What Is Wrong With Modern Women? - Whitney Cummings

can I just really quick you feel free to cut this I love watching you work I love showing up to meet somebody that I am a fan of already and I've seen their astronomical rise to success and then I see why they deserve it why just watching you operate for the past like 5 10 minutes has been fascinating how so you just care so much about what you're doing and you're meticulous but not in a way that's micromanaging and annoying and the attention to detail is like very intense but not in a way that's too far you know right amount of autism it's the perfect amount of Asbergers I don't know what word we're supposed to be using right now but it's not lateral moves it's actually improving things CU sometimes you'll just watch people make arbitrary lateral changes for no reason just to like throw their dick around or boss someone around or something it's been like really very endearing to watch thank you I appreciate that it's really nice to meet you you too uh Travis Kelce we just saw on the TV outside we did fizer advert but I guess if you're hanging out the back of Taylor Swift what do you care you know what I mean I yeah well okay so we just saw what what happened to you when you saw that it's just kind of it's so strange to see someone that has so much status and kind of embodies a lot of like rebellious nature which I think you know football players QBs that like Alpha masculine thing fisa I mean fisa's brand Equity it's like it's it's hardly cool what's the price what's the price that makes it worth it what's the price to someone like Travis Kelce that makes it worth it for guys like you to go oh come on you got domed by a Pharma company one Taylor Swift [ __ ] so here's the [ __ ] do you think dating her is what influenced him to do it get think being attracted to girls that skinny is a vaccine injury you were saying before we got started that there's been a a big push body positivity we need diversity Barbie movie comes out and Taylor Swift makes a billion dollars on tour it's like it's just [ __ ] Germany girls are back dream um no I so here's a real [ __ ] conspiracy right the real conspiracy is Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift's relationship was orchestrated by big farmer because they started dating at the same time that he did that fisa campaign so search volume for Travis Kel's name went through the roof and when you search for his name the vaccine stuff and the fiser partnership comes up too so my question about that it's like my same thing about aliens and stuff is like I just think people are so weak and so desperate to like talk to a girl at a bar or get attention or the wrong person involved in that Scandal took Edibles don't you think someone would have gotten fired and told people about it oh right it's like with aliens it's like someone would have snitched someone one some guy would have gotten drunk at a bar and been like hey like you don't want to go home with me you want to see a picture of a [ __ ] alien you know what I'm saying like don't you think it would have gotten out yeah I mean coordination is difficult and there's definitely Two Worlds that people are able to hold in their mind at once which is the government is both so incompetent that they can't organize a piss up in a brewery and so competent that they're able to orchestrate this sort of DMV and I'm like if they were aliens we would have known okay like we would absolutely know by now well maybe the beginning and end of their capability is orchestrating a Travis Kelsey Taylor Swift relationship I don't know it's weird I also think though you know who who's she going to date that's the thing who's she going to date he it seems like guys will date down all day you know but girl who's she going to date who's the Jay-Z to her Beyonce yeah Ruff one I uh do you know meat Canyon he does illustration videos on the internet really really great guy and he I thought you were talking about my my child birth thing come on come on I'm sorry I'm sorry 2 and a half minutes in and talking about your meat Canyon anyway he's got a channel called Papa meat and on it he reacted to Swifty Tik toks and it was girls um crying breaking down crying because they The Ticket Master website had shut down after they've been waiting for six hours okay great um there was this one where it broke down the finances I think Taylor Swift's already beaten Michael Jackson for the most revenue generated from a tour ever it's I think at the moment okay 3/4 of a billion dollars this tour is lasting for nearly two years it's monstrous okay well she's done a genius thing she's got kids and I I'm kids her fans her fans sorry she's not a mother but she appeals to children in a way that I think so many and I'm sure we'll wait into this territory in some capacity where so many female pop stars it's all about being hypersexualized hypersexualized and like you know I'm having a a boy when I you know have a kid but it's like there's certain you're like I can't let my kid watch I can't let my kid listen to this she's done this genius thing where not only that have you seen her dancing I actually when I get into the conspiracy theories you know I think she's very mindful about not being too overtly sexual dials that back the way that if you look at how she dances she's like bad at dancing it's not sexy it's like awkward she looks like one of those Balloon Man outside of a car dealership waving inflatable I'm flailing CH she kind of just is like sort of awkward and weird there's never any sexuality about it there's never any singing about sex it's always just like getting your heartbroken and these kind of relatively like teenage feelings and I think she's done a really like genius job of that well I think in a world of Sam Smith wearing nipple tassels and dressing as the devil the the original cult culture is the counterculture right like if you want to predict the future what you should do is look at a movement that's happening now that hasn't had the inverse happen yet because every culture requires the equal and opposite thing right it's like the thermodynamics of [ __ ] culture so um 2020 everyone's shut down no one can go outside 2021 Megan D stallion does hot girl summer which is last year you weren't able to be your free self this year get with your girlfriends and do your hair and do your makeup wet ass [ __ ] was around that time too maybe they could have come together and then the year after that they did feral girl summer so you had hot girl summer and then and feral girl summer was uh you know don't shave don't brush your hair wear slouchy sweatpants don't bother with boys yeah for every culture that has to be counterculture and if you've got Sam Smith doing his thing you know Taylor Swift looks like a [ __ ] conservative icon she does comparatively and then I think that's part of the reason I mean country music is also so big because country music for the most part is it's kind of like older women they're wearing like boots and pants you know or and then you have Katy Perry with like cupcakes on her tits you know it's kind of like um I think country music in general parents feel safer letting their kids listen to it and going to shows it's a little more innocent yeah but what's the worst thing that's going to happen you're going to be an alcoholic and and get a car wreck in a truck and yeah and yeah and a man might wear a square toe boot which is a big problem for me that's a large yeah I mean I see that a lot in in Austin Texas yeah but yeah the um this meat counting video Papa on his second Channel Papa meat he's reacting to all of these things and she I didn't know but she released a movie in cinemas oh yeah yeah yeah girls are losing their [ __ ] minds with these um bracelets no like a a baton like an LED thing waving it around and then the credits were rolling and girls were holding hands dancing in a circle underneath the [ __ ] screen it is they're losing their mind I I mean I didn't know she's are Star Wars they have little lightsabers that's true this is Star Wars for girls but she also is very it's these very easy to understand like girl boss anthems you know what I mean and something she did do that cuz I I've you don't know that much about her like music per se I've worked with a much people that are obsessed with her she does write all of her own stuff which is very cool she's not one of these like industry plants where she's got 15 writers and you go you know she really does write it herself um and seems like she plays all the music herself and she the way that she engages her fans she makes them feel really special I feel like this is something we can learn from you do an amazing job at engaging your fans but like she leaves little little Easter eggs for them and she like really thinks her albums out in a way and leaves these like puzzle pieces for them and these codes and and sends gifts to fans if they've come to a certain amount of shows like she's really like done this marketing thing that I think a lot of us would think is kind of like corny and I would I'd be embarrassed like I'd be like oh if you like me you like me if you don't you don't I'm not gonna send I'm not going to do a mailing list it's like oh she did like what Tim Ferris did she like built up a mailing list and engaged with her fans and like and was okay with going I want this really badly like she was okay with being like I want to be really famous and successful it wasn't like if you like me you like me if you don't you don't you know is a way to control if I get rejected at least it wasn't you know it myidea but she did this one thing where she got called a snake because she um I don't know what it was there was like all these snake emojis either if someone cheated on someone and some kind of like you know Taylor swiv gossip and someone asked her in an interview they said so what do you feel about the fact that so many people online call you a snake and she went well snakes eat rats and I was like that's pretty gangster like I see why girls like look up to her every time people come for her she manages to sublimate it into something else I think Elon Musk did something similar where he got popped for getting one of his staff at SpaceX or Tesla pregnant and he just reacted to the Tweet by saying the the world's birth rates are declining I need to do my bit like the [ __ ] Brazilian jiu-jitsu lexical [ __ ] trickery that you've just done there she stunts on every time they come for her she stunts on him somehow and I think so much of our job as forward facing people now is figuring out how to handle haters or like how to respond or you can't not respond at all you know but you can't care too much but she just kind of owns it and then she'll put it into her songs I think wit is such an underrated skill just being able to be witty with with stuff and you can be charming and not give it too much undue attention interesting that look at this the [ __ ] Taylor Swift podcast one like definitely an interesting lesson there about the fact that she was prepared to do things that other artists of even a smaller size would feel might be beneath them or might be like low status M it's what I think in the psychology literature would be called a counter signal so um if you look at CEOs now they'll happily wear Crocs or sneakers or whatever and a hoodie into the office but the guy who's a middle manager that's desperately climbing he'll have to wear a three-piece suit of course so it's almost like she can afford to do this because of her excess um we were talking outside you mentioned about uh like are you supposed to have a take on the Ukraine I think you were on Joe's show yesterday and it's like wow there's so many people listening like am I supposed to talk about something important do you feel that you know is there a an obligation if you get to a certain size of having to talk about important things and and stuff like that can you not just keep having fun all the way up I think for me it's like being a comedian I think it's really important to you know know our place you know I think for me it's like as long as the take is funny it doesn't matter you can talk about anything you know but to come in and be one of these like Hollywood people not that I see myself as someone who's in Hollywood I think a lot of people might see me that way I can't seriously this is who you should vote for or this is how you should think or this is what you should believe or this is or take the moral High ground but if the take has some sort of comedic value it's like there's nothing we can't talk about I like to stay away from politics for the most part unless I'm making fun of both sides simultaneously that's because I think people I think it's our job as Comedians and and uh podcasters is to surprise people there's just so much content out there right now and so many people are talking about politics and I think you got to go like what kind of person is seeking comedy they are maybe bored at their jobs they they want to take a girl on a date they have their kid at home crying they've been in a long marriage they just want to go to a club they want to go to a venue and hear something different from what they're seeing online all day and so it's my job to surprise them so if they show up and I'm going to start talking about Trump they're like I just had to hear my uncle yell about this for two hour like you just I just have to do whatever the opposite everybody else is doing to try to give them some kind of surprise yeah it's uh it's strange to think about how as people's platforms grow there there's this compulsion to have a take on on everything and unless you have a take no one else is saying there's really no need to speak about it yeah unless you're unbelievably educated in something but I I definitely as as platforms grow there's a there's almost a pressure to be like well [ __ ] I better talk about something interesting here well in talking about platforms growing it's like you can play the long short game the long game and for me like I mean you know knowing Rogan for so long and seeing that like his EP his first thousand episodes were just him and his friends just talking about [ __ ] talking about you know comedy and stuff it wasn't necessarily what was going on in the news and then that made for this library that was really easy to Syndicate you can go back and listen to episodes of his from 10 years ago still funny still entertaining I always like in terms of making the podcast I always wanted to go like I want to build this Library that's Evergreen and not too topical so if people discover my podcast now and they start from the beginning it's still going to be about you know main themes of human nature relationships making mistakes edification all the kind of stuff that you talk about too that's a little bit Evergreen and instead of someone tuning in and being like hearing about a candidate that they don't even remember that was didn't even make the second PR I always think about this so bench pero is a good example I listened to a lot of him during uh covid because if there's a rapidly changing news cycle and you've got [ __ ] all else to do someone that does one episode 5 days a week that is always telling you what's happened in the last 24 hours is pretty good place to go but I realized looking back on that no one's going back to hear what happened on April 20th 2020 because it was so you get this huge lift off in terms of interest but it doesn't necessarily carry through which I think is yeah is an interesting way to kind of look at things if people go like oh my God I just discovered you know modern wisdom he just had Jordan Peterson on oh my God he had Jordan Peterson on two years ago let me listen to that they they're going to cover different stuff like oh my and I just learned so much he had Robert Green on you know so for me I I really you know I come from making TV and sitcoms and when you try to make sitcoms that get syndicated the idea is that they live forever you know so if you have jokes that are too topical you know they're going to expire and it's going to feel dated so I always kind of thought like okay what's my place in this podcast space because there's a lot of really really smart people doing this there are a lot of people way more qualified than me talking about politics that's not you know something I necessarily am qualified to weigh in on I can make jokes about it but why don't I do these like Evergreen shows that people can on road trips just go back two years and it's still going to be relevant have you been happy to see the Jada pinket Smith meltdown because the bar for being a good mother has now being set lower than ever I love that she's like Will Smith and I have not been married for seven years and I am Jada pet Smith Smith it's like then why aren you Jada picket all of a sudden why is your book say Smith on the end um that whole thing is wild to me and I've been actually thinking about this podcast because I've been a little bit nervous about coming on it and how I can be like useful in some way to your listeners and because they all seem to be very high performing striving people and you know I do have this theory that you know and it's probably something you've explored before is that like who you marry or date is a business decision you know not in terms of we're going into business together but in terms of the amount of bandwidth you have you know the amount of energy you have is this person energizing you is it depleting you it's going to decide how focused you can be in your personal life like one of my favorite quotes is the flow Bear quote um be uh what is it be organized and orderly in your no be regular and orderly in your personal life so you can be original and violent in your work you know so have like not doesn't have to be boring not boring sex you have to be bor of your partner but it the most stressful part of your day should be work right so I think that often times the person you choose is a business decision but I look at them and I'm like they just wanted to build a business you know I think that was