Speaker 1: We don't ever feel like we're enough. The other thing
Speaker 1: I think that happened in my life, which is significant,
Speaker 1: is that I joined a twelve step program eighteen years
Speaker 1: ago to get sober, and I got a ton of
Speaker 1: practice talking about my shortcomings, my failures, my fears. And
Speaker 1: it's a unique experience because it was met always with understanding,
Speaker 1: no judgment, compassion, unity, and I don't know how you
Speaker 1: could get those hours of practice without betterm. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to this very untraditional on purpose podcast that
Speaker 1: has already been taping for maybe fifteen minutes of a
Speaker 1: very general conversation that Dax and I have been having.
Speaker 1: And I'm so excited to be talking to you today.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of
Speaker 1: Love is out and I cannot wait to share it
Speaker 1: with you. I am so so excited for you to
Speaker 1: read this book, for you to listen into this book.
Speaker 1: I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already,
Speaker 1: make sure you go to eight Rules of Love dot com.
Speaker 1: It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or
Speaker 1: let go of love. So if you've got friends that
Speaker 1: are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure
Speaker 1: you grab this book, and I'd love to invite you
Speaker 1: to come and see me for my global tour Love Rules.
Speaker 1: Go to Jay Shelleytour dot com to learn more information
Speaker 1: about tickets, VIP experiences and more. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see you this year. As you already know, our amazing
Speaker 1: guest today is none other than Dak Shepherd, actor, comedian,
Speaker 1: writer and director, and of course, podcast host of one
Speaker 1: of my favorite podcasts, Armchair Expert. He's known for his
Speaker 1: appearance in films like Without a Paddles, Thora Space Adventure,
Speaker 1: Employee of the Month, and many many more, and Dak's
Speaker 1: also portrayed Crossby Braverman in the NBC comedy drama series
Speaker 1: Parenthood from twenty ten to twenty fifteen. He also played
Speaker 1: Luke Matthews in the Netflix show The Ranch, co starred
Speaker 1: in ABC's Bless This Mess, and acted in the MTV
Speaker 1: reality series Punk That I Grew Up On. And since
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Dax has hosted the award winning podcast show
Speaker 1: arms Your Expert, where he interviews celebrities, journalists, and academics
Speaker 1: about the messiness of being human. If you don't already
Speaker 1: listen to it, make sure you go and listen to
Speaker 1: Arms your Expert, and Dax and I got into a
Speaker 1: very random Instagram comment conversation which led to a bit
Speaker 1: of DM which led to us connecting in this way. So, Dax,
Speaker 1: welcome to the episode. And I'm genuinely a fan and
Speaker 1: admirer excited to connect. As I said, Kristen has been
Speaker 1: so gracious and kind to me before. It's wonderful to
Speaker 1: connect to all the darts. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: Oh it's my pleasure. That intro was exhausting. I felt
Speaker 1: for you. I was excited by I love I love
Speaker 1: diving into people's past and experiences and kind of connecting
Speaker 1: the dots because I think it's really easy to, as
Speaker 1: you know, look at someone and think, oh, yeah, well
Speaker 1: they've always been this way or they've always out well together,
Speaker 1: and then you look at the date that someone started
Speaker 1: and you go, oh, wow, they've been doing this for
Speaker 1: a long time, you know, And I think that that's
Speaker 1: always it's a beautiful thing. I actually think I think
Speaker 1: it's weird is for the person, you know, like when
Speaker 1: I'm now I just had someone. An hour ago, I
Speaker 1: interviewed Mandy Moore and we got to talking about the
Speaker 1: fact that she had been unpunked, and then we started
Speaker 1: doing the math and I was like, wow, that was
Speaker 1: eighteen years ago. I said, if we had had a
Speaker 1: child that night, we would be sending them off to college.
Speaker 1: That's kind of mind blowing. And aging is such a
Speaker 1: peculiar phenomena to begin with. And the fact that if
Speaker 1: you're an actor or whatever, you have some resume that's
Speaker 1: publicly known. It's kind of documented. The timeline. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's like an upside of that, which is cool, and
Speaker 1: there's a downside to it, of course. But I have
Speaker 1: a very good memory, but I have a very terrible
Speaker 1: memory for dates. So I can basically tell you if
Speaker 1: things happened before ninety three, from high school, four after
Speaker 1: two thousand and then maybe to my kids were born.
Speaker 1: It's probably a gap between two thousand and twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: where I don't know, it could have been anywhere in
Speaker 1: that zone. Yeah. I love hearing that. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel a lot better because I have a friend that
Speaker 1: I connect with regularly. I went to high school with
Speaker 1: him and we actually went to the same college, so
Speaker 1: we were together from eleven to twenty one. And he'll
Speaker 1: remind me of like, do you remember this person, I'll
Speaker 1: be like, oh my gosh, I've completely forgot, or like,
Speaker 1: do you remember we did this ridiculous thing together? And
Speaker 1: it's weird because eleven to twenty one as such formative years,
Speaker 1: you'd think I would remember them, But those are some
Speaker 1: of the ones that I've I've completely wiped off my memory. So,
Speaker 1: and what's your theory on why that has happened? I mean,
Speaker 1: my theory is that was preceding the time that I
Speaker 1: spent living as a monk for three years. And I
Speaker 1: really believe that a lot of my rewiring of my
Speaker 1: brain and habits during my time as a monk erased
Speaker 1: set and memories that were no longer useful in the
Speaker 1: new identity and new mindsets that I was creating. And
Speaker 1: that wasn't conscious. It was so unconscious and unintentional. But
Speaker 1: that is the only theory I have. What about for you?
Speaker 1: Why is that ninety three and then the two twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen mark? What's your theory? Well, now I can tell
Speaker 1: you everything that happened, I just can't tell you what
Speaker 1: years they happened, right, Okay, necessarily what predated the other thing?
Speaker 1: It's a kind of more of a chronological issue, but
Speaker 1: I do have all the memories. Now, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: a very crazy example. So I'm driving in the car
Speaker 1: one day and I don't know why I think this.
Speaker 1: Maybe I see a billboard or something, who knows, But
Speaker 1: I just started thinking of Whoopi Goldberg and I think
Speaker 1: I love Whoopi Goldberg. I just love her. I've always
Speaker 1: loved her. She has always seemed so certain of who
Speaker 1: she was and blah blah. And I'm just kind of,
Speaker 1: I don't know, ruminating on how much I like her
Speaker 1: or admire and then I have this kind of snap
Speaker 1: shot memory of hugging her, and then I thought, well, hmm,
Speaker 1: I've never met her. I don't know how I would
Speaker 1: have hugged her. And now I've become obsessed with like
Speaker 1: is that an imagination that I had, you know? And
Speaker 1: then I'm thinking about it for so long a couple
Speaker 1: hours that eventually I put into YouTube Dak Shephard will
Speaker 1: be Goldberg. And by god, I've been on the View
Speaker 1: three times and this is not shade to the View.
Speaker 1: I enamored with that. I think that's an incredible thing
Speaker 1: to have gotten to do. But I just had to
Speaker 1: confront so my first thought was like, oh, that's very scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But anyways, I was like, all right, I was on
Speaker 1: the View and I hugged her afterwards, and I got
Speaker 1: to teller that I really respect her, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to kind of figure out how that had happened. That
Speaker 1: would be inconceivable to me at twelve years old if
Speaker 1: you said, hey, you're gonna be on the show one
Speaker 1: day and you're gonna forget you're on that show. And
Speaker 1: so then I was feeling bad about myself. You know,
Speaker 1: I was getting critical. This must be some failing. But
Speaker 1: then I just kind of thought, man, when you do
Speaker 1: press people who aren't in show business, they don't know.
Speaker 1: Like if I go to New York to promote parenthood,
Speaker 1: my day is I started the Today's Show. Then I
Speaker 1: go to a second version of the Today's Show, I
Speaker 1: do five print media things. I end up doing The
Speaker 1: View and maybe Rachel Ray and so all these other
Speaker 1: daytime shows, and then it goes into a nighttime talk show.
Speaker 1: I'll be on you know of you name it, Seth Myers.
Speaker 1: And if you've done that, if you've done on enough
Speaker 1: shows and you've gone in New York to do that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's a capacity issue. I have
Speaker 1: to imagine, you know, there's I'm only you know, I
Speaker 1: have a finite memory, and you know you kind of
Speaker 1: dump some of those appearances, I guess. But I wanted,
Speaker 1: of course, to find something wrong with me. And now
Speaker 1: I've come to peace with just like, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm a hot shot. I'm not arrogant.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm too cool for the view. That's
Speaker 1: not it. It's just a capacity issue. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: capacity issue. And and like you said, a repetition issue.
Speaker 1: If you're doing something repeatedly, you're not going to remember
Speaker 1: it the seventh time or the time you do it.
Speaker 1: And that's key. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because my first time
Speaker 1: on the Today's Show, I could tell you every moment
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, you know, because if it's been recorded
Speaker 1: and then not any of the subsequent ones, probably Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a really good way of putting it. I
Speaker 1: think what's fascinating about memory, though, seeing as we've gone
Speaker 1: there now, is so many of our memories are also
Speaker 1: based on pictures that we saw of ourselves as children.
Speaker 1: So what I've realized is when you can see yourself
Speaker 1: in a memory, that's not a memory, it's a picture
Speaker 1: because your view as a memory, you would be not
Speaker 1: looking at yourself. Great way to delineate that, But I'll
Speaker 1: add to the confusion for me personally, it's like, if
Speaker 1: I'm on Letterman, there is a monitor by the cameras,
Speaker 1: so I actually can see me on Letterman while I'm
Speaker 1: on Letterman. So then again, now for me to unravel
Speaker 1: whether I remember the appearance that I saw on TV
Speaker 1: or my experience there, I don't know who knows. So
Speaker 1: that's the worst case of inception. There probably is. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds clea. You're also in like a mere with
Speaker 1: a mirror behind you, so yeah, yeah, it's correct. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I often get fascinated by that memory point though, that
Speaker 1: you know, how many of those experiences that I remember
Speaker 1: of childhood were actually me living them, or my parents
Speaker 1: showed me video, or you know, my parents showed me
Speaker 1: a picture of myself. And I think about that often
Speaker 1: with how I'm someone that doesn't despite my life being
Speaker 1: on social media and certain parts documented, I'm actually not
Speaker 1: good at getting my phone out and grabbing pictures, and
Speaker 1: it's it's not a part of my daily I don't
Speaker 1: really walk around my phone out so much, and then
Speaker 1: I but I often also asked that, well, if I
Speaker 1: had didn't, if I haven't taken a picture, do I
Speaker 1: actually even remember it that well? If it wasn't like
Speaker 1: a really moving, dynamic experience. I mean, when you think
Speaker 1: about memories, what are your like, I guess, what are
Speaker 1: your favorite some of your favorite memories personally or professionally
Speaker 1: that stay strong that you feel are so crystal clear
Speaker 1: that you could feel them again. I hate to admit this,
Speaker 1: but I've come to understand that the memories that support
Speaker 1: what I think my identity is. Yes, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you even brought up the monk thing and how you
Speaker 1: kind of lost an identity, and in order to do that,
Speaker 1: you almost had to lose the memories, which makes sense
Speaker 1: to me because you're like, you've lost the plot points
Speaker 1: that led to your conclusion that you were Jay Shetty
Speaker 1: whatever they thought you were at that point. And I
Speaker 1: have been in a business where and this isn't unique
Speaker 1: to me but a little bit. It is only because
Speaker 1: I acted and I also wrote. I was employed as
Speaker 1: a writer as much as an actor, and then also
Speaker 1: I directed for a few years, so I was always
Speaker 1: kind of juggling, like, oh, am I an actor? I
Speaker 1: know I'm a writer. It's not working as an actor.
