Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Phil Stutz [Rerelease from 1/5/23]

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Phil Stutz (Stutz, The Tools) is a psychologist, therapist, and author. Phil joins the Armchair Expert to discuss what his experience was being the subject of a documentary, what it was like being a psychiatrist at Rikers Island prison, and how he can tell if someone is a narcissist. Phil and Dax talk about how abstract psychology can be, why people pursue perfection, and why it can be hard to ask for help from others. Phil explains why having structure in life is so important, how the world is held together by human needs, and what the concept of holistic return is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hello, Monica. Hi. We have incredibly exciting news. Starting on Monday, August 14th, you'll be able to find all new episodes of Armchair Expert free on Spotify and everywhere you get your podcasts.

But in the meantime, we decided we wanted to revisit a few of our favorite episodes over the last couple of years. Yes, it's very exciting for us because we get to come back to everyone, which is really, really fun. And these are some of our faves. Yes, in case you missed them, these are the ones that we thought were worth re-airing before we go wide on August 14th. Please enjoy some of our best of.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Mrs. Mouse. Hello. Boy, did we... Get lucky. Yeah. Once in a while, you and I fall in love with someone in public, be it from a show or in this case, a documentary.

And then we get to be with them and it's so lucky. Phil Stutz. Phil Stutz. Dr. Phil Stutz is one of those people. We've been talking a lot about the documentary Stutz, which is so good. I hope everyone sees it. In fact, maybe don't listen to this episode. Go watch that documentary instead and then enjoy the rest of your day.

Take the rest of your day off. No homework today. Everyone go home. Watch that doc. Yeah, great documentary, Stutz. And he came in and we got to talk to him and see how fucking wonderfully cute he is and brilliant. And brilliant. Yeah, he's a, if you don't know, renowned psychiatrist.

And psychologist. And psychiatric nurse. Helper. He also has a couple of books, The Tools and Coming Alive. But again, watch Stutz on Netflix. So please enjoy our new friend, Phil Stutz. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. So please enjoy our new friend, Phil Stutz. See yourself buying a home one day? Do future you a favor. Open a Questrade first home savings account and help that future come faster. The FHSA is a tax-free account where all your investment gains are yours to keep and put towards your first home.

With Questrade, you can open an FHSA online. No bank appointment needed. It's easy and only takes a few minutes. The sooner you get started, the more time your down payment has to grow. Open an account today at Questrade.com. How is everyone this morning? I love that color. It's fantastic. Thank you. Me too.

I spent hours selecting my shirt. We're kind of matching. Yeah, I love it. Do you want a coffee or a water? Just some water. Here's your water. I got his water here. Okay. With lemon.

Ooh, that's always a great way to start the morning if you want more water our water yeah it's just a it's just a buck it's not even that expensive it's like one dollar a can if you want one you guys are making me laugh and i'm gonna show don't show yeah i think as an interview you know, I always have the selfish goal of stumbling upon something that hasn't been already stumbled upon with you. And you choking to death here would be, I mean, that's an exclusive. Do you think that would help me get into some of these restaurants? If I was alive. If you died on air.

Even if I was dead, actually. I'd love to bring up the speed of my knowledge of you before we start. A, I'm friends with Jonah. So obviously I would have watched Stutz, the documentary, but I guess nine years ago you were on Marc Maron. And so for people who weren't aware of that history, if I remember it correctly, he had interviewed so many people that referenced you as their therapist that at a certain point, he's like, well, I got to meet this guy because he keeps coming up with all my guests. That's pretty much, I forget which person specifically. Well, Hank Azaria, I think does a great impersonation of you. That's what it was. Yeah. If I can do Hank doing you,

I think what Hank said was, you know, I'm in there and I'll be sharing something. And then Phil just say, oh, my God, stop yourself. Think about if someone was telling you this story, you'd want to fucking kill yourself. I think that's his quote of you. I deny that completely. I deny ever saying that. So then I guess I just stumbled upon that episode nine years ago. And my wife and I listened to it.

And I want to say I've listened to that episode three times. It's so good. And so I was just really interested in you from that point. And for a lot of different reasons. And it's really fun because that interview is one thing. And then Stutz, the Netflix documentary, is this entirely different thing. It's more your technique, your approach, how you treat patients. Yeah, that's a big part of it.

What I'm trying to do, and it was really more Jonah's idea than my idea, is to make this not like my technique or his technique or anything like that, but to make it a process that could be extrapolated to a lot of different situations. Not just to patients or clients, but to actually people out in the world that weren't even in therapy. The response has been off the hook. Yeah. Almost unimaginable.

That guy is going to be an all-time director. Jonah? Yeah. Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah, I got to just also tell you, I met Jonah. He had filmed 40-Year-Old Virgin, but it hadn't come out. So when I met him, I'm meeting somewhere much closer to the photo he brings out, right? I'm meeting the very eager, excited, young Jonah, who's about to be in his first movie.

And so I've known him since then, and I've gotten to see every kind of iteration as he's tried on different hats and whatnot and the version that's in this doc is the most beautiful version of him i've ever seen and it really reinforces that the side of ourselves we most want to hide is ironically the most beautiful sight. Yes. I mean, to think that that's who he was hiding, that boy in your office or the fake office, right? Who lets you hear it all. It's kind of fantastic. It's kind of like a miracle, actually. It's a miracle.

It really is. And there's two things. I know him as a person. B, I'm a fellow actor. So I think I am acutely aware of when people, when they've fallen into the routine. And I was kind of on high alert to watch if he was going to fall into the routine when it was uncomfortable and awkward. And I'm just so proud of him for not ever letting himself go to a safe spot. Yeah. For me, the biggest turning point was we were

about a year and a half in. I guess Netflix is so rich. I don't know what. First we had eight days. Then we had 13 days. He trashed the whole thing, which I went, wow, and built it back up from zero. By that time, I think everybody was so exhausted and confused. That was the environment where something happened. That's the best way to say it.

Something happened. Yeah. And it didn't just happen between he and I. It happened in the world at the same time. What was going wrong originally? It just felt false? Well, first of all, both of us like to tell a lot of jokes. And when I get nervous, I really tell a lot of jokes.

Yeah. Have you thought I've been funny so far? So funny. All right, good. You're right now. You're in neck and neck tie for funniest guest of 2022. I'll let you know on the 31st who we decide. Okay, I appreciate that.

I appreciate winning also. Even more. But anyway, so that's one way we would avoid. You know, we'd fall into our roles. There was a point where I could see it. He wasn't getting what he wanted, even though he didn't know what he wanted at first. He was a fantastic director for me because I've never done anything like this. I had no idea what to expect. And so he made me

feel very comfortable. It's interesting. It's like you and it's like Mark. It was the same way. I didn't even know what a podcast was. I go up to the guy's house where he broadcasts from. He's talking to me, this and that. And he says, come in the back. I'll show you where we do this, the studio. So I said, all right. He says, why don't you sit down, you know, get the feel of it, all this. And the second I sat down, he turned the thing on.

And he didn't tell me that until a couple minutes later. It's a good trick. It is. Oh, you use the same trick? I'm like your car. That guy who was early, he was early because I had to rig his whole car. So I've got you in transit from Century City. Like he's looking as if this might've happened. No, he did not. From the outside, what I think happened was that Jonah went into it with the notion that he was going to showcase you, that it was about

you. And then probably some kind of ethical dedication to not make it about himself i think he went in with two kind of agendas that just fundamentally wouldn't work for what you were doing and even i as a viewer who knows him i'm like when we get into the jonah shit the jonah shit's so juicy and powerful it seems to me it took him a minute to recognize it's just not going to work unless that's what it is. Yes. A big part of my philosophy, especially with performers, is failure and loss. They almost have to be worshipped as if they're gods. They're positives. Obviously, you have to know how to deal with them so you don't get paralyzed completely.

Why are they to be worshipped? If you think of it in terms of the shadow, which is the part of you you don't want anybody to see, but you can't get rid of, but you still try to hide it, it has a lot of stored up stuff in it. Emotions, memories, attitudes, fears, whatever it is. You have to get at that stuff. With the human ego, its nature is to try to avoid that. So the definition of the ego is removing anything

that you think the world will look askance at, will shame you, embarrass you, whatever it is. So let me tell you how I invented this. Of course I do, yeah. Yeah, you guys are actors. I had first gotten out here, it was the 80s. I was just learning about acting and show business all this stuff so a typical thing would happen would be one of my patients would get a call back they get so

excited about it and then they say okay now i have to replicate that reading so a callback is the one that happens after your initial audition basically you made it through a round of the process and right your immediate inclination is like oh fuck what did I do that was so right in that room? I have to figure out how to do the exact same thing in this callback. So, in fact, they would say to the shadow, just stay outside because if they see you, we are roundly fucked. There's no chance. Just wait out here. It'll take five minutes.

I'll buy you an ice cream cone. What happens is you tell your shadow, stay out, stay away. So you, the ego, is working so hard to make the thing perfect. And what you really get is like a flat reading. It's not terrible, but it doesn't catch your attention. It's dead. And the reason it's dead is because the shadow has been excluded. And by the way, when you tell the shadow to stay outside, what he says is, I'll wait for you out here, but don't expect any help from me. You are fucked. I resent being rejected.

I mean, it's not that on the nose, but it's close to it. And when the shadow rebels, it's kind of a withdrawn state. And the soul force doesn't come out. The soul force or flow, whatever you want to call it, it's unpredictable. It's sloppy. It's messy because it doesn't care about the things that we care about. It doesn't want to win. It's not playing for that. It doesn't believe in words that much. It believes in feelings much, much more than in words. The ego thinks the shadow is insane. That's the best way to say it because his value system

is so different. So I started to bring the shadow with me. I would talk to him and I say, you can come in here. You can say and do whatever you want. I'll tell you between the two of you, you have an excellent vibe to give that permission. Oh, thank you. That's the goal of this entire thing. Oh, it is. It is. First, I want to ask before I proclaim the agenda of this show, is it fair to say that what we're most attracted to, even though we avoid it in real life, what we're most attracted to in life is complexity and multi-dimensionality. And when you leave your shadow outside, you're literally leaving one of your most fundamental dimensions. So when I now am just my ego or my superego or my perfect self, we can feel that this is two-dimensional.

There's not that other bit of geometry that makes you complex and intriguing. This is a little bit broader of an issue, but it's important, which is most people live pursuing that which is magical. So if I just draw like a rectangle on a piece of paper, but it's outlined with dashes. It's not a solid line. And I call that the pursuit of perfection. This is the snapshot. Yeah, this is the snapshot. But that idea, it seems to make sense.

But what it really does is if you think about it, it has the quality of a snapshot. Now, a snapshot has no movement in it and no depth. So the more you hunt for the perfect, the flatter the thing gets. And then if you're trying to perform or just express yourself, the flatness kills the whole thing. In other words, probably 75%, 80% of human communication is not verbal. Like with her, I can just, you know, I rest my case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's definitely some signals being sent back and forth.

Telepathy. Well, you can even look at it in historic characters on television. You have Wally Cleaver. Was that the dad was no he was the older brother yeah he was the older brother yeah who is the father mr cleaver whatever mr cleaver sure we'll call him that for now and then you have walter white breaking bad right or you have tony soprano versus mr cleaver and who gives a fuck about mr cleaver nobody he's a placeholder so that the beef can have a full dimensional experience.

We don't even know his name. Well, I know the beaver. I'm saying he's so forgettable we don't even know his name. Great point, Mr. Cleaver. The snapshot is really worth, I think, detailing even more for people. I just want to say I don't know of a person that doesn't have a snapshot. I've had many snapshots. The snapshot is I will get that promotion. I will get that 18% bonus increase in salary. I will buy

that cabin, or I will have this Christmas with my family, or I will have this boat, or we will do X, Y, or Z. That's the finish line. That's what we're in pursuit of. And then the illusion that there will be emotions attached to that, that there will be a sense of elation. There'll be a sense of ease and calm now that the seas will get glass-like, right? Everyone has it. And I was curious when I was watching that part, I find a hurdle I have in expressing how I feel about life is I've had this incredible privilege of getting the snapshot. I don't think most people get the snapshot. So it's hard to talk people out of the snapshot because why the fuck would they believe you or I, right? I feel so blessed in that I got the snapshot and I was the closest to suicide I've ever been in my life, which makes me go, well, it must be something else.

So I guess my curiosity with you and with patients is, is it harder to convince people that the snapshot is just a snapshot if they haven't achieved the snapshot? Is that a hurdle for people or for you to treat people? That's a good question. I never try to divide it up like that. Yes, I would say it's harder because here's what actually happens. I hate to keep putting everything in show business terms, but a lot of these things in show business

are so central to the human experience. Anyway, a kid comes out here, he's fucking smoking, using heroin, he's late. He doesn't prepare for his auditions. He's a bum and he's fucking smoking, using heroin. He's late. He doesn't prepare for his auditions. He's a bum and he's very talented, very good looking, but he's not going anywhere. Somebody like that, the first thing I tell them is you have to become more disciplined. If you're not disciplined, even in areas that don't even seem important to you, you're not going to make it to that level.

And the kids always say, well, I know I'm going to be a star. And once I get to be a star, then I will try to discipline level. And the kids always say, well, I know I'm going to be a star. And once I get to be a star, then I will try to discipline myself. Now, that has never worked in human history. And what really happens is most of them don't become stars. So we don't have to worry about that. But those who do are very prone to depression, like very prone to it because I did what I was supposed to do. I became famous. Now, where's the reward? I still feel like shit. I can't even get a table at Craig's sometimes.

Whatever it is, the universe should have changed, and it didn't change. It's a shocker. An extremist, that's when they kill themselves with drugs. You know, they kill themselves. Now there's also cosmic injustice. I followed the plan. I got to the finish line.

And where the fuck are all the prizes? That's right. On top of every other issue they already had, there's like a deep resentment that this thing didn't work. Yeah, like they've been fooled or betrayed. They've been duped. Yeah. God, do I relate to that? Well.

What? Just good morning. Come over here for one second. over a little dude oh is it peanut butter i ate some peanut butter well it's in your eyebrows yes you had some peanut butter in your eyebrows i don't want that on my show all right my shadow has peanut butter in her yeah your shadow fucking made your toast this morning and shoved peanut butter all your eyebrows to confirm you mentioned that It's funny you mention that. You know, I just had an addiction to peanut butter. Really?

Yeah, I had to stop. Why? How much were you eating? Oh, no. A whole jar a day? They were little jars, though. Like the kind you'd get on an airplane, like a cocktail size? A cute little jiff.

All right, let's get serious. Yeah. Well, hold on. We're pretty deep in the weeds, and I do want to, probably just selfishly because it was so impactful for me to come to know you in this order. We're already into it, and it's fine that we just hit pause for one second. I think it's a value. It certainly was to me. Maybe because I'm suspicious of everybody.

Your history is really, to me, impactful. I'm a cynic. A, oh, fucking Jonah Hill's therapist. I mean, what are these two bozos going to tell me, right? This guy's rich. This guy's too rich. What are they going to do, right? The fact that you are from New York, you know, you graduated from NYU, that you were a psychiatrist at Rikers Island. I need this piece of the story. This is really important to me. What you're saying isn't in a bubble. It really spans the spectrum of human experience. What would make you take that job? Were you a thrill seeker? Were you creating the story of your life? Did you want to get in the fucking weeds or was that the only job open for you? No, the latter. Oh, okay. You know, it was one great thing if you were a prison psychiatrist, which is

most of the time the inmates were locked in. There was no chance of really doing anything. So I would say for 60% of the time, you were just in your own little cell there. You know, usually they'd lock the cell door so that you wouldn't get attacked. And then at that time, I was studying karate. So I would get in this office in the back. But then half the time, I'd practice the kicks. You want to hear a great story? No, I don't want to keep taking it. Yes, of course. We have endless time. so I would get in this office in the back more than half the time and I'd practice the kicks.

You want to hear a great story? No, I don't want to keep taking it. Yes, of course. We have endless time. Time's not one of our issues. Okay. Cancel my afternoon. Clear his reservation. For the next two weeks.

Okay. There was a clinic for people with medical problems and nobody except the doctor was allowed to use the telephone in this particular clinic. So it was some emergency. And nobody except the doctor was allowed to use the telephone in this particular clinic. So there was some emergency. I rushed into the clinic and there was a guy, a nurse on the phone. I said, get off the phone. There's an emergency. And the guy says,

wait one second. And I said, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. I run this place. Get off the phone. You can go back on the phone. There's an emergency. And the guy hung the phone up. But then he stepped to me and he started to threaten me. He said, you don't fucking tell me what to do. In New York style, he took off his coat. Oh, my God. Stage one. And at that time, I was studying karate. I was terrible at it. I've always been a terrible fighter. But anyway, he says, step outside. Now, in a prison, it's completely transparent. You can see somebody 150 yards away. You can hear it.

