Dear Hank & John - 172: Get in Touch with Your Glitter Side

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

How do I stop receiving so many Peeps? Why do I have to sneeze immediately after I put on mascara? How do I use a bus? And more! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]! Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.

Well, I'd welcome the dear Hank and John. Stories up for Think of It, dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer you questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, yeah. As you know, dear Hank and John, it comes out on Mondays. And a lot of people are sad about Mondays because I got to go back to work and then you get a case of on Mondays. And a lot of people are sad about Mondays because I gotta go back to work and then you get a case of the Mondays.

Well, I like to think that Dear Hankajon is like a little bit of an antidote to that, but also it's important to remember that just two days ago, it was a Saturday. A Saturday was a Saturday, even Saturday. I mean, usually I kind of like grown at them but but you liked that one. That one was that one was great. Now you got to give me your good news. Hank the the murder rate globally. It's better. we're doing a better job of not killing each other. Humanity has actually never done this good of a job overall of not killing each other,

except for maybe in 2000 like 11. We had like a couple years there where we were really crushing it in the field of not killing each other. And then the Syrian Civil War, there's no reason to get into the bad stuff. This is the good news board. Things are, it appears based on still somewhat incomplete data that 2018 was an overall less violent year for humans than 2017. So we're headed in the right direction. And I have to say 20, 40, 60, 80, 200, 2000 years ago, all of those years were much worse.

Way worse. We used to be so much more violent as a species. So that's good. Yeah, I love not murdering. Both when I do it and when other people do it. There's not a lot of things I'm as opposed to. I don't like to get political on this showhank because I want to have a big tent. I want to bring as many people into the, it is it precrooter as possible. Sure. But, um, you know, and I know that I know that people feel like, oh, celebrities, they shouldn't have a loud political voice. Like, why do we trust these people to decide, you know, what kind of issues mattered to us?

But I'm just gonna say it, I am opposed to violent death. This first question comes from Gabby, who agrees with you, John? I'm assuming. Gabby says, here, Hank and John. And a couple of months, my boyfriend, Josh, is going to be moving in with me. I live in New York City and he lives a few hours away

in upstate New York, but we have a problem. Josh has absolutely zero sense of direction. Yeah. How little is absolute zero? During one visit to New York City, he accidentally walked the wrong direction and didn't realize it for 40 blocks. Why do we even walk 40 bucks in New York City?

You just walked past like 18 different subway stations. How do I make sure Josh isn't completely lost every day? Obviously, I can't be with him all the time and getting a tracker chip seems a little bit extreme. Not too chatty, Gabby. Well, Gabby, two pieces of good news. First off, Josh already has a tracker chip in his pocket called his phone.

And so if you just turned on, find my friends, or I think SnapChat has a feature, you can see where Josh is at all times. And it's not creepy at all. Lots of people use it. Secondly, in that phone, Gabby, this is going to sound crazy when I first tell you about it, is a map of the entire universe. Ha ha ha ha. John, you can say that, but I've gone to big cities and GPS does not work well because there's all these buildings bouncing the satellite signals around.

It's true. And it never knows where I'm going. It's true. And it thinks I'm on a different street than I am and I have this problem. And like every time I have to walk two blocks, check the thing, see if I'm going the right direction, and then turn around and walk those two blocks back.

Yeah, so that's the number one thing, is you have to check every like block or two to make sure you're going in the right direction. That's how you don't walk in the wrong direction for 40 blocks. I lived in New York City for two and a half years. I have absolutely no map in my head as my mother likes to say.

Like, when I was a kid and my parents moved, in order for me to get anywhere, the first thing I would do was drive from my new house to my old house. And then for my old house, I could get anywhere. But when I lived in Chicago and then in New York, it was like a revelation for me. And I realized that the problem when I was a child was not me, the problem was Orlando. Like Chicago and New York are both cities on grids.

So as long as you stay north of 14th Street, Josh, you're gonna be fine because the streets have numbers for God's sakes. Like the numbers go up, you're going north, the numbers go down, you're going south. And then you can just memorize the few cross-street, there aren't that many of them. And then you can use the park as a guide too. So it does get a lot easier, I think, in a city that's built on a grid. Also there's maps everywhere, including inside of your pocket, but also like any subway station has a map of where you are

and how to get to the other places. I live in a small town and I will say that I regularly to know where I am, look up to see where the mountain is. And that's very convenient to be like, oh, that way is toward home. Because that I see the mountain. When I lived in Chicago, people would always tell me, oh, navigating in Chicago is easy.

