Latest / Caught on the Mike... / The Road to "Well" with Ben Curtis

Transcript

The Road to "Well" with Ben Curtis · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Listen or description is advised.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: In the late 90s, in the early 2000s, nothing after the top filters I guys did quite like Delta campaigns with the category of dudes, you get a doubt.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: From appearances on Saturday Night Live to episodes of David Letterman and Jay Leno, Ben Curtis's character of Steven was absolutely everywhere.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: A Renaissance man in his own right these days, actor Ben Curtis, who is a champion of men's mental health with two podcasts, Dude You're Getting Well, and Wake Up Wednesday.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: He is also an accomplished musician and a band he shares with his wife called Dirty May.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about these things as well as our life journeys in this episode of the podcast today.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, if you were around in the late 90s, early 2000s, you are familiar with my next guest.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you know it or not, he was reaffirming your decision to make a purchase on a computer.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's reaffirming your need for personal wellness and self-care.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, Ben Curtis is joining me on the show today.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing, friend?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Mike, that was a great introduction.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm doing well today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for asking.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent, excellent.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: You had one of your two podcasts this morning, Wake Up Wednesdays.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: What did you cover this morning?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, that's a great question.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so I do have two podcasts, and this one is Wake Up Wednesdays, and it's about waking up to your potential.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was actually, I started it before I wanted to uh I didn't, I knew I had a message, but I didn't really want to do it by myself.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kept asking the universe for some help.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this friend who I look up to, and he's also been a healer and a and a teacher of mine, Daniel Tuttle, um, said he received an intuitive message that he needed to reach out to me to work together.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we kind of got this message at the same time and and started this in hopes of being able to help awaken other people's um greatness.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we talked about our own struggles and and also the tools we we've used to help ourselves and how we work with our clients every day.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we we share tips and secrets and tools for a solid half hour every Wednesday morning.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um, today we talked about how to transform indecision into powerful choice.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So indecision is something I've struggled with a lot in my past.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um so we sort of got to the source of that and what that's about and why so many people find themselves struggling with that, and how to actually start to pivot towards choice.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's phenomenal, especially the part where you mention your past, because I think we could bring this two different directions, and let's start with this first direction.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk a little bit about your origin story where you landed the ad campaign with Dell, and then the second segment, let's take it from when that ended to what brought you to this new sense of purpose that you have now.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because it seems like you have a very purpose-driven lifestyle, which I absolutely love.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: My hope for the world is that more people would adopt a purpose-driven lifestyle.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start at the beginning with you.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful, Mike.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and I'm already seeing, you know, there's a time when I really struggle with indecision, and and I'm gonna tell you about that story and how I broke through with it.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, really, where I started, I grew up the son of an episcopal preach priest and a French teacher, both from Tennessee.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: My mom's from Knoxville, Tennessee.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, she was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, grew up in Knoxville.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: My dad grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, spent a little time in Arkansas as well.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my family, they both came from working-class families, um, especially my dad.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my family's been in the South for six generations at least.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so I don't ever step over that um, you know, there's some history of slavery and uh people in my family who um were part of the Trail of Tears and responsible for genocide.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I've gotten older, I've really learned my eyes have been open quite a bit, but I I say all that because I was gifted these amazing parents.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: My dad worked in civil rights.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: My sister, my older sister, uh, was like the first person in our town in Chattanooga, Tennessee to be outside protesting, like teaching people to recycle before it was cool.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I wish we had listened to her.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was in the 80s.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: We might have been able to reverse a lot of the things we're doing now 40 years ago.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and my family was also like the only liberals inside of, you know, a red state.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to talk about politics, but I'm just talking about like the background, you know, like we were black.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sheep, my dad also became the first openly gay priest in the southern diocese of the Episcopal Church.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so he really, really, really was a leader.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I had these parents that that also traveled a lot and taught me to think outside the box because my mom loved to travel and was a Francophile.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: She um, what little money my parents had, they spent on traveling.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we went to the beach.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I learned about the ocean as a little kid.