#1060 - Rick Glassman - The Case Against Condoms & Fake Friendship

30:00Hey, those are outdoor clothes. Let's just sit on some blankets. So like how I am this thing. I accept this of myself. I don't love it. I'm working on it, but I have accepted this is what it is. If I were to accept what this is and just lean into that entirely, you'd be wearing a fucking hazmat suit every time you came in my house, which then makes it worse and worse and worse. So by me letting people into my home in their outdoor clothes and they sit on the blanket, that's, it's a, then sometimes they sit on like somebody on my podcast, I have blankets for everybody. Somebody will sit off the blanket for a second.

30:38It used to be, ah, you know, like I need a new couch. You know, now it's like, I don't even react that way now. I don't like it, but it's, Hey, could you do me a favor? Could you? and they go, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, it's all good. And now I'm not losing my mind. That's why it's important to tell them before about the things. Because if that thing comes up and you have to do the explaining and the enforcement at the same time, oh, well, I wasn't even aware of this. This feels like a law. I've been pulled over by the police to enforce a law I didn't know existed. I actually learned that I have to tell them before, not because of that, but because I do a lot of, I'm a silly boy.

31:13So they just think I'm making a joke. So it's not that they're - No, no, no, no. This one, this is a real one. How do you - It sounds like the thing I said just before that wasn't. But this one's real. This one's real. Yeah. It's the boy who cried wolf, but for comedians. Yeah. It's the boy who cried couch. Yeah. The boy who cried blanket. Yeah. In other news, I've been drinking AG1 every morning for years. Dude, you tried to fastball me that. That was down the plate and I've just Shohei Otani'd it. I've been drinking AG1 for as long as I can remember. It is the best all-in-one drink that I've ever found.

31:43and that's why I'm such a fan of them. And that's why I partnered with them as well. I have got my mom to start taking it, my dad to start taking it and all of my friends as well. And if I found anything better, I would switch, but I haven't. Why do you keep throwing it at the mic? Stop throwing it at the mic. See? Anyway, over 75 vitamins, minerals and whole food source ingredients. It's got probiotics and prebiotics. It's also NSF certified, meaning that even Olympians can use it. And in the throat, in the throat. How dare you? I hit the... I hit the... Ah! Ah! This isn't even an ad read anymore.

32:25It's just a war zone. Oh, okay, okay. Anyway, if you too want something to throw at your friends or a tasty blend of 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food sourced ingredients designed to drink first thing in the morning in one scoop, it's here. Go to drinkag1.com slash modernwisdom. for stuff.

32:48Thank you. Yeah, you've got this great line. The self-love movement is beautiful and necessary, but not at the expense of growth. And I think that... There's a research guy over here. It's on a clip. It wasn't a deep dive. I think it's interesting that in my world, where I come from, the insecure overachiever, hustle grind set kind of background. Insecure overachiever. Does that mean you're overachieving because you're insecure of where you're at? Yes, yeah. Well, congrats. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we're recording at Disneyland. Yeah, you can build big shit as somebody that just desperately wants to be liked by people.

33:27But that side of the balance board requires more of the self-love stuff. It's like, hey, dude, fucking, let me give you this idea. It's called productivity debt. So every morning you wake up believing that you're already overdrawn with your day's production. And only if you absolutely flawlessly nail your entire day's work. What is overdrawn? Like you have too much to do? That there is some sort of cosmic karmic debt that you need to repay in terms of output productively. And only if you do lots and lots of work that day, will you claw yourself back up to at best zero, not one or 10 or a hundred, but you start at minus some number and whatever that number is, is the exact number of as much work as you can do today flawlessly.

34:15And if you take too much time off, you realize I finished the day on minus two, like, or minus five or minus 10 or whatever. Um, that's kind of the side of the world. I think that drawn to some of the stuff that, I have talked about in the past, although that's morphing somewhat and has morphed over than maybe the last sort of two years. But we've spent a lot of time talking about life hacks and self-improvement and training and so on and so forth. And that's great. And I loved it, right? Personal growth's been fucking wonderful for me. But you can sort of go too far on that. You know those balance board things?

34:51It's like a skateboard deck and there's sort of a cylinder below it. And you can imagine that you're standing on it and you're always sort of doing this. A teeter-totter? Is that what that's called? Yeah. Okay, teeter-totter. Thank you. Yeah. British. That's what you're talking about, right? You're sitting on and then you... Like, if we were on one right now, I would go like this. Oh, no, no, no, no. That would be a seesaw. So imagine a skateboard deck and imagine just a... What's the difference between a teeter-totter and a seesaw? I think it's the same thing. It's just the British version. No, it's a joke.

35:19Oh. No, it sounded like one. Damn it. So I don't know what you're saying. Skateboard deck. Yeah? Imagine. Skateboard deck's like this, okay? and there's a cylinder that's running underneath it and you were to stand on the skateboard deck so you would be doing this to balance okay do you have this visual in your mind i think okay at no point are you actually balanced right or you could pick any on a balance beam at no point i know what you're talking about you're always going to be making micro adjustments even when you're like oh i'm like really stable i know this isn't necessary because i get it but i what i'm picturing is when I, because when you twist your ankle and you do rehab, you're on a board with a ball at the bottom and you're just constantly like it's too left.

36:01You got to go right. And you got to do this. Yes. Okay. All right, let's go. At no point is your foot completely flat. Even when it's really flat, it's still just making little micro adjustments here and there. And I kind of get the sense that this self-love and growth tension thing that we're talking about. Well, you know, except you are. Don't whip yourself so much that you're permanently miserable or always in a sense of lack or never feel good enough. But also don't be so accepting of yourself that you make your pathology somebody else's burden, that you are never galvanized sufficiently to actually go and fucking do something with your, right?

36:39Okay. So on one end you have a victim and on the other end you have like an unrelenting tyrant of the self and uh i think that the tension between those two is interesting and where do you come from which culture do you come from and where are you on the balance board right now i think about that often before i go on stage um uh i'm assuming you know but i'm a stand-up comedian so when i go on uh stage to do comedy and um i i uh i don't know if nervous is the best word but it's it's it's it's it's the best it's the best way i could think of to explain the feeling it's a feeling of nervousness but it's it's almost like um the the space between what am i going to do and i've been doing this many times and i always feel this way i know it'll be fine right and um my mom says to me sometimes before a show, at least she used to.

37:34Now she said, be funny, just like a thing to say. And I would always, I say, and now I say, I'll try. I mean, maybe, but the only thing that's in my control is to be present. And it sounds corny, but I really say that to myself because if I go in with the responsibility of being funny, what if I'm not? And I very well might not be. And if that's what I need to be, then I might fail. Not that there's a problem with failing, but I don't want to set myself up for this idea of I might be failing when I'm just trying to get in a mindset. if I'm present I believe that that's the best opportunity I have to be funny so if I'm not going to be funny today chances are it's because I wasn't present and if I was present and not funny then I wasn't going to be funny anyway wow so you found the thing which is further upstream of the outcome that you're actually looking for yes and you're optimizing for that thing and one of the reasons I'm thinking of that is one of the reasons that that one of the ways that helps me do that is, well, you know, it's easy to say to be present, um, uh, as a, like affirmations, this idea of looking in the mirror and saying, I'm good enough.

38:35I'm smart enough. And gosh, darn it. People love me, whatever. Like if I don't believe that, then the guy, then he's not going to believe it. So what can I believe? And what I can believe is this idea of this like acceptance versus getting yourself better. I know I can be better. I want to be better and I want to try and be better, but I'm about to go on stage in one minute. This is the best I could be right now. So this isn't about being better. This is about fully accepting. This is my, this is my best. I have, and then tomorrow I could be like, well, I wasn't prepared. I remember a buddy of mine, David Sullivan, who also is an actor and he coaches me as an, when I, for, for things as an actor.

39:15And I remember years ago, he was helping me for this audition. And I was just like, I didn't learn my lines because I'll just learn them with him. And that's fine sometimes. But like the amount of time we had, and then we did the audition and I'm just like, I just didn't know. Like, I just, I'm, I'm not present because I'm thinking about my lines and it's not that big of a deal. It wasn't that deep of a thing. It was just, it clocked for me. Cause he goes, he goes, how does that feel? And like, I was like, yeah, I understand. Like he's the parenting me. He goes, just no, don't, don't put yourself in a situation to feel that way next time.

39:46Now I've been in situations where I didn't prepare enough for an audition or whatever. I'm not saying that like it's changed my life, but it offered that perspective of if there's something that you could do about it, do about it, do it that way next time, but don't sit in shame and like, maybe I fucked, I shouldn't, this is what, where we are right now. Do this and recognize if you don't like that feeling, try and change it next time. If you don't mind it, then you won't. So when I go on stage and I'm thinking like, what am I going to do? It's like the best I could possibly be, which might not be great is to just remove that thing because then you know i'm sitting here and you're talking i'm like am i in focus whether i'm in focus or not isn't my responsibility maybe doesn't matter that much either way but until i address it you know so um yeah i think self acceptance is a beautiful thing to do for today and then tomorrow look at who you were and do you like that it's been um it's been a a very very intentional journey for me over the past eight years of like learning is this okay what's this is it okay that i'm coming and this this is a not a real i'm i'm making something up right now the answer um at least not consciously but is it okay that I'm coming in here and talking too much talking about feelings not doing bits is it uh should I've worn my sunglasses because I think I have a sty on my eye that's showing like all of these things like I don't want to care about anything I don't want to care about anything but then that's too far the other way so like constantly doing this and going like and ultimately and this is a maybe a corny thing and it's a Snapple bottle, but like, I love who I am.

41:42I love who I am so much. I might be wrong. I also think I'm so funny. I do. I'm on stage sometimes and I think I'm so funny. I also know I might be wrong. I don't want to not feel that way, but I don't want to feel like, no, I'm not that funny. But I also don't want to think that you all think this because then there's nothing to nothing to grow from you know so this constant thing of like i love who i am am i being received accurately and if so you don't love me that's okay if you're not receiving me accurately is there a better way i could have set this up is there a one page that i need to give you what do i need to let you know to give me the best opportunity for us to enjoy each other and it's exhausting and that's where it's like at a certain point did you watch the simpsons you know at a certain point it's like your frequency isn't better or worse than mine but it might be different and if we're like this then i'm gonna have to meet you here or you're gonna have to meet me here but if it's close enough you know so at a that's where i'm at in my life now of like recognizing if this person's close to my frequency i think i maybe need to make some adjustments if they're not close to my frequency.

43:02What do we do? Yeah, I don't need to learn your amazing vocabulary for a language that I don't even speak. You know, so like teach me things if we're speaking the same language. And if we're not speaking the same language and we're working together or you're the sister of somebody, I'm in a relationship. Like then you have to do that thing where you dress a certain way and you squint and you lean forward and you like, oh, that's nice. And you give a firm handshake. And it's not consciously manipulative, but I do think it's like, I also talk about on stage this idea of like when people say, how are you doing?

43:33I used to really struggle with it. I would be like, what do you want from me? You know, like, I don't want to tell you. I don't want to talk about that. I don't, we're just walking our dogs, but I've learned it's a call and response. And when someone says, how are you doing? They're not asking how you are necessarily. They're just letting you know that they see you for a minute. And then you say, good things. How are you? In therapy, I was like, it was a, it was a, I call it a challenge. Maybe it was homework to like, just start saying good things how are you even if you feel it's lying just see how maybe you get used to it you know it's like people sitting on a blanket instead of changing their clothes so i do it and sometimes someone will say how you doing and i go good thanks how are you and they go good how are you and i'm like i'm like you started it you know this is this is fucking great i'm right this is crazy.