You just think about where the lake is. And my whole problem is that I have no idea, unless I can see the lake with my eyes, I don't know where it is. Right? And people would be like, no, no, you're just kind of going to feel for where the lake is. I lived in Chicago for seven years.

I had never had any idea where the lake was. If you dropped me a mile from my house in the woods, I would die of exposure. I don't think you're wrong. No, I mean, I, like I would, it would take me like five days, I would walk 70 miles in like 150 circles. Yeah, I would die.

Let's go on the same circle over and over again. No, eventually I would drink the water of the white river and I would die within minutes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Oh god. We just had a rainstorm the other day and I was down at the river with my children and not to be too graphic, I could smell the sewage that we dumped into the river. Well, that sewage does have a smell, John, and you do dump it into the river. Anyway, this day's wedding comes from Warren, who writes, dear John and Hank, when I was a kid, I really liked marshmallow peeps. Oh, I can relate to this question, Warren,

but not because of my childhood. Now I think they're just fine. Like, I'll eat one or two if they show up at Easter dinner, but I'm not gonna eat like 12 and a half of them in one sitting. However, I keep receiving peeps. It's usually only a problem in the spring, but I got like four peeps on a stick

in my stocking at Christmas this year, so I'm getting a little concerned that it's spreading out of its usual season. How do I tell my loved ones that I'd rather not receive peeps anymore without offending people who've given me peeps over the last few years, looking gift peep in the mouth, Lauren.

Lauren, this is two questions here, one gift peep in the mouth. Lauren. Lauren, this, so there's two questions here. One is peep specific, one is general. And the general question is like, if you don't do something about this, my answer for you, is that if you don't do something about this, you will be the person who just has like shelves of peep stuff. Yeah.

And it happens, people are like, oh, they're into this. And then John is a good example of someone who now has a lot like too many, just even though he uses a lot, bath salts and bath bombs. He just has more than he needs because everybody knows that's the thing about him. Luckily, personal supply of bath bombs

is such that I could use a bath bomb every bath I take for the rest of my life and still have a lot of bath bombs left over. That's a problem. I have like 43,000 bath bombs. There's a room in my house that's devoted to bath bombs. Lauren, what's gonna happen? It smells so much.

Is that like in 20 years, you're going to have the world's largest collection of peeps and peep memorabilia because peeps don't go bad, literally ever. And so you're going to become a person who's like in the Guinness Book of World Records for loving a thing that you don't like. So it's only going to get worse. You have to say it now because imagine saying it in 20 years, imagine being like so listen for the last 25 years when you've given me peeps at Halloween and special tree peeps

on Armour Day and the Christopher Columbus peeps on Columbus Day. I don't like peeps. And then it's not like, John, John at least can start up a lush inside of his house. Yeah. He'll just like open up his basement and be like, look, it's lush. We're doing a clearance. John's unusedbathbombs.com. You can go there right now and purchase some high quality bath bombs.

But that noted Warren, there is now the peep-specific portion of your question, which as it happens, Hank and I are experts in, because way back in 2007, Hank and I made like a series of videos where to punish each other, we forced the other person to eat peeps. And somehow there was a conclusion made from this by our viewership community that we loved peeps, which was not what we were trying to communicate at all.

We were trying to communicate that like, you won't believe. Yeah, that this man is going to eat so many peeps, which was not what we were trying to communicate at all. We were trying to communicate that like, you won't believe that this man is going to eat so many peeps. Exactly. Because they're gross. That was the point. And we, I would estimate conservatively that in the last 11 years, Hank and I have received as presents, 1500 peeps. And do you know what I did to end this, John? I don't. I talked a lot about how much I love peanut m&Ms, because I legitimately can never have enough peanut m&Ms. Indeed, right now, there are none in my house, and I am not happy about it. And so instead of giving me peeps, people give me peanut M&Ms, which are great. And I also feel as if I have some amount of self-control

regarding and don't eat them hand and fist, but do like them and think that they are good. And so I have shifted to a different interest. Now, it may be that you don't have an interest. And I also think that the people at peeps, whoever they are, want this to be a thing and also want to expand throughout the year and I'm like, Peeps, you are at Easter time celebratory thing. I'm not going to have a Cadbury cream egg in July.

