Berner Phone - Tank Sinatra: Binge Drinking & Battling Your Thoughts

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

You've probably seen @tank.sinatra on Instagram, but today we learn about who, how, and why he is AKA why he was scared of the devil as a kid, that time he forgot he wrote a book, when he was broke in California, how his mind was his master but then he learned how to master his mind, intrusive thoughts, how parents fuck you up, how he hates when people abuse the word “gratitude”, how he can tell if you’re an alcoholic, how he was a fat kid growing up, and why the hell why he got tatted up.--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/appSupport this podcast: https://anchor.fm/berninginhell/support Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Burning Hell Welcome to Hell Welcome to Hell guys. I'm your host Hannah Burner. We have a very special guest today by the name of Tank Sinatra.

Is it hot in here? That's what hell is. Exactly. You're going to start to sweat. Has anyone ever made that horrible joke on here before? Yeah. Really? Oh, can you delete this?

No, I'm not going to delete it because you said it and you have to own up to it. So I brought you here to talk about how you are. I brought you here to discuss. Great, start. The point of the podcast is to talk about how you praise Satan. Okay. So, like, when did you first decide that you were going to praise Satan? There was something that happened in Northport in 1987.

And that's what first caught my attention. There was a guy, Bobby, who stabbed a kid to death. This is a true story, by the way. Really? Actually scared the shit out of me. I was that young. I was like seven or eight, and it happened to town over from me.

I grew up in Comac and Northport, there was a kid who, at a party, like a weird party, stabbed somebody to death in front of like 20 people screaming Satan the whole time. Wow. And that kid was his name. Did I say Bobby?

I don't know. Ricky Bobby? Ricky Bobby. It was Ricky Bobby. Shake and back. When in death. I love Satan. Wow, you're really good of voices.

Yeah, thanks. Anyway, you might take it. I think Sinatra might sound familiar to you. He is one of the top meme pages on Instagram, or one of my favorites, at least. Also, he has Tank's Good News, which we'll get into, because that's pretty freaking cool.

And also, he's the author of a book called Happy is the New Rich. Oh, I forgot about that. That was a couple years ago. I did some research. I'm finding out new things. Yeah. He also has a new podcast out called Think Tank that I was on. So you should check it out if you want to hear me talk more shit.

What's wrong with the book? Why are you acting like that? You know what? At one point in my life, that was like the biggest thing going. And literally a couple months later, somebody asked me about it. And I like totally forgot that I wrote it because everything else just got so crazy. But do you still stand by it and believe everything you're not like, oh, that time in my life? No, no, no. So that book was actually written over like 10 years. So it wasn't a time in my life. The problem that I have with the book is that it was, so I jotted down notes for like 10 years. If I had a thought that I thought was helpful to me later, like if I thought I was going to need that later and I didn't want to forget it or if I thought it might help somebody else, I wrote it down and emailed it to myself. And these thoughts weren't like for your stand-up.

They're not like joke thoughts. They're just like life thoughts. So the problem is for an average, healthy, well-adjusted adult, these things are probably common sense. But they weren't for me. Why do you think that? Well, that was kind of a joke because there was not anybody out there who's healthy and well-adjusted. But as I was figuring life out in terms of like relationships and money and faith and family and friendship and my own health and just everything was like, every time I had an aha or a light bulb moment, I wrote it down because I did not want to forget it. I call them epiphanies.

Epiphany. I was going to say revelation, but revelation makes it sound like it's bigger than it is. It's just sometimes like you're confused about something and then life gives you some kind of sign and things make sense for a millisecond. And it's great to capture those moments that things make sense. But if you don't capture them, they're gone. If I don't write down a note, period, I'll never remember any thought. Do you know that I've been, I've actually gone to write something down. So I was driving a while ago, and I went to write something.

I thought of something, and I couldn't write right right away. And I was like, all right, I'll get it. And then it was gone. And then I thought of another thing. I was like, oh, I'm going to write that down. Then the other thing popped into my head. By the time I finished writing the second thing that occurred to me, the first thing was fucking gone again.

That's what happens when I try to form sentences when I'm high. Yeah. So I don't smoke. Yeah. I think hell is where all the thoughts that you forgot and they're on the tip of your tongue actually live. Yeah, that would be horrible. Overall, what's the point of the book? Genesis of the book was I wanted to get all of these things in one place so that, obviously, it's a little morbid to think like this.

I typically don't, but I have a son, two sons now. If I fucking die, I want everything I know about being a good person in one place so he can have it. Define good person. Trying to be better, aware. Decent. It's like we talked about. You're not a narcissist if you question if you're a narcissist. Like if you're trying to not be a narcissist,

you're probably not a narcissist. Yeah, if you can be considerate and respectful of yourself and other people, I think you're doing really good. At some point, do you feel like you weren't? So when I was living in California, which is when Happy is the New Rich was born, because I had literally $0.00. The IRS came.

I had a whole bunch of whatever that I honestly thought didn't apply to me. I was just like, they'll figure it out. Yeah, you were like, Mike, you're Joe Judice. Good thing you're American. They'd call me. I'd be like, you guys figure it out. They don't need me. And they took all my money, which was it a lot?

Which was their money. It was a few thousand dollars, but it was like everything I had. And I was across the country from where I lived. What were you doing for a living at the time? So I went out there just to be out of my money. My comfort zone was like the impetus for going, but I was selling mortgages, but it was in 2009, and the mortgage crisis had just happened. And I was selling loans, but they weren't funding them. It was a night.

So I was just waiting tables. I was working, but kind of not, like, I wasn't going anywhere in this job. And I was exercising, going to the beach, tanning, dieting. I was just like fully consumed. Doing laundry, doing tan laundry. Oh, yeah, yeah. Jim Tan Laundry eat. So then I went back to the third.

therapist that I was seeing before I went there, who actually helped me build up my self-esteem enough to go do something like that. And I came back and he's like, he's like, you sound like you're doing great. It seems like you may have developed like a little bit of a narcissistic streak while you're out there. So just watch that. And we'll, you know, we'll get your acclimated back here or whatever. Interesting. So I go back two weeks later. Sit down. Hey, how's it going? Boom. So I've been thinking about what you said about my narcissism. And he looks at me and he goes, no shit as in it's narcissistic of you

to think about it yeah you've been thinking about yourself for two weeks you're kidding I couldn't have seen that coming so what does you define like a narcissism streak like what's the difference between the streak of narcissism and being a full on narcissist well streak is

temporary and probably conditional and narcissism as a personality characteristic is inborn and much harder to shake so maybe you were really working on yourself so you got a little obsessed with yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like when people say they're depressed when someone they love dies, it's like you're not,

I mean, you're sad, depressed, conditional, conditional depression, conditional anxiety. Like, if you have a reason to feel those, like, to feel those emotions, like, you're probably okay. I know it doesn't make it any better when you're in it, but at least it's not like no light at the end of the tunnel and no cause. When the cause, you can pinpoint, it's like a lot, I find it's a lot easier to deal with. When you're just, I've been an anxious person my entire. life finally now starting to get a handle on that by like doing a shit load of work and really really

paying attention to my thoughts and not i'm just not a slave to my mind anymore like my mind was my master now i'm the master now this is what i love to talk about because we got into it on your podcast yeah you've learned how to conquer intrusive thoughts and i fucking love talking about Comments on that. Really? On my, yeah, from the people that listen to it for me, a lot of comments. For my listeners, can you define intrusive thoughts? Because this is fascinating to me.

