The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Not Fishy Enough: A Ridiculous Parable About Finding Worth Through Self-Acceptance by Briton Kolber

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Not Fishy Enough: A Ridiculous Parable About Finding Worth Through Self-Acceptance by Briton Kolber Amazon.com Britonkolber.com "Holy freakin' snail shells! What is this book?" asked Edwin. This is a combination of a slightly short novel for kids over 8 and a self-help guide for the people who care about them. There are subtle jokes for adults and deeper meanings to explore as well. This story is about Edwin. He is an odd-looking fish. At least that’s what everybody tells him. Well, they tell him he’s a fish, anyway. Not much of a tail for a fish. The scales are wrong, too. The fins are a bit, well, grabby. More on that later. "Wait what? Tell me now," demanded Edwin. Sorry, Edwin, you'll spoil the adventure. "Fine. I'm out of here." Now that he's out of earshot, I can tell you that it's about a crab adopted by fish growing up in an isolated tidepool with no other crabs. So, he grows up thinking he is merely an incompetent fish. There is a section in the back of the book with discussion questions for many of the themes in this book. The questions are designed for classrooms, for mental health professionals, and for caregivers in general. In these pages, is an adventure of aquatic proportions. It’s about finding out who you are and figuring out what to do about that. This highly unusual, but hopefully not too unusual, book is by Briton Kolber, a licensed therapist who specializes in helping geeks accept and find the best in themselves. In a world that may remind you of Finding Nemo, it explores themes found in The Ugly Duckling, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Brené Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection. If you are a fan of the pragmatic wisdom of Brené Brown or the humor of Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, or Christopher Healy (The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom) you will have a good time here. Illustrations by Nicoleta Dabijya add wonder and whimsy. Briton Kolber is a family therapist focusing on geeks as a special population. He has taught Applied Improvisation at SAGA School, General Assembly, and Aspiring Youth/Ryther. He has done many odd things ranging from Research Scientist Associate at Applied Research Laboratories to Board Member of Washington Association for Marriage and Family Therapy to computer sales to performing regularly with ComedySportz Austin to working in the film industry in Los Angeles. He spent his youth split between mountains, culture, and extended family in Austria and a ranch, live-stock, space technology, and energy culture of Houston. In what little free time he has left after grand adventures with his family, he runs, skis, writes sketch comedy, has conversations with his cats, and tries not to set himself on fire while cooking. Again.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the show, my family and friends.

Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you. Sit down. Oh, no. The clapping is too much. The clapping is too much. Shut that stuff off.

Give me a fucking break. Guys, welcome to the big show. The podcast, billionaires, CEOs, entrepreneurs, newsmakers, and the hottest authors come on the show to talk their shop. Now, I'm not talking about Victoria's Secret hot authors. I'm just talking about the hottest new books coming off the shelves. So just so we make that clear, the attorney said I have to disclose that. Anyway, guys, welcome to the Chris Voss Show.

Family, family that loves you but doesn't judge you. Just remember, don't ask me for money. It's not that kind of family, people. We just love you to listen to the show. And you're part of a big thing there. So's not that kind of family, people. We just love you to listen to the show, and you're part of a big thing there. So there's that. As always with a family, though, you need to tell all the relatives to show up for the family reunion. And this is what the podcast is. It's a giant family reunion. The stuff I make up from just right off the top of my head. It just amazes

me from time to time. I had to break the fourth wall there. So we need you to share that with your family, friends, and relatives. Go to goodreads.com, Fortuness Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortuness Chris Foss, YouTube.com, Fortuness Chris Foss, and Chris Foss 1 on TikTok. And if you don't share the show and refer to your friends or

relatives, do it or else. I'm just kidding, people. The lawyer says I can't threaten people anymore, and so does the judge. I'll get the ankle bracelet off next week. We have an amazing gentleman on the show. We're going to be talking about his new book that he had put out in December 20th, 22, and some of the work he does. I think you're going to like it.

He does what he calls geek-centered therapy and psychotherapy up in Washington State. And he's going to maybe help some people with their geeky brain damage. He's going to teach you how to surgically remove the pocket protector, evidently, and other elements of geek culture. So he's joining us today his newest book new his newest book not fishy enough a ridiculous parable about finding worth through self-acceptance uh britain culbert joins us on the show today he'll be talking about that book and all his other fun stuff as we mentioned before. He is a family therapist focusing on geeks as a special population. He has taught applied improvisation at Saga School, General Assembly, and Aspiring Youth Reither. he has done many odd things ranging from research scientist associate at applied research laboratories to board member of Washington association for

marriage and family therapy to computer sales, to performing regularly with comedy sports, Austin to working in the film industry in Los Angeles. He's still working on commas. He spent his youth split between mountains or whoever wrote this. He's still look at the second paragraph. They do commas he spent his youth split between mountains or whoever wrote this he still look at the second paragraph they do commas he spent his youth split between mountains culture and extended family in austria and a ranch livestock space technology and energy culture in houston in what little free time

he has left after the grand adventures of this family he runs runs, skis, writes sketch comedy, and has conversations with his cats, and tries not to set himself on fire while cooking. Again. Wow. Now we have a show. Britton, welcome to the show. How are you? Hey, I'm great. Hey, thanks for having me on. There you go. Please don't let me forget to ask what that final cooking on fire story was. But in the meantime, get us to your.com so people can find you on the interwebs. meantime, get us to your.com so people can find you on the interwebs.

