Sad Boyz - Self-Esteem

Episode Date: June 17, 2018

This is the first video episode of Sad Boyz, but don't worry, our sweet audio babies, you're still our first love. Today we're talking about self-esteem and self-confidence. Jarvis has always had low self-esteem and jordan has always been full of himself so we try to understand where THAT comes from. Also in this episode, Jordan has finally listened to Hamilton and we get his first reaction.

So I'm thinking my best plan is to stage some sort of coup to get rid of Jordan and take over the show as my own. Oh, hey, uh, hi. I didn't see you there, you know, um, because it's an audio medium. I'm Jarvis, host of Sad Boys, a comedy podcast about feelings. And I just wanted to let you know that this episode is the first ever video episode of Sad Boys. We've started a brand new YouTube channel and you can find us over there at youtube.com slash sadboyspod. So if you want to hear us and see us as we record the show and get some sweet visual bonus content

that doesn't make it to the audio version, definitely check that out. We'll still post every episode right here in the Sad Boys feed, but there are bound to be more video episodes in the future. So please subscribe over there for video fun times. Again, that's youtube.com slash sadboyspod. Anyway, on with our episode on self-esteem. Now that I think about it, I'm a little... How was that intro? Was it too much? Welcome to Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. And i'm jordan live and here and real so we are

talking about self-esteem today but we are also recording this on video for the very first time we are talking about self-esteem and you can see the self-esteem on our faces yeah so uh we don't know what we're doing here we don't know whether or not we should look at each other look at the camera i'm going to assume each other. I'm thinking we should both just close our eyes. Okay. We close our eyes. We sit.

We maybe don't even talk. Today, Jordan, we're talking about self-esteem. Why are we doing that? Oh, great question. Well, the reason we're talking about self-esteem is because it is an interesting area to mine for comedy and also for insight and thoughts and emotion. Which is kind of the show. Which is kind of the show. Which is kind of the whole thing.

It's actually kind of weird that we haven't done self-esteem before. Yeah, I know. I've had so many problems with my confidence and self-esteem growing up. Plus it's the undertone to like five episodes minimum. Yeah, we do mention it a lot. So I think it's important to notice for the people who are listening to the audio version of the podcast that we both have our Philz coffee for the day. Second of the day for me. First for you? First for me. This is my 825 pickup. I got up a little bit late today. This is probably the

closest thing we have to an actual distinction between our personalities. Yeah. We have different accents and then also we get different Philz orders. Everything else is pretty much aligned. Right, right. It's true. Pretty significantly different. I nabbed myself my classic largest amble treat, light honey with creamy almond milk made by Tanner. Thanks, Tanner. So mine is the small Colombian dark decaf with light honey and medium cream. So if you want to maybe order one of those to our apartment where we live together in this fiction. In this fiction.

This is my apartment in case anybody was wondering oh yeah jordan's apartment it's got it's got like a nice uh a nice backdrop i you know what i think we need of oh my god i knew something was wrong oh look at that i got our i got our sad boy sign so jordan hi let's let's talk about our week because that's what we do right now uh yeah usually i suppose so jarvis because this is a video essay a video essay because this is a video essay hi i'm the nerd writer and here is an unmitigated opinion that because i say it quickly i don't really have to research anything right this is a video essay yeah i'm gonna show some unrelated b-roll so that your brain zones out and just focuses on a thing you already like to confirm your beliefs that you already hold don't worry i am going to say it slowly therefore i'm probably right or i'm going to

explain something so simple that i can't possibly be wrong do you know that every marvel movie has like a superhero in it it's not interesting it's really interesting how like the inclusion of superheroes in marvel movies has had a big uh influence on the fact that they're superhero movies yeah if you really think about it which i have because again video essayist uh you'll notice that no i wanted to say because we're on video live and in charge today um live and kicking that i can demonstrate in person what it looks like when you sing the theme to my special segment oh right which you do every episode and i'm so excited for people to see yeah i've received a lot of tweets about it get this on

camera get this locked down right uh how does it go um it's jordan's bazaar challenging and or emotionally strenuous social interaction of the week it was probably pretty embarrassing so please don't make fun of him for it i was thinking i would just put in the uh put the audio in over my mouth talking right now um everything else cuts out yeah kind of harshly like it's super compressed and clearly recorded in a different environment it's jordan's awkward and completely vexing socially awkward fuck i don't remember the title of this oh that's so embarrassing for you yeah i couldn't remember the title to this segment i would be so embarrassed the acronym is like seven letters long i of course can remember it i'm not gonna say it right now yeah because we don't have time again you know we're busy we're

recording live i don't have time to say it yeah but i would if we had time right because you totally remember it so there's no point in yeah why even follow up that point yeah yeah i'll say it now it's jordan and then you can just when you do the the other sound cut right just pull that in place i'll just do it got it and then i'll see yeah no we're totally editing that in and you're cutting this out yeah totally so how was your week jordan uh it was great my awkward and or embarrassing so-and-so moment over the last week was not it didn't happen the last week it's gonna happen right now oh shit because i am going to eat a big slice of humble pie right in front of you oh no because um you know me i'm pretty much on top of all of the trends and i stay current

with popular culture and i see all of the trends and I stay current with popular culture and I see all of the shows when they come out. You're on the bleeding edge. You're good at skateboarding. I know all the good stuff. Kickflips, pop shove-its, all of the main stuff. Surf shove-its when I'm surfing.

Surfboards, yeah. But yeah, I'm very hip with the kids and for that reason, I finally listened to Hamilton in 2018. Oh, fuck! We're recording this in late 2015. We should mention I'm very ahead of the game. The year is 2013.

Jordan has met a young playwright by the name of Wim Will Miranda. I think that was his name. He wanted to write a play. He didn't know what the topic should be. He didn't know what the topic should be. And he also didn't know what rap was. So I taught him what rap was. You taught him everything he knows.