44:24Have you ever seen someone do, uh, or has it ever happened to you where someone said a happy birthday? And you go, Oh yeah, you too. That's actually a Brian Regan joke. Is it? Do you know who that is? No. Yeah. When someone says something, they go, you too. And you're like, Oh yeah. Um, yeah. That's just that innate feeling of like, I better give them what they gave me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You do know that you're kind of the inversion of most people's self-work, right? That you having to learn not to say what the thing is. It's like, well, to be honest, So I woke up with a star in my eye and I've got this conversation to do later on today.

44:55What's the opposite? Good, thanks. How are you? Right. From what you're saying to me, it sounds like your set point is I don't do small talk. I'm struggling intensely with small talk. And the social mores and the typical dance that most people do in the elevator or with the dog is one that I am having to consciously teach myself to do to understand that these are the mannerisms of just like normal human shallow communication so most people have to do the opposite they have to detrain that stuff well a kid does that that's it's like it's like a child like a child you say please you know you have to condition no yeah well then we're not gonna you know we're not gonna go to the strip club or whatever you know like you have to teach kids to do stuff and those pros and cons to that a lot of people say i love kids because they'll just tell tell you the truth um i don't believe that telling the truth is an excuse to be unkind uh there's definitely tact to that but like not telling the truth because you're afraid of how somebody might receive you i think is a very selfish act i think that when people say things like well you know some people will diagnose themselves as a people pleaser And they've allowed themselves to believe because of the term that what they're doing is pleasing the other person.

46:16But what I think that they're doing is that's what you do. No, no, no. What you're going to say is they're pleasing themselves. Yes. Protecting themselves. Yeah. I want to make sure that this person doesn't see me in a bad way as opposed to allowing them to see me as I am. Before we continue, if you think that all protein powders are basically the same, congratulations. That's exactly what they want you to think. Most brands never test their products after they leave the factory. while Momentous tests every single batch for purity and banned substances, which is why I partnered with them. They're literally the best on the planet.

46:49They're unparalleled when it comes to rigorous third-party testing. And this stuff tastes phenomenal. This whey protein is sourced from grass-fed European cows. No hormones or antibiotics or GMOs. Fast absorbing, low in lactose, designed for gut health, and mixes very, very smooth. Basically, most clean proteins suck. And this one really, really doesn't. And you should buy it. You need more protein in your diet. This is the one that I use every day. and the chocolate is just straight money. It's fantastic. Best of all, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can buy it and try it completely risk-free and they ship internationally.

47:19Right now, you can get up to 35 % off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com slash modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com slash modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. It's such a great definition. I think that's really wonderful. I think you're right. I think that people, a large portion of the motivation of people pleasing is not to, it is to make sure that the other person is okay, but it doesn't end there. It's making sure that they're okay with you.

47:54To make sure that they're okay so that you can be okay. And I think a great test of that would be, hey, I don't want to tell him that he has a booger in his nose. That's not my job. Maybe the person who does his makeup will. And when the makeup person tells you, I'm not thinking like, oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm thinking I'm glad they said it. So it's not the information that you're receiving that's going to not please you. It's I'm the one who's delivering it. And again, there's tact to this. Sometimes I don't owe everybody my truth. I don't need to tell you everything. I have found through originally a lack of awareness and then through making jokes that, oh, there are ways of maybe delivering things to where it's more palatable.

48:35I don't know how you're going to receive this information. I don't want to make my choice based on how you're going to receive it. I want to make my choice based on, do I think this is valuable information for this person? And the only guiding star I have for that is, would I want to know that? If I would want to know that, but there it goes again, where I also want to, hey, I want to leave my hat here. I want to set boundaries. Also, you're not representative of everybody else. Would you want to know that? Yes. But if you are as non-fungible as it might seem, you can't use your theory of mine to be, well, I would want it, therefore they, and it's like, yeah, but you're not them and they're not you.

49:12I think at a certain point with us being imperfect humans, there are just ways of calibrating yourself to like, you could only police so many things. And that's where the acceptance is. I am going to annoy people. I'm going to bother people. I'm not saying fuck them. Who cares? I'm saying I'm trying not to, but I'm only going to put so much attribute points into me recognizing when you're annoyed, especially when I go up to the conversation and I say, I'm a little high. I'm doing bits. if you don't want to do bits i'm out of here if you do is the disclaimer bit that's why the disclaimer bits are the one sheet i think that it's a really really lovely way to frame it that um you do have an obligation to be like as nice as you can be but like no nicer than like you're able to be like you're not supposed to turn yourself into a pretzel desperately trying to be able to uh like make this other person feel a piece yeah by default and then there's uh they just got they just went out of a relationship they're sad they're their parent is sick you know okay i'm gonna have to tune this up i need to invest a little bit constantly yeah yeah and you're calibrating that way um one thing that makes me think about the dog walking scenario i lived in new york for a month this summer and i fucking i thought it was so brilliant i've never been there before and um there was a like classic new york dog park on the upper east side like east 83rd street and uh it's when you're talking about the dog walking thing it just makes me think about that.

50:34It's like fall, it's sort of walking, and there's a strip of a hundred yards. It's not big, it's New York. It's a hundred yard bit where someone might have a conversation for 90 seconds in that. One thing that you do have as part of this sort of mutually aware, I know that you know that we have the time, that it can't be the thing. I already know what you're saying. You need to know that if you open up the fucking chasm of, well, you know, recently, actually, my sister or like you, you say a thing. And they're like, so what's going on with you? If you give that, it's like, oh, well, no, let me tell you.

51:10I didn't want to lie and just say, good, how are you? But also I do not have the time to invest to be able to tumble down this fucking rabbit hole, this Alice in Wonderland cathedral of bullshit down here in order to have the conversation that would be truthful. So sometimes I think the, the social mores are there almost in the same way as like that is or waving somebody across a junction it's it's even less information than you think it is what is that with a less information how are you doing i'm good how are you right fine thanks like that is it's almost the same as flashing somebody across with your lights in a car when people say how you're doing and i don't want to talk about it um uh uh uh i say hi back and sometimes if it's not is in passing how you doing i'm in a little bit of a mood i don't want to get into it but i'm okay like just letting him know that's that's where i've like discovered where i could feel like i'm satisfying your rules while not um compromising mine and by rules i just mean way of life you know um but yeah that's that's the thing that's that's the that's the kissing on a first date is it like are you good thanks how are you or are you just not wanting to get into it going in for a first kiss is constantly a scary thing my my my reaction to that type of type of fear isn't the same as it used to be but that's still there's that moment of like do you want to be doing this you know and i feel that way you know i recognize it right now like i'm not worried by this but you and i have made a commitment to talk for 60 to 120 minutes and whether or not you think this is going well you're going to continue so is he continuing because he feels like yeah but it's not a worry it's just an awareness of it so like it is what it is and that's what being a professional is the uh the emotion from that by knowing that i'll never know the answer to it well if you ask you would i i don't whatever you tell me because I don't know you yet and we're still fucking with condoms.

53:18I don't know if you'll be telling me the truth. Are you wanting to, as the host of this show, manage my expectations and feelings to get what you believe is the best out of me? I'm not demoralizing you by saying, this is a car crash or this is great. Or even assuming that that's demoralized. Some people might want that. Ed from the call again. Like, oh, he told me a little bit. He was like, yeah, actually we do need to, can we shift you to the left a little bit or can we move the fucking hat out or whatever? Oh, he told me something that's, And I suppose this is a stress test. It's a little truth test of, oh, is this person prepared to tell me something that might in the wrong hands be something that makes somebody upset?

53:55Two interesting ideas on that. The same friend whose mom stops fights in the middle of the street. Who makes whatever flan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes an acceptable flan. He asked me at his 30th birthday last year, he said, who's your best friend in the world? I was like, bit of a weird question after age like 12. And he said, okay, let me reframe it for you. Who can you sit with in silence without the need to fill it? And who can you speak to with the least amount of filter? I was like, ooh, that's cool. Like both ends of communication, both silence and talking, which of those feel the most unencumbered, like the most frictionless and just sit in fucking silence next to each other on a train, not even reading or using our phones or whatever and not feel that's that's that's a direct analogy to the not having sex with somebody until you feel safe enough to be able to tell them i have performance anxiety you know i mean that's a that's a more insecure example of it but yeah it's what you're saying is who's your best friend is hard thing to answer but who do you feel safest with isn't and that's i mean i know i've said this as jokes but that's really and i I don't mean this directly, literally, but like people who grew up watching The Simpsons.

55:14It's not just watching The Simpsons. One long ad read for the - But really, really, I really, there's two things. There's two like tests. You don't need to pass either of them, but it's valuable information. It's not just people that watch The Simpsons. It's people that chose to. They like this type of humor. People that think farting is funny and people who watch The Simpsons, I think are genuinely nice, innocent people. Okay. when people don't think farting is funny there maybe is some trauma I know that there are I have some female friends that have issues with the way that their mom receives them and they need to be beautiful they need to be a certain thing that the mother believes is what makes a woman bummer pun not intended however when you think it's just gross or whatever and yeah of course it's gross I'm not saying do you think farting is something that you want me to be doing on your face all the time.

56:08I'm asking if you think it's funny. And if you don't think it's funny, I know that we're not compatible. I know it. I know it. You're saying that the tip of the spear of your social Venn diagram crossing over is Simpsons and funny farting. You know what? To be a little bit more fair, you don't have to think farting is funny. I've never been in, and this wasn't a conscious choice. I've never been in a relationship with somebody who didn't laugh at farts. I don't think that's a coincidence, but it's not that you don't think farting is funny as much as if you think farting is gross. Like if we're sitting around and I have to go to the bathroom to fart, I'll get 40 ,000 steps a day.

56:47You know, what do you want? Are you a big farter? Who isn't? Well, I guess it depends what your baseline for big farting is. Exactly. And whatever your baseline is, come on over, just change your clothes and sit on a blanket. Okay. Whatever you fart, if you fart 10 times. How do you feel about, how do you feel about farting? Because that's kind of turned inside clothes into outside. It's actually turned inside clothes into inner you inside clothes. Yeah. How's that feel on the couch? Yeah.

57:20farting on, if you fart on my couch,

57:26How'd that feel? You know, it feels good to fart It does, but how do you and your couch fart? Fine, it's farting Hang on, I do feel like we need to Because farting isn't outdoor clothes, those are indoor clothes Right, but they are now contaminated with the inside of me They're not, your pants aren't off If you pulled off your pants and farted, I would say, would you fart on the blanket? Right, okay. It's coughing in a mask. I consider underpants and pants at 94. So pants are like fart condoms. I've been saying it for weeks. Pants are fart condoms. Yeah, it's my merch actually. Imagine. Pants are fart condoms.

58:08Come on, that's fucking crazy. Is that fucking Oz Perlman, the mentalist? I knew I was going to go here. I think you need to reassess this. I don't want to contribute to your blanket anxiety. Contribute, but go on. British. just farted why are you laughing I think you really need to check yourself on this I think that there are far more microscopic poo particles getting through pants and jeans onto the blanket and into the couch I have thought about this it's inevitable they're farting you were worried about the sweat from the gym clothes. Like I said, it's not that logical. It's not about the sweat.

58:55but I just, I want you to try and be consistent. Okay, may I? Because you're playfully challenging me and I'm all for it. Before you go into my bathroom, I am going to tell you before you flush, please close the toilet seat. Ooh, because you don't want it to be atomized? Correct. What if it's only pee? It's closed. Please. Just, it's not that big of an ask. You could be, you could just fix this with a Japanese toilet. I'd try not to, to have I just I don't have a Japanese toilet okay maybe that would be you know just to consider for future also I was gonna make a joke but I'm realizing I don't even know what a Japanese toilet is is it one of those heated things it's automated it's got the built in bum spray oh yeah they're amazing with the bidet and stuff yes yeah I want to get one yeah and that would fix this problem no it wouldn't wait I've pissed and shit in them I've come in a few and they don't close yeah they don't close they close some of them close But you do your thing, you flush.

