Speaker 1: So I wanted to drop the Justin Baldoni episode again because,
Speaker 1: to be fair, when I was approached about him coming on,
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about him.
Speaker 2: So I did some research on him.
Speaker 1: And I was impressed by him, and I enjoyed our interview.
Speaker 1: I thought he was likable. I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I wished it was in person because it was a
Speaker 1: while ago, but I remember enjoying it and liking it.
Speaker 1: If I don't like something, it absolutely jumps off the page,
Speaker 1: and I just remember him being pleasant and likable, and truthfully,
Speaker 1: I want to listen to it again. I want to
Speaker 1: listen to him tell me his story again through the
Speaker 1: lens of what's happening today, and him being so passionate
Speaker 1: about this domestic violence topic, and this movie it ends
Speaker 1: with us, that's getting a lot of attention, whether negative
Speaker 1: or positive. It is disruptive and it is bringing attention
Speaker 1: to domestic violence. I did grow up in a violent household,
Speaker 1: and I'm very interested in this topic now, and he's
Speaker 1: really trying to stay connected to the meaning of the movie,
Speaker 1: and he's really focusing his press on raising awareness for
Speaker 1: domestic violence. And so now I just keep thinking about
Speaker 1: the interview and I would like to listen to it
Speaker 1: again and think about it through the lens of him
Speaker 1: today as a director and an actor in a movie
Speaker 1: about such an important topic, particularly to women. My guest
Speaker 1: today is actor, director, producer Justin Balde. You might have
Speaker 1: seen him on the hit TV show Jane the Virgin
Speaker 1: as Raphael, or you might know his work behind the camera,
Speaker 1: including the feature film Five Feet Apart Clouds or award
Speaker 1: winning documentary My Last Days. Beyond making a name as
Speaker 1: an all around filmmaker, Justin remains busy as a father,
Speaker 1: podcast host, and author. His work often tackles the culture
Speaker 1: of toxic masculinity as he aims to redefine what it
Speaker 1: is to be a man in today's society. Justin co
Speaker 1: founded a production company called Wayfarer Studios and started a
Speaker 1: nonprofit of the same name aim to serve the unhoused
Speaker 1: community in Los Angeles. I can't wait to talk through
Speaker 1: Justin's journey in entertainment, entrepreneurship, and sharing.
Speaker 3: Love for your community. You guys will leave here feeling
Speaker 3: inspired by today's show.
Speaker 2: Hope you enjoy. So.
Speaker 3: How did you get into acting? Was it something you
Speaker 3: always wanted to do? Did you fall into it. Are
Speaker 3: you passionate about it? What is that part of your life?
Speaker 4: I'm probably not going to give you these normal answers here.
Speaker 2: There is no normal any Wars show. There's no normal
Speaker 2: bunch of crazy.
Speaker 4: I never I never really thought that I was going
Speaker 4: to become an actor. I didn't have the self confidence.
Speaker 4: I was a bit of an ugly duckling. My dad
Speaker 4: was in the entertainment business growing up, and it was
Speaker 4: just felt so far away for me. So when I
Speaker 4: moved to Los Angeles, really it was for sports. From Oregon.
Speaker 4: I took an acting class and I really liked it.
Speaker 4: But I honestly took an acting class because I had
Speaker 4: no idea what the hell I was going to do
Speaker 4: with my life. I didn't know. I wasn't I was
Speaker 4: either going to be a psychologist or an actor. I
Speaker 4: wanted to be a filmmaker. Was that was what I
Speaker 4: really wanted to be. And then I'd found myself After
Speaker 4: a pretty devastating breakup when I was about nineteen twenty moving,
Speaker 4: I moved into this tiny office building. I slept on
Speaker 4: a couch in my dad's office. He kept his tiny
Speaker 4: office and in that building there was a manager that
Speaker 4: aked me if I was an actor, and I said no,
Speaker 4: but i'd I'd be very open to be. As it
Speaker 4: turns out, he was hitting on me. He became my manager.
Speaker 4: We ended up parting ways, but I started working right away,
Speaker 4: and wow, and I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 4: I learned how to act on sets. It was terrible.
Speaker 2: I doubt that you have to have something to be
Speaker 2: to get give.
Speaker 4: I think I I tried. I think I just maybe
Speaker 4: looked unique. I don't know, but I uh, but I
Speaker 4: learned and I am And really I just knew. I
Speaker 4: knew I wanted to be of service in some capacity.
Speaker 4: Faith has been a huge part of my life. But
Speaker 4: now what I joke about when everyone asked me, like,
Speaker 4: did you always want to be an actor or a director?
Speaker 4: You know, I look back and I'm like, so much
Speaker 4: of this was really just a trauma response of my
Speaker 4: wanting to be loved and appreciated and valued and seen,
Speaker 4: thinking that, oh, if I got on TV, then maybe
Speaker 4: all those people that were mean to me would appreciate me.
Speaker 4: Or if I just get you know, if I just
Speaker 4: had that car or that so much of so much
Speaker 4: of my especially in my early life, was driven unconsciously
Speaker 4: by a lot of those things. So I've just been
Speaker 4: unpacking a lot of that and it's informed the way
Speaker 4: that I work now and the things that I do
Speaker 4: and when I've focus my time on.
Speaker 3: But are you passionate about acting now and being an actor?
Speaker 3: Do you actively work really hard to get roles that
Speaker 3: seem interesting to you?
Speaker 4: No? I stopped acting, so you're not acting.
Speaker 2: Anymore at all. Period. You don't want to act at all.
Speaker 4: It's not that I don't want to act. I just
Speaker 4: I'm somebody that So I started a studio. I raised
Speaker 4: a large amount of money and we're financing movies and
Speaker 4: television shows now. Wayfairer right, wayfair studios. Yeah, and I direct.
Speaker 4: So I haven't acted since Jane the Virgin, which has
Speaker 4: been three and a half years now.
Speaker 3: And there wouldn't be a role that you would create
Speaker 3: or director you'd think that would be.
Speaker 4: The best there is. Yeah, I am. I'm there is
Speaker 4: a role that I'm going to take on for a
Speaker 4: movie we're going to finance. But it's one of these
Speaker 4: things where I don't I don't wake up thinking about it. No,
Speaker 4: answer your question, It's not like it's a huge passion
Speaker 4: It's more like there are days that I wake up
Speaker 4: when I feel like, oh, I'm drawn to it, and
Speaker 4: then there are days that I wake up when I'm
Speaker 4: much more drawn to the creative process of filmmaking or
Speaker 4: simply producing or just writing, or there are days when
Speaker 4: I just want to be focused on the business aspect
Speaker 4: of my work or the foundation whatever it is. I
Speaker 4: don't have like a one thing that I just I
Speaker 4: get it.
