Rise Above It All w/ Dane Cook

“There is a fine line between Anxiety and Excitement“This interview will rock you. How is it that some people can tell a story in a way that not only holds your ATTENTION but that makes you LAUGH uncontrollably? If anyone has the answers, it’s DANE COOK. Because DANE has been doing just that for more than 30 years now through his albums, television appearances and specials, as an actor, and especially as a prolific stand-up comedian. This week, we’re going to pull back that curtain, and Dane is going to reveal his PERSONAL JOURNEY and tell you things you’d never thought you would hear from one of America’s funniest men. One of Dane’s greatest strengths is as a storyteller, and in my opinion, he’s one of the most COMPELLING STORYTELLERS I’ve ever heard. It’s one thing to tell jokes that get a reaction, but quite another to go deep about some part of the human condition and connect with people on a completely different level. The best comedy also rises from PAIN AND ADVERSITY. Dane is no stranger to that either, dealing with a half-brother who defrauded him for almost everything he had. And that only scratches the surface of the hardships that Dane has been through. In fact, so many things piled up in his life that, at one point, Dane almost quit the business. You need to hear how he used that time and those experiences to RETHINK his life and REDEFINE his expectations going forward. Great comedians like Dane also carry around a certain amount of ANXIETY as well. In fact, the fine line between anxiety and EXCITEMENT is where they find the best and most relatable material. We’re also going to talk about the public side of Dane as well. He’s got a lot to say about building a social media brand (he’s an original and one of the best) and how he deals with CRITICISM and HATE. Listen to Dane’s take on the fine line between locking out those haters and taking in enough so that you can REFLECT and INTERPRET things is gem-mint thinking. We’re also going to talk about the right and wrong ways of TYING IDENTITY TO SUCCESS. You’re going to love a GREAT INTERVIEW with the GREAT DANE this week. It’s not what you’d expect, and that’s no joke… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 P.M. And my third day, 6:00 P.M. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff. Borrow better.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  This is the Ed Mileage Show.

• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back, everybody. I'm fired up. I've tried to get this guy on for a couple of years. And we kind of went back and forth on some DMs over some time. I've been a fan of his for a long time, all the way back to the MySpace days. And he is, he's just, let's just be real. He's one of the most prolific stand-ups of all time, which ended up becoming acting and all kinds of other stuff that he's been successful at. And then he's just got this special out right now called Above It All that you can get at danecook.com. And I watched the other night and I'm like, hey, he's even more brilliant than he was before. It's hilarious. But it's really inspiring and motivating at the same time. To me, that's good art. It gave me more than one emotion at one time. It wasn't just giggling and laughing. It moved me and it made me think. And so I got a legend sitting across from me, Dane Cook. Welcome to the show.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Wow, man. That was like the wind up and I was holding my breath. I was like, wow, this is, thanks for having me on and thanks for the flowers, man. I'm deeply proud of this moment.

• 2:35Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you should be. You, um, what made you, I know you're getting asked this a lot, but like, he, just so you guys know, you're gonna go watch it. It's, you're the best storyteller I've ever seen.

• 2:44Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you.

• 2:44Ed Mylett?

  No, you are the best storyteller. And I've never watched like an hour go by with sort of just a few stories.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Right. It feels sort of like one long bit.

• 2:54Ed Mylett?

  That's exactly what it feels like. Was that with intent? Or does, when you put your, you know, I have a lot of stand-up friends that kind of say, I got good 20 minutes right now. I'm working on the other 20. I'm working on the hook. I'm

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 3:03Ed Mylett?

  Did you, was that intentional to go that way?

• 3:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think a lot of the stand-up that I loved growing up was the wrong moments, the off-kilter moments, the moments that seemingly were like, oh, man, that's the, that's the end of that rhythm. I actually like, example, um, before the Tonight Show was Fallon, growing up, it was Johnny Carson. He was the Fallon. And Johnny Carson could deliver the material, but when something went clunk, he came to life. And you saw something happen in the room and you felt it. That was, you couldn't take your eyes off him in that moment. And, and it was like, can he get back to the laugh? And of course he would.

• 3:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  And so I think I always looked at stand-up as, I'm never gonna be a perfect stand-up comedian. I'm never going to master this. There is no end game to stand-up. I'd, I'd been a student of it enough to know. But if you're a person who evolves their philosophy, grows up with a generation of fans, and can kind of take the piss out of yourself, and in those Johnny Carson type moments.

• 4:04Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Reflect on it in real time. If you get that good, then I think that's where comedy can be storytelling and you don't really see the beginning, middle, and end.

• 4:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I also think it takes like, tons of, I'll call it guts, since this is a clean show. But like, I speak for a living, right? So, well, I don't go for a living, that's one Do to go that long on a story means you got a lot of confidence where you're taking me because if it doesn't hit you've taken eight or 10 minutes up of the show that doesn't hit so

• 4:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:31Ed Mylett?

  That takes some real stuff right to do that.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  And it takes a lot of time not getting quite to the where the endpoint is yeah there's you know it's kind of the cul-de-sac moment once in a while I call it where you go well this is lovely but where does this go?

• 4:46Ed Mylett?

  Right, right.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  And so the pieces that you see if I if I do my job the way I I hope I presented it here is like I'm gonna sandbox each story and I'm gonna find something that we call in comedy I'm sure you've heard it from your other comedy buddies is LPMs laughs per minute and if I can fill a story out and I know where I want to take you but I can hit those laughs it's not a seminar or monologue it's stand up.

• 5:09Ed Mylett?

  Oh, very good.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:10Ed Mylett?

  What made you do to your house?

• 5:12Speaker 03

  A few reasons um well first and foremost when I moved in there 12 years ago I

• 5:19Ed Mylett?

  Baller pad by the way.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  It's a it's a beautiful spot and it's overlooking and it's just it looks like a treasure trove out there it's it's glistening and I stood on my porch 12 years ago I went through probably one of the most difficult moments of my life where I'd been come out of a hardship a financial hardship and I almost didn't even know if I could keep my house I was in such dire straits but I stood on the porch and I was like not only am I gonna work my ass off to um my butt off sorry uh to to to keep this place but it feels like a stage up here and I already had been formulating the idea and where that came from was I don't know how it was out here but east coast you had somebody stoop you had a weekend night you had a few drinks and you

• 6:04Speaker 03

  had neighbors congregating and stories flying and impersonations of each other and next thing you know it was like it felt like a little makeshift show on a on a front porch.

• 6:13Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  And I loved that and I wanted to recreate that.

• 6:15Ed Mylett?

  You did that out of that so I want to go there it's one of the things I wanted to ask you about you see someone like you you've had this like your voice is tripping me out because in the old days when you had like an iPod like The thing that when you turn it on, the same thing would pop up. Your comedy special popped up for like four years ago. I actually got very sick of you. Cause I was like, click off this guy. Like I kept hearing your damn voice in this.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  It was like, was it alphabetically one of my bits was like the first one that like abduction bit or whatever it was like aliens?

• 6:42Ed Mylett?

  Yes, the aliens one.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  A lot of people wrote me that and said that.

• 6:45Ed Mylett?

  How the hell do you know? Cause it's with an A.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Cause people would tell me you're the first thing on my shuffle.

• 6:49Ed Mylett?

  I have heard that bit, no exaggeration, over 3,000 times.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  I apologize.

• 6:53Ed Mylett?

  I know.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  Like it's really good, but it ain't 3,000 times. It wasn't worth, it wasn't worth that 3,000 plays, but it was a funny bit.

• 7:00Ed Mylett?