Hey, I've got two.coms, britancolbert.com because that's hard to spell. It's B-R-I-T-O-N-K-O-L-B-E-R.com or even better, notfishyenough.com. There you go. And what you need to get

is something else later in the show. Don't forget about this, but the title of your biography is Behold the Family Knows. So what are you going to do? something else later in the show don't forget about this but the title of your biography is behold the family knows so uh give us an idea of why you wrote this book uh not fishy enough uh well i wrote this book to solve a problem so i was um realizing that after many years of being a psychotherapist and helping people through things, uh, it turns out I was kind of following the roads with people like, you know,

this is the thing happened to my childhood and this was my ex and blah, blah, blah. My mom doesn't love me. Well, all that. And then it keeps coming down very frequently to like this thing where it's like,

well, I just don't believe I'm worth anything, you know, or variations of that. You know, sometimes it's shame or just like, I'm don't believe I'm worth anything, you know, or variations of that. You know, sometimes it's shame or just like, I'm kind of just, I just don't believe I'm really that good. And it's kind of like this problem kept coming up. And I was like, well, what if I could do kind of a, you know, an almost time travel kind of thing?

What if I could just prevent this sort of thing from happening? At least for like the younger set, how do I prevent this kind of thing what if i could just prevent this sort of thing from happening at least for like the younger set how do i prevent this kind of like i'm not good enough um so that i can i mean kind of work myself out of a job but also like cut down a lot of suffering there you go so do you find that a lot of those elements i you know just to clarify what you said a lot of those elements of my mom doesn't love me, my dad didn't hug me enough, tell me he was proud of me, my grandmother told

me I was ugly, that sort of thing, it all boils down to that. I'm sorry about that, by the way. Huh? I'm sorry about that, by the way, with your grandmother. I had a really toxic family. And it all boils down to that one thing about how you're unlovable and not worthy enough. I mean, not you personally.

Right. Well, I did believe that. I mean, despite attempts to like, you know, you're great and whatever, you know, it kind of snuck in. I mean, that's the kind of thing that happens when you fail preschool three times. You failed preschool three times?

I did. It was an odd school. But somehow they were like, something's up with this kid. That's like a callback joke we do on the show only we use second grade. We use preschool a couple times. We did some testing on it actually. But you actually did

flunk. I seriously did. They would ask me questions like, does a boat have wheels? And I'm like, trick question. Yes.

They're thinking, cars have wheels, trucks have wheels. But boats, well, you you know steering wheels and things you know they weren't expecting that from a priest i mean as a kid i had i had like i think i saw some boats had wheels you know you could pull across the thing but i mean yeah if you think from a realm of possibility where you're like you're an idea man you're like it could yeah so i mean that's what was going through my head i vividly remember being

asked that question there you go like working it through there you go well fuck those people um so you flunk it three times and uh and and okay so let's let's go we'll do a hero's journey here in a bit but give us a 30 000 overview of what's inside the book evidently there's a bit of a parable in here yeah yeah i mean the parable is um let's see the 30 000 view of me is like i tried to solve this problem that i mentioned before you know how do i kind of prevent this self-acceptance thing from like going dark and it was like okay a great way to do this is if I make it simple, but not like oversimplified, you know, like just if, so Richard Feynman is like, if you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it. So I kind of build from that and make it into a story. So it's memorable. And so this little this little you know this little guy goes on a

journey in a way that's like it kind of gives you things you can use um but in a way that isn't an insult to kids but it's actually interesting enough for adults to kind of grab on to something be like okay this comedy works on multiple layers you know i've had people in their 50s be like what are you talking about me like this is exactly me and my kids my and like his fifth grade class at the time were like mobbed me lightly because they were like i love this book so it's it's for a broad audience um anyway so simple not cheesy um and I was inspired by things like Spencer Johnson, the guy who wrote Who Moved My Cheese? So it's a classic sort of a parable classic at this point parable to get people to think about change. And like, that sounds cool. How do I do something like that? And then, you know, I started iterating on it, like writing about it and like a couple of years into it,

like, okay, I think this is ready. You know, I kind of workshopped it with a lot of folks and people keep responding to it. So it's been, it's been really amazing. There you go.

