Why Is Everyone So Emotionally Fragile? - Whitney Cummings

what has changed since becoming a mother I stopped getting Botox okay is that the that's the big thing stop smoking weeds stop getting Botox okay you know a lot of things um I start with the sort of you know more factious ones but I'm obviously off birth control you know after having kid I went off and I can't believe how much clearer I am less emotional I am less judgmental I am uh less attracted to gay men I am uh and then I was like okay what else am I putting in my body you know cuz as soon as you have a baby in utero you care about your own health you know and then I'm like I'm not going to drink tap water anymore instead of spending money on stupid shoes that are going to give me blisters why don't I spend it on glass bottle water whatever you know and in trying to care for my son and protect him from microplastics and chemicals and stuff I accidentally took care of myself and cannot believe how much better I felt and I spend so much time now thinking of like when I see my girlfriends acting crazy or women acting crazy I'm like maybe Amber herd just wore too much deodorant do maybe we need to get we need to get Rose mcowan off tap water you know like what are all the chemicals and I know this is very in the zeist right now you talk about it hberman talks about it there's people that actually know what they're talking about but in my own you know research on myself I'm like I cannot believe how many chemicals I was putting in my body before and how much better I feel now that I'm not the botox thing was more of you know you can't get bots when you're pregnant and once I was pregnant I couldn't believe how much better I was all of a sudden communicating and I was like oh this must just be cuz I'm compassionate now and it's hormonal and like I'm I'm connecting with people more but we're designed to read micro expressions and I look at all my past toxic relationships where we had like trouble communicating or you know I expected the person to read my mind or just like know what I meant on my face or something and they meanwhile you've got a stone face I know I'm just like like no what do you mean everything's fine like I just am now like women are and Men I think are having a harder time communicating than ever and we're just add more and more things to make it more and more difficult like botox that literally stops you from having facial expressions correct correct and so I was like let me just stop because also look I lasered my entire body in my 20s I have no pubes I have no nothing like if I don't have any wrinkles either I'm just going to be attracting pedophiles so why don't I like also what kind of person wants to be with a woman with no pubes and no wrinkles like that's I think Epstein Island's closed but like you know I don't know the more I think about this the more I'm like I'm just deciding to become the most authentic person even if it's someone that I'm not 100% proud of all the time so that I don't attract the wrong person I think this is something that you know I realized is that we put on this thing to try to attract as many people as we can but we might attract the wrong person you know like the guy that wants a woman with like no wrinkles like do I even want to be with that guy you know um I stopped I mean I'm on your show so I had to wear a little makeup I don't want the comment section to be too brutal um but I stopped wearing so much makeup you know which I always thought like oh my God this is going to make a man attracted to me but it's going to maybe make the wrong man attracted to me um so a lot of that um I also have this weird obsession with how in me men were when I was pregnant it made me like love men in this weird way um I just saw a different side of men when I was pregnant and I think this thing of you know men don't want you know don't have like caretaking and whatever it is like whatever [ __ ] I got from my mom programming me because I came from a lot of bad divorc and I was you know fed this narrative that my dad was this monster and this like you know they were both you know had a lot of work to do but I just and I had a son you know and once you see a little baby boy and you like they start out so innocent you're like how do we get from this you know to such a toxic place and I'm fascinated it feels like even when we was speaking last time kind of in the middle of softening up a lot and maybe this is part of a Big Arc you said last time you know you'd spent two decades really grinding I needed to kind of prove to myself and then realized that all of the proof that I gave to myself was for everybody else and I actually hadn't changed anything internally and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah I mean do we I mean blah blah blah it is a pretty good impression of me actually it's literally the sound of your [ __ ] thing isn't it um but blah blah blah it's that's the British equiv that's the British am I just like the teacher from Charlie Brown yes correct that's correct um so it seems like a big suffing for you but I think that you know we're and we were kind of texting about this a little bit like you know as soon as I was you know conscious I remember being like I'm at War I come from you know alcoholic home I saw fighting I saw men and women fighting from the jump and then I was you know I come from the generation where you walk home from school when you're seven you know and I was taught don't talk to strangers you know you're we're at War you know and then I played Sports and it was like I'm beating you know I'm at War great a healthy type of way to channel that instinct and then I go to school in Philadelphia and it's like you're walking home from school you're at War self-defense you're just taught like it's you know dangerous to go to your car it's dangerous to do anything you have to fight with men you know I had a a situ an assault situation with you know a man and I shouldn't have been in the situation that's on me I didn't know how to get out of relationships no one tells you how to get out of Rel relationships all we learn about is how to get in them and I didn't know how to get out and this was before I had done any recovery work around codependence and I still erroneously thought I don't want to hurt this person so I'm not going to leave them that's like almost sadistic I don't want to hurt them so I'm going to waste their time I don't want to hurt them so I'm just going to pretend I still like them I mean I just I didn't know how to Dismount I was too afraid that I was going to break his heart he'll be fine he'll find someone else the narcissism of thinking that if you leave someone you're going to decimate them is beyond or these days I see a lot of men that're like I'm afraid to break up with this person because I'm worried she's going to Tweet about me you know I that's a different fear we'll get to that later if you want um but I was just terrified because I was you know taught that breakups should be long and nasty and hard and just unnecessarily you know sadistic and masochistic whatever um and then I come into this business and it's I'm told like you're woman in a male dominated field you have to fight tooth and nail everyone's your enemy and I was like all right I'm at war with everyone that was just kind of my default State I was taught men was my men were my enemy um and I think I was My Own Worst Enemy you know so it took me a second to kind of just go like I don't think anyone's trying to hurt me I think I'm looking for that because that's familiar and comfortable um I think there's almost also an element there to that the way that women compete is not in the same way that men do so there's some really interesting studies around the amount of physical affection that women on the same basketball team give to each other versus men on opposite basketball teams women on the same basketball team are less physically affectionate than men on opposite basketball teams fascinating so when you look at um lots of the Arenas in which men learn how to kind of form alliances uh have conflict have competition and then kind of do it within the bounds of a game of some kind that not that it's less serious but that there is this ability to kind of turn it on and turn it off um I wonder whether when you enter a mostly male dominated space like doing standup and comedy and Hollywood and [ __ ] like that whether there you just don't have the same kind of learning that you would have done had you have been a guy that had had that genetic predisposition and then grown up playing a ton of sports you know it's coalitional Warfare practiced within but you're just kicking a a spherical object around or whatever totally oh that's very interesting I mean I I was just talking to someone about this this morning is the thing that that um matters the most to me I is uh class and Grace and sportsmanship is one of those things I played basketball where if you didn't look the person that just beat you in a championship in the eye and shake their hand and mean it you were doing 50 suicides you know so I I come from that like I come from you know maybe almost to a fault you know that I'm like cuz I don't want anything I don't deserve I mean that's just my Kink personally we see a lot of people that just want what they want they want to you know Skip the line they want something fast I want um I don't want anything I don't deserve you can make a you can create a bit of a chip on your shoulder with that as well though right because once you've done it and you've come up through the ranks you then want to kind of prove to everybody well I earned this the hard way and I did this and look at all of these male Comics they [ __ ] didn't want me here and I did it and blah blah blah and that also doesn't come off as particularly classy either so there's all of these little I don't snakes that you can slip down yeah I think the older I get after having a kid this is kind of crystallized is you know to me the between you know whatever time anyone goes to bed 9: and 10 at night while I'm laying there on my pillow can I live with myself and am I corny and am I someone that I would make fun of or roll my eyes at and am I cringe you know and I'm in this you know 12-step program uh alanon ACA codependence um Anonymous and you sit there and you do something called a 10-step every night and you go through your behavior and you kind of look at yourself as if you were yourself watching yourself giving yourself a little Judgment of like H do I owe an apology there oh should I have said that was that necessary did I say what I mean mean what I say and say it mean that was a little catty did I need attention in that moment and yeah I definitely um shy away from any of that I did it the hard way because everyone's already made up their mind about us that's also like a wild realization to have um and when you're trying to convince someone to see you a certain way you just come off desperate and needy and you have to know when you're cemented too you have to know when you can like chill a little bit and go away and that's something that having a kid really helped me with as well there's an idea called tilting at windmills an online stranger doesn't know you all they have are a few vague impressions of you too meager to form anything but a fantasm so when they attack you they're really just attacking their own imagination so there is no need to take it personally we're kind of these like projection machines you know it's like who I am to you is an intersection of sort of what you saw today and your entire past and your experience I'm so fascinated by the fact that I'm someone different to pretty much everybody you know it's like a uh how do you say like a personality raw shock test like this person sees you as that that person sees you as the other 100% so going back to kind of what changed from a role perspective this sort of softening thing obviously you made lifestyle changes but was there this you know existential personality my position in the world has changed I was learning about what's that I like the the the obsession of self of something that you talked about well yeah the narcissism uh you know of what I do I just wanted to be a standup comedian for a living I want to make people laugh and then you know the you know business evolves and all of a sudden we're like hey guys hey guys and we're it's just me me me all the time and I realized like I was like am I how is my self-esteem getting lower I'm getting everything I want I'm paying my bills I've achieved my goals like how is myself worth falling is this from the comment section is it I'm turns out I'm just thinking about myself way too much I actually like myself when I only think about myself like an hour a day but when I think about myself 24 hours a day that's when my self-esteem plummets so now having a kid it's such a joy to not have to think about myself so much I also this is going to get me in trouble fine that's my brand I do believe it's okay to say women are caretakers by Nature we're good at it and I think that when we don't caretake children I'm not saying every woman needs to have a child I know plenty of women that I hope never have children you guys pushing this narrative women need to have kids you've seen them right some some do you want all of them having kids you and Alan and all these guys saying like have more children I mean I know a lot of women that I'm like can someone tie their tubes please I'm begging well I mean people sort of point to Kamala Harris and say look at the sort of like childless cat lady thing right I mean do you want that Screech as a [ __ ] growing uph in the home yeah do you want a kid being told they're a different ethnicity every day that would be very confusing okay I grew up in an alcoholic home I don't wish that on anyone yeah I'm not saying she's an alcoholic I don't know but those speeches are wild um and uh for me I found myself mothering adults groups of people even Concepts you know I'm not attacking attacking the left or right it's more I see women that are identified as liberal Progressive and they don't have kids and I wonder if that we need to save this minority group we need to save Ukraine we need to save gods that we Sor get child kind of you know that's really interesting because now that I have a son I go you know what I can just make this the best man I can you know what I mean this I can control I'm not going to be able to clean up Gaza Israel I'm not going to fix Hamas with a tweet or a March or what but I can control this and this might make a difference actually love to see the constitution of the people tweeting about stuff supporting things going out in protest now we would love to see how many of them have got kids and it's mother right I need to mother this group I need to car I need to protect this group you know I mean that's like you know I think that whenever someone's protesting or whenever someone's like coming out you know a lot of times it looks like virtue signaling self-righteous saying the nation fine but I'm like is the root of this you want to Mother something and take care of something and it's like you know this group you know needs help and needs support I need to be an ally it's like I think I kind of just needed to be a mom has it changed your relationship to men your understanding of males generally now that you've kind of got one on your side yes of course you know um look the I won't even the word feminism has gotten is so ridiculous at this point but I am working on a bit about how it's impossible to be a feminist and a boy mom because it's like I believe that women you know do have horrible things happen to them but also they lie uh and but that's also about equality it's like you can't say I'm a feminist men and women should be equal and it's like okay by that women are just as destructive just as conniving just as you know uh brutal just you know so I think for me I do spend a lot of time going like this will be interesting am I going to have to teach my son about consent like what is this going to look like and I I very much less so see things about men versus women now and it's just more good versus evil uh and I don't think it's men versus women anymore I think it's good men and good women versus bad men and bad women if that makes any sense you know but also just seeing how sorry I'm just coming in hot with this I think that the wildest part was deciding whether or not to circumcise my son that's you know and I did defer to his dad on it um because I just that felt like the right thing to do as an English person this is not something that we really have to deal with so I think I I mean I could probably pull up the stats I would guess somewhere in the region of single digigit percent guys that aren't Jewish in the UK would be circumcised and I'm going to guess that it's maybe not far off the inverse here in the United States it's Auto it's automatic at the hospital like you have to actively say I don't cut the umbilical cord lose the [ __ ] truly that's it I mean it's just imag dou it up with just one extra long pair of scissors well I did have to have that too I was kind of circumcised during birth that's a different conversation for another day but I uh I I mean if that was reversed Ty insane would that be you know and you know talks about it a lot and you know he I won't you know plagiarize him here but I mean he really does think of it as mutilation and I I looked at all these like studies which again look whoever puts their circumcised baby in a study I already have questions about this study it's like it's like these you know do the Tex too but it's like you know when they're like you know women mature faster than men I'm like who needed to do this study who was like you guys let's do a study about how young girls are more mature like did Epstein fund this study let's be honest you know like there's what's the new thing of how um baby taints are shrinking because of microplastics right okay I thought that I thought who did this study who was measuring tains iing I looked at one so yeah the uh you call it taint the between your yeah the it's a taint yeah the I think it's anogenital Gap is technically what it's referred to as or the GU in the UK much better word than hate it gu is CR [ __ ] because it feels wet it is it's better it's better describing the area that we're talking about but yeah I mean that's that's that's not good um but penises are getting bigger a little bit are they how do is that for microplastics uh they're not sure they're not sure so sperm count going down testosterone going down anogenital distance decreasing penises little bit bigger how do we know who who's doing the study how do we know we go again okay am I wrong yeah well fcking who's measuring penises did anyone ask you to be in the study who's doing the study you are like the conspiracy bro of every psychology study that's ever been think about study I know look I respect studies and all but I used to do studies when I was broke I used to sign up for studies I had no money you get $50 they'd be like are you depressed come to the study I was like I wasn't depressed but now that I have to go do a study for cash I guess I qualify do whatever you want totally but it is always going to be college kids it's gonna you know I just like to know who you know because a lot of medications you know ambient I think it was didn't uh test on women so the dosage was off like there's certain and that's what happened to roseen B that's one of the things yeah there was a few things there's a few things circumcision so you chose to you decided to I chose to do it um because you know there's an argument to say that the son should look like their dad you know what is