  So having you on here, but I also, I was very much a fan of your work. And so I know about what you're describing. So people see the successful life of anybody that's on my show and the backstory like. We'll get to how you started and what you overcame, but in the, in the throes of your career. After you've worked your ass off traveling around busting your tail. Someone very close to you.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:23Ed Mylett?

  I mean, this is an incredible, incredible amount of adversity and story. So tell them what happened. I want to know.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  I grew up with a half brother in the same household. So felt like just like a brother, right? And he ended up coming and working for me as my bookkeeper. So what started off as a young kid, you know, paying my Chevy Cavalier once a month bill and you know, maybe like a couple of slices of pizza that I charged on my. You know, Arlington credit card turned into something, you know, much more lucrative. And unfortunately what I did not know was.

• 7:53Ed Mylett?

  Your face just changed.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  He, he was, uh, you know, it, I guess the joke would be like, was he double dipping? And it's like, what's that times 50? He was just, you know, he was taking and it was real nefarious and it left me in a place where all those years of. 16 years to become an overnight sensation. Not only did it hit the reset button, but it was like, I have nothing in the till. I'm quite literally, you know, trying to figure out. Like it was fascinating because you, because I was like, I still have my creativity. I still have this fan base. But I don't have the monetization to just do whatever I want in this moment. It was almost like kind of weirdly starting over in the middle of my career.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  I call it the Empire Strikes Back saga of my life and career because it got dark.

• 8:42Ed Mylett?

  And it got so, he was incarcerated.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh yeah, he went to prison for eight, eight years.

• 8:49Ed Mylett?

  Did you all just hear that? Maria Menounos is telling me she's driving with you in Bosch, like, oh yeah, my brother's there. And like you literally drove by where he was.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  That's right, he was at Middlesex County Jail, which I think now is torn down, it might be a hotel. But at the time, he was, you know, probably peeking out a little window in that, in that jail, in the Husqul.

• 9:05Ed Mylett?

  And that's the time that you're saying you conceived of this vision for what now I'm seeing in your special?

• 9:10Speaker 03

  Well, he was with me at the house. He was with me when I first was buying the house and I didn't know that I really didn't have the ability. But he was telling me, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're, you're good. And whatever he was doing away from the porch that day was like preparing for his getaway. As I was preparing to, to buy my dream house, not knowing that I just, yeah, no, I was not solvent in that moment to be able to, to do that.

• 9:32Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, because you bring, you have a unique, even when you walk in the room, like you light it up. You have a really special energy, you have a success energy, whatever that is, I could, you probably call it charisma. You have that and it's special and you know it when you see it in somebody. But as I like dove into you, my admiration for you really grew. I'm like, this dude has constantly had to overcome all kinds of stuff, like all, like really heavy stuff. And in the special, I was moved by many things. But your face also changes in the special, like I watched it twice. And you tell the story about that Chevy Cavalier, by the way, I really watched, man.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  I love that car.

• 10:10Ed Mylett?

  And you, you get this gig and I think it's in Florida.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 10:13Ed Mylett?

  And it's not paid and you go, yep, I'll go do it. And I don't want to tell the whole special away, but.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  We call it a hell gig now. These are, these are, if you like comedy, hell gig stories.

• 10:23Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Then mine was either gonna break me or, you know, uh, incite me.

• 10:31Ed Mylett?

  No, but everyone listen to this show, everyone, if you're listening to my stuff, you want to do something great with your life. You're either doing it or you're trying. Trying to do it and and you are gonna have your version of this maybe multiple times.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:45Ed Mylett?

  And then the crazy thing is then you may even get there and have it taken like you did.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 10:49Ed Mylett?

  But could you.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  And and not only that, but you may get knocked down and get up and get knocked down and get up and then get knocked down and get up. It's like it isn't just a metronome rhythm of like, oh, if I take a knock, sometimes you can take a lot of knocks.

• 11:01Ed Mylett?

  Lot of them and you've taken them and I always say the difference between winning and losing is so small in life. In sports, we're talking football before we went on here.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:09Ed Mylett?

  It's almost too scary to look at and you were this close to going, I'm out. Actually, you did say it. So for sure. Tell them a little version of what happened there, like with the hot dogs and.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:22Ed Mylett?

  Unbelievable.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I tell this bit about it's called the Wrath Skeller. And if you end up listening to it.

• 11:28Ed Mylett?

  Everyone listen.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's gonna be on Spotify as well, too. So the album will be everywhere. But if I would, I would love for you to see the special because I think aesthetically what Marty Colner did as my director is absolutely lovely. But the bit is centered around when you're, so when you're a comedian on the come up. You know, there's no, there's no dental, there's no, there's no support, there's no union, there's no nothing. And you just take these gigs sometimes that are, they might be, you know, the middle of nowhere would make these gigs seem interesting. You know, you're talking about places that seem like kind of insignificant, but it matters to get out on the road and build that fan base. So I tell the story of a humiliating, bludgeoning.

• 12:14Ed Mylett?

  Oh, gosh.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Ego destroying, maybe even ego defining if we wanted to get into psychology of it all. A moment very early in my career where I was hired to do a gig at this place called The Wrath Skeller from Boston. I drove to Florida. The story I tell is probably a condensed version of a 2448 hours of my life where I was really rethinking everything. You know, putting it out really in front of me and I'm sure you've had these great minutia conversations where you're really getting into. Beyond the nitty gritty, you're into the plankton of it all and you're going. I do not have what it takes right now to see this through.

• 12:50Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  And to relinquish your power in that moment and know it's okay to know I don't have it all. I don't, I don't, but maybe from that I can recognize the pockets, the holes, the voids, and start getting the education and information to fill those things in. But you need to, you need to have it almost like break apart and crack apart and break you in order to go, oh, yeah, this is life, this is life, identifying that, that void and going, I need material in there, not, you know, comedy material, I need, I need stuff in there, you know, to, the adhesive.

• 13:28Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 13:29Speaker 03

  For the dreams around it to come to fruition.

• 13:32Ed Mylett?

  He basically quits and then like a few minutes later goes, no, I'm not out.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Don't tell the whole ending.

• 13:37Ed Mylett?

  No, I won't, I won't say the whole thing. I want them to see it, but I mean, the, the thing about.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  I'm kidding, it's not the actual end.

• 13:43Ed Mylett?

  It's not the ending. There's a little bit more after that, but my dad was an alcoholic and when he got sober, I finally got sober, I said, Daddy, are you never gonna drink again? He goes, I can't tell you that. I'm just not gonna drink for one more day. And when I was an entrepreneur, it reminds me of the story in the, I am an entrepreneur, but when I was struggling.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:00Ed Mylett?

  Which I still struggle sometimes, but when I was really struggling, I called my dad, I'm like, I don't have what it takes. Verbatim what you just said, I said the words, I don't have what it takes. I'm just not like these other guys. I'm just, I don't know, like I, I want it, but I don't think I want it like they do, or is there something missing in me? I'm gonna quit.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Wow, wow.

• 14:18Ed Mylett?

  And my dad goes, uh, I go, Dad, I can't decide, I just wanna do this forever. My dad goes, well, you don't have to, he goes, just don't quit for one more day. I just didn't quit that day. You know what I mean? I just didn't quit that day. And then the next day, kind of the emotion started to wear off and my strength came back and many, many times, I'm like, I'm just not gonna quit for today.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  You needed to be depleted. You almost needed to run your battery out completely.

• 14:41Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  To feel that feeling.

• 14:42Ed Mylett?