Yeah. Really great young talent. And now Hamilton has become a mid-sized success. Just about about to right just about to it's it's coming up uh yeah i just cracked okay cracked wide open for people unfamiliar i mean what i've been not avoiding but i've haven't i've never listened to a bar of hamilton of the actual soundtrack the way that friends sing it and the like the way that we have talked about it in the past is like it there's a with things that you can potentially like become a fan of or when people are telling you that you should try things we're often hesitant to get into it because we've already got so much stuff going on we don't have time to like take on this whole new world because

we want to like uh well that perception of having the time comes from the fact that we like to delve. Right. I don't like the surface level experience. I want to either never hear a millisecond of Hamilton or I want to know every single lyric to every single song and understand like the implications historically. Which isn't necessarily like the contract that you're signing,

but that is kind of how we think about these things. Because these boys are nuts. And sometimes we do not eat things. And, um it just so happens okay that i finally decided that i would delve i just do it yeah i thought you told me you showed me that you had it downloaded offline on your phone for a full two weeks on my phone sitting ready to go uh but i finally cracked it open over the weekend it goes and that's it yeah super short soundtrack uh in retrospect not really sure you're such a big fan it's i mean it's just really i have the note selection yeah man i'm proud of my boy lynn yeah he did a good job i'm i'm so hot take alert i hamilton's good what's so funny to me is that i

like that there i just had such a moment of pride for for lynManuel Miranda, I guess, and then also you. No, Lin, he finally cracked it. He was waiting for my approval, I think. He listens to my brother and my brother and me. I'm sure he'd like this show. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you know, I think he might be the dream guest. Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Especially now. Especially now. Especially since Justin Timberlake is gone and been replaced with Shawn Mendes. Since he's passed away, Shawn is yet to accept our offer to become the new JT. Right, to become the new JT. I think right now, Lin-Manuel Miranda might be the current JT. Am I nuts? I think he's more than that.

I really think that's selling him short. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he's more than the Dalai Lama. He is God. Yeah. Okay, wait. So, holy shit.

I'm just processing this. So, you listen to Hamilton. What was the experience of listening? yeah okay wait so holy shit i i'm just processing this so you listen to hamilton what was what was like what was the experience of listening like what was the environment like that you've never listened to anything before uh you're gonna explain what it's like to hear this what was the stimulus like when it vibrated your eardrums i was so shocked very confused i was wearing headphones which i've never done before and nobody else around me could appear to hear the song at some point i thought maybe maybe Lynn was nearby singing it.

That just doesn't make sense. Very confusing. But I kicked it off. I went through chronologically the whole show in one sitting, in one Sunday afternoon. Basically because I'd been told repeatedly by you, fan and friend Lauren, Alexis, also a listener, repeatedly told that the narrative does carry Yes absolutely You're maybe missing some of the binding agent

But ultimately the show tracks Into the official soundtrack So Hamilton is a sung through musical So save for like one piece And all of the visuals obviously The entire musical Is on the soundtrack It flowed very well

Enjoyed the characters I have my favorites i have my less than favorites oh i want to hear this um i like this is not a lot this is of course uh this is not going to become the hamilton cast we will have one of those but this is early this is a first take yeah this is uh we'll use this as a reference point for 10 episodes down the line when i have memorized everything and we can do our official Hamilton cast with Lauren, presumably. That would be very mean to leave her out of that. But yeah, first thing I did after I listened to the full soundtrack, I got home and I learned the first two tracks on piano. Oh, of course you did. Especially Aaron Bursa. Aaron Bursa has this

gorgeous like three part seventh melody thing. Yeah. Progression. Oh yeah it's so good yeah again hot take alarm hamilton's good yeah uh alex lacamoire i think the guy who did the uh the music for for ham like the hamilton's just like really impressive it's just a it's if you haven't heard of hamilton or if you don't know why it's as good as it is how are you still listening it's the perfect like it's the perfect mixture of like a bunch of different media worlds it's like pop culture hip-hop and in like musical theater and and it respects like all of those things equally and like mashes them together and has mastered the craft in each case exactly it's clearly a very well constructed musical i assume a very well crafted stage play yeah it is it's incredible like the the visuals of hamilton rs are really really good um oh my gosh and that's our hot take

again we're known for being rebels we're known for fighting back against the status quo the year is 2013 and i just don't know that this will ever reach a wide audience yeah but we're here to say our early pick our up-and-comer, our breakthrough star is Hamilton. Yeah. Congratulations, Lin. I think it was. Lin Manuel. Lin Manuel Veranda.

Lin Manuel Verdana. Welcome on the show anytime. Please come on the show. Please come on the show. We'll shoot it just like this and you'll sit between us. Yes. And we'll talk about how we recently listened to your opus. Yeah.

You'll sit on our collective lap. Yeah. Lie across it. That's what the wide angle's for. Right. To get all the Miranda. The full Miranda. But yeah, that was pretty much my week thinking about Hamilton and thinking about how much

humble pie I'll need to eat in a single swallow. None. None. I think everyone's just really happy. I never said it was bad. No, you never said it was bad. I think everyone's just excited now to be able to engage with you about it uh yeah don't do that don't tweet me yeah yeah just don't add just know that i like it okay and let that be

isolated how was my week huh so uh i had far away um so i don't actually we can just cut in me asking i'll do the face again oh yeah i like this yeah yeah there we want to just do it live do my my voice my accent as i open my mouth right yeah yeah hey jervis uh how was your week man oh yeah interesting blend of archetypes there yeah started kind of cool action star ended nervous nervous surfer? Nerfer? Yeah, Nerfer. His name is Ted Nerfer, the nervous surfer. Hey, bro, I'm Ted Nerfer, the nervous surfer. Still learning to stand. Oh, boys.

Those waves look real big. I'd love to shred the gnar, but that sounds violent. I like California, but this is a bit much I like this guy a lot so my week has been a lot it's just been a lot of work stuff I made a video on Monday

and at the end of the video I was like you know what the video is about long term goals and why I think that we have we often frame long term goals in this very harmful way. But at the end of the video, I'm like, I'll see you tomorrow. Because I was like, surely I'm going to be able to make another video. This is, oh, this is the first episode we've recorded since the exodus.