59:54Maybe it's closing as it's flushing. You're worried that there's... It's like Indiana Jones sneaking under the door as it comes down. He grabs his hat, but instead he's flicked poo particles out. Okay. Which also is another pee particles. So I want to control the poop particles and the pee particles in certain places. But you're controlling it in the room, which has the most sterile, lowest amount of soft furnishings. Here's my logic. If you have to fart, you're going to fart. You're just going to try and hide it from me. What if it's gratuitous? What if you know that they're forcing them out?

1:00:29It's probably going to be funnier. So you can offset. I know that you're going to fart. It's not a matter of fart, don't fart. It's just, let's see it. Let's see it. See it? On my podcast, yes. You see it. We do a lot of animation. Like my podcast is one that you have to, you don't have. I watch it. There's... I like the Street Fighter selection thing. I enjoyed when you were doing that. Oh, thank you. I didn't mean you in particular. I just meant like, I want it to be digested with the visuals because we do a lot of stuff, including animations. People, when people go like this, even I add a little fart and a little shit that comes out and it stays there for a second.

1:01:07Like I'm a little boy. I think it's really fun and funny. Yeah, it doesn't, you know, and it's not that logical. Like I have a dog. I got a dog for a few reasons. Two of that that I'll explain that are relevant is one I thought it would help with my OCD because my ex-girlfriend I was obsessed with her dog and when she would bring it over for whatever reason the rules didn't apply to him like I was okay with it outdoor dog indoor dog we would wipe his paws before he comes in but but you didn't wipe his his butt his belly he would lay on the ground like he's on the stuff it's okay because the alternative is him not on the bed with us or having to bathe him every time which I mean Ain't going to happen.

1:01:47Yep. Yeah. So I realized, wow, this is, this is, you know, immersion therapy in a way. Yep. Yep. Another reason I got a dog is because, especially because I, I work so much on my podcast and I do a lot of editing and I would go, if I don't have shows, I would go three days without leaving my house. And I didn't get out of the house. I'm like, this is an excuse to get out of the house. Yep. I'm out of the house a lot more now. I used to, once you go outside, the outdoor clothes, but then I'm like, I go, I walk, I just won't sit down. I've allowed myself to go outside. maybe even in the rain and come back in.

1:02:18So like I'm getting better by challenging myself and the dog let me do that. Farting is, you know, the dog could be on the blanket. A fart is fine if you're wearing, you know, a condom. Right. Okay. So farts are the dog of the indoor outdoor world. Also, if it's funny enough, you know what I'm saying? Like I feel there's a hack to shame and that's finding a bit in it, right? Like I'm embarrassed about this thing, but if I could say something funny about it, I don't know. Is that because now I feel valuable and I use it as a tool? Is it because I now am being seen in a way that isn't the way that I thought I would be seen?

1:02:59Is it just the connection I have with somebody who could relate to it? Whatever it is, if you can make a bit out of something, it's easier, right? And I feel this way. I mean, of course, then there's like, oh, you're joking all the time. I'm not saying make everything a joke. What I'm saying is if there's an uncomfortable conversation, there is craft involved into either saying things like setting expectations properly. Hey, there's something that's been on my mind. It's not that deep, but it's something that bothers me. We don't have to talk about it now, but do you have five minutes of space I could let you know something that I've been feeling a little embarrassed about?

1:03:36It lets the other person make a choice to do that. Sure. And that's a great tool. Another one is that's not as exhausting and asking so much of the other person, especially if it doesn't really involve them is, hey, I have a stye in my eye and I brought sunglasses and I might want to do this. And is this, you know what, could we just do glasses? Could we do sunglasses for a little? Of course. Cool. And now the bit is we're wearing sunglasses, but that made it easier for me to admit to you something that might've been hard to say. Now that wasn't hard to say, but like farting, a buddy of mine, shout out to Andy Cozell once said, buttholes have the best comedic timing.

1:04:13And I think that's so funny and true. You ever hear a fart and you think like, I didn't think that was a good time for that. And if so, it's the best time for that. Oh, I was going to say we're not compatible, but yes. I see. If you don't think that that fart was funny, you might be a redneck. Do you have that over there? No. Okay. No, we have, what do we have in the UK? We have chavs, don't we? You might be a Chad. Chav. Chav. I don't know Chav. I know Chad. Chav. So the only equivalent we have of kind of Hick. So imagine Gypsy without the caravan. You're not supposed to say Gypsy or Hick, just so you know.

1:04:51You just did. I did it. Redneck. Is Hick allowed? I mean, you'll see the comments. Well, look, I'm like somebody who hasn't had whatever reckoning around culture and class I think it's okay. I'm fine. I'm insulated because of the British accent, hopefully. until I get cancelled. I was on Tucker Carlson this week. I'm like, fucking, I survived that. That's okay. Has it come out yet? Yep. And you survived it? It was the day that like all hell broke loose and the entire internet decided to point the sites at Tucker, Candice, and Nick Fuentes all at the same time. And I was like, I just had a conversation about like what I think men should be doing maybe and how they, they're struggling a bit in school and work and stuff.

1:05:35And there was this huge crossfire and I had to do this. There were all the fucking bullets flying over the top of my head. Is that a concern for you? Or is it just something you noticed? It's just something I noticed. I mean, I was on set all day. I had two wonderful, Monday was fucking brilliant. I had Trevor Wallace in, I think it's great. It's the first time I got to meet him. It was so much fun. And we went for like two and a bit hours. And then I had Huberman for like three and a half hours and we got to chat before and chat after. I was like, that's great. I'm fucking sweet. And you come out and you go, oh, oh, I'll deal with that later.

1:06:03Like whatever the fucking, but no, it's fine um i would tell you a story about john bellion do you know who that is the name sounds familiar but no musician recording artist producer behind justin bieber and rihanna like ed sheeran gazillion plays like billions and billions and billions of plays i had him on the show in new york he told me this story about his son it made me think when you were talking like this is why kids are great because kids don't have the filter and i think uh some of the things that i'm like hearing and feeling from our conversation today is this balance between growth and self-acceptance, between being true to yourself and helping somebody, like being kind, like being nice to somebody, which doesn't always mean necessarily telling them what they want to hear.

1:06:45Kids kind of sit interestingly, like skewed off to one side where they do very much tell the truth, but can also, and the innocence allows them to get away with more, which is interesting because I wonder whether if all of us spoke more like kids, we would be - I think there's something about - It's a projection of the innocence and the intention. I have misophonia. And when people are chewing, it sounds. Sounds, it drives me fucking nuts. The sound of eating. When a dog is doing it, for some reason, not only am I okay with it, I love it. And I don't know - Oh, don't you like them licking buttholes as well?

1:07:16He was licking his penis and the sound of it. That was a Kristen Bell episode, did you see? He was licking his penis and there's something about that sound where it's just cute to me. when a human licks his penis i just you know why am i watching this why is marilyn manson in my bedroom isn't that funny i've talked about that recently too that fake rumor that everyone thought he took out a rib so he could blow himself everybody around the fucking world knew that i haven't thought about that for a decade i'm so glad that we're on this we're tapped into the astral around this and that was pre-covid that was pre-covid yeah imagine how much fun you would have had a quick aside you've probably heard about pfas the forever chemicals that are in your nonstick pans and food packaging and drinking water and probably your testicles.

1:07:57Studies say they might be linked to hormone disruption, infertility, and even cancer. In fact, 97 % of Americans have detectable levels of PFAS in their blood right now, and probably their testicles. Good news. Function just introduced PFAS testing as an add-on for members on top of the over 100 biomarkers that they already track. Twice a year, hormones, heart levels, nutrient levels. They now look at the microplastics in your testicles. It's a way to go even deeper into your health, giving you the option to see if these forever chemicals are quietly accumulating at harmful levels in your testicles.

1:08:29Normally, getting this level of insight would cost thousands of dollars with private clinics. With Function, it's just 499 bucks a year, and everything is reviewed by a physician with clear, actionable steps to improve your health. Right now, you can get another 100 bucks off, bring it down to$399. Get the exact same blood panels that I get and save$100 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom to save your testicles. So John does this show. He does two stadium shows in Long Island. He doesn't tour for five or six years, comes back, writes this album and has dedicated his life to his family now whilst also still doing the producer thing, but he's not been front facing.

1:09:14And people come over to his house so that he has his limited time away from his family and his kids, whilst also living his dream and doing his thing as possible. So he's curated his life around his family. He decides to do two stadium shows. I think it's on back-to-back nights. He only rehearses for three days so that he spends as little time away from his kids as possible. His new album is Father Figure. So it's all about being a good dad, and he had this amazing dad. And I was on Prime now.

1:09:39And he does the show, and it's like 15 minutes drive from his house, and he's brought his kids there and his son's there, maybe like five, something like that. And he's got a little playpen out the back with his toys. And he's thinking to himself, I haven't toured for ages, I haven't put the shows on, I've dedicated so much time. My family's going to be there, my friends are going to be there. I'm like all this stuff, super excited. And he finishes up the show after having done this and he goes to go and see his son. He says, so what do you think of the show? And he went, I didn't like it. I went, why?

1:10:12well he sang the first song and then he just kept singing he just kept on singing more and more songs and I thought when's dad gonna be done so he'll come play with me and you're like that's someone just saying what they fucking want but also the kid thinks that the show is bad because he didn't get his dad playing with him he was giving the wrong critique he wasn't critiquing the show he was critiquing that he was doing a show I don't like this kid I don't like this kid Now Huberman I saw at the airport recently And he saw my dog And he was playing with my dog a bit Oh you have emotional support Credentials for your dog?

1:10:54I don't want to That's none of your business But I have my dog with me I want to know how Are you smuggling it? I'm doing it all the right ways Okay This sounds like an area For investigation So I have the dog And Huberman Likes dogs And he's playing my dog is it's he's insane it's insane he's perfect yep and he's right and blah blah blah and i had this feeling of like not that i'm somebody who he needs to know who i am but i did think like if you knew who i was you would probably want to do my podcast and i was and i didn't say anything to him the same didn't pitch him no didn't use the dog as like a thirst trap no to try and he came over to me but i didn't i didn't ask him to come on my podcast the same reason why I wouldn't ask a woman who I just met for the first time at the gym to go on a date.

1:11:42It's not right. How do you think about tact? You're in the city and the world, the industry of networking, business stuff. I'm all for asking. I mean, I think we have the same agent. I mean, I could just ask my agent to forward an email, then say, hey, we met at the airport. Like, maybe I'll do that. I haven't. Is that what you're asking? Like, I'm all for asking people for things yeah just again uh we've talked about kind of the emotional dynamic of this like within the emotional world but there's also the professional world and i think about that a little it's an uncomfortable feeling i feel because i i do i book myself and i do so i feel like there's producer rick and then there's like comedian rick and producer rick feels like it's high school and i'm following up with people that i don't want to not that i don't want to but i i'm I don't want to bother you.

1:12:31So like asking Huberman to be on my podcast at the airport when he's liking my dog, it would be like me going in for a first kiss before I have enough data. It's like, what if he, what if he says yes? And he's just feels like, Oh, I don't know. I'm like, do you, do you want to be here? like this idea i men you know women women are scared a lot like women go through life in a different way traditionally than men of just like like the analogy i think of is like i went into a coffee shop and there was this big dog and he wasn't even showing his teeth it was just like this dog could do some damage and the person that was holding the leash was talking to somebody else and not really paying attention.

1:13:12And to get in, I had to go around this dog. I wasn't necessarily afraid of the dog, but I was looking at the dog the entire time. And I really thought to myself, I think this is how women feel around men. And I say this because like, wait, hold on. Huberman, I'm trying to think of the analogy. I'm now forgetting what I'm saying. And I don't want to, because I feel like I want to talk about this. Why am I saying that women are afraid?

