Speaker 1: Hi, Catherine, Hello Chelsea, how are you. I'm well, how
Speaker 1: are you doing today? Oh, I'm I'm just fantastic today.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for our guest today. I'm excited for
Speaker 1: our guests too, because he's one of the only straight
Speaker 1: white man that I really loving a door in this
Speaker 1: moment in time that isn't related to me. He is
Speaker 1: fucking awesome, and he has a very successful podcast empire
Speaker 1: of his own. You know him from Armchair Expert and
Speaker 1: then he has a bunch of podcasts underneath the Armchair
Speaker 1: Expert umbrella. And he is an actor, he's comedian, he's
Speaker 1: host of top Gear America, and he is the person
Speaker 1: people contact when they want to get ahold of Kristen Bell.
Speaker 1: His name is Dak Shepherd. Welcome to the show, Dax Shepherd.
Speaker 1: What What an honor? What an honor. I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: to keep my hands off of you, but we're so close.
Speaker 1: It just feels ridiculous that I wanted. Thank you. It's
Speaker 1: an honor to be here. Number one. Number two. Can
Speaker 1: can I ask you why you hate hearing introductions of
Speaker 1: yourself because I'm assuming you do as well. I just
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a bunch of horseship. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's just it falls in line with the same exercise
Speaker 1: as hearing people tell you why they're big fans of yours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but don't do you also suffer from the paradox of like, clearly,
Speaker 1: all I want is for people to love me. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have moved here otherwise, and yet when they do
Speaker 1: love me, I can't take it. It's such a weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is very It's confusing because we want the adulation,
Speaker 1: but I'd rather I'd rather read about it there we go,
Speaker 1: or hear about it. Oh that's the sweet spot. If
Speaker 1: someone's gossiping about you in a positive way. Yes, I'd
Speaker 1: rather hear about it instead of someone say it to
Speaker 1: my face. Because this is what I have a hard
Speaker 1: time with. My reaction to seem sincere when you're saying
Speaker 1: thank you. It's the opening presence on Christmas syndrome. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: I'm nervous. I'm not going to give you a response
Speaker 1: that feels like I heard it or it meant something
Speaker 1: to me, And now I'm panicked that I'm going to
Speaker 1: let you down. And I think, and I and I think.
Speaker 1: Another thing is like I do meet and greets backstage
Speaker 1: after my shows in COVID safe states, so I didn't
Speaker 1: do them in Florida. Shout out to Florida. You know
Speaker 1: when people when you mean a lot to someone, it
Speaker 1: feels bad to not have it register right exactly. Some
Speaker 1: people get emotional or they say this what you did
Speaker 1: here changed my life or helped me through this difficult time.
Speaker 1: I feel you when you think about it in that
Speaker 1: framework or a frame of mind, it feels very You
Speaker 1: feel like a cunt you do well. I feel like
Speaker 1: a fraud, Like I can't possibly have helped a stranger
Speaker 1: in any way unless I've gone to their house and
Speaker 1: change a tire or something like. It's very abstract, and
Speaker 1: it's it's again, it's so weird because I'm both a
Speaker 1: megalomaniac and I have super low self esteem. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't believe I could have helped them, and yet
Speaker 1: I'm a megalomaniac. It's yeah, it's quite a dichotomy that
Speaker 1: you have because most recently you deemed me and said
Speaker 1: something a lot on the lines of what size venues
Speaker 1: are you performing in? And I told you, I said,
Speaker 1: like undred thirty hundred seats. I'm so glad you're outing
Speaker 1: me for this on average, and he writes back, I'm
Speaker 1: just actually being really competitive and making sure that I'm
Speaker 1: performing at the same size venues. Well, I'm so glad.
Speaker 1: I'm here to make sure this is told correctly because
Speaker 1: there is a lot of puke worthy of actions on
Speaker 1: my part, but that wasn't one of them. So I said,
Speaker 1: what size venues are you performing? Because I saw the
Speaker 1: list of how many shows you had added, and then
Speaker 1: you said, I said, oh, that's rad. And then you
Speaker 1: said why do you ask, which is a very legitimate response,
Speaker 1: And then I said, I'm just counting your money, like
Speaker 1: I'm curious how much making because I'm nosy about people's money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't competitive at all, Like, in no way
Speaker 1: was I like, I want to make sure I'm selling
Speaker 1: the same size Okay, sorry I read that, Rong. I
Speaker 1: like your honesty about it. Listen, all I care about
Speaker 1: in life is honesty. We both want to know each
Speaker 1: other's intentions and then we can proceed according And I also, yeah,
Speaker 1: and if people are competitive or like that, that's also
Speaker 1: fine too. But I like when people are upfront and
Speaker 1: not cag or are a little bit like Macavalian about things.
Speaker 1: I find that to be a very off put in
Speaker 1: quality in people. I agree, Yes, yes, I agree, And
Speaker 1: I think coming from similar childhoods, that's why we It's like,
Speaker 1: just fucking tell me what's your what's your hustle, and
Speaker 1: then I'll decide whether I want to participate or not.
Speaker 1: But I just I need I'm not a fool, so
Speaker 1: you're not gonna colm me into getting what you want.
Speaker 1: I might like acquiesce and give you what you want,
Speaker 1: but I just need to know what the intention is,
Speaker 1: and so mine truly, And I'm curious if how you feel. Hey,
Speaker 1: I haven't generally and this is probably sexist. Been competitive
Speaker 1: with women. I just like when Chris and I go
Speaker 1: to a movie. I'm staring at the dudes in the
Speaker 1: movie and I'm thinking about whether they deserve to be
Speaker 1: in this movie or not, and she is looking at
Speaker 1: the women and deciding if they deserve to be in
Speaker 1: the movie or not. I'm almost never looking at the
Speaker 1: female So I am competitive with dudes, have been in
Speaker 1: the past, but not with women. Sometimes you're competitive with
Speaker 1: your wife, though, don't you think? Well, I feel like
Speaker 1: sometimes you feel like she steals your thunder not sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like you definitely feel that way.
Speaker 1: I don't feel that way that she sometimes steals your thunder.
Speaker 1: The challenges I've had in being with her is there
Speaker 1: have been stretches years where she's made more money than me,
Speaker 1: and that has in the past affected me where I
Speaker 1: start I feel emasculated by it, like, oh, I'm the
Speaker 1: guy I'm supposed to be making more. I'm a fucking loser.
Speaker 1: My wife makes more money than me. Like you know
Speaker 1: old old hardware that was installed in Detroit that it's
Speaker 1: taken me forty odd years to ditch. But I've had that.
Speaker 1: If she's outshining me, awesome. I've been getting a lot
Speaker 1: of attention for twenty years. I'm so fine with her
Speaker 1: outshining me. I'm like we were at a Formula one
Speaker 1: race recently and we were getting some heat and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Shaquille O'Neal showed up and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, here we go. Hey, you can't miss him.
Speaker 1: Like anywhere on the grid you can see Shakili seven
Speaker 1: feet tall, so now all eyes are on shakil Um.
Speaker 1: I love that. I don't have a desire to be
Speaker 1: stared at More. Oh, yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I hear what you're saying. I think you know what
Speaker 1: I think when I think about your relationship, because you
Speaker 1: guys are both very I've Kristen's been on the podcast
Speaker 1: as well, on both of ours. Actually, I think that
Speaker 1: you really have come into a lot of success since
Speaker 1: you got since you were married, right, I mean, especially
Speaker 1: with your podcast especially, I mean you've blown up. I
Speaker 1: mean the only podcast that's bigger than yours, unfortunately is
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan's. But you really kind of define the podcast
Speaker 1: space in a huge way. So that must instill a
Speaker 1: ton of confidence in you for someone who claims that
Speaker 1: they have a lack of self confidence, which I believe
Speaker 1: you do because we've spoken. Yeah, again, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I'm not also air Again, I am like, I often
Speaker 1: think I'm the smartest person in the room, and then
Speaker 1: also I think I'm a piece of ship and I'm
Speaker 1: unattractive and all these things. So you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: claiming I walk around feeling bad for my self. I
Speaker 1: just yeah, I think all humans, I will you do.
Speaker 1: I interview so many people that have they've won Sexiest
Speaker 1: Person of the Year on People magazine and they hate
Speaker 1: Holly Look. So I think it's a human condition. I
Speaker 1: don't think or a Hollywood condition. Well, it seems to
Speaker 1: be a human condition. I think you are right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because because there's always a Brad Pitt. Like even if
Speaker 1: you're at the top of the heat, you're gonna look
Speaker 1: at Brad Pitt, take your shirt off and once upon
Speaker 1: a time in Mexico or once upon a time in
Speaker 1: Hollywood and go, oh my god, that guy is fifty
Speaker 1: five and his body looks better than mine never did
Speaker 1: in this my twenties. You're gonna compare yourself. Mike Tyson
Speaker 1: got beat up eventually, Like there's always someone better than you.
Speaker 1: So if you're playing the comparison game, it doesn't take
Speaker 1: much to find someone, you know. I don't think i'm
Speaker 1: outing Bradley Bradley Cooper fucking I've never had a friend
Speaker 1: where women text me so often just saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: if he's ever interested, no strengths attached, don't need a dinner,
Speaker 1: I just want to sleep with him. That's a unique quality.
Speaker 1: I have many famous friends. I don't get those texts
Speaker 1: about anybody but him, And he doesn't think he's a
Speaker 1: ten I think he thinks he's a seven, which is weird.
Speaker 1: What number do you think you are? Six? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I do think and here's where the arrogance will come in.
Speaker 1: I think my personality is at ten. So I think
Speaker 1: lucky for me, women c an eight. I think they
Speaker 1: subconsciously are creating an average between my personality and my looks,
Speaker 1: and they're actually seen an eight. And they would be
Speaker 1: on a witness stand and they would claim, what is
Speaker 1: He's an eight? And they would be telling the truth
Speaker 1: from their perspective. It sounds like you thought about this
Speaker 1: before for years. What do you think you are? I
Speaker 1: think I'm a ten? Okay, Yeah, I feel I have
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in a my personality, be the
Speaker 1: way that I look. I'm into aging. I'm also you know,
Speaker 1: into taking care of myself, so the physicality part of it,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty confident with it. I think I'm really like
Speaker 1: I've really grown up and like I'm like a very
Speaker 1: good version of myself. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm pretty happy
Speaker 1: with myself these days. I used to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: have a lot of self loathing and like body issues
Speaker 1: and all that ship, but I kind of just you know,
Speaker 1: tried to really shake that ship out in therapy and
Speaker 1: read a lot of fucking shit about it and learned
Speaker 1: about myself and I and I feel like I'm a
Speaker 1: great student of therapy. The more information I get, the
Speaker 1: more confident I get become. Yeah, and I bet there's
Speaker 1: someone in the audience thinking in their mind, of course
Speaker 1: you feel confident you're a fucking bombshell, which is true.
Speaker 1: But I think you'd be missing the point, which is
Speaker 1: you were an even younger version of the bombshell in
Speaker 1: the past and didn't think you were all that. Isn't
Speaker 1: that the real point of that? Yes, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you grow in because I would look at you and
Speaker 1: go like, well, you should feel confident you're right. Very
Speaker 1: very few for the same age, right, yeah, forty six Yeah,
Speaker 1: very few forty six year olds look like you. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: right exactly. I'm heading for my facialist right after we're
Speaker 1: done with the podcast today. So that's one of the reason. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why it's going, you know what I mean? Okay,
Speaker 1: I have I have an outstanding question I want to
Speaker 1: ask you. I follow you on Instagram. I also follow
Speaker 1: you on Instagram. Clearly we dm each other. We don't
Speaker 1: have each other's phone number, which I think is that's
Speaker 1: probably best. I have Christian's phone number. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. If there's ever an emergency, you can get
Speaker 1: a hold of me through that number. But here's here's
Speaker 1: what happens. I um, I have a lot of male
Speaker 1: friends who are very fit. They post pictures. I write
Speaker 1: underneath of it, you know, flame signs, boners. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy for how they look. And then you as I think,
Speaker 1: I have a relationship with friendship so often your body
Speaker 1: looks so fucking rocking, and I want to write like
Speaker 1: how great it looks. It's so impressive, And then I go,
Speaker 1: you can't do that, And I want you from your opinion.
