The Chris Cuomo Project - Cuomo On The Couch: The Value Of Feedback

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

In this introspective episode of Cuomo on the Couch, Chris Cuomo dares listeners to care about criticism, reflects on feeling defensive about judgments from others, and explores how to find value in feedback. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have a story about my life that will hopefully help you avoid the same kind of suck in your life. Sound good? I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to another special of Cuomo on the Couch. Still a free agent. What does that mean? Independent-minded, critical thinker, okay? In this context, we're gonna listen to each other about our life experiences, me coming to you right now about what hasn't worked, what has been tried and failed,

and what it's taught, okay? So thank you very much for subscribing and following. Thank you for checking out News Nation at eight and 11 o'clock PM Eastern, okay? Every weekday night. But this is a little different. This is about the real struggle. This is about the real strife in life, okay?

Because that's the real battle, right? Everything plays into the overall kind of rhythm of our lives. And there are a lot of challenges, obstacles, problems, and we make the choice about how to feel about those, what to do about those, how to use those, or do they use us? Now, one of the big themes that runs through the entire list of travails, all of the different curves in the road, is your personal level of concern, consideration, and caring of the same. Meaning what?

Well, let's just take something easy. And I always mean this. I'm not being facetious. Fitness is easy if you're healthy, okay? If you're healthy. If the grace has been bestowed upon you by whatever you believe in or nothing, then don't worry about grace. Where you are healthy enough to make choices and have control over your own fitness, how you look, how you feel, how you perform,

then that's pretty much the easy part of what we're dealing with. Because there's so much in life that you don't control. Our relationships where you don't determine what happens. Outcomes that you don't determine. You determine what you put in your face and what you don't put in your face. How much you decide to move and how you decide to move. These are things that you can control. So now it gets to, well, what do you care about?

What are your goals? And again, I'm talking about being healthy and having the luxury of being in control of your own health, all right? And that is a luxury, man. You and I both know there's so many, maybe right now, maybe you, where you don't have that control. You can't work out. You have an endemic illness. You have systemic problems. You have disease where you're infirm, you're hurt, you're injured. So it's a luxury to be able to be in control and be able to do things.

What do you care about? Now, this is very interesting. I probably should have started with it because it's catchy. Have you ever said, hey, listen, I know what that guy said about me or what she said about me or what they think or what they... I could care less about that, okay? Or my favorite, I could give a rat's ass,

but I could care less. You ever heard yourself say that? I'm in the car the other day with one of my kids. And there's drama. There's drama. I'm seeing this. There's drama going on. And I said, what's going on?

Oh, well, she said it. And I said, well, maybe, you know, you should think about what she said. And if, well, she said it doesn't mean anything and she didn't even know. All right, well, then if it didn't mean anything and doesn't know, then, you know, move on. Oh, listen, I could care less of, she said it doesn't mean anything and she didn't even know. All right, well, then if it did mean anything and doesn't know, then, you know, move on. Oh, listen, I could care less.

And I said, I'm sure you could care less because obviously it's got you bothered. And she was like, what? I just said, I'm not, stupid fat dad, which I get all the time, by the way. And I said, no, you said I could care less, meaning you do care. You meant to say, I couldn't care less.

You ever make that slip? I make that slip. Now, I think it's two things. I think it's a slip, but I also think it's what Freud called a parapraxis where you make what seems like a mistake, but it actually informs something that you may be feeling. I think you have to dare to care.

I think you have to dare to admit what I actually lie about all the time to myself and to sometimes to people around me, to the extent I talk about this stuff, which I really don't, which is a mistake. I'm working on it. This is part of that, by the way. That's a big reason that I do this.

I think it's really important to cause my own trouble. And if people are going to use my words against me or try to paint me as weak or crazy or stupid or whatever the pejorative is, I should provide them with the fodder myself instead of them making it up or twisting something that never even happened. I care.