1:13:38Anyway, I just think we need to do better. and I think that musician needs to tell his son like you know shape up you know I think he was saying uh asking too much the fear of uh following up producer rick comedian rick yes yes let's move on you know what we're gonna move on because I learned what you're supposed to do you can just oh but I loved it I loved what I was thinking yeah you would have fucking freaked if you heard it hate when that happens how do you respond to caffeine i stopped drinking coffee two years ago okay because it gets me sometimes too high but that's not why i stopped it was because it uh one out of 20 i would get anxious and i started taking this i'm sure this is fantastic i've heard nothing but the best from newtonic oh wow it has l-theanine as well twice as much as a sleep supplement so it might be anyway i let's not roll the dice on one in 20 young fucking but i i take a drink called magic mind you know about that i did a little green yeah shot let's go caffeine in yeah so it's a for whatever reason it's the right amount for me what made you ask about caffeine just i was like oh maybe you need a little just a little tickle a little more a little less i don't have you had any i took one before this ah that might be it well i don't know it's weird when you lose your train of thought like that because you go the solution is either too much or too little caffeine and i don't know which one it is i think i just got into my body just the empathy i have for how difficult it is for women in this world to have to not only show up as themselves but to have 20 of their brain making sure that they they could stay alive meanwhile guys are just walking around getting their cock sucked and drinking caffeine like it's a you know on a thursday well it depends who you are i suppose uh yeah i think there is a there is definitely an asymmetry it's interesting that um so i didn't want to approach huberman like a woman and just wow that might have worked i've been a fan of his, uh, uh, I don't want to call it a fan.

1:15:34I've been, I mean, yes, but I've been listening before he, not even listening, like reading his stuff. My, my ex who, who lives in London, I spent a lot of time in London, love being in London. Uh, she turned me on to Huberman, I think in 2019. And there was like so many things that are now just like, I just used to go out in the sunlight in the mornings. Like, I know that's like a big trope at this point, but like, cause that there were so many things um uh uh learning about histamines and uh uh and nightshades and there's so many things and i'm just like this is a guy that has now gotten really successful for for having an audience appreciate his his knowledge so i'm like i really like this guy you know what i'm saying so it's like seeing a girl that you really like where it's like i don't want to just i don't know i i feel like it's not appropriate here i'm not saying i'm There's a nice amount of reverence there.

1:16:26You're like, oh, I'm going to treat this one properly. I mean, you know this. And for the girls out there, I would wager fewer relationships start if you have sex on the first date than if you have sex on the fourth date or the 10th date or something like that. That giving it up too quickly and sort of being too fast too soon is indicative of how much you care about the relationship overall. Do you think that's a direct, like, that's a literal statistic? I would be. Because I agree, but sometimes not, like. I just get the sense that there's a few dynamics at play here. First one. Biological. We tend to value things that are difficult to get more.

1:17:16uh secondly the time from meeting to getting physically intimate with somebody is usually if you wait longer what it suggests is that is not all that you're here for uh just those two we don't even need to go deeper than that like that's enough to carry this dynamic through i think to it would probably appear in data yeah but my last three relationships were uh them on the first day no uh well yeah but there's there is um uh there's more information, which is we, it was long distance and we were FaceTiming for months. Okay. So, okay. So the first time we smelt each other and actually we're in the same room, but you've spoken for 50 hours at this point.

1:18:01And I've learned that I like, I, even if it's like we're in town, I'm not scared to go on a date, but let's say you and I don't know if we want a podcast with each other. We could find out by doing a podcast or we could FaceTime for a little bit and see if like we're you know if you think farting's funny uh go get tested that is that is one of the interesting things about um having conversations with people especially because you don't if you've been the episode especially something like this where you know we've got the fucking cars and the team and all the rest of it uh it's a big tends to be a big deal if you're like oh fuck that was so bad um but there is no practicing in private there's no We'll go through the moves yesterday.

1:18:42For podcasting? Yeah. I think there is. There's a reason that you wanted to have me on the podcast. Not that you still agree with that reason or that you don't, but like you got information. That's what's different about being - Okay, that's research. But you're right. You are right. But you can't do - I mean, especially if it's somebody that doesn't - You're going to research this person based on their Instagram. How's this dynamic between us going to go? It's all data collection. I really believe that dating for the first X period of dates is less about showing a person who you are and them showing who you are and more about, which I don't like this, but it's more about like showing up in a certain way that you're supposed to and they'll do the same.

1:19:23and then over time that degrades into who you actually are. But you can't show up as you actually are on a first date because they're going to be like, oh, he farts on a first date. What is he going to do on the second date? I'm going to fart again. How much deeper does this descend? No, no, no. This is as deep as it goes. Yes. Unfortunately for you. So FaceTiming, I think, and it's not specific to FaceTime. It could be like if we're not making a commitment to each other and you're with a group of other people and you're getting to see a little dynamic without feeling the pressure of needing to wear a certain outfit and ask how many brothers and sisters you have and like get to know the person i think facetiming because you could also always just hang up safety thing is a big deal on that if you're talking about oh well some part of this is i mean i know for a fact girls will say to their friends this is where we're going this is the time this is the place like you've got my location if i don't text you by this time then maybe give me a ring or whatever because that safety piece is is a big part uh i imagine that there is a way to be made to feel unsafe over facetime but it's significantly more safe right yeah i mean it's also when you say safety it's not just physical safety there's also just like your own you know your social battery and your sense of comfort and and like depending on the person if you're not enjoying it do you just oh yeah yeah yeah yeah or do you say things like Like I've learned so much about how to communicate with people by editing my podcast.

1:20:52And when I watch myself, I used to, when I would get bored in a conversation, not that the other person's boring, not that I was meaning to judge them, but I would just be honest saying, Hey, I'm a little bored with this. And like, we talk about something different. Some people, it seemed like they received it. Well, some people may be like, Oh, and that became the topic of conversation. Then we would talk about communication or whatever. Yeah. But I would watch myself. And as I'm watching from the audience, I would see I'm not bored what this person is talking about on the monitor, but I was bored in the room.

1:21:24What do you think is going on there? I think what was going on there was I wasn't interested or I missed something and I was wondering if I was in focus or not. And I'm just like, I'm not connected. Right. And I mistook not being connected by meaning I'm not interested. interested so instead of saying i'm not interested in this topic and like i would watch myself and be like frustrated not just of how i've enjoyed this in person yes well no maybe but not specifically that it was i was frustrated one that i showed up as somebody who shut somebody down not meaning to but i did but also like i want to hear what they said and now we never got to it like me as the audience wanted to hear more about that so in moments where i feel that way now i don't think to myself this is boring i think if it is we could take it out later i think to myself i'm not connected?

1:22:10How can I get connected to this person? Could you say that differently? I don't know what you just said. We say that again. I wasn't listening, whatever it is, but like, yeah, I don't know. Sometimes, sometimes being bored doesn't mean that they're boring. However, if they are, I got to get out of there as quick as I can. You know what I'm saying? Like this is, this is going to sound how it may. If somebody doesn't make me laugh or teach me something or feed me or make me cum, and I don't mean me, I mean a human being, I believe, then what value are they offering me? Now, I'm not to say if you make me cum and that's all you do, that this is a healthy relationship, but I mean this quite literally.

1:22:53If you don't feed somebody, give them you know if you're not their boss and they pay you if there isn't some value that you're offering me am i just supposed to be a good guy and just be like no it's okay he's a nice guy i want to listen say about uh a friend of yours who's in a hospital bed and he's looking after i don't understand the connection that they're unable to really offer you anything i don't mean every interaction has to be valuable to me that i mean i would argue that that by being able to show up for somebody in a selfish way makes you feel valuable. You know, it's this idea of like, when you give to charity, are you doing it because it makes you feel good because you're helping them?

1:23:33Absolutely both. I'm glad it makes me feel good or they wouldn't get this help. So I don't mean everything I need to be constantly entertained or, you know, constantly validated by something. I just mean in a relationship as a whole, like, do you have any friends that you were friends with as a kid and they're kind of grandfathered in and like, you love this person and you hang out with this person, but whenever you're with them, It's just, this is boring. I'm still friends with this person because I love this person and I care about this person. I'm not excited to be around them and I'm not, I'm not.

1:24:01It's just a little boring. So like, but when you're just meeting somebody and after three dates or three friendships, I don't know, man. I just like, he doesn't get my jokes. I don't, he doesn't make me laugh. That's okay. If he's interesting, your podcast, is it the funniest podcast I've ever seen? And it's one of the few that I watch. And I love your clips. I mean, whoever picks your clips, you know what you guys are doing. But like, I'm interested in what you have to say. Am I learning? Probably. Is it just, oh, even if it's something I disagree with and it challenges my mind. It's like, I don't know.

1:24:35It's something it's worth listening to me. So this idea of going out with people or being friends with people that like are boring. And I'm not saying that you're a boring person. I'm saying that I'm bored by you. you know our kind of incompatibility yeah our frequent and i the opposite is i probably annoy the shit out of you and you're not wrong but why are we just well they're nice and why don't you give it a try so dating is that way too so i think that when you have a face time with somebody not that believe me i do not need to have a face time i backwards learned that like oh that that was interesting i by the time i was on my third face time with this person which is potentially only 45 minutes of conversations total, which is less than one date, I'm so excited to meet you.

1:25:24And if I wasn't, I don't want to waste my time. Life's too short for boring friendships in that way. Yeah. And boring, I'm skeptical because I've said this once before and I saw a comment that wasn't what I meant and I believed that they received it this way, which was like, well, some people are boring. Not everybody is a comedian or friends with comedians. I don't mean like you got the best punchlines. I just mean like, are you talking about things that are interesting to me? Well, here's one way to do it. In fact, let me give you this little essay, which is pretty cool. So Jenny Jerome, who was - Mr.

1:25:55and Mrs. Jerome's kid. Winston Churchill's mother. She once dined with both Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and his rival William Gladstone and consecutive knights. When asked about her impressions of the two men, she said, when I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling like I was the cleverest woman. Some people are interesting. Some people make people feel interesting. It's the difference between being interesting and interested. And this idea, I came up with a reverse charisma. Like most people think that they want their stories to be energizing, their aura to be electric or whatever.

1:26:32But what you actually want and what I find myself being around more more than even that, someone who comes in and is, ah, like fucking jazz hands, is, wow, like I really feel fucking seen here. And maybe this is part of the connection. Maybe it's the frequency thing that you're talking about. But if somebody - Why do you feel seen when somebody comes in doing jazz hands? No, no, no, no. I don't. My point is - You prefer. No, somebody that comes in and has this very electric aura, it maybe is, as you said, less boring, out there, lots of stories, all the rest of it, like whirlwind of social - Doesn't leave you feeling seen.

1:27:10But that's fine. And I like being around those people, but the skill set to be able to be that sort of a person, to have that kind of charisma, for want of a better word, I think is typically quite high. And maybe that was what triggered the person who left that comment saying, well, some people are just boring. Maybe they thought that they are that kind of person. I'm a little bit lower energy. I'm a little bit more thoughtful. I'm a bit more shy. I'm a bit more whatever. Thoughtful isn't boring. Okay, but if you don't say much, right? Let's say you just don't get the words out that quickly or you don't think that quickly when it comes to like telling whatever.

1:27:43If somebody feels that, if somebody feels like they might be boring and they're worried that they are. I mean, one thing is to go and have some life experiences and become a little bit more confident with your communication, all the rest of it. And that's great. And you should do that, too. But a much quicker route to making people feel comfortable around you and to connecting with people is to just get really good at asking questions. And that the bar for that, I think, is significantly lower. so if you ask the question like how did that make you feel or why or what did you mean by that like as somebody is telling a story if they're even like remotely compelled by what they're talking about that is them away for ages now you as a question asker now have to deal with whether or not that person's interesting to you and again this is the compatibility but if you're someone who thinks like fuck like i wish i was more like socially competent or i wish that people I seem to like people, but I struggle to contribute to the conversation in a way.

