Speaker 1: You can't just have a blanket statement for everyone because
Speaker 1: everyone is different. Welcome to the One You Feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf YEA,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Matthew Quick. This is matthews third time on The One
Speaker 1: You Feed. He's a New York Times best selling author
Speaker 1: of several novels, including The Silver Linings Playbook, which was
Speaker 1: made into an Oscar winning film. His work has been
Speaker 1: translated into more than thirty languages. His new book is
Speaker 1: the Reason You're Alive. If you value the content we
Speaker 1: put out each week. Then we need your help. As
Speaker 1: the show has grown, so have our expenses and time commitment.
Speaker 1: Go to one you feed dot net slash Support and
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Speaker 1: us to keep putting out these interviews and ideas. We
Speaker 1: really need your help to make the show sustainable and
Speaker 1: long lasting. Again, that's one you feed dot net slash Support.
Speaker 1: Thank you in advance for your help. And here's the
Speaker 1: interview with Matthew Quick. Hi Matthew, Welcome to the shows.
Speaker 1: You are the first three time guest. I am very
Speaker 1: proud of that is in the honor of some sort
Speaker 1: I suppose, but I feel like I actually get a
Speaker 1: jacket or something. Well, I was looking before I left.
Speaker 1: I was like, I wish I had a T shirt
Speaker 1: in your size, but I didn't didn't have one. So
Speaker 1: you know the podcast, I mean, I love your work.
Speaker 1: And then secondly, it's just a thrill for me that
Speaker 1: you actually listen to the show a lot. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of cool to have somebody that I really want
Speaker 1: to have on who also knows the show. So we've
Speaker 1: done this twice, and this time is different for listeners
Speaker 1: because we are in person. We are in Cleveland making
Speaker 1: eye contact, making eye contact Matthews doing a book tour,
Speaker 1: and I live about two hours away, so I figured
Speaker 1: i'd come up and we do it in person. So
Speaker 1: this is a live one. So let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: start with the parable. Take three on it as a
Speaker 1: grandfather's talking with grandson. He says, in life, there are
Speaker 1: two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins. The grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to ask you your take on that parable.
Speaker 1: I've answered twice already. And one of the things I've noticed,
Speaker 1: and again I listened every week a lot of I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say a lot. Some guests come on and maybe
Speaker 1: try to pick apart the parable, or they'll say they're
Speaker 1: not comfortable with the parable, and I'm always at home,
Speaker 1: you know, arguing back, and I always take their point.
Speaker 1: I understand what they mean. But I think the parable
Speaker 1: is is great because it's very simple and for someone
Speaker 1: who struggles with anxiety. If we think of anxiety as
Speaker 1: as the dark wolf, for you know, the bad wolf,
Speaker 1: it's very simple. And lately, UM, I've been using this
Speaker 1: little thing called cats. I think I picked us up
Speaker 1: on another podcast, but caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and suites and
Speaker 1: for me, I know that I've got to eliminate or
Speaker 1: lower that stuff in order to deal with my anxiety.
Speaker 1: But my wife is very quick to add an eye
Speaker 1: in front of that, and it's called eye cats because
Speaker 1: she says, Internet, you know, and the thoughts that you're
Speaker 1: taking in UM is really a big one. And especially
Speaker 1: on book tour, UM. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that can trigger anxiety on book tour, public speaking UM.
Speaker 1: And people will say to me like, you're a great
Speaker 1: public speaker, but they don't know that for three hours
Speaker 1: before I get up on stage, I have to do
Speaker 1: breathing exercises and I've I've got to be alone and
Speaker 1: calm myself. And I share that because you know, it
Speaker 1: normalizes it for other people. But also with the information
Speaker 1: on book tour, you're constantly getting reviews and people writing
Speaker 1: about you. And I'm definitely a perfectionist and the book
Speaker 1: is very Every one of my books is very personal.
Speaker 1: But when people read the book, even if they like it,
Speaker 1: if they don't like it for the reasons I intended,
Speaker 1: like that could be you know, troubling, um and Chris,
Speaker 1: if you want to find someone to tell you that
Speaker 1: you suck and you know you're you're a terrible writer,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people on the internet line enough
Speaker 1: to do that for you. So, you know, limiting the
Speaker 1: flow of information and um, what you access even just
Speaker 1: stuff like news too. You know, Um, my wife and
Speaker 1: I try to not be looking at the news all
Speaker 1: the time, but you're in an airport and you're seeing newspapers, headlines, uh,
Speaker 1: TV screens everywhere. When I'm traveling that I'm not used
Speaker 1: to sing in it is this horrible, horrible stuff makes
Speaker 1: you think that, uh, something bad is going to happen
Speaker 1: to you every second of the day. And so I
Speaker 1: try to reframe my thoughts and think, well, there's all
Speaker 1: these people in this this hive of an airport and
Speaker 1: yet you're safe, like and somebody just smiled at you
Speaker 1: and somebody held the door for you. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to control my thoughts as well. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: feeding that good wolf. You know where you're gonna put
Speaker 1: your attention. And I understand when people come on the
Speaker 1: show and they want to, you know, intellectualize the parable,
Speaker 1: but I think you're really missing the point if you
Speaker 1: do that, right, I mean, that's why it is a parable.
Speaker 1: Although I heard the other day that a parable has
Speaker 1: humans in it and a fable has animals, so it
Speaker 1: might be a fable. But I'm too late to change.
Speaker 1: That's okay. But yeah, I mean I agree on one
Speaker 1: level it is. It's a very simple thing. You know,
Speaker 1: where do we choose to put our attention or energy
Speaker 1: or actions. And I think too, especially when you you
Speaker 1: published a novel, people do want to intellectualize things. And
Speaker 1: I get it. You know, I've been you know, the
Speaker 1: m f A student. You know, I've been the the
Speaker 1: the academia person like I've been the lit snob, and
Speaker 1: the order I get, the less important that stuff becomes.
Speaker 1: You know. I used to think when I got on stage, like,
Speaker 1: oh if I confuse like a fable with analogy or whatever,
Speaker 1: like it would be the end of the world. But
Speaker 1: I make mistakes in public all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: I use the wrong word, and you know what, that's okay.
Speaker 1: You know, the world goes on, And I think the
Speaker 1: meaning is more important than than specific six. I think
Speaker 1: when you let go of of being right, you actually
Speaker 1: take in more information that's good for you. You definitely do.
