Tim Ferriss

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to our armchair expert experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dan Shepardam, joined by Mr. Mouse.

[2] Hi there.

[3] How are you?

[4] I'm great.

[5] We have a gentleman on today.

[6] Very renowned.

[7] By all accounts is a rival.

[8] We don't look at the world like that.

[9] No, we do not.

[10] But he has a very prominent podcast.

[11] He does.

[12] Very proud of him.

[13] He's been doing it longer than us.

[14] Forever.

[15] Nine year anniversary when we were talking about.

[16] Yeah.

[17] Tim Ferriss.

[18] Tim Ferriss.

[19] Tim Ferriss.

[20] I adore Tim Ferriss.

[21] We've developed kind of a texting friendship.

[22] That's fun because you went on his show I was on his show You know what happened I think originally He back when I was on Twitter He like posted a few things Over the years That have been really kind to us Like you should like he In his own post You should listen to this interview And through that I think I reached up to him And said thank you so much for that And then we developed this kind of friendship And then yes I was on his podcast And he's so smart Extremely Yeah he's really really smart And really fun to talk to But of course You know Tim Ferriss as an entrepreneur, investor.

[23] He's a best -selling author and a podcaster.

[24] The four -hour week.

[25] That's what took the -hour work week.

[26] Four -hour work -week.

[27] Four -hour work -week.

[28] And the four -hour body.

[29] I'm fucking them up.

[30] This should be on the list.

[31] I'm really disappointed.

[32] Rob, he's fired, so he's gone.

[33] But Tim's here.

[34] Four -hour work week, four -hour body.

[35] Four -hour chef.

[36] There it is.

[37] Four -hour chef.

[38] I need to read that.

[39] You should.

[40] Yeah.

[41] Okay.

[42] Listen, you can right now be listening to the Tim Ferriss show, it's available everywhere.

[43] It's an incredible podcast.

[44] He is the best guest, and he is so researched and informed.

[45] He's a very thorough interviewer.

[46] It's very admirable.

[47] And I enjoy the shit out of them, and so will you.

[48] So please listen and enjoy Tim Ferriss.

[49] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[50] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[51] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast.

[52] Okay, forgive me. My daughter's obsessed with this.

[53] Groot stuffy.

[54] And when she left for school today, she had a little anxiety about what was Groot going to be up to while she was gone?

[55] Okay.

[56] I wouldn't mind that he makes it into a photo just so that she knows I actually took him to work.

[57] Oh, you want to hold him?

[58] Yeah.

[59] Okay, great.

[60] Even better.

[61] So I promise I'd keep an eye on them and I said, I might even take him to work.

[62] And she told me that would be great.

[63] Groot wants to be a podcaster when he grows up.

[64] Look at that.

[65] He has to learn.

[66] There's still time.

[67] And I said, doesn't Groot just say Groot?

[68] I think that's the only word Groot says.

[69] A very thin analogy.

[70] Very niche.

[71] Nitch market.

[72] Yeah, it does beg the question.

[73] Do you think you could potentially get through an interview only saying Groot?

[74] I think if you're the interviewer and you had somebody who could really improv and just run with it, you could get away with it.

[75] Or even, and I wonder if you run into this often.

[76] The older and more esteemed guests are, I find the more into legacy preservation they're in.

[77] And it's really now just rolling out this really fine -tuned and whittled story of their life.

[78] It's kind of in stone now.

[79] Meaning there's sort of a refined TED talk of an obituary that they've rehearsed.

[80] Their whole story and how they got, you know, X, the Y to Z. Let me tell you the Genesis story the way I would have it written.

[81] Yes.

[82] And I don't dare deviate from that because I'm not trying to create a new storyline.

[83] I want to die with the one we've created.

[84] I don't want to put my foot in the mud right at the finish line.

[85] So do you find that with some of your more esteemed older?

[86] It's like, you could probably just interview yourself.

[87] I don't know that you need me. Yeah, I think in some cases you find folks have their 60 minutes set down.

[88] And maybe it's that they want to tell the story a certain way.

[89] maybe it's that they've been playing the same greatest hits like the Rolling Stones for decades.

[90] Yeah, yeah.

[91] That that is just their set of material and they know it works.

[92] Why fix it if it's not broken?

[93] Do you catch yourself doing it?

[94] I catch myself doing it quite often.

[95] Occasionally, if I find myself going into autopilot, usually I try to change how I am, say, formatting the podcast or choosing my projects so that I can shake up that snow globe a little bit.

[96] I'm very cognizant of becoming calcified in that way.

[97] And that's actually why I stopped doing speaking gigs for close to 10 years because a friend of mine said to me that he had stopped, which seemed strange because he was getting paid so much.

[98] And he said, well, I found that I was repeating the same messages over and over again.

[99] And to deliver a high volume of speeches, you end up having canned goods that you repeat over and over again.

[100] And he said, that felt very inflexible to me. and I found that I was not deviating from these messages I'd created years before.

[101] He said, cold turkey, I stopped doing speaking engagements.

[102] And that's part of the reason I stopped.

[103] There's so much there.

[104] You freeze frame your thinking, polish it, and then serve it over and over and over and over again.

[105] And I think there's a place for that, and there may be room for that in many careers.

[106] For me, at the time, I felt like it was too early.

[107] It was way too early.

[108] That was probably, let's just say, the first time anyone offered me real money to speak, which was very unexpected.

[109] It was probably 2007, 2008 in that range.

[110] And it was so shocking to me that I would get offered to anything to speak.

[111] I just said yes to everything.

[112] Right.

[113] How many do you think you were doing a year at your peak of that?

[114] Pulling a rabbit out of a hat, I'd say 25 to 30.

[115] Wow.

[116] Okay, so a couple a month, basically.

[117] Yeah, which means you are traveling all the time.

[118] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[119] You become a traveling salesman.

[120] I have a few engagements this year, they will all be different.

[121] Right.

[122] What you realize, though, is if you're going to be on the circuit and you pass a certain volume, you have to start repeating.

[123] Yes.

[124] Or it is your full -time job.

[125] Yeah, for survival.

[126] But, you know, there's another element that I try to police myself on.

[127] I think it even happened when you interviewed me, which is I'm pretty reluctant to talk about my relapse much more than I have.

[128] Not because I'm at all ashamed of it at this point.

[129] My fear would be, man, if that becomes one of my routines, it'll feel so dishonoring to the experience and so.

[130] bullshitty.

[131] I really know for me if I tell any story seven times, I'm going to nail the story in a way that it'll become at some point really a performance of something that was sincere.

[132] So in that vein, I wonder if you have dicey feelings when talking about depression and of course your own personal depression.

[133] Do you feel that little tingle of like, oh, where am I spreading the message and where am I now?

[134] This is a routine.

[135] I've thought about it a lot because what I've noted, especially living in Austin, for whatever reason, there's a high density of this.

[136] There's a lot of trauma performance.

[137] The lack of small talk is viewed as a virtue, but I think there's a place for small talk.

[138] But I meet somebody within five minutes, they're telling me about their childhood abuse and this, then, the other thing, and they're just trauma vomiting all over you.

[139] So I want to be cautious of not doing that to people, number one.

[140] Number two, I would say I have fewer misgivings about talking about depression simply because I'm involved with it so actively also on, say, funding early stage science through my foundation and looking at novel therapeutics.

[141] You donated $2 million to the study of psychedelics?

[142] Is that possibly true?

[143] I've donated a lot more.

[144] Oh my goodness.

[145] Wow.

[146] Okay, hold on a second though.

[147] Yeah, a lot more through the foundation.

[148] Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim.

[149] What was the money doing?

[150] I think people experientially can understand or think they understand what these things entail.

[151] And I've spent a lot of time also with groups in South America, Central America, et cetera.

[152] So there are people, certainly in groups of people who've used these things for hundreds and thousands of years.

[153] But if you want to convert something like psilocybin, this molecule that is found in psilocybin mushrooms, more commonly known as magic mushrooms, if you want to make that available to millions of people in a way that is legal, you have to check certain boxes.

[154] Dose and dosage and all that.

[155] And also clinical trials, phase one, two, three, and that takes money.

[156] And to do that, you also need an indication.

[157] So if you look at, say, after Nixon and the Controlled Substances Act when a whole slew of things were put into Schedule 1, which would be the same schedule as, say, heroin, we now have a whole host of classical psychedelics that are in that Schedule 1, they are defined as, and this is simplifying things, but high potential for addiction and no known medical application.

[158] if you can turn either of those upside down or invalidate either of those you have a scientific path towards reclassifying these things to make them say prescribable potentially do we know really quickly then why cocaine is a schedule one or category one when it did originally have a medicinal it's a good question and it may be an either or not a both end maybe if it's either of those two I would have to double check because cocaine and coca does have some interesting applications medicinally speaking yeah the germans I don't know if you read that awesome book blit about drugs in the Third Reich.

[159] Oh, yeah, they love their drugs.

[160] Yeah, and they had, like, the purest cocaine on the planet, and they were using it surgically everywhere.

[161] But it's not currently used.

[162] So maybe they moved it over.

[163] It was so recently used as a topical anesthetic.

[164] It's a numbing.

[165] It's just like novacane.

[166] Very helpful for altitude sickness, too, but that's not a common use in North America.

[167] But the point I was going to make is that if you, for instance, through the research of Johns Hopkins and then moving into others, NYU right now for alcohol use disorder, as an example, find an indication, meaning a condition.

[168] So psychiatric disorder, let's just call it like major depressive disorder.

[169] Then you can begin to map, say, psilocybin in this case, to a very expensive, difficult to treat psychiatric disorder.

[170] And at that point, you can potentially enter a process through which these things are available to say psychiatrists with proper training so they can administer them to their patients.

[171] And that's what I'm focused on.

[172] I got you.

[173] And does that require, I imagine, philanthropic funding because ultimately there will be no patent on this because it is a natural occurring compound?

[174] So that's one aspect to it.

[175] Another aspect is that there is quite a lot of stigma still associated with psychedelics.

[176] They are actually very poorly understood, I would say, from a neuroscientific perspective.

[177] And we have learned a lot in the last, say, five to ten years with increased funding using tools like functional MRI for imaging, things like that, but they don't create clinical outcomes, whether we're looking at MDMA, which I don't consider a classical psychedelic, but MDMA assisted psychotherapy for complex PTSD, the outcomes are beyond belief.

[178] You see some similar types of outcomes for, say, psilocybin, but what makes them so unique is that rather than a maintenance drug, and this is not to malign SSRIs, I'm just using them as an example, I think they can play a very important role for a lot of people, But rather than taking something like an SSRI, several times a week or every day for years on end, you see people experiencing benefits from one to three sessions of psilocybin, and there's a durability of effect that can last in some people six months or 12 months.

[179] It could be like a biannual.

[180] Yes, but pharmacologically, that makes no sense, right?

[181] Because the half -life is so much shorter, four to six hours.

[182] The reason that philanthropic funding is so important, is that there's very little federal funding as it stands right now.

[183] Because large institutions are very powerful, very important for a lot of reasons, but they tend to move pretty slowly.

[184] The national conversation and international conversation around psychedelics and therapeutic possibilities have changed a lot in the last few years.

[185] I think that's in large part due to some of the science that has been funded.

[186] And Michael Pollan.

[187] And Michael.

[188] And Michael Paulin.

[189] And I've done a lot with Michael.

[190] He and I actually have collaborated on a journalism fellowship focusing on psychedelics at UC Berkeley, but the philanthropic dollars are important because they're really at this point is not much federal funding.

[191] So part of what I'm focused on, there's just a few things because you can't boil the ocean at once, at least I don't think it's a good idea.

[192] One of the things I'm focused on is trying to pull different levers to hopefully facilitate funding from the federal government, because ultimately I think that's critical if we want to address some of the indications that are super large scale, like opioid use disorder as an example.

[193] People are using ketamine now, too.

[194] That's a whole thing.

[195] I've watched some dudes in the program through a psychiatrist's assistance go down the ketamine route.

[196] Yeah.

[197] In my humble anecdotal opinion, I'm not a doctor.

[198] Very, very easy to abuse.

[199] Yeah.

[200] So I'll second that.

[201] Oh, you will.

[202] Yeah.

[203] And I actually did a really long, exhaustive, comprehensive episode on ketamine with Dr. John Crystal, who's the chair of the psychiatry department at Yale.

[204] He was one of the principal investigators on a lot of the seminal.

[205] human work looking at its antidepressant possibilities or potential.

[206] And I would say a few things about ketamine.

[207] So ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic.

[208] And if anyone has had a history of abuse with dissociatives or anesthetics, let's just say, like many people recreationally, this includes friends of mine who say, I no longer drink booze.

[209] I just use ketamine three to five nights a week.

[210] That is going to end in tears.

[211] And I'm not a doctor.

[212] I should make that clear.

[213] I don't play one on the internet but based on what dr crystal has said and others that absolutely can cause damage and there is a high potential for abuse if you have chronic pain or acute suicidal ideation i do think intravenous or intramuscular ketamine with the help of a professional is extremely interesting well there's so many rivulets we could put our boat in but i will just say i like rivulets i don't even know if i ever use that word correctly it comes up often that's what's I'm curious about alcohol.

[214] In many ways, if you were to measure the cumulative outcome of it, it's the most dangerous substance we have.

[215] If you look at ER visits and cirrhosis, all these things, and agreed.

[216] It's weirdly the most damaging drug we use.

[217] The upside of alcohol is it doesn't really have the diminished effect the way most other drugs do.

[218] You mean like the development of tolerance?

[219] Yes.

[220] Like at any point when I was an alcoholic, I could get too drunk.

[221] I could decide in nine minutes to get too drunk.

[222] And every night the alcohol works the way it did the previous night.

[223] Sure, there's some kind of plateau when you first start.

[224] But you hit that stride in your 20s and you pretty much, you know whether you're a six to 10 cocktail a night person and it pretty much stays level and has the predictable outcome.

[225] It's not diminished.

[226] All these other drugs.

[227] If you take ketamine three days a week at a dosage, you're going to increase that dosage.

[228] If you take any benz -o at any dosage, you will have to increase it to get the same effect it had initially.

[229] Opiates, having discovered that late in my addictive life, is the worst bet you can make.

[230] And then when you learn the mechanism by which your tolerance is going up, which is, sure, you've blocked your pain receptors, your brain is brilliant and makes more pain receptors.

[231] Now you're a human carrying around 10x pain receptors, so you need 10x of what, you know.

[232] Yeah, it's so bad.

[233] And you're not going to overcome that.

[234] No. So that's my hesitation reservation about ketamine.

[235] Yeah, ketamine I think people should be very careful with, and you might bump into people who say, I don't have an addictive personality.

[236] I would never get addicted.

[237] And my response to that is maybe you've just not met the molecule.

[238] You haven't fallen in love yet.

[239] You haven't fallen in love with your chemical, you're a chemical soul sister.

[240] And you should be really, really careful.

[241] It's like saying I've never had my heart broken.

[242] Yeah, exactly.

[243] You will.

[244] Yeah, eventually you will.

[245] Keep shopping.

[246] And so in the case of ketamine, I went through two weeks of infusions.

[247] I did that not because I was going in to treat a clinical condition, but because I knew I was going to get a lot of questions about it, and I wanted to have the firsthand experience so I could speak to it.

[248] What I realized quickly, just based on very cursory research and also looking at the behavior of my friends, is that I did not want to take the route of having lozenges or anything in my house that I could self -administer.

[249] I wanted to make it as inconvenient as possible, which is part of the reason why I chose IV.

[250] I can't remember whose book I was reading, but they talked about the value of roadblocks and how much of our behavior really does depend on how many roadblocks are in the way.

[251] Like you don't want to eat a bag of potato chips, don't have it in your house.

[252] You can try the willpower route, but it's a lot harder.

[253] Like maybe push a rock downhill instead of uphill.

[254] And critical mass is really precarious.

[255] It's like, I don't know.

[256] Yes, maybe the shot administered by someone else once a day will not trigger anything.

[257] And then maybe a shot plus one gummy now I'm fucked.

[258] Finding that sweet spot for at least me, the tiger's not out of the cage devouring everything.

[259] thing in its path could be really minute, the final straw.

[260] It's entirely possible.

[261] My interest in medicine, neuroscience, also psychedelics, but other things like TMS and different types of brain stimulation stem from personal experience and also the experiences of people very close to me. So my best friend growing up died of a fentanyl overdose.

[262] How long ago?

[263] This would have been probably four or five years ago.

[264] Okay.

[265] And yeah, it's terrible.

[266] My aunt died of Perkisip, it's alcohol.

[267] My uncle died of alcohol and his cardiomyopathy.

[268] So a lot of addiction in the family.

[269] Nice.

[270] Congratulations.

[271] Thank you.

[272] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[273] And then my own personal experiences with congenital depression, it does run in the family.

[274] So I do pay attention to the sort of addictiveness profile of drugs very closely.

[275] I will say part of what makes at least the classical psychedelics.

[276] And when I say classical, just think LSD, psilocybin.

[277] Boomers.

[278] mescaline that comes in a number of different forms I'll give you the street names Tim will give you that yeah there are hundreds and thousands of psychedelics and new ones being synthesized every day you know the one I still would try I would include this in my society have you ever seen the Yanomamo you know the fierce people as studied by Shagnon they spend most of their day the men blowing this green hallucinogen up each other's nose so they have this long pipe and they blow it hard up their nose In most of the photos that Shagnon took of the young moment, the dudes are all just...

