Soul Boom - Listen Now: Rainn Wilson on Man Enough w/ Justin Baldoni

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

We've got a treat for you, Soul Boom fam! This week, listen to Rainn on Justin Baldoni's podcast, Man Enough: What is the crap that is no longer serving us? In true comedic fashion, award-winning actor, comedian and writer Rainn Wilson joins for an authentic conversation on workaholism, therapy, marriage, male friendships, and what his beloved character from The Office teaches us about being a man. Rainn brings his humor and humility to an inspiring conversation on topics including: Workaholism as an expected and celebrated trait of masculinity Desiring acceptance and feeling excluded behind-the-scenes in Hollywood Family life, including parenting, couples’ therapy, and how Holiday, his wife of nearly 30 years, took the brunt of his entitlement Initiating conversation and connection in male friendships The Man Enough Podcast is hosted by Justin Baldoni, Liz Plank, and Jamey Heath. It is produced by Wayfarer Studios. Thank you to our sponsors! Waking Up app (1st month FREE!): https://wakingup.com/soulboom Fetzer Institute: https://fetzer.org/ Sign up for our newsletter! https://soulboom.substack.com SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom!! https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom Watch our Clips: https://bit.ly/SoulBoomCLIPS Watch WISDOM DUMP: https://bit.ly/WISDOMDUMP Follow us! Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Spring Green Films Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Voicing Change Media Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome. Did you hear someone say Make a Brain? To the Man Enough podcast. Wow. I'm Justin Baldoni. I'm Jamie Heath. And today we have a very special guest, a dear friend of ours, Mr. Rain Wilson. Ray Wilson.

Dwight True. Rain from the office. Also founder of Soul Pancake, which I just want to say, if it were not for Rain and his vision, there's no chance that I don't think we would be here right now. I started making documentaries about people who were dying my last days on SoulPancake. They were the first to believe in me. So big shout out to Rain and Shabnam and Golry's and Devin. You guys, the OGs of Soul Pancake.

I appreciate that. And here we are. So let's talk about what we're doing right now. We are having Rayne Wilson on. Yeah. Why are we having him on? Because he's done a lot of things that I think are worth discussing and for other people to hear about. He is a man that I admire you too as well.

He's helped both of us a lot. He has indeed. He, uh, he, uh, you credit him to kind of saving in many ways your life. He was one of the people that saved my life and my marriage. He also, um, has a wonderful, um, organization called Lee De Haiti, where he do incredible work, incredible work. He champions the work of women and ladies. And, uh, rain, I think is an example of somebody who really is dedicated his life to being

of service and he's used his fame and his notoriety and his influence to really make a difference in the world. And now he's tackling climate change and we're going to talk about a whole lot of stuff. And he has screwed up a bunch. He's been a mess. He's been a mess. He's screwed up, but he owns it and he talks about it. And he talks about it with his kid.

So he's worth talking to. He's more than worth talking to. Indeed. He is. So if you like what you hear. Follow us at manenough.com slash podcast. One more time. Manenough.

com slash podcast. And we'll be right back with the one and only rain Wilson and the wonderful Liz Plank. We're about to make it rain. Oh my God. This is Man Enough. They make it rain. Make it rain.

Welcome back to Man Enough. I'm Justin Baldoni here with Jamie Heath in our wonderful coast, Liz Plank. And we have a very special guest today. My dear friend, Jamie's dear friend. I can only imagine how much I'm going to get made fun of. Mr. Rain, Wilson, Liz. Do you want to read some awkward bio in front of rain? Am I doing this?

I can't wait to hear his bio. I'm reading Rain Wilson's bio. Can we talk about his life? Rain Wilson, you played the clarinet and the bassoon in your high school band. That's right. Yeah. You went vegan in 2018. Yeah.

And own a zonky. What's a zonky? What's a zonky? Yes. Well, there's a donkey component and the zee is a, there's a zebra component too. Okay. It's a zebra mixed with a donkey, because that's what I thought when I read it. But that's really a zonky.

The spermatozoa of the zebra is interfaced with the womb-womishness of the donkey. And it creates a little hybrid. I can't? No, really. Wow. That's exciting. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to see a photo of a zonky.

That's all I want right now. We have plenty of photos of zonkies. Okay, great. He does. And they're real. They're beautiful. In fact, I brought it in. So can we bring in those occupations?

So look, Rain, you're a producer, you're an activist, you're one of the funniest people on earth. You have been working film on television for so long, and we all know you for your incredible performance as Drites Fruit in the office. But you're so much more than that. You're my favorite Super Soul Sunday episode with Oprah. I love where you say, thank you, Oprah. I can't believe I just said thank you, Oprah. You really are a fan. Oh, totally.

No, totally. I've been playing a cool this whole time. But I am so overdried to be here with you. And to all be here to be talking about you and your life and also your definition of masculinity, manhood. What is it like? Wow. Well, I will say to start things off that my wife said, oh, you're going to go do the Justin's Man Enough podcast. She goes, if you cry on this podcast, I'm divorcing you.

Oh, that's something. reinforcing. Let's just reinforce. Have you ever cried in front of your wife? Oh my God. I've cried so many times in front of my wife. Hold on. Holiday was joking. Holiday is joking.

She's a superhero. When's the last time you cried in front of your wife? I'll be really honest with you. It was probably a week or two ago crying. And this is right in the zone of Man Enough show. And that was crying in gratitude that I'm with her and that we've had a 30-year relationship. And I'm so grateful for being her partner. Wow.

Wow. And did that come out of like a specific moment or it just naturally occurred? We're walking the dogs. I think I probably just picked up some poop from the sidewalk and burst into tears. Yes. I had a deep, deep moment of connection. I love that. It's in those regular little small moments, isn't it?

It's in the nothingness. We always start with this question. When was a time you remember not feeling man enough? I think the first maybe first 18 years of my life. But then does that mean boy enough or male enough? No, I guess because this isn't, for me, this is an interesting topic because I read your book, the pre-publication version of your book, Justin, is wonderful.

And you're so vulnerable. and the struggles that you shared. And, but honestly, I didn't relate a whole lot because I was always just so nerdy and geeky growing up that I didn't have any kind of like, there was never any struggle of like, oh, this is the kind of man I need to be or anything like that. I was in, you were confident in your nerdiness.

I was confident in my nerdiness. We were a bunch of nerds. We played Dungeons and Dragons. I played the bassoon. And I had this weird sense of humor in a giant head. and, you know, and it's in suburban Seattle in the 80s. And I didn't kind of feel like, oh, I wasn't in sports. I didn't need to, like, compete.

