1036: James Sexton | A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Lasting Love Part Two

24:32Overwhelming majority of people have absolutely no idea. That's what I mean is that people learn. Like if you genuinely wanted to improve the state of marriage or people's relationship to it, you would probably create some barriers to entry. Like to learn how to drive, you've got to take a written test that you know how the rules of the road work. Then you have to get a learner's permit. Then you have a period of time that's unwaivable that you have to learn how to drive. Then you have to take an exam that shows you know how to do this thing. And then you're allowed to get a driver's license. Marriage, you can meet a stripper in Vegas and Elvis will marry you for 50 bucks 20 minutes later.

25:10I was the best man at an Elvis wedding. And I have to say, they're divorced now, surprisingly. So you see the shock on my face. It wasn't even a spur of the moment decision, but still an Elvis wedding. Anyway, well, I digress. The reality is that I think most people who get married never educate themselves. I think in a perfect world, every person as part of getting a marriage license would have to spend an hour with a divorce lawyer. Make them take like, when's the last time you renewed your driver's license? That test was harder than I remember. Yeah. You changed states. Yeah. My dad was like, I don't think I can pass this test because he took the online version.

25:47And I was like, Hey, that might be an indication that you should no longer be driving. So I part-time when I first got out of graduate school, when we got my master's degree at NYU, before I went to law school, I was teaching at NYU and I was teaching a couple other colleges part-time just to make ends meet. I got$400 a credit. So that's how abysmally bad that market was. But it was a lot of money to me at the time I'd been a waiter. And one of the things that I used to do with my students, you would never be able to do this now. It would be considered like a hate crime but i used to because i taught courses in like culture and communication and i used to make my students take the citizenship exam for the united states it's a great idea all u.s citizens by birth you know the majority of my students were they were born in the united states they were naturalized citizens they never had to take citizenship exam the answers that i would get from students of like what are the three branches of the government and they would be like democrat republican conservative oh that's pretty bad like i mean you would look at it and just go okay but it's true like we we have taken for granted what we're supposed to know what it's assumed we know like it's assumed that the driver's test that you took whatever many years ago that you remember at a four-way stop what the order of who gets to go is right i don't think that's true.

27:09Based on what I've seen in terms of driving, I don't think most people remember this stuff. Similarly, I don't think most people remember basic civics, and I don't think most people remember anything they learned in driver's ed or anything they learned in basic civics. Like, I think if you gave most people the citizenship exam, they would fail. We don't deport people for failing the citizenship exam if you're already a citizen. But I have to tell you, your vote equals mine. And if you don't know the three branches of the United States government, why do you get to vote? Oh, it's funny you bring this up, man.

27:43There's a, I won't say them out loud, but there's always this, get everyone, get the vote out. And I always pass on the campaign and my sales team is like, why are you passing on this easy money? And the reason is because I don't think everybody should just go vote. In fact, I would rather that if you have no idea, and if you're one of those people who's like, oh, I like this guy's last name, it's really easy to remember. If that's how you vote? I beg you not to vote. An educated citizenry is the cornerstone of democracy. And the problem is for all of time, for all of time, people were like, I would vote for him.

28:15He seems like the kind of person he'd like to have a beer with. And people have been saying that since Alexander Hamilton's days. I mean, this is like a thing is that, oh yeah, he seems like a good dude, you know? And there's something to that. Like there's something to charisma, you know? Like I won't say that his charm had nothing to do with me voting for Obama. Like he was incredibly charming. He was a great, he seemed like a dude you'd want to hang out with. And he seems like a guy, if you hung out with him, it'd be fun to hang out with. You know, and he and Michelle, like they, there's a vibe there.

28:44Like the two of them look like, like they're still at it, you know, like that's, and I got to tell you, I love when I see married people that have been married for a while and they still look like if you walk them past a broom closet, they might just jump in there and have sex. I love, I'm like, you know what? Sign up, sign up for that. Sign up for that coupling. That's awesome. why you have those youtube comments stuff like this it might be i think this is this is it brings out a lot of feelings in people yeah i know people it brings out a lot of people who didn't turn it off because they're like he voted for obama i thought it was smart until then slam the door yeah i guess i said something about trump the other day about a prenup that one of his marriages had been challenged the prenup he had with ivanka i remember somebody wrote this thing about he was doing well until he started slagging donald trump and i was like guys i'm not political like this was not, I wasn't making fun of him.