Well, just like I'm not going to have a peep on Arbor Day. Hank, you know as well as I do how difficult it is to run a business that is wholly dependent upon one holiday. Like such a high percentage of dftba.com's sales happen in the fourth quarter and that causes like stress and weirdness all year round. So if you're peeps and you're basically a six week a year business. You've gotta be looking at that sweet, sweet, arbor day money, thinking about all the arbor day cards that people buy and sell each other, which is weird,

because that's basically just like made out of trees, so it's rude. And you're still in like, we gotta get it on the arbor day action. We've gotta be a Valentine's Day brand. Why isn't there like a special peeps to celebrate the release of the new season of Game of Thrones? So I understand why they want to expand. You don't want to be an Easter-only candy company.

The problem is, and this is a little bit uncomfortable to talk about because I assume that we have a lot of listeners who work for peeps, but peeps are bad. That's the issue. Like, they're not good. John, if you go to peeps.com. Yeah. I don't think it's actually peeps.com. Today, I was gonna say that.

That seems like maybe a website that they didn't get. Like, they probably didn't see the web coming. like maybe like a website that they didn't get, like they probably didn't see the web coming. I, yeah, peeps.com takes you to a landing page. No one is currently operating on peeps.com, though they would like me to know that they're, I have their opportunities for Christian matchmaking. But peepsandcompany.com does have the opportunity to buy peeps. And John, if you would like to buy, wait for it 240 peeps, it's 40 bucks. Wow. So if I were them,

there's also a t-shirt that says, forget Santa, I'm being good for peeps. They're really trying to sell those Christmas peeps. It's trying to push it. I mean, it's very strange to me. Like, are they trying to like get around the retail partner? And be like, no, we don't want that. 240 people straight to you, my friends.

You can buy one gingerbread peep for 75 cents. And it's in stock right now. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna see if I can buy one gingerbread. What's the shipping like? Dude, I did it. I did it, John. I'm faster than you, can buy one gingerbread. What's the shipping like? Dude, I did it. I did it, John. I'm faster than you,

because I have auto fill forms. Five to seven business day shipping for my 75 cent peep. $11.42. That is the lowest option. That's how they get you. That's how they get you. You know the same people. Who was in charge of this?

I mean, the other... They should hire dftba.com, we can have way better rates than that. The weird... Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Mmm, they look great. I'm got hungry just looking at it. I'm about to buy 4.5 pounds of those.

Make the shipping worth it. They're out of stock. Ah! Boo! I want to know more about this company. Need help? Call us toll free. John, you wanna call peeps in company? [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

John, I'm sorry. I disappeared there for a second because I attempted to call the peeps people. I thought I was gonna be a three-way call, but it turned out that it just put you on hold. First thing that happened is that my phone thought that I was calling Quaker Town Veterinary Clinic, which was not correct. I don't know why I thought that. But then they put me on hold and they said that they would were looking forward to talking to me,

so I just hung up on them. I mean, what were we going to chat about? That was never going to be... I just wanted to know who owns their company. If it's publicly traded, can I buy stock? That's a great question, actually. So Warren, tell your family that you're just not into peeps anymore, but you do love peanut m&Ms. John, we got another question. It's from Dreah, who asks, dear Hank and John, last year I joined the bone marrow registry

to help someone with cancer. I found out that I am a match. I'm very excited to help a patient, and the procedure is scheduled for the end of the month. There's one problem. I am really nervous. The more I hear about the surgery, the ruseur I feel. It's not particularly risky, but I've never stayed in a hospital before, and the first time they took blood samples, I almost passed out.

Do you have any hospital tips? Definitely not a doctor. Dreia. I totally see how this is a difficult thing, and yet it's a really good and important thing to do, Dreia. And so it's one really good and important thing to do, Dreia. And so it's one of those things where you're going to have to overcome your fears. But I think sometimes it helps with that stuff to just hear someone say that what you're doing is awesome.

So I want to say that. What you're doing is awesome. And it gives someone a chance at life. And it's so important to register at the bone marrow registry. It's easy to do. You can Google it right now. They send you the stuff that you need to do. It's, please do it.

And Dreia, I know this is going to be stressful and a little bit difficult, but it's only going to be a little bit difficult and you're going to be fine. Yeah, I have almost passed out from getting needle pokes before. And then it turned out that I had to get a lot of those and I have had, you know, probably three figures of them by this point in my life.

And now they're not a big deal for me and definitely used to be scary, definitely used to be something that I dreaded and that, and even, and like, to be clear, even now, sometimes like I won't have had enough food that day or something. And like I'll be like, I need to go sit in the special chair. I feel like I'll take me to the special chair where I'll sit down. But yeah, it is as with many things

when you have never done something before. And it is, you know, it's a deal. You will feel woozy about it. You will feel scared about it. And that is completely normal. But the thing you are doing is super awesome. And on the otherzy about it, you will feel scared about it and that is completely normal. But the thing you are doing is super awesome. And on the other side of it, you're gonna be really grateful for the opportunity.

So that's something I think about as well when I'm stressed out about something. I think about what it's gonna feel like on the other side of it. Like this isn't a perfect analog, but I remember when I had the opportunity to drive the pace car for an Indy car race. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah, I was so nervous. I was so scared. to drive the pace car for an Indy car race? Yeah.

I was so nervous. I was so scared and I just kept telling myself, you know, when this is over, it's gonna have felt really cool to have done this. And, you know, it mostly did. I was still a little stressed out. Like, I have, how fast does the pace car go? Oh, well, two schools of thought on that.

There's how fast the drivers would have liked the payscar to go, which was significantly faster than I was driving. And then there was how fast I was driving. So Simone Pagino had the poll that day, I recall, and I realized that we've gotten a little bit off your question, Dray, but we'll get back to it. Simone Pagino had the pole hank, and he kept racing right up to my bumper.

I've never been tailgated like that before, except I was being tailgated by a half million dollar car that goes 240 miles an hour. And fortunately, Sarah Fisher was sitting next to me who's a professional race car driver, and Sarah Fisher just kept saying, you're doing fine, it doesn't matter. This isn't important. She was like minimizing it, which is exactly what I needed.

She was like, this happens all the time. Simone Pagino is an aggressive driver. That's why he's so successful. It's just gonna be like that, Dre. You're just driving a pay slap. Which reminds me, John, that this podcast was actually brought to you by Simone Pagino. Simone Pagino.

I know nothing about this person. I'm guessing he is French. Oh, he's like one of my top five favorite Indie car drivers. He's great. Oh, he's such a cool guy too. He's really a cool guy in real life as well. Today's podcast is also brought to you, of course, by driving to your old house from your new house.

It's a surefire navigation technique. It's also brought to you by the discount lush store in John's basement, available with mostly glittery bath bombs that John doesn't want to use because he is not fully in touch with his glitter side. It's not that I'm not in touch with my glitter side. It's that I don't want to use because he is not fully in touch with his glitter side. It's not that I'm not in touch with my glitter side. It's that I don't want to be head to toe glitter all the time.

I don't like leaking glitter all over your home and car and workplaces. Yeah, I genuinely don't think there are a lot of people who want to like have a, leave a glitter trail the way like a slug does. Like, I don't think that there are that many glitter files out there. And lastly, today's podcast is brought to you by giftoflife.org where you can go right now and register to become a bone marrow donor.

They'll send you a kit or you can get swabbed at a donor drive. Nice. This next question comes from TJ who asks Dear Hank John. Please explain the phenomena that occurs when the second I finish applying mascara to my eyelashes I immediately have to sneeze. This is particularly irritating as my mascara is still wet and if I close my eyes abruptly to sneeze I will get mascara smeared all around my eyes. I usually hold my eyelids open with my fingers while I sneeze and I often get made fun of by my boyfriend for it.

Pumpkins and penguins T.J. First of all your boyfriend can go suck on a shoe because come on you are working hard for this mascara. And that work should be appreciated. So there is an actual reason for this, Hank. This is a real phenomenon. TJ is not alone in this experience. So at the place where the eyelashes connect to the eyelids,

there are nerve fibers, which you probably know if you've ever touched that part of your body. And those fibers are, some of them are part of the, I don't know how to say this, trigeminal or trigeminal. I think it's trigeminal nerve. Trageminal nerve. And that's like, it's essentially a sneezing nerve.