I mean, of course I had, you know, massive insecurities and stuff like that. But it didn't go so much with, like, manhood. Now, you know, when you get into, like, dating and women and rejection and stuff like that, there's a whole other kind of layers of stuff. But I didn't have that struggle of, like, I'm, I'm feeling less than a man. Wanting to be accepted by the other guys. Yeah.

And because we were just, we were the nerd posse and we just, anyone was accepted. So it didn't matter. There's something really, but so it's funny is the only time I felt that in my entire youth was when my junior year in high school, I like took a sabbatical from trying to be cool and hanging out with the sports guys and I hung out with the theater guys. Mm-hmm. Was the only time I felt like I was enough as I was, like that I was. like that I felt accepted and liked.

And then I questioned all my life decisions. Like, why didn't I just do theater? Why didn't I hang out with these guys? We made stupid like this one, Jackass was big. We made all these videos and we, I could just be an idiot and a nerd and they liked me for it. Right, everybody was different. And the possees that I hung with, now, you know,

it was pretty rough and tumble in suburban Seattle in the early 80s, you know, and I got pushed around a lot and mocked a lot and bullied, straight up bullied. But anyone was welcome. If you wanna join the chest It doesn't matter if you're on the spectrum. It doesn't matter if you're gay.

It doesn't matter if you're ugly. It doesn't matter what race you are. It just doesn't matter. And it was the same in the theater too. And you know, all sexualities were welcome. And in people of all stripes, it didn't matter what you looked like. And that's, that is a wonderful thing about being a theater geek. Yeah.

It feels like you, so I have probably already said this on this podcast, but the patriarch is a pyramid scheme, right? For men, particularly. Women know the patriarchies. patriarchy is like, I mean, some women still participate in it and think they're going to get something out of it. I think a lot of men think, oh, cool, great, this thing, I can get to the top, right? I can get the approval of the football. You mean, whatever that is in high school, whatever that is. Football team or quarterbacks or. And then later it's, you know, later in life, I don't know,

who that was for you. Or maybe you never actually seek that approval, that 1% of, like, men that are sort of, quote, unquote, the right race, the right sexual orientation, have the right body. do you feel like you never were trying to get up that ladder? Well, again, for me, it was more about, I was trying to be an artist, I was trying to build a career as an actor. So I certainly wanted approval. Right. You know, but I wanted approval so that I could get ahead and get the next job

or get a better agent or something like that that I needed to do to advance my career. But it never was really about like I need approval from men. But until really like, I would say, the first time I really bumped heads into that was a little bit in L.A. in the Hollywood world where, yes, it's very diverse, but there is kind of this kind of like guys, dudes, network kind of behind the scenes. And even, I think a lot of like the kind of, quote, nerdier, like comedy guys that were nerds in high school are now multimillionaire super popular kids. So they act, they just inherit how the popular kids and jocks in school and the lunchroom act.

And are you welcome at the lunch table or not? So there's these hierarchies. And that did affect me for a long time and really ate away at me. Like, why am I not at the popular kids table? When I was in high school, I didn't care. I didn't give a shit if I was at the popular kids table because I knew I would never sit at the popular kids' kids. But all of a sudden, as I'm making it as an actor and I'm on the office and I'm doing some movies and stuff like that, like, why? Why do I not get to play with the big boys of Hollywood comedy?

Like they don't accept me or want me or. But so, but again, it's not, it wasn't a masculinity thing. It was more, but there was a lot of ego involved, but it was more about ambition and success. But is that though? Like, is it not a masculinity thing or is it? I mean, I think, and then that's kind of what I think about when I think about like, okay, so it's almost like you guys,

or you when you were younger, or maybe nerds or people that identify as nerds or geeks or whatever, self-identify, feel like, okay, I'm never going to be that. So I'm comfortable being this. But is there a part of you that like, if a genie came the next day and snapped their, you know, their fingers or whatever,

you would, like, and offered you the chance to become that, would you? And then is that what Hollywood does? Overnight, you just become that. Suddenly you have money in fame. And then all the geeks now suddenly you're losing weight, and getting ripped or getting hair plugs or all the things that happen

then once you become rich and famous and you're now funny and good looking and then you're back at like oh, I'm now the cool guy that was impossible to be when I was younger. I feel like there's got to be some connection with masculinity and what I experience in Hollywood too which is very much that.

Like I'm like, shit, I'm not cool enough. Does anyone feel cool enough? Like, is there a guy in Hollywood that feels cool now? Matthew McConaughey definitely feels cool enough. We just had Matthew on the show. You're listening to the. The Mad Enough Podcast. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back to the Mad Enough podcast.

So, Rain, you and I have known each other for a long time. Mm-hmm. And super close, spent a lot of time together, intimate time together, traveled a bunch together. And I have been personally on the floor, on the ground at my lowest low, with you at my side during that time. Mm-hmm. And what I've seen in you, which is interesting about like this whole,

we've been like trying to undefine what it means to be a man, right? So you may don't have this bravado, this whole thing about being accepted by the boys and all that. But we certainly walk through the world like trying to redefine ourselves, be better for our sons, how you are with your son. And what you do well, and I want to know why you do this, is you're in therapy all the time with yourself, with your family. Like you just acknowledge how helpful that is just for being a better person.

You're constantly being accountable just for your actions and recognizing where you're flawed and, you know, and all these things. Why do you think that's important? Do you think that's tough for you in any way to be vulnerable with those things, to not have to, like, prove that I'm, you know, man enough that I don't have, because you do that well. Yeah. You called me out on my shit and allowed me to do it.

Yeah. And, you know, I certainly have my struggles. And I think, you know, when I was very, really lost in my 20s. When I look back on it right now, I kind of have a new take on it. And that is, I was really struggling with mental health issues. That's really bottom line in my 20s, trying to make it as an actor in New York City. I had wicked bouts of depression that were incredibly debilitating. It was much less diagnosed in the 90s than it is now. And I had crippling anxiety and I would get these anxiety attacks that would literally leave me in the fetal position

on the floor like shaking and this was on and off for years and there was addiction issues I would try and kind of quiet that anxiety with alcohol and drugs and pretty much everything else that you can try and use to quiet that anxiety that didn't work out very well so this therapeutic process for me has been like you know I had a pretty traumatic childhood and this is going to take a lot of ongoing going work for me to be continually like unpacking that, but also bringing my best self to bear an adult rain. And I just feel like people kind of make a big deal about therapy, but why would you not spend 50 minutes a week? Here's your week. Here's what you do in a week. How much time do you spend watching TV, playing video games, watching sports, Jamie, playing golf, Jamie? How many hours

a week do you spend that? And you don't spend and someone wouldn't spend 50 minutes a week to just examine themselves and to kind of take stock and look at your patterns of behavior and what you can shift going forward, try and understand yourself a little bit deeper. So it goes hand in hand with mental health issues and addiction issues and stuff like that, but it also, I just feel like it's a very worthwhile investment.

