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

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2:01Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

2:46hey it's ryan holiday welcome to another episode of the daily stoic podcast i was telling you on the last episode that it was this crazy week eight talks multiple cities all this stuff going on well add on top of this actually something i talked about at the beginning of that episode also when i had whitney cummings on we were talking about how hard it is to serve as for help to put your health first and say, hey, I need this. Hey, I can't do this. Well, you add into that crazy week. I had terrible food poisoning. We took my son out to this dinner for his birthday. And I don't know what I got, but it was brutal.

3:27And it coincided with a birthday party for him. It coincided with all these talks and I could like not even get out of bed. I was losing my mind. It was brutal. And so anyways, I messaged Whitney because we were just talking about it. And I was like, would you do this talk? Would you do this gig if you were in my shoes? And we sort of worked. We talked about it. I ended up being able to take care of myself long enough that I could get like sort of a window that I could do it. And then there's this thing called stage medicine, which is basically how when you got to get up in front of an audience, your body sort of magically heals itself.

4:04So I got through that and just barely made through all of it. And then now I'm on the other side and feel great now. And I told you as I was starting the first half of this two-parter with Whitney that I was going to try to watch Whitney's special. I hadn't got to do it. I was going to watch it between the two episodes. And, dude, it is so good. One of the best comedy specials I've seen all year. I've seen all of Whitney's stuff. And I was telling her after I watched it that I think this is a cut above. She did this really small special at the Comedy Store. It shot really intimate. You can stream it for free on OnlyFans TV, which is crazy and cool of her to do.

4:45So it's totally free. You don't even have to subscribe to any of the streamers. It's a safer work platform. So don't let the OnlyFans name shock you. But the special is so good. It's her at her absolute best. And first off that she did it seven months pregnant is crazy. And only heightens like what she pulls off here. But the other part of it is she was saying, you know, comedians do their specials as away games, right? They pick a theater somewhere else. They go perform there. It's not like on home turf. It's not comfortable. And she just decided she was going to do it easy. She's going to do it at the club she performs at all the time.

5:23And you can totally feel it. I mean, she's totally at ease. She commands the stage. It's just an awesome special. So check out her new special, Malfi, which to pull full circle, she's also losing her voice at the beginning of the special and pushes through, get something awesome. So I really liked this special. I loved having her on the podcast. I think you almost certainly enjoyed part one of the episode. And if you did, you're really going to like part two because we get into it even more. This is my conversation with the one and only Whitney Cummings, and you can check out her new special for free on OnlyFans TV.

5:56It's called Mouthy, and it's just awesome. So thanks to Whitney for coming on and enjoy.

6:09You have this sense of what you're like saving for or earning for or whatever, and then that number changes. And so you have to like, but I was trying, I was trying, I've been trying to adjust and not like if my sense of money or my time value is the same as it was when I was earning X and now you're earning five X. If you haven't adjusted that, what was the point of making five X more? And also knowing like avoiding crisis. So I think it's like, you know, for artists, for like avoiding a crisis because crises are for a year. So I remember a girlfriend of mine said, because I was like, I got a savings account and I have$700 in my savings account.

6:55And like, what should we do for like, what vacation should we go on? And she went, no, no, no. Savings isn't for fun. Yeah. It's for cavities. It's for like surprise dental stuff. It's for someone hit your car. And I was like, oh, you know? Yeah. I found like the other thing I found, though, that I was doing is and a wealth person pointed this out to me, too. They were like, I was like, well, I need this in case it all goes away. I'm doing this in case like the book sales stop. I was I was only planning for things to get worse. Interesting. Right. And he was like, but also your books could sell more copies.

7:34Like there was no version in which I was imagining the trajectory continuing. And as you are going, the more you write, the better you get. Of course. How does this? Well, and financially, we know like that actually returns compound. So like, like, you know, if you're half smart and and like half disciplined with your money, you should expect that what you saved is worth a lot 10 years from now or 20 years from now or 30 years from now. Right. But so but I was only planning for some world in which I was prepared for everything to go away. I think a normal person has a job and they go, I'm earning this.

8:14If I continue to earn this for this period of time, this is where I can plan my trajectory. But as an artist, there's so much, there's the feast or famine and then the not wanting to be the person who thinks it's going to go on forever and then it doesn't. That's interesting. But there's also a world where you're good at what you do and your skills are valuable and you should be able to continue to count on yourself doing the thing. And so it's a tension between feeling like you're entitled to everything and also that you're a piece of shit who's not going to make it but then it's also i think again going back to the picking the person you look to so if you pick the person that was the flash in the pan ephemeral i want to be like i don't know is neil strauss a good example he like he's not a flash in the pan well didn't he have the the um book about nagging i follow him on instagram oh yeah so he's doing better now right yeah he wrote But didn't he have the biggest book ever, the pickup art?

9:08The game blew up. But he's also like the biggest ghost writer that there is. Spooky. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm trying to think of someone that was like, James Frey, A Million Little Pieces. I mean, he ended up being a charlatan. I'm just trying to think of an author. What? I see the book behind you. Oh, really? Yeah. And it was all a shit. I guess he said it was an autobiography, but it was really fiction. Who cares? I'm just trying to think of someone that - Actually, very nice guy. I'm sure. I'm just trying. This is a whole, I'm horrible at this. I'm trying to think of where you got the idea that you would go away.

9:41Yeah, you think about the one hit wonders and you go, I don't want to be that person. You don't want to be that. So for me, I was like Rodney Dangerfield. Made it at 60. Oh, sure. Like pick the person, like pick the people you look up to and the trajectories you want to emulate and don't even think about those other ones. I can't even think about a flash in the pan. I'm only thinking of success stories. Like I can't even, like I don't even allow that in my brain, you know? And so for me, I kind of get to go like, oh, I'm, you know, because working as an actress or working on camera, you're always told like you got to like 30.

10:11Yeah, that sort of idea that music stops for everyone in some way. But like as comedians, you just get smarter, you get more interesting, you get more worldly. Like the best is yet to come. Yeah. Like this is just the beginning. Sure. It took me a while to like really get in that space. Like what does a 25 year old have to say? Right. Like what do I have to say now? If I'm successful now, like imagine how good I'm going to be in 30 years when I have a kid and have actually like lived some life. And the audience has grown with you and you've just been doing it forever. And I'm a dork. I mean, literally in my office, I have pictures of, you know, like Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers and like remind yourself, make sure you're giving yourself a lot of data and proof that all that's possible.

10:49I wanted to ask you about that because I think you had this joke once I heard you say where you were like, I don't want my phone to get hacked. Not because the pictures that are on, because all the inspirational quotes, the implication being that there's something kind of lame. Not because of my nudes, because I have a folder full of screen grabs of inspirational quotes. It's brutal. But there is this sense that I think with some people that there's like something wrong with that or that something like a vision board is lame or knowing what you want and trying like there's there's kind of like cynicism is cool and earnestness is lame.