So there was quite an audience for this thing. Now, I couldn't back down and walk away. It was too manly of an informant. But on the other hand, I definitely didn't want to get in a fight with this guy. He was skinny. He was about six feet skinny. I wasn't as afraid of him physically but it would have looked terrible for me to descend into that right so we both had put our hands up we're like circling and i said i'm not going to fight you and so the guy was relieved so he puts his jacket back on walks away you know whatever

he says hunky or whatever the next day I would say about six to seven correction officers. And these guys were tough. They were in the battlegrounds every day. And they said, that was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And they all said the same thing. I couldn't have done that. I couldn't have controlled myself. And just for a kicker, they told the inmate, you know, that guy is a black belt.

I was like a yellow belt. He said, you know, that guy is a black belt. That was like a yellow belt to a white belt. He said, you better stay away from me. They call him the Chuck Norris of psychiatry, that guy. He just dodged a major bullet. Really quick, one funny element is, shit's hitting the fan. You need the phone. You need to get off this phone. I need, now I'm in a fight.

Now I've got time to step outside. Exactly. If that's not men, I don't know what is. Yeah, like somehow that'll get prioritized above whatever emergency yeah the white house is about to get bombed i have this information what motherfucker oh you think oh really and then you're there yeah it's very primal that's part of the maze you know that's amazing yeah so we're gonna get in the maze but first we're gonna talk a little bit about your experience there in rikers because what i'm curious about is you're spending time there and you're observing and are you starting

to notice patterns or similarities or is it as varied as the rest of the world is no I wouldn't say it's as varied as the rest of the world I would say there's certain signatures in prison all interactions have dominance and submission built into them. I was like a 26-year-old white boy and skinny, you know? And after being there about a year, I could walk past a whole row of inmates. Like, let's say they were going in the other direction, they were going to eat or something. I could walk past them and I could control the whole group.

Wow. How? Not at the beginning. It's hard to explain how it is. It's an expectation that I was in control is the best way to say it. Part of the time I worked in the blocks. You know what that is? No.

That's those long three-tiered. From the movies. Yeah, yeah. Throw your mattress over the edge. Yeah. Guys would store up urine and they would drop it on this correction officer's head. Oh, sure. From the third tier.

We're resourceful, if nothing else. As I understand it, it's actually gotten worse over there, if that's possible. But anyway, the joke of it was, even though I was a psychiatrist, I was well-trained, there was basically only two requests that these guys made. They never made a request about, I need help for my mental health. Never. Number one, they wanted Valium. Sure. And number two, they wanted to get me to say things that would either mitigate or prove them innocent. So they were working me. And the reason is they just couldn't help themselves. Typically, the guy would say,

work in me and the reason is they just couldn't help themselves typically the guy would say the crime i'm being indicted for i absolutely did not commit it's unfair it's not right but right after that they'd say but by the way i didn't commit that crime but i am the best second story man in the city so they had to place themselves in the hierarchy but just not this particular crime yeah so it was a twisted environment. And basically the thing was survival. Maybe this is only funny for me. In the afternoon, this was in the 70s, and everybody had their John Shaft outfits on and these tricked out cars, you know, with a diamond in the back. Sunroof top, dig in the scene with a gangsta lean. You should have seen the parking

lot of that place man oh i can't it's like a car show but i kind of liked it at that point i liked right i really like that too i have a sense of why i do do you know what it is about it you like yeah it was like pseudo flow pseudo coolness and, and pseudo manliness. Yeah, yeah, masculinity. Can I say why I like it? I don't want to Bogart your story. All right. Okay. You're going to allow this one.

It's really fresh on my mind because I've been writing about it. I had a great uncle who was crazy, murdered a bunch of people. A couple of my great uncles all did from one side of the family. And my grandpa was humongous. He was 6'1 and 250. He was a Golden Gloves boxer, heavyweight. Where was this? In Detroit.

And he was terrified of my skinny Uncle Cal. And so that fascinated me as a child. I was really fascinated by Uncle Cal because this broke the laws of superhero-dom that I knew about. And I asked my dad, why didn't Papa Bob beat the shit out of Uncle Cal? Because he did all kinds of crazy things around the house. And he said, well, yeah, he could have definitely beat up Uncle Cal, but then what? Then Uncle Cal's coming back. He's coming back with a knife, or he's coming back with a gun, or it hurts me, or it hurts your uncle, or it hurts grandma. You can't beat someone like Cal unless you're willing to kill Cal. And Pop-Pop's not willing to kill Cal.

And being introduced to Crazy and the power of Crazy was just really, really a formidable experience that I think I've had an obsession with the rest of my life. But I don't know how one's not at least interested in what the powers on planet Earth are among us. in what the powers on planet Earth are among us. And to find out that there was one that kind of trumped everything was very intriguing to me. And so I would want to be in that environment, in that prison environment, and I'd want to witness crazy.

And I'd want to maybe feel like I was infusing enough of it that people then would also have that fear about me and that I would ultimately be powerful. Yeah, I think there's no question. I don't know if I got quite as deep into it as you were, but yes. Especially I think when you grew up in New York, right? You're walking down the street, you're bumping into people. There's a frequency or a potential frequency for this dominant submission thing, you got to be aware of. You don't have the freedom to not. Yeah. I always tell people when I was living in New York, more stuff would happen in a month than when all the months and years I've been out here because everything was in your face. One time there was a murder in a dry cleaner right near

my house on First Avenue. So it was a guy that ran a cleaner's, you know, somebody whacked him. Two weeks later, I'd see my cleaners that I go to, and I was kind of friendly with. And it's 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and he's not in front of the store. He's not in the store. He's nowhere. There's nobody there at all. Guess what happened? He got whacked. They made a mistake with the first kill and they killed the wrong person. Right above him, there were exhibitionists that would fuck every night right

after dinner. I mean, it was tremendous. What a place to live. Yeah. Oh yeah. There was a place called the Tumble Inn and it had no windows. They were all boarded up because there were so many fights and guys getting thrown out the window. And in the tumble in, this guy took hostages and I saw the whole thing. And there were shots fired. And I was on the eighth floor,

so I thought I was safe. I probably wasn't. And I watched the whole fucking thing. I just had a quick question about the Dom sub relationship. Do you think that that paints on to most relationships? I feel like every relationship, there's an element of a dominant person and a submissive person. And sometimes

that switches, but there's always this power dynamic that people are playing in. Yeah. I don't know every relationship, but most of them, you can almost define a good relationship is when we're both parties are consciously working to avoid that. But that's not going to happen by itself. I mean, that's a whole other thing. Yeah. Well, can I tell you one thing, Phil? Yeah, sure.

We edit the show, unlike other shows. So you should have zero anxiety about needing to get your thought together quickly. So just let me relieve you of any fear you might have of the pacing because we fix all that. This is too good to be true. Is this actually happening or whatever? We do lots of cutting. Although in the doc, that was one major takeaway for me

is the amount of time both you and Jonah took before answering because it was so thoughtful. It wasn't just spewing out thoughts or concepts or what you've already rehearsed. You really thought about the answer before you said it. Nothing felt reflexive. Yeah, I loved it. Thank you.

I never thought of it, but that's exactly right. I couldn't have been prepared because I had no idea what we were going to do, which was very helpful. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, he made himself available to me in a way that totally relaxed me. I've never thought of it like that before. But anyway, the prison thing, it was really my first exposure to forces. In other words, it didn't matter so much what you were thinking or it didn't matter at all most of the time, but you had to learn how to emanate a force that's why after a year or so I could work down this whole file of inmates

and I could control them and more extreme version of that in the blocks which have I think it's 150 and there'd be all of one correction officer oh my god and he'd have to control the whole thing wow the scariest thing is when you have to control the whole thing. Wow. The scariest thing is when you have to go to the back of the block. It's like crossing the Mississippi River for Lewis and Clark or something. You know, then you're in the unknown. You don't know what the hell is going to happen. Those inmates aren't as deferential to you. The further you get, the more animalistic. There was a thing called a riot cart, which had those plasticine, you know, things. Your little face shields and stuff.

Yeah, and they had to go gas. Yeah. And they had sticks. And they would let me go with them. I don't know why. Wow. You know why they did. Because they need someone to observe their manliness.

Because they can only give each other so much. Because they themselves are performing their manliness. I never thought of that. They need kind of an outsider. They need an audience. Wow. They need the reward of having been brave and been witnessed being brave. Does this relate? My therapist hit me with this, and I'm striving to understand it

because I'm a little bit prone to conflict with other men or a lot bit prone. He said, you have to kind of break out of this dichotomy of dominate or submit. And you have to more think about you're in a room and a panther enters and you just look at the panther. And you're not submitting and you're not dominating. You're just looking. And that look is enough. It says, you'll have your hands full, but don't be scared. I'm not trying to dominate you.

That's the sweet spot. Is that related? Yeah. There's even a tool for that. It's called category three. You first go to, I'm benign. I love you. And then the opposite. If you fuck with me, I'll kill you. I'll rip your head off. And then you go back and forth from one to the other. And then you hit the both of them at the same time. Now, when you hit two opposites at the same time, you create flow. That's almost the definition of flow. So that's a little tool you can use to help with that. Uh-huh.

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It's like barefoot water skiing while dolphins click with glee. Whoa, let me try. Nah, it's like gliding on a gondola through waving waters as a mermaid sings. Nah, it's like Coca-Cola with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors. Yeah. Try new Coca-Cola Spiced today. So when you enter and you talk about this in the doc. You're kind of unconventional in that when you got into this, that was the reigning theory. Like, we're going to not suggest anything. Explain what the reigning kind of paradigm was.

The reigning theory was that all people's problems stemmed from some conflict in their unconscious that they weren't even aware of. There was a battle in the unconscious. conscious that they weren't even aware of. There was a battle in the unconscious. Basically, it said, if you become aware of the conflict inside yourself, it would go away. Just the awareness of it. Yeah. And you could come to that conclusion yourself. And, you know, I called bullshit on that. I said, are you fucking kidding me? If any of them could come to the solution themselves, they wouldn't even be here. Yeah. They're asking for help by the fact that they showed up in the first place.

That was the old theory. And they would say, don't you dare tell the person what to do. Don't structure the world for them. Don't do anything. Just sit there, excuse me, holding a dick. It'll happen by itself. It never happened in human history. In no other field would they assume that something's going to happen by itself when the conscious mind is incapable of coming to a solution. So that was a big switch for me. It's so deeply ingrained in my soul that self-regulation, I call it Marxism with self-regulation, bullshit. If the workers understand their predicament, then they're all going to change. The theory not only doesn't tend to heal you, a lot of times it tends to hurt you because it's rigid. And because it's rigid, there's a lot of things that you can't see or you don't want to see. It killed my father, by the way, in 1939. There was a pact between Russia and Germany. Did you know about this? Yes. Before they were against each other, they were aligned in their taking over of Eastern Europe. And that killed my father.

How so? Well, because he was a communist. By age 28, 29, he realized how corrupt they were. And then he had nothing. And they were atheists, you know, both of my parents. And your father was incredibly gregarious, an extrovert, loved people. Let me put it this way. If we went to a restaurant to eat dinner,

if I went to go to the bathroom or something, when I came back, he'd be talking to somebody at the next table. If I left for 15 minutes, he'd be talking to the whole fucking restaurant. That's how outgoing he was. Well, it's no wonder communism appealed to him. He's going to have communal dinners and breakfasts and lunches.

And he'll be surrounded at all times. And maybe the elements that divide us, status, all this stuff will be eroded. Yes. And there'll be perfect connection. Absolutely. So, therefore, you could get a connection on the cheap, so to speak. Because one family had it where he was lazy. I loved him very much, so I'm feeling it now.

You know, I noticed, I don't know if this is the right way to say it, but he's the good guy in your story. Yeah. And you had a lot of compassion for him. And as years went on, I had more compassion. The other thing is he wanted to tell me stuff. And some of the stuff he taught me about the world was great, about power. But a lot of the stuff I wasn't interested the world was great about power. But a lot

of the stuff I wasn't interested in. I just didn't believe in it. This could go on forever. Do you want me to go on forever in this? This is the highlight of my life, this thing. I'm like your dad. This is all I want to do. Really? Did you ever think of becoming a shrink? I never thought of it. But over time, I've thought, oh, I would have enjoyed it a lot. He is one. But over time, I've thought, oh, I would have enjoyed it a lot. And I think of a similar thing that you have, which is people seem to feel comfortable telling me things I can tell they haven't told other people. I couldn't have more gratitude for it. Like, what a thing.

I think my therapist told me the gift of all the trauma, the gift of all that is you see it in others. You can detect it really quickly. They can see in you. You know their story. And that's what the gift of all the trauma becomes. And I've come to really like that. In fact, the trauma was worth it. Yeah, that's great.

The only thing I would add to that is when there's trauma and there's a learning potential, it's best to really direct the person as concisely and as immediately as you can. If somebody's depressed or they're in bad shape, they're falling apart. My whole thing is I can't wait at all. I almost try to point out the meaning and the advantage of what's happening, even in real time, if I can.

Well, that correlates perfectly with AA, which is like you're getting people generally the day after they had their worst thing, where they finally said, fuck it, I'll go join this club I didn't want to join. That's going to be the apex of their openness to take direction. And probably day one of your therapy session, ideally, that's their nadir. You know, we're going to try to build from there. That's the thing that got you in the seat. This is the time to seize probably that willingness to accept

direction 100 now here's the amazing part from my point of view that same concept or that same model can be applied to the entire let's say united states every person in the united states because now we're having serial disasters on every level from volcanoes, global warming, obviously, there's violent rebellion all over the world. You could go on and on and on. The viruses themselves, I believe, they're a metaphor for some kind of inner battle. Well, that's great because first and foremost, what's unique about you, at least in that era, is you're like, I need someone to leave on day one feeling a little bit of hope. I can't wait two years.

I'm not willing to do that. That's kind of novel, or at least not in the majority of the time. Another thing of yours that is wonderful from my point of view is it's so action-oriented. Again, like AA. I find so much overlap between AA and you. You have so many actionable steps. And I think for a lot of people, myself included, psychology is very abstract. We can't get in there and put a pin in that bone.

There's nothing physically we're going to be able to do. So anything we're going to do is very nebulous and very abstract. And I think that's where people, they get to the part, which you mentioned previously was thought to be the goal, which is I see my pattern. I recognize where it comes from and therefore I should have some relief from it, but that you're going to also need to work. You're going to need physical steps you take. So when do you start compiling these tools? How long does it take? Is it never ending? When do you latch onto the idea of, I've got to give people marching orders? That was like the first day. It was day one.

Yeah, it had to do with money because I always attracted a lot of patients and I made good money. I said, well, I'm 30 years old. All these older people are coming to me. I was afraid they'd all leave. And so I started to put more pressure on myself to give them something tangible so they wouldn't walk out with nothing. It was really out of my own guilt. I was taking the money. I said, I'm going to take the money because I like to make a lot of money. Not anymore, really. But at that time, I wanted the money. If I was going to get the money, I have to give them something. If I wasn't seeing anything, if I wasn't seeing any change, improvement, or even a

clear pathway to change and improvement, I'd get guilty. And then I think they were going to fire me. So it was exactly what you said. So there was a duress. There was an urgency, maybe not for the best of reasons, but it didn't't matter and I always held myself to that what was the snapshot then I mean money it clearly was in it as it was for me pretty much in that moment in time I started to get sick okay so then health became the snapshot the snapshot was getting better well I'll tell you another story I've been sick for a couple years and my friend said hey there's this woman up in Marin who seems to be some kind of a healer, do magic, whatever. So I go up there.

Do you know Marin at all? Right on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah. She lived back in the woods on the outskirts of Marin. It was very dramatic. She lived in a creek bed that had pine cones like this thick. Because it's redwoods right there. It's redwoods, yeah. Anyway, so I go up there and she works on me for about an hour,

puts me in some yoga poses, prays over me. I don't know what she did. When I got up. I can just picture it. When I got up, I was cured for two days and I felt like I was flying upside down. Now, I kept going up there hoping to replicate that because it only lasted for two days. Unfortunately, I realized she didn't know what she was doing. But here's the thing. After I had that experience of flying upside down, all this information that I have that I'm telling you, this stuff about healing and spirituality, it all came. It came over a 10-year period, but it started literally that day.

In Marin while flying upside down. Yes. Uh-huh. So that was like the second thing that directed me in a direction that I wouldn't have anticipated. And do you at that point start methodically putting this together? Are you writing stuff down? Do you have the awareness

and the goal that I'm going to try to compile this at some point so that I can hand it off? I wanted to codify it and have it written down. I mean, like what's in that documentary, I would say is 5%, maybe 8% of what I know. And that's why even now there's a frenzy to get as much down as possible. What is the general reaction from fellow psychiatrists about your work, if there even is a general reaction? They have no reaction about my work at all. They only have a reaction about how many famous people I treat.