Speaker 3: I really get it. I literally get it more than
Speaker 3: most people. I don't either, and I just do what
Speaker 3: I think. Yeah, I do a lot of things, not
Speaker 3: because you know, someone said to me today, do you
Speaker 3: want to continue with having a production company and really
Speaker 3: focus on that? And I know that a lot of
Speaker 3: people would give me money to do that, and I
Speaker 3: could do, And I say, I don't really want to
Speaker 3: do that, Like I don't. I kind of just do
Speaker 3: what I want to do and then if I really
Speaker 3: like it, I'll execute it. But if I don't, it
Speaker 3: doesn't out how much money there is.
Speaker 2: I just don't do it.
Speaker 3: And it's so funny because people like you and like myself,
Speaker 3: people think that we have this big, grand chess board plan.
Speaker 3: I am aware of the board always and I but
Speaker 3: it's almost like fantasizing in your mind, like that will happen,
Speaker 3: and then that will happen, and this will happen, and
Speaker 3: I am planning, but it's not really a plan. It's
Speaker 3: sort of just like a game in my mind. Does
Speaker 3: that make any sense?
Speaker 4: Yeah? No, no, no, for sure, I think of it. I
Speaker 4: think of it a little bit like I always say,
Speaker 4: I'm kind of a feather in the wind, going wherever
Speaker 4: God takes me, and.
Speaker 3: So you are more spiritual about it than I am.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't want to do that, so I will.
Speaker 4: I think that the same principles. I think the same
Speaker 4: principle applies. I think that it is in many ways
Speaker 4: a game, and I think this conversation also is like
Speaker 4: we can't take the privilege out of it, which is
Speaker 4: like how blessed? How blessed are we to be able
Speaker 4: to choose so that it's not feaster or famine. Although
Speaker 4: I will admit that the feasterre famine still live inside
Speaker 4: of me and govern some of the rules. Even though
Speaker 4: I have plenty, there's still this part of me that
Speaker 4: thinks I have nothing, but that comes from having nothing, right, No,
Speaker 4: I get.
Speaker 3: It well, that comes from having nothing. But also you
Speaker 3: have the luxury and the privilege now of choosing, because
Speaker 3: back then you had no choice, you had to do anything.
Speaker 3: I mean, I had my five hundred dollars car with
Speaker 3: a cracked windshield and was broken, panicked and alone in
Speaker 3: a family. So you did all that to then now
Speaker 3: be able to say, I don't want to do X, Y.
Speaker 4: And Z exactly. And I also think it lives in us,
Speaker 4: you know, generationally, I you know, half my family's Jewish,
Speaker 4: and so I have you know, the Holocaust in me
Speaker 4: and the Great Depression from my grandparents and what they
Speaker 4: taught my mom and scarcity, and you know, I think
Speaker 4: that lives in us to a certain extent and informed
Speaker 4: some of those things and has made me like extra
Speaker 4: fast on the hamster wheel. I talk a lot about
Speaker 4: this with my wife, which is what is enough in
Speaker 4: this society? What is enough? Is when is it enough?
Speaker 4: How much money do I need to make? What do
Speaker 4: I need to any Instagram followers? How many movies do
Speaker 4: I need to make? Is there a role that would
Speaker 4: make me feel enough? And when you dig into it,
Speaker 4: you don't you realize there is no number, There's no thing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely no Well, there could be a number, and then
Speaker 3: after that number, just because that's also part of the game.
Speaker 3: It's not really it's not a number that really matters
Speaker 3: or really means that you're done. But then after that
Speaker 3: the rest is grave. You're playing with the houses money.
Speaker 3: You can choose to do what you want. That's and
Speaker 3: I mean metaphorical money. It's funny that you're talking with
Speaker 3: this because I'm at that place now. I've been successful.
Speaker 3: I just told an apartment in the city, and I
Speaker 3: keep taking things off the board that are very lucrative
Speaker 3: and that aren't even that much time to spend that
Speaker 3: I just even the five seconds on it.
Speaker 2: I don't like it.
Speaker 3: Are the people that I have to work with, I
Speaker 3: don't like them, or I don't like the way they
Speaker 3: work or their culture, and I just say no. And
Speaker 3: it's literally a lot of money. It's been millions of
Speaker 3: dollars in situations, and to say no is very liberating,
Speaker 3: and say more is not more is very very freeing.
Speaker 4: It sounds like you're protecting your time and your energy
Speaker 4: right now more than you are valuing making more money.
Speaker 4: And that's an important it's a privilege to be able
Speaker 4: to be in that place. To do that, and then
Speaker 4: a really important step I think in all of our
Speaker 4: journey is when we really take a step back and
Speaker 4: you look at it. Time is our most valuable asset.
Speaker 2: I say it all the time.
Speaker 4: It is the one thing that we can never get back,
Speaker 4: and that is ticking away, and we have to be
Speaker 4: really mindful of how we are spending our time. It's
Speaker 4: not time. It's not that equation of time equals money. No,
Speaker 4: not at all, and far worse than that. It's time
Speaker 4: is priceless.
Speaker 3: Well, and your relationship to time evolves because it used
Speaker 3: to be for me and it still is in a way.
Speaker 3: I stack work so I want to if I'm putting
Speaker 3: some eyelashes on, I want to do five things that day,
Speaker 3: and then I don't want to do things for days.
Speaker 3: But it used to be that I would stack then
Speaker 3: to be with my daughter. So I was totally present
Speaker 3: with my daughter and totally present with work. But there
Speaker 3: was no time with myself.
Speaker 2: It's no me.
Speaker 3: It's just you're doing that. You're doing that, You're doing this,
Speaker 3: so you could do more of that, but there was
Speaker 3: no just me, like being like a bowl of oatmeal.
Speaker 3: And I wanted that, you know, because being doing meat
Speaker 3: as a mean doing yoga, doing a massad like it
Speaker 3: just means like laying and staring at the television.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very meditative.
Speaker 4: Truthfully, as you know, it's hard. It's very hard for
Speaker 4: people to do nothing. It's one of the things that's
Speaker 4: come up for me in my healing journey. It's antithetical
Speaker 4: doing nothing right. You don't you put those two kind
Speaker 4: of things together. It's a verb else doing right.
Speaker 2: That's funny, and that's funny, and.
Speaker 4: It's but it's really been important for me to practice
Speaker 4: that that's funny.
Speaker 2: Doing something is the opposite of done with nothing.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. The world always tells me like, hey, you
Speaker 4: have to be doing something because I believe in a system,
Speaker 4: a patriarchal system, if you will, our worth is tied
Speaker 4: to our productivity. So if I'm not doing anything, i
Speaker 4: am I am trained, i am brainwashed. I've been built
Speaker 4: in a way in this system that tells me that
Speaker 4: I don't have value. Why would I ever take care
Speaker 4: of myself? Why would you ever take care of yourself?
Speaker 4: Althany if if the world has told you by doing nothing,
Speaker 4: it means you're not being productive and you're wasting your time, right,
Speaker 4: how are we valuing time? Is really what's important.