Have you ever talked about it on here? Nope. No one I've ever spoken to has talked about it on here. Did you know they were a thing before? Well, I suffered from them. Yeah. So I didn't know it was them at the time. Yeah.

Sorry for pointing at you with my Dunkin' Donuts. Yeah. Get that DD out of here. So intrusive thoughts in my experience are thoughts that kind of come out of nowhere. and are so disgusting or violent or scary that they scare you and then it starts the cycle of what if I am the person

that's capable of doing what I'm thinking about. When I was younger, the first intrusive thought I had was that I was scared and I think we had to do this on the podcast like we had to pretend it's the 90s because it's not funny if you don't say it like this.

I was scared that I was retarded and nobody would tell me and even if they did I wouldn't understand it because I was retarded So I asked my mom once, I'm like, Mom, would you say that people think I'm like slow? And she goes, what the hell are you talking about? And I was like, forget it, forget it.

That was the first one. And you think that they're just being nice to you because you're retarded. Or like they don't want to tell you because they're scared that they're going to hurt your feelings. By the way, we're using the R word as if he really thought he was retarded. He's not calling someone a retard who's not retarded. No. Plus it was the 90s, so it was like, very different. I was telling you, my.

intrusive thoughts were when I was playing tennis it's almost like it stemmed from anxiety because I think of the scariest possible thing that could happen yeah so I'd be like imagine if I can't serve anymore and then I would believe it then I'd go on the court and and your brain I always say doesn't hear negative so if I say don't double fault it just hears double fault yeah so I would like believe these intrusive thoughts and I was so scared that if the intrusive thought came then I I had to believe it like I couldn't face it yeah and that was because I was just like so not in touch with my own voice yeah do you find that you were like not in touch with your own voice like why do you think the intrusive thoughts affected you so bad because I thought they were I thought they were

going to become real things and if they became real things I'd be in a lot of trouble but what's confusing is intrusive thoughts are terrible like that you might hurt someone or hurt yourself like it's like when you're waiting on the subway and sometimes you're like I could jump or I can I won't. Yeah. Push that person on the tracks. It's like I won't, but I could. It's a very, very, probably one of the most common ones in New York City.

Is the train? People thinking on the subway platform, what if I, what if I just push this person? No, you're making me not want to stand near the yellow line ever. Well, the good part about intrusive thoughts, and I researched this because I was scared. I actually almost didn't because I didn't want to get the answer. Intrusive thoughts are also called harm OCD or pure OCD because there's no outward expression of them. So there's literally zero cases of anybody ever acting on an intrusive thought. There are episodes of psychosis and rage and all that, but that's not intrusive thoughts.

That's a different thing. So the problem with intrusive thoughts is you think you hear about some guy who kills us whole family in the news. And you think that's an intrusive thought he had. You think that's an intrusive thought, but it's not. It's a psychotic episode or something entirely different. So your response to the thought tells you everything you need to know about yourself. So if you have a thought and you're real from it,

you're not going to do it you know mine might have not been an intrusive it was intrusive thought but it was also just like an oCD anxiety thought yes of course because i would act on it like i would not believe that i could serve and i double fault but like the whole like causing harm or like like i could jump yeah you could do anything but then those are the negative sides of the mind's creativeness the positive sides is i believe that like your life is literally controlled by how creative you can be like if you didn't even think of starting a meme account back in the day your life wouldn't be what it is no so it's like that mind is so beautiful and so dangerous at the same time yeah it's why they say though the mind makes a great tool

but a lousy master true yeah and i think it's important to differentiate why you're getting the intrusive thoughts like why did you think you were getting them like what was the anxiety that was causing them i know that's a very very deep question it's not it's it's not that it's deep i think it would be impossible for me to pinpoint where it came from. It just came from a lifetime of being. Parenting is like... Difficult. Very difficult.

Only because typically, unless you're like a teenage mom, which has its own set of problems, normally by the time you're old enough to have kids, you completely forgot what it's like to be a kid. Completely and totally forgot. So you act as if you're a different, even though you were one of those at one point. And I remember standing on a table and being like, get off. Why? I get off, like, I don't understand.

Yo, this table is fun. But as a parent, you're like, get off the table. And you don't even know why you're telling them to get off the table. So it's like, because you're going to fall and die. That's what a parent, you know what I mean? So I was raised by a fearful mother who, not fearful, she was just, she was scared we were going to get hurt because she loved us. But it was, I think, a little bit more fear than love. I don't know.

I'm not sure. I have no idea. I know that mine is more fear than love. So people that are angry or raised to be angry by angry parents will spend their life looking outside of them for reasons to be angry. So they justify their own anger so they don't feel weird being angry. So if somebody's like, why are you in a bad mood? They go, this or that with anxiety or worry, it's the same thing. I was raised to be a naturally fearful person.

So I would look at things outside of me to be fearful of. So if somebody was like, why are you so scared? I'd go because of that. But really, I only noticed that because of what I have going on inside. funny my friend who's very anxious to start dating this guy and she's in one of those places where she calls me all the time and she's like I don't I don't know if he's going to text me back I don't know if he's going to call me back I think he's going to end it with me and I'm like dude what is your problem and I realize like they have no problem they're good she's just putting

all her anxiety into him it's like me I put all my fear and anxiety into tennis tennis I started playing during 9-11 and didn't get therapy after 9-11 so instead the world was scary to me but instead I was like, no, tennis is scary. Yeah, this is a place where at least you have some control over what you do. Exactly. Some. And that's really, that's, I think, at the crux of it is the majority of people's issues is. Tony Robbins talks about how life needs to be both predictable and unpredictable for people to feel safe.

You need to have a level of predictability, meaning like when you walk out of your house, you go to your car, it's going to start. But unpredictability, meaning like you just said, where the brain is a beautiful thing, like anything could happen today. but if you switch those like a nightmare that's what happens in the mind of somebody who's worried like the thing that can go wrong will definitely go wrong and this stuff that happened

I think that there's like on a scale of 100 in a day, week, month, year, lifetime, whatever 10% of the things that are going to happen to you are going to be absolutely ecstatic, joyful, 10% are going to be tragic. I don't even think 10%, I think it's more like probably one or two percent

on either end and the 95% in the middle is gray area that your perception determines how you. So the fact that I made it here safe today, I actually, I'm to be honest with you celebrating a little bit. Well, you city biked here. And when I asked you, did you city bike? I was like, I would never city bike.

