Chris Nowinski (on CTE)

Chris Nowinski (Stop Hitting Kids in the Head, Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis, Concussion Legacy Foundation) is an author, retired pro-wrestler, and neuroscientist. Chris joins the Armchair Expert to discuss never forgetting the culture shock of wealth while studying at Harvard, his stint wrestling on Monday Night Raw, and not having ever really been in a real fight. Chris and Dax talk about why the violence in football is actually worse than WWE, his first instance of REM behavior disorder, and learning the preciousness of brain cells. Chris explains the supposed causes and physiology of CTE, why we have selective framing for how to think about the mental health of athletes transitioning out of sports, and how wrestlers now really appreciate how much safer the industry is. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Leslie Stahl. And today, our guest is Chris Nowinski. He is a neuroscientist, an author, and a retired professional wrestler. We've been just accumulating bizarre origin stories. But bizarre might not be the right word. Super fascinating origin stories.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Unusual.

• 0:23Dax Shepard?

  Unusual, which is probably the definition of bizarre. If you look it up, it probably says unusual.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I've been thrilled, thrilled to have Chris Nowinski on. I've been wanting to have someone on to talk about CTE for a long time.

• 0:36Dax Shepard?

  You love CTE. It's your favorite topic. The dream scenario would be a CTE episode of The Pit.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. I'm surprised they didn't do that.

• 0:47Dax Shepard?

  They will, season two.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  I hope so. It got a season two. It's like rushing a season two.

• 0:52Dax Shepard?

  Of course. John Wells is a legend. Okay, he has a book called Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis. And if you want to get involved with the Concussion Legacy Foundation, concussionfoundation.org. This is a really, really interesting episode. And his story is second to none. Please enjoy Chris Nowinski. We get support from Quince.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts. And Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself, because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.

• 1:38Dax Shepard?

  Quince is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. Their high-quality staples are made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Full-on luxury quality at prices that won't wreck your holiday budget.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  It's the dream. The cashmere sweater, starting at $60. Down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.

• 2:05Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm going to tell you this. It just got chilly for the first time this year in California. And I'm so excited. And I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 2:13Dax Shepard?

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

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel-quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an amazing thing they offer here. And it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five-star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.

• 2:40Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. We get support from Gusto. So here's the thing about running a small business that nobody romanticizes. It's not the big idea that wears you down, it's the payroll, the tax filings, the wait, do I need workers' comp for this stuff? That's the part that quietly eats away your whole afternoon, which is where Gusto comes in. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses.

• 3:25Dax Shepard?

  It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use so you can pay onboard and support your team from anywhere. They handle automatic tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits, 401K, all of it. And you get unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. If something tricky comes up, you've got direct access to certified HR experts who actually know what they're talking about. And they're ranked number one on G2's Highest Satisfaction Products List for 2026, entrusted by over 500,000 small businesses. That's not nothing. Try Gusto today at gusto.com/dax and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com/dax.

• 4:10Dax Shepard?

  Again, that's gusto.com/dax.

• 4:31Dax Shepard?

  Do you know the author David Sedaris?

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:34Dax Shepard?

  Our greatest gift this whole show has given us is we've interviewed him like six times and he sends us postcards.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:40Dax Shepard?

  And they have postcards from Sedaris is like-

• 4:42Speaker 01

  But he writes?

• 4:43Dax Shepard?

  He writes them from all over the world.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Such a throwback to Better Life.

• 4:47Dax Shepard?

  Where are you coming in from?

• 4:48Speaker 02

  I live in Florida now.

• 4:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you do? What city in Florida?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Boynton Beach.

• 4:52Dax Shepard?

  Where's Boynton Beach?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  It's north of Boca, south of Palm Beach.

• 4:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Near my wife's family so that I can be living the dream on the road.

• 5:00Dax Shepard?

  Do you have kids?

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Six and four, Kenzie and Charlie.

• 5:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so yeah, you definitely need grandma and grandpa around.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  They're doing a great job helping.

• 5:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we did it without a grandma and grandpa, but thank God my sister lives next door, so.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Oh my God, this is incredible.

• 5:15Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  She said this is for Pee Baby Part Two.

• 5:18Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  For this space.

• 5:20Dax Shepard?

  That's a deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  That is a real listener, a real R and B.

• 5:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God. How does one get?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  She probably invented it.

• 5:30Dax Shepard?

  What do you call it when you commission?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 5:33Dax Shepard?

  She commissioned it?

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it took years to build.

• 5:35Dax Shepard?

  Oh, and you have to pee in the tank because the lid doesn't open.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Of course. That's so perfect for us.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  She's gonna be so happy with that reaction.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Oh my God, that is incredible.

• 5:45Dax Shepard?

  Wow. And does it say explicitly for Pee Baby?

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:49Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God. You wouldn't know the story behind Pee Baby.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  I gotta explain to you, I don't go back that deep.

• 5:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Of course, I don't expect it. Very early days, Pee Baby.

• 5:57Dax Shepard?

  We barely go back that deep. Sometimes we've completely forgotten. Okay, so where did you move from to this area of Florida?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  I was in Boston for 25 years.

• 6:07Dax Shepard?

  But you're from Chicago-ish?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  From Chicago, right, yeah.

• 6:09Dax Shepard?

  What suburb have you already bonded with Robbie about this?

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, I grew up in Oak Park and in Arlington Heights, which is right by him in Hoffman Estates.

• 6:15Dax Shepard?

  Okay, what did mom and dad do there?

• 6:16Speaker 02

  My dad worked in hotel restaurant management. So when I was growing up, he's at Northwestern in food service.

• 6:21Dax Shepard?

  Oh, the college?

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yes. That's actually my first love of football was going on Saturday mornings, he'd have to work and I'd get to go sit with the football team while they had breakfast.

• 6:29Dax Shepard?

  Mmm.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Can you imagine like all the cereals being lined out? Like it was like a dream.

• 6:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and watching guys probably consume like seven, eight thousand calories before practice. You're very Chicago.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Thank you. I thought I lost it.

• 6:43Dax Shepard?

  No, right.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  He'd be like, nice.

• 6:45Dax Shepard?

  He could be standing next to Ditka and look like his son, maybe. You know, that very Midwestern.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a nice vibe.

• 6:52Dax Shepard?

  Big white boy. Yeah, yeah. I'm from Detroit, so we have our variety as well.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, we consider ourselves brothers statewide, right?

• 7:00Dax Shepard?

  Absolutely. Also, high rate alcoholism is standard.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, my dad's family's Milwaukee, my mom's family's East Lansing.

• 7:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, so deep Michigan. A lot of time in Kalamazoo growing up.

• 7:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my goodness, I just, I won't bore you with it, but, no, I'm gonna bore you with it. I drove around with a homeless guy for an hour and a half interviewing him. And the only reason he trusted me to get him was because he was from Kalamazoo and I was from Michigan.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 7:22Dax Shepard?

  What was in Kalamazoo?

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Just great ants.

• 7:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Such a weird thing you just said with no context.

• 7:28Dax Shepard?

  I know, I kinda like it that way. Just leave that hanging until maybe one day the mystery's revealed. Okay, so you played a lot of sports. I'm sure mom and dad were supportive of all the sports.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:39Dax Shepard?

  And you excelled at football.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I did.

• 7:42Dax Shepard?

  And then you ended up going to Harvard to play football.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:45Dax Shepard?

  Now, walk me through the selection process. Like, would you have been good enough to go play at Notre Dame? And then you decided, no, I really want the education.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  I wish it was that good. I was good enough to play at Eastern Michigan.

• 7:57Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  And Northern Illinois. The MAC was interested. And luckily, my high school coach said, listen, if Harvard invites you to come, you don't turn them down.

• 8:05Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, smart.

• 8:06Dax Shepard?

  What kind of grade point did you have coming out of high school?

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Five and change. I don't know.

• 8:10Dax Shepard?

  Wait, you can get a five?

• 8:12Speaker 02

  We had a five-point scale. Great inflation was happening.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  You were a really good student.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  I was a student first.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Okay, five and change, sounds nuts.

• 8:20Dax Shepard?

  I've never heard it go to five. I've heard like 4.4s with all the AP classes.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  It's because of, yeah, AP.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's inflated by AP.

• 8:26Dax Shepard?

  Always plus a ton of AP classes.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you're likable, right? Did you pay any penalty for being that smart? Were you like a nerd? Were you getting shoved in the hallway?

• 8:34Speaker 02

  No, luckily I got big, so I was a jock and I was a nerd. I don't want to go that deep. I had a high opinion of myself in high school.

• 8:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay, good. Cocky, a little cocky. Did you have this thing, because I was in a few AP classes? And I definitely think that first day of the AP class, a lot of the kids were like, oh, God, how embarrassing. He's in the wrong class and he doesn't know it. Do you think you were getting any of that when you would walk into these AP classes? Like, oh, fuck, the center of the football team's in the wrong class.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  I mean, no one on the football team was in my AP class. This is a real. I will say for real.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  The highest honors I remember looking in my high school was all women and me. It was like thirty women. That was weird. So I think it was just accepted that I was there. I did get that at Harvard, though. So I do remember football shows up two weeks early as practice. And then the rest of the students show up and we're in the dining hall and we'll last because we came from practice with boisterous. And I hear somebody say a couple of people in front of me, oh, I thought we left those guys behind in high school.

• 9:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. If I were them, I would be like, oh, fuck, they're jocks here, dude. Isn't that why we work so hard? You're gonna get shoved into a locker in college?

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Sorry, nerds. They're always around.

• 9:40Dax Shepard?

  What was the Harvard experience like? Was it incredible?

• 9:44Speaker 02

  It was the best. You're just around the most motivated, talented people you could imagine. And so it's just infectious.

• 9:49Dax Shepard?

  Is the football team competitive? I don't know anything about it.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:53Dax Shepard?

  Forgive my ignorance. I never see them in like a Rose Bowl or anything.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  No, no, we haven't won since nineteen oh nine.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 10:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so don't be that appalled that I'm asking how good they are.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yes, we at that point, we were one double A. And that was part of a big turnaround to the Harvard program. Now they're one of the best perennially. And now it's called FCS.

• 10:12Dax Shepard?

  Don't jump out of the couch and tackle me. Are they division one?

• 10:16Speaker 02

  So there's no more division one.

• 10:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh, there's not?

• 10:18Speaker 02

  That's the thing, like, they totally screwed up football. So it's football bowl series, FBS, and football championship series, FCS. It's the old one double A. There's a tournament at the end versus a bowl games.

• 10:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and Harvard plays all these teams I'm familiar with.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  No, we didn't play them.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  How familiar are you with Lehigh? Sorry, not to knock on Lehigh, but let's do it.

• 10:37Dax Shepard?

  What is the Lehigh?

• 10:41Speaker 02

  It's a nice school in Pennsylvania. You can't get into Harvard.

• 10:43Dax Shepard?

  An equestrian first school.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Maybe some lacrosse. Okay, yeah.

• 10:48Dax Shepard?

  Well, there was a really interesting who, oh, Malcolm Gladwell just recently wrote about the absurdity of the numerous sports at Harvard. That they have more sports than any other school. So that there's so many routes in.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 11:02Dax Shepard?

  Anywho, all right, so you loved it. What degree did you pick up at Harvard?

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Sociology. So I saw you were an anthropologist. I love it.

• 11:08Dax Shepard?

  The same distance between Detroit and Chicago, really?

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:11Dax Shepard?

  Academically between you. It's very close.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  I started sociology because my perception was I was trying to figure out what was important in the world and sort of strip down what I was told was important growing up outside of Chicago versus what it really is. What do I really care about? What are my values?

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Was it culture shocky at Harvard? I mean, I guess you're around Northwestern.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  The kitchens.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  I had an idea what the classrooms. What honors program?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Right, that's true. Never mind. You were a shoo-in.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  The culture shock for me was wealth. Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Right, yes.

• 11:37Dax Shepard?

  Did you have friends that were like, you wanna get on the jet and go to Martha's Vineyard with my family?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  I wasn't invited, but I heard about it. Like they talked about that, taking the helicopter down to Newport, Rhode Island for the weekend to the mansion. The first time you were asked, where do you summer?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, summer's a verb.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  You never forget that feeling. You don't know how to answer it, then they pity you.

• 11:54Dax Shepard?

  Right. Okay, so how on earth do you get on this MTV show? Oh, another thing we haven't come in.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, my god. What's the timing crossover?

• 12:04Dax Shepard?

  He's much younger than me. Nine years, maybe. Are you 41?

• 12:07Speaker 02

  No, but thank you. I'm 46.

• 12:09Dax Shepard?

  Oh, only four years. Okay, still in the 70s. You were born in 79?

• 12:13Speaker 02

  78.

• 12:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, right. We're doing good. Okay, so yeah, how do you end up on MTV?

• 12:16Speaker 02

  So I took a real job out of Harvard, life sciences consulting, working for a pharma biotech company. Drug development stuff. Intellectually challenging, but not what I was looking for. I was working for them during senior year, making side money, and we would talk wrestling. I became a really big fan that year.

• 12:32Dax Shepard?

  Growing up, did you love WWF and Hulk Hogan?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  It wasn't allowed in my house, so I had two sisters and I was the only boy, so my mom could control that you're not watching wrestling.

• 12:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Like, go to the Cousins, I'd catch it, or the cartoons, so I knew a little bit, but it wasn't a childhood thing. But, summer of 99, I lived with five guys in like a two-bedroom, one-bath for football. And we watched Monday Night Raw and SmackDown, and I got hooked, because it was like The Rock and Stone Cold.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 12:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, golden age.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was amazing. So, a lunch conversation says, you know, if you don't get drafted in the NFL, because I was a distant prospect.

• 13:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you'd make a great wrestler. Would you ever try that? He knew people, because he'd consulted, I think when Vern Gagne was trying to sell the AWA out of Minnesota, deep cut. He's like, all right, if you don't get drafted, let me know. If I don't get drafted, he's like, I'll make a call. He calls Jerry Jarrett, who ran the Memphis Territory, who calls J.J. Dillon, who runs talent for WCW. And they say, hey, we got this 6'5" Harvard guy, I think he'd be good.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  And so suddenly I've got a plane ticket before even graduated to Atlanta to the power plant, where Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff just beats me up for a day.

• 13:30Dax Shepard?

  Just to train you?

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Like a tryout.

• 13:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great. Not in front of any.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  No.

• 13:34Dax Shepard?