Speaker 1: Not having to be right helps in so many different ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, having to be right for me is a
Speaker 1: limit on what I actually even listen to or learn,
Speaker 1: because if I'm thinking I have to be right or
Speaker 1: I am right about this thing, I'm just not really
Speaker 1: listening anymore. And I've more and more thought about that
Speaker 1: and and looked at that and tried to just step
Speaker 1: back and go, well, maybe I don't know. Open my
Speaker 1: mind to the idea that I don't know. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: there are times in the past where I've said I
Speaker 1: don't want to tweet something because maybe I'll make a
Speaker 1: spelling mistake, or I don't want to get up on
Speaker 1: stage and speak because maybe I'll say the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: or I'll say um or like or you know, all
Speaker 1: the things you're not supposed to, Chris, I'll get rid
Speaker 1: of those for you. I appreciate that. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: any time I speak or any time I put a
Speaker 1: book out, like the people that I really connect with,
Speaker 1: they're not interested in that. There are definitely people in
Speaker 1: the audience that will kind of every time I say that,
Speaker 1: and they'll they'll point to that. But there are other
Speaker 1: people that say, what is this guy about? What is
Speaker 1: his core value? What is his truth? And that's what
Speaker 1: they're interested And you want to connect with those people.
Speaker 1: And so when I'm on the road, I'm constantly checking in.
Speaker 1: There abe moments when I'll replay something I said in
Speaker 1: an interview at two o'clock in the morning. Anxiety wake
Speaker 1: me up, and I'll sit up at three in the
Speaker 1: morning and say, what did I say in that interview
Speaker 1: and the one you feed and I'll get very nervous,
Speaker 1: and I have to remind myself that it's not the
Speaker 1: specific thing I said. It's it's a collection of all
Speaker 1: the things you say over time, um, and that's what
Speaker 1: people are gonna remember. I think that's a great way
Speaker 1: to transition into the new book. It's called The Reason
Speaker 1: You Are Alive, and it has a character. The main
Speaker 1: character is somebody who would be challenging for a lot
Speaker 1: of the people who listen to this show. Right he's
Speaker 1: a very strong right wing um. You know, some of
Speaker 1: us would call, you know, nut job, right um. I
Speaker 1: found it fascinating, though, to start the book with him
Speaker 1: and then watch over time as you realize on some
Speaker 1: level a wonderful person he is. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that you know, after this election and all that,
Speaker 1: And I've stayed out of politics because when I've wandered in,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's not really my space. The thing
Speaker 1: that's troubled me the most about it, though, is that
Speaker 1: it seems like we picked the worst example of the
Speaker 1: other side and use that as a representative for all
Speaker 1: of them. And I just don't think that's the case.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been a lot of work about conservative
Speaker 1: versus liberal values, and they're they both have really strong values,
Speaker 1: they're just different. And so I loved the book because
Speaker 1: you start with this guy. Again, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people listening to the show will immediately be like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, because I think our audience skews left.
Speaker 1: But over time, you really get to know this guy
Speaker 1: and you see that despite certain things, he's a wonderful person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thank you for saying that, because that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that I wanted to explore. I should
Speaker 1: say that I finished writing this book before the last
Speaker 1: presidential election heated up. You knows, before we imagine that
Speaker 1: Trump when president. That wasn't that wasn't mindset. I wasn't
Speaker 1: even thinking about Trump when I wrote the book. But
Speaker 1: I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, and
Speaker 1: if you had asked me when I was sixteen to
Speaker 1: describe myself, I would have said Republican, fundamentalist Christian proudly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when I went to college, I remember my grandfather
Speaker 1: saying to me, you need to get your degree, but
Speaker 1: I don't want you to believe anything that the people
Speaker 1: at school tell you, because they're all liars. All your
Speaker 1: professors are gonna lie to you. And that was a
Speaker 1: really confusing message for me to get at seventeen. But
Speaker 1: of course, when I went to liberal arts school, and
Speaker 1: I was an English major secondary yet I was everyone
Speaker 1: I met was extremely liberal, and immediately my needles started
Speaker 1: to move left. And now I work in you know,
Speaker 1: and publishing, and I work in the movie industry. In
Speaker 1: l A. And everyone is extremely liberal, and so when
Speaker 1: you have something like the election and people make comments
Speaker 1: like about a right wing nut job or you know,
Speaker 1: like all of those people in the other states, and
Speaker 1: you pick a color and you go with your team. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's frustrating for me, you know, because, uh, I
Speaker 1: might agree with the politics of the people making those comments,
Speaker 1: but they're dismissing a whole group of people that are
Speaker 1: human beings. And so something like my grandfather was a
Speaker 1: World War Two that he was extremely conservative, grew up
Speaker 1: in the Great Depression, that there are reasons why he
Speaker 1: had the opinions. There was reasons why he was so
Speaker 1: tribal um, but he was also so wonderful and loving
Speaker 1: and caring to me. My uncle Pete, who was a
Speaker 1: Vietnam vet um, he said a lot of offensive things,
Speaker 1: but he was also the first person to recognize when
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties and I was struggling with
Speaker 1: anxiety because he spent a lot of time at the
Speaker 1: v A and so why he might say some things
Speaker 1: that I thought were offensive. He's also the guy that
Speaker 1: called me and said, hey, you seem awfully stressed out.
Speaker 1: You know, you're getting out, you know, don't hold up.
Speaker 1: You know, I spent a lot of time with veterans.
Speaker 1: You got you can't make those mistakes like you have anxiety,
Speaker 1: that's what you have. And he was the first guy
Speaker 1: to reach out. He's one of the first people that
Speaker 1: encourage me to write UM. And so when people just
Speaker 1: dismiss whole groups of people, especially I work a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have never met anybody, like my grandfather
Speaker 1: and my uncle, it's frustrating. It's just as frustrating when
Speaker 1: I go home to my family and they make a
Speaker 1: comment about the people on the left. You know, it's
Speaker 1: the same. And so oftentimes I find myself in isolation
Speaker 1: in the middle, not not politically in the middle, but
Speaker 1: just I don't want to pick a team and dismiss
Speaker 1: a whole group of human beings based on their political preferences.
Speaker 1: I don't want to demonize them and say, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the snowflake over here, so they're idiots and
Speaker 1: these are the right wing nuts jobs over there, because
Speaker 1: there's no communication and it's it's a lie on both sides. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think one of the ways to bridge the divide,
Speaker 1: I think is meeting people that are different than you
Speaker 1: talking to people that are different to you, which is
Speaker 1: very difficult to do. Like you talked about the industries
Speaker 1: you work, and you're not gonna find many people like that.
