The Bossticks - How To Build Your Character, Battle Depression, Speak Your Truth, & Evolve Ft. Kyle Creek AKA "The Captain"

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

#597: Today we're sitting down with Kyle Creek, a.k.a. "The Captain." Kyle is a writer, creator, and self-proclaimed instigator. He's also a new father and the author of multiple best-selling titles. Today we're sitting down to talk about Kyle's story, his struggle with depression, growing up in an overly-religious home affected his personality & how these things affected the way he lives his life today. We also get into the importance of evolving as people, and how making wrong decisions can help you grow in ways that you won't be able to recognize until years later. He finally gives tips to people on how to grow as a creator, person, and constantly refine & get better.   To connect with Kyle Creek click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Delola Spritz Visit DelolaLife.com to find a store near you that carries Delola and follow @delola on instagram to learn more! Please enjoy responsibly. This episode is brought to you by AG1 AG1 is way more than greens. It's all of your key multi-vitamins, minerals, pre-and probiotics, and more, working together as one. Go to athleticgreens.com/SKINNY to get a free 1 year supply of vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Use code SKINNY at checkout to receive 15% off sitewide at cymbiotika.com This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp BetterHelp is online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat-only therapy sessions. So you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy & you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/skinny This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol is the #1 dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, clinically shown to improve your hair growth, thickness, and visible scalp coverage. Go to nutrafol.com and use code SKINNYHAIR to save $10 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping. This episode is brought to you by Westin Hotels At Westin hotels, there's amenities and offerings aimed to help you move well, eat well, and sleep well, so you can keep your well-being close, while away. Find wellness on your next stay at Westin Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Aha. I think a lot of men in particular want to control their life and they want to plan their life. And they want to know that they checked all the boxes. I think that's largely what led to much of my depression, was trying to control too many of the uncontrollable things. And whether it's dating or it's your career or just your friendships, when you try to control everything, you don't truly ever experience anything

because you're approaching it from almost like this 10,000-foot view where you're trying to look at how it plugs into a larger picture and you're just never really present. And I think that's what really prevented me from connecting with people and it also prevented me from just connecting with myself through a lot of those years. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Today, we're sitting down with Kyle Creek, also known online as the captain. Kyle is a writer, creator, and self-proclaimed instigator. He's also a new father and the author of multiple bestselling titles.

Today we're sitting down to talk about Kyle's story, his struggle with depression. Many listeners struggle with depression, and this could be an enlightening episode with tactics and tools on how to battle that depression, growing up in an overly religious home and how that affected his personality, and how these things affect the way that he lives today. in his life. I know that is a very common story for many of our listeners as well. We also get in the importance of evolving as people and how making wrong decisions can actually help you grow in ways that you wouldn't be able to until you recognize it years later. He finally gives tips to people on how to grow as a creator, person, and constantly refine their lives and get better. This episode is for anybody that wants to refine their life, level up, feel better, and just operate better. With that, Kyle Creek, the captain, welcome to Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the Skinny Confidential.

Him and her. Did you have an epiphany where you decided that you were going to be super open about depression? It wasn't an epiphany. It was more, it was like a necessity at that point. 2019, prior to that, I'd had this catcher persona for probably five or six years. And it started as a joke. I was working on advertising at the time. And I was tweeting a lot of like one-liners and stuff that I would write into commercial scripts that would get, like clients would reject my copy because I figured it was too brash or too crude to be on TV.

And I'd be like, ah, it's too good of a joke. like I'm not going to let it die. I'm going to tweet it instead. So I started doing that under this captain persona because I didn't want my real name attached to it because it was during the, you know, when cancel culture was first starting. And I was so stoked to have a job in advertising because I've been trying to make money as a writer for many years. And I was paranoid to losing my job. So I didn't want my real name online anywhere. So I went into this persona and then it just started picking up steam. And it got to the point where I was getting more work or more contacts through the captain than I was as Kyle Creek.

And so I kind of just unintentionally started to embody that character online. And everyone called me the captain, no one called me my real name anymore except for old friends from high school. And then in 2019, I had almost like a crisis of identity. And I didn't really know who I was anymore. I quit advertising. I left my job because I was tired of living in New York City. And I moved to L.A. and nothing was panning out for me.

I thought I had some connections to get writing and TV. And so I just went through a real dark spell. And not having myself to fall back on, I just wallowed in my depression and started feeling really shitty about myself. And I knew the only way I could maintain what I was doing online and also a sense of just feeling like I was being honest with my fan base was to just come out about everything. So I took a break from social media and I came back and I just told everyone, I was like, listen, I've been dealing with some horrible depression the past few months. I wrote a very long post on actually being suicidal. And from the outside looking in, it looked like I had the life. In advertising, I was more or less like a hospitality craved director.

So I spent 90% of my time on airplanes in hotels and restaurants. I would come in and like rebrand, reconcept restaurants. So I had a very badass life if that's what you're looking to live in your late 20s or the 30s. And so when I came out and told people, you know, this isn't it. Like this life isn't doing it for me anymore. It shocked a lot of people because they thought like I just looked like I was living, living the life. I think that's a lot of people online that look like that, right? I agree 100%.

Yeah, it's like you're putting your best. I mean, this is now not a new concept, but people are putting their best life forward. And, you know, people aspire to have this life that they don't realize some people may actually not be enjoying. So I actually never put my best life forward. I was very brash and I was always posting about being hung over and drunk. I didn't really concern with how I was perceived. It was kind of just almost like how rebellious can I appear online. And so I wasn't even like worried about what people thought of me.

Like I used to, if I lost more followers than I gained after I. I posted something, I felt felt that was a successful post. I was like, all right, a bunch of people dropped off. And so I was kind of just like unhinged a lot of the time because I wasn't taking it seriously. It was just me riding and saying what I wanted to do. And was this, when you started battling depression, was this something that you'd battled throughout your entire life or was just something that just came on as you started changing

careers? I think I've had it most of my life since a teenager. I don't think I identified it as that. It was more or less me feeling lost because I grew up LDS. I grew up Mormon. And when I was around 15, I started questioning that religion. I pushed away from it entirely. I stopped viewing my parents as like a reliable source of information.

And at that point, it was kind of me against the world. And that's how I viewed my life all through my 20s. And it got me fairly successful because I was very brash in meetings. And when it came to working and advertising, that mentality helped me a lot. What's that like questioning your parents? 15 years old and pulling the Wizard of Oz curtain off. It's incredibly lonely. Yeah.

Specifically when you're a teenager, you're already kind of feel fairly lost. But when you step away from religion that at that point was kind of your whole identity, the whole way I viewed the world, the way I viewed everything was based on this religious upbringing. You know, I couldn't watch already movies growing up. I would see people drinking caffeine as a kid and I would assume they were a bad person because it was taught to me that you're not supposed to drink caffeine and I would have neighbors that weren't LDS and it was kind of like they were like the outsiders you didn't

befriend them and so I had this really constricted view of the world growing up and so when I decided that the religion no longer really appealed to me it was it was lonely it left me very susceptible to also outside influence I was looking for something else to kind of fill that void of belief in my life and I think a lot of it just kind of fell back on how popular I can become how much attention I can get and I really deeply want to to prove my family wrong, I didn't want them to see me live in an unhappy life and think, oh, if he still had religion in his life, he'd be fine. I wanted to do the opposite and be like, no, look how successful I'm going to become and look how happy I'm going to be without your religion.

And so it kind of made me approach life from a state of rebellion as opposed to having a purpose. My girlfriend always likes to say that she says, you know, it's always better to live for something than against something. And I was very much living my life against things for a long time. At what point did you shift that and stop living things against things? Probably 2019 when I had that very impressive. Yeah, yeah, a very depressive episode. Up until that point, I didn't really take my online persona that seriously. I had a large following.