I care that I'm for public facing. I have decided to put myself into the arena and ask to be relevant. That's what I signed up for. I care what people think about what I say. I care about what people think about how I do my job. I don't like to hear angry and outrage and real animus directed toward me or my family. I don't like it. Now, I often will say, listen, they're going to say what they're going to say. It water off a duck's back.

But I don't feel like that. And I bet you don't as well. If somebody says to you, you're fat and the chances are, it's probably going to affect you. You know, that's what's going on with my kid. My kid is saying that I'm not fat. And like by any definition, right? I'm jacked. Okay. I spent a lot of time on it. I work on my diet. I work them in shape. It's not always going to be this way, but it is today. Okay. I'm not fat. And I'm very lucky that I don't believe in luck. I have a good set of circumstances, right?

I've got the health, I've got the wealth, and I've got the drive. So I can get in shape and do things. And again, I don't see that as being that high a bar, assuming you check those boxes. You should be able to be in shape. And even if you can't afford to go to a gym, I'm not a big gym goer, but I do believe in classes, kettlebell classes. And I do very much believe in self-defense training and working on those scenarios and stuff, which will start up again this fall, which is very cool. I know I'm not fat, but I do care about what people think about, not so much how I look, because I'm too old and too kind of past in my own estimation what looks good, right? The way I think

a guy should look if you're going to be in that game. Like, I'm not impressed by a six-pack. That's diet, okay? It's good to have one. Obviously, there's value in it. It's somewhat of a baseline indicator of basic health, wellness, and fitness. But for me, it's about what are they capable of? Can he or she defend themselves in bad situations? Are they strong? Do they have functional strength? Are they athletic?

Are they powerful? Do they have endurance? These things matter. And I care about how I'm perceived by the people that I train with and what they think. I want to meet their expectations, their standards. Look, no shame in my game. I've been using AG1 for over five years. Why? It works, it's easier, and it's less expensive. That's why. Since 2010, they've been getting their formulations right and tweaking their formulas. Why?

Because the science changes, okay? It's not like politics where people decide to believe one thing and no matter what happens with the facts, they never shift. This is the opposite. Oh, prebiotics work with probiotics, but in this way, D works with K and this type of B works with that. They have the scientists doing it. So I don't need all the bottles. I don't have to spend all the money and I don't have to figure out when to take what and why. More importantly, it's not just the regular list of vitamins. It's the extras, okay? The adaptogens, the prebiotics, the probiotics that support your body's universal needs, gut optimization, immune support, stress management. That's what foundational nutrition is about. And these are the people at AG1 who've been doing the work to get it right. Okay? I tell friends.

I tell family. I get no complaints. Okay? If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1. You get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five free AG1 travel packs.

Okay? That's what happens with your first purchase. So make it. Go to drinkag1.com slash ccp. drinkag1.com slash ccp. Check it out.

The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things. But the wrong sheets can make you hot, can make you cold. I'm telling you, I don't even believe it either. But Cozy Earth

sheets breathe. And here's what I love about them. Cozy Earth's bestselling sheep is a bamboo set. OK, temperature regulating gets softer with every wash. I'm not kidding you. All right. Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the code Chris, and you can get up to 35 percent off your first order. CozyEarth.com and the code is Chris. I care. Now it's easy to say, well, I don't care. I do me, you do you. That's a defense mechanism.

That's an insecurity. And you probably have that in your life somewhere where you protect yourself from someone's judgment, someone's scrutiny, criticism, opinion. And we have all these great sayings, right? Memes about haters going to hate. You know what I mean, and if you don't have no haters, it means that, you know, you're not doing anything good enough, you know, and all these other colloquial, you know, things that we say to try to mitigate this dynamic. Now, look, you absolutely can't let people live in your head rent-free, but the assumption that nobody has anything of any value to say about you is equally nonsensical.

