Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Looking Back At Our College Days | Ear Biscuits Ep.299

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

From reinventing yourself with bleach blonde hair and a fake Liverpool accent to rooming with your best friend since first grade, listen to R&L look back at their college experience on this episode of Ear Biscuits! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is mythical. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today. Get a Best Buy gift card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Rhett.

And I'm Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we're talking about our college experiences and how that translates into the advice that we're now giving to anyone who cares to listen and maybe- Mostly our children. Yeah. If they care to listen.

Yeah, they don't usually. Lily is on the precipice of college, university life. She's on the quarter system. So as of the release of this, she's still like three weeks away from going off to school. Now, I do anticipate that I will share with you my experience of taking Lily off to college. And that, so that's an entirely different Ear Biscuit

that probably like a month from now is gonna come out. But I'm definitely in this head space of every day is one less day we have her in the house and there's kind of this like, I feel this urge that, oh yeah, I gotta tell her about this. I can only imagine you're becoming the- I gotta warn her about this.

Overly sentimental dad who's giving advice that makes everyone feel awkward. I haven't gotten into overly- It's like a Warner about this. Overly sentimental dad who's giving advice that makes everyone feel awkward. I haven't gotten into overly sentimental speech. I mean, there's a lot of emotion that's wrapped up and I'm saving all of that for that ear biscuit later. But I have observed that like, I'm like, oh crap. It's like, I mean, it's not like we're not gonna be in communication.

We're both still gonna have phones. But there is a sense of like- She's not gonna be like an embedded journalist in North Korea. No, that is not where she's studying. She's just going to college. But there is a sense of, if there's little packets of advice that I can give,

you know what, that's what you need. Now's the time to do it. Literal packets. Advice packets. Here's another folder, honey. Now's the time to do it. Literal packets. Advice packets. Here's another folder, honey. I put this one together last night. A dossier. Well, honestly, I mean, we're talking about it a lot,

but I think a lot of what I'm sharing today, I don't anticipate she's gonna listen to this podcast, but I'm kinda gonna coalesce and run some things off of you. Put it in a packet. We should make a text file and put it in a packet. No, I said Ice and run some things off of you. Put it in a packet. We should make a text file and put it in a packet. No, I said I'm gonna run some things off of you, but what I meant was bounce some things off of you. You can run off of me, I don't care.

Maybe if you have some advice. Well, yeah, maybe. I think we're both bringing. You're gonna be here too, right? We're both bringing equal and maybe, I mean, whose advice is more valuable? That's for you to decide. I'm gonna take credit for all of the advice

that I'm gonna turn around and give to Lily after this. One thing I do wanna say upfront is there was a podcast in the past in which we were talking about something related to college and I think I gave some unprompted and definitely unsolicited advice and got some feedback on Twitter about it and it was enlightening.

Oh, you got feedback on Twitter? Yeah. That happens? Yeah, and I do try to listen. We're just throwing things out into the ether and we do wanna know when we've gone out of bounds. And I think the thing that people said was, I can't remember exactly what the point I was making was, but it was very much from my personal experience

and the way that college happened for me, which isn't representative of everybody's experience. And my parents paid for my college. I didn't have to work when I was going to college. I wasn't going through, it wasn't difficult for me from like an emotional standpoint. Like a lot of people are struggling with all kinds of anxiety and depression

and social anxieties when they go to college. Like I didn't have that. It was like one of the best times of my life, right? And so I come from, my experience is not gonna be representative of everybody's experience. And so just, I guess, well, ultimately what I'm saying is that I understand that now.

And so the things that we're gonna talk about today are not prescriptive. It's not necessarily advice first. It's more, this is what we kind of thought that we're gonna talk about today are not prescriptive. It's not necessarily advice first. It's more, this is what we kind of thought that we learned. And as we think about our kids going off to school, these are some of the principles and some of the things that we'll be telling them that we actually do think is good advice for them.

But you kind of have to take it and filter it through your own personal experience and don't take it as a prescription from a guy who had a pretty privileged experience. And you know what? That's the message. I agree with that. I'm gonna do the same thing.

I think you can apply that disclaimer to every episode of Ear Biscuits, but there are certain points when, I mean, we are saying this is advice, but as I talked a little bit about things, a lot of, I mean, there is this is advice, but as I talked a little bit about things, a lot of, I mean, there is this dance of this is my perspective, try this on for size, but my size doesn't fit you at every turn.

So it's a dialogue and it's not, there's not an absolute in the way I present things. I mean, parenting at this age, parenting an adult in any form is kind of like, what's going on here? But I mean, there's still space for it, but it feels much different and it's malleable and it's more conversational.

And I think that's part of what this Twitter thing is. It's part of the conversation that we have on Ear Biscuits. You know, we don't present things as authority and sometimes when it seems like we do, it's nice to hear, but it's not surprising for us to hear that we're only a representation of our own experience and we're trying to kind of just put it out there within those boundaries.

I think that parenting at this point, I think that as your kid gets older, and this is difficult for a parent, but you go from, if you think about like, let's just say a sports analogy, you go from being the coach to being the spectator, right? There is a moment there where you feel like, hey, things that I say seem to matter.

And the rules that I establish- They have immediate impact. Seem to have immediate impact. And then slowly you're like taking off the softball shorts. You've got other pants. You've got like parent pants. You take off the softball coach shorts and you put on regular pants.

Probably khakis. You take the whistle softball coach shorts and you put on regular pants. Probably khakis. You take the whistle and you give the whistle to the referee or the, you know, and you take the hat off and you sit down in the stands and you just yell a lot. And your kids probably aren't listening to you. You're just embarrassing yourself and the family. I think this is kind of a teaser

for the conversation we'll have after Lily leaves, so we can come back to it. But now let's just unabashedly get into the cold heart advice that everybody should take without question. Well, I do want people to know. Whether you're going into college or not. Before you go, because I mean, I don't want you to miss the opportunity to tell everybody that you've made an appearance on A Hot Dog is a Sandwich,

the Mythical Kitchen podcast. Josh and Nicole have me on, you can listen to it now on their show, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the Mythical Kitchen podcast. Josh and Nicole had me on, you can listen to it now on their show, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, talking about being a picky eater. Josh said at some point, I don't know how much they edit their podcast, so it may be edited out, but what he said to me in the middle of the podcast was,

"'Wow, this isn't going the way I thought it would.'" So that's my teaser. I haven't talked to Josh about it afterwards. I might have to listen now. But yeah, it was apparently not what he expected from the conversation. And I don't know if that's a good thing. Did it get really serious?

I guess so, yeah. Oh really? I think that was it, yeah. Wow. I don't, maybe he would use other terms. You got like therapeutic? No, I might've gotten defensive. Oh, okay. I didn't think I was gonna come across that way

so you'll have to be the judge of it. It was a good conversation. I really enjoyed it. I have no regrets. Okay. I just don't know if they do. I should talk to them about it. Yeah, you should find out.

