Pablo Torre Finds Out - A Revolutionary Share & Tell with Mina Kimes, Dan Le Batard and Pablo

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

What can we learn from the power-grab by NFL prodigy Caleb Williams and his stage dad? Why does Pablo always feel so bad about saying "no"? And how does one begin to argue better? Plus: Uncle Dennis, giant babies and literally sticking to sports.Further reading:Caleb Williams and Team Intend on Owning the Process (Kalyn Kahler)https://theathletic.com/5301341/2024/02/28/caleb-williams-quarterback-nfl-draft-ownership/The Mind-Boggling Simplicity of Learning to Say 'No' (Leslie Jamison)https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/well/mind/saying-no.htmlOverwhelmed? Just Say 'No.' (Arthur C. Brooks)https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/saying-no-science-happiness/677579/How Happy Couples Argue (Derek Thompson)https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/how-to-fight-conversation-advice/677594/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. He looks at me and goes, your friend has a lot of hair on her face. Right after this ad. You're listening to Draft King's Network. Am I allowed to say that you have a giant child or no? What are the rules here?

I don't know if he's, it depends on your standards of giant. He's big. He's a big boy. I don't know if he's giant. I wouldn't say giant. I don't mean that pejoratively. except on this TikTok, which I don't know if Dan has any idea what we're talking about. Hi, Dan. Hello.

Hello. What are you doing? What's Dan doing over there? I don't know. I'm texting. No, I'm reading. Mr. Oh, I'm so addicted to this device. I'm reading the stories that we're talking about. That's what I am doing.

I appreciate you studying for the test while taking the test. So what I want to know is not just as me too familiar with this Minnesota tiny mom with big babies who went viral. It is not for the week. I don't know if I'm just weak. or my babies are just chunky, but... I wanted to know, has the thought already crossed her mind that her kid might play football? 100%. Yeah.

So my husband, every now and then, he's much more like idealistic and, you know, I'm the pragmatist in our relationship. He'll be like, do you... The other day, he was like, you know, do you ever worry that our son might be bullied? And I looked at him and I was like, Nick, he will be. be the bully. Like, how have you not processed this? Our gigantic son is going to be a jock. He's huge and strong. To put it in perspective, he's five months and he's over 20 pounds. Laura Ralege, who has Sanoffield Live, her kid is like, I think, eight or nine months. They're the same size. The Asian population needs a giant baby to save us when it comes to

representation. We really do. I know parents are annoying because they're always like to say their kids are advanced. I am not saying my son is advanced mentally. I'm saying he's advanced physically. is a glee. I want to start with this Caleb Williams story and the story about parenting because Kaelin Collar at the Athletic has this story from late last month that sort of helped explain what was happening where Mina was at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Because Caleb Williams not doing stuff there wound up being an enormous story in a way that

spoke to topics that you've been covering and talking about forever. Caleb Williams is believed to be the first invitee to the scouting combine. to decline to participate in the medical exams. For the medical stuff, I'll be doing the medical stuff, just not here in Indy. I'll be doing it at the team interviews. You know, not 32 teams can draft me. There's only one of me. And so the teams that I go to from my visit, you know, those teams will have the medical

and that'll be it. What is that player supposed to do when he actually recognizes the power that he has, or at least has a dad who might be a person who listened to the. Dan Lebitard show. Because when I look at this story and like, why is it that Caleb Williams is not doing stuff that many quarterbacks throughout time have done, it all goes back, per the athletic, and various reporting to his dad, Carl Williams. And Carl Williams' takes on stuff, they are right out of, if you've been listening to any

of the three of us talk about sports, it's like, why is there a draft? A draft is unjust. What about the rookie wage scale? The rookie wage scale is unjust. these deadlines, medical testing, all of this stuff. Carl is the guy, seemingly behind the guy. And I guess, Mina, just you were there at Indy, like how much of this story feels to you like a revolution or something else?

Because it feels big to me. If there's a revolutionary aspect to it, or if there's any sort of sea change, I would say this coming from Indy, it's the fact that this has transcended to Caleb Williams. None of the top three quarterbacks did much at the Combine. Heck, Jane Daniels wasn't measured. But none of them did the throwing drills.

