Whitney Cummings on Routines, Creating Great Art, and Addiction (Pt 1)

0:00I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine routine which is I take them over to Whole Foods. We get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. You can make Whole Foods your one stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards.

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1:35That's toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours.

1:43Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

2:57outside Boston, then home. Then I just did a talk in Las Vegas last night, landed in New Orleans, and then drove this morning down to the beach to take the family on vacation. Bunch of virtual talks in between there, plus regular stuff. Had somebody quit. Just a lot. It's a long, long week. But I got to cap it off with a little conversation on leadership for one of the Daily Stoke challenges. And now we'll go for a walk, calm down a little bit. And then tonight I'm gonna watch something that I'm very excited to watch, which is Whitney Cummings' new comedy special. I'll tell you how to get it in a second, but the only reason I haven't watched it yet is it didn't come out before we did our interview.

3:43And then the week has been so crazy. I haven't had a chance to watch it, but I'm super excited because she's hilarious. And she and I have become friends over the last couple of years. Actually, Robert Greene connected us, although I have seen her on a million shows and watched her comedy for a long time. She's hilarious. She's smart. She is a brilliant writer, producer, director, entrepreneur. At the same time, she created and starred in an NBC series called Whitney, and she was the co-creator and co-writer of the syndicated Emmy-nominated CBS comedy series, Two Broke Girls. She's done a ton of different specials, which you can check out on all the big streaming platforms.

4:23And her new special, Mouthy, is actually on OnlyFans. Not OnlyFans you're thinking of, this is OFTV. It's their platform for free to view, safe for work streaming platform and app. There's no nudity or anything. Rachel, my podcast producer, wrote this in the intro. She said, to see Whitney's OnlyFans, go to at Whitney on OnlyFans. And then she put in parentheses, I never thought I'd write that at work, which is hilarious. It's not something I thought I would be saying in the intro of a Daily Stoic podcast, but I know this special is going to be hilarious. And we had an awesome two-hour conversation in Austin at the Painted Porch.

5:03She came out, and you can tell this is a tough lady. She may have had her son by the time you are listening to this. I know she was very, very pregnant when she came out. she flew from the west coast landed in austin took a car straight from the airport to the painted porch studio and then sat uninterrupted for two and a half hours uh did not ask to go to the bathroom once which will come up at the beginning of this episode you'll see but we had an awesome conversation i'm so honored she came on you can follow her on every platform at whitney cummings then on only fan she's at whitney check out her new special mouthy it came out on November 15th.

5:43It was recorded in front of a sold out live audience at the LA Comedy Store, and it's her sixth career special. She's hilarious. Thanks for coming on, Whitney. You'll have part two of this episode coming later this week.

6:04I think that it maybe is my fault too, because I talk openly about having misophonia. What is that? Which is kind of when you hear noises very loudly, which is part of, you know, you also hone it being a stand up. You know, I can hear a candy wrapper open. I can hear someone the difference between the laugh and a fake clap and a real clap. You know, I can hear when people are getting up, all that kind of stuff. And some of it they say is genetic also could be from growing up in a like an alcoholic home, like developing that hypervigilance, like needing to always sort of like, you know, have your ear to the floor type of thing.

6:35and so i talk about that and um like people chewing loud chewing that kind of stuff so i think i probably get a lot of people that are like that and then i go ahead and betray their trust by having people eat on the podcast yeah it's like you're eating next to a highly sensitive microphone it's like most disgusting it is pretty gross and i mean but some people like it i feel like asmr is that what it was called yeah had a big moment yeah i think people are into that yeah but it was pretty gross yeah have you seen there's like a video where this lady she like goes around she just like touches things on a very expensive car and then and then and then it's it actually sounds very nice soothing yeah where you just realize like oh there's a reason this car costs three hundred thousand dollars that all the different things are of a higher quality i wonder if there's some kind of association based on your ancestral lineage slash trauma slash genetics epigenetics of the sounds you find soothing and where you're from.

7:34Like tearing paper is soothing to me. Right, unless maybe you have some sort of traumatic memory associated with something like that. Paper cut or something, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but like I just like the tearing of the paper. The other, the whispering doesn't do anything for me. I guess I do like it when people whisper a tiny bit. Like NPR voice? Not Terry Gross. Yeah. I don't find her particularly soothing. But yeah, kind of. Sometimes. I wonder there's got to be some kind of association for why we enjoy some sounds and don't. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. You good? That's for a smarter guest.

8:09Yes. I don't think anyone cares. Remember, I was supposed to do your podcast in LA. Yes. And then you couldn't. And I remember you being like, it seemed like it was extremely difficult for you to reschedule something. I take other people's time very seriously and especially when it's people I look up to and respect and I was so honored that you said yes in the first place and I just I think I have this thing in my head where I like think people already think I'm like an LA asshole oh sure and like rescheduling is just like a flaky thing to do yeah but I also think that when you're too unctuous and apologetic when you do reschedule.

8:57That's annoying. Sure. No, I want, yeah, I wondered if it was hard for you to, like, you were, you were like, I'm not feeling well. I had this thing, this medical thing I have to do. And I was like, say no more. Like, who cares? But it seemed like it was very hard for you to not do something, even though you were putting your health first. I was like admitting I had a human limitation. Is that what it was? And that's embarrassing. Huh. Yeah, that's a little embarrassing to me. And I think there's also with you, I've wanted to have you on for so long. You're not in town that often. You know, I am able to reschedule pretty easily with people that live in town.

9:33Sure. But I do, like, I'm in Austin for a week. I've spent the last two weeks putting my schedule together and routing stuff and that whole kind of thing. So in my brain, I'm like, well, he could have scheduled something else and this and this. Right. And we don't really know each other yet. So I was probably a little more apologetic with you than I normally would have been with other people. The sick thing is interesting to me because it's like, and COVID brought it to the forefront where it's like, if you're sick, you should not do stuff. But we have this kind of like, oh, well, power through because it would be rude not to.

10:04And it's like, no, it's like I was supposed to go hunting with someone on Sunday morning and he canceled the last minute. And he was like, I'm not feeling well. I took a COVID test. I know it's not COVID. but he was like I know you have kids and I know you travel a lot so I'm just not gonna do it and I was like he was like please don't be mad and I was like be mad this is like the nicest thing yes anyone has done for me in some time like I was like I wish everyone was like you and especially with like having a conversation with you where I'd want to be on point and you know be sharp like if you're sick or distracted or I'll cancel these days when I'm tired yeah because I'm like right now I have to show up with my brain being a hundred percent people are going to be listening to this, they expect it to be smart and interesting.

10:43If I'm even at 99%, let's reschedule. Right. You know, so I'm normally pretty good about it because I just think about the product. And I'm like, if I'm forcing myself to do something and I'm unsuitified and I'm tired and I'm distracted, like it's not going to be a good podcast. But see, I've been thinking about that because part of life is pushing through when you don't want to do something and when it doesn't feel like it's coming. Right. You have to like Like develop this sort of tenacity, this stick to it-ness. And, you know, you have these days where like you the resistance is telling you don't do it.

11:16Yep. And you have to push through. Yep. And then you have these other days where you're sick or you're tired or you're just not at 100%. And what is the line between you're pushing through for the right reasons or you're not doing it for the right reasons? Can I give you a dumber example? Yeah. not being able to tell someone you need to get up and pee. Yes. Because like I'm thinking about something else. I have to pee. I'm all of a sudden suboptimal. And what am I embarrassed that I'm human? Like we've been sitting here for two hours. May I get up and use the restroom real quick? Like that's a harder thing for me to do.

11:51Being sick, I kind of am a little more clear on it now. Like I've sort of figured that stuff out. But I mean, I remember I went to a Workaholics Anonymous meeting once. Everyone was late. Yeah. By like 40 minutes, everyone rushed in and we all got in trouble because it was a lot of sort of successful people and, you know, where I live and everyone was like, hey, love your work. And they're like, you can't say that here. You know, that's like saying you're so entertaining when you drink. Right. Yeah. And one woman's bottom line was I will get up and go to the bathroom when I need to pee. And I used to I used to sit at my computer and think I had achieved something because I had to pee.

