Hi everyone. I'm brene Brown and this is unlocking US.
All right, y'all. We have a podcasters Roundtable today. This is just the most
Fun, honest, vulnerable, ping-pong, any conversation that I've had in a long time, I am talking to my friends and fellow podcasters Tim Ferriss and Dax Shepard and we're talking about everything from how we prepare for podcasts parenting. We actually do talk about ping pong. We also talked about addiction, we talk about trauma.
And we dig into the long and very winding road to healing and wholeness.
It is a fun conversation. It is a hard conversation, it's messy.
and I guess it's everything you'd expect from three people who consider curiosity
about ourselves and the world in each other a way of life. And I want to let you know, too that this is an adult conversation in terms of language and more. Important. To note, we talk very openly about addiction and we talk very openly about childhood sexual trauma. And so, I want you to know that going in
It is a long conversation. It is what we call a deep dive. We are going to be off the grid for the holidays, will be back unlocking US and dare to lead will be back the week of January 11th. So I wanted to leave you with a long conversation that you can revisit and listen to, In Pieces. It was an important conversation to me, I learned
About myself. I learned about Tim and Dax and I learned a lot about
How much we all share in common especially when we're in struggle. Thanks for being here y'all.
Hi everyone. In case you haven't heard every episode of unlocking US is now available only on Spotify enjoy this episode but to find the entire catalog, please go download the Spotify app for free and start listening today.
Okay, before we jump into the conversation with Tim and Dax, let me tell you a little bit about them. Tim Ferriss has been listed as one of fast company's most innovative business people. And one of Fortunes 40 under 40, he is an early stage technology investor and adviser. He was in very early with companies like uber Facebook Shopify, Duolingo Ali Baba, he's the author of five. Number one, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, bestsellers, including the 4-Hour workweek and one of my favorites tools.
Titans the tactics routines and habits of a lot of different people in one book. It's really fascinating. The Tim Ferriss Show podcast is the first business interview podcast to exceed a hundred million downloads and it is now exceeded 500 million downloads. His podcast is just something. I listen to all the time. I cannot encourage you enough to take a listen. Our other guest is Dax Shepard and he is the co-host of armchair expert.
A podcast where he talks to some of the most iconic creative personalities around the world. Armchair expert has been nominated for multiple Awards and is one of the most downloaded and listen to podcast in the world Dax is also starred in many films and television shows over the past. Two decades, including the acclaimed network television drama Parenthood Dax played Crosby, Braverman, for Seven Seasons. He's also a Netflix, The Ranch the ABC, sitcom bless this mass, and he also stars in the future.
Films Without a Paddle idiocracy employee of the month. Baby. Mama, the judge. This Is Where I Leave. You Dax is also written directed and starred, in three films, chips, hit-and-run and brothers, Justice Dax, who is a lifelong Gearhead? Will next be seen as one of the hosts of Top Gear America, which will stream on discoveries, New Motor Trend Subscription Service in 2021. My husband's going to be like what? O Trends subscription service. This is
Eddie happening.
all right, settle in
Get a cup of tea.
Stretch for your long walk.
Buckle in for your long drive a conversation with Tim Ferriss and Dak Shepherd. Alright I'm here with Tim Ferriss and Dax Shepard. It's been nothing but technology Shenanigans since we got started welcome
guys I'm gonna be here. Thank
you. I was telling him earlier I'm kind of nervous. Like y'all are podcasting goals.
You're nervous. I find that a little hard
to believe. Now I'm nervous. Jogger, get nervous.
I get nervous. I was also saying.
I feel like that's like Mike Tyson in his prime at like 21 after 20 straight first-round Knockouts being nervous getting into the ring. But also, knowing with great confidence, that he is going to conquer all you've been highly dominant since emerging on the scene, not terribly surprising. But yes, I still get nervous this all sounds. So narcissistic but my nerves are about whether or not I will fuck up for my own personal goal which is like I give this example,
Before on Tim like I want Bill Gates and think I'm a genius. I'm so tempted to try to get him to think I'm smart that I know I'll high-probability. I'll ruin the interview by trying to get my own selfish desires. Matt I just going to going like shut the fuck up. Don't try to impress him, just don't do it. So I'm not even really thinking about him or the interview. It's just like, I'm trying to police my own
defects. Yeah. I think I do the same thing and I think there are times sometimes when I'm talking to people and I get so wrapped up in, am I doing it?
Now that I lose a thread of conversation, have you ever had that happen Dax?
This is what I've evaluated quickly is that I am more of a steamroller. So what I'm trying to do to counteract that already is I'm like really want Tim to go first every time to make sure I don't steamroll.
Okay I like the systems him. Do you ever get so nervous that you lose track of where you are? I
don't often lose track of where I am but I also cheat and very often prefer to do interviews without video because I have
Notes in front of me, I do use notes and I take notes so I very rarely lose track of where I am. I organized my entire workspace with a certain flow, it's probably much more calcified than a lot of approaches, but I find it to be extraordinarily helpful. So I don't lose track necessarily. What I will do, though is not lose track of someone else, but at times, if it's a follow-up question, I will lose track of the intent of the question while I'm halfway through wording it so that does.
Generally happen and thank God for post-production. There are ways to fix such
things. It's true Dax,
I think mine very greatly on how cute my brain. Is that day because what I like to do is like get 25 balls in the air for better or worse. I don't mind deviating off something and then I'm trying to remember like, oh, bring it back to that thing, you asked 19 minutes ago and on good days, I can do that and on bad days, I go home going. Oh right. I was supposed to bring back this really poignant part of what
They said and I
didn't, I listen to both your podcast, very religiously and one of the things I really love is preparedness. I always feel like you're respectful of my time because you're prepared and I don't think preparedness looks a certain way, it doesn't look linear. You know, you can do the chaos in the balls and come back to the threads. You can go from notes but I really feel respected as a listener when I listen to y'all because you're prepared. What does preparedness mean to y'all?
Preparedness for me, depends a lot on the guests so there are different types of preparation. If it's a guest who has been interviewed a million times and is going to be likely tired of discussing certain topics and I don't want them to go on autopilot and just vacate the premises really early on and that could be anyone. I mean it could be a celebrity type. Could be a comedian like Jerry Seinfeld or someone like that. Who have been in the game with great endurance for
Long time. Then the preparation looks like finding thought-provoking questions. They will enjoy answering. Have likely good answers to that. They have not been asked frequently before. Preparedness also means to me, not just the research and the documents and so on, I mean, I do prepare a lot of that ahead of time but it means talking to the guests in my case, at least for a handful of minutes beforehand to really hone in, ask them what a home.
Would look like which very few interviewers ask, like, why are you doing this? What would make this a good use of time for you? We can actually hone it in ways that will be maximally helpful to ensure that they are comfortable and loosened up a bit. Like they've done some Preamble calisthenics before we get into the meat and potatoes of the interview. So those are a few of the things that I think about
I love the looking for things that haven't been talked about yet. One of the things I've noticed that I never had any intention of interviewing like famous people are celebrities
But I had a hard learning early on to get caught in the middle of a junket. Yeah, mmm with somebody and man, that's a different beast. That's not fun for me. I don't like
that or them.
Yeah.
Nobody's happy in. Those scenarios. Is that true? Yeah. Oh my god, when you're doing a junket, like the first met you I was ever in. Without a Paddle, we were on a 13 City, 15 day trip, where every single day. We had upwards of 20 interviews, radio stations, local news in
The lobby of the hotel with print and, you know, by day nine of that you are giving the exact same answer out of just survival and you feel fraudulent. And you feel like you're coming, across is fraudulent. The interviewer is knowing they're getting recycled garbage, it's not really tenable for anyone and yet, that's how we do
it. But I think of junk at the only thing I can think of is Notting Hill, the Horse & Hound guy, like, when Julia Roberts at the table and she, and that's when I always think because I've never been on either side of one. But man, when I'm interviewing someone,
You can just almost hear them play like and so it was a huge moment for
me. Yeah, in generally here in La, it's at the Four Seasons on Burton Way, and so you're there at the hotel for two days, in a row, and you wake up and you start at 7 a.m. and you sit in a room and they bring in a new journalist. This isn't an exaggeration, every five minutes and they have a three and a half minute interview and you do that for 11 hours and often when I'm leaving, I'll say how many interviews did I just do and it's in the hundred and something.
Really an experience like no other.
It's crazy. Wow! How do you prepare?
I will say that rare for me is to ask advice. It's very hard thing for me to do, but I did, luckily, ask Chris Hardwick for advice, very early on. He was one of my first ten interviews and he said to me be careful about how much you research, because what ends up happening is you're setting this person up for all these stories you've already. Now, read about, and there's just a limit to your interest when you know what's coming.
So I took that to heart and yet I couldn't possibly do it without a net. So for me, the research is the net and I try to not drive them into something that I've already thought. I want them to tell me about because of the reasons Chris said on our best day I'm just dancing up there and occasionally I got to reach down and grab one of those things and move it along and, you know, that's on the best day. That's what I'm striving for.
Yeah, I found a rhythm where I try to prepare 5 to 7,
Questions like beets and then I use them when I need them but I don't use them when I don't need them, but it was interesting because when I was working with my agents, when we were starting the podcast, my agent recommended both of your podcast or listen to you as examples of preparedness. Combined with, I don't know comfort in flow. I do feel respected as a listener when the person hosting the conversation is prepared. So let me ask this question, just super curious, would you consider yours Tim and
View or a conversation.