  I gotta imagine you're appealing. You have the size, great. You have athleticism, but what a story. You're from Harvard. They're gonna hate your fucking guts. It's like a built in story.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Yes, although I didn't realize at the beginning I was only gonna be a heel if they found out I went to Harvard.

• 13:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  That's where the reality show part comes in. Then the test was, they would just make you run the ropes till your side's bleeding. They would just see if you're tough.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Like, performance or anything. And I passed it. I needed shoulder surgery. They're like, six months when you're healthy, give us a call.

• 14:00Dax Shepard?

  By the way, you're 22?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  I'm 21.

• 14:03Dax Shepard?

  You're 21, you need your first shoulder surgery.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Second.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Oh, Lord.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  AC separation? No, impingement syndrome. Oh, okay. I was getting shots while I was doing my training. Another thing, I've had three shoulder surgeries. Yeah?

• 14:15Dax Shepard?

  This girl's rock key tally! I hope we fuse at the end of this. Okay, so you needed surgery.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Maybe you two should make a pee baby.

• 14:24Dax Shepard?

  We should. It'd explode out of the toilet. First trimester, I'd be 12 pounds.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  So WWE's going out of business by the time I'm healthy. Hiring freeze and Ted Turner, all thing falls apart. So, I'm working part-time as a consultant for my fine Killer Kowalski's Wrestling School. I'm gonna go in old school. I'm going nights and weekends. So then WWE and MTV partnered to create Tough Enough, to sort of bring in the MTV crowd to WWE. And it was just after Real World, season three. But it's hot, and Survivor's hot. This is so early in reality show that we had no last names in the show. 13 people live in a house, train with WWE for 13 weeks.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  And have their whole life filmed. But old school, 24 hours, surveillance cameras, yeah.

• 15:05Dax Shepard?

  Did you have a romantic? No, there's no women there, right?

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  They have to, it's MTV.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  They wanted that, so it was eight guys, five girls.

• 15:11Dax Shepard?

  Okay, they, two are on the wrestling track?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:14Dax Shepard?

  And was there any romance happening in the house?

• 15:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:17Dax Shepard?

  They didn't get you drunk enough.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  They probably hadn't cracked the formula yet.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  The prize was a three-year contract. And so everyone sort of knew, if you're spending your time not focused on the business.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, but there's always romance, even when there's money involved.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  As people smartened up to reality show, they might have realized it'd be good for TV for them to do that.

• 15:34Dax Shepard?

  That's what I'm saying. They would've gotten you hammered on the introduction and then...

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Oh, everyone in the pool for the next meeting?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  This is what year?

• 15:41Dax Shepard?

  99?

• 15:42Speaker 02

  So this was 2001.

• 15:44Dax Shepard?

  Okay, what was the value of a three-year contract at that time with WWE?

• 15:48Speaker 02

  We had no leverage, so I think it was like a hundred thousand, hundred fifty thousand dollar a year deal or something.

• 15:53Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so thirty to fifty grand a year.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  A year.

• 15:56Dax Shepard?

  Per year, okay.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  They paid us six hundred bucks a week to do the show, and then one person gets dangled.

• 16:01Dax Shepard?

  When you're twenty-one, you're gonna make four hundred fifty thousand, that's great.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:06Dax Shepard?

  Of the people that were on this show, how many got that contract?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Two, one male, one female.

• 16:11Dax Shepard?

  And you got, you didn't get the contract. Wait, but you did end up in WWE.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:16Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you didn't get the contract, what then happened?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  And the only reason why, now that we look back.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Is because, well, the show was meant to bring in the wrestling crowd, and so, third week of the show, there's two Chris's on the show. They can't differentiate us, and so they tell everyone, start calling him Chris Harvard. Because everyone just called me Harvard.

• 16:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Because I was the only Harvard guy they'd ever met, and I didn't realize that that would be your heel forever.

• 16:39Dax Shepard?

  I don't wanna be a dick, but maybe the only college grad there.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, that would be my guess, too. I'm glad you said it, I'm glad you said it.

• 16:45Dax Shepard?

  Alita's on, this is why we lost.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  You said it, you're the one that said it out loud.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so the show ends, how big was the show, were people recognizing you and stuff?

• 16:55Speaker 02

  It was the number one show on MTV that year.

• 16:57Dax Shepard?

  It was!

• 16:58Speaker 01

  I'm really upset I missed it.

• 16:59Dax Shepard?

  Were you going to bars in Boston and people were like so excited?

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:03Dax Shepard?

  Yes!

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh, what a fun time.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I was the bad guy in the show, they added me to be a total dick. So I didn't get that kind of reaction, it was like, oh, that guy's here.

• 17:12Dax Shepard?

  You're in Boston, are dudes trying to challenge you at the bar?

• 17:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:15Dax Shepard?

  Thank God.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank God. I haven't been in a lot of real fights, so, yeah, I went and worked the wrestling scene, went back to the old job, and then I get a call, like, alright, come do a tryout. Match around the WrestleMania stuff in Toronto, and so I go work some matches, and they're like, alright, yeah, move to Cincinnati, you're going into the minor leagues. So I got the contract, and then two months into that, they're like, alright, you're going on the Monday Night Raw, and I'm like, okay, I've only had thirty matches in my life, but I'm ready.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 17:40Dax Shepard?

  Were you ready or you weren't ready?

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I survived.

• 17:42Dax Shepard?

  As we'll learn, you have a big injury, is that your fault or his?

• 17:45Speaker 02

  I'll take the blame.

• 17:46Dax Shepard?

  It's a dance.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was multiple hits over time, so some of them were my fault, some of them were not, and they accumulated.

• 17:52Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so this is a question that's been really eating me alive, and you're one of the few people that can really answer this. So we were in Mexico City over Christmas, and we went to the wrestling down there.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Lucha Libre.

• 18:01Dax Shepard?

  I mean, it is wild, I'm watching one match, and I'm like, these guys, there's no way they can walk for like two weeks. It's over and over onto the concrete, it's so violent, so. What was the violence level in WWE compared to football?

• 18:14Speaker 02

  It was night and day. Football's way worse.

• 18:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  Because football, you're actually colliding. In wrestling, you're trying not to hurt anybody.

• 18:21Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  But I was also there at the time where we're as safe as we are today. And so it was real chair shots to the head. And don't put your hand up anymore, you're a coward. That sounds worse.

• 18:30Dax Shepard?

  And there's high-flying stuff that goes wrong.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  All the time.

• 18:33Dax Shepard?

  This is what I was seeing, Monica. Guys were running and leaping out of the ring onto the cement floor that would, at that point, be probably 10 feet below them with a fucking 2-inch mat on the ground. Good luck.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Very small margin of error. It's like a million stunts in a row, but you don't rehearse it. And you just sort of hope.

• 18:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, because they're all improv, right? All these matches? Which I think is fascinating. Did you watch the McMahon documentary?

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:56Dax Shepard?

  What a doc, huh?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I think I did, didn't I?

• 18:58Dax Shepard?

  Were you in it? Oh, this is embarrassing, Dad. It's not too embarrassing. There's about 150 guys in it. We hadn't met yet.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  No, that's right. I'll take that for you.

• 19:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, you were in for the CTE stuff.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Yes. Don't worry, nobody cares about my wrestling career. This is most of been asked about in a long time.

• 19:13Dax Shepard?

  I know you were in the CTE. Yeah, so I guess that was a stupid question. Did you watch it? But did you deal with McMahon at all in that period?

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he was the guy who hired me.

• 19:22Dax Shepard?

  And was he just a good time Charlie? Was he fine to work for?

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, if he liked you, it was fine.

• 19:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Okay, so you cut to the point. You get a pretty gnarly concussion. You get kicked in the head. And what happens?

• 19:33Speaker 02

  So I got a bad concussion, but it didn't get better. So I learned later on, I've been getting concussions playing sports and wrestling for a long time. I didn't realize they were concussions. I wasn't educated on them. So I thought, like, as long as my vision went normal or the headache went away, I was okay.

• 19:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what was the conventional measure of whether someone was concussed or not? Vori-blishen, or Vori-blishen was one.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Yes, and speech impedimentation. Back then, it was if you were knocked out, that was a concussion. And then if you weren't knocked out, it was a gray area. You know, you didn't take it too seriously. If you'd still play, you'd never go tell a doctor. It would never get into the system. So it wouldn't count. But this last one, my head was just throbbing all the time. I couldn't remember anything. And so I kept wrestling for a few matches until they sort of realized, something's really wrong with you. Why don't you take some time off?

• 20:17Dax Shepard?

  Was your balance fucked up and your coordination?

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:19Dax Shepard?

  So you're now a- Liability to yourself because you're not functioning correctly.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:24Dax Shepard?

  So where did that take you?

• 20:25Speaker 02

  I took a few weeks off and then apparently I learned I was accidentally put on the roster for the next weekend's shows. And I thought that was a test of like get back to work. I went to the doctor and I'm like, I'm fine, even though I wasn't fine. Yeah. And I went and wrestled again for a few more weeks and I sort of went into the ground. I stopped only because the match I was supposed to do, my manager on the road, Teddy Long called ahead and like, he's not making sense on the plane. Don't let him wrestle. And then that night in a hotel room, I had my first instance of REM behavior disorder.

• 20:52Dax Shepard?

  Tell me what that is.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  No. You know how when you're dreaming in your mind, you're moving around and all that stuff, but your body turns off your limbs. That broke and so I turned back on. And so I acted out my first dream. Girlfriend I was with at the time was in the room, said she woke up to me standing on the bed, trying to climb the wall. Couldn't wake me up and I remember in my dream, something was falling. I had to catch it. And she was head first on the wall. Oh, my God. And not wake up for another two minutes. Then I woke up and I'm like, that's chaos. And she's crying and screaming and I'm scared to go to sleep. I woke up the next day. I went and told Mickey Man what happened to me and I'm like, you're not wrestling until we figure this out. And by then I'd just done too much and it didn't get better.

• 21:31Dax Shepard?

  Okay, not to spoil or alert, you become a neuroscientist. I'm earmarking that, but let me just ask you really quick. As I recall from biology in college, I was told that all of the cells in your body are somatic. They go through mitosis, but your brain cells do not. They're gray cells and they don't repair. Is that still what we think? Tell me what happens with the cells in your brain.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  They can repair, but when they die, they don't come back.

• 21:57Dax Shepard?

  They are different from the rest of your somatic cells.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I only know brain. I don't care about the body.

• 22:02Dax Shepard?

  Anything below the hat.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  What's down here? But the idea is you don't get new brain cells. Now we know you do get some new brain cells. There is some neurogenesis, but it's not nearly as much as we would want it to be.

• 22:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  So when you get like a severe brain injury, you don't come back. You might build new pathways, new dendritic connections to compensate.

• 22:18Dax Shepard?

  Right. You're going to relocate to a non-damaged area of your brain, some motor control or some other thing.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, you build a new network to take over. The neuron is going to get eaten up by the brain's gone. And new neurons not going to be place filling and making those thousands of connections.

• 22:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So given that, what was the method to repair the condition you had?

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Back in 2003, we didn't really do concussion rehab. I was just sort of like, sit in a dark room until you feel better. We've now learned that doesn't really help. And so I just never got better. So I basically would act out my dreams every other night and it was chaos. I was taking medicine to be sedated and I had a chronic headache all the time. And so after this 12 months of hell, I told them, even if I do get better, I'm probably not coming back to wrestle. If I actually can get rid of this pain, I don't want to lose it.

• 23:00Dax Shepard?

  You're really knowing now, unfortunately, the preciousness of that.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Now I'm the idiot who went to Harvard and then destroyed his brain because he wanted to have some fun being a pro wrestler.

• 23:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I did have a really gnarly concussion, wakeboarding, and I had amnesia for like 14 hours.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 23:18Dax Shepard?

  And I was on like a three-minute loop. And I had the MRI and had looked in there and yeah, it was gnarly.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  What was the question you kept asking?

• 23:24Dax Shepard?

  I would, see, I'm in Michigan, but I know I live in California and I'm with my then-girlfriend of nine years. And I would say, why am I in Michigan? And then my mom was there too, because they were all taking me in the hospital. You're home for my birthday. Why don't I remember that? You were wakeboarding, you hit your head. And then I would say, oh, so it's like the episode of Gilligan's Island where I get hit in the head with a coconut and I just got to get hit in the head with a coconut again. No laughing. And then I go, that's kind of funny. Have I said that before? Yeah, you've said that like 40 times. Crying. Then, why am I in Michigan? Come out of the crying and straight back. And I was just on this loop for like 14 hours. And then it stopped. And then all those memories that had been happening during that 14 hours

• 24:09Dax Shepard?

  were becoming clear.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  That's a very common thing. I'll share a similar story because it's actually in that book I just gave you just because it's so wild. That happened to Bubba Ray Dudley, a wrestler. Tables, Ladders, Chairs match. He forgot his mother died.

• 24:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Recently. And apparently was going around the show, asking people, how's my mother doing? And they all knew she died. He kept reliving his mother's death over and over again until someone figured out, guys, stop answering the question.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:33Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so when do you decide that you're going to go back to school and get a PhD in this?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Well, did it ever get better?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  That's a good question. Thank you for asking. I am feeling a lot better.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  I'm presuming it's better.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he said it never got better.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  I still have the REM behavior once in a while.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  I wake up, think I'm choking to death. I always think something's wrong with my throat. The headaches are mostly gone, but it's more than a decade. I'm doing better, thank you. So, the reason I shifted. I'm so happy you're better, Chris.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  The reason I shifted is because, so there's a doctor who played a very important role in my life. Doctor Bob Cantu. He was the eighth doctor W D sent me to. But the first one to help me understand what I was going through, because every other doctor would ask me, "This concussion you had a few months ago, your first one?" I'm like, "Yeah." Because I'd never been told by someone in a white coat I had a concussion. He was the first one to say, "Well, how many times have you been hit in the head and you saw stars? You forgot where you were, you're dizzy, you're confused." And I was like, "Oh, that happens all the time."

