The Chris Cuomo Project - Why It's Important to Have Independent Media with Platforms like Substack

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Chris Cuomo announces the launch of his ad-free Substack, promising a deeper dive into pressing issues and personal experiences. This members-only version offers a unique platform for direct, uninterrupted conversations with Chris, where life's real struggles and triumphs are at the forefront. Join Chris as he explores topics influenced by his own journey and insights from various experts, fostering a community of shared experiences and pain management. It's more than a show; it's a collaborative journey through the complexities of life. 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

Welcome to the end of the beginning. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Sundays. Now, we got a problem in the Cuomo house. We got three dogs who now like Sundays better than the other food that I was giving them. Sundays is healthy dog food, easy to store, okay? Very tasty, very nutritious because Sundays is fresh dog food made from a short list of human-grade ingredients. No, not humans, made from a short list of human-grade ingredients. No, not humans.

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because I gotta tell you, I've tried other foods that are wet foods, you got to have a whole refrigerator for them. This, you store it just like all the other kibble. And I got to tell you, they loved it. All right. I got these three savage rescues. They eat an incredible amount of food. And I actually had to get a special bowl for one of them because he was eating the sundaes too fast and if you're a dog owner you know that that can go sideways on you and I love it because it makes me feel like I'm doing them right so get 40 off your first order of sundaes go to sundaysfordogs.com slash chris or use the code Chris at checkout.

We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52 percent 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. 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, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. I'm Chris Cuomo, here with the Chris Cuomo Project's Cuomo on the Couch.

What does that mean, the end of the beginning? No, you haters, that doesn't mean that we're not going to do this anymore. It means the opposite. We're going to do more of this, and I want to do it as a substack. Now, as you know, if you are frequenters here, I have been struggling with this. Why? I like free. I personally like free. Now, I also now better understand a couple of things of what the value proposition is for a lot of you. Exclusivity matters. Depth of communication and access matters. That is new for me.

Why? Because there is a remoteness to journalism. Even though you're trying to access things, be a proxy for things, sometimes be an advocate for things that are objective truths and realities. I don't have a lot to do with the audience very often, but media is evolving. Your concerns about trust and what gives you confidence in things has changed, has evolved.

And there's an expectation of access that I think is important to accommodate. So I also have a lot of high regard for the people who team up with us and sponsor us. And that's why I only will do ads and do them gladly for things that I use and believe in. Because if I'm using it, then obviously I'm okay with it. And it's great that they want to pay because I have a team to do this. I'm doing it for free. But there's a team that I got to support and things I got to pay. And that's the reality of the news business, right?

And that's the beauty of the ad sponsorships. However, however, however, the main thing you guys complain about is ads. So we are spending time, how do we maximize, how much people have to pay to be in ads? We can have fewer ads. Where do we put the ad? Do we put the ad here? How do we do it? Do I kind of talk to this camera a little bit and then come back to this one so that you'll think we're still in content when really I'm doing an ad read? And do I read the ad like it was other content? All this bullshit to try to make something easier that we can just remove.

So what I saw as keeping it free is actually costing you if you're someone who doesn't want to deal with ads. And then I realized I'm that person because in my subscriptions, one of the things that my family condemned me for, I say one of, because you know, that's family life, is why does your cheap ass have us watching ads in the middle of these movies? And it was because it was cheaper, that's why. And as a value proposition,

ads would come on, my kids would leave the room or even worse, they would get on these, you know? And so I changed it. And, you know, I mean, you know, we're all living the same reality. And I then realized that why aren't I giving the people that I care about in the project the same option? So that's where Substack comes in. I'm a fan of it. I like to advertise other people's Substack efforts, like the independent journalists that I have on, Taibbi, Schellenberger. I believe in independent journalism, especially when the independents are coming from developing their skills and understanding the standards and vetting and rigor of working at a real media agency. I believe in that. I think that's important.

And I also like the independent side of it. So, Substack allows us for five bucks a month, which I feel like is, you know, a decent number that allows me to somewhat cover costs. I'm sure I'm going to lose on this deal, but that's all right, is that it's a little bit of a commitment from you, right? Sure, money's money. We'll make you maybe remember to watch the stuff a little bit more, right? Because you're paying for it. It's kind of like a baby version of when you pay for a trainer. You got to show up at the gym. Otherwise, you're blowing 70 or 100 bucks or whatever the guys cost.