If I had to pick one, I would say is an interview. I am creating something in service of my audience who has finite time and infinite choice. And while I want it to have a casual conversational tenor, and I set it up to feel, like you're sitting at dinner with us. I feel an obligation to respect you as the listener. By ensuring that you get what you came?
For. And in my case that is tactical practical tools advice habits, Etc. So, I feel like I have failed. If I do not succeed in unpacking some of that because that is the premise and the promise of the show. So, I would choose interview Minds conversation, for sure. And I think I got really defensive at the beginning where people would comment that it was that or that I talked about myself a lot which is egregious. I'm not defending how much I talk about myself. It's often repugnant
But it's definitely a conversation and I think it would have been a missed opportunity for me to go the other direction, because I'm in a super privileged position where I can have conversations with a lot of these people because their peers and you can hear an interview everywhere. So it just seems like it would have been silly for me to just act like I was strictly an interviewer, you know, I don't think I would have been good at it. It's really I think encouraging when you realize there's no one way to do this. It's like writing a book.
It's like, writing a song. You have Larry King who Bears, no resemblance to what inside the Actors Studio. It looked like in terms of preparation and there are interviewers who know the answer to every question going, and which is not me, that would be incredibly boring for me, so I don't do that. There are highly conversational shows and then there are mixtures of the to and everything in between. So I think that if you want to have a chance at any type of longevity,
A, which is sort of a prerequisite for long-term success. However, you define it. You need to find a style and approach that is sustainable for your personality and that you will be good at and enjoy on some level and it's tomato tomato. It's different for different people. Well, and when Tim and I had a conversation on his Show recently, I was repeatedly shocked with how different our approaches and his is awesome. His is so awesome and it's so wouldn't work for me. The fact that he had hired someone
On to transcribe his interviews. So that he could learn and better himself and that he actually studied Inside the Actors, do you like all these things work great for his assets at and then nearly the opposite for me? And yet I think both shows are great and then you have a completely third approach which is phenomenal, as well. But I, yeah, that's a great thing to point out. Tim, I think when you're starting something, you start looking to who you like and then you're subconsciously perhaps trying to do what they do. And it's
We not going to be the best thing for you,
it's so true. I ask the question just because I experienced them differently in terms of format and goal, but equally enjoyable and I learned the same amount from both. So I think it's who you are and how you bring connection. So I have questions so I sent Tim and Dax five questions. First of all, I knew one person would have to go first what I work with leaders around how to run meetings. I always say like worried about the bandwagon and the Halo
Influence. So that Halo is Whoever has the most influence, everyone changes their answers to that person and then the bandwagon is just human nature to gather around the common mean. So I was like, let me just put the kibosh on that shit right off the bat and I'll send the questions and get their answers. So
can I ask you bernanke's? I'm really interested in what you just said. Yeah, those obviously are roadblocks to creativity or productivity. So those are to be
avoided. Yeah. So let me give you an example. So halo effect is the person with the most influence if they share first will without
Out question shape and change the answers of the people who share their opinions behind that person. That's the halo effect. The bandwagon effect is even if people are all lateral in terms of power and influence, there is a tendency to gather around the group mean. So one of the things we do when we talk about time estimation for projects I'm worse at time estimation than I am at any other thing in my life. Yeah I mean it's
awful. Well I'd love to see a contest between you
My wife, to be
honest, I will win in shorter time than she will, but that time estimation what time, I'll tell you, when I was just married, we were painting this rent house that we had in Houston. And I told Steve that I would go get him something to eat and he was painting. And when I came back, I walked in, and he was like, on the floor and he had painted in the paint, like this mustard-colored. Ralph Lauren paint, you suck at time. It was like three hours later.
He was so hungry. This was one of my most
Recent request to my wife. I said I'm not trying to shame you but when you work you're always going to be home by dinner. It doesn't happen, which is fine. It's totally fine. I said you're very optimistic and I'd love for you to try as an experiment to be pessimistic. What is the worst possible time? You think you'll get home? And let's start from there. And then over-deliver, let's just see what that feels
like. And she said
she's open to it. We haven't really tried this was three days ago so we'll
see. Yeah, I just can't do it. And so what we do is we'll say, okay, Tim
We're going to launch this new project and we need to make sure the websites you know Bradley BlahBlah. How long does everyone think it's going to take? And then we write it on a Post-It and we flip it. It's part of scrum and agile process to do this. We flip it over at the same time and that way we avoid any Halo or bandwagon and mine will always say 90 days and the chief operating officers will say one point five
years, that's a great hat because I was thinking, oh gosh, you're going to have to single out who the Halo maker.
Is, which will make that person defensive, right? Yeah. Ok. Good. What a great easy way to handle that.
Turn and learn. That's what we call it the turn and learn. Yeah, it's really effective. And it also just surfaces massive problems right off the bat because people's expectations and understanding them. Things are so different. So I did this to Dax and Tim and so we're going to start with the first one. I imagine my answers to, so we'll share, okay, a bumper sticker, or short slogan, that's true. And
Potential is really misunderstood its ability to make the world a better place. What did you answer to him?
My answer was, don't believe everything you think.
That's so good. Yeah, that was a bumper sticker shared with me by a hospice. Care physician, BJ Miller, who's helped more than a thousand people to die? Is a triple amputee himself. He was electrocuted in college. He was a warning story. Actually, when I went to the same school for undergrad and the narratives that control us the stories, we tell ourselves shape, our reality. And so often we just take it as assumed that
What we're thinking is true, it's accurate. It's a reflection of reality so don't believe everything. You think, I think has some really profound implications for wellbeing. It has profound implications for performance. It has profound implications for everything since your entire experience of life is passed through this filter that we call the mind.
Yeah, it's huge because also, our brain creates stories to protect us.
That really exacerbate, our were shame and fear. And then when we believe those stories, you know, they ruin relationships, marriages, Partnerships employee relationships, mean, don't believe everything. You think my God, it's a good one. Dax you have one.
So I answered to your question, I'm drawing a blank here, hmm. Which is not actually a bumper sticker. I just literally couldn't think of one, but as Jim was talking, I just thought of one of my favorite things, which is an AA slow.
Which is what other people think of you is none of your business. That's one of my all-time favorites. I love it. I love it, I love it. I love it. It doesn't matter. It's none of your business. It's how you think about
yourself. But do you find it hard to live
by? I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with. People think about me, I'm never correct. It's never enough. It's someone just sent me this great Garrison, Keillor quote on praise, and it was saying like how to take praise and he said I go through for humility. But in truth, I want the praise.
Is to be them staring into my eyes. Like, I'm a sun god? Like, that's where my Eagle
ultimately, that's what I'm
Sergio. I can pretend, I want to hear good job. No, I want you to get on your knees and worship me. Like a son got in anything, short of that is not enough. So I just tried to skip the whole thing. I'm not successful at it. But certainly, I feel so much better. When I skip the whole Endeavor. I'm not going to be a sun, god, and that's really what I want.
It's true. I mean when I was doing the same research, what I found is no one really wants anyone to say. That's a good person.
Average bear competent. People want amazing, incredible worship. You know, it's true,
superlative, smart and Perla. Taxi is something
messed. Yes. Something missed the best of something. Yeah, - shit happens definitely because I have to say it to myself a lot, because I'm a blamer. And so, when something goes wrong, I like to know whose fault it is. Why up that? Even if it's my own fault, I'd rather it be my own fault. Like, if I get a flat tire, I'm like
Pockets, because I'm not working out because what people who work out are really mindful about their car maintenance and they get everything done at the right time and like, I just want something to be someone's fault because that's a controlling thing for me. So, just sometimes bad shit
happens. Can I ask you a follow-up question every day? Because this is a big theme in my family, my nuclear family, I grew up in and I want to know. Do you think that you came by it through nurture or nature? The blaming
piece? Yeah, for sure. That's nurture. Hmm.
From a long maternal line of
blamers. I remember reading that book, maybe the Rising Sun and in that book, they talked about the kind of Japanese business philosophy is, they're not even interested in blame or who did it, and I read that and thought that is so revolutionary. Can you actually address problems without singling out? The bastard who screwed
up? Are you blaming him?
No, I would say that that tendency exists but the larger the crisis, the less likely I am to do that. So the more intense and the higher, the stakes could be a car accident, could be some catastrophic economic event could be covid. The less likely, I am to look for that. It's with the daily paper, cuts, the nuisances, the mild inconveniences, I'm more likely to do it. So it's not like, I am wandering around like a bodhisattva, the
Salad bar, not pissed off at anyone at any time, that certainly happens. So, the blaming exists but I wouldn't say it's the strongest default unless we're talking about also self-blame, in which case I am Relentless and ruthless in self-talk. So I think if we want to invoke the name of Jocko willing, his book extreme ownership. I think that that type of extreme ownership can be productive and constructive or it can be also very masochistic.
Yeah.
Yeah and shaming.