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Like, every day.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Every couple of weeks. I have a bunch of stories of wrestling matches and football things. So, he goes, "Okay, well, if you had a lot of concussions, it sounds like you didn't take any time off because they weren't diagnosed." I'm like, "No." He goes, "Those two things are bad, and they can lead to what you're going through, post-concussion syndrome." And I'm like, "Really?" How am I a Harvard grad who'd been banging my head for 19 years, having no idea what a concussion was? That bothered me. And he was like, "I don't know what that means long-term, the data's questionable." So, I'm like, "All right, I'm going to figure this out." So, I took what I'd learned from that consulting job, and I went over to the Harvard Medical School Library, and I started reading every study ever published on concussions to look for the secret.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  And as I'm digging into that, I'm realizing, "Oh, we've actually known for 100 years that concussions are bad." We used to take care of them much more seriously than we did before. In the 1950s, the Harvard team doctor for the football program said, "Three concussions in your lifetime? And you can't play here anymore. You should retire."

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  That's how serious it was in the 50s. So, what happened? The thing that I could pick up was the NFL was orchestrating a nice big tobacco cover-up about it. It had sparked many times throughout their life. But in the 90s, when Steve Young and Troy Kinnon both had problems, they said, "All right, we're going to take care of this." And they started a concussion committee, full of friendly doctors, who were now publishing research in the medical journal Neurosurgery, saying there's nothing wrong with concussions. We put half our guys back in who were knocked unconscious. None of them had died, therefore, there's no long-term effects. And no one's ever developed any problems long-term. And I knew how to read the studies, and I was like, "Well, these studies are designed to show that." That finding if you had to retire mid season from a concussion, they couldn't follow up with you legally because you were no longer part of the NFL. You would just drop out of the study. You died on the field. You wouldn't fall out.

• 26:59Dax Shepard?

  All undesirable data would be jettisoned from the study.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I got pissed and so I worked with Dr. Candu, learning about all this. I said, all right, I'm going to write a book about this. And that became this book, Head Games Football's Concussion Crisis, that said, A, concussions are much worse than realized. B, there's this thing CT, two cases have been found. And by the way, the NFL is covering this up. So that was oh six when that came out. Got a $4,000 advance.

• 27:22Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  I paid $21,000 for libel insurance.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Because what the NFL was doing.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  But luckily I was right.

• 27:29Dax Shepard?

  OK, so when do you pick up your PhD?

• 27:31Speaker 02

  In 2017. So it's a long leap. And it's because I started nonprofit, started the research center, Boston University School of Medicine. But I was the guy who just got brained for a brain bank. And literally they had an office and they were like, hey, as long as you're in the building, why don't you just go down the hall and get a PhD? Because the shine is going to wear off of the interesting ex athlete.

• 27:49Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes. OK, so what is a concussion?

• 27:53Speaker 02

  A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that changes the way your brain functions.

• 27:59Dax Shepard?

  And does it have to require swelling? How would one test for it?

• 28:03Speaker 02

  There is no objective test. It's still a clinical diagnosis, but basically there's two things happening. One is there's a chemical cascade and metabolic changes that happen from the energy going through your brain or from your neuron stretching, your axon stretching and all these things happening. And then there's also in probably most cases, physical damage, but not stuff that we can pick up on a standard MRI.

• 28:24Dax Shepard?

  Will you tell me more about the chemical aspect?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  The great work was done at UCLA.

• 28:28Dax Shepard?

  I'm not shocked.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  In the anthropology department.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  It's interesting. I hadn't heard that. Just to explain, you have eighty some billion neurons in your brain. They have long projections. Some of them go from your brain down to the bottom of your spinal cord and they're 1/20th width of a human hair. When they stretch, they get injured and they open up your channels. So you get too much calcium flooding inside of your neuron, potassium flooding outside your neuron. It's not operating.

• 28:52Dax Shepard?

  It's becoming porous through the stretching. So now all these chemicals that are inside of it and outside of it start dancing around?

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Yes, and the calcium is affecting mitochondria. You can't produce energy, the electrical signals aren't working right. You get restricted blood flow, the whole thing just sort of is malfunctioning. But it all depends on where it's malfunctioning and how much your brain's impacted to determine symptoms.

• 29:11Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  So that's why some concussions, you can't remember things because parts of your memory are impaired. But other times it's because you can't see because your visual cortex is impacted.

• 29:19Dax Shepard?

  Are there regions of the brain that are more prone to this damage? When you see concussions, does any area over index?

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Well, your frontal lobe is more sensitive to the trauma.

• 29:29Dax Shepard?

  It's big, it's right in front.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  If your brain was a sphere, you'd be a lot better off. But because it's not quite shaped like that and your frontal lobe is sort of hanging off to the front. When your brain moves violently, those axons are more likely to get stretched and twisted. It's not well designed for trauma and it's also tethered in the back down to your spinal cord and your brain stem. So it's flopping around in there.

• 29:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, now when I got mine, they put me in the MRI or the C scan or whatever the fuck I got. And what they were looking for particularly is they told me, well, your brain has swollen. And the swelling has probably caused some pressure against the area of your brain that has these short term memories. Or that's why until it unswells, that's what's going to go on. And then we're looking for bleeding.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  They're looking for bleeding for sure to make sure you don't die.

• 30:12Dax Shepard?

  Right, because if you're hemorrhaging in your brain.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  You can't feel it.

• 30:15Dax Shepard?

  They gotta get in there.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  Right, and they gotta release that or else you're gonna have some real long term problems or could die. So that's what you're usually looking for, but your brain doesn't swell too much from a standard concussion. Most people will never swell.

• 30:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so maybe mine, they just scaring me.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Trying to convince you not to go wakeboarding the next day.

• 30:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I haven't been since, they didn't have to say much.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it definitely can swell a little bit, you just wouldn't pick it up much.

• 30:35Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so for people who've had, and we don't know the number, obviously. At some point in your study, as we accumulate more things, maybe we'll get some kind of predictive sense. But some multiple concussions result in the CTE.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I'm obsessed with CTE.

• 30:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Monica, I don't know if you know this coming in.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I appreciate you guys mention it a lot.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, me, me, I bring it up a lot to Dax's chagrin.

• 30:58Dax Shepard?

  This is her pork belly.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  I do, people don't know enough about it.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  We need to have a conversation about it.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  They really don't.

• 31:08Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. Okay, I need to talk about something that doesn't get enough respect. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese. This is not a casual burger. This is a crafted burger. We're talking 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it. No artificial flavors, no fillers, no preservatives, just beef doing what beef is supposed to do. And here's a detail I love. There's a cowbell sound in the kitchen. When somebody orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a cowbell goes off and the Grill Master throws a fresh patty down.

• 31:52Dax Shepard?

  That's like having your own entrance music at McDonald's. I want a cowbell for everything in life. The onions are hand topped by someone who just knows the right amount. Two slices of cheese laid out in a star pattern, so every single bite gets cheese. And two pickles side by side, so you're never in a pickle desert. Every bite is accounted for. Someone engineered this thing with love. I love a Quarter Pounder.

• 32:15Speaker 01

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

• 32:27Dax Shepard?

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

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not surprised.

• 32:33Dax Shepard?

  The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only. Only at McDonald's. For a limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California and for delivery. Fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery. We get support from No Bull. The holidays can get hectic. You finally hit a post summer routine and suddenly you're on hosting duty every week.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  That's when you really need to ground yourself.

• 33:01Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. And that's why I keep my training routine through the holidays. It's the whole no bull idea. There's a no bullshit training brand built around consistency, honesty, and just putting in the work. It's not about adding more pressure to an already packed schedule. It's about having the gear and the habits to move through the season your way. My personal favorite, all three of the shoes are fantastic. The Outwork, the Outwork Flex, and the Drive 2. I like the Drive 2 because it's a hybrid. And I lift, of course, but I also like to do what's called box jumps.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 33:32Dax Shepard?

  Right? I do a lot of jumping onto a little platform and I want a little more flexibility. And boy, do they deliver.

• 33:38Speaker 01

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

• 33:43Dax Shepard?

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

• 33:50Speaker 01

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

• 34:00Dax Shepard?

  Stay stronger than the season. Head to nobolproject.com all holiday season to shop new deals every week. We get support from Quince. Okay, so I have a confession. I'm the worst holiday shopper on the planet. I wait until the last possible second, I panic, and then I end up buying something nobody wants. But this year, I've cracked the code and the code is cozy. And Quince's bedding makes it so easy because the quality is exceptional. It's the kind of gift people will actually use and love long after the holidays.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yes. Okay. Can we talk about their European linens?

• 34:33Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Because Quince's 100% European linen gets softer with every wash. Most bedding peaks the day you buy it and then it's all downhill. This is the opposite. And their organic cotton bedding is breathable and incredibly soft. It's hotel quality comfort for your own bed.

• 34:48Dax Shepard?

  You crawl into bed and you're like, wait, did I accidentally check into a Four Seasons? Quince just makes it easy to create a bed you'll actually look forward to getting into. And their quilts, coverlets, and duvet inserts make any bed and any gift feel complete.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you can get and give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 35:13Dax Shepard?

  I mean, guys, I put these on the bed of my children. They are wrapping my little babies and I feel great about it.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Mine are striped. They're so cute. They're very fashionable and very comfortable. And it's not just bedding. Quince has everyone on your list covered with Mongolian cashmere sweaters, fine jewelry, leather bags, chef-grade cookware, five-star luggage, and more.

• 35:33Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every family has that one holiday tradition nobody actually enjoys, but everyone keeps doing because stopping it would feel like a federal offense. For me, it was a specific meal situation that I will not name because my family listens. But at some point, you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I love it or because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't?

• 36:14Speaker 01

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

• 36:31Dax Shepard?

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

• 36:50Speaker 01

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

• 36:58Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling it.

• 36:59Speaker 01

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

• 37:06Dax Shepard?

  BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/dax. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash DAX.

• 37:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So what is the full arc of the condition? And like, what are the mechanisms that are happening in the brain?

• 37:43Speaker 02

  CTE is a degenerative brain disease that is caused by repetitive traumatic brain injuries. Right? So it's only seen in association with a lot of hits to the head. So one of the important things to say right away is that one concussion is not causing CT in almost anybody. Cause now we've looked back at brain banks and even ones where people have had a severe brain injury from a car accident or something and you just almost never see it.

• 38:06Dax Shepard?

  Although you did say one concussion doubles your outcome for suicide.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:11Dax Shepard?

  That's fucked up.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Really?

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:13Dax Shepard?

  One concussion. And I know I've had, that's not the only one I've ever had.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  That's horrible.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:19Dax Shepard?

  Although the incident rate for suicide, you know, group of 100,000, it's still quite low. So even if you double it, it's still a low number. Don't get too worried.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  A lot of people have had concussions.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  And so that's interesting to know.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  That data is usually from hospitalized concussions, which you had. And the theory is there's sort of two things going on. One is that maybe it's changing the way your brain functions and maybe you're in chronic pain. Headaches is very much associated with suicide. So maybe there's some of that going on. And then on the other side though, it might affect your life in a big way. It might affect your job, your relationships. Your circumstances have changed.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:49Dax Shepard?

  But then also we get into a correlation causation problem, which is I'm sure there's something we could say about people who accumulate concussions. People that are drawn to that lifestyle are probably doing a whole suite of behaviors.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  It is complicated to unravel. So we don't want anyone to think suddenly you got one concussion, you're going to kill yourself.

• 39:04Dax Shepard?

  Right. Okay. So you get multiple injuries.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  For some reason, football being probably the best example, I took 10,000 hits to my head. One of those hits was hard. Enough to spark this inflammatory process around a blood vessel at the depths of the sulcus in my frontal lobe is where we usually find the beginnings of it.

• 39:22Dax Shepard?

  Is that generally if you have CT, that is where it's?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's where the first lesions will show up, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which again, we think is part of the physics issue. That part of your brain is most likely to stretch. Like rats don't get CTE because they don't have that fold. So the depths of the sulcus, the energy of a rapidly rotating brain causes it to go to that bottom of the valley and that's where you see the initial lesion. And then for some reason, that lesion will keep spreading in the absence of further hits. We think in most cases.

• 39:50Dax Shepard?

  Explain that.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  We don't exactly know.

• 39:53Dax Shepard?

  Atrophy begats atrophy.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Misfolding proteins can act like a virus and can continue to spread. So you have a protein called tau in your axons neurons that's sort of a structural element. And when the axon stretches, that tau can misfold. And then it's sort of like a crack in a windshield that it just keeps spreading. And it can actually jump the synapse and go to another neuron. And so we don't understand, we can't diagnose this during life, which is why we're trying to get brains for study. So we only have these windows into at the time of death, what do we see? But now we pick up these small lesions in teenagers. If you look at now over fifteen hundred brains.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Dead teenagers?

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Dead teenagers, yes. You see that the older people have a lot of it. The younger people have these tiny lesions and you can see the spread.

• 40:34Dax Shepard?

  Now, just to be a skeptic, what is our control group? What are we making this relative to? We have other brains, but we don't totally know the history of their impact. Or we see, most people don't have any of these lesions?

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Right. The good news is at the beginning, we were a little more in the dark. But one of the great things at Boston University, where we have this brain bank led by Anne McKee, she leads five other brain banks. And one of them is the Framingham Heart Study. Have you heard of this?

• 40:54Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  So the town of Framingham outside Boston has been followed for generations. And now they're old enough where they're dying.

• 41:00Dax Shepard?

  Thank God.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  And that's where we learned.

• 41:01Dax Shepard?

  No, I'm just joking.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  That's where we learned all about how high blood pressure has later life implications for stroke and all those other things because we were following this town. So when we first published that group, there were 164 people who'd passed away in the study. One of them had CTE. And we also went back to everyone and asked about sports history, brain injury history. That person was a college football player.

• 41:21Dax Shepard?

  Now, let's jump really quick to the first 111 NFL brains you looked at. How many had CTE?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  110.

• 41:29Dax Shepard?

  So one out of 147 versus 110 out of 111. I'm sold.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  I've been saying this.

• 41:36Dax Shepard?

  And for people who have not seen the images, they're taking these thin slices of the brain and they're putting them next to each other. And a healthy section of this brain would be kind of just white. And then if you had a mild case of CTE, you're seeing some discoloration. But in an extreme CTA, you're seeing like it's been dipped in coffee. And then there's just pockets of saturation of this dark stuff. It looks like the lung of a smoker.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  That's what I compare it to when I show healthy lungs and diseased lungs to help people appreciate how abnormal this is. When the NFL used to bring in international experts to tell us this is all fake. One of them would refer to as the gingerbread brain for this Hall of Famer who died in his 90s, whose brain had shrunk to like almost half its size and was all brown. This is just impossible. Like they must be faking it. Oh my god. That's actually how sad it is.

