like slay the pink elephants before they have a chance to like stampede at you.

• 1:26:48Whitney Cummings?

  Right. I would, um, you know, I'm very, a very direct person. Like I remember seeing a, you know, there's a lot of like, um, I don't know, what is the social, the politically correct thing to say? Is it little people now?

• 1:27:02Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know.

• 1:27:03Whitney Cummings?

  It's not dwarves.

• 1:27:04Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know what the proper term is. Little people.

• 1:27:07Whitney Cummings?

  I think it's little people.

• 1:27:08Tim Ferriss?

  Everyone's on the same page.

• 1:27:09Whitney Cummings?

  Okay. I think midget's not, the M word is the new N word.

• 1:27:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. M word definitely not.

• 1:27:15Whitney Cummings?

  Not the M word.

• 1:27:16Tim Ferriss?

  Not kosher. It's like calling her, like calling food oriental. It doesn't work.

• 1:27:19Whitney Cummings?

  I think it's little people.

• 1:27:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:21Whitney Cummings?

  So a friend of mine is a little person and he's a comedian. And he goes on stage and he's just like, so I was with this girl. And I was like, you, your first 10 minutes is talking about being a little person.

• 1:27:32Tim Ferriss?

  Now, how do you prevent that from being much like going after Donald Trump for the hair?

• 1:27:38Whitney Cummings?

  Right.

• 1:27:38Tim Ferriss?

  Too obvious. Like they expect you to do that.

• 1:27:40Whitney Cummings?

  Well, I think that first you have to, I mean, it's, you know, a lot of people say stand up is like sex, but like you have to be in.

• 1:27:48Tim Ferriss?

  Really malicious.

• 1:27:49Whitney Cummings?

  Very, really malicious and violent.

• 1:27:50Tim Ferriss?

  Sociopathic.

• 1:27:51Whitney Cummings?

  And like 10 minutes long.

• 1:27:54Whitney Cummings?

  Basically you have to.

• 1:27:55Tim Ferriss?

  10 minutes? What am I, Sting? Jeez, secret to happiness is low expectations, please.

• 1:28:02Whitney Cummings?

  The four hour work week, the four minutes, that's life.

• 1:28:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:28:06Whitney Cummings?

  And, but you have to understand what their needs are and be able to ascertain, like I say, so much of comedy is just listening and it's a conversation. It seems like a monologue ostensibly, but it's actually a conversation. So you're constantly checking in with them. I always tell a lot of comedians who in the beginning aren't doing well. And I'm like, well, are you making eye contact with the people in the crowd? And they're always like, no. Like, oh, it's so intimate. Like you have to, I mean, I literally look all of them in the eyes all the time. It's you're constantly checking in, constantly checking in. The sound is one thing, but you also have to be checking in with them and knowing what they need from you, you know? And so for me, the first couple of years, I had to address the last name Cummings. In the beginning, everyone was like, cool, we don't have to think about this anymore. Cause other people were like, did they just say Cummings? It's her last name Cummings. And then they're distracted. So you just have to take it off the table.

• 1:28:51Whitney Cummings?

  Are we, can we move on here? Okay, my last name is Cummings. Now let's get to some other stuff.

• 1:28:55Tim Ferriss?

  I've always, uh, it's one of these things where you think it's gonna get old. I'll, I'll tell you what it is. It's Jim Gaffigan's voice that he does to imitate the crowd.

• 1:29:04Whitney Cummings?

  Oh my God.

• 1:29:05Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. He's so bad.

• 1:29:06Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. Yes, that's exactly it. It's so empowering, that's freedom.

• 1:29:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and just the, yeah, I just thought it was such a, it's such a, such a clean, kinda elegant way.

• 1:29:19Whitney Cummings?

  The audience is in a monologue.

• 1:29:20Tim Ferriss?

  To just nail it.

• 1:29:20Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 1:29:21Tim Ferriss?

  You know?

• 1:29:21Whitney Cummings?

  It's so great because it, it just, it takes the elephant, like you said, out of the living room. You know, another thing I did recently and just when I kinda thought, okay, enough people know me, I don't have to, um, so I, this is such a weird thing to say. Uh, I like get, like, I mean, I put a lot of, I take good care of my skin. I try at least, but.

• 1:29:40Tim Ferriss?

  One of the crowd questions was, how is your, how do you get your skin so glowing? So maybe, so maybe you could explain.

• 1:29:46Whitney Cummings?

  Maybe we should talk about that. But, but sometimes on stage, it, I look really shiny.

• 1:29:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, like I look all the time.

• 1:29:53Whitney Cummings?

  No, that, this is, but you're, I mean, I can't totally, but you look just like.

• 1:29:56Tim Ferriss?

  Can't see my face, cause it's sun's in your eyes.

• 1:29:59Whitney Cummings?

  You're just like an orb of light. But the same is with me. So I get really shiny. And then one time I was on stage and I was like, do I look really shiny? And everyone just burst out laughing because it was like the elephant in the living room. I'm like, why is she wet?

• 1:30:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:12Whitney Cummings?

  Is she just coming from a storm? And I was like, oh, my God, you guys, I'm not wearing any makeup. And I put like cream, like oil on before I came on stage. And I was like, oh, like, it was like, now we can talk about.

• 1:30:22Tim Ferriss?

  Now we can move on. Right. Now I can pay attention to what you're saying.

• 1:30:25Whitney Cummings?

  Totally. So it's like, just sort of being able to have that kind of self-awareness, which is, it's hard because it's like, you want self-awareness, but you don't want self-absorption. You want to be able to self-reflect, but not be a narcissist. You have to, you know, it's a delicate balance. I think I would also.

• 1:30:39Tim Ferriss?

  Who are, who are some comedians who come to mind like right off the bat? I mean, there are a lot of really good comedians out there, but just like offhand, people who are good at walking that tightrope between self-aware and self-absorbed.

• 1:30:51Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, good. Um, good, good, good. Great question.

• 1:30:56Tim Ferriss?

  Dave Attell?

• 1:30:59Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, Dave Attell, I couldn't have more love for Dave Attell.

• 1:31:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm no kind of, I'm not.

• 1:31:05Whitney Cummings?

  I feel like he's not, he doesn't penetrate, I mean, too much emotionally. Like, I feel like Dave's not super vulnerable, at least onstage. Offstage, he is. But I would say, like, this is a great, great, Bill Burr.

• 1:31:21Tim Ferriss?

  Bill Burr.

• 1:31:21Whitney Cummings?

  Bill Burr is a monster. And he has this great ability to, I mean, he's, you know, onstage is somewhat obsessive and neurotic. And, you know, he's got podcasts and he, you know, gets really obsessed with things. But he's able to move on real quickly and not make it about him. And he's not myopic, you know, he's a.

• 1:31:39Tim Ferriss?

  He's really good at responding to the crowd, too. When he'll say something and everyone will go, and he'll go, oh, did I lose you? You're with me. And now I feel like you're pulling back.

• 1:31:49Whitney Cummings?

  I love when he does that because. Even in it, and it's such a, you know, maybe this'll interest your fans that, that he is one of my favorite comedians to watch because he will almost ordain a bombing so that he can, because he's so successful now, and I've seen him be on stage and just be killing, and he's like, that wasn't that funny, you're laughing, and because he wants-

• 1:32:09Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, so he'll like premeditate-

• 1:32:11Whitney Cummings?

  He'll sort of like be like-

• 1:32:12Tim Ferriss?

  Bombing, meaning doing-

• 1:32:13Whitney Cummings?

  He'll be like, black people are different, and people go, and he'll go like, just let me, so he'll throw out something so incendiary that he loses the crowd like on purpose, just so we can get him back.

• 1:32:21Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing.

• 1:32:22Whitney Cummings?

  Which is so cool, because it's like, what do you do when you're that skilled, is you have to keep, so you don't plateau, you have to keep creating-

• 1:32:30Tim Ferriss?

  It's like Roy Jones Jr. at his peak, when he would just like drop his arms and do these like rooster fighting postures, because he's like, how do I make this interesting for myself?

• 1:32:37Whitney Cummings?

  Hundred percent, that's exactly it, you know, doesn't Laird Hamilton swim with a cement block?

• 1:32:44Tim Ferriss?

  He does exercise in pools underwater with weights.

• 1:32:49Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, something like ridic, where you're just like, oh, you're just bored at this point, so I'll see him, he'll throw something out where he'll be like, you know, maybe the Holocaust was good for us, and then everyone's like, ooh, and he's like, well, and then he gets them back, you know, and it's like, he'll throw something out that you think is like the point of no return, you think like his career is over, and, and then he gets them back, you know, so he's so, but he's not like, you know, a narcissist, he's not stuck in his own, I think one of the biggest dangers, you know, as a comedian, and I always worry about comedians who aren't friends with other comedians, because we're who, we check each other and keep each other sort of sane, is when comedians get too sequestered, they,

• 1:33:29Whitney Cummings?

  or any big personality or someone with opinions who ends up being surrounded by staff, and you know, the Jim Carrey's of the world who get sequestered, and all of a sudden they have no point of reference with reality, and they kind of lose touch, you know, so Bill is also great about, he's in the trenches, he's the comedy star every night, he's talking to people, I mean, he's, that's part of the reason I think his, you know, comedy's so incisive.

• 1:33:51Tim Ferriss?

  Who are some of the most underrated comedians?

• 1:33:55Whitney Cummings?

  Great question, um, uh, great question, Sebastian Maniscalco.

• 1:34:00Tim Ferriss?

  That's a hell of a name.

• 1:34:01Whitney Cummings?

  It's a hell of a name, I'll send you his stuff, he's, um, he's just-

• 1:34:06Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, how do you spell his last name?

• 1:34:07Whitney Cummings?

  M A N. I S C A L C O. Sebastian is, I encourage any creative people to watch him because he is-

• 1:34:19Tim Ferriss?

  Sebastian Maniscalco.

• 1:34:20Whitney Cummings?