that argument when they like change or take a shower or that kind of thing that's an argument that wasn't the argument here um you know I also was there and it was the ne and I had a very specific Surge and do it so there was really no pain cuz that's the other thing it's like the trauma of the pain associating that with the I was like I don't want my kid to you know be a serial killer cuz as a mom of a son every serial Killer's behavior is blamed on the Mom it's like the mom didn't let him wear the panty hose you know or wear her shoes so he wouldn't killed a bunch of women I'm just like I just need to not turn my son into a serial killer he sees his dad all the time they have a great relationship like I just need to figure out I if I don't circumcise him and then he gets made fun of in the locker room and go kill kills a girl like I need to just do the right thing um and so yeah so I decided to do it but I was very micromanaging about it to make sure you know because to me the circumcision I mean you know look and when you talk about something like this all of a sudden it's like is she anti-semitic whatever it's not about that but when you do like a ceremony 4 days later it's like it's going to hurt a little bit more and then the baby sees all these people just clapping is they're they feel this horrible pain I mean it has to leave a mark in some capacity but I am also going through the process of it the way that they put a baby down and strap them down and wait like I was like no no no we I I managed the entire process to make sure it wasn't like super stressful well it was like me doing one of my podcasts guys can we just pan in a little bit more on that please I think we're actually a little bit off on the Tilt can we just move that a little bit I love watching you before a podcast do your thing because it is the way you do anything is the way you do everything probably and you this is why you're so successful circumcise your son [ __ ] you should have brought why you why didn't you bring me in I could have got it done in no time when you're Crocs I mean you do dress like a ER doctor that's true that is very true I like it um what would you do if you had a son do you know yeah I I think uh you wouldn't no I don't think so um look I haven't done the research on this but it seems like the genitals don't have that many moving Parts going on that nature probably designed most of them to be essential yeah um agree so there's a few other things interesting I've got I'm very close with a friend who was circumcised Muslim and uh he wishes that he wasn't and you know he talks to me about um like lack of sensitivity and stuff like that as he's grown up and again you know it's your [ __ ] choice and it's not like this is such an outlier problem there's got to be 100 million men yeah in the United States that are circumcised it's the default I mean we'd be the cycle Breakers you know if I had another one I don't know what I would do you know I was like a game time decision now that [ __ ] that's how you throw a real spanner in the work dad circumcised elder brother circumcised younger brother ah keep a hold of it yeah that's I mean that's research that's good research because it's the same family well that's dangerous being being [ __ ] uh British with a for skin in America is now like how many women have never seen an uncircumcised it's so much easier to give hand jobs though well I mean you'd have to tell me more about that but well it's easier be when it's circumcised I mean sorry uncircumcised it's easier because you have something to like hold on to you're the expert yeah I hate your guy you're the expert um but I was with a man that was uncircumcised and he had a lot of Shame about it in America like it's like again a lot of women are like what is that what's happening I mean it is it's a penis uhuh it's a penis it's the way that it's supposed to look but we don't really see that it's the same way it's like when you know boys that are 18 now probably see a girl for the first time with pubes and they like what's all that that didn't exist on pornh Hood no you know I mean you'd have to look for it but I mean it's I think if you saw a regular woman's body and you only looked at porn I'm sure that's kind of traumatic I have been using my eight sleep mattress for nearly 3 years now and I can't imagine life without it if you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night due to your temperature this is the game changer eight SE just launched their newest generation the Pod 4 ultra which can cool down each side of the bed to 20° below room temperature keeping you and your partner cool even in a Texas heat wve and for those those of you who snore heavily it can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head a few degrees to improve air flow and stop it this is unbelievable it cools it Heats it elevates and it is clinically proven to give you up to 1 hour more of quality sleep every night and they ship to the US Canada UK Europe and Australia plus you can get $350 off your pod4 Ultra by going to the link in the description below or heading to 8sleep.com wisdom using the code modern wisdom a checkout that's EIG ghts sleep.com wisdom and modern wisdom a checkout tell you what I've been thinking about a bit recently how much more women gossip about sex and intimate sort of sex stuff with their friends than guys do I think that women presume that guys are super open about you know and then I turned her over and I did this and she was like ah and I was like that's G and there is I have never had I mean maybe maybe when you first start having sex and you're like like 19 or some [ __ ] and like everybody in your friend group is kind of just exp this normal to do that thing and oh yeah yeah yeah I do that too but you get to 22 or whatever is a guy and no one is talking about that no one's asking their friend over a beer what him and his girlfriend or one night stand get up to in the bedroom it is it makes me it makes my [ __ ] to C I think about that cuz then you're just imagining your friend having sex kind of it seems it seems sort of uh like a bit of an invasion of privacy you're basically asking to kind of imagine your mate's girlfriend doing that it's a little bit crossing the boundary with him too like what is it you asking this because you want to imagine me and what I'm doing and then I know there's just something a bit sort of [ __ ] no like that's your area yeah I don't think that's the same with girls I'm maybe an anomaly because a couple things for me my biggest turn on in a relationship is respecting the person and if I [ __ ] gay turn on such a [ __ ] turn on Who Wants to be respected okay so if I say Mone CH me while you respect me if I say money I'm disgusting if I say a car I'm disgusting if I say a good job I'm disgusting but if I say respect him I'm an idiot or a good set of shoulders I don't know well I respect that if you put time and energy into respecting yourself kind of thing but I always think that whenever I talk to my guy friends and girlfriends if you're gossiping about your person with other people you might not respect that person I found that in the past if I'm like yeah is this normal in the bedroom or he did this in the bedroom I'm like oh I don't respect him enough because I'm willing to share this you know all right it's an invasion of privacy that you're opening up because you don't actually care yeah or it's like I don't respect this person now I'm going to let everybody else have this thing in their head that that he's a goofball or whatever you know so I sto if I found myself doing that I would just end the relationship because I'm like oh that's a first indication I mean I'm gossiping about my person I really think that no matter what I mean I always tell my girlfriends I don't want to hear about your guys porn addiction I don't want to hear that he was texting with another girl because you're going to break up if you're already telling me that well how many just thinking about sort of the actual public front showing of this how many podcasts owned by Spotify or bought by Spotify are girl talk it's girl talk with [ __ ] Cindy and Lindsay and all they do is talk about their one night stands and what happened blah blah and this is the position that I like and if you tried it to do this way I I know of no M even the most Degen artist red pill manosphere podcast do not get to that there was a brief period where um there was like this odd campaign where going down on girls is gay uh was like a was a a sort of movement that was being pushed by but why because it's like sub or something the woman yeah exactly um beyond that it's like sucking her dick or something yeah kind of I think I honestly think that was it going down on trans girl maybe for sure but beyond that like literally that was the closest I've ever heard the sort of you know most unencumbered total explicit open door policy guy podcast get to one that there's a whole [ __ ] sub genre of them for checks so just it's real interesting you know and it's also like you know I always try to go how is this existed just look different you know um like the way that I stopped checking my email every 10 minutes is I just visualized imagine if 30 years ago you watch someone walk to their mailbox check if there was anything and then walk back into the house and then 10 minutes later check like it's this we're doing the same thing right like how is it different like I'm like this is a crazy person being like do I have any mail do I have any mail like it's psycho you know I think that like you know is it equivalent to you know guys in their garage have a poster of a hot girl you know that kind of thing I think men are more Visual and women are more verbal so guys have sports illustr swimsuit addition and that's kind of how you you know share in gossiping about girls but it's like just looking at hot girls or something whereas we don't have that really it's sort of more like this guy called me and then he didn't text me back I'm like [ __ ] you know and my bigger you know I think it's fine it's We're In America free speech whatever I think the bigger thing is when it's motivated by revenge or motivated um by wanting to be a victim in some way or you know that that that I I don't think embarrass ing men or trying to humiliate men is a solution to any of their problems and it to me just seems very self-destructive you know cuz what kind of your whole thing is like men are trash and but no great man is going to ever want to be with you if this is what you do you're not going to attract a king if you're acting like this you know so it is what it is I think that I try to just go you know what the world needs contrast and you wouldn't be you if they weren't them but I think the more interesting thing with the talking about what goes on in the bedroom I think there is value in Sharing Intel of like a guy did this is that weird is that normal I think that's when people really share it's like guys going my girl keeps asking me to hit her I don't want to do that I don't want to hit her like that's different though what I'm talking about is the sort of this weird open door policy about he does this and I like it and he tries that and we're trying to do this thing I don't know maybe it's just yeah maybe it's just that all guys are still sort of sexually unenlightened and they're not prepared to speak to their friends about it or maybe they think that it's something it's like I don't know I don't know there's just an ick there's an ick about that kind of open door policy and I think most girls think that most guys talk like that around their friends I just wanted to set the record straight you know that I wonder if he's talking about how we have sex you could imagine one of those memes in he's turned over and it's [ __ ] Warhammer 40K or you know he's like planning his [ __ ] end of your accounts or something it's not guys talking about sex I just felt like that needed to be I think that's yeah no I really appreciate you saying that all my friends are male comedians so this is probably not where I can weigh in the most I've heard things like light bulb [ __ ] battery [ __ ] I've what's light bulb [ __ ] it it's uh it's when a girls vagina like is tight and then it's like not as tight oh inside oh W oh it's like that way it's going that way well yeah you know like a light bulb yeah yeah yeah but in that way yeah oh yeah yeah so I thought you would it looks like one on the outside oh yeah sorry no like things like that I've like heard this from just guys talking if it was the other way if it was a light bulb that was upright it would be like one of those things that you you know when you need to hook a painting onto a a screw and you're like well dude if it's too big at the top you can just move it down to the bottom but that no yeah like spacious roomy inside like one of those good New York apartments where you think there's no way it's going to be able to fit you again you're like oh kind of yeah it's not bad Vietnamese family could live in here I just think sex is so H just so like I don't know porn or whatever it's just so everywhere I mean I'm more interested in talking about when you're in a relationship like does your guy wash his jeans mine are we things like that are are you washing your jeans Chris no I'm no never uh the ma does that oh no but that's not what I mean there's some jeans that aren't supposed to be washed you're supposed to put them in the freeer what washing your jeans who puts jeans in the freezer what what does that do okay it there's certain raw denim that you're not you spent too much time around Bobby Lee you spent way too much time around Asians that spend a grand on a pair of [ __ ] jeans very true exactly right I can tell I these hipster [ __ ] overpaid Hollywood you know what you're actually very right if everybody came through to auson Texas and wore Square toed boots and a [ __ ] cowboy hat I know this is going to get me in a lot of trouble bring it but I'm very fascinated now and I you know I don't think it's just having a kid I think it's I've had a lot of relationships and they haven't worked and I'm working on this bit about how like when you you know you're like younger and you're like I don't need a man I'm an independent woman men are trash and you get older and you're like maybe it's me like what are the odds you know if at the very least I make bad choices at the very least I stayed for two years in that thing that I'm like he's an idiot like I stayed um I I think there's something really powerful about having an epiphany that you're kind of toxic well you're the common denominator between all of your relation that's and just going you know what let me just clean up my side of the street and let me just see what happens you know what I mean let me just take responsibility for my part and sort of see what happens and I've always been kind of trained to believe don't be a gold digger do not need money from a man do not need anything from them and also don't let them take care of you cuz like that's not their job or you know you're going to be needy you're going to be a succubus you're going to be a parasite like because I grew up I'm just going to say it my mom was you know worked very hard but she also had to date men for money that's what I watched and I watched her being trapped in relationships that she didn't want to be in that were weird with like creeps that were creepy with me and all this kind of stuff and I was just sort of like I never want to be that I definitely overcorrect it and I'm seeing a lot of these overcorrections and now maybe I'm over correcting again but I at least want to kind of try I love the idea of look I'm not going full tradwife don't everybody panic I still dress like a bulkee don't worry but I love I want to be able to take care of a man like I want to be able to take care of when I see these women they're like I don't cook I don't clean I'm like what do you do you dirty hungry [ __ ] what do you do what are you proud of that are you proud that you don't cook how do you feed yourself is that cool like why isn't cooking cool it's like you're using fire and knives Why Can't This Be why does this have to be why is this lame like I'm just I'm genuinely shocked is someone that you know didn't do that for a long time cuz I was just literally too busy you know and it worked you know um whatever my high functioning autism I was like you're going to do that I'm going to do this I'm going to just eat a Gogurt in the car because I'm you know of of how ambitious I was but now I'm just sort of like don't you what why what's the pride around all of this I'm useless is like what is why is that somebody to be proud of like for me I just I also enjoy it you know I think everyone's sort of a I'm not doing anything for him until you meet the person that you actually just want to do it for that's why people have got such a problem with anyone that has a sort of big stake in the ground this is me I'm not going to have kids I'm not going to get married I'm not going to do the whatever and then someone pivots and then they don't ever retro point at the thing go I was wrong guys I apologize about that or whatever or what everybody should do as far as I can tell like I'm chronically uncertain about everything right I don't know every smart person I think is okay well yeah maybe and I think I I have no idea if this is the right answer to this thing this is something I'm trying at the moment I think I this to me this seems to be the right way to go about stuff right now and this is where people get a problem with uh it's one of the reasons that there is a contingent of the internet that's got a problem with hubman stuff because they say protocols and he's saying that it's the way to be done I'm I'm pretty sure that he's saying this seems to be what the evidence suggests might work take what you like and leave the rest yeah you know take what works for you you know but I think like you know I love what you're saying because I think to me it's like you didn't know you were I'm doing nightclubs I'm doing this and then you found the podcast and then everything clicked into place MH it this is it I think it's probably the same with a person I think it's the same with the job I think you like really know who you are until you find the thing you're like oh it's this it was here the whole time you know last time that we were together you told me to do eoin therapy and then I went and did it and I called it what do I call it horse meditation and the lady didn't like the woman that was taking it was it she had mixed opinions on that but my story for they'll call it [ __ ] meditation [ __ ] meditation yeah yeah yeah an English accent that's why she was crumping what happens with aan everyone outside of Aran doing hores meditation and uh yeah I I that was really interesting because reflecting on what it is that you want from an animal what it is that you need from somebody else and I started going down a codependency learning rabbit hole after we spoke last time I think you suggested a couple of books to me which I'm still partway through uh but can you explain codependency seems to be this thing that kind of looks below the surface for most people maybe everybody's got some degree of it and then some people it's the driving force that's in their life and the first time I'd ever heard of it was when I spoke to you and it seems kind of important can you please just promise me that you'll stop me if I'm rambling or if I'm not being clear all the time okay so codependence I like good definition I live for a good platitude aphorism um codependence the definition that I like to work with is the inability to tolerate the discomfort of others or the perceived discomfort right