Whitney Cummings on Finding Inspiration and Being Relentlessly Present (Pt 2)

On today’s episode of the Daily Stoic podcast Ryan speaks with Whitney Cummings, comedian, actress, writer, producer, director, entrepreneur, and host of the hit podcast “Good for You". In part 2 of 2 they discuss having no sense of what life is because you’re not living one, discipline is really important in the beginning but it’s important to know when to update, Rerouting addictive behavior and her latest uncensored stand-up special "MOUTHY" on Only Fans TV (OFTV). IG, X, and Tiktok: @WhitneyCummingsTo follow her on OnlyFans @Whitney✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I was telling you on the last episode that it was this crazy week, eight talks, multiple cities, all this stuff going on. We'll add on top of this, actually, something that I talked about at the beginning of that episode also, when I had Whitney Cummings on, we were talking about how hard it is to ask for help, to put your health first, and say, hey, I need this, hey, I can't do this. Well, you add into that crazy week, I had terrible food poisoning. We took my son out to this dinner for his birthday, and I don't know what I got, but

• 1:36Speaker 00

  it was brutal. And it coincided with a birthday party for him, it coincided with all these talks, and I could like, not even get out of bed. I was losing my mind. It was brutal. And so anyways, I messaged Whitney because we were just talking about it. And I was like, would you do this talk, would you do this gig if you were in my shoes? And we sort of worked, we talked about it. I ended up, I ended up being able to take care of myself long enough that I could get like, sort of a window that I could do it. And then there's this thing called stage medicine, which is basically how, when you got to get up in front of an audience, your body sort of magically heals itself. So I got through that, and just barely made through all of it. And then now I'm on the other side and feel great. Now,

• 2:22Speaker 00

  And I told you as I was starting the first half of this two parter with Whitney, that I was gonna try to watch Whitney's special. I hadn't got to do it. I was gonna watch between the two episodes. And dude, it is so good. One of the best comedy specials I've seen all year. I've seen all of Whitney's stuff. And I was telling her after I watched it that I think this is a cut above. She did this really small special at the Comedy Store. It's shot really intimate. You can stream it for free on OnlyFans TV, which is crazy and cool of her to do. So it's totally free. You don't even have to subscribe to any of the streamers. It's a safer work platform.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  So don't let the OnlyFans name shock you. But the special is so good. It's her at her absolute best. And first up, that she did it seven months pregnant is crazy. And only heightens like what she pulls off here. But the other part of it is, she was saying, you know, comedians do their specials as away games, right? They pick a theater somewhere else. They go perform there. It's not like on home turf. It's not comfortable. And she just decided she was gonna do it easy. She was gonna do it at the club she performs at all the time. And you can totally feel it. I mean, she's totally at ease. She commands the stage. It's just an awesome special. So check out her new special, Mouthy, which, to pull full circle, she's also losing her

• 3:46Speaker 00

  voice at the beginning of the special and pushes through, gets something awesome. So I really like this special. I loved having her on the podcast. I think you probably, you almost certainly enjoyed part one of the episode. And if you did, you're really gonna like part two, because we get into it even more. This is my conversation with the one and only Whitney Cummings. And you can check out her new special for free on OnlyFans TV. It's called Mouthy. And it's just awesome. So thanks to Whitney for coming on and enjoy.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  You have this sense of what you're like saving for or earning for or whatever. And then that number changes. And so you have to like, but I was trying, I was trying, I've been trying to adjust and not like, if my sense of money or my time value is the same as it was when I was earning X, and now you're earning five X. If you haven't adjusted that, what was the point of making five X more?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  And also knowing like avoiding crisis. So I think it's like, you know, for artists, for like avoiding a crisis because crises are-

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Can knock you out for a year.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  For a year. So I remember a girlfriend of mine said, because I was like, I got a savings account and I have $700 in my savings account. And like, what should we do for like, what vacation should we go on? And she went, no, no, no, savings isn't for fun.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  It's for-

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Disaster.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Cavities. It's for like surprise dental stuff. It's for someone hit your car. And I was like, ugh, you know?

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. I found like, the other thing I found though that I was doing is, and a wealth person pointed this out to me too. They were like, I was like, well, I need this in case like it all goes away. I'm doing this in case like the book sales stop. Like I was, I was only planning for things to get worse.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Right? And he was like, but also your books could sell more copies. Like there was no version in which I was imagining the trajectory continuing.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  And as you, the more you write, the better you get. So how does this?

• 5:54Speaker 00

  Well, and financially, we know like that actually returns compound. So like, like, you know, if you're half smart and, and like half disciplined with your money, you should expect that what you saved is worth a lot 10 years from now or 20 years from now or 30 years from now, right? But so, but I was only planning for some world in which I was prepared for everything to go away, not-

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Like, I think a normal person has a job and they go, I'm earning this. If I continue to earn this for this period of time, this is where I can plan my trajectory. But as an artist, there's so much, there's the feast or famine and then the not wanting to be the person who thinks it's gonna go on forever and then it doesn't.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  But there's also a world where you're good at what you do and your skills are valuable and you should be able to continue to count on yourself doing the thing. And so it's a tension between feeling like you're entitled to everything and also that you're a piece of shit who's not gonna make it.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  But then it's also, I think, again, going back to the picking the person you look to. So if you pick the person that was the flash in the pan, ephemeral, I wanna be like, I don't know, is Neil Strauss a good example? He like, well, didn't he have the, the book about nagging? I follow him on Instagram.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  So he's doing better now, right?

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, he wrote the.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  But didn't he have the biggest book ever, the pick up art?

• 7:19Speaker 00

  The game blew up, but he's also like the biggest ghostwriter that there is.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Spooky. Okay, well, I'm trying to think of someone that was like, James Frey, A Million Little Pieces, I mean, he ended up being a charlatan. I'm just trying to think of a author, what?

• 7:33Speaker 00

  I see the book behind you.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Oh, really? And it was all a shit, what if it's, I guess he said it was an autobiography, but it was really fiction, who cares? I'm just trying to think of someone that.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Actually, very nice guy.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  I'm sure, I'm sure. I'm just trying, this is a, I'm horrible at this. I'm trying to think of, of what, where you got the idea that you, you would go away.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  You think about the one hit wonders and you go, I don't wanna be that person.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  You don't wanna be that. So for me, I was like Rodney Dangerfield, made it at 60. Like, pick the person, like, pick the people you look up to and the trajectories you wanna emulate and don't even think about those other ones. See, I can't even think about a flash in the pan, I'm only thinking of success stories. Like, I can't even, like, I don't even allow that in my brain, you know? And so for me, I kind of get to go like, oh, I'm. You know, because working as an actress or working on camera, you're always told like, you got till like thirty.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's that's that sort of idea that it.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  You started getting off.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Music stops for everyone in some way.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  But like as comedians, you just get smarter, you get more interesting, you get more worldly, like the best is yet to come.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Like this is just the beginning.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  It took me a while to like really get in that space. Like, what does a twenty-five-year-old have to say?