Hot Dog is a Sandwich, check it out. They do food debates every week when they don't have a guest, which is unusual to have a guest, but it does happen. All right. is unusual to have a guest, but it does happen. All right. I mean, yeah, for our experience, we went to North Carolina State University in the fall of 1996.

Things were different then. We drove, it was like a 45 minute drive from our home. I was roommates with my best friend since first grade. Hey, that's me. And we didn't really know anybody else, but we knew that we were gonna get involved in an organization called Campus Crusade. And I think that, as we've talked about,

that defines a big part of our college experience. Well, at least that organization, as we'll share later. Yeah, that defines a big part of our college experience. Well, at least that organization, as we'll share later. Yeah, that's right. And I had, well, just to set the stage even further, I had a serious girlfriend who was a junior in high school, and I would go home every weekend to see her, and also to get my laundry done

and to pick up all the cans of Mellow Yellow that my mom had bought me. Mellow Yellow was not available in Raleigh. It was, but we had to buy it with your own money. Right. I did have a job on campus. I worked at the genetics lab, like the work study program. I was washing the dishes of the-

The petri dishes? The scientists who were doing some sort of genetic experiments on corn. I then had to clean all the beakers and test tubes. That's a meticulous process if you wanna do it well. You sure they weren't just eating corn and you were cleaning their actual dishes? I think that's- That is possible. I think they were selling you on like,

you're involved in the science here and you're just washing dishes of scientists who like corn. I mean, if they were feeding themselves with pipettes, then I guess that's what was happening. I've seen that happen one kernel at a time. It's a great way to eat corn. It really helps with portion control. We had visited campus once at least.

I think Michael Juby's dad took us to campus our senior year and like we walked around campus. I think Michael Juby's dad took us to campus our senior year and like we walked around campus. Well, we only applied to two schools, Carolina and State. Both were accepted to both. I thought we applied to UNC Asheville to their film school. We didn't actually, no, we didn't actually apply. We were going to, but we got talked out of it.

That was more junior year conversation when I thought I might play basketball there. But no, in the end, we only applied to Carolina and State. And both got accepted in engineering. There was serious consideration of going to Carolina. I mean, the story I tell is I applied to Carolina so that I could get accepted and then say no to reject them. But the reality is I was not like a loyal state fan

versus Carolina. I was actually sort of like growing up a Duke fan. I was a state fan. You were a state fan. And I felt like I couldn't do it. I didn't have a lot of allegiance. But boy, once I dyed my backside in the Wolfpack red, I think that's how you do it. You stick your butt in the blood when you get there. Just kind of dip it, the wolf pack red. I think that's how you do it.

You stick your butt in the blood when you get there. Just kind of dip it, the wolf blood. There was no going back. No wolf died. I hate the blue. The entire pack donated a little bit of blood. So they were a little peakish for a few days, but no wolves were harmed ultimately in the butt dipping of blood.

I remember that we both brought our bikes to campus. We've, it's like, we had never been on a place so large that you were expected to walk across the whole thing. Well, we've been riding our bikes a lot. Just, we always rode our bikes. It was part of our identity. It was part of our brand. It was, we're boys with bikes.

Well, once we got licenses, not so much, but. But I think someone had told us, it's a really big campus and you guys are way over there on East Campus in Symedorm. So, I mean, it's gonna take you a couple of days to get to the other side of campus if you have to walk. Well, to get to the dining room, it did take, I mean, it probably took 20 minutes.

To walk. To just walk straight. Yeah. All the way across campus to the dining hall, which that was fun, you know, having that excursion. Bagged milk. Like seeing who from your dorm you could get together with and all leave at the same time. Oh, we're still waiting for Hugh.

Where's Hugh? He's up there being weird in his dorm room. We're gonna have to leave him. Remember Hugh? Unfortunately, I don't. Must've been not very memorable. Maybe that wasn't his name. He's an interesting guy.

You mean Grant? Grant. Oh. Hugh Grant is an actor. Yeah, Grant is his name, not Hugh. Hugh, where's Hugh? I don't know a Hugh. Maybe he would show up if I knew his name was Grant.

But yeah, we'd ride our bikes all around campus. But the thing now that I superimpose on the experience is just what an opportunity for, I'll call it a fresh start. It's just an opportunity to redefine yourself. If you've ever had one, if you're, I mean, this is it. If you're going off to college and you know no one, or we had to be in cahoots because we knew each other.

If I was gonna change my name or adopt a French accent or start wearing a different type of pants. This is the time. This is the time to do it. The name thing is a big one. A lot of people, this is my opinion, okay? If you're gonna change your name, you don't like your name and you wanna go by your middle name

or you don't like your middle name, you wanna go by your first name, you wanna go by a new nickname. Chaz. This is kind of the last acceptable place to do it. If you wait until you're out of college and like you got a job and then just one day you're like, my name is Mark now.

That's tough to do. I mean, we knew a Chip who changed his name to Peter and that was in middle school. But Chip is a nickname that your dad gives you, Chip off the old block, you know, or maybe you're a Trey if you're a third, which you could have named, you could have been a Trey. You could be a Trey.

Like you could have changed your name to Trey because Trey is when you're not a junior, but a third. And you, they're in an alternate universe. There's a RhettandTrey.com, man. I know that's not our website anymore, but it does redirect to Mythical.com. But it would probably be James and Trey. There's a James and Trey.

Hey, listen, there's a Trey and James. Chaz and James. You could have been Chaz. This is the time to do it. Don't wait until, now if you transfer colleges, maybe at that point. Yeah, that's the reason to transfer. Namesakes. Because you're not happy

with your name or like what type of pants you're known for wearing. Or if you're like, I'm gonna start, you know, I'm gonna get one earring or I'm gonna start painting my nails. Whatever you wanna do, do it. But this is real, and I'm not saying you can't do any of those things later,

but like this is the real time. We- Like show up on campus with like a scarf, you know, one of your eyebrows shaved down the middle and just call me Mark now. We're kind of talking out of two sides of our mouth because when we went to college. I didn't do this by the way.

Well, we did it a little earlier, but I do think we fully asserted ourselves. I mean, we were very much dedicated to our band, the Wax Paper Dogs, in our senior year of high school and throughout that summer before our freshman year, like we had gigs, we had the biggest gigs that we had had. Biggest gigs, man. I mean, we're talking like the Christian indie band circuit

centered around Harnett County. We played on that stage. We played on that stage. Fayetteville, North Carolina. In Benson, in that park in Benson. Yeah. It's probably named after a Confederate soldier. To Mule Days.

Yeah, we played on that stage. But we, I mean, we were bleaching our hair and like you were, I was turning your hair into like a giraffe pattern that looked absolutely amazing. But was mistaken as a soccer ball. We would, how many soccer balls are black and yellow? Some, but I mean, it's a giraffe, come on. I knew it was a giraffe,

but I'm just saying a lot of people thought it was a soccer ball. Red, white, and blue for July it's a giraffe, come on. I knew it was a giraffe, but I'm just saying a lot of people thought it was a soccer ball. Red, white, and blue for July 4th over that, the summer leading into our- Yeah, gotta be patriotic. Freshman year in college. So like we were wearing these, the huge JNCO jeans with the chain wallet and the thrift store shirts,

like the thrift store golf shirts. Yeah. And our hair, my hair was like standing up and bleached. And that even went into my sophomore year because that's when Christy and I met. And like the last time my hair was like big and bleached was when we first met and then it started to tone down over the course of-

Become more professional. Well, we weren't in the band anymore. But like as freshmen, like we had a very assertive looks. You know, I mean, you were tall as all get out and scarily skinny. Right. And with these huge jeans, it just looked, I mean, we're riding these bikes around campus.

