The Joe Rogan Experience - #1254 - Dr. Phil

Episode Date: February 26, 2019

Dr. Phil McGraw is an author, psychologist, and the host of the television show "Dr. Phil."

Here we go in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Is it hanging up on us? We're live? We're live. Dr. Phil, we're live. Someone's calling you. What's going on? Some of those people I was trying to find. Now they're saying, oh shit. Yeah, let them worry. Out of all the years you've been doing your show and all the years you've been giving advice, how did this catch me outside, girl?

How did this happen? Oh, God. I mean, out of all the different shows. Out of all the different shows, you made a monster. I know. I mean, it's my moment of infamy. Seriously, this girl comes on with her mother, and her mother actually brings her on, of course. And she's a train wreck.

And we work with her, and we send her to this ranch for like four months, right? She goes for a long time and makes a complete turnaround, does a really a great job. They say she's become a leader. She's working with all these girls doing a great job. And then she graduates. And I remember this last shot when we do this piece at the ranch. She jumps up on this fence and is smiling and everything and waving and all. One night home with her mother, one night, and her mother's finding people that are trashing her, the mother, on these social media platforms. Her mother tracks them down, backs into who they are, gets their phone numbers, calls them up, yelling into the phone, calling them names and stuff,

gets the daughter involved. One night, crashes. So they come back for a follow-up, like, I don't know, a month or two later. And when they come, I say, okay, we're going to have them back. when they come, I say, okay, we're going to have them back. They walk out. I have the audience completely empty. I have nobody there to play to. I mean, 250 chairs, empty, nobody in the house, but me, the mother, and the daughter. That's a good move. And they go, where is everybody? I said, well, you don't need anybody. We're just here to talk and keep things rolling, right? And they were dumbstruck. There was nobody there to showboat for or play to. And that was like a 15-minute interview. They had nothing to say.

And off they go. And then this phrase that got turned into a, you know, whatever, a meme or whatever they call it. Yeah. It just went crazy. And what, she was nominated for a Grammy or something? I'm serious. So I take no credit or blame. You know, I just did what I could and haven't seen her since.

I wish everybody well. Maybe she'll turn, maybe it'll grow her up. She'll turn something positive out, but I hope so. Well, that's a very good attitude. Very healthy attitude for you. But it is, when something goes viral like that, something strange, that for whatever reason it catches and takes off, it doesn't make any sense. It's a very weird thing.

It makes no sense. She's on a billboard on Sunset, a giant billboard. Oh, really? Huge. Enormous billboard. It's like one of those side of the building billboards where they put the graphic up and it covers the entire building. It makes

no sense. Seriously? Seriously. And then there's people curing cancer and you can't find them with both hands. Exactly. Nobody has any idea who won the last Nobel Prize for science. uh but you know you know more power to her i if if she can turn in something positive does she have talent have you ever heard any of her music no i have no idea i've only seen her on your show say catch me outside yeah i appreciate you bringing that out sorry yeah but it's just so strange that one train wreck could for whatever reason catch on and then all of a sudden it's gigantic yeah they say that somebody signed her and paid her millions

of dollars seriously yeah she got like a close to a million dollars from a makeup company really yeah oh well okay there you go mean, if that's happening, right? Like, what would your advice be then? Would your advice be, hey, get your shit together and stop being crazy? Well, she's making a lot of money off of being crazy, and her opportunities before that were probably severely limited. Well, they had to be. And what I hope now, that this, even though this certainly is a quirk, what i hope now that this even though this certainly is a quirk what i hope now is that

she's surrounded by mature people with business heads on their shoulders and development people that will actually guide this in a way that it's not 15 minutes right yeah you never know you know that's what i hope well everybody thought the kard Kardashians were going to be 15 minutes, and it's been 15 years. Yeah. But there's been, you know, people make fun of them, and there's some good things there to make fun of. They do things to be made fun of. But there's also some very smart business and branding that's gone into that as well. Oh, 100%.

And, you know, and I was actually Very impressed with her that she actually went to the White House to talk about prison reform For people that are unjustly accused And have been in jail for Too long for things That they didn't do and that's something she's Actually passionate about yeah and I Know Kim and she's actually a very

Nice girl very smart and All and you know as I say They've done some very brilliant branding and it's certainly paid off it's just so fascinating when something catches like that girl what is her name the catch me outside girl uh danielle bragoly or something yeah something like that yeah because i didn't know her as the catch me outside girl but if she didn't say that one phrase yeah and she just said that i think to her grandmother or somebody in the audience i know it didn't even register with us at the time wow it was it wasn't a

standout phrase in the interview or anything it just passed by somebody just grabbed it and and then it became a meme yeah what a weird world we live in. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, it has to be a lot of responsibility to try to give people advice and try to straighten their life out and show them the flaws and the errors that they're making. Yeah, it is. And, you know, people ask me sometimes. They say, you know, Dr. Field, are problems, do you think problems are as simple as you make them out to be? And the truth is, I don't think problems are simple at all. In fact, I think problems are really, most of the time, pretty complex.

They're pretty layered. They have a lot of different origins. And they're oftentimes comorbid. A lot of things exist together. So I don't think problems are simple at all But the solutions are often simple Don't you think? I mean, it's kind of like the old joke

You go to the doctor and you say, this hurts And he says, well, then don't do that anymore A lot of times it's very simple And somebody will have a complex thing That comes from childhood Or maybe it's very simple in that somebody will have a complex thing that comes from childhood or maybe it's a drug background or they've had trauma in their life. But the solution is change your behavior. I mean, stop rewarding bad behavior. Choose a different path in life. Just behave your way to success. Sometimes the solutions are very simple, even though the

problems are very complex. Because at some point, you have to stop focusing on why and start focusing on what. Instead of why it happened, what am I going to do to change it? So sometimes the solutions are pretty simple. But implementing those solutions, it's often very difficult for people to change their lives, change their patterns. It is. And patterns is the key.

Nobody does anything in pattern if they don't get a payoff. And if you can identify, that's why insight is so important. That's why I think it's the number one outcome to whether somebody's going to respond to a talking therapy, for example. whether somebody's going to respond to a talking therapy, for example. If somebody can identify what their payoff is, where they really can figure out, I'm doing this repeatedly, and my payoff is I don't have to work, or I don't get held accountable for this, or I'm escaping accountability over here, or I get attention or sympathy. If they can figure out what their payoff is and they can then control that, whether it's

for themselves or their kids or whatever, if you control the currency, then you can control the behavior. Yeah, it just seems that people have – they have this comfort in their patterns. And even if their patterns are self-destructive, even if it's drug abuse or alcoholism, the comfort in those patterns, falling into those patterns, it seems very compelling to a lot of people. Yeah, and payoffs don't necessarily mean

that it's a positive payoff. Right. I mean, a payoff for taking heroin is you get high, and so you're high for a while. That's not a positive payoff, but it's a payoff. Right. And if you get high and so you get high, and so you're high for a while, that's not a positive payoff, but it's a payoff. And if you get high and so you don't get a job and you don't take care of your kids, that's a payoff that you're not doing things that you need to do that you should be accountable for. It's a pathological payoff, but it's a payoff nonetheless. And so that does reward you, even though it's a pathological payoff.

It's a pathological thing. You call it a reward. But if you can identify that where they say, look, I'm not doing what I need to do, and I need to stop rewarding myself in that way and hold myself accountable. I need to be there for my kid. myself in that way and hold myself. I need to be there for my kid. I tell my kid I'm going to be there every day and I don't show up because I'm high on drugs. Then I need to stop doing it. I need to not let myself get away with that and instead require myself to show up for the kid when I say I do, say I will. And then you see what's in the kid's eyes You share the experience with them Now that becomes your payoff

So then you'll start showing up for your kid Yeah How many people take your advice? How many people just listen and try for a little bit and then bail? You know, it's hard to say Because I think sometimes our most productive guests Are the ones that don't get it because the male we get, they'll say, oh, wow, that guy didn't get it or that woman didn't get it. But I saw myself in them,-headed or so oppositional and I

heard them say things I've said and they left and didn't get it I got it I'll never do that again so sometimes those that don't get it at all while they're there are the ones that are the best teaching tools for the millions of people that are at home watching. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? When you watch people fail and you go, oh, okay, I see that in myself. I just got to not do what that guy's doing. And then also you see the stubborn pig-headedness that some people have where they won't listen to advice.

And you could clearly see how they're ruining their lives by not being honest. Darrell Bock Yeah, and sometimes the story that we might have is maybe extreme where you say, I don't do all six things they're doing, but I do two of them, and they are in sharp relief to me. So I get that. I ain't going to do that anymore. So, I mean, that's where I think you get a payoff. And, you know, people go and find these things on the internet.