I don't wanna oversimplify it and I have. But it controls like that nerve controls a lot of the things that we do. It controls biting, it controls smiling and chewing, and it is also involved in our sneezes. Yeah, I mean, so the situation is that your face has just way too much going on. It's got some of the most dexterous parts of your body, your lips

and your tongue. It's got taste sensing and smell sensing and vision sensing and hearing and smelling. It's also very sensitive to touch because we want to protect it because it's very important and you know what, you want to be able to like feel things correctly with your lips and know when stuff's getting close to your eyes. It's just a mess. Like, compared to the rest of your body, your face has so much going on. And so the systems to carry that information around are actually, they get like double and triple used and they're not great because it, and this is why sometimes people sneeze when they eat chocolate.

This is why you sneeze when you get pepper in your nose. It's why you sneeze sometimes when you see a bright light because your body is like, oh, well, it's better to sneeze when you don't have to than to not sneeze when you do have to. So we're just going to say sneeze whenever I get a significant impulse down this nerve. And there is a bit of a way to potentially combat it, which is to tickle the roof of your mouth with your tongue, which sends a new signal down that nerve and can kind of clear out the sneeze signal. Now that's not something that is necessarily going

on. I do not like that feeling. Yeah, you try it. It's not great. No, boy. It's not going to work every time. Why is that so weird? Is there something wrong with me? No, it boy. It's not gonna work every time. Why is that so weird? Is there something wrong with me? No, it feels really weird. Ah, I think I have a disease. Ah, it's just that you're not,

you're not used to that incredibly unpleasant. Yeah, just for anybody out there who ever wants to torture me, that's the way to do it. It's really bad, I agree. But it can help you, it can prevent us, nice. All right, this next question comes from Hector whoever wants to torture me, that's the way to do it. It's really bad, I agree. But it can help you, it can prevent us, knees. All right, this next question comes from Hector, who writes, dear John and Hank,

a lot of restrooms I've visited have dispensers for both hand soap and hand sanitizer. Does that mean that it's not that, hand-mouthing? Yeah. It's another reason not to have hand-mouthing, is you have to constantly sanitize your hand-mouthing. Does this mean that it's socially acceptable to instead of washing your hands, just grab

some hand sanitizer on the way out? Or should I be sanitizing after washing my hands in the sink or what? Computers and cones, Hector. I like that Hector is only concerned with what's socially acceptable, you know? That's not like... I don't even know get much of my chances of being destroyed by Nora of virus. Instead, it's like, how do I make sure

that people in the bathroom aren't looking at me weird? Well, I mean, that is why we make the majority of our decisions, let's be honest. I, you should wash your hands with soap and water. Hand sanitizer is not, is not gonna do the whole thing. In fact, hand sanitizer doesn't always kill all, like viruses, for example, are not as good as being killed by hand sanitizer.

It depends on the virus, but yeah, that's good advice. It is good to wash your hands with soap and water. Hand sanitizer kills a lot of the bacteria and viruses that spread disease, but certainly not all of them. And also a lot of the fecal stuff, which is how a lot of diseases happen, aren't killed by hand sanitizer. Like C-diff, for instance, is not killed by hand sanitizer. So wash your hands and also use hand sanitizer or don't.

Honestly, Hector, we're talking, I mean, we're all probably realistically, we're all gonna die in the global pandemic that's coming. Hand-washing matters for pandemics. It really does. And washing your hands, and washing your fingertips, and then drying your hands also is important and making sure you don't walk out of the bathroom and touch stuff with your wet hands, which then gets all the stuff to stick to you immediately is also important. And it takes a little time, but like in this world we're living in right now, we should be taking a little more time to just do something and be like, I am a little bit just the slightest bit bored right now because we need some space for that.

I've been trying to make more space for boredom because my immediate imp, I know we're talking about my hand sanitized right now, but my immediate impulse at every moment is to be like, I should turn on that podcast or that audio book. And I needed to have some space in my life and not feel like I need to optimize every single moment and be like, sometimes I'm optimizing this moment by doing a physical thing of washing my hands to hopefully prevent myself and others from getting diseases.