So in, in, in, I believe there's illustrations in here and it's kind of a part of the parable is the story of crabs and fish. Yeah. So the other high-level thing is it's kind of like it's about a crab that grows up in an isolated tide pool adopted by fish. And so there's no other crabs, John, and fish is his example. He just grows up thinking he's like a really incompetent fish. And so there's no other crabs, John, and fish is his example. He just grows up thinking he's like a really incompetent fish.

Like he can't, right? He's got to eat with his fins. You can't swim properly. He feels like an idiot. What an idiot. Yeah. I mean, well, I'm judging. I'm sorry. But see, it happens. It happens. Not helping the healing here. Yeah. So is this targeted to, because it's illustrated and, you know, it talks about crabs and fish and some fun sort of characters,

is it targeted to a certain audience of age or just fun for everybody? Well, you know, if you try to categorize this on Amazon or the bookstore, they kind of cross their eyes a bit because i'm like yes because it's clearly it's clearly for kids and it's clearly for adults but the best cross-section is for kids and the adults who care for them because it's especially with the questions at the end it it's about sparking a conversation. How do you talk about worth? How do you talk about critical thinking? How do you talk about fitting in?

How do you talk about gender in a way that feels safe enough to talk about? There you go. And parables are a great way to learn. I mean, you learn from stories because sometimes just someone telling you, hey, you're an idiot, you should fix yourself, is a little hard to learn from. It turns out, yeah. Yeah, that's what people have been telling me for 85 years, and look how that turned out. So, yeah, parables, going through, learning self-acceptance.

You know, I really never thought about it, but a lot of different issues of what people have. I mean, I suppose childhood traumas and abuse and different things can fall into that same category of learning to finding your self-worth and accepting yourself because so many people have treated you worthlessly, I suppose. All right. Thanks, Mom.

Well, one of the things I think that is awesome about self-worth and self-acceptance... Thanks, Mom. I love you, Mom. Okay, good. If you actually like yourself, which is a hard

concept for me. What? I know. If you like yourself, you don't care that much about what other people think. Yeah, that's true. Screw those people. It's kind of like... I still don't like myself, but I still say, screw those people. Okay. That's different. We can talk about that after the show.

That's a different ballad. That's a different psychosis. Gotta love narcissism. so there you go uh so you wrote the book and it's designed to help people and i guess you use it in your practice one thing that's interesting about your practice is we aforementioned aforementioned uh geek-centered therapy so you you work mostly with people who are geeks yeah all right so do you turn away people who are not geeks like you're just like i'm sorry you're not geek enough no no not yet i mean the thing is everybody's got i mean geeky is kind of like a culture thing it's kind of like if you're

into things you don't care what other people think um you know it's not all like star trek and uh magic the gathering you know it's just like yeah and dnd it's it's it's people like getting into something they don't necessarily care about what other people think you know they're just excited about entomology whatever the heck there is um yeah so you so you work with the socially awkward this is per your website so i don't want people to think i'm throwing shade at people who wear pocket protectors all the time. He's done great work with the socially awkward, the obsessed,

the passionate con attenders, referring to like Comic Con. The cosplays, the D&D players, the sci-fi enthusiasts, the philosophers, the engineers, the scientists, the coders, developers. You ever work with furries? They're pretty geeky too. Not yet. That's the edge. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if

like 2052, there's like, you know, the first openly furry public official or something. There you go. Well, you are in Washington, so I think you'd have to open in Portland, Oregon to experience some of that. There's still time. There's still time. There's still time. I like to, there's a whole, I'm sure there's a whole psychological 10 to 20 year business there of solving whatever's going on with free things. And yes, I am judging. You also talk about trauma and the chaos of ADHD.

You have advanced training in those. So what are some of the ways you help people? And I guess you only practice in Washington, so people would have to deal with you up there. But what are some of the things you find people that are of the geek nature? Maybe this should be a gender because there's already 500 of them. What do you find people of the geek nature suffer from the most or, you know,

or majority of time trying to overcome other than just being geeks? Well, I mean, honestly, a lot of it is about self-acceptance. Like it really does like segue right into the book. Because there didn't necessarily choose to be into whatever they are. It just kind of happened to them, you know? So, you know, it could be, like, people that just really like data science. You know, they just, you know, and the people that that you know like to code uh they like to do cosplay um they just have trouble thinking like it's okay to be who they are you know they get

up sometimes well frequently bullied or at least socially ostracized they go to college they kind of find their people often like oh great okay there's at, there's some more people like me. I feel like less of a freak now. Yeah. But also imposter syndrome, depression, anxiety, like they all kind of go together. Yeah, because sometimes they're people that sometimes just, they have a different angle in life. Like they can think in numbers and they can think in math and they can think in, and they can think in...