29:29I was making fun of, you know, I was talking about his prenup and I was talking about, you know, how he, like any man did not see this blind spot in a prenup. And yeah, it's very charged times. People are just way, it's the joy of the internet is people are just dying to pillory you for something you said. I mean, it's almost like a sport. Doing what I do for a living though. I don't really let the praise in and I don't really let the criticism. It doesn't mean anything. I just keep doing my thing. Like doing what I do for a living, one side of the equation usually hates me. So there's a lot of people out there that just hate me.

30:02And I'm really comfortable with that. Like, it's fine. Being polarizing is not something I do as a strategy, but it's something that's a natural result of, well, my personality and the fact that I have a public microphone in front of me at any given time. But it's interesting about not letting the praise in and not let you almost, it would be amazing if you could only let the praise in, but then the criticism you could keep at bay unless it was constructive. It would be dangerous. But it's very hard to do. And you're right. It's not safe. Yeah, I think it'd be dangerous. It's not a good idea. Because I think that you'd get high on your own supply.

30:31Like, I think you would just very quickly spiral into a hubris. Whenever anybody says something, you know, like, oh, you're good at this or you're great at this. I always go, yeah, opinions vary. Like, and it's true. Opinions vary. Like, I don't know that I'm right. I never thought the things I have to say would reach the audience that they've reached. You know, when I think of the fact that at this point, tens of millions of people have spent several hours listening to me, that's shocking. And they want more. Well, some of them anyway. A lot of them still want more. And that's very, very interesting to me.

31:04I feel very grateful for it. I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to do it. But I never really did it for the, you know, not to overquote Rick and Morty, but there's a scene where Rick says, your boos mean nothing to me. I've seen what you cheer for. And I sort of feel like that's the reality. Like if you want to conduct the orchestra, you got to turn your back to the audience. And so I don't really say anything I say for the clicks, for the likes, to have people who are like, you should have a podcast, you should have a show, you should have this, you should have that. And it's never been for that purpose.

31:32I have a very specific set of things I'm qualified to talk about. I get sometimes from people saying, oh, you repeated this perspective on this podcast and this podcast. You got good soundbites. That's okay. Yeah, well, the truth is, is I'm not a stand-up comic who has like a set and then I'm going to burn that set and I'm going to write a whole new set. I'm a lawyer. I'm a divorce lawyer. I try to give the most accurate and efficient answer in the most interesting, entertaining, or digestible manner, ideally all three. So, yeah, once I get it right, I'm not going to just change it so I have new material for the public.

32:08And you shouldn't. And that's why I've really cut back a lot even on how much I do appearance-wise, because I feel like I've said a lot of the things I needed to say or wanted to say. I've reached a very broad audience. I'm working on a new book now that gets into different terrain, which I think will be an interesting thing to have conversations about. but until then you know i i certainly am always very excited like this interview i was excited for because i know your work and you tend to dive a little deeper as you already have in this conversation than just the surface level if i do one more so a divorce lawyer writing books about relationships how did that come about right why don't you listen to one of 50 podcasts i've been on what are your top three tips of how to top me dude if i get one more top three anything everyone everybody wants life to be a buzzfeed like what are three things people can do to divorce roof their man i'm like you know i wrote a whole book on this man which i didn't read for in preparation for this because okay but you know i love the honesty of it love the honesty of that if someone just said that to me if someone just went yeah i never read your book i never watched any my intern wrote these questions and i'm gonna ask all of them you know why even that there's an honesty to it like i just don't like the most dangerous thing a person can do is believe their own bullshit oh yeah and so to me like yeah you give a lazy interview i'm gonna give you lazy answers and they're not necessarily even lazy.