A lot of people would tell me you need to be more responsible with that. Because I would intentionally write stuff that would divide people. I would intentionally write stuff that would upset people. Like what? Just the way I would approach dating and I would just make jokes that I knew were going to offend a lot of people. Like, give me an example. I can't think of one. in particular off the bat. But if you look back to any of my prior writing before 2017, 18,

you'd see exactly what I'm talking about. And if anyone does that, my social media, they'll see the kind of way I approach things. Like, I was very much, I don't know how to put it, but I was very much into just trying to be as clever as I could, but in a way that I knew would upset someone. I think this happens in politics a lot. And Lauren and I always say, like, we try not to get so political on this show. So I think easy, low-hanging fruit, and we all know this type of context, is if you choose, like politics is an easy example. You choose one side or the other and you know you're going to say things that one side favors over the other and it's going to completely alienate.

Like you know that's an easy way to get engagement. I think it's much harder online to create nuance and get both sides kind of questioning and having a difficult time kind of jumping in with a raw, raw like, hey, we really support that. I think it's, I think it takes a much more kind of creative thinker and writer to kind of create content where both sides are like, huh? I don't know how I feel about that. Does that make sense? I would agree because that's where I feel my career is now.

Yeah, being more in the middle. Yeah, well, not just in the middle, but being more just like, I want to be more positive than negative at this point. And so when I came back in 2019, I put my real name on social media for the first time. And I started writing in a way that kind of helped people evaluate what's going on their own life. And then when 2020 hit, I mean, a lot of people like the joke that it was an IQ test, but I think it was more a character test than anything. I think a lot of people failed the character test. What was the character test? to see how quickly you would turn on other people.

Huh. And I think a lot of people failed that. And I took pride, and I told my girlfriend at the time, I had a pending book deal with the largest publisher in North America, which is this book right here. And it came out in middle of 2020. And I told my girlfriend, I said, my entire career has been built on me speaking out.

If I don't speak out now, then I've been a complete fraud. And so I made the decision early on in 2020 that I was going to use my platform, form to help people question things, but also kind of bring people together and had them view it from a sense of togetherness as opposed to that immediate divide. And I also accepted the fact that I might lose my book deal for doing it. And I told my girlfriends, if I lose the book deal for this, it's still worth it for me because there's a chance they could pull my book deal if they see that I'm not jumping on the bandwagon with everything that's happening. And a lot of my peers in writing, because I came from the advertising world, I know a lot of very talented writers, I know a lot of very good editors.

I saw the way they used their skill to quickly fear monger and to quickly upset and divide people. And it made me sick and I didn't want to be a part of that. And like you're saying, the side thing, I had a lot of people during, especially during 2020, early on, say, why aren't you choosing sides? Like, why don't you just announce what side you're on? Oh, yeah, same thing happened us. And I would tell people, I have chosen a side. I've chosen the side of the people. That's the side I'm on.

I'm on your side. I'm on their side. I'm on everybody's side to try and help bring us together. And I actually look back on that and I'm very proud of myself. And as a father, that's kind of where my work lives now is if I were to pass or die, I would want my son to see what I've written and be proud of the man that his father was. And so that's where I approach a lot of my work now. And I don't get nearly the engagement I used to.

I don't go quote unquote as viral as I used to because I came from an advertising background. and I knew how to how to incite, you know, attention from people. If someone's listening and they want to incite attention, well, how do you do that? Be divisive. Be divisive. Exactly what he's saying. Yeah. And it's very easy to do that.

And people will be divisive even about things they don't believe about. They'll just choose the side that they feels the safest division to be on. So during the pandemic, mask or no mask? I don't wear a mask at all. No, I actually wasn't asking you that. I know you didn't wear a mask. Yeah. I mean, I did.

I can tell you that. But I'm saying that's a way to be. divisive on social media is to ask that question. Yes, absolutely. I mean, not so much anymore. But I mean, I did when I had to because I had to in order to grocery shop for the first few months in L.A. And I had to travel for work sometimes. And it always just irked me that I was doing it. Yeah, it was a very unsettling feeling. It was very unsettling. And recently, I mean, I just recently flew to Korea and Cambodia. And it was like two months ago when I was there, I still had to wear one on the plane there and stuff. And I was, I'm not going to make a

scene about it. I wasn't going to be the kind of person that was going to, you know, get all up in arms about something that most of the people, most of the workers have no control over. They're all just kind of trying to keep their jobs. And so I did it in the sense. I was just trying to make things easier for people. Like I didn't want someone to have to come up to me and be like, listen, you know, it's our policy. I didn't want to put a worker in the position to have to come confront me because, first of all, I'm an intimidating looking individual. And I didn't want to have to have that negative interaction. And so I played along as much as I had to just to kind of feel like I was helping other people go through their day.

You wanted to blend into the wall. No, I don't blend in. Trust me. No, but I mean, like, instead of like making a scene, you just kind of weren't neutral about it. The problem is that you had two different groups of people assuming they were on the side of righteousness, right? Like, that was the difficult part. Like, one side was saying, basically they don't, they didn't want their liberties and their freedoms trampled on. Yeah. Which is, you know, very valid. And the other side was saying you have to do this for the greater good because they felt that the information they had at the time was valid, right?

Yeah. And the problem is, is that both of those sides couldn't recognize that each side had a very valid point, right? Like, if you're a long-term thinker, the more liberties you give up, the worst position you're going to be in down the road and future generations down the road, that's clearly starting to happen and has happened. You're a short-term thinker. Also, you say, well, I got to, you know, be able to get through this existing moment safely and make everyone else So the problem is, is that you had long-term, short-term people thinking on both sides. Both were maybe right, but both couldn't see each other's sides. Well, now, well, now one side's clearly right. Now everything is coming out one side. Of course, of course. No, and I'm not arguing that.

But what I'm saying is at the time, if you put yourself in that 20-20 mindset, people failed to recognize the humanity in both sides. And that's what I was trying to do. I was trying to approach humanity. But I also, I wouldn't support businesses that enforced me to do it. Like, especially after everything kind of came out at the first few months. Like if I went to a restaurant and they had a big sign, we just, we just didn't support them. I stopped going to those restaurants. We went to the ones that, I mean, I was in New Orleans and I was walking around with my dog. I was driving across country when we moved when we moved and I didn't have a vaccine card. I couldn't get in anywhere. No one had let me into a bar. My friends are saying, why don't you get a fake one? I was like, I don't want a fake one because I don't want to, I don't want to play along with something I'd agree with. And then finally some lady let me into her restaurant. And she was telling me, like, through tears, like how much COVID has affected her family's restaurant because they can't get enough people in and they're going to lose the restaurant. And she was so polite to me to let me in after everyone else is telling me no, I really fell for her. And I had a lot of friends because I did work in that restaurant world in New York that lost their companies, that lost their family's restaurant.

And I went back to New York and nine out of ten, the place they used to love to go there are gone. They're gone for good. And it breaks my heart to see that happen to people. No, and many aren't coming back. There's some, like, old posts, people could probably find in my archive stores that they look where I started talking about the worries of inflation back in 2020. And I was like, hey, this is going to happen. Like, you've got to start protecting your money.

