Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 20: Why Men Are Afraid to Say “I Don’t Know” ft. Dr. Dakotah Tyler

Transcript

EP 20: Why Men Are Afraid to Say “I Don’t Know” ft. Dr. Dakotah Tyler · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Kiri Gaines.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, and we
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: talk about what it actually takes become a full comprehensive man. Hey,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: what's good, y'all. Welcome to another episode of Learning the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Hard Way. My name is Kiir Gaines. I am your
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: favorite therapist. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: content creator. I am a man sitting in front of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a camera with a photographer to my right and an
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: amazing guest right in front of me, who we will
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: get to in a second. And it's weird when people
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: bury the lead on the guests on the podcast, because
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: if you read the title, you know exactly exactly who
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: my guest is today. But before we get to that,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: we got to do a little housekeeping. I have been
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: on a journey that's been damn it's been kind of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: humbling lately. If I just wrote it on Threads the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: other day and then I'll posted to my Instagram and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I said, in a healthy relationship, one of the dopest
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: muscles that exercise together is even in the midst of disagreeing,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: even in the midst of conflict, finding a way to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: still be genuinely curious about what the other person is
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: saying and going through, which is hard because sometimes when
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you're in a relationship, you feel like the thing that
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: they're upset with is stupid. And I think that you are.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Well within your right to think that it's stupid. The
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: problem isn't thinking that it's stupid. The problem is treating
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: the other person like what they feel is stupid. But
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: there's something about curiosity that really really kindles me to
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: think deeply.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And when I think about just curiosity through the experience
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of boyhood and manhood, it makes me think even harder
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: because I have a theory that there's something about boyhood
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that strips men of curiosity. Oh yeah, I believe that.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I believe that your ability to wonder and have whimsy
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: gets taken away from you and it gets replaced with
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the myth of certainty, in the myth of stoicism. But
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: we'll get to that a little bit later. Today, I
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: have a guest who is man living proof that curiosity
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: beats pretending to know what you're talking about any day
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of the week. One of my favorite things in the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: world is when a really intelligent person can stand up
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, bro, I don't know. I have no idea.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I know a lot, but I don't know that that
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: is a sign of maturity and a sign of growth
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to me. I want y'all to give it up today
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: for doctor Dakota Tyler aka Doctor star Kid. He chose
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: curiosity over comfort and it turned it turned him into
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a scientist. This man was not born with a calculator
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: in his hand. This man was a straight D one
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: athlete and decided he was going.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: To take his life, put that joint into reverse and
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: parallel park it into science.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I told him before the cameras came on. I said,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I hate math, and I was expecting him to be like, oh, well, actually,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: if you look at the hydrolatical equation of the by
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: cuspid and you divided by zero, what you have is
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: an equation that's parallel to the parent sympathetical. Nah.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, I feel you, And I was like,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, we got to get the pot of the day, everybody,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: let's give it up for what do you go by?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Do you go about? Doctor star Kid? Uh?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Dakota Doctor, I mean it's all these things, Doctor StarKid,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Doctor Dakota, mister mister Tyler, Sir mister Tyler, sir, it's crazy. Nah,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: that's what I had a I've had a student call
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: me that before.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Not with the hands all of it.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: That's how that's how it feels when they talk it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: It feels a little bit a little bit strange.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I got a question for you because well, first off,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: let's give it up for I'm gonna I have to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: call you doctor star Kid.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, let's give it up for doctor Stockhead. I'm
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: gonna have to have you do all my intros.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: That was. That was pretty good. Listen, man, I'm I'm
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a legit fan of yours. I went down a rabbit hole.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I watched your Deontay Kyle episode, hilarious and very informative.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I watch your content and there's just not There aren't
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: many men in the space who are intellectual thought leaders man,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: who still feel like real people. You know. So I
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: appreciate you, bro, Thank you for coming on the pod. Likewise, Bro, yeah, man,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I got I got so many I got so many
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: questions to ask you. Because there's so many questions I
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: ask you. I want to nerd out in so many
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: different ways. But you said, was it with you in math?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Man?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: No, it's math is.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It is a scary thing, I think for anybody, especially
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the first time that you see it. And it makes
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: sense if you think of it like a language. Okay, right,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Like if if somebody walked in here and started speaking Mandarin,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: started speaking you know, some Chinese dialect, you would We wouldn't.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't know what was going on. Neither one of
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: us would. It doesn't matter if they start saying it slow,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter. They start pointing at things when
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. We got no point of reference. You
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: have no idea what's going on. And that's essentially that's
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: what math is. It's this language that has all of
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: these rules and this syntax. And if you haven't been
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: exposed to that at a young age, which a lot
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: of people who go into science do tend to be,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: they tend to have you know, more math focused or
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: science focused when they're younger. But if you if you
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: miss that window, it's as it's as though you're coming
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: into contact with a foreign language.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, man, but you can.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: But as an adult, you can learn a foreign lef
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: we go, you go, people are doing the maths. No,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: you're right, you can learn a foreign language. I think
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I have math hurt, so you gotta forgive me for
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: being bitter about it. Bro, I was there, though, I'm
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: with you. I played you know, I played football. I
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: didn't know anything about math, algebra, trigonometry. I like went
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: through this slow process of learning all that. So I'm
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: one percent I know exactly what you're talking about. That
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: was me when I started this path. So I love
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: it when the brilliant folks can relate. I had a
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: who changed my mind on math, because I do want
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: to get to your story because your story is crazy,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: and I want the people to know where you came
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: from and how you got here. But I had a
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: math professor in undergrad brilliant brother man. When he would
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: be doing equations, he would ask us what's ten plus five?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Because this man could solve an algebraic equation that was
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: as long as I seventy five, but he couldn't do
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: simple math in his head. And he was so comfortable
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: with that. This man was a genius. But addition to
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: subtraction escaped them somehow, and he said, math doesn't make.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Sense because you learn that it goes from one to ten,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: then no, it goes actually from one to one hundred.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Then you learn to get more numbers than one hundred,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and then at some point you learn no, it goes
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: from one to twelve, and then it goes back to
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: one when you start learning time. He says, numbers change
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: on you the more you learn, and it's hard to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: figure out where you are. So he doesn't focus on
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: what he does know. He says, I just hire that out.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I'll ask you all. I focus on what I do know.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: The deeper word that made me feel more comfortable not
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: knowing shit.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is important because me. You ask anybody, they'll
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: tell you that they don't know everything. But all of
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: us are hesitant at times to admit that we're wrong,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: to admit that we you know, we don't want to
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: be seeing it as dumb.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: We don't want to be seen.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: As like not having the ability to understand something. So
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: it's very natural and it's very human, but it keeps
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: you from, in my mind, being better. It does a
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: better version of yourselfish, I like, knows more things or
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: has you know a larger perspective.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm always shooting for the whider perspective when
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: it comes with things, because I'm fine. I don't need
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to know everything, but I like to be aware of
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: what I don't know and be able to ask questions
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: about it. In my book, I told a story.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: About when my my youngest daughter, where my wife had
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: some pregnancy complications with her and we ended up in
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: the part of the hospital you don't want to end
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: up in when you're having a baby.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: That's the high rist pregnancy ward scary, bro, it's scary,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: like the ultra sounds and everything. Everything looked different there.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And the doctor came in and he said, all right,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: here's what I know. You have a high likelihood for
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: this to happen. There's a likelihood for this to happen,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a likelihood for this to happen. We don't know what's
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: going to happen ultimately, but if we use these three
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: options here, these three outcomes, what are you almost comfortable with?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And it made me feel so comfortable him coming.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: In, not pretending that he knew everything, not saying, not
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: making anything definite or concrete.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: It's just like, well, everything's adjustable. It depends on the circumstance.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Here's what the options are, and I'll let you choose.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: As opposed to coming in and throwing numbers and statistics
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: at us and we scared we don't know what's going on.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I really wish more people employed that type of like
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: scientific thinking to even general conversation. Yeah, why do you
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: think people are so scared too? What's in that hole?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to think I don't know a thing.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: That's a good question. I think it's something that's that's
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: deeply human. First of all, I'm glad you had that
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: experience with that doctor. Yeah, and everything turned out well
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: and that you you know, it sounds like you got a
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: cool lesson out of it. But you know, when when
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: we think about the like the political leaders that are
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: able to get the most support amass the biggest following,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: they do the opposite, right, They always come in and
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: act like they have the answer.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: They are everything.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that there's there's like something that's
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: running under the hood in us all where when we
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: see that certainty, it's attracted. It makes it feel like,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you know, like shit, I don't really know what's going on,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: but somebody does.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: That person does, and that it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Like feels good to know that somebody that there's this
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: figure that has the answers and nobody wants to be
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: seen as incompetent. I think this is one of our
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: deepest insecurities, especially as men, to be seen as like
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: intellectually incompetent. And that's not the same as not knowing something, right.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: If you didn't when you were born, you were a baby,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: you didn't know anything. It wasn't because you were incompetent, right,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It wasn't because you were stupid or slow or anything
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: like that. You just hadn't learned these things yet. And
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: it's there's just something very very very deep in us
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: all that doesn't want to be seen as dumb.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, because if you're dumb, you're incapable. And if
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: you're incapable, you're not trustworthy. And if you're not trustworthy,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: because I have this theory that you know, all humans
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: would pack animals, man, we thrive on community. Undoubtedly.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I had Samon last night. Bro, I can't swim that well.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: An animal that can't swim that will has no business eating.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So I'm dependent on society
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: in order for me to have the things that I,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: like one need, and I think we have this deep