I mean, last year, we have a channel where we put up different clips from divorce shows or parenting shows or whatever. And we had over 2 billion views last year of people just going and finding that information and looking at it. So I know people are seeking the information out and looking at it beyond the show itself. So they must be seeking information. And we just don't have a good distribution system for mental health in America.

So I think they're hungry for it and they look for it. Well, there's so many people out there that are trying to do better. They're trying to get their lives in order. And shows like yours And just advice shows People that are giving out inspiration and knowledge It's such an important thing for people Especially for people that didn't grow up with wise parents Or maybe a good support system around them

You know, I think that's true I grew up with an alcoholic father And it was a pretty violent home. And he was a really bad alcoholic. And I know having grown up in that, you wind up with what I call a damaged personal truth. And you feel second class. and you feel second class. And the problem that kids make, because I know I did it, and I see others do it,

is you compare your personal truth, what you know about yourself and how you really live and what's really going on, you compare your personal truth to everybody else's social mask. Because you go to school and you know, well, I know that last night the windows got kicked out of my house. I know that the utilities got turned off. And I know there was a big fight in my kitchen last night. And the kid sitting next to me, he's got on a shirt that's all ironed and his face is all bright and clean. And he looks like he's just got it all together. And you compare yourself to that kid, and you feel like you're second class. And the problem with that is we generate the results in life we think we deserve.

life we think we deserve. So if you think you're damaged, you think you're second class, you will generate results that you think a second class person deserves. So if you don't fix your personal truth, then you'll spend the rest of your life saying, well, those really good results, those belong for somebody else. That's not for me. That's for somebody else. And you'll settle for second best, and you won't get what you might otherwise generate for yourself if you don't fix your personal truth.

And so I think a lot of people are struggling, looking for a way to kind of get out of feeling not good about themselves and damage self-esteem, damage self-worth, and they really don't know where to go. So, and that's why I do the show. I don't, look, I'm not under the misapprehension that we're doing eight-minute cures up there. I mean, come on. We're not doing that. But I think if you can point people in the right direction, if you can raise their awareness,

you can get them thinking about it. You can create a narrative where they at least say, you know, how do I feel about myself? I mean, is there stuff I need to resolve? I mean, what am I saying to myself? If you can get them thinking about that, then, you know, maybe you've done something. Yeah, you know, Tony Robbins once said once that it's incremental changes over the long haul. And the way you have to look at it is if these two boats are going in a parallel direction and one of them just shifts five degrees. Over the course of time, this boat is going to be in a far different place than the other boat that's going the same way it was always going.

Yeah, and the important thing to realize as well is the next year is going to go by whether you're doing something about your life or not. I mean, we're sitting here right now at the end of February, I mean, we're sitting here right now at the end of February, and the next 10 months are going to go by whether somebody is working to make change or whether they're not. And they may think, you know, oh, my God, I'm so far overweight. I'll never get it under control, or I'm so behind in my bills, or I'm so, you know, just depressed or everything is so out of control. Well, you know what? You make those incremental changes and then, you know, pretty soon in December you go, hey, I'm way better off than I was at the end of February. So, shit, you made little changes and they all added up.

And if you don't, by the end of the year, you're just in deeper. So every little bit matters Yeah I tell people To write things down I say one of the best ways To get things done Is to write things down Write down what you're

Trying to get done Write down what you need To get done On a long term basis And what you need to get done On a short term basis And write off a checklist Force yourself

Be accountable Yeah the difference Between a dream and a goal Is a timeline And accountability Yeah Accountability is gigantic You got to have somebody Whether it's yourself Yeah, the difference between a dream and a goal Is a timeline and accountability Yeah, accountability is gigantic You've got to have somebody Whether it's yourself or a friend

Or somebody that's going to say Look, did you do what you said You were going to do by this time And if you don't, hold your feet to the fire Because, I mean, just sitting around Dreaming someday, you know Someday I'm going to get a different job Someday I'm going to change this Well, someday ain't a day of the week sitting around dreaming someday you know someday i'm gonna get a different job someday i'm gonna

change this well someday ain't a day of the week you know there's monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday look on your calendar someday's not on there so you got to say okay i want to take this small step by here this small step by there this small step by there and then pretty soon you know we don't leap tall buildings in a single bound. We take it a floor at a time. And that matters. Over all the years you've been doing your show, you've developed a real community, right? I mean, you really have made an impact. If you stop and think about all the people that your show has touched and all the people that have listened to your advice

and all the people that have taken that advice and made those little incremental changes in their lives and set those goals and held themselves accountable. That's a pretty significant thing. Well, I hope so. I mean, I think – I know that there's a stigma attached to mental illness, and that really bothers me. There should not be. Having depression or anxiety or whatever, to me, should have no more stigma than having a knee injury or kidney infection or diabetes. But there is a stigma attached to it. And I've tried to talk about this in a way where it's okay to talk about it and not be ashamed of it. It's okay.

If you've got anxiety, you've got PTSD, whatever, it's okay. Let's talk about it. Let's get help for it. Get it behind you and move on. I mean, it's not something that you should be ashamed of. When you're talking to someone that maybe has depression, do you try to get them to exercise first? Do you try to get them to visit a psychiatrist immediately and get on medication? Do you take it on a case-by-case basis? Well, I do, but you have to approach it.

Everybody has a philosophy about it, and I'm not saying that mine's any better than anybody else's, but I do have a philosophy about it, and I'm very slow to medication. I mean, I think you use medication for biochemical replacement. I mean, if for some reason your body is not making enough of something it needs, then maybe you support it short-term biochemically. But I look at depression. There's a lot of ways you can break it up, but I look at it like, is it exogenous depression or endogenous depression? I mean, is it coming from the inside out or the outside in? Is it because you're reacting to something?

I see a lot of depressed people that, in a sense, it makes sense. Right. I mean, you look at their life and you say, well, if you're not down about this, you should be. I mean, you've lost your job. You've gotten a divorce. Your health is in the shitter. I mean, you should be down about this. It's external things. So you don't need a pill.

I mean, put somebody in a chemical straitjacket because their life's falling apart? What the hell is that going to do? That's just putting goggles on them where they can't see it. I would much rather get them to behave their way to success and say, what are you reacting to that you're depressed about? Let's put that on a to-do list and start, like you said, write it down and start crossing those things off. Let's figure what's an action plan to change this, an action plan to change the next thing. And then when you start doing that, then you generally see their mood lift.

A lot of people that are depressed are just realistically reacting to a crummy circumstance in their life. It's not necessarily a mental illness. It's just a realistic reaction to a bad spot in their life. Yeah, that's such a good way of putting it, too, that if you weren't in a bad state looking at this, there might be something wrong with you. Yeah, you're in denial. Yeah.

I mean, if you've gotten a divorce, lost your job, your health's in bad shape, your kids are alienated from you, and you're saying, I'm fine, then you're not in touch with reality. I mean, you should be bothered by that. And I think to give somebody a pill to mask your feelings about that just keeps you off task. Pain's a good motivator. You know, I grew up in like Texas and Oklahoma. And I don't know if you've ever done this, but we were, I used to spend my summers in the thriving metropolis of Mundy, Texas. You ever heard of Mundy, Texas? It's M-U-N.

It's a U, not an O. M-U-N. It's a U, not an O. M-U-N-D-A-Y. It's got like 2,000 people in it. But in the summers, it would get hot in Mundy, Texas. When I say hot, I mean you look out in the backyard and your dog burst into flames.

That's what I'm talking about. So we would be going to the swimming pool or something barefooted, and you get halfway across an asphalt road, and you look down, and you're, I mean, like, holy shit. I mean, your feet are just on fire. So what are you going to do? I mean, that is painful. You're going to do one of two things. You're either going to make a U-turn and get your ass back over to the side of the road

And get in the grass Or you're going to run to the other side And get off the road and get in the grass But you're not going to stand there In the middle of the road And melt yourself down to the knees Pain is a motivator Pain is not necessarily always bad

If you're in pain It's going to motivate you to move To change something and to mask that with drugs to dull that pain with drugs is not necessarily a good thing that is wise wise advice and i wish more people thought that way particularly more doctors you know i have so many friends that have gone to a doctor because they're not feeling so good and they're almost immediately wanting to throw them on something yeah that's not smart in all the years you've been doing this have you noticed like was depression as prevalent

like the the term depression or what it doesn't i mean i don't really remember it being a thing when i was a kid that was discussed the way it's discussed now now it's discussed the way people discuss all sorts of other ailments is it just an awareness thing or is it just people are thinking about it now in different terms well i think it's part of the narrative now and i think with social media um with the internet not just social media but with the internet i think there's just a lot more it's a lot more in the nomenclature, and there's a lot more awareness about it. But I think it was just as prevalent in the 50s and 60s as it was now. But in the 50s and 60s, there wasn't a psychologist on every corner.