[279] It looks like they opened up a bank die pack, but it was green and it exploded in their face.

[280] Oh, my God.

[281] And they are riding fucking raw.

[282] Do you know what it is?

[283] I don't know what it is, but I knew at one point when I read it that I had never heard of that.

[284] Nor did I see it, I don't think, in the Terrence McKenna.

[285] What was that famous book?

[286] He's got the archaic revival.

[287] That's probably what I'm thinking of, archaic revival.

[288] I don't remember it being in there when I was really young.

[289] 19, I read that book.

[290] I was all into psilocybin's and shit.

[291] But I didn't see it in there, but that still interests me going down.

[292] And also, heightening the experience would be just partying with the Yanomamo because they get those boards out and hit each other in the head.

[293] I mean, there's a lot going on in a Yanomamo party.

[294] Yeah, I mean, look, if you want unusual things blown into your sinuses, South America is a good choice.

[295] Okay, so I'm curious, walking into this setting, knowing how I operate, you're one of the most linear people I've ever spoken to.

[296] And the way you conduct interviews is very linear in a very satisfying moment.

[297] manner.

[298] I am the opposite, right?

[299] It's kind of all over the map.

[300] Willie, nilly.

[301] I like that.

[302] Improv jazz.

[303] I'm into it.

[304] Okay, okay, good.

[305] I want to gauge your comfort level because even as you're talking, I wanted to like blast over to nine different topics.

[306] Oh, I'm into it.

[307] Because you're into so many big global view of you and your work and addiction.

[308] And I say this as someone on the same treadmill.

[309] So there's zero judgment here.

[310] Oh, boy.

[311] Yeah.

[312] What a preface.

[313] Here we go.

[314] Yeah, because I have this debate with myself.

[315] I am in many ways like you.

[316] I have a cold plunge.

[317] I sauna every night.

[318] I exercise every day.

[319] I am a dopamine pursuer, adventurer, and one that's tenable.

[320] That's my goal.

[321] Most everything you talk about, I am interested in as well.

[322] And then I step back and I go, this is all the same thing.

[323] It's all trying to regulate the insides with some external things, be them philosophies or actions or whatever.

[324] And I'm still trying to regulate.

[325] I'm endlessly trying to regulate this, this body of mine with all these things.

[326] And I'm doing it compulsively and habitually.

[327] And some are less detrimental, objectively.

[328] But I might be missing the overall big universal question, which is like, could you ever just exist without the endless exploration and kind of compulsive and obsessive methodology of feeling good?

[329] Does any of that hit you?

[330] Sure.

[331] Yeah, we can talk about it.

[332] Yeah, what are your thoughts on that global?

[333] Yeah, my thoughts are...

[334] Fuck you.

[335] I'm out of here.

[336] I'll be in my trailer.

[337] It's important to me, and I think it perhaps should be important to a lot of people to just spend time sitting without constant stimulation, without all the interventions.

[338] I have, especially as I've gotten older, done more and more of that.

[339] I was literally supposed to leave tomorrow to be off the grid for three weeks.

[340] And unfortunately, due to some extreme weather that may not happen.

[341] Where were you going that's going to have extreme weather?

[342] I was going to head to Suriname, which is in South America, tiny country relative to others like Brazil.

[343] Super duper south?

[344] Is that why?

[345] It is right at the top crest of South America.

[346] Oh, what kind of weather problems do they have there?

[347] Extreme rain and flooding.

[348] Oh, fly.

[349] Which if you're landing on unpaved runways is a problem.

[350] Yeah, okay.

[351] You may end up staying there for a few months, but there are all sorts of challenges with that.

[352] So I do think that's important.

[353] I would also say my overall thought that jumped to mind when you were talking about the cold plunge and this, then, the other thing.

[354] And maybe if I'm understanding you correctly, the question of can I just sit with myself and regulate these things internally?

[355] I think the vast majority of us are very well adapted to a really sick society and really new circumstances from the perspective of evolutionary biology and stressors that are so brand new on the, time scale of homo sapiens that people are not doing well and that i don't want to say desperate times call for desperate measures but things are so unusual and maladaptive that i think it's okay to use some of these tools yeah yeah different wiring requires different toolkits and so for me if the option is self -medicating with cold plunge or self -medicating with another prescription medication i would rather try the cold plunge first yeah because the downside risk is so limited listen i'm with you i kind of reverse engineer that like you know without this system the alternative for me is self -medication which is incredibly destructive and i can't function really and i won't be here long so yeah ultimately i stay the path but i also have a voice that says monitor your quote healthy obsessions monitor the illusion that there's a solution monitor these things because they too will tip like all things in your life can tip right back into the addictive freeway that I'm hardwired to be on.

[356] It's certainly more challenging to evaluate the quote healthy alternatives than it is the destructive ones.

[357] Those materialize really quick, the wreckage and the problems.

[358] The other things are a little more subtle but you know you hang out with people like us you're going to hear about all this crap we're doing.

[359] And even that minimally might be a little bit of a barrier between interpersonal connection or we could be exhausting, I guess, for people.

[360] Do you think?

[361] When I'm hanging out with other people who are wired the same way, I don't think it's exhausting.

[362] Or maybe we just mutually exhaust one another to such an extent that we don't even notice it.

[363] No, I agree with you.

[364] It's stimulating.

[365] Especially when I was, let's just say, a bit younger, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, yes, I think I was probably quite exhausting for a lot of people to be around.

[366] You even used the term evangelizing.

[367] Yeah, and I was, I still am.

[368] I mean, pretty high RPM, pretty aggressive, especially circa 2007 to 2012, very focused on, in part because it was my lane, to be fair, which was found with the first book, The Four Hour Workweek, of optimizing efficiency, looking for elegant workarounds that maybe people hadn't spotted before or that were not well distributed so that I could highlight them.

[369] And that has taken.

[370] in a passenger side seat in the last five to 10 years as I've paid more attention to psycho -emotional health, also some of the biological correlates looking at microbiome and other things that can inform our perception of mental health and well -being.

[371] I have taken the foot off the gas with a lot of the optimizing.

[372] You just nailed it.

[373] That word in itself, optimal, optimizing.

[374] The notion that we should be optimized, right?

[375] The notion that we should be working as efficiently as possible.

[376] And the question is like optimist for what, right?

[377] Exactly.

[378] That's the part that gets lost.

[379] Yes, we forget the bigger global question.

[380] And then going back to where we are at historically versus what we were designed to live in.

[381] And the notion just pretty much consensus in Anthro, which is like hunting and gathering folks, did about four hours of work a day.

[382] And the other time was fucking laughing, shooting shit, fucking doing hallucinogens, sitting around a campfire dancing, all these things.

[383] So it's like, by our current evaluation, we would never look at someone that's spending 14, Or so they're waking hours partying and go, you're optimized as a human.

[384] We would probably think they were hedonistic or impotent something, but we were designed to be kind of non -optimal in that way, or at least optimizing for different things.

[385] Yeah, I think the U .S. is particularly problematic here, although the sort of Protestant work ethic and hyper -workaholic culture has been exported pretty well.

[386] My feelings on large blocks of empty space have changed pretty dramatically.

[387] And I think things have changed for me also just as I've reached certain levels of, in quotation marks, success, realizing that more of X is not going to fix whatever problems still exist.

[388] Yeah.

[389] And a handful of years ago, I realized that any of the internal struggles I felt persistently were not going to be fixed.

[390] by more professional work.

[391] Well, ultimately, we could at least concede that a big chunk of it is just distraction.

[392] Oh, it's absolutely distraction.

[393] Right?

[394] And distraction's quite comforting.

[395] There's an altruistic distraction, which is, like, I concern myself with your problems, Tim's, which I find great relief in because I'm not thinking about Dax's problems and make Dax happier from one minute to the next.

[396] Right?

[397] There's like a really nice reprieve when I'm focusing on you, but that doesn't tend to be where we encourage you.

[398] people to put their aim, it's more like, well, no, I'll focus on those things to make Dax happier and get so distracted in the pursuit of that, that I, too, will have some relief from that madness.

[399] Which brings us to, elegantly, I would love for you to break down stoicism for us because I watched your TED Talk.

[400] I encourage people to watch it.

[401] It's really, really good.

[402] First of all, you're very comfortable up there.

[403] 36 speaking engagements a year will probably get you comfortable.

[404] Yeah, there's a whole story behind that TED Talk, but it's a very compelling illusion of ease that I produced on stage but you know TED Talks are curious A I love them I've watched a bunch of them but they out index with people who are not extroverts Let's just start there right So it's like you're watching The hardest thing for these experts is to get up and be a show business person And so it's an interesting format And I generally go into them With a good deal of performance anxiety for the people Like I'm watching stand up or something Oh yeah And so when I see someone who's kind of caught their breath and isn't in a rush, it's very comforting.

[405] So just performance -wise right there, it's already great, yes.

[406] But also it's called why you should define your fears instead of your goals, which is really a great position to take.

[407] But in it, you kind of explore stoicism.

[408] And I think you know certainly a lot more than I knew about it.

[409] Yet I find myself drawn to it.

[410] So tell me a little bit about stoicism.

[411] Yeah, the last couple of days have been a good opportunity to practice stoicism in my life.

[412] but stoicism is a very old philosophy let's call it and the academics out there who really get into the fine details will probably dislike my summary that's okay it's very nuanced and there are many different players and there are different varieties of it but the basic idea is some form of the serenity prayer you are learning to separate the things that you can control from the things that you cannot control and then to exercise calm influence over the things you can control and to largely disregard the things that you cannot.

[413] And for that reason, I've sometimes described it to friends who have an immediate allergic reaction to the word philosophy as an operating system for functioning in high -stress environments.

[414] So if you want a set of rules, a set of principles that allow you to keep yourself regulated and make good decisions in a non -reactive way in a fast -paced or stressful environment, stoicism has a lot to offer.

[415] And there are different tools and they're different thinkers.

[416] So some people really like Marcus Aurelius and say meditations.

[417] That book and the origins of it are fascinating in and of itself because it was never intended to be published.

[418] It's kind of like if your morning pages or diary were suddenly published like 200 years from now, that's kind of what happened to Marcus Aurelius.

[419] And then you have Seneca.

[420] Seneca has always been my preferred writer.

[421] These are Greeks too, right?

[422] These are like 300 BC.

[423] Romans, yeah.

[424] Oh, Romans.

[425] But a long, long time ago.

[426] A long time ago.

[427] Seneca was at the time one of the most famous playwrights.

[428] He was very wealthy.

[429] He was an operator.

[430] He was involved in politics, which also appeals to me because many of the modern -day philosophers are sort of like lazy boy quarterbacks in the sense that they're not on the playing field.

[431] They're not practitioners, if that makes any sense.

[432] Yeah.

[433] Same complaint for academics, maybe.

[434] Yeah.

[435] They're not operators or competitors in so much as they haven't had the personal opportunity to succeed or fail or get beaten up by the world or the arena in which they might play when you look at seneca when you look at marcus a realist he was emperor right he was the last great emperor by many accounts these were people with real obligations real responsibilities who were not interested in flights of fancy conversations for hours around what the definition of is is they wanted tools they could use because they had to go into the senate the next day and deal with a bunch of fucking headache Yeah.

[436] Very pragmatic.

[437] And if you look at, say, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Bill Belichick, some of some people might know, very, very famous football coach.

[438] And many others use the tenets of Stoicism.

[439] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[440] We've all been there.

[441] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers and strange rashes.

[442] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[443] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[444] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[445] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

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[449] What's up, guys?

[450] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[451] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[452] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[453] And I don't mean just friends.

[454] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[455] The list goes on.

[456] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[457] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[458] You read this, but another great little statement that comes from Stoicism is we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

[459] Yeah.

[460] I think this is one of the most profound observations and I've experienced it so much in my own life.

[461] give the example it's like when you are asked to imagine a loved one dying or aiding or getting them across the finish line it's insurmountable but i've done that i've done that twice and within that experience was tons of levity and laughing and fun and connection and reminiscing and healing and i've yet to walk through one of the experiences i feared where it ever matched how fearful i was of it and that's the function of this fear setting exercise that you mentioned which i'm happy to lay out yes i would love it the column Yeah, exactly.

[462] There is a focus on achieving, and I think there's good that comes of that.

[463] There's often this focus on goal setting and making sure they're specific, time -bound, achievable, et cetera, and people set out their timelines.

[464] But fear is often left to float around in this nebulous form, unpinned down in the brain.

[465] And that can contribute to anxiety.

[466] It can cause all sorts of issues.

[467] It can prevent you from taking needed action.

[468] So fear setting is very simple idea.

[469] and this is borrowed directly from Stoicism.

[470] Stoicism has this, and I'm not a fluent Latin speaker, so I'm not going to get it totally right, but premeditadio malorum, which means the sort of premeditation on evil.

[471] Are you sure that doesn't mean hunger is the best spice?

[472] Yeah, actually, yeah, I think you messed that up.

[473] We just talked about that like two years ago.

[474] Tufts universities crest, I might have mixed things up.

[475] I'm not sure.

[476] Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[477] That's okay.

[478] So the premeditation on evils or bad things is negative visualization.

[479] So visualizing the worst things that could happen.

[480] And there's tremendous value in this.

[481] So the basic idea of fear setting, which is just, of course, taking goal setting and swapping in fear, is something that I ended up doing, starting around 2004, that allowed me to make some very pivotal life decisions.

[482] In my personal example, I was running a company, I felt completely trapped and hadn't taken a vacation and God knows how long years and wanted to take a four -week period out of the grind to try to figure out A, B, and C. So you have your fear.

[483] It could be a relationship issue.

[484] It could be breaking up, getting together with someone proposing, starting a business, ending a business, doesn't really matter.

[485] But whatever the thing is that is causing you stress, that's sort of at the top of a sheet of paper.

[486] And then you just break it into three columns.

[487] The first column, you write down all of the worst things that could happen if you take the action that you're considering.

[488] Come up with at least 10.

[489] So for me, it was like, well, I'm going to miss this letter that gets mailed to me by the IRS and then, oh, my God, like it'll be this huge disaster, right?

[490] if I'm traveling for four weeks.

[491] You even concluded you'd be getting audited.

[492] Yeah, getting audited, right?

[493] Number two, the business will fail or like the manufacturers will get shut down.

[494] And then, number three, I would need to leave my apartment because I wouldn't be able to pay for the rent.

[495] And I went through and I listed a ton of these things.

[496] In the second column, you go item by item.

[497] And this is the column of what you could do to help minimize the likelihood of these things happening.

[498] So what could you do to possibly prevent them from happening or at least reduce the likelihood?

[499] So, in the case of the mail, right, there are forwarding services that will scan your mail and email them to you.

[500] Okay, pretty straightforward, right?

[501] Or just have everything sent directly in my account for four weeks, like very straightforward, preventable.

[502] And then on the other side with the manufacturing, let's just say there are certain choke points, certain materials that were more likely to be problematic than others.

[503] I could stockpile those in advance.

[504] And maybe I end up spending a little bit extra, but that would dramatically reduce the likelihood of an issue.

[505] And so you go point by point through this entire list.

[506] And then in the third column, this is, if it happens, what could you do to reverse the damage or at least get back on your feet?

[507] Okay, if you get audited, what could you do?

[508] Well, you go through the audit and then if you have a penalty, you pay the penalty.

[509] You remind yourself they don't jail debtors here.

[510] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[511] Kind of right -sized the fear a little bit in that process.

[512] You right -size the fear.

[513] Yeah, that could also be the name of the exercise.

[514] And then when the manufacturing piece, it's like, well, I could take out a line of credit doing this.

[515] I could do that and the other thing.

[516] And in many of these cases, when the stakes are pretty low, let's just say you're young and you're considering, do I go to the so -called safe job with some predictable income or start my own gig?

[517] It's like, well, if you tried your own gig and it failed, like worst case, even if you got a fancy degree from a fancy college, you could get a job as a waiter and pay some bills for a while, maybe ask your friends for a loan, put some money on a credit card.

[518] There are ways you could get back on your feet.

[519] And so just to recap, column one is all the worst things that could happen.

[520] and, like, really let your mind go crazy.

[521] Trap it on paper so you can examine it.

[522] Attacked by a sea snake, bitten on the face, by a feral cat, whatever it is.

[523] Sure, sure, sure.

[524] You know, write it all down.

[525] Kill all the cats.

[526] Yeah, number two, the things that you could do to minimize the likelihood of each of those happening.

[527] And number three, if each happened, what you could do to undo some of the damage or get back on your feet.

[528] And once you do that, nine times out of ten, you realize this isn't a big deal.

[529] You know, as you were laying that out, I noticed, I'm not going to claim I'm great at doing that with my own fears.

[530] but I will say one time I was talking to my mom, and it was probably the 10th or so time she had told me, she used to like to go sailing with my stepdad back in Michigan.

[531] They lived on this little lake.

[532] And she was expressing that she had increasingly become overwhelmed with fear that the boat was going to capsize.

[533] He's not the sailor he once was.

[534] You know, it's kind of rooted in a little bit of reality.

[535] And it was just getting worse and worse.

[536] And she, you know, I can't even really enjoy these things.

[537] And I'm worried about the wind and blah, blah, blah.

[538] And she had this whole thing worked up.

[539] And I asked her, well, mom, let's say this boat tips over.

[540] What do you think you'll do?