because we might just be projecting um my specific codependence came from at an early age feeling like I need to take care of the feelings of the adults of I need to behave a certain way to get someone to act like this ultimately it is um the same way an alcoholic you know is alcohol makes their life unmanageable right an addiction is you know continuing to do something despite your life becoming unmanageable porn making your life unmanageable you might be a sex addict alcohol making your life unmanageable you can still drink alcohol but if you can make it to work the next day not unmanageable if you can't make it to work the next day unmanageable right addiction continuing to do the same behavior despite negative consequences right so in you know AA you're addicted to alcohol in na you're addicted to narcotics in alanon ACA you're addicted to perfectionism people pleasing shapeshifting to try to control other people's behavior um uh you know self-deprivation is another uh part of codependence so codependent we hear a lot like sometimes it just sounds like you spend a lot of time with a person that's not necessarily codependent codep there's codependent and interdependent right and codependent is you're getting your emotional needs met through another person whereas interdependent means you're getting your own emotional needs met internally so addiction being I'm getting my internal needs met with external things drugs sex and with us it's other people it's almost like being addicted to a person love addiction is a very close concentric Circle but that's kind of another thing so if you and I are dating and we're codependent or you and I are just friends and we're codependent it is like you send me a text I have to I just have to respond right away there's a fear that my behavior is going to make you uncomfortable or that my behavior is going to make you leave me abandon me judge me right so ultimately it becomes an addiction to control trying to control someone else's perceptions behaviors addictions choices right what's the usual root cause or what of the most common root causes a lot of things um uh in my experience you know growing up in a home where the adults didn't get their emotional needs met internally so you know they they were checking out they were drinking they were using they were fighting something else and then the child as a result goes I need to try to fix this we're parentified children we tend to be so we had to be adults too young right so instead of just being kids we had to be like Mom and Dad are fighting what if I get good grades what if I just do R and basketball what if I just clean this thing or for me there was also a lot of neglect and there was a lot of I'm on my own right no one's going to take care of me I can't trust anybody I just need to you know and this belief that your behavior can control someone else's behavior and it's magical thinking and it comes from uh I not having like consistency not having um people that were Fair around you um you know cuz alcoholism we say like if grow up in an alcoholic home many times you end up being a codependent but alcoholism is defined you know look in order for alcoholism to be present alcohol doesn't have to be present so when you go through and do an inventory in this particular program which if you're codependent you don't necessarily have to do this whole program it is just kind of like a school for your brain it's just like a way to reparent yourself and have mature adult uh expectations of people in yourself so you know all of the defense mechanisms that you developed as a child to survive your family system and by survive it doesn't mean it was life or death you know it might just been on Christmas your mom puts a ton of pressure on everybody and everything has to be perfect and every the table is set perfectly that's a form of like alcoholism this workaholism you know obsession with perfectionism if you grew up around that it's a way to sort of reparent yourself so that you are not acting from the point of view of your inner child uh who is trying to solve everybody else's problems manage everybody else caretake other people you know get your self-esteem from uh your productivity right and your usefulness to others that's a big one you know it's like I need to rescue everyone I need to save everyone we've all been in those relationships where you like need to save them you need to rescue them and then you resent them so much you know so codependence also has this sort of like you know you think you're just really nice you think you're just like you know being a great person you think you're just like this Angel that's rescuing people but what you're really doing when you're going to rescue a girl say you know this girl she doesn't have her bills paid she's in a bad relationship she's got bad credit you're I mean essentially what you're saying is like you wouldn't be able to survive without me you couldn't do this without me um so ultimately l times our our uh help is coming from a place of arrogance and playing God um and trying to change people trying to fix people um desperation too I'm going to guess too in the 3m's mothering M micr Maring I'm sorry mothering micromanaging and martyring you know those three things do you get your self-esteem from being useful to other people from rescuing other people um where are you in terms of your ability to like yourself without other people's approval does your mood uh is it dictated by other people's perception of you your achievements you know it's it's a tricky one because it's something that it's the only quote addiction that you get rewarded for you know it's if you're a drunk and you act shitty at a bar they kick you out if you're codependent you're like no I'm going to drive him home I got him I'm going to take him home and then I'm going to take him to rehab and then I'm G to get them sober and then I'm gonna you know and it's like well you're this hero but I it's got the elements of was being charitable being caring being sensitive but that's also selfish sometimes well I guess it depends on where the compulsion is coming from like it's so fascinating because all of these things uh the the dose kind of is the poison here the like doing something nice for somebody else caring about somebody else having empathy are we really supposed to expect that we we would be able to detach our own self-esteem from the opinions of other people we're a social species you know you should care about your opinion of you more than you care about other people's opinions of you but assuming that you're ever going to not be able to care about other people's opinions of you I think is it's not going to happen maybe there's some you know one in a thousand Michael malice Anarchist you know middle finger type people that can go and do that but I think they're outliers uh the problem being where is this coming from and it seems to me it's the drive it's this need if I do this then I will be wanted needed accepted validated by the world not abandoned and this is why it's so tricky because the difference between kindness and codependence is the motive so if I drive you to the airport because I'm like well I want Chris to like me because I want him to put me on his stories and I want him to tell other people that I'm cool and I'm trying to control trying to make myself feel safe and I'm using you right I'm that's dehumanizing you but if I drive to the airport because we're friends and I want to talk to you and I want to hang out with you and you owe me nothing in return and I'm not keeping score that's just friendship and that's just service and that's kindness but it's one of those things where it's like other people can see if you're addicted to drugs other PE but in codependence you have to [ __ ] do it yourself you have to hold yourself accountable you know because ostensibly I might look like the nicest person in the world but a lot of times if I'm over gifting like I brought you a gift and I don't know if I'm going to give it to you like I'm trying to decide if I should give it to you this is a real thing this is where codependent because I don't want you I don't want to make our relationship transactional all of a sudden do you know what I mean and I don't want you to be like well now I have to give her something it depends you know am I going to keep score uh when someone's over gifting am I doing it to make you owe me am I are we entering in some kind of tox contract where I've given you this thing and you know it's it's really interesting the over the span of about a year I tried pretty much every Green strink that I could find trying to work out which one was best and I came across ag1 and I've stuck with it for over three years because it's the best it's the most comprehensive it's the most highly tested and the most rigorously formulated ag1 genuinely care about holistic health which is why I've got my mom to use it I've got my dad to use it and tons of my friends as well and if I found something better I would switch but I haven't which is why I still use it there is a 90-day moneyb guarantee so if you're unsure about trying it you can buy it completely risk-free try it for a full 3-month period And if you don't like it they will give you your money back so if you want to replace your multivitamin and more start with ag1 right now you can get a years free Supply vitamin D3 and K2 five free ag1 travel packs and a 90-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drink a1.com slod wisdom that's drink a g1.com slod wisdom does this mean that a lot of the time if you're unwinding your codependence that you're actually going to become a worse person in terms of your actions before you become a better person again I think you'll become a worse person to uh people that want to use you and you will become a better person to healthy balance people so when you get healthy the sick get angry so when you start you know taking care of yourself when you start putting yourself first when you start giving 50% in a relationship instead of 9010 and then it'll feel to I don't I'm not a doctor I'm not going to you know diagnose people but borderlines narcissists you know selfish insecure people are going to go like oh so you're just ignoring me now hey stranger where have you been like you know so once you stop a lot of your codependent behaviors there will be a little bit of a backlash but then you realize oh yeah these relationships were codependent we were using each other or I was using them or you know once I went to recovery for codependence I realized that like most of my friends I didn't even like them that much I just like didn't know how to say no and I did a lot of things out of obligation you know and I think it's probably better and part of the reason I'm getting tripped up is like sometimes it's better just use specific examples that are helpful so you know before I went into recovery before go to dependence I would get an invite to a birthday and I was like I got to go to this I got to go to this birthday party I got to go we got to swing by and then another friend ah friend another friend's having birth so I got to stop at this one I got to stop at this one and the implication there is like if I don't go what are they going to cancel the party like what they're going to be like where's Whitney like the it's that I'm a piece of [ __ ] in the center of the universe thing and because when you keep score as a codependent you assume everybody else does oh that's interesting you know what I mean so if you're the person that's like oh well chrisen trup to my party okay noted I'm assuming that other people behave like that too chances are they would not even notice that I didn't show up and I'm the person showing up to the party going hey I'm here okay well I got to go to another party now and everyone's like cool yeah sick philosophy on life just dragging yourself from party to party and making it about you like well I have to go to another thing now and I was like awesome so no real friends just a bunch of acquaintances that I felt obligated to you know run around and please when I wasn't even pleasing but I'm the person of the party who's like can I help you clean up can I do this like I didn't know how to just be enough and be in a conversation with someone and uh you know here here are some of the like you know slogans that I love because it's a simple program for complicated brains right we have complicated brains um before you try to solve a problem first make sure it's your problem that like blew my mind when I first came in it was like oh a friend of mine is going through a breakup I need to go over there and I need to start helping her pack her stuff so she it's like why am I solving someone else's problems what am I my addiction was to get out of myself instead of checking out with drugs or alcohol I was like I'm going to check out with I'm going to use someone else's problems to disassociate and to get some self-esteem that's how low my self-esteem is that I need to go rescue someone to feel good about myself you know and it's again a really tricky thing because if a friend of mine said you know I'm in a really bad situation someone just hit me I'd be like I'm on my way over you know but I wasn't doing it for that reason which is where the motive thing comes in it's kind of of a subconscious addiction to drama uh which is ultimately adrenaline and we forget about the internal drug cabinet so where the external drug cabinet you know what all those are we can also get high internally and I remember watching the Johnny Depp Amber herd trial and I was glued to it I couldn't get enough because I was like everyone needs to watch this because this is the apotheosis of internal drug cabinet this is adrenaline addiction we don't talk about this because no one sells adrenaline right when you subconsciously put yourself in situ sitations where you're going to get a ton of adrenaline because adrenaline turns into dopamine it's addictive that's why toxic relationships are addictive you know it's like this feels bad but it also can't stop and that was a big thing for me in codependence I was like why am I you know anyone who's like I hate drama that is a red flag get away from that person because you know you find yourself just subconsciously um attracting you know to situations where there's going to be adrenaline um you know look there's also more about like ancestral roles and birth order which I know you know a lot about and stuff too I do believe like my epigenetic imprinting you know the neurochemicals that are emitted in utero I've think maybe we've even talked about this you're born addicted to the same way if your mom does crack you're born addicted to so when I had my was pregnant with my son I was if someone cut me off in traffic I'd be like good luck I hope you have a great like I would not allow any adrenaline because I know that I was conceived during like a very acrimonious divorce very dramatic [ __ ] well so like a crack baby you're an adrenaline baby literally so I basically did detox from ad adrenaline I mean I did 30 days no adrenaline um how do you do 30 days no adrenaline you basically just like block everyone [ __ ] nightmare you know um but you really look at yourself and just going the common denominator and all these toxic relationships it's really are do your relationships and the choices you make do they feel like an obligation do you feel guilt or shame when you say no to people do you take care of yourself for real do you floss are you feeding yourself well I mean little things like that where it's are you putting other people's needs before yours in a way that's not cute what are some of the ways that this can manifest in people's lives that they might not realize when you become a boss and you can't not be friends with your employes or I see a lot of like HR issues and a lot of toxic work environments I'm like that's codependence first of all Johnny Depp Amber Heard I was like that's all codependent [ __ ] you know um little things like you hire someone cuz you're doing them a favor you do a favor for someone when does that go well you do a favor for them you give them a job okay I'll Mentor you and then all of a sudden you're like you're you're not right for this right and now I'm going to help you and now we're hang out now we're friends now you want more because I now you're entitled like I enabled this situation you know I think hiring it gets very tricky um self-deprivation I mean codependents tend to be the people that don't go to doctors forget we live in America and it's a fortune to go to a doctor but like not taking care of yourself you know before I came into program like I wasn't consistently flossing I wasn't getting my vision checked like I wasn't I had chronic migraines it can really like manifest in your health as well you know um I wasn't uh uh sitting down reading I wasn't stretching like I would work out because there's not much selfcare I mean if any it's like a it's it's sort of a yeah self harm in a way um if you're the person where before people come over like I have to clean up and I have to everything has to be perfect it's like so are you friends with people that if all the dishes weren't clean they'd be like never mind you know what I mean and what you're doing is you're implying that everyone is shallow as you maybe like would you judge someone for that ultimately you do it is a very judgmental kind of thing because you're assuming everybody else wouldn't accept you if you weren't perfect and that they care enough and the arrogance yes and the arrogance of thinking there is such a thing as perfection think was Perfection you just have to be perfect at all times and then it'd be like would hurt even more when someone didn't want me or rejecting me because it's like well I'm perfect I can't get any you know but that's not how things work right and I think that um hold on I'm trying I'm so overwhelmed because this is such a big topic and the pressure to talk about it and get it all in without being born you're doing a great job my brain just goes like don't be boring don't be boring you're doing a great job but ultimately a big part of what it is is making sure you stay a victim okay so I'm going to be so nice to you and give you so many presents and do so many amazing martyy things for you that you can never requite them and Chris doesn't appreciate me I love it's the people that get out of relationships and go my problem is I just love too much stop doing it for them then you know you're doing 90% instead of 50% so relationships should be 50/50 so I'm going to do that's the trick about the Trad wife thing and the you know is if I'm it doesn't count if I make you dinner and clean your shoes and do your launder and well how come you oh and you're going to say this and you're going to do oh you're going to text that person at you know 10 p.m. and I made dinner that's codependence right because I'm being so nice that the score is always off it's a bargaining chip you're keeping tally and I always feel unappreciated and I get to recreate the childhood circumstances or whatever F familiar Vibe of being a victim and I see this glamorization of victims these days and not true victims but people that think like if I'm a victim I'm interesting or I need to be a victim because that's I don't know I don't my nightmare is to be pied um you know I think before I really valued being a martyr I thought it meant you were strong I thought it meant you were selfless you know I thought that was like life's purpose and then I realized like I'm not going to save anyone or rescue anyone or be any value to anyone if I'm sick all the time and doing it out of obligation I would and it took you know going into recovery to go