Angela Duckworth #3 (on bringing out your best)

Angela Duckworth (Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best, Grit) is a psychologist, MacArthur Fellow, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Angela returns to the Armchair Expert to discuss nearly drowning while trying to save her mother, apologizing 15 years later to an author she treated poorly, and how a graduate student’s critique of Grit changed the direction of her work. Angela and Dax talk about why achieving goals rarely delivers happiness, how Leon Marchand changed his environment to break Michael Phelps’s world record, and why the people around us deserve more credit for our success. Angela explains why grit isn’t always enough, how our surroundings shape our behavior before we realize it, and why changing your situation can actually give you more agency. Thank you to our presenting partner Lilly. Lilly’s Foundayo™(orforglipron). Advertisement Disclaimer: Please see Indications and Safety Summary with Warnings for Foundayo™(orforglipron) at https://www.foundayo.lilly.com/risk Start your 2 month free trial today: https://youtube.com/premium . Terms Apply. Cancel Anytime. Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ Take printer ink off your to-do list with HP Smart Tank | http://www.hp.com/SmartTank 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. Oh my Lord, top 10 favorite guest returning. I love when she's here. She's so fun to talk to. You can hit her with any topic and she has data on it. Angela Duckworth. Angela is a psychologist, a MacArthur Fellow, and a bestselling author of, of course, grit. She is the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her new book, which is a fun counterpiece to grit.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:28Dax Shepard?

  I love this book so much. It's called Situated: Find the People in Places That Bring Out Your Best. Please enjoy our friend Angela Duckworth. We get support from Quince.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  I have to say, I am so ready for fall. I want sweaters. I've been craving a true crisp morning where I actually need a jacket. I can't wait.

• 0:49Dax Shepard?

  I'm fully there. The second it dips below 70, I'm like, this is my season. Give me the layers, give me the boots, give me a reason to wear something other than a t-shirt. And honestly, that's why I love Quince, because fall is when your wardrobe actually has to show up. And everything at Quince is 50 to 80% less than similar brands. We're talking 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, starting at $60.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  $60. $60 for cashmere that you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. It's amazing. Gets me every time. It really shouldn't be real, but it is because they go straight to the factories. They skip the middlemen and they just hand you the savings. The stuff isn't trendy. It's the kind of pieces you grab over and over because they work every time.

• 1:30Dax Shepard?

  The 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters for me are it. When I look at Steve McQueen, this man owned a couple of sweaters he wore all the time and he looks iconic.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  It's a uniform.

• 1:40Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  And Quince isn't just about the clothes. They have hotel-quality bedding, cookware, bath essentials, thoughtfully-designed furniture. You can really go there and outfit your entire apartment or house. So if you're in need of any kind of fall refresh at home, too, same quality, same attention to detail for every corner of your life.

• 1:58Dax Shepard?

  Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is presented by YouTube Premium. YouTube was already great, but Premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Now let's get into today's episode.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  I'm getting comfortable.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  I'm gonna check my own two, actually.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  I think it's just because we're small. How tall are you?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  I'm five feet and a half inch.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  I am 5'1". My God, I'm taller than you.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  You're taller than me.

• 3:10Dax Shepard?

  Now, quickly, since you're both barefoot, once you achieve that goal.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14Dax Shepard?

  I want you guys to stand back to back because I do think it's interesting what they think their height is. And I have found that, I think when you get your license.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:23Dax Shepard?

  Whatever the tallest you ever were when you got your license, you just kind of cement that in your brain.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Forever.

• 3:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  And you may no longer be.

• 3:29Dax Shepard?

  No longer be, slash, it might have not been a very accurate, right? I'm meeting guys all the time that are like, I'm this height. And I'm like, well, either I'm completely wrong or you're wrong.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Because men really want to be tall. So I think they do a little padding. There's a gender difference.

• 3:43Dax Shepard?

  You don't think the five footer, like if you're four, 11 and a half, you're saying five. I think girls do it, too.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  I think that's true.

• 3:48Dax Shepard?

  Not as bad, not as bad, I agree.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  It's as much of an epidemic.

• 3:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  But also, I've measured myself many times because I also. She has a precision, this is a half. Exactly. Yeah. It's a brag because my wingspan is also exactly five feet and a half inch. It's supposed to match. You're like a Leonardo da Vinci. I am. I can't remember the name of that drawing. It's in my book. Yeah. Vesuvius Man. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  So you'd be a Vesuvius woman.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  But you don't have scoliosis, so I just want you to know, I'm a 5'4" person in a 5'1" body.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Oh, ow.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. But I just want you to know that I am a 5'4" person.

• 4:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  You can interview me as a 5'4" person.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  I think I'm a 6' person in a 5' foot body.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  But not because of scoliosis.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  No, just the way I behave.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Just spiritually.

• 4:34Dax Shepard?

  Do you know who has savage scoliosis?

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Who?

• 4:38Dax Shepard?

  Usain Bolt.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Did you ever have Usain Bolt on?

• 4:41Dax Shepard?

  No, I would love to.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  He doesn't do any interviews, does he?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  And I've never heard one.

• 4:44Dax Shepard?

  Maybe if we went to Jamaica, I think he's in Jamaica.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  He'd be a great interview.

• 4:48Dax Shepard?

  Of course.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I would love it, even if he didn't talk. I would just stare at him. My God.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  I never really got the whole skinny on what it was like to have Brad Pitt, but he was like, but then he was Brad Pitt. And I never got the answer to, okay, is he as drop-dead gorgeous in person?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's beautiful.

• 5:02Dax Shepard?

  Let's let Monica evaluate all those things.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  He's sweet, like he's very nice, he's engaging.

• 5:10Dax Shepard?

  Playful.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love him. Super present. Very present.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  I love him, too.

• 5:15Dax Shepard?

  Well, to be, to be human is to love him. That's how we will eventually test AI for their humanness.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  The Brad Pitt test?

• 5:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like rank Brad Pitt against.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  How much would you, like, what would you do to be in the same room as Brad Pitt?

• 5:27Dax Shepard?

  They'll never get it.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  You know, this is selfish probably, but I do judge a lot, especially men, on how much they interact with me. Like, if they're looking at me. As opposed to him? Just, yeah, just straight on to him and not really engaging with me at all.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  But not because you're a female, just because you're the other person, then.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Because I'm the other person, exactly. But women almost always engage with me.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  So for me, I'm always paying.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  I was like, where's the gender thing come in? Go on, go on.

• 5:54Dax Shepard?

  That's great. This is so fun to talk about because I rarely get judgmental of the men. Part of me is just like, I at least see the history, right? It's just like, oh, yeah, you're a dude, you don't know either of us, but I'm a man, I'm talking a lot, I'm tall, I'm gonna, you know.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:05Dax Shepard?

  He's identified me as having status in the room, whatever weird shit's going on.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, like, let's say that, too.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:10Dax Shepard?

  I am a little judgy. Occasionally, we get women in who never look at Monica. And those, I'm more curious about those people.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  And you're like minus seven.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  But are they experts?

• 6:20Dax Shepard?

  Um.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  I just found out that this is an expert interview. Obviously, I'm not a celebrity, but I didn't know the rhythm. I didn't know that they were like.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  It's the separation.

• 6:28Dax Shepard?

  I'm a little hurt by that, to be honest with you. How could you not know that?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Wait, do you listen to podcasts?

• 6:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  You do?

• 6:36Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God, I love it more than anything.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Minus one for not listening to podcasts. I don't listen to any podcasts.

• 6:41Dax Shepard?

  That's fine. That's fair. That's fair.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  If you start, just, it needs to be.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  I'm gonna start here.

• 6:45Dax Shepard?

  But here's, the grass is always greener. So Ed Norton, Edward Norton's big complaint. I don't know how many times we've had him on, maybe three or four times.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Three.

• 6:52Dax Shepard?

  And we're friends and he's constantly like, I want to be, what color do we do? Green?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Oh, he wants to be an expert.

• 7:00Dax Shepard?

  He's like, I want to be a green, because the celebrities are yellow. Wednesday, it's just to keep it in the timeline.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  He wants to be green.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:05Dax Shepard?

  He's like dying to be green. And he was green this last time.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Can he just be green on acting?

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:11Dax Shepard?

  Well, he was. Last time he was here, we had him green, just because we also had Olivia Wilde on. And it was the week of that movie, so she got yellow.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Was she yellow or green?

• 7:18Dax Shepard?

  But he wanted.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  He was yellow.

• 7:20Dax Shepard?

  And then the experts are mad they're not yellow, you know, certain.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  He is green, though. He has so much knowledge on everything, not just acting. He's like very, very knowledgeable. So I understand why he wants to be seen as that.

• 7:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the polymath squared. Yeah. Have you ever met him or talked to him?

• 7:37Speaker 02

  I have never met him. I have watched him.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  I'm sure he would love to meet you.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  I like him.

• 7:40Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I like his work, as they say.

• 7:42Dax Shepard?

  I bet he knows your work.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  You think? What is he interested in? He's interested in human behavior?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Everything. Are you asking him?

• 7:49Dax Shepard?

  I'm gonna ask him.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, if he says what you need to say.

• 7:53Dax Shepard?

  I'll say he didn't respond.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:57Dax Shepard?

  Do you know who Angela Duckworth is?

• 7:58Speaker 02

  God, this is like some kind of psychological.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  It is.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  For me, it's a psychological test for me.

• 8:03Dax Shepard?

  By the way, we're in an experiment right now. Did we not have you sign waivers?

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I decided to set for it. By the way, can I just thank you for reading my book?

• 8:11Dax Shepard?

  Of course.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Thank you for reading my book.

• 8:12Dax Shepard?

  Of course.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Anyway, thank you for reading my book.

• 8:15Dax Shepard?

  I put a blurb in your fucking book, of course.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  You did, and I think I'm the second one that you've done, right?

• 8:19Dax Shepard?

  In general, let me tell you, because this will be fun for you, I think. I've been asked many times, and they always ask you to do a blurb for their book, and you haven't read it. Right? They ask you before you've read it. And I think it's a very awkward thing to be asked because it's like, well, I haven't read it. I don't know if I want to endorse this. Then what I would have to do ethically is say, well, maybe let me read the book. I don't want to endorse something I don't like.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  I see what you're saying. You're like, please, and by the way, here, I've written it for you, and you haven't even read the book.

• 8:45Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. And then even worse, I go, well, I would need to read it so that I really believe the thing. And then they give it to me and I don't like it, and then I have to call them and so, you know, I don't like it, so I don't want to give a quote.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:56Dax Shepard?

  This is a testament to how confident I was in you, that I was like, yeah, I probably will, let me read it. Normally, I don't want to deal with that situation where if I read it, I don't like it.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Here's a story. A young woman author, who shall remain nameless, sent me an email. Maybe 15 years ago, that said, I wrote this book and I'd like you to endorse it. And I've written the endorsement for you, which you can edit or not, right? And it did have an attachment, which was the book. So it wasn't like, I'll never show you the book. But I was, on that day, in that moment in my life, deeply offended. I wrote back, I didn't swear or anything, but I was like, you know, who are you? Like, I was indignant, I expressed.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Did you know who this person was?

• 9:37Speaker 02

  She was like, an acquaintance.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  She was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. But I will tell you, it has haunted me for all those years. And like, a year ago, I was reading this novel called The Correspondent.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Stop.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Love it?

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Love it? Did it crush you?

• 9:52Speaker 03

  Like, I know, everyone's obsessed with it.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Did you read it?

• 9:56Speaker 03

  No, I haven't.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Okay, that is in your future.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I want to.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  It's all told in letters, so it's all epistles. Like, there's no narrative. There's just letters that you read, like one after the other. It's correspondence, and it's mostly the correspondence of the narrator. It's a novel, so it's fiction. Anyway, in the novel, there is this kind of like reckoning with your sins. And so that episode, where perhaps that young author was like out of step. Because like, who asks somebody to like, oh, here's the blurb, right? But you know who was more out of step? I was out of step, because I was so mean. I was like, oh, she was devastated. So I reached out to her, like, I found her. I was like, oh, he's no longer here. But now, she's there, and I found her. And I said, do you remember, all these many years ago, when you reached out for an endorsement?

• 10:43Speaker 02

  And I was deeply offended? I was like, here's what I want to say. Who am I to be deeply offended? Somebody told you that you should do this, and I'm really sorry.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Wow, that's great.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  And she wrote me back in about six milliseconds. She was like, oh, my God, thank you so much.

• 10:58Dax Shepard?

  And is this the author of Correspondence?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  It is not the author.

• 11:01Dax Shepard?

  Oh, but just the fact that.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Wouldn't that be a great closure?

• 11:03Speaker 03

  That's what I thought this was. I was like, it's Virginia Evans?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  I wish it were. Like, actually, I don't think she would have done this. And also, The Correspondent was, I think, her first book. So she couldn't have done this, because like 15 years ago, so that'd be before she wrote a book. And I can't remember the exact narrative detail, but it's like a little bit of a redemption story. And I remember, in the narrative, and maybe I missed one, that there was like a letter of like, kind of confession. And so this was like my letter of confession to this stranger. By the way, she's lovely, I'm not gonna tell you who she is, but she's great.

• 11:30Dax Shepard?

  Has she found success?

• 11:32Speaker 02

  She's been successful.

• 11:33Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  She wrote another book.

• 11:34Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  She did not ask me to endorse it. I wonder why? If she writes a third book, she could ask me, and I'd be like, yeah, before I read it, but I will read it.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  It's funny that you were offended.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Would you not be offended?

• 11:45Dax Shepard?

  The part that offended you, right, is that she pre-wrote your blurb, right? Is that what was offensive?

• 11:50Speaker 02

  I was offended that she pre-wrote it. But as I said, I was wrong to be that offended. I should have been like offended like one out of 10. I was somehow like offended nine out of 10.

• 11:57Dax Shepard?

  She might have thought, I'll take the load off.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, she thought she was doing you a favor.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  100%. I was the total jerk, who was like, yeah. That's why it haunted me for so many years. I can't believe it took me 15 years to like write her a.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Well, good for you.

• 12:10Dax Shepard?

  And now a public apology.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  I'm not the same. And now a public apology, if she was listening.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  I think, good for you. What if we've had her on the show? That'd be cool.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna tell you, because that would be de-anonymized.

• 12:21Dax Shepard?

  So it's been 10 years between, roughly, yeah, grit and situated?

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Exactly 10.

• 12:26Dax Shepard?

  Exactly 10.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 12:27Dax Shepard?

  That's auspicious.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  It's a round number.

• 12:29Dax Shepard?

  I think what's most fun is how you come to write this book. And I'm referencing the graduate student that reached out to you. Could you tell us that story?

• 12:37Speaker 02

  I got a critique by a graduate student named Anindia. He was not my student. He was a student at NYU, and he was pursuing sociology. I'm a psychologist, he was a budding sociologist. I was looking at the person, he was looking at the situation. As a budding sociologist, Anindia said, you're blaming, effectively, people for not being successful, because they don't have grit, because they're not trying hard, and you're ignoring the situations they're in. Whatever defensive reaction that I had, I did say, I'm curious, tell me more. And then he told me more. And I don't know very much about sociology, but I think what he was saying is correct. Which is that, when you don't think about a person in their situation as sort of two parts of a whole,

• 13:21Speaker 02

  then you lay blame at their feet undeservedly. And, you know, he was studying essentially people moving from lower socioeconomic status to higher socioeconomic status. And I think he was absolutely correct to point that out. I have an email from him, like, yesterday, asking, he's like, I got tenure, but I still might need a letter of recommendation. If that is true, ever, is the answer yes? And I said, if that is true, ever, the answer is always yes.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's lovely.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  So we ended up collaborating, and I don't know if it's collaboration, just staying in touch.

• 13:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  James Flynn, who is a psychologist, was a psychologist, said that every great psychologist eventually becomes a sociologist. Because eventually, you figure out that you can't understand human behavior unless you think about the situation.

• 14:02Dax Shepard?

  Well, again, it's a very alluring and tempting endeavor to parse out everything into tiny little compartments, and we'll study these things in silos. And it's easier to manage, but what you really lose sight of is that nothing is unrelated to the other thing, right? It's an enormous soup. So the notion that you could even say one piece of it is what percentage of the person? Or nature versus.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Or their behavior.

• 14:26Dax Shepard?

  All these binary boxes are for our convenience, they're not real.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Right, and we have these little brains, honestly, right? And we're flesh and blood, so we have limits. But it's like so deep and so profound. You know, your camera has portrait mode, and everyone looks great in portrait mode. They look better, right? Because you come in in this like high definition, and then, in portrait mode, the background is suppressed, gently blurred. And it turns out like, that is how the human brain works. You always focus on the person. You know, you wanna talk about Michael Phelps? You don't think like, where did he live? How close was the pool? Who was on the team? Tell me more about the assistant coach. Who are his parents? Like, what did they do? I mean, you might eventually get there.

