#720: Life Lessons from Taylor Swift, Conquering Anxiety, Coaching Teens, Career Reinvention, Supposedly Gay Bulls, Your Shadow Side, and More — Soman Chainani

26:22Like the cows don't care. They just, you know. So at some point you need to get a new bull. So he goes and gets this new bull that he's very excited about. He comes and brings the bull. And the first thing the bull does when it comes to the farm is it like nuzzles up to me and is really nice to me. And it's just this very like sweet bull. And over the next like few weeks, every time I see the bull, he's off like picking flowers or like hanging out with this little orphan male calf and like licking him. The females are literally just staring at him, you know, because they're all in heat and nothing's happening.

26:57And I said, your bull might be gay. And he's like, and this is where it gets interesting. Because this is where it gets interesting. Is where he's like, that's impossible. He's like, you know, we tested it. It's firm. It's very healthy. It's like, it's a good bull. And the chance of a bull being gay and not impregnating these 60 females, he's like, it's maybe like 0.05%. In my head, all I'm thinking about is worst case scenario. Because if that bull is gay, that means he not only doesn't get these 60 females pregnant, he loses a season. He loses all the money from the calves that's coming. And it's literally like a catastrophic thing that can happen to him.

27:37And I realized that people entertain worst case scenarios differently. His is statistically, this isn't happening. So therefore, I'm not going to prepare for it. I'm not going to spend a dollar preparing for that worst case scenario. Because statistically, it doesn't make sense. All I care about in life is the worst case scenario. So to me, the moment I'm like, that bull is gay, all I'm doing is finding all the evidence that it's gay and being like, here's the action plan for the gay bull. We are getting every female pregnancy tested. You're having the vet come out. You're checking the sperm again.

28:10You're doing this. You're bringing out that fancy machine that triggers that. I'm spending, in my head, I'm getting them to spend thousands of dollars on this gay bull to make sure it still gets them pregnant. Like artificial insemination, everything. and I realized like it's just a different way that we operate my entire life. I told my assistant this on day one. I said, your job is to always think of the worst case scenario and insure against it. That's your only job every day. What's the worst thing that can happen and make sure it doesn't happen. And doesn't think that way. Cause he says that costs money.

28:40It just does. You spend too much money on things that statistically shouldn't happen. And I thought there's something profound in that. So your bull might be gay has become the kind of like flag waving motto on the farm because it turns out the bull was not gay. It secretly got them all private when we weren't watching. That's the funny part. So he was right. And therefore it validates, you know, he thinks it validates him. But to me, I think I get calmer and more at peace when that worst case scenario is protected against. If this is a shorthand where your partner, when you're catastrophizing, can say, Selman, this may be a your bull might be gay scenario.

29:22Are you finding that you can use that experience to recalibrate a little bit? Do you need an external source like your partner to be like, pat you on the side like a sort of overexcited horse and be like, everything's going to be okay? You and I are very similar in this way. I haven't had the gay bull experience or the thought-to-be-gay bull experience, but you and I have bonded over this worst-case scenario catastrophizing, which clearly, if it had no utility, we wouldn't use it. But in excess, sort of becomes its opposite, right? It's a helpful tool, and then it becomes a hindrance at a certain point.

29:58But see, I cheat. I offload it to my assistant. That's his job. Like, I literally am like, you're the worst-case scenario person. So he's in charge of insuring against those things. And now that he's been with me a while, in a way, that's become his thing. And he's even more kind of obsessive about predicting all those things. And it's what makes him so amazing as he's risen in the ranks. So in a way, I'm a little lucky that I'm not the one staying at work. You get to outsource some of your worrying. I think having a partner who has the opposite viewpoint, if I was with someone who also had the worst case scenario, dangerous.

30:34because then you're just, who's going to screw in the light bulb when you're too busy worrying against all the other things that are never going to happen? At some point, someone has to take care of the basics. The counterbalance. Yeah, I think counterbalance. The outsourcing your worry to your assistant, your EA, makes me think of this chapter, which is an excerpt that I had in my very first book from A.J. Jacobs. I think it was literally called Outsourcing Your Life from originally Esquire, I want to say. And at one point, he was trying to see how much he could give his virtual assistant at that point in India.

31:12And at one point, he realized AJ is amazing. He's written a lot of great books. My favorite's probably The Year of Living Biblically, but he's written a lot of great books. And he, at one point, was really worried about something. And he just decided as an experiment to see if he could ask his assistant to worry on his behalf, if that would make him feel better. No real solution, no fixing anything. He's just like, would you mind worrying about this on my behalf? And I mean, he's a humorist, right? So he does a lot of funny stuff, but he actually found it therapeutically valuable. Just the broad strokes instruction, could you worry about this?

31:47So I know someone's worrying about it. Like I realized it's not productive, but could you worry about it on my behalf? This will come back up. Well, it's also funny because I think it's uniquely suited to the young to be able to have that mindset. And I told him, I said, if you can master this thing of thinking about the worst case scenarios and everything, that's what I did when I was young and working as an assistant. You're going to be like a mega mogul one day. You just will. Because that's part of your thinking in a way that it isn't for other people. Well, the Andy Grove, only the paranoid survive kind of thing.

32:16Only the paranoid stay up at night staring at the ceiling too. But there is that question about the assistant. what other instructions have you found or principles make for training an excellent assistant? And I'm asking because I'm in the process right now of actually training some new folks on my team. So this is very top of mind for me. I think to me, the most important thing, especially when you find someone who just has so much talent and capability like June has, is that I don't give tasks. I give massive projects that are extraordinarily difficult. What would be an example? An example would be like in the case of DC.

32:58I was like, I don't know anything about DC comics. What am I writing about? What am I going to do? What am I writing about? Yeah, what am I doing? Because in this case, it's a general world that I'm just, I don't know anything. Oh, you had to work with their characters? Their characters. It's not an original. It's working with their characters. So that's where it all went wrong. Oh yeah, you got, you were. I was headed, You were already in trouble. So in that case, I was like, it's not that I'm looking for a storyline. I'm just looking for, all right, knowing what I'm interested in, give me some characters from there that are interesting.

33:35Give me a world that's interesting. And so rather than it being like, make me a list of this or something very task-oriented, it'll just be like, show me something. And that's kind of the bigger thing. And then giving freedom for him to structure it, him to figure out how he's going to present it, him to have investment in it. So the same thing when we did Be Some Beauty, we were presenting it to the studios to get a buyer for the TV series. I said, how do we present this? How do we present the book? Come up with whatever you think is the best way. And ultimately, he designed this amazing presentation.

34:10And therefore, when we sell it, it's easy for me to go to the studio and say, June has to be a producer on it. Because he was the one who had the whole presentation. So it's that sort of thing. It's like, I give very, once in a while, give very few task-oriented things and more like, worry about this for me. You know what I mean? All right, I'm going to ask very, maybe boring, maybe interesting, we'll see. But certainly kind of mundane and practical question. Do you do all your own inbox management? Or do you have? Yeah, I do all that stuff. You do all your inbox stuff. Now, is that a manageable inbound volume?

34:43You've just figured out policies and maybe how to hide yourself effectively so that you don't get an inordinate amount of stuff? Yeah, I think it's if it's scheduling. I'll pass all that stuff on to him. So he will do. He's keeping the trains running on time. 100%. But I still manage my own email inbox. I just am sorting stuff over there. What kind of stuff, would you say buckets-wise, what kind of stuff does he handle? Scheduling, school visits, anything that involves a calendar date. And also negotiating. I get asked to speak constantly, whether it's adults looking for a creative spark at a corporation, or whether it's schools, or whether it's a book festival.

35:24It's just, you've been through this many, many speaking games. You are a far better speaker and presenter than I am. I don't know. You know what? If they're teenagers, I feel completely at home. Adults, sometimes I'm like, are your minds frozen? Is there anything I can do to chip away at the calcification on your brain? Sometimes I feel that way. So his job is to figure out somehow subliminally without making a mess of it is, do they have a budget? It's all that stuff. And you have rules or at least guidelines in place where you're like, hey, this is the lowest hurdle, et cetera. Your bull might be gay.

36:14a lot. That's an understatement. Are we in a recession? Is it a bear market? What's going to happen with inflation? So many questions, so few answers. I can't tell the future. Nobody can, but I can tell you about a great place to earn more on your savings, and that's Wealthfront. Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. And right now you can earn 5 % APY, that's the annual percentage yield, with the Wealthfront cash account. That's more than 10 times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. So why wait? Earn 5 % on your cash today.

36:47Plus, it's up to$8 million in FDIC insurance through partner banks. And when you open an account today, you'll get an extra $50 bonus with a deposit of$500 or more. There are already nearly half a million people using Wealthfront to save more, earn more, and build long-term wealth. So why wait? Visit wealthfront.com slash Tim to get started. That's wealthfront.com slash Tim. This was a paid endorsement by Wealthfront.