And how did being in therapy change your relationship to women, change your relationship to your partner, for example? That's a great question. It's ongoing. You know, I think that, you know, Jamie, like the stuff you brought up before about, you know, where my strengths have been. I'll tell you where my weakness has been in my own entitlement. So there's obviously a lot of talk these days about kind of white privilege that has kind of gone part and parcel with who I am. And then and then you're a man. And then you're and then all of a sudden you're, and then all of a sudden you're, this geeky celebrity and then you're given kind of all this kind of love and accolades and attention just for being yourself but then you walk in a room and people like oh ah you know and you're given all that and so i think for me there's there's been a tremendous amount of entitlement that went with that a lot of ego struggles around that so i think my wife got the the shit end of the stick around a lot of that um and uh was not treated uh near with the respect that she warranted so there

some rough years there. There were definitely some rough years and the therapeutic process has been really healing for us. You know, we've been in a couple, we're not anymore, but we were in couples therapy for a long time. And how did it show up with her? I'm curious, like the entitlement, the ego, like how did it show up in your relationship with her? I think, um, uh, you know, in the 12-step program, you go one day at a time. I think in a relationship, you go one day at a time and slow things down and just make sure that I'm never, ever taking her for granted. So that's hard. Because that can show up in so many ways and it can show up in just little ways.

It's a little ways, yeah. That you talk to each other and disrespect each other. And so all of this work that you do, whether it's spiritual work, psychological work, recovery work, all of this work is just for one thing. It's to stay more conscious. It's just to be more present and more conscious with the choices that you make. and how you interact and react to the world. So I want to be more conscious in my interactions

with Holiday and treat her with the respect that she deserves. So also let me ask you, what do you feel that you do differently, raising a boy, raising a man, he's a young man now, 17, that maybe you didn't get, that you know that he needs to have, like new lessons, new learnings that you have gotten that you think need to happen for you.

That's a great question that feeds right into what we're talking about. And that is, my dad, was a wonderful man, a brilliant artist, very kind, very sensitive. There was not any kind of like kind of he man, great Santini aspect to my dad at all, which I really respect. I know that he loved me deeply, but his emotions were kept in a lockbox. I mean, anything having to do with feelings was like in this giant safe with five or six locks on it, spun around and just and locked away. And he could be gentle and he could say, you know, I love you and how are you today? But anything, if you ever asked him, like, how are you feeling?

How does that make you feel anything? Just boom. And he had a super traumatic childhood. He has one of the most traumatic childhoods I've ever heard in my life and I've heard dozens and dozens just like horrific. You can't even believe. Can you go into detail? What, like, if you want?

Well, like, you know, he is, for instance, like how his. mom died. His mom had tuberculosis in the in the 40s, early 50s. And they went to go pick her up from the sanatorium. And they went into the courtyard and she was up in the window and waved at them and ran to go get her coat and meet them downstairs. And she fell down and hit her head and died. Oh my God. So they were going to go get his mom and like, and then she died like that. And then his dad was an alcoholic and had there was a series of really abusive like stepmoms that came and went from the house and he would they would be left alone for weeks at a time at age like 11 in his house to have to like try and steal food from neighbors and borrow food from neighbors it was like it was really really bad it was like a you know a dickens you know novel or something Oliver twist stuff to it um so he never felt safe sharing emotions so that's what I get to work on with walter. age 16 and say like, I want to be a feelings guy and I'm going to share my feelings with him and I get to hug him and look at the resistance with that though? Do you feel like do you feel any challenges in trying to open up and share those feelings?

Or does it come really natural to you? It's something I have to work on. I wouldn't say resistance, but it doesn't come natural at the same time. Something again, in a daily practice, I kind of have to remind myself, okay, stay conscious with Walter and check in with him and see how he's doing. And, and love him and share my heart with him. And one thing that I always do, and this is, and I think this is a really cool kind of takeaway, is one thing I've worked really hard on doing is when I have struggles and when I have failures,

I share them with Walter. So it's like, hey, I was up for this big part in this movie and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah happened and I didn't get it. That's a pathetic example, but say, and here's how it makes me feel. And I feel rejected and I feel lame, and I feel sad and I was really looking forward to it.

And, you know, it's such a service you're giving him with that. We had my dad on not long ago. And we, and that was, it was like an hour cry session with me and my dad, but that was one of the things I just wished he would have given me is he never gave me his failures. He never gave me, he was emotional but not vulnerable. So I never saw, I never saw his flaws. So he was impenetrable, he was perfect, right?

And then you fall from grace eventually, but you're giving him that. So he's gonna grow up and be, able to say like oh well I can feel those things too that's a gift man good for you thank you for doing that yeah and I'm curious I want to go back to this because you and Holiday have such a gorgeous relationship I was having cold feet I had already done this stupid elaborate proposal and I like right before we were going to get married I was like freaking out I was absolutely freaking out and I called I was and I'd never really been vulnerable with you before.

Like I was making like documentaries for your company. And so like you were kind of like, Rain Wilson, you know. So I called Rain. And I like, I thought he was gonna like make fun of me a little bit or like, but on that call he was like, oh man, I really like he heard me. And it was one of the most, it was like one of the most profound special, simple moments. And it did so much good for me where you,

You basically told me that I was being an idiot. You called me on my shit and talked about my ego. And in by faith, we have this concept of the ego being like the evil whispering one, right? And this sense of self. And he was just like, hey, man, like, that's not you. That's not you. That's your ego. And in such a Rain Wilson, like Oprah profound like conversation, it was like 15 minutes.

It was done. And I was like, I think I'm okay. And I went back inside. I talked to my wife about it. And I will forever be grateful for that. No, that's nice. I was, I don't know, I was 27 or something. And it just meant so much to me.

Yeah. Thank you. I put you in the book. I said, my phone of friend is Dwight from the office. He provides the service for other men that I navigate. Anyone. Anyone. Let's give out my phone number.

He does. He does. In fact, in fact, going on that, other men, you may have single-handedly saved my life. Mm. Because he's the one who called me out when I was in my denial and ugly state we've known each other for years but we weren't like intimately close but we'd known each other you know and i get this email phone that was like um dude and he listed all this shit about me

called me out and was like so if you ever want to talk and hang out um and get real and have a real conversation and be a real man not hide call me and i was like what the fuck is this i got really pissed off. Didn't respond and then got a little bit lower and then I recalled this thing and I called him and we went and had coffee lunch and I just there was the first time I like let all my shit out I had told anybody that what I you laid it all out. I laid it all out wow and and then what he did was he heard it and he was like now you got to be accountable. It wasn't like coddling through it. It was like love.