• 15:04Dax Shepard?

  Bill Gates, he goes to the only private school in America that has its own mainframe. In a time where people are paying exorbitant amounts to be on a computer for a half hour, he had unlimited access.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:13Dax Shepard?

  He's Bill Gates, but also, he needs that thing.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  And by the way, a great headmaster, I think I know that school. Is it California or in Washington? It's like a elite private school.

• 15:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but very special, like, the right ethos, I think.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. And if I'm recalling the right conversation, the headmaster of the school that Bill Gates went to said that the job of adults is to watch with hawk-like concentration, but with childlike curiosity, what a young person is doing. To see a little girl like twirling around, being like, how about gymnastics? So he was in a situation. I think the profundity of that, that we go through life, and we don't wanna know who Dax Shepard is. When people Google you, they want to know about you. But the Googling is usually not like, tell me about everyone and everything around him. That thing that he did on Tuesday, I wanna know why he did it, because of what was going on. Usually, they wanna know why you did what you did on Tuesday, because of you. It is because of you, but it's both.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  But nothing's really because of you.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Nothing's only because of you. Nothing's only because of you.

• 16:10Dax Shepard?

  Also, we have this proclivity, I've been very aware of it lately, which is, any character defect we have, any shittiness we have, we have an explanation that will originate in our childhood. Well, my father went bankrupt 12 times.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was traumatized when I was five.

• 16:26Dax Shepard?

  Yes, and that's why I'm hyper vigilant, and I overreact to this.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:30Dax Shepard?

  Now, everything great about me, I figured out how to do.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:33Dax Shepard?

  You don't never hear someone blaming any of their positive stuff on their context, or their parents, or anything. But all the bad shit has a really clear explanation.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Right, that's all situational.

• 16:44Dax Shepard?

  The whole thing is all equal.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  What I would say is, everything is both. And yeah, we can edit out the situational details for our victories, but we shouldn't. The profundity, it's like almost philosophical. It's like, oh, yeah, and so therefore, if I wanna succeed, I need to be in places and with people who will make me successful? Okay, sure. But I do think it's deeper than that, because when you're in a relationship with somebody, and you understand them as everything they do, say, feel, it is a function of who that person is, their character, their mindset, but it's also a function of like, literally, every trivial detail of their situation. It's like a figure ground shift. And if you can keep it, because again, I think our brain goes into portrait mode, and it's like, okay, wait, back to Dax and his story.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  You know, if you can keep the backstory somehow in focus, then it is a more human and complete way to understand people. You know, in some ways, like these two books, right, 10 years apart, they are a set. I mean, one is about the inside game of how to not necessarily be only one self, because I, as you know, don't believe in oneself. But I do believe that there are some selves we like more than others. And there is an inside game of like, how to think. And the Buddhists actually have a lot to say about like, how to think about the world, how to think about your goals. And there is an outside game, and the second book is about that outside game. It's like, okay, now I'm gonna look around me. I'm not gonna look inner, I'm gonna look outer, I'm gonna audit.

• 18:07Dax Shepard?

  Situational agency, which is this great concept you present.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  It can't be a trilogy, because that's inside and outside, there's like nothing, well, that's kind of it.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  I'm gonna come up with another.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I tried.

• 18:17Dax Shepard?

  As much as I have enjoyed your previous work, I enjoy them for the way you construct them. I enjoy them for the anecdotes that are included. But you may or may not remember, my criticism of you has constantly been. In the con man narrative self versus experiential self, I think you're way too heavy handed with the narrative self. And I don't think you should be giving people tools necessarily to try to achieve all this greatness.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Why?

• 18:42Dax Shepard?

  Because I don't think there's anything there when you reach it.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Oh, you're like, this is a futile quest.

• 18:48Dax Shepard?

  It's a fool's errand.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Like, I can get you there faster, but you'll get to nowhere.

• 18:51Dax Shepard?

  Guess what? Yeah, as soon as you become the CEO, guess what? You're gonna be fucking miserable. Let me just break it down for you. But Metamol, they're miserable. I know all the billionaires.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  But I have a theory of happiness, and I don't think you're gonna disagree, but maybe you will, actually, right? So here's the thing about happiness. I wanna say that you're right, that when you arrive at the destination of CEO, or you arrive at the destination of like tenured professor, or you arrive at the destination of like famous celebrity or author.

• 19:16Dax Shepard?

  Name it.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Whatever, right? Like, it's hard to say it loud enough. This is not happiness. You don't get there and feel happy. But here's why I think that is. As a psychologist, we have emotions. The emotions are positive when we are approaching our goal, not when we have arrived, and not when we arrived five minutes ago or five years ago, right? We're almost there. We're getting there. That's happiness. So then you could say, well, what's the prescriptive recommendation then? So if upon arrival, you're disappointed, I don't know any other way to live. Look, why are you doing this?

• 19:49Dax Shepard?

  Although I agree with you that that sweet spot is like where it's, oh, my God, I'm gonna touch it.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 19:54Dax Shepard?

  If you could live there, that would be delightful. I don't think one can live there.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:58Dax Shepard?

  I think the other way to happiness is to actually enjoy the process.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 20:04Dax Shepard?

  And that is my life mission.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  That is what I wanna say. But you know what? The process includes having a goal. So that's where I think we violently agree, right?

• 20:12Dax Shepard?

  No, I don't, I don't agree.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  You don't think the process has to have a goal? How else do you do it if you don't have a goal?

• 20:15Dax Shepard?

  I happen to live with an example. Now, I'm not that way at all. I'm goal oriented.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  You don't have any, okay, okay.

• 20:20Dax Shepard?

  I'm very goal oriented.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  You're gonna give like a counter example to you.

• 20:23Dax Shepard?

  The one anomaly in that goal oriented life is this show. We had no fucking goal other than we wanted to chat with people because we enjoy chatting. That's process. I enjoy the activity. We didn't think it would make any money. We didn't think it would be huge. We enjoyed talking to people, so we started talking.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Do you have any goals?

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Yes, it's changed so much. It started like that. But with success came a lot of other stuff, came a lot of other goals.

• 20:54Dax Shepard?

  Distractions, I would say. I think we've had to keep finding our way back.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  But you know what I think? I think this is a goal. I just took some.

• 21:01Dax Shepard?

  Hmm, yeah. Did it feel best right before it hit your lips?

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Sure, yes.

• 21:05Dax Shepard?

  The dopamine was released?

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, now I've already had this. Okay, you know what a goal is? A goal is a desired state of the world. If you wanna tell me that for this podcast, it could be anything and you'd still love it, then I would concede some real estate here. But there are episodes that you like more than others, and you have goals. You have a desired state of armchair expert. And therefore, to me, that's a goal. That's ambition. It's not like a certain number of listeners. It's not necessarily an external validation.

• 21:37Dax Shepard?

  Already, we're structuring as binary, and that's already where we're fucked up. So it's not like you do have a goal or you don't have a goal. It's this spectrum of how goal driven you are and how process driven you are. And you're trying to slide this thing to where you have peace, right? And for me, peace is when I'm far further on the spectrum, that's about process. You cannot be devoid of goals. That's not what I'm suggesting.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Right. That's the only thing I wanted to say. Because the process is the, you know, the journey is the destination, but without a destination, there's no journey. That's the only thing, right? Maybe it's trivial to say that.

• 22:05Dax Shepard?

  Again, I think we should reject that it's one or the other. I think it's just like this long spectrum. Even my criticism of your stuff sometimes has been like, it's too heavily on the side of the spectrum of like, get the 4.0, get into the school, get the fucking win the tournament.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Right, like, make it out of West Point.

• 22:18Dax Shepard?

  Because guess what? You're writing about, all the examples you have in your book, they're so fun. They're great. They're the people who reach their goals. And they've left out the 99% of competitors that did all that stuff and they didn't get to those goals. So is that trash?

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Okay, let me process this, because I think, I think a glib response is like not a great response. Let me say back what you're saying and make sure I understand it. You're like, love the work, and slash but.

• 22:41Dax Shepard?

  This isn't new. I said this to you last time.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  I have a terrible memory.

• 22:44Dax Shepard?

  That's okay. I got a good memory.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  It reminded me. So what you're saying is, in your own experience too, right? As somebody who has achieved some things, and maybe this is a product, whatever, you're not saying that, you know, human beings ought not have goals, but you're saying that when you spend all of your energy and when you put all of your chips on the goal mark, and then you're not putting any of your attention, your energy, hanging your hopes on the process, right? How'd it feel? Like, did you have fun today? How was that for you? That's a mistake. That's what you're saying, right? And when you like anoint the Michael Phelps's and you say like 28, you know, Olympic medals.

• 23:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, those are so inspiring.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. But you're like, maybe you missed the most important part of the story, which is the process.

• 23:23Dax Shepard?

  If you are suffering to get to the goal, and then guess what the goal upon achievement doesn't feel like it should, I say that's a bad fucking strategy in life.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  You know, I'm trying to curse less. This is not helping, because you're in my situation right now. And wow, I'm gonna drop the F-bomb.

• 23:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, you're invited to.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Probably you're okay to drop the F-bomb with. I don't know, I'm trying to be more like PG.

• 23:45Dax Shepard?

  Why?

• 23:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:46Dax Shepard?

  For what, what goal?

• 23:48Speaker 02

  I don't wanna offend.

• 23:49Dax Shepard?

  Nobody that listens to this show is offended by swear words. They could have never gotten this far.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. They're not listening. All right. I don't know Michael Phelps, by the way. I wrote about Michael Phelps because I interviewed his coach, and I studied his mom, because I wanted to study his situation, right? I knew Michael Phelps was gritty. There's no better poster boy for grit than somebody who swims 365 days a year for 20 years. But I wanted to write about his situation. I wanna use Michael Phelps and what little I know about his journey, which has not been a linear trajectory necessarily. Like, yes, all the medals, but as you know.

• 24:22Dax Shepard?

  Massive depression, by the way, following it all.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Substance use, right?

• 24:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, mental health issues.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  They're all public things, right? As I told you, I didn't interview him, so I only have public knowledge. He retired, as you probably know, and then he unretired. And he unretired before his last Olympics. And this I know from just talking to Bob Bowman, right? So again, studying the situations of successful people. So Bob is his second father, right? So Bob gets this text message or whatever, Michael wants to go out to dinner. He's like, okay, something's coming. Because Michael had retired, right? So Bob was coaching, swimming, but he wasn't coaching Michael Phelps. In that conversation where Michael told him that he wanted to unretire, Bob's account is that he had come to a reckoning of why he wanted to swim, and he had come to a different understanding of the goals. By the way, he still wanted to win gold.

• 25:10Dax Shepard?

  If he's gonna do it, he wants to be the fastest in the water.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  I guess to your point, it was a shift in the motivation. And I do think, I can't put words in his mouth. I can't say like he had a shift to the process versus the goal itself. That would be silly, because I'm not Michael Phelps and I can't guess. But I know what you mean. As somebody who's had some success in her own field too.

• 25:31Dax Shepard?

  Quite a bit.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  I know what you mean about, you know, you get to Xanadu and there's no paradise. And the reason I think goals are important, and you're right to like single out on Michael Phelps, then it does sort of at least imply that the reason why this person is noteworthy is because they got the goal and not because of the process.

• 25:48Dax Shepard?

  We're not horny for process.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  We are not horny for process. I didn't say horny, by the way. That's on my list of approved words. So there's this professor named Dashin Wong at Northwestern, and he got really obsessed with fourth place finishers at the Olympics. And he had this hypothesis that when you're in fourth place, it gives you a lot of like motivational kick. And like, if you place fourth, you get nothing. If you place third, you're on the podium. The third place was like, oh, my God, I'm on the podium.

• 26:13Dax Shepard?

  Almost didn't get here.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  The silver medalists are like, God, I was like so close to gold. But his question was not about the third place. He was like, what happens when you place fourth? And so he was really obsessed with it. And basically, I'll tell you it's finding, but that's not the point. The finding is that the fourth place finishers actually do better than the third place finishers as like future unfolds. But the thing that I wanna say is, he couldn't find the footage. He did a lot of research. I mean, he had to do a lot of work. So if you're not gonna study Michael Phelps as a case study of someone who had a lot of grit but also had a great situation, and say you wanna study the fourth place finisher in the 400 IM in the 2024 Olympics, you can hunt him down, you can like research them. I think you're right that if you only focus on the goal, you're chasing the morning dew,

• 26:56Speaker 02

  because when you get there, it'll be gone. But also, I think human beings will always chase goals. Four-year-olds will always make sandcastles. When I said like, I think this is a goal, I have a desired future state, that is to like raise this to my lips, that's a goal. Maybe it's so deep in my DNA that I can't get it out, is that I think people are ambitious, even though you know that when you get to a certain rung in the ladder, it's not like anything changes. But we're always on a ladder. It's just the nature of human nature to be on a ladder.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  I don't think enjoying the process can happen unless you've achieved the goal. You have to have done that first.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Or you're closing in on it.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  This is like chronological, right? Like, first you get the goal, then you realize, oh, it didn't really do the thing. Then you go back, and then you're like, okay. Exactly the Michael Phelps thing you're saying, is he did it, he got it, and then after he's like, oh.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  I'm gonna swim this short way. But you're sort of like, he had to go through that almost rite of passage.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 27:53Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I started it and I didn't finish it. So I admitted that I am very goal oriented. I'm like you. And if I wasn't forced to live with someone who happens to be an example, I don't think I would believe it existed. I am a lucky. Product of this unique situation where I was in, which is she never tried to get famous. She never tried to make a lot of money. She started singing and she has an obsession that she knows she thinks that she can make this noise and she worked at it endlessly and then she got it and she's a mimic. And then the place she could go do that was in this singing musical theater thing. And she loved being around all the people and she's just really good at it. And she really just ended up in all these places without ever setting out to be in them.

• 28:37Dax Shepard?

  And it was through loving the process of the things she does. And so I've witnessed it and I know it exists. And I think if I didn't live with her, I would reject that it exists.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  You'd be like, I don't believe you.

• 28:47Dax Shepard?

  I don't buy it.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  That's a fairy.

• 28:49Dax Shepard?

  I'm telling you, I wouldn't believe it.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Also, there's nothing worse than having no goals. I think you would agree.

• 28:54Dax Shepard?

  Yes, like a state of apathy.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  A state of apathy, it's just like existential angst, like ennui, I don't know where I'm going. Having a port of destination is a hell of a lot better than being like, I have no idea.

• 29:05Dax Shepard?

  Adrift is a positive.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Adrift, yeah, adrift, like, yeah.

• 29:08Dax Shepard?

  We agree.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Negative, right?

• 29:10Dax Shepard?

  No one says it positively.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Okay, we'd agree with that. Whatever level of commitment or however tightly you want to hang on to like this goal, this particular, or even if you say, I'm really all about process, right? I love how singing makes me feel, so I'm gonna do it. And I'm not even quote unquote, gonna see what happens. I'm literally just gonna like, do it.

• 29:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm gonna keep doing it.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  I still contend that the situation you're in is important because I don't know that everybody who is process oriented is equally happy, right? So regardless of where you fall on this, as you say, continuum, right? Of how goal directed am I versus how process directed I am? I think to me, the reason why I nearly killed myself to write another book and the reason I say to you, like, I don't think there's another, is this is the missing piece. And you know what, Dax? I wouldn't have written this book if somebody else had written it. I was hoping somebody else had for a general audience because.

• 30:04Dax Shepard?

  You don't like the process of writing a book.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  It was not the funnest thing to do.

• 30:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  It was harrowing and I don't think I'm gonna live as long because of the years I shaved off my life. But you know, the reason why I don't think there's a book about this is that the inside game, like, oh, you know, your mindset, I think it's more accessible. This is exactly what we don't think about. We are not aware of the water we're swimming in. We're just only aware of how hard we're swimming. So whether you're process oriented primarily or goal oriented primarily, or however you want to think about that, I think you arrived to the same conclusion, at least I do. And you should be aware of where you are. I mean, you are married to somebody, you probably can't even imagine what it's like not to be, but it's like a great fucking situation, right?

• 30:44Dax Shepard?

  The only way I would learn, some of the things I've learned is being forced to witness someone live that way.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Just to know that like, there is another Dax, like, you know, Dax has many selves, but the Dax that you are in this relationship, sounds, I mean, it's so silly to be talking to you about your many selves because you're here and you can speak to yourselves. I can speak to myself, like Angela Duckworth in this situation. I often have said that the universe rolls out its carpet for me. I'm extremely fortunate, but if you say, oh, you've had some success, which I'm fine, I don't have to be falsely humble, but I can tell you, some of it was because I am an incredibly hard worker.

• 31:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  And a lot of it is that I have been mentored more than anybody I know. I get to work with really honestly, the very best people in my business, right?

