Speaker 1: Welcome to the highlight Reel from season one of this podcast,
Speaker 1: the favorite moments from the first nine episodes with a
Speaker 1: tremendous variety of great guests sharing their stories, passions and wisdom.
Speaker 1: We think it's a fun hour that will what's your
Speaker 1: appetite to go back and listen to some of these
Speaker 1: episodes in case you missed him the first time. First up,
Speaker 1: and good buddy, Sir Charles Barkley. Charles has already switched on.
Speaker 1: Today we recorded this and we covered a wide variety
Speaker 1: of topics, including his passion for golf, and Charles considers
Speaker 1: his time and the golf course with his buddies, many
Speaker 1: of them fellow sports legends, to be the best part
Speaker 1: of his life. These days you get to go with
Speaker 1: those guys. All you talk about is the good old days,
Speaker 1: and golf is the catalyst. I mean, golf is wanted.
Speaker 1: A few sports, well, let me phrase it. Golf is
Speaker 1: the only sport you can play when you get older.
Speaker 1: Golf is only spot like some guys might go out
Speaker 1: and try to play tennis, but golf, man, you can
Speaker 1: ask to go out and have fun. Like I said,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a few beers. You can smoke some cigars,
Speaker 1: you can talk trash and then it's just like you
Speaker 1: away from stress. Uh, you know, there's nothing going on.
Speaker 1: You're like, you just have a window where you can
Speaker 1: just have fun and then when it's over, hopefully you
Speaker 1: want some money and hit some good shots. Golf is
Speaker 1: the only thing you can do that with. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can't go out and play basketball. A football player
Speaker 1: can't go out and play football. A baseball player, you know,
Speaker 1: a great Roger Clemens can't go out and pitch right now,
Speaker 1: you know, But you know what, when we get together,
Speaker 1: like that's like when I'm in Lake Tahoe when Roger
Speaker 1: Clemments comes saying hello to me. Josh Allen this year,
Speaker 1: this year it was Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey. I
Speaker 1: played golf with those guys. I played golf with m. M. Smith. Like,
Speaker 1: not only did you get a chance to talk to
Speaker 1: those guys, but you get a chance to play golf
Speaker 1: with him. And you can't beat that. So you talked
Speaker 1: about the great conversations during a round of golf. The company.
Speaker 1: It's a tough question, but was there around for you
Speaker 1: that sticks out above all the others where everything was
Speaker 1: just perfect, How you were playing, where you were, who
Speaker 1: were you with? Maybe one money at the end, all
Speaker 1: of it just kind of came together. You said, this
Speaker 1: is the perfect round. It can't get any better than this.
Speaker 1: I think I shot seventy one time on of course
Speaker 1: in Kentucky and Wants celebrity tournament. That was probably the
Speaker 1: highlight for me personally. But to answer your question, I
Speaker 1: think Tiger is the greatest golfer who ever lived. I think,
Speaker 1: no disrespect to Jack Nicholas, who was an amazing person
Speaker 1: and great and the great golf in his own right.
Speaker 1: But I think because of the competition, the equipment. I
Speaker 1: think the competition has just gotten better over the years,
Speaker 1: as you can see, like the reason that why no
Speaker 1: we won every Rayder Cup for a hundred years and
Speaker 1: now it's like a toss up because they just got
Speaker 1: better players in other countries and better equipment. And when
Speaker 1: I played with Tiger, it was always an honor and
Speaker 1: a privilege. Um the same thing would feel. But to
Speaker 1: say that I played what, in my opinion is the
Speaker 1: greatest golfer ever, it was pretty surreal. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: told I told people, as the guys, I don't play
Speaker 1: with a lot of people. But I saw some stuff
Speaker 1: today because I ain't never seen before. I said, his
Speaker 1: ball makes a different sound when it comes off the
Speaker 1: club face and I said, and this before he I
Speaker 1: don't even think he had won a major at the time.
Speaker 1: That's how for this go back. And I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is this dude here? Uh, like I said, And I
Speaker 1: don't played with field quite a bit, Tom Lehman a
Speaker 1: bunch of pros in Phoenix. I'm playing a bunch of
Speaker 1: pro am. But when I played with Tiger for the
Speaker 1: first few times, I was like, Damn, this kid here
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. So that was probably the coolest moment for me.
Speaker 1: And then obviously after he'd want a bunch of majors
Speaker 1: to play with him, I was like, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is the Michael Jordan's Dwayne Gretzky like, there have
Speaker 1: very few players who you're like, oh, they're the best
Speaker 1: of what they ever did. So I think Wayne Gretzky
Speaker 1: is like that. I think Michael was like that. No
Speaker 1: disrespect to Kobe or Lebron or Jack Nichola, but I
Speaker 1: think Tiger is the best I've ever seen. And it
Speaker 1: was an honor the Pervos to play with him. We
Speaker 1: talk plenty more about golf, including Charles Rowle in my
Speaker 1: most humiliating athletic experience ever. He also got off an
Speaker 1: a vintage rant about fans and our colleagues in sports broadcasting.
Speaker 1: It's so funny, you know, I've known guys like yourself.
Speaker 1: I've know I mean, can we all travel in the
Speaker 1: same circles? And I got friends in the business going
Speaker 1: back to Burn and Gary, Uh, you know, guys like that.
Speaker 1: I've had dinner with them, and Joe Buck and guys
Speaker 1: like that. And there you're telling me like people actletely
Speaker 1: think we care who wins. Like when I'm in Alabama,
Speaker 1: They're like, I hate Gary and Verne. I'm like, why
Speaker 1: you garn there? I said, they have two of the
Speaker 1: nicest guys in the world. First of all, if you
Speaker 1: don't like Burn, you've got something wrong with you. Ye, like, well,
Speaker 1: they hate Alabama and Auburn. I said, really, really, are
Speaker 1: you serious? I said, you guys are just idiots. That's
Speaker 1: just I know Burn pretty well. I don't know Gary
Speaker 1: that well. But they're two great guys. But let me
Speaker 1: tell you something. They don't care who wins. Nobody cares
Speaker 1: who wins but fans think that because they hear what
Speaker 1: they want to hear. It's like Ernie was doing baseball
Speaker 1: one year and I went to the playoffs and people
Speaker 1: in in um in Philly, uh booing Ernie. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what they're doing, Ernie. They're like, they think you don't
Speaker 1: like the Phillis. That's just first of all, if you
Speaker 1: blewing Ernie Johnson, you're just an asshole. That's Ernie Johnson
Speaker 1: is the nicest person in the world. But this notion
Speaker 1: that Ernie cares who wins, so you have to learn it.
Speaker 1: You go like, man, I don't care who wins the game.
Speaker 1: You know what I want. I want the season to
Speaker 1: be able so I can get to my vacation. That's
Speaker 1: what I want more than anything. I want to cease
Speaker 1: to be over. Ernie's go ask me who's gonna win.
Speaker 1: I have to pick somebody, but I don't care who wins.
Speaker 1: But it always makes me laugh, like people care that nounce.
Speaker 1: They think like, well, that guy doesn't like my team,
Speaker 1: that guy doesn't like my school. I'm like, god, please stop,
Speaker 1: please stop. Nobody like cares who wins these events. So
Speaker 1: I kind of figured that, like, okay, if you don't
Speaker 1: like my nuts, and that's fine. I kinda get into
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to defend myself. I've had this confedsation
Speaker 1: with Joe Buck, who's fantastic. I'm like, you know, he's like,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Do you do? You? You want
Speaker 1: the best to ever do it? This notion that you
Speaker 1: care who wins. It's just Athanine, You're just doing your job.
Speaker 1: But fans they like, oh I hear this. No, no,
Speaker 1: he didn't say that, but that's what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: You know, we we we talked about this because you
Speaker 1: share all of the college football. The passion of the
Speaker 1: fans is one of the engines that makes this thing work.
Speaker 1: So I understand they view it through a lens. I
Speaker 1: understand they're going to hear what they want to hear
Speaker 1: and that their opinion is gonna be colored by that.
Speaker 1: And they think everybody's biased. You do a game, you
Speaker 1: got fans from both sides, and you were obviously biased
Speaker 1: against us. I can hear it other team fans say
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know you're doing a good job
Speaker 1: when you're when you're doing that, but I yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's not something you can worry about. And I yeah,
Speaker 1: but because I've actually I go to the Iron Bowl
Speaker 1: every year, my favorite sporting event other than the Olympics.
Speaker 1: And I can seem be sitting with Alabama and Arburn
Speaker 1: fans and they both said those announcements hate both of us.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys are just idiots. But it goes
Speaker 1: back like you've been in the business forever. I've been
Speaker 1: in it for twenty years, and like guys, we all
Speaker 1: knew each other. We don't care who wins. We're throwing
Speaker 1: the stats out there. Your defense sucks. We got that.
Speaker 1: We can't get on TV and say your defense is good. Well,
Speaker 1: and we say your defense sucked, and they suck. That
Speaker 1: don't mean we dislike your team, but you're right. They
Speaker 1: hear what they want to hear. And it's funny though,
Speaker 1: Uh it's funny. I always tell people fans want to
Speaker 1: hear two things, my favorite players and my team is great.
Speaker 1: If you don't say those two things, you're screwed with
Speaker 1: that fan base. I tell people my favorite player, you
Speaker 1: better tell me he's great, and you better tellim and
Speaker 1: my team is good. That's like what I'm in New York.
Speaker 1: Where are you at right now? It's always fun to
Speaker 1: go there because the Knicks fans are amazing. Every year
Speaker 1: you go there, they're like, you hate the Knicks. You
Speaker 1: hate the Knicks? Like, what are you talking about? You
Speaker 1: said they sucked every year? I said that stuff, they
Speaker 1: suck every year. And I said, wait a minute, Why
Speaker 1: am I a Knicks hater? If y'all suck every year?