  Maniscalco. He has some Italian blood and he's almost like a Brian Regan or like a more flamboyant Jerry Seinfeld. He's completely clean and this isn't, he's one of my favorite comedians, so I hope this doesn't come off pejorative, but he almost doesn't have jokes per se. Like if you were to transcribe his act, you wouldn't see jokes. It's so much in his performance and essentially his sort of thing is just disgust with humanity. Like he'll, and I'm not gonna embarrass myself by doing his act, but he'll just say like, uh, he'll be like, "So, uh, anybody have the Blu-ray?" Like, and he'll just like say facts about the Blu-ray.

• 1:35:02Whitney Cummings?

  Right? His, just his point of view is so specific and authentic. And he's so genuinely angry that it's just hilarious. So it's like, whatever you are, be that. If you're annoying, be that. If you're a Republican, be that. Like whatever it is.

• 1:35:17Tim Ferriss?

  Exaggerate what you already are.

• 1:35:19Whitney Cummings?

  As long as you're pretending to be someone you're not, the audience knows. So stand-up is the ultimate exercise in accepting exactly who you are, as ugly as it is. As long as you tell the truth, they're in. Cause they can tell, most people can tell when you're, which is why equine therapy has actually been really helpful for me.

• 1:35:36Tim Ferriss?

  So talk to me more about the horses. What's, what's going on? So, so the Maniscalco, I'll definitely check out.

• 1:35:44Whitney Cummings?

  Oh yeah, Sebastian Maniscalco. If, if any comedy nerds wanna know more underrated people, Sebastian Maniscalco is great. Gerard Carmichael is great. I think he's probably, you're gonna be hearing his name a lot more soon. Natasha Leggero is very funny. Tig Notaro, I'm sure you guys all know her by now.

• 1:36:06Whitney Cummings?

  Chris D'elia, I'm a fan. You probably already know him. Brian Callen is actually overrated, I would say.

• 1:36:16Tim Ferriss?

  This is where your retractable claws come out to eviscerate our friend in common. You're like, I know he's our friend. That's why I'm going to publicly humiliate him.

• 1:36:28Whitney Cummings?

  Neil Brennan, co-created The Chappelle Show with Dave Chappelle and has now started doing stand-up and is super incisive and funny commentary on race and gender that very few white people can get away with.

• 1:36:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, that's hard to get away with. Very hard to get away with. Especially if you look like me, an American History X. It's just like, you're kind of asking for very unfavorable media coverage.

• 1:36:55Whitney Cummings?

  I was gonna say, American Psycho, but...

• 1:36:56Tim Ferriss?

  Well, you know, I'll take it. That must be because my skin is so luscious.

• 1:37:00Whitney Cummings?

  Well, yeah. I mean, between your skin and my skin, I mean, we are, we need to turn the AC on.

• 1:37:05Tim Ferriss?

  I want to, so I will come back to the equine therapy, but before we get there, I want to come back to the eight-week training program.

• 1:37:14Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, right, right, right. For your friend.

• 1:37:16Tim Ferriss?

  For my friend, Jim Saris. I, because, for instance, and I think I'm probably not the only person with this insecurity, but I don't feel like a very funny person.

• 1:37:27Whitney Cummings?

  That's fine.

• 1:37:28Tim Ferriss?

  And, and I worry about, so for instance, there are certain circumstances that, and literally like maybe three, where I'm like, someday if I ever do stand-up, this could be funny, but there are so few of them that I'm like, wow, I would be, I would just get, I would be roadkill if I tried to go for five minutes. And actually, one of them, earlier before we started recording, you came out of the bathroom and you're like, I just wanted to say, I did not create the mess in there. And so, you know, my thing has been like, what do you do when you like walk into the bathroom and some like bashful person comes out and like scurries away and then you walk in, you're like, this is a fucking disaster. But like, I'm in an airplane, somebody's behind me, do I fucking clean it up? Or do I leave it? Like, I'm not gonna have a conversation after it.

• 1:38:11Tim Ferriss?

  Right, but I only have like two or three of those over several decades of being on the planet. How do you come up with?

• 1:38:18Whitney Cummings?

  Here's the good news, which you'll love, is it's a muscle. So the more you work it, the stronger it gets, and then you'll be like me and you'll be haunted by everything you look at. All you can think of is how to make it a joke. You know, it starts being more and more, and then you're up at night and like, you're having sex with someone and you're like, this would be a good joke. And you're like, oh my God, can I just get a second of peace? Yeah, so it starts becoming like... Pretty relentless, but yeah, it's a muscle like any muscle. You know, the first couple of weeks you go to the gym, you're gonna be a little sore. It's gonna be hard.

• 1:38:44Tim Ferriss?

  So what is the, if it's the muscle, if it's a muscle, what does the workout look like? What are potential exercises?

• 1:38:49Whitney Cummings?

  Potential exercises is, um, you know, I remember like when I first started, I would like go around my house and be like, trash can. What's funny about a trash can? Like what's, I think the best way to do it is to, which is also helps to, um, what's the word? Uh, uh, when you, um, when you, I'm making weird.

• 1:39:06Tim Ferriss?

  Pet. Fondle, you're making, you're making hand gestures. It looks like a squid.

• 1:39:12Whitney Cummings?

  Cultivate, cultivate.

• 1:39:13Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 1:39:14Whitney Cummings?

  Squid. Cultivate. When you cultivate your voice, figure out what interests you. So what I would first do is figure out what pisses you off. So people's limitations piss you off. The airport bathrooms piss you off. What pisses you off? Because I always say comedy is for the most part, just an obsession with injustice. So most comedians have a very deep obsession with injustice. This isn't fair. And that's what we get on stage and talk, unless you're Demetri Martin or Mitch Hedberg and you're sort of doing those sort of one liner, uh, sort of more playful, surreal jokes. Um, so what pisses you off? And you know, Louis CK says, if you think about something more than three times a week, you have to write about it. What's haunting, yeah,

• 1:39:57Whitney Cummings?

  what's haunting you? What's plaguing you? What's pissing you off? What do you spend most of your time thinking about anyway? So, um, you know, you can't stand your ex-boyfriend and your, or ex-girlfriend and she's posting photos on Facebook and anything that pisses you off?

• 1:40:13Tim Ferriss?

  Just because I was on Grindr, Grindr once does not mean I have a boyfriend. Let's be clear.

• 1:40:17Whitney Cummings?

  There you go. Whatever it is.

• 1:40:21Whitney Cummings?

  I know you're not monogamous. That's what they say on the message boards on Grindr. Um, I did some research. Uh, so it's actually, whereas I think most, and it's interesting, I remember you, I listened to one of your podcast episodes where you talked about. Negative thinking.

• 1:40:36Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:40:37Whitney Cummings?

  There's positive thinking, but then the, uh, I'm gonna botch it and plagiarize it horribly, but the power of negative thinking.

• 1:40:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:40:44Whitney Cummings?

  To prevent or something, it's almost like.

• 1:40:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, rehearsing the worst case.

• 1:40:48Whitney Cummings?

  Scenarios to avoid them.

• 1:40:50Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:50Whitney Cummings?

  Which is so cool to me. So I always say that comedy is like a very delicate combination of positive thinking and incredibly negative thinking because, you know, you take the toilet thing and then you times it times a million and you go to its worst extreme. What's the worst possible thing that could happen? The catastrophe and then you make it a joke.

• 1:41:09Tim Ferriss?

  So I, you know, you mentioned Louis CK. I feel like he has gotten a lot better at infusing the positive. Uh, and again, I'm not, this is just going from some of, uh, you know, some of his albums, which are still very funny, but then getting on say a late night show and talking about like, everything's awesome and nobody's happy.

• 1:41:27Whitney Cummings?

  Nobody's happy. Yeah.

• 1:41:28Tim Ferriss?

  And the wifi on the airplane and stuff.

• 1:41:30Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. Well, he's also, I mean, it's interesting because comedians are also human beings who grow and change. So, you know, a lot of people say about Howard Stern in the nineties, he was much angrier because he was in a bad marriage and now he's in a great marriage and he's much happier, you know? So it's also, you know, I think you have to be very flexible in your standup. So my first hour, I mean, I was 26 or something, so I wasn't even a person yet, but I was very like, I thought I was right about everything and you know, in your twenties, you think you know everything and you know, I was like loud and you know, um, and then my second special, I had sort of life had kicked my ass a little bit and I was more humble and I was more like, I don't know anything. And you know, my next special is sort of, I'm in even more, so all of my specials are just, it's a different person in each one, you know? So, um, you know, Louis CK, I think now

• 1:42:15Whitney Cummings?

  that he's gotten so successful and so exalted and lauded, it's like he's almost like, you know, it's just a different guy he was 10 years ago.

• 1:42:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:25Whitney Cummings?

  He has less anger and he's able to come from a different perspective. So I also think it's important to not become a parody of yourself and to be able to be flexible.

• 1:42:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Well, that's, well, that's why when people ask me, for instance, uh, how would you edit? Your first book.

• 1:42:38Whitney Cummings?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:39Tim Ferriss?

  If you went back to edit it.

• 1:42:40Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:40Tim Ferriss?

  This has come up because the 10th anniversary is coming up in about two years. And my answer is almost always I wouldn't edit much because I wrote it when I was 29. And I was in a different place and my perspectives have shifted a bit.

• 1:42:54Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:54Tim Ferriss?

  But that book strikes a chord with a lot of people who are facing similar things. If I tried to rewrite it now, I don't have the kind of boots on the ground. Experience with those issues right now, to the extent that I did then, and I would fuck it up.

• 1:43:08Whitney Cummings?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:43:09Tim Ferriss?

  I would rob it of that kind of immediate relevance.

• 1:43:12Whitney Cummings?

  That's interesting.

• 1:43:13Tim Ferriss?

  What?

• 1:43:17Tim Ferriss?

  What would you do night of? So eight weeks pass.

• 1:43:21Whitney Cummings?

  Yep, okay.

• 1:43:22Tim Ferriss?

  All right, got a crowd. Not just your mom, not just your friends.

• 1:43:26Whitney Cummings?

  And this is for the novice?

• 1:43:27Tim Ferriss?

  This is for the novice you've taken from ground zero over eight weeks.

• 1:43:31Whitney Cummings?

