“Cyber Trucks Are the Real Problem” - Trevor Wallace

What does a pre-creativity game plan look like to you? Um really rest is the big thing. Sleep, good sleep, uh working out in the morning, and um just working out. Like when those endorphins, it's like Like I'm I'm pretty like in my head most of the day, but like if I like work out and I'm like I've had a coffee and I'm and I'm by myself, like then I'm like walking around and like singing to myself. I'm like that's we're on the verge of something. But we're feeling good. But for me it's like I I can't structurally write where it's like okay you have a you have a 2:00 p.m. meeting and a 3:00 3:30 meeting. But at But at 3:00 you should write. I'm like that doesn't work for me where I'm like okay work you know like let time be funny. Like You can't force funny for me. Some people set hours every day that are like every day at 11:00 I write for an hour and you're allowing yourself to be creative in those moments, but for me it's like I can't structurally do that. So when I'm having these days of [snorts] all these meetings instead of like I'll I'll be like okay guys let's go to lunch. Let's Let's step out of this office. Let's kind of get Yeah, let's reset. Let's submerge. Let's be around some people. That's when ideas start flying up. For me it's like there's ideas everywhere. It whether it's uh fashion trends somebody's wearing, how somebody is talking to the barista, or something. It's It's just like But when I'm in this stressed brain, it's like it's almost [snorts] like I have like do not disturb on for ideas. Where I'm like stressed and it's like Like all these ideas are right in front of me, but when I'm like relaxed or like kind of out of the work brain a little bit, like more like fun kind of stuff. It's so much easier for me to make these observations to make fun of. Where if I'm stressed, I'm there's funny all around me, but I'm not noticing it. >> So similar to what I do. And not for the funny bit, but for the Oh, that's like two ideas that I haven't realized that they come together. And I've been hearing a lot of people talk about obsession at the moment. Zack Po Grubbs just started this new running club in New York and it's all about obsession. Well, I did this bit about motivation and discipline, but I never I never wrote about it. I never published it. So I wonder if obsessions are part of the motivation discipline may but without you're so right. If you're in admin mode Yeah. >> that stuff just it can't penetrate at all. Mike Israetel did this really wonderful episode about rest rest ethic stuff with me. Just [ __ ] sick line he says you can't white knuckle creativity. Like you can't [ __ ] grip it like this and be like Hey, be creative. >> Right. Right. Right. Most things, you know, if it's answering emails, you can kind of like white knuckle email answering. Of course. >> white knuckle like [ __ ] admin and and responding to texts and you know like sort of low-level executive function stuff. Organizing your schedule or whatever. Making phone calls. You can't do that with creativity cuz it kind of just like arrives. And you've got to be sat back. >> Yeah, and there's days where I try to force creativity doesn't hit. Whether I'm like tired and and I go well I got to just work out. Work out usually helps with creativity. And then I work out and I'm sitting I'm trying to write or I'm trying to come up with something and I'm just getting I'm drawing blanks and sometimes that's just the nature of the game. You can't create creativity, but you can try. And and you can maybe instead of saying well instead of figuring out a new TV show idea, how about I just take an old bit that I've been working on forever see if there's anything new. It's like you don't have to come up with your biggest idea then. You can still kind of like like okay I'm not feeling as creative. What's old joke I've been doing? How can I punch that up a little bit? Or how can I just listen to some stuff back to kind of like put you in that right zone, but you're really right. It's you can't white knuckle through it. And that's why I think also setting alone time for yourself me personally is when So many people have so many creative thoughts in the shower. Shower thoughts and toilet thoughts, dude. Shower, toilet, and uh also driving. Because you're just you're not staring at a screen. You're zoned out. So finding those moments where even if I'm feeling not creative, I just go let me just go to a mall. Let me just get out. Let me go get a Let me not make a coffee here. Let >> Can I can be around people at a mall? >> Yeah, let me go get Let me go get a coffee. Let me instead of making one. And it's not for the coffee. It's for the fact of like what's out there? Change of environment. >> Creativity is like fishing. You're like what what's out there? If