  Have you had that? Like, multiple, you say, like, I've heard you say, like, what you just said about the void or like that space, like, that's where you've got all your info. Right when you've at the end of something and failures where you've gathered most of your info that's made you successful.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, something about being complete. Annihilated, sometimes emotionally, I think where you come back from that and start to recognize, or for me was, I don't need to do this the way that I think success is derived from. I need to do my version of this and take it to where my success will be.

• 15:15Ed Mylett?

  Geez.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  And that was definitive in that breakdown side of the road moment. What I say now and kind of the way I put it together and what I think is kind of an interesting soundbite is like, when you're at your rock bottom, I try to tell people, don't be so fast to come up for air. Don't, don't get the hell out of there so quick. Take a beat, look around, accept that you're in this rock bottom moment because there's so much data and failure. There's so much wealth of information in hitting that lowest moment that when you finally come to the surface, those are gems that you've brought up with you and you only get them at your most broken, down at the bottom moment where you're not just on one knee, you're down on both trying

• 16:00Speaker 03

  to figure out like what you end is up. You need it. You need that.

• 16:03Ed Mylett?

  Thank you. We could stop right now. Like, thank you for that. Like, I've had five, I've done about 500 shows. I've had five people who aren't in what I'd call the self-help motivational field. Five that I've said this to, you should be doing this in addition to what you do. No, no, no. Not because you need the money, because you don't, because you really help humanity with it. Let me tell you who they are. It's interesting. Jim Rome, the radio broadcaster, he's become a dear friend of mine and he's starting to. Ironically, David Arnold, David A. Arnold, who you and I were just talking about, who sat in the seat you're in several weeks ago and is no longer with us. I said that to LeAnn Rimes about three hours ago.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:45Ed Mylett?

  He was just here. There was one other I'm forgetting and you. I think that's the four and it's you. And I've thought this about you for years as I've watched you. I've watched you on different things and I've, here's how I know. I'll rewind and listen to you say it again. I've watched you in various different things. I went, I want to watch, even the special, I didn't, I, I laughed the whole time. But it's not why I watched it again. I watched it again because I wanted to be moved by a few of the stories in there.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:08Ed Mylett?

  It's particularly like your, and then it's not just what you said. It's like even with you right now, even though this is mainly audio, like your face, when you said your brother, your face changed. When you said that story, your face changed. So it's at that place. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is, I know you've dealt with anxiety. And I heard you say something like, there's a fine line between anxiety and something else.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Right, excitement.

• 17:30Ed Mylett?

  Man, I live this. So I think you say it way better than I can say it, and I'm the one in this space. So say it. What is it?

• 17:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, it was a, a eureka moment in my, um, I had never done therapy as an adult and after my, I'd lost both my parents to cancer within the same year.

• 17:47Ed Mylett?

  Around the time this stuff happened with your brother.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  It was two years before. So I lose both my folks and I'm still in.

• 17:53Ed Mylett?

  Sorry.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Running, oh, thank you, man. Thank you. Yeah, they, you know, I was, from that moment, I was, um, in like run and gun moment. Probably for a lot of reasons. I was, I was not ready to accept that, you know, my mom was my best friend. So it was like, I was not ready. I'd, I'd grown a great relationship with my father also out of alcoholism. And we finally figured it out. It took us the last like eight years of his life. So I lose my folks. I'm still racing because I'm in this, um, high watermark moment. Got the stuff that happens with my brother. Then the career starts to come down off of it's like the echelon. All that's happening at the same time. And I finally realized, I don't know how to be sad. My dad was an athlete. I've got broad shoulders, but my mom was very phobic and very sensitive.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  I got the anxiety. I got a, um, heart on my sleeve kind of thing. And all of those things mushed together was like, I'm a guy that wants to put win in the win column, right? Like the dad.

• 18:47Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  But I'm mostly like a very sensitive kid. No instruction to how to grieve and to how to accept like you made it and it's gonna hurt because you're gonna fall. It's gonna be part of that. Um, sitting across from a therapist one day. And talking about like anxiety and how I cope, you know, put the feet on the floor and I, you know, you rub the top of your legs. You put the tongue on the roof of your mouth and eight seconds in breathing. I knew all the 17 minutes. If I can make it through, you know, I knew all the, you know, the tricks, the life hacks. And he said to me, do you ever think that maybe, uh, in one of those moments where you're feeling really scared? That you're actually anticipating? And I, I said, almost like there's a fine line between my anxiety and excitement.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  And he said nothing, but when I said it, it was like meeting myself. I recognized something in me that was like more apparent than even some of the other things I'd put on to show people.

• 19:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  And it was in that moment when I walked out of there that I I subscribed to that and I started to investigate, hey, you know what, maybe there are times in my life where I'm not scared, but I'm fooling myself into thinking I am. And why is because I think a lot of people, and I'm sure some of your listeners will understand, knowing you're going to succeed is scary.

• 20:08Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  And it's hard to go into what I said on the Burt Kreischer podcast, it's hard to say, I'm gonna win. It's scary to say that. It's really putting yourself out there. But you know, and I know that when you're feeling it, you have to, you gotta run for the touchdown. You get like, if you were in sports, you'd be like, give me the ball.

• 20:29Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  Yep. And I don't know why in society, I think we're in this place where it's not always, um, we're not always allowing ourselves to, to say that person's there, there in them, they're sparkling.

• 20:42Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  And like, let's let him have it.

• 20:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Let's let him go. We don't have to equalize all the time. Sometimes.

• 20:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  You feel behind everybody and that's okay to feel like I can't keep up. And sometimes you're ahead. And in anxiety and excitement, I started to learn, I have to identify if I'm anxious, I need to be able to tell you and say to you, hey, man, I'm feeling like a little scared today. I'm feeling like, and be able to do that.

• 21:03Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  But I also need to be able to say to you, man, I'm really gung ho.

• 21:06Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  I'm really feeling it. And now I can separate those two things.

• 21:09Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  And it's easier to compartmentalize my reaction to those things because I, I know better who I am from them.

• 21:18Ed Mylett?

  It's the best thing I've ever heard, man. Like I, in my first book, I call them the butterfly moments of life.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:24Ed Mylett?

  When I was, I got butterflies when some dude wanted to beat me up on the playground.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:27Ed Mylett?

  And I got butterflies when I thought I was gonna.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:29Ed Mylett?

  Home run the baseball game.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:30Ed Mylett?

  And I've learned that in those butterfly moments, I've identified them as the butterfly moment is the universe, God's way of going, something real special could happen right now. And I've actually, like, when I go speak, if it's a big stage, there's 15,000 people, I get the butterflies. He used to go, I'm scared.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:45Ed Mylett?

  I'm scared. Now I go, I think I'm excited.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 21:47Ed Mylett?

  But I didn't use the word excited until I saw you say it.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:50Ed Mylett?

  But to me, I call my first book, I call them these butterfly moments. I also don't want to live a life with no butterfly moments. You're engaged.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:57Ed Mylett?

  At some point, it sounds corny. But she gave you those.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 22:01Ed Mylett?

  Maybe she still does. In fact, I think sometimes how you know it's the one is the butterflies continue past the first or second date.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  Great identifiers of where you're supposed to be.

• 22:10Ed Mylett?

  Isn't it?

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:11Ed Mylett?

  That so that thing, that anxiety thing that we call anxiety or fear, a lot of things with parenting is caught, not taught. Like I didn't turn out like my dad, but we do inherit our parents' emotions a lot.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:23Ed Mylett?