always kind of a business arrangement in my opinion I watched the first ever time that I've seen the rock on a podcast and he was on Trevor no's podcast which is partnered with Spotify and I didn't know this but The Rock has broken up with his wife but is still business partners with her so they have a daughter together okay and The Rock and his ex-wife and now separated but still business partners and still have the daughter for his business like his zoa maybe or the [ __ ] tequila or what the Ruma whatever it is he just I don't know what but at least one of them he's still business partners with his with his wife there's a lot of these things where it's like you make that kind of money together and then it's like we're better together as a business I mean think about what would it would be like I'm having to like break up a corporation basically you know a divorce is easier than a a separation of the business totally but yeah I it's not for me I'm one of those idiots that still wants to have like amazing sex with someone and like really feel like I'm best friends with my person and I'm going to like hold out for that cut to me in 10 years when I'm married to Bill Gates or some crazy Craven [ __ ] Y and I'm like I'm like we own half of the McDonald's potatoes and the GMOs or whatever but I I I guess that's for some people but you know I don't know I really that to me seems really Sinister and Craven I mean you know look I'm a comic I'm happy to way I didn't say what happened to the Oscars when you know Will Smith smacked Chris Rock in the face you know that was and no one stood up by the way no nobody even stood up like that's you know as a comedian people you know are like God you guys can get away with anything until you get punched in the face in front of you know a room of thousand people people that don't even stand up to help you but the fact that he looked back at her did that in the name of his wife I'm like I don't know what videos she has on him I don't know what photo I don't know what the [ __ ] is going on in there what kind of who's Afraid of Virginia wolf [ __ ] is going on in that marriage but that's my nightmare yeah you know uh Ryan long and Danny from The Boys cast yes yeah in New York uh they I was texting him they did a really great episode a couple of weeks ago about this and I was texting Ryan and he was like dude I'm I'm unironically really [ __ ] worried about Will Smith like genuinely [ __ ] emotionally seen the video where she was filming him and he was like I need you to stop filming me and she's like yes that's a while ago now right yeah but the his fa I mean she's like he's in a bad mood and she's like this is my business this is what I I'm on camera for a living I'm not getting paid brok Broken Man scary but there are some men that I've seen this before where some men are like I just need this mom swife to like keep me together to keep me focused I don't know I think when you get famous at a very young age maybe you become infantilized or frozen or you cling to someone AET to then you also get to this place where it's like you know my wish for guys like you is that you get all the things you want and all the Big Brand deals and all the huge products and but don't get Target on your back famous because when you get that famous you're like well if I go like date a waitress is this going to be a lawsuit like is this a night am I going to get accused of harassment like when you get to a certain point as a man in terms of getting famous I think it's for women too it just looks a little bit different you go from pror to pray I saw a really interesting reel from uh Chris to Stephano I can't remember whose show he was on but he was talking about his dad had given him a piece of advice his dad sounds like an absolute Maniac Mafia dude yeah sounds like an absolute Maniac by the way and uh he was saying uh maybe maybe Chris had become single or maybe it was before he' had his kids I don't know and he was saying uh you're sleeping with all of these women and uh you're having all of this fun and you know for every hundred women 99 of them are going to be great but one that's going to [ __ ] ruin your life and I don't know what the proportion is but there's definitely you know from men's side in a post me too World there is a different tenor to what's going on there is this fear that's out there and I don't disagree that you know a lot of me too was necessary to kind of counter some very predatory men that were using their position and their power to gain sexual access in a way that wasn't ethical the problem is when that overreaches and goes from trying to uh sanitize the bad elements male behavior and instead it just sterilizes all of it and everyone's like [ __ ] terrified and working on tentor hooks and it seems like that you know that Chris story kind of alludes to that it's like there's there's a [ __ ] Minefield out there and you got to be careful while you well I do know in my business it's backfired majorly in terms of you know that less people were hiring women for a long time because they're like I don't want a woman in my office are you insane and then they people started putting glass offices in you know like glass walls like this would have been glass just so everyone sees what's going in here oh Jee I would go on movie sets and people would be like you know I was I did a the Foo Fighters movie and there was a sex scene in it and they were like but you don't have to you can you know wear your shirt if you want I'm like this is a sex scene you guys I'm like but whatever you need and I was like why are you I'm not going to sue you guys you're a day something mean I'm like I'm a female comedian on the list of [ __ ] that's happened to me this is like you know so I just I found myself being like Oh God everyone is like terrified because I mean yes there were a lot of and look yes I'm sure you could do forensics on the fact that why women are so desperate that they got to a point where they needed to sue someone because they were hugged too long at a Christmas party or what maybe that's a mental illness or maybe that's childhood trauma or whatever it is why do women feel the need to be grifters and to take advantage that's you know talk to a you know sociologist about that but you know it's been um it's been really interesting though one side effect I've really kind of uh found fascinating is that younger guys kind of want to date older girls you said that you've never been hit on more than what your fertility has been on front front for the people that are listening Whitney is heavily pregnant 3 weeks away from popping yes because if I said like Chris harass me they' be like no you [ __ ] you're obviously what's like what do you think it is what just a big billboard for your fertility what is I think there's I think there's a couple things I think and this is something we've texted about I don't know why comedians have to do this where we can't just go into something without going and we've texted about that like I don't want the audience to give the billb well it's in between all of the nudes that you keep on sending me finally got the that's supposed to be on the confide app um so I think that for me and I think a lot of women are struggling this right with this right now um or I don't know if they're struggling with it but I think that they're striving to struggle with it I'll get there I think I came off so tough and so hard for so long I think this kind of just softened me in a way that made men sort of you know I spent so much of my career like trying to be one of the guys or kind of try to come off like I wasn't a girl so that they wouldn't you know try to flirt with me at work or so that I would get respect or so that I could go on stage and command respect from the audience and not show any vulnerabilities and um I grew up with a mother who and you know many people women of that generation were who was like I mean there's no other way to say it she was a gold digger you know she had to date men for money and it drove me nuts like there were men in the house that were just that you have to wear this and you have to and I would have to go to dinners with her and like behave so that I wouldn't mess it up for her and you know it was kind of very high-stake situation her appearance was everything and you know back then that was your currency and I just remember going I'm never going to do this like this is it's disrespectful to myself it's disrespect I just wanted to be self-sufficient kind of before I started dating anybody because I never wanted to be thinking about the amount of money they were making or I never wanted them to have to take care of me it was just like too embarrassing you know and so I think that I work so hard to be independent and that's what I talked about in my standup and so I think that by the time I got pregnant people were kind of like oh like she does have vulnerability she does have a softness to her and I think a lot of women right now are afraid to show that side of ourselves you know and I think that there's a lot of strength in vulnerability and there's a lot of strength in showing a soft quote feminine side but right now everyone's trying to like come off so tough and I'm one of the guys that it's just sort of like I don't think you realize that that's actually weakening you in a lot of ways why do you think they're trying to do that what do you think they're trying to get out of it what do you think the reason there's a couple things I think for me I'll be a little bit specific like you know I I had a dad that wanted boys like you know that it was for a very young age I was just kind of you know treated like a boy it was all about how successful I could be in sports it was all about how good my grades could be my dad would wake me up in the middle of the night and quiz me on spelling work you know it was all about getting achievements um and there was an awkwardness about my femininity um and then you know played Sports was rewarded for being tough became a you know female comic sort of had to neuter myself in a lot of ways you know that's my specific thing but I think that you know women I think you know I think there's like there's a lot going on but I think that for me personally I wanted so badly to just succeed in my career without anyone thinking that I was sleeping around or flirting or using my looks to get ahead because the last thing that you would want would be oh she shagged her way to the top of the totem pole so just always wanted to be like kind of extra hard and sort of extra bulld diyey just kind of like I'm one of the guys so that no one would ever flirt with me so there would never be rumors around that I was like sleeping my way or getting anything that I didn't deserve yeah you know so I think I overcompensated a little bit um I think I was scared um of you know having any vulnerability so I pretended to be tougher than I was yeah um I think there was that I think you're kind of taught at a young age being a girl is a weakness it's not a strength that's what I was taught you know it was like you go on the playground and the boys they let go play and the girls they go be careful you're going to hurt yourself you're going to rip your tights you know that's like pounded into us at a very early agees you're more delicate um you're weak and I always wanted to like no I'm not I wanted to help my dad you know I want to get on the ladder and help him fix the roof and it was like no you don't get to do that your brother gets to do that you know so I think for me I felt like I had so much to prove um you know and and then I think that you know just fear and insecurity you know and I think that a lot of times when you know you I was very ambitious and I'm very open about that and I think I thought I had to sort of just come off really tough so that people took me seriously are you seeing a new potential advantage of embodying the vulnerable the feminine is this the new competitive advantage that you think you could get I think so I really think it is you know I think that again this is probably easy for me to say because I have accomplished a lot of my goals you know I there's a strong argument to say that what I did worked you know that I could go in a room full of a bunch of Executives and there's three men there and two women there and whatever energy I came in it didn't threaten the women cuz I wasn't like using flirting or I wasn't you know using feminine advantages or whatever that would look like like I always wanted to make sure women liked me especially in audiences you know and and curating that audience um so it maybe it worked there's an argument you know to say that it did and now is the perfect time to kind of be soft and show that side of myself but I think that I did have to you know acrew a certain amount of success in order to get myself permission to be able to be feminine and be soft talk to me about that transition because I don't know I think if I was to make a prediction of the next 10 years I think that we're going to see uh maybe I would put a little bet down that we're going to see a flip and that male body dysmorphia is already on track to overtake female body dysmorphia within about 10 to 15 years fascinating but I think that the crisis from an identity perspective is going to be on women not on men I think we have a crisis of masculinity at the moment but I think burbling below the surface is going to be a crisis of femininity I think that I would like to think that the guys are going to be okay I can't do as much for the girls so I'm unable to put my finger on the pulse but I would say that uh men are maybe going to be much more concerned about appearance and girls are going to be much more concerned about identity but talk to me about that transition of going from being hard Brash to now having to kind of you soften up and and allow that because I also like I you know I grew up in a home that was very rough I mean you're English I mean maybe you know isn't it kind of that's how it's taking in our blood yeah right likey and sarcasm and roasting each other there was a lot of passive aggressive [ __ ] there's a lot of alcoholism there was a lot of you know really deep-seated shame and biting [ __ ] so you know by the time I got out in the world that's also just kind of like how I thought I had to you know talk to people I thought that was normal um and being around male Comics all the time you know uh rough roughs you up a little bit as well so I had hard time turning it off like in relationships and such um but I'm sorry I what what is the question oh how it's your transition yeah how did you find you've got you've had to go from being that person who is playing the masculine role in some ways like the masculine feminine role which is in like even over tuning your masculinity and now you're like okay and now I've got to like care about this got three weeks to be to become a a [ __ ] mother you know it's interesting because it's like my brain gets like a little bit scrambled around this because you know in of masculine qualities and feminine qualities it's like it's it's I conflate them sometimes because I'm like a lot of the qualities that I have used thus far that I think seem masculine have been like I've been nurturing I've just nurtured my career you know what I mean it's like I treated my career that you know like a child or how I should treat a husband or something and now I'm kind of you know I would I would nurture other Comics I would nurture the writers that I worked with you know I was like I've always kind of had that but I never really turned it towards myself or towards a relationship so now I'm kind of going I think the main switch for me is that now that I have achieved my goals I can turn that energy onto a child and a relationship I was very clear in my 20s that I was not ready to attract the man that I wanted that if he came along he would not be he would not be down you know so I was very much in my 20s I was like I need to become the person that I would want the guy that I want to be with that they would actually be interested in I think that's a pretty noble way to look at developing yourself generally I got a David Perell uh who is still I think he's been with his M for girlfriend uh for two years or so and he's [ __ ] boted with it like absolutely in love with her and uh I went for lunch with him when I first moved to Austin about 18 months ago and we sit down and he's super successful and he's got this big online business and he does Lads of stuff and he's helping people's lives to be better becoming better writers online yeah and uh he said uh not I realized spent most of my 30s making myself into the dad that my future kids want it's like wow that's [ __ ] cool I love that like even though he didn't have the relationship he didn't have the kids now I mean love and that honeymoon period of a relationship will do all manner of crazy things to someone's mindset so who knows that he's not just in like a oxytocin fever dream um but yeah he said that and I was like that's really lovely and kind of doing the same thing of turning yourself slowly over time into the person that the partner you want to be with in future would be attracted to seems like a cool thing and it's like the idea that you know I want to have my [ __ ] together I didn't want to be some mess that he had to clean up even though a lot of you guys love a mess and I get a little frustrated sometimes because there's times where you know the me guys that I'm talking to and they're like and then my last girlfriend this and I have to get her and she I'm still paying for a therapy and then I'm still and I'm like I might not be crazy enough like if you need to clean up a mess like I'm not your person I tried so hard to have my [ __ ] together so the time a man came along I didn't seem like a hassle or like it didn't feel like I was their daughter or some weird [ __ ] um and uh you know but I I do think that like you know I had a situation where both my parents were sick um they both had Strokes very young so my entire like late 20s and 30s they were