And the way the love was there was, all right, now we gotta get you from here to here, and here's the steps. And so if that not happened, I don't know, I could have stayed there. This is so interesting because I think that women, in our friendships, because the patriarchy doesn't punish us for connecting with other women

in the way that the Patriotate punishes men for connecting with other men, women often in friendships, will be like, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about this person you're dating. I'm worried about this job you're doing, right? I get those all the time. A lot of people are worried about me, okay? But it's just part of female friendship.

And I get the sense, tell me if I'm wrong, that it is not as much a part of male friendships, that what you, Rain had done for Justin and have done for Jamie is, I am worried about you. Here's why and here's, you know, and again with the accountability on top of it. And I wonder, first of all, again, bringing it back to a woman because I'm the only woman here, it would make women's lives so much better if men did that for other men. So that we don't have to, right? And I'm curious, did other men do that for you? Is that something that other, that was modeled for you?

Am I making any sense? Do you feel like it is not as frequent for men to do? do that? It is not as frequent for men to do that. Absolutely. And men don't risk making themselves vulnerable in that way. And truly, you know, one of the things that's really, I'm sidestepping it a little bit, but saying that one of the really difficult things in this day and age, I don't know if it ever existed before, is for adult men to make new friendships. So we have our friendships with like our high school kids and maybe we went to college and people we worked on in our careers early on in our and that's kind of our stable of friends.

But like it's super, super hard in your 30s and 40s and 50s to kind of like meet a dude that you relate to and like form a friendship. And you know, why is that? Why can't there be, you know, you meet someone, you have some stuff in common, you have lunch or something like that and say, hey, do you want to be friends?

And like, and say, how are you doing today? Yeah. Let's go to dinner. Do you do that? Yeah. Do I do that? No, I don't do that. But it seems like you're a really good friend.

What are your tips for men who might be listening looking to be a better friend? He makes fun. He makes fun of us. Okay. Mock mercilessly. Mock mercilessly. Yeah. No, I don't know that I'm that good at it.

I know you're super humble. But I think for a lot of men, it is challenging. They want that connection that you have with Jamie, that you have with Justin, but they don't, they've never been taught. Yeah, they don't know how to get it. So I, in my book, give a. I give little tips, right, that friendship is like a garden, right? You gotta water it, you know, it's about how much you tend to it that really matters. I say this very simple thing of, you know, being good friend, I think a lot of people feel

like they need to be cool and like interesting, but it's actually about like listening, like being a good listener and asking good questions, like people will want to be your friend. I'm curious if anything comes to mind, just in the way that you've approached male friendships. Well, I think one thing is, I think texting is awesome, but I think it's kind of the devil because some people like only text. And back in the day, back in the 90s, going way back to the old 90s. We would fax each other non-stop. We would just say, hey, thinking of you today, smiley face emoji,

I think you should bring back the facts. I miss faxing. But we would pick up the phone and be like, We knew people's numbers. Hey, Kevin. How are you? Oh, hi, Rain. What's going on? Hey, what's going on in your life? And we would talk with not like,

sup, bro. Yeah. Like check out the game. Yeah, awesome. Later. So I do think that making lunch dates, beer dates, coffee dates, seeing someone face to face, Face timing, like taking that time to kind of like have a connection

and a conversation. It's hard to do. And it sounds obvious, but people don't do it. Yeah. It's about time, investing time. It comes back to what you're talking about in terms of therapy, right? Making, if you want good friendships, it's kind of like any, you want a good body, you want to, you know, you have to invest. But there's also something and that I think it's okay to acknowledge that makes it uncomfortable and hard for us to do it. I know that I feel a certain resistance. And I talk about this in my book, like a resistance to like, just go have coffee or just go have dinner. Like we talked about like Jamie and I've never had dinner unless it was on the way back from something.

Like we don't just go have dinner. What do we do? We go work out. We'll go like on a hike. We'll go do something active. We work we work out. You and I don't work out. Okay. But but now we work together. So we're just with each other all the time. But there's always something that we're doing. It's like the shoulder to shoulder. Yeah. Friendships, right? Like in bars and things. We're always sitting next to each other and looking at something or driving in cars. or whatever it is. But there is something. And that's what I think that's the masculine, that's the invisible barrier that like keeps us from staring into each other's souls. But that's what rain saying, right? Like this idea of shoulder to shoulder to shoulder friendship and women do face-to-face friendship. You said, face-time, call, right? There's no, there's a basketball in between us. It's just you and me and we're looking at each other. We're talking to each other. So in a way what you're, I think,

proposing is this more face-to-face, right? Where rain is good. Yeah. And I don't know why you have this, maybe it's just, is you do have one-on-one time. Like, and I've told you this, a lot of friendships are built in the nothingness. Yeah. When there's just nothing happening. You're not like playing tennis or doing this.

Where you spend time, we're looking at each other. We'll say some prayers together. We'll talk about like what's going on in your life, you know, have real, real stuff. I don't want to keep bringing up my old shit, but you also are the first, you're the one who said, when I shared with you some of my history and my childhood,

you cried for me and said, that should have not happened to you and you got angry and you got pissed and you were like I'm mad that you're not mad and you literally now let me now let me double check you right here because when you told me that and I cried for you and I was like Jamie I am fucking pissed off that you they did that to you and treated you that and you'd be like well it wasn't that bad and um oh my parents this and this and you know it wasn't blah blah blah blah blah and then late cut to three or four years later when you had kind of dug in a lot more,

you're like, I am so pissed at these people and what they did to me. And you started laying it out. You were able to access those emotions. So, and I think that's natural. We're dealing with trauma. Like at first we defend the people. We don't want to kind of like allow ourselves healthy anger.

But what I'm speaking to is your ability, though, in friendship to hold that space, which then allows men to grow. I feel like it's great that you're a part of the man-nough conversation because people listening, I feel like you, it's weird to say this, but you model in your life and exemplify some of the ways that I think more people could adopt.

Yeah. You're listening to the Mad Enough podcast. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to the Mad Enough podcast. Well, you know, so we're in this weird phase in our country with like masks, right? And this whole segment of the country that doesn't want to wear masks

because it, quote unquote, infringed. on my freedom. I don't want to not go to a bar. I don't want to not wear a man. This restricts my free, this weird idea of freedom. When actually what freedom is, is like people not dying, and people being healthy and, you know, coming back to a healthy, vibrant economy where we're helping each other.