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: We lived in France and England when I was seven years old.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I befriended a young boy and a donkey, and I came back being able to do British accents and in love with British humor.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of drama in my family, too.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: My parents didn't have a healthiest marriage.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it quickly became clear to me that no one else was going to do anything about it.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of became the comic relief in the household.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I met David Copperfield when I was four years old.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had a chance to be on stage with him, and I was too shy.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I suffered from that the rest of my life.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I like remember watching the other kid to this day, like at the age of four.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is a perfectly imprinted memory of watching the other kid who I could have been.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I got a magic kit that year and I started performing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw when I performed, like my family didn't argue, and I could like bring some levity to things, and humor was healing.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that I needed it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was a pretty depressed kid.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I realized we had generations of mental illness and depression in my family, also generations of suicide and stuff that hadn't gone healed.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: My and my immediate family was also the first people to, in my entire huge Southern family, to get therapy.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So my parents really, really worked trailblazers for self-care and of service.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: My mom retired from teaching and became a worker with refugees from uh we have a Bosnian and Liberian population in Chattanooga, thanks to her.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my father worked with um, he volunteered in Haiti for years off and on to help people and worked for the School for the Blind and Deaf, brought back Haitian art that he bought from street people and sold it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I had this really enriched environment.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in the South where I saw so much racism and so much poverty and so much discrepancy.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like we lived up on the hill, and all the poor black people were at the bottom of the hill, and that really pissed me off.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I had parents were teachers, and they taught me that crying was okay, even though no girl wanted to date me for a long time for being so sensitive.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: My dad taught me that bullies are people who are more pain than you'll ever know.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: They beat themselves up worse because my dad was bullied a lot.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So all this led to me kind of being awakened, wanting to be a performer, seeing my dad on stage, like moving people, and also like needing to survive, you know, in the world.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: We all do things to adopt.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And performing was something I was great at.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I became really good at being a chameleon in all situations and charismatic and fun.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what you know.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I got into acting school on an acting scholarship at NYU when no one would go to New York.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: That was like, you don't go up there, you know, with the Yankees.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the people, not the baseball team, like hanging out with them Yankees up there, you know.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I was I was down to follow my dream.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I really wanted to be an actor.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was a soccer player, and there was a point where you know, we talked about that indecisiveness.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I had to choose basically between like soccer and musical theater.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that is like, you know, talk about a blow to the ego.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I also was a cheerleader and head of the magic club in high school, so there was a lot of like not cool points on my record.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: When I look back, I'm like, damn, that boy had some courage.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I did what I loved, no matter what people thought about me.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I befriended the gay kid at school despite all the hazing and homophobia.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I went to an all-boys school.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: God knows how many boys were actually dealing with repressed sexuality.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the blessing is getting out of that environment, I moved to New York, and you know, there's no answers there, but I lived amongst diversity and I got into the school my dreams.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: When my parents couldn't afford it, I got an acting scholarship.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom didn't did not want me to go, and my dad didn't know how to tell me we couldn't afford it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt like some angels stepped in because I really wanted to go to New York.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: My parents said, you can't go to LA, but you can go to New York.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was already um, I had bands in high school, I was doing theater, I had a magic business.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I produced a full-scale illusion show with um music and magic and theater, all original, all created for me.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I had some of my like favorite people and teachers perform with me, and I produced it in this theater for my senior year.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my senior talk was about doing what I loved and about magic, and I'm sure like everyone thought I was who knows, but I definitely did not like right, I don't know.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't it wasn't super cool.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh, you know, New York was an incredible playground for me to practice self-expression.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really important for us to have safe spaces to do so, and there's so few in the world today, even on social media.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I really did.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I got into rap, I started writing um spoken word because I was exposed to it, and I saw I had a voice.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got uh in heavier rock and roll.