37:14Let's hop to the secret card, which was a last minute addition. And we can chat about any person you think people should pay attention to or that you're simply paying attention to. Have you heard of this guy named Christopher Marley? No. He is an artist, but his canvas only works with preserved animals from strange parts of the earth. Tell me more. So he's almost like Indiana Jones. He works with remote tribes in the Amazon. He'll just go all over the earth to find animals we've never seen before and then makes art out of them. Christopher Marley? Christopher Marley. I have all of his books and I saw an exhibition of his in person.

37:58And it was the most inspiring, beautiful thing I have ever seen. That's a strong statement. It is. And that's coming from someone who's exposed to art. I mean, art is my life, yeah. but this is because they're real animals. And so the idea of I spend my life creating fantasies and then to see that the real world has more fantastical things than you'll ever see. And he has just so many great ones where you'll see like, he'll just make art out of maybe a thousand butterflies that he's collected. But the colors of the butterflies are, you've never seen stuff like this before. It's almost like, you know, when you think of the deep sea fish that you've never seen before, he's finding this up on land.

38:32So the beetles, the snakes, the this. But then he has this additional talent of making the most spectacular art out of it so that it almost looks, if they were fake, it would still be equally impressive. So that the fact that he's going there, making these relationships, getting animals, convincing these tribes to hold on to animals that they find, the whole thing's insane. And the fact that this guy isn't the most famous person in the world to me is shocking. How did you come across Christopher Marley? I was in North Carolina. We were on a family reunion trip and we went to the museum with my niece and nephew who are teenagers.

39:07And that was the little fun thing. Then I bought all his books. I follow him on Instagram and I just think it's the most amazing thing. Yeah, as soon as you start looking at his art, you're going to be like... And also, he has a crazy story, which is they had a photo of him up on the wall and I was like, that's him? He was a supermodel. He was a supermodel, this like rugged supermodel who then... I don't know, used his wealth to then do what he really wanted to do, which was be Indiana Jones. That's incredible. But the talent is insane. The way he places everything. I almost want to pause for a second and show you the art.

39:47Let's do it. Yeah, sure. Let me take a look. You have to see it. Because once you see it, you're going to want to make him your best friend. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. That's wild. That's just one. that is wild and i i realize that we might be able to splice some stuff in from from instagram with credit and everything shown obviously and that's if you go back to the grade you'll just see tons of them oh yeah okay so this is at christopher marley studio spelled like bob marley christopher marley studio almost 60 000 followers it should be 60 million all vertebrates are reclaimed specimens. None are killed for art.

40:32That was going to be one of my questions. Okay. Yes. Alright. This is going to be a thing. And you're right. If there were a game of match, match the face to this other profession on the other side in column B. This is not to detract from his work, but I'll be like, yeah, no. No. No way. Maybe he's doing jeans commercials. Maybe he's doing car commercials. But his artwork is incredible. Okay, we will definitely link to that. Check it out, folks. At Christopher Marley Studio. Check, check. My next follow on Instagram. Now, I'm going to go to one here that I can't read, which is now pulling my...

41:07I see. I thought it was conch. And then I was like, oh, wait a second. That's an A. Oh, that's an A. Coach Alpha. What or who is Coach Alpha? Okay, I realized that I can only do two jobs in my life. There's only two things I'm good at. And there's only one thing I would like to do as much as I like writing. And that is... And it's a job that should exist. And it doesn't. Generation Alpha, which is teenagers of today. Oh, I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. So after Gen Z is Generation Alpha. And that's like who our teenagers know. They're growing up in an impossible situation with everything that's happening with the world and the phones getting more addicted.

41:46It's just impossible. And when I was a tutor, I was a tutor for 10 years. And what I loved the most was when, because I could tutor every subject. That was one of my, I was such a nerd in school that I just really could tutor any subject. And I loved it when a parent just sort of outsourced their entire child's home life to me. But I loved it because I could get to the bottom of what made them tick and what was important and starting to really not just help them with school, but get them on a better track out of their phone and stop worrying about what everybody else wanted them to be, including their parents, and more focusing on who they actually were.

42:22The mental health crisis that's affecting almost all teenagers is this sort of existential dread. I would have loved to if I hadn't become a writer. And I still feel like this is going to be part of my life somehow. I would love to kind of be the Mary Poppins who can go into a house and just be like, let's get this on track. I'll give you an example. In a way that parents can't. So the one kid was getting off track because he was drinking a lot and getting in trouble and all that sort of stuff. And I noticed that every time I saw him, he was talking about going out partying and at the end of the night, you know, having wrestling matches with all his friends and getting into these sort of physical fights with people.

42:58And he was always beating up on his younger brother. They were just always physical with this thing. And one day, like, we're trying to solve all the other stuff. The academic stuff. Yeah, just, you know, everything else. And I thought to myself, I just said to him, I said, and his whole goal in life was to be popular and party and all that stuff. And I said, I don't know if partying is your goal in reality. I feel like your real goal is that you want to fight. That's what you actually want to do. What you really want to do is not drink and like hang out with your friends. It's you want to drink so you can beat them up at the end of the night.

43:28Every night ended in aggro. And so I said, and I researched, I said, there's a UFC gym like four minutes from your house. Go take a class. 16-year-old, go take a class. Takes a class. Loves it. Is now there like three, four times a week, having the time of his life. Drinking went way down. Everything got back on track. Got a job to fund the UFC thing. Everything's fine. Wow. No more beating up the brothers. I didn't need to. He's getting, he can beat up anyone. Just need to know it. But what parents could have say, go fight after school? It's just, they're not going to do it. And so it's stuff like that, where I just feel like sometimes kids need to be seen for who they are.

44:10And in order for us to get out of this crisis, I think people are like, mental health crisis. I feel like there needs to be a third party, whether it's even as much as like teen groups. Like I was just thinking about the fact that on any, given night, if you're an alcoholic or you have a drug addiction or whatever, you can just go to an AA meeting and you can have that group experience. And I felt like, why isn't there that for teenagers? Like this idea that you can just go to a space and meet other teenagers on a given night and have that kind of place to talk to or experience. And yes, you can do it online, but I just think the more you get into your phone, the further you often get away from actually who you are and real connection.

44:48So I don't know. I have no formal thoughts on how this should happen. I just do miss that part of my old job, which was going into the house and helping kids. Footnote for people who may have missed our earlier conversations. Well into your writing career, correct me if I'm wrong, fact check, please. You held on to your tutoring because it gave you a safety net, but also, I guess, the psychological reassurance of knowing that you didn't have to white knuckle desperately make the first buck that came your way through the writing. I mean, is that a fair description? We don't have to spend too much time on it, but it's important as an example to me because a lot of creatives who do really well do not burn the ships behind them.

45:30They do not block all the exits. They actually have some type of backup in the form that you did. 100%. Because also it meant that I could take all the risks in my writing. So even now, I know I can do other jobs. I could go back to tutoring. I could teach at a university. I could work with kids and teenagers in some way. So I'm happy to take the risk on this book instead of chasing the money because there's no pressure on it. So I think that's the important thing. I feel like if you're writing with that desperate white knuckle, mercenary for money, it increases the chance that what you're writing, you're trying to bit a mold.

46:10So Coach Alpha, is this a public attempt to give away an idea? Let's just say you can't get a taker. Let's just say you don't see it. would you ever think of doing, I know this isn't in person, but would you ever think of doing a series of talks and then pulling from that and putting together a course, making lectures available for free? Maybe they're targeted at parents, maybe they're targeted at kids. I mean, if this, for whatever reason, doesn't get takers, this Coach Alpha, because it also requires, it's not just an idea that can be executed by anyone, but to underscore something you said, the third party piece is really important.

46:45I can get, not anyone, but almost anyone to change behaviors sometimes except for the people closest to me, right? Because to them, I'm just Tim. You know what I mean? And sometimes you can develop a selective deafness around the people you're closest to. So then when you have a third party who's credible, there's a lot of leverage there. Well, even I was thinking about teenagers, right? Let's say you have, and this I had told parents this many times, most of the time they didn't listen, but it was, I gave them the secret, which was when your kid takes initiative and does something on their own, like they start making their bed or they start working out, you know, after school, do not mention it.

47:29Don't say, it's great you made the bed or that's so cool that you're working out. Do not. Then it's your thing. That means every time they're going to go make the bed, they're now thinking of your approval and little by little, it's going to stop them doing it. Because it's now become your thing. Leave it. It's their thing. How many kids have you tutored over the years? What do you say? Oh, God. At least a few hundred. A few hundred. Yeah, probably a few hundred. I miss it, but also I got the connection through the books. And also what's funny is I started doing writing camps where I got hosted by writing camps.

48:02And there was always a curriculum that they wanted us to teach or whatever. But I would just go in there and do my own thing. and the first thing I would work on with each kid is when you write, you need to know what your characters want. And you need to know at the deepest basis level. Let's say a character wants to play lacrosse. He wants to be a champion lacrosse player. That's where most people will stop. But you need to ask, well, why does he want to be a champion lacrosse player? In order to beat his dad. Why does he want to drink? That's not enough. Yeah, exactly. It's because he wants to fight at the end of the day.