Sure. That's exciting to everyone. That's their currency, which is too bad. I immediately text my therapist, you got to watch Stutz. And I had some level of fear. If someone I was advising texts me, you got to listen to this podcast, I might think, oh, they think that one's better than mine. I need to check it out to learn from it. So I had some, I don't know if this is going to be triggering for me to tell my therapist, he needs to watch this. And he immediately said, oh my God, I already't know if this is going to be triggering for me to tell my therapist, he needs to watch this.

And he immediately said, oh my God, I already watched it. Absolutely love it. You know, he has a book, tools. But I was curious if in the kind of psychiatric community, the things you've discovered are embraced. Zero. It used to piss me off, but now it doesn't. And I'll say this, my psychiatry has improved a lot over what it used to because they have what they call evidence-based psychiatry. But the downside of it is it makes everybody cold and objective and scientifically oriented, which is good for some things.

But other things, it's worthless, literally. I think it's really easy to have an insecurity if you're in psychiatry, which is it's not really that measurable. It's a newer science. You could enter with the chip on your shoulder that no one thinks you're legit to begin with. I mean, it seems fertile for that. How do you know all this stuff? Oh, here we go, the flattery.

When you come out to L.A., what prompts that move? I was at a loss because at that time, a lot of my friends were doctors. They all thought I was crazy. There was nothing wrong with me, et cetera. My sister had already moved out here. So I had desperation. I said, let me live in California,

which is something I'd always had in the back of my mind anyway. And I came in here for a month and I hated it. You know, I would walk out of a restaurant at 9.30 at night. This was 1980s, whatever. There wouldn't be a soul on the street, nothing. I was so offended.

So I went back to New York and I got even sicker. So then out of utter desperation, I moved out here and I still hated it. You got sicker with your Parkinson's when you went back? Or you got sicker mentally? Well, I suppose everything is partially mentally. But it was mostly exhaustion more than anything else. Looking back on it, I guess it was Parkinson's, yeah. And so that's the part of the story I guess we haven't introduced yet.

And by the way, I've seen the photos of you are fantastic in the doc. I'm so happy you had all those. You were a physical specimen. You were gorgeous. You have an athletic, physical body, and you enjoyed it. You actually used it. Karate. You played basketball.

I'm sorry. Karate, I said. Karate, yeah. You're challenging nurses to fights in the hallway. Like, you're feeling your physicality. You are a fucking genius. I can't believe it. Yes.

Oh, no. That's the worst thing you could possibly have said in this room. But a lot of the stuff I did was to ground myself in the physical because my mind would go the other way. I guess I am a kind of a strange person. I do want to pause there actually for one second because I wonder with all your patients who are successful, who are smart, I assume most of them are,

are they trying to impress you? Do you worry about that sometimes in your sessions that your patient is there to impress you? You know, there are two kinds. There's one kind that's doing it defensively and is insecure. That doesn't bother me. I can work through that. But there's another part, let's say a lifelong narcissist that can't do anything else. They're really blocked off. Yeah. And you can tell the difference. Yeah. Or you could tell the difference.

No question. Yeah. You can do that quickly? Yes. I could do that quickly. I could do that maximum 20 minutes of the first session. Okay. So that makes me nervous because we've been talking for 20 minutes, so you know if I'm a narcissist or not.

How do you delineate that? Because you're in a situation where the person is, of course, going to talk singularly about themselves. That's the premise of the experience. So how are you deciding what is narcissistic and what is not? What are the signals for that? The signals are retreat, withdrawal, excuses. Because people know there's a path of forward motion and there's a path of hiding and avoiding.

They know that much. The person isn't really interested in what he would have to do to change. He's not really interested in it. He's interested in getting validated by me. It's a more, I don't want to say disturbed, but that's a more disturbed person. Yeah. Have you seen people effectively confront narcissism?

It's funny, people keep asking me that. Yeah, I have. It's a lengthy process? It depends on the person and the segments of narcissism. But I would say in the best of all possible worlds, you need the ingredients of his life has to be not happy or better yet, not satisfied. If you have somebody who's not satisfied and comes to the conclusion, which it sounds like you kind of did to a degree, this isn't working. I got to do

something else. Something's very broken. Yeah. See, then when they come in, they basically, they'll say to me, okay, tell me what to do. I had a guy that I treated for 14 years. Didn't listen to a fucking word I said. Nothing didn't improve. He had two daughters and the daughter said, we're going to leave you if you don't stop drinking and screaming. We're never going to talk to you again. And one of them had already had a child. And in one day, he made more progress than the preceding 14 years because it was a penalty. Yeah.

Right. And it's a true story. It's amazing. And one you can't manipulate. Yes, that's right. Because the narcissist is brilliant at finding a way to be the victim in all situations, hopefully convincing the other person who's confronting them that they are in fact the victim, and then getting out of the situation by establishing that they were the victim. It was too.

They wanted attention for being the victim, but they also wanted attention for being the best, greatest, etc. The hero and the victim simultaneously. Yeah, simultaneously. That's the dream, greatest. The hero and the victim simultaneously. Yeah, simultaneously. That's the dream, isn't it? Yeah. Holding the trophy and everyone saying how impossible it was because you're such a victim. Yeah, yeah.

Could I take a rest for a second? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I apologize. I didn't really consider that I got to be mindful of whatever energy level you have, considering the medicine you're on and the condition you have. I didn't factor that in and I apologize. Oh, it's fine. Okay. It's probably better, actually.

I didn't ask for this. I didn't order this. I ordered the French onion soup. What the fuck is this banana? I just pull it out of my bag. How long have you guys been working together? Only a couple months. No way.

Only two months? No, a little more than two months. Six months maybe. Nice. How long have you guys been together? We've been doing this job for five years. Really? Five years, yeah.

We're on like episode 520. This I take as one of the top ones. Doing pretty good. Pretty happy with it. You know, you could prove your sensitivity to me by bringing those M&Ms over here. That's actually one of my questions and you can just eat your peanuts

and I just want to ask your thought about this. I'd say one of the very hardest things for me to do is to accept help. I'm real bad at it. I'm bad at asking for help. I'm bad bad at it. I'm bad at asking for help. I'm bad at being weak. I've had a lot of surgeries. I have a lot of bad hobbies.

Cannot be helped. And when I'm watching the documentary, I'm like yearning to nurture you and to help you and to care for you. And I can't be the only one that has that feeling when they're around you. And I was wondering how that feels and if that's uncomfortable or you have learned to embrace it. I'm trying, you know.

It's very uncomfortable. But with the Parkinson's, there's things you can't do on your own anymore no matter what. But in general, I know that I need it. No question. In fact, what's interesting, I would say in the last year, when I've had to do anything, I've asked myself, if I had help or if I could accept help, how would that make my life easier? I try to connect help, not just with asking for it, but an actual result that's tangible, you know?

Right, like go a step beyond the asking. Yes. Yeah, what's the outcome of it? Because I'll stop myself at the feeling, right? I'll go like, I'll try to imagine asking for help. And then I get so bogged down in how it'll feel to ask for that help that I'm now in the maze, as you would say. Like I can't get to what the results of it would be,

which is what I probably should be evaluating. But I just imagine, especially seeing those pictures of you having been a physical specimen to need help it would be so hard for me there's one tool which is called an embodiment which is a complicated thing but you know the lattices lattice work that you hang and plants grow along the top of it so all this is a series of horizontal lines and vertical lines and they intersect right So you get these kind of little squares. Now, each time the two axes cross, you draw a little black dot, okay?

So you have this latticework and a black dot at each intersection. What is that black dot? It's need, you see? So if you had no need, the matrix wouldn't form itself because need is the driving force. So if you believe there's a singularity, a oneness to the universe,

the force, the power that would create and maintain that is need. Yeah, I wrote it down, in fact, from the documentary you said, which I think is so beautiful. It killed me, actually. The glue that holds the universe together. You say shame and embarrassment is the glue that holds. There's something like that. Yeah. Probably need is the bottom line, at least for men. Some of the embarrassment is because it exposes your need, I guess. It's a weakness. To have a need is to have some weakness in some area. Individually,

it's a weakness, but collectively, it's a strength. And if we can't get this joke, we're going to be destroyed, literally. Yeah. That's what the next book is about. Not Coming Alive, a forthcoming book. Yeah, forthcoming. Okay. I had this experience like a month ago. I was on an AA meeting. It was on Zoom. And it's a really unique perspective. Having gone to meetings now for 19, 20 years, I've never been in a meeting where I'm observing rows and rows of the participants and I can look at them simultaneously. And what I immediately was struck with was, what the fuck is this group of people? You know, we got a guy that's 80, we got a 19-year-old kid,

we got a gay guy, we got a trans man, we got, you know, we got everything. If you were an alien looking at this grid, you'd go, what on earth is this club that these people are in? And I thought, wow, this is a club of people who have the same weakness. It's the only club I've ever joined through a weakness. All the other ones I joined through a strength. So I'm good at motorcycle riding. I go to a track with other people good at it. We are bound by this competency on motorcycles. You might be in a math club.

What I found about AA is the intimacy is 10x of any other group I've ever been drawn to. And how ironic it was the one where I came together because it was my weakness. And boy, wouldn't that be an interesting way to assemble is declare our weakness and find each other. It's just completely opposite of what I did the whole other rest of my life, which is find like-minded competency. Yeah, that's why there's a point where I tell people, you're a fucking idiot. Yeah, that's why there's a point where I tell people, you're a fucking idiot. You're stupid because you won't open the door to need or failure is another big one. And so there's all these forces that want to help you.

You can almost say metaphorically that love you, that you are so stupid. What you need most, you won't allow in. I'm a big believer in 12 step. And I see especially males, you know, they'll show up and they'll say, yeah, it was good, but I can do it myself. What do you think is their primary reason that they say that I can do it myself? Why is there so much more pride in doing it yourself? Because the human ego doesn't like thinking that there's anything bigger or smarter or wiser than it. It won't accept them. I'm really enjoying this. Why don't you take a break for half an hour?

I love that part of the doc. When you're enjoying the moment so much, you go, I'm going to go home and go to sleep. You guys stay right here. I want to come back in the morning and just join right here. Can everyone just stay here and then look at me in the same way when I return? You said that.

I didn't say that. I'm repeating. This is verbatim what you said. Okay, how do we do that? If we want to draw something? Oh, look at this. What's yours? I'm neurotic about my pen.

What is it? Sharpie gels. Okay, I do a pilot. You do the big. I do 1.0. It's got to be fat. Do you draw with a fine one or a fat one? Bold or fine?

Fine. Fine. You like the bolder ones? I have to. I'm left-handed. So instead of dragging the pen like you do, which pulls the ink out, I push the pen, which clogs it. So if I don't have a big fucking gusher, I'll run on ink really quick. That's a left-handed issue.

He's left-handed. You're left-handed? He's bowed. Now I am. Am I dexterous? Well, because this hand. As a result. Yeah yeah look at this but this is not interesting what is your explanation of that why would your dominant hand be the one

you know parkinson's is always one-sided or the other oh it is yeah i don't know if they even know why that is i mean very few things are symmetrical but now that i'm thinking about it i wonder if the fact that there's part of you that's functional, you can take yourself through the experience of asking for help and receiving help. You kind of can do it internally. You had a bad hand and a good hand. Wow. I never thought about this because this is actually strength when all my life has been weakness. Yeah. Your left hand is now your strength. There's a hint of it in basketball because I would go to my left more than my right. You and I could get wild right now. You just said something that was really powerful.

So you might be not as skilled with your left hand dribbling the basketball, but your defender is generally defending people who dribble with their right hand. So they're most skilled at defending when someone's using their right hand. They have the most muscle memory. So you switch to your left hand, which is a downgrade. Right, right. But it's only a downgrade relative to how the person now can defend you while you're dribbling with your left. So their weakness on their left, you might be creating a bigger deficit.

Because you've switched to your left, now the other person has to switch to their left. And maybe if you're both competing with your non-dominant hand, you're much better. So by maybe exploring your weak side, you enter in a different domain altogether where everyone also will have to operate on their weak side. And maybe it'll actually be dominant because the context has changed. Is that too abstract? No, I love that. Although I guess it's too abstract because I'm forgetting it while you're saying it. It has no stickiness.

There's a lot of words. It might be fun, but it needs a rewrite. It needs to be pared down. It happens in interpersonal relationships. Me and you are married. We argue every night because you're on your phone. I say, you shouldn't need to be on your phone at night. You should learn how to take care of all your emails during the day.

You say, I don't need you to manage my schedule. I'm doing just fine with my allotment. And then you and I battle and we're both smart. We're both lawyers. I can't convince you. You're not convincing me. And then I go to my left and I go, I want your attention. I feel lonely when you're on that phone. And that's more persuasive. And then they're like, oh, fuck. What's my defense to that? I don't have one. So I've gone weaker, but weirdly, I've gotten now through because that position isn't one that can really be argued or tried in a court. I call that contextual. The ego might be stronger in one sense, but if you redefine the context, then the ego is weaker. You want me to talk about this?

Yeah, of course. Well, I want you to talk about anything that you're interested in talking about. And I also do want you to draw whatever you were going to draw. Yeah, that's probably more important. Because we're going to frame whatever this is, for sure. I might even incorporate it into my lovemaking. We'll see how it turns out. I'm going to leave that part out of the picture.

It's up to you. You're the artist, but wouldn't mind something that's a little titillating in there. Just stop. Be respectful of this very special human we got to come over to the attic and just table your perviness for just an afternoon. I know you can't. I know your limitations. Are you engaged? His wife is in there.

No, he was asking if you were engaged independently of me, right? Or were you asking if Monica and I were engaged? Either is a fine question. Both are great questions. I'm not engaged at all. And definitely not to him. We're just best friends. His wife is a very famous actress.

That is not me. You've seen her, Phil. You've consumed her content. It would be unavoidable at this point. Oh, yeah. And she's on TV. Well, you know, the franchise Frozen. She's one of the princesses. She's a singer and an actress. That's supposed to be fantastic. I know. Yeah, it's incredible. Oh, she did a movie with Jonah. They did Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yeah, she was Sarah Marshall in Sarah Marshall. Good place on NBC the last four years. She's the lead of that show.

You know, they're coming out with a show about shrinks. What's it called? I think Shrinkage or something like that. Oh, you're being serious. I thought for sure you were setting me up for a joke. No. And supposedly the me character is played by Harrison Ford. Oh.

Get out of here. Nobody would believe he would take the part, but he didn't. He's good. Oh. Hold on a second. You're saying there is a show and that you are the archetype of one of the characters and it is played by Harrison Ford. He's not going by Phil Stutz, is he?

They wanted to go by Phil, not the last name, but my lawyer wouldn't allow it. No. We got to get paid for that i think yeah wow that's good casting if someone needs to be you harrison ford's a good one well it's good for the ego i don't think that's a good casting really no no that's terrible absolutely why this is harrison ford get off of. No, he might be doing a different version. He's an actor. Could you do that again? Get off of my plane. There was a man in my house. That man had one arm. You find that man. He killed my wife. Okay, that's Harrison Ford in a nutshell. There is no connective tissue between. What is great about Harrison Ford is his physicality. He's a big water buffalo storming through the world,

and he's knocking his shoulder into things, and he's jostling about, and he's screaming very uncomplicated things. This is a bad casting decision. Wow. Okay. Who would you have cast? Great question.

I got it. So fucking easy. It's you have cast? Great question. I got it. So fucking easy. It's insane. John Turturro. Oh, I love John Turturro. Period. Boom. Best show ever made.

John Turturro playing you. That is a bullseye. That'd be good. Do you love Turturro? You must. He's a New York guy. There's something about him. It's because you guys are so similar.

You probably hate him. I'm probably. There's something about him. It's because you guys are so similar. You probably hate him. I'm probably. We all hate our doppelganger. What?

They kind of look alike. I could see it. In the voice, they have a very similar. He's such a good actor. I hate when they change their voice. Actors? No, shrinks. Oh, wait. Do shrinks change their voice?

Are you fucking kidding me? Tell me. Especially in the 80s. They would get very arch and very, like, informal. Like they're talking to a child almost? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I find that very patronizing.

It's like, I don't want to say motherfucker. Yeah, where's your real voice, Doc? Let's hear you. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Order up for Damien. Hey, how did your doctor's appointment go, by the way? Did you ask about Rebelsis? Actually, I'm seeing my doctor later today.

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Visit Tresemme.com to learn more. anyway here's the thing okay the lattice this is the lattice and you see the little bumps yeah each of those bumps they represent need you have a um don't show the m&ms or you could show them we'll have to talk to your lawyer we don't know if you're endorsing M&Ms quite yet. I'm sure you're fielding a lot of offers in the candy space. It's a big space. Anyway, that lattice work with the little bumps in it, which represent need, but they could also represent failure, depression, but mostly it's need. That's what holds the whole thing together

because these are experiences that nobody can deal with by themselves. You just can't. It's not even a moral issue. You've reached the weird conclusion that the universe is held together by the failures, not by the successes. The universe is held together by need, not by independence. It's hard almost to grok that. No, you're right. For there to be interdependentness, an essential ingredient would be need. Yeah. To me, the essential ingredient. So you have two great books out, The Tools and Coming Alive, that you've written with your partner Barry Michaels. The Tools is, as you said, very comprehensive.