There's a little bit of truth in a lot of the things that we hear about ourselves that we don't like, maybe, maybe, right? And I think it's okay to care. It's about how much, just like everything else. It's okay to eat carbs. It's okay to eat dessert. It's okay to drink,

assuming you don't have a reliance issue, a dependency issue. It's about how much. It's okay to eat dessert. It's okay to drink, assuming you don't have a reliance issue, a dependency issue. It's about how much. It's about when. It's about why. You know, there's a great measure of when drugs are something that you got to think about in terms of whether you're abusing or using. Is the usage affecting the people, places, and things in your life, the relationships, the things that you have responsibility for,, the things that you have responsibility for

and the things that you care about? Is it affecting those? Well, then you better check yourself before you wreck yourself. But in these areas of judgment, it's okay that it matters that someone tells you something that you don't like to hear about yourself. It doesn't have to just be in today's,

you know, this paradox of how we're in a judgment-free zone. Don't judge me. You don't get to say these things about me. You don't get to, you know, tell me about me. I have complete license and freedom over myself. And at the same time, we're like the judgiest people, over myself. And at the same time, we're like the judgiest people, whether you're looking at it in terms of the diversity of identity, of people's politics or their inclinations or their appetites or their sexuality or anything. We're judging everything all the time. And yet at the same time, maybe that's why, right? There's conflict. There's pendular opposites of, you know, these people are judging everything and it's not enough to live your own life there is no live and let live that's bullshit we do not have that in our

society right now um and i know because that's really important to me uh and i get in trouble with the people who care about me about this where i'm so indifferent to people's behaviors if it doesn't affect me or people I worry about, where I'm like, look, that's what she wants. That's what he wants. That's what they do. I'm not judging that. I'm not judging. They're filling the blank. The way the guy does business, the way he fishes, the way he fights, the way he trains, the way he takes care of his husband or wife or kids or friends or dogs. Well, dogs, I get a little sensitive because they probably don't have as much volition

in the mix, right? They don't have leverage. They're a pet. So people also be like, what do you mean you don't care that he or she, listen, I got enough. I have so much coming at me, so much judgment, so much pressure,

so much stress, so much optics and definition. The media is such a horrible, horrible place to try to be balanced. Terrible. But that's what I signed up for. And I care. I care about how the News Nation is doing. You know, early on, I said something and the people I work with didn't like it. I said, you know, it's embarrassing, these ratings. That really wasn't fair to me. The context was, I know that at CNN, my numbers were much bigger and that's supposed to be embarrassing. That's what I meant to say, because I'm not embarrassed. I care. I don't like that my numbers are where they are. I like that they're better

and that the awareness of News Nation is better than when I got there. But when I was at CNN and I was the man and I was number one at CNN in prime time when I wasn't even supposed to be able to make it, then it was like, oh yeah, but Fox is kicking your ass and Rachel Maddow. And it was never fair.

You know what I mean? It's never enough. And that's the media. Your competition is your critic base. But I care. I care. I care about how our work is perceived. I care about the outcome.

I care about the ratings. I care about whom we're able to help. I care about what we affect. I care about our relevance. I care about our resonance. I care about my kids. I care about being, as I perceive it, a shitty dad. And when they tell me that, it bothers me.

And when my wife or my mom or my sisters or my brother or the people who are around me to support me tell me I'm falling short, it bothers me. And I push back. And often I want to make them the problem and not deal with what it is that I did or I'm about. And you probably have that in your life too. And if you don't, great.

And if you do, listen to me. You have to dare to care. It's okay to care what people say about you. You can't let them live in your head rent-free. You can't let them define you. To thine own self be true. The bard was right. But listen to what's said.

Take in how people regard you, how they seem to assess your worth. Are you someone that people call when they got trouble? Financial, personal, are you ride or die? Are you seen as a foxhole guy in the lives of the people around you? Are you the parent that they come to when they're worried? If you are, great. Think about why. Care about why. Repeat that. Be more of those things. If not, think about why not. What is it? We don't fake the funk here, and here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's

giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments, and you do it right from your couch. HIMSS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever, and it's up to like 95% cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today

at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider. And they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website.