You got to start thinking about inflation. And everyone's like, what the fuck are you talking about? But it's very easy for someone like me who's more of like an economic background to understand. It's like you overinflate the economy by printing a bunch of dollars and not increasing production. You're going to have the dollar power weakened over time, which is going to hurt people's spending power, which is going to

hurt their cost of living, which is going to hurt their ability to support themselves and their families. At the same time, you destroy their businesses artificially without the market deciding so it was basically just government ending doing that. People can't recover from that. And so the problem is now you see all this turmoil in the market. You see banks collapsing. You see people not being able to afford their rent. Then they go to businesses saying businesses need to support this and raise salaries, but the businesses can't afford to do it. So we're in for some economic hardship that was artificially created because businesses were shut down at the expense of safety, and now they may never be coming back. And people are going to feel that burden, I assume, for the next five to eight

years. Yeah. And I think the best thing people can do to whether that turmoil is to stick together. I think people need to avoid being divisive and need to avoid blaming sides. And they need to understand that the humanity and all of it. And people can just have some compassion and empathy for each other. And I think a lot of people lost that sense of empathy. It's very quickly online. You look at any comment section on anything that's slightly controversial and people quickly go to that lower the flies mentality and they start ripping each other apart. Something that's cool about you though is that what I like about you is that you've evolved your point of view. I feel like we're held lately that we cannot evolve our point of view. Just because you used to be divisive that you have to be divisive now.

You're saying, hey, I used to be divisive. I changed, I changed my opinion, and now I'm not divisive and you're evolving your thought process. I appreciate that. I appreciate that too. I mean, if you're not involving, what's the point of actually even living your life? I mean, and that's kind of where my work is. I mean, right now I have a children's book coming out. It's the first children's book I've done. And I've had multiple publishing deals. I could not get a publisher to pick that book up. I had 15 rejections for it. My agent, because I'm an unproven children's book author. My agent and I, I pitched 15 large literary houses that we all thought would take it. Even my current publisher wouldn't take it. They all rejected my children's book. And it was offensive to me because a lot of the stuff they said was, oh, you don't have the right audience. It rhymes too much. Like just kind of bullshit answers. And, you know, when they say I don't have the right audience, like, what do you mean? Like, people don't grow up. Like, you don't think that people that have followed me for five years ago have kids now or have nieces or nephews, their friends have kids. Like, it was so short-sighted of them to not pick the book up. So I did finally find a publisher that was one.

willing to do it on like a hybrid model. But even the fact that it was essentially they were doubting my own ability to evolve as a writer. And I just thought that was, that was, it was shocking to me. I didn't think that was going to happen with that. If someone's listening and they want to evolve in something, say let's just pretend that they have a job where they do creative, but they want to evolve into finance. What is your advice? You have to be willing to be wrong. Yeah. It's be willing to learn. I think the hardest thing for people, if you say you're excellent, that you know, say you're excellent in creativity and you want to move into finance, you're not going to be good at finance at first. And it's hard for people to go from being an expert in one field

to being a newbie in another. And I think that's what a lot of people aren't willing to do. And that's kind of how they unintentionally pigeonhole themselves into a career path, is they to stick with what they're good at, even though they might have desires outside of that, because they're afraid of looking dumb and they're afraid to look stupid and they're afraid to, you know, have to be wrong for a while. I was reading your bio when we started and we kind of skip past this, but at one point, you know, you were going to be an athlete and you, what, you blew out your knee or you, you're, yeah, I mean, I did play, I played football in high school and it kind of came back to what I was talking about where I just wanted to be accepted after leaving

my religion. And I was a big guy. And everyone in my small town in Utah played football was a big deal. And so I played football because I figured it would be a way for me to meet popular. And I was, I was good at it. So I was big. I got a scholarship in college for it. And I went down and I played, I think, two, two weeks in the actual season, blew my knees out. And it was almost God send because I never liked sports anyway. It was just something I was doing because it was expected of me. And when you get into college, I mean, you have to really love what you're doing to play at that level. And the reason I was asking is because you were addicted to painkillers. And I think, you know, this is a topic that is maybe relevant for this show because we talk

about addiction a lot. And we've addictions touched our family. But I don't think people real, like people don't realize like something like that happens and the doctors prescribe you something, how easy it is to get hooked on this stuff. Yeah. I mean, it came, it wasn't just what was prescribed to me. It was because just in that sports realm, it's everywhere. Even when my prescription was like short-lived, everyone else always had them or then knew someone to had them. Yeah, it was easy to get them. And when I stopped playing ball, it was just very easy for my friends and I just to, you know, we would just take, you know, a couple hydrocodone and just go walk around the mall. You know, it was just shit we did and we were like 1819. And then it eventually came down to where

we started doing OxyCon and then we started, you know, trying to up our game. And I had some friends getting heroin. I had my old roommate actually passed away as an overdose. This round like two 2009, 10? No, this was like 2005 and 6. Your roommate passed away from an overdose when you were living with him. So I actually moved out. So what happened is he actually, it was something I actually had a hard time coming to turns with because I was one that got him into painkiller use. He had never actually used painkillers. And he injured his back and he got a prescription, I think, for Perkissette. And I told him, I was like, you know, you're taking those wrong. What are you swallowing him for? You're supposed to snort those. I kind of introduced him to the record. use of painkillers. And he ended up going very far down the other path and becoming a heroin addict. And I found out about a year after I moved away, because I moved away to clean up. I left college and I moved back home and I haven't even taken a painkiller since. I mean, I had like a severe chemical burn on my hand a couple years ago. And they prescribed me percocet and I just gave him right back. I was like, I'm not even going to touch that stuff anymore. I have a hard time even taking ibuprofen if I need it, just because it feels too reminiscent for me. So he ended up overdosing and I got a call from my friend that he died at a party. and they took him and left him on a jogging trail in a park. Wow. And someone found him jogging the next morning.

And just he and I, the time we lived together, we're like inseparable. We were like brothers. Like we even scheduled our classes in college to be together. Like we would be like, oh, you take that course, I'll take that course. We would take the same classes together so we could spend more time together. For about two years, we were like really, really tight. And when I heard that, it was a real gut punch because I kind of felt responsible because I was the one that kind of introduced him to that life. And then I had to acknowledge the fact that, you know, he was an adult. He made his own choices.

And he chose to kind of go further down the path. And I had to kind of release myself with some of that sense of responsibility for what happened to him. Do you think the depression that you experienced later than life had to do with that and also with what you experienced with religion? Do you think it was like compounded? Or do you think that that had nothing to do with it? I don't think his death or my painkiller use contributed my depression at all. I think my depression largely stemmed from my religion. because I grew up feeling very suppressed, particularly when I stopped looking at my parents as like a source of life advice. Because I couldn't approach them for simple life advice because the answer was always, oh, read your scriptures, pray about it. And I didn't want to hear that. I wanted someone to talk to me as a human.

I wanted like my dad to talk to me as father and son, not religious leader because my dad was fairly high up in the church. I didn't want him to talk to me as a religious leader to someone who's struggling with belief in God kind of thing. I wanted him to talk to me as a human. And so when I had that me against the world mentality for so long, I just closed off emotionally to a lot of people. I didn't allow myself to connect very deep with my friendships. My dating life in my 20s and early 30s was just completely reckless because I wasn't trying to connect. And I pride of myself on the fact that, oh, I'm being honest, though. Like these girls know that I'm not looking for something serious.

So I'm not hurting their feelings. If their feelings get hurt, that's their fault because I'm very upfront about the fact that I'm not looking for a relationship. It was just kind of my way of alleviating some responsibility on my end. And I really just didn't want to connect with people. I am in the midst of trying to convince J-Lo to come on the podcast. And I just want to pick her brain about her business. Like that's what I want to talk to her about. She's built a massive business.

And something that she's just added to her business is Delola. Delola is a spritz founded by Jennifer Lopez. and it makes enjoying a delicious cocktail so simple. It's a crafted cocktail that's made with premium sprits and natural botanicals. And you just, like, pour it over ice and relax. It's perfect by the pool for vacation with your friends. You could pour it in a big wine glass over ice. They have like a Bella berry sprits that's made with vodka berries and hybiscuits.

They also have a lay orange. They have a Bella berry sprits that's made with vodka berries and hybiscis. and you should know that Delola is gluten-free. It's 110 calories, and it has less alcohol than traditional cocktails. So it's about the same as a glass of wine. The best part, though, is you can entertain without all the effort of making cocktails at home. Visit dololololife.com to find a store near you that carries Delola. You can also follow at Delola on Instagram to learn more.

Please enjoy responsibly. Visit dolololololife.com to find a store near you that carries Delola. You can also follow at Delola on Instagram to learn more. Please enjoy responsibly. Visit dololololife.com to find a store near you that carries Delola. You can also follow at Delola on Instagram to learn more. Please enjoy responsibly. If you're someone who's overwhelmed and doesn't know where to start when it comes to proper supplementation and nutrients

and you want to start delving into the world of supplements, I've said it before and I'll say it again. If I had only one shot, one product I was going to buy, it would definitely be AG1, formerly athletic greens. I take AG1 every single day, so does Lorne, first thing in the morning with a heaping glass of water, and here's why. It has everything you need to get all of your foundational nutritional supplements, all in one punch.

I just feel great taking it. It's just one of those things. Once you get it done in the morning, it tastes great, and then you feel good, you feel like you've gotten all of the right nutrients, right first thing in the morning. What I've noticed for myself personally every morning is I have better focus, I have more energy, and like I said, I feel like I'm just getting so much bang for my buck with one simple scoop.

A bag lasts pretty much all month. It's pretty simple. You just throw it in the fridge, wake up every morning. And like I said, throw it in a heaping glass of water. What I love about this company is they just keep evolving. Since 2010, they've improved their formula 52 times in the pursuit of making the best foundational nutritional supplement possible through high quality ingredients and rigorous standards. For me, I get it delivered monthly.

So I don't even have to think about it. I take it when I travel. I have their travel packs. And then I have the bag at home. I literally will not go anywhere without it. So if you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D in five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash skinny.

That's drinkag1.com slash skinny. Check it out and definitely check out this offer. Let's talk about Symbiotica, one of our favorite partners by far on this show. So much so that we have had Cherveen, the founder of Symbiotica on this show, I think five times at this point. just to dive into the world of everything they're working on over there at Symbiotica. I think they're one of the best supplement companies on the market. And we have so many products we love. For years, we've talked about this brand.

But one of the things we haven't talked about enough is one of our favorite products, the glutathione. People do not get enough glutathione in their system. Many of you know sometimes you can take it through IV. But what I like about Symbiotica's glutathione is it comes with PQQQ and KOK10, which is an amazing antioxidant that combats premature aging. It also enhances energy metabolism and promotes gut health. I've talked about on this show that I got all my blood work done and everything came back looking pretty good, but I still felt something was off and sure enough, I had poor gut health.

So over the years, I've worked to fix that. And one of the things I've used is symbiotic as glutathione. They also have so many other offerings like I just mentioned. They're vitamin C, their vitamin D, the vitamin B, so many essential supplements that we just don't get enough of, all available on Symbiotica's website. You could literally get lost in the site. There's so many great products. But like I said, check out the glutathione because it's an amazing product and sometimes

gets overlooked with some of the more popular products like the D and the B and the C. So check out the glutathione. As always, we have a special offer for you. Visit symbiotica.com slash skinny for 15% offsite wide. Again, that's symbiotica.com slash skinny for 15% offsite wide. And definitely check out that glutathione among other things. This is probably relatable to a lot of people listening. There's a weird thing I think people experience in life as we age.

There's like a mourning of sorts where when you're a child and you look to your parents, you look at them as the people that have all the answers in life. Right. Those are the, you know, and as you get older and your parents get older, and not to say they're not wise and have great information, but there's some areas of life where you start to realize they may not have all the answers or they may not be right about certain things or you may actually be more knowledgeable in certain subjects, especially like, you know, as technologies move faster and people get older, businesses change.

And you experience this kind of like, family. death in a way because you're used to viewing your parents as the people that have all of your life's answers. And then when you realize like, wait a minute, maybe they don't and maybe you were wrong about that, there's kind of this weird thing where even though they're still here, you've also experienced like, it's not a letdown, but it's a feeling of like, oh, wow, like that's not my North Star anymore. Like, I have to also go and figure things out for myself. I imagine if you're in a religious community that's tenfold because you have that and the gospel of God or what they're portraying as God at the same time, right? And so all of a sudden, if you start to turn against

all that and you start to realize, wait, not only do my parents on all the answers, but my religion doesn't either, you're kind of left in a weird state of mourning, even though there's been no death. Does that make sense? No, it makes absolute sense. I felt so empty in my teenage years, because I didn't have any idea what I was living for. And even my 20s, I felt that way. And kind of what you're talking about with your parents is I look at my life now and I'm 36. I think, okay, my dad was 26. He had my brother who was 20s. 12, me who was 10, and my young brother who was seven. And I'm like, fuck.

I couldn't imagine being 36 and having like a kid almost be a teenager. And I got to remind myself that, you know, my parents were kids raising kids. Because that generation, I mean, you had kids fairly young. Especially Mormon. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Yeah. We just had some of our good friends were on the show and they had their kids when they were like 18. Yeah. Their kids are fully grown in their same age. My parents got married after, I think, known each other for six weeks. And they've been married for 38 years now, I think. It's just unheard. of. And so I have to always have that grace when I think of how my childhood was. And I've had

long talks with them now, particularly because I'm working on a memoir that's going to be very open and heavy. And so in working on that, I've had to kind of process some things. And so I'll call them and say, hey, I need to talk to you about this. I didn't realize this was really affecting me. And so we've had some good heart-to-heart conversations. I'm a huge proponent of having children just because I think having children makes you have an extreme amount of empathy for your parents. Yeah. When you're growing up, like, you know, so many of us grow up angry with our parents and the way they raised us. And it's not until you have your own children and kind of look back like you're talking about. You realize like, oh, wow, they were going

through some shit too. And maybe in many cases we're much younger than we even are. Yeah, I mean, I'm stoked to be a dad because it has helped me creatively as a writer, but just it's helped me make peace a lot of my past, almost as like I watched the ways that develop, you know, the things that developed my son, I look back and it helps me kind of reparent what happened to me at that or things that I started taking on. And I don't know that I would ever be in the level of emotional maturity I have now had it not become a father. And I was deathly afraid of becoming a dad because I pride of myself my independence.

And I thought that having a son or having a kid was going to hurt me in ways it would make me less creative. It would make me boring. And it would kind of pigeonhole me into certain ways of life. And it's been the exact opposite for me. I needed to become a father. And I'm glad I became a father later in life because I don't know in my 20s that I would have been that good of a dad.

It might have forced me to kind of get out of my shit earlier. So it might have helped me earlier. But the single most formative thing that's happening in my life is becoming a father by far. It sounds like before you got married that you were a serial dater. I'm not married yet. It sounds like before you got with your serious girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah, we've been together for most five years.

I wasn't even a serial dater. I was really focused on my career and I was focused on kind of my own life. I would go like months without ever going on dates. I never really serial dated. But it's just when I did date, it was hard and fast. And I never really tried to make it into anything more than, you know, something that could be quick for a week or two. So now do you do you feel more leveled out that you're in a relationship that you really cherish? Absolutely.