  Maybe not their behaviors, maybe not their career, but we do inherit their emotions. My dad, till the day he died, he was a stud, but he would always say, I'm 45 years old. We have a great conversation. Hey, be careful. He would finish every call, every me, hey, be careful, be, what the [bleep] am I being careful about all the time? What is, it's, it's embedding in me, there's lots of things to be afraid of.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 22:43Ed Mylett?

  But you don't do that as a parent intentionally, but it happens. So I just, I just think it's like, that's why I tell you, you should be doing this.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  It's like, well, I, you know, and I do, I mean, it is in my stand up. I mean, part of it like, it's like I've, I've figured out a way to like, um, not shield a real emotion, even though there's comedy happening around it. So there are definitely parts in the performance where, um, I like to say now, like, um, I didn't expect that. I'll perform something and it's not just all the show and I will say, uh, sometimes I'll laugh at something and my, my joke to that is, um, sorry to be laughing, uh, some of the stuff I'm hearing for the first time as well. And I like, uh, that I'm cultivating a, the next incarnation of my standup career that it's, it's, you're, I'm not there to try to teach, I'm not,

• 23:30Speaker 03

  but I am trying to teach you about me. And if my experiences help you, then you're laughing and you're also getting a little bit of that data that I'm talking about.

• 23:36Ed Mylett?

  That's really good.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:38Ed Mylett?

  That's.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  I love that you talk, you know, it's like, when you talk about your dad, you made me recognize, um, like thinking about the, the information and sometimes the misinformation that, you know, we get from our parents, you know, from being, you know, encaved in the, in the household and in a sponge mode of what we see and what we absorb. And yet, isn't it? It's, it's, it's interesting that sometimes, I think maybe as men and, and I'm just, you know, not trying to narrow it, but maybe, maybe men and women, but I think sometimes as men, like we take those things that we think, um, are the signs of being a provider or being a.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  And with my dad, I was fortunate to have my mom always in my ear and saying, be the best parts of him. Remember to be the best parts of him. And it was a good little nugget that I hope that I can impart, which is like, not all of what I am is what you need to be.

• 24:36Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  If you see, if you identify great traits in me, give it a shot. Those flex might inform you. But you don't have to be me and you don't have to be what my life is. I'm gonna have more fun being able to watch you. And I don't know if our dads or my dad really knew how to articulate that.

• 24:54Ed Mylett?

  No, my dad definitely didn't. But I'd like to think, by the way, you just made me feel good about myself. I actually think I have some of, I'm giving myself a compliment. I think I took some of my dad's. My dad had great things about him. I think I did. By the way, everyone listening to this, you know, the key thing in listening to our show is the application of the information. So when he says something like he just said, that's so beautifully profound and unique, what's the application for you? Maybe it's taking the best thing from your children that are struggling right now. What's the best things about them? Emphasize those things. They could build their entire life around those things rather than focusing on they're not good at math in school and you're constantly beating them up about their math scores. Maybe they're exceptional at geography or history or reading or writing.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Showing you in that moment, this is not my strength.

• 25:37Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  So don't make me have to work that muscle.

• 25:41Ed Mylett?

  Let's get through that. But let's, let's go to my strength. Like I, I was terrible at math. Thank God. My, what if I had spent my whole life trying to get good at math? It has nothing to do with anything I do for a living right now. Speaking of.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Do you know what the best advice your dad ever gave you was? Whether it was on purpose or not, does that, does something come to mind?

• 25:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, it does. I know the worst and I know the best. So the worst was he told me not to go into the business and it ultimately made me, you know, pretty wealthy. So that was bad advice.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 26:06Ed Mylett?

  But um, my, this may sound super corny, but my dad taught me to not, my dad was very liberal and a beautiful part of him was not to ever judge somebody that you don't know what, that crossed their bearing. So that my dad was that dude that no matter how drunk he got or whatever he did, if there's a whole, everyone's getting money if they're homeless. Everyone's getting something we gave their, I wouldn't, I, I'm not a highly judgmental person because of my dad. I love all people because of my dad. But when, even when someone would misbehave or be rude or my dad would go, you don't know what they're going through. You just don't know. And I've been pretty good at pausing in my life to do that. What about yours?

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Oh, boy. Um.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  He had a few gems, but I think the one that always stays with me is he once said, well, he said, actually, he said one time, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. In other words, like building up my fan base early on, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. I think we were walking through like Fangio Hall and we saw a few people like getting ready to watch somebody entertain and maybe do like some acrobatics or he turned to me and said, just remember that nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. So I took that early on, but he also said something and I, I know he didn't intend for this to be as instrumental. He once said to me, um, you should do more college gigs. This is when I was like first starting around Boston.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  But early college, no money, like you show up at a cafeteria and you're like, you know, you're like a fodder for while they're eating their snacks. And then you look up and there's a comedian there, but he said, you should do a lot of college gigs. And I was trying to be a club comic. I thought that's, that was the cool road. And I said, why do you think I should do a lot of college gigs? And he said, I believe the things that you discover in your college years are the things that you take with you for the rest of your life and you want to keep close. In other words, like the happiest memories of maybe what he looked at is maybe some of the best times of his life.

• 27:51Ed Mylett?

  In the prime of his life.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  And to go, oh, wow. If you always have that group, then you might always be able to pay the bills because that's a group that will want to grow with you. And so that's when I started saying, I want to grow up. I want to grow with a, a generation of comedy fans. I don't know if I'll take it beyond. I don't know where I'm going to go, but I do know I want to grow up with this generation of college for years.

• 28:16Ed Mylett?

  You were that intentional about it?

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like, man, I, I, at 15, I felt like I was already, I, I liked, I was watching Oprah every day with my mom and having deep discussions about like, why are these people behaving and why that philosophy? And I was, I, the key to comedy, curiosity. And I was a curious kid. I was curious about even why I was the way I was. And so I always kept that.

• 28:42Ed Mylett?

  Leanne Rimes was sitting right here two hours ago and said, "The key is curiosity."

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 28:47Ed Mylett?

  So, "Success leaves clues." By the way, I watched Oprah 2. Now I have a show that's like that called Change, my own show.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:53Ed Mylett?

  Same thing. I'd ask my own wife.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Quick plug, where do I get to experience that?

• 28:56Ed Mylett?

  On Nosy.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 28:56Ed Mylett?

  On Nosy. Streaming on Nosy right now. Thank you. Streaming on Nosy. Speaking of incarnations of you and your intention, so you all know who Dane Cook is, but you may not know how you know Dane Cook. You were the first, I mean, like, real pioneer on branding, on social, on MySpace. Was that intentional? And what would you say to someone who is social brand reliant right now? Any tips on building one and any warnings about doing one?

• 29:25Speaker 03

  I'll tell you the key.

• 29:27Ed Mylett?

  Because this is the king right here.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  The key then and the key now, even though, yes, there's algorithms and there's maybe corporate entities and there's, you know, trends and there's a lot of malarkey. What worked for me 20 years ago, and what I now like to say it was TikTok 1.0, which was MySpace, the first kind of real, that and Facebook, is as true today, even though there's a lot of noise and distraction. And what worked for me 20 years ago that didn't work for several other comedians and maybe some musician friends, was they'd set up a page and they had cool stuff on it, but you have to have soul. Even in the digital realm, you gotta have soul. You gotta figure out, how can I put some real heart and soul into this

• 30:11Speaker 03

  static page with some videos or some cool font or whatever, however your aesthetic, however you present, you can make it look fancy schmancy, but you gotta put some truth in there. That's what resonates with people more than anything else. Even if it's absurd truth, even if it's like irreverent truth, if you're speaking your truth, you will find you're polarizing. And that's good, because you'll have definitively a person on one side saying, "I love this." And then you'll definitively have somebody on the other side that can't stop watching you because the truth is an aphrodisiac, and they want to come in and they want to point, counterpoint with the people on that side. You want that.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  So if you don't have heart and soul in your space, then you're gonna see the numbers languishing. You need that.

