Distractible - Self Confidence

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Wade wonders where he and the guys got their confidence, while Mark and Bob share their tips and tricks for public speaking and dealing with self-doubt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection, free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda. It's made with pH- ph balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils so whether you're going for a run or just running late do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't find secret at your nearest walmart or shoppers drug mart today good evening gentle listener and welcome to Distractible, a Wood Elf production, with your hosts, Beaming Bob, Worthy Wade, and Monarchical Mark. This week, the chaps dissect that which is most important for their continued travails through the art of entertainment, and, truth be told, tis the very key to success in all life's endeavors.

Yes, it's time for self-confidence. Please secure thy self-help books and enjoy the show. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Distractible. I am your previous week's winner, Wade, and I will be hosting today. I'm joined by Mark and Bob. Hey, boys. I want to say before we get started, congratulations, Wade.

Big win. Very proud of you. You really deserved it. Thank you. Two points. Man, you don't have to you really deserved it thank you two points oh man you don't have to do that but thank you so much you're so generous and handsome thanks but no more points that's okay it's up to you you're the judge what a suck up look at this guy oh no no bob i'm just giving credit where credit is due uh-huh and bob you were very wise to make him the winner he clearly outperformed me last time.

So thank you for your wise judgment in the last one. You don't have to suck up to me. I don't do anything for you. Who's sucking up? We are opponents today. Oh, but I'm trying to be amicable. Right, Wade? One more point.

All right, you talked me into it. Oh, you're so sweet. And Bob, just so we're starting off on even footy, I'm gonna give you three points as well. Alright, that seems fair. Wise decision, Wade. Very wise. Very good decision. Great.

Oh man, that felt good. I don't know why. Very amicable of you, Mark. I'm amicable. Amicable. Alright. So, how's life uh mark are you doing pretty well oh good you know just all smiles and sunshine very fun life a lot of elden ring way too much elden ring oh really incredible amount of elden ring yeah i've been enjoying that one too uh i've been playing that with gar which apparently is wrong according to half the internet if you play uh the game using any items armor or playing with other people you're playing it wrong yeah i've been enjoying that one too i've been playing that with gar which apparently is wrong according to half the internet if you play uh the game using any items armor or playing with

other people you're playing it wrong yeah i'm okay with that i have heard that if you don't start with the wretch and never level up if you stay maidenless the whole time you never do anything no armor only the beginning club you're not doing it right i don't know what the record is now i've not really kept up with it but i saw someone beat the game in like 20 to 30 minutes or something like they i know speedrunners are crazy but like i can't even imagine winning the first fight within the first 20 to 30 minutes oh my god that first fight not not talking about that that horse guy but the margit margit god yeah yeah me too i know stuff about that you haven't been playing about i played it once and it felt kind of like I was wandering around a bunch of empty fields.

Right. You don't like Souls games. That's it. Yeah, you remember that? Yeah, I remember now. Okay. But it's, oh, the open world is fun. It's fun with another person.

I would never play this alone, though. Play with us, Bob. Play with us. It's fine. Isn't the multiplayer jank? Isn't all the Souls multiplayer stuff always jank? No, no, this multiplayer is a little better. It's a lot better than usual.

It's better than the other ones was. Because you can actually be in the open world with other people. And the other people can still loot in the world. So if you're, like, going picking herbs or whatever, they can pick up herbs, too. If you kill something and it drops something, they get something, too. Whereas before summoning, they didn't get any benefit besides killing the boss and getting some

blood or souls or yeah they were basically just following you around like a little ghost bitch i think only specific like set drops are the only thing you can't loot from someone else's world so like stuff that's like one of a kind or you're not supposed to farm that easily yeah absolutely but most stuff yeah you can go and pick flowers and stuff like that i will say i played it once and i enjoyed it i like the combat i played as a samurai it was fun probably gonna revisit it but a thing i'm excited for have you guys ever seen the no hit souls born speed runs where you play every from software game starting with uh like demon souls or whatever the first one through the most recent one without ever getting hit by an enemy a single time no wait what happens if you take a hit oh my god you

run over you start over you start back over dude oh how long does that take uh that is a good question soulsborne no hit run there's a nine hour and 52 minute long youtube video of the happy hob doing the soulsborne ecero no hit run so that means that was probably the successful run right that doesn't even count all the failures oh my god yeah so polygon has an article about it it's five games bloodborne dark souls dark souls 2 demon souls dark souls three and then sekiro i think is also in that now technically but uh yeah good god is that specifically taking a hit from an enemy any hit i know in like one of them you had to like any one of the speed run strats was to like jump down this thing and you took like damage from falling i don't think fall damage counts okay

yeah probably not that's not a hit i'm not an expert or anything but i believe it's no hits from enemies yeah no hit would be different than no damage i think yeah oh i can't even imagine speedrunners are a different breed whoever does that is just like the next level of insanity i could not because i can't even play a game without getting hit ever i count on getting hit yeah i get a bigger health bar so I can get hell a lot because I know I'm going to get hit. Wait, so in a game like Elden Ring where there's a scripted first boss fight

that they expect you to lose, but you can win. They win that fight. You have to win that fight with no hit. You can't take any hits and you start from like character creation in each game. Oh my God. Yes. Yes.

Oh. Yes. Oh. Anyway, I was feeling better now i feel worse about my skills and everything so i'm excited for that okay good that's just insane yeah you gonna try that i feel like this new game the elden ring might be the game that pushes it into the area of maybe unachievable because it's just too long oh my god yeah well if they've got if they gotta fight all the bosses maybe but like people are beating it in 20 to 30 minutes like i said so is that no hit run all bosses or just the story bosses so it doesn't say necessarily but it i mean

so this run took 10 hours right this run on the Happy Hobbs YouTube channel on October 24th, 2021. He did Sekiro, Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 without getting hit. It had to be glitchless, right? Or at least it had to be like no major exploits or skips. Because yeah, each of these games individually, if you're a speed runner, it's totally possible to beat. I know it's possible to beat like Dark Souls 3 in like under 30 minutes. 26, I want to say or something. Is it like thatelda game um the newest one what the frick was it called

breath of the child breath of the child that's it breath of the child uh where you can technically go to the boss like right away i mean kind of there are there are like skips and things you can do to basically circumvent having to go and open doors and do the long way there's all kinds of this funny stuff i know in i think it's in dark souls 3 there's funny stuff about triggering the death camera without actually dying because the death camera plane is a different plane than the death plane on some like some fall locations and if you like trigger the death camera assets stop loading so you can walk through like unloaded air. There's all kinds of like bugs and things you can do to exploit.