Yeah the self-blame and self. Shame is more of a challenge for me. I would say. Yeah, the line between an inventory and a shame Fest is very thin,
right? And are you a blamer
taxed again? And I think through 16 years ago, going to meetings or whatever it is, I say this often I have to step over many bad ideas before I get to the one I act on. So yeah, I see a bowl of cereal dumped over on the carpet, when I walk in and my first thought is which one of these assholes did this. It could
Anyone in the house and then I think, well, you know, I'm going to have to clean it up regardless of who did it and maybe I'll say a general rule in the house is, let's try to eat in the kitchen. It doesn't have to be specific, you know, I got to work through all that. My first thought is who did this, let me get them and let me shame them a little bit, but I don't think I act on it
much. Yeah, I have to reverse engineer out of it. My cognition has to take over my affect, and the thing is that, I'd rather be at fault for something. Like, I'd rather be the cause of covid. Personally,
Then just shit happens because then I have a sense of control about making sure it doesn't happen again. Like my therapist told me one time that my motto should be let go and let burn a that the rudest thing
sober day. How does that square with your bumper sticker of shit happens?
Well that's why it's my favorite bumper sticker because I need to wear it on my forehead. Like I need to say sometimes bad. Shit happens, man, it's no one's
fault. Yeah, it's not the one you're practicing. It's the most is the one who inspired that, right? The
practicing one is like
Stop driving. Slow in the passing Lane asshole. That would be my practicing
one. Yeah, my bummer is a guru, being stopped, inconveniencing me. Yes.
What would your not your aspirational? Bumper sticker to him but your real bumper sticker be like on a grumpy day. Like don't give us a thoughtful meditative day like a shit day.
This is going to be a lazy response but I think dax's stop inconveniencing. Me is probably it. I'm just like, why is the entire
Higher world right now. Following a to-do list, the top of which is fuck up my day, like, what is going on? How did I miss this broadcast? And I don't know how other people come to this realization. I would not have come to it without the 12 steps, which is just simply that thinking it overestimates your importance in the world. That anyone in the world is even thinking about your conspiring against you. In like, to be able to just recognize it immediately as self-pity, which
As offensive as self-aggrandizement. I don't know where I to learn that. How do you spend like they're fucking with me, you know, I'm that important the universe has something you know they've singled me out because I'm so important
Spotlight Theory man. Is that what it's called in Psychology? Yeah, Spotlight Theory. It's like the same thing where you getting ready to pull yourself out of a pool and you kind of, you know, for women as you know, suck in your stomach and get your hair right and then you pull yourself out or guys met Flex a little
It and like no one's looking. I mean, unless you like are so weird about how you're doing it and you're self weirdness as attracting stairs, but no one's looking no one
cares. My sister-in-law had this awesome thing, she created. She worked at a clothing store and she would often be in the like minute 90 of bringing new options to someone in the dressing room and she'd be hearing things that people tell themselves, you know, I don't look good in blue or greens, not blah, blah, blah. And she would say from the other side of the door.
You remember what color shirt I'm wearing in almost all the time. No one has any clue what color shirt she's wearing and it's just a really great moment where you're like, oh yeah. No One's Gonna know what shirt I'm wearing either.
Yeah. No one's looking.
Yeah.
Okay. Something you do regularly a practicer a habit. That's hard as shit, but totally worth
it.
Definitely exercise exercise, I think, is the most important, Cornerstone to me, not feeling miserable and discontent. I've even set if I had to give up all the tools I have. I think that'd be the last one I'd give up. That seems to have the most effect on my mental
attitude. Did you have a second place or a close one? Or is that just a first by
far? Probably the program. For me, would be the next one, where I feel like if I didn't go to meetings and get accountable to other guys and listen to other people.
Stories. I think I'd be miserable as well, but I would prioritize, which is a little bit sacrilege to say, but I would prioritize exercise,
true or false exercise is a pillar of your sobriety
thousand percent. You know, I have this thing. I've said it before, but if I'm sponsoring a guy and he calls up, and he starts complaining about X Y & Z. I'll say, I am so, so happy to listen to this. I just want you to take a one-hour walk or go to the gym for an hour, and then call me back, and I'll listen to the whole thing.
And almost a hundred percent of the time that concern they had is gone down by 80%. I've just haven't had the experience where they did that and then they called me back in there still is crazy in their head about the
thing. I think that's true. That's neurobiology right? That's
physiology. Yeah, I also just want to Second what deck said in terms of if someone put a gun against my head and said, you got to choose one of all these tools in the toolkit for
Of mental, emotional stability, and resilience. I would also choose exercise. Mmm, easily. Not even a close second place.
Hmm. Okay. Tim God, did your socks the thing that you do regularly that's hard as shit but worth it. I don't want to believe it's worth it, but go ahead
spill. Yeah, the answer I gave was cold exposure so I have you would be something grueling? Yeah.
Yeah, so I have a cold Plunge at home. It's pretty easy to create. I won't give step-by-step because you can get yourself into trouble with electricity but you can turn a chest freezer with help from someone qualified into a cold plunge, pretty quickly. So you have water. If you leave it plugged in too long, it turns into a gigantic ice block which is not helpful. But at about, let's just call it 40 to 55 degrees depending on your pain tolerance. At least two to three minutes once or
Is a day. I do it in the mornings. My girlfriend, I will say is highly sensitive to cold. This was so unappealing to her impossible and she has now trained herself to enjoy it in the mornings. The reason being, I find it personally. Incredibly effective for anti-depression. It is such a mood stabilizer and mu Del humor and I guess those seem counterintuitive or paradoxal together cold exposure,
Old baths used to be prescribed at these various, Retreats for people suffering from depression, including some of the most famous artists folks would recognize painters and such would be prescribed, say two sessions of cold exposure per day and that's just been lost over time in favor of kind of pharmaceutical Intervention which has its place. But the cold exposure is a game-changer. It's really a game changer. If I look at Renee, we were chatting about Jim Collins before we start.
According a bit and how he scores his days, day-to-day kind of +1 +2 from an emotional standpoint, or like negative 1 negative 2. If I look at my plus twos and my plus ones, one of the most consistent ingredients is called exposure in the morning. So it'd be that type of cold exposure. Wow. Okay, what is your evolutionary explanation? So for me, the exercise makes a lot of sense. We were designed to do some Labour for five hours a day and then for that labor, we got some positive chemicals and so we don't do that.
Labor. We sit around and chairs and talk a microphone. So, that's the big deficit there. For me. That needs to be overcome. Do you have a evolutionary theory on why this would be so beneficial? Well, a lot of things happen when you get exposed to uncomfortable cold, most of them related to, if not, all of them related to survival, the body does not want to be immersed in 40-degree water, very long because you'll get hypothermic. So, there are all sorts of hormones that are released, I think, primarily to make you more acute in to motivate you to get.
Hell out of said water, and a side effect of that is improved mood. So for instance, people are familiar with ssris Selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors. Are also snris selective norepinephrine, reuptake Inhibitors. That are also used by psychiatrists in treating different mood disorders and you're not achieving the exact same outcome biochemically speaking, but when you're in cold water, you release a whole hell of a lot.
Lat and those hormones, these signaling molecules travel through your body and do all sorts of things. And one of the effects, which I think is probably just a side effect because I don't think Evolution optimizes for making us happy in any way whatsoever, it optimizes for us, having kids and keeping them alive for a short period and then are sort of darwinian uses zero, but my explanation would be that these survival responses have a side effect when used and controlled dosing of improvement. It's also great for toxic
Gail entity just to get that penis as small as humanly possible in the morning. Yeah. So that you don't walk out in the world with that bde. Yeah. If you want an any instead of an Audi then three minutes and 40 degree water. Well allow you to have that experience.
Yeah. The shrivel alone could be worth it just for the world. Yeah, again don't go rig your Yeti or any stuff like that. No. Get some information before
you do it, you can start with just finishing a normal shower with like 30 seconds of cold. You don't have to
start with the like decathlon of cold endurance. Yeah, you can start
small. That's what most of my friends are doing just complete cold showers. I was torn between working out, which is for me, walking or swimming. I'm a swimmer. I love walking and swimming because they hit all three of the exercise meditation and no one can find me
isolation, mental health,
it is a pillar of especially like that swimming is like no phone.
No nothing. And I think, my second tie was, I have a value here at work, Beauty and excellence in all things. So, like the font matters, the punctuation matters and it's a fine line between that and perfectionism which across too often sometimes. But I do think it's a hard thing. It's hard as shit really, but it's worth it to make sure that we try to do things in a beautiful and excellent way. Every time we do something I think that matters but for me working outs number one.
What do you think of when you're swimming? Are there any elements of it that you focus on?
Jean and or what does it feel like therapeutically to you when you're
swimming? I'm not a good meditation person. I should probably take a class or something but I'm like you know milk almond flour. Like I just go straight to the grocery list and shit that I've got to do my husband's a swimmer much more serious. Kind of Masters were more than I am. You know, he has a lap counter on his watch. I just literally do one, one one, one, one two, two, two, two, two, three three. I just can't laps and then I'll have an amazing idea for a book and I'll have to keep something that's waterproof.
I can we write the end of the lane. It's probably my
meditation. Amazing, that's a hundred percent. By the way, a hundred percent valid meditation. Really, why almost any experienced meditators definition? If we're looking at the sort of emotional cognitive outcomes and not the vehicle to get there? Absolutely, like you don't have to sit in a cave. In full Lotus with your knees. Aching thinking about oat milk, you know, staring at the back of your eyelids. I think swimming is outstanding meditation. Yeah.
So you've checked the
Box. Yeah, and that very serious meditator. I may have to rethink
this is an interesting one for me Dax most people, really underestimate what
I think most people take for granted that they're able to be honest with themselves and in my experience it's way harder than you think it is. To be honest with yourself, I mean really hard because you're getting all this input and things feel very correlated, you zoom, it's causality, whatever it is, it's not easy to unravel all the different things that result in some mood, or some feeling, or some anything. And I think it's pretty darn hard to get good at recognizing what you're really.