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I started working with all these bands.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I played at CBGB's before it closed.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I felt like I knew how like I had some business knowledge I noticed that a lot of other artists didn't have, and I was able to kind of work it with bands in school.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I somehow I thought it would take years to land an acting job or get an agent.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I I spent a whole summer of my sophomore year just staying in New York, just hustling, living with my best friend in an apartment.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember how I supported myself, but I think we shared a bed because we didn't have enough, like it was like one of us would be on the couch, but the bed was comfortable, so if we didn't touch, it was okay.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: We could both sleep at it, you know.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we were like 19 or something, and uh we um I got an agent that summer.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I couldn't believe it.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I walked, it was like old school.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I walked in the office, and there's the lady, the old lady with the big glasses, and she's like, Can I help you?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't take resumes, you know.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow I got in.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh it was funny because I had just tried to like audition.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I had a friend who I worked out with.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I got oh, I also got in the gym and I got suddenly built muscle.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I could never build muscle, but suddenly I did.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I couldn't get as big as this other guy who I thought I wanted to be like, and he was like an Adonis body, and I called him Abercrombie boy, and uh, and we both went to this Abercrombie open call in New York, and he became the face of Abercrombie.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh shit, like across the world, and he's now um uh his name is uh uh Chris, and he's he's been on he was a star on the TV show Nashville, and um uh uh so I've seen him like blow up as really funny.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was just I was like, wow, it can happen like that quick, but you gotta be perfect.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, these agents were like, you need to get big and become a model or get skinny and become an actor.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and already, again, there was that like choice, right?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would get bigger in music, and people would be like, Wait, are you a musician or are you an actor?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept thinking, why do I have to choose?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what everyone kept telling me, Are you straight or are you gay?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had gay friends.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, why do I have to choose?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why can't I just be human?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I and I think anyway, that's really suddenly my buddy in acting in in business school was getting acting auditions, and I was like, What's up with this?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't right, because I'm I'm the one trying to get out there.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Introduce me.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like his friend's mom was a manager, and she got me the audition for what became Dell Computers within like two months.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, and I was the only guy there over 18.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think most kids were 13 to 17, was the call age, and most kids were there with their mom because they were under 18, and I was 19, and I was the only guy with without his mom there.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but I I feel like I quickly could understand what they were going for, and because I was um older, I had a little more objective and I had some really good acting skills, and I just nailed the role.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And three callbacks later, I mean it still was clear they didn't know who were they they were gonna choose.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: There was every archetype you could imagine.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it happened, but no one knew how big it was gonna be, right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it became like I was even like I broke it, I didn't even realize it, but I I had um this the huge SAG strike was still going on, and even though I was advised by multiple producers and agents that I was not breaking the rules, SAG ended up um finding me guilty of breaking union rules.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that was also my first job, and I was terrified.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm just trying to be an actor.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: These people are advising me it's safe.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: These people are telling me I've totally broken the law of basically for actors, and um, it was kind of painful.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And yet at that same time, Bennett Miller was directing the first Dell commercials, and he he directed Capote.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was friends with Philip Seymour Hoffman.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's become, you know, he's an incredible world-renowned director.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I was working with these amazing people, and um, so that's how I got the job, and it helped me pay for school, and it really was awesome.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it was challenging to start to, as that got really big, it was challenging to navigate that and college and my well-being.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's kind of the first chapter to answer.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: So before we move forward, while I was listening to your story, I literally got chills, and I don't drop things like this often, but there are so many personal parallels, and maybe it was serendipitous that I reached out to you because I also I had to choose between music and acting when I was in high school.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I got college scholarships for acting, but I chose the music route.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, there you go.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Huge hip-hop fan.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Then I ended up in heavy rock bands, and then by the time I was done with it, I was listening to Ryan Adams and Jason Isbo, and you know, doing the the alt country thing.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I just listening, and I grew up Episcopellian.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I shit you not.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was very similar to you in the regard that I was very accepting of everybody.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: I moved around a lot as a kid.