• 42:21Dax Shepard?

  And he made it to 90s?

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Well, he was in this institution for 20 years. Oh.

• 42:25Dax Shepard?

  And then I want, this is relevant to bring up because we're in the early explanation of it. So this was observed, and I grew up hearing this because my dad loved boxing. We called people punch drunk.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:36Dax Shepard?

  And so just talk about what that was.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  So Punch Drunk was first published in a major medical journal in 1928.

• 42:42Dax Shepard?

  Wow, that long ago.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, they figured it out very early. Yeah. That boxers were getting very strange. Slurred speech, movement disorders, bizarre behaviors. There's a lot of literature from the 20s, 30s, 40s about punch drunk, then dementia, pugilistica. They didn't really start looking at brains as much. Until the 70s, there was a famous case series of it where they sort of talked about all these abnormal brains from boxers. But the problem was no one really dug into it. What defines CT is this abnormal tau protein. We didn't know how to see the protein until the late 70s.

• 43:13Dax Shepard?

  We didn't have the tech.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  So it wasn't the original part of the diagnostic criteria because we hadn't invented the antibodies that make it show up. So it's a lot of reasons why that didn't happen. But also in 1984, the American Medical Association said boxing shouldn't exist. It's too barbaric. It was sort of at that point that research on boxing stopped. And so it was like, yep, boxers get punch drunk. Well, end of story. Yeah.

• 43:34Dax Shepard?

  Occupational hazard.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Nobody connected the dots to the fact that all these other sports.

• 43:39Dax Shepard?

  You're also looking at a pretty small group of people versus

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:43Dax Shepard?

  high school football, which is millions of people. It's not like that many people go into boxing.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  I agree that the social part of it is like they're punching each other in the head. They really don't expect to have problems?

• 43:52Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:52Dax Shepard?

  And they signed up for it.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  That's the problem.

• 43:54Dax Shepard?

  It's not an epidemic.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  And it wasn't like it was the sons of doctors off doing it. Yeah. So it was just like this other part of the culture.

• 44:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so what are the symptoms that people with CTE experience?

• 44:05Speaker 02

  This has evolved over the last 15 years as we figured this out. But basically, the one thing that is best predicted when you have CT pathology is cognitive decline. It'll start with executive dysfunction, meaning you're no longer making good decisions. Your career goes to hell.

• 44:18Dax Shepard?

  Make dumb investments.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Very common. So executive function goes and then memory goes. Short-term memory first, but start to lose episodic memory, long-term memory. That is very frequent with end-stage CTE. And then we also see neurobehavioral dysregulation, impulse control problems, anger issues.

• 44:35Dax Shepard?

  This is a step that seems to get the headlines. And I'll say that anecdotally, we know someone that was married to a very successful football player. And they had a total personality shift.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  They died.

• 44:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, he died. And you hear about this, I see it on Real Sports. There's violence all of a sudden. People who have never been violent are getting violent to their family. They're getting violent around town. There's self-harming, the addiction is spiraling. You're seeing a real tornado of depression and just the personality shift. I think that's the scariest thing.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:06Dax Shepard?

  These people are married to these men that they love that were so kind. And all of a sudden, they're erratic and impulsive and scary.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Well said, because one of my talking points is often that the number one thing you see is personality change. But that's not a diagnosable condition. Yeah. So it's not like in our data. But they always say he's a different person.

• 45:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, because you go like, okay, memory loss to what degree? You can live with that. But that aspect, and then I have to imagine the suicide rate for people with CTE has got to be among the highest.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Actually, not true. That's something they're actually trying to help shift. Oh, really? Part of it is that a lot of the early cases were suicide cases. The third brain I ever procured was Chris Benoit, the wrestler who killed his wife and seven-year-old son and himself.

• 45:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. Tell us that. I mean, I guess you did this to tell us that.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  It's a complicated story. When I was writing that book, he was the only guy in the locker room. I'd show up for shows once in a while. Half people welcomed me, half people thought I was lying and stealing a check and faking my injury. But he was the guy that took me seriously and sat me down and said, what are you learning about concussions? How many have you had? I asked him how many he had. He said, more than I can count. I'd known him for five years. He gave me his phone number. He goes, call me next week. I want to talk about it. I called him. Sounded like he was in the middle of an argument with somebody. He's like, I'll call you back. And he never called you back. And then months later, he kills his wife.

• 46:13Dax Shepard?

  Killed his entire family.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Killed his seven-year-old, killed himself. Over forty-eight hours, left bibles and strange statements. And then more or less, I've talked to him, he was falling apart. He wouldn't plan matches anymore because he couldn't remember them. So he would just say, let's wing it.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  It's so sad to me. He knew, though, something was wrong.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  He knew something was wrong, and I didn't help him. And that sort of sparked. Now I have five full-time people just to deal with. People reach out to us. We make sure we do everything we can to help them because this keeps happening.

• 46:38Dax Shepard?

  If someone were to recognize in a moment of clarity that this was happening, are there medications that could help?

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yes. The advice for everybody is treat the symptoms. So whatever the symptoms are, there's probably medication that'll work and make your life better. So on the suicide front, even though that's all the high-profile stuff, Dave Doerrson, Jr., say out.

• 46:53Dax Shepard?

  Do you hear these wild cases where the dudes shoot themselves in the heart because they know they want their brains studied?

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's something we discourage. We don't need those brains anymore. That was a troubling trend that started. But I've now learned it was like a conversation that a bunch of them had together.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Really?

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Because they were all mad at the NFL for lying about everything back then. And so let's show them. So everyone's shooting themselves in the chest. We're trying to say, look, CT symptoms can be treatable. We can't stop the disease.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  We need to work on that. There's help and there's hope, yes. So anyone struggling, that's why we have a helpline. Reach out to the Concussion Legacy Foundation helpline. We will find you something and we will help make your life better. But we do keep seeing these suicides. But the actual overall rate of NFL suicide is not that much higher than the population.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I mean, OJ definitely had it, right?

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's impossible that he didn't. And I think it sort of puts his life in perspective.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  It does. I don't know what would have changed with the trial, but I do think if we had known then that that's clearly at play here, we would have looked at it much differently.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  We would have looked at it differently. Like, it doesn't mean that you don't go to prison.

• 47:48Dax Shepard?

  You're not allowed to kill your ex-wife.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Well, apparently you are because he got off.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  But it would have been an interesting part of it.

• 47:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it forces you to look at a lot of the things we've seen with a lot of the people we've seen them with. Mike Tyson, a lot of these boxers that have had episodes that are inexplicable, you have to imagine there's a lot going on.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  It's not just CTE, brain injury itself. In the absence of CT, it can cause a lot of the stuff.

• 48:11Dax Shepard?

  What positions in football, do you track those? Obviously, the kicker has very low risk of getting missed.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  The kickers haven't been exempted from this because in the old days, the kickers were former position players. And in the new days, they're all former soccer players.

• 48:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  They've had the ball too much. But actually, we cannot find CT trends by position. Even though linemen get hit maybe twice as much as other positions, but the average hit is bigger for those positions. But there's also a missing piece of data that people didn't realize. This sort of explains why we don't see it by position. Can you guess what that is?

• 48:44Dax Shepard?

  Maybe because they've all played different positions before they landed in those positions?

• 48:48Speaker 02

  That's part of it. What you played in the NFL is not what you played as a kid.

• 48:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you see all these stories, this was a layer of racism, or these incredible black quarterbacks would come into the league and they're like, you're not going to be a quarterback because you don't have the brain to run an offense.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Right, they all became wide receivers and running backs.

• 48:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:00Speaker 02

  The other part is special teams. Kickoffs and punts are actually the most violent plays.

• 49:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  But it's random who goes on those and it's not tracked. When I did my interview, because I'm going to be donating my brain, it's like, so how many weeks were you on kickoff for your junior year of high school? And I'm like, I don't remember. Like I was on this week, I was off this week. Kickoff's very fluid. Special teams changes all the time. Only in the NFL are there a handful of specialists who do special teams. Otherwise, it's usually the backups.

• 49:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, interesting.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that is actually skewing our data. Some linemen are gunners or wedge busters in the old days and all these things that were very violent.

• 49:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Now, how did the sports compare to one another? Is football the worst? Where's NHL? Where's boxing? Where's soccer?

• 49:40Speaker 02

  We don't have enough data and especially because we can't diagnose the living people. But for football, we've looked at now over 400 NFL brains and 93% of them have had it. But we just published our first study of NHL players and it was 18 of 19. So it's actually a higher percentage.

• 49:54Dax Shepard?

  I grew up around hockey more than football. Concussions are standard because you're falling, you're hitting the ice.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, the ice is way worse than any football hit. And you're going faster because you're skating faster than you run.

• 50:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, those guys are flying and hitting the back of their head on the Plexiglas.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Why can't we look at the brain while the person's living?

• 50:13Dax Shepard?

  You'd have to go in and do a brain surgery.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  We are trying.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  I feel like scan technology has gotten so good in like FMRI, but no, I'm not there.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  The problem is no one's done the work. The CT stuff shut down in the seventies and we've started the first academic center back in 2008. So there's no research on this. For Alzheimer's, none of these diseases can be diagnosed definitively during life. Only until very recently, we've started imaging beta amyloid plaques, which was a breakthrough a little over a decade ago.

• 50:38Dax Shepard?

  Tal's part of that as well.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Right, so we've been piggybacking off of a lot of Alzheimer's research to try to catch up. So we don't even know the pattern of atrophy to distinguish it from Alzheimer's, right? It's frontal, it's temporal, but we don't actually know. So we will figure this out probably much sooner than we realize, but we can't right now. So soccer's bad if you're a prolific header, boxing was bad if you take a lot of punches. There's also a dose response issue going on with that. So the reason why 90 something percent of NFL players have it, because they've all played 20 or more years. The fewer years you play, the less risk. So would we study the high school football players' brains? It's a minority of them, although it's still far more than I'm comfortable with.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  And I did hear once, maybe it's sort of the opposite of what you're saying, that you think if you haven't gone to the NFL, that you're in the clear, but you may have started in rec league. You may have started when you were five years old and so you've still had a long time playing.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  That's exactly right.

• 51:24Dax Shepard?

  And wasn't one of the things that we've learned since we started studying this is it's not these big concussions necessarily, that it's also just repetitive, smaller hits.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  It's repetitive hits, but not smaller. So actually a talking point I've been trying to drive into our team for the last year is that when you actually look at the sensor studies, what we find out is that the average concussion with linear acceleration is happening at about the 90th percentile. So let's say it's 100 Gs. If that's what's happening, if you're a football player, you take 1,000 hits over a season, that means you took 100 hits harder than that concussion, that other 10%. I think that's what's causing a lot of the CT risk. It does take hard hits to cause physical damage to your brain.

• 52:01Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's comfortable.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  But most of them you can't feel because you don't have pain nerves in your brain. And so when one neuron dies, you can't feel it.

• 52:10Dax Shepard?

  So you just said 100 Gs, is that the scale we're looking at?

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100 Gs in a few milliseconds.

• 52:15Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God, because you think of these F1 drivers are pulling 5 Gs and their necks are this thick because they're dealing with 5 Gs.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  That's over a much longer period of time.

• 52:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, some of those impacts can create 100 Gs.

• 52:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh my God. Now, is the onset period of this condition, do we know, is it age-related? Or is it duration from impact related?

• 52:35Speaker 02

  There is a delay between when you get the damage, when you start having symptoms. And there's a lot of variables that contribute to that, including your overall brain health and aging and vascular disease, cognitive reserve. So if you're smarter, you'll have delayed symptoms versus other people because your brain's wired better. And so you can lose more neurons before you start showing functional problems.

• 52:54Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  So we don't actually know when the onset of symptoms is from CT, especially because everyone who gets CT has taken these thousands of hits and also has other types of brain damage in there, like frontal lobe white matter damage. That would be obvious for some of these symptoms. When you think about, there's four pathological stages of CT. Stage three and four, everybody's got some symptoms. The more you have, the worse off you are. Stage one and two, you're usually younger than 40. You also have white matter damage. You also have all these other things. And we don't know if it's the CT lesions themselves that are contributing to everything, or the white matter damage, or these other types of brain damage that we see. So the onset of when CT starts affecting you is a little bit unknown.

• 53:33Dax Shepard?

  Well, now I want to say, so you took it upon yourself once learning about this. And at the time, I think you said there was only two or three brains that have been studied for CTE.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  There were two NFL players and there were 45 brains in the world where they'd found CTE.

• 53:46Dax Shepard?

  And you kind of appointed yourself the person that was going to have to try to go out and get more brains to be studied, which meant that you were in a position to start calling family members of people, mostly football players, who had died to ask the family if you could have their brains.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:05Dax Shepard?

  I want to know a few of these stories. I mean, if there's one in particular, but I wrote down Aaron Hernandez, Demaryius Thomas, Vincent Jackson, Ken Stabler, any of these, I would love to hear someone's personal story with this.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Not everybody's on that list that I call. Part of what I'm doing is trying to set up a system so they call us. Maybe to start with the first conversation, because it's on public record. These are all very sensitive intimate conversations. The first call was the family of Andre Waters. So do you remember him from the Eagles, strong safety?

• 54:30Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  I'm sure a lot of people do, but we don't.

• 54:33Dax Shepard?

  I know from researching you, he had a great nickname.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Yes, Dirty Waters, because he liked to lead with his head.

• 54:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  So for my 85 Bears, in the late 80s, he was a nemesis. The Eagles were beating him. So Andre Waters takes his life. I just wrote the book, and no one cares about the book. And I'm trying to think, like, am I walking away and moving on with my life? Or am I going to stick with this? And so he dies by suicide. He was still Division II football coach, he was employed. There was nothing obvious on the surface. I called the medical examiner in Hillsborough County, Florida, and I said, hey, you should study his brain. And he's like, no, this is crazy. He'd never heard of this. But after multiple conversations over many weeks, because I was just trying to see if I was right. I was like, can I convince this guy that I'm right? He said, well, it just so happens that I know Waters was buried two weeks ago, but we kept part of his brain. And I will give it to you. I'm now convinced that this is worthy of study. If you can get someone to study it and you get his family's permission. And I'm like, all right.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  So I called the only doctor I knew at the time was the doctor from the concussion movie, Ben Amalu. So I called him and I said, we study his brain. And he said, yeah. I said, all right, here's his mother's phone number. She's 88, you recall. And he goes, no, he wouldn't make the call. The other doctors I worked with, no one wanted to make that call. So that's how I got stuck making the call.