Only about 5% that's in the documentary studs. But in Coming Alive, you lay out the four most common problems. So this is the net by which I intend to ensnare everyone who's listening, because there isn't a human that's not experiencing one of these four things. Exhaustion, addiction or compulsive behavior, hurt feelings slash victimhood, or demoralization and quitting. These are very common problems. And you employ the tools in the book to walk out through how you would confront those. One way to say it is that it's not just giving somebody tools without a direction,

without an overview. That's good. It's better than nothing. But the tools themselves will be more effective when you see them, experience them, and use them in a context. What is the context? In some ways, that's dictated by the patient. It's like a wheel that won't stop turning. You can think that you're free of this one. It's like cosmic whack-a-mole. You may think you're free of that one, but it doesn't matter because they're all connected on some level. One thing that was cool, because it's not one of my problems, is exhaustion. And you said people seem to believe they have some kind of biological set point of their energy level. And they don't realize that it is highly variable and can be changed, their energy level.

That's a contextual issue. What is the nature of the physical body? And I have to enjoy it. I'm sorry. Does anybody ever come in here and do this? No, this is so special. Not this version. Certainly some people have taken notes.

We've had a couple people with sketch pads and stuff, which I always like. Oh, you know who wrote a lot is Gottman. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was cool. He does what he claims you should do in real time all the time. And it was not a performance. He's like listening to the thing.

And he's forcing himself to write it out because that's how he's going to hear it. And he's doing it in his real life, like sitting there. That's impressive. It is, right? When you watch someone walk the fucking walk. Okay. These lines represent two different sources of energy. One is called physical energy, and the bottom one says spiritual.

Now, the guy that I study, Ruf Steiner, did you ever hear of him? Mm-mm. He was a philosopher born in 1860. In the year about 1900, Freud was starting psychoanalysis. This guy switched from being a philosopher to the study of the occult and of the other world, so to speak. That's where I got this idea from originally. Anyway, okay, so look at this. Okay, so we have a line that's a physical source of energy.

We have a line that is a spiritual source of energy. They're parallel, but then they both take a 30 degree turn and then they cross each other. Well, physical energy goes down and spiritual energy goes up. There's one caveat, which is spiritual energy won't go up by itself. See, the physical is given to you without any effort on your part and it will go down no matter what you do. You mean over a lifetime or over a day or over what? Oh no, over a lifetime. The turning point of these two things is age 27. And I felt this so many times in my own life. It's almost like a lot of people, if you woke them up at four o'clock in the morning

and asked them what their age is, they'd say 27. Uh-huh. Wow. Yeah. I have an emotional connection to that age. It's funny. You do? That's the age, yeah. I do feel like that might have been peak physicality. I ate like shit. I was drunk every night. I slept six hours and I felt amazing every morning. It's like not possible. Now I do everything perfect and I feel like shit. What the fuck?

I used to pour trash in my body and felt great. That's what the physical energy is. And inevitably, there's a downturn. And the downturn is the key because if they don't have a way to combat that they tend to lose hope they tend to lose the ability to move forward they tend to be closed-minded because then they're in a defensive posture now the antidote to that is spiritual energy so spiritual energy you improve on. Not only can you connect to it anytime you want, you can even make it stronger. So that energy goes up. How do you connect to it and how do

you improve it? The keynote of improving it is discipline. And the first aspect of discipline is structure. There's three kinds of discipline. There's expansive discipline. There's reactive discipline. I forget the other kind. Anyway, so, but these are three different markers for you to measure your spiritual involvement, I guess. So reactive is the one everyone understands, which is don't eat that cookie. Don't eat all these things that are now gone. It's called self-restraint. Okay. So that's one kind of discipline. Like we would think willpower or something yeah structural was the one i left out structural means kind of like what it sounds like you want to have a form

to your day as best as you can you want to adhere to that form so it's not surprising that's the one i forgot expansive discipline means you have to discipline yourself to constantly move forward. It's not the same thing as structural. Structural is like baseline habits every day. Expansive discipline is taking advantage of opportunities and not necessarily opportunity to make a lot of money. That's just one kind, but it definitely has the quality of moving forward and moving into the unknown. Look, you could spend all day defining these things, but it's just the idea for people that there are these categories,

there are practices, and they will set you in the path of having more spiritual energy. Could we compare expansive structure to saying yes more, to being open-minded? Yes, 100%. I tried this about three weeks ago

and then I forgot to keep doing it, which is, you know, when I gave seminars, nothing negative is allowed here. You know, you can say whatever you want, but it has to be said and conveyed in positive terms. And even that would be part of the discipline. Anything that requires awakeness at any given moment and then can counteract that is building up a spiritual

force a great description to me of the subconscious is driving a car so if you do an activity long enough your brain can do it automatically it can do it in the background you can be driving your car but you're thinking about something else or maybe you're on the phone call maybe you're listening to a song and dancing but the activity of driving the car, but you're thinking about something else. And maybe you're on the phone call. Maybe you're listening to a song and dancing. But the activity of driving the car is being handled by your subconscious. And so any activity that you can't do automatically that requires you be present and conscious of the thing you're doing is probably inherently expansive. Yes, it's contributory. That's right.

Which is uncomfortable because you don't have the muscle memory and you don't have the experience and you don't know how to do it. Yeah, it's like switching to your left hand. You know, Rustani used to say, take like a watch and break the habit. Like for years, I put my watch on my right side. You know, it's just an example, but it makes you aware and the reactive discipline is the practice of awareness that should lead to some kind of action. Okay. Another great thing that's in the doc and in the books, of course, is the life force. So when people are feeling kind of lost and directionless, the life force is the only thing that can guide you. And the life force, if you want to visualize it, which is cool, is a pyramid, your life force.

And it's got three layers to the pyramid. And the first and arguably the most important one is your relationship with your physical body. How you eat, what movement you do, do you exercise. And you say that for most people that come to you, if you can get them to commit to engaging that relationship with their body, that'll be 85% of it. Yeah. They don't even have to agree with my theories or anything. Just focus on that. Even psychiatry is beginning to recognize that yeah i remember reading in england the nhs was no longer going to fund antidepressants for mild and moderate depression but instead would give you a trainer in a session at a gym yeah i read about that yeah

and that the outcome is higher yes it's so powerful why is it so hard to commit to food's tasty and exercise is hard i guess it's even deeper than Why is it so hard to commit to? Food's tasty and exercise is hard, I guess. It's even deeper than that. There are certain things that violate our belief system. So if your belief system is all you are is like a piece of meat, this whole idea we were talking about of spiritual forces and practices, it says there's something else there. You're not just a piece of meat.

And we're not trained to believe that's possible. Rudolf Steiner says about, I think, 1830, around there, they invented the assembly line. And he said that had a tremendous psychological effect on the people in Europe. The reason for that was the process of creating became mechanized. It lost its life force, which is really what we're talking about. Yeah, the activity got completely standardized. There isn't room for creativity. It's antithetical to the process. It's the opposite of creativity. Right. But anyway, as that was happening philosophically,

the idea that there were any spiritual forces involved became the enemy. And it wasn't helped by a very unsophisticated view of Christ and of what role spirituality could actually play in everyday religion. That's another discipline. It's hard for me to describe these things in words, but what you're doing is you're creating a field and a field acts by definition to include everything and everyone. You know, you're in the presence of a field when there are serendipitous events that happen. Right. Suspicious coincidences. Yeah, I just had one because I need knee surgery. So I just met this guy in a parking lot.

He told me he had a great orthopedic surgeon for it. And then I lost the guy's information. Two days ago, it was because the documentary came out and he wrote me this letter. And I realized that I now had the guy's particulars because he emailed me. And so I got the name of the surgeon. That's the field at work. No question. Right.

Well, that's going into the expansive part of the spirituality, which is you move forward, you do things, new things pop up, new things present themselves because you did the first thing. Even if the first thing wasn't executed, you're now in a whole new world of possibility and opportunity because you simply have moved forward. That's called holistic return. Holistic return. You're going to get a stunt adjustment. So, Phil, when you're an actor in a movie and you perform your own stunt, you can get an additional bit of money called a stunt adjustment.

So, Monica's just supposed to sit in that chair and listen and talk. And instead, now she's crossing the room a bunch, which is outside of her. Well, I'm using my physical body. I know, you're getting in touch. Yeah, I'm getting in touch. While you draw that. Wait, can I add one more thing? Yeah, yeah.

Just that story with the guy, it's also indicative of need. I know you're getting in touch. Yeah, I'm getting in touch. While you draw that. Wait, can I add one more thing? Yeah, yeah. Just that story with the guy, it's also indicative of need. You needed something from him and he needed something from you that he got and it all. That's why you're intersecting. Yeah. Yeah. So while you draw that, I'm just going to point out that the next two rungs on the pyramid, which are really cool, are your relationship to others. And the thing you said in the doc, which I thought was so cool is, I think a lot of people think of

the relationship with others is that you lose touch with other people because you sever a relationship. But in fact, in depression, it's more that all your relationships are just ships on the horizon and they're just drifting further and further away from you. And that the mere act of connecting with other people becomes an anchor that just starts dragging everything closer to you. And I thought that was such a great thing. Monica and I talked about it at length on a different episode after both watching it. And it's so true. I think we get hung up in like, well, I don't want to go on that lunch or that person's not interesting, or they're not my perfect person. And it's you're missing the whole point just the connection will drag you back forget the perfect fucking connection or the perfect lunch date or the perfect anything the magic is

just the getting pulled back in see this lattice thing this is like a placeholder it's like a thing that holds on to that energy until it becomes time to use it. This thing is called holistic return. So what it means is when you go from here to here, let's say you're trying to find an apartment. So you start here and you look in the paper, whatever. It doesn't help. Nothing's the right price range. So then you have to do it again and do it again. As you keep doing it, the energy bounces off the walls and then comes back and hits you in the head at an unforeseeable time. So that's why it's called the return is not linear. I do this and I'm putting something out in the universe and it bounces off the walls and finally comes back to you as a reward.

I'm going to let you hold on to that in case there's more you want to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was another stunt adjustment. So you're really, you're racking up. How much have I earned? You're rich. I want to be the first to inform you that you're super rich. Yes, it, yeah. And that was another stunt adjustment. So you're really, you're racking up. How much have I earned? You're rich. I want to be the first to inform you that you're super rich. Yes, it'll fix everything.

Okay. I'm conscious of your energy level. So let me just say a couple things I want people to know that exist in this documentary there. And so incredible. One, we talked about a lot, the shadow, your relationship with the shadow. It's so huge. It's such a great concept. Another one is the maze. We touched on that. And that's basically, you have a grievance.

There's injustice. Something happened to you and it's not fair. This person is unfair. And as long as you sit in that resentment or that feeling, you can't move forward. You're in a maze. You can't break out of it. It's like I refuse to move forward until I get paid. Yes. And, you know, in Hamlet, I think the ghost says, you have to set the balance right. And like an idiot, Hamlet listens to him. And, you know, by the end, everyone's dead.

I mean, you guys are actors. It didn't work out too good to set the balance right. The trick is to ignore the balance and rise up to a different level, which is contextual, by the way. It's like we don't hold on to anything. I don't care what you did to me. I don't have enough time to retaliate, to get an apology from you. I don't have time for any of that shit.

So I just dissolve you and go up here. Actually, there's a picture for that too. Yeah, you have this beautiful metaphor of being a nine-year-old. You've not been on an airplane and you go with your father and it was cloudy and your dad says, don't worry, we're going to break through those clouds and the sun shining up above. And you say, that's not possible. How could the sun be out? I see that there's clouds out. And sure enough, the plane climbs altitude and by God, the fucking sun is there. And the sun's always there. Yeah. What X and your shadow are trying to do is put clouds over your head.

Yes. And you've got to break through. And the way you break through, which is incredible, you have everyone close their eyes and you walk people through this moment of great power where you're letting go of the thing. The thing is a branch and you let go slowly and then you start falling backwards slowly,

but not quickly it's not scary and you fall into the sun and the sun immediately burns your body into nothing and all that's left of you is this energy that becomes a beam of light and you look around you and there's nothing but beams of light coming from all the suns in universe. And you're this huge wad of love. And you're in charge of the love. You are the administrator of the love. It's all yours to control. And you decide to blast it at the person who you have this resentment against.

And you have to feel them accept that power. You have to give it to them because you're omnipotent and you're powerful and it won't cost you anything. And why the fuck not blast them? And when you feel it go into them, you will break through the cloud and you will see the sunshine.

I combined two things. Yeah, you combined two things. Oh, shit. Oh, man. This is how new things are created. You're like trying to imitate one thing and then you accidentally- You know, you're kidding around, but that's actually happened a number of times where somebody's made a mistake and it turned out great.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you were going to draw. It was the birthday cakes. Oh. As you probably realize, these are thoroughly copyrighted. Your lawyer is so busy. He's like fielding offers for likeness for harrison ford you've got a lot

you've got like a whole copyright department that your legal bills must be extraordinary he's shonda rimes lawyer oh you're in good hands then yeah she did all right i think she has the biggest tv contract ever written deservedly yeah you consider making a hundred million dollars a year a lot, I get to the point where I can't write anymore. This is just a hierarchy of ways of looking at the world. You just write faith at the bottom, then action in the middle, and then confidence on top. So there's three boxes and they descend in size. So the biggest box is faith at the bottom and a smaller box action and then on top even a tinier box where confidence lives correct tears of the cake yeah so the key

thing is the faith in those faith can't be proven it has to be chosen proactively chosen for no reason as soon as you have a reason that you want some proof of why you should have faith and that there's going to be a good outcome, that is not faith. Faith has to occur or be chosen in the face of extreme duress. That's like the crucible in which faith is. But once you have that, then you can take action. Not because you're sure that the action will succeed. It's not for that reason. It's that you've developed faith. So if it doesn't succeed, you have the power or the strength to keep on going. And then at the top of the thing, you have confidence.

People think it's become confident first and then take action. That's wrong. The medium will be waiting forever for that. Oh, yeah, that resonates. So the best way to build up confidence is to act. It's counter for that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that resonates. So the best way to build up confidence is to act. It's counterintuitive. Interesting.

Okay, this is my issue with parenting. I see a lot of people telling their kids, you're great, you're capable of anything, you could be the president. That doesn't mean shit. You actually got to let them do a bunch of stuff. Yes. Right? So that they can prove to themselves. You can't hand that to someone. You can only provide opportunity for them to take action and learn

that they're powerful. There you go. You're actually harming the kid because you're giving him confidence that he didn't earn. So confidence and earning confidence are two separate items. And it's damaging. You're actually depriving your child of something. And creating imposter syndrome. They know the truth. They know the truth. They know they can't do shit because they haven't done it. Well-intentioned for sure. Just probably now we know doesn't lead to what they were hoping. Your faith is not that the action will succeed. Your faith is that you're

now on a track that eventually will make you confident. It has an inner promise. There's no outer promise. Finally, you're confident because you've worked this cycle, if you will, and you keep doing it and doing it and doing it. And confidence comes just from working the cycle, not from any result. Now, the opposite way of looking at it starts with doubt. So it's like I doubt everything and anything until it's proven to me. Oh, boy. This is ringing unfortunately true to me. To everyone, I think. We all stop for this.

Not for me because I don't know how to spell fucking doubt. Not even close. Sorry. So it's doubt, and then, yeah, you were ahead. I'm sorry. No. She's just racking up.

These are all trips to the row. She's got a pair of pants. Now she's got a cardigan. Second one is proof. Is there another third one? Yeah. It's the sense of I'm right. So it's,

I doubt everything unless you can prove it to me and if you can then for that moment I feel like I'm the smartest thing in the universe vindicated or yeah righteous that's sad

call a lawyer on this because there's never been so many on one page you might need a new patent file for I like you guys I'm going to sign this on one page. You might need a new patent. File for a new car. I like you guys, so I'm going to sign this. Yay. Okay,

I just want two personal questions and then we're done and you've been a warrior. Thanks for giving us so much of your time and energy. This is a personal one. This is like, I didn't pay for you, but now I'm going to ask you.

I'm going to exploit this opportunity. What are the pitfalls of having all the answers? Because you have a lot of the answers. This is like objectively true. Does it inevitably lead to lopsided exchanges where you're giving and not receiving perspective? And does it threaten your standing to be receiving? So as you said, were you interested in therapy? I love, as I said, talking to people, people share with me. It's such a huge part of my self-esteem that I do that, right? Or that I can listen and I can help see through a lot of the clutter. But then I put myself in a position where for a few reasons,

maybe my ego doesn't want me to lose that standing. So I can't admit I need guidance or perspective because then that would maybe diminish this role I love occupying. And then just to the structure of it, it's a lot of, again, giving perspective, not a lot of receiving perspective. And so I stopped kind of growing. And I wonder if you have experienced that in your life. I have at times. I mean, now I'm really careful about it because if I try to do that or put myself in that position, I'm actually blocking the next cohort of information coming from me. Right.