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: fear of being kicked out of the pack. And if
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not useful. If I'm not capable, I'm gonna get
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: kicked out of the pack. And that can manifest in
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different ways. But one of the
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: ways most topically that it manifests, at least in my mind,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is is not knowing. And I want to get to
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: your story because your story is about not knowing and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: saying hey, you know, or actually your story is about
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: my peaks and valleys because you knew exactly what it
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: is you wanted to do, and then something happened and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: then you had to change everything. One of the things
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: that sticks out on my mind is like when I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: go to the barber shop, and you know, you go
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to barber shop, you talk about the same like five things.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Mostly it's gonna be sports, dating, and romance, politics, you
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: know that type thing. Maybe movies and stuff like that.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: But I'm an have it. Had Ryan Clark on the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: pod and I told him I was like, Ryan, see,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I'm a football nerd bro Like it's real bad like
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: height weight college college. You know who your offensive coordinator
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: was in college? It's I go deep with it, basketball man.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Can we have a vulnerable mom at doc? Can we
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: be vulnerable? I used to be a huge basketball fan.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Man, I stopped watching like in ninety seven, and I
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: came back in the game was different, and I can't
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Get back into the sport. Yeah, and you stopped watching.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I think football just I'm a one woman man, and
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: football started taking over and I couldn't focus on both
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: of them at the same time. So basketball had to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: let her go, man, and I came back in. The
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: sport was different, like I left with Sam Cassell and
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: John Stockton Carl Malone and I came back to like
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the early Lebron are and you know, it was just
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: it was a different sport. And so we know we
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: were in the barbershop, were talking basket. I don't know
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: all the players anymore, so they just be talking and talking,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and like, at first, I don't know why, I just
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: couldn't admit that. I ain't know.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, cause if you uh, if KG were
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: to play the two and do a full court press,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: then maybe you know, there'd be an ISO in the
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: UH in the trade clause. You know, it was bad.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: And then after a while I was like, bro, you
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: don't talk about but you don't know what you're talking about.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: And it's it's it's just the worst. Yeah, And I didn't.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And it took me a while to be able to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: be the one that say, hey, I don't really know.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And then like I started becoming a therapist, and I
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: get on podcasts and they start asking me questions about stuff,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: And there's this assumption when you are and been exposed
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to academia, or if you're of a certain intellect, you're
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: supposed to know everything. And on podcasts I be telling people, now, oh,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that's a better question for sociologists. Oh, that's a better
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: question for us. I Cologists' not a psychologists. I'm a therapist.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know everything that they know, but I can
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: give you my idea of what I think it may be. Yeah,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: do you think with with you being an astrophysicist, do
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you think that even now you fell in the back
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of your mind like a little bit of that I
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: might not notice one hundred percent, but let me fudge
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: it a little bit, let me finesse it a little bit.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I would say that, Well, first of all, I have
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: to revisit things all the time. Yeah, I may have
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I may make a video about something. And somebody asked
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: me a great question which I love, by the way,
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: because good science, I mean good digging into information should
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: always lead to more questions, always, no matter what it is,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Just like journalism exactly exactly, it always should. It don't
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: matter if it's if you're in therapy and you're talking
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: to people and you get somewhere, you should have like
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: eight other avenues of other places that you could get to.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Same thing with science.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I may discover something about a planet and
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: figure something out, and maybe it's something that we didn't
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: know before, and then that should lead to a bunch
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: of other questions, Well, why didn't we know that, Why
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: didn't we suspect that? What in our thinking this allowed
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: us to predict that that was something that could even happen.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: And so I think that, yeah, digging should always lead
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: to more. Now, when people ask me a question that
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I'll just go I have, you know,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: textbooks in my house.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'll go read them.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I'll look back through something, I'll look up you know,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the latest research or whatever. I try to not just
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: outright bullshit, but with what I know. Sometimes I could say, oh, well,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: you know, this kind of makes me think of this
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: other thing, and this may apply here it may not.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I'm also really intentional about saying, well, here, this is
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: my opinion, right, like this is their scientistic Yeah, it's
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: like this, this is what we know, and based on
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: what we know, this is what I think. But I
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: want to stress that this is my speculation, even if
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I do think it's grounded in some evidence. But I'm
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: not you know, I'm not God, and no scientist is,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: and nobody is. I have people Sometimes I make a
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: video and somebody may leave a comment and be like, oh, no,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I heard so and so say this, And it's like
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: and then maybe that's a big name, famous person scientists,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: but it's like that person is not infallible, that like that.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: That person is not Jesus Christ writing whatever the ten
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Commandments or anything like that. So it's you. You gotta
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: be comfortable with that. And I do think that people
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: respect that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I think so too. I think so too. And I
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: remember somebody said. I was in a debate with someone.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Someone said, well, science is fact, and I said, nah,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: science ain't fact. Science is the closest we can get
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to the truth with the information we have available to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: us in this moment, which is significant. Still, oh it's important,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: but it's not.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, things get overturned all the time, and you
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: know a cool thing to think about is that. So
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: in science, a theory is one of the most sturdy ideas,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: a theory that has lasted for one hundred years people
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: have been trying to disprove and have not yet been
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: able to. So a theory is this like shirt up
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: thing that has tons and tons of different evidence to it.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: But there is no theory that's complete because you you
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: could go out tomorrow and do an experiment and you
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: could find some data that like pokes a hole in
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: this thing, and today's as we sit here right now,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: we like I don't I can't predict the future. So
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: there is no theory that's ever complete. Essentially, there is
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: no like you'll never put the period at the end
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: of the sentence of science. It's always you know, it's
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: a draft that's going on and hopefully it gets better
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: and better, like writing a book. Go you you never
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: gonna get to a place where that's said and done.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: And you know what I'm saying, and we can like
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: dust off our hands. And I love that because I'm
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: a curious person and I want to keep going. So
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: that's an important thing to keep in mind about.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Let's go back, because you're talking to the people and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: want the people to know your story. I know y'all
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: that don't know this guy. Let me let me help
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you understand something. He spent his whole young life being
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: an athlete. First he was an athlete, and I'll let
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: him tell it. But this man decided to look up
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: how to become an astrophysicist and he did it. That's
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that's that makes no sense, you know that, right? Like,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a preposterous story. If someone wants
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to write it and that is your real life.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does make sense, though, give I'm gonna tell
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: it a different a slightly different way. So, yeah, grew
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: up always wanted to to play sports, wanted to be
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Ladanian Thomplins saying Terrell Davis, these were the running backs
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be, and I was decent.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I got a scholarship University of Kentucky and that was
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: all I ever wanted, and I was locked in.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: When you trying to take sports to a high level,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: it's controlling the way that you eat, the time you
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: go to bed, whether or not you're going on vacation
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: the friends that you have, because it's going to be
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: other people who are thinking the same way. And I
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: got hurt, and as I was rehabbing, I what injury
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: did you get? Tour my ACL and my meniscus, and
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: then I had some complications during rehab.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: So two knee injuries, same time, at the same time,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: on the same leg.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, meniscus ACL, same time. Then I retore my meniscus
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: several more times, to the point now I don't really
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: have a meniscus, so it's just like bone on ball.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Luckily you don't got to run to be an astrophysicist.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And it was while I was.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Hurt, so mind you, this is all I've ever wanted
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: is to do this thing. And I have a deep,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: intense path. I feel like that's my purpose, you know
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: what I mean. I felt like that was my destiny.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: And when I lost that, it literally feels like the
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: world's over, Like the universe has done. My life at
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: twenty two twenty three is over, just like that. And
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: it was it was like in that despair where I
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: had no idea what I was going to do. I had,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: you know, it seemed like a lost cause. I started
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: watching these documentaries astronomy documentaries, and I got captivated at
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the idea that you know, the stars that you go
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: out and look at it, and now you maybe look
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: up and you really think nothing about it. Almost all
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: of them have their own planets. And you know, we
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: had eight planets in our solar system. They may have
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: a similar number, They may have more and may have less.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: But there's like all these other worlds out there, and
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: both I think figure itatively and literally, it like opened
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: my mind to this vast universe when it felt like
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: mine was just disintegrating before my eyes, and I just
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: kind of realized, like, actually, the universe is not ending.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: That's that's how I felt. That was my perspective.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: But it may be infinite, like there's a there's so
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: much more, and that reframe for me, I think it
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: was it. First of all, it ignited my curiosity, which
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: you said sometimes at a young age, especially as men are,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: curiosity can it can get eroded away?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and almost deliberately from a societal perspective. Yeah, yeah, Well,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: you know, a bunch of a bunch of young curious
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: minds are going to be trying to figure out what's
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: going wrong. Why is it going wrong? How can we
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: fix it? Is that something that's maybe not something that
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: you want all of the young men in the society
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: to do. If you are the one with power, if
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: you are trying to keep things at status quo, you
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: pot it is right. And but I you know, you
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: mentioned this earlier, that we're pack animals, and you started
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: to touch on some of these like evolutionary psychology things
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: where you and me, if we're going to survive, I
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: don't need to know how to do everything that a
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: human does. If it's us two, I could do half
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: and you could do half. And if we got a
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: whole village, we can all do one, twentieth or whatever.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: And there's something else that I think that that's where
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: our curiosity comes from, is that you know, we are
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: we like opened our eyes and we see this world
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that we live in, and we don't have many advantages