• 8:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Like, what do I have to say now? If I'm successful now, like, imagine how good I'm gonna be.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  In thirty years, when I have a kid and have actually like lived some life.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  And the audience has grown with you and you've just been doing it forever.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  And I'm a dork. I mean, literally in my office, I have pictures of, you know, like, Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers and I like, remind yourself, make sure you're giving yourself a lot of data and proof that all that's possible.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  I wanted to ask you about that because I think you had this joke once I heard you say where you were like, I don't want my phone to get hacked, not because of the pictures that are on it, because of all the inspirational quotes. The implication being that there's something kind of lame or cheesy.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Not because of my nudes, because I have a folder full of screen grabs of inspirational quotes. It's brutal.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  But there is this sense that I think with some people that there's like something wrong with that, or that something like a vision board is lame.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Or that knowing what you want and trying, like, there's, there's kind of, like, cynicism is cool and earnestness is lame.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  I feel like, you know, yes, I think as you get, I agree on some level, but I committed to not being cool a really long time ago. And, you know, for me, I think I just surrender to the fact that really busy brains do well with very clean aphorism, even if it's a platitude, you know, a very simple one, not my circus, not my monkeys. It's like, that will go out the window for me when I'm going to a chaotic situation and things are crazy and then I'm trying to micromanage people, mother martyr micromanage, those are some things you get when you grow up in alcoholic home, you're trying to fix people, I'm trying to mentor people, and I'm like, none of this is my business or my problem.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Not my circus, not my monkeys. Oh, right.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Sometimes you just like need that like little rubber band snap of a thing. You know, there was one recently that I screen grabbed. That intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people aren't offended.

• 10:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  You know, like, sometimes I just like have to like write it on a post-it note and put it right there when I'm kind of like, oh, is this gonna get me in trouble? And I'm like, oh, yeah, like, I kind of need those guardrails.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  It is, it is interesting. Like, first off, there's this debate amongst the Stoics whether these sort of aphorisms or epigrams, or maxims, as they call them, were necessary. Like, they were like, the wise person should just know. Like, you've learned it, you just know. And, and Seneca, one of the other Stoics is like, no, actually, you need these like little reminders. And so that's what he was trying to do. He had this exchange with this friend Lucilius. They would write each other letters. And he says, the whole point of this is he's like, we should each get like one thing a day from each other. Like, I'll write you a thing, you write me a thing.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  And then if there's just one thing that makes you a little bit better, that makes you wiser, smarter, fortifies you against adversity, that's, that's what philosophy is.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  And the funny thing is, when you look at like high performers, that's actually what, like, if you go to the locker room of the New England Patriots, there'd be like little things all over.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Inches make champions.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Yes, that you'd go, you're getting paid tens of millions of dollars a year. You're incredibly ambitious and driven. You've trained harder, had more expert coaching than anyone. You should know all this. And Bill Belichick is just giving you motivational quotes at the team meeting. But that's actually what it is at that level, right? Like,

• 11:55Speaker 00

  and people are like, I've been amazed with daily Stoic and like just the, the people that just follow this Instagram account and like the, like the.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Comedians. I had Krista Stefanoff on my podcast, we were talking about it. All of my friends who are comics are so obsessed with it. And it's obviously genius, you know, but it's the simplicity of it and the surgical, like, there's no fat. The economical nature of like the silver bullet of like, that's what, that's it.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  I can't make this quote better. My ego can't get around it. I can't be like, blech, that's not like, it's just true and clean and smart. And I can repeat it to someone else.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Like, that's the best version of what like religion does. You know what I mean? It just like, there's something so soothing about knowing that it's true and it's succinct. And I can repeat it to something else and my brain can't overcomplicate it. I have to surrender to it.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  These ideas, they've been distilled to their essence by really smart people thousands of years ago. And then the ones that didn't, it's like, it's like a comedian, the bad jokes get killed. The ones that aren't.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  And then, and then all the fat, each time you do it is getting cut out a little bit more. It's being rendered down, rendered down until all that's left is like the essence of it. And that's the hack of Daily Stoic is that it's posting these things that people have been working on for 2000 years.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  And it's been true for that long.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Yes. And I think comedians probably also just like a very well-written line.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Appreciation for, I think writers too.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  But we always want to go like, we'll make fun of it, we'll judge it, we'll be like, oh, well, back then they didn't have social media. So it's like, you can't make fun of it. You kind of just get to surrender to it. And there's something really soothing about that for over-thinky-thinky, complicated brains.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  I remember I talked at the University of Alabama to the football team, this is maybe six or seven, eight years ago. And like, I'm, I'm doing the talk, I'm giving my stuff, you know, I'm in my early, mid twenties then. I'm talking about angel philosophy and I could see this person kind of scribbling the whole time, writing these very, and then the first one to stick their hands up. And you know, you can't always tell who people are.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  From the lights, from the stage or whatever.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  So the lights come on, it's time for questions, the first person answers the question. That was Nick Saban, like he was sitting in the front row. There should be nothing I'm teaching this person.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  He's the greatest to ever do what he does, has had all the, and there he, like, and he's just looking for one little line. Like one little line that he can repeat at something down, that's what he wants. And so it is funny that we kind of like kick ourselves or we think maybe we're even a little self-conscious or we hide it that like, we like these inspirational things. And this one, but that's what. That's actually the practice of it. And that's what like great people do is they just look for these little lines that get them to teach something. And that's really what 12 step groups are is just a collection of lines.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  I'll take it from here. I got it.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  You know, so it's like there's, there's some that bother me. I'm going to be honest. Maybe when someone's like, hurt people, hurt people. I'm like, ah, or like, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You're like, or it kills you.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  And there's sometimes you have to consider the person that says it, you know? It's like, you know, you're kind of like, who said that? Okay.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Well, it may be true for them or it's true at that moment in your life.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Totally. When, I mean, it's like, when it's like Marilyn Monroe is like, if you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything. And you're like, I feel like that was Bill Cosby's motto, but okay. Like I'm the first person to want to, you know, sort of capsize something and, and make fun of it. But yeah, you're exactly right. Like 12 step programs, people go in and they're like, I'm too smart for this. I don't need this and da, da, da, da. And this doesn't make any sense. And it's like, well, if it's hysterical, it's historical. And you're like, ah, I just have, that's just true and really helpful.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  And it's because somebody came, like at some point that was an original line. Someone came up with that or they stole it from someone else and they.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now people say it in spin classes.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  But, but like they, they got it from the ancients or they got it from the Bible or they read and, and it's, but at some point that quote was not a cliche. It was a new way of expressing a thing. And because it struck on something and then it was repeated so many times. And it's this process that's working on it that then it becomes like simple, but potentially life-changing advice to someone like my favorite one along those lines is that I got from meetings I've been to, which was it works if you work it.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  And the idea.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  And you're worth it.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  That the 12 steps are not the thing.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  We weren't allowed to say that in a workaholics meeting.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. They have a different one. They would joke about how you're not supposed to talk about work positively. But, but the idea that like, you know, like Stoicism doesn't do anything, like Stoicism doesn't work. 12 steps don't work. The Bible doesn't work. None of the diets work. They work if you do the work. They are just the idea. And so, you know, there's, there's just all, all these little lines that capture something that, you know, they're just really helpful reminder. And this is why people tattoo them and put them on the wall or, you know, repeat them or have them as mantras. That's the process.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  There's one that really changed my life. Um, I don't know who said it. Uh, the way you do anything is the way you do everything.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  I don't know if that's true. Now I'm like, that's not true. The way that I play pickleball is not the way that I write books. We know whatever. But um, at the time, it was like.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Like it really held me accountable. It really made me wanna change.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Well, that goes to your thing about the Christmas tree.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  That you're decorating the whole Christmas tree.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  That's exactly it.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  You can't go, oh, this doesn't matter. This isn't important.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  And I think like at different, again, at different points in your life and career, you need the

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  wisdom of them in different ways. So early on, when you're, you know, prone to cutting corners and not taking things seriously, and you only wanna do certain things, you need that.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  And then later on, you're like, actually, what's more important? Having a perfect Christmas tree?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Or having a happy family?