12:29Like I would kind of like see how far, it was like edging or something. I wanted to see how far I could take it. And it was like, why? I'm thinking about something else, which means I'm not 100 % focused on this, which means this has nothing to do with the work. This is some like self-depriving, masochistic, false sense of pain and gain that is not yielding the best work. It took me a long time like on Rogan to go, hey, can I get up and pee? We've been here for four and a half hours. It'd be weird if I didn't have to pee. But then I would find myself getting less interesting, less entertaining, less funny because I was just like, do I ask?

13:02Do I not ask? And who are you impressing? They don't throw you like a parade for having help. No one gives you a check at the end. It's like you went four hours and didn't pee. It's like, do you have a UTI? Are you OK? Like you shouldn't. If you're taking care of your health, you should need to. Well, and there is this other thing I'm learning, which is when you do stuff like i have to go to the bathroom or i'm tired i'm not feeling it or i'm whatever you're actually doing other people a favor because maybe they also have to do those things being of service yeah and so like i found this with kids which we should talk about later but like like if i have to run to like pick up my kids or my kids are sick i like i try and i i have to get out of something because of it i try to explain that it is a parenting related thing yeah Because I think men especially, it's like they have this secret life where they also have children and a family.

13:53Right? That's so funny. And it makes it harder. Many have many secret. But no, like they don't have pictures of their kids in their office. They don't talk about it. They don't talk about how their life or their routine or their priorities have shifted as having a kid. And so it makes it harder for other people. Like that becomes normative. So it's like, oh, don't talk about this. That's not what we do. when really we should be having the opposite effect. We should be making the opposite contribution, which is making it okay to have reasons that you don't do things. And so I think when you're like, I'm tired, I'm not feeling it, or I have to pee, you're not just speaking up for yourself, but you're also making it clear that that's an okay thing to do.

14:33If someone doesn't take care of themselves, it's a really big red flag. Martyrs are really troublesome. It's taken me a long time to realize that. I was raised in a way that you were rewarded for how self-deprivation, you know, how much self-deprivation you could tolerate, how self-contained you were and how little you complained. That served me really well in sports. It served me really well in my family environment. But the root of that is insecurity, right? You won't like me if I have a human limitation and insecure people are dangerous. These are people that are trying to be liked. Is anyone like, I really liked her.

15:10She didn't pee the whole time. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I really like that guy. He has four kids and didn't bring them up once. Yes. Isn't he awesome? Like no one thinks that's cool. Yeah. Except we do like if you are someone who is putting other things in front of the work thing, I think you are worried you're going to have a reputation of being difficult or you're going to have a reputation being selfish or not totally invested. I think I guess it depends on what the job is and how you do it. You know, I think that if you're someone for me when I'm hiring. Yeah. It's a huge advantage to me if someone is a parent, because to me, that already means, you know, they know how to diffuse conflict.

15:48Sure. Moms and dads are the best in a room where writers are fighting because they're like, hey, guys, does anyone do you need a water? Yeah. Does anyone need a snack? Do you want to go take a nap? Right. Because usually that's the reason there's conflict going on. Right. And they talk to people kind of in very simple ways the way you would kids. They're great at time management. Their tolerance for drama is just like so much higher when they find, you know. and um and i always i always you know and also moms want to get you out earlier you know it's like i love working with moms in la because the writers rooms used to start at 10 for a mother that's like two hours to kill between the time you drop your kid so but they're like let's start at 9 30 and be done at three right you know so it's like and they get stuff done so much they're like octopuses they have so many tentacles they can multitask and do 50 things at once so i think to have any kind of shame about having priorities in your life and love in your life and i'm always excited about the perspective that comes with that, you know, of going like, can we ask a mom what she thinks about this?

16:38Can we ask a father? Like he probably actually has perspective on something like this. But I've talked to athletes about this. It's like an athlete has to know how to play hurt, but can't play through injury. Right. There's this, right. So it's like, if you only play when you're feeling a hundred percent, you're never going to play. Yeah. And you're just frankly not tough enough to do this thing at the pro level. Sure, sure. And yet, if you're constantly ignoring what your body is telling you, that's when you blow out your knee or you take what could have been a minor injury and you turn it into a major injury.

17:11So knowing that line, that's really the tough part. And you got to know yourself and you got to know when to blow it out. So for me, I'm kind of a dork. Probably twice a week when I want to give up or be a brat, I watch Carrie Strug at the Olympics. Do you remember Carrie Strug? When she's doing on the bad leg or whatever? Yes. It was like between her, of course, always Russia. Her and Russia. America's down like three points in gymnastics. Yeah. First tumble she did breaks her ankle. Sure. She's got to do a perfect score for the next one to beat Russia. Yeah. She's never going to compete again.

17:49Yeah. This is the time to do it. Sticks the landing, tears everything else in her body perfectly, collapses. I love moments like that. Yeah. where you're like, this is the moment I'm, I am injured, but I'm going to push through it. But you really, I think that the winners know when to pull that stop out. So you don't do it in game one, you do it in game six. Yeah. Like the, the Michael Jordan flu game is a, it should be called the Michael Jordan flu playoff game. Love it. It's not a regular season game. It's not a preseason game, but yeah, it's like, Hey, you wake up and your kid is sick. Do you take care of them?

18:26Or Like, I think one of the things that you need to have as an artist is kind of a sense of self-importance, right? Like, you believe this thing is the most important thing in the world, which it's not. Sure, sure. And so that tension between, like, I'm committed, I don't make excuses, I show up and do the thing every day, and then being a selfish asshole is a hard... Well, that's when you have to know yourself. You have to go, my kid is sick, I'm going to go write my book, but is my work going to be mediocre? Because I'm going to be thinking about my kid the whole time. Sure. Am I going to be distracted the whole time thinking about my kid?

18:57Or do I split the difference? You're going, you know what? I'm going to do two hours, not think about the kid once. He will be fine. Kids are resilient. Yeah. Whatever. My mom did speed when she was pregnant with me. Like, whatever. Put whiskey on my gums. They'll be fine. I'll show up in two hours. He'll never know the difference. Or do you go nine hours and just split your attention the whole time? You know? Yeah. And also, I think some of it for me, early on, I was so insecure. Or sorry. Do you go, hey, I'm going to go write this book because it's going to pay for this kid's medical care, which is what he needs.

19:26You know what I mean? You got to like find the way to be able to make sure that your focus is pure. But I feel like as I've gotten more confident and more secure at myself, I know I realized that any one day is not life or death. That's right. But you have early on, you have this sense, this almost delusional sense that like, if I don't do it, then I won't do it the next day and I won't do it the next day. And it's like, you know, I now know that's not true. I know that if I take one day off, it doesn't lead into a two-month slump where I don't do anything because I've built that habit. And the reason you should be building that habit or that capital with yourself is so you can spend it on things that matter, which is yourself or people that you care about.

20:10I actually think it's probably great to step away every now and then. You and I were texting about this, like sort of like a routinized life. And I felt really kind of sloppy about being like, you know, I used to have really obsessive routines and I was very regimented and I was producing very regimented work. And I realized sometimes the best thing I can do is step away for a couple hours. In order for art to imitate life, you have to have a life, right? So it's like, let me just allow life to inspire me and let spontaneity happen. I now know that the way that I'm built, the amount of validation and success I need in order to function is so high that even if I'm at 80%, it's still going to probably be overachievey bullshit.