I'm scared of biking cars. I don't like that stuff. I grew up in New York City just watching crazy cab drivers. I feel like it's a death sentence if I were to rent a city bike. In fact, you did it. I'm like, that's cool. His perspective wasn't scared. But I would never, I would never.

It's not that I wasn't scared. it's a little crazy out there you're not like you're not totally wrong for feeling that way and then as a as a pedestrian i know i've almost run into them all the time oh yeah because i'm on my phone texting yeah i know people are so there's there's too many people in new york city for people to not be paying full-blown aggressive attention to their surroundings and i am so i keep myself good like i see shit going on from like a thousand meters away and 10 minutes be away like i'm very aware of my surroundings you're like a cat very observant i have to be not that i have to be because there's danger i just

i found that i've lived a lot more life because of that like i've had a lot more i've i've lived just more life in general because i always pay attention to everything well it's funny how me and you met i went to say hi to sunny side up who we had on the podcast what up sonny what up sunny and i noticed you when i came in you noticed me you could have been at your computer like fucking around an email and you're like hey nice to meet you what's your deal so you're you are a very open person it's funny that's a perspective of the brain too you saw it as an opportunity to meet someone where someone else could have seen as an opportunity for someone to annoy them while they were trying to get work done yeah no no way but that gray area in the middle is so interesting

because with tennis I was so addicted to the high yeah so when I was the high and the high was like winning of winning so when it was the high let's say it's five percent winning and the gray is like practicing and the other five percent is losing, I just wanted the high. So it's like, that's not how you get happiness. Happiness is the gray area is the journey. Yeah. And if you can learn that like, I don't think happiness is being really happy. Happiness is contentment. Yeah. Well, the feeling of achievement comes from achieving goals and accomplishment, but that's not happiness. Happiness is enjoying the process. I also think when you find the right person, you don't like there is that happiness, but you feel that like calmness of

contentment around them. What do you mean like a romantic? Yeah. Yeah. Like I haven't found that yet, but I feel like the dudes I've dated, sometimes like they cause me anxiety and stress. And my parents have the most boring, nice relationship. And I'm like, I think I'm searching for finding someone who gets the calmness inside

me. Yeah. That's, you have, I mean, because there's a lot of people that cause fires inside me, like, oh, passion, lust, but I want someone who makes me feel safe. Yeah, you're asking for it. If you marry somebody who's exciting, Good luck I just want to watch

Like the Knicks and eat Mexican Meeting somebody who's exciting Is different than being excited by somebody You know what I mean? Yeah Like my wife was Brought that com But I was also very excited

That I found the calm And I wanted to do everything I could To make sure that that flame Stayed and stays And exciting can get boring All the time I dated a guy who was like The funest

How fucking crazy I'm sorry finish It's just crazy What you were just about to say But go ahead I did this guy was like the most fun guy in his friend group and I started dating him and he was like a puppy dog like he was really hot and cute not the puppies I think are hot that's weird I'm not sexually

attracted to puppies there's a cute little puppy and he's just like hyper wants to play wants to play wants to play and at first I'm like he's so fun and then I was like dude I'm gonna put you in your in your cage in my cage and leave me the fuck alone like he wouldn't stop and he just wanted to always have fun and it was fucking exhausting and I tapped out I was like I can't do this he's not so cute at he's not cute and he's not cute and he's poking me at 2 a.m yeah I need my beauty sleep. Yeah, no, it's not. So boring is exciting and exciting is boring.

And also, you need to find the right kind of exciting for you. Yeah. Like, I think it's exciting when someone has good taste in murder documentaries. Sorry that I want to figure out why murders happen. It's purely research. Intrusive thoughts. No, I mean, like, those are a hot topic right now, and they won't be in probably, I mean, three years. You think it's just like a trend?

100%. But, okay. It's nothing but that. Making a murderer started it. Mm-hmm. Very successful. Netflix paid attention to the results, I'm sure, and started dumping money. They are exciting.

I think they were always exciting, but it just became more socially acceptable, and then memes kind of took them to the next level. Yeah. Have you watched those terrorist dockeys, the terrorism doc, like near misses terrorism? No, but I want to. Oh, my God. You, I mean, you should, I guess, but they are really. It's also desensitized me to just like normal romantic comedies because it's like a documentary

but then also there's a sickness to it and I joke that it like no matter how bad my day is I'm always like well my day could have been worse whatever happened in this documentary today but it also back to and choose of thoughts I once had a there's an interesting yeah that was an interesting thought you ever like have a terrible dream and it like fucks up your perspective like I had a dream that my friend got hit by a car yeah and I woke up and I was like, does everyone realize at any time we could get hit by a car? Like, I can get hit by a car today. But most of the time, that's not top of your brain.

No. Most of the time, you're riding your city bike, like, oh, I wonder when I talk about this podcast. It's really like, how do you shift perspective when you're going through hell to not have those thoughts, like, control you? So in my lifetime, I've been very fortunate and misfortune, it's unfortunate, depending on who you ask. This was a defining moment for me. When I was in college, I was in, let's say, 19.

And my roommate at the time was the same age, and he had never been to awake in his entire life. And I had been to like six at that point already. Oh, shit. Like friends, family. In Long Island? Yeah. My friend got hit by a car when I was 12. He died.

My friend's mother died when I was 14, like my best friend. He lived right around the corner. His house burnt out. There's just, there was a lot of different things that happened. That adds fear to you. It's not fear. I mean, so the thing with death is that everyone when somebody dies has a period of. appreciation yeah and that's what I was going through I was having periods of

appreciation they got longer and longer with each death but then when I got sober at age 22 and three people died in my life very close to me very suddenly very tragically that never left like the the feeling of being grateful that I woke up today has not left I think 16 years that's the word gratefulness and that's the perspective me when I went through depression for like seven months yeah now like I'm dealing with a TV show and I have my podcast and like at the end of the day I don't give a fuck how my podcast does

I don't give a fuck how the TV show does I give a fuck that I wake up and I'm happy And like so I'm just grateful that like I have an apartment I'm doing what I like But ultimately I can get out of bed Well I think that that word gratitude It has a bad time in this world

Because people abuse it And misuse it and they talk I'm the gratitude Fucking act like it then You douche what are you talking What is this video that you're like What are you doing so people i think with social media they like to brag about gratefulness like i'm so grateful that

i'm on this vacation that i can show off that's great i mean that's honestly that's good i'm not even trying to be a dick that's good but i've what one of the major changes that happened in my life is that emotions i was taught are verbs if the emotion you're feeling is not a verb then you're full of shit so if you say you love somebody but you're not loving them actively you're full of shit. If you say your gratitude, but you're not putting into action, you're full of shit. It's not right or wrong, but it messes up the perception of it for everyone else because you hear this word, like the word alcoholic when I was in seventh grade, took me a long time to get over that because I had an image in my little 12 year old mind of what an alcoholic was.