1:28:37And I'm worried that I don't have much to talk about. That right there, that awareness of what they maybe think is a shortcoming is your superpower. So if somebody doesn't know what to say, so they just don't say anything, maybe that is boring. And I use the boring as a blanketed statement i know it's blanket but but if you're hey guys i'm uh you're all so charismatic and i feel like i have no idea what to say i am so invested now i'm inch like what do you mean i didn't even realize this what are you feeling i don't know you guys are doing jokes and i feel like i'm not saying anything oh fuck should we all be quiet you know like should we put on our sunglasses we could find a game together it's interesting that you've got so what you keep doing, the strategy that you keep going for is calling out the game.

1:29:26So have you ever read, um, escaping flatland? It's a book from like 1850 or so. It sounds niche as fuck, but you might have the book from 1850, but it's, it's super famous. It's, it's a, um, a book about a two dimensional world. And you know, so many things, I guess it's your job now. I've just spoken to a thousand people and I'm like the end of a thousand person human centerpiece. So like what I've got left is nutritionally very non-dense, but there was lots of it. Great. Great analogy. It's actually my shirt.

1:29:59Sorry, I messed up the momentum. Go on. This book is about a two-dimensional world, Flatland, and a three-dimensional sphere comes down to Flatland. And this sphere is a circle, and the circle is able to make itself grow and shrink inside of Flatland, and the citizens are amazed. What they don't understand is that this sphere is moving itself through a dimension that they can't see. It's not getting bigger or smaller, it's just getting closer. Exactly. Exactly. What you're doing, at least what it sounds like to me, your preference in terms of conversation style is, or what you would like to see more from some people and your advice is again, like we said, with the game of tennis is to almost say, well, why are we using the racket?

1:30:35Why can't we use our feet? Or does the net need to be there at all? Or can we leave the stadium? Like, or can we hit the, why don't we hit the ball straight up as opposed to across the net to each other. You're moving on a dimension that is not within the confines of the game. I think what I'm comparing with myself is I tend to try and achieve the same thing that you do, but within the confines of the game. I think I have less bravery socially for calling out that sort of stuff than you do. So what I would do, and this is from a decade and a half of running nightclubs, standing in the front door of nightclubs, there is a particular sort of game that needs to be done.

1:31:13You need to do it really, really, really quick. So I need to keep it within this, but like, this person's like too drunk. So I need to come up with a way to play the game, but also get them to realize they're not fucking coming in or to get them downstairs before the door staff sees so that we can get their five pounds off them, even though they are too drunk to come in or whatever it is that we're doing. Right. As a part of that, what I like and what I find fun as a game is to see whether or not I can get the movement of the conversation for the shy person to feel more included or for the extroverted person to shut the fuck up or for the funny person to be more funny or whatever within the rules of the game.

1:31:50And I think that that's the challenge, maybe because of insufficient social bravery to break the rule of the game and go and become the sphere sort of growing and shrinking or just, I don't know, preference or whatever. But I'm thinking like, huh, how much do I do what Rick's saying he does here? How much do I like punk the game or call out the game? Like how much do I say what's going on versus try and get the outcome that he's trying to get, but within the confines of the game. And I think typically I do, I do the latter. I want to talk about this for a while. Okay. Okay. Dig in. First of all, when you, it seems like when you - Sorry, can I have another water guys?

1:32:24Same, please. It seems like when you are talking about calling out the game versus doing it within the game, as if those are two separate worlds. I don't want to have to go over here. That's not what we're doing. I don't see us talking about which way we hit the thing is going over here. If you've never played pickleball before and you've played tennis, we could just do it. And then, you know, you, you, you, you don't, you step in the kitchen or whatever. I don't know the rules well enough. And, and I can be like, oh, you stepped in the kitchen. And then you'd be like, oh, you know, so you're out or whatever the thing is.

1:33:00And then eventually, you know, you'll figure it out or you can be like, hold on a second. So let me really quickly explain to you. This is what we're doing. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. You might have questions. Maybe you don't. I agree. The difference is that socially the rules are unwritten. In pickleball, the rules are very explicit. Where are the pickleball rules written? There's got to be a document somewhere. Have you ever played pickleball? Yes. Have you read the document? No. They're unwritten then. That's true. But they're written somewhere. They're not. Yes, yes. Somewhere they're written.

1:33:37But who's reading them? Out of all the people - I actually need to interject into your interjection here, which is I have a friend who lives in Austin, Texas, who did precisely that and did read them and broke the game of pickleball so badly that they had to litigate his new move out of the sport of pickleball. It's like adding the three-point line. He is Indian. I know. Which says a lot.

1:34:02this unwritten rules i i i have been i have a document of a lot of things i would want to do they're more there's some some some of them are chapters some of them are examples um thank you very much um dean are we okay with it down there that's dean oh hey dean um i want to write a book because there's so many things that i never knew are like you're supposed to do good things how are you, for example. And I want to do a book called Unwritten Rules Written. And just this idea of like, oh, here's, you know, here's why when you go show up to somebody's house, it's nice to bring flowers or a bottle of wine, even if you know they don't want it.

1:34:39And not that you have to do this, but here's what some expectations are that if you don't do them, at least like that be your choice. This is your prep document, but for being a human rather than for dating you. For being their human, you know, because being a human is, is, you know, how much is it based off of my intuition of what I want, what I like versus what you're telling me I'm supposed to do. Can we discuss a list of things I have that is some of the most difficult to do whilst looking dignified? Yes. And after that, I want one of us to remember to go back to talk about the game thing, game thing.

1:35:12Picking up a moving ping pong ball. Very difficult to do with dignity. like if i throw a ping pong ball over there and i'm like rick would you grab that for me please and you're like oh you're not an athlete starting a stopped bicycle i get it turning around ever eating a little bag of cereal with your hands yes yes uh trying to consume soup that's too hot on the opposite end um eating from an ice cream cone that's melting and you got to move real quick and get around the sides yeah you're like bonnie blue

1:35:55um you're out working how working out how to sleep inside of a blanket in a room that is uh too hot while you're too cold or while it is too cold while you're too hot you're like okay do i go arms under and just poke my head out like a little mummy or do i take my arms out and then pull it back down. That's making me think of being in a bedroom, making love to somebody and then going into the bathroom while they're still in bed. If you have a small ass. If you have a small ass. Yes, I have a small ass. So whenever I walk to a bathroom, I either have to moonwalk back. So they see my big rock hard cock, or I have to say, I have a little ass.

1:36:31Don't look at me. Why is it still hard? Well, it was hard, but still it's, it's, it's, I guess it's not hard. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Which is also, by the way, I used to be very embarrassed. Of course, it's embarrassing to be seen naked. I mean, it's a vulnerable thing, but if I'm going to be intimate with somebody and they see me soft, that's fine. It's going to happen. If a woman ever sees my penis soft before hard, I am humiliated. It's okay to have gone from like grower to show her, but not from like the soft to hard. It's like, okay, as long as you've seen the Statue of Liberty. as it's meant to be.

1:37:09It's almost as if I think that she thinks when she sees my penis soft, she thinks, is that his penis when it's hard? Right. Okay. So, so... Have you ever called that out? Just so you know, darling, this is soft right now. It does get harder than this. You told a, I don't remember what it was, but it was a love note from a husband to his wife. And the reveal at the end is she is no longer with us. Beautiful. I've watched that a couple of times and it makes me cry when I do. He calls her darling. and to hear you say darling in that voice in this context when that way of darling is associated with this is really is what it's like i'm seeing my flat ass pavlovian response okay um sidling into a booth at a sports bar and you have to be the one that's right at the very end that's the one that i connect out of all the ones that you said that's the one that i i connect with the most closing a car door whilst holding two bags of luggage no that's the fucking coolest you use your knee or something you got to do that like no that's cool you don't have to do that and why are you putting the luggage so high up keep it down here and give it a little nudge okay all right fair enough you don't have to go like this well you do you're like uh it's like rom-com and you've just got back from the date and you're like ah and you're like yeah drinking from a straw during a fight fucking dude drinking from a straw is so good trying to catch a straw that's like you've got cup over here watching something or talking to somebody and you miss it and you go See, I think that's just fun comedy acting I think even just going for a straw My instinct, even when I'm by myself Is Like a horse You look like a horse You know when it does that thing where it goes Have you ever seen that?

1:38:45Yes you have Punk in the game again Why don't we just move on Okay, tell me about the rules of the game Nay, it's over Nay So, do you have more though? What else have I got that's in there? Yeah, you can go

1:39:01the idea of, and if you have any, call them out, but the idea of, of, of the rules to the game, uh, and setting up, setting them up. I think that that is, that is literally getting on the same page with somebody. So we could get on the same page by just kind of maneuvering and seeing if we could figure it out. But what's the, in the list of pros and cons, what's the con of you saying, wait, hold on a second. I'm confused with this. Or hold on a second. It seems like you and I are on the same page. You have to serve it to the opposite end of the court. What's the con for not wanting to do that?

1:39:41The con for not wanting to, well, the con for doing it is easier to make the case of, just that you have to break the flow of the conversation in order to be able to talk about the conversation. And typically for some people that feels a little bit uncomfortable. Yeah. So you're cannibalizing the momentum. Yeah, of course. We're back and forth. We're back and forth. We're doing the thing. And it's like, hey, no, stop. And I think my point around where are the rules of the conversation sport written and the fact that they aren't, I think what I'm, the reason that I feel more comfortable and I feel like most people would feel more comfortable talking about the rules of pickleball than they would the rules of the conversation in whatever form you think that that exists is legitimacy because someone somewhere knows there's a fucking ancient scroll that's got the pickleball rules written on it uh well there's an ancient scroll that says you're supposed to say good things how are you but is there no i don't think there is not in the same way because it's unconstrained uh here's another one let me give you this one which i love as an example.

1:40:49Your capacity at pickleball is not judged as being close to your sense of self. I'm not saying, and for a professional pickleball player or somebody who is an insecure overachiever, maybe you do feel like your performance in pickleball at the local pickleball league determines your self-worth. But most people would say, if you made some error in the game of pickleball by stepping into the kitchen, that doesn't mean that you are bad or that you are lesser. Yeah. And I think what a bummer that if you make an error and you say, oh, he was an Indian guy, by the way. And you're like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

1:41:20Oh, that you're a bad pickleball player. Okay. He's a great pickleball player. He's number two in the world. No, I'm being sincere. I'm saying that like, if you do something bad in pickleball, it's not going to affect your self-worth, traditionally you're saying. Where if you, you know, get in a booth and you have to go to the other end or a girl sees your flat little bullshit ass, I'm less than. what a bummer well that's true uh my point is when we're talking about conversation sorry even me addressing it stops the momentum a little but it's funny it wasn't that funny all right well i mean you did it yeah but which side of this debate do you want to defend yourself or not oh i didn't even realize that's what i was doing no i i'm like i'm interested in this and and like i didn't realize that's what i was doing i'm like just noticing like oh like the momentum shift okay this is what he was talking about and i'm just trying to form an opinion on that just then but now i'm feeling like i'm stepping on what you're saying and you called me out on something that i'm a little confused with i was just trying to because you said bummer it's funny you said bummer presumably because you thought it was funny and i'm like well you said it presumably because you thought it was i said it's funny you said no it's not i'm like which one you can either say it and believe it or say that it wasn't funny but you don't get to do both i mean i guess where these rules written somewhere do you want to talk about it okay in my mind the bummer is a throwaway you familiar with this term over where you're from tag little tag there's a difference and we don't need to get into it cool throwaway is um if you hear it enjoy it or don't if you don't hear it it doesn't it doesn't it's there's no exposition in it.

1:43:06It doesn't matter. It's just something that's like, oh yeah, nice car. So it's my fault. Oh man, you are an overachiever. So what I'm saying is when I - Allow me to make your bummer my fault. Your flat ass is now my fault. It's funny that you say that. Your bummer is my fault. Let me fucking finish this thing. In conversation, your ability to converse, to make the other person feel socially comfortable, to be accepted by the group, You're playing within the confines of the game in a way that is associated with your sense of self-worth. And a good example of this to compare the two, when I first started doing the show, I wanted to become a better speaker.