I If I go to a farmer's market, am I going to get any Am I going to catch anything? And and you you might think you have something. You're like oh dude Look look look look at what what what's this guy wearing? He's got like a weird like quilt on his head. What's this? You know, and you're like you're trying to You're You're getting like sparks of creativity and you're and you're looking around and oh is this Are Are everyone wearing Birkenstocks? Oh is that a video idea? And you're and but you're just you're piecing it together. You can't just sit at home and be like what's funny? What's funny? I mean you can. You obviously can. But for me I got to I got to feel connected. I got to feel something. People will pitch me ideas all the time and I go like I see why that's funny, but like I don't have an emotional connection to it. >> Mhm. But then, you know, I get cut off by a Cybertruck. And Do you Do you have one? No. No, of course not. Chris You have the build of a guy who'd have a Cybertruck. What is that? Give me the Give me the archetype of the Cybertruck owner. You. Why? What's that mean? What is it? British? Austin, Texas. Well, the British thing I think is a front. How long >> accent. >> You You You moved here from Dayton, Ohio. Where How long in in What's your best American accent? Oh, there isn't one. Sorry. You can't get an American accent out of me. Can do lots of British accents, but >> You can do a British accent because it's an accent to you. Boom. Yeah, it is. USA. My Instagram bio is fake British accent. Perfect. >> Yeah. Uh the average Cybertruck owner is a guy with a Patagonia vest. He's like a tech guy who got kind of like not the respect he wanted. >> Okay. And a truck to him is too expensive to fill up the gas. And he goes like I want to be the badass at work, but like I also want to be like the tech guy. They want to brag to their friends. >> like the it's like the midlife crisis sports car dude, but for the like iPhone 17 generation. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. So there's a lot of compensation. So you're saying I'm compensating? Correct. >> Okay. >> No, I'm not saying you're compensating at all, but just you said you you you live in Austin, Texas. Sorry to dox you. What's your home address? But Austin, Texas is the hub of the So >> I could feel What do you drive? Uh Camaro. 6.2 L V8 Camaro. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah, compensating still just in a different direction. Different [ __ ] >> Beautiful car. Beautiful car. Yeah. Um I I don't think you drive a Cybertruck. But if you did, I would say uh Mhm. But I You got cut off by a Cybertruck. I It's like I have to feel an emotional connection to the creativity and I I need a why. I cut off by a Cybertruck. Pisses me off. Why? And then I catch up and I see the guy and I go well that's why. It's this guy who got this car and now he thinks he's some status guy. He thinks he's like elite. He thinks he's like futuristic. And it's like Then I Everything I make fun of isn't even about like Is that the genesis of the Cybertruck bit? Did you get cut off by a Cybertruck? Cuz you did a video about Cybertruck. >> Well, you know what it was is I was um I I was I was in a friend He had a Cybertruck, right? And I was in it and just like how he was like describing it. And he's like yeah yeah it's got air conditioning. I'm like yeah of course it is air conditioning. Yeah, it's got a reverse camera. Every A Kia Sorento has reverse. And how he was talking about it he's like it it's just so futuristic. And I just was like you're a different person after getting this car. >> Well, yeah, but like he just was a different person like I think he had a 3 Series before that. And then he gets this car and he's like this Now he's like a tech guy. And now he's like telling me about like the Dow Jones. I'm like what what do you know about any of this? So it's just like that persona. And then I I kind of start seeing them everywhere. And then I go dude there's a kind of a theme every time you see a Cybertruck, it's kind of in and around the same guy. Yeah. So that's when I get excited. And that's when the mental editing comes up and I go Okay. Cybertrucks are very popular. This has great SEO online. People know about Cybertrucks. I can make fun of this. What's the type of guy? I love making fun of a a thing or an like an object or like a car because now it the shareability is crazy. Cuz then everyone goes Oh, this is just like John. John, do you have a Cybertruck? Mark, do you have a Cybertruck? And it's like what's going to make people either share cuz it's funny or share because it's relatable to somebody they know. So for me, that's where my brain I like love that when I like am onto something and you go like cuz sometimes I'm spitballing and I go what about this car? No, what about