48:31Let's fight. And why does he want to fight at the end of the day? You have to keep going down until you hit a base level. Like, is he trying to save his self-esteem? Is he trying to prove something to his family? You know, whatever it is. And then on the second day, after we work on that with characters, I do that for themselves. So the teenager, I'm like, what do you want? In front of the class. So there's usually 12 people. And that's when you start to get somewhere. Man, I feel like I could use that exercise now. But that's how, for college essays. So my specialty when I was tutoring was college essays.

48:59I used to go in there and help them come up with the perfect essay topic. All I needed was three days with them. And I would spend three days asking that question. over and over and looking at pieces of their life and us talking about it until we came up with what do you want and why do you want it? And then making the essay from there. All right, I'll bite. So what's the next step? Once you go through that exercise, how do you craft the narrative? How do you put it into essay form? Is it describing really what you want? I mean, is that the topic of the essay or do you use that as grist for the mill?

49:33It becomes the heart of it. And then from there, you can start to build everything out. Did you start doing this before you were working on fiction? Or did it happen simultaneously? Simultaneously. Because as I was working on School of Friggin' Evil, the thing I had to take... You had to think about it. And also because I'd come from film school where they drill into you. What does your character want? Why do they want it? And I did that every page of that book, which is why I think it reads quickly because you just know what everybody wants at any given moment. And I realized that I'm working with these kids and no one knows what they want.

50:00They follow the flow in the wrong direction because the flow is taking them towards anxiety and comparison. If I spend my life on Instagram and TikTok, I would die because it's just the wrong inputs to make me find my, what I want to do, you know. Coach Alpha. I love it. All right. This is needed. I was very fortunate when I was 15, 16 to have a few mentors, male mentors, figures who by hook or crook were able to help me correct course in a number of ways. If I had not had that input, I think things could have ended, and I do mean ended in a very sort of terminal way, very differently. We should talk about another person on my list then.

50:45Let's do it. He just moved to Austin. His name is Mike Regula, R-E-G-U-L-A, is an ex-Navy SEAL, and he is here starting a company called Course of Action, which what I want to do for teenagers, he's doing for men. And it's using basic Navy SEAL kind of concepts and training to basically get men to both individually and in groups, look at their lives and make proactive change to become more connected to what they want. So basically it's every man who feels like they haven't quite found their way back onto a path or they've lost their tribe or anything like that. He's just trying to find a kind of safe space for men to work on, whether it's the psychological part, the nutrition part, the fitness part, the emotional part, and in groups.

51:33And I think it's just so needed, especially in this world. So I just think he's someone to look out for. And I think the website is 1COA, 1COA for course of action. We'll find it and we'll link to as well how did you find mike or course of action he was introduced to me through this is the best story the boy i was in love with in high school was this kid named noah who i was obsessed with and of course you know he's now married with children everything like that um everyone knew this story except him and then one day someone finally told him you do realize that someone spent like most of his high school career trying to get your attention and he just was like what and so then we reconnected became friends and he's like you have to meet mike because you know i don't know what it was mike was in new york and he just felt like we would bond and we met and that was that was that he's just a special person and so i just feel like we're talking about this like the same way i feel about resuscitating the teenage mind and soul he feels about men because I think he's seen it all, having been an ex-SEAL, for sure.

52:43Check it out. He's right here, right here in my hometown. Mike Regula. And this is actually not the first time I've heard his name. This rings a bell and I can't place the context. Oh, he's friends with all your friends. Oh, there we go. There you go. That's probably why I've heard his name. All right. Does anything catch your eye that might make for a good next Scooby Snack, conversationally speaking? We could go to, you know what, here. How about this? No, that's a good one. All right. Intermittent pop star. This is in the absurd category. It's in the absurd category because I should not still be doing this.

53:16But in 2017, I went to this book festival for the first time in Charleston called Yall Fest. That is like the biggest book festival for teenagers in the country. No kidding. Yeah, about 20 ,000 kids descend on this thing. Everybody comes there. It's where new projects are. It's just a big festival that takes over Charleston. And to get invited, it means you've officially made it. And all I ever wanted in my career was to get invited. Because your publisher can't pitch you. It's like one of these Sun Valley. Yeah, you must be invited. Must be invited. So I finally get invited. I'm so excited. And I go, and it's the best two days of my life.

53:52I'm having the most amazing time. And I go to the final show called The Smackdown, which they charge like$12 to get into. It's 3 ,000 people in Charleston Music Hall. It's the most beautiful theater. and the authors participate in this kind of variety show. And I sit there and watch the worst show I've ever seen in my life. It is an abomination to make 3 ,000 people sit through that. The fact that I had to participate in some little part of it. And I remember having this thing, secretly thinking, I'm going to take over this show and turn it into my own private pop concert and it's going to be amazing and it's going to be awesome and it's going to be the greatest show on earth.

54:33I just remember having this thought. It was just like, this is my fantasy and it's going to happen. I grew up idolizing, you know this, everyone who knows me knows this, but I should probably say it. I grew up a huge Madonna fan. That was my pop star growing up. I'm obsessed with Taylor Swift. I'm obsessed with anyone who can translate whatever their talent is into some kind of cool showmanship. Cut to two years later, they were like, no one wants to host this show. Do you want to host it? And I was like, dude, I'd earned enough credit to be like, okay. I said, sure, as long as I can completely redo it.

55:04A hundred percent my way. How did they think to come to you? Had you planted the seed somehow? Were you like, not a bad show. I could do better on the way out. I didn't say I. With a tear in the eye. I think I said, this could be better.

55:21So, we'd love your feedback. Yeah. I have a few words. This could be better. Got it. So they came to you. Came to me and then I was like, you know, we're going to do the variety show. It's going to be all new games. And it's going to start with an eight song, six costume change dance number dedicated to whatever the themes are in YA. Almost like a version of like Billy Crystal's old Oscar thing, but even more extreme. And so I don't know what made me do it. But what was interesting is while we started working on it and we got a choreographer and I don't know how to dance. And I started learning these dance steps.

55:53it was that process of training for it, learning how to dance, learning how to do choreography that was so awesome because it got me out of my head. And I started to fall in love with this process of designing a show, designing things, designing themes. It was a new way of telling a story from beginning to end. How do you entertain an audience of 3000 people for 10 minutes? I fell in love with it and I had the best time. But then I think I did it the next year. I've done it three times. And what I've realized is if I do it every two years, because it's so much work, It's so much money. It's my own.

56:24It's so much work. So much time. Right in the red column. Just throwing money on fire. But if I do it every two years, that means the year in between, some poor soul has to come and try. And it's inevitably a disaster. So then when I come back, I get to herald the hero returns every two years. It's a Julia Roberts strategy when she was an actress. reason she had such longevity is she always did one movie where she had her hair red and curly and did a rom-com. And then she would do one when she hacked it off and played like Frankenstein's like made, you know, some crazy indie weird thing. But because she did it every other movie, whenever she came back, it was like, oh, thank God.

57:08She's back to doing, you know, Pretty Woman. So what's been important for me is it's less about, I get more than enough attention for the books and everything. I don't need... Sure, it is a narcissistic thing. What am I saying? You like it. You're such a lie. What a lie. Terrible. But I think what I enjoy more than the actual performance is the run-up. It's the day before rehearsals start. I'm always nauseous. I don't want to do it. I don't want to go through that whole experience because it's everything I'm bad at. There's a Japanese word. Have you heard misogi? there's a book about this that um i have to look it up to find happiness i think mike was telling me about this the japanese concept that once a year once every two years you have to do something completely out of your comfort zone that is an extended journey and in doing that you find like new reinvigoration for life and i think that's mine like every two years to go into this thing where i don't know how it's going to end i don't know if it's going to work because always it's more ambitious and more interesting so it's funny because this one was bigger and crazier I just did it a couple months ago than anything we'd ever done before at the party I was like there's no way I know myself I can't top that skit what we did and someone goes well what are you gonna do now are you gonna are you gonna sing and I was like haha and then I thought huh well

58:41so you know you don't know i mean i doubt that's what's gonna be but it's always like when you think you can't find what the next thing is it's like what's the next zone of discomfort so that's the silly thing i still do but i think it's important for me somehow i can't really let go of it you know at this point yeah definitely definitely how would your life be different if it were taken away? If it were just subtracted? How would your experience the rest of the year be different? If there's an answer to that. Wouldn't be as fun. There's something so energizing about the high stakes nature of a show.

59:19And also my assistant is this amazing dancer and musician. So he's part of it. I have backup dancers and he's one of them. So it's like we're on this ride together where it can end in super embarrassment because you've got thousands of people with their phones out. Yeah. There's no, you had to be there. There's, let me show you what happened. It just feels very high stakes and in the moment. So, you know, where writing is never in the moment, really, because you are constantly revising, this is immediate. And I just think it's awesome. It's also out of your head, like you mentioned. Yes. Yeah.

59:51The dancing, I always feel in incredible shape mentally and physically after six weeks of this stuff. I'm going to force a segue. We'll see if it's a natural segue, but... Drugs. Yeah. This is in the yellow, I believe, change your mind about category. So I never did drugs growing up. I maybe did pot once or twice and found it slowed me down to the point of I never wanted to do it again. And just sort of walled that whole thing off as stuff that other people do. And then during COVID, I read The Body Keeps the Score. And I had struggled with some things for my entire life in terms of anxiety and just getting stuck in kind of ruts of feeling.

