Dear Hank & John - 460: Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

Hank has been tweeting a lot recently; is he okay? How does the game “light as a feather, stiff as a board” work? Are bald heads warmer or cooler than hairy heads? What is the lethal dose of pickles? Will John write me into his acknowledgements? How do probiotics work? Why did John write a book for adults? How do you get out of a writer’s rut? …Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, so something worth knowing is a benefit for the nonprofit organization that makes Crash Course and SciShow Complexly. It's September 16, 2026 in Los Angeles, California at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Please join us. It's going to be incredible. Friends of Complexly like Mark Rober, Katie Max, Simone Yetch, and more will share inspiring talks about what makes them hopeful and join Hank Green on stage for fun, interactive discussions. Complexity's been creating free educational content. like SciShow and PBS Eons and Crash Course and Bizar Beast for nearly 15 years and 6 billion views. But this year, we've become a 501c3 nonprofit, and we're doing something worth knowing as an in-person event that benefits complexly and our impactful educational media.

It's the first ever complexly in-person event, and it's a fundraiser to support our mission of inspiring curiosity and lowering barriers to knowledge-building, because curiosity builds understanding and understanding builds a better world. Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at something worth knowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing. You can get your ticket at complexly.Info slash something. You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Yours I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.

It's a podcast where two brothers, answer your questions, give you to B's advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, what does Mars have in common with Venus? Well, they're both planetary bodies that orbit the same sun. What? You got it, right. There's no dad joke? I didn't look up a dad joke today, John, so that was my dad.

I was a surprise dad joke. It's actually a reverse. The funny part is it's just a boring fact. I like it. I just got a colonoscopy and I'm a little loopy, so everything you say is going to be funny to me. And when I say I just got a colonoscopy, I mean that dad drove me home from the colonoscopy about an hour ago. That's amazing. Congrats.

I'm sure you feel like you've really got a solid foundation under you right now. I think I could operate heavy machinery, but they specifically told me not to, so I'm not going to. Okay. That's probably good. You know what else makes me feel like I just got a colonoscopy? Hmm. Today is the 20th anniversary of Twitter. Hmm.

Well, I don't know what to say about that, except we do have a question today about, maybe we should just start there, Hank. Maybe we should start right there. We've got a question about social media, and it's a really good one. Heck yeah. It's one of the best I've seen in a while. It's from Sarah, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but mostly Hank. I've noticed Hank has been substantially more active on Twitter recently. Oh, no.

Why did you notice? Because you're tweeting all the time, Hank. I have to log. Now I have to log into Twitter about once a day just to see your tweets to make sure everything's okay. Yeah. Because what I can't have is I can't have you mess it up for both of us on Twitter. I can't have your tweeting be bad for me. I understand that.

I understand that this is a nice thing about the Brotherhood is that we are a natural spring that there feels as if there is a rubber band. If one of us goes a little too far off the rails, the other one is like, I need you to not do that. That said, I've repeatedly asked you not to tweet and you do not listen to me. So anyway, Sarah goes on to say, just wanted to check in on how you're doing, Hank, Pumpkins, Penguins, and possible parisocialness. Sarah, Sarah, you are 100% correct and not at all parisocial to worry that Hank has been tweeting more because Hank has been tweeting almost at his pre-Elon levels. Let me tell you the worst of it. Yeah.

I keep saying, I'm not going to tweet anymore. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So that's like, that shows you where it's at. I keep like being like, okay, I'm just, I'm just doing this for now and then I'll stop.

Okay. That makes me feel a little better, actually, that you recognize that it's naughty. Like when I wake up on a Sunday morning and I'm like, oh, boy, I really shouldn't have had those last three drinks. it's good to know that you're waking up on a Sunday morning being like, oh boy, I shouldn't have had those last three tweets. Shouldn't have. Shouldn't have.

And have had a couple of real deletions. Yeah. Or I'm like, boy, why the heck did I tweet that? What's going on? That's old Hank behavior. Yeah. Why are you entering the discourse? Like, not just not, I mean the discourse, like, you know, questions around overall, like,

climate change. I mean, why are you entering the discourse of the day that will be a different discourse tomorrow? That's the worst. That's the worst. It's the worst. It's so dumb. It's such a waste of our one wild and precious life. It's what I, the thing I do, I feel like, and this can never work on Twitter. This is another, an amazing thing about Twitter is I will tweet something that I will have said in a YouTube video. And everybody who will watch the YouTube video is like, yeah, perfectly reasonable take. And on Twitter, I'm like, like everything.

everybody's mad for a different reason. And I'm like, I think I may have identified something interesting here, which is the medium is the message. Yeah. This is a bad way for humans to create. Yeah, no, that was a, yeah, that was a pre-day tank. Yes, no, I was, I was assuming that everyone would get that. But yes, I was referencing media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who was absolutely correct. if like really the ways the the ways in which we communicate have a tremendous impact on what is actually

communicated and and a YouTube video like a 30 minute YouTube video is just a way better way to do it and I often will draft a tweet you'll hopefully be somewhat relieved to hear this and be like oh you know what this is is like a part of a much bigger conversation that I cannot have in that that like this is a terrible place for right There are structural, I mean, look, there's a problem with Twitter, which is that it's a poorly managed website. And I'm very drawn about this. They do a really bad job of fostering civil discourse. I think it's safe to say.