11:23I feel like, you know, yes, I think as you get agree on some level, but I committed to not being cool a really long time ago. And, you know, for me, I think I just surrender to the fact that really busy brains do well with very clean aphorism, even if it's a platitude, you know, a very simple one, not my circus, not my monkeys. It's like, that will go out the window for me when I'm going to a chaotic situation and things are crazy and then I'm trying to micromanage people, mother martyr micromanage. Those are some things you get when you grow up in alcoholic home. You're trying to fix people. I'm trying to mentor people.

12:01And I'm like, none of this is my business or my problem. Yeah. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Oh, right. You know what I mean? Sometimes you just like need that like little rubber band snap of a thing. You know, there was one recently that I screen grabbed that intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people aren't offended. you know like sometimes I just like have to like write it on a post-it note and put it right there when I'm kind of like oh is this gonna get me in trouble and I'm like oh yeah like I kind of need those guardrails it is it is interesting like first off there's this debate amongst the Stoics whether these sort of aphorisms or epigrans or maxims as they call them were necessary like they were like the wise person should just know like you've learned it you just know and and Seneca one of the other Stoics is like no actually you need these like little reminders and so that's what he was trying to do he had this exchange with his friend lucilius they would write each other letters and he says the whole point of this is he's like we should each get like one thing a day from each other like i'll write you a thing you write me a thing and then if there's just one thing that makes you a little bit better that makes you wiser smarter fortifies you against adversity that's that's what philosophy is yeah and the funny thing is when you look at like high performers that's actually what like if you go to the locker room of the new england patriots there'd be like little things all over just make champions yes you that you'd go you're getting paid tens of millions of dollars a year you're incredibly ambitious and driven you've trained harder had more expert coaching than anyone you should know all this and bill belichick is just giving you motivational quotes at the team meeting but that's actually what it is at that level right Like, and people are like, I've been amazed with Daily Stoic and like just the people who just follow this Instagram account and like the, like the.

13:52Comedians. I had Chris DiStefano on my podcast. We were talking about all my friends that are comics are so obsessed with it. And it's obviously genius, you know, but the simplicity of it and the surgical, like there's no fat, the economical nature of like the silver bullet of like, that's what, that's it. I can't make this quote better. My ego can't get around it. I can't be like, it's not like, it's just true and clean and smart. And I can repeat it to someone else. Like that's the best version of what like religion does. You know what I mean? It just like, there's something so soothing about knowing that it's true and it's succinct and I can repeat it to something else and my brain can't over complicate it i have to surrender to it these ideas they've been distilled to their essence by really smart people thousands of years ago and then the ones that didn't it's like it's like a comedian the bad jokes get killed the ones that aren't yeah yeah and then and then all the fat each time you do it is getting cut out a little bit more it's being rendered down rendered down until all that's left is like the essence of it and that's the hack of daily stoic is that it's posting these things that people have been working on for 2000 years.

15:02And it's been true for that long. Yes. And I think comedians probably also just like a very well written line. That's an appreciation for I think writers to we always want to go like, we'll make fun of it. We'll judge it. We'll be like, Oh, well, back then they didn't have social media. So it's like, you can't make fun of it. You kind of just get to surrender to it. And there's something really soothing about that for overthinky, thinky, complicated brains. I remember I talked at the University of Alabama I did a football team. It was maybe six or seven, eight years ago. And like, I'm doing the talk.

15:35I'm giving my stuff. You know, I'm in my early, mid-20s then. I'm talking about ancient philosophy. And I could see this person kind of scribbling the whole time, writing these very, and then they're the first one to stick the hands up. And you know, you can't always tell who people are from the lights, from the stage or whatever. So the lights come on, it's time for questions. The first person to ask the question, that was Nick Saban. Like he was sitting in the front row there should be nothing I'm teaching this person yeah yeah he's the greatest to ever do what he does he's had all the and there he is like and he's just looking for one little line like one little line that he can repeat at something down that's what he wants and so it is funny that we kind of like kick ourselves or we think we were even a little self-conscious or we hide it that like we like these inspirational things but that's what that's actually the practice of it and that's what like great people do is they just look for these little lines that get them to teach something.

16:31And that's really what 12 step groups are. It's just a collection of lines. I'll take it from here. I got it. Yes. You know, so it's like there's there's some that bother me. I'm going to be honest. Maybe when someone's like her people, her people, I'm like, ah, or like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, like or it kills you. Sure. And there's sometimes you have to consider the person that says it, you know, it's like, you know, you're kind of like, who said that okay well it may be true for them or it's true at that moment in your life totally when i mean it's like when it's like maryland minore is like if you can make a woman laugh you can make her do anything and you're like i feel like that was bill cosby's motto but okay like i'm the first person to want to you know sort of capsize something and and make fun of it but yeah you're exactly right like 12-step programs people go in and they're like i'm too smart for this i don't need this and da da da da and this doesn't make any sense and it's like well if it's hysterical, it's historical.

17:18And you're like, I just have, that's just true and really helpful. And it's because somebody came, like at some point that was an original line. Someone came up with that or they stole it from someone else. Yeah. Now people say it in spin classes. But like they got it from the ancients or they got it from the Bible. But at some point that quote was not a cliche. It was a new way of expressing a thing. And because it struck on something and then it was repeated so many times and it's this process that's working on it that then it becomes like simple but potentially life-changing advice to someone like my favorite one along those lines is that i got from meetings i've been to which was it works if you work it yep and the idea you're worth it the the 12 steps are not we weren't allowed to say that in a workaholics meeting yeah i know they have a different one they would joke about how you're not supposed to talk about work positively but but the idea that like you know like stoicism doesn't do anything.

18:15Like stoicism doesn't work. 12 steps don't work. The Bible doesn't work. None of the diets work. They work if you do the work, they are just the idea. And so, you know, there's, there's just all, all these little lines that capture something that, you know, they're just really helpful reminder. And this is why people tattoo them and put them on the wall or, you know, repeat them or have them as mantras. That's the process. one that really changed my life um i don't know who said it uh the way you do anything is the way you do everything i don't know if that's true now i'm like that's not true the way that i play pickleball is not the way that i write books or you know whatever but um at the time it was like yeah like it really held me accountable it really made me want to change well that goes to your thing about the christmas tree that you're decorating the whole christmas tree you can't go, oh, this doesn't matter.

19:07This isn't important. And I think like at different, again, at different points in your life and career, you need the wisdom of them in different ways. So early on, when you're, you know, prone to cutting corners and not taking things seriously, and you only want to do certain things, you need that. And then later on, you're like, actually, what's more important having a perfect Christmas tree, right? Or having a happy family. Like, I know this woman, her name is Delora. She's 95. She was telling me her big regret, in retrospect, was like, how clean her house was because she prioritized that over a house well lived in by her family right and so but that generation of women i feel like that was your of course but like hey is finishing the christmas tree is this you holding yourself to a high standard doing things right or is this you passing on your own is it a compulsive stress to your family if you're me and you decorate the tree with everybody and then everyone leaves and then you redo the whole thing that's that's my solution is everyone gets to decorate it and have doing your nog and half-assing it and you guys go home and then I just redo the whole thing um which is I very much enjoy but yeah I think you go like okay am I yelling at everybody because they're doing it wrong and they're not or like am I modeling this for my son yes that you go all the way around the track and we also decorate the back.