Experiencing what's the biggest barrier for you and being really truthful to yourself about what you're doing feeling or
thinking?
I think it's always when it collides with my identity. So, if I have this story, I tell about who I am and something comes in conflict with that, that gets harder and harder and harder to see. And I have more and more and more explanations, or more and more justifications because I can't accept, I'm not this person. I claim to be pronounced to be think I am. And I guess for me it's like the solution to that seems to be having a more flexible identity, which is, I can still have that identity and I can still have hiccups within that identity. You
Mmm, my identities. I'm a sober person. Well, I had a couple months this year where I was in a sober person and yet I've had 16 years of being a sober person. So it's like, I'm not going to erase the 16 years. And I'm also not going to not acknowledge the three months. I wasn't. I just kind of kind of make peace with that more complicated identity.
Oh God. I mean, I feel like embracing the multitudes that live within us like that is. Yeah, I mean that's hard. That's really hard.
It is it's really hard. So I think we're all set.
Off haters so it's like I'm on there with claws on these three things. I think are great about myself and the notion of not even having those three things is very scary to me.
I'm the same way and I can also get blamed me about that, too. I can also be like this is inherently who I am but you're not allowing me to be that. Yeah. Like you're ruining the vibe of who I truly am.
Yes.
Yes. So you forced me into this
lie. Yeah. The talks I have with myself for spectacular.
What do you think? People underestimate him?
This was the weirdest answer. This makes the cold bath look possible.
Well I just want to say for a second I thought that occurred to me which was that our self-talk as you guys are describing it which is also just a a constant peanut gallery my own head. It's kind of like a Bizarro World depressing version of TED talks. Like if you could have an alternate Ted organization that just put out like really demotivating, depressing upset talks, I think
a lot of self talk is exactly
that. Let me ask you this question. What keeps you from being honest with yourself the most fear,
I think not too dissimilar from Dax. There are very few things historically that I've liked about myself. So if there's anything that even as a glancing blows seems to threaten the solidity of the believability of one of those legs of the table, you will just go through like Mongolian Contour.
Action in your mind like from doing gymnastics to try to rationalize your way out of it. I mean, I strive to be honest with myself, but comes back to the, don't believe everything. You think. Also, you may be like a Russian nesting doll of delusion, right? Where like, you think you're being honest. But in fact, you're lying to yourself. And then within that, you think there's a secondary belief. But in fact, that's not true, and there's nothing underneath it. So I find Byron Katie's the work, mmm as a framework.
Really helpful for scrutinizing, your own thoughts and beliefs to really stress test them to see what is true. And without writing it down, I find it very difficult for me to arrive at what I think is defensively true right about myself. Whether it's really enabling, whether it's way over the top aggrandizing, whether it's critical or like super intensely. Hey,
For, I have to put it on paper in order to gain Clarity
two things come up for me when you are talking about this one, there's a team of researchers who studied shame for decades and they say the quintessential elicitor of shame. I know the direct quote, the quintessential elicitor. I've shame is unwanted identity.
Oh
wow.
Can I give a practical example of what I'm talking about? Cause I don't want people to think. It's like I have a hard time knowing whether or not I stole something from the grocery store, right? It more acts like this. So when my wife and I were first together, she does all this charitable stuff. Some of it was in Africa, I have an anthropology degree. I know that often very well-intentioned. People have fucked up Africa, way more than they've ever helped it. So at first it's she's going to take this trip to Africa and it's going to be for a thing that I just disagree with whether that's respectful to the culture. Whether it's going to yield,
Result, you want. And I start mounting an argument, why the actual charity? She's about to be involved with is not a solid one, right? So that's the first wave and that's not me. Being honest with myself, then it becomes you know and you were gone a month ago for this other one, in this other one and then through 300 of these arguments, it finally occurs to me, I'm very afraid that this thing helping people will be more important than me. I can mount an intellectual argument, but I'm doing that.
To avoid telling her. I'm really afraid that you have these Pursuits in life that will take priority over me. And then, finally, on the 300th time, we argue about it. And I can say that I'm so afraid. You'll pick that over me someday. And she looks at me and says, I will never pick anything over you. And then I've never cared once again about a charity thing in or do I even evaluate whether it's a good or bad, a charity. So that's for me what it is? It's like I think I'm mounting some intellectual point and it's just not true that's not truly
What's going on with me? That's
hard for me. I think the worst I've ever felt about myself is when I'm winning an argument and no, I'm lying know, like when you're winning an argument and you can just out argue this person like with both hands tied behind your back and you know that you're winning and you know, it's not true it's like you've got them doubting what they did and they're right,
you're basically gaslighting is what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks.
It sucks. But it's to protect Identity
or to fight against having to be vulnerable. Say, I'm
scared. Oh my God. Yes, yeah, I'm scared or like that hurt my feelings. Or I wanted you to make a bigger deal out of
this. We had it for three years with her cell phone in bed. She's not manage your time correctly. If she's in a position where she has to answer emails every night for 36 minutes. There's some time management issue and I'm winning that argument. I am right in that fact, but we had that argument for years until finally.
Like I said, I would love your attention and she put the phone on the nightstand. Said I'd love to give you my attention, but I had so many stupid arguments that I quote one prior to that, something harder for me than the cold exposure. Yeah, that has been worth. It is taking workshops with my girlfriend related to nonviolent communication. Oh yes, NPC and
learning in some cases like from a workshop for getting the love you want which is very well known book and others that seem really cliched and wrote and sterile and based on all that seem like they would not work because there are such obvious crutches or scripts that you end up using a conversation that have been so incredibly helpful for not doing what I have done a lot in the past, I still sometimes do.
With Dax is described like 300 arguments until you finally get to the point of being able to say what it is that you're afraid of. Well, what it is, you're feeling because I would much rather talk about things in the safe terrain of like, hey let's play analytical ice hockey. You know, if I get the chance to smash your argument against the boards, I'm going to take that and then I'll feel really great because I won. And that's what I do with like rhetoric, even though my argument makes no real sense, doesn't matter so reading some of these books which
Have really made me squirm and doing these workshops have been extremely valuable for the relationship and through the relationship. Have helped me to better. Just communicate, I think overall with less aggression, still not perfect, but that has been tremendously important and this do but is part is you don't even get what you want. When you win the intellectual argument, it never gets you what you
want. Still only
one time. You say what you need in?
One's happy to meet and it's over. It's so
stupid. Yeah, I don't know. Winning is no replacement for intimacy our connection or those things but it's so much
safer. Yeah, I've been Dreadful to date many many times over many
decades. This is a hard thing for me because vulnerability. Ironically, I know, but is really hard for
me. I can't imagine arguing with you Tim. I mean, if I know a little something about time management. Oh God, you must fuck people up. Yeah.
I'm a decent debater, but I have friends, who are lawyers and who are whip-smart on top of it, and also, generally over-caffeinated. And they'll just dismantle me. And I've gotten into these like screaming matches with them in groups, because they're so kind of abusive, with their ability to fence as debaters and I'm just like, god dammit fill-in-the-blank like just because you can win the argument.
It does not mean you're right and like, I'm not going to engage in this because you're going to hand me my ass. But I just want to State publicly right now, that just because you can outmaneuver me with your rhetoric, doesn't mean that your argument is better. And so I concede defeat, I was lucky enough to have a girlfriend right before Kristen who is actually much better at it than I was. And I'm grateful to her because we had a thing for an hour and a half. I had pie on my face. She stroyed me, it ended. I sent her an email.
And I said you were right and you won and I feel worse. Yes. And I was like, Ah, that's how everyone feels who fucks with me. Great, you're right and you want and I feel even worse. So if your goal was to make me feel better, you did fail at that. And I was like, thank you for letting me experience, how brutal I can be.
The links will go to self-protect. I won. We're disconnected. I'm still lonely.
You feel worse?
Feel worse. We both are worse but I won. I don't know what you win.
It's the pure at Victory of all pyrrhic
victories. It is totally. What do you think people underestimate if there's a Tim Ferriss answer besides the yeti bath. This would be it.
So I think I remember what I emailed which was how much and how comprehensively you become the average of say the handful of people. Let's just call it five people. You spend the most time.
With in ways that you wouldn't expect, so choosing your friends and saying no to friends, maybe who have become toxic for me is something I constantly have to remind myself of, because it is really challenging for me to say no to certain types of relationships or spending time with people because it seems really harmless like, wow, well let's go have dinner with this couple or let's go do this. Or let's have coffee with this person and whether it's like physically financially emotionally relationally, right? Like what type of couples
Spending time with you become the average of those people, kind of mash together in all these different ways. So I think about that a lot. I think it's grossly underestimated and that's true of schooling. And there's so much attention paid to Parenting and the role of parenting, but the effect of peer influence in school is gigantic. It has. I think it's sort of a microcosm of the macrocosm of how ever present that is in life.
The best example that was in a Malcolm Gladwell book where he said, if you think the parents have so much sway, why is there never been a first generation kid who had their parents accent? Mmm. Yeah, that's a great example is never happy. That's a great example. You go. Oh yeah. That would never
happen. I play a lot of ping-pong when I'm writing a book and someone that I work with comes and moves into our garage apartment. We met bartending and waiting tables many years ago, and Austin. And now he's the CFO for the company and he comes and he moves into my garage apartment.