[541] and she goes, well, we're in the lake.

[542] And I go, right, you're a very strong swimmer.

[543] And she goes, yeah.

[544] And I go, yeah, so you'll swim to shore.

[545] You're not in the ocean.

[546] You're not in Lake Michigan.

[547] You're in lower long lake.

[548] And literally, like a light bulb, she at that moment remembered she could swim.

[549] But the fear was so powerful that she didn't go past what happens when the fear comes true.

[550] Exactly.

[551] And the initial event, right?

[552] Like the initial thing.

[553] But as you did with your mom, then you ask, and then what?

[554] Right.

[555] I think we forget to go to the end.

[556] Yeah, we forget, and we all do that.

[557] And I forget it, too, which is why it was helpful for me just to have, like, a codified exercise that I could use.

[558] What about, like, people who are afraid of flying, right?

[559] The fear is dying.

[560] I have the best stoic opinion on flying.

[561] I've had it forever, which is, what a waste of my time.

[562] If something goes wrong in the air, I will not be a part of the solution, although, you know, I do think I would be.

[563] But I have no illusion.

[564] You're going to pull out the whip at canisters and just go to town.

[565] He wants to fly the plane.

[566] He thinks he can land it.

[567] They said, you know, are there any pilots on board and there weren't, then the next round?

[568] Is anyone just really good at driving and feels confident to try this?

[569] Anyone have 20 -20 vision?

[570] Yes.

[571] I think at that point, I'm a really good candidate, but that's, I don't want to ensnare you in a five -year debate.

[572] Groot thinks he's a good candidate, too.

[573] I would trust Groot to cheer me on as I went down.

[574] That one I'm at such peace with, because I have no illusion of control.

[575] I enter that plane and I go, you know, we're in God's hands now because...

[576] But some people won't fly.

[577] They won't even take that step.

[578] You don't have the fear enough that it'll stop you from the thing, but some people do.

[579] Fear setting definitely doesn't apply to every type of fear for sure.

[580] Okay, yeah.

[581] But in the case of flying, I think this also applies when someone is fearful of taking an action.

[582] Right.

[583] That they assess the risk of action, right?

[584] So they think, oh my God, if something goes wrong, I'm dead.

[585] Without doing a few things.

[586] So one is just looking at whatever numbers you can look at.

[587] Because statistically speaking, if you're driving every day, much.

[588] more dangerous than flying infrequently.

[589] Oh, like a thousand X, 10 ,000 is so much more dangerous.

[590] That doesn't seem to help people for some reason.

[591] So the other one, though, is people don't assess the cost of inaction or not taking the action, right?

[592] And not just once.

[593] So let's just say it's my mom.

[594] Okay.

[595] And I don't have kids, but let's say I have kids.

[596] And she's afraid of flying.

[597] I would probably say, well, if you've decided you're never going to fly, what does that mean?

[598] Let's flash forward five years.

[599] how often are you going to see the grandkids?

[600] How often are you going to feel an ocean breeze on your skin?

[601] Yeah, exactly.

[602] And if you're getting older, there will be a point when you can no longer travel at all and that decision will be made for you.

[603] Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.

[604] Right.

[605] The cost of inaction, yeah, this is the second part of your TED talk.

[606] And that applies to so many things.

[607] And looking at the case of trying something entrepreneurial, right?

[608] It's like, can you undo this?

[609] And in a lot of cases, you can.

[610] You have a job, you try something entrepreneurial, doesn't work out.

[611] You go back and you get a job.

[612] again.

[613] I would just say fear is so scary because it is so undefined most of the time.

[614] So just take the same tools, the same analytics, the same Googling that you would apply to trying to figure out how to achieve a goal and apply it to your fears.

[615] And oftentimes it's not pressing on the gas to get to a goal that is your problem or the lack thereof.

[616] It's that you have the emergency break on, which is some form of undefined fear.

[617] There's an interesting parallel to this approach that, exists within AA, or at least my understanding of the fourth step of AA, and I always say if there was a single step that I would hold on to if they all went away, it'd be the fourth.

[618] It's the personal inventory step.

[619] Again, columns are really good hacks.

[620] They slowly lead you to a place you probably wouldn't get to otherwise.

[621] Was it Bill Wilson, who was one of the founders?

[622] He also, at least based on some of my reading, wanted to incorporate one of the steps as psychedelic compounds, because I think it was actually a fairly dangerous psychedelic experience that he had.

[623] I believe it was with Belladonna.

[624] We could get into that.

[625] I don't recommend anyone try that, but it was with one of these sort of European hexing herbs, one of these unusual plants, I think.

[626] And that contributed to his sobriety, I believe.

[627] He did do lots of psychotropic therapy.

[628] He did LSD therapy.

[629] Yeah, this is in sobriety.

[630] Yeah.

[631] Which has actually been a huge challenge for many folks in the sense that if these compounds.

[632] Let's just say sell aside.

[633] It's the friendliest.

[634] It's also the easiest for researchers to work with right now outside of MDMA for legal reasons because they have to go through the DEA and so on and so forth just to get a tiny amount of any of this to work with.

[635] And then it's within a box that's locked.

[636] Within a box that's locked within another room that's locked, it's a whole process.

[637] The fact of the matter is pre -Nixon, so 50s and 60s, LSD at that time, showed incredible promise for alcoholism, for alcohol use disorder.

[638] And And that is now being examined anew and the data are holding up at NYU.

[639] But what happens then if these tools become available?

[640] Well, that means that people who are in AA have to have some very uncomfortable conversations with sponsors if they want to consider using these compounds.

[641] And I have a number of friends who've done this.

[642] And I think that's a helpful hurdle.

[643] But some sponsors have been understanding.

[644] And others have said, if you pursue this, I can't be your sponsor anymore.

[645] We're in a real interesting phase of A .A. This is kind of one of the first big pressured tests.

[646] I think that's come at this leaderless group, right?

[647] Yeah.

[648] Because there won't ever be a unified declaration made.

[649] It's human beings sharing their experience.

[650] And some human beings are going to share their experience of having gone to a doctor and had a supervised, psychiatrically observed experience in the pursuit of mental health.

[651] And some people are going to think that's horseshit and some are going to be open to that.

[652] And everyone's free to do that.

[653] But it is a very interesting, like I have my own little agenda, right?

[654] I'm against addicts doing ketamine.

[655] I'm against addicts using benzos for anxiety.

[656] I'm for psilocybin use.

[657] I'm for probably monitored LSD use.

[658] I'm open to ayahuasca.

[659] I haven't personally gone and done those things, but I think there's a big time place.

[660] I also, and it's so personal, I've done so many mushrooms in my.

[661] life.

[662] I mean, that was my drug.

[663] I loved it.

[664] I bought a half pound in Santa Cruz and just stayed in my freezer for like two.

[665] Half a pound.

[666] Yes, two Ziploc gallon bags is a half pound.

[667] So much.

[668] Never during a trip did I think I need more.

[669] Never at the end of the trip did I think I want to do that again.

[670] And never did I wake up the next day and desire to do it.

[671] And that's so opposite of any experience I've ever had with anything I enjoy.

[672] For me, personally, it's pretty anti -addictive.

[673] Even in the animal models and animal tests, these psychedelics, and I need to be careful at that term because the umbrella has become a little too big.

[674] But if we're talking about LSD as an example, highly anti -addictive.

[675] If a mouse hits a dispenser and uses LSD once, they're like, no, thanks.

[676] I'm done.

[677] Yeah, that was a little wild for me. I don't need to do that again.

[678] Whereas you can certainly model cocaine addiction.

[679] You can certainly model addiction with so many different compounds.

[680] And I'm not in AA, have never participated.

[681] but in case it's helpful, I would second what you said about ketamine.

[682] I would be very cautious with ketamine, especially if you have a history of alcohol abuse.

[683] I think they are different species of a similar experience.

[684] You were able to hit pause or stop on feelings or thoughts you don't want to have.

[685] It has the numbing quality we desire.

[686] Yeah, exactly.

[687] I would also say, and this may not be well received by some folks, but I would probably be cautious around MDMA also.

[688] Yeah, yeah.

[689] Now, again, I did a lot of fucking ecstasy in my day and I always wanted more.

[690] and I wanted to do it the next night.

[691] Yeah, I would be cautious around that, even though it has tremendous applications for PTSD, whether that's for veterans, victims of sexual abuse, or otherwise.

[692] And I really recommend folks, even if you have read Pollan's book, How to Change Your Mind, the Netflix miniseries, I think there are four episodes, very easy to digest.

[693] The episodes on MDMA and psilocybin are particularly strong, and they include session footage, actual footage.

[694] I am so immersed.

[695] in this world and I have been funding various studies and so on since 2015 or so, and I still saw a lot I'd never seen before.

[696] It's very well done.

[697] So I'd encourage people to see that.

[698] If you want to see what the before and afters can look like, which it does not mean that they're representative, but it's remarkable for conditions that are incredibly poorly treated.

[699] Yeah, I guess probably my only knee -jerk hesitation to it is too simple, which is I don't mind anyone trying to take a substance to deal with their addiction to another substance.

[700] Yeah.

[701] I'd really prefer it be in concert with a lot of actionable steps.

[702] Oh, for sure.

[703] I think a lot of people want to take something to cure them of something else.

[704] It kind of reeks of this American, like, let's get a disease by this thing and take another thing and then take another thing for that.

[705] The magic pill.

[706] Yeah, and it's just like you just enter this path that never ends.

[707] Yeah, I have thoughts on that.

[708] You should think of it the way you would think of a complete hip in knee replacement or neurosurgery and how seriously you would take brain surgery in terms of finding the practitioner, vetting the practitioner, getting background checks or at least referrals and looking at their medical intake, looking at their patient outcomes, and also paying attention to a lot of prep, right?

[709] So prehab, in the case of the orthopedic example, and then what you would need to do after the surgery to recover, just to baseline, and then to sort of hyper -recover and hopefully have some new programming that is going to help your future self.

[710] You need to take it that seriously because if you don't, these are very powerful compounds, and people don't automatically turn out better.

[711] You are creating a window of incredible plasticity within which you can potentially step outside, of yourself, see the behaviors, thought patterns, beliefs that are governing your behavior, including maybe your compulsive behavior, in a way that you can't when you're kind of trapped behind your eyes.

[712] And in doing so, you can begin to edit and sort of author the beliefs that are more enabling.

[713] And I think that's why these compounds can have such durable effects.

[714] But if you do it in an uncontrolled environment, if you source in a way that is impure, and let's just say in the case of MDMA, at least 60 % of street MDMA is adulterated, you to be very careful.

[715] It can be cut with things like fentanyl.

[716] Or this new weird thing that trank that's like going everywhere.

[717] There's so much bad stuff.

[718] You can end up if you don't have the proper plan for post -surgery.

[719] In the case of psychedelics, you should have a therapist, you have developed a relationship with, in addition to the clinician or the psychiatrist who provides the service and in -session is there as a safety net for you afterwards if you uncork a lot or have difficulty so that you can process with someone.

[720] You don't want to end up spinning out and then trying to find help.

[721] That doesn't work well.

[722] Right.

[723] So I take these things very seriously and surprisingly to a lot of people, I probably talk more folks out of psychedelics than I talk into.

[724] Right, right.

[725] Because they want to ride casually, and I just fundamentally disagree with that as an orientation going in.

[726] When you hear the amount of homework you're requesting someone to do, it gets less appealing to them, which is a pretty good indicator of how severe the condition is, really.

[727] Yeah, it's kind of the point for me, too.

[728] That's where I sort of test people.

[729] I'm like, before you consider it, I would do this.

[730] this, this, this, this, and this.

[731] And they're like, uh, I'm like, okay, well, this person's never going to do the rehab after the surgery, therefore, this is a bad idea.

[732] And to use the medical analogy, it's also like physical therapy absolutely works.

[733] And you can relieve pain through increasing muscle with the exact right program.

[734] If your back hurts and you decide, well, I heard this lifting weights and physical therapy works, I'll just start lifting weights randomly.

[735] A really high likelihood you're going to exacerbate the situation.

[736] Yeah.

[737] Yeah.

[738] So there is a right and wrong way to do all these things.

[739] And I think psychedelics can also be a Trojan horse for other good behaviors in the sense that if someone has never meditated, but I make it a prerequisite in my recommendation to them, that you should follow, let's just say the waking up app with Sam Harris, do the introductory course 30 days, minimum before you schedule any type of psychedelic assisted therapy.

[740] It's enough for a lot of people to get them to do it.

[741] And then I say in addition to that, you should read this book Awareness by Anthony to Mello that will act very synergistically with Sam Harris and this, this, and this.

[742] And what I've seen is that many people end up feeling better even before they do their session.

[743] There are plenty of studies that look at variants of this, like sham knee surgeries, so where they have two arms in the sense that they have one group who's getting the knee surgery, the other who's getting anesthetized, put under, cut open, but then they're just stitching it back up and not fixing the knee.

[744] But then they follow the same rehab program.

[745] And in many instances, the people who receive the fake surgery still end up with comparable levels of recovery because it finally got them to do the damn exercise.

[746] Yes, I know.

[747] I'm observing this in my real life.

[748] Somebody is like gearing up for their third round is.

[749] And I'm like, you got to do this physical therapy.

[750] We got to.

[751] Yeah.

[752] Okay.

[753] So you've had such a fun and colorful, I guess we're going on now, well, 23 years since you graduated college.

[754] You've had a million different identities in that time frame, right?

[755] I mean, you go there for East Asian Studies to Princeton, yet you come out and you take a sales position at a data storage place in Silicon Valley.

[756] And then quickly into that job, you start a supplement company.

[757] And then during the supplement company, you take this extended trip and discover the blueprint for the four -hour work week.

[758] And then in doing that, it leads to the body, it leads to all these things.

[759] different things it leads to a podcast it leads to a television show it leads to public speaking angel investing and all the tech stuff yes and so i'm at a phase of evaluating my life that i've accepted that i'm prone to every five years get kind of bored with whatever i'm doing and then instead of seeing that as some kind of like lack of conviction or lack of direction i've kind of come to think like oh yeah man i'm a taste tester in life i'm like i'll take a la carte that i'm gonna hop over here maybe want to live there.

[760] I've kind of embraced it.

[761] What's your experience with it?

[762] Do you have full acceptance of it?

[763] Do you feel like you're still fighting it?

[764] I think at this point I have full acceptance of it.

[765] For a while, I had mixed judgment about hopping around.

[766] Would it induce feelings of fraudulence?

[767] Not so much fraudulence, but I would look at whatever I was focused on for say a five -year period and I'd say, okay, this is not true for everything, by the way, but I was like, okay, I think I can get to the top 10 % in the world or the U .S. in this field if I just focus on it really intensely for X period of time.

[768] And then I start getting to around that point and either I get bored or my learning curve starts to flatten out a bit and the novelty has worn off.

[769] I don't feel like I'm growing very much and I want to move.

[770] But I have friends who are a counter example and will focus on one thing for say 10 years and they become top 1%, which is a different species of animal.

[771] It is.

[772] And I think maybe I should be that person.

[773] Well, don't you think sidely we're programmed to aspire to be Michael Jordan, not Steve Kerr, but damn good life, Steve Kerr.

[774] Yeah, and I would say also, I think Mark Andreessen, very famous entrepreneur and venture capitalist at Andresen Horowitz right now, I think he wrote about this, but I could be misattributing.

[775] In any case, the point is, if you're aiming for top 1%, it's a bit of an all -or -nothing proposition, especially in the world of sport.

[776] You either make it or you don't, so the downside is actually very high to be hyper -specialized.

[777] I think that's true in other places as well.

[778] And if you're, say, top 10 % or even top 25%, maybe even top 50%, in a few areas that are rarely combined, now you have a really attractive, competitive advantage.

[779] Warren Buffett, of course, people know Warren Buffett as a phenomenal investor.

[780] Bill Gates's best friend, right?

[781] Yeah, he's one of those guys.

[782] all shucks grandpa who's secretly a cold -blooded killer Warren Buffett has said his best investment was in a Dale Carnegie speaking course because when you take compelling communication your ability to speak to groups or even to one person and you layer it on top of something else you now have a sort of combinatorial advantage that a lot of specialists do not have so if you're a really good engineer let's say it's the only thing you do you're a very good coder you can play that narrow track and some people do and they become the Michael Jordan equivalent But let's say someone wants to broaden their career options, and they develop some soft skills, they learn how to manage, at least within a lot of companies, let's just say Facebook, Google, et cetera.

[783] They now have 10x the number of options available.

[784] I think there's a real compelling logic to that.

[785] I've just decided, I don't need to be these friends.

[786] And if I follow what gives me energy and what excites me, it seems to work out over time.

[787] As long as I'm doing it, in a somewhat systematic way and the degree of distraction is not a new shiny object every day but it's sort of a new project every, say, six months.

[788] The fact that I had the ninth anniversary of the Tim Ferriss show last Saturday Congratulations.

[789] Thank you.

[790] It's going to be 10 years next April of an average of 1 .4 episodes a week is shocking to me than I've done it for this long.

[791] Yeah.

[792] But I think the reason for that is that it's broad enough that I can kind of talk about whatever I want to talk about.

[793] Yes, the gift of it is the guests are ever -changing.

[794] It's hard to get bored of the guests.

[795] It's like a hack of all hacks.

[796] Yeah, it would be a supreme failure of imagination on my part if I got bored of my guests.