Speaker 1: I'm a writer. And then oh my god, I'm a
Speaker 1: writer director. That's what I am. And so and then
Speaker 1: as those things either failed or succeeded, I'd have that
Speaker 1: identity a little longer. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I was a podcaster, and now I'm considering an identity.
Speaker 1: Now of course it's all work related, but now my
Speaker 1: identity is like me weirdly, you know, I have a show,
Speaker 1: I have a podcast where it's just me, And as
Speaker 1: I do that longer, I'm kind of less interested in
Speaker 1: all the other identities I had. And then, of course
Speaker 1: the crowning jewel of identities for me is a father.
Speaker 1: So this Sunday it will be nine years that I'm
Speaker 1: a dad. And then that kind of just overtook all
Speaker 1: the other ones gracefully and thankfully, where that one feels
Speaker 1: like bedrock, you know, that feels like son or sibling whatever,
Speaker 1: And I had no clue how much I needed that, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't willing to go be a monk for
Speaker 1: three years if find out who I actually was without
Speaker 1: any of these connections. So yeah, it was just a
Speaker 1: great relief to have something that I would define myself
Speaker 1: around other than work, which is fickle and good and
Speaker 1: bad and all as many things. But so for memories,
Speaker 1: I'm probably inclined to tell you all the steps that
Speaker 1: led to me getting on punked, or all the steps
Speaker 1: that led to me being a class clown or you know,
Speaker 1: and then even weirder than all this, because we also
Speaker 1: touched on your life making sense now at this point,
Speaker 1: I had the ultimate moment of that while hosting top Gear,
Speaker 1: which I've done for the last two years, where my
Speaker 1: other side hustle, it was always motorsports. That's all I
Speaker 1: really ever wanted. I just if I could have been
Speaker 1: a race car driver without him in it. So I've
Speaker 1: spent all this time at racetracks and racing and riding
Speaker 1: motorcycles and doing all this stuff, and there was just
Speaker 1: a moment shooting one particular episode of top Gear where
Speaker 1: I drifted this Dodge Hellcat around a dirt oval track
Speaker 1: in Arizona all day long, dead sideways. It was a blast,
Speaker 1: and I left and I thought, my god, it all
Speaker 1: makes sense. Like I went into rov. The show's not scripted.
Speaker 1: I was all I want to do is drive fast
Speaker 1: and crazy and I wanted to be in camera, and
Speaker 1: by god, now at this vantage point then forty six,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it all makes sense, but certainly
Speaker 1: it never made sense in route to there. That was
Speaker 1: a long answer. That was a great I mean that's
Speaker 1: what podcasts afore, right, so that that was a great
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, Yeah, No, I find that fascinating too. And
Speaker 1: what I really appreciated where you started off, and it
Speaker 1: was actually very reassuring for me, which I appreciated, was
Speaker 1: I kind of went that too. I went through being
Speaker 1: a student and a South Asian person in England who
Speaker 1: had certain aspirations to then living as a monk, and
Speaker 1: then to leave being a monk, which has a very
Speaker 1: clear identity shift, and then being like, well I'm a monk,
Speaker 1: and then I went back into the world of corporate
Speaker 1: to pay the bills and survive, and in management, and
Speaker 1: then now in media where we do so much in media,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like I feel like for a long
Speaker 1: time I was juggling those two is like, well I'm
Speaker 1: married now too, and they all seem to be ms
Speaker 1: as well, like married, monk, media management, and I go
Speaker 1: you know which one happen, and it was the same
Speaker 1: thing as you said that I really feel now I'm
Speaker 1: at a point where I've just accepted that I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed the paradoxical experience of my life, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: and acknowledge each part of those experiences equally. I'm really
Speaker 1: grateful that I got to have my time in the
Speaker 1: monastery and what I learned from there, which is foundational
Speaker 1: to the work I do today. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I love the fact that now I'm in media and
Speaker 1: I get to apply it in a completely different direction.
Speaker 1: And I love being married. I really enjoyed the learning
Speaker 1: process of what that looks like. And then the management
Speaker 1: part has been so useful from a professional standpoint. And
Speaker 1: it's like you said, you get to being you, And
Speaker 1: I guess my question is like, how long did it
Speaker 1: take you or what was some of the inner workings
Speaker 1: of learning to accept and give yourself the permission to
Speaker 1: be all of them, none of them, some of them,
Speaker 1: a part of them. Because I still feel we live
Speaker 1: in an industry where, or not even in an industry,
Speaker 1: we live in a world where it's like, well, what
Speaker 1: do you do? And it's your job title, and I
Speaker 1: was saying I was saying to my patam day to day.
Speaker 1: I was like, I would be so much happier if
Speaker 1: they just put my mission as my lower third and
Speaker 1: not my title, because my title doesn't really say much
Speaker 1: about who I really am, And so does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It does? And in fact, I'm always a little curious
Speaker 1: how embracing people are of a title that they also
Speaker 1: know millions of other people have as a title. So
Speaker 1: what does it now? Granted I just said I'm a father,
Speaker 1: which is you know whatever, a third of the country.
Speaker 1: But I'll give you the one that is a pet
Speaker 1: peeve of mine is like people on their social media,
Speaker 1: it'll say liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican? Am I?
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just I'm too insatiably in search of
Speaker 1: being unique for that to be satisfying for me. Like,
Speaker 1: what could it say about me? If all I've done
Speaker 1: is is carved three hundred million people into two groups,
Speaker 1: it'd be no different than writing mail, Like who am
Speaker 1: I I'm mail? What does that mean? You know anything?
Speaker 1: Where half of the country can fit into it. I
Speaker 1: don't know why that's of interest in describing yourself, but
Speaker 1: me embracing me. I through insecurity, of course, but but
Speaker 1: through insecurity, I chose a very specific route through junior
Speaker 1: high high school, which was I'm punk rock, I'm a skateboarder,
Speaker 1: I'm a snowboarder, I'm punk rock. Well and again stemming
Speaker 1: from insecurity, which is I couldn't. I didn't think I
Speaker 1: could pull off the other thing. Like I was looking
Speaker 1: at everyone in there. They didn't have Coloux, they could
Speaker 1: have this perfect middle part. I couldn't do it. Their
Speaker 1: parents could afford Jordan's mind couldn't. So I couldn't do that.
Speaker 1: And this was a kind of a weird I know
Speaker 1: what it read as it reads this confidence, which is
Speaker 1: great because I actually kind of backed myself into being confident.
Speaker 1: So I was, you know, mohawk crazy clothes, combat boots
Speaker 1: because I wanted to send a message like I'm not
Speaker 1: playing that game, so you can't evaluate me by those rules.
Speaker 1: That was what the insecurity part was. And then I
Speaker 1: got like positive reinforcement for that, and that kind of
Speaker 1: you know, that's remained a little bit in me that
Speaker 1: when I wrote it didn't take me any time to
Speaker 1: find my voice. I just I wrote as if no
Speaker 1: one was ever going to read it, and if they
Speaker 1: did read it and didn't like it, I didn't care.
Speaker 1: Acting was different because I certainly was like I had heroes.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be Bill Murray or Chevy Chase or
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell of that took a minute. And that's an
Speaker 1: interesting story in itself. Is I happened to do a
Speaker 1: movie that was entirely improvd just before I got cast
Speaker 1: on Parenthood, so I couldn't have done a character. Maybe
Speaker 1: other people could have. I couldn't have done a character
Speaker 1: and have improvs. Since serily an entire movie. I just thought,
Speaker 1: I got I'm just gonna have to be as close
Speaker 1: to myself as I can so that I can speak
Speaker 1: of my own voice in improv. And that was a
Speaker 1: kind of breakthrough for me because I watched it and
Speaker 1: I was really kind of happy with it, and other
Speaker 1: people thought it was really good, and it's what made
Speaker 1: me then go, I'm enough. I don't have to have
Speaker 1: an accent. I don't have to have this. I don't
Speaker 1: have to I'm enough, which is a hard thing to
Speaker 1: get to. I remember reading I quote this all the
Speaker 1: time on my show, which is I was reading an
Speaker 1: interview with Nicholas Cage, who I was obsessed with as
Speaker 1: a kid. He was my actor, That's who I would
Speaker 1: want to be. He was nuts, and he said it
Speaker 1: was not until he did the movie Face Off and
Speaker 1: he in travoled to swap faces so inevitably they had
Speaker 1: to do impersonations of each other. And he said he
Speaker 1: didn't know until he watched John travol To do an
Speaker 1: impersonation of him that he actually was unique enough to
Speaker 1: even impersonate. And I thought, how could Nicholas Cage, one
Speaker 1: of the most unique performers, have not known that until
Speaker 1: he witnessed that, And so it can happen to people, right,
Speaker 1: we don't ever feel like we're enough. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing I think that happened in my life, which
Speaker 1: is significant, is that I joined a twelve step program
Speaker 1: eighteen years ago to get sober, and I got a
Speaker 1: ton of practice talking about my shortcomings, my failures, my fears.
Speaker 1: And it's a unique experience because it was met always
Speaker 1: with understanding, no judgment, compassion, unity, And I don't know
Speaker 1: how you could get those hours of practice without that.
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure. So I think that program helped
Speaker 1: me just be me and not be terribly worried about it. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I don't think there's a substitute
Speaker 1: for that practice that can. I ask you a question, Yeah,
Speaker 1: are you just a romantic? Because at first I think
Speaker 1: the commitment to go be a month for three years
Speaker 1: is insane. I loved worldly pleasures. I wanted to make
Speaker 1: love to everyone. I wanted to drive fast cars and
Speaker 1: have people give me approval. So at first glance, it
Speaker 1: would be an impossible endeavor for me. I just kind
Speaker 1: of do and I assumed too. There's a hierarchy and
Speaker 1: people tell you what to do. I would hate that,
Speaker 1: but there's also a part of me that would have
Speaker 1: a romantic fantasy about what it would have been and
Speaker 1: that it would have been a bold in historic decision,
Speaker 1: Like I had that type of ego where I would
Speaker 1: have liked, I'm going to do something no one would do.