When I wear a mask, it's because I don't want some 90-year-old woman to die. It's not about me. It's really about that. And we're also in a little bit of that. this moment right now where, and it's been for a while about, you know, what is a healthy masculinity? How do you, and I'm sure you've addressed this on the show and in your book, there is something wonderful about being a man and there's something wonderful about being competitive and independent and self-assured that can come for both women and men, but there's something wonderful about

manliness. And at the same time, all of this toxic stuff has got to go. And so I, I, I, I, My question for you guys is like, so the toxic stuff, we've already covered some of that. You know, it's intimacy, it's expressing emotions, it's being a better friend. It's kind of having a face-to-face friendship, not a side friendship. It's, you know, sharing our failures

and our struggles with our children, et cetera. How do you describe this shift that needs to happen in masculinity without saying like we need to feminize the masculine, because that's what a lot of people really react against. Like, I don't want to be feminized. it's the same kind of reaction of like, I don't want to wear a mask because it restricts my freedom.

Right, right. But in a sense, isn't that what we're talking about? Like bringing... That's also rooted in... So when they say that, and that language is important, when men say, like, the feminization of men. Like, I've been called that a lot.

Like, oh, he's just trying to, like, make us all X, right? We're really saying we're making men weak, which goes back to the whole issue of, like, that sexist language, which is like feminist, feminism being like female is weak. Yeah. No one tells women, no one's worried about the masculinization of women, right? Like, I mean, some people are.

No, no, no, no. Men are. Some, but it's not a moral panic in the way that it is and has been for years where, you know, there's a war on men, right, in this country. And we're turning them into women because we are expecting things like compassion and mercy, right? which we had, we're going to have Glennon Doyle on the podcast. You know, she talks about how, when did come, I mean, first of all, why is compassion feminine?

Like, why is mercy feminine? Why is nurturing feminine? Why have we ascribed, right? These are made up, right? We've really ascribe certain traits and characteristics, and we've made two buckets, and we've said, this is masculine, this is feminine. And that's where we get into trouble. And your point about masks is so interesting because we've seen, especially,

especially the beginning of the pandemic, men were more vulnerable to COVID, right? The most at-risk demographic at the beginning of the pandemic were people of color, and people of color are still more impacted by the disease. It's also older men. And so men were dying more of COVID, but they were less likely to wear masks, right? And if you go back to the Spanish flu, 1918, men were also less likely to engage in hygiene, right? There were campaigns that were, you could look back at these amazing cultural artifacts of campaigns that were trying to convince men, influence men, exactly, that social hygiene that, and again, they were talking about like blowing your nose with your handkerchief, like these, you know, sort of archaic things that we don't,

like, talk about it anymore, but they were branding that as patriotism. There was a whole campaign that the government tried to do. And I just, you know, I think we've been seen that more. And we've heard that you've heard, you know, that's been said. Wear your mask, it's patriotic. We're literally going back in time, 100. Yeah. And if you think even like about the virtues, these quote unquote virtues of masculinity, if we are to believe in the two buckets, protecting, right?

Protecting is providing and protecting are the two most important ones. Why isn't wearing a mask? You're literally protecting other people. You're protecting the people that you love. You're protecting your community. So why is that feminine? Right? So it's like, it's all just.

And somebody made it up at some point in time. Someone said, oh, wearing a mask is for whatever. And then everybody now thinks, or at least a group of people now think that if you wear a mask, you're that. And so then you have this like invisible, stupid, made up thing where we're all abiding by these social laws that don't make any sense. Because if you think about it, and it's, it's, it's, it's, Similar to like caretakers. Being a caretaker is, I believe, if you want to talk about like masculine things, one of the most masculine things you can do. Yet 40% of all caretakers don't admit that they're caretakers, right? And are also suffering silently. So you think about like the traits that make us masculine, which is really kind of the point of what the book is is why aren't we using those traits to then like undefine it and then say, well, yeah, let's protect. Let's protect the 80 year old woman that you might walk by and wear a man.

right let's save a life that's heroic isn't it but like we get so caught up in like the whoever decides it and that's my problem with masculinity nobody knows where it started where who came up with the the fucking rule who's who said i can't look into the eye of this beautiful man's like soul here and say rain i appreciate you i've never been called a beautiful man before but then who said that why do i feel that thing what's the thing that causes me to feel awkward when I like, why don't I ask you to go to dinner? Hey, Jamie, let's just have dinner. You and me.

Let's go dress up and go to dinner. Let's go put on some nice shoes. We can't do that anymore. We do it with our wives. But you and me, we always need someone else there. You guys go to dinner and now I'll pretend to be the waiter. I used to be a waiter. I could be a great waiter.

You're not. Would you have menu? Can I get you anything to drink to start? You would not be very good. I was a great waiter. I bet you were great. I bet he was great. There's no chance.

You would have forgot. by the time you went back, you would have forgot something, you would have got distracted with something else. There's no chance you could have been a good waiter. I think Gray is the kind of person, if you focus is on something, he's brilliant at many things. I don't believe a waiter would be. I was a really good waiter.

I was a really, I was said, I was like actor one, waiter number two. The best thing I've ever been. What was the, what was the most tips you got on a night as a waiter? Oh, I've made hundreds of dollars in a night as a waiter. I don't know, two, 300, 300, $300? And with inflation, that's like five, six hundred bucks. A thousand dollars a day.

I was a waitress. Yeah, that was like $10,000. And sometimes the most distracted waiters, I was a very distracted waitress, but because of ADHD, you're very focused on one thing, so you can be very focused on the people that you're with. It's actually, it can be good to be a little.

I was a pizza delivery boy. There you go. What are you most proud of? What's one of the things you're most proud of? I'd love to know that. Wherever you interpret that. One of the things I'm very proud of is starting the company,

any Soul Pancake. I was just speaking about it earlier today at another event. And I was just realizing like there's so many, Annabella, your director, got her start at Soul Pancake. I remember the first date that she was hired and going around with a clipboard taking notes. And Justin, some of your earliest work was at Soul Pancake. It was, I'm Soul Pancake is a huge part of my life. And so we created a digital media company that makes uplifting content that brings people together, diverse stories, and we were one of the very first people kind of doing this kind of work. And I'm really proud that I helped launch that and launch a lot of great careers, not launch careers, but give a, give a seedling, you know, opportunity. He takes complete responsibility

for all my success. He's told me. Oh, like you do me. Like my wife and my kids and every time it's like, how'd you meet your wife? Oh, yeah, through you. Thank you. I'm just curious. Every time a kid comes, mind you're like oh you can thank me for that kid huh anyways it is what you did was so ahead of its time and has has changed a lot of people's lives but that wasn't the question i was interested in though that's that's that's like blah blah blah great great blah blah blah you want a personal one yeah i'm curious what's interesting to me is i asked you what are you most proud of your life and you talked about work which is great it is wonderful i don't want to take that way from you well no this is a good point i'm gonna hold up what's interesting if i would ask another person someone else might say

their family or you might say such and such and i was curious what you're what you're what you're you're in what you would say but you know we're we're we're unpacking masculinity so here's one of my issues is workaholism which is a big part of you know it's an accepted male no it's not accepted it's expected it's lauded you know like oh I married this guy oh that's great yeah he works 80 hours a week as a on a hedge fund oh you must be so lucky you must be so lucky um he's not like a potter and he you know he stares into my eyes okay so I mean, we ask it now. Okay.