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: compared to other animals. We're like, we're slow, we're weak.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: The best male athlete, female athlete. Compare them to like
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: a grizzly bear or orca. You know what I'm saying,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: It's not even close, right, I mean a dog, like
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: a dog that's like fifty year sixty pounds. I feel
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: like it could tear me up in a one on one.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: But what we did have was curiosity. We could like
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: figure things out. And so there's this deep innate curiosity
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: that if we don't if we don't ignite and use
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and apply, I think that it it like causes us
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: to almost malfunction where you may be feeling like more
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: depressed or more anxious, but you're not like curiously engaged
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: with something in your life. And I feel like that
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: that's natural for all of us. So I was curious
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: about the universe.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I literally googled it.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: This is before Chad GBT, right, so I'm this is
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: old school googling.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: You remember, I know, I know you remember this.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: I do remember old school googling. I'm like, okay, so
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: how do you become an astrophysicist? Watched Neodograss Tyson, he
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: hoasted Cosmos. Watched Cosmos every episode. That's what got me
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: into it. Every every single episode I watched.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: It's so good.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: It's so good. They got this like beautiful score to it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: The visuals here on the spaceship illustrating exactly what's happening
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: as he's explaining it and the voice is real listenable,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and he's so good, so good.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: So I see that and I'm like, well, you know,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: how do you how do you do that? How do
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: you become an astrophysicist? It's like, okay, you need a PhD.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Grad school. So I just graduated from Kentucky. That's what
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: you do before grad school. So I just called up
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a grad school and was like, hey, I just graduated,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: what do I have to do to get in a
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: graduate program? And this Russian professor he's like, well, you
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: need you need multiple years of calculus.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: He needs a that's physics, you need Asian. It's good,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that's pretty good.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully that don't offend nobody. But I didn't have that.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any calculus, I didn't have any of that.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I have never taken physics before. So then I called
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: the undergrad department and was like, you know, what would
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: it take to get in there? And I didn't have
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the prerecs for that either. So I basically had to
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: start at community college taking like early classes, algebra, trigonometry,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: those fundamental math courses the one day I was supposed
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: to learn in high school. But I ain't really care,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: you know. I was I didn't think I needed trigonometry
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: and algebra for.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Football, saying bro.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: That being said, the basics of physics will help you
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: in a leverage sport like football. If you understand. Players
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: get an intuition. They say things like you play football, right,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I did. They say things like low man wins, right,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: that's physics.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Keep your feet moving, yeah, move the pile, yeah, that's
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: basic physics, and we get I think it's cool that
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: we get like this physical intuition about it by using
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: our bodies and doing things.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So that's very cool.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: But so, you know, I started to map this out,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, so grad school is gonna take
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: four or five six years. Bachelors again gonna take four
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: years something like that, and now I'm gonna have a
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: year to a community college.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: So this was like ten I'm looking at ten years minimal.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: That's the hell of a road right there ahead of you, man.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was hesitant because that's a long time
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: right in my you know, my homies, some of them
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: are going to the NFL, some of them are getting
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: jobs doing this and that, and I felt like I
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: would be behind if I did that. I had this
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: feeling that I would just be behind. And I remember
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: talking to my dad. My Pops was like, you know,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: when you eighty ninety years old on your deathbed, are
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: you gonna wish that you had started a job a
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: little bit sooner to make more money or feel like
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: you was keeping up with your colleagues, your friends, Or
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: are you going to a wish that you had just
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: spent the last sixty seventy years doing something that you loved,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: that you were interested in. And that really hit home
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: for me, especially coming from sports, where that was my
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: whole focus. I didn't it almost almost built my life
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: around it. I would say, you had to build your
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: life around it. When I talk to athletes, I've been
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: lucky enough to do some work with the NFLPA, and
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: one thing that's consistent across all athletes is that once
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: the game is over, there is this profound sense of
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: loss that they have, not only a sense of loss,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: but a sense of being lost. The best shape I've
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: ever been in in my life was incredible. Man, it
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: wasn't football shape. I don't think people understand when your
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: body becomes the instrument by which you earn your living,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: by which your performance is measured, by which you as
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: a person are evaluated.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: It's a different thing. If football is competitive, your spot
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: ain't never guaranteed. You're always a twisted angle, a moniscus,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a pco away from the next man coming up and
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: taking your job. So that's the stress added on top that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know an athlete that is either
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: D one or professional where that sport is not life.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I and it's a shame because no matter
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: how good you are, if you got to if you
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: have a twenty year career, it's gonna end eventually at
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: some point. And so it's exactly what you said. I
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: think every athlete and it probably applies to anybody who's
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: good at something really early on in life it won't
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: last forever. Is that you come to a point where
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: you have to figure out what you're doing in the world,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: which is not easy. And in a sense you get this,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: you almost get this artificial sense of what life is about.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: And then it's exactly what you said. When you lose that,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: then it's like, what is life about? What am I doing?
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: And I think what's worth What's worse as an athlete
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: is you're like worshiped for being an act. Oh yeah,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: dudes want to be your friend, kids want your autograph,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: girls want to date you, you getting paid, you know,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: you're a super ere an icon. And then you go
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: from that to not even knowing what your role is.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: That's like, it's a steep cliff and I think it's
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: really difficult to navigate that.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I imagine it'd be hard to explain that
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to somebody. I think we have a validation issue in
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the world, especially with men. I got two little girls,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and man, we can't leave the house without the world
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: telling them how pretty they are, how smart they are,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: how capable they are. And I love it for them, man,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: but I can't help but to look back in my
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: own experience and realize where that was missing. And when
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I talk to the homies, that validation was missing, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: when I have male clients, that validation was missing. And
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you know, girls have their own separate issues in the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: world that are profound and remarkable. And it's not to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: step on that at all, but it is to highlight
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the fact that there is a certain applause or a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: certain sense of being seen that I think boys just
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: do not get. And I don't think people realize a
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: lot of people don't know. Especially a lot of men
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: don't know what it feels like to be clapped on
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: by everybody. Everywhere you go, there's applause. Every room you
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: walk in, people are interested to meet you. I know
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: this by doing a social media thing. And I don't
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: know if the human brain is wired for that much
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: positive validation all the time. I see how people go
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: nuts when they get famous. It can be the power
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: can be intoxicating. But when you remove that, when you
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: snatch that from under somebody, I can't imagine what that
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: sugar crash feels like.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it's so powerful. Something that you just
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: said made me think of this. I saw a video
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: maybe it was on TikTok, and it was a woman
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: was asking how count she was Like she made this
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: observation that she doesn't know any men that love to
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: celebrate their birthday like her dad or brother saw that,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: and I made a video talking about that because I've
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: thought about that a lot. I've never cared about celebrating
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: my birthday neither. And I always have friends like I'll
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: have my my friends that are women. Now, tell me, like,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: what do you mean, like with just celebrate for being
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: alive and I've thought a lot about what doesn't inspire
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: that feeling, and I think it's what you said. As
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: a you do get conditioned as a man. And I'm
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: not a woman, so I can't speak on whether or
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: not women field this way, but as a man, I
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: know that it feels like the only time that I
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: should celebrate is when I've done something. Man, I've accomplished something,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: and so a birthday, I just didn't die yet, Yeah,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: but that doesn't feel like I did something. And I
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: can It's one thing for people to be like, well, no,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: you should celebrate being alive, and intellectually I can agree
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: with that, but that doesn't that has nothing to do
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: with the feeling that and the experience just don't be there. Yeah,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: So it's like it doesn't it doesn't feel and I
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: hate that for I hate that for how many men
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: also feel like that, that you need to so much
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: that you need to have done something to feel like
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: worthy of this celebration or applause.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the genesis of like masculine thinking.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: It's you know, I got homies that when they money low,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: you don't see them. You know, I got homies Like, Nah,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna celebrate this when I reached a certain milestone.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Then when you reach the milestone, you realize that milestone
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel as big as you imagine, so you don't
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: celebrate there either. And then time goes by and moments
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: go by, and man, and you just you don't do it.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I got a cousin right now who just became I mean,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: he just got this amazing director position for this company
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: he used to work for. They brought him back and
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: gave him a high position. I'm like, bro, let's go
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: out get drinks, like, let's celebrate that. And which I'm
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: learning from my wife because I you know, I'm a
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: dude like you. I got it. It's cool. It's not
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: a big thing. But and we've been I've been. It's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: been four months. Man, we've been trying to get this
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: thing together, and it's it's just a reoccurrent thing. And
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I think it goes back to how men value life
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: or just the disposability of men. It's society conditions us
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: to understand that you're disposable. And I think that there's
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: something like there's something deep in there around if if
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I celebrate these little wins or if I make these
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: milestone significant one. I might be drawing too much attention
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: to myself. You know, I don't want everybody to think
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I need that validation, like, bro, you do you need it? Okay,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you need it, It's all right. But also I think
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: it sets you up for the disappointment that nobody cares.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: So if I act like it's you know, if it's
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: not a big deal to me, I don't. I don't
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: fall very far when I realize nobody cares as much
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: as I do, or nobody cares about me as much
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: as I would want them to, which hurts. But I'm
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: a fan of saying the feelings out loud. Damn all
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that keeping it in, that's how you explode. I do
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: want to know you. You spent your whole life being
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: known as like you went how long did you play sports?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: When you were a teenager?