I look like Gumby with those jeans on. I mean, I never really thought about, you know, I enjoyed getting attention for the way that I looked, but at the same time, it's maybe hard to believe, at the same time, I do not honestly recall having this awareness that everyone was looking at me as I rode my bike across campus.

But we were some of the more aesthetically notable people on campus. I'm not saying we were cool looking, we were just different looking. But to put that in proper context, it wasn't that difficult in 1996 at NC State University to stand out. To stand out.

You know, it's probably much more difficult today. We stood out more than I thought I did in my own mind, even though I did it in on purpose. I don't know. It's just weird how I can hold those two truths. But so we didn't, I didn't make a switch. We kind of doubled down, I think, with the way that we looked.

So it was just like, I think, hearing friends talk about it later, they were like, "'Wow, these guys are different. "'These guys are weird.'" Maybe a healthier way to talk about it later, they were like, wow, these guys are different. These guys are weird. Maybe a healthier way to think about it is less of take this as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Reinvention for the sake of reinvention is not gonna last, right?

It's gotta be motivated by something. But maybe it's taking a look at what things about you but maybe it's taking a look at what things about you do you wanna leave behind in your former self, right? Into the high school self. You're not bringing that business with you to college. And maybe sometimes something like a name change or an aesthetic change can be symbolic of that. You know, the external stuff is not really that important. That's true, yeah. It can be symbolic of that. You know, the external stuff is not really that important.

But that's true. Yeah, it can be a growth exercise. And it also applies to starting a new job. Yeah, it does. I think most all of this applies. So there's other points. It's like, and if you have a new child, it's like, I'm gonna be a different person to this child.

Call me Mark, son. So I'm trying to think of other opportunities where you can like completely reinvent yourself. You know, if you go on a vacation, you could have a trial run with a new self or a new name. Well, it's like the time we went to Emerald Point Water Park in Greensboro and acted like we were from Liverpool.

We're from Liverpool. Hello ladies. And of course these- You know, where the Beatles are from. The redneck girls that we were hitting on didn't know how bad our Liverpoolian accents were and so they just went with it. Followed us around all day.

We went with it and that was the end of it. And then we got into our little Buies Creek First Baptist van. Yeah, because we were there with our church group. They were like, first of all, why did you- Guys from Liverpool are in the van. Why did you ditch everyone else with the church group? And why when we would see you in different lines

for slides and stuff like that, you were with these two girls and you had a bad British accent and you would never talk to us? Because we even reinvented ourselves for the water park. You should try it too in college. What an asshole move. I think, listen, I stand by that.

Well, yeah, because you're only thinking about you, but we were there with a group and they were our friends. We didn't completely abandon them. I saw them in the lockers. So this is an opportunity. Wherever you're going, you better believe American Express will be right there with you.

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Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card, terms apply. Okay, another thing that I think is important, and this could seem a little bit cliche, so we'll get into some specifics, is the whole idea of making friends.

Now, I think that this is worth saying because especially now, like things have changed and everyone's experience is different and lots of people are commuting to school, living off campus, living at home for a multitude of reasons and so it can be more difficult when you've got some of these other circumstances than if you just, you know,

you drop somebody off at college in another town and they've got to sort of make their own way. It's easier in that scenario. But I think, especially if you are the kind of person that it's not easy for you to make friends and you've got anxiety around expanding your social circle or whatever your particular challenges will be.

I just think this idea of opening yourself up with discretion and wisdom, of course, you don't wanna get involved in the wrong crowd of Marx or anything like that. I was thinking Marxist when you said that. Well, yeah, when you're going to college, you're gonna get involved with some Marxists. That's part of it, man.

But letting yourself be a friend to someone and also letting someone else be a friend to you, it has to be a conscious decision. I agree, I'll lower the bar. Lower the bar. And try to gamify it a little bit. Here's the idea that I've come up with. Collecting acquaintances.

I'm pretty excited about this, so don't poo poo it. I'm talking about making a list of the types of people that you want to know and not necessarily be friends with or commit to, but just know. Just acquaintances. Like, I wanna know a weird person. I wanna know like a really brainy person. I wanna know a foreign exchange student.

What about that? I wanna know an upperclassman. So it's like you make this list of the types of people that you wanna know because- Don't write it down though. People find that list, it'll be awkward. But don't write it on your hand and then check it off on your front of them.

Am I number seven? You know what, I've always wanted to meet like someone majoring in biology who wears suspenders. Okay, I think most of them do. That's not something you wanna say to someone, a biology suspender wearing major, you know? I always wanted to, you were on my list.

Yeah. I mean, but actually, maybe you could say that. Who would you add to your list? Let's start making this list now if we had to go back. I wanna meet a bleach haired bicycle riding strange guy. Well, taking, I do believe that you are serious in this piece of advice. So I'm gonna take it seriously.

It's nice to have a variety of people in your life to be exposed. I mean, it's an opportunity to expose yourself, but not in that way. I wish that we would have taken this. Now, we'll talk a little bit later about another principle that I think is important, which is kind of throwing yourself into a cause

while you're in college, which we definitely did in a very big way. Yeah. But given the nature of the thing that we got involved with, which was Christian campus ministry, we got involved with a lot of people from very similar backgrounds on very similar trajectories as we were, right?

And I think the thing that I regret is not intentionally connecting with people who were different than me. Of course, NC State was different in 1996, but it wasn't that different. There were people from all walks of life, from all socioeconomic backgrounds, from all over the world,

all kinds of interesting perspectives and things that were being exchanged. And we closed ourselves off unintentionally. I just dove right into the southern white conservative Christian heterosexual group, you know what I'm saying? And just went real, real hard at that. And I wish that I could have been like, oh, but my mentality was not, my mentality going into college at the time

was one of other perspectives are not only different, but necessarily wrong. I'm coming to this campus with the truth. I'm bringing the correct worldview to this worldly place. And when you go into a situation, believing that you've got the truth, and it is your job to dispense the truth to the worldly corrupted people

around you, making connections with them becomes a transactional thing where the only reason you make it- Not really conducive to true friendship. You make it, it becomes transactional because I'm only befriending you so that I can share the gospel with you so that I can tell you what the truth is.