Speaker 1: I happen to be in Columbus, Ohio, which is like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like right down the middle, you know,
Speaker 1: and sohi, it was an interesting place to be because
Speaker 1: I am exposed to both those things, and it's just
Speaker 1: interesting and it's it's disheartening to me, you know, these
Speaker 1: days kind of what the overall political discourse is, not
Speaker 1: just among the politicians, but even more among I mean
Speaker 1: certainly the politicians too, but just people. Your book, to
Speaker 1: me was a very thoughtful and useful way to look
Speaker 1: at that, and you know, to use art to shine
Speaker 1: a light on a current situation. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: um comfort disturbed and disturbed the comforted. I know that
Speaker 1: most of the people who are going to be in
Speaker 1: charge of promoting my book and most of the the people
Speaker 1: who are going to read it are probably gonna skew left,
Speaker 1: and that that was a conscious choice for me to
Speaker 1: set it from David's point of view. One review called
Speaker 1: it subversive, which you know, the punk rocker and me
Speaker 1: back in the Day was very proud of that. But
Speaker 1: you know, I I do think it was a conscious
Speaker 1: decision to say, Hey, I'm gonna give you a character
Speaker 1: that is going to really frustrated you for fifty pages,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna fall in love with this guy by
Speaker 1: the end, and it's gonna make you chat. It's gonna
Speaker 1: challenge your worldview, and it's gonna check to see how
Speaker 1: tolerant you really are. And that's one thing that sometimes
Speaker 1: frustrates me about the left because we always say about tolerance. Tolerance.
Speaker 1: Tolerance is set for, you know, toallenge for people on
Speaker 1: the right who don't agree with you, who don't agree
Speaker 1: with us, and so um. You know, for me, I
Speaker 1: practice tolerance all the time when I'm with my conservative
Speaker 1: family members, especially with my grandfather, whom I loved, or
Speaker 1: my uncle Pete, whom I was really close with. In
Speaker 1: order to have a relationship with him, I had to
Speaker 1: practice tolerance and he had to practice tolerance with me,
Speaker 1: you know, and that was that was a real strong
Speaker 1: bond I had before they both passed. And so I
Speaker 1: was hoping to provide that same experience, you know, through
Speaker 1: the vehicle of a novel or art for for the reader.
Speaker 1: You didn't. He really gets fleshed out as a as
Speaker 1: a whole person. You know, he would be the opposite
Speaker 1: of politically correct, right, And yet some of it is
Speaker 1: just hilarious the things he says. And I'm gonna go here,
Speaker 1: which I'm going to regret later, But I'm always interested
Speaker 1: in racism. I think we all are, and we're looking
Speaker 1: at it and trying to understand where we fit. And
Speaker 1: I look at people of a certain generation and this
Speaker 1: guy was a Vietnam vet. I look at my mother,
Speaker 1: and there is this interesting categorization of a group of people,
Speaker 1: like you know, uh, David does this in the book
Speaker 1: all the time, right, He's like, you know, you'd be
Speaker 1: an idiot to hire a straight man to do your flowers, right,
Speaker 1: or you'd be an idiot to hire a white man
Speaker 1: to mow your lawn. Like, because these groups Gays and
Speaker 1: and Mexicans are known for Gays are known for being
Speaker 1: good at arranging flowers, and Mexicans are known for mowing lawn.
Speaker 1: So they're making these generalities about people. But the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about him that I found found about David was
Speaker 1: he has nothing against and even likes the people in
Speaker 1: those groups. So he's grouping them, and he's sort of
Speaker 1: judging them by some stereotypes, which sometimes stereotypes become stereotypes
Speaker 1: to a certain extent because there's some there's a kernel
Speaker 1: of truth in there. But yet he bears he likes
Speaker 1: those people. There is his friends. And I look at
Speaker 1: that and I go, is that racism? And it you know,
Speaker 1: and again I'm gonna get this is gonna get into
Speaker 1: a debate that I don't want to get into. But
Speaker 1: I notice that in people, particularly of an older generation,
Speaker 1: and I see that very quality. They're sort of stereotyping people,
Speaker 1: but they like those people at the same time they're
Speaker 1: friends with those people. And so it's just an interesting
Speaker 1: take on, you know, what is racism? Yeah, and I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure that I was trying to tackle with
Speaker 1: the book what is racism? But the one thing I
Speaker 1: did want to question is I think in this day
Speaker 1: and age, we've come to a point where if somebody
Speaker 1: uses a certain phrase, or if somebody says a certain word,
Speaker 1: or somebody fails to keep up with you know, the
Speaker 1: changing political or the etique vocabulary, um, then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden we're supposed to put them in a box.
Speaker 1: And we know every single thing about that person. And
Speaker 1: I've met people, um who use offensive language who have
Speaker 1: good qualities too, you know, and that that's that I
Speaker 1: think it's a lie when you say if somebody's says
Speaker 1: a certain word, then therefore they don't count as a
Speaker 1: human being and we should just eradicate them from the planet. Also,
Speaker 1: you know, with my grandfather, I struggle with this all
Speaker 1: the time. You know, he grew up in the tribal
Speaker 1: system and field literally rough on the streets. You stuck
Speaker 1: with the people in your neighborhood, and if you straight
Speaker 1: into another neighborhood with a different ethnicity, they would beat
Speaker 1: the hell out of you, you know. And that's that's
Speaker 1: the way that he grew up. Um. Same with you know,
Speaker 1: my uncle in Vietnam. You know, you spend a year
Speaker 1: where everyone you see who is Vietnamese is trying to
Speaker 1: kill you. You know, obviously that's going to affect you
Speaker 1: in a way that if you grew up in New
Speaker 1: York City at the time, it wasn't worth obviously, it's
Speaker 1: it doesn't cost you anything to be tolerant, you know.
Speaker 1: And so you know, you never want to excuse racism,
Speaker 1: But I think You're never gonna solve racism if we
Speaker 1: don't really get to the heart of why people are
Speaker 1: thinking what they're thinking. And if we just shame everyone
Speaker 1: for their thoughts before they get a chance to explain him,
Speaker 1: they were never going to understand them. I agree. I
Speaker 1: think it's shutting the conversation down. And it's a I've
Speaker 1: heard the phrase, you know, we live in a culture
Speaker 1: of outrage, and and that's the thing that I see
Speaker 1: most is just everybody is always all bent out of
Speaker 1: shape about something. And I look at it a lot
Speaker 1: of it and I go, well, I don't think that's
Speaker 1: really what that person meant. Like we can take that
Speaker 1: thing that they said, and we can make them out
Speaker 1: to be an horrible person because of them, but I
Speaker 1: think we're taking it way out of context. Um. There
Speaker 1: was one the other day where showed Donald Trump UH
Speaker 1: and a foreign leader and she walked past him to
Speaker 1: shake his wife's hand, and the video that was all
Speaker 1: you saw, and it looked like she snubbed him. Well,
Speaker 1: she shook his wife's hand, then she turned, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like she was already seeing her. And I
Speaker 1: looked at that as an example of of taking something
Speaker 1: and sort of twisting it in a way to make
Speaker 1: it look worse than it really was, to justify a worldview.