Speaker 1: Am I writing that I can't do that? I shouldn't,
Speaker 1: I should not do that? Or what do you think about?
Speaker 1: I think that's a great question, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a great time to bring up a question like that.
Speaker 1: And I think, as long as you know, I think
Speaker 1: men are confused right now, but what they can say
Speaker 1: and what they can't say, and as long as it's
Speaker 1: not predator worry and harassing, like, then of course you're
Speaker 1: my friend. You can say, wow, you look great. I
Speaker 1: haven't had no problem saying you your body looks great,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't have to be because I'm in the
Speaker 1: dominant structure. Yes, absolutely that you are. In the doc.
Speaker 1: You're you're complimenting up. But I think that's I think
Speaker 1: that's where men are lost right now. It's like you
Speaker 1: can say nice things to women, it just doesn't have
Speaker 1: to sound like you want to suckles. And even though
Speaker 1: I know that you have told me that you wanted
Speaker 1: to suck me before, or that I would be your
Speaker 1: you know, free card with christ and one of your
Speaker 1: free cards. Who are the other ones? By the way,
Speaker 1: Zazzi beats? Oh my god, you know her? I don't know,
Speaker 1: Oh my god? She did you watch Atlanta? Yes, the
Speaker 1: baby Mama of Oh yeah, yeah, she's so special face
Speaker 1: or something about her face, yeah, right about that pleasing
Speaker 1: to look at, like it's so symmetrical, something about it
Speaker 1: is just very soothing to stare at. And she's as
Speaker 1: I stalk her on Instagram, I've come to point now.
Speaker 1: Also very interesting, like half German grew up in that
Speaker 1: weird German town in Georgia. Have you ever been there,
Speaker 1: Helena or something? There was an episode where they went there. Well,
Speaker 1: she literally that that wasn't a stretch. She she was
Speaker 1: from there, went there all the time. So I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1: That's probably rounds out my Okay, I have a question
Speaker 1: about your marriage. What would you say the happiest, happiest
Speaker 1: time of your marriage has been thus far? Mm hmm, Well,
Speaker 1: we've been together fifteen years. Yeah, that's a really long time.
Speaker 1: It is. I think in Hollywood years, that's like a
Speaker 1: thirty five year relationship. Maybe. Um, I would say there
Speaker 1: were like, there's been little sweet spots, right, There's been
Speaker 1: like once we got engaged, there was some new level
Speaker 1: of security that I hadn't anticipated. That kind of changed
Speaker 1: the dynamic of our relationship dramatically, because, as you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a pervert. So every joke I make is perverted
Speaker 1: and sexual and that's very off putting if you don't
Speaker 1: feel safe, and so I really had to curb that
Speaker 1: side of myself. And then when we got engaged, I
Speaker 1: just started noticing, like all of a sudden, that didn't
Speaker 1: bother her at all anymore, and I got to be
Speaker 1: more of me and I was like, oh, that's I
Speaker 1: would not have predicted any of that. That was a
Speaker 1: very nice sweet stretch and growth having kids as lovely
Speaker 1: and it's it's very bonding in this weird way. You know.
Speaker 1: My issues with her making more than me, the kids
Speaker 1: were the antidote to that, where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this isn't about she or I or what I'm making
Speaker 1: or what she's making. This is all about what we
Speaker 1: are bringing to these two kids now. And I detached
Speaker 1: my my ego from the whole thing, and then I
Speaker 1: became at peace with it. But and then I would say,
Speaker 1: right now, or what do they call it, bipolars when
Speaker 1: they're ramping up. We're ramping up because our kids are
Speaker 1: getting now self sufficient enough that the load on us
Speaker 1: has gone down a lot. Like we can sleep in
Speaker 1: on a Saturday that it's been years since we could
Speaker 1: do that. We can hire babysitters, they don't crazy, we
Speaker 1: can go on a date. So things are starting to
Speaker 1: like we're starting to find some more autonomy away from
Speaker 1: our kids now, which is good. Yeah, so that's going
Speaker 1: to be a nice new adventure, I think. So optimistic
Speaker 1: post rearing your children right, not post completely over but
Speaker 1: the exhausting face. Yeah. Yeah, how old are the girls now?
Speaker 1: Six and eight? Six and eight? Okay, so they're little,
Speaker 1: still Little. I'm reading this book. I just started reading
Speaker 1: this book that somebody handed to me at in an
Speaker 1: airport the other day, called Attachment. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've read this book. Is it about attachment theory in
Speaker 1: your childhood? It's talking it talks about well not even
Speaker 1: a childhood, it's about adulthood too. It talks about there's
Speaker 1: three different types. One is anxious, one is secure, and
Speaker 1: the other one is when is it anxious? Avoid and secure?
Speaker 1: And avoid it? Yes, Catherine, avoid it so and then
Speaker 1: it talks about how you can be a combo of
Speaker 1: the two. Because I was reading it and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm secure, and then I was like, oh no, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of anxious because my brother died, and like when
Speaker 1: people don't if I don't hear from somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: I get that little. Since therapy, I'm have a much
Speaker 1: healthier outlook about it, but it still is like a
Speaker 1: feeling that I have to go, oh, that's your little
Speaker 1: person talking, that's not your adult self, Like, don't don't
Speaker 1: act on that, right. So an avoidance is somebody who
Speaker 1: just doesn't who fears intimacy, and then avoidance and anxious
Speaker 1: can kind of work in concert together. I would imagine
Speaker 1: that you like very up and down in big swings, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like like intense feelings of intimacy and closes by intense
Speaker 1: rejection and all those things. Right, Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: a psychle I've found myself in which one what do
Speaker 1: you think would define you most aptly in general or
Speaker 1: with Kristen? So okay, here's back to my the duality
Speaker 1: of my self esteem. So I'm like very insecure so often,
Speaker 1: and yet I'm I'm overly confident relationships, like grotesquely like arrogantly.
Speaker 1: I don't worry that Kristen's going to go find someone
Speaker 1: with still find someone more attractive than me, for sure,
Speaker 1: and she might find someone who's more philanthropic than me.
Speaker 1: That's likely, um, But then there's nine other slices of
Speaker 1: the pie that she has to fill, And I just
Speaker 1: think my average is really high for all the many things.
Speaker 1: So I'm weirdly too confident in relationships. I'm not a
Speaker 1: jealous person. I don't really care. And for a couple
Speaker 1: of different reasons. One, if you're afraid your partner is
Speaker 1: going to become attracted to someone else and leave you
Speaker 1: for them. The fast past to that is, go ahead
Speaker 1: and be jealous, make yourself as unattractive and it's the
Speaker 1: least amount of fun to be around as humanly possible,
Speaker 1: and then go ahead and manifest that outcome. I think
Speaker 1: that's what a ton of people do, Like they're so
Speaker 1: afraid of it that they will it to happen because
Speaker 1: they're not fun to date. People like to be trusted,
Speaker 1: and it's just very unattractive. I mean, there's there are
Speaker 1: sick people that get off on that, like, oh, my
Speaker 1: part are so jealous, they must really love me that.
Speaker 1: But you know, unless you're in that weird niche, I
Speaker 1: just think in general you have to recognize it as
Speaker 1: a nonstarter. It can't be done because you're actually going
Speaker 1: to create this outcome. You fear right, and when you
Speaker 1: give somebody to trust, you'd be surprised by the outcome
Speaker 1: of just that. Yes, and and again I say this
Speaker 1: a lot, and then I think it leads people to
Speaker 1: believe that we have an open relationship. I want to
Speaker 1: be clear, we don't have an open relationship. But I
Speaker 1: have also said to her of the ten things that
Speaker 1: I value about you and that I need from you
Speaker 1: as a partner, fidelities, tenth for me, it's just not
Speaker 1: it's not has nothing to do with my day to
Speaker 1: day life. If she's in fucking Alaska ten years yeah,
Speaker 1: and in a wit, let's be right about it. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: You're right. It's just low on the things I need
Speaker 1: from her, So that wouldn't bother you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I prefer not to know about it because that info
Speaker 1: is not it's not useful for me. Would you qualify
Speaker 1: yourself as needy in any way? So when you say
Speaker 1: you're insecure, you're talking about your rational your professional life.
Speaker 1: Are you talking about your value? Your self worth? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I want to parce out some specifics. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to know what and why that hasn't changed over over time?
Speaker 1: Or has it? It has? It? Has it has? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I should be clear to say I'm often referencing me
Speaker 1: ten years ago, fifteen years ago. It has gotten better
Speaker 1: and better and better. But it's gotten better and better
Speaker 1: not in the By pursuing the route I thought would
Speaker 1: end in self esteem. So I thought if I could
Speaker 1: find people I had assessed as being more attractive than me,
Speaker 1: higher status than me, just all around better than me,
Speaker 1: and I could get them to fall in love with
Speaker 1: me it would elevate who I was. And I did
Speaker 1: that pathologically and selfishly for a huge junk of my
Speaker 1: life until I got to an apex where I was
Speaker 1: dating someone I thought would be impossible to date this person,
Speaker 1: and then I looked in the mirror was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: same dude, same piece of ship. It had no impact whatsoever.
Speaker 1: If it would have worked, I would have done it
Speaker 1: like if it worked, fine with it. But it didn't work.
Speaker 1: And all these lame things are what makes me feel
Speaker 1: confident and have a lot of self esteem, which is
Speaker 1: like being of service to people I don't want to
Speaker 1: be of service to, fucking picking up the phone for
Speaker 1: an alcoholic who's struggling, who I don't even want to
Speaker 1: talk to, to being of service to my kids NonStop
Speaker 1: from the second I wake up until I go to bed.
Speaker 1: I'm like, at their disposal. Those things make me feel.
Speaker 1: I look in the mirror, I'm like, you're a bad
Speaker 1: motherfucker dude. You're working and you're dadding it in a
Speaker 1: way that you prayed you do it, and and I
Speaker 1: love the dude in the mirror now, And what do
Speaker 1: you think it's what are you most surprised about yourself?
Speaker 1: Learning about yourself as a father, Like, what is the biggest,
Speaker 1: like great surprise that you've realized or learned about yourself.
Speaker 1: I guess the thing I'm most grateful for is I'm,
Speaker 1: in general, the most impatient person. It's terrible. It's like
Speaker 1: the apex of my entitlement. Like I shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: sit in traffic so I write a motorcycle. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to circle the block ten times. I'll pay a
Speaker 1: parking ticket, you know, Like I just I'm so entitled
Speaker 1: with my time and and again, I don't think I
Speaker 1: could have been this way in my twenties or thirties
Speaker 1: with kids at all. But I'm I'm shocked with how
Speaker 1: patient I am. Like I can just listen to the racket,
Speaker 1: come in, come in, come in. None of it makes
Speaker 1: any sense. It's hysterical. Everyone's in a fucking uproar, and
Speaker 1: I can just like let it all happen for a
Speaker 1: long long time, and then when everyone's all calm back down,
Speaker 1: I'll start talking. And that I'm shocked I can do that,
Speaker 1: And I'm like really proud of myself when I can
Speaker 1: just not engage in the hysterical part of the thing
Speaker 1: and wait till it's there's a rational zone for me
Speaker 1: to enter. Right, isn't that interesting because that's not your
Speaker 1: personality altogether? Right? I am you inconvenience me, which means
Speaker 1: you don't love me, and I'm out the fucking door
Speaker 1: because that's how I show you. You can't take me
Speaker 1: for granted. I'm a big I could write you off
Speaker 1: in one second and I could just keep talking. And
Speaker 1: I employed that grotesquely for a lot of my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, I have that in common with you, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, get the funk out of my face forever.
Speaker 1: And I know I never will think about that person again.
Speaker 1: There's no like, there's no thinking about it. Did I
Speaker 1: do the right thing? I never second guess it. I'm done.
Speaker 1: The door shut and I rarely ever contemplate that person again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the reason I have done that is
Speaker 1: that I didn't trust the people I was talking to
Speaker 1: if I actually shared what was going on with me
Speaker 1: and was vulnerable that they would adjust to me. My
Speaker 1: conclusion was, you've shown who you are that's not sympatica
Speaker 1: with who I am. So Siah Fuckingara, and what do
Speaker 1: you think the most surprising thing you've learned about Kristen
Speaker 1: since she's become a parent. Oh, I got a great one. Well, first,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say not a lot, because I
Speaker 1: have a really high opinion of her. Again, back to
Speaker 1: that list of reasons I'm with her. We started dating
Speaker 1: when I was thirty two, she was twenty seven, and
Speaker 1: at thirty two I was like, okay, um, the next
Speaker 1: person I date, I have to be working towards having kids.