1:43:46So I got a diction coach and an improv. I started doing improv and I did some other bits and pieces. Some of my friends said to me, well, now that you're doing speech training, what about your accent? What if they degrade your Northern accent, North British accent? And I was like, well, I'm not going to be able to completely get rid of it. And that's not even my goal. I just want to become better at speaking. But I noticed that they wouldn't have said the same thing if I was a pianist and I said that I was going to go and get a teacher to teach me to be better at the piano. No one would have said, well, what about your beautiful, natural way of playing the piano?

1:44:23And you go, well, there are objectively better and worse ways to play the piano and by working with a teacher, I can become better. There are objectively better and worse ways to get words to come out of your mouth, be more precise. You can use your consonants to allow things to clip and sound more effective. Okay. Why is it that someone sees the way that you speak as close to your sense of self, but the way that you play the piano is not close to your sense of self in that if you were to work on it and improve it diligently and deliberately, that's good in one scenario and slightly odd and almost like you're warping yourself and changing yourself.

1:45:02And to just do one more loop back to the pick-apartist thing, I think that was one of the reasons that women have an ick around finding out that men have sort of done dating training because, well, who are you really? If this is you curated and cultivated and improved because you learn dating or something, well, where's you? Where are you in there? And there are some things that are close to our sense of self, and some things that aren't. Pickleball, I would say, except for a very select few of professionals, is not close to your sense of self, but conversation is. So when you call out the rules of the game, But we're still talking about the game.

1:45:39We're not talking about the person. That's true. But I think that the person and the game, when it comes to conversing, is merged much more closely than it is in many other pursuits. I believe you. I just don't feel that way. I also don't even connect with what you're saying about speech coaching and piano. I think that I play the piano and I think there's literally a term of phrasing when you play and the way that you phrase and the way that you move between chords is your accent is your uniqueness signature. Yeah. If you were if you were playing sheet music and you play to the rhythm and you play the notes that they're doing.

1:46:13But there's a reason that this person sounds different than this person. Similar to acting where, you know, some some script. I did a commercial with Jim Parsons. Do you know Jim Parsons is? He's one of the guys from Big Bang Theory. and we talked a lot because at the time i was on a i was on a multi-cam and he's on a multi-cam um multi-cam is a tv show there's like um single cams and multi-cam multi-cam is one that's a play but there's a camera so there's no fourth wall there's a live audience usually um and traditionally plays you don't improvise too much because there's so much choreography with the blocking of the camera switching and everything right yep um on his show on jim's show that uh uh was just chuck lorry where he's known for not only are you not allowed to improvise you need to pause when there's a comma it's very exact right yeah if you're going to be a great multi-cam actor for this type of boss hit your mark know your words know your pauses but then well what about what i bring to it what about my phrasing you're gonna have your phrasing built into it or you'll be a robot right and i feel that way with a piano as well as much as dictation i mean whether it's your accent or it's your charisma of like putting things aside and adding your own little twist whatever it might be it's it's as a comedian it's called find i mean most artists it's like finding your voice what's your voice do you know who sebastian maniscalco is yes he's one of my favorite comics i when i tell people about him i i can't i tell his joke i can't i'm not able to do his joke i know all the words despite being a comedian and also knowing the joke and and and appreciating it like this is it's not like i'm saying something that's not funny to me trying to make it this is funny i know all the words and i do this professionally i cannot do his thing i cannot do it it won't work that's fine it's his phrasing yeah it's his faces it's this even if i do the same timing um anyway i'm realizing that like this the the past like 40 minutes has been a little bit of us um i can imagine uh me uh like contradicting the conversation of what you're saying like i even said when i said about the piano i saw you on like this um i just want to acknowledge pardon me for saying the rules of the game i'm having such a good time and i love conversations like this i also could imagine it's going all over the place i don't know i'm having a ton of fun as well because it allows the it's not meandering but it's allowing you to go was interesting which is cool i also think like when i watch your your stuff i like i have i have these thoughts i like i don't talk to you but the things like oh fuck yeah that's incredible i don't know what is he and i'm like i'm just i'm just now consciously recognizing oh i'm watching i'm watching this yeah you just happen to be an active participant yeah no i so i to kind of bring it into land or to put a bow on the the conversation thing um the reason that i liked the inverse charisma idea.

1:49:12Which is getting people to believe that they're interesting. Yeah. By being good at asking questions. Is that assuming that probably some significant cohort of people that that is pretty useful to are maybe a bit shy or a little bit more introverted or not super confident. I think that you can go from shy and introverted to being good at asking questions to maybe being interesting at telling stories. I think that the black belt level of this is doing what you're doing and saying, why don't we call out the game itself? I think the amount of bravery that's needed typically in a social situation to be like, I'm feeling a bit bored at the moment.

1:49:49Anybody else feeling a bit bored? Why don't we talk about something or whatever, especially one-on-one with somebody that requires a leapfrog of bravery that I think most people would struggle to get to. You're doing reverse charisma right now. How so? By telling me what I'm doing is black belt. and making me feel like I'm good at something. However, I think what other people do is the harder thing. I'm not doing the hard thing because why not? I think not acknowledging the thing is where I'm uncomfortable. And if I wanted to challenge myself, and I have done this, I have a story, maybe I'll even tell you about this if there's time and you're interested, but this just happened.

1:50:30And I had to call a friend that was like a sponsor. I was going on a date with this girl and she kept pushing the time back. And I - The same day? tell the story uh okay um so there's this woman that um we've never met but we follow we followed each other on social media for years um uh at any given time if we're both single there's maybe some mild flirtation and there's not so like we don't know anything other than our projections of what they post, right? I go to a city, being vague on purpose, I go to a city and I'm doing shows there and she wants to come to the show. Now, I'm only doing two shows and some cities tickets sell well, some not so much.

1:51:17These were sold out and I happen to have saved a guest list of tickets and I have two tickets saved for her and I don't know what show she wants to go to, so I save two for both. friends wanted to come people that sell whatever it's not that big of a deal like i i could give these tickets away if i don't i don't whatever um so she was coming to the first show but i still saved the second show because who knows what happens um the day before the first show uh she didn't tell me i checked in saying hey um do you uh you know here's the place if you if you come blah blah i'm so sorry i have to i'm out of town i'm working blah blah blah blah but um i want to come to the other show.

1:51:55And then the day before that show, she messaged, she goes, hey, is it possible I get two tickets so I could bring a friend? I said, I already have two tickets for you. My friend who comes with me, who opens the show, he has some friends in town. He asks if they could have, is there any way we could get tickets? I only have these two tickets and I'm giving them to somebody else. Not that big of a deal, but whatever. I got a text after the show that 15 minutes after I went on, hey, sorry, I can't make it. It happens. It does. It would have been nice if you told me before the show I could have given these tickets away.

1:52:25It's just, it's not necessarily a red flag, but it is something that I was disappointed and it happens. I really want to see you though. Um, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we plan this day. I'm doing these things this day. I'm free at this time. I tell her that she tells me where she lives, blah, blah, blah. My assumption, and I'm aware it was my assumption. My assumption was I said, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm done at this time. I'm free at five that since she didn't say I can't do five, we were going to meet at five. When I finished my thing at four something, I messaged to like make some plans. She goes, Hey, I'm da, da, da, da, da, da.

1:52:58I'm going to take a shower. Let's meet at seven 30. Let's meet at seven. So in my head, I'm like, yeah, I made the assumption five. Great. There's shows in town that I could do. A friend invited me to dinner that I can't go to because I'm going on this date with this girl. Um, seven Oh four comes because she said she was going to pick a place because I didn't know. I said, I understand it's very masculine for a person to pick a place. I found these things. If you like them, let's do them. If not, I would love a little bit of help here. Where should we go? It's 7.04 and I'm saying it's 7.04 because on my head, I'm like, I'm waiting for her to message me, but I also don't want to gamify this.

1:53:34I didn't get the information. She's not a great texter, at least not yet. I don't, it's 7.04 where, hey, you know, did you figure out a place yet? At 7.30, she said, I'm so sorry. I'm running a little bit behind. Can we make it 8.30? I'm now thinking to myself, we said 5 to 7 to 8.30, but we have to take the 5 off the table. That was my assumption. But why don't we split the difference, the tickets that I couldn't give away. It's just, I'm like, what are we doing here? So I'm already now feeling, once we move it to 8.30, I'm feeling like my ego doesn't even want to meet this person anymore. um it is what it is at at 8 30 um at 8 30 not before 8 30 at 8 30 she said hey i'm sorry i'm running late uh i want to make it nine if you don't want to meet now if it's too late i understand but i still really want to meet you which you don't want to meet it wasn't that i could look it up it was basically what i received it was her feeling bad that she pushed it back um while also So not conceding that she didn't make this a priority, not this being me, this being her commitments.

1:54:44And if it's too late, I understand giving me an out, but letting me know, I still want to see you. I'm now like, I could have gone to dinner. I mean, if we made it at 930, I could have, you know. And I wrote, I'm now thinking like, okay, if she comes, comes. And by the way, the plan where we're going to meet was now, she said, I'll come, she's going to come to my hotel. This literally, it's an awesome hotel with a fun lounge downstairs. There's no, in my mind, assumption or, or there's nothing hookup about this. It's just, she's now going to come to me for a convenience, I guess. And I'm thinking to myself, there's no way I'm going to be able to say nice to meet you and not call out the game.

1:55:24This is fucking nuts. And she, the tickets and the this. So I wrote a letter, a letter, I mean, a text, a letter. I actually kind of want to read it. and maybe this is embarrassing. I didn't send it. Okay. Can I pull it up? Snug it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:55:42So I wrote something that I knew I was writing this for me. but after I wrote it, I'm like, should I send this? And I sent it to a friend who I'm glad told me no, because his, his logic was, and I agree with this. You would always say this later. If you end up meeting this person and you feel safe and it's brought up, you have this, you're in touch with your feelings, but before you ever meet a person. So if I, if I didn't give you the setup and I was just, and someone would be like, Hey, Rick's a bit much. What do you mean? Let me show you this text. He sent a girl that he never met. You'd be like, dude, you're fucking out of your mind.

1:56:15So I want to add the context. I'm aware of that, but this is how I articulated it to myself. And I wanted to send it to her. Uh, I don't know how embarrassed I'm going to be yet because I don't remember this yet. I didn't send it. It's a caveat. I wanted to share something before we meet because if I didn't, I think I'd end up canceling or showing up in a way that doesn't feel genuine. I've been feeling frustrated. We were planning to meet at 5, then move to 7, and then to 8.30. I turned down a stand-up show and another podcast so we could get together, which I was happy to do, but it left me feeling like my time wasn't really being considered.

1:56:57Same with yesterday. I didn't send this. I held my last two tickets for you, and when you let me know you weren't coming, the show had already started. I totally understand that plans change, but the timing left me feeling overlooked. I know you've had a busy week traveling. I get that things have been a lot. I'm not saying this to guilt you, only I'd rather tell you where I'm at than show up hiding. If meeting up doesn't feel right after hearing that, I'll understand. By the way, at 9, at 930, at 9, it moved to 10 and she apologized that her friend is going through something and she lost track of time, which she didn't lose track of time because you told me.

1:57:39Um, and, uh, she's running together. I'm getting together. Um, I said, Hey, at this point I'm at my hotel. Uh, if you want to come, I'd love to see you. If not, it is what it is. You know, I'm now I'm not doing anything anyway. So, um, she tells me at, uh, at 10 20 something that, um, that, uh, uh, I'm in, I'm in the car. And then she said, well, technically I'm waiting for the car is now still okay. I said, yeah, come. Her Uber is maybe 10 minutes away. 30 minutes goes by. And I said, are you coming? And she said, yes, sorry, five minutes. I thought she meant she's in the Uber. It's five minutes away.