20:33You know, I think it's like something I really learned in program is about your motives. You know, there's certain things that you can do with toxic motives and certain things you can do with, you know, benevolent sort of like healthier motives, you know, and you made me think of the book, The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels, The Deathbed Exercise, which is something that I've employed a lot where you imagine yourself on your deathbed and you go like, do I care about this or not? What am I going to regret? and that actually helped me a lot with food stuff like sort of overthinking and obsessing about food I you know had sort of disordered eating a lot in my 20 and I was like oh god I will never forgive myself if on my deathbed the same way that Dolores thought about I wish I hadn't cleaned my house so much I wish I hadn't have been so obsessed with calories right and like thinking about food yes yes yeah because i think i've i've come to as a parent realize that a lot of the things you think matter don't matter at all and like there's a great line for marks to realize it's sort of i've tried to incorporate into my parenting strategy where she says um you always have the power of having no opinion right and how much conflict i think about saying that to a female comedian i have good luck my own childhood it's like my parents just had opinions about shit that wasn't good for them or me or our relationship that now years later, nobody gives a shit about.

21:57But like we had knocked down, drag out arguments about or just the accumulation of the, why are your shoes not straight next to the door? When I could just pick up my son's shoes and move them if it bothers me instead of choosing to have a fight about this thing, right? So the ability to decide i'm not gonna let this thing bother me i'm not gonna fight about this thing i don't need to care like i all the things like when you're your kid's born you know you just you just all of a sudden you're exposed to all this stuff that you didn't choose to be exposed to like shows they watch things people say you should and and just going like they can enjoy it i don't have to have any opinion on it whatsoever i don't have to go this is the worst this is the best i hate this it can just be it could just exist outside me because they're their own person and then when it comes to the shoes though yeah is it i'm gonna just put my shoes straight and that will model it for him i think so it's like hey look when we get inside like our rule is you get inside you're supposed to go put your shoes in your room okay right and so what matters is do most of the time do they understand that that's the rule and do they try to do their best to do it that's pretty great.

23:14The time they got excited and came in and kicked their shoes off and then went and had fun and were kids. Do I need to ruin that to insist on this thing that is not actually the life lesson that I made? But then the next day, are we back to putting them back? I think the other way I try to think about it is more often than not. If we can just follow these rules, these ideas more often than not, you're going to be getting the bulk of the wisdom or the importance behind it without having this tyrannical person enforcing you on the time, which is actually having the cumulative long-term impact of making you fucking hate that rule.

23:53And then you have to live with the fact that they're just like, going to put my thing because you're this monster. I think that, and I don't mean to patronize adults, but I do think I've learned so much. I wish I had had a kid earlier in a lot of ways, or at least read parenting books, because I wish, you know, a lot of books about leadership and having employees, I wish I had just read parenting books in a lot of ways because so much of it was like, here's all the rules and da-da-da-da where, you know, I was reading this book, Hunt, Gather, Parent, which I loved about instead of, you know, telling your kid, do this and do this and you need to clean your room.

24:24Instead of you need to clean your room, it's let's see how many t-shirts we can get in the hamper in 30 seconds. Like how many things can you turn into a game? How many things can you make fun? Like, how can you just not be this draconian, you know, sort of cartoon of a boss, you know? And I think for a little while I thought like, okay, I'm this young girl that maybe people won't take me seriously. So I have to be really like rigid and, you know, let everyone know how in charge I am, you know, which is not one of the laws of power I know. But, you know, and then now it's kind of like, let's see how many jokes we can write.

24:57Let's see whoever writes the most jokes like you're not paying for lunch today like how do we just make this more fun yeah i think one of the one of the enemies i've found in life and in parenting is extrapolation so instead of seeing this as the individual instance that it is you have decided to see it in your head about what happens if i do this or don't do this now then tomorrow and the day after and the day and they're going to end up being a criminal or a loser or dependent on me or other parents are going to judge me when it's like actually what's at stake here is that there are some shoes in the living room you know what i mean which is pretty about the shoes or is it about i don't think this kid respects me like what's really going on hey if i let them do this uh-huh and it's like they're not getting away with anything they're having a hard time yeah they're it's hard to be a child and they're overwhelmed and they're speaking to you through behaviors and all you're going is the shoes, the shoes, the shoes, the shoes.

25:56You know what I mean? And the shoes don't matter. And in retrospect, you, not only do they not matter now, years from now, they will matter even less to you. And you will, and your kid, when your kid comes to you and says, why did the shoes matter so much? Yep. Yep. That's the whole complex about it. And you're like, I don't care about the shoes at all. And that would be a tragic conversation. I remember one of this is, uh, the word trauma is really thrown around a lot. I remember when it was reserved for like nurses and emergency rooms. Yeah, or keeping war wounds. Exactly. But maybe this is just something I really remember a very frustrating thing as a child.

26:33And it stuck with me. And for lack of a more elegant way to put, it did mess me up for a while. My mom was always obsessed with don't mess up your pantyhose. Yeah. Which I don't even know why I was wearing - in them and why was i wearing pantyhose i was five i'm gonna mess them up yeah i'm five i don't know if we have an appointment at epstein island later or why i'm even in these but it was a picture we had like a family photo day and i was wearing these white hose with a dress and i had the pink to the whole whatever and um you know there was a lot of keeping up the joneses in my family we have to have this portrait and this photographer and we have to have this frame and we're a perfect family.

27:16And, um, and what does a kid do at five? If you're out in a park taking photos, you have two and I'm like run. And of course I run skid my knees and, you know, bleeding through the white hose, of course. And, and she was so stressed out. I remember we'd go to the bathroom, take my pants, flip them around. Right. So that the blood was like on the back. And I just, and I remember as a kid just being like, why, like, how can this matter so much? And then later in life, I'm of obsessed with my clothes and obsessed with my hair and obsessed with how I look all you know all the time and I um also hunt gather parent I'll bring up again which is I see a lot of my friends not that I'm a stellar parent haven't had one yet check back with me when I'm actually at the playground yeah but like what we I see them with their kids playground was don't make sure and you're gonna be careful you're gonna hurt yourself on that and I see the kid look at them like well why are we here sure if it's so dangerous yeah you know what I mean and the hunt gather parent is all about like wait until they're in actual danger and then you just have to watch them, but you like sort of let them go a little bit.

28:16And granted, playgrounds aren't as dangerous as they used to be when we were kids, you know, but instead of just warning them about a bunch of nebulous dangers that are around, just kind of let them figure it out and protect them when there's actually a threat. Look, if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably heard of HelloFresh, right? They're the number one meal kit in America. They make home cooking easier with chef-crafted recipes and fresh ingredients delivered straight to your door. This fall, they're serving up even more to love. It's not the HelloFresh you remember. It's even better.