And most people aren't receptive to that so you end up just hanging out with all the conservative white people who are receptive to that who believe the same thing. It's a problem. So I wish I hadn't done that, right? Yeah, and all we had to do is make a list of acquaintances. You don't have to make it this weighty thing

where it's like, I have to build meaningful, long lasting friendships with all these different type of people. You know, that sets the bar really high and it's intimidating. But just having one conversation with somebody, you know, in the first couple of weeks on campus, there's this thing that we've talked about

called campus face. Yeah. You just need to know that it's gonna happen if you're on that type of campus where you're walking around and you're seeing the same faces over the course of a year. And at a certain point you realize, I know this person's face,

but I've never met them or talked to them. And it's nice to have a few people that you've at least said something to, like leaned over in class and said like, is this your first time taking chemistry? I just made that up on top of my head because then it's like- If it's chemistry 101, probably.

It's a stupid question. Yeah, come up with something else. That would be my followup. What's your name, Mark? That was just a stupid question. Ever wanted it to be? Just to ask you, just so I could like break the ice. Do you have any pets?

You know, I think another type of person that's on my list, and it would also take the heat off of the criticism we placed on ourselves that you just laid on us and we deserve it, is athletes. Like I would put an athlete on my list, or maybe you'd be, I wanna be friends with a football player and I wanna be friends with a track and field artist. Artist is the correct term.

Or a graffiti artist. That's someone I would like to know in my life now. I think I can make a list of acquaintances now. Yeah, this is pretty much a principle to apply. I think graffiti artist is gonna be in the top five for me. But athletes had a tendency, they lived in this bubble on campus, which we penetrated because we were so far

from the dining hall that they allowed us at the extreme east side of campus to go to the much closer athletic dining hall. Case? Case Dining Hall. Named after our coach Everett Case. Much smaller, it was- Much better food. Much better food.

They served steaks. They had steaks. And it was only athletes except for the people from our, like the three dorms way over there where we were. And so it was like these scrawny kids in like really huge clothes. Well, let me just say, I was mistaken as a member of the basketball team many times. So don't put me into the scrawny kids with big clothes group.

I was not mistaken. They may have thought that you were the manager for the basketball team, but they thought I was on the basketball team and I went with that, okay? The lunch ladies did, but the other athletes knew who was on the basketball team and you weren't one of them. So it was like, we actually got these strange looks

and we stopped going, but I went there enough to know. And we did have a few athlete friends. We had a football player friend. Our roommates, not roommates, but our right next door, we're both on the football team. And then Jackie was a swimmer. Yeah. And they're so isolated.

They're in this bubble. They do nothing but sports. I mean, so it really goes for them too. They need to make a list of like, I need to have a couple of acquaintances who aren't athletic so that I can realize that the world is much broader. But now they can, NCAA athletes can get sponsored.

So now you can like hang out with somebody who's got like a deal with like the local Italian restaurant. You know, and maybe get a free pasta. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime!

Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee Alec Murray. And I'm Leah President. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests. And hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts

and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. I got some stuff on breaking the ice and having conversations. That first week of class, you need to introduce yourself to a stranger in every class in the first week. It's leaning over and saying something just so,

cause you know you're gonna be in class with these people. If it's one, I mean, Kim 101 is example. It could have been a thousand people in that classroom. No, that's not true. It could have been 300 people in that classroom. Now you're getting closer. Okay, that's still a lot of people. Yeah.

But it would have been better if you'd just gone with a thousand. Okay. But you're gonna see all these people and in a large classroom, you're tempted to never talk to anybody unless they force you into groups, which they usually don't.

And so it's like just breaking the ice for a conversation. What it does is even if it's just, hey, my name is Link, I just wanted to introduce myself because I know we're gonna be in class. And like, oh, it starts a conversation. It basic, starting a conversation opens up the door for someone else to more easily talk to you later.

And you typically sit in the same, you don't have to. I don't actually remember this, but for whatever reason, we ended up sitting in the same places in all the classes, no matter how big the rooms were. Creatures of habit. And so you do end up, it's like, oh man, I was sitting next to this person basically all year. And when you make, this is the thing,

you gotta do it in the first week, like you said, because when you wait, like if you initiate a conversation with somebody third week, it's like, whoa, whoa, what? You know? Yeah. Now, if you haven't initiated in the third week, still do it, but just know that it's gonna be harder. You need to do this, it needs to be pretty early, like right out of the gate.

And then, yeah, okay, maybe you have an initial awkward conversation, but next time, they're going to initiate the conversation with you. And if they don't, you'd be like, oh, I'll talk, then you gotta go to the left side, talk to the person on the left side. I mean, there was a time on Good Mythical Morning where we talked about Miss Perfect, as we called her,

ad nauseam, but it's worth bringing up again that like, you know, Jill Wagner, later host of Wipeout and now- She's like a Hallmark specialist. Hallmark movie star. Yeah. You know, we got- What's that? Teen Wolf. Oh yeah, she was on Teen Wolf. She was also on Teen Wolf. Sorry. Yes know, we got. Teen Wolf.

Oh yeah, she was on Teen Wolf. She was also on Teen Wolf. Sorry. Yes, don't wanna sell Jill short. We're fans of the person, not the actress. She was very sweet and came on our show and like endured some awkward exercises for the sake of comedy.

But we could have actually, you know, we were intimidated and we didn't wanna talk to her so we just talked about her. But we could have actually been friends. I mean, it's not like it just had to be, oh, I think you're pretty so now we can't be friends. Well, I was thinking more than friends personally, but. Yeah, or you could have had that.

I wanna move beyond acquaintances. I agree with everything that you're saying, but I think that- Just trying to ease them into it. But what I'm getting at is, and I think we did, again, all that we said before, notwithstanding, if that's the correct use of the word, I try to avoid it- We've given the disclaimer.

Unless it's a legal document. No, I'm saying that we got involved with a particular type of people, but the thing that you left out is, yes, we got involved with a particular type of people, but the thing that you left out is yes, we got involved with Campus Crusade, but we also, we got involved with InterVarsity as well, another Christian campus organization, because they had a Bible study in our dorm

that was a co-ed Bible study. InterVarsity was like living wild, men and women studying the Bible together, what could happen? Oh Lord! Crazy! And so we got involved in that group and ended up like that fall going on a ski trip with that group of people.

And there was like a really, probably our strongest friend group at the time, freshman year. And I just think the idea of being like, hey, we got here a few weeks ago and now we're all getting in a car and going up to the mountains to ski and eat spaghetti together.

And like, these were things that we had not done. Yeah, we had never gone on a trip with our friends overnight. Like we didn't have that type of freedom. Yeah, we just didn't do that. As high school students. So it was cool. It was a real connection. It's fine.