20:54So a lot of times the best thing I could do is go to the farmer's market or quote unquote waste time. I think as an artist, you're never wasting time. As a writer, as a philosopher, you're never wasting time because you're going to go, oh, I have to run this errand and I'm going to be taken away from my book. And then you're going to see some crazy shit that happens at the pharmacy and you're like, oh my God, I have to like write about that. Or I never thought about that, et cetera. Or you're going to put in a podcast on the way and go, oh, Ryan Holiday just said this thing. I need to go write this thing.

21:16Yeah. You're getting material and you have a greater sense of that you're always working, even if you're not sitting at the - I found when I was working my hardest, I didn't have enough original ideas. I mean, I remember being in a writer's room when I was making a TV show and was working 18-hour days, weekends, killing it, banging out scripts, was doing two sitcoms simultaneously, and we'd be in the writer's room and it was a show about a couple, right? And we're pitching on. So like, what would the couple do on like a Saturday night? You know? And someone was like, oh, well, what if they like go to a baby shower?

21:51I'm like, people don't go to baby showers. They're like, well, what if they went to like a wine tasting? I'm like, oh, wine tasting. That's like a thing you do in a sitcom. And they're like, Whitney, people have lives. I'm like, what if they're home like working on their like making their side hustle a business? Like what if they're trying to make their website into like a brand? And they're like, Whitney, no, This is your workaholism. Yeah, you have no sense of what life actually is because you're... Not living one. Yeah. Not living one. When I remember right when my wife was pregnant, we were about to have kids.

22:23And I was being interviewed. This New York Times reporter was at my house. And she was like, show me your routines. I'm like walking her through all this stuff. And she was like, how do you think your routine will change when you have kids? And I was like, oh, I don't think it will change. That's what I said. I was like, I don't think it will change. Because I have this system and all kinds. And of course, it totally blew my life up. But in a really good way, I was forced to like because my routine was, although effective, fundamentally selfish and self-indulgent. And so my day was revolving around me and my preferences.

22:58Right. And then so somebody else or something else comes into that and it's forced, it forces you to first off eliminate all the inessential, inefficient parts of your routine life. Right, right, right. Because you're like. You realize what I've been doing in eight hours, I could probably do it in four. Yeah. And then you also realize like that your consistency slash regularity is also a form of fragility. Because you need it to be a certain way. And so and then you make it that way and you build things around it as though you are in control and that you can always make it this way and you can't.

23:38And then life or children or something comes in and goes, actually, fuck all that. Yeah. Start over. And that's actually really good. So I think in the beginning, it's really important for discipline. Like I see so many people that are like trying to start writing or trying to start comedy or whatever. And in the beginning, I think it's like get up. If you're going to do stand up, get up five nights a week, write for an hour a day, get first thing in the morning when you have the most energy before you get on your phone, make sure you're right. I think it's really important in the beginning. But then I think you got to know when you can trust yourself and know like, OK, like now I kind of the best thing I can do is watch someone else's stand up.

24:12The best thing I can do is read a book. The best thing I can do is like watch a movie like a stupid watch Paul Blart Mall cop. You know what I mean? Or like take care of my health or like go stretch or something. You know, I think it's like important to know when it's time to update your software and update your routine and maybe make it less rigid after a while. Because for me, it's like I used to think, OK, I have to do like 50. I have to do an hour of this stand up of 50 cities everywhere in the country to make sure it works everywhere. For a special. For a special. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be like, I need to make sure this works everywhere.

24:41And I need to make sure it works in Wisconsin. It works in Florida. It works everywhere. It works in Vegas because that's a cross section of the world. And now I'm kind of at the point where I'm like, if I have a premise going or I'm like incubating. I can hop on Zoom with like four comics and be like, is there anything to this? Is this funny? Have you heard this? And I kind of just say it and they're like, yep, thumbs up. And I'm like, I got it. I know what to do. Whereas before I'd be like, this isn't going to take me a year. And at the time it did, but then I had to update my software and go like, I've got all these muscles in place now and I need to know when I can trust myself and know the best thing I can do as an artist and as an observational person is like, go to the grocery store, go sit in traffic, listen to somebody else talk it out of your own head i really like that updating the software metaphor because i think so there's two ways to think about it right one which is it takes 50 hours to do a special or whatever or um your like it takes 50 hours that's what it takes and so anytime you're trying to rationalize doing 40 hours or 30 hours this other way is you cutting corners and telling like you getting complacent or coasting, right?

25:47Which some people do. They get successful and they coast and they get worse. I see a lot of, thanks for pointing that out. Cause a lot of people get mediocre, but a lot of times they get mediocre because they get in front of their fans who already have a vested interest in thinking this has to work. They already paid $50 and they got parking and they paid for a babysitter and they already know you're funny. Sometimes you got to get up, not in front of your fans, but your enemies. You got to get up in front to some comedians that don't want you to have a great next special, even if they're your friends are going to be competitive.

26:16And what you want at that point is I'm new. Ah, God damn it. That's funny shit. Yeah. I wish I'd thought of that. And I'm like, all right, I have something there. But, but if doing it and getting better at it, isn't also making you more efficient, like, or stronger at it, then what does that say? Like the idea that it should take the same amount of time or cost the same amount of money or cost the same amount of whatever to like, then you're maybe not getting better, right? I might be preparing different ways at this point. So instead of going in front of a bunch of people who have already paid to see me and already know me and like me, I might go to a dinner party and be sitting next to someone that clearly we disagree on everything and run some shit by them and just argue with them for a while and go like, okay, that was helpful.

27:01Just knowing like other ways. It's like, you know, to train. Yeah. It's like if my first book required me sitting in this chair, no exceptions for this amount of time, that's great. But now I've done that So the next time it would be weird if I had to I had to be stuck in the same box. And then as you do it more and more and longer, if you're not getting more efficient and the process isn't changing, then it feels like that feels like probably the wrong way to do it, too. So and then also figuring out what year I'm so sorry to interrupt. I'm just so afraid I'm going to forget this because I think it might be useful to your listeners who I know are edification junkies like us, which is also going, what's my goal for the next one?

27:38I go like, okay, these jokes were great in this one, but this next special, I want to be more conversational. So it's like my, like I've done six specials. I've won, you know, that's about to come out. That's more conversational. The ones before I always wrote it out, right? I'm in front of a Word document. Here's a joke. Here's a setup. This past one, I went, you know what? I'm only going to talk into my voice memos when I'm walking. I'm just going to, and then I'm going to transcribe it later because I found myself, things were too surgical. They were too sharp. It was all about editing and not just about like flow.

28:06and I had a completely different process. I was like not even in an office. I was walking around saying the jokes, working them out, sort of having a conversation with myself. I probably looked like a crazy person in my neighborhood and then I transcribed it. So it was a completely different process. Yes. And it should, that's also challenging yourself and being disciplined. Like the discipline to say, I'm going to do it differently. Or like on one, a couple of books ago, I was like, I'm going to start like every one of my books up until this point has been miserable writing it, I'm going to also not hate myself and make other people hate me while I do it.

28:41Like I'm going to enjoy it and not be, I'm not going to let it like destroy me. And so that took a different kind of discipline. And weirdly it took the discipline to say, I'm going to take today off instead of like insisting on doing it today or whatever. And the idea of, of that discipline taking different forms. This is a more masterful understanding even of what discipline is. I got an amazing night's sleep last night. One, because my six-year-old fell asleep in the car at like six o 'clock and he transferred him from the car seat to the bed and it stuck, which is just magic. So he's in bed way earlier than normal.

29:19But 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 8 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. And then I can check the app and it tells me my sleep score.

30:02It even helps me optimize my day based on how I slept. If you wanna survive the holidays like a pro and just generally sleep better, head over to eightsleep.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 8sleep.com slash dailystoic. 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 into Austin and bought a truck.

30:52What 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. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven it 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.

31:34Toyota 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. Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. This is a weird mind trick that I'm going to pitch.