Yeah, I agree with you about the obsession with optimization. It's almost like a religious thing at this point where people think the point of life is to be productive or to maximize productivity, especially to maximize this one particular kind of productivity, economic productivity, which I find really like disturbing that this has become this huge obsession of the species as if we exist to feed markets. Since I quit the internet, I get bored a lot more often and it is an unpleasant experience and that's why we have built all of these tools to minimize the amount of time we spend bored.

Like boredom is not fun, but boredom is also for me at least like part of how I experience thoughts. Like I don't get to have my own thoughts if I don't get myself become a little bored. That's why we have so many thoughts in the shower. It's why we have so many thoughts when we're trying to go to sleep at night is because those are the quiet times in our lives. And for me at least, like, if I make more of those quiet times during the day, I feel less like assaulted by thoughts at the end of the day. Thanks for taking on my question there, John, and talking to me a little bit about the thing I wanted

to talk about, even though we were talking about washing your hands. Everybody wash your hands. On the other hand, Hector, I mean, you're probably going to get nori virus anyway. God knows I got it. Just Hector, decrease human suffering through hand washing. Decree's human suffering through hand washing is actually a great social campaign, not like on Twitter or whatever, but in terms of changing social moors around hand washing. That's a really simple way of putting it where you're just like, hey, do you want to decrease the overall worldwide level of suffering right now?

Spend an extra 10 seconds washing your hands. Boom. This next question comes from Robin who writes, dear John and Hank, I really want to start my own business, but I can't shake the constant feeling that so many other people already do what I want to do and do it better than I could. How do I push past that and motivate myself to try my idea anyway, or should I just give up? Any advice is appreciated? Not Batman Robin.

It actually says, na na na na na na na na na Batman Robin. Oh, I just got that joke like, na na na na na, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not Batman. Robin. Yeah, it's so good. That's good. It's a good name specific sign off Robin. Maybe you should start a name specific sign off business.

Well, I mean, definitely the thing you've come to do, Hank and John to hear is give up Robin. Just give up on all your dreams. Well, sometimes you should give up, but probably not in this case. Probably not, right the big game. I'd like the perfect person to give you advice on this because Hank has started so many businesses

where he wasn't the first person to have the idea and he wasn't the best person to have the idea, but he was the most persistent person to have the idea. Like, there's this phenomenon in early human history called persistence hunting, where the way that humans would kill their prey wasn't by being faster or stronger. It was just by not quitting. And so, like, an anelope can run for two hours, but a human will jog for four hours,

and that eventually the anelope will have to be like,'m tired and the human will be like I will kill you now. That's the Hank Green strategy for making businesses. I don't know if that's true. You're a persistence hunter. It's the greatest compliment I can give you. My favorite thing about human beings is that we don't quit. All right, I will appreciate it.

And I will say that like one, there are a whole lot of businesses where lots of people do the business. Like every hair salon is a different business, unless it's like a chain. But most of them aren't. And like every piece, like there are lots of pieces of places, lots of restaurants, and they're all different businesses, but they are all run somewhat similarly. And they all rely on someone to be at the helm of that business, and to learn how to do it and to do the work, which is hard work and to be persistent and to figure out ways to make it work.

The other thing I'd say about that is that when you're deeply involved in a world, you often feel like you're not the first person to be in that world, or the world is already saturated, but in fact the world is very new and it's about to get much much bigger. Like when Hank and I started making YouTube videos, I in 2007 I was like, oh I mean we're too late. Like we just we got here too late. There are too many people making too many YouTube videos. And now when people talk to us about how we built our business, they're always like, well, I mean,

the genius was that you started at the very beginning. And also even if it's something that's been around for a long time, these things are always changing, and they always need new people entering into them to change things up and to have business adjust for, you know, the 2019 world. And a nice thing about entering into something where there's other people doing it is that maybe you can talk to some of those people and ask them some of their difficulties and you don't have to completely reinvent the wheel.

So, you know, like I wish I had more specifics on what you were getting into Robin, but there's nothing good for your resume like trying to start a business because you were going to learn a lot in that process and there is a lot to learn. Yeah, I think one of the problems with the way that we sometimes imagine business is we see it as a thing that geniuses make. Yeah. We build that up a lot in our conversations about how companies get founded. Like we talk about founders and CEOs.