like I would never want someone to hang out with me or come to my birthday or drive me whatever because they thought they had to like how embarrassing I would never want someone to stay with me and be like I know this isn't going to work out but I don't want to break her heart and stay with me how embarrassing you know so it's kind of a a selfishness that because you don't want to feel bad or for the other person to think you're a bad person and I I think a big part of success these days is like you know the linear relationship with the ability to have uncomfortable conversations and to be able to say no and if people don't like you not seeing it as they don't like me seeing it as like I've been rerouted to a different group of people that can handle directness these people are just too sensitive to be in my life because I grew up around very sensitive people a mom that cried you know like stuff like that when you see that you're like the last thing I want to do is make someone cry or make someone's upset make my needs known make a demand of somebody I'm needless want the of like people that apologize all the time sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry people that can't be direct you know when someone gets off the phone with me it drives me nuts because it's so codependent when someone's like all right well I guess um I'll let you get back to that I'm like can you just say you have to go I'll be fine you're implying that I can't handle someone getting off the phone you know but this kind of we live in this thing now where everyone's just like so afraid to hurt someone else's feelings somebody else's emotional state is my responsib years ago we were fighting each other in fields like how do we get to this yeah I the funniest uh petri dish for this to happening for me uh was Ubers so I'd get into the back of an Uber and if I was on the phone I'd like make this like gring apology to the Uber driver who I I evidently thought needed me to entertain him for the entirety of this journey sorry I'm I'm I'm on the I'm on the phone at the moment sorry yeah very good thank you I'm like what the [ __ ] and what is that what is that saying what is your judgment of him that he needs me look at what a blessing I am to his life uh ALS so if I don't he's incapable of looking after himself as he is I need to step in and make sure that he's okay and I'm on the phone and that's kind of rude and I mean you know he has to be entertained by me for the entire it's not like he literally does this as a job every single day and he's like if I want to listen to you talk to there's 100 episod I I got it I'll listen to you if I want you you to entertain me I can do that at any time on Spotify y you know and yeah it's that um and so it's taken me a long time to realize a lot of times my graveling you know being obsequious to people is actually insulting to them and that's and then I use that like oh why don't I be codependent in that way of like I don't want to insult this person right so I'm going to be direct I'm going to be clear I'm not going to gravel over people and infantilize them because when you infantilize someone they all of a sudden start regressing emotionally and then you're in that jam you know so it's like if you're in you know if someone is like enters into the contract it's kind of called like human magnet syndrome where kind of like a certain type of person is going to be attracted to someone who's you know Cary and people pleasy I'm not going to say narcissist because that word is so what is this thing now where if a guy breaks up with you they're a narcissist they're a love bomber they are gaslighting you well there's pretty much no normal relationship behavior that hasn't been turned by Tik Tok into some pathology if you break up with someone you're an abuser y now I mean I getting your heartbroken sucks it used to be you just sort of like show up where you think they're going to be you know kind of or whatever like that you don't have to go online and say that they're toxic narcissistic gaslighter and even if they are if you're saying someone gasl me for two years you're just admitting that you fell for it you're just like I'm dumb like is that either way this isn't going to go well for anyone like why do this you know I look back and I'm like if I was 22 and dating now would I do that you know what you think do you think you would what I it's interesting I think that because now I think people go like notoriety like if I can't get Fame I'll settle for notoriety whereas a big thing in codependence is if I can't get love I'll settle for being used so I'm always like what would I be willing to settle for because I'm always fascinated by that um and I think think I might do stand up and talk about I might be doing what you were just talking about there's a chance that I could be on a podcast saying this guy this guy this guy but my codependence is I don't want to embarrass people and I don't want anyone to be mad at me so I would I would never name names I would never do that [ __ ] immovable object and an Unstoppable Force clashing up against each other but you know what I wouldn't because I think for me whenever someone broke up with me I like agree I was like you're right I am worthless like I I had such low self-esteem we I don't think low self-esteem is our problem anymore that was my generation's problem we had Kate Moss was our Beauty influencer someone who was literally anorexic and I had very low self-esteem now I feel like we're gone the other way it's like lizo is like look however you want and like you're better than everyone and no one deserves you and if someone leaves you it means they're a narcissist how did you what do you suggest to people who think uh last 15 minutes that when you just spoke about that sounds an awful lot like me or a pattern that I have in my mind where do people go to begin to unwind these behaviors because really quick sorry there has been a little bit I'm seeing it shift from when I started going to you know ACA Alena meetings it was it was a lot of women some men a lot of women it's more and more men and more and more men because I think that what was supposed to be this movement that was women are equal women are strong there has been such a overcorrection or people have decided to you know use this wave to victimize themselves or just attack men casually about things that aren't even crimes now men are going like well I can't break up with a woman or she'll sue me like and now I'm seeing men go into codependent so they're kind of cultivating codependence kind of it's sort of like there's this thing now not that women are so strong and equal it's that they're so fragile and made of fiberglass that if you break up with them we'll fall apart but we're equal like which is it we kind of have to pick one at some point you know it is currently hotter than a bonfire in Hell's backyard but the Texas seat is no match because all I have to do is throw element into a glass of water and I'm good to go you've heard me harping on about 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nt.com modern wisdom I we spoke about this last time but the problem that I think you're going to see with the Next Generation this current generation of girls growing up to become women is going to be fragility and narcissism because all of the subtext in all popular media is the only challenge that you ever need to face is men around you not believing in you sufficiently you're perfect as you are you are immutable and the world is mutable it will change to fit your preferences to fit your needs and the text you I know it's hard it is definitely hard for guys I talk about this an awful lot that you've got to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and carry a heavy weight and burden and so on and so forth but at least that worldview although it's difficult and filled with responsibility it's complimentary in as much as it it suggests to you that you can handle it yeah that you can bear it and I think that that's a that's something that you should be flattered by as a guy and it's a hopeful message it's way more hopeful than if you ever encounter a challenge in the world it's because of a problem with the world not something that you need to overcome yourself the world should fold around you and isn't this kind of Darwinism though too you know it's like the people that expect that are not going to make it and the people that don't don't like I mean I learned an early age like and this is a thing in that I learned in program is like the world owes you nothing that like blew my mind that blew my mind why that I I don't know whether it was movies that instilled this in my brain I don't know where or maybe it was just you know the magical thinking that you know cuz growing up in now colom a lot of times fantasy becomes your primary addiction first so that's another thing you know there's manifesting there's fantasizing you know at a very young age I was checking out in fantasy and then I found myself in relationships you know fantasizing about the relationship instead of basing my feelings about it on what was actually happening and I think I see more and more people having these like kind of text relationships that aren't based on actually connecting with the person and the relationship is kind of like a Confluence of a little bit of inperson time texting and then their imagination and then all of a sudden it's like you know the person's not behaving the way that they're picturing interes and I found myself doing that a lot is a way to not have to be in something so that's a like more into the love addiction thing and the fantasizing thing because I see a lot of situations now with men and women where things go south but it was kind of a lot of the relationship was fantasy uh and not based on actual things that were happening and I definitely did that as a way to check out and then as an adult you know in my early 20s was I an adult um but to not have to be in something real so I'm not going to get rejected I don't have to do the rejecting I'll just be in this fantasy world which oh yeah it's a protection I mean again we spoke about this last time this sort of overon window of emotions that most people exist within where nothing's ever that joyful and nothing's ever that sad I'm kind of like the thermostat you know I exist between 65 and 72 de anytime that I cross outside of that there's something really really wrong and that's not safe so I'll cope by scrolling on my phone or by going out distracting myself with TV or with junk food or with porn or with video games or with social media or whatever and uh yeah it results in us becoming ever more sensitized to ever less strong emotions yeah and then something happens that pulls us out of it and somebody has a panic attack totally totally I mean you know I think this is also like ice bath thing I have no idea you guys in your ice bath I think that it's a good thing regardless to just go out of your way to make yourself uncomfortable like it's such a Trope and I keep I I I keep having this conversation with a ton of my friends that have kind of been in this world for a while I genuinely believe that almost all of the important insights from a personal development standpoint I already know now after eight years or whatever of being kind of in the trenches of learning this stuff and I'm sure that there's way more that I don't know that I still need to know the point is there's only a small number of really important sort of foundational elements to becoming a better person as far as I can see and most of them you accumulated at the very beginning of your journey through personal development because they're the low hanging fruit because they're the ones that are most robust they're the most highly scalable they're the ones that are repeated the most because they're the most effective right so so many of the time I encounter a [ __ ] problem and realize that I wrote or said or interviewed the guy that had the solution to this four years ago I'm like why have I I'm assuming that this new piece of info oh it's not I discount the stuff from four years ago it's the new [ __ ] this is the new [ __ ] this is the stuff that's no dude like you already found those and I know that it's a Trope to talk about do hard things you know get comfortable being uncomfortable so that you can be comfortable when you're uncomfortable it tropy yes but every single time that I do a uh cardio workout I [ __ ] hate cardio I'm not built cardio every time that I do a cardio workout it puts me into a place it's so humbling because I suck at it and because it's hard and because there's nowhere to hide even in a bodybuilding Gym Bro workout you can kind of Hide Away in some ways even if you go to failure yeah but prolonged cardio discomfort there's nowhere to hide and you're like right okay I'm doing this thing and while I do it all of these sort of inner vo is about you're not good enough you're going to suck you're not working hard enough this this should be easier this because you [ __ ] ate that cookie three days ago this is because of you blah blah blah this is just like Mr Patterson in [ __ ] physical education always said blah blah all of that stuff starts to come up and you're forced to Grapple with it yeah and that's interesting I go okay well I for me it doesn't happen in the sa it doesn't happen in the ice bath all that much but it happens during cardio and I think finding a thing which can be a little safe but controlled period of discomfort for you to exist within and go okay I'm going to use that meditatively to kind of just move through the things and the assumptions and the voices that come up inside of me and uh yeah I remember when I was doing CrossFit I was maybe 207 28 and hadn't done as much self workor as I have now anytime that my heart rate got above probably 160 165 so you know zone four not even you know top end zone five stuff anytime that my heart rate got above that all of these weird voices would appear all of these sort of negative sort of very uh zero some mentality threatening frustrated bitter resentful angry all of these voices would start coming up inside of me I was like where the [ __ ] is that coming from I was like oh you're threatened you're threatened by something at the moment you're in discomfort and you're goto default is to derogate yourself it's to feel like somebody's mad at you to feel like you've done something wrong to have this sense of sort of forboding this ambient sense of anxiety and threat and discomfort you need to control it and getting yourself too far outside of that and uh you can pick whatever it is you know for some people it can be staring at a wall for some people it can be meditation for some people it can be you know learning a hard piano whatever it is the the period like modality of discomfort I think can be anything um but certainly for me that's like it just opens up so many of those uh interesting insights and that's why I understand why it's [ __ ] like oh yeah man get comfortable being uncomfortable but I'm like the lessons of that to learn and but also like as a recovering codependent like our our comfort zone is is you know martyring ourselves and we're very masochistic so a lot of by recovery is being like no you don't have to hurt yourself no you can sleep8 hours and not feel like you know guilty like you're piece of garbage and you're like a big thing with me is you're falling behind if I take a nap it's like you're falling behind you know and which might be true but fine and um you know I think that it's a what this program does or any kind of recovery around codependence at least you're able to sift through your inner monologue and figure out what is helpful and what's not right so instead of saying this isn't healthy this is healthy that's pathologizing you go this isn't helpful this is helpful because I think a critical inter monologue is can be really helpful I'm the same with negative YouTube comments this is not an invitation don't embarrass me in front of Chris please but sometimes like when people are like they're mean to me in the comments I'm like does it only hurt cuz it's like a little true that's when that's when it you know so for me it's like I get feedback for a living the audience decides what I say ultimately and then I'm like I don't want feedback it's like well the audience decides everything else like now you know and so I look at comments and I'm like you know that's actually true I need to be able to take that so it's like if you can't take criticism that to me is the ultimate because we are in a I know someone wrote the book crisis of comfort whatever it is we get our Amazon delivers things to us we get postmate we I mean like you know I think we're kind of designed to be at you know hypervigilant at War at all times and now we're in a place where we're getting all of our needs met and we got to start these little Wars everywhere whether it's with your ex whether it's you know online whether you're the person writing Yelp reviews about some family-owned restaurant that the food wasn't leave them alone you know we have to sort of you know sort of do this whether it's an adrenaline addiction or whether it's that human nature thing you know but I think that um you know the new discomfort is being okay with hurting someone's feelings because everyone is has become more sensitive you know and or just stating your needs plainly without bringing it into land walking on eggshells around women in a way that I'm like do you think I'm going to sue you like what's happening you know and and I do it with women too where I'm scared that I you know and it's taking me all this time in recovery of codependence after having a very hisonic mom and being scared of women for so long I go into program and I'm like no you can be direct with women they can handle it you're insulting them and then all of a sudden now I'm like if I'm like you know what I'm you're going to need to come into work in person today you can't work from home and then it's like a this is a toxic work environment it's like you've been working from home for two months you have a doctor's appointment every day your acting class starts at 2 I need you in the office one once a year and I'm toxic you know so I think that a lot of times it's being able to have and not worry about what we call the after burn like I'm going to say no the period at the end of the sentence no email should be longer than two sentences because after two sentences you're either apologizing or trying to manipulate you know we've lost the art of just succinct clear direct you know because we have to go like and here's why I need you to come to the office because in this and it's like I don't owe you this explanation what's your advice to someone who is The Perennial sugarcoat how can people become better at more direct communication or what worked for you that when I was I had many employees like hundreds and what was this full I would I had two sitcoms at the same time two television shows simultaneously and were you with the exact I was the creator okay and uh running one of them and uh co-created another one and then um the Roseanne shows you know um having a lot of employees and when you ask for things and you don't get them and you're like this person can't be that bad at their job I must not be being clear I love a please tell me if I'm not being clear I may repeat back to me what I asked person so I don't know if you've ever done AO therapy with a in a relationship where before we can even move on you have to repeat what you heard so Chris last night we were at this party and I feel like I really want to leave but you kept talking to your ex-girlfriend and you have to say what I'm hearing is to make sure