And for reasons, basically, essentially, the only reason is because we decided to kind of go all in with Campus Crusade on our sophomore year, and so that connection with them in that Bible study was severed a little bit, and they just became just like less close friends. That idea of really saying, hey, I'm gonna, yeah, the strategy that you're talking about with acquaintances

is to give yourself the largest- Social network. The largest, you know, number of options for who am I actually gonna be friends with? Yeah. But there is a, again, this is difficult for a lot of people. There's a barrier to be like,

I'm going to actually become your friend. It's gonna be more than a conversation in class. Let's go do something together. Oh, here we are, we're going on a ski trip together. And this has gotta be done with discretion because sometimes you get involved with some weird people, especially the thing that happens a lot of times in freshman year, depending on what kind of school

you go to, a lot of times you've got the freshmen who are there who are just there to party and you can kind of get sucked into that and then when they flunk out, a lot of times they take a lot of people with them. So you gotta use some wisdom. But I think that this idea of really learning what a friendship, and this may not be something

that you've done, maybe you didn't have this type of friendship with somebody in high school, but becoming a part of someone's life so that the idea of going on a trip together or saying, hey, fall break's coming up, we're not going back home. We're all going somewhere together. Like having that option, planting the right kinds of seeds with acquaintances

that become friends, that become deeper friends, that become people that you're gonna know for the rest of your life, I think you gotta go in with that mentality. Especially, that wasn't, that's not a challenge for us. Like we tend to kind of just go all in and get really personal and deep with people very, very quickly, and we've always been that way,

so we make fast friends. But that's kind of an exceptional way to approach it. If that's not a natural instinct, I think you've just got to go in and say, I know my instinct is to isolate and to pull away. And next thing you know, you're getting ready to go back, your sophomore year, and you're like, I don't feel like I know anybody.

Yeah. I don't even know if I want to go back. I mean, Lily had the option to put down a preference for, I mean, they did this whole like personality analysis of like what time do you wake up in the morning? What time do you go to bed? What is your view on alcohol? It's not allowed on campus anyway, but still.

It's not allowed, that's my view. It's a good question. Lots of things like that, you get a sense of the person's sensibility so they can pair you up with roommates that would increase the likelihood of compatibility. You want the person who's gonna sneak in alcohol with you. But you can also request to stay in a dorm room alone.

Like that was an actual option. And also request to stay in a dorm room alone. Like that was an actual option. There's also an option to like have a roommate or an option to have five roommates. Where she's going, yeah, there's like- In a big room. Yeah, one big room, not a suite. Like one big room with two bunk beds and another bed. That seems crazy to me.

I think that's overkill, but I don't know. I mean, that's like, maybe it's cool. That's military bunks. Yeah, it's bunks. But I guess some people would be into that like camp life type situation. But I was glad that Lily didn't, she was tempted to say, as an introvert,

I want to have my own room. But instead, when she was assigned to her certain part of campus, it was like, there's like a large assignment to a certain part of campus and then underneath that, then you have dorm assignments. And she was able to connect with other people who were given that umbrella assignment

to this area of campus on Instagram. Like everybody started following that account to that area of campus. She's gonna be rooming with a biology major who wears suspenders. No, she's rooming with somebody who is also an introvert who was tempted to have to request a room by herself and is also really into the Star Wars animated series.

So, oh, we're like deep. I spent a lot of time doing that. They're both deep in the fandom. So there's a connection there. That's cool, we're like deep. I spent a lot of time doing that. They're both deep in the fandom. So there's a connection there. That's cool, we didn't have those tools. They started talking over Instagram and then over text. And I was like, did you video chat? She was like, not yet, not yet.

But it's like, ultimately they were like, you know what? We know enough about each other to request each other versus just going potluck. Well, and the reason I think that this is, now obviously we room with each other. So it's a little bit different. I wanted a biology major in suspenders, but I got Link. No, we chose each other and that made-

It got weird when you made me talk about biology and wear suspenders, that felt a little exploitative. Especially when it was nothing but suspenders and there was no place to fasten them. There is a place to fasten them, but you gotta be careful. Please erase that mental picture. We didn't have to worry about this

because we knew we were gonna room with each other, but here's why I think that making the decision to have roommates is so important. Even for us, each one of us, now you were an only child. I had one brother, but he was in a different room and we kind of minded our own business. I am of the opinion that developing the life skill of sharing a living space with another adult

is an important thing to develop. Because chances are, whether you're gonna have roommates to help you pay your rent, or you're gonna, you know, get into a relationship where you move in with somebody or you get married, you're probably going to share a living space with somebody later in life and this is the time to learn what that's like. And the thing that is so interesting,

because me and you, as we've gotten older, have gotten more Rhett and more Link than we were when we were freshmen in college. Because we all know that you're really concerned about order and cleanliness and I'm not really. But that wasn't, I don't remember that being like a big point of contention and conversation or like stress in our relationship.

Cause I don't, maybe it was we just didn't, we didn't have enough things in the room to create like chaos. And I actually didn't, we also, it was our living space that opened up into a public space that people could just walk by. So I didn't feel like it was my bedroom that I could just make all dirty.

It was like, oh, we leave our door, that's another thing. We left our door open to our dorm room, which I do recommend. Right. And unless you're wrestling, which we were doing one time and it was a little awkward. We were really in a UFC, long story. Yeah.

Link was wearing nothing but suspenders. I thought the door was cracked. I know, I thought the door was shut, but it was cracked. We left our door open. A little bit. And then you laid on me, because that's your wrestling move. That's my UFC move, that's my submission move.

I mean, I don't remember how we told the story before, but in this version, we're shirtless. Well, we told the story at least 15 times. We're shirtless. In public. I mean, you were doing the I'm dead move. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I looked over your shoulder, not being able to move anything except my head.

Yeah, that's part of the plan. And I looked in the crack of the door and- Grant. It was Grant. Hugh, as we call him. Looking in. And I made eye contact with him. And then he walked away. He accepted it though. There was no, I had no opportunity to give an explanation.

That was one of the cool things about Grant, is there's no judgment. I think he thought he knew what was happening, which to clarify, wasn't happening. It wasn't happening. But he didn't care. I really gotta give it to him. Well, I don't wanna give it to him, but thank you, Grant.

So anyway, we learned a lot. I think we did, I think it prepared us. And I think even subsequent to sharing the dorm room when we moved into an apartment and then we added Greg and then we added Tim, I think that each one of those iterations was about sharing a space. And it's just like, there's a tendency, again,

a lot of folks, I get it, I'm an introvert. You wanna isolate, you wanna withdraw, and when given the option, you will choose the path of least resistance, which is to be alone and have your own shit. But I think that it's, I just, I personally think that it's important. If, now, it may be something that is so,

it would ultimately, putting yourself through that would be unhealthy for you. I can't speak for everybody. But I think for most people, making the decision to learn how to share a living space with another adult is a great thing for personal growth. Yeah, I mean, Christy's first roommate in college, it was a complete nightmare situation.

And then, I mean, she was, if I recall the story correctly, she was like borderline abusive. Yeah. Like she would have these fits and she would like take it out on Christy, like yell at her and it was horrible. And then at a certain point she couldn't,

she was, I think she was having a breakdown and she ultimately couldn't continue her first semester and left. And then- The roommate, not Christy. So then, yeah, and then Christy had her own- If you're in a situation like that, yeah, you gotta- I mean, there's obviously extreme situations.