33:27I'm just going to answer the way I always answer. You know how many times I have to tell people the same things in 25 years as a divorce lawyer? Do you know how many times I have to explain alimony? How many times I've had to explain child support? How many times I've had to explain every aspect of divorce and I want to do it. Sure. And my clients deserve that I do it in a way that's interested and interesting and engaged and like, cause they pay for that. I was going to say, at least you can bill in six minute. Yeah, I don't sit there and go, child support is based on a presumptive statutory cap of your gross income, less FICA, which is 0.0765 from whatever the gross income is.

34:02And child support for one child is 17%, two children is 25%. If your lawyer talked to you that way, like I've actually thought about like, okay, why don't I do this speech and then just like put them in a room and be like, here, watch this video and then I'll be back. Like when your teacher had a hangover back in the day. Yeah, exactly right. But look, you're paying me 750 bucks an hour. You're going to get the steak and the sizzle. So I'm going to do the thing. so I can give the same opinion or the same speech and make it compelling and make it interesting. You know, that's part of the job of being a trial lawyer.

34:30Let's roll up those sleeves and shut the door. That's what you do. That's right. What are some trends that you see? And speaking of crappy questions, this will start as a crappy question, but it'll be a real one. What are some trends that you see in marriage? Because it looks like we're actually, from the outside in, getting kind of more conservative than marriage has been in the past, or than social mores have been in the past. but it could be an illusion based on my age. I don't know. Yeah. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the last couple of years. People are getting married older than they used to.

35:00Well, that's, yeah, for sure. That's a fact. These are numbers. People are getting married later. They're having children later. People are definitely exponentially getting prenups way more than they used to. Interesting. There is no way to track this because prenups are not filed anywhere. They're a private document. And as someone who's represented a number of celebrities and sports figures, I can tell you, I have seen interviews with my client who I've done a prenup for, where they are saying, oh, yeah, we're not having a prenup. And I'm watching them going, that's interesting. I have their prenup in my safe signed, you know?

35:39Wow. Well, because it's not recorded anywhere. And it's not romantic, so they know you can get away with it. And by the way, and interviewers have no right, really, to ask people if they have a prenup or not. I agree with you there. I guess you're a public figure. people can ask whatever question you want, but you have the right to lie to people if they ask you an inappropriate question, I guess. That's true. But I think it sets the wrong example, which is we put up on Instagram, us picking the cake and us picking the venue and us picking what wine we're going to serve and us picking the dress and the shoes and everything else.

36:05People don't advertise the fact they had a prenup. But for whatever reason, I have to say in the last five years, I would say 3X, 4X in terms of prenups. Part of it is that I've come to be known as someone who does prenups. So I do a lot of talking about prenups. So I have a lot of people now that say I probably do three consults a week for prenups and I get retained by most of the people who consult with me about a prenup. So I do a lot of prenups, but among my colleagues, like I'm part of all the professional organizations here, State Bar Association, all the different family law divisions and family law committees.

36:38And we all are saying the same thing, which is, yeah, like young people in their twenties and thirties, which is the prime marriage ages, they're getting prenups. They're approaching things much more pragmatically. I see it in my own sons. There's a pragmatism and a realism. And there's also a radical kind of candor where people are talking more openly about gender issues, sexual orientation, therapy and mental health stuff. We're talking more candidly and honestly about the things we struggle with. And I think that's translating into a broader openness about the technology of marriage and the concerns that younger people are having about it.

37:19And so I think that's kind of good. I think that's a really good thing. I think that the more people are talking about prenups, normalizing, like it took a while to normalize therapy. Okay, we should be normalizing prenups. Like there's nothing wrong with normalizing prenups. And again, the best way to do it, as far as I can tell, is to just point out to everybody that either the government writes your prenup or you write your prenup. Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it. Because most people would then at that point, I would think not allow the government default to come into play. It's like having a will.