Speaker 1: I really really want to have kids. So for me,
Speaker 1: number one attraction her was I was like that, she'll
Speaker 1: be a fucking amazing mom. I just know she will.
Speaker 1: She has eighty six dogs and they all get fed,
Speaker 1: and they all go to the vet and the whole thing.
Speaker 1: She's never lazy when it comes to them. So and
Speaker 1: she has qualities I would want my daughters to have.
Speaker 1: She's a hard worker, she's generous, she's forgiving all these things.
Speaker 1: So her being a great mom isn't a shocker to me.
Speaker 1: But in her own relationship, she and I are both
Speaker 1: very for lack of a better word, alpha, We like
Speaker 1: to do what we want to do, so compromise between
Speaker 1: us as hard as hell, and I have found with
Speaker 1: the kids, I've been shocked with how often she's been like,
Speaker 1: please tell me what to do here, Like, I obviously
Speaker 1: can't get them in bed and under an hour and
Speaker 1: a half without tons of crying what should I do?
Speaker 1: And that's just a whole new lane for her. She's
Speaker 1: not ever asking me what she should do, nor am
Speaker 1: I asking her what I should do. So your favorite
Speaker 1: thing about Kristen is her asking you for advice, is
Speaker 1: that she cares enough about our kids to do something
Speaker 1: she would not want to do, right, Like, that's it,
Speaker 1: that's her sacrificing what she would want sake of our children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's hot. Yeah. And likewise, I like to say I
Speaker 1: meet her halfway, which is like I I go early on.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I'll fight to the death
Speaker 1: over where we're eating. I'll fight over what show we're
Speaker 1: going to watch. I was like, if you make a
Speaker 1: decision with the kids, I will step back. Like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm telling you you have veto power at all times.
Speaker 1: You're the mom. I will ultimately, after you hear my opinion,
Speaker 1: I will defer to anything you decide. That's rare for me. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So in some way, I think, Yeah, those kids have
Speaker 1: brought out a side of us that we're not maybe
Speaker 1: capable of with each other just for each other's sake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's great that you guys have been together
Speaker 1: for fifteen years and you have this great little family,
Speaker 1: and that you never show pictures of your children. I
Speaker 1: never know where I stand on that side of things,
Speaker 1: you know, like talk it out well, because I have
Speaker 1: friends who are like, you know, show their friends or
Speaker 1: their babies on camera, and I never think anything about it.
Speaker 1: And then I think, oh, and then I see parents
Speaker 1: that do what you guys do, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's appropriate too, because what kids. Those kids aren't asking
Speaker 1: to be on camera. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 1: an unavoidable thing when you're the children of celebrities to
Speaker 1: ever be photographed, right, Yeah, And in this media age
Speaker 1: and digital age that we're in, that's not going to
Speaker 1: go away anytime in the next couple of generations. And
Speaker 1: what what we we could just start with the simplest thing,
Speaker 1: which is the names of my children are known. My
Speaker 1: name is known. And now if you know exactly what
Speaker 1: she looks like, you can go to her playground. You
Speaker 1: don't go to a Fort Knox to school. She goes
Speaker 1: to a regular school and you could go, hey, Lincoln,
Speaker 1: I was just with your dad. He's at the hospital.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah. Like there's a very obvious
Speaker 1: safety issue which I don't want people knowing what my
Speaker 1: children look like. Right, So is that your rules are
Speaker 1: both of your rules, both of us. Yeah, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: in lockstep on that. And then additionally, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: judgmental of any parents that do. And I could care.
Speaker 1: I don't give a funk what people are doing, whether
Speaker 1: they're potty training their kids or sleep training or I
Speaker 1: don't you kind of trained for sixteen years, I've been
Speaker 1: buying since. Like we're drinking. You had you just got
Speaker 1: a new tattoo. Wow, I've never seen it. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a fresh tattoo like that wrapped up you know,
Speaker 1: it comes off Tonight's just tried to hold my hand.
Speaker 1: He tried to do it under the table, but it
Speaker 1: was on given permission to compliment your physique on Instagrams
Speaker 1: and and see, um, I think this is a perfect time.
Speaker 1: So are set up here is we give advice to people, okay,
Speaker 1: and so we try and curtail it to our guest. Well,
Speaker 1: we do curtail it to our guest, right, Catherine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we basically, I mean, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of experience with everything, and I feel like you're at
Speaker 1: QS probably really grown since you started doing your podcast
Speaker 1: from all the interesting neuroscientists, you know, psych psychiatric, psycho psychological,
Speaker 1: people that you talked to. It's not the right word
Speaker 1: to describe what I meant to say, but you catch
Speaker 1: my gist. People in the social sciences. Yeah, social science
Speaker 1: that I mean I love. Yeah, you have some great
Speaker 1: guests on there, so I know that you've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of information and I'm sure that you've retained it
Speaker 1: because you're you're you're very curious and you like that.
Speaker 1: And I'm dyslexic, which which is has turned out to
Speaker 1: be a superpowers. Oh yeah. So when you're a kid
Speaker 1: and you're dyslexic, you're the thing that everything that's happening
Speaker 1: on the chalkboard is it's blank. I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: looking into a void. So the only thing you're getting
Speaker 1: is what the teachers saying verbally. So I think dyslexics
Speaker 1: in general develop a really really good memory for oral stuff.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you can't hear, you're going to see sharply. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just find that often people are like, wow, I
Speaker 1: can't believe you remember that enough times where I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I think this is a unique ability. I
Speaker 1: have to remember what people tell me as opposed to
Speaker 1: what I you know, right, so your memory to absorb
Speaker 1: in from I mean your ability to absorb and you
Speaker 1: can kind of retain it, and I think just from
Speaker 1: being dyslexic. Okay, well that's good. That's good for all
Speaker 1: those dyslexics out there to know that you have that superpower.
Speaker 1: So fucking pay attention when you're talking. Some dyslexic just
Speaker 1: drove their car off an inter past because they were like,
Speaker 1: I'm dyslexic and I don't have that. Okay, Well, they
Speaker 1: can call into the podcast next week. Do you take callers?
Speaker 1: We take called live callers. What are we going to
Speaker 1: get to talk to what we're doing, I mean, talk
Speaker 1: about listening skills. I just said that what I thought,
Speaker 1: hold on, can I be clear before you fucking load
Speaker 1: up your gun. I thought we were going to go
Speaker 1: to the part of your podcast where you ask you
Speaker 1: encourage me to ask you for advice, which feels like
Speaker 1: the end of the show. That's it's already panicking that.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. We're still together. We're still together, Katherine. Are
Speaker 1: we taking collar? Are we taking a right in? What's
Speaker 1: going on? You tell us? Well, first we have to
Speaker 1: take a quick break, so we'll do that, and then
Speaker 1: we'll take some emails and some callers. We have to
Speaker 1: calls today, so excellent. I'm sad the listeners can't see
Speaker 1: your hair, Catherine. It's as fun and playful as hair
Speaker 1: can be. Thank you, Well they will if they call in,
Speaker 1: they will. Okay, great, thank you, thank you. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to take a break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back, and we're bad. We're trying to stretch
Speaker 1: this out as long as possible. So when you brought
Speaker 1: up your sobriety actually helped us segue right into our
Speaker 1: first email. It comes from Michael. He says, dear Chelsea,
Speaker 1: and just so you know, Dax, Chelsea and I both
Speaker 1: just took thirty days off of drinking, just to sort
Speaker 1: of do a cleanse. See how that felt and make
Speaker 1: some adjustments. Well, I did thirty days off a cannabis.
Speaker 1: You don't do cannabis at all, You're not you don't
Speaker 1: do anything right, I mean right, So I took thirty
Speaker 1: days off a cannabis and then we did a separate
Speaker 1: thirty day alcohol cleans which one do you think was
Speaker 1: more challenging, Catherine? You know what, so I am not
Speaker 1: a regular cannabis user, so I didn't do that one.
Speaker 1: And there were some hard parts of the thirty alcohol
Speaker 1: break for me, specifically, like two weeks in weirdly was
Speaker 1: when it kind of got difficult. But I think noticing
Speaker 1: the changes in you since you did both of them,
Speaker 1: I noticed a more pronounced change in your level of
Speaker 1: clarity after the break from cannabis. Yeah, yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with that. Thank you for saying that. I realized after
Speaker 1: taking a thirty day cleans off marijuana. I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I was really stoned all the time. You're like, fuck,
Speaker 1: So now, well, now I don't smoke weed anymore. I
Speaker 1: only take edibles because I do not like what the
Speaker 1: damage that that does to my throat and I don't
Speaker 1: need to sound like I have emphasema when I go
Speaker 1: to sleep at night. So I'm no longer smoking weight,
Speaker 1: but I will take edibles, but not like I was before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was really I think that was a COVID. Byproduct
Speaker 1: of COVID, I got a little bit carried away with
Speaker 1: cannabis use. It's I would guess that one's tricky in
Speaker 1: the same way that like when I relapse on opiates
Speaker 1: was super tricky because my association with powerlessness and unmanageability
Speaker 1: are coking. Jack Daniels like, that's unmanageable. I'm gone for
Speaker 1: a few days, all bets are off. I do crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm dangerous. When I was in the opiates, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do everything I normally do. No one knows, there's
Speaker 1: no obvious wreckage, you're unmanageability or anything. And I would
Speaker 1: argue weeds similarly, you pretty much do your ship without
Speaker 1: anyone really going like, hey, I'm I'm worried or this
Speaker 1: is impacting me in some way, And I think those
Speaker 1: are those are trickier ones to evaluate. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. But you know, when you do abuse anything,
Speaker 1: it shows up on you, you know, like your eyes,
Speaker 1: the redness, that's the stoned look, the kind of not
Speaker 1: being together in a way that I'm smart enough to
Speaker 1: be together. Yeah, So when you're constantly just like forgetting ship,
Speaker 1: you're like, wait, this isn't me this doesn't really add up.
Speaker 1: But but if you're drunk at work every day, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd probably hear from some people. Well there
Speaker 1: are people. Or if you're micro docin cocaine, like that
Speaker 1: guy from microdescin cocaine. I was just gonna say, cocaine
Speaker 1: is so much fun. We had a caller once call
Speaker 1: in and he's like, Hey, I've been microdocin cocaine at work.
Speaker 1: I've been super productive. I've been really you know, everyone's
Speaker 1: He's like, my everyone's been complimenting on my job performance.
Speaker 1: He goes, everything's going great, So do I just keep
Speaker 1: doing it? I'm like, first of all, there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as micro docin cocaine. You're a cocaead. There's no
Speaker 1: way around that. And that is going to be a
Speaker 1: good window for about, you know, five weeks, and then
Speaker 1: everything is going to crash and burn. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: by the way, anyone who's listening, please don't do cocaine
Speaker 1: anymore because everyone this fent and all ship is in
Speaker 1: everything and you don't know when you're gonna get it.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why drug dealers are putting fentinel. We
Speaker 1: gotta have a side bar about this. Because you and
Speaker 1: I are both drug experts. I'm not a conspiracy theory person.
Speaker 1: I just am not Okay, but this occurred to me
Speaker 1: the other day because yes, a ton of people are
Speaker 1: having fentanyl overdoses doing cocaine. And what I know is
Speaker 1: that talk about incentive. No drug dealer who's selling coke
Speaker 1: wants to just add another expense of fentanyl and throw
Speaker 1: it in there. It has an opposite effect. People are
Speaker 1: buying coke don't want fentanyl, or if they want to
Speaker 1: do a speedball, they're getting that separately. So the drug
Speaker 1: dealer has no incentive to add vent in al to cocaine.
Speaker 1: It makes zero sense. The customers are gonna occasionally die,
Speaker 1: which no one's gonna buy from you anymore. So since
Speaker 1: it hurts everyone, the user, the seller, how the fund
Speaker 1: is there fentinyl and coke. It needs an explanation. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that this is the case, but wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be genius if the CIA or somebody was put
Speaker 1: in fentyl and coke because they're going to kind of
Speaker 1: cure the war on drugs because everyone's gonna be too
Speaker 1: fucking afraid to try any drugs. Who's benefiting from fentinol
Speaker 1: in cocaine, It doesn't make it doesn't make sense. I've
Speaker 1: had this conversation repeatedly. Putting it in fake oxy makes
Speaker 1: a ton of sense. Putting in even xanics, which I
Speaker 1: think is weird. But the people who have gotten fentol
Speaker 1: in zanics at least it is a depressive drug. Putting
Speaker 1: it in cocaine really to me, they tip their hand.