Speaker 1: And I see y'all suck every year, why does that
Speaker 1: make me a hater? Now? That was recorded before the
Speaker 1: Knicks actually finally had a good season and Charles had
Speaker 1: to eat a few words. Now, the episode one highlights
Speaker 1: the good, the bad, and the funny. Four skilled interviewers
Speaker 1: and superbo storytellers Sharon tales that range from the triumphant
Speaker 1: to the tragic, the edgy and the cringe e. First up,
Speaker 1: Willie Guys to host NBC Sunday Today, offering insight on
Speaker 1: his wonderful interviews with the likes of David Letterman, Al Pacino,
Speaker 1: and the elusive Bill Murray. Yeah, that was a case
Speaker 1: like Dave where a life sort of preparation with Bill
Speaker 1: Murray came in handy because for people who don't know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a manager or publicist, He has no
Speaker 1: one like that, and celebrities have these layers of people
Speaker 1: that you go through. He still has, all these years later,
Speaker 1: a one eight hundred number that if you want to
Speaker 1: talk to him and get an interview, call and leave
Speaker 1: a message. This is a true story. And for Bill
Speaker 1: Murray and so our bookers say, Hi, this is so
Speaker 1: and so from Sunday today, Willie Guys would love to interview.
Speaker 1: And we never heard back, so most people never hear back.
Speaker 1: And then he came in to do a live interview
Speaker 1: on The Today Show with Savannah I think one morning
Speaker 1: and he was he's messing around doing what he does
Speaker 1: with everybody, and he's in the green room and our
Speaker 1: booker was there, which is you're the booker said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't do that Willie Guys show. Let's do that today,
Speaker 1: and they went today, Yeah, let's do it right after this.
Speaker 1: There's no there's a whole thing. We gotta get it
Speaker 1: set up, an elaborate shoot. It's called the Today Show.
Speaker 1: It's gonna men today for a long formative. He's like,
Speaker 1: just do it. Why don't we just he slides in
Speaker 1: the chair after Savannah, we do another inter of you.
Speaker 1: So luckily he was we didn't have time to set
Speaker 1: it up that quickly. But luckily he said I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be in town for another day. And all he said
Speaker 1: was have him come by the hotel at ten o'clock
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning. Okay, So we set up a shoot on
Speaker 1: the roof of the hotel, a little bar at the hotel.
Speaker 1: Who was staying, set up our cameras. Ten o'clock, the
Speaker 1: elevator doors opened. His hair's messed up, he's in new
Speaker 1: Balance shoes, corduroy pants, some free golf zip up he
Speaker 1: got at a tournament somewhere, probably Tahoe or something like that.
Speaker 1: And he sat with me for over an hour. And
Speaker 1: that was another one to your point of don't be
Speaker 1: the guy who's quoting Caddyshack to build Murray because he's
Speaker 1: gonna smell that immediately. Remember that. And then you said this,
Speaker 1: and then you said that the Dali Lama, big hitter,
Speaker 1: you know, don't don't do that, And I think I are.
Speaker 1: We were talking before the interview about he's a big
Speaker 1: Illinois basketball fan and my parents went there, so I
Speaker 1: was raised in Illinois basketball. We talked. It's probably on tape.
Speaker 1: I bet we're recording twenty minutes about like the nine
Speaker 1: Flying the Line nine versus the two thousand five Darren
Speaker 1: Williams d Brown team, And I think even from that
Speaker 1: and that was genuine for me. I grew up and
Speaker 1: then we had trust right there. And so then unsolicited
Speaker 1: he talks about Caddy Shack and we get into Ghostbusters
Speaker 1: and then he starts telling the SNL stories. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there was this one time Keith Richards and I were
Speaker 1: in a bathroom stall with a bottle of Rebel Yell
Speaker 1: while Mitt was out on stage singing some girls, and
Speaker 1: you're just going, oh my. And there are those moments
Speaker 1: you've probably had them where you're always doing your job
Speaker 1: or you're looking across and you go, Bill Murray's telling
Speaker 1: the SNLS tour, what a gift this is? You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you just freeze the moment. What a gift. And
Speaker 1: I felt that way with Dave and al Pacino too.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the ones that don't do a lot of
Speaker 1: interviews and you can get to tell you things that
Speaker 1: you haven't heard a million times elsewhere, those are the best.
Speaker 1: Those are the best interviews. So they can't all be gems.
Speaker 1: And the greatest hockey player of all time wasn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't didn't put the biscuit in the basket in that one. Well, no,
Speaker 1: he put the biscuit in the basket. It was me.
Speaker 1: I whiffed on opening it. So this was at the
Speaker 1: two thousand ten Olympics in Vancouver where he was sort
Speaker 1: of the grand ambassador at the Olympic Games, meaning Canada,
Speaker 1: and I was at the time, was ten years ago.
Speaker 1: I was I host a show called Way Too Early,
Speaker 1: which was on live at five thirty AM on the
Speaker 1: remember that four Morning go So in Vancouver, it's on
Speaker 1: a two thirty AM. So I'm getting into the the
Speaker 1: IBC at midnight. Every night. I'm waking up at eleven PM,
Speaker 1: going to bed at seven or eight. But I'm also
Speaker 1: out shooting things during the day, trying to get on
Speaker 1: the Today Show, just going a hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 1: And so the one night I didn't go out much
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons because everyone was out while I was
Speaker 1: in bed. But I did go out one night, finally
Speaker 1: got some time out. I went out with all the
Speaker 1: NBC people and my phone rang early in the morning
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, nobody else is around with
Speaker 1: Wayne Gretzky wants to do a quick interview. And I
Speaker 1: sort of woke up and its stupor, and I was
Speaker 1: exhausted after a month of this, and let's be honest,
Speaker 1: I was a little hungover and I wasn't feeling I
Speaker 1: was feeling a little green. And I said, well, of course,
Speaker 1: where do I come to the IBC. We'll do it
Speaker 1: in one of this little you know, this little flash studio.
Speaker 1: And so I was thinking about, all right, this is
Speaker 1: a big deal. You know, Costas is still asleep, nobody
Speaker 1: else is doing It's my turn to do it. So um,
Speaker 1: I put on I put on a shirt and then
Speaker 1: I thought I'm gonna go for like the sweater into
Speaker 1: the jacket. Look, so basically I had like three layers on.
Speaker 1: Then I put on a blazer and I hadn't slept
Speaker 1: in a month, and I'm hungover. And so I go
Speaker 1: into this little booth and there's Wayne Gretzky, total gentleman,
Speaker 1: and they say it's pretty hot in the booth. I
Speaker 1: don't They hadn't fired everything up yet, you know, And
Speaker 1: I've got four layers on, and so they say, all right,
Speaker 1: three to one interview, Wayne Gretzky and Chris like I've
Speaker 1: never had on TV or off, just the water works
Speaker 1: from the forehead down. And if you've ever been in
Speaker 1: that position, the more it happens, the worst it gets.
Speaker 1: You're thinking about it, you're trying to stop it with
Speaker 1: your mind, and for some reason, nobody stopped the fight.
Speaker 1: There are producers in there. I'm going, he's any gonna
Speaker 1: throw the towel in here right now? Literally, I could
Speaker 1: have used the towel and stop this fight. And to
Speaker 1: his great credit, I'm this close to Wayne Gretzky. He's
Speaker 1: talking about how great it is to have the games
Speaker 1: in his home country. I'm just pouring sweat, and he
Speaker 1: just without acknowledging it, he didn't say word, didn't an
Speaker 1: entire interview, and just kind of gave me a pat
Speaker 1: on the back and a wink like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on here, buddy, but I'm glad we got
Speaker 1: through that together. And he walked out like the gentleman
Speaker 1: he is, and my producer came in was like dude,
Speaker 1: and I said, dude, what about you gonna help me
Speaker 1: out here a little bit? And so that interview now
Speaker 1: for all times, has been known as the Sweat Sky Interview.
Speaker 1: Mixed up. They always cool and composed and extremely talented.
Speaker 1: Maria Taylor, what do you find is the most rewarding
Speaker 1: aspect of interviewing? My favorite I've always said that being
Speaker 1: in the moments of say in NFL or NBA Draft,
Speaker 1: where you're getting to you've seen the entire arc of
Speaker 1: a player's career, you know what I mean. They've worked
Speaker 1: so hard from their freshman year to you know, fighting through.
Speaker 1: Maybe they had a little bit of trouble, maybe they
Speaker 1: knew they needed to work harder. Maybe you know, you've
Speaker 1: heard stories about how they became even more active in
Speaker 1: their community. Then they became a captain and they became
Speaker 1: a leader. You've watched them win all the awards, and
Speaker 1: then on the day of the draft. I always think
Speaker 1: back to the NBA Draft two seasons ago, and you're
Speaker 1: getting you know, you're getting the tears from Zion even
Speaker 1: though he knew he was going to be the number
Speaker 1: one overall pick. But it's still I mean, I started
Speaker 1: in South Carolina as a kid who's just trying to
Speaker 1: make it to college, you know, and now look at
Speaker 1: where I am and we're talking about the whole city
Speaker 1: of New Orleans, celebrating just because my name was called
Speaker 1: and I'm overcome with emotions. So one of the greatest
Speaker 1: things is just to even be there holding the mic,
Speaker 1: documenting that moment for a player or a person, because
Speaker 1: we get to be there in those moments that they
Speaker 1: can remember them forever and they will look back at
Speaker 1: that and think about that moment and re able to
Speaker 1: remember some of those emotions and hear how they were feeling,
Speaker 1: and we get to share that with them. So that's
Speaker 1: probably the best part of it. Last thing, we all
Speaker 1: have our lists. The list includes some coaches who are
Speaker 1: going to be honest with you, not intimidate you, being expressive.
Speaker 1: Another list for coaches fall short of that criteria. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna ask you who's on the ladder list, because
Speaker 1: I know you're still interviewing a lot of these same people,
Speaker 1: But would you acknowledge that those lists exist and how
Speaker 1: does it shape the experience with the preparation for you
Speaker 1: when when a coach falls in one of those two camps. Okay,
Speaker 1: so in the second camp and just straight dread what
Speaker 1: you're gonna get um and you're like, oh no, that's
Speaker 1: on the schedule. Okay, here we go I'm gonna have to.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put my taftl on on for this one.