For six weeks and he eats dinner with me and my family and we play ping-pong for hours. And I bounce ideas like literally and physically. And we just do this, but then we're also serious, ping-pong players and competitors. And someone told me you got to be careful about kind of bullshitting and doing stuff while you're playing ping-pong because muscle memory works both ways. It doesn't just remember the good shots. It remembers the bad shots to, yeah, and you can build muscle memory around the bad shots as well. And so, then I'm like, well, I've got a
Focus and then I can't talk and that's the whole point. But it reminds me that people I'm around that. I don't like, are still shaping me.
Yeah. Or somebody you love in nine areas out of 10 but they have a string of really, contentious angry relationships and you think that couldn't possibly in fact or affect your relationship but you got to look at the pie chart kind of how it breaks down like are you spending time with people predominantly and
Marriages or unions or in unhappy or neutral, right? I mean, you could love somebody in almost every way and still be affected by that kind of one category and totally agree with what you're saying, just to clarify something, you said, so when you're on book deadline, you have someone who moves into your garage apartment to be your designated ping-pong player. Am I hearing that correctly?
That'd be funny if that was true, but no, it's more like, Midwifery. They helped birth the book like a challenge.
Ang they read, they said don't understand what you're talking
about. My God, that would
not be good territory for me and Steve to do together. Like that's not a good husband wife thing for
us. Yeah, we know Buster Keaton had his own studio and what they would do is they go shoot and then when they ran out of ideas or they wanted more gags, he had a full baseball field at his studio and they all played baseball, and that's where he came up with all of his ideas.
There's some science around it. I can't quote the research, but it's also how my brain turns off.
And then the creative part opens up. So I'm going to watch some kind of British mystery or something. That's super predictable. And then I'm going to play ping-pong and think,
well, becoming the average Tim. I love that what you said, because I do think of the many things, we overestimate, especially in this country. We really overestimate that we're individuals and we can look at dog training, like it's black and white, and it is black and white, because dogs are social animals, they will behave in a very predictable way. If you do X Y & Z, and
We like to forget that. We are the ultimate social animal of all time and that we to despite how cemented we are in our personal individual identities. We so often underestimate that we are group animals, that do all kinds of things, stronger than us in service of the group, a hundred percent. There's actually way back in the day I believe is Newt Gingrich for those who don't recognize the name politician, who said that? He learned everything he needed to know about sort of controlling, I guess it was the house at the time from a book.
Called chimpanzee politics which was a field biologists observation of power, dynamics, and struggles, God, and usurping, and so on in a large group of chimpanzees, no, joke. I made. Yeah, I read that book in college. I'm mad, I'm not in politics.
It also reminds me, I just interviewed David Eagleman, the neuroscientist at Stanford about neural plasticity and brain malleability. And he said our
Our network is just part of a larger neural network of the people around us like we are networked in at first. When I read this, I was like is that true? Or is that like along the lines of like people start to look like their dog level Theory? Like is this true that we become like this mashup? Yeah. Alright we had different answers on this question. I'm having so much fun. Thank you all for doing this. I really wanted to know what you thought about this, okay, this is a controversial topic when I post about it, people go nuts in the comments regret affair.
Teacher are not worthwhile. Let's start with you Dax. Your answer was not for me, sounds like a euphemism for shame. I think this is a quote from the big book, right? We neither regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. So regret you don't have a lot of use for.
I don't, I don't know if that sounds arrogant or something, but yeah, I don't sit around and regret things at all. I regret things when I haven't dealt with them, when I haven't made my apologies or process. Why did it in that window?
Do I feel deep regret and shame but once I've done the things, I know I need to do to clean that up. I don't then look at it as a regret.
Let me ask something because I think my answer is yes, I think regret is a really important thing. A function of empathy and a good teacher. But I also agree with everything you said. So I don't know if I live in regret but I do think regret can motivate amends.
Yeah. See I think it's a stepping stone towards something, but I don't think it's something to be held onto I
So I got feel regret and then you go hot. Something's not at peace in me. I know I should have acted differently and why did I do that? Okay. Did it because of that? Stupid old fear. Now I need to go talk to the person and do my ten steps. I am sorry and then that's that then I'm done with that. I don't regret
it. I was really moved by George Saunders Commencement Address, he had a line that he said the things I regret most are failures of kindness when someone was standing in front of me suffering and I responded sensibly Reserve
Idli and mildly. I do think regret without action is not helpful, but I think regret that drives Behavior change or immense is a function of empathy. So I think we have different answers but I think we agreed acts.
Yeah, I do too. I think it's every time you interview someone about empathy, there's like twenty six different definitions of empathy. No one can agree on. So I think this is just one of those words. It's like, how do you think of it? Yeah, Tim
Regret can be a useful teacher and a spotlight that helps you identify things that you would benefit from doing or not. Doing. I would say, regret to me is a type of pain and I think pain can really be a positive force for positive change, right? If you have pain in your abdomen, you go get it checked out. And it's some type of cancer that they're able to surgically remove, then that was incredibly valuable. I think that's true emotion.
Ali. Also for me, I'll just use one example. One of my closest childhood friends died, maybe four or five years ago from a fentanyl and alcohol overdose and we had been in touch, very sporadically and I had seen him a handful of times. When I went back home to where I grew up, had his phone number and simply hadn't been very proactive in reaching out, even though we still enjoyed spending time together. And
And that regret of not having reached out. More proactively has led me to reach out to. I would say more than a dozen old friends and mentors to Simply say, I appreciate you. You were so kind to me really were a Force for good in my life and I want to say thank you. So I think that at least in my experience, it's possible to perhaps feel guilt about doing or not doing something without the
Shame of translating it into. I am, therefore permanently flawed or bad. So for me, regret has been and continues to be an incredible
teacher. So it sounds like we agree that regret can be a powerful Catalyst. It's not something to hold on to, and carry on your load your whole life. It's not lifelong shame mechanism but it can be an important Catalyst to amends, or change, or something that fair.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, is your regret
Regret of change. Meaning the regret that leads to change? Or is it like the regret of rumination that just is a bullet? Ricocheting, inside your skull non-stop because you haven't provided an outlet, there's no fix that. You've decided to put in motion
so that would be like when you quote the big book Dax, that would be a threat to my program. I remember Terry real, who's a therapist says a man addicted to alcohol. Need shame, like a man dying of thirst needs. So
Salt water. And that's so
powerful to me. Well, yes. In Brunei. What were you thinking? The whole time Tim was talking where we having the same
thought? I don't know. The thing that I was thinking for me when you were talking about the story with your friend is, that's how I think of regret, I think about it as empathy and I also think about it as part of my inventory.
Well, as an addict, I wanted to hug you and say it is not on you. You should not feel the burden of that. You should not feel the weight of that.
People don't understand that. Without the desire of the person, there's nothing anyone can do. So I would just beg of you to have zero regret about that. I think it's beautiful that you've decided to check in more with people but in no way. Should you let this person's disease? Suck you into it because it is a disease and you didn't have any part of it. And to be honest, you don't have the cure for it either. So do not feel bad about that please.
If I were to die at some point, people would be sad. I'd want them to be sad, but I don't think anyone should ever feel that they had some responsibility to save me. Unfortunately, addictions a get real one-man job or woman with the help of these other alcoholics. So I just would not want you to carry that. Thanks Dex.
Yeah, the cause change cure, the three C's I hate those. What are the three C's you didn't? Cause it you can't change it and you can't cure it. I hate that.
Well, what's ironic is both.
He's in that scenario are suffering from immense powerlessness. That's what you guys have in common. You can't change him and he doesn't have power over that thing and it's wild. Yeah. And it's my most hated State. I hate being powerless. I want to control everything.
Yeah, I've been really digging into that too. In my own program about I could do that sneaky place your like mean by powerless exactly like I get to this like
powered well you know it fucked me up. I talked about with him is
The tricky thing for me was manageability, oh, so I had a very clear definition of what a manageability wasn't that was me drinking and doing cocaine that was unmanageable by all measures, but me doing opiates and doing my podcast and putting my kids down to bed and working out that was confusing for me that that very manageable until it was not until I was physically addicted and had to detox from opiates. And I was like, okay but final chapters unmanageable but boy what a misleading it felt very manageable to me.
Yeah, I'm very skilled at managing. Yeah, a lot of things and I have a lot of things that are sober, clean things in my life that are not abstinence ability. Like so for me food work, things that I have really intentional abstinence around that I had to create out of nothing because, you know, how do you do that? That's why I always texting you. Tim about Kido, you're like, I don't know, it's really binary. I'm like that's what I need. Binary, binary is good. You're there you are. You're
not you? 99% will yield you now.
Nothing. Yeah, a hundred percent. What you'll do. Everything, it's crazy.
Yeah that's it. Open the cage. Let the tiger out three times a day, put it back in. All right, I like this question because there's been a lot in my life and I was curious for both of you a sliding door moment in your life. Which references. Have you all seen the movie sliding doors with Gwyneth
Paltrow? I have I have not but I'm very clear on what the premise
is. Yeah, you need to see it. You and Kristen should watch it and just see what you think. It's pretty dramatic, I guess the choice.
So, a sliding door moment in your life, where things could have gone different ways. Tim, what was your answer sliding door moment for you?