• 31:29Dax Shepard?

  You're like a writer at The New Yorker.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 31:32Dax Shepard?

  You go down the hall to bounce an idea of somebody.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  And so do you see the writing product and then there's a byline? All I want to say is that when people sign the bylines of their life narratives and there's one line and then you write your name on the cover of the book and you put your name on your CV, it's really you and your situation. Some of us have better situations, so I've had an incredible situation. But I think if you don't pause and say like, everything that Dax is, is partly because he's married to Chris, like, you know, it's because he's, he's working with Monica, he has this producer. It's just that this silhouette that we want to cut out, when I was little, well, not that little, but teenage little, I would draw apples. Like, I had this obsession with painting apples and I would always paint the apple on a white background, partly because I never got to understand how to paint background, which is its own skill.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  But I have now dozens of these old watercolor paintings of apples and the apples are great. But here's what I would say about this, if I could, you know, go back to my like 18 year old self, it's fine to only paint apples on a white background. Many paintings are like that. But if you see life and you see cutouts of people and you're not factoring in the situation, I just think you misunderstand, like, why is that person doing this? Tell me more about this person and tell me more about everyone and everything around them. That's the only question I would want to get asked.

• 32:48Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 32:56Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. Not checking your teeth before walking into a meeting? You smiled at six people in the hallway confidently, full teeth? You felt great about it until you caught your reflection and realized you'd been carrying a piece of spinach like an accessory since lunch? Yeah, checking first is a good idea. So check Allstate first for an auto quote. It could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. We get support from our presenting sponsor, YouTube Premium. Now, you already know I'm a big YouTube person.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:37Dax Shepard?

  It's incredible on its own, but Premium makes the whole experience feel enhanced. Like, you don't realize how much better it can get until you try it. The biggest game changer for me, background play. I love long, two hour deep dives, you name it, motorcycles, travel, cars.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Cooking shows for me.

• 33:57Dax Shepard?

  Cooking, listen, with Premium, you don't have to keep the screen open. So I can lock my phone, slide it into my pocket and listen to a podcast while I'm folding laundry or working out. It's also completely ad free, meaning when a narrator is building up to the climax of an insane story, there's zero interruption. And for travel, offline download saves the day. I love this one. Relying on airplane wifi can be a gamble, so I just download my favorite videos before takeoff. And with smart downloads, Premium will automatically download new videos from channels you actually follow without having to lift a finger. I'm covered if I forget to download a video I want to watch or even if there's no service. And the home run for me is that YouTube Premium remembers exactly where I left off and lets me continue watching on another device from right where I stopped.

• 34:42Dax Shepard?

  So I can start a video on my TV while brushing my teeth and pick it right back up on my phone on my morning walk. So yeah, YouTube was already great, but Premium supercharges it. If you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. We get support from Superhuman. I'm someone who wants to do big, meaningful work, but the small stuff eats up my day before I even get to it. The endless emails, docs, scheduling, follow ups that pile up. By the time all that's cleared, there's no energy left for the ambitious stuff. Most AI tools promise to fix that, but they require opening a new tab, re-explaining everything from scratch every single time.

• 35:26Dax Shepard?

  A week later, it's just another thing collecting dust in the browser. Superhuman, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already embedded inside the tools people are using, email, docs, browser. It's not waiting to be found, it's already there, working alongside, clearing what's in the way, so the focus stays on what's actually worth doing. A thought partner that's already up to speed, no catching it up. It knows the style, the workflows, and it backs people up without getting in the way. At your service, not after your job. That's the difference. Give it a try for yourself. Start streamlining your workflows with Superhuman. Try today at superhuman.com. We get support from Instagram Teen Accounts.

• 36:09Dax Shepard?

  So we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different now than when we were growing up. And one of the biggest differences is obviously social media. And I think a lot of people wonder, okay, what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers?

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Which is a fair question.

• 36:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so Instagram has got something called Teen Accounts and they come with automatic protections built in by default. So anyone between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience. They get age appropriate content settings, contact limits, so that by default, only people they're already connected to can message them. And time management tools, daily time limit reminders and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10 PM to 7 AM.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Sleep mode is genius.

• 36:50Dax Shepard?

  Right? And here's the thing, for anyone under 16, a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guardrails are on and Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age appropriate experiences for teens.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  I am really glad Instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with Teen Accounts.

• 37:10Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about Teen Accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts.

• 37:24Dax Shepard?

  I want to go through part by part now.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:26Dax Shepard?

  Grit had a very psychological point of view.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:29Dax Shepard?

  Psychology.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Very interior point of view.

• 37:31Dax Shepard?

  Human centric, right? And then through this conversation, you start broadening your field that you're willing to consider that, yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  I'm like opening the aperture. I'm like listening to the sociologist.

• 37:40Dax Shepard?

  That's great.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Who says like, do this.

• 37:41Dax Shepard?

  And we start the book with a story about you and your mom.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:44Dax Shepard?

  Will you tell us that story? I think there's a reason you started it with that.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  So five or so years ago, I'm in the Atlantic Ocean with my mom. Why is that? We're snorkeling. Who takes their 86 year old mother snorkeling in the Atlantic? In retrospect, and the moment I hit the water, I realized that was really the worst decision I'd ever made. So I put my mom in a losing situation, which is like, we were in the Atlantic Ocean. We were not off the shore a little bit. We had taken a 45 minute boat ride.

• 38:11Dax Shepard?

  You were on an island originally?

• 38:13Speaker 02

  We were in Miami, then we left Miami, and then we like just went into the Atlantic for 45 minutes. So, you know, we could see land, but 45 minutes by boat is like, you are not swimming to shore. The winds are whipping that day. The current is heaving. The reason I knew that this was a tragic situation is that I could barely keep up. Basically, if you don't fight the current, you're getting swept behind the boat in the wrong direction of where you're supposed to be snorkeling. So my mom basically aspirates, so she inhales water, I think in whatever panic. So both lungs. And you know, the thing is, you just rapidly lose consciousness.

• 38:47Dax Shepard?

  That's comforting, actually.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  It's actually quite peaceful. Like, you know, in her memory, she was like, and then I just don't remember anything. But she doesn't remember struggling. So I swam to her side. I realized that she's unconscious and I do what I've done my whole life, which is I just try as hard as I can to swim her to safety. Why start your book with a harrowing story about your mom? To me, the metaphor of the ocean, it is your situation. It is everything in around you. And you know what? You can fight all you want. You can use willpower and grit. But if you are in a losing situation, your situation just like swallows your efforts whole. That is the reason I started. And, you know, happy ending. The situation changed. I don't think I would have started it with the, yeah, like the downer of like, and then my mom is.

• 39:31Dax Shepard?

  Climb out of, yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  That would have been, yeah. Lots of problems that would have ensued. So I stopped trying harder. I mean, my whole life, I got everywhere by trying harder.

• 39:40Dax Shepard?

  It was the trick you depended on.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  The problem with having one trick, the problem with people who are really gritty is that that is the only trick they learn. They're like, you know what? I'm going to wake up earlier.

• 39:51Dax Shepard?

  Because it would be shameful.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Because we are humiliated and it's like the one pillar of your self-esteem gets like kicked out. So in that moment, maybe out of just desperation, and maybe when your physical circumstances are like that, you don't have shame because you're just like, oh, wait, this isn't working. So I stopped trying harder and I started treading water and I just tried to change the situation. So I signaled for help. The snorkeling instructor of a nearby boat. Why our own snorkeling instructor did not like notice us, that is a whole, I don't know. It's not a whole other story. It's just a mystery. But they came to our aid and then CPR, ambulance.

• 40:22Dax Shepard?

  Longest boat ride of your life back to shore.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Boat ride back. You know, my mom's like oozing blood like out of all of her organs. It's a miracle. It was a, it was around Christmas. It was a Christmas miracle. She lived. The happy ending, I think, has a lesson and the lesson is that trying harder is not the only trick you can have. Grit is great, but grit is not enough.

• 40:43Dax Shepard?

  It's sometimes the solution.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  It is sometimes a solution.

• 40:45Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  But who among us would not benefit from saying, before I like kick as hard as I can and put my full throated effort into whatever I'm doing? Who among us wouldn't benefit from like, who's the best mentor I can have to like coach me on this? Like, what's the best therapist? Who should I be collaborating with? How do I get a team around me? I guess that's, for me personally, why the revelation of the power of the situation was so fundamental. Because I had gotten so far on the inside game, I was ignoring all the things that do make a difference. And maybe also because I was lucky. But you know, there comes a time in life, at least for me, where luck and grit were not enough.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Well, grit is also an illusion of control.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Say more. What do you mean by that?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Having grit makes you feel like I'm in control of this situation. With my grit, with my work ethic, I will eventually get what I want because I have this thing. That's not always true.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Yes, but it gets you so far.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  It gets you so far.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  That you have all of this mileage where you're like, it worked then.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  You have the evidence.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Right?

• 41:50Speaker 01

  But at some point, you're in a situation, you're like, oh, I'm at my limits.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Like broadly true. When people have something that works for them, they do it more. And like, it does become the way that you survive, the way you manage things.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  And as my physical therapist said, what happens to people's bodies is that they have some compensation, right? Like, you know, they're like kind of favoring their left hip because their right hip is weak. And then that works and works and works until it doesn't. And I think trying harder, it worked until it didn't. And I think only by life, and that wasn't the incident, that was more of a true parable. But professionally and personally, I think I found myself not getting personally or professionally where I wanted to be through just trying harder. So it was like, the ocean currents just like finally slapped me in the face.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  But I think because it worked for so long, I was like, doing it.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:42Dax Shepard?

  Let's talk about Leon Marchand. Is that how I say his name? And Bob Bowman.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  So Leon Marchand, I think, is a great example of what I want to call situational agency. It's not that he didn't have a great situation, but he had the agency, the sense that he could improve his situation by his own choice, right? Because I think situations can be coded as like that which you cannot control. Leon Marchand was swimming. He is the son of two Olympic swimmers. He was in Toulouse, France. He had a very good coach, but it was the local organization. He knew that his situation could be improved because he knew that people like Michael Phelps were training on teams where everyone was trying to make the Olympics, where there was not a small team, but a large team of trainers and equipment managers, and of course, a coach like Bob Bowman. So he writes Bob Bowman an email.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  And he says in so many words, I'd like to come to Arizona State University. Moving from Toulouse, France to Tempe, Arizona, changing a culture, changing a team, changing his direct mentorship, and also, by the way, and I know it sounds trivial, but changing his physical situation. So Arizona State University has a great setup for swimming, like three outdoor pools. It rains 15 days in the entire year.

• 43:54Dax Shepard?

  Are they the number one college in swimming among them?

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Now, I think it's UT Austin because that's where Bob Bowman now.

• 43:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  And I think that's not a coincidence. So Bob says yes, and Leon says yes. Because I think even after writing him that email, there was some ambivalence and he sat down with his parents and they said, don't overthink this, go. So he moves. And within two years, he shaves like nearly nine seconds off of his best time in his best event, which was the 400 individual medley, right? So 100 meters of each of the four major strokes in swimming. Within two years, he shaves off that time and he shatters Michael Phelps's last standing world record. And I'm not saying that because goals are important or that everybody needs to win an Olympic medal. But I am saying that because I think if you try as hard as you can in a given situation,

• 44:46Speaker 02

  it may not be the progress that you can see when you try as hard as you can in a better situation. And you can use Leon as an example because it's the same person, right? It's the same person, the same grit, the same talent, but he's changed his circumstances.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, it's the old adage, like to get better, you have to play people better than yourself. If he is the best swimmer in France, try harder. Why?

• 45:09Speaker 02

  How?

• 45:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, I'm winning.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Apparently in swimming and in many sports, you're pacers. Who's in the lane with you? Like, who's behind you? The epilogue of the Leon Marchand study is not only did he break that world record, the next Olympics, which is to say, the next Olympics under which he had been coached by, among others, Bob Bowman. He won four gold medals and was the most individually decorated Olympian of the Paris Olympics. And he has said that it was his situation. He says, when you see a person swimming in a lane, there couldn't be anything more solitary. But what you don't see are all the people who are metaphorically in the lane with them.

• 45:42Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  And all I want to say to people is, A, that is true, and B, you don't have to consider those as given. That's the simple message.

• 45:50Dax Shepard?

  Break down the three box parable, because I think this is fascinating. And I think we're probably all would assume the order of events is different than the actual order of events. So how do we even come to this? Whose concept is it? And how did he prove that?

• 46:03Speaker 02

  This idea is very important. I think you can understand all of human behavior. We were talking about addiction. You can talk about winning gold medals. You can talk about painting. Any behavior you want to understand, you can understand by reverse engineering it using three boxes. What I want to say is, the third box is the behavior itself. You're like, why is that person doing what they're doing, saying what they're saying, feeling what they're feeling? Why are they like such a pain in the butt? Or why are they showing up early, staying late and trying so hard? So behavior, you can put in box three. What's in box two? Behavior comes from your thoughts. This to me is the cognitive revolution. This to me is like modern psychotherapy. When someone is depressed, when they're eating too much, when they're eating too little, when they're trying hard, when they're not trying hard, there are thoughts that precede those actions and feelings.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  They may not be entirely conscious, but they are what drive us. And when you try to understand someone's behavior, including your own, you cannot understand it, and sometimes this requires therapy, without tracing them back to the thoughts that made that behavior rational. Okay, so that's two boxes. Why is it called the three boxes model? The first box is the situation. You should ask yourself, okay, I had that thought. Where was I? Who was I with? What were my circumstances? Because if you don't get that right, then you only start working at box two or you. Willpower at box three, like, I'm just not gonna be angry. I'm just not gonna drink. I'm just not gonna procrastinate. I would say, put yourself in a situation where you're gonna have the thoughts you want, then you're gonna act the way you want.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Because sometimes people are like, I'm gonna substitute this behavior with another behavior. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take a walk instead of eat in the afternoon. That's not a bad idea. But I would say, what would be a situation where you would want to take a walk? Like, put your sneakers by the door, set a calendar reminder, make an appointment with a friend, set up a situation.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  Go to a location where you like the view.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Like, make it pleasant. But the revolution is not mine. You asked me where this model came from. It's not my model. So about halfway through my career, I met this psychologist named James Gross. He's at Stanford, and he studies emotions. And for a very long time, James said, people do a lot of things to regulate their anger, their sadness, their anxiety. It's just like a laundry list. And he said, you know what? If you understand how emotions are generated, then you can understand how they can be regulated. You are in a certain situation. That situation gives you certain thoughts. Those thoughts give you certain emotions. That gives you a blueprint or a roadmap for how you can regulate those emotions. Because you can change your situation, or you can change your thoughts, or you can just directly change your emotions.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  And his conclusion was, before meeting me, if you're gonna try to regulate that, if you don't wanna smash a jar against the wall, if you don't like that box three, then you wanna go all the way to the beginning. Begin at the beginning, right? Begin at the mouth of the stream. When I met him, and he was explaining this to a large audi-- well, a small audience at Yale, like, it was an academic meeting, it was a cold day in November. The year was 2011, I think. And he just put up on a PowerPoint slide, this like extremely simple model. He was talking about emotion, and I just saw all of human behavior. I was like, wait, this explains everything. Why is this person late to work? What were they thinking? Okay. And what was the situation that initiated those thoughts?

• 49:16Speaker 02

  So the whole idea is to reverse engineer everything you do back to its beginnings, back to the situation, and then to go forward again and say like, well, where do I wanna be? And then start at the mouth of the river. We have the sense of being sentient beings and being like goal-directed, right? Like, I walked through the store, I went to get my notes. I'm logical, and I'm intentional. But so much of human behavior is not top-down, like intention, but bottom-up reaction. You know, we eat and drink when it's just there. Like, so much is sort of like, why were you thinking that? In fact, one of the people that I talked to and like summarized very briefly, like a lifetime research, he has studied addiction. His name is Shep Siegel. And he says, the realtors will say like, location, location, location.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  And if you're dealing with addiction, relocation, relocation, relocation. And the reason is, is that we're so stimulus-driven. Like, I know we don't like the idea that we are responding in automatic ways to the triggers in our environment, but that's just the way it is. And it's not for a certain class of people. It is for everyone. And maybe the triggers are different. But if you recognize, and if you are humble enough to recognize, that around certain people, you start talking certain ways. Like, I'm in LA, it's been 24 hours.

• 50:29Dax Shepard?

  And now you're on a GLP-1.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Exactly. Do you know how many scales? I'm like, not kidding. Like, in this hotel, there are scales everywhere. I'm like, wait, do people in LA constantly weigh themselves? I'm gonna be on a GLP-1 before I get on the plane back to Philadelphia. I walk by this clothing, and like, me, who shouldn't care, because I'm a professor, they can't fire me for not having a fashion sense. And now, all of a sudden, I wanna wear Prada. This situation is changing me.