we even each other because sometimes the way I'm saying something is what I'm actually saying is going to get lost and you're going to hear what what I'm hearing is you're jealous that's not what I said let me keep saying it until it lands you know and AO therapy AO it's we don't because then we're g you're going to go well you're jealous and I'm that's not what I said don't hold your hand up at me and then we're gone we're gone we're gone and now we're just fighting about fighting you always do this what where did and then we're like What are we even fighting about I don't even remember at this point right and we're just like we're in our trauma responses and we're both just four five-year-olds throwing [ __ ] at each other right and so you know to me it's I love I stole this from Rick lman comedian um I spoke to him for the first time the other day yeah I had did dm with him he seems great he's great he's just he's he's I think admits to being high functioning Aspergers you know I was diagnosed with autism when I was a kid and I beat it I think we can all agree um and you know one time I said something to him and he went can you say that again in a different way and I was like I'm stealing that because a lot of times people will say something to me and I don't really know what they said but I don't want to admit CU I'd be come off dumb or something or I just wasn't paying attention or you know what whatever it was and so for me I realized that I'll go okay so if you could just go down there I'd really appreciate it if you would just like Xerox this and then if you could take it over to Lindsay's office like I'm sorry it's so far away but if you could just go do that maybe and then grab yourself some L and then the person walks away and he's like I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing I have no clue cuz she just tried so bad to make me like her or not be mad at her or like I felt guilty asking someone who gets paid to go make the Xerox to go make the Xerox I don't like it's just [ __ ] nonsense communication and this is why horses are so valuable or prey animals in this space old roads lead back to ather I'm telling you because horses interpret they the fear and no they don't have codependence they don't have people wanting to like them and anxiety about other people's opinions so everything to them boils down to fear fear that you're not going to like me fear that you're going to go away fear that you're going to reject me so any of that with horses they just if you're alone with them in Arena they'll just move away from you cuz your energy is a mess and I don't think we take responsibility for our own energy anymore I'm obsessed with radical self-accountability truly just eting exercise just everything's my fault let's just play in this for a second what if everything is my fault like what would that look like and then what can I change that I can control on my side of the street because we're also like another way to know if there's codependence in your life or Addiction in your life is like how much are you blaming other people for things going on in your life you know forget that you you're in a finance financial situation where you have to blame the government that's real you know people can't buy houses anymore you can't get Healthcare that's fair you don't you know that's a fair thing to blame but to just go like well the relationship didn't work out cuz he did this and he did this like so you had no nothing to do with like nothing in a s in every single situation I didn't get this job because my boss was an okay like everyone's gloss is an [ __ ] traveling should be about the journey not the chaos of packing and I've been using matics backpack and luggage for about a year now and honestly it is one of the best changes to my life that I've ever made this thing is perfectly designed it's not over engineered it comes with a lifetime guarantee it is the Swiss army knife of travel gear they've got pockets for everything your laptop your shoes your snacks so well organized that even your toothbrush will feel important and it genuinely improves your quality of life you feel so safe and secure having a space for all of your things best of all their products will last you literally a lifetime with their lifetime guarantee so this is the last backpack you'll ever buy and you can return or exchange any product within 30 days for any reason so you can buy your new bag try it for a month and if you do not like it they will give you your money back and they ship internationally right now you can get a 20% discount off everything sitewide by going to the link in the description below or heading to Nom matic.com slod wisdom and using the code mw20 a checkout that's Nom matic.com wisdom and mw20 a checkout is the a reversal of that where people take too much responsibility for everything they make themselves the mar they make themselves like it it's because of me it's always because of me it's because I'm insufficient it's because I did this and I did this love to meet that person are they single well that's my pattern that's my that's my pattern so you know interesting uh but you because I think I high performer brain is like I actually have control of my circumstances and I'm being extreme just going let's look at this cuz when you walk into an arena with a horse or you're doing echine therapy and I know this sounds so elitist to be like so when you're working you're a horse but it's just helpful because it's such a mirror to your own energy like I didn't even realize that I was bringing energy into rooms that was like needy energy you know what I mean and then I'm like why is everybody so nervous why is everyone and it's just like being able to take responsibility for your energy and your motives because horses can kind of read your mind essentially and it's a great way to have someone um or an entity show you your own energy because if I show up and I've got this energy and you've got that energy I'm I can't even think about what I'm yeah cuz well I'm too I'm like we said before we're like an intersection of each other's [ __ ] but horses when they move away from you that means you're no longer providing them with Serenity and peace that's all they value is Serenity I texted you about when I did mine and you get the little pick thing that you can clean the hoofs with and the lady came over and we've been chilling out with the horses for a little while the lady came over and she said so you need to take this sort of blue thing and you're going to kind of walk up to it and the horses can see even though they look like they're brain dead they all look like animatronic brain de they're not moving they're just sort of stood there looking well that's another thing but I won't you're going to think I'm an extreme but most horses that are broken they're shut down like what I do with my my the horses I work with are not like that CU we give them pride and dignity and they're not just like you know well maybe they would anyway I'm there I'm waving this you know walking over with this thing and she says you put your hand on its shoulder and then you kind of slide it down and you just give it a little pinch and you lift the foot up and if the horse wants to lift the foot up if it feels comfortable then yes and you're supposed to sort of visualize lifting the foot up beforehand that's going to make the the horse feel sort of comfortable with you and you know you can't be too stressed as you go up and I remember thinking as I went over I really want this horse to like me and if it doesn't lift its foot up that's some sort of comment on me as a person and you know if it doesn't lift it it's foot it's like oh this just [ __ ] typical isn't it you know obviously because I'm unable to do the thing and I can't just insufficiently chill and I knew that this was going to be the case if it does that I've got this sort of glow of dopam if it was a person if it was a person rejecting you you be oh yeah but she's in this tube top and she's who care you know with a horse you can't get out of it by judging or blaming the person so you just have to look at your own motives yeah so fascinating because horses um and I think that even if you're never near a horse great this still is helpful horses want you to be Regal they want your outsides to match your insides they don't want you to pretend they don't want you to be fake they don't want you to worry that you're not going to like them because all that translates to them is worry and to them worry means where's the mountain line you're worried we're prey animals we energy conservationists aren't going to waste worry if there's not something to worry about and then it's like oh you're worried that I'm going to like you they think you're like sick they're like this is a sick animal I need to get away from it because it's wor it's scared for no reason and they move away from you and and they're kind of right in a way you know and I think that you know you know for me I was moving through life with if I'm just make myself small just so other people shine and if I don't outshine other people and if I just like make sure like I'm people pleasing and shape-shifting to be whatever other people need me to be I'm going to be okay and they're going to feel okay and everything's going to be copasetic and then you do that with horses and they're like get away for you can't be in this herd like you're a danger to the herd you're self-obsessed you feel fear when there's no danger so for you have to felt feeling fear when you're just picking up a horse's foot safely is weird it's weird isn't it you know it's weird to be like I need to break up with this person and I'm scared are they going to hit you we you know feeling fear under those circumstances is very bizarre and maladaptive you know so horses train my brain to go like you know what I can't be results oriented here you know and we go through life being so results oriented based on what we think is going to either make us happy or what should happen we go on a date being like this should be the love of my life or you know it really helped me going on dates being like it's all just practice if something great comes great but we have all these sort of results that we need attached to it that then make us feel like failures you know it seems to me there's sort of two things going on I haven't fully thought this out but it seems to be the same pattern in a lot of stuff that I'm learning about at the moment that there's there's two things happening there's one which is your capacity to deal with the thing and there is another which is the uh environment that you are working within and you can kind of play about with both so uh on one side you would say I am going to um be more Brave I'm going to be more courageous in my communication but what you're doing there is overcoming an amount of discomfort there is also I shouldn't feel this amount of discomfort where is the discomfort coming from and there will be times when you need to use The Bravery but there will also be times where you go okay when when I'm in Wartime when it's a really big deal when it's I've tried to be screwed over by a business partner or this person at Works accused me of a thing that I haven't done or whatever you know I need to fight for my corner that's the time to use bravery and courage but what you want to do is basically bring down the level of stimulus that you're feeling ambiently to the point where you don't actually need to call on bravery and courage all that much because I just feel comfortable being direct and being open so it seems to me that there's sort of two elements going on here one which is like wartime Fuel and one which is like uh peacetime policy I love that and I think for me I I think this is a response that's helpful um but for me and and a tool that people don't talk about a lot because we're all about how to go go go how to high perform how to like is and it's an aphorism I know but like don't just don't do something sit there don't just do something sit there and they say every year that you're in a 12-step program you get a moment of pause right so for me if you just go like wait you what the [ __ ] was at I'm like what do you mean what the [ __ ] was at I can now go I have 10 seconds to just be with myself and have choices because you know how can I respond not react you know because the reacting is my fear driven um trying to fix it trying to change it not being an acceptance of the moment not living life on life's terms trying to control your perception trying to change something I can't change which is what you just said which is the most arrogant thing you can do is be like I'm going to get a time machine and erase whatever I'm going to try to make you like me by what being like what like that doesn't make anyone like anyone um it's delusional but I'm allowed to take pause and have Grace and I'm allowed to say I need a second to think about this I need to remove myself from the situation because I feel as dorky as it sounds my inner child you know um should be the name of every abortion clinic but um we're in Texas um my inner child I'm having an inner child reaction it helps me to just have that language and those tools to just be like I'm having an inner child reaction I need to remove myself from the situation nothing personal can I just get 10 seconds and then you go these tools like halt are you hungry angry lonely or tired if I'm hungry I need to go eat if I'm lonely I need to go make a call if I'm thirsty I need to go if I'm tired I need to take a nap before I even address the situation and it's weird to say like like when all these high performer podcast and your you it's like what about slowing down you know and why does this sit situation matter to me so much why is this such a deal like why is this going to Shatter Me if it doesn't go well is it because my life is not full so another big part of codependent recovery is like do I have hobbies that are not work rated or self-improvement related it's a tough one for me do you m uh I feel like you do I try so pickle ball was probably one of the best things but the problem with that is you always want to become better uh okay Tim Ferris taught me an interesting story about this which was uh decentralizing your sense of self so uh that he's not just or he tries to not just be Tim Ferris the podcaster Tim Ferris the author Tim Ferris the business person Tim Ferris the investor Tim Ferris the whatever tries to have a lot of different uh areas that he can take pride Tim Ferris the father let's go dude yes Tim call me my uterus is empty at the moment yeah it's currently vacant but who knows for how long taking application uh so there's this uh quote from Matthew hussy who was sat there not long ago and it's from his new book love life it's so good it's a really good self-development book masquerading his relationship book he says I struggle to believe I'm worthy of moments of joy and peace without first putting myself through a brutal schedule monitoring my productivity levels down to the minute perhaps some people apply this earn your cookie mindset in ways that lead to healthy Achievements not me mine is a mutation whereby joy and self-compassion are regularly outlawed by an internal tyrant decides when I've been flogged enough for one day just when I'm about to collapse a voice inside says okay give him half an hour of Peace before bed but make sure he knows will start again bright and early in the morning and uh English yeah Oliver burkeman also English uh calls it productivity debt that basically he has to justify his existence every single day in order to Stave off some IL defined catastrophe that otherwise might come crashing down on his head few things are more basic s to my experience of adulthood then this vague sense that I'm falling behind and need to claw my way back up to some minimum standard of output falling behind what I think I think the key is to have really specific definitions because I think the vagueness you know vagueness is you know always the enemy of clarity um always the enemy of happiness I think vagueness cuz once I I'm like I'm fing behind I'm fing behind what because a lot of people look at me and they are jealous of me so who Julia Roberts like who am I even comparing myself to I think you also have to to get real clear on what your goals are so you can even measure if you truly are you might be but I think that sometimes we self-sabotage by having this vague idea of what we want to accomplish just like what world domination like what do you want you know how much money do you want like cuz for me I'm like if I keep succeeding and succeeding but my mentality of I'm falling behind I don't have enough I'm not good enough doesn't change that's on me like I'm I'm yielding the and then this is just an addiction it's one too many a million not enough when will it be enough you know and I think that it's Tak me a long time to realize like my goals have been so vague on purpose so that I can continue to self flagellate and to justify being able to be like see you can be doing more you can be getting more you can have three TV shows like and it's like well I didn't set goal list specific enough to even know if I'm coming and over with extra credit or if I am failing I couldn't even tell you if I'm failing I'm just making sure I always feel like I am to justify this Behavior towards myself which is the same way you justify drinking or self Haring or whatever it is it's kind of mental self harm right uh one of my friends gave me a quote the other day General ambition gives you anxiety specific ambition gives you Direction how did you just pull that up like what is this it's just that's the perfect quote it's just Apple notes but I just have a lot of I have I have a lot of smart friends uh so yeah I just you know that kind of addiction to work and to this this need to always be being productive and sort of contributing and stuff and I think I've got hubman coming on the show very shortly I'm with him this week and we spoke about this last time I spoke to Andy galp been his colleague I guess about this too The Perils of over optimization and I do think that we're seeing a swing already back away from that and we're seeing even people like Andrew or you know even the most actually the only guy that doesn't have this I was with Brian Johnson on Sunday you another the uh like swap blood with his son live until he's 150 guy yes yes so um did this breakfast with he's the only person who is absolutely sort of um how do you say unyielding there was an episode you did on I believe on here and I don't know who it was with um talking about like what is the point of living forever if this is how you live correct kind of thing um and hman look I a dear dear friend and I love him and I'm allowed to joke about him if like are you fathering the world the same way I was trying to Mother the world you know it's like not that it's I mean it's life is working out great and he's happy but he truly is driven by like I want to give free health care to like that's wild you you know that's a wild motivation and you know look it's like there's a lot of people in podcasting that are having such a big impact I can't imagine how hard it would be to walk away from the drug of actually helping people you know I've dated a ER doctor before and he would I'd be buck naked on the bed he' be like I got to go back to work I'm like that is knowing you can go save a life I can't even imagine you know so you guys are in a situation where you're kind of this big brother Uncle father to all these men that I think are very lost younger boys that are very lost and women too women love your podcast and how do you stop well I think you know or take a break we're just