1:00:36And it was 2021, January, where I just remember talking about follow the flow. I stood up, went to my computer. I remember being in Miami at my parents' house, Googling ketamine treatment, New York City. I knew nothing about ketamine. like nothing. How was it even in your field? I don't know. It just popped into the head. I don't know. I just remember going ketamine there in New York City, calling up, scheduling the consultation. And a week later, I'm back in New York going to meet the doctor. And I was like, I don't know if I'm right for this. I don't want anything that will mess with my creativity.

1:01:10I said, the only reason I'm entertaining this idea is because it's in a doctor's office. I said, I would never do drugs on my own because the fear surrounding that of what could happen and where it's procured from and all that stuff would end up infecting the whole experience. And with a doctor's office, you know, I'm entertaining it. I said, but I don't want it to affect my creativity. I don't want it to. He's like, it's only going to make you more yourself and more creative. But he goes, these are the three things that I think make for a good candidate. He's like, number one, have you felt emotionally numb for most of your life?

1:01:48And at that point in my life, absolutely. I think I was in just cycles of numbness. Number two was, did you have a volatile childhood where emotions were not particularly welcome? And I was like, check. Number three, he goes, this one's the most important. He's like, do you know how to have fun? And I said, no. And I cried. I remember crying in the office. He's like, do you know how to have fun? and I was the first time anyone had asked the question in the right way because I knew the idea of fun I knew that I should be having fun I knew how to act like I was having fun but I never felt like I was having fun and he goes you don't drink I said no and he goes and I meditate I was in that point four or five years into meditation he's like you're gonna have a very good response to this he just like instantly and so I started ketamine treatments at that time, I think you do six and 12 days, and then you go back for a booster.

1:02:46In my case, it's every 10 weeks, and I still go, and it changed my life. I mean, it was like, I feel like a totally different person. Because what it did is it woke up parts of my brain that I didn't know existed because they'd shut off so early that I didn't know they were there. And then all of a sudden, I started to get glimpses of what I could be like. And then it became a question of, could I hold on to that? And little by little, some people, I think, get their benefits much quicker or they don't get any benefits at all. I mean, it's so individual. In my case, it was almost like a practice.

1:03:17It was like every 10 weeks I'd go learn a million things, work on those things in between, go back. And it almost became like my version of like the deepest therapy. It's become a huge reason for everything. And I think it's also allowed me to follow the flow more than ever because the whole thing of a ketamine treatment is it's a sedative, right? So it puts your brain in such a relaxed state that you have no choice but to follow the flow where it goes. And the flow usually leads you closer to the truth. So I don't know. I think it's for someone who was so anti-drugs, it was the biggest thing that changed my mind.

1:03:54In those, just to establish some basics, with the whatever it was, let's call it, six sessions in 12 days so that loading phase let's call it like induction phase those were iv or iv i've never done the microdosing and the nasal spray and all that sort of stuff because again i don't want to do anything that is me alone yeah i've always a great policy yeah i just want to emphasize how good a decision that is a lot of friends i know who have embraced more recreational use have become addicted to ketamine. Oh, I'm sure. It has that potential. And you're also, in a sense, a great candidate slash profile because you don't have any history of alcohol use.

1:04:41Some people who have a history of alcohol abuse or just use, like extensive use, which certainly if you go to New York City, and I've spent a lot of time in New York City, a lot of social life revolves around alcohol. And many people there have switched to ketamine, but it's still a dissociative anesthetic. So in those uncontrolled environments, people can find themselves in a slide that can become very precarious. But in the clinical setting, I also find ketamine to be incredibly interesting. There's a lot of research people can find on PubMed and elsewhere looking at the rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine, there are different types.

1:05:18For people who might be interested in the potential benefits and risks and science related to this, I did an episode with Dr. John Crystal of Yale who did, he was the primary investigator on a lot of the seminal work investigating ketamine as antidepressant in humans and developed some of the early protocols with his fellow researchers and scientists. Which is tricky because I think time anybody, I talk to people close to me, they're like, do you recommend it? I'm like, no. And I never recommend it to people. I don't think I've ever recommended it to anyone because I found it difficult. It's a journey into the deepest core of yourself, it's a lot.

1:05:55It's a lot of work. And the meditation background also serves you, I would imagine, in a very big way, in terms of navigating some of these recesses. What do your boosters look like? Is that a single session? And in those single sessions, what does the format look like? Music, no music, visuals? Nothing. And it's alone, there's no therapist after. It's just, I do it in silence. And I just follow the flow wherever it takes me. And it usually takes me on a ride to the uncomfortable things that I'm not dealing with. And, you know, it's almost like the way I describe it is sometimes I feel like what the kentamine is doing is relaxing your brain like pathway by pathway.

1:06:39And whenever it gets somewhere sticky, that's like shut off where there's a jam, that's where you're going to have a little moment, you know? That's when the traffic helicopters circle the traffic jam. And then you have to, you know, but I just think it's over time because I've been willing to do the work and sort of be in there with it. It's been a huge thing. And it meant that I never had to take antidepressants. I never had to take anti-anxiety medication, things that someone on my profile probably would have needed. But instead to go three, four times a year and do these sessions, I think.

1:07:11And it's also the great thing about it is it's a short half-life. It's over so fast. So I think that's what makes it, has been such a huge contributor for me. How long would you say your active session lasts? One hour. One hour. Exactly one hour. And then just the process of getting out of your system, you coming back up, all that stuff is probably another hour and a half. So by the time you're in your Uber home, then you're good to go. Some interesting applications to treatment resistant depression and chronic pain also. Yeah. I did six infusions several years ago, and I came in without any particular acute state of anxiety or depression.

1:07:52So the people working there, the staff and technicians and MDs and so on, were a little mystified. And I therefore didn't have much in terms of measurable reductions because I wasn't coming in with something too reduced at that point. But I left, and a few weeks later, I realized, oh my God, that mid-back thoracic pain is that I have felt every day for several years, I have not felt in probably a month. It's amazing because anything that's coming from a place of stress, but the thing is it could return if you haven't, if you don't deal with that psychological stress, it might return. But yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

1:08:29I felt that too. Like if I go in with a lot of muscle soreness, I'll come back out and it's almost like it never happened. So for people who want to learn more, certainly John Crystal with a K, Crystal, and Andrew Huberman also recently had an episode related to all things ketamine, which I'm sure involved a lot of due diligence. So you can check that out. The double. This is in the excited about category. What is the double? Super excited about. I've been thinking about this one a lot, which is there's so much work on your shadow self in psychology, right? It's always like, oh, get control of your shadow self.

1:09:01Your shadow self is, you know. And the more I think about it, and the more I've gone through my journeys and all my kind of evolutions, I'm realizing that most of the time, you're the shadow self. You. It's the primary actor. You're the problem. The better version of yourself is actually out there. You're a double, right? And so I think you have to flip it. And at any given moment, and it's a good exercise to do all day long, like just a mental thought experiment. What if I'm the shadow and there's a better version of myself, completely independent human outside that door that could take over this life and completely handle it with no issues.

1:09:43So it's been something that, if you look at all my fiction, all my fiction is about some version of twins. One good, one evil, one this, one that. And it's always, I think it's that. It's that I'm always trying to figure out, like, am I who I'm supposed to be? And I think often psychology will say, well, you have to get control of that shadow. And sometimes I'm like, well, no, maybe I just need to not be here and let the double be in charge, you know? And so I think it's something I'll be exploring in everything I do, because I think it's such an important concept that we've reversed it. And that we shouldn't be afraid of the shadow because the shadow is actually staring us back at.

1:10:24So when does this thought, this concept come up for you? I have a friend who's calm in almost all circumstances, certainly compared to me, Matt Mullenweg. And there have been times when I have thought to myself, you know, what would Matt Mullenweg do? Almost like a reminder bracelet some people have for JC and so on. And that has been very helpful. When I'm in a situation, I feel myself on the verge of becoming dysregulated, not like Hulk Smash, but just having some type of rumination or tantrum internally that is not helpful. I'm like, pause. What would Matt Mullenweg do? And I'm like, you know how he would handle this?

1:11:06He would do da-da-da. and then sometimes I just do that thing and I'm like well that wasn't so hard so I'm curious if there are times when you feel you're lesser self doing something or I guess in this case your shadow right yeah doing something where you're like what would my double do how does it come up it came up first because I was going to be on the Kelly Clarkson show two years ago and I had never been on kind of like a TV show like that and you know it was live student audience it was straight out of COVID and I was like I'm just I'm not ready for it. I just don't know how to do this. Did you decide to do that or had that been suggested to you?