Speaker 1: So what on earth got you to leave the worldly
Speaker 1: world and be willing to do that? Yeah? No, thank
Speaker 1: you for that question. I think for me, if I
Speaker 1: if I'm honest about it at the time, and it's
Speaker 1: something you actually touched on a couple of seconds ago,
Speaker 1: which we haven't dived into yet, but it was I
Speaker 1: was at the same and same as you. I resonate
Speaker 1: with that. I loved approval, validation, I had lots of girlfriends,
Speaker 1: I was you know, all the rest of it. I've
Speaker 1: borne a raise in London, so lived a very normal
Speaker 1: life and I the only thing that was fascinating to
Speaker 1: me at the time was rags to Richest stories. So
Speaker 1: my dad had started giving me biographies because he was
Speaker 1: scared I wasn't reading because I never liked fiction growing up.
Speaker 1: I've I love nonfiction. I've never been a huge fiction fan.
Speaker 1: And my dad was the person who kind of either
Speaker 1: he knew that or didn't know that, but he started
Speaker 1: giving me biographies of famous people, autobiographies of people, and
Speaker 1: so I read like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and
Speaker 1: Malcolm X. And this was all in my teens, and
Speaker 1: so I was fascinated by people who shifted culture or
Speaker 1: made differences in the world. But I was also fascinated
Speaker 1: by money and CEOs and entrepreneurs and athletes and actors.
Speaker 1: And so I would go and this is before podcasting
Speaker 1: and YouTube. So I would go to my college and
Speaker 1: here speakers who were invited to talk about their careers
Speaker 1: or their journeys, so you'd go to a physical event,
Speaker 1: sit in the audience and listen. And I met at
Speaker 1: that time so many different people. And one of the
Speaker 1: person that I heard speak was the monk that I
Speaker 1: ended up writing about my book, and his name's Gonadas,
Speaker 1: and I ended up spending time with him. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing, Decks, that it was like at that age
Speaker 1: in my life. I was eighteen years old. I'd met
Speaker 1: people who were rich, I'd met people who were famous.
Speaker 1: I'd heard people who were successful and beautiful and attractive,
Speaker 1: but I don't think i'd met anyone who was truly
Speaker 1: happy and content. Now whatever that meant at age eighteen, right, Like,
Speaker 1: not that I knew what that even meant, but at
Speaker 1: least at that age, and from him, I felt a
Speaker 1: sense of And by the way, there was nothing externally
Speaker 1: attractive about this man. He was Indian, he had a
Speaker 1: thick Indian accent, he was wearing robes. But I was
Speaker 1: so attracted to him, and I was like, what is it?
Speaker 1: Why am I attracted to this guy? And I didn't
Speaker 1: even want to go. I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much you know the story, but I've told this often.
Speaker 1: I told my friends who invited me to the event,
Speaker 1: that I would only go if we went to a
Speaker 1: bar afterwards, because I was just uninterested in monks or spirituality.
Speaker 1: And so I want you said content man. I was
Speaker 1: not in search of contentment. Neither was I. I want
Speaker 1: to gay us, and neither was I. I was a rebel.
Speaker 1: I'd been, you know, just to give you a bit
Speaker 1: of a background, I was. I'd been suspended from school
Speaker 1: three times. I was a rebel. I was involved in
Speaker 1: all sorts of the wrong circles. And here I am
Speaker 1: randomly at a monk, talking and thinking this is going
Speaker 1: to be the biggest waste of time. But I felt
Speaker 1: an attraction, and I said to him, I asked one
Speaker 1: really quick question too. Of course, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the they say for lack of it, I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly Are you Indian or I am Indian? Yes, yes, India, Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the second or third generation Indian
Speaker 1: experience is in London. I only know somewhat what it's
Speaker 1: like here in the States from Monica, of course, of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess my first thought is were you running from
Speaker 1: or embracing your ethnicity? At that age, I would say
Speaker 1: that London. I feel that the South Asian community or
Speaker 1: Indian community in London is not that my parents had this,
Speaker 1: but by the time I was there, it's more embraced
Speaker 1: into culture. So I would say in my primary school,
Speaker 1: elementary school, I was bullied for being Indian, but then
Speaker 1: by the time I was in high school, I was
Speaker 1: surrounded by Indians and so that was kind of like
Speaker 1: my experience where I would I would say I was
Speaker 1: pretty neutral. We weren't doing either because you were kind
Speaker 1: of embraced but kind of bullied. It was kind of
Speaker 1: in between. That makes sense because I'm just imagining how
Speaker 1: that speaker come to Monica's College University of Georgia's. She
Speaker 1: would have run for the first she would have been like,
Speaker 1: don't I don't want anyone to connect my otherness with
Speaker 1: this person's otherness. Yeah, that wasn't at play, Okay, I
Speaker 1: was just curious about Yeah, no, no, it's a good
Speaker 1: question anyway. But yeah, that was the reason that I
Speaker 1: would say that it was as simple as like what
Speaker 1: you were saying about race car driving or Will Ferrell
Speaker 1: and I want to dive into that idea. It was
Speaker 1: as simple as this person at this point in my
Speaker 1: life is the most inspirational person I've met, and I
Speaker 1: want to know how they there. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: study their life. I'm going to spend time with them
Speaker 1: if I have the opportunity. And after doing that for
Speaker 1: three years where I would spend my vacations and Christmas
Speaker 1: Holidays with him in India and spending time within, I
Speaker 1: was just like, this is what I want to do
Speaker 1: with my life. So and then I went and actually
Speaker 1: lived as Among for three years. So it was study,
Speaker 1: it was research, it was intrigue, it was curiosity, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't you feel like he had a magic he
Speaker 1: still does to this day, Like yeah, he's he's still Among,
Speaker 1: He's amazing and he's he still has a magic about him,
Speaker 1: which which hasn't worn off for me for sure, because
Speaker 1: it's interesting because there can even be within something as
Speaker 1: a stew or as simplistic, there can still be some
Speaker 1: aggrandize man like uh, I want more? Right, So I
Speaker 1: think all the things you listed that you were previously
Speaker 1: interested in is similar to me, like I want more.
Speaker 1: I've had this experience. I want I want, I really
Speaker 1: want it all. Like whatever the is an option on
Speaker 1: this through planet Earth. I want to experience it, so
Speaker 1: I can imagine if I thought like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this person has magic. Yeah, you know, I remember hearing
Speaker 1: crazy stories. I'm sure they were just stereotypical what would
Speaker 1: you call them, like Arcadian fantasy archetypes of spiritual people
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, they can soar with an eagle,
Speaker 1: and when I will let myself imagine, like I'd dedicate
Speaker 1: myself to something if I could embody an eagle emply around.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm bummed there's no hot women and really
Speaker 1: cool cars on the scene, but I might trade that
Speaker 1: off to be able to transcend this body. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And that's what I think it was right. It was
Speaker 1: the I was so deeply in all of someone's presence
Speaker 1: and energy and I didn't even know what those words
Speaker 1: meant at that time, but it was such a deep
Speaker 1: attraction that my attraction for other things was dimmed in
Speaker 1: the light of that. And that's what I realized that
Speaker 1: it's not that those other attractions just disappeared, it's just
Speaker 1: that they would dim or in light of that attraction.
Speaker 1: I guess with you, what were you referring to then
Speaker 1: when you were talking about like having people you look
Speaker 1: up to or when you mentioned set of names, and
Speaker 1: I think there was something in there around that idea
Speaker 1: that we all have of wanting more but also seeing
Speaker 1: more in others. Was that where were you going with
Speaker 1: that thought? Well, there's a bunch of them. So like then,
Speaker 1: they're always if you really look at it, they're probably
Speaker 1: always linked to insecurities of mine and or some pride
Speaker 1: in something I think I have. So with Nicolas Cage,
Speaker 1: I think I was so drawn to him as an
Speaker 1: actor because I was like, this guy, is he's fine looking?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. He's not. He's not gorgeous,
Speaker 1: he's not unattractive, he's just fine. I think he's getting
Speaker 1: by because he's tall, and so I thought maybe I
Speaker 1: could do that too. I was not the cutest kid
Speaker 1: in my school ever. I wasn't, you know, but I
Speaker 1: was tall. That kind of worked enough. And he was
Speaker 1: certainly nuts like he was just he would make crazy
Speaker 1: choices in movies. He'd do crazy characters, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: that seems achievable for what I'm working with. And then
Speaker 1: like an aspirational front, you had like Bill Murray, who
Speaker 1: I don't think there's ever been a performer I've seen
Speaker 1: that is as comfortable in their skin as Bill Murray is,
Speaker 1: like whatever you felt about the person you studied with.
Speaker 1: I look at him and I was like, mot I
Speaker 1: still do, And I think, God, if I could feel
Speaker 1: as comfortable in my body as he seems to, that
Speaker 1: must be you know, elating experience. Yea. And so he
Speaker 1: was maybe more aspirational. And then Will Farrell was more
Speaker 1: just like the greedy pig in me, like, oh, this
Speaker 1: guy dominates. You can't hold a candle if you're in
Speaker 1: a scene with him, you might as well close your
Speaker 1: eyes the whole time. No one's gonna look at you.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't even need to be in your wardrobe.
Speaker 1: He's just so dominant and hysterical. And then in winning
Speaker 1: every movie's opening number one, I know what he's getting paid,
Speaker 1: you know. So all that like greedy pig side of
Speaker 1: me was attracted to maybe his status, that's maybe a
Speaker 1: great way to say it. Both a total admiration for
Speaker 1: a skill level which I don't even possess, but I
Speaker 1: think the status appealed to me, like, oh, that would
Speaker 1: be it if you could walk into a studio and go,
Speaker 1: hey man, I don't know to tell you here's the idea.
Speaker 1: It's me in the seventies as a newscaster, and that's
Speaker 1: all you got to say. And they're like, yes, here's
Speaker 1: the checkbook. That's like the dream yea. So maybe that Yeah,
Speaker 1: So all sorts of facets of my personality probably drove
Speaker 1: me to admire or try to you know, aim towards
Speaker 1: those people. Yeah, and with and with the twelve step
Speaker 1: program and that journey too, Like what was it like
Speaker 1: that first time? And my more understanding of that journey
Speaker 1: comes through one of my dear friends, Russell Brand, because
Speaker 1: he speaks about it often as well, and me and
Speaker 1: him share the same meditation teacher, and so that's how
Speaker 1: I got to know him a long time ago, and
Speaker 1: so I that's that's my only knowledge of it. So
Speaker 1: apart from that, I, you know, I've only learned about
Speaker 1: it through him. But with that experience, what was it
Speaker 1: like that first time? Because I love what you said
Speaker 1: it It was so interesting to me because I've never
Speaker 1: heard anyone say that. But the practice of having vulnerable
Speaker 1: conversations about your flaws in a space that is non
Speaker 1: judgment based and non critical. What was it like that
Speaker 1: first time when you saw that happening around you, Like
Speaker 1: did you look at it and go, well, this can't
Speaker 1: be real, or because we've never experienced that, or did
Speaker 1: you look at it and go, oh, this is easy.