Speaker 1: And I don't like that. I mean, again, politics aside.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into who I prefer and don't
Speaker 1: I mean, And I think there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that are really going wrong at a political level, but
Speaker 1: at a human level, I think that's what we're losing,
Speaker 1: and we just are all looking for something to be
Speaker 1: angry about. And I don't know why. I think because
Speaker 1: we're afraid, and it gives us the illusion of making
Speaker 1: us feel safe, you know. Um, I mean that's all
Speaker 1: the rays like safe spaces, and you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: we need language that's not offensive. Um, but people use
Speaker 1: offensive language to express emotions that exists. And you can't
Speaker 1: just shut down people's emotions, you know. Um, just because
Speaker 1: somebody doesn't say a word, or you know, they don't
Speaker 1: use a phrase that's deemed offensive, doesn't mean that they're
Speaker 1: on the inside and not offensive, you know. It just
Speaker 1: means that they've learned to mask that. And so one
Speaker 1: of the things that my character David Granger is, because
Speaker 1: he's had brain brain surgery, has no filter. He says,
Speaker 1: everything that comes to his mind. And so I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why a lot of people are
Speaker 1: enjoying him so much is because when he says the
Speaker 1: most horrific thing that comes to his mind, you think,
Speaker 1: I can't believe this guy just said this. But it
Speaker 1: makes you believe him when he says the good stuff
Speaker 1: because he's saying everything. So when he tells you how
Speaker 1: much he loves his granddaughter, or how much he loved
Speaker 1: his wife, or how much he loves his country, or
Speaker 1: that he's befriended um this gay couple, or he you know,
Speaker 1: he's befriended the quote little yellow woman in spin class, like,
Speaker 1: you believe that those intentions are good because he would
Speaker 1: tell you if he had other intentions. There's no there's
Speaker 1: no masking, there's no academic language or flowery language where
Speaker 1: that he's using as a key to get through a door.
Speaker 1: He's just being himself. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the things I want to get to with this book.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that people have
Speaker 1: loved about Trump is that he just says anything. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a great quality for the president
Speaker 1: of the United States, but I get it right. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't have to wonder what he thinks. Well, I
Speaker 1: think the big difference between my character in Trump is, uh,
Speaker 1: any politician is not saying what they think. They're saying
Speaker 1: what is going to get empowered. Whereas my character David
Speaker 1: Grangers at the end of his life making this confession. Um,
Speaker 1: it's kind of almost like he has nothing to lose
Speaker 1: and he's coming out and just telling you he's not
Speaker 1: gaining anything from except for perhaps um redemption or some
Speaker 1: type of closure at the end of his life. But
Speaker 1: I get your point. I think it's different. I think,
Speaker 1: but that's what even though it may not be that case,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what people think is happening. They think
Speaker 1: somebody is finally saying or somebody somebody is not being
Speaker 1: silenced and shamed into silence. They're saying the things that
Speaker 1: you've been told you're not allowed to say. And I
Speaker 1: think I'd probably be get in troubles. But it's an
Speaker 1: American to say you can't say things. To make a
Speaker 1: list of words and things and opinions that you can't express,
Speaker 1: is it just goes against but what America is. And
Speaker 1: that's not to say we don't have a right to
Speaker 1: say that we don't like those opinions. But when we
Speaker 1: try to shut people down and say the way that
Speaker 1: we're going to protect everyone is by silencing these groups,
Speaker 1: are taking away the language of these people, or you know,
Speaker 1: make a list of rules that is constantly changing about
Speaker 1: what you're allowed to say. And by the way, you
Speaker 1: know that that is politically motivated as well. Um, I
Speaker 1: think people find that frustrating, and I think people, you know,
Speaker 1: like I think Trump and other people can exploit that frustration.
Speaker 1: And I think that's dangerous too. It's all around well,
Speaker 1: I think, honestly and discussion and transparency, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's that's a big thing too. And I think
Speaker 1: my character, David Granger, he's completely transparent, and I think
Speaker 1: that's why the people who have really enjoyed him. I
Speaker 1: love him because he's honest, and I think he's funny
Speaker 1: because he says the things that he thinks. And I've
Speaker 1: often heard that humor is experiencing the unexpected. That's it.
Speaker 1: You know, why do we laugh when someone trips when
Speaker 1: they're walking on the sidewalk. It's not because we want
Speaker 1: them to get hurt. It's because we didn't expect it
Speaker 1: to happen, and it just triggers the thing and us
Speaker 1: that you know, the person trips, they didn't get hurt.
Speaker 1: We can laugh up because it's a release and we
Speaker 1: I think we live in a time when everyone is
Speaker 1: feeling so tense um that we we we laugh when
Speaker 1: somebody says something audacious because we're like, oh, we we
Speaker 1: forgot we're allowed to say audacious things. We forgot that
Speaker 1: we're in America and we can say whatever. So hold
Speaker 1: on before you hit the fast forward button past the
Speaker 1: mid role. I've got Matthew Quick here with me who
Speaker 1: were doing the interview, and he has been kind enough
Speaker 1: to donate ten signed copies of his new book. So
Speaker 1: we're going to do the content us that we've done before.
Speaker 1: For everybody that sits as a signed copy. For everybody
Speaker 1: that pledges you will be entered in a contest to
Speaker 1: win a signed copy of his book. And based on
Speaker 1: the donations, I bet you've got a really good chance
Speaker 1: of winning that. So Matthew, Yeah, And the reason why
Speaker 1: I donated the books is because I believe so much
Speaker 1: in the show. It's it's helped me and I want
Speaker 1: to help promote the show. Um, and when I found
Speaker 1: the show, I was getting it for free every week
Speaker 1: and and you know, at some point I thought this
Speaker 1: is something I would definitely pay for, and I have
Speaker 1: donated to the show and and um, you know, if
Speaker 1: you if you win a book, the book would run
Speaker 1: you about twenties six bucks. That's quite a bargain if
Speaker 1: you win the book. Yeah, and it's signed. So again,
Speaker 1: within the next week, sign up for a donation and
Speaker 1: you'll be entered into a contest to get a signed
Speaker 1: copy of Matthew Quick's Greatest book, which is wonderful. And
Speaker 1: now back to the interview with Matthew Quick. I was
Speaker 1: thinking back to our first interview and I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that we talked about was you were
Speaker 1: talking about Silver Linings a book, and how some people
Speaker 1: laughed and some people cried and totally different reactions. But
Speaker 1: the thing that I said and I still stand by
Speaker 1: in this book is another great example is that I
Speaker 1: feel like I can laugh and cry nearly in the
Speaker 1: same page. It's that blend that is so powerful to
Speaker 1: me in fiction, to be able to trigger those two
Speaker 1: emotions simultaneously. And you know you're very good at that,
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's why I come on the show for
Speaker 1: comments like that. It's wonderful. But I think when you
Speaker 1: think about laughing and crying, um, there are two emotional
Speaker 1: responses that accomplished the same thing. You know. They release tension. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so they're they're very closely related, you know,
Speaker 1: for me being someone who's very anxious and someone you
Speaker 1: know who's nine f J who is an EmPATH, like
Speaker 1: I feel tension all the time, you know, and some
Speaker 1: at a very young age it became a coping mechanism
Speaker 1: to try to get people to laugh because it changed
Speaker 1: the energy that they're putting out, which would give me relief. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you know, people will say like do you
Speaker 1: consciously try to make jokes in your books? Like do
Speaker 1: you try to make them funny? Or are you trying
Speaker 1: to trigger the you know, tears, And no, I'm just
Speaker 1: going through the emotions of the characters. And I know
Speaker 1: that if I'm crying while I'm writing, or if I'm
Speaker 1: laughing while I'm crying, that's probably a pretty good sign.