Speaker 1: M hmmm. Interesting. Okay, alright, alright, well I'm glad you
Speaker 1: said something. So if anyone knows anything about that, right
Speaker 1: in benefiting or at least, just tell me who's benefiting.
Speaker 1: But they, I do. I don't believe the government wants
Speaker 1: to cure the war on drugs? Why do they? It
Speaker 1: helps them put black people behind bars. It helps that
Speaker 1: there's a whole money industry. Yeah, there's a whole industry
Speaker 1: that they I mean, I think they like that the
Speaker 1: fact that there's drugs. They like that there's that element
Speaker 1: because they can blame so many other things on that.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, but there's that, But then I
Speaker 1: have to I have to imagine that it also enriches people.
Speaker 1: They don't like having money, right, cartel people, Yeah, who
Speaker 1: are putting then people in office. I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I just saw an article that was like, is the
Speaker 1: leader of some South American country a narco trafficker? And
Speaker 1: I was like, probably, oh, wow, that's likely. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean Pablo Escobar, he ran a pretty successful bid to
Speaker 1: be the president of Colombia. I mean, it almost happened
Speaker 1: in half the country loved him. So yeah, maybe in
Speaker 1: that case they're like, Okay, we gotta, we gotta, we
Speaker 1: gotta prevent this. I don't know. I just what I
Speaker 1: do know is that nobody benefits from putting fentl on cocaine,
Speaker 1: So why the funk is it happening? Yeah, that needs answering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, it doesn't need an answer. Hopefully we'll get that,
Speaker 1: I mean hopefully we'll get it during this hour. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hopefully someone will call in who's been putting the fentinyl
Speaker 1: on the cocaine, tell us why they're doing it. Hopefully
Speaker 1: the government official we'll call in during this episode. Brent
Speaker 1: High does aunt Chason. Yes, let's move on to our
Speaker 1: first email. Before Dax has another cup of coffee, he
Speaker 1: has a great what's in your smoothie? What's in that smoothie?
Speaker 1: It's a vegan protein. Are you vegan? But I do
Speaker 1: love this protein powder. And if I get if I
Speaker 1: do the case in or the way stomach issues, don r.
Speaker 1: That is code for it diarrhea. So on that note,
Speaker 1: our first email comes from Michael. She says, Dear Chelsea,
Speaker 1: I'm a twenty nine year old gay man living in
Speaker 1: the Midwest. I've been so inspired by your experience with
Speaker 1: therapy that I started going to a therapist as well.
Speaker 1: You're right, it's much more impactful to pay an expert
Speaker 1: to listen to my problems. I was also inspired by
Speaker 1: listening to talk about taking breaks from substance use. I
Speaker 1: smoke weed occasionally, but alcohol is my true love. I'm
Speaker 1: a bartender, and I always say it's part of my
Speaker 1: job to know what I'm selling. Lately, I noticed you've
Speaker 1: talked about knowing the difference between taking a break from
Speaker 1: a substance and knowing when it's time to quit. That
Speaker 1: struck a chord, but I reassured myself that I'm fine.
Speaker 1: Of course, However, coming out of Halloween weekend, which was
Speaker 1: mostly a foggy blackout, I've been faced with the reality
Speaker 1: that this is actually ruining my life. Now out of
Speaker 1: ten times when I drink, I black out, but even
Speaker 1: then I keep going on autopilot. Over the last few years,
Speaker 1: I've been charged with two d wise, broken my leg,
Speaker 1: lost a job, and so much more. The common denominator
Speaker 1: is always the way I consume alcohol. Now, after almost
Speaker 1: getting arrested on Halloween, I realized that my life is
Speaker 1: truly unmanageable. I had an emergency meeting with my therapist
Speaker 1: and he advised me to try a a I've always
Speaker 1: looked down at the twelve step program, to be honest,
Speaker 1: but after hearing rosebud Baker's story, I felt like she
Speaker 1: was also telling my story. I immediately paused the podcast
Speaker 1: and went to a meeting for the first time. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling pretty hopeful and finally getting my ship together. You
Speaker 1: guys were the push I needed to wake up up
Speaker 1: and wrap up this behavior. Thanks for everything you do, Michael,
Speaker 1: So this is mostly a thank you, but I thought
Speaker 1: Dex you could talk to us a little bit about
Speaker 1: advice you have for him as a newly sober person
Speaker 1: as well, and the difference between the feeling of taking
Speaker 1: a break versus permanently changing your lifestyle. Right, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go in order. You said, this letter is
Speaker 1: from Michael, and the first thought I had was, I
Speaker 1: just interviewed David Sadaris. He said gay men always used
Speaker 1: the long version of their name, and so my first
Speaker 1: thought was, Oh, I wonder if Michael's gay, And then
Speaker 1: you said Michael's a gay man. So that's just first
Speaker 1: what happened in my head. That's funny. Second, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: listening to this, and of course I have a perspective
Speaker 1: on it all, and what I just say, it all
Speaker 1: ended where I would hope that it would end. But
Speaker 1: just I think people have to ask themselves what a
Speaker 1: normal person does versus what they're doing. If you have
Speaker 1: in the bank reasons for why you drink, that's a
Speaker 1: flag normal. My wife doesn't have a fucking reason she drinks.
Speaker 1: If she wants to drink, she drinks. If she only
Speaker 1: drinks half the glass, it doesn't consume her that she's
Speaker 1: leaving half a class. It's not. She has no deeper
Speaker 1: relationship with it other than what it is. So I think,
Speaker 1: just out of the gates. If you've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of stories about your drinking, that's generally something to think about.
Speaker 1: And I am curious. I get it. I don't like
Speaker 1: joining clubs. I'm suspicious of all clubs. But the hatred
Speaker 1: of A is still a little bit confusing to me
Speaker 1: in that it's the only group in the world without
Speaker 1: a leader, without a hierarchy, without a bank account. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're ever going to join a group, there's nobody
Speaker 1: there who's profiting, no one's no one's getting elevated status
Speaker 1: from it, no one's getting empowered by it. Like if
Speaker 1: there is ever an organization to model other organizations after,
Speaker 1: it would be that one. So I don't I don't
Speaker 1: entirely understand the put But maybe it's because I grew
Speaker 1: up with a parent and A and I have a
Speaker 1: different relationship. What are your thoughts on A. Well, I
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot of people. I have a
Speaker 1: good friend that got sober a few years ago, and
Speaker 1: he had a real drinking problem, you know, very sloppy,
Speaker 1: very blackout all the stuff, and blackouts obviously are a
Speaker 1: huge red flag. If you're blacking out, that's not that's Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty high ratio. But I think people's apprehension
Speaker 1: towards a A is the religious component, because some people
Speaker 1: don't believe in God and they don't want to have
Speaker 1: it related to God. And so I think that's the
Speaker 1: twelve steps and all of that, you know, but I
Speaker 1: do I do agree, Like I think you make a
Speaker 1: great point. You know, that is great that that there's
Speaker 1: no big profiteer from a A there's no not some
Speaker 1: you know, Messiah. So that is and it's a safe
Speaker 1: place where you're going to meet people who are experiencing
Speaker 1: what you're experiencing. So for the sake of the matter,
Speaker 1: until you are stable. It's a great resource if you
Speaker 1: don't want to stay going to meetings and you can
Speaker 1: stabilize yourself with without that kind of routine and pattern
Speaker 1: of behavior. Sure, but there's nothing wrong with going to
Speaker 1: an AA meeting and dipping your toe in that for
Speaker 1: just some just for the purposes to tell yourself of stability,
Speaker 1: to get yourself to the next step and to get
Speaker 1: yourself a little bit stronger. Again though structure, you have
Speaker 1: the structure of it and the and the group think
Speaker 1: like you know, to be around people that are saying
Speaker 1: similar things to you and you're hearing your their stories
Speaker 1: and you realize, oh, this isn't only I'm not the
Speaker 1: only person in the world going through this struggle, and
Speaker 1: not only am I not the only person. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of comfort in hearing other people's plights. I would
Speaker 1: also argue, like, even if you want to write the
Speaker 1: entire thing office Placebo, I'm fine with that. But an
Speaker 1: axiom I believe in so much is you cannot think
Speaker 1: your way into acting different, but you can act your
Speaker 1: way into thinking different. So if you wake up that
Speaker 1: next morning you're so fucking humiliated by your behavior, your
Speaker 1: lack of memory, you have blood and your rectum, whatever
Speaker 1: is happening to you, and you tell yourself, this is
Speaker 1: strong enough that I am. I decided now that I'm
Speaker 1: going to think differently, and I'm not going to change
Speaker 1: anything else in my life. If I'm betting in Vegas,
Speaker 1: I'm going to bet against you. But if you say
Speaker 1: I'm going to this place at eight o'clock and when
Speaker 1: I get there, this person says, why don't you read
Speaker 1: this step when you get home? And then the other
Speaker 1: person says, in the morning, and how about maybe you
Speaker 1: journal just remind yourself, hey, I'm always going to be
Speaker 1: this when I wake up. I'm not gonna wake up
Speaker 1: one morning not have this. That's a step, like it's
Speaker 1: all actions that then slowly over time, do change how
Speaker 1: you think, or they changed how I think, And then
Speaker 1: the god thing I get at. Man, I'm an atheist,
Speaker 1: yet I've been in this program for seventeen years. So
Speaker 1: how do you How do you divorce the two or
Speaker 1: not divorce the two, but how do you reconcile the
Speaker 1: two if you are. I had a sponsor one time
Speaker 1: who's smarter than me, say, look, this is how I
Speaker 1: think about it. It's a power greater than myself. So
Speaker 1: something's making the sun come up in the morning. It's
Speaker 1: not Dak Shepherd. Something is making the oceans have a tie.
Speaker 1: It's not Dak Shepherd. There's a whole bunch of forces
Speaker 1: happening in this universe. There's a symmetry to how we're
Speaker 1: spinning around the sun and all nine planets are held together.
Speaker 1: I'm not the force that's doing any of that. There's
Speaker 1: something much greater than me. And the way I make
Speaker 1: peace with it is like I recognize the symmetry of everything,
Speaker 1: and I know when I'm out of step with the
Speaker 1: symmetry of everything. I know it, I can feel it.
Speaker 1: I'm smart enough to recognize, oh, I'm swimming in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction of this river. And so what I aspire
Speaker 1: to do is to be in harmony and in symmetry
Speaker 1: the way this fucking planet we're on is. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, God is just a lack
Speaker 1: of a better term, it's in many respects, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's really a call to humility and that
Speaker 1: I do believe in. Like, first, recognize, you're not the
Speaker 1: fucking director of planet Earth. You're not the director of
Speaker 1: your family and your friends and everything you're You're you're
Speaker 1: just another piece of ship. You're one of seven billion
Speaker 1: pieces of ship, and you're trying your best. Like so
Speaker 1: the God think of me just represents like, get humble,
Speaker 1: which I agree with because through humility you can actually
Speaker 1: take advice from other people, which is impossible for me
Speaker 1: to do. We'll get into that at the end of
Speaker 1: the show. Um So, any act of humility, I think
Speaker 1: it's important to look at what the broader point of
Speaker 1: it is, unless you want to be basic about it
Speaker 1: and go like, I heard the word God, which I
Speaker 1: don't even know if it's in there, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: in there. It's But regardless, Michael, you're on the right track.
Speaker 1: You've recognized there's an issue. You need to stick with this,
Speaker 1: and it sounds very much like you need to be sober.
Speaker 1: So I really commend you on that choice that you
Speaker 1: made and the decision that you made to put one
Speaker 1: step in front of the other in a direction to
Speaker 1: take your life into a better place. And yeah, all
Speaker 1: the signs are there that you have a serious problem.