• 50:50Speaker 03

  It's a great brand, though.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  I know, so true.

• 50:54Dax Shepard?

  I just had this kind of really fun and unique example that's happened to me, which is, I spent time a couple of weeks ago in Nashville with one of my very best friends that lived in LA. We hung out for maybe 15 years, and then he moved back to Michigan. So for the last 16 years, he's been in Michigan. I see him occasionally. But anyways, he came down to Nashville. So he's been now back in Michigan for 16 years. And he was saying like, my fattest point. And I was like, uh-huh. And I'm like, listen to this. And we're so close, and we love each other so much, like, there's no way I could offend him or make him feel insecure. But I said, what's wild about you saying this right now to me is it points out, it illustrates so clearly how much we're products of our environment. Because you're upset that you're overweight.

• 51:38Dax Shepard?

  And to me, let me ask you, do you know a lot of people on GLP-1s? He goes, no. No, what are those? I'm like, you know, you've seen the commercials of Majerno, Ozempic. He's like, I guess I see those. What is it? And I like, explain what it is to him. I go, but what's even more interesting to me, Scotty? He's like, had you not left LA, I wouldn't be telling you what a GLP-1 is. And if what you want is to lose weight, like, dude, they did it. You could get this fucking shot.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:02Dax Shepard?

  And he's like, oh, my God, really? He starts writing it down.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  He had never heard of this?

• 52:05Dax Shepard?

  I'm like, no, I mean, not really. Like, he's a salesman, he's out with other people.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  He's not in this box one. He's in a different box one.

• 52:11Dax Shepard?

  He's not in the same context as me. And he's a very smart person, who's very up to speed on everything in his culture.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:18Dax Shepard?

  And I don't know something about some barbecue.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  So you just had to visit from a different box one situation and say like, back over here in LA.

• 52:23Dax Shepard?

  And we used to be in the same culture, and we used to have all the same shared knowledge. And I was like, oh, this is a really fun illustration of you having gone back for 16 years. And by the end of the trip, he's like, okay, so I did GLP-1. What else am I supposed to know? It was a perfect example.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Okay, I fell down this little rabbit hole studying this psychologist nobody's ever heard of. And I had never heard of Roger Barker. He's this psychologist who coined the term behavior settings. He started off by thinking that people were goal-directed and so forth. And he would actually follow individuals around for their entire day, trying to understand like why Monica is different from Dax, and what is inside Monica that is different from Dax. But what he came to was a conclusion that he didn't expect, which is like, Monica behaves because of the behavior setting in which she is. Like, she's responding to this, yes, Monica is Monica, she's an individual. But when you're in a drugstore, you behave drugstore. When you're in a church, you behave church, right? And when you're in Montana, you behave Montana. And when you're in Wisconsin, you behave Wisconsin.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  He tells a story, not entirely different, I think, from your friend, which is, he was like, for example, I don't like pork, but I moved to this part of the country where it's just the only thing that everyone eats. Pork in every form, ham, bacon. Pork chops, sausage, and now that's what I eat. Not only just physically, because that's the only thing around, although that's part of it. So if you visit LA, and you spend a few days here, and you want to be this way, move to LA, because you will. And if you don't like it, don't move to LA. Because when you get here, you're going to change.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  So the idea that like, your environment shapes you, I think is deeply uncomfortable for people.

• 54:03Dax Shepard?

  It seems to threaten agency and autonomy.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Exactly. And you know this guy Roger Barker that I got obsessed with? I mean, I went around, and I would ask my colleagues, have you taught Roger Barker? Who? I went to intro psych books, I like went to the index. Skinner's there, Freud's there, Danny Kahneman's there, but Roger Barker is nowhere. I was like, wait, this guy, at the height of his fame and the height of his influence, he was the cat's pajamas. Why did he fall, maybe not from grace, but fall from view? So what happened was, the world sort of was with him. There was like, oh, behavior settings, this is revolutionary. If you wanna be a certain way, change your setting. And then, the world got kind of disenchanted. Now, this is decades ago, in the history that nobody's reading. So the idea that the situation has power over you, I think actually was at odds with our core notion of agency. They rejected it.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  They were like, I don't like this story that when you go to the drugstore, you behave drugstore, and you go to the church, you behave church. But the last words that Roger Barker wrote were that when you recognize the power of the situation, when you recognize the power of the environment to shape you, now you really have power, because you just changed the environment first before it does that.

• 55:12Dax Shepard?

  You're still responsible for it, which is what you want.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 55:15Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was like, you know, you have more agency. Not less agency, but he was not successful, and that is why nobody gets taught Roger Barker.

• 55:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Let's talk about GLP-1s, because they're in the book.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm like a huge fan.

• 55:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, well, every doctor is.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  But not everyone is, I think.

• 55:31Dax Shepard?

  No, no, no. And it hits the core. I'll be talking, I'm not gonna name names. I know an older couple, the husband's done it, the wife isn't gonna do it. And what you point out is like, this thing about willpower is that it signals, we believe people's character.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Right. Okay, so if you lose 20 pounds, how'd you do it? You know, the old-fashioned way, it was really hard work, I, you know, changed my diet.

• 55:55Dax Shepard?

  I ate rice cakes for two years.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was really hard, by the way. Hated doing it. Like, and the more you hate it, the more like points you get, right? Then people wanna give you like a 10 out of 10 on character, on like moral fiber, right? Strength of will. If you say, how'd you lose the 20 pounds? Like, oh, GLP-1s? I don't know now in culture.

• 56:13Dax Shepard?

  It's moving quickly, thank God.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  I think now that things are changing.

• 56:15Dax Shepard?

  But at the beginning, we're right at the forefront of it, we're talking about it. And yeah, at the beginning, I was always going like, why would anyone be mad?

• 56:22Speaker 03

  No, at the beginning.

• 56:24Dax Shepard?

  It's insane.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  At the beginning, I was mad.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Wait, you were on the side of what?

• 56:28Speaker 03

  I was like, this is bad. GLP-1s are bad. People shouldn't be taking them. I had all these reasons, but by the way, I am on one now.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  You are on one?

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Wait, were you heavier before?

• 56:39Speaker 03

  No, but I started taking it for cholesterol.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  You are seriously on them?

• 56:43Speaker 03

  Yes, I am. I'm on a microdose, and it started because of cholesterol. But we kept having all these people on, these doctors that I do respect.

• 56:52Dax Shepard?

  Sanjay Gupta, he's like, this is the biggest miracle drug.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  Well, Eric Topol was the main one for me. I agree with him on pretty much everything. And he was like, I think eventually this is gonna be over the counter. I think this is something everyone is gonna be on. It does all this stuff for dementia.

• 57:06Dax Shepard?

  Antibiotics, vaccines, and this thing. These are like the three miracles.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  The three miracles.

• 57:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I was like, okay, I will try it. I absolutely love it.

• 57:15Dax Shepard?

  And we have a doctor, we are in a study, and the doctor strongly urges her, because her cholesterol is so fucked up. So you also, you got a doctor urging you to do it.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it does a lot for brain markers, and so. I got on it and then my numbers are amazing now.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Right, so you don't have a cholesterol problem. Has it changed anything else?

• 57:30Speaker 03

  Well, it changed my view on having staunch views.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  It changed your views on GLP-1?

• 57:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it changed my views on having any-

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Views on having staunch views of any kind.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  Yes, on having any like moral high ground. Because that's how it started.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  It's not just GLP-1. So there's research that shows that when people take, for example, antidepressant medication, right? Like, you know, like, you know? And there's this kind of like, oh, well, you know, you could have done it the hard way. And that would be the honorable way.

• 58:00Dax Shepard?

  That you're cheating somehow.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  You're cheating. It's lesser than, right?

• 58:04Speaker 03

  That one, especially the antidepressant one, makes me so mad because there are so many people who are like trying to white knuckle it. And guess what? They're failing. They're depressed.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  And they're not getting undepressed by doing all these things. And it's like, you can take this? It's chemical.

• 58:23Dax Shepard?

  I have the same thing with people who white knuckle sobriety without AA. I'm like, congrats, you're doing it. But you're fucking missing out on everything that's fun about it.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  You know, alcoholism without AA. And white knuckling obesity without GLP-1s. And white knuckling depression without over the counter-

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Changing a chemical.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  So I met this physician named Erin Carroll, who brings GLP-1s and antidepressants into one story, and it's his story. So he was very successful across the board, right? You know, a decorated author, physician, by the way.

• 58:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  The person who was telling other people, like, you know, you might want to consider medication, himself felt so much shame. He was overweight. His father was overweight. And he said, you know, I never stopped actually secretly blaming my father for his weakness of will. And so GLP-1s, and of course, prior to GLP-1s, antidepressants come out. And he was very late to taking either of them, even though he needed both of them. He went on vacation. He had like a panic attack. And the panic attack led to a fall down a mountain. He hit rock bottom. And he had a sort of like, oh.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Literally.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Well, maybe not figuratively.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  Literally.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, literally, figuratively. They did have to airlift him. So maybe it was rock bottom. There was a mountain involved.

• 59:34Dax Shepard?

  It's rare someone's rock bottom actually includes a rock bottom.

• 59:37Speaker 02

  And yet, like, that one, it's like, yeah, it's like, literally.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  The universe is really like hitting you with a head with that.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Sending you like a memo. But I think this resistance. So I wrote about GLP-1s because I think getting GLP-1s, if you are the kind of person who needs them, is getting situated, right? And the shame of, well, I couldn't change myself, so I changed my situation, is a mistake. I think if we could honor, I mean, we should write poems to the people who change their situation. Like, why don't we valorize the people who had the courage or the common sense? Why not? You know, when he went on antidepressant medication, and he's not speaking for everyone, but he did talk very openly and write openly about this. He's like, I'm more engaging. I'm more engaged. I'm more optimistic. I like myself.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Right? I don't think that's entirely changed, by the way. I don't think our society has gotten to the point where we're like, oh, you need an injection? You need a pill? Great, you're getting situated. I don't think we're there yet.

• 1:00:30Speaker 03

  It's also a cycle, though, because I think people who are depressed, often people who are obese, there's already shame in there. There's shame, which is part of the depression. There's shame, which is part of the-

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  Shame that's like leading them to these triggers where they're trying to manage an emotion.

• 1:00:47Speaker 03

  Yes. It's hard to parse it all out, right? Because that shame is also stopping the behavior of changing.

• 1:00:53Dax Shepard?

  They're all feeding each other.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's like, just try. I'm always like, just try it. You can stop.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  There is a persistent question, which is why people don't do that. What's your theory? And then I will tell you what scientists think or what some scientists think.

• 1:01:08Dax Shepard?

  I think it appears to be the ultimate admission that it beat you. So you're already, let's say you've been trying to lose weight for 20 years. And you have the shame of not succeeding at that. If you are to finally throw up your hand and say, fine, I need a GLP-1. You are reading that as, well, now I've permanently admitted I could never do it. It's the end of the thing. I am a failure and stop. That will signal that this thing I feared-

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  Final score.

• 1:01:35Dax Shepard?

  Is now confirmed. I'm a complete failure. I can't do it on my own. I have to have this thing. It's admitting in full capacity my fear that I'm weak willed and I'm all these things. By doing this, it's an admission that that is true and permanent.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  You can sort of live in the sort of like, but maybe I could do it.

• 1:01:51Dax Shepard?

  This hopeful, yes, you're living with hope that you'll get out, despite all evidence says probably not. I'm probably not going to be able to quit drinking without some help.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  But also, maybe there's a sadder thing, which is, okay, well, if I do it and it doesn't work, then I'm fundamentally broken.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  Like a kind of self-handicapping thing?

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  Maybe, like, if I do take it.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  Because then, if it doesn't work-

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Then I'm broken, I might as well die.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  There could be a layer of that.

• 1:02:17Dax Shepard?

  What's your explanation?

• 1:02:18Speaker 02

  You know, I was gonna bring up status quo bias, but I think that's actually for a different. So status quo bias is like clinging to the familiar. Imagine that you had the financial resources to move. Moving, economists say, from one zip code to another, from one city block to another, is probably the single most highly leveraged thing you can do to change the trajectory of your life. Because when you move, you change your entire situation. You change all the people around you. You change the billboards, the food, the vibe. So the reason why economists like to say this loudly is because people aren't listening, right? Because some people obviously can move places that other people can't. But the status quo bias is that people who should move and can move, don't move. So for example, when you have these moving to opportunity,

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  like when you get vouchers and you actually give financial resources to people, and then you tell them how much better their lives will be, many of them just don't. And that, I think, is status quo bias. I think that's actually not as relevant to like, why are you not taking GLP-1s? Like clinging to the familiar? I don't know that we have a full explanation of status quo bias itself. I think you're probably right. It's true. We are primates and we are driven by many different drives, including status and esteem. And I do think the sort of like, I lost, right?

• 1:03:31Dax Shepard?

  I'm admitting I can't do this on my own.

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  I lost.

• 1:03:33Dax Shepard?

  And guess what? Nothing is more liberating than surrendering, ironically. It's so counterintuitive.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  If you can get someone to try it, right? Like, if you can get someone to try that. But until you get them to try it, there's nothing more terrifying.

• 1:03:47Dax Shepard?

  Yes. You bring up Oprah as an example of-

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  I think I bring up Oprah several times. It's like, fell down on Oprah, about her weight or her-

• 1:03:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, her use of GLP-1s.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  I think Oprah broadcasts this special, like, Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution, some title like that. And I watched it live. You know, classic Oprah. Oprah's a pro. So she had, not only in her like interviews, but this choreographed documentary, GLP-1s, which at the time were fairly new. And I think she was one of the very first celebrities who came out in a very public way and said, I'm taking them. Here's how it's changed my life. And here's why I'm going to continue to take them, right?

• 1:04:25Dax Shepard?

  Thank God.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  The title, like, sort of says it all. So the most famous yo-yo dieter in history, who's been shamed and blamed for her weight. I think a lot of people are like, tsk, tsk.

• 1:04:35Dax Shepard?

  You can have a trainer and you could have a, you could have a chef.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  How little more protein.

• 1:04:39Dax Shepard?

  Because the reasons they've told themselves, the things that are standing in their way and their excuse, she doesn't have on the table.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Exactly. The example of Oprah, first of all, taking GLP-1s and saying like, for the first time in her life, she doesn't have food noise, as a low level sort of distraction from all the other thoughts you could have. While you're thinking about food, you are perhaps also conducting a meeting or an interview, but just to have that food noise dialed down, right? One of the most reliable effects of GLP-1s for, you know, people for whom it's working. So the example, though, is like so much more profound than like, oh, Oprah took GLP-1s, now she's healthier. I think the example goes so deep. Because I don't have food noise. And I've never been attracted to substance use. I don't know what that's like. The idea that you have complete control over what's in you, to me, I want to say you have some control over the situation.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  You might not think of it that way. I also want to say, maybe we need a semicolon, because it is another thought. But I do think it's connected. If we underestimate the power of the situation and the power that we have to control the situation, I think we often overestimate our power to control what's inside us. If you have a genetic disposition towards drinking or thinking about food all the time, I cannot understand that. And also, I think we are wrong to blame people for not changing. There is this assumption that Oprah Winfrey should be able to change what's in her head completely. Why?

• 1:06:02Dax Shepard?

  Right, and they'd be changing her height.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:06:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. You can't change her height.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  It could be literally, right? Exactly. So this revelation that when we blame people for being overweight or we blame them for whatever behavior it is, where you're like, if they tried harder, the subtext there is the things that are inside you, you should have complete control over. And I just want to say that's not true.

• 1:06:22Dax Shepard?

  No, it's this various distinction between mind and body, which doesn't exist.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:06:29Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 1:06:36Dax Shepard?

  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. Plus, they have classes with expert instructors and programs to meet you at any level and keep you

• 1:07:17Dax Shepard?

  moving. Let yourself run. Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've thought about trying therapy with our long-term partner, BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. October 10th is World Mental Health Day, but you don't need a day on the calendar to give yourself permission to talk to someone. I've been in therapy for a long time and the stuff rattling around in my head always just quiets down the second I say it out loud. And it doesn't have to be some big life crisis. Maybe it's a work thing that's taking up too much space or hard relationship moment, or just a feeling that something's off. That's enough. That's worth talking about.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  You know, I love therapy more than anything. Gets me through. Often I'll want to cancel because I'm like, I don't really have anything to talk about. And then I'll go and I have some major revelation.

• 1:08:13Dax Shepard?

  You know, I was just talking to a friend who has just started it. And I said, one of the most powerful elements of it is just hearing yourself say out loud, the thing that's been ruminating in your head and how different it sounds. Once it's out into the world, you gain perspective immediately just by hearing yourself say it.

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, you do.

• 1:08:29Dax Shepard?