But yeah, no. So it's going to be 12 hours or something. You have to do 12 hours straight of Soulsborne whatever games perfection. It's insane. How do you discover this kind of stuff in a game? Like how do you even figure that stuff out? You just play it a lot i guess i mean you have the added benefit of people have been playing those games since demon souls first came out so many years ago so they they're used to the formula and they're used to how it plays but still yeah yeah well now that we're all feeling a little bit worse about

ourselves that brings me to today's topic actually it was a good segue really yeah today's topic is uh very generally self-esteem that's a great topic and that was a great segue you really know how to bring the topic back to the order of conversation thank you two points each oh thanks no problem if i get points deducted, is it both of us? I'll think about it. Fuck you, Wade. Fuck you. All right, minus one point for Mark.

Live and learn, right, buddy? I love you. Thanks, man. I'll take that under advisement. All right, okay, self-esteem, sure. I don't have to say anything. This episode's off to a great start i love it keep going mark keep going man i feel like it's me on the other side this is my like my rival contestant i don't know how this topic came to me i guess it's just one of those things where i was talking to to molly and some friends about

life and stuff and you know it's obviously been a tough couple of years. Life's just hard in general. Been a lot going on every year. I feel like there's some major event that's just super stressful. We can't avoid. And it reminded me of like, I don't know, like high school, junior high days, those came back to me for some reason. And I remember just, I was so not confident back then. And I still wouldn't say like, I, I think I'm all that and a bag of potato chips But i'm definitely comfortable in my own skin and like the faults that I know I have my imperfections both physically and my capabilities Mentally, whatever i'm just i'm aware of them and I accept them now and it made me wonder like Self-esteem is such a difficult thing and how in the world Did I go from someone who like never felt confident doing anything to like we went on tour and stood on stage and performed in front of thousands of people across the world uh we talk in front of

our audiences every day on youtube videos this podcast uh twitch channel so on and so forth social media like that seems so daunting when you think about it and yet it's one of the easiest things i feel like i've ever done in my life. And just like, I don't know, it got me thinking like, how did we go from being who we were? Maybe you guys always had self confidence and were comfortable doing this kind of stuff. Maybe you still don't. I don't know. I can't speak for you guys. But like for me, I just I'd like to understand and maybe help anyone out there listening, like understand how we went from like, Nope, I can't do that. Well, we don't know if we try because it's such a simple thing to think about but so hard to actually do that that is a good question i mean are you looking for

stories because i don't really have stories it's more just like anything honestly anything related to the topic that you guys want to talk about uh just for me that's how i that's how the subject came to mind that i was just like you know i feel like that's relevant to literally everyone out there everyone out there has low self-esteem high self-esteem arrogance somewhere in the middle like everyone has thought about like man am i an arrogant person do i think too low of myself do i think too high of myself like do i suck am i great i don't like you know who knows you know what this reminds me that uh reminds me of not really like exactly related but did you guys ever go to one of those leadership workshops like when you were young not when i was young

nobody believed in me so they were gonna send you to a workshop seems like a wasted you know resource really i did some like law stuff in high school like forums on law where like leadership and stuff was a part of it like do you guys know buckeye boys state where it's like the ohio government simulation buckeye boys that that sounds weird so they i went up to um i think it was in bowling green ohio into like bowling green college or ohio i don't remember how buckeye boys state but we basically ran this simulation of the ohio government where we had someone run for governor we had like the whole law segment so like i was president of the bar association and i ran a law firm wow and then we had like there was law segment so like i was president of the bar association and i ran a law

firm wow and then we had like there was just all these different parts of the ohio government we were simulated for like a full week that's super cool oh i look i'm on the ohio buckeye boys state dot com oh yeah website which now that i've mentioned that it's going to crash thank you everybody listening um neil armstrong's in their hall of flame, a hall of flame, fame, fame. Wow. A lot of astronauts actually. Can I just say like this website is from 1993 and this is clearly from another time. It says it was established in, I don't even know, a long time ago. Why is it men?

Is this operated on the assumption that women can't win political office or? So from what I, what I remember is because we all had to like stay in dorms together. I think that they had like a guy's version and a girl's version. Cause I think there was a girl's version running simultaneously as ours. Like boy scout, girl scout kind of thing. But they didn't want us all staying together. Cause I guess they were afraid we would all get together and fuck a lot and not do what we were supposed to. I don't know weird i looked up buckeye girls state

there is a website let me see what it is oh oh yeah maybe yeah sponsored by the american legion auxiliary of ohio which i think is the same thing as the buckeye yeah american legion the buckeye girls state has a way better website yeah way, way better. Also, the Buckeye Boys State is apparently from the future because at the top right it says June 12th to 19th, 2022. And I'm pretty sure that's when it's scheduled for. The Girls State is also scheduled for June 12th to June 18th, 2022. Okay, I see, I see. Well, this is an interesting subset of the American culture

that I did not know about. Very fascinating. Okay, so they just don't want any making out Well, this is an interesting subset of the American culture that I did not know about. Very fascinating. Okay. So they just don't want any making out or other shenanigans. Right. Fine. Still strikes as weird to me, but fine. No, I agree.