Yeah. The way I lived, I think, was beneficial for a short time because it kind of introduced me to a lot of different facets of life because I was kind of always trying to crave something new. And a lot of it was me trying to spur my creativity. And I kind of told myself, oh, I'll be a better writer if I experience more. If I do this, this, this and this, like, it'll be more chaotic. And it's that, you know, it's that bullshit cliche of like the tortured creative kind of, I intentionally tried to create that chaos in my life quite often because I thought,

that it made me a better writer or if I did something that was ended really fucked up, I'd be like, oh, this is going to be a good tweet. Like, I'm going to think of something really funny after this. And so, like, I sought that kind of stuff in my life in a very unhealthy way. And I'm very, I'm not even that active on social media anymore. I have a hard time even convincing myself to want to do it because the writing I like to do now is I like to disappear for a month and I like to work on something and really kind of hone it and analyze it from a lot of angles as opposed to when I was trying just to fire stuff out every day. A lot of men and women do, and I don't know if you, maybe more men, and I want to generalize here, but

you probably have friends like this too. I have a lot of my guy friends that have like set a hard rule about when they will settle down and get in a relationship. Like, for example, they'll say like, I'm going to be single and date until I'm 40. And then when I'm 40, I'm going to get with somebody and then I'm going to have kids. And I feel it's, it's kind of silly for me to observe now as a father because I just look at it. I'm like, it's kind of, it's such a dumb rule. Like you're setting this boundary where you're going to potentially miss out on a great thing because of some weird rule or thought that you have in your head about when appropriate time is to like settle down quote unquote. I also think it's people just grasping for control. I think I think a lot of men in

particular want to control their life and they want to plan their life and they want to they want to know that they you know they checked all the boxes. I think that's largely what led to much of my depression was trying to control too many of the uncontrollable things and whether it's dating or it's your career or just your friendships. When you try to control everything, you don't truly ever experience anything because you're approaching it from almost like this 10,000 foot view where you're trying to look at how it plugs into a larger picture and you're just never really present. And I think that's what really prevented me from connecting with people and it also prevented me from just connecting with myself through a lot of those years. That makes sense. It makes 100% sense. So if someone is listening

and they want to write and I ask a lot of writers, that's because I'm always curious. What is your writing routine to get these books pumped out because it's not a joke to write a book. It's a lot of work. Do you have like a routine that you do? I do now. I used to not at all. When I wrote my first, when I wrote that book, when I wrote speech therapy and I wrote, I actually wrote two different versions that. I've written seven books before that. I wrote very chaotically. I kind of wrote whenever I had the free time because I was traveling a lot and I'd ride on planes or write at night. And it doesn't work for me anymore because the work I'm trying to do now I feel is more meaningful and I feel it's deeper. and also being a father and having a household with two great Danes and two cats.

Like I have to have a routine now. So I used to think routine made people boring. And as I get older, I realize routine is like the answer to everything. The routine is really what makes life bearable, but it also makes you successful. And so I try to wake up now around five. My girlfriend's son get up around 730 or 8. So if I get up at five, I have good two and a half, three hours of quiet time. I leave all the lights off.

I make my coffee. And before I take that first sip of coffee, I try to be behind my laptop. And I'll write for two and a half, three hours. And a lot of it'll be shit that the next day I'll look at and I'll delete. And a lot of writers go through that work. Most of what you write, you don't like.

But I'm getting it done. And I know you guys had Stephen Pressfield on here. And that's reading his book, The War of Art really changed the way I approached my own creativity. Because I had never had this idea of resistance. I just always thought I was lazy. a lot of negative self-talk where I would just be like, oh, you're so fucking lazy. I would just like, I would like military speak myself into work. I would just talk down on myself until I started

getting shit done. But the way, you know, he talks about in that book, just doing like the small things. And I've tried it for the first time. And the amount of work I can get done now by just doing a little bit every day is just, I used to go through these manic. Like I'd write every day for seven days straight. And I'd write like 10 hours a day and I'd go crazy with it. And it's not nearly as productive is just doing two or three hours every day. What I love about talking to him and hearing from guys like yourself is what's so inspiring about Stephen is that, I mean, if you heard that episode, he didn't really have success until he was in his 50s. I mean, he, you know, and then since it's like, what, 27 or 30, something crazy in the amount of output of books. It took like 50 years of him, like,

doing that work to get there. I think so many of us young people, we think, like, we need to have it right now. And if we don't were a failure. And so we'd stop putting in the repetitions. And having a, like, talking to a guy like him is super helpful for us because you're like, oh, shit. We're just getting started, right? Like, we can work another 20-something years and basically get to where he was, right? It took him basically five decades to build that writing career. I still don't think I've written my first real book. That's a healthy way to look at it. I told my agent that. I think the book I'm working on now is my first real book. I think the seven books up to this point where kind of practice. And that's probably where I get the hardest on myself is like you're saying,

I look back and go, I'm 36. If I'd started writing books at 23, I'd have like 14 done by now. And like, down on myself for not being more productive. But a lot of what I write about, I mean, I don't, a lot of writers, they use, like, other people's lives as inspiration. Like, they'll find, you know, like an old historical story and they'll twist it into something relevant, which is what I did for that fucking history book, but I didn't in a very brash way. That bores me now. I can't do that anymore. I can only write about things from my own life because I feel like I get something out of writing it, almost like a therapy session with myself. And so the work I'm doing now, and I'm doing now, Now, I couldn't have written 10 years ago.

I couldn't have written five years ago. I couldn't have been written it two years ago. And that helps me not feel so pressured to put out more books. I remind myself, well, shit. This book, I had to go through these experiences to write this book. And this is a book I'm supposed to be writing right now. So that's kind of how I look at my work now. Yeah, every once in the Blue Moon, we get a couple of critiques on this show.

What's up, Blue Moon? Not very often. But like some of it is, you know, I used to, you know, they've changed or it's gotten different. And you're like, there's, I'm like, guys, we've been doing this now. the fucking point. That's the point, right? Who wants it to be the same all the time? I can't. No, no, no, no.

We also, to your point, we don't have the ability to do a lot of the stuff we did when we were, you know, 600 episodes ago and, you know, five, seven years younger, right? Like, our life's changed. As we've developed in this show, like our perspective change. We've become parents. We've been married. Like, there's things happen in life. And I think that's a, it's a beautiful process for any kind of creative because you're going

to start with a certain set of audience or fan base. And over time, you're going to keep. someone, you're going to lose some as you evolve. But to me, the most boring thing would be to stay the same and predictable, right? If you don't, if you don't look back on your previous work as a creative and cringe a little bit, then there's something wrong, I think. If you can look back on your work from five years ago and not want to change anything about it, you haven't changed as a person. I leave all of my old tweets and I leave all, like, my first few quote me books, which are like snippy little quotes. I leave a lot stuff out there because I think it shows how much I've evolved.

And I'll read some of it or I'll go to like a book signing and people will bring copies of my old books and I'll flip through it and I'll see some of those stuff I wrote and I'll be like that dude didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. Our first episode still exists. It is painful. And I like having that out there. I really do. I like having it as to look back on and just feel better about what I'm doing now. My favorite thing in the world with everything I've realized I wanted to put this as my job in my Instagram bio, but I won't is to refine. It's like take what you've done and refine it and do it. better and then take what you've done and refine it and do it better. And that's the whole point is to refine as you go on. And it's like what you said. If you look back five years ago and it's the same fucking thing, there's been no refinement. There's been no edits. There's been no elevation. I like you're a boring person like you were saying. I mean, if you look, I have friends of mine that I love them to death and they're good friends of mine, but they haven't changed in 10 years. And I find ourselves, we hang out less and less. There's nothing to talk about. There's,

there was nothing in common. And like, I deeply. want them to have some growth and I want them to change who they are. And it's not that they're boring. I mean, I don't want to use that term to describe a friend, but the way they live their life is very boring. I don't mind if someone wants to stay the same. If you want to stay the same, that's fine. But don't get mad at me for evolving. Or don't stay the same and complain about your life. Yes. And where I have a problem is when someone gets mad because I want to evolve and they think that I'm out of touch because I want to evolve because they don't. Stay the same. If that's what you want to do, like do you. Don't get pissed at me.