Speaker 3: Well, also, I know I'm you're very cause driven, as
Speaker 3: you mentioned, and you work, you've a foundation, and philanthropy
Speaker 3: is important to you as it is to me. Sometimes
Speaker 3: it feels like a sham because it's just another transference
Speaker 3: of doing business.
Speaker 2: It's just not for profit.
Speaker 3: So while it's incredible and I'm so proud that we
Speaker 3: have an effort in Ukraine that's literally never been done
Speaker 3: before in history, unprecedented, it's so quickly for hundreds of
Speaker 3: millions of dollars of aid, but I've treated it like
Speaker 3: a business because it's so it doesn't So sometimes my
Speaker 3: fiance will feel guilty telling me, like it's a lot,
Speaker 3: because you can't say that to someone who's saving lives
Speaker 3: and helping people. But he's seeing the tax that it
Speaker 3: takes on me. So you're giving, but it's still like
Speaker 3: not a sham, you know what I'm saying, Like you're
Speaker 3: still working.
Speaker 4: Oh no, for sure. That's why I think it's important
Speaker 4: to mix philanthropy with what I call secret service, which
Speaker 4: is you are physically doing things on the ground that
Speaker 4: nobody knows about. You don't talk about it. You don't
Speaker 4: post it, you don't share it with anybody, maybe your fyance,
Speaker 4: your kids, don't even know. But there's a part of
Speaker 4: every human being that lights up when we are of service.
Speaker 4: And true service has no other benefit except for who
Speaker 4: that person is serving. It's not for you now. The
Speaker 4: way God designed us is that, yeah, it feels good
Speaker 4: to be of service, so we are supposed to do it.
Speaker 4: But I think oftentimes we can get disconnected from the
Speaker 4: actual cause and be on the ground. And sometimes it's
Speaker 4: been really helpful for me to actually just go and
Speaker 4: have a conversation with somebody who's unhoused again like I
Speaker 4: did ten years ago, and hear their story and their
Speaker 4: pain and what they're up to, and see and connect
Speaker 4: with them and look in their eyes and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is why I'm doing it, Or physically talk to
Speaker 4: somebody who I've helped or who who needs help without
Speaker 4: ever making it a thing. And that's the true test
Speaker 4: of the purity of it too, which is like, oh,
Speaker 4: I don't I'm not doing it for that. I'm not
Speaker 4: doing it for that. I'm doing it for the sole
Speaker 4: purpose of helping this other person and in return, God
Speaker 4: knows nobody else needs to know. That's what we've kind
Speaker 4: of fallen away from in this very like on demand,
Speaker 4: let's broadcast how good we are as human beings world.
Speaker 4: Oh so, so it can become so it can feel
Speaker 4: like a business because again, you you're literally having to
Speaker 4: run it like a business because that's how it works.
Speaker 4: But I think the thing that can then put fuel
Speaker 4: in your tank is is doing the work that you
Speaker 4: would normally like have a team on the ground doing.
Speaker 4: That's what That's what for me, Yes, and I have.
Speaker 3: But it's funny that you say that because I took
Speaker 3: a really big time celebrity to Puerto Rico and we
Speaker 3: had we had hundreds of houses to bring crisis kids
Speaker 3: to and this person stayed for four hours with one
Speaker 3: one one woman and held the.
Speaker 2: Whole group up.
Speaker 3: And I understand that that was their experience on the day,
Speaker 3: but we literally had hundreds of people in chow to
Speaker 3: help the most people. So it's it's there is a
Speaker 3: balance in.
Speaker 4: That because oh, well, that situation is totally different because yeah,
Speaker 4: you're you're doing it for a reason and you have
Speaker 4: it's a volume business.
Speaker 2: I can't go help one pole, one person in Poland.
Speaker 4: Right now, or no, no, no, no, no, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 4: of course, I'm just talking about when you get drained,
Speaker 4: that's how you refill your own or yourself.
Speaker 2: You're just saying it's private, Moday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I was speaking more about like you and
Speaker 4: I No, I.
Speaker 2: Agree, I agree. I knew what you were saying. But
Speaker 2: it's funny.
Speaker 3: It just becomes While I would also like to sit
Speaker 3: and talk to that woman in her house, I would
Speaker 3: love to do that, it's just not And that's why
Speaker 3: sometimes I feel cold because when I'm doing talking about it,
Speaker 3: it doesn't you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean, You're not like a touchy.
Speaker 4: About it at the end of the day. But I
Speaker 4: do think someone once told me that our world is
Speaker 4: designed like if you think of an army, everybody has
Speaker 4: a purpose, right, So if we were designed to and
Speaker 4: everyone has a role, you need a Bethany Frankel in
Speaker 4: order to create the charity, the nonprofit that helps those
Speaker 4: millions of people to hire the people that are on
Speaker 4: the ground doing that, and like, we all have our
Speaker 4: purpose here right right, and and we can't start to
Speaker 4: you know, something that I tell myself is like, oh
Speaker 4: I wish I was more of the other person. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I wish I was, like, you know, I wish I
Speaker 4: was doing more of the work on the ground. I
Speaker 4: feel this sore disconnected, but in reality, like, okay, if
Speaker 4: there weren't a you, then that wouldn't be happening.
Speaker 2: That's what my fiance says.
Speaker 3: It's not it's guilt because I wanted to be in
Speaker 3: Poland the first week and my partner was on the
Speaker 3: border and said, we have no phone service. You have
Speaker 3: to be doing all this And I'm the sort of
Speaker 3: person that drives the whole opera. I'm the CEO of
Speaker 3: this thing. And so I said to my fiance, I'm
Speaker 3: not standing there. I'm not in the warehouse. He said,
Speaker 3: I don't think the head of Coca Cola is putting
Speaker 3: Coca Cola in bottles either right now.
Speaker 2: So you have to be where you're just so there's
Speaker 2: a level that's just I haven't.
Speaker 3: Talked about that. That's interesting, But I want to hear
Speaker 3: about your philanthropy. So you're you're I'm not.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't. I wouldn't consider myself a philanthropist more than
Speaker 4: somebody who's just you know, I grow I was raised
Speaker 4: in the ba High Faith. Bahalah says that every human
Speaker 4: being must engage in an occupation or a trade, and
Speaker 4: that trade must be their form of service. So for me,
Speaker 4: I'm just like I'm just always looking for opportunities to
Speaker 4: be of service with my privilege in my work. And
Speaker 4: I just so happened to be able to create some
Speaker 4: cool stuff in our business, which again I battle with
Speaker 4: because I feel like I'm not doing anything and everyone's
Speaker 4: far more successful than me. But that's my trauma speaking.