So there's that aspect. No ads. And I'll check two other boxes. Now, I was just talking with Greg and the team about this. I'm not a fool. Obviously, whatever I put out on the Substack, one of you, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of haters that sign up for the Substack,

hoping that I will say things that they can use against me. And then I get that it's not a secret. It's not just us. You know, I remember the famous, you'll have to Google and remember, remind me who it was. But one time an interviewer actually said to somebody in an interview that was on TV, if not live TV,

no, go ahead, it's just us. What would you do? Like it wasn't for publication. Anyway, but, but, but, there are a number of things that I discuss, especially on here that are not about the news. They're about something that matters a lot more to me than the fleeting nature of what we're obsessing on in the moment. There are big realities that we all deal with, and I am not afraid of those realities. struggle is real it is the human condition now you'll hear some yogi or philosopher or both say no no no struggle is a choice and yes yes i see it as a condition let's let's take a middle

ground okay you get you got choice uh you got a must and then i'll i'll put a condition in the middle of those two meaning there's a choice aspect it, but it's kind of like unavoidable. And we're gonna struggle. As Rocky says, no one punch harder than life. Life is gonna knock you down. Yes, yes, it will. No one punches harder than life. And we're all gonna get punched for different reasons,

different ways, different amounts of times, but it's gonna come. And there are ways to deal, to cope. You know, the word cope comes, the etymology of it is to cover. How do we cover ourselves? How do we protect ourselves? Not to hide from, but insulate from. That matters. And I am old enough, damaged enough, and okay enough to say I really am not great at life. I struggle a lot with things. I get things wrong repeatedly. I know the right things to do,

and yet I do them the wrong way. If life were a written test, I would ace it. The practical exam kicks my hiney on a regular basis. And I'm okay with sharing that. But I also realize, like, I would look at some of the haters saying, no, what is Cuomo a guru now? No, look up what the word means. I'm actually the opposite of that. It is very instructive to hear things from people who have tried and failed before you. It's very, very helpful. You ever hear the expression, go to school on someone else's putt? Why? You watch them figure out how they screwed it up and you do it differently if your ball's in a similar position. I can offer that. And I'm happy to offer it because it makes me feel a little bit better about my own flaws,

my own flailing and failing is that, hey, maybe sharing this will help somebody do it better and not have the same issues personally in dealing with trauma, professionally, romantically, from a business perspective. There are a lot of different life lessons. And that takes us to the biggest aperture of life is your own mind. And I remember being fascinated early on in my love of hip hop, which then was just called rap and rappers hated the idea of being confused with hip hop. Q-tip, if you call rap hip hop, stop. Now, of course, it's all hip hop as a subsuming culture. But the idea between your brain and your mind. The idea of just the physical manifestation versus the higher psychological manifestation

of your mentality. So your brain has all of these obvious functions, but then there are also secondary things. Your life is a lot of your own perception and projection, right? That why I study stoicism is because it's such an old philosophy that is so applicable today in such simple ways. You don't control most of what comes at you, but you always control how to respond to what comes at you and certainly what everything means to you. And I really do a lousy job with that on a regular basis to the extent that I ever allow external judgment to creep in.

Sometimes I have to. Why? Because what I'm doing is for external consumption and therefore judgment. So I can't just say, I don't give a shit what anybody says about what I report or how I analyze. I'm doing it for them. I'm doing it for you. Of course I have to care. So what I can do in a sub stack that I don't believe fits as well. And a lot of the haters who will say, oh, you shouldn't be giving us life advice. I'm not giving you life advice because I'm not saying I do it right. There's great value for people. And I follow, I love self-help. And I love following people who've figured shit out and their lives are a demonstration of that.

I'm just not one of them. I think I'm a lot more like everybody who buys their stuff, which is, I wanna try something else. Actually, I wanna try everything else. I'm like desperate for fixes. And I believe at the something else. Actually, I want to try everything else. I'm like desperate for fixes. And I believe at the end of the day, it's all interconnected and interdependent and very, very simple, just not easy.

Like what I just stated as a proposition, a truth about control. A lot of what happens to you in life, you don't control. But there is no such thing as luck or fate or destiny other than what is manifested through preparation and opportunity and how you deal with probabilities and chance. And there is some randomness, of course, but this magical thinking of, oh, well, you know, that guy, he just catches more fish than me because he's lucky. He was right next to me and

he caught. Yeah, maybe that's also the eighth time in the last eight days they've been fishing. And so they're on a little bit of a different piece than you because they know there's a little bit more fish there. And they were there a little longer and they were using something a little different and they were presenting a little bit of a different way. And that's why they're catching more fish. And it's not just random, which of course there's randomness, but there's some preparation and opportunity mixed in also. Not luck, that's for damn sure. So I'm not a guru. I don't have a methodology. I don't have the Cuomo method. I'm not selling you anything. But you don't want the ads. You want to focus. You want content that is more geared towards the bigger journey, the bigger struggle, which isn't who's going to win the presidential election.