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:42Speaker 00

  Like, I, um, I know this woman, her name's Delora. She's ninety five. She was telling me her big regret in retrospect was like how clean her house was.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Because she prioritized that over a house well-lived in by her family, right? And so.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  But that generation of women, I feel like that was your.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Job.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  But, but like, hey, is finishing the Christmas tree, is this you holding yourself to a high standard, doing things right? Or is this you passing on your own anxiety or stress to your family?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  If you're me and you decorate the tree with everybody and then everyone leaves and then you redo the whole thing? That's, that's my solution.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Is everyone gets to decorate it and have, doing your nog and half-assing it and you guys go home and then I just redo the whole thing. Um, which is, I very much enjoy. But yeah, I think you go like, okay, am I yelling at everybody because they're doing it wrong and they're not? Or like, am I modeling this for my son?

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  That you go all the way around the track and we also decorate the back. You know, I think it's like something I really learned in program is about your motives.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  You know, there's certain things that you can do with toxic motives and certain things you can do with, you know, benevolent, sort of like healthier motives. You know, and you made me think of, um, the book, The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels, the deathbed exercise, which is something that, um, I've employed a lot where you imagine yourself on your deathbed and you go like.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  Do I care about this or not?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  What am I gonna regret? And that actually helped me a lot with food stuff. Like sort of overthinking and obsessing about food. I, you know, had sort of disordered eating a lot in my twenties and I was like, oh, God. I will never forgive myself if on my deathbed, the same way that Dolores thought about, I wish I hadn't have cleaned my house so much. I wish I hadn't have been so obsessed with calories.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  And like thinking about re- food.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, because I think I I've I've come to as a parent, realize that a lot of the things you think matter don't matter at all. And like there's a great line from Marx, Realize is sort of in cat, trying to, I've tried to incorporate into my parenting strategy where she says, you always have the power of having no opinion. Right? And how much conflict I think about.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Saying that to a female comedian.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  I have.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Good luck.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  My own childhood is like, my parents just had opinions about shit. That wasn't good for them or me or our relationship that now, years later, nobody gives a shit about.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  But like, we had knock down, drag out arguments about. Or just the the accumulation of the, why are your shoes not straight next to the door? And I could just pick up my son's shoes and move them if it bothers me, instead of choosing to have a fight about this thing, right? So the ability to decide, I'm not gonna let this thing bother me. I'm not gonna fight about this thing. I don't need to care. Like I, all the thing, like, uh, when your kid's born, you know, you just you just wa- all of a sudden, you're exposed to all this stuff that you didn't choose to be exposed to, like, shows they watch, things people say you should, and and just going like,

• 20:51Speaker 00

  they can enjoy it. I don't have to have any opinion on it whatsoever. I don't have to go, this is the worst, this is the best, I hate this. It can just be, it could just exist outside me because they're their own person.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  And then when it comes to the shoes, though.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Is it, I'm gonna just put my shoes straight and that will model it for him?

• 21:12Speaker 00

  I think so. It's like, hey, look, when we get inside, like, our rule is you get inside, you're supposed to go put your shoes in your room.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:17Speaker 00

  Right? And so what matters is do mo- most of the time, do they understand that that's the rule and do they try to do their best to do it? That's pretty great.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Right? The time they got excited and came in and kicked their shoes off and then went and had fun and were kids. Do I need to ruin that to insist on this thing that is not actually the life?

• 21:38Speaker 01

  But then the next day, are we back to putting them back?

• 21:41Speaker 00

  I think, like, the other way I try to think about it is like, more often than not.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  Right? Like, if we can just follow these rules, these ideas more often than not.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:51Speaker 00

  You're gonna be getting the bulk of the wisdom or the importance behind it.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  Without having this tyrannical person enforcing you all the time.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Which is actually having the cumulative long-term impact of making you fucking hate that rule.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  And then you have to live with the fact that they're just like going to put my name because you're this monster.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  I think that, and I don't mean to patronize adults, but I do think I've learned so, I wish I had had a kid earlier. In a lot of ways, or at least read parenting books, because I wish, you know, a lot of books about leadership and having employees. I wish I had just read parenting books in a lot of ways, because so much of it was like, here's all the rules and da-da-da-da. Where, you know, I was reading this book Hunt Gather Parent, which I loved about, instead of, you know, telling your kid, do this and do this. And you need to clean your room. Instead of you need to clean your room, it's, let's see how many t-shirts we can get in the hamper in 30 seconds. Like, how many things can you turn into a game? How many things can you make fun? Like, how can you just not be this draconian, you know, sort of cartoon of a boss?

• 22:50Speaker 01

  You know, and I think for a little while, I thought like, okay, I'm this young girl that maybe people won't take me seriously. So I have to be really like rigid and, you know, let everyone know how in charge I am, you know? Which is not one of the laws of power, I know, but, you know, and then now it's kind of like, let's see how many jokes we can write. Let's see whoever writes the most jokes, like, you're not paying for lunch today. Like, how do we just make this more fun?

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think one of the, one of the enemies I've found in life and in parenting is extrapolation. So instead of seeing this as the individual instance that it is, you have decided to see it in your head about what happens if I do this or don't do this now, then tomorrow, and the day after, and the day, and they're gonna end up. Being a criminal or a loser or dependent on me or other parents are gonna judge me when it's like, actually what's at stake here is that there are some shoes in the living room. You know what I mean, which is pretty fucking minor.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Is it about the shoes or is it about, I don't think this kid respects me?

• 23:49Speaker 00

  Yes, you've extrapolated out, hey, if I let them do this.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  And it's like, they're not getting away with anything. They're having a hard time.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  They're, it's hard to be a child and they're overwhelmed and they're speaking to you through behaviors. And all you're going is the shoes, the shoes, the shoes, the shoes. You know what I mean? And the shoes don't matter. And in retrospect, you, not only do they not matter now, years from now, they will matter even less to you and you will, and your kid, when your kid comes to you and says, why did the shoes matter so much?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yep, yep, that's the other thing.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  I have this whole complex about it and you're like, I don't care about the shoes at all. And that would be a tragic conversation.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  I remember one of, this is, the word trauma is really thrown around a lot. I remember when it was reserved for like nurses and emergency rooms, but.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're keeping war wounds.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Exactly, but maybe this is just something I really remember, a very frustrating thing as a child. And it stuck with me and um, for lack of a more elegant way to put it, did mess me up for a while. My mom was always obsessed with, don't mess up your pantyhose.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Which I don't even know why I was wearing.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  Like tears in them and.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Why was I wearing pantyhose? I was five. I'm gonna mess them up.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  I'm five. I don't know if we have an appointment at Epstein Island later or why I'm even in these. But it was like picture, we had like a family photo day and I was wearing these white hose with a dress and I had the pink to the whole whatever. And um, you know, there was a lot of keeping up the Joneses in my family. We have to have this portrait and this photographer and we have to have this frame and we're a perfect family. And um, And what does a kid do at five if you're out in a park taking photos? You have two and I'm like run and of course I run, skid my knees and you know bleeding through the white hose, of course, and and she was so stressed out, remember we'd go to the bathroom, take my pants, flip them around, right? So that the blood was like on the back and I'd say, and I remember as a kid just being like,

• 25:49Speaker 01

  what, like, how can this matter so much? And then later in life, I'm first obsessed with my clothes and obsessed with my hair and obsessed with how I look all, you know, all the time. And I also hunt, gather, parent, I'll bring up again, which is I see a lot of my friends, not that I'm a stellar parent, haven't had one yet, check back with me when I'm actually at the playground.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  But like what we, I see them with their kids, playground was, don't touch, make sure, and you're, be careful, you're gonna hurt yourself on that. And I see the kid look at them like, well, why are we here?