And there is now. Yeah. And there wasn't subdoctoral licensing then. What does that mean? Well, back then, you had to have a PhD or an MD as a psychiatrist to see patients. Now they have marriage and family therapists. They have licensed social workers. They have different levels where you can do independent practice. So that's broadened the number of people that can provide services.

And some people think that's a good thing. Some people think it's not. I generally think it's a good thing because I think 58% of our rural markets today have no psychiatrist available and something like 50 or roughly have no mental health professional available at all, none. So there's just nobody available to help people in the outlying areas.

So I think the more people you can get into the profession, so long as there's a degree of competency, is better. But I think it's always been prevalent. I just think people didn't talk about it very much. It's just something they swallowed or they took to church or, you know. When you see, you know, all these folks that are on medication today, I mean, how many of these people do you think legitimately should be on medication? I mean, is it something you can assess? You know, I can't answer that in terms – I mean, I'm sure there's research of people,

how many people are on medication. But in my personal experience, most of the people that I see on medications, in my opinion, don't need most of the medications they're on. Now, that's just anecdotal. That's my opinion. You ask me to hand you a research survey or study to support that, I can't hand it to you or I can't point you to one. I can just tell you, after 45 years in this experience, I see people that are on medication. years in this experience, I see people that are on medication. They've usually seen someone for six or eight minutes and said, you know, I'm really feeling kind of down and blue. Here's some Prozac. Here's this. Here's that. They give it to them, and they don't even really

ask why. And they just give it to them because medicine has become a high volume business and that's not necessarily the doctor's fault i mean the way that it's now funded and medicare and medicaid you got to turn them and burn them and yeah or you can't stay in business and so it's a high volume business and so they throw pills at them because they don't have an hour to sit down or don't take an hour to sit down and talk about say well let's find out what's going on is there a reason like i said if this guy's got five parts of his life that have gone down or a woman has got you know three or four areas of her life that have really gone down in in quality then they should be having poor mood.

So why mask that? Let's come up with an action plan and change it. So most of the people I see on medication, not all, but most of the people I see are on too many medications in too high a dose or either don't need it at all. And I'm really bothered by polypharmacy that's where i really get frustrated yeah this is i think what you're saying is a very common sense approach but it it's not the norm today no it seems like more people are treating this you know air quotes depression issue as if it's a medical disorder like like diabetes or something where you need medication.

Yeah. And look, for a lot of people, it works. I mean, you give people a mood elevator and they say, hey, I feel better. And then maybe they change their life. Maybe they move their life into a more positive direction. They can wean themselves off of it. Because one of the things about depression, for example, you're using that as an example, is you get what's referred to as psychomotor retardation.

There's a lessening in activity level. And I think old sayings get to be old sayings because they're profound, like you're not going to get a hit if you're not swinging. If you're depressed and so you think slower, less actively, you behave less actively, your chance of getting rewarded goes down, right? You don't get out there and you don't mix it up socially as much. You don't apply for jobs as much. You're not as productive on your job as much. So you're less likely to get strokes.

You're less likely to get strokes. You're less likely to get rewarded. Well, maybe you go take a pill and it lifts your mood up so you get more active. And so now you start getting pats on the back. You start getting people to engage with you more. So that lifts your mood and that takes care of it. So you took the medication short term, you're lifted back up and you're okay. Short term, it can be an alternative. But I've seen people on everything from opioids to mood elevators for years.

And that's where you lose me. I just don't get it. Yeah. I know people that have been on things since they were five years old. And they're in their 40s. Yeah. people that have been on things since they were five years old and they're in their 40s. And then you have wastebasket diagnosis like ADD and ADHD where what used to be a spoiled brat is now ADD or ADHD. So they start prescribing these neocortical stimulants like Ritalin. neocortical stimulants like Ritalin. And if you give a kid that does not need a neocortical stimulant a stimulant, you're really going to throw them off the charts now because you've got

a normally active brain that you're now making hyperactive. So you're creating a problem that didn't exist before you gave them the medication because you didn't do the proper diagnosis yeah i had my old neighbor had a situation like that they had a kid and the kid was just had a lot of energy and they weren't paying attention to him and so they started medicating them it's insanely common yeah and you cannot chemically babysit your children and who knows where these kids are going to be 20 30 30 years from now. I mean, we're just looking at this rash of people being treated for these ailments, air quotes. And then we're not seeing how this all turns out in the long run and how much damage we're doing to these people. No. And in fairness, on the other end of the continuum, I have seen some people that are clearly psychotic, schizophrenics, delusional, that without medication are absolutely

impossible to manage. But if you put them on antipsychotics so you can lower their delusional behavior, their hallucinatory behavior, so you can now have a meaningful conversation with them so they can respond to talking therapies. It makes all the difference in the world. And without those antipsychotics, you would be lost without them. So there are some medications for some disorders that are absolute miracles that without them, you wouldn't be able to do the work you need to do to get the person back where they need to be. Yeah, unquestionably.

I mean, there's definitely a lot of great pharmaceutical drugs that help a lot of people. Do you get pushback from a lot of these positions from the established medical community? You know, mostly when you talk to people about it thoughtfully, they agree with what I'm saying. I mean, most people will agree that you need to be thoughtful about prescribing medications and that medications are too readily administered. I mean, that's certainly what we've seen in the opioid epidemic right now. Opioids are so readily prescribed right now that there are enough opioid prescriptions for every man, woman, and child in America to have their own bottle. And if you renew that prescription one time, one time, if you are taking those opioids at the seven-day mark, your chance of being addicted at one year is one in 12. And if you renew it at, if you're still taking them at 30 days, your likelihood of being addicted is one in three. Wow.

And these things are getting written with way too high a pill count. And so the addictions, we're seeing a whole different kind of addiction now coming out of the suburbs. And they take them for a while and they're very expensive. And after they take them for a while, heroin's cheaper. So they dump the opioids and they're very expensive. And after they take them for a while, heroin's cheaper. So they dump the opioids and start taking heroin. So you're seeing soccer mom heroin addicts that you weren't seeing 10 years ago because they get started on prescription opioids, and then they can't afford them. Or finally the doctor cuts them off, but they're addicted, and so they start taking heroin because it's cheaper.

No, this is obviously a very disturbing pattern, but where do you see this going? Like when you look at the future, I mean, it looks bleak in that regard. I mean, I've known several people that have had real problems with pills. Yeah. The problem that I think people have is they think, because a doctor gave me this, because it's on a prescription pad, that this is safe. Your body doesn't know whether you got that in the back alley or you got it from a doctor. It still has the same addictive quality,

and I think it is at an epidemic level. And I've testified before Congress about this, and I think there are several levels of accountability at the manufacturing level and at the prescription level and at the prescription level and at the educational level so people understand. I think everybody has to take part of it, and I'm doing everything I can to raise the awareness about it as well. When you testified before Congress, what was the reaction? They're very much aware that this has become a serious, serious problem because the cost, as you see the lost labor in the workforce is in the billions of dollars. You see the demands on the health care system that this is creating. Young mothers with children and babies born addicted to these opioids.

I mean, the numbers are just going through the roof. So, I mean, it's putting a strain financially on the health care system that it just can't stand. So you start costing money, and it starts getting politicians' attention. So they start saying, okay, now we've got to start doing something. So they get it. They get that there's a problem. What could they do, though? It seems like once that genie's out of the bottle. Well, clearly, you've got to start educating people. And the manufacturers have to be required to start labeling this much more clearly. Physicians have to be much more conservative in prescribing. You know, I just had this shoulder surgery, and I took like one

opioid, one pill they gave me in the hospital. And after that, you can manage it with like Tylenol or something because the surgeons now are so good with the arthroscopic surgeries and stuff. It's so much less of an insult to the body that with ice and Tylenol and stuff, you can manage it if you just kind of focus on it a little bit. And I'm not saying if you've had surgery and you're having organic pain, for God's sakes, get ahead of the pain and stay ahead. But as soon as you can get off of it, get off of it. Yeah, and understand what's happening.

Yeah, there's no sense in being like macho. We don't need a leather strap between your teeth and go have some surgery. I mean, shit, if it hurts, take the pill, get past it, but realize the minute you can get away from that, you need to get away from it. But they don't need to give you a 30-day supply. They need to give you three or four days, and then you've got to go see your doctor again, and if it's still a problem, discuss it. I mean, that's what i think

needs to happen is just be a lot more conservative about what you're giving is the problem is these pharmaceutical companies make so much money yes they don't want to they don't want to back off that they got private jets and yachts to pay for yeah and they're starting to shut down some of these they had some of these pill clinics in pain clinics in Florida where you could go in without an x-ray, without an MRI, and just say you had back pain. And there was a doctor there that would give you a 90-count prescription on the spot, no questions asked, 90. And you're out the door, and you go down the street to the next one. Yeah, because there was no database. No database.