Now, in hindsight, looking back at it, it's a little strange. Okay. So this isn't quite what I did, though. The leadership workshop that I went to was more of a seminar, I think, than just a workshop, as you might imagine in your mind it was uh you remember our you know panels that we did at pax i do differentiate a seminar from a workshop is a seminar more just like they talk at you i think so seminars like a ted talk yeah exactly you just listen workshop you're actually involved in it yeah and that's what this was there was some

participation but as i will explain later it it was not exactly, uh, it was weird. So we're in a room that fits a thousand people. It's like, you know, like a panel. If you've ever been to a convention, you've gone to a panel, you see people talking up on stage, you sit in a big room, big, big room. I think this must've been freshman year of high school. They send it out because we were in marching band and it was build leadership and give

you leadership abilities. And more importantly, self-confidence, uh, which is a core tenet of leadership according to this seminar uh so i go in the room and i'm sitting like in the middle of everything you know kind of off to the side a little bit i can't really see the stage too well but apparently the core tenet of being a leader is jumping up on your chair and shouting real loud. So there must have been people in the crowd that have gone to these workshops before because he's got a routine, you know, he, how we do in Ohio, Cincinnati. And then, you know, suddenly, like I just got there. And as soon as he says that, like half of the audience jumps up on their chair

and stands on their seat and is yelling as loud as they can and i look around and i'm just like what is happening and the guy is pointing to these people like you you you you guys are real leaders i can see it in your eyes you went to a limp biscuit concert on accident yeah and he he says uh you guys all of you still sitting, look to those that are standing on their seats and see how they took initiative. They showed leadership. And so literally the entire hour long seminar was all about trying to get us to be confident enough, quote unquote, to stand on our seats and cheer loudly so that others can see how unafraid you are right everyone in the entire room certainly turned into the mode or they're just hunting for that opportunity the guy on stage is like all right we're gonna talk about communication direct one-on-one communication and it's like a total this is like a mundane sentence and one kid in the back just

jumps up and is like yeah the guy's like no no breathe the room nope you're not a leader you don't understand it yet keep listening and now stand on your seats that's that's almost exactly how it actually was it was legitimately throughout the entire hour-long session he would have i forget what the cue was but it was some psychological control word that he would say and everyone would be like, and then he got half the crowd to shout at the other half and half the crowd to shout at the other half and all for the true essence of leadership to be burned into our brains. But in reality, for everyone listening at home, that is obviously not leadership. And also, it's not confidence either, because confidence and self-confidence comes from an understanding of yourself and being accepting of who you are as a person for your faults

and your whatever the opposite of faults is. What is the word? Strengths? Strengths. Yeah. Your strength and your weaknesses. Weaknesses. we'll roll it back your strengths and your weaknesses i hope he does roll it back because then everyone's

gonna wonder why the hell you said it like that i'm hoping he rolls the bag just like rewinds and then it makes me seem less stupid i'm guessing i seem more stupid now my self-confidence is plummeting oh yeah oh how could you do this will how could you this will how could you do this to me uh but but what i took from that and what i left from that is that everyone in that room seemed really stupid uh and it's kind of a weird jaded take to come from that but even now as I'm older and I have done a lot of public speaking you guys I mean when you were saying it from the get-go this topic is like we have done incredible amounts of public speaking and we have been in front of crowds of thousands

of people we have done streams in front of thousands of people and that I think honestly and truly that doesn't phase me anymore. It doesn't rob anything from me. And there is something fun about being on stage and getting people to jump on their seats or getting hyped up. We did that during our show a lot. But we just wanted people to be excited. It doesn't automatically make them leaders if they are really responsive to us going like, Everybody shout this side, shout at that side. It's interesting.

It's fascinating. I'm going to jump off your topic mark sure go for it this inspired me to think about how people have basically what you're talking about how people have tried to teach myself and people around me like confidence and self-esteem and i think what's really interesting is i think it's the variety of ways that people can derive confidence and improve how they view themselves and like how they feel about it themselves is really interesting to me because if you google like how do i how do i gain confidence how do i gain how i improve my self-esteem and build myself up i'm googling a lot of a lot of stuff will come up and there's a lot of common themes one of which is like positive affirmations

right look in the mirror in the morning before a big meeting and say i am going to kill this meeting this is going to be a big success stuff like that makes me die inside like like i'm i'm too i don't know i'm too sarcastic i'm too jaded i don't know what it is but like i if i'm doing that if i'm standing looking in the mirror talking to myself it's a bad thing for me it does not feel it means that i'm i've reached a point where i'm like mocking myself i stand in the mirror and i'm like look at you you fat fuck you didn't even shave this morning and maybe if i could stomach doing the positive affirmation thing maybe it would help more than i think it would but like the fact that that doesn't work for me, it doesn't mean that that's terrible advice or anything.

I think it's very interesting that I'm sure a lot of people, all they need is to remember and say to themselves in a positive way, like you can do this. You know what? You're worried, you're anxious, you're not confident, but you can do this. You're ready. You've prepared. But like, it's a wide, I don't't know does that work for you guys the positive affirmation thing you ever do that i've never tried it like that really what that reminds me of is do you know david goggins uh that is a familiar name but i can't connect it to anything okay so david goggins is an insane man not literally he his lifestyle is insane and that's not an insult because i believe he would agree if he heard me say that he he is just like the most

outrageous like sheer brute force of willpower kind of person and proponent of that that you'll ever hear about or meet he has this thing he calls the accountability mirror which is kind of like what you're saying it's not a positive affirmation thing it's an accountability to look at your shortcomings you you look at yourself in the mirror. This is his philosophy, not mine. I agree with some parts of it. But if you learn about David Goggins, you will see why I say he's an insane man. But he has this mirror that he makes sure he goes back to.

He's got post-it notes all over the mirror that like say the things that he wants to do. And anytime, quote, he feels like a bitch inside, he looks at himself in the mirror and be like, are you just like, do you not want to do it? Or are feels like a bitch inside he looks at himself in the mirror and he'd be like are you just like do you not want to do it or are you just a bitch you know and you got to go do it and suck it up and his big quote is stay hard you know he's like you gotta punch life in the teeth stay hard oh you gotta you gotta go with this doesn't matter if you feel bad you gotta go doesn't matter if it rains stay hard and uh you know you can't help but feel a little bit of inspiration for it because it's one of those things where he does do talks and he does do stuff like that.

And he does like inspirational stuff. But really, all he does is just he does crazy stuff. He runs ultra marathons all the time. He was like a Navy SEAL. He did the training three times because on the first time he like exploded his knee and then second time he almost died and but he kept coming back because he stays hard and uh like that brand of self-confidence is

interesting because he in interviews will say he's an introvert and you know he doesn't really like being in the public eye or i think i've heard him say that before but he is just like the most single-minded person with the only goal of being the hardest man alive willing to do whatever it is and again i don't know if that's specifically self-confidence but it kind of taps into my understanding self-confidence of being assured in what you are as a person and what you want and your goals if you try to follow what he does you'll probably die because an ultra marathon is a hundred miles 100 miles i don't even want to drive 100 miles that's a long time shit i don't even know if i can watch something that's 100 minutes long much less than 100 miles

it's it's nuts and these races it's kind of like that dark souls no hit run it takes like if you're running a good 100 miles i think it takes like 18 hours, maybe even 20. Like it can take all day. If you're running a very fast one, I'm sure it's it's quicker than that. But for the average person who's doing an ultra marathon, and average of an ultra marathon is still extremely high up there. It's just kind of crazy it's kind of nuts to think about so the the kind of stuff you can push yourself to do with sheer willpower alone is incredible but i'm not 100 sure that boils down to uh high self-confidence you know i mean he certainly is confident in the fact that i'm sure he knows people think he's completely out of his mind and he's like doesn't

matter stay hard exactly and that's kind of he embraces that and like he's he's completely out of his mind and he's like doesn't matter stay hard exactly and that's kind of he embraces that and like he's he's a nut but he does it god damn it exactly works for him i don't know random aside here mark you remember that video you did where you had to do a hundred thousand steps yeah oh that was a good one i didn't even make it so apparently there's about two thousand steps per mile so if if he's doing 100 miles in a day, 2,000 times 100 is, am I wrong in saying 200,000 steps? And those are running steps. So those are different. I think that's accounting for the stride length because if it was 2,000 steps a mile, it would be like two and a half feet per step.

So those are big steps. So wouldn't that be even harder on your body, like your knees and stuff? Oh, God, yeah. Oh, my God. I don't think anyone was questioning whether ultra marathons are hard i'm just trying to think figure out like because i remember that video where you like you talked about that for a while how that was like one of the worst things you ever tried to do i don't know anyway it's just a random aside it was hard because it took all day that's what it was and that's what all that is about it's the psychological psychological aspect. It's like doing the same thing. It's so monotonous. And you can imagine doing anything for 18 hours straight going if you worked an 18 hour shift. And I like I've done it

before. I've done it several times. I've pulled all nighters and stuff. It's awful. You just want to not do that thing at like our 14 at our 10. just don't want to do it so like pushing through it there was another guy his name's cliff young in australia there's a race called the sydney to melbourne ultra marathon and it's literally as it sounds and you guys have flown that distance australia's pretty big so australia to uh or sydney to melbourne is 537 miles. And this race is ordinarily a like week long race, people will run all day for like 18 hours, and then we'll stop and sleep. And then they'll get up in the morning and they'll do it again. 537 miles of that this guy, though, Cliff Young, he was a farmer, he wasn't really even a runner, but on his farm, he was used to running

along his fence line to check it pretty much every day. So he would be running for hours and hours and hours all day, checking his fence pretty regularly. Whereas the other athletes, they would stop and sleep every night. Cliff Young, when he got in there, he just ran for five days straight. ran for five days straight. Oh, it's the gump of real people. Legitimately. Oh, my God. He ran the race 537 miles in five days and 15 hours and four minutes of just running. No sleep, no stopping, no nothing.

In the first day, all the other runners passed him. He was running slower, of course, because he was pacing himself. They passed him day two. They were still miles ahead. Day three, he was catching up. course because he was pacing himself uh they passed him day two they were still miles ahead day three he was catching up by day four he had passed them day five he was so far past them because everyone else was sleeping and then uh day six he just crosses the finish line the the next person came in uh looks like nine nine hours later the next person came in good god yeah that's not good i mean he was fine he said he didn't want to do it again afterwards but you know he he just did it he just sounds like a madman apparently in 1997 at the age of 75 he attempted to run 16 000 kilometers basically around australia

he only completed 6 500 kilometers of it but it's because his one crew member his support staff got sick and he was like no i forgot to mention he was 61 years old when he did that uh first run yeah well apparently in the year 2000 at the age of 78 he did the six-day race god damn i don't think he did it straight through if he did i don't know how but he at the age of 78 he did a six day run race uh man yeah that is insane yeah oh madman i don't think you have to be able to do that to have self-esteem and self-confidence but like that would certainly help to do something like that and be like it's interesting though because i believe that self-confidence can be very subconscious you just have a full understanding of your own abilities you know you can do something it's very easy to do anything

when you know you can do it and it's very difficult whenever you look in yourself and you're like, I don't know if I can do that. That's where doubt comes in. And that's where self-confidence can kind of wear away. And I think in a lot of situations, whether it's public speaking, doing a YouTube channel, whenever people ask or ask themselves, can I do this? That even asking that question is like starts to eat away at the confidence. So you'll get lots of people out there who'll be like, I want to start a YouTube channel. I want to be an artist. I want to be a musician, anything, but I don't know how, or if I can, like even asking that question that I think that's where the self-affirmation stuff does kind of like

come into play. But even giving yourself positive affirmation is like trying to fight the doubt inside of you. It's's like just and we all have that i have that in plenty of things you know i'm not perfect at it either it's just like being confident in yourself self-confidence those of you don't know um whenever we were filming in space uh i was there i played a character called wug if you haven't watched it go watch in space with markiplier um and i remember even though i had filmed a heist before we done the tour and stuff before i was pretty confident what i wanted to do to portray wug but when it came to like seeing this this crew that we had fantastic amazing crew by the way all around everyone was fantastic to work

with but it was very intimidating for me because i don't do a lot of stuff like that this is like the second time ever i've been on a set that's been that intricate tour was a little bit different because there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes, but once we were out on stage, it was just us. This was just people everywhere, and especially for the character of Wug, I had a lot of people helping me out with costume, as well as like keeping cool. There was a whole ordeal, and we had a filming day where it was all Wug all day. It was a very heavy costume, very hot to wear, and I remember like at the start of the day, it was all wog all day. It was a very heavy costume, very hot to wear. And I remember like at the start of the day, I had all of these nerves come in and I was like, I cannot afford to screw up today. If I mess up, I'm going to put us back. We're not going to get everything done. Please don't screw up. Everyone's going to judge me. They're going to hate me.

And like, even though I knew what I was going to do, I knew I could do it. That all started hitting me at the start of that filming day. And I was like, oh man, I got i have got to shake this off i'm like shaky nervous uh what am i like i know my lines but i'm forgetting them it's like as soon as i let some kind of doubt creep in because i was afraid of a consequence of messing up then it made it very difficult to actually do a good job and for me whenever things start to actually become easier a lot of the time is whenever it's crunch time I don't have time to have doubt or fear and as the day went on I think we were actually did we stayed pretty on schedule. We did pretty well

Oh, we had some big scenes with some longer takes there was a lot more lines a lot more action It was just we had some scenes that took a lot longer and there was a lot more intricate parts to it And anytime anything went wrong. It was like, oh, thank God. It wasn't me that messed up Well, you know something like a costume part would go off. It's like, OK, we got to repair that real quick. But it came down to like, OK, well, we got to get this done. And then whenever my mindset switched from like thinking about what I was doing to just like got to crank this out.

No choice now. I was fine. And I find that I'm like that in life a lot, not just specifically with filming, where it's like whenever I was in school, if I wrote a paper ahead of time and then I edited it two or three times, I would look over and I was like, eh, I don't really like the way I worded this. And I would edit, I would edit, I would edit. I'd turn the paper in and get like a C.

If I wrote a paper the night before, it's like, oh, I gotta write five pages. It's already midnight. It's due tomorrow. I guess I'm stamped till four in the morning. Here we go. A plus, A, 95%. Like I would get an A on that paper.

If I was a last minute cruncher, I did great. But as soon as I gave myself time to think about it and doubt myself i would perform infinitely worse and i understand that about myself and i think a lot of my confidence comes from that aspect of it's not that i know i can do it because i know i can do any of us are capable of doing pretty much anything it's a matter of understanding ourselves and i know me i know i'm a lazy sack of shit but when it comes down to having to do something whenever it's like whenever it's down to the wire i will get it done because i've got no choice but to get it done and i've always gotten it done so i'll no doubt i'll do it now and it's not because

i know i'm that good it's just that i have no choice i have to do it so i'm gonna do it it'll get done bob it's like what we were talking about with uh the the oh god so where's her The old S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S- when when were we talking about your uh topic uh my topic what topic what superstition superstition oh okay yeah yeah that's what i was trying to get to it's like it's like beginners sure yeah talking about superstitions because because it's like that, where when you don't know what you're going into, you don't know what you're not capable of. So you sprint in there and you do great because you didn't know that you couldn't do something. That's why beginner's luck works.

It's all about confidence. And then as soon as you do it a few times, you start to understand that you can fail. And even the thought that you can fail makes you fail. Because you second guess yourself and you start to like you can fail makes you fail because you second guess yourself and you start to like question what you're doing and you question your self-confidence and it's like i don't know and uh yeah but wait i just gotta say you did great the whole time i had no idea you were nervous at all so it never showed always have been whenever we do like the tour every every single tour show that we did the warm-ups and like the vocal warm-ups and the

skits we would do to like practice i was so uncomfortable as soon as like we would open the curtains and we would there was an audience in front of us i had no nerves at all but it was just us and like you guys were all so good at everything i was like man they're gonna realize i don't fit in i'm not as good at them at this like i had all of this self-doubt every single time we would do warm-ups without the crowd there there's just something about me to where like i don't care like i love everyone that listens to our show and watches me and everything else but like i don't know all of you guys out there personally but whenever it comes down to like me thinking i'm gonna let my friends down or be judged negatively by like people i'm closer to that hits me really hard and it really can be crippling

sometimes where like all of a sudden even though i know i can do something i will just start beating myself up until like there's a part of my brain that's like you have to do a song portion well you're gonna screw that up and everyone's gonna look at you be like man thanks for ruining our show like those kind of thoughts plagued me the entire time during warm-ups and i just kind of tried to brush them off whatever it's like i'll be fine when the show starts and that's kind of my approach to life i mean i think going through a lot of um hardship that i went through when i young, like losing my dad and my grandpa, like losing so many people and having to be the adult and just like, do I want to shut down and just mourn? Yes. But would my family want me to continue pushing on and get good grades in school?

Yes. So I'm going to do that. My family is mourning right now. I better be the strong shoulder for them, make sure they're doing okay. Am I doing okay? I i don't know i don't have time to think about that right now and it's just that like it's that mindset of like i have to do it so might as well suck it up fake it till i make it and i honestly think for me self-esteem was a fake it till i make it kind of deal i kind of just put on the the show when i was younger and i've pushed through pushed through pushed through and then at some point in my adulthood i came to the realization of like okay this is me i know me. I know what I like to do.

I'm going to be a lazy sack of shit and play mobile games, sit here on the couch watching TV. Oh, do I have to put this thing together? Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. Okay, well, I need to use it tomorrow. Okay, it'll be done today. And it's done today. I can do all of these things. I will put things off.

I'm not the most proactive. But I think that that understanding of myself helped boost my self-esteem. It's like, I know me. I know what what i'm capable of i know what i'm not capable of and even whenever i have times of doubt i know that the doubt is something i shouldn't listen to so is it difficult to push through at that moment yes but will i find a way yes and it's that last part that's the key for me it's that i know i will find a way and i accept that aspect of it and that makes it everything else okay it's like i can deal with my self-doubt because i know i'll be fine i've done it before that's's cool. Like, not to just constantly

keep talking because I could talk about this forever. The whole concept of fake it till you make it when I started my YouTube channel, because I mean, you guys knew me beforehand. Like Bob, you knew me freshman year of college because we were roommates, obviously. So you knew me and you saw me for who I was. You know, I wouldn't say I was the most self-confident, but among friends and when I was comfortable, I feel like I was more outgoing and like more energetic. Wade, you've seen me for longer in early high school. I was not a talkative person. I was not confident. No, I barely knew you in the friend group because you were probably the least talkative. Yeah, exactly. And just like the whole concept of me talking in public was foreign to me. It was one of those things where I took a

public speaking class in college, but it was just like, I barely went to class. And I got A's though, because I was able to get up on stage and just like talk and I had a decent voice and I could do that, but I didn't like doing it. When I started my YouTube channel, I had this vision of who I wanted to be the kind of person that I wanted to be. I wasn't happy with where my life was. I wasn't happy with the choices I had been making, if I had even been making choices. So I had this vision of who this outgoing, outspoken, extroverted person was. And that kind of like became a character in my head. And I called that character Markiplier. And in my head, I was like, okay, Markiplier, this person that I want to be is outgoing,

confident, able to do anything, able to like take on the world, able to make everything, able to be this person, able to talk to people, able to make videos. And I would literally look at myself in the mirror and I'd be like, I can do this. Or maybe I can't do this. But I know Markiplier could do this. And it's super weird to talk about now. But retrospectively, that was very important for me, like just just to get the confidence needed to be like, okay, maybe I can't, but I can imagine myself if I could, I can play that role and essentially fake it till I make it. And over

time, like the lines blurred, because I realized it's not some fake character that I am imposter syndrome embodying. It is just me, I'm capable of all these things. I always was. And the belief in that wouldn't have been revealed. And unless I took a step back, looked at it from a bird's eye view, and been like, I can imagine what I would do if I was this kind of person. And I just need to replicate that and live that. And then like things will happen. And over time, just I started to realize I had confidence in myself and I had the ability to speak in front of people. I had the ability to make videos.

I had the ability to try to like push myself to make cool things. It helped that it was very fun to do. It helped that it was very rewarding to do it helped that it was very uh rewarding to do um but yeah it was largely a fake it till you make it kind of thing what's been your experience bob i guess with all this stuff since we all had a similar ride and a similar start uh i hated tour i grew up doing music and the way the coving mechanism that i embraced for confidence was to hide behind my instrument. I played a very, I played tuba, which sits in front of you.

You basically don't even see anything beyond the conductor. If you're performing in like an ensemble or if I was playing on stage with like my band, I would just look at the drummer. Performing at a thing that is skillful has always been stressful for me because I am, I'm not a strong preparer. I'm not a devoted practicer to the extent that I should be. It's not hard to be confident as a musician or as like a comedian when we were doing the tour stuff. If you've practiced for 10,000 hours and you know what you're capable of and you're just prepared out of your mind, it's not hard to go out there and be like, I'm just going to do what I know I can do. But that's never been my life. I always feel like I haven't

practiced quite enough. There was always something, at least one song, at least one part of the show that I was like, I'm not prepared enough. And doing the tour where it was just us on stage, I had nothing to hide behind. That was very difficult, especially having to engage with the audience. That was not my favorite, which is funny because I talk about the tour really fondly. Doing the improv comedy stuff on stage with you guys was probably some of the most fun I've ever had performing or doing like YouTube or streaming or anything. It's incredibly fun, but not being able to hide and having to engage with an audience is still tough like and i don't hate myself i think i'm pretty funny and i'm capable of being witty and funny and i'm not like i hate myself and i don't like anything i do but i'm always aware that like could have

responded better i didn't yes and i know butted you really hard or you know like i did i'm not you know i'm not a very highly refined practiced, but I will say the more I think about this, the more I think it's kind of all bunk and made up because one of the strongest things for me, and this is one that comes up a lot, like I, like I mentioned earlier with the affirmations is the power of body language over your feelings of confidence or lack thereof. One of the things that comes up all the time is just do superhero pose. If you're about to do something that stresses you out, if you're feeling like you're not as confident as you wish you were, or you want to improve your mental state as you're going into something that's high, high stress requires performance from you.

If you literally just change your posture, pull your shoulders back, head high, neck straight, spread your feet a little bit wider and like put your hands on your hips or like, you know, do literally do like a superhero who just landed from flying in the sky pose that can absolutely affect. And for me, it has a very strong effect, which seems stupid, makes it all seem like, like it's in my head, but like it absolutely works. It very much works for me. You know, what makes it seem even stupider, but it's kind of like echoing that is there have been studies that showcase if you do that Superman pose, like you stand with your arms, like your fists on your hips, kind of like elbows out, chest forward, stuff like that. Your testosterone goes up. Literally your testosterone goes up and

your cortisol levels go down. I don't know the exact percentage. Cortisol is your stress hormone, right? Yes. That's the stress one. I don't know the exact percentage. Cortisol is your stress hormone, right? Yes, that's the stress one. I don't know the exact percentage, but there have been studies. Maybe that's bullshit, but I think this has actually been verified. And it all comes down to confidence. Not saying testosterone is the originator of confidence. It's not. But having that kind of feeling good about yourself, and even if it's like you're kind of faking it by doing a Superman pose, it's about the mind-body connection, right? The mind subconsciously and consciously affects the rest of your body more than you know, because the full understanding of the human body still escapes us to this day. But the mind-body connection is there. It's the

power of will to influence yourself. People can lose the will to live and people can gain the will to live and people can get reasons to do something and that can have a physiological effect on yourself. It can't do miracles, of course, it's not gonna magically cure you of an incurable illness, but when it comes down to trying to do something or trying to accomplish something, simply believing that you can has a literal physical effect on your body. And I'm sure there are more studies that expand on this, but that's just a little tidbit that I know. I'm seeing something that says testosterone by 20%, decreased cortisol by 25%, but those percentages, who knows what is. And it's temporary, right? Yeah. I guess my takeaway really is confidence

is a combination of things and there's no replacement for preparation, but there's also absolutely no reason if you're someone who has to, you feel like you lack confidence going into whatever scenarios, work or performing or social situations, you can get free confidence just by developing habits. Not all the list of all the things that's going to work for everyone. Like some, some of the common confidence stuff is like, you know, dress nice, take pride in your appearance. You'll feel better if you look better or like fake it till you make it or make a list. Like all there's all these different strategies, whatever works for you. Some of them definitely don't work for me. The body posture

one absolutely does. If you just develop the habit of like, you know, something's stressing you out, you know, there's a situation where you're going to wish that you were more confident just so you can do what you want to do or need to do. You can get that for free just by developing habits. You also need to prepare. You also need to be objective and real about, you know, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses that will help you manage going into situations, especially if they're important or if they're for work or something. But free confidence is free confidence, man. There's absolutely no reason not to do the superhero pose. Affirm yourself in the mirror. Put silly post-it notes everywhere in your life, like whatever it is. To me, it all seems goofy, but the fact that it works, even though I'm

skeptical of it, the fact that it works for me tells me you literally can gain it for free any situation you have to learn what works for you and develop habits you can be more confident yeah it's totally doable because i'm i do the same things that you guys do and like i'm not i'm not super unconfident myself but i don't the way you're talking about it does not how it feels to me i definitely have down days there were definitely entire shows on the tour where i could not get out of my own head mentally or afterwards i felt terrible about it because decisions i made or whatever confidence does not come naturally to me in all situations but you can always improve it yeah and it's so easy to find out some simple strategies that work for you were you more more comfortable doing the warmups or the actual shows? The warmups were way worse.

Okay, so we're the same on that. The shows, I were very hit and miss and it very much depended on the group dynamic and where I was that day. I was not very consistent on tour with like my day-to-day mental state in terms of positive, negative. Yeah, and to echo that sentiment

is i also on the tour have moments that i was like incredibly fearful like lacking self-confidence and he was literally performing the music um and it's because i could get up on a stage and i could talk all day and i would never feel uncomfortable but i mean when you were playing guitar like exactly stuff yeah i was playing and singing um It's because that's something that I've never really done before. And it was something that I didn't know I could do. So I remember very distinctly when I went up on stage to do the first song, my hands were shaking. I've never gone on stage and had my hands shake from just the adrenaline pumping. My heart was thundering in my chest I was literally afraid and I didn't know why because I I can talk to people but the concept of performing something that I could mess up and if

I mess up I can't really I don't know how to make a joke out of it I don't know how to play it off it's literally just like on me if I mess up it's bad it's either good or bad and I don't want it to be bad and I don't know if it could be good by the end of the tour I was better at it but I was for weeks I just dreaded dreaded the moment of getting on that stage and playing that song I dreaded it but I think what it boils down to is like self-confidence isn't not being afraid of doing something it's not it's not not doubting yourself it's overcoming it right yeah I would agree with that, it's like knowing that at the end of the day, like what you said, Wade, with you just have to do it, you have to get it done, go do it. If it's bad, it's bad, but you're just gonna like, it has to be done. There's no other

choice. And like, Bob, it's like, it's the practice thing. It's like doing it repetition style. Like you need to be bad at something, you have to be bad. And you have to be okay with being bad, because it's obviously going to be bad. Your first have to be bad and you have to be okay with being bad because it's obviously going to be bad your first time doing anything unless you have incredible beginners luck is going to be bad and it's going to be bad for a long time and you just gotta like tough through it because over time that that free confidence it's just like you've done it so many times that you know you can do it there there isn't even room to doubt it because you you have the evidence of you doing it a thousand times before uh in a thousand different situations and uh i i think where we are

as whatever the hell you would call us internet people uh youtubers streamers whatever podcasters podcast professionals uh we we've done all this a thousand times we've we've talked to each other a thousand times we talked to each other in front of people a thousand times all this a thousand times. We've, we've talked to each other a thousand times. We've talked to each other in front of people a thousand times, more than a thousand times. So we just kind of have this innate confidence in doing what we do. It doesn't mean that there's never a day when I walk into the square and I'm like, I don't feel funny today. Oh God, I don't think I'm going to be like a good host or I don't, I'm not coming in my topic or I don't know what's going on, but we've done it so many times. I'm like, I know you guys, and I know us and our dynamic. You guys will pick up where I lack.

It'll be fine. And if it's bad, like Bob, your episode, I know you hate it. It's, it's so funny. Yeah, I agree. It's so funny. And people love that episode. I love that episode. I listened to that episode.

It's so good. The thing that you have going for you, Bob, in all these moments, like on tour, like I was never nervous to go on with like any of you guys and do whatever like i knew without you guys hold up your end but like there was never a moment where i doubted that you were gonna have a great skit bob every time i went on with you i was like okay well i know if i'm bad bob will carry this one like i never even realized that you had doubt about yourself or anything like during the shows because like you you were always when i was like okay thank god he'll he'll have you carry me i'm feeling really unfunny right this moment so whenever i was having those moments like i don't know you you were definitely a person i

was like okay well no matter what it is bob will be funny and if we screw up bob's even funnier because like you have this thing where you recover and even if you don't recover the scene or you know you do an episode of this we've already done before like the same topic whatever your reaction to that and the way you like go about it is so funny your rage at the fridge you're like oh god okay well we've done this episode i don't know just you have that it factor about it's always funny it's just always funny i think you're the funniest of us and i think you're like a key part of all of the things that we've done over the years so that's mind-boggling to me like i guess i wouldn't say it shocks me that like we all have self-confidence issues from time to time because i think that's the truth i think what mark said

is right like the reason we do what we do is because the first time or the first hundred times we were just like gotta push through and then eventually repetition like you said bob practicing like we've just done it so many times i remember recording youtube videos and like up until i was streaming regularly every youtube video i did i still like i would have to like psych myself up before i press the record button because it's like i'm not as funny as my friends i'm not as funny as this person like god okay i gotta really gotta really be on today and record this one all right and like i would have to like i would try to think my way through it like that before i would start recording because it's like i would think like man i'd much rather be watching

any of you guys over me right now so i don't know why anyone's gonna watch this but here we go and then after streaming and like having live feedback and getting more just repetition into making content because streaming i do for a lot longer youtube it's like you know sometimes you turn on a you'd hit record you'd record for 15 minutes you'd have your video done streaming it's like you know a minimum probably of an hour to three or four hours that i stream and it's just like i'm live i'm there the content's rolling whatever and now if i do a youtube video separately it just it feels like a much shorter stream it's like oh that was quick that was easy and it's literally just that it's the repetition it's i've done it so many times now it's like okay i know i can do it whatever let's just get it done or let's have fun with this or you know whatever the mindset might be that particular day if you're having a good day