37:47Well, when I was on Matt Walsh's show on the Daily Wire, Matt and I disagree on a lot of things, you know, from a political place. And we met by getting in like a little hustle with each other on Twitter, which I'm no longer on, but which at the time I I was still on. It was before I realized what a just unbelievable cesspool of anger it is. But the truth is, I think Matt's very entertaining. I think he's very intelligent. We have different perspectives on a lot of things, but it's rooted in us having some fundamental different beliefs. But we had to sit down at his studio in Tennessee, which by the way, I have to say his staff and everyone in that operation, Daily Wire, was the nicest, most courteous professional people I think I've ever dealt with.

38:26They were a pleasure. And he was an absolute pleasure to talk to. And even though we disagree on a bunch of things, our dialogue about marriage, which he is a huge fan of. I mean, he's married, he's got six kids. He's very much of the like, yeah, we got married, we don't have a prenup. But we had so much commonality in our perspectives because we're both skeptical of the government and we're both skeptical of government control and we're both pessimistic about government's ability to manage our affairs better than the individual. Yeah. So we had a lot of common ground from this sort of libertarian vibe that we both had, even though I'm more of a progressive liberal, he's a staunch religious conservative.

39:07But we have this commonality of like, listen, I don't know the solution or we might differ on the solution, but we both agree whatever the solution is, the government ain't going to be the one to solve it. So we should go in with this pragmatic approach. I think this is something that on both sides of the aisle, people are saying, okay, yeah, there's something wrong with the way we do marriage. And there's something wrong with just jumping without a parachute. I think a lot of people, when I was doing a criminal defense, just in law school clinic stuff, people would say, how do you protect somebody that you know is guilty?

39:41And I'm sure you get some flavor for that. I get a lot of that. How do you represent a perpetrator of domestic violence? Yeah, that's an interesting take. Because I represent so many victims of intimate partner abuse, coercive control, and domestic violence. How do you represent a perpetrator of domestic violence, intimate partner abuse, coercive control? Or, you know, how do you just eviscerate somebody on cross-examination and you're like, this is probably a nice person. Yeah, I can. Oh no, that happens all the time. I mean, part of it is that I grew up a fighter and I still train martial arts to this day.

40:13So some of my best friends have punched me in the face, choked me, and tried to break my limbs. and I've tried to do the same thing to them. So I grew up in the fight sport. So I don't have to hate you or be angry at you. In fact, some of my best friends, we try to kill each other all day. That's the mindset I came from. But the way I've always answered that question and it's a truthful answer is it's not always easy, but I represent the client and I represent the system. And I don't always believe in the client. I don't always feel great about the client, but I believe in the system. Like I believe that my role in the machinery of our system is an important one.

40:57I believe in democracy. I believe in our legal system. I don't think it's perfect. It has flaws, but you know, it's like the economy. Like it's, we have the worst one except for all the other ones. Like I think, I think we do a pretty good job of due process. I really like that we err on the side of letting a guilty person go free rather than an innocent person go to jail. So I like our burdens of proof. I like due process. I like the right to confrontation. And so if you believe in the system, you have to be willing to do your part in the system. And I can do that. I'm very comfortable. I have people that I like very much that my job is to take them apart piece by piece in a divorce.

41:38and I will do it without hesitation, dispassionately, with no malice in my heart. It's my job. Did your ex take everything and leave you destitute? Console yourself with something from the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And if you can't remember the name of a sponsor or can't find the code, go ahead and shoot us a message.

42:07I'm Jordan at JordanHarbinger.com. I am more than happy to surface that code for you. My team will do that for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with James Sexton. It's gotta be tough when you're getting an emotional reaction from, cause like, look, if you go up against me and I'm a fellow divorce lawyer, this is just us playing chess. We could have lunch right afterwards. It doesn't really matter as long as we're not talking about the case or even if we are, I suppose. But if there's a woman up there or a guy and he's crying because his wife is, he knows his wife is planning to abscond with their children and you're just dismantling this dude.

42:44There's gotta be a little bit of, it's personal for them, it's not personal for you. How do you compartmentalize that or do you? I've never had an issue with it because again, I believe in the system. I understand my role in it. I believe that our emotion clouds are our judgment and our ability to do what is necessary. I mean, I - You're like a surgeon. There's a line from the first season of True Detective where he says, do you ever worry that you're a bad man? And he says, the world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door. And that's how I view it. I view it like, yeah, I'm a weapon.