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30:07So he's in bed way earlier than normal. But I sleep really well every night because I have a 8 Sleep Pod 5 Ultra, which is 8 Sleep's best product. I've used 8 Sleep for many years now and it's just totally transformed how I sleep, made me sleep better, made my wife sleep better. It's amazing. So basically, Eight Sleep is this topper that goes over your mattress. It can heat and cool both sides separately. It can raise and lower each side separately. So it helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep, and then wake up better. Eight Sleep buzzes me to wake gently every morning, as opposed to some loud blaring alarm.

30:49And then I can check the app and it tells me my sleep score. It even helps me optimize my day based on how I slept. If you want to survive the holidays like a pro and just generally sleep better, head over to 8sleep.com slash Daily Stoic and use code Daily Stoic to get$350 off your very own Pod 5 Ultra. The best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it. But I know you will. Trust me, your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep, shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at eightsleep.com slash daily stoic. My wife and I were talking about this the other day, like remembering what a big deal it was slash like the problem it was if you poked a thumbtack in the wall to like hang up a poster.

31:36Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like the respect for sheetrock as a child was like in retrospect totally out of proportion. Like as though that's not like a little dab of something you buy at Home Depot. Yeah. As if they didn't repaint the house like multiple times. And then zooming out I go, what? You don't even live in that house anymore. Yeah. You sold it. And at no point was the buyer walking around going like 10 % less because your child had heavy metal posters up at some point. Do you know what I mean? And so this preservation, this protection of stuff at the expense of peace and tranquility or just positive interactions.

32:22And then also later, like the expressions of creativity and fun. I'm like, if you walk through my garage and in my son's closet, there's like, he drew all over it. He shouldn't have done that. I put on a jacket the other day and I realized he'd drawn all over it with Sharpie. And like, I was frustrating in the moment that he did that because like, I told him to be careful with the Sharpie and to not get it on me. And he did it. But when I put it on the other day, I felt no anger. But like, is it on you for having a Sharpie and not a waterproof thing? I mean, you just took a Sharpie off my desk.

32:55But like I was like upset in that moment. Yeah. And then when I put on the jacket, what I thought was cool. I remember the four year old who did this. That four year old doesn't exist anymore. That four year old is gone. I will never have that four year old again. Right. Because they're six now and they turned seven on this weekend. Right. And so so the idea of like the thing matters to you in the moment you think it does. but you objectively in not very long, you will be missing this exact thing or you will be walking. I walk by the garage and I see that and I go, that was so cute. Why? Like no one will care about this.

33:35So it's like having hindsight right now. It's like finding a way to have it. Stop trying to preserve and protect and keep everything the way that it is. There's a, I think a letting go that needs to happen if you want to have peace and happiness in your house, but also not make them feel like things that don't matter matter a great deal. Something I just read in, I want to say Raising Resilient Kids, maybe the name of the book. I just don't want to plagiarize anybody or act like it's my wisdom here. I know nothing about parenting that when a kid comes to you and tells you, you know, I broke something, right?

34:09The first thing you should say is thank you so much for telling me so that they learn not to keep secrets from you. You know, that's actually, you know, like they go, you know, George Washington actually chopped down the cherry tree. You know that story? No. So there's this, there used to be a story they would teach in school that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree. Okay. And then he, he told the truth about it. Okay. That's the lesson. Like nobody at that time thought George Washington actually chopped down this cherry tree. The point was he chopped down this prized cherry tree. And then his father said, who did this?

34:43And he was honest enough. That was lesson one of the story. Like George Washington cannot tell a lie. He was holding an axe. He's like, oh, I did it. But the actual lesson of the story is he didn't fear reprisals from his father for telling the truth. It's a two-way street. It's not like George Washington and said, I, you know, I throw myself on the mercy of, you know, the parental authority. He understood, hey, if I'm honest about it, like we tell our kids that all the time, we just want to know what happened. Like, you're like, your brother is crying. Yeah, we obviously know you're involved.

35:23But if you could tell us what happened, we could just get to the bottom of it and resolve it faster. You know, and we know you're involved. It's the two of you. We know you're involved. My dad accidentally did something really genius one time. I think he did a lot of great things, but that generation, his dad was in a war. And I like to, it's radical forgiveness, but this is something that might come off, people might say, this is horrible parenting, but he had a very, I think, healthy relationship with human nature, probably very much on the cynical side but he used to pound into me like life's not fair yeah he'd be like you're gonna have to work twice as hard to get half as far he would wake me up in the middle of the night and quiz me on spelling words like he was like he was like and i'm like why are we doing this now and he'd be like because like on the day of the test you're not gonna there could be a siren that could go by you could have a crush on a boy and it distracts you you could be hungry like he would always you know want to put me in you know wild situations like he would put um my favorite show at the time when i was foreverly hills 90210 and he would quiz me on history stuff while my favorite show was on and I wasn't allowed to watch, you know, like he kind of really believed I was going to be at a disadvantage in the world.

36:35Um, and so he was really strict in a lot of ways, but also really absent in a lot of other ways. And I remember he had kind of really lost control of, of me and my other sibling, like by the time we were in high school and he would like buy us cigarettes. He was like, I know you're going to do this. So let me just do it. Cause I don't want you to go ask some guy go get a fake id and ask some man to buy you cigarettes you know like that was kind of his logic and there was something kind of genius about it because it took the sex appeal out of it you're kind of like well i don't want cigarettes if you're gonna buy the whole point is to do it secretly and hide it or whatever but he said i remember when i was like 14 he was like i know you're gonna drink i know you're gonna smoke weed i know you're gonna experiment with all this he goes so if you get in a car with someone who's drunk driving or stone driving.

37:21You're never going to leave the house again. And then had like a really intense threat about if it was a boy. But if you just call me and tell me to come pick you up, you will have zero punishment. Zero. And one night I remember I was in Bethesda, Maryland. This guy was drinking, gets in the car, put a quarter in the thing. It's like pay phones or something at the time. And I called and I was like, dad, someone's drinking. He came and got me, didn't say a word. that's great and i was wasted and it was like probably not good parenting but i never lied to him yeah he made it so that his teenage daughter never lied to him yes and i didn't get in the car with that guy who's the comedian that was going to do a special with a streamer and then he brought it back and did it himself uh andrew andrew yeah i heard him tell this story on this podcast on a podcast once where he was saying like he was driving to school with his dad and uh his dad goes hey did you do your homework and he was this may have even been on your podcast actually maybe uh and he was like did you do your homework and he's like no i didn't and he expected you know telling his dad's gonna get mad and his dad just said um do you want to stop and do it and he was like yeah sure and they stopped and did it like on like in the car on the side of the road and he he was talking about how he thinks back to that moment all the time because it could have been a fight.

38:47It could have been an argument. It could have been a, I'm trying to impotently enforce my authority on this person who's getting older and more independent. Or it could just be a lesson of like, it's not too late. Like you could still do this. Let's just do it. Is your heart in the right? Do you want to, do you want to be a person who didn't do their homework or do you want to be a person who did the homework and just like. It's never too late to make the right choice. Yeah. And then you just made the right choice and then they went to school. And what a sort of powerful lesson that is not just in that individual instance, but going forward.