Speaker 4: But what little I have done or to some a lot,
Speaker 4: I just wanted to mean something more than just for
Speaker 4: my ego or for my name, right for my brand,
Speaker 4: if you will, all because we're all brands now, I
Speaker 4: guess I want to. I want to, you know, I
Speaker 4: want to leave something behind that is more than just
Speaker 4: me creating things selfishly or to look good or or well.
Speaker 3: You have that filter, you don't. I want to know
Speaker 3: two things. What you are project or most proud of?
Speaker 3: And is that a filter? You don't create or produce
Speaker 3: or direct a project or write a project if it
Speaker 3: doesn't if it's not cause driven, or.
Speaker 4: I don't touch anything. If it's not cause driven, I
Speaker 4: don't touch Okay.
Speaker 3: So give me tell me one of tell me what
Speaker 3: you think is the most influential or been the most
Speaker 3: impactful cause driven project that you've created.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a great question. That's hard because everything is different.
Speaker 4: I started I quit acting when I was twenty five
Speaker 4: to make a documentary series called My Last Days, where
Speaker 4: I traveled the country and I told the stories of
Speaker 4: individuals who are dying of a terminal illness because I
Speaker 4: wanted to help people remember that they don't have to
Speaker 4: find out they're dying to start living.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Because we procrastinate to become the people we want to be.
Speaker 4: We procrastinate to do everything. We always push everything off.
Speaker 4: And I looking at this and I'm like, this doesn't
Speaker 4: make any sense. Why am I doing this? I was
Speaker 4: twenty five, I wasn't happy acting. I quit. I made
Speaker 4: that show for four thousand dollars an episode. I lost everything.
Speaker 4: My house went into foreclosure, and I was the happiest
Speaker 4: that I'd ever been. And that show inspired my first film,
Speaker 4: which was called Five Feet Apart, which was inspired by
Speaker 4: a friend of mine who had cystic fibrosis. Five feet
Speaker 4: apart before the world even knew what that was, staying
Speaker 4: five feet apart. And you know, that movie went on
Speaker 4: to make about one hundred million dollars around the world,
Speaker 4: and it changed cystic fibrosis and awareness and saved lives
Speaker 4: and all kinds of stuff, and that's super impactful. But
Speaker 4: you know, and I made a movie called Clouds about
Speaker 4: my other friend from that show on My Last Day, Zach.
Speaker 4: That's on Disney, and we raised millions of dollars for osteosarcoma,
Speaker 4: and that was a very special project. But then also
Speaker 4: my work with masculinity and trying to help men help
Speaker 4: and help myself regnize that we're enough as we are.
Speaker 4: All of these things are are are both. There's a
Speaker 4: double bottom line always. Of course, I want them to
Speaker 4: be successful so that I can make more of them.
Speaker 4: But I've always said, like when I first made that
Speaker 4: documentary series My Last Days, my business partner at the
Speaker 4: time and I were looking at the YouTube comments and
Speaker 4: it was ten almost ten years ago on YouTube, and
Speaker 4: it literally broke Upworthy's website. It was how Upworthy really started. Wow,
Speaker 4: fourteen million views for a twenty two minute video. And
Speaker 4: this was ten years ago when everybody was watching cat
Speaker 4: videos and we're like, what is happening? And talk shows
Speaker 4: are calling us, and like we had no infrastructure, and
Speaker 4: we didn't know what we were doing. It cost ten
Speaker 4: thousand dollars to make that thing. But one of the
Speaker 4: comments said, I had tried to take my own life
Speaker 4: multiple times and failed. I was going to take my
Speaker 4: life today and I stumbled on this video and I
Speaker 4: now know why I'm still here.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's the only thing you ever did in your life.
Speaker 4: And so it was the if that was the and
Speaker 4: that's what we've said. That's so that's what I've built
Speaker 4: all of my stuff on, which is okay, if that
Speaker 4: was it. Yeah, and I got one view. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: might have been a colossal flop to the business. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but how much is his life worth? That's amazing, And
Speaker 4: that's the metric by which I'm building my studio and
Speaker 4: we do everything. I mean, look mad enough. I had
Speaker 4: a great deal with HarperCollins. They you know, paid me
Speaker 4: really good money to write the book. I write the book,
Speaker 4: and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I
Speaker 4: tried to get out of it multiple times and give
Speaker 4: the money back, literally, and we finally get it done.
Speaker 4: I'm nervous, I'm passionate about it. It's it's here, It's
Speaker 4: for men and everybody's focused on it becoming a bestseller.
Speaker 4: That's all anybody's talking about is, Yeah, how do we
Speaker 4: get it on the New York Times list? How do
Speaker 4: we get on the New York Times List? And everything
Speaker 4: in me was like, this isn't why I wrote the book.
Speaker 4: This isn't why I do anything. This is the system.
Speaker 4: This is but no, but.
Speaker 3: More you can more people will read it if it's
Speaker 3: on the list, and you'll get another book deal. If
Speaker 3: it's on you'll get another book people.
Speaker 4: But do I want to be on that hamster reel Bethany?
Speaker 4: And that's not it. And that's a question that we
Speaker 4: don't ask ourselves often, is I don't want to do
Speaker 4: They've offered me more book deals. I don't want to
Speaker 4: do another I don't I don't need to do all
Speaker 4: of it until it comes from a creative place and
Speaker 4: I'm ready to do it.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 4: This was all about, But I remember it all being
Speaker 4: about the best seller list because it helps, of course,
Speaker 4: it gets the message out more, it makes it, it
Speaker 4: makes it all these things. And I knew I had
Speaker 4: this feeling like I wasn't going to make the list.
Speaker 4: It's a very nuanced topic it's about masculinity. Men are
Speaker 4: not menoriz.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't think it would make the list if I
Speaker 3: heard the concept ahead of time, because it's women, who
Speaker 3: are you know, the target audience.
Speaker 4: So I that, well, men are the target audience of
Speaker 4: the book.
Speaker 3: No in the world, I'm saying, in this landscape and
Speaker 3: the talk shows, you're talking about the book and in
Speaker 3: us we eactly, but yeah, it's women.
Speaker 4: They're talking to so we and so we and so
Speaker 4: they do all this press for it, and you know,
Speaker 4: and and I actually, for a good month bought into
Speaker 4: the hype and I was so focused on trying to
Speaker 4: help this book become a bestseller. I'm reaching out to
Speaker 4: all my celebrity friends. I'm doing all this some the mailings,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, well, this is what Why am I
Speaker 4: doing this? Right? I just want to reach that one man. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And in many ways, I was like, I have this
Speaker 4: feeling I'm not and I think it'll be better if
Speaker 4: I don't, because I want to. I want to feel
Speaker 4: that humility and be reminded of why I did this
Speaker 4: in the first place. So, of course, interestingly enough, I
Speaker 4: write a book. It's a nonfiction book, undefining my masculinity.
Speaker 4: It's not a self help book, and the feeling is
Speaker 4: probably somebody at the New York Times, a guy was
Speaker 4: triggered by it. He put it in the self help category.