Speaker 1: And then there's coaches like I mean Steve Spurrier, who's
Speaker 1: not coaching anymore, but I would always love it. Doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if it's the pregame, doesn't matter if it's postgame
Speaker 1: and pathtime, you're gonna get a great quote from Spurrier
Speaker 1: because he's gonna be funny. It's probably gonna be a
Speaker 1: little bit light harder. I don't care if they're down,
Speaker 1: I don't care if they're up. He's gonna make fun
Speaker 1: of somebody, and it's just gonna be interesting. Like you
Speaker 1: gotta have the old ball coach in the first category.
Speaker 1: And again, I think when you're in the second you're
Speaker 1: just very You're trying to keep your questions as neutral
Speaker 1: as possible, like trying to find ways and not how
Speaker 1: the attack come at you, if it's possible. And uh,
Speaker 1: also just knowing that no matter what happens, like I'm
Speaker 1: still a good reporter after this. You gotta build your
Speaker 1: own confidence for those. Episode one also featured great stories
Speaker 1: from Jeremy chap about his interviews with Mike Tyson, Bob Knight,
Speaker 1: and many others and from rich eyes and told some
Speaker 1: hilarious stories. We got talking about mistaken identity, and I
Speaker 1: told a story about the Hollywood legend who punched me
Speaker 1: in the arm later on, gout in my face and
Speaker 1: refused to be interviewed by me on the set of
Speaker 1: Game Day. I think you will enjoy that story now.
Speaker 1: Besides a whole lot of laughs, in season one, we
Speaker 1: also featured companion episodes called You Are Not Alone, putting
Speaker 1: the focus on an issue of crucial importance these days,
Speaker 1: mental health. Hoping to expand the conversation and reduce the stigma.
Speaker 1: Are two guests, Dan Patrick and Gary Goldman were both powerful,
Speaker 1: vulnerable and generous. Now, Dan and Gary's own experiences with
Speaker 1: mental health are very different, but each of them delivered
Speaker 1: passionate messages, helpful and hopeful to those who are struggling
Speaker 1: or for those who have loved ones who are struggling well.
Speaker 1: Depression is a topic that's been important to me and
Speaker 1: lots of people. I do want to get into that.
Speaker 1: You said you've had in your family, so you have
Speaker 1: an awareness of what it's like. You understand that it's
Speaker 1: not a character flaw, it's a flaw in chemistry. It's
Speaker 1: not in your control, but it's very, very tough to
Speaker 1: to find a way to navigate out of that. So
Speaker 1: when you're when you're you're feeling this pain and obviously
Speaker 1: you're going through all the scary thoughts, how did that
Speaker 1: translate into sort of mental difficulties and take you sort
Speaker 1: of to a dark place. I didn't know I was there.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who are depressed don't
Speaker 1: know they're there. And I just I would just get
Speaker 1: to a place where I didn't want to talk, you know,
Speaker 1: I just sit and then I didn't realize I wasn't talking,
Speaker 1: and my wife would say, what's wrong? I go nothing,
Speaker 1: But I was in my own world and I I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I let it uh kind of
Speaker 1: easy its way in and then it doesn't leave easily. Um,
Speaker 1: And you know, I kept thinking, you know, everything in
Speaker 1: my mindsetf I can figure this out. I can get
Speaker 1: out of this. I can be better than this, I
Speaker 1: can be stronger than this. And then I realized that
Speaker 1: I couldn't. And that's you know, when you know, I
Speaker 1: just had to figure out can I do? I need
Speaker 1: to talk to somebody, and then the you know, I'm stubborn.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk to somebody. I don't need
Speaker 1: to talk to somebody. So I kind of just you know,
Speaker 1: threw myself into a deeper, deeper hole. And I pulled
Speaker 1: into the driveway one time, and I'm embarrassed, but I
Speaker 1: went in right into the garage and I just said,
Speaker 1: if I shut that garage door, I'm good. That's that.
Speaker 1: That was the way out. That made a little bit
Speaker 1: of sense for a moment there, for a moment, And
Speaker 1: I understand when people say, how could somebody do something
Speaker 1: like that? I just, you know, you pull in and
Speaker 1: I go, I can shut that door, and then I
Speaker 1: go what like? And then of course it hits you
Speaker 1: and you go, what God, what am I thinking here?
Speaker 1: And you know, you're leaving four kids and you're you know,
Speaker 1: just all the just crazy. But you get in that
Speaker 1: space and I couldn't get out, and you know, you
Speaker 1: just like I couldn't wait to get out of the
Speaker 1: car and out of the garage to go what am
Speaker 1: I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?
Speaker 1: Was that a momentary thing one time? Persistent? No, that
Speaker 1: was once, but the depression was that was constant where
Speaker 1: it was just like I just dreaded waking up in
Speaker 1: the morning, hated it. What did that? What did it
Speaker 1: feel like to you? Because people describe it in different ways,
Speaker 1: but what what the depression on the daily basis feel
Speaker 1: like to you? It was just it was as if
Speaker 1: the day is cloudy, overcast every day energy. Did you
Speaker 1: have any No, No, you just don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't want to do anything. And I
Speaker 1: would sit downstairs at night and I would smoke a
Speaker 1: cigar and drink. That would that would be the routine
Speaker 1: every night, just sit there and it was that you know,
Speaker 1: wallowing period or whatever it was. But I was just
Speaker 1: down there, didn't want to talk, and you know, that
Speaker 1: was it. So like seven to nine o'clock, you know
Speaker 1: that was that was happy hours. But you know then
Speaker 1: you realize that I'm done. It doesn't make it any better,
Speaker 1: but I was trying to take away pain. You got
Speaker 1: angry when when Dak Prescott was criticized for showing his
Speaker 1: vulnerability and what he had gone through suicide. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean his mom died, his brother died of a suicide.
Speaker 1: And then you know people, you know, just say, well
Speaker 1: you're vulnerable, Well you're making it so vulnerable. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't be a leader if you're vulnerable. Like I didn't,
Speaker 1: I didn't understand damn that logic. I'm going, oh my god, well,
Speaker 1: will people stop doing this because you know, we're stigmatizing
Speaker 1: this again. And that's the dangerous part where people are
Speaker 1: gonna be afraid to come forward. But you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're soft. What if that's the case? Sign me up.
Speaker 1: I'm fucking soft. But I'm vulnerable, and so Dak Prescott
Speaker 1: in that moment. God, I can't imagine how vulnerable he was.
Speaker 1: And for people to say, you're the leader of a
Speaker 1: football team, that's not what leaders do. I'm more apt
Speaker 1: to follow that guy than a guy who was keeping
Speaker 1: everything inside. And I just it angered me, and probably
Speaker 1: because you know, it was hitting me personally, but I
Speaker 1: just said, man, don't don't do that to people. If
Speaker 1: you're gonna do it to Dak Prescott, you're gonna do
Speaker 1: it to you know, somebody who might be in your family.
Speaker 1: Come on, toughen up, don't be so soft. Um. I've
Speaker 1: had a couple of people who've committed suicide that I know,
Speaker 1: And if you would have said that these two people
Speaker 1: are gonna kill them sounds. I said, there, you're you
Speaker 1: got to be crazy In a million years, I would
Speaker 1: you know I I when I found out, I went
Speaker 1: and there's no way. But that's why when people go,
Speaker 1: you know, be tough, you know, don't be soft, don't
Speaker 1: be vulnerable. Sometimes for those who suffer, it just takes
Speaker 1: the one voice, whether it's Michael Phelps, he said, Kevin
Speaker 1: Love others, for some out there that would be you.
Speaker 1: You would be the voice that would connect with them
Speaker 1: and make them understand that what they're going through need
Speaker 1: not make them feel alone, that there is a way
Speaker 1: out of it. So what if anything that you haven't
Speaker 1: already said, would you say to someone who is coping
Speaker 1: with Not the PMR that's very specific, but the feelings
Speaker 1: and thoughts that went with that, the took you to
Speaker 1: the dark places. Well a lot of it is as
Speaker 1: a result of something leads to depression or brings depression
Speaker 1: out from what I've been told, and I think that's
Speaker 1: where you have to talk to people. If you've gone
Speaker 1: through something that's traumatic, you've lost somebody, you haven't can
Speaker 1: issue you know, that's where you have to be. Just
Speaker 1: find somebody who will listen to most people just want
Speaker 1: to tell you, they just want to talk because you're
Speaker 1: the one that's stuck with it. Everybody else goes along,
Speaker 1: you know, every day with their lives, and then you
Speaker 1: want to just grab somebody and hold him and he
Speaker 1: then sit down and just say, hey, I'm going through this.
Speaker 1: And it's not that I didn't have that, it was
Speaker 1: just after a while, you didn't, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: cathartic for me, Like I I just needed to feel
Speaker 1: better about myself. And I think the more that you
Speaker 1: you're willing to talk to somebody it, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: you have to have somebody who listens to you. That
Speaker 1: was the most important thing that I had somebody who
Speaker 1: was willing to listen. And it could be people who
Speaker 1: were going through depression, my wife obviously, and I felt
Speaker 1: like I was important, like what I was going through
Speaker 1: was important to them, and vice versus. So when somebody says, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going through this, or hey did you ever feel this,
Speaker 1: I'm all ears. Like I know that feeling is like
Speaker 1: you can tell it in somebody's eyes when they really
Speaker 1: give a shit about what you're talking about, and when
Speaker 1: they do, it's just this unbelievable weight that goes off
Speaker 1: your shoulders. Where you going, Okay, I can just talk
Speaker 1: to you. I always feel like, you know, the clock
Speaker 1: is running. You know. I work in a business where
Speaker 1: the clock is always running, and when I sit down
Speaker 1: and talk to somebody, I always think they're gonna go.
Speaker 1: I got about two and a half minutes to get
Speaker 1: this in and and then you could just see where
Speaker 1: they're kind of going blank or they look at their
Speaker 1: watch and gotta be there. Mean while I'm saying, and
Speaker 1: then my wife and I couldn't get up and I
Speaker 1: couldn't try my shoot, and then they're going, okay, hey,
Speaker 1: well see you again, Dan, Nice to talk to you,
Speaker 1: Like why did I reveal myself like that? But talk
Speaker 1: to somebody and just know that you're not in it alone.