39:20And so I just try to think about stuff like that. Should we do it now? That's really cool. Yeah. How much lower key that is. And if we do it now on the side of the road, next time you're going to be like, I'd rather have done this the night before. Totally. When I had more, you know? Yeah. And you might not get a I think letting people have consequences is like a real big one. There's a book I'll give you in there. Have you read Jessica Leahy's The Gift of Failure? I don't think so. Oh, it's incredible. It's a parenting book. I know. It's this idea of like, you never want your kids to be embarrassed or fail.

39:51So you're like, oh, sorry, I'm running across town because you forgot your lunch. Or like you reminded them 50 times and now you're doing their science fair project. It's just the idea of like life. I'm not getting an F on the science project. Right, right. Life is about consequences for decisions. And it's so hard as a parent. You never want the snowplow parenting or helicopter parenting. It comes from a good place. It's not wanting people to feel distress or pain, right? The people you care about the most, who in some ways is like your heart running around outside your body. And yet you're actually causing them much more pain in the long run by not letting them fail.

40:31Like in that story, he's like, do you want to? It's your choice. It's also insulting. I mean, we say to ACA, like when you help other people, you're not giving them the dignity of their own experience. you're saying like you're not capable of this so i'm going to do it for you also you're not capable of dealing with the consequences like you're too fragile this will break you yeah to uh go without a lunch and i think i'm embarrassed to have a kid that didn't finish his homework well that's that's the root is that it is i'm afraid it's going to make me look like a bad parent it actually has nothing to do with being a good parent i'm worried it's going to make me look bad?

41:08Is that part of it? Like the ego of that? Well, there's a really revealing moment to me, you know, the college admissions scandal where those parents were like, put in their kids in canoes in front of a green screen. Yeah, exactly. So one of them, there's this, they have these wiretaps on these parents and they heard one of the parents talking about it. And he basically says, I can't have my son go to ASU. Wow. Because even though ASU is actually a great school and lots of people come there and there's nothing wrong with it especially if the kid wants to go but it's you know he's not saying oh my son's not gonna thrive at asu he's not gonna learn things at asu but he's saying i can't have my son go to asu so you realize it has nothing to do with the kids at all um like two of the other revealing ones is one is uh laurie laughlin's kid that's in it she had like a successful youtube channel that was making that was beyond success she didn't even need to go to college then the other one i guess it's a hollywood thing really felicity hoffman's daughter wanted to go to juilliard where you don't have to have sat scores to get in or not so she cheated on the sats for a thing that did not even matter for what she was what her daughter wanted rick singer just wanted to charge no she you want it you don't want to have a kid you want to have a kid that has a good sat score right like you want to have a kid who you don't want to have a kid who's not taking the SAT I'm only going to an acting school right it's so much about your kid being a reflection of you which is so your kid is not a reflection of you positive or negative and the ability to separate that is like like I you know your kid's freaking out of the supermarket yeah your kid is freaking out at the supermarket yeah I don't know that guy like they are the you are being a parent yeah yeah and they are and and actually also understanding that they're not having a good time this is horrible for them well it's also that's that's really interesting like there you know and i'm i'm curious i'll probably be asking you for a lot of advice sort of vacillating back and forth of like it's not your job to entertain your kid like it's it's good to take them along to do adult things but also knowing like yeah this is boring as shit to a kid yeah you know and um i was reading about this like game you can play with them at the grocery store where when they want something, you can take a picture of it and go like, oh, we'll send this to Santa.

43:32Do this all the time. Right. So that they're you're not saying no all the time. Like, how can you not say no? Because grocery stores are basically the no store for kids. Well, it's also understanding what they don't understand. So like they don't understand that they're seeing this thing and they want it. And you're saying, no, you can't have it. But they're hearing, no, I can't have this forever. And it's disappearing into a black They don't remember anything. I'm never going to see these Froot Loops again. Yeah. And it's like, they don't know that you know that this stuff is always at the grocery store.

44:01Yes. Or that you can remember things. And these freaking companies put the good stuff low on purpose. Or also that there's actually better things. They don't know any of this. So when you just go, no. You don't know that all that gives you cancer yet. All your wants or desires are wrong and incorrect. Instead, you're going, oh, you want that? Okay. We'll take a picture of it. We'll talk about it later. or like we realized like with the screen, like when we're turning it off because they don't remember things and they can't type in to go back to the video they were watching. The video is disappearing forever.

44:35Wow. And so to say, we're pausing it and then I'm going to take a picture of it and we can come back to this exact point in this video at a later time. And they're like, oh, okay. They have never once, once asked to go back to it. It was just the immediate distress of not wanting this thing that they're caring about in this moment to disappear. How did you figure that out? Just common sense? I'm sure my wife picked it up in a book and then, you know, where most of these things come from. It is a little bit like, duh, it's still in the cloud. Like it's, they don't know that. Like, oh, I'm at 423 in this video titled X.

45:12So, so I think I've just been, I just, I've spent a lot of time just thinking about what it's like. like it's hard to be me so it's definitely hard to be a child i remember hard to be my child remember how frustrating it was to be a kid when no one took you seriously and you just wanted to be older and you like couldn't articulate your feelings i remember being so i remember i used to walk around with books hoping that people would take me more seriously like as a kid my dad had these art books and i would like walk around with them like pretending like i was reading them i just to try to be taken seriously.

45:45Well, there's a German word, it's umwelt. And it's like someone or something's sense of the world, right? So what is it like to be a bat, right? What is it like to be a dog? What is it like to be a kid? So here's one that kind of blows your mind is to go, this kid fell asleep in my arms or fell asleep in their car seat, fell asleep nursing. And then I picked them up and I put them in their crib and I turned off the lights and they fell asleep and they were asleep for four hours yeah and then they woke up in pitch blackness what do they think about what do they think that they died do they think that they are now in some netherworld yeah is it like why is there darkness where am i who am i what has my mother and father disappeared like you just think about how insane that is and so so if that's in that pretty run-of-the-mill thing like even my four-year-old he once told me he thinks he can teleport because he falls asleep in the car or he falls asleep in our bed and then he wakes up in his bed how does this happen because i don't wake him up as it's happening going i'm picking you up and moving new rooms so you're their lack of understanding about things that are happening creates distress because they're coming up with explanations for why things are happening and a lot of their explanations are preposterously stupid yeah or um they explain the world in a way that would be alarming and confusing.

47:07And so when you when you can just go like, oh, yeah, what's it like to be you? It's a lot. Gosh, I that even I want to apply that to adults. Sure. That you're working with. And you're like, how does this person not? It's like when people are like, how could you vote for that person? I'm like, how can you not see how that person would vote for that person? Ask them four questions. And it's pretty easy to do the forensic. The other one I've come around on is like you go trust the process, like put in the work, trust the process, right? Well, I trust the process because I have been through the process.

47:40It has paid off for me, right? Like I know when I start a book, I feel like X, then there's the midpoint where I feel like terrible. Then I start to get excited. I know, I know the process. So I trust it. It's paid off. You know, like the harder it gets, the closer you are in a weird way. Yeah. And like, just think about the things you're asking people, your kids, strangers, to just understand the amount of assumptions that are baked in to your view on this thing. It's totally unfair. And if you could explain it or speak more from experience, it would be so much less painful, scary, distressing.

