Modern Wisdom - #913 - Andrew Schulz - Why Does Modern America Feel So Insane?

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Andrew Schulz is an actor, comedian and a podcaster. Having children today’s world can be challenging. Parenthood, especially with fertility struggles, comes with obstacles, but is layered with moments of humour. As a new father, Andrew shares insights on IVF and a fresh take on the chaos of the world as a proud new father. Expect to learn how becoming a father has changed Andrew for the better, what it was like to go though fertility challenges when conceiving, what IVF was like for Andrew and his wife, how Andrew used his struggles with IVF in his new comedy special, Andrews thoughts on the Zelensky-Trump Oval Office meeting, the biggest differences Andrew sees in the UK and US, what Andrew thinks is really going on with the Epstein files, Andrew’s thoughts on Tate’s recent return to America, the conversation between Andrew Huberman, Bryan Johnson and Kim Kardashian and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get a 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom Get a 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What a great day for Netflix. Yeah. Meghan Markle's new lifestyle series drops today. There's two lives out there. Is that it? Wait, did she have another show? They're not giving her more shows. With Love brand new series.

No way. Drops right now. She can't miss bro. You only fail up. You really only fail up. This is crazy. This is crazy. Have we started the pod?

Yeah. Okay. We have. All right. This is fire. I just want to let everybody know that, you know, Chris usually spends a lot of money on sets. And I, and I told them, I was like, save it.

I said, don't rent out a warehouse or something aesthetically pleasing and have a whole team of cameras. I just have five Serbian guys set these things up here, throw some flesh lights in the back and we'll be good. And I think we'll get the same thing across. Okay. You've had a hard day. I shouldn't even bust your balls about this, but we're living.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, did you versus Meghan Markle today? That's it. She's in next. So what's her, what's her thing? What's her like a story? What's the, well, she's, it's a reality show about her.

She's got genitals so potent that America finally managed to take down the United Kingdom, right? Not with war, not with bureaucracy, but with a woman who literally managed to suck the fucking privilege out of Prince Harry using her magical yoni. It is interesting that she's so, so hated, huh? What is that about?

A lot of people dislike her? If you want to search Meghan Markle. Cause we don't like the royal family really. I think we're kind of ambivalent towards them in America. Yeah. You guys think it's kind of like a cricket or something. Yeah. It's like a fucking artifact. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not, I heard you were a bowler. I was. Yeah. I was. For like a pretty good school. Yeah. Yeah. That was the For like a pretty good school. Yeah.

Yeah. That was the only way I got into university. They reduced my entry requirements because they thought I was going to come and play sport. Little did they know that they just had a like adult infant waiting in the wings who was going to completely like. So you stopped playing the second you went. But essentially, I mean, I dropped down to like just drinking, partying and running events.

Yeah. And they did that thing. Why are the Indians so good at that? They're not really athletic people. Well, think about all of the places that go to cricket. Yeah. Places that we colonized Australia, India, Pakistan, Canada, Canada, pretty good at it as well.

So do you give them a thing to like beat you at for fun? Like, is that how you keep them? Yeah, you can have that. Don't rebel. We'll keep the rubies. Don't rebel again. Yeah. You guys play in the field for two days.

I, I've been looking forward to telling you this because I saw you do your show here in Austin about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago. That's right. That's right. And, uh, I went and got a sperm count done. Did you? Because of you. Exclusively because of you.

And how was it? Uh, first one, so I got a whole fucking story for you about this. Please tell me. I love this. I love your journey. What size shoe are you, bro? That's a US 10. Okay, you double digits.

All right. That's a cute size right there. 10, all right. You're a big motherfucker to have a size 10. Yeah, well, look. You're a big guy. I don't know if that's a 10, bro. Oh no, that's a nine.

Actually, I wear a 10, but these are a 9. Hold on, hold on. I gotta... Give me that camera. Stop fucking comparing. You've been here for three minutes and you're like fucking... Got a pair of Doc Martens up against my crocs. Well it's okay. You're gonna tell me your sperm is way better than mine. I'm not. I'm not. So... Wait, do you have shitty sperm too?

Let me fucking... I put a whole thing in me. Okay! I'm sorry. I got distracted by my wife's crocs on you. I got a little intimidated. This is my prophylactic, okay? This is my fucking, this is my protection. Well, if the sperm is bad, you don't even need it, bro. That's true, I can just wipe the croc. That's double protection.

Anyway, so do a maling one. I do a maling sperm thing. You ever seen how that works? So you put it in suspension. Of course, done it all. Done it all. So, when I did my mal in, I was jerking off and in my room, well, my wife was in the other room.

She's like, I'll give you a few minutes to do this. And I was like, okay. And then I was like, can you? And then she's like, I don't know if I, I don't want to get, you know, any interruption or whatever. And I remember I was jerking off in my bed by myself. I'd never jerk off in my bed in my home by myself. And at one point I'm, I'm, I'm jerking off

and I look up and my TV is off. So it's just a reflection. And that is the saddest day of my life. Right there. Knowing that your wife is on the other side of a wall. And watching myself jerk off into like a black screen. The saddest porno ever. Yeah, and like also you think your strokes are way longer

when you're doing it and not being filmed. But I'm not really going that far. It's more of like a, it's like a quicker pump. You think your strokes are way longer when you're doing it and not being filmed, but I'm not really going that far. It's more of like a, it's like a quicker pump. Like any of them come like pantomime. Like you're spazzing. Yes, exactly. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. You're having a seizure. Yeah. Whatever. Small vibration. Exactly. Right.

But like in standup, if I was ever doing it, I'd always be like, yeah, I'm fucking, nah. Not got the length, man. Anyway, mail it in, comes back. Ah, that's the length man. Anyway, mail it in comes back. Ah, that's not so good. I start chat GPT and they're like, well, you have to remember the suspension liquid says, do not shake, right? This isn't a, it's not a fucking core power. You're not supposed to like make sure. Oh, did you?

No, no, no. But the DPD guy that carried it for 24 hours doesn't know to not shake it, right? He chucks it in the back with the Amazon returns and all the rest of the stuff. So anyway, then I go to Austin Urology in Austin and it's way better, but, but still shitty varicoseal. Oh yeah, of course. I got all that. Did you get your surgery?

Uh, no, because, so I had it since I was young. Varicoseal. Yeah. Yeah. So explain what that is to people. They don't know what it is. Varicoseal is, uh, looks So explain what that is to people, so they don't know what it is. Varicoseal is... Looks like someone threw up in your ball sack.

It's an inefficiency of vasculature around the epididymis. So you should just, everybody listening should just compare how both of us talk about the world right there. You described exactly what it was. Somebody threw up in your ball sack. And I said, this is what it looks like.

So your balls are like- Between the two of us. Yeah, yeah, we got it perfect. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, both ends of the IQ belt curve understood what's going on. It means that you're not circulating heat away, actually heats the issue, right?

Exactly, so your balls descend when it's hot and then they ascend when it's cold, right? And this is why you're freezing, your balls get all tight. And they're basically trying to monitor the temperature of the ball sac so that your sperm doesn't die. And what some varicosele is, is that you have some veins a lot of times that should be further up into your, like basically stomach area, like groin area,

and they just fall into your balls. And I had those for a while. I remember a doctor once said, we can do it, but we won't know if it will do anything. He even said this to me. It's funny, I haven't even thought about this. He goes, it might affect your ability to get pregnant or it might not.

And this was when I was in like my twenties. And cause I thought I had ball cancer. That's what I thought it was. Cause you just see this fucking- There's like something. Just imagine like a sack of spaghetti, like in your balls. And I was like, and he's like, yeah like it's might affect your ability to get pregnant and

And I remember thinking like I'll leave it, you know, I mean, I'm in New York and I'm running around yeah, I'm like whatever it is what it is and And yeah, wow years later. I should have thought about that when I was going through the whole thing Okay, so you're very conceal. was your, did they swim? Yeah. Yeah. You had good swim. Morphology, motility, count, like all pretty good. But, uh, yeah.

They weren't warped at all. You didn't have any, uh. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, anyway, all of that went through all of that just because of you. Well, I appreciate that.

I hope everybody goes out there and does it. I think. Save yourself some time. Dude, I think that guys, especially it's so easy to just Come in a cup. Yeah, it's also there's you know, there's plastic and everything like they were finding What is the microplastics are in your balls and like everybody's worried about drinking a pool in spring because the microplastics and like my buddy Told me if a car in a city stops like they just hit their brakes the amount of microplastic that goes into the environment Yeah Like they just hit their brakes the amount of micro plastic that goes into the environment Yeah, like drinking out of plastic shit is the equivalent of like not using a plastic straw to help the ocean

Like 90% of the fuck up in the ocean comes from the was a commercial fishing You've seen this where they just like leave the nets out there. Did you see that doc? Which one? It's a documentary called I'm gonna forget the fucking name. It was like a pun, but they did the wrong pun. I wish we had another person in this room. As a fucking researcher, whatever, we can just get it wrong. We can just keep getting everything wrong. Fuck, no, no, no, it was, are they listening out there?

Do any of you guys know what it is? See something, oh God, it was a sea spheracy. Yes, okay, okay. We don't need you. We don't need you, Jonathan. Go away. Yeah. Um, and it's like, yeah, I don't want to correct people here, but it should have been conspiracy.

Very good. Come to Andrew Schultz for your branding. Guys, you know what I mean? This is what we do over here. Like new tonic. Thank you. Yeah. It makes sense.

You see, I was chastised for drinking new tonic the second I sat down on this podcast, chastise said anytime. Oh, wow. Guys, we, John, we need to clean the tops of the new tonic before we put them on the podcast. Okay. I understand we're in a CIA bunker that USAID has been funding in Pakistan that we're doing this podcast, but I need the top of the new tonic cleaned

Can we get a shot of this? I? Think this is where Chris put his sample The fucking difference in volume dude, oh what you want me the fucking sperm sample thing. Oh, yeah, it's brutal It's like it's so humbling. You know, it's funny is when I first did a when I first did it, it, uh, I joke around in the special, there's one thing I didn't say in the special, but like, uh, first of all, when I first got the results, your ego plays so much. And they're like, it wasn't that good.

What I said to my wife was, um, she was like, yeah, they got the results and they weren't that good. And they were like, and some of them are like morphed, like there's like an issue with not just swimming, but they were like shaped weird. And, uh, I dead serious said to my wife, I was like, well, maybe it was the force that they hit the cup. So fucking car, straight 9 11, like boom, just smacking into that cup. Yes.

Somewhere you get banged up. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But no dude, I hit up Huberman. I was like, what should I do? And him and a bunch of other doctors gave me all this, like, put you in a group chat. Andrew's struggling guys. It's like, dude, I hit up Huberman. I was like, what should I do? And him and a bunch of other doctors gave me all this like, put you in a group chat. Andrew's struggling guys.

It's like, Whoa, Hey Andrew, I just fucking just me and you. Dude, he was really sweet. He was really sweet. Actually. He gave me like a list of things to do. He gave me these pills I got to take. I started taking the pills. He's like, and my, and the doctors I spoke to said the same thing.

They're like, you got to ice your balls every single day. No more sauna, no more baths. No more sauna, no more baths. You got to wear baggy underwear. So you can't wear like the tight ones. Stop smoking, stop drinking. I did that for two months. My sperm got worse. The doctor like literally goes, we've never seen this happen before.

So I was like, what should I do? He is, you might as well just go back to drinking. I was like, all right, fine. That's, that, that. They've obviously become fucking back to drinking. I was like, all right, fine. That's the, they've obviously become accustomed to it. They've got like Stockholm syndrome. Like I'm one of those like professional athletes. It was like better when you could like drink and like do coke. Like the John Daly.

It's coming. That's what my sperm is. My sperm is John Daly. You want him on a fucking case of Bud lights and then you're going to see him do 18 holes. You've never seen anything in your life. Yeah. Uh, dude, I, I genuinely think that it's one of the most like meaningful standups I've ever seen.

Oh, thank you, man. I think it's, I watched it again in the car right here. And, uh, I managed to not cry in the back of the car when the Uber driver was in front of me, but I didn't manage to hold it together when you did it live. Oh, good. So I want to ask, how does it feel getting this personal on stage? You know, presumably one of the most difficult periods. By far the most difficult time of my life.

Just by far. Like, what's it feel like? Cathartic when I started talking about it, because it's very isolating when you go through any like fertility stuff. Because the assumption is it's your wife. We all, and I talk about it in the special, but like that you never assume it could be you at all. So in the beginning, I was like hesitant to talk about it because I didn't want to embarrass

her. And she was like heartbroken by the whole thing. Like she, she, you know, you like, you start thinking of reasons why your ovaries are fucked up. And her ovaries were perfect, but she didn't know. And she would be like, I know it's because I used to watch like movies on my laptop, on my stomach. And like, she like, she starts coming up with all these solutions as to why she did it.

And I like prayed the night before we got our test results. And I was like, if there is a problem, just make it me. That's how confident I was that it was her. Like I was so confident. I was like, oh gosh. Spare fertility that I can take the fucking. I go, do me a favor, God, like just make it me. She can't handle this.

And then Dr. Chelsea, God's like, I gotcha. Yeah. So yeah, it was, but it was nice to talk about because it's so isolating. And then when I found out it was my issue, it was, then I really felt more comfortable sharing because I'm not embarrassing her in any way. You get to own your own issues.

Yeah, and it was the first time in my life I've ever been personal or told stories really on stage. Like I've never been, I always thought my life was boring. I thought that like my opinions on things were more interesting than my actual life. And so I was excited for the challenge of like being personal and being like a storyteller. And yeah, I was like, maybe I can turn this into something. I always try to do something different every special I put out. And so I started reading all these books about like storytelling and like trying to understand like what that is.

And it was really cool to learn, you know. It's really our oldest form of digesting information. Before we had like a notepad or before we had the ability to just like remember statistics or facts, we just told each other stories. There's a reason why like the most important texts are not, hey, this is the information you need to know. They kind of like build it into a story.

Hey, this is why you should have faith because look at this outcome. They don't give you like the statistics of the people that pray every single day and this is how long they live. It doesn't hit us the same way as, hey, he built the boat and he was the one who lived. You know? And yeah, it's interesting, even like in the special,

like there's some joke parts of the special, and then you kind of... I almost like trick you into getting into the story. Mm-hmm. And I can feel a difference when we're in the story, in the way that the audience is invested. It is this innate human instinct. If somebody comes in the room right now, they go,

guys, the craziest shit just happened. We'll give them 15 seconds, even if they're a complete stranger. I don't know what that is. You'd probably be able to figure that out, but like there's something about it. We're like hardwired to be interested in them, interested in stories. Is it even fair to sort of call it like a comedy special when you get to the stage where you have referring to archive footage and sort of call it like a comedy special when you get to the stage where You have referring to archive footage and sort of interacting with shit That's behind you and this entire five-minute blocks where no one's laughing. Yeah. Yeah, it's like there's there's a

The way I looked at is like when I was touring it I didn't tell anybody that it was about this Because I think sometimes what happens when you do like a one-man show You almost like ask the audience to reduce their comedic expectations. Like if someone's like, here's a one-man show, it's gonna be this like thought-provoking thing, and then it will also kind of be funny,

but you're there for the kind of thought-provoking thing. And I'm a standup, I'm not a one-man show. So, I didn't, nobody knew this was what it was about, the entire tour. And I never positioned it in that way. I didn't even talk about it on the pod until I announced the special. So I wanted the highest comedic expectations,

but then I wanted to see if I could almost, like, trick you into listening to this. So the first, like, chunk is just, like, hard-hitting stand-up that is related, and if you, like, go back to it, you're like, oh, okay. And then like, this is like little shit that nobody will pick up. But like even the first joke that I tell is ties into like the last moment with her, not even the Staten Island thing.

Like the first joke I tell about the, and I wonder if anybody would pick this up. Like the first joke was about like, uh, you know, we're pregnant. And then I go, you know, this is what guys always say we're pregnant or whatever. I forget exactly the joke. Um, these guys are like, we're pregnant. It's like, no, she's pregnant. It's like ridiculous to take credit for that. It's like when my wife says we made a lot of money, right.

And then it sets up this idea that like, it's not really we. And then when my wife is in like the toughest moment of her life, she says, it's not your fault. We'll figure it out. We do this together. You don't have problems. We have problems. Exactly.

And it's just, I don't know, for me, it's like this cool little, hey, that part that you thought was completely unrelated to this part, everything is a seed that's going to be harvested later. Can you, what were the books that you thought was completely unrelated to this part. Everything is a seed that's going to be harvested later. Can you, what were the books that you read? William Storr. Um, I think it's just called story. The art of storytelling or the science of storytelling. There's another one, the science of storytelling.

Maybe that's the William Storr one. And then there's a hero of a thousand faces. There's like a bunch of, I bought like cards on Instagram. Anything I could get my hands on, it was called like storytelling tactics and those weren't that great, but it was like anything I could get my hands on about story. I was just like, I just need to understand

what makes it compelling, what grabs attention, what is like a three arc structure, how does a movie written? And I kind of wrote it like a movie without you knowing. And what did you or what have you come to learn about the most important basics when it comes to telling a good story? I think stakes are really important.

Problems are really important. It can't be, it can't be and then it has to be like, so we had to do this. And then it's just, I'm telling you another thing. This problem caused this. But then this happened. Yes. So, so you're not just going here's this series of events. Each event has to be a catalyst for the next one.

This thing pushes and luckily or unluckily, however you look at it, you know, I want to look at it with a positive perspective is like, this story kind of unfolded in a way that was kind of traditional in that story. And it worked out, God bless, not all the time it does. Yeah. There's a good use of omission, which is something I learned from Mr. Ballin. Okay. Who's that? He does a strange, dark and mysterious, so a huge YouTube channel, like 10 million,

15 million person YouTube. My bad, my bad, my bad. It's all, uh, you know, like scary, spooky story shit that people listen to. And, um, one of the things that he taught me on the pod last year was omission is really important. So continuing to set stuff up, but leaving out very key pieces of information would kind of beg the question or get there. And there's things where you could have told a story within 15 seconds.

You can make it interesting for three minutes by not, the payoff is at the very, very end. Yeah, holding that attention. Yeah. Yeah, people want to know, or the people who relate to it. I think that's the, yeah, the coolest thing about it... About the tour... I mean, outside of doing fucking arenas and shit, that's awesome.

It's like what you dream of. Like, what I wrote down on little pieces of paper when I first started comedy, but... Was all these people who had come to the show and they were like going through it. And again, it's really isolating. Your best friends are probably going through IVF and they don't tell you. The women who are going through it and if the issue is theirs, you definitely don't talk about it because fertility is this like really volatile subject for women, right?

Like they're pushing their baby making time back because they want to do these careers that they've been told that they should do, but some of them don't even really want to do it. And there's all these like weird societal expectations that we could get into is I think kind of interesting. But, um, so if it's their fault, they're like just mortified to have to share. And they feel like there's maybe something wrong with them. And, um,

you less of a woman. Yeah. Or less of a man. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, um, and you go through that for a second. I never felt less of a man. 100%. And, and you go through that for a second.

I never felt less of a man. What I thought was, did I do something wrong that I'm being punished for? Like, why should I not? Righteous somehow. Yeah. Why should I not have kids? Like, why does God not want me to have kids? Like, and I'm not like a religious person really, but we started going to church a bit. I'll tell you that.

It felt comic. Let's say what? It felt comic. It felt comic. Yeah. Did I do something to deserve this? Because you're trying to justify it, right? You're like, I'm a good person, I take care of my friends and my family. Like what the fuck?

I work hard, I don't think I've mistreated my body that much. Yeah. So you try to find the justification for it. And then you got to switch that perspective to like, no shit is hard. Life is hard and you could either fold or you could get after it, you know. A quick aside, if you're anything like me, traveling is great, but packing is like staring into the abyss while chewing glass, which is why I've partnered with Nomadic because their backpack is literally the greatest piece of luggage that's ever been invented.

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I use and recommend by going to the link in the description below or heading to nomadic.com slash modern wisdom. That's nomadic.com slash modern wisdom. What's IVF like the process of that? Sorry for them. It's hard for it. Yeah. Like, yeah, I mean, do you like when they're on my wife reacted pretty crazy to the drugs. Like they, I mean, I talk about the special, but they shoot them up with all the hormones

and like, you know, I didn't, we got into like an argument, like a full out argument in a Japanese restaurant. You don't realize how quiet Japanese restaurants are until like, you are full out arguing like elbow to elbow in a small New York city Japanese restaurant. And the only thing that interrupts it is when a new person walks in and somebody says everybody stops and then we're back to fighting as they're slurping udon. It is a, uh, yeah, it's a, yeah, you get into it. You definitely get into it.

But my wife was good. She didn't like resent me for it. And she could have, she could have like, you're the reason why I'm doing this. And in no way did that come out. So a lot of credit there. Yeah. The, that line about you don't have problems. We have problems where a team was sort of taking on this battle together.

It must be very reassuring. I have a friend whose wife went through IVF. Um, she was 42, so she was really toward the end. And I think you can actually do this where you get to kind of, this is the last harvest of eggs that you have. This is a squeezing the very last few drops out of the sort of sponge of fertility and, um, two stories, uh, lovely woman, very smart, very balanced, uh, one day through a grapefruit at him so hard that it bruised his ribs.

When, when she was going through the IVF and then a couple of days later, she opened the front door and there was 30 Amazon boxes on the front porch. She's like, what the fuck is this? And they were all addressed to the house. So it wasn't somebody else's thing. Brings them inside and starts opening them up. And it's like pink lace doilies and, and curtain ties and little coasters and, and bit like knickknacks and stuff.

Like Dolores Umbridge from fucking Harry Potter. Yeah. Yeah. Sweetie, sweetie. So nicey, nicey. And in some hormonal fugue state fever dream thing, she'd just gone on Amazon. And ordered the most, literally. She'd like got wasted on progesterone

and just gone crazy on girly shit. Yeah. What the fuck? Yeah. It is wild. Yeah, she started nesting probably. They do that shit too, once they go deeper into the pregnancy It is wild. Yeah, she started nesting probably. They do that shit too, once they go deeper into the pregnancy.

How so? You just start like buying furniture and you start to like create your home. I think it's biological. Like they say this about women, but that's when it's taken. Curating the space. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It's amazing to see them. Yeah, I don't know. I hope it's something, I think pendulums have to swing obviously. You know, you see it politically and I think you see it culturally. And, um, I hope, yeah, maybe it swings back to the point where we start to value being a mom and like only being a mom as a, uh, societal benefit and not

as somebody who's like taking the easy way out. I think that- Well, someone who's been conned by the patriarchy into being a domestic prostitute somehow. Yeah. Oh, sweetie. What a shame for you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of women who never had kids pushed out that ideology. And it's a, yeah, it's a, yeah, it's a tricky thing. And it is something that's like distinct to places like this, like very, I guess you would say modern places and keep in mind, like my mom worked, my dad worked for my mom, my mom had a dance studio. They taught ballroom dance lessons, but it was my mom's studio and my dad kind

of like eventually came in and ran it. You know, he was a journalist and then he came in and, um, so I'm used to like women working and killing it. and then he came in. And so I'm used to like women working and killing it. And, but there is this thing, like my wife is like very high performing, you know, like she got her MBA and then she like worked for Apple.

She was like running AI projects at Apple. And then she was like, she had to like grapple with this thing where it's like, I don't really wanna do this. This doesn't make me happy. I'm kind of doing it because society wants me to do this. And I wanna prove that I'm, just cause I'm a woman, it doesn't mean that I have to be this domest do this and I want to prove that I'm just because I'm a woman it doesn't mean that I have to be this domesticated

person and I can go out there I can compete with every guy. Still push it. Yeah and then she had to just be like I really want to be a mom that's what my dream in life I've always wanted to be a mom and I would see her when she would bump into people she used to work with on the street and they'd be like so well where you working out and she'd be like she so, where are you working at? And she'd be like, she would say, oh, I'm, yeah, I'm just a mom. And the just would kill me. Yeah, it's like, you would hope that we could set something

up where you're like, I quit, man. You know, my baby was born. I was able to stay home with the baby. Actually, I'm a mom now. Yeah, yeah. I don't work, I'm a mom now. Yeah, I do work. I'm a mom.

And we're lucky enough that we get to do it. We got promoted. Exactly. Yeah. And I, and I think society should value that. And I think more women will choose that. If they can, it's a luxury. It's a privilege. Yes. But I think that, I think probably Texas values that a little bit more. New York is, it's not very family oriented. And I was born and raised there, which is an insane thing, but it's you go to New York to make it, you know? And yeah, I'd like to see that, I'd like to see that switch up a little bit. There's a mimetic sense to this, I think, that you kind of do what you see

the people around you doing. Oh, brother, yeah. I mean, four people got pregnant during this tour. So we got pregnant. We? Yeah. I mean, four people got pregnant during this tour. So we got pregnant. We. Yeah. I'm back on board. Fuck you did catch me. Yeah.

So yes, we got pregnant. Both of my openers got pregnant. Mark. Mark and Derek. Derek's wife is now pregnant and are the person who does our visuals and lighting, Rob, who I think you met Rob and his wife, Cheryl, they got pregnant with their second. Let me fuck, I'm pumping him out. I mean, what does they say that there's some like some biblical term about like

the power of the tongue, but it is the community that you keep and like, and you're seeing this thing happening. So crazy to see four of us, everybody on the tour. The dominoes fell. Isn't that nuts? So yeah, it was just this beautiful, yeah, it was beautiful, beautiful thing to see it happen. Yeah.

I do wonder what can be done to kind of pedestalize motherhood again. I think it will happen naturally. Like I think a lot of times like we see things that we think are like wrong societally, and then we try to like push that, you know, progress or regress, whatever it is. Like speed run it back to. Yeah. And you kind of can't, this, this guy, a little do vol is like a huge mentor of mine comedically.

Like he would always speak about this. I mean, he's just like, like a brilliant philosopher that you wouldn't realize, but he's just, he's so brilliant. And, um, but he would always say this is like, you can't push people into things. They have to learn on their own and then react to the errors of their ways. If it is even an error, but we're reactive, you know?

And it's just like, like even politically, like what's happening right now, it's just reaction. You know, like this election is reaction. It's not, it's not going on podcasts. Everybody's like, oh, he went on you guys and Theo and Rogan. And that's what changed the elections. Like we didn't have zero impact on the election. Zero.

Everybody had already decided. And it might've made them feel more comfortable with their decision. But I think that those decisions are made way before and it's just society reaction. Everybody thinks that like every person that voted for Trump is this like ride or die Trump guy. I think they're actually, the majority of people were rejecting a societal push in a direction that they didn't feel comfortable with.

And I, yeah, I think that's- It's a lot of it is a protest vote. Yeah. Against, it's not, I'm not voting for this thing. I'm voting not for that thing. Yeah, and I think that's... It's a lot of it is a protest vote. Yeah. Against, it's not, I'm not voting for this thing. I'm voting not for that. Yeah. And I think that's what happened with Trump when he lost, right? It was like, oh, this is too chaotic.

I don't want to deal with this shit anymore. Give me the old guy. And it's like, it was a vote against Trump. It was like for Biden. And I think like the administration, you can comment, it doesn't matter. Everybody's like, all right, this is too much. I'm like, I don't, I'm not feeling comfortable with my, with my life right now. Let's try something else. So yeah, I think it was the protest.

Yeah. I think that was one of the reasons that your special again, when I saw it last year and then again now, it was really important to give people something that feels a bit more grounded, real and meaningful and within that control, as opposed to coming out and going, you know, Zelensky Trump was the Amber Heard Johnny Depp of fucking 2025. Which by the way, I think is actually true. Like that reading should have fucking been done behind closed doors. Like why are the, why the press they're watching this bullshit? Well, they didn't think that's what was going to happen. They thought it was going to be a big announcement for a mineral deal. Yeah. And then it didn't go that way. And I

think that, yeah, that's my assumption at least. I don't think Trump would ever put something out there where it could potentially look foolish, right? Like if it can't- Didn't account for the wild card that is JD Vans? Yeah, I don't even think it was JD. I think Zelinsky was just like, he should have just never agreed to it.

He's like, hey, I don't like this deal, so let's not get in front of the cameras and do it. And I liked JD going, why are we litigating this in front of the American public? Like that felt a little subversive and I could see like a negative reaction on it. Like we're here to have a hurrah, let's high five moment. And this turned into not that. So maybe let's not do it here. Yeah.

And JD, JD, you gotta watch out for that motherfucker. Yo, he's going to be around for a while. Yo, it's like, I don More. And JD, JD, you got to watch out for that motherfucker, yo. He's going to be around for a while. Yo, it's like, I don't even, again, I don't react to people based on their political leaning. I don't really care about that. Culture is way more interesting to me. I don't like jumping on a side with these things.

I understand that people who don't know me at all and are like, this guy's some fucking right wing magaloonatic. It's like, yeah, I have empathy for even thinking that. Like you just see headlines, you see some crazy joke I told, like I'm totally fine, I understand the world we live in, right? But for me, like I just kind of look at like people

and ideas and I try to react to what public sentiment is to that. Like I'm always reacting to feeling, I don't really react to a specific event. And I'm not trying to like explain logically the event. Like I'm more interested in like the emotional reaction of things. So like when Mangione shot the dude and then the internet kind of didn't really feel that bad. They were like joking around about it. I'm like, oh, this is like rich people.

You got to pay attention to this because they don't care about y'all anymore. Like any one of y'all could get killed and it would be fine. And if you're the billionaire class, you got to be very aware that your life is not valued by the rest of us. That's a, and I'd imagine very rich people, if we're going to look at this into like in a microcosm, I imagine they, let's just assume, I don't think they're bad by the way, but let's just assume that they want as much money as they possibly can. This is like an unfair assumption, but let's just play with this little thought experiment. You also want comfort. You want as much money as you can get, but you also want comfort, right?

So like if you're living in some third world country and you're like the richest person there, it's not really comfortable because you know, at any point in time, these people in fucking sandals could storm your house and they take out the five security guards and then they kidnap your whole family. It's not comfortable. One of the nice things about America is like being rich is comfortable, right? The first world, like being rich, you can be comfortable. You don't have to worry about like your kid getting kidnapped.

Like fun Canelo Alvarez, I think his brother got kidnapped like the week of his fight once and nobody knew it. And it was just like a normal thing that happens. He's the boss. It's just a Tuesday. It's like getting your flight delayed. Yeah. And he had to like work out the fucking payments like days before the fight.

So this is a normal thing that you have to accept. So in order to make sure your life is comfortable, you have to make sure that the poorest people have enough to eat and get a roof over their head and provide for their family. They, they probably don't need that much more. There's a lot of interesting distraction that goes on in America. There's a lot of things that they can take part in. They're like beautiful and amazing and it will pacify.

But the second they go below, I can't feed myself and they have no hope of upward mobility. They'll kill you. That is an, and then when someone else kills you, they'll laugh about it. And they'll be like, good. So when I saw that I was like, wow, Americans are very disillusioned. I knew that there was a disillusion with like, you know, institutions. I knew that there was issues obviously with the medical, you know, industrial complex or whatever that there was issues, obviously, with the medical, you know, industrial complex or whatever these terms they start building up.

But that right there, that is a point of concern. And if you're the really wealthy, you either got to beef up security or you got to be talking to Donald and you got to be talking to senators and go, we need to do something for these people. Eggs got to be affordable. You're pushing, you're squeezing them right now and you can only squeeze them so far before you get the French revolution. You know, you can't, you can't be like, all right, well they don't got bread. Give them cake or whatever that lady said. Meet fucking eggs.

Yeah. I was really, really surprised by that. As someone who I didn't have any health insurance in the U S until the start of last year, because I didn't have a social security number and I had to pay just to get it set up and blah, blah, blah. And, uh, I didn't know how many medical claims aren't verified or accepted or rejected, I didn't know how long it got pushed back for, how long people have to wait, well, you can't go to that provider, the one that you want, you go to the one that we say, and then you can't do this and it's going to take six months and

then it's so on and so forth. And then you get to the end of this thing and sorry, you're out of pocket. The number one thing that I didn't know about was the, uh, the, the, provider, the one that you want, you go to the one that we say, and then you can't do this, and it's gonna take six months, and so on and so forth. And then you get to the end of this thing and, sorry, you're out of pocket. The number one reason for bankruptcy in America. Is medical. Medical debt. Yeah.

I mean, dude, you see the same reaction to those California fires. The second people started to hear it was like celebs houses. They're like, I'll figure it out. Like they didn't really care. Like Californians were really concerned about it. Outside of California, the sentiment was kind of like, eh, you guys will be all right.

If not outright applause. And you got to pay attention to that culture. Like these are the things that if you're a politician, you really got to listen to. And I feel like, I feel like that's what the Dems and I'm a lifelong, I come from a dance family in New York City. Like, what do you think my political leanings have been my entire life? I grew up in the arts, going to ballet, a dance family in New York City.

Right? So you got to look at this, like Dems got to look at this and they've got to start going, okay, what are we missing here? We're not listening to the people. I think sometimes there can be a little bit of a pretentiousness with, with the Dems, like where they're like, because the party is kind of ruled by these like Ivy League elites that, you know, pat themselves on the back for like caring about the oppressed and the ostracized. And they're so detached from them that they're just like, we know what you guys need,

so we'll do it. And look, look, we're doing it. Right. There's this pat on the back. And I mean, like, you, they literally need to look at Bernie. You like her politics or not, but AOC, like AOC, if you want to look at data, like she, I think, pulled the same as Trump in her district. Now, why is that? It was a polar opposites. I don't know. There's, it wouldn't surprise me if we see the pendulum swinging back.

I can already see some, you know, the anti-Woke stuff that was like super cool for the last eight years, something like that. Yeah, that's over. So woke was over for a little while, but anti-Woke was lagging behind it. Yeah. Right. And now when I see this crazy bathroom, pronoun-y thing online, it just feels like, dude, this was maybe-

How much are eggs, yo? This was maybe interesting and cool when you were speaking truth to power as a rebellious anarchist that was outside of the system. That had- But now you're inside the tent pissing out. Sure, there's one thing about the inside of the tent, but most people aren't even in the tent.

Caring about your bathroom experience is way later after I could afford eggs. Do you know what I mean? Like if I can't afford eggs, I don't care where you go to the bathroom. I don't care what your pronoun is. Like I don't care. Like those things don't matter to me. If you got a house or you're a fucking fourth generation nepo baby from

like this like incredibly wealthy family. Of course your life is so good. I should figure out how I can make all these, you know, ostracized groups comfortable. But somebody that can't afford eggs and is about to default on their loan, forget it, they can't even pay their rent. Owning a home is like a completely different,

they don't care. Like even right now, everybody's like, oh, the economy's tanking, what's going on? Okay, housing prices are gonna come down and economy's tanking. What's going on? Okay. Housing prices are going to come down and then the stock market's going down. Right? Do you think that Trump's supporters have money invested in the stock market? Do you think they own homes? It's the LA fires again.

It's they're just watching rich people lose some of their rich. They don't give a fuck. You know what I'm saying? So you have to be really tuned in to how people are emotionally reacting to this stimulus. And I think that's, to me, the advice that I try to give Dems is make it a class issue and you win every single time. There's a reason why people fuck with Bernie Sanders and AOC for that. It cuts across all of the other groups. Yo, he's saying rich people got a lot of money.

You don't got a lot of money. We need to get you money. The only way to get it to you is about taking from them. Doesn't matter about who you're having sex with. It doesn't matter about the color you skin. Hey, make it a class issue. The reason they don't is cause a lot of them are in bed with these billion dollar corporations, so they can't make it a class issue because the people

paying them are that high class. So they're like, uh, trans, uh, bathrooms. They have to make it about these identity politics issues because they can't target the real fucking issue, which is huge wealth inequality in America. I don't know how to solve it. I'm not smart enough to figure that shit out, but I do know what the problem is and what exists and what resonates with people. And that's AOC.

She like her politics or not. Doesn't fucking matter. Every day she's going, Hey, them rich people are trying to fuck you. Amazon's trying to not pay you. And the people in her neighborhood, the people who are voting for her going, I do feel like she's trying to help me out. And they also feel Trump is trying to help her out. So where is that Venn diagram hitting?

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You did a bunch of shows in the UK. Oh yeah, that was fun. This last tour. Talk to me about what you learned differences, similarities, UK, US. Um, similarities like, oh, you know, it was really interesting to find out like how like culturally distinct the little towns in England are. That's really cool. Like to know that like Liverpool and Manchester are 30

minutes apart, but they're two completely different like ethnic groups. So to me like going to the UK, I think a lot of times we just treat white people as a monolith. And the UK is a perfect example of like why you can't even do that in a tiny little country. And these like little idiosyncrasies of these these two cities that are 30 minutes away from one another. And- Don't sound anything alike, different lifestyles. It's crazy. Different football teams.

Yeah, and it's, so to me that was really exciting, going into these little places and whenever I go into a place, I just really like, I don't know, I'm curious. My dad was a really curious guy and I always wanna learn a little bit about something and try to write some jokes that reflect that. Maybe for a few minutes in the set, they get to feel really seen or kind of recognized

by someone they might not think would do that. But yeah, I love that. Going to Scotland was awesome. My mom's born and raised in Scotland, So doing that show there was really great. But you do the hydro Glasgow. Yeah. Is it the hide, uh, SSE? It looks like a, um, armadillo.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the, yeah. Yeah. And, um, and also just the way that they react to stand up, like, like with the Scotland show, I could have just talked to them for three hours, like they just wanted to be in the room and like telling stories,

like on some bonfire shit. And it was. Like I did. Just happy you're there. You know, it's fucking miles away from everything. It is that. And he came. But there's also like this, I think there's like a cultural sentiment.

It's like, it's, and I think you also get another place in it. There's this like pub culture where we're all hanging and here's this thing and I'm going to share with you and you guys are involved and there's going to be some quip and we're going to have. I also think there's a little catharsis for them because like, it's a little bit more censored out there. So then when I come and I'm saying these jokes that are kind of wild, they get to, they get to have this experience.

It's kind of more similar to their everyday lives. Like there's a public persona you have to put on. And then when you're at the bar with your boys, there's a very different version of you. So now they're in public, but they get that same version. So I think that was cool. Ireland was just great. Yeah, it was awesome, man.

I will say that the Middle East was more aware of American culture though than the UK. That's interesting. Yeah. Why do you think that is? I think that, uh, they're all educated here. And because of that, they're acutely aware of our stuff and also all their TV and stuff comes from here because they're not producing their own. You guys are producing your own shit, right? Like you have all your own TV shows.

You love Island. Like everybody knows these things that you don't really know about our real housewives of Utah or whatever. But in the middle East, they're getting all of our shit because they're not everybody knows these things that you don't really know about our real housewives of fucking Utah or whatever. But in the Middle East, they're getting all of our shit because they're not producing a lot of their own shit yet. Well, you don't know what's going on actually in the Middle East. Exactly. We need to not look into that at all.

Yes. Give me housewives. Yeah. So that was really fun too. Yeah, it was great, man. It was great. James, the other half of Mutonic went to go and I love James, man. James Australia. Yeah. He was like, they just had a baby.

Didn't they? Yep. Yeah. Congrats. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's holding it down.

Uh, he did fucking 15 minutes on Aussie shit. It's like, where the fuck did he get 15 minutes on Aussie shit? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That Aussie run was fun. Usually I'm only in town for a day, but I got to be in Australia for like

a, almost like a couple of weeks. So by the time I got to, I think it was Sydney, I had kind of worked out. Yeah. Like I was like, Ooh, I got a nice little chunk. And that was, uh, yeah, that was, that was really cool. And it's a cool thing to give them. You know, it's, I think a lot of, I guess a lot, I think a lot of connoisseurs can go to wherever and just do their set.

And I have my set, but it's also a nice thing to go to like a complete different country and like tap into little specific things there. Was there any way that you went, how many dates do you do? Oh God, I don't know. So my, I was on tour for two years. I was probably developing it for this whole process, probably three years in the making from like building the hour and then touring it and yeah. Was there any way that sort of sticks out in your mind

as being holy fuck, the reaction sort of emotionally, the... MSG was the craziest. That just felt like the whole city was rooting for me. And which is like the greatest honor. It's like, if there's one thing I identify as a New Yorker, like I'd probably identify that as before having a kid, I identified that as before anything, before being like a white guy.

That is your identity. Yeah, before I'm American, I'm a New Yorker. Like, so just to see the whole city, like excited for me. It was like, one of us did it. Like I don't even know how many New Yorkers have done MSG. You know, and so. Hometown hero. Yeah, it just felt like I did something good for the city.

And I'm so, I just love New York. Like, I'm even annoyed now, there's like this push about, like, the liberal cities are falling apart. It's like, none of you want to live anywhere else. Shut up. Yeah, shut up. Like, I know you moved to Austin. But come on.

You don't want to be here. Like, you know what I mean? It's okay. It's okay. Like, I tell people, like, they were like, Austin's so amazing. I go, okay, stop. Do you want to be here. Like, you know what I mean? It's okay. It's okay. Like I tell people like, we're like Austin's so amazing. I go, okay, stop. Do you want to be a standup comedian? Okay, yeah, move to Austin.

The opportunities for you, like Rogue and Kill Tony, all these things where you see young comics exploding are here, I get it. But like, you're not moving here for this like rich cultural experience. Do you know what I mean? There's like two restaurants. Everybody's, yeah, the food is so good.

It's like, yeah, because you are from Montana. You know what I mean? Like you have a fucking P.F. Chang's and then you move here and you go to Uchi and you're like, oh wow, this is fucking good. Yeah, there's 17 Uchis in a three block radius in New York. Like, why are we even having this conversation? So it's, I think that the coastal cities

need to get back to our elitism a little bit. I think we're a little like sad or like insecure or something like that right now. And it's just like, all right, get over it. But there's still some hangover from COVID, I think. Of course. New York and LA put both of their feet inside of their mouths for a fucking two years straight. Of course, of course. And it was bad and it sucked the way they handled it.

You know what I mean? And it's a very different thing to handle, obviously, when you're living on top of each other and you're all going on subways to get into the dens. Yeah. Just a different problem to solve. Like everybody lives in their own house and you live a mile away from each other. Yeah. You can make sure a little bit less restrictive, you know what I mean? But when you live in an apartment building, you need some rules.

You know what I mean? Like the Puerto Ricans got to turn the music off at 10. That's a rule. That's government overreach. And I'm happy about it. And you don't understand it because you don't have an entire Puerto Rican family above you blasting Bad Bunny at fucking 11 o'clock

while your baby's trying to go to sleep. So there's certain things where you start to appreciate government overreach and where they come from. And then there's some where you're like, okay, this is ridiculous. I can't renovate my home without going to 15 different government agencies to get permission to put a mirror in my bathroom. It gets a little ridiculous.

But in terms of like the great established cities in America, like, like, what are we talking about? Like if you tax rate, the tax rates were the same in Austin as they were in New York, none of y'all would live here. So stop acting like this is this amazing play. It's like, you want to save money. You're millionaires. I get it It's millions of dollars. I get it and none of you are like from New York So you don't have any connection to it, but like to get me to move out of New York Do you know the deal I would have to sign and I would do it if it was the right number

But like it's a tax saving thing. I it's just say you're saving money. That's my thing Like and save the money do it but don't give me the shit about, oh, this city is so amazing. Your plane couldn't even land because of the wind. What is that? Fucking Wizard of Oz? What are we talking about? You know what I mean?

I'm eating a salad today, a tomato flew off the salad, hit me in the chest. And I'm like, this is a city? Like, people choose to live here? You know what I mean? The wind is taking tomatoes off of my plate, right? So let's just have an honest assessment of what's going on here. Will you pay 12% more to not live here?

I will, but I'm from New York and I love it. If you, if you're from another city and you just went to New York to make it, and it looks like there's more opportunities here, then fucking move here. Were you crazy? Why would you not do that? I think you need a very particular type of nervous system to live in New York. You need to be okay with chaos at all times. Like that doesn't seem to be much, and I guess you can be in different areas.

New York is not just one thing where you can go fucking like upstate and whatever. But if you're talking anywhere around Manhattan, it's like you need to be able, you're in cocaine, first line cocaine energy at all times. All times. I mean, yeah, I'm just, I'm used to chaos. Chaos is comforting to me. I get more comfortable the more chaotic is. I asked Sam Morell about this and he said, uh, what was it that you can walk down

the street, bump into somebody and think to yourself, I hope that guy dies. But later that night, you think to yourself, good day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's funny. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. It's a shout out Sam, man. Yeah, that is a, yeah, there is just a unique energy. It's, and I guess you, I think, I think growing up with it obviously makes it much easier to handle.

I think it's probably daunting for people to move there. And that's why I say like, you shouldn't move there unless you want to make it. It doesn't matter what you want to make it in. You want to make it in finance? Okay, do that. You want to make it in, you know, you want to be a doctor, whatever the fuck you want to do, do it.

But like just moving there for comfort is a stupid thing. Yeah. You're going to spend tons of money and you're not going to be comfort. There's no comfort. It's not comfortable. But there is opportunity. It's opportunity. And you'll be the greatest at what you do.

It's like the greatest of what they do come from there. Simple as that. Well, you have to be in order to survive, or else you just get chewed up and- You're not the greatest unless you've lived in New York. Nobody who's the greatest at what they do in America has not spent time in New York. And you can say anything.

Like, I'm just trying to think anything. Like, who? Just, let's say it. Like, whatever. Any comedian, they lived in New York. I'm sorry. They lived in New York. Anyone that is the greatest lived in New York. You gotta pass through. You gotta pick, cause if you wanna be the best, you gotta be with the best and that's where they are.

Any banker, you lived in New York. Any chef, you lived in New York. To write a passage. You gotta. It's not even like, how do we even know you're that good unless you can do it here? Like if you can make it here, you make it anywhere. That's, that's a real statement.

Yeah. The, the energy of New York kind of reminds me of what the news feels like at the moment. It's like unrelenting. And, uh, I was talking to Segura about this, that it's been what, two months now, less than two months Trump's been in office and I've already got such fucking news and like Trump fatigue. I thought we were over this shit. It's so exhausting.

I thought this time around people would be like, okay, whatever. Been there, seen it, done it. But no, it's actually- I'm getting really, really like, I just, I can't, I'm checking out so much and I'm aware this is a position of privilege to not need to care about what politics is impacting your life Like in some ways maybe not needing to listen to the news Once you have kids, bro, you'd none of this you don't care You you care about like big ticket things that could affect them, but your life becomes so small

That's the other thing. It's like people aren't having kids until like later So that's why you get all these people that are like really active on the internet. Cause they're just bored. They have nothing to do. They wanna like feel part of something. They wanna make change. They don't realize it, right? This is like something that's happening internally,

but like everything just feels like the biggest deal. Once you like, you don't see like a mom with three kids at like a protest during the week. Do you know what I mean? Like she's trying to get them to nap. You know what I mean? You never see a mom with mayonnaise on her sweater at some fucking random protest for Tesla.

How have you changed since you've become a dad? Just the outside stuff doesn't matter as much. Like I just care about like how my wife, my daughter, think about me. Like if my wife and my daughter are happy with me, like if my daughter's happy with me, I can even deal with my wife being pissed. Like, and then, you know, everything just gets a little bit smaller. You, you know, it's like, yeah, it's just amazing. It's like the only thing you think about all day,

pretty much, you know? Yeah, just that little, you know, that little girl. And it's just really awesome. And you've become like a real person. I'm not saying you're not a real person, but like, you just, there's a difference. Like once you have a family, like you were invested in the world in a way different way

and you become like a real human being. Like even on stage, the second I mentioned that I have a kid, like my relation to the audience is completely different. I'm not just some asshole with a fucking part in my hair, like talking shit about all these things. Like everything actually impacts me. Just publicly masturbating. Like look at how great I am.

What an asshole. What an asshole to do that. But now that I have a kid and like, anytime I bring up some trans shit or some vaccine shit, it's like, no, I have an actual reason to do that. You know what I mean? Like this impacts- I've got skin in the game.

Beyond just my own sense of being important. Exactly. You know, so it's a beautiful thing. Like I think it brings out like the best version of people. I see the best version of people with their kids. I've got this theory that, uh, because people are having kids later, especially guys that, uh, a lot of the stuff that people invest themselves into the personal development, the self growth, the business, the muscle gain, all of

that stuff, uh, a lot of those projects are surrogate families because you haven't had one yet. Oh, wow. And all of the energy that would be put into protect baby, protect wife, or protect baby, protect husband, like do the thing, homemaking is why I don't have that, but I've still got this sort of sense to be agentic and make something happen in the world, but I don't have this, the thing, I don't have the little thing. I'm going to put it into a business or I'm going to put it into a side project or into my body or into my mindfulness or into my political party or whatever it

might be, which is great. Like, especially where you're putting it into your body. I think that's great. Like I love the longevity stuff. I, you know, I have a, you have a kid, you want to live longer, you know, naturally. Um, yeah, I like, I like that, but I think that you're right because there's no way that like my wife would be like, hey, could you change the kid's diaper? And I'd be like, I have two minutes left in my ice bath. I'm sorry, you know I need my ice bath for the

next two minutes. You'll have to change the diaper. Like that doesn't exist, you know? So you have to manipulate and change your life. Before we continue, if you've been feeling a little bit sluggish or you haven't been performing in the gym or the bedroom the way that you would like, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a massive role in your energy and performance. Being able to see them charted over the course of a year with actionable insights about how to actually improve them gives you a clear path to making your life better. Which is why I partnered with Function because I wanted a smarter, more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year, there are lab tests that monitor over a hundred biomarkers and

their team of expert physicians will analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan. Getting these lab tests done would usually cost thousands, but with Function it's only $500 and right now you can get the exact same blood panels that I get and bypass their waitlist by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. Did you find it, uh, I know some of the more egotistical or like self-centered

concerns that you had and things that you used to sort of worry yourself with dropped away. Was it almost like you sort of cleansed yourself of that because you've got something that is so dependent on you that worrying about have I optimized my ice bath? Have I, where am I at with such and such? It's like all of that fluff gets stripped back because you're just looking after the kid. Yeah, like I would say like any kind of longevity stuff is just so I can play paddle Do you know paddle the sport? Yeah, like so like anything about me

Like I go to like PT and a duel or something is just so I can continue playing this one thing, which is like a beautiful moment of distraction that takes me away from the the lovely anxiety of You know bringing a human being into this world, you know, but yeah, it's, yeah, I, yeah, there's this thing. And also like every single day you feel purposeful. That's the other thing about having a kid that you don't realize is like, uh, you feel proud of yourself by like three. You know, like when you don't have a kid and it's like a weekend and you're like party the night before and you're just like hung over and shit and like you party the night before and then you have a kid and you're like party the night before and you're just like hung over and shit. And like you party the night before and then you have a kid

and you're up and taking care of it. By like noon, you're like, I'm the man. Like I should party some extra life. Yeah, like there isn't this like guilt and shame that you put on yourself. Like, what am I doing with my life? Why am I fucking doing all these? I just endless need to always be creating stuff

in the world because you've already done the creation thing. Yeah, like I probably drink way more now, but I'm looking after my kids. So I'm like, I'm a responsible human being. Like this is- Or a functioning alcoholic. Yeah, whatever it is, you know, but yeah, no, it's cool, man.

Do you want them? I can't wait to be a dad. Absolutely can't wait to be a dad. What's your process with that? Like how, is it hard to meet people? Like you're obviously a successful, handsome guy, charming, smart. Like do you find it difficult to connect with the women? It's weird dating when you're a little bit older, like I'm 37.

I was 37 last week. And that's an interesting one because the longer that you wait, the kind of high that your bar gets and it's this sort of sunk cost fallacy thing where you think, well, I've waited this long. What's the point? You know, things are going to settle. Yeah. The things have to become more perfect, which, you know, in itself is a difficult

circle to square because you also know, well, fucking clock's ticking, dude. Well, hurry up. Think about that. So the older you get, the higher your bar is and the older a woman gets. The lower her bars. Cause she's running out of time. So it puts you guys in very difficult situations. Right.

And there's this crazy societal expectation, like women's moms really put on women, like get, you got to get married. Like the second they're fucking 11, they're like, you got to get married. You got to have kids. You got to get this pressure, to get married. Like the second they're fucking 11, they're like, you got to get married. You got to have kids. You got to go to this pressure, pressure, pressure. So I think women are. I think women's greatest fear is being alone, not being with the wrong person. And our greatest fear is being with the wrong person.

Like I didn't meet my wife until late for the same reason. I was like, I don't want to settle. I don't want to be with somebody. You know, like I figured out more or less how to like date and like, I figured out like, kind of like what that person wanted. And I can kind of like be that version of that, but it didn't make me happy, right? Which I imagine you've probably gone through in your life.

Like, you know, you probably had tons of different girls. You're like, oh, this girl needs a listener. Oh, this girl needs this. And, but you're not being you. So you're not going to connect with that person. But the tricky thing is that women, because they're so afraid of being alone, I think a lot of them, they end up being with guys they don't really like. And that's what I think this like ick red flag culture is.

If you heard of women all on the internet talking about their icks and the red flags. When you're with someone you don't like, everything about them is irritating. So you don't actually have the ick. There aren't actually red flags. Oh, I don't like a guy when it's raining, he raises his shoulders. I don't like a guy who like yawns without his can in his mouth.

Like these stupid things that really would never impact how a girl feels about you. You just hate the guy you're with, but you're terrified of being alone. Because if you liked a guy, that would be cute. Everything we do is cute. The amount of, like, my wife watches me pick my nose, ball up the booger, and just flick it out of the playpen,

because I'm playing with my daughter, and she's just like, that was disgusting, and it's fine. It doesn't impact how much she loves me at all. I'm farting left and right. I'm doing all these disgusting red flag ick things, but she loves me. So it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? And I think that, I think that, yeah, like I've, I never understood

this like ick red flag culture. I was like, oh, women's just like annoyed with us. What the fuck is going on? No, they don't want to be alone. And they're with guys they do not fucking like. It's a big, it's a huge issue. Well, there's a problem. Someone gave me this piece of advice not long ago.

Uh, as I, they said, do you want to be a dad? And I said, yes, I can't wait to be a dad. I sort of wag my, waggle their finger in my face. And they said, make sure that you fall in love with the girl, not the institution. And the point being, if you want to be a dad, or if you want to be a mom, a lot. Great advice. You can, what was it they said, uh, with rose colored glasses on red flags don't look red.

Like if you just want the thing. I want to be a dad. I want to be a mom. I want to be married. I want to be not alone. Whatever the thing that you want, you're able to, eh, not so big of a deal. And it's like, you're not getting married to marriage. You're getting married to a person.

Yep. You're not having a baby with the process of childhood. You're having a baby with another human. That's a great piece of advice, dude. That is like, yeah, that's magnificent. And it's so true. You gotta find that connection with that person where even if you didn't have kids, you would be happy.

You just love that person. And then kids are these blessings because that irritation will build. I'm sure you've dated people that like, you thought you liked in the beginning and then eventually it wasn't there. And it's just like every little thing drove you fucking crazy.

And that is, we hopefully at that point, we start going, I don't wanna be with you. Or we just treat him shitty, which is the worst version of it. Hoping that they'll like, it's the equivalent of you can't fire me, I quit, but it's trying to get the other person to realize that I'm not going to fire you. I'm going to make you quit. I'm going to be a coward.

That's yeah. I had a, I had a conversation with a friend a little while ago and, um, he had this sentence where he said, uh, all my life I was worried that I was a coward. And then he had a bunch of a sequence of really, really tough events happen to him. He said, you know, I always like surrounded myself with hard men. I always thought I was a bit of a hard man. And, you know, I did martial arts and, you know, I was like around people that were like special forces and stuff like that.

It's like, but I never really, really tested myself. And then one day, like the world came and it wasn't discomfort that I'd chosen. It was discomfort that was forced on me by the world, maybe like having a fertility or whatever. And he said, all my life I'd heard my better self clearing his throat in the room next door. And one day this thing happened and he was like, I wonder if he's going to kick the door in and fucking stop coughing and come through.

He was like, he wonder if he's going to kick the door in and fucking stop coughing and come through. He was like, he did. That's good. And, but courage. Yeah. I think you can pretty much like life, your, your life is kind of restricted by the amount of courage that you're prepared to deploy. And I mean, how many, how long have everybody listening to this stayed in relationships because they were terrified of breaking somebody else's heart that was dependent on them or losing the love of somebody that they felt it was unrequited and they needed the validation of and you're like,

it's noble and understandable and sensitive and largely driven by fear and cowardice. And if you had like, you know, a cool question to ask yourself would be, what would I do if I had three times the bravery? What would I do? Yeah. What decisions would I make if I was was three times as brave as I am? Yeah. Well, yeah, a lot of times we think that it's not a lack of bravery, but it's too much compassion. Breaking up with this person would be too hurtful for them.

We don't realize that being with them when you don't like them is actually way more hurtful. And we don't even realize it's this bravery deficit. We're like, ah, I'm too calm, too nice. I'm just too nice. I don't want to hurt her. You're too scared. Yeah, you're being a pussy. And we've all been pussies.

I've been pussy tons of fucking times. And then we're like retrofit justifications. We're like, no, man, she's about being loyal and committing to something. It's like, yeah, you do that when you find the right girl. When you find the right girl, you commit to it and you work everything out. And that is another thing too.

It's like, marriages, you look at them in movies and shit like that and you think it's just, oh, this is just gonna be super sweet and perfect and every single thing. No, no, it's fucking hard. When you do it with the right person, you're willing to work through all those difficult times. And then you get confidence in your ability to work through difficult shit. You two against the get confidence in your ability to work through difficult shit.

You two against the hard, not you two against each other. Yeah. What changes in a relationship or sort of what have you noticed about stuff that's interesting to navigate once there's a third participant? So like there's this part of you that you want your kids to know how loved they are. Like I don't ever want my daughter to even understand what it is to be like adored because it's so normal. You know what I mean? Like I, like my, my friend, uh, so my friend, Jamil, like he reminded me this

recently, like my dad was just the best. He was just the fuck he was at every single basketball game, whatever. And he goes, and he was like, it was almost like a surrogate dad to a lot of my friends, you know, like he was just the fuck. He was at every single basketball game, whatever. And he goes, and he was like, it was almost like a surrogate dad to a lot of my friends. You know, like he was just like- So much dad energy that he was spilling over around the cup. Loved it. He just loved it.

Like he was just, whatever they needed. Like I remember one of my boys got into like trouble on some gang shit and like my dad, I was like, yeah, I think he can't like leave his house. Like they're like, there's this gang that's kind of like after him or whatever. And I was like, yeah, we gotta help him out. And my dad was like, well, yeah, why don't we just go get the car and go pick him up?

And I was like, are you sure you feel comfortable doing this? He's like, yeah. So we like drive a Toyota Sienna minivan into the fucking heart of the Bronx. And we're like picking up my boy so he doesn't get murdered by this gang. And it's just the type of like, he didn't even think twice about it. Like, it's just kind of who he is. And, um, so you, there's all this focus on like, okay, I want her to feel loved and want her to feel supported.

I want, anytime she shows excitement around me, I want that to be met. I don't want her to feel like ignored. And I noticed, uh, so I'll like call my wife to FaceTime, like, and around the baby's naps. So if I'm at work or something like that, like I'm just, I know when the baby's up, boom, the call. And I called my wife, I think it was today, and she was in the car coming back

from a class or something. And then she's like, oh, I know you're calling to say hi to Shiloh, but I'm not home just yet. And I was like, oh,, I got a call to say hi to you more too. Like it's very easy to just put all the focus on your daughter and they cannot resent you for that

because they love that you're so committed to this child. You're being a good dad. Yes, but. Not necessarily a great husband. You gotta also, I realized I gotta also be making those calls when it's just her and just talking to her and putting that time in.

Is it challenging to keep the romance alive? I mean, yeah. I mean, like, of course, you know, it's really the sleep that is the challenge over everything. It's, once you have a baby, there's no real sleeping, especially if your wife breastfeeds, like they're up every two hours, even in the night. Like, so there's no, like you're like scheduling fucks. You

know, like you're like, okay, we got to do it around this window and this is the window and like, maybe sometimes you guys go out and you let it rip, but you know you're gonna be up every morning 645. We're up every morning 645. Whether we want to sleep in or not, it's 645. That baby's waking up around like 630, they kind of look up in the sky for a little bit and then they're like, alright It's time for some fucking titty and then it's go time. So It's it's more just about like creating those moments and like scheduling them but not really making it feel Scheduled if you will, you know, yeah why imagine

I've heard you talk about this before the role of thoughtfulness. Yeah relationships Yeah I've heard you talk about this before, the role of thoughtfulness, relationships, and how difficult it must be to be thoughtful because all of your fucking attention and energy is just being put into this tiny thing that's totally, this blob, right? It's a big blob of stuff, you and her. And what thoughtfulness have you got?

Trying to keep it alive. Yeah, yeah, it is, but you gotta do it. You gotta do it. Cause the better you guys are, the better that baby is, you know, having a shot at life. You know, fractured families, they fuck kids up. They fuck kids up. I listened to the first half of Andrew Tate on Patrick bet David's podcast. Yeah.

Well, how was that? Uh, how do you feel about Tate coming back? Interesting one, dude. Uh, I mean, he's currently being subpoenaed, investigated something by the state of Florida, just opened up some warrant type thing for him. Um, I think it's a bit of a brave call from the U S to do that at like this time. To be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on over when we're talking about worries about trafficking and migrant,

the UK has got lots of concerns about grooming. You can say what you want about the validity of the case around tape. Yeah. Optics are optics. So yeah, you're, you're speaking on something that I really like, which is, there are facts and then there is, uh, emotional reactivity. Optics is what you're talking about. And people are emotional.

They just react emotionally to whatever they see. And it's important to meet them there. Do you know what I mean? Like there's going to be an idea of who you are from people who don't really know you casuals on the internet that might see a single clip and that idea that they have, maybe it's wrong, but just going, Oh, you're wrong. And writing it off. Isn't how you're going to address a bigger problem. This is where Ben Shapiro gets it.

100% backward. He says facts don't care about your feelings how you're gonna address a bigger problem. This is where Ben Shapiro gets it 100% backward. He says facts don't care about your feelings. Just this? Yeah. This one in particular. Yeah, it's like- Feelings do not give a single fuck about the fact. But he's like an autistic robot.

Like he doesn't understand, he caught a great grift off like the Christians. And now that he no longer has societal utility, he's like really struggling. Like societal utility is oftentimes what can make people like really powerful. And he rose to fame at a time where like conservatives felt like really scrutinized just for their beliefs. And a lot of them just didn't have the arguments to defend their positions, right?

They grew up in cities and states where it was normal to be a conservative. And then all of a sudden, they're in these other places where like, can I even share this? Can I say I'm a conservative? It was like was normal to be a conservative. And then all of a sudden, they're in these other places where like, can I even share this? Can I say I'm a conservative? It was like really radioactive to be conservative. Then all of a sudden, he's like this like really obviously smart Harvard educated arguer. He's like a really good arguer in developing ideas and bits

and putting together these arguments. They're like foolproof. And he handed them off to those people. But now, being conservative is more popular. Super mainstream. Than being democratic. This was the point I was saying earlier on about, you know, you can speak truth to power and be that sort of, it was almost like, like rock star-y, like kind of like rebellious, anarchistic type thing. It's like, it's just the kind of position that most people hold now around a lot of it.

Yeah, we probably should be careful about what we're doing to teenagers. Yeah. Hormones. We should probably be a little bit concerned about. So now that it's the norm, he no longer has the same societal utility. That's interesting. And then Israel-Palestine happens. And now the base doesn't agree with him.

And now they're like, well, we don't need you for the arguments. It's like, no, I want to be conservative now. It's like, if anything, Democrats need the arguments. Right. So now they're like, and anything, Democrats need the arguments. Right? So now they're like, and we don't agree with you on the Israel-Palestine thing? Man, the fuck out of here. But yeah, I mean, when you think about the-

So he caught a good grift, but you know, the grifts only last for so long. Would you make it the Tate thing from coming back? I mean, he's an American citizen. You have to protect American citizens. And just because he hasn't been convicted of anything. So on, he hasn't been convicted of anything. He's an American citizen, you have to protect American citizens. And just because he hasn't been convicted of anything. So on, he hasn't been convicted of anything. He's an American citizen.

We have to protect our citizens and you're allowed to say whatever you want. As an American, this is free speech. We believe in all those things. So like, there's no question whether you have to let an American back. Of course you have to let an American back. Now the emotional reaction is you were talking crazy shit about America. And then when you get clipped over there in Romania Now you're coming back to daddy. So I need I need you to acknowledge who the goat is

I don't need you talking about the West this and America's dad and the West is falling Well, why are you coming back to the fall? Like when it got rough and they were locking you and your brother up probably wrongfully I don't know He's not convicted like if there was enough to convict they would have convicted right but you came running back So I need you to at least acknowledge why you came running back. You've probably heard me talk about element before. And that is frankly because I'm dependent on it. And for the last three years, I've started every morning with element in a cold glass of water. It's a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. Each

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slash modern wisdom that's drinklmnt.com slash Modern wisdom there's definitely an amount of irony around saying because it's the best. I love Romania, I love Romania. Why did you move to Romania when you first moved to Romania? I love Romania because it's corrupt. You can pay the police off. The laws basically don't exist and you can get anything done you want. And then five years later, like three seconds later, it being like this country is so corrupt

and the police don't really seem to care. It's like chickens roosting. That's the thing. I think that's the thing right there. Like obviously he's a phenomenal communicator and he really, he understands culture. He understands like trends that are popping up. I'm not talking about like a trend, like wearing fucking clothing. I'm talking about like ideological and emotional trends.

Like what people have, he can fucking tap in. There's no question. But there is a part of me that is like, you talk crazy shit about America and now you're coming back because you got in trouble. I need to know like everybody, a lot of people gave Brittany Griner shit when she got arrested in Russia, right? They gave her a lot of shit for like kneeling for the anthem and then asking America to

help her to get back. Where's the Brittany Griner treatment? Where's the Brittany, Where's the Brittany Griner treatment? Where's the Brittany, where's this Brittany Griner energy? Now people are emotional, so it doesn't really matter. They're like, I can look past that because he's satisfying these other concerns that I have emotionally and he's voicing in the most eloquent way. And he really makes me feel seen and heard. So they'll look past this other shit. But to me, I'm looking at this Brittany Griner.

Now I want Brittany back. You know, should she have had the weed in her fucking thing? No, don't bring fucking a weed pen into Russia. You know that they might try to use this as for some political leverage in this situation that we're in. It's annoying. You shouldn't have fucking done it. And you put America in a position where we got to give you back the, the

Nicolas Cage guy from the movie, right? We, you and we to give you Nicolas Cage back to get Britney Greiner, right? But at the end of the day, she's an American, and if American gets clipped, we're going to ride for our boys. Our girls. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's going to be interesting to see what happens, man. Holy fuck. Like, I just can't... This goes back to what I said before about the pace of the news.

Like, every single hour... Remember when Trump got shot in the ear? Yeah. You online, were you like, I mean, everybody kind of got dragged online when it happened. I remember I was in Montana. I was in Bozeman, Montana. Of course. Saturday dinner, you know, every single person is just like.

Glued. Fog of war. No one has any. And I remember thinking, this is the quickest I've ever seen news move. Yeah. And now if you're offline for four hours, you come back on and you're like, holy, what that happened? What in how long?

Dude, I took a nap today. I woke up and he's doing the press conference for like the Doge cuts in front of like the whole Senate and there's like, they're kicking out hecklers. I thought it was like one of my shows. It was like, I think Al Green got like escorted out of the Senate. It was amazing. I mean, and then the reactions on the internet was, yeah, it's a lot. But that's the thing that, this is the tricky thing about like the

administration right now, like, there being, understanding like the mechanism of politics, like being a good politician, as much as we go, oh, hey, politicians, it is valuable. In that like, you want to be able to disseminate information that Americans already support in a way where they feel comfortable continuing to support it. I don't know if there's any American out there that's like, I like waste. I like corruption. I like fraud.

All of us unanimously are like, yeah, I think the government's got some waste, corruption and fraud and we should get that out of there. Those should be a bipartisan victory for America. And I think that the way that's kind of being positioned and there's like a little antagonism in it and there's not maybe an Elon's on this too. He's like, he's responsible for this too. It's a little bit antagonistic. Yes, no need to twist the knife. It's like, you already got everybody on board. And then when you like fire some people and have to rehire them, it's okay to be

like, Hey, we made a mistake, we're humans, we're going to make mistakes and we're going to do our best. Just sort of sticking it in the nose of everybody else. Like how useless this is. Yeah. I had this, uh, I had this insight a couple of years ago that, um, if you really care about changing people's minds, you'll dial back the sort of aggression of your argument because very few people are patronized or shamed or passive, aggressed into changing their mind.

So this sort of soft signal of effectiveness, dude, if you really, really care about changing people's minds, you'll actually go more gently, not more aggressively. Yeah. And I don't think it's a really astute point to say that I don't think that we're seeing that. And what did you expect? Like you positioned yourself as the adversary to this other side and then

said they should be on board. They should take me like whipping them and scorning them and laughing at them and mocking them and they should still come begging back to daddy. Yeah, it's, it is, it is tricky also because obviously the opposition is going to campaign against whatever the decision is. Because I think Democrats are still like, they don't, they still think that if you just paint Trump and Elon, all these people as bad, that that will allow them to win. When you don't even have to paint them as bad.

Like you just need to give us hope and abundance. Like all Americans want is abundance. Americans are kind of simple. I'll be honest with you. Like we're very simple people. What is more? You know, like buffets are popular here. That's more.

What is the biggest steak? More. Like cheesecake factory. Just more, give me more. Like, so when Trump goes up and he's like, and also you could just say shit without doing it. And we like it. Like when Trump goes at Greenland,

I think that might be ours. We go, that seems more. It seems like a lot more. I like it. Like when Trump goes, at Greenland I think that might be ours. We go, that seems more. It seems like a lot more. I like it. If that never happens, it's fine. What Democrats need to do is, in my opinion, just start saying the things that you wanna do that give me abundance and be radical about it.

Stop being concerned about like pissing every little group off. Be radical. I need an outsider Democrat to go eggs are a dollar. We're capping it, we're subsidizing it like we subsidize corn. If all these corn and dairy farmers get their money, why can't the egg farmers get theirs?

It's a dollar for eggs. That's what it is. When we get in, it's a dollar for eggs. I guarantee you saying, hey, we're taking that land over there. We're building 10,000 affordable housing units and we're gonna drop the price of rent by 30% in this city. And then saying, I don't give a fuck

about what these fancy developers think they're gonna do with it. It's gonna be affordable housing, we're gonna drop. Say some shit, be risky. We liked Bernie because he was like, taking shots at all these billionaire corporations and like, who the fuck is this guy? Like, I need you to be brave,

but understand who the bad guy is. They're looking at Trump and Elon and going, those guys are the bad guys. No, the majority of the country voted for them. They don't see them as bad yet. You could try to make them radioactive, but they don't really see them as bad. You know, who they do see as bad is the people stopping them from getting eggs and the people stopping them from paying rent. Bad. I don't know.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, I feel like this is like, if you actually listen to people, it's not really that difficult to- It's such an addiction to purity though, inside of the left, right? Like everybody's done the why I left the left thing, right? Sort of classic Dave Rubin arc from disaffected leftists,

that our person that's on the right, because they, I didn't leave the left, they went away from it whatever Yeah version of that you want to do Has anybody can you think of anybody that's gone in the opposite direction? That's gone from like right of center and then being I am now a spokesperson for the left Wow, that's a great question I'm sure there are people they're probably up, but they don't come to mind in the same way, right?

You don't have the same like RFK Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Rogan You know, and those are that's just like the fucking biggest names in the world of this. Yeah Wow, that's a really good point and it's because there is such a Level of purity that you need to reach in order to be accepted by the left The right will take you flawed as you are this sort of political leper coming in with like a foot missing and fucking your ears hanging off.

And they're like, you kind of all right. I mean, we don't fully agree with you on that thing, but we'll take it. Fuck, you know the perfect example of this, remember when Nicki Minaj for like two weeks during COVID was anti-vax? And the right was like, come here, fucking Anaconda, like bring the fucking BBL our way.

And they were like, she's a fucking darling. We'll take her. So, but if your coalition is held together, firstly, by finding people who do not have sufficiently pure opinions, pointing out them as scapegoats and saying that they're part of the out group, that's like, you know, fucking seppuku or harry carrier, whatever it's called. That's like the most self-immolation. Because you're just finding an increasingly small number of people that meet an increasingly high bar of purity.

Yeah. That's, you know, like all you're doing is shrinking your fucking coalition over and over until it's like one person left. Yeah. And the right doesn't have that problem. Well, because they weren't in power. When you're in power, you start to become very specific about... Brunst, your own-

Yeah. It's just like, like a country club is hard to get into. Those are the people in power. Interesting. So you're saying that sort of the elitism, the exclusionary thing is, it's enabled by being in power. It's queers for Palestine. You know, it's like anybody who's down to help, we're going to take.

Because we need it. We need it. So you take down to help, we're going to take. Because we need it. We need it. So you take anybody's help. You don't fucking care. If you're struggling, whoever's going to help you. And then when you're in power, you get very specific about the people who want to help you. Well, maybe you can apply.

Yeah. Let's see. We're going to look in and see your total beliefs and how you feel about the entire world. I do. That's, that's it. I will be fascinated to see if that's sort of a right of center, permission, increase amount of permission that they have to accept people. If that gets reversed.

That will happen without a doubt over the next few years. You will see these like Stephen A. Smith types who will proliferate democratic circles who are in no way. The like I deal version of a Democrat from four years ago or six years ago, but what they will see is salvation in them and they'll be like, this is, he has enough of our values and he could potentially win, or at least he could espouse the shit that could make our party look cool. I'm quoting Joy Behar the other day.

That was incredible. But that's, I mean, but that's kind of what look cool. Quadi-Joy Behar the other day. That was incredible. But that's kind of what you need. You know what else I think? If I was to just chuck a little bet on for something that's very, very reliably going to happen over the next three years before the end of this administration, the mother of all blowups between Elon and Trump. So how do you see that happening? I've heard a lot of people, Charlemagne talks about this all the time. Charlemagne thinks Trump is going to put him in prison. Okay. That's a take that I hadn't heard before.

But yeah, but, uh, what do you, now, you know, Charlemagne is, is very Democrat. Like obviously he's going to have some bias that goes into this, but, uh, but what do you, what is your take and how do you see that relationship going? I just think that when you've got two people with so much power and ego, and I do from what I can tell, Elon's ego and that self-focused self-belief, like it's me and I'm going to be the center of all of this, seems to be ramping up.

That is probably a pretty dangerous cocktail based on some stories and stuff that I've heard about behind the scenes from, from Trump, about some levels of vulnerability and then sort of like flimsy, uh, senses of, um, it doesn't like to be shown up, doesn't like to be sort of upstaged and, uh, and I don't know if, I don't know if. Elon has the emotional intelligence of JD Vance to be able to tiptoe around and yes, sir, no, sir, three bikes, false. JD and why I say do not treat that man lightly.

I think he has like, he came from like poverty. I think his mom was like a drug addict, like, and then he ends up going to Yale and then he becomes the VP of a guy that he campaigned against and said was horrible and like a tyrant Do you know the level of emotional intelligence it takes to go from like a broke middle America? broken family to an Ivy League institution to then VP for The guy who does not he he doesn't always keep it. Like you can say things about Trump, but if it's advantageous for whatever his plan is, he will forgive you.

You know, he's kind of like Vince man in that regard, like whatever works for the thing. But like that takes high EQ. Even in that moment with Zelinsky, he's managing Trump. Like he's, he did have a moment for himself, but everything he said was, and you show respect to Trump and Donald Trump's office and what. So he knows the game he's playing. Oh, that what I'm saying is don't treat him lightly.

What our coastal elites, we always do is when someone has a kind of Southern accent, we think they're idiots and we, and we don't, we don't even really pay attention to them. And that man is someone, I see a problem with JD before I see Elon, but. What do you think is going to happen with Elon long-term with Trump? Nothing. Now you think that he's going to dance through the minefield? I don't think, I think he's acutely aware of his limitations in America.

He cannot physically be president. If he could be president, I think there is a concern. Cause eventually he'll go, when they have an impasse, he'll just go, well, I'll just run against you. He cannot, the laws dictate he cannot. So inevitably you're gonna have to bow down at some point. This is the highest, you're as high as you can go. That's only based on the fact that you can put your,

the outcomes that you want for your project behind your ego. Yes. And I'm not sure which one is going to be the bigger priority. The only other thing he could do is leverage the Democrats, which have already made him radioactive. Like no Democrat can side with Elon. So Elon is as far as he can go in America.

He can't go any further. Like this is outside of being president. Like there's that great line in Game of Thrones where like Cersei is talking to Littlefinger and Littlefinger is like, you know, Littlefinger the character. And Littlefinger goes, you know, what I've learned over the years is that,

you know, knowledge is power. And there's all these guards around her and them. And she goes, guards slit his throat and they all walk up and put a knife to his throat and then she goes, guards stand down, guards take two steps back, guards take six steps back. And then she goes, power is power. And it's just so fire. And it's like, Trump has power, power is power.

That is the closest Elon can get to power. And I don't think there's another president that will allow Elon to have that access to power. So Elon either has to hope there's another person that he could ride with and establish a relationship. And maybe that's JD, but he has to wait to the next administration anyway. So what he can't do is sour all the Republicans on him. Like I, I cannot see the situation where they get into trouble because there's

nowhere else for him to go. He either have to jump parties, which is very difficult after chastising the left all the time, like he's kind of made his bed and he's high. He has access to all these things. And I think it does benefit him the most if America is successful because all his businesses are tied up in America, he could jump ship to another country. But that's not the thing I worry about. Cause I think he's smart enough to understand the position he's in.

Eventually you hit the, this is what happens with all rich people that actually want to move weight around. You hit the impasse of government and you have people who are way less successful than you, way poor than you, telling you whether you can or can't build a factory or do whatever you want to do. And in that moment, they go, fuck, I just worked my ass off. I got fucking yachts and everything. And now I got to go kiss this guy's dick. Like you saw them all lined up behind Trump during the inauguration.

Zuckerberg, Bezos, everybody went to kiss the ring and he set them up letting everybody else know they're kissing the ring. And I think Elon goes, I got the best seat. It don't get better than this. And this guy trusts me and believes in me. I can't fuck this up. And he's dealt with governors, mayors and all this other shit that he doesn't respect at all.

So he's like, it's not going to get better than this. I, if, I don't think he can ruin it. Is if they change the rule to let non-citizens become president, now we have an issue, but Trump would never change that rule because it's a security blanket right there. It's actually brilliantly done by Trump. It's ride with me against the left. Now, Elon can't go to the left. So he has to be loyal to you.

It's like he's Zelinsky. Well, everybody that's associated with Trump is so unspeakable and toxic that they're never going to be allowed back. So now you've got the loyalty built right there. Can I ask you a question about Russia? Do you feel an existential threat? Do you think Russia is an existential threat as a European?

That's an interesting question. So no, at least, but the UK and Europe feel like very different places. Forget Brexit, forget the fact that we actually left the European Union. Yeah. We just don't think about that. I think that people in the UK feel that they are much closer to America and are under the, uh, the, on maybe not quite on par, but that they're in that circle much more than we are with fucking Norway or Finland or Switzerland, some shit.

Um, but I, I understand that a lot of people have worried about in Europe. What does the potential support of Russia or lack of support for the Ukraine mean? Is Russia just going to keep on bowling through it's fucking Donbass, Paris, and then London, like what's going to stop? I don't know. I think, to be honest, I think that the UK has got such huge fucking domestic problems at the moment that they're not even worried about. I was speaking to comedian named Ari Mati and he, he's from, uh, Estonia.

And he grew up like feeling Russia is an existential threat. And he's like, yeah, we get taught all the time that they could come invade. And he's like, yeah, teach them in Russian schools, that Estonia is actually part of Russia, and one day we'll get it back. So Americans, we're so far away from this idea of Russian invading. I was trying to understand Zelensky's confidence going into this meeting with Trump.

I didn't understand why he felt comfortable pushing back. Because I think the American perspective is like, you guys can't survive without us. That's the perspective to any country we kind of give weapons to. It's like, you can't do it without us, right? And I think that's a lot of times like the hotbed conversation even with Israel-Palestine here

is that like the perspectivebed conversation even with Israel Palestine here is that like the perspective for Americans is like, Israel cannot defend itself without American weapons. So applying pressure to America is what actually stops the war, right? Now, I don't even know if that's true. I don't know if maybe Israel can, I'm not sure, but that's the American feeling, right?

So when he said that to me, I was like, oh shit, maybe that's why Zelensky had so much confidence in that meeting. Cause he's like, oh yeah, everybody knows that Russia will just steam roll into Europe and then, so all these European countries won't let that happen. And we're the heroes fighting at the front line to make sure that Paris is not part of Russia. So they would never like, I wonder if he walked in with the confidence of like, they would be crazy to not keep funding this because next it's going to be Germany's taking

over like, of course they're going to give us the money. Because that's the only thing that could justify the attitude in the room. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Well, you've definitely got it feels like you've got an ace in your pocket. And you think, what the fuck is that? Yeah. Like, why is it that you're not that worried? Uh, I don't know, man. I mean, how quickly we forgot about the issue of Russia and Ukraine because everything kicked off in Gaza and then how quickly we'd forgotten about Gaza. Now that Russia and Ukraine are back in the headlines. Isn't that, yeah, we stepped away from it completely.

It was, I used to see people's windows change in New York. It was a Black Lives Matter flag, then it got taken down, and then it was a Ukraine flag, and it got taken down, and then it was a Palestine flag, and then it got taken now back to Ukraine. It's like. What do you think's going on with the Epstein list? You see this?

It's been treated like the fucking longest album drop of all time, people holding it like it like the fucking longest album drop of all time. People holding it like it's the fucking Wu-Tang Clan's unreleased mixtape. They're like, George R.R. Martin, when are you going to release the next game of Thrones? Like, Jesus Christ, dude. Yeah, I don't know. My suspicion is that most of these things are far less interesting than we build them up to be.

And that, I think in our brains, when we build out justifications for these things, we remove the idea of incompetence. Incompetence never exists in a conspiracy, right? As conspiracy is always like this nefarious intent that was like thoroughly plotted and executed. Like even like the 9-11 is an inside job thing. And I think that there's been a lot of details on this.

My suspicion is that like, there was probably American intelligence agencies that were aware that a plan, a plot was being planned and this is where the arguments, did they purposely let it happen so that this could, or were they pushed to let it happen? Or did they not take it seriously and then it happened and then everyone at that agency that's in a position of power is going, fuck, fuck, oh, this is my fault. I let this fucking show. Okay. We got to find a way to make it seem like this is not on.

And I, my suspicion is that is most conspiracy stuff where it's like there's some incompetence and then someone trying to cover up incompetence. And that leads to this insane conspiracy because this person is trying to protect a lie. So the Epstein thing. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, people hold two very contradictory thoughts in their mind at the same time. One being government is so useless that we need this South African guy to come in and rip it apart. And they couldn't run a piss up in a brewery. They're all spending all of their time speaking to donors.

And also they are the overlords that are creating the new world order. And we need to be very concerned about them. The CIA and the NSA and the FBI and the three letter agencies, and they're trying to trans kids and you go, well, which one is it? Yeah. It's nowhere. It's neither. It's in the middle.

Yeah. It's like, there's going to be some, sure. There'll be some really, really competent, really nasty, mean spirited people trying to get stuff done. And even if let's say that that's like a significant portion, who are the foot soldiers that are trying to do it? These like employed retards that have managed to like stumble their way into fucking government.

And you go, okay, are you really going to trust him? Yeah. John, John's going to deploy your master plan to like new world order, the global vaccine passport. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

It's a, yeah, it's tricky. I mean, the thing that I would like to do for the Epstein list is I don't know if we ever get a list, but I would love to hear Lex Wexner, Les Wexner. Is that his name? The guy who is the, so Epstein managed one guy's money and his name is Les Wexner, Les Wexner, is that his name? The guy who was the, so Epstein managed one guy's money and his name is Les Wexner. The guy I think he lives in like Ohio. He's the guy who started Victoria's Secret.

Yeah. And he only managed one guy's money. So that's where he was able to leverage all these relationships and do all this other shit with this one guy's money. And I don't think Victoria's Secret is what it used to be. Like, I don't think girls are buying like Victoria's Secret lingerie anymore.

Like I think the business is kind of, it will be in Target soon or something, right? So now he does, and he's also like 90 years old, give him immunity and just tell us what it was, what's going on. Were you compromised? Was it Mossad? Was it CIA?

Was it both? Like, just tell us, give somebody immunity and tell us what happened. Like even the Ghislaine, I can't trust the immunity because her dad was all fucking mobbed up or whatever. So this guy is the guy who's the money guy. Just he's fucking 90. Like who cares? Give him immunity.

And then what you'll get is at least like we're, we're dying to figure out what the fuck happened. Just give us enough nutrients where we can move on. Right? Like now it is delicate. Obviously you have, there's a lot of like, they're like release the list and it's like, okay, well there's a lot of like girls who are teenagers probably on this list that are like Nate, like, so I get that, like you have to talk to them to

make sure that's good before you redact it. But if you've got a bunch of fucking senators are out there or like these tech people, like, yeah, release it. Run it. I just don't know if we ever get it, but I think he is the key. So I would like to know. I think you can. A really strategically smart move.

Just it trickles down. You need money to be qualified to be in all these circles. They only trust you because you're managing this guy's money. He's got to know something and he gave you the money instead of Jamie Diamond. He could give anybody the money. So just tell us what the fuck is going on less. And then you get to die. Not a complete.

Shit head. Like you're still a shit head, but at least people will be like, all right. You go to- Last breath, you did something pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. What would you do? Do you think we'll ever see it?

Do you think we- I don't know, man. I mean, I love the idea that we just need to close the loop so that we can stop talking about it. Yeah. So that there's no more speculation for this. It's, you know, it's the fuck it. It's the nine 11 job thing. It's just this permanent, like who was DB Cooper?

Was it this person? It's like, dude, just can someone give us a definitive answer so that we can stop asking the question. Yeah. Like that's what we need to do. Like everybody. Like Joe is exposed so much much like amazing information about the world is completely like blown our minds about what reality really is.

And it would be awesome if each one of them went on the pod and just confirmed it all. It's just like, okay, yeah, we shot JFK. This is what happened. And then somebody from NASA goes, no, we really did go to the moon, and we faked the video because it was hard to get the video for the, but we did really go, and just imagine, like, imagine a series of, like, 20 Rogan episodes where you get confirmation on all the alternative, like, history.

Yeah, it's not conspiracy theories, these are conspiracy facts. Yes! Like, how awesome would that be? And they, they got to go on jail though. And it has to be the ones that he's, you know, brought to light. Oh my God. Would that not be amazing?