• 30:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay. Is there a danger in it?

• 31:03Ed Mylett?

  In other words, was there a part of you that goes, yeah, I did it? I mean, you probably would not be sitting here.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  The danger is derivative.

• 31:09Ed Mylett?

  Meaning?

• 31:09Speaker 03

  Meaning, don't be derivative. When you're gonna see something that works once. And unless you're in the, in the business of making one red hat with one green feather. Uh, and that's all you make and that's the, that's the aesthetic, then you're gonna pigeonhole yourself quick. And so I think with truth, because truth is ever-changing and you're ever-changing and as a person, you're ever-changing, your experiences, be that in the digital realm.

• 31:33Ed Mylett?

  So good.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Allow people in, even when it's like, like, oh, this, this is, it's hard to give your power to people. Like, you know, we, I know that you've talked about, like, you give your power to somebody else and man, it's, it's terrifying. Because like, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna hurt me? The inner child in me, the person that you know, you know, I have failed. You know what broke me in my career. You could easily hit that switch and bring a lot of things that make me wanna regurgitate. But, but because I own all of it, you can't hurt me with it because I accept my truth. I accept all the bad things happened to me, which is the conclusion of in your page,

• 32:13Speaker 03

  in your digital presentation, if you're not derivative, if you can stay, um, present zen, how, whatever you call it, nothing's ever falling apart. It's only falling together. Adopt that, keep that and be truthful and love what you're doing in there. And that's gonna give your page soul. If you have soul, people swing through, hang out with you.

• 32:34Ed Mylett?

  Every interview we do, when I'm listening to someone talk, I go, okay, that'll be the social media clip.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  I'm so psyched.

• 32:41Ed Mylett?

  It's like Minority Report, you're editing and seeing, I love that, man. The problem is, I don't mean to be blowing smoke at you, like, every damn thing you've said so far would be the clip. Like, I'm serious, like, every, have you always been, your IQ this high? Have you always been this?

• 32:53Speaker 03

  I don't know what my IQ is. I just know that like, I am a passionate person and sometimes I ramble, but um, I am, my curiosity has led to some definitive understanding at, at now 50 years old. I, I, I wanna just be straight up, no nonsense, 24/7.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  You got me on a good day.

• 33:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Because if I came in here feeling like downtrodden.

• 33:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  I say, man, I need some pick me up today. Maybe you have the advice that I don't have, but like I'm gonna listen more than I am gonna jabber.

• 33:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, well, I'm glad that I, well, I would take you on either day, brother, and I'm here for you on those days, by the way. I mean that too. I, you're moving me. So, speaking of that, like, opening yourself up to criticism. This man became hated to some extent. Um, and even by peers that were jealous, you know, I've had, I won't, I've had mutual friends of ours tell me, you know what, I feel bad. I didn't like that dude for years, and then I got to know him. He's a wonderful guy.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 33:51Ed Mylett?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 33:52Speaker 03

  I've had those same conversations.

• 33:53Ed Mylett?

  You moved so far in front of the line. So there's all these dudes that went-

• 33:57Speaker 03

  Off putting.

• 33:58Ed Mylett?

  It was off putting. They, well, people went the traditional, whatever that was, and you found a path that was yours. Everything you just said, you did. That's why it's so powerful. What he just described, he did. This thing he said earlier about success being looking one way, this is the success my way. So he found his way, and he just went, boom, he's filling arenas up, and there's these guys that are great comics, but they're still doing clubs for 150 people. And you, you took a lot of criticism.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:25Ed Mylett?

  And even in your special, I don't wanna, well, especially you even say, I don't, I shouldn't Google myself. So, how, how did it impact you then? And how should someone deal with criticism, hate, those things? You have a masterclass on this.

• 34:40Speaker 03

  Man, it, how did I deal with it then? Oh, boy. Oh, man, it was, um, there was a lot of pain because I just wanted acceptance. I was still the kid who, you know, I told you I was like running, running, running, like, success had me like on a tear. And then after a little bit, I remember exactly what the moment was, or realizing, oh, my goodness, like, I'm more that kid than I ever was before, and all this success and all the adulation and all the good stuff that comes with it. Um, you know, nothing was ever gonna fill the, the void. Larry Moss is a great acting instructor. I had an opportunity to, to have a seminar with him, a private one-on-one. And he said something that was just so prolific. He said, um, he said, talk to me a little bit about

• 35:25Speaker 03

  the, the void, the, the hole that you feel inside of you. And I, at first, I was kinda like, you know, I didn't expect that we're gonna go there in an acting seminar. And I said, I don't really know what you mean, and- He kept on me, kept on me, and he finally said, um, you know, that emptiness that you feel that you take with you from when you're a kid, he said, what would happen if you stopped trying to cover it with things? What would happen if you stopped trying to keep it behind you? And what would happen if you showed people that void? What would happen? And I went on stage that night and I started, I started the show in a way that I never had, which was, I'm going to tell people at the very beginning, when I greet everybody, how I truly feel. Again, that thing about soul and

• 36:08Speaker 03

  truthfulness, because then the rest of the act is going to take on a different vibe, because now you know, when I said, hey, everybody, I hope you're having a good night. I'm having a rough day. And I could get into it, like, whether I did or didn't, I'm starting with an instant moment of Truth. I'm not putting on a facade. It's not show me da da da da. I'm telling you something real. And I think from, from that moment, when backlash started to happen, my initial feeling was I was in such pain, because I wanted the acceptance. And I think I thought that show business, or specifically comedy, was going to be like athletics, you know, athleticism. My dad was, you know, into so many sports. And I thought, when you win, maybe it's going to feel like

• 36:52Speaker 03

  you win for everybody. And I thought I was winning for everybody. I thought when I broke down that, that digital realm, Yeah. That I was, I would, that I would say, hey, I know, um, you know, I was kind of a geek to be sitting at home, doing all this stuff, toiling on the internet. But hey, I think I broke the code to help all of us. Yeah. And it wasn't received that way. It was received from a lot of people in hindsight, who would share with me, like, man, I'd be on the road, and all morning DJs would say is like, why don't you be like Dane Cook? And it was me saying, like, don't try to be my success, when I was saying, like, you know, you realize your success isn't the path that you think you need to be on. It's taking that and making a unique path. Well, I was that unique path that

• 37:33Speaker 03

  other people were being told, do what he's doing. And that, that didn't sit well with a lot of people. Didn't, brother. Yeah. Did you, did it affect your confidence? Not on stage. I'm a pressure player. What does that mean? That means that the one place, even from the very beginning, as a kid who felt so very insignificant and empty and was real hard on myself, um, something, when I got on stage, was like, Just it felt like I'm in real time when everywhere else I feel like very out of sorts and very kind of lonely or a wallflower or no timing. Um, and I think I got that from my dad, athleticism, ready for the ball.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Give me the ball and in that moment, and it was the one place that I, I didn't, I didn't break my confidence. But in my personal life, I went through a real like, a real topsy turvy time, not feeling like, oh man, I, I thought by breaking through would bring all the kids in the schoolyard to love me.

• 38:34Ed Mylett?