• 26:17Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  If it's so dangerous.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And the hunt, gather, parent is all about like, wait until they're in actual danger and then you just have to watch them, but you like sort of let them go a little bit. And granted, playgrounds aren't as dangerous as they used to be when we were kids, you know, but instead of just warning them about a bunch of nebulous dangers that are around, just kind of let them figure it out and protect them when there's actually a threat.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  My wife and I were talking about this the other day, like remembering what a big deal it was slash like problem it was if you poked a thumbtack in the wall to like hang up a poster. Do you know what I mean?

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  Like, like the, the, the, the respect for sheet rock as a child was like, in retrospect, totally out of proportion, like insane, as, as, as though that's not like a little dab of, uh, of, of something you buy at Home Depot.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  As if they didn't repaint the house like multiple times. And then zooming out, I go, what? You don't even live in that house anymore.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:19Speaker 00

  You sold it. And, and at no point was the buyer walking around going like, 10% less.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Because your child had heavy metal posters up at some point. Do you know what I mean?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  And so this preservation, this protection of stuff at the expense of peace and tranquility, or just positive interactions. And then also later, like the expressions of creativity and fun, like, if you walk through my garage and in my son's closet, there's like, he drew all over it. He shouldn't have done that. I put on a jacket the other day and I realized he'd drawn all over it with Sharpie. And like, I was frustrating in the moment that he did that because like, I told him to be careful with the Sharpie and to not get it on me and he did it. But when I put it on the other day, I, I felt no anger.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  But like, is it on you for having a Sharpie and not a waterproof thing? Or like a, like a non-

• 28:12Speaker 00

  I took a Sharpie off my desk.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:13Speaker 00

  But, but like, the, I was like upset in that moment.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  And then when I put on the jacket, what I thought was-

• 28:19Speaker 01

  It looks cool.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  I remember the four-year-old who did this, that four-year-old doesn't exist anymore. That four-year-old is gone. I will never have that four-year-old again. Right? Cause they're six now and they turned seven on this weekend. Right? And so, so the idea of like, the thing matters to you in the moment. You think it does, but you objectively, in not very long, you will be missing this exact thing, or you will be walking, I walk by the garage and I see the, and I go, that was so cute. Why? Like, no one will care about this.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  So it's like having hindsight right now. It's like finding a way to have it.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Just stop, stop trying to preserve and protect and keep everything the way that it is. There's a, I think a letting go that needs to happen if you wanna,

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  if you wanna have peace and happiness in your house, but also not, not make them feel like things that don't matter, matter a great deal.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Something I just read in, I want to say Raising Resilient Kids, maybe the name of the book. I just don't want to plagiarize anybody or act like it's my wisdom here. I know nothing about parenting that when a kid comes to you and tells you, you know, I broke something, right? The first thing you should say is, thank you so much for telling me. So that they learn not to keep secrets from you.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  You know, that's act, you know, like they go, you know, George Washington didn't actually chop down the cherry tree. You know that story?

• 29:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the, there's this, there used to be a story they would teach in school that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  And then he, he told the truth about it.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  That's the, the lesson, like, nobody at that time thought George Washington actually chopped down this cherry tree. The point was, he chopped down this prized cherry tree. And then his father said, who did this? And he was honest enough, that was lesson one of the story, like George Washington.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  He was holding an axe.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  He's like, oh, I did it. But the other, the actual lesson of the story is, he didn't fear reprisals from his father for telling the truth. It's a two-way street.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Right? It's not like George Washington said, I, you know, I throw myself on the mercy of, you know, the parental authority. He, he understood, hey, if I'm honest about it. Like we tell our kids that all the time, we just want to know what happened. Like, you're, like, your brother is crying.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  We obviously know you're involved, but if you could tell us what happened, we could just get to the bottom of it and resolve it faster. You know, and.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  We know you're involved.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  It's the two of you, we know you're involved.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  I, um, my dad accidentally did something really genius one time. I, you know, I, I think he did a lot of great things, but you know, that generation, like his dad was in a war, you know? And, um, I like to, is radical forgiveness, but this is something that might come off, people might say, this is like horrible parenting. But he had a very, I think, healthy relationship with human nature, probably very much on the cynical side, but he used to pound into me, like, life's not fair.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  He'd be like, you're gonna have to work twice as hard to get half as far. He would wake me up in the middle of the night and quiz me on spelling words. Like, he was like, he was like, and I'm like, why are we doing this now? And he'd be like, because, like, on the day of the test, you're not gonna, there could be a siren, cause they could go by, you could have a crush on a boy and it distracts you, you could be hungry. Like, he would always, you know, want to put me in, you know, wild situations. Like, he would put, um, my favorite show at the time, when I, Foreverly Hills 90210, and he would quiz me on history stuff while my favorite show was on and I wasn't allowed to watch. You know, like, he kinda really. believed I was gonna be at a disadvantage in the world. Um, and so he was really strict in a lot of ways, but also really absent in a lot of other ways.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  And I remember he had kind of really lost control of of me and my other sibling, like by the time we were in high school. And he would like buy us cigarettes. He was like, I know you're gonna do this, so let me just do it. Cause I don't want you to go ask some guy, go get a fake ID and ask some man to buy you cigarettes. You know, like that was kind of his logic.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  And there was something kind of genius about it because it took the sex appeal out of it. You're kind of like, well, I don't want cigarettes if you're gonna buy, the whole point is to do it secretly and hide it or whatever. But he said, I remember when I was like 14, he was like, I know you're gonna drink. I know you're gonna smoke weed. I know you're gonna experiment with all this. He goes, so if you get in a car with someone who's drunk driving or stone driving.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  You're never gonna leave the house again.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  And then had like a really intense threat about if it was a boy. But if you just call me.

• 32:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  And tell me to come pick you up, you will have zero punishment, zero.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  And one night I remember I was in Bethesda, Maryland. This guy was drinking, gets in the car, put a quarter in the thing. It's like payphones or something at the time and I called and I was like, dad, someone's drinking. He came and got me, didn't say a word.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  And I was wasted and it was like, probably not good parenting, but I never lied to him.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  He made it so that his teenage daughter never lied to him.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  And I didn't get in a car with that guy.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Who's the, who's the comedian that was gonna do a special with a streamer and then he bought it back and did it himself?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Andrew?

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Andrew Schultz, yeah. I heard him tell this story on this podcast, on a podcast once where he was saying like, he was driving to school with his dad. And uh, his dad goes, hey, did you do your homework? And he was, this may have even been on your podcast, actually.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Uh, and he was like, did you do your homework? And he's like, no, I didn't. And he expected, you know, telling his dad's gonna get mad. And his dad just said, um, do you wanna stop and do it? And he was like, yeah, sure. And they stopped and did it like on like in the car on the side of the road. And he he was talking about how he thinks back to that moment all the time because it could have been a fight. It could have been an argument. It could have been a I'm trying to impotently enforce my authority on this person who's getting older and more independent. Or it could just be a a lesson of like, it's not too late.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Like, you could still do this. Let's just do it.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Do is your heart in the right? Do you want to? Do you want to be a person who didn't do their homework? Or do you want to be a person who did the homework? And just like.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  It's never too late to make the right choice.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then he just made the right choice and then they went to school. And what a sort of powerful lesson that is. Not just in that individual instance.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  But going forward. And so I just try to think about.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Should we do it now? That's really cool.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. How much low? How much lower key that is?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  And if we do it now on the side of the road. Next time you're gonna be like, I I'd rather have done this than I before.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  When I had more, you know?