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was moving every two to four years.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: My dad worked for a company that moved us around a lot.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was just crazy and comforting simultaneously to listen to your story.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's good to hear that uh yeah.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this we're not alone, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: We have crazy all of crazy stories.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, here's another one.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I went to synagogue growing up.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I loved hanging out with my Jewish friends, were my best friends up the street.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: For some reason, I was like the only person that was like Christian Keddo's best friends with all these Jewish boys, but um, I was.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And like my dad was like, Yeah, go to synagogue with like learn about like other people.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think that's part of where we're already taught at a young age that we have to choose.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And little kids are like, What?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who cares what they look like?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to play with them.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And their parents, like, no, no, no, not over there.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Don't touch that kid.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they're bad.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, and we get taught like we have to choose, and there's actually these beautiful, I mean, I I I dated, you know, it became a little more challenging when I was I was um in a relationship with a woman who wanted to convert to Judaism and raise our children, our future children that we hadn't had yet, uh, Jewish.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we talked about like culture and what what might serve, and I actually saw that there was more in common, you know, raising kids with Judy uh with in the in the traditions of Judaism is actually can be just as Christian in a way because all that stuff comes from the old testament.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really, I mean, totally, I'm sure I'm offending people right now, but I'm just saying, like, I really love and respect all religions, and what I'm getting at is I think we have more in common than we look at, and so what I got to see is all the amazing stuff we had in common, yeah, and how we sort of um villainize each other's uh religions, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we're all like my dad used to say, I believe we're all kind of it's the same gods, probably, or the same people, whatever your higher power is, we're all trying to raise a vibration and learn how to love ourselves and each other more.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I I often pose to people is if you really want a good worldview on religion and spirituality, take a world religion course and a Western civilization course and kind of borrow a little bit from both.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And typically the philosophical place where a lot of people land is that all religions have a similar cadence to them, you know, and it they are more alike, just like you were saying, than they are different.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what my dad taught me.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I thought he was such a cool priest, even like I would hear him talk about and be like, you know, he's right, he'd be like that homeless guy sleeping out back in the woods back there, that we all are like, get that guy out.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you know, he's probably more like Jesus than any of us, right?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like he's living off the land, he's just like trying to, he's not trying to bother anyone.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: He probably just who knows, like, and and even it's interesting as I've gotten to travel the world.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that's the best education.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no school can provide meeting other cultures.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: You just cannot teach that.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to experience it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot teach it to kids.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, kids need to experience it's like dogs that are um don't know, yeah, people are always afraid of dogs.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: I raised, I also rescued a lot of pit bulls.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're some of the most loving creatures, but if you're afraid of them or you're raised to think a certain way about them, then they get put in these situations where they get villainized and they're forced to defend themselves and they get a bad name, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, but dogs want to please their owners too.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you try if you if you teach them safety and safe boundaries, then they can explore like when you take you put dogs on leashes in New York and they're all tense, you see a dog behind a fence, it's cre you know, it's protecting, it's natural instinct to protect when there's a boundary.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: But when you let them loose, like at a dog park or there's this place, Dog Beach in San Diego, it's like my favorite place in the country because these dogs are just free and by the ocean, you don't see a single fight.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's like if we could just allow ourselves to interact a little more and learn from each other, I think we could grow so much from that.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so traveling just taught me at a young age, um uh just about what other people and that you know we're all going through it, none of us are different, and we all want to learn from each other.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that's that's a gift I've been given too that I um it's about perspective and choice.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we really can, you know, when it comes down to it, we get to be our own creators, we get to be uh choosers of our own destiny today.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I get to be in a band and have a coaching business and a podcast and raise a family and all the other things I do because I choose to, and I and I ask how to make it work.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do it alone, I ask for a lot of help.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's been a journey.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And but I think we also need to go through our journeys to learn our our lessons.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, and that's a fantastic point and a good way to kind of take it into the next chapter.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: The dude, you're getting Adele becomes a part of the zeitgeist of our world, realistically.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Pop culture, pop culture, yeah, totally.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you're on Letterman, you're on Leno, you know, you're all over the place, and then that kind of comes to Is that where this next chapter begins, or is this kind of the middle chapter of the story?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yes, and yes.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's both where it begins and the middle.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh no, it definitely is.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: It uh so the campaign broke every record of any commercial ever, financially and otherwise.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I started to be interviewed on like Fox News and Reuters and um BBC America and um and like MTV and the talk shows, like you're talking about, you know.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I was really clear some big stuff was happening, and the contracts were I mean, there's a lot of pull to get what we felt like we deserved, but there was um because you give a lot, you basically turn your life over to a company when you become a face of them.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of businesses don't understand how much work that takes off camera because that becomes your life.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like everyone you ever see, and any interaction you have, that's how people listen to you.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it literally does change the course of everything.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't quite understand that.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was something that was sort of revealed to me later.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard to comprehend.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't watch TV, I was in acting school most of the day.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm a very experiential person.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I like to go out and have adventures, so I didn't really understand how big this thing was becoming, and I also think it was just hard to process at that age.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was also a little scared.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like it was sort of out out of my control and taking on a life of its own.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the more famous I got and the more opportunities I got, the more afraid I got.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what I was trying, what I was afraid of per se.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: But um it was uh it was really daunting.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what didn't help is that um as as it got bigger and bigger and I got more successful, um I started to develop a pretty unhealthy relationship with drugs and alcohol.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um to make matters worse, I uh and I wasn't really aware of it either.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was experimenting too, I was young, so it it wasn't clear yet.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then I got arrested and um I bought some pot on the street from a guy on a bicycle in New York City, and it turned out he was being followed by undercover cops.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I did get arrested in style.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was wearing a kilt.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um my best friend and I had our Scottish uh girlfriends visiting, and it was his birthday, and I um so we decided to wear our kilts like proper proper Scottish style, which means no underwear.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that didn't help.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but my dad had a good laugh at my expense with that.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, at least you got arrested in style.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um did you do you find it kind of ironic?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because that obviously it made the news and whatnot, but do you find it kind of ironic that you get busted for a pot, but you're also kind of playing that character to a certain extent in an ad campaign?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it's definitely become clear to me that it's been very ironic for most of the world, you know.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was wearing a hip necklace.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, people called me Stoner Steve, but the company was really clear that this character was not a stoner.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was quirky, and and to be fair, I was not trying to play a stoner.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was the dude thing, and this sort of Cali vibe, and that I was from Tennessee, so I still spoke slower.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was playing this really quirky kooky kid.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of weird to me that like people developed fetishes for me and my character got for the character, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right, I and people got like pissed off or disappointed when I wasn't that person in real life.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which is hard for me because I was like, Yeah, I'm I'm acting.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think that was me, like I guess I did a great job, but you know, like I'm not that guy.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm in a fight with my girlfriend, I'm not gonna like jump over and be Steve for you right now.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna deal with myself.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that became kind of challenging juggling interpersonal relationships on the streets of New York City.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um when you're when you're in a commercial, it's it's a little different because you're kind of more um a pop icon than uh like an artist per se.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're perceived that way.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I could see, and that people wanted to interact with me and be like, dude, it's a the Dow guy, you know?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so the times when I was uh it was it was sometimes challenging with for that with me and with my friends, and then um on top of it, I got a little money, I moved out of the dorms and I moved into the financial district with my best friend.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: We had our first come up in our adult apartment, and then I took this amazing course at uh landmark worldwide in the World Trade Center on personal growth and development, and I had extraordinary breakthroughs that weekend and um kind of planted some seeds of change and transformation and integrity, conversations about integrity with myself and my family.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I um and then a couple weeks later, my backyard basically turned into ground zero.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: September 11th happened.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I lived on Rector and Broadway right by Trinity Church, and our building was pretty much only protected because of the church there.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I pretty much saw everything and went through a lot of that and almost died, and um experienced a lot, a lot, a lot of trauma.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then I stayed in that apartment with my friend.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, oh, actually, we went back a few months later.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't safe to go back right away, and it was pretty scary.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, you know, we had to close the blinds of parties, otherwise, everyone would be looking at ground zero and the lights would be bleeding in, and you could smell it.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like kind of a downer always.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we got rashes when we were taking showers sometimes.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: We were having to form a uh tenants union to try to like not have to pay rent through when we couldn't live there.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was crazy, and um, but we were alive, and I think that was the beginning of you know, I said the middle to the end because things got a lot darker for me.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know how much trauma was affecting my life and how much I was self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, and I was really self-sabotaging, I think, every area of my life, definitely my old agent like doesn't really talk to me anymore.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, but all the other agents do, and man, my manager's still there because she could see past it.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, in in in all honesty, I really uh burned a bridge in that relationship because I I didn't know how to take care of myself.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't, I didn't have the tools.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think any 20-year-old, anyone living through that is just gonna be like, oh, here's what I do now, right?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your whole nervous system's rewired, and um you you know, it's it it it can take years to even understand and start to process the trauma, let alone heal it.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I was famous, I had money to, you know, to self-sabotage with, and um, and I was more miserable than I had ever been.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and yet it just so close to what I felt like was supposed to be um my dream coming true.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very confusing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think the arrest, I actually have the uh this is a headline from it.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: It says, dude, you're getting a cell.
• 29:47
  unknown: Oh god.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh right after I came out of jail, a photographer managed to snap this as I was being rushed to the car.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that kind of helps me remember what I went through, and that it was a really important learning experience.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I got harassed by the cops in there, and um I don't have anything against police, but they were not, I mean the structure of it is not healthy, and I it they I was harassed and they um and then they reported it to the press, and then the press are waiting for me outside, and uh I kind of turned that all into a play eventually called Dude You're Getting a Cell.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, a one-man show.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like 20-something minutes, an excerpt from it on YouTube.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's out there.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's dark, but it's part of my journey of healing.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see I wear a kilt in it, I do some magic in it.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I talk about 9-11 in it.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I play one of the police officers in it.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I learned to create art and heal from that.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I got help.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: My dad came and saved my life, basically.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: He got me into therapy and see a psychiatrist and um really started to understand what was going on.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I took time off of school, really couldn't get an acting job, although all these other people came out of the woodwork.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, what no one knows is that while I it basically the entire industry wouldn't wouldn't touch me, some people still won't, oddly, even though I'm at the top of my game and I've done tons of movies and films in Broadway since then.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then there were other people who um who came out of the woodwork and and were like, man, that was horrible.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I wanted to put you like in our film.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got the first lead role in a feature film, like months later.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, maybe a year or two later.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was called Spy the Movie.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was opposite Frank Vincent and uh Vinny Pastor, both from Goodfellas and Sopranos, and I was the lead.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was about the surveillance specialist that fell in love with this girl he was spying on, and he was this quirky guy.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh there's another, there's some great, great people in that cast.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it wasn't an amazing film, but they tried to work with this new media concept and video, so it's grainy.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of it's interesting what they tried to capture then.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then um I got offered a job for this company called Games and Flicks, and Netflix had just come out, but these guys were gonna be their competitor and they were gonna be games and movies.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, we love the Dell dude, just use that character, come like play with it, and we'll pay you a fly to Miami, and like it was awesome.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I still like it was hard to show up and no longer have 10 auditions a week, it just was silent, and um that was pretty painful, and the money started to just disappear.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um slowly with self-care.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I found my way and I remembered I went back and I took a course at Landmark, and I got a I stayed with my therapist.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I got arrested um two more times.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: No one knows about one of them was a DUI um right before a band went on tour, and I did a national tour with a band.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I really got into rock and roll.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I so that kind of helped me just burn myself on down a little quicker.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I hit my bottom, and uh I think it was like when I finally got fired from a bartending job for being too drunk, and that was like a job where we were allowed to drink.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I had a lead role in a show at that time, a play, and um with a lot of younger people, so I it was really intense to walk in, having been fired from a job with people like half my age in this performance, and I just had my tail between my legs, and I just felt like I couldn't keep a job, I couldn't, I just was self-destruction and I didn't know how to stop.