Oh, right, yeah. So I guess last week, wow, last week, it feels like such a long period of time has passed. It's Friday. We're recording this on a Friday. This week was pretty super busy with work. The previous week, I put out four YouTube videos in one week. Yes. First time ever. First time ever. What's the most you've done in a week prior to that too um gotta be two i think but yeah i was really really proud of myself and and i wanted to challenge myself creatively to do that and i i think i learned a lot from that also i really don't want to undersell this not just four videos in a week four videos back to back days correct back to back days and then a meetup and then a meetup so the videos were like all like i woke up like at 5 30 or 6 in the morning like wrote them and uh like

filmed them and edited them like by like 10 a.m or so that day so it was like a real creative exercise for me uh to try and make my like as well produced a video as I could, because I don't want to just make like, Hey guys, um, it's me. It's just, it's, oh,

it's like five 30. I just wanted to like talk about some stuff that's on my mind. I like wanted to have it be like scripted. I wanted to have it have sketches. you met and exceeded in many cases, the Jarvis Johnson video standard, right? Like compromise on the right aesthetic or the writing quality or the length to get those four videos out.

It's just like four videos that typically take you a week. Exactly. But in four days. And so really what it taught me is that a lot of that is mental. And I put up a lot of arbitrary roadblocks that prevent me from normally making stuff on a quicker cadence. So I want to use the lessons from that to one, know that this is a tool in my toolkit and two, to continue to hone like my, my skillset for creating things. Cause the way I, I am big on tools and workflow. flow um and for me the production aspect of it like i just am getting better at doing things

quicker and premiere and it's like i i know i know how to get the sound the way i want it faster i know how to get the color because it's like i'm also color grading these videos and doing like sound posts because i have and and i'm doing photography, like my thumbnails. I'm like learning about more about photography fundamentals and how to do post-production on photos. And so it's a big learning experience. And I just really love making, turning tools into like an extension of myself so that I can just do what I think. Yeah. Rather than, or like so that the vision in my head can be like expressed rather than me fighting with the tools and compromising. Turning the process into expression only.

Yeah. I want to say this sentence, brain. And brain just says sentence as opposed to like passing out the letters. Exactly. Exactly. And we've talked extensively in the past about how the hardest part of any project, particularly a creative one, is completion. Yeah. Like IEA-tion is a piece of piss.

Yeah. We do it too much. Yeah. That's why there's 17 other podcasts we also always almost made before sad boys right all right but getting sad boys to the finish line and now getting these videos to the finish line yeah is the part that that's the grind that's the grit that's the tedium in some cases exactly a linguistics metaphor that i would make is uh when you are learning a language, you read everything letter by letter and then you're like, okay, that's the word, right?

And when you know a language, you see the word and you're able to chunk that word directly into your mind and you're even able to like read words without parsing each individual letter and that's kind of what I want my like creative skill set to be.

I want the tools to take a back seat. You want like creative phrasing. Exactly. I just hit the button in my brain that says produce nice uh lighting environment yeah and i don't go like okay so i need a backlight and i need the yeah exactly like i just go these are my four lights and instinctually they go here here and here i go my soft boxes are here my windows are here let me just set up the camera here i'm going to use this lens because i want this sort of effect uh and then it's just

like boom let's just go and then i'm not second guessing myself on my scripts which i typically like will send to jordan or i'll send to other friends and i'll like pour over them youtube's not all that serious sometimes uh i i do want to continue to do things that are higher preparedness level i think that's another thing that i wanted to mention is like there is stuff that i can't make in a day or in a morning uh but a lot of times i am producing stuff that and it's taking me way longer than i want and and so i'm just like trying to get over those mental hurdles hell to the end my dude you know what we can do because there's a video yeah we can do our special secret handshake we always do when i congratulate you on a great video oh yeah totally that we've rehearsed a

million times and we totally know oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god my son what are the odds? Anyway, that's our secret handshake. Yeah, so you had a big week. After that week, we had a meetup. Me, Mayuko, and Joma had a meetup at Dolores Park. It went really amazingly. I met a lot of cool people.

It was very awkward because none of us knew what we were supposed to do at a meetup. But we made it happen. And then this week, just a ton of work stuff was in the air and i needed to deal with it and that's life sometimes you know um and and so now it's friday and i'm looking to figure out what my next game plan is vidcon is next week oh my god vidcon sure is going to hawaii the week after that oh my god yeah things are happening yeah um big shout out to any sad boys fam going to vidcon oh yeah let us know if you're around maybe yeah absolutely hi we're gonna be staying i'm at the hyatt yeah i think you're at the hyatt as well i'm at a uh airbnb actually

maybe the hyatt for some epis oh we'll be oh yeah i will be like frequently like at the hyatt so yeah give us a shout if you're around if you're a creator if you're an industry person if you're a community person come hang out come be friends so um i guess we should jump into the topic jordan i guess we could do sad boys i guess we could do the podcast we've done the rest okay let's do one of those cool ads for uh for i don't know itunes reviews that that we're so well known for yeah absolutely just seamlessly in one take just seamlessly in one take easy per usual you know similar to our handshake yeah no problem okay uh character suggestion far away um so you're gonna be a a guy who works at a store okay that's fun that's an interesting can i do like a couple weeks of

method training yeah you can do a couple weeks of method training we'll come back in a few weeks we're back we're back that sucks not good i uh very bad at it okay well now i'm speaking from real experience i was a terrible store worker oh really i was just atrocious i mean it came from the fact that i at the time was you know, you know, 15, 16, no previous work experience. I know work grit or commitment. Right. But I just could not get on board with the idea that the thing that I do might impact other people's jobs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it'd be like, oh, we need to do an inventory check of the store. And you're like, hmm, but what if I just didn't do it? Right. Life hack. Life hack. Walk around like you're doing the inventory, but don't actually do it. Don't actually do it because it takes the same amount of time and the same amount of effort. But the man isn't in control.

Right, right, right. I'm in control of my own destiny. What's that? I'm fired immediately? Of course. Yes, that makes sense. So you're a store worker and who am I? You're probably just like, you're an alien that's invading under the guise of a regular

human being trying to gather information about the earth. Easy, easy. I know that like the back of my hand. Of course. Kind of too well. Yeah, not like I'm actually that or anything. What a great infiltration method this would be. Yeah.