this car? No. And then I then like the Cybertruck comes around like and I can picture the like character I'd play with the video and I go yes yes. And it's like it's like I just it just flows. When when a good idea connects you might have one box unchecked, but for the most part you're like and and he's going to dress like this and we can shoot it here and we can and it like it just it has this thing. >> Yeah, it has this like syncricity to it. Is that the right word? >> Synchronicity. Synchronicity. Sorry, I need to finish this drink. But it it like it you feel it come together. And there's jokes that I have that come to me so easy that I go like this has to be somebody else's joke cuz this came to me so [laughter] easy. But it's a but it's an experience that happened to me. So I know it's not somebody else's. But it comes you so easy you're like This Is this like this is just a blessing from the creative gods? Yeah, I mean again, I have the most uh [ __ ] Playmobil my first live show sort of equivalent of this. But uh I know that in [snorts] order to make the live show that I'm doing at the moment, the self-discovery show energized there needs to be funny bits not just at the start, which was to kind of like release tension for everyone. >> Yeah. Um because when I went in and the first version of the show that I did two years ago, there was no laugh or I I it was kind of like straight off the bat, straight into ideas. And people were 10 minutes in and there was tension in the room cuz they were like, "When am I supposed to laugh? Do I clap? Like, do I What What's like What Yeah, what do I do here? Like, what am I supposed to do?" So, I'm like, "Okay, if we just [ __ ] work the tension out in the room." Anyway, there's a bit I'm using Lizzo as an example for um people whose uh opinions and deeds are far apart. Uh like, online people can say that they're real charitable, caring, phil- philanthropic, you know, empathetic, whilst not actually having to do it because you're able to say a thing whilst doing something else. The distance between opinions and deeds has never been greater. Like, Lizzo and this was when I was in Australia, I was just talking about the fact that she was um you know, helping these bigger girls uh by pushing their careers and giving them a platform. And as I said that, I was like, struck presumably a structurally reinforced platform. And that's like one of the biggest out of nowhere bits of the night >> Mhm. because people don't see it coming cuz I didn't see it coming. Right. >> like, I just say the thing that I said because it came to my mind while I was in [ __ ] Melbourne or or [ __ ] Brisbane or whenever I was a year ago. And that's still a part of the set now moving forward. So, I'm like, "Oh, [ __ ] Like, that's really cool." So, the fact that you feel like, "Oh, this was just given to me." Like, where the [ __ ] did that come from? Dude, when I riff, I don't even like that's the funniest [ __ ] comes to me riffing on stage and I have no idea where it came from or in filming videos. Um uh this guy Churley is who I've made so many videos with throughout the years doing a lot of sketches. Like, there's just certain people that bring the riff out of you and there's certain crowds that bring the riff out of you. And when him and I would film videos together, it's like we would go in there with like a a premise of like, "Okay, we should make a video where you know, here's the end goal and then how we get there is different." It's like I kind of like Reno 911 and like Seinfeld and a lot of those shows or like um how Larry David likes to shoot. It's like, "Just get to the end goal of you're mad at her because she did this." And then you just when you're around the right crowds of the right people, they just bring and you don't even know where they're coming from. People be like, "How did you think of that?" I'm like, "I don't know." >> When I watch you and you especially, uh Jimmy Carr as well, and uh Matt Rife, when I watch you guys riff on stage, it is like, "How the living [ __ ] does that come spontaneously?" Who's that Who's that really famous freestyle rap guy? Harry Mack. Harry Mack. >> It's like watching Harry Mack. Yeah. Yeah. This is the most high-wire act cuz if you don't say something funny after you've just popped some guy in the front row and you're like, "Oh, what's going on, man?" "Oh, okay." And the "Oh, okay." That's the like Yeah. >> start the pistols got fired and they're like, "I'm going to [ __ ] with you now." And if you don't do it, he kind of wins. Right. >> And you kind of look like a fool or a bully or someone that's not cool and you're like, "Oh, [ __ ] Now I've got to win the crowd back." >> Yeah. So, the doing that under pressure, under tension, um is just super [ __ ] impressive. It's really really really impressive. Like, we