I look at any kind of creative outlet. Like when I think of an audience or a community or a fan base, whatever you want to call it, I try to think about it like, hey, it was great for a while. But I understand if we can't continue to go on the journey. It's like, you know, like breaking up with somebody you had a great relationship. It's like it was good while it lasted, but it's not going to carry forward. Some people are going to stay for forever and they're going to keep going and they're going to understand the involvement. But some people are only going to be able to go with you so far. I told Longer, when we first started dating. I said there's going to be a subset of your friends that aren't going to be comfortable following you where you're going to go in life. Same with me. Same with everybody else. It just happens. An easy example. I become a new dad and a parent. I can't be out on the guy's trip every fucking Friday night running around in the night club. It's not. Well, you don't even want to anymore. Of course not. Like, if I go out past like midnight now and I'm drunk, I'm like, fuck, this is boring. Like, I want to go home. I can't even get him out of the house. He's in

bed at 530. But I can empathize. with my friends that are still there. And I can get like why they would not invite me at this point to those things. I'm like, dude, I'm going to suck compared to like, it's not going to be fun. I'm not going to like do the things that I used to be able to do. It's not, it's not there for me anymore. But I think this happens with everything. And it's, it's so funny. Like for people that are maybe not in a creative field of work, we all can look back on an outfit that we wore five years ago thinking we were fucking stylish and be like, oh my God, what we're wearing. It's the same thing for anyone that puts themselves out there in a creative outlet. Like your opinions change. You have

all of your style changes, the things you're interested in change. If you're not doing that, you know, what are you doing? I think one like you're saying, one of the hardest things to do is creative is do the same thing again. Like every like, you know, my publisher even wanted me to write a follow up to that history book and people are like, when's volume two? I could not get myself to write a second one. I tried. I thought, oh, I'll do it for the money. I'll get a deal for it and I just can't do it. It just bores the living hell out of me to do the same thing again. There was some phenomenal, I would say quote unquote, kind of like business or like kind of self-help movie category people that we had on this show early on when we were younger

in our careers that like I love and cherishes. They were amazing at the time. But I can't do a thousand of those over and over. What I tell everyone that's listening is like those episodes still exist. You can always go back to them. But for me to do those constantly over and over and over, like I've just evolved past some of those conversations in my own life, right? Like I've taken what I needed from them and move forward. But I think sometimes people will get upset if it doesn't stay the same and it's not always in that same vein of content. I don't think anyone needs to apologize for evolving. What are some talking points that you're having right now online where people are agreeing, disagreeing, staying neutral? Give us like what your content is a lot of my talking

points right now online are because right now I'm kind of promoting this children's book. William is a weirdo that I came out with and such a cute. Right? That's really cute. And it gets a lot. It's getting a lot of shit though because it's not it's not getting shit from my fan base. I got shit from publishers. And the reason I believe, and I actually think I'm pretty spot on with this, is because right now in America particularly, and you'll appreciate this because your parents were not allowed to be weird anymore as kids. Like you can't look at something and just be, oh, that's weird. Like if your kid does something different, it has to be like, oh, it's because they're this gender. Oh, it's because they're following this way. Like they look at everything

and they have to try and label it immediately when it's just a kid being a kid, which is being weird. And being weird makes everyone successful. Anyone who's ever changed the world, anyone who's ever done something worth a damn has done so because they're weird in their own way. And so I just really wanted to bring the conversation back to being like, no, if your kid does this, it doesn't mean they're racist or it doesn't mean they're this gen or it doesn't mean they're trying to go this way politically. They're just being a kid and they're being weird and they're experimenting. Let them just be weird. Don't tell them it's a stepping stone to something they don't even comprehend right now. And I believe that's why my children's book was rejected by every major publisher.

Because I've spent a lot of time in Barnes & Noble. I spent a lot of time going to bookstores and I've looked at what's on the table. And the way Barnes & Noble works is what's on the table is basically it works like real estate. The publishers pay to have like a six by 12 spot to put the books they want to promote on the tables. And so if you go into a Barnes Noble, it's a very good sense of what the publishing world is trying to push at the time. And in the children's section, it's books like called like anti-racist baby. or it's books about kids trying to find their gender. Those are real books, and it's almost all that.

There's a book called Anti-racist baby. Kids are not racist. They're born so goddamn pure that book doesn't even need to exist, but it doesn't. It's sold really well. And because my book doesn't fit into a political sphere like that or because it was about encouraging kids just to be weird, I think that's why I got rejected. And I actually asked a publisher, I said, off record, is this book being rejected because it doesn't fit into this political play right now?

And without a doubt, not even a second, she said absolutely. The skinny confidential him and her show is sponsored by Better Help. Before we started talking to therapists and people that have been in therapy on this show, I always felt the subject was so overwhelming, so daunting. But then I realized that some of the world's best performers use therapy to enhance their lives, whether it's something as simple as thinking about a crossroads in life, maybe it's a relationship thing that you're trying to work through with your significant other, or you're just trying to become the best version of yourself.

It's not always so daunting, and it could just be a tool that you use in your toolbox to continue to improve in life. If you're really struggling, if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling like you just need someone to talk to and get something off your chest, therapy can be an incredible tool. After talking to all of these high performers, the power that therapy plays in enhancing many of these people's lives. This is why we love BetterHelp so much. For years, therapy was inaccessible to so many, but now it's accessible from the comfort

of your own home, right from your computer or a phone. You can be sitting in your bed. You can see in her couch. You don't have to drive to a doctor's office and sit in a waiting room. You can do it all from the comfort of your own home, completely online. And they have licensed therapists that you can vet and go through to make sure you're speaking to the right person. It's entirely online, like I said, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge.

Like I said, it's so easy. And of course, we can make it more cost effective for you. Let therapy be your map with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Skinny Today. to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash skinny. Betterhelp.com slash skinny. Hair thinning is a problem.

I see so many people struggling with that on Instagram and TikTok. And what's really worked for me? The first thing is I do micrneedling around my scalp. It's so easy. It's not overwhelming. And then I also am doing tons of scalp massage. I always am really getting in there. especially if I'm washing my hair. It's such a good time to scalp massage, but you could honestly do it

just before you're going to bed. And then, of course, I supplement. And the supplement that I use is Nutraful. Nutriful is the best if you're looking for something drug-free to target the root causes of thinning hair. Everything about Nutriful promotes healthy hair growth, which we love. You should also know that Nutraful is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, and it's actually clinically shown to improve thickness and strength. I had a lot of shedding, so I noticed on my silk pillowcase postpartum that I was shedding. So adding this supplement to my routine has been life-changing. Take the first step to visibly thicker, healthier hair. For a limited time, Nutraful is offering our listeners $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutraful.com

and in her promo code, Skinny Hair. find out why over 4,000 healthcare professionals recommend Nutraful for healthier hair. Nutraful.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L-O-L-com promo code skinny hair. That's Nutraful.com promo code skinny hair. I am someone who travels a lot, and I'm constantly trying to be healthy when I travel, but it is a struggle. But leave it to the Weston hotels to fix this issue. Okay, you guys, first of all, they have over 200 destinations around the world, and they're committed to all things. wellness. So what they've done is they've made travel an opportunity to actually enhance your