  But just so you know, over the eight weeks, I'm having them go up every night, whether they're bombing or not. Three spots a night, at least.

• 1:43:38Tim Ferriss?

  Three spots.

• 1:43:39Whitney Cummings?

  I was, when I started, I was go on stage three times. So you're driving to three different things.

• 1:43:44Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 1:43:44Whitney Cummings?

  Three different clubs, you're driving to a club, to a coffee house, to a bowling alley. When I first started, for the first three years, I was doing bowling alleys, parking lots, sushi restaurants.

• 1:43:55Tim Ferriss?

  Just like walk up to people when they're trying to unlock their car?

• 1:43:59Tim Ferriss?

  Just ambush.

• 1:44:00Whitney Cummings?

  So what is the deal? With these outies?

• 1:44:04Tim Ferriss?

  Probably easier to get, for you to get away with. The drunk guy's like, oh, hey.

• 1:44:08Whitney Cummings?

  I got shanked a couple of times, I got maced. But no, in LA, I mean, and this was the time of MySpace. So it was a time when there was all these, you know, shows at restaurants and bowling alleys and laundromats. And people would just do these sort of shows everywhere. And I would say, can I get on? And you just had to constantly hustle and you're MySpaceing all day to get spots and then driving around all day. All night to do them, you know, sometimes three minutes, sometimes whatever. And your first minute is gonna make or break you for the most part, if you're doing a short set. So doing a three minute set is enough practice because that first minute is the key. Because as soon as you get, it's like your first impression of anything.

• 1:44:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:44Whitney Cummings?

  If you get on stage and you have power and you have status, it doesn't really matter after that. But if you go on stage apologetic and scared and codependent.

• 1:44:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:53Whitney Cummings?

  Even the best material is gonna bomb.

• 1:44:55Tim Ferriss?

  You're done.

• 1:44:55Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. So I say that first minute is kind of what counts the most. So, um, so, uh, doing three spots a night for eight weeks and recording your sets and listening to them. Uh, not only to sort of get it into your memory, but also to see what's really getting laughs. Sometimes we hear that we're bombing when we're actually getting laughs or we hear that laughs are smaller. It's just important to listen to it back objectively later when you're not sort of in the sort of deer in the headlights. Yes. And, um, and then the day of when I do an hour at night or when I do two hours a night, when I'm doing, um, getting ready for my hour, I don't leave my hotel room and I don't talk all day. Which is like, I try not to talk on the phone. I try not to just deplete too much of my energy so that I'm super excited to get on stage and talk.

• 1:45:38Whitney Cummings?

  So that I almost am like, uh, what would the metaphor be like, um, a boiling pot? No, a balloon?

• 1:45:47Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not sure what you're going for. Could be, uh, could be either of those. Depends what comes afterwards.

• 1:45:51Whitney Cummings?

  I just mean like when you're like chomping at the bit.

• 1:45:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:53Whitney Cummings?

  You know, I, I kind of deprive myself. It's almost like starving yourself before a meal. You know, like I kind of like sit in my hotel room all day. I just do work. I don't talk on the phone so that I'm super amped.

• 1:46:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:04Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, to talk. So I would say like, don't go out to dinner first. Don't go to lunch, hang out, watch TV.

• 1:46:09Tim Ferriss?

  Be starving for attention.

• 1:46:10Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, exactly. Deprive yourself. So by the time you get on stage, you're like super connected.

• 1:46:15Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:46:15Whitney Cummings?

  And, uh,

• 1:46:16Tim Ferriss?

  That's the only human connection you have all day.

• 1:46:18Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, craving intimacy. You know, instead of shut down and you've already filled your, um, quota for connection all day.

• 1:46:26Tim Ferriss?

  And when do you know that your material is ready for a three minute set? In other words, Someone hasn't even done the what's funny about a garbage can.

• 1:46:37Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:37Tim Ferriss?

  Like, we're talking, it's like, alright Ferris, you're on an hour.

• 1:46:40Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:41Tim Ferriss?

  Do I get up and do, what the fuck do I talk about?

• 1:46:43Whitney Cummings?

  Well, here's the thing, you're already, you're already naturally funny, so you're, and you're smart, so you're gonna be fine, because you're gonna, I mean, uh, pending any anxiety attacks.

• 1:46:58Tim Ferriss?

  That's a big, that's a big asterisk.

• 1:47:02Tim Ferriss?

  I think I'm only funny when I'm not trying to be funny.

• 1:47:04Whitney Cummings?

  But here's the thing, I feel like you are a public speaker naturally, I mean, you're very good at this. Like, I mean, in front of a crowd, I mean, you're not gonna have a problem, um, and you're gonna react to the situation and be honest and self-deprecate and whatever, like, um, but I think the only time you really get in trouble is when you attach yourself to a script and aren't flexible.

• 1:47:22Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:47:23Whitney Cummings?

  So if you're like, go off on a thing of, oh, you know who I am, you read my, if someone heckles you, I've read your book, and now you're, and then you're like, so I was at the supermarket today, and if you can't respond in a conversational, present way, it's like boxing.

• 1:47:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:47:38Whitney Cummings?

  Like, if someone throws something new, you gotta change your combination or whatever it is. If it's, you have to be relentlessly present and flexible and detached from your plan. So it's make a plan and then be ready to completely.

• 1:47:52Tim Ferriss?

  Adapt if needed.

• 1:47:53Whitney Cummings?

  Adapt if needed.

• 1:47:54Tim Ferriss?

  And with your, say, two hours a night.

• 1:47:57Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:58Tim Ferriss?

  Right, uh, let's say you're getting, now you're getting ready, you do that, and, uh, well, two, I guess, two very related questions. So you have the two hours a night in preparation for like, recording the big special?

• 1:48:09Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 1:48:09Tim Ferriss?

  Is that right?

• 1:48:09Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 1:48:09Tim Ferriss?

  Then you have, like, the night of recording the big special?

• 1:48:12Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 1:48:12Tim Ferriss?

  What do your pre-game rituals look like?

• 1:48:14Whitney Cummings?

  Love it.

• 1:48:15Tim Ferriss?

  Like, in the two hours before each of those?

• 1:48:17Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:18Tim Ferriss?

  What happens?

• 1:48:18Whitney Cummings?

  So, in the two hours, okay, so I am right now, um, touring to get ready for my HBO special, which I'm shooting in August. So every other weekend, I'm on the road, uh, in clubs. I like to, uh, perform in small spaces to, um, really ascertain if things are working and seeing people's faces, like, cause you can, in a theater, you can get an applause break, but when you're up close and you see someone, you can't fake laughter, you can't fake a ball.

• 1:48:42Tim Ferriss?

  I would imagine if you have thirty people, if you have two hundred people.

• 1:48:45Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:46Tim Ferriss?

  Ten people clap really loudly, you think you're killing it, whereas if you have thirty people and one person claps, you're like, oh shit.

• 1:48:51Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, exactly. But if you get a theater, you get sort of this false sense of bravado and false sense of success, whereas like, when you're in a club, like, people are drinking and they're eating, you know, it's like, you're up against more. So I like to practice in clubs and uh and so when the day actually comes, I will, I have two dogs, I will send them with the dog people so that they're not in the house um for those two days because they'll wake me up early or they'll, you know, whatever, um even though they provide me with a lot of emotional support, um just avoiding any curveballs, um and I'll wake up, I'll do my normal routine, I'll probably, I'll listen to the set a couple times, even though I know it in Inside and Out, just more because I know I'm neurotic.

• 1:49:34Tim Ferriss?

  So this is a previous performance?

• 1:49:36Whitney Cummings?

  Uh like the hour that I'm planning on doing, essentially, like the script, it's like going over a script, I have it recorded and I'll go for a run probably.

• 1:49:44Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:49:44Whitney Cummings?

  And with it in my ear.

• 1:49:45Tim Ferriss?

  And the recording, is you reading the script?

• 1:49:48Whitney Cummings?

  The recording is an actual performance.

• 1:49:49Tim Ferriss?

  I got it.

• 1:49:50Whitney Cummings?

  So I'll record all of my hours when I'm in the clubs on a voice memo on my iPhone, and then I'll label them, this was good at this point, this, you know, I did this new chunk of this, I'll be really specific about which one is which, the one that I feel should be the one that's recorded, I will go for a run and listen to it in my iPod, pad, pad, phone, Samsung, sidekick, Atari.

• 1:50:14Tim Ferriss?

  Just have five phones strapped to your head.

• 1:50:16Whitney Cummings?

  Pager, Sky Pager, and then um I'll kind of lie in bed, I'll take a nap, I'll eat, uh and that's pretty much it.

• 1:50:25Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 1:50:26Whitney Cummings?

  And then I have to get there at four for hair and makeup and I'll meditate twice, 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes before the show.

• 1:50:31Tim Ferriss?

  Like transcendental meditation?

• 1:50:33Whitney Cummings?

  Transcendental, yeah, TM.

• 1:50:33Tim Ferriss?

  So you've got your mantra?

• 1:50:34Whitney Cummings?

  Got my mantra.

• 1:50:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:35Whitney Cummings?

  Don't tell anyone.

• 1:50:36Tim Ferriss?

  Puppy Chow, Puppy Chow.

• 1:50:37Whitney Cummings?

  Puppy Chow.

• 1:50:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh my god, I can't believe I said that outside.

• 1:50:40Whitney Cummings?

  Subsequius, subsequius, subsequius. And uh really um very economical with my energy, the day of.

• 1:50:50Tim Ferriss?

  And so you've got the, let's just say, the warm-up acts, maybe that's probably not, that's probably not a polite way to say it, but um.

• 1:50:58Whitney Cummings?

  Opener.

• 1:50:58Tim Ferriss?

  The openers.

• 1:50:59Whitney Cummings?

  The person that goes before me, yeah.

• 1:51:00Tim Ferriss?

  You've got the openers.

• 1:51:00Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:01Tim Ferriss?

  You know you're, you've got 15 minutes to go time.

• 1:51:04Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:04Tim Ferriss?

  What do you do in those 15 minutes?

• 1:51:07Whitney Cummings?

  That's a good question. Uh, I'm usually managing or practicing wardrobe malfunctions. So.