Make good friends with a regular human and I am a regular Joe. You're making a strong case for not being that and then uh try and figure out what makes people upset or or human right doing a show about feelings all right cool so in the in the the premise is uh you were trying to wait which of us is trying to pitch Um, probably me. Okay. In this case. Hello there. I am totally human and would like to buy an item from your store. Hello, sir. Welcome to Big Boy's Buying Barn.

Oh, you look familiar. Are you the nervous surfer? Yeah. I had to take a step down. I was shredding the gnar, but it was too gnarly. So on the weekends, I work here at the store whose name I just said that I remember. I remember it as well. It is the store. The store.

Very minimalist. Do you have with you a cool boys, I've reviewed sad boys on iTunes card that gives you 25% off? I, let me check my wallet. Oh, it seems. Why is it so slimy? Don't mind that. You pulled it out of your leg. What do you know?

It seems that I've left my loyalty card at home. Do you have any extras for me? Oh, wait, there's an alien behind you. You are a regular guy. What a weird coincidence. Hey, how's it going? Wow, this alien's really good at what he does. I'm, uh, yeah.

I'm just totally a guy. And not an alien at all. But that guy is pretty fucking weird, right? And seen. And you should definitely review the show on iTunes right now. Thanks. a guy um and not an alien at all but that guy is pretty fucking weird right and seen and you should definitely review the show on itunes right now thanks out of interest what would your name be for the alien boy the alien name his name was uh glert i like that yeah that's kind of cute yeah i'm glert that's like or is it i'm glert oh shit yeah because i thought in that uh the guy who was perfectly normal was the alien,

and the other guy was just a guy named Chris. I think Glirt would be the nervous surfer equivalent alien. Oh, right. The dorky guy, and then maybe Farks is the cool guy. These waves are really kind of big. I really didn't expect this from Northlawn 5. I heard about the lava pits, but this much? Yeah, wow.

Obsidian. One moment. I have to turn off the fan. Vamp. Right. Just do both sides of the conversation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.

So would you like to hear a song about the Battle of New Orleans? It's a song that I learned when I was in my eighth grade U.S. history class. And it goes a little something like this. In 1814, we took a little trip along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississippi.

We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and we fought the bloody British in a town in New Orleans. And that's the story of Sad Boys. And that was me singing that? That was my part of the conversation? Right, right yeah i have an embarrassingly small understanding of american history i'm so sorry oh it's okay what was that battle about uh who did we get good good question

fighting together i assume uh yeah i'm not entirely sure to be completely honest i don't remember i remember the song not and I remember some of the, you know, characteristics of the battle. Do not know why it happened. From a first person experience, you were there. I was there.

I'm just not really sure why. Yeah. Cause I'm dumb. And you have low self-esteem. Segway. Boom. Seamless Segway. Seamless.

I wonder how many of our Segways are just me or you saying the name of the topic in the middle of a conversation we're like uh we're like talking about aliens and then it's like so today we're talking about something else um but today we are talking about something else what are we talking about are we good but oh yeah we're good it just can only record for 30 minutes at a time which is a thing that everybody does who does these video podcasts so it's totally in the canon today we are talking about self-esteem having it

not having it how to get it question mark where to put it question mark definitely exclamation mark yeah you definitely put it in your pocket and you carry it around lock. You carry it around like a cool boys, sad boys, 20% off card. So self-esteem is... Noun. Self-esteem for me is something that... No, I don't think... Webster's Dictionary defines self-esteem as... So I think of self-esteem and confidence much in the same way.

It's like how much do you hold yourself up, right? Sure. Like because there's internal validation and there's external validation. There's the world validating your existence and then there's you trying to validate your own existence. And we need like a balance there, right? Because if you are too far on the external side, then you become Kanye. Or no, that's, I'm sorry.

If you're too far on the external side, then if you're too far on the internal side, then you become Kanye. Right. And you require no external validation. You require no external. And if you're too far on the external, then you are basically relinquishing

all of your emotions and valid validity to other people. What would be an equivalent of that? I suppose maybe a – who's a slimy politician who just needs everybody to love him? I mean the president of the United States of America. Can I get it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean kind of.

Like, that person does a lot of, like, basically everything they do is for people to externally validate that they are good. Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily need to be everyone. It just needs to be the subset of people that you have validated as, it matters what you think of me. And so where self-esteem comes in is, I think it's healthy to have a balance here because you don't want to become conceited, but you also don't want to just completely be depressed and out of control of your own emotions.

Sure. And I think that self-esteem happens when you're a little. Like you don't have enough internal validation for yourself. Interesting. You think it's specifically internal, like self-esteem is the bolster you get from internal confidence. I think so. I think that's how I think about it.

I dig that. Like, cause for me, I, I guess with my own journey with self-esteem, I have often not had self-esteem. Like I've been very self-conscious and very, you know, not confident in myself.

And over the years and throughout the journey of like living my life, I've become far more confident and brought like, and the way that I saw that was I care too much about what other people think of me and I need to care more about what I think of me and I need to be more, you know know confident in my my own i need to love myself more and and be like just know inherently that i am like a valid person to exist you have implicit value regardless of what you do what people say about you exactly like jarvis johnson on paper good and i will say he say. He can get better. He can get worse. But neutral Jarvis is just a thumbs up.

But even when you say that, I'm like uncomfortable with it, which speaks like the like, which is buck wild. Like the concept that I'm. I like cringe a little bit when I have when I say that, like, no, I'm a valid person. I'm like a perfectly adequate human being. Yeah. How much of that? I mean, I'm sure there's a million contributing factors that we'll get into but how much of that do you think comes from

a self-consciousness about around even acknowledging it like i believe that about myself but when i externalize it it seems smug oh for me huge that's a huge part of it because i don't want to seem conceited i think because that could affect the way people perceive you externally. Exactly. Because when I was a kid, I was like super externally validated. And I think the way that that would surface is that I would brag a lot about things that I did or my accomplishments or whatever. And then someone called me out on it and it like made me very self-conscious.