Speaker 1: I can be an open book, like how did that
Speaker 1: feel for the first time, because I'd say most people
Speaker 1: have never really been in a room that looks like
Speaker 1: that unless they are going on to twelve step program. Right,
Speaker 1: that's such a huge question. First of all, my father
Speaker 1: got sober when I was fourteen, so I had some
Speaker 1: loose knowledge of it. I had gone to meetings with him.
Speaker 1: I knew a lot about it. That in its own
Speaker 1: way became a hurdle to me because that was virtually
Speaker 1: like my Catholicism. We were in a religious family. I
Speaker 1: know no one are people like me don't want to
Speaker 1: just take the religion they were handed, you know, It's
Speaker 1: just I don't know so that it was a hurdle
Speaker 1: in some ways. But when I went there, and this
Speaker 1: again is about me, I can't really answer to why
Speaker 1: it appeals to other people. But I have this deep
Speaker 1: skepticism about people in general because of my childhood. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of distrustful people. I have a really overly
Speaker 1: healthy skepticism. So if I had walked into AA and
Speaker 1: there was a leader of A, I would have been out.
Speaker 1: If there was a way to move up in AA,
Speaker 1: I would have been out. If there was any money
Speaker 1: associated with AA, I'd be out. Because as soon as
Speaker 1: those things are on the table, I'm obsessed with intentions.
Speaker 1: I cannot feel safe and comfortable until I think I've
Speaker 1: accurately evaluated your intentions. So the magic of that place,
Speaker 1: to me is almost structural. I don't know how this
Speaker 1: thing has existed for eighty years without a president or
Speaker 1: a you know, a CEO or anybody. Because had I
Speaker 1: gone and there was a leader right and I heard
Speaker 1: other men share vulnerably, I would have immediately thought, Oh,
Speaker 1: they're trying to impress this guy. So what I deduced
Speaker 1: is that this guy likes vulnerability. This guy's probably perverse
Speaker 1: in some way, or maybe he wants leverage on people,
Speaker 1: or he wants collateral. That's why he's encouraging everyone to
Speaker 1: dump their secrets. So I couldn't have done it. I mean,
Speaker 1: just a simple fact that no one there can tell
Speaker 1: you whether you're right or wrong. All they can do,
Speaker 1: and all I can do is share my experience my
Speaker 1: strength and my hope. That's all it is. So I
Speaker 1: think just that neutral, no one's incentivized, no money, no hierarchy.
Speaker 1: That's why it was magic for me. Yeah, that's special.
Speaker 1: That's really amazing because when you think about that, as
Speaker 1: I said before, that's super rare in the world for
Speaker 1: people to have a space like that to go to.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, to be honest, because
Speaker 1: even the Church I can be really skeptical of that.
Speaker 1: I think obviously, I think there's there's some continuum of
Speaker 1: religions world religions where less our hierarchical, less our money driven.
Speaker 1: But certainly as soon as you've got an intermediary between
Speaker 1: this book, everyone believes in in you. I don't like that.
Speaker 1: I'm out for any any system that has someone that
Speaker 1: has to interpret a book we can all read. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't trust that. Why would that be necessary? Again,
Speaker 1: But that's I can own my own baggage. That that's
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a distrusting person out of the gates,
Speaker 1: how have you. I'm fascinated by that, and and I
Speaker 1: don't I don't again, I don't, um, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's just a baggage thing I think there's there's triggers
Speaker 1: and there's baggage. Right, there's both, Like there's it's not
Speaker 1: that what you're seeing is not also true. There is
Speaker 1: truth in what you're seeing, and then there's truth in
Speaker 1: the trigger. So it's it's both hands. But when I
Speaker 1: look at what, I'm really interested in knowing how you,
Speaker 1: as a more skeptical person or untrust person, have found
Speaker 1: an ability to build trust in a relationship with your
Speaker 1: wife in a relationship I don't And again I don't
Speaker 1: know you that way, So I'm projecting and you can
Speaker 1: fill in the right details well, but business partners, with
Speaker 1: people in your life, with even directors you work with,
Speaker 1: who are giving you advice on how to portray a character,
Speaker 1: like can you walk us through a journey of trust
Speaker 1: from the Dak Shepherd perspective of going from being someone
Speaker 1: who has skepticism a healthy skepticism. As you said, that's
Speaker 1: a great question, because I'm most comfortable telling you about
Speaker 1: things I've overcome, like I'm happy to tell you I
Speaker 1: haven't drank in eighteen years, Like I'll tell you all
Speaker 1: about how I figured out how to do that, right.
Speaker 1: I also want to say, and this is why your
Speaker 1: choice to be a monk perplexes me because I was
Speaker 1: only open to that radical change. Let me just say,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of gods mentioned a hold on in
Speaker 1: that big book, and that's a big trigger for me.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to die less than I want to
Speaker 1: say God, it may be the only thing to be honest,
Speaker 1: So you know that it's a great motivator for change
Speaker 1: when you actually come to terms with the fact that
Speaker 1: the other option's death. So every other option for me
Speaker 1: is probably a little less painful than death, So I
Speaker 1: start from there. I'm not someone who's quick to listen
Speaker 1: to other people and believe that what they said is working.
Speaker 1: It's really newly being explored. Like I'm just newly in
Speaker 1: therapy to actually confront this is do who do I
Speaker 1: really trust? What allows me to trust people is not healthy?
Speaker 1: Is actually I think I'm wrong sometimes, But I'm actually
Speaker 1: very very good at assessing intention because I've lived this
Speaker 1: way for so long. I'm pretty good that walking into
Speaker 1: a room and figuring out what everyone in there's motive is.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of motives that don't trigger me,
Speaker 1: so I don't mind. Like you know, it gets tricky
Speaker 1: when you're I hate this word, but famous. If you're
Speaker 1: on TV, there's going to be a dynamic around you
Speaker 1: with how people act towards you, and you can find
Speaker 1: yourself question you're like, oh, does this person really like me?
Speaker 1: Are they just trying to perhaps get in my circle
Speaker 1: so they can elevate their own thing, And then somehow
Speaker 1: you come out on the other side is like, that's
Speaker 1: not even the right question. Ask is this relationship beneficial
Speaker 1: to me? Do I enjoy it? If this person ends
Speaker 1: up getting the thing they want? Does that affect me
Speaker 1: in any way? No? Doesn't, And do I enjoy them?
Speaker 1: Like I gotta get out of Sometimes I can recognize
Speaker 1: the intention and then just step over it, like and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I have intentions. We all have intentions.
Speaker 1: But there are intentions I don't mind, and there's ones
Speaker 1: that I mind. But with my wife, there was a
Speaker 1: super super specific thing which was my family was single mom,
Speaker 1: three kids. The way you showed you loved each other
Speaker 1: was to never ever be a drain on one another.
Speaker 1: That was the ultimate way is to be self sufficient.
Speaker 1: We were all overworked, underfunded, and then what you could
Speaker 1: do is never suck on anyone else. So when you
Speaker 1: get sick in my house, no one cares. And that
Speaker 1: was not Christen's experience, right. So there was one time
Speaker 1: in particular, like they were kind of stacking up, and
Speaker 1: she said, will you get me a water? We're both
Speaker 1: sitting on the couch now. If I'm standing next to
Speaker 1: the sink and you say get me a water, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. But the notion that I would get up
Speaker 1: off the couch and give you a water when you
Speaker 1: two are next that was I had to bring it up.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm sorry, I don't. This is crazy
Speaker 1: to me that you would ask me to do something
Speaker 1: that would take me just as much effort as you,
Speaker 1: and you're the one that's thirsty. I'm not thirsty. And
Speaker 1: she's like, well, god, oh, my family, that's how we
Speaker 1: do it. Like some days you have energy and you
Speaker 1: don't mind getting everyone you make the dinner. Everyone else
Speaker 1: is tired, and then the other days you're tired, they
Speaker 1: make the dinner. It's all a symbiotic and it all works.
Speaker 1: And I'm like trying to buy into this. So I'm
Speaker 1: actually trying to figure out, No, is she just lazy?
Speaker 1: And like I'm setting a pattern in this relationship where
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wait on her hand and that's off the table. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I honestly, I had to ask myself the question,
Speaker 1: is this person out to harm me? Or do I
Speaker 1: truly believe this is a good person and this is
Speaker 1: just how she operates? Yeah, And I don't know that
Speaker 1: I really ever asked myself. I forced myself to think
Speaker 1: of it in that way, and I concluded, and this
Speaker 1: was like fourteen years ago, She's a good person. She's
Speaker 1: gonna do things that I think are weird and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But ultimately, my diagnosis, my verdict is this
Speaker 1: is a good person and I'm gonna I'm gonna learn
Speaker 1: to work through all those other things because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make that conclusion now. Now, whether she is or not,
Speaker 1: it kind of doesn't matter. I decided that yes, and
Speaker 1: that has allowed me to cohabitate with her for a
Speaker 1: very long time. Which is not to say I won't
Speaker 1: think she's out to destroy me sometimes, because I also
Speaker 1: laps under that of course you will. Of course you will,
Speaker 1: And I think that's a healthier way to make it.
Speaker 1: I love what you said, though, though, because I've often
Speaker 1: I've never really had this conversation with anyone before, and
Speaker 1: I think the same. I think I have a strong
Speaker 1: intention radar, and I am highly aware of people's intentions
Speaker 1: in my periphery and not I think I've had it
Speaker 1: for a long time. And I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: had this conversation with anyone before, because I've never heard
Speaker 1: anyone actually say that. And when you said that, I
Speaker 1: was wondering, how do you what are the things you're
Speaker 1: looking out for when you are because I think that's
Speaker 1: something a lot of people struggle with, right I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are listening to us right now
Speaker 1: would say, well, Dax and Jay, like I'd never know,
Speaker 1: Like I thought this person was amazing and then they
Speaker 1: screwed me over. Or you know, this person was like
Speaker 1: my business partner and we were building and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden they changed. And I'm wondering whether you
Speaker 1: would say, actually, no, I could tell that intention was
Speaker 1: always there, It's just that it manifested later. Yeah, talk
Speaker 1: to me how you assess intentions so that our audience
Speaker 1: can think about that too for themselves. Well let's start
Speaker 1: with Okay, so you just said you got bullied in
Speaker 1: elementary school. Yeah, so you were in situations I'm sure
Speaker 1: where you were misled. You thought someone was your friend,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden they turned their back
Speaker 1: on you because these other dudes who were cooler and
Speaker 1: to elevate or lower themselves, right, Yeah, I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you a specific story, because it's as soon as
Speaker 1: you said that, this memory came like shooting back. So
Speaker 1: I was the dorky, geeky, overweight Indian kid in elementary
Speaker 1: school and the toughest kid in school became my best
Speaker 1: friend for some reason, I have no idea why. And
Speaker 1: so Jay and Ian Ian was his name, and Ian
Speaker 1: became my best friend at school, and he would protect
Speaker 1: me from the bullies and he would defend me. And
Speaker 1: I don't know. I still don't know why I should
Speaker 1: ask him. I know I have him as a Facebook friend,
Speaker 1: so I need to go and ask him a why.