43:19And that's what I chose to do. And that's what I'm really good at. I don't know why that is. I don't know why I was built that way, but that's how I'm built. I think I might be built different than a lot of people, but I can do that. I can dispassionately dismantle in that way. And I think the world needs that. there's a line from Rhesus Sardonicus I always really liked to the point where I memorized it. He said, I have resigned myself to temporary complicity with evil in order to accomplish certain strategic objectives for people whose suffering is greater than my need to maintain moral purity.

43:52That's quite a feat of memory. And that's how I view it. I think that my need to maintain moral purity is subservient to the ability I have to relieve suffering. I have more clients that are victims of domestic violence than perpetrators, thankfully. I have more clients that need someone like me. Most often, a good-hearted, nice person finds themselves up against someone who's their opposite. So their opposite is a narcissistic abuser. And you need someone who can dispassionately go in and take that person on. You know, Cormac McCarthy said there are two things that'll make a man confess his sins, God and pain.

44:38And not everyone believes in God, but everyone believes in pain. So sometimes my job is to inflict pain, emotional pain, financial pain, create and cultivate leverage and then use it. That's my job. And my job most often, thankfully, is to do that for someone who there is some moral ground behind it. But have I in my career had occasion where I've been weaponized against what probably was a really good person? Yes. Is that hard to do? It's not hard to do. Is it hard emotionally to process it? Yeah, it is. But you know, the truth has a way of coming out. Sometimes despite my best efforts. Like I lose sometimes.

45:18Sure. I lose because our system, our system gets the truth out there. Like people have to answer for things. I like the court system. I don't like the fact that people in the world right now, we live in a post-truth era and everybody gets up and can say whatever they want about, oh, this is what this does. And this is what that does. And there's no way to fact check anything and nothing's tethered to objective reality. So I like court because you got to shut up. Everybody's got to shut up and answer. You have to answer. I like the right to confrontation. I love cross-examination because my attitude is, no, no, you said it.

45:50You said it. I always keep my children's best interests at heart. Okay, I'm going to show you 15 examples of places you didn't do that. And you're going to have to answer for it. And to me, I like that. I think that's fair. I think I want to live in a world where that's how things are done. I love that. I'm wondering if you ever won a case you just thought, I shouldn't have won that. Yeah. Yeah, there's a chapter in the book actually about that. I talk about representing a, he was actually a pimp. That's what he did for a living. He was a pimp. He was a perpetrator of domestic violence. And I won because my adversary in court was a very inexperienced lawyer.

46:24And it was a perfect storm. And the judge was in a very bad mood. And the judge, this lawyer who was a brand new lawyer at the time, who has since actually, I followed their career and had cases with them, has since become one of the best lawyers I know, but was a real neophyte. Might have even been their first trial. and they couldn't get a photograph into evidence. They couldn't lay the proper foundation. And the judge who should have stepped in and been helpful was just in a mood and was not letting the photograph. It was just like, yep, you can't lay the foundation. I'm not letting it in. And I was doing my job.

46:57I was objecting and doing things I was supposed to do. And I remember just being in there going, this is not good. This is not right. The wrong thing's going to happen. And we walked out of court. We won. And the guy smacked me on the back. and he said, on there, forget it, he said, one good lawyer is better than 20 stick-up men. Ugh. And I remember I went home that night and I just felt very, very bad. That's a long hot shower. Here's what I'll tell you, and I've said this before, I'm not giving anything away. When I recorded the audio book, my publisher, Henry Holt, Macmillan, they said, well, we want you to read your own audio book.

47:32So it was like eight and a half hours of my voice. They put you in a booth and you have to read your entire book out loud and you do it in pieces. and when I got to that chapter I had to stop a couple of times because I got choked up I talk about in the chapter it was like no like I'm supposed somebody you're supposed to stop me like you're supposed to stop me like what are you what are you doing like I'm winning I shouldn't be winning like the truth is not going to come out here yeah and that was very hard for me because I believe in the system and it's supposed to work and sometimes it doesn't because of humans that are in it.