did the first show I told you first show in the um in New York, we had some problems getting people in. They were doing like extra bag checks at the start. So, you have one of those crowds? No. >> Yeah, no. [laughter] It's just I don't know. It Something was going on and [ __ ] Alex is running around trying to fix [ __ ] And um my uh warm-up that I brought with me plays music for 30 minutes, [ __ ] unbelievable like country, blues stuff. He dialed the set in like perfectly and he knows it from start to finish without looking at a clock for like 29 minutes 30 seconds, like done. And he's off and then I'm up. And he just gets like a little message from on his stage wedge just going, "Hey, man. We just need you to extend by 15 minutes." He's like, it's the first show of tour. It's the it's the biggest show that we're doing. It's the town hall on a Thursday in the middle of Manhattan. It's sold out. Everyone's looking at me. He's like, "Yeah. Yeah. We need you to extend by 15 minutes." He's like, and he just did. Like, just pulled out like [ __ ] unreal songs out of nowhere that he hadn't written, he hadn't prepped. Like, not knowing the tuning of his guitar, not knowing this I was It was so cool. Well, I love being put on the spot. I think that's why crowd work sometimes I'll like And listen, they're so And the parts that I don't say to them back are funny, those get edited out. Yeah. Yeah, I post a minute 30 clip. It was a 3-minute interaction, whatever it is. But those parts that I like when you're being put on pressure, that's when like your body is in like fight or flight and it takes all of its creative juices and all of its years of training comedically to be like just what you know, and you're not thinking about anything else. You're not thinking about a doctor's appointment you got to go to. You're not thinking about what time your flight is. You're just You're so present. And when you're present, that's when you're just I I just love that feeling when when everything creatively just leads to that moment because you're just responding, but you're just present. Without thinking, really. Well, yeah. I mean, it's like I remember I did improv classes when I first moved to LA. Hey now. And they like anytime I would like think of a joke to say, it would always bomb cuz it like like you I would just respond. Think with Yeah, those are always the funniest. But like, if you had like a joke loaded up, time goes by and maybe the joke is funny 10 seconds ago, but you but then it's not talking yet or or you you said something funny and I go, "Oh, I got something to say." But you keep talking. It's like the funniest thing is to respond what they finish with, not what they interjected with. What what what like middle through. So, I think to the effect of crowd work, it's like you're just you're you're present. I'm I mean, like it it's also like I'm I've been doing I'm on I'd say I'm on stage for like 30 minutes. I'm like, I'm fired up. I'm here I'm warmed up. I'm I'm fully in. I'm you know, I'm I'm dialed in. If crowd work happens right out in the beginning of the show, it takes me a second to be like, "Wait, what? Hold up." Because there's no like so, there's no stakes established yet in the show yet. Sometimes there is, but like sometimes I'm like, it's like sometimes I'm like, "Let me just Let me get comfortable in this room first." Someone might yell something crazy in the beginning. I'll be like, "What did you say? Okay." Kind of dab with it. Start cooking with the crowd, going off my like guide material. And then 20 minutes later I'm like, "Hold on. You said you had a boa constrictor as your first blowjob?" And then I'll bring it back, you know, cuz I'm like, "Let me warm up real quick. You can't just start yelling this shit." It's like cuz I want to feel It's like working out. I don't want to just go and hit my PR right off the bat. It's like Let me kind of like Let me do some some lunges real quick. >> A good term for that is called cold barring. Mhm. So, you go into the gym and the bar is still cold and you try and cold bar your one rep max. It's like you can't cold bar great crowd work. Like, Yeah. get into it a little bit. But I think to go back to what you said at the very beginning, which is we love people that love something, like somebody that's got a passion. And I think part of the reason is that person probably gets into a flow state at some point. They're writing music and they're just like obsessing. And maybe they're not even right. Maybe they're just editing the song and they're trying to find like, "What's the perfect [ __ ] kick drum? Like, I need to like I need to lose a little bit of this low end here." Or it's someone that's drawing and time just stops. Mhm. And they're just It's them and whatever it is that they're trying to create or someone writing