Speaker 1: And so he would really protect me and defend me,
Speaker 1: and I never felt an ego. I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: like he that's so nice of him. And then what
Speaker 1: happened is that one of the girls told him when
Speaker 1: we got older, I think we're in like fourth grade, yeah,
Speaker 1: probably at fourth grade, and one of the girls who
Speaker 1: was kind of dating him or whatever dating looks like.
Speaker 1: In the fourth grade, she said to him. She goes, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Jay's been talking crap about you, and that
Speaker 1: wasn't true. I would I would never do that. It's
Speaker 1: not my vibe. And she's for some reason. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was. I have no idea why she
Speaker 1: told him. She was like, Jay's been talking crap about you,
Speaker 1: and just so you know, I wanted you to be
Speaker 1: the first to know. And you know he's been doing it.
Speaker 1: I don't know this conversation's happened. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I see my best friend at school storm out of
Speaker 1: the canteen walk right up to me while I'm playing
Speaker 1: football soccer with a bunch of my friends onto the
Speaker 1: big field that we had at school, and he punches
Speaker 1: me in the face. He rips my shirt, pushes me,
Speaker 1: punches me in the face again. I've got I'm on
Speaker 1: the floor going in, what is wrong with you? He's
Speaker 1: just like punching me away in the fourth grade and afterwards,
Speaker 1: I remember the most embarras something. My mom drives me
Speaker 1: to his mum's house off to school for him to
Speaker 1: apologize to me. Anyway, when you see a move right there,
Speaker 1: right yeah, when you said that, that that was the first member.
Speaker 1: I've never shared that member anyway, that was the first
Speaker 1: thing that came to my mind and anyway, so I
Speaker 1: will give you back the intentions thing. Let's go well
Speaker 1: and without getting bogged down. And you know, my trauma
Speaker 1: off just you know, I was molested at a young age.
Speaker 1: And so once that happens to you, and it's only
Speaker 1: one of many things that happened to me, you have
Speaker 1: to recognize that your worldview where people are generally nice
Speaker 1: and kind and helpful, is incomplete. Yeah, that there are
Speaker 1: other people who are acting one way to you and
Speaker 1: building trust with you because they have an ulterior motive.
Speaker 1: I also had a slew of stepdads. Some of them
Speaker 1: were terrible, you know. So once you recognize that there
Speaker 1: are people, now I think I'm skewed in how many
Speaker 1: people there are, but there are sheeps and wolves, and
Speaker 1: once you learn there are wolves, you know, you become
Speaker 1: pretty preoccupied with it. So, I mean, it's a weird
Speaker 1: thing to pass on to people what they should think about,
Speaker 1: but I mean, in the simplest sense, you should be
Speaker 1: able to tell yourself what the people around you want.
Speaker 1: You should be able to recognize what people how do
Speaker 1: you know what they want? Well, what do they talk about?
Speaker 1: Who do they hate? That's always a real big clue
Speaker 1: into what they want. People generally hate people who have
Speaker 1: what they want. They think it's some other thing, but
Speaker 1: in reality, they're jealous, they feel out class, maybe they
Speaker 1: don't have the talent to be this person. So they
Speaker 1: pick the four things that are discussing about them and
Speaker 1: they go on incessantly about those things. So you can
Speaker 1: pretty much discern what people want. I think, and then
Speaker 1: you just have to ask yourself, do I think them
Speaker 1: wanting that is going to get in the way of
Speaker 1: this friendship? Is it going to get in a way
Speaker 1: of this relationships? Am I going to be someone that
Speaker 1: triggers them because I have what I want? That's an
Speaker 1: important thing to know. Again, it doesn't have to lead
Speaker 1: to because again, no one's clean. We all want something.
Speaker 1: I don't claim to not want anything. Of course, if
Speaker 1: you and I hung out, like your wife is maybe
Speaker 1: the most striking person I've at least ever seen on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's so absurdly beautiful. I will want her
Speaker 1: to validate me if we meet in some way. I'm
Speaker 1: not asking her to cheat. I'm not gonna cheat, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you I need to leave there thinking, Yep,
Speaker 1: I made an impression on her. Now you may chalk
Speaker 1: that up too. If this guy's gonna put on a
Speaker 1: good show for us, which will be the case, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put on out a show for you, and you
Speaker 1: may go, she's not gonna cheat on me, and he's
Speaker 1: not gonna cheat on his wife, So all's fun. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be the beneficiary of this. But that's that's what
Speaker 1: I will want in that situation. Yeah, it can be
Speaker 1: a name, it can be benevolent, it can be anything.
Speaker 1: But I do I think you're you'd be naive to
Speaker 1: think that everyone doesn't want something. Yeah, and then you're
Speaker 1: kind of grading their history to their history of you know,
Speaker 1: breaking norms and laws to get what they want. Now
Speaker 1: you're in a totally different bracket as well. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: reason the reason why I think that that is such
Speaker 1: a brilliant answer is because I think we still live
Speaker 1: in a binary world where we generally believe, of course
Speaker 1: I'm completely generalizing right now. This is not statistically proven,
Speaker 1: but we're not trying to do that, is that we
Speaker 1: generally believe that people either want something or they don't
Speaker 1: want something, and you yeah, and you yeah, and you
Speaker 1: just established you're like, well, actually, Jay, pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: wants something, and it's more important to accept that and
Speaker 1: then figure out what that is rather than live in
Speaker 1: this world of like I can trust this person because
Speaker 1: they don't want anything, and I can trust this person.
Speaker 1: I can't trust this person because they do want something, right,
Speaker 1: Because that, Yeah, I think that that. I think the
Speaker 1: kind of pragmatic or a productive outcome is generally when
Speaker 1: you find people that want the exact same thing as you,
Speaker 1: and it's not finite. Yeah. So if it's a role
Speaker 1: in one movie and you both want that, that's right
Speaker 1: for trouble. Yeah, But if we both want something we
Speaker 1: can both have. This is a great foundation for a
Speaker 1: friendship because this is what we will do. This will
Speaker 1: be the activity. So like you'll find, as I said,
Speaker 1: I can talk from morning tonight. My friends love hypotheticals
Speaker 1: and in moral issues, and like I want to be
Speaker 1: invigorated and I want to play. And if I find
Speaker 1: someone who else loves to play, well that's awesome. That's
Speaker 1: a great foundation. Yeah, yeah, definitely, And I think I
Speaker 1: think what I value in reflecting back of what you're saying,
Speaker 1: is I just like and I think this was part
Speaker 1: of the monk thing and actually more becoming that allowed
Speaker 1: me to be this way. More was I just like
Speaker 1: exposing myself with as much randomness as possible, or like
Speaker 1: extremes as possible, or different people as possible, because I
Speaker 1: just feel like I would never if you ask me
Speaker 1: what I wanted to be when I was five years
Speaker 1: old or fifteen or even now, when I look back
Speaker 1: at it, I would never have said the word monk.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that the word existed. I didn't
Speaker 1: have any affinity towards it. So I start thinking now,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, wait a minute. If I could never
Speaker 1: conceive that because I'd never met someone who was that,
Speaker 1: then how many ideas exist in the world that I
Speaker 1: can't conceive because I have not met someone who has
Speaker 1: played around with that idea or that thought. And so
Speaker 1: when I when I reach out to someone like you
Speaker 1: and and and I look at we don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think we have a lot in common apart
Speaker 1: from having a podcast. Oh, I bet we have a
Speaker 1: turning common. We probably have. We probably have a fair
Speaker 1: bit in common but at least I don't know. Maybe maye, maye.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to figuring out what we did is
Speaker 1: what do we what do we count as in as
Speaker 1: in common like, No, I'm not I'm not a brown
Speaker 1: person living in a white world. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: a monk. I'm not. I don't live in wherever you live.
Speaker 1: Ah hooie whoie. The fact that we both have shows
Speaker 1: where we talk to people probably says way more about
Speaker 1: you and I than any of those other things. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but I love what you're saying because I don't
Speaker 1: personally give advice. It's not how AA works. All I
Speaker 1: do is I share who I am, and you hear
Speaker 1: something in there that you think you might apply it. Great,
Speaker 1: But I'm not one to tell people, and I have
Speaker 1: nothing prescriptive to say to anyone other I will often say, though,
Speaker 1: I have been very grateful that my identity has been flexible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think I do think a lot of people
Speaker 1: could benefit because you just made the greatest point, which
Speaker 1: is you didn't know a monk was an option. So
Speaker 1: if you don't know what every single option is, don't
Speaker 1: be so locked into the one thing, because there might
Speaker 1: be a better option. I didn't know what There was
Speaker 1: no such thing as a podcaster. Yea, So twenty years
Speaker 1: ago I couldn't have aimed at being a podcaster because
Speaker 1: there wasn't one. Yeah, but my identity is flexible enough
Speaker 1: that it's like when when I'm in the river and
Speaker 1: it's flown in my direction, I'll stay in it, you know. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that resonated, yeah for me. For me, that's
Speaker 1: that's what it is. So I'm always trying to find like, oh,
Speaker 1: even even though so you know, a while ago, I
Speaker 1: realized that sometimes there were necessarily not newer ideas, but
Speaker 1: they were deeper ideas, and so I was like, let
Speaker 1: me stop looking for a new idea, but let me
Speaker 1: look for how I can deep, deeply understand an idea.