32:11So the last like 10 or so years, my parents have been in hospitals. They had strokes very young. And so I've been in like ICUs and nursing homes and that kind of stuff. And it was so brutal for so long. I wrote a lot of comedy in the waiting rooms of ICUs and stuff. And I was so excited to not be staring at death and to be around such horror. I also would see sitcoms playing in the ICU rooms. I would see these families that were sobbing and then they'd be watching Reba and then they'd be around their dying relative and they'd be watching Seinfeld. So there was kind of this magical thing happening that was like, okay, I'm going to put something in that box that's going to brighten people up.

32:51But I also needed the escape so badly. And I think that if you don't need the escape like that, don't poison your parents or anything. but I think it's also important to put yourself in a situation where the hard thing you're doing is a respite. So whether it's you're doing some brutal workout in the morning or you're going to go be of service and volunteer somewhere. Like I always tell people, like, make it so that you have to do what you're doing. Make it so it's like a fun break. Like your drudgery of writing the thing is kind of a fun respite from something else. Maybe it's a respite from having to deal with your kids that are freaking out, whatever it is.

33:28But that accidentally happened. And then I started doing it intentionally. I started going, oh, I'm going to go visit my mom and I'll finish the script there because I know I'll finish it in the lobby. I know that if I just stay home all day and do it here, I'm going to find a million other things to do. But if I go visit her and then go in the lobby for an hour, I will bang this out. Yeah. Maybe the question is like, am I doing the easy thing or the hard thing? Yep. So it's like, are you laying around watching TV because writing is hard and you don't want to write or are you saying no like i'm gonna go do this self-care day or i'm gonna do this it's if you're taking the easy way out it's probably the wrong thing if you're actually challenging yourself in some way and that challenge can take a variety of forms that's then you're probably doing the right thing do you ever bribe yourself in what way like i'll do like if i finish five pages of this i get to call my friend nikki and tell her about that date last night, but not until I do five pages.

34:27No, you know, that's a small little silly treat. But then it's like, you know, or like, if I get this done, I get to have a steak for dinner. Like it's little things to kind of trick yourself. I've gone through a lot of these. I haven't done a lot of those in a while. But little things like that have helped me before. No, I don't really do. I do that like when I'm like working out or like, let's say I'm swimming, I think about it in small chunks. So I don't go like I'm swimming a mile. I'm swimming seven sets of however many. And then I'm trying to create the momentum of like finishing. Yeah. You break it down.

34:57Little things. Cause like to go like, if know the thing that you're addicted to and then reward yourself with it. So today it would probably be, okay. You know, if I write these five pages, I get to go on Instagram for 20 minutes. You know what I mean? Or just like finding a way to bribe yourself. I get to go buy something on Etsy for$50, like whatever little thing. I found with like the other change I'm making, and I wondered if when you were saying you're not a routine person, I think as I've gotten older, have kids been doing this longer, I don't think about it as having a routine. I think about it as having routines, like plural, like, like I'm switching to a new routine because it's daylight savings.

35:36And it is not possible for me to run in the evenings where I live. So like now I have to get up earlier and I have to do it in the morning. right and so oh wow there's the routine when on this day of the week when both the kids are in school and then there's a routine when only one of them is in school and there's a routine where where one of them's sick or there's a routine when i've been traveling like i have different routines that i i can sort of i'm never like oh just do whatever i want today it's like i have a book of routines that are all pre-approved and depending on the circumstances i I can pick one and it's got like good practices in it.

36:14And as long as the day is mostly made up of those good practices, it was a good day. Can I actually tell you I lied to you? Okay. I do have some routines, but I guess they're a little bit different than like the idea of you sit down and then you have this and you have the egg timer and that. Like I've done all that and you have the note cards. Mine are actually more about like hygiene and the night before. Oh. So little things that are going to throw you an hour off the next day, which making sure I have no excuse to procrastinate, right? Identify as a perfectionist. I know you talk about this a lot.

36:50Perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis. So the computer's plugged in the night before. The charger's in the wall. There's an extension cord. If my back hurts, the heating pad's already plugged in. I'm not going to spend 20 minutes the next day being like, well, where's the heating pad? Where's the extension? You know what I mean? Sure. Getting ahead of it, like cleaning the office ahead of time because I'll take the opportunity to go, well, these mugs from last night, it's cleaned up. Also, a big thing for me is because I work from home, a lot of people do now, no working in pajamas.

37:18You're getting up, you're washing your face, you're brushing your teeth, you're putting on underwear. In my case, it's always a thong because that's just psychologically like we're awake. Yeah, sure. Socks, shoes. I always wear sneakers inside when I'm writing. Because you're dressing for work. That's right. Yeah. dressing for work is a huge one. If you're just like in your pajamas, jammies and like roll up and they're just like, it's a mess. Like I personally can't get focused. I'm putting like lotion on, like I got my tea tree oil. Like I do have a little spruce oil and a tea tree oil. Cause I think like little smells like that, like just help kind of like with like Pavlovian cues, kind of that sort of thing.

37:56And I turned my phone and disturb. I mean the phone I have to put in the other room, but I do the do not disturb, like just little things like that just to eliminate future distractions. Yeah. I like the like sort of dressing as though it's serious. Like one of the reasons we got this whole place was like working from home. It's hard to have boundaries. That's right. And so like going to the office is good. But like, yeah, I do the same thing, even though the pandemic, it's like, I don't really wear like regular clothes anymore. I'm mostly like wearing workout clothes, but it's like what you wear under them, like underwear, clean underwear, clean socks and shoes.

38:28For me, it's it's showering and shaving in the morning, Even though I can't really grow a beard, but the process of being clean shaven is to me a message to myself that like work is starting and you're wiping the slate clean and you're an adult. Pavlov's eye drops. Whatever the thing is for you that wakes you up and signals like we're working now. Yes. And do you have those for different things? Like I have like my on the road ones like I shower before I give a talk and I crank it to cold at the end. or, you know, like I do certain things. Like there's not just the general routine, but there's also the kind of little like before you go on stage rituals.

39:08Do you have? The before I go on stage rituals are normally like just about hydrating and eating and that kind of thing and make sure the Sharpies are in play. Like afterwards, there's like meet and greets. It's kind of more being prepared for what happens afterwards when people rush to the stage. I want to have my Sharpies. You know, I got to make sure there's a clock on stage, sound check, kind of stuff like that. I think now I'm at the point as a standup where I want to be as spontaneous as possible when I go on stage. But I think for me, the routine is more about having, you know, four or five references and jokes about the specific city that will make them feel special, you know, which is, you know, maybe more applicable to people that go in for job interviews or, you know, are speaking on podcasts or something like doing research about the place that I am so that I go out there and I'm not just doing a generic show that I do in every city.

39:56Like I have a couple of things in my back pocket, which makes me feel like way more free. Like I know that, you know, the grocery store is Bucky's instead of, you know, giant or whatever, you know, and I'll like read the news of the city, like local news so that when something comes up and someone yells something out, it's like, oh, well, there's a serial killer that just pushed someone off a bridge or whatever it is, you know? So I think it's just more making sure that I'm super prepared to be spontaneous. Yeah. There's a Flaubert quote. It's something like if you can be orderly in your personal life.

40:26Orderly and regular in your personal life, you could be brave and violent in your professional life. Yeah. It's my favorite. The idea of being chaotic and spontaneous on stage or in the work, whether it's painting or writing or the sales call, it starts by being somewhat orderly in the other stuff. Orderly and regular. And this is, I live by this quote, so interesting you brought it up, because we were kind of texting and talking about inspirational quotes and books and such. And I think that when I was thinking about what books would I say are my favorite books or most influential books and a lot of relationship books kept coming up.

41:04And I was like, oh, is this going to sound like I'm like, you know, I know that people listen to this podcast. It's all about business. It's all about being an entrepreneur. It's all. But I believe that your relationship is a business decision, not because you're going into business with your spouse or starting a company. If you can do that, Godspeed. I haven't seen a lot of people work with the person they're with and it goes swimmingly. But because of the person you choose is going to decide how much energy you have and what the quality of your work life is like. So it's like I find that when it comes to choosing a mate, sometimes a lot of your work should go into getting that right.