  Mm hmm. I think that like when you're on stage or you're doing something you're called to do or great at, it's a moment of like full presence. And you don't have the um, luxury of worrying about all these external things. It's like when I'm speaking on stage, like I'm, you have to be fully present when you're there.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:52Ed Mylett?

  And I think somehow the other stuff, all my insecurities sort of disappear in those moments. Yet the minute I walk off, like the minute I walk off.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:00Ed Mylett?

  How did I do? How did I do? I'm back to being that kid again. Love me. Tell me I did well. Was that okay? What did I screw up? I don't know. Do you do that when you get off stage? I'm very insecure when I'm finished.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  When I step off stage, almost immediately, my heart rate starts to decrease. I have a really good resting heart rate, by the way. It's like 65 all the time. And I step off stage and by the time I get from the stage, this is like this even in arenas. By the time I'd get for offstage 20,000 people and was in my dressing room, my tea was ready with a little honey. And I'm very chill and I'm zen because I, I know it's like I'm back to being that regular human being. I never chased the party after. I never needed the adulation after the show. Never.

• 39:44Ed Mylett?

  I used to watch you thinking this dude's so good looking. Every walks, when Dane walks out, it's like woo.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  It was crazy.

• 39:51Ed Mylett?

  Crazy.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. And a lot of women and a lot of like that thing.

• 39:54Ed Mylett?

  This dude is going ballistic the minute he walks off the stage. That was not true.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Well, I was, I was probably having at it in the after party with my friends, but as far as like, I never needed

• 40:06Ed Mylett?

  The adulation.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  The high of the stage is something that I know is only in one place and I don't. Try to look for it or find it anywhere else and it's just right there.

• 40:14Ed Mylett?

  Okay, if I'm pursuing a dream, I'm listening to Dane Cook right as someone who achieved his dream.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:18Ed Mylett?

  And I ask a lot of people, by the way, everyone listening, are you starting to see a theme? With successful people that are on the show all the time, but did you hear what he just said about? There's this void I'm trying to fill, there's these insecure, have you? Are you seeing a theme here? Here's the theme, they're you. They sound a lot like you, don't they? When you get them behind a microphone? And they're not on stage and they're in an environment where they can tell the truth. They've had adversity, they've had haters, they've had setbacks, they've had insecurities, they've had strange upbringings, they've had people around them hurt them. They deal with the emotions you deal with, the fear and anxiety, isn't this interesting? They're you. And the reason it's so important that you accept that is because if they were superhuman, that would give you a cop out to not making your dream come true.

• 41:02Ed Mylett?

  But because now you know they're just like you. There's no excuse for you not to make your dream come true. That's why like? Some of this hero worship stuff that you get when you go out or I get, I it's enjoyable to feel, but there's a part of me, it's like? I'm not any different than you and I don't want you to think it because that gives you an excuse not to win. Now, what I'm wondering about you is.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  By the way, I said nothing because that's the clip from the show, dude. No, that was like, yeah, man, that was it right there.

• 41:31Ed Mylett?

  I don't want that for people. Now, I'm curious though. You caught your dream, be honest about this, please. I know you've been honest the whole time, but like this is a hard one to be honest about. Was it? Or is it? What you thought it would be and or slash worth it?

• 41:49Speaker 03

  It's what I thought it would be. Where? In the rare air moments of success. When you see something hit that like? Plateau that you're like, man, this is exceeding my expectations and I always set high expectations. Where it meets it for me is. How you can give back when you have that light on you is awesome. And my favorite part of fame, when I'm in a moment where it's like the, you know, the ebb versus the flow is when I feel important, I get to make other people feel important. And to be able to like, for example, like when I first broke through and I could do stuff with Boston Children's Hospital, a place that I was when I was four years old, they helped me through some stuff. And to be able to go like, oh, now I get to take some of that light and illuminate over there.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  That's the best part. When you're not in a famous moment and you're not getting invited to those things. For me, where I go to is not like, oh, I'm not in vogue. Where I go to is like, I feel like if I make it better right now, I could help more people. And so that's always a driving factor for me. So when I'm, when I met fame, yes, all the, the fun and the cool factor in like, you know, rubbing elbows with my heroes and most of them being cool. I don't think I met too many people that like, so for a number of reasons, I can say definitively, like if, when you're charging towards success, when you get there, a lot of what you hope for it to be can and will be there. Then there's some prickly parts and there's some bad contracts and stuff that in business are gonna be like a little bit of like a

• 43:17Speaker 03

  poo poo moment, but for the most part, love the, the experience of being kind of in that inner circle.

• 43:23Ed Mylett?

  Okay. And you, what about tying your identity to it? Meaning inevitably, there's peaks and plateaus and valleys and everything in life. There's your, we're gonna talk about your relationship in a minute, if you don't mind for a second, but in relation, I've been in a long relationship. There's peaks and valleys and plateaus in careers, in money, in notoriety and these other things. And I think it's how you deal oftentimes with the valleys of your life that really will probably determine the quality of it.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 43:53Ed Mylett?

  And so you had this meteoric rise, like anything, at some point, it's not gonna continue to go on an upward trajectory. There's gonna be a point where someone else gets that ride.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  True.

• 44:02Ed Mylett?

  And you're there, but maybe not like we were there before. What was that experience? Like I asked Sebastian, cause he's on that.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:10Ed Mylett?

  I said to him, actually on the show, I said, are you afraid it's gonna go? He goes, yeah. I'm afraid it's gonna go away. And of course, he works his ass off to make sure it doesn't. But in his case, and he would be the first one to say, there will be a point where it's not quite what it is.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  The zeitgeist moves on and yeah, there's like, you're always gonna have your ability to create probably something new and exceptional. But like, what it was will not remain.

• 44:33Ed Mylett?

  But it could be even better, though, right? Like, I think your work is better.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  I think it should be, and it always will be if you're putting yourself in the right place.

• 44:39Ed Mylett?

  Maybe it's because I'm a different age, but your work impacts me on more levels now than just laughing before.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:44Ed Mylett?

  Right? So, so, but what about this notion of, I think a lot of people tie their identity to just the external. I'm a mother. And so if their son hits three home runs in a game, they're real happy and proud. But if he's 0 for 3 or getting D's in school, they're not, or I'm a, their money, or their fame, or their career, or their body, or their looks.

• 45:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 45:02Ed Mylett?

  Or, and there's a danger, I think, in that. So, did you have to, did you, did you have a little of that? And did you have to find your identity? And I know you see it.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:10Ed Mylett?

  In Hollywood.

• 45:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:12Ed Mylett?

  They're out here a lot. Like, there's a lot, there's mainly their identity is tied to their notoriety or career.

• 45:17Speaker 03

  There was, yeah, there was, again, with no playbook, and there's nobody like, hi, I'm your liaison to fame. I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna help you work through like the columns that you want to, you know, keep strong. And the things that, you know, you know, are somewhat fabricated, or maybe you're not ready, so you fake it till you make it. I was, again, fortunate, maybe had a great angel on my shoulder. When I first was putting myself out there on social media and seeing that it was working, I changed the banner of my first DaneCook.com page, which is still up today. And by the way, Above It All is on there.

• 45:53Ed Mylett?