Speaker 1: But it's not like I said, what is gonna make
Speaker 1: me laugh or cry? I try to channel those emotions
Speaker 1: in the honest way. You're talking about your anxiety. You're
Speaker 1: you know, you'll mention to me you're on a book
Speaker 1: tour this time, and it's a little bit different from
Speaker 1: you and that you've made some changes in your life
Speaker 1: to be healthier. Is that something you want to talk about.
Speaker 1: I'd love to talk about that, and I like to
Speaker 1: give you a lot of credit for that too and
Speaker 1: not too embarrass you. But uh, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: listening to the show for three years now and it's
Speaker 1: become a really important part of my life every week
Speaker 1: just because it's just a reminder and I almost think
Speaker 1: of you as like a friend. You know, it just
Speaker 1: comes into my my ears every Tuesday or was Wednesday
Speaker 1: morning or whenever I listened to it, And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because like feeding that good Wolf. You know,
Speaker 1: I and I first heard this show, and I first
Speaker 1: heard the concept of it, I said, you know, this
Speaker 1: is this is a good thing for me. And I
Speaker 1: had known that I had a problem with food, I
Speaker 1: had a problem with alcohol. Um, I had a problem
Speaker 1: with being obsessive about internet information like I was talking
Speaker 1: about in the beginning. But there was a big part
Speaker 1: of me that thought, because I have anxiety, I can't
Speaker 1: function without alcohol. You know, I can't go to a
Speaker 1: party without alcohol. I can't do a book tour without
Speaker 1: you know, clon upin or something, and like that was
Speaker 1: a belief I had for myself. Um, But as I
Speaker 1: listened to your show, and I listened to other podcasts
Speaker 1: and read widely over the years, and I started this
Speaker 1: journey in my twenties of trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: was going on inside of me. And my wife's been
Speaker 1: a big part of it too. About a year ago,
Speaker 1: I said, all right, now it's time to face that lie.
Speaker 1: You know, it's time to like and you know, and
Speaker 1: so I started running a lot and that started to
Speaker 1: give me relief from anxiety. And um. Then I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm reading all this stuff about you know,
Speaker 1: eating processed food and bad food and you know, get
Speaker 1: rid of that. And that started make me feel better.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing was it was alcohol, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm not completely off alcohol. I have a drink
Speaker 1: every once in a while. But I started off with
Speaker 1: um saying I'm not going to drink for a month,
Speaker 1: and you know, my friends and my wife said that
Speaker 1: will never happened. You know, it's the way he's making it.
Speaker 1: But it was the first time, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: the only time I had done that was when I
Speaker 1: had gotten a blood test that said my my liver
Speaker 1: was damaged, and so I had to go off alcohol
Speaker 1: for um a month. And it turned out that the
Speaker 1: test was a fluke and so I was fine, and
Speaker 1: so my wife was upset and she thought, like I
Speaker 1: would stop, you know, drinking everything, and I just went
Speaker 1: right back to it. So this was this big test
Speaker 1: of going off alcohol for um a month. And what
Speaker 1: I found this time was that my my sleep was better,
Speaker 1: and the anxiety went way down, and my depression started
Speaker 1: to lift. And you know, it's funny because you would think, okay,
Speaker 1: like I have depression, so I'm gonna put you know,
Speaker 1: depressive into my body every day. It's it sounds so
Speaker 1: ridiculous now, but it was a habit for so long,
Speaker 1: and so I just made this commitment to getting healthy
Speaker 1: into drinking less, and I've lost forty eight pounds, I've
Speaker 1: been running a lot. Well, thank you. And it's funny
Speaker 1: because people will say that you keep saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you get a lot of affirmation, you look great, you
Speaker 1: look great, But I didn't do it to look great
Speaker 1: at all. I did it to like clean out my mind. Um,
Speaker 1: and it just got to a point where I just
Speaker 1: was tired of waking up every morning a little hungover
Speaker 1: and a little anxious and you know, counting down the hours.
Speaker 1: So you know, I could have that drink at the
Speaker 1: end of the day and and it's it's been really
Speaker 1: freeing in. You know. I had to take because to
Speaker 1: say all this because for so many years, whenever I
Speaker 1: would hear this message like if you stopped drinking, you
Speaker 1: sleep better, I was like, yeah, but I'm not gonna stop.
Speaker 1: Like that's it's so uncooler, Like everyone's drinks. What am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? Go out to the bar? And I
Speaker 1: have another friend that runs all the time and he
Speaker 1: always comes to bed at nine o'clock. And when I
Speaker 1: first started hanging out with him, I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: it's so lame. But now that I'm running and eating healthy,
Speaker 1: like I love going to better early, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: so weird. It's just transformed everything in my mind. But
Speaker 1: it's been much better. In this tour has been a
Speaker 1: lot less anxious for me. You know, surprise, surprise, right,
Speaker 1: you know, Um, I've been running every day on tour,
Speaker 1: and working out and no alcohol, no clonic pin, so
Speaker 1: there's no thought getting up in the morning like I
Speaker 1: need to take another clon a pin or you know.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that would happen on book tour
Speaker 1: is I try to get off the clone pin. I
Speaker 1: go through withdrawal. And there are people that say clonic pins,
Speaker 1: you know, as addictive or more addictive than heroin. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people will say that. And I would
Speaker 1: go through really really bad withdrawal, and I'd be depressed
Speaker 1: for weeks after book tour, and you know, it's just
Speaker 1: not a good way to live. I got tired of it,
Speaker 1: you know. I got tired of looking at the lie
Speaker 1: like looking in the mirror and saying, you're justifying all
Speaker 1: these things that you know aren't good for you. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess I'll be a little bit candid too.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I really started
Speaker 1: to square up with was the fact that there's a
Speaker 1: big part of me that thought I didn't deserve to
Speaker 1: be healthy. There's a big part of me that thought, um,
Speaker 1: you don't deserve the success you've had. You know. There's
Speaker 1: a big part of me that thought, if you don't
Speaker 1: deserve the love that you're getting. And you know, looking back,
Speaker 1: I almost you know, I I say this with with
Speaker 1: a little hesitation, but I really do believe it. I
Speaker 1: think it was a slow form of suicide. I really
Speaker 1: do like I think it was a big part of
Speaker 1: myself that said, you're not worth it, you don't deserve this,
Speaker 1: and you should put poison into your body every day
Speaker 1: and make yourself sick because you're not good enough. And
Speaker 1: and the drinking perpetuates it, right, because every time that
Speaker 1: you think I shouldn't be doing that and you do it,
Speaker 1: you reinforce that message. Look, I'm not good enough, right,
Speaker 1: I said I was not going to do this, and
Speaker 1: I did it again, So you know, here I am.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the that's the insidious thing. And
Speaker 1: you know, addiction is like such a weird thing because
Speaker 1: it's it's such a spectrum, right, There's you know, there's
Speaker 1: like one end is you know, people who just have
Speaker 1: no tendency towards too and the other end is people
Speaker 1: who you know, I you know, not being able to quit,
Speaker 1: and and then and there's a lot of people in between.