Speaker 1: So it's not about taking a break. It's about making yourself,
Speaker 1: like you know, understand that life can be a lot
Speaker 1: better and a lot more bountiful to be in symmetry
Speaker 1: with the universe and with your energy and all of
Speaker 1: the things that that brings. Can I now attempt to
Speaker 1: get you defensive. Sure, okay, you want to tell me
Speaker 1: that I have a drinking problem. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I don't have an opinion whether or not you have
Speaker 1: a drinking problem. But do you think your average person
Speaker 1: has to take breaks? No? No, no, I think someone
Speaker 1: said to me once, uh, guy I was dating, said
Speaker 1: I never want to get out of control with my
Speaker 1: drinking because I never want to have to give it
Speaker 1: up completely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that, And I
Speaker 1: liked that, and so I always think if there's a
Speaker 1: period of time like I came back from my Orca
Speaker 1: where I was with my girlfriends for two weeks and
Speaker 1: we had a lot to drink, and I just came
Speaker 1: back and I felt gross, and I thought, this is
Speaker 1: one of those times where I really need to like
Speaker 1: clear my head and clean out my system. Because my
Speaker 1: drinking has changed, especially as I've gotten older. It's not
Speaker 1: the same, Like I don't want to drink like that.
Speaker 1: It hurts more and it shows up on your face more,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I like the way I look.
Speaker 1: I want I want to look fresh, and I yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think so that was one of the things,
Speaker 1: you know, cannabis brought into my life. When I arted
Speaker 1: to like pivot to cannabis, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: started drinking less because of the cannabis. And then I
Speaker 1: definitely have one of those personalities where I overdo things
Speaker 1: and then I have to say, Okay, now you have
Speaker 1: to stop that for a little bit before you get
Speaker 1: too carried away. Yeah, I want to be ultra clear.
Speaker 1: I don't I'm I'm I'm so pro drugs, I'm so
Speaker 1: pro drinking. I truly am those things. But I know,
Speaker 1: for myself, I deeply desire to know exactly how I'm
Speaker 1: going to feel like it's not even per se the
Speaker 1: high of the drug, it's just, oh, I know, if
Speaker 1: I eat the seta bowl in one hour, I'm going
Speaker 1: to feel this way. And that's so comforting to me,
Speaker 1: just knowing what's ahead. Oh really, yeah, I don't have that.
Speaker 1: You don't have that. I like surprises? Well yeah, I
Speaker 1: also like novelty and surprises. But I guess I'll give
Speaker 1: you the simplest example of what I'm saying. My best
Speaker 1: childhood friend who just got he's gonna have two years
Speaker 1: this this month. And when we were kids, he huff
Speaker 1: gas to the point where he took a gas can.
Speaker 1: There's a gas can in his locker in ninth grade
Speaker 1: and he got kicked out. Now, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever huff gas, have you? It is the worst
Speaker 1: feeling imaginable of all the highs on planet Earth. It's
Speaker 1: the worst one. How does one do that? You just
Speaker 1: half the fumes gasoline? Yea yeah, yeah, like actual gasoline. Um,
Speaker 1: And he carried around a little gas can. And since
Speaker 1: he's gotten sober in he and I've been talking about
Speaker 1: it so much. And he had the most traumatic childhood
Speaker 1: of any human and So what I concluded was and
Speaker 1: it led to me being a little more compassionate towards myself,
Speaker 1: which is his resting emotional feeling was so fucking bad
Speaker 1: that a gas huffing high was better. Yeah, the worst
Speaker 1: high in the world that was preferred to his just
Speaker 1: resting emotional state, which breaks my heart. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of addicts because you'll talk to people. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, oh, I don't like cocaine. How could you
Speaker 1: not like go game? I'm sober bluxed by you kind
Speaker 1: of like them? D m A, what do you mean
Speaker 1: you don't like opius? And what I actually concluded, like
Speaker 1: they're resting emotional state is good enough that going to
Speaker 1: that other isn't a huge relief, And so I'm compassionate
Speaker 1: towards myself. It's like I clearly had a different resting
Speaker 1: emotional state where that was a huge relief to me. No,
Speaker 1: that's a very salient point that you make. All right,
Speaker 1: that's the show. Thanks everybody for you tomorrow. So our
Speaker 1: first caller today is Aaron. He's in his thirties and
Speaker 1: he is a bartender in a resort town. You got
Speaker 1: a lot of bartenders in the audience, yeah, very somatic.
Speaker 1: I guess when you write a book called Vodkas, are
Speaker 1: you there? I always wondered why there's so many drunk
Speaker 1: women at my show, So I'm like, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I do I have a I do have a reputation
Speaker 1: that precedes me. Yeah, I do, and that brand is
Speaker 1: Lucy Aaron says, Dear Chelsea, just discovered your podcast, and
Speaker 1: I figure you might be able to give me some advice.
Speaker 1: So he's a new listener. I'm a man in his
Speaker 1: late thirties who bartends in a resort in a mountain town.
Speaker 1: I've been doing it for quite a while, fifteen years,
Speaker 1: and I'm a fairly attractive and confident guy. As a result,
Speaker 1: I get my fair share of attention from women, both
Speaker 1: local and visitors. It's been a great ride, no pun intended.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. I'm a romantic guy, and now I'm
Speaker 1: worried I have a reputation for taking women home. Don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, I've had girlfriends that last a year
Speaker 1: or so thrown in there. My number is high, not
Speaker 1: in the hundreds or anything, and I don't regret any
Speaker 1: of them. But now that I'm thinking of settling down,
Speaker 1: I'm worried my past is going to catch up with me.
Speaker 1: Is there any way you can think that I can
Speaker 1: change my reputation given that I've been here for so long.
Speaker 1: Keep kicking ass and good luck on the tour, Aaron,
Speaker 1: and he's here with us. Oh, let's see him. We're
Speaker 1: going yeah yeah, oh yeah. We've got zooms going and everything, microphones, headphones,
Speaker 1: the whole shebang curtain behind us. Curtain wasn't gold hi Eron,
Speaker 1: you know, Dak Shepherd, right, Yeah, I want to thank you.
Speaker 1: I I listened to a lot of that when I
Speaker 1: was on the farm when the when the world shut down,
Speaker 1: I went from bartending working on farm, so I uh
Speaker 1: probably went through four episodes a day. So thanks very
Speaker 1: much for that. Thank you. You are as advertised handsome.
Speaker 1: I was nervous when you self self diagnosis. Yeah, as handsome.
Speaker 1: I was like, put this hold up, and my god,
Speaker 1: it has Yeah, you are handsome, So I suck at
Speaker 1: that emotion. So we've got that out of the way.
Speaker 1: That's a confirmation, Katherine. Can you make a third confirmation
Speaker 1: on that? Absolutely very handsome And I'm also I'm going
Speaker 1: to go a step further, which is it's handsome in
Speaker 1: a deceptive way. I think you're a wolf in cheap's clothing.
Speaker 1: There's a kindness to your face that's probably disarming to
Speaker 1: these women, which is you're able to bed them down.
Speaker 1: You would you agree he does not look like a
Speaker 1: like a predator. No, you don't know, no, and nor
Speaker 1: nor do I think you are a predator. I think
Speaker 1: if you're a bartender in a mountain town, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: you mean a ski town, right, yeah, So I mean,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you be having sex with as many people
Speaker 1: as possible. I mean, that's what everyone's doing in those towns,
Speaker 1: and especially in the service industry, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: way of life, you know, for a lot of service
Speaker 1: people who aren't married. If you're single, that's where how
Speaker 1: you meet people at work. So I wouldn't like, I'll
Speaker 1: let Dax speak to it as a man, but as
Speaker 1: a woman, I wouldn't let your past indicate your future
Speaker 1: so much, you know what I mean. It's a phase
Speaker 1: of your life and I don't think you should have
Speaker 1: too much guilt about it. And people are going to
Speaker 1: change their perception of you when you change your own
Speaker 1: perception of yourself. And if you are serious, which I'm
Speaker 1: sure you are, because you wouldn't be calling into this
Speaker 1: podcast if you weren't. If you are serious about settling
Speaker 1: down and finding someone, that's going to become clear to
Speaker 1: everybody very quickly by your own behavior, you know. And
Speaker 1: and the first person it needs to become clear to
Speaker 1: is yourself. Okay, Yeah that makes sense. And yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of focus on like what we've done and
Speaker 1: what we've done, and that just kind of drags us
Speaker 1: through our present life. There's no point in looking at
Speaker 1: what you've done. You can acknowledge it, not be in
Speaker 1: denial of it. But as you move forward, you want
Speaker 1: to curb your behavior. Then, you know, don't bring as
Speaker 1: many girls at home, you know what I mean, be
Speaker 1: more practical about what you're putting out there and what
Speaker 1: you're what you're looking for, and people will start to
Speaker 1: pick up on that, and your reputation will become a
Speaker 1: thing of the past. They'll be like, oh, that used
Speaker 1: to be a guy who did this all the time,
Speaker 1: and he's more mature, he's older now, he's not like
Speaker 1: that anymore, you know what I mean. It just kind
Speaker 1: of works in in in step with your feelings about
Speaker 1: yourself and your behavior with yourself. Yeah, okay, I like that.
Speaker 1: What do you think, dex Oh man, there's so much
Speaker 1: to it. I agree with everything you said. If you
Speaker 1: want to funk funk, that's great. But there's a few
Speaker 1: things I'm curious about. One is the notion that others
Speaker 1: are going to use your repute Haitian. Seems like your
Speaker 1: concern on the issue as other people, which I just
Speaker 1: don't know, is your issue in life. I don't know
Speaker 1: you worrying about what other people are are interpreting you
Speaker 1: as I think more it's it's an internal job. So
Speaker 1: maybe you just like fucking and that that's great. As
Speaker 1: long as you just like fucking, that that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's definitely something of that. Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Are you an approval junkie? Do you crave validation? I do?
Speaker 1: And I'm in this situation you where my wife met
Speaker 1: me and I just I had been a fucking drug
Speaker 1: addict for ten years and I sucked anyone that would
Speaker 1: let me suck them. So she had to come to
Speaker 1: terms with the fact that we came from opposite backgrounds.
Speaker 1: And I'm now telling her, well, now I'm different. I've
Speaker 1: been sober for two years and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do that. Blah blah blah. But I will say I
Speaker 1: could have never promised her. I wasn't gonna do that
Speaker 1: if it was for her, because she's not always going
Speaker 1: to be everywhere I came in terms of my own
Speaker 1: sex addiction, which is, oh wow, when I'm in a
Speaker 1: really bad dude, I get almost reactively horny. That's suspicious.
Speaker 1: Could my brain be that complicated that it's protecting me
Speaker 1: from feeling bad by making me horny, by giving me
Speaker 1: this distraction, by picking up a phone and texting someone
Speaker 1: and now going in this one hour wormhole of looking
Speaker 1: at asses and tits and all this stuff. If that's
Speaker 1: what's happening, that's worth exploring. If you're if you are are,
Speaker 1: if you are regulating in any way your internal self
Speaker 1: esteem or your internal value with sex and other people,
Speaker 1: all I can say is that well is never dry.
Speaker 1: It'll go on forever, because ultimately you've got to be
Speaker 1: in charge of regulating everything inside. And if you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you're regulating everything inside and your
Speaker 1: horny in a good way and everyone's honest, then fuck yeah.
Speaker 1: But I guess my question to you is how much
Speaker 1: of it do you think is just your horny and
Speaker 1: how much of it do you think you are Let
Speaker 1: me stay. Let me back up. One thing I want
Speaker 1: to say. I was not an athlete. I wasn't the
Speaker 1: captain of the football team. I wasn't a jock. It
Speaker 1: wasn't all these things. The thing I could do since
Speaker 1: I was twelve was talked to women. I could talk
Speaker 1: to them for hours and hours and hours. That yielded
Speaker 1: to me having sex more often than other people. And
Speaker 1: I will say I leaned on that a ton. Oh
Speaker 1: I didn't. I'm not in college now, but I'm still
Speaker 1: sucking the hot girl my town. I'm not doing this,
Speaker 1: but I'm still I used that to shore up almost
Speaker 1: all of my identity forever. Yeah, I definitely have a
Speaker 1: lot more female friends now. You mentioned that that that
Speaker 1: that hits Yeah, And I just think intentionally, you know,
Speaker 1: like change your intention moving forward, Like your intention now
Speaker 1: is to meet somebody a value to be in a
Speaker 1: relationship that's meaningful to you. And you know, when you're
Speaker 1: thinking about that, or you're having a conversation with some
Speaker 1: girl that doesn't bring to the table the things that
Speaker 1: you would want to go long term with, don't go
Speaker 1: home and fuck her, just change your behavior, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going
Speaker 1: to actually focus on meeting somebody that I want to
Speaker 1: date for possibly long term, or get to know a
Speaker 1: little bit. Changing behavior so much easier than people think
Speaker 1: it is, you know, rehabituating yourself to different kinds of
Speaker 1: like habits and mindsets. It doesn't take as long as
Speaker 1: people think it does. It's just making the decision to
Speaker 1: do it is usually half the battle, and then following
Speaker 1: through with it is just the second part. I think
Speaker 1: you also have to flip your top three, Like I
Speaker 1: think you've looked for women in a way that I'm
Speaker 1: sure you could list the top three. I'm sure how
Speaker 1: they looked as got to be number one it was
Speaker 1: for me, you know, and so on down the list.