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I somehow graduated college that year.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I went back and finished my senior year at age 30.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I don't know what it was.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think I asked one of the people I was bartending with about this AA meeting they had gone to.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know they still smoked pot, so I was like, maybe I can still smoke pot and go to AA, you know.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like that didn't really work.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then I found out like I just it was substances in general.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't about necessarily the alcohol, or it was about like the what it opened up in me, and and that um so I did a lot of healing.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was really, I was completely sober from from drugs and alcohol, um, still am from illegal substances for uh the last nine and a half years.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's 10 years actually, this past September.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just for me, you know, it's it's uh um it's for my self-care so that I can try to have less things in the way of my judgment and um so I can be more of service to other people.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I found the men's work, I found other men that I could trust.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: I found that I didn't trust men, which I didn't know until I got in there.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh it just opened me up to some more group work that and then I found these coaches, um, because I wanted, I I think we all need to find different kinds of communities that that support us, not just all our eggs in one basket.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think any one therapist can solve all your problems or any one anything.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really important to find what works first.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I had um, I really did my research.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of different kinds of like trauma-informed healing and somatic therapy and and more acting work and dance and um music and uh start a band again.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um slowly I gently started playing music again, and uh it became clear I had to start my own band because I just kept meeting unhealthy musicians who didn't have um have it together.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, those of us who did kept drawing to each other, and we created this incredible band that is now an award-winning, we don't I don't know what to call it, a New Orleans indie folk rock band uh and with my wife called Dirty May.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been playing all over the country, and Dell has brought me back to be their spokesperson.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm helping more people than ever.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: I coach men every single day, both one-on-one and in groups.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have a men's group program called The Lion's Den, and and it's now trans transferring to dude school, uh, where we all learn from each other.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm um developing programs for all genders.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm uh started the podcast, Dude, you're getting well, to talk about how I've struggled and what I do for self-care.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I basically help my motto is self-care equals success.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um so, you know, how well you take care of yourself really, and that can equal not doing it alone, right?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like some of us just don't need to try to do that by ourselves.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um I've learned to ask for help and and because of that, I have just this incredible group of people around me today that are super healthy and we're and and honest, and we're all here to try to support each other.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I'm still acting too, and um and I'm speaking, I'm doing a lot of public speaking, um, keynote speaking on on wellness now, uh, for entrepreneurs, for businesses, for uh athletes, for for high school kids, college students.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I just I see that I just need to tell my story, and sometimes that's enough.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I've learned that by sharing our truths that we can set other people free and ourselves.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: So another big breakthrough is that you know, I don't hold 9-11 as like something uh September 11th is like a a trauma that I'm a victim of anymore.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I used to wear it as like a badge of honor, right?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I just uh see it as something I needed I got to live from and and I have a new opportunity today to live and to do what I love because tomorrow isn't promised.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And even some of the greatest yogis say, you know, our next breath isn't promised.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, why are we doing anything other than what we love?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that's old programming, it doesn't belong to even us, like someone else taught us that.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I just see the more I can share this, like maybe we can all help each other kind of get out of that old stuff that doesn't work and start really listening to what our hearts do want us to do.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then, man, our our partners are happier, you know, our relationships can thrive.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we can resent, you know, you have less resentments.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a a big part of it.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of amends to make too, you know.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've needed to do a lot of reparations to kind of build a new foundation, right?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can't build a house on top of sand, so it's uh quicksand, I should say.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you can on top of, you know, you you lay you lay it down one by one, and suddenly you can create anything on top of that.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't like it, you just take it off and build it again.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes, quick.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Quick test polish.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing about men's mental health is really the transparency about it is almost a new thing.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: So when you talk about self-care and the different modalities of self-care, what are some of the things that you do every day to take care of yourself?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: The most simplistic things.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is a great question.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um hydrate.