So, you know, what I tell people is the way you protect yourself is through HIPAA. It's just an acronym. H-I-P-A. Different HIPAA. Oh, I thought you were making a joke ok it's not the hippocratic oath ok ok I missed that totally

I thought you were making a joke no I don't make jokes everything I've said has been totally serious anyway H is humility which means no matter how successful you're getting or how many people are coming to you for advice or whatever in the eyes of the universe whatever you're doing is this big it's called the world of small things so humility means i can't get out of this band the way i said is i'm just

another schmuck i'm extraordinary in this one area but other than that there's nothing so humility both has to do with how you carry yourself and also your expectations, which shouldn't be any greater than anybody else. The next one is ignorance. Ignorance says in the midst of creating anything, you have no idea if it's the greatest thing ever or a worthless piece of shit or anything in between. And you want to stay ignorant. And I tell the creators, fly under the flag of ignorance. I don't know. It's like Alfred E. Newman. The third one's the hardest one to understand. The third one is poverty. And poverty means if you're working on all these disciplines and you're building up a spiritual

structure, when you wake up the next morning, it's all gone. And you have to build it up again and again and again. So that's what poverty is. And the last one is anonymity. Whether you do this, whether you don't do it, whether you have a great month, whether you give up, nobody knows and nobody really cares. This has to be done in a complete vacuum. If you're doing it for applause, it contaminates the thing. It actually keeps you from getting anything from it. So that's HIPAA. I struggle with that last one. I want applause. I want to share anything I figured out. My therapist said, I had written something. I was just coming out of a bad spell. I was

considering sharing it. And he said, what if you just took it for your own nourishment? And he said, what if you just took it for your own nourishment? What would that look like? What if this thing you've written, you allowed to just nourish yourself and you didn't turn it over to everyone else? I like this guy. It's one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever had. And I'm 47 and it started this year. And he has what you have.

Maybe I'm wrong about my assessment. But a friend of mine, an older friend of mine, you're age, he's 74. He turned me on to Mark. And we were just talking, working on cars. He said, why do you think we like Mark so much? And I said, I can feel that he doesn't need my approval. And I can't trust anyone that needs my approval. Yeah, no, that's correct. And you have this seeming guiding confidence where it's like, sure, you want to make me laugh.

You're a human being. But you're not looking for my approval. And therefore, I can trust you. I'm always on the lookout for motive. You know, that's my bad cycle. It's like, what's your motive? What's your motive? What's your angle?

What's your motive? What's your angle? I feel safest when I feel like you don't need me for that. I mean, I guess then this wouldn't be a good time to ask you to read one of my scripts. Well, you could. Mark should leave the country. I just won't be calling you for therapy after that. Well, but there's some irony in that, right? Because that's's what you like you like that he doesn't need your approval and yet what you're fighting is getting approval from other people oh yeah well it's aspirational in a they say find someone that has what you want and ask them how they got

it that's why i'm friends with the 74 year old dude I just referenced like he has what I want yes he's the father I want to be he's the husband I want to be you know he has what I want and likewise I aspire to be you or my therapist which is like I'm happy to entertain you as a unintended consequence of who I am but I don't need it from you. That seems like a really good place to be in life. It's really good and it's the hardest place to be because it's like in the middle. Yeah, right, yeah.

Yeah, you're not the piece of shit and you're not the hero. You're some boring version in the middle. Unexciting. Well, that was pretty much my last thing. I do want to say, and maybe I'm projecting, I'm probably projecting, but allow me to project. Because of what I just asked you, is it hard when you have the answers to expose yourself as not having all the answers? When it's your stock and trade and it's your identity, for you to own the fact that you have, your identity for you to own the fact that you have by some measures failed romantically in your life i believe to be harder for you to do than someone else because i could see where you would

fear it calls the whole system into question well this system's so fucking good why aren't you celebrating your 30th anniversary surrounded by kids and grandchildren. It's dangerous for you to admit that and own that publicly. I would say that's the one thing when people ask me about them, I feel myself making up excuses. Yeah, so you're right. Yeah, so again, though, you did the same thing that Jonah did. I now trust you.

That actually makes me believe in the system more. Your life has three unavoidable things. There's going to be pain, uncertainty, and a ton of work. Those same forces of reality are on your shoulders too. And if you acted like they weren't, I actually wouldn't believe shit you said. Yeah. It confirms you're a person, not a guru or a God or someone above it all. Yeah. I'm going to send you off with a compliment. I'm just going to repeat what I said on the show a couple weeks ago after seeing the documentary. I have heard a lot of people's point of view on being a human.

And a lot of them have had some really cool value. Like there's a landmark system. I never was a part of it, but I have friends that went through landmark. Some awesome tenants in that program that I've heard that I like. NXIVM, the one that became a sex cult. There's a lot of great tenants in there. Scientology, I have Scientology friends. Some awesome fucking tenants. I always bail out at some point, you know? At most, I can get like 60% of the way there. I'm just all in. It's my first time watching something and going, by God, I'm all in.

It's my first time watching something and going, by God, I'm all in. Whether that applies to everyone or just me who gives a fuck, I love your message. It's so fucking awesome. And I've seen the results in someone I love, Jonah. So thank you on behalf of someone who loves Jonah. That's my very last question. My God, I just reminded myself of it. Conventionally, ethically, you're not supposed to be friends with your patients. What do we think about that? In general, is that true? Here's what I say about that. If you're like going out to dinner

or party, like in the first year or two, when you meet a patient, I don't know, but ethical, it's not a good idea. It really isn't. On the other hand, if you've treated somebody for 25 years and you've never gone out to dinner with them, that's equally fucked up. Thank you. I find some comfort in that, what you just said. Unfortunately, most of the people that are shrinks go into it with the express goal

of never having to be in that position. There's a line and they feel we're safe. I don't have to cross the line into being real because I've never done it in my life. You know, I can't do it. I'm slightly exaggerating, but not that much, though. Yeah. Again, this might tie back to my AA thing, which is in AA, it's totally fine that you're friends with your sponsor. It's not hard to put up the compartment walls that now I've come to you and say, I just had a fight with my wife and blah, blah, blah.

And then your sponsor puts on his sponsor hat and says, oh my God, I fought with her the same way. But I can go fucking bowling with my sponsor. It doesn't mitigate the other part of the relationship. It's a theory or an assumption that degrades the humanity and the intelligence of the patient. And that can't be good. Yeah.

Maybe it's a reaction to, there's some patients that just be dangerous to have a personal relationship with. Yeah, 100%. But again, you can evaluate that. Jonah's probably not going to what about Bob you. He's not going to show up at your vacation uninvited. Shit, I hope not.

I want to tell you something about yourself. Okay. To me, anyway, what you are is somebody who your impulses are to overwhelm, but your self-control keeps that from happening. You can really come at somebody, but it's not out of control. That's a very high, to me, honor, because the other part, which is more primitive, is very overwhelming.

But it's like I have this big weapon, but I'm not going to use it, would be a way to say it. Well, I love that. That's a very high count. I'm trying my hardest. I spent a lot of the years developing the weapon. You know, too many.

Yeah. Yeah, and I just didn't like the results of it when I got what I wanted. When I got the picture, when I could control every situation, every person around me, I didn't like the picture. And I felt like this is not, you know. My therapist says maybe this would be exactly what you would say as well. It's okay for you to watch the show. You can put on the show. You've been putting on the show for a long time. I'm not asking a ton. Maybe 10% of the time to watch the show. You can put on the show. You've been putting on the show for a long time.

I'm not asking a ton. Maybe 10% of the time, watch the show. It's a good show. Don't miss it. And I think it's in keeping with what you're saying. Yes. Well, I appreciate that compliment. Thank you.

You're very welcome. This has been a pleasure. From nine years ago to hearing you. How special. Yeah, yeah. Really special. I feel really, really privileged to have gotten to meet you in person. I put them down for two weeks.

And Rob, you ready to upload the photo to eBay? Okay, great. So we should have this thing sold by the time your taillights cross the... You gave us so much time. You did. We were greedy. What time is it? 1222. You know when you went to sleep Saturday night, you were going to meet some friends at a bar in an hour. You were going to take a 20-minute nap and you woke up on Monday.

That just happened to you again. Okay? It's Saturday. Thank you, Phil. Thank you, Phil. Really appreciate it. You're very welcome. Thank you, guys.

And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Padman. Okay. You're wearing a beanie. Well, for a reason. Why? Because I appeared, as you know, in a documentary this morning. Yeah. And I had just worked out and my hair looked like,

not unlike a sewer rat when they emerged from the sewer. It was damp and greasy looking. So I threw this hat on to appear in the documentary. Hold on. What? You've been wearing a beanie

since I saw you? Oh my God, Monica. Wait, are you serious? Are you, will you check your heart rate? Are you having any? Wait, are you really? I you check your heart rate? Are you having any? Wait, are you really? I have been wearing this long before you arrived, and I continue to wear it.

I thought you just put it on just now. No. That would be something. That's why I thought it was weird. Yeah, it would have been really weird. But no, I've had this on since you saw me, since I greeted you, since we looked at that book for 27 minutes, had it on the whole time.

Oh my God. Yeah. Welcome to Earth. How do you like it so far? It's pretty good. It's a little gloomy for my liking. Sure, sure. Well, that's Earth.

On Earth, does it ever get sunny? Oh yeah. And in fact, where you're currently located on Earth, it's sunny about 358 days a year. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, you're here at a very rare moment where we've been in a two-week-long deluge. Yeah. Wow, that is really something. I am—

Are you scared? No, I'm just—yeah, I don't notice anything. Hmm. Do you blame your eyes or your attention? I'm deciding. Yeah. What were you looking at? My shirt the whole time?

No, your face Okay Although I guess Yeah, that's nice No, yeah I guess I wasn't paying attention to your hair That's okay Wow

I am so thrilled to be back We're back in the attic You got a blanket on Yeah You got your sweats. Yeah. Yeah, we're ready. Yeah, we can tell people we're caught up to time.

It's your birthday happened yesterday. Yes, yes, yes. Well, two, three days ago. Oh, God. Oh, God, here we go. My birthday was Monday. Yeah, and how was it? It was spectacular.

Return to the go-kart track, to K1, which Matt had done right at the beginning of break. This break was perfectly bookended with trips to the go-kart track. True. So it was Matt's birthday. We went. I Verstappen'd him, as we talked about already. That's been covered. So I invited Steve to Castro.

Yeah, okay. So where we left is you didn't think you'd have enough friends. Oh, that's true. And did you? I did. Well, certainly enough for a competitive go-kart race. That's what I figured. Yeah, yeah.

There was eight of us there. Great. That's pretty good. Yeah. The new addition was Steve DiCastro, who's my really good friend who has been my stunt coordinator on three movies and is quite competent on all things motorized. We go to the racetrack together all the time. Yeah. He and I both brought our own helmets.

And I say, if you're going to bring your own helmet to the go-kart track, you better win because you look like a fucking asshole. Exactly. Because you're taking it way too seriously. Yes. Mind you, I just don't want to wear a communal helmet. It's not that I think I'm too good.

It's just, why wear a helmet that someone else was just sneezing in for 20 minutes. Ew, that's really disgusting now that you're saying it. So not only did I bring my own helmet, I brought my new helmet I've never worn before that has the cherries and my bullseye logo on it. Oh my God. Very big day. Brought it in in a bag. Well, of course, DeCastro also brought his helmet.

Yeah, smart. And then it's just like Formula One. You have a practice, which is timed. Okay. Then you have a qualifying. Then you have the race. Okay. The practice, DeCastro was so dominant.

It was- He was. Incredible. Yes. And in fact, he got a 24.6 or something in the first practice, which is what I had gotten on my best lap, race lap from 20 days prior. So I'm like, oh my God, he's starting at a 24-6. Were you so nervous?

Yes, it's my big day. Baby's big birthday. Oh, baby. I have my own helmet. First time out. So after the first- This is making me anxious. Yes.

After the first practice, I'm like, well, this might have been an error in inviting to Castro on this big day. It was a risk. Okay. Here's the thing. Yeah. I respect that you invited a true adversary. Yeah. Because how do we know how good you are?

Exactly. You're only as good as your best tennis partner. I don't know. Whatever the saying is, I just made up. We'll get up we'll get back the point is then qualifying happens okay and now i have the shittiest cart by a lot of margins like the back tires are so shot i can't go through every turn i'm fucking fishtailing at the same speed i've got so i'm going through this whole qualifying section and i'm going in my head it's's a whole journey. I confront my maker basically in that 10 minutes. I go, okay, I'm going to qualify last.

No. The caster is going to qualify first. I can't possibly make my way up through eight people to win. So I'm going to lose on my birthday. I brought my helmet. And then I go, and then I go, this is all while I'm driving. I go, well, good. This is good for you.

Humility. You need some humility. You need to learn. By the way, this isn't even a lesson I need to learn. But I told myself in that moment, you need to have fun whether you win or lose. I already am that way. But in that moment, I thought I needed to learn this lesson. You are that way except.

This one niche. Exactly. Because I have fun losing at spades. It doesn't bother me, like, truthfully. Well,

I think you get over it within 10, within 1.1 seconds. I think you get over it faster than most people, but you don't... I'm trying to win, but when I don't,

I don't care. Right. I'm fine with it. But sometimes, after it's like, ah, like, you know, you're still thinking about it.

Well, if I make an error and it's my fault, then I'm mad at myself for sure. But I actually am fine. It happened over the break several times. So I'm having this whole internal dialogue and I'm like, well, good. This is great. You know, you're going to be last. I'm getting like totally emotionally prepared for that.

I'm going to be last place with this terrible car. When I come in, they tell me to pull my car over to the side wall. They're going to retire it. It was that obvious to them even that they retired terrible car. When I come in, they tell me to pull my car over to the side wall. They're going to retire it. It was that obvious to them even that they retired the car. And so I step out and I'm going to be eight. Well, I don't know how. Because DeCastro, by the way, caught me. I was about to get lapped and qualifying by DeCastro.

Can I ask a question? Yeah. Technical question? Yeah. I live for the technical ones doesn't everyone qualify in this uh party well it's just like formula one you're qualifying for the grid order at the start of the next race oh man because they line you up just like formula one thought of this okay one they're they're top notch. It's just like Mario Kart. You know how you're lined up for the next race? Right, but you don't qualify.

You just get placed. Right? Guys, stop talking about your imaginary life. Like, this is a real life thing that happened that you're trying to cheapen with this imaginary life of your guys'. We get off the, we get out of the carts. I'm actually now at peace with the fact that I'm going to come in last place on my birthday. Yeah. I don't know how. Because again fact that I'm going to come in last place on my birthday. Yeah. I don't know how, because again, he caught me.

He was lapping me. I was able to get the second fastest. I got one lap in that was great, despite my shitty car. In qualifying. So why did you think you were last? Because everyone was leaving me behind on the straightaways. Everyone was catching me and passing me. That's what I'm saying.

I don't know. I had one good, somehow I got a good lap out of that thing. Oh. And I ended up qualifying second. Oh my God. So now DeCastro is in front of me. We start with him in number one, but now my confidence is building.

Cause I'm like, I had a terrible cart and I somehow got a 25, whatever I got. First lap I pass him. And then I checked out. Then I had a lonely race all by myself, like Max Verstappen often has. Yeah, I just was driving by myself for quite a while. All the fun was being had behind me.

And then another round of internal dialogue. Oh. So I go, well, here's the price you pay. Everyone else behind you is having fun passing each other. They're crashing. And you have to be number one, and they're all by yourself. And that's what number one is, all by themselves. They're crashing. And you have to be number one and they're all by yourself. And that's what number one is, all by themselves. Oh my God. You took away that winning is lonely?

Yeah. This was like a vision quest. It was like I was in a sweat lodge or something. I was having all kinds of journeys in my mind. And the theme kept being like, A, you should be happy to lose. And then B, winning makes you lonely. lonely wow it only took 48 years for you to get there yeah and then one specific day at the track but fuck that winning is not lonely it's the best well i was again if i had to pick yeah i missed out on the good time and back but i was happy that i i'm now you know i gotta keep. Yeah, I was the victor. Okay. Now then DeCastro did something brilliant. Okay. He hadn't have enough. He was like, this is the greatest. We need to do this every day. DeCastro went and booked another race. That was supposed

to be it. We're supposed to go home, pack it up. We had lunch, presents, and we're going to leave. DeCastro came in and said, we got one more race. He just booked one more race. And he flipped the order. So I'm in last. Then Kalen's second to last. Kalen, let's give a shout out to Kalen. Big shout out, Kalen McCrane. No one knew he had it in him. Matt's birthday party, he showed great improvement.