And then I kind of like went too far the other way. I believe we talked about this exact interaction before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was how old? Oh, this must have been like five or six. seven yeah yeah children are so powerful i know yeah you can define somebody's like internal dichotomy with one comment yeah you could like if if we were like the if we were adults and like the the bodies of like like if we were infiltrating the minds or controlling like oh my goodness android seven-year-olds then we could fuck some people up oh yeah you could make somebody batman or you could make them an emotional wreck yeah it's kind of the same thing

batman is actually a great example of somebody that is too internally validated what do you mean what do i mean hey i'm gonna punch this guy because i want to and i can do do i'm just thinking of that scene from batman versus superman where it's like the What do you mean? What do I mean? Hey, I'm going to punch this guy because I want to. And I can. Do, do, do. I'm just thinking of that scene from Batman versus Superman where it's like the fight scene and it's just punches. Yeah, and it's slowing down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Superman regains his power. I want to say like Nerdwriter did a video essay about fight scenes in DC movies.

Yes, very recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how about you, Jordan? How do you think about self-esteem? So my definition would line up perfectly, especially like the idea of self-esteem being more the result of internal validation and not external validation. Right.

My question to you, and I'm mentioning this only because I'm chewing on it right now and I'm not sure, is what percentage at, let's say, child, teen, current, child, teen, adult Jarvis. Yeah, oh, I see.

What percentage internal do you require? And what percentage external do you require? I guess the percentage being like which one you value more. Oh, I fill up my bucket with 60% internal. Oh, I see. So I need 40% external. My loadout of internal versus external, I think when I was a kid was like 90-10.

90 internal external like i all right i i don't like so the way i think of it is like i had no internal validation right so i needed all this i needed 90 external affiliate uh to fill up that 100 and then uh and then when i was a teenager it was like maybe 20 80 30 70 or something but even up until high school i don't think it was until college that I started to climb back into like having some sort of internal validation. And, and now I think I'm, I don't even want to give myself, I think I'm 60, 40. I think I'm 60, 40 and I want to be 50, 50. So I'm 60 external. I still care a little bit too

much about what people think about me. And I still can't give myself the benefit of the doubt a little too often. And I want to get to the place where there's the ebb and flow. If someone gives me criticism, I want to be able to internalize that without like taking it as a slight against my person. And I also want to like have a good idea and be able to believe it's a good idea and like not let anything deter me from from that because sure the other way is like i could get really i used to be able to get really excited about a project and someone will be like but but no right and i'd be like definitely no way yeah no way and then i would just never do it do you not like it because i don't if you don't don't. But if you do, I love it, but I don't.

Exactly. That's exactly what it was like for me. So how about you? Bizarrely, almost the exact mirror. Which I think is a better explanation of our dynamic than like twins. People often go for brothers. It's closer to like exact opposite with all of the essential features. Right, right, right.

We are like the, you were like the villain. Thank you. In my history. Which is a Hamilton reference. Which I understood, Lin. So, so like, yeah, you were like the venom to my Spider-Man. Oh, fuck yeah. I'll take that one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could have been anyone. Could have been Doc Ock. Could have been Vulture. i'll take venom yeah i'm the tom hardy thank you handsome like him you said as well next question i forget it edit that in you open your mouth are you talking to the computer you edit that in enhance enhance compliment um so you started out more internally validated so you were like a little pompous boy. I was a pompous young prince. No, I think I've been very fortunate in most of my life to feel quite internally validated. And like any person, like any human being, there have been huge wavering effects, right?

Like external impacts have affected how internally validated I feel. Yes, yes, yes. But I think it was very fortunate to have Joy Cope, listener, fan, also part-time mother of me. Part-time. When she can find the time. She's mainly a listener and a fan, but also found the time to raise me. Right. Thanks, Joy. It's amazing.

Maybe the greatest gift she ever gave me was a feeling that no matter what other people thought of me right i still had inherent value yeah yeah that's big that's given me so much it's allowed me to care about projects when other people have invalidated them and it's given me the chance to feel confident about choices i've made when the major benefits and external validation may be years down the line can i can i make a weird metaphor so i was thinking about uh so you may not make it i was thinking about what you said i was thinking about what you said and like it made me think about how these things aren't

particularly static like this external internal divide uh isn't static even in a given moment. So it's like if I'm 50-50, does that mean that I'm truly 50-50? Or does it mean that like I'm 50-50 right now, but the like threshold where I snap into like a 90-10? Like what does that look like? And the way I think about this, and in your experience, you had like this foundational building of internal validation. I think of it as like how ice freezes. Like you like are layering like little bits of water and then like freezing it into like this foundational layers of ice.

Whereas I feel like I'm like an ice cube. Like I like placed in like the full 50% of water and I'm freezing it. And it's hard at the top, but if you poke through it, it's still just cold water down there. And I have this hard ice block of external validation that can just take over.

As soon as that block is cracked, it crumbles entirely and it's all water. And so what I'm trying to build, I'm working backwards. I'm trying to build out that foundation on the internal side. That's how it feels. so what I'm trying to build, I'm like working backwards. I'm trying to build out that foundation on the internal side. That's how it feels. Because I feel like there's a,

I can say that I'm 60-40 or I'm 50-50, but catch me outside. How about that? Catch me like in the wrong mood or on the wrong day or in like a negative thought spiral and I can easily snap into like an 80 20 interesting yeah i definitely relate to that uh i think type of trigger is also a major contributor

right like i happen to feel very externally validated about like my height uh in no part of me feels insecure about how tall i am right right right and if somebody tries to even absolutely somebody tries to zing me with that there's just no world where i can care about it like you could somebody's six eight huh short ass like no six three's great i just about fit under doors i very rarely hit lamps people seem to dig it and i can reach stuff and you actually are i think we're both in the sweet spot i'm six one you're six three it's great where we actually get all the benefits of being tall with none with none of the detriments. Like, if you're 6'8", then shit's hard for you

in some cases. So it starts to go the other way. You can, like, the oxygen's thinner. That's a major problem. That's 6'8". Also, at that height, you can actually see through time to your own death, which I think is a negative. Yeah, that's pretty negative. But you're saying that

you, there are these things that you're saying that um you there are these things that you are just internally validated about that are unshakable things foundational things that's exactly right whereas there may be triggers in both of our cases be it like a physical trait that we feel insecure about or most commonly for me uh a criticism that was levied at me when i was very young a little like your five-year-old person defining your entire emotional state for the rest of your life. Where somebody will reference like maybe, I can be a little bit of a pompous kid. Right. Because of that secure internal validation.