• 1:51:18Tim Ferriss?

  Practicing like Janet Jackson, like nipple exposure?

• 1:51:20Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, I'll walk through sort of my most extreme movements with my wardrobe to make sure, you know, like, you know what I mean? It's, uh, what's it called? Like, um, catastrophe, uh, troubleshooting potentially, you know? I'll just close my eyes and meditate.

• 1:51:37Tim Ferriss?

  Troubleshooting, otherwise known as catastrophe sniping.

• 1:51:39Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, catastrophe sniping, I like that. And then sometimes something super normal, because I think I'm, you know, I'm a strong believer in this. Everybody is, I'm not special because I believe proven science, but it's very Pavlovian. So it's like, if all of a sudden I'm doing something I've never done before, before a show, then it's going to feel weird. So before I go on stage at the Comedy Store tonight on any given night, I'm looking at Instagram. I'm on Twitter, I'm texting. So I'll do something just kind of that I always do before I go on stage. Because if you put too much pressure on it, like this is a different show, you're, I'm doing the same thing I've been doing the last four months.

• 1:52:11Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:52:12Whitney Cummings?

  You know what I mean? And it's like, it's basically my, my work isn't done tonight. My work was done three months ago.

• 1:52:18Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:52:19Whitney Cummings?

  I just have to show up.

• 1:52:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I had, um, conversation with, uh, with, uh, Paul Levesque, otherwise known as Triple H, the professional wrestler. Who's on this podcast, and he was telling me a story.

• 1:52:31Tim Ferriss?

  Why am I blanking here? He just fought Manny Pacquiao, uh, Floyd Mayweather Jr.

• 1:52:34Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:35Tim Ferriss?

  And he was saying, he was telling me a story about how he, he visited Floyd in his dressing room right before a huge fight. And he was just sitting there watching TV and he's like, oh yeah, sit down, like, let's have a conversation. And Paul's like, I don't want to bother you. Like, I don't want you to get knocked out of the zone, like, blah, blah, blah. Aren't you nervous? And he's like, what good is being nervous going to do me? He's like, if I'm not ready now, I'm not ready.

• 1:52:54Whitney Cummings?

  Hundred percent. So it's like, if I need to do some weird ritual right now, then I'm, I've got bigger problems.

• 1:53:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:00Whitney Cummings?

  You know, so I think for me, just keeping it very simple and, um, you know, if I'm shooting a special, my mom and dad are, they have to come different nights. But, um, we'll come, so I'll like, take a picture for that, or something that just feels benevolent and, and. Connected and I, you know, I'm very dorky about gratitude and I'll just be grateful and I'll thank the crew and I'll talk to my director and just say thank you and like just really do whatever I have to do to go out there and just like have a good time. I'm not taking myself seriously. I'm not stressed. I'm not in a zone. It's like I know this backwards and forwards at this point. So the only work I have to do is just be relentlessly present and this sounds so geeky, but I truly have to have a good time.

• 1:53:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:39Whitney Cummings?

  Because my work is already done.

• 1:53:40Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:53:41Whitney Cummings?

  You know, that's kind of the misery of stand-up and the joy of stand-up is that when you're actually shooting it on TV, you're just showing off at that point.

• 1:53:48Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:53:49Whitney Cummings?

  There's no, you're not in the trenches.

• 1:53:50Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:51Whitney Cummings?

  You know, everything works. You've done it. Anything I do on show night, I've done a hundred times.

• 1:53:55Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:53:55Whitney Cummings?

  And I know it works.

• 1:53:56Tim Ferriss?

  Well, that's part of the reason I love watching and I've seen you to Brian do this, but work on material.

• 1:54:02Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:02Tim Ferriss?

  When it's not a hundred percent ready.

• 1:54:03Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:04Tim Ferriss?

  And I find that fascinating.

• 1:54:05Whitney Cummings?

  It's pretty cool.

• 1:54:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's really.

• 1:54:07Whitney Cummings?

  There is a, if you're a comedy nerd in any way, Kevin Nealon does a show at The Laugh Factory on Tuesday nights and it's new material night.

• 1:54:15Tim Ferriss?

  This is in Los Angeles?

• 1:54:15Whitney Cummings?

  In Los Angeles, yes. So, and I, but I think they put videos on The Laugh Factory website or something and it's comedians, you know, big comedians who are only allowed to do new material. And we will call each other out if I'm like, dude, I know you've been doing that joke and I know, you know, you know, because we really try to be vulnerable and go up and do sort of fresh premises and some of us are bombing and, you know, we're really, you know, struggling and it's like being a beginner open mic'er again.

• 1:54:39Tim Ferriss?

  Have you seen the documentary, The Comedian?

• 1:54:42Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, with Jerry Seinfeld and horny.

• 1:54:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yes. What is, how do you feel about that?

• 1:54:46Whitney Cummings?

  I love it. I love it. I love Jerry. I think his work ethic is really, he just kind of nailed it. I mean, you know about this more than anyone, obviously, but his whole thing is just do the work. It's, there's no shortcuts. There's no, you know, there's a linear relationship in stand-up of how much you do it and how good you are. It's super simple, very merit-driven. And so I like that. I like his methodical approach. I've learned a lot from him and been inspired by that. And he's also, you know, I think it's good to glamorize health because I think in stand-up especially.

• 1:55:21Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, drug addiction and alcoholism is so glamorized, you know, and Jerry's kinda, he does yoga and drinks smoothies and he doesn't drink on stage, you know, he takes it very seriously. Stand up as a job. And I think a lot of people see it more as a hobby. Um, cause we all really just secretly want to be rock stars, but aren't cool enough. Um, but you know, I think there was this generation of comedians, obviously in the seventies and eighties, who were all on coke and hookers. And now I think the pendulum has kind of swung. Everyone's like in therapy and drinks Jamba Juice and is like vegan. And I think that Jerry and that documentary, sort of him, uh, admitting how seriously he takes it.

• 1:55:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:59Whitney Cummings?

  Like the nerd in the class who gets a straight A and all the jocks hate like, oh, he's a loser. Like it's high school all over again.

• 1:56:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:06Whitney Cummings?

  You know, it's like, he makes trying look cool.

• 1:56:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:08Whitney Cummings?

  Um, and then Ornie, you know, I think is tricky because he just was so angry in that documentary. And I, I, I worry a little bit that people were like, oh, that's how all comedians are.

• 1:56:19Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:56:20Whitney Cummings?

  You know, but it's a documentary and if someone thinks that, that's their generalization.

• 1:56:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, more there.

• 1:56:25Whitney Cummings?

  You know, yeah, but Ornie is very, very funny. And I think that that documentary, um, was a big, uh, what was it? What would it be when something is, um, uh, injury to his career?

• 1:56:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:40Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. I think he would have been really big if it wasn't for that.

• 1:56:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that was a fascinating documentary for those who haven't seen it, but it's basically tracking.

• 1:56:47Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:47Tim Ferriss?

  A younger, up and coming comedian with Jerry working on new material.

• 1:56:52Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. Yes.

• 1:56:54Tim Ferriss?

  And a friend's ex-girlfriend actually popped up. Yeah. I was watching it with him and he's like, wait, what? Is that my, no, no, she popped up. It was just her leading Jerry to the stage. And he's like, wait a second, is that my girlfriend?

• 1:57:07Whitney Cummings?

  Random.

• 1:57:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, really bizarre.

• 1:57:09Whitney Cummings?

  Chilling. Hot twist.

• 1:57:11Tim Ferriss?

  Let me ask, um, I don't want to chew up your entire afternoon. Uh, this is, this is really fun. So maybe we'll do a round two sometime, but I'd love to ask you, uh, number one, equine therapy.

• 1:57:22Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. Equine therapy is.

• 1:57:25Tim Ferriss?

  The horse rides you? Is that when you, how does this work?

• 1:57:28Whitney Cummings?

  No, that's Ashley Madison.

• 1:57:29Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that's.

• 1:57:30Whitney Cummings?

  We've been through this.

• 1:57:30Tim Ferriss?

  Catherine the Great.

• 1:57:31Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, right. So, um, okay.

• 1:57:34Tim Ferriss?

  Actually sounded much, did not come out the way I intended it to. Sorry about that.

• 1:57:40Tim Ferriss?

  That's my attempt at blue comedy.

• 1:57:42Whitney Cummings?

  And I think you nailed it. It was a successful attempt. So I don't think you have to wait a week. You should go on tonight. You can be my warm up.

• 1:57:50Tim Ferriss?

  What makes me angry? Horses riding women. Let's talk about it.

• 1:57:55Whitney Cummings?

  So I think this might interest you, interest you because, and I hope that I do justice to it and explain it in a educated enough way to where it doesn't sound ridiculous. But horses are prey animals. So they are incredibly attuned to any kind of threats. I mean, I mean, they're constantly scanning for threats, which the human brain does also. And we try to like pretend it's not. But essentially, I mean, constantly, they, a horse can look at a bobcat and tell if it's hungry or not. I mean, it's fight or flight 101. You know, they can literally read faces. They can read. So when you are around a horse, a horse is codependent, if you will, looking at

• 1:58:36Whitney Cummings?

  you and their behavior depends on your behavior. So essentially what you do in equine therapy is it's my goal was to practice being more direct and clear with my intention versus what I'm asking someone. Because you know, a lot of times, and you can't see this if you're listening to this podcast, but I'll say like, no, I'm fine. I'm not mad. I'm obviously mad. I mean, I don't, my face, I'm betraying my own face. And you know, humans tend to be manipulative and passive aggressive and say one thing and mean another thing. And I think that's something, you know, that maybe people in my field maybe do more than, you know, you and what you do. You seem very like clear and

• 1:59:17Tim Ferriss?

  Good actor.

• 1:59:17Whitney Cummings?

  Effective, great actor, pathological liar, sociopath, American psycho, American history X. But I found that I was really struggling with not being, with saying one thing and meaning another thing and being apologetic and not being present and not getting the results out of people that I wanted. There was a great documentary called Buck. That's about the guy. Yes, it's about the guy that was the horse whisperer.

• 1:59:42Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, cool.