Not sending them on Alex Cooper? The real arbiter of truth. And speaking of that, did you see Brian Johnson on keeping up with the Kardashians? I saw a clip randomly. You know, we had him on the pod. Yeah. Yeah Kardashians. I saw a clip randomly. You know, we had him on the pod. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I saw a clip.

He's a sweetie. Yeah, he is a sweetie. He's got some dark shit. Oh yeah. I told him when we were there. It's like, I think he's replaced like being Mormon with living forever. And, uh, so maybe dark is the wrong way to put it, but it is a very radical. Like how radical is Mormonism that like you could do that?

Well, him and Huberman had a big bust up on Twitter. Ooh, what'd they say? Uh, Brian was flexing his leg press numbers and, uh, Huberman replied and said, friends don't let friends do half reps. Like kind of the range of motion being a thing, and then that caused loads of blah, blah, but I've got to assume. I didn't know Andrew is friends with the Kardashians. The scene where Brian's in there has got all of the Kardashians, but also got

human in there, but this must've been filmed months and months and months ago. I have to assume. And it's only just come out. So I was watching that thinking, this is like my Zelensky Trump moment. That this is these two people that have had had massive beef online, finally coming together. And I'm thinking, I'm going to get to why they're going to be like fucking, that wasn't a quarter rep. That was actually me doing it. It's actually a thousand pounds.

It's not 950 pounds. Like, uh, why are they beef? What's the, what's the issue? Andrew replied to, right? It's like the most fucking middle school thing. Andrew applied to Brian and criticized his range of motion on a water rep. No, but like they must have some other beef that that even happened, right? No, that was just, it was just a passing comment.

And then Brian took it really seriously. Oh man. And you know, he has no excuse to do that because we know you have a perfect sleep score. You can't even be like, dude, I was exhausted. I had a hard day. It's like, no, you slept fucking 14 hours yesterday. You stopped eating at 11 a.m. so you could get good sleep. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, the only thing that could have made that table better

between all of the Kardashians, Brian Johnson and Andrew Huberman, would have been like coked up Conor McGregor. Fucking wild card that gets thrown in there. Who the fuck is this guy? Yeah. I think that Conor McGregor's arc should be studied by fucking anthropologists or something as just what happens when a guy who really wanted to be rich and famous gets exactly what he wanted and turns out was completely unprepared to deal with it all. You wanna know something interesting? So he came to meet up with us one night in New York.

And he was, he was, he was fucked up. Like he had some drinks, but he was the nicest, most humble guy. He, when you, a lot of times when you meet famous people, like they're not really used to, um, asking people their thoughts on things. You know, they're just like in this. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Yeah, and it's, I don't even, like I have empathy for it because people are just asking them questions

cause it's hard to like share your opinion on the world when you're with this incredibly successful person. So they just get into this system where they, they basically go, oh, people wanna know things about me so I will share. I'll just cut to the chase and give them what they want. they, they basically go, Oh, people want to know things about me. So I will share. I'll just cut to the chase and give them what they want. I'm going to give you what you want. He was like curious. Like we were talking about fights.

He was like, well, yeah, what'd you think about the fight? Like, you're asking me what I thought about the foot. Like you're professional fighter. You're like probably the most prolific, not probably. You are the most prolific MMA fighter in history. Like you're synonymous with fight sports. Like you're asking me my opinion on it. Like, and we were having a conversation, like a couple guys at a bar.

And as wild as I see him in all these things, I'll never forget that moment where he was curious about what I thought. I never forget that moment where he was curious about what I thought. Yeah. And ever since then, I look at these things as, is he stirring up moments? Is this like wrestling? Does he just really get into the vibe and the attention of it? Like I also understand like you reach a certain amount of success and you are clout. I'm sure you've experienced this.

Like you get over a certain amount of followers and now somebody making a video about you is currency. They can pay their rent on it. And whether what they say is true or not, you exist as a form of payment, right? Attention or dollars. Yeah. And I have, I have, he must experience that a hundred, a million fold for me or you. I know it happens with me all the time too.

And it's like, and, and nobody really understands where, what that life is until you're in it and that is the cost of success. I'm not complaining about this. The cost of getting to live the lives that we live is that you're going to deal with scrutiny and you're going to deal with criticism. That's totally fine. Frustrating when people like make things up about, yeah, sure. That's fucking annoying.

But I, in a human to human moment, he was curious and cared about what I had to say about his expertise. And that's more than I can say about a lot of people. What it makes me think, and that's a really beautiful story and very insightful. What it makes me think is that there's an error somewhere, because if that's who you truly are, why is that not being put out on like, why is that not a part of your personality? Dude, you know what?

I was, I actually wanted to talk to you about this because you talked to so many people and you've cultivated like your universe, right? So the people that know you and love you know the idiosyncrasies about you. They actually like know your opinions about the world. And then there are people that just consume you casually that just see you as whatever that version that exists in a clip online. So it's like, what I realized, I thought that if I had a bunch of like diverse guests on my pod, that people would, it would not one, I'm just curious about this.

Like I like seeing diversity of thought. I'm just really interested. So the people who know me know that about me. The people that don't know you only know the version of you that they want to consume. So if there's like a really awesome poignant piece that's like written about you, they're like, I don't want that guy to be poignant and awesome. I want that guy to be this or me, same thing, right?

Or vice versa. Exactly. If they do, but the people who love you know you already. You don't need to convince them. So what I realized is like doing this press run is that I gotta talk to way more people that you might think I disagree with. Because I have to go if I care about the perception of me, which I can't say I don't. I'm a comedian at the end of the day.

I can live with people thinking different things about me. That is fine. I can accept it. That's totally cool. But I realized the way to alter that perception is not bringing people on my podcast, it's going to other people's podcasts, especially people that you might think that we disagree on

and then we get into like a cool nuanced conversation and you realize, and I see it happen in real time, they're like, oh wow, actually yeah, that kind of does make sense. And oh wow, I didn't think that you would have that perspective, it's like, yeah, of course you didn't.. And oh wow, I didn't think that you would have that perspective. It's like, yeah, of course you didn't. The Ben diagram overlaps way more

than we thought it would do. And I have empathy for it. I get why you thought that. You just consume content about me in the same way that I consume content about Ben Shapiro. I'm sure Ben is way more nuanced than I just described him earlier on the pod. I'm sure there's people who really know him

and understand his beliefs, and there isn't this rigidity that he puts out online when he's like scolding a college kid. You know, maybe there's moments where he has a lot more empathy for that college kid who's, you know, battling with his identity or battling with, you know, wanting to make the world a better place. And his opinion is a little different than Ben's. But if I only get that version that I only consume, you know, that's what I think. And we have to kind of live with that because we are what we put out in the world. And if what we put out in the world can get clipped up and put into these different things, that is the cost of the slight we have.

Be ready for that to happen. Yeah, there's this idea called tilting at windmills. An online stranger doesn't know you. All they have are a few vague impressions of you, too meager to form anything but a phantasm. So when they attack you, they're really just attacking their own imagination and there is no need to take it personally. Yeah. So that tilting at windmills things, I wanted to ask you this actually.

The concern real quick is like, you would hope that that doesn't become a trend. Well, like I've seen that happen with me. Like people like start,, like an idea like creates about me that's just like not true. And then anybody that doesn't like me for whatever reason, maybe of good reasons, not like me, it just becomes another justification for not liking me. They hold onto the phantasm, right?

And then that becomes, but what did you say before? That feelings don't care about the fact. Exactly, it doesn't matter. And unfortunately, what did we also say before? Optics really are sort of the most important thing. And if you have a story that fits people's priors, there is something that gets a particular cohort of people who are all distinct and separate, but they coalesce around their mutual distaste for a particular person. And there is a very nice, cohesive, neat narrative that explains why they should not like this person.

They go, oh, that's our new culture. That's our new thing. So I wanted to ask, you know, not everybody deals with the same level of scrutiny or criticism that you do. But what have you learned about how to care less about the opinions of other people, how to sort of take criticism well? I think that like, again, I think that the care is more about like, you're like, okay, I hope this doesn't like shift perspective and like negatively impact my ability to like provide for my family.

That's really where they care. I'm fine with people thinking that I'm a certain way and like this thing, like, you know, the Kendrick thing comes out like this, they turn it into like fucking racism within the leg. I'm like, what the fuck? You know, it's how, what, you know, like it was whatever, it doesn't matter. And then, um, and, and I'm like, okay, I'm fine. Like the internet just moves on eventually.

You just let that kind of, so you just hope that like, it doesn't lock in and then affect your bottom line. But the thing that makes me okay with accepting criticism is that all the people I admire are the most criticized people. So like everybody I look up to and I aspire to have, you know, the level of success that they have are the most criticized.

Like, I mean, fucking Taylor Swift is like, there's no more criticize, like she's getting booed at the Superbowl yet it takes 120 dudes to sell out that Superbowl. She could do it by herself for nights in a row. You know what I mean? So she's sitting there getting booed, but she's also like, this is cute. I remember doing this.

I remember doing this little stadium. You know what I mean? Like, so there is this version where I'm okay with the criticism. I'm fine with it. My concern is more like the false narratives catching heat because there is like an attention or currency that you could build around it. And I have, I don't really know how to like thwart that. I wish I had like, some people are like really good at like addressing narratives.

Strategy like Dave Portnoy maybe. Portnoy is just like, he's, Portnoy 50 cent is amazing. Like anything pops up, he's on that ass. And, um, I'm probably a little more passive cause I'm, I'm like, I'm just going to put out the art, you know, I'm going to put out my special and you'll get a sense of who I am or I'll talk to people on the pod and I'll do these things. And, and, uh, also you can't respond to people who don't really have a face.

You can't respond to ideas. Like I can respond to Kendrick because Kendrick is the biggest rapper in the world. Can't respond to like some YouTube video. You know, it just, in my mind, I'm like, okay, now I'm just blowing that thing up. I'm just adding gas to it. You know, yeah, the Kendrick thing was interesting. That was a wild.

Does that even hit your radar? Like I'm, I'm so confused about who knows about these things. I didn't see this happen. Oh, wow. I didn't see it. I did when I started doing a little bit of prep for today. Yeah. And, uh, I was like, Oh, Charlton's got in some Superbowl beef.

Yeah. That was interesting. It's just so, this is so, so funny too. It's like, whenever you go through something, you think it's the biggest thing. That's another thing I learned. It's like, it's just so, this is so funny too. It's like, whenever you go through something, you think it's the biggest thing. That's another thing I learned. It's like, no one really cares. Like it doesn't really matter. Like you think it's big, but like the reality, most people don't.

And we exist in these little bubbles. So like a bubble cares about it for a second. But when I go out to dinner and nobody cares. If we can forget about October 7th, because Zelensky sat down with Trump. Yeah. And forget about the Super Bowl. That's a great way. That's right. So I need another tragedy. If we can forget about October 7th, because Zelensky sat down with Trump, we can forget about the Super Bowl. That's a great way.

That's right. So I need another tragedy. Just sow the seeds of another fucking international incident. That's what they say. You kill a story with a story. I remember this was a A.S. level sociology or A.S. level media studies before I went to university. And so in the UK, 16, 17, 18, you go to what we call college, which is before university.

Got it. And you do AS level and then you do A level. AS is first year, A level is second year. And that's what gets you your grades for uni. And I was told this story about the day after, so September 12th, the media manager for a PR company who ended up losing a job because of this quote was caught saying the words publicly, it's a good day for bad news. And if you go and you look at the newspapers, September 12th, September 13th, September 14th, page 64, page 74, toxic spill, accounting error,

fucking recall for dangerous product. All of this- Building seven? Yeah. Very good. Yeah. The people just dumping this, this stuff out there, but yeah, I think, uh, I heard this really interesting sentence the other day. I just don't care about people misjudging me anymore.

And I really love that sentence. So I don't care about people misjudging me. And I think a lot of the time, when it comes to criticism, what we're worried about is this person has an incorrect perspective, perception of me. I don't like that. Let me go and fix, because I know I'm not that. So let me go and manage their perception of me. I'm going to step in. I'm going to fix this thing. You go, I don't think you can do that. If you, if you try and play that game, if you want to try and fix everybody's erroneous expectation of you or interpretation of you, the other side is as well, it's often people that don't like you don't understand what you're doing. Don't have your best interests at heart.

They don't like you and they're not nice people. Yeah. And you're saying that person, that particular individual or group of individuals misjudged me and I feel bad. It's like, yeah, it's insane. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you ever, you ever get an argument with your girl and then, um, not even an

argument, like you'll do something and your intention was not for that to hurt her. Like you seem like a good guy. I don't see why you would like want to hurt someone you care was not for that to hurt her. Like you seem like a good guy. I don't see why you would like want to hurt someone you care about. But it did hurt her. And what I used to do is I would try to explain her out of her hurt. Right. I would try to explain to my wife why she shouldn't be hurt. Right.

Cause I want to be a good guy and I can't tell you why you're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Let me tell you why your feelings are wrong. And it's just like, Oh no, what I meant by it is this, right? And like, and why we're doing that is cause we don't want them to think we are the type of person that would try to do something to hurt them. I'm actually feeling insecure that you might feel differently towards me.

If I'm the type of man that would do that to make you feel that way. They don't want that. What they want is their feelings to be acknowledged and just going, I'm sorry that what I did made you feel that way. I'm really sorry. And then if they go, why did you do it? And go, well, actually this was my thinking.

Then they're asking for the why. And the same thing, I think the exact same thing applies to what you're saying. It's like these people feel a certain way. I'm sorry that that made you feel that way. You know, I am sorry that, but in terms of like caring about the perception, anybody who's ever like felt a certain way about me

that I've had a conversation with, I feel like has left not feeling that way. And so I'm not really concerned about like the misjudgment. The concern is only like, how could it negatively impact opportunities to, to achieve my dreams? And that's the beauty of like financial success is that you get to really not care.

Like if you're at a number, right? Like if you hit the number where you like, I could stop doing all this and I'm good and my daughter can eat and my wife is safe. And you don't even have to address any of it. You know what I mean? Like if you get to a certain number where you're just like, I'm just creating the shit that I want to create. I don't even care to address any of it. You know what I mean? Like if you get to a certain number where you're just like, I'm just creating the shit that I want to create. I don't even care if it makes money.

I just love creating things. Who gives a fuck? Isn't it interesting how most people's projects have this like odd Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. Like you leave the place to come back to where you started. So you begin- What is that? Explain that to me. You read The Alchemist?

I've heard of The Alchemist. I haven't read it. It's a really beautiful book and it's a, it's a fiction book. It's super easy to read. It's not a flex to say that you've read it, but it's kind of a bit trippy to read. It's this beautiful story about Santiago, this Spanish boy who goes on a journey and he comes back and spoiler alert, if you haven't listened to it yet, skip ahead of 30 seconds. The treasure that he's looking for is in the backyard of the place that he started.

And the story's takeaway is going on a journey to end up back where you began is not the same as having never left. And yeah, wow. My point being with something like, um, at standup or podcasting or writing or whatever it is that you're into. You start off doing the thing the way you're into, you start off doing the thing the way you want to, because you love it and you've got this passion. And yeah, you're, you start modeling from other people because you want to learn

from those that have gone ahead of you. And then after a while, different incentives come in and maybe you've got staff or you've got obligations or you've got competition or you've got momentum. And you start to sort of get skewed away from this a little bit and then over time maybe you begin to get expectations from people and you've kind of got a you're playing up to your own enigma your own persona and you're like you've got to go I'm gonna go from infamous to doing life and it's like a real change and scary to the fucking difficult

second album right do I just repeat what I did last time or do I try and pivot? And then after a while, you know, hopefully you're still stripping this. You're still trying to be true to yourself. But I think a lot of the time people end up in that post money world or, you know, post fame world, whatever it is, you end up back at this place where you're like, I can just say, fuck you. Yeah. I'm going to do it the way that I want.

And I had this idea I wanted to teach you about. So you've heard of fuck you money, right? Yeah. Um, so I realized that I think there's three levels to saying fuck you. So the first one is fuck you money, which is you're not really that beholden to an employer, you maybe kind of can own things in a way that makes you not have to adhere to laws in the same sort of a way. There's fuck you freedom, which is actually more accessible than fuck you money

because you can just like, if you've got enough, you can live off grid. Maybe you don't even need to be reliant on supermarkets. You don't need to really like listen to laws if you've got a little bit of land or whatever. Um, but then the third level is fuck you family. And I think a lot of the time people are playing these games. They want to be requited and validated, external success and all the rest of it.

But I get the sense and I see this with you and a lot of my friends that become young dads, that they kind of look back on a lot of the ways that they got validation and self-esteem as like real juvenile, very immature. Like look at all of these people who I don't know, who I don't give a fuck about. And I cared about their opinions about me. And really the only people whose opinions I care about are the ones that are inside of this household. And that fucking family thing is the most accessible to everybody.

And yeah, it's a transition that, you know, if you're a high powered person, like man or woman, and then you pivot into family life, I wonder how many have like a retrospective existential crisis about like, what the fuck was I doing? Yeah. Who was I? Yeah. I did all of that and okay. Yeah.

Cool. Like I just didn't know, but holy shit. Like my eyes have been opened and I see what the actual game that I was playing. Bro, it is so cliche. So much about having children is cliche, but like the hardest day, the most stressful day, the most difficult day. When I open the door and I get back at six o'clock every day, my daughter is in the playpen usually with my wife and and she hears the door open and she slowly turns around.

Then I watch her face crease into this beautiful six-tooth smile. Nothing matters at all. It's so cliche. It's actually difficult as a comedian who tries to have unique takes on things. How normal my reactions to having a child is, right? Like, but it is just nothing really matters in that moment. And then for the next, we're getting after it. For the next hour, we're just, we're just, nothing matters. And you're 100% right.

That is like, fuck you family. Now you need things to get there because you feel obviously like a responsibility to make sure she's safe and she can go to the school she wants and we can live in a nice place and experience these cool things. But yeah, I love that. I love that. I saw this, I saw this quote earlier on today that said, it's not okay to work your life away, but it is okay to work your twenties away and I like this.

Keep going on this because time is something that we should discuss. Yeah. I think, you know, again, I said for me, and I really, I just want to like re highlight the fact that I think the news special from you is probably the most. Culturally penetrative, uh, explanation of male fertility issues that I've seen. You know, you said before, we always assume that the problem is the woman. And we have big, we have lots of stories about that. We have archetypes, right?

The struggling woman, whether it's struggling to find a partner and the biological clock is ticking, trying to get pregnant, going through the IVF and the pain of the process and then the pain of it not taking and you. And all of the stuff that you can learn about if you spend a bit of time on this. And we don't have a cultural story about what it's like to be a man who is really desperate to be a dad but can't find a partner or has a partner

and is trying to be a dad and has fertility issues. And that doesn't exist. Time for both men and women, even more than that. Like I think about this now, so I'm 37, right? Like let's say that I managed to make the family in three years. Let's say I have my first kid when I'm 40. Like I'll be 65 when my first kid's 25. Kids weren't on my brain at 25.

I'm okay, so I'm 75 when my kids are 35. So I'm going to be like 77 when my kids are my age. Yeah. I'm like chop, chop. I want to be a granddad. Yeah. Like, well, you didn't fucking give your parents that same, like, where was the chop chop when you were doing this thing.

So. I didn't meet any of my grandparents. And I met like when I was like one or something like that, one of them, I think, but yeah, that happens and that is the cost time. The first thought I had when I saw my daughter is that, I wish I did it sooner so I would have more time with her. And that's the first thought I saw when I saw her.

Like I was like, what did I do? Now I'm not regretful of my life. I love how it turned out and I met the woman that I wanna create a family and have a life with. But yeah, you think about it constantly, time. I always heard people talk about it and you see, I mean, it is cliche, but time, like how do we get time? I don't buy expensive shit really.

I think when I first got money, I got some like watches or whatever. I think it was this like form of validating myself. I think it was this like outside and it was like, yeah, I've, I've achieved some success. Let me get a f*****g watch. And like I retrofitted this justification. It was like, Oh, the gears are so nice. It's like, what's up? It's not about that.

But like time, everything I was spending, it's like a trip, but the trip is soaking up this undivided time with family and friends. Everything is how can I spend time with my family? I'm lucky I work with all my friends. My guy who does all my partnerships, I've known since I was 13 years old, my first friend in high school. My manager, who's just my partner,

is my first friend from college. Everybody is family in the group, so I'm very lucky in that regard. But how do we spend time? What do we do? And like, even I'm going to do press for this. And I'm like, okay, you gotta go and you gotta get the word out. Okay, that's gonna be probably a month of going to get the word out.

You know? Okay, that's time away. How can I get that back? Okay, can I take a month off in summer and just lock in? How do I spend? Everything I've ever heard from parents is it goes fast. Old people talk about time in the way that young people talk about success and money, old people don't really talk about success and when they do, it's like,

it's kind of weird. Like they're not like, Oh, I killed it in the market today or something like that. You're just like, Oh, is that what you're excited about? In video went up like, who gives a fuck? Like, Oh, I'm taking a trip with your mom and we're going to her favorite place. You know, and like everything is this reminder of time. You know, my, my wife's mom has a, you know, disease.

This is slowly killing her. It's this reminder of time. My dad has dementia, this reminder of time and it's fleeting. And like the memories that I'll have with my dad exists forever, but we'll never make new memories together. You know, and it's like, this is time, like how much time do I have with him? How many actual days do I have with him?

And yeah, I haven't fully processed like this, the importance of that, but yeah, it's just this, this, this, this is, this amazing, yeah, as I reflect back, like I think I have lived a life where like, I was able to soak up things with my friends, but like I worked, I don't think I've ever not worked seven days, but like my twenties, I didn't celebrate a birthday.

Like I was just doing comedy on the road for no money. Like anybody would let me go on stage so I get better at the craft. Like I still had fun. I went, I had good time with my friend, but I wasn't like partying, partying like some of my friends were. Like I would say when I was like on TV, I was like, my friends have way better sex lives. These guys are on fucking Tinder doing like, you know, having fivesomes and shit.

And I'm just like trying to write jokes. And it was that, that decade was sacrifice, you know? I didn't drink for like 10 years. I was like, I need to lock in. I got to fucking, gotta get good at this shit. But yeah, how can I, I'm fortunate enough to like get a couple bucks and like have a family at 41 years old. All right.

Maybe we want to have another kid. How can I organize the rest of my life so that I can just spend time so I can go out to have a dinner with my wife and we're just fucking joking around and like Looking at silly pictures of our daughter and busting balls Just how do we have as many of those moments as I possibly can for the rest of my life? How many times can I like peak die laughing with my friends? Like every once in a while you hit that moment with something stupid happens and like we are just on the floor laughing Can I have a hundred more of those Can I have a hundred more of those? Can I have a thousand more of those?

How can I organize my life so I can have as many of those as I possibly can? And how can I not waste time with people I don't really care about? I think it goes back to what you're saying. It's like, am I going to waste time on trying to deal with like, what this person on the internet is saying, or should I, you know, just read the same book to my daughter 20 times in a row? And like, I should do that, you know? Yeah, time, time, time.

Everything that you say yes to is saying no to everything else. Yeah. So by committing to the argument on Twitter, that's a yes. Yeah. And you have said no to every other experience that could be possible at that moment. And you're ignoring all the people that are supporting you. You're ignoring all the people that are writing for you.

You're ignoring all the people like... To focus on the people that hate you. I could message back, like the amount of people that sent me, like, DMs about coming to the show having no clue that it was about the IVF journey, and they're like struggling to get pregnant. And then they'll message me a year later and be like, hey, we just had our first kid, and like,

it was really cool to see that, and it made it a little more normal for us. So the people who went through and felt stigmatized and then they, they realized it was, it's like actually something you can kind of laugh at. I should be, and I try to respond to every one of those before I respond to a single person reacting to some fake shit about me on the internet. They should be the bottom of the barrel.

So I've been again, as somebody who who as of yet hasn't reached the finish line with family, but he's still in the race. You'll get there. Uh, and then everything, you know, we'll go out the window. I just want to let you know, cause you've got the whole world worked out. I know you've done a lot of work on figuring it out. And the second I baby comes, it's done. It's, it's none of it makes sense.

I am ready for the exit. I can't wait to that pod. Once you have the baby, we got to have another. I am ready for the exit. I can't wait to that pod. Once you have the baby, we got to have another. We're on it back. Um, but I've been thinking about this, that, uh, how does somebody like you or, you know, somebody, maybe even more somebody like me who hasn't got to that

finish line yet, how do you make sense of what you did to yourself for a couple of decades, you know, cause I did something not too dissimilar with my work rate and it's still going and, and grind and the drive and all the rest of the stuff. I do get the sense that even if you retrospectively think, God, if I'd know what I know now about what's most important, I could have done that, would have, should have, could have done that earlier. But then there's another bit of you that goes, how much did I develop into the person that can be the sort of parent I want to be financially, emotionally, in terms of closing all of the loops of life and

saying, like, I did the things, I did the things, I fucking toured hundreds of dates for this thing about you, about you. Yeah. And I got to not only create this beautiful tribute to you on stage, I also got to like fucking work it out of my system a little bit. Yeah. No, I don't think you should regret a single thing in your life. If it, well, the only thing I would say is like, if you had a relationship that you thought had like a lot of promise and you're like, Hey, I need to focus on

work and you let it go, that I would go, that's potentially a regret. and you let it go, that I would go, that's potentially a regret. I didn't have any of those until I met my wife and I was like, okay, this is it, we're gonna do this 100%. And so if you're not, there are some people that do that, though they meet the person that might be like the one for them, I don't know if there's like a one,

but there's somebody that they really connected with, it was beautiful and it would have worked. I always tell people that they're like, I don't know if I'm like a one, but there's something that they really connected with. It would have worked. It was beautiful and it would have worked. I always tell people that they're like, I don't know if I'm ready to have a kid yet. I'm like, that's fine. That's fine. But if you do, it will work out. Like you will manage it and it will make

everything in your life that much better. I cannot impress that upon people more. Like, so if you are, and I get the feeling of let me just make myself safe and protected, but you will do that naturally. There's an instinct, like what do they say? Every baby comes with a basket of bread. Is that the saying?

Like, yeah, I think it's a biblical saying, but like you have a baby and all of a sudden, like you start to make way more money than you used to. Abundance comes, it doesn't restrict your ability to do stuff, it actually enables it. Yeah, so. Okay, interesting. But yeah, like it seems to me that from our conversation

that like you haven't had that relationship in the past that you've shunned. So I wouldn't regret a single thing. Matter of fact, like when that relationship does present itself, hopefully it's the one you're in now, who knows how that flourishes or blossoms into something. But like, if it is the thing, go, go. And go and fucking send it and then have kids

and just, they're awesome. And I would love that to be part of like the masculinity conversation. I feel like- Me too. I think I saw you writing some stuff, maybe it was, maybe I was watching you something, but it was something about like,

there's a lot of talk about masculinity and like what we need to do and how we need to better ourselves and oftentimes kids aren't put into that equation. Did you, was that you posting about this? And I think that's a great take. Like I would love fatherhood and like what it means to be like a good active father to be part of this idea of like the modern male and, um, because I know the, the fathers I see out there that are really invested, uh, I feel like they would really love to see that represented. That it's not just about like fucking, you know, your squats are a quarter or whatever. You know what I mean? It's like, who gives a fuck how much you can squat.

You know, like the bank account or the follower number. Yeah. It's like, yeah, none of that shit matters. Like when you see a dad that sucks with their kid, you know, you're not envious that they have a boat. You're just like, you're a fucking loser. And then when you see those kids that hate their parents, you know what I mean? You're not envious of those parents at all.

Godless of what they've got. No, but when you see like the dad walk home and these videos of like the three kids run to the door, it's like impossible to not want a million kids. Did you see, I did this video fucking made me tear up the other day. Uh, it's a ring doorbell or maybe like the inside of a house thing. And, uh, this little daughter must be three or something. And she says, daddy, are you going to the gym? And he says, yeah, daddy's going to the gym? And he says, yeah, daddy's going to the gym.

And she like turns away from him. She goes, wow, I'm so proud of you. And the dad just freezes and he like picks her up and I'm just like, holy fuck. What are we doing? What are we doing? Isn't just fucking, yo, this is the most pro natalist podcast. We need that. I think we need a lot.

I mean, you know, Elon's got his version of saying, and he's like, very brutalist about it, he's like, oh, the population numbers or whatever. That's not what people react to. Like a video on the internet. I don't know if you saw the one where like the guy opens the door and he noticed there's all these cups that were placed in front of the door by his kids. But he doesn't walk into them because he sees the cups and then he realizes that that was the prank.

So then he like makes some noise or knocks on the door. So the kids are ready and then close it. Then he closed the door. Then they kind of like knocks on or something like that. And then opens and they see him like fall into the cups and the kids are going fucking crazy. And you're like, that's yeah. If there's one thing that I would love to promote, it is that. You've done it, man.

I really, really am so proud of what you did with this new special. It's really, really fucking spectacular. I'm proud of you, man. It's awesome to see what you've built. And I was really stoked to have this conversation with you. So thank you so much for taking the time, brother. Me too. Live, stream it on Netflix right now. Appreciate you.