48:21You'd also give people passes. You're also making me realize something that is, I'm just going to say it, even if it might feel like a tangent that the kind of people listening to this podcast, you, people in program, people that have worked really hard on yourselves, people that are smart, that are quick. We sometimes come off like bullies and it's hard for me sometimes. Like it's an adage that helps me is when you get healthy, the sick get angry. When you try to set a boundary or try to like, you know, have some, you know, cogent wisdom or, or trying some other thing. And people are like, what are you?

48:59And you're like, how do you not get? And you're like, Oh, like, like all of this might come off as dismissive to someone that doesn't know a lot about it, you know? And it's so obvious to us, but sometimes when I'm in conflict about something and someone's like, well, I don't understand what you're saying. And I'm like, Oh, we're just like vibrating at different frequencies. Like working with prey animals has really helped me with that of just realizing that sometimes like how clear we are, how ambitious we are, how direct we are comes off to other people, sometimes aggressive, sometimes like pressure, sometimes arrogant.

49:35Yeah. And like you're just a fucking know it all. Yeah. And it's taken me. It's fun to be able to sit here with you and just like here's all these things, you know. but like I find myself sometimes talking to people are like and I read this parenting book and I'm just like so maybe insecure about how unintelligent I am that I want to know everything but then sometimes I go out in the world and I have to just be like just be a person you don't have to teach everyone all the time you're not on a podcast you don't have to show off how much you know like sometimes you got to just like pump the brakes a little bit and be okay with knowing stuff and not forcing it on everybody and just kind of walk the walk instead of talk the talk the world is full of tours but you don't choose a toyota truck to follow the beaten path you choose it to find the places in between the detours where each adventure pulls you toward the next and wrong turns to now right So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour?

50:46Toyota Trucks. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove in Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

51:33We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course. Because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you.

52:13Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. One of the things I got from my wife is she'll say like, it's okay that you're scared to our kids. She's like, I'm not scared. I've done this many times. I know how this works. It's okay for you to be scared, but just know that I'm not because I have a different understanding or knowledge or experience here. And this idea that it's like your emotions are your emotions. You're allowed to feel them. There's nothing wrong about them, but I just want, maybe it would be comforting or important for you to understand that I'm not feeling the same emotions.

52:57So if you're scared because you think this is a scary situation that everyone is terrified of, you're going to react to that differently than I'm scared because this is new. Yeah. But my mom or my dad is not scared because they've been here before. So you could see a CEO comes in and goes, hey, you may have heard all this stuff that's happening in the news. Yeah. People think we're going out of business or people think this is going to be the worst business environment. But hey, I've been doing this 40 fucking years. I've been through this exact thing a bunch of times. It's going to be fine. And if it's not fine, I'll communicate that to you.

53:32Yeah, you'll be the first to know. Yes. And that's, there's another book in there I'll give you. Have you read Dr. Becky yet? Oh, yeah, yeah. I follow her on Instagram. Yeah. She's like, it's called emotional vaccination. Yeah. Just like communicating. These are the emotions you're likely to feel in this situation. Let's just talk about it. Think about it. You may still feel them anyway, but like they don't have to surprise you. and they're definitely not surprising me. And something that helps me, and maybe this is like, it's something we say in program when you're talking to a sponsee who's newer than you, you say, wait for the question before you start throwing advice out.

54:05Like, wait, just wait for the question before you start going, well, you know what you should do this and this and this. It's a small thing, but just saying like, you know, it works for me. Yeah. Might not work for you. Yeah. But like, probably will, but like, sure. You know, it works for me. Yeah. You know, and just kind of like, just being a little, when I've been scared like that in the past, this is what worked for me. I've been through this before what worked for me. So you're not just like going, I felt what you felt. I know more than you. And here it is. I think it's like taking me a second sometimes because I remember I had this therapist say to me once, she was like, careful how much you grow because there's going to be less and less people that you can vibrate with.

54:42Things are going to start getting lonely. There's a story I tell in The Obstacles away about phil jackson he he's coaching the lakers and he gets this back surgery and because the back surgery he he can't stand on the sideline he has to sit and like it's he has to sit like one row back he can't he can't sit in like a low chair he has to sit in a high chair like above the ground uh to see the game and so he thinks he's gonna totally fuck up the team because the coach can't go from player to player he can't be pacing and in fact sitting up in the chair a little bit back from everyone makes everyone kind of come to him and it changes the energy and it changes his viewpoint and he realized it's a kind of a zen idea he's expressing that like actually i think i need to be up in everyone's face very proactive but in fact stepping back and letting people come to you it actually unlocks this other kind of learning and teaching and an element to the relationship and so sometimes you think you got to do x but actually just got to go use your emotions I understand them.

55:41I'll let you have them. Come to me if you need anything. I'll be modeling over here what I think should be happening. And that's just a slightly detached is a word that we don't like, but it's actually a more detached approach in a good way. There's a word that I love that I think people don't use a lot. And it's something that I've learned from this dog trainer that helped me with when you have really big, powerful dogs, you don't walk around dogs, you walk through dogs. So if you've got a big dog who's right in front of you, you're not going to kick them, but you've got to walk through them.

56:13They always have to get out of your way. Always, always, always, right? Or else they start to know they're in charge. In the beginning, they can't sleep with you. And it's very simple. He's like, you need to be regal. Be regal. Same with horses, prey animals. They're trying to figure out who's in charge. And if you're here, you're just asking for permission all the time, right? And if you're here, you're being regal. So that is something when I walk into situations, it's such a dorky thing to be like, be regal, be regal. But like sometimes you just have to cheat it a little bit with your body because your body's set your body and what you're wearing already communicates everything before you say a word.

56:46Yeah. Yeah. That was the last thing I wanted to ask you about. Like, we have this ranch like maybe 25 minutes from here. That's where we spend most of our time. And like, I find like, cause I have that sort of energy of like wanting to do things and be driven and needing to prove. And then when you're around animals and they're just present, they're not comparing themselves to other animals they don't feel good or bad they're just are and there's a stillness to that i'd say specifically prey animals what's a prey animal so prey animals so predators like dogs right cats i have a different thing and then prey animals basically everything boils down to them is fear or absence of fear so when you're like i'm gonna rush i have to do something they're just like is there a bobcat is there a mountain lion that's all it boils because they don't have they're so like relentlessly in the moment and because they're energy conservationists because they're grazers right they only get to eat the grass that's around so they're not going to waste a bunch of time being needy or desperate if you know they don't know when their next patch of grass is going to come like they have to be energy conservationists right and then any kind of anxious energy like if you're walking up to a trying to get a selfie.

57:55Ultimately, what you're saying is, I'm afraid I'm not going to get this selfie. Then they're like, why are you in fear? I got to go look for the mountain lion. They don't understand fear. They don't understand insecurity. It all boils down to there's a predator close by. There's this incredible thing that happens with prey animals if you really work with them in a fair, egalitarian way where you want to be in a partnership with them where they just become a mirror to you. So the first thing we do in like a gala, which is like horse therapy stuff is just you and the horse in an arena. And you try to see if you can have appealing enough energy that it wants to be near you because their only reward is serenity.