But sometimes they're socially awkward, as you put it on your website. And so part of it is because they think in that different way. But they certainly have... When I grew up watching... What was it? Nerds? What was that nerd movie

that was so popular? Revenge of the Nerds. You're always picking on nerds and was that nerd movie that was so popular oh we're ending nerds revenge of the nerds you're always picking on nerds and stuff but they sure took over the world man you know now like there's like we talked about the pre-show there's elon musk and you know there's uh that bill gates guy and yeah you know i mean that guy still is nerdy as shit and he's got like billions of dollars and you can't even fix that. No. Well, you could. He could just give it away. He could solve that problem pretty quick.

Oh, yeah, that problem. But the nerds thing. No, the nerds thing, no. It's hard. It's like asking someone to just not be who they are. Yeah. You can fake it for a little while and kind of blend in. Yeah.

Ultimately, it's like, well, I'm into this. Well, it's a big world, and everyone's different, and that's the beauty of how our world works is you can have, you know, there's different people, and different people make up the world and contribute to the greatness of this world because nobody's got the thumb on the scale. And, you know, maybe these guys can't uh run the uh run the uh marathon or well they can run marathons but maybe they can't be tom

brady and you know whatever but you know they don't have that uh caveman muscle type sort of thing but they got the brains they got them their brains yeah just neither of i have well i mean well quick quick reminds me of like the original definition of survival of the fittest you know in darlin was not about like fitness in like being big and strong it was like do you fit in your environment so if our environment favors like being smart and kicking butt that way well that's the fittest so let's do it yeah we definitely moved from a world where brawn was everything to where now brains are everything which has left me behind on both scales uh so there you go uh there was some tease on your bios that we wanted to come back to when was the nose thing behold the family knows what's up there um well it was uh

another little like self-acceptance thing because it was part of my little journey like i grew up being uh there's a guy who made fun of me uh we since kind of made up for it but he called me needle nose bugged the crap out of me i mean it was even pointer when i was a kid it was even pointer than it is now and i was pretty self-conscious about it um my mom was even like you know hey let's get you some plastic surgery you know what's with your mom fix that out well she wanted me to have a good future but i was then i went to so i might in austria i went to my uncle's pastry shop and he wasn't there was asking for him and as you know he's my uncle there and they were like well who's this kid but they looked at me for a second.

And they're like, oh, he's got the clover nose. And I was like, oh, my God. I feel seen. You know, like, this is not just, like, something weird. This is family. This means I belong somewhere. And that just stuck with me for years since that. I was like, okay, this is the family nose.

Now I know why you went into therapy there you go anytime i meet someone in psychiatry i'm like what happened to you as a child oh yeah yeah people go into therapy this is my theory you can correct me if i'm wrong but my theory is a lot of people go into psychiatry because it's cheaper to go in and learn the business to fix all their childhood problems than it is to pay somebody to do it oh i think you're not you're not wrong i mean if you go to psychiatry there's like a huge medical debt i mean it's like med school is not cheap but like the trajectory i think you're you're pretty much there you guys have the highest suicide rate of any career path and yet you guys are the ones who are supposed to solve the suicide issues oh i'm gonna check

those numbers. I'm going to check them out. I'm not sure about that. Do that. It's right behind Dennis, one of the two. I thought it was veterinarian. Veterinarian is pretty rough. Is it veterinarians?

Well. I don't know. We'll look at some charts here. Put in the top five or something. Anyway. There you go. That or they have a high suicide rate because they're like, listen to people bitch about their lives all the time.

I mean, that would drive me over the edge. Oh, well, that's a big deal. You've got to learn how to take care of yourself. Sink into the pit of despair. You've got some beauty queen talking about how hard life is, that guys are always throwing money at her. And you're like, are you serious? This is a complaint? I don't know what people complain about in the thing.

Tell us a story about how you cook and fire and it doesn't sound like the proper fire you're supposed to use. Well, now I have better fire safe procedures, but there was this time where I was, that one time,

I was boiling some potatoes over a gas stove and I leaned over to check on them. And boom. I was like, dang it, I like that shirt. Your shirt fell into the fire? Yeah. This must have been a great episode. It's a good reason to tuck your shirt in.