in beds and I was like you know what parenting doesn't start when you have a kid like you should start parenting your kids when you're in your 20s start taking care of yourself so your kids don't have to take care of you when they're in their 20s so I started thinking like that at a very young age and I started going like being a wife doesn't start when you meet your guy like let me start that now let me not have a bunch of like weird exes around let me not have a bunch of like let me just start taking care of myself and not having a bunch of messes that they have to clean up and a bunch of weirdo guys that are going to be you know I always like thought that way very early on there's something I had this conversation with uh the director of relationship science at hinge and uh she wrote a book really interesting lady wow and um she was saying maybe related to that you know people find and you do this with friends too you meet someone you're like oh my God we've got such a connection there's such a spark here but what you don't realize is that person Sparky with everybody it's just called like really really overtuned charm or Charisma yeah which is usually a red flag It's A coping mechanism it could be [ __ ] anything but it's not you that's special necessarily that's not to say that sparks don't exist some people do come together but a lot of the times okay is this person like this with me because of me or do they do it to the Barista that serves them the coffee and the parking attendant that helps them with their ticket like are they just you know causing this all over the place yeah that's a really interesting one I mean that brings up something that really bothers me when I see online or like hear girls be like he love bombed me and then I didn't hear from it's like or he just liked you and you got whack and then he stopped you know or you know or is it this pathological thing of what you're talking about where someone comes in and tries to like razzled Dazzle people and thing definit there's definitely something alluring about alness again just you know doesn't need to be about relationships and friendships there is something where you're someone that's too Keen with any like you call them a Kino it's like dude come on stop texting stop stop calling stop doing whatever um but if it's the right person is it cringy I don't know what causes two people to become intertwined romantically or you know socially or whatever a lot of different ways that can happen but there's definitely a a way that you can make yourself more or less aluring by you know not just being present all the [ __ ] time right uh if there's someone coming along this is definitely something I've realized since how would you say like socially batting above my average over the last few years and constantly being in rooms with people I'm like Jesus [ __ ] Christ like hold it together hold it together um as that's happened the best thing that I've learned is just to like leave the room or say goodbye or say fewer things than you think that you need to interesting um and I've definitely noticed that with myself as like people's behavior has changed at least a little bit over the last couple of years to me as they now start to see whatever the [ __ ] they think they see which is to me just still like this weird guy from Britain uh but their behavior changed and I also noticed that when someone's like you know they use brevity and their brief and the hey man just want to say whatever whatever and then they're off you're like yeah that guy's nice supposed to that it's a little bit oh I wish I this podcast existed when I was in my 20s cuz I was the cringiest and uh you're making me think of some of the most successful people allow others to project onto them so what you mean just say as little as possible and let people just project on someone start with the fact that someone already likes you right and then it's all downhill from there the more you try to over talk or over apologize or control them you know look look at your motives of what you're saying and why you're saying it hey how are you good to see you if that's just all it is hey are you okay do you need anything then it just turns into being uous then it just turns into you're trying to make them like you and people feel it like people feel that energy that desperate predatory energy and like Paris Hilton fascin me because she will say as little as possible publicly and she just allows us to project onto her she doesn't Beyonce never speak when you never hear her speak she's done a couple interviews she's done Oprah here and there she did a documentary but she says as little as possible Adam Sandler doesn't do interview I mean uh Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't do interviews and as someone that just talks for a living there's times like where I will try to you've already kind of said everything you need to say now you're just confusing people trying to control them micromanage them or just fill space because you're nervous yeah that's the space for people to kind of show you who they are or what they are no matter who it is right in the [ __ ] person on the street or the person that's ringing you definitely thinking about thinking about what happens when someone tries too hard to be not forthcoming but they're like pable in a way uh and I think this is fundamentally why simps uh simpy Behavior amongst men in particular is so it causes even in men and some women apart from the women that are benefiting from it it causes so much sort of aversion and discomfort because there's a sense that if this person is this pliable with this girl oh what is there to say that they're not just going to you know sneaky [ __ ] syndrome I think it's referred to in uh biology where the it's a slip streaming effect where like the Lesser male will try and do sneaky [ __ ] to try and like get access sexual access to uh females and yeah there's something about being super super pliable that makes someone feel unreliable like you want to know that your friend even if they're your best friend has limits yes because if they just continue to fold and it's like okay so where are you if I just keep digging and digging and digging do I hit anything solid or do I just come out the other side of you because you will continue to fold around me that's not what you want from a friend that's not what you'd want from a partner it's not what you'd want from a parent it's not what you'd want from a member of your community you would want someone who is courteous but firm right like here's my here's my boundaries and I'm going to care about you up until the point at which you get to something that appropriates like my limit there was this um I actually learned a lot about my own energy and like probably what I give off on like dates or this or that CU sometimes when I try to go like don't try too hard don't try too hard to that's the thing about trying to be soft or whatever like you know I can't I I can't like try to be like sometimes I'll come off like silly I'm like just just be who you are I I know I already have like an intense energy about me I I do actually if anyone um is looking for some kind of way to you know look in the mirror about your energy eoin therapy is a miracle and there's ways to do it where you don't have to own a horse you know hang on hang on hang on or just work with prey animals in general knew right you knew we were are you talking to horses you're not talking to horses basically being around horses are because they're prey animals and they're herd animals their only reward is Serenity any other emotion besides complete Serenity boils down to fear so if you're truly doing echoine therapy with a horse that's not been you know broken that doesn't have a bit on or a bridal where it's being forced to be near you it will choose to be near you only if you're emanating complete Serenity and being present in the moment so if you're next to a horse and you're like what I got to take a picture because I want it to that just boils down to fear to them so they're just like I feel fear is there a they walk away is there a mountain lion yeah they start to go like well I got to take it there's a problem right hang on so can you go to a ranch that will do therapy with horses is there such a thing as a therapy horse yes absolutely that's is this like a [ __ ] whatever it is emotional support animal what was this my friend my friend Daniel sloth Scottish comedian Daniel he's he's [ __ ] fantastic he's got a bit about all of the different weird animals that he's SE seen in emotional support peacock and he s he's got this bit about an emotional support hamster that this woman uses like a [ __ ] stress ball and then when she kills it she throws it away and takes another one out of her pocket and starts going so whenever I think about emotional support animals I do this um yeah so you can do equin therapy yes with trained horses and it's very simple like literally I mean you can even if you have if there's a ranch near you you can ask to volunteer and go just stand in a stable in a padic with a horse I now I know it sounds crazy see if the horse wants to be near you see if the horse wants to gravitate towards your energy if you're being in the present moment and you're not uous in any way you're not needy in any way you're not trying to get the horse's attention you're not trying to get the horse's love if you're just taking care of yourself they will move naturally towards you they don't need anything from you because they're prey animals they're grazers they can get grass at any time where dogs want to be near you because they're waiting for food that dogs aren't loyal like they're I love them but they have a vested interest in being near you right I'm like my dog loves me and then a stranger opens their car door and my dog jumps inside I'm like wait horses have no need and no allegiance to you right so this it's an amazing exercise that had really helped me work on my energy because I'd be like standing next to this horse standing next to me they're grazing everything's good then I'd be like okay well are they going to move soon because like I just what if what if they notice something different or what if they and then the horse starts moving away and then I start going oh moved away I'm such a piece of [ __ ] they move even further they just want to be as far from you as possible and then when I start going okay well this isn't going to work I guess I should just okay what should I do later I guess I need to go home need to work out and then all of a sudden the horse is coming back to you do do you need someone or do you get someone when you do eoin therapy to help you integrate because it's not like the horse is going hey hey chill out we need to work on your lady chill out a little bit like you need to think less about [ __ ] the house a great way to see the energy you're giving off like a the momentum that's exactly it and I didn't realize that I was giving off a desperate needy energy and that I mean people listening are like yeah we we could tell you know I'm a comedian didn't need a horse Weather Vein for that I'm like um you know I'm go on stage for a living and I'm like love me love me like me like me and then you know I would move which is a very important skill is being an Entertainer is making sure that people on stage like you but as soon as you get off stage like you can't be bringing that energy at people so it's about being self-contained and it's about going like I'm just going to be in the truth of this present moment with this person instead of trying to control whether they like me or not cuz when you're trying to make someone like you it's very repellent yeah and it's interesting that horses were able to pick up on it that being said the mental [ __ ] gymnastics that horse girls will go through to just be able to spend more time on a ranch it's like my hores on the back of a horse yeah no my [ __ ] my [ __ ] horse is doing therapy with me so I actually need to go I actually need to go and see my therapist at the moment I would I would go to a therapist and just lie to them because I would try to make the therapist like me or try to impress them or try to be their most [ __ ] up or try to be their most recovered or whatever it was Jimmy Carr told me this thing while I was with him saying the true definition of an Entertainer is if you don't like me I don't like me Outsourcing your selfworth to the crowd is comedians desperately want to be loved but entirely on their own terms too real Jimmy it's too real yeah it's way too real you know so I think it's like you know what you do for a living we're all you know we're reading the comments we want to make sure the people listening to us like us we want to be perfect we want to get it right but then you go on a date and you're like trying to Ace the test and you're just trying to ascertain if we like have good chemistry and we can be you know Alone Together kind of thing thing so I found that like I had a really hard time ascertaining the kind of energy I was giving off this person from the other side is just seeing someone performing you just performing for me here and then you perform and then and then you get them yeah and then they're in love with someone that isn't you they're in love with the person that's on stage or the the equivalent of the stage now and then they go I love you and you're like you don't know me yeah met you're in love with that version of me yeah you you've never met me yet and then or one day The Jig Is up and you're exhausted and then you're yourself and like who never you've never met me yet it's such a an awesome line that's really really cool I did uh I do this breath work class in Austin on a on a Thursday and um I went last night and if you've ever it's not super intense breath work but it's enough like regulate the nervous system and one of the things if you've never done it for extended like half hour plus period of time it's a little bit like psychedelics it's a bit more difficult to hold on to control or you just see patterns arise a little bit more easily uh and my executive function you know that's what you kind of noticed as you came in it's like me pottering around saying hey can we just do this and blah blah blah like that's always on and um I wonder I think this is probably quite a common pattern for the sorts of people that are listening that you can afford to listen to us waffle on you know talking about human psychology or whatever um that there's a degree of like wanting to do it right am I doing it right like is this could I do it better how can I optimize this am I I I wonder if I breathe a little bit more quickly would it if I bre breathe a little bit more I hope that the the lady that's teaching the class thinks that I'm doing it right like if she comes near with the thing like that energy of just it's like an insecurity in some ways and one of the weird externalities that comes from this is it can be very very successful right it drives you to be so detail oriented to focus on things to uh a degree of minua that gives you an unbelievable competitive Advantage but the felt sense of that can be you tripping over these tiny tiny little things and permanently being vigilant right like the prey animal thing you're being vigilant for what's the next thing that needs to be fixed and the uh Mandy the lady that takes the class yesterday uh pipes up every so often it's [ __ ] great it's like sound healing with breath work and then the final 30 minutes she just lets you do whatever you wants I pay I pay someone to watch me nap on a Thursday for a good amount of time yeah um but she said uh at the very beginning of the class of partway through she said uh don't get you're not fixing a problem and I was like [ __ ] that's good like you're not trying to fix a problem you're just doing the thing I also think that these are survival mechanisms that served us really well and it helps I'm in a 12-step program called adult children of Alcoholics it's basically if you grew up in an alcoholic home in order for alcoholism to be present alcohol doesn't have to be present so if you didn't see drinking it's fine if you grow up around any kind of chaos as a child you became a parentified child so if in any way you had to parent your parents or take care of yourself too young um you know we're the kids that were so mature for our age and we were the old soul and we're the ones that made our own lunch and you know basically went I'm on my own here these adults are you know do not have their [ __ ] together it looks like mature but what it actually is is just survival that's correct so I grew up in alolome divorce things are being a lot of fighting I had to be hypervigilant it served me really well as a child my mom was going through a bad divorce she you know drank a lot she was you know didn't have the tools we all have that generation didn't have podcasts like this you know they didn't have um you know these head space they didn't have sound bath classes and stuff they were just drinking and white knuckling through it and so anytime I had a need or a want she was very overwhelmed she was crying at a very early age it was like don't have any needs constantly make sure that you know you're self-contained self- deprived make sure this is okay because if she comes home and sees that this is messed up she's going to have a contion then I'm going to have to deal with that so it really helps there's a step in the program that really helps you kind of like you sort of PR morphies these voices and be able to do this little exercise where if you know I'm in the sound bath class and it's like are you doing it right and what if the instructor doesn't think you're doing it well enough and they don't think they're good and I'm going I know what that is don't need you right now I'm going to need you to sit back on the bench thank you so much you helped me out when I was six bye [ __ ] you know so you're kind of able to sort of like like personify it in a way some people call it their Shadow their inner bully whatever the [ __ ] you want to call it