58:33If there's no grass around, whereas dogs, their reward is food. I mean, look, I love dogs. I'm a dog person, but like my dog will jump in someone else's car and go home with it and be totally fine. You know what I mean? I'm sure when they see me again. But like horses, prey animals, their only reward is serenity. And then if you're going to do grooming and stuff like that, it's different. But if you can get a prey animal to want to hang out with you, they can read your thoughts. They can read your mind. They can read your energy. So it's really fascinating to watch if you're standing next to a horse and they're just hanging out with you.

59:06And then all of a sudden you're like, well, what if it walks away? What if it stops wanting to hang out with me? And then it just walks away. And you're like, goddammit, they just walked away. What did I do wrong? And then they walk even further away. And then you're like, you know what? I have this itch on the back of my neck and I'm just going to take care of it. And I'm not going to think about anything else. And I'm going to make sure there's no predators around. And all of a sudden they're right next to you. So when you're obsessing about them, thinking about them, worrying about them, it's just like a really great way to learn your inner monologue and the kind of energy you're giving off.

59:32Because, you know, when you see people that are the leaders and they walk into work and they're like, why is everyone in such a bad mood? And you're like, you just showed up. You did that. yeah i remember when we first got our donkey we bought this donkey on donkeys are awesome bucks and for a hundred bucks yeah you pay too much yeah most of the time they're free because they or they come with the land because they're so great you're supposed to have them they're just livestock guarding animals and yeah they stomp coyotes they're awesome and so i i remember he's just standing there like he's just standing there in the middle of this field and i remember going sort of like laughing like what a dumb animal i just started and then i go wait that's his job His job is literally just to stand there, to not be dead.

1:00:14And by standing there and being in himself, he's keeping other things away. What would have made you think he was smart? You know. You want him to be like building a. No, like when he's opened gates and tried to get into our house. You know, like when they're doing sort of mischievous, intentional stuff, that feels, that like feels like a sign of intelligence. That's actually restless and maladaptive. Yeah. But just the idea that like, you know, say like they all say this in programs like human being that human doing. But like the animal doesn't have any sense of that. It's just I am doing what I am doing.

1:00:52Yeah. And that that's a pretty magical, wonderful place. It's like if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm in this awesome pasture. I've got grass because if I open that, there could be a mountain lion on the other side of that. Or if I bite this thing, I could break my tooth or I could be near predator. You know what I mean? unless they need to look for water or something like that they're very much like if it ain't broke don't fix it yeah you know and that's like and they're by default serene yeah so when you come in with some wild energy but it's it is you know what is it again the um empathizing with someone else's state the german word umwelt i also love working with prey animals because prey animals always have their eyes on the side of their head right predators are forward and the first thing everybody does when they see a donkey or horse what do they do they just go right to the head which is this is the one place between their eyes that they can't see and horses always pull away.

1:01:42So understanding like it's how they perceive the world. That's you walk up next to them. You ask permission. This is how they see the world, know how they see you and then learn their body language instead of expecting them to understand English or whatever. You know, when you see people talk to their dogs, like, what did I say? What did we talk about yesterday? And you're like, do you really think like, you know, so it's been a great exercise to surrender because you have to take language out of it and working with prey animals makes you realize how much how first of all how full of shit we are how incongruous what we're saying and how we're saying it is which is why it's like great to work with like young girls and boys but working with young girls and horses because if you're going like no stop that's not no right you know what i mean you're saying it with your body and you're claiming your space and sort of your it's about saying what you're saying say what you mean mean what you say don't say it mean but mean what you say with your body your body language matters so much more than what you're saying so a lot of i see a lot of bosses where your employees don't respect you or you're not getting what you want because you're like if you guys could just get that done today like you know by five like that'd be great like you're being wishy-washy like what do you say what you're saying or when someone's like yeah no i like it and you're like do you think i didn't notice that i can't i don't believe you yeah like it makes you realize how full of shit we are well to go back to full circle that can't canceling or rescheduling And the other one I like is like, don't say maybe when you want to say no.

1:03:06Right? Like this isn't a consent issue. I'm just saying like, if someone's like, hey, you want to go out tomorrow? You want to do this thing? And if you're like, oh, let me see. Let me check. You're like, fucking no. Like not interested. Hard pass. Be clear about what you want to do and what you don't want to do or what you like and you don't like. I just do the defaults no. Like just start with no. Yes. Like no is a complete sentence. Yeah. But just to - Don't say sorry. Yeah, sorry, I interrupted. Yeah, no, don't say sorry. Just say no. Or don't make an excuse first. This is maybe something - Because you're asking people to argue with you.

1:03:41I think you, this might've been something I heard on your podcast and it changed my life. Because I have a couple, by my computer, a couple things that are written out. I'm at capacity at the moment. I will let you know if that changes. I'll let you know. Yes, don't follow up with me. Because this is someone I think on your podcast might have said this that is like, no, I can't. I'm busy this week. Yeah. Oh, so next week? What about next week? You know what I mean? Trying to make this go away. Yes. Totally. And then if they respond again, I'm not responding. You know what I mean? You also know response is a response.

1:04:15You know, I kind of always forget that. And if someone's just like a bugaboo, they just, you know, they'll never understand. And that's, you know, boundaries, something I love from ACA. It's like boundaries are for us and not them. So you can set one verbal boundary, but if they keep crossing it, then you just, no contact. Also, you don't owe anyone any responses or explanations, which is very empowering. Just because you got an email doesn't mean you don't have to fucking RSVP, yes or no. Not interested, not interested. No one cares. Yeah. No one cares. They're not going to cancel the party because you didn't respond.

1:04:43Right. And if they are, they'll tell you that. They'll be like, hey, this is only about you. And if they don't, then it's a manipulative, weird thing, which you shouldn't go to anyway. Yeah. Like, I can't make it. Thanks for asking. Like, it's just very simple. Well, this is the wonderful thing about having kids is it gives you some real clarity and realizing I'll show you my office. I want to make this. I don't want to come. I do have kids, but that has nothing to do with it. I'm so like relentlessly honest. But I have a picture of my oldest and then I have a picture of my youngest. And then in the middle, this sports psychologist named Jonathan Fader gave me this picture and it just says no.

1:05:19and and it's realizing that when i'm saying yes to you i'm saying no to these two people who i already promised pretty much all of my spare time you can also think of it as like my nightmare is that someone comes to my birthday party who's like because they didn't want to be there oh god we have to stop by whitney because you know if we don't like that's so embarrassing to me so i never want to do that to someone else if i'm like i gotta go to this thing so it's like if you're doing something out of obligation, get out of there. They don't want you to be there either. Yes. Or if they do, it's not a person.