And that doctor might be a foreign doctor that flew in from offshore, wrote all the prescriptions during the day, flew off again at night. And now they're shutting that stuff down. So the hammer's coming down. Well, one can only hope. When you've been doing your show as long as you've been doing it, and I'm sure you've made a ton of loot. What makes you want to do a podcast? Why are you doing that? Well, my interest has been, you know, I was saying there are a lot of people getting their information on the Internet

by getting clips of the show and that sort of thing. And it's clear to me that as the population is changing, I'm an old guy, but younger people are getting their information in different ways. They're going to the Internet, and the digital menu has got to be readily available, and you can reach a lot of people that way that you wouldn't reach the other way. There's a whole population that's not going to watch broadcast television during the day. Yeah.

And there's a whole population that's watching broadcast television during the day that maybe isn't in the digital space. And if I can get a crossover between the two and you can get a bigger audience to spread your message, then that's what you're doing. My goal is to spread the message and get what I think is important to say out there. So I mean, I'll shout it from the rooftops if I think that's effective. I want to do anything that's scalable to get the message out there. And to me, I'm doing some different things in the podcast than I'm doing on the show. On the show, I've got a fact pattern in front of me. I've got a story. I've got a family. I've got an individual that's got a specific fact pattern. I'm dealing with that fact pattern. In the podcast, I'm not solving a problem.

I don't have somebody there that has a problem for me to solve. I'm just talking to people that I find interesting, and I'm able to talk to them about whatever I want to talk to them about and discuss things like you and I are talking about right now. I think what we've been talking about is an important discussion, and I welcome the opportunity to have that discussion. And I don't have time to do that when I'm talking about somebody who's sitting there saying, you know, I think my kid is on the precipice of overdosing or is really in trouble, and I've got to focus on that. I don't have time to pontificate about such things as the opioid epidemic or the philosophy of pills versus therapy and things of that nature

because I have to give all my attention to the story in front of me. In a podcast environment like we're doing now, I can talk about things that I think people need to hear. I think if they don't, they don't have to listen. But if they're interested, it's there. So I like it being more freeform and me being able to talk about things. I've been talking about what makes people a champion. Like I talked to Tony Romo right after the Super Bowl about, you know, he came from Eastern Illinois University.

So I got, what, nine students or something. He's a little bit of university. He turns out to be quarterback of America's team for 14 years, set all kinds of records, and then goes to the booth and becomes the number one color analyst in television. I mean, champion, champion, champion. Why? What do you attribute that to i like asking those questions and hearing people talk what do you say to young people about that what made you a champion are you going to let your kids play football with all this cte and stuff what

what do you say i mean i like having those kind of conversations did the same thing with shack and charles barkley and different people what did he say about what makes you a champion? For him, he said that he has this – he says he didn't – he wasn't the kind of swagger sort of person that came in cocky like he was going to own the field and own the game. in cocky like he was going to own the field and own the game. But inside, he said he had this absolute drive that if he didn't win, he couldn't live with it. It's like if somebody thought, like he played a game, somebody beat them, beat him, that just the idea that that person went home thinking that they were better than him, that they could beat him, that he just couldn't eat, sleep, think until he got back and owned it again and got back to it.

He said it's his drive to win. back to it. He said it's this drive to win. And so he would, I mean, he said he would be out at one o'clock in the morning in the dome throwing a pass that that route got intercepted. He got jumped on that route. And he'd be trying to figure out why on Thursday in practice, he saw what he needed to see. Why didn't he see it on sunday and he would analyze and analyze and analyze until he could get there until he could do it until he could win it he just had this drive to win that super unhealthy obsession they all share that michael jordan had that i mean we've talked about that several times on the podcast so many people that are extreme winners they're psychotic and their obsession with winning.

That's all they want to do, and if they lose, it's almost insufferable. They almost can't deal with it. Yeah, and I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing, but the difference between winners and losers is winners do things losers do not want to do. Yeah. They will get up in the middle of the night. They will do this. They will. Yeah. They will get up in the middle of the night. They will do this. They will do that.

They feel it more. They just do things losers don't want to do. They'll pay a price losers just don't want to pay. Yeah. And losers say it's just not worth it. And every winner has been a loser. Oh, that's what made them a winner. Yeah.

If you go through life in a success-only journey, God, how boring would that be? I mean, you think it would be great, but it's like eating ice cream every meal. About the fourth meal, you're going to be thinking, God, let's kill something and eat it. Well, it's like what you're talking about, about depression, about that bad feelings will motivate you to change. If you're in a bad feeling, if you're in a bad state in your life, that pain is an amazing motivator. And even though it feels terrible at the time, it can propel you to a new and better life because you don't ever want to experience that again and make you grow and be a better person.

Yeah. And you got to decide what's your currency. I mean, because you say, you know, you've done your show a long time and probably don't need the money. But there are different kinds of currency, right? I mean, you don't always work for one kind of currency. I mean, every year when we wrap our season, I kind of take a month and let everybody go unwrap, just kind of unwind and relax and kick back and do whatever they want to do. And then we start meeting and focusing on, okay,

how can we reinvent ourselves for next season? How can we tell our stories better? How can we broaden our horizons, do things different so that we raise our game because we're kind of competing with ourselves. There's, you know, we're kind of in a category by ourselves. We're the only one that does what we do. And we've been number one for a long time because I got a really hardworking team. But we're in a – nobody else tries to do what we do. So we're kind of competing with ourselves,

and so we work real hard to figure out how can we have a bigger impact? How can we tell this more effectively? What techniques can we come up with that make this even more powerful, more impactful than what it is? And that's what really gets me moving. Darrell Bock Well, it's very telling. That's why I would imagine you move towards doing a podcast where it's less restrictive and more open-ended and you can kind of do whatever you want.

But that's pretty cool that out of all these years of doing that and giving out advice, you still find this passion to make it better and to do it from a different angle. Yeah, and I'm as excited about – we're just about to wrap our 17th season. 17th season. And that's a lot. Damn. How many episodes have you done? Coming up on 3,000.

And I did Oprah for five years before cool and uh so that's that's 22 years and then and then i just renewed for five years so i'm renewed out to 2023 did you hesitate before you signed that like what am i i just go fishing yeah robin and i thought about it but well what am i gonna do i mean i don't mean, I don't want to... Well, you enjoy it, obviously. I do. I enjoy it. You can tell. I've always told my team the thing that we don't want,

I don't want to get bored. Right. And if it gets formulaic for me, it'll be formulaic for the viewer. And I don't want that to happen. And we do a lot of news stories and stuff. And I don't want that to happen. And we do a lot of news stories and stuff, and that keeps it fresh because you don't know what's going to break in the news tomorrow. And so we do most of the really big news stories. And we don't break the news stories. We go behind

the headline and talk about, here's what really happened. As Paul Harvey said, here's the rest of the story. Here's what you read in the headline., here's the rest of the story. Here's what you read in the headline. Now here's the rest of the story. And I really like doing that. I really like getting into that. Well, and when you're doing this on your podcast, one of the beautiful things about that is that, you know, you can explore these ideas without commercial breaks.

You don't have to have anybody telling you what to do. You could just, whatever's interesting to you. Is that how you pick the subjects and the people that you're talking to? Yeah. Like this week, I had on Pam Myers, who wrote Lie Spotting. I spent a lot of my career. Is that a book on liars? Yeah.

Lie Spotting? Yeah. And I spent a lot of my career on deception detection, because I spent a lot of time in the litigation arena on interrogation techniques. That's how you met Oprah, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was when she was doing that, the beef industry was suing her? Yeah, the mad cow case in Amarillo.

Yeah. Yeah. She got sued for a couple billion dollars, and I represented her in that case, and that's how we met. And so, I mean, I had Pam on, and we both worked a lot in deception detection and interrogation techniques and stuff. And so just – and it came right at a time when, you know, Jesse Smollett is in the news about, is he telling the truth, was he not telling the truth? And then here we have this conversation about it. What did you think immediately when you heard that story? I was very suspicious when I heard that story.

Yeah, Jamie and I, we shut the, once the cameras were off, we're like, is he off? Fuck that guy, that ain't real. Nobody, it was just too much like a movie. Yeah. It was a bad movie Yeah, I mean It's nine below zero

And two people are lying in wait Just in hopes that he might come by At 2 a.m. Yeah I mean So strange Yeah, it was suspicious And, you know, he's entitled to due process

And he's going to get it Yeah and he's going to get it. Yeah, he's going to get it. Now he's saying he has some untreated drug problem. So he's trying to carve out some path to explain his bizarre behavior. But there are very specific lie behaviors that people can't really control. Like what kind of stuff? Well, for example, when people are really desperately trying to convince you they're telling the truth, they'll do a lot of times what are called convincing statements.