• 55:42Dax Shepard?

  You're calling the mother of someone who just died. Son to suicide.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  She doesn't even realize that not all of them's buried. That's even a revelation itself. Yeah, what do you mean? Yeah, the medical examiner keeps tissue? Like, what? I just remember, like, I can't be a coward about this. And so I cold called his mother. Luckily, she didn't answer, because I'd had this vision that she would just, like, listen to me and, like, just drop dead.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  And instead, his sister answered. I had written a script, and I'm like, hey, this guy you've never heard of, and I have no medical credentials, but I think his brain should be studied. First, his sister answers, and she listens, she goes, hold on. I'm not the right person in the family. She got somebody else on, his niece, and his niece had some medical training. And over a couple of days, I convinced him to do it.

• 56:21Dax Shepard?

  I would imagine, as scary as that call is to make, any family member of someone who just died by suicide would love an explanation.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  They were so happy that someone cared, to find out maybe there's more to this.

• 56:34Dax Shepard?

  It's almost like finding the killer of someone who was murdered.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Right. And then they started saying, well, you know, he was getting lost driving to the house. He bought his mother to his own house. All these things weren't adding up for them. So luckily, they were so nice about everything and so appreciative that I was like, all right, I can keep calling families. And so now I've called a lot of families.

• 56:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, how many NFL brains? I guess college too, you've gotten a lot of those.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Our brain bank now is 1,600 brains. We're getting close to 500 former NFL players. What was actually most interesting is this is not widely known, but since a certain date, we've gotten one in four NFL players who died.

• 57:08Dax Shepard?

  Okay. And then you get the idea to start a pledge. Tell us about that.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  I also realized that I don't want to be calling people within 48 hours of the loved ones passing for the rest of my life.

• 57:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do they get out of this is what you were motivated by.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I hate doing this. I don't do this anymore. Because I still read the obituaries every morning out of habit. It's like really terrible. It's a weird way to start your day.

• 57:30Dax Shepard?

  Although it could fill you with gratitude.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it does make you appreciate that you're alive that day. So, yeah, so I started asking all the athletes I knew if they would pledge their brain. Basically trying to create a culture of brain donation in America among famous athletes.

• 57:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  So that they would realize that this stuff, it's important and it's happening. And so it started with people I all knew very well. And now we have 13,000 people who've pledged to donate their brain. Probably more than we could ever take.

• 57:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's incredibly successful. And then throughout many other sports, like Dale Earnhardt Jr. has agreed to do it.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  But I should pause here and ask, part of my gimmick is I ask everybody, now that you guys are part of an Alzheimer's study, have you also considered donating your brain?

• 58:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I'd be happy to.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  I would totally donate.

• 58:07Dax Shepard?

  We just did a moral dumb founding question by Jonathan Haidt of someone having sex with a corpse. And I was like, I really don't care what happens to my body afterwards. So if I'm willing to have that happen, yeah, absolutely.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  That went in a different direction than I was expecting.

• 58:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm showing you how low the bar is for me. So absolutely.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  If my brain could be of any help, why wouldn't I?

• 58:26Dax Shepard?

  Monica was a high-flying cheerleader.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  I was about to say, that might be a group. That needs to study. Obviously, a lot of those are girls and women. It might even present differently. So that would be interesting to see.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  There's a huge concussion problem in cheerleading, especially the flyers. Or if you're the one catching, you were flying.

• 58:44Dax Shepard?

  Did you watch that cheerleading doc that was popular? It's called Cheer on Netflix. It's incredible. And you go, oh, these gals are doing something more dangerous than the football players.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:55Dax Shepard?

  And no one even is noticing what's happening.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  It's clearly not thought through, right?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  There's no regulation.

• 59:01Dax Shepard?

  They don't practice with helmets on. We got in a fight about, I'm like, they gotta practice.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Because aerodynamics, but I know, I know, I know.

• 59:07Dax Shepard?

  You can't tell the football players they gotta have these.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  I know. But even more than stunts, you're tumbling and you fall all the time. I fell on my head so many times trying to do a backflip. Just learning, you fall.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  Okay. I'm very interested in this brain.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:22Dax Shepard?

  I gotta get my mitts on this brain.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  We've never seen CT in a cheerleader. We haven't had many brains donated. It's a new phenomenon, so we don't have 70-year-old cheerleaders who are doing this, which is a whole nother issue. So it's something we're not looking into, but I'm hopeful it's not a huge problem.

• 59:34Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm delighted to donate my brain. Do I have to officially go to a website or something?

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 59:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me how to do that.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  I think it's donateyourbrain.org. But I'll send it to you and I'll make sure I get that right.

• 59:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, okay.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  But we'd be honored to have you.

• 59:46Dax Shepard?

  Double check my children have no plans for my brain. Well, say sign up.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Most people say, let me check with the wife and then I'll never get back to you. So I appreciate.

• 59:52Dax Shepard?

  My wife will like get that fucking brain out of me.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  What are they gonna do with your brain?

• 59:56Dax Shepard?

  Reanimate me when the technology exists.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  All right.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah, sorry.

• 1:00:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so you've gotten this pledge. What's happening in Europe? And obviously rugby, Australian Rules football, soccer's global. It's not like this is an American issue. What's the rest of the world think about all this?

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  Well, they tried to frame it as an American issue. So one of the tricks the NFL played is they brought in Australian doctors and British doctors who would say, this isn't in our country, so this is not real. So I went and started brain banks around the world. And so one of them was in Australia because that was the big bad guy who was coming in and saying, this is fake, this is fake. So we started a brain bank in 2018. And by 2020, we diagnosed the first cases in Australian Rules football, the first case in rugby league. We now have a brain bank at Oxford. It's been seen now in rugby.

• 1:00:40Dax Shepard?

  Is it a comparable percentage? I shot a movie in New Zealand for four months and I got super into watching rugby. And I was like, well, this is the ultimate gladiator sport. I mean, these guys have nothing on. They must have enormous rates of this.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  We don't know because we just started the rugby research. And are you aware that it's only been professional for a little while?

• 1:00:59Dax Shepard?

  No, as you've learned, I know very little about these masculine sports.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  I didn't know this either until recently.

• 1:01:04Dax Shepard?

  I know about BMX and skateboarding.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  So rugby was like a gentleman's thing until turn of the century. Everyone's 180 pounds and they're sort of tackling.

• 1:01:12Dax Shepard?

  Hugging each other.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  But since then, they've all become 280-pound monster football players who train constantly.

• 1:01:19Dax Shepard?

  And they're fast as hell.

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  The professionalization of rugby has made CT a huge problem. We still see it in the older guys. By comparison, we've looked at nearly 1,000 American football players' brains and we've looked at 50 rugby brains. But it was about half and it was how long you played. Your odds went up 14% per year you played. We just diagnosed the first New Zealand rugby case, too, at our brain bank at University of Auckland.

• 1:01:41Dax Shepard?

  OK, so now we can get into a fun liberty question. And what is the future and what would you advise? Because obviously for children, that's one conversation we have about children. We would agree they're not old enough to make this Faustian deal.

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  I would agree.

• 1:01:57Dax Shepard?

  And there are a lot of people that I couldn't argue back if they go, yeah, my life fucking sucks without this thing. And I'm an adult and I want to do it and I take on the risk and fuck you, I have liberty. And I can't really stand in the way of that. I am of that mind. How do we deal with all these facets of the problem?

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  I'm of the same mind. When people ask me, do we end football? I said, no, I used to let people hit me in the head with folding chairs for a living and I thought it was fun. And that was nearly as dangerous as cops and firemen and people going to military service. If you want to do a dangerous job to support your family, great. But let's not lie to you about the risks and let's take reasonable precautions and let's give you a voice to negotiate those precautions. Unions, that's why the NFL has gotten safer is there's a union. So totally fine with the NFL continuing as a business and players having informed consent. But you're right, the problem that we cannot reconcile is that everybody who played in the NFL made that choice to start playing as a child. And once you're on the train, we all know it's really hard to get off in a culture that says quitters are terrible.

• 1:02:52Dax Shepard?

  And let's be honest, it might be the greatest part of someone's whole time on planet Earth.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  It might be.

• 1:02:56Dax Shepard?

  I still know people, it's like the greatest years of their life were being on that team and doing that. So it has some value. That needs to be acknowledged.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Yes. Team sports are amazing for the connections and the physical health. But getting hit in the head, there is nothing good about that. Yeah. And so the question becomes, when and how do you get into this?

• 1:03:14Dax Shepard?

  So they've done a lot of cool things, right? Like practices have changed.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  At the highest levels they have, but they have not gone all the way to the bottom. As a umbrella, our campaign to change the sports is called Stop Hitting Kids in the Head.

• 1:03:26Dax Shepard?

  Stop hitting kids in the head.

• 1:03:26Speaker 02

  Love that. There's just no reason, like, do you hit your daughters in the head?

• 1:03:30Dax Shepard?

  Not intentionally.

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  You can probably count how many times they've ever been hit in the head.

• 1:03:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  Right? Because it's really abnormal for kids to get hit in the head outside of sports. Even in old cases of abuse, if you hit your kid in the head a lot, they would stop showing up. So I think it's safe to say we're hitting children in the head more than we ever have in the history of time.

• 1:03:48Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  A thousand hits to the head at a year is hard. So let's make reasonable reforms. Driving is actually a really good analogy for this. I think it's sort of like, when do you start driving a car? Well, there's no age at when it magically starts becoming safe. And so in some states it's 16, in some states 17, we've looked at data, we think about brain maturity, we think about all these things. And so we should think about that for all the sports. We shouldn't repetitively hit kids in the head probably till 14. That is a good neuroscience perspective for brain development and a little bit of informed consent. It sort of becomes more reasonable to start taking risks at that age. Mm-hmm. But the idea that you take a five-year-old and put a five-pound helmet on him and have him get hit in the head 200, 300 times a year doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. Because the risks are serious. You are actually increasing your risk of CT.

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  And the rewards, you can get that from flag or some other sport and then have your period of time where you get to play the rough sport. Football is not the problem. It's too much football. One season might be too much for some people, but usually it's double digits when you start getting into real risk of CT. So start later and hit less.

• 1:04:45Dax Shepard?

  Would one bit of advice for soccer be like no heading the ball until a certain age?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  In 2015, we got US Soccer to say no heading until 11. So that's a thing. Okay. We asked for 14, we got 11. We'll still push for 14 as the data accrues. Yeah. But there's limits that 11, 12, and 13, only supposed to do like 20 a week. But even 20 weeks is a thousand a year. That's still too many. You still can be. Yeah, what the hell? Right. And we're actually saying, let's actually start counting it, which we might be able to start doing with like AI and two-dimensional video. It's analogous to pitch counts. In Little League, if you're a coach, when your kid pitches, you have to count each one. And you have to send it to the league office because they were realizing it was destroying elbows.

• 1:05:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Tommy John.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  With Tommy John surgery, right. The response to that was pitch counts. So we count how many times kids throw a ball to protect their elbow. We do not count how many times any child is hit in the head in sports. That's wild. And now that soccer's, you know, you can play four seasons a year now. It used to be when in high school was one.

• 1:05:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, my daughter's buddies, some of them are in four leagues all year round.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  We're not monitoring that. Could be getting more exposure in soccer than you're in football. My kids play soccer. They can't head now, but when they can start heading, my advice could be, don't head.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  Tell your coach, no, it's not for me. I'm gonna play it off my chest. I'm gonna control it better anyway. This whole idea that projectile coming at your head, you should knock back, it's very abnormal.

• 1:05:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, using your head as a baseball bat, basically.

• 1:06:04Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We get support from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

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

• 1:06:46Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

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

• 1:07:02Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

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

• 1:07:15Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

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

• 1:07:44Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:08:25Dax Shepard?

  shows you the most interested qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles, seasonal or otherwise. Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/dax. That's ziprecruiter.com/dax. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

• 1:08:51Dax Shepard?

  This episode is supported by Helix.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

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

• 1:09:05Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

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

• 1:09:39Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  It was a mess. I need a new one.

• 1:09:42Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

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• 1:10:03Dax Shepard?

  Right now, Helix is running their Black Friday sale with up to 30% off. Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. Helixsleep.com/armchair.

• 1:10:22Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left. What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly is different. It's already right there inside your email, your docs, your browser. You don't go to it. It's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands.

• 1:11:07Dax Shepard?

  It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed, at your service, not after your job. So do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 1:11:32Dax Shepard?

  So what we see too, and it has to be acknowledged, is the demographics of the sport are changing because educated white people with means are not letting their kids do this. And we're seeing it change pretty dramatically. Who's actually playing the sport? Is disenfranchised disadvantaged kids more and more?

• 1:11:49Speaker 02

  That's true. HBO Real Sports did a nice piece with us. Yeah, I was part of that piece where they said the percent of kids on food stamps who were playing tackle football in Illinois was starting to dramatically go up. Changed by 10% over only a few years because people with options started to realize my kid could do another sport, get the same benefits without the risk. There is a cultural conversation needs to be had because then that quickly goes to, but it's their way out.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Right, that's always the next sentence.

• 1:12:15Dax Shepard?

  It's a legitimate argument.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  It is, except for my next response is, but no one's getting recruited off their film when they were seven?

• 1:12:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  So you could go flag into that. I think people aren't thinking about it deeply enough to realize that, yes, it can be a way out, but it doesn't become serious till high school.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Also, if there's just a regulation that that can't happen till you're 14, then everyone is still starting on the same playing field.

• 1:12:36Dax Shepard?

  I guess the reason I bring it up is to say, yes, there's liberty until you observe that only certain people have liberty and don't have liberty. Like, when you're seeing that some people don't have an option, other people do have an option, there is some societal obligation to protect the people that are most vulnerable. That's what I'm getting at, is these are necessary because you're asking people who are in a position where they've got to risk it all to make these decisions when they have much bigger fucking fish on their plate, you know?

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:07Dax Shepard?

  Whatever the goddamn saying.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  Fish to fry.

• 1:13:08Dax Shepard?

  Fish to fry.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  One of the ways to look at that, there was a study by CDC showing that white communities, you're more likely to have both flag and tackle, and you have a choice, but in black communities, you only had tackle. You don't have the option. You're either playing tackle or you're not playing football at all, which in some cases might be worse for various reasons.

• 1:13:23Dax Shepard?