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: And so started when I was probably four or five,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: and wait until I finished college, so twenty two, twenty
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: three something like that.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And I know on football, you got to know the players,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you got to know the playbook. You gotta know what's
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: going on, Like you were at a big school, like
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you you was playing for real, for real? Was it
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: ever a time just diving into the science world, thinking
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: about the transition from being an athlete to being a
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: scientist with like you had to and I kind of
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: asked you this before, but like not being a scientist,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: like but becoming where you had to pretend you knew,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: like just like go along and get along. Like maybe
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: when you were first doing those algebra classes, what was
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: that like walking into to that joint you you just
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: finished your Basterl's degree and then you got to go
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: back to community college. Was it any gap that you
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: had to feel you feel like you had to posture
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, I mean becoming.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: The whole time up until you know, maybe a few
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: years ago, you do feel that, like, I know how
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: hard it was for me to go back and learn math.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: I know how hard it was for me to go
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: back and learn, you know, all these different physics concepts,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: And I always felt like, I think the one thing
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: that helped me combat that personally was that I went
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: into this journey knowing that I'm not the you know,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: the genius one in a trillion kid that you know,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: was solving equations when he's.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Four or whatever.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: But what I did know is that I could work
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: extremely hard like I feel like I can outwork anybody,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: and I don't feel like that takes any talent or
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: any skill. That's really just a mindset, that's just an
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: ass dog in you that. Yeah, and I knew that
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I had that, and so that's how I would approach
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: homework problems, homework sets, studying.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It would just be like we're going to brute force this.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: And I found out that the same thing that applies
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: as it does to working out. The more that I
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: practice these problems, the easier. It got to the point
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: that I walk in and it tests and know everything.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: And it was just because I had spent a crazy
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: amount of time studying. And so that made me feel
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: developed this efficacy, this self efficacy where I know that
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know everything. I know I'm not the smartest
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: person in the world, but I can learn anything. And
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I think that that applies to the average human brain.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I think that we're all equipped to build skills essentially,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: oh for sure. And so for me, yeah, it does
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: feel like I mean, I had classmates that I they
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: would the professor would say one thing, and it's like
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: they just knew it like that, like they didn't have
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: to do any practice problem, like, how.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Did you know that?
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: He was like, well, well, the professor said, X, Y,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: and Z, so I just figured, you know, to just
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: apply that over here, which makes sense. But for me,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: it just took more practice, and that's fine. Like, you know,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, we crossed the same
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: finish line, right, we got the same degree.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: And so I think.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: That that getting that lived experience of feeling like I
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: don't know things, feeling like it's harder, but realizing that
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: I can move through that and work through that and
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: develop that knowledge, developed those skills, it never really made
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: me feel like I was out of place.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Also, I come in, I'm the only black person pretty
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: much in any room observatory that I go to, it
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: is rare.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: That there's another black person there.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: The field astrophys is like less than one percent black,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: you know, so it's like, and then how many of
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: those people are also former athletes? I think the first
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: day when I showed up to the University of Cincinnati
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: where I did my undergrad somebody asked me if I
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: was lost in the physics building, you know, Sarah, would
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: you like some assistance? The cafeteria's the other way, right,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: And but I like I could do that, though, you know,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I feel like I got I have the type of
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: personality where I can take a chip on my shoulder
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: and like flip the switch if when I need to,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: which has been really, really helpful, because when you feel
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: like the odd man out, you know. I think people
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: can respond to that in different ways. But my way
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: is that it's sort of like, all right, I want
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: to prove you wrong, or like I took that personally,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: and for me, that works.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: That's that's that's the athlete dog in you. I'm glad
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: that those skills transferred because even when you were talking,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about me and becoming a therapist. And
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I walked in a room and I didn't take psychology.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Wasn't my undergrad. So they were talking about SIGMAUA. Froud
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and I was like, who's that.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Who's your undergrad Cara with journalism. That's interesting, that's an
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: interesting perspective from a therapist.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it helped me a lot, man, And this is
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: something teaching my daughter right now. It's that the presence
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: of someone else's genius is in the absence of yours.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And I always talk about the special sauce. If you
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: look in the bread ouwl. It's a million different brands
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: of bread. You know what they got in common. They
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: all sell bread. Maybe one's chewier than the other, maybe
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: one is a little weedier than the other, but it's
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: all bread. However, a lot of those brands have been
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: in that aisle for a very long time because they
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: have a specific function for a specific customer base. And
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I try to take that mentality in the rooms that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I go into where I may feel underprepared, or I
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: may feel like I don't know everything, and it allows
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: me to be more curious than I am self doubted
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: or or walking into it with like some type of
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: self defeat. This mentality and I don't have to know everything.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: It takes so much pressure off when someone says a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: word and I'm like, oh what that means? Explain to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: me what that word means. Oh, that's what that is. Okay.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: It's not about what you're going to think about me.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: It's about what I can contribute to the situation and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: what I can take away. When I went to undergrad
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: and I got in class with the kids from Uganda,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I ain't never feel dumber in my life, man. And
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: it was a world cultural geography class. They knew so
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: much more about the world than I did. And just
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: like you said, I think that could do two things.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: It can either prevent you from moving forward, or it
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: can kind of inspire you to lean in and learn more.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I chose a letter to inspire me. I don't really
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: have an athlete mindset, like, I don't take nothing personally.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't really have to prove it. That's
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: why I probably would have been a terrible football player.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like, man, you gotta earn your spot on this
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: roster game. It's like, nah, fuck that. I just don't
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: want to play. Yeah, I don't care that much, but
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I know that about myself, and I think knowing that
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: allows me to walk in the way and just be
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: okay with who I am and where I am. I
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: try to detach certainty, or the desire to be certain
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: all the time from my identity, because I don't think
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: it kills you as much when it's just something you desire.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: But when you attach your philosophy or whatever whatever your
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: thesis is in life to your identity, it gets harder
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to move away from it without thinking you lost a
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: part of yourself in the process. I mean, I've been
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: believing this for this long. If I separate from this,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know who I am anymore. It's like, yeah,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: that's that's bigger than a belief issue, bro, that's an
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: identity issue. There's nothing that you can tell there's nothing
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: that I believe that can't be changed or can't be
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: swayed with more information. And there's this with masculinity, there's
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: this theory of certainty, like you got to be certain
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: about everything, you know when it comes to dating, you
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: got to be certain. I want to you, as you
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: ask a lot of anybody who's interested in men who
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: want a manly man like traditionally masculine, whatever that means,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: ask them what they want. I want somebody authoritative. I
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: want somebody certain. I want somebody who knows what they want.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I want somebody decisive. Like these characteristics box men in
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: believe it or not, and we don't often see it
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: until it's too late. I agree, I agree.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: One of the something that I say all the time
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: is that it is exactly what you said that I
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: will believe anything. I'll change my mind in any direction
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: if I see some new information, if I see some
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: new evident doesn't mean, I'm just gonna take everything you
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: know as truth, No, but always open to you know,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: shifting here and there, which is hard to do if
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: the things that you're thinking, exactly what you said, are
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: a part of your identity, yeah, because then it feels
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: like that's like unstable, right, this is who you are
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: as a person, and that's moving all over the place.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't have to be. It's like your thoughts.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: It's like your thoughts and your beliefs aren't, aren't you
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: you know, there's nothing wrong with those things.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Shift that it's hard to get through the people in therapy.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: You are not your thoughts and you are not your beliefs.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Just look at the political landscape. People's entire identity be
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: on what side of the hour they are. And you
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: can almost tell sometimes looking at somebody sometimes what side
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: of the out they're on, because their beliefs have manifested
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: in almost everything that they do. And sometimes when we
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: be in therapy, somebody be like I'm mad, or I'm
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: angry or I'm disappointed, and I do this exercise like, well,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: you're not angry, you feel angry. You're not your feelings.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: And I think that because they're so powerful, and they
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: wash over us, and they dictate everything we do. Feelings
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: dictate everything everything you think. Believe, it's all feelings. I
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: think that it's very hard, especially for men, to back
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: up all of that. I think about von Miller bro
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: like people think about masculinity. Is Reggie White, Like I'm
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: gonna do a hump move and get past you. I
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: think about von Miller with his strength. Is his flexibility? Yeah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: the fact that man's angles can rotate at a hundred
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: degree angle. He can zip around the corner. And you know,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Roger quarterback like a jazz sport. You know what I'm saying,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: No pause, We just gonna go for that. I ain't
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: right quarter back like a jam sport. Yeah, man, he
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: gonna be that man's book bag. Hey, before we keep
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: going real quick, I want to tell y'all something that
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited about. That's my first book. It all
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: starts when you do, and it's available for pre order
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: right now because it's coming out in just a few weeks.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Is everything I've learned from therapy, from my own life,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and from the conversations I've been having with people for years.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Just search. It all starts when you do. By care
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Gains and pre order your copy today available whatever books soul.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: You know, when we talk about like this myth, not myth,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: but this expectation of men to be confident and to
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: just have the answers I want to know about you,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I want to know. I'm trying to figure out how