1:11:43Yeah, so the publicist was like, we booked you on Kelly and I was like, I don't know. Especially after lockdown and I was just like not ready for it. I think one of the first shows that she had people back. I remember in the dressing room starting to freak out and panic and I could feel that panic rising. Then all of a sudden I felt this counterforce where I was like stressing on my phone. I felt myself like put the phone down and I just felt some other presence be like, it's fine. We got this. And I almost remember in that moment being like, okay, I just felt it. Like, and that was the first time I'd ever felt something like that.

1:12:21Cause I went, I remember sitting on the couch and feeling totally chill. David Duchovny was next to me. I had grown up watching X-Files. I made a sex joke with him in the first like two seconds of the thing. Like I was just like totally chill. And I just was like, what? I'm literally watching myself being like, what is happening? And that was the first time I got a sense of, oh, wait. The possibility. That there's a better version that can handle every situation. And I remember the other thing that gave me a clue was Tiger Woods. There was a documentary about Tiger Woods on HBO. And they talked about how his dad taught him techniques to almost hypnotize himself when he played.

1:13:00So that his conscious mind wasn't working. And that's how he dominated all those years. And I thought, that's it. It's almost like you have to get your conscious brain out of the way because the double, the real version of yourself that knows how to do everything is there somewhere. And the question is, over time, can you make it so they start to integrate? And a useful thing that also helped me start to explore it was I started doing IFS. Do you know this? Internal Family Systems. Yeah. I've had the founder, Dick Schwartz, on the podcast. So I started doing IFS therapy, exploring those parts.

1:13:33And that's when you really start to be able to see them in practice and work with them and start to feel more comfortable letting go. And I think the ketamine treatments plus IFS. Plus Kelly Clarkson. Plus that Kelly Clarkson moment was sort of the secret. I think about a few years ago where everything sort of came together. Personally, do you have thoughts for how you're going to explore that or implement it? I think it comes, really, it's in therapy and it's in those treatments where I think sometimes what I'll do now is if I go in for a booster or if I go in for IFS, I just think, okay, I'm taking myself out of this.

1:14:10Let's see what comes from the other part of myself. You know what I mean? Like the part that is the creative force, is the one that has the vision of where I should be going next. The one who knows what next book I should be writing. Oh, light unbidden. Yeah, I would like to have a better connection to the thing that is running my life, which is why we should talk about QBs next. QBs? QBs. Is this quarterbacks? It is. And this is so funny. The most spiritual revelations I've ever had watching a TV show have come watching that Netflix series, Quarterback. Oh, I haven't seen it. I've only heard of it.

1:14:45It's amazing. It follows Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota for the 2022 season. I feel like I know you pretty well. How did you end up watching quarterbacks? Taylor started dating Travis. Then I felt like, okay. T-Swift is another card. Yeah, we'll get there. So I felt like, okay. I grew up watching a lot of Dolphins games. And I actually love football. I could watch football all day long. I just never really got into it because I didn't have a reason. You know what I mean? There was no team I was rooting for. And the Dolphins always sucked for a long time. So Taylor gave me more reason.

1:15:19And so I just watched it. because I've also been hearing good things and I love sports talks. I just feel like it's the closest thing I can feel to like high performance. You've played a lot of tennis also for people who don't have the background. So I start watching it and I realized that this position of being a quarterback is the greatest metaphor for what life should be. Because we all think we're the decision makers. This is what we're talking about with follow the flow. We think we're the ones in charge of everything like that. That's not what a quarterback is. Quarterback knows all the possible plays.

1:15:50The other forces are calling it into his helmet. He's not even able to talk to the coach. He can't talk back to the coach. It's a one-way system. So literally it's universe telling him what the play is. So he's hearing like white squall, Madonna, six wing, whatever. He's like, okay, execute. Right? So that's it. And I feel like that's what life should be. You're in the flow so much that the orders are coming from outside. Orders are coming from outside, telling you what the play is. You get the play, you go into the huddle, you communicate the play to your whole team. Now everybody's on the same page as you, but you've got everyone with you, right?

1:16:22Now you go into the huddle, the ball is snapped to you, and now you have to adjust because the world's going to react to your play. And that's where it gets interesting because you have to be so present and in the moment that you can react to what's going to happen. Everyone's focused so much on deciding to play. Don't focus on deciding to play. Once you feel a play, execute it. Just go follow it and if it busts whatever you got a new play coming and so each of them is so different mahomes is just sort of a physical freak of nature and so smart and able to on the fly improvise and so he's very kind of i think of him as almost pliable he's very spongy he can sort of like move and adjust at the last minute and he's so sort of confident in that ability kirk cousins is more like me, where he's not particularly physically adept, but he's brainy and nerdy.

1:17:15And so where the other quarterbacks are in the gym, like doing all their physical training, he's at biofeedback sessions. Because he feels like if he can get his brain to just be calm, like the calmest in the most stressful situations, it'll tell him what to do. Roger Federer was similar. He said that every tennis player tenses up right as they're about to hit the ball because the pressure of hitting the right shot gets them at the last nanosecond. And his job is to stay relaxed. So he has an extra millisecond of options. And so I was just something about that show where I was like, these guys are learning.

1:17:52They don't call the play, but they're the executing guys. And I just think like, that's life. Let the plays come to you. Let them come through your invisible headset. Don't question it. You can't talk back to it. Just take the play and then execute. So there's something about that show. I don't know. I gotta check it out. It did something to me at a deep level. Alright, we're gonna jump straight to T-Swift because knowing very little about Taylor Swift, but watching what was called Americana, I want to say, the documentary, I have a fascination in the phenomenon of Taylor Swift and the re-recording of The Masters, like some of these fascinating decisions with incredible outcomes.

1:18:34I'm very interested, but I know very little. But I do recall when the whole football cameo came into Taylor's life, somebody who is more attuned to all of these pop phenomena said millions of people, Swifties, are about to become very interested in football. And that's going to be a curious development. Like, where does that lead? Okay, so T-Swift. It's funny, because I grew up idolizing Madonna, and I think one of the reasons I was so interested in Madonna was some part of me was kind of pre-adapting her central question of existence to what was going to be my life, which is... I need you to end up.

1:19:17You're like, how is this sentence going to end? Which is, as an artist, how do you sustain a career for a long period of time without it just being a downward, diminishing returns? You know? And what I loved about Madonna was that reinventioning, the ability to completely reinvent herself. Brilliant, brilliant at doing it. And she did it for so long, you know, and then now she's in her close to 70 and in her like legacy celebration era, you know, she's done in terms of that part. It's funny because Taylor in a lot of ways follows the same script, which is each album is a reinvention. To the point of now when she's on tour, it's the Aeros tour.

1:20:00It's this idea that like, you're going to embrace all the different parts of me, but they're all very different and they go in different directions. And that's part of my identity now. So do not expect me to stay in the box for the next thing because that's not what is happening. And that's not what you want. So I think it's why when I went to write fairy tales, I think the fact that I am such a... Also, the reason it's in the absurd column is because I've liked her for so long. And now I'm so used to comparing myself to her when she wasn't even comparing, not myself, but like her moves and things.

1:20:36Now that she's so popular, it's almost more ridiculous when I tell people, well, we did both move to Missouri for 6 '5", aggressively masculine, athletic men.

1:20:52So I do feel like a special kinship. Maybe you're light. Maybe you're a double as Taylor Swift. I wondered about that. One of the ketamine treatments was about this. I got you, babe. For the Kelly Clarkson, she's like, we've done this a million times. That would be pretty awesome. Can she deposit some of the funds in the bank instead of hoarding? But it is this idea of like, how do you make it so not staying in the box is your thing? Because that was Madonna's thing, and that's what I want mine to be. And that's why aggressively, I can't be afraid of this next thing when I'm going out with something so different.

1:21:25I'm so excited for you. This was not comparing myself to Taylor Swift, nor to you. Different circumstances, different time in life. But after the four-hour workweek, every pressure, including a lot of internal pressure, but every expectation and pressure was that I was going to do something in the same category, something with the same brand, which I did obliquely. But the four-hour workweek, four, fill in the blank, right? Kind of franchise the whole thing, fine splice it, milk it for all it's worth, do the three-hour workweek, whatever it might be. but at that point, and you certainly have this optionality, I paused because the inclination was to rush.

1:22:01And whenever that is the pressure, I tend to hit the brakes. And I'm like, wait a second, this has bought me permission to write another book. This is the time when people are going to be willing to take a gamble because this first one went so bananas. I can always go back to the four-hour workweek. That door does not close. Or it doesn't get locked, at least. Similarly, if you try this new thing, you will be welcomed back with open arms. It's Julia Roberts with her long hair. That's right. I'm here to write more fairy tales for you. Exactly. And that's when I went to the four-hour body. Totally different category.

1:22:39A lot of people assumed within publishing totally different readership. But I was like, if this works, if this works, it's not guaranteed to work, But if it works, then I buy myself permission to do things that are not within this category. And I can always go back. I have the optionality of hitting control Z in a sense, you know, hitting undo and going back to what I was doing. But I also think that what was interesting about the four hour body is it just seems so, it's so funny because that anyone would question that. It just seems so obvious because you had presented a hack of the work life.