So when I was one later, it was like, I'm not that. I'm not what I thought an alcoholic was when I was 12. I had to have my mind blown wide open and see that. How did you finally realize you were an alcoholic? It's very simple criteria. Tell me. You're just hung over every day. So I used to have a joke. So there's 10 questions on the back of this pamphlet. Okay. If you answer yes to three of them,

you have a definite problem with alcohol. Okay. I think there should be one question. And that question is if you have ever peed in your pants as a result of drinking too much alcohol, you have a definite problem and you should go to a meeting like tonight. But like college, that's like you're the coolest if you have a story like that. Well, no, this is not Billy Madison.

Don't try in Miles Davis. I went to University of Wisconsin. Everyone was cold. Like, peeing your pants probably felt nice at the end of the night. If you're in a blackout, that's, you know, that's a little problem. It could be problematic. I'm not trying to guide you. Binge is so acceptable.

I mean, look at Summer House. It was so much drinking. I guess maybe we should probably talk about this off the air. But on that show, there is definitely some drinking that is, in my opinion, problematic. There is. Not from everybody, but there is a person on that. show that I'm like, man, I hope that person, that androgynous, neither male nor female person. Well, I think once you're drinking starts to affect your personal relationships, that's when.

So here's the criteria that most people use to diagnose themselves, because that's the problem with alcoholism is that you can't be diagnosed by somebody. As a matter of fact, the more somebody tries to diagnose you, the more you dig into the fact that you're not. And one of the symptoms of the disease is denial. So fucking figure that out. And also you're fun. So then that's confusing too.

So if you obsess about drinking when you're not drinking and then once you start, you can't stop of your own will, you're in major danger. So when you weren't drinking, it was top of mind? Yeah. So there was times during the day where I wasn't thinking about it. But once that obsession kicked in, that is all I could think about. And I used to get so excited to drink. More excited than I've ever been for, like Christmas. Because I like hate drinking and I get jealous of people who are so pumped to drink.

I'm like, I wish I liked something as much as they did. And I wish this like drink could make me as happy as they did. But like it's because I'm a talent. I just like to eat all the time. Yeah. Well, that's the upside and downside. The upside is that it's very exciting and it feels good. The downside is that if you do get that excited about something, it's probably going to turn on you.

Well, it's funny because with eating disorders, it's just whether you're anorexic or like binge eating or bulimic, you're just obsessed with food, whether it's not eating it or eating it. or eating it or waiting to eat it or throwing it up like it's all just putting all your other anxiety into something so you're putting into drinking putting into food putting it into tennis but the reality is is you had to work on some real shit like drinking that's what we've talked about on summer house some people are like drinking is not the issue it's you know this or that or that I'm like yeah but the drinking is just like it has become an issue and once you fix that then you could work on the next steps. Well, you have to remove the thing that numbs you to your life to deal with your life.

So was it hard to get sober at 22? That's young. It was, it was, it was just time and it was necessary. It was neither hard nor easy. It was just happening and that was it. That was the only way I was going to move forward. I knew from, I knew my entire life that I drank problematically. And you're Irish, right? Irish and German, yeah. That shit's just in your What? Goodbye. Because you could handle it. Well, I couldn't.

I could drink a lot. I bet. But when I explained to people, like, I'm always trying to, like, relate things in my life to better understand what the fuck I'm doing or try to understand what I'm doing. And a friend of mine asked me a couple of months ago who, he was like, he's like, do you miss it? And I didn't get, obviously, I've been asked that question a million times, so I don't feel any kind of anger or anything when people ask me that but like my answer was like honestly dude like miss what what like what about the way that i drank do you think that i miss

crashing my cars having no money living at home being fucking bloated almost dying like does that me the my when i hear the word drinking like i never went out for a drink when i hear people talk about like you didn't have a nice red with a paired with a nice meat no nice red when I like people will go out for a drink or for drinks I went out drinking yeah like it was a sport yeah that was and you were going to be the best at it I was going to do the most of it for sure but like I would go out I wouldn't have if I could keep it swear to God yeah if I could keep it to six to eight drinks I would drink that's so many drinks for a normal person that's yeah but I would have like 20 in a night.

Yeah. That's absurd. And that's why people that have that problem die often of that problem. Do you think you're close to death? I think we're always close to death. I had a couple of like accidents and falls that could have gone a lot worse. Yeah. I remember being at University of Maryland and being drunk and there was a steep hill behind like

this shopping center on one of the like the main strip. And you feel invincible. Yeah. That's part of the problem too. But I was just running down the hill and I lost my footing and I was running big steps and I'm big. I'm like 2.30, 2.25, whatever at this time. Boulder. Boulder.

And I go forward. I take my last step. My foot doesn't come forward and I just go on my face right here. And the worst part is I had no idea what happened when I woke up the next morning. I woke up late for work. I called work. I said, oh my God, I just woke up. I think I got beat up last night.

I don't know what's happening. I had no idea. Yeah. That is enough, like, fuck. No, I don't miss it. No. Don't miss that. And that's what, that wasn't a one-time thing.

That was like the way things were going. Yeah. It's a progressive disease. So it was just going to get worse and worse. And I had to make a decision that I was not going to be, I was not going to live that way. I was going to do, I'm doing, I still do everything I can to make sure that that, that's not drinking that I'm scared of now. Like, that would be what we call a relapse.

It's not drinking that scares me. It's getting to a place in my life where I think drinking is a good idea. Because that's the predecessor to the relapse. The drinking is like, right now, seems like an impossibility because of all the work that I do. Yeah. So you think work really helps distract you? No, no, I'm not saying work. I'm saying like the spiritual and emotional and psychological work that I do.

It's about the actual emotional. You have to because it's a ticking time bomb. And if I want to live a nice, long life, I don't want that bomb to ever go. off unexpectedly. So you're a big dude. You got into bodybuilding? So you're pretty fucking dragged. So you were running really fast down that hill. You were a bodybuilder? Yeah, I guess. Like how long? Like, was this after you got sober? No, I started working out when I was 13. Oh, shit. Why? Um, because I was fat and I saw a pumping iron. Oh, you're a little fat kid? Yeah, fat. That's why you have a good personality. You're probably so cute. You're probably the cutest little

cheeks you're laughing because i'm right everything in my life turned out okay all the stuff that i struggled with turned out just fine like i hated being fat but i had to develop a personality to compensate for the societal constructs of beauty that did not favor me why'd you get all tied it up it's like your your aesthetic um i like tattoos the most honest answers i think they look cool is there one with a good five on my wrist what does that mean five is just a very lucky number for me why i was born on september 5th there's five people in my family there's five letters in my last name the house i grew up in was a five uh my parents wedding anniversary is 5 5 5 my may 5th single demayo my my number like there's a number where you take all the digits of your birthday and add them up until you get to one number

is five and I fucking love five I do it's so special to me I don't know why I literally favor the number five more than almost not just the other numbers but like more than like I like the number five more than I like some people

honestly it's beautiful what's your favorite movie five what's your favorite color five five I just love it my favorite movie is actually I heard Huckabee I want to get that on the record. Okay. Have you seen that yet? I didn't ask you about that.