Speaker 1: But I think the insidious thing about it is that
Speaker 1: it does work for a while, right, There's a reason
Speaker 1: people keep going to alcohol or other things because it
Speaker 1: does work. I mean, when I if I were to
Speaker 1: take two drinks right now, I would feel better than
Speaker 1: I felt probably in a month, I mean, or in
Speaker 1: a long time, for about fifteen minutes, right, and then
Speaker 1: it would kind of go downhill from there. And then
Speaker 1: then I don't feel good. So how do I get
Speaker 1: to feel good again? I drink again. And when more
Speaker 1: I drink, the less good I feel. And so I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just this just such a tough cycle, it is.
Speaker 1: And you know this time around, you know, the first
Speaker 1: night of books Are it was my hometown and there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a few hundred people there, and there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of people I haven't seen for a while.
Speaker 1: Expectations were super high, as you know, And in the
Speaker 1: three hours before, we're really really tough for me. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to drink for the first time in months
Speaker 1: so badly, Like not because socially, or wasn't just that.
Speaker 1: It was because I I felt like I needed a drink.
Speaker 1: I needed the clone up in um. But the funny
Speaker 1: thing was when I did the event, it was great
Speaker 1: alcohol drunk free, and afterwards I was talking to my
Speaker 1: wife and I said, you know, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to sleep by It was a really cool event
Speaker 1: and it was good, and she's like, you do realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, you're way different now, like on the other
Speaker 1: side of it, you know, because I passed on the
Speaker 1: short term relief. You know, I get sleep that night,
Speaker 1: and the next day I get up and I was fine.
Speaker 1: So you you get through that three hours window of
Speaker 1: the struggle, it doesn't carry over to the next day,
Speaker 1: and the next day gets a little bit easier. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always say I think people think about not drinking
Speaker 1: or cutting back on drinking, and when you do it,
Speaker 1: at first, it feels terrible. It does, and you think
Speaker 1: that's what consuming less alcohol or being sober is like
Speaker 1: You're like, this sucks, and you know it's it's the
Speaker 1: hanging in there long enough to get to the other
Speaker 1: side of that. I always say that getting sober is horrible,
Speaker 1: but being sober is pretty great, you know, And I
Speaker 1: stay sober a lot sometimes just on the fact I
Speaker 1: don't ever want to have to do it again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to have to cross that divide again,
Speaker 1: because it is really difficult. I don't know that I'm
Speaker 1: an addict in the sense that like I would get
Speaker 1: up in and you know, get the shakes. You know.
Speaker 1: It was more that I have social anxiety and that
Speaker 1: was a cheat for me, and it be I became
Speaker 1: very dependent on that in social situations. But I will
Speaker 1: say that, Uh, since I've cut down on drinking, I
Speaker 1: learned a few things that one beer doesn't really do
Speaker 1: anything for me. And so if I'm really exercising and
Speaker 1: accounting my my calories, all of a sudden, I don't
Speaker 1: want to drink it anymore. And you know, I'm I
Speaker 1: love Scotch, um, and you know I've I've found that.
Speaker 1: Um it used to be, you know it's six months ago,
Speaker 1: would take me four scotches to get high. Now I
Speaker 1: just have one Scotch and I feel pretty buz, And
Speaker 1: you know, like that's I can do just one, you know,
Speaker 1: like once a week or once every two weeks. The
Speaker 1: key right there. I don't think everybody needs to be
Speaker 1: completely abstinent, right, Um. Some people are able once they
Speaker 1: can turn it off, to sort of use it like
Speaker 1: a normal human being can. And boy, if I could
Speaker 1: pick a superpower to have, I think that's the one,
Speaker 1: but I've proven to myself over and over it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I don't have just one yea and everyone train gets
Speaker 1: rolling and it it's just it happens fast. And so
Speaker 1: I'm just different in that way. But I certainly don't
Speaker 1: think that you have to be, you know, completely abstinent
Speaker 1: to improve your relationship with alcohol. Yeah, it's different for everyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, a guy had a talk to the day
Speaker 1: with a good friend of mine who struggles with anxiety,
Speaker 1: and you know, he needs to take anxiety. Man's like,
Speaker 1: that's that's his game. You know, he he can't not
Speaker 1: you know, that's he has to have them. And so
Speaker 1: I would never advocate for him to give up his
Speaker 1: anxiety image. You know, I just knew for me that
Speaker 1: the clim up him is something that I wanted to
Speaker 1: not do and then see if I could do it,
Speaker 1: and it worked out for me. So everyone's path is difference, right,
Speaker 1: And I like to emphasize that I just knew in
Speaker 1: my heart that I wasn't being the best version of
Speaker 1: me and there were dark reasons for that. Um and
Speaker 1: my wife knew it too, And you know, I just
Speaker 1: kind of woke up and said I do want to
Speaker 1: be the best version of me, and that includes drinking
Speaker 1: lesson eating healthy, and exercising, and it's made a big difference.
Speaker 1: There were a few themes that ran through the book. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked earlier about the political theme or
Speaker 1: the you know, respecting people of different views. The other
Speaker 1: one really is the power of the past to continue
Speaker 1: to live on. And you're you're describing a Vietnam veteran
Speaker 1: who has suffered greatly and continues to suffer in his life,
Speaker 1: and so I just thought we could maybe talk about
Speaker 1: that for a minute. You know, how strongly does the
Speaker 1: past control what we do today? And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it was probably different for everyone, right, and what you
Speaker 1: went through. But I've read things like that before, and
Speaker 1: every time I do. When I read about what somebody
Speaker 1: went through in war, I have a completely different perspective
Speaker 1: about who that person is and what they went through.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, I don't think it sticks as well as
Speaker 1: it could, because then when I read another one again,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, it reminds me. But
Speaker 1: it was really powerful about the trauma he suffered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I was having a conversation with my buddy
Speaker 1: down in No Bi X and we're talking about karma
Speaker 1: and I won't get exactly how he said it, but
Speaker 1: a paraphrase, and his thought was basically, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter if you believe, if you have faith in karma
Speaker 1: or not, because every experience that you have on earth
Speaker 1: creates a memory, and that that changes the software of
Speaker 1: your brain, so it will literally affect the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. You know, every memory, so you know, whether
Speaker 1: you believe in karma or not, you know the things
Speaker 1: that you do and the things that you experience are
Speaker 1: going to radically affect the rest of your life. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's true. And there are definitely people
Speaker 1: who would read David Granger's voice in my book and
Speaker 1: you know, closely after five pages just say no, like
Speaker 1: I I Am not gonna listen to this, like he
Speaker 1: checked off whatever box. And you know, I've met people
Speaker 1: um that I would not have introduced to my grandfather
Speaker 1: it was a World War Two that or my uncle
Speaker 1: was a Vietnam Vet, because I knew that they would
Speaker 1: just say no. And I think that that's a shame
Speaker 1: because my relationship with those two men really colored my
Speaker 1: life in a profound the way like they were to
Speaker 1: the only men when I was a child who showed
Speaker 1: me love in a real way. Um, and they were
Speaker 1: really unlikely people to do that. I've told the story often,
Speaker 1: but my uncle would always threaten to kill me if
Speaker 1: I hugged him, like he was like, don't hug me.