If somebody calls me like arrogant, I trigger straight to like, I'm sorry. Fuck, I feel so bad about that. And quite often arrogance or like confidence and comfort can be misinterpreted for arrogance but even if that's the case i will default to i'm so sorry this i'm an idiot i'm trying to be kind i'm trying to yeah another common one for me is uh making offensive jokes or jokes that just tip over the line that's something i used to do a lot when i was like 15 and was criticized rightfully for yeah something i very rarely do now i try and be as cognizant as possible yeah but one in every 50 times i will do it yeah and as soon as it happens even if the person's wrong i'm sorry i fucked it yeah it's like you're you're sensitive to these things because you're aware of them and when they come out you don't want to be

taken you don't want to be represented by that action you want to say like this is a one percent occurrence this is like a 0.5 occurrence but when it comes out it can be really you like want to you want to say like oh this isn't me like this isn't this is like such a rare thing now because i've been working on this for so long and i have i have a lot of things i have a lot of things like that where it's like i used to get really upset and angry and stuff. And it's like some of those things can still happen, but they're so rare now that when they happen, I'm like, I don't want to be around the world because I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is like this needs to go back where it came from. You know, it's often very difficult to delineate between things that you feel that you require external validation to validate yeah like hey your work quality and project quality and things that you are receiving critical feedback on great yeah that's something that the rest of the world judges and that is what makes it valid yeah like if you

make a video that's just for you yeah that's fine but your goal is for people to watch it and like it right and and so uh and so there are things that start to like with that there are things that start to shake my confidence right like um when i put out a video about our birthday trip right on my youtube channel i knew when i was making it this is for me and it's not going to do well like from a numbers perspective but still when it like didn't do well from another perspective i was just like i understand but i still want it or when someone uh comments on something that's like particularly i don't know it hits on something that i am like a weakness that i do hold then it it makes me think like well am i bad yeah like

maybe i am because this is the thing I would hear if I was. Yeah, because this is the thing that I would hear if I was. That's a really good way of putting it. The tricky thing about being bad or being good is that they sound the same. Yeah. I think the way, I think the same way that with your height, you have this like foundational confidence that is unshakable. You can have the same in the opposite. You can have the opposite

of confidence in a very foundational way. Extreme sensitivity. When someone compliments, or I think of it like this, if someone says you did a really good job on something that you are self-conscious about, it's really hard for you to accept that compliment. You know what I mean? It can't be validated. It can't be validated. Yeah. yeah it's like this is a bad song like if you make a song and you're like this is bad and i hear it you're like it's not you just don't understand why it's just really bad you don't see the nuances that i do yeah so it kind of it can go both ways in that regard what would you say are relatively uncommon traits in both camps that you hold something that you feel very internally validated about that you don't think most people do and something that you struggle to feel externally

validated in that other people may be able to oh that's that's a really tough question um so we can take another five-year break like we did between the lin-mao segment and this one yeah i i might need that i might need that um i don't know i don't know that mine are particularly like rare or unique i think that's that's the part that i'm getting hung up on like it doesn't need to be too unique i would just eliminate like height as an example sure sure yeah pretty common i think that i'm like i think that i'm really confident in my ability to like pick up skills that i don't have like uh that's certainly not common right right right and so um for me i think when i when i i this is the like the worst aspect of this quality is that like i see someone do something

and i'm like i could do that you know what i? And then I have to prove that I can do it. And sometimes I can, and it doesn't – that doesn't really help the problem, but I think that there is a way to harness it, which is being able to learn from people from all over and try to emulate them and having enough confidence to not say, oh, I could never do that, but to say, how do I get there like really like what does that path look like what is my aptitude for this like let's find out um so that's that's the thing where i'm like very unwavering um in my ability to like make something happen or make something work um and then on the other side uh the other side

was something that is like yeah yeah, no matter what. Very hard to be validated. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it's creative stuff like, yeah, it's I think it's really hard for me to I'm getting better at it. And I think it's valuable to improve this and my ability to accept to hear things positively but um i'm definitely the guy who's like scrolling through a thousand positive comments and sees one negative one and goes no that's the one that's the one that knows what it's about yeah uh and these other

ones are like whatever i mean it's always difficult to shed something like that because there are benefits to being very stubborn yeah in your in your self critique you know if all boats rise with the water right like if you get better at making content you're going to feel better about it and you're going to receive more external validation right whereas if you just hear that external validation ignore every negative comment you're not going to improve uh so lightning round jordan i want to hear i want to hear these from you and then we should uh get into our our pen pal for the day um lightning round so first one is something that i feel phrase it for me uh yeah so this is my own question yeah

yeah so so first something that you feel like you don't need, that you have a lot of internal validation for. Yeah. Something I feel like I have a lot of internal validation for, occasionally to a fault. Yeah. In fact, often to a fault would be my skill set. Kind of an interesting inverse of what you were saying. My skill set and areas of expertise. And in reverse, areas I don't know and things i don't understand right i will often discount as that's just not a

jordan thing oh okay i just hey i see the kid rocks at this stuff i'm amazing at this stuff right right all of that other stuff i sacrifice to be amazing at these things these are mine and those are yours i i did that when i was, whenever I would fail publicly, I would try to discount. Like, I'd be like losing at Mario Kart and I'd be like, well, I don't really like this game. Yeah, I'm divorcing myself from the probability that I ever could have been good. Right, because you don't, because then no one can judge your performance. You set expectations in like this very defensive way. I didn't fail

because of my lack of aptitude or commitment. It's because this isn't a thing I care about. This isn't a thing for me. I think part of that for me actually comes from growing up with EDS. There were just a bunch of physical activities I wasn't allowed to do. I wasn't allowed to play any contact sports. I wasn't really allowed to, I wasn't really able to run. So anything that required a lot of running was very difficult for me started swimming and all of a sudden that was something that worked for me so i got into this mindset where certain exercises and certain activities are for the kid right other things are for other people and if i ever try something new and i'm not good at it that's because it's not meant for me right right and how about the the

opposite where um no matter what like people say you can't really like accept it can't really accept it um creativity is a really obvious one for me as well uh but to be to go more specific inside of that vein if yours is video making yeah mine would be writing i'm writing a lot more lately i used to write a ton just for fun and never do anything with it but with the show that I'm working on Recording this Sunday Very excited You'll be hearing more about it soon But whenever it comes to writing something