Speaker 4: Of course I didn't make the list. Ironically, had it
Speaker 4: been a nonfiction book, I probably would have debuted a
Speaker 4: number two. Doesn't matter. The point was I didn't make
Speaker 4: the list where everybody was disappointed, and I always fucking
Speaker 4: relieved because you know what would have happened all then
Speaker 4: it would have been about staying stay.
Speaker 2: It's the hamster wheel.
Speaker 4: It's the hamster wheel. And I said, oh, and now
Speaker 4: the book stet a life of its own. It's moving,
Speaker 4: it's touching people. I'm getting those individual messages from men.
Speaker 2: Share.
Speaker 4: A lot more women bought the book. Women bought it
Speaker 4: for their men, and everybody wins in the end. I'm
Speaker 4: grateful for that. So so, and it's a long tangent
Speaker 4: to answer.
Speaker 2: No, it's not I get it.
Speaker 4: I get it. But that's how I think. That's how
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think about my place in this very
Speaker 4: strange intersection of art and capitalism.
Speaker 3: We want to do things for the right reasons, you
Speaker 3: have to. It's like that philanthropy. You said doing on
Speaker 3: your own. That's a private moment. You want to yourself
Speaker 3: do it for the right reasons. Like Kelly, my book
Speaker 3: is called Business is Personal because they're so intertwined. And
Speaker 3: you know the blurbs. We need a blurb, We need
Speaker 3: a blurb. A blurb? What's a blurb? You need a blurb?
Speaker 2: You need to call fame.
Speaker 4: OK.
Speaker 2: I literally texted Kate Katie Kirk.
Speaker 3: I was like, semi a book. I go, I go out,
Speaker 3: she goes what I didn't read it? Just talk about me,
Speaker 3: say something, say something true, and send me a book.
Speaker 3: Kelly RiPP she was dealing with something with her mom.
Speaker 2: I don't remember. Just send me a fucking blurb, Mark Cuban,
Speaker 2: send me a blurb. I need a blurb. They want
Speaker 2: a blurb, and then then they want.
Speaker 4: The way read.
Speaker 2: But right, I don't read the blurbs.
Speaker 3: And then in six months or may, sorry, in two months,
Speaker 3: they're gonna want me then to tell Kelly Rippa to
Speaker 3: fucking tweet about it. But I'm not asking Kelly Ripple
Speaker 3: to tweet about this. That is where my line is.
Speaker 3: But I get it because but I feel bad because
Speaker 3: I'm partners with the book industry people who it's so
Speaker 3: hard to push something and and their asses are on
Speaker 3: the line too. So you're on the wheel yourself. You
Speaker 3: owe yourself to everybody.
Speaker 4: And by stepping on the wheel you you become a
Speaker 4: slave to it in many ways.
Speaker 2: But don't be your sup up.
Speaker 3: You only write books because it's a top. You're writing
Speaker 3: books because it's a topic you want to pour out
Speaker 3: of you, and then you start writing and then you
Speaker 3: probably get bogged down. But I only write books because
Speaker 3: I'm like, I want to say this now, I'm ready
Speaker 3: to talk. You get a book deal and then you
Speaker 3: start talking, and then you're like, well, I don't want
Speaker 3: to hear my.
Speaker 2: Voice anymore, so you don't want to them promote it.
Speaker 4: You're like over yourseles. Yet, Well, for me, it's a
Speaker 4: little bit different, Bethany. I wish I had, I think
Speaker 4: ten percent of your confidence. For me, it is it's
Speaker 4: deeply personal, and the things I'm writing about, at least
Speaker 4: what I wrote about in Man enough, I'm writing about
Speaker 4: masculinity in a way that a lot of men haven't
Speaker 4: talked about it because it's so hard, so personal from
Speaker 4: stories that have happened to me when I was young,
Speaker 4: embarrassing moments, you know, things from our bodies changing that
Speaker 4: we never want to talk about, to even a traumatic
Speaker 4: you know, sexual assault that I experienced when I lost
Speaker 4: my virginity. These are things that men have never been
Speaker 4: able to talk about. Now it's very and also tying
Speaker 4: that into equality and how we should show up in
Speaker 4: the world as men with not just women and queer
Speaker 4: and trans people, but like with ourselves. How to make
Speaker 4: this world a better place by becoming not just better men,
Speaker 4: but better humans. This is a very personal, hard thing
Speaker 4: because the whole point of writing the book was recognizing
Speaker 4: how deeply unhappy I was, and how I was just
Speaker 4: wanting to be liked and loved and seen by other
Speaker 4: men and seen as enough in this world. And uh,
Speaker 4: and by writing the book, it triggers other men and
Speaker 4: the exact same thing ends up happening, where then I'm
Speaker 4: mocked and demonized and told that I'm a you know,
Speaker 4: all of the things that they call men like me
Speaker 4: who are in touch with their feelings and emotional which
Speaker 4: I believe you mean.
Speaker 2: It's like metro or words like stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no, I'm talking about I'm talking about I'm
Speaker 4: talking about things that more, you know, uh more, it's
Speaker 4: more derogatory statements than that. Okay, well I don't care
Speaker 4: if you call me metro or any of those.
Speaker 3: No, But you know, I think it's such a great,
Speaker 3: amazing topic because I read, you know, I have the
Speaker 3: information here about some of the things you talk about
Speaker 3: and some of the things you went through. But in
Speaker 3: talking about masculinity, it's such a stereotype and you're only
Speaker 3: allowed to you know, men aren't allowed to whine and
Speaker 3: be as sick as women aren't. There was a man
Speaker 3: I was at a spot and he was like, do
Speaker 3: you have a blanket? I get really cold? And I
Speaker 3: thought to myself, Oh, that's not very masculin, Like why
Speaker 3: isn't a man allowed to get cold?
Speaker 2: Like I'm always getting cold.
Speaker 3: It's such a double standard in so many different areas
Speaker 3: where men have to act more stoic, hard yeah, hardcore,
Speaker 3: because they're not allowed to be vulnerable in the same way.
Speaker 3: So where does that go? Where does that go? That's
Speaker 3: got to be trapping.
Speaker 4: And where does it go? It turns into anger, it
Speaker 4: turns into frustration, It turns into the reason men are
Speaker 4: so violent, It turns into you know, when we can't cry.
Speaker 4: Where does that go? It just goes deeper and deeper
Speaker 4: and deeper and deeper, until one day the well bursts
Speaker 4: and explodes.
Speaker 3: Well that brings up the Will Smith thing, and it
Speaker 3: brings up I want to talk to you quickly, not quickly,
Speaker 3: but about the Will Smith's lap, but also the conversation
Speaker 3: that he had with Jada when you know, she was like,
Speaker 3: you knew about August, the guy who I guess she
Speaker 3: was having an affair with, and Will was sitting at
Speaker 3: the table and you may not have seen it, but
Speaker 3: he was just like, oh, yeah, I knew about it.