Speaker 1: I don't do hugs. And in somewhere in my twenties,
Speaker 1: I just said, you know, I'm gonna do this. I
Speaker 1: remember I said, Pete, I'm gonna hug you. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hug you. It's my Vietnam vett uncle. And he said,
Speaker 1: I'll kill you if you hug me. I'm gonna punch
Speaker 1: you in the face. And I remember I just went
Speaker 1: for him, put my arms around him and held on
Speaker 1: and he started punching my back as hard as he
Speaker 1: could kidney punches, and I saw, I'm just gonna hold on,
Speaker 1: and I held on for thirty seconds and the punch
Speaker 1: is slowed, and then he just his face just broke
Speaker 1: out and his like wonderful smile, you know. And it
Speaker 1: was one of these profound moments in my life because
Speaker 1: I learned that this man who was outwardly projecting, you know,
Speaker 1: this image of being tough and owned all these guns,
Speaker 1: and you know it was always talking about violent things
Speaker 1: and tribalism. He really wanted to hug you know that
Speaker 1: that's what he wanted. You know. He was this guy
Speaker 1: that that had been thrown into this situation that was unfathomable,
Speaker 1: that would scare any of us. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: quote in the book that I talked about. You know,
Speaker 1: anyone who's been in more for a certain amount of
Speaker 1: time is considered legally insane. That's going to affect you.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, of course people with
Speaker 1: mental health syndromes or PTSD is one of those. Uh,
Speaker 1: you get the added stigma of you know, being called
Speaker 1: crazy or whatever, and you know that that's that's frustrating,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I think, you know, the book
Speaker 1: I try. I hope it's a call for you know,
Speaker 1: looking a little bit deeper and you know, seeing that
Speaker 1: sometimes really unlikely alliances can be made if we're willing
Speaker 1: to be compassionate and tolerance and sometimes those alliances are
Speaker 1: the things that that change your life. And quite literally, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, my uncle was one of these guys that
Speaker 1: you know, he was one of the few people who
Speaker 1: really encouraged me to take a chance on my art,
Speaker 1: you know, really unlikely source of inspiration, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: he was not somebody who understood the publishing route and
Speaker 1: how that works, but he was somebody who loved me
Speaker 1: and encouraged me at the time that I needed it. Yep.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting concept to me about the role of
Speaker 1: the pastor karma, like you speak. I agree. I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of self evident that what we've done in
Speaker 1: the past affects who we are today, sort of like
Speaker 1: believing that the mind is different from the body, right,
Speaker 1: there's a connection. I don't It seems completely self evident
Speaker 1: to me. One of the things that I find really
Speaker 1: interesting though, And we had gabble or mate on and
Speaker 1: he's an addiction specialist, and he was saying to a
Speaker 1: certain extent that at a certain point, the damage is
Speaker 1: so severe, the trauma is so great, that the range
Speaker 1: of recovery is really limited. Yeah, you know, and I
Speaker 1: think that's a really interesting concept, and it it raises
Speaker 1: so many questions legally and and in so many different
Speaker 1: ways about what extent and what degree of choice do
Speaker 1: we have. You know that if you if you get
Speaker 1: determinists on who are like you know, strong and the
Speaker 1: physics will say, well, there's no free will at all.
Speaker 1: Everything is determined, which to me also sounds like all right,
Speaker 1: hold on, you know, it doesn't that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: But I do think we're simultaneously freer than we think
Speaker 1: we are and not as free in certain ways as
Speaker 1: we'd like to believe. I think there's probably a range, right,
Speaker 1: you know. I think we're each with the experience that
Speaker 1: we're given. You know, if it's a scale of one
Speaker 1: to ten, you know, some of us are gonna be
Speaker 1: able to succore two to five, and so you shoot
Speaker 1: for the five. You know. You know, some people might
Speaker 1: be in the five to eight range, and so you
Speaker 1: shoot for the eight. Um. And I think in my
Speaker 1: relationships with people, especially family members, um, that you can't
Speaker 1: just edit out of your life. You gotta look at
Speaker 1: it and say, you know, like with my uncle Pete
Speaker 1: with some things, you know, and it came to like
Speaker 1: being tolerant, you know, like he's not going to change
Speaker 1: his range on some things might have been like one
Speaker 1: to three and if you hit that three, it was
Speaker 1: a good day, you know, And um, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's what's interesting about human beings. You know. That's
Speaker 1: why you can't make these blanket rules like thou shalt
Speaker 1: not or if then statements like if this person does
Speaker 1: this or says this, then it means that thing that's
Speaker 1: just simply not true. You can't just have a blanket
Speaker 1: statement for everyone because everyone's different. YEA, yeah, I find
Speaker 1: that that idea of you know, one to five because
Speaker 1: I've I've read, you know a lot about you know,
Speaker 1: happiness and mental health, and they say there's a happiness
Speaker 1: set point for certain people, right and some degree you
Speaker 1: can move it, you know, up or down based on
Speaker 1: what you do, and and there is a relatively good
Speaker 1: amount of movement you can do that depends on your
Speaker 1: actions and your environment what you do, and then there's
Speaker 1: just a certain point. And so with me, I've kind
Speaker 1: of accepted to some degree, like I think that happiness
Speaker 1: set point just isn't real high, you know. I think
Speaker 1: I've worked and I do the best I can to
Speaker 1: get to a point where I don't suffer right by
Speaker 1: and large, and I think I'm kind of happy. But
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people that's just going to
Speaker 1: be bouncing around all day every day, thrilled about everything,
Speaker 1: like it just doesn't. And it's so it's relieving to
Speaker 1: me on one hand to be able to let go
Speaker 1: of that and just say, you know what, this is
Speaker 1: kind of who I am, and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: the best I can with what I've got. Um and
Speaker 1: again the range, maybe I can make myself twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty percent happier, which is a lot. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot that we can do in our own lives. And
Speaker 1: yet at a certain point, experience, biology, genes, all that
Speaker 1: stuff does have a role also, And so I guess
Speaker 1: I would say when I think about that, and I'm
Speaker 1: kind of talking out lout, it kind of gets back
Speaker 1: to the what can you control and what can't you write,
Speaker 1: and and focusing your efforts on what you can control
Speaker 1: and saying with the stuff you can't like, well, that's
Speaker 1: just kind of what it is. There are times, especially
Speaker 1: on book tour, and I really wish I was an extrovert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really, because my job on book tour is to
Speaker 1: sell books. And if I was a salesman, you know,
Speaker 1: if I was an extrovert who could gain energy by
Speaker 1: being around people, I would probably be much better at
Speaker 1: selling my books. But I'm an introvert, and that means
Speaker 1: I'm good at spending time alone in a room and
Speaker 1: I'm good at writing books, you know, And and and sometimes
Speaker 1: I I started to feel well, it's how unfair is
Speaker 1: it that most authors I know are introverts, and yet
Speaker 1: they expect you to go on book tour and do
Speaker 1: social media all the time and be this extroverted person.