Did we talk about it? I don't want to know about it. Oh, why? I'm just kidding what it's, what's it about? It's the best movie ever made. Why? It's just incredible. It's about, so Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin are existential detectives in this movie.

Jason Schwartzman and Mark Wahlberg are like fucking wacky, can't figure shit out, like, like, breaking down. Judelaw and Naomi Watts. Good cast. Unbelievable cast. Unbelievable movie. Unbelievable story. Jonah Hill is in it as a kid in the family that they go to visit when they go see the African guy. So Jason Schwartzman has his coincidence that he wants to figure out. So he hires existential detectives, but part of the process is you give them unfettered access to your life. You never know what's the key to your existence. So we have to watch you do everything. Sounds like Facebook. Yeah, exactly. I think he came out before Facebook. Wow. Yeah. In the process, they come across one of their students who left them and went to the dark side. So the reason I love the movie, Dustin Hoffman's part in the office where he's explaining this to Dustin, he's explaining the blanket thing to Jason Schwartzman. And he holds up a blanket and he goes, all right, so here in this blanket is all the matter and energy in the universe.

Jason Schwartzman goes, what's outside the blankets? More blankets. That's the point. This is everything. And he goes over here, we have a cheeseburger. Over here, here's you, here's me, here's the Eiffel Tower, here's the Super Bowl, and blah, blah, blah, and all the stuff is in the blanket because it's all connected. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. So he gets it and then Dustin Hoffman goes to put him in this little bag for him to, like, do this mental exercise. And he goes, he goes, once you get the blanket thing, you can relax. So Jason Swartzman goes, why do I have to get the blanket thing? And Dustin Hoffman goes, because once you get the blanket thing, everything you could ever want and be, you already have and are. And he goes, wow, that sounds cool. So I believe Ryan Holiday has this website called The Daily Stoic that he runs and he sends out emails. Ostoicism.

Fucking awesome. That's powerful. He's so good. Ryan Holiday takes that ancient philosophy and brings it into like modern day. Can you remind people what stoicism means? Well, it's just a school of philosophy that is, it was kind of like what I did with Happy is the New Rich. I just wrote myself notes. I wasn't preaching.

I wasn't trying to put something together. I was just writing myself reminders of things that I should. struggled with to check back in on later. It's kind of like that gray area we talked about, that 90% in the middle. And you have Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, some of these guys were slaves, poor people, kings. It's like a unifying philosophy that just teaches you how to go through life and not get too excited or upset by anything.

Not to numb yourself and be a flatliner, but to enjoy the right things and minimize the things that don't actually matter. So I believe, and this is something that I think about all the time, like if you, like to me and you are separate right now, right? To somebody out there in the office, we are in this room. So we're together already in their mind. If you go outside of this office into the hallway, I'm sorry, like out onto the street, we're just all part of this unit called the building, not separate anymore at all.

If you go to the west side, now we're Midtown or whatever this, whatever this area is called. You go to Long Island, this is Manhattan, you go to Kansas, this is New York, you go to Germany, this is America, you go to Mars, this is Earth. We are all fucking connected. I don't care what you say about anything. That's just spatially. If you go 30 years in the future, we're just people that were alive in 2019. So if you take a long enough look at anything, it is all connected. You cannot.

You can argue it, sure, but you're wrong. so when i saw that movie and he explained how we were all connected i was like man that's absolutely true let's say doesn't make you feel less alone it makes me feel everything all at once it makes me feel more individual and more unique it also makes me feel more a part of a group that i have to contribute to so you're a body your right arm is as essential to your body as your liver is. You couldn't do this thing that you're doing living without all the pieces. Does the right arm get mad at the liver when the liver steals blood and the right arm goes numb? Maybe, I don't know, it doesn't matter, but shit happens. And sometimes you need to trade off. So when one person, like when

I'm having a good day and you're having a bad day or vice versa, it shouldn't be a point of contention. It's just part of. Coexisting. The way it is. Yeah. Exactly. My question to you is after you stop drinking and you're feeling every emotion now, you can't numb anything. Yeah. So how did you go from? Like, were you highly sensitive? Because it's true. I love the idea of stoicism of like, nothing makes you too happy or sad. You're just loving, coexisting with the world.

Yeah. So how did you handle that once you're sober? It's tough. Yeah, it's hard. Like you feel sadness. You feel pain. You feel nerves. All of it.

And even if you're only, let's say, on a scale of one to 10 for a normal person, you're out of one, it feels like a 10 to you because it's the first time you're feeling like that. Yeah. There's a book called. I mean, talking to girls. Was that like a different kind of experience when you're at the bar? Yeah, yeah, because it worked when I got sober. It did not work when I was drinking because I'd be so drunk.

You're probably so fucking annoying. I'd be so drunk. I'd be like, I'm going to go talk to her after this drink. Oh, I'm almost done with this drink. I'm almost done with this drink. I'm just going to, and then if I go over there with a half try, I have to buy her a drink. I don't have a lot of money. So I'm just going to eat drinks later.

I'm like, uh, fucking disaster. Thank God I was somewhat hands. I got a little bit of a pass. So it helped your relationships when you were sober. Yeah, it didn't help them. It made them possible. They were not easier nor harder. They were impossible or possible.

Do you feel like because you clearly have an addictive personality that there was other things? Like I know a guy who stops drinking, but now he smokes weed 24-7. Like was there anything else that you like started getting addicted to? So when I did stop drinking, I continued to smoke pot and that was not, that's, not going to work. No. It can work for a temporary span of time, but that's not going to work long term. And like I said before, because you're still numbing yourself in a way, right? You're avoiding the issue, which is you have no idea how to live. That's the problem. It's not, the drugs, like you said, the drugs are drinking are not the problem. The problem, you don't have a drinking

problem. You have a not drinking problem. That's the basis of it. You're so right. So when you are a numb, like a walking nerve, that's why losing three people to, like, have a drinking problem. I have three people die in that first year was so pivotal because it hit i mean i felt it i felt everything every single thing and there's a story there's a book called the the brain the story of you about a guy it's about how the brain works it's fascinating i'm definitely not smart enough to understand everything in it but i got the point yeah and there's all the brain like handles different shit so your eyes don't actually see your brain sees what your eyes filter so there was a guy who was blind and he was an Olympic skier,

Paralympic skier, and he was a beast. Gold medal, gold medal, gold medal, crushing it. They used sound to, like, determine where the flags are so that they can, like, go. Wow. And so the part of his brain that processes what was coming, what would be coming through the eyes, atrophied, so it didn't work anymore.