Speaker 1: You're not. But you've got to find somebody that you trust,
Speaker 1: that loves you, that cares and will listen to you,
Speaker 1: and then you try to find a solution. The courage
Speaker 1: that Dan has shown in describing his troubles has been
Speaker 1: incredibly helpful to so many people, and that is deeply
Speaker 1: gratifying to him. Another man who's a symbol of hope
Speaker 1: for those struggling with mental health. Is Gary Gellman, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite comedians and incredibly intelligent funny man. And
Speaker 1: You Are Not Alone. Part two, Gary talks about his
Speaker 1: struggles with mental health, his entire adult life, which includes
Speaker 1: a stint as a Boston College football player and the
Speaker 1: rise of the comedy ranks, where Gary says his mental
Speaker 1: health often hinge on the reaction of audiences from Night Tonight.
Speaker 1: In searching for answers, he read the book by Bruce Springsteen,
Speaker 1: who talked about his own deep struggles with depression. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that makes you feel better or worse.
Speaker 1: If you can relate to someone like Springsteen or Cheese,
Speaker 1: if even he is subject to all the darkness and
Speaker 1: the evils of this, what am I going to do
Speaker 1: about it? I mean, there's different ways you could take
Speaker 1: his his example, or the example of those who are
Speaker 1: heroes and have everything talent, success, money, fame, all that.
Speaker 1: My city was. I'll work hard, I'll do something great,
Speaker 1: then I'll feel good about myself. And I have found
Speaker 1: in the past two and a half years that it's
Speaker 1: the opposite. I feel great and now I'm working harder,
Speaker 1: and and it's easier. The work is so much easier
Speaker 1: because I don't one, I don't have a brain that
Speaker 1: is that is actually slower. They show that brain is
Speaker 1: slower when you're depressed. It's not working, it's not firing,
Speaker 1: it's not operating at its maximum uh ideal level. And
Speaker 1: so that's a handicap. And then the other thing is
Speaker 1: that depression also causes these ruminations and what you're saying,
Speaker 1: you're you're not talented, you're not smart, you're you're weak,
Speaker 1: you're lazy. And then and so I'm fighting that off
Speaker 1: and trying to write an interesting joke. It's it's just
Speaker 1: too much to ask for. I mean, it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: in the in the physical aspects of depression. And the
Speaker 1: horrible thing about depression is x different people different ways,
Speaker 1: so that I would sleep for nineteen hours and still
Speaker 1: be tired, and some people will go days without sleeping
Speaker 1: and they can't eat, and other people all they can
Speaker 1: do is eat and they put on all kinds of
Speaker 1: of wait. But one of the things I found was
Speaker 1: that Shane, who's about five ten, would walk and I
Speaker 1: would be when I was depressed. I would say, please
Speaker 1: slow down, I can't keep up with you, and and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm six ft six and athletic, and that was
Speaker 1: that was never the case with anyone. I always outpaced everyone.
Speaker 1: And and since I've been feeling better, it's it's back
Speaker 1: to normal where I'm I'm slowing down too so she
Speaker 1: can catch up with me. And and and it was
Speaker 1: it was exhausting these these block I would walk my
Speaker 1: dogs for fifteen minutes and I would have to take
Speaker 1: a nap, and and and that that's not that's an
Speaker 1: me I have. I have energy. And the depression had
Speaker 1: had hijacked my brain as as well as my my
Speaker 1: my limbs. And I didn't realize how how far it
Speaker 1: had gotten until I started to recover and found all
Speaker 1: these things so much easier. Gary's path through recovery includes
Speaker 1: to stay on what he refers to as the psych
Speaker 1: word where he got electro convulsive therapy. Now he speaks
Speaker 1: about those very intense topics with great humor in his
Speaker 1: HBO comedy special The Great Depression. If you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: I urge you to watch it. It is very powerful
Speaker 1: and very funny. And the recording of that special for
Speaker 1: Gary was a truly triumphant moment. So I had all
Speaker 1: these people there and I and I said it, and
Speaker 1: I meant it. My only fear was that it would
Speaker 1: come off corny, and it was that I had contemplated
Speaker 1: suicide sometime for every moment I was awake for days
Speaker 1: on and and I said, I am so glad I
Speaker 1: stuck around for this, and and it just it's it's
Speaker 1: laughable what I received just for sticking it out. It's
Speaker 1: it's absurd. If I had just had one audience full
Speaker 1: of these people, it would have been worth sticking around
Speaker 1: for because it felt so good. But not only that
Speaker 1: HBO was there, and my family was there, my therapist
Speaker 1: was there, and Judd Apata was backstage. It was it was,
Speaker 1: it was silly. I literally pinched myself on on stage
Speaker 1: that night because it felt like a dream. So it
Speaker 1: may not be that, but it also there are nights,
Speaker 1: and again I'm gonna come back to laughter. There are
Speaker 1: nights where you're out with your friends and and Kurt
Speaker 1: Vonnegut said that whenever you're feeling great, whether you just
Speaker 1: had sex, whether you just had a great meal or
Speaker 1: a great laugh, you should say to yourself, if this
Speaker 1: isn't nice, I don't know what is, and you should
Speaker 1: say it out loud as sort of a bookmark. We
Speaker 1: need to bookmark these these moments. And that was one
Speaker 1: of those moments. And I know it didn't have to
Speaker 1: be that big because that there was a there was
Speaker 1: a birthday. You're you're always going to get your birthday,
Speaker 1: and you're going to say to yourself, is this isn't nice?
Speaker 1: I don't know what is and it's worth sticking around
Speaker 1: for it and and not giving up. Is the only
Speaker 1: way you can guarantee that you'll at least have the
Speaker 1: the chance. And I used to and my my, my
Speaker 1: wife was was so crucial to this because she kept
Speaker 1: researching developments in treating depression. She wasn't giving up and
Speaker 1: and part of me was saying, just stay alive in
Speaker 1: case they cure this. Just stay in the game, in
Speaker 1: case they cure this. You don't have to do anything,
Speaker 1: just just read all day or sleep all day, but
Speaker 1: be alive when they cure this. It's been wonderful to
Speaker 1: develop a friendship with garys since we recorded that episode.
Speaker 1: Part of his regular mental health regiment lall walks through
Speaker 1: New York Central Park, and I've accompanied him occasionally on those.
Speaker 1: I can tell you these days, Gary keeps up a
Speaker 1: very brisk pace now both you are not alone. Episodes
Speaker 1: provide hope if you're struggling with mental health issues and
Speaker 1: would also be very helpful if you're trying to gain
Speaker 1: a deeper understanding now. Gary's comedy is also featured in
Speaker 1: another episode from season one, Laughter's Power. We talk about
Speaker 1: the power of laughter to make us happier, healthier, less stressed,
Speaker 1: more resilient, and connect us with others. Gary has brought
Speaker 1: me lots of laughter because his material on sports is
Speaker 1: as good as anybody's. Here's a clip from The Great Depression,
Speaker 1: which is featured in the episode. I fell in love
Speaker 1: with basketball almost immediately because because vast cotball just fits
Speaker 1: my personality. It's still does. Basketball is the only sport
Speaker 1: you can practice by yourself. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time practicing basketball by myself, and basketball also fits me
Speaker 1: because it's the only sport where if somebody so much
Speaker 1: as slaps you on the wrist, they stop the game,
Speaker 1: stop the game, separate everyone, and let you make two
Speaker 1: easy shots while everyone else is forced to watch quietly,
Speaker 1: as if to say, think about what you did. Also
Speaker 1: a guest in Laughter's Power, a budding neurosurgeon and former
Speaker 1: NFL player FS who's seminal and Rhodes scholar Dr Myron Roll.
Speaker 1: He is passionate talking about how laughter makes us feel
Speaker 1: physically great and how laughter has helped him through his
Speaker 1: demanding careers in football and in medicine. Something else that
Speaker 1: makes us feel great is adventure and exploration. And then
Speaker 1: the inspiring travel episode, I've got a pair of extremely
Speaker 1: experienced travelers and great storytellers. First up, pioneering TV host
Speaker 1: Kelly Edwards, accomplished pilot, scuba diver, mountaineer, and Outside Magazine's
Speaker 1: most Interesting Woman in the World. Kelly talks about how
Speaker 1: she made the journey from the South side of Chicago
Speaker 1: to a life of global exploration. It's changed my life.
Speaker 1: I've seen it change other people's lives. I've introduced a
Speaker 1: lot of people to travel. I've purchased a lot of
Speaker 1: passports for Christmas for my friends. I feel like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to give you a pair of shoes.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you this tool that you can
Speaker 1: see what you're made up in the world. And I've
Speaker 1: had people on trips with me and on trips that
Speaker 1: they're taking themselves and say, why didn't I do this earlier?
Speaker 1: And I say, at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 1: never too late to start. That's an awesome message. I
Speaker 1: think that it is important member that adventure, you know,
Speaker 1: need not be exotic or far flung. Adventure just requires
Speaker 1: you to pack your curiosity right and be open to
Speaker 1: learning things and seeing things. And you can have adventures
Speaker 1: within the city you live right if you in your mind.
Speaker 1: So what's the most mundane place that you visited you
Speaker 1: ended up having an adventure and and some great memories
Speaker 1: of m hmmm. I'd say I wasn't expecting too much
Speaker 1: out of like Joshua Tree really because it looks like
Speaker 1: there's just like a bunch of Joshua trees, if that's
Speaker 1: what they're called, everywhere out there, and say, a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of rock formations, and it's really really hot.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I went camping out there over night.
Speaker 1: I had never seen the stars so clear so close
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. Did you have a spiritual experience out there?
Speaker 1: And it was incredible absolutely without any assistance, I mean,
Speaker 1: just a natural spiritual experience exactly. No, totally natural. And
Speaker 1: I mean when I say natural, just me myself and me,
Speaker 1: no no additives. But I had a moment out there.