41:40So that your actual work is not going to be constantly affected because you're constantly distracted and you're cleaning up messes and you're unhappy and you're depleted. Like the most successful people I know have or like regular kind of boring, amazing relationships. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be tethered to reality in some way so you can be kind of crazy and out of it. It's like Rick Rubin says like your work should be the most stressful part of your day. Yeah. You shouldn't go home to chaos. Yes. At least chaos from kids, that's different. Sure. But you shouldn't have to go home and go to war.

42:14Yeah, that's right. Yeah, there's this Cyril Connolly line and he says, the most somber enemy of good art is the pram in the hall, like the stroller in the hall, which is like about the saddest quote you can ever hear. And I don't, I find it to be not true at all. I found that sort of having kids is very rooting and it created structure and it created prioritization. and it opened me up in a bunch of ways that were necessary. But I do think if you don't have structure and routine, it's very hard to have the safe space you need to be crazy in the work because your whole life is crazy. You need this like, I'm going into the workspace now.

42:59I think it's also just boils down to energy. And I make this silly metaphor sometimes about energy dollars, which is like, let's say you have a hundred energy dollars a day. Like we have a finite amount of energy a day. Right. And it drives my friend nuts. Cause I'm like, Hey, do you want to come do this thing tonight? And I'm like, I don't have any energy dollars left. Like, it's not, I'm not making this choice. It's just, I've spent them all today, you know? So it's like, okay, I have a hundred energy dollars today. I woke up, I wrote for three and a half hours. That was like 30 energy dollars.

43:28And then I went for a run. That was like 15 energy dollars. And then I had this call and this Zoom. And that was like, and so let's say we're at 80 energy dollars at 6 o 'clock. And then my man comes home and it's like, well, I need to hear about his day. And I want to hear what's going on with him. And I want to make him dinner. And then we're going to jump in bed or do whatever we're going to do. And like, it's now 830 and I'm at 100 energy dollars. And a friend calls and is like, I need to talk to you about my ex-boyfriend. And I'm like, I'm going to be taking energy dollars from tomorrow then.

43:54And then I'm going to start tomorrow at a deficit. So I can't take your call tonight. But I can talk to you first thing in the morning. and then I'll make that hour zoom a half an hour zoom. Like I, maybe that's where my routines come in because I, I don't believe that when you're working at a deficit energy wise, you're doing anybody a service by talking to them on the phone, getting on your computer, sending that email, whatever it is. So I just stay really loyal to a finite amount of energy. And I see a lot of people destroying careers because they're spending most of their energy in some relate toxic relationship where they're fighting and in some, you know, recreating their childhood circumstance and some pugnacious acrimonious thing that's just like draining all their energy.

44:36And it's like, are you getting paid to be in this relationship? Because you could be using all this in your work. Sure. No wonder you're not getting anything done. Yeah. Or they're just spending the energy just saying yes to a bunch of things that they shouldn't be doing. You're not. It's a big one. You're not doing the main thing, which is the actual creative work. And then it also really helps with like, for me, yes, every time someone cuts me off in traffic, I live in Los Angeles, I want to like follow them for 25 minutes, like, but that's going to be 15 energy dollars. So you it kind of things get really simple when you boil it down to like, Oh, am I going to give my energy to that thing?

45:13Yeah, because if I'm giving it to this, I'm taking it away from this. Yeah. And that's not paying me. Right. I try to get like really simple when it comes to that. When I think about it's like I promised a certain amount of that to the work which is like what fulfills me and you know challenges me and is exciting and also pays the bills and then I promised the bulk of it to family like I made this choice like no one told me I had to but I I did it and so I just really can't afford any of this other stuff but it's also like I was talking about this to someone the other day um about sort of all these high perform this like moment of all these like high performers and and one of them came up and someone's like how come people don't like this person, you know?

45:55And I was like, I think it's because they don't walk the walk and they come off like a hypocrite. This person talks all about extending your life and having balance and how to, you know, not work so hard and work so smart. And all they do is work and they have no life. Right. So I look at you and I go like, yeah, the ego is the enemy. You've written all these amazing books and you have the life that I want. So I'm going to trust you. You have a family, you're well balanced, you know what I mean? So it's like when you see all these people, they're like get it together and go to therapy and do this and da da da and they're just kind of like alone and miserable you're like well why am i gonna listen to you like i sure i just want to make sure that you're walking the walk that's true so it's like you the family's kind of the thing yeah do you know this term art monsters no oh some female writer song where she's like i want to be an art monster meaning like only the art and fuck everything and everyone else because that's what basically male artists have been called a narcissist male artists have been allowed to be this for basically all of you know your hemming ways it's just the like they they made amazing stuff but then they left this like wake of destruction and pain and broken people behind them yeah and uh in a way it's easier to be that or it's way easier to be that it's not necessarily more fun in the long run also paint back then was very toxic they were all high they were all like brain dead right they were like drinking out of lead yeah they were just inhaling lead all day let's give them a little break but but you know what i mean this idea of like um i i think it's radical selfishness or something yeah but but just like at the end of your life if you have like a this stack of this work but it came at this cost you're not going to be like, oh, it's totally worth it.

47:43I think it's also knowing when to do that. I did that in my 20s hard. I was not fit to be in a relationship with anybody. I was not the person that someone that I would have wanted would have been attracted to. I think I had some kind of like Darwinian understanding of like my 20s is when to go the hardest ambition wise and to be that selfish because otherwise I'm just going to be selfish in a relationship with somebody. I'm just going to hurt somebody. I'm going to lie to someone. I'm going to cheat on someone. You know And then in my 30s, I kind of tried to find balance relatively unsuccessfully.

48:15And now I'm kind of like, oh, I think it's OK to be kind of let yourself be that selfish in your 20s and kind of know when to, again, update your software. And but what if you didn't make it? Not not like you didn't make it career wise, which could also work. Yeah. But like you can also pick up habits or make decisions that are catastrophic. Right. or fatal even. Sure. Right? So it's like the idea of being like profoundly unbalanced for a period and then balancing out, it worked in your case. Yeah. But I'm sure there are people you met or were peers of yours that haven't come out of that spiral.

48:56And maybe they can't come out of that spiral. They can't pull themselves out of that dot. And it's interesting because it's like you say peers. And I think it also helps to go. And someone said this to me very early. And I'm very, I'm, this is embarrassing, but I'm going to say it. I made vision boards, cut out in magazines, printed out, Comedy Central presents on a printer at Kinko's, cut it out, glued it on. Speaking of inhaling chemicals, I do love rubber cement. Maybe that was why. And this is what I want. Like, I was very I was reading The Secret. I was like and look, I'm not saying necessarily like The Secret is real.

49:35a lot of people I know that got into it did get successful. Maybe it's just the kind of person that would buy that book is already the kind of person that's working hard. It's like vitamins. I know they work, but it's also if you're the kind of person buying vitamins, you're probably taking care of yourself in a lot of other ways too. So is it the vitamins or is it the other variables, whatever. So I was just obsessed with putting it out there, saying it, I'm going to do this. There's just no other option. I was very calculated about it. And someone said to me, because I was like, oh, who should I put on my vision board?

50:05Like, what people? And someone said, pick three careers that you want. Okay. Not 50. Yeah. Not peers. Because you can look at someone and go like, oh, he's doing well. But like. You don't know. I don't know the whole thing. Yeah. And just do what they did. I picked Ellen. Okay. Was one of them. Yeah. Jon Stewart was one of them. And Roseanne was one of them. Okay. And I studied how long they worked at it. Like, because that was back in the day when you would, you know, be a comic for 20 years before you would get The Tonight Show. You know, now you can kind of like do some TikToks and get some visibility and, you know, you can get famous, but you might not be great yet, whatever.