well-being. They have like this whole situation that's dedicated to move, eat, and sleep well. They even have a Weston workout fitness studio. It's equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and you can customize your workouts while on the go. They have like ball of products that you can borrow during your stay. They really thought of everything. You can do your own thing in your guest room with workout and recovery gear. It's all available on on-demand through Weston gear lending program. You should know they also have eat well. They have Weston chefs and craft designed dishes to keep your well-being in mind. So they've really zoned in on portion control. They think about nutritional balance. They're just committed to helping you eat healthy, nourishing

meals. And lastly, they have sleep well. This is all about recharging your body and mind with a restorative sleep. Westons even has a renowned heavenly bed. So they really thought of all the things health and wellness wise at Weston hotels. There's amenities. and offerings aim to help you move well, eat well and sleep well. So you can keep your well-being close while away. Find wellness on your next day at Weston. We're doing an

incredible job in this country and I would argue in the world putting people's feelings ahead of how things really are and it's hurting people. I mean you see, listen, I run a media business and we've made a very strong stance to basically let talent on this network say and do what they want to do, how they want to do it.

Right? Like that's basically from day one. I'm not canceling. when I'm not cutting when. I don't care how controversial. I don't care if they say something that people dislike. That's the stance I made. And I got a lot of shit for that for a while. I won't say from who, but that's just kind of like the political landscape we live in. But if you start to look at what's happening, the buzz feeds of the world, the vices of the world, all these companies that are going out of business. Well, they're going out of business. They're going bankrupt because nobody, what I've seen, and I'm not going to even talk about specific properties or shows, running this

company and producing over a hundred different podcasts. I've seen all the analytics. Again, I won't talk specific. Any time there's content that we've produced as a company that has been put out there to try to placate or fit into some political narrative, it has absolutely crumbled and fallen on its face. Every advertiser out there says, hey, I need this kind of content. It doesn't land well. They pull their campaigns. They don't actually support it. The audience that says they care so much about it never shows up. They never listen to it. They don't work. So I've said, hey, guys, we've tried. I want to see if the audience responds. They don't. The advertisers want to see if they respond, they don't. You've got to create stuff that people actually care about. If it stands out and it

strikes a nerve, all the better. It's a good thing. We're doing a terrible disservice to everybody by constantly worrying about how people feel about things. I need to be able to share my opinion as somebody on a microphone without having to worry about how half of the population feels about it. It's my perspective. Some may disagree with it. Some may not like it. I'm not trying to offend anybody intentionally, but I can't walk around on landmines figuring out, does this thing hurt someone's feelings? thing not. You're teaching children to basically hide how they actually feel and how they actually think in a world that doesn't reward for that, right? And you're teaching the opposite of resilience. And my point is when I say the world doesn't reward for that is all these people that I've seen in

these professional careers that try to play it safe from a creative standpoint or a content standpoint, it doesn't work. Their shows don't work. They don't get any attention. No advertiser wants to support it. Nobody's really listening. It doesn't fucking work. So maybe you've stayed in the middle and you feel good. you're not being quote unquote canceled, but nobody fucking cares about you and nobody's listening to you. And so you don't, to your point earlier, you don't have to go out and create a bunch of content to be divisive, but you have to go out and actually share your real opinion and how you really feel about things and actually live how you really are, as opposed to just trying to fit in some political narrative because it doesn't fucking work. And honestly, now as running a company

that's done a lot of this stuff, nobody fucking cares. I think the biggest loss in society right now is the loss of the individual. Yes. I think everyone is. trying to be, not trying to be, I think the larger conversation right now is trying to put labels on everything because it makes life more predictable. And it kind of comes back to what we were saying earlier about trying to hyper control your life. A lot of people are anxious right now. A lot of people are depressed. A lot of people are stressed. And they feel that if they have more control of their life, it's going to help them deal with those emotions. And if they can make the world more predictable in the sense of like, oh, I know what that person, I know what they stand for. Because because they said

this one statement, I know they're a Democrat. They said that once, I know they're Republican. It's easier to put people in the boxes because it makes life easier to intake. And so I think the individual and just the sense of like surprise and just going through life, understanding that not everything's going to be your way is being lost right now. It's also, it's also easier for people to say, hey, my life's not the way I want it because of some external thing. And they'll put a label on it and they'll blame that for their reasoning when really

I think the majority of it comes back to accepting responsibility for everything in your life. And a lot of people, so some of the content I write, and I hate content, I hate that even use that word. I think content is a disservice to creatives. Some of the stuff I write that gets the most blowback is stuff that is meant to be empowering to people. With personal accountability attachment. Yes, because people, they feel like it's not correctly addressing their trauma or, their pass. The hardest part about taking accountability for your life is accepting the fact that all the stuff that sucks in it you might be responsible for. And it's a very uncomfortable feeling for

people. So they just, they push away from that kind of stuff. There's this topic that, you know, everyone's talking about, which is Ozzympic or whatever it's called, you know, the semi-glutide. That's like the diet. Yeah, the diet stuff. And it's traditionally been a diabetes medicine and I'm not a doctor and I say all that. But it's interesting because you say that I shared my perspective that I think that people that partake in that unnecessarily just for an aesthetic to lose weight are doing themselves a long-term disservice. That's starting now actually to be medically proven in multiple cases. But my thought was if you find something that gives you an easy out that enables you to not put in any more work to better your life, it's just like, hey, I can take this

thing now and I don't have to eat right and I don't have to work out. Like the long-term effect is that is you're going to become more complacent, more lazy and potentially have worse health complications down the line, maybe losing muscle mass, hair, et cetera. And the amount of people that got angry about that. When my message was really like, hey, instead of doing that, maybe think about eating right and going to the gym and getting better sleep and like doing that first before you resort to it. Of course, there's some people that are going to need it because they have a sort of medical condition. But if you're an average person that's looking to lose 15, 20, 30 pounds, like there's some other ways that are much harder. They're going to be, you know, more challenging.

But in the long run, it's going to empower you in a much better way. People get so mad about that message. Yeah, before you even went down that train of thought, my immediate reaction was there's no reward. There's no reward of putting in hard work. I think that's one of the greatest thing about writing books is they're so fucking hard. Even like simple books are very personal and you put yourself out there and it's easy to try and disconnect from your work. But everything you do is a bit of yourself in it. It's so rewarding when you work on something for so long and have people write you stuff saying it changed their life. Or with this book speech therapy, I've had thousands of people write me and say, you know, I was having a really hard day.

This book pulled me out of depression. Like this book helped me when my boyfriend cheated on me. this book helped me. Like the fact that I was able to do that is far more rewarding than than any short way out. And that's what I don't understand with a lot of, you see it now with a lot of public figures. They use ghost writers. I don't know that I could, I could even accept the praise on my book if a ghostwriter worked on it. It could be hard for me to even do press and know that someone else wrote my book. I understand if you're not like the best writer and a ghostwriter helps you kind of hone your arguments. But I know ghost writers. I have a lot of friends at

ghostwrite. And they'll write entire books for people. that the other person really has no say in, but the other person slaps their name on it. And now they're considered an entrepreneur expert and they're charging $10,000 a month for their classes when really they didn't think of anything in that fucking book. And I don't know how people can do that and feel good about it. Extreme ownership. Yeah, Jocco. That's his book, right? Yes.