  It's one thing to say, oh, they were told the risk and they made a decision, but if you acknowledge that some people are in a worse position and they're more incentivized to make that decision, that has to be accounted for.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  We also have to add, when people say, yes, it's their way out, because they're vulnerable, they need the pathway, it goes, yes, but you're talking about vulnerable people who already have problems. Let's layer on brain injury? That doesn't make any sense.

• 1:13:45Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  Brain injury can lead to these other problems down the road, so don't take our most vulnerable people and layer on 5,000 hits to the head for that tiny chance they can turn into a living.

• 1:13:54Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, what is that percentage? Do you know it off the top of your head? I mean, it's under 1% of kids who enter the football in their school are gonna end up in the NFL.

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  It's 0.1 or something. So small.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  This is such an important topic.

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  I appreciate all your research on this, too. I know it's a dive.

• 1:14:10Dax Shepard?

  I like it.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  So this is like a really maybe bad question. Do you think you have it?

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  It's not a bad question. I have to wrestle with that every day. It waxes and wanes. Some days I'm like, yes, maybe not. My problem is it got very real a few years ago because one of my college roommates died. He was the Harvard football captain my senior year. We shared that room when we were all watching wrestling in 99. He played three years in the NFL. He was Tom Brady's housemate when they were rookies with the Patriots. And then didn't work out for injuries. And so then he went and got his MBA from Dartmouth. And then he ran hedge fund, The Perfect Life, married his high school sweetheart, four kids. And then we found out he had a secret drinking problem. And it got so bad that they killed him. Even after interventions and everyone coming aware. So the perfect guy, the Superman, ended up drinking himself to death. He had stage two CT.

• 1:14:54Speaker 02

  We played, basically had the same sports experience. He played 11 years of football. I did my eight years of football and my wrestling. The fact that more of those guys seem to have it than don't, the guys who have my history, definitely more than 50% in our brain bank have had it. Then I just have to ask the question of how biased is our brain bank? Right now, I don't think people look at me and think I have it.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't seem it.

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  Maybe only my wife, so I don't know.

• 1:15:15Dax Shepard?

  Well, you have to acknowledge that same stimulus input results in some different output. Because we're so variable. So like tens of millions of people smoke the same amount of cigarettes. And some percentage get small cell carcinoma. I don't know. There's a lot of factors in there.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:15:32Dax Shepard?

  It's not so predictive of the symptoms.

• 1:15:35Speaker 02

  Well, not predictive of symptoms, the pathology.

• 1:15:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, for sure, the condition, but not the symptoms per se.

• 1:15:41Speaker 02

  Correct. I think there's a very good chance I have it. If I showed you my MRI from 20 years ago, that does not look normal. But I don't have symptoms, or at least ones that are overwhelming me.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  But that's part of my passion and race to find a cure. It's like, I still might have 10, 20 years before it clubs me over the head to find something that actually stop it so that I can just have what I have.

• 1:16:00Dax Shepard?

  Your best defense is that you have a wife that's highly educated on this, as an outside observer. I think it gets hard to observe yourself, but you have a partner who's hip to all these. Things to look for presumably.

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, but she's also gotta be completely in denial to choose to marry me.

• 1:16:17Dax Shepard?

  She hasn't proven to be.

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  We had that talk, though. When I proposed, I was like, now, look, I don't know where this is gonna go. Because this was more than 10 years ago now. We had even less knowledge. And I'm like, I might have this, I might lose my mind. Chris Benoit thing, it happened a couple of years prior.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  It's like, I don't know where I'm gonna be at 40 now, past that. I don't know where I'm gonna be at 50. It is scary to think about sometimes.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so that did bring me to the final thing I want to talk about is, this isn't just for athletes, right? There are occupations that over-index in concussions. All my friends in the movie business are all stuntmen. I can't tell you how many concussions these guys get. It'll go unnamed, but yeah, there's one friend that we've had where a few of us have talked and I'm like, this feels a little loopy. Was anyone else noticing this? And we know of many, many concussions. Anyone who's doing like motorcycle shit, you're gonna deal with that. So what occupations, military, fire and rescue?

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  So we're starting to look into that. CTE's been seen in some military people who do not play sports, but were like artillery or special forces, a lot of explosions. So it can happen. It's much more rare than football, but it's definitely there. We are looking into more first responders. We have gotten some firemen and police who've had a lot of concussions. But I don't think we have a case yet. So hopefully it's not as bad. We actually seen it in people on the autism spectrum just banging their heads all the time.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  But it is probably out there. I'm hoping it's rare. There are some jobs where you're getting hit in the head quite a bit, but it's not anywhere near boxing and football.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  Well, also because probably you don't start those jobs till you're older.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  That's a great point. Your brain's not as protected against those hits when you're young. The sheath around your axon, this type of cell that grows there, isn't there when you're young. And so those stretches are worse. But we have diagnosed a stuntman with CTE. He was also a football player.

• 1:17:59Dax Shepard?

  Well, again, mostly stuntmen are coming from a different, high-risk background.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  Be happy to help your friend if you want to connect us. He's open.

• 1:18:06Dax Shepard?

  That's interesting, yeah. I wonder how open he would be to that. That's a vulnerable thing to acknowledge.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  It's a hard thing to bring up to people.

• 1:18:13Dax Shepard?

  Well, it is a hard thing to bring up because, as you say, there's no cure. You know, and there's no cure for things. You're really disincentivized to even know about it. Because why? So you can worry more about it?

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  Right, and the studies have shown that with genetic studies for Alzheimer's. Some people respond of, okay, I'm gonna use this and take the time I have and really enjoy it. Other people can't handle it. And it just becomes their obsessive thought that, oh my god, I'm gonna get this.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  I think for some reason, hearing that it's connected to the brain, that really scares people, obviously. But like you said, it's still a matter of just treating the symptoms, though, and you should. Especially if you know it's something happening in your brain, then you can't just think your way out of it.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Right, and sometimes we do a little bit of selective framing where we say for someone like that, transition can be really hard from careers. And so a lot of guys go through this depression, actually, let's go see this doctor to try to help figure it out. They'll do the cognitive test, they'll give us a window into actually could see part of this.

• 1:19:05Dax Shepard?

  Well, right, so everyone who leaves the NFL is gonna get depressed. They had a purpose, they had a schedule, they had teammates, they had community. But CBT or therapy will help with those. And if that doesn't help with those, then you're going, well, there's probably some kind of structural issue that's probably not gonna respond to that type of treatment or therapy. Okay, so if people wanna get involved or help, Concussion Legacy Foundation is your organization. Is there any place people should go to support, or is there any call to action?

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  Yes, thank you for asking. Go to concussionfoundation.org or find us on the social medias. This is one of the more neglected areas of research. And so we are always looking for support, we're always looking for brain donors. Thank you both so much for your brain. And people participating in clinical studies. You could also be an advocate in your community to try to keep your kids safe. So we have various programs you can get involved with, but the key is get involved. The sad thing is, CT should not exist. Almost all of it is voluntary, and those choices start as children, and we can change this culture. And at the meantime, we have to dramatically sell our research so that we have cures for all the people we grew up watching or now people who are friends.

• 1:20:11Dax Shepard?

  Are you in the unique position where when you go to a football game, the players love you and the upper brass can't stand that you're there?

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  The upper breasts definitely can't stand there. They don't give me access to the players. So it is hard. And then when you are a player, most of them, I'm finding, live in a bubble where they don't even appreciate what we're trying to do. Because it's really hard to go do your job when you're thinking about your brain.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:20:35Dax Shepard?

  But they have been motivated as a union. They have pushed internally for these changes.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  Right. And so the ones I know through like the executive committee who are actually in those meetings, they do love us. I spent time with one of them yesterday. Those guys are great. The only place this really happens is actually when I go back to WWE. The wrestlers really appreciate how much safer wrestling is now.

• 1:20:51Dax Shepard?

  They made a lot of big changes.

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:54Dax Shepard?

  Shockingly. That was part of the doc.

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:55Dax Shepard?

  Humans are so complex. This guy's doing this, but then he's open to that.

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  Triple H was on our board for six years and he really gets it. And so it's amazing now that he's in charge, the influence that has over the whole safety.

• 1:21:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Well, Chris, you're radical. What an incredibly weird story that brought you here. I love it and I'm grateful for the work you're doing and I hope you're effective in making sure little kids don't get hit in the head over and over again.

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  Thank you very much, Dex.

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  It's a no cost.

• 1:21:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Thanks for coming.

• 1:21:21Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes.

• 1:21:33Dax Shepard?

  I had a rare occurrence and I would do also, this is great. This dovetails nicely into what we did a week ago.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:21:40Dax Shepard?

  Delta's play. There was two showings of Delta's play, 1pm, 5pm.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:45Dax Shepard?

  You went to the 1pm.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:47Dax Shepard?

  I did not and I regret it deeply. But while I wasn't at that play.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:52Dax Shepard?

  I was like, oh my God, I can finally go get my shingles vaccine.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:21:58Dax Shepard?

  When you turn 50, this is a public service announcement.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:22:02Dax Shepard?

  You are now eligible to get the shingles vaccine.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:22:08Dax Shepard?

  I mean, maybe they'd give it to you before. I don't know. But when you, I was at my physical this year and he's like, okay, so now you gotta get your shingles vaccine, which sign me up.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:16Dax Shepard?

  Do you know anyone that's had shingles?

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Well, that's a ding ding ding that comes up in, not this week, but if you're on Listening to Wondery Plus, the episode.

• 1:22:25Dax Shepard?

  Well, that is a real, that's crazy. Anyways, I've had a friend who had it. It's miserable.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really bad.

• 1:22:32Dax Shepard?

  Nerve pain. And as our lovely pharmacist, we share our pharmacist, Rosalyn.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:38Dax Shepard?

  She was saying like opiates don't block nerve pain, which I didn't understand that or know that or whatever. But um, yeah, just agonizing pain. I don't, I don't want that. Also, I've complained about this in the past. What a gross name for a disease, shingles.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:22:53Dax Shepard?

  It makes me think of shingles on a roof and that your skin starts getting.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Of course, that's what we all see.

• 1:22:59Dax Shepard?

  Flaps.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  When we hear it.

• 1:23:00Dax Shepard?

  And then tearing off and stuff. That's not what happens. Is it just adult chicken pox?

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it is, I think it's more nerve, yeah, it's nerve pain. And then for a percentage of people, it never goes away.

• 1:23:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:23:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I was in there and I don't, I don't, I never go to the pharmacy. Um, but I get all my pharmaceuticals from R and D. This, the cutest, we've talked about it once before. It's the cutest pharmacy in all of Los Angeles.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:23:28Dax Shepard?

  At Hillhurst and Franklin. And because I was there for a vaccine, she had to help a couple of people before me.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:36Dax Shepard?

  And I felt like I was in Mayberry. Everyone that walked in, she knew by name.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Dax Shepard?

  Knows everything about them. It was like a town haircutter or, or I guess town pharmacist.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, yeah, she's so nice. Uh, maybe people will remember if they've listened for a long time. Her and I had a beef originally.

• 1:23:57Dax Shepard?

  What was it about?

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  We had a beef. Um, when she used to work at Rite Aid.

• 1:24:01Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  And um, I had to pick up a prescription for Kristen.

• 1:24:05Dax Shepard?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  And she wouldn't let me get it on her behalf. And there was a hole to do and we were in a beef.

• 1:24:13Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  Um, but then we made up and now she's one of my favorite people. I love her.

• 1:24:19Dax Shepard?

  You squashed it, as they say in beefs.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, we squash the beef.

• 1:24:23Dax Shepard?

  Okay, now, do you want to tell folks about the, the play on Saturday?

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  Sure. So, um, I went to Delta's play, it was at 1:00 PM.

• 1:24:33Dax Shepard?

  Alice in Wonderland.

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  It was Alice in Wonderland. She was Tweedle Dee of Tweedle Dee and Tweedledum.

• 1:24:40Dax Shepard?

  Her best friend was Tweedledum.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  And um, yeah, well, we've discussed, sometimes we've discussed the plays at your kid's school.

• 1:24:49Dax Shepard?

  Uh.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  And it's no shade, but it is shade. That's why like, there's no way to talk.

• 1:24:55Dax Shepard?

  It's not shade. I'll tell you why it's not shade. Every movie you see with plays for ki— this is how plays for 4th graders are. So there's like, there's no shade. They have like, 3 rehearsals.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Well, I did walk out and there was a man talking to his daughter, who obviously had gone to that school and he was like, "I don't remember yours being this bad." So, I'm just saying. They're all like this, but, um, yes. There's, there's always technical difficulties, there's always—

• 1:25:26Dax Shepard?

  Memorization issues.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  A lot of memorization issues, which that, yes, that I can—

• 1:25:31Dax Shepard?

  I thought that's what you're referring to.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:25:33Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  The like, the play itself, the sound, the, the mics not being on for this and that, the light being here when it should be there, like, it's a mess.

• 1:25:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  Um, and it is very funny and fun to go and—

• 1:25:47Dax Shepard?

  It's what you want.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  It is what you want.

• 1:25:50Dax Shepard?

  I guess that's what I— I guess that's why I'm saying it's actually a success.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  It's part of the appeal.

• 1:25:53Dax Shepard?

  It's what you want, because I then went to 5.

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:56Dax Shepard?

  And they had figured it all out. Like, they really ju— really what it seems like is they just needed one more rehearsal.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:26:03Dax Shepard?

  That one be rehearsal. Cause I had heard that, like, you know, no one has their lines, people are nudging the narrator, I mean, and that's what you live for with 4th graders on stage. Delta's barking orders at people.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's breaking the 4th wall a lot.

• 1:26:17Dax Shepard?

  There is no 4th wall for Delta.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:19Dax Shepard?

  People started clapping, explain that. Well, first of all, she saw you and then put her tongue out like provocatively and crawled on the ground and was like—

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Well, no, no, that's not— no.

• 1:26:29Dax Shepard?

  That was Lincoln's reenactment of it.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Yes, that's not what happened. She was already in— they were in the dance, she was in a position where she was sort of squatting. She wasn't getting down, she was like down and she was doing her move and then she just like looked up, up at us and gave us a little— I don't remember it being like nasty, but Kristen and Lincoln think it was nasty. We thought it was like—

• 1:26:48Dax Shepard?

  Directly to her soulmate.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, me and Anna, I think. She was like to both of us. Like a little like, hey, I see you.