[797] But do you think that type of lifestyle or following moving every five years or whatever, do you think that affects your relationships with people in those environments?

[798] We just talked about this where Dax was like, maybe I'd want to go back to parenthood.

[799] The show, not parenthood.

[800] Right.

[801] And I was like, that makes me feel unsafe that, like, at any moment, like, you can just be done with this.

[802] Yeah, totally.

[803] I've been ruminating on that conversation we had.

[804] There's one more article of evidence.

[805] It's not just two shows I did during this.

[806] There is three.

[807] I also did Top Gear is remembering.

[808] Yeah.

[809] But what I didn't say when you were saying that is that did make this harder to do.

[810] Oh, sure, sure.

[811] So I just feel like, does that...

[812] Do the people in your lives have this uneasy feeling that you...

[813] You're about to change directions at all times.

[814] This is a great question.

[815] And I think undergirds a lot of decisions I make around building teams.

[816] I have an incredibly lean team.

[817] And they are multidisciplinary.

[818] So they are involved with whatever shifting sands of projects I may be involved with.

[819] Contractors less so, right?

[820] So contractors may be at risk, but I'm also not their sole client.

[821] I actually get very nervous if I become too much of any.

[822] contractors business as a percentage and I'll want to even introduce them to other people because I don't want to leave their kids hungry if suddenly it's too stressful it's too stressful I don't want that responsibility I do think about that that's a variable I consider for sure you know while you were talking about it I don't know that I've come to this conclusion personally but I was thinking it is really easy to actually not even know what you're pursuing at 1 % right so as you're talking I just start kind of fantasizing about how I like to pop up I like to pop around.

[823] Why do I like to pop around?

[824] I'm super into motorsports.

[825] Those people are not into Danny Kahneman.

[826] You know, they have not read Sapiens, and then I'm in this group.

[827] And I actually think my great passion, and maybe a negative word, a pejorative for this would be, maybe I have an entitlement, I don't know.

[828] But I don't like if I haven't experienced every little subculture.

[829] I see a group of people, and my first thought is like, I want to be able to interact with them.

[830] What I don't like is to not be able to connect with anyone.

[831] That, to me, is, like, very unsettling.

[832] And there's only one person, Snoop Dog, the only person I've ever been talking to where I was like, I just can't do this.

[833] Like, I sound so fucking white and dumb.

[834] I'm so self -conscious talking to him.

[835] This is a disaster.

[836] I don't know how he's getting through this.

[837] Well, that's it.

[838] That was my one experience.

[839] So in some bizarre way, it's like, for evaluating the success of this pursuit and it's, yes, how good of a podcaster am I?

[840] I don't know what percentage.

[841] It doesn't really matter.

[842] But if my life seen in its totality and seen as a pursuit of getting connected to as many things as humanly possible on the short trip I have, maybe I'm 1%, like maybe I'm the ultimate specialist.

[843] Maybe I can drop into any subculture, better than 99 % of the people.

[844] And I don't even know that's my pursuit.

[845] Yeah, totally.

[846] There's some very well -known generalists, right?

[847] Like Steve Jobs was a generalist, one of many, many examples.

[848] The second is there are different ways to be diversified.

[849] you can do a lot of different things with no plan, no pattern, no cohesion, no skills or relationships that translate, or you can do something that might have a little more coherence to it.

[850] I tend to choose my projects based on developing new relationships or deepening current relationships and developing new skills so that even if that project fails, all of what I just mentioned can build over time and translate to other projects.

[851] For instance, when I started the podcast.

[852] It was because I burned out on a huge nonfiction book and I wanted to try something new and I thought to myself, well, at the very least, podcasting will be a very good way to get better at interviewing.

[853] Because you have to interview so many people for books.

[854] That's what I have to do for my nonfiction books anyway.

[855] If this podcasting thing goes nowhere, which at the time I assumed it was going to be the case, I'd committed to doing six episodes just to see how it felt.

[856] If it didn't work out, it didn't matter, really, because I would have skills that I could then take back and apply to something else.

[857] And then there are just the broader patterns.

[858] So if I look at a lot of what I do, whether it's in the business realm, an entrepreneurship realm, with the four -hour work week, or the four -hour body, or the angel investing, or podcasting, it's an attempt to learn something very quickly and immerse myself in experts and interview those experts.

[859] That is the pattern over and over and over and over again.

[860] So even though the topics, the subjects, the subcultures, just like you, I mean, I love diving into subcultures, whether it's this weird underground tango scene in Argentina.

[861] Do you know Tim was a competitive tango dancer?

[862] He moved to Argentina, learned Spanish, and fucking got real competitive with his tango dance.

[863] Wow.

[864] I did.

[865] I would love to see you move on the ground.

[866] We should have done there.

[867] Wow.

[868] What drew you to that?

[869] A couple leaves of coca.

[870] Well, no. You're a teeny bit pink.

[871] It was a little bit pink.

[872] That's what we call foreshadowing.

[873] If I was looking at you through one of those thermal lenses, I would have just seen a like, okay.

[874] If you were the predator, I just got spotted.

[875] I had gone down because a friend of mine who was half Argentine, half Panamanian, said, you need to go to Argentina.

[876] This was around 2004.

[877] He said, best wine in the world, best steak in the world, most beautiful women in the world.

[878] And you can live like a king on pennies.

[879] I'm there.

[880] So I went down.

[881] I was at one point in this location called Avenida Florida, which is this pedestrian walking area, kind of like the third street promenade in Santa Monica.

[882] And it was so humid and hot.

[883] I was waiting for a friend.

[884] I had a couple hours to kill.

[885] and I wandered into this tango music shop that was open because they had AC on.

[886] And I was just loitering for maybe 45 minutes kind of pretending to look at the various albums and the chain smoking woman downstairs I ended up becoming pretty good friends with.

[887] Later got really annoyed.

[888] And in Spanish was like, hey, pal, like if you're just going to dick around here and not buy anything, you might as well pay for a class upstairs.

[889] It starts in 15 minutes.

[890] Oh.

[891] And that's how I started.

[892] And it was nine gorgeous women and one bored -looking guy.

[893] And I was single all the time And I thought Okay Here we go This is interesting And then I fell in love with tango Because in my opinion The best tango is Improvised It's social It is not choreographed It's all the lead And the follow And it is absolutely mind -blowing What you can see good dancers do They meet for the first time You see them dance for 10 minutes To the untrained eye You would look at it and say They've been rehearsing That particular routine for six months And it was the first time they ever met.

[894] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[895] So it's interesting to me that the things I'm now learning that you are drawn to, they seem to have a little bit of a pattern.

[896] I'm sure you're already aware of it, but you love control.

[897] You love methods.

[898] You love format.

[899] And yet you're super drawn to psychedelics, which is fucking...

[900] The opposite.

[901] It's blow the lid off the volcano.

[902] We don't know where this is going.

[903] Oh, my God.

[904] let this go and this is elation, this tango thing.

[905] When you first said tango, I was like, this makes so much sense for Tim.

[906] It's like prescriptive, you can master it.

[907] It's got moves, blah, blah, blah.

[908] But then to hear the actual appeal is, no, you have to surrender to it and follow or lead and it's improv that weirdly, in this crazy pursuit of systematic, functional behavior, your greatest joys are ones that that can't be done.

[909] Yeah.

[910] It's spot on.

[911] You know, the hypervigilance that I have is there for a lot of reasons through a bunch of childhood events.

[912] I'm constantly scanning for threats, whether that's...

[913] In that arousal state?

[914] Yeah, like physically, an email, whatever it might be.

[915] And the level of default cortisol is not great.

[916] And I've done a lot to attenuate that, but...

[917] Attenuate.

[918] Yeah, there you go.

[919] You used rivulets, so I had to use attenuate.

[920] I don't even know attenuate.

[921] I'm 48, and I haven't heard.

[922] This is what a day to be alive.

[923] To lessen it.

[924] Where I find some of my deepest moments of peace and well -being are in these spans of time when time disappears when I am less in my head, I am more in my body, and things are unpredictable.

[925] You have to adapt.

[926] You can plan, but the plan is always contingent.

[927] Flow, flow, flow, right?

[928] So that could be in sports.

[929] That's why I'm drawn to a lot of sports.

[930] Do you experience it on your show?

[931] a lot?

[932] I do experience on the show quite a bit, which I love because I don't over script.

[933] I tend to have a handful of bullets that I will get to if the guest doesn't take us somewhere different.

[934] To tango in Argentina.

[935] Yeah, exactly.

[936] They don't open a different door.

[937] I have a tentative plan.

[938] We could call this the safety net, right?

[939] I think you and I talked about this a lot.

[940] This is a safety net I'm holding.

[941] I looked at it at one time to find out the name of your TED Talk, but that's it.

[942] So I have the safety net.

[943] It does happen in the show, which is really fun.

[944] I've been paying more attention of those things and then except if it's not in my calendar it's not real i think that's true for most people so getting blocks of time in advance in my calendar for the year that provide opportunities for that experience that's where i fall off i know what's good for me but i don't plan what's good for me per se yeah i know it'll get crowded out because it's happened to me it'll get crowded out with nonsense or even just like kind of cool things i say yes to i will lose the ability to block out meaningful time for these things well it's also a magic trick In that, if you ask me to go to dinner with you tonight, I'm going to say no. I always have something tonight or today or tomorrow.

[945] But if you ask me to go to dinner in September, you're going to be a time.

[946] I was like, of course I'm going to say yes.

[947] What am I going to tell you what do I have in September, right?

[948] But that works for everything.

[949] That was not positioned like I'm trying to get out of it.

[950] That's just the reality of life, which is like I can say yes to skydiving in a year because I don't know what the fuck.

[951] Yeah, there's some weird magic trick.

[952] You'll say yes to more things if it's in theory down the road.

[953] And then those things arrive.

[954] Yeah.

[955] So a tip that has come from a few different friends of mine.

[956] Kevin Kelly, Esther Dyson also says this.

[957] To more effectively say no to things, pretend like it's next Tuesday.

[958] So whatever someone asks you to do, you want to speak at this event in September?

[959] And you ask yourself, if this were next Tuesday, would I be looking forward to it or would I go, ah?

[960] Yes.

[961] So this is your personality type as well.

[962] Like this is something that Kristen has to be reminded of because she's a say yes, sir, pathologically.

[963] That's not my hurdle.

[964] can say no pretty good.

[965] What do you say yes to that you shouldn't say yes to?

[966] Do you say yes to too many things because there's an element of building that?

[967] The podcast has cured that for me. Because you have the outlet or you have like a vehicle?

[968] This is all in my head.

[969] Let me be very clear.

[970] Well, reality is all in our head.

[971] So in my reality of my head, I had been acting for 20 years, writing for 20 years, and directing for 10 years in the hopes of conveying my point of view.

[972] and it's not the most efficient medium to do that in.

[973] I have felt that total embodiment of that happening here, that the goal I set out to do is being accomplished.

[974] And it's very curious.

[975] I don't know why it clicked, but it was like, because I'm doing the thing I wanted to do and I'm actually validating myself now, when the flashier things come my way, I just don't need it really anymore.

[976] I'll give you a crazy example.

[977] And objectively, we should go in support.

[978] But my wife goes, We're going to this science thing.

[979] We have to go, because other fancy friends of ours are going, and you're supposed to support these scientists, and we care, and we want to show support.

[980] I said, I don't want to go, I don't want to go, but we're going.

[981] We go.

[982] Sure enough, bump into Ashton Amila.

[983] Fucking love them, get to talk to them.

[984] That's really fun.

[985] A couple other hot shots I get to see and chat with.

[986] It's good for my ego.

[987] It's good for her ego.

[988] We're coming home.

[989] And she said, yeah, that was fun.

[990] And I go, it was fun, but here's what's disappointing to me about it, is what was fun was hanging with Ashton Amila.

[991] I would have preferred to have the full three hours with Ashton and Mila at an actual restaurant and not a place that was a field of positive approval from other fancy people.

[992] I'm disappointed that that's the nature of when we'll see these people.

[993] And if I really care about the sciences, I'll pull up my checkbook and be a part of a grant, be a part of an award, me showing up and hobnobbing with other fancy people and having my ego stroke, it doesn't sit as well with me anymore.

[994] It's like, I'm just like, yeah, I know why I'm there.

[995] And I know why that felt good.

[996] I don't want to feel good for that reason.

[997] Well, what a great place to be that you have the podcast that also sort of is the salve that allows you to say no. And I'm so spoiled as you are, Tim.

[998] So it's like, well, I'm going to go up there and see someone make a speech for three minutes that I likely can have on this couch and really learn about.

[999] I'm so spoiled.

[1000] Now, really quick, knowing this about you and the joy you get out of these breaks from control, I don't know anything about this.

[1001] We've never spoken about this.

[1002] But my guess is that you might pick romantic partners incorrectly.

[1003] Okay, tell me more.

[1004] Because I think what you'd be attracted to is someone who is predictable, good communicator, can work things out safe.

[1005] And you'd be afraid of the kaleidoscopic twirling hippie.

[1006] But bizarrely, that's the thing you're actually happy.

[1007] when engaged with.

[1008] Yeah.

[1009] We have a phrase in A, which is like contrary action.

[1010] You're supposed to take contrary.

[1011] Whatever thing you think you should do, literally do the opposite.

[1012] What do we think of that?

[1013] Do we have a pattern romantically?

[1014] I've tried long romantic relationships with both archetypes that you're describing.

[1015] Okay.

[1016] I am almost certainly attracted to the more free -floating, twirling, hippie type.

[1017] But chulee oil, one dreadlock.

[1018] I got you.

[1019] Maybe there's a, there are limits.

[1020] You know, there are limits.

[1021] I'm teasing.

[1022] But that type of free spirit who is unencumbered by the agony of overthinking and over planning in the way that I am, perhaps.

[1023] I mean, that's a very dramatic way to put it.

[1024] But you get the idea.

[1025] In practice, that could be great for a very short period of time.

[1026] Day to day, week to week, over years, I prefer clear communicator, consistent.

[1027] Which doesn't, to me, mean the same thing as predictable, right?

[1028] If someone is boring, that's not good.

[1029] But if someone is incredibly inconsistent, it's kind of like a child who grows up.

[1030] I did not grow up this way, but it grows up with, say, an alcoholic parent.

[1031] They don't know which version of dad is going to show up.

[1032] There's no security.

[1033] Yes, yes, yes.

[1034] That is not a feeling I want.

[1035] I've had enough of that.

[1036] Yes, yes.

[1037] I don't need more of that.

[1038] So from an attraction perspective, I have to be careful about taking incredible attraction as an indicator of compatibility.

[1039] Oh, it's the biggest mistake.

[1040] My take on that is what you are in.

[1041] interpreting as attraction is actually familiarity.

[1042] You're heightened because you recognize it.

[1043] You know it.

[1044] It's a pattern, you know.

[1045] Yes.

[1046] And it's actually your mom or your dad, really, that is so familiar to you.

[1047] I just think attraction is very misleading.

[1048] I think often it's just you're recognizing something you already understand and you're familiar with.

[1049] It could be.

[1050] I think it might also just be animal lust with sexy ladies.

[1051] Sure.

[1052] That's definitely a component.

[1053] But for me, I mean the love.

[1054] I could fuck anyone virtually when I'm drunk.

[1055] Let's just say that.

[1056] Too bad we can't do dinner tonight.

[1057] Let's push this to the max.

[1058] Let's see.

[1059] Let's find out the limits of this.

[1060] I more mean the feeling of kind of that instant love feeling, not horniness per se, but that like, oh, I think I'm in love with this person.

[1061] Yeah, the soul connection piece can be misleading.

[1062] It doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

[1063] And I think even on very deep levels, this is where I've made missteps in the past, even if you really do seem to have an unusual, extremely deep connection with someone that manifests in unusual ways, that does not mean you should be life partners.

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] That's hard to admit.

[1066] I think there's phases, and I think your list of priorities should be flexible and change.

[1067] So I think it's totally fine all the way up to your mid -30s to have one set of criteria.

[1068] But I've urged other friends of mine who claim they want families, which is different to claim.

[1069] and to really go get one.

[1070] But the first thing I'll say is, like, you got to move number one on your list.

[1071] Literally, when you're shopping for a mate, number one list has to be great mother or great father.

[1072] You shouldn't be thinking that your 20s.

[1073] Don't even bother with that.

[1074] But you've got to be trying to isolate different things.

[1075] And if you don't evolve that list of priorities, you're going to repeat.

[1076] Agreed 100%.

[1077] What are we in the market for right now?

[1078] What am I in the market for?

[1079] Yeah.

[1080] Do you want to have a baby?

[1081] Would you like to have a baby with Monica?

[1082] I don't have very many eggs left.

[1083] His sperm con isn't great.

[1084] This could be a match made in heaven.

[1085] This sounds like great for I'm speaking about.

[1086] My swim team has made a rebound.

[1087] They're doing all right.

[1088] You know, I stopped microwaving twice a day.

[1089] It's really working out for me. I do think I want to have family.

[1090] Yeah.

[1091] I think that's the next big adventure.

[1092] I think you will do so well with it.

[1093] As someone else with a really busy monkey brain, that's always up there.

[1094] It's so insanely powerful to have someone else's comfort in future at top of mind above your own.

[1095] That's my ayahuasca.

[1096] Yeah, the me, me, me song gets really fucking boring after a while.

[1097] We were just talking about it, but it's like we as humans have the tendency to make our lives more and more and more comfortable if given the opportunity to do so.