I will often feel confident about what I produce It's also stretches to music in some cases I will share it And the second I receive positive feedback My estimations about it go down the tubes It's like neutral once I've made the thing Soon as it goes out there and the second i receive positive feedback my estimations about it go down the tubes yeah it's like neutral once i've made the thing right soon as it goes out there and somebody likes it yeah it's worse than i ever thought it was oh that's that's fascinating because it seems passively

insulting like oh you think this is good right it must suck no that's not it at all it's just that as soon as it enters the public sphere yeah there's a part of my brain somewhere deep in my psyche that goes like right this isn't now just your little song you make this isn't like the silly little thing you put together on a sunday this is now music yeah it has entered music and must now be compared to all other music ever made yeah must be compared to all other screenplays ever written this is now a podcast this is officially now a podcast so uh here's the thing i we one thing we haven't really touched on is like physical appearance we really we did a little bit and i think a lot of times self-esteem as you can see thanks to the video yeah um uh self like appearance is something that i really struggled with and i think it took a long time and it took a long time and sort of conditioning

and hearing from friends and stuff that I am, you know, have inherent, I do have an inherent value. And I want to speak to that a little bit. And maybe we'll talk about, I think we should talk about physical appearance in a completely separate episode of Sad Boys.

And I think this conversation was great. And if you want to see another episode on this topic, let us know in the comments, which is the thing we can say. Or hit us up in the normal places, sadboyspod.com, on Twitter at sadboyspod, and sadboyspod at gmail.com. And if you just wish really hard, we'll probably hear it. Yeah. Wish upon a star, wish upon that bit of the turkey bone you get. Yeah, save Justin three times.

But you don't know who you're gonna get Or what location Now we have a pen pal today Whoa We do From our good friend Kwesi Y Mmm Kwesi

Glasses glasses Do I have my glasses I have my glasses Put on my glasses There's the glasses Now Do I wanna do a voice for Quessie? No

You sure? Because I have all these voices prepared Give us a voice Okay I'm going to do Jordan Cope this time But I have other voices I've been practicing this for 24 years years yeah yeah uh cressy writes in to say uh pen pals this is the subject line super sorry that it's so long cressy no sweat my dude no worries it's very welcome

and it's a great email um hey jarvis and justin brackets jordan thanks it's always helpful yeah let them know because I get confused. I read this. I'm like, Justin, well, should I forward this to Lynn, the new Justin? Oh, wait. We have Diva. We have a live Diva. A live Diva.

Hi. This is Jordan's cat, Diva. If you ever hear a rustling. Okay. Well. Diva likes to just sit down wherever the fuck she wants. She acts like the podcast is a video podcast every time. Yeah, she does.

She likes to get right in the action. Yeah. She she loves pen pals which is why she's over here now right she's reading questy's email uh questy says uh he's very uh considerately split the email into section to read on the podcast and then just nice things he said yeah so we don't read those dear fucking god do not read those things uh external validation means nothing to us right um written as stream of consciousness a la the kanye method roughly edited by quessy i'll be going back and forth on writing this i'm a real big fan of the pod brackets first time long time question mark yeah emotional pervert sad boy bizarrely i don't think i've ever seen somebody refer to themselves as a sad boy i we need to have more of that yeah no with a sample okay fine put down the gun hey put out a tiny brown gun yeah um such a big fan that about

a month ago when i was trying to meet a 7 30 a.m assignment deadline you're giving me hives even thinking about it i've been in this situation so many times uh assignment deadline i stayed up all night programming and binging the show. Seriously think I lost my mind because by the time I turned in my assignment and sat in for class, I swear I still heard Jordan speaking to me. No, I was doing that. Yeah, yeah. I was also under the desk.

Yeah, he might have said Justin a few times and then Jordan popped under the desk. Classic. What a mistake. It's a classic mistake. I gotta say, it's really inconveniencing me. I'll just be on a date or getting dinner or watching a movie. And then all of a sudden I'll be in a location, often with somebody looking into a mirror. And then you'll be saying something that was related to the conversation you were having.

Yeah. And then it interrupts Questy's test. Helps me travel though. Yeah, it's true. You have lots of frequent flyer moments. Where the hell am I? Do you ever notice that when you read these emails, you remember that you haven't read anything for 15 years? Yeah, it's true.

I'm like, oh yeah, reading out loud. Yeah. Thank God I went to some of my school. Assignment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Seriously, I think I lost my mind. I get to still hear Jordan talking to me. Sorry for making it weird. A 12-hour stint and a 7.30 a.m. class does that to a guy.