It's the first one that came to mind. I think there are sliding door moments every day for everyone, but the one that came to mind for me immediately because it's so top of mind and still, unraveling for me in a good way, right? Unwinding maybe is the publishing of a podcast episode talk.
Thing about childhood sexual abuse for the first time, certainly publicly and most of my closest friends, most of my family members had no knowledge of this. So deciding to do that, which I expected was going to be in a book, maybe 15, 20 years from now. After both of my parents had passed away because I didn't want them to blame themselves for something that I didn't view as their fault. That was a sliding door moment. I mean, it really has changed how I view my
If it's changed, how I prioritize, it's changed how I relate to the trauma. It's changed how I relate to thinking about other people experiencing, this type of trauma. Still very, very fresh and this is just a few months ago. So I think that was the most important podcast episode I've ever put out. I wouldn't recommend it for entertainment value. Doesn't have a Disney ending, but it's been incredibly impactful. So, that was the first thing that came to mind when you ask that question.
Can I ask a question Tim because you and I kind of talked about this when we talked on the phone and I have done a similar thing as you and have had I think the same experience you which is just like whatever weight is on your shoulders. It just keeps diminishing every time you say it and it gets lighter and lighter and lighter. But I wondered was some of your reservation mired in our gender roles in society. I feel like so much of what my Hang-Ups about being open about that. We're just
Really, really mired in what a man is homosexuality. That was the worst thing you could be. When I grew up in 1980, did this make me gay? Was I week it was so inextricably linked to all these concepts of masculinity. For me, for me, it wasn't specifically that type of concern. I think that part of the reason I haven't discussed that, even with most of my closest friends might have some
Of that color. But for me, it was the unpredictability. And also the fact that a few years before, or maybe a year and a half or two years before, I had attempted to write about this as a draft of this chapter in a book to come. And it fucked me up so badly for at least six to 12 months in so many ways that I could not have foreseen. It was so destabilizing that I really had.
An incredibly high amount of uncertainty about what the effects would be. So is the unpredictability of it really, that scared me. It was realizing that it's a lot easier to squeeze the toothpaste out of the toothpaste tube than to put it back in. And yeah I had to be or feel incredibly confident that the burden it would hopefully relieve and the impact that it would hopefully have. Right. Both kind of speculative had a good chance of outweighing.
In the unforeseen consequences that would be hard to stomach. And I was also afraid quite frankly of the internet. I mean, I haven't had social on my phone for instance. Any of the social apps for four or five months? I plan to continue doing that. But it was prompted by expectation that there would be a lot of incredibly tasteless awful conversation around this episode, which I fully expect with the way that
Humans are at their worst, kind of Lord of the Flies. It's just an emergent property of groups especially when enabled by technology. So I also worried about how fragile I might be and how deeply affected I might be if I were exposed to that and I was able to set up systems with my team and policies for me to be unavailable and to provide some white space to Shield me from that. But to answer your question directly, it wasn't specifically that although I'm sure
Sure. There are elements of it that factored into the entire experience and decision and is it been your experience that none of those fears really have come to pass? This might sound odd but I'm happy with this answer and that is I don't know because I have never gone looking for social feedback during the weeks. Following that episode that is a deliberate Blank Spot and blind spot for me because I don't want to go looking for it and I
My team also, if we received any emails or anything that was not constructive, that was aggressive that they would archive. Like, unless I absolutely needed to see it, I didn't want to see any of it. So I can say subjectively, I haven't experienced being exposed to those things, but if you said to me, all right, you have to bet a million dollars. Was there a bunch of nasty stuff online or not anywhere? I would say absolutely, I would absolutely bet that it exists. I just haven't gone looking for it. I would take that bet.
In a second. Yeah, I would bet right here a million dollars that 99.9% of the feedback that would be my guess. I've just had the same fears and I've just always been shocked that my fear of being vulnerable. It's yet to be the thing. I've not had anyone weaponize, my vulnerability, even with my cynical view of mankind. It for me has never come to pass and there's been many of those for me things that upset online. I thought
Well, that'll be in a headline or that'll be this or that and just so far, not one thing, I don't want to jinx myself or Insight someone to do it, but I've been shocked that my fear is very misplaced. I would agree with you. The vast majority of feedback is really positive, but then again, it's like on social media, even in the best of times when you're feeling stable, maybe not for you 2x. But if someone is scrolling for comments, what do you remember? You know, the 98 positive or the to really vicious? I mean, I
I think that even in the best of times that is a tendency for most people. It's certainly my tendency and I would just say that just because you think you'll get predominantly positive feedback if you're very vulnerable about past trauma, especially if we're talking about capital T trauma. Yeah, really graphic, horrifying extended repetitive capital T trauma, I would not take public disclosure lightly. I think that
Need to have a safety net and therapists, and support systems in place because you may end up in a freefall, I think that's
important.
People often ask me, how do you know what to share. Not to share when it comes to vulnerability. And I said, yeah, everyone has their own line, but my bottom line is, if my healing is dependent on your response I'm not ready to share it. Yeah. And so, if what you say, can affect my ability to heal from something and that means, one of two things like I'm looking for just positive feedback, or I'm looking at all, or I need it in order to heal. And so it was interesting because I shared
Our podcast widely. I thought it was a really important conversation between you fully Debbie. Yeah. And do the same thing actually Dax for you when you talked about your sobriety and we still get emails and contacts about the importance of both of those things. And I thought the way that you and Debbie handle, the conversation was not just careful and thoughtful for y'all but careful and thoughtful for us and people for sure who were listening who are trauma
Ivers. Let me ask you this, when those sliding doors are in front of you. What's the life right now? Had you not done it?
I think the life had I not done that and I want to give full credit to a name. You've mentioned Debbie, Debbie Millman just an incredible human being amazing, just a delightful brilliant teacher, graphic, designer artist. She was my partner in this conversation because she experienced quite a lot of sexual abuse.
As well in her own life. And so it was a conversation intended to sort of provide a toehold for people who identify as male female. Also, you know, in my case heterosexual and her case not and we wanted to provide as many entry points as possible. Had I not done that. I think I would be afraid of and obsessing over mortality and death much more than I am right now, my biggest fear.
When covid hit and the people, I know have died of covid, related complications. And some people also with no pre-existing medical conditions, you know, life support. These, are people 40 years old. I thought to myself if I die because of this virus and have not released this in some form like my life will have ended in complete and I think that I would carry a low to high.
Full of constant anxiety about that, that exiting this life with that task undone had I not release that episode and I think the implications of that are really, really broad. I think that would have affected in some way every supposedly compartmentalised piece of my life and all of my
decisions supposedly compartmentalize,
right? Right. Supposedly neatly compartmentalize which of course
they are not. I also think that I would feel very alone. I would not feel as connected as I do to the rest of humanity. Who in many, many cases swim and very similar Waters of suffering. These are very common experiences, so it's been heartening and depressing. Honestly, to have so many close, close close friends of mine, reach out to tell me in confidence that they
Some similar experience. But I think now that we're all aware of our own past islands of suffering, that we no longer feel like we're on islands and that I think is really comprehensively hugely impactful for me.
It's pandemic. Level of people who have experienced sexual abuse, you know, any time you're at a 4-top table, one of you there has experienced it and yet we all feel so uniquely isolated in it, it's very misleading. I wonder, Tim, have you had this thing? I read Missoula by Jon krakauer and I read all these incredibly predictable outcomes of women or sexually abused on campus. It's like an unavoidable Playbook, you know, and I could read that in recognize. Well, yes.
Of course, that's what happens. And yet, I did not feel connected to that, I didn't think well, well, I to, then clearly have a whole handbag of things that changed. I've come to terms with that over time. You know, then I'm not unique that. I wasn't the one person sexually abused, who somehow didn't walk down that very predictable Road. Maybe my own arrogance, I don't know what it was but it's just funny. I could so see that other people, of course. But I guess for me maybe it would have been admitting weakness or something. I remember my mom.
Mom told me she works in Casa with kids, in foster care. And she said, you know what, the percentage of people who are addicts, who have been molested and I said what she said, it's 80%. So, she's like, you had a 20% chance of not, and then add on other Aces into that mix. It's funny. I was able to have compassion and see that that's what happened, other people. And maybe not assume that it happened to me in the last five years have been pretty proactive in pursuing healing and different ways but prior
To that, I would read if I were exposed to it articles. Like those, you're referring to, but the idea of reading a book that included a lot of sexual trauma. I was unwilling to roll the dice. I was afraid that if I rolled Snake Eyes on that, that it would just fracture some deep part of my psyche in that, I would become untethered and lose sight of shore. So I was very guarded against consuming too much material. That might re-traumatize in some
way, you know.
There's different numbers for young, girls and young, boys that prediction is in the next 10 years. As more men, feel comfortable, disclosing that those numbers will be very even. Yeah. If you look at Peter Levine vessel Van Der Kirk, the people doing a lot of This research, they're going to say the numbers are the same. It is a pandemic with boys. We are not encouraged as parents to talk to them in the same ways that we talk to girls about what's. Okay, and not. Okay. And what we need to hear about if it happens, I think Dax to your point a lot of
That is about masculinity and why we don't talk to boys about those things. And you can be sure that we have the same conversation with our son as we did with our daughter because my husband is a pediatrician. I'm a social worker. You just know that this is as prevalent, with, boys, it is with girls and the unwillingness or inability to talk about it. Is, shame is a for biddable foe, it hates having words, wrapped around it and so it will do whatever it takes to make sure that it as an emotion is.