Speaker 1: What's been the most gratifying reaction to that position? Because
Speaker 1: no one needs permission to travel. But if you see
Speaker 1: things constantly filtered through a middle aged white guy lens
Speaker 1: and may not spark your imagination in the same way
Speaker 1: for some folks that seeing you do these things does.
Speaker 1: So what's been the best feedback you've gotten in terms
Speaker 1: of Kelly? You really opened my eyes and you changed
Speaker 1: my perspective. I feel liberated now to do things that
Speaker 1: I didn't before. Sure, I've had a few examples. There
Speaker 1: was a fifty five year old woman who came up
Speaker 1: to me and says she started taking swimming lessons because
Speaker 1: she saw me swimming in the water on television. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. She's like, yeah, no, I I It's time
Speaker 1: for me to learn how to swim. And so I
Speaker 1: started taking lessons because I saw you. I have parents
Speaker 1: writing letters to me on behalf of little Girls, saying
Speaker 1: that my daughter saw you UM on television or in
Speaker 1: this magazine, and she now knows that she can being
Speaker 1: explored too, and that she can fly planes too. UM.
Speaker 1: I had a little girl who was picked on UM
Speaker 1: as a tomboy UM and and on her block, and
Speaker 1: the mom reached out to me to say that I
Speaker 1: went to show my daughter. Sorry, I don't want to cry,
Speaker 1: but my daughter was getting picked on by these boys
Speaker 1: because of her loving being outside and the outdoors, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to show her women doing these things too,
Speaker 1: And so I googled you and I brought you up
Speaker 1: and she said, oh my gosh, mommy, she's she's a
Speaker 1: girl like me. I can do I can do these things.
Speaker 1: It's not just for boys. So when you get that
Speaker 1: type of feedback from young women, people of color, people
Speaker 1: who never thought they can do any of these things,
Speaker 1: and just my presence changes their perspective, it's been very powerful.
Speaker 1: I never set out to be a role model. Um,
Speaker 1: but I'm proud that through me living my life and
Speaker 1: leading by example, people know that it is not inaccessible
Speaker 1: for them, because it truly is. And I don't want
Speaker 1: other people to even to have to wait on me
Speaker 1: to do something to think that they can do it.
Speaker 1: I say, charge your own path, you know, do what
Speaker 1: makes you happy, do what you're curious about, and then
Speaker 1: you'll find out who you are as a person. Don't
Speaker 1: even be better than me, I say all the time,
Speaker 1: don't stop where I stop. That's just a foundation shoot
Speaker 1: for the star. It's like literally someone become an astronaut.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's so powerful. I think it's because you
Speaker 1: didn't set out to do it. You didn't set out
Speaker 1: to be a pioneer necessarily or a role model. It
Speaker 1: just came from place of authenticity. That's what I think
Speaker 1: makes it more powerful and stronger connection with people. That's
Speaker 1: that's cool. Um, most interesting woman in the world. That's
Speaker 1: some title to have. Oh boy, could create some pressure
Speaker 1: in the way that a comedian feels that need to
Speaker 1: be funny every time he's around strangers. I mean, what
Speaker 1: do you find most interesting about yourself? Not a not
Speaker 1: an easy question for a lot of people to answer,
Speaker 1: not at all. Holy smokes. I've never even thought about that,
Speaker 1: But if I had to right now, I think the
Speaker 1: most interesting thing about myself is that I have escaped
Speaker 1: a narrative that was created for me. I've I literally
Speaker 1: said I am this and I am not that. I'm
Speaker 1: not that. There's no way I'm going to allow anyone
Speaker 1: to pigeonhole me, to stereotype me, two think that I'm
Speaker 1: not capable of something. I'm going to show up and
Speaker 1: learn what I'm supposed to do here with my time
Speaker 1: on Earth. And so I think the most fascinating thing
Speaker 1: about me is that I have literally created my own
Speaker 1: narrative without the guidance of anyone who's done it prior
Speaker 1: to me. The way I'm doing these things, researching and
Speaker 1: then getting to know inspiring folks like Kelly really is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts of doing this podcast. Another
Speaker 1: guest in the Inspiring Travel episode is Lea Abbamonte. Now
Speaker 1: I know that I love to travel. I have a
Speaker 1: real curiosity for new places. But Lee is extreme, unquenchable
Speaker 1: desire to explore the globe. Didn't start out with a checklist,
Speaker 1: but eventually became the youngest American to visit every country
Speaker 1: on Earth and both poles. He tells a lot of
Speaker 1: great stories in this episode, a couple that we would
Speaker 1: advise you not to try, urge you not to try,
Speaker 1: including Lee's adventurous border crossing about ten years ago. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So back in UH eleven, I had been to about
Speaker 1: a hundred hundred ninety or so countries, and there's a
Speaker 1: hundred ninety three. So I went on this big trip
Speaker 1: and I was going to go to some of the
Speaker 1: more romantic destinations like Somalia, Algeria, Sudan, and Libya, And
Speaker 1: at that time I was able to get to three
Speaker 1: of those four. And then the Arab Spring happened and
Speaker 1: Libya was no flies on all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 1: all the drama that went on down there, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to get there in March. When I went
Speaker 1: so in August, I got an email from a guy
Speaker 1: I know in Cairo and he's like, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you can get into the border of Egypt in Libya
Speaker 1: and kind of sneak in there because there's nobody guarding
Speaker 1: the border. Basically, I was like, okay, cool, And I
Speaker 1: literally got on a plane at New York and just
Speaker 1: flew to Cairo and then flew out to this remote
Speaker 1: desert outpost called Mercer Mutro, which no one's ever heard of.
Speaker 1: It's about three hundred miles from the border, right And
Speaker 1: I get there. I have no idea what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: And I literally had like five thousand dollars in my pocket,
Speaker 1: and I figured I was gonna have to pay somebody something.
Speaker 1: And uh, I like, don't speak but three words of
Speaker 1: Arabic and I get off the plane and I had
Speaker 1: no idea, and I'm like, this guy over here, he's
Speaker 1: wearing a like, uh, you know, a sport coade with
Speaker 1: our Libyan rebel of Pelpans, so he maybe he speaks
Speaker 1: English and go over to him, so do you speak English?
Speaker 1: He goes yeah, and I go Here's what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do. And he looks at me like I got
Speaker 1: seven heads. He's like what what you want to go
Speaker 1: into Olivia? Like what? And uh? And I was like,
Speaker 1: can you translate to the taxi driver? Haven't drive me
Speaker 1: to the border. And he goes, well, then what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do. I'm like, I have no idea. And
Speaker 1: then he goes, all right, listen, kid, you're gonna come
Speaker 1: in the car with me. My brother is coming from
Speaker 1: to Brook, Olivia with a minivan and we're gonna drive
Speaker 1: across the border and we're gonna smuggle you in. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that sounds great, man, awesome. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: didn't even occur to me that this was weird, right,
Speaker 1: It was just like so excited. And so we go
Speaker 1: fast forward three hundred miles. Okay, we're at the border
Speaker 1: with these two Olibyan guys who've never met before. And
Speaker 1: we're in line at the border. We leave Egypt and
Speaker 1: we're in line at the border of Olibya, right uh,
Speaker 1: you know, seemed normal, seemed normal, seem normal. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're about three or four cars back, about
Speaker 1: thirty ft from the actual like border itself where you
Speaker 1: show the passports, but on the other side of the
Speaker 1: border this big truck of Chinese smugglers trying to smuggle
Speaker 1: fake Marlborough's cigarettes from Libya into Egypt because they didn't
Speaker 1: want to have to pay the Egyptian tariff. Because there
Speaker 1: was no government in Libya, they thought they could smuggle
Speaker 1: it in without having to pay, So, you know, it
Speaker 1: seemed like a good idea, right. The only problem was
Speaker 1: the Libyan rebels were at that point controlling the border
Speaker 1: where they hadn't been I guess prior, and they started
Speaker 1: arguing about the payment blah blah blah. There was about
Speaker 1: fifty Chinese guys on top of this truck and then
Speaker 1: there's probably you know, fifteen or twenty Libyan rebels and
Speaker 1: they're all armed, and then these guys just start shooting
Speaker 1: at each other. And on the other side of the border,
Speaker 1: we're away and all of a sudden, the car gets
Speaker 1: hit three times and I'm in the back of this
Speaker 1: car with these people who I don't know, and I'm like, go, go, go,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh go and go and go where
Speaker 1: they're firing like into the like like just I'm like
Speaker 1: back yeah, and the guy like slams on the on
Speaker 1: the gas like backwards, hits the car behind him like
Speaker 1: peels out like basically into the desert about a half
Speaker 1: a mile I think. And meanwhile, I'm like ducking, but
Speaker 1: I'm also kind of like looking through the window, you know,
Speaker 1: to see what the hell is going on, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we sat there for about three hours, right
Speaker 1: and you can see, like you know, there's like dead people,
Speaker 1: and uh, all of a sudden, the guy goes to me, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we can go now, and I'm like, okay, man, sure.
Speaker 1: Here I am in the middle of no man's land
Speaker 1: between Egypt and Libya. And we go back in line
Speaker 1: and we're about you know, four or five cars back again,
Speaker 1: and I goes, okay, give me your passport, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, here's my passport. And they whispered some
Speaker 1: stuff to his his brother in Arabic and then he
Speaker 1: turns to me and he goes, all right, kid, here's
Speaker 1: the deal. And I'm like okay. He goes, You're gonna
Speaker 1: be a humanitarian dentist going into Libya to do dental
Speaker 1: work for the Libyan people. And I'm like, dude, I'm
Speaker 1: not a dentist. Like what are you talking about. He goes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Nobody in Libya has straight teeth, so
Speaker 1: just smile, points your teeth and that's like all you
Speaker 1: need to do. So I give my passport. We get
Speaker 1: to the to the border. He whispers some stuff in
Speaker 1: Arabic to the other guy. Guy looks at my passport,
Speaker 1: looks at me, and he smiles and he points to
Speaker 1: his teeth and he just goes, welcome to Libya. And
Speaker 1: I did the exact same thing, and then I was
Speaker 1: in Libya. I mean there's about three different spots there
Speaker 1: where Number one, they said sneak across the border before
Speaker 1: you left. You start good idea. Then you hear the
Speaker 1: plan and it's like us the word smuggle you in
Speaker 1: and you were still all in for that. And then
Speaker 1: there's been carnage at the border and you gotta loop
Speaker 1: back and go in there. Did you stop to think
Speaker 1: what happens once you get inside Libya? I mean, the
Speaker 1: goal is seeing it in the country. What the hell
Speaker 1: happens once you crushed the border? I mean, isn't that
Speaker 1: still a really dangerous place to be? A hundred percent?