but there's sometimes that I come off stage and it's like that wasn't good enough and and like thank you I want to be better at this vocation that is actually when I do need you so yeah get in the [ __ ] game because I'm shooting a special in a week and let's like crush this you know but I don't need it when I'm in meditation class so I like have those little exercises I do that help what are the modalities that have helped you go from where you were in your 20s to someone that feels like they've got their [ __ ] sorted now or be at least a little bit close to being sorted oh God 12 program really helped me I just feel like people you know talk about it when it's like AA or na when it's like you know recovering what na na is Narcotics Anonymous like I think people really talk about these 12-step programs when it's recovering from a substance but when you're in ACA or alanon it's more about recovering from the internal drug cabinet which is cortisol and adrenaline so the drama addicts right the sort of you know if you grew up in now call a home you know you might gravitate towards being in relationships with people that you have to fix or rescue or you're in these toxic addictive relationships that you know aren't really good but you can't really get out and you're finding yourself being the person that's like I hate drama but you're always in some kind of drama you know so for me I really had to get a handle on that because I was in relationships with people that I had to rescue I was dating people I had to fix I thought I had to take care of everybody I was taking care of friends like I was just always the crisis person you know you feel alive in a time of Crisis that's just our comfort zone that's really served me in some of my my work situations but not in my personal life it's a giant waste of time wasn't taking care of myself um you know the 3M we call it mothering micromanaging martyring you know where putting everybody else first putting yourself last that just came naturally to me doing that program really helped me to not have guilt saying no to people being able to stand up for myself not doing anything out of obligation because I I was wasting so much time were you finding yourself people pleasing a lot yep and people pleasing we say is a form of assholery because you're doing something out of obligation you know like would if I said to you like hey will you come do my podcast and you were like oh God I have to do what don't do me the favor because that's so embarrassing to me do you know what I mean it's like patronizing it's like you know so it's a lot of it's a lot of people pleasing you know they call us the exploding doormats you know super nice all the time to everyone and then one day you just [ __ ] snap and you know you're actually secretly keeping score you know it's like and you're doing it to make other people like you d d so I had to like un you know rewire a lot of that [ __ ] I got a lot of it from my mom um and like deprogram what I believed was expected of me Neil Strauss guy that wrote the game M now like [ __ ] reawakened you know totally aligned sort of meditation person it seems uh I saw a tweet from him a couple of weeks ago that said unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments Jesus Christ yep he said codependence breeds resentments right exactly it so it's like being in relationships and going like like little adages I do well with platitudes like they just do complicated brains I think do really well with little things you know maxims maxims and aphorisms are a huge way to synthesize down a bigger message into something that you can remember right like here is this very large idea about how the story We Tell ourselves largely determines our experience of it because if your heart rate's high after you've done a workout you feel great but if your heart rate just random was high in traffic he would go to the hospital and then there's this bit from Marcus aelius that says uh the whole universe is change and life itself is but what we deem it life itself is but what we deem it I think it's like nine words the most profound nine words in philosophy yeah life itself is but what we do encapsulates all of this big thing y so like I understand that quot porn and buking people with all of these different these different references is I don't know maybe maybe it does get tiresome but for me these are the way markers that remind me it's like a little Mantra it's like right okay there's my [ __ ] desire for unproven self-esteem again and I remember Ryan holiday saying self-belief is overrated generate evidence fantastic there we go I'll just I know what to do yeah exactly and it's I know if you're lost and the world's kind of confusing at the moment and people really don't know where to find their meaning from and should I do the career do the mother thing should I rely on a partner can I trust relying on a partner is he or she going to be [ __ ] baking in porn or [ __ ] Kardashians or whatever it might be it's like all right we'll find somewhere firm and firm things can be little philosophies and principles that you rely on so yeah I'm I'm did you say baking in porn maybe sure what's baking mean I don't know like just like [ __ ] immersing themselves like oh got it got it marinading in [ __ ] porn got it got it got it got it got it I thought you meant she was in porn that would also happen okay actually um okay so you said this ala thing one them ACA total miracle cuz it's also free medicine um it's totally free working with animals uh started rescuing dogs fostering dogs I know this is going to sound like crazy animal lady but it really helped me because I realized I had such self-esteem stuff self-esteem stuff and I didn't have a dog like I didn't have something that was just giving me unconditional love you know and it kind of that really helped me I had some intimacy stuff and I realized a lot of my toughness had to do with being scared of intimacy being scared of being loved maybe being scared of being rejected or if you actually see me you're going to reject me kind of thing so animals really help me with that because it gives you like you you know just said the right a little bit of data like this dog kind of you know I kind of had to start there no matter how much of a piece of [ __ ] I might think I am and how much I fear that the world thinks I am my dog still loves I'm doing pretty good yeah this thing that I think is cool think he's alive he seems to be happy that I'm here you had this uh I heard you say this quote I think it's to Chris um having a kid or maybe it was him having a kid is the opport to finally love something that isn't just yourself I can't wait the clarity that comes with just even being pregnant right now has been so and the emotional maturity that has come with it I highly recommend being pregnant ladies it really well because you kind of just pregnancy is a therapy device that's the [ __ ] hot take really is well because it's like I mean I spend so much time like going like should I do this do I need to do this and I think that I've always had this ticking clock on my brain as a performer as like I'm a woman I'm getting older am I going to expire or am I just going to get tired like I know I didn't want to you know work like an animal forever I knew that like in my 20s and 30s I was like I I'm going to grind like an animal and then I'm going to have a personal life I always saw it that way and maybe that's a little bit like psycho I mean in my 20s like I was in a couple relationships that were kind of like two people kind of both trying to avoid intimacy sort of thing but I wasn't wasting a lot of time dating I just I I didn't know what to do with myself in terms of dating I know that I wasn't ready to be serious with anybody and I was like let me just check all these career boxes and then I'll be able to do the personal life thing I couldn't manage doing both at ones I always remember dude I I had this thought when I was 16 and uh I was doing martial arts I was doing like Kung Fu or something and there was this Retreat that we went to and one of the guys that was there was in the Army and Mum had beaten it into me from very early age I was going to go to university first person I think first person in my family to go to university like [ __ ] big extended family but one of the only few people to go and uh she'd always said you're going to University you're going to University but there was this point when we went to this Retreat for Kung Fu and this guy was there who was was in the Army and he was maybe a few years older than me and he was just explaining about what life was like and even then I I was 16 before social media before telephones before anything right before telephones before mobile phones and um it's so a significantly less complex world than the one that we find ourselves in now and the one that many people that are listening might only know right and I remember looking at this guy who was explaining about his experience in the Army and thinking wow I would love to do that purely because all of my efforts would be committed to one thing and I would never need to make decisions about life and that kind of makes me think about the same energy that's coming from the opportunity to finally love something that isn't yourself it's like all I do keep this thing alive make it happy yep yep and you know and it's it and really quick just in terms of the animal thing I also think that we waste a lot of time you know trying to you know as we say in program like you know don't try to meet internal needs with external things you know whether it's drugs whether it's alcohol whether it's people and for me I was never a drugs and alcohol person but I was definitely a people person with if I just have this many friends if this High status person likes me maybe I'm worth something if this guy is attracted to me maybe that means that I'm not you know totally nothing but like having a lot of emotional needs met from animals really did I think keep me out of a lot of trouble and I think we're you know I've heard on your show talking about like you know people not dating as much anymore I know that's in a lot of ways a bad thing but when you're in your 20s like how do you get your emotional needs met so you're not wasting time and hurting other people and hurting yourself being in relationships you shouldn't be in you know and I think I kind of accidentally hacked that by fostering dogs I had like all these animals I was always fostering and I'm like crazy dog lady but like at least I didn't have a kid before I was ready at least I didn't marry someone I had no business marrying and I feel like that could have happened right so you had your emotional needs met by surrogate children furry furry surrogate children yes but now it's like you know I got to say a lot of the things that I've been working so hard to try to get this Clarity of like am I in this friendship because of obligation am I in this friendship because I'm confusing love and pity and then you get pregnant you're just like yeah I I you're a once a month friend you're not a once a week friend you might be like a once a year friend quite frankly or like do I need to buy this person a thank you gift because they have no I texted thank you that's enough you know there's like just sort of a cal Simplicity there's a Simplicity that comes over you um there is a relief of bondage of self like you know what we do for a living there's just kind of this narcissism you can't Escape of like I wake up every morning I'm like how can I improve myself today how can I create something today what do I need to do to stay relevant you know just you're like you know what for today I'm just going to eat well I'm going to take care of myself and then like really commit to all these routines that I've kind of pretended to commit to for so long you know in terms of taking care of myself for me I you know there's a lot of work about like the inner child and like nurturing your inner now that I have a literal inner child it's kind of it really has all started to come together so when I see people who have a kid and then their lives just get amazing I'm like oh I get that because you really start walking the walk that's so interesting it's very Illuminating to think about I know like the forcing function of the kid bringing all of your [ __ ] to bear it's like look you can't you can't be bothering again I heard Chris talk about this when you guys spoke uh where he said um when he when his kids were young his boys would be messaging back and forth in the group chat did you see that such and such a person did this and he doesn't even he's like I've not even [ __ ] got time to read this so all of the extraneous [ __ ] gets filtered but I wonder whether and I certainly see this with uh work um I saw this with uni as well that the adrenaline of having something very important and uh time demanding and and on a a deadline and dependent on you whether that be a career or an education or you know a political ideology that you're fighting for on the Internet or whatever it is it's exhilarating yeah right it it it is almost like a surrogate child in a way and you're applying an awful lot of pressure and a lot of attention toward this thing and there is a sense of like yes like I'm bringing something to bear like this is manifesting in the world but it's I know it's like a simulor of what what you're actually working toward right and it's also it's like no one if you in my in when I was in my 20s told me like hey money and fame is not going to do it for you I'd be like [ __ ] you yes it will you know like it everyone's like it's really just about family and you can't take the money with you and you're like okay I'm poor so I don't like none of that [ __ ] M no one wants to hear that [ __ ] so that's not what I'm about to say in any capacity but to me I kind of go like yes I've accomplished all of these goals that I had I've had success I'm financially solve it and you're like and now what yeah and now what okay now am I just I think you've talked about this you have like one person you're doing your career at yeah you know what I mean like I'm doing I just did a sick special I'm like this was this just for this other female comedian to know that I did another one what is it like pick your enemies yeah I mean the the question of and now what and now what is so [ __ ] interesting like just keep running that keep running that bag right okay what are you doing okay well I'm doing the career thing okay and and then oh I'm when I do this career I'll get the promotion okay and then and then I will be able to afford the house and then and you just keep on running it all the way forward and you go oh yeah there's nothing there's no there eventually did it like did it did it work did it make your dead Dad love you like did it cuz I go like what's the thing I'm going for like okay both my parents are dead tried to get their attention that didn't work okay it didn't Unbreak My Heart from when I was you know 31 and that thing happened it didn't make me not getting asked to prom go away you know it's like you're kind of like didn't do oh right I now what and I feel like I was working towards all this to be able to go I need to check all these boxes so when I have a family I'm not resentful and I'm not still running around trying to get these boxes checked because I did watch a mother try to have a career and I was slowing her down I felt it I absolutely felt it how much of that you know it's a really lovely narrative that you've got woven together here which is I did the hard things in my 20s and part of my 30s that enabled me to be a mother now can you remember how much of that was planned in advance and how much of that is you post hwk rationalizing it now and being like well this is a cute story that puts a bow on the top of this box that's that's very interesting I mean I think that I you know I think that at the time I presented as one of these women that goes well I don't want kids I always said it I don't want kid which is thou doth protest too much obviously right we all become what we hate whatever but I definitely presented as no I'm not having kids I'm focusing on my career H like I'm never I mean I had a TV show that was about how I was afraid of commitment and didn't want to get married you know this was I was just broadcasting my damage to everybody in some way maybe to ask to be healed or you know whatever it was or I was you know very much like kind of grew up in public so I did get a lot of feedback which was interesting like it's interesting to grow up in front of people and show all your wounds and then have people kind of confront you about them it was weird like I wanted to get better I wanted to change I wanted to grow but I I definitely knew I didn't want to have a family in my 20s I was like cuz I don't want to do what my parents did and I'm too afraid of what's in my I'm too broken you know was my narrative and then by the time my 30s came around I was like I got engaged was wasn't quite right um I was really trying but I just wasn't I wasn't healed yet I just wasn't healed yet and I think that I always had maybe it was my codependence was saving me because I didn't want to hurt anybody like I really don't want to hurt anyone I really when I'm in relationships and I know it's not yeah that's interesting you almost people pleasing the imaginary partner that you hadn't yet met I don't want to hurt them I know that if I try and do this thing and it's not going to go well then they'll be sad and if they're sad I'm going to feel like an absolute [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] and I can't fake it I just I can't I can't Li I mean I think it's being a terrible [ __ ] lion being a comedian like I see these people that are like if you have 80% of what you want you should settle for that and I'm like but then how do you I I'm not going to lie to this person because then I won't respect them because if they believe the lie then I lose respect for them I'm like you just bought that like I just I guess I might be too much of a