  If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. Don't have insurance or live outside the US? You can still get 10% off your first month. Do yourself a favor and just try it. Future you will be grateful. Visit betterhelp.com/dax to explore your payment options. That's better H E L P dot com slash DAX. We get support from our sponsor, Lilly. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight-related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundo or for Glee. Foundo is a once daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased

• 1:09:13Dax Shepard?

  physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 1:09:22Speaker 05

  Foundo should not be used with other GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Foundo is safe and effective for use in children. Don't take Foundo if you're allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain. Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes. If you're nursing, pregnant, plant to be, or taking birth control pills, and before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. Taking Foundo with an insulin or self-euphoria may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems. Once daily Foundo is available by prescription

• 1:10:04Speaker 05

  only in 0.8 milligram, 2.5 milligram, 5.5 milligram, 9 milligram, 14.5 milligram, and 17.2 milligram tablets. Learn more at foundo.lilly.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX. Now is perfect to talk to your doctor about Foundo.

• 1:10:20Dax Shepard?

  This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing. And Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skill set, a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours. But at some point, you're ready to put it out there. And that transition from private to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step. Beautiful templates, built-in SEO, email campaigns, scheduling, analytics, everything you need to go from, I've been working on this, to here it is,

• 1:11:04Dax Shepard?

  come find me. All in one place, no code, no stitching together a bunch of different tools. So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to Squarespace.com/dax for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 1:11:31Dax Shepard?

  I am really sympathetic, and I think I'm most interested currently in the people who have been very vocal about body positivity and embracing like your plus size-ness. And some people are even the face of that. I look at them with the most sympathy because I'm like, oh no, now they probably feel like they're betraying their identity if they choose this GLP-1, or that they would be somehow contradicting everything.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  And that's happened, right?

• 1:11:58Dax Shepard?

  And I think some people are stuck because they're like, oh, but I said all that stuff. Now I'll be a hypocrite. And now they're gonna punish themselves.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  Now they're gonna be like excommunicated from the one group where like, having already been excommunicated from the main group.

• 1:12:12Dax Shepard?

  But then they found their tribe and they were helpful to people and they helped people love themselves. And now they're in this really tricky situation. So sometimes when I'm seeing like really famous people that have the means to be on it, I do think that's in the mix.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  I mean, look, we are not in a good situation in the sort of macro sense. The default settings of the modern world are not with us. You're like, one of the only people that I could be like, oh, and there's this evolutionary biologist at Harvard. And you're like, oh my God, I can't wait to, you know, what she says next. Anyway, Dan Lieberman, the evolutionary biologist at Harvard, he's like very famous for this like barefoot running kind of thing. We evolved to like be long distance runners. Basically, I think the idea is like we could outrun our prey. Yes, a deer is faster than us, but we just keep going. So like, this is a guy who spent his whole life like studying the evolutionary origins of human nature. And what he would say about obesity is when we blame people either for being obese or procrastinating

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  or being lazy, he's like, what we have here is an evolutionary mismatch. The modern world is at odds with our DNA. Our DNA are like, eat, eat, eat, like do this, like immediate gratification. We can like tuss, tuss the people who fail to delay gratification, but Homo sapiens evolved for immediate gratification, not delayed gratification. So this idea that there should be any shame in taking a drug that is a corrective for a food environment that is a mismatch for every impulse we have? Of course, we need GLP-1s. It's like the anti-aircraft battery that we have because we're being assaulted. I had for a long time, a chapter

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  in the book, which I will just summarize because it kind of got cut. It was cut our ultra-processed world. You know, like, yeah, there's ultra-processed food, which by the way, in addition to putting like sugar and fat together for the first time, oh my God, it also is metabolized super fast. It's dissolved to essentially melt in your mouth. For the reward system, the speed at which we get reward is a big part of the intensity of the reward. So not only am I feeling good, oh my God, it's a 10 on a scale from one to five, but it's so fast, right? So the dopamine signal is very sensitive to time. So you've got this ultra-processed food, but so much of the world is ultra-processed. And some of it's not bad. Like you go watch a movie like The Odyssey and you're like, oh my God,

• 1:14:29Speaker 02

  I'm experiencing a spectacle with emotion and color and music and monsters. My ancestors didn't know anything about, but there's nothing really harmful about watching a three-hour Nolan film. I think the challenge is that in many dimensions, much of social media is ultra-processed, right? It's like, I'm going to give this to you faster, more colorful, edited, just the highlight reel, more emotion, more drama. And by the way, this guy is hot, too.

• 1:14:58Dax Shepard?

  And I think the most nefarious part of that is when I learned, I can't remember what doc it was in, maybe we had the guy on to talk about, but the fact that there was a period where when it reloaded, it spun, it took a second. And that was intentional. They're like, it doesn't need to reload. It could happen instantaneously.

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  Oh, they like a deliberate delay?

• 1:15:14Dax Shepard?

  But the reward system is better if you have that little tiny bit of anticipation. And also the anticipation has to vary. Dopamine is released on unpredictability. That's what it does. Yeah, you gotta anticipate it, but then the anticipation's gotta vary nonstop or your dopamine won't work. It's like, it's that fucking deep? The thing could just be streamless? Whoa, danger.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  You start to feel like you're in a conspiracy theory club. But the reason why this is also relevant is if you're gonna just basically accept the default settings of the modern world, you're not going to be a happy, healthy person. You know what the default settings are? They are eat alone. In fact, do almost everything alone. That's another

• 1:15:46Dax Shepard?

  Don't get me started.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  trend, right? You know, that goes back about 20 years. That's apparently pre-pandemic, that the time that people spend out of their house, for example, has dropped like a stone? And it's not only that we work alone in our homes, we're like exercising a lot. So I do think that the default situation, the macro situation, does not set us up for progress or goals.

• 1:16:10Dax Shepard?

  And the most important part of what you just said is, we are a social primate. We are the most social of all primates.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Dax Shepard?

  And a lion can never be happy by themselves. A leopard can. A tiger is. A chimpanzee would kill itself alone out of misery. We have to be with other people.

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  What's your explanation for why, over the last 20 years or so, people are spending more and more time by themselves, if it is contrary to our DNA, if it's contrary to our evolutionary heritage? And, and just like in the moment experience, do you, either of you have a lay theory of why people are doing exactly the opposite of what's good for them?

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Because I think it's actually related to the more money you have. The more money you have, the bigger home you have, or people can be in different places. You can have a private jet where you don't have to fly with other people. It's like convenience and money is kind of counterintuitive.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  But by the way, poor people are spending time alone, too. So you gotta accommodate that.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  I mean, if you live in a house with your grandma and your aunt, and it's, I mean, you're not.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  You have to fact check this, but I believe that at every socioeconomic status, people are spending more time by themselves than they were previously.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Well, social media also is a huge part of that, I think.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  That's what a lot of social scientists think.

• 1:17:28Dax Shepard?

  Well, again, like all things, they're gonna try to say it's one thing and it's not. It's probably forty-five things.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Dax Shepard?

  But, yes, you have entertainment now that doesn't require you to go out of the house. If you wanted to see a movie, you just have to go to a movie theater. Well, you don't have to do that now. It's been streaming on your television, or you could mail for the DVDs.

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  Mail for the DVDs, yeah.

• 1:17:44Dax Shepard?

  Right?

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:45Dax Shepard?

  Twenty years ago.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:46Dax Shepard?

  So you didn't have to go out to get the thing you wanted. Delivery food services became more and more commonplace. Now with Postmates, you don't need to go to the grocery store. You don't need to go to the restaurant.

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  I think you don't even need to greet the delivery guy anymore, right?

• 1:17:58Dax Shepard?

  No, yeah, leave it at the door. I deliver, I deliver food on one of our podcasts. I'm a real Uber driver and I deliver food around LA. And I was so excited to meet people. I'm like, oh, it might be really fun if someone opens the door and it's me. No one opens the door. Everyone is leaving at the door.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  You just leave and take a picture with the phone and then leave?

• 1:18:13Dax Shepard?

  Part of my plan went out the window. But this one's dicier, but I think it is really, really relevant. I think once women went into the workforce in massive numbers, which I agree with, I have two daughters, I want them to not be dependent on a man. But I think once that economic structure changed and women no longer needed men, you see the marriage rates in Manhattan. You can track that. It's like a fucking hockey stick down.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:18:38Dax Shepard?

  The numbers now are like a fifth of what they were in nineteen eighty. So no one's married in New York anymore. Well, that's untrue. A lot of people are not married anymore. They do not need to be. You used to have to be married.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  This is a similar explanation as Monica's, who's basically you're saying, what made us social is maybe that we are, you know, the social species, but also necessity made us social.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you need other.

• 1:18:59Dax Shepard?

  Women were dependent on men, which is not great. I'm not saying that's good, but they were dependent on men. And marriages were financial arrangements in many senses.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  So when liberated from the financial necessity of being like in a, whatever, like in a home and.

• 1:19:12Dax Shepard?

  You don't have to do it.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  But you still need friendship. I mean, I guess I buck up against that a little bit as someone not married, who has a ton of people around.

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  Do you wanna be married? Are you planning on it?

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  I mean, depends on the person. If the right person, yes. I'm not opposed, no.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  You're not opposed, yeah.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  But I'm also not doing it unless it's someone additive. I don't know that that speaks for not having friendships around.

• 1:19:35Dax Shepard?

  You add the marriage or the relationship, they come with a group of people, you come with a group of people, you build out this combined thing. It is a fast pass to more people.

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  It is a fast pass to more people, by the way, including their families. But I think what I hear is a thesis that necessity. So I'm complaining a bit about the default settings of the modern world. And I think we don't wanna romanticize like the plague and when women could only do one thing, which is serve their husbands. But I do think there is something that is lost in this change from an environment where necessity brought you together. Well, I was gonna say, do you remember? I don't remember. But apparently in history books, the communal oven.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:12Speaker 02

  Not only could you not watch a movie, but like if you go back far enough, like you couldn't bake your bread except for the one oven that the whole village had to like pool resources and bring to a certain temperature for like a few hours in the day. But what happens around a bread oven is that you see other people. Maybe the curse of wealth and the curse of technology is that we can do things that are not good for us.

• 1:20:35Dax Shepard?

  Yes, anyone can be their own unit, their own business, in their own home. I think that's the driver of it. It's like, we don't need, quote, we don't need.

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  It's the lack of necessity. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is maybe possibly the mother of connection.

• 1:20:47Dax Shepard?

  And it's led us to solitary lives and we are social animals. And that's not gonna work. And you see the results of it everywhere you look.

• 1:20:56Speaker 02

  So there is this chapter in the book, which I actually, if I could go back, which apparently I'm not allowed to, I would retitle. I was like, I have a better, there's this chapter I write about peers. That's the chapter I write about AA in, right? Cause I'm like, there is no wiser organization than this. And if you want an example of how you cannot solve your problems alone, AA, I chose as the example.

• 1:21:17Dax Shepard?

  Tell the story of Dr. Bob and Bill W., it's a good one.

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  So I'll give you my new title, cause I'm gonna forget, cause I told you I have a terrible memory. It's like, join a group. The subtitle could be like, in other words, don't try to do this on your own. And that is actually related to Dr. Bob and Bill W. So deliberately, these first name founders of AA, co-founders of AA, because AA, the big book, right, was written by Bill W. The anonymity thing is a whole other conversation, but he would never have created Alcoholics Anonymous if it weren't for Dr. Bob. So these two alcoholics, both in active struggle, unsuccessfully it seems, with their addictions.

• 1:21:56Dax Shepard?

  Again, one a doctor, one a stockbroker. These are not fucking losers.

• 1:22:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:22:00Dax Shepard?

  They're not degenerates.

• 1:22:01Speaker 02

  Actually, they were very successful. The idea that these are weak-willed people.

• 1:22:04Dax Shepard?

  He got through medical school, but he's.

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  It's simply at, and by the way, to like actually manage a very successful medical career, despite like drinking till six in the morning. These two drunks, as they put it, meet each other. And the reason is, I think it was in Akron, Ohio, which is where Dr. Bob was practicing. And Bill W. was there on a business trip that was going south.

• 1:22:23Dax Shepard?

  Bill had had a little bit of a spiritual awakening in a hospital that he had been in numerous times.

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  Prior to this meeting.

• 1:22:28Dax Shepard?

  From his addiction. He has a spiritual kind of awakening. He's now committed to sobriety. He goes to Akron, Ohio, right, on a business trip. And he's starting to get really antsy. He's seeing people at the bar.

• 1:22:40Speaker 02

  And the business trip is going south. He's in the hotel lobby and just across the lobby, I mean, he can hear the ice cubes like in the glasses and, you know, the laughter. And he's drawn. And yet he has had this spiritual awakening. But I think that, to me, the epiphany was not in the hospital where he was like, oh.

• 1:22:55Dax Shepard?

  No, yeah.

• 1:22:55Speaker 02

  To me, the epiphany was that he needed another alcoholic. Cause he called to like find an alcoholic that he could talk to. And yes, through a series of connections, was led to Dr. Bob. I think Dr. Bob's family gave him like something like fifteen. They were very skeptical that a stranger from another state, who apparently also has a drinking problem, could be any kind of good for Dr. Bob and his drinking problem. The idea of putting like two alcoholics together and getting anything other than a disaster, like would not intuitive.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  It's a fair thought, by the way.

• 1:23:22Speaker 02

  Common sense is like, it's just not. So they give him like fifteen minutes and it ends up being something like all night, right? So these two men finally have in each other, somebody who really understands.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Dax Shepard?

  As you point out, it's like, the twelve steps are great. That's not the magic of AA. If they handed that book out on corners and there was never any meetings.

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  Which they practically do, right? It's practically free, you can get it. But that's not the magic.

• 1:23:44Dax Shepard?

  That's not the magic.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  The magic is.

• 1:23:46Dax Shepard?

  My father died twenty-eight years sober. He never read that book. But he went to a meeting seven days a week. His whole friendship group was AA.

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  You know what? I followed the thread of the research on AA. AA is very hard to study, because it's very hard to be like, in the treatment group, you go to AA, and in the control group, you don't. Cause you can't make the control group not go to AA. And you can't force the people in the treatment group to keep going to AA. So it's very hard to study. But there is, I think he's like the first endowed chair at Harvard for addiction, named John Kelly. And when I followed the breadcrumb trail of the research that was done on AA, because even if you don't have a random assignment, treatment, control, there are still ways of studying it. It takes more statistics, essentially. With all the complications of studying AA, right? I asked him why he studied it. I was like, you could've studied many things. He was like, here's why I studied it. This is the most enduring approach.

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  I don't know if everyone knows this, like AA is by far the most enduring and effective treatment, compared to any, including pharmacological treatments, right?

• 1:24:45Dax Shepard?

  Weirdly, GLP-1s might start getting in the mix.

• 1:24:47Speaker 02

  Yes, we have to have a revisit on the death of GLP-1s. And I don't know, but I will put money on the possibility. Because when I started studying AA, it wasn't because I had a particular interest in addiction. I have not found a structure, an invention, a situation that is better for people.

• 1:25:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. I always say, I'm so happy I'm an addict.

• 1:25:07Speaker 02

  Right? Cause like, where did the non-addicts go? Cause we can't really go to AA and like sit on a folding chair.

• 1:25:12Dax Shepard?

  My thing is, where would you see men be vulnerable in a circle? Anywhere but this place.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  And by the way, the part where you're like of service, I actually, after I started studying AA and I like read all this research, and the point I wanted to make actually about five minutes ago was, what I think John Kelly's research shows is that, yes, there are many things that go into AA, but one of the final common paths is the change in your social network, that the four closest friends that you have are now not drinking. And when you have these emotional connections with people, so I just wanted to like affirm that. But after discovering the magic of AA, I thought to myself, okay, this organization's, what is it, like ninety years old? I don't even think it's a hundred years old.

• 1:25:51Dax Shepard?

  It's not a hundred years old. Nineteen thirty is the book, maybe, or something.

• 1:25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think it's like, see ninety, like, I was like, well, that's been a long time. And clearly, somebody must have seen this model and said, oh, we can do it for the rest of us, right?

• 1:26:03Dax Shepard?

  Well, they took the model into overeating, they took it into gambling, they took it into sex addiction.

• 1:26:08Speaker 02

  But what about just like people who aren't struggling with an addiction?

• 1:26:10Dax Shepard?

  So here's, I think, I kind of agree, Mark, because you get hung up on the alcohol piece or the drug piece. But let me tell you, every human being is using something to regulate that is easy and quick, that's probably not beneficial to them. We're all trying to regulate. And so, yeah, I happen to regulate with that. Someone happens to regulate with gambling, someone regulates with sex.

• 1:26:31Speaker 02

  Or whatever, masturbation, whatever it is, right?

• 1:26:33Dax Shepard?