You'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. We don't fake the funk here, and here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's

giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments. And you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever. And it's up to like 95% cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS

has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So, if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation

with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, the price is going to vary

based on product and subscription plan. I had this great plan where I was going to jam it out today, bust it back tomorrow, take Cha-Cha to school, jump on the boat, go fish all day, work on the show, come back. And then my friend's mom passed. Great long life, beautiful lady. I care about my friend. I'm not going to be anywhere but at the Shiva call. Why? Because as my buddy says, if you want a friend, you be a friend. And I care about what they would say. As it is, I don't show up enough. I hate going out. I hate going to things.

This is different. This matters to them. Now, I know I can't do anything, but just being there means something. I've been through it. I've been through loss. And, you know, there's nothing anybody can say. Nobody's, you know, it's very hard, those situations.

But I care that I'm there. I dare to care. I dare to care. I dare to admit. I care about what people think about my physical presentation, my professional presentation, how my kids perceive me, how my wife perceives me, how my friends perceive me, how you perceive me. I care.

I'm not going to say I could not care less. I absolutely could care a lot less about it. Should I? It depends, okay? I'm not saying it's easy to change. I'm saying that you're in control of that. You know, oh, they think that I don't have a good job. Well, I don't.

Do you? Do you? Now, objectively, well, it's not objective. It's subjective. Well, you know, I'm just trying to get going as an electrician and I want to start my own business. Is that enough for you? It is? Good. Then the conversation is fucking closed, okay? And if people don't see it the way you see it, now you could not care less. You've made the decision. But be open to taking in the assessment,

the perception, the bias, the prejudice, the judgment. Take it in, weigh it for yourself, and then make the determination. But this idea of not listening, that's the mistake I would make. When I was in real defense mode, protect, protect, I don't want to hear anything about what they say about my fill in the blank,

my father, my brother, my whole life has been examined, right? But that's not the right way. Scary. That's why I say dare to care, but let it come in. Ask people in your life how you're doing. I've been doing that more and more in my life. How am I doing? I don't always like what I hear, by the way.

Most of the time I don't because the people in my life are very honest with me because they know I need it. My therapist, I'm lucky. I get that first blush in a session where he's like, how you doing? And I kind of try to like filibuster for a while because I know it's coming back at me about what he sees and what he observes

and what he sees on TV and what he's hearing from my family. You know, it's very integrative and I'm not going to like a lot of it, especially because he's so damn on target all the time. But learn from me, don't shut out all of it under the guise of this arrogance that anything anybody says about you is meaningless. Hate is gonna hate.

Yes, they are. And I was watching Hard Knocks, the Jets, and the coach says, the only kind of bird that will attack an eagle is a crow. And the crow will get on its back and peck at it. The eagle will soar so high that the crow suffocates and falls off. I don't know if that's true or not,

but it's a Google away, I guess. But it's an interesting metaphor. It's an interesting metaphor. It's an interesting metaphor. You're gonna have your haters.. You're going to have people who are coming at you, especially if you're public facing, where it just feels good to them to bring you down. True. True. But that's not all your critics. Okay? Those are the easy ones. Swat away. The trolls. But not everybody's a troll. Your husband's not a troll. Your wife's not a troll. Your mom, your dad, your significant people in your life, your people.

Family is not just consanguinity. It's not just blood. Family are the people you choose to be close to and to care about when it's not convenient. To me, that's the operative definition of love. Do you put somebody's interests on the same level as your own? Now, for a self-loather, sometimes that can be a self-loather, sometimes that can be a self-deception where I think so little of myself sometimes that it's easy for me to say, I care about you more because I don't care about myself enough. But if you're healthy and balanced, that's love in action, right? You matter as much to me as I do. Those people are not trolls, all right? Listen to them. dare to care, take it in,

see what's in it of value. See what's in it, that's wrong. See what's in it that's actually more about them than it is about you and deal with it on that term. But make as much of what happens in your life an opportunity for you as you can. You know, people in the media always say to me, I don't look online, I never look. I think they're full of shit.