It was gone. That's why people have good hearing because the brain will fill in with, like, compensate for it, make your hearing stronger, or your taste stronger or whatever. So he had a surgery that reversed his blindness and it ruined his life. Absolutely ruined his life because now he could see, but he could see everything. And he couldn't handle it.

He was sick. He was throwing up for like a month. It was like too much stimulation. Way too much because you don't like, I mean, maybe you do realize, but there's 400 buttons on that thing over there. he saw that and it was like you saw every fiber in the chairs like he could see everything like you're on drugs all the time

that sounds like a nightmare so when you get sober it's like that but with your emotions so you're feeling everything always but there's no other way to do it except to get through that and equal out eventually and it's so funny because both of those things you said is perspective

it's like I can look at the day just seeing the negatives I can look at the day just seeing the positives. Like, look at the day, upset that I'm not happy enough or not sad enough. Yeah. Like, it's literally just how you want to tell your story. But I think ultimately, finding that 90% that you can feel comfortable in. Yeah.

That you don't feel like you have to, like, get coping mechanisms for. And you don't have to look at all positive or all negative. I think a healthy balance is essential to feeling like you're contributing and participating in the actual world instead of just on one. And having those highs and lows are important because once you have the lows, then it makes being normal good. Once you have the highs, it reminds you, like, oh, there's hope for more highs in the future.

But you're not happy because you're not experiencing that 5% high all the time. No. Yeah, that's like mania. Yeah, that stresses me out. That's like going to a fucking party every night. It's too much. Like, things have happened in my life

where I like Drake, right? He's got a lot of great lines. Yeah. about work and success because he's like writing while he was living in or having other people write whatever you ask

so he says so get it while you here boy because all that hype don't feel the same next year boy I'm on one so I took that as like appreciate the little victories because that's it

that's everything if I went from zero to invite it to the Emmys fucking shame on me for not taking the right steps to get there. You know what I mean? That's like getting your first car is a Ferrari.

Good luck enjoying anything ever for the rest of your life. Well, it's kind of like child stars when you have so much fame and success early on. It's unless if you realize that famous success isn't the ultimate source of happiness. But then you've got to go really deep, like super deep. Like almost like Jim Carrey is a good example of somebody who, I don't know if you know what I'm about to say. Been to Helen back? It has been to hell and back, went off the deep end, caught himself, but I think is going a little too far into the realm of the immaterial now. I know nothing about the guy.

Disclaimer, I don't know Jim Carrey. I love him. I would love to meet him and talk to him. But I remember when he first came out of kind of like, what, hiding, and he was like this. He had a beard. Yeah, people were like, he was on the red carpet and they were like, you know, what are you doing here? He's like, well, there is no me and there is no here. She was like, what?

And people kind of liked it. And he said some like good tweets. Yes. Well, he said, I hope everyone gets rich and famous so that you can see that it's not the answer. That right there is enough for me. That's like, if that's your whole life, boom, you nailed it. You killed it. Because obviously people won't.

But you do find that achievement is one thing. Happiness is another. Achievement is different. You're so right. You're so right. right. I mean, I can say as someone who, if you told me... We are not burning in hell right now. We are thriving. We're thriving.

If you told me five years ago, you're going to be on a TV show, like right after I quit tennis and felt like I was starting from the beginning with everything, I'd be like, that sounds like a dream. And like, not that it's still a dream, but now I'm on a TV show. Nothing transformed in me.

I'm still the same girl sitting on the subway. Yeah. But now I'm like, oh, now I'm working and maybe writing something. You're always going to have new shit you want to do. Nothing is going to be the end-all be-all. What are you going to do? Start prancing around and butterflies and rainbows when one event happens. It's just like depression. It's not you. It's in a reaction to an event. You is like your internal voice that you have to get control of that helps you be happy. I want to end with a final game.

Seven Deadly Sins And we're going to learn a little more about you. Not that we haven't learned enough. I love everything I've learned. Can you let me do it? Okay. Envy? Frank? I mean, name me my...

Franky? Frank. I like calling you Frankie. Tank, short for Tancis. Mr. Tansis? Yep. What are you greedy about? Is nothing an answer?

No. What am I greedy about? Time with people I love? Aw. Do you think you make enough time for the people you love right now? Yeah. I wish I could have more.

What would you say to young guys who are like all about their career right now and they're like, I don't have time to call my mom. I have time to see my girlfriend. Good luck. I spent a lot of time doing the spiritual and emotional stuff in my 20s not working hard. And now that I'm doing okay, like I'm okay, those guys may set themselves up financially when they're younger and they get to this stuff later on. Who knows?

When did you feel like you kind of hit your stride with your career? What age? Around 30. I was working for the Victorian fence out in Long Island, selling fence, and I was loving it. Are you not selling fences anymore? No. Now you're full-time on the gram? Full-time meamer, yeah.

Hell yeah. Respect. Also, I like talking to you because how old are you? 38. You're not a millennial. I'm like the oldest millennial. Or you're the oldest. And like you're in this game.

Yeah. Do you feel like that gives you an advantage that you're like slightly older or what do you think? I think it's the way it needed to happen in my life. If this happened when I was 25, I would have absolutely ruined the opportunity. How so? I just, it would have changed to why I thought I was. I think. I don't know.

Maybe it wouldn't have. You think it would have gone to your head that you have like a million followers? Yeah. By the time that happened, I had a wife kid. I remember when ABC Nightline did the piece on me right after this. So they did fuck Jerry, girl with no job, and then me. And I was like, uh, okay. I guess I'm in the same.

Not really, but. I'll wear it, whatever. And I was so excited. And first of all, nobody stayed up to watch it with me. Second of all, when I woke up the next morning, I had DVRed it. And I was like, all right, as soon as everyone was up, I was like, you guys want to, you want to see daddy on TV? And my son was like, no. And he just went, like, kept praying with what he was doing.

You know, kids keep you humble. I was like, oh, okay, so this shit doesn't matter. Got it. Got it. So you're more grounded with, like, getting the work done than the fun of being able to be like, I got a millie followers. Yeah. Listen, I felt it.

I feel things. I'm not like, I'm not numb, but another stoic thing that I think about all the time is that like, I forget the exact phrase, but like the rock is not,

when you throw a rock in the air, the rock is not changed up or down. It's still the same thing. I love that. So up or down, you're still the same. You've got to try and like enjoy both. Enjoy the ups and the downs.

And realize you're still a rock, no matter how, if you're going down or going up, you're still that rock. Yeah. you are, in fact, the rock that was capable of going up in the first place. Oh, it's powerful. It's powerful.