Speaker 1: But if if your true goal is to have a
Speaker 1: long term girlfriend, perhaps have kids, you have to identify
Speaker 1: what qualities those are, and you have to you have
Speaker 1: to write number one. Number one is this woman is
Speaker 1: a good communicator. It seems to be pretty honest with herself.
Speaker 1: I don't know what your thing would be, but let's
Speaker 1: just say and and minimally, if you just force yourself
Speaker 1: to identify what that list would be. As you're talking
Speaker 1: to the gal at the bar, some part of your
Speaker 1: brain is gonna be like this, this isn't this isn't
Speaker 1: the number one on my list. She's got a really jass,
Speaker 1: which is exciting. That's ivlevated that to number one on
Speaker 1: my list. You know, I think that we preferred to
Speaker 1: call it a Badonka bank. I think we've got over
Speaker 1: this fad ask Maybe you're just saying she's got dad asked,
Speaker 1: but you know, or a dad's ass that's always hot.
Speaker 1: A dad's ass? Was that helpful to you to that house?
Speaker 1: It was? You know, it's it's to hear that it's
Speaker 1: I will say normal, but definitely like a it does.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain it, but it does
Speaker 1: make a lot of sentence. Okay, well, why don't you
Speaker 1: hit us back when you're when you found your girl
Speaker 1: and you could call in with her for sure, will
Speaker 1: and it's nice to hear that a guy wants to
Speaker 1: change his behavior. Good for you, I mean, you are
Speaker 1: a straight white man, so you should fucking step it
Speaker 1: up a little. Especially there's that Patrick Stewart lines. As
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up seeing all the old white
Speaker 1: street guys make the decisions. While I'm an old white guy.
Speaker 1: I want to make some decisions now. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of how I that's how to play things. So okay,
Speaker 1: I asked one tough question. Yeah, hit me, who are
Speaker 1: you if you're not fucking at all? Let's say that
Speaker 1: you have the same job, you live in the same town,
Speaker 1: and you don't get laid for a year. Do you
Speaker 1: know what's funny? You mentioned that I have a really
Speaker 1: good friend who used he's in He's in another town,
Speaker 1: but really good buddy of mine, and he did a
Speaker 1: year of celibacy and it told him a lot about himself.
Speaker 1: And I've kind of been thinking about that too, just
Speaker 1: trying to be better at it, you know, living by myself,
Speaker 1: living as myself. Yeah, I I just when I fucked
Speaker 1: a lot and drank a lot and and partied a lot,
Speaker 1: it helped me deal with the fact that I was
Speaker 1: ten years of auditioning couldn't book a fucking diarrhea commercial.
Speaker 1: And so in the absence of all that, the other
Speaker 1: things I think get a little more clear of, like
Speaker 1: how much do I enjoy this? How much am I happy?
Speaker 1: I'm here. How much am I using all this other
Speaker 1: stuff as a diversion so I don't have to confront this.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe maybe you have the dream set up,
Speaker 1: and but it is an interesting thing that I think
Speaker 1: can also happen when you take away all the comforts
Speaker 1: surrounding something. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, that's a good I
Speaker 1: like that question. I don't have an answer for you.
Speaker 1: I do find a lot of like, I live by
Speaker 1: myself and it's great, except for the fact that when
Speaker 1: I want to be social, it's like, well, let's go
Speaker 1: to the bar and start start down that road and
Speaker 1: you know, um so yeah, No, it's definitely a more of,
Speaker 1: you know, make sure I'm comfortable with who I am,
Speaker 1: and then kind of figure out where someone can fit
Speaker 1: into that. I guess, yeah, girl, that's when I had
Speaker 1: a baby. Yeah, thirty eight. You start going like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I I skinned this cat. I'm goosey. I got like
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be loosey goosey by myself and it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be a good look at the ball exactly.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought was gonna happen to me too.
Speaker 1: I was like, fuck, very similar, very similar. But Aaron,
Speaker 1: that is a great question, Doxy. I knew you were
Speaker 1: going to be good at this. Yeah. Yeah, he might
Speaker 1: be the m v P guest host I've ever had
Speaker 1: so far. Katherine can very astute question. Yes, yes, Dax,
Speaker 1: Yes I should come every day, all right, Aaron, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for calling in and and we wish
Speaker 1: you well and we wish you luck and keep us
Speaker 1: posted it. I've got Katherine's number now, so I'll let
Speaker 1: her know if anything goes great. Great, Thanks Aaron, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, have a good one. So cute You really
Speaker 1: did have a cute like inviting warm smile. He's just
Speaker 1: kind of like your ultimate bartender, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of face you want your bartender to have.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not judgmental. Right, when you're on your seventh jack
Speaker 1: and diet and under ninety minutes, you don't somebody who's
Speaker 1: just like, when you order your eighth they're gonna be like, sure,
Speaker 1: no problem, instead of acting like you're sober to the
Speaker 1: bartender who served you seven drinks. Bukowski had this thing
Speaker 1: where he had like five liquor stores. He kind of circulated,
Speaker 1: true because he felt so judged by all the people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so funny. So there's only like once a week
Speaker 1: was there at nine am to six bottles of wine.
Speaker 1: Our next caller, she's going by Mave, so Mayve says,
Speaker 1: Dear Chelsea. I'm writing in because everyone on my husband's
Speaker 1: side of our lives fucking hates me. We've been together
Speaker 1: for six years and married for about a year. I
Speaker 1: met him when I was doing a brief stint in
Speaker 1: living in Trump Country. I met him and fell in
Speaker 1: love right as I was planning to get the hell
Speaker 1: out of there. We felt like soulmates from the moment
Speaker 1: we met. Ultimately, he decided that he wanted to join
Speaker 1: me on the move, and we moved to a liberal
Speaker 1: coastal city about five years ago. Since we moved together,
Speaker 1: we have grown up and glowed up in so many ways.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're both self actualizing individually and together.
Speaker 1: Problem is, everyone in his life seems to disapprove his parents,
Speaker 1: and a good handful of his friends seemed to feel
Speaker 1: the same. They seem to act like I kidnapped him
Speaker 1: from his family against his will and brainwashed him into
Speaker 1: being some liberal vegetarian everything they're against. They're not very
Speaker 1: nice to me, and it makes me feel like ship
Speaker 1: and I know what upsets my husband too. He's worked
Speaker 1: to create boundaries over the years, which has helped, but
Speaker 1: I still feel so unwanted by almost everyone in his life.
Speaker 1: I already struggle with self worth and feeling like I
Speaker 1: don't deserve someone as great as him, and everyone on
Speaker 1: my side seems to love and genuinely approve of him.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear what you have to say, because
Speaker 1: it makes me really sad and angry, and I think
Speaker 1: I need to channel my inner Chelsea Handler mave m Hi, mave, Hello, Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm great? How are you? We're good?
Speaker 1: Do you know dax I do? Hi? Hi? We're together now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: We um. We have an announcement to make every one
Speaker 1: of my wife's friends hated me too, so do his friends.
Speaker 1: So gave me more intel about why his friends to
Speaker 1: his friends not like you because you're liberal and they're
Speaker 1: all what Trump supporters. Is that what you're kind of
Speaker 1: alluding to. So that's more like his family and like
Speaker 1: the older people in his lives. And then his friends
Speaker 1: are seemed to be more upset about the fact that
Speaker 1: he moved. He moved, and he doesn't live near them anymore,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, like what like his The dad
Speaker 1: of one of his friends entered entered my personal space
Speaker 1: how to get together recently to say that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're happy and all, but we wish we
Speaker 1: could check up on him more to make sure he's
Speaker 1: eating enough meat and doing all right? And what does
Speaker 1: your boyfriend feel? How does he feel about this? It
Speaker 1: upsets him because he's always been like really close with
Speaker 1: his family and friends, and he, like luckily is completely
Speaker 1: like seeing what I'm seeing. He's not gaslighting me or
Speaker 1: any anything, but he's upset by the circumstances. Certainly, were
Speaker 1: you vegetarian first? No, we discovered this together. We discovered
Speaker 1: it totally together, slowly started incorporating it in our lives.
Speaker 1: And now I'm like the big vegetarian, Well what if?
Speaker 1: There are many worse things to be but okay, but
Speaker 1: sincere question, um, what if he wanted to eat meat?
Speaker 1: What would that? He does? He does? He's like, I'm
Speaker 1: then what's their problem? They're just not enough? Because all
Speaker 1: I was going to say is on the service, I guess, well,
Speaker 1: I think what's useful is like, what are they saying, right,
Speaker 1: So the guy who pulled you aside, what is he saying?
Speaker 1: What do you think he's saying when he when he
Speaker 1: tells you that, yeah, well it's the way he said
Speaker 1: we need to make sure he's around so we can
Speaker 1: check up on him. Makes me feel like I'm a
Speaker 1: danger to him in some way. And that's not how
Speaker 1: I see myself and that's not how he sees me either.
Speaker 1: But I guess if I if I hear that guy
Speaker 1: say that question, what I'm hearing is that person is
Speaker 1: really afraid that your boyfriend's loving leaving his inn group.
Speaker 1: This is one of his people. He loves this person,
Speaker 1: and he is afraid that these decisions are going to
Speaker 1: take him out of their shared in group. We can't
Speaker 1: have a barbecue anymore. You live in blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So first and foremost, I just think what is coming
Speaker 1: across is crass and shitty. Does have a kernel of
Speaker 1: the inside, which is like fear and love, And so
Speaker 1: it's helpful to me to try to start there, like
Speaker 1: what are these people truly afraid of? And can I
Speaker 1: can I relate to a friend that went away to
Speaker 1: college and worship heads back in Michigan. I'm probably never
Speaker 1: gonna see that. Like I can relate. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that make decisions that I'm fearful is going
Speaker 1: to change their identity and take them out of my group,
Speaker 1: and I'm compassionate towards that. I'm sympathetic to that, And
Speaker 1: instead of defending yourself in those situations, it might be
Speaker 1: useful to try to comfort that person and say, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it seems like he's becoming a totally different person,
Speaker 1: but I just want you to know he talks about
Speaker 1: you all the time, and he loves you so much
Speaker 1: and he misses you. Just this, because if you start
Speaker 1: trying to win a debate about whether what you guys
Speaker 1: are doing is healthy, sustainable, the right decision, the wrong decision,
Speaker 1: you're not addressing what's really happening here, which this person
Speaker 1: is really afraid they're gonna lose someone they love, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately it's on us to be the bigger human being
Speaker 1: that can offer that comfort and love, or we can
Speaker 1: engage in the same kind and just nothing will ever
Speaker 1: happen productively. Because I can see where this is going.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be five more parties. You're you and your
Speaker 1: boyfriend and continue to do things that make that person,
Speaker 1: not make that person feels alienated by that person, feels
Speaker 1: less than by My stepdad was so furious at one
Speaker 1: point that we were considering how much pesticides were on apples.
Speaker 1: It drove him crazy. Oh my god, now we can't
Speaker 1: eat apples. And at first I'm like, shut the funk up,
Speaker 1: what are you talking? Like, get over yourself. But but
Speaker 1: the more I thought about was like he feels less.