48:05And so that was hard, but I did my job. I know I did the right thing because I believe in the system. And I think if I threw the game, then it starts to ask questions of, well, when do you throw the game? When do you have the right to throw the game? And I don't think that's the way to do it. Well, everybody, what do they tell us in law school? Everybody deserves a zealous advocacy. Everyone has the right to zealous advocacy, but then the bounds of law. What if you know that there's smoking gun? I keep going back to iMessage. What if you know that like, all right they got photos of you with with her with the paramour there's 8 000 texts and photos in that thread of you guys on vacate planning to go with like do you have to go full m &m's strategy where you're like eight miles eight mile strategy we call it the eight mile you call it okay we call it the eight mile strategy yeah you do the eight mile strategy i mean that's our our favorite thing is the eight mile strategy you bring it out you bring it out as part of your narrative first so i tell them all the things that the guy's about to say about me and then i hand the mic to the other side you know so i do that last rap battle of eight mile um where yeah you just lay out all the worst things about your case and you just own them you present the counter narrative to them before the other side can do it you watch the opposing counsel crossing out pages and pages i was just gonna say isn't that a good feeling when you see opposing counsel go yeah they sigh and they just they and you're watching them just cross out yeah pages of cross-examination they flip the legal pad over again and again it really is they i'm telling you it's the last scene in mile.

49:24Because I remember the first time I saw that movie, I saw it in the theaters. And I remember watching that rap battle and being like, oh my God, how are they going to end this thing? Because you know he's got to win, but how's he going to win? And just the feeling of like, here, tell these people something they don't know about me and handing them the mic. And you just go, that is the most brilliant thing in the world. And I have to tell you, I've seen on The Witness Stand again and again, when a client talks about their humanity and talks about their flaws and they admit when they lost their temper, when they said something stupid or did something stupid.

49:55There ain't a person in that courtroom that can cast the first stone. Like everybody in that courtroom looks and goes, yeah, like he probably, I've probably done dumb things too, you know? Just didn't get caught or maybe did, yeah. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of value in taking that approach to things. You've got a great mindfulness exercise that I love and I am not Mr. Mindfulness. I am not that guy. I just, I feel like there's a lot of hype around this stuff, but there's a core of really good stuff in there. This one I love. Tell me about this. This is the Thich Nhat Hanh one about hugging someone?

50:26Yes, that is it. So Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. He passed away some years ago, but he wrote a number of really beautiful books about mindfulness and awareness and the nature of life and suffering. They're very simple books, much like Sherry Huber is another Buddhist writer. And this is actually, my next book is about exactly this concept, but essentially what Thich Nhat Hanh was encouraged people to do is when you are hugging someone who is in your life, who you love, whether it's your spouse or your child or your dog or cat or your cousin or your friend who you haven't seen, you should close your eyes and hug them and think about the fact that they're there and you're hugging them.

51:06And then for a moment, you should think about that they've died. You should imagine that they've died and that you're holding their body, hugging their body for the last time before you let go and it's taken away. And then you should remember that they're there and they're alive and you're hugging. And if you can train yourself to do that, some people think that's a morbid exercise. I don't think it is. I think we are most keenly aware of the beauty of life when we're in the presence of death. when we realize that love and life are not permanently gifted, but are loaned to us. And so I'm a big proponent of that mindfulness exercise.

51:49I'm a big proponent of being mindful of endings. Because when you are mindful of endings, you are very much aware of the impermanence of things, how everything is leading to some inevitable conclusion. all marriages end your marriage will end i promise your marriage will end it will end in death or it will end in divorce but it will end i hope it ends in death yeah doesn't that sound weird to say out loud but i hope it does i hope i go first i hope it ends and no i hope you both go simultaneously sure sure and in painless way that's right holding hands exactly right but but the truth is when we remind ourselves that all marriages end that everything ends we're much more conscious of the value and beauty of the thing that's in front of us.