• 1:59:42Whitney Cummings?

  And essentially, the whole premise of the documentary is that in order to control something, you have to give it more control. So in order to Get power over someone, you have to empower them. So people bring these problem horses and they're pulling them and trying to control them. And the first thing he does is give them more reins and give them the opportunity to make the right decision. So you can control something when you give them more control. So that really fascinated me, that documentary, and the way that he was able to non-verbally communicate with horses, because we waste so much time trying to verbally communicate with people. And a lot of times, we just confuse them. And words are so subjective. And we talk way too much. So people don't actually understand what we're saying. You know, I don't know if this has ever happened to you,

• 2:00:26Whitney Cummings?

  but I, you know, a lot of times when I'm writing a script or a TV show, I'll get notes from an executive. And I'll, you know, I'm sure your editors or whatever, I'll be in a meeting for an hour, and I'll walk out and I'm like, I have no idea.

• 2:00:38Tim Ferriss?

  I have no idea what was attempted to have.

• 2:00:40Whitney Cummings?

  We spoke for an hour. I have no clue what my objective is. I don't know what the notes are. I don't know if they liked it. Like, we just blubiate to the point of just like be talking in circles. So I went in with the horses. A girlfriend of mine took me for my birthday. And the first thing you do is you pick a horse. There's four horses. They all have various degrees of damage and backgrounds. And she tells you about each one, and you choose your horse, which already says everything that she needs to know about you, based on the one that you choose. It's like a Rorschach test or something. So that's really interesting. And then the first objective is get the horses from one end to the corral to the other, which is probably like half of a football field. I mean, it's big. And you're like,

• 2:01:25Whitney Cummings?

  how am I going to, hello?

• 2:01:27Tim Ferriss?

  That's the bat phone.

• 2:01:27Whitney Cummings?

  That's the bat phone. That's Ashley Madison customer service. So I'm like, how do you get a hor- how do you get horses with no rein from one end to the other? Right? This is crazy, without cajoling them, or hitting them, or you can't use treats. I can't use any of my, I can't use charm, I can't use humor, I can't use intelligence, I can't use any of the things that I rely on on a daily basis to manipulate and beguile people. And so essentially, you have to use your intention. So you let them know, we're going to the other end. You can use words if you want, but if, as long as you're saying something and meaning it, they're gonna buy it. If you're going,

• 2:02:09Whitney Cummings?

  you know, you can't see me doing this, but if you're going like, I need you to come with me. Is that okay? If you're asked, they're not.

• 2:02:15Tim Ferriss?

  It's too unclear.

• 2:02:15Whitney Cummings?

  No, they're unclear. They don't trust you. You're not in charge. You don't have status. So I go and I'm, I'm leading them from one end to the other. They're following me and it's like magic. They're following me. And then halfway through, I start like, so I say to my friend, oh my God, they're following me. And they stopped. And I was like, what, what just happened? She's like, you lost your connection to them because you focused on something else. I mean, it was just this like, it was like magic almost. It was this amazing. So I just, it's a way to practice being present and connected and having a consistent intention with essentially these sort of animals that are basically a mirror to your psyche.

• 2:02:47Tim Ferriss?

  That's very cool.

• 2:02:48Whitney Cummings?

  It's super cool. When they, when you stop focusing, they stop focusing. And whenever you lie, they freeze.

• 2:02:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:55Whitney Cummings?

  Cause they don't understand lie because they just see she's mean something, but she's saying something else and they freeze. So as soon as you're disingenuous or pretend you're not scared and you are, they just freeze and look at you like.

• 2:03:06Tim Ferriss?

  Don't get it.

• 2:03:07Whitney Cummings?

  They're just like, grow up. And you're like, oh, sorry. Let me be clear. You know, it's this really cool, uh, sort of, um, way that I think, and I'm not saying I'm one of these people, but I think that smart people who have so much therapy and we've so over therapized, sometimes it's just like, keep it simple.

• 2:03:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:25Whitney Cummings?

  Bread and butter, another animal, just in a cage.

• 2:03:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:30Whitney Cummings?

  Yes or no?

• 2:03:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:31Whitney Cummings?

  It's so primal and simple.

• 2:03:34Tim Ferriss?

  I love it.

• 2:03:34Whitney Cummings?

  I've almost learned so much from that than any other book or therapy I've ever done.

• 2:03:39Tim Ferriss?

  That's, uh, for those people interested in, uh, a lot of this stuff, I, I'm, I'm really tempted to, to experience that firsthand.

• 2:03:47Whitney Cummings?

  It's here. It's in, the, the woman that I go to is out in Topanga and it's awesome.

• 2:03:51Tim Ferriss?

  Cool.

• 2:03:51Whitney Cummings?

  It's called the reflective horse. You know, a lot of rehab patients do equine therapy, um.

• 2:03:57Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I was gonna, I was gonna say that, uh, I put reflexive. I think it's reflective, reflective for us. I'm taking notes. Is Temple Grandin.

• 2:04:07Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:08Tim Ferriss?

  Worked a lot with horses early on and that's how she started to realize like, wow, I'm actually very good at understanding what they need, what they're afraid of, et cetera. So fascinating. You mentioned book and then you said therapy. So I'll ask a book question, which is what book or books have you gifted to other people the most?

• 2:04:26Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, that's a great question. I like to pretend that I read fiction and I just don't.

• 2:04:36Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 2:04:36Whitney Cummings?

  So I went through this phase of giving people, because I read one fiction book in the last, like, three years called Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shingart, which is phenomenal.

• 2:04:47Tim Ferriss?

  Super Sad True Love Story?

• 2:04:49Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 2:04:50Tim Ferriss?

  Is it super sad?

• 2:04:51Whitney Cummings?

  It's super sad, but very funny. And not super, it's, it's, um, it's like a dystopian satire on the future. And essentially, it's like that we all have cell phones sort of embedded in our chests. And as soon as I see you, I can know everything about you, your cholesterol, your genetics, your dad had a stroke, like I can know your bank account, your credit report, like essentially, we know everything about everyone instantaneously. And it's just very interesting and like could happen. And I read that because I had to, because a friend of mine who's sort of successful and has everything and had a birthday weekend and you can't get her anything. So her gift, our gift

• 2:05:34Whitney Cummings?

  to her was we all had to read the same book, which was so annoying. Don't be friends with rich celebrities.

• 2:05:41Tim Ferriss?

  Here's your homework assignment.

• 2:05:43Whitney Cummings?

  And I was like so annoyed and it ended up obviously being excellent. Gary Shingart is phenomenal. So I started giving it to everyone more as an ego, as a congra-

• 2:05:51Tim Ferriss?

  I read fiction.

• 2:05:51Whitney Cummings?

  I read fiction, guys. Like, I'm so erudite. I'm so cultured and as a pat on the back, but I don't want to mislead you into thinking I actually read fiction. I'm not that normal. I, I give the drama of the gifted child a lot to people.

• 2:06:07Tim Ferriss?

  You know, this book has come up.

• 2:06:09Whitney Cummings?

  I bet.

• 2:06:10Tim Ferriss?

  Just in the last week with a number of friends of mine who are very talented.

• 2:06:14Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:14Tim Ferriss?

  High performers.

• 2:06:15Whitney Cummings?

  Yes.

• 2:06:16Tim Ferriss?

  The drama of the gifted child.

• 2:06:18Whitney Cummings?

  Drama of the gifted child. It's very much-

• 2:06:23Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, if you're a creative person, um, if you have any kind of anxiety or discomfort or just read it, it's hard to um, sum up. Uh, another one I give a lot is the fantasy bond, which is incredibly dense and clinical, but it's about uh, essentially what happens between ages one and three, sort of ordains your whole life. Uh, it's kind of about attachment. Um, like our attachment strategies based on how much eye contact we got as a child, how we were breastfed, how much physical contact we got, what our dynamics we walked into as a child and uh, how we see the world according to those formative years, which

• 2:07:07Whitney Cummings?

  is pretty fascinating stuff. Um, about, you know, I think it's when you're, I think I have a lot of shame around the fact that I'm almost like an attention seeker, if that makes any sense. Like being a comedian, there's just a little bit of shame for me when it's like, why do I have this much of a compulsion to be seen and heard? Like, what is this? And once I got a, got a handle on the fact that as a kid I wasn't seen and heard enough and I had this, I was trying to get these childhood needs met as an adult through my work. Once I got a handle on that understanding, it made me need it less.

• 2:07:39Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 2:07:40Whitney Cummings?

  You know, I was like, oh my God, I don't want to be famous. What am I doing? This is horrible. Like, you can't undo this, you know?

• 2:07:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:46Whitney Cummings?

  So I feel like, you know, because I read this book, I took like a year off of like being on TV because I didn't need that anymore. I wasn't like, I just need to be seen as much as possible by as many people as possible. That's not a healthy compulsion. And, and I, it backfired uh, in some ways. So I was able to kind of take control of my uh, self.

• 2:08:06Tim Ferriss?

  The fantasy bond.

• 2:08:07Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, the fantasy bond. It's um, Firestone? Robert Firestone, maybe? It's, yeah, it was recommended by um, Marc Maron, actually. The, the epitome of mental health.

• 2:08:18Tim Ferriss?

  Mark is in large part responsible for me wanting to experiment with podcasting.

• 2:08:23Whitney Cummings?

  Really? Oh, that's so cool.

• 2:08:25Tim Ferriss?

  I had such a great experience on his podcast.

• 2:08:27Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:27Tim Ferriss?

  Joe Rogan's podcast.

• 2:08:28Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:28Tim Ferriss?

  The Nerdist Podcast. I was like, huh.

• 2:08:30Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, yeah. My favorite.

• 2:08:31Tim Ferriss?

  This long form thing is really fun.

• 2:08:32Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, all my faves.

• 2:08:33Tim Ferriss?

  Uh.

• 2:08:34Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. So we were on tour together last summer and he was reading it. And, uh, I was sort of, I think things come in your life exactly when you need them kind of thing. Like this book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, maybe there's something, someone, obviously the universe wants you to read this book, I guess. But, uh, I was just in a receptive moment and he was reading it and I was like, boom. And it was just the perfect time.