He ended up qualifying really high, maybe first. He was who I had to pass last time to win. Last time I saw the picture of the podium. Oh, okay, Kalen. Okay, Kalen picture of the podium. Oh, okay, Kalen. Okay, Kalen. Nice, okay. I see you, Kalen. I also will keep talking about Kalen on your birthday.

He's an awesome dude. Yeah. Really one of the sweetest people ever. Also gorgeous as hell. And gorgeous. And the body's beautiful. Yeah. And it's like, it's all undercover.

He's not like Charlie and I wearing like tank tops and shit. Exactly. It's very effortless. Yeah. There's a pool party. That shirt comes off and you go, what the fuck is going on, Caitlin? And he's so, so nice. Like, I can't.

And humble. Yeah. And he's a catch. And he also caught the biggest catch, too. His wife is beautiful. She's a smoke show. She is. And she's goofy and funny.

And sweet. Yeah, good for them. God. I know. And he's good at this thing now that I've dedicated my life to. He seems to be picking up quite quickly. Yeah. Okay.

So DeCastro won the last race that he had started third to last in. He passed five guys. I finished second or third. And it was 20 times more fun than the race i won because you're having to pass everyone and you're hitting everyone and people are crashing and it was a blast it was such a fun day oh wow i'm surprised i'm impressed that you told us that part of the story which one the second race that you didn't win oh yeah that's okay though because I started in last place.

Now it's less nice because I added that. I could have stopped the story and I won. You could have. Yeah. No one would have known. I did not win the last race. Oh, my God. But I was very happy with my results. I impressed a lot of guys. Yeah. Okay. That's one update. Something that'll interest you, and it's really

best you weren't here, is New Year's Eve. I'm going to send you something right now, and you're going to open your phone so you can receive it. I'll do an airdrop situation. Really, really good. Oh, cool.

Oh, my God. Inside cover! Wait, what? Inside, cool. Oh, my God. Take cover. Wait, what? Inside, inside. I don't understand it. You don't understand what's going on. Turn your phone sideways so you can see the whole thing. All right, so the second enormous mortar firework that goes off

hits me directly in the man's pubis. I double over, and then it explodes about eight feet from me. So watch the first one goes up. We love it. I launch this firework. It goes up into the sky. Big burst. It's beautiful.

Oh, this is going to be great. Now it falls over on its side, shoots me right in the crotch. I bend over, explodes in the yard. Next one shoots into the corner of the yard. Now everyone's running helter-skelter. We're ushering kids into the house. Now they're shooting everywhere throughout

the property, blowing up behind the garage, almost blew up the guest house. Oh my god. Wow. It was like one of those fireworks debacles you see on Instagram. It happened in our backyard on New Year's Eve. Whoa. Yeah.

And it was in my backyard on New Year's Eve. You almost ruined your really nice backyard that took you a long time to. Yeah. Wow. What was your New Year's Eve? My New Year's Eve was very low key. It was with my family. Oh, you were watching the most incredible game of the year.

I was. I watched it in solidarity for you. It was an incredible football game. Georgia, Ohio State. Yeah. 11-2 versus 13-0. It was scary. And it got real dicey.

You guys were getting your ass kicked the first half. It was upsetting. I was like, no, what's happening? I know. But then you start going like, of course this is going to happen. Like, they're 13-0. You got to lose eventually. But not now.

No, not now. And they didn't. We were up by one point. Yeah, the guy had an opportunity to kick a field goal. It looked like it was over for you guys. Yeah, exactly. And then right at midnight, he missed. He missed. Yeah, the guy had an opportunity to kick a field goal. It looked like it was over for you guys. Yeah, exactly. And then right at midnight, he missed.

He missed. It was unbelievable. Unparalleled elation. We were jumping up. We were so happy. It was really fun. All for you. Didn't Nimi make it? Yeah, she watched it.

We all watched. It was so fun. You were at Grandma and Grandpa's. It was really fun. And it was fun to watch with them. Now they're going to the national championship, which is a week from yesterday. Oh, it's a midweek game. It's Monday. It's Monday at SoFi. That's wild. Here in LA. I know. Look at this simulation. I know. Yeah. They brought it to your back door. They sure did. And then I got home yesterday and I started watching Wednesday. And I really like it.

I want to watch it. Yeah, I love it. Lincoln started it and it was too much for her. I was going to suggest watching it with them. Yeah, so it's now off the table for us. Okay. Which is a bummer because I hear it's fantastic. Yeah.

And all the parents that are watching it love it too. Yeah, it's great. It's great. How far did you get? I am on's fantastic. Yeah. And all the parents that are watching it love it too. Yeah, it's great. It's great. How far did you get? I am on episode six. Oh, wow. Are they one hours or half hours? One hour.

So you got home from the airport at what time? One? Around one, yeah. And then what happened? You unpacked? Yeah, I didn't unpack. Okay, great. I unpacked some things I wanted to get out.

To touch. Yeah, but other than that, no. And then I cleaned a little bit. I went to Callie's to pick up my... Some of your deliveries that hadn't been stolen. Yeah, so update the shirt that I got you was stolen. You know what's lessening about that is that even when you told me you got it, you're like, I don't know. It said it was delivered and it wasn't.

So you already were a little insecure that it would even arrive. But then it did. So I was prepped. But then it did arrive and it told me it did. So it says. No, it didn't. And also it said it had arrived when it hadn't. No, it did arrive.

Okay, it's been stolen. And I ordered a bunch of beans and they were stolen too. Cooking beans or coffee beans? Cooking. Oh, you were going to make some falafel or something? Beans. Beans. Brothy beans.

Oh, magical fruit. Yeah. So that got stolen too. Okay. Luckily, your birthday present didn't get stolen. That was the most important gift to not get stolen. Probably too heavy. They might have went to steal it.

And they're like, I can't carry this and all the other stuff I'm stealing. Oh, my God. You're right. Yeah. I think it was safeguarded with its weight. So, Monica, I just unwrapped it. Got me, I think, the most beautiful book I've ever seen in my life. It's the size of an extra large pizza from a normal pizza restaurant.

Yeah. And it's Formula One, the 100 greatest moments of Formula One. It's a history of Formula One in pictures and posters and text. Pop-outs. It came with white gloves. I put the white gloves on to look at it. You got to treat it like it's the Constitution. You do. It's a coffee table book by Asseline. Oh, tell me about Asseline.

There's a few. That's a rough name now that I say it out loud. I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce it. Vaseline on the ass. Or gasoline. It's like Vaseline specifically for your ass. Yeah, it is. I'm not exactly, you probably pronounce it with a little more flair.

Mm-hmm. But it's a book company. Okay. They make nice coffee table books. Exactly. Just like Tashin, who I also don't know if that's how you pronounce that, but it's similar.

They make really nice books. Anyway, so I saw this one a while ago, the Formula One one. How long ago? Let's see. Probably. No, it was this year. But it was probably like five months ago.

So that's been in your home? No, no, no. I just clocked it. Like that would be a good gift. Got you. And then I ordered it. It's absolutely gorgeous. And I need to build a bigger room in my house to have a coffee table big enough

to have it on display. Yeah. And you can do squats with it. Yes. It's about 40 pounds. Yeah. It's really heavy. In fact, I tore a small muscle in my forearm when I was handling it. Still kind of smarting. Yeah. So I just kind of pussed around, but oh and i made a roast chicken oh my gosh yeah wow i made a roast chicken a whole chicken oh my gosh so it was my i think i said this already it was my 2022 new year's resolution to learn how to cook and carve a whole chicken oh i don't recall that for some reason yeah especially the carving. That was the main part. Oh, it was? Yeah.

Did you keep this one to yourself? No, I thought. I don't think I've heard that one. Really? Yeah, right? This really stands out. And you waited until the first of the next year to do it? No, listen.

Maybe the 20th or something of December, I was like, oh, fuck. Like, time's running out. I got to bake this chicken. So I did. I can't bake this chicken. So I did. I can't believe we didn't talk about this. It was a disaster. You did it at home? At your parents' house?

No, no. So it must have been right before I left. Okay. The smoke alarm went off like six times. Oh, okay. Oopsies. And I was confused because the top was getting so burnt. Okay. But the top was getting so burnt. Okay.

But the inside was not done. Yeah, you weren't too high of a heat probably. No, I followed a recipe. I wasn't just like going willy-nilly. Right, but if the outside gets burnt while the inside's cold, that's a sign of too— I think it was—my oven's bad. Yeah, it's not a good— Too close to the broiler.

So, right. So then I—okay, exactly. So I was like, all right, next's not too close to the broiler. So right. So then I, okay, exactly. So I was like, all right, next time I'm going to lower the rack, even though it said middle of the oven, which is what I did. But your oven's so small that middle means the top is touching. Maybe. And then I also made a banana bread, that all similar situation. So I was like, okay, the oven. Lesson learned. Now I know. Yeah. Bring that thing down. Okay. So I made that chicken, got a little burnt, a lot of smoke detector going off. And then the carving, it, that was my time. And it fucked it all up. You just made mincemeat out

of it? Yes. It was a disaster. Just taking a sledgehammer and flattening the whole thing. It was so bad. Then I had to come to terms with the fact that I did not complete my resolution. I didn't think I was going to have time to make another roast chicken by the end of the year. Right. Time was running out. However, let me also say that the chicken was amazing. Oh, even though it was undercooked in the inside? No, I waited, obviously, until it got fully cooked. Okay.

Then I chopped it all up with a machete. Yeah. And then I ate it and I scraped off the burn. Uh-huh. It was like toast. The inside was so good. Oh, wow. Yes.

Okay, that's great. It was so good. Oh, wow. Yes. Okay, that's great. It was really good. And I had it in the recipe. There's like onions and garlic that you cook it all on and it gets like all. Infused. So good. Anyway. Okay.

Cut to yesterday. I thought just because it didn't work out for me last year. Yeah. Doesn't mean I have to just give up on that. I can transfer it over absolutely carry over yeah carry over so then i bought a chicken i lowered the rack i did the same prep for it and better no smoke alarm great it was still browning in a way that I thought was too much, but then I learned you could put a little aluminum foil loose tent on top,

which helped a bit. Then when I was about to carve, I decided to watch a new video. Okay. And I did a good job. And you did a good job. It could be a little better, but I know how to carve a chicken. Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. So that was yesterday. And then I almost called you, but I thought, don't do that. Because what's he going to do? Okay. I decided to put on Wednesday, start Wednesday, and then go to bed. I was so tired.

I had been up since technically 4 a.m. Yes. Jet lagged. Yeah. And it was 7.30 bed. I was so tired. I had been up since technically 4 a.m. Yes. Jet lagged. Yeah. And it was 7.30 and I was so tired. I ate my chicken. And then I put on Wednesday. And then at like 8.30, I hear like some screaming outside my bedroom window.

These two people are yelling at each other. I can really only hear one guy. I can't really hear the other one that well, but he was screaming something about bullets and are you going to shoot me? Like, it was so scary. And he was like, I know where you live. It was weird.

It got really weird. And I just like turned off the show and I, first of all, I ran into the other room just in case there was going to be bullets. Uh-huh, sure. That might come into my bedroom. And you got on the floor or? No, I just ran to the other room. Oh, okay. Is that still bad?

Well, they're going to, in this theory, they're coming through the outside wall, but they're going to be unable to penetrate the soft drywall in the other room you've entered. I mean, don't you think they'd get slowed down by all these? If you're really panicked like that, you should go lay in your bathtub. Okay, I did actually. Then I was like, oh, the bathroom is probably the best spot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also that's right by my bedroom, so they could come. That's fine.

Really? There's no way a bullet's getting over the top of the tub and then making a left turn or downward turn, downward dog into you. Okay. That's good to know. Okay. So, but then I thought, do I call 911? Like something is happening out here. Right.

Yeah. And then I got, I felt embarrassed for myself because I didn't know what to do. Uh-huh. Well, it could be argued there was nothing to do. I know. Yeah. But what about calling 911? Should I have?

I didn't. Yeah. I wouldn't. I know. I knew you wouldn't. Would you have? I would have. Yeah.

I really was about to. And then I thought, and this is the bad thing, And I thought, well, somebody else will call 911. Shale still won't do much. Like, I've done it in Chicago. One of our apartments we had, like, I saw guys pulling people out of cars, called the cops, and it took like 45 minutes. That's what I thought. It was like, it's not going to even help. See, that's why I would have done nothing.

Because here's the thing. If it's escalating into a shooting, that's going to happen within the next minute. I know. This doesn't take 15 minutes for two guys to escalate to a shooting. Yeah. So by the time you call, the event's going to happen either already or it's going to happen the next minute. And then by the time they arrive in 15 minutes, everyone's going to be gone. There'll be a guy on the sidewalk.

And might as well just wait till you hear a shooting so that we don't waste the trip. Because, you know what I'm saying? I just get real practical with it. I know. I mean, that's what I was doing. But then I— I think you made the right call. Well, it ended up being fine, I think.

I don't think anyone— You didn't hear any gunshots. Well, okay. So then, no, I didn't. Okay. But I was very shaken up. And then I thought maybe I should call you, but then why? What are you going to do?

I probably just told you what I just told you. Yeah. I would say get in your bathtub. This will be over in a couple minutes. They'll either, it'll escalate to a fist fight. They'll fight each other and then it'll be over. Or there'll be a shooting. Anyway, this isn't going to go on for 12 minutes.

It sounded like it was happening. In your alley? Yeah. Do you think it was a smoker? I don't know. I wonder. Oh my God, if he has beef with somebody? Then I, you know, also I spent this break watching so much Dateline.

Oh, you did. And then I was so mad at my parents while this was happening. For watching Dateline in front of you? They made me watch it. And now I'm so scared again. Yeah. And then I thought, oh, my God, they, like, made this happen. Like, they've been watching so much Dateline.

They think all this stuff is reasonable. Yeah. They willed it. They made it happen. I think all this stuff is reasonable. Yeah. And. They willed it. They made it happen. I'm going to be dead today. And you were, well, you were actively thinking, like, had a resentment building against your parents. Yeah. I was like, God.

Sure. And then I went back into the room after a bit. I just sat there for a while. Yeah. To see if I could hear anything more. I didn't know if he was going to run home to get his gun. I don't know what's happening. I don't know any of this.

Right. You have no information. Yes. But also my adrenaline was so spiked. So then I couldn't sleep. Okay. That's a question I have for you. So like out of 10, 10 is you're really held up at gunpoint.

Oh, my God. Right. Well, we just have to set 10 as that what were you at out of 10 from hearing guys on the street argue hearing god i'm not trying to undersell no i know but this to me didn't feel like sometimes there are kerfuffles and stuff i hear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mix-ups. But the fact that there was an active acknowledgement of guns really scared me. Were you at an eight? If holding up a gun point is a 10,

no, I was probably a six and a half. Okay. Or seven. Because eight and above, you're probably screaming. Do you scream at any point, do you think, during? No. No.

Because I don't want, I'm trying to be invisible. Okay, but you're in a restaurant. Someone, you would still never scream. You're never going to scream. Wait, if I see someone with a gun? Yeah. Oh, Liz. No, I hate, this conversation is.

You started it. I'm just trying to get the. But you're making it so much scarier. No, I'm just trying to really, I want to know exactly what you were going through. So we got to make it relative to some things I understand. Okay. If I was at a restaurant and someone had pulled out a gun, I'm at a 10. For sure.

And you're screaming though. That's what we're trying to figure out. But the problem- Because you don't want to draw attention to yourself. Yeah. I don't know if I'm screaming because I don't want them to then start shooting me because I'm screaming. Or what if they're holding you?

Oh, then I'm screaming, of course. Okay. Who wouldn't? Wait, what? I don't know. You can tell in your mind, you're like, I want to scream, but he might hate loud noises. Might make him angry.

But if he's holding me, he's already angry. He's already angry. Yeah. Well, maybe he started angry, but's if he's holding me he's already angry yeah well maybe he started angry but maybe when he started holding you he's like this little little mouse this is a cute little mouse says cuddling you yeah like lenny yeah what if they sent you in it would be so improbable because it'd be your worst nightmare but what if you were part of like the la um interrogation team yeah and they sent you in to hug the suspect yeah because you could totally make them turn happy and just be happy well i don't want to make them feel happy to make everyone safe anyone who's in that situation is unhappy

i know but i don't they probably just want a go-kart race. They're feeling isolated and lonely and questioning why their ego values this thing that's transient and worthless. If they already killed,

I'm not really that interested in making them happy. I'd be, I'm happy to infiltrate. They've taken some hostages. They're making some threats. They want some pizzas. People are getting hungry.

They send you in as the pizza person. Sure. You deliver the pizzas and you say, can I grab just one hug before I go? Can we do a quick snuggle? Quick snuggle. And then once they wrap their arms around you, they go, oh. Oh. And then they think humanity is actually good?