You didn't end up with third-degree burns or anything, right? No, no, no. I got caught quickly. It's not too sc didn't you didn't have to stop dropping we're not going to trigger too many people at home with the thing so much so now your main prerogative when you're cooking is not just to cook the food but not to cook yourself this is true how that works yeah yeah see you see what i did there it just served me well so you go. I really think you should expand a furry sort of... Has anybody targeted the market for psychology help on furry

people? Maybe they don't want help. Well, I mean, it's probably going to be something that's normalized. This is how people are and this is what they're into. You know, the funny part about furries is they're having sex in those outfits. I saw that CSI episode about that. furries is they're having sex in those uh outfits yeah i

saw that csi episode about that yeah and they're and they're like i saw like something on a convention it was like they were doing some documentary about a convention on and uh not this is in my porn hub uh but they were they're they're having sex in the outfits like it's one i was watching a convention i'm like they're walking around those outfits all day. That's gotta get hot in there. Right? Like I've got, like we used to do a thing with the,

with the rubber hose or horse head when I go to conventions and events like CS. And, and I, so we take pictures of all of us casually sitting around and, and just one of us having a horse head and just like having, it looks like we're having, you know, we're in a bar having,

you know, conversations and stuff like, Hey, it's a horse in a bar having conversation. Who knew, you know, like, you know, funny shit like that. And, uh, so we do it as a gag, but I mean, you can only wear that thing for like about two minutes before you, your head explode with fire and heat. And I'm like, how are people walking around wearing that? And then I, and then I understood those like, how are people walking around wearing that? Then I understood those guys were doing the wild thing in the suits. I'm like,

how do you not catch on fire and explode from internal combustion of heat? You might be in a... If you're making your own outfit, you're probably thinking of ventilation in there somewhere. Maybe there's a ventilation system to it.

Maybe I should look into this more. That or maybe I don't want to look into this more. Clearly, if you're having sex in it, there are some holes in it. There you go. Let me stop right there. There you go. You can find that on Twitter, folks. What have we

talked about with your book and your work that we want to tease out to people and get them to contact you and work with you? I think one of the biggest things is the sort of changing your story. Like he comes, Edwin comes in believing that he's just incompetent fish. And then as the story goes on he's like well maybe there's something else maybe there's a different meaning i can make out of my life right and when i think about like the different meaning i can make out of my life i start thinking about

constellations so when you look at stars in the sky i mean if you're in the city you're not going to see that many but you look at think about think about stars. They're just data points. And it could be a little dipper, you know, water thing. It could be a little bare. But if you go back far enough, Babylonian times, it was a wagon. In China, it's a purple house.

So the same things can have different stories. And so I want you to look at your own life events. Not be delusional. Not just edit stuff I want you to look at your own life events, not be delusional, not just edit stuff out, but just look at the things that happened and be like, how can I make a different meaning out of it? How can I make a different story out of it?

And that's kind of what Edwin does. And he's encouraged along the way to go like, what if you're something else? What if you're actually cool just the way you are? You're just not what you think you are. Does that make sense? That does make sense. And maybe what you think is cool that you're not

or people told you weren't when you were growing up is you're really just cool and it's fine. Everybody has a different flavor of cool or a different being. And everyone's fine. Everybody has a different flavor of cool or a different being. And everyone contributes usually. Even if you end up being a furry. Yeah, that's the callback. So there you go.

And it's interesting to me. You give me a new concept and epiphany. We talk a lot on the show about traumas and the traumas that the show gives to people. I'm so sorry. Well, that's why people keep coming back. I think the trauma comes from the intro. Like they're expecting

like monster trucks. Yeah, yeah. I think I had a presidential advisor one day. He goes, I thought I was on a monster truck show or WWE. What's going on? I personally keep expecting some kind of two Chris Vosses enter, one leaves. There's that other Chris Voss, the FBI negotiator.

I'm just two guys on the same show. We were talking about doing cage matches matches death cage matches and having like authors come on the show to do that and they fight each other to the death or something maybe there should be a i think that's pretty much every episode we've ever had is is the fight to the death of any brain cells left i don't know whatever there's a joke there somewhere i'm not gonna unravel it um but uh there you go and you know, so you give me this idea that it's just more it's about self-acceptance. So do you just beat people over the head when they go, my mom didn't hug me enough as a child. Just like shut up and just accept yourself, dummy.

That works every time. No, no. It's got to be like an invitation. I mean, like the first mentor I ever had in psychology was this guy. I believe he was from Nicaragua. And he used this joke, like, several times. And he says, how many light bulbs, how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? I'm like, I don't know.

Just one? But it has to want to change. Right? So it's all motivation. You know? A light bulb has to want to change. Right? So you's all motivation. You know? Life bulb has to want to change. Right? So you got to follow the motivation.

So if someone wants to beat up on themselves, you got to find out why they want to do that. Most people beat up on themselves and don't like themselves because they think that's the only way to succeed. You know, they think if they accept themselves the way they are, well, then that's it.

You know, that's it. They have to stay 200 pounds overweight. They have to stay underachieving. Hmm. But according to, yeah. And is it social standards that make them feel that way? They're like, well, I'm not Tom Brady, you know, the caveman, muscly type dude.