50:39So I was like, oh, I have 20 years. Like I have to work hard for 20 years. Like I already kind of had that. And I was like, I need to turn 20 years into 15 years. That's too long. So I was like double psycho. But I think it's important like when people are trying to figure out the career they want or like who to compete with or who to aspire to, like don't pick, don't look at everybody. Just look at like two or three people. Yeah. That helped me because when people are like, well, so-and-so is doing this. I'm like, I don't, I'm looking here. This is the person I chose to emulate. So I just, I can't.

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53:39That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code STOIC. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. See, when I look back on that period, it's like when I was in my 20s, I was basically working sort of three simultaneous careers. And I definitely think I fast forward, you know, you get your 10 ,000 hours, I was doing them three hours at a time. It was great. But at the same time, how much of it was actually moving the needle and how much of it was my intensity and not being able to.

54:17Do you know what I mean? Like, like, like, could I have could I have actually done 70 percent as much and ended up in the exact same place? Probably did all these things that I thought were these sort of live or die moments or like everything was counting. It was all in my head. Here's this is this is what I'm going to say about you. And I'm going to say it right to the camera. I can tell who a person is based on the part of their Christmas tree that faces the wall. Okay. Do you decorate the part of the Christmas tree that faces the wall or not? Okay. Are you the person that just decorates... Around.

54:55Just where everybody kind of sees it? Sure. But that if a kid goes to go get something that's fallen, there's no magic in the back? So you think you should decorate the whole tree? Yes. Okay. So we're in a studio where you see there's a billion of these books. There's tons of books behind the cameras that no one can see. Okay. You're the person that goes all around the track. So you just said, like, could you have gotten away with 70 %? No, because people would have walked in here and been like, so you just stopped there? Well, it doesn't technically go all the way. But you didn't have to do that part.

55:30Do you know what I'm saying? No, I don't mean like I could have phoned it in. And I'm just saying like there was a, there was. But there's, I don't think our brains work that way. That's what I mean. I think your brain wants. It was just for me. You're either a cheater or you're not. You're either the kind of person that does the right thing when no one's, like, I think it's important to know yourself about that when you want to cheat. And you're like, I could totally get away with this. But then I would know. But see, I've also been to workaholics meetings or many of them. And part of the reason you're going is because you don't have a healthy relationship of what you should and shouldn't be doing.

56:02Sure. Is it a compulsion? Does it stop if it's diminishing marginal returns or if it's a if it stops being fun? Right. Which is a trick thing for work, because like for most addictions, they say like, OK, you know, it's an addiction if it stops being fun and becomes an obligation. Right. Is it making your life unmanageable? But works tricky because you're like, well, it is for now. But if I just finish this book, then I'm gonna get this money and it's not going to be unmanageable. You know, right. It's a tricky one to know. But I always just say go balls to the wall because if it doesn't work out, you'll always know you want balls to the wall.

56:33Yeah. Yeah. I just like I just think of the things that I thought mattered so much. And in retrospect, they were all part of a larger inability to sort of separate what was really important from what wasn't in a kind of a compulsion, like rooted in a in a kind of anxiety and also a need to prove something to people. what else though? I get to move through life when people are like, so I have imposter syndrome. I'm like, I don't, I actually believe I deserve more than I have. You know what I mean? Like I see people that are like, I'm just not sure if I deserve that. I'm like, I don't have to live like that at all.

57:09You know, I, I, I don't want anything I don't deserve. I like knowing I went a little harder than I needed to. Um, I like knowing that I got everything honestly. I, I, I kind of now that I look back at that, because I could easily say like, oh, that was kind of pathological how hard you worked. Yeah. I'm like, I just don't believe in wasted time like that when it comes to, you know, it's like Johnny Carson used to say, there's no such thing as a wasted written joke because a B like, you know, a B joke that you maybe don't that you've written that doesn't work on stage extemporaneously. It's an A joke.

57:42So I have notebooks of jokes that have never gone on stage, but like I'll use them at some point. or also just writing them was itself good right yeah yeah totally it was a rep yeah it's like saying like oh like running that extra mile every day you know when i was training like was a waste of time i could have just ran five and i ran six it's like well it's kind of hard to tell because you're also here how can you say that it didn't work yeah i mean the stuff you cut from the book is still informing what it was it's still practice it's all it's practice is practice yeah and you need contrast, you know?

58:17So it's like, it's after you make pasta, you strain out the water. That doesn't mean putting the water in was a waste of time. No, definitely not. That's a great metaphor. You know, do you, when you got the success you were working so crazy hard for though, were you like, what did it feel like? Did it, were you actually able to feel it in any way? I think maybe that's why when I look back on it, I go, I thought this was going to give me something. I thought I was going to feel a certain way. And of course you don't get it at all. Like, it's like this, I mean, I'm, I'm making myself laugh because it is, you know, I don't know if you've ever gone into, I'm in a program called ACA, which is adult children of alcoholics, which is if you just grew up and I know people shut down when they hear that word sometimes, you know, we say in order for alcoholism to be present, alcohol doesn't have to be present.

59:01So I actually come from a lot of workaholism, you know, our moms were the first women that were really in the workforce. I went to work with my mom and, you know, I sat there, she worked at Bloomingdale's as she ran around like a crazy person. My dad, I'd wake up in the middle of the night to go get a snack and he'd be recopying phone number. You know, I grew up around addiction, um, compulsive behavior, alcoholism, all kinds of stuff. But, um, uh, you know, I would go to a lot of open AA meetings to learn about alcoholism because they, you know, when someone else is drinking and it's bothering you or doing drugs and bothering you, they're not doing it at you.

59:31They're not doing it, you know, and they say, you know, alcoholics drink because they think they have to. Right. And another thing that they would say in there, I don't lose my I trained a thought is you would hear alcoholics talk and they would say, when I took my first drink, I didn't feel good. Yeah. I felt normal. Yeah. Or relief. Yes. I felt like the way I think everyone else, when I felt my first success, I wasn't like, I made it. I was like, oh God, now I can relax. Yeah. It was kind of more like that in a way. Later, I was able to celebrate victories more, but for me, it was a little more like that feeling of I felt normal.

1:00:10I felt full for the first time instead of like I had a bonus of all the success. I felt like I wasn't at a deficit. You know Tank Sinatra, right? Yes. Yeah. He was saying, he was talking to someone and he was like, you know, what do you do to fill the hole? And they were like, what hole?

1:00:28And it's like, if you know, you know. If you know, you know. If you're someone who has, like I like what you were saying, it's about getting to even. Like I think some people think that you're driven you're trying to do all this stuff to feel like the ecstasy of success and actually it's more like a relief of a kind of a pain or a distress it work is one of the few places where i feel emotionally regulated right that's right and present um because regular life is not that and so yeah you have this fantasy that like getting it's going to make you feel good and it just makes you feel like not bad yeah that's exactly kind of it and i don't you know and like we can pathologize it all day long but you know i think that like you know it's cooperation and productivity makes dopamine it's like blame neuroscience you don't have to blame everything else for it you know and i mean there's worse things by the way there's worse things yeah and it's also it's you know i'm a really big fan of healthy addictions you know i think addictive you know neurochemistry it's it can just make you or break you and i know that i've got it and i feel really lucky that i've been able to kind of reroute some of my addictive you know circuitry to something positive, you know, if you're like, all right, I'm going to be addicted to improving myself.

1:01:36I'm addicted to Ryan Holiday's podcast. I'm addicted to his books. I'm addicted to, you know, listening to these great podcasters. When you're addicted to porn and it's alcohol, that's when things start to shit. It's the fan. But if you can sort of have that warrior spirit and reroute it, I'm like, okay, there's worse things to be addicted to than, you know, building success. I grew up, you know, with a mom who had to date men. She didn't want to have to do that. It's better than being a grifter. All the energy that I spent in my 20s trying to get successful, people are like, you're so ambitious.