Is never language? Yeah, it can't survive once, it's
languished. Yeah. And I just want to see some people may find this to be perhaps a dark topic, which it is in a lot of ways. I would just say that on the side of light, I do not feel like I am uniquely flawed or broken. I do not feel like once abused, always, traumatized every day forever, and there are some incredibly effective tools and
Is available that can have tremendous impact so I do feel like I have largely emerged on the other side and as solutely therapist once said to me take that wound and make it part of your medicine, right? Meaning like whatever you are giving to the world. Like you have through the lens of your trauma, a window into this shared experience that gives you the ability, should you how in it and develop it to
to have empathy and perspective and sympathy for people in a way that allows you to be with your own unique life experience, incredibly helpful and healing for other people. So, take that wound. Make it part of your medicine. It can be turned from what you view as this black hole into a real asset. I think if you approach it in certain ways. So that's sort of the Silver Lining on the cloud. Is that there is a way I think through.
And a way to transmute. What has happened to you into something that allows you to heal yourself and help heal other
people. Yeah and in turn Heal the World. The community. Thank you for sharing that Dax sliding door moment for
you.
I would say that if I had to sign numbers to it, I would say Kristen was 49 percent. Sure she wanted to have kids and I was fifty one point, zero zero, one percent positive. I wanted to have kids, we were kind of at a sweet spot in life where we both had made some money. We went to Africa on this incredible Safari that was so fun. The Gilded cage had presented itself. Very we're very comfortable.
We're having a lot of fun and the thought of adding two dependents into the mix wasn't so appealing. And some part of me, just knew, I gotta push .01%, so we just barely did it. We just barely decided to have the first kid by the skin of our teeth. Even structured in a way where we're not trying, but guess what she was pregnant. And yeah, man. What an experience, I had fantasies about how all these other achievements or
Or moments in life would feel and all of them were not what my fantasy was. And this thing has over delivered in every single way and is a pain in the ass. That's the thing. I just think all the time like thank God, we just tipped a hair in that
direction. What is fatherhood mean to you
Doc's? Well, there's a lot of things that are healing about it, for me personally, which is, you know, I used to resent my father, most of my life because he left when I was three and I saw that as something that had happened to me and I think my daughter was maybe
Year old in the thought of missing the next 17 years of her life is the single worst fear I have. I can't imagine her on this planet me not observing it and I went, oh my God, my dad was the victim. I feel so sad for my dad, genuinely what a bummer. He misses a, it's much worse to miss your child's life than to miss your parents life just for whatever reason offering a woman.
Conditional love without any fear of commitment. Not an ounce. Like, yeah. Girl, you've asked me to be there to the end. I'm dying to. That's a unique feeling. I'd never have. I love Kristin. I've Loved a couple other women. I've dated for long periods of time, I love them and there's always five percent of my fear. I'm going to have to be inconvenience by this human being and I don't know if it's worth it. And to look at two people that I'm excited to be endlessly dedicated to
I don't know that I would have that feeling in life without that and it's a beautiful feeling.
Do you think about the work of parenting is unrelenting as the joy?
He has he has big
time worrying. And that thing we talked
about earlier which is like, you better fucking know why you're doing things at all times. You cannot afford to be mindless in this. If you're punishing them for this reason, you better be standing on really firm ground or that's my commitment. So, you know,
No, the self. Yeah. Introspection is just like quintuple because I don't want to do things out of fear to them. I don't want I don't want to pass any of that shit on me neither and I'm less willing to do that to them than I am to other people.
Yeah for me my sliding glass door was Steve and I dated for off and on for seven years and then we broke up and we were living together was the first time we'd live together and I packed up and moved out. And it was over over and I missed him and I think he missed me, but I needed it to be over.
And he showed up on Christmas morning at my house in Houston.
And proposed to me in front of my entire family. It's so we have it on video and all you hear is my brother going dude that took balls or are broken
up. Talk about swinging for the fences.
Yeah. Because I open the front door and I was like what are you doing here? And he's like, I just want to see you and I was like we're not seeing each other right now. We're like we're broken at. Like this is it, this is the big break at. And so I think my sliding door moment was, definitely opening the door on Christmas morning. Like, I can't imagine my life without him.
You know, or our kids, or our family and it has pushed extreme Clarity for me around what I'm doing and what I'm not doing, where I say yes, and where I say, no, he makes me a better person and I think he makes the world a better place in general. So it was a ballsy
move and your objective enough to recognize that they can go the way high percentage way know if you guys break up a bunch of times and someone shows up and
erratically proposals. I know and in fact, six months in, I was seeing my therapist.
And I said it's just not working. You know, I'm gonna divorce Steve and she said I can see that. That makes sense to me and I said, oh shit, man, really? And she goes, he likes you so much more than you like you. It must be really frustrating.
So
painful I was like you're fired and he did he liked me more than I liked me and it took me a couple more years to get there. He's a patient guy.
My mom and her never
Then wisdom. She has said to me many times when I was batting around the idea of a breakup, she'll go, you should totally break up with her. You will have to deal with this issue if not in your next one, your third. You're going to deal with this issue. So yeah, break up with her spend three more years in la-la land and then deal with it in four years. She goes, why don't you just practice on this one because you're going to get out of it. Anyways, he's a no wrist opportunity to try out working through it. I
mean, it's absolutely true. Tim, what are your thoughts on
love?
Yeah, I mean I think love and the search for beauty over productivity and using a lot of adjectives and nouns I wouldn't have used five years ago, is the single biggest shift for me in so many ways. So love is very top of mind for me. I love listening to the two of you talk about your family's because I'm
They thinking about along with my girlfriend of having kids together and I was never, I should say, for certainly 30 plus years. I was never 50.00 1%, and I was, I was hard. Know, I was a hundred percent, no, because I thought it would be so selfish to bring a life into this world. When I was so confident that I would either damage them through bad parenting or pass on. Defective genetic material. That would Doom them too.
Two lives of depression and despair and I was just like, no, that's a terrible selfish decision. Therefore, 0% and it's only through the process of doing a lot of work over the last. Let's just call it eight years or so total. That I've reached a place where I feel very good about considering family and I'm glad I didn't do it earlier. I do not think I would have been in the right place or
Space to fully dedicate myself to children say 10 years ago, I think that would have probably almost certainly have been a bad decision but 43 not getting any younger and I think that love and family are very top of mind for me at the moment. It's beautiful. If I could suggest this concept, I learned it in the broken ladder, the income inequality book, it's fantastic. People should read it, but it's all about what culture is down. Compare versus up, comparing we all up.
Compare and we're all miserable because of it, I would suggest you down compare. So on your worst day of estimating, what kind of parent you'll be go to the grocery store, take a look around.
And I guarantee even with your shitty shitty evaluation of your buildings. It was he's the one who ended far worse than you could do it on your worst day. Get advice. Good to be true.
Yeah, I'm a better older parent. Like, I had Ellen in my mid-30s and had Charlie at 40. I would not have been a good like 25 year old mom. I was still drinking first of all and doing a lot of other stupid shit. But you know, the only commitment I have is like, I have to be in shape, like, I have to
take care of myself and my body and my spirit because I'm going to be like, college graduation on the Walker Bobby there. But I had the same fear and the same commitment to not work my shit out on my kids. I've heard you talk about that to Dax and we don't and we're super honest with our kids about what we come from and what we've been through, I mean my kids are oh no I have 21 year old to 15 year old and they know things like let me tell you why we're strict about drinking because genetics, loads, the gun and environment pulls the trigger, and you may have one beer and not be able to stop until you're in rehab.
We talked about our lives and, and they get it. And now that Ellen's senior in college, she seen it, you know, she's seen it. I will tell you from the moment, you decide like, at least in my experience and everyone I've ever interviewed around it for the research, the moment you decide, this is something I want. It is the most excruciating and exquisite vulnerability that you experience. I think it's a thing. All right, rapid fire. And here's what's going to happen. We're wrapping up with the rapid fire, we're going to go in order.
This Time - your first. Okay. Fill in the blank rapid-fire vulnerability is
honesty.
10 vulnerability is
I was going to say being honest, sore on the same page that's
great - you're called to be brave, but the fear is real, you can feel it in your throat. What is the very first thing you do
get into action?
Tim.
Breathe focus on breathing regrettably, get into action,
an action bias girl, to Dax what something, that people often get wrong about you?
I tried to think what people think of me. I don't know. I hear mostly you're taller than I thought you'd be or I hear while you're smarter than I thought you'd be. So I guess those two interesting.
I knew your whip smart kind of intimidated when we did that live event together in Austin, a new year, whip-smart, I didn't think you'd be so generous and funny.
Oh, look at that.
Yeah, I knew you were going to be smart, so I was prepped. Tim what something people get wrong about you?
Yeah, for me I would say misconception is that him about doing the least possible and a bunch of different areas and its really, it's more about finding non-obvious elegant Solutions, testing and finding non-obvious elegant Solutions and there's all good together. I'd say that's what comes to mind for me.
Is this stereotype because the for our staff, if they don't read
It. Yeah, some of our greatest blessings and up also being our greatest curses. So the for our title will continue forever and that's okay. I retire the Jersey a few years ago at the book titles, but it doesn't matter. Yeah, no. Yeah, I have the cattle brand on my forehead. I ever catch you doing anything in life or 5 hours. I'm going to sound the alarm I know. Yeah. And I'm joy joy. Joy joy.