Speaker 1: Because and that's what I'm hearing from you when you're
Speaker 1: churning stuff with your friends, how do you how have
Speaker 1: you found a way to be playful with the people
Speaker 1: around you where you're able to entertain different thoughts without
Speaker 1: feeling forced to pick a side, defend, or make someone
Speaker 1: think a certain way. Because I think that's a healthy
Speaker 1: conversation to have. Because I love the idea of So I,
Speaker 1: in one sense, I have a very clear philosophy of
Speaker 1: life because of my time as a monk. I think
Speaker 1: there are certain tenets that I ascribed to. But I
Speaker 1: also think that that time gave me an openness to
Speaker 1: accept that this idea should be able to be upgraded
Speaker 1: at any time. So if someone can give me something
Speaker 1: to upgrade my philosophy of life, I should accept it,
Speaker 1: because it would be ridiculous to say, no, I know
Speaker 1: the truth and everything else is false. So I like
Speaker 1: entertaining two ideas. How have you encouraged and how do
Speaker 1: people around you learn to entertain two ideas at once
Speaker 1: that are seemingly contradictory but allow them both to live? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I would imagine you and I both love that. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the crowning measurements of intelligence is being able
Speaker 1: to hold to conflicting ideas and conflicting feelings and emotions
Speaker 1: and bored out of my mind. If I don't have
Speaker 1: some conflict in my head of thought, of emotion, all
Speaker 1: that stuff, I just am bored. I mean it might
Speaker 1: just be as simple as me being an you know,
Speaker 1: an activity freak. Whatever it is, I will say, my
Speaker 1: mother was genius. I think I had two pretty informative
Speaker 1: experiences that have led me to where I'm at, which
Speaker 1: is one is my mother. This would always happened. Two
Speaker 1: kids would die in a drunk driving accident in my town,
Speaker 1: and the town would be furious at the driver and
Speaker 1: the poor or maybe the victim of the other thing.
Speaker 1: My mother are always her first thing would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: the poor parents of both those kids, that poor kid driving.
Speaker 1: You know, they handed out cigars for both those little
Speaker 1: kids when they were born, and they're both here. She'd
Speaker 1: feel bad for perpetrators of crimes as much as she
Speaker 1: did the victims of crime. That's a bizarre I don't
Speaker 1: know where she got that, but I think she always
Speaker 1: forced me to imagine that there was suffering on all
Speaker 1: sides of it. No one's like that. That was nobody's
Speaker 1: best day. And I carried that and I like that,
Speaker 1: and it drives my wife nuts. I forced myself to
Speaker 1: imagine how the you know whatever, they too are a victim.
Speaker 1: And then secondly, I majored in anthropology, So anthropologies is
Speaker 1: a great way to break your thinking because you walk
Speaker 1: into it with something. Let's do the hottest button topic
Speaker 1: in anthropology, like infanticide. The Inuit used to kill their
Speaker 1: babies after they were born. This is like, there's no
Speaker 1: way you're going to accept that this isn't the most amoral,
Speaker 1: horrific thing ever. But you are required to learn about
Speaker 1: what leads to that. Don't write it off as evil,
Speaker 1: don't write off as good or bad. Why is it
Speaker 1: they would do that. An anthropologist's job is just to
Speaker 1: literally find out how they live their life and why
Speaker 1: they live their life, what is their reason for living
Speaker 1: their life? And then you come to find out, well, wow,
Speaker 1: in their culture, only the men can hunt. Okay, but
Speaker 1: you could argue about whether that's right or wrong, but
Speaker 1: that is the case. You also then find out unlike
Speaker 1: most hunting and gathering societies, there's no gathering. It's ice.
Speaker 1: The only thing they're eating is will blubber. So their
Speaker 1: culture is also set up that if your child doesn't
Speaker 1: grow up to provide food for you, you're going to die.
Speaker 1: So you have to have a boy as your first child.
Speaker 1: You're then free to have a gale. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I condone it, but it's like, there's so much more
Speaker 1: to this story than infanticide the headline, and there are
Speaker 1: societies set up in ways that certain things make sense
Speaker 1: to those people. So cultural relativism is what it's broadly labeled,
Speaker 1: that way of thinking. And if you can just forget
Speaker 1: about the conclusion for a minute, can forget about the verdict,
Speaker 1: the judgment, you might actually learn a load about something.
Speaker 1: And I just I think I've taken that with me.
Speaker 1: That may be the best thing I took out of
Speaker 1: there is just imagining that my way isn't the only way,
Speaker 1: that there are some other ways that feel very wrong
Speaker 1: to me, and that might work, might be optimal in places.
Speaker 1: And then I just read this book. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've heard of this book, The Weirdest People on
Speaker 1: Earth of yours. I have not. That sounds amazing. I
Speaker 1: need to get that. It is mind blowing. It's it's
Speaker 1: about how different the brains of people in the West are.
Speaker 1: They are different. Starting with the simplest thing, Okay, I
Speaker 1: think I can roll this out in one second. So
Speaker 1: Martin Luther comes along. He says, there's no way that
Speaker 1: a priest can tell you how to communicate with God.
Speaker 1: You can communicate with God step oneto. That is, you
Speaker 1: gotta learn to read. You gotta learn to read this Bible.
Speaker 1: So he goes on this huge mission to make different
Speaker 1: populations literate. He's hugely successful. Prior to that, you had
Speaker 1: like top literacy, right maybe in Germany was five percent.
Speaker 1: Martin Luther comes around. Now you've got like eighty percent
Speaker 1: of people reading because of Martin Luther. Now, when you read,
Speaker 1: that changes your actual brain, the structure of your brain.
Speaker 1: It occupies such a bizarre it's such a bizarre thing
Speaker 1: to train your brain to do that. You lose some things.
Speaker 1: So when people learn to read, they lose some facial
Speaker 1: recognition skills, they can read less emotions. You know, it
Speaker 1: altered our brains. So if you start with the knowledge
Speaker 1: or the acceptance that our brains don't even work the
Speaker 1: same around the world, Yeah, how then could all of
Speaker 1: our conclusions work the same? How can we believe our
Speaker 1: conclusions are right, our conclusions are correct for this brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know that they're they're they're accurate conclusions in Samoa.
Speaker 1: You know, it's I just I have such little faith
Speaker 1: in that any of us really know. And I'm comfortable
Speaker 1: with that. That's a big, I think distinction. Some people
Speaker 1: are very uncomfortable not knowing I'm very comfortable not knowing.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you if I think I get asked
Speaker 1: this in interviews, like what have you kind of learned
Speaker 1: from having interviewed two hundred and fifty academics or professors?
Speaker 1: You know, because it's split it's celebrities, but then it's
Speaker 1: always academics, professors. Whatever. My conclusion is anything you believe in,
Speaker 1: at best, it might approach eighty percent correct. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll have an expert on they'll lay it out and
Speaker 1: oh my god, they cracked it. That's it. And then
Speaker 1: a month later I have their adversary on that person
Speaker 1: lays it out. I'm like, my god, this the scale's
Speaker 1: got it. I mean, we are so flashlight in a
Speaker 1: cave with everything we know, and I just I don't
Speaker 1: know how. I don't. I don't think anyone should feel
Speaker 1: so certain about anything. I guess it is my conclusion. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And and that's that hard pot because it's like you
Speaker 1: need some sets indeed to make decisions, and then you
Speaker 1: need the unsetin ty to be adaptable. And that's where
Speaker 1: we all at turn. I should have the humility to
Speaker 1: say it's a probability. Of course, I'm gonna make a
Speaker 1: decision based on this probability. And that's about all you're
Speaker 1: gonna say, other than I drop this rock and it'll
Speaker 1: fall anything outside of gravity. You're probably making a probability analysis. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I love what you said about what your mum
Speaker 1: had that belief growing up. I mean that was remarkable,
Speaker 1: Like genuinely that is that is such a amazing thing
Speaker 1: to grow up around. I wonder these ideas, and I
Speaker 1: know you and Christ speak so much, so openly about parenting.
Speaker 1: I'm like, have you have you are there some of
Speaker 1: these ideas which are not like? What I love about
Speaker 1: this is as we always hear that that famous quote
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, we should learn how to think,
Speaker 1: not what to think, And these are all ways how
Speaker 1: to think, right, these are how to think. We're not
Speaker 1: telling You're not saying this is what you should think about.
Speaker 1: How how are you introducing or are you introducing some
Speaker 1: of these concepts or other concepts to your kids in parenting?
Speaker 1: And how's what's been a successful or unsuccessful transference of ideas? Um,
Speaker 1: I'm incessantly doing that because I don't I don't have
Speaker 1: a goal for them. I have preferences, but I don't
Speaker 1: have a goal for them to not believe in Jesus.
Speaker 1: I don't believe Jesus is the son of God. Personally.
Speaker 1: It makes my life probably easier with them if I
Speaker 1: didn't have to go to church with them all the
Speaker 1: time to be with them, but I actually don't care.
Speaker 1: All I want them to do is take in every
Speaker 1: side of everything. I just want them to be hard
Speaker 1: working in their thought. I want them to hear both
Speaker 1: sides with an open mind and an open heart and
Speaker 1: then do their synthesis. That's all I'm really looking for.
Speaker 1: In fact, this situation presents itself. So we have family
Speaker 1: members that are very religious concerned. I'm not baptizing our children.
Speaker 1: I think performing maybe a baptism in the living room
Speaker 1: when I wasn't looking, I mean, sincerely, I think that
Speaker 1: might have happened. Always bringing the Bible for kids, all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and initially I'm like, well, don't please, don't
Speaker 1: pass that on to these little beautiful kids. But then
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, I was exposed to all that,
Speaker 1: and I came to whatever conclusion I came to, They're
Speaker 1: going to be just as able to do whatever they
Speaker 1: feels right to them. Who cares they can take on
Speaker 1: any information. I think critical thought will get them to
Speaker 1: where they need to be. And the only guardrails I asked,
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, indoctrinate them? Please don't introduce
Speaker 1: the concept of hell or sin. Those are the only two.
Speaker 1: I do not want. A little kid room and eighteen
Speaker 1: at night, whether or not they're going to end up
Speaker 1: in a fiery pit, I don't think that's useful for them.
Speaker 1: So I just put like two little tiny parameters. Luckily
Speaker 1: those people obliged and that they've left that part out,
Speaker 1: and you know, and then we talk about it, and
Speaker 1: to me, they seem like they're thinking about every angle
Speaker 1: of everything. And I guess as a parent, the thing
Speaker 1: I've learned to do is there's all these opportunities. They're
Speaker 1: so tempting to teach your kids something. Always they're always
Speaker 1: right in front of you. I feel like my life
Speaker 1: revolves around atheism. It doesn't. But this happens to be
Speaker 1: two in a row stories. We have really close friends.
Speaker 1: They're very Christian. I love it for them. I'm very
Speaker 1: supportive of it. There are children played together their children.
Speaker 1: My daughter was over there and they prayed before dinner,
Speaker 1: and she felt really uncomfortable. She felt nervous, She didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. They all knew what to do.