  With food. And it's like, guys, we all.

• 1:26:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:26:37Dax Shepard?

  We're all regulating.

• 1:26:39Speaker 02

  You know, this group and that.

• 1:26:40Dax Shepard?

  There's no, there's no us and them.

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  We're all in one category.

• 1:26:42Dax Shepard?

  My chosen method of regulation's more destructive. I have more positive, I still have addictions and I'm still regulating, but the outcome has less wreckage, right? I work out a lot.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, like, you could be like, oh, I'm a distance runner, but I'm dealing with my emotions this way. If I were gonna write another book, and I swear to God.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Ten years?

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  Monica, death. Like, writing down in blood. I don't think I will, but if I were, I think there's a very important, so, you're like, I'll think of something else, other than the inside game and outside game. But I do think there's something deeply true about human nature that does help us understand why we do things that aren't great. I do think that we are built for immediate gratification. Here's a trivial example. When my daughters were growing up and there were these two cups in the bathroom, and one just by chance would be like a little, I had two cups. I thought, two daughters, two cups, whatever. They were from Ikea, they were like a dollar each. It didn't matter, I could have had one cup. You know why? Because only the cup that was. A millimeter closer got used. Whenever you go into a bathroom, oftentimes the architects build a paper towel dispenser on your way out.

• 1:27:43Dax Shepard?

  In between the trash can and the sink.

• 1:27:46Speaker 02

  Yes, and one that's farther away. And you know what? They never have to change the paper towels in the other one because everyone takes immediate gratification. We take the shorter path and then we just keep doing what has been feeling good. And I think if there is a lesson in situated, it is that, okay, one thing you have to do, especially now in this modern world, because the default settings aren't great for you, is say, how do I set this up? So that doing the immediately gratifying thing, for doing the like obvious thing, for being reactive.

• 1:28:14Dax Shepard?

  Admitting this is who you are.

• 1:28:16Speaker 02

  Right, but put yourself in the situation. So if the situation is gonna basically shape you, I mean, shape it first. That is the simple lesson.

• 1:28:24Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Well, you said, what do we do with people who aren't addicts, right? So I have a group of girlfriends, we do girls dinners. It is so hard to schedule these girls dinners. I mean, it's nearly impossible.

• 1:28:35Speaker 02

  Same group of girls, right?

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Yes, five, six girls. On the last group text, when I was like, what about this day, this day, this day? And then someone said something like, well, what if we pick like second Wednesday of the month? Or something like that? And I was like, yes. And people were like, oh, yeah, I don't know, it's not on my schedule. And I was like, if we don't commit to that, I was like, we have to treat this like it's AA.

• 1:28:57Speaker 02

  Did you say that?

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  I did, I said, if we're committed to this, you'll schedule around it. You will make it work.

• 1:29:03Dax Shepard?

  You know, I can't do it on that day, it's in my calendar.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:29:05Dax Shepard?

  Tuesday, the first day.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  You have to treat it.

• 1:29:07Speaker 02

  The reason why you're dying on this hill is like.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  It is life or death.

• 1:29:11Speaker 02

  This group, did you start this group?

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  We've been doing girls dinners for years, but this conversation happened like three weeks ago.

• 1:29:16Speaker 02

  Started, tell me about this group.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's a group of friends from our pod that we had in COVID.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  Oh wait, not podcast pod.

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  COVID pod.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  COVID pod. And we're all best friends and we have all busy lives and people have kids and everyone has jobs and whatnot. It's hard. But I was like, we decide to be committed or we don't. And it has to be treated on the same level as AA is treated with Dax and some of our other friends, which is like, if he doesn't go, he might die.

• 1:29:43Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, tell me.

• 1:29:44Speaker 01

  So this needs to be like that.

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  Okay, so tell me, what is this group for you?

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Community and we go and we share and we gossip.

• 1:29:51Dax Shepard?

  The wives bitch about the husbands.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Everyone.

• 1:29:54Speaker 02

  Not married yet, but still.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  About, I bitch about Kristen's husband.

• 1:29:58Speaker 02

  You bitch about Dax?

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:59Speaker 02

  The other husbands?

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  No, everyone's going through so much and sometimes we just laugh the whole time, but often we don't. Often someone's crying. It's community.

• 1:30:07Speaker 02

  In this chapter that I could have renamed, like be in a group, don't be alone, or like join a team. It's like, but chose to call pick your peers. So I was almost done writing it and I met a surgeon and this group of other surgeons that decided to start this little group, much like yours, except for they were all male surgeons.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  So it's not a girls group, it's a guys group.

• 1:30:29Dax Shepard?

  They're all arrogant, continue.

• 1:30:31Speaker 02

  Well, they are all the Phoenix surgeons, so if you want to use stereotypes, then you can apply them. But I will say the ones that I met were very nice. But it's a group of, I think, like five or six of them. And they started when, you know, one of the things about these groups, are you roughly the same age? Like within like a decade or so? This group of surgeons is very similar to yours. And by the way, if you ask these surgeons, and they're not your age, they're at the end of their, like they're 60s.

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  Good for them.

• 1:30:56Speaker 02

  They were like, this may have been the most important thing I ever did. And yes, they have a group text thread and yes, they rearrange schedules to have dinners. So when I learned about them, I thought to myself, I don't sleep with my cell phone next to my bed. Check, right? Like, I don't have like a lot of junk food in the house, check. So, okay, great, my physical situation is good. I really honestly, I have mentors out the wazoo, a lot of the people that you admire. I'm like, yeah, I'm the psychologist I am, because I have, okay, check, but on peers. So when I interviewed these surgeons and I was like, holy shit, this is the one thing that you want to tell me that other than making the romantic choice you made, this is the one thing that you think made your life go well? I looked around and I realized, I don't have what you have, Monica.

• 1:31:39Speaker 02

  I texted, let's see, Wendy Kopp, who runs Teacher America, Shalini Sharma, who runs a big nonprofit called Zern, Mary Egan, she used to be at Starbucks as like head of strategy. Like, I am attracted to women who are very similarly.

• 1:31:51Dax Shepard?

  Who are gangsters.

• 1:31:52Speaker 02

  Like, yeah, they're like, you know what? And it took us like 45 emails to find one dinner. But you know what? You've inspired me, so like we're due. And it does take effort, but I do think a little effort goes a long way when you use it to change your situation. Now, your situation includes these girlfriends.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:08Speaker 02

  And my situation does not yet include these like high-power women who were due for our second dinner. But I think you've just inspired me to like push through because that effort will pay off.

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:32:18Speaker 02

  It does buck the trend because you know what? Maybe one other reason why in the modern world, everyone's doing things asynchronously and alone, is that it's too complicated to synchronize and to coordinate, right? Like if it's this hard.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:32:33Speaker 02

  To get a bunch of young women together.

• 1:32:34Dax Shepard?

  Well, by the way, especially, your friends are all busy, they're professionals, yours are too.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Dax Shepard?

  Look, when I was a deadbeat in Michigan, wasn't hard to get a hang going at all. No one's doing a fucking thing, anyone to hit anyone like, you want to come over?

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  Doing anything?

• 1:32:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  Okay, well, there you go.

• 1:32:49Dax Shepard?

  Till next week.

• 1:32:50Speaker 02

  Okay, so if you're a busy person who has like a lot going on.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And those are your peers.

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  I don't think I've ever gone through that phase, but.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  Your peers are gonna be high achieving, so they're gonna maybe have to work late. But again, you just treat it as if you'll die without it, as if it's going to the doctor.

• 1:33:04Dax Shepard?

  Cause you will, it's worse than smoking. It's worse than smoking.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:33:08Speaker 02

  Yes, research says. So look, I think this is a great act of situational agency. I would just say like, I would not give myself full credit on that, but you've shown me the way.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 1:33:17Speaker 02

  I am gonna do it.

• 1:33:19Dax Shepard?

  The reason I love your writing is the anecdotes are every four pages, we get a new story. It's one after, the amount of examples you have and research, they're coming so fast. And if you have a instantly gratifying brain like my own.

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  Like homo sapiens.

• 1:33:35Dax Shepard?

  It's so tasty to read. It's a very, very, very fun read. You're getting to learn about all these little things in little perfectly segmented tasty morsel bites. And they're just kind of endless. That's what I'm blown away, the amount of different fun anecdotes and stories that you've woven into this overall cohesive theory of yours, I think is so well done. And I really, really hope people check out Situated. Find the people and places that bring out your best.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:34:02Speaker 02

  Thank you, Dax.

• 1:34:03Dax Shepard?

  I adore you.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  Thanks for coming, come back.

• 1:34:05Dax Shepard?

  Just come anyways, you don't have to have a book, okay? He's an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here, she's gonna let him have the facts.

• 1:34:19Dax Shepard?

  How are you, Monica Padman?

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  I'm good. I discovered something.

• 1:34:23Dax Shepard?

  Oh my gosh, a discovery?

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Something bad.

• 1:34:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, not like a scientific discovery. We'll see.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  You'll see.

• 1:34:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'll let you be the judge of it.

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's science, really?

• 1:34:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, everything, I think.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  Um, okay. So I am in the middle of reading a book that I love.

• 1:34:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay, what's it called?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  It's called God of the Woods.

• 1:34:42Dax Shepard?

  Okay, what's it about?

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  It's scary. It's a scary book, so it's set in the seventies.

• 1:34:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay, my year, decade of my birth.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a summer camp and a girl goes missing.

• 1:34:55Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay, yeah, seventies, perfect setting for a missing girl at a summer camp.

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  Yes, and her brother went missing some years before.

• 1:35:03Dax Shepard?

  Oh, and they still sent their other kid away to?

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  He didn't go missing at the camp.

• 1:35:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Okay, the family also owns this camp. Anyway, I'm giving away a lot.

• 1:35:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  Okay, point is, I'm really into this book and I am so into it that even when I'm like on walks and stuff, I want to listen. So I then also downloaded the audiobook.

• 1:35:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you're doing both, you're bouncing back and forth.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  So I can consume it as fast as I want. But the problem is, first of all, I don't generally like audiobooks.

• 1:35:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  They're very hard for me to focus on.

• 1:35:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay, you get distracted.

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, and then I have to rewind, rewind, and I hate that. And then I tried to do something extra interesting where I was listening to the audiobook, it was playing in my kitchen, and then I picked up the physical book and I was reading and listening at the same time.

• 1:35:57Dax Shepard?

  How did that go?

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  Bad, because you know what?

• 1:36:00Dax Shepard?

  What?

• 1:36:00Speaker 01

  It didn't match.

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  Wait, what?

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Yes, so I'm reading.

• 1:36:05Dax Shepard?

  The audiobooks may be abridged. Unabridged, you wouldn't have had that problem.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  I don't think it's a bridge, let me look.

• 1:36:11Dax Shepard?

  Well, if it's not verbatim out of the text, then it is by definition abridged.

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  To say that?

• 1:36:17Dax Shepard?

  Well, what they'll say is, they generally make the distinction unabridged. They won't tell you that it was abridged. You're kind, you gotta look to make sure that it's unabridged. And you often see the two of the same titles, one of them's abridged and one of them's unabridged.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  All right, yeah, it's not saying.

• 1:36:34Dax Shepard?

  But my guess is there's not more vocal audio, there's more text.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Definitely, yeah, that's what I mean, they had cut some stuff out.

• 1:36:42Dax Shepard?

  That's right, yeah.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  But I'm gonna look to see if there's. Unabridged.

• 1:36:48Dax Shepard?

  Tap, tap, tap, tippity tap, tap, tippy, tippy, tippy, tap, tap.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  Uh-uh, there's just the one.

• 1:36:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so maybe they don't have an unabridged version of it.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Well, I'll tell you, if it's unabri- I think they're just, they skipped some parts, they skipped some sentences, because it's still really long on here.

• 1:37:07Dax Shepard?

  Okay, how many hours?

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  It's 14 hours, 35 minutes.

• 1:37:09Dax Shepard?

  Phew, this is confusing. That feels unabridged.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:37:14Dax Shepard?

  That's the kind of runtime we see in an unabridged.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  I think it was a mistake and I caught it and it just happened, it was so sim, I happened to be on that exact page.

• 1:37:23Dax Shepard?

  I'm similarly having a trippy experience where I have gotten an advanced copy of an audiobook. It's not been edited, so I'm hearing repeats, I'm hearing the, the author of the book's also reading it. So it's like, I'm going along, I'm lost in it, and then he'll repeat the same sentence two or three times and I'm like, wait, what's going on? And I was like, oh yeah, this isn't, this isn't finished. Also hasn't been mixed, so it's like, it sounds much different.

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  Kind of hard to listen to, right? I mean, that's just a version that's hard to listen to.

• 1:37:52Dax Shepard?

  It's a different experience. Okay, so you love the book.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 1:37:56Dax Shepard?

  You're bummed out that the audio version's skipping some stuff.

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  Now I've re- I reframed that I'm, I, I love that that happened, that I caught it and-

• 1:38:05Dax Shepard?

  You busted him.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  No, it was more just a sin, it was like a glitch, like I happened to be on that one page, they made a mistake.

• 1:38:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  When I was listening and reading, that's strange.

• 1:38:18Dax Shepard?

  That does remind me of watching Physical 100 and being very suspicious that the Korean translations into English were not actually what they were saying, because they were just so conveniently on story. I mean, is that really what they were?

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  There's no way for us to know.

• 1:38:32Speaker 06

  That's why I watched with subtitles instead of that show specifically.

• 1:38:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, well, there is that, there is the, there is the voiceover, you know, the-

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  Dubbing.

• 1:38:41Dax Shepard?

  The dubbing, but even the, the text was suspicious.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  You were-

• 1:38:45Dax Shepard?

  Where I'm like, I need someone that speaks Korean with me to tell me if that's really what was just said.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:51Dax Shepard?

  Because it's very convenient in this moment.

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  And sometimes things don't translate, like, you know, there are phrases and things we don't have here.

• 1:39:00Dax Shepard?

  That's right.

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  You know, Anna has a really good phrase in Spanish, I don't remember what it is, but in, it translates to egg with no salt, which I love. I'm talking about a boring person.

• 1:39:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  But, you know-

• 1:39:14Dax Shepard?

  Joy has a similar one, under-seasoned.

• 1:39:17Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that, yeah. Egg with no salt, um, sounds better though in Spanish, obviously. And this actually is not a good example because it does translate, but there are others and she'll, she'll say them and I'm like, what does it mean? She's like, it doesn't really-

• 1:39:32Dax Shepard?

  It's not gonna work.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Exactly, and then I'm jealous.

• 1:39:36Dax Shepard?

  Well.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  So, um, just wanted to let you know, that's where I'm at. Uh, yesterday was Jess's birthday.

• 1:39:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, tell me, you guys went out, where'd you go, what happened?

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  He turned 50, we played Spades. Golly, Spades. I miss it because I don't play it nearly as much as I used to.

• 1:39:55Dax Shepard?

  I, I was afraid you were about to say you don't like it anymore.

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  No, I love it.

• 1:39:59Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah, because it's, it's, it's the Queen's game.

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  But, but, but, but, it is just a contentious game.

• 1:40:07Dax Shepard?

  Is it?

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  Okay, so I wasn't contentious.

• 1:40:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  It also was Jess's birthday, he's on my team, and I said, I was like, no fight, we're not fight, no one's fighting today.

• 1:40:18Dax Shepard?

  Okay, that's the commitment.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, and then, you know, he's like, I don't fight, and I was like, okay, great. And then, um, so we all, you know, we, we play and then, and then Jess gets mad at Brian.

• 1:40:31Dax Shepard?

  Because why? Because the thing, I'm trying to think of the things you can get mad at, is people say too much, like they're, they're giving their partner info that you probably shouldn't be allowed to say. So that's one area that can get contentious. What other area, though?

• 1:40:45Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, so that is kind of what happened, but not really, like, Brian, who-

• 1:40:51Dax Shepard?

  Taught Jess the game.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  Exactly, has been playing since he was little, like, he's the ki- he is the king of Spades, he's the king of Spades! Oh my god, that was really cool.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  That's really cool, which happened. Anyway, so, he just said something, I don't even remember what it was.

• 1:41:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  I really don't, it was so innocuous, I think maybe he said, they have theirs, which could be bad, right? Like, because, like he was saying to his partner.

• 1:41:25Dax Shepard?

  You guys have already made your bid.

• 1:41:27Speaker 01

  We got ours, us. But, so someone might be mad about that, because it's like, well, if he wasn't paying attention, then maybe, whatever. But it didn't matter because Brian had the next, he had the rest of the hands. So nothing was changing.

• 1:41:40Dax Shepard?

  At stake, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  And Jess got so mad.

• 1:41:44Dax Shepard?

  Birthday, birthday mad.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  He had birthday too.

• 1:41:47Dax Shepard?