Abdubaha's sitting with you. And he says, Rain, what are you most proud of in your life? You make me cry. No, I think my journey toward integrity and my work that I've done on my marriage. So I would say that's what I'm really most proud of at the end of the day, you know? And coming back to workaholism,

why do you think that so many, Why do you think it's so rewarded for men and also something that so many men fall into? I think we inherit it. I think it comes to us sociologically. You know, there's societal pressures about what makes success and then success being connected to self-esteem. I mean, there was a very long period of my life that the entirety of my self-esteem, I'm talking about all of it, was my success in work. If things were going well in work, then I felt good about myself. If things were going bad and work, then I felt bad about myself. So it's been a long,

part of this therapeutic process has been a long kind of untangling that. Like can I feel good about myself not working? You know, and can I be working and have that not affect my self-esteem? Like, oh, get offered some big job and just be the same as I was when I didn't have the job. So not kind of ride that roller coaster. So it's tricky because you want to have an occupation, you want to succeed, you want to, you want to provide for your family, you want to have a voice, you want to give something to the world.

These are all positive male traits, but in our contemporary society, that has been toxified as well. And you just pick up like Vanity Fair and those every issue, there's some like, here's some Titan of industry who's like, basically here's an, here's a, Here's an asshole. Here's our asshole of the month. The cigar-chomping idiot who made a bazillion dollars, you know, creating, you know, tinker toys or whatever it is.

And who's the woman behind every guy, right? I mean, most of them have kids. So who's taking care of your kids? Who's the person that allows you to be that guy? Or they're on their fifth wife who's 27 and the wife that got them there. They jettisoned when as soon as they hit 60s. That never happens. Does that happen?

Jeez. Oh, come on. Oh, wait, it does. But this is a difficult conversation. I'm really respecting this conversation because it's this ongoing conversation that you've entered into with your book, Justin, and bringing these guests on because it's,

you don't want to vilify men. Like after I said that, I was kind of like, oh, I don't want to demonize vilify men. There's so much I love about masculinity and men and males and, you know, that should be kind of respected and honored and cultivated. That's in your book as well, obviously. and but at the same time, some of this stuff needs to be dismantled.

It's just not working anymore. I mean, I think this is, this is the big deal, is that the systems that currently run the world have underpinnings of all of this kind of crap that is no longer serving us. So the political systems, economic systems, environmental systems, food and agriculture systems, you know, workaholism, mental health issues, all of these, you know, healthcare, these systems are based on some really faulty premises that are usually based on self-interest, competition, contest, one-upsmanship, and the survival of the fittest. It's not working because our society is deteriorating and our earth is dying.

So masculinity is inherent in all of those things. So it's a much bigger topic than just like, hey, let's, how do we have a dinner with one another? and that's important to discuss, but it's much, it goes much deeper. It permeates every area almost of the world. And I think every issue can be pointed back to it. I mean, you do so much climate activism. And what's interesting with climate activism and recycling generally, again, I'm not hating on men. This is the data.

I'm just the messenger. But men are less likely to recycle than women. And even there's really interesting data on tote bags that, like, tote bags, which is a recyclable, you know, reusable bag, are viewed as feminine. So I'm curious, you know, being a climate activist and being a man in that movement, do you see the way that our definition of masculinity limits the way that men can participate in that movement too? Yeah, that's a great question. I hadn't really considered that, but I'm sure that's the case. Yeah, I'm sure that's the case. It has to do. But again, going back to even deeper than that,

If it's everything is about survival of the fittest, one-upsmanship and kind of personal independence and freedom and nothing kind of getting in the way of my personal expression, whatever that means, then you're going to bump up against walls. It doesn't, it rings hollow. It doesn't work anymore. And that like extraction at all costs, right? And that that sort of perspective of, I mean, there's also. really just need data around men and risk, right? Like, we think that men are these big risk takers, and women are the ones that are risk-averse, and in many ways it's true.

But the way that we calculate risk is super subjective. When you switch the question around to, are you for taking more risk when it comes to taxing the rich? Are you up for more risk in terms of more environmental policies? Then suddenly, women and people of color actually, are far less risk averse, and the people who are more risk, you know, averse are actually white men.

And so it's this interesting dynamic between, again, these old systems, right? These old ways of understanding things like risk, things like the planet, things like the environment, and that we kind of need to redefine all of those things. So I was reading a little bit about Darwin the other day, and this whole idea of survival of the fittest did not come from Darwin.

So it came from other, social scientists that were around just after Darwin, who interpreted his evolution of species and origin of species work to mean survival of the fittest. But if you really look at what Darwin wrote, it really is, could be called survival of the kindest and that it's cooperatives that help each other move forward. And if a human segment of the population succeeds or an animal one, it's because they're working in an interactivity and cooperation with others of the species or of other species that allows them to rise and evolve. So this idea like only the strong survive is bogus. For instance, we always learned growing up that in the forest, the tallest

trees are the winners and the shorter trees die. Well, that's not true because there's this microbial, no, my congone. It's not, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the, it's a fungal network that connects. It connects the roots of these, of these plants so that the tallest tree is sharing what it's getting from the sunlight with other, other plants and that they are, it's far more communal. It's far more like James Cameron, Avatar kind of forest than we've ever thought for. Did you watch that fungi documentary?

I did, yeah. It was amazing. You're listening to the Mad Enough podcast. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back to the Mad Enough podcast. All right, before we jump off, I want to just, I want to ask you a question about being a man and aging. Mm-hmm.

Because you were a little bit older than me, not much. I'm a lot older than you. You're older than me. Well, you're older than Jamie, so yes, he's a lot older than him. You're like way older than me, aren't you? Yeah, way old. And I'm curious, you know, you talked earlier about how there was periods of your life where your self-worth was entirely dependent on whether or not you were working. So then there comes a point where, especially in our business, but I think every man experiences a version of this.

I think back to like Willie Lohman, right, and the salesman. And you might reach a point where things aren't coming to you anymore. Have you thought about the aging process as a man and like, you know, what happens if you don't get offered things? And how do we as men build ourselves up and our confidence and our self-worth and our assuredness to not have it be dependent on those external factors to not have to be dependent on whether or not somebody's calling me to hire me or you get offered you know the rocker two yeah yeah no one wants to see that um the rocker two uh yes i have uh insurance for this so i have taken care of uh this issue because i have purchased a kiln what a kiln i've purchased a kiln that's for pottery Justin doesn't know what a kiln is

You didn't know either? No, I don't know. I feel better. I was like, am I the only person to know it to kill this? It's a big oven that you bake your pottery in. All I can think about is that scene from Ghost and you and Holiday doing that now.