It's what it all means to you in your everyday life and the regular pursuits and the regular challenges that all matter more to us than anything in politics. That's why I'm making this move. So that content, like my walk-in talks, okay? You guys like the walk-in talks more deeply in terms of the connection to your life than you do most of the stuff on the project that's political analysis, and I hope useful, and you say it is, so that's great, or that resonates or goes viral or whatever these other stupid metrics are. I would rather focus on depth than breadth, and I'd rather have a thousand or ten thousand of you really interested in something that I give you on a regular basis where you also get access to me.

also get access to me. 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. Ooh, 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. Check it out.

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, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan.

Now, this wasn't easy for me. Two reasons. Why? Now, this wasn't easy for me. Two reasons. Why? I don't want to be confused with somebody, again, who knows the answers. I'm just asking the same questions, and I've been playing with the answers for a long time.

So I don't want you to confuse how I see myself or how I think you should see me. But, but, if you want it, I love the exchanges. I love it. The favorite part of my TV show is doing phone calls. The favorite thing for me to do here, I mean, I love talking to people. That's why I do this job, but I much rather deal with you. Why? Because you're the person who I actually care about the most in this equation. I certainly don't care about myself that much. Why? I think the self-loathing is a mechanism, does three different things that I've learned through therapy and just kind of thinking about it. One, lowers your expectations and keeps you down, keeps you in the middle when bad things happen because you were expecting it anyway.

Two, it's a misplaced processing tool for trauma. Blame yourself for everything. Every mistake you've ever made is just a function of you making bad choices and being an asshole, being stupid, being flawed, being selfish, whatever it is. And the third thing is, is also a coping. It's a reinforcement mechanism for me to not let judgment get me down,

to not be intimidated, to not care who says what, gratuitously, twisting, fair, unfair, that happens in this media world. You have to stop caring about yourself if you're going to survive, especially in today's media, digital, social media landscape, hellscape, because it's so overweighted towards the negative. This is who's wrong. This is what's bad. This is a threat. They're a danger. They're a liar. They're a hack. They're fake. That's the currency. That's the commodity. That's what most people are buying. And I get it.

And I know that I am often a target of it. And I've had to figure out, well, how to deal with that? What am I going to do? Should I take these people on directly? Well, that kind of doesn't work unless it's a male-male dynamic because for all of the equality and Me Too and canceling and empowerment,

it almost always goes sideways if there's confrontation between male, female, which I think is unfair both ways. I think that women who are strong and aggressive shouldn't be seen as a bitch or somehow marginalized because they're acting masculine. I hate that part. And being aggressive towards a woman

shouldn't be seen as being misogynistic. No more than the other way should be as, you know, should be seen as misandry. So, okay, so that's not gonna work. All right, so then I can just ignore it. It's impossible to ignore it. Why? Because you care about how people perceive what you do

because you're doing it for them, right? I mean, on a very simple level, it's like you make a meal for your kid and the kid tastes it and goes, well, I don't care. I made it with good intentions and I thought it was fine. Whether he or she likes it, that's not true. It bothers you.

Why? Because you wanted them to like it. That's why you made it in the first place. You were hoping it would be satisfying to them, nourishing to them. So you care. So one of the ways to deal with it is to be down on yourself to begin with. Lower the estimations of yourself. And therefore, when other people are criticizing you, that's okay because it's kind of

just, you know, more of the same. Now, is that the best way to deal with it? No, I could tell you other ways to deal with it. I'm just not using them. Why? Because I'm flawed and this is familiar and I'm old and it plays into a lot of different things. Now, this conversation is not what the person who wants to know what I think or what I can tell them about the situation surrounding Israel's troops

supposedly putting flags in the ground in Gaza as they're clearing area. That's a different appetite. That's different expectations. That's different wants. That person doesn't want to hear about the ideas of Amor Fati, loving all of what happens in life, and memento mori, remembering that you could die, and what mechanisms work best when it comes to changing behavior in yourself or in another. What does the research tell us? What have I learned? What has not worked for me? What is the connection between mind and body? Why is it important to exhaust yourself physically when under stress already, emotionally or psychologically? That's not the same person. Now, they may have both appetites and great. Then, you know, five bucks a month. I mean, you probably have so many

subscriptions right now that are well more than that, that are going to deliver much less or that you don't even use. So that's how I've come to this conclusion. And I'll tell you when it's coming out, but there'll be no ads. So you really can focus on what it is. It's going to be content that is more about life and the manifestations in the regular ways with irregular outcomes. And what I have learned and what I've experienced myself, some of it will surprise you. Some of it will upset you. Some of it will probably be problematic for me when it gets out. But I'm okay with that.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be sharing it. I'm not a fool. And I want to help. At the end of the day, the point of the Chris Cuomo project is to try to be useful, to try to help. And if sharing what I've learned,

what I know, what I don't know, what I don't do, and that helps you, great. Then it is literally fulfilling the highest purpose that I've been able to put to my existence. Can I help my kids? Can I help my wife? Can I help my family? Can I help the family I choose? Can I help the people around me? How do I stop doing things that hurt, that make things worse? How do I fix? And when I can't fix, how do I understand how to feel and understand someone else's feelings?