Rock talk, 101. My new podcast is about pebbles. Okay, who are you envious of? And don't say no one. I don't take that shit. Well, I'm going to have to break a rule here. And I'll tell you why. When I was younger, I was envious of everybody.

And I would have traded a place with anybody, not, knowing their situation whatsoever. I just thought, if you were not me, you had to have it better than me. I would not trade places with anybody on the planet. You know, it's so funny when I was younger. When I was younger, I always thought my issues were, like, way worse than everyone. Yeah. I feel like, because you're kind of in your own world when you're younger, but I was like,

they didn't just lose their tennis match. Like, you're so stuck in your own head. They lost one last week. Where were you? You know, life is long. That's what I'm saying. Life is long and life is big. There's a lot of people, I would not, I don't know, envious, I don't know, I wouldn't trade places with anybody.

It's funny because entertainment industry, there's so much luck involved. And I have friends who are like, how come that person got that show? And I'm like, they're riding, like, life is waves. Yeah. They're on their wave right now. You might not be on your wave, but your waves come in, calm down. Yeah. We're all in the fucking ocean.

Yeah. Like SpongeBob. What are you gluttonous about? Everything. I love how you're greedy about nothing, but gluttonous about everything. Well, gluttony I think of as like a physical experience. Like food and sex and money and whatever like. Yeah.

I've gotten much better with the gluttony over the years. Because you're like, if I like it, I want all of it. All of it. Every day or never again. You go hard or go home. Yeah. But then I go hard for a certain period of time and then I never want to do it again. Yeah.

So I'm gluttony. literally about everything. It's just a matter of like how long am I going to be gluttonous about it? It's kind of like when a new song comes out and you listen to it until you hate it. Until the chorus makes you nauseous. In the show.

Do you know how many fucking times I listened to that song? I was, oh my God. Yeah, I ruined that in like three days for me. I'm about the same. I heard it in the cab like yesterday and I was like, why am I twitching? Like, I couldn't, it was bad.

I was like, I'm not crying in a good way. I'm crying because I can't handle that chorus anymore. Oh, man, that's song. That's why I love, you know, that's what I'm saying. Like, I'm gluttonous. So if I had to pick one thing. Yeah. Because I try not to be gluttonous about food because there's a physical manifestation.

Yeah, yeah. Fat or I'm trying not to be gluttonous about other things. But music, I am a fucking gluttonous piece of shit about music. I hate listening to music with other people because I can't play the same three songs on repeat that I just want to do. It's like my own problems. When was the last time you experienced extreme wrath? Because you come across like a scary meathead.

I know. You come across like some dude at the bar that like is like, you want to say some shit to me? You want to say that again? To my face? You want to say that again to my infantile, angelic face? You fuck. Do you see a fucking pore on this skin?

No, you don't. No, you don't. You want to say this to my baby face, bro? wrath you had anger right of course so I did get actually mad about something recently if I get mad it's because I did something wrong

and I got called out on it straight up a hundred that your wife must love that that's why I get mad because you want to get away with shit no because I don't like I'm so hard on myself as it is

if somebody else notices something that I did wrong it's like you couldn't give me 30 seconds to figure that out. Now I've got to think about it now. I wasn't ready. Fuck. I know exactly how you feel because with tennis, I always did better with coaches who were like,

don't worry about it, but the coaches that were like, you do you do this, this, this, and this. I'm like, I can't take it. Like, no shit, I know I have to bend my knees and that's why the ball keeps going in the net. Like, I know my foot works lazy today. You don't have to fucking tell me.

Yeah. Anyway, now I'm all worked up. Now you're wrapped up. Now I'm wrapped up. You don't eat the pain away. Yeah, it's true. I'm hungry, always. when was the last time you let your pride get in the way of something how's your ego how's it feeling um

i don't know i it would have to probably be something with my wife but i don't know how do you guys fight well yeah what's your fighting strategy go for blood you're like purely physical no i'm very like when we're arguing um i'm very conscious of my energy and the energy that I'm putting off. I know when my voice sounds more angry than I actually am. I know when my eyes are starting to get that look where I'm like, because being

mad and looking mad are two very different things. And if I assume that if she's reacting to me in a way that is like, okay, let's fight, I must look like I'm... Like the energy you're giving off. I'm looking angrier than I actually am. Also, when you're calm and you say something powerful,

there's nothing more effective. Yeah. And when you're yelling, they'll just feel they yell they don't care what you're saying yeah it doesn't matter but I feel like relationships are so important like my parents fight well my mom gets mad and my dad for doing something stupid he gets mad that she's mad

and has to be grumpy for a couple hours until he ultimately goes back to her and says I'm sorry I was an idiot that's how they fight that's how they resolve things it takes half a day and that's just how it happens our fights now take like they last literally minutes yeah they're very very

quick. That's great. Because she's very aware and conscious of her actions and how she's coming across and so am I so. Because no one wants to fight. Of course not. Like you're both trying to end the fight but if your pride gets in the way too much you're like, you keep trying to get

the last word and then you end up, that's when blood gets involved. Yeah. Then you're on a Netflix documentary. And 10 minutes later you're like, hey, why'd you say that thing? What? I don't remember, but it was not nice and I'm still mad. Dane Cook had that funny joke back in the day

You know that you're in trouble When the woman starts agreeing with you in the fight And she's just like, yep, yep And she turns away and she's going to whisper something That at first doesn't seem like a lot She'll turn And she'll say it just loud enough for you to hear She goes, you're stupid like your father

When you first hear it, you don't think of anything You're just like, oh, I'll support your father Whatever, go fuck yourself But then like 10 minutes later You're in the basement pacing like my father was a brilliant man but the truth is yeah women are mental terrorists

my wife is actually not she's really she's like she doesn't like to fight she doesn't want to fight I have to say if there was a fight that we've had in the last seven years it was probably my fault I can't pinpoint all the fights but I know that like I don't

I don't mean to instigate anytime we've ever fought it's because one or both of us were in a bad mood and we happen to like agree on something not being cool. Like let's fight about this thing. So if she's in a bad mood and I'm strong, we don't fight. If I'm in a bad mood and she's strong, we don't fight. If we're both in a bad mood, obviously we're fighting.

Or if one is strong and the other one is weak, we're sucked into that vortex of literal nonsense. It's nothing. We're not arguing about anything of substance. I actually told this is a major, major relationship key. For your listeners, no memory arguments ever. Resign from the memory argument team. Never ever argue about who you said this and I said that and you were doing this.

Like keeping score and stuff. No, I mean, just like, well, no, we were here when this happened and that's what happened. And I said that. And then you said this. I remember. Oh, okay, because I remember it differently. So obviously we're just like, you're speaking Spanish and I'm speaking Italian. We're arguing, but we're not.