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: to ask this question, man, because when I talk to
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of men sometimes I feel like we be
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: boxed in a little bit, like, oh, I don't if
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know enough about it already, the curiosity just
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: it ain't gonna be there to learn more about it
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: or to lean or lean into it a little bit more.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: What do you wish more men understood? Because I've been
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: thinking about this a lot, what do you wish more
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: men understood about the difference between natural intelligence what you
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: talked about and just like the gap between natural and
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: intelligence and being okay, not knowing some shit. M that's
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: a good question. What do you think what do you
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: wish more men knew about that gap? Yeah?
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: I think that it's it's almost something that we already
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: know but just haven't necessarily put words to which is
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: that before you learn something like the process of learning
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: involves you being confused it involves you not knowing the
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: thing and like feeling dumb or feeling something negative. Yeah
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: something besides, I know exactly what that thing is and
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: that that's that's like the natural process. I think that
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: it's obvious to men when we hit, when we go
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: to the gym, it's obvious that you push yourself to
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: the limit your muscle.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: You go to failure.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Your muscles literally fail, they can't do anymore, and you're weak.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: And when when you fail, I could give you some
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: lightweight that you couldn't even couldn't even do absolutely, but
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: you know that that's a part of getting stronger, and
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: you're fine with that.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: You're okay with that.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: You don't go home, you know, hanging your head and
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: shame because you didn't do a thousand sets, right, But
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: you come back the next time and you're a little
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: bit stronger, and it's like we your mind goes through
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: the same thing. You just can't get infinite information in
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: one sitting. There is it's a problem, like you're supposed
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: to feel confused, you're supposed to feeldumb, you're going to
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: mental failure, and that that you have to it's like
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: a reframe. You have to become comfortable with that idea
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: of Damn, Like, this is a new thing, and I
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: could spend some time with it, and you don't have
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: to accept it, right, Like you could think about it,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: sleep on it for a couple of days, and come
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: back and be like, you know, I thought about it,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: and I kind of understand that, but I still don't
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: necessarily agree with it or you know what I mean.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: I'm not necessarily going to adapt it into my belief system.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: And that's okay, Like ideas they can come and go.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: But I think that it for me, a lot of
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: it is just reframing that interim peereriod of confusion, feeling dumb,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: you know, feeling shame, maybe even feeling embarrassed, Yeah, and
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: realizing that that's just the normal feeling that comes with
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: learning something new.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those of the bus stops along the route, man, exactly. Yeah,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: And I think it's the human brain just doesn't like displeasure.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: We build everything around.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Comfort and safety and what feels good. And just like
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: to your point, being in a gym, I tweaked my
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: back a few months ago.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Man, I was on the pod man and it wasn't
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I was like squatting three eighty five, said man, let me,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: let me go back and do a step back. So
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I was going to do one thirty five for twenty
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: five reps on Rep number twenty four herds Uncle and
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: my lower back listen, man, I want to talk about
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: it rep. I was training for high Rocks.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Man, I felt good that day, but my body is like,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: you can feel good, but you're still forty, my boy.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: And now trying to get back into the gym, there's
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: something that feels very defeating at not being able to
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: lift the weight that I want.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: But that weight's tangible. I can see one hundred and
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: thirty five pounds. I can't see an inability to click
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: with some intellectually or mentally. So now I'm trying to
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: figure this thing out. It doesn't have any physical manifestation
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: that I can see and get a receipt for, but
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I know I feel it deeply, and now I got
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: to work through that in my mind. So it makes
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: sense when you compare the working out, but it's supposed
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: to be uncomfortable while you're on the journey. Harvard University
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: started doing this thing a while ago where they do
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: no grade classes, so it's either pass or fail in
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the class because what they will find is, and I
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: think a lot of schools do this now, what they
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: will find is students stop being exploratory out of fear
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that they'll fill the class. So instead of giving asbcsd's
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and f's, they give you a pass or fail or
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: a satisfactory unsatisfactory to kind of urge people to be
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: more curious in a lean in and experiment with different
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: subjects that they may not be that knowledgeable about.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is really important because when when if everything
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: is a test, you just want to pass the test.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: You just want to You just want to you want
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: to get your doggie bag or you want to get
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: your your goodie bag, and you want to go. You
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: want to pass the test.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: And that's that's like not what I think university, at
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: least at its inception, was supposed to be. If it
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: was supposed to be like this exploratory thing where you're
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: developing the way that you think about things. And that's
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a problem with the entire education system
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: because at every level people are just trying to get
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: a's so they can get on to the next level.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: And I mean that probably shows up in society broadly.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Like the anti intellectualism movement we got right now.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: It's crazy, yeah it is, but it makes sense when
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: you follow the trail of breadcrumbs. It's it's man, don't
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: get me into my political bag, bro, And and how
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: we feel people educationally. But I think just from a
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: social perspective, there is something now that we have, like
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: with the proliferation of the Internet and everything, everybody talks
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: to everybody all the time, and the gap between who
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: knows what is.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: More obvious than it's ever been because now on threads
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: or Twitter or Instagram, I'm talking to people I never
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: meet in person, but I would never have a conversation
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: with you in real life. And now I'm being forced
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: to listen to your dumb ass theories without my consent.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: And it makes it clear.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: How different in terms of thoughts and thought processes we are,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: how different we are in the way we even think
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: about knowledge and being okay with not knowing how different
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: we are and asking.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Questions versus making assumptions. You know, and a lot of
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: people aren't afraid to a lot of people are terrified
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: to look stupid, but sometimes not enough people are afraid
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: to say something that makes absolutely no sense. And it's offensive,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: like the whole this might be an unpopular take, but
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: the earth is flat.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, yeah, it's a don't get me started
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: on the on the flat.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: We'll gotta go down that road. But yeah, well we'll
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: got to go down that role. But it's just like
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: sometimes people say the most preposterous things and there's no
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: anybody can say anything to anybody at any time. And
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I came up in a time where if
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: you on TV or radio, it was because you knew
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: what you were talking about. Yeah, and now everybody got
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: these microphones.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's you know, we're kind of taught
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: in this country that because you have a right to
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: opinion means that you should feel like your opinion is right,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: or it means that that matters right because we have
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: freedom and speech, so everybody can feel any way about something.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: But you know, the world is not complete. A lot
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: of stuff is socially constructed. But there are some things
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: that are just true and false, some things that are
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: just right and wrong, straight through lines right. But it
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: doesn't it doesn't feel like that in this Yeah, this
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: media landscape with like you said, anybody with a mic
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: visibility in some sense, exposure in visibility is seen as
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: authority and credibility. Absolutely, so the number of people that
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: you have listening to you gives credence to the thing.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: That you're saying. This is hate.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: As a science communicator, this is sort of the bane
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: of being online, is that people will just pick up
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: a phone and starts talking about some crazy nonsense conspiracy
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: that's like from a misunderstanding of some physics thing or
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: something like that, and just millions of people will see it,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: and then that'll become the new hegemonic thinking and belief
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: of people.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Throughout on the Internet. You'll find a small community and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: just what they think will just revert. There'll be like
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: a vocal minority, and just their beliefs will start reverberating
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: out in the larger society. I watched the ju believe
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: of space deniers versus scientists, and I'm an even killed dude,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to flip the table over. Shut up.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know how those NASA scientists got through that,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: because I couldn't do it. Man, I do want to.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: I've been wanting to ask you this just being a dude. Man,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: I noticed that a lot of men I don't know
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: when I talk to men. Let me use this caveat
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: me and my wife, we talk about gender all the time.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: And one of the things I had to resign to
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: is I only know men from a man's perspective. You know.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I don't date men or not interested in dudes. I
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: just not that way. So I don't know that side
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: of men. And when men are around me, it's hard
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: to tell whether they're being genuine and how they coming across,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: whether they posturing. Because you see me on TV, you
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: listen to my pods, So now like you kind of you,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: you're creating this air of let's just say curiosity just
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: to make it seem like we're on a similar wavelength,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: which I understand, but I don't always know what's real.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: I want to know what you think keeps a lot
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: of men, And this is a people problem. It's not
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: just a man problem, but we're talking about men right now.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: From wanting to learn more, not just schooling, but just
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: genuine pure curiosity for what do you think profess men
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: for wanting to know more about people, about things, just
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: outside of a lane of expertise that already exists.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: I think it's probably a lot of the same thing
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: that we've been talking about. Before you get you do
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: get rewarded in society for knowing things, for being especially
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: if you get online, you're gonna get a big page
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: if you seem authoritative, you seem like you know what
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: you're talking about, Like forget if you do or don't, you.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Speak with enough confidence people to believe you.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Right, And so, I mean, I think that that leads
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: to a couple problems. For one, the audience will start
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: to believe whoever's saying whatever. But it just doesn't foster
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: there's not a wrong reward for admitting that you.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Don't know something. Yeah, right.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: It's like as a scientist, so I have to like
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: walk this fine line. As a scientist, you actually never
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: know anything with certainty. At most we can like say
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: that I'm ninety nine point nine nine percent, But you
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: don't ever really know anything with certainty?