Speaker 1: Then he feels like he's not putting any effort into
Speaker 1: himself being healthy. And now here's another fucking thing. And
Speaker 1: I guess I'm that much more big of a piece
Speaker 1: of ship. So I don't know, But are you responsible
Speaker 1: for other people's feelings in that way? Like she's not
Speaker 1: responsible for her boyfriend's friends and their parents feelings about
Speaker 1: their relationship and about him being a vegetarian. She isn't
Speaker 1: really responsible for that. That's their own bullshit, you know,
Speaker 1: Like you can be supportive of their relationships absolutely as
Speaker 1: you should be. You shouldn't ever be, I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't want to, you know, encourage any sort of bifurcation
Speaker 1: with his past, you know, and his old life. But
Speaker 1: like that's what people do. They get they hook up
Speaker 1: with a partner and they sometimes move away, and it's
Speaker 1: just a passage into adulthood for many people. And is
Speaker 1: she responsible to take care of everybody else's feelings because
Speaker 1: they don't like's not She's not responsible. And what I'm
Speaker 1: what I'm proposing to her is actually a very selfish
Speaker 1: act on her part, which is I love this human being.
Speaker 1: I can see that my partner has these stressors in
Speaker 1: his life. All these people feel like he's abandoning them.
Speaker 1: That makes my partner unhappy, which then makes me unhappy.
Speaker 1: How can I stop this whole cycle? Well, maybe I
Speaker 1: tell Bill he loves you so much, he's not going anywhere,
Speaker 1: and then Bill stops driving her partner crazy. I don't know,
Speaker 1: and then she benefits. Like it's ultimately a selfish act,
Speaker 1: but it's one that may yield the result. I just
Speaker 1: don't think extolling the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle to
Speaker 1: this person is going to solve in any way. I
Speaker 1: agree with you on that, absolutely, I do. I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no purpose in trying to convert anybody, right,
Speaker 1: that's not a good use of your time. But it
Speaker 1: is also it's what he's saying. Yes, absolutely, be supportive
Speaker 1: of their friendship. Be encouraging to those people. You don't
Speaker 1: want to make enemies out of his old life. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not important enough to you really at all to
Speaker 1: make that kind of and have that kind of negative
Speaker 1: back and forth with them. Right, All you can do
Speaker 1: is support them in in order to support him, in
Speaker 1: order to support yourself. So it's a circular thing that,
Speaker 1: which is what Dax is referring to. Be honest, I
Speaker 1: all that guy to suck my dick. So I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I'm capable of I'm advising you to do. I'm
Speaker 1: very defensive, and I'm very like then to get the
Speaker 1: funk out of my house. You hate you know, you
Speaker 1: must have meat cooking so much. Whatever it is, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying I do it.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying from the outside, I bet those people
Speaker 1: feel scared they're losing someone they love. Looking at them
Speaker 1: with more empathy is something that I think would be
Speaker 1: helpful here, because clearly they have a lot of fears,
Speaker 1: it seems, and I don't think that that's all on me.
Speaker 1: I think I'm like a boogeyman for all of their fears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean even coming up to you and saying we'd
Speaker 1: like him to check in more. That's something that would
Speaker 1: have been better directed at him, not you. You're not
Speaker 1: in control of him checking in with them, but you know, say,
Speaker 1: you know that that's an opportunity for you to go, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, Mike's father or whatever the hell his
Speaker 1: name was, wants you to check in with him a
Speaker 1: little bit more. And that's a way to be supportive you.
Speaker 1: You come out looking good and there's no harm done,
Speaker 1: no foul right, and you've facilitated exactly the exchange that happened,
Speaker 1: and by by remaining the bigger person in So I'm
Speaker 1: telling you to do exactly what you guys are doing.
Speaker 1: Live the exact life you want to live. But I
Speaker 1: just wantn't spend any time defending that life. I would
Speaker 1: more spend time trying to figure out what fear is
Speaker 1: happening in the other person. And if there's any way
Speaker 1: you can be truthful to yourself and also comfort that person,
Speaker 1: it might be easiest. Or you guys can just go hunting,
Speaker 1: you know, and take a bunch of pictures of animals
Speaker 1: that you've killed and and post them on Facebook and Instagram,
Speaker 1: and that will sayiate everybody's needs. Yeah, exactly, get out
Speaker 1: your rifle, get in your truck. From my own life,
Speaker 1: which is, my wife was ostensibly Christian when we met,
Speaker 1: and her mother often thinks I'm Lucifer and has led
Speaker 1: her away from the church. And I get very defensive
Speaker 1: in those situations, and I want to yell at her
Speaker 1: and debate with her about what I've done or haven't done.
Speaker 1: In fact, on my best days, I recognize this woman
Speaker 1: believes in heaven, and she believes she's going to heaven,
Speaker 1: and she believes her favorite thing in the whole world,
Speaker 1: her daughter, will not be with her there for eternity.
Speaker 1: That's fucking terrifying. I don't believe in any of that.
Speaker 1: But if I did think my daughters and I could
Speaker 1: be somewhere forever and they were not going to join
Speaker 1: me because of someone else, I'd be panicked. It's hard
Speaker 1: for me to give her that extra ten minutes of
Speaker 1: thinking about it, but I do best with her when
Speaker 1: I remember I represent her not being with her daughter
Speaker 1: for eternity. That's fucking huge. Yeah. Yeah, And when I
Speaker 1: put it back on myself to like defend the choices
Speaker 1: that I've made with my husband. We like, that's a
Speaker 1: very that sucks. But thinking about like, oh, what are
Speaker 1: they so scared of that's making this so hard for
Speaker 1: that's making them want to be Like, well, minimally, what
Speaker 1: you immediately recognize in that exercises it is them. They
Speaker 1: have a thing going on and you are somehow a
Speaker 1: symbol of that. But of course you aren't the thing.
Speaker 1: And I just feel better when I recognize, oh, this
Speaker 1: is this person's problem and not it's not actually an
Speaker 1: attack on me, it's it's their lack of being able
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable and say they're scared they're losing them.
Speaker 1: Because if they came up to you and said, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm so afraid I'm losing Mike, that I'm not evolving
Speaker 1: quick enough with him, and that he's becoming a person
Speaker 1: and he won't respect me, you'd fucking hug that person.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately people aren't trained to do that, so instead,
Speaker 1: you know, you end up explaining why you live the
Speaker 1: life you live, which is none of their business. Totally.
Speaker 1: That's very helpful. Well, I think you hit that one
Speaker 1: out of the park. Acts once again, there's been a
Speaker 1: change in tone. I think you did a really good job, babe.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you got some good advice? I
Speaker 1: feel like you did. I definitely do. Yeah. And um,
Speaker 1: I told Mike that I was going to be having
Speaker 1: this conversation, so I'm really excited to share with him.
Speaker 1: Oh good, good. And I'm sorry I missed that you
Speaker 1: said you were all right. I was obviously just taken
Speaker 1: by my new lover and I so I apologize when
Speaker 1: I called him your boyfriend. We still think we're great
Speaker 1: in bed together. We haven't found out that we're not.
Speaker 1: So like, we're writing pretty high right now. But thank
Speaker 1: you for your call, Mave, and good luck with everything. Yeah, empathy,
Speaker 1: empathy is going to return the favor to you. Thank you. Okay,
Speaker 1: take care another very kind, kind face. I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: you to have like now we own. We only get
Speaker 1: really really sincere sweet people here. It's really it's surprising
Speaker 1: to me as well. What's the story, Catherine? So? Our
Speaker 1: last question today comes from Sarah. She lives in Canada.
Speaker 1: Dear Chelsea, I would love to hear your take on
Speaker 1: parenting a very very headstrung seven year old female human.
Speaker 1: I've tried every tactic, a firm but kind approach, a
Speaker 1: loving approach, and of course pure bribery. Nothing works. She's
Speaker 1: motivated by money, so I'm hopeful for her future, but
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I'm doing this right. She yells at
Speaker 1: me a lot, and she's only seven. How do I
Speaker 1: raise this kid so she's kind but also kicks ass.
Speaker 1: How do we achieve the balance of letting them be
Speaker 1: fierce but also go to bed on time? Sarah in Ottawa. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give this over to Dock since he
Speaker 1: has a six and eight year old girls. This is
Speaker 1: his wheelhouse, and why don't you take it from here? Sweetheart? Well,
Speaker 1: what I'll first say is that, so our first daughter,
Speaker 1: at twenty one months, I took her to toys r us.
Speaker 1: I said, pick out a potty. She picked one out.
Speaker 1: We got home a couple days later, Chris and I said, like, hey,
Speaker 1: ever want to use that thing? It's there? And she
Speaker 1: said potty, And then that bitch was potty trained. We
Speaker 1: did nothing else. I was like, we need to write
Speaker 1: a book. Second kid came along, Delta, the now six
Speaker 1: year old opposite just opposite person. So I just want
Speaker 1: to start by saying there isn't you should never believe
Speaker 1: in parenting advice because to what kid is this advice
Speaker 1: going to be applicable to? Because we do things almost
Speaker 1: opposit it with the eight year old as we do
Speaker 1: the six year old, it sounds to me like your
Speaker 1: seven year old is kind of similar to my six
Speaker 1: year old. And I guess the main hack I figured
Speaker 1: out is it's as simple as giving her the last word.
Speaker 1: So I say, look, we gotta go to bed at
Speaker 1: eight it's their school tomorrow. And she says no because
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah blah. If I don't engage,
Speaker 1: and then I let her have that she got the
Speaker 1: last word. Sometime goes on, twenty minutes passes and we're
Speaker 1: good and and this is one of those one things
Speaker 1: I brought up earlier where Kristen said, like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing with Delta that she does what you want?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't fight with her because she's
Speaker 1: just she's living to fight. She's a fucking prosecutor. And
Speaker 1: it's all about the fight. It's not actually about the
Speaker 1: substance of what you're fighting about. It's way more I
Speaker 1: want the last word. I'm the baby of this family.
Speaker 1: Everyone else is bigger than me, everyone else has a
Speaker 1: louder voice. I want the fucking last word. So when
Speaker 1: I'm able to just give her that last word, I
Speaker 1: find that everything else just goes swimmingly. I think also,
Speaker 1: when you have that personality type, fighting is their oxygen.
Speaker 1: That's how they briefe like they want. That's their engagement.
Speaker 1: That's their engagement, and if you're not interacting with them,
Speaker 1: you're diffusing the situation. I have that personality type where
Speaker 1: I don't like to be told what to do and
Speaker 1: I have no respect for authority figures. But as long
Speaker 1: as you're engaging with me, I will argue with you.
Speaker 1: But if you're not arguing with me, there's nothing to
Speaker 1: argue about. So I mean, I think it's about as
Speaker 1: a parent, putting your foot down and leaving it. They're
Speaker 1: taking Dax's advice, but like you are in charge, so
Speaker 1: get in charge. Your kid is not in charge of you.
Speaker 1: And I know that's easier said than done, and I'm
Speaker 1: not a parent, so I'm just gonna let you take
Speaker 1: Dax's advice on that, but remember that you know that
Speaker 1: is your child and whatever you're doing isn't working, so
Speaker 1: then you have to change your approach. I'm also going
Speaker 1: to add in there there there there's a big distinction
Speaker 1: to be made between abandoning your child and ignoring your child.
Speaker 1: There is a huge difference there. Abandoning your child is
Speaker 1: you're not there when they need you. They're her and
Speaker 1: you're not coming. They're hungry, you're not addressed seeing that
Speaker 1: they're crying from something that happened with their sister, and
Speaker 1: you're you have no time for that. That's abandonment. Positively
Speaker 1: rewarding everything they do with your attention is not healthy.
Speaker 1: They they're little monkeys trying to escape the zoo, and
Speaker 1: the escape is to get your undivided attention. So I
Speaker 1: believe it is fine to ignore them when it's past
Speaker 1: the point of being productive. So I give d money
Speaker 1: the last word, and if she wants to carry on
Speaker 1: beyond that, that's gonna She's gonna be doing that solo.