1:05:53Yeah. When someone comes up, it's like, hey, I can only be here for 10 minutes. And you're like, why did you come? Right. This is embarrassing. We would have been fine without you. Like the self-importance of like, if I don't show up, I guess they're just going to cancel the party. Like, what do you think is going to happen? Like the self-importance of that. But I did grow up watching a mom go to four Christmas parties a night. We got to stop here. We got to stop here. We got to stop here. It's like all that shit. That's the ego of that imposter syndrome too, which is like, no one's trying to see if you have what it takes or not.

1:06:20They're, they're feeling that about themselves. Like no one has enough time to think about whether you're qualified to do what you're doing. Interesting. Also, this is some weird addiction or trying to get out of your feelings and I don't want to participate in it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like someone who's like, I want to come. And then the day of, they're like, I don't know if I can make it. And they're like, here's the way. And you're just like, blah. Yeah. I don't need any of this show up or not. I don't need any of this. Yeah. Right. What this has nothing to do with me and you're making my life harder.

1:06:49Yeah. Yeah. And kids, kids give you some clarity on this because you realize who is being affected by your shit. Yes. Right. Or by your over committing, by your social anxiety, by your inability to say no, you know, by, you know, your drama, by your black, like someone is bearing the cost of all of this that you're like, you, you can, you can do as much shit as you want to yourself. Yeah. But now you brought in these other people who you owe slightly better to. And like, so if you can't say no to you, you don't want to be rude. You don't want to be rude. You have to understand that you've already made it.

1:07:29It's rude to say yes when you're lying. But you've already like, there's no way out of this that is not rude. Right. So like if, if someone has asked you to do something and you don't want to do it. You don't want to hurt their feelings. So you say, yes, you hurt these other two. You hurt a seven year old's feelings. But if someone invites you to something and it hurts their feelings, they're mentally ill. That's not an adult. But when you, it's like, you don't want to, you don't want like in the scenario where you don't want to bear the bad news to someone, even though it's not actually bad news.

1:07:57You don't want to say, you don't want to say the words no. Yeah. So you go, yes. Well, you are saying no. You're just saying no to them, but they don't have the ability or the power or the understanding to be like, mom, why mom or dad, why are you saying no to playing right now? Why am I at the babysitters? And then when you're on your deathbed, are you going to be like, thank God I went to that thing instead of hanging out with my kids? And you know, this is, I just want to pay credit where credit's due and name drop. The singer Sia said to me once, cause I, you know, struggle with some codependent stuff when we were talking about it and she goes before I say yes to a plan I ask what's in it for me sure and it I it like blew my mind that being selfish is kind of selfless you know kind of thing it was like I didn't even think of that I like it never occurred to me it's like oh I might run into some people I want to talk to I just like no I have to deliver this gift and I have to show up and I have to entertain everyone and I we're a friend so I don't want her to think her friends to think I didn't show up to her party and that we're not friends like I just was I couldn't think of like if I can't think of a couple things that's in it for me I just can't do it yeah yeah and uh there's nothing wrong yeah and it's and again it's like imagine something like knowing someone's in the car going we have to go it's just Whitney invited us and you know how she is and let's just leave the kids at home we'll just go for two hours I'd like stay home with your kids well the stoic thing is it the stoic version of this would not be what are you going to think on your deathbed the stoics would say actually you're on your deathbed right now first off because you could die at any moment but the other thing the stoics tell us is that we're dying all the time that's right and so if you actually understand having children or your own life as a process of dying you're one years old and one day for one day right that the person you are now like it's kind of a dark way to think about it but having kids is this constant process of loss, but also gain because who they were, they're no longer, but they're this new thing.

1:10:03And so as you're doing, you're committing to other things, you're gone too much, you're working too much, all this stuff. It's not like, hey, in the future, you're going to regret this. Your future you're going to feel like you're losing on, you're losing out on something right now. You have a finite amount of time and you're choosing to do this other thing instead. And to understand also that this, I can't wait till they're walking. I can't wait till they're driving. What you're also doing is fast forwarding through the thing that you want the most, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, that's fascinating.

1:10:34And I don't know if this is pertinent or not, but the Worm at the Core by Ernest Becker about terror management theory helped me a little bit in this area, because it's sort of about how humans, I mean, we're the only animal that knows it's going to die. So we do all these things to manage our terror. We get obsessed with sports teams and we make family crests and try to be immortal in all these ways. And it just made me realize all the ways that I kind of distract myself because it's hard to just be alone with myself sometimes. And, you know, we talk about like our obsession with Rome now and the bread and the circus and they're distracting us.

1:11:08And I'm like, yeah, of course that's always happened. But like, what am I doing to just like jam pack my time? So I don't have to sit with the fact that I'm slowly dying. Yeah. You're, you're, it's not just that you're slowly dying, but that you're also fast forwarding it by thinking about what's next, right? Like tomorrow or the next day or summer or Christmas, like you're wishing through or rushing through your life, this thing that is going to go by very fast. And so there's this passage in meditations where Mark's realist who does in fact bury multiple children, like he loses multiple children in a way that was gratuitous, even in that time, like where most people did, it's like six or seven children, just an insane amount.

1:11:55Just everything, diseases and plagues and injuries and accidents. It's just this grotesque series of tragedies for him. He says, though, in meditations, it's a line from Epictetus. He says, as you tuck your child in at night, tell yourself they may not make it through the morning. He's meditating on the mortality of his children. Why is he doing this? I don't think it's because he's going, you know, being attached is dangerous. And so you detach and then you don't feel it when they die. I think he's saying, don't rush through bedtime. Like he's saying, like bedtime is it. This is the whole fucking thing.

1:12:30Enjoy this. Be here for this. Don't wake up tomorrow. And this thing has happened and gone. I'm sure I'm so glad I got back to that dinner party. Right. Like I think to myself as I'm like, my son is not going to bed as quickly as we would like. He's asking for one more story, making up that he needs a snack or whatever he's doing. I'm going like, I want this to be over. Someday it will be over. Not for good reasons. You're going to get your wish. Yeah. Someday it will be over for tragic reasons or it'll just be older because he's 11 and he doesn't want me in his room. You know what I mean? And so the idea that you're rushing through that, that you want it to be over for what?

1:13:11So I can check my email. So that's what the donkey's looking at you going, what are you doing? Like, this is it. This moment is now. They're just like, you know, I mean, I sit in my horse's stall and we just sit there. I'm like, oh, this is so, uh, and like we want. I'm like, I could do this all day. That's literally all I care about. And that's a wonderful, magical thing. But I do think it's hard for like high performers, ambitious people to be relentlessly present. But that's it. That's like, that's where the magic is. And they need it the most to balance out the intensity that you have. You have to like maybe a regular person doesn't need to think about this, but we need it the most.

1:13:50But I think it's also good to do it with negative stuff, too, because you go like, oh, this great thing is going to be over soon. But so is this bad, hard thing. Sure. Nothing less. Yeah. So it's just sort of like this is painful, but it's like it's all just temporary. Yeah. Meditations Mark says something like the pain will end or you will end. But one way or another, it will be over. Right. Like this thing. you're like, oh, my stomach hurts so bad. You're like, it's either going to kill me or it's probably not. And so I just went to sleep.

1:14:22Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode.

1:14:39you

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