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Is it more like you strongly hypothesize it type shit?
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it could be that, but sometimes it's just we've
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: never found evidence to suggest that this isn't true. However,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: there still could potentially be other possibilities. And if you
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: read a scientific paper, that's the type of language that's
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: used because nobody wants to come out and say we
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: determine this, this is one hundred percent undeniable fact, and
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: then you get overturned. It kind of like makes you
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: look bad scientifically in the science community, but online that's
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: exactly not how you make a video that's gonna that
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: people are gonna see. You can't throw in all the
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: caveats where it's like, well, you know, we looked at
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: this and there's some suggestive evidence here and we don't
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: know one hundred percent, but it could be this, this,
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: and this. Now that's the reality. That's how you that's
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: what you can say with real companies, right, but that's
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: not what is shareable. That's not what people are gonna watch.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: And too many caveats. It's too many caveats. It takes
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: away seem like you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: your authority gets questioned, and that's what people say, Oh,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: scientists are just guessing, they're just making things up, and
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: it's like no, like everybody is just guessing what everything.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Everybody is just making things up.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: And when you get down to the nitty gritty and
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: all the nuance and you start looking quantitatively at things,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: it's not like the world is not black and white.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: But I think that there's a challenge there.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: With overstating what you know, which is how you get
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: traction in media, uh, and being honest about what we
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: actually know. That's a challenge as scientists. I think I've
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: gotten over that mostly. I just learned to sprinkling terms
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: phrases like, you know, it seems like or this is
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: strongly suggestive something like that.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: In my personal experience, so you lean that to the
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: anecdotal piece and not try to make your authority empirical. Yeah.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I had a media trainer one time who listened to
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: one of my interviews and she told me stop saying
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I think. And I was like, but I do think
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: that's not everyone's universal truth. And she said, yeah, but
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: you're on TV now, and when you're on TV, you
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: have to be the authority. People are looking at you
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: for answers like, yeah, but it's not the answer. It's
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: just my interpretation of what I think is right. And
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: it's such a weird world for me because I'm not
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: a scientist. But I always look at you know, who
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: does a really good job of not speaking in certain terms,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: like sports broadcasters and sports journalists like if you listen
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: to a lot of football commentators, they'll say, yeah, he's
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: as good as anybody you'll see. They won't say he's
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the best, or they'll say he one of he's one
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: of the he's one of the better backs in the league.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: They won't say he's the best. They don't speak in
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: certain terms so that when you go back ten years
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: from now, when you play it back, they don't have
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: egg on their face for putting, you know, putting the
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: lid on the jar of a story that was still unfolding.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: And you know, I try to go with that, but sometimes,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: for example, yeah, that that hyperbole brings the point home, like, man,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: he was the best I ever seen. You ain't never
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: seen nobody will. Yeah, greatt it ain't never gonna be
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: nobody better than that.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Records admit to be broken, Bro, it's always going to
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: be somebody different.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: I think as a man, though, you also I think that.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: A real take is that talk you talk.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: You get, you get, you get punished for like a man.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: So you're supposed to know what you brought this up
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: and date, you're supposed to decide, You're supposed to know
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: what you want. You're supposed to be the leader that has,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: you know, that knows the direction, and you get punished
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: if you're honest about like figuring something out.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: They feel.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: And when I say punished, you know, it's not you know,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: nothing like drastic.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: It's not like fifty lashes on your back. But you
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: get you.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: Get like docked, yeah a little bit. You get the merits,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: you get the merits.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: And it's like, but that's a very human thing. Like
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: I don't none of us. I don't know anything. I'm
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: I was born here just like you. And I think
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: that over time there's an accumulation from all angles. It
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: don't just have to be dating. Could be from your organization,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: Like your organization is looking for leadership. Are they looking
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: for somebody who's like open about their uncertainty. I mean,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: I guess it depends on the culture of the organization.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Oh no, that's not the type of leader, right, And
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: so I think.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: That we do.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: You just accrue this overall feeling that it's bad to
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: that's not a good thing.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and then it gets socially reinforced. I always
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: think about les from Poor Mind's podcasts. By the way, up,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I know it's it's like a Girl's podcast.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: But I really enjoy Poor Minds. I think they get
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: a very good interviews. That's a very good podcast. But
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: like she's hilarious.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: She was on like that eighty five South show and
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: I'll never forget this bit she did. But she said, man,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to be a man, and you can't find
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: a parking spot. Let the man, let me park the cord.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And she's joking, but there's
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: truth to that.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Even my wife sometimes I be I can't just be
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: like saying, move on, whole ass, nigga, your whole ass
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: out the wait niggle and then she get the whipping
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: the joint ceac to entertaining the kings of comedy. That's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: that's one of the funniest things I've ever seen in
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: my life.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Tremendous bit, man, tremendous bit. But there's so much truth
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: to that. And I think that there is this fear
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: that exists of outly admitting that you don't know, because
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: what you what you don't know is sometimes an indictment
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: of like what you've prepared for or what your capabilities are.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: You look incompetent as a man. Now you get the
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: label of an incompetent man.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: And bro, you do not I don't care if you
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: got Barry Sanders footwork. You're not evading that label. And
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: now everything gets questioned. I mean, from your big decisions
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: to your little decisions. Now everything's on the table for debate.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: And my homie belief shout out to Glenn henry Man
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: belief in fatherhood. But he tells the story all the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: time when his wife looked them in a face and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: she was like, man, I married you, and I got
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: and we got all these kids, and you don't even
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: have a plan for us. And on once I went oof, damn, yeah,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: she got a point. And on the other side of.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Me went oof, Wait a minute, it's seventeen of us
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: in the room.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: How come miss incumbent of me to have a plan
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: for everybody's life? What if I'm wrong? Are y'all going
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: to have graceful me that I'm wrong? Or is it
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: going to be like look what dad did? Look how
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: this man ruined all of our lives because he wasn't
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: able to make good decisions.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Failure, You failed as a man. Feel it's like the worst,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: It's the worst thing that you could do.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: What keeps me, keeps me up at night, like, damn,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: what if I let my family down?