romantic which is not how people would see me but I kind of like really wanted this thing where two people could be totally authentic together and I wasn't capable of being authentic until fairly recently there was a a guy super successful guy who completely stopped doing all online content to switch to a different sort of a business and I was at a retreat with him few months ago maybe four months ago something like that and I was talking to him and I was saying you know he he stopped doing the online content thing because he had a bigger project and a bigger business that he loved and he felt like he was contributing to the world in a better way through but another thing that he said to me which is really [ __ ] stuck with me was he found himself saying things not only as content but but also to his friends and this is one of the reasons why he stopped being quite so social he found himself telling people's stories in public that he then felt like he needed to live up to in private so he was weaving and that was the reason I asked about the beautiful bow that's upon the box it's like this is a nice story right but how much of it is just a good thing that not only you can tell yourself but also sounds great on a podcast and how much of that is really there and it's really hard you know it's not the sort of thing that you're going to unpack like that um but that that one [ __ ] sentence I was sat in a Jacuzzi with like [ __ ] 16 guys gayest thing ever but um and he says this thing and here's me having like a mini [ __ ] existential crisis is the heavens open I'm like wow that's super profound I must remember to write that down and uh yeah I was telling myself stories in in telling stories in public that I had to live up to in private okay then I'll tell you the ugly Parts um that that don't have the bow necessarily I do think that you know um and and I sometimes I I get a little bit um wishy-washy about saying things that I feel like only apply to forward- facing people you know I'm like oh do this not applicable but everybody now has social media everybody now is public in some you know kind of way and there's a sort of micr version of what we do for everybody and I think that starting a podcast I you know look I had done a special a year was kind of you know what you do as a comedian you tore around the country then you start a podcast and you're kind of broadcasting all of your personal details of your life you're talking about dating people you're talking about sexual stuff and I think it hurt me I definitely think I I um had to start really looking at that and just going like would the guy that I want to be with sign up for this and me being completely open about all of my sexual conquests in the past and so on and so forth which I which is half the time you're we're joking we whatever it is but I just kind of was like I don't know if the guy that I want to be would want to be with a public figure let me give you this so one of my smartest friends Mary Harrington one person you need to get on your podcast is Louise Perry so she wrote the case against the sexual Revolution yes Mary is like uh she's just another version of Louise basically from from the UK very smart lady and she came up with this idea of digital modesty and digital modesty uh she says that there needs to be boundaries about what people share on the internet and she's got different ones she's like a little bit more kind of uh reclus and and she a writer rather than a podcaster so I guess that makes a little bit of a difference as well but um you know she talks about I'll never post photos of my kids where I live the places that I go to like like she's got this big list and it's a set of principles that she doesn't cross I don't think a partner exists on the internet Bret Cooper just got engaged from the daily wire I think the first and last time anyone on the internet's going to see her fiance future husband was like the back of his head in a a a photo of them getting engaged in Rome or wherever it was and she came on and and she said I got engaged and it was this thing she spent maybe 4 minutes talking about it and then said and that's the last time that I'm going to talk about my partner and it was like he's not on the internet he doesn't want to be on the internet and I love him for it and it's like that um digital modesty and but you're totally right as well you can be a person who is living the most normal nonpublic facing life in the world but you've got you know 2,000 followers on Instagram and your friends from school are still keeping up to date with what you do via Facebook like you have these rules too and in some ways those people are even more intimate in your lives because they've been a part of it for so long and they know your cousins and they know where Mom and Dad live and blah blah blah and it was hard to develop intimacy with people when I have such an intimate relationship with the people that have read my book and listen to my podcast and then you sit down with someone that you've been with for six months and they're like I didn't know you struggle with eating stuff and I'm like well I wrote a book up money and you're like oh wait a second like you haven't heard everything that I've said you know like and then it's this weird thing where you're like you're like am I attracting people that want to be with someone that's like this and then I have to live up to the person you also have a degree of uh like narcissism guilt about the presumption that people would have seen the thing that you it's like what you didn't read my [ __ ] book but I didn't but which by the way thank God you didn't you wouldn't be here if you had but also it's more like oh I don't want to make the Assumption obviously that you didn't but I also like we can talk about other things too and I've already talked about about this too much I don't even but then they feel like they're left out of things they'll be at the airport and someone will be like I loved your book I you moved me so much when you talked about this and then yeah and then they're like wait a second when you were engaged and I'm like well yeah I mean it just has to come up page page 235 and then yeah totally and guys are like why do these strangers know more about you than I do and I'm like well because I don't I mean this is why I think for for a lot of people regardless of how big or small the platform is as soon as you start to broadcast things about yourself on the internet even to your you know thousand yeah thousand thousand friends on on Instagram you then create another you out there there is you that is this and then there is the you that is the online Persona and people will make judgments about that uh Telly who I think is patient [ __ ] zero for what we're talking about uh [ __ ] what's her name Alex Cooper from call her daddy yeah like yeah this is a girl who built her platform talking about like the GL GL 7,000 how to give a good [ __ ] on episode whatever of a podcast and just PS forward extoling the virtues of casual sex and no strings attached attachment and treat him like you don't like him and this is what I got up to last night and marriage is a con and you don't need to get into a relationship and familyhood and you can do the girl boss thing and sisters all Sisterhood forever and then for the last three years it's been dating this guy and then like [ __ ] like a a transition just [ __ ] re gender revealed herself to be like a [ __ ] matronly and girls there was rose pedals and the proposal was so beautiful and stff and I'm like do you know the wake of the cultural like Aftershock that's occurred behind you Downstream of all of these girls believing this ideology that you for a good amount of time for like two or three years weren't living like you know and that must have caused I'm sure that in her like she'll be able to feel that Discord it's too easy for me to say you know uh she was saying one thing and doing another and [ __ ] her for that because you know I I'm I'm sure that she's struggled internally with that unless she's complete narcissist and I don't think she is but there is a bit that goes like dude come on like think about all of the [ __ ] girls that have cast off relationships and done the casual sex thing to allow guys to use and discard them think that that was true feminine Liberation meanwhile you were getting ready to get engaged right right right that is wild I I didn't it's interesting because you know as someone that in my standup I talked a lot about that stuff in my 20s but I'm actually really shy about that stuff other like sex otherwise like I'm weirdly shy about it so you know I I haven't heard all of it but yeah I mean you know look Snoop Dog said you can't make a ho housewife maybe you can I don't know I don't know but I definitely do feel like one of the you know biggest problems people do now we were kind of talking about it right as we came in is they over pathologize themselves and kind of trauma Bond on the first date all of a sudden people are talking about their depression and their anxiety and this is what happened to me when I was a kid and my ex cheated on me and it's like why the [ __ ] are you doing this on a first date like this is not first I mean that's something you share way way later and I think people are getting relationships way too soon because they're trauma bonding too soon but I do feel like because I tend to kind of overshare for a living on podcasts that's what we do you know to try to help other people and then I'm like oh God I hope any guy that I could ever date would never listen to any of this well there's something else about that digital modesty side which is if you're already showing all of you on the internet where is left to go that has additional intimacy beyond that but then you just go like am I changing everything about my career for this one person and the answer is kind of yes you're going like I'm not going to post this video in case this one person I'm interested in might see it which is a wild sacrifice to make you know this might not even work out but like if he Scrolls past this and sees me being like GL GL or whatever I don't know whatever Alex is doing like I'm going to lose the guy this is this would make the kind of guy that I want probably recoil and flee and go like no thanks yeah it's well I mean you know we were talking you mentioned before about people pleasing and what you're basically doing there is saying the words that you think the person wants to hear without thinking the things that justify the thing that you're saying it's like I'll say yes to going to the party despite not wanting to go to the party because I want to please the person even though if they could see the inner texture of my own thoughts they would be like they would just feel so patronized and disgusted at the fact that I don't think they're able to take the news and then also by the way like what do you think they're going to cancel the party the the insecure narcissism that I'm a piece of [ __ ] in the center of the universe of that of like well if I don't go they're going to what cancel it they'll be fine we obsess about what other people think about us till we realize they're not thinking about us I think that's the same with uh people trying to go through breakups in relationships and they're like how would they ever be able to live without this you know I mean they're enti yeah it's like they're they're going to be fine they may even be better yeah the hinge lady wrote a book they'll be fine but I do think there is a point where it's like I see people going like well I'm ready to be serious in a relationship I'm like does your social media reflect that you're ready to be serious relationship do your dating apps reflect that you're ready to be in a serious relationship it's like the idea of like before you're ready to get in something you got to make sure you have made space for it like a lot of people are like dating a bunch of people casually or they're kind of in something and they're like I want something real it's like you got to really be ready and I had to get to a point where I to go like I have to go delete all these photos from my I delete all these videos did you go to cleanse you sanitized your Instagram I had to I mean look I had blue hair for like a year I had what happened then did you did you have a did you go [ __ ] crazy what did you do I guess I kind of did I okay so during the pandemic you know standup was the first thing to go I mean in California I don't know when you came were you in California first no or you just went came UK and then back into 2021 I came here nice you came straight here great so in California it was like shut down right and so standup was the first thing to go and I had just spent so much of my career as like you know someone in television stuff is having to sort of be this person and you know you're trying to make this like executive have a crush on you to get this job I just was like sick of is trying to be this perfectly castable person and then on top of that you know knowing that I had a year off and then a bunch of my friends started losing their jobs um hair artists makeup artists stuff like that and then I had one who you know was going to have to move back home lose her health insurance and I was like what's the most expensive thing we can do and she's like let's dye her hair blue and I'm like [ __ ] it I'm an Entertainer why not you know I'm not shooting anything right now I didn't realize that when you have blue hair everyone thinks you're like a lesbian on ketamine so was like I think that probably set me back in the dating in the dating pool for a while CH what why why can't you have blue hair guys just they're just like she's nuts I have I think that blue hair especially like that color of hair is just it it's got Brad bad brand image do you know what I mean but you know what's weird about it a lot of guys started showing up at my house that thought I was some anime there's like you would cosplaying is there's some there it's a really big fetish in some twitch communities and and people that think we're low cut top and started playing League of Legends that would have been that was your new career there was there's some video game character that is so funny that's truly it's never happened to me in a podcast not one time is that your ringtone that's what yes that it's the most like California new AG [ __ ] binaural beats it's a ringtone that's like the first ringtone that's that's like the one that comes with the phone I thought that's crazy I just got the new phone and I I don't know how to use it but um yeah I did make the mistake but again if I wasn't a public figure I was didn't put it on social media like you know people are she's got blue hair and I'm like how many like great guys were like never mind you know so I think it was just about going like I've spent most of my career trying to appease fans and being Entertainer and I have to just go like I'm going to have to take a hit in my career if I really want to have a personal life well I think you know for a lot of people again that aren't necessarily in medeor or whatever there is a a degree of feeling like you need to live up to whatever expectation it is the Norms of this time this generation your parents your past traumas the paths of least resistance confused chemical signals of your body like whatever it is that you're kind of being dragged by at the moment and asking yourself the question all right so what's me where am I inside of this what's deeper if I dig a little bit deeper do I hit anything solid or am I just this concatenation of a buch of assumptions and and projections of my idea of what other people actually want from me it's like you just made me realize something which is like I was arrogant and there was this well I'm just going to be authentic and I have blue hair and I do this and I talk about sex still performance and you take me or leave me and if you don't like me you don't [ __ ] get it and it's like no the person that would have been attracted to that like is not the kind of person I want to be with either you know so I don't want to gravitate batch gravitate batching crazy people either so like I can't behave batshit crazy all the time you know and expect to vibrate a person at the frequency of what I want so it's like a lot of people go like like this is what I want in a man and this is what I want in a woman and it's like well what are you willing to give up and I wasn't ready to make that list I had my list of Pros my list of cons my list of red flags my list of green lights but I didn't have what are you willing to give up are you willing to give up those photos that are like silly and your ass is out are you willing to give up those videos where you're going like men making fun of men are you willing to not put up that standup clip from when you were 22 about squirting like so what's interesting there is uh for each culture there's a counterculture right so I think that's not far off like uh sacrifice culture or something like that it's realizing that your partner there are things that you can do that can make your partner more and less happy but would be a big uh part of the internet perhaps the like uh female empowerment authenticity boss bit internet that would say well if your partner can't take you as you are that's their insecurity and their problem and you go okay well do you agree that there are ways that you can make your partner feel better and worse do you think that that's a thing yes there are on average do you want to try and do things that make your partner feel better without compromising yourself and becoming totally pliable yeah probably that would be something it's like right okay so we are on the same page it's just a difference of degree not a difference of kind so how many things like are you going to go out every single night partying with the girls and never see a PARTA probably not right that's not going to be a good relationship and they're going to feel uncomfortable with it all right so as soon as we accept that it's one straight line to there were things