Like, we're never going to get anywhere. So just never do that. Because there's no final answer. You can't change what you thought. And 99% of the time, there's no real desired outcome. It's not like, listen, if you have to figure something out, great. But if it's like... If you're trying to find where your keys were, maybe that's helpful.

If it's 7 o'clock and your wife told you last week that you had to be somewhere at 7 and at 7 o'clock and you're on the couch not ready to go, it doesn't honestly doesn't fucking matter if you said it or not do I have to get ready or no like what I mean we're gonna spend a half an hour

arguing so now we're even later I like this chat because so much of the time we talk about how do you find the person it's about when you do find the person I just spend all fucking day with them sometimes and cope and deal with the moods

and like it's those little details that really are important yeah it's hard to be an adult fuck being adult last question be careful when was the last time you lusted over someone.

That's definitely my wife. She hot? Yeah. Were you always attracted to her? Yeah. When you saw her, did you know she was marriage material? When I saw her first, she was actually married already. This is going back years.

She used to work with my sister. Oh, wow. At a spa in Huntington. I remember seeing her, and I was like, oh, my God. I have to get my eyebrows waxed a man or something. What does she do? But she was unattainable. She was married, yeah.

Yeah. And then I wrote something. I had come back from California. I wrote something on Facebook. She commented on it. And it was like, oh, my God. I forgot you existed. Wow, Facebook.

Wow. What's up? I didn't even recognize her name. I was like, who the hell is that? I clicked on it. I saw her face. I was like, oh, my God. I can't believe it's you.

And then? I'm very confident. conscious of my lustful feelings and directing them towards art because I know what can happen if I let them spray. Again, controlling your mind. You could have intrusive thought. Yeah. No, I don't, I don't, uh, I guess I'm, I'm also getting older.

You know what I mean? Like I'm, I'm almost 40. I'll be 39. Even though you have the face of a ripe three-year-old. Cherish. He's glowing. You guys can't see his. but he glows.

Yeah, they can probably hear it. Like a light bulb that's about to go out. But I do think it's important. My Nana, who is going to be on Summerhouse, she's on Instagram.

Nana still got it. You should follow her. She's great. She's 78. She's hot. I said, what's your biggest advice for staying with Papa

since you were 18? It's not like 60 years or something. She goes, you got to have sex three times a week and you got to weigh your sexy high heels

and lingerie. Every now and then just to keep them going. Yeah. And I'm sitting here, my granny panties, like, hung over, and I was like, you know what? I respect that. I wonder why I can't mean a guy. I want to finally end this.

What piece of advice would you give to people who are going through hell on coping with their health? Keep going. That old Winston Churchill. That cannot top that, so I'll borrow it. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Even if you're in hell, keep going.

Yeah, if you're going through hell, keep going. It's literally, I mean, you can try and finagle and if you want to walk in circles, guess what? You're going to be in hell longer. Just keep plugging through. Never, ever, another Winston Churchill, never, ever, ever give up. I also think when you talk about the universe and how we're all connected, everyone's moving. Yeah. Nothing stays the same.

The molecules in this room are moving. Yeah. Nothing is forever. So as long as you keep going, you have no idea what the future holds. Would you ever envision that when you were 21, you know, getting hammered every night that you'd be sitting here with a family with basically a tech company, I could go so far as to say? Yeah, no, never, ever. I mean, honestly, somebody asked me recently what my ultimate goal is with Thanks, good news. I said, I'm not even going to limit myself like that.

I'm just going to keep going. I hate when people go, what are your five-year plans? and I was like, that's limiting for me to even say a goal. You know when Tanks Good News happened? Can you explain Tankan Good News for people who don't know who are listening? So at Brandfire, Jesse Itzler is a partner at Brandfire. Jesse Itzler is married to Sarah Blakely from Spanx. He owned Markey Jets.

The Elena Hawks is a beast. He's a fucking one of the best. I had him on the podcast. I didn't know that. Greatest people ever. Just a liver, a hardcore life smasher in every way. We were sitting there, and we were doing good. Grandfire was doing great.

Hank Sinatra was doing great. He goes, I don't even think you guys have had your best idea yet. And like two months later, Thanks, Good News was born. Now, you could say that at any time to anybody. But for some reason, when he said at that time, it opened me up. And I was like, man, anything could happen at any time. You never know. Also, you could have literally just been so happy with what you have.

but he has such a big vision for things he's like like some people would be like this is incredible that I even have an amem account with a million followers he's like that's cute yeah what else you got yeah limitless limitless so thanks good news was just my answer to the current state of what I think is the media obviously everyone has a different interpretation of it I think they I think they're fearmongers but I think they're giving the people what they want whether they actually would say they want it or not, when you click on a link that's sensational or fearful or violent or whatever, you're telling them, yes, give me more of this. When you retweet a sensational or violent article, you're telling them, we like this stuff. You should post more of this. And fear can really

control people. Oh, yeah. But that's not, I don't, I don't go so high level as to say like the government runs the media and the government want to scare it. And the media. I think it could be simple as money. Like, if you get more clicks on those things, you're going to do it more. It's money and eyeballs. And it's also feedback. Like what happened like people whatever with Trump Trump went out there Said some crazy shit People went berserk

So if you're him What are you gonna do the next time you go out The same thing Either say the same level of craziness Or if you're an ambitious person like he is You're gonna say even crazier shit Yeah tanks good news on Instagram Just says positive news

That you see that brings people joy Yeah it's like what went right today Holy shit what an idea yeah because there's a lot how do you get any trolls on it uh the trolls are i think probably well intentioned but just too ignorant to know that they're okay yeah like in my last podcast i talked about vagina shaming and some girl messaged me and said how dare you just talk about vagina shaming and not penis shaming there's such a double standard and i'm like dude we're talking about labiaplasty it's like this wasn't about guys in that conversation

Some people mean well, but then they, like, get negative. The what about people drive me nuts. The what about, well, what about this? Then again, that's perspective. It's like, hey, I didn't have time to go into details about how dicks get judged. Or not what about. I posted that three days ago. You fucking, oh, God.

I want to, if possible, not that I'm so cool. Yeah. But I want to make. But you have an influence. I want to make being nice cool. Not weak, not like every time I think of somebody who's like, you know, influential in this space, they're like, ha, oh, namaste, I'm going to eat granola. I'm comb my ponytail. Like, I don't want, I'm never going to be that guy.

Yeah. I'm a fucking meathead. Well, you're also, you're kind of like a blue collar dude from Long Island. Totally. Who happens to have the influence that, like, top celebrities have. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. I don't know.

It's crazy. I mean, I just made your beautiful head really big right now, but I want to thank you so much for coming to hell. And guys, go check out Tank Sinatra, tank dot Sinatra, check out Tank's good news, check out his website, check out Think Tank. My episode on it is like the best one he's ever done. Most highest rated. And I'll talk to you guys later. Bye. Bye.

Thank you.