Speaker 1: She felt out of sorts. She then got nervous that
Speaker 1: the one child was going to not like her because
Speaker 1: she didn't believe the same way. And i' this on
Speaker 1: a ride home, and MY first thought is to go, well,
Speaker 1: look at Amy and Ryan and Chris. Your mom and
Speaker 1: I were best friends and we think differently, right, I
Speaker 1: want to like educate her through this. And then I
Speaker 1: stopped and I just go like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: remember that so much, Lincoln, Oh my god, I remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would be at my friend and I just start
Speaker 1: listing these times that I was in that situation, how
Speaker 1: awkward I felt. And then I felt like Judge and
Speaker 1: I was nervous. They thought I was going to hell
Speaker 1: and all these things. And I honestly think in that
Speaker 1: moment that that is the decision I'm proud of about.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't need to teach her this. I
Speaker 1: need her to see this functional human being has gone
Speaker 1: through all the things she's gone through. Yes, that's all
Speaker 1: I gotta do is make her not feel alone in
Speaker 1: these experiences, because that will somehow make her confident. Oh,
Speaker 1: but it'll all work out. Yeah, So I've tried. My
Speaker 1: heart is to shift from the lesson and more just
Speaker 1: sharing the experience with her. Yeah, I love that. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you shad that. My wife and I don't
Speaker 1: have kids yet, so definitely definitely part of the place.
Speaker 1: So tempting. You want to shortcut them, I do. I
Speaker 1: want to shortcut them to a fourth step in AAA.
Speaker 1: This can really you can figure out your fears with
Speaker 1: this thing. Go. My mom did with me. She just
Speaker 1: she would always relate to me, and that just I liked.
Speaker 1: I like not feeling alone in my experience the most. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they need to be able to create a twelve step
Speaker 1: kids version. Yall believe me, they'll get it. They're gonna
Speaker 1: get it through Osmoses yea. And yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: you do that publicly too, right, Like I know that
Speaker 1: last year you you know you you spoke about your
Speaker 1: relapse and you were very vulnerable about it and you're
Speaker 1: open about it, and I want to I mean, I guess,
Speaker 1: are you kids at an age yet where they're able
Speaker 1: to understand your public profile and external profile are not? Really?
Speaker 1: They don't kind of understand that, Like, are you dad
Speaker 1: and this or is it just are you dad? And
Speaker 1: and how does that affect them? You know what's really
Speaker 1: funny is, well, first of all, they know I'm in
Speaker 1: AA like that I leave in the evenings certain days
Speaker 1: of the week, and where are you going? I'm one? Hey,
Speaker 1: what's that? Oh? I'm an alcoholic? What's that? Oh? If
Speaker 1: I start drinking, watch out, can't stop. I'm ninth generation alcoholic.
Speaker 1: You know, they know the whole skinny. They know I relapsed.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is the question you're asking is the
Speaker 1: question I thought about NonStop because my experience was my
Speaker 1: parents weren't famous. My parents also didn't have money. So
Speaker 1: my obsessions are like, like what is this doing to them?
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. And the truth is, and I'm seeing it,
Speaker 1: is like it's their childhood. There's no such thing like
Speaker 1: we are inclined to think of their experience relative to
Speaker 1: another kids, but that's almost irrelevant. Their experience is relative
Speaker 1: to their own experience and to their maybe sisters experience.
Speaker 1: The notion that they're feeling something different because for me,
Speaker 1: when I imagine what being the child of famous people
Speaker 1: would have been like, is a very different feeling definitely yea,
Speaker 1: but there is no difference to them. Yeah, so it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: some times we're driving and mom's on a billboard, they're
Speaker 1: not impressed with mom. Mom's mom who didn't let them
Speaker 1: stay up till ten last night. It doesn't matter. The
Speaker 1: trickier part is in public. I'm very protective of them.
Speaker 1: So if you meet me and I'm by myself, I'm
Speaker 1: a pretty nice guy. If you meet me and I'm
Speaker 1: out with my kids, it's not your time. It's my
Speaker 1: kid's time. And I'll tell you that it's not time
Speaker 1: to take a picture with me, it's not time to
Speaker 1: talk to me about a movie or about a podcast.
Speaker 1: It is my children's time right now, and that's who's
Speaker 1: time it is. So I don't mind having a boundary
Speaker 1: when it's for them. I have a harder time having
Speaker 1: a boundary for myself. And I actually enjoy often talking
Speaker 1: to people who listen to the podcasts or whatnot. But
Speaker 1: I have to explain that to them, right. They can't
Speaker 1: just see me be very firm with people when they
Speaker 1: know me to be kind and open hearted to people
Speaker 1: who don't want something. This goes back to the intention. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if we're bumping into strangers at a restaurant. We're
Speaker 1: both ordered the steak and it's delicious, and I lean
Speaker 1: over and go, my god, these they can cook a
Speaker 1: t bone here, huh. Like there's that version of dad,
Speaker 1: and then there's the version at the airport where it's
Speaker 1: like no, thank you, thank you, Like if I can
Speaker 1: see a camera coming out, it's like, you cannot photograph
Speaker 1: my kids. So I have to then tell them I'm
Speaker 1: very protective of you. This is why I don't want
Speaker 1: your time to be robbed with your dad. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: always protect that. I don't want pictures of you on
Speaker 1: the internet. I don't want people to know what you
Speaker 1: look like and go to your school, like I don't
Speaker 1: want this is what's happening. So I just I assume,
Speaker 1: rightly or wrongly, that they can comprehend everything, and I
Speaker 1: just tell them. I tell them exactly what's happening in
Speaker 1: the world when they're in it. Again from my baggage,
Speaker 1: my number one issue is being deceived. I hate being deceived.
Speaker 1: I hate people who try to deceive me. It's my
Speaker 1: number one thing. I hate it. So I just my
Speaker 1: only commitment is I'm never deceiving my kids. The second
Speaker 1: thing said, wait, how does Santa Claus get in our chimney?
Speaker 1: And how's he getting? You said, there's Billy, how many
Speaker 1: seven billion? He's going to seven billion people? Well, no,
Speaker 1: he's not going to India because they don't believe in Santa.
Speaker 1: But why wouldn't you go? And I go, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do this to you. I'm not gonna I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna water down the best part of your brain, which
Speaker 1: is the critical thinking side, which is saying this does
Speaker 1: not add up. I'm not gonna do it. That that's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm passionately just taking notes. This is
Speaker 1: for me, future me. This is genuinely for future me
Speaker 1: to write some of these notes down. And I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not joking. I mean teach them to do something scary.
Speaker 1: That's my other I believe in that. Like, so, both
Speaker 1: my kids ride dirt bikes. They're little girls. My eight
Speaker 1: year old just got a very large dirt bike and
Speaker 1: we just went riding. And like you can tell your
Speaker 1: kids they're capable of anything, you have to give them
Speaker 1: an opportunity to figure out they're capable of anything. You know,
Speaker 1: you telling your kid, you could be president one day.
Speaker 1: Why what have they done to demonstrate that give them
Speaker 1: an opportunity to be presidential? I am so glad you
Speaker 1: said that. I literally was. I was on the front
Speaker 1: to my friend before we before we connected, and I
Speaker 1: was saying the same. I was like, he's got a
Speaker 1: ten year old, and I was saying, and I don't
Speaker 1: know why I thought of cold plunges, but I did,
Speaker 1: And I was like, you should take your kid cold plunges.
Speaker 1: Like I was like, you know, he needs to feel
Speaker 1: like he's achieved something, he's conquered something. Because we were
Speaker 1: talking about this something that's really fascinated me for a
Speaker 1: long time as I've been trying to at least read,
Speaker 1: as you were saying, read about children and kids and
Speaker 1: even just humans. But the idea of fragility and how
Speaker 1: like overprotecting someone's experience leads to fragility not strength. And
Speaker 1: I've found that word fragility and fragile so powerful, even
Speaker 1: more than weakness or lack of strength or whatever. Like
Speaker 1: fragility is really interesting because you go, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: we thought that if we mollycoded and protected and enforced
Speaker 1: boundaries and barriers that were perfect like laser fields around
Speaker 1: our kids or around ourselves. That then life would be good.
Speaker 1: I guess how do you deal with that poking of
Speaker 1: deceit as you said that was what you hate, as
Speaker 1: deceit pokes through that uncomfortable barrier that you have with it.
Speaker 1: How have you learned to be able to navigate to
Speaker 1: hell in a healthy way? Well, first off, I just
Speaker 1: think it's hilarious you said that because we've got our daughters.
Speaker 1: They do coal plunges. Oh nice. Yeah. And by the way,
Speaker 1: not because we told them too, because we model it.
Speaker 1: It's like they see mom and dad get out of
Speaker 1: the hot tub and go make themselves miserable for ten minutes.
Speaker 1: They just get curious and then it becomes competitive who's
Speaker 1: gonna do it, who's afraid to do it? And then
Speaker 1: I look and I'm like, my god, these little girls
Speaker 1: do coal plunges. I think often you're you're you're trying
Speaker 1: to protect. Let me say this, I had a great
Speaker 1: head start. One. I'm six and a half years older
Speaker 1: than my sister. My mom worked nights. I change diapers
Speaker 1: with the the safety pins and cloth diapers at six
Speaker 1: and a half years old. So somehow this six and
Speaker 1: a half year old, did quite a bit of child
Speaker 1: rearing and she's alive. Secondly, I'm majored in anthropology. I'd
Speaker 1: watch all these amazing documentaries. One of them I remember
Speaker 1: from Papua New Guinea. All the kids that are below
Speaker 1: six who can't be useful in digging up yams are
Speaker 1: on their own in the jungle. I'm telling you, they
Speaker 1: are on their own. There are two year olds falling
Speaker 1: out of trees. There's a six year old in charge,
Speaker 1: and they live. So I just walked into it with like,
Speaker 1: these little things are very resilient. I just I've seen
Speaker 1: firsthand they're pretty resilient. So I think I started with
Speaker 1: a little more confidence in that way. But again, I
Speaker 1: just think about what moment in time are you delaying
Speaker 1: this too? So I'm going to handle everything for them? Now?
Speaker 1: When is it their turn? Because if if eighteens their
Speaker 1: turn and you send them out into the world, no
Speaker 1: one in the world's as nice as I am for them,
Speaker 1: So why is that going to be the optimum time?
Speaker 1: To fail, to struggle, to be frustrated, to not get help.
Speaker 1: I regularly won't help them. It seems like maybe cruelty,
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, if you want it bad enough,
Speaker 1: you'll figure out how to do it. But I want
Speaker 1: competent kids. That's what I want, because I can't go
Speaker 1: with them everywhere for the rest of their lives to
Speaker 1: mitigate every conflict. I can't do it. Yeah, even though
Speaker 1: you'd like to, I would love to. It's my impulse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every time they're reaching for something, I want to go
Speaker 1: grab it. I'm tall. Yeah, it's like one of my
Speaker 1: only assets in the house. But no, they got to
Speaker 1: get a stool, go get something for crying out, can
Speaker 1: use tools and you can't. And again, they're giving themselves
Speaker 1: their own confidence. You're not giving it to them. You're
Speaker 1: not saying, oh, you're so smart, you're so competent. Why
Speaker 1: are you so competent? But they give it to themselves.