that I will put on the internet the digital modesty thing again there are things that I will say about myself there are ways that I will act there are things I'll say behind their back you know to my friends that I will and will not say you know there's degrees of um confidentiality and and open about what we get up to in the bedroom or about you know what his fears are about what she's been doing like all of these things are like I don't know it seems kind of noble to me to do that I 100% agree and it's also there's a difference between you know I've spent a lot of time with magical thinking and that's what magical thinking is I'm going to go my girlfriend's three nights a week and if he doesn't accept it he's a well then you're going to get a certain kind of man I'm at a point again I have nothing to prove like I think for what I say to women is like get to a place where you have nothing to prove so you can totally submit to your man and it doesn't feel like you're like a bad femin there's this thing now where you can't like if you cook for your man you're not a good feminist I'm like you're dealing with knives and fire it's cool like being able to feed yourself and your family is like a bad thing now like I you know I just I think it's like so Noble to be able to go like I can show my love for you by giving up all these other things and I just want to make you happy like it's what I do on stage it's what I do with crowds it's like I want to do it with a man is that weak is that it's investment right it's it's so strange that uh a woman who would give herself over and and and a man that would give themselves over to a corporate employer that doesn't give a [ __ ] about them is somehow seen as being a virtuous like self-defining independent person but someone that does that for a partner that's going to spend the rest of their life with them and genuinely care is seen as a s I had a I also think that um a big mistake women make is like women go to advice about men to their girlfriends go to advice about men to your guy and also don't go to your single girlfriends for advice about being in relationships go to your married friends yeah well I mean all of your single friends want tequila Tuesdays to keep happening which means that that you know even if they're not aware of it and even if they're fantastic friends there is a part of them that thinks it's kind of like there's this idea in uh the black pill incel world of ascending and ascending is um becoming a viable mate for women and maybe maybe even getting into a relationship and it's very heavily discouraged because if one of the guys within a group that are supposed to be genetic dead ends that have no hope does do something that creates a pain of oh well this could happen to me and as soon as you be believe that this could happen to me maybe the reason it's not happening to you is your fault maybe it's not determined already and it's kind of the same with the Singleton thing like if you're going to go and ask for advice about intimacy with someone who never really seems to be intimate with anyone they're going to first off not have a a particularly fantastic perspective I don't think unless they're unbelievably incisive but secondly there's going to be a little bit of a perverse incentive that they don't want their friend to start to pull away from them uh oh so interesting I'm going to give you the advice that makes what I'm doing seem like a good idea and also keeps you as a compatriot so that we can both continue to do this together you know we The Sisterhood like you know girl you don't need him etc etc it's like well maybe maybe that is yeah maybe that's maybe that's true but like if you are unable guy or girl is unable to get yourself a partner or unable to find friends like no dude you don't need that friend anymore it's like the subtext of that is you can hang out with me I'm your people when I was um I don't know gosh I was probably my late 20s and I dated a and I I'm only saying what he does for a living because it might make people like um it'll make make you understand why I took it so uh well professional athlete great at what he does I just think a lot of times professional athletes they don't they can't there's not a lot of room for emotion to be involved it's either true or it's not true or you're going to get your neck broken you know and he you know dated a lot of you know could date whoever he wanted or sleep with whoever he wanted and I I was just in my arrogance and in my like you know we were like arguing about something and I was like well like why would you date me if like I'm the person you date if you want like a challenge and he just went why would any man want a challenge in their relationship and it was like I was like thank you so much for saying that cuz I guess I grew up watching parents fight watching conflict is love conflict is love I guess that's what I saw I guess I thought it was sexy I guess I thought mention is yes I don't know what I was thinking and I literally in that moment was like oh my God I'm so like I don't know what I I thought it was like hot to you I thought it was like what guys wanted I thought it was like feisty like you know I apologize well especially if you're dating somebody that is high performing in any realm has goals you know if you're working that hard in the office you really want to come home and be like right there's that to-do list done I wonder what fires I need to fight when I step through the front door as well and now I'm kind of at this point where it's like I'm good at business I'm really good at what I do I love the idea of being with the man where I can be like how can I help you make your like how can I be your business partner like your silent business partner whether it's like I can have dinner wait for you I can Dwayne The Rock Johnson probably needs a second one of those I mean look I this so crazy to me yeah they probably I want do I mean State of California woman though she gets half for after 10 years in a day strange if you even with a prenup oh that's a good question I don't know you'd be surprised how a few people have prenups I mean remember he's got that [ __ ] whatever it is what's his is it rum emotional support oh uh his rum brand it's like tequila or Rum or something and uh I mean he's I heard he might warn for office too I'd vote for him you know cuz that's another thing is like how like I'm into that ride or die how can I make your dreams come true like that's I've made my dreams come true like it's I'm into that Kink of like how could I make your dreams come true like can I being in service is is cool especially if it's and this is something that we spoke about before as well like not doing it coming from a place of desperation I want to make your dreams come true I'll make your life better because I think it'll make you love me but there's almost something extra sexy or seductive about somebody putting their nature especially their public facing nature to one side in order to do something that seems opposite or different to that privately because it it seems like the love that you have for me is causing it's so strong that you're having to overcome something that you do publicly you know it's the same reason why the high-powered male lawyer wants to be tied up in and spanked by the dominatrix right it's it's the PO polarity of the life that makes it interesting and that's the difference between coming at it from a place of desperation and weakness like I want to do this because I think it's the only way that you'll love me versus I am fine on my own and I'm okay with being independent and I have all of this stuff going for me and I still want to you know be the Homemaker build a family do the whatever and it's the same for that's why like the uh Chad to Dad pipeline is so alluring I think to women it's why by so many stories all of the dark romance novels are about a man who has everything who is completely independent and ruthless and and domineering and prestigious and is softened over time by the right woman because his love for her pulls him in and it's the same as a beautiful friendship story right there is a friend who who struggles to connect but you see something in them that's amazing and then you become friends together and you do you know the Michelangelo effect do you know what this is [ __ ] brilliant so um it's a psychological effect that describes how over time two people often in a relationship will craft each other into the idealized version of what they want so I make you more like what I want and you make me more like what you want and I am happy to become more like what you want and you are happy and the reason it's called the Michelangelo effect is you can imagine Michelangelo looking at this huge block of marble and from the outside it's Ru Hune but over time he chips away and creates the statue of David so he sees inside of something which is n perfect the Perfection that he wants and over time is able to craft this thing out of it this is something that's making me think of of something I think that actually would be helpful to people and is I feel like when you're in a relationship with somebody and there's things that you want to change about the there's this new thing now where you just can criticize your man or criticize your person or someone comes home and it's like yeah so you're just going to walk in the door and not say hi and da da and this is where the you know my having more intimacy and relationships with animals than humans actually comes in handy where positive reinforcement is pretty much I believe the only thing that works and I think that I'm not seeing it on either side right now with men or women so if like your girl comes home and she's rough or she's going out with her friends too whatever it is just experiment with like just say instead of getting in a fight about it like just you know what I love like I love when you come home I come home and you're here and you're like on the couch and you're Barefoot it's just the sexiest thing in the world to me when I like come home and you're here you know and like Kiss on the forehead and just see if anything Chang same thing with my girlfriends are like and I just told him that he needed a and I'm like are you insane you can't talk to people like that you know this isn't like you're not in a fight on the [ __ ] Subway this is your man just tell them like you know what I love it so much when you like I don't like that he wears this thing when he wears the other thing just tell him how hot it is and suck his dick what why is this so hard to understand and I you can't wear those [ __ ] Crocs around when he wears the other shoes just suck his dick and tell them how much you love the shoes and kiss them and it's over you know so I just think that we're not doing enough positive reinforcement I think maybe it's this like perfectionism generation or maybe we're all standing up for ourselves and I'm going to make a boundary and I'm going to tell you all the things that I don't like because I'm going to be authentic and da d da omissions are not lies you know I just think that for every criticism we have it's just like like just try positive reinforcement try that you know what I love I love when your phone is off and I just get to like we just get as opposed to why do you always have your phone out on the table it always makes me so annoyed that's it don't even say that one just when there's no phone out take that opportunity to tell him how great it is like this to me is about like that's what it means to be soft I think to just like bite your tongue shut your [ __ ] mouth you don't have to just be roasting your man all the time I mean I see it and there's certain rules to me that I live by in relationships now it took me a while to learn but you never gossip about your man ever ever if there's a a texting with some other girl you don't I'm like you don't tell any of your girlfriends you take it to a therapist you take it to a 12-step meeting like don't ever gossip about your person don't ever make fun of your person in public I see people a lot like that women that don't understand why relationships aren't working and then you go out at a double date and like cuz he [ __ ] can't get and you're just like what the [ __ ] are you doing yeah like you're embarrassing your man in front of a bunch of people you know and so I see this stuff and if someone who's a female comic you would think that you know that's that's not how I am in relationships in the slightest and I think that we're just like getting a little too comfortable you know I did this movie that was about it was based on a book called the female brain and I met with this female neuroscientist and I said to her I was just like what's the main advice you have for me like if I leave here knowing one thing today about the difference between the male and the female brain and she just went your girlfriend is not your boyfriend what do you mean by that don't treat them the same so if you want to talk about how ugly the bridesmaid's dresses were at Marcy's wedding call your friend Lydia don't call your boyfriend about it you know just like be a little more cautious about the stuff that you cuz then you come home and you're like can you believe what happened at work and this she was wearing this blouse and the guy's just like you know what I mean it's like well you don't listen to me how come you're not paying attention you don't want to hear me talk it's like this isn't a subject you're boring you're [ __ ] boring dude call your girlfriend so it's like to me it's always a big red flag when girls don't have girlfriends because that means you're going to have to hear all the boring ass [ __ ] so like girls know what to take to your girlfriends and know what to take to your guy friends or to your boyfriend yeah you know I think that's a really important thing that a lot ofs don't do they expect their boyfriend to be their girlfriend you're not going to come to [ __ ] Nordstrom with me and hold my purse while I change that's not the man that's not my guy you know and don't make your guy do [ __ ] like that you know I just I just think that like you know little things like that I think make a really big difference and if you are doing that chances are you might not respect the person and that's not the person for you and I think people really forget about respect it's like I'm attracted to him and he's smart and he has this but do you respect him cuz if you're going I want you to spend your Saturday sitting on a [ __ ] velvet puff at Nordstrom while I try [ __ ] on unless it's like a fun Kakey sex game that's a different thing but like that's not respect you don't respect your man's time yeah that's again the pliability thing and that's why having boundaries is so important you said this other thing I listened to you say this other thing I thought was so [ __ ] interesting you said in order for art to imitate life you have to have a life that's it and this is definitely something that I see in high Achievers High performers people that are sort of on that grind where the creativity and the space that they had to be able to think about whatever it is that they're going to do whether it's business or career moves or writing or an online coaching platform that they're trying to start or content creation or whatever uh and after a while you take up so much of your days doing that thing that the font uh like the pool from which you withdraw in order to be able to present [ __ ] is just Barren it's dry that's it that's exactly it I mean you see it with comedians all the time you see these great comedians amazing observational comedians that get more and more famous more and more successful all they're doing is touring and then all of a sudden they're only doing jokes about airplanes because they're only on airplanes you know or they like have nothing to talk about because they don't do anything I remember I was in a writer's room for a sitcom that I made and I was running three shows at one time three television shows which was very you know taxing was working all weekend you know 20 hours a day not sleeping and we're in the writer's room and I'm like we need to pitch on like something that the couple does like on a weekend and someone was like oh what if they like went to a wine tasting and I was like no one goes to a wine tasting and then like what if she like had to go to a baby shower I'm like no one goes to a baby and they're like no Whitney you don't go to a b like you don't have a you know and I realized like I was limiting myself and how you know I'm like well what if like they're at work and this happened like I could only pitch on workaholism like and every character was all of a sudden a workaholic I you know and so to me it's like you know especially being you know a standup comedian I'm like I got to go out in the world and I got to do things and that doesn't mean be mercenary when you do cuz there are times where I'm like I really have to do something social this week and I'll call friends and I'll be like can you guys make sure I don't turn this dinner into work or turn a hobby into a business because that's the other thing is that I'll get a hobby and then I'll turn into a business yeah you know what I mean spin this thing up and sell it I'll start knitting and I'm like oh this will be good merch and I'm like no can't do that you know there's a an idea I came up with for that called productivity Purgatory so it's when the things that you do for fun and done purely to like you go for a walk in nature not because you want to calm down and just have a good time but because you once saw an Andrew hubman podcast that says your productivity increases by 15% if you spend 20 minutes a day with sunlight in the eyes or whatever like productivity Purgatory everything that you do is in service of this of this thing I literally got the Apple watch because the phone is just a camera at a certain point and I would go on these hikes and then I would be like I got to do a video about there's a plant and I got to do a bit with the plant I'm like NOP I got to just