a comedy bit or they're doing this on stage or you know, playing [ __ ] pickleball, whatever it is. Like, this is why hobbies are cool and compelling. And the fact that increasingly people don't have pursuits that make them feel like that. I think it's like a real You can lay it at the feet of [ __ ] jobs and and cost of living and and the [ __ ] dopamine and the the world's news and all the rest of it. That's true. But if you don't have at least like one thing, and I guess that could even be probably like playing with your kids, being like, "Fuck. Like, I'm just so like in the zone with my kids. I'm having such a good time and time's completely stopped here." But if you don't have anything, I think it's going to be really tough to feel like I live a meaningful life if you're kind of just moving from neurotic, obsessive, echo [ __ ] self-reinforcing thought loop thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing. It's like, but what point are you just there and you're kind of out of your own head and just doing the thing? So, what do you tell people that feel like they're working a dead-end job and they're like, "I don't know if I have any hobbies and I just I I don't have any time to work-life balance." It's rough, man. I mean, there's material constraints Mhm. to what people can do. And and it this is always the issue with trying to talk about this sort of stuff online that the "Well, easy for you to" That is the sort of immediate response. And in some ways like rightly so cuz if you are a person who doesn't have the opportunity to be You've got to work two jobs and raise a kid and [ __ ] can do the rest of it. Trying to get some sort of a qualification. Like, that sucks. But your goal presumably is not to do that forever. Your goal is to be able to do that to reach escape velocity so that you can have this opportunity. And this is why I think people that criticize or people that have an issue with anyone talking about how to manage money or or um you know, move up the property ladder or whatever it might be. They're like, "Well, this is like completely out of touch." And he goes, "Well, it's only out of touch with the stage that you're at now because presumably your goal from the stage you're at now is to get to the stage where this sort of conversation is of use to you." So, I'm kind of skeptical. It makes me sad when I see cynicism or or criticism on the internet of people talking about how to go from 50 to 60 as opposed to always just going from naught to one or naught to 10. Like, not everybody's at the beginning of their journey. And if you want to learn about, "Okay, what do you do when you actually get a little bit of momentum under your wings?" Like, this is a very different problem being at the start of your journey and being like, "It's all upside. I can't fail." As opposed to going, "Hmm, what's it going to be like the first time that you eat [ __ ] or get a demotion or you don't hit your target in your sales job or you release a blog post that eats [ __ ] compared to the last one." Whatever it might be. Oh, well, actually that is a really challenging hurdle to try and overcome. It just feels a little bit less sort of like underdog philanthropy, like we're raising up the [ __ ] like the people that are struggling. Because as you get further and further up any sort of a journey, there's fewer and fewer people like it. All right, because by definition, people that get to 50 or 70 or 90 are in the smaller percentage than the people that are at the very the very beginning. Which I To me, that would be pretty interesting, too, because it's saying, "Hey, I know that you might be at this stage, but watch out cuz this thing's coming." Right? You haven't had a video take off, or you haven't had a blog post take off, or you you haven't managed to change careers to the one that you want to. But when you do, you're going to encounter this thing, and this thing is going to be hard in a really different way. So, you're going to feel like, "Ooh, what if I dropped off? What if my self-worth has changed now? What if I can't be as creative as I used to be in the past?" Those things are They're useful to see. But uh the the only solution that I think that makes any sense is like even even if you only had 20 minutes or 30 minutes today, what is something that if you knew it was on your calendar for the day, it would make getting out of bed way easier? >> That would excite you, yeah. You're like, "Fuck, like I can't wait." So, for instance, today, I had a good night's sleep last night, even though I've been flying a lot again, as you know, like tours are not exactly great on the like sleep patterns stuff. Yeah. Um and I woke up this morning and I was like, "Fucking Trevor and Huberman back-to-back." And all my friends are like, >> Two Yeah, two sigmas. This is [ __ ] sick. Like this is a good day. I'm like, "Okay, I I can deal with the admin, I can deal with the emails, I can deal with the bullshit." Episode on Tucker Carlson just went out like as we're doing this episode, I assume that I'm canceled by like by now. Um But I'm just like I'm fired up to do this thing. And if you can find half an hour of your day where you're like, or pickleball is a kind of an example cuz people get obsessed with it. You're like, if you [ __ ] love that and you know that Monday is going to be pickleball day, and you get up on a morning and you're working the kiosk in a uh [ __ ] what was it? Costco. >> You're like, "Oh god, but tonight I get to go to like Monday Monday pickleball like is the and maybe I see that hot girl again that I've been talking to, or maybe I get to get better at my >> That feeling. >> [laughter] >> Dude, I had a Spanish class with this girl, and her name was Bailey, and I got I would get so excited on Monday just in hopes that she'd ask me about my weekend. Oh [sighs] god. She has like three kids now, but the somebody beat me to it. Probably multiple people. She has three baby daddies. >> If she's Mexican, that fertility explains a lot. No, she was uh uh a white girl, but um kind of went the stolen valor route. She'd kind of pencil on her eyebrows, and she thought she was Latina. >> [laughter] >> But honestly, dude, I mean, she had a she had an ass, so yeah, I you could yeah. She could lop as let's Yeah. Yeah, she she could yeah. Yeah, she she yeah, she could pass, but she she was oh man. But but that that feeling of like, "Oh, she I'll see her Monday morning in in Spanish class." Maybe that's why it felt like she might be a little Latina Spanish class, but to your point, I would get excited at my day job for lunch because everybody in the office would go out to lunch, and I would say, "Oh, cool, I can now go to the break room and edit my videos freely." So, I would get excited for people to leave. I would get like find and it was a 20 to 30-minute window where I could like oh, if I edit now, then I can go to the open mic later, and I start like I've always been like a a Google calendar guy in my head where I'm just it's all blocks. I go, "Okay, if well, if I do 20 minutes now, then I have that free." And I but like I would obsess over like, "When can I when can I film this week? When can I edit this week?" I would sneak away and and shoot a a video upstairs in my old day job. And then I would be like, in my lunch break, I would turn my laptop against a wall so nobody else in the break room could see it, and it would look like I'm working. Nobody ever in that office ever saw me work as hard as I did when I was editing because I had like a 20-minute constraint. Same to the pressure thing. It's like if I have a whole week to get a video done, I'm going to dilly-dally around the whole week, and I'll probably finish it Sunday night at midnight with when with there's like a deadline. I was the same way with papers in college. I didn't give a [ __ ] until [snorts] there was a deadline. So, also give yourself a deadline for goals of saying like, "Okay, yeah, you work from 5:00 p.m. to midnight." And you go, "Okay, well, I have up until 4:00 p.m. to get this done cuz I got to do the closing shift tonight." Like that that deadline mentality, that really I gave myself a small goal of one video a week, and I like would obsess over that. And I and I I just I loved it. I would find time to to to make that. In other news, I've been drinking AG1 every morning for years now. Dude, do you tried to fastball me that that was down the plate, and I've just Shohei Ohtani'd it. I've been drinking AG1 for as long as I can remember. It is the best all-in-one drink that I've ever found, and that's why I'm such a fan of them, and that's why I partnered with them as well. I have got my mom to start taking it, my dad's start taking it, and all of my friends as well. And if I found anything better, I would switch, but I haven't. Why do you keep throwing it at the mic? Stop throwing at the mic. See? Anyway, uh over 75 vitamins, minerals, and whole food source ingredients. Got probiotics and prebiotics. It's also NSF certified, meaning that even Olympians can use it, and in the throat. In the throat. How dare you? I hit the I >> [laughter] >> I hit the Oh, you [ __ ] Ah. This isn't even an ad read anymore. It's just a [ __ ] war zone. Oh, okay. Okay. Anyway, if you too want something to throw at your friends or a tasty blend of 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food source ingredients designed to drink first thing in the morning in one scoop, it's here. Go to drinkag1.com/modernwisdom. For stuff. Thank you. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that clip, the full episode in all of its glory waiting for you. Right here. Go on. Press it.