Yeah. Do you guys know? No, I don't need to. I don't need to make pots, but I want to make ceramic things. And so I'm just going to go into my garage and I'm going to make pottery things. That's what I'm going to do in my old age.

And then if they want me to act, I'll come act. But if you want me on your stupid podcast, I'll come over. He just totally wouldn't be on your podcast. Stupid. So can we just talk about the thing that you're known for that, you know, the bobbleheads everywhere, the office a little bit? Liz is a massive fan. Massive fan.

I also feel like Dwight Shrewd. We were talking about male friendship. Like, is Dwight Shrewd actually really good at male friendship? Do we think that his desire for face to face with Michael? Can you channel him? I'll just a second to answer the question. Oh my gosh. Like, you know, like those people channel Abraham.

Yeah, if I would ask Dwighton about masculinity, what would, what would he say? Do you think he is reaffirming those negative things about masculinity? Or do you think he's sort of breaking the mold? That is so funny. It's such a funny question to think about, I've never thought about Dwight Shrewd in terms of masculinity or man enough or toxic masculinity or anything like that. because I think it's one of the great things about Dwight is you can never really put your finger on what makes him tick.

Like as soon as you think like, oh, he's kind of a know-it-all bully, then all of a sudden he's kind of crazy vulnerable. And then he's kind of, oh, he's a nerd. And then all of a sudden he's driving a muscle car. And so, you know, listen, he's got his farmer friends. He's got his giant Amish family. You know, he's going to be shooting crossbows with his friends and out in the fields and also

playing Dungeons and Dragons, stuff like that. I think what Dwight does really well is kind of play up this kind of like, yeah, kind of rural, semi-suburban image of a man of like, he's a salesman and he's a workaholic and a farmer and he drives a muscle car and stuff like that, but it's always collapsing. It's always kind of falling down around him. He's the butt end of, it's the butt end of jokes and he, and also like you mentioned like his longing for approval from Michael. and his love and loyalty to Michael is so like,

it's so sincere, it's so deep and true. Like, he would die for him. And there's something really kind of beautiful. And he would like to die for him. Like, I feel like it's not even just like I would do it if I had to. Like, it would be his honor. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. Let me. Let me. Can I? Yeah. And that, like, do you think Dwight was really good at friendship? Like, should we all kind of look a little bit to Dwight in that respect? Oh, where is this interview going?

Well, when you meet some of his friends in some of the later seasons, I'm not sure that there's some real wackos. So, but he learns, you know, and he, he, him and Angela had their ups and downs and then he's able to fully commit and they have Philip and they, he's a, he's a dad and a husband and and he ends the series. Sorry, spoiler alert as manager. So I think there's some, some nice man lessons. that could be learned from Dwight's He took a journey. He took a journey. He did.

Dwight took a journey. Thank you, Rain. Thank you for that beautiful feminist analysis of Dwight Trude. I really, really appreciate it. Right? Yeah. It kind of holds up. I feel like there's a research paper waiting in heaven.

Oh, yeah. I actually want to hear you. I want to see you write an op-ed somewhere about Dwight Trude, the feminist hero. That is good. The feminist hero we didn't know we needed. Yep. That is good. I'm on it.

Indeed. All right, rapid fire. Yeah. Let's do the rapid fire. Okay. Welcome to this week's Man Enough podcast, rapid fire questions. When's the last time you lost at chess?

Probably a few weeks ago to you. Oh, interesting question. Little masculinity competition. We do have an ongoing chess competition. We've played 2,000 games of chess or something like that. I think he's won like seven more games than me. It's crazy even. It is really even.

But who's got more? You have more. Thank you. Can win. Sorry. Sorry. Next round of question. We're in the future, and you are a ghost.

at your own funeral. What do you hope is said about you as the way you move through the world as a man? Wow, that's a really profound question. I guess I really hope that people think or see or that I have made a difference in the world. So just like this person made a difference. That's what it would That's what it would take. And what do you hope that Walter says about you? I hope that he feels that I was some kind of somewhat viable role model for him. So we'll see. Who knows?

And Ray, before we wrap up, you do some amazing work in Haiti. Uh-huh. You just share a little bit about it real quick. Yeah, so Holiday and I started a company, a nonprofit called Lide Haiti, because we were in Haiti right before and right after that devastating earthquake in 2010. And so we do women and girls education, arts education, literacy, scholarships. We have a mobile computer lab. We do a health care and have a food program.

And we're working with 800 girls in about 11 locations. And it's really, really, really, really hard. But it's pretty great. And we employ a lot of Haitians and empower a lot. lot of Haitians and it's a completely Haitian-run organization. Emily was your first volunteer, I think. Yeah, one of our very first to come down. Your wife came down and taught the arts and drama. And you recently just lost your co-founder. She just passed on. Yes. Dr. Catherine Adams was a co-founder and she passed away from cancer just a few months ago. That was devastating.

We appreciate that work you're doing. Please, please check it out leada, haiti.org. All right. Final question. What does it mean to you? you to be man enough. I guess it means a balancing integrity with vulnerability. That's not all right? That's just what came to mind. Sounds like a man who's learning some things. I've been around the block, Jamie.

I love you. Thank you for doing this, brother. I love you, brother. We will be right back with a recap with Liz and Jamie. Thank you for listening to Manana. Hello and welcome back to Manana. I'm Justin Baldoni here with Jamie Heath and the amazing Liz Plank.

Can we just get straight into the fact that Liz is a super, super rain. I didn't realize how big of a rain fan she was. I was hiding it so that you would let me in the room. And I want to confess I had, I felt a tinge of jealousy. Yeah. Rain was asked to be on Liz's TikTok and take selfies with Liz and things.

And I have admired Liz's TikTok. In fact, Liz taught me TikTok and she's never asked me to be in a TikTok. And so I just, I just was like noticing the like, you know, I am afraid to ask you to be in a TikTok. I feel, I feel. Wait, wait. So I make you feel fear? Well, because you have such a big presence and you have such a specific like, I don't. That was Rayne Wilson. I know, but also we didn't do.

I didn't do TikTok. That was a, that's called a selfie. I know, but I feel like you said like you passed it off on, like you said something about TikTok and then you like waived it and then he didn't really respond. Well, it, in fairness, I said we and I really meant, I didn't met me and me and Ray and we. I would have been included in that. Oh, okay. I would always, we is, is, there's no I in this. It's all of us. There's no eye in man.