Understandable. Anyway, so I'm going to be super senior college student it's like you take an extra year sometimes oh super senior cool um it's cool it's totally normal by the way and it presumably comes with powers very excited about that super san super senior super senior uh college student and my major is computer science hey i didn't know you were a nerd Quesi try film if you want to be a cool guy turn off the podcast dork lots of cool people do that

one cool person doesn't do it good news the cool person who does is Liam Neeson he pivoted in an interesting direction good news I actually enjoy the subject matter hooray bad news I'm bad at it Like real fucking bad Right bad at computer science he says

Okay not too bad because I help people debug And can explain some concepts to people Right On paper though on tests I panic and I feel lost And I turn it in and do bad I mean we can This could be an entire episode

But I mean your ability to test yeah is a different skill or it's like being able to write music and play jazz live your ability to produce in a in a high pressure situation and format it in a way that tracks i mean yeah yeah i'm taking a cs test but i would assume that there are practices exclusive to the testing environment that aren't something you would use in a work environment, right? Right, right, right. Well, yeah, there's a lot to testing that is not related to work or even informal education, to be honest. Which has caused me to fall behind on my original class in May 2018 and have to hopefully make the December 2018 class or be forced into 2019. wondering if you guys have dealt with being able unable to perform in certain contexts like do you

like you totally think you understand you get tested and then grades return and it makes you feel stupid it's sort of too late for me because my gpa is in the gutter and i'm working on getting it to look good for employers you just have to be good at cs right yeah people just like it if you're good at computer science like it if you can do the work uh but maybe my question can help someone else i think my problem is that i didn't consider myself a CS student or even a proper programmer until I got the official title when I switched my major. Anyways, I feel as if I'm behind the eight ball and I've still got one more semester, no worthwhile internships.

This question is for both of you again. And if you don't want to answer this or attach a disclaimer to it, that's cool. What can I do to make the most of my last semester i'd love to leave my subpar brackets future alma mater and land on my feet hopefully shout out to sage hope she's super successful shout out to sage previous pen pal oh thanks so much questy for writing this in shout out to sage um okay i just want to say like it's everything's fine everything that you're worried about right now like this is not going to be something that you think about five years from now. Uh, it's going to slowly drift away. And after you're working in industry, you're never going to think

about these tests and how you're a bad test taker, you know, like, or how you like, it's hard for you to perform under pressure. I definitely feel that. Um, and I think that there are strategies that we can talk about for performing under pressure. For me, I like to zoom out on how much this matters in the grand scheme of things, which it doesn't. And if you zoom out far enough, nothing does. So it like really is effective if that's like your speed. And like before I went on stage for improv, I would always get like jittery. And as my team, we're always like patting each other on the back going like, you're going to do great and stuff. And I would say, remember, we're all going to die. None of those matters. Like, and that's, that's like kind of

dark, but it's, it helps. And they would ask you to stall. Yeah. Please. That's so horrible. I'm sick. Don't say that. So I think just, yeah, zoom out is my short tip there. And then for in terms of after you graduate, it's just a whole different ballgame. I think that we like school kind of has this weird status associated with it. And you think that it's going to be an indicator of your long term success. But because like, oh, I'm a 2.5 student. That means that I am lowly compared to the 3.7 students, you know? And that's like an easy trap to fall into. Trust me, it doesn't matter.

Focus on what you like doing. It sounds like you like doing the work. Figure out what like parts of that you want to continue doing and find and look for jobs that like will allow you to do that and really show off the best aspect of yourself. Like if you think about it, really adulthood or like the workplace is us trying to show off like skill sets that we do have so we don't i i like i'm not trying to be a rice farmer because i don't think that that's like a a skill that i can can show off um professionally but i'm like that's on my list of things that i just don't think it for me so yeah i't think I'm skilled enough. Fascinating that we talked about this directly after discussing self-esteem. I didn't see the tie so clearly,

but one thing we didn't talk about with self-esteem is that moving into adulthood, your external validation has a drip effect on your internal validation. Regardless of which one you think you lean into more aggressively or which one you value more, when you enter a work environment or you help somebody with their project or you uh release some kind of creative endeavor that you've been fighting for for a long time yeah the external validation while nice in the moment very slowly builds up your internal validation you start to feel like oh well you have to let it 50 people like me surely that means Yeah, exactly. I think some people can close it off, but you can let it in. And the frustrating thing about that particular advice is that the timeline's long.

I can't promise you that it's going to convert immediately, nor can I promise you that you will even feel it. You'll just notice it in five years or so. You'll look back and go like, huh, that really didn't impact my overall happiness. Exactly. You're like, huh, that really didn't impact my overall happiness. Something that I will, the advice that I will give as somebody that did not study computer science because I'm a cool guy. I spent roughly 25 minutes this last weekend trying to remember what I got in my final year of college. Right. Trying to remember what my grade was. Straight up couldn't remember.

I'm starting to forget like A's and B's and yeah. Couldn't tell you. Yeah. I think I got the thing that let me get me a visa. That was pretty much all the data that I have. Reason being that all of the things that I received validation from on that course, be it the grades or the qualitative feedback or the way that people would react when they watched or read things that I made. Right. Hit me in the moment and then trickled into internal validation. It became the way that Jordan sees himself. Yeah. And you just have to give yourself the opportunity, give yourself the me in the moment and then trickled into internal validation it became the way that jordan sees

himself yeah and you just have to give yourself the opportunity give yourself the time to let it trickle down exactly so give yourself a break you're gonna do fine you're gonna be great let us know how it goes reach out to us in years from now and be like you were right it turned out fine. Also, to wrap it up, he goes by Kyle at Starbucks, comparing it to your Seth. Wow. Congrats, Kweisi. Thanks, Kyle. Could be Seth-y.

Kyle Seth-y. Jarvis, I'm not going to listen to this podcast anymore, but I would like to listen to follow-up ones and also learn what's going on in our lives. Well, you can find us on Twitter at Jarvis. That's just me, actually. You can find Jordan at Jordan Adika. I know, sometimes i know sometimes on your twitter account on twitter or instagram you can find us on sad boys pod on twitter and that's enough places sure and tell us where we can find you

if we want to spend time with you or listen to your podcast actually that's the homework this week i want fans and listeners of the show to tweet to the sad boys account with their creative project oh yeah what you like to spend Sad Boys account with their creative project. Ooh. Yeah, what you like to spend your time on. Not even creative. Just like however you like to spend your time, your free time. We do have fun.

We do have fun. Do we want to sing this one? Yeah, we're going to sing. We end every show with a particular phrase. We've been singing it lately. No one has complained. I just don't think anyone's made it to the end of the show. Nope. And I just called an Uber, so we have one take we've got to get out of here let's do it uh to the theme of the very

first track from hamilton we love you and we're sorry boom boom all right if you like this video version of the show let us know thanks for joining um so yeah thanks for watching lynn bye