[1098] And we actually don't know what's best for ourselves.

[1099] And like you were saying that, what could be the hottest, steamyest love thing isn't necessarily.

[1100] what is good for you or going to be productive for you.

[1101] Very infrequently.

[1102] Yes, yes.

[1103] And then similarly, it's like if we are privileged enough, we start designing our life to have the least amount of friction as humanly possible.

[1104] And then on the other side of that is not happiness.

[1105] Ironically, it's endless wanting.

[1106] Yeah, I think the rugged individualism, self -sufficiency myth is very problematic from a mental health perspective.

[1107] and there's something to be said for developing skills that allow you to feel safe and well -resourced, yes.

[1108] But when you look at the statistics in the U .S. related to depression, related to teen suicide, et cetera, they are not good and they're not getting better.

[1109] There are many factors that contribute to that.

[1110] But when you look at places, let's say, like Costa Rica or certain Scandinavian countries, and I recognize there are many differences, the social cohesion time spent in groups is so prevalent that I happen to think spending more time metaphorically kind of grooming one another like primates makes a whole lot of sense and it's not going to happen by itself unfortunately here even though I do think the U .S. is the land of opportunity in a million ways but in most parts of the U .S., you have to engineer that and take steps to make it happen.

[1111] Yes, you have to be active about God, who were we just interviewing them?

[1112] We're making the greatest points it's like oh it was stuts it was like go to lunch with the person you don't want to go to lunch with it's not about how stimulating the experiences it's about the base foundational thing that that solves it's so powerful and we're designed to live with a hundred people that we know pretty damn well and rely on and we've designed the perfect system here to never have to have a partner to not have to have an extended family to be a one -man show and the results are in and they're not great.

[1113] Yeah, good news, bad news.

[1114] GDP is up, bad news.

[1115] Mental health is way down.

[1116] So you can, I think, address a lot of these issues pretty easily.

[1117] Putting the family side apart, I mean, I do think for myself, if I just have group dinners two or three times a week.

[1118] Yeah, so nice.

[1119] All of these issues with some mental dog chasing its tail in my head just resolve themselves most of the time.

[1120] But, you know, the family piece is attractive for a lot of reasons.

[1121] And I recall this story, a friend of mine told me, he's in his 70s now, so he's a grandfather.

[1122] But when he had his first kid, he had his first kid quite late, his brother clapped him on the shoulder and said, welcome to the human race.

[1123] Yeah, yeah, you've just fulfilled your single purpose on this planet, by the way.

[1124] You can feel it.

[1125] Yeah, but I don't want, hmm.

[1126] No, no, no, no, we don't need to get like geopolitically as an animal.

[1127] Every animal on planet Earth's singular job is to reproduce.

[1128] I can stand by that statement, and we're an animal.

[1129] I'm not saying everyone should have a kid, but I am saying animals are supposed to...

[1130] Totally.

[1131] I mean, we have that biological imperative in that drive.

[1132] So I would say that I, for most of my life, was very hesitant to say I wanted kids.

[1133] Yeah.

[1134] And there were a lot of reasons for that.

[1135] State of the world, family history of depression.

[1136] Not sure if I would be a good dad for any host of reasons.

[1137] And this might seem like semantic niggling, but I don't think it's enough to say, I want kids.

[1138] I think that's very different from I want to be a parent.

[1139] Exactly.

[1140] Right.

[1141] And the latter implies a level of responsibility and engagement that I think should be a prerequisite for having kids.

[1142] And sacrifice.

[1143] Yeah.

[1144] We'd work through the same system of hurdles you've incorporated for psychedelics.

[1145] Let's demonstrate that you have.

[1146] It's very similar.

[1147] Yes, have a kid, but also, you know.

[1148] Yeah, think it through.

[1149] Yeah, yeah.

[1150] I mean, it's just like, you know, I have a. dog.

[1151] She's seven now, but I got her when she was two or three months old, and I went through a very similar process.

[1152] I was like, all right, am I committed to doing what is necessary to make this a happy dog, in part, which is making myself predictable, which means training her really well.

[1153] Let me talk to trainers and figure out what that actually entails.

[1154] And it's...

[1155] Pun intended.

[1156] Wow.

[1157] I love an unexpected pun.

[1158] And it's not complex, but it requires consistency.

[1159] It's a reasonable amount of time and it can get monotonous at points and i also wanted to do that and i ended up saying yes and mollie's incredibly well trained she has embarked once in this interview yeah yeah she's noticeably noticeably quiet although it looks like she wants to eat group that has not happened yet no one's brought their dog i thought about bringing her wow but uh but i didn't want to throw a curveball that would have been that's for monica's shoes i'd have to get to know her first oh not allergic just has to enter out dogs just psychologically Oh, she is the perfect gateway dog.

[1160] Oh, that's nice.

[1161] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1162] Yeah, she would be as quiet as we're pretending that she is right now.

[1163] Is she a doodle type?

[1164] Is she hypoelogenic?

[1165] I wouldn't say she's hypoallergenic.

[1166] She's a rescue from a shelter.

[1167] And best I can tell, because we did the cheek swab analysis, she is mostly Labrador Bloodhound and then Pitbull.

[1168] It's American Bull Terrier.

[1169] She looks like a Labrador with Rottweiler colors.

[1170] You know how we've had some of these big landmark scams and Ron, you know, whatever.

[1171] These things happen.

[1172] You think the cheek thing is that?

[1173] I think the dog.

[1174] It might be.

[1175] I really do.

[1176] I'll say specifically, my father -in -law sent off his dogs.

[1177] And we get this text from him, he's like, you're not going to believe what Benny is.

[1178] He's 80 % boxer.

[1179] And I'm like, the fuck he is.

[1180] He's not.

[1181] He's a French bulldog.

[1182] He's a corgi.

[1183] He's a little rug walking around one inch off.

[1184] the ground he's not a boxer he sent me the thing i'm like they got either mixed up or this is bullshit one of the two anyways i think 60 minutes is ripe to do or whoever does these gotcha pieces they need to send off like 10 swabs from the same dog yeah it's impossible because the first time i did it it came back and it looked like a wikipedia printout of just dog oh god i was like what the fuck is this and so i tried it a second time and i was like at least this one i can suspend disbelief i can kind of see it if i squint i can see that mom sure i'd like to start one up which is like please include a picture of snappers so we can have it on our wall and then mislead you and then I'll just look at it oh yeah it's a corgi and a fucking uh Irish setter that's who you got there well Tim I had such a good time on your podcast you are so great at it it doesn't shock me that you are nine years in and approaching a billion downloads and been so successful and I hope everyone checks out the Tim Ferriss show if they don't already listen to it religiously which would shock me and also feel free to check out any of the five books you've written that have totaled 10 million book sales which seems impossible TED talk TED talk do boomers if you do all the other things he said it's the foundation if people want to check that out oh and also angel invest in Uber that's another thing you should do that Tim has done yeah oh wait ding ding ding ding ashton yeah if you can engineer that for yourself I recommend otherwise angel investing pretty risky business you might as well just light your money on fire on the sidewalk.

[1185] I've been delighted to see you step away and share that opinion because there was a couple of these I almost got tempted by and I literally at some point just said to myself, you're lying to yourself if you think you're great at predicting new businesses.

[1186] This isn't at all what you focused on in your whole life.

[1187] And I'm regularly wrong.

[1188] When I heard the idea of Uber, I was like, never going to work.

[1189] I hate being a passenger.

[1190] I'm locked into my own ego sent.

[1191] I couldn't see that that would work.

[1192] And so I've stayed out of all that.

[1193] say to most people, unless you're going to be a professional stock picker and dedicate your life to it, stick to the basics.

[1194] Well, that and then also acknowledge you will be fighting a very unfair fight against the much bigger hedge fund, all these different things that have sway in the marketplace and leverage and tack.

[1195] It's a full contact sport.

[1196] Don't you think Tim could be Christian's brother?

[1197] Yeah.

[1198] You guys look alike.

[1199] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1200] Yeah, I know.

[1201] It is a big compliment.

[1202] Can you say?

[1203] I wouldn't say.

[1204] Okay, you wouldn't say.

[1205] that you're singing.

[1206] I could hum the shit out of a tin, though.

[1207] Listen, you've done damn near everything else.

[1208] I think a new career in singing could really be the next chapter in the Tim Ferriss.

[1209] You know, Tim Ferriss auto -tune remix?

[1210] Yes, everyone's singing now.

[1211] I bet Wabiwob could whip you out a beautiful single.

[1212] Well, delighted to be with you here in person.

[1213] Thanks so much for coming on.

[1214] And I truly adore you.

[1215] I'd say your defining adjective I'd use for you as thoughtful.

[1216] And that's a wonderful one to have, yeah.

[1217] Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it, you guys.

[1218] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1219] Let's get our noises out.

[1220] They're still too hot.

[1221] Good for holding, not for drinking for another four minutes.

[1222] Four minutes?

[1223] Listen to this.

[1224] That sounded commercial level.

[1225] I keep pushing these Diet Coke people.

[1226] They just don't want to bring me on board.

[1227] I couldn't be doing more.

[1228] That's how I feel about cookies, the cookie industry.

[1229] In general.

[1230] Do you think there's a cookie lobby?

[1231] They need help because the world is getting healthier.

[1232] And they need me to bring back the cookie.

[1233] Are they, though, is the world getting healthier?

[1234] Well, not really.

[1235] I think this every stat I keep reading is that the life expectancy of Americans is falling.

[1236] I think that's right.

[1237] But they know better to then, like, buy cookies.

[1238] They should just buy cookies.

[1239] Yeah, buy some cookies.

[1240] That's a good point.

[1241] You'll be a good lobbyist.

[1242] You're like, look, a lot of people are dying prematurely here in America.

[1243] But I think they should just buy cookies because you better have a good time while you're here because it's not going to be long.

[1244] I have a real theory.

[1245] Okay, tell me. People think, oh, I have to be healthy so I can't eat like a cookie or a cake, but I'll have 7 ,000 pounds of pasta instead.

[1246] Okay.

[1247] And then they won't have a little treat.

[1248] It's okay to have a little treat for yourself.

[1249] So you're going to part of your lobbying technique.

[1250] equal be to pit pasta against...

[1251] No, because I love pasta.

[1252] Okay, you're also on the pasta lobby committee, right?

[1253] It's just more of a moderation lobby.

[1254] Well, therein lies everything, isn't it?

[1255] Yes, and you can have a cookie.

[1256] That's one of the few things I moderate from being dead honest.

[1257] Yeah, I shockingly, considering I have no willpower in any other domain.

[1258] You are good at it.

[1259] But I'm only good at it if I'm militant about it.

[1260] I don't do good at...

[1261] Like, I can't...

[1262] Like, you can have a cookie once a day.

[1263] Oh, no. Are you going to butt up...

[1264] Are you like...

[1265] I'm afraid that I might not be taking the opposite position.

[1266] All right, go ahead.

[1267] Okay, so I can't have one cookie a day like you can.

[1268] Have you tried it?

[1269] Yes.

[1270] And after I eat the one, however bad I wanted to eat the first one, I now want to eat the second one, 10x of what I wanted to eat the first one.

[1271] This is the same nature as drinking for an alcoholic.

[1272] Sure.

[1273] You think you can predict, you're like, well, I just kind of want a beer, so I'll have one.

[1274] But you forget, once you have one, you're really going to want this.

[1275] second one.

[1276] You don't anticipate.

[1277] You're not honest about how badly you'll need the second one.

[1278] I know, I have a new business.

[1279] Okay, tell me. Okay.

[1280] Hi, Mrs. Padman.

[1281] We're so excited to have you.

[1282] As you know, we've traditionally been against the cookie industry, so, but we're open -minded.

[1283] We'd like to hear what you have to say.

[1284] Well, I really appreciate you having me, and I know you took a lot of time out of your day.

[1285] Thanks for noticing.

[1286] You're very busy.

[1287] I'm proposing that I start a business.

[1288] You started a business.

[1289] Yeah.

[1290] Congratulations.

[1291] Thank you.

[1292] I'm also very busy.

[1293] Oh.

[1294] Well, now you're bragging, but that's okay.

[1295] I want to start over.

[1296] You should own your accomplishments.

[1297] One pre -packaged cookie gets delivered to your house every day.

[1298] Okay.

[1299] Only one.

[1300] It's daily.

[1301] So you can't.

[1302] Okay, look, I guess you could save up and have five at once.

[1303] But then still, that's only five for the week.

[1304] Okay.

[1305] Okay?

[1306] Yes.

[1307] So we're promoting moderation, quality control.

[1308] Oh, a lot of things.

[1309] Okay, QC.

[1310] Quality control, limited quantities, feeling satiated.

[1311] Having treats, treats are so good in life.

[1312] So is it fair to say that this is a part of a much more comprehensive global strategy and that this is just, this is an example.

[1313] Sounds like you're maybe trying to build a whole way of life off of this cookie consumption, which I respect.

[1314] That's a really cool agenda.

[1315] But you did point out one of the potential flaws is how I would use the system.

[1316] Okay.

[1317] I would basically not eat the cookies for a month.

[1318] Okay.

[1319] Because I'm a good boy.

[1320] Yeah.

[1321] And then one night I'd be feeling sad about something.

[1322] Sure.

[1323] And then I would have one cookie with the promise of only having one.

[1324] And then I'd eat the remaining 29 cookies.

[1325] And then I would fall into a diabetic coma.

[1326] All right.

[1327] Well, look, we can't protect everyone.

[1328] Uh -huh.

[1329] Because some people are out of control.

[1330] Some people are crazy like me. Some people have...

[1331] This is for the majority of people, not for every single person.

[1332] Mm -hmm.

[1333] Okay.

[1334] Well, yeah, this sounds very America.

[1335] And the cookies are going to be really good, but not that good.

[1336] Okay, so they're not great cookies.

[1337] That helps.

[1338] They're good.

[1339] So it's not like an Oreo size.

[1340] No, yeah.

[1341] It's a substantial cookie, but it's 200 calories.

[1342] Oh, that's great.

[1343] So it's not a big.

[1344] That's not a big.

[1345] It's only one -tenth of your daily allowance.

[1346] Exactly.

[1347] So you could have nine more if you want.

[1348] Oh, no. Don't start thinking that way.

[1349] Okay.

[1350] Okay, so you already found out.

[1351] Okay.

[1352] Well, okay, I guess, yes.

[1353] Oh, my God.

[1354] Thank you.

[1355] Passed?

[1356] Yes, past.

[1357] Okay, well, thanks for seeing.

[1358] This is so great to meet.

[1359] Yes, you too.

[1360] Be care.

[1361] I mean, I don't think she's going to be able to act this, Greg.

[1362] As scary as it is, I don't know where she's going to get the funding to send all $350 million.

[1363] I'm very rich.

[1364] I can hear you.

[1365] Oh, you're back.

[1366] You're back.

[1367] Oh, my God.

[1368] Did you forget something?

[1369] I was lingering outside the door because in anticipation that you would have some thoughts.

[1370] Okay.

[1371] Oh, I'm embarrassed.

[1372] It's okay.

[1373] I just want to let you know.

[1374] I have plenty of investor money.

[1375] Great.

[1376] I have my own money and I have also rich friends.

[1377] Okay, great.

[1378] Have a great day.

[1379] It's been great meeting.

[1380] Okay, goodbye.

[1381] That was a really cool outfit she had on Greg.

[1382] Did you see that?

[1383] I didn't.

[1384] I know we're not supposed to notice that stuff anymore.

[1385] Oh, my God.

[1386] We got to call security.

[1387] Shut the door, shut the door.

[1388] Hit the button on your desk.

[1389] It slams the door shut.

[1390] The what's his name?

[1391] The lowered button.

[1392] God.

[1393] Okay.

[1394] Well, that was fun, and I think we solved some stuff.

[1395] I think so.

[1396] And I really want a cookie now.

[1397] What kind do you want?

[1398] Chocolate Chip?

[1399] Yeah.

[1400] I want a Levine.

[1401] They're opening one on Larchmont.

[1402] No way.

[1403] Are you so excited?

[1404] How many cookies are you going to eat a week from there?

[1405] They're really hefty.

[1406] Oh.

[1407] They're...

[1408] Girthy cookie?

[1409] Yeah.

[1410] It's almost like a muffin.

[1411] Like, it is so thick.

[1412] Oh.

[1413] So I will say I am good at moderation.

[1414] You really are.

[1415] You somehow drink like three drinks.

[1416] It's amazing.

[1417] I think it's from my dad.

[1418] And my mom.

[1419] Actually, probably more my mom.

[1420] It's genetics.

[1421] I think it's genetics.

[1422] Yeah, I think that's what we find out.

[1423] Like, as I'm observing, like, you know, my eight -year -old's already...

[1424] she's a little bit of a love addict I know it and she just is you know I know and that's the thing like you gotta feel bad for like she's gonna have to try to wrestle that her whole life but she's just genetically that's I know you should have see okay so I ran into her in Lincoln at Jenny's ice cream and it was so exciting for all of us but I was with Callie because Callie's pregnant she put it on Instagram so I can say so oh wonderful congratulations really really exciting and the baby needed ice cream right sometimes a baby will tell you like hey we need a waffle cone and two scoops or something exactly i went to maru first i didn't see rob which was a shock when was this i would have been scared this was friday if i went to maru and i didn't see rob i'd be like rob's dead what happened to rob no one of the guys who works at maru when i went there they were like we haven't seen rob in a while and they really did seemed scared.