Caleb, I believe, you know, his statement on that he didn't do medicals for every team because the reasoning was, well, not every team is going to have a shot at me. Like, when I visit with teams, I'll do the medicals. But it went beyond Caleb. You know, you really felt like a sea change with all these top quarterbacks. And that, to me, feels a little bit different. Now, that's certainly not grabbing your power on scale. of, you know, demanding a trade or asking for equity, which is a huge vest of the story,

or, you know, questioning the rookie wage scale. But it is a small revolution nonetheless. And one that every single personnel person, the combine agent who I talked to, didn't really have a case for why they shouldn't do it this way. Archie Manning, a long time ago, did this for Eli Manning and wasn't protect. father was quarterback who wasn't protected as a player when he played in New Orleans and was great and understood how much the body would hurt and was trying to protect his son from ending up with a bad team. I enjoyed at the very end, after LeBron James did all the things he did, Tom Brady looking up and saying, wait a minute, I have real power. I don't have to be under the thumb of the Patriot

way. It probably took him about 15 to 16 years before he realized it. So of course, all of this would trickle down in sports to Aaron Rogers realizing at about 38 or 39. If I go to the Jets, I'm my own economy, I'm my own value system. I should ask for ownership. Of course, it's rejected. I think most sports fans don't think of the draft as un-American, the rookie wage scale as un-American, as freedom-inhibiting. I think they're so normalized that what will happen is that Caleb Williams and his father will be demonized for trying to shake the system up. They will be like Uncle Dennis was for Kauai Leonard in asking for the world when he went

to the clippers. So the Uncle Dennis part is a fun. I didn't made that connection before, but yes, there is something to the idea of essentially a guardian being the bad guy here. And the Uncle Dennis story, Vita, it also, in the doing of that saga, it kind of took agency away from Kauai Leonard. Like, that was the story.

It's like, Uncle Dennis is doing all, he's this, like, wizard behind the scenes. He's like making all these demands. Can I get court side seats? Can I get equity? And part of what this reporting athletic is suggesting is that actually, like, maybe a story inside of the story

is how much Caleb Williams does or doesn't want any of this. And so the question about equity, which you'd reference about like, look, in July, right? There was this story in Sports Business Journal that reported that NFL owners had just voted to prohibit, quote, non-family employees from taking equity in teams, end quote. And the reason why is because, per the athletics reporting, Carl Williams, Caleb's dad, was broaching the topic with agents,

really like trying to get, the reason, in fact, Caleb, it seems, didn't hire an agent is because the family, the camp, it's hard to disentan, them for now. They were saying, hey, could you find a way to get us

out of the rookie wage scale? Like, can you actually find loopholes? And no, so they didn't hire an agent, which is, you know, again,

savvy if nothing else. Does he need to pay someone, whatever is, it's two or five percent. I can't remember for the players now. To negotiate a deal that's already set in stone, I mean,

like, that to me makes the most sense out of any of this. Although, So when you go against the agents, and we saw this with Lamar Jackson, we've seen this with other players who have chosen to represent themselves, because the agents talk to reporters, that means that your way of doing things will be questioned. Okay, so as far as the demonization, which Dan talked about,

I think it's worth separating two things here. One is the idea of Kayla Williams or any other player rejecting the draft. And it's very easy to see why fans would not like that, because fans, your reward for your team sucking is that you get Caleb Williams or whatever, right? So any player who questions that sort of order of things, there's a logic to it that I understand. You can say there's other, you know, it's pocket watching, it's disempowering. You're siding with owners, whatever. But I think from a fair football perspective, I can understand why there's some tension there between NFL fans and players, rookies,

rookies families. Sure. The equity thing is different, though. So the equity story, and I believe Kalin reported that Aaron Rogers' cam also, if it was a rumor to ask about this, that resurfaced during the season, even though the story came out last July, during the season at some point, the aggregators, one of the terrible aggregator accounts resurfaced it, and it went viral, and people got really mad at Kayla Williams all over again,

even though it's unclear what he actually asked for, what his family asked for, whether it was just asking questions or how serious inquiry was. That, to me, is something that fans should not be upset about. That is sliding with billionaires over millionaires, and it has nothing to do with your football team. And it's also something that players should – quarterbacks in particular should ask for. I mean, we – this morning, Dan and I were talking about a team,

the Denver Broncos who traded away the farm and paid $245 – trying to sooner afforded by him DLA-A-DL because they were so desperate for quarterback. And then now it's so desperate to move on from that quarterback, they're absorbing $85 million in dead money. That is how important this position is to your franchise, to the team, to the business of it. Why should that position in particular not partake in the long-term success of the franchise? No good explanations to me. I got to think that the grand majority of people listening to this, if I told them, here's the deal, you're coming out of college, and you're the most valuable.

person in the universe at this occupation. Do you think you should go to the city of someone else's choosing and your leverage means nothing because your salary is slotted? Nobody listening to this would want that situation for themselves. The only time right now that Caleb Williams could shake up the system is by him and his father asking all the questions right now about why do we have to do it this way when, if my son simply went to a sport that didn't have a salary cap. People like Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder

fighting over needing a quarterback would go through the roof to pay that person, a value that they would assign and then rich people would fight with each other overseeing who could get that quarterback. The salary cap to me is simply there because owners know they can't control themselves. And Caleb Williams and his dad should try to get anything and everything they want,

but they're not going to get any of what they want. What's going to happen is they're going to get frustrated by this system because I'm not sure that they come from where it is that Archie Manning would come from, which is a lifetime of being able to protect his child's money with his own wealth. I do think the moment at which you signed a paperwork is the moment at which you lose power, right?

that's kind of the recognition here. Like, why is the combine this pivotal moment, Mina? It's because as soon as they sign that rookie deal, you have literally legally relinquished your right to negotiate in the ways that any sort of person would want to use the power of competition to pit various employers against each other, to try and get the best deal for yourself. All of the stuff that car...

So basically, Carl Williams has been framed as largely a quack in ways that, of course, anonymous people, who leaked to agents would like to make him out to be because he's not hiring an agent and he's coming for the very status quo that they profit off of. So that to me is not in much dispute. Like what is the incentive here?

What's so interesting though, what's really interesting to me, though, is that you now have this generation of guys, because it's beyond Caleb Williams, as Mina said, this generation of guys who are seeing the audition as not their audition, but teams auditioning for them. Like, prove to me,

that you're the place that I should go, as opposed to, again, I'm nervously cramming for this test because I got to figure out what my IQ is going to be on record here and my bench and my 40 time. That just seems to be this change that seems like it won't stop changing unless you saw, why are you shaking your head there? Well, I think it's less about, because none of these guys are going to try to control where they end up. Let's be real. I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? Like, this is not going to happen. I would be shocked. But what they are doing is trying to control the process to maximize their earnings,

where they do end up to get drafted higher, right? You know, like, for example, a player like Jane Daniels, who's excellent quarterback prospect rising up, now pushing for number two in the draft, number two makes more number three, it's a big deal. He's really thin. And that's a big question mark around him, is his bill? And so him saying, yeah, I'm not going to weigh in at the combine.

I'm going to weigh in at the pro day. Is him saying, I am going to control when you see how heavy I am. For example, I'm just using that as an example. Basically, it's less them saying, hey, all of you teams have to, you know, I'm the employer here. I'm the hireer and all you teams have to come to me. It's more saying, okay, you're the hires. You're all my potential hires. But you're only going to see, I'm only going to take the ACT instead of the SATs.

The nerdiest possible example that resonates fully with me personally. But it's saying like you're not going to get all the information you want. I'm going to control because I want to pull forward the best possible case for myself. But even that little act of saying you only will get to see X, Y, and Z, that is different from previous years when there was more desperation or at least it felt like more control on the part of the employers. It's such an interesting tension though because you know, Mina, and you know, this. too, Pablo. The entire football establishment has, maybe it's changed

some in recent generations, but my entire lifetime, it's about we control you. We control every aspect of your contract, of your freedom, of your structure. You can do some things when you go home on your own, but we've got

control over you and what it feels like now, a different generation of players who have seen athletes buck on that system, is they want some of that control back. But none of this is going to change, right? Caleb and Carl are, I mean, you called Carl a quack for having perfectly reasonable ideas

about freedoms his son should have. Quoting, quoting someone else, calling him a quack to be clear here. No, I'm not, I'm just saying, but I'm saying that. Carl is being dismissed. They are being dismissed because everyone's used to, of course, the football team gets control. And I'm asking, how much more. More control would you like football teams to have?

They already have plenty. Dan, that's what I love about this story, because he was, he has been portrayed to me in the press, the combine as, you know, staged out, over-involved, how crazy it is that he's demanding this. But if you took this athletic article, which kind of outlines the actual things that his, Caleb Williams' dad has asked about,

not even, like, demanded, but just kind of inquired about, and you presented all of those things to anyone outside of our sport, I think to a man, they would all agree this is eminently reasonable. Oh, you have, imagine this was like the tech industry, and your son was like, like, you know, had, I don't know, invented some sort of product that every company wanted. And if you were going to all these companies, your Facebooks, your Twitters, and you said, yeah, he would like equity.

He would like some control of his company. contract. He doesn't want to go through your song and dance. Nobody would question any of that. And it's one of those things where, like, when you step outside of football, you see how wild it is, the process. Yes. And, but, you know, it is presented as being anything but. Well, it is funny, right? Like, the idea that in scouting, you're trying to basically psychoanalyze all of these prospects you might pay nine figures to. and the trait that Caleb Williams and his family are exhibiting is an extraordinarily detailed and sophisticated understanding of how they're trying to attack a defense right now.

The defense just happens to be the institutional status quo of the sport itself as opposed to, you know, the linebacker lining up across from him. How about the institution of fatherhood? Because when she says to a man, any father with that child would want these freedoms we're talking about. Like there's, you will get no disagreement from a single father that loves his child. Oh, right.

This was a similar discussion around Lamar Jackson and his mom, his mom, his momager, right? Can you, can you, yeah? Can you imagine, let's say Mina's kid is an NFL prospect, what Mina is like at these, like, what kind of stage mom are you going to be? For your offensive tackle, offensive lineman. I mean, I'm such a rules follower. And she loves the NFL about as much as she loves Nino. So she might side with the NFL.

Come on, Nino. We're going to comply, right? We can get along. We can run the 40. Run the 40. Come on. Should we go to saying no? Because that feels like a segue?

Sure. Can't say no. My story is not about sports, although I guess it is, in a way, coming off of the story, there is a little bit of resonance when you think about it. It's about saying no, right? And yeah, I guess it's two articles that I both sent you. Both came out around the same time, which is kind of funny. One, the one that caught my eye first was by Leslie Jameson, who's a nonfiction writer. I really love, by the way, it's a beautiful writer. In The New York Times, it's called the mind-boggling simplicity of learning to say no. The other article was in the Atlantic. Also about the same topic. It says, Overwhelmed, just say no. This one's by Arthur C. Brooks.

Pretty similar. Both articles talk about the reasons why people have trouble saying no. And both articles give some practical tips for those who want to get better at saying no. And there's some overlap in the tips as well. Just to kind of summarize the reasons, though. I thought this was an interesting kind of different. The reasons they arrived that were a little bit different. the Atlantic story talks about two things.

One, not valuing the future with present. So that really is more like a time management, which is something we've talked about aspect of saying no, basically being like, yeah, sure, I can do this in the future, not really considering what that means for your schedule. Then the other one is sort of future fomo, like the fear of regret.

If you say no to something, opportunity, friendship, meet up, whatever, you will regret it in the future. Leslie Jameson's piece brings up a different reason why people say no. She talks about how it resonates with women in particular, but perhaps you guys will identify with this too, which is sort of like the fear of offending people or hurting someone's

feelings. Although she's a very very thorough. She characterizes it not as an unselfish act, but actually selfish one, which is you want people to think you're a good person, you don't want to lose like social equity. Can I just jump in on that? The thing about how you don't say no or I don't say no often, because I don't want the other person to feel bad,

it's a problem with me to the point where I have been in conversations where the impulse to protect someone from my perception of their humiliation is such that I will not correct people about things that are absolutely wrong about me. I will just go along with it. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you misheard me. saying that like Dune is the worst movie of all time, now I'm locked into this take. Because if I were to say 10 seconds in that actually you've been wrong for 10 seconds, I feel like that would shatter you as a person.

So I'm going to just eat this for the rest of this conversation. Okay. I just want to tell you this. I love the our caretaker we've hired to help me out with our child, his nanny. Every day, she has all these, she gets booked from a library. She has a book that she's been reading to him. for about two weeks now, it's been in our home. And every time I walk by, she points to it. She makes noises and talks.

And she's like, see, he's learning Korean because I'm Korean. The book is Chinese. And I can't figure out how to explain to her. That is one million perfect example. Perfect example. I don't, I've actually had conversation. I'm like, Nick, should I tell her at some point? Because it's gone on for so long now that I feel like it's too late for me to say anything.

Now you have to learn about China for the follow of conversations. It has a panda on the cover. Come on. Come on, man. It's a panda. I don't have trouble with no this way. And I don't know. It wasn't hand-me-down in any way.

And I don't know that it was something that I saw very much of. I think, Pablo, so it sounds like for you and me, we both share this. And it's much more about the social dynamic than it is about time management or the fear of missing out on some. Is that my correct in diagnosing us? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel uncomfortable when someone else feels uncomfortable. It's, it's... Same.

Same. Like, not to make myself into a hero, but I feel the pain of others, Dan. And so I guess I'm just better at being a person. You guys are afflicted with something here that I don't believe that I don't think of you as both having a great deal of trouble with boundaries, generally speaking. So this is a very specific type of boundary that is being crossed because you're not setting it. And I don't think of it as either one of you. I don't think either one of you have trouble in other areas with the setting of boundaries.

This is a very specific one that involves another person coming to you and asking for something and you unable to say no, as opposed to you setting it firmly because there's not a request being made, or wherever it is that someone else would send, wherever the other places are that you would set boundaries. I just don't want to make them feel bad. Yeah, I guess it just hurts less to do it as opposed to watch someone process me saying, actually this idea, and this is my translation of what the word no is, what a fucking stupid idea never bring this to me again. And I'm like, oh, that seems harsh.

even though I've just said no, period. That's my translation of it. Okay, I actually thought these tips are really good. One of them was both of these articles had the same tip, which is you have to document your nose. Both of them wrote them down, or in the case of the Atlantic writer, shared them with a friend.

Basically, like if you say no to something, let's say your husband knows, or you have a friend who shares perhaps Pablo and I could be in a no society, a no club, you tell someone, you say, hey, I said no to something. today. And you become then more inclined to do so knowing that you have some kind of accountability or in this case reverse accountability for doing it. The Atlantic writer also talks about like viewing it as a like saying yes as not the default being like an opt-in sort of

mentality. And then the other thing, and that this was also very helpful, waiting a day before saying yes, giving yourself some time before you say yes, makes you less likely to do It just resolves itself by me never actually answering them, which is why I have 15,000 unread emails right now from various college students that I will get to because I care about the future of journalism in America. What is the worst thing you've ever said yes to? For fear of not, you know what I mean? For fear of events.

Well, but here's what happens. Here's what you run. Here's what you guys end up running into if you don't say no, because I learned this. This was something that I learned with. Stugats and a friend of Stugats who came by the studio one day and with his family. This person spent about an hour taking pictures with me, with everybody else. It wasn't just a quick in-and-out thing, just kept making requests, kept making requests. And I didn't say no until he said, where's your father?

Can I take some pictures with your father? and I'm like, my father didn't come in today. He's not here today. And then the request was, can you ask him to come in? No. Yes, no, that was the... And I'm like, no, I'm not going to ask him to come in, and that's where I drew the line.

But then I went to Stugats and I told him the story. And you know what Stugats' reaction was? Yeah, buddy, you keep asking. You just keep asking for stuff until someone says, no, there's no shame in just keep asking for stuff because you'll keep getting stuff if you keep asking for stuff. And that's where you guys both get trampled. if you don't say no.

Dan telling that story reminds me of one of my favorite yeses, which is to say the worst yes that I can recall right now, which is a call. I was on with Charlie Kravitz, our mutual friend, and Stugats.

Because Tugats was pitching me during the pandemic on somehow, I don't even know if Dan knows about this, maybe he knows all of it. Stugats pitched me on co-hosting a show with him called Stick to Sports. And I said I would get on the call with him because I didn't know where this was headed.

And the show involved me and Stugats giving takes and then also wearing Velcro suits with a Velcro wall so that after we give the take, we literally have to jump at the wall and stick to sports. No. This call was like 45 minutes. Like it wasn't like, ha ha, ha, this is stupid. Let's stop this. It was, wait, what was the second take one?

Has he ever pitched you on second take? Oh, what's that? Oh, awkward. He's never pitched you on second take. It is exactly what it sounds like, Pablo. I got the first draft of second take. You got to workshopped his idea with me and then came to you with the more evolved version

after I gave my f***ed notes on this. I seriously engaged him with this for 45 minutes. You gave him notes? Second take was pre-pandemic, so. We should put up on the... Oh, I was the... I was the safety school. I was too God's terrible cheating on dance, sports show safety school.

I didn't know any of this, not surprising. I've told you guys before that I am William H. Macy and Boogie Nights. I show up all the time and there is my marital partner in the driveway, having sensual relations about sticking to sports and second takes. He is all of the things that we say he is, but I did not know that his, idea, David Letterman, we can show this was done a long time ago, David Letterman jumping off of a trampoline and sticking to something as Velcro. Could we have the trampoline up? Now this wall is again covered with the other half of the Velcro, right?

All right. But it's the only idea he had. He just has the funny visual of sticking to something and then he'll build it out from there. But there's not much of an idea there other than the... funny thing of, I don't know what you're going to do the second week of shows once it's sort of run its course. These were most of my notes. These were most of my notes. And let me just tell you something, as I, as I expect Mina to give us, by the way, the worst yes she's ever given. What I was trying to do, imagine how ineffective it is for me to gently try and get Stugat's to back off of

this premise when all he has is the premise and all he has. is the instinct to keep forcing it down my throat. That's why the call was 45 minutes. The thing about Stude's, though, is when you say yes to him, you do so knowing that it probably won't go anywhere. So I actually feel comfortable just saying, yeah, sure, yeah, definitely. Send me a proposal knowing the proposal will never come, right? So actually, it's not as the asks are not, except for the thing I did for his book,

but typically the ask. Well, but wait a minute, but wait a minute, because that took many years of him not doing anything, and then eventually what ended up happening is an assortment of people did it for him, and you ended up during the Super Bowl writing more for his book than he will write for his book. That's a thing that happened. And every, yeah, well, but this is, I just got done telling you the story. He will keep asking, and every once in a while.

while you're going to get backed into a corner and you're going to end up writing his book for him. My worst yes is, unsurprisingly, being a woman, are all dates. All throughout my life, just dates that I didn't want to go on, that I knew I didn't want to go on.

And, you know, actually, this brings me back to the article because the Leslie Jameson story starts with her complaining to her father about being asked to basically do overtime at a job at, at bakery or something and her father says something

that she, it really resonates with her, which is that person has every right to ask and you have every right to say no and that when you're reluctant to say no, you bear some responsibility for the interaction. And when I think back to some of the dates that I went on,

in a way, like, you know, I certainly made it worse by saying yes, knowing that it wasn't going anywhere. Now, I do think that ignores the fact that some people could be quite pushy and relentless, not just about dates, obviously, but about anything. But that I think stuck with me a little bit, which is that when you are a reluctant, like when you are a person who constantly says, yes, you do bear a lot of responsibility

for what follows. Not to plumb the depths of your traumas, but is there a date where you were like very quickly of the understanding this was a terrible yes to give? It's not a good story. It paints me in a horrible life. but I guess Dan I'm telling this like

Joy there's a guy that he in his picture for the it was like a pre-app stage of the internet

he was kind of like being like what's happening here we go for the you oh god he was kind of hiding

behind his he was coily hiding behind what what's your hand standing for for his actual hand So, I met up with him, public place, bright of day.

Yeah, I was kind of like, I don't even know how to phrase it. Anyways, he had an eye patch in real life, but you couldn't see it in the photo. That explains some things in retrospect, doesn't it? I met up with him. And, you know, it's like, okay, you know, it was a little bit surprised, you know. Very successful, good-looking man. Look, I don't know how you telegraphed to somebody that you're trying to I'm not doing something.

He was, okay, now, he was standing behind, he was standing behind a wall. Oh, no. Here, on a here. Like shack behind that tree, that meme? I don't know. Okay, let me break. I need to get to the conclusion of the story because it's what rescues me from being the horrible person in this story.

So far, I'm pretty sure you're not going to be rescued, just as a side note. But I don't think you're horrible, though. He's starting with a dishonesty. Thank you. we meet for coffee. He's kind of mean. And we're walking around the East Village. And we pass a girl I know who's sitting outside with her husband.

And I'm like, oh, hi, this is a person's name. I'm not like we just, we're on a first internet date. We walk away. He looks at me. And he looks at me and he goes, your friend has a lot of hair on her face. Oh, no. I was like, what? Sir?

Sir, not all of us are as good as covering the things on our face with our hand as you are. Anyways, I shouldn't have said yes to that. Something was weird. I knew something was weird, but I went along with it anyways. And to my credit, I said no to a follow-up. I mean, of course that guy was mean. He's got the seething resentment of unsuccessfully trying to hide that he's got one eye from women he's trying to trick. I still feel bad about it to this day, even though I was not in the wrong.

So bad. So what should I say to my nanny, though, real talk? Yeah, I think you should say... It's too late. It's too late. You've lived the lie for too long. Like, you're going to... You just got to become Chinese now. Dan, what you got for us, buddy.

This is an article from the Atlantic. How happy couples argue they don't try to control each other. They try to control themselves. It is by Derek Thompson. The reason that I wanted to bring it in front of you is at least in part because I've just learned a great deal over, I don't know, all the time I've been with Valerie, who sort of upended the way that I have done things all of my life. At one point in my life, I was someone who was in relationships and would be proud to say something along the lines of, we don't argue, which doesn't seem like, a terribly bad thing on its face, but when I did talk to my therapist about this, one of the things that she said is like, that's not probably the most human way to go through these things. And so I have

learned how to argue better, but I follow or I fall into some of the same patterns in traps sometimes where I have to be self-aware about things that I have done because I'm not quite formed, but these patterns are deeply entrenched. And so I just wanted to do. to talk to you guys about how it is that you argue, because I've done a lot of learning on this front. And I now have sort of a voice inside of me that tells me I'm doing that thing while I'm doing it. So I know how to, I know how to eject from some of my bad patterns.

I just want to point out that me and I simultaneously started making roughly the same face, but her face was more conspicuous. So I want to see what she's thinking about. Me? No. Judging you? What? Not judging you at all. I like this article a lot.

I mean, it really, the conclusion is basically, like, the way you argue is more important than what you argue about in terms of, like, you know, healthy relationships. I think that's absolutely true. That's something that I have found to be true in my own relationship. And I was my... actually not because of what Dan said, but because I was thinking of something that occurred to me recently, which is I have found that the way I argue in my marriage is exactly how I argue on the show first take,

which is to say, and I think success correlates with the same patterns for both, not getting overly emotional in the moment, presenting a neutral to smiling facade as much as possible, not raising my voice, leaning on facts, not trying to make the other person feel small and acknowledging what they've said. I try to do both of those things, and I find that in both cases it works best for me. I relate to that in the sense that Liz has accused me at my worst. Because we've established on the show previously, I don't really yell, I don't raise my

voice, but I do tend to lapse into a debate mode if I am like really convicted about something. And Liz has called me out for this. I did high school debate, obviously gas bag on sports television. And it just snaps me back into the reality of like, oh, right, the person I'm trying to convince is not an audience, a third party judge, it's the person I'm talking to. And as soon as she says it, I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, so much of this article that hit to the core of me was about how, and this is specifically something that I relate to, about how oftentimes men, me, will try to solve a problem, like, dissect it, analyze, provide a solution to it.

Yeah, that's the same problem. Yes, because I'm, like, here to be solutions-oriented, be constructive with my argumentation, let's say. and a lot of it, I've learned over years and years and also this single paragraph at the very top of a Derek Thompson's story, people just want to have their emotions expressed and confirmed so that they fundamentally feel like they're not alone processing this. And that, to me, I just skip that part in my brain so often to like,

how can I fix this? Yeah, that's... As opposed to how can I just sit with this? I want to read this to you guys. In his new book, Super Communicators, the journalist Charles Duhigg, writes that one of the most... most common sources of conflicts in relationships is when partners don't agree on the type of conversation they're having. Some conversations are practical. Let's solve a problem together. Others are emotional.

Let's talk about it and understand our feelings. Many fights, mistake practical for emotional conversations and vice versa. I think actually both my husband and I are default to you want, oh, you brought this to me, you want my advice, you want me to fix it. And to Boblo's point is often not what the other person wants. Something I've started doing, started over the last few years, is almost at the very beginning, I try to suss out,

okay, what do you want me to do? Like, what are we doing here? I think setting the terms of, and this is kind of the article gets set, what the goal is of the conversation, really, I have found to be really helpful in making that conversation actually subsidized. Are we venting? Are we venting or fixing?

Like, do you just need to be heard here? I underestimated so stupidly the value of venting. Just like sometimes you just want someone else to be there as you relay what happened to you that day. And in fact, I've been informed reliably by sources close to the situation. When you jump in with your thoughts, you're like just getting in the way of them feeling and literally being heard. And it's just the fact that lots of people do this It makes me feel somewhat better Also worse, though, because it's just a cliche

Like I just realized In the course of reading these articles That oh yeah, I am a stand-up comic cliche Men do this and women do this I'll tell you, okay, let me just jump in here A lot of women I know are fixers And have the exact same problem So it's not a clue

It's not I actually don't think it's gendered at all So now you're just gendered at all So now you're just gendered at all. So now you're just jump in here. So now you're being a cliche because you're trying to associate this with, with, I was just kidding. No, I think, if anything, it's a type A quality, which is not particularly gendered. It's unsurprising to me that all three of us, while maybe we have different attitudes or relationships with the word no,

are similarly annoying. I believe we have solutions. Let's put it that way. I do find some of this to be particularly tricky, though, because I have had to learn it because there's an inner voice, wherever it is that I feel the deepest forms of love, I'm with someone I trust so implicitly

who's not really ever looking to argue with me gratuitously that generally speaking, I now know, and this is a fairly amazing thing to realize at my age, I now know if we're arguing, I've probably done something wrong that I'm not yet aware of that's about to reveal itself. I mean, if it's not about some silly thing, it's because she's not looking for the places where she can win an argument with me, and she's so consistently loving about everything, thing that I just trust it now. There has, an introspection has been forced upon my blind spots that just wasn't there

before. I do like that one of the things you said before, Dan, as you go through your journey of perpetual self-discovery, is that your therapist was like, you should, you should fight more. What are you repressing, right? If you're never arguing, like, it doesn't seem, I mean, I'm sure there are many couples that get along so harmoniously that it's just. not, you don't have to do it. But it doesn't work for me is what she was saying.

This was specific to me. I don't think she was saying in general, couples should never argue. She was talking, she's done analysis like I've done, I've done both. I've done therapy with my wife. I've done therapy with myself because I want, I want the tools that I need to learn the things that I need to learn about all of the

things that I don't know that I thought I knew and have, you know, have really been turned upside down. And so it was specific. to me that, Dan, if you're not having, if you specifically aren't having occasional conflicts with people, you're not doing it right. So I was listening to, I think my husband, I don't fight very much. Like, the fact that we don't fight very much comedy. That's the word else. That was so cheap for. Is also like a real privilege alluded earlier to the fact that, you know, we have a nanny who's in the other room who works, you know, during the week. Who thinks you're Chinese?

And that's fine because my infant pooped all over the crib this morning. Point is, the closest we come to fighting every week is on Saturdays when it's just us. Because you are pushed to the limit by a child. Money buys peace, y'all. Like, the fact that we, yeah, like, I only have to. to make those decisions as little as I do is something that I have purchased in my own life. And something that has occurred to me, Pablo, is if that wasn't the case, oh my God, life would be much more full of attention.

Obviously, money helps with those things. And I'm here to tell you that not having kids helps with those things. Because if you have not slept and are irritable, like there is all sorts of shrapnel and ancillary stuff that can make an appearance that has almost nothing to do with your relationship. I am definitely the special teams coach of my household. Like Liz has all of the other jobs, basically, and I need her to do that.

And my frustrations often, when I lapse into debate mode, are about how I fear, I feel, at least, that she doesn't necessarily take seriously the job that I have, which is why I'm stressed, which is why she needs to do that stuff, because I need to do a show with my friends about how I'm a fucking enlightened person now. And she's getting in the way right now with her complaints about how I'm not enlightened enough. None of us take you seriously, Pablo.

And Liz is raising two toddlers. It's two toddlers. She's married to one of them. And only one of us on the bed recently. So what did we find out today as I try to get both of you back to your families and me to mine? at the end here. I found out that Stugats had two other scams he was trying to execute with two other of my friends. I'll add it to the library list. It is many stories high of all the things Stugats has done to try and find the thing that can allow him to exist away from me.

Yes. I found out that Pablo will never say no to me if I ask him for stuff. So I should start asking you for stuff more often. Oh, God. I resent. I resent the fact that I most related to Mina, I found out today, that I most related to Mina being unable to push back on someone miscasting her country of origin. I was like, yep, been there.

I have been in so many Ubers where I'm just like, yep, I'm Hispanic, dude. You got me. Too late now. The second time, I started whispering because you don't want her to know. You're like, how can I tell her? And I'm thinking, Mina, just say it a little louder into the

microphone. She's in the other room. Should I suggest you listen to this podcast, which definitely will never happen. Send her this link. Send her this link. She's 58. Send it with Chinese subtitles. We're a rainbow coalition. What if I buy a Korean book? Okay, Nina just put her hand to her mouth like a one-eyed, one-eyed catfisher. Look, Mina's trying to trick a man that she wants to date into thinking she has a nose. But as for our locker room here, because we're on a tight ship here at Pablo Torre finds out. And our team includes Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rachel Miller-Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumenello, and Juliet Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems.

our post production by NGW Post, our theme song as always by John Bravo. And yeah, we will talk to you on Tuesday with yet another very different episode.