1:02:06And why are you working so hard? I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm not gold digging men. What's my other option here? And so for me, I was trying to make people laugh for a living. I think if you have an honorable goal of trying to help people learn and help people grow and make people laugh, it's taken me a long time to not have to be like, I'm crazy and messed up just because I want to be successful and make as many people laugh as possible. It's like, maybe that's okay. Yeah. Is your thing making the world better or is your thing additive or extractive? Yeah, totally. I'm not becoming a famous standup so that I can prey on people or abuse, you know what I mean?

1:02:42Or say gross stuff. Or some businessman who takes over companies and fires all the employees to extract an extra 2 % profit or return on his event. There's good ways to fill the hole and bad ways to fill the hole. Yeah, totally. And I think that, you know, so for me, it's it's so in my nature to be self-deprecating going, oh, I'm this narcissist. Like, so is this, you know, self-absorbed and da da da. But like, just get out of there, you know, give yourself permission to shine and do something honorable. And I think there's you know, I love podcasts like yours because I think there's a lot of weird shame around ambition.

1:03:19And there's a lot of weird shame about saying, like, I want to be famous. Yeah, I want to be rich. you know I think there's I'm grew up without you know so maybe it's less shame for me and you know something we'll get to talk about Robert Greene in your past with him later but something that was before I even read the 48 laws of power any of that the cover was enough for me to go like oh I that's what I want I didn't realize what I wanted was power oh just the word just the word power sure you just came out and said it I want power yeah because you don't feel like you have it. Say it. What's wrong with saying it?

1:03:55You know, and something that, you know, the one thing I will say sort of, I think in the beginning, I thought I wanted fame because that's what you think you want. You know, I grew up around a bunch of alcoholics. When we got, I couldn't get their attention. We'd get home. They'd be watching the TV. My dad would be watching SNL and Rodney Dangerfield. Couldn't get his attention. And I just, I went, my brain, got to get in the box. I got to get in there. And that was it. That's all. That's all. One moment happened from then on out. Very embarrassing. I would be in my room alone practicing being on talk shows whenever I would eat.

1:04:23I would pretend I was in commercials. Like I was, I was getting in that box, you know? So I went, okay, I think I need fame. And then I hear on Howard Stern, Bill Murray one time is on and Howard Stern's like being famous. That's, tell me it's the worst, right? Or whatever. And Bill Murray just went, try getting rich and see if you still need to be famous. And I went, oh, wait, I think that's what I want. Wait, ah, yeah, I want to be able to pay my bills. I want freedom. And then Robert Greene made me go, no, I want power. Sure. The power to say no if I don't want to do something. The power, like.

1:04:58Autonomy. You want control over your life. That's right. Yeah. That's right. It is funny, like, when you get, because I think what we're, the root of a lot of what we're talking about is just plain old self-awareness. And you get that usually with some distance and perspective and therapy and whatever. but like how transparent and obvious it is in retrospect why we did certain things like for me my parents were were not like neglectful in that sense but they were like the not nice way to say it would be like they're like star fuckers and that they were very interested in people who were interesting like oh we went on vacation you know who we saw or like so and so lives in this town and you've seen his house so there was a lot of like like keeping up with the joneses type thing No, no, they were just that their currency was like knowing about and being impressed by like important people that lived nearby or.

1:05:48The most important thing in my mom's apartment was a framed photo of her and Bill Clinton. Sure. Yes. So so this was this was more like, yeah, so like where they live, it'd be like, did you know some 80s rock star has a house, like a really nice house up the street from us like that kind of being proximity or adjacent to like people who. done things that people had heard. Which are we designed to, this might be from the Sapiens book that were designed when you go into a room to rank yourself. Yeah, you're supposed to know the hierarchy and be aware of what's happening in the tribe so the tribe doesn't kick you out.

1:06:21Before Instagram, how else did you gossip about rich people? But they were very interested in that. And so, and then not, it didn't feel like that interested in me as me, right? Interesting. So it's like how obvious in retrospect, I went out and did a bunch of things to check boxes. And then it happened. Like it happened that like their friends would be like, wait, are you, is he your kid? You know, that kind of thing. Wow. And then what did it do? It did nothing. It did nothing, not only for me, but like actually didn't do anything for them either because fundamentally there was some problem, right?

1:06:57Like you do it all because you want some sense of power or control or autonomy, or you want to impress certain people you want to shove it in people's faces and then you realize you can't actually get it i also just love like like you being like it didn't do anything for me it didn't do anything for that meanwhile millions of people like ryan's book changed my life you're like oh it's kind of a fool's air i do the same thing i don't think it's a fool's air you know just realize you realize that that can't you can't do it for you have to do it because you like it and it's fulfilling to you and soothing to you and meaningful that original wound doesn't get healed by it, but it is the absent, like the catalyst.

1:07:32Yeah. If you felt like you were playing football to impress your dad, it doesn't matter how many Super Bowls you win. Your dad will, you will never feel like your dad's fully impressed because there's always this sense of I'm doing it for him and you, you don't control other people and you'll never get from them what only you can give to yourself. And I, and yeah, and I think it's taken me a long time to go like, oh, that's my origin story, not my assignment kind of like, you know, like I just lost both parents. And after the second one died, I was like, well, now what? I was like floating through space.

1:08:09And I was like, and I did feel almost instantly like my drive kind of lift. I was just sort of like, oh, I really was trying to impress them. I really was trying to get them to, you know, and I was also, I think I love this shit because if we're on the self-awareness thing, birth order is also kind of a thing that took me a while to unlock. I was 13 months younger than my older sibling, obviously a mistake. They called me a surprise, but like I knew it. Yeah. I knew I could feel it. And I think a lot of really successful people are the youngest child and they kind of, they had to fit into an already established system, which is a big thing.

1:08:45You have to kind of learn how to be a chameleon and kind of like, you know, fit into something or you become like super stubborn because you're like my niece, who's the youngest is like, we're doing it my way in this because she doesn't want to fit into this already established system. She feels like all this pressure to sort of be super independent. And I always felt like I was on borrow time. I was a hassle. I was an extra expense. And I felt it from them too. They're like, you know, and so I felt like I had to be super successful and overachieve and be needless and wantless and perfect as to not like rock the boat because I was already pushing it.

1:09:18I remember my, I grew up in Sacramento. So all I wanted to do was go to school in Southern California because that seems so different. Yeah. And my parents had very low sort of not they had high expectations, which it was clear I was not meeting, but they had low that high standards, which I was not meeting, but they had low expectations. So like there was this sense that I was like, I wasn't the one that was going to go places. Right. So I remember I remember like I wanted to go to Pepperdine. And so which is because that like on paper, it looks like the greatest school in the world. So I remember I finally bullied them into sort of letting me to her and they take me.

1:09:54And I remember my mom's walking me around and she goes, you know, she's like, you know, this school is like$30 ,000 a year. And I'm sure it's way more now. She goes, you would have to become very successful to be worth this. And so you go, okay, so yes, There was this understanding that you're only worth something if you create a return on investment, which is fundamentally not what a parental child relationship is supposed to be. So you pick up these sort of assumptions, these offhanded comments that sort of reveal to you the logic of the world. You get these scripts. And that was a later script, right?

1:10:34That was like in late high school. But I imagine there must have been versions of this over and over and over again. And then it's a process as you get older. Those scripts take you to a certain place. And then you realize they were adaptive. And now they're becoming maladaptive. And you have to adjust and update the scripts or the software, as you were saying, to find something, a logic about the universe and yourself that's both sustainable and fair and conducive to happiness and contentment. And also true. You know what I mean? You can pick up these scripts that things are scarce because they were scarce when you were a kid, but they're not scarce for you anymore.