1:58:21After 20 minutes, I realized, oh, best case scenario, she meant the car is five minutes away. I messaged, when she said that, I messaged her back. It was a bit passive aggressive was my only way of feeling like I'm being honest. I said, oh, I didn't realize you were crawling here. And then she ended up getting there at 11 something drunk, drunk, which by the way, I am so unattracted to people who are drinking. It's the grossest. I'm not saying it doesn't serve a purpose. I'm saying I can't, I don't want to be around it. It's not hot. A drink is different than, you know, I could tell you're drunk because your lips aren't the way they're supposed to be.

1:58:56You know, it's just like, and I'm like now I'm fucking forced to do this podcast with her for 90 minutes by the way daniel craig was there okay that's cool very and i go that's james bond and this is his own thing but she goes who and she's looking right there i'm like be fucking cool and she goes that's not him and i was just like all right i'm like you know what you went through the 90 minutes yeah i was there with her for 90 minutes why did you not just pull the ripcord can i tell you the truth yes she's unbelievably beautiful. And I'm not proud of this. And I'm, she's, she, she is, she's so beautiful.

1:59:38Even drunk. There's a difference between being attracted to somebody and thinking that they're attractive, right? I was actually happy that I wasn't attracted to her in that moment. I'm like, oh, I'm glad that, that this is not okay with me. Meaning that, but I wasn't enough to where I was like, hey, you got to get out of here. Also, the conversation wasn't the worst and she's the meanest. It was, if it were a podcast, I wouldn't have posted it and I don't think I've ever done that. You know what I mean? But I was like, she's so beautiful. And this is - I just get to look at this thing for 90 minutes.

2:00:17It's less, it's more childish than that. it's like, I'm trying, I'm, I'm taking this to myself as well. Like it's somebody that I'm, that got grandfathered in. I've, we've like, I, I, I, this person that I've been wanting to meet not, I don't know if I'm going to like them or not. And there's, there wasn't any type of like, like this crazy draw to them. It's like, this is really, and then I was excited all, all week to meet this person. And then I do, and I, she's so pretty. There's something, It was just, I'm in this cool city. I'm in this cool hotel. It's this beautiful girl. It's just, it's really fun to flirt.

2:00:55It's really fun to flirt. I like flirting. 11.30 PM after it's been pushed, but I don't know if I would have, I commend you for, first off, not sending that. Secondly, I think the way that it's written in terms of like this, I just want to state to you, this is how I'm feeling and this is why. And I think it's, you know, it's pretty balanced. I commend you for going through the 90 minute thing. I think my bitterness radar, my pissed offness, I wouldn't have been able to reach equanimity. And then drunk, I would have just been like, I may have buried the lead. Within five minutes of meeting, I told her all of this.

2:01:33I forgot to say that. Did that relieve? I think the only reason why we were able to have the 90 minutes. Yeah, okay. She came in and she said how embarrassed she is and how sorry she is. And I said, I wrote a text to a friend that I never sent to you. And now that you bring this up, I kind of want to tell you some things. I didn't read it to her, but she, and I told her, yes, I hear you. If I, had I not said that or had I said that and she received it unkindly. I think even with that dude, I think the drunk thing would have just, I would have been like, is this, this is a practical joke. This has to be a practical joke.

2:02:03I thought, I thought, I thought not even the drunk. I thought the way he kept being pushed back. I thought it was, are we going to see how long he's going to be willing to do this thing? Are you with your group of friends, girlfriends going, I'm fucking stringing this guy along. I'm feeling a bit self-conscious right now about admitting something that was true, but not the only thing about, oh, because she's so beautiful. I mean, she is. And that's that was true. But that wasn't that wasn't what drove me to wanting to have the date. I mean, if I wasn't attracted to her, I wouldn't want to have it.

2:02:32It was when she showed up. There is a novelty to this thing where it was just like, that's what I meant about more childish, like this idea of like this high school thing of like, oh, this pretty person wants to hang out with me. Like I, I could pretend that didn't exist, but it does. You know, I feel that way. I feel that way all the time with my podcast, when people come over and like when Sebastian came over, there's no way he's coming over and doing this if I don't have a podcast. So like, but I'm still aware of like, this is fucking crazy. It's a little bit like, uh, being a porn star and getting to have sex.

2:03:06Like they, I mean, they might want to do this, but they wouldn't be doing this if we weren't at work. Like they're doing it because all of the cameras are here. Yeah. But I get the simulacrum of like, we're friends for like 90 minutes or two hours. We're friends. And I get to ask you questions that I wanted to ask you. And I feel like - And you have to answer them, kind of. Yeah. I mean, or otherwise, like, you know, I'll ask you different. But yeah, there is this feeling like I both love who I am and feel like, why wouldn't you want to be friends with me? I also have this thing, like I told you, I didn't really have friends as a kid.

2:03:37And I didn't even recognize it. I didn't feel unincluded, but I was. and I didn't, meaning I didn't recognize what being included means until I started playing basketball. And like, these people are forced to be my friends, but they also, we have the same goals. Pornstar, podcast guest, basketball team. So that still exists for me. It still exists for me where like, I become friends. Do you know who Lisa Gilroy is? No. I think she's one of the funniest people in the world. She's been on my podcast a bunch now. She's an improviser and an actress and she's unbelievably funny. She comes over and when she comes over and I've said this like it feels like i'm so glad we're friends like you want to be friends with me right the way we play with each other there's this feeling of like when people want to be friends with me and i know it where it's not like oh finally somebody likes me it's not it's it doesn't remove a negative that exists it's just this thing of like fucking i have like it's having friends is crazy having friends is like you want to play and being around a person that you're physically attracted to is another thing.

2:04:40It's like, this is fucking all. I love fucking looking at you. It feels so good to look. You want to kiss me? You want to kiss me? It's just, I'm not like, why would you want to kiss me? But I am so glad that you want, you want to like, when I was in school, when friends would go, sometimes friends would go over to other friends and everyone knows that because they had a, a, a, a, a note that the, that the moms, both moms or parents send or guardians and the school agrees to that you're going on their bus so like when so like you know this kid's going on this kid's bus so you know after school they're going to go and be friends with each other and i was always like fucking that's crazy all day you know he's coming on your bus i still have that feeling and it isn't exclusive to attractive people but it is it does feel it's all very high school like the the varsity team or the pretty people or the funny people people people rich people interesting people.

2:05:37Oh, interesting. I never thought about rich people, but I can see how that's a thing. Yeah. Well, anybody that has anything that other people want. That's the value thing. If somebody can make me laugh or like if you're an awesome basketball player. But that's the, how would you say, like more shallow transactional version of that is, well, maybe they can invest in my company or maybe they know somebody that I can hire for this role that I need. Oh, I was thinking even that was shallow. Yeah. I think that, I think, but isn't that how, I think that if your motives are, are undefined to the other person, then that's a bit like, but like if you were to say, Hey, I'm a huge fan of yours and I want you to love what I do because I think you might, you'd be a great partner for me.

2:06:18And if it offers value to you, I would love to work with you. Yeah, that's true. It's, it's you, the assigning intention. Yeah. The assumption there is that one person needs to coerce or cajole or convince the other person like, and they wouldn't do if they had all of the information right right yes like i want you to invest in my company but you probably don't want to but i'm gonna fugazi you into thinking and i've got special kind of access and i'm gonna do something in this situation that allows me to get that yeah i went to a school for marketing and theater and in one of my sales classes uh i learned that i've also grew up my parents are in retail and i've been in retail a lot um but uh when you try and sell somebody something, you're acting for yourself, but if you're trying to offer somebody a value.

2:07:04So like, instead of saying, hey, I need to sell these phones, but instead I'm trying to overcome an obstacle that you have that this phone would help overcome. So like finding out somebody else's needs. If you are, if this wouldn't benefit you, then I don't even want to sell this to you because it's a waste of both of our time and it's manipulative. But if the other person has, so like, don't sell the product, sell the sell the obstacle that the other person has. And that's like what you're saying of like, you know, you have a lot of money and what's a hundred thousand dollars to you? Just let me have it.

2:07:38And then another version of that that is, that it feels very like Hollywood is this idea of like, I'm only like talking to you and being friends with you because maybe you might want to. And then you see somebody else, you know, like having a conversation with somebody and then they see somebody else. I'll, I'll, I'll say right away, I'm not saying that you want to go and talk to somebody else, but if you do, like we could end this conversation. i i i'm not i when people i'm talking to somebody on their phone i don't think that they shouldn't be on their phone but i'm i'm gonna wait when when i'm with somebody and they go to the bathroom when we're watching something i'm gonna press pause it's all the same shit but when i see somebody doing that there's no way i'm not with you anymore i'm not with you so just say hey listen i know this might be rude but there's a fucking duane wade is over there and there's a huge fan i want to see if i can like kind of get in get a picture come with me or i'll come back and have this conversation i just gotta go see duane wayne you know the thought isn't super the superficial thought is human it's the way that you hide it or or from yourself and or the other person yeah and that's where the practice of calling out the game i think is just it's not brave what's brave is to not look at duane wade and just pretend that i'm here with you when i'm not you know what i mean i don't think that's brave i think that's cowardly it's harder i guess instead of saying brave i'll say it's harder it's yeah it is it is in in some ways you're suppressing something but it's uh emotionally maybe easier certain emotions like if your uh shame and your codependency uh and your social awkwardness is stronger than your need to get a photo with this guy like your um like desire passion whatever curiosity um you're like i'm gonna lock in i'm gonna keep blocking and this is going to be okay and uh look at him again and then and then and then but you also you find your differences to say hey listen i don't want to be rude i just saw duane is there and i wasn't listening for a second i'm back with you but how fucking cool is that like saying just acknowledging acknowledging otherwise i'm here doing it in a classy way i think the delivery of this is the devil's in the details of how you actually do this thing because you can do it in a really clunky way, right?

2:09:49And I imagine somebody who - What's a clunky way, if it's honest? Clunky way, well - Still honest, but what's clunky? Well, there are better and worse ways. Like the one that you just did there, which is like, I just seen this guy and he's like, he's so fucking cool. And like, isn't that sick? Like, should we go over? I wanna go over. Do you wanna come with me? Like, part of it's the inclusion, the sense that you're involving them. It's the sort of doing it as a little undercurrent thing. It's like, oh, this is us. this is our little secret thing and like you're in on it as opposed to that's such a funny way you're right that's that's a funny way of looking at it by doing it like this it's almost as if i'm telling you what i'm thinking but i'm also including you yes in my thought part of it yeah you're not excluding that's such a interesting way of looking at it of like yeah you're including somebody

2:10:45yeah i i think sometimes maybe i i'm saying something that i feel is valuable information the rules to a game but i'm doing it for me and not necessarily including the other person and maybe that's like what you're saying of like oh it messes up the momentum or changes things because anyway i just an interesting perspective that i hadn't thought of before i think so yeah I think that's awesome yeah well how wonderful to make somebody feel included in this thing obviously but like yeah I don't think I think that's a I think that's a tool that I could sharpen of like is this including somebody this happens when things feel serious to me and um i don't want to yeah whatever um i don't have more to say on that i just think it's a it's a i love the way that you articulated the thing that i was already doing but here's maybe why this works versus hey i'm doing this now like me not messaging that how do i know when to tell the person the thing i'm feeling sometimes you tell this person that's kind of you know i do think if I messaged that to her before we ever met, it wouldn't benefit either of us because, because, um, it could benefit either of us, but there's a, there's a better chance of doing it in person by the eye where they could, they could hear my tone instead of assume it like, wait a second.

2:12:23But I like, I felt like a liar by not sending it. I'm not okay with this.