Yeah. So, therefore, I'm an underachiever if i'm not that because that's what society tells me yeah i mean it basically starts i mean one of the reasons i picked like this age group for the book is like that seems to be where the comparison starts setting in like around between 8 and 12 something just kind of turns on and kids are like oh i'm just gonna stop making art because i'm not very good at it or maybe i'm just not the best football player in the world and because they start comparing um they can go one of two directions they can go towards critical thinking like or what do i need to do to get my art to look better or how do i up my game or they can go

to another direction which is self-judgment it's like well i just suck and i should just stop trying right and so that's what i want to get people to stop judging and start going towards great you want a goal i mean you want to change something let's find a goal what can you do there you go right and so the questions you have in the book are designed for classrooms, mental health professionals, for caregivers in general. And of course, it's set in an aquatic fish sort of scenario. I like it. It helps people kind of identify that, you know, everyone's got a place in this world. It's big world there's a it's multifaceted everyone's got something to contribute um you know it is tough when you're growing up especially in high school because you know it seems like there's the jocks and there's the cheerleaders and then there's the nerds and you know it's kind of a segue is segmented into you know these different cliques and stuff. Nowadays, nerds rule the world.

All the guys who were jocks in high school are working security jobs now. I don't really know. I'm just making that up. People from my high school are going to call me. A lot of the guys, they do tend to peak. That was their time.

There's a joke there somewhere about that but i'm not gonna where did you fit in on this by the way i gotta know like we're uh i'm getting like you were not the jock but geeks not your thing where did you fit in i was probably geeky but i was also probably a narcissistic asshole so i didn't really care i was probably i don't know somewhere in between because I had friends who were geeks really geeky and I really didn't like them I mean I like them but I would probably

pick on them a little bit I was kind of I was kind of like mid jock mid geek I was probably somewhere in the middle which is probably hasn't changed actually because I still tease some of my geek friends but I'm probably geeky when it comes down to it i'm just in denial i'm one of those self-loathing people like you ever meet

you ever you ever meet someone who's who's something and and they hate on other people or like them and you're like but what you're that makes no sense yeah well i mean the thing i figured out if it's not going too deep is like if you do self-loathing it's kind of like you beat other people to the punch oh yeah you can't make fun of me because I hate me more yeah we call it self-effacing and comedy but it's really self-loathing when it comes down to it if you know most comedians there you go and you do a little bit of that you do you do comedic improv work. Yeah.

That's why we've been having fun on the show. Tell us what you like about that. And does it help you with not only your own therapy, but other people's therapy? Well, yeah. Comedy is pretty amazing. I mean, comedy is both almost forbidden. I know a lot of people who say their therapists have no sense of humor, which is a problem but you don't have you don't want to have your therapist be all like glib and like cracking jokes all the time my my therapist laughs at everything i say i mean he just he'll roll around like i'll be like my mom doesn't love me and my dad didn't hug me enough

as a child and he just rolls on the ground he's like and then i'm like what's that about and he's like well i see their point yeah so I don't know what that's about, but I don't know why I'm paying $120 an hour for this abuse. Well, one of the coolest things about comedy came out from reading a book called Truth in Comedy. Truth in Comedy is about finding out the things that are the funniest are actually the things that are true. It's not just stuff that's clever.

It's stuff that's like, Oh, that's hurts. Like, that's a little too true. And so, but what's also cool about comedy, not only do you find what's true,

uh, according to like, uh, Stephen Porges and polyvagal theory, you actually can help people feel a sense of safety and you can help someone feel safe and like even laugh at themselves a little bit, like it's okay, you're already starting to think more clearly. You're not scared of what the other person is going to say.

You're just like, okay, we're cool. We're hanging out now. There you go. That's why we call this infotainment what we do here on the Chris Walsh Show podcast. We have brilliant people on like yourself and really high-minded stuff and it can get

dry if we don't throw some comedy in there. And people learn so much better with comedy. And like you say, comedy is a great deliverer of truth because holding a mirror up to people and going, you're really fucked up either as a human race or as a people

or what we do or just an individual. The only way to mirror and say that to people is, you know, it's not a big rapport builder last time I checked. And people turn it off to it. Yeah. Which is what my mom did to me growing up. Right. I'm so sorry. No, don't be.

It was a character builder. Good. There you go. I had a really cool conversation. I had this privilege of speaking with John Cleese of Mighty Python. Oh, there you go. And it was really cool. We talked about comedy and psychology.