Like they're these special people with special talents or whatever. And I think that's the wrong way to think about how stuff gets made, not just in terms of businesses, but we also have the same way of talking about art. We have the same way of talking about podcasts. We have the same way of talking about everything, as if it's so individualistic. The truth is that, and I've made this metaphor before, but to me, it's much more like we're all painting a ball of paint together, and you add your coat, and your coat is hopefully helpful and useful and beautiful and interesting

and it makes other people be like, oh, yeah, right. No, that's interesting. I could also paint this ball of paint. And I think that when you think about starting a business as like trying to inhabit this role of CEO or founder, it's too intimidating from the start, but if you think about it as being part of a big, sprawling, like, global, human-wide collaboration, it becomes both more fun and more possible. I want to go to the John Green Business School. That was fun.

I like that. Yeah, the John Green Business School. Let's not get too big. I like it. I think that's important. That's my only input, every meeting we have. I'm just like, well, but not if we have to hire someone. That sounds like one step closer to too big. Yeah, like I want to know everybody's name.

That's my rule. I feel that. I want to, actually I wanna know everybody's name. That's, I just, that's my rule. Mm-hmm. I feel that. I wanna, actually, it's more than that. I wanna know the name of everybody's dog. I feel like as long as I know the name of everybody's pet who's in the office, things are cool. But when we get to a point where I don't know

the names of your pets, I don't, it's too big. It's too big. I mean, there are people in this town who I know their names that are dogs and I don't know their names. I mean, that's too big. It's too big. I mean, there are people in this town, I know their names are their dogs, and I don't know their names. I mean, that's astonishing to me only because that means that there's someone in Mizzoula you don't know by name.

John, is it time for one more question before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon? Well, it really is because the news from AFC Wimbledon is going to happen live. We have like 40 minutes until the news from AFC W be wimbleed in. So you can talk as long as you like. That's terrible.

We're gonna have to like do this weekend rions and come back. I don't know, man. I mean, it takes as long as it takes. Hank let's answer one more question before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbleed in. John, we got a question from Caroline.

She asks, dear Hank and John, this coming fall, I'm moving to college and I will not have a car, but I have never used a public bus and I have no idea how to use one. I'm excited about reducing my carbon footprint, but nervous about doing something wrong. Sweetly, Caroline,

why do I have this fear of getting on a bus in a new city? I'm always terrified. I think it's because you don't know the system and you assume that because you don't know the system if you do something wrong, you'll be arrested. I feel the same way. It's like I'm worried that I'm gonna be found out as a tourist, but I am a tourist, right?

Like I remember when I was an Amsterdam, every time I would get on the tram, I would just be sweating bullets and I'd be like, oh God, they're gonna know, they're gonna know. And then I'd have Henry with me. And Henry, at the time, he only said one word and the word was high, but he said it all the time and to everyone.

So we'd be on the tram and Henry would be like, hi, hi, hi, hello, hi, hi. And I'd be like, Henry, you're giving us away. They know. And all the Dutch people are like, oh my god, that's adorable. In English, because they all speak perfect English, yes. And then on the occasions when I would try to speak Dutch to someone, they would mostly just look at me blankly for a few seconds,

and then they would either respond to be in English, or they would say, off-deuch, which means, are you German? That's great, which not to generalize, but is not a compliment in the Netherlands. I thought I'm not worried about getting arrested, and I'm often not worried about getting found out. I'm just worried about like,

inconveniencing people. Like it's this thing that seems like it should be so smooth. Like you get on the bus, you do the thing, and you're good. And the bus needs to get to its next place. Like it doesn't, the bus drivers are there to explain to me how the bus works. Put yourself in the position of the other passengers, Hank. Like the other passengers are not gonna be like,

oh, this new person, I hate them. They're gonna be like, oh, it's a new person. Like they're figuring out how to use the bus. Like you would never sit sitting on the bus of a system you know how to use well. You'd never look at a new person and be like, boo, you just wouldn't, right? And if anybody does, that's on them, not on you. Yeah, it's like, oh, did you know everything the moment you were born? Yeah, bus person. Yeah. Yeah. Like we have to give each other room to grow and learn. By the way, this is not only about buses. Like when people learn stuff, you have to give them credit for being on that journey and not ask them to like, you know, arrive out of the birth canal enlightened.