[1425] I was like, oh, he's been out of town.

[1426] Was this on his French laundry trip?

[1427] I think so.

[1428] I was like, he was gone.

[1429] I knew he was gone.

[1430] They were nervous.

[1431] They were.

[1432] Of course.

[1433] Yeah.

[1434] So you have a lot of people checking in on you.

[1435] But anyway, I must have just missed you, probably.

[1436] Really quick.

[1437] Yeah.

[1438] Has it occurred to you, Rob, do you approach them about franchising?

[1439] Wouldn't you love to own Maru?

[1440] I feel like you could really pour your heart into that.

[1441] I have thought about it.

[1442] That would be great.

[1443] We would get free Maru.

[1444] Anyway, we went tomorrow.

[1445] I got a She didn't want that.

[1446] The baby wanted ice cream, not macha.

[1447] So we went to Jenny's, and we were standing line.

[1448] She ran into someone she knew so we were talking to this nice lady.

[1449] And then all of a sudden I heard, um, and I turned around and they were standing right behind me. They were out and about in town.

[1450] Yes, Lincoln Delta and TT.

[1451] They were on their way home from school.

[1452] And it was so exciting.

[1453] We were all so excited.

[1454] But then her level of excitement wouldn't, like, wouldn't subside.

[1455] She couldn't believe it was happening.

[1456] She was so happy.

[1457] And it made me so happy.

[1458] And then I gave her my gift card.

[1459] Oh, she got somebody.

[1460] Yeah.

[1461] Yeah.

[1462] I wish I were the aunt.

[1463] I'd love to take them in ice cream when I picked them up from school.

[1464] I just can't, I'm not allowed to do that.

[1465] Also, it was really sweet.

[1466] I was like, oh, Titi's bringing them to ice cream after school.

[1467] How sweet.

[1468] is she's a good auntie and an auntie but i'm jealous too you could do it i can't someone in their life's got a knot yeah it can't be all aunts and uncles and grandparents someone's got to be the parent you're right this is a shitty part about being a parent we're we're nicely on the topic we are mother's day is that you mean well that too oh i was more thinking of lincoln and i's building project oh sure by the highlight of my 2023 thus far okay let's hear about it about six months ago she said she wanted like a fort in the backyard and she picked a place where she thinks it should be and she needs her own spot without delta you know it's always about like they all need their own stuff so they're already like they already live in four times as much space as I ever did with one less sibling regardless they do share a room they do share a room yeah yeah and I think Kristen was kind of quick to say like okay well let's talk about what that would be and then we could hire the gentleman who built the shed.

[1469] And then I said, the only way you can have a fort is if you build it.

[1470] And she said, okay, she was immediately excited.

[1471] Yeah.

[1472] And then I had her draw.

[1473] She's a very good drawer.

[1474] Extremely.

[1475] Yeah, almost frustratingly so.

[1476] Well, no, because it makes sense because, again, genetics.

[1477] But you're, well.

[1478] Both of you are very good.

[1479] I'm not a good drawer.

[1480] Yes, you are.

[1481] Stop fishing.

[1482] You know, you're the best drawer.

[1483] I'm not fishing.

[1484] Listen, my point is she surpassed my artistic skills like two years ago, which is a weird feeling as an adult.

[1485] She drew a sketch of what she wanted, which is a great drawing.

[1486] I don't know how she does these perspectives.

[1487] She wants like a pavilion.

[1488] She wanted a nice deck area, and then she wants a roof, but she doesn't want walls.

[1489] Right.

[1490] Like a gazebo of sorts?

[1491] Yeah, but more of a fort variety, but yes.

[1492] I guess I think a gazebo or octagon or an hexagon.

[1493] But at any rate, she drew this up.

[1494] And so I then took that drawing and I drew steps of how we would get there.

[1495] Like, okay, we got to put footings in for these four posts.

[1496] Let's do four by eight.

[1497] That's all we have room for up there.

[1498] So the deck will be four feet by eight feet.

[1499] And then the roof will hang over a foot on each side.

[1500] So the roof will be six by ten feet.

[1501] Is the roof going to be flat?

[1502] No, it's going to be angled so that when it rains, the water falls off.

[1503] Okay, great.

[1504] So I drew up the steps for everything, and then we took that, and we made a very comprehensive list of supplies we needed from Home Depot.

[1505] This episode is not brought to you by Home Depot, but they were there in a pinch for us.

[1506] And is it brought?

[1507] I wish.

[1508] Yeah, we were not opposed to that.

[1509] Yeah.

[1510] But we went on Friday, and that trip was an hour and 40 minutes.

[1511] Now, tell me about why.

[1512] Because, God, I wish I had the list.

[1513] with me it's outside but we needed so much stuff we needed 15 10 foot 2 by 6s we needed you know are you fitting all this in the truck but I mean when you're walking through Home Depot with your little cart that's the thing so right out of the gates I tell her you got to find one of those big daddy long legs in the cart return there are ones that have vertical slots and they're the big heavy duty cart that you push not like a shopping cart and so we go in there with that first up is paint.

[1514] What color do you want to paint it?

[1515] Oh, you're going to paint it?

[1516] I don't want her to, but it's her thing.

[1517] So I'm slowly trying to talk her out.

[1518] She's like, I want it to be blue.

[1519] I'm like, ooh, that's going to stick out like a turn of bushel.

[1520] So I'm trying to talk her into certain color.

[1521] Well, this green would look great because I'm thinking it'll...

[1522] Grass.

[1523] Yeah, and it's behind some FICA's, so maybe you won't even see it.

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] Whatever.

[1526] We got paint.

[1527] We're also kind of in love with the way it looks on painted.

[1528] It doesn't matter.

[1529] Then we had to get, we wanted her to get her own hammer.

[1530] Okay.

[1531] So she got to pick out her own hammer.

[1532] Oh, we got fun.

[1533] Then we got a line chalk unit.

[1534] You know how those work?

[1535] No. So it's this little metal box with a crank on the side.

[1536] And then you fill it with chalk.

[1537] Oh.

[1538] And then you pull a line out.

[1539] If you can imagine just like...

[1540] Like a tape measure?

[1541] Ribbon.

[1542] Not even, like a smaller...

[1543] Thin rope.

[1544] Yeah, thin little rope.

[1545] String.

[1546] Oh, string.

[1547] Okay.

[1548] So string comes out and it has a little latch on the other...

[1549] On the end of it.

[1550] Uh -huh.

[1551] And then what you do is like, because we're going to make a base with a frame.

[1552] So the outside will have four pieces of wood and then three running in the middle that we're going to then put the decking across.

[1553] Well, once we lay not the decking, we don't longer know where those two by fours are underneath.

[1554] So you take the chalk and you put it on the screw mark of the one side and then the other, you pull it tight and then you snap it and it puts a perfect line where the two by four is under the decking so that you can sink your screws in and know exactly where you're at.

[1555] This is so intense.

[1556] So we got that.

[1557] then we went how do you see this is why when you said the vacuum thing you make it sound so simple but you know to buy that I would never know to buy that you would know once you started the project and you're like how the fuck am I going to know where the two by four is under there there must be something I get I don't know anyway go on okay then a ton of lumber pressure treated lumber and I was saying to her all right we need X amount of these two by fours at eight feet we need X amount of two by fours at 10 feet so she has to go there's so much wood there she has to find the label she's okay i got these are 10 foot by right so that's wow we're building in time for her to do all that it's not like i'm just going and getting her i'm making her find everything at home depot and then we got to go to the fasteners aisle and we're gonna i'm telling her we need three different kinds of screws because sometimes we're going through a two by four into a two by six and those are both 1 .5 so we need three inch screws if we want to go all the through but then our decking we don't need that much you know oh my god three different kinds of screws it adds up to an hour and 40 minutes sheets of plywood so those are sitting in the thing, right, a few sheets of plywood, load up the truck.

[1558] That's funny.

[1559] That became its own thing.

[1560] You know, there's a lot of dudes hanging in the parking lot of Home Depot.

[1561] They're looking for work.

[1562] And they all wanted to load the cart into the truck, right?

[1563] And I must have said no to four or five of them.

[1564] And then we loaded it all.

[1565] And then I had to tell her later that day, I wanted both of us to have to do all the work.

[1566] So we felt proud of this.

[1567] But I really regret not giving those guys money to load the truck.

[1568] I should have done that.

[1569] There's lessons all along the way.

[1570] You think you're doing one thing, but now it's like I reevaluating, I probably should have given those guys $10 to do that.

[1571] That would have been preferred.

[1572] I should have done that.

[1573] So I had to tell her I regretted not doing that, blah, blah.

[1574] So we get everything home on Friday night, and Saturday we wake up, we get at it right away.

[1575] We're out there, and I'm going to tell you something.

[1576] Okay.

[1577] So we're running a chop saw.

[1578] That kind goes like this, you bring it down, you're cutting, right?

[1579] And we got a table saw.

[1580] Okay.

[1581] We have a jigsaw we got to use and where we got an impact gun because we're bolting everything together so it's super sturdy.

[1582] We got a drill so we can drill out the holes for the bolts and then we got little impact guns to drive the screws in.

[1583] She did 100 % of the stuff.

[1584] Wow.

[1585] She had to use the chop saw.

[1586] She had to use everything.

[1587] She sunk more than half the screws into the decking.

[1588] Wow.

[1589] She did the impact gun on the bolts.

[1590] She built this thing.

[1591] Oh my gosh.

[1592] And she loved it.

[1593] That is so incredible.

[1594] And I was floating on a cloud the entire time that she was a hard worker, engaged, busting her ass, carrying the lumber up the hill.

[1595] She never said, can I be done now?

[1596] Never.

[1597] Wow.

[1598] She like me, we were pissed.

[1599] We had to go to the Richardson's.

[1600] Not because we don't want to go to the Richardson's.

[1601] Yeah.

[1602] There was a wake or memorial.

[1603] We had to go to that.

[1604] So we had to stop our project.

[1605] Yeah.

[1606] So all we've built is our deck.

[1607] But, Monica.

[1608] I want to see it.

[1609] I hope you'll go look at it.

[1610] I will, of course.

[1611] Okay.

[1612] It's so level.

[1613] You put the fucking level anywhere on that deck, and that bubble is right in the middle.

[1614] It was the greatest.

[1615] It's tied now with my favorite moments with Lincoln, the other one being trail riding dirt bikes in North Dakota last summer.

[1616] But these were two moments where she's like, look at us.

[1617] We're a team.

[1618] That's lovely.

[1619] It was so fun.

[1620] That's so fun.

[1621] Maybe she could do some work on my house.

[1622] She will want to.

[1623] What I loved is she's looking at all this scrap wood that's the excess of all of our cuts.

[1624] and she's looking at this pile kind of build up and she goes to me I think we should build some chairs so she's her mind's already like oh I can turn these shapes into any shape I want now that I know how to fasten everything together and cut and so she's already sewing also kind of a little bit yeah once you recognize like how it all works you start thinking well fuck I could build anything and that's immediately where her mind went that's so cool made me really happy I love that She had little work gloves on Monica.

[1625] Oh, my God.

[1626] Oh, my God.

[1627] So cute.

[1628] I'm extremely impressed, but I'm not surprised at all that she could do all that.

[1629] I'm with you.

[1630] Yeah, yeah.

[1631] I'm really impressed.

[1632] Yeah.

[1633] And I'm like, I knew this little bastard had this in her.

[1634] She's really like a very, very good natural mechanic.

[1635] She is.

[1636] And that's what I want her to really.

[1637] There's so much esteem that comes from that, I think.

[1638] Yeah.

[1639] Dang.

[1640] I can't wait to do the roof.

[1641] Where are you wearing rain boots today?

[1642] No, these are.

[1643] The row!

[1644] But aren't they rain boots?

[1645] No, they're regs.

[1646] Oh, okay.

[1647] Sorry.

[1648] You can see where I think it looks like a rain boots.

[1649] Yeah, I guess so.

[1650] But rain boots are not leather, because rain isn't good for leather.

[1651] They're rubber.

[1652] That's right.

[1653] Okay.

[1654] And then yesterday was Mother's Day.

[1655] This weekend was Mother's Day.

[1656] A lot of days ago was Mother's Day.

[1657] Four days ago was Mother's Day.

[1658] And you had, you threw a little Mother's Day party for the mothers.

[1659] I did.

[1660] I got a manicurist, a massage therapist, and a facial massage.

[1661] You know about them.

[1662] Have you had the facial massage?

[1663] Where they go in your mouth?

[1664] Yeah.

[1665] Yeah, I don't like it.

[1666] You had it and you didn't like it.

[1667] Too invasive?

[1668] I really want to do it.

[1669] It doesn't feel good at all.

[1670] It hurt me. Yeah, they like put gloves and they like, like, I don't know if I'm like, it's supposed to like loosen everything up.

[1671] I didn't feel any pleasure and I only felt pain.

[1672] She didn't like it.

[1673] The other ladies liked it a lot.

[1674] I've heard, yeah, and regardless, I very much want it.

[1675] I feel like, oh.

[1676] You might love it.

[1677] Who knows?

[1678] Might hate it.

[1679] Anyways, yeah, so there was three stations and then there's also hot tub sauna salads.

[1680] Nice.

[1681] Yeah.

[1682] And so that was the offerings on the Mother's Day agenda day.

[1683] Day.

[1684] And then I took the kids over to Ericks and all the other dads took their kids to Erick's.

[1685] And we played spades and went in the sauna.

[1686] Nice.

[1687] So it kind of felt like a father's day too.

[1688] Yeah.

[1689] And I ordered an insane amount of barbecue and we just picked out.

[1690] And so everyone won.

[1691] Great.

[1692] Yeah.

[1693] I saw your post and it made me sad.

[1694] My post of my mom.

[1695] Yeah.

[1696] When your mom didn't make me sad.

[1697] Your mom makes me happy.

[1698] I know.

[1699] A lot of people commented that we were twins.

[1700] Yeah.

[1701] Which made me happy.

[1702] Yeah.

[1703] She's so cool in that picture.

[1704] She's really radical looking.

[1705] Wasn't the easiest day.

[1706] Yeah.

[1707] Tell me about that.

[1708] Well, a lot of people post that on Mother's Day.

[1709] You know, I know this can be a hard day for people, which, of course, I intellectually understand.

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] Every time I read that, I'm like, oh, oh, yeah.

[1712] If you lost your mother or whatever, million reasons.

[1713] But I've never felt that until this year.

[1714] Uh -huh.

[1715] And I assume it must have to do with the eggs.

[1716] My most recent experience with motherhood was bad and scary, and I have a lot of fear around it, really.

[1717] Yeah.

[1718] Of not being able to.

[1719] I'm not being able to do that.

[1720] But there's a few potentially exacerbating elements.

[1721] There's, it's Mother's Day.

[1722] So your best friend's about to have a baby.

[1723] You guys have done mostly everything together You went to school at the same time together He moved to L .A. together He became both successful at the same time Yeah Well, he didn't move to L .A. together But it's still a good part of the marriage I know, just fucking get over that But you were first?

[1724] Who was first?

[1725] Yeah, because she went to She went to graduate school Oh, okay, it's getting It's falling apart.

[1726] I don't like it now that she's got more degrees than me Oh yeah, she's got a full -on master's in film Okay, so And then you're age is a component.

[1727] Yeah.

[1728] I'm sorry you're feeling those things.

[1729] It's okay.

[1730] When's your next freeze?

[1731] Probably July or August.

[1732] I had some blood work done on Friday to check out my levels.

[1733] And when do you find out the results of that?

[1734] Probably soon.

[1735] I don't know.

[1736] Tonight.

[1737] Probably you get to call it midnight from your doctor.

[1738] Yeah.

[1739] This just in.

[1740] I'm holding the results.

[1741] Oh my God.

[1742] I hope it's not that intense.

[1743] You're so fucking fertile.

[1744] That would be nice.

[1745] I'm going to try to do.

[1746] do acupuncture for at least a month before.

[1747] I'm out of town in June for a week, so I think that would mess up doing it next month.

[1748] So in the next few months, I'm going to try it again.

[1749] Your eggs are bunching up on the riverbank like Wilderbees waiting for a safe crossing from the crocodileia.

[1750] Does that ring a bell?

[1751] Yes, that was in the Nicholas Braun episode.

[1752] It's another third.

[1753] You've sent to us, you've proved yourself by sending us the.

[1754] clip and you were correct.

[1755] I just can't believe neither of you remember.

[1756] There's such a bizarre example to give.

[1757] Sometimes we tune you out.

[1758] I think that's what I learned.

[1759] I mean, that's just the truth.

[1760] Was that in the beginning banter?

[1761] It was.

[1762] It was early.

[1763] Oh, that's your excuse.

[1764] I'm juggling the 11th.

[1765] No, it was past that, Rob.

[1766] You had already taken pictures settled into the episode.

[1767] Way past that.

[1768] Yeah.

[1769] But that is what I learned.

[1770] That's why I wanted to bring it up.

[1771] Is that you guys are not, you've filed me into white noise, which is I'm not against it.

[1772] I'm not against it.

[1773] I think you guys need to for your own.

[1774] survival, but it's something for me to observe.

[1775] No, it's like, what do I need to process and what do I need to let go?

[1776] White noise.

[1777] Only some of it, though, some of it's relevant.

[1778] Anyway, so, you know, my periods have been weird.