• 34:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  And you might not get a I I think letting people have consequences is like a real big one.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  There's a book I'll give you in there. I have you read Jessica Lee? He's the gift of failure.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  Oh, it's incredible. It's a it's a parenting book.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  I know it's it's.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  This idea of like, you never want your kids to be embarrassed or fail or so you're like, oh, sorry, I'm running across town because you forgot your lunch. Or like you reminded him 50 times and now you're doing their science fair project is just the idea of like.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  I'm not getting an F on the science project.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Right, right. Light life is about consequences for decisions. And it's so hard as a parent. You never want the the snowplow parenting or helicopter parenting. It's it comes from a good place. It's not wanting people to feel distress or pain, right? The people you care about the most, who who in some ways is like your heart running around outside your body. And and yet you're actually causing them much more pain in the long run by not letting them fail. Like in that story, they're sure he's like, do you want to? It's your choice.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  It's also insulting. I mean, we say to ACA, like, when you help other people, you're not giving them the dignity of their own experience. You're saying like, you're not capable of this, so I'm going to do it for you.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  Also, you're not capable of dealing with the consequences. Like, you're too fragile.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  You're not capable of growing.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  This will break you.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  To.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Go without a lunch?

• 36:11Speaker 01

  And I think I'm embarrassed to have a kid that didn't finish his homework.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Well, that's, that's the root of so much of it.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Is that it? Is I'm afraid it's gonna make me look like a bad parent. It actually has nothing to do with being a good parent. I'm worried it's gonna make me look bad. Is that part of it? Like the ego of that?

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Well, there's a really revealing moment to me. You know, the college admissions scandal where those parents were like.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Putting their kids in canoes in front of a green screen.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Well, so one of them, there's this, they have these wiretaps on these parents and they heard one of the parents talking about it. And he basically says something like, he's like, I can't have my son go to ASU.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  Because even though ASU is actually a great school and lots of people come there and there's nothing wrong with it, especially if the kid wants to go. But it, you know, he's not saying, oh, my son's not gonna thrive at ASU. He's not gonna learn things at ASU. But he's saying, I can't have my son go to ASU. So you realize that has nothing to do with the kids at all. Like two of the other revealing ones is one is Lori Loughlin's kid that's in it. She had like a successful YouTube channel that was making, that was beyond success. She didn't even need to go to college. And then the other one, I guess it's a Hollywood thing, really. Felicity Hoffman's daughter wanted to go to Juilliard. Where you don't have to have SAT scores to get in or not.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  So she cheated on the SATs for a thing that did not even matter for what she was, what her daughter wanted to do.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  But Rick Singer just wanted to charge more.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  You wanna, you don't wanna have a kid, you wanna have a kid that has a good SAT score. Right? Like you wanna have a kid who, you don't wanna have a kid who's not taking the SAT. I'm only going to an acting school. Right? It's so much about your kid being a reflection of you, which is so, your kid is not a reflection of you, positive or negative. And the ability to separate that is like, like I, you know. Your kid's freaking out of the supermarket.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Your kid is freaking out at the supermarket.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know that guy.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  Like, they're, they're the, you are being a parent.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  And they're go, and, and actually also understand that they're not having a good time. This is horrible for them.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Well, it's also, that's, that's really interesting, like, you know, and I'm, I'm curious, I'll probably be asking you for a lot of advice, sort of vacillating back and forth of like, it's not your job to entertain your kid. Like, it's, it's good to take them along to do adult things, but also knowing like, yeah, this is boring as shit to a kid.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  You know, and, um, I was reading about this, like, game you can play with them at the grocery store, where when they want something, you can take a picture of it and go like, oh, we'll send this to Santa.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Do this all the time.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Right? So that they're, you're not saying no all the ti, like, how can you not say no? Cause grocery stores are basically the no store.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  For kids.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  Well, it's also understanding what they don't understand. So, like, they don't understand that they're seeing this thing and they want it. And you're saying, no, you can't have it. But they're hearing, no, I can't have this forever. And it's disappearing into a black hole, cause they don't remember anything.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Never gonna see these Fruit Loops again.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's like, ah, they don't know that you know that this stuff is always at the grocery store.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:19Speaker 00

  Or that you can remember things.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  And these freaking companies put the good stuff low on purpose.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  Or also that there's actually better things, they don't know any of this. So when you, so when you just go, no.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  You don't know that all that gives you cancer yet.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  All your want, your, your wants or desires are wrong and incorrect. Instead of going, oh, you want that? Okay, we'll take a picture of it, we'll talk about it later. Or, or, like, we realize, like, with the screen, like, when we're turning it off, because they don't remember things and they can't type in to go back to the video they were watching. The video is disappearing forever.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  And so to say, we're pausing it, and then I'm gonna take a picture of it, and we can come back to this exact point in this video at a later time. And they're like, oh, okay. They have never once. Once asked to go back to it. It was just the immediate distress of not wanting this thing that they're caring about in this moment to disappear.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  How did you figure that out? Just common sense?

• 40:16Speaker 00

  I'm sure my wife picked it up in a book and then, you know, where most of these things come from.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  It is a little bit like, duh, it's still in the cloud.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, but they can't be like, oh, I'm at four twenty-three in this video titled X. And I could, so, so I think I just spent, I just, I've spent a lot of time just thinking about what it's like to, like, it's hard to be me. So it's definitely hard to be a child. It's definitely hard to be my child.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Remember how frustrating it was to be a kid when no one took you seriously? And you just wanted to be older and you like couldn't articulate your feelings. I remember being so, I remember I used to walk around with books. Hoping that people would take me more serio-, like as a kid, my dad had these art books and I would like walk around with them, like pretending like I was reading them. I didn't know. Just to try to be taken seriously.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Well, there's a German word, it's umwelt. And it's like someone or something's sense of the world, right? So what is it like to be a bat? Right? What is it like to be a dog? What is it like to be a kid? So here's one that kind of blows your mind is to go. This kid fell asleep in my arms or fell asleep in their car seat, fell asleep nursing. And then I picked them up and I put them in their crib and I turned off the lights and they fell asleep and they were asleep for four hours.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  And then they woke up in pitch blackness. What do they think about what? Do they think that they died? Do they think that they are now in some nether world?

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Is it like, why is there darkness? Where am I? Who am I? What? Has my mother and father disappeared? Like, you just think about how insane that is. And so, so if that's in, at that pretty run of the mill thing. Like even my four-year-old, he once told me he thinks he can teleport because he falls asleep in the car. Or he falls asleep in our bed and then he wakes up in his bed. How does this happen? Because no, I don't wake him up as it's happening and going, I'm picking you up and moving you rooms. So your, their lack of understanding about things that are happening. Creates distress because they're coming up with explanations for why things are happening and a lot of their explanations are preposterously stupid.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Or. They explain the world in a way that would be alarming and confusing. And so when you, when you can just go like, oh yeah, what's it like to be you? It's a lot.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Gosh, I, that even, I want to apply that to adults.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  That you're working with and you're like, how does this person not? It's like when people are like, how could you vote for that person? I'm like, how can you not see how that person would vote for that person? Ask them four questions and it's pretty easy to do the forensic.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  The other one I've come around on is like, you go trust the process. Like put in the work, trust the process, right? Well, I trust the process because I have been through the process. It has paid off for me, right? Like I know when I start a book, I feel like X. Then there's the midpoint where I feel like terrible. Then I start to get excited. I know, I know the process, so I trust it.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, like the harder it gets, the closer you are in a weird way.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, and like, just think about the things you're asking people, your kids, strangers, to just understand the, the amount of assumptions that are baked in to your view on this thing. It's totally unfair. And if you could explain it or speak more from experience, it would be so much less painful, scary, distressing. You'd also give people passes, you know?