• 2:08:55Tim Ferriss?

  Cool.

• 2:08:55Whitney Cummings?

  Like, you know.

• 2:08:56Tim Ferriss?

  I'll check it out.

• 2:08:57Whitney Cummings?

  So I've been giving those.

• 2:08:59Tim Ferriss?

  Uh.

• 2:09:00Whitney Cummings?

  Another good one, because a lot of my friends are having kids, it's called the Continuum Concept. And it's about sort of attachment parenting.

• 2:09:06Tim Ferriss?

  Is this basically like you don't, you keep the kid with you 24/7 until they crawl away kind of thing?

• 2:09:12Whitney Cummings?

  Kind of, yes. And the point is.

• 2:09:15Tim Ferriss?

  What was it called? The Continuum?

• 2:09:16Whitney Cummings?

  The Continuum Concept.

• 2:09:18Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 2:09:18Whitney Cummings?

  And oddly, it was recommended by my equine therapy teacher. And it's about essentially the reason we, there's all sorts of chemical reasons, like dopamine and oxytocin that are given off when we touch each other and especially people we love and bond with. But that if you always go to a child when they cry, they learn if I need something, my needs will get met. I can trust that someone else will meet my needs. So attachment parenting is when your child cries, you go to them. You can't necessarily solve their problem, but they know that their voice is being heard and they feel heard. So they're more secure, they're more trusting of their environment, they don't deny their own reality as adults. Essentially, their expectations for the rest of their future. So.

• 2:10:03Tim Ferriss?

  Why did your, if you don't mind me asking, your equine therapy instructor?

• 2:10:06Whitney Cummings?

  I thought you were gonna say X. I was like, uh-oh.

• 2:10:07Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, no. Why did your? The

• 2:10:11Whitney Cummings?

  Equine therapy recommend that?

• 2:10:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:12Whitney Cummings?

  We um, we're talking about attachment, I think, and we were talking about like, oh, the horse, like, I didn't have trust that the horse was gonna follow me or something like I was like, kept checking in and she's like, you keep, because equine therapy is so fascinating because of what comes up, the way that we uh, relate to horses. It just says so much about how we try to run businesses, marriages, relation, it's just a metaphor for everything, because the way you do anything is the way you do everything, right? So I kept checking in and doubting that the reality, that the horse was following me. I was like incredulous that it was happening and she's like, you really question reality. You always doubt yourself and you think that your perception is wrong and that, you know, um,

• 2:10:55Whitney Cummings?

  that the Damocles sword is gonna fall. You're always looking for the catastrophe. And so she was like, read this book and I did to kind of get an understanding of like, oh, something must have happened that maybe constantly be like, and it's true, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop and something's going well. I'm just like, looking around instead of enjoying the moment, I'm just waiting for the catastrophe.

• 2:11:14Tim Ferriss?

  Huh.

• 2:11:14Whitney Cummings?

  You know, so it was sort of about all that.

• 2:11:18Tim Ferriss?

  Blue comedy. Blue, no, blue, blue is really confusing to me. And the expression, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I'm just like.

• 2:11:26Whitney Cummings?

  Interesting. Well, because you know what I always think of when I think of waiting for the other shoe to drop?

• 2:11:30Tim Ferriss?

  What?

• 2:11:31Whitney Cummings?

  Is shoes on a phone line in a bad neighborhood.

• 2:11:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh.

• 2:11:37Whitney Cummings?

  What do you think that means?

• 2:11:41Tim Ferriss?

  Wait a second.

• 2:11:41Whitney Cummings?

  You know.

• 2:11:42Tim Ferriss?

  What do I, what do I think you're envisioning that means?

• 2:11:45Whitney Cummings?

  Okay, wait, okay. I always think of bad shoes in the neighborhood. When I think of waiting for other shoe to drop, that's the vision that comes to mind.

• 2:11:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:55Whitney Cummings?

  Also, do you know what it means when shoes are hanging in a bad neighborhood?

• 2:12:00Tim Ferriss?

  I don't.

• 2:12:01Whitney Cummings?

  But you've seen it, right?

• 2:12:02Tim Ferriss?

  I always thought it was just kids being dicks, but uh, but.

• 2:12:05Whitney Cummings?

  War shock test.

• 2:12:06Tim Ferriss?

  I think I'm probably totally wrong.

• 2:12:07Whitney Cummings?

  Apparently, it's, because you know, like in a phone, you'll see a phone line, you'll see a pair of sneakers hanging in bad neighborhoods. Apparently, it's where someone died of heroin.

• 2:12:16Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, God.

• 2:12:16Whitney Cummings?

  So you know that's where the best heroin is.

• 2:12:19Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my Lord.

• 2:12:20Whitney Cummings?

  So when people see shoes hanging, thank you. I got it right? Ninja, I got it ninja on it approved. Hashtag on it. Um, and then you know, that's where you should buy heroin because that's the purest stuff because it killed someone.

• 2:12:32Tim Ferriss?

  That's insane.

• 2:12:33Whitney Cummings?

  Insane. Blue comedy.

• 2:12:36Tim Ferriss?

  Indeed. That was Travis Bu- uh, Buhr, i.e. Brewer, making a cameo.

• 2:12:43Tim Ferriss?

  When you think of the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind?

• 2:12:46Whitney Cummings?

  Steve Jobs.

• 2:12:47Tim Ferriss?

  Steve Jobs.

• 2:12:47Whitney Cummings?

  Is that weird? I like him anyway, though, so that was like on the tip of my...

• 2:12:52Tim Ferriss?

  Brain.

• 2:12:53Whitney Cummings?

  Brain.

• 2:12:54Tim Ferriss?

  When, okay.

• 2:12:55Whitney Cummings?

  However...

• 2:12:57Tim Ferriss?

  If you had, if you had to choose a second person?

• 2:13:00Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, it has to be the tip of my brain, doesn't it? I'm overthinking it. Well, I was just gonna say something that is just gonna open up a weird can of worms, cuz I was gonna say Sheryl Sandberg, cuz I feel like she had this well-rounded life and a personal life also, um, which recently imploded, um, which is not funny. Uh, but like someone who had, I think I used to define success as someone at the top of their field professionally only, and now I also view it as someone who has balance, like a good relationship with friends and family, you know? Time, has fun, uh, when they're not working, they're actually not working. Um, so that's why I was thinking about her.

• 2:13:45Whitney Cummings?

  Drew Barrymore, this is really weird, but I follow her on Instagram. She really seems to go to the beach a lot. She's got a cosmetic, like, she has two kids. She seemed to have kinda nailed it. I was just like, God, it's just, that must be nice. Um...

• 2:13:58Whitney Cummings?

  Steve Jobs and Drew Barrymore, that's, you know, and Sheryl Sandberg, that's a trifecta.

• 2:14:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:14:04Whitney Cummings?

  Success.

• 2:14:05Tim Ferriss?

  Motley Crue.

• 2:14:05Whitney Cummings?

  Elon Musk is a good one. I mean, I don't really know about his personal life, but he's, in terms of, you know, making an impact, I think he's probably done a pretty good job.

• 2:14:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 2:14:17Whitney Cummings?

  You're pretty successful.

• 2:14:18Tim Ferriss?

  He's, uh, he's, he's very good at bedding the farm and pulling it off.

• 2:14:22Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, like, I mean...

• 2:14:23Tim Ferriss?

  I think he made a hundred and eighty million from the sale of PayPal, and he took all of it and put it into three companies.

• 2:14:28Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:28Tim Ferriss?

  And had to borrow money for rent.

• 2:14:30Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah, he's like, uh, Bill Burr. He keeps making himself poor, so he has to get rich again.

• 2:14:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:36Whitney Cummings?

  Like how Bill bombs...

• 2:14:38Tim Ferriss?

  Interesting comparison, yeah.

• 2:14:39Whitney Cummings?

  You know? Cuz it's interesting, cuz I want to, all these comedians came to mind. Like I was thinking Richard Pryor and Louis C K and Jerry Seinfeld and all these comedians were coming to mind, but I think for me, because I've seen the others, what the success has cost them.

• 2:14:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you, you know how the sausage is made.

• 2:14:56Whitney Cummings?

  Yes. So I don't know Elon or Steve Jobs is what it cost them emotionally, family wise. So I'm a little bit naive about it.

• 2:15:05Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:06Whitney Cummings?

  So.

• 2:15:07Tim Ferriss?

  In Jobs' case, a lot.

• 2:15:08Whitney Cummings?

  A lot. I'm sure. Well, cause yeah. And it was interesting because everybody always, I think the reason I sort of latched on to him, I mean, it's obviously a pretty hacky, unoriginal, inspiring figure, but I think when I was the boss for the first time, I think I for some reason looked up to him in a way because everyone was like, oh, he's an asshole. He's crazy. And I was like, I just, maybe everyone who's the boss is crazy because no one likes their boss because they're telling them to do work, you know? And I remember people like, oh, he was such a dick. Like he would, you know, if something wasn't perfect, he'd make them fix it. And I'd be like, well, what's so wrong with that?

• 2:15:43Tim Ferriss?

  Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

• 2:15:44Whitney Cummings?

  I mean, that sounds like a great boss, you know? He sounds like a great leader, you know? And I hear all these horror stories and I think that I started getting paranoid that people thought I was difficult and I do, you know? And I'm like, why is it difficult to say, I think we can do better? I think we can beat this joke. Like I'm not, I'm just like, I want this to be good. All of our names are on it. You're getting paid a tremendous amount of money to be here. Why am I such a jerk? You know? And I think that through the lens of people's egos and, and feelings and stuff, it just ends up being like, oh, he's crazy. He's an asshole. You know, I, I'm yet to meet or know of one successful person who everyone doesn't think is crazy.

• 2:16:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, yeah.

• 2:16:21Whitney Cummings?

  It's pretty much just means they're.

• 2:16:22Tim Ferriss?

  I think that's par for the course, generally speaking.

• 2:16:24Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. He's crazy. He's fucking nutty. He's a psycho. It's like, okay.

• 2:16:27Tim Ferriss?