Rather than just telling you what they did or didn't do, they'll do convincing statements like, you know me. Like somebody saying, somebody stole the petty cash in the office. You know me. I give more money. I donate more money than was stolen. I mean, you guys know me. I mean, I was employee of the week last year.

You know, they're just convincing you that there's this nice guy. And then they'll say – Darrell Bock That's not what someone does if they're wrongly accused? Darrell Bock No. Darrell Bock What does someone do if they're wrongly accused? Darrell Bock If they're wrongly accused, they'll look you straight up in the eye and tell you, I didn't do it. And if you ask them, what do you think should happen to somebody that did? An innocent person will say, I think they should be found.

I think they should be held fully accountable to the extent of the law. Somebody that's guilty will say, well, you know, I don't know. I mean, people make mistakes. I mean, you know, you got to give a guy a second chance. Do you worry that in coaching, that you're essentially coaching liars by telling people this kind of stuff? And someone who does steal the money, you know, would be able to kind of like, hey. It's not for amateurs. And when you, there are some things that you can tell people to watch for.

some things that you can tell people to watch for, but one of the things you do if there's somebody that you suspect is you increase their cognitive load during the interrogation, and there's no way you can prepare for that. Oh, how do you do that? Well, you plant a mind virus, for example. Ooh, a mind virus. I like it. Yeah. This is some Perry I like it. Yeah.

This is some Perry Mason type shit. Yeah. Like, what do you do? Like, if I said... Let's pretend some money's missing. Yeah. If I said to you, is there any reason somebody would have told me that they saw you near that cash box about the time it went missing? Tom, Tom, Tom.

Okay, now, people talk at 125 words a minute. They think at 1,200 to 1,400 words a minute. Now, if it takes you five seconds to tell me no, you took the money. Ooh. I'm getting nervous right now. to tell me no, you took the money. Because if you weren't- I'm getting nervous right now. Because if you didn't take it, you know you didn't take it. You don't need to run scenarios through your head to think, who could have seen me?

What could it have been? I mean, I didn't see anybody. Nobody could have seen me. But if you didn't do it, it doesn't take you one millisecond to say absolutely not. Have you ever been wrong before where you see someone on television and you go, I think that guy's guilty and they're innocent or vice versa? Oh, sure. Because if you really want to know for sure if somebody is guilty or innocent, you need to invest a lot of time.

You need to get a baseline on what they normally look like, talk like, feel like. And then knowing that baseline, you then need to compare how they're behaving on TV. So just walking by the screen and seeing it, you might see things that would ordinarily be lie behaviors that could just be part of their personality. So if you're going to really make a judgment, you got to put a lot of time in and figure it out. And what you should do before you decide you're going to be a human lie detector is do your homework and you ought to try to figure it out objectively before you figure it out behaviorally. I mean, you ought to do your investigation, find out if somebody took the money and, you know, find out where they were and, you know, look for fingerprints and do this and do that.

I mean, you ought to really objectively figure it out before you rely on these things. figure it out before you rely on these things. And so unless you get a baseline and get one-on-one with them and spend a lot of time, then you can't be really certain that you know whether they're telling the truth or whether they're not. It would be fun if it was that easy. And some people are pretty obvious. Yeah, I heard a cop once say that when people are guilty, they tend to plead and cry. And then when they're not guilty, they tend to get angry when they're accused.

People that are wrongly accused are generally irate from the beginning till the end. I mean, every case is different. beginning till the end. I mean, every case is different, but if you're wrongly accused, that person is going to be pissed off from the minute you accuse them till the end, because it's like, they're self-righteous. Like, I didn't do this, and you're saying I did, and screw you. And they don't take a step back. And when you see people, they do these convincing statements, and they're pleading for you to believe them. And any time somebody says, now, in all honesty, usually the next thing out of their mouth is a lie. And usually the next thing out of their mouth is a lie. Like they say to you, now, Joe, honestly, as opposed to everything else you've been telling me, why are we bracketing this one out as honest?

Or if they invoke the deity. Oh. I swear to God. Yeah. God as my witness. And, you know, I don't know whether I have not done what I said you need to do with Jussie Smollett. But I do know when he went to the set at Fox, he said, you all know me. I swear to God I didn't do this. And there were like three or four of those kind of statements in like two or three sentences there.

Well, my favorite one was he was on stage and called himself the gay Tupac. That's enough for me. That's a little narcissistic. It's a strange thing, though. There was another one today. A guy lit his house on fire, I think in Chicago, and said he's a gay fellow. Said it was a hate crime, and they caught him. There's a lot of that going on, you know?

A lot of fake crime. Very strange. going on you know a lot of fake crime yeah very strange the the and then sometimes people accuse people of something and someone will say uh why would why would someone make something up why would someone turn themselves into a victim well there's a lot of clout in being a victim especially today there's a lot of you get a lot of attention a lot of love i think there's a lot of false accusations and false attacks and there's a lot of false accusations and false attacks, and there's a lot of real ones. But man, when the false ones come, it just does a giant disservice to everybody. Well, there's a fair amount of research as to why people do these hoaxes, and particularly hate crime hoaxes. And one of the primary motivations, of course, it's sympathy and attention and all that. But one of the interesting reasons that I've read in the research is that they really feel

like it's emblematic of how the system treats them overall. This is just a dramatic example of it. They feel like, I'm treated this way anyhow. I'm discriminated against. I suffer bias. I'm put down. This is just a focused example of that. So I'm really not lying.

I'm just role-playing how I'm overall treated. Oh, wow. So they justify it in their mind. They're just going to bring all this treatment into one example to bring it into focus. going to bring all this treatment into one example to bring it into focus and so while it's a phony deal it really is truthful representation of what their life is really like they justify it in that way oh how weird yeah that's yeah that's some deep psychological shit right there yeah that's uh that's stretching but that's a weird one we like When you write it out like that, put it in your mind that way. Yeah.

Wow. It's strange, too, because it gives people this giant public show to watch now. Yeah. And I hate that. What a talented young man. Is he? The times that I've seen, I don't watch that show a lot, but the times I've seen him on there singing and assuming it is his voice and he's singing, extremely talented young man. I find a lot of talented people are fucking crazy.

Well, somebody said that the really talented singers and actors were the weird kids from high school that were in drama and all of that. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, various levels of crazy. Obviously, not all deceptive, but some of the most brilliant actors are just completely out of their mind. And that's one of the reasons why they're so good at acting Look, my friend Wayne Fetterman Had a bit that he did about it on stage And he's like, guess what? It's not fucking normal to be able to just cry

He goes, you could just cry And pretend something's wrong And cry, he's like, that's crazy These are crazy people Yeah, and you really can't go to a certain place If you don't have a little of that in you. Yeah. My dad used to always say when he was working with patients, he would say,

there's something about that old boy I can't stand about me. Because he'd say, you can't see it in them if you don't have a little of it in you. Yeah. And I think there's some truth in that. Oh, there's 100% truth in that. That is the thing that drives me the craziest about weak people. There's some truth in that. Oh, there's 100% truth in that. That is the thing that drives me the craziest about weak people.

I'm so terrified of seeing weakness and just being pathetic. I'm so terrified of seeing that in myself. I see it in other people, and it just smells. I smell it like a drug-sniffing dog. Like, oh, there it is. Yeah, you smell desperation, weakness. Yes, weakness. So what makes you do this?

Why are you doing a podcast? I have always been a blabbermouth. I can never shut the fuck up. I love talking. And I've always been fascinated by human beings and their lives and just talking to people and finding out. Like the guy before was this guy, Yohan Grillo, who's a narcotics journalist. He's a narco journalist in Mexico.

I mean, I couldn't wait to talk to that guy. Oh, yeah. I mean, just what a life. I mean, he's been living in Mexico for 18 years. He's from England. And he's still alive. Still alive. I mean, that's something right there.

Yeah, and he was telling me about friends that have been killed, and he's been in some sticky situations a few times. And I'm just fascinated by people and what they like to do you know i'm fascinated by athletes i'm fascinated by physicists i uh i've just always been very very curious and um i've always recognized that everyone thinks about things differently and that i could take a little bit of something from everybody whether it's from a book or it's from have a conversation with someone i can gain a little bit of of a little bit of something from everybody whether it's from a book or it's from have a conversation with someone i can gain a little bit of of a little bit of experience a little bit of knowledge a little bit of insight yeah you're naturally very curious because i listen to you interviews and

you're naturally very curious you don't struggle for the next question because you really want to know something that makes it much easier it was very lucky that i found this yeah it's very just stumbled into doing this kind of shit it wasn't this way in the beginning in the big beginning it was just horse shitting with friends and and slowly but surely as the pop the podcast became popular i was like i wonder if that guy would talk to me and then i would get people on and then it became more of these long-form interesting conversations. Yeah. Yeah.