bad day but um yeah so i guess to everyone out there just know even to this day after uh a decade of being in the public eye almost i guess almost a decade for bob and i a decade for mark now we still have days where we question ourselves and i guess the difference is the whole fake it till you make it like you know do it and then do it again and then do it again and eventually even if you have a day where you doubt yourself at least you know you can do it because you've done it and i don't i'm not afraid of messing up anymore i'm not afraid of like stuttering through a sentence i'm not afraid of like when i play phasmophobia i brag about being the best phasmophobia player the notorious i get instacarma and murdered or i do something really stupid and die but like i know

that even though those moments make me look like an idiot, people enjoy that. And that enjoyment is a victory. Yeah. And I think that's important for everyone listening at home who might have self-confidence issues is to understand that everyone does too. Yeah. Everyone.

There is no one out there who doesn't doubt themselves at any given point. And if you just push through that, if you push through it eventually, and no one knows how long that road to eventually will be, you'll get to a point where you will be confident in your abilities. It's just a matter of time and effort. That's really all it is. All right.

I guess I should wind this thing down. Any final thoughts or things you want to say from either one of you guys? Not really, no. You're beautiful. Love your face. And everything that you stand for is wonderful. Bob, would you like to add any butter to me or the audience?

You seem fine. And the audience is cool. So give me some points. Sure, you can have eight points for that. Hooray! Hey hey hey hey pretty man how you doing oh thanks mark no uh you also yeah but wait can i have points uh yeah two points hey that's pretty good okay thank you that's twice as many as one point all right well i'm sure we could have talked a lot more about this and and hopefully this was entertaining and or, I don't know,

informational for some of you guys out there. Eye-opening to understand that even we, the invincible online personalities. I can't talk about myself that way, dude. I still feel like a normal person. All I know is I laughed for every single second of the entire episode. This is a comedy podcast, and you know what to expect, listeners. It wasn't the funniest episode.

I feel like I don't host the funny ones. I host like weird random topic ones, but I kind of accept that too because I don't know. I think of something, I try to think of topics and it's like, I'm like, man, I'd really like to hear your guys' thoughts on this. And I really love the ones where we're like, all right, tell me how you'd kidnap a babysitter and turn her into glue like those are always fun but whenever i'm thinking of a topic i never think of that kind of thing didn't we do an episode where we're like talking about like how to how to make a best friend or something as well like kidnapping and yeah like i love those kind of topics but i never think of them whenever i think of a topic it's always like

man i just love to hear my friends thoughts on this i guess that's the philosopher in me that's what this podcast is about. It's just us talking. Anyone having any other expectations is fooling themselves. We're idiots most of the time. That's another thing though. That's another self-confidence issue. It's like, is this a good topic?

And no one's going to like my topic. Like, I guess I think that way too whenever I'm hosting. I don't know if you guys do that too, but whatever. It is what it is. It's out there. I'm a great and confident host. I've never made any mistakes that i regret for the rest of my life yeah i didn't just admit earlier that i come into these being i'm not

funny no not me no no no your approach is brilliant though bob because you could look back at our most popular episodes and be like man let's do that topic again because i know it worked you think i didn't do that the first time? It was all on purpose. Yeah, of course. Ah, we should have seen your wisdom. I'm just that smart. If you promise to do your fridge

as next episode, Bob, I'll give you the win right now. A crazy follow-up story about my fridge. All right, I don't know if you exuded confidence in that but anyway let me wrap this up i have too much fun here uh thank you guys so much for listening i guess looking at the points honestly i'd like to give the win to me just for having you guys here because i think how have you guys helped me uh i feel like the real winner but i can't do that so but yeah you guys have been awesome um you guys have helped my helped myself comments a lot over the years so thank you to you both, but there can only be one winner and

I definitely have all the points added up already Mark I'll give it to you because your last butter-up comment was just enough to edge you over 36 to 35 win. I Can't believe that worked oh it was just enough it was just a little bit our listeners should be ashamed of themselves i don't care i win my confidence is surging oh i feel great maybe i should be ashamed of myself but i don't know have that little extra confidence boost was what i needed for the day so thank you mark. Ah, yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. You're Can't tell mark are you happy about this? Yes, yes, are you slowly becoming the Tasmanian devil cartoon character?

Yeah, I guess if you did a side-by-side, it would not be that different. So I'm humbled. I'm humbled by that. He does spit about as much. Dude, Bob, how many times have you recorded side-by-side with Mark and just left needing a bath? I apologize for all those moments. I apologize. That was someone else. I was faking until I'm making someone else.

I don't know why. I just thought of the moment we did a stream of Minecraft. I think it was a charity stream a long time ago and we had this machine and i think we had a whole bunch of diamonds and you turned them into pork chops do you remember that oh yeah oh yeah it was like tech it or technic or whatever it was way back in the day that was also the end infinite explosion because we you wired solar panels to each other or something oh yeah it was an explosion powered by the sun how does that even work i don't think that's how it works in real life oh good times though good times oh good times all right enough of that we're gonna wrap up thank you guys for joining as always it's been a pleasure

and uh hopefully this was a good episode for all you out there listening and you got something out of this if not then hey maybe you made it to work or an hour of your time was killed, and you're welcome. Maybe we stole time from you, like the time bandits we are. What if we could do that? Just suck away our listeners' time and give it to ourselves? Oh my god. Well, oh, give it to ourselves. I was about to say, that is

what we do, but yeah, they're giving it to us. Yeah, no, I just want to milk them for their life hours. Ooh, that sounds like a good thing to do. Yeah. It dodged all terrifying. Well, thank you guys for joining. Congrats to Mark for winning.

We'll see what Mark wants to do next week. Have yourselves a great week. You can get merch. We have merch for Distractible. We all have our own socials. You can find Mark. Markiplier pretty much everywhere. Bob's MySkirm. He streams on facebook

I'm wade. Uh, don't look for me. I don't want you to find me Stay tuned for whatever comes next week and uh, have a good one till then podcast out