But also, there's a structural architectural problem with Twitter and other many-to-many social platforms. I have to sneeze. Oh, God. That's not normal. That's weird. What were the hell was that? That is not normal. I can't believe that happened on camera.

No, people are not sick of it, Hank. People love sneezing isn't normal. And it doesn't matter if they love it because every time I sneeze for the rest of my life, I'm going to think sneezing isn't normal. I never sneeze. Do you want to hear a weird story about this, John? So back in, I don't know,

2014 era of vlog brothers, I thought a really funny video to make would be to write a bunch of very short and catchy songs about regular activities that we do every day. So like write a little laundry song, write a little like turn on the light switch song. That is a great idea.

And that I'd be stuck in people's heads forever. I never made the video. But to this day, often when I turn on a light switch, I sing the little song that I wrote for that video. Do you know what the song is? So I did it to myself. Yeah, I know what the song is. And turning the lights on.

I'm flipping the switch. I'm turning the lights on. I'm flipping the switch. That's it. Like that would be the entire video. It would be stuff like that. And they would all be like that's, it's a very catchy tune. And so I, but I only did it to myself.

I have a worse problem, which is that I, so the sentence I say the most in the world is Good Morning, Hank, it's Tuesday. Because when I'm starting filming a video, I say it seven or eight times because I just never sounds quite right on the first try. You know, I got to get my, I got to warm up my vocals. Stan Muller, my longtime collaborator calls it the wind up. I do this thing where I think, what's the whole concept of this video? And how do I, how am I thinking about that in this good morning, John?

Yeah. Right, exactly. And so, because you want to communicate not just Good Morning, Hinkets Tuesday, but also, like, the overall tone of what you're about to watch. Anyway, so the sentence I say the most is Good Morning, Hank it's Tuesday. And one of the things that I've done over the last year or so is I've written a song, but it doesn't, doesn't have an end. So it's like, you know how like back in the day, Mozart's kids used to play a bunch of chords and then like leave it unresolved to annoy him and then he'd run downstairs in the middle of the night and like finish it off? No, I did not know that, but I love that. That's great.

So my song is, Good Morning, Hinkett's Tuesday. I love you very much. That's it. I don't have the rest. I'm going to talk a lot right now. Such and such a such. such. Oh, that's good. That's good. See something. I just need something. Yeah, because otherwise you're like, oh, my brain. Otherwise, I'm Mozart in the middle of the night being tortured by his children. Hank, you got to get off Twitter, man. I appreciate the notes, and I agree. I agree. Somebody asked me, this is like an embarrassing admission, but somebody asked me like, why are you back on Twitter right now? And it's because I am obsessed with the sagas of these giant weird companies in the people who run them and Twitter is the place where the show is playing, you know?

Yeah, I think it's great that you're acknowledging that. I do think it's, I think it's really good that you acknowledge that that's an embarrassing thing to acknowledge. I also have this to an extent where I'm fascinated by the people who have a lot of power because they don't think they have a lot of power and what does that say about power? Oh my God, it's the worst. Well, it's not the worst. It's the most interesting because they genuinely experience themselves as having limited

power and the reason they experience themselves as having limited power is they think power is a light and that their job is to fly toward the light. Yeah, yeah, without even questioning it. And I apologize if the sound has gotten weird because they are jack hammering the road outside of my house, but they are doing that. Yeah, I can slightly hear it. It's the worst, of course, because if you think you have no power but you have a ton, you could do a lot of damage with that perspective. That becomes a very dangerous thing for the world. Right. But the thing is, Hank, I'm, The thing I've tried to tell myself is that when I focus on them, I actually give them more power. Yeah, yeah.

And when I focus on myself and my agency in the world, which is also much more profound than I'm willing to admit, I think this is true for most people. Like, most people, like, I'll give you an example, like, fans don't think they have power over the thing that they're fans of, but they have a ton of. but they have a ton of power. They may not have power individually, but they have a ton of power collectively. And that's true, whether it's a YouTube channel or a sports team. Yeah, I know, like, very popular authors

who have lost the ability to finish projects because of this. Yeah, yeah. Like, fans are really, really powerful. And so I think that... I think all of us fail to grapple with our agency, at least some of the time.

And so I try to, to tell myself that I need to focus on my own incredible levels of power instead of focusing on them because the way that I express and use my power, which includes choosing whether or not to tweet, actually has a lot of say in the world we end up sharing. Now, not as much as if I were the CEO of meta, but still, it matters. Yeah. Yeah. And I've also watched, you know, people who are creators who, who, like, that, that one stranger is able to exert this tremendous amount of power over them just, like, by being terrifying in their email inbox. Yeah.

Or by taking, like, one, like, one step down the road of, of, like, the, like, it's not like people are never actually hurt by these interactions. They, they are. And we've known people who have been. And so. Known people have been killed by them. Yeah. So, so, like, like, people don't, I think.

understanding that we are part of in a society together, that we are all doing this together, I think we've been alienated by it, by the size of society, by the fact that we are all sort of all now imagining the world globally and internationally rather than at all ever in terms of our local community. That's just how the, I think the internet in particular begs us. to see the world. And so we cannot imagine that we have power. And then even people who don't have very much can end up exerting a lot without knowing it. Yeah. I'll tell you who has a lot of power right now, Hank, is the American voter because it looks like the number of children who die

every year is going to go up for the first time in 85 years. And that was caused by the American voter and can also be addressed by the American voter. It wasn't caused just by the American voter. It was mostly caused by Elon Musk, but it was caused partly by choices we made together at the ballot box. Yeah. I, uh, I find this. Sorry, sorry to bring up a bummer. It's, it, the fact that he's actually the richest man on earth. Yeah.