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: When you're a single man, and I think failure still hurts.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: I think failure is just a fear of people, But
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: with men, I think it's just in a different font man.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: And it's one thing to let yourself down. It's one
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: thing to be broken eating balooney sandwiches and eating Ramen
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: noodles by yourself, no TV, mattress on the floor, that's fine.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: But when you have a wife, or when you have
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: a partner and you have children, you have people who
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: depend on you, that failure you're falling from a different heype, bro,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: and that splacks one hurt a lot more because now
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: they're looking at me. Damn, Now I'm not an inspiration. Damn.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Now they can't believe in me, which means I don't
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: believe in myself. And then once you get in that pit,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: like that mental pit, it takes a special set of
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: skills or a special set of circumstances for you to
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: dig yourself out.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not even easy to talk about because
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: highlighting it almost makes it worse, saying that you're experiencing
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: the saying that you're having those feelings feels even worse now.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: It's like you can't you can't deal with you can't
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: run your life properly, you can't lead a household whatever,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: and you're like crying and complaining about it instead of
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: just sucking it up, tying your bootstraps up and going
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: and figuring it out and fixing it.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: And it's very difficult.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's that's why the men like
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: men's mental health conversations are so hard, because they say
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: even when we hear people say, oh, like, men's mental
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: health is important and stuff, but it still feels like
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: you pay a price for shining a light on these things.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And the price you pay is sometimes
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: invisible because even if it doesn't exist in the room,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: if it exists in your mind is real. Yeah, if
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: it exists in your mind is real. And that trepidation
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: and of walking in and admitting. Man, even my wife
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: right now, we have an amazing relationship, bro, amazing been
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: married for almost seven years, been knowing each other for twelve.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: That's my dog. I love her. She's my favorite person
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: in the entire world. Man, She's the best person that
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: I know. But even the other week, like just the
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: accumulation of all the stuff the world expects of me
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: just started weighing down on me. And she allowed me
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: to sit in the bed and not just vented to her,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: And after a while I was like, nah, bab, I'm
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: complaining that too much, Like I don't want her to
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: think I'm a bitch, you know what. It's still that
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: fear that's there. But everything I know, with everything that
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: I do, with everything I am, I still had that feeling,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: and she had encouraged me, nah babe, like you carry
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: a lot. Let me know what's going on. And the
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: more I talk to her her reactions like, damn you
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: dealing with all that, I'm like, yeah, man, it's crazy. Always.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: I love that for you, bro, I do too. And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I know we talk a lot about data and how
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: men should do better and how men should be better,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: and I totally one thousand percent agreed. The conversation that
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: we do now have is how many men don't feel
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: genuinely supported that way by their partners. How rare it
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: is for them to feel like they can be emotionally
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: expressive and open and that vulnerable in a relationship and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: feel like there's not going to be an associated.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: Tax and in a sense, you can't even ever really
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: get to know a man if.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: That if they have that block catch twenty two.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: And it's difficult because I mean, it's what you said.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: It's like, if it lives within your head, then maybe
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: that's something I'm not gonna ever let somebody see. So
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: you know, we also face we also hold account of
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: like responsibility for that. Yeah, it's a challenge, it.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: Is and it'll ever be a challenge, and there's no
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: easy way through it. But with the with anything, I
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: just I think we got to get rid of the
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: whole the trope of the super simplistic man. Oh men
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: of simple men, of simple We gotta stop saying that shit.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: I hear dudes saying it's men are so simple. Man.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: All I need is to come home and be appreciated
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: and to drink my beer and a no idea of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: the job well done, that work like like.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: You're not working on a steel mill somewhere in Pennsylvania,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: like that you are more nuanced and complex than you
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: would ever imagine. But if you still stick to this hole, man,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: all I knew, all I need I just need to
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: be smashed.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: I need some food, and I need to be respected. Like,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: if you think those are the three pillars of your existence,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: you're you're you're missing out on other bigger, deeper things. Man,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: you gotta be curious about yourself, not just not just
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing or what I can get, but but
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: who I am, how I've been, and like just just
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: basically thinking about the way you think, thinking about the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: way that you feel, making time to exist without having
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: to earn something or perform something or be something or
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: project something. There are men that do not know that
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: it existence, but they spend the whole time doing those
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: things and not really looking inwhere and they growing the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: men to have big regrets about the way their lives
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: are turned out.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta like deconstruct that thing, that sense of self,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: whatever it is that you're thinking that you're feeling about yourself,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: and then rebuild, rebuild it back up in a way
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: that you've vetted. I think that's really important, especially when
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: we talk about this socialization and you know how we
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: feel like we didn't do enough, or you feel like
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: you got to be perfect in the way that other
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: people see you, But like where.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Is all that coming from? Are these like who taught
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: me that? Where do I.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Why is that like my infrastructure inside myself?
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Where's that coming from? And where does it go?
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: Where do I put all of that? I appreciate this conversation.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: You are really sharp, brother, and I like sitting across
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: from shop people. But iron shopping iron, or at least
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: that's what they say. I heard the phrase was different.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: It used to not be iron shop and iron. But hey,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know enough about them type of materials to
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: even tell you. I'm not a smelter. Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: How do it? What's a smelter?
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: I think that's what you call when you heat up
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: the iron, and shit, I thought it called smelter.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Well, well, yeah, Like, hey, hey, I don't know. I
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: ain't afraid to admit that I don't know, But I
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: want to know. How do you personally find people who
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: sharpen you, like, how do you learn from folks without
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: ego getting in a way. That's a great question. I think.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: I think about the things that are important to me
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: and like the direction that I want to go, and
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: then I look at or for people who are.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Aligned in that way.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: So that could be a lot of things, right, It
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: could be what I want to do in like media
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: and science communication. It could be like the things I
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: want to get better at as a person. Right, I
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: have a friend that's that's way that empathy. It just
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: comes way more naturally too, and that's helpful for me
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: to get I think this was a big problem that
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: I had was I've been being sort of very selfish
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: and thinking about myself first all the time and not
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: considering other people as much as I would hope that
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: I would, and like realizing, Okay, so I have these
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: thoughts with these feelings, and it really is coming because
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: I'm completely ignoring the way that somebody else feels about
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: about a situation. But that's not how I.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Want to be, you know.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: That's how I want to be as a dad or
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: a partner or a friend. I want to be considerate.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: I want people to know that, you know, they're on
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: my mind, that I'm considering them. And so that could
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: come in the form of friends that have qualities that
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: I look up to, could come in the form of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: like mentors who I respect with what they've done and
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: for yeah, so for me, I try to align myself
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: always and really only with people that I would want
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: to become more like or that I will be okay
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: getting you know, moving closer to in person.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: If that makes sense. Nah, that does make sense. It's
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: similar to how I do it, you know. I try
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: to find small groups that can nerd out with in
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: different ways. So I'm interested in politics, I'm interested in art,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in sports, and I think for me and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: I say this a lot on the pod, so please
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: don't forgive me if you've heard this before, but it's
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: I'd like to diversify where I get my information from
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: and where I get my knees met. Because if you
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: depend on one source for all of your needs, when
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: that source dry up, you have nothing. So I got
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: different pockets. I think what a lot of men can
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: benefit from is finding groups with common interests. What am
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: I into, Well, let me find those groups that are
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: into the same things I'm into, and then once you
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: connect with those people, you find out that there's a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: whole human behind that interest and there's a lot that
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: you can glean from people. I just started getting mentors,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Like in the last two years, bro, I got about
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: three or four solid mentors. Two of them are women,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and I think just having somebody in part
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: wisdom on you in a way that's backed by love
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: and not just their desire to hit.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: Themselves talk, because that's a part of like the man
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: on man mentor thing.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: Some of the older dudes just want to hit themselves
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: talk and you just you just witness to him talking
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: to himself like everything is a memoir. But I found
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: like one of my mentors, the mom Martin man, he
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: just wants to pour into me, you know, he just
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: he wants to know what I think and know what
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: I feel and then just give me little nuggets along
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: the way that sharpens me. I'm not a yes man
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: type dude. I don't like people always agree with me.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: Tell me where I'm wrong, what's living in my blind
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: self that I can't see it, And if you can
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: expose that in a way that's I mean, be direct.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: You don't have to pillow it with me. But if
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: you can expose what I don't know in a way
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: that sparks curiosity and builds me to a different point
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: of self development, that's sharpeneding me right there, whether it's
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: me as a therapist, me as a husband, me as
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: a father, just me as a human just out here people,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, that's that always keeps me
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: sharp in the way that I really appreciate. Yeah, I hear.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: What I'm hearing is like finding these communities that you
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: can thrive in, whether that's based on interest or mentorship
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: or whatever. And I think that that's something that we
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: as men could learn a lot from the women about,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: is strength having these strong communities. That's it feels like
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: it's something that's more of a challenge being in academia
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: and being a black man. There's not that many there's
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: like not that much community for black men in academia.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: Same and wellness.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: All the black women that I know have these like
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: they have built these They've seeked out and built if
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: they needed to build these communities to help support each other.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: And I admire that. I think that's something that is
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: really important for us as men.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: I agree, and I think what we have to do,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: just like to add on to that, we have to
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: stop comparing ourselves socially to women. Like it's the way
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: women build community is out of sometimes going from out
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: of necessity safety. You know what I'm saying, She's not
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: just asking her homegirl to go to the bathroom because
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: she want to chit chat with her. It's built out
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: of safety. I think oppression galvanizes people in this really
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: specific way, and I think women see women are oppressed
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: in the way that men just can't identify as it. Yeah,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: you know so, I think that men need to focus
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: on what community looks like for men and not just
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: trying to mirror what women do, because it's not going
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: to work. We're totally different. We're a different culture, we
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: have different expectations, we have a different lived experience, we
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: have a different live reality. It's just it's not going
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: to work, and we try to shoehorn our reality in
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: it is. But I want to land on this plane
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: by asking you this question. If a man is listening
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: right now and he knows he does all the things
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: that we're talking about, and he nods along instead of
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: asking the question that may make him feel stupid. I
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: had just hilarious on and she did a really good
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: job of talking about how sometimes she feels stupid asking questions,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, nah, I think your questions be brilliant.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: That's the shit I would ask if I was in
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: that seat, what is one real way that he can
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: start doing things differently this week? If he just nodding
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: along like okay, but he don't know what's going on.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: He lost in the sauce. Damn. That's a big question.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: It's a great question.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: And I think what it comes back to for me
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: is curiosity developing, like trying to figure out because curiosity
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: leads to questions. Right, these are we're talking about sort
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: of two sides of the same coin, the questions that
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: you ask yourself if something isn't going wrong or something
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: isn't great, And nobody can do this for you. Can
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: you be curious about about yourself? What is the thing
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: that you really want? What are the things that you value?