  Good.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  The first banner, I created like a little HTML code banner. It said, it said, if you're interested in my comedy and career, I said, please don't follow me if you're not a fan of risks, because I plan on taking a lot of them.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  And I gave myself permission right there to change and evolve and not be Johnny Bravo and put on the same facade or jacket. And I knew that also meant, oh, wow, you know, I'm, I'm letting people know that they're going to be able to call me out on that moment and be like, oh, you're changing. You're different now. And I did get a lot of that. And you know what? I wouldn't, I wouldn't have done it any other way. It's probably the best thing I could have done because where I didn't have the education of truly who I was, or what it meant to be not in the public eye again, full circle back to like who I really was, that at least prepared me to go like, well, nobody's ever going to be able to say I'm a phony. Because even though I wasn't always ready for moments, and even though I was like ragtag sometimes, what you see is what

• 46:59Speaker 03

  you get. It was the Johnny Carson. In between the jokes, you got to know who I really was. And I'm proud that I got to do that. And I would, I would tell your listeners, like, if there's one thing that you want to always rely on is that you're gonna look in the mirror every single morning. And that's the judge, jury, that's that all the intel and information is already right there. Your whole day isn't the look you give yourself. You brush your teeth, you look away. I used to, I'd look away once in a while.

• 47:27Ed Mylett?

  I just said that two hours ago.

• 47:28Speaker 03

  Really? Yeah. Do you, do you get up? Do you, um, do you smile? Do you smile? Just for the sake of being awake and alive? I do. You know, remind myself, gotta stay grateful, gotta have gratitude. I'm a welfare kid out of Boston. I've had something, nothing, nothing again, something, it may be again. But the, the prospect of your day is delivered to you right in that moment of looking yourself in the mirror. That's it. So start with some affirmations, or I still do. I learned it. I never had to go to A personally. I've never had a drink in my life, but I went, I attend a lot of meetings. I love them. There's a lot of truth in that room. There's a lot of brave people in those rooms. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I

• 48:09Speaker 03

  cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference between them. I say it every day. Start your day off with that.

• 48:23Ed Mylett?

  I'm just looking at you like, what in the, bro, you're remarkable.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 48:28Ed Mylett?

  You don't, you, you're very, you're not great at that, by the way. I've watched you a couple of times. You're remarkable. Like, as a man. You're obviously very talented. You're very funny. You're remarkable. Like, you're literally, right now, you're a performer and you are sitting here changing millions of lives potentially.

• 48:48Speaker 03

  Oh, man. I just want to make people feel good.

• 48:50Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  And sometimes, like, you know, I know the feeling of not being able to breathe because you're like, I'm trapped. I'm trapped in this life where I don't know what my path is. And I know that feeling. And hopefully, somebody can hear this and be like, I'm not trapped. You know? I believe that the obstacles and the hurdles in our life are, we don't, they're not there because you ran into them. I believe you went towards them because you know that's the exact thing you need to break down and get past.

• 49:15Ed Mylett?

  That's so good.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  I really believe that. And, you know, I have, I, I got a shot at my mom because we've talked a lot about my dad, but I really want to say something that, a moment that resonated me. My mom took me to see E.T. when I was a kid. It was at Christmas time that E.T. came out. Took me to Fresh Pond Movie Theater.

• 49:28Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 49:29Speaker 03

  Over off Route 2, near, you know, Lanes and Gates.

• 49:32Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 49:33Speaker 03

  She took me over there and we went Christmas shopping and she had, like, Christmas gifts for me and for us that she hid in the bags and put in the trunk. And then we went and saw E.T. And I loved it. I was like, uh, I was just mesmerized by this movie, right?

• 49:49Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Of course. We, we all were, but I didn't know what I was going into and the music and the, the story and Elliot and this whole thing. And we left the theater and I wanted to talk about the movie because I was just so lost in it. And we sat, even though it was winter, we sat for a little in our bundled up coats outside at, on the stoop. And I remember it. I remember it. I can see it. I must see how cold we were, but I was, you know, just on a little tangent and we sat and it was even a little wet from the melted snow, but we sat there and she was answering questions. I said, where is that, who made that? And Spielberg? And all these things I'm asking and she's trying to help me to like, well, it's a, you know, they make the movie and they do this and, you know, you gotta write it. There's a writer.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  Well, we get up from this moment where I'm so filled with magic.

• 50:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  And we walked over and the car had been stolen with all the Christmas gifts in it. And my mom with her phobia went into a full blown, one of the scariest. She'd spent all the money that we didn't have on these on Christmas and then to take me to the movie. And she went into like a fit and not in the funny way, like a fit.

• 51:01Speaker 03

  And we went from this thing of like enchanting entertainment to like

• 51:09Speaker 03

  being so sad and broken and it happened like that. It went from that moment and 10 steps later. And I think that defines everything even today. I think everything in that moment was like, that's life. Fun, funny, scary, sad, tragedy. And then she made a joke on the way home. Somebody finally picked us up and she said something funny and she's, I hope that jacket wasn't their size, whoever stole it. She said something and we laughed and, and man, it's like from my mom, that's all I ever wanted to get to in my career is a place where I could go, man, I hope I can just give information in a way that's either useful or funny.

• 51:51Ed Mylett?

  Gosh.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  And that's kind of, that's the guy that's sitting here right now. Can I be useful and funny? And that, that tells the kid inside me with the little void and the,

• 51:59Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  That's it. That makes me feel like, oh, wow, I can have moments where a little flex of my day where I feel like of purpose.

• 52:05Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Can I answer for you? Yes.

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm feeling it. You're like the synergy that we're creating here. I feel like people are listening going, I'd like to be a part of that conversation.

• 52:15Ed Mylett?

  It's insane.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  And you can.

• 52:16Ed Mylett?

  You can. It's insane. You're the best storyteller, dude. You're the, there's a special in you, no pun intended, that, which we'll talk about last, but like,

• 52:29Ed Mylett?

  You're entering, I love watching someone step into like their next level.

• 52:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:35Ed Mylett?

  That's what you're doing.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I'm feeling it.

• 52:37Ed Mylett?

  You feel it?

• 52:38Speaker 03

  I feel good, man.

• 52:39Ed Mylett?

  You're stepping in.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  I'm the happiest and healthiest I've ever been, even when I look back on that kid in oh, four, oh, five, there's a lot missing, a lot lacking.

• 52:46Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  And I'm happy to now be celebrating those fans of, again, growing up with it. Now their kids, their families are enjoying this new special. And I'm almost enjoying that period of time. Now, not with haters and all the ambivalence, even though there's always a level of narrative.

• 53:02Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  But the reality is, I get to, you know, look back on that era fondly. And now I get to enter into this era smartly.

• 53:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 03

  You know?

• 53:13Ed Mylett?

  There's a convergence of your talents and gifts with your life experience that are converging right now.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 53:20Ed Mylett?

  That's what's happening.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  Feels like.

• 53:21Ed Mylett?

  And as a, there's a, there's a part of your spirit that was always there that was gonna be receiving this, that was preparing for this time. It's like really obvious to me. It's kind of like I'm watching you, you watch my face a couple of times, my fruit bone audio would know, but I can feel my sort of my jaw drop a couple of times here. One of the, I want to ask you a business question, a couple of things last. Are you betting on yourself in this special? Meaning it's not streamed traditionally where it normally would be. So are you, did you make a bet on you here? Or how did this all work? Because this is another thing that would speak an awful lot to your vision, your courage. I was watching and going, I think this is a bet, maybe with some partners, but this is a bet, this, this is you. Yeah, he betting on himself here on this special. So tell them what that means and how that works.

• 54:06Ed Mylett?

  Cause this is, this is also another element of your vision, because there's a few of you now that are like, you know what? I ain't putting it over there.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 54:13Ed Mylett?

  Maybe they do or don't want me, but either way.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:15Ed Mylett?

  I'm going out on me here. So explain what you're doing here.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, whether they do or don't want me, I didn't even enter into those meetings.

• 54:22Ed Mylett?