not even bring my phone with me on walks anymore because I will find a way to make a Tik Tok or or I'll be writing down I'm like I gotta just like you know so I really have to play defense on that because I will slip into that workaholic [ __ ] or I mean just being on a date with a guy and being like that's not a just stop nope that's not a joke you're just in the moment and you're not going to make write a scene you're not going to get a movie idea you're just going to be in this moment you know and I think that for people that do all kinds of things it's not even just creators if you're someone that's like building an app or this you have to go out in the world and see how people behave and see what they do and you got to like go to the zoo it's Bas like call it going to the zoo you got to go out to a restaurant and see like okay I'm I'm building my my whoop band okay people usually wear it on the left side you know you just have to like be in the world and I I I didn't I always thought that socializing doing things that were fun were like a waste of time or that I was falling behind you know um but now I know that it's like an integral part about being creative and staying relevant and it's good to have fun every now and then like you've earned it I think that I used to operate from such a place of like guilt and you're such a piece of [ __ ] and you're never going to make it and that served me really well it just doesn't serve me anymore yeah this I've got this idea about uh fuel that you use that kind of a fuel that very uh anxious sort of toes toes down forward thing is potent for probably about five or 10 years but toxic if you use it for much longer than that I'm also big my new thing is doing nothing okay how do you how are you getting on with doing nothing it's weird I mean a lot of times it's kind of just like sitting outside and just I get to look at nature chilling but there's just no such thing as doing nothing I think being around horses wouldn't class because that's still doing something if I'm well that still counts as doing something probably a little bit but doing nothing next to a horse they really like you uh Dr k a healthy gamer he's a a psychiatrist psychotherapist eastern and western trained and he helps with young people that have got um screen addictions gaming addictions he also works with some of the biggest twitch streamers on the planet he's done it with every big twitch streamer xqc and and Charlie from penguins and all that stuff and um one of his exercises that he gets his like Discord group to do is stare at a wall for 30 minutes and some of the things that apparently people break down crying they start screaming at the wall you're like dude it's staring at a what I haven't done it I haven't [ __ ] i't D do it I don't know if I'm going to it would be a total fever dream I don't know what's going to go on I It's tricky because I I was almost too embarrassed to say it uh but a lot of times I end up crying if you're just like being alone with yourself cuz you're like what's what am I running from What feelings am I trying to not feel what thoughts am I trying to not have or what comes up when I stop anesthetizing with busyness with action with productivity right and it might just be like you know that agent that did like it's right there it's right there oh that person that said that thing or that YouTube comment like it's right there and to go like okay this is stuff I need to work through this is stuff that I'm caring this is stuff that I need to purge this is someone I need to forgive like this is something like a Mal I'm that I'm um trying to get a feeling I'm trying to get out of right that is haunting me or it's something that's taking up real estate in my brain that has no business being there that if I don't feel this feeling it's just going to you know alchemize into something unhealthy anger at someone else or some kind of shame or [ __ ] so it's like it's like I kind of sit there and sometimes have to feel my feelings and a lot of times it's shame it's cringe it's God why did you say that thing to that person you know sometimes it's to forgive myself whatever it is but like you know there was um I don't know if you ever saw that show cheer on Netflix no it's about the best cheerleading uh it's such a great documentary about the best cheerleading team uh in the country uh Nao it's actually in Texas the coach is incredible it's so great such an amazing show it's about you know these cheerlead they work wasn't there a big Scandal there was a scandal one of the guys send some text he shouldn't have sent and ask for some photos he shouldn't ask for but it's still incredibly inspiring it will inspire you not to send those DMS um and to never never DM somebody without having seen their driver's license um and uh and why am I bringing it up why am I bringing it up oh so one of the girls on it they all got really famous off of it the show was really big and this girl is just like 18 years old famous cheerleader you know she's getting all these brand deals she all of a sudden has 4 million followers from being on this Netflix show being this you know athlete and I'm in uh in with some friends and we go see they do this live show and I you know the show came out like a year and a half ago and I asked her I was like so what didn't you do this summer and she was like oh I'm going to take a couple months off just to you know process and I was like what she's like I just need to like process all this and I was like I don't get like I it I didn't know what she was I was like oh yeah I need to schedule time to process things I've never thought about that before and it made me start to take time every week to just process what happened so I uh I'm incorporating in America it's taken ages cuz your guys' tax system and legal system and everything I only got social security number two months ago anyway um started working with accountancy firm so I've kind of got a part-time CFO part-time CFO [ __ ] all he does is finances and I was at dinner with him a couple of nights ago and he said yeah every Friday I just have the entire day to think like yo you live on XL like what thinking is that it's just numbers in numbers out like am I doing deals has this person paid their taxes blah blah blah like what thinking is there to do and the accountant guy the head of this accountancy firm is like yeah I spend every Friday just thinking obviously that's a luxurious position to be in but like the rule I think is right I used to I used to have this uh um again another problem you guys have a license equivalency between the US and the UK which means I need to take my theory test my theory driving test again in Texas a place that has by far the worst drivers I've ever seen in my life and I've been to Rome right so I I I have to do that again but I used to love when I was back home really great hack sorry sorry we don't give half of our money to a queen yeah that's true well she's F not anymore oh yeah uh it's a it's a tough day um sorry our our our leaders aren't born into Power yeah yeah if you had a genetic pool about that big say sorry we don't have inbred mascots running our country okay all right okay there we there we go I'm sure you're going to need to sell some tickets in the I'm kidding I'm kidding I know love you guys love you guys.com yeah um driving in the car with no music or podcast on what what a [ __ ] like wow what a crazy you know what I mean what comes up and it's great because you've got the front of your it's like doing nothing when you're washing the dishes your front of the brain is nice and nice and occupied and the rest of the brain is just free to do its thing really great really I do have a a tool that really works for me where I schedule worrying about things and schedule worrying about I schedule worrying about things so it's like if it's like I have to make this decision about whether I'm going to do this thing or not say the deadline is November 12th I'll go okay November 10th and I'll put it in my calendar I'll say 10: a.m. to this I'll worry about it instead of just constantly perseverating it until about it until then I will just schedule when I'm going to worry about it do you do that with somebody do you find it's easiest to worry in with a right hand or with a like if I know I need to run something by someone I'll go like hey and worry with me yeah can you come can we go panic together or if I'm like because it gives me time to also go who are the best people to reach out and ask about this like I feel like it's also your life starts getting better when you know who to ask advice from you know again go to married people to ask Rel advice you know podcast go to someone who knows what they're talking about you know so for me it's also instead of just talking about it to everyone all the time and getting bad advice from people getting sort of mix data just constantly worrying about something I'll go like you have two hours to worry about this in 3 weeks and then I also will schedule making decisions about things I get really bad decision fatigue so it's like we were just talking about like making decisions about you know sponsors and stuff like that you know I can go like okay I'm going to make this decision on this date at this time I'm not going to think about it until then but this is when I'm going to schedule thinking about it and so that's like I think a version that works for me of what your CFO kind of did and I'll put it in my calendar it's like and then I can't talk I'm like I can't talk for the next hour I have to think about this thing busy worrying yeah I'm busy worrying or I'm busy doing my Pro and list but instead of just constantly worrying about five or six different things all the time I will schedule it and that really helps and then I now schedule processing because like there are times where you look back you're like why did I say yes to that what was I thinking oh I just automatically said yes I just went into my default software you know like what we do it's like you move into a new house like you're going to drive to your old house for the first for like a couple months just for like habit you know so to me yes I have the if it's not a hell yes it's a no I have like posted notes all over my desk that are like the answers probably going to be but sometimes I'll just [ __ ] say yes and I'm like why did I do that like and I'll just go through I'll go through my calendar that's a big thing is like I'll sit down and like really get thoughtful about my calendar and be like I need to cut 30% of this out yeah period in the end yeah there's a a couple of interesting things that if you find yourself continuing to say yes to stuff and then when it comes around regretting the past version of you that made future you go to this thing when you get asked again ask yourself if this was tomorrow would I say yes because we you know there's this um h hyperbolic discounting so like you tomorrow is worth 20 in a year's time in the way that we see it and the same is kind of true with what you're prepared to oblige yourself to go and do it's like uh something that you'd say no to tomorrow you feel a little bit more okay saying yes to for six months but I first of all take a good look at yourself and make sure first you're not addicted to dread which I think wow Jes I believe I was right number one and number two I would go oh well I have nothing that day yeah it's three and a half months away this is better than nothing that's what I'm saying about this plan okay I have nothing that day business addiction but why don't I want to do nothing why am I like why I got to do this thing CU otherwise I'd do nothing and then oh God I'd be alone with one of my thoughts let's just fill it with something you know like what are you really saying when you agree to a plan that you don't want to do or they kind of like ah about like I'll do it like how little do you respect yourself and how little do you respect your time you know that you're saying yes to that like I really had to look at that and then I didn't go like well by then and then the lack of faith in yourself like what if I have a person by then what if I'm going to need to be making dinner for my guy that or going to the farmers market that day like I need to hold that day because what I'm saying is my life's not going to be any better by this day and the best I can do is this [ __ ] thing where I don't even really want to do it like what a what a wildly um self-destructive Instinct what a sloppy you know Death By A Thousand Cuts of just fill your life until you die how do you think you're going to get on given that you're going to have to take a a pretty big baby Hiatus you know it seems like your the Cascade of hormones has manipulated you appropriately but as it I feel like I've been like making no sense during this interview I feel like I've dude I have really really really enjoyed this I this is like the first time I've been like I think I have Mom brain like a couple times we're talking I'm like wait what was the question I feel like I must sound I've really I've really really enjoyed this I think it's very surpris I've watched a good bit of your stuff but this is a side of view that I think is is like really really useful from there are a lot of things that I and I did not want to come on your podcast and waste your time and your and your listeners time obviously I'm like a fan um but there are a lot of things I said on here that I have not said before or even articulated out loud so I do find myself being like being a little bit wobbly I'm just I'm just your new therapist so yeah take me through you know you've got this 3 weeks pop and then you for all the busyness and all the rest of it have you considered what you're going to do when the like work demon arises in the back of your mind it's like oh like [ __ ] he's asleep like let's see what emails I can blah blah as opposed to just are you how you how do you think you're going to won't do it I mean it's I just my that's a form of alcoholism and that's what my parents did to me you know and I just like won't let it happen I have basically six months I'm taking down from touring um entirely and you know for me it's it's actually really helped me to talk to people who have had kids again it's like the be regular and orderly in your personal life so you can be brave and violent in your professional life some of the people I admire the most have kids and they got better creatively it's not why I'm having them but I really just stay focus that's [ __ ] productivity pergatory it's pregnancy Purgatory I was like running out of jokes about being single guys I'm gonna get a new hour out of this but but you know Donald Glover for example you know I'm sure Donald Glover brilliant we used to tour together and he was always a great up was always a great musician and then one day you know he makes Atlanta I'm watching Atlanta I'm like this is one of the best shows I've ever seen and then he you know is on Fallon um singing red bone someone sends me the link to him S I thought it was Marvin Gay and I call him I'm like dude what happened is this that or all like what are we doing like oh I had a kid and I was like he was like it just took my creativity performance in hun so that no one yeah I know exactly so it's like I he's like it just took me to another level creatively you know so you know I was talking to a friend the other day who was like let it change you and so to me it's like I think my role is to just let it change me and to be the mom that I didn't get to have and you know there's all this I think sort of healing um Dynamics around you know being able to have the redo your childhood here here's one thing maybe that res might resonate with some people it certainly resonates at least in part with me which is let's say that you've gone from a type of person that you weren't so proud of or weren't so happy with and you've worked quite hard to get yourself to the stage where you are someone that you think is more aligned existentially all the rest of it you're speaking your Locos forward but when another set of changes comes along there is maybe even a bit more resistance because now you got something to lose M yes previously you were a piece of [ __ ] that didn't understand the world whereas now look I've already I've found some degree of Safety and Security and certainty and understanding in this me but letting go of this this me to get onto that this me is like oh my God like that's that type of evolution is even harder because the bank account isn't empty that's right that's right and I think for me it's like you know I uh want my kid to be proud to for me to be his mom you know it's G to make me cry and so that's how I think now and it's kind of cool you know and I found myself even in this interview being like Oh what if your kid watches this one day you know it's a kind of it's made me stutter and be a little bit you know um I'll get used to it but I like that directive I like that you know what's when your kid is 10 15 whatever in school are they gonna be like Whitney Cummings is your mom are they're gonna be like winie Cummings is your mom like I want the second one yeah you know so it's I feel like I've been kind of floating through space for a while been like well this makes people laugh and this makes people laugh and like they bought that and they bought this special but I'm kind of like is my 15-year-old going to be proud that I'm his mom that's [ __ ] cool that's really helping me make decisions I am going on tour next week the first time oh I know I know this will be out after the tour so for the people that all thank you for coming um what are the dos and don'ts of surviving on the road okay the dos the women in the lobby no Lobby no I'm kid the red flag they're waiting in the lobby the dos and don'ts I would say make sure I mean I'm going to get really technical sorry too the music that is playing when they're loading in is the show starts as soon as they walk in the theater you know the way you want them to feel the music you're going to be playing when they come in or are you