Speaker 3: But it felt like degrading, like he had to be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I knew that you were sleeping with somebody else, like
Speaker 3: at a table, as if she was talking about something
Speaker 3: that they should be able to just talk about in
Speaker 3: front of millions of people, and.
Speaker 2: You know, she was like, it.
Speaker 3: Was just this weird conversation and it didn't seem the
Speaker 3: stereo type of masculine for him to just sit there
Speaker 3: and be in a discussion with Jada about the other
Speaker 3: guy that she was hooking up with and that he
Speaker 3: was presumably aware of it, and what this like triangle
Speaker 3: was with them and then I connect that to him
Speaker 3: sitting next to Jada and standing up and slapping another
Speaker 3: human being, and you know that that's that's a man
Speaker 3: saying that he's defending his woman and that he has
Speaker 3: to protect his family because he's a man. And I'm
Speaker 3: just curious what you think of that, like the whole thing.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I think I don't really I might say it
Speaker 4: might not be cool, but I don't really want to
Speaker 4: comment on it because I feel like, here, here's what
Speaker 4: I can tell you. There are so many layers to
Speaker 4: this conversation that I don't know if two white people
Speaker 4: can can can really enter and have an opinion about
Speaker 4: With the exception of ah, we know that going up
Speaker 4: on a stage and slapping somebody is not right. That's
Speaker 4: very very clear. But you're talking about you know, when
Speaker 4: I when I look at the situation, I'm looking at
Speaker 4: from from multiple standpoints, from a from a place of
Speaker 4: the way we have devalued black women in our society forever,
Speaker 4: and how very few people stand up for them to
Speaker 4: also the need for men in general, let alone black men,
Speaker 4: to prove their masculinity. I mean, there are so many
Speaker 4: systems at play that intertwine here and then intersect into
Speaker 4: this that I don't really have a view on it
Speaker 4: other than I wish I've always loved well Smith, and
Speaker 4: I wish it didn't happen.
Speaker 2: No, I love that you had that.
Speaker 3: I love that you bring up that it's too black
Speaker 3: men in that perspective.
Speaker 4: It's really just a nuanced conversation that that. Honestly, I
Speaker 4: just don't think. I just don't think as white people
Speaker 4: we really have the frame of reference to be able
Speaker 4: to unpack it because we have not lived in any
Speaker 4: of the experiences that these people have, especially the black woman.
Speaker 3: Okay, so Bradley Cooper gets up on the stage and
Speaker 3: slaps Brad Pitt that that could happen. It could happen
Speaker 3: as much as this happened.
Speaker 4: We do I do have to I mean, I think
Speaker 4: we do have to look at also, like you know,
Speaker 4: there are acts of white violence and things like that
Speaker 4: that happen all the time. You know, the conversations I
Speaker 4: have is, you know, the second that that it's around
Speaker 4: black folks, then it becomes this whole thing and there
Speaker 4: are again there are just there are centuries of trauma
Speaker 4: that exists underneath all of these things. And it's just
Speaker 4: really hard. So again, it's it's just it's so much
Speaker 4: more nuanced than like should he have done it? Should
Speaker 4: he have not? Because also, yeah, you're bringing up stuff
Speaker 4: that I'm not an expert on, like the situation that
Speaker 4: happened with them. I don't know that I know. I mean,
Speaker 4: I've known about it. But what I can tell you
Speaker 4: is that in our society, here's what I can speak to.
Speaker 4: In our in our world, in a in a patriarchal
Speaker 4: h fantasy land that we're living in, I can tell
Speaker 4: you firsthand that there there is a rage that happens
Speaker 4: deep down in every man when he feels as if
Speaker 4: he is being emasculated, right, which I believe is not
Speaker 4: a real thing. I don't believe it's possible for one
Speaker 4: to be emasculated because masculinity is not something that can
Speaker 4: be taken away. Your femininity can't be taken away. I
Speaker 4: can't feminate you your no, but.
Speaker 3: I can feel masculine because I'm so tough, and that's
Speaker 3: the constructs that have been created.
Speaker 4: But I couldn't emasculate you, Bethany, How could you emasculate me?
Speaker 4: Why is it that? Why? Why can masculinity be taken away?
Speaker 4: Why does my masculinity.
Speaker 2: Say to me?
Speaker 3: How does someone handle You're so tough, you should soften
Speaker 3: up a little or something like that, and that, Yeah, wow,
Speaker 3: that makes me feel less feminine.
Speaker 4: Well but no, but here's the thing. The reason they're
Speaker 4: saying that to you is because of how you're going
Speaker 4: to make someone else feel that's a man, you should. Oh,
Speaker 4: I get it, but.
Speaker 2: I still feel that feeling.
Speaker 3: I can understand how the people use the term that
Speaker 3: a man can feel immasculine. I understand what that means.
Speaker 3: It's just the same.
Speaker 4: I can understand it too. But I think the system
Speaker 4: the problem is we're talking about an overarching idea that
Speaker 4: one's masculinity.
Speaker 3: Oh, Kenny, take it there totally, and it's got many
Speaker 3: different definitions in terms to it.
Speaker 4: And if I am going through my life raised in
Speaker 4: this system that tells me that every day I have
Speaker 4: to prove my masculinity, how am I going to act?
Speaker 4: I'm going to be in a state of fireflight. I'm
Speaker 4: going to be ready to fight. My nervous system is
Speaker 4: always going to be on and I'm not going to
Speaker 4: be able to take feedback from anybody. The second somebody
Speaker 4: tells me that I can do better at something, or
Speaker 4: that I failed at something, my defenses are going to
Speaker 4: go up and I'm going to have to prove myself. Right.
Speaker 4: We've seen this a lot with white fragility, as an
Speaker 4: example in the conversation around race with men and women.
Speaker 4: We don't want to be we don't want to be racist, right,
Speaker 4: so we get all super defensive because God forbid, we
Speaker 4: unconsciously said something or did something that hurt this other person, right, Like,
Speaker 4: we can't be bad. Well, imagine as a man moving
Speaker 4: through your life knowing that anywhere you go, you must
Speaker 4: prove your worth, your value, your masculinity because if you don't, right,
Speaker 4: we want to go back to the old days, like
Speaker 4: to primalness. Someone can take your woman, someone can kill
Speaker 4: your kids, all of that stuff. Well, today it's just
Speaker 4: about value. Today, it's about I need to prove my
Speaker 4: worth so that I'm seen as enough that I'm seeing
Speaker 4: as a man.
Speaker 3: I get that, and I also get that the undertow
Speaker 3: of what could have been going on, and it could
Speaker 3: have been the perfect storm that went on to get
Speaker 3: up to that stage, but I don't. When I go
Speaker 3: to the supermarket and I encounter one hundred different people,
Speaker 3: they all have their own undertow. And if I'm only
Speaker 3: in a supermarket where there's only one hundred African Americans
Speaker 3: or you know, then they all have their own undertow.