52:35And so I am a big, as a divorce lawyer, I have made my day-to-day living in endings. And before that, I was a hospice volunteer for many years. And so I spent a lot of time in the presence of death. And I can tell you, when you spend time in the presence of death, you walk out of a hospice visit just so grateful, just so grateful that you're alive. You're not dying. That's not your father or mother or brother or you on that bed. You're not worried about what your stock market's doing. You're not worried about some minor, you know, somebody cut you off in traffic. Like you just, the volume has turned so far down on that stuff.

53:15I think it's the same thing. As a divorce lawyer, all I do is watch things end. And it makes me not a pessimist. Like it makes me not think, oh, well, it's all doomed. It makes me so grateful that there's love and that people somehow manage to keep it together and want it so badly. And I think that bringing into your vocabulary a mindfulness about endings can make your life much, much better and stronger. And that's where really the focus of my work and my writing now is moving. Jim Sexton, thank you very much. Pleasure. It was great to be here, Jordan. I appreciate you having me. Here's a trailer of an episode I think you might enjoy.

53:59Do you have another one of those Coke zeros? That looks really good. Is it cold? Yeah, it is. It's super cold. It's ice cold and somebody will maybe get me another one maybe. Can I, sorry, I don't mean to turn you into a server, but yeah. Thank you very much, everyone, for bringing that Coke in. Isn't that nice? I never have that. You probably have that all the time. It's so good. It's so rare that I get to be like, excuse me, can you know? How did that feel? That felt so good. Good in a way where I'm like, God, don't get used to this, Jordan. I know that you microdose weed. You're the only other person I met besides myself that does that.

54:32You're in charge of your mood. So when you take something like that, it's a mood lifter. It's like an enhancer. You know, it makes, for me, it makes everything a little bit more sparkly. It makes everybody a little bit less annoying. And these are all things we want to all be able to engage with. Got a DUI when I was like 21 and I got in a lot of trouble because I used my, I had my sister's ID and I forgot to change it out when I turned 21 because I'd been using it for so many years. So that caused a whole ruckus of other events because my sister was really pissed at me. I had to go to DUI school and in DUI class, you go for like what, 15 weeks and everybody gets up and tells their story.

55:06And I had such a fear of public speaking. You did? I did. Wow. Anyway, they forced you to do it in that class. And when I did it, I started telling my story and all I did was tell what happened and it was ridiculous. Like everything I do was always just in a very immature, you know, I called the cop a racist. We were both white. I mean, everything that, you know, didn't make sense. I did. The class was just like laughing and I was on stage for like 14, 15 minutes until the guy was like, no, this is not stand up. Get off the stage. Like you got your, you're enjoying this a little bit too much. And that's when I was like, Wait a second.

55:42I like this. For more with the incomparable Chelsea Handler, check out episode 216 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. What an episode. Like I said at the top of part one, this episode really made me realize how much I love my wife and how fortunate I am. I guess I shouldn't let my guard down, though, from the sound of it. Some of the stories off camera were honestly worthy of another episode entirely. We have to have James back at some point. There's just a whole lot here. and I got through like half my notes. This guy is a fountain. All things James Sexton will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com.

56:15Advertisers, deals, and discount codes, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support this show. Also, our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser. The idea behind this is to give you something specific, practical, something that's gonna have an immediate impact on your decisions, your relationships, your psychology, in under two minutes a week, every Wednesday. So if you're not signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Don't forget about 6-Minute Networking as well.

56:44That's over at 6MinuteNetworking.com. I'm at JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. And this show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. So if you know somebody who's thinking about getting married, thinking about getting divorced, wants a little bit of insight into this type of thing, I would definitely share this episode with them or somebody who just loves a good conversation.

57:16In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Vital Proteins. You probably heard of Vital Proteins. They're the number one brand of collagen peptides in the US. And for good reason, a lot of people, myself included, take it pretty much daily to support things like healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, joints, all the good stuff. That starts to matter more the longer you've been walking around on this planet. But now Vital Proteins is shaking things up, literally, you can tell a dad wrote this copy, with a brand new collagen and protein shake.

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