  Or you just catch someone on an off day. You know, I mean, like I've, I've met some people who are celebrities who in person, every time I've seen them in an interaction with other people with me, they've been great.

• 2:16:36Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:37Tim Ferriss?

  But I'd read things about them online at some point where, you know, someone's like, oh my God, you know, I was touring with this guy and he wouldn't sign fans' autographs. He was a dick. And I'm like, maybe he just had a bad day. Like, had, broke up with his girlfriend or like, who the hell knows?

• 2:16:50Whitney Cummings?

  The other week I was in the airport and, um, You know, people are asking for pictures and I, I, my dad had just had a stroke and I was like, I'm just sorry, I can't. And I'm sure that those people are going, she's such an asshole. Like I'm sure they were, you know, but it's just not, you know, we just can't concern you. What do you think of me is none of my business, et cetera. You know, Louis CK, I don't know if you know this, it interests me. Uh, he doesn't take photos with people. But he says, I won't take a photo with you, but I will talk to you for five minutes. And he says, almost everybody declines.

• 2:17:22Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I bet.

• 2:17:22Whitney Cummings?

  They just want the photo.

• 2:17:23Tim Ferriss?

  Now, why doesn't he do the photos?

• 2:17:25Whitney Cummings?

  I don't know. I think it's, I don't remember.

• 2:17:29Tim Ferriss?

  I guess, I guess maybe it's like, if, if you're going to occupy this time, I want you to have to do some work as well.

• 2:17:33Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:35Whitney Cummings?

  Maybe like, what am I going to get out of this? Like,

• 2:17:37Tim Ferriss?

  Well, no, not even that. But it's just, you know, if we're going to have an exchange, let's have an exchange.

• 2:17:41Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah. Let's, if you want to connect, let's really connect. I think, I mean, I'm sure he has a really interesting reason why he doesn't. Um, but, uh, I mean, cause also it's like, there's no, you know, I say getting your picture taken is just so weird. I mean, especially on like a press line. Like, you know, when actresses have to go down a press line and just like pose. I said, I, I mean, I've stopped kind of doing it because I'm like, unless someone gives me a healthy inner monologue to recite while I'm doing that, I'm not going to do it. Cause what do you, you're just like, look at me. Am I sexy? Am I thin enough? Do you want to have, like, it's just such unhealthy things that you're thinking.

• 2:18:12Tim Ferriss?

  It's like what's in my head every time I ride the subway.

• 2:18:17Whitney Cummings?

  Love that you ride the subway. So it's like, I'm sure when he's posing with someone, it's just like,

• 2:18:21Tim Ferriss?

  Bart. It's Bart in San Francisco. It's kind of like the Mad Max marauder version of the subway.

• 2:18:25Whitney Cummings?

  I like that.

• 2:18:26Tim Ferriss?

  It's carpeted. Why on earth would you?

• 2:18:27Whitney Cummings?

  It's not the outdoor one, is it?

• 2:18:28Tim Ferriss?

  Why would you ever carpet? A place as filthy as a subway car? I don't know.

• 2:18:33Whitney Cummings?

  It's not the trolley.

• 2:18:34Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, it's not the restaurant thing. Yeah, exactly.

• 2:18:38Whitney Cummings?

  You get a lot of Musk on that.

• 2:18:41Tim Ferriss?

  The Hyperloop.

• 2:18:42Whitney Cummings?

  The Hyper Carpet? Hypercarvelo.

• 2:18:45Tim Ferriss?

  The Hyper Carpet.

• 2:18:45Whitney Cummings?

  And, uh, so I think that, yeah, I think he just felt like he feels like, you know, you feel kind of violated, someone just ambushing you. And I mean, he's with his kids and he's, you know,

• 2:18:54Tim Ferriss?

  I think when you have a family, I can only imagine it, it really must change.

• 2:18:57Whitney Cummings?

  One person gets one, then all of a sudden, everybody

• 2:18:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:00Whitney Cummings?

  wants one. And then you're in a, you know, so I think he just, you know, whatever, for whatever reason, I'm sure he has a, um, You know, a dignified reason for it, but nobody ever, he's like, I mean, to talk to Louis CK for five minutes could be the best five minutes of your life. And people are like, no, thanks.

• 2:19:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:15Whitney Cummings?

  We just, I just wanted to Instagram it and show off that I met you. This is about me. It's not about you. I mean, this like culture of narcissism. I remember I was at the People's Choice Awards, which is like a really silly award show. But, you know, they have seat fillers.

• 2:19:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yep. Wait, seat fillers?

• 2:19:31Whitney Cummings?

  Seat fillers is like, there's all the celebrities there, but then everyone else that's in the audience are like paid seat fillers who are super attractive and they're all-

• 2:19:39Tim Ferriss?

  It's like, it's like an Indonesian political rally. They pay people with like science to come. Oh, no, they absolutely do.

• 2:19:45Whitney Cummings?

  That's so funny. Yeah, no, I didn't know that. I love you and I's reference points are so different. Yours are so much more impressive. And so they get paid 50 bucks to dress pretty and look good because they're going to be on camera, maybe in a pan shot or something. And so I'm sitting in front of, I want to say Ellen's in front of me, but Ellen had gone on stage. So this is actually, so, but there's all these seat fillers, beautiful. I can't tell who, I mean, the seat fillers are more attractive than celebrities. And it's like,

• 2:20:13Whitney Cummings?

  and so onstage is, I want to say Ellen and Chris Pine, who's that, you know, whatever actor, famous actor. And I see these people holding up their cameras. And I'm like looking or trying to look over them. And I see that they're taking selfies of themselves. And I'm like, no, the celebrities are that way.

• 2:20:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:33Whitney Cummings?

  You're not the celebrity. I mean, peep, there's a celebrity two feet in front of them and they're taking a picture of themselves. I mean, it's just like, you know, it was, it was crazy.

• 2:20:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's a bizarre world.

• 2:20:45Whitney Cummings?

  Flip it around.

• 2:20:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's a bizarre world we live in.

• 2:20:48Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:49Tim Ferriss?

  Just, just a few last questions. If you could put a billboard anywhere and have anything you want on the billboard, text, photo, what would it be? Where would it be?

• 2:21:00Whitney Cummings?

  Like a message I would want to get out?

• 2:21:01Tim Ferriss?

  It could be a message or it could be a photo.

• 2:21:04Whitney Cummings?

  Of anything?

• 2:21:05Tim Ferriss?

  Anything.

• 2:21:06Whitney Cummings?

  Wow, this is a really good question. You should have a podcast. Um, if I could, well, everyone's got their things, right? Their thing causes and my cause is dogs. That's everyone's got their thing and I'm sure that, you know, when something else touches me, that will be my thing, you know, and cancer touches my family or whatever. Alcoholism has touched my family, but I haven't been compelled to like get super in the trenches of, of that, but um, a statistic that really affected me too, statistics that I just sort of wish people knew was that three million dogs die a year in shelters and 17 million a year get bought.

• 2:21:52Whitney Cummings?

  So it's just like.

• 2:21:54Tim Ferriss?

  Right, that math, the, the, the three shouldn't exist.

• 2:21:57Whitney Cummings?

  Crazy math. Yeah, it should be, don't make me do this math. Yeah, 14 a year are bought. That should just be the statistic, right?

• 2:22:04Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 2:22:04Whitney Cummings?

  So, uh, that was something that just hearing that I was like, God, that is such a waste. That's just so much death and it's just so karmically bad for just this species. And so, um, uh, so yeah, that's something that sort of, when I, I was always kind of trying to do dog rescue and I didn't really know how. And once I got that statistic, I felt kind of emboldened to be like, all right, I know exactly where my energy can go. It was very empowering to learn that. And another thing is, um, I work with this, uh, charity called the Beagle Freedom Project. Um, that's beagles that are tested on in labs, um, that the tests are usually inane and like, don't do much. It's just you can say a product is tested on an animal and that it's safe. And this statistic kind of blew my mind, uh, which is that beagles are chosen to be, um, the dogs

• 2:22:47Whitney Cummings?

  tested on in labs because they're the most forgiving of all dog breeds. So you can hurt them a bunch of times and they'll still give you the benefit of the doubt and they'll still keep forgiving you.

• 2:22:56Tim Ferriss?

  It's like the most heart wrenching thing I've ever heard.

• 2:22:58Whitney Cummings?

  So once I heard that, I was like, I'm in, you're preying on the weakest, sweetest. And so I got involved in that and, uh, you know, I think that if you don't have kids, you know, and if you're busy like you and I are and you travel a lot, dogs is just a really sort of easy, rewarding, sort of healthy thing and, and those two. So I feel like I would just put those on billboards, maybe.

• 2:23:20Tim Ferriss?

  So what would it say?

• 2:23:21Whitney Cummings?

  In China, at the Dog Meat Festival.

• 2:23:27Whitney Cummings?

  That's probably the location I would pick. The Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

• 2:23:32Whitney Cummings?

  Makes me crazy.

• 2:23:33Tim Ferriss?

  Is there a dog meat festival?

• 2:23:34Whitney Cummings?

  Oh, my God, the Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Yeah, so this obviously means you don't follow me on Instagram. Which is Stop Yulin 2015 is my big obsession right now. But yeah, there's a dog meat festival that's going on, I think, right now in China, where they actually kidnap people's domesticated dogs. So you just wake up and your dogs are gone. And then there's a dog meat festival. It's, I mean, here's the thing with China, they don't treat their people that great either, much less their dogs or their children. So that's a bigger issue that I'm not really qualified to talk about, but.

• 2:24:05Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Wow, Dog Meat Festival.

• 2:24:07Whitney Cummings?

  Dog Meat Festival. But whenever I tell people, whenever I'm like doing, I think a lot of people want to help dogs. It's just such an, or animals or cats, anything.

• 2:24:14Tim Ferriss?

  It's too broad.

• 2:24:15Whitney Cummings?

  Too big of an issue. And like, as soon as they hear that, like beagles are the most, people like, how do I help? And a lot of people don't even know they're getting tested on.

• 2:24:22Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. So it could be like beagle, beagles are the most tested on dog species. They're also the most forgiving.