Speaker 1: But I figure, you know, I've been in war zones before,
Speaker 1: like I've been in Iraq, I've been in Afghanistan, had
Speaker 1: been in uh Iran, Somalia, Syria. So yeah, man, So
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I got this. I just got
Speaker 1: to get across and then I can kind of figure
Speaker 1: it out. And this guy really seemed to know what
Speaker 1: he was talking about. It was like a sixth sense,
Speaker 1: Like I felt comfortable with the guy even though I
Speaker 1: didn't know him. I could tell like he knew what
Speaker 1: he was doing. It turns out the guy's like a
Speaker 1: u N dissident, right. He hadn't been in Libyan forty
Speaker 1: one years. Uh, he left when Gadaff he took over,
Speaker 1: and he hadn't seen his family, and that long he
Speaker 1: was going back for the first time. It's like nineteen,
Speaker 1: you know, sixty whatever it was, and uh, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. And then he insists, like did I
Speaker 1: come to his family's apartment and like, you know, meet everybody,
Speaker 1: And there was like fifty people in the apartment and
Speaker 1: none of them even cared that he was there. They
Speaker 1: all just wanted to like stare at me and like
Speaker 1: take pictures and like practice their angler ask me questions.
Speaker 1: It was like crazy, man, It's like one of those
Speaker 1: moments if you don't put yourself in these absolutely ridiculous situations,
Speaker 1: you don't understand. But it was just like one of
Speaker 1: those moments where you felt like humanity was okay. You know,
Speaker 1: well that's a great, happy ending. But did it ever
Speaker 1: occur to you you might be that guy that pops
Speaker 1: up on CNN American citizen taking a hostage and now
Speaker 1: you become the focal point of some international incident, you know,
Speaker 1: and they have to try get you out of there.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I thought about that a few times. It
Speaker 1: wasn't This wasn't the only time I thought that might happen.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but I mean, in hindsight, it was like stupid, obviously,
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it makes a good story
Speaker 1: to be chapter one of my book. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's fun to tell. Lee tells a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of other great stories in the episode, including the highlight
Speaker 1: of his adventure travel career, reaching the South Pole on
Speaker 1: his second try. It was enough to make me contemplate
Speaker 1: a trip to Antarctica. You never know ideas like that
Speaker 1: are to be pursued, I think, but travel and adventure.
Speaker 1: Another topic that has always interested me is brotherly bonds.
Speaker 1: They're strong, they're sturdy, but they are complex. I have
Speaker 1: a younger brother, Drew. My dad was one of four brothers.
Speaker 1: Have always been fascinated and the stories told by my
Speaker 1: two guests, Patrick McEnroe, one of three brothers, and also
Speaker 1: Nathan Followell, who's younger brothers Jared and Caleb, along with
Speaker 1: first cousin Matthew, make up one of my favorite rock
Speaker 1: and roll bands, Kings of Leon. Here's a sample of
Speaker 1: Nathan's storytelling. It's a powder keg because you know exactly
Speaker 1: what to say to get it to whatever level you
Speaker 1: wanted to go to. And you can also you get
Speaker 1: away with it because what are you gonna do? Not
Speaker 1: play a show that night? Are you gonna go? Okay?
Speaker 1: So you quit the band. I'll see you at Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: and at Christmas and at Easter, and like there's no escape.
Speaker 1: We're Hotel California basically and in the flesh and check out,
Speaker 1: but never leave you. Yeah, so that's how how it is.
Speaker 1: I heard. Sorry you guys got after each other, though,
Speaker 1: was it was hazard duty to try to break it up, right,
Speaker 1: because that's just what that's what that's what brothers are about.
Speaker 1: That's what we did. I'll remember one night we had
Speaker 1: we bought a farmhouse out on a bunch of land
Speaker 1: so we could just play horse shoes and build bompires
Speaker 1: and goof off. And I had a friend, We'll say,
Speaker 1: a friend came and stayed with me for a couple
Speaker 1: of nights and me and Cable got into i mean
Speaker 1: a bruiser. He smacked me on top of the head
Speaker 1: with the pants, split my head wide open. Luckily she
Speaker 1: was a nurse, so she whatever fixed me up. And
Speaker 1: so the next day I was like, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for you know, help me out Last night with
Speaker 1: my I know, she was packing our bags and I
Speaker 1: was like, where are you going? She's like, you guys
Speaker 1: are fucking crazy, she said, I'm getting the hell out
Speaker 1: of here. Like she said, you seem like a nice
Speaker 1: and that guy, but outsiders aren't ready for that. And
Speaker 1: you step in there. I mean, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: even your crew who witnessed relationship, right, I mean it
Speaker 1: was even tough for them. Sometimes you as close as
Speaker 1: that bond is a bandon a cruise, a tight bond,
Speaker 1: but it's still not like like the brotherly bond. Right.
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't. I wouldn't want to be
Speaker 1: the person that had to decide which brother I was
Speaker 1: gonna restrain to stop this fight, because then you've got
Speaker 1: the other brother now has two freehand. It's just gonna
Speaker 1: go to town on you. You can have all that
Speaker 1: love in your heart for that person that can be
Speaker 1: turned to anger just like that because they know what
Speaker 1: button to push, like having siblings. You know, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: at about a two right now at this argument level.
Speaker 1: Now I could kick this up to a ten right now,
Speaker 1: or we can go to five. You know, hang out there?
Speaker 1: Are you a little more than like work our way up?
Speaker 1: Or so? I think it's the passion, more than anything
Speaker 1: which can make a brother love a brother, give up
Speaker 1: their life for them, or take a brother's life, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that's the whole thing of it, is the
Speaker 1: passion part of it. You guys have a kind of
Speaker 1: another level when you're on stage and it's clicking and
Speaker 1: things are going well and everybody's kind of locked in,
Speaker 1: and you look around at your your cousin and your
Speaker 1: two brothers and there's that kind of shared feeling like, yes,
Speaker 1: this is this is one of those shows. Describe it.
Speaker 1: That's like with the power of the bond that you
Speaker 1: have so deep um oh my god, hitting a smooth
Speaker 1: three would that you don't even feel that it just
Speaker 1: jumps off the face um of the club. Just the
Speaker 1: best part is the show within the show, because you've
Speaker 1: got to show you're playing for everybody else, but there's
Speaker 1: also a show within the show of the bandmates. It
Speaker 1: could um be a show of significance to us that
Speaker 1: a place that we liked or had a bad show
Speaker 1: the last time we were there, and we really want
Speaker 1: to like ramp it up this one. But that moment,
Speaker 1: the only way I could describe it is I've been
Speaker 1: in a bad car wreck and they say everything goes
Speaker 1: in slow motion, and so I have experienced that before
Speaker 1: where it's that crazy, just feels like you've got all
Speaker 1: the time in the world. But to be on stage
Speaker 1: and have people out there singing every lyric and you
Speaker 1: catch that special moment where all four of your bandmates
Speaker 1: are just locked in in that one moment, and I
Speaker 1: just that's like the show within the show. It's like
Speaker 1: everything kind of goes in slow motion for a little bit.
Speaker 1: And then after the show someone will always bring that
Speaker 1: up of that, like how cool that was when you
Speaker 1: were just all connected. You learned that every time though,
Speaker 1: because you're a perfectionist. You guys are driven, mean, you
Speaker 1: guys are so hungry to be excellent. You need to
Speaker 1: know that about this band. These guys are driven and hungry.
Speaker 1: So that means you put yourself to a high standard.
Speaker 1: And when you screw it up on stage or somebody
Speaker 1: else screws it up on stage, you have it takes
Speaker 1: time to figure out that I'm not going to strangle
Speaker 1: my brother right here in front people. Yeah, totally, And
Speaker 1: there's that. It's that it's such a great feeling though,
Speaker 1: walking off when you when you've had a show and
Speaker 1: everybody knows you've had a show, and maybe one or
Speaker 1: two other guys have to mess up here are mess
Speaker 1: up there, But walking off, I mean you look like
Speaker 1: Connor McGregor walking to the van, like just cocky and
Speaker 1: ship and like, all right, who wants to talk about
Speaker 1: tonight show? I'd like to apologize absolutely nobody for that show.
Speaker 1: I've been there. I've been there a post show. One
Speaker 1: of the more disorienting experiences of my life is when um,
Speaker 1: your younger brother gave me a kiss on the mouth,
Speaker 1: uh backstage at Hyde Park, shortly before he did the
Speaker 1: same to John mcinro. John and I were hanging out
Speaker 1: back there, so I Caleb just planted the one on
Speaker 1: the third. Okay, I guess. I guess this is these
Speaker 1: guys being euphoric after a great show or something. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a sign of a good that's the sign
Speaker 1: of a good show. Um, and you're lucky that he
Speaker 1: kissed you before Johnny Mac and wund oh, Yes, quite
Speaker 1: a night in London. That was just the beginning of it.
Speaker 1: By the way, speaking of mcenrose, my good buddy and colleague,
Speaker 1: Patrick offers great insight and his relationships with his older
Speaker 1: brother Mark and of course Johnny Mac. I read one
Speaker 1: time that you said that when you took the court
Speaker 1: as a young player, photographers would come around and here's
Speaker 1: the next young McEnroe. John, being seven years older, had
Speaker 1: a reputation, and you had to be aware of photographers
Speaker 1: hanging out by the court when you're playing junior matches,
Speaker 1: waiting for you to smash a racket or throw a
Speaker 1: racket or act out. That's a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure for for a kid that agent, you would
Speaker 1: you didn't want to give them the satisfaction, you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was something that followed me from the time.