seeing this the pendulum is swinging back I think in a way that was probably needed from over optimization and sometimes the kind of uh early warning alarm is actually that you you realize that it's it's totally unrealistic to for anybody to have the perfectly optimized day and all the rest of it uh and the more that were not leaning into the only way to do it is this this is the absolute this is the only existence that that you can go for I think that that makes life a lot easier so I think also with a world that's very out of control I see a lot of people needing some kind of control I also think that the less we are into religion the more we have to create a new religion and I think optimization is like kind of looks like a new religion in a lot of ways right it's like you every morning you have your routine and you say whatever it is your meditation you sleep eight hours you have your rituals you go into your ice bath you into your sauna I mean I don't always think it's a bad thing you know I think sometimes we're addicted to over pathologizing ourselves too it's like if it keeps you saning if you're not hurting anybody and like you're taking care of yourself and setting good examples and not committing any crimes like what does it hurt it's interesting that you say it's a sort of addiction to control because there's definitely a kind of fragility that comes along with people who can only perform if they've done this weird rain dance before they actually go forth and do the thing I can't just get up and start working I can't just get up and raise my kids I need to do my affirmations and I haven't done my my 5 minute breath work and I haven't done my 10-minute meditation and I haven't done my so on and so forth you think the in an attempt to become more resilient you've actually made yourself way more fragile interesting that is fascinating and I think that you know I don't know and then you're how much of it is to isolate I think that's also something that any kind of time a program is rooted in some kind of addiction recovery it's like or are you just trying to isolate because isolation is where addiction thrives you know so I go like I'm this workaholic and I have to work over and I'm like oh God I think I just got myself again I found a way to justify isolating I have to go to a cabin and write for 3 weeks and not talk to anyone because I'm such an optimal have you heard of Monk mode do you know what that is I've no okay so no um it's kind of like um imagine no fat but for your entire life no fat no fap fap no fap so like not wanking but it's for every no jerking off yeah it's got nothing to do with that I it doesn't work if you don't know the thing I'm referencing the original reference doesn't work if the second anyway it's uh focused on the three eyes introversion isolation and and introspection so you go away and you relinquish all social obligations for a while you basically focus on Improvement for a good chunk of time you know six to 12 months as a guy and the point is to try and go away not have the uh distractions and the uh motivations that often come along with being in social groups and having to adhere to social um like obligations and then you re-enter the world now having done all of this work one of the problems is and I saw this in myself I saw this in almost all of my friends that have had really successful monk mode periods is that the isolation becomes addicting and it is a way to help you feel Noble in your retreat from the world it's not that being in social groups makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable or that you're scared about rejection or that you find it hard to make friends it's I'm doing monk mode bro you know you sort of got this very Regal up on my high horse better than you version and monk mode unfortunately can be very addicting and there's a real problem that guys have of reintegrating after they've done it so there's three eyes but there's actually a fourth which should be integration or reintegration and um you know there's every time that I speak about this loads of people say I did the monke mode thing I'm probably a little bit introverted and I know exactly what you mean I really struggled to just get myself back out into the world after I'd focused on working on me and that's kind of the same as the addiction to being in the cabin in the woods or whatever you go it's you doing the thing which from the outside looks like discomfort but from the inside is actually home base and then when you try and rip yourself back out what would really be uncomfortable would be you going out and saying hello to three new people at a party that would be real discomfort for you and now you're able to feel Noble in this sort of isolation which was let's be honest your home base all along right right that's fascinating I love this like you know it's I think that my Fascination has always been how our brain has not had an opportunity to evolve neurochemically to you know catch up with how quickly technology has changed things you know like where does you know we used to need to fight we used to need to you know I come from Appalachia I don't know what's the Appalachia equivalent in England um um I'm not really too sure what Appalachia is appalachin America West Virginia Virginia Tennessee and how would you describe area well you I guess the way I would describe it here is very low income okay so I mean any of the northern workingclass towns so yeah where I came from uh tside Middlesboro which is it was famous only for having the highest teen pregnancy rating in the UK and then it lost that so it didn't even have that anymore which is a [ __ ] L Big L I need to get back over there um get some teens pregnant I know um yeah and can I just ask one question um also knowing what's it all for is my Kink just bettering myself for me because I think I'm such a piece of [ __ ] and I want to have a better inner monologue is it because I derive dopamine from pride in my behavior am I trying to prove someone wrong you know I did realize like sometimes unhealthy motivations can provide really positive results right so when people talk about a friend of mine texted me the other day about jealousy and I was like dude I it bother like I'm like give me someone to be jealous of like that is my gets me going so hard we can call it healthy competition jealousy is Right envy and jealousy or or a little more toxic but I'm like healthy competition is something that really drives me and I really appreciate it you know when it comes along um when someone like that David goin's thing like I mean when people talk about negative comments I'm like thank you guys it kind of drives me you know because I'm like I got to get that person that hates me I got to get that person like I got to prove him wrong you know I'm kind of into that you know and I think we're getting to a point where we're trying to solve every problem to me I'm like well there's certain I don't want to solve because I do use that for fuel and I do kind of need that for this and if I solve all my problems then I'm just going to make new ones right that's what I feel like I'm seeing I see like especially when people who come after comedians they're like that's not funny and that jokes punching down I'm like it must be nice to have such an amazing life that you don't even need Rel cuz comedy is for people whose lives suck and who need an escape from their own brain they need comic relief they need the laughter that's the best medicine you don't need any of that that's so sick for you I would never want to be in that situation right because I would rather have real problems than the fake ones that I see people with no problems making up just to create chaos there's certainly an element of one of the patterns that I realized I was encountering when doing a lot of personal development was uh it allows you to not face low self-esteem in the moment because you know that you're always improving and hey I don't need to love myself today because tomorrow I know that I'm going to be a little bit better because all of the stuff that I did today the day after that I know so you're permanently kind of Manana Manana anesthetizing yourself from having to ever really face your own low self-esteem you don't because I'm moving forward you know I don't I guess some people could use this in a good way which is I don't like my body now but I know that I've been to the gym and I've stuck to my diet for the last two months and that's going to be great and I know that in future I'm going to love my body but I think that uh with when it comes to things like self-esteem it's much more chronic that you're trying to fix an internal Problem by a series of external accomplishments and you know how many rich or successful or famous people that [ __ ] hate themselves do we need to see to so look it's evidently not going to fixed by this thing on the outside and it's one of the most unfortunate lessons I think because it's one that for a couple of reasons firstly no one's going to give you any sympathy for dealing with it it's a sort of champagne problem right it's like um being killed on the Titanic while everyone tells you how fortunate you are to be on the greatest steam ship in history uh another another like problem I suppose is that the world rewards you for continuing to improve and continuing to do these things and you're always able to just push and hide things further further further down I'm not ready yet but it doesn't matter I'm not ready yet but it doesn't matter something that I don't hear a lot and I haven't heard every episode of Every high performance podcast obviously but like something I don't hear a lot is about service so the thing that clicked for me was in order to build self-esteem you have to engage in esteemable actions and if I'm spending all day just trying to make myself better by reading these books and get more money and get better friends and get a better relationship it's really just narciss you know what I mean I'm just trying to make myself the best person I can possibly be and the prettiest and the fittest and the whatever and like I started just I had a neighbor I would go for this run and you know we say in program like being of service to other people is you know what's going to keep you sober emotionally sober literally sober whatever just doing simple things for other people expecting absolutely nothing in return it is so simple it is free and it is such a game changer and the guy down the street he had this long driveway and he would pull he was very old and he would pull this trash can all the way and then I started every morning on Thursday mornings going and just pulling his trash can down for him and I I I couldn't believe how much I liked myself I couldn't believe how simple it was how simple it was during the pandemic I was like asking people if I could get them groceries if they say no fine you know little things like that and um you know the other day I was on Sixth Street and there was a very beautiful hot mess of a girl just sobbing in the middle of the street um something you see a lot of six street she was just crying on her phone and I just to just go up and be like are you okay and of course she was like it's my birthday and I got kicked out of a whatever but it just I was like that was so selfish to just go up to someone else and get a little hit of you're not a narcissistic piece of [ __ ] and I think we don't talk enough about service um it's a small thing you can do it in a positive way and you can do it in a sort of malignant way as well you can do it in a way that is to manipulate or to seem like a good person or to this is this is what's so fascinating about that codependence thing which is it it really all is about the motivation or the motive on the inside which is difficult because you think well I'm doing a good thing if I'm doing a good thing if this is me doing something nice for somebody else but are you're doing the right thing for the wrong reasons yes yeah yeah yeah yeah CU sometimes you do the wrong thing for the right reasons you know if you need to fire someone if you need to break up with someone whatever it is you know but you have to be your own you know judge jury and executioner and be like I'm not doing this for the right reasons you know what I brought your present today I'm like why am I bringing this what am I doing I I really wanted to give you this thing and I you know I just really have to watch that and that's a little game I have to play with myself because sometimes I'll go into autopilot you know a really good friend Christina pazinski is going through a health thing and I've been on this website to send her flowers every day and I'm like nope not sending her $500 flowers I'm going to call her what am I doing with these flowers what she need flowers she wants flowers she'll have flowers in her house it's little you have to check yourself you know and that's something that I think we spend so much time thinking about ourselves but not in a objectively like I don't want to say critical but like holding ourselves accountable type of way am I going to send her flowers so that if she doesn't immediately send me a picture and say thank you I'm going to be like okay am I victim am I trying to create a situation where I feel like I'm unappreciated and victim am I just trying to ruin our friendship or injecting yourself into the suffering of somebody else to show just how important and and charitable you are that's it I can to go hey let me know if you need someone to watch your kids for a couple hours I can be of service do you know what I mean let me just drop something off at our I'm just am I making it about me am I giving her a chore so that I seem like a good person I know this sounds like I'm overthinking it but these little tiny things are like the death by a Thousand Cuts also this is kind of the system two thinking that then allows you to pull it across into system one right that when okay I have this patent and it's probably pretty malignant and I need to spend a very focused period of time maybe a decades MH working on doing it very consciously until hopefully there's a part of me that starts to bring this across into my nature MH so yeah doing it deliberately I I I understand exactly what you mean I had to redefine the word nice and kind I didn't know what those words meant I'm just trying to be nice well you don't say I'm being nice like is that nice was that nice well no I got you this thing this okay thanks so much you know I it took I think that we've grown up I'm not coming for English people I've dated an English man there is such I felt that so much this like guilt and shame that's just imprinted I don't know if it's you can't shine too bright or you have to just self flagellate I'm not sure if that's Regional or what this person was to from Tottenham or like Tottenham was that a thing [ __ ] American person tries to understanding yeah it's it's a thing he rooted for Tottenham does that mean any he must hate himself well I mean he just it's a football club he could be from anywhere in the country go on but I think that there's a difference between you know being self flating self-deprecating and humble and I think that this whole self-deprecating thing I remember one time is a huge red flag insecure people are dangerous that blew my mind because we're kind of trained to feel sympathy for insecure people but you got to stay away from those people if you're dating a girl or a guy who's like you know a guy is like my Cals aren't big enough I need to go to the gym that's a dangerous person get out of there if that person's not happy with themselves they're not going to be happy with you right if they can't get their own internal needs met internally you've got to get out of that situation if a girl is insecure and being like I don't know if I'm going to get this sh get out of there don't be like I'm Gonna Save the Day and make you feel secure just get out of there because like you're going to be on the chopping block next and you're going to be the re whatever so I used to you know I think a big thing in codependence is you conflate love and pity that's a big one like if you're just like how do you know if you're codependent like do you feel guilt when you're saying no to people do you feel shame you know do you um uh uh whatever I just said said do you remember guilt shame guilt shame but there was one before that pity pity do you feel pity for somebody you know instead of loving them you shouldn't feel pity for somebody and be in a relationship with them that's like a like a [ __ ] up Soul contract thing do you feel hooked by people do you do things out of obligation you know stuff like that and I think that you know do you worry that a horse isn't going to like you I mean that's interesting do you do that with humans though uh I think so yeah in some ways so that's certainly you know going back to uh time through school very much being on the outside very much being sort of bullied and and and always being uh always watching things occur watching everybody else being in friends watching everybody else play at lunchtime watching everybody else have you know support groups or whatever it might be uh and then not being that always led me to try and reverse engineer okay so what is it that I need to do in order to be accepted by the group and I think that that's just s such a subtext which I carry forward into normal life sure which is I love and and as I hear that I'm just going lucky lucky you lucky I mean I'm big on and I know this is fine I'm big on like trauma privilege you know of like you know in comedy we're always like if you were a girl that was molested it's like doping in sports you know it's it's kind of like it's like no you don't compete in the same league if you're M it's like cheating you know it's like you have more adversity you know it's like I do think there's a point where we have to all stop being like but no one liked me in high school it's like well you're saying it on an interview on Oprah it obviously works pretty well you know there's a point where you have to take some of the wins you know it's like I was neglected as a child and and you know my parents were drunk okay well now I'm really comfortable entertaining drunk strangers thanks guys you know there's a point where we have to kind of just go like let's take the win on some of this adversity stuff and um you know and also the horse thing it's interesting because I'm so curious about what your success has done because horses don't know who you are that's the other thing is they don't know they know nothing about you and I think there's a point where you go like you know in life where you're like oh I can kind of get away with more with this like I'm trying to make myself I can play this card or I can sort of have this um artificial self-esteem because people are responding I know exactly I know exactly what you mean you get kind of get this um multiplier bonus for walking into a room you don't actually need to be that funny it actually need to be that interesting I have not been uh sufficiently still am not sufficiently well known for that to have been a thing for me to actually embed it so uh Mark Manson says that identity lags Reality by one to two years and I think that that's true same with science right but science happens and then it takes a year to be vetted and yet I'm like is this still true conceptual inertia yeah yeah saying takes time for people to play catch up um you mentioned before about this sort of mismatch technologically and psychologically between us this is my first election year in the US is this pace of vibe and meme shift normal the pace that news is moving at the moment seems absolutely absurd is this is this