And one of the things that was cool about that is we came to this agreement. So I was thinking comedy, you can either use it to avoid pain like kind of laugh it off keep a distance or you can use it as kind of like you know a band-aid to help you get through it and he added to it he said you know I think it's actually what in his act his way I think it's actually about it can actually be the way through the pain there you know like it is the transformational thing like if you can laugh your ass off while you're in pain you can be like actually maybe it's not so bad there you go and it gives you some levity and uh

perspective i think too uh where you know it's interesting about whenever we go through something cathartic or some sort of challenging time, you know, there's always those people who always tell you, you're going to laugh about this someday, and then you punch them in the face, and then you tell them, you're going to laugh about this someday, too, probably. How does that work? How's that? Enjoy that line. And so um and so but you know then we usually end up do you know later we can look at things and maybe smile on them and and they're not so dreary and dark and we can go hey i got through that and comedy like you say helps us get through that uh i love comedy because like you say you can address different things you know social issues

what people do you know and you can say hey we do some really stupid shit as human beings yes but you don't have to say it in that way and you can present it in a way where we can look to the mirror and laugh but inside we're going that's some truth to that yeah we're not we're not as uh we're not the the smartest little beings we think we are. Maybe we should do better. It's a great way to get change to happen. It was like the whole role of the trickster in mythology and folklore, like the coyote

Native American groups, the court jester in medieval courts. He was the guy who could make fun of the king. So, like, could say the uncomfortable truth. And as a psychotherapist, it's important to be able to say,

hey, by the way, there's this elephant in the room. We should talk about that. We should talk about this elephant in the room. And if you can make it feel safe while doing it, it's like, okay, fine. You're right. My therapist laughs at the elephant in the room it's like holy shit that's an

ugly ass elephant where'd you get it from my mom I don't want to use my mom as a callback joke I'm sorry mom I love my mom she's nice we're just we're just having fun but yeah the the elephant in the room you know people people need to learn and it's so do people need to sit down and go basically do that uh who's that guy guy smiley or whatever it was on uh on saturday live where you look in the mirror it was al franken and you go i like myself yeah the uh i like myself i'm a good person do people just need to do more of that is basically that it oh honestly that's a that's a great question because i wondered that for years and it turns

out like kristen neff neff has done some amazing research on this and she just basically borrowed heavily from buddhism where it's about being kind to yourself like what if i like myself what if i'm open to the idea of someday liking myself there There's this whole tradition of loving kindness meditation. It's cheesy as that sounds. It's a great way to kind of open it up to like, well, what if I actually am okay with me? There you go. I mean, everyone should be okay with themselves.

I mean, screw other people, what other people think. It's dangerous. It's dangerous. Because if you're ostracized by your community it can kind of feel like death that's true yeah that can feel death but you know maybe maybe it's maybe it's them and not you i don't know that's a little narcissistic outlook on life the uh but you know it's it's one of where, you know, what was the old thing with the Fight Club? I remember watching Fight Club.

Oh, yeah. And we're trying to get the author on the show. He's got a new book out. And so watch for that in case we do because I'd love to get him. But I remember watching Fight Club and the guy said, I think it was a Brad Pitt line. He said, you know, we buy stuff to impress people who don't give a shit about us yeah and that really struck me because i was buying all sorts of stuff to impress people and impress myself i grew up poor so some of it was for me but

it really struck me and i'm like god people don't give a shit like you know i've met people they're like they're they spend a lot of time worried about what people think about them socially. And about 40, it seems like when you're about 40, you finally realize that, hey, man, everyone's not thinking about you. They're busy. They're just like you. They're thinking about them. They're not really worried about what Chris Voss is doing 24-7, unless they're my stalkers. But other than that, you you know those are the people

make me feel loved because you know they need me um but uh all five of them but uh yeah so but seriously it's like we seem to be uh kind of wired for this like you know it's the amygdala is a sort of like little tiny thing in the mammal part of your brain, the emotional center. And it's looking for threats. You know, it's looking for like that's, you know, it's better to mistake a stick for a snake and like freak out than die. You know, you're selected for that. And so it's like physical threats, but also emotional threats. Because if we're ostracized, you know, if we're out of the group, we don't get to eat.

You know, we only get to forage whatever we can and they can just, you know if we're out of the group we don't get to eat you know we could we only get to forge whatever we can and they can just you know keep us out and so that sense of like threat from being like kicked out um is just there we didn't ask for that to be installed and so we've got to know that that threat's there and then trying to like keep that in mind what do we do to not get kicked out but also kind of like like yourself at the same time so it's like a constant balance how do we keep liking yourself belonging to who you are but also kind of fitting in but not so much that you lose track of who you are ah see i just like myself a lot and then i try to do everything i can

to get kicked out of the tribe but for some reason they think it's entertaining so they keep me so i don't know i just don't give a fuck anymore it's uh there's some dark triad stuff going on there uh i see that there's like a rorschach test behind you or something oh yeah i said your book um what's that about i'm curious oh it's it's just proud this way yeah it's just uh you know a little homage to like the traditions of psychotherapy um every now and then i use one um but it's just you know just kind of fills in the blank like well what do you think it is there you go yeah is is uh Is it weird that every Rorschach test to me looks like a female body part, or is that something seriously wrong with me? I don't think it's something serious.