I think most people who are public facing are kind of like me to one degree or another, where they do want to know what's going on. Or they have somebody else telling them. I really believe, because you know what you do? You trip them up. You'll be like, yeah, you know, because the comments there were really,

and all of a sudden they'll have an assessment of what you're saying the comments were about. How do they know if they never look? So I look, okay? Now, how much do I look? At what do I weigh? What matters to me? What doesn't? That's the real work. That's the part that matters. Not, I don't care what anybody says. I could care less. Yes, you could care less. You do care. So take it in. Use it for what the value is. Listen to the people you care about more.

and use it for what the value is. Listen to the people you care about more. Listen to the people who don't know you less, but listen and see what is in it for you. Dare to care. I've done the whole IDGAF mentality of, I don't care, nobody gets to tell me what it is. I do me, you do you.

It's not that simple. It's not that simple. It shouldn't be that simple. There's value in what you don't want to hear. There's value in what you don't want to believe about yourself and about situations that you're involved in. There's value. Look for the value.

Look to use it. And I'm not saying you just feed on negative energy, but feed, feed. Don't let them live rent free in your head, but feed. Well, you're saying two things. No, I'm not. It's about degree and getting out of this zero-sum mindset of any criticism is bad. I can only have positivity. I have a friend who was very much like that, and I got sick of it because I felt like at the end of the day, you can only say nice things to this guy. And if he weren't saying nice things, then like, you know, he didn't want to hear it.

And that's not my level of value as a human proposition. And I also thought it was masking that people like that tend to not be for you in the hard times. They can't handle it. They're not ride or die. And that's all that matters to me. I'm so blessed. I figured out, did I tell you this?

My secret talent, I'll end on this. Because I dared to care and to listen to what was coming in. I can out, did I tell you this? My secret talent, I'll end on this. Because I dared to care and to listen to what was coming in. I can be a good friend. I have a special talent. Everybody has one. Mine is drawing better people to me. I am surrounded in my life

with great men and women who care about me way more than they should. Better to me than they should be. All kinds of talent, diversity of type and trade and skill set and experience and background, great people, parents, partners, business people, trades, everything, everything, amazing. business people, trades, everything, everything, amazing. Bunch of alphas too. We're all big dogs.

Every one of them is more than happy to slap me down. And I often need it. So I listen and I learn and it matters to me. And it should matter to you too. Don't get caught up in the hype of thinking that it's your way or no way and nobody gets to tell you anything in it. Don't be that. That's weakness.

Vulnerability is strength. Take it in and figure out what matters and what doesn't. Make those judgments. But there's a lot there to use, good, bad, and other. Don't be like where I was. Get to where I'm trying to go. And I hope you get there before I do. Why?

Because I love you and I love being a help. Your interests trying to go. And I hope you get there before I do. Why? Because I love you. And I love being a help. Your interests matter to me. That's why I'm doing this. That's why I'm telling stories about my life that don't always end well. That show that I fall short, that I don't get it. Why?

Because I want you to get it. There's value in that for you, certainly. But there's value in that for me too. I want to be a help. I want to help people. It matters to me. And when people tell me, oh yeah, well, you suck at your job, so you should be, I listen to see if there's anything in it that makes sense. And I'm making adjustments all the time, and so should you. Dare to care. All right? I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for listening. Thank

you for subscribing and following and giving us a chance, especially at News Nation. We're growing. Let's get going. I saw that on TV the other day. I think it was a kid's show. Didn't sound as good as I thought it would. 8 p.m., 11 p.m. Eastern, every weekday night.

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