Neither one of you have asked me to do any TikTok or Instagram or selfies not once. I wouldn't. You've been in every selfie. No, no, no. This is the thing. We've been busy. We've been busy.

We've been busy. All right. So we just had Rayne Wilson. We just had Rayne Wilson. And he broke some straight stuff down. And the most important thing I think we got from that entire episode is that there is a possibility that Dwight Shrut is the ideal man. Is the male.

Mindful masculinity. He is the poster boy for man enough. Yeah. I think we should rethink your book cover. I think that's what I've seen about it. I was like, man, we should have transformed him into Dwight and had him look at the camera and say like, I'm Justin now, don't I.

I know I missed a huge, shit. I missed a huge opportunity. We should have send us something. Like he's getting, like to dress him up as, yeah, I think that would have got us all the downloads. Oh my gosh. What did you take away from that conversation? So many things.

I think Rain was so, they say don't meet your heroes, but I'm glad I did meet Rain and, um, I thought his humility was so powerful in all of his answers. Like he was never like, I got this figured out as you, you know, talk so much about the book about like, I'm not, I'm figuring this out. And I thought that was really wonderful. I loved his take on the planet, generally speaking, and the fact that we should save it. That'd be a good thing. He's big on that.

Yeah, and Darwinism, like thinking about it as a class, because that's true, by the way. Darwinism, you know, we think about science as like, well, it's science. So that's just the way it is, right? But it's interpreted, right? And who interprets science, mostly not people of color, mostly not women, right? And so it's interpreted in a certain way. And so Darwinism, he talked about how, you know, it's not the survival of the fittest. It's the survival of the kindness.

Darwinism is also not the survival of the fittest. It's the survival of the most attractive. It's like who wants to be, who wants to reproduce with you? So if you are kind, if you are compassionate, if you are loving, you are actually going to make it in Darwin's world. And it's not about dominating. It's not about being the biggest dick. It's actually about being like the guy who wants to sleep with.

Where's the nice guy, nice guy's finished last thing come from that? From like the patriarchy man. Like it's all lies, right? Like, don't, when's the first time you heard that? That nice guys for his last? You probably were super young. I think I, that's actually a great question. I think it, for me, it was, it was really young and it, and I think it had to do with, it was in relationship to other girls.

Like I think it was being, maybe it was being, that's true. You know, I was being friend zoned as, as they called it. And like, girls did, maybe saw me as a friend and like another guy was like, you gotta be a dick or something. Yeah. No, I also got it in work settings as well. Right. Oh, totally. You got to like.

As a leader. As a leader. As a leader. Like, yeah, there's a, we could, there's a whole episode we could do on that. What else? What else did we get with Rain? Yeah. Are you asking me?

Any of us. I mean, I loved, I loved, I loved the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I mean, I mean, how he has really. reached out to you in really intimate and connecting ways, but also like held you accountable, which is kind of what we, you know, we've been talking about, right? That this conversation around masculinity is about vulnerability, but it's also about accountability.

And it seems like in both cases, he was like, love you, here for you, you're kind of being a dick right now. You're being an idiot. Or like with me, you're being an idiot. And I think that's the perfect balance, right? I mean, that's what I want more from men. I also loved hearing that he didn't, like when he was younger, he didn't have memory of wanting to fit in.

Yes, I love that. With other boys and other guys. Which is crazy to me. I wanted to ask him about that because I don't know if I believe him. Oh, really? I mean, I'm not saying, Ray, I'm lying. But, well, maybe, and that's, and that was kind of why I brought up the idea that maybe it's because he self-identified as a nerd and he was like, and he accepted it.

Right. I think for a lot of young guys, like, for. For me, I was in the middle, right? I was super athletic, but also I had, oh my God, I just thought of something that you said to me like two weeks ago. Oh yeah, I know exactly what it is. I was a dork and I still am. And so I didn't know where to go.

Like I would have been, I think I would have been happier and more content as a boy, a teen, and a man if I would have embraced the theater geek in me. But, and I think I actually, I read, about this in my book I was an athlete I had to choose I was forced to choose between whether or not I was going to be an athlete or a theater geek and then the hierarchy of school you know where you know what happens at theater geeks and at my school in Oregon which is so fucking brutal like you get we called it it was a verb you called it coked you got coked because every we had open campus you would walk to school or you'd walk

from school to lunch and it was like three four blocks there was like burger king and taco bell and all the stuff we could always eat when we were that age and on that walk. The freshmen and the nerds who didn't have friends or cars would walk. And then the older upperclassmen would throw coax at them. Like Coke bottles? Like like they'd go. It's like a, they would go to the 7-Eleven and they'd get like huge like, you know, two liter 40 like no, but just like the paper cups, but like the big, they fill them up and then they would toss them out their truck windows. And your goal if you were a nerd was to not get coked because then you'd have coke on you for the rest of the day.

And it was like a traumatic experience that a lot of guys went through. That was not in my name. No, that was just, that's what happens when you moved to, you know, Oregon. Oregon's great though. There's great parts of Oregon. Another thing I loved was when he talked about how open and vulnerable

he was showing his son, his imperfections, when he screws up. That was my favorite parts. He, in fact, he and I have talked about this over the years because there's something will come up. He's like, what do you think? I think I should share this with Walter? And I'm like, no, you can't.

This is like, you know, from my perspective, too much. It's not age appropriate. And yet he still does. Because he would rather err on that side than the other. But he didn't say this. It's not like too much for him. He didn't say this directly, but you can infer what we know about his dad,

that his dad never did that with him. That's right. Because his dad, he said, like feelings, emotions were off limits. It was tucked way in a lockbox. And so I think what he's doing is very similar to what might. dad did. My dad didn't show me those things. So now that's why I'm going out on my way to show my kids.

And I love that Rain's doing that. He's just a really, really good dude. I think we need a man enough shirt with Dwight Shrewd's face on it. We need merch. I mean, period. That's like a whole conversation.

I feel like you would wear that. I would wear that every day. If you like our show, please like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. And thank you so much for listening. We'll see you soon. This is Manning.

Thank you for listening to the Man Enough Podcast, produced by Wayfair Studios and presented by Procter & Gamble, in partnership with Cadence 13, an Odyssey Company. Hosted by Justin Baldoni, Liz Plank, and me, Jamie Heath. If you like what you heard, please follow us and tune in weekly as we undefined masculinity and learn in real time. Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, and Tara Mahhotra Feinberg from Wayfair's Studios, Mark Pritchard and Kerry Rathode from Procter & Gamble, and Chris Corcoran from Cadence 13 are our executive producers.

Annabella Casanova, Matine McCalla, and Sage Price are our producers. Maria Fernandez and Nicole Pritchett are our consulting producers. Josh Snyder is our lead editor. Thanks for listening.