Yes. I want to live to hug this person another day. Oh, my God. Then I'm stuck. Yeah. You're going to collect some weirdos. But you'll be saving a lot of lives.

You'll be a hero. And it'll be like bad boys who I've changed. Yeah, who? I like that. Yeah, you're in. It's like Frank

or Tiger. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. What about being a hero? I know you like being number one, a champion. No, I could care less.

Yeah. I really, I have zero hero complex. Well. Hold on. That's not true. Yeah. I like speaking up for people who can't speak up for themselves. When it comes to like death and stuff.

Not your lane. No. No, no, no, no, no. No. If I had to, I would for your children. But that's really it. So I'm, as well documented, I'm on these hikes. I imagine I got to fight some wildlife to save some children.

Yeah. And about midway through the fantasy of fighting the animal and my strategy and my technique, I go to the interview on television. Oh, sure. And I think this is gonna be interesting for people because when they see me on TV, they'll assume I'm promoting a project or something. There's some familiarity with me on TV.

Okay, hold on. So even you, who's been on TV a gajillion times being interviewed, you're excited about that part of this process. Well, I have a whole thought process about that. I say, is it cool to decline the interview? Like, it's big news, right? Like, a jungle cat has come out of the woods.

It captured a kid. I intervened. I saved these. Like, any other time that happens, you're going to hear from the guy who saved the family. That's how the news works. Yes. And then, so then I think like, okay, so I saved the thing and then it gets out.

And then I want to downplay it. And I want to go on the news and brag. Humble, humility. But then I think, well, I'm denying everyone the story. It's news and they're going to want to hear it firsthand. And then I picture myself like, what an interesting transition from, I don't know. It gets really dense in my head but i'm thinking about every step of that possible interview coming after i rescue a bunch of people

and whether or not i want to do it the oprah interview afterwards yeah see that's now that i want to do i know for sure i wouldn't travel what about zoom let's just come in from malibu i don't think i'd zoom either it's more like I was still there talking to the cops and the wildlife. And then news has now arrived. Yeah, local news is on the scene. Stip Hanson, Lou Garrett, Dallas Rains, you know, the whole gang. Yeah, yeah. The LA team at its finest.

Yeah. Yeah, I just, then I have a long debate in my head whether or not i cooperate with an interview wow this is fascinating yes it is it is and i don't know how i feel about it because it's like i have a hero complex and also i don't know i think it's potentially cheesy of me to to give that interview i don't know okay there's a couple things i have to talk about with this okay one is the does a hero complex only apply to your children or any children oh anybody right let me i had it the most during my kids school sing-along for the holidays this year okay which you attended yeah so remember we were up on the balcony yeah i spent half of that time imagining that someone walked into the auditorium and i was gonna jump no i was gonna jump i was gonna this

is what you do too i know in horror not absolutely no no i don't want that to happen i just i'm like what what happens if yeah and so at least half of my time there when my kids weren't on stage, I was imagining that I would be jumping from that second story balcony onto the back of some guy who entered. Okay. And that's a big fall.

Yeah. And I got to stay together enough post impact to then subdue him and get a weapon away from him and get him in a chokehold and all that right so i spent most of that time mapping out how i'm gonna fall from that balcony and still be good enough to fight afterwards what if he came in a different like the front though how would you you couldn't have well i'm presuming he would have had to enter the way we all did from the front door and then and then go down the aisle. And there was only two aisles.

So if I saw him on the right, I'd have to run over to the right and jump from there. Well, unless he was a disgruntled dad who was like up front. Then I'm pretty much powerless. Still, I have to jump off there and then run to that dad. Okay. Oh, my God. To that dad, yes. Okay.

Oh, my God. And, of course, at some point in planning my attack, it occurs to me the news is going to want to talk to me. No. You really thought that? An event like that can't happen, and then you don't hear from the person. Okay, yeah. It'd almost be like, people would probably be mad if I didn't talk about it. I don't know about that.

You don't think so? I don't think so. Like, they would want, they need to process that whole thing. And that person has to cooperate with some media. That's your justification for why you would need to have your ego filled a little bit. No, hold on, no. Which, by the way, you would deserve it. I think I'm being quite honest about all this. You are.

And so, believe me when I say, I actually don't want to be in the interview. I don't. But you want credit for saving. Of course, I want everyone in the world to know that I prevented. Exactly, and how else will you besides an interview? I want America to know I saved everyone,

but I don't want to be caught relishing in that. Right. So I'm just not going to participate. Okay. So in my mind, I'm not going to participate. I don't want to. But you want to be asked, and then you want to decline. No, no, it's not even that.

I want everyone to know without me participating. Dax Shepard humbly declines interviews on this matter. It doesn't go that far. No, it's just, it feels tacky to participate in the interview. And then also, there's some obligation you have to the general public. Because they're going to want to hear from that person. What was going through your mind when you jumped? What if you are at a movie theater by yourself?

Okay. And it happens. Will you save yourself or will you save the movie theater by yourself. Okay. And it happens. Will you save yourself or will you save the movie theater? Because you- Wait, meaning, you said I'm by, is there anyone else in the movie theater?

Yeah, there's tons of people. I'm saying you didn't- Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. You didn't go with any of your loved ones. Yes, absolutely. You would. Always. Just like I am on an airplane,

I'm by myself and I'm like peeping everyone that walks down the aisle. But you. Preparing myself to subdue anyone making a run for the staff or the crock pit. Crock pit. The crock pot. So in that moment, when you're doing your scouting, you haven't considered the fact that you have a family and that you are putting... Myself at risk.

Yeah. Not really in the equation. Every one of these fantasies, I effortlessly... That's... I don't know, Monica. Yes, that is a problem. I don't know. The thing I actually think about in a lot of these situations is like,

what if I killed someone that wasn't going to kill anyone? That's what's unknown. Like, I hear shit downstairs. I go downstairs. I see a guy. I choke him out. Was he there to kill people or just rob? And obviously, I don't want to hurt someone robbing me.

I don't care about my shit enough to do that. But, you know. Yeah, but you're in self-defense mode. Yeah, and my kids are upstairs and I don't want to find out this person's intentions. They've also broken into your house. To me, that's so much different than at a public place. I agree. But I wouldn't want to kill some 20 year old kid out of options that's

broken to my house at night like i don't desire that you know i would hate that of course yeah no i think we know some people would like that like there are these stand your ground folks like you come into my house you're dead like i don't feel that way no i know i have a question okay if this kerfuffle that happened. In front of your house? Right outside my window. Yeah. Let's say you were putting the kids down.

Mm-hmm. And it was happening right outside their window. Mm-hmm. What would you have done? I would have gone out there. Right. I would have gone out there shamefully, even without that much justification. Yeah. I would just be, i'd need to go get involved

that's i've heard this when i lived on euclid i was outside non-stop like even now with kids that's my that's my point is now there's so much more to lose for you there's a lot to lose your family but for them losing you you have to look at it that way. I know the problem. So intellectually, you're right, but I'd be lying to you. I'd be lying to you if I said that I felt vulnerable. I just don't. So I'm not actually comprehending or taking on the notion that I might die if I go out there. That's not really in my realm of possibility. I know that's intellectually stupid, but I, it doesn't, that's not on my mind. Like when I'm jumping off the balcony, well, that doesn't take much. That's what's happening.

I like feel like I need. But when I'm jumping off the balcony and stuff, and I'm going toe to toe with a guy that's armed with a gun, I'm zero fear that he's going to turn it on me. I'm going to get his neck before he can get me. And it's crazy, but I think you have to have that point of view to be someone who does get involved like that. If you were thinking the guy's going to turn when you jump and shoot you, you just would skip jumping.

There'd be no point. You have to believe you're going to land perfectly on their back and have them in a chokehold and get your legs around them and kick the gun free. Like, or you couldn't do it. Yeah. You know, it's kind of a paradox. I just wish you would think a little more about the people in your life when you're heroing.

This is all in my head, right? I've never actually, well, I did have the coyote sitch the other day. If you were like, I'm going out there, and Lincoln said, Dad, please don't. Then I wouldn't. You wouldn't? No. Oh. No.

I would not, with knowledge, choose to scare my children if they let me know. Thus far, the little tiny things that have popped up, like me sprinting out of the house and chasing the coyotes,'s met with um excitement from them yeah i think that's different yeah so when i thought about calling you uh-huh you wanted me to come over and get involved maybe you would yeah of course and then i thought i don't want that right yeah you were the better turns out you weren't going to do that. You were just going to tell me to go in the bathtub. I was going to. Well, I would know the whole thing would be over by the time I got there. And it was, right? I mean, how long did the entire thing last?

Two minutes? I don't know. I was disassociated. But then anyway, when I put Wednesday back. Point is, adrenaline was so high. Couldn't sleep. You needed some soothing. Put Wednesday back on.

Adrenaline was so high. Couldn't sleep. You needed some soothing. Put Wednesday back on. Then later, I thought I heard one gunshot. I thought. And then immediately, I heard sirens. Oh, okay. And then they zoomed by.

Okay. So then I figured maybe it wasn't that. I don't know. And then I kept watching the show. Anyway, this is why I watch so many episodes Oh okay And how late were you then up? Probably midnight

Oh It was a crazy day I love that you hit the ground running I hated it We haven't had one of your Seinfeld stories But it's like you've been back for 12 hours And you already There was a shootout

You were running around your apartment You were mad at your parents You baked a chicken You watched a full season of a show. I mean, congratulations. I did what most people do in a year. Yes, you did more before 5 a.m. Yeah, that was an impressive return home.

Thanks. Yeah. This is what I was missing out on for two weeks, and I didn't like it. I know. But it is one of those things that you forget. And then on Dateline, you know, they all feel so safe. And then they're just not safe. Always rural.

Not always. They're almost always rural. One of them was at Myrtle Beach or Panama City. One of those. We're not going to call either of those places. That's pretty rural. On spring break, though, I would totally think that there's so many people. Yeah, but safe's the last word I would partner with spring break.

But I mean, as far as getting. I mean, trips to the ER that week. As far as getting abducted. I don't know. I would feel pretty safe. Okay. Because there's so many people you could just scream. But you got like 20,000 vulnerable, hammered out of their wits, young people.

Taking wallets is one thing, but abducting a whole person. Right. But yeah, if that's your racket, it is also, you know. That one was awful. Anyway, there were so many. And my parents, you know, they try to act cool. And then they'll be like, when you do Uber, you're double checking the license plate. You're looking them up on the internet, right?

Like, you guys are, you're so so scared you're really yelling at yourself well we hate the thing and others that we hate in ourselves and no i'm wouldn't you like to be less scared i am compared to them you are but would you like to be less scared i don't know that's my whole point because you think you've you've told yourself that you're being afraid keeps you vigilant, which keeps you safe. No, listen. I feel comparatively that I am like willy-nilly. I'm doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I'm walking in the dark.

Sure. I do stuff. You're wild. You're wild. I am. Yeah. And I think now, I think, oh, maybe they were a little more right. Oh.

Because of the gunmen. Right. But there was no, but in fact, there was no, we know of guns. Listen. There was talk of bullets. Okay. So, you know, there's a window in my laundry room. Yeah.

Okay, so you know there's a window in my laundry room. Yeah. And at one point, my old Christmas tree holder thing, very heavy. Stand? Yeah, stand. Broke that window. Oh, interesting. Like it fell over and broke that window. Oh, so it's, is it broken still?

No, but this is a long time ago this happened. And I was like, oh, fuck. Like, I got to get that fixed. And I wasn't getting it fixed for a really long time. Yeah. And I kind of was like, whatever. It's kind of high up. It's fine.

And then my mom and dad came to visit. This was the last time they were here. And my mom was like, the window's broken. And I said, oh, yeah, I know. I got to get that fixed. And she. Got on it. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. She said, you have to get that fixed immediately. Right. I got it fixed for her because she was so panicked. Yeah. And then yesterday, of course, I thought, thank God that window is fixed. Because that's where they were. Okay.

And they would have seen the broken window and done what? Climbed in. In the middle of their fight between one another, they're like, fuck this. Let's go get whoever's inside of that house. Well, in my. One was escaping the threat. No, a version of the story is there was the guy was trying to break into my apartment and the other guy who lives across the street from me the smoker told him not to and then he said what are you gonna do

in the version where the smoker was sticking up for me yeah um you owe him kind of a hero's reward he scares me but it's one of those things where I think he's bad but he's on my side the home alone guy exactly I was going to use the exact same example the old man who shovels

he's not a bad guy though no but he's terrified of him for most of the time he's so scared he's scary and then it turns out he's a nice boy but I think the smoker

might actually be like bad but he's not going to hurt me because he likes me he waves to me. The only real threat in your life is the one you're ignoring. Yeah. No, I thought that when I got back and I was making my chicken and he was out there. Oh, sure.

I thought, man. He probably doesn't even smoke. He just smokes to get out there to look at your window. This is typical Dateline. Like, of course, it's the smoker. Yes. You're worried about all this riffraff on the street. It's the friend's closest to us. If the smoker was trying to protect me, that man was trying to enter my window.

And if it had been broken, he would have had a much easier job. Yeah. You follow? I do. Now I'm with you. Okay. yeah you follow i do now i'm with you okay well this is um kind of a ding ding ding all of this conversation because this is for studs oh and we were talking psychology yeah yeah a little bit of more of a duck duck goose to be honest loved studs what a special thing we got to do. Talk to him. My favorite part was all the hand holding afterwards.

You were so sweet. Oh, I got to hold his hand and walk down the stairs. And then I held his hand to go take pictures. You helped him. And then I held his hand to go out to the car. Yeah. It was a good few minutes of holding hands and I loved it. Did you feel like a hero then?

What was happening then because you were helping yeah i just um well what i liked is that it's basically his message right where vulnerability is the intersection yeah and it's the glue yeah and i thought without him having parkinson's we're not holding hands. And that intimacy is so nice. And also between guys is so rare. And I just wanted to protect him and get him to where he needed to go. You did. It felt beautiful.

It was so sweet seeing you help him. And then I got upset with myself. Oh, tell me. Because I want to help too uh-huh it scares it scared me yeah you get yeah oh god ding ding ding i'm so scared of everything well hold on let's let's let's not levy that verdict just yet you were afraid he you he would fall under your help no it's not it's deeper that I don't know what it is. I have this with my grandfather too now. Yeah. With my grandfather. There's something so sad. Yeah. That I'm protecting myself from really feeling. Yeah. And touching and getting really close to that. In the middle of it.

I can't do it. Yeah. I feel like I won't survive that. Yeah. It's hard. It's weird what we all have. Like, so you'd be great when a friend's parent or loved one dies and they call you. Yeah. Like you're, you're there. You're built for that. See, now that I don't want to do. Cause I'm like, it's my responsibility to say something that's going to comfort this person and soothe them. And I don't know that I know what to say. Now, when it's like where the rubber meets the road, pick you up, carry you, lift my dad out of bed, get him in the wheelchair, change his diaper, build a ramp, push him around. You know, I can do that. Practical.

Yeah. I can come physically help you in any situation. Yeah. And I feel confident in that. And so like I will get filled on those stairs. Yeah. And I can do it. And I know what to do.

It's quite obvious what needs to be done. I have an example of when I was a failure at it, right? It was my grandma Yolis who I fucking love. The most. Papa Bob and grandma are my favorite people. And she got Alzheimer's, you know, really bad to the point where she had to be in a home and all that stuff. And I was not good at that. Mind you, I was 17 through 25 or whatever, but I was not good at that. I don't know how to make her feel safer. She's scared. She doesn't recognize anybody. And so I ran from that situation, shamefully. I regret that I didn't recognize anybody and so i ran from that situation shamefully i

regret that i didn't go see her and stuff i just pretty much was like well she's gone yeah her body's still here and i don't know what to do i don't know what to do my uncle randy god bless him he went and saw her non-stop my dad too really didn't do a good job with that it's hard because you can also justify, I have this too with my grandfather, you can justify it away by saying he doesn't even know. He doesn't even know if I'm there or not. So why make myself uncomfortable if it's not even going to bring anything?

But how do we know it might? Well, and then you go, having already done it wrong and regretting it, you go, no, whether they know or not, in a period of scariness, you can certainly be a force of benevolence. That's palpable to the people that are scared and don't recognize people.

And just to have someone that's clearly kind and loves you and is holding your hand or whatever has got to be a win. Something. Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. Yeah. Yeah.

And look, and this is my more cynical point of view and my selfish point of view. A lot of it's for them, but it's for you. Like, they'll be gone and you'll have to live with the memory of how you showed up or didn't show up. Yeah, for sure. And so you owe it to them, of course, but you also owe it to yourself. It's true. I mean, because I do force myself. I force myself.