Speaker 1: Let's see, John was when he burst onto the scene
Speaker 1: at Wimbledon as a teenager. So I was probably about
Speaker 1: ten around that time. He was seventeen eighteen, um, so
Speaker 1: if really from the time of all going through junior tennis,
Speaker 1: Chris I was known as the brother of you know,
Speaker 1: the brother of John, and I was a great junior
Speaker 1: tennis player. You know, I was number one in the
Speaker 1: in the East for many years. I was one of
Speaker 1: the top players in the country. So I was already,
Speaker 1: you know, a legitimate player. But that specific incident I
Speaker 1: can remember like it was yesterday. Chris I was at
Speaker 1: the National Clay Courts in Nashville, Tennessee, playing at the club,
Speaker 1: and we used to stay on campus at the Vanderbilt
Speaker 1: Universities where we would stay during the tournament and I
Speaker 1: was It was a sixth seen and unders, and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, not the top kid in the country, but
Speaker 1: I was, you know, probably top ten and top fifteen
Speaker 1: in the country. And I was cruising along the draw
Speaker 1: and it was maybe around a sixteen or quarterfinal match,
Speaker 1: and I was up six to five, no problem. And
Speaker 1: in the early in the second set, this photographer walked
Speaker 1: down to the court. You know, there were no rules
Speaker 1: or anything. It was just standing right there on the
Speaker 1: side of the right during the match. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is just there was no rule, you know, you
Speaker 1: just call your own lines. And even though it was
Speaker 1: a national that's the way it was. So the guy's
Speaker 1: just sitting there and I'm like, this is weird, like
Speaker 1: not taking any pictures, nothing. And then it's five too
Speaker 1: in the second the other guy starts making a little
Speaker 1: comeback five three five four five. All I'm starting to
Speaker 1: get a little frustrated, a little piste off. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: I you know, as I said to you earlier, because
Speaker 1: I was a bit of a whiner as a kid,
Speaker 1: whining dropping my racket, I can't believe. And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I heard take tons of pictures being taken
Speaker 1: sort of got my attention. I didn't really put it
Speaker 1: together yet, but you know, I was obviously aware already
Speaker 1: by that point that you know, I was being watched
Speaker 1: a little more close then the average kid in the
Speaker 1: national junior tennis turn. Sure enough, the next I ended
Speaker 1: up winning that set seven in the tie bring. So
Speaker 1: I won the match, and the next day, you know,
Speaker 1: in in the middle of summer, it was a pretty
Speaker 1: big deal for tennis. Nashville that had a big tournament.
Speaker 1: So with on the cover of you know, the paper,
Speaker 1: the Tennessee and big local newspaper, and it had a
Speaker 1: cover and the cover of the sports section, the title
Speaker 1: was me making a face throwing saying oh brother, oh brother,
Speaker 1: at that yeah, And the caption was like, you know,
Speaker 1: Patrick mcuno, a younger brother of John showing off his
Speaker 1: temper or something like that. So when you saw that
Speaker 1: that that caused a change in your behavior or you
Speaker 1: would you have done that anyway, but that that kind
Speaker 1: of shaped you at a young age, is like I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give people what they expect. I think
Speaker 1: it definitely shaped it to some extent. I think if
Speaker 1: I grew up with the name Patrick Fowler, you know,
Speaker 1: or Patrick Smith that I probably would have been more
Speaker 1: vocal because I was I was pretty um, you know,
Speaker 1: I would get into it. But I think over it
Speaker 1: definitely shaped it because my dad used to say to
Speaker 1: me all the time, you know, this was the time
Speaker 1: when John was number one in the world, that he
Speaker 1: was dealing with you know, the Super Brad and Wimbledon
Speaker 1: and getting lots of attention because of his obviously his play,
Speaker 1: but his attitude and his temper. And my dad used
Speaker 1: to always say to my son, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with that. Look what John has to
Speaker 1: go through. You don't you know? There are people are
Speaker 1: watching you more closely than anybody else, which is true.
Speaker 1: So I think it definitely, as I said, my natural
Speaker 1: personalities to not be quite as as intense as John,
Speaker 1: which is probably why I wasn't quite as good as John.
Speaker 1: Maybe a couple other reasons to natural town, speed, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But I think it definitely helped shape, um how I developed,
Speaker 1: you know, from my middle teenage years into you know,
Speaker 1: being a college tennis player and then go on on
Speaker 1: the tour. The episode called True Grit we hear from
Speaker 1: my ESPN colleague j Billis and the Black woodow a
Speaker 1: pool Jeanette Lee. Now Jay offers tools from mental toughness
Speaker 1: from his bestseller In His Own Life, tells lots of
Speaker 1: great stories, and Jeanette, well, Jeanette's just remarkable. There needs
Speaker 1: to be a feature film done about her life, the
Speaker 1: NonStop physical and psychological challenges she overcame to become the
Speaker 1: best pool player in the world. This story that she
Speaker 1: tells is one of the craziest examples of grit and
Speaker 1: guts that have ever heard in three and a half
Speaker 1: decades of speaking to athletes. I remember one tournament, the
Speaker 1: Gentleman Jack's Dallas Shootout, where on the final day I
Speaker 1: was I was waiting for my match to play against someone,
Speaker 1: and then right as we were waiting, it was like
Speaker 1: ten minutes before we got called. Our match got called up,
Speaker 1: and I'm standing by the terment star and damn right
Speaker 1: through my body and it literally knocked me to the
Speaker 1: ground where I would get these spasms, these back spasms,
Speaker 1: and it would just that the intensity. And this was
Speaker 1: before um my surgeries in two thousand one, and it
Speaker 1: was so bad that I couldn't even see straight, and
Speaker 1: I was embarrassing, and all these people over me, and
Speaker 1: they were like calling and called the you know nine
Speaker 1: one and do all this other stuff. And I was
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, just give me a minute.
Speaker 1: And I was explained, no, this this happens, and it
Speaker 1: was it was normal. My ex husband saught, I mean it,
Speaker 1: it happens a lot. Is I go through these pains,
Speaker 1: but it hadn't happened at a tournament and I generally
Speaker 1: hit it and so it was shocking. And I said,
Speaker 1: just can you guys get me out of here because
Speaker 1: I was embarrassed. All the fans and everyone was watching.
Speaker 1: So finally, um they carried me to a bathroom and
Speaker 1: they get me a chair and I put my legs
Speaker 1: up so I can rest my back, and I remember
Speaker 1: my ex husband. I said, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: Who I can't see straight. My eyes just kept tearing.
Speaker 1: And he said, this isn't worth all this, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a tournament. Just let's go home. You've done
Speaker 1: enough for your back. And I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: one minute, I'm I'm calling him and I'm whining and crying,
Speaker 1: and then he's telling me that it's not worth it.
Speaker 1: Just quitn't come home, and I and I was like, what,
Speaker 1: I'm not quitting. It's like, I didn't call you to
Speaker 1: tell me to quit. They're gonna have to peel me
Speaker 1: off that pool table now, the lah and he was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's what I thought you would say, but I just
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure you heard yourself say it. And
Speaker 1: he was like, if you can get down in pain
Speaker 1: to miss that ball, then you can get down to
Speaker 1: make that ball, and just make every time you put
Speaker 1: your body through that, make it count. Make the ball.
Speaker 1: And I remember just having them carry me up and
Speaker 1: then me being called in and I had like four
Speaker 1: minutes left on the shot clock, because you know you
Speaker 1: only have fifteen minutes before they forfeit. You did the
Speaker 1: table and I leant holding this pool que as my
Speaker 1: cane and the other hand on the table, and I
Speaker 1: walked um and played against Lena and bending down and
Speaker 1: the pain had tears so much that I had to
Speaker 1: like windshield wipe my eyeballs and there were drops of
Speaker 1: tears on the pool table as I got down, and
Speaker 1: I'm blinking, and I just made ball after ball and
Speaker 1: I beat Lena Survick from Norway, Gerda Hofstetter from Austria,
Speaker 1: um all Send Fisher and then Karen Core in the
Speaker 1: finals to win that tournament. And it was the first
Speaker 1: and last time I ever cried out of pool match.
Speaker 1: But I literally made that last ball, and the whole
Speaker 1: time feeling embarrassed and read and worrying about what people
Speaker 1: were thinking, if I'm taking this or mean I had
Speaker 1: just such. I was so insecure. Actually, if I think
Speaker 1: about it, and and one by one, and I could
Speaker 1: never have been more proud. There is no amount of
Speaker 1: prestige or money or glory that anyone could dawn upon
Speaker 1: me than me fighting through, fighting through that at every moment.
Speaker 1: And and you know, I've just done that for most
Speaker 1: of my career. But I remember that being so hard
Speaker 1: that my legs were like jello. I could hardly hold
Speaker 1: myself up because the pain it makes somehow it affects
Speaker 1: my legs. I don't know. I just get weak. And
Speaker 1: that that is extraordinary. I've covered a lot of sports,
Speaker 1: and thirty plus years, I've never heard a story like that,
Speaker 1: tears of pain dropping onto the pool table, but fighting
Speaker 1: through that, I think you are certainly entitled to feel
Speaker 1: proud about that. We close out our season. One highlight
Speaker 1: reel was some insper ration on how to train, eat, breathe,
Speaker 1: and recover smarter no matter what your fitness level or
Speaker 1: your ages. By two guests in wellness Wisdom, Gabby Reese
Speaker 1: and Desmond Howard, each share their passion and their unique
Speaker 1: ideas for living well. Both of them turned fifty last year,
Speaker 1: which nobody can believe. I didn't feel great about turning fifty.
Speaker 1: How did you approach it emotionally and physically as that
Speaker 1: date was getting nearer? And then when it hit you know?