normal or is this an outlier interesting I think you know it's very unoriginal to talk about our like short attention spans I think the desensitization I mean is interesting but we're no longer talking about Trump getting shot in the ear but we kind of still talk about January 6th H you know what I mean there are some things that linger and some things that are super ephemeral and I don't know why I don't have an answer well we went Hawk to a go Biden seile Trump gets shut in the ear uh Kamala is brat summer to Nancy Pelosi says that Biden should be on Mount Rushmore in the space of four and a half weeks and you're right it just seems so qu like as the the Trump thing is the most mindblowing to me I can't believe how quickly people have gotten over the fact that the Pres presidential candidate former president got shot in the head and look this is not you know Mark Andre's probably the person to weigh in on this kind of thing I was talking to he about this the other day you know of like you know anyone can kind of just say anything all the time like is this on like social media companies to not expose us as this kind of stuff I see four people get stabbed a day on Instagram and I don't even sign up for it you know I'm now if I saw someone get stabbed in front of me I I'm worried I would like laugh at it at this point you know it's like I think our you know idea of what is real and fake is is you know um I think this is like a crisis that is unprecedented and there's no way to you know it's when Will Smith hit you know Chris Rock in the face and everyone thought it was a joke I mean people thought it was a joke I mean it's just like we we're we don't even have a gut reaction to things you know the people that you know you know again Lex Freeman away on this but robots can't tell the difference between a husky and a wolf because of our sort of just ancestral wisdom like your gut just tells you before you even know you know which is another cool thing about being around horses is they feel fear they feel earthquakes before like we have that body wisdom but we're just so disconnected to it we have sort of changed what it means to have a gut like if I I say when I have a pit in my stomach if I see you at a bar I call that butterflies that's your body going like nude get out of there you should not have a pit in your stomach when you meet someone we've decided that's love like we've turned things around so much you know like I just worry we're like our gut is gone um our in I wonder I wonder whether it's because everything just feels so unreal you know we are by by Design detached from you know you've seen that assassination attempt from 100 angles and 20 different reconstructions from a a company that does [ __ ] 3D modeling a CGI [ __ ] and it still it still kind of doesn't feel real uh and yeah I don't I think that that's something that we should be concerned about I think it should be concerning that viscerally uh people aren't impacted by this stuff more but I suppose actually I maybe answered my own question here which is if you were emotionally or viscerally impacted by all of the things that are meaningful you would just spend your entire day getting ripped around you know it's it's Tred and has been said a million times the human mind is not meant to consume the entire world's news 247 on a daily basis yes we're not built for this velocity and volume of information or the way that it's portrayed to us with the you know horrible language and the inflammatory rhetoric and all of that stuff and that I think felt like a it felt like an interesting thought experiment that I wasn't experiencing personally and I wonder whether this is what that little Theory coming into land actually feels like and I think like look I mean Neil postman's amusing ourselves to death always worth reading in this you know space I'd be so curious what he has to say about this now and I think I always go look I'm a comedian I'm not I don't do what you do I'm not a scientist I'm not a sociologist whatever um but I look at things from a you know contextual point of view like is this the new Darwinism like again the people that are the most desensitized you know are the least likely to survive like you know I try to limit my exposure so that I stay sensitized I would like to stay in a place where if I see someone get shot in the head I IED to humanity think it's awful yeah I would like to continue thinking that I would like to keep myself sensitized so I have to go out of my way to do that you know I have to go out of my way to you know play defense but you know I think this was all kind of by Design I mean that guy from Facebook came out and said like this is designed to make you addictive you know the more horrifying and the more comments and the more clicks you know and we're just kind of you know people like the robots are coming I'm like I think we're here but there's part of that so the algorithmic stuff and the kind of stickiness of these platforms makes sense it seems like even the incidents or events that there are to talk about are occurring at a more rapid rate and maybe this is just because we're ramping up ready for November 20124 election and and all that stuff but I just can't I I can't believe how quickly everything seems to be moving it's absurd yeah I mean I right it was always happening it was just never covered right is it you know I mean it's you know four years ago it didn't feel like it was this quick and I wonder whether going back to the January 6th the only interesting thing that I said uh around the Trump assassination was will the media uh say that which day will the media say was bigger deal in American history January 6th or July 13th and it should be I think when the president was needly assassinated I think you know if you were to just say to a representative group of Americans a president you don't get to know which party from was shot in the head but survived or a group of people stormed the capital building which one do you think and I would guess that you would actually lean toward the president side of stuff because the implications of that occurring is actually Graver uh and it's just I I don't know I don't know maybe it's to do with the media cycle maybe it's to do with the fact that it was Trump but yeah there's just there's a a fervor and a a pace to everything at the moment which is it feels like like [ __ ] holding on to a roller coaster yeah I mean I think that I you know I think that there's also a did a you know how things changed since I've been pregnant like I did a mass unfollowing a mass muting cuz we are just like we have to protect ourselves now used to we have to like seek out news now we have to actively protect ourselves from it you know um I do like shell and burger I do like Jessica C like I'm very specific about you know the same way that you know people are specific about what they put in their bodies like I try to be just as specific about what I put in my brain I'm like if I was half as careful about what I put in my body mean foodwise uh than what I put in my brain imagine you know so I try to go like what is the media diet we're doing today 100% I think have to your body is made up of all of the things that you put inside of your mouth and your mind is made up of all of the things that you put into your ears and your eyes and your content diet should be Spirulina for the soul not fast food for your amigdala CU this is how they win I mean it's like they and I know that sounds the non-binary person that runs the world the they um yeah I think it's important to just like play defense and then make sure you're like choosing the people you surround yourself with wisely like I think where a lot of people are their Social Circles are changing because I'm like I just if I hang out with someone I don't want to hear about this you know the did you say about this and I think again I see things through the lens of addiction also so it's like I think that politics is becoming more and more of an addiction social media rehabs are you know opening up for social media and then when I'm in that I'm like oh [ __ ] dude I am addicted to this thing it definitely feels like a soap opera it's a real world adrenaline pure adrenaline it's a WWE meets the Kardashians story line WWE that's being played out mhm with real world consequences so there's actual Stakes you know the problem the reason that WWE works is that there's a title on the line and that you care about this fighter and that fighter and I I like him because that oh no he did this thing and you know the good guy and the bad guy in the Swap and all the rest of it but they're trying to artificially create a reason for you to care interesting you genuinely already care about this uh but I wonder how much of I had this idea about uh why people use such dehumanizing language about anybody when they get past a certain level of celebrity Jordan Peterson's a good example of this that he you know people say regardless of what you think about Jordan like awful things about him going through drug uh detox and all the rest of the stuff and I think the reason is that I love that he's sober and those are still the suits he wears I'm like so that he picked out he picked out that suit when he was on meth right no that's the sober suit sick I and people say these things because I don't think that they they they really don't connect the fact that there is a human that they're talking about this is a is an amalgamation a conglomeration representation of ideas or philosophies or archetypes or a movement or something he's just this this tip of the spear that is a whole host of story and and Whimsy and [ __ ] uh but there's not a person there and people it's it is dehumanizing but like in the pure form of the word are you on Wi-Fi yeah there is a movie uh called An American Crime I'm just going to mess up the details and this is about uh Katherine Keener played the women um and it is about what happens in the herd mentality when one person starts to behave a certain way abusing someone how everybody joins in and uh it was in 1977 right is that when the trial was uh 2007 was the release date of the movie but it's about based on the true story of uh 1965 16-year-old Sylvia lyans and her disabled 15-year-old sister Jenia left in Carib blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah I hope they don't start oh but this is a but so this is a real story real story based on a true story about a woman that started abusing a young girl that she was just caring for in her basement and all the kids in the neighborhood started coming by and physically Abus using as well cutting her hitting her punching her and she eventually died no one said anything to anyone and it's a it's used in site classes to talk about sort of the herd mentality of when people are glomming on to like a punching bag and participating in violence like this Lord of the Flies mentality in our brain of when you sort of like you know what is that called mob mentality you know and I I think that's kind of what happens I think that's you know our primordial brain being like if I participate in this I'll be safe right yeah what there these riots going on in the UK at the moment I sent you that thing that I wrote which is kind of interesting um I don't know there's the situation in France that happened recently there was a ton of riots that were happening there uh I mean it really is impressive for America to be the least kinetic of the and after they shot the [ __ ] president in the head uh and you we actually haven't seen I was surprised by that that there was N More more genuine protest there didn't seem to be that many demonstrations States well everyone's on fentanyl how are they going to protest good everyone's stoned or UNF that's a good point I wonder what would have happened how different that would have been whether we would have seen people go to the streets if Trump's head being a little bit further to the right uh but yeah I don't know there's if we watched um Trump's head explode on television I mean it's it's in incomprehensible I mean it's it's very rare that I'm speechless you know but the fact that there were tweets even if there was one of a person saying like ah darn it they missed like guys what's happening like where did our like did we ever have empathy was this always JK like or are we the same Savages that you know 200 years ago were stabbing each other with with swords it's not aided by the fact that Trump kind of does have a larger than life personality he does have this sort of WW he literally was in uh so sort of unreal nature to everything that he does in any case he doesn't seem like a a normal like he's not like anybody that anybody knows don't apply to him yeah yeah uh but then when you see uh [ __ ] what's a face saying that um Pelosi says Joe Biden is a Mount Rushmore kind of President and that we should add him into the monument well you're not a real person either and Ne is Joe Biden so yeah I the whole thing is I mean look and this is like you know goes back to like the introduction of Television like now it's about Charisma like the running for president used to be about Connections and money you know now it's of course about money too but it's like survival of the most Charming maybe because you have to go charm people to raise money and you have to be Charming you know and I I always find it interesting like what people respond to on a human nature level and Trump does This brilliant thing where we ultimately are attracted to people who are fearless I think at the end of the day that's what we want we're looking for Daddy Daddy alpha alpha where is and Trump just goes yeah Ros Donald's fat and even if it's rude or dis F who cares we just go fearless and then you know the you know Joe Biden or whoever Hillary is like no I think clean energy we should have clean energy and we're getting rid of coal mining which she thought was this like genius Progressive thing to say had no idea what she was saying if you see the documentary hillbilly then you know instantly Trump just goes to West Virginia and says like we're never going to stop the coal I mean coal miners right so I think that we're we don't care who you are as long as you're authentic and I think that's cool I actually think that's kind of cool and I think everything's going to have to change because it used to be like how much can we trick people into voting for us how much can we [ __ ] people into voting for us and everyone's like can we just get this person who runs the best Costco to be our President we don't give a [ __ ] you know it's like Trump the how did this billionaire manage to make workingclass people like him cuz he just said we don't believe he's full of [ __ ] even if he is is a fearlessness and we're willing to follow fear is very unattractive right now I think to people you know um you seeing this Arc happen with content as well you know Mr Beast going through it at the moment because of one of the people on his team but what what so there's there's can't wait Chris Tyson I think or AA Tyson I can't remember how it works properly I'm sure it'll get cancelled either way uh trans person on his team has been rumbled for sending dodgy messages to underage people in discords and using language does it seem it doesn't seem at least from what I've looked at that there was anything that happened in person probably nothing illegal but some pretty unethical kind of one of his employees yeah one of the people that's in a lot of the videos uh uh and but the reason that I think Mr Beast in particular is kind of a a very precarious uh moment with regard to that is that people were already starting to push back against this very contrived very curated uh very sort of lytically hijacking type of content and then you look at a lot of the stuff that people are actually enjoying spending time on and it's people like coffeezilla who is this investigative reporter thing he doesn't live far away really smart right smart guy smart guy um and you know a lot of what he does he seems to kind of be unencumbered with what he's he's got very high production value and he's got this sort of uh very cool virtual Studio thing but he you believe that what he's saying is what he believes uh and Sam suck who is this Fitness influencer guy doesn't have fancy thumbnails no fancy editing no nothing it's just him and a camera and he goes to the gym every day and Records what he's doing in the gym and talks and he's kind of a bit socially awkward but very charming and guys live for this guy because again we believe that he believes the things that he's saying and we have faith and in a world of I I I think that this is basically kind of like a Instagram reflex that for all of the curation and airbrushing and filters for a very long time what people are craving now is something that just feels authentic and as we are spending less and less time around people in the real world who are authentic and can give us that sort of sense you know if you ever if you ever eaten a [ __ ] diet for a while and there's just this part of you that wants a carrot I just [ __ ] want a vegetable I've never craved a vegetable in my life but apparently now my body just knows better and I kind of think it's the same uh I think so much Detachment and so much curation when it comes to what we watch on the internet that we're trying to supplant the real world stuff with the online stuff because I also think it's important to remember that when we try to get something over on someone or when we try to me what we're do when someone lies to you they're basically just saying you're dumb you know what I mean you're just saying I'm dumb you know and I think that you know right now people are so Savvy now I mean not with I I saw Justin Timberlake's mug shot start to move the other day and I was like holy [ __ ] like I thought it was for sure but I think that as things get more and more fake um you know the idea of someone just being like yeah I didn't really like the Barbie movie you're just like I don't even care what anyone thinks I just am I I believe that what you're saying is your act ual opinion and you don't think I'm so dumb that I would buy it if you're like no no I liked it I mean Greta Gerwig is this amazing feminist director and I'm like you just think I'm an idiot don't you you know what I mean it's like when someone's late they're basically I'm I'm fascinated by what someone's actually saying by their behavior that they're not saying when someone's late they're basically saying like my time's more valuable than yours that's what they're saying with their behavior right and when someone lies to you you know it's like Hillary doing all that stuff she was just like I think you're all dumb by posing with Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry she's like I think you guys are so shallow and stupid that you would vote for me because Katy Perry has cupcakes on her tits next to me at the DNC or whatever you know what I mean so I think that people go past what the people trying to get attention are actually saying and they can feel like what's actually being said which like you're dumb you're dumb yeah which nobody likes to be patronized and then I think something with Mr Beast I don't know if this is true but I think it's interesting to know when you see a million views or something you know you don't know what kind of views you're getting necessarily you could be getting hate views you could be getting you know there's a lot of things that get you know Mr Beast could be getting people going like H this is kind of weird this is what Ellen's thing was too where it was like Ellen was you know she was doing like pranks on people and you know people were being scared and it was one of those things where you