playing videos of you you know so that when they're coming in they get to see you doing outtakes they get to see you doing stuff the experience starts because they're going to be you know sitting in those seats for 3040 minutes before you actually come out there so that's always something that I feel the need to say because the show starts before you come out at all um I also think um being able to uh move around on stage like are you doing a handheld are you doing like a uh yeah had set Mike pretty big pretty big stages so I should be able to bounce around Le you done the Leicester Square theater in the UK huh yes I have yeah so I got Saturday Sunday next next weekend that'll be fun W that's incredible I would go out and do the sound check like you know go out test the lighting see it I mean I've seen the way that you operate before you go on like you'll be fully prepared um but uh is you're going to be just like doing you going to talk to the audience at all uh yeah there'll be a Q&A at the end so it's 45 minutes interval 45 minutes Q&A yeah it's solo and and there's bits and I've been working this out I haven't really told we we announced it and sold the tickets but we haven't really like spoken about this I've been doing work in progress shows in Austin for the last two months Co East Austin comedy club so I've done like this routine I've done five times now and we've got rid of stuff and we've written it extrait you send me a recording I want to listen to it yeah I've got it like how like that would help me to be able to I'll send you I'll send you the stuff there's some [ __ ] monster bits in there there was one there's one bit that everybody will hear um the the timing of it I had to get Ryan long to like explain the comedic timing of how I could make it work really [ __ ] great but it's super I felt it was comp I'm sure it' be like walk in the park for you um okay so by the way if it goes sideways just go you know what I'm saying because then the audience gets to see something go sideways and that's even cooler sometimes that's funny too do you know what I mean what about here's one question I've got for you how do you wind down after you've done something uh emotionally agitating this would be useful for people that have got a big job interview but it's also useful for me after I step out on stage in front of we're doing 1 and a half thousand people in Dubai in two weeks time crazy um so I'm going to have to but I want to go to bed because I need to be up the next day to get ready for the next thing right so how do you get rid of the agitation hon this is going to be a hot take I say enjoy it till you're tired you know it's you worked so hard this is shocking to me is that I'm like I I'm literally I I this is they I got the new iPhone I usually if you just turn the ringer off it's off I know what's happening power moves I I just go to sleep when I'm tired I know that's a really hot take I used to take Lunesta and then I would take smoke weed it's like a sleeping amb or whatever yeah it's ambient is I can't believe that shit's legal lunessa is like a little more I had my first ambient a couple of weeks ago how was it I was I was on a plan I asked the first question I asked is this going to make me start tweeting racist [ __ ] could you imagine could you imagine if I'm you know that I was working on Roseanne at the time that that happened I didn't but if I being ambient I 100% would have been rosan bar your new [ __ ] partnership like let's make let's break the interet let's break the internet with this partnership could you imagine that ambian would just go down as the most legendary [ __ ] like [ __ ] racist tablets like the racist film are you finding yourself being too un bigoted take an ambian and a couple of glasses of wine biting your tongue we got you want to get fired from that job and don't know how amb want to get Uninvited from Christmas with your family I mean I but it's I mean I took uh ambian once and I woke up the next morning and he there was a chicken carcass on my dining room I had eaten an entire rotisserie chicken and no recollection whatsoever like had Cuts in my mouth it's monstrous that shit's wild but I would like try to sedate myself and I would kind of like I think something that happens when you get successful is you start trying to get it over with yes this is what you got here this is it you're here really great Point you're here you come off stage it's like talk to the audience go to the meet and greet like feel it high five your boys that's it because that's a form of gratitude and it's like you know telling I know this is going to sound like whatever dumb or Abraham Hicks or the secret or whatever but it's like when you're feeling the feelings you want to keep feeling don't try to stop feeling them it's like your brain needs to start practicing that Elation of like this is my new normal is that I just did this amazing thing and people loved it and I just people just paid money to see me talk like this is what I've been working towards then I see people like well how do I get to bed I'm like sleep get to bed sleep tomorrow like you'll sleep when you sleep you know I know as a high performers we all have to like sleep eight hours and see the Sun at this amount of time but every now and then you got to just like celebrate that's a really really like fantastic Point there's this I always use this example but uh Conor McGregor fought for the lightweight title twice I maybe it's the featherweight title twice I think it was featherweight so the first time he does it um the guy that he's supposed to fight pulls out with an injury and he fights for the interim title against Chad Mendes it's a way harder fight you remember he knocks out Aldo in 13 seconds it's that super famous knockout and it's like everyone everyone loses their [ __ ] yeah yeah um but the first time is much more of a war against Chad Mendes and there's a lot more pressure and so on and so forth and you know McGregor's Also earlier in his career and he hasn't had this first victory at a a super high level and um he gets interviewed in between the first interim title success and then the subsequent uh like combined title success or whatever against Aldo he's like what are you going to do differently this time as part of your preparation process and he says this time I'm going to enjoy it and there's this really famous photo of him standing like that he's got that tattoo running up the back of his neck and he's stood with his arms out in front of the weigh-in the ceremonial weigh-in and it's just this Arena of people that's there for him and he said the first time he did it he couldn't remember it because he was just you know looking over the shoulder of the present moment to see what was coming next and he was like what like what the [ __ ] am I doing like if I can't stand a decade and a half rolling sequences in some [ __ ] gym in Dublin Island sleeping in the Attic of his parents house for that moment and he's so concerned and fearful about the next thing that's coming that he can't even be there the place that he meant to get to all along yeah in which by the way like when you get there know you're there you know and I'm sure that that part of his brain is why he's who he is and we're both like that you know what's next what's next but I think celebration is a form of gratitude and it took me so long to be able to just enjoy the like this was this was literally my dream growing up and I'm here and I'm just like okay well does anyone have a benad drill because I need to go to bed because I have this other the airport tomorrow I'm like you know so I think it's like every now and then we got to just go like we like we did it you know I think it's um it trains our brain uh I think to be in that space more and prepares us for more of that cuz then you're kind of like but how many how many like you know situations does this happen and you spend so long searching on auto trader for the car that you want to buy and you go to the dealership and you test all of the different versions and you realize it's that kind of trim that you want it's the Alcantara not the leather seats and you want to get it with the red trim on the steering wheel not the plane and you want to get the this and then you finally get it and the first thing that you start thinking about is like what's the next thing you're already this amazing story from Morgan housel great writer fantastic new book everyone needs to go and buy it same as ever it's available now and he he told me the story he'd been planning this holiday with his family for ages and he's busy guy and he owns a fund and he does he's an author and he does all this other [ __ ] and he finally gets there and one of the first thoughts he had on the first night he's there on the balcony and theyve planned for ages and the family's there and they've got everyone and there been kids and all the rest of the stuff one of his first thoughts he stood on the balcony was wow it would be so great if we came back next year like this would be so great if we came back next year so even during the experience of experiencing he was already trying to get the anticipation in again that's I have the same exact story I'm at a hotel at a wedding with my girlfriend Dory and I was like this place would be great to like come like spend a weekend and she was like that's what we're doing and I was like oh like didn't even dawn on me that I was in that moment and I think something that it again little aphorisms adages little cute little things help me sometimes it is my goal in life to not be a sore winner and I see a lot of sore winners what's a sore winner a sore winner is someone who's won they got everything they wanted and they're like all right are we're going to get back to the hotel and and you're like we're here yeah it's like joyless Joy you won know when you've won even if it's a little micro win if you just had that great date and it might not end in marriage or but just like enjoy that feel those feelings because it teaches your brain to keep feeling those feelings there's a book called hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hansen which is precisely about that they that's the smarter person that'll say it in a more elegant way that I'm trying to neurons that F together why together train your brain for happiness because we're kind of like well if I just do this thing then I'll be happy and then you do the thing and you're like well now I need to do another one to be happy and it's one too many a million not enough and you're like well that's when the difference between it's is it a goal or is it an addiction yeah well I mean you know how many things have you done that you said would make you happy one of my friends Alex hosi has this [ __ ] monster quote where he says you've already achieved the goals you said would make you happy get [ __ ] dude get [ __ ] saying that now what now it's your excuse you said that the next car that you would buy would make you happy in your happiness evaporated you said that the next house you would buy would make you happy in your happiness evaporated you said that becoming a moderator on the Hustler University Discord would make you happy and your dad took away your credit card right like I would say like to calm down after your show like tell everyone at the theater hey I'm going to this bar after and like chill out and just get you might only be able to stay for 10 minutes because you're going to be getting mobbed and it's going to be chaos but to just like show up and see how much joy like to see the people you know in person that you're affecting every day like that that's another level of euphoria one thing that kind of come up a little bit throughout this conversation sorry really quick I don't want to interrupt you yes people can go oh I'm going to listen to him at the gym and when they get in their cars and book a babysitter and buy tickets and show up like these are like the fan fans and these are like your F like you started a cult sorry and you're about to meet your like that that's one of the greatest it's interesting CU I've got an all white robe and I've got this long wig of hair that I'm going to but these are people that have been listening to you talk for four hours a week yeah do you know what I mean but then the ones that show up in person there's nothing like that feeling when you get to meet them a couple might try to kill you but you're you're very strong you'll be fine I didn't want to interrupt you but no not at all uh yeah one of the things that's come up in like throughout this conversation is kind of uh not feeling feelings or the aversion to emotions arising yeah and uh do you know what the Overton window is it's like the window of acceptable speech so if you imagine um from not to 100 uh all of the things that you could say right from the most reprehensible in one way to the most reprehensible in another and then the overon window kind of describes this into quartile range within that yeah which uh is acceptable speech and if you stray outside of that uh then it's like unspeakable so for instance uh saying the word [ __ ] right is like right on the [ __ ] border I guess I've just pushed you over window okay I'm a meting you get to say it all the time we're a little off yeah um but you know there's and that slowly squeezes in but I always think about that as like okay so n to 100 are from the worst to the best emotions that you can experience and it feels to me like that into quile range is getting really really squeezed because people are able to you know sedate themselves from feeling feelings even through their phone you know I've got friends who if they're having a bad time their coping strategy is to just open their phone and distract themselves by scrolling you know that'll get you away from your feelings and it's strange you know the desire or the innate tendency that we have to neuter good feelings it's like this is just an INT feeling and I don't like it because I am I I spend almost all of my time in this [ __ ] pod bleeping away and Uber eing foods to me therefore anything of intensity just feels alien so I'm going to I must new to this I must hide away I always like to say to myself never miss the opportunity to feel a feeling that's going to motivate you to do something great like never never miss out on that feeling you know whether it's you know something you don't want to feel like jealousy or hurt or pain or something like like that like those can be transmogrified into great things like I mean I look at most things I've ever done and they've come from kind of gross feelings of wanting to get out of a feeling or you know having gone through pain or having to need to prove someone wrong or try to get someone's attention like you know to me I kind of try to look at feelings just as motivation for the most part to make a better choice so if I'm constantly anesthetizing myself I'm missing out on that fuel to do something you know and so that's how I try to look at it you know and then I go like okay I want to look at my phone right now and I want to anesthetize and I want to check out even though to me I mean it's playing the slot machine it's really what you're doing it's a gambling addiction at the end of the day right you're playing for that one dopamine hit you got that one time when that one girl made that comment that you liked you know whatever it's all just [ __ ] you know from then on out trying to achieve that same level of dopamine it seems like but I go like is it worth the shame I'm going to feel in 20 minutes when I have just been on Instagram for you know what I mean it's just not worth like I know how this story ends so I'm able to kind of walk myself through it and be like I'd rather feel this feeling of right now than shame in 20 minutes I've got this bit that uh appears in the live show where I I talk about the story that you tell yourselves about the decisions that you made last for far longer than the impact of the decisions so you being the sort of person who eats a cookie like yeah there's calories in the cookie and you'll feel nice and then like you might be a bit fatter tomorrow or whatever but the story that you tell yourself about being the sort of person who is or is not a cookie eater basically lasts for the rest of your life that's it and I and I don't have willpower and I'm just going to eat the cookie anyway and why you know so to me it's like I can really you know and this is something that we you know talk about in program is every year that you're in this 12-step program you get to have a second of pause you know so it's sort of like I've been in for you know almost 10 years now so I have 10 seconds of pause before I you know I like to respond and not react is the goal you know it's like I want to pick up my phone it's like I have 10 seconds to go is this a negative contribution to My Future Self is this I know how this story ends is this really seems like you've done the work really really does seem like you've done the work even if inwardly it feels like you're just a catastrophe that doesn't have their [ __ ] together well to me I like to like just say that to people you know and just share that on podcast so because I think people would probably think like oh look she's achieved all this stuff and I like to go like I've had to struggle with all this stuff you know no it really does seem like you've done the work I've been very very impressed with you today oh gosh crazy impressed I feel like I've been like sort of rambly and confusing and not been very very incisive where should people go they want to check out more of your [ __ ] and you're going to be absent from the road for at least six months so I am I my six special um just came out it's on ofv of.tv Whitney amazing totally uncensored and totally free and what else what else is what else is happening what else Whitney Cummings my podcast is good for you that's it I'm embarrassed to promote myself I'm not good at it if you enjoyed that episode then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last last few weeks and don't forget to subscribe