2:12:33I'm not But like, swallow it now. And I do think like, I didn't know why, even though I agree with it. I do think by telling her that I'm not including her in how I'm feeling, I'm telling her how I'm feeling. And I do think there's a significant difference. Whether it's literally saying you could come with me to Dwayne Wade. Or like saying, hey, I want to tell you. Even just a whispering. It's like, hey, this is just for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:13:03That's lovely. I love, there's sometimes something you just realize or something somebody says, and it's like, oh, I could put that in my bag now, where it's just like, when in doubt, ask, is this including this person? So, yeah, thanks. That was great. Dude, that's awesome. Rick, let's bring it home. Bro, I've really been looking forward to meeting you. I actually had a question for you, which was, why well i guess you explained it earlier on that you feel you learn something and sometimes it's interesting even if it's not quite in your wheelhouse i was surprised that you were a fan of the show i didn't think that it was slap bang in the the middle of the the bullseye of what you would be into uh but then actually i i mean i i've had a lot of conversations with people that on the surface i think would have been like oh well obviously these like these two people make sense and today's been like so much fucking fun i found it very very cozy actually to be honest and like very intimate sweaters yeah yeah yeah um i don't know you asked me but i have an answer for um watching your stuff one um as a and i don't mean this term derogatory but as a performer like you are a performer i'm not saying you're it's disingenuous but i mean like as somebody who is in front of cameras literally looking straight to the camera and saying stuff you're aware of you're doing this with a purpose for people to consume it, right?

2:14:36There are some performers that I feel like I believe you and some I don't. And not believing somebody isn't a bad thing. Like, I know Robert Downey Jr. isn't Iron Man, but I could still buy into it. You know what I mean? Like, he's doing a certain type of performance. So on one thing, I believe you. I believe that you want to be saying what you're saying. And also by design of what your show is, it seems like you're like you're documenting your growth whether it's literally how many subscribers you have or how many people shit before it got into your mouth you were just like you're learning and that's like part of the context of this so i've just connected that because it's like maybe you have something that will benefit me you know like like the perspective of inclusion which maybe somebody has said to me before and it just didn't clock at the right time and then you have guests on that that are like that have points of view so like the combination of a point of view that I might share I might not share opposite somebody who I believe that since I'm not in the room to call somebody out or to ask a curiosity I believe that the person is there is going to do it the best that person can and I just think it's an attractive show it is and i mean it's literally visually it is too but like yeah it's it's it's it's stuff that helps that doesn't feel like i'm watching a self-help not that there's anything wrong with watching self-help but it's just people talking about you know what i've noticed and like you did notice it you know what i mean like oh here's something you actually noticed let me listen i think you have a great show dude thank you yeah that's really kind i really fucking love yours as well i think that the uh way that it makes me feel most importantly it's not what i take away it's like the way that it makes me feel and like i don't know why this the word of the day is cozy maybe it is like jumper vibes nice and the the the um bio the little little description that you've got of it and the i don't remember that i wrote that like when i first started yeah yeah yeah like i uh i i think i'm a boy or i'm a silly boy or something like that's in there and um yeah the little illustration that comes across like he's a little cute he's like poking out behind the side yeah to me it's like oh fuck like it feels like i can just uh it's like sunday afternoon shit for me and that's like very very nice i i by design having a studio would benefit for a lot of different logistical reasons but by design i want to do it in my living room i also when people come over and they want to have their publicists like people who i don't know who i am and i would love to have them on i say no and nobody else could be in the room and it's just you're in my living room and i want to feel like you're in my living room and i do think there's a coziness to it that maybe that's a coincidence that you said it maybe not but that is like a tone of this show where maybe i'll be funny maybe i won't but as long as we could both be comfortable and like show up as we are now then like i don't have to worry about was this good or not that's definitely something that's been a challenge with doing these uh what we call the cinema shoots which is what this is that uh trying to make it feel like unencumbered natural like fuck you know there's all these cameras and all of this stuff and the lighting and it looks fantastic but okay how do we like get to the fucking connection bit and how do we get out of not necessarily performance mode because you used the word professional earlier on which i thought was really good it's like um uh turning up when you're nervous or or energized or whatever the closest approximation was it's like that's being a professional that's being a professional i turn up and i do my job even if i fuck i'm too tired or i didn't learn my lines or i you know this new bit's gonna fucking eat shit whatever it is like i'm a professional so i'm gonna turn up and do that but what you're trying to do with a conversation like this is get to that moment where it's like ah like we've circled around this fucking drain figured out any tricks that you could articulate oh a little bit the right amount of foreplay before you get in which was what we did like no more than 10 minutes dude that's so funny that you say that because i by design don't want like because i meet people outside and walk them in and i say you sometimes start filming outside no no no i say uh i i say this is producer rick i don't want to be rude i don't even want to meet you yet i want to meet them on camera and interesting that you're saying don't over so why what have you found and i know we're wrapping it up but tell me what have you found by foreplay before camera that benefits it's the same thing with uh going for dinner with the guests the night before i'll go with i would love to go to dinner with you afterward i'd love to go to dinner with you after we record right not going to dinner with you before i'm not going to dinner with you the night before yeah all of the same thing all of the best shit that we want to talk about i know this thing about you and i've watched this thing and i've got the jumper like but that's the foreplay before that's But so my point is, dinner is fucking way too much.

2:19:26So you do a little. But like you come in and we say, hey, and we do this. Even you start to creep out into 15 minutes. And unless you're in a group and that helps because other people can do their thing. But all of the shit that you want to talk about, you don't have that much to talk about. And it's always, and it's like below the surface. It's always just like trying to pick up, like just below the surface. And then the second that you get to talk, it starts bursting through and you're like no fuck like the camera's not on like shut the fuck up uh so uh limit the uh foreplay stuff before i think is is real good um a very at least in my experience uh because of the style of my show like a very quick like snappy first question although today we just started talking but if it is a little bit more hubamany like it's about you the show's about you it's not about me sometimes it's about me when it's a solo episode yeah but it is the show is entirely like inverse charisma 100 it's like i want you to look as good as possible on the show even if it's somebody that i'm going to try and push i'm like i want you to have the longest amount of rope and with it you can start doing like fucking skipping tricks or you can hang yourself with it but i'm gonna like give it to you as much as possible here's the fucking trampoline or the pedestal and from up there like proselytize about whatever you want and you're gonna look silly you're gonna look great i'm gonna try and make you look i'm gonna to try and get the best version of whatever your argument is your bernie sanders on the show in new york last week fucking we were supposed to have kamala harris today uh that didn't come off but i was also on tucker's show and i'm like i guess i was a guest but you know i've had whatever ben shapiro so like no matter who it is i'm like okay i really want to fucking get to what you mean like i really want to work out what you mean and i'm not gonna i'm not good at being cantankerous and like sort of backbitey flames flaming i know what can't take curious means but for the people at home that don't disagreeable like purposefully like brusque and like spiky like i'm not good at that um anyway so quick first question it's like hey away you go this is about you i'm gonna get the fuck out the way like nice easy lowball first question uh huberman like um asking him about uh he's doing lots of stuff about cortisol so i think the first question was like most people think that cortisol is a bad thing.

2:21:42Is that true? It's like, absolutely not. There you go. Those that helps. Deepening the connection is sometimes difficult because you, you can't force it as you've identified today. You can't force connection. You're like, am I here with this person? One thing I have noticed, and I learned this term yesterday, which I think he might fucking love. Joe Hudson taught me a vagal authority. So what he's referring to in any interaction or in any room one person's nervous system is dictating everybody else's so uh somebody is in a conversation group or one-on-one and they get all excited and do you get excited too do you does your nervous system well by design aren't you saying that it would that you would you're saying that somebody's nervous system is affecting other people's they are but there's vagal authority which is whose nervous system is dictating the oh it's the alpha of the i didn't think about that he's doing it in a much more embodied way but yeah kind of it's like who's who is the alpha from a vagal perspective uh somebody gets all excited do you stay calm and do they come back down somebody gets all excited do you go meet them that's just co-regulation right it is but it seems to be at least in um um joe's language it was one person tends to own that more and now what i didn't ask him i should have done what i love is when you're you have uh sufficiently low sufficiently high humility or low ego where you can go okay this is your turn to have the vagal authority uh so there was a moment where we got silly and there's a moment where you get to be excited but then uh sometimes you don't have that, you're not on the same frequency quite so much, and you're a little bit more here.

2:23:27And then you need to be, at least I found, a bit more blunt. Yeah, you said, let me get back to the thing. Yeah, a bit more blunt with your vagal authority, but even not doing it verbally, even just being like, I've done it in episodes where I've been able to tell that somebody's nervous. And instead of me sort of matching that speed of being really quick, I've been like, taken a purposeful like um three second break they've finished talking or they've asked me a question i'm like i would think if somebody was nervous and the person opposite them stopped talking and just went hmm that would make them like more nervous if they ask a question if it's a statement that's a bad idea if it's a question it's good so if they say so you're taking in their question and i'm going ah reverse risk or whatever you called it reverse right yeah you know it's inside i've never been asked that question before it's almost like you're giving that right exactly you're unbelievable question allow me to allow me to give what you've just said so much respect that i'm genuinely going to consider and also take a fucking second to chill your nervous system out dude it's like you're a little bit up here and we can yeah you know that's that sounds better than what i would do is probably you seem nervous is there yeah yes yes yes yes so this is you breaking the rules of the game or calling them out and me trying to play within them i'm like how and mine is one could work when the other doesn't and vice versa i think so brick glassman ladies and gentlemen dude you're awesome i appreciate the fuck out of you thanks man this is cool thanks Thanks for having me.

2:25:07What a big podcast that you included me on with all your fun, like star guests. Where should people go? They want to check out everything that you're doing. Are you on tour? Are you doing tour? Yes. And I have to set up all the new dates. I only have a few more cities left. I'm in Vegas, Cleveland, and Phoenix. Punchup.live slash Rick Glassman. You can sign up for my email list. The only time I email you is if I'm coming within 50 miles of your city. I'm setting up my tour for next year now. and uh my podcast is called take your shoes off if there's anything that i tell people that i'm the most proud of to watch it's uh it's that what episodes should people start with um well i don't know if this is the best starting episode but my favorite episodes of recent are um i guess a good starting episode maybe be david corner sweat who plays superman uh that's fun because it has a lot of the silliness but it's also very connected in what we talk about um but right now my i've had paul rudd on twice paul rudd 1.0 and 2.0 are probably my favorite because i i didn't know him before the podcast and it ended up becoming something that i almost didn't post uh because um in the second paul rudd one something happened and i asked him let me post it um but yeah it's wild it's weird um but that's probably what i would recommend people watching i think that doing it in the living room is definitely creating a sense of disarming in that way that allows people to sort of drop in and that connection.

2:26:36And it's called take your shoes off. And almost everybody who I've never met, even if they're not a comedian, they take their shoes off with it or they come in and they give me a little bit of a jab. I've noticed this recently. I'm like, oh, this isn't like, oh, you want me to take your shoes off down here? Like, what are you afraid? I'm going to get mud all over the place, whatever it is, nothing mean. They acknowledge that I had to take their shoes, they have to take their shoes off and it's my fault you know and they like call me and i also i was thinking about this recently we're like oh they're comfortable right away because i'm saying i'm i'm showing a weakness of mine and asking for their help will you take your shoe i used to make people wash their hands when they can't come in like before i got a dog i mean there was no unprotected sex right but anyway i'm lingering i'm having fun on the fucking couch and but yeah people come in, they have to take their shoes off.

2:27:23They see that I am, because I make a lot of jokes and like, I could be a bit aggressive, but they see me right away as saying, Hey, I need your help with something. I have OCD. Will you sit on this thing and take your shoes off? And they feel like, Oh, okay. I can maybe now show him my things, which was an accident that I think like the, a lot of times when people have OCD, they'll let you, you know, right away at the beginning of an episode. And they'll tell me their things because they saw mine. Does that make sense? That's awesome. All right, I'm lingering. I'm having fun. The caffeine's still in.

2:27:53Thanks for having me. Appreciate you.