1:23:13So then for you to be like, I'm now presenting a hack of your physical existence. Of course. Did you feel like, this is obvious? I did. You did. That's the important thing. I did, including some of my close friends, like Matt Mullen, who I mentioned. He was like, yeah, of course. Of course. Because he knew that for all the notes and analysis and so on, that I'd put together interviews I conducted for business, I had, he knew. There's no reason why my publishers would know this, although I did tell them. And to their credit, they bit. They were willing to go with 4-Hour Body, which then took off and became very successful.

1:23:51But he knew that I had basically all of my workouts recorded since age 16. He knew the extent to which I had captured data and experimented on myself. And to him, he's very productive. And in Silicon Valley, he's like, yeah, like the productivity stuff, that's great. He's like, but for his peer group, he's like, they're all incredibly good at that. They're all incredibly good at maximizing per hour output. He said, what we're not good at and what we want from you is actually more of the physical stuff. So all of them personally were asking me questions about the exercise side. And I was like, okay, the same lens, the same framework, the same principles, they can be applied here.

1:24:35That's so interesting because that's what's so obvious, right? What are people asking you? What do people ask me? How do I fix my teenager? Yeah. Okay, so that's what I'm going to write about. What's just staring you in the face? What's staring you in the face? Yeah, what is just staring you in the face? All right. Should we go to another person? Sure. I'm really interested in these two authors who, I just feel like we're in the age of hyper-productivity, the rush of content. So you have to put out a book every year. You have to put out content on Instagram all the time, like this ubiquity of, and I find that the people that, especially the authors that we most hold onto and the ones that we start to get obsessed over and in a weird, ironic way are the most popular on TikTok are the ones who release a book like every eight years.

1:25:21So I'm thinking of Donna Tartt as one author and the other one that sort of goes together with her, her name is Hania and the last name is Yana Gihara. And Donna Tartt wrote Goldfinch, Secret History. She's only written three books. She writes one every 10 years, and she's due for exactly 10 years. So she did one at 29, 39, 49, and her 59th birthday just passed. So we should be seeing one any moment. And then Hanya wrote A Little Life, which... A Little Life. Yes, which I read... Yanagihara. Yeah. She's the editor of the T Magazine for New York Times. And she wrote this book that is the most immersive, committed.

1:26:01That's what her and Donna do. They spend years and years writing their books, and they become these immersive, complete experiences to the point of they just consume you because they're so real. And what I find so interesting is Donna Tartt, there's a whole section of TikTok dedicated to her. Little life, 10 years later, it's like number 20 on Amazon. TikTok's obsessed with it. And it's because of the level of commitment of the work. And that's, I think, what I aspire to deep down is to be able to just be so committed to something that you're able to have the time and freedom to spend a very long time on it so that you can really create this alternate thing, you know, that is undeniable.

1:26:40It will exist forever because it's that committed. And so those two authors, I think, are a sign that no matter how addled or stupid or short-term thinking or monkey meme we get, it doesn't matter. That stuff still holds because they're the two most popular authors on TikTok. Why do you think they are, and I know that you just explained part of picture in your mind, why they are so popular on TikTok? because there are many dedicated authors, let's just take as a category of profession, who release books infrequently, who are supremely good at the craft, who are not popular on TikTok. So what do you think it is about these two?

1:27:25Even if you had to just make stuff up, speculating, what do you think it is about these two in particular? What else adds to that? It goes with this one. So this is together. Levels of feeling. Together with Sally Rooney, who's another author who I'm obsessed with. These three authors are able to access a certain kind of primal nerve of feeling because they're so immersed in it. They're just there that it's the intensity of reading it just feels higher than anything else. Yes, you can have someone who spent 10 years crafting this meticulous world and all that sort of stuff. I've read plenty of books like that.

1:27:59But there's something about the 10 years that is spent doing that work we talked about. What does a character want? Why do they want it? Why do they want that? Why do they want that? And they do it for every character so that when you're reading it, you're just in this emotional soup that is undeniable. It's just so affecting to everybody who reads it. So there's this category of book that I can recommend to anybody who comes to me and says, what book should I read? I always tell them Secret History by Donna Tartt, Little Life by Hania, Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. Those are my first three recommendations and it doesn't matter man woman young old it always works out i have not read any of those three well you which one should you start with that's the question which one should i start with and why oh boy they're all so different depends on their mood a little life you can interrogate my mood then little life is if you are in the mood to be kind of torn apart Not right now.

1:28:58Yeah. So then I would wait for that one. That one will take, it takes, it's almost like a hijack. I'm open to that. Yeah. It's an emotional hijack. You will disappear. I'm open to that, just not right now. Conversations with friends is the most accurate depiction of what it's like to be, I don't know this for sure, but I just mean like what I think of what it means to sort of be in a feminine state of mind in your 20s. It is just crystal clear and brilliant writing of the emotions of what it's like to be young. And so I just think for anyone who has ever been young, when you read it, it takes you back there and takes over everything.

1:29:38So I think that one, and you'll tear through it in a day and a half because you won't be able to stop. Secret history is if you just want great writing and feel like you're in a different world because Donna takes her 10 years to meticulously create a world that the characters feel so real that you're there. So if you're just ready to go somewhere else and disappear for a while, but without the emotional hijacking, you go to Donna Tartt. If you want to be emotionally thrown into a well, Hania, and if you want to just have the equivalent of a Taylor Swift album in prose that is much more articulate, you go to Sally Rooney.

1:30:17Conversation with that. Perfect. All right. where should we go next now i'm enjoying this game because as we flip these over we get to get to fewer and fewer options these three interrelated aren't gonna all go together okay so i'll just we've got two yellows which aren't changed mind about cross-collar dating not sure what that is hookups suspect i know what that is couples language maybe we should start with cross-collar dating then because that's sort of the unlocking key have you never heard this term i've never I've never heard this term. I know what a cross-collar throw is in judo, but I'm guessing this is unrelated.

1:30:56Cross-collar dating. Is that like white-collar, blue-collar? Yes. Okay, I'm just guessing. Yes, yes, yes. And it's been popular now. I've just seen it. There are a lot of columns about this and things like that, which is also why when I thought, when Taylor started dating Travis, I'm like, they're going to last forever. Because they just will. And I'll watch, I'll have to eat my words. But it's similar to what happened to me, which was I lived in New York for 22 years. I dated every lawyer, accountant, investment banker. I went through it all. And it always felt like two clouds in the sky and no one on earth.

1:31:31Like we were doing jobs that a monkey would not understand. Like, could you explain your job to a monkey? And neither of us. Like, oh, I write. It wasn't going to work. Yeah. You know? So then when I met *** who like is just in the earth, He can tell you when it's going to rain. It felt like it was just such a match of someone who has earth energy and someone who has sky energy. Because in Hinduism, that's the balance. It's not masculine and feminine. It's not male, female. It's sky energy and earth energy. I'm ashamed and astonished I've never heard this before. Yeah. Okay. So that's the balance.

1:32:10You're looking for, and I'm all sky. I'm all what they call Shakti, which is thunder and lightning. You know, that's me. so I need somebody who's like the guy on the ground holding the kite before it flies on you know and so I just think of like what was I doing I should have known from the start and I think I started to sense it as time went on that I needed to be with someone ultra grounded and so that's why I think cross-color dating works because also you're not in each other's space there's no competition you're not competing for the same thing you're not measuring each other against Maybe you also have different neuroses.

1:32:47That's it. Which is probably good. Yeah. He's thinking about, every one of the neuroses he's about, does he have enough money to sell this group of calves for that? You know, like, I'm sure it's, that's my reaction to everything. It's fine. But I can't relate other than be supportive. And that's, you know, when he comes to watch me do the dance in Charleston, he's just like, this is a lot. Not sure what this is, but you do you. 100%. He calls it the dance of the red shoes. As a metaphor in general. He's like, he's off doing his dance of the red shoes. We'll see him when he's done. So that could be anything, you know?

1:33:25So I think that's what it is, you know? And whenever I see like two lawyers together, I'm like, I don't know who's gonna, I don't know. So yeah, worth looking at. Today I learned. Cross-collar dating. Well, actually, look, I'll ask a self-serving question. So I'm back on the singles field. As you know, we've talked about this privately. So what would that potentially mean for me? Is it more a set of characteristics? Is it profession? I mean, I have definitely, this is not exactly the same, but I have had enough perhaps tiptoeing around this to realize like probably not a good idea for me to be with another writer.

1:34:00You know what I mean? Like I've taken that parking spot. Yeah. I think that one is enough. Agreed. I think it's as simple as, it's not so much the color. It's about the intensity of the commitment to what it is. So for instance, I'm so committed to my writing career and the entrepreneurship of my life that it is such a huge part of what I do that you want to find somebody who has that same commitment to what they do that is in a completely different space. So that's why I look at Taylor and Travis Kelsey, because she is the most famous pop star in the world. she's always in the number one position what man is ever going to be able to have that same level intensity but football player playing in the same stadium in front of the same amount of people and she has to be there rooting for them it's like you're each doing your thing it's yours it's not the other person's but the other person is there to cheerlead and i think that to me is the perfect recipe of where i think sometimes when you have like even if it's an investment banker and a lawyer they're similar there's something similar about it but if you can find something that's really different so that you can just relax and be a cheerleader and feel almost humble like coaches basketball and when I go watch the games it's just fun to watch him coach basketball because it has nothing to do with my existence I have nothing to do with that I didn't know that part, you must love that I'm just thinking of you with the tutoring and all the tennis background I always love it and he comes to me with all his this kid this, what do I say to this kid this and I'm just like always asking him questions.