Oh my God. After you finish your PhD in Katmandu. And you do these exercises that kettlebell on
Had you'll be able to reduce it by Mike. This is a shit ton of work to get to four hours. That's all I do not think of you that way Dax the last TV show you binged and
loved. Oh my God. Queens Gambit,
whoo, he's asked me to
brother. Oh what a perfect. Perfect. Perfect show,
perfect. Tim,
the last one was undone which is an incredible rotoscoped, animated. I think it's an eight-part series. That talks about reality schizophrenia
I Altered States and tells the story, Through The Eyes of this young woman who has a car accident and wakes up questioning where she is, and who she is, wow, what brilliantly done. It's called undone and you can find it on Amazon, got it?
Ooh, favorite movie Dax. I know you've got a lot of them, but give me one that you just
love Pulp Fiction,
Pulp Fiction, 10.
Spirited Away Japanese animated film?
Yes, death by paper cuts like gasps, that's it. Yeah, Jackson concert. You'll never
forget. Oh, Steely Dan. I think the best live band ever? They have the best studio musicians, that come on the road man. That it's
dynamite. I have a dream, one day that you and I are going to do a Yacht Rock, like, oh karaoke competition. Oh wipe you up. You will be
Aiming for a doobie brother.
He'll challenge accepted,
okay it's on concert for you. Tim,
I've super-sensitive hearing so I don't go to many concerts. So my answer will be especially funny Ozzfest which is this multistage basically heavy metal events. Kind of like Lollapalooza at Shoreline Amphitheatre, in Mountain View, California and I went because my apartment, my shitty-ass apartment right out of college, was like a mile down the street and you couldn't get anything done because
Goddamn loud. So I was just like, all right, I'm done. I'll just if you can't beat them, join them and ended up, being amazing. Look at this piece of shit. Hi, my phone. We love her. So this is why people book me on things because there's always a 5% chance. She'll blow through the background. It's worth it for Keyes,
favorite meal, docks, a Bolognese, Bolognese Tim
Japanese breakfast. Anything that approximates
Japanese breakfast, fish on rice with miso soup and all that. Good jazz, some pickled stuff. That's the jam for me. Are you a japanophile from the last few answers? It sounds like, yeah. I know I seem to be leaning in one way. I lived there as an exchange student for a year from 15 to 16. So it's really shaped who I am and a lot of ways. And I guess, if you could sum up in two sentences, what are they doing right? That we're doing
wrong? Hmm. Good question,
thinking about we instead of the
me,
Activity. Yeah, what's on your nightstand
acts, holy shit. What is not on my nightstand? It is the most embarrassing sector of my life. Every book I get sent that, I don't read every wax. Earplugs that I sleep with 16 remote controls. It's a shit show. It's like a fucking gym. Locker, it's so bad.
I bet yours is really organized.
It has a bunch on it but I'll pick a few items. I have an aura ring. So I use my aura ring for tracking sleep. I have a lot of historically, a lot of sleep issues. I have a Kindle and I have a small statue of a coyote.
What does that
mean? There's a great book. It's Louis hide trickster makes this world and it's about trickster mythology across cultures. And the coyote is
Thought of the term that's used. And one point in the book is a boundary walker, and a lot of Native American lore, the coyote is not just the trickster. The prankster, the coyote also is the bridge between the gods and The Mortals and in some cases, steals fire like Prometheus, it provides it to humankind. So I like the idea of being a boundary Walker which is kind of how I view my job. Mmm beautiful. I thought
For sure the coyote was going to be mythical in Japan. Yeah that's where my money was. I am very interested in Japanese mythology but maybe for another another time another time can I interrupt rapid-fire for one second to tell you. Tim. I'm halfway through the ganga scan book. Oh nice Genghis. Khan in the making of the modern world. That's right. But my hunch is you're not even on page one and Titan. Is that a fair guess? I'm not on page one but I have the thumbnail.
In my Kindle, I bought it and I downloaded. So I do have tighten. All right? I just want to demonstrate a more dedicated to this friendship than you are.
I bought both these books because of y'all always, what book did you buy? Both of them crawl episode with Bill Gates was such a fun episode, I like jail. Check in the Diet Cokes and laughing. It was just great, but Titans explaining that that in when y'all were together on Tim's podcast, I got him. I haven't started either. One of them. I was worried about the Genghis. Khan one being too violent for me, but I'm gonna give it a
shot thus far, not
Very violent, it's more philosophical. As Tim pitched it, it's really interesting. Okay. Yeah, it's also an incredible look into that culture of that era and how they lived and what their environment forced them to Liz.
Fascinating, I'm making myself, read it before I get my 23andMe
results. Oh yeah. You'll be dying for some ganga scon.
Yeah, okay. Last two questions, both of you, a snapshot of an ordinary moment that gives you true Joy, just a really ordinary everyday moment,
Dax a hundred percent when I lay in bed with.
My girls and both
milks, mmm. Tim
the first one that comes to mind is if my dog goes out with the dog walker and comes back, I lay down on this one carpet and ever since she was two or three months old, she would crawl up on my chest and kind of put her paws on my shoulders and lick my face and now she's 65 pounds. But we've done the same thing every day and so she'll jump up on my shoulders, knock me down and have a cuddle Fest. That's more ever. Then I
Put into raising children, you're going to be fine. We're gonna crash
the parenting thing right there. Just the consistency alone is the key right there.
Yeah, clicker training, my children that'll be my Memoir.
You're gonna be good at it. Okay, last one tell me one thing. You're grateful for ducks right now in your life.
Currently my health?
Yes, Jesus. Tim,
I'm grateful for my wonderful beautiful.
Incredibly emotionally intelligent girlfriend. Who is helped me to grow tremendously in the time that we've spent together. I feel like a better person with her. I feel like more of myself with her. So I feel very grateful for her.
Thank you all so much and thanks for the work you do, and the conversations and interviews and just making a smarter and making us laugh and making me just feel more connected in human. I'm grateful for those things for both of you.
Same to you, I'm flattered to be in this Trio right now. Yeah. Me too, thank you for Gathering us.
Absolutely. Thank
y'all. All right. Lots of love and I'm not going to sign up too quick. Bye
guys. Bye.
I hope y'all.
Are taking something meaningful away from our conversation. I really loved it. It was fun to talk to two people who both interviewed me for their podcast and to people who I feel connected to and you know, two guys who seem to care more about the path to Hope and healing and wholeness then, you know, protecting the
Norms of kind of masculinity in our culture today and I am grateful for that. I appreciate their honesty, their vulnerability and their generosity again. Dax's podcast is armchair expert and Tim's is the Tim Ferriss show. Really, highly recommend you listen to both of them, just scroll through. They have so many episodes and find a guess you really love and just
Listen I think you'll learn something, I think you'll laugh and have a good time. In the process, you can find Jack's on line at Dax Shepard
Just Dax sh EPA Rd on Twitter and Instagram. His website is armchair expert pod.com. You can find him online at T Ferris on Twitter and Tim Ferriss on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. His website is simply Tim. Blog will put all the links per usual on the episode page on brene Brown.com. Again. Thank you for listening. I want to remind you that
We are taking some time off for rest and play over the holidays. So we will be back with dear to lead and unlocking as the week of January 11th. So our first episode back for deer to lead is on January 11th and then our first episode back for unlucky, nesses on January 13th, right now, over on the dare to lead podcast, which is exclusively on Spotify. I talked with Jim Collins, it is another Deep dive a two-hour conversation. Jim's work his books, good to great.
Great beyond entrepreneurship, his books, completely changed the way, I lead the way I work, the way, I think the way it research it was a real just coo for me to be able to talk to Jim Collins for, you know, two hours. We talk about our values Shadow values, the power of curiosity, we talked about grounded Theory research, we geek out on that a little bit. And we talked about how Jim is put 30 years of research around leading and building, good organizations and Entrepreneurship into one integrated framework.
Mark that he calls the map. If you are an entrepreneur, if you are a leader, if you're interested organizational development, our culture, this is a don't miss podcast.
Again, dear to lead podcast, is available exclusively on Spotify. It's also free to listen to. But you do have to listen on Spotify and a reminder that in late January, unlocking US as moving over to Spotify as well. Again, you can still listen for free. You can listen from my web page, you can download Spotify, and listen, on your phone, everything will be there by the end of January.
I just want to say 2020 has been one hell of a year.
it has been heartbreaking and we've seen people do heroic things and we have learned and we've had to unlearn
We're exhausted were weary and we're also really I think optimistic and hopeful about a different 2021. I just want to say from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for listening. Thank you for walking alongside of me. Thank you for leading me when I need to be led just deeply grateful.
I don't know if you know this but Apple named unlocking asked the number one, new podcast of 2020. And so the fact that we had to cancel our launch at South by Southwest and March and bootstrap this from my house, it's been kind of shocking and it's just I owe that to you.
I owe that to each of you I could not have done that by myself and so thank you again to this community. I'm grateful that we get to be together this way and tell stories and learn together. All right y'all awkward Brave and kind. I will see you in the new year. Take care of yourselves and each other unlocking s is a Spotify original from podcast. It's hosted by me brene Brown and it's produced by Max Cutler Christian Acevedo Carly Madden by weird Lucy Productions and by Keynes 13 sound
- bye Kristin Acevedo. The music is by Carrie Rodriguez and Gina Chavez.