  Well, in your case, they'd want you, but some guys.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Well, not everybody. I mean, there's definitely like, hey, listen, this is, there's always clicks and there's always places that you think, oh, I'm gonna have access and they're like, nah, we're good.

• 54:31Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 54:32Speaker 03

  And then there's other places that are like dying to have your business, but for me, it wasn't even about entertaining those. It was about. Probably based on a lot of what I told you when I first moved into that house, I felt like I'm in a position now I've earned back the ability to to gamble on myself. And so I invested my own You did. Money and I didn't do it halfway. If you watch the special, you're gonna see drone shots, you're gonna see um, uh, the guys who like the Super Bowl halftime show came and looked like makes my house look like um, like a little Red Rocks, a little amphitheater. Exactly what it looks like. Beautiful.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  And so the whole goal here was to, I've always liked to be a little bit of a disruptor in business. You have. Because I don't like the way

• 55:20Speaker 03

  especially young artists get stuck in contracts and their IP becomes shared IP, which then really isn't It's not there. It's not IP anymore. It's something, it's a hybrid. Yep. Um, and unfortunately, in a lot of those situations, there's a big contract and the first three pages are for you and then there's like

• 55:39Speaker 03

  fifty other that are for them. Yep. And so what does that really mean in the long short? It means um, you spend a lot of time and and more money kind of chasing your own residuals that you've earned from what you've created and I don't do that anymore. Um, I did it independently. I partnered up with moment.co, Scooter Bronze Investment. Basically what he wanted to do is create like a modern pay-per-view, but for but for internet. You can click on it. You don't need to subscribe to a streamer for a year. You can buy my special, enjoy it. And then at the end of that run that I have with moment, that contract ends, everything reverts to me. Comes back to you. And I get all the data, which the streamers will not tell you.

• 56:18Speaker 03

  I want to know regions. I want to know analytics. I want to know gender. I want to know, I want to know demo. I want, I want all that. That helps me to understand my fan base as a business person. Group in the world. They won't tell you that. You'll, in fact, you'll wait years to get your residuals and why does that happen to a lot of people that are not the Chapels and are not the Segoras and at the highest level well they get they get like a Brink's truck or something backed up for them but everybody else is dealing with waiting for residuals that they may never get and why are you waiting it's because it's in the streamers bank account and guess who's getting the interest off that's right okay right so for all those reasons I say no good for you brother and I've put out something that I think is the best of me and I'm taking a gamble I'm

• 57:01Speaker 03

  taking a chance and I'm hoping that people like yourself see my spirit and are just very entertained because then I'll recoup and if I recoup and you're I get to drumroll invest in the next thing that I want to do my way and hopefully bring people something else that's pretty cool

• 57:16Ed Mylett?

  so you guys got to hear that right it's above it all stain cook.com and let me tell you guys something it is it's unbelievable and by the way for you entrepreneurs you already just said he just bet on himself and it's really rare in this space that anyone's doing it there's like a handful of you that are trying to do this right now and in Dane's case let me just say this because he won't say it to you number one the the it you feel like you only watch like 20 minutes because it flies by it's an hour but it's so good like I found myself like I actually wish it was longer that's not a criticism it just that's how art should be right but like it's that good right so there's no no lulls number one number two it's cutting edge so it's visually stimulating too it's not you're not just watching to do the drone shots I want to give it away I

• 58:00Ed Mylett?

  just want people to see it the drone shots the staging the lighting even the little flick to your producer in the control room where you could see like every little yeah every little thing you did there brother I'm like this is genius well somebody had said I'm glad you brought up Marty because I do cut to Marty in the in the sound booth and the reason it was somebody said you can't do that in a comedy special I said I don't want this to just feel like a comedy special I want this to feel like maybe this is what a comedy special can be yeah you know this felt like an award show where they cut to the booth and there's the director directing the show and I'm on the screen behind him as Marty is like cheering it's really feels that way I got to share I got to put the legendary Marty Colner on camera and he managed to put me in the background

• 58:42Speaker 03

  On the TV, so I'm never not on.

• 58:44Ed Mylett?

  Oh, you're right. You are there.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  It was a happy accident.

• 58:47Ed Mylett?

  Over his shoulder.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  We're having, we're having a lot of fun with this and you can, it comes through.

• 58:51Ed Mylett?

  Well, guys, there's several million of you. Go support it. Go see this. It's, it's, it's real, guys. It's like I, I'm just, it's why Dane's here. It's like he's, he's obviously here to serve you. He served you for the last hour. If you go see this, you're, you're serving him, but you're really serving your family because you're gonna laugh and there's nothing in the content that, I wish we could get into it because there's just some lessons even with the stalker story, but we're not gonna go there right now. The last thing I want to say, um, I want to ask you about, because you did say it's the happiest you've ever been. You're in a relationship. The other thing you do.

• 59:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:19Ed Mylett?

  I don't know if you're willing to do it, but like you, you are, you, you're in love.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:23Ed Mylett?

  And. But you poke fun at yourself too, dude. Cause you're, you know, you.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Well, every comic has to, you know, relationship humor is always in there. And I've always had, you know, so much relationship stuff, good and bad in my routines that I thought, I need to talk about love. I need to talk about this relationship.

• 59:42Ed Mylett?

  I think the hardest I laughed is the part where you said, and if you want to tell a joke here.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Cause my girl, just so we understand, I still call my girlfriend, my fiance. We have an age difference.

• 59:50Ed Mylett?

  There's an age difference.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:51Ed Mylett?

  Where have you been all my?

• 59:55Speaker 03

  Don't give away the, no, no, don't give away the punchline. Yeah, yeah, no, that's one of my favorite parts of the whole show.

• 1:00:00Ed Mylett?

  It's.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  I talk about Kelsey and I, and by the way, a lot of those jokes, the great thing about being with, um, Kelsey is, cause people go like, does she like these jokes? I go, like these jokes? You should hear the jokes that she makes.

• 1:00:11Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  She has a savage sense of humor and, um, she's, you know, I knew she was the one and we're, I mean, it's, it sounds goopy, but I'm just so happy, man, in my life.

• 1:00:22Ed Mylett?

  Good.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Something I always wanted to contribute to the other side, which I felt like I'd, I'd, I'd, um, I got to visit a lot of rare air in my life and I'm grateful, but I never really felt like I had that right relationship that I'm like, this is something that I can put into my home life that feels as gratifying just for me and this other person. So I'm there.

• 1:00:43Ed Mylett?

  You deserve it.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  Thanks, man.

• 1:00:44Ed Mylett?

  And you've made a lot of other people happy in your life and you deserve to be happy, brother.

• 1:00:47Speaker 03

  Thanks, bud.

• 1:00:48Ed Mylett?

  Thank you for doing this.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  Oh, man, I hope, let's part two it.

• 1:00:50Ed Mylett?

  This was really good. I would love to part two. This was really, really beautiful.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  We'll do it again in a couple of months, once it's been out for a bit and like we'll get some real great, you know, feedback from people, like let's see how it move people.

• 1:01:01Ed Mylett?

  Okay, guys, go support it, go get Above It All, danecook.com. And by the way, while you're doing it, go grab The Power of One More and my book, go to Nosy, See Change with Ed Mylett and support that show as well. You guys, go follow Dane as well. You can tell you're gonna get not just laughing, but you're gonna get life strategy and something that'll move you as well. Everybody, thank you, Dane, thank you.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  Ed, grateful for you, thank you.

• 1:01:20Ed Mylett?

  Share this with everybody, guys. God bless you. Max out.