We're talking about normal, healthy, safe situations. But even a difficult, I mean, but even a difficult roommate, not an abusive roommate, if it's unsafe or abusive on any level, then yeah, you gotta get yourself out of that situation. But a difficult roommate, that could still be something that you need to do. You know, that could be,

because you could learn how to be like, hey, let's have a conversation. Let's communicate about this. Let's communicate through this problem. You learn the ability to solve a problem through communication with someone, that is something that you will take and then apply in every single area of life

as you move forward. Only other thing I got on the dorm front, shower shoes. Yeah, you don't wanna get the fungus. Like I have to believe that we did use shower shoes. Yeah, well, there was like seven things that we were told by someone that we, at orientation or something, then one of those were the shower shoes

and we just did it religiously. Was very committed to that. I had to have been uncomfortable taking a shower next to other people taking a shower. I mean, there were, it was individual stalls. You couldn't see anybody. You could see feet. You could see feet. And then if you were in the last shower stall,

you could see the feet of someone- Taking a dump. taking a poop. And that was just, I don't like that. I don't like showering next to somebody taking a poop. Right. So I would always go to the other far side shower. That was the most frequented one, was the nearest one to the door, away from the poop machine.

I don't think I was ever comfortable with the bathroom situation, but it was good for me to figure that out. Okay, next principle that we would like to explore is the idea of getting involved in something, okay? You talking about clubs, clubbing? Again, I believe, and this may not be true, but it was true for me,

and it's true for most everyone I've ever known, is that your potential to be like idealistic and passionate about a cause peaks between 18 and 22, right? And the adults in your life will try to tamper that down and will try to be like, just control yourself a little bit. I actually think that it's kind of an important formative stage in life to like throw yourself

into something with reckless abandon because the way that your mind is developing and the stage that you're at, you have this just incredible capacity to just go all in on something with some other people who are going all in on something. And you know what? It can't be a blanket statement.

I mean, you're not talking about a cult here. No, I mean, again, all this comes with the idea that you gotta use some discretion. But let's talk about what happened with us. But channeling that drive and acknowledging it and then acting on it is an exciting thing. I mean, I would say, I would say, I preface this with please choose a good cause.

Like, yeah, don't go get involved in something that's bringing bad into the world, get involved in something that's bringing good into the world. But a part of being that age, it's just kind of difficult to know what's good and bad. Because there's a lot of people who, most people believe that they're right.

Most people believe that what they're doing, everybody believes that what they're doing and what they're putting their time and energy into is the best thing for them in the world, right? Yeah. And that's what we thought, again, coming into school as conservative evangelical Christians, we knew we wanted to get involved

with Campus Crusade and boy, did we get involved with Campus Crusade. We've told the story of exactly how involved we got to the point that we ended up working for Campus Crusade after we graduated. But being in the midst of people who were so passionate about something and who were like kind of following this ideology

and this philosophy with reckless abandon to the point that it was kind of becoming, when you, it became, it consumed a lot of your time. I regret the specifics at this point in my life, meaning that the things that that group stood for are not things that I stand for anymore. And I have changed personally, but I feel like for me, it was an important part

of like needing to believe something with a fervor and actually like know what it's like to commit time and make sacrifice to just kind of go all in on something. And maybe it's a personality thing, but for a lot of the people, maybe it's because I happen to be friends with a lot of people who kind of came through a similar situation where they were like all in

to evangelical Christianity and then they came out of it. But from a developmental standpoint, like believing something with fervor and then no longer believing it, because I'm not gonna say the prescription is get really into something and then realize that it was wrong later in life. You can't write somebody's script.

But you know, it might be like, I'm gonna, like the group on campus that is, you know, there's so many different things the group on campus that is, there's so many different things that are, and it could be just be like, I'm really into intramural soccer, right? I mean, that's not a cause, but like throwing yourself into something that has a structure and a group around it.

And I think there's so many causes and so many good causes that you can get involved in. Or interests as well. Yeah, yeah. I do think it's valid. Just because I just think it ends up leading you into some interesting places. You'll find yourself doing, I mean, for us, it was like we found ourselves going to foreign countries

or foreign cities during the summers and going on retreats and spending a lot of time with people, again. It rounds out your experience. We were talking about serious stuff. As a human. Yeah, to commit yourself to something and I like what you said, the sacrifice associated

with prioritizing certain interests, passions or causes is a big part of development. Because you can't do everything. Even if all options are good. I really regret never playing Ultimate Frisbee. Yeah. Seriously, a couple of weeks ago, it was like, it came up in the car

and Christy was like, you know, your dad's great at throwing Frisbee. I don't know where that statement came from. I don't remember what we're talking about. And then I was like, you know what? I've never played ultimate Frisbee though. It's like, really? For someone as talented as a Frisbee thrower as you,

you've never, I was like, yeah, that could have been my thing, you know? Running and throwing. And State had like a intramural program where you could easily play. I thought of Ultimate Frisbee as more of like a Carolina or Duke thing, like a snooty thing. Like I knew that it happened on their campuses.

Like there was a lot of- You thought a lot of things that you never shared with anybody. Ascot wearing Ultimate Frisbee throwing, frat guys. That was my idea of it. That wasn't for me. I played a little intramural soccer. And I think this is definitely personality based

because some people just, some people like me and I will also speak for Link, tend to kind of, it's easy to kind of get- You don't have to. To get super passionate about something and kind of, those tend to be the people who like become really religious at some point in their lives, you know?

And some people's personalities are not wired that way. So it might be like, hey, just, you know, being on the ultimate Frisbee team, I don't need like an ideology to throw myself at. Yeah. I just need a group of friends. But the reason I say a cause beyond just an interest is because of that sacrifice.

Yeah. You know, it's just like something where there's some kind of action involved. Like we are going to do this together. We come together because we're trying to accomplish this thing in the world or this thing on our campus. To me, it's just, I think there's a, again, it's just a developmental thing.

Obviously there's probably good that comes out of it if you're doing something for a good cause. But for me, it's just, it's harder to do that after college. Right. It's very hard to do that after college. It is the time when your schedule lends itself to, again, not everybody, but your schedule lends itself to, it's more flexible than it will be later in life.

One of the things, I don't know if I wanna open this can of worms, because we haven't even talked about classroom and studying, but maybe we keep it short. But I did read a piece of advice that I didn't know if I agreed with because it just seemed thorny. And that was, as a freshman, avoid a serious relationship.

Now, I broke up with my high school girlfriend going into my sophomore year and the period between breakup and meeting Christy, it was like, there was a torturous period for me. It was like, it was a tough, like half a semester or maybe most of a semester. That was the start of my sophomore year. And I went home so much my freshman year.

It's like once we broke up finally at sophomore year, or it was the summer leading up to sophomore year, it's like I had these regrets associated with things that I had hamstrung my freshman year. So that was definitely my experience. And if I had to do it over, if I had a, you know, a crystal ball and I knew that we were gonna break up, yeah, I would have done it before I went off to college.