  He had a birthday braddiness.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he was like, no, you know, you know what you did.

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  And we were like, he didn't do anything. And then Brian, Brian's Jess's best friend, Brian is the nicest guy on earth.

• 1:42:05Dax Shepard?

  He's a sweetheart.

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  He's so, so nice and good. And, and he's just like, okay, I know what I, like, he is, and then-

• 1:42:14Dax Shepard?

  He acquiesced.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, I'm not-

• 1:42:17Dax Shepard?

  Now you're in, now you're online.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  I'm like, I'm not letting you treat Brian this way, I don't care if it's your birthday. And so, at what, I, I was like-

• 1:42:26Dax Shepard?

  And you and Jess are partners?

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  And, and we were losing, like, so he was, he was getting stressed.

• 1:42:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:33Speaker 01

  He went, whatever, anyway, um, so then at one point, then he's doing it again, he's continuing, and I just, I looked at him and I mouthed, stop.

• 1:42:43Dax Shepard?

  Uh-huh, I know, I know that.

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  You've seen me do that, yeah. Um, but I see, I have to mouth it.

• 1:42:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:42:49Speaker 01

  So he really gets it, like, stop.

• 1:42:51Dax Shepard?

  You're in trouble. Yeah, you're in twubble.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  You are in twubble.

• 1:42:54Dax Shepard?

  No, I'm not, yes, you are, you're in twubble.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  So then he stopped, because he was scared of his wife, mom, yeah.

• 1:43:02Dax Shepard?

  Mother, wife?

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  And, uh, then he goes to the bathroom and then he comes back and he's like, oh, you know what, we're just gonna be done.

• 1:43:10Dax Shepard?

  Wow, he pulled the plug on the-

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  And we weren't gonna finish, so to be fair, we weren't gonna, but, because one of the, um, Andrew's other friend had to leave, so we were, we're not gonna be able to finish, but, but still, we had time to keep playing.

• 1:43:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  And he was like, I just, I think we should just play something else, and, um, and I, we were all like, no, what? He was like, well, we're not gonna finish, and then we did end up playing one more, I mean, then I was just like, god, this game really gets people.

• 1:43:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I got, I have to say, so we play, of course, with the Richardson's.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:45Dax Shepard?

  Hours and hours and hours, these family vacations we take are just excuses to play Spades in a different setting.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:52Dax Shepard?

  We'll go to the most spectacular place in the world, we won't see one museum, we'll just play Spades at the cafe. We don't-

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  Fight.

• 1:43:59Dax Shepard?

  Almost ever. Uh, if, if it happens, it'll be funny enough, it'll be me getting mad at Eric for how he's treating Molly, right? Like, I'll say, yeah, yeah, so very similar, I'll, I'll be like, hey, come on now, that's, yeah.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:15Dax Shepard?

  Um, and then occasionally, there'll be the like, you've said too much, you know?

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  Right, I am a big, I don't like when people say too much, I really don't like that.

• 1:44:25Dax Shepard?

  I don't like it, but it doesn't get me angry.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28Dax Shepard?

  It's like, you, you know, you're always riding the line and sometimes people step over it, but it's kind of fine.

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  Obviously, so much of whether you fight or not in games is who you're playing with and the exact, specific dynamic of, of the group. So it's not even like, you know, I could play with Jess, it's not like every time I play with Jess, it's just like the specific dynamics of all the individual people

• 1:44:54Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  make, make the, um, environment

• 1:44:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  interesting.

• 1:44:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  So, it's funny.

• 1:45:02Dax Shepard?

  You know, like, I would get sheriff-y in, um, Cellar's a Catan pretty often, and I had to recuse myself from the game, right? I was just like, I don't like, these don't end well, it's not worth playing it.

• 1:45:14Speaker 01

  We used to fight a lot of Catan.

• 1:45:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, oh, but everyone involved.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did. But, and it like got personal, like, Catan would get personal. Because sometimes you like, would help people out.

• 1:45:29Dax Shepard?

  Yes, gang up on people, it was the gang up that always set me off, I'm like, this is bullshit.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  Or like, you're not gonna build your road somewhere to help someone, but it's like, well, you should just build it there, that's the smart thing, but, so you're helping

• 1:45:41Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  somebody else.

• 1:45:42Dax Shepard?

  All to fuck with me if I'm in the lead or fuck with you, yeah, that's, that's why, to me, the game's-

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  A little like, oh, like, Dax is always helping Kristen because he's her wife, she's his wife, and like, that's unfair, I don't have a husband here.

• 1:45:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:45:56Speaker 01

  So, that was before Jess and I got married.

• 1:45:57Dax Shepard?

  Okay, alright.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  So, anyway, and, and we tend to fight also sometimes in Spades, like, we, we have a contentious, competitive nature, I think, at games.

• 1:46:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  Um, but we haven't played together in a long time, so, but, uh, it's just so funny, sorry, my shoes.

• 1:46:20Dax Shepard?

  How is your shoe falling off while you're seated?

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  No, it's just gotten tied.

• 1:46:24Dax Shepard?

  And then even how to get untied while you're seated?

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  Um, it's not that good of a tie. You know, it's like one of these materials that doesn't stay tied well.

• 1:46:32Dax Shepard?

  Oh, and you do, I saw you did like triple knots. And now you're doing a double knot with the bows.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:37Dax Shepard?

  Twelve or so knots.

• 1:46:39Speaker 01

  It'll be out by the time this is over.

• 1:46:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:46:43Dax Shepard?

  So anyways, did you guys, you played spades, that didn't work out. Did you then go to eat and have a good meal?

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did. Then we went to dinner, went to Smokehouse, Burbank classic.

• 1:46:51Dax Shepard?

  Oh, very classic, yeah.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  And it was, it was really fun.

• 1:46:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, great. You know, I went to a wedding last weekend.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  Yes, do share.

• 1:46:57Dax Shepard?

  Well, it was the most fun time.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, weddings are great.

• 1:47:01Dax Shepard?

  Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're fine.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:47:04Dax Shepard?

  Um, this one was particularly fun for me.

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:47:08Dax Shepard?

  Because I don't know anyone, uh, that the bride and groom are friends with. I'm not in their circle at all.

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:47:17Dax Shepard?

  And also they're way younger than us, so it's mostly younger people. And I did, I was like, I was getting very aware of all the anthropological things that go on at a wedding and why they exist. Like, you could see the, the mechanics of it. And it's like, you get seated, you know, I was seated at the rehearsal dinner between two people I don't know.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:40Dax Shepard?

  But those two people conceivably love the same people I love. And I was like, oh, that's why these are so powerful about aligning families.

• 1:47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:47:51Dax Shepard?

  You know, it's like, it, it, it does something magical to your own defenses and your own protections. And you're, you just like kind of come in trusting everyone there. And, um, and it, and you get closer to people in this really quick fashion in just a weekend.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:10Dax Shepard?

  Which is really, really fun.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:12Dax Shepard?

  And I had an incredible experience where I was seated between someone that was raised in communist Poland. And someone who cut their teeth in the business working for Aaron Spelling.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:48:27Dax Shepard?

  So the, the code switching I was doing, going back and forth between the two different conversations I was having, was among the most dramatic I've ever had, other than that time we interviewed a sex expert followed by someone that was in a Gulag.

• 1:48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:40Dax Shepard?

  It was, it was that level of like.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  That was wild.

• 1:48:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm like laughing about really naughty, naughty, naughty stuff on the left. And then I'm turning and I'm talking about trading a pair of Levi's for a car.

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:48:51Dax Shepard?

  You know, so that was really, really fun. And, and then, uh, then the dance, the dance floor.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  Oh, boy, yeah.

• 1:48:59Dax Shepard?

  Monica, I went full throttle. I bet I danced for three plus hours.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  You love dancing so much.

• 1:49:07Dax Shepard?

  I had my shirt off because I was soaking wet dancing.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  Oh, so you were bare chested?

• 1:49:13Dax Shepard?

  At some point, it became tuxedo pants and no shirt.

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  Okay, not even a like white.

• 1:49:19Dax Shepard?

  No, no shirt. My shirt was so disgustingly soaked.

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  Did anyone else have their shirts off?

• 1:49:25Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:49:27Dax Shepard?

  Um, but an incredible moment happened where one, one of the guests kept making fun of me. Why is your shirt off?

• 1:49:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, fair.

• 1:49:35Dax Shepard?

  And then I then grabbed my shirt and I said to her, you are ruining this wedding. I'm gonna put my shirt back on. I was teasing her. You're, everyone's gonna leave. You're ruining the wedding. I'm gonna put my shirt back on. And as I was putting it on, someone ran across the dance floor, a guy, and he goes, stop, what are you doing? Do not put your shirt on. The timing of it, if we were filming it, he would have never entered at a more perfect time.

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 1:50:02Dax Shepard?

  To make everything hysterical.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:50:05Dax Shepard?

  And then I got an actual, specific compliment on Monday from the groom saying, I have so much gratitude for anyone that comes and tears up the dance floor for three hours at a wedding. And I was all this guy there that wasn't a family member.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:50:22Dax Shepard?

  I mean, I was dramatically older than everyone.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Not dramatically.

• 1:50:26Dax Shepard?

  Oh, twenty-four years. It's like I could have been, the fact that I could have been the parent of most of the people, yeah, it was pretty dramatic.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  Wow, yeah. I thought, just real quick, not to, but I just thought that the story was gonna be that you went to put on your shirt and then someone slipped on the sweat.

• 1:50:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that would have been funny.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:46Dax Shepard?

  But they would have gotten hurt probably. I would have felt bad.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  An easy, just quick fall, but they popped right back. But it's like a.

• 1:50:53Dax Shepard?

  But the enthusiasm which this guy was screaming, please don't put your shirt back on at the moment. I was making the joke that it was gonna ruin the wedding. It was just, I just wanted to leave at that moment. Be like, well, that's, that's not gonna get any more perfect than that, the situation that happened.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  Wow, so you, you did leave your shirt.

• 1:51:07Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was not coming back on.

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:51:12Dax Shepard?

  I had fans at one point, like, um, those Asian fans, you know, like the little, what do you call them, folding ones, you know?

• 1:51:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:18Dax Shepard?

  And I was doing very elaborate dances with the fans that were really, where I felt like Lincoln. Like Lincoln discovers something, like she can skip this rope and she thinks she's a pro at it right away. And I, I'm the same exact way. Like, when I'm watching, I'm like, oh, yeah, any, you know. So, yeah, I had this whole fan routine going. I mean, it was, it was an exploratory and expansive, three hours of dancing. And I, I don't think I've done cardio on that level.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:46Dax Shepard?

  And so I woke up the next morning and I was like, I was down like five pounds.

• 1:51:52Dax Shepard?

  From all of the exertion.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  Well, and sweat.

• 1:51:54Dax Shepard?

  Sweat.

• 1:51:55Speaker 01

  Sweating on the dance floor.

• 1:51:58Dax Shepard?

  I was also vegetarian.

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  Meal?

• 1:52:01Dax Shepard?

  Wedding.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  Oh, the whole, oh, the whole wedding was vegetarian.

• 1:52:04Dax Shepard?

  Eating like, you know, way less.

• 1:52:08Dax Shepard?

  So it was great. I, I really, I came back.

• 1:52:10Speaker 01

  Knocked off a few pounds.

• 1:52:11Dax Shepard?

  Well, yeah, just my, um, my, my, uh, my percentages dropped.

• 1:52:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:52:16Dax Shepard?

  In a pleasing way. But it was a blast.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:52:20Dax Shepard?

  I love being around young people.

• 1:52:21Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:52:22Dax Shepard?

  I hope I get to always have a route, because it is, youth is infectious. You, you, it, it's contagious.

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:52:29Dax Shepard?

  I felt like I was twenty-eight that whole weekend. I was like, oh, yeah, I time traveled. This is exactly how I behaved when I was twenty-eight. Shirt off, dancing for three hours. That's not gonna happen in our friendship group. Like, that's not, it's not gonna happen.

• 1:52:43Speaker 01

  I, that's so interesting. Also, you will be around young people. You have two young daughters. Um, but.

• 1:52:50Dax Shepard?

  But I won't be able to behave like that because they'll be so embarrassed.

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:52:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:56Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:53:02Dax Shepard?

  This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not so dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now, that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it, start to finish. Cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most, which for me is, are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am?

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 1:53:46Dax Shepard?

  To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.

• 1:53:57Speaker 01

  I totally feel the opposite. Like, the older I get, the more I'm just like, wow, I'm so glad I'm not in my twenties. Like, I, I'm just so much happier the older I get and more content and more.

• 1:54:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  Um, even like, how do I say this? We did something where we were talking to a young person. They're really like earnest and so sweet and it was like lovely.

• 1:54:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  And then, but you said after, you were like, oof, like to be that age and have, like, everything is important and the earnest.

• 1:54:33Dax Shepard?

  Writing your life story, yeah, and you have kind of an inflated sense of your storybook. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  Something to take from.

• 1:54:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I don't, I don't want that again.

• 1:54:46Dax Shepard?

  My conclusion, uh, leaving it, I was like, trying to figure out what I was feeling. And, and the way I think I've, I've framed it is, when you're younger, you prioritize your experiential self all the time. You are, you don't care if you stay up till six in the morning, you know, you're probably doing drugs, you're drinking too much, probably smoking cigarettes with your friends, like all, you're just like, you're prioritizing the experiential self at, at the expense of your narrative self. You know, the person that two days later at work is gonna be dragging ass.

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:55:20Dax Shepard?

  And so I think as you get older, you keep sliding more down the, the spectrum of towards your narrative self and, and being responsible and setting yourself up for next week. And, you know, you, this is, it seems to be the natural evolution.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:35Dax Shepard?

  So there's something beautiful about prioritizing your experiential self. And I think that gets harder to do as you get older. You're just more responsible, your friends are more responsible. Nobody's gonna just throw tomorrow to the wind for today.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  I, maybe, again, maybe this is just so specific to me. I feel like I'm on the other trajectory. Like, I feel like I started out so burdened with like, what's my life gonna be? Responsibility. And like, even being, even with being out with friends, like, is everyone okay? Am I okay? Are we all drinking? Like, I, it.

• 1:56:13Dax Shepard?

  You had a lot more anxiety.

• 1:56:14Speaker 01

  Yes, I was like riddled with anxiety and it was about the future. It was about my narrative self. Like, do I wanna be a person that's doing this? Like, um, and now I feel like I'm dropping a lot of that. Like, I'm just like, oh, I'm here, I'm doing what I want right now.

• 1:56:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're more comfortable and have less anxiety and you're enjoying the experiences you're having. You're more present for them.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think.

• 1:56:36Dax Shepard?

  I'm more talking specifically about stealing from tomorrow for today. I generally do not do that in my adult, fifty-one-year-old life.

• 1:56:47Speaker 01

  Learn otherwise.

• 1:56:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like I just, I just generally don't do it. I'm, I'm gonna go to bed on time because like, I, I wanna meditate and do all my bullshit and I can't be starting the day at noon. So whatever, I just, but to have a few moments in your year where you totally steal from tomorrow and maybe the next day, for just this incredibly heightened experience.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:09Dax Shepard?

  Is important. Like, I'll remember this night of dancing.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:12Dax Shepard?

  Uh, till our, all hours of the night, uh, on my death, you know, like, it'll be a very memorable experience. And it caused me feeling a little tired the next few days. Um, but I, I'm really grateful to have had it.

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  That's good. Yeah, I. I don't know. I kind of feel like I'm, I like live, I like live like that now.

• 1:57:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, but you go to bed at a reasonable time.

• 1:57:35Speaker 01

  It depends. Like if I, if I decide tonight I want to stay up till three, I will.

• 1:57:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  And, uh, yeah.

• 1:57:45Dax Shepard?

  I won't.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:47Speaker 01

  Yes. That's what I'm saying. So I.

• 1:57:49Dax Shepard?

  You're already getting plenty of service on your experiential self.

• 1:57:54Speaker 01

  I, I think so. So I'm glad you got that.

• 1:57:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:59Dax Shepard?

  Sometimes it's worth it to be tired.

• 1:58:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. Something cute happened earlier. I have this mug. It's a really cute mug. It's um, from the Ritz Paris. And I love mugs, you know?

• 1:58:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:13Speaker 01

  And this has.

• 1:58:14Dax Shepard?

  Mug collector.

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, this has, for the listener, like scones on it and like pastries accoutrement and some bugs on it. And then on the inside of the cup, there's a ladybug print.

• 1:58:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:29Speaker 01

  Just one.

• 1:58:30Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  And I had my tea and it was sitting out and, and Dax got so concerned that there was a bug in my tea.

• 1:58:37Dax Shepard?

  I went to get it out for you.

• 1:58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:39Dax Shepard?

  And then I was humiliated.

• 1:58:41Speaker 01

  Did you feel tricked?