And if you're curious about human functioning at all, human nature at all, there's an endless menu of things you can talk about. I don't care who it is. You could pull somebody out of a car on the street, and if you're curious, you can talk to them, because everybody has a different take in life. Everybody has a different walk. Yeah, absolutely. And what you're talking about, you're interviewing all these athletes. I think people tend to write off athletic pursuits as being entirely physical,

and they're not. I mean, I think this is an easy way for people to look at it that don't engage or that have never really thought about playing anything at a very high level that it requires some intense thinking it might not require mathematics or a large vocabulary but understanding what's required understanding when and how to execute understanding how to keep your shit together under pressure those are all intensely intellectual aspects of any really high-end athletic pursuit. And there's a different breed of cat that wants the ball at the buzzer.

Yes. And it's not just a showboat. There's a different breed of cat that wants that ball at that point. And it's not always who you think, but it takes a special kind of person that wants that pressure. Yeah. That knows they can handle it better than anybody else. Yeah. But it takes a special kind of person that wants that pressure. Yeah, that knows they can handle it better than anybody else. Yeah.

You know, and it's a lot of times it's people that are entirely confident that they've done the work. You know, there's a haunting thing that happens with athletes where you're not sure if you did enough. And in fighters, it's a very dangerous inclination because it leads you to overtrain. And you have to be very careful about that because with a fighter you only can learn so much during your training camp like say once you get into training camp you got eight weeks depending on who you are some guys like to do a little longer but the average is maybe eight twelve weeks is a long camp you already have to know how to fight by the time you get to camp so what you're really doing is just kind of working on specific movements where you're dealing with one kind of fighter

and then getting your body in shape, getting your body conditioned, getting your mind ready, preparing everything, cutting your body weight down so you can weigh in and have a good amount of just enough vitality have enough vitality can't drain yourself so this is complicated dance that goes on and that haunting thing of did I do enough can cause fighters to screw themselves over by overtraining yeah so you have to have enough confidence to know that you've done enough as well as enough you have to know you've done enough but know you haven't done

too much this is really strange dance you know and this uh this this weekend is a giant ufc big ufc two big title fights between four of the very best fighters in the world and um i mean that is one of the most interesting aspects of the fight game to me is one watching these guys stare each other down at the weigh-in where they get a look at each other and they know 24 hours from now they're going to war and just see like is there a just a smell of doubt is there anything is there anything in there you know and just knowing that this is probably one of the most difficult things in all of athletics and that these guys are going to uh they're they're

going to apply their trade and one of the most complicated things it's a battle of physical mental of of mindset of will of conditioning and discipline and then it's also there's a lot of random shit that happens do you think a fight can change at a weigh-in when people are looking at each other yes you think it yeah it can change it can shift right then it can't change forever but like you could look at john jones sideways upside down you could stick your it ain't gonna affect shit there's some guys that are just locked down and bulletproof john jones is bulletproof there's certain guys that are just bulletproof they just look at you and like they know what to do there's a reason why he's undefeated you know he's just he knows how to do it but then there's other guys that like that maybe they're like fucking

maybe it's 80 20 maybe and then the the stare down you look at the guy and you look at him like god damn it i'm fighting yo el romero how the fuck did happen? And then you see him drop down to 75, maybe 73% confidence, 72, 70, shit. They look at his traps. He's got a neck that starts at the top of his head and you're like, ah, fuck. There's certain guys, they're intimidating at weigh-ins too.

It can change a little bit, but not for everybody. There's certain guys that just, it doesn't matter, you can't get in there. There's certain champions, like real champions, but not for everybody. There's certain guys that just, it doesn't matter. You can't get in there. There's certain champions, like real champions, like Mighty Mouse Johnson. There's a bunch of guys like that that are just champions. You look at them, it doesn't matter.

They've done what they're doing. They've done the work. They're the best in the business. You can mean mug them and get aggressive. They might smile at you. They might, this is cute. You're trying to make me nervous. Hilarious.

See you tomorrow. Yeah. So is that because they know who they are and it doesn't matter who this is? Or is it that they just don't believe in this guy? It's they know who they are, I think. And they have reached a level of confidence. When you get to a certain level of success like you know john jones has one loss in his record it's by disqualification

a fight that he was destroying the guy and he was hitting the guy with it's a really dumb rule but when you throw elbows you're not allowed to throw a 12 to 6 elbow meaning coming straight down the only reason that exists is because when mixed martial arts was first being sanctioned by athletic commissions, the people that were in the athletic commission had some nervous fears. They had seen those late-night TV shows where karate guys are breaking bricks with their elbow, driving straight down. They thought they could kill somebody if they did that. So let's not have – we'll eliminate that strike. It's a dumb move.

And Jon Jones hit this guy with a couple 12 to 6 elbows and he was disqualified in a fight he was just just destroying the guy so for a guy like that who has this staggering resume of achievement he's widely considered to be the greatest light heavyweight champion of all time if not he's definitely in the running of the greatest fighter ever of all time for a guy like that he's not he's he's confident to the point of you know he's he's he's not trying to just beat this guy although he's going to beat this guy he's trying to go down in history as one of the greatest of all time or the greatest of all time so for a guy like that it doesn't matter what you do he He's a Michael Jordan type character. You know, there's a few of those guys out there.

There's these LeBron Jameses, these Larry Birds. They exist in all sports. They have this mindset, a champion mindset. Does he fight angry or does he fight businesslike? Businesslike. He's very businesslike. Yeah, he's very businesslike. He just knows what he's doing the best guys

fight businesslike there's some guys that fight with emotion and they're still really good but like Fedor Emelianenko is this famous Russian guy he would

he would have a look on his face like he was cashing a check and he was smashing a guy's orbit in I mean he was just you know

he was the highest level of that like that robotic businesslike approach to fighting. And then after he knocked you unconscious, he'd help you get back up. It was over. Once he shut it off, it was over.

There was no sign. He thought emotions were weak, like showing emotions in a fight, showing anger. All that was weak. Yeah. I think there's a huge psychological component to it. I mean, I agree completely. Giant. Gigantic.

I think if you go in with doubt, man, I just think that's terrible. It's terrible. Yeah. I think if you're – because now you're fighting yourself and them too. You remember the Mike Tyson fights when he was in his prime? Oh, yeah. Remember the look in those guys' faces? Oh, yeah.

They're staring across the ring at him like, oh jesus what did i sign up for yeah they're thinking i don't know what the money was here but it wasn't worth it this seemed like a good idea at the time it was a life-changing life-defining moment when when you were staring across the ring at iron mike and it was like 1989 and he was on top of the world yeah and and he and you knew he's going to come over there and and hit you like you had never been hit before yeah guns blazing yeah and he did yeah and he did yeah meanwhile you meet him now he's like the nicest guy on the planet earth yeah couldn't be a sweeter guy yeah i talked to him today he's got a daughter that's apparently a pretty good tennis player really and he's really behind her now and focused on that.

That was him back then. That was when he came out of jail and he was fighting Peter McNeely. He was just letting him know, it's coming, baby. Terrifying man. But you know, he was never as formidable after jail as he was before he went in. Yeah. Well, there's a ton of factors. His training was never the same.

You know, he lost that connection with Customato. You know, he had Customato training him when he was at his very best. And then Kevin Rooney, who worked with Customato, and Mike trained him after that. And then they eventually parted ways. And that was before the Buster Douglas fight. Remember, he had guys in his corner that didn't even have an end swell. I mean, his eye was swelling up, and they didn't even have ice to put on it. Yeah.

Yeah, there was a lot of factors. But also, you know, when I talked to Mike on the podcast, one of the things was, and this was just him sort of coming to grips with the fact that he never really had a childhood. His childhood was from the time he was 12 years old. Custom model took him in, was hypnotizing him and teaching him how to fight. Teaching him how to fight and then hypnotizing him to be a machine. He was literally saying to him, you don't exist.

The task exists. The job at hand exists. And you're going to go out there and you're going to get the job done. And he was telling this to a 13-year-old that never experienced love. He just was abandoned and homeless, and this is the only way he ever got any sort of positive reinforcement in his life is by destroying people. Yeah.

Yeah, and that's sad. But, you know, now he seems to really be connected to his daughter. I mean, you see and hear a softness in his voice. He really is connected to her. He learned. You know, I mean, it's easy to try to look at someone like who they were, you know, 20 years ago. It's easy to do that. It's easy to just say, oh, he's that guy.