• 43:41Speaker 01

  You're also making me realize something that is, I'm just going to say it, even if it might feel like a tangent, that the kind of people listening to this podcast, you, people in program, people that have worked really hard on yourselves, people that are smart, that are quick, we sometimes come off like bullies. And it's hard for me sometimes, like it's an adage that helps me is when you get healthy, the sick get angry. When you try to set a boundary or try to like, you know, have some, you know, cogent wisdom or, or trying some other thing and people are like, what are you? And you're like, how do you not get? And you're like, oh, like. Like, all of this might come off as dismissive to someone that doesn't know a lot about it.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  You know, and it's so obvious to us, but sometimes when I'm in conflict about something and someone's like, well, I don't understand what you're saying. And I'm like, oh, we're just like vibrating at different frequencies. Like, working with prey animals has really helped me with that, of just realizing that sometimes, like, how clear we are, how ambitious we are, how direct we are, comes off to other people, sometimes aggressive, sometimes like pressure, sometimes arrogant.

• 44:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  And like, you're just a fucking know-it-all.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  And it's taken me a, it's fun to be able to sit here with you and just like, here's all these things, you know? But like, I find myself, sometimes talking to people are like, and I read this parenting book, and I'm just like, so maybe insecure about how unintelligent I am, that I wanna know everything, but then sometimes I go out in the world and I have to just be like, just be a person. You don't have to teach everyone all the time. You're not on a podcast. You don't have to show off how much you know. Like, sometimes you gotta just like pump the brakes a little bit and be okay with knowing stuff and not forcing it on everybody and just kind of walk the walk instead of talk the talk.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  One of the things I got from my wife is she'll say like, it's okay that you're scared to our kids. She's like, I'm not scared. I've done this many times. I know how this works.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  It's okay for you to be scared, but just know that I'm not, cuz I have a different understanding or knowledge or experience here. And this idea that it's like, your emotions are your emotions. You're allowed to feel them. There's, there's nothing wrong about them, but I just want, maybe it would be comforting or important for you to understand that I'm not feeling the same emotions. So you, if you're, if you're scared because you think this is a scary situation that everyone is terrified of, that's, you're gonna react to that differently than. I'm scared because this is new.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  But my mom or my dad is not scared because they've been here before.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  So you could see a CEO comes in and goes, hey, you may have heard all this stuff that's happening in the news.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:33Speaker 00

  People think we're going out of business, or people think this is gonna be the worst business envi- But hey, I've been doing this forty fucking years.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  I've been through this exact thing a bunch of times.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  It's gonna be fine. And if it's not fine, I'll communicate that to you.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you'll be the first to know.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Yes, and that that, that's, um, there's another book in there I'll give you, uh, have you read Dr. Becca yet?

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I follow her on Instagram.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, she's like, it's called emotional vaccination.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  Oh, just like communicating.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  These are the emotions you're likely to feel in this situation.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:03Speaker 00

  Let's just talk about it, think about it. You may still feel them anyway.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  But like, they don't have to surprise you, and they're definitely not surprising me.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And something that helps me, and maybe this is like, it's something we say in program when you're talking to a sponsee, who's newer than you, you say, wait for the question.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Before you start throwing advice out, like, wait, just wait for the question before you start going, well, you know, you should do this and this and this. It's a small thing, but just saying like, you know, it works for me.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Might not work for you.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  But like, probably will, but like.

• 47:31Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  You know, it works for me.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  You know, and just kind of like.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Just being a little.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  When I've been scared like that in the past, this is what worked for me. I've been through this before, what worked for me. So you're not just like going, I felt what you felt, I, I know more than you, and here it is. I think it's like taking me a second sometimes because I remember, um, I had this therapist say, say to me once, she was like, careful how much you grow, because there's gonna be less and less people.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  That you can vibrate with. Things are gonna start getting lonely.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  There's a story I tell on The Obstacles Away about Phil Jackson. He, he's coaching the Lakers, and he gets this back surgery, and because of the back surgery, he, he can't stand on the sideline, he has to sit.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  And like, it's, he has to sit like one row back. He can't, he can't sit in like a low chair, he has to sit in a high chair, like above the ground. Uh, to see the game. And so he thinks it's gonna totally fuck up the team because the coach can't go from player to player. He can't be pacing with. And in fact, sitting up in the chair a little bit back from everyone makes everyone kind of come to him.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  And it changes the energy and it changes his viewpoint. And he realizes it's a kind of his Zen idea. He's expressing that like, actually, I think I need to be up in everyone's face, very proactive, but in fact, stepping back and letting people come to you. It actually unlocks this other kind of learning and teaching and a, an element to the relationship. And so you, sometimes you think you gotta do X, but actually you just gotta go, use your emotions, understand them, let you have them, come to me if you need anything. I'll be modeling over here, what I think should be happening. And that that's just a, a, a slightly detached is a word that we don't like, but it's actually a more detached approach in a good way.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  There's a word that I love that I think people don't use a lot. And it's something that I've learned from this dog trainer that helped me with, when you have really big powerful dogs, um, you don't walk around dogs, you walk through dogs. So if you've got a big dog who's right in front of you, you're not gonna kick them, you're not, but you gotta walk through them. They always have to get out of your way, always, always, always. Right? Or else they start to know they're in charge. In the beginning, they can't sleep with you, duh duh. And it's very simple. He's like, you need to be regal. Be regal. Same with horses, prey animals. They're trying to figure out who's in charge. And if you're here, you're just asking for permission all the time, right? And if you're here, you're being regal. So that is something when I walk into situations, it's such a dorky thing to be like, be regal, be regal.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  But like, sometimes you just have to cheat it a little bit with your body, because your body's set, your body and what you're wearing already communicates everything before you say a word.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, that was the last thing I wanted to ask you about. Like, uh, we have this ranch, like maybe 25 minutes from here. It's where we, we spend most of our time. And like, I find like, cause I have that sort of energy of like wanting to do things and be driven and needing to prove. And then when you're around animals and they're just present, they're not comparing themselves to other animals. They don't feel good or bad. They're just are. And there's a stillness to that.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  And I'd say specifically prey animals.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  What's a prey animal?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  So prey animals, so predators, like dogs, right? Cats have a different thing. And then prey animals, basically everything boils down to them is fear or absence of fear. So when you're like, I'm in a rush, I have to do something. They're just like, is there a bobcat? Is there a mountain lion? That's all it boils. Cause they don't have, they're so. Like relentlessly in the moment.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  And because they're energy conservationists, because they're grazers, right? They only get to eat the grass that's around.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  So they're not gonna waste a bunch of time being needy or desperate if, you know, they don't know when their next patch of grass is gonna come. Like, they have to be energy conservationists.

• 51:02Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Right? And then any kind of anxious energy, like, if you're walking up to a horse trying to get a selfie, right? Ultimately, what you're saying is, I'm afraid I'm not gonna get this selfie.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  And then they're like, why are you in fear? I gotta go look for the mountain lion.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Like, they don't understand fear, they don't understand insecurity. It all boils down to, there's a predator close by.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  So there's this incredible thing that happens with prey animals. If you really, like, work with them in a fair, egalitarian way, where you wanna be in a partnership with them, where they just become a mirror to you. So the first thing we do in, like, a gala, which is like horse therapy stuff, is just you and the horse in an arena. And you try to see if you can have appealing enough energy that it wants to be near you.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Because their only reward is serenity. If there's no grass around.