All of these things. I've really come to the conclusion. At first, I used to think I just was overthinking. Now, I've reached a different understanding, which is that I'm not that great at life. Some people have an insouciance. If you look up the French root of that word, you know, it really speaks to this ability to kind of just go with it, like a surfer. I'm not the surfer.

I'm the person diving into the waves coming the other way. You know what I mean? Like that's how life is for me. It's just like, bam, bam, you know, and it's crashing on your head, trying to duck under it. And then one of them catches you and tumbles you backwards and you try to ready yourself. And oh, here's another one. What did I learn from the last one? What do I see when I'm under that water? How am I, how am I processing the whole thing? What do I do in the

space in between the frequency of the waves? I'm that person. You know, And then as I look up, I see somebody on the board, like my wife or my kids. And I think to myself, why am I the only one in my family who doesn't surf? It's because I'm a grinder. I'm a crasher. I'm the one who's headfirst into the waves. Why? And what does that do? And what does it not allow? And what does it motivate? All of these things I think can be helpful because I know they've been helpful to me. I do a lot of consuming of this. I follow people and I'll give you recommendations

of who I follow and why I follow them. And what I've learned, what I haven't learned, what I've watched and what matters to me, what I'm reading and what matters in that reading so that you don't have to do it unless you want to pursue it. And I want to build a community here. I mean, that's the purpose between the free agent merch.

I'm not pocketing the money. I've just told Rose that when it gets to a real number of like 30 grand of profits or something, then I'll come back to you and say, hey, let's do a poll here of the top three charities in this poll. I'll give it five days. And at the end of the five days,

I'll see what the three charities are. We'll give the money away. And then I'll have my accountant figure out the tax implications. Because again, I'll probably wind up losing somehow on the deal, but that's okay. I want to encourage people to try to be their best selves. That's always been the purpose of my journalism as well, by the way.

The reason I go to the stories is to try to help you connect to them, to be reminded of the interdependence and the interconnectedness of our human existence. There but for the grace, that could be you in that situation, and you should care about those people. Now, you don't have to believe it. And people could say, no, you go there because that's how you become popular in the news. I don't know that that's true, but I'll tell you what, if it is true, it's not worth the cost. I do not enjoy being almost drowned in desperation

and despair again and again and again. I'm very uncomfortable with how familiar it is for me to be in these situations, how you can almost expect what people are about to say and how they're gonna feel and what's gonna come next for them because you've seen it so many, many times. And there can be a hopelessness that it breeds also. So you really gotta know what to do with it, where to put it.

And that's all the thinking behind this, that there is a need. The struggle is real. We should be trying to help one another. And if I'm gonna spend the time to prepare the material and have the team put it together, one, I gotta pay for it, but two, it should pay for you.

There should be value for you. You don't want the distractions of the ads? Fine. You want more penetration into the material? I can do that. You want access to me? What will that look like? I don't know yet.

Let's see how many sign up. If we can get a real number, then what I would probably do is start organizing group settings. And I will, at a minimum, design the content off what's being asked for. So instead of me just developing topics for myself, I will solicit videos, do Zoom calls with individuals and say, I met with Greg,

Amrish, Jane, Judy, Joe, whoever. They had a very unique situation, which is this, this, and this. And now we're going to feed off it. And it can be anything. Joe struggles with this and he can't have a dog and it's a problem and we can't raise, all right, we're going to talk about what pets do for us now. So that's absolutely something that we'll do. And as you ask for more things, we'll make new and more choices and options. So as I like to say, let's get after it. I'll see you on the sub stack. We'll tell you when it's coming. We'll keep promoting it. And I really hope it becomes a place where I can offer up what I've seen, what I've learned, what I've tried, what I've failed at, what actually works even for me, and that it helps you.

And there'll be a lot more content. It'll be a lot more regularized. And there'll be a lot more exchange to the extent that that is what is of value. All right? So as always, I look forward to what you have to say about it, what you like and what you don't. And I will take it all in. And we will get after it. And we will try to move forward together.