• 2:24:26Whitney Cummings?

  Forgiving.

• 2:24:27Tim Ferriss?

  And then tagline, whatever that is.

• 2:24:28Whitney Cummings?

  Whitney Cummings.com, buy tickets.

• 2:24:30Tim Ferriss?

  There we go.

• 2:24:31Whitney Cummings?

  Download my stuff.

• 2:24:32Tim Ferriss?

  Download my stuff.

• 2:24:33Whitney Cummings?

  No, I'm using it.

• 2:24:34Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not actually donating anything.

• 2:24:35Whitney Cummings?

  No, no, donate just to me. I just got this to get your attention.

• 2:24:39Tim Ferriss?

  I just wanted to bring this to your attention.

• 2:24:40Whitney Cummings?

  I just wanted to capture your heart so then I could then manipulate you into buying me a vacation home.

• 2:24:47Whitney Cummings?

  Gotcha.

• 2:24:47Tim Ferriss?

  I gotcha. That was a hell of a, that was a nice political move.

• 2:24:52Whitney Cummings?

  Circling, circling this way.

• 2:24:53Tim Ferriss?

  That was great. It's like, I'm glad you asked that question. Let me answer it a different way, meaning Whitney Cummings.com.

• 2:24:59Whitney Cummings?

  I also think that, like, donating to animals is just my drug of choice, I guess. I don't drink. I mean, I drank, but I'm not, you know, not like to excess. And I don't do drugs. Like, when I give money to animals, I feel as good. So I just feel like a lot of people, like, once they start, you feel good if you give 20 bucks to whatever. You know, it's like, I think everyone would be, everybody wins.

• 2:25:21Tim Ferriss?

  What advice would you give to your 25-year-old self?

• 2:25:28Whitney Cummings?

  Twenty-five. Um, uh, there's so much advice. I would say, don't wear any of what you're wearing right now.

• 2:25:37Tim Ferriss?

  Which was what?

• 2:25:38Whitney Cummings?

  Which was, you know, it's funny, I dressed like a boy from the seventies until I was like twenty-nine.

• 2:25:45Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 2:25:46Whitney Cummings?

  New vintage New Balance sneakers, bell bottoms, and a hoodie with a backpack. You know, I was very, that was my uniform, um, which was kind of like my shield of like, please don't see me as a sexual being, like when I did stand-up. You know, I tried to really like neutralize my like gender. Um, and, uh, stopped drinking Diet Coke, stopped drinking Aspartame. I feel like I just missed the new thing of that that was like, my early twenties in college was all artificial sweeteners and crap that I feel like I'm gonna be, that's why I'm drinking this stupid beet juice. Um, and I think it really compromised my productivity and my, you know, who knows what that was doing to my brain chemistry. Um, and, uh,

• 2:26:31Whitney Cummings?

  I think maybe the main thing is those mistakes are actually getting you to exactly where you want to go.

• 2:26:38Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I get it.

• 2:26:39Whitney Cummings?

  They're rerouting you to your dreams, you know? And they're not, I hate the word failure, because I always, I always think it's just like a step in the right direction, you know? So all the things that I agonized over, the jobs I didn't get, I mean, I like, was in bed, like, crying my eyes out for like a week because I didn't get a job as a VH1, like, host of a countdown. I mean, something that would just be so embarrassing. If you saw my Wikipedia page today, I'd be like, can you really not talk about that? It would have been a thing that I said, please don't talk about it on the podcast. It would have been so embarrassing now, but at the time, it was like, I was just-

• 2:27:18Tim Ferriss?

  The Holy Grail.

• 2:27:19Whitney Cummings?

  I was destroyed over it, you know? And I didn't realize, oh my God, in a couple years, like, I'm gonna-

• 2:27:23Tim Ferriss?

  Dodged a bullet.

• 2:27:24Whitney Cummings?

  It's, I dodged a bullet. So, I, I wish that I had kind of, I would have saved a lot of time and energy and anguish.

• 2:27:29Tim Ferriss?

  And your mistakes are taking you where you want to go.

• 2:27:30Whitney Cummings?

  Yes, exactly.

• 2:27:31Tim Ferriss?

  I like it.

• 2:27:32Whitney Cummings?

  Exactly.

• 2:27:33Tim Ferriss?

  This has been great. Where can people learn more about you?

• 2:27:37Whitney Cummings?

  Ashley Madison.

• 2:27:39Tim Ferriss?

  Ashley Madison.

• 2:27:40Whitney Cummings?

  Dot com.

• 2:27:43Whitney Cummings?

  Whitehouse dot porn. I literally got this call the other day. My lawyer was like, hey, we need to buy your dot porn. And I was like, are we, we changing the game plan? Is there something I don't know?

• 2:27:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you're like, I'm not sure.

• 2:27:56Whitney Cummings?

  Our ratings down? Yeah, but the dot porn is about to come out. So you have to buy your domain. You're welcome.

• 2:28:05Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you. I'll get on.

• 2:28:06Whitney Cummings?

  Get yours. Tim Ferriss dot porn. Reroute it to your blog.

• 2:28:11Tim Ferriss?

  I'll send it to your website.

• 2:28:13Whitney Cummings?

  There you go.

• 2:28:18Tim Ferriss?

  So the home base is, where should people go?

• 2:28:22Whitney Cummings?

  Uh, my tour dates and stuff are all Whitney Cummings dot com. And then I have Twitter, Whitney Cummings. My Instagram is Whitney A Cummings. Because Whitney Cummings is a 15 year old black aspiring singer. Who is pretty talented, actually, and has a lot of followers, thanks to me.

• 2:28:39Tim Ferriss?

  Nice.

• 2:28:40Whitney Cummings?

  Has posted two photos. Um, but, uh, yeah, Whitney A Cummings.

• 2:28:44Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 2:28:45Whitney Cummings?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:46Tim Ferriss?

  And any last ask of the audience? If you could ask the audience to do one thing, what would it be?

• 2:28:53Whitney Cummings?

  Um.

• 2:28:55Tim Ferriss?

  Besides visit the website?

• 2:28:56Whitney Cummings?

  This is so provocative. I'm like using parts of my brains I never use. If I could ask the audience to do, uh, one thing, what would it be?

• 2:29:08Whitney Cummings?

  God, that's a really deep question. I have so many thoughts.

• 2:29:13Whitney Cummings?

  I mean, do you?

• 2:29:17Whitney Cummings?

  Do your thing. Live out loud, be authentic.

• 2:29:22Whitney Cummings?

  I don't know. Is that, did you ask that question? I haven't heard you ask.

• 2:29:25Tim Ferriss?

  I don't ask it. I don't ask it too often.

• 2:29:27Whitney Cummings?

  If you could ask the audience to do one thing?

• 2:29:31Whitney Cummings?

  Um, watch comedy. It's good for you.

• 2:29:34Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, now I'll dig on that for a second. If somebody who's seen comedy occasionally, but is not a connoisseur, wants to enjoy comedy more, or get more out of it, if they're watching, say, a stand-up special, what should they pay attention to? Or think of to see kind of an extra layer? Or ask themselves, anything?

• 2:29:56Whitney Cummings?

  I think that there's, I think, look at what offends you. If something offends you, watch Richard Pryor, watch Daniel Tosh, watch the most incendiary comedians, Bill Burr, maybe Louis CK's monologue that he just did on SNL that there was this outcry because he talked about pedophiles or something. If something offends you, look inward. That's a sign that there's something there. What offends someone says a lot about them.

• 2:30:28Tim Ferriss?

  Agreed. Agreed. I think it was Mae West who said, "Those who are shocked easily should be shocked more often."

• 2:30:33Whitney Cummings?

  I like that. I like that. I love, I have a huge poster of Mae West in my office. Um, but, uh, who a lot of people think was a man, and a lot of people think she was black. Interesting. The original Rachel Dolezal, was that her name? The girl who just pretended to be black, the NAACP woman?

• 2:30:51Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know.

• 2:30:52Whitney Cummings?

  Um, yeah, she was like a, I was on a plane yesterday. I was way too deep into, uh, the news. Um, but, uh, yeah, I would say, look at what offends you, and it'll probably help you with some self-awareness.

• 2:31:04Tim Ferriss?

  That's great. I love it. Thank you so much for the time. This is great.

• 2:31:07Whitney Cummings?

  Thanks.

• 2:31:08Tim Ferriss?

  All right, to be continued. And until next time, thanks for listening, folks, for all the links, resources, and so on from this episode. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. Toodle-oo.

• 2:31:24Tim Ferriss?

  The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by Onnit. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen, in my garage, you will find AlphaBrain, chewable melatonin for resetting my clock when I'm traveling, kettlebells, battle ropes, maces, steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it kind of is. It's a torture chamber for self-improvement. And you can see all of my favorite gear at Onnit.com/Tim. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com forward slash Tim. And you can also get a discount on any supplements, food products. I like Hemp Force. I like AlphaBrain. Check it all out. Onnit.com/Tim. This episode is brought to you by a new sponsor, so listen up, folks. This is a good one.

• 2:32:09Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:32:51Tim Ferriss?

  There's some pretty ridiculous ones, and I will also highlight my favorite. You'll probably be able to guess which it is. These underwear are made from Mikromodau, which is extruded from Austrian beechwood trees in the Alps. Yes, fancy. And it's two times softer than cotton, scientifically tested, using the Kawabata method, developed in Kyoto. You know those Japanese, very crafty. And I will say a few things. Number one, if you go to MeUndies.com/Tim, you get to see all of the spectacular underwear that I've been wearing, and I am a bit of an underwear connoisseur. Socks, fashion sense, with sweatpants, not so much. Underwear, I understand. So check 'em out. And if you go to MeUndies.com/Tim,

• 2:33:32Tim Ferriss?

  We'll also be able to see lots of hot ladies wearing MeUndies female underwear. And that's just a lot of goodness for both the men and the women out there. So check it out. MeUndies.com/Tim. I love these underwear. And I am going to be packing tonight probably six to 12 pair to take with me to Australia. They're great. Check them out. MeUndies.com/Tim. And until next time, thank you for listening.