[1779] What version of weird?

[1780] We're back to talking about my fertility.

[1781] Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I know.

[1782] I'm all ears, but what's weird about them?

[1783] They're very light.

[1784] Okay.

[1785] I thought you had a big boy recently, a daddy -in -law.

[1786] Well, look, yeah, they've been really light.

[1787] Okay.

[1788] Which has been concerning, of course, because the period is the egg, the eggs, the egg, really.

[1789] And that makes me feel like, oh, there's nothing coming out.

[1790] There's no egg getting released.

[1791] That's just like the lining.

[1792] That's why it's so light.

[1793] Yeah.

[1794] Recently, it's been a bit better.

[1795] I've had two periods that have been more normal, but still very short.

[1796] Okay.

[1797] So not a full daddy long legs yet.

[1798] No. But the right, we're moving in the right direction.

[1799] I guess.

[1800] I don't know.

[1801] I just, I don't know.

[1802] I just feel like.

[1803] You feel pessimistic.

[1804] A little, yeah.

[1805] Of course.

[1806] And at a time when I'm really, really coming to terms with the fact that I do want kids.

[1807] Right.

[1808] And that a lot of me saying, like, I'm not sure.

[1809] I mean, that's real, too.

[1810] When I start really thinking about it, I do think like, but I don't know because of this and I don't know.

[1811] But I also know that me saying, I'm not sure is a protection.

[1812] Yep.

[1813] And if I'm not sure and I can't, then, oh, well, well, I didn't really know anyway if I wanted them.

[1814] Yeah.

[1815] But that's all really a lie.

[1816] I'm just telling myself.

[1817] Okay.

[1818] Because I do.

[1819] It can also be both things, right?

[1820] What do you mean?

[1821] Like you could be uncertain at times whether you want them.

[1822] And you could still be heartbroken that it's not going the way you want.

[1823] Yeah, for sure.

[1824] It wouldn't have to necessarily be, it's no big deal because I'm not sure.

[1825] You could be not sure and it be a big deal.

[1826] That's what I'm saying.

[1827] Oh, yeah.

[1828] I'm making space for you to have all those conflicting feelings.

[1829] Yes, definitely.

[1830] But I think for me, the protection built in, is, okay, if it doesn't happen for me, that's okay because I'm not even sure I wanted them.

[1831] I think that's what I've been doing, I guess, is my point.

[1832] And I do, I do want them.

[1833] So it just makes it harder to feel, okay, if I don't.

[1834] That feels like a real loss.

[1835] Okay, now, this is a very dangerous.

[1836] Oh, my God.

[1837] I feel sensitive.

[1838] I imagine so.

[1839] That's why I think it's dangerous.

[1840] okay um because it what i don't want it to be interpreted as is any kind of victim shaming oh okay because you're i feel very sad for you and you've done nothing wrong that you didn't have a good retrieval last time but you also had been on the pill for a long long time i had yep so that's an important clue for me just on the outside of your situation but what do you think about the kind of overall impact on fertility from your mental state?

[1841] Do you think they're related at all?

[1842] Let me back up.

[1843] You hear these, I've heard a million.

[1844] I've known a million, not a million.

[1845] I've known several people that were trying to get pregnant, trying to get pregnant.

[1846] They can't get pregnant.

[1847] And they finally adopt.

[1848] They get pregnant immediately.

[1849] I know, yes.

[1850] It's very common.

[1851] Very, yes.

[1852] It seems at least like there's a bit of connection between a lot of stress over the situation and the outcome.

[1853] I mean, it's very anecdotal.

[1854] I've never read any studies.

[1855] Totally.

[1856] But it seems like I observe it.

[1857] Mm -hmm.

[1858] And so I'm wondering if you would be open to exploring a different story where you're optimistic.

[1859] Yes.

[1860] Because I find myself weirdly optimistic.

[1861] I think like, oh, yeah, you got the bad one out of the way.

[1862] Yeah.

[1863] And that's a result of all that.

[1864] Yeah.

[1865] And I think we're going to have a nice, hearty crop of eggs next time.

[1866] I hope so.

[1867] I really hope so.

[1868] I'm not walking around thinking, oh, I definitely, like, this is over.

[1869] You're not defeated.

[1870] I'm not defeated.

[1871] I'm not.

[1872] But I'm more scared now, having done it.

[1873] It's a very unpleasant experience already, even if you have a very good retrieval.

[1874] It's not fun.

[1875] So mentally prepping for that.

[1876] And now there's a layer of fear.

[1877] it was different last time because of the birth control and because I knew my count was low and I was like oh it's the birth control and I had a place to put that I was like oh this is because of the birth control so that makes sense of okay okay okay and it didn't really feel like oh my body is not gonna is not gonna do what it's supposed to do cooperate yeah yeah Until they got six eggs and only two were mature.

[1878] That was the moment where I felt there's an issue.

[1879] Right.

[1880] And, you know, when I was in my blackout and the doctor was sort of telling me stuff and I can like only sort of remember what she was saying.

[1881] Yeah.

[1882] She did say something to the effect of sometimes the age of the eggs or your ovarian age doesn't reflect your.

[1883] actual age.

[1884] I was like, what does that mean?

[1885] And I, like, I think she means my ovaries are, like, 50.

[1886] Like, what's going?

[1887] And I, but I couldn't really ask because I was so overwhelmed.

[1888] Yeah.

[1889] So, yes, I am going to be positive.

[1890] I'm going to try.

[1891] I am going to be positive.

[1892] Well, I'm trying it again.

[1893] We're just going to see.

[1894] Yeah, I just want to share.

[1895] I'm not an OBG.

[1896] Yes.

[1897] Are you sitting down?

[1898] Wow, you said that.

[1899] Yeah, I'm not an OBG.

[1900] Wow.

[1901] Thank you for admitting that.

[1902] But I see massive fertility when I look at you.

[1903] Your would be an outstanding mother.

[1904] Thank you.

[1905] You'd be built for it.

[1906] And I think it'll be exactly if you want it.

[1907] I believe you're a healthy girl with big oversized fertile padman eggs.

[1908] I believe that.

[1909] Okay.

[1910] Just like I believed you'd get your house and you didn't.

[1911] I believe that for you.

[1912] Yeah.

[1913] I do.

[1914] Okay.

[1915] Look at me. I do.

[1916] Thank you.

[1917] I hope so.

[1918] It's like your house.

[1919] Yeah, but I haven't even started my house yet.

[1920] You're a good girl and you deserve all the things, okay?

[1921] Yeah, but my house isn't even started.

[1922] Your house is a piece of shit.

[1923] It's an eyesore of the neighborhood, but one day it'll be nice.

[1924] Yeah.

[1925] Anyway.

[1926] But a lot of people are in this boat.

[1927] And it's okay.

[1928] Yeah.

[1929] I have a great life.

[1930] regardless of what happens.

[1931] I do.

[1932] Yeah, but you're a fertile machine.

[1933] Okay?

[1934] Okay.

[1935] In fact, I'd be afraid of you swallowing an apple seed because a tree would grow out of your ass.

[1936] That's how fertile you are, yeah?

[1937] Wow.

[1938] Yep, that's what I think.

[1939] Be careful with what you eat.

[1940] I don't like apples, so we're fine.

[1941] We're fine there.

[1942] You don't like apples?

[1943] Oh, my God.

[1944] Well, unless they're in a salad cut very thin, sometimes cubed.

[1945] Aaron can't eat apples.

[1946] He'd like to.

[1947] but they give him an allergic reaction oh really yeah I didn't know that what kind I think all apples no what kind of reaction oh he dies oh I don't he's like it's coughing and can't swallow you know yeah not a good reaction not a positive allergic reaction but I think he still eats him occasionally because he wants him so bad it was what I love about Aaron yeah oh Aaron who did you think I said Eric oh no no I think Eric can eat anything yeah he could eat Ashwell Oh, Aaron.

[1948] Aaron, my son.

[1949] My sweet boy, he can't eat his apples so he can't keep the doctor away.

[1950] But sometimes he'll eat an apple because he likes the look of it.

[1951] A look of it.

[1952] Oh, my God.

[1953] Okay.

[1954] Okay, this is for Tim Ferriss.

[1955] Oh, wonderful.

[1956] That was really a fun conversation.

[1957] Yeah.

[1958] I really liked that.

[1959] It was.

[1960] I put him in the Stephen Dubner.

[1961] where it's like it'll be you don't need to think about what you're going to talk about just show up yeah and there are generators of fun intriguing provocative thoughts i like that yeah you guys are gonna date you know what people really were gunning for nicholas brawn yeah the comments were just full of people yeah cheering on a relationship he's in a relationship he is i think when people were writing that was that you guys had a very playful banter you were kind of making fun of him a little bit And then he would make fun of you back, which was really fun.

[1962] And I was really thinking about like, A, why people responded to that.

[1963] I also observed that while I was here.

[1964] And I thought, this is why you can't really make rules about anything.

[1965] Like the rules that exist in flirting.

[1966] Yeah.

[1967] And mate selection and attraction.

[1968] They're their own.

[1969] They don't, I think they're independent of all the other rules.

[1970] Yeah.

[1971] So it's like that making fun of each other was great.

[1972] Right.

[1973] And that's like the foundation sometimes.

[1974] of good flirting.

[1975] Oh, yeah.

[1976] It's just very playful.

[1977] It's, it is nagging, but it's not, it's not, it's not nagging in the gross way.

[1978] Yeah.

[1979] But it is, it, that's what flirting kind of is, is like, I was listening, and now I'm going to twist it a little bit and throw it back at you.

[1980] And I don't remember what I said that would have.

[1981] You just had a few of them, because I, I listened to it.

[1982] I listened to it.

[1983] It was really, uh, quite good.

[1984] I thought, yeah, it was, it was really good.

[1985] And, and he was making fun of you, too.

[1986] You had some back and forth Well, anyhow I'll record them And I'll send them to you and Rob Like I did The other parts of the conversation At some point I'll just send you guys The whole episode Okay, I don't Since you guys Neither of you have any of you Okay Okay Because you were done With your picture Taking Yeah Yeah You know what it may meet Can I just say If these two sat next to each other In a science class in high school This is what would be happening Yeah Like And you guys would be intrigued by each other Because you're both playful fallen very clever and sarcastic and you were really both good at like just gently teasing each other.

[1987] Yeah.

[1988] I could just see you guys in a class next to each other.

[1989] How the fuck else would you cross past?

[1990] I miss class.

[1991] Class is cool.

[1992] Nothing about that.

[1993] Okay.

[1994] The word rivulet.

[1995] Yeah.

[1996] You were, I think you're using it right.

[1997] A little offshoot of a river.

[1998] It is a very small stream.

[1999] Okay.

[2000] And not necessarily a tributary.

[2001] Because I think a tributaries feeding And I think the rivulet kind of cascades off And then dwindles in a nothing Sweet ran in rivulets Oh sweet oh my god Where'd even slip?

[2002] Sweat That's embarrassing Sweat ran in rivulets down his back Oh I know this one well Did you hand select that one to pertain to me So I'd be more interested They just dealt with some rivulets in our previous cast You noticed I didn't put my armor on them And I wanted to because I connected with them so much I wondered that Because I did, and I felt strange.

[2003] Oh, good, you did.

[2004] Yeah, but I felt strange because you didn't do it.

[2005] And I was only in me. Oh, that's great.

[2006] You were flirting there, too.

[2007] Oh, no. No. I think he also didn't know what to do because you didn't have your hand.

[2008] And it was because my back was too sweaty.

[2009] Oh, my God.

[2010] Rivulettes.

[2011] Not tributaries.

[2012] Very small stream.

[2013] I don't think it's coming out of, I don't know.

[2014] I think it branches off of a. Does it?

[2015] It's not saying that, but.

[2016] But it's got to come from somewhere, right?

[2017] Okay.

[2018] All right.

[2019] Rivulettes of sweat, rain, blood.

[2020] Oh.

[2021] Ran down his face.

[2022] Synonyms dribble.

[2023] Oh.

[2024] Oh, God.

[2025] Because who's here?

[2026] That's right.

[2027] I want to hear about the rivers of sweat and blood on your face.

[2028] Ew.

[2029] I wipe it away and kiss your mouse.

[2030] Oh, my God.

[2031] I'm here now so.

[2032] Let's go.

[2033] Why does he has to knock?

[2034] He just appears.

[2035] He just appears.

[2036] I'll shit out of here.

[2037] I can play too.

[2038] You're a jerk.

[2039] Is that we doing it right?

[2040] Oh my God.

[2041] Look at him.

[2042] I'm flirting with you.

[2043] You're a piece of shit.

[2044] Love you so much.

[2045] Let's get the fuck out of here.

[2046] I'm here finally.

[2047] Let's do it.

[2048] You know as I'm holding a napkin.

[2049] I've got a screen I go behind now.

[2050] Here we go.

[2051] Okay.

[2052] Just put up my screen.

[2053] Knocks lock.

[2054] It's me. Get the fuck out of here.

[2055] I'm finally here.

[2056] Let's go.

[2057] Zing Zong.

[2058] The Wistons done.

[2059] Knock knock.

[2060] I'm here.

[2061] Let's go all the way.

[2062] I wonder if what his mother was like.

[2063] Oh, not great.

[2064] I sent him to the store to get her cigarettes and brown liquor.

[2065] Yeah.

[2066] I raised myself and by wolves.

[2067] That's why I have such a hunger for you.

[2068] Let's get out of here.

[2069] You're a piece of shit.

[2070] I was so gorgeous, so.

[2071] Smell like shit.

[2072] I'm so horrid.

[2073] for you.

[2074] Oh, my God.

[2075] It's so attractive.

[2076] I want flowers.

[2077] Oh, wait, wait.

[2078] Actually, put him down for sure.

[2079] Okay.

[2080] I put my screen away.

[2081] I put your screen away.

[2082] I actually do smell bad today.

[2083] You do?

[2084] What did you do step in some doodles?

[2085] No. My shower drain is clogged.

[2086] Okay.

[2087] I told you how to fix that.

[2088] I did.

[2089] I tried.

[2090] I put the...

[2091] You took the screen off?

[2092] Well, what screen?

[2093] There should be a metal screen over the hole.

[2094] Or is it just a straight hole into the...

[2095] It's not a straight hole There's some kind of a metal grate over it You got to take that off Oh And then take a coat hanger Yeah I did that And when you pull it out what was happening Well I left the thing I did that wrong Okay so I get there was space though So I stuck the coat hanger in and it was I just heard metal I didn't hear like It wasn't getting caught on anything What you want to do is Well first I get to bend that That hanger part really close so it'll fit down the pipe.

[2096] Take the grate off and then go down in it because it has a U pipe just like, right?

[2097] And you're going to get, that's where it's at.

[2098] So you got to get it down there and then I guarantee you'll pull a rat out of it.

[2099] So your drain's clogged and then what?

[2100] Wait, put your screen down.

[2101] I see you picking up your screen.

[2102] I'm not done.

[2103] Like, who's here, I'm back.

[2104] Let's get out of the fuck out of here.

[2105] It's like, go.

[2106] Oh, my God.

[2107] He's not even saying anything.

[2108] Oh, my God.

[2109] He's just so excited.

[2110] Okay, so do I have to use a screwdriver to get that thing off?

[2111] Yes.

[2112] Oh.

[2113] You have them.

[2114] Okay.

[2115] It's no big deal.

[2116] It's two screws.

[2117] The plumber's coming tomorrow.

[2118] Okay.

[2119] Oh, that's another way to deal with it, too.

[2120] I did put a bunch of draino in.

[2121] Oh, they hate when you do that.

[2122] They do?

[2123] Every single, in fact, you should maybe cut that out of this episode.

[2124] Like, every single lease agreement or rental agreements, explicitly forbids you from using.

[2125] Yes.

[2126] Oh, no, I told her I did that.

[2127] Uh -oh.

[2128] Okay, well.

[2129] Well, we'll see how this goes.

[2130] She didn't say it's bad.

[2131] It was weird, though, because it had already, you know, there was water.

[2132] Uh -huh.

[2133] There was standing water, and I was pouring the drain -oids.

[2134] Do you flies in there, little insects or anything?

[2135] No, but I also have that bug issue.

[2136] Okay.

[2137] Oh, my God.

[2138] Things are really?

[2139] Things are, they're falling apart.

[2140] I don't go to fuck what's happening in your apartment.

[2141] I hope there's wild animals and they're like, I'll eat cockroats is if I can just lay with you.

[2142] Like us.

[2143] Ew.

[2144] Anyway, I poured the drain of the standing water, but as close as I could get to the thing.

[2145] And it actually worked.

[2146] That water went away.

[2147] Okay.

[2148] So then I was like, oh, I fixed it.

[2149] Then I took a shower.

[2150] Same situation.

[2151] You're up to your ankles in water.

[2152] Anyway, so I can't wash my hair or shower until tomorrow.

[2153] Tell me more.

[2154] Smell like shit I do, I think I do I don't smell good Anyway All right What I say The little robot I don't fuck that little robot No Oh I miss the robot Oh I actually had a fact About the robot Oh you did Yes And I forgot to say it It was from a couple times ago It was Gretchen Because we were saying He's an obligor Oh right Personality type He has been programmed that way Right.

[2155] And you said he doesn't have any goals because of that.

[2156] But he does to be a real boy.

[2157] Big time.

[2158] So he does have his own goal.

[2159] So that's a fact.