• 51:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Whereas dogs, their reward is food. I mean, look, I love dogs, I'm a dog person, but like, my dog will jump in someone else's car.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  And go home with it and be totally fine.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I'm sure when they see me again, they'll, you know, but like, like horses, prey animals, like, their only reward is serenity. And then if you're gonna do grooming and stuff like that, it's different. But if you can get a prey animal to wanna hang out with you.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  They, they can read your thoughts, they can read your mind, they can read your energy. So it's really fascinating to watch if you're standing next to a horse and they're just hanging out with you, and then all of a sudden you're like, well, what if it walks away? What if, what if it stops wanting to hang out with me? And then it just walks away. And you're like, god damn it, they just walked away, what did I do wrong? And then they walk even further away. And then you're like, you know what? I have this itch on the back of my neck, and I'm just gonna take care of it, and I'm not gonna think about anything else, and I'm gonna make sure there's no predators around, and all of a sudden, they're right next to you. So when you're obsessing about them, thinking about them, worrying about them, it's just like a really great way to learn your inner monologue and the kind of energy you're giving off.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Because, you know, when you see people that are the leaders, and they walk into work, and they're like, why is everyone in such a bad mood? And you're like...

• 52:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause you just showed up.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  You did that.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember when we first got our donkey, we bought this donkey on Craigslist for a hundred bucks. And.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  For a hundred bucks?

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  You paid too much.

• 53:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, most of the time they're free, cause they, or they come with the land, because.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  They're so great.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  You're supposed to have them. They're just livestock guarding animals and.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they stomp coyotes, they're awesome.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  And so I, I remember he's just standing there, like he's just standing there in the middle of this field. And I remember going sort of like laughing, like what a dumb animal, he's just sort of standing there. And then I go, wait, that's his job. His job is literally just to stand there, to not be dead.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  And by standing there and being in himself.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  He's keeping other things away.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  What would have made you think he was smart?

• 53:37Speaker 00

  You know.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  You want him to be like building a.

• 53:39Speaker 00

  No, like, uh, when he's, um, opened gates and tried to get into our house, you know, when he, like, when they're doing sort of mischievous, intentional stuff. That feels, that like feels like a sign of intelligence.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  That's real, that's actually restless and maladaptive.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, but just the idea that like, you know, say like, they also say this in programs, like, human, uh, being, not human doing. But like, the animal doesn't have any sense of that. It just, I am doing what I am doing.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  And that, that's a pretty magical, wonderful place to be.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  It's like, you, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm in this awesome pasture, I've got grass. Cause if I open that, there could be a, a mountain lion on the other side of that. Or if I bite this thing, I could break my tooth, or I could be near a predator, you know what I mean? Unless they need to look for water or something like that, they're very much like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  You know, and that's like, and they're by default serene.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  So when you come in with some wild energy, but it's, it is, you know, what is it again? The, um, empathizing with someone else's state, the German word?

• 54:37Speaker 00

  Umwelt.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  Umwelt. I also love working with prey animals, they, cause prey animals always have their eyes on the side of their head, right? Predators are forward. And the first thing everybody does when they see a donkey or horse, what do they do? They just go right to the head, which is this is the one place in the between their eyes that they can't see. And horses always pull away. So, understanding like it's been.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  How they perceive the world.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  That's you walk up next to them, you ask permission, thi- this is how they see the world, know how they see you. And then learn their body language instead of expecting them to understand English or whatever. You know, when you see people talk to their dogs, like, what did I say? What did we talk about yesterday? And you're like, do you really thi- like, you know, so it's been a great exercise to surrender because you have to take language out of it. And working with prey animals makes you realize how much, how, first of all, how full of shit we are. How incongruous what we're saying and how we're saying it is, which is why it's like great to work with like young girls and boys. But working with young girls and horses, because if you're going like, no, stop, that's not no. Do you know what I mean? You're saying it with your body and you're claiming your space and sort of your, it's about saying what you're saying.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Say what you mean, mean what you say, don't say it mean, but mean what you say with your body. Your body language matters so much more than what you're saying. So a lot of, I see a lot of bosses where your employees don't respect you or you're not getting what you want. Cause you're like, if you guys could just get that done today, like, you know, by five, like, that'd be great. Like, you're being wishy washy, like, what do you say what you're saying? Or when someone's like, yeah, no, I like it. And you're like, do you think I didn't notice that? I ca- I don't believe you. Like, it makes you realize how full of shit we are.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  Let's go back to full circle, the can't canceling or rescheduling. The other one I like is like, um, don't say maybe when you wanna say no. Right, like, this isn't a consent issue. I'm just saying like, if someone's like, hey, you wanna go out tomorrow, you wanna do this thing? And if you're like, ah, let me see, let me check, you're like, fucking no. Like, not interested, hard pass. Be clear about what you wanna do and what you don't wanna do, or what you like and you don't like.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  I just do, the default, the default's no. Like, just start with no.

• 56:42Speaker 00

  Yes, like, no is a complete sentence.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  But, but just to.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Don't say sorry, yeah, sorry, I interrupted.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  You know, don't say sorry, just say no, or don't make an excuse first. Because you're asking people to argue with you.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  I think you, this might have been something I heard on your podcast and it changed my life. Cause I have a couple, by my computer, a couple things that are written out. I'm at capacity at the moment. I will let you know if that changes. I'll let you know.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  Yes, don't follow up with me.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Because this is someone I think on your podcast might have said this, that is like, um, uh, no, I can't. I'm busy this week.

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  What about next week? Ah, you know what I mean?

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Trying to make this go away. Yes.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Totally. And then if they respond again, I'm not responding. You know what I mean? You also know responses are response. You know, I kind of always forget that. And if someone's just like a bugaboo, they just, you know, they'll never understand. And that's, you know, boundaries, something I love from ACA is like, boundaries are for us and not them. So you can set one verbal boundary, but if they keep crossing it, then you just, no contact.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  Also, you don't owe anyone any responses or explanations, which is very empowering. Just because you got an email, doesn't mean you don't have to fucking RSVP, yes or no?

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Mm-mm.

• 57:52Speaker 00

  Not interested, not interested?

• 57:53Speaker 01

  No one cares.

• 57:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  No one cares. They're not going to cancel the party.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Because you didn't respond.

• 57:58Speaker 00

  Right. And if they are, they'll tell you that. They'll be like, hey, this is only about you. They'll like, and if they don't, then it's a manipulative weird thing, which you shouldn't go to anyway.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, I can't make it. Thanks for asking. Like, it's just very simple.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Well, this is the wonderful thing about having kids, is it gives you some real clarity in realizing. I'll show you my office.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  I want to make this, I don't want to come. I, I'm, I do have kids, but that has nothing to do with it. Like, I'm, I'm so like relentlessly honest at this point.

• 58:25Speaker 00

  But I have a picture of my oldest, and then I have a picture of my youngest. And then in the middle, this sports psychologist named Jonathan Fader gave me this picture, and it just says, no. And, and it's realizing that when I'm saying yes to you, I'm saying no to these two people, who I already promised pretty much all of my spare time.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  You can also think of it as like, my nightmare is that someone comes to my birthday party, who's like, ah.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  Because they didn't want to be there.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Fine, oh god, we have to stop by Whitney, because she, you know, if we don't, like, that's so embarrassing to me.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  It's horrible.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  So I never want to do that to someone else. If I'm like, I gotta go to this thing. So it's like, if you're doing something out of obligation, get out of there. They don't want you to be there either.

• 59:05Speaker 00

  Yes, or if they do, it's not a person.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, when someone comes up, he's like, hey, I can only be here for 10 minutes. And you're like, why did you come?