Speaker 1: And that you just having that really spoke to me
Speaker 1: because I think so many kids who or and obviously
Speaker 1: as adults now who heard that, they actually felt that
Speaker 1: was something they had to live up to as expectation
Speaker 1: or an obligation. That it's like, you're so smart, so
Speaker 1: now they had to present zero practice. Yeah exactly, exactly
Speaker 1: and so totally And I love that you kept saying
Speaker 1: it's something you have to give to yourself, because that's
Speaker 1: become something that is whenever I talk about that, I
Speaker 1: really strongly believe that that validation compliments awareness, understanding people
Speaker 1: can help to a certain degree, but ultimately it needs
Speaker 1: to come from ourselves. I saw you going about to
Speaker 1: say something. I want to let you in a way
Speaker 1: of digital I was just gonna say it both are true.
Speaker 1: External validation works, yeah, but it's finite. Yes, So either
Speaker 1: you have to be on the treadmill of constantly wowing
Speaker 1: everyone to get the external validation, or you can internally
Speaker 1: validate yourself and that can be permanent or that can
Speaker 1: be stable. Yeah. I'm fascinating to ask you this because
Speaker 1: I think you'll have a really refreshed perspective. How because
Speaker 1: you brought this word up earlier, how have you balanced
Speaker 1: self validation and humility and where did they fit in
Speaker 1: for you? I'm not saying they're opposites. I'm just wondering
Speaker 1: how both live in a healthy way for you, because
Speaker 1: I think I've you know, I think we're living and
Speaker 1: I'm interested because of where we've gone. I think we
Speaker 1: live in a culture right now that's very much like
Speaker 1: validate the people you love and value, you know, like
Speaker 1: give tell them that they're smart, and tell them that
Speaker 1: they're beautiful. And then I come from a spiritual culture
Speaker 1: where humility was considered the most beautiful quality a human
Speaker 1: could have, like it was the apex virtue or something correct,
Speaker 1: but often it led to low self esteem as a
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of humility, and it led to a you know,
Speaker 1: a self self deprecating and self harmful behavior. So I
Speaker 1: just want to hear your thoughts. Yeah, well it's an
Speaker 1: incomplete word right. Well, first and foremost of an older
Speaker 1: friend of mine in the program who often says it's
Speaker 1: really important to distinguish between humility and humiliation, So like,
Speaker 1: those aren't the same thing beautiful. And I also think
Speaker 1: we all observe a ton of faue humility. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm prone to do it. I'll start feeling guilty that
Speaker 1: I look, I've been luckier than most people, and I
Speaker 1: have some guilt about that. I grew up with people
Speaker 1: who didn't get so lucky. I feel I have guilts
Speaker 1: about that, so there can be a faue humility as well.
Speaker 1: But I think the true humility for me is being
Speaker 1: honest about my life, which again is a skill I
Speaker 1: learned in the twelve step program. If I look at
Speaker 1: my life and I look at the times I got
Speaker 1: exactly what I wanted and what it led to, versus
Speaker 1: the times I got the opposite of what I wanted
Speaker 1: and what it led to, it would not take a
Speaker 1: smart person to see the pattern that I'm almost one
Speaker 1: hundred percent wrong, which is really bothering. Like I'm a podcaster,
Speaker 1: because I spent two and a half years of my
Speaker 1: life directing the movie Chips and it didn't do well financially.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do, so I did not
Speaker 1: get the outcome I wanted. It led to the thing
Speaker 1: I'm happiest doing, most proud of ever doing. So there
Speaker 1: you go. If you would ask X what should happen?
Speaker 1: I would say, oh, that things should have made two
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars and I should have made three more,
Speaker 1: and I should have ultimately made twenty five million dollars
Speaker 1: to make the third one. That would have been the path. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been as good of a path. So
Speaker 1: I know I'm wrong. I'm consistently wrong. So I don't
Speaker 1: have a ton of confidence in my own you know,
Speaker 1: even though I am I tend to be arrogant, and
Speaker 1: I have an opinion on everything, but I also know
Speaker 1: that I'm also likely to have a different opinion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just know this. I've changed my opinion a bazillion
Speaker 1: times over the years. So I just I try, at
Speaker 1: least now, to I propose things, I ask questions. I don't.
Speaker 1: I try to avoid being definitive about it. I just
Speaker 1: I wonder aloud, and then often I wonder aloud with
Speaker 1: another person wondering aloud, and we we we somehow navigate
Speaker 1: towards something that feels truer. Yeah. I love that. It's
Speaker 1: just you, I mean Hawkins. You think you're smartest, Stephen Hawkins.
Speaker 1: Like that guy's been disproven five times by new technology,
Speaker 1: Like you can't. Can you be the toughest guy in
Speaker 1: the world. You can't. Mike Tyson got beat eventually. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone gets beat. Everyone's wrong. Yeah, it's an untenable position
Speaker 1: to try to take. Yeah, maybe it's my vanity. I'd
Speaker 1: be too embarrassed to say I know, because I'm sure
Speaker 1: to be proven wrong publicly. Yeah. No, absolutely, time Time
Speaker 1: is undefeated. And then we hear about timeless realms and
Speaker 1: then you go, oh, wait, times defeat too, and so
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, yeah, black holes are supposed to end
Speaker 1: time exactly exactly said practically, But Dex, you've You've been
Speaker 1: so generous with your time. I've had so much fun
Speaker 1: with you. Um, this has been a game. This has
Speaker 1: been a very untraditional episode of on purpose for many reasons.
Speaker 1: And and I that has very much been led by
Speaker 1: you and who you are and how you approach these conversations.
Speaker 1: And I really value that because I love I love
Speaker 1: being in a and I wouldn't call this uncomfortable because
Speaker 1: nothing about the conversation was uncomfortable, But I love being
Speaker 1: in a in a new, refreshing, like U sparky environment,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of how this has felt. So I
Speaker 1: know you're landing the plane. But I have to add
Speaker 1: one thing on that topic, which is I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: like me, which is I prepare so if I am
Speaker 1: going to interview someone, I know as much as I
Speaker 1: can know about them. But what I've learned to do
Speaker 1: in the thing I've come to love is I'll ask
Speaker 1: them how their drive over here was. That's not on
Speaker 1: the list. Yeah, and that leads to nine things that
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to steer. Yeah, and then I enter
Speaker 1: a state of flow. And really I've figured out I'm
Speaker 1: only in this for the state of flow. Yes, I
Speaker 1: couldn't agree with you more. And that's that is much
Speaker 1: better explain than what I was trying to say. So
Speaker 1: we will take your version that that is. That's exactly yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I yeah, we always prepare the same thing,
Speaker 1: but I try to get lost. I like getting lost.
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, and and getting lost is
Speaker 1: so fun because that's where, yeah, that's where you find
Speaker 1: stuff that you never imagined. So I love that. I
Speaker 1: thank you. I uh. We end every episode of On
Speaker 1: Purpose with a final five. So these questions have to
Speaker 1: be answered in one word to one sentence maximum um
Speaker 1: and so Dak Shepherd, these are your final five. Are
Speaker 1: you ready? This is a This is a tight box
Speaker 1: for me to be. This is a tight box. Okay,
Speaker 1: as you just learned question question number one, what is
Speaker 1: the best advice you've ever received or heard? I thought
Speaker 1: someone had stolen an idea of mine, one of the
Speaker 1: sketches I had at this theater, and I thought it
Speaker 1: ended up bun Sarian live. And that may or may
Speaker 1: not be true. But someone pulled me aside and said,
Speaker 1: if if you think that's the only great idea you're
Speaker 1: ever going to have, you should fight to the end.
Speaker 1: But if you think you have unlimited great ideas, keep
Speaker 1: it moving. Oh that is so thank you. Thank you
Speaker 1: for taking the time to think about that, because that
Speaker 1: is refreshing and beautiful. We've not had that before. I
Speaker 1: love that. Second question, what is the worst advice you've
Speaker 1: ever received or heard? This is a hard one because
Speaker 1: I don't take advice. I guess, I guess, and it
Speaker 1: may not have been said to you. It may have,
Speaker 1: it may it may be something you heard someone tell you.
Speaker 1: It may And the reason why I like this is
Speaker 1: I really want a list of pieces of advice that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that people can really clearly go, oh gosh, we
Speaker 1: hear this more often than we think, and so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just gonna give my own what I
Speaker 1: said to myself at one point, which is sure, cocaine's addictive,
Speaker 1: but you're smarter than that. That's probably the advice I
Speaker 1: gave myself that to proved to be inaccurate, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I love that, all right. Question number three, how would
Speaker 1: you define your current purpose? My primary purpose is helping
Speaker 1: people who are dying of alcoholism find sobriety. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: I don't do good on my wife's great at trying
Speaker 1: to tackle enormous things. I feel very overwhelmed by them.
Speaker 1: An individual who calls I kind of know how to
Speaker 1: do that? Well, that that will save that for part
Speaker 1: two because I like that, we'll say that for another
Speaker 1: tim that that would be a whole beautiful conversation and
Speaker 1: of itself. Question number four, what is something you used
Speaker 1: to value but no longer have value for status? Amazing?
Speaker 1: And fifth and final question, I think you'll like this
Speaker 1: because it sits in with a lot of what we've discussed.
Speaker 1: But if you could create one law that everyone in
Speaker 1: the world had to follow, or one habit that's gonna
Speaker 1: have to practice every day, what would it be taking
Speaker 1: responsibility and apologizing when wrong? Beautiful? Thanks Shepherd, Dax, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, my pleasure. This is a boy app
Speaker 1: Oh no, this is so much fun. Honestly, I had
Speaker 1: a great time, and knowing you had a great time
Speaker 1: makes me feel good too, because I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to this one and like I said, huge fan of
Speaker 1: the podcast. I recommend everyone who's listening or watching to
Speaker 1: go or listening only sorry, listening everyone who's listening. To
Speaker 1: make sure you go and subscribe to arm Chair Expert
Speaker 1: if you don't already listen, and of course check out
Speaker 1: Dax on Instagram and tag us both on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Instagram on every platform where you're listening with what resonated
Speaker 1: with you, what connected with you. I love knowing what
Speaker 1: stayed with you. I think I find it fascinating to
Speaker 1: see what items you're going to apply, what you're questioning,
Speaker 1: what you're reflecting on, and I'm sure Dax would love
Speaker 1: to see as well. Dax, thank you for your time,
Speaker 1: your energy, your patients, the stillness you had answering those
Speaker 1: last five questions. I love how you were not pushed
Speaker 1: by the pressure. I really appreciate that. And again, I
Speaker 1: really hope we get together soon. Me too,