But, yeah. It's a really tough thing. It's a tough thing. And like, I don't like dictating, when you fall in love, you fall in love. There's not much you can do about it. I mean, if I was in my not worrying about people's feelings and just giving the advice that I truly believe in mode,

which I usually am in and then have to keep myself from being that guy, I would say, if you're going into college and you're dating somebody who's still in high school, you gotta break up with them. As a blanket general statement, knowing that there's all kinds of intricate things, but it's just, this is probably not gonna last

and it's going to drastically impact your college experience. But you're the one who did it, so you need to be the one to talk about it. I'm just, I think the advice I give to, you know, is I'm not giving it here, but maybe, I think the way that I would give this advice is more of like, it's cautionary tales. It's like, know what decision you're making

and the impact that it can have before you start dating somebody a second, a third time, before you start accelerating that relationship, if you're on the precipice of going off to college, then, you know, there's some caution that you can have in making more of a calculated decision instead of just a, I'm just going with the flow of it and I'm just going, the only thing I'm taking to account

are my feelings or my infatuation. You know, it's better when you're, if you're not in a serious relationship and then like over the summer before your freshman year, you can factor in other things and besides just your emotions. Yeah. And maybe curtail it. But you could be in- But if you've been in other things besides just your emotions. Yeah. And maybe curtail it.

But you could be in- But if you've been in a long-term- Maybe it's a long-term- High school relationship. Healthy relationship. Yeah, then that's- Well, no, but I'm saying that even if you're in a long-term healthy relationship, you need to know that the person is not going to be

at your college with you. The reality is that the gravitational pull to that person in another place is going to have a drastic impact on your college experience. Now that may be something you just navigate and deal with and accommodate. I'm not saying- Yeah, because if you really,

if you have a healthy relationship where you care about each other, and now it has to shift to being a long distance relationship because one or both of you are going off to different colleges. Well, if you really care about that person, then you're gonna wanna have a conversation where you establish practices and maybe even boundaries

to allow both of you to live the life separately to the fullest, you know? Yeah, and because you're gonna, you're also in the, like you're in the midst of so much change. Yeah. You know, and I'm not here to shit on high school relationships.

If I could, you know. That's an image. If I could shit right on high school relationships, I would do it, no. Definitely get arrested for that. The advice I would give to high schoolers in relationships is like, hey, just hold off on it being serious as long as you can.

But it's, you know, it's humans. It's so difficult for people to not just basically start treating each other as if they're married to each other in this strict monogamous exclusive relationship. Like that just tends to be what people do even in high school, even though you're changing so quickly that it's probably not advisable,

but who listens to advice, right? But you're just gonna continue to change and your environment is changing so much, especially if you're going away to college. Now, if it's a completely different scenario for like, oh, I'm going to the local school or I'm going to community college, I'm still living at home, we're still in the same place.

Like, the dynamics around your relationships are not gonna change that much. Right. So it's a case by case thing, but strongly consider it. Let's talk about studying, classroom stuff. I mean, it doesn't matter really. Well, it's just like Greg said. Let's just end it.

You know what you know, you don't learn anything. No, I think we've got some good stuff here because this is what I would tell myself if I could go back. All right. I treated my class choice. I'm not gonna talk about study habits that if you- I got a few.

You got some stuff about that. If I could have treated my class choice from thinking from a different place, it was exclusively like, what is going to be easiest? Now, again, I was getting an engineering degree, which I knew would be difficult all on its own, but then there's core classes that you have to take, but then there's the electives.

And I made my choices about my electives based on what I had heard. Like, oh, that professor is really easy or that professor is really nice. But you know the one thing I didn't consider? What I wanted to freaking learn about. Yeah, I took an intro to film class and I was horrible at it

because you had to write papers and I hated that. But it was an enriching experience. It was really eye opening. I was so stupid. I regret not taking that class. I regret not taking that class given what we do now. Yeah. You know, and we were interested in video at the,

that was, you at least made the connection to be like, I'm gonna take this intro to film class because we were like making videos, I guess, is why you were doing it. Yeah. But I wasn't even, I was like, well, I'll figure out how to make videos on my own. Like, and then the one class that I took, and again, I took it for the wrong reasons,

just because somebody said it was easy. I know what you're gonna say. The alternative futures class. Yeah. Which I've talked about multiple times, with crazy professor who wrote the textbook himself, and it was all in single spaced, no diagrams, just text, single space, very few paragraphs to be honest.

And it was a fascinating class about futurism and I'm so into that and I didn't even understand that I was, because I never stopped to ask the question, what are you actually interested in? If I had to put, here's the thing, you'll read this in a lot of like college advice articles, but I do believe that it's true. You know, once you're, if you're thinking about your GPA,

once you get above a 3.5, Who cares? The difference between 3.5 and 3.9 or 4.0, for almost every job that you're gonna get, it doesn't matter, right? And so do well in school, have a good GPA, but think about the holistic experience and what you're learning as an individual,

because you also might find, oh, this elective that I took made me realize that this is what I should be giving my life to. I should change my major. So just think about what you're interested in. Let that drive your class choice. I wish I had done it and I hope that you do it. I can run some of this stuff by you.

See what your take is on it. Cause I think there's some nuance to at least this first one. Don't skip class. Agreed. I think the nuance is like every class is really about understanding the system, like how to, it's like a game. Each class, there's someone in charge, there's a professor who's set up

and they'll give you a syllabus, they'll show you how it works. It's like actually figure out how to beat the game. That's what the syllabus is. This is how much each thing is worth and this is why we're gonna be going through stuff. So you may find that you can skip a class and still beat the game.

But don't start there. But it's a bad idea to start there and it needs to be a last resort and it needs to be more about the class than it is about whatever you're skipping to do. Like your job is to go to class is what I would tell Lily. That's your profession is to go to class and study. But that doesn't take all of your time,

but you need to protect that time and then prioritize all the other things that we've been talking about around that because it shouldn't take everything. Because it's a maturity thing. But yes, a maturity thing. You shouldn't be skipping class so that you can experience something else.

You should be skipping class only if you have reasons related to the class that you don't need to be there or there's extenuating circumstances. So I'm not gonna say that doesn't exist because there's certain classes that suck and maybe you have to take them. And if you can find a way to pass the test in another way,

without cheating, of course, I think there's room to bring some maturity to those decisions. And I'm gonna pair that with go to office hours. 100%. And the reason why you're going is because you're seeing if they offer hidden rewards. Like a lot of professors, first of all,

if there's any opportunity to like make a connection with the professor, get to know them or they know your face and put a name with the face, like this is very important stuff whenever you need to have a conversation in the last half of the semester where you're not doing well and you need to have a conversation.

You're building social capital with your professor is an important thing that may come in very handy when things get tight later on. And they reward people who show up at their office hours and give them the answers. Like sometimes professors will just give you the test, basically, before the test. Say, well, I wouldn't really worry

about that type of problem, but I would worry about this problem. They kinda, they like to give people an edge who come to the office hours. They have office hours for a reason. It's to give people an edge. Yeah, right. All you gotta do is take it, it's so easy.

And you don't have to go every single time. You can get an idea of, again, it's part of the game. This is what this person, this is how they approach office hours. They know my face, they know my name, I accomplished that, but now I'm not gonna go back to this person's office hours because they're actually useless, they're a waste of my time but that's again, it's a maturity thing.