• 1:26:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I wag my tongue at you guys.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  And I was really happy she did that because I will say it was the first time. As soon as she came out.

• 1:27:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  She, um, it was a dance thing or a song.

• 1:27:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  And Kristen was filming the whole time, you know, she was filming and, and Lincoln was cheering really, really, really, really loudly.

• 1:27:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  And Delta like looked over at us and just like shook her head.

• 1:27:19Dax Shepard?

  Too loud.

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  It was just like an overall like shaking her head. And I was like, uh-oh, she's mad. And we just started. We just started the play and she's not happy.

• 1:27:28Dax Shepard?

  I love too that those two could find a way to get into a little power struggle, not even in the same.

• 1:27:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. And so then every time she came out, she was clearly like, she was pretty annoyed by the way like this play was going. And so then later, when she did that like winky thing to me and Anna, I was like, oh, maybe it's lifted. Maybe she's happy now.

• 1:27:49Dax Shepard?

  Now she's having fun.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  Um, but yes, she came out. She had like, they had this big scene. And Lincoln was cheering again, like really loud, but also like screaming her name.

• 1:28:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Delta said, "This song isn't even over yet." And then they did their thing, but then something happened with the mic. The mic. And so she was upset about that. I think she said, "This sucks," out loud.

• 1:28:13Dax Shepard?

  Uh, after she got off stage.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:16Dax Shepard?

  Uh, this was fun. This was more of a detective, uh, thing that followed me going. Which is some kid, when they walked off stage, said, "Well, that sucked." And they still had their mic on.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:28Dax Shepard?

  And that was the last thing the audience heard. So, um, I heard that from a parent at the five o'clock. Like, oh my God, the funny, the funniest part of the whole thing was at the end, one of them just said, "Well, that sucked." And I go, "That sounds like my kid, for sure." And then I'm telling Delta later, I go, "Yeah, I guess someone said, 'Well, that sucked.'" And she goes, "Why, that..." I feel like I might have said that and I go, good, because I really felt like it would definitely be something you would say.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was her. I think it was her, but also in, while she was still onstage, there was a snafu with like the, a mic situation. And then she was like, she got upset about that and then she did say, she did say like, no, you're supposed to say this. You know, there was a lot of people saying, no, now you say this, now you say this, you say this. There's a lot of that going on.

• 1:29:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, there's nothing better.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  It was really funny. It was really, really funny.

• 1:29:21Dax Shepard?

  So I got the report from everyone that that's what had gone down. And so I was so excited to go to five o'clock.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:27Dax Shepard?

  And five o'clock went off with almost out of a hitch. Everyone knew their lines, all the mics were working. I was delighted that she still was fully breaking the fourth wall.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  What'd she do in that one?

• 1:29:39Dax Shepard?

  Well, she saw me.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:40Dax Shepard?

  And I was like, you know, cheering and waving and then she started waving at me and then she was doing the I love you hand signs to me and then she was doing the heart thing to me and, and just really blasting me from the stage.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:29:53Dax Shepard?

  And I just, it made me so happy and I was laughing.

• 1:29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:57Dax Shepard?

  So hard and it was, God, was it fun. And I'm going to commend them on this too. They kept that fucking thing under an hour and that's, that's incredible for these kids' plays. That thing, that came in at a, you know, just under or about an hour. And a lot of times these plays have an intermission.

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:30:14Dax Shepard?

  And it's, it's a long time.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:30:17Dax Shepard?

  This was a perfect amount of time.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  Also for this play specifically, I guess not enough people signed up, so they opened it up to like the young, young kids. So there was some really small kids involved.

• 1:30:28Dax Shepard?

  There were some super cute.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  So cute.

• 1:30:31Dax Shepard?

  I'm telling you, one of the kids was definitely Ralphie from Christmas Story.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  The wolf?

• 1:30:36Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, the wolf was so cute.

• 1:30:39Dax Shepard?

  Cute.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:30:40Dax Shepard?

  I couldn't keep my eyes off a couple of those kids.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:43Dax Shepard?

  There was a little girl too with glasses that was, I just, she was, she, when you see someone like she was in it.

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  Right. That's, okay, so this is where, this is where I have some trouble.

• 1:30:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  And I get it, this is like a school play, no one's real, I guess they are picking, but not really, they're not really picking, they're just like doing it. So the level of commitment is so varied.

• 1:31:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you're right, yeah.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  And I, I think my sense of justice sometimes starts flaring up.

• 1:31:13Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  During the play.

• 1:31:15Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  Because I think, look at this kid, this kid is here to perform.

• 1:31:21Dax Shepard?

  They put a lot of energy.

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  They care so much.

• 1:31:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they practiced a ton.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  They practice, they're memorized, they're off book, and like then, there are other people who haven't done anything, clearly.

• 1:31:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  And they're ruining the play for these other people who have put in a lot of work, and you know.

• 1:31:44Dax Shepard?

  It would make sense that you have that point of view and I have my point of view.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:47Dax Shepard?

  Because I didn't want to be an actor in school.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:50Dax Shepard?

  And clearly, you're not gonna find thirty five kids who are trying to become actors. We're in LA.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:56Dax Shepard?

  Five or six of the kids on that stage are probably going on auditions.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Right, for sure.

• 1:32:01Dax Shepard?

  But ninety eight percent are just trying to be social after school.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:32:05Dax Shepard?

  And so I love, so for me, because I, I wasn't trying to do that.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:10Dax Shepard?

  I'm going, I'm so glad they're just having fun.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, you're right.

• 1:32:15Dax Shepard?

  What a memory of horsing around and fucking the thing up and.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  But when I was in fifth grade, we had a play.

• 1:32:21Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  And we did have to like kind of audition for it, in the way that they're, they're doing the same thing. And it was like this weird mashup of, of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Taming of the Shrew, okay?

• 1:32:34Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  I didn't want to be an actor.

• 1:32:38Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  At that point, I didn't know anything about that. But I auditioned and I got the part of the haberdasher.

• 1:32:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:46Speaker 01

  That's a hatmaker. Yeah, and she, it was not a good part. And it was, I had one line.

• 1:32:52Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  Um, and I was very shy, like I was so shy at that time. But I, like, the amount of times I practiced that one line, it had nothing to do with wanting to be an actor. It was just like.

• 1:33:05Dax Shepard?

  You wanted to do the right thing.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  I just knew, like, this requires commitment.

• 1:33:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  And I nailed it. Here is the hat your worship ordered is the line. I'll never forget it.

• 1:33:16Dax Shepard?

  It's barely even a line, yeah, it's just a few words.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  I presented the hat, here is the hat your worship ordered.

• 1:33:23Dax Shepard?

  That's really good. I hope everyone clap. And then you said, ah, that's not over. So what's, what's immediately great about, for me, Delta's interest in it.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33Dax Shepard?

  She doesn't want to be Alice. She auditioned specifically to be Tweedledee with her friend Tweedle. She just wants to be in the play if she can be with her best friend as Tweedledee Tweedledum.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Dax Shepard?

  The kids that want to do it, they want the bigger parts.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:33:48Dax Shepard?

  So it's like, I already love it because it's just about her and her friend.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:52Dax Shepard?

  Doing this thing together.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:33:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  Also.

• 1:33:54Dax Shepard?

  And they were good, by the way.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  And so, but that also for me, a tiny bit, I was like, Delta, don't do that. Because you're good, this is cute and good. Like, the Tweedledee Tweedledum back and forth is a real, like, kind of tongue twister.

• 1:34:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and they nailed it.

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  And they nailed it. And it was really, it was really good and impressive. And I was like, oh, man, like, I wish we hadn't had that. I mean, it was funny for me.

• 1:34:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  And I liked it because, you know, I just enjoy anytime she's doing anything. But I was like, like, it did, it did take away from a very impressive thing that these, these two little girls were doing together.

• 1:34:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I thought it was all very true to who she is, which is all I want for her, if that makes sense.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. She was so cute in her little, in her little makeup and her outfit.

• 1:34:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and their little exchange was tricky.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  It was hard.

• 1:34:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  I, that's what I picked. I was like, this is fast and tricky because they're getting names wrong.

• 1:34:53Dax Shepard?

  Because Tweedle Dum is dumb presumably and doesn't know their name. So it's like they keep introducing themselves and Tweedle Dum keeps introducing herself as Tweedle Dee. And then they have this back and forth kind of who's on first thing.

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:05Dax Shepard?

  And it's very confusing.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  It is. It's a lot to keep in your brain.

• 1:35:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  And I wa- I was like, that's really good. And I wasn't surprised. I was like, no wonder she got that part because she is able to hold a lot in her. No, I don't know if I own any of these other, I mean, whatever, maybe they could. But like, seeing what was going on with people not being able to memorize like very basic.

• 1:35:27Dax Shepard?

  Here's your hat, sir.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, here's the hat your worship ordered.

• 1:35:31Dax Shepard?

  That's hard because you had worship in there.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  No, now I'm nervous.

• 1:35:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no. You believe you're lying?

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  If you can't get that, you can't do what they did.

• 1:35:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  And so I was, I was impressed.

• 1:35:44Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna admit to, I'm just, I'm probably just too in love with Delta. Whatever she does, I think I like.

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:49Dax Shepard?

  And I reverse engineer why that's perfect for her because I just see her being herself and I'm, and she, I'm wrapped around her fingers. So I'm just, I guess I'm trying to acknowledge that.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  I love her too so much and it's not, it wasn't like, oh, she shouldn't do that.

• 1:36:07Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  It was like, oh, she doesn't have to do that.

• 1:36:12Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  She's just good enough.

• 1:36:14Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  Like she's good enough. They were good.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  And like, it didn't, and I guess also for me, I was like, uh, I was like, don't let your, don't let your sister get in your head, rattle you. Exactly. It was like, now you're rattled and now you're doing this. And you're in the middle of like a really cute thing that you're doing that you know how to do well. That's impressive.

• 1:36:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Don't let the emotion

• 1:36:40Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:36:40Speaker 01

  interfere here.

• 1:36:41Dax Shepard?

  Right, right. Sure, sure. There's a bigger fun worldview here, which right, is like, if the, if the show is good.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:49Dax Shepard?

  I will not remember it when I'm 65.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:36:53Dax Shepard?

  So it's like, it's just interesting, like, if you can fast forward, what in life you'll enjoy and care about and remember. And all the parents there.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:01Dax Shepard?

  Like I'm, what I'm saying is I'm bummed I went to the five and not the one.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:37:05Dax Shepard?

  And I bet most parents that went to the one. Had the most amount of fun.

• 1:37:10Speaker 01

  Yes, it was so fun. I'm glad, I'm glad I went to that one and I didn't go to the five.

• 1:37:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's hilarious.

• 1:37:16Dax Shepard?

  And, and that's just funny about life.

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  Let's say your kid's in soccer. I guess Lincoln was in soccer.

• 1:37:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:37:24Dax Shepard?

  She was in soccer.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:25Dax Shepard?

  So I probably, I've had this experience.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  She was in soccer, but everyone was kind of not very good.

• 1:37:31Dax Shepard?

  Well, they, they had a perfect record.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they lost every game and even more so, they never scored a goal.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's a flawless.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, flawless season.

• 1:37:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Which we love. But like, let's say you're watching her, and this is probably just my personalities and how I grew up, how my parents parented.

• 1:37:49Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  Um, if Lincoln, if you're watching and she's like, good, like really good.

• 1:37:55Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  But something's happening that's not allowing her to like.

• 1:38:01Dax Shepard?

  Realize her goals.

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  Realize her goals and her potential. Do you think it's good, bad, or just personal, I guess?

• 1:38:09Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  To say it to them, like.

• 1:38:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, this is a huge endless debate you have in your head the whole time.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:17Dax Shepard?

  So two things are really relevant. One is I, I have, the inclinations you have right now about Delta, I don't have when I watch Delta. I have them towards Lincoln.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:38:27Dax Shepard?

  Because Lincoln and I have similar character defects. And additionally, I would probably be less forgiving of the chaos watching a Lincoln play because she really takes it serious and wants to do great and she's put her heart into it.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:45Dax Shepard?

  And so Delta's not betraying herself and she's not getting further from her goal.

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense, yeah.

• 1:38:53Dax Shepard?

  And on the soccer team, um, all this stuff's going on and now what I'm feeling bad for is my friend Scott's daughter is an awesome soccer player and she's on this team with.

• 1:39:07Dax Shepard?

  You know.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  People don't care.

• 1:39:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, people playing for the first time.

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:39:11Dax Shepard?

  And so I do, I'll observe that and I'll go like, ah, she deserves a much better team. Look how hard, I mean, literally, she's, she's carrying the entire team.

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:19Dax Shepard?

  And, and then the thing I have with Lincoln while watching is like, I don't want to give her a tip about passing or about kicking or scoring or any of that. But I'm fighting the urge to tell her, I expect nothing from you other than you run at that person and run dead into them.

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  You commit.

• 1:39:37Dax Shepard?

  You got to get over your fear of a collision. And you minimally, what you have to be is brave. I'm not asking you to be skilled and have all these skills, but I want you to right now acknowledge it won't hurt if you decide to confront. Cause that's so much of these young soccers is like someone's coming with the ball and the other, the defender runs up and they're just so afraid of locking legs or just confronting the way you have to.

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:40:00Dax Shepard?

  And so, and that's my age old, I want her to be brave. I don't want her to get taken advantage of. I want her to be fearless in defending herself.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:08Dax Shepard?

  So when I'm watching, oh, I don't care if she scores. I don't, all, I just like, I don't want her to be afraid to confront that runner with the ball. And then I, then I spend the whole game debating whether I'm going to bring that up in the car or not.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:40:23Dax Shepard?

  And for six games, I don't bring it up. And then on the seventh game, I bring it up. And then I don't know if it was the right or wrong decision.

• 1:40:31Speaker 01

  Everyone has different beliefs about the world. And then I guess you're just imparting it on your kids. So like each kid is going to get a different thing.

• 1:40:40Dax Shepard?

  And I can totally acknowledge both sides of it. There's like a group of people that are taking life really serious and they're trying their ass off. And it's very unfair to them that some other people are just here to have a blast.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  Well, it's not unfair. No, no, no, I don't, I don't think that's the problem. The problem is if you do care.

• 1:40:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  Right? Like if, if.

• 1:41:00Speaker 01

  She's like, I really wanna be good at soccer. And then she isn't practicing, right? Like, I think that is something to say, right? Like, if you wanna be good.