1:11:13You've made all this money. You've had this. You don't have to act like you're about to run out of stuff. So you have to kind of update these scripts or these ideas as you go because they're based on assumptions that were either never true or are certainly not true anymore. And that's something I love about being in a 12-step program because even though it spooks people, it is free medicine and it does kind of wrangle very complicated brains. you know and there's this step where you write down your character defects okay which is what you're talking about all these survival mechanisms that served you very well as a child but now are obsolete and they're working against you and they are a liability and you're you know it's basically like um you know you've got a bunch of like tools and weapons but the war has been over right as uh the thing that kept me coming back is um this guy was uh speaking and he went i have good news and I have bad news.

1:12:02The good news is the war is over. The bad news is you lost. So just drop all the weapons, all these maladaptive behaviors, you know, drop the charges. And as I started working more with sponsees and stuff and realizing that, you know, this might get me in a little bit of trouble, but it wouldn't be the first time, which is going through. And I was like, why do they call them character defects? Like that's just such a negative term. Let's call them superpowers. and I kind of started getting into this just even if it's just a thought experiment you know anthropomorphizing these character defects superpowers of I have this thing where I need to people please I have this thing where whenever I go see someone I have to bring them a gift and be overly unctuous I have this thing where I set the caffeine mints I think I actually have some if you want some I got one right here um and uh you know this thing where after I leave the conversation.

1:12:57I have to go over it for 40 minutes and beat myself up. And, you know, I'm obsessed that someone doesn't like me when in fact they're not thinking about me at all. You know, the narcissism of the I'm a piece of shit in the center of the universe thing, whatever. And I kind of was like looking at a lot of my character defects slash superpowers. And I'm like, a lot of these have served me really well, too. They don't always serve me well in relationships. They don't always serve me well. But like they serve me really well when I'm at the comedy store at two in the morning and I, or when I'm in business with someone in Hollywood and I'm dealing with a really mercurial person who does have a lot of alcoholic characteristics, I'm the one that can deal with this person.

1:13:35No one else can. I know exactly like how to keep the room at 68 degrees and just be complimentary enough to this narcissist and kowtow, you know? And so I was like, maybe it's not about going, everything that happened is all bad. And let me just like over pathologize. Like I like to call it like trauma privilege, like just going like, what are the advantages I got from it? I can radically forgive everything my parents did because we forgive others. Not because they deserve forgiveness because we deserve peace. Forgiveness is selfish. And like, maybe just maybe I have a couple of advantages because of this, you know what I mean?

1:14:09And just so that I don't have to look at myself as a victim. And I think the key is kind of going, okay, to get rid of all these, maybe it's possible. I'm not going to do psychotherapy. I'm not, I'm not doing it. I just can't. There are certain things that I'm like, either don't have time to change that about myself, or I don't want to change that about myself. Or I'm kind of at a point where I know when to let it serve me. And I know when to, I didn't close the loop on anthropomorphizing it and being able to say like, you know what? I don't need that right now. I'm going to need you to sit this one out.

1:14:43That worked great when I was 10, but I'm actually on a date right now. And I need to not have that maladaptive behavior. Sure. But when I'm on set on Monday with that super abusive malignant narcissist, I'll see you there 10 a.m. Sure. You know, and it's kind of like a weird little exercise that I do. Using the traits instead of being used by the traits might be a way to think about it. The genius, of course, you know how to say that. So the perfectionism of I'm on this date with this guy and I'm obsessing over if my eyeliner is running and he doesn't give a shit, right? but hey, can you come back on Monday 10 a.m.

1:15:17because I'm editing my special and I'm really going to need you. Right. You know, because everything we have that's maladaptive is trying to protect us. It's trying to help us. And sometimes it does. And sometimes it really does. Yeah. You know, I think a non-controversial way that people can see this is like, with like frugality, like being frugal is obviously a good trait at the beginning of a career or a life, right? Understanding the value of money, being able to use it effectively, being able to reduce needs, not be wasteful. That's all great, right? That's how you accumulate. That's how you don't blow through it when there's not very much of it.

1:15:55And yet, if you are lucky enough to become successful, if that serves you well and you save the majority of your salary, you invest it properly, and now you have lots of it. What was the point of having lots of it if you cannot spend it. If you, if$1 still is$1 to you, because it's not right. Like $100 was a lot of money at one point in your life. And now depending on your net worth, $1 ,000 is a lot or$10 ,000 is a lot or sorry, is not a lot right. As, uh, if you could spend, uh, most people wouldn't think about spending a dollar and then someone who's worth a lot isn't spending thinking about spending$500 worth.

1:16:36And so the ability to update what money means to you and what your actual financial health or picture is, is this ability to update the script and your sense of the world based on the facts as they have changed. Because otherwise, again, what was the point of it? Why did you earn it all if you cannot spend it? If you're just trying to accumulate the most of it, and then you think you take it with you when you die, right? And so you're at what, because if you don't do that, what you've actually constructed for yourself is a very not nice prison of your own making. My God, I'm so sorry. This coaster and I are just in a fight.

1:17:13That just made me think of like really amazing advice I got once about money, which is because I had no idea how it worked. And someone, this business manager said to me, I mean, I live in California where the taxes are a nightmare. I'm an idiot, obviously. But everything you buy, like if you look at the price tag, it's double what the price tag is based on how much you have to earn and pay taxes on in order to afford it. So if something's$100, it's$200. If it's$50 sweater, it's$100 sweater. Just look at it that way because I could not get out from under money. I mean, the first year that I made any money, I owed tax.

1:17:57I lost money on taxes. I had to do 80 cities to pay. I had no idea how it worked. Because you go from getting a paycheck where it's all being deducted, and then you're getting what seems like a large amount of money to you, or not even, you sign a contract for a large amount of money, then actually it's split over four payments. There's commissions taken out, and then they're like 12 months from now, you're going to have to tell the IRS about it and pay them all at once. And make sure. Estimated for the next year. It's it's hard. And make sure when you make money. I don't know how I got this like instinct.

1:18:31I think it's because I grew up watching being in such chaos, being evicted from places, being sent home from school because the tuition wasn't paid. Use the first money you make to make your life better. Get health insurance. Sure. Take worries off your plate. Like that's the best use of money in the beginning. Yeah. Get take your computer to the Apple store and get an update, get the insurance on your computer. It's like stuff like that, that when you buy the purse, you're just adding anxiety to your life and making yourself less functional and less optimal. And it's like spending money on the stuff that's actually going to make it so that you have enough bandwidth to accomplish your goals and dreams.

1:19:10Like this is a really wild thing. My friends make fun of me about it. There you go. So I have a woman that is now like my family, Leslie, who is with me. She'll be helping raise my kid, all that. And she's been with me for 16 years. So I had a cleaning lady when I was 26 years old. I was maybe making$500 a week. And I remember going, I'm never going to make it if I don't have a cleaning. I lived in an apartment in Hollywood. And I was so obsessed with things being clean. And there were roaches. and it was this like nightmare plate. And I just was like, I also wore Velcro shoes to save time. Like I was a psych, cause I did the math on like, okay, it takes like 30 seconds a day to tie your shoes times 365 days.

1:19:58And I think I also probably wanted a friend and wanted somebody around and I wanted to learn Spanish and all these other things. But I just was like, I know I'm going to need this and I need it now. And I got her at that time before I had any. And that makes the personal life more orderly so you could be more chaotic. Instead of going to clubs or going, you know, whatever, you know, that's what I spent the money on. And I do think there was also a little bit of a manifesting, like I deserve, I'm going to start feeling the feelings and living the way that I want to live. They say you're like for a business you're supposed to hire for what you want the business to be.

1:20:37Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. I was like, I'm going to need one of these one day. So I need to get in on the ground floor with her now. Sure. You know, I need to develop this relationship early. Like it was this kind of psycho, but it did work. I mean, it did work. I wouldn't share any of these like psychotic things I did in my 20s if I hadn't stuck the landing on them.

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