I suppose. But the, in answer to Caroline, you're more specific questions, which I skipped over. I don't know. It's gonna be different in your place than it is in my place. It'll be hard the first couple times you do it, but as we were talking about earlier, the more you do something, the more comfortable you get doing it, and then it feels routine, and within a week, you're gonna stop worrying about getting arrested for improperly getting on the bus, and you're going to feel like an old hat in the field of bus

user ship. And in response to one of your specific questions, yes, you can bring snacks. That depends on the bus system, I think. Does it really? I've always, I've never been on a bus where I can't have a snack. When I lived in New York City and I would be on a very, very crowded subway car and there would be someone standing there with food with like a breakfast burrito.

Yeah, and like something, especially something drippy, you know? Yeah. And I was just, I would just be like, man, that is really, like I can really smell that breakfast burrito really intensely and I've got enough smells coming in to my smell system already. So I don't know. It's, you get the complicated bunch of nerves. I wouldn't bring a snack on my first bus ride.

Okay, or at least I put it in your backpack and get a vibe. Be like, are those people eating snacks? Those people eating snacks? Maybe you can ask the bus driver, like, what's the policy on snacks around here? Yeah, you want one? I got two bags of Doritos. like, what's the policy on snacks around here? Yeah, you want one? I got two bags of Doritos. All right, Hank, what's the news from Mars? In news from Mars, SpaceX is designing and building its starship, which is what they're calling what was previously called the big Falcon rocket or BFR. It is basically the thing that's going to in Elon Musk's vision take humans to Mars and SpaceX

has is putting together this. I don't know if it's a little rickety looking just a little bit. It's the renders of it were much nicer than what it looks like in real life, which is just like it's covered in tinfoil, kind of, but they think, hopefully, that this thing will be testing itself within a fairly short time span, which is great. They want this rocket to be the rocket that takes people to Mars, but also to other places in the solar system. And also to Earth, Elon Musk, you know, noted for sustainable transportation is also interested in using this thing to get people from like New York to Hong Kong in two hours, which would be probably the least sustainable form of transportation ever.

But, but it is, you know, people will buy tickets for that, I bet. If they, instead of getting in a plane, they get in a space rocket that shoots them into space, probably be an exciting experience. I don't know that I would sign up for it, especially because of how much I imagine it will cost. But I wouldn't sign up for it for like the first 30 years of the technology.

That's how I wish I had treated iPhones You know yeah, I wish I'd been like yeah, I'll get in I'll get into this in 30 years Right yeah, I will I will wait in slowly, but it looks like it looks like quite an impressive and impressive thing and uh and I am Kind of amazed to see it coming together. And it is a, you know, it's sort of like the test version construction. And it is an important part of this process. And having test fights beginning in the realm of months would be a big deal for, you know, my goal

of getting humans to Mars by 2028. I love my odds. I also love your odds. Live reporting on BBCSport.com from Tom Rostens, 1647 Barnett are the only non-league side left. That means that the only team out of the top four leagues are, and there are 14 Premier League sides still in. Right. Here go the balls into the hat.

It's happening. All right, oh, oh, oh, we got the first, it's AFC Wimbledon. We were picked first, we were picked first, out of the hat, it's West Ham. West Ham united, it's Rosiana's team. It's AFC Wimbledon versus West Ham. That's, it's not the best draw,

but it's also not the worst draw. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna to be hopeful and congratulations to Rosie on it, who will get to see her two teams play each other, which is always a painful, strange, wonderful thing. I think I'm going to go break with the news now. All right, Hank. Well, thank you for potting with me, and thanks to everybody for listening. We're off now to record our Patreon-only podcast over at patreon.com slash deerhank and John. It's the worst podcast you'll ever listen to. It's called This Week in Ryan's. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. It's produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohassen

Sheridan Gibson and our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjourno. You can email us your questions at Hank and John at gmail.com. Thank you to everybody who sent in such great and thought-provoking questions and solvings and pleasure to talk with my brother about them. And the music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnar Rollo and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.