[2160] I'm checking.

[2161] Oh, okay.

[2162] Yeah, that's true.

[2163] That's right.

[2164] I stand by that.

[2165] Okay.

[2166] When did we stop using cocaine for medicinal use?

[2167] Well, it says it's still used sometimes.

[2168] I think so.

[2169] So, yeah, use as a local anesthetic throughout the history of the Incan Empire of Peru.

[2170] In Europe, however, its medical usefulness was not fully recognized until Carl Kohler used it to anesthetize, anesthetize, that's a hard word to say.

[2171] Anesthetize?

[2172] Anesthetize?

[2173] I bet because it's T -H -G -German.

[2174] Anest -a -T -S -A -T -S -E.

[2175] Anestat -T -H -T -I -E.

[2176] Because it's N -S -T -H -E -T -I -E.

[2177] Right, and I think that T -H we would say is a T. Okay, anesthetatize.

[2178] Anestatize.

[2179] Ties, yeah.

[2180] No, T -S, but an -S - is an -E -E -E -E -E -E -E -E -E -T -T -E -E -T -E -E -T -E -E -E.

[2181] Anesthetize.

[2182] I think she is doing a little age.

[2183] She's going to lisp, though.

[2184] Okay.

[2185] Well, anyway.

[2186] I love speech and paliments.

[2187] I got one of my own.

[2188] Let me show you.

[2189] I hate him.

[2190] But I like him in a little bit.

[2191] Yeah.

[2192] I know.

[2193] Oh, my God.

[2194] Because nothing you truly don't like sticks around.

[2195] Let's be honest.

[2196] I know.

[2197] Okay, used to anesthetize, anesthetize the corner of the eye.

[2198] Mm. Over the next 20 years, Cocama became a popular.

[2199] medicine and tonic in Europe and America, where it was credited with curing a wide variety of diseases and illnesses.

[2200] However, reports soon started to appear claiming that cocaine was a drug with high social abuse potential.

[2201] And in America, it seemed to underpin growing crime figures.

[2202] But so it's used a lot less, but it is used sometimes.

[2203] Well, it numbs everything immediately.

[2204] Yeah.

[2205] You've never done cocaine.

[2206] No, I haven't.

[2207] But you know, you see people rob their gums, right?

[2208] Yeah.

[2209] So you make lines, right?

[2210] And then that goes up the old.

[2211] And then there's some stuff left over.

[2212] So you just take your finger and you go like that, right?

[2213] And then you're out on your gums.

[2214] Yeah, why?

[2215] It makes your gums numb.

[2216] Why do people like that?

[2217] Because it's just part of it.

[2218] Again, remember how ritualized I said the whole thing is?

[2219] Yeah, but it feels weird because, like, it's hard to talk when your gums are all numb.

[2220] It's somehow different from, like, using oral B or whatever that, oral, oral gel.

[2221] Or a gel.

[2222] There anything bad happening when you put on your gums then?

[2223] I've heard, but again, this is all like drug gossip.

[2224] Like when you're a kid and you're smoking weed, they're like, don't get a seed, you'll be sterile.

[2225] I don't know if that's true or not.

[2226] There's all this drug knowledge.

[2227] But yes, apparently it's supposed to erode your gums.

[2228] You're not supposed to smote your gums.

[2229] I would guess that's true.

[2230] Yeah, and I doubt the coca leaf itself, which in Peru people chew, everyone chews.

[2231] It's like a great altitude sickness thing.

[2232] Yeah.

[2233] Such a low dose of it.

[2234] But I don't think that is bad necessarily chewing the leaves.

[2235] Yeah.

[2236] But obviously it's made with a lot of other chemicals.

[2237] Yeah.

[2238] So maybe those aren't great for your gums.

[2239] I also put tobacco against my gums, so I'm not really the best person to ask about how destructive things against your gums are.

[2240] If you want to take care of your gums, use Armandhammer proxy care.

[2241] Also, if you are true to your teeth, they will never be false to you.

[2242] Oh, wow.

[2243] That's my dad's favorite saying.

[2244] Okay.

[2245] Are the dog cheeks swab things a scam?

[2246] Are the dog cheeks wobb thing?

[2247] Swab.

[2248] The DNA test.

[2249] Oh, DNA of a dog test.

[2250] How accurate are dog DNA tests.

[2251] We unleashed the truth.

[2252] That was a pun they did.

[2253] Yeah.

[2254] Despite claiming near 100 % accuracy, companies give completely different DNA results.

[2255] Okay.

[2256] So they did like some tests and it just seems nothing's all that conclusive.

[2257] Yeah.

[2258] Turns out I'm 100 % Cocker Spanagher.

[2259] But I move through the world like a pit bull.

[2260] so good and bad i've never been there with anybody but i'm the best okay you said alcohol tolerance plateaus yes it does that's right at some point the tolerance effect levels out and the daily intake of the substance reaches a plateau okay and then i was just wondering randomly if we are evolutionarily primed to hear lower voices better than higher voices Well, lower voices travel further.

[2261] Oh, this is a more like authority.

[2262] Right.

[2263] You trust a lower voice.

[2264] Well, no, no. I was really, really wondering, hearing.

[2265] Uh -huh.

[2266] Because sometimes when I talk, I think people can't actually hear it.

[2267] Oh.

[2268] Kind of like when I give an analogy about the Wilderby.

[2269] Yeah.

[2270] You were talking really high -pitched.

[2271] Oh, that must be what it was.

[2272] Yeah, we didn't hear it.

[2273] I wanted to know if there was some science behind it.

[2274] Okay.

[2275] Okay.

[2276] So I'm going to read an article.

[2277] Oh, I can't wait.

[2278] It's long.

[2279] Good.

[2280] Longer the better.

[2281] It's the Taylor Swift commensual speech.

[2282] Oh, my God.

[2283] I'm in the cast of Parenthood.

[2284] Series regs.

[2285] By the way, we're getting to the spots where things are getting, like, seeds are being planted.

[2286] And it's really interesting because obviously when I was acting in it, I didn't know, I didn't know I was going to hook up with Gabby.

[2287] Right.

[2288] No idea.

[2289] Yeah.

[2290] But we just had, like, we just had the episode.

[2291] so where I'm too drunk to pick up Jabbar and she takes me, which is embarrassing and I get pushed to the ground by Seiku.

[2292] But then the follow -up on the couch, I'm asking her if she thinks I'm a good dad or something.

[2293] I don't remember that part.

[2294] And you're drunk?

[2295] Well, now I'm sober.

[2296] I've come to Adam and Christine's and I'm doing laundry, but then I see Christina and then I'm leaving and I see her and I apologize for my behavior.

[2297] But it becomes this really chargey kind of scene.

[2298] Sexual.

[2299] Sex -tench.

[2300] Oh, my God.

[2301] And did you, you didn't know that at the time that it was sex -tench?

[2302] That's interesting.

[2303] I didn't.

[2304] I just think when I was interacting with her.

[2305] Yeah, that would happen.

[2306] There was like some chemistry maybe or something.

[2307] Yes.

[2308] And who knows, maybe those scenes had some chemistry.

[2309] Then they got the idea.

[2310] I don't know what the order is.

[2311] But what I like is now, I'm watching it.

[2312] knowing what happens, and then I go like, oh, I see that this is potentially problematic because there's some sparkies.

[2313] Yeah.

[2314] Sparky the dog.

[2315] Yeah, it's like you and Nicholas.

[2316] Oh, my God.

[2317] Spark City.

[2318] Nicholas Sparks?

[2319] Ah, Nicholas Sparks.

[2320] Okay, this is from Forbes.

[2321] I've been posting a good deal recently on research having to do with the voice, and a number of readers have asked me about one voice study that seemed to contradict most of the others, finding that a higher, more strident voice comes across as higher status than a lower one.

[2322] Well, rest easy, we don't all have to become tenors or sopranos.

[2323] That particular study was flawed in a number of ways.

[2324] And other research confirms that it's the range that is more important than the high pitch.

[2325] In other words, what audiences are responding to is the emotion, and a bigger emotional range is more powerful and higher status than a narrower one.

[2326] But there's more.

[2327] and far more important research into how the voice actually works on the human psyche.

[2328] So far, those who want to understand what's really at stake, read on.

[2329] This is for the voice geeks or the speakers who really want to succeed or the leaders who want to remove all possible barriers to their successful leadership.

[2330] Researchers have known for a long time that when we speak, we put out low frequency sounds that we are not aware of consciously.

[2331] The researchers, are you checking your watch?

[2332] I did check my watch.

[2333] I'm really sorry.

[2334] Also, wow, I don't know how you're reading, you have to be struggling to read what you're reading.

[2335] And somehow you saw me, and I just glanced.

[2336] I was like, is it 5 p .m?

[2337] Oh, my God.

[2338] I'm loving it.

[2339] I told you I want you to go all night.

[2340] Like, you don't want this to be the first 24 -hour fact check.

[2341] But I just was checking in, and you shouldn't have seen that.

[2342] I always see when you check your watch.

[2343] Oh, my gosh.

[2344] Always.

[2345] Okay.

[2346] Wow.

[2347] I got to move my watch somewhere.

[2348] No, I'll know.

[2349] You'll put a clock behind your head.

[2350] Then it'll happen.

[2351] No, then I'll know that you're doing this.

[2352] You'll think I'm looking at your eyebrow.

[2353] No, I know you'll be looking at it.

[2354] All right now.

[2355] And I'm going to look somewhere and you've got to tell me where I'm looking, okay?

[2356] Okay.

[2357] Hold on.

[2358] I have to blink.

[2359] Okay.

[2360] Okay.

[2361] Where am I looking?

[2362] Are you looking at my, is it on my fate?

[2363] Oh, oh, you're here.

[2364] Oh, my God.

[2365] You're so off.

[2366] I am?

[2367] Fuck you.

[2368] It's three feet.

[2369] I'm looking at right where your hair starts right here.

[2370] That's what I did.

[2371] You're touching the ceiling three feet from your head.

[2372] It's near my head.

[2373] Oh, my God.

[2374] Yet you saw my watch.

[2375] That's really curious.

[2376] I really do notice when you look at your watch.

[2377] I notice it during interviews, too.

[2378] Okay.

[2379] And you are quick, but.

[2380] Could be better.

[2381] I do notice it.

[2382] Okay.

[2383] Okay.

[2384] The researchers assume that these noises were meaningless by product, byproducts of our vocal cords working away as we communicate with one another and shout at passing cars and other annoyances.

[2385] They were wrong.

[2386] Those sounds are not only meaningful, but they determine who's in charge.

[2387] The good news is that you can learn how to increase your production of these secret influencers in order to make sure that you are the leader of any group you want to control.

[2388] Make sure you're the leader of any group you want to control.

[2389] How does this unconscious conversation work?

[2390] Every sound produced by a human or a musical instrument, an animal or a machine, has an oral fingerprint that you can measure by charting its frequency responses of units of sound called hertz.

[2391] We can hear sounds ranging from 20 hertz at the lowest end to 20 ,000 hertz at the upper end.

[2392] Whoa.

[2393] Anything at about 300 hertz or lower sounds to us like a low bass note or as they go lower, not like notes at all, but rather like rumbles of thunder.

[2394] It's important to understand that most naturally produced sounds are not pure emissions of one note at one frequency.

[2395] The quality of sound, the difference between your mother -in -law's voice, for example, and a chainsaw is determined by the overtones and undertones that the sound produces.

[2396] A sound gets its quality...

[2397] Did you check your watch again?

[2398] I didn't.

[2399] Oh, did you do something with your hand?

[2400] No. Yes, you did.

[2401] No, you know all that happened?

[2402] What?

[2403] I haven't changed my physicality, one iota, not even a micron.

[2404] Okay.

[2405] But in my head, I started talking like Frito.

[2406] Oh, my God, I knew it.

[2407] I could feel it.

[2408] I could feel it.

[2409] I talk at a million megahertz and 10 megahertz, which is the size of my arms.

[2410] Okay.

[2411] The sound gets a...

[2412] Nope, nope, put it down, put down the shield.

[2413] I don't know about going low, but I know I go deep.

[2414] I think at least.

[2415] This is my guess.

[2416] I haven't ever been with anybody, but I'm the past.

[2417] Okay.

[2418] A sound gets its quality from the number of over and undertones as well as the intensity of them.

[2419] Very broadly speaking, we like sounds that are rich in overtones.

[2420] Here we go.

[2421] And especially undertones.

[2422] The thinner a sound is, the more likely we are to find it irritating.

[2423] There's a wide individual variation in the kinds of sounds we find appealing, but On the whole, for example, a thin nasal voice is less appealing to us than a rich resonant voice.

[2424] I totally disagree.

[2425] Did you hear what I said?

[2426] I totally disagree.

[2427] Oh, see, they're right.

[2428] I said I totally disagree.

[2429] Oh.

[2430] I'm totally disagree.

[2431] This is my high nasally voice.

[2432] I thought you were going to be the robot.

[2433] No. Oh.

[2434] This is a new guy?

[2435] The high nasally guy.

[2436] Yeah.

[2437] What are you talking about?

[2438] Who else would it be?

[2439] Do you get a lot of callers?

[2440] How many callers a day do you get?

[2441] Never mind, I got to go.

[2442] Oh, my God.

[2443] This guy is so rude.

[2444] You don't have any respect.

[2445] It's like you can't even hear me. Well.

[2446] Can you?

[2447] Hello?

[2448] He's angry.

[2449] Okay.

[2450] Here's the amazing part.

[2451] People who put out the right kinds of sounds below the range of conscious human hearing become the leaders of most groups.

[2452] Oh, my gosh.

[2453] That's all I'm going to read.

[2454] There's a lot more.

[2455] So the conclusion is lower voices become the leader?

[2456] Well, it sounds like it's a variation.

[2457] Don't have a thin voice.

[2458] We learned a lot.

[2459] But remember Elizabeth Holmes, who made her voice deeper?

[2460] Yes.

[2461] She's starting to do press.

[2462] I know.

[2463] Should we tell everyone in the audience?

[2464] What happened?

[2465] We should.

[2466] Yeah.

[2467] We can't tell if it's a catfish or not.

[2468] Yeah.

[2469] We're leaning towards it's a catfish.

[2470] Although now maybe not because she's doing press.

[2471] I know.

[2472] But it was still too weird.

[2473] Yeah, someone reached out to me. Uh -huh.

[2474] claiming to be the husband of Elizabeth Holmes.

[2475] Uh -huh.

[2476] On Instagram or Twitter?

[2477] Uh -huh, Instagram.

[2478] I've been off Twitter for me. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[2479] But it was a while ago this happened, but yeah.

[2480] I didn't engage with the person.

[2481] I turned it over to Emma.

[2482] And us, yeah.

[2483] Yeah, yeah, the whole gang.

[2484] But knowing that Emma could reach out and find out if it's real because certainly we'd want to interview Elizabeth Holmes.

[2485] Yes.

[2486] And then it became like a game of cloak and dagger.

[2487] I was like, and then ultimately this person was insisting to, FaceTime with you and I Yes And we were like no fuck that How about Elizabeth FaceTime's with Emma to prove We don't need to prove who we are We're right here Yeah There's no fake version of the show You're gonna end up on And he sent a weird picture Remember?

[2488] Holding like a sign He sent a picture of himself Holding up a sign Oh boy I didn't know his paper I think It was strange I don't know about that part I'm out of the loop on the one And he was being very aggressive to Emma And so ultimately we thought, even if you are the right person, we don't like the way any of this is going.

[2489] Suck a dick, yeah, yeah, in so many words.

[2490] And a nicer version of that.

[2491] Yeah, eat an ass, suck a dick.

[2492] Whatever thing you want to not do, do.

[2493] You don't get to be rude to us.

[2494] Yeah, it wasn't happening.

[2495] Anyone on our team.

[2496] But then I saw she was on something.

[2497] She was.

[2498] Yeah, and the voice is gone, right?

[2499] She's back to her normal voice.

[2500] So I didn't hear it.

[2501] I didn't either.

[2502] But that's what the headlines said.

[2503] So I'm assuming that that's the, yeah.

[2504] We're all victims of the head.

[2505] Gone is the turtleneck, something shit like that.

[2506] But it'd be interesting to definitely to talk to her.

[2507] Yeah, it would.

[2508] So maybe we're getting catfish, maybe not.

[2509] Maybe not.

[2510] It'd be fun if we're not so that we can talk to her.

[2511] We'd love to talk to you, Elizabeth Holmes.

[2512] Also, everyone needs to be respectful of our team.

[2513] Yes, there'll be no, we won't overlook that.

[2514] We don't let that slide.

[2515] We've had a couple, just tiny, some people, maybe publicists treating them but not so nice.

[2516] They're totally unacceptable.

[2517] It's not going to happen.

[2518] Yeah, they get my wrath when that happens.

[2519] Oh, good.

[2520] Well, I'm not shocked.

[2521] Yeah, I come in, swoop in.

[2522] Oh, but they do.

[2523] Oh.

[2524] Maybe Frito should respond to them.

[2525] That's a good idea.

[2526] Send voice memos back.

[2527] Fuck you.

[2528] Get off talking, though.

[2529] Ever, Emma's the greatest of so in love with her.

[2530] Don't tell her, though.

[2531] Oh, my God.

[2532] Oh, man. All right.

[2533] Right, that's all.

[2534] I love you.

[2535] Love you.

[2536] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[2537] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[2538] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.