But people evolve and they grow, and he's a great example of that. He's a very different person. You know, he doesn't even work out Because he's worried about his ego Like he doesn't hit the bag Or do anything like that He's worried about his ego And occasionally get on a treadmill And work out a little bit on a treadmill

Just to get a little exercise in But he's worried about feeding his ego Worried about like Looking at himself in the mirror And bringing that old monster back again Really? Yeah Yeah that's what he said

Huh Yeah I think he'd be afraid Of not being able to get back To the level he was Bringing that old monster back again. Really? Yeah. Yeah, that's what he said. Oh. Yeah. I think he'd be afraid of not being able to get back to the level he was. I don't think he's afraid of that. I don't think he wants to be that guy. Yeah. He says he doesn't like that guy.

Yeah. Which is crazy because that guy is who made him rich and famous and everybody loves him because he was that guy. But who he is now is a completely different person just a sweetheart a real sweetheart yeah he seems like it i mean you'd never think to talk to him if you didn't know his history you'd never guess that was that guy yeah no you never would yeah i think uh the psychological aspect of fighting is one of the more intriguing parts of it to me and you know for me it's like probably one of the reasons why i got interested in psyche in the first place and and the way people think about

things and and weakness like real weakness like weakness weakness can get exposed in a variety of different ways but in competition is when you really see it yeah i'm one of the i have this theory you know and you we see it in sports and i saw it when i talked to emmett he's been a friend of mine for a long time and i was talking to him about his psychology as he goes into a football game and he says he plays a movie in his mind of the entire game before he plays it because you know in football game, you're going to have 11 or 12 possessions during the game. Throughout the football game, you're going to get that ball 11 or 12 times, and he would say, and I'm going to carry that ball three or four times per possession. And he knows which plays he's going to run.

He would run them through his head. He would see it. He would know who was going to be there to tackle him. He would run everything through his head. And he's one of those guys that wants the ball when the clock's running in. But I have this theory that situations do not make heroes. Situations expose heroes. And I saw that in Katrina, the hurricane that so devastated that one neighborhood.

What ward was it? Was it the 9th Ward? I forget which ward it was that got so wiped out when Katrina hit New Orleans. There was a guy down there that had been really quiet. Nobody had ever heard anything out of him. He was an older guy, lived in a house, stayed to himself. And that night when the water was at rooftop level, I mean, he swam rooftop to rooftop and saved six, seven, eight people, got them out of there.

And he didn't make it out, but he got seven or eight people out of there. And you go back and you check his history, and he was a military hero. He just sat quietly in his home. And when the situation came about, it revealed who he was. And I think that's what happens. I think if you've got a hero, they just sit there, sit there, sit there until a situation reveals who they are. I don't think it makes them a hero. I think it reveals that they're heroes. And I think that's what happens to people. They are who they are until they get, and then the opportunity comes along and they're going to show you who that is. They may show you they're a coward, or they may

show you that they've got the focus to hang, or they may show you that they're a hero, but life circumstances are going to come along and they're going to show you who somebody is. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think what's also interesting is when someone does get revealed to be a coward, they can become a hero, but it's very hard. It's very hard to get past the memory of you being a coward. Well, and I'll tell you why I think that's true, if you want to know. Please. I mean, maybe you don't. Going off on a tangent.

Come on. No, I think we learn about ourselves, and everybody talks about self-esteem and self-worth, but nobody ever talks about what it really is or how we get it. And I think about it in terms of self-attribution, because you know how you form opinions of other people. Like, if you look at this guy, and maybe you work with this guy and so you watch him across a couple of years and maybe this guy shows up to work every day and he's there 15 minutes early and he unlocks the place, gets everything ready, puts the coffee on, has his desk ready, he's all buttoned up and man, when the bell rings, he's ready to go. And you just

learn that this guy's buttoned up, ready to go, dependable, never misses. He's always there. So you attribute certain traits and characteristics to him based on your observations of him and your experience of him. Based on that, you assign certain traits and characteristics to him. But I say that's exactly the same way we form our own self-image and our own level of self-worth. We watch ourselves go through life, and we watch how we handle certain circumstances and situations. And that's why I say overindulgence is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse

known to parenting. It's not the worst. It's just insidious. known to parenting. It's not the worst, it's just insidious. Because if you overindulge your children and do everything for them, you never let them observe themselves, master their environment. You never let them step back and say, wow, I did that. I built this. I overcame that. I handled this. I did that. And so that's the same way we make our own self-image and level of self-worth. We watch ourselves overcome the third grade. We watch ourselves stand up to a bully. We watch ourselves handle a test with information that intimidated us. Or we watch ourselves make it onto the Little League

baseball team and actually get a hit when we needed to, or we watch ourselves get onto the debate team and actually argue something successfully, whether it's academic or athletic or musical. We watch ourselves do it, and so we go back and say hey i did that i attribute to myself the ability i can hang i can do this i can rise to the occasion or we watch ourselves fold like a pup tent in a windstorm and say you know i can't hang i don't have it and we make those attributions to ourselves and so we shrink from the challenge for the rest of our lives until, like you said, it's hard to overcome that. And something pushes you up until you finally observe yourself overcome something. And I think that's how we form our level of self-esteem and our identity about who we are. And I don't think most people think about that.

Look back and say, okay, how did I get to be Joe Rogan as I sit in that chair? You have a self-image. You have a level of confidence, ego strength, a level of self-worth. That's attributable to things you've watched yourself do or not do, achieve, not achieve, overcome, or whatever, throughout your life. And I think to know yourself, you have to know what those things are. I think you're 100% right. And I think for children, participating in things that are going to test you is so critical.

Giving them this opportunity to realize that there's a line between success and failure, and that you could push through that line. You could become successful at something And Watching kids, that's why I think sports are so Important for children, I think And that's one of the more insidious things About having these participation trophies

For kids, where nobody wins the game Yay, everybody plays But nobody wins, we don't keep score Why the fuck are you playing? I mean, that just goes down as an environmental non-event. Yeah. I mean, that contributes nothing to your definition. It's just something to do.

It's also psychologically, it's coddling. It's very damaging for your potential education that you would get from that situation. The bad feeling that you get when someone scores on you is motivation for you to be better at defense. Yeah. And I think we cheat kids when we do that. And, of course, you've got to play everybody. I get that. Not everybody is meant to be an athlete.

So, okay, look, go do something else. Be good at what you're good at. And if you really want to do it Well you've got a long road It's a greased hill Start running Everything's not for everybody So find what you're good at And watch yourself achieve in that lane

You know that's like I can't carry a tune in a bucket I can't even I can play no instrument I can't sing I can play a bucket. I can play no instrument. I can't sing. I can play a radio that's got a big on-off knob. That's it. And so I don't try.

I mean, I'm just not good at that. So I go in the lanes that I can do stuff and observe myself in that. But I think you cheat kids if you don't let them observe themselves, face adversity, and overcome it. Absolutely. And it's also an interesting lesson to learn that life isn't fair i mean if you're a kid and you're playing basketball with a 15 year old lebron james and you're my height you go huh yeah yeah this ain't gonna work out at all yeah you're looking at a towel boy here this is not fucking happening yeah and you have to be able to understand that and appreciate that and then Work out at all Yeah You're looking at a towel boy here This is not fucking happening Yeah

And you have to be able To understand that And appreciate that And then conversely If you're Very physically frail You know Maybe wrestling's

Not for you either You know Maybe you We need to do something About your body Before you engage In any sort of A combat sport

You know They did an experiment Back in I think it was the 60s They did something called teaching machines. Have you ever seen that? It was a short period of time, but they took students into class where they put the steps of learning the information so close together that there was never a failure experience.

It would say, like, the War of 1812 happened in 1812. would say, like, the War of 1812 happened in 1812. Then the next thing would say, the War of 1812 happened in blank. You fill in 1812. I mean, come on. Potted plant could get that. So they would put it together, and they would teach the information, and they would teach it to criteria where you mastered the information,

you had it 100%. And they said, wow, this is great. Everybody learned it. So everybody made 100. Everybody got the information. They truly did learn it. There was no question about it. They learned the information. And so they did great. And then they took them out of that program and put them back in the regular classroom. And the first time they came to questions they didn't know the answer to the first time they didn't get a hundred they came apart like a cheap suit they panicked they didn't know how to handle adversity they didn't know how to handle it when they didn't have the right answers they didn't learn how to not be perfect and so they scrapped the whole program because they said,

you can't do this because that's not the way life is. And if, I mean, you're not teaching them how the real world works. You might as well teach them to go on red and stop on green and then give them the keys and put them out in life because that's not the way it works. And those kids were absolutely screwed up when they got into a truly competitive environment it can't be success only yeah it doesn't make any sense it's not healthy it's not good for you you don't learn from it i mean the whole idea about school is you're supposed to be setting kids up for the future you're supposed to be teaching them not just information but teaching them how to learn and how to improve.