Speaker 1: And then I say to myself, you know you're thinking
Speaker 1: about it the wrong way. You know you can reframe
Speaker 1: it and say, I'm an introvert and I'm I'm managing
Speaker 1: on book tour and it's i had some really awesome experiences,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna do this for a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go back and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: these events and that you know, they're gonna if I
Speaker 1: reframe like what I'm trying to get out of them.
Speaker 1: So what I say to myself is, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to get on the news or sell a
Speaker 1: billion copies. I'm I'm going to give a talk, and
Speaker 1: if I connect with one or two people at that talk,
Speaker 1: if a couple of people come up to me and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know something you said, especially about the mental health
Speaker 1: stuff really connected with me and thank you for coming.
Speaker 1: It made me um feel better or made me feel
Speaker 1: less alone. Even if they don't buy a book, I say,
Speaker 1: that's a win. That's on mission for me, you know,
Speaker 1: because that resonates with me at the core level. That
Speaker 1: makes me feel less alone in the world. And of
Speaker 1: course I'm trying to sell as many books as possible,
Speaker 1: but if I focus on that, um, that's where the
Speaker 1: depression starts to right, you know, for another thing to
Speaker 1: control that. No, And it's always you know, uh, focus
Speaker 1: on process, not results. You know, it's this show is
Speaker 1: always about and it's constantly reminded me. And you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you get what you need along the way. You know,
Speaker 1: I think when you you focus on process and and
Speaker 1: that's different for everyone, but you know it's somebody who
Speaker 1: has had some nice successes in the past. Before you
Speaker 1: get those successes, you think that's what you need and
Speaker 1: you think that that will be the place where you
Speaker 1: feel okay, and it's not. You know, it's never. It never.
Speaker 1: The anxiety is it was even more present when the
Speaker 1: successes came. And right, yeah, yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: that's another theme on the show. Talk about a lot
Speaker 1: that is you know, it's that external stuff isn't gonna
Speaker 1: fix what you think is wrong with you again. And
Speaker 1: you know, for people who live in extreme poverty and deprivation,
Speaker 1: let's take that out of that. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. But for most of us
Speaker 1: that live a fairly comfortable, you know life, it's it's
Speaker 1: not becoming more comfortable or having more money. You know,
Speaker 1: for me, it's not getting you know, in the top
Speaker 1: ten list of iTunes, Like that's not gonna change the
Speaker 1: things that go on with me mentally, right, that's just
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. It's gonna feel good for a
Speaker 1: little bit, but that's not that that's not what the
Speaker 1: game is about, or it becomes a new addiction. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, when I was in m f A,
Speaker 1: the only thing I wanted more than anything in the
Speaker 1: world is to be a New York Times So like
Speaker 1: that's what I wanted. And then as soon as I
Speaker 1: became a New York Times bestseller, the thing that would
Speaker 1: happen would be people would ask me, when is your
Speaker 1: next book going to be a New York Times bestseller?
Speaker 1: And then it became this this bar that oh I
Speaker 1: gotta do it again, and I've got to perform the
Speaker 1: trick again and again, and you get on that hamster
Speaker 1: wheel and you forget why you start a writing books
Speaker 1: in the first place. And the truth was, when I
Speaker 1: started writing books at sixteen, it wasn't because I didn't
Speaker 1: even know what the New York Times best sellers was.
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen, I was this blue collar kid
Speaker 1: that had all these weird feelings going on. And when
Speaker 1: I wrote words down in a notebook and made those
Speaker 1: feelings go away and gave me relief. And when I
Speaker 1: shared the stories with my girlfriend at the time or
Speaker 1: my friends and and they thought it was cool and
Speaker 1: maybe you know, it made them feel a little bit better.
Speaker 1: I I enjoyed that communion and I do to this day.
Speaker 1: And when I get back to that, that's when stuff
Speaker 1: starts feeling better mental health wise, you know. And um
Speaker 1: and at these events, you know, if I start looking
Speaker 1: at you know, where my book is in the bookstore,
Speaker 1: or like, what's the best seller or do people, yeah,
Speaker 1: the the the the book owner like my book. Because
Speaker 1: you can always tell when they, you know, they instead
Speaker 1: of just saying there's somebody in the audience right now,
Speaker 1: it's given me eye contact the whole time, and they're
Speaker 1: getting something from what I'm saying today. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if they bought a book, because I've been given
Speaker 1: a lot and I'm here to give back. I'm not
Speaker 1: here to focus on sales or all that other distraction
Speaker 1: that leads to misery. I'm here to engage with my
Speaker 1: core values with other human beings are going the same
Speaker 1: stuff I'm going through on this, you know, Big Blue Marble.
Speaker 1: And that's when the anxieties starts to dissipate, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's when you get on mission, You get on point,
Speaker 1: and you just have to keep going. But you gotta
Speaker 1: keep taking yourself back to that good place of you know,
Speaker 1: what is the thing that you really really want to do?
Speaker 1: And you know, again your show has been a great
Speaker 1: reminder of that. And you know, even this interview, I
Speaker 1: had no anxiety coming on this because it was something
Speaker 1: that I've really wanted to do because I believe in
Speaker 1: the mission of the show and I knew we were
Speaker 1: gonna have a great conversation that I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 1: So I didn't feel any anxiety walking in here. And
Speaker 1: that's how I know I'm the right question. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I agree with you. Feel like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to meet a friend. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been a great talk. Thanks for coming on. Congratulations on
Speaker 1: your success. The book is called The Reason You Are
Speaker 1: a Live and it is really great, so i'd encourage
Speaker 1: folks to check it out. All right, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming by. Matthew. Hey, my absolute pleasure. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you, please consider making a donation to the One
Speaker 1: you Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash support