Podcrushed - Justin Baldoni

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Justin Baldoni -- actor, director, and New York Times bestselling author -- stops by the pod to share stories from his youth, and lessons from his quest to understand the meanings and misconceptions around what it is to “be a man”.  Follow us on socials! InstagramTwitterTiktokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada Because it's so much about masculinity, right? It's so much about all the things that we feel but we never say to our fathers and that our fathers never say to their sons. And the question is, why? Why do we have so much inside us that we want to say but we can't get out? Where does that start? Where does that come from?

This is Pod Crushed. The podcast that takes this thing out of rejection, one crushing middle school story at a time. And where guests share their teenage memories, both meaningful and mortifying. And we're your hosts. I'm Nava, a former middle school director. I'm Sophie, a former fifth grade teacher. And I'm Penn, a middle school dropout.

So on this podcast, the three of us talk amongst ourselves about how Nava is the queen of summarizing. If we ever have to do a summary on this podcast, we look at Nava because she's so good at it. No, it's so true. And actually, this past weekend, I saw Nava, we're both part of this study group where we're studying about participating in public discourse, specifically a group of people who are in media. And we had a break. And somehow we started talking about House of Dragons, the prequel of Game of Thrones. And I have never watched Game of Thrones. Did Navas summarize Game of Thrones?

And it made you think, wow, I really want to watch Game of Thrones. I don't need to watch it. I don't need to watch it anymore because Navas Summarized Game of Thrones. because Nava summarized it so well, but she summarized all six seasons. Eight, eight seasons. Wait, Nama, don't you not like Game of Thrones, though? I wasn't a huge fan, but a friend of mine, I had,

actually, I'm going to shout him out. Hello, Ford Bowers, love you. As, like, a sign of friendship to Ford, he was like, you cannot be in media and not watch what is considered the greatest series. So I watched all eight seasons out of respect for Ford. But I didn't love it. No, I didn't love it.

But she described it so well. I was like, thank you. You should have seen me. It was like I was at the movie theater. I was like, Oh, my God. And then how could they do that? I feel like you've done that for me for like the first two or three seasons or something.

Maybe. Because we did get into it and I was like, wow, this actually sounds compelling. Yeah. I don't have anything to share. Thank you, Sophie. Can I get away with that? Nothing happens. No, it was summarizing.

I have nothing. Okay, let's jump in. Today's guest is a good friend of mine, which is in. interesting because we haven't even seen each other that many times in person, but we have had some really deep conversations. His name is Justin Baldoni. He's an actor and filmmaker, best known for his time playing Raphael Solano on Jane the Virgin, and his incredible directing work in films like five feet apart and clouds. Back in 2018, Justin gave a TED talk that went quite viral called Why I'm Done Trying to Be Man Enough. Most of the men I play ooze machismo, charisma, and power.

look in the mirror, that's just not how I see myself. But it was how Hollywood saw me. And over time, I noticed a parallel between the roles I would play as a man, both on screen and off. It's really great. I mean, like every TED Talk, it's 18 minutes. You should watch it. I highly recommend it. But from that spawned a book called Man Enough about his relationship to masculinity. And he's created a podcast of the same name, Man Enough, where he and co-hosts Liz Plank and Jamie Heath invite guests to explore the meaning and misconceptions around what it is to be a man. I really love the concept. I really love the episodes. I think you should go deep over there. But for now, while you're here, Justin right now is supporting a YA adaptation of his book that's called Boys Will Be Human.

And it's out now. Justin is one of a kind. You're going to love him. We do get into some sensitive subjects, particularly like the effects of sexual abuse and trauma. But there is also I promise you there's also some laughter. We really run the gamut. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored? And do you also feel like super guilty about it?

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I explore life's big questions with thought leaders who help us better understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. I hope these conversations bring you moments of resonance, hope, and growth. Listen to pulling the thread from Lemonada Media wherever you get your podcasts. Justin, thank you. Thank you for coming in person. Oh, it's my pleasure. Of all of our guests, you've got to be amongst the most or best suited to this conversation

because it seems like you've made your life's work about unpacking for yourself, breaking down for yourself, and hopefully others. What aspects of being a man, what we call masculinity, and the aspects of that, are toxic, how you start to, I think as you say in your book, you start to put on armor, you know, particularly at that age. I mean, of course, that was my experience. I've talked about that on this show and others do too. But, you know, you've been deep diving in this now for how long, actually? Seven or eight years. Okay. Yeah. What did start this deep dive? the dive started in my 20s

the dive started around the time I met my wife 27, 28 and our very confusing early dating life I knew immediately that she was my person I just knew it was like in every fiber of my being

that I met my soulmate and she didn't know and nobody prepared me for that nobody prepares you for when you know with your whole being and then the person doesn't know and i was just infatuated with her i was i was i was in love and we weren't even you know full on dating yet i just knew she was my person and um and you know it's very confusing because you're taught in many ways growing up that as a man you should play it cool and not show of course you know keep keep it all keep it all inside not show too much you don't want to be

overwhelming and yeah so it was just really confusing so i remember what i got i talk about in the book and i warn young boys but she called it my puppy dog phase where i was just like if we went to a party i wouldn't want to talk to anybody else right so if she left i would like look to see where she was because i'd be kind of inevitably bored with whoever i was talking to and i'd want to go find her and be around her. I was trying to do the opposite of what I was taught as a man. The rules of masculinity told me that to quote unquote get the girl, and I am using possessive language intentionally, right, which is what we're taught to get the girl. Put her in a cage, to put her in a cage. That's it. That's it. I had to like be a version of myself that was interesting or mysterious or I had

you know, put on a mask and not show too much. And I was actually trying to do the opposite intentionally. I'm like, no, I am going to show her who I really am. I'm going to just, if I want to be around her, I'm going to be around her. If I want to call her, I'm not going to play this game. I'm going to call her. And she had never been exposed to that. And so I was like suffocating her with my passion and my intensity and my love.

And it just pushed her away. Come to realize that my intentions were not really pure. So I was acting extremely codependently. I was needing her versus wanting her. And she was picking up on that energy. It was a little bit of a stickiness. We didn't just have a honeymoon phase, get married, and then figure out our stuff.

We spent a year and a half really investigating character, serving together, figuring out like, okay, why is this awkward? What's happening here? What's happening with our polarity? What am I doing? What are you doing? and then digging in

and it was because of that work I really believe we built a strong foundation that set us up for here we are in year nine and I've never imagined that I could have a marriage as happy and healthy as I have right now I never thought that like

I'm going on year 10 that I would be falling more in love with the person that I'm with because you hear the opposite you hear men talk about marriage and like oh well if you ever want to have sex again don't get married and you hear the ball and chain thing

and that's not at all my experience. First of all, I'm really intrigued, Justin, by the story you told of you and Emily dating. I'm wondering, like, what kept her around? Spirituality, our faith. Interesting. There was something that was, that she felt it was worth staying for.

Yeah, and then we talk about it a lot. We had a deep soul connection, and both of our traumas were getting in the way. So what we found, is that our traumas are inverses of each other and our insecurities are opposite of each other. So what we found, and this is, I think, the beautiful thing about marriage.

And I think, and I could be wrong for saying this, but my experience, and for those of my friends who have amazing marriages, is when your insecurity triggers theirs, you're in the right place. I'm going to tell my husband that, actually. that tracks i think for for our relationship for sure yeah when your when your trauma triggers theirs and you find yourself like in a spiral and a loop you're with the right person because by

healing and unlocking yours because i believe it's our work to unlock our own and heal ourselves you will inevitably help heal theirs and vice versa and it's this it's magical it's freaking magical i could talk about that all day wait there was one other thing we were talking about men and women supposedly not being able to be friends. And I've always found that so insulting because what it implies is that the only way that you can be in a relationship to a woman is sexual. Otherwise, there's no reason. People say that so casually. I'm thinking of like a 14-year-old now who could just as, I mean, they're inheriting that world too, even if we're giving a lot of lip service to changing norms. You know what I mean? You just wrote a book geared towards this

demographic. I'm just wondering, like, how do you approach reaching people this age? I spoke at middle school yesterday in Boston. There's like a thousand kids. Wow. Six and seventh graders. And then at night, I did an event and a lot of moms brought their kids and a lot of dads brought their, you know, boys. And one of the questions one of the moms asked was, he has a lot of female friends, this boy. And everybody's saying that oh you have crushes and you like them and this and he's and that was already starting at 12 years old um insinuating that like boys and girls can't be friends and then he had a 14 year old sister and she had already expressed that a lot of the boys wanted to be more more than just friends with her and it was awkward um so my argument is that um especially for young

boys it first starts with how we view girls right and we have to like address and look at our language, which is why I used the possessive when I talked about getting a girl, because early on, when we talk about women and girls, we talk about them as objects, not as people.

And that's really what feminism is. It's the radical notion that women are people. And we have to be mindful of, okay, the worst thing that I could ever be called as a young boy was a girl. There's nothing worse.

So what am I inherently learning about girls growing up, except that I need to hate the parts of myself that look like them? And yet one day I'm supposed to be in relation with them if I'm heterosexual, or I'm supposed to have friendships with them,

but I have to hate the parts of me that look like them. Well, that doesn't make any sense, so we're confusing our young boys. What I get into in the book is what we do when the girl doesn't reciprocate because there is an innate, I think, idea that young boys deserve or have a right to have their love or their like appreciated by a girl.

And then when they don't, there's repercussions generally for the girl. not for the boy. I would say most women of a certain age know what it's like to have a best friend or a boy suddenly start to like them and then have the friendship end because it's not reciprocated.

Well, the boy gets rejected. He feels terrible and suddenly he hates the girl or he talks bad about her or he just disappears. And that's heartbreaking for the girl because it shows that well, the friendship was never really pure. And my argument to young boys

is that it's okay to be rejected. Not every girl's going to like you. it's not always going to be reciprocated but friendship is so important between girls and boys and eventually if you ever want to become married or you ever want to enter a relationship

it's going to need to be the root of it but that's not what we focus on in modern society we don't focus on friendship as the root of marriage or friendship as the root of dating we focus on attractiveness it's from the outside and versus the inside out so it's really kind of a handbook in that way of rethinking what it means to be friends

and if you are rejected to look I got it like, okay, that hurt. Let me feel those feelings. But if I liked her enough to want to be in a relationship with her, then I can like her enough to stay friends with her. Justin, I kind of want to go back a little bit to your own middle school experience. Penn was asking you, like, at what stage in your life did you start doing this deep dive into masculinity?

You said it was really triggered by your relationship with your now wife, Emily. And you sort of mentioned, like, you both triggering each other's trauma. So I'm like deducing that your trauma has to do around like your expression. of masculinity. And so I'm wondering, like, when did that really, like, take shape? What was it like? What were you like in middle school? What were you grappling with?

Like, tell us about you personally. Okay. Yeah. Great question. I was a really confused boy who had a lot of energy. My parents were working a lot. So I didn't have a lot of time with them. I don't think we played together a lot.

My dad was building a big business. And my mom was a designer. And I had a hard time. making friends. I oftentimes felt like I was too much. I have early memories of trying to be like other boys, trying to fit in and talk like other boys and dress like other boys. I just was always externally focused and wanting to be like them and never really feeling like I knew who I was. Recently, I would say two years ago in therapy, I had this pretty dramatic realization that I crowdsourced my personality. When somebody asked me what my favorite music

was, it was always based on what somebody else's favorite music was or favorite food was or favorite sports team or whatever it was and I felt like I didn't have a sense of self. My sense of self was all externally focused and externally based and so I was really

sensitive also and so every time I would lose a friend or if someone wouldn't want to hang out with me it would really really affect me while at the same time I was really athletic. I was a really good soccer player. I was fast. But I was skinny, and I was pretty small.

I didn't grow until summer of seventh grade. I remember in sixth grade, I was four foot 11. I was one of the smallest kids. I started puberty late. I felt like I was behind. So I just never felt like I was one of the guys. And that followed me around through high school, through college, my early 20s. And it's still there, which is why when I release books like this or do TED Talks,

and I talk about what I talk about. When men reject me or reject my message or call me names, there's a part of little me that is hurt by that because that's what it felt like when I was 12. So that was pretty much my middle school experience was just trying to fit in. I kind of felt like I was in a pinball machine, just jumping from one thing to another

to see where I could be loved and where I could be accepted. I think that middle and high school is characterized by, like, if you're athletic, that's a portal to being accepted on one life. So I was an anomaly. And so you didn't, you didn't get that? So I was accepted and I wasn't. It was very superficial. I was bullied by my own teammates.

Okay. Which is why I was confusing. In one hand, you're right. I had a leg up in middle school and high school because I was really athletic. I was an all-star soccer player. I was playing Olympic development. You know, when I was a freshman and sophomore in high school, I made varsity track. You know, I broke the freshman record.

and I was really athletic and yet there was something about me that was a really easy target for other boys and that was because of my sensitivity it was because I made friends with girls much easier than I made friends with guys I found girls far less complicated I was a boy that loved to talk on the phone

so my memories of middle school were spending hours talking on the phone with girls that I had no romantic interest in which is why other boys would call me gay so I'd be made fun of on the team even after I scored the winning goal right my nickname that I put in the book

like Balboner like they used to call me boner right as if like Baldoni Bell Boner Boner doesn't even make any sense that people get to nicknames but they used to call me but like yeah they used to call me boner

but this came from the guys on my own sports team yeah and I was like and I was like why was it jealousy though I mean because it sounds like your mom told me it was jealousy but that's but all mom's No, no, no, because here's what I was, I'm not doubting it remotely, and I know, I mean, part of what we talk about on the show is like how people and every, all people have crippling insecurities. So not, so that's not surprising to me. None of that is remotely surprising. The specificity of your experience is surprising me because once you got tall, once you, once your athletic prowess was on display, you're, you're conventionally handsome. I wasn't, though. I really, I didn't, I don't think I came into my quote-unquote looks until probably my 20s.

Okay. Okay. So you didn't check that box. But all I'm trying to say is like I know that we all share this belief in the goodness of people, you know, faith in humanity. It's something that really connects us, all four of us as Baha'is. And yet also I think what we do in the show is we explore, like, what is this about? And we also connect in a belief in the duality of human beings, right?

That you have like a higher nature that takes a lot of work to arise to and a lower nature that's like a gravitational force that's like so easy to yield to and we're all kind of like oscillating between the two i also it makes me wonder justin you said i didn't feel like one of the guys like i was on the soccer team i you know like pen said you were checking all these boxes but you didn't feel like one of the guys and i'm thinking like did anyone feel like one of the guys i'm sure that yeah probably not trying to invalidate your experience at all that no i have an exercise for that in the book where and i did this yesterday where i asked kids close their eyes to not peek and I ask who here doesn't feel like they fit in

and a thousand kids raise their hands and then I ask them to open their eyes. Yeah. I mean, that's it. I mean, what you're saying is it. And that's how they express that, right? Yeah, it's tragic. But I'm grateful for it, right?

I look at it this way as how lucky was I because I am now able to as a grown late 30s man who's experienced some success who, okay, here's my insecurity. It's hard for me to say, like, I was about to say, look the way that I do, assuming that I'm attractive or that women think I'm hot.

It's still hard for me to say that because there's a part of me that doesn't believe it. That's just how honest I can be right now, despite what women coming up to me on the street will say, despite my looks right now and what I've become in my body and all of this stuff, to be able to have that experience, to be able to know what it's like

to feel on the outside, to not feel like you're enough to understand girls and women in a really unique way because they told me and shared their stories and their plight and what boys and men were doing to them

it's a really kind of unique experience that I'm super grateful for because men like me and you are generally not trying to tear down the system that benefits them because we don't have to so I'm grateful for it in that way

as strange as it is I guess strange it is that I love you yet I'm happy that you've had sorrow Abdulbah and we'll be right back All right so let's just real talk as they say for a second that's a little bit of an aged thing to say now

that dates me doesn't it but no real talk how important is your health to you you know on like a one to ten and I don't mean in the sense of vanity I mean in the sense of like you want your day to go well, right? You want to be less stressed. You don't want it as sick.

When you have responsibilities, I know myself, I'm a householder. I have two children and two more on the way, a spouse, a pet, you know, a job that sometimes has its demands. So I really want to feel like when I'm not getting the sleep and I'm not getting nutrition, when my eating's down, I want to know that I'm being held down some other way physically. You know, my family holds me down emotionally, spiritually, but I need something to hold me down physically, right? And so, honestly, I turned to symbiotica, these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious. And I'm telling you, even before I started doing ads for these guys, it was a product that I really, really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with. the three that i use i use i use uh the the what is it called liposomal vitamin c and it tastes delicious like really really good um comes out in the packet you put it right in your mouth some people don't do

that i do it i think it tastes great i use the liposomal uh glutathione as well in the morning um really good for gut health and although i don't need it you know anti-aging um and then i also use the magnesium l3 and eight which is really good for for i think mood and stress I sometimes use it in the morning, sometimes use it at night. All three of these things taste incredible. Honestly, you don't even need to mix it with water. And yeah, I just couldn't recommend them highly enough. Do you want to try them out?

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being bullied while you were traveling on a soccer trip and one where you bullied someone else because you were feeling insecure? Can you tell us a little bit about both of those things? My experience of bullying was, you know, really sixth grade, seventh grade, having so much fear and anxiety of even going to school because there was a couple boys that just would search me out and just terrorize me. Wow. And just hiding in the bathroom or just, or trying to leave class a little bit early so I can get ahead, eating lunch in different places. I mean, begging my mom to take me to school so I wouldn't have to take the bus, like filled with anxiety. My breathing even changes talking about it. So that to me is more of the bullying.

And the experience that happened to me playing soccer was just one experience of how I felt like I didn't measure up. Bodies were changing. I was on the soccer team. Two guys where, you know, they're noticing they're like starting to get hair and pimples and their bodies are changing. They're getting abs.

And they were just looking at their abs in the mirror. And they were like, oh, and they were showing their six packs. And they looked at me and they were like, where's yours? And they kind of laughed. And they like, oh, one day it'll come maybe. And they laughed and they, like, walked out of the room. Little did they know. Eight pack.

Little did they know that that trauma would turn it over compensation. I'm saying that laughing, knowing that you've been very transparent about that. No, but it's true. So, yeah, just an example of how such a seemingly innocent moment between boys can actually affect you in a real way. So then what do you do? You start doing sit-ups all the time, and you start kind of becoming obsessed because, well, you want to be like them.

What I didn't think about was that I can kick their hassle in the field or that I'm faster than them, right? I didn't think about that. I thought about what I didn't have that they did. We never think about inherently the things that we have that others don't. So I always went right to like, oh, I'm not enough. The other experience you're talking about is, you know, I had just moved from L.A. to Oregon, which was a pretty traumatic move, going from a Santa Monica elementary middle school to a school that had 120 kids in, All eight grades, and half of them were cousins. And that's not a joke.

Why did you move to Oregon? It was after the 94 riots, 92 riots, the 94 earthquake and the fires, and it was just like one thing after another. And my mom was convinced California was going to fall into the ocean. That's for another day. So we moved, and I just remember looking for any place in middle school to have some sort of power. I mean, I think that's really what it comes down to,

And that's so much of what masculinity is. It's a power grab. It's just trying to have influence over anybody or anything because the world makes us feel like we're not enough. And the only way we can feel enough is if we have some sort of power. Or if we can dominate somebody, or if we can feel in a moment that we're enough,

the myth is that when you exercise dominance and you pull the power card, you actually end up feeling worse about yourself. more empty. So there was a moment I was I think 11 years old maybe 10 we were playing dodge ball

with the whole class or not dodge ball we were playing kickball with the whole class and there was a really heavy kid his name was Matt and he went to kick the ball and I remember in the outfield

saying like let's go fat ass and the teacher looked at me and later came and said that was really unkind what you said

and I remember just feeling wow like super called out and also agreeing with her like wow that was really mean because i as an empathetic kid know what it feels like to be called names and yet here i was calling someone else in name because i for a moment was in a position of power where i had something that he didn't which was i was skinny and he was fat and i used that to my advantage later i became friends with him and i would actually he would be one of the first kids in that school to actually want to be my friend and we'd end up having like playdates and hanging out and he was a sweetheart but that didn't start that way that started with me being a bully did you guys ever talk about that experience no i don't know if you

ever really heard me to be perfectly honest um yeah but i heard me yeah and i still hear me jesson i wanted to ask actually about those two or three guys that were terrorizing you have you had any contact with them since middle school oh no no i haven't had contact with most people from high school in middle school. I had a hard go in high school. I get messages you know how it is like you become a little famous. But I didn't go. I just had my 20 year high school

reunion and I was like wanting to go and here's what's interesting. The reason why I wanted to go was to be like, okay I'm ready to go back now. And that's why I didn't go because I didn't want to have any feeling of superiority. I didn't want to

have any other intention to go back to my high school reunion. I wanted to go back because I wanted to and I wanted to see all these people. But because I was like, oh shit, I'm kind of rich and famous now. Like, I can go back. I didn't go because it wouldn't have been pure. It wouldn't have been right. It would have been for the wrong reasons. I bet it probably would have felt empty. Like, you probably would have gotten there. Oh, yeah. I would have been miserable. Yeah. I would have been miserable. I'm not, I'm not friends with any of them. It's like they knew a different version of me. It would have been one pro long

going, hey, fat ass. Exactly. Exactly. Just an evening of feeling the emptiness after. It just would have felt terrible. It would have been so empty. And I told my wife, and she's like, why would you want to go back? And I was like,

yeah, why do I want to go back? I'm not going. Justin, I, we always ask our guests what their first experiences around crushes was like in middle school. Like, what were you like around girls and what was your experience?

Oh my God. Yeah, what finally switched like, you know, you said that you had all these friendships that you really had no romantic interest in. What started changing? puberty oh that's it okay sorry

that's what I don't think no but you know what that was funny is that there were a few friendships that were completely platonic I remember a friendship of a girl I'm not going to say her name

there was no attraction but we talked for hours and hours and hours at night and I mean I remember she called me at one night when she was going to kill herself and I just stayed on the phone with her all night

and I think we were 14 She came from an abusive household And I hear she's doing great now Which is awesome But there was another girl In high school that I was just obsessed with And we were best friends

And also I had a huge crush on her And she always had a boyfriend And there was like one little moment When she didn't have a boyfriend And there was like She showed interest and I showed interests And like you know We like sniffed each other for a second

And then didn't go anywhere But we were like really good friends At the core and I never tried to take her away from any guys. I was just always there. Middle school was different. And I read about this in the book. I remember having a really big crush on a girl in middle school.

I think her name was Bree. And my memory of her, though, is what I would do to her. That was so not okay. I would snap her bra. So there was this thing where, do you guys remember this? So funny. Yeah, like, there was this thing where like, it was like our way of showing

I don't know it was so stupid I remember guys doing that to me now you're saying it's like taking right back to walking through the locker and it's like I remember being an eighth grade and like you'd go up and you'd like snap their bra

and run away no no no no no just like slow down I don't mean like take I just mean like slow down Penn Starry Penn rip in Hollywood yeah

well so what just you mean the strap yeah he's like what's the point if the bra's not coming off I don't I don't Get this. I don't understand this. He's not immediately.

No, I just, I had even my middle school experience abbreviated, and I just didn't reach my corner of the world. And it might not resonate with a lot of people, but I remember this phenomenon of like snapping bras. And this was a time where our bodies are changing. Girls are getting boobs. Girls are starting to wear bras. Girls are really insecure, I'm sure, about this.

And I write about it in the book. And then, of course, all it takes is some, idiot boy to come up and snap their bra to actually inflict some pain on them because it hurts. And here I was like, I don't know, it's just like the weirdest way to show affection and this whole idea of like us boys being mean to girls that we liked. Do we ever break that down? I feel like this has come up only once before on the show because we talk about middle school in a lot of different ways. But I think what's interesting about that is that that's not, it manifests in boys in a specific way

and then it has very troubling implications as it like flourishes into maturity and adulthood and stuff but I do think that that inclination is not gender specific I think girls are mean to boys too yeah I mean

Sophie's like I've never been mean to anyone I think you're probably right for sure for sure not that it changes anything but at the same time I have a seven year old right now and there's a boy who likes her and she comes home and she's really confused and upset because he's really mean to her.

And she doesn't understand. And we're trying to explain to her that it's not, it's like imagine telling a seven-year-old why a boy is being mean to you because he's not trying to be mean to you. He just knows what to do with his feelings. But I really liked this girl, Bree. And yet at the same time,

the reason I read about it in the book is that I didn't have consent from her to touch her bra or to touch her body. That carries on, I think, as you get older. Like the right that I have to touch a part of a woman and, like, inflict anything, any kind of pain on her. Even if it was fun or ingest, for me, it was like, okay, the bra touches the boob. This is as close as I can get.

I touch the bra thereby. I touch the bra, thereby, by proximity, this is count the boob. I did it. Character the one. And, but to her, it was different. It wasn't fun, right? So, yeah, so that's one of my memories of my earliest crushes. Justin, you mentioned your daughter, and I know you have both a son and a daughter, and I've been thinking about this, you know, people will often say like it's easier to raise sons than it is to raise daughters. And then a common retort to that is, well, it's not easier that we're neglecting a whole part of raising sons, which is nurturing their emotional capacity. And I'm wondering, since you have both, what has your experience been like? Do you feel there is, sorry, I'm wrapping a lot of things up,

this but you also in one of your podcast episodes you define masculinity as like an invisible barrier that was between you and your dad I really loved that definition and I wonder if you have ever felt that like naturally coming up between you and your son and have had to kind of fight it or what's your experience been raising the two of them okay let me answer the first part first I agree with you completely that the misconception of it is being easier to raise boys is because we don't feel like we have to do the emotional labor with boys that we have to do with girls. So there is like this idea like,

oh, well, girls are so much harder because they have so many more feelings. But that's the myth. We just allow the boys to drown their feelings. We just allow the boys to numb themselves, right? Bell Hooks writes in a will to change that the first act of violence that men commit in a patriarchal society is not violence against women,

it's violence against themselves. Yeah, completely that resonates. When they commit the act of soul murder. So for those of the four of us who are Baha'is, we understand that we have a soul, right? And that soul, our feelings are attributes of the soul. Our emotions are attributes of the soul, not attributes of the brain. Otherwise, how could we take happiness and joy into wherever we're going next?

So they can't be confined to our body. So when we teach our boys, and generally that comes from a father figure, but it also comes from a mother because women are socialized in the same way. So internal misogyny is a real thing in the feminine as well. Why? Because women, mothers, especially single mothers, want to make sure they raise tough, strong men, because they know how mean men are. And men want to raise tough, strong men, because they know how mean men are. And they know what it feels like to be on the other end of it. So we commit that act of soul murder.

We drown, we numb our emotions. We put on that armor, which I talk about in the book, and we desensitize ourselves. And we get to the point where we don't even know what we're feeling. We don't even know how to feel. So by nature, it's going to seem like it's easier to raise a little boy because we don't have to worry about all the feelings. But that's not the case. I would argue that it should take more effort to raise a boy

because you have to model the things that the world is going to tell the boy he's not allowed to feel. And that's what I'm experiencing right now is I'm trying to figure out, and I'll tell you how it goes in 15 years. I have no idea if it's going to work. How old is he? Maxwell's going to be five in two weeks. Okay.

And Maya's seven. And he's at the point now where last year he already started coming home saying that other boys don't cry. Wow, so young. And I went straight to the dad, by the way, because the dad came up to me. He's like, dude, I love your work. I love what you're doing. It was a really open guy. He followed man enough, and we talked about it.

And then, of course, his son was the one who started lying to my son about how he never cries. And boys don't cry in this stuff. So my son comes home and tells me this. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to have a conversation with Daddy over there. And I told him straight up in front of Maxwell. So what I'm trying to do is model, right? And it has to start with me. I always say my actions today will be their actions tomorrow.

If I don't allow myself to feel, I'm telling them that it's not okay to feel. It doesn't matter what I say. If I don't do it, he won't do it. So whenever I'm feeling joy, I try to show it. Whenever I'm feeling sad, I talk about it. If I'm feeling nervous or anxious, I say, Daddy's feeling a certain way. If I feel like crying, whether I'm happy or sad,

the part of me that comes up that's so strong that's like, man up, man up, Justin. I have to fight it and allow it to come up, and I do it just so I can show my son and my daughter. And so I'm always saying things like, the heart is the strongest muscle in your body. I'm always reminding him that it is his heart, it is his sensitivity.

Those are the things that make him amazing. I watch my language. Those are the apps you need to work on. Can you pair at Penn, please? Pan's like, I need to bring in some comedy into this super heavy conversation. No, but it's true. So I tell, I'm always reminding him

because I know that the second he leaves the house, the world's going to tell him the opposite. And I do the opposite with my daughter. I know the world's going to try to put her in the box to try to say, oh, she's got to be polite and not take up too much space and not take fiscal risks. And so I'm like, all right, baby, be loud.

And now we're at the point where we're like, okay, she's a little too loud. Okay. Inside voice, we're actually courtesy is sometimes a good quality. And the last part to answer your question of the second thing that you asked is I haven't felt that with my son, the invisible barrier. I don't think that starts until boys are older. I would say nine, ten, eleven years old. I think that boys inherently are sweet. They want to cuddle.

They want to be close. They want to hug until they are bullied and shamed for it at school. Yeah, that's very true. Until the other boys police them and knock it out of them and then they feel awkward. And when that happens, that's the invisible barrier. I was thinking about, you know, like, it feels like there's been so much progress. And in some ways there is. Like, I think it's important to state that, like, there's been a lot of progress in advancing

gender equality in a lot of ways and in some ways there hasn't been. But in the media, it's interesting because I think it feels like there's been more progress than there has been because there's more conversation. last year, and I won't say which network, because I don't want to throw anyone in the best, but one of the major networks, they did a study on their children's content, and they were saying that, like, right away, they're programming for two-year-olds and up, it, like, reinforces gender

norms, like, gender stereotypes. And I was just reading yesterday a study about, like, the number of female directors and women behind the camera, and it's 1% lower now than it was 20 years ago. Like, there are 1% fewer female. It's already a very low number. It was, like, it used to be 18%, and now it's 17% or something like that. Like, there's a lot of conversation, but the change isn't happening. Yeah.

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I watched the episode where you brought your dad on to your podcast, Man Enough, and I thought it was very moving. But it was also, as someone who's very close to her parents as well, it also was hard at times for me to watch. And I can imagine it was probably hard to be in that conversation too. And I was wondering, I wanted to be in your head. I wanted to know what you're feeling. Like, were there any moments where you felt like you wanted to protect him

at the same time as you're engaging in this conversation? What was that like? So we do a podcast called Man Enough, which I think Penn's going to come to be a part of. I think you guys should all come on personally. But it was really important for me in that first season of the show to have both my dad on and then another episode I had my wife on because I think it's important to not just talk about this, but to show it. I wanted to have a conversation with my dad and model what that could look like because most men I talk to you can't. And I know far too many older men who long and who dream

and who wish they could have had a conversation like I had with my dad on the podcast. And the question is, why? Why do we have so much inside us that we want to say, but we can't get out? Where does that start? Where does that come from? And it's passed down from generation to generation.

It's not our father's fault. But it's also not our fault as the children. And this is what makes it really complex from a psychological perspective is it's not our job to change our fathers and it's not our father's faults that they don't have the skills

or the tools to communicate effectively or to feel or to show their emotions. And my dad is in a really unique place where he's been learning from me on my journey over the last 10 years and we've had hard conversations and I've gotten them into therapy and we've had amazing experiences.

I took them on a three or four day therapy retreat about five years ago. Wow. That was amazing. And I had to watch my dad act out a situation with his father and cry. So I knew that he was capable of these conversations. And I wanted to show people that it was possible. So that's the context for the conversation.

And it was really hard and also it was really healing. And since then we've had more conversations. And it's been really sweet to watch him grow because I'm growing. And that's the beauty of life. My son's going to teach me just like I'm teaching my dad. But it wasn't my job to take care of my dad in that moment. It was my job to be able to be a son to have feelings and thoughts and ask him questions that might be hard. And he healed and impressed me so much with his ability to stay in the room to sit there with me and to hold it.

And I'm just, I'm really grateful for that. Yeah, I think it is really special that you did have that conversation publicly, even though that adds another element of trickiness to it. I think, yeah, the fact that people can see that conversation. conversation is really powerful. It was, and he told me things in that conversation that I'd never heard before. Like, he told me he was introduced to porn when he was 10. I'm like, that's like really, really wrong. Like, you never thought about that?

He never talked to anybody about that. That, to me, classifies as a form of abuse or molestation. I mean, that's, you know, I 100% agree. But I also believe that it for sure played a part in me. You know, what are the odds that I find it at 10 years old? Yeah. And another kid introduces me to it overnight at his sleepover. and I'm not actually pretty high.

Most boys start watching porn at 10. That is the statistical. Well, it's lower now. It's lower now, especially because with phones, with cell phones. This is a facet, not just of masculinity, but it's a facet of capitalism. It's the intersection of the two. Right. Exactly. And to me, what is so criminal about this is that we're not given any agency to stop that.

No. There's no other option, really, than for parents to accept this invitation into the pockets of their children. like this the sociopathic profit driven at all cost every other cost other than profit which is the lives the minds the hearts and bodies of our frigging children you and i had a conversation on the phone maybe a year ago just a personal conversation and and we talked about this this very thing and how and how in some ways porn when given to a young child is a version of sexual abuse. Completely.

I don't even think it's a version of it. I think it is. I agree. I think it absolutely is. And I've been talking about that a lot recently because that's what happened to me. I wasn't ready at 10 years old. My body hadn't changed. You said before we used this word intersection and that word is used kind of ad nauseum.

But it's an interesting one because I think one aspect of what's been happening culturally is that it is this condemnation of maleness or masculinity, period. Yeah. Which doesn't help. Which actually, yeah, I mean, it's like I get the impulse and I'm not actually trying to defend or apologize for men at all, but I actually think it just doesn't. It's not helping. It's creating more self-loathing, which we're saying is the root of toxic masculinity, you know. It's, well, and I write it, and I write it early on in the book. I say this is not a man-hating, I apologize for being a boy type of book. It's the opposite. It's a boy-loving, man-loving. I love being a man-type of book. And the world needs men. And at the same,

time it's okay to acknowledge that men are hurting and hurt people hurt people the same system that's hurting women is hurting men it's a cycle and so i say if our young boys cannot learn to be safe spaces for themselves this world will never be a safe place for anybody and that's what it comes down to men are also the greatest victims of violence and murder it's not women we kill men more than we kill women and we kill women. We kill everybody. I worked at the UN for a few years and my primary research area was the advancement of women and it always really bothered me that there's a whole target that's violence against women and I'm like just call it male violence because who is perpetrating this violence against women and also men do perpetrate more violence against other

men than they do against women. The number one subjects of violence are men but the number one perpetrators of violence are also men. So the problem is male violence. And calling it violence against women is this like you know yeah it's just like this actionless like who's who's the subject of this it's just a thing that happens to women you know that's not the real issue but the other part of that though now that's important yeah is that so that conversation very easily can get taken as a soundbite and because of the context collapse of the internet and social media can be used as a tool to hate men yeah and this is what i think you're speaking to and why i think the divide is growing and why we're seeing so many young men radicalized is because we're just using that and saying oh okay well

men are the problem. So my argument is, okay, if we're doing all of this harm, and we're also harming ourselves, if we're the problem, then we're also the solution. If hurt people, hurt people, then heal people can heal people. And there's a positive here. And that's where the book comes in, and that's where this work comes in. It's not like, oh, screw men, this and this and this and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, you have an entire segment of the population that's like anti-feminism. It's like, you know, radicalize these young men because feminists hate men and this and this and this in reality, true feminism needs and loves men. Just read the work of Bell Hooks, for God's sakes.

Like, our liberations are tied together. You will never be free if I'm not free. And I'm not free in this system. Sure, it might benefit me materially, but not spiritually or psychically or emotionally. That's why men are killing themselves at four times higher rates than women. Men are depressed.

We don't even know we're depressed. We don't even know we have anxiety. I didn't know I had anxiety until I was 33. I just was like, oh, I'm fine. Oh, yeah, I get that pit in my stomach sometimes, but I'm good. This is my ass. It's just my eight-packed. This is that rippling muscle that I don't know.

Too much of it. Where's it all going? Just too much. Just don't know what to do with it all. But yeah, so we're also hurting. We are hurting. and we don't have anybody to talk to you because we have created little islands for ourselves of armor

and we don't know how to connect with anybody, let alone connect with ourselves. And that's where we are right now. That's why I'm trying to reach young boys before they put the armor on, as we talked about earlier. Yeah. And I'm really glad you gave that context, Justin,

because I definitely don't want to imply that. And I think part of the reason that it bothered me so much is because it also put the onus on women. Like, carry those little claw things when you walk at night, make sure you have pepper spray. Like put the onus on yourself to not be a victim of violence. like what can you do to and all those meetings about violence against women at the UN were attended by women if one man went would be like one or two and then like a hundred women thinking about violence against women that they weren't perpetrating so yeah this like the men have to be in the room they have to be the solution and that language though is so important like what do we say like she was raped we never say he raped her it's so true right she was raped so true yeah we treat these things like their natural events yeah because boys will be boys will be boys

This is why I titled the book, Boys will be human. We make excuses for men as if our testosterone and our aggression are biological. When in reality, they are socialized, learned behaviors. Yes, of course we have testosterone. Sure, maybe we have higher sex drives. Fine. Okay. That doesn't give us an excuse to be rapists and murderers.

And then we look around and we wonder why? Why? Why are we not talking to our boys? Why are we not? There's no bookstore section for boys. There are no books for boys. Where are you going to put this book, Justin? I don't know.

There's no section for it. I'm probably going to sell five copies, and that's fine. We have the first three, so two more to go. But that's the thing is, like, there's no section. Because we, like, for the same reason that boys are just easier. Yeah. Life is hard. I know it's hard.

Parents are doing their best. But we can't ignore the emotional and spiritual needs of our young boys because those boys will turn into men. And it's not a far leap to see like, oh, okay. Okay, well, one in four women are survivors of violence, sexual assault, but one in five women are survivors of rape. One in nine boys are abused before the age of 18 by boys, generally. Wow. Hurt people, hurt people. It's easy to separate yourself from the rapists, the murderers, right?

The most extreme examples. Not for me. Speak for yourself. Play one on TV, loved for it, absolutely love for it. What is such a confusing thing. I love how famous Penn got for playing the absolute worst person possible. But he's not a rapist, guys. He is not a sexual predator.

He is a predator, and he is sexual. He is not a sexual predator. He kills after he gets consent. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. He only kills people he's in a relationship with. But I, well, first of all, I think that rape most of the time is not as violent and it's not

as intense as people think it is. Like I just heard someone describing their first sexual encounter. She had said very. clearly no and he just kept going he continued opening the condom and she had said very clearly twice no and then he was so loving about it he kissed her on the forehead and just continued and I think a lot of the time that's what it looks like it's easy to separate ourselves from rapists because the examples we're seeing in the media and the news are violent but often it's closer to something that you might have actually experienced yourself or done yourself well generally

it's often used politically. When it gets to the news, it's on the news for a very specific reason. Yeah. And it's used to paint a certain population or ethnicity in a certain way. And the data actually shows that most women are raped by people they know. One thing I love so much about your book is the gut checks, like the moments that you give the reader to look inward and to actually ask themselves, when have I done something that I didn't want to do because I felt pressured to do it? And that's really where it starts. It's in like the tiniest moments as a young kid

when you do something that's not totally in your nature. That's not something you want to be doing. I think that's so important to be starting at that young age. Thank you. Yeah, it's just because we so early learn to ignore the signals from our hearts and souls and our bodies. speaking candidly you probably not at the section of the book but in in the sex chapter i share my first experience which was very similar to what happened to the girl and i didn't give her consent

but i for some reason thought that was okay because as a boy i'm socialized to believe that oh i get to have sex that's a right of passage there's no conversation with young boys about whether you're emotionally ready to have sex or not whether it's okay and so i was left feeling very confused and angry because I wasn't ready. She was on top of me and I pushed her off. And then I was manipulated because she said, see, we've already done it. It's no big deal. And then I was confused and I said, but you knew I didn't want to. But I also was horny and turned on and didn't know what to make of the whole situation. Yeah. And it wasn't until I was doing interviews for my last book. And I was interviewed about my sexual experience, which I write about, but I didn't name a

sexual assault that I realized I had not unpacked and healed the trauma of the first time I had sex. And I had to go into that. And it was deeply uncomfortable because my therapist said, it's gendered. If you were talking to a woman and she shared that experience, what would you call it and I just lost it because for 20 years I thought that I chose it I thought that because I was a man because I was stronger because I'm in control that I couldn't be sexually assaulted that that doesn't qualify because there was a part of me that wanted it too and I didn't think about the gas lagging that happened afterwards I didn't think about that how it affected my performance every time we had sex and the anxiety that I had about sex.

And I didn't think about all those things because boys can't be sexually assaulted. And it took me years. And so I tell that story in this book for that very specific reason because dear friends of mine had a call to men, Tony Porter and Ted Bunch,

they're an incredible organization working with men and sports teams and all kinds of stuff. They did a survey and found that 78% of high school senior men, I'll call them men at 18 years old, didn't know the definition of consent. Wow.

And we wonder why the numbers are as high as they are. And if they don't know the definition of consent, then it works both ways because we're learning about sex from porn. And what happens in porn? No doesn't mean no. It means try harder or yes. I have a whole section of the book called French fries and consent where I walk through with these kids like, okay, if you're going to get French fries with your friend and you both agree to get French fries, it's great. We'll go get French fries. And then she changed her mind.

You don't make her eat the French fries. Right? And then let's say she's eating the French fries and you're having a good time. But then she decides she doesn't want to eat them after a few bites. You don't like shove them in her mouth. Yeah. You respect her choice to stop eating them. And then let's say you get French fries and you're going and you're eating and she's just really tired. It's late at night and she falls to sleep while she's eating French fries.

I'm sorry, the metaphor is just... Do you shove the French fries in her mouth, Penn Badly? You do not. Listen, I don't like French fries. Okay. happening to his heart abs right now and it's just like he's trying to teach kids in such a simple way yeah it's so understandable and then at the end of it you're like and by french fries i mean sex right and so walking them through on the understanding of what consent really is at a young enough age

before they start watching porn or while they're into porn or before there are sexual experiences and explaining that it's also about connection and how beautiful and sexy consent actually B, because it's safe and all good relationships are built around safety unless you're on you. I think, yeah, I think one of the biggest disservice is that both porn and shows like that have with sex scenes is the lack of talking. I grew up thinking there was no talking in sex. And that's so incorrect. That's so far from the truth. But if there is no talking, if you're seeing sex over and over and over again with no talking, then there is no space for consent.

during sex. Like, once it started, it's over. They have telepathy. They have emotional telepathy. I'm overpin. And there's talking in porn, but it's not necessarily the kind of talking that you want to imagine. Well, see, the reason I'm being quiet is because I actually think, everything is being

shared really resonates with me. And actually, virtually all of my sexual experiences until my 20s were not positive and my first sexual experiences were not consensual in my. part it makes me think of what do you mean you know i'm thinking of every part of my body that was touched by a girl and was either in a game of truth or dare or in some kind of social situation and it was quite young as well yeah um and then there's other yeah i mean i guess what i'm trying to say about consent is that we we develop language to name things that we're not conscious of yet,

and then there comes a point where that language is probably limiting because of consciousness is growing. Consent implies that there's a transaction and that one person always understands what they want and the other person doesn't. Consent to me is like the absolute bare minimum. It actually has to be bound in a trust that is so beyond what we generally define as consent.

Because consent is very paper-thin. I agree completely. It's also why in the book I share some very, old-fashioned beliefs about who I believe should be engaging in sex and how it should be really reserved for relationships. And the bar is so low. But think about how low the bar is if we don't know even what consent is. Right. Right. If 78% of high school senior boys don't know what consent is, and we're walking around one and four women are survivors of sexual assault, we have a consent issue. Yeah, for sure. Because we can't even get men and some women to

have clear boundaries of what is okay and what is not okay. I remember one time in college I was like 19 no sexual experience whatsoever and it was like had gone on a road trip with some girlfriends and like met up with these guys and we went to see a drive-in movie and they had like a

pickup truck and we actually like packed a couch to this drive-in anyway so there was this guy that I'd been like flirting with the whole night he was super cute I had no intention of like having sex with him it's like not the way I operated but I was very flirty and we ended up sitting next to each other on this couch and we had like a blanket on And as the movie started, he started, like, groping me.

Like, put his hand on my thigh. And he was getting, like, closer and closer to, like, you know, fingering me. And I was frozen. Like, I absolutely didn't want it to happen. But I was like, and I was, like, trying to say no. But I was like, I couldn't say anything. And I remember the whole time I was like, oh, my God, he's going to, like, do this. And I'm going to feel ashamed.

But I can't say no. And right when he got to, like, about to do it, he whispered, is this okay? And I grabbed his hand and I said, no. And he was like, okay. And he stopped. And I was so grateful because when I knew it wasn't common. I hadn't told him he couldn't do it and if he hadn't asked me

he would have you know and I and I was like it was like a strange thing but I was very grateful to him for like stopping to ask me if it was okay and that gave me the courage to say that it wasn't and I do actually want to share that

because I think like do that like if you're in that moment with someone like just make sure that it's okay because sometimes someone just doesn't have the courage to say that it isn't no thank you so much for sharing that

when that young woman was killed in London a year and a half ago by the police officer. What I found so interesting about that is that they instilled a curfew that only applied to women that night. Wow.

Think about that. They said women stay in. So men were allowed to roam freely while women had to stay in. Think about that. This is how we view the problem. This is how we view the world. So boys,

will be boys. Oh, well, we need to keep the women in. But nobody thought, well, let's keep the men in. Out. Yeah. Keep the, give, let the women be on the streets. Let's keep the men and let's let's let the women be on the street to feel safe for the first time. Like, what would that be like? And, you know, the work of Jackson Cats, anybody who's listening here, I highly suggest digging into the work of Jackson Cats. He wrote a book called The Macho Paradox. He also is in this space, male violence. But he had a beautiful TED Talk as well where he asked, he asked the audience. He has men and women. And he says to the men, hey, what are some things that you do at night to, you know, when you're walking to your car to protect yourself? Like, what do you do? What are things that you just think about? And he has a whiteboard with the category, you know, men and women are like, no, nothing, nothing really, you know? And then he asks the women and the women are like, there's 75 things that I do and I think about every single day. I have my pepper spray. I have to make sure that I have my keys, you know, going through my fingers. My hair can't be in a ponytail because there's that study where men would rape women whose hair was under. ponytail more.

You always have your phone on you. Before you get in an Uber or go on a date, you text a friend. Like the list goes on and on and on. And men are like, wait, what? To the point where there are men that are, that were like even confused of why women are uncomfortable when they follow too close to one. You know, because we're just so painfully oblivious

to the world that we are living in, that we are creating also, and that women don't feel safe. So the bar is solo. Boys will be boys. Sure, maybe. Or we can start to raise fully developed, emotionally sensitive, capable human beings that don't just see women as objects, but see women as people. And we can start to nurture those qualities in our young boys so that they can grow up and, you know, be a part of the solution.

And that's kind of the goal. I think that's the hope right now. And looking in the eyes of these kids yesterday, I have so much hope. I really do have a lot of hope. and I think that the forces, while they may be strong, these forces of disintegration that are causing our eight, nine, 10-year-olds to be looking at porn so easily

because we're handing them cell phones, I think there's going to come a point in time where we recognize that, and these boys recognize that this stuff is not good for them at earlier and earlier ages. And that's my hope. I have to have hope. Because I'm raising two kids and so are you.

I'm so glad that you're bringing the conversation into hope. It's been really heavy, and there's a reason for that and that's important to acknowledge but there is a lot to be hopeful for there are a lot of people doing really good things one question we asked most guests justin is what is their relationship to like spirituality how did that influence their upbringing and i'm so curious what that was for you yeah so spirituality has been so important to me and i've had such a journey with it for years

I was spiritual and religious because my mom was. And I didn't know that. I thought it was mine. And the deeper I got into my own healing work, and I know Penn, you and I have had some long conversations about this, but the deeper I got into my own healing work, the more I realized that, like masculinity,

I had been performing a version of spirituality. And while I believed in my faith, right, the seed wasn't planted in my heart. It was planted in the approval and the acceptance of my mother, who was a Baha'i, who was that faith. And I've had to healthily replant that seed into my own heart. And that's an uncomfortable and painful process because then you start to question your identity

and why you do everything that you do. And I'm so grateful for it, though, because it, you know, to this day I've never been drunk. right never had a drink and I by nature I think have a fairly addictive personality and I'm grateful and spirituality has been a huge part of that spirituality was one of the reasons why I wasn't ready to have sex when I was 20 that there was I had this kind of utopian idea of like what it would be like and what it could be like if you know I married my first and and the reasons why and what chastity meant to me and so these were all really

important things but underneath it all the seed was planted in the wrong person and no no tree can really grow to its full potential and produce fruit unless the soil is right and it's watered the right way and so i've had to replant it and rewater it and it's been it's been amazing it's been a massive change in my life it is the central piece to why i do everything that i do there's no chance that i would be doing this work as a man, you know, making the movies that I make, trying to be of service in the way that I am if it were not for the way I learned about faith from my mom and what service was. And now I can kind of make it my own. And that's what I'm on the journey now to do and discover and how to impart that into my children in a different way than

maybe they gave it to me. And it wasn't their fault. They did the best that they could. But now it's like, okay, how can I walk that? How can they see it? And every fiber of my being and not just have me tell it to them. How can they feel it? And how can I make sure I plant that tree into them and not into me? That's beautiful. I'm so glad I asked. Thank you, Justin. Justin and I had like a, we had like a couple long phone calls on the one like long dinner about a year or some time. You came to New York. And you know, you touched on something then that I can hear you touching on throughout. this thing and it's you know i grapple with it experiencing celebrity and trying to be forthcoming about

you know i've actually as a practice whenever anybody asks me a question in an interview i'm like i'm gonna be as authentic as i understand how to be like why would i give you a soundbite that's not it's like yeah i can wrap it up in a joke maybe but like let's just actually have a real conversation yeah i'm just thinking of like your relationship to how publicly you choose to be quote unquote vulnerable even watching your your ted talk you are trying to do something critical and unique and then you know you cut to the audience and it's like there's at one point like about four minutes in it cuts to the audience and it is just a sea of women who like can't believe what you're saying and your cashmere sweater is just dripping

off of your muscles and you just like you it's like and it's funny to me it's funny because it's like because you're trying to like break through and on one hand you have people who won't listen to you because it's like too good to be true and then on the other hand you have yourself trying to be authentic with yourself and you know you've you've said this to me before and I'm sure you say it publicly and privately like when you figure out how to be authentic and vulnerable publicly that's its own feedback loop in a way so like how do you choose when to withhold what do you save for yourself and your and you're and just your friends and family you know what I mean like what's your relationship to that currently I'm just curious like how you constantly grapple with

that yeah so for me it's a great it's a great question it's hard and I have insecurities about it to be really honest because as an example i for 10 years never posted a shirtless picture of myself on social media um because i've been so longing to be known for something more than my appearance full well knowing that it's thanks to my appearance that i have the privilege in the career that i have and yet at the same time um it prevents people from hearing my ideas yeah there was a whole period of time. If you just Google me from like three years ago, two years ago even, I started

wearing glasses that I didn't need to wear just so that I could be a little more approachable. And so that people wouldn't just look at me as like, oh, it's so hot with glasses on. Thanks. Like, I was like, I don't know that was effective, Justin.

Just like, oh, you read, oh! I mean, it's just, I literally designed a pair of glasses named after my son and like you know called the maxwells and i had these glasses and i was like you know helping and i did like a brand deal for them at one point i just that's what happens when jeston tries to wear glasses to be approachable he now owns a glass this brand is like help us empower young people it was it was a joke and uh and you know and that's why and then i recently you know i had a beard i grew my beard for the last six months it was huge and long and i loved it i hate to say it but

It was like a different version of armor. I very rarely would have people comment on my looks for the last six months. I felt strangely safe because then it became more about my ideas and my heart and my brain. And this is something that women experience all the time. Yeah. I just want to point this out. This is a very female experience to not have your ideas taken seriously because you're walking around and you have a great body or you have boobs or you're hot, right? It's like, oh, you just got there because you're hot.

And so, you know, I grew my Instagram audience full well knowing that, like, I could have tripled it had I just, like, posted shirtless pictures and done the whole thing. But I wasn't interested in that. I keep trying to get time to post a shirtless picture, but he won't do it. You don't want that these days. I've never had that. And I don't currently have them. But at the same time, I'm also happier with my body than I've ever been for the first time in my entire life. Yeah, me too.

You know, I wake up in the morning and I write things about my body that I'm grateful for. I've never done that before. And it's changed the way that I interact with my body, the way that I look in the mirror. It's transformed my life. But back to what you were saying, yeah, it's a very strange thing to have thoughts, to have ideas, and to want to be known and appreciated for them.

I'm not out there saying, like, please like me, but at least look past this thing. And it's very hard, especially as a man, sharing these things, because women have been dying for men to say something like this forever. and, of course, here this guy comes along. And, you know, and I understand full well, like, the haters, like the man that are like, oh, this guy's so full of shit.

Oh, he's just doing that to get laid. It's like I read the comments. Like, I torture myself with that. I'm still, I'm still 12 years old and, like, you know, want them to like me. And at the same time, I can't blame them. Because that blue sweater that I wore, I didn't want to wear that sweater. I asked our good friend, Mina, who's also a bi, right before I went on, I had two things.

I had a flannel shirt. I had a flannel shirt that did not show any of my muscles. That was very casual. And I had that. And I said, which one should I wear? Where? And she said, wear the blue ones. So you're blaming a woman.

I'm blaming a woman. But at the same time, she was right. It was a much more appropriate thing to wear. And yet at the same time, it was still distracting. And so I understand all of it. And to answer your question in my long rant, and I'm so sorry to all the listeners who are like, oh, my God, I can't hear Justin talk anymore.

That's not a one. The celebrity thing is really interesting because I don't ever see myself as a celebrity. I never thought that this would ever happen. I was the extremely insecure, ugly duckling kid that would go hang out with my like couple guy friends and the model scouts would approach them. And I was always like, oh, I guess that's,

I guess I'm not good looking enough or never had the dates to homecoming or prom growing up. My first audition as an actor, my manager at the time sent me an audition and the description was super hot, sexy, blah. And I swear to God, I called him and I said, are you sure you sent me the right one? Was this for another client? That's where I was in terms of how I viewed myself. So the idea that I could be in a position where women would be looking at me and feeling those things. Or I would walk down the street as we do and people stop or I have fans and followers or I'm,

And I never thought that that would happen. And because of my faith, back to your question, Nava, because I believe with all of my heart, that all of us are endowed with unique capabilities to change the world around us, to be of service and to contribute, my feeling is, well, I'm just going to be me. And I'm going to share my truth

because I never saw people do that growing up. And because I never saw people do that growing up, I never had permission to do it. And I'm at a place now where, like, I want to be free from the chains of this system from that intersection of the patriarchy and capitalism and I want people to know

that like you can be human and you can be successful. You don't have to be mysterious. I think I second guess myself all the time. I even sometimes compare myself to you. I'm like man how great would it be like if I could just be like pen? And like suddenly like pen posts and everybody freaks out and it's like

you're drawing so much attention to these things and you don't have to try very hard and you're just so this. That's so interesting to hear you say that. No, no no. but what I'm saying is it's always, it's always that. Or you're the star of this huge show and boom, like you came out of nowhere after a vacation, a hiatus in the industry and like...

And by the way, it was a great vacation. You guys would love nothing more than the seven years I took. It was just, it was one island after another. Models, bottles and tables. Just model bottles and tables. That was the life. Not what we heard on Domino's episode. But I've compared myself to you in a lot of ways.

You keep so much private. and I admire that. And at the same time, I can also be different. And I can know that, like, you know, it's not necessarily the movie stars of the past. I don't have to be, like, those guys who didn't share anything. Because it would have helped me so much to know if Arnold Schwarzenegger struggled with body dysmorphia.

And that's why he was actually in the gym working out. Or if Jean-Claude Van Damme had had sexual experiences that were traumatic and he had insecurities. So I use my vulnerability. And I share these things because I think it's important because I think that's one of the responsibilities that I've given myself to this platform, to having a platform.

This is what I'm supposed to do. We have a final question. If you could go back in time and spend a little time with 12-year-old Justin, what would you say to him? 12. Well, I say this in the book, and I say this a lot,

is that the first thing is I would always say is you are enough. that the things that you are bullied for now the things that you're made fun of for the qualities that you don't like about yourself those are going to be the things that make you successful that make you likable

and that make you lovable and nobody can take away your masculinity nobody can make you less of a man and that everything's going to be okay you got this you're enough it's all going to work out. So sweet. Thank you, Justin.

Thank you, Justin. Thanks for giving us so much of your time. Truly. Thanks for listening so much. Penn. No. See, I can be funny too. Today's real life listener submitted middle school story

deals with the jet stream of emotions that accompany a tragic loss. It's called After a Tragedy. Take a listen. I was big in middle school, tall, heavy, not cool in any conventional way. I was in the gifted and talented program with my friend, Lewis, who somehow managed to date one of the cutest, funniest, most conventionally attractive girls in school. Audrey.

It's probably obvious, but I had a crush on her. Audrey had two friends, Marie and Julia, and the three of them together were like the mean girls of Oceanside Middle School, but only if the humbled post-reckoning mean mean girls got back together. And by that, I mean, they were actually really nice and cool and complicated. They played sports and hung out with everybody, but they looked like mean girls because they were white and there were three of them and they were popular. Anyway, although Lewis and I were basically nerds or lightly nerdy, we all grew up playing sports and hanging out together at the same ball field as the not-so-mean mean mean girls.

Like Audrey's best friend, Marie and I were even on the same flag football team. So, you know, By middle school standards, things were actually going pretty well. Then, one day, Audrey showed up at school absolutely devastated. Her sister had died in a car crash, killed by a drunk driver. None of us knew what to say or do. What can you say? How can you wrap your mind around such a gaping, bottomless loss? I sat with Audrey and held her hand.

I skipped class for the first time in my life that day. We walked around the halls for some time until she was ready to go to class. She cried, and I held her at moments. The experience was intense. The nature of my feelings for her were complicated after that. The crush was not so important anymore. After that tragedy, we were closer, in a different, stronger way, though I didn't see her often and my family ended up moving about a month later.

I think. Three years later, her dad gave a speech at my high school about the dangers of drunk driving. I wanted to talk to him after his speech, but I wasn't able to find him. Some time after that, I actually saw Audrey in the reception area of the admissions office at the local community college. I really wanted to talk to her. Instead, we ignored each other, pretending not to recognize as one another. Or maybe she genuinely didn't recognize me. After all, there wasn't much more to our history besides that one intense day together.

How do you even broach reconnection after something like that? The world feels random and strange and complicated. You can get Justin Baldoni's new book, Boys Will Be Human at your local bookstore or at www.com. And you can keep up with him online at Justin Baldoni. Podcrushed is hosted by Penn Badgeley, Navakavlin, and Sophie Ansari. Our executive producer is Nora Richie from Stitcher.

Our lead producer, editor, and composer is David Ansari. Our secondary editor is Sharaff and Twistle. This podcast is a ninth mode production. Be sure to subscribe to Podcrushed. You can find us on Stitcher, the Serious XM app, Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen. If you'd like to submit a middle school story, go to podcrush.com and give us every detail. And while you're online, be sure to follow us on socials. It's at Podcrush, spelled how it sounds.

And our personals are at Penn Badgley, at Nava. That's Nava with three ends. And at Scribble by Sophie. And we're out. See you next week. By the way, I'm so sorry, guys. I ramble on some. No, that's beautiful.

I love that. I'm such a rambler. Poor pens just like. We got the scissors. I can't wait to see this episode. It's just going to be pen making jokes about his six-pack. Stitcher.