1:35:37I love it. It's just, it's my favorite thing. I'm always asking him more questions about what's happening with the drama behind the scenes, you know. I'm still thinking of the dance of the red shoes. I may use that with you. That's great. All right, where should we go? Hookups or couples language? Well, couples language is a really quick one, but I think it's really interesting that with couples, I feel like every couple... Oh, this is in the absurd category. Yeah. Just so people know. Because I thought it was just us. We have our own language at times, like words we make up and things that we have that no one else would understand.

1:36:10And it's almost like animals. Like we just came up with our own little like barks and like repeated phrases and repeated thoughts that are just ours. And then I talked to other couples and they have it too. And I was talking to a friend about this where he's like, you know, him and his partner used to make, instead of saying the word program, They used to use like a British accent for it and say program or something, you know, and that was how they always said it. And then, you know, they broke up and then the new partner heard about this somehow and started using it. And he felt this like irrational sense of like anger.

1:36:48Like aversion to it. Yeah, because it's somebody else's language. And I thought, oh, no, this is a real thing. This is like somehow in our DNA to create this private language with our other person. And I have a million of them, but like we use the word Malinky a lot. Malinky. Malinky to refer to something that is on its way to being totally fucked, but it's not gotten there. It's circling the drain. Is this an adjective or a noun? Like it is a Malinky or it is? It is Malinky. It's adjective. Adjective. So we use that a lot. A person could be Malinke. A dish that we're trying to cook could be Malinke.

1:37:28So it just comes up. And so we have maybe a hundred of these kind of words, nicknames and things. And so it's just our own little private language. Hookups. This is a pretty simple one. But in New York, hookup culture was big. And I never really got into it. I always was more interested in connections and things like that. And people are like, but it's fun. So many hot guys. I mean, New York has, Austin is similar. Everywhere you go, everyone's like a supermodel. It's annoying. But the reason that it stopped me was every time I was like, okay, you know, you could go hook up with that guy, whatever.

1:38:04I used to think to myself, well, what's the reason? And I realized that it was because I was trying to extract something from them. They had this hotness or this thing or this thing that I felt that by hooking up with them, I would get. And that's when I started thinking about the term hookup. What is it? hook. It's like you're trying to literally, like a fish, hook them and get this thing. There's no connection needed. You're going to dispose of them at some point. It's like a succubus. You're just going to lean over and breathe in their soul. That's it. And I thought to myself, and in my case, it was obvious because it felt like I was going after certain kind of guys that had things that I wanted.

1:38:43And I realized that it was never because I liked them. It was because I wanted to be them or I wanted this thing that they had physically or something. And it was always like, you just want to extract. And I thought, that can't be good for your soul. I just thought, that can't be good. Because what's going to happen if you mentally go through with it? Yes, you're going to go, you're going to extract this thing or try to extract it, you're going to fail to extract it, and they're going to leave, and you're still not going to have it. I mean, New York, as you described it, is just such a hyperkinetic environment that I feel like, whether it's related to hookups or alcohol or other, you need to have some guardrails, where I feel like that environment will sort of eat you alive.

1:39:23I think it's funny because we can move to that one now that we're here. I lived there for 22 years. And I would go to Florida and go to places that were much slower to relax. But I think with New York and LA, what I realized is until you're out of there for an extended period of time, that's when you finally get to be yourself. Because New York and LA and even Chicago and the biggest city, San Francisco, everything's so reactive. It's too much stimulus to ever process in a way where you're just alone with your thoughts in a consistent way. So it's not just vacation, but on a permanent basis. And when I moved to St.

1:40:01Louis, I didn't have any friends there. I was new to the city. I knew no one is still getting used to it, but it's quiet. Not much is happening. And it's for the first time in my life, it was just me. And I felt like in those 10 months, I had to grow. I got it. So you had a 10 month period where you were there full time. Yeah. I moved to St. Louis in end of January of this year. And then I go to New York maybe three or four days a month. And in those three or four days, when I first started going, I felt like I'm home. Like, thank God. And each time I went, I started to dread it. I was still seeing all my friends.

1:40:41I was getting to do all the fun stuff that I get to do in New york whenever i go there the restaurants but this but i was just like i could feel myself be like we're going to war like that's what it feels like when you go into the city again you know and i just realized especially for for me where i am at my stage where i want to commit to my art and the things i want to do and connection and relationships especially with this new set of tools that i have post ketamine where i feel like i'm finally getting to connect and be in the moment and have fun and be present and slow in terms of my experiences in New York, it never would have happened.

1:41:17Do you think you'll have an ebb and flow in that way? You'll have a seasonal relationship to that stuff? Do you think there's a chance that you do St. Louis for a period and then you have sort of a city period and then a rural period? Or do you think? I think what I'm realizing is I'm in the creative zone now where I'm done with School for and Evil and Fairy Tales for a while, I'm making new work. So for the next two years, that's really where I am, is the making new work, which involves also making new life. New partner, new city. It's a new chapter. It's a second act. It looks nothing like my first act.

1:41:51First act was New York, Fairy Tales. I'm now doing something totally different in St. Louis and I'm on a goat farm. It's like, new album. So I don't know what will happen when I'm done writing and it's time to promote. Will it be Dance of the Red Shoes again? Let's go to New York and dress up. Of course it will be. I think it'll be great. I think it'll be great. So you have the goat farm. Goat farm, St. Louis. What is St. Louis like as a city? I haven't spent any time there. It's quiet. It's manageable. It's a very family-oriented city. Whenever people are like, oh, I just moved to St. Louis, it's to be in your family, usually most of the time.

1:42:25But you're not in the outer reaches of the Brooks Range in Alaska, like a flight from people. You have access to restaurants and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Everything's there. restaurants are there. I just think it's a city that has a lot of potential. It reminds me a little bit of when I first started to come to Austin eight or nine years ago. I was like, oh, this place is going to go crazy one day when people find out what's here. St. Louis isn't quite at that level. I feel like it's evolving, but there's a lot there where people are going to be like, weather's good, people are great, food's good, easy to get around, no traffic.

1:43:02It just feels like it's a sleepy little city that people kind of gave up on. but I wouldn't be surprised if it has a boom at some point. It's the opposite of a Malinke. It is the opposite of a Malinke. Or it is the opposite of Malinke, excuse me. I just did it correctly. It's the opposite. There's a lot to be said about St. Louis. And also, I just haven't met that many people, so I'm excited to start, you know, making friends. Speaking of Britishisms, when you were mentioning the shared language of program, program, I have no idea. Dodgy. Dodgy allergies. This is in the absurd category on the purple cards.

1:43:38This is a good one to end on. I tell everyone I'm allergic to cranberries and eggplant. Am I allergic to cranberries and eggplant? Are you? I don't know. I don't know, but I've been saying it for so long.

1:43:51That I'm like, is it true? So the question is, when we are allergic to things, and I think this gets to a bigger, more profound question. Where did that start? I know that once upon a time, I thought cranberries caused hives or something. And then I ate cranberries. This was probably when I was a teenager and got a bad case of hives. And therefore, I have told people ever since, I can't eat cranberries. But it was because... It could be something else. Could be something else, right? And so, this happens, I think, a lot with... When we were young, I remember first having peanut butter and things like that and having weird reactions to it.

1:44:28I mean, this makes me feel weird. But there was no option to stop eating it. There was no, don't eat the peanut butter. It was like, we'll just keep giving you peanut butter until one day your system gets used to it. So I was just thinking about the fact that the way that it's easy to, in your mind, create these little zones of, I can't touch eggplant. No fly zones. Once upon a time, this thing happened. And it makes you start to question, I don't know, deeper no fly zones. So anyway, that was something that crossed my mind. At some point, we need to test the no-fly zones. Basically eat cranberry sauce.

1:45:06For the record, if you're working in a restaurant, I tell you I have an eggplant allergy. It's because I ate eggplant my whole life. And then one day, boom, anaphylaxis, full-blown, like almost died in a restaurant in San Francisco. It's true. And I went in. That wasn't step one. Step one was, had this dish, had some whatever it was, swordfish, fine. Vegetables, fine. Outside of eggplant. Then I had the eggplant, and my tongue got really itchy. And I was like, huh, that's weird. Feels like an allergic reaction. I've never had an allergic reaction to eggplant. So being the genius that I am, and I'm saying that sarcastically, I was like, well, I'm going to approach this like an engineer.