No, you got to let it go, Hank. You're just giving him more, you're just giving him more power by thinking about him. He also did that thing. Yeah. It's just like the weirdest, like, it's. It's a real super villain move. I know. It's hard to not let the story own me.

I know, but if you let the story own you, then you lose track of your own agency and your own ability to shift the universe. All the things that we're doing, which are great and fun. We're doing so many good things. I hope so, including answering this question from Corinne, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm not a superstitious or religious person. I don't believe in magic or ghosts or high a power or any sort of supernatural forces. But there is one thing that challenges that stance. The game, light as a feather, stiff as a board,

where a group of four people gather around one person who's lying on the ground, put two fingers of each hand underneath them, and chant light as a feather, stiff as a board over and over, and somehow magically are able to lift a 100-pound human with only two fingers on each hand. I've tried to do the same lift without chanting just by counting down and lifting together, and it does not work. They feel as heavy as one would expect a person to feel when you're lifting them with the tips of your fingers, but when you chant, all of a sudden it feels like the person is light as air.

What is happening here? Why does this work? Is magic real, but only for this one strange little trick? Apparently, light as a feather, Corinne. Corinne? I know the answer to this. I looked it up. I also, here's what I will say.

If you go on YouTube and watch people doing light as a feather stiff as a board, it ruins light as a feather stiff as a board. Why? Just because you can tell that they're like really engaging their biceps? Yeah, there is like a number. of people involved in light as a feather stiff as a board, this is a very Ouija board phenomenon. Yes. And so for the people on certain parts of the body, the body feels extraordinarily light, but there are

often people on other parts of the body that are working very, very hard. So that's probably part of it. There's also a chanty thing, I think. There is a chanty thing, and then there is a stiff as a board thing. So I have picked up my kids when they are stiff as a board, and I've picked up my kids. when they are stiff as a board. And I've picked up my kids when they do not want to be picked up.

And they're just like loosey-goosey. And those are fundamentally different experiences. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Like, there's a reason that, like, incredibly strong firefighters drag bodies away instead of carrying them away, right? It's because they're flipping heavy.

Yeah, we have big. Imagine a five-gallon bucket of water and how heavy that is. Yeah, but imagine. Yeah, how big am I as a bucket of water? So when you go stiff as a board, you distribute your weight differently and you become easier to carry. So that's one thing. The other thing is that even microse, according to the internet, and I believe this, even microscopic differences in when you start to pull matter.

And then people just underestimate how strong two fingers are. Like we evolved to have incredibly strong fingers. Yeah. Yeah. It's always like this. You know, like they're like making it like it's two fingers. on each hand, so it's four fingers. Yeah. And it's the whole hand is in this very sort of locked together configuration.

And then because the body weight is distributed fairly evenly, not perfectly evenly, as you point out, but fairly evenly. You're actually lifting like 20 pounds or 30 pounds per two fingers, which is not that hard. It's like doing a bicep curl. Right. And the stiff as a board thing makes it so that the weight is distributed much more evenly. But I did go and watch a bunch of light as a feather stiff as a board things on YouTube. And one thing I found is very often, it's not three or four people. It's like six or eight. And then that's a totally different vibe. And then it's basically living in a society, Corinne.

Altogether we can do things that we could not do alone. Exactly. We can collaborate. That is our superpower. Our superpower is not competition. Our superpower is collaboration. Don't let them lie to you. has to want to be helped.

Oh, that's true, too. Light as a feather, stiff as a board has layers. You can't, you can't light as a feather stiff as a board some floppy, unstiff board. No, you can't. So that's all the reasons why you can continue to have no superstition or religion if you don't want to. I still, Hank, let me ask you a serious question about this. Because I'm a religious person. You're an atheist.

This is helpful for me to understand. When people say they have no superstitions, do they mean they do not engage in magical thinking at all? Like, you don't engage in magical thinking at all. You never think, like, oh, if I win this game of FIFA, AFC Wimbledon will win in real life. You never think anything magical of the world or ask anything magical of the world? I mean, I'm having a hard time come up with anything in my recent history in which I did this. even in situate, I'm thinking about being sick and, and wanting to get better. I never, I never felt any superstition about that. I don't, you know, people around me will

often be like, don't say that. You got to knock on wood. And I'm like, that's not how things work. I do, here's something that I have. Yeah. I sometimes feel like if I, I see the opposite. If I say a bad outcome out loud, that makes it less likely to happen because oftentimes the thing that I worry about is not the thing that actually occurs. Yes, you have preventative worry. That's almost a universal human experience. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, I say the thing I'm worried about out loud and that, like, I feel like that

decreases the odds that it will happen. Right. And not because I think that I'm taking an action. I am just doing this thing. And I have observed that oftentimes my worries that I say out loud are like, you know, the world is too complex. for me to have actually identified a real thing that's going to go wrong, which is like really a thing. I remember recently, and I'm not going to get into the examples here, but you and I were dealing

with like a thing that we were really worried about. And we really prepared for it. And then it didn't happen. And a completely other thing that was a similar flavor occurred. And we were not at all prepared for it. I have no idea what you're talking about. Hold on. We're going to go offline. Okay, we're back in. Hank told me what do you. was thinking about, I didn't think it was that big of a deal, actually. No, it wasn't that big of a deal, but like, it was, it was very stressful at the moment, and it was not what we were expecting to go wrong. Yeah, well, this is always the case, is that you, when you prepare for, like, I remember,

okay, I will give, I will give an actual example of this, and then you can cut it if you're uncomfortable with it. Yeah. But I remember when we no longer owned VidCon, we were very worried that people would be mad at us for no longer owning VidCon. Oh, my God, we did prepare for this a lot. We were so scared, but we needed to not own VidCon so bad. And looking back, this was the right decision.

And so the fear of not, the fear of owning VidCon eventually overwhelmed the fear of not owning VidCon and we didn't own VidCon anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I- We like worked with Elise on this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so my new book is dedicated to my longtime publicist, Elise Marshall-Fyfer, and Elise was advising us and everything.

And then the day came and everybody was like, Oh, cool. Congratulations. I got a bunch of congratulations texts and that was it. It was like maybe one person Matt on Twitter, but like I could get one of those just by tweeting about global warming. I mean, you can get more than one of those. If you're looking to get people mad at you on Twitter, and apparently you are, it's easy to find. Oh, man. Yeah, I tweeted about global warming yesterday and I got an amazing response that I replied to.

Oh, Hank. Hank, you're replying, you're replying to responses? I said, yeah, I agree a completely made up thing would be a problem if it were real. Oh, Jesus, Hank. I know. I know. I'm like snarking at strangers. You did it, man.

You, you, Michael Jordan, dunked on some 12-year-old. Good job, buddy. Yeah, I'd feel bad if it were a 12-year-old, but in fact, probably it was a computer program. I probably I probably dunked on a language model All right, let's answer this question from Luke Who writes, Dear John and Hank, My partner and I are currently watching the U.S. versus Belgium World Cup match.

My condolence is Luke. That went the way it went. Yeah, exactly. I've been watching a little bit of World Cup, John, and it is heartbreaking. Oh, it's brutal. Why is this good? It's so sad.

Mosama's goal that got taken back? They all cry. They cry and cry and cry at the end of the game. And when they win, they cry. I mean, Leonel Messi won that game and he cried because he thought that he'd let his team down and he thought his World Cup dream was over, but now it's alive. At least does this recording. Man, he really should have made that penalty, though.

That was wild. He should have made that penalty. Although I was speculating with my friend Daniel, the co-host of the away end, how many penalties, if given 10 penalties, do I think I would make at a World Cup game? And I know how to kick a penalty. But I tell you what I don't know how to do is kick a penalty in a World Cup game. I don't think I could get the ball over the line without a goalkeeper in the net, you know? Like, I don't think I could convince my right leg to work. I will say, it was on goal, you know? Yeah. It was a good thing. It wasn't a great penalty.

But it was, it was, it was better than my penalty would have been. I'll tell you, who couldn't have stopped it? Me. Five of me standing in that goal would not have been able to stop that kick. No, they would have run into each other. It would have been like a Marks Brothers sketch where they run into each other and fall over. And he would have flown back into the goal. Yes, yes, like a roadrunner cartoon.

All right. The players have a variety of hair. styles also. And the ref is very bald. Yeah. The ref is very bald. All are sweaty. Are bald heads warmer or cooler than hairy heads?

They must feel more breeze, but are they also more exposed to sun? Is there a hairstyle that's ideal for head temperature trying to keep a cool head, Luke? I mean, cool head Luke, I got to tell you, Duboki did so much research on this. Oh, good. And to the conclusion of it's different, but it's about the same. And also it's dependent on condition. So one of the things about a bald head is that a lot of solar radiation will go directly into it, whereas hair does a lot of insulation work.

And that's maybe why we have hair. And in fact, we see that in places where people have to manage heat differently, they have hair that is more specifically good at insulating the head, which would mean like tighter curlier hair. And that's also good at holding onto water that will then evaporate and cool the air around the head. but if you are bald, your skin is able to more directly radiate heat away, and you actually, it looks like a bald head sweats significantly more because it's literally hotter, and that's producing more liquid to evaporate with. So it looks like after all that, it's probably about equal. And if it's not sunny out, it might be better to be bald.

But it's like condition specific, it's humidity specific, all this stuff. So it's like, but it looks like the best thing for keeping a head cool is short, tight, curly hair. Okay. More than being bald. That's better than being bald. Yeah. Okay. All right.

So there you go. Julia writes, dear John and Hank. People have done a ridiculous amount of research on this, which was fun to see. Well, I'm about to ask you a question that people have done a surprising amount of research on given the question. Okay. Julia writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm currently studying Russian and Estonia, I'm American. And the other day, while my friend, also American, and this is relevant, was visiting, we went to an open-air market where my friend purchased some pickles.

When asked how much a pickle she wanted, she ordered a kilo. Neither of us fully understood what a kilo was, because we are American. As it turns out, a kilo is quite a lot of pickles. We proceeded to eat all of the pickles, which leads me to my question, what is the lethal dose of pickles? And is it just over half a kilo per person? because I feel like we got pretty close, slightly pickled Julia. Julia, I also, I looked into this one, and I will tell you, you didn't get that far away. You did.

You got closer than is comfortable. So you were, if you had doubled that, if you had had two kilos to split between you, you would not have died, but you would have been starting to experience the symptoms of salt poisoning. Yeah. So it's not the vinegar. it's not the pickles, it's not the water that would be getting you. It would be the salt, the very salty things. You start to experience the beginnings of salt poisoning, which would immediately make you stop eating the pickles because you would be vomiting and feeling very bad.

But you might have felt a little bit of this just eating half a kilo of pickles because they did the math, and you probably had enough to have gotten way too much salt that day. Yeah, you got too much salt that day, but you weren't near... Not near death. Here's my answer, Hank, because somebody did the actual math. Oh, someone else did the math. After this headline, killed by eating pickles, girl devoured scores of fat ones daily and finally succumbed. The girl was employed at a pickling establishment.

She developed a passionate fondness for pickles, and since the pickling season started, had eaten nothing but pickles. Most of them were the big ones and she would eat scores of them every day. This sounds fake. It probably is fake. It sounds like it's written by a 12-year-old. or old-timey newspaper reporter scores of pickles every day the lethal dose of sodium chloride for humans

is in the ballpark of 3,000 to 3,500 milligrams per kilogram of body weight sodium chloride per pickle is in the ballpark of 800 milligrams per pickle so if she was roughly average weight for her age she'd be somewhere around 50 kilometers so the answer is 187.5 pickles Oh wow that's not what the math told me

my math was like you start getting sick at a full, at like a kilo, no liquid, but a kilo of unliquited pickles. Yeah. All right. Well, here's the thing, man. Don't eat either 187 or one kilogram of pickles. They're not even that good. Now I am looking at what you're looking at, killed by eating pickles,

girl devoured scores of fat ones daily and finally succumbed. And it looks real. It does look real. It looks real. Pittsburgh, October 24th, but it doesn't tell us the year, which I really want to know. Right. Because you can't, as poor girl died, you can't say that she devoured scores of fat ones daily. Well, you can in the old days when newspapers were 1908, 1908. Oh. Is a fat one slang for pickles? And then it got posted in the Pickles subreddit and the most upvoted comment is one of us.

R-I-P. That reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by Fat Ons. From 1908, Fat One's brand pickles no longer available due to their lethality. Oh, yeah, it's from the Sedalia Democrat in Sedalia, Missouri in 1908. It is a real headline. Oh, my God. Beautiful. I would not have believed it.

Today's podcast is additionally brought to you by colonoscopies. Colonoscopies, get yours starting when you're 45. This podcast is additionally brought to you by a messy penalty kick. A messy penalty kick. Careful, you might lose a hand. And also today's podcast is brought to you by selling VidCon. Selling VidCon. Hoo!

This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Shopify. There are a lot of things that stand between I have an idea and this is an idea that actually exists in the world and people are buying things from me. And that is what Shopify makes easier. When you start with Shopify, the tools to design and launch and take payments, they're all there from day one. You don't have to build a whole machine

before you can start building the business. And this is important because you also have to look good. And with Shopify's templates, you could get a site set up really quick. That looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together. And when things look real, that works on my brain to be like, I'm doing a real thing,

and it also works on other people's brains to be like, this is legitimate. Shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet. It's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks. Returning customers can check out with a single click. That means less friction and fewer abandoned carts, and a smoother experience for everybody. That stuff gives you confidence early on,

and it gives other people confidence in what you're doing. You're not wondering whether the payment, system is going to work. You're not wondering whether customers can get through the process. Shopify handles that foundation so you can focus on the thing that you're actually trying to do. It's really kind of amazing to me that Shopify is a tool that works from the first day your store launches when you're just starting to get customers all the way up to being the size of good. Dot store or DFTBA.com or being the size of like Mattel and Jim Shark. When you build with Shopify, you're building with tools that already work at every scale.

All you need is the idea Shopify handles. the rest. You can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash dear Hank. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash dear Hank. With new subscription only, while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels. The days are a little more relaxed. My kids don't have to wake up at five in the morning and I find myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again and again, which is why I keep coming back to quince. I often wear either a long. long sleeve or a short sleeve button down from Quince and it fits well and I never have any complaints.

In fact, sometimes I get compliments about it. I was at the airport a couple days ago as I often find myself in airports and someone said I like your shirt and I said, thanks. It's from Quince. Quince is 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on and the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just $34. Their teas are soft enough to live in all day and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when those summer nights cool down. So that's why I'm wearing Quince this summer and you can make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash Deer Hank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada 2. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Dear Hank for free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com slash Dear Hank. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor. Imagine for a moment that you are absolutely immersed in some work where you're creating something beautiful or useful or useless and ugly, but you love it anyway. And you look up. And suddenly, you have a feeling. And that feeling is that it is 2.30 p.m. and that you did not eat lunch. What are you going to do? Are you going to get meal delivery that's going to cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake? Or are you going to go to the cupboard and just eat several fistfuls of peanuts? Because those are my two choices, unless I have a factor in the fridge.

You can get smoky barbecue chicken breasts with potato mash, cream corn, and pepper. You can get creamy lemon pepper chicken with veggie rice peel off broccoli and carrots. This has the fiber I need. It has the protein I need, and it has the deliciousness I need. What about garlic herb-roasted baramundi with potatoes, zucchini, and burr-blanc sauce? I don't really know what that means, but it sounds delicious. What about a black bean taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema? A delicious high-fiber, high-protein meal that no animals had to die for.

Any of those can be ready in two minutes. fresh, never frozen, over a hundred rotating weekly meals, including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian, factor shops, preps, cooks, and delivers straight to your door, so you have more time for everything you love this spring. Head to factormeals.com slash deerhank 50 off and use the code Dear Hank 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box.

With new subscription only, while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for more details. All right, John, this next question comes from Rachel, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I was listening to a recent episode where y'all were talking about acknowledgments, and John said that his new book, Hollywood ending available for pre-order now, might not have any acknowledgments. I personally love the acknowledgments, and I've actually been named in an acknowledgment before in a book written by an author friend.

It was so cool, and I was so proud. So maybe we should make it a trend. So how about this idea? You just thank me in your acknowledgements for no reason, Just thanks to Rachel Payne for all for help on this book. It would be so iconic. How about it? Sincerely, Rachel.

I like to sincerely sign off, Rachel, just so that we understood that you were not kidding. This is not a joke. Sign off. This is sincere. So listen, I read your email, and then I also got a text message from my long-time producing partner, Rosiana Hosra-os, and I wrote acknowledgments into the book. Now, I did not thank you, Rachel. It felt like while your contributions to the book were significant in the sense that you helped me go from no acknowledgments to acknowledgements.

It's not quite high enough on the list. But I want to think so instead I'm going to thank you now. I'm thanking you here on this podcast, Rachel Payne. Thank you for helping. You're not going to say thanks to Rachel Payne for reminding me that I should indeed write acknowledgments and then continue on with your acknowledgments. I had to keep them to two pages and I could barely keep them to two pages. So because I did it so late in the process, there were only two extra pages in the book for me to write. Well, just put her on the copyright page.

I mean, the book is done. Rachel, you're not getting in the book, my man. I'm sorry to say it. But I'm thanking you here. I'm working hard for you, Rachel. I'm trying to make it happen. I'm going to write you into the front of a couple of these books. Yeah.

Oh, man. That's good stuff. But yeah, I have written acknowledgments now. after wavering on it, I decided that the benefit of it is higher than the cost of it. The cost of it is that like when you finish a book, you want to have that end of book feeling and you don't necessarily want to turn the page and then be reminded that there's an author. As you know, Hank, in my recent video, I'm concerned about the presence of the author in the novel anyway. And it used to be that there were never acknowledgments in books back when, or very rarely,

back when the author really wasn't a character. Like you go back and you read all the King's Men. There's no acknowledgments. You go back and you read, you know, Shakespeare. You know, there's not like a page where he's thinking all the actors who played Romeo and Juliet the first time it was staged or anything. Yeah. But, yeah, I decided it was too valuable not to do. Do you think Shakespeare ever was like watched his plays and were like, God, these people, they don't get it?

Yes, absolutely. I think he was like, man, if only the greatest actors in human history could live at the same time as the greatest playwright in human history. Or is like Tom Cruise and just never goes to his own shows. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that... I can't be. I can't watch. Do you think Shakespeare knew?

Like, do you think he was like, boy, am I better than everyone else? Yeah. Like, do you think he, like, read Christopher Marlowe plays and was like, yeah, that ain't it? Yeah, 100%. I think that because sometimes I watch YouTube videos and I'm like, I'm pretty good of this. Yeah, I mean, but you're not, just to be clear, and I know that you won't say this, so I'll say it for you. You're not Shakespeare. No, I don't think I'm Shakespeare.

And you're not the Shakespeare of YouTube either. I think he had a number of talents that I lack. Yes. Yeah, but yeah, you can't be that good without being a little bit too proud of yourself. Now, you also can't be that good without being a perfectionist and hating yourself. So I think it's a combination of both. Right, right. I think that's probably true.

That's my guess. You know, that's my insight into, not, I don't know very much about Shakespeare. Nor do I appreciate his work well. Ooh, that's a tough one for me to take. I'm not saying that I don't appreciate his work. I'm saying that I don't appreciate it well. I think that there are people who are better at appreciating it than I am. It's like when I have wine and I'm like, I'm sure that this is good, but it tastes like bad grape juice.

That is disappointing after our trip to France. I love the cheese. All right, let's answer this question from Naomi, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I recently took a microbiology course, and among other things, I learned that very few kinds of bacteria can survive in the human stomach due to the acidic environment. That made me wonder, how do probiotics or things like kombucha? I got to tell you, by the way, Hank, I always call kombucha, cambucha.

I always have. You haven't always have because it didn't exist until you were like 30. Sorry, it existed. When I found out about it clearly did. It didn't exist in American Kroger Sheldms. When I found out about Cambucha, you know, 10, 15 years ago or whatever, I called it Cambucha because it just, it looks like it should be pronounced Cambucha. Sure.

And nothing in this wide world drives my. spouse more bananas than when I say are you having a glass of cambucha there yeah um and she's like it's kombucha and I'm like well I mean well you know when you know when the English say ah they mean ah so it's similar for me anyway I I called it I called it come kombucha out of respect for my spouse right yes but you're from Indiana and so you're going to say cambucha works to it how does it work to improve gut flora I was always under the impression that probiotics contain bacteria that would populate my gut, but wouldn't that bacteria die en route to their eventual home when they inevitably pass through the stomach? Microbiology and misinformation, Naomi.

Well, there's a ton of stuff going on here. So one thing that when you take a probiotic supplement, there's this thing called acidophilis, lactobacillus acidophilus. And I heard this word a thousand times and I just was like, well, that's what they call it. Lactobacillus acidophilus means that it's like a bacteria that's like into the lactate. Asidophilus, if you look at that word, what does that mean? He's acid loving. So Acidophilus is specifically a bacteria that survives the stomach very well because it's, it is acid loving. But most of the stuff in kombucha, I did like a little halfway between there, most of the stuff in kombucha is, is not acid loving. So there are a few different things, though, in which it may help with the gut bacteria.

But a lot of that, a lot of that bacteria is not actually going to survive. So what you do get, though, is you get fermentation products. You get, you get like prebiotic-ish compounds. And then so like the stuff in the kombucha is good. It's going to, it is going to make it through your stomach. And it's good for feeding bacteria because, of course, it's because it's feeding bacteria. But then also you might have some of these bacteria actually survive. And they mostly will do that by being part of like clumps of bacteria.

and the ones in the inside will be able to survive. So if you've ever made a kombucha, or if you have had a kombucci that has scobie still in it, this like clump thing that is the symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, then that obviously is a colony. It is a biofilm. And so you might get little pieces of that biofilm that will be able to protect the ones that are interior

and they will be able to make it through. I'm not entirely sure about that, but it is true that, of course, the digestive system is a very harsh place to bacteria for really good reasons. But some bacteria are really acid tolerant, and they, acroacillus acidophilis is great at being inside of there

and doing good work in the gut, but also there are some in the guts that would not be well suited to the stomach. And so we know that they have to be making it through somehow. It's just not entirely clear how. Well, that's fascinating, Hank. Before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I want to answer this question from Patrick, which is really for both of us because we both know how to finish a novel.

Don't do it as often as we'd like, but we do know how to do it. Dear John and Hank, I'm currently in a rut in the second draft of my first novel, and it's part of my procrastination. I ended up poking around John's author website and stumbled over the facts pages. In the section about writing, there's a question that asks, do you ever think about writing an adult book, and your answer is not really? But now you have written a book for adults. Hollywood ending available for pre-order now.

I really have trained these people. I haven't reading Hollywood ending for a second time, John, which I almost never do. Thank you. How do you like it? Are you reading it for a second time because you're reading it in a different context? I'm reading it in the context of knowing how the book goes. So the first bit of the book is a different book almost. It's like this story of these people making things.

and it's like it's enjoyable from the perspective of a maker and then the the you know the the harder parts of the book are all like now that thing is out and you can no longer change it and it's not this thing you love it's this thing that everybody loves right and and and everybody's finding their own beautiful and terrible ways to enjoy it and uh that so so like getting to read the beginning part again so yeah that context is great to sort of enjoy it from like knowing knowing what is coming. I love, I, you know, I don't often, but because there's that juxtaposition, it's a really interesting reread. Well, I do like to write stuff that can hold up to rereading. I think you do a good job with that, too. So, anyway, I did write an adult book. So what changed? Also, do you have any dubious advice about getting out of a writer's rut? Not a St. Patrick. So first off, what changed is simply that I came across a story in my mind where the problems were not problems that teenagers have. They were problems that people in their 20s have.

So, you know, when you're establishing those foundational relationships in your life in early adulthood, when you're figuring out what your career, professional life might look like when, you know, you still have everything in front of you, but you're technically an adult, what does that look like and feel like? Those were the questions that interested me when I was starting to write Hollywood ending, and those just aren't questions for high school. And so it was an adult book. I was also a little surprised to end up writing it, but that's how it went.

As far as getting out of a writer's rut, Hank, what do you think? I hate what works for me because it works and I choose not to do it because I almost want to be in the rut. I don't believe it'll work. And so I don't do it, but then when I do it, it works. and it is just to read my own work. And it feels a little self-indulgent, and it feels like a waste of time, and it's like, I've already read this.

But like, if I just read the chapter beforehand or the two chapters beforehand, I get myself back into the mind palace of the story, and it really helps. You know, another thing that can help is outlining a few chapters forward, because I don't tend to outline on paper, like I have a thing in my head.

Or writing a more distant chapter and then being like, I'm going to fill in these gaps later. Just like finding a more rewarding piece of something to do. But just it's, it's, I find that rereading my work is part of the writing process. And gets me back into it. And then like the writing becomes basically like reading again, where I'm just like, okay, I'm still in the story.

I have to, in order to keep reading it, I have to write it. I also find that sometimes with a second draft especially, it's harder to give yourself permission to not be great because you feel like every step you make has to be the exact right step. But there's no rule. In fact, like with me, a second draft is not anywhere close to a last draft. So there's no rule that you can't still suck. And I try to give myself that permission to like say like, well, this doesn't exactly work, but it gives me a bridge from X to Y and I need to get to Y in order to. write the rest of the story. And so I'm going to accept this bridge, even though it's not the right bridge for the novel, I don't think. And then sometimes it is. Like when I was writing Hollywood ending, the last part, which obviously I can't talk about it very much, but the last part, I initially thought that I was writing the last part as kind of a placeholder. And then Sarah read the first draft,

and she was like, there's a lot of problems here, but I really like the last part. Hank just tried to reveal a spoiler and I cut him because even though he doesn't think it's a spoiler, I think, I think it's a spoiler because I think everything is a spoiler. I want you to go into this book totally cold. I didn't want there to be flap copy, Hank. My editor was like, you have to have flap copy that tells people what the book's about. And I was like, I don't want anybody to know what the book's about. I want them to know the title and I want them to open it up and start.