Speaker 3: But people can't just act out on that. I think
Speaker 3: it talked about out Hollywood so many things.
Speaker 4: When Hollywood all of it, there's an intersection, there's an
Speaker 4: intersection of all of it.
Speaker 3: I think it's just a woman needing to be defend
Speaker 3: a woman, not just a black woman, a woman needing
Speaker 3: to be defended by a man entitled Hollywood. Yes, rage
Speaker 3: and things going on.
Speaker 4: Put it all put a pot, makes it together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's interesting soup. So I think I
Speaker 3: like you because I think.
Speaker 4: But just to my point, Bethany, that's what I go
Speaker 4: back to is the only thing that I can share
Speaker 4: from my personal perspective is knowing what it feels like
Speaker 4: when my masculinity is being challenged and knowing that I
Speaker 4: have done which is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 4: wrote the book that I have over the course of
Speaker 4: my life said things and done things and acted in
Speaker 4: a way that I didn't want to act like because
Speaker 4: I felt like I had to puff up.
Speaker 3: Then you do well, you should speak on it because
Speaker 3: you have a better perspective than most people do.
Speaker 4: That's well, every man has that perspective, right, every man
Speaker 4: knows knows the feeling of being challenged and needing to
Speaker 4: step up and pup out there and do something performative
Speaker 4: to earn that back. And then if you layer in
Speaker 4: actual physical abuse, being young and seeing that you have
Speaker 4: again this person, this this melting pot of all of
Speaker 4: these traumas that coexist to form this unique situation. But
Speaker 4: that is the experience of many men. Many men have
Speaker 4: been taught that they solve their problems with their fists.
Speaker 3: Right, you're not talking about the what you disagree with
Speaker 3: the what You're just talking about.
Speaker 4: The Oh, I'm not talking about the issue at all.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about what's underneath the issue, which kind of
Speaker 4: relates back to masculinity in my book, which is all
Speaker 4: we all are told every single day that we have
Speaker 4: to prove our masculinity. And my point is that I
Speaker 4: don't believe masculation really exists because I don't think you
Speaker 4: can take one's masculinity away. I think it's a perception,
Speaker 4: and I think that's how we've been raised. I think
Speaker 4: that you even admit it yourself. What you what you
Speaker 4: talked about when you said, oh, well, why does that
Speaker 4: that's not very masculine, that man doesn't want a blanket.
Speaker 4: That's called internalized misogyny. Yeah, okay, And women experience this too.
Speaker 4: Belle Hooks, the late great Bell Hooks, who was one
Speaker 4: of the most prolific black feminist authors, writes about this
Speaker 4: that in a system such as this, women experience internalized
Speaker 4: misogyny as well, which then reinforces the need for us
Speaker 4: men to be this way because when we're getting it
Speaker 4: from men and then we get it from women, well,
Speaker 4: how the hell are we going to ever change?
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting because my fiance had a different feeling
Speaker 3: when he first heard about this lap than he did
Speaker 3: a day later. It was like lasagna the next day,
Speaker 3: Like it just was different. He first was thinking, like
Speaker 3: if someone said something bad about his mother or someone
Speaker 3: around him, how he'd feel that rage inside, and how
Speaker 3: you have to do something about it and pan your chest.
Speaker 3: But obviously Intel actually knows that it's wrong. I think
Speaker 3: it's a I think this is why it's so provocative,
Speaker 3: this particular issue an incident, because it's bringing up so
Speaker 3: many things that have nothing to do with celebs and
Speaker 3: bullshit pop culture, just that have to do with human
Speaker 3: beings between so many, so many things going on.
Speaker 4: So that's why I would look at the way I
Speaker 4: would look at it, Bethany, is that it's a Roschack test.
Speaker 4: People are going to see what.
Speaker 2: They see totally very interesting.
Speaker 4: And that's how I kind of look at what happened.
Speaker 4: But what I saw is I saw, I saw myself,
Speaker 4: I saw I saw men that I loved, I I
Speaker 4: saw that I saw I saw the pain of the
Speaker 4: people in the audience. I felt. I mean, I'm an EmPATH,
Speaker 4: I felt everybody and but that but that's how I
Speaker 4: also moved through life. Yeah, that stuff, that stuff happens
Speaker 4: every day. We just saw it in a way that
Speaker 4: most people have not experienced it from people that they
Speaker 4: would not expect it from. But this happens every single
Speaker 4: day everywhere, and so now it's in our faces and
Speaker 4: we have to look at it and wonder why why
Speaker 4: was our reaction the way that it was. But I
Speaker 4: don't think we can have that conversation without also including
Speaker 4: all of the unique individual traumas that exist and gender.
Speaker 3: And that love it. It's amazing, wow wow's and I
Speaker 3: love I'm glad I asked you. See, you didn't have
Speaker 3: an opinion, but you had an opinion. So the last
Speaker 3: thing I wanted to ask you was your rose and
Speaker 3: your thorn of your career.
Speaker 4: That's so funny. Every single every day, every night I
Speaker 4: ask my wife and I talk to our kids about
Speaker 4: their roast and their thorn of the day.
Speaker 2: We do too.
Speaker 4: It's funny because I we always used to start with rose,
Speaker 4: and then I was like, you know, I'm gonna start
Speaker 4: with my thorn. I want to end with my rose.
Speaker 2: We can add the kids. The pedal is like a
Speaker 2: we just made it up.
Speaker 3: The pedal is like a thing that you like to
Speaker 3: see happen, like a you know, a goal or a
Speaker 3: dream or something.
Speaker 4: So my rose and thorn of my career thus far,
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm at the beginning of my career.
Speaker 4: I would say my I would say my thorn isn't
Speaker 4: an event or a thing. I would say, my thorn
Speaker 4: has been my giving in my allowing the unconscious need
Speaker 4: to be seen and valued, to accelerate the hamster wheel,
Speaker 4: like to keep me on it, to keep me creating.
Speaker 4: When I could have very well stepped back and said, no,
Speaker 4: I've done enough for this month, or I need to
Speaker 4: go to sleep. I think that I have fallen victim
Speaker 4: to that system that only measures worth via productivity and
Speaker 4: just kept going and prided myself in many ways on
Speaker 4: being a machine. I used to get so puffed up
Speaker 4: and feel so good about myself when people are like, dude,
Speaker 4: you're like a how do you do this? You're like
Speaker 4: a robot, You're like a machine. How do you keep going?
Speaker 4: And I would feel amazing when someone said that, But
Speaker 4: machines break down. Machines do not live forever. And my
Speaker 4: body started breaking down, and I started feeling the weight
Speaker 4: and the pressure mentally and physically. And I don't pride
Speaker 4: myself on being a machine anymore because a machine isn't human.