Right. I go home a fair amount of times, and part of it is so I can see them, because who knows how many more times. more times but if i'm being really honest after i go and you know i'm like waving and i do try to like touch his hand how does he feel about that like when you touch him he lets me touch him yeah yeah do you like it yeah because you're a cute friendly friendly girl. And if a cute, friendly girl wants to hold your hand, it's pleasant. Well, yes. He likes it. And there's, I think, some strand of recognition. He doesn't know how.

But you look familiar to him. And his genetics are in you. Yeah. I think there's a sense of, I know this person and I— Have good feelings. Because even years ago, before he was declining yeah he was so paranoid he was so scared all the time of everything you know he called be like did you get home you know he's just always checking in and everyone would yell at him because it was too much

and the irony you know just like obviously just gets passed down. And then even when we were there, I went into the other room to get food and he was like asking my mom, where'd she go? Yeah. He was like, where'd she go? And I mean, he said it in Indian language, but my mom, he doesn't speak English anymore. Oh, he does?

He'll only speak in Malayalam, which is the Indian language. Say it again. Malayalam. Malayalam. Oh, I like that. So he only speaks that now. I just heard my mom say, she's getting food. She'll be right back.

But they know everyone's in his face like, do you remember Monica? Oh, God. Monica pointing at me. Monica. Testing him. I hope he said, stop testing me. He yells at my grandma. I mean, it's bad. Like, God. Monica. Pointing at me. Monica. Testing him. I hope he said, stop testing me. He yells at my grandma. I mean, it's bad. Like, it's all bad.

But anyway, so it's just really sad. You're hot, Grandma? Yeah. Oh, man. I would never yell at her. I would only worship her and bathe her. Oh, okay. Anyway, it's just sad. It's just sad to see someone who was so exuberant. Yeah, it's totally sad.

He lived a good life. I really am focused on that. Yeah. When he passes, I can look at the whole life and really give it its due and be happy but you could do it now you could go like oh my god here's this guy he's sitting with multiple generations that he created everyone's fed clothed comfortable safe yeah he had this great ride and he's transitioning in a very awesome way but it's not he's miserable okay he's not but you know i'm just saying that the facts of the situation are like this is as good as it gets

you have a fulfilling life you pass on everything and then you die in the presence of these things you created yeah it's about as good as it gets it is Yeah But you don't want to be Pooping your pants and stuff No But he is Well Depends if my partner's into it No If your kids are having

To wipe your butt No no no It's not It's not great I know I should have At least one boy So they could wipe my ass No the girls will wipe your butt

I don't want them to Exactly Yeah I know Exactly Exactly I would not mind at all If I had a son Why? Shut up Glenn Girls will wipe your butt. I don't want them to. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I would not mind at all if I had a son. Why?

Shut up, Glenn, and wipe my ass. Wait. Because it's a boy. Because I don't feel bad for boys at all. You know, this is well documented with me. I know, but they want to take care of you. The girls? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

They'll be fighting each other to wipe my butt, but I don't want them to. I know. Yeah. But a boy, like, where's your brother? I need my ass wiped. And he'd be upstairs playing video games. Fuck, get down here and fucking wipe my ass. Like, I wouldn't even be apologizing.

Oh, wow. Oh, God. That's what Rob will have the luxury of doing. Oh, that's true. You'll have two boys. Two ass wipers. Aw, that's nice. Yeah, zero guilt.

You lazy fucks, get over here. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, zero guilt. You lazy fucks, get over here. Oh, God. Would you rather if you have to pick one either to wipe your mom's butt or your dad's, you'd pick your mother's, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we know what we're saying here. We know what reality we live in.

Yeah. Yeah, the opposite sex really shouldn't be wiping. Look, I wipe my dad's butt. I, like, put him in the shower and fucking wash clothes. You don't want to wipe your mom's butt? No.

No, no, no, no, no. I will be hiring someone to wipe her butt. Yes, I do. I hope to live the rest of my life without seeing my mother's vagina. That's a big goal of mine. I know, I know, I know.

But, I mean, you switch into a different mode if there's... I'm told that, but I can't see my... I mean, my know. But, I mean, you switch into a different mode. I am told that, but I can't see. I mean, my mom does it, like, every day. She gives him baths. Like, she really has transitioned. She said, she's like, he's a baby.

Yeah. And she talks to him like a baby. Sure. She shouldn't do that, but it was. Maybe it helps her see his penis without panicking. No. And he acts like a child. He's like petulant, and then she has to be like,

no, you can't talk to her like that. He's a petulant. He is. He'll yell at my grandma, and they'd say, no, nice. Oh, boy, he's a puppy. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Everyone's doing the best they can. You can't go from having a PhD in genetics to being a puppy. Yeah, they're being scolded. Like, it's nuts. Yeah. And also, he would hate it. Like, him in his right mind knowing all this is about to happen. Same with Yola.

It's like her identity was she's a double master. She was the smartest person in her family to ever live. She guided my mother into being a feminist. Like, she was a gangster. And, yeah, she didn't know how anything worked. And, yeah, didn't know how we got here. But that's the part that's sad. Not the dying.

Yeah. Although we had a spin on it for my grandma, which was her, as I've talked about the honchels, my grandma which was her as i've talked about the honchels she lived in such a cauldron of violence and ugly alcoholism that to forget all that yeah that's the blessing yeah like her overall like sure she had moments of being scared but her overall disposition with alzheimer's got way lighter oh really yeah she was kind of like a little bit bouncy around Honky Dory. Oh, wow. She had a lightness to her that she never had when she was fully. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, so we all were like, oh, she's kind of been given the gift. That's nice. Like a little bit of freedom from all that history before she dies. Yeah. Huh, yeah. Happy New Year. Okay, a few facts okay he said netflix is so rich that jonah was able to throw out the whole movie yeah you know a couple years ago it says netflix is a well-known and leading company in the online streaming of

content industry with a net worth of 108108 billion in 2022, it says. He said Parkinson's is one-sided or the other. Symptoms often begin on one side of the body or even in one limb on one side of the body. But as the disease progresses, it eventually affects both sides. If people want to get hypochondriacal, many people with Parkinson's disease note that prior to experiencing stiffness and tremor, they had sleep problems,

constipation, loss of smell, and restless legs. Hmm. That's a wide net. Yeah, but... Trouble sleeping? So 40% of the country just right now panicked. 40? More than that, I guess. 90. Conservative. Constipation, 90.

Yeah. Well, I've switched to my Metamucil. You have? I'm religious about my Metamucil now. Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah. Because when I stopped eating gluten last year, like actually stopped. Yeah.

You got constipated. No more Honus Rheas, unfortunately. It was a year, 2022 was a year of very little Honus Rheas. Oh, man. I'm sorry. I know. I know. And so I found that a little Metamucil went a long way.

Wow. Yeah. And you enjoy Honest Rias? Yeah. Well, it's a sign of great health. We think it means you're healthy. Yeah. If you go to the doctor and you haven't had Honest Rias in a week.

Something to worry about. They're a little bit worried. Like, what's going on with your marriage? You know, career-wise. Yeah, what's your alcohol consumption? Clearly not enough. Not enough at all, yeah. Not enough beer.

Okay, Rudolf Steiner is someone he referenced multiple times. That was his teacher he followed. But he has actually come up many times on this show because he is the father of the Waldorf. Steiner, Waldorf. Education. Oh, wow. Yeah, we know a few people who have gone to Waldorf schools. Yeah.

I think Zoe Kravitz went to a Waldorf school. Okay, according to Steiner's philosophy, the human being is a threefold being of spirit, soul, and body whose capacities unfold in three developmental stages on the path to adulthood,

early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Does Shonda Rhimes have the biggest TV contract ever written? Then he said something about $100 million a year.

The Netflix deal, it says worth between $300 million and $400 million. Oh, wow. Okay. He said that it's important to fly under the flag of ignorance. And then he said, like Alfred E. Newman. I didn't know who that was. Mad Magazine?

Fictitious mascot and cover boy of the American humor magazine, Mad. The character's distinct smiling face, parted hair gap tooth smile freckles protruding nose and scrawny body first emerged in u.s iconography decades prior to his association with the magazine i almost caught you doing the thing you do eat my shirt consciously okay so for the listener for the arm cherry, she's talking, talking, talking, then she grabbed the scruff of her neck, the collar,

and started jerking it, and then she put it over her mouth. Then it occurred to her, well, that's not great for audio, so she dropped it. That is what happened. But if you were by yourself, next step would have been in your mouth, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew,

and now soaking wet collar of your shirt. So we just saw most of the process. No, that's not what happened, actually. I mean, kind of. I felt like my chin was looking weird, so that's why I covered my mouth. But then I realized, oh, I can't cover my mouth. I'm on audio.

I'm talking. Yeah. I'm in the middle of... Describing Alfred E. Newman. That's right. And then I dropped it. Yeah. I'm in the middle of. Describing Alfred E. Newman. That's right. That's right. And then I dropped it.

Anyway, his motto was, what, me worry? Oh. Makes me think he is worried. What, me worry? Ding, ding, ding. Worried. Yeah, I heard, I was listening to someone in a meeting recently. They were the speaker.

And the person said at least 20 times in 20 minutes, like, look, I'm not selling this to anybody. I'm just saying this is how it works. And I just had this thought. I was like, if you have to say 20 times I'm not selling this. You're trying to sell. You are. I mean, clearly. That's too many times to say that.

Yeah. It was a giveaway. So when Alfred E. Newman. Me no worry. Me worry? No. What is it? Me no worry. Kuma Matana?

No worries? It's me. What? Me worry? What? Me worry? Yeah. That guy's fucking worrying his ass off.

The Portugal the Man song. Is it? Yeah. Oh my God, after Alfred E. Newman. I never knew what it meant. That makes sense. Wow. Duck, duck, goose.

Okay, I'm sure a lot of people who listen are in therapy because we have very involved listeners. And we talk a little bit at the end about the relationship between therapist and patient. Yeah. And I just wanted to make sure for me, I'll say for me. Yeah.

I like having a barrier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I very much do. For me, it is very helpful to know that I'm not going to go to dinner with her. Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves. Just because Phil has that relationship with Jonah, he's not saying everyone should have a relationship with their patients.

Nor am I saying. Yeah. Because my point was like somehow that works fine in a sponsor situation, right? Yeah. And so it's not a recommendation. It's just like, is there room for that i think yeah i mean he was just saying he thought it was inhumane i thought i liked that kind of right which i i guess i put back on that a little bit for him yeah yeah yeah i think that's what people

who listen to things should know that the person's talking for themselves and not talking to you or judging you. So if he's saying for him, I think he's saying it would be inhumane for him. Right. He's not then saying that if you're a therapist who heard that you are inhumane if you don't do that. I mean, I appreciate what you're saying. I'm not saying you shouldn't say that. I'm just saying in general, I do like to remind people that when they hear people talking about their own preferences they're not talking to you but it come up it comes across it sounds very descriptive it does not sound like i like this he says i think it's weird if you've been in a therapy session for a

long time with someone like he's not saying but then i said i think it's to protect the doctor or the therapist and he said it is no no i know i just i think it's, I think it's to protect the doctor or the therapist. And he said, it is. No, no, I know. I just, I think it's fine. I think it makes total sense. If I was a therapist, I would not want to have any personal relationship with any of my clients. Yeah. I think immediately that can get mucky.

Yeah. And the patterns that we all fall into, parts of the reason you're in there, are sure to repeat themselves. I mean, that's just the way it goes. Well, what's funny is it prompted a conversation with me and my therapist. Now, I don't trust me, interestingly,

but I would leave that to them. And what's interesting is like, so I know my friend who recommended me this therapist, he no longer sees him. I mean, I guess he would if he felt he needed to, but he no longer sees him. So they have lunch once in a while. Oh, interesting. And so, okay, that's a whole other bracket, right?

It's like they were your therapist, but you like each other. So now you go to lunch and you're not seeing them professionally anymore. So that's like some other zone. Yeah. Does he see someone else? No. Okay. Like I could imagine going to lunch with my old therapist.

Right. Yeah. Because I have a new therapist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who I do see. But I would not be able to go to lunch with her if I just was like, maybe I'll go back to her at some point. Yeah. No. Not for me.

Well, what happens for me is like I find out, you know, subtly that my therapist likes certain sports. So I kind of would love to talk to him about sports, but I'm not going to because I'm not paying him to talk about sports. We're going to talk about whatever issues I have. Yeah. But in my mind, I think like it would be fun to talk with him about sports over lunch. Like there's all kinds of interests he has.

Or he's had this whole life as a therapist. I'm interested in him as also just a human who's quite good at this and been doing it for a long time. So I'm interested in his whole life as a therapist separately from what I'm there to do. Anyways, but he said the rule is you see a patient on the sidewalk and you literally act like you don't know them. Yeah. Well, remember when we had Lori, she said if she sees someone,

she'll let them decide basically. Like she'll ignore until if they engage, she's not going to let them. She doesn't know them. Yeah. Yeah. When I saw my therapist, old therapist at all time, I wanted to die. I was like, absolutely, she cannot see me.

And I don't want to see her. And she's laughing and she's in- Loving her life. She's a different person there. She's a real person. Yeah. I don't want that. Yeah. Look, I think, again, if you're a human being that struggles with boundaries, it's not for you.

Some people are great at boundaries and some are not. So if the therapist is great at boundaries and the patient happens to be really good at boundaries, that's one situation. You take two people that both, that's what they struggle with. It's a bad pair. They shouldn't. I know. I just, I think I- I'm not putting you in that category. I'm just saying like, it has to run the same whole spectrum that human beings run as far as whether it's advisable or very dangerous. Of course. The cost benefits different for every single person. But I do think as much as I could tell myself, because I have the same thing. I respect my therapist like crazy.

She's unbelievable. I think it's delusional of me to think that I wouldn't fall into some old patterns. I guess also it's a relationship that feels so sacred and feels so sacred because it lacks the other pieces. Because I don't have to worry about any of these other pieces. Lunch feels like that could put that at risk. Yeah, it's just so individual. And then my history is such that for 20 years i've been sharing with men yeah basically therapy but among friends i've been in group therapy for 20

years yeah and i'm friends with all the members that participate in the group therapy but you're not allowed to tell each other what to do you share your own not that my therapist really tells me right they don't either right but i mean there are some things that are a little more prescriptive than others yeah and there's probably the same dose of that yeah you know but it's not murky for me because i go in there and i share as if i were in therapy to these 12 men and then we get pizza afterwards. That's not murky for me because I've been doing it for 20 years. Yeah. Everyone's different.

To each their own. I'm taller than that. I'm us and ours. It's you and yours. All right. Well, that's Phil Stutz. Oh, I loved him. Me too.

Yeah. We're going to frame the pictures. We still have that, right? Okay. Yeah, his drawings. We're running out of wall space because between my new beautiful crow and your baby picture, which is quite large. We need that dry erase board still. Yeah.

I need it in. It's good luck. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. No, I need it for another area of my life, so I would be willing to grab it. No! That's where we first put our big guests. Any race, though?

It hasn't really been touched except for race to 270. No, we're not taking anything out. We're only adding. Well, then what do we do? Because we're out of wall space. Can we expand out? Why don't we put it here? Fucking diagonal? What are we going to do? Paint we're out of wall space. Can we expand out? Why don't we put it here? Fucking diagonal?

Paint and... Mount it. Okay. It'd be cool if we start putting stuff up on the ceiling. It would be. A little logistically. Rob, please figure it out. From an engineering point of view. We might have to have a show mount this.

This is mounted? It is. That. We might have to have a show mount this. They mean this is mounted? It is. That's what you have to do. And that's what you have to do. Then that's what you got to do. I would love the bird right there. Right? Watching over us.

But not really because he's a baby and he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He thinks he can hang out with eagles. He's like a robot. Since they're already kind of blocked. Yeah. Well, like it or not He's got skylights since they're already kind of blocked. Yeah. Well, like it or not, this is going to get some adjustment, you know, this year. No. Yeah, it is.

The whole downstairs is going to get redone. The exterior is going to get done. But why is this getting redone? Because I want this fixed. What? And I want to cover that side and then put a door right there and get rid of the shower. I know. Why?

I know. I didn't want to end this on a low note because I want people to be able to go to the bathroom without us leaving. Sometimes it's really inconvenient. Sometimes it's charming. I don't want these wires hanging out anymore. I don't like that there's these gaps up into the thing and there's gross. When we took the tape off, there's like a trillion bugs and gross shit. That was fun.

That was such a fun day. It was a pop out. It was. And then I would like the lighting to work in here again. That's fine. Lighting I can get on board with. I'd like to run the cables under the floor and bring them out in a port so that the carpet doesn't

so you can wheel shit on the carpet. That might be nice. Anyways, to all I thought this was going to be a great year because 4836. I'm starting to wonder. No, it is. And it's the year of Jordan.

It's Wabi's year, even though he didn't get a birthday like ours, he's included because it's 23. He's from Chicago. Chicago. And he's turning 23 this year. Yeah. All right. Love you. Love you.