1:45:43I want to figure out, can I replicate the bug? So I went back the next day. Pro tip, do not do this. if you have a mild allergic reaction don't do what I'm about to describe so I went back and I was like well I'll try it again and if my tongue gets itchy I'll go have a slew of testing but that's not how allergic reactions work if you have one allergic reaction that is minor it can suddenly step function up and that's exactly what happened so I ate the exact same dish I had the allergic reaction but this time my throat closed down to like the size of a coffee straw and it was rush hour it was in the mission certain part of the mission in San Francisco where there was absolutely no possibility that an ambulance was going to get to me within 30 minutes.

1:46:26No bodega or anything nearby because I asked the staff, I was like, do you have any Benadryl? They were like, no. Do you have an EpiPen? No. And I was like, fuck, of all the dumb things that I've done in my life, this is what's going to kill me? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And I just sat there. That was all I could do. And I was like, well, freaking out isn't going to do anything. And I was like, I guess I'm just going to have to try to breathe very calmly. And I passed through it. Therefore, I've not had much eggplant. Now, I will say I went and had extensive, extensive allergy testing done at Stanford with all of these top docs.

1:47:02And at least with the species of eggplant that they used for their various sampling and testing, no demonstrable allergy to eggplant, which raises a bunch of questions. Now, one option is it's a different species of eggplant. Okay, possibly, who knows? the other which is scarier which a very well-known friend and tech founder who people would recognize brought up was maybe it is a pesticide that you are unable to identify but that is so psychologically terrifying yes yes yes for me to contemplate that i've doubled down on the eggplant and this is why dodgy allergies came to my mind because it's like the fungibility i can avoid eggplant right it to To me, when I say dodgy, what I mean is mental allergies in the sense of the allergy is compounded sometimes by this extra force.

1:47:49So like when I was on a plane and they called out, okay, someone has a peanut allergy. Therefore, we're not serving peanuts or cashews or whatever it was. Everyone's like, oh, okay. A little grumbling, but whatever. Next plane, they were like, someone has an alcohol allergy. We are not serving alcohol. It was like Saigon. Like everyone. Mutiny. everyone's racing for the last helicopter. You know what I mean? Like to get off that plane. So it was a sudden thing of like, hey, we have to take allergies seriously, but then this one we're not taking seriously. It just comes to me sometimes when I think it's worth looking at sort of the mental stress around the allergy.

1:48:28Also just asking the 30 ,000 foot question, which I'm sure very competent, qualified people have examined, but what is going on with all of these allergies? That's what I was thinking to myself. Like when I was young, I definitely think I had a peanut allergy. And it just, I think, got used to the discomfort and to the point where the body was finally like, all right, I guess we're doing this. And just, I guess, got used to it. And I don't think that was necessarily the right way to handle it. But that's what happened before. And now it's different. It is interesting to see on the farm, none of the kids, all the nephews, nobody has allergies.

1:49:06The farm just has so much going on. Interesting. First thing I do with a baby, put her in the cow pen. Into the farm you go. All right, there's one more thing I can see over there, which is one remaining name. I think there's one remaining, maybe more than one. No, there's one that is worth talking about, which is the daughter of a friend who introduced us, how I first met you. I met you through Brian Koppelman, the creator of Billions. And I have an completely independent of the fact that, obviously, I know her and I've seen her grow up. I have my eye on his daughter, Anna, who is 23 and stand-up comedian and writer, because she is so good.

1:49:47He is a very talented, skilled kid. I tutored both of them. All right. I did no work with either. Someone will take his customer at 15%. In terms of working with either of them, there was nothing to be done. These kids came fully formed. I just sat there and talked to the family and had family dinners and somehow got paid for it. I felt like they were the most incredible kids. Sam is the older one and will probably be president someday. And Anna is just, she reminds me of Dino Miranda July. I do not. Great name though. Yeah, she is in the early 2000s, late 90s, which is just very prolific and still writes and great comedy.

1:50:31Great, just versatile at everything involving writing and performing. and that's Anna. I feel like she can write, she can do stand-up, she can write novels. It's just, the voice is so sharp and interesting and mature. At 23, I'm like, what's going to happen? So I feel like she's one to keep an eye on. I feel like when I was growing up, people were like, okay, we don't know what he's going to do, but he'll do something interesting because I was just kind of off doing my dance with the red shoes. And I feel like Anna, I feel like the same, like something interesting is going to happen. And something interesting is going to happen.

1:51:06So I have my eye on her. So it's good to end on somebody young. Up and comer. That's where I think my brain always is. I'm looking at youth for talent, ambition, and most of all, commitment. What do you think Brian and his wife have done to foster some of that? This could be nature versus nurture. Who knows? Maybe they're just thoroughbreds. Came from good stock. But I suspect there's more to it. Probably a little bit, certainly, at the very least. what do you think i think they encourage their ideas i just feel like when they had ideas it was like it almost felt like an improv house where if one was like i think i should do this it would be like yes and like everything was yes no shooting down ideas it was just go with it neil digress tyson talks about how to me the ideal parent sees a kid reaching for an egg on the table like a toddler and he's like you stop that kid from dropping the egg because you're afraid of the mess and wasting 40 cents on an egg, you're going to lose that toddler seeing this thing explode and leak three different substances and a yolk and a thing.

1:52:14How did that thing turn into that? And all of a sudden you have a scientist and a three-year-old. What else can I drop and see what's going to happen? So he's like, that's it. It's just saying yes and not giving too much direction. That's what I said about the kid making the bed, the kid coming to things on his own terms. don't comment. Let them evolve. Just look at the photo. No need to add your two cents underneath. You know what I mean? I do. So what fun? This has been so much fun. Is there anything else you would like to mention? Anything you'd like to point people to? Any closing comments?

1:52:51Anything at all? I think it's just so fun to get to have a conversation with such a deep thinker and to be able to play around. You know what I mean? I never get to do this in real life. So I feel like getting to do this is an honor. And I'm just very thankful that you had me. Oh, what a pleasure. So fun. I'm looking forward to continuing at dinner. Where can people find you online? Best place to find me is my website, somanchainani.com, S-O-M-A-N-C-H-A-I-N-A-N-I.com. And then I don't use Twitter anymore. So Instagram is probably where I see messages and things like that. Somancy on Instagram.

1:53:29Soman C on Instagram. We'll link to everything in the show notes, folks, so you can find that at tim.blog slash podcast and just search Soman. There will not be an overwhelming number of entries, S-O-M-A-N. And until next time, as always, be a bit kinder than is necessary, not only to other people, but to yourself. And thanks for tuning in, everybody. Talk to you soon. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.

1:54:12Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found underdiscovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.

1:54:52If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I view AG1 as comprehensive nutritional insurance, and that is nothing new. I actually recommended AG1 in my 2010 bestseller more than a decade ago, The 4-Hour Body, and I did not get paid to do so. I simply loved the product and felt like it was the ultimate nutritionally dense supplement that you could use conveniently while on the run, which is, for me, a lot of the time.

1:55:34I've been using it a very, very long time indeed. And I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of basis. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? What is this stuff? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food source nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. Since 2010, they have improved the formula 52 times in pursuit of making the best foundational nutrition supplement possible using rigorous standards and high-quality ingredients.

1:56:15How many ingredients? 75. And you would be hard-pressed to find a more nutrient-dense formula on the market. It has a multivitamin, multimineral superfood complex, probiotics and prebiotics for gut health, an antioxidant immune support formula, digestive enzymes, and adaptogens to help manage stress. Now, I do my best always to eat nutrient-dense meals. That is the basic, basic, basic, basic requirement, right? That is why things are called supplements. Of course, That's what I focus on, but it is not always possible. It is not always easy. So part of my routine is using AG1 daily. If I'm on the road, on the run, it just makes it easy to get a lot of nutrients at once and to sleep easy knowing that I am checking a lot of important boxes.

1:57:00So each morning, AG1. That's just like brushing my teeth, part of the routine. It's also NSF certified for sports, so professional athletes trust it to be safe. And each pouch of AG1 contains exactly what is on the label does not contain harmful levels of microbes or heavy metals and is free of 280 banned substances. It's the ultimate nutritional supplement in one easy scoop. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim.

1:57:39That's drinkag1, the number one. drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep, and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all of that ad nauseum. But now I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device that was recommended to me by friends called the pod cover by eight sleep. The pod cover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment, providing the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep with the pod covers, dual zone temperature control.

1:58:25You and your partner can set your sides of the bed to as cool as 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees. I think generally in my experience, my partners prefer the high side and I like to sleep very, very cool. So stop fighting. This helps. Based on your biometrics, environment, and sleep stages, the PodCover makes temperature adjustments throughout the night that limit wake-ups and increase your percentage of deep sleep. In addition to its best-in-class temperature regulation, the PodCover sensors also track your health and sleep metrics without the need to use a wearable. Conquer this winter season with the best in sleep tech and sleep at your perfect temperature.

1:59:02Many of my listeners in colder areas, sometimes that's me, enjoy warming up their bed after a freezing day. And if you have a partner, great, you can split the zones and you can sleep at your own ideal temperatures. It's easy. So go to 8sleep.com slash Tim spelled out 8sleep.com slash Tim and save$250 on the pod cover by 8sleep this winter. 8Sleep currently ships within the US, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU and Australia.