Speaker 1: This is no longer a need she has. I'm not
Speaker 1: abandoning her, but I'm not participating in it because I
Speaker 1: have boundaries as a human. I also am trying to
Speaker 1: model those for her. I don't need to join you
Speaker 1: on a thirty minute fucking vortex of emotion. You can
Speaker 1: do you know, you're free to do that. I'm encouraging
Speaker 1: you to have all your emotions, but I don't need
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. I can ignore it
Speaker 1: and I cannot be affected by it. And it's shocking
Speaker 1: how quickly when they recognize it doesn't have an effect
Speaker 1: on you, how quickly they change their strategy to get
Speaker 1: out of the enclosure. Another home run, another home run. You, guys,
Speaker 1: you must be exhausted, you must be exhausted. Now, that
Speaker 1: was the last That was the last one. We got it, guys,
Speaker 1: we got it. Those are all our callers and right
Speaker 1: INDs for this episode. Right yeah, So we'll just take
Speaker 1: a quick break and we'll be back shortly. You're really
Speaker 1: gonna have to avoid your bladder when you walk out
Speaker 1: of here. So many liquids so frequently, like it actually
Speaker 1: governs like where I can go, what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: On a plane, I can never ever sit by the window.
Speaker 1: I have to sit in the aisle on the aisle
Speaker 1: seat always because I know I'm gonna have to climb
Speaker 1: over somebody three times, and I get Also, I took
Speaker 1: a small plane recently that only I've never even fucking
Speaker 1: heard of this that only had a bathroom in the back.
Speaker 1: So I was in the front because obviously, and I
Speaker 1: was I'm like, oh, I was waiting for us to
Speaker 1: be at twenty feet so day unlike the bathroom. And
Speaker 1: I went up and she's like, oh, I'm sorry, there's
Speaker 1: no bathroom here because it was like an hour flight somewhere.
Speaker 1: And so I was at the back of the plane
Speaker 1: and I'm like, are you fucking And then I was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I'm gonna have to go to the back
Speaker 1: of the plane three times in one hour. Watch and
Speaker 1: everyone's going to see me walking back, walking forth. And
Speaker 1: then don't you also like get hyper focused on every
Speaker 1: sensation in your bladder the second I know there's a
Speaker 1: take my hands away from my bladder because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: if I press on it or touch it, which is
Speaker 1: basically my seatbelt, I'll be like, seatbelt is making me
Speaker 1: up to p mark. My pants are making buttoning ship.
Speaker 1: No seatbelt, it looks like I'm about to go freak
Speaker 1: nick in the front of the airplane. Okay, So we're
Speaker 1: going to close this episode with Dox, who has been
Speaker 1: a joy and a pleasure. I'm so glad you came
Speaker 1: so much time with you, Dex. Before we let you go,
Speaker 1: I need to ask you, do you need some advice
Speaker 1: from Chelsea? Okay, so I gotta say, like, no part
Speaker 1: of me wasn't excited to come here and do this,
Speaker 1: other than knowing I had to ask you for advice.
Speaker 1: So I guess what I decided to make My question was,
Speaker 1: how do you take advice? Because I think you and I,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to flatter myself, but I think
Speaker 1: you and I are very similar. And I actually fucking
Speaker 1: hate advice. I hate authority figures. I hate people who
Speaker 1: think they got it figured out. I personally, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was forced to in this situation, but I don't
Speaker 1: really give advice. I'll tell you what I did for me,
Speaker 1: but I just hate getting I can't receive it. I can't.
Speaker 1: I guess I'd be acknowledging I'm deficient in some way
Speaker 1: by asking for it, Like this is my biggest hurdle
Speaker 1: in a is like asking for help. So my curiosity
Speaker 1: is knowing that we're so similar. How on earth do
Speaker 1: you get yourself to a position where you want advice
Speaker 1: and you're genuinely asking for it. Yeah, I think we
Speaker 1: do have similar personalities, definitely, and I definitely have an
Speaker 1: allergic My instinctual reaction to somebody giving me advice is
Speaker 1: an allergic reaction where I want them to shut the
Speaker 1: funk up and get away from me. But I have learned,
Speaker 1: and I that's something that I picked up in therapy too,
Speaker 1: that my initial reaction is invalid to most things, right, Like,
Speaker 1: my initial reaction is usually met ego based or whatever,
Speaker 1: So as long as I can take a minute before
Speaker 1: I think about it. For instance, my boyfriend was seeing
Speaker 1: my show, my my stand up show. He came with
Speaker 1: me from my Florida dates, and he was giving me
Speaker 1: touch ups, like our punch ups for things, and then
Speaker 1: he wanted me to rearrange the section of something. And
Speaker 1: I immediately was like, no, don't tell me how to
Speaker 1: do my own material. But I didn't say that. I
Speaker 1: thought about him, like, he's a fucking comedian too, obviously
Speaker 1: this is valid. Let me try it that way. I
Speaker 1: tried at the first show his suggestion. I wasn't sold
Speaker 1: on it. I got off stage. He goes, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that was exactly right, that adjustment. Now you have the
Speaker 1: joke over there, it's different, and I go, I'm not
Speaker 1: add percent. He goes, Okay, well I go, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try it one more time and see. And then
Speaker 1: I tried at the second time and he was right.
Speaker 1: And then I tried it again and he was right.
Speaker 1: So I think my feeling about that is to know
Speaker 1: that your initial reaction to things isn't always the right reaction,
Speaker 1: and to give yourself the space of understanding that some
Speaker 1: people actually do have some you know, some advice is meritorious,
Speaker 1: and it's clearly so many people do so many things
Speaker 1: better than I do yet, right, So I guess it's
Speaker 1: how it's how it's being delivered is important. Obviously it's
Speaker 1: also a huge I would assume you trust your boyfriend, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I but not more than I trust myself, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. But but you don't believe that
Speaker 1: your boyfriend has any ulterior motive in this scenario, Like
Speaker 1: he's not trying to demonstrate to you that he's actually
Speaker 1: the genius comedian in a relationship. You have that trust
Speaker 1: with him, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, because yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: I have a hard time trusting people, is what it is, Like,
Speaker 1: I have a hard time thinking anyone's doing anything in
Speaker 1: a way that would not be bettering their own position, right.
Speaker 1: I guess it's a limited it's a limited amount of
Speaker 1: people that you can trust and value what they have
Speaker 1: to say, because you're not going to take a blind advice.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, conversely, I have many agents
Speaker 1: over the years that given me advice that I was like,
Speaker 1: get the funk out of my face, Like, I, you
Speaker 1: don't even know what you're talking about. You're not a creative,
Speaker 1: you don't get it, and you know, so I have
Speaker 1: that feeling, but yeah, I just you like I I
Speaker 1: you couldn't gain anything from me. Well, I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: competitive with you. I don't think you're competitive with me. So, like,
Speaker 1: I'm inclined to believe what you tell me, I would
Speaker 1: say that. So I guess the thing. Let's start with
Speaker 1: what I've admired about you in the last twenty years
Speaker 1: that I aspired to is your confidence to quit things
Speaker 1: is pretty unique. I admire it, and I guess I
Speaker 1: strive for that belief in myself where you could you
Speaker 1: can walk away from things that are minimally financially beneficial. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: would you agree with that assessment? Yeah, yeah, I've definitely done.
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's quite rare. I think this
Speaker 1: podcast thing for me has put me in a position
Speaker 1: and where I can behave that way. But I could
Speaker 1: only behave that way with this crazy safety now. And
Speaker 1: so I admire that about you. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's so nice to hear it for well.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. So why where are you getting that from? UM?
Speaker 1: I just have I always had a lot of misplaced
Speaker 1: confidence ever since I was a little girl. Like I
Speaker 1: really believe I'm betting on myself, and you know, I've
Speaker 1: had ups and downs, but I always know that I'm
Speaker 1: going to figure it out. Ay. I always just want
Speaker 1: to be true. I don't want to be faking or lying,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to be I don't want
Speaker 1: to be pretending. I don't like that. I want to
Speaker 1: be true and upfront. And if something is not, if
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling something, it's like staying in a relationship
Speaker 1: that I wasn't into. I'm not good at that either.
Speaker 1: So any time I've walked away from something, it was
Speaker 1: just because it was no longer interesting to me. And
Speaker 1: and I do believe in myself. I think also what
Speaker 1: you have, which I didn't become aware of it myself
Speaker 1: until the podcast. I think you've known for a long
Speaker 1: time that you have a point of view, and like,
Speaker 1: once you have that, when you have a point of
Speaker 1: view and people have heard it and people follow it
Speaker 1: and they respond to it, I would at least hope
Speaker 1: it gives you confidence that like, yeah, I'm gonna bring
Speaker 1: this point of view to whatever I do in this
Speaker 1: I've figured that aspect of it out, so I can
Speaker 1: PLoP it here and PLoP it there and it's gonna
Speaker 1: work everywhere because I know what it is and it's
Speaker 1: authentic and I believe in it. Do you think that's
Speaker 1: any part of it. Yeah. I think having a strong
Speaker 1: point of view as part of it. And I think
Speaker 1: it's also like, you know, you get a lot of
Speaker 1: confidence from having success, Like you've gotten a lot of
Speaker 1: confidence from the success of your podcasts and everything that
Speaker 1: you've built, and you've built an empire with everything you've done,
Speaker 1: so you feel differently now than you did before. But
Speaker 1: that specifically what happened is I had some level of
Speaker 1: success in playing other characters, so it's not necessarily my
Speaker 1: point of view. Like I'm trying to put the dark
Speaker 1: shade on everything. Yeah, but you do have a point
Speaker 1: of view with your podcast, right, Yeah, that's right, and
Speaker 1: that's where you have some of your biggest success. I
Speaker 1: to argue, right, without questions, the biggest success I've ever had. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then I guess I've found out through that process, like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, my point of view is valuable. I don't
Speaker 1: know that you can discover as an actor. You can
Speaker 1: discover it as a stand up yeah, right, such comedy,
Speaker 1: you can't even really discover it. Like I had twenty
Speaker 1: characters I played at the Groundlings. I'm not sure which
Speaker 1: one of those was my point of view that I
Speaker 1: could bet on the rest of my life. Right, But
Speaker 1: isn't that interesting that when you have such a strong
Speaker 1: point of view and you're in touch with your point
Speaker 1: of view, that's where that's where you're aligning with everything,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, everything starts working for you
Speaker 1: instead of against you. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a very
Speaker 1: awesome experience, and it's fun to watch you succeed and
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, and everyone feels that way
Speaker 1: about you. People like watching you succeed because it does
Speaker 1: feel like it did feel like a long time, like
Speaker 1: you weren't underdog. So it's nice to see you on top. Good,
Speaker 1: it'll stop soon. We're gonna we're gonna go. It's not
Speaker 1: don't say that. Don't have that kind of attitude. That's
Speaker 1: also no, I'm only referencing that we love the story
Speaker 1: of we were just as humans. We the story of
Speaker 1: the underdog. And then as soon as you're doing well,
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, we'll let this ride for a minute.
Speaker 1: But yeah, right, of course, of course I'm still cynical
Speaker 1: about human nature. How about that. Yeah, well that's fair,
Speaker 1: that's a fair point of view. On that note, I
Speaker 1: want to thank Dex for being here today. We are
Speaker 1: going to take a shower now together and we are
Speaker 1: in Sherman Oaks at the podcast studio, and I had
Speaker 1: them run a small bath. Oh great, so you'll be
Speaker 1: in the tub, I'll be in the shower, or well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna urinate in the tub and then I'm going
Speaker 1: to take a bath. Oh my god. It's like a
Speaker 1: weird new version of blood Brothers and Sisters. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna make sure. Yeah, I'll take a couple of Pep
Speaker 1: siblings for Kristen it's a love story. It's a love story.
Speaker 1: You know, she might be you might be one of
Speaker 1: the only people she'd be threatened by, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I admire her confidence. She's very confident as well. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: she's pretty confident. Yeah yeah, she's a gangster. It's good
Speaker 1: to be around confident people. Don't you love it? I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it the other way. And on that note,
Speaker 1: we want to say Amen, Amen, Dax. We love you,
Speaker 1: Dak Shepherd, everybody I love you Shepherd can't wait to
Speaker 1: do it again. With regard to my stand up you guys,
Speaker 1: I have added twenty seven or thirty cities. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but thirty cities. We've added Des Moines. We've added your
Speaker 1: request people, people who requested Louisville, Kentucky. Guess fucking what
Speaker 1: I'm coming. We've added Montclair, New Jersey. We've added a
Speaker 1: whole slew of cities. So if you have not gotten
Speaker 1: your tickets yet, do it Chelsea Handler dot com. We
Speaker 1: just announced thirty more cities, twenty seven or thirty. Niagara Falls,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you too, so suck on that. I'll
Speaker 1: see everybody on tour loving it. Vaccinated in horny