• 1:58:43Dax Shepard?

  No, I just, like, I would drink a tea that there had been a bug in.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:58:48Dax Shepard?

  I would just get rid of the bug and it wouldn't bother me.

• 1:58:49Speaker 01

  Uh-huh.

• 1:58:50Dax Shepard?

  And so weirdly, like, what was going on so fast, it's like, I was like, oh, I gotta get that out of there before she sees it. And then I was like, oh, is that?

• 1:58:58Speaker 01

  Trickery.

• 1:58:59Dax Shepard?

  Is she gonna be mad? Like, would she not want to drink it? But I just, I know if she doesn't see it and I get rid of it, it's probably no thing. But if she sees it, that thing's dead. She's gonna have to throw the whole thing out. So there was just, there was, it was very layered, other than just the trickery of, it wasn't really a bug.

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then you felt really annoyed, probably that like.

• 1:59:17Dax Shepard?

  I never got upset. I thought it was.

• 1:59:19Speaker 01

  I would be kind of upset if I got like, oh, you know, worked up and then.

• 1:59:26Dax Shepard?

  I was just like, oh, oh, that's a trick.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:28Dax Shepard?

  That's a funny trick. You were excited because it is the trick work.

• 1:59:33Speaker 01

  I didn't, I just thought it was not, no. I was like, oh, it's nice. He wanted to get that bug. He was worried about this tea in my, in this bug. Um, and then, uh-oh, he got tricked and he doesn't like getting tricked.

• 1:59:45Dax Shepard?

  Well, I, by an inanimate object, I don't. By an inanimate object, I don't mind. I, I don't like deception in humans.

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but a human made this, you know?

• 1:59:55Dax Shepard?

  But I'm, I don't know.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  You don't know them. Um, now.

• 1:59:58Dax Shepard?

  Not surprised it was a Frenchman.

• 2:00:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Um, to be clear, if a bug of this size, which is like pretty big.

• 2:00:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:08Speaker 01

  Um, was in here, um, yeah, I would throw it away.

• 2:00:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  So.

• 2:00:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:15Speaker 01

  So you were right.

• 2:00:16Dax Shepard?

  I don't mind a bug. If there were a lizard in my drink, I wouldn't have it.

• 2:00:20Speaker 01

  Ew, yeah.

• 2:00:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, salmonella.

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  Ew!

• 2:00:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:24Speaker 01

  Well, if it's a teeny tiny bug or like a fruit fly, that's fine. Yeah, I'll get that out.

• 2:00:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay, right, good.

• 2:00:29Speaker 01

  But a huge ladybug?

• 2:00:31Dax Shepard?

  But only the top was showing. It didn't look like a ladybug. It looked like a, some kind of small gnat type sitch.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:00:38Dax Shepard?

  Fruit fly. Don't bother me.

• 2:00:42Speaker 01

  Um, all right. Should we do some facts?

• 2:00:44Dax Shepard?

  Let's do some facts. Quick fun fact. So Angela had to use the bathroom after this episode. And so she came in and she got to meet Kristen and the kids and she hung out for 20 minutes and used the bathroom. And then she was about to Uber to a friend's house. And I said, I'll drive you to your friend's house. And she said, oh, thank you. And I said, do you want to take a car or motorcycle? And she's like, she goes, I've never been on a motorcycle.

• 2:01:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:01:10Dax Shepard?

  And I go, well, let's.

• 2:01:12Speaker 06

  Come on!

• 2:01:13Dax Shepard?

  And I want to publicly, um, applaud her. It's not like her first motorcycle ride was on a country road. It was rush hour traffic, LA, me going to Hancock Park, lanes splitting like crazy, going around to turn left, you know? And she just was chatting the whole time. We were just chatting up a storm and we were ju, I mean, it was about as intense of a first motorcycle ride as you could probably have. And she was a champ and it was so fun. And that is now the second guest we've had that I gave their first motorcycle ride to.

• 2:01:46Speaker 01

  Lucky.

• 2:01:47Dax Shepard?

  And I hope it becomes a pattern. So any future guests, if like, that's a desire of yours, it's a service we provide.

• 2:01:53Speaker 01

  Wow, that's great. She did pull me aside and she was like, is it, have you been on his motorcycle? I was like, yeah, I have. I was like, it's fun. And she was like, and she was like, is it dangerous? And I was like, he knows, I was like, he knows what he's doing. It's fine.

• 2:02:10Dax Shepard?

  He's still here. That's what I would say. Like, oh, no, he's still here. You know, we used to, we used to work with a guy, Monica, um, when we delivered cars and we delivered them very long distances from Detroit. We'd drive to Florida, drive up cars off, New York almost every other weekend. And we worked with this guy, Don, who did the most amount of deliveries. And he didn't sleep and he drank Coca-Cola in the car all, all day long and brushed his teeth with the coke. There was so much stuff going on and he, he would be sometimes driving and he'd be like, God dare I go to sleep on the ride home from New York? And it was kind of scary because I don't think his eyesight was that great either.

• 2:02:52Dax Shepard?

  And then you just had to go like, I don't know, somehow he keeps getting home. That's kind of how he kept, yeah.

• 2:02:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:00Dax Shepard?

  You couldn't argue with the results.

• 2:03:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, who am I to not fall asleep while he's driving?

• 2:03:06Dax Shepard?

  He's all over the road and stuff, but man, he keeps doing it.

• 2:03:09Speaker 01

  Wow. Okay. Um, does Usain Bolt, yes, he's done interviews before.

• 2:03:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, he has?

• 2:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's even been on the OB1 podcast and the High Performance Podcast.

• 2:03:22Dax Shepard?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:03:23Speaker 01

  So that's good for us. Maybe he'll come on.

• 2:03:25Speaker 06

  Hopefully he can comment on the robot that just broke his, uh, speed record.

• 2:03:30Dax Shepard?

  And then crashed into a bunch of electrical equipment. Did you see the end of that?

• 2:03:34Speaker 06

  Oh, I watch endless footage of these robots. I love it so much.

• 2:03:38Dax Shepard?

  With legs, bipedal robot. They're real great in a straight line.

• 2:03:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:03:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, here you go, Monica.

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  Like, if I'm him, I'm pissed.

• 2:03:49Dax Shepard?

  Well, why? That doesn't mean anything. Our car is faster than him too.

• 2:03:57Dax Shepard?

  Like, he's not competing, he's not gonna be at a bar next to that robot getting outshined.

• 2:04:01Speaker 01

  But people are gonna come up to him and be like, oh, did you hear your record got broke?

• 2:04:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, like people like me, yeah. I'll meet him outside before the interview.

• 2:04:12Dax Shepard?

  You'll greet him.

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  Question. Did Ed respond? Ed Norton?

• 2:04:16Dax Shepard?

  He did, and he did not know who she was and then, but he promised to promptly learn about her.

• 2:04:22Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 2:04:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  Great, great, great. I just want to pat myself on the back.

• 2:04:27Dax Shepard?

  Let's do it.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  Um, she brought up the book, The Correspondent, very popular book right now. I have not read it yet. But I pulled out the name of the author.

• 2:04:38Dax Shepard?

  You're really good at the names, Monica.

• 2:04:39Speaker 01

  And I haven't even read it!

• 2:04:40Dax Shepard?

  You save us a lot.

• 2:04:42Speaker 01

  I, I thought, I mean, I've just seen it. I own the book. I, I haven't read it, but I own it. So I think I've, it's like entered my eyes in a way. It was shocking. I just said, oh, Virginia Evans. And then later I was like, there's no way that's the right author. And it is.

• 2:04:58Dax Shepard?

  It is. I have to say, I have a pretty deep knowledge of, um, what would you call them? Classics and, um, popular books over the last two centuries. I know the author and the title and I know what the book's about, but I haven't read it. Like, it is interesting that you can, like, books become common knowledge even if you haven't read them, right?

• 2:05:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:05:23Dax Shepard?

  Like, someone can be talking about it, like, what's the thing? And I'll go like, oh, it's that book from, but I haven't read that book. You know what I'm saying?

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:30Dax Shepard?

  Even Upton Sinclair, I said, a minute ago.

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  The Jungle.

• 2:05:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I haven't read that. And I haven't, I haven't read any Upton Sinclair, other than some passages. But I know what his books were about and expose the meatpacking industry and, you know?

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  Well, you probably learned about it in school.

• 2:05:47Dax Shepard?

  I think I just hear people talking about it. Cause if, generally if you learned it in school, you were, you were assigned that book and then you would talk about it.

• 2:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but not everyone reads them.

• 2:05:55Dax Shepard?

  I certainly didn't, no.

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I had to read Old Man in the Sea.

• 2:05:59Dax Shepard?

  Oof, yeah, that's rough.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  That. Was torture.

• 2:06:03Dax Shepard?

  Hemingway's for guys.

• 2:06:05Speaker 01

  It's.

• 2:06:05Dax Shepard?

  It's so for guys.

• 2:06:07Speaker 01

  I hated it.

• 2:06:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I've loved some Hemingway books. It's all about pursuits of masculinity.

• 2:06:14Speaker 01

  It was so boring. He's just sitting there like, oh.

• 2:06:18Dax Shepard?

  It's a man battling a creature.

• 2:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was horrible. Speaking of, I'm gonna go on a podcast where I get to talk about a book that changed my life.

• 2:06:26Dax Shepard?

  Which book is that?

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  And I don't know yet what I'm gonna pick.

• 2:06:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, what are your top three? I can think of some.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I'm not gonna pick any of the Harrys.

• 2:06:36Dax Shepard?

  I think you should.

• 2:06:37Speaker 01

  No, because I bet other people have done it like. I think it's like a real deep dive into whatever book I pick. And it's like, if somebody else has done that, I don't want to do that.

• 2:06:47Dax Shepard?

  But listen, it's very personal.

• 2:06:50Speaker 01

  It is.

• 2:06:51Dax Shepard?

  It's very personal.

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, well, you mean, just because I love it so much?

• 2:06:55Dax Shepard?

  No, like we have.

• 2:06:56Speaker 01

  Outcast.

• 2:06:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like, I don't feel like I belong, oh, I belong somewhere. That's a very specific story to you. And we had a guest on recently that's coming out.

• 2:07:04Speaker 01

  Hmm, great guest.

• 2:07:05Dax Shepard?

  A mega star.

• 2:07:07Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:07:08Dax Shepard?

  And she too.

• 2:07:09Speaker 01

  She brought it up.

• 2:07:10Dax Shepard?

  And it goes against my stereotype, right? And then I go, oh, no, that makes perfect sense. I think for many, many people. Yeah, what they connected to is like, oh, I am special. I'm just not in the right place.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Definitely. Yes, but I just, too many people have read it. And it's a lot of books do that. A lot of books, the reason you resonate is because you're like, oh, yeah, I like know this person. And.

• 2:07:40Dax Shepard?

  That's me and Holden Coffee.

• 2:07:42Speaker 01

  Them, you know, when they feel unlovable.

• 2:07:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:47Speaker 01

  I really want to do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. That's, I only read that a couple of years ago. I love that book so much, but I do think probably someone's already done that.

• 2:07:56Dax Shepard?

  So you really want to pick a book?

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  A book I haven't read.

• 2:07:59Dax Shepard?

  Like I would. Sure, sure. Yeah, I, I, I would do Catcher in the Rye.

• 2:08:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, great book.

• 2:08:06Dax Shepard?

  Or, or Crime and Punishment. Um, and certainly people would pick those books. It would be pedestrian. But it would be the truth. It's like the first time I was reading something where I was like, oh, my Lord, I'm not the only person on earth that thinks this way and is experiencing this.

• 2:08:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:23Dax Shepard?

  Phenomen- phenomenological thing that is life. Oh, wow, I'm not alone.

• 2:08:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, have you ever read Lords of Discipline?

• 2:08:32Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  That's a Pat Conroy book. That was my favorite book for like. Well, very, very, very long time, but I, I think I would need to reread it. It's like, I don't really remember what I loved so much about it.

• 2:08:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  Um, but it like takes place at West Point, talk about for boys, but I really connected with them.

• 2:08:53Dax Shepard?

  Well, you love boys at school.

• 2:08:56Speaker 01

  That's what my, the crux of the interview will be.

• 2:08:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:59Speaker 01

  Anyway, is the correspondent Virginia Evans first book? Yes. Okay, the school. I looked up the headmaster of the school that Bill Gates went to. Lakeside School. Okay, Lakeside.

• 2:09:13Dax Shepard?

  That's close.

• 2:09:14Speaker 01

  Is the school. Dan Ayra- Ayrault. A Y R A U L T.

• 2:09:21Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:09:22Speaker 01

  Is the headmaster. Oh, served as the headmaster from sixty nine to nineteen ninety.

• 2:09:29Dax Shepard?

  Well, I would have included Bill.

• 2:09:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, cool.

• 2:09:32Dax Shepard?

  Would it have? He's turned seventy like, I, he might be after.

• 2:09:38Speaker 01

  After ninety?

• 2:09:40Dax Shepard?

  No, no, after sixty. He, Bill might be before sixty nine. So if Bill turned seventy last year. Nineteen fifty five he was born. Fifty five, so when he was twelve, it would have been sixty seven, fourteen, sixty nine. So the dude might have just arrived. Maybe he just arrived and maybe he wanted to double down on computer science.

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  So they cross.

• 2:10:01Dax Shepard?

  But that's, that's, that's right at the wire.

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, sorry, it says right here, graduated in nineteen seventy three.

• 2:10:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so right when he arrived, this guy arrived.

• 2:10:09Speaker 01

  He arrived in sixty nine, so yeah, they, they were there at the same time. That's nice.

• 2:10:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:16Speaker 01

  I love teachers.

• 2:10:16Dax Shepard?

  What a group of boys that guy oversaw.

• 2:10:18Speaker 01

  Okay, Angela says that every socioeconomic status, people are spending more time alone. People across different socioeconomic statuses have actually increased. Overall, with the sharpest rises concentrated among lower income and less educated individuals. Lower socioeconomic status. Increases in alone time and home based leisure are significantly more pronounced for individuals from lower income households.

• 2:10:45Dax Shepard?

  It's kind of opposite of what you intuitively think.

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  And those without a college education. Higher socioeconomic status, while higher income individuals also experience shifts in time use, partially influenced by remote and work flexibilities, the long term structural climb in daily isolation has grown faster among lower resource groups. Um, yeah, across nearly all demographics, the multi year trend since the two thousands, accelerated by the COVID nineteen pandemic up to two, up to twenty twenty two, points towards more time spent living and doing leisure activities at home and by oneself rather than less. Okay, yeah, so everyone.

• 2:11:23Dax Shepard?

  Not great.

• 2:11:24Speaker 01

  Not great.

• 2:11:25Dax Shepard?

  Not a great.

• 2:11:25Speaker 01

  At all. Um, okay, Michael Phelps. He retired in, after the two thousand twelve London Olympics. Returned to competition in April two thousand fourteen and then retired permanently after twenty sixteen Rio Olympics. He has some substance issues around alcohol. He first experienced post Olympic depression after the two thousand and four Athens Games. It returned after later Olympics and was at its worst after the two thousand twelve Games, when he contemplated suicide.

• 2:11:55Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  That's bad. Um, oh, what is currently the number one US school for swimming? Texas.

• 2:12:03Dax Shepard?

  So she said right, because Bill, Bill Bowman moved there from ASU?

• 2:12:07Speaker 01

  Runner up, Florida. I hate all these schools. Yep, third is Indiana. I don't hate them as much.

• 2:12:15Dax Shepard?

  Because they weren't as much of a threat. Yeah. In football?

• 2:12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:19Dax Shepard?

  Big Ten.

• 2:12:20Speaker 01

  Who broke Michael Phelps' men's four hundred meter individual medley world record? And by how much? Ding ding ding.

• 2:12:25Dax Shepard?

  A robot.

• 2:12:26Speaker 01

  I know. French swimmer Leon Marchand. Broke the record at the two thousand twenty three World Aquatics Championships. Beat it by one point three four seconds.

• 2:12:37Dax Shepard?

  I'd hate it if my world record was beat.

• 2:12:39Speaker 01

  Me too. That's why I don't have any, because I just don't want them to be.

• 2:12:42Dax Shepard?

  You just know. It's so temporary.

• 2:12:44Speaker 01

  It's just.

• 2:12:45Dax Shepard?

  You're too Buddhist to care about such things.

• 2:12:47Speaker 01

  No, I definitely care about winning records and all kind of legacies.

• 2:12:51Dax Shepard?

  But remember you were Buddhist last year when, um, White Lotus was out?

• 2:12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:56Speaker 01

  I come in, I dip in and out.

• 2:12:57Dax Shepard?

  You dip in and out, okay, good. All right, love you.

• 2:13:00Speaker 01

  Love you.

• 2:13:00Dax Shepard?

  Love you.