Extreme ownership. I'm reading David Goggins book too, and I feel like he's all about that too. Goggins books are fantastic. So I actually, I liked his first book. I listened to his first book at a time when I kind of needed that. I haven't got to the second book, so don't ruin anything. That's not ruining anything. I'm almost done with the first.

The first book, I think, was the hard talk I needed at the time. Okay. The second book made me respect David on a whole new level. What's the differences between the book without giving me? He's much more vulnerable in the second book. Okay. The second book's not so just rah, raw, fuck your bitch voice kind of stuff. Like the second book is like he actually comes at it from a human perspective.

And it has the empathy that I feel the world needs. right now. I think there's a time in place for harsh talk. And I think if it's done correctly, it's very effective. But you have to maintain some empathy that I think was missing in that first book. But after the second one, I became a whole different fan of his. I mean, that just rounds out the whole conversation about evolving. He evolved. Yeah, he very much, he acknowledges it in the book, too, which I appreciated. Well, I think brute strength and that mentality gets you far to a certain point, but you can't do that for the rest of your life. It's too, it's not sustainable. It's hypercontrol. So we talked about that kind of mentality is that kind of mentality

is hyper control. It's like controlling everything. I get up at 4.m. every day. I make my bed. I'm by 407. I'm drinking coffee and then I'm out running. Fuck all you guys. Like that kind of stuff. I think as a person wears you down and it just it doesn't allow you to connect with the world or others around you in the way you need to to have a fulfilling life. Have you ever heard of Doc Amon? He does brain scans. But anyways, I think like for the longest time I was probably brute strength, brute mentality type of person. Like just do get up, do the thing. Blinders on, not worry about the effect. Don't worry about sleep all that. And like I just went and sat with him.

He's also a therapist. And he was like, listen, like my brain and the pattern and the way I think is tied to some kind of trauma that I haven't addressed probably from the past. And I was thinking like you can only push for so long just using that toolbox. And at some point you have to, and I'm working on it now. You have to go back and like think about why you do things and the patterns that you have in your life and like why you come to the conclusions you come to. And if you if you don't do that, I think you can only get so far.

So like I'm in the process of like what is that kind of trauma? I don't necessarily know. Maybe it's something I block, but I got to figure out what it is in order to move forward. He's working on his emotional flexibility. I got a good book for you. So my hypercontrol came from my religious upbringing and feeling like I didn't have control of my life or my fate. I was told that if I did this or that, I was going to go to heaven or hell. Like that made me feel very out of control. And then when I left that world, I tried to hypercontrol everything. And I became very much militant, you know, with my mindset.

And then I read a book called The Mastery of Self by Dom Miguel Ruiz Jr. And that's the four agreements. So it's the son of the man who wrote the four agreements. This is the, okay, so not the four agreements. Four agreements is Don Miguel Ruiz. Okay. The mastery of self is by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr., which is their son. And it's about kind of mastering yourself as a person, but he talks about what you're talking about.

And he calls it the parasite. And there's a parasite in all of us that is the negative talk. And the parasite is what makes us feel we have to have that militant level of discipline in our life. Because it tells us we're not good enough. And just kind of acknowledging it as that way made me look at it very different. You know, because like a parasite, it comes into a host, and it kind of takes over and drains from the host and kind of we want certain things. That's what the parasitic mind's doing to you. And so that book, when anybody asks me which book has changed my life more than anything, it's probably the mastery of self. And then the, what's it called? The Victor Franco book, man search for meaning. Those two books like blew my world apart when I read them. The times I read him is when I needed to read them. But the mastery of self, I think with your kind of mind, I think you're very similar to me in the sense. It was a control thing by. Yeah, very similar. to how I was in my 20s, that book really did a lot for me. Speaking of Man Search for Meaning, like anytime you feel bad for yourself in life,

if you read that book, even if you read 20, 30, 40 pages of that book, you'll immediately have a perspective shift. That book will change your world. I think the hard part is people have this idea of, oh, it could always be worse. And they say, okay, but that doesn't actually acknowledge the fact what I'm going through still sucks. I think when you're reading a book like that, it's important to acknowledge the fact it could be worse because the people that were in those Holocaust camps probably lived the most atrocious thing imaginable, but it doesn't mean your life doesn't still suck too or you can't still have things that are hard.

And I think that's what people need to understand is it's good to look at those as references, but also acknowledge the fact that you can still have sucky things too. I love this episode. This is a great episode. Can we give away your books signed? Yes, absolutely. Okay, you guys, all you have to do is tell us your favorite takeaway from this episode on my latest post at Lauren Bostick. then follow. At SGR SDK on Instagram. If you type in the captain or Kyle Creek, it'll come up,

but it's always been that handle. So in college, I had a cloning line called Sugar Steak. This I've actually never explained this before. That's really fucking funny. I had, I've never told people where the handle came from. So I was doing like little t-shirt graphics called Sugar Steak. And it was like, you know, a piece of ice cream at the steak on like really goofy stuff. And I had the handle. So when I started using Instagram, I just like, fuck it, I already had the handle. And I never changed it. And every time I do like book science, people, ask me what it is and I don't I refuse to answer the question you still have any of those shirts I do actually so I had someone show up to a book signing in Austin wearing one it was a shirt I made like 13 years

ago wow and he was like I've been a fan of yours ever since this clothing brand you know back in the day and it was just that honestly probably hit me more than anyone I've met at a book signing because the fact that he stuck around for that many years and I told him I was like I'm honestly surprised you've stuck around that long because I've become so many different people over that decade and more the fact that you still support where my life goes like I that that means that means that means a lot to me. I'm sure. Yeah. I think that you guys will love his books. Speech therapy. 52 pick me ups to get you through many of life's what the fucks and fucking history. And then William is a weirdo. That children's book is pre-ordered now at William isawardo.com.

I'm already ordering it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That sounds like an incredible book. Yeah, my dad actually illustrated it. That's the cool thing. My dad and I did it. So growing up, my mom was my editor for a long time. She's an English major. She used to write books herself. And then my dad always been an illustrator. And so my dad and I work together on William, we've been working up for over a year. So my dad didn't do those illustrations. But William is a weird old my dad illustrated. And a lot of it's kind of like the old, the weird things I had in my own life as a kid, the weird things my dad did, the weird things my girlfriend did. Like I kind of like combined it into one character. I made this goofy little, you know, redheaded kid with a pet squid.

That is so cute. Thank you. I love it. You guys go follow Kyle. Kyle. Thank you for coming on. come back next time you're in Austin. Absolutely. Thanks for having. Or we'll see you. Yeah, come visit me in Florida. Yeah, we'll come to see you. It was between here in Florida, really, like when we looked and we did the analysis, but it was just a little bit far.

Like, I was too far completely. You never know. Same thing. I was thinking of moving to Texas. But what I like about Florida is you're really close to like New York and stuff. But also, I find I'm much more productive on the East Coast time zone. Because when I get up at five or six, I feel like I'm living in the future. Yeah, it is crazy.

If you get up at five or six in L.A., if you have a career like ours where people are reaching out to you from all over the world. You're reactive. Like the people who are in New York are already awake and you're already getting emails and you're already getting texts. But if you wake up that early on the East Coast, everyone's fucking asleep. And it just makes you feel like you're ahead of the curve. Yeah, we're closer to your time zone. Yeah, I think we're like an hour difference or something. We're two hours from California. It is a game changer though being ahead of the West Coast. Oh, it's incredible. So you got to go all the way of the East Coast. It'll completely change the way you operate. Maybe I should just move to Paris. That's one.

Where can everyone find your book, you, all the things. You just go to Amazon and search speech therapy or fucking history or if you just type in the captain or Kyle Creek on Instagram you'll find me and there's links to everything there amazing thank you Kyle