• 1:41:11Dax Shepard?

  Can't go good by thinking about something.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Yes, or if you're on the field, if you're on the field and there's like, an issue, you have an issue, there's like a thing you're not good at.

• 1:41:19Dax Shepard?

  Yep.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  I think it is okay to say, hey, let's work on this, cuz this is where we have like, trouble, if you wanna be good. Yes, if you're there to just run around and who cares?

• 1:41:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  Your thing is bravery, and I think my thing is like, commitment.

• 1:41:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and both are legit, and I feel bad for the serious people that are annoyed by the, people fucking off, and um, I feel bad for the people having a great time in life who people are mad at. You know, like, I, I see it all.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:45Dax Shepard?

  Like, you know, is life a big farce? I think so.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  Well, you don't, you don't think so when you're in Costco and you're trying to get your scene done, and somebody's fucking around and it's, it's interfering with you.

• 1:41:56Dax Shepard?

  Great point, yeah.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Cuz you care about that, right? Like, that's the, in, in it's.

• 1:42:01Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  It's just all.

• 1:42:04Dax Shepard?

  I mean, it's that we've all, we've all flown to New Mexico.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  What's that mean?

• 1:42:09Dax Shepard?

  To execute this thing. It's not like, you can't, you can't wander in, onto a film set.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:42:17Dax Shepard?

  You know, you, but you're right, you're right.

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the same the, it's the same idea, that this person's like, I'm here to have fun in this life.

• 1:42:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  And you're like, I'm here to do a job.

• 1:42:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and the first time I was like, I get it. I might have done the same thing if I had a smaller role in the movie and I wanted to pop.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:35Dax Shepard?

  Uh, and then when I said, hey, if you keep doing this, we're, we're never gonna get the scene. Cuz, cuz my character can't be interrupted in this race. And then you choose to do it, um, yeah, then I'm the person who wants to get the job done. And someone else is fucking around, so yeah, I'm, I'm.

• 1:42:51Speaker 01

  We're all on both sides of it at different times.

• 1:42:53Dax Shepard?

  And now, God bless him for giving me that experience. Cuz I've done a million scenes in a million movies, and I remember very few of them, and that is so memorable, and it's one of my best stories. And it's like, ultimately, in The Game Alive, I'm delighted he fucked that up so many times and all the shit happened.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:10Dax Shepard?

  So I guess it's like, what point in time are you evaluating these things is also really relevant? Is it in the moment? Is it five years later? Is it on your deathbed? Is it as, you know?

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:43:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Tricky.

• 1:43:22Dax Shepard?

  And the world can't be, the whole world can't be thinking this whole thing's a joke. Cause things gotta get.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:43:28Dax Shepard?

  Science has to be done.

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:43:30Dax Shepard?

  And I get it.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:34Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare. We get support by Peloton. You know that feeling when you're spiraling over a problem and you just can't figure it out? When that happens to me, I need a change of pace. And I've found that running is the best way. It takes my brain out of the driver's seat and I come back with a fresh perspective. Running can be freeing and cathartic and Peloton helps you feel all of that. And now that feeling fits wherever you need it with the new Peloton Tread Flex. It's movable and foldable, designed to fit your life. So next time you feel stuck, you can go for a run literally anywhere. Whether that's in your office, living room, or even the attic.

• 1:44:17Dax Shepard?

  Plus, they have classes with expert instructors and programs to meet you at any level and keep you moving. Let yourself run. Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com.

• 1:44:36Speaker 01

  My gosh, I guess it's a ding ding ding because this is for Chris Nowinski. We were talking about soccer.

• 1:44:41Speaker 03

  I have a quick David Chang update if you want to.

• 1:44:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah. David Chang update.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  Gosh, I hope it's about the bread.

• 1:44:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, here we go.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Wildflower Bakery in Free Stone. We were coming back from visiting some friends and they said the bread there was great. And it was.

• 1:44:56Dax Shepard?

  And it was. Wildflower Bakery.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Wow, shout out.

• 1:45:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. You did a whole graphic here, Rob?

• 1:45:03Speaker 03

  I did. I had a little more time for this one.

• 1:45:08Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:45:08Dax Shepard?

  Now, Rob, how do you deal? Cause Rob, you do everything right. It's something I am so grateful to you for. You are such a meticulous planner and just a great manager of all things that need doing. Does it drive? Did it drive you nuts growing up when people just were fucking off and didn't give a shit?

• 1:45:28Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:45:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:30Dax Shepard?

  I'm sorry. On behalf of us, I'm sorry.

• 1:45:32Speaker 03

  I mean, I was also the one doing it. So depending on what it was for too.

• 1:45:36Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Chris, Chris. Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris. Show me those creamy hamstrings. I used to be able to do that voice, but now I've lost my

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  What is it?

• 1:45:52Dax Shepard?

  It's a Family Guy character. He always wants Chris to come in his basement and show him his creamy hamstrings or creamy thighs. I mean, he's clearly a pedophile, but they'd find a way to make it quite cute and funny in the cartoon.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Wow. Um, okay, so I said that no one on the football team was in my AP classes, and that's not true.

• 1:46:11Dax Shepard?

  Uh oh.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  There at least was, there was at least one, Doug Sellers, shout out. I remembered him after the fact. And there might have been more. I don't know. When was Tough Enough the TV show on and how many seasons of Real World had there been? There are six seasons, starting in 2001, and the first episode of Real World was in 92.

• 1:46:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay, nine years.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it was in its 10th season when Tough Enough started.

• 1:46:36Dax Shepard?

  And as I told you, in 96, I partied with Pedro.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  Yes, you did.

• 1:46:42Dax Shepard?

  Who was, uh, season one, San Francisco Real World.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:46:48Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  Since past.

• 1:46:50Dax Shepard?

  Sweet, sweet guy. What a fun night we had.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Um, okay, how many people currently play high school football in the United States? In the 23, 24 school year, over 1 million high school students in the US participated in 11-player football. This number includes 99% boys. For boys, it is the most popular high school sport with over a million players.

• 1:47:12Dax Shepard?

  Now, do you think that remaining 1% that's girls, that's, do they have a girl league? Or there's girls playing on the boys' football team?

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  It's a great question.

• 1:47:20Dax Shepard?

  You want to know something? I'm embarrassed to admit.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:47:22Dax Shepard?

  So I'm deep in my Friday Night Lights rewatch. I cannot recommend it enough for people with kids. It's such a fun family show. We've never had more fun watching a show together. It's just, it's a drug. We love it. We fight every night about when to turn it off.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:47:35Dax Shepard?

  It never occurred to me that they can practice.

• 1:47:39Dax Shepard?

  That of course, they can, they can just play games in practice. Because the team is split into two teams. The defense, I don't, I don't know why that never crossed my mind. Like we're watching Friday Night Lights and they practice a ton on the show. And I'm like, oh duh, yeah, they can play a real game endlessly.

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:57Dax Shepard?

  Cause they have everyone they need.

• 1:47:58Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:47:59Dax Shepard?

  You can't do that in basketball. I mean, you're, you're just, you'd be splitting up.

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  You split it.

• 1:48:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's just, it's very, I don't know why that never crossed my mind.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  It is hard though, cause you aren't playing like the best. Like you're not playing against.

• 1:48:14Dax Shepard?

  Unless your team has the best defense.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:48:16Dax Shepard?

  Then you almost have, your offense almost has an advantage. Cause they're being forced to play against the best defense. It's probably like a virtuous cycle.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:48:26Speaker 03

  Hockey gets that a little bit, cause you've got four offensive lines and three defensive lines.

• 1:48:32Dax Shepard?

  Yes, but then you're gonna have like, the goalie's gonna be half as good. Talk about a fucking position I would not wanna have.

• 1:48:39Speaker 01

  No way.

• 1:48:39Dax Shepard?

  There's all these things where consistency is important.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:42Dax Shepard?

  Those are not good things for me.

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:45Dax Shepard?

  Or everything, your whole job boils down to one second. Like I need a lot of time and I need to be intermittently good. And I'm gonna be bad intermittently. That's kind of how I can operate.

• 1:48:56Speaker 01

  Interesting. Yeah, you, you think you can't like make the shot when it counts?

• 1:49:03Dax Shepard?

  But even when you make the shot, you've been dribbling for a while and you made a couple of moves and you're in your rhythm. This is just, you're standing dead still and you're up. And here it comes.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 1:49:13Dax Shepard?

  Or you gotta be perfect.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:49:15Dax Shepard?

  With no lead up.

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:49:18Dax Shepard?

  I need lead up. That's why I don't, that's why like, driving is like, anyone will tell you like, it's very rare that a, unless you're in F1.

• 1:49:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:27Dax Shepard?

  There's 21 turns on a track. You're not acing all 21 turns on the track. You've blown one, you're recovering on a couple, and that's standard.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:36Dax Shepard?

  So now it's just like a percentage of how good you, so that works for me. You have a lot of time to make mistakes and recover and be perfect and then not good. But these jobs that require you to be excellent every time.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Dax Shepard?

  Scare the bejesus out of me. A symphony orchestra player.

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  So, so impressive.

• 1:49:54Dax Shepard?

  I need to be a jazz like improv.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Dax Shepard?

  Some of it's like, I don't know, is that okay? And then whoa, that was a nice lick.

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did you hear Skype is done?

• 1:50:02Dax Shepard?

  What?

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  Skype.

• 1:50:05Dax Shepard?

  It went away? It lost out to Zoom?

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  It did.

• 1:50:10Dax Shepard?

  Was Skype owned by something else?

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  Microsoft.

• 1:50:13Dax Shepard?

  Microsoft. It's hard to feel bad for Microsoft.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  I know, but it's just like, I feel so bad for Skype. They, they really shit the bed.

• 1:50:22Dax Shepard?

  It's weird that it didn't take off. It was already there.

• 1:50:26Speaker 01

  It was there. It was there. It could have been.

• 1:50:30Dax Shepard?

  That might speak to like, if you didn't catch the learning curve initially, you think it's insurmountable and you'd rather just learn the new thing that came your way and everyone's figuring it out? Well, this'll comfort you. I just weirdly stumbled, I don't know why, I read an article about quarterly profits.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:50:48Dax Shepard?

  And Microsoft's quarterly profit was seventy billion dollars. They're quarterly.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  Pretty good.

• 1:50:55Dax Shepard?

  That's nuts.

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Dax Shepard?

  Two hundred and eighty billion is what they'll profit this year?

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just feel like the story of Skype is a sad one. They were in leading position to take the pandemic and they didn't. They let this like, this little like, rando.

• 1:51:14Dax Shepard?

  Isn't that the story of the internet? It's like you had Yahoo, you had AOL, all these things that seem like, you know, institutions.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:22Dax Shepard?

  And somebody, AOL bought Warner Brothers and tying Warner and just vanished?

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there was so, at the beginning of the pandemic, it was, we were saying like, we'll Skype you now, we'll Skype you. But we were using Zoom.

• 1:51:38Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  The verb was Skype.

• 1:51:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  And it wasn't even being used.

• 1:51:43Dax Shepard?

  It didn't work out.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  I guess it's an underdog story too, which we like.

• 1:51:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I have friends who invented a very popular one and I had to, and I even had to talk to them and I was like, I don't want to use yours. I want to use Zoom.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  Um, okay, the percentage of high school football, footballers who make it to the NFL.

• 1:52:03Dax Shepard?

  Of the million, we just learned that play football.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  Right. Okay. A tiny fraction of high school football players, roughly point zero two three percent, make it to the NFL. This means that for every thousand high school football players, twenty-three will, about twenty-three will eventually play in the NFL. Which I thought was kind of like a lot.

• 1:52:24Dax Shepard?

  That's what the article says?

• 1:52:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:52:26Dax Shepard?

  God, that seemed, yeah, that seems really, really high.

• 1:52:30Dax Shepard?

  Because how many people get into the NFL every year?

• 1:52:32Speaker 01

  Um, let's see.

• 1:52:35Dax Shepard?

  Like, how many are drafted?

• 1:52:37Speaker 03

  Two hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty-seven.

• 1:52:39Speaker 01

  Two hundred and fifty-seven.

• 1:52:40Dax Shepard?

  So that would mean there was only a hundred thousand players.

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:52:47Speaker 03

  Of age.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, exactly. Senior year.

• 1:52:50Dax Shepard?

  Right. I guess there's, the million playing football might include junior high football players and youth football and...

• 1:52:58Speaker 01

  Maybe it includes rugby.

• 1:52:59Dax Shepard?

  Definitely nine through twelve.

• 1:53:01Speaker 01

  Definitely includes nine through twelve.

• 1:53:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:53:05Speaker 01

  And then nine, ten, eleven obviously aren't drafted.

• 1:53:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there's approximately seventy-seven thousand college football players.

• 1:53:15Speaker 03

  So a fourth of those are probably of age to then go get drafted.

• 1:53:21Dax Shepard?

  And then, did you say three hundred get drafted?

• 1:53:24Speaker 03

  Two hundred and fifty-seven.

• 1:53:25Dax Shepard?

  Wow. God, I mean, that's, that just seems really impossible, doesn't it? That a few hundred will go every year?

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  Oh, I know.

• 1:53:34Dax Shepard?

  Out of seventy-seven thousand that are already playing in college? So hard to, it's almost impossible to play college football.

• 1:53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. Really hard to do.

• 1:53:43Dax Shepard?

  Again, Friant Light smashes, he thinks he's going to the NFL. Everyone thinks they're going to the NFL.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you gotta, you gotta dream big.

• 1:53:51Dax Shepard?

  I mean, you gotta go for it.

• 1:53:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think that might be it for Chris. I loved this episode, obviously.

• 1:53:59Dax Shepard?

  Trying to think what the equivalent episode would be for me.

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  It's a very important topic, and I'm glad we covered it.

• 1:54:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, me too. Can you think of an obsession of mine that might be fun? It would be car-related, I guess.

• 1:54:10Speaker 01

  Well, no, because this isn't shopping.

• 1:54:13Dax Shepard?

  Mine's Total Wolf.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Well, that would be Anna Wintour. This is like, what's your cause? Like, what do you care is, is being talked about that's not being talked about?

• 1:54:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we've had a couple people that their main concern was that we're not listening to each other. That was really rewarding.

• 1:54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, exactly. So, Chris, and he was very cool and nice.

• 1:54:33Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, very cool. Um, all right.

• 1:54:36Dax Shepard?

  All right, love you.