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  This is embarrassed. We would have been fine without you. Like the self-importance of like, if I don't show up, I guess they're just gonna cancel the party. Like, what do you think's gonna happen? Like, the self-importance of that. But I did grow up watching a mom go to four Christmas parties a night. We gotta stop here. We gotta stop here. We gotta stop here. And like, all that shit.

• 59:29Speaker 00

  That's the ego of that imposter syndrome too, which is like, no one's trying to see if you have what it takes or not. They're, they're feeling that about themselves. Like, no one has enough time to think about whether you're qualified to do what you're doing.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Interesting. Also, this is some weird addiction or trying to get out of your feelings, and I don't wanna participate in it.

• 59:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, someone who's like, I wanna come. And then the day after, they're like, I don't know if I can make it. And they're like, here's a way. And you're just like, blah.

• 59:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't need any of this. Show up or not.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  I don't need any of this.

• 59:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  What, this has nothing to do with me, and you're making my life harder.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, and, and kids, kids give you some clarity on this because you realize who is being affected by your shit.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  Right? Or by your overcommitting, by your social anxiety, by your inability to say no, you know, by, you know, your drama, by your, like, someone is bearing the cost of all of this. That, you're like, you, you can, you can do as much shit as you want to yourself.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  But now you've brought in these other people who you owe slightly better to. And, like, so if you can't say no to you, because you don't wanna be rude, you don't wanna be rude. You have to understand that.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  It's rude to say yes when you're lying.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  But, but you've already, like, there's no way out of this that is not rude.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  So like, if, if someone has asked you to do something and you don't wanna do it, you don't wanna hurt their feelings, so you say yes. You hurt these other two, you hurt a seven year old's feelings.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  But if someone invites you to something and it hurts their feelings, they're mentally ill. That's not an adult.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  But but when you, it's like you don't want to, you don't want, like in this scenario where you don't want to bear the bad news to someone, even though it's not actually bad news.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  You don't want to say, you don't want to say the words no.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  So you go, yes.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  Well, you are saying no, you're just saying no to them. But they don't have the ability or the power or the understanding to be like, Mom, why, Mom, or Dad, why are you saying no to playing right now? Why am I at the babysitters?

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  And then when you're on your deathbed, are you gonna be like, thank God I went to that thing instead of hanging out with my kids?

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  And, you know, this is, I just want to pay credit where credit's due and name drop. Um, the singer Sia, um, said to me once, because I, you know, struggle with some codependent stuff and we were talking about it. And she goes, before I say yes to a plan, I ask, what's in it for me?

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  And it, I, I, it like blew my mind that being selfish is kind of selfless, you know, kind of thing. It was like, I didn't even think of that. I like, it never occurred to me. It's like, oh, I might run into some people I want to talk to. I just like, no, I have to deliver this gift and I have to show up and I have to entertain everyone. And I, we're friends, so I don't want her to think, her friends to think I didn't show up to her party and that we're not friends. I just was, I couldn't think of, I'm like, if I can't think of a couple of things that's in it for me, I just can't do it.

• 1:02:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, and uh, there's nothing wrong with that.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, and again, it's like, imagine some, like, knowing someone's in the car going, we have to go. It's just Whitney invited us and you know how she is and let's just leave the kids at home. We'll just go for two hours. I'd be like, stay home with your kids.

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Well, the Stoic thing is, it, the Stoic version of this would not be, what are you gonna think on your deathbed? The Stoics would say, actually, you're on your deathbed right now. First off, because you could die at any moment. But the other thing the Stoics tell us is that we're dying all the time.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:02:56Speaker 00

  And so if you actually understand having children or your own life as a process of dying, you're one years old and one day, for one day. Right? That the person you are now, like, it's, it's kind of a dark way to think about it, but. Having kids is this constant process of loss, but also gain. Because who they were, they're no longer, but they're this new thing. And so as you're doing, you're committing to other things, you're gone too much, you're working too much, all this stuff. It's not like, hey, in the future, you're gonna regret this. Your future, you're gonna feel like you're losing on, you're losing out on something right now.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  You have a finite amount of time and you're choosing to do this other thing instead. And to understand also that this, I can't wait till they're walking, I can't wait till they're driving. That what you're also doing is fast forwarding through the thing that you want the most, right?

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, and that's fascinating. And I, I don't know if this is pertinent or not, but The Worm at the Core by Ernest Becker about terror management theory. Help me a little bit with, in this area, because it's sort of about how humans, like, we're, I mean, we're the only mammal that, animal that knows it's gonna die. So we do all these things to manage our terror, you know, like we get obsessed with sports teams and we make family crests and try to be immortal in all these ways. And it just made me realize all the ways that I kind of distract myself, because it's hard to just be alone with myself sometimes. And, you know, we talk about like our obsession with Rome now and the bread and the circus and they're distracting us. And I'm like, yeah, of course, that's always happened, but like, what am I doing to just like jam pack my time?

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  So I don't have to sit with the fact that I'm slowly dying.

• 1:04:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're, you're, it's not just that you're slowly dying, but that you're also fast forwarding it by thinking about what's next. Right? Like tomorrow or the next day or summer or Chris, like you're, you're wishing through or rushing through your life. This thing that is gonna go by very fast. And so there's this passage in Meditations where Marx realized who does in fact bury multiple children. Like he loses multiple children in a, in a way that was gratuitous, even in that time, like where most people did. It's like six or seven children, just an insane amount.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Like dysentery or like?

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  Just everything, diseases and plagues and injuries and accidents. It's just this grotesque, you know, series of tragedies for him. He says though, in Meditations, it's a line from Epictetus, he says, as you tuck your child in at night, tell yourself they may not make it through the morning. He's meditating on the mortality of his children. And why is he doing this? I don't think it's because he's going. You know, being attached is dangerous and so you detach and then you don't feel it when they die. I think he's saying, don't rush through bedtime. Like he's saying like bedtime is it. This is the whole fucking thing. Enjoy this, be here for this. Don't wake up tomorrow and this thing has happened and gone. I'm sure I'm so glad I got back to that dinner party, right?

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  Like I, I, I think to myself as I'm like, my son is not going to bed. Uh, as quickly as we would like, he's asking for one more story, making up that he needs a snack or whatever he's doing. I'm going like, I want this to be over.

• 1:06:11Speaker 00

  Someday it will be over, not for good reasons.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  You're gonna get your wish, yeah.

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, someday it will be over for tragic reasons or it'll just be older because he's 11 and he doesn't want me in his room. You know what I mean? And so the idea that you're rushing through that, that you want it to be over, for what? So I can check my email?

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  So that's what the donkey's looking at you going, what are you doing? Like this is it. This moment is now. They're just like, you know, I mean, I sit in my horse's stall and we just sit there. I'm like, oh, this is so, uh, and like we want.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  Like I could do this all day. This is literally all I care about. And that's a wonderful, magical.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Being it, but I do think it's hard for like high performers, ambitious people to be relentlessly present, but that's it. That's like, that's where the magic is.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  And they need it the most to balance out the intensity that you have. You have to like, maybe a regular person doesn't need to think about this, but we need it the most.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  But I think it's also good to do it with negative stuff too, because you go like, oh, this great thing is going to be over soon, but so is this bad, hard thing.

• 1:07:10Speaker 00

  Sure, nothing lasts.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's just sort of like, this is painful, but it's like, it's all just temporary.

• 1:07:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's, meditation's, Mark says something like, um, the pain will end or you will end, but one way or another it will be over. Right? Like this thing, you're like, oh, this is so bad. You're like, it's either gonna kill me.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:27Speaker 00

  Or it's not, or it's probably not. And so.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.