But that's not realistic. Not real. Now indeed. There is flap copy. If you want to read that, you can read that at bookshop.org. Oh, let me read it. That's the only spoiler all allow. All right, Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars in AFC Wimbledon.

What's the news from Mars this week? In the news from Mars, we have a new rover design, and his name is Ernest. Aw. Yeah. So NASA scientists have been testing at a new rover that could shape the rovers the next generation we're sending to Mars and the moon. It's called the Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped Terrain. And it's here are some advantages, John. It's a fast boy.

How fast do you think Ernest goes? Four miles an hour. 0.6, but that's very fast for a Mars rover. They are not traditionally super quick. Perseverance after five years has gone now 26.2 miles. It's finished its first marathon. So Ernest will be able to go faster than that. But Ernest also only has four wheels, which is new.

And also those wheels are going to do. that thing that car wheels don't do where they can point in any direction. And so if it wants to go diagonally or sideways or forward or whatever, it can do all the things. They're also redesigning the wheels to be a little more resilient as we have found the Martian rocks are a lot more hard on the rover wheels than we expected. And we're working hard to keep these rovers working even though their wheels have been absolutely torn to shreds. And it doesn't have that cool gimbal thing that always keeps equal pressure on all of the wheels, but they're going to solve that problem in other ways. We've learned a lot since we started designing Mars Rovers 20, 30 years ago. So it's exciting.

It's a simpler design in some ways, a more complex design in others, but it seems to be very good at a lot of the things that you want rovers to be good at. And we recently went on a 16-mile journey through the desert of Southern California. It took almost 37 hours to do that 16-mile journey, but that's quite quick. The rover did almost the whole journey autonomously, which is another thing that we can do more now. Impressive. Well, in news from AFC Wimbledon, the schedule has been released, Hank, and it is catastrophic for me. Okay. Oh, okay. Great. That's better than catastrophic for the team. AFC Wimbledon play, the franchise currently plying its trade. in Milton Keynes at home on September 19th, one day before the first event of my yet-to-be-announced

book tour. Well, John, I think that you'll manage. I will be able to go to several games this season, including one with mom and dad, which I'm really excited about. But, yeah, so, AFC Wimbledon, the other thing that's really bad about the schedule is that everybody's been looking forward to playing Lester away. Like, Lester won the Premier League title 10 years ago. They've got a huge stadium.

it'll be a really fun away day. And they scheduled that game for boxing day, December 26th, when a lot of people can't travel because they're like having family time. Yeah. And that's a bummer. Yeah.

That's kind of, that was like the biggest away day we had to look forward to and they scheduled it for a bummer day. So lots of people are upset about that, but in general, the schedule looks good. We play Bromley,

we play Wiggum, we play Sheffield Wednesday. Sheffield Wednesday will be a fun day out. So yeah, lots of, lots to look forward to in the league one season. Now, you're wondering, Hank, do we have 11 players to field?

That seems important. I wouldn't say we have 11. I would say we have 11, but not 11 in the right positions. But we'll get there, buddy. We'll get there. You could try. I think I'm more of a locker room guy than an on-the-pitch guy. You know who's getting old?

Maybe he's looking for a job as Lionel Messi. Well, he's doing pretty well at Inter-Miamy, making tens of millions of dollars a year. living in Miami. It's going to be hard to get him to... Not paying income tax. Not paying income tax. It's going to be hard to get him to Southwest London.

Who else? Who else? What's Mosul up to? Who are these old guys? What about Vosinia, the 41-year-old Cape Verdi and goalkeeper? That guy's a genius. He's got lots of Instagram followers. That's what you need.

I suspect that he's going to be in high demand as well. I think probably we're not looking at the World Cup for our next 11. You know what I think? I actually just had an amazing idea. You know what World Cup needs? What? It needs Leon Musk to tweet for them.

I thought about it. I thought about going back to Twitter as Leon Musk and just doing my World Cup tweets. No, no. I think that you should be AFC Wimbledon as Leon Musk. Oh, very, very, very meta. That's what the world's crying out for. But you could tweet so good for them. And then they'd be popular the way that Ryan Goss, Ryan Reynolds.

team is popular. I don't think Ryan Reynolds team is popular primarily because of Ryan Reynolds' tweeting. I think it's because of his really good TV show, actually. Yeah, but that's your version of that. It's nice of you to think that we're close to that, but I think we're a ways off from that. All right, Hank, we've got to end the pod because I've got to take a nap. All right. I'm so happy for you.

Great job doing it, getting that colonoscopy and making a really, I'd say, top 10% episode here. Hang it, John. I had a good time. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate that. This podcast was edited by Linus Obenhaus, mixed by Andrew Smith. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell.

It's produced by Rosiana Halsrowhoss and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Dubu Krakravardi. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast is by the Great Gunarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.