Darrell Bock Yeah, and that worries me. I read that story not long ago when these students, I think it was at UCLA in law school, complained and got a professor either disciplined or fired because he required them to take a counter-argument over something controversial like Ferguson. He said, I know that you're all on this point of view. Now I want you to prepare an argument for the other side. And they all said, oh, that's upsetting to us. We just can't do it. And they went to the administration and complained. Wow, that's upsetting to us. We just can't do it. And they went to the administration and complained.

Wow, that's crazy because you may have to, as a lawyer, you may have to represent someone who's done something you don't agree with if that's what you want to do for a living, right? I mean, are you kidding me? They were like, needed therapy. I'm like, what the hell has happened here oh my god that is so crazy yeah that's nuts that's crazy you know um yeah well there's a there's a movement going on in this country right now the social justice movement and uh it leans in that direction, that people don't want to look

at things for how they are. They want to look at things for how they want them to be. Yeah, I just don't understand. You cannot legislate that everything is going to be equal for everybody, because everybody's not equal. I'm sorry, they're not equal. They may be equal in terms of their value as a human being, but they're not equal in math skills. They're not equal in how fast they run. They're not equal in creativity. They're not equal. Everybody has their own value, but that doesn't mean their marketable skills in an open

society, in an open society in an open market are going to be the same no it's ridiculous i used to have i had a joke on one of my specials two specials ago about uh there was a story about a woman who was guarding the white house she was the lone guard at one of the doors of the white house and some crazy man broke in and uh knocked her to the ground and just ran through the White House. And he was running around inside the White House for like three minutes before they finally, some off-duty Secret Service agent, tackled this guy. They saw it like, what the fuck is going on? This guy's running through the White House. Tackle this guy.

And the joke was that people think that a woman can do everything a man can do. I go, a woman can do everything a man can do i go a woman could do everything a man could do is that true and some woman he was in the crowd of the comedy store was like yes i go well that doesn't make any fucking sense here's why it doesn't make any sense because a man can't do everything a man can do i go look i've met shaquille o'neal and his dick is where my face is and if the white house is experiencing a shack, I'm the wrong person to save the world. Because he's just going to run right over me. But if my wife and kid were guarding the White House, guess what?

I'm getting in. I love my family. But if it's between me and – there's no way they're going to be able to stop me. I love them to death. But I'm a man and they're women. And if there's a woman guarding the White House, I don't care who she is. I'll fuck her up. It's not going to be able to stop me i love them to death but i'm a man and they're women and if there's a woman guarding the white house i don't care who she is i'll fuck her up it's not going to happen this is crazy but this someone had this idea that they would put a woman in charge of a very physical job you should have a giant man with a violent temper and he should be armed, okay? Because this is the guy that's keeping bad people from the fucking president.

Yeah. I just – I don't understand. It just seems like you got to find your own lane. I mean, you don't want to put me in the NBA. Well, yeah, physical things in particular. And then there's also mental things. Look, I suck at math. Okay, if everyone has a chance to work at CERN Everyone has a chance to work at the Large Hadron Collider

Including people that have no idea about physics We're going to have a real time making these equations work That's what I mean about finding your own lane Like you, I can't add 2 and 2 and get 5 every time I'm just not good at math But I'm good with words I can talk, I can read fast, I can't add two and two and get five every time. I'm just not good at math. But I'm good with words. I can talk. I can read fast.

I can comprehend well. But I am not good with math. So I got myself into a lane where I talk for a living. I read. I talk. It's qualitative, not quantitative. I can accept that I'm not suited for that. I don't feel bad about myself because of that.

Well, once you do something and you're good at it, you can accept not being good at other things. It's much easier. If you find a thing that you're good at, whether it's gymnastics or singing or painting, whatever the fuck it is, if you can find a thing that you're good at, it'll give you a feeling of self-worth and you won't need to be good at everything. You can accept and you can enjoy other people being good at things as well. Yeah. You know, I said earlier, my dad was an alcoholic, and I would compare myself to that kid across because I had a damaged personal truth.

But I found a currency because at that time in my life, I was a pretty decent athlete for this small school I was going to. So that was my currency. Yeah. pretty decent athlete for this small school I was going to. So that was my currency. So now it didn't matter what was happening at home because I got strokes for being able to jump high and run fast at school. So that became my currency. So now when I compared myself to him, okay, maybe my home life wasn't as good as his, but I could run faster and jump higher so yeah that became my currency so now i okay that leveled the playing field for me yeah and you always like you said find what you're good at at a given time and do what you're good at yeah find something you love find something you're

passionate about and that you could also excel at and if you can work it out where it's your vocation and your avocation you love doing it and you get paid for it then you're just double blessed i mean you got it right because you enjoy doing this and you get paid for it, then you're just double blessed. I mean, you got it, right? Because you enjoy doing this and it works out and that's good. Darrell Bock Yeah, you catch lucky breaks. But boy, that's lucky. Darrell Bock Yeah, it is. And I just think if you're in your life and you don't have something that you're passionate

about, I mean, and I don't mean that in a cliche way. If there's not something where you wake up every day and there's nothing in your life that you're excited to do, man, you need to go back to the drawing board. Yeah. If all you're doing is just grinding it out, you get up every day, go to a job you don't like, do tasks you don't care to do, and come home to a home you don't want to come home to and wait to get up and do it again the next day, you're burning daylight. What the hell existence is that? I don't understand that. Find something. I don't care if it's gardening or music or art or athletics or something. Find something you're excited to do.

Yeah, expose yourself to different things with that very purpose of finding something that you love. Because there's something out there. There's something out there, I guarantee you. Something, yeah. There's something healthy. It's not illegal. It's not going to be high risk there's something you can do that's not going to kill you or put you in jail that you can be excited about yeah and i think it's uh one of the most important things to do

when you're a parent is to try to expose your kid to as many different things as possible to find those things for them yeah and i and I got two boys, as you know, and you know one of them really well, and I did that growing up because my dad never took me hunting a single day in his life. He never took me fishing a single day in his life. He never took me camping a single day in his life.

He never took me to the lake. He never took me skiing, boating, anything. So I took them to all of those things i didn't know i had no clue what i was doing but i took them turkey hunting duck hunting deer hunting skiing snow skiing camping i did it all and to see what they liked let them pick. And boy, when you don't know what you're doing as a dad, that's a bitch. I mean, just little things like you go camping and you don't realize that setting your tent up on the side of a hill, even if it's like eight or ten degrees, is a bad idea.

You can't sleep. You've got to get on flat ground. I mean, it looked flat to me, but I spent the night trying not to roll down a damn hill. It didn't look like it to get on flat ground i mean it looked flat to me but i spent the night trying not to roll down a damn hill it didn't look like it was on a slant but it was but you figure these things out as you go along but i was glad i gave them those experiences so they could choose and they did and they and some of it they like some of it they didn't well i don't know both your kids but i love j Jay. Yeah. Yeah, Jay loves you. He really enjoys spending time with you guys and traveling with you guys. Yeah, we've had a bunch of great trips.

Yeah. He's an awesome guy. He really is. So much fun. Yeah, he knows how to have a good time, and he says the same thing about you. He says, you know how to have a good time. Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, man, tell people how to get a hold of your podcast.

Where can they get it? Well, it's fill in the blanks, tell people how they get a hold of your podcast. Where can they get it? Well, it's Phil in the Blanks, and that's P-H-I-L in the Blanks. And I guess you get it everywhere podcasts are gotten, right? Yep, iTunes, all that jazz. iTunes, Apple, Stitcher, all the different places that you get it. There it is right there. Look at you, you handsome bastard. Yeah, look at that.

I mean, how about that? Clean up nice. I do clean up pretty good, don't I? See, the good thing about being bald Is you look the same all the time, right? Yes, that's true Yeah, and you save money on shampoo You save money on shampoo

And I've been bald since I was like 12, so Really? My hair fell out really early Wow I remember playing college football I'd take my helmet off And it looked like I had an animal in there. I'm like, what the hell is going on here?

My teammates would say, what the hell is in your helmet? It's my hair. Shut up. I don't know why, but it just fell out. I guess it got knocked out. Well, the mustache works, too. Yeah, well. A lot of guys can't rock a mustache.

I'd look a little creepy with one. Yeah, well, I try to keep it where it doesn't look like total porn. That's tough, though. How do you do that? You've got to embrace your weaknesses. I remember when I wrote my first book on Oprah, she said, you won't have any trouble finding it. It's got his big old bald head right there on the front of it. So I figured, hell, make it a trademark, right?

Oprah went hard on you. Yeah, she did from the beginning. I got no complaints. Yeah, oh, so I figured, hell, make it a trademark, right? Oprah went hard on you. Yeah, she did from the beginning. I got no complaints. Yeah, oh, I hear you. She treated me pretty right. Yeah, it worked out great. Hey, thanks for having me on. My pleasure.

You've got to come do mine. Absolutely, 100%. Thank you. Thanks, man. Dr. Phil, ladies and gentlemen. All right.