Speaker 4: As men and boys, we've been taught that we need
Speaker 4: to be more machine like than human like our entire lives,
Speaker 4: when in reality, we need to be more human like.
Speaker 4: Rest is important, doing nothing is important, Peace is important.
Speaker 4: So that would be my thorn is for years and
Speaker 4: years and years not listening to my body when it
Speaker 4: said stop not listening when my kids needed me, and
Speaker 4: I was like, now, not only send one more email,
Speaker 4: which still happens. Yeah, not perfect. Yeah, that's my thorn
Speaker 4: and existing thorn that I'm going to constantly be trimming
Speaker 4: and working on and trying to pull out over the
Speaker 4: course of my life. I would say, my roads. It
Speaker 4: might not be a great answer for you, but here's
Speaker 4: what's coming up. This is what I feel my bad
Speaker 4: I would say my rose is acknowledging my thorn.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's totally good.
Speaker 4: I would say that my rose from my career is
Speaker 4: acknowledging that I have that thorn and being aware of
Speaker 4: it so that I don't let it drive me. Because
Speaker 4: I could very easily have the type of personality where
Speaker 4: I wake up when I'm eighty five one day and
Speaker 4: I've accomplished so much and I've made millions of dollars,
Speaker 4: But at what cost m H. And I would have
Speaker 4: missed my life because I was so focused on the
Speaker 4: producing aspect of it. That is the value that I
Speaker 4: see in recognizing the thorn, and that would be the rose.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. Wow, Well, it's been so great to meet
Speaker 3: you and to talk to you and to go on
Speaker 3: this little journey that anyway, thank you. Nowhere where I
Speaker 3: thought we'd go. So that's what I love about it.
Speaker 3: And it's great to talk to you.
Speaker 4: It's so nice to meet you, and good luck with everything,
Speaker 4: and thank you for doing all of your work from
Speaker 4: that high level place.
Speaker 2: And I hope, oh, thank you.
Speaker 4: I hope every once in a while, getting your hands
Speaker 4: dirty we'll reinvigorate you.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3: Oh it's so, let's talk to you. We'll have a
Speaker 3: great day, and love to her family.
Speaker 2: Bye. M M.
Speaker 3: Justin is so kind and gentle and interesting and opinionated
Speaker 3: and thoughtful, and I really enjoyed the conversation a lot.
Speaker 3: Every conversation is so different, and it invariably goes in
Speaker 3: a direction that I never knew it would. But I'd
Speaker 3: like talking to people who dedicate their life to service
Speaker 3: but still have success from I don't explain it, have
Speaker 3: success from like what other people receive as a superficial metric,
Speaker 3: meaning he's had commercial success, but everything that he does
Speaker 3: is of service, which I really I think you can
Speaker 3: do great things and still be successful and profitable, Like
Speaker 3: it's what a great Isn't that the perfect convergence in
Speaker 3: someone's life. I'm really glad that I asked Justin's opinion
Speaker 3: on the Will Smith saga that continues because while when
Speaker 3: it first happened, I did think about the joke, the undertow,
Speaker 3: the subtext, the meaning, the anger, the preamble, the history
Speaker 3: that we don't know about either between them and making jokes,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 2: It also.
Speaker 3: Chris Rock handled himself with grace and dignity that needs
Speaker 3: to definitely be said. But you know, I'm not a
Speaker 3: black man, and I don't know what that feels like.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what Will Smith is going. I
Speaker 3: don't know what So many of us are so appalled
Speaker 3: and outreached by what happened that we're not thinking about
Speaker 3: what happened before, because you know, when you take a
Speaker 3: situation too far, when you push something too far, you
Speaker 3: close off the conversation. Meaning I've said this before, and
Speaker 3: Will Smith gotten on stage and won his award and said,
Speaker 3: I just want to mention that I think what Chris
Speaker 3: said was probably unintentionally but definitely hurtful and disrespectful because
Speaker 3: alopecia is this, and you know, he doesn't have to
Speaker 3: go into his whole life and his back history with
Speaker 3: his wife and infidelity or whatever's enraging, and that we
Speaker 3: don't even know about. But he could have said something
Speaker 3: and then the conversation would have been about alopecia, and
Speaker 3: Chris Rock would have not been in the best part
Speaker 3: of that dynamic. So you can flip things upside down
Speaker 3: by what you do. So while it's great to have
Speaker 3: the luxury of thinking about all of the things that
Speaker 3: go into who somebody is when they do something and
Speaker 3: have compassion for that, you know what about Jesse Smillett,
Speaker 3: not that that's the same thing. Are we having compassion
Speaker 3: for what he's done? And we have a compassion for
Speaker 3: Harvey Weinstein or Matt Lower or Roman Polanski or Kanye
Speaker 3: when he took away Taylor's award or Mike Tyson when
Speaker 3: he bit off Evander Holyfield's ear.
Speaker 2: Because Michael Rapport brought that up in.
Speaker 3: His podcast so much, how much license are we giving
Speaker 3: to people for what's going on ahead of time? They mean,
Speaker 3: Megan Kelly, of all people, was talking about privilege and
Speaker 3: how people got one hundred and forty thousand dollars gift back.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of hard to think about the plight
Speaker 3: of Will and Jada with what's going on in the world.
Speaker 3: Everything is relative. I'm sure, he's pain is as real
Speaker 3: as someone else's, but it's hard when you're walking out
Speaker 3: with one hundred forty thousand dollars gift back to think
Speaker 3: about oh Warwill and what he's been through as an
Speaker 3: oscar winning man whose wife has had an affair and
Speaker 3: who is a black man and what that has entailed.
Speaker 3: So it's just hard. You have to conduct yourself in
Speaker 3: a certain way unless you're certified, like you know you
Speaker 3: have to. You can't just do what you want. Sometimes
Speaker 3: I want to be a bitch. Sometimes I want to,
Speaker 3: you know, slap somebody like I literally Sometimes you're like,
Speaker 3: I would like to get too a fire right now,
Speaker 3: so you curse somebody out. You feel that, you feel
Speaker 3: that at the you feel that if you haven't slept,
Speaker 3: you feel it if you're PMS, you feel that, if
Speaker 3: you have menopause, you feel that you're at the fucking market.
Speaker 3: You've been driving hours, you've worked five jobs, you're exhausted.
Speaker 3: You feel that you can't act on So while it's
Speaker 3: interesting to bring up what's going on with someone, they
Speaker 3: didn't create a space where we could think about that,
Speaker 3: because you just can't act irrational.
Speaker 2: So that's what I say. About that.
Speaker 3: So anyway, thank you for listening. Remember to rate, review
Speaker 3: and subscribe, and tell me your rose and your thorn,
Speaker 3: for your clear or your life wherever you want. So
Speaker 3: have a great day and thank you. Got to pick
Speaker 3: up of her