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: What is it that you would like to do you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: like to do more of, and like digging deep within
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: yourself to figure out what that is, sort of absent
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: of anybody else, absent of what you think other people
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: think or how it will look, expectations, Exactly what is
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: this this like piece within yourself that you want to
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: connect to? And like what I mean, maybe you want
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: to learn about this this thing that you heard.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Hen what is the finest within yourself that you want
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: to connect to? Right?
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: And we don't and you know, like again, like I
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: can't tell you what that is. I have no idea
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: what that is for you, but there's like something in there,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: there's something that's unique about you.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: And this is my this is one of my beliefs.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: You know, we're all we all have a little bit
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: different DNA, we all have a little bit different experiences
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: and that combines to make each of us like very unique.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: And there's like something unique about you that you can
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: bring to the people around you, to society, to the
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: world that only you can. Nobody else can do it
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: that nobody else can do it in that exact same way.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: They can do it in a different way. They get
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: do it in a similar way, but they can't do
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: it exactly like that. And for me, that's a lot
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: of where I feel purpose and so like trying to
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: like sit with yourself and figure out what that is
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: to you. And it doesn't have to be taking over
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: the world or you know what I mean, some grand
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: some grand gesture or something like that, But it's just
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: getting getting closer to that thing within you, which is
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: you just got to have the curiosity to get there
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: and ask yourself the right questions.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Ask yourself the right questions, And it starts by being
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: open and being willing and being flexible enough to have
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: your mind change. That doesn't mean that you avoid of leadership,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: avoid of strength. It just means that with new information,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: you're comfortable having your opinion or having your philosophy, or
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: having anything that you hold near and dear be updated
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: to some new software. Like ain't nothing wrong with an update, Doug.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: If you got AS five or iPhone, you know that
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: the software updates come all the time. You don't want
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: to be you know, in two thousand and thirty still
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: running on the iPhone test star software Man, Doctor STARKI
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: where can we find you bro.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: All platforms at doctor star Kid and check me out
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: on YouTube, Doctor Dakota Tyler. I got a podcast, Doctor
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: starkidug that podcast?
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: Tell him again?
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: What's the podcast, Doctor StarKid? We I get into all
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: different types of things. I have lots of different scientists
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: on I talk about I'm doing right now a series
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: about astrobiology. So I'm thinking of what is that astro
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: so outside of earth? Biology life life outside of Earth?
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: What would we look for, how can we potentially find it?
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: What could that look like? Which, to me, this is
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest and most interesting questions we can
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: ask is there another planet somewhere where it's a couple
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: Aliens sitting down on a podcast talking about curiosity and
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: how you can pull yourself out of a box stand
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: way of cemented way of thinking. I'm willing to bet
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: that this exists somewhere. What types of things will we
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: look for as a scientist to find that civilization?
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: This is astrobiology. See when you know about the cosmos
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: and you know about things outside of Earth, and you
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: can ask questions outside of whether the Earth is flat
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: or not or what horoscopes mean, and you can dig
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: into astrobiology. Astrobiology. Man, this man is ripping the cover
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: off of what I thought to be true about the
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: stars and all of that. Thank you, brother, Thank you
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: for coming on the pod man. I think that there
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: is something really special about being able to take information
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: because I don't know much about your field.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: I know a little bit, but I don't know much.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: But there's something about the way you deliver it that
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: feels honest. It feels eye level, and I don't feel
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: like you're trying to talk to me like I'm stupid.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like you really want to inform the people,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: and I feel like that's a rare quality these days. Hey, audience, everybody,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: let's clap it up.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: For doctor starkind Man for coming through to the pod today.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: I'm giving a little class. I ain't trying to clap
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: too loud into the microphone before we go today, I
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: want you to just take a moment and reflect on
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: everything that he said. Some information that he kicked a
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: day might be new to you, maybe the first time
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: you ever heard anybody say that. And that's okay, that's okay,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: we here to learn together. If we all knew everything,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: and then there'll be no need for a podcast like this.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: But if something that was said today, if it sparked
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: your curiosity in a particular way, if you've been performing
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: instead of learning, if you haven't been asking yourself questions
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: or sitting with yourself, or identifying the gaps in what
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: your knowledge base is, or if you just if you're
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: not a curious person by default, which we're not gonna
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: judge you for. We're not gonna judge you for, but
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: I do want you to start asking yourself why. And
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: if you ask yourself why, and you come across any
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: other questions that you need help figuring out, I want
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: you to go to Learn the hard waypod dot com,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: and I want you to leave me a message. Don't
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: speak a pipe. You can leave me a little voice message.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: Tell me what you stumbled upon? Was there aha moment?
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: Was there something that was said that that kindled or
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: inspired you? What did you stumble upon where maybe we
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: said something that you totally disagree with, which I man,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: I love a person disagreeing with me. Please hit me up.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: Poke holes in my logic, make me question and what
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: I believe to be true. Challenge me on my own
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: words what I'm telling you. Challenge me.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: Make sure I earn a spot in your mind and
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: in your heart where I sit. So Learndhardway dot com.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Once you leave me a message, and once you tell
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: me what you think. If you have any questions for me,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: I will read them out loud on the pod because
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: we are building this community.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: Brick by brick breack by brick Son. And this isn't
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: a one way conversation. I wanted to be me talking
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: to you, you talking to me, me talking to you.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: So in conclusion on this is my part of the dissertation.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: That's me defending my joint cook bro.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: I do like to cook I do honestly believe that
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: the Code of Story isn't really about becoming an astrophysicist.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: It's not. It is, but it's not. I think on
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: a larger scale, it's about what happens when a man
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: lets go of a certain part of his identity that
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: used to protect him, and he starts getting honest about
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: what it means to start over, and he leans into
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: that honesty with bravery, with tenacity, and with a sense
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: of self trust. I think that's a rare quality and
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: a rare combination that doesn't just live with this man
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: sitting across from me. It lives in you too. And
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to think that you're too far gone,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: that you're too old, you're too stuck, you're not smart
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: enough to start over, because that's not true. And I
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: don't want you to think that your beliefs are so
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: cemented in your soul that they are unchangeable, because I
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: think that will prohibit you from living a nice, full life.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: It's all there for you. You don't have to know at all,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: You just got to be willing to find out. So
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: allow your curiosity to be free.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: My boy, get your whimsy back, get some curiosity back
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: in your life. I appreciate you, I appreciate doctor Dakota,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: and I appreciate everybody listening. And until next time, I
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: want you to take care of yourself, to care the
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: spaces around you, and make sure you challenge the people
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: in the basis to take care of you two, because
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: that is exactly how the love and reciprocity works. Until
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: next time, y'all, be good, job, well.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: Done, Learn the Hard Way. As a production of iHeart Podcasts,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Ker Gaines. We're produced by Courtney Deans
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: and Cason Alexander. Ashley. J. Hobbs is our senior producer.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Will Packer, Doctor Joey Harden Bradford,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: Alex Balden, and Carla will Maris