Speaker 1: I I actually, to be honest, I remember forty being
Speaker 1: a lot more uncomfortable for some reason I don't know
Speaker 1: than fifty. And and I also think that between forty
Speaker 1: and fifty I had a lot of things happened, especially
Speaker 1: as a parent, that really kept me focused on things
Speaker 1: that were really important, but also weirdly with a new
Speaker 1: level of surrender. If I might say this, like, you
Speaker 1: get to certain places in your parenting where you, uh,
Speaker 1: you you learn to surrender, But you know it's like
Speaker 1: almost everything, um is okay, I'm gonna work hard and
Speaker 1: do the best I can, and like, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do past that? And the other thing I have
Speaker 1: learned that I think is really important is not to
Speaker 1: spend too much time on things that are so out
Speaker 1: of my control, like I'm not going to stop time.
Speaker 1: And so one thing I've really tried to do a
Speaker 1: lot of in my life is when I really know
Speaker 1: I can't really change it, or it's something that like
Speaker 1: New Yorkers would say, it is what it is, right,
Speaker 1: it's like, what are you gonna do? You're gonna torture yourself.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, could I be my most badass self
Speaker 1: right now? Let's go. And the other last thing, too,
Speaker 1: is I'm always reminded I can't be younger today, but
Speaker 1: in some weird way, there's something I could do to
Speaker 1: be better, for sure. But yeah, I wasn't like, also,
Speaker 1: let me frame it up and not. I wasn't like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, isn't it awesome? I'm fifty. I was like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: that's kind of weird when that? How did that happen? Been.
Speaker 1: If someone is not predisposed to accept all this, they
Speaker 1: don't see immediately the value. Let's say they've been sedentary.
Speaker 1: Let's say they may be given up hope on being
Speaker 1: fit and well at whatever stage their life, then this
Speaker 1: is complicated. Is you everybody is different? But is there
Speaker 1: a an overarching pep talk that you would boil down
Speaker 1: for someone in that position. I think it's you know, listen,
Speaker 1: I always say this, if if I say to you,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, you need to move and you need
Speaker 1: to eat, well, I can. I can show you how
Speaker 1: to do everything. I could lay it out for them,
Speaker 1: ap I could even take you, but until you figure
Speaker 1: out why it's important to you, until it becomes a
Speaker 1: value to the individual person. So what I would first
Speaker 1: say to somebody is, Okay, do you think you need
Speaker 1: to do that because you think you're supposed to want
Speaker 1: to do that, or do you understand the value the
Speaker 1: value of taking care of your health and things like that, um,
Speaker 1: And then getting them to their whether it's for relationships
Speaker 1: or what have you write and then it's just reminding
Speaker 1: them just a little at a time. It isn't about
Speaker 1: taking the whole thing and going to the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain. It's going hey, listen, today the best we
Speaker 1: got is a fifteen minute walk, and we take out
Speaker 1: our worst eating habit just want not stop eating everything.
Speaker 1: Just take the one thing that you do that you
Speaker 1: know you is really the worst thing and eliminate that
Speaker 1: and just start there. Um, and then and and then
Speaker 1: remind people that we do need like our brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters to to schedule with us to help us be successful.
Speaker 1: That if you're going to do it, you really have
Speaker 1: to create a small plan. Um. But I always am
Speaker 1: curious with people, and I say, like, you keep your
Speaker 1: houses clean, you clean your cars, you give your car
Speaker 1: the right fuel. Ultimately, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: besides our relationships, the most valuable thing that we own
Speaker 1: is our health. And I don't know if it's like
Speaker 1: having been an athlete where you get injured and you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I can sit on the
Speaker 1: toilet on my own and walk across the room because
Speaker 1: of my knee or my this or my back that
Speaker 1: you like, I don't need to lose that to understand, Um,
Speaker 1: that it's but it's seed. But see it's a value
Speaker 1: to me. That's why I do it. So really it's
Speaker 1: got to start there. And when people don't have hope, UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's the time when you lean in, when
Speaker 1: you're just not sure, but you know it's the right direction.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is, and this is true to life,
Speaker 1: is how do we look inside of ourselves be honest
Speaker 1: with ourselves say Okay, I could probably do better, I
Speaker 1: could probably do more, I could probably push myself more.
Speaker 1: And also to remind people that we are the ones
Speaker 1: that create the limitations. I do it to myself. I'm
Speaker 1: not different than anyone else. I'm my own worst enemy.
Speaker 1: I'm the one who creates these boundaries because I'm afraid
Speaker 1: to try something new, And just to remind people that,
Speaker 1: you know, being willing to try something new and having,
Speaker 1: you know, when they even talk about neural plasticity, trying
Speaker 1: these new things, it's like, you're never going to regret that.
Speaker 1: And also put yourself in environments where people are supporting
Speaker 1: you when you're doing something new. And finally from a
Speaker 1: good buddy, Desmond Howard, who followed up a glorious career
Speaker 1: at Michigan and with the Packers by falling into a
Speaker 1: period where he sort of lost motivation in his training
Speaker 1: and indulged a massive sweet tooth before turning things around.
Speaker 1: He's offered inspiration with the hashtage at fifty one being
Speaker 1: his number with a Mazon blue It is a milestone.
Speaker 1: And I guess in my forties I started to prepare
Speaker 1: myself just physically for being a healthier person. And it
Speaker 1: actually it started before I got in my forties. I
Speaker 1: was about thirty nine years old, thirty nine, and I
Speaker 1: went to the doctor and his regular checkup, and when
Speaker 1: I got my blood work back, the doctor told me
Speaker 1: that my cholesterol was starting to creep up. My my
Speaker 1: L d L numbers were starting to um creep up
Speaker 1: a little bit, and he wasn't comfortable with that. So obviously,
Speaker 1: most doctors, as you know, they want to put you
Speaker 1: on some type of pill to control it, and I
Speaker 1: was against that. So I decided to just try to
Speaker 1: alter my eating habits. Um. You know I have a
Speaker 1: sweet tooth. Um, I'm guilty of that. I have a
Speaker 1: sweet tooth. At that point, I probably could eat a
Speaker 1: dozen Crispy cream doughnuts, you know, within the matter of
Speaker 1: a couple of hours, and I even think twice. Um,
Speaker 1: So I knew I had to give up that type
Speaker 1: of of of of sweet. I would monetary everything is
Speaker 1: good in moderation for me, So I wouldn't eat does
Speaker 1: if I would still get some donuts. I was there
Speaker 1: those days when they just delivered those donuts. You you
Speaker 1: were a notorious doughnut eater. So on college game Day.
Speaker 1: They would know that and here would come this box
Speaker 1: of doughnuts. I'm thinking decimans gonna share. Now, that was
Speaker 1: basically for you exactly. You remember those days, oh man.
Speaker 1: So how tough was it to say, Hey, I'm getting
Speaker 1: this from my doctor, I'm taking this seriously, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make a fundamental change and how I'm taking care of
Speaker 1: my body. You know, it wasn't very difficult. Um. The
Speaker 1: challenges came later on when I would travel with game
Speaker 1: Day that those were the really challenges for me. Um
Speaker 1: as fur as. Like I said, I didn't stop cold turkey.
Speaker 1: I was going to eat though nuts. I just wouldn't
Speaker 1: eat them as often or as as many, um so,
Speaker 1: but I still got a sweet tooth. So I just
Speaker 1: started to practice the whole philosophy and everything is good
Speaker 1: in moderation. Um. But then traveling with game they that
Speaker 1: became the challenge for me because you're going to some
Speaker 1: of these small college towns. They don't have the best
Speaker 1: options as far as trying to eat healthier, and and
Speaker 1: that's what I was doing. I was I was on
Speaker 1: the quest eat healthier. So keeping that type of eating
Speaker 1: habit consistent became the challenge and then you get the
Speaker 1: big dinners. You know, we would go out to dinner
Speaker 1: and then I mean it's like it was like a
Speaker 1: king's um spread. Sometimes we would go out Friday nights,
Speaker 1: but there and just sitting there and watching certain members
Speaker 1: of our crew just go at it. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: name herb streets name one. At sixty, how do you
Speaker 1: think that will feel different ten years from now? Will
Speaker 1: you be able to do the same things with the
Speaker 1: same intensity or will you have to make adjustments. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what the funny thing is. I thought about
Speaker 1: that too, I really have. And you know, because for me,
Speaker 1: it's a lifestyle and I want to continue this lifestyle
Speaker 1: for the next ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty years if
Speaker 1: I if I can. And you know, we talked about
Speaker 1: cycling earlier. And when I'm on my bike, you know,
Speaker 1: I see people much older than myself. I see people
Speaker 1: who look like they're in their sixties, and you know,
Speaker 1: and they're riding, maybe not at the same speed, but
Speaker 1: at least they're out there doing something, and that encourages me,
Speaker 1: uh in more ways than once. I know I can
Speaker 1: do that as far as lifting is concerned. Hey, no,
Speaker 1: more of the heavy weights. You have to decrease the intensity,
Speaker 1: maybe lower the weights, but increase the reps. That's always
Speaker 1: an option. But I do continue. I do plan on
Speaker 1: continuing this lifestyle. UM, still eating healthy, um, you know,
Speaker 1: drinking my my juices and my teas. Uh. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna get away from my my my ment and my
Speaker 1: ginger teaes and my macha. So I do think I'll
Speaker 1: be able to continue this for at least the next
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen years. Well that's it. Help you enjoyed
Speaker 1: our highlight reel for season one, and I really hope
Speaker 1: it wet your appetite to go back and check out
Speaker 1: some of the complete episodes. It short took a lot
Speaker 1: of work to curate them down to this highlight reel
Speaker 1: and my sincere thanks to a producer Jennifer Dempster and
Speaker 1: to Jason Whitehealth for his editing skills. Now season two
Speaker 1: is highlight Reel is coming up very soon. Guests like
Speaker 1: Matthew McConaughey, Cheryl Crow, Eddie, George Kirkurb's Weekly, Kelly Mike Mills,
Speaker 1: Mike Terko, and many others. Very soon after that, we're
Speaker 1: back with brand new episodes for season three. Lots of
Speaker 1: compelling topics and great guests, so invite you to subscribe
Speaker 1: and leave feedback and rate, review all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you very soon