kind of it's funny at the time but oh but after a while it starts to like wear on you and you kind of have a weird feeling about someone and you're not sure why and then you're like oh yeah I think that person's mean you know like why are you jumping out of box having people jump out of boxes and like scare celebrities that like dressed up to come here you know that are in high heels like it's just kind of like a oh yeah that's kind of and I think that a lot of these people that have been you know successful for a long time after a while like pranks and stuff people like I don't know I've grown up a little bit and that doesn't like sit the same way I'm obsessed with things that like people have a weird feeling about someone but they couldn't even really articulate why I'm fascinated by that kind of stuff so there's this guy Barron Allen who you would love um he's brilliant business person self-made billionaire bought the weather Chann in cash uh was the youngest comedian to ever be on The Tonight Show and he um he's just amazing I consider him mentor and friend and uh he just always is able to an analyze these things so perfectly so uh Areno Hall I don't know if you ever remember him from back in I was very young when he had a TV show comedian and he had this huge talk show everyone loved him and then out of nowhere this was back when ratings there was like the neelen system and they could like measure ratings on TV shows right so out of nowhere ratings got cut in half and then six months later out of nowhere ratings got cut in half and he went back to like study the shows to like see what happened in one of them he said in his opening monologue Oprah was fat and then later he said Prince was a skank two sentences just two sentences right tiny little things the people probably couldn't even like say oh I stopped watching the show because of this or this but it's this little thing like worm that gets in your brain and over time you know starts to matter you know when people just go like I get a bad feeling about that guy they can't tell you why I'm obsessed with stuff like that you know that's very interesting well you were talking earlier on about um what type of person is your behavior attracting I think that's kind of the same when it comes to the things that you post online and you don't need to be a content creator for this because everybody is accumulating some form of audience no matter what it is that they want to do uh I always think about this so you know we've done a couple of episodes recently that have moved very quickly did this one with Tim Kennedy did a million plays in a day did another one with uh Mike Baker from the CIA did a million plays in a day gabbard's done a million plays in a day and part of me like oh that's really really cool and when you realize that oh that's you know maybe 30,000 subscribers that have come in thankfully those guys I think have got a very reasonable group of people that follow them but you also realize I could have achieved this or maybe even more and who would have been the plays and who are the downstream sort of who is the channel accumulating because there's no such thing as making somebody unsubscribe well you can't do that on especially on YouTube so you go okay if you start to build up an expectation from your audience that this is the sort of content let's say that you you go really hard on Israel or you go really hard on [ __ ] China or whatever it is some topic which is more controversial than why was the president shot um you actually think well what is the future version of my life that I'm creating by doing this thing now so it's not just about chasing metrics there's this this cool idea called the mcnamar fallacy so uh Robert McNamara in the Vietnam War statistician who believed that uh what couldn't be measured didn't matter he charted progress in the Vietnam War by body count because it was simple to measure it was his way of keeping score but his focus on what could be easily measured led him to overl what Overlook what couldn't which was negative public opinion of the US Army both at home and in Vietnam which deflated us morale while boosting enemy conscription in the end the US was forced to withdraw from the war despite winning the battle of because it had lost the battle of hearts and Minds thus the Macnamara fallacy as it came to be known refers to our tendency to focus on the most quantifiable measures even if doing so leaves us from our actual goals put simply we try to measure what we value but end up valuing what we can measure love it so you might cut this out fine people coming you know rumbling in the comments of humorman protocols or too strict or hubman whatever the you know inevitable backlash someone so popular I think it was cuz he had Mark Zuckerberg on I think I think that that's just a little thing that gets in the back and you're like oh wait he's in the elite he's in the Illumina like it's just kind of like wait a secondes a little I think it had nothing to do with that now James Franco I don't know his accusations I don't know what's going on with his career or anything like that but I know he had a couple things happen uh Rumblings they went away and then he won in a Golden Globe or something and then all of a sudden boom accusations people coming for him and I remember watching and going I know I think I know why that happened uh his brother was in the audience and his brother didn't want to come on stage and he started pulling at his brother you know what I mean being like come on come on it was kind of like why are you why are you forcing your brother to do something he doesn't want to do it was just like this weird little thing do you remember when Taylor Swift was doing that weird sort of Celebration that somebody won an award I think it's that kind of mask slip moment it really is kind of that's it you nailed it you nailed it it's that kind of thing where I go like I remember when H was interviewing Zach and I was like uh oh oh no cuz now he's you're going to come off like elitist people's association with that Tech you know nefarious don't trust I mean Facebook is I mean arguably for a lot of people it does help people the Z Rebrand though that's been strong you compare that to pretty much everything else now he's got a beard and he's wearing a cool long necklace and he's just like at MMA fights like where do I stand what's happening yeah yeah God but I'm things like that like I feel like little things make a big difference I mean I'm like I don't know what happened after the pet Peter AA with the Kevin spy photo but I was like oo if people start to go like I don't know about this protocol I'm like it's not about that it's just the Spacey photo very interesting yeah I well we're just so untrusting and rightly so and so very skeptical of lots of people but you know I think this is uh certainly a skill set that I need to get better at which is you mentioned before if somebody maybe says some mean things about you or if somebody starts to move as competition or as rivalry or begin beef or whatever you have this sort of [ __ ] you I'm going to come get you mentality I have a much more uh oh I was in the wrong their opinions right this is a problem with me this is the way that it always is etc etc so I'm much uh more likely to take somebody else's negative opinion of me and turn it into my opinion of me uh so I think that but do you consider the person giving the opinion never but it's an opinion right and the other people are always right and my opinion of me is always wrong always the girl with nine face piercings at Starbuck like her like that's the other thing is like if you're going to take criticism from someone first make sure it's someone whose life you want and whose judgment you respect you know that's the other thing it's like you know someone online can say like you're a [ __ ] whatever if the guy in wi says it I'm like well I'm listening you know whatever but you know I think that that's the other thing it's like I think that that all of this is about gray you know like in the in 12 step programs it's all about being in the in between and it's all about the truth is somewhere in the in between you know you have a criticism for me I have a like the truth is somewhere in between you know and I think to be able to I think intelligence and maturity and why your show is so amazing is like giving people the opportunity to go like okay there's a spectrum here and let me just like figure out the truth because my intermodel Logue can't totally be trusted this person's assessment can't totally be trusted and let me just like you know what do these two things converge gently figure out like what the what the truth is here because if I'm choosing to believe this then I'm choosing Ching to hate myself if I'm choosing to believe this person then I'm engaging in codependence but there's also a reason that we like that degree of certainty even if it's in somebody else you know uh a uh certain criticism may be better than an uncertain compliment in some ways because at least there's an answer at least I don't have to sit in this like unsure [ __ ] super position what that hasn't been collapsed down to actually give me an answer you know what I mean have you done mushrooms now just in general yeah okay cuz I'm like cuz to me the the hardest part has been in the in between for me and the uncertainty and being able to go and this is why I'm on this thing of like who did that study I don't know I'd like to hear more about who funded who funded the study when did they do the St it's like the food pyramid that was like science funded by like General Mills or something you know like we've been hoodwinked by so many studies without knowing who you know made them stuff like that I mean we thought soy milk was healthy for like 20 years and now like none of my friends have tits and all my guy friends have tits like it's like a nightmare and so I'm kind of in this place where I'm like able to go like there's just no way of knowing there's really no way of knowing you know and being able to surrender to that is kind of this like really freeing thing you know because I feel like I get my emotional safety from no this is the truth you know and in what world would I have the truth like in what Universe would I have the truth you know so I think to be able to sort of like liberate yourself from like needing to know the answer right now you know because it's like hope hopefully I'm going to be a different person tomorrow hopefully I'm going to change my mind every day because that means I'm going to be smarter every day I hope I'm not the same person in 5 years when people are like you've changed I'm like I would hope so when people are like you're getting older I'm like I hope that would be how it works you know and so I think that for me it's like leaning into the things that I used to think were a failure on my part and going like oh my definition of intelligence was totally different it used to be you know everything and now it's like I know absolutely nothing I can tell you a bunch of stuff I've memorized I can tell you a bunch of stuff that worked for me yesterday I don't even know if it work would work today next time I come on your podcast fingers cross I might be like hey everything I said before totally right like I would hope so yeah you know and I think that everybody finds different information at different times in their lives where it really works for them you know and so there's things that like blew my mind 10 years ago changed my life that now I'm like well that's not really true but like it was Intelligence at the time you know so it's like this fluid thing of like you know we talk about gender fluidity F let's talk about like intelligence fluid like this is what it means to be intelligent today like you know I mean Andrew h be like yeah I don't know like I trust that person I trust the person that says I don't know I'm unclear it's premature to know the answer to this you know and like I've thought about myself too much already today I need to take a break so we might not even know the answer today the truth is somewhere in between I think that that's like the healthiest place but we're all trying to like find safety like what's the truth what's the truth you know but it's it's actually fascinating because it's like we don't even trust our own eyes anymore you know and we question everything about other people as soon as Trump got shot everyone was like it was an inside job it was that and you're just like what about your inside job yeah well C certainty is a used as a proxy for expertise you know if somebody doesn't caveat if they don't say I'm unsure whatever it's reassuring to us but the problem being that very few things we actually do have certainty about this I think it we're maybe you've even said this before this I think we're kind of accidentally stumbling on like modern wisdom of like the people you date the people you work with the people you surround yourself with if they don't say I don't know in the once every hour I'd get away from them do you know what I mean when you go on a date with someone like well my ex was crazy and my other ex was crazy and my other ex was crazy what happened he cheated like there's no like I'm not really sure what happened May just it just wasn't a match no accountability so you just know everything like it's I think that that's something that's taken me a long time because I've always attracted to people that were really certain and really dominant and really Alpha H or whatever that means these days and so I think now it's something to me that is such a I know this word is overused like red flag you know because I and people come to me for answers now and I when I was codependent I was like here's the answer go to this doctor go to this therapist do MDR do this do this go and I'm gonna fix your life and I'm like I don't know dude maybe do nothing maybe you don't have to go to therapy maybe you're fine maybe you're just like making up problems I don't know but I do think that like we a lot of us have to look at the amount of problems that we need in order to feel important or useful or feel like victims and just go like you guys we might go to war in a couple months like is there f is there any joy in any of this like I think that's the thing I see my son and I see him you know like kind of re I'm redoing my childhood a little bit with him and I just see the humans inherent desire for play and I'm like whoa like remember that remember that CU that's where aren't we doing all this to create a situation where we could feel that Joy we're doing this to find the job and to get the money and to find the wife or that or the husband or whatever and then we're here and if it doesn't work like what are we practicing what we preach you know what I mean you know and I joke with Tim Ferris about it I'm like how's the 4our work week going you enjoying those other 20 hours a day that you're doing push-ups and sit-up like what like what are we doing it all for are we just masochists and we just want to like work work work or like cuz for me I had to really look at myself and I was like all I ever wanted was to be able to pay my bills doing standup I pay my bills doing standup and I'm in a depression oh that didn't work okay I'm going to do this is that that didn't work either oh all the things that I wanted didn't work that I thought were going to work all the like magic bullet panasas didn't work that's on me you know if the thing you wanted didn't work that's on you um and so I think that's what's really helped me with the codependence thing um have you what book did you read uh codependent no more yes that's a good one and I think that you talk about this a lot like you know you know sons that didn't have fathers around I know that's a big thing because you become codependent with your mom's feelings or dads at work around that didn't approve of you you're codependent trying to make your dad think you're perfect whatever you know it's not just broken homes it's not just alcoholic homes you know and I don't think there's anything wrong with want wanting to be the best that you can be but codependence is like the diminishing marginal returns of like you're so obsessed with being perfect that you're actually paralyzing yourself you know something I love that I always try to remember is like you know perfectionism leads to procrastination which leads to paralysis so if you're the person who's like I can't start that podcast cuz it's I don't have the perfect art yet like I can't start that relationship because I don't have my finances perfectly in order yet you know whatever um that's when it actually starts to be debilitating and I think it's like everything that we're talking about is like what's the level know yourself what's the level that's helpful and when does that bell curve when does it start becoming hurtful you know and I think that's all of this I don't this All or Nothing thing of like is not the way to do it how much codependence helps and then when does it start backfiring like all of the maladaptive behaviors like you know that I learned as a kid you know we call them character defects but I sometimes like to call them superpowers cuz it's like if you have alcoholics you know that raise you you're trying to figure out their moods and stuff sometimes that comes in really handy when you're in a business with a bunch of you know crazy people like I know how to manage them but then I can't go oh I'm going to marry this person because I know how to manage them you know what I mean so it's like you have to know when to pull those weapons out when to put them away self-criticism when I'm on stage I am an absolute Savage bully to myself you are a piece of [ __ ] you [ __ ] you know mess that joke up you should have got an Applause right there they're paying me money I I will be damned if I'm going to silence my inner bully when I'm at work you know what I mean but as soon as I get off stage I have to turn it off you know so I don't think it's about getting rid of your inner bully or getting rid of your Perfection I think it's just about knowing how to calibrate it and control it and knowing when to pull out your superpowers I love it Whitney Cummings ladies and gentlemen oh my God yeah you feeling it I don't know how do you feel great I I I really appreciate it I think the insights that I get from you are are very very good last one was so good this one's fascinating really I also like I you have such great conversations with women it's interesting only in my professional life what have you got coming up next what can people expect oh my god um I'm touring I'm touring I'm just doing standup at the moment um I'm going to be back in Austin on the 6th you'll have to come I'll be at um Austin City Limits live and you can come see me live um and don't talk about politics in my show so even if you don't think women are funny it's a safe place to not hear about politics for 2 hours where should people go for tickets oh my gosh uh Whitney cummings. edu kidding C I'm not selling out the freaking O2 Arena in a day or we in England like your show Event Event him Apollo insane yeah that's we sold out all of the downstairs in a day that was cool insane that was cool so we got one more to do that being said it's way harder to come and see me perform I just do one show and then pack everybody into a single I'm dying to come see your I haven't seen your show show I mean I'm I'm D head talk with fingering jokes you'd love it yeah it's good Whitney I appreciate you fingering I love you thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode you will love my f length three-hour long conversation with Eric Weinstein which you can watch right here go on give it a press