I think it tells me that your social life has changed a little bit. Do I need a frontal lobotomy? Is that a shock? No, you need a bottle in front of me. There you go. Well, we did about 20 years of that. Nice. Not going front of me. There you go. Well, we did about 20 years of that. Nice. Not going back to that.

There you go. Any final thoughts you want to tease out, Brighton, before we go on? Yeah, thanks. Well, I think there's a lot of stuff that people can learn from this book. But something that's not fully detailed in there that I think is a great thing to run, you know, to take from this is a lot of like what we do comes down to this sort of mammal maintenance. And when I say mammal maintenance, it's like the homo sapiens part of us, you know, the logic, the deciding. If it was all about that, we wouldn't have much to talk about. We get in trouble because of all this mammal stuff.

We don't feel safe enough. There's all this stuff happening behind the scenes about what we're afraid of, what our first relationships were, what our beliefs are, how we make meaning out of the world and how we feel about it. And what we've really got to do, what I do most of the time, is just deal with all this mammal stuff. How can I take care of, like, this thing? It a you know it's a wildly ill-trained dog and you gotta like soothe this you know especially in couples they're like wow okay let's let's let's see if we can do less blaming and more like seeing each

other but again when you seem you know they feel safe the man was cool, and then homo sapien, back online. There you go. A lot of mammal stuff, eh? A lot of mammal stuff. Maybe I should start using that in my arguments with other people. Could be an mammal, eh? Maybe they evolve. Sounds like most politicians and political conversation I have on Facebook.

So there you go. True. Alright, well this has been very insightful Britton. Very exciting and I'm glad there's a resource out there for geeks everywhere. You know, everyone has a place in life. One thing I remember

I remember when I was a kid looking at the Sears catalog and it kind of came to me that life is like the Se serious catalog. You can choose the life you want to have. Just like you can look in the book and be like, hey, I want to choose this life. I want to do that life.

And yeah, maybe your personality might be more geeky or you might be better at math and other people are better at social skills. But a lot of things you can really develop. Like I was a really closed off introvert when I was young. And I was a people watcher and I learned a lot from that. But then the judge says I can't do that at the park bench anymore.

I don't know what that means. But I slowly learned starting companies that I had to open my mouth and be a leader and communicate and be a leader and communicate and be an extrovert and now people are going to get me to shut

the fuck up. So, which is what the judge also talks to me about. And I'll get the ankle bracelet off next week. That's good. As long as they meet my parole conditions. But, you know, people can change and grow. So I think it's important people realize that

that everyone's got something to contribute and maybe the conversation needs to be like what you've talked about uh gaining self-acceptance of yourself knowing your self-worth and you know asking yourself hey what can i contribute to this world and uh how can i make a difference and there's so many different levels of where people share stories. I mean, there's so many people we've had on the show that share their stories, share what they learned, written great books about it. And stories are kind of like the owners. I know this is redundant.

My audience is like, he's not going to say it again. But stories are the great owner's manual to life. We don't get an owner's manual. So sharing stories and helping each other. And then, of course, realizing we're not alone. The great owner's manual. So sharing stories and helping each other. And then of course, realizing we're not alone, uh, as a great owner's man,

it's life. And usually when you help yourself in that way, you help other people too. Cause other people go, Hey, uh, I'm a furry and I need help too. So there you go.

Precisely. We need to have more furries on this show just so I can figure out what the hell's going on with that whole furry thing. And we can figure out how that whole heat element thing gets worked out because that's when I'm curious about it. So there you go. These are things that I lay

awake at night and wonder about. How do they not internally combust wearing that for a whole conference show. So if you figure it out, please let me know so I can get some sleep. God damn it. Uh,

thank you very much, Breton for coming on the show. Uh, give us your.com. So people can find you on the interwebs, please. Yeah, you bet.

Uh, not fishy enough.com and Breton Colbert.com. There you go. There you go. And, all that good stuff. So, uh, thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me. There you go. There you go. And all that good stuff. So thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, man.

Thanks for having me. It's great. There you go. Order up the book where refined books are sold. Remember, stay away of those fishy alleyway bookstores. The book is entitled Not Fishy Enough, a ridiculous parable about finding worth through self-acceptance. December 20th, 22.

2022. There's a lot of twos in there. So, December 2022. There you go. Britton Colbert. Look for it wherever their books are sold. Thanks, Mons, for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys, as always, as a family. Remember, the Chris Voss Show is

a giant family reunion where the family gets together and, I don't know, we throw food at each other or something, or we listen to just great people that come on the show. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisvoss, youtube.com, 4chesschrisvoss, and chrisvoss1 at TikTok. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other and self-accept yourself already. Damn it. We'll see you next time.