It's and it's about, you know, again, this can get a little, I know there's so many like advice, TikToks these days, but so we don't mean to like, just sound like a couple of dads, but we are a couple of dads and we have lived a little bit of life. And so I think that the, this is kind of what I tell my kids is like,

learning how to position yourself well for things. Like when you enter into a situation where they're, and school is, you know, it gets more complicated, frankly, once you get out of school and it's not, you don't get a grade at your job. It's not like the semester comes up and you're told, it gets a lot more gray. This is the last chance that you have

to sort of have this very specific path that you've been given, like Link said, with the syllabus, and you know exactly what is being asked of you, and you know when you're supposed to show up, and you know what the assignments are. When you're presented with that challenge and that set of challenges, there's also these things where you can position yourself

to succeed and have leverage and have options. When you skip class all semester, like you do in some dreams sometimes, and then have to show up for the exam and you're not prepared and you don't even know the professor's name, you haven't positioned yourself well. And again, some of it can seem like,

oh, I'm just a mouse running in a wheel. This doesn't seem applicable. And maybe it's not, maybe the specific knowledge is not applicable, but learning how to submit yourself to a process and hold yourself accountable and see what it takes to be like, oh, I'm put in this situation. And if I do X, Y, and Z, I get this result.

That's a principle that will last your entire life, right? And if you can figure out how to do it in your early 20s, you'll be able to do it in your early 30s. You'll be able to do it in your early 40s. And that's, you know, I'm not saying my kids listen to me when I say it, but so I'll just throw it out to everybody. I think there was a lack of awareness on my part, not only in college,

but also when I started working at IBM, that like there was another level of thinking that's like you step back and you're like, all right, there's a system here, there's politics involved, there's social interaction involved. It's not just about having the right answers, making all A's and it's not just about the specific tasks, but it's about the entire idea of it.

And I think that's really what you're describing. That's like would have changed my approach to have more of a whatever thousand foot view is the right. It's like you literally are a rat in a maze to use a crude analogy. And a lot of times at that age, you tend to just see the maze right in front of you in the left and right choice.

And you wait until the choice sneaks up on you and then you make it. Whereas you actually have the ability to get out of your body, have an out of body rat experience and get above the maze and see, oh, this is the context of this whole thing and this is how you get to there. Oh, and I can back up even further

and see the table that the maze is on and the room that the maze is in and the reason that this maze even exists. You've gotta elevate your thinking beyond just your immediate circumstances. And all of a sudden you zero back down into that choice. And you're like, oh, this choice becomes much easier and much more motivated because I understand the context

at the highest level. Yeah, I mean, you're talking about having an out-of-body experience. Also wanna say, don't take any substance that somebody gives you, especially if you don't know them. Uh-huh. Oh God, when I started thinking about things like that,

those are the things that I'm like, I'm just passing Lily in the hallway of our house. Don't take any substances. Don't take any substances from anyone that you don't, keep an eye on your drink at all times. It's just like, I'll just pass in the hall and I'll just give her little things like this. Very important. It's like, say yes to invitations,

but always have an exit plan where you are in control of yourself. Don't forget that you're an adult now. So act like an adult. Another, that wasn't mine, that was a piece of advice that I read. And another thing, and maybe this is my last piece of advice that I'm just quoting,

be prepared to be overwhelmed. And they go further and say, seek professional help when you need it. I think, you know, it's a huge transition. And going back to the beginning of this thing, this is such an opportunity for a fresh start, but everything is gonna be new and it will be overwhelming. And making sure that you have proper support structure,

you know that there are people who love you that you can go to or professionals that can help you in certain ways that you might need. Establishing those lifelines are gonna be very critical for anybody making any huge life change. And this is big as any. Yeah, and opening up to people. Again, I had the privilege of not dealing with

being overwhelmed or being super anxious in college, but I know that that is an exception to the rule. And I don't exactly know what I would have done had I had encountered those things, right? I do remember, and I think I've told you the story of riding my bike all the way across campus, past the dining hall at the end of the first week of school. And I was like, I'm gonna go all the way

to the far edge of campus and just see so I can say that I've seen it all. I've seen the boundaries. And it felt like going to the edge of a flat earth. And I got off my bike and it was past the UT dorms. It was kind of looking over, I think there was like where the baseball field was. And I just remember standing there as the sun was setting

and dismounted from my bike and feeling like I just needed to cry because I was like- There was no more campus. Well, it was a physical reflection of, I think my mental and emotional state of like, I am experiencing something and I'm on the edge of it. I'm on the edge of the rest of my life. And it was the first time that I kind of felt alone

and it was scary. And then I got back on my bike and I rode back. Forgot all about it. Never told anybody about it until now, until you're 40. Okay, well, I mean, I think we've covered it. If you listen to this, you're ready for college. The definitive guide to college completed. You've got it.

You've got this. You've got this. Summa cum laude. You know what, I do believe that, I do not believe that we've given you the definitive guide to college, but I do believe that if you're about to go to college, you've got this, believe that, and also just be ready to, like Link said,

be ready to communicate. If you start feeling like things are unraveling or things are getting tough, like know what your resources are gonna be before you go in. But you and the network of people around you, you got this. You got this, I like it. Hashtag Ear Biscuits, let us know what you disagree with.

I'll give you a quick- If Rhett said it. I'll give you a quick rec. Unrelated to anything we talked about, just something I watched. All right, yeah, let's go in a different direction. There's a documentary on Netflix called Prey Away, which is about the ex-gay movement. Oh.

So there's like Exodus International, you know, is the big one. And I think it's mostly about that. I did watch it. I don't mean to sound like I didn't watch it. But essentially it's the, for a long time in the evangelical church, there has been, you know, groups

and especially Exodus International, it was basically designed for people who were, in the words of the evangelicals, struggling with the sin of homosexuality. And it's an incredible story about the people who were involved in that group, even the people who are leading the group, who came to realize the damage

that they were inflicting on so many people and kind of their stories, people who were in it and people who were leading the group who came to realize the damage that they were inflicting on so many people and kind of their stories, people who were in it and people who were leading it. And it's just kind of just really eye-opening stories. And I think, you know, regardless of what your background is and regardless of what you call yourself now, and regardless of your perspective, I think there's a lot to be learned

regardless of your perspective, I think there's a lot to be learned regardless of your position. I think that hearing people's heartfelt stories told in an impactful way is important. So, Pray Away on Netflix. Oh, and one more thing. We are doing our second annual live stream for charity. The charity this time is Save the Children. That is a livestream on GMM.

So the Good Mythical Morning, we're gonna, we have eight hours straight. It's, we have a lot of good things planned. Classic GMM games, special guests, music, lot of other stuff. All to benefit Save the Children. So that is Thursday, September 2nd, noon to 8 p.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific.

So mark your calendars to be there for- And don't skip class to be there. Unless there's a class that you could skip. I mean, let's be serious. I mean, some of them you can. It's for a good cause. Good Mythical Morning Channel, September 2nd. Yes. Eight hour stream.

We will see you then and we'll, you know what? We'll see you next week like we always do.