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: So every day, okay.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I do every day, no matter what now, um, for my self-care.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I pretty much I get up at the same time every morning, except on the weekends.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have days where I let myself sleep and I've trained my body to be able to do that.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have uh lemon alkaline water every morning um to try to help balance my body and restore homeostasis.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: I really um try to uh meditate before I get involved in any business or even personal or romantic anything.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: I try to at least take a few minutes to myself.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: But um ideally I I have a guided meditation group that I join every morning for 15 minutes and it's seven days a week.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um very committed group.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um I move my body every day.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: I also take a cold shower for at least 30 seconds at the end of my showers.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a little more resistant in the winter time, but I'm pretty I get a bed like six, six of the seven days a week.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh that really helps.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's you know, they're writing articles about it, so you can read about now.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just like this weird man in Sweden talking about it.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um cold exposure has been around for hundreds and thousands of years, and it's just exposing our nervous systems to stress and actually controlled stress, and with that, it actually can um start to learn to restore itself even quicker.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of me waking up with um massive amounts of anxiety every morning, aka energy is you know, a lot of what we call anxiety is really just our bodies turned on and needing some energy to put somewhere, and it doesn't know where to go, or we haven't trained it how to use it effectively.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's still in fight or flight for some reason from something that's old.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we um so most of the time I can't even really fully trust my thinking until I've moved my body, like woken that up, and took in time, taken time to listen.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my meditation time is time to connect with nature, myself.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes my partner joins me.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um we check in with each other.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do we, you know, need time alone or together for that meditation?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh yeah, I think and and I I pray during that time.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: I ask all the people I've lost in my life who I love who are who are no longer with us physically to protect me and guide me.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: My father is my best friend, and I lost him a year and a half ago.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: So he's one of the people I really ask to look out for me and help me have the awareness to look out for myself.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so when I can remember to do that, I try to invite those people into my life.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I really try to use not just like push pain down, but like listen for it.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um my wife had a miscarriage about six months ago, and um, thank you for saying that.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, one in four women are experiencing that, and we don't talk about it.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: And most men don't talk about it at all because they feel like they can't, because their wife are just going through it, or their, you know, whoever, whatever person in their life is having the miscarriage.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're not talking about it.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we're dealing with unprocessed trauma around that.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I really use that as an opportunity.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like in the mornings, I listen for when I need to grieve, or when I need to give thanks, or when I need to reach out to another guy, maybe who's had a miscarriage and see how he's doing.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I started another men's group uh in order to for all guys to have a safe space to come and talk about their feelings together and to learn to trust each other.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's really what what that work is about.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so those are, you know, I guess without fail now, I connect with another man every every week.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm part of a mastermind as well that holds each other accountable.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I put I build in, I have all these accountabilities.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Another part of my self-care, I schedule meetings with my wife.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a band business meeting, we have a relationship meeting, we have a couple's counseling meeting twice a month, um, and we have our own therapist.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: So And I have a coach.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so if you you know, long story short, I there's a lot of support there, a lot of self-care systems around me, so that when I fall out of self-care, um I have a structure to kind of, you know, like bumpers in a bowling lane to kind of like guide me back to the middle.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you take all of what you just talked about and you apply that to the past two and a half years that we have experienced as society post-pandemic, post-socio-political strife, which we're still dealing with in many ways, without getting political.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um but how much more important is that now than ever to have these routines, to have these times out for ourselves, to be able to take a step back and focus on these elements, different elements of our lives and the lives that we personally impact.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's huge, Mike.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, definitely you said it.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's more important now than ever, and I and because we have more stimulus now than ever.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we all the electronics, um, that stuff is really can be really, really useful in our life, and it's a lot of extra information coming at us and a lot of messaging coming at us.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, you see kids getting Botox, they're talking about uh, you know, kids are getting Botox and plastic surgery at like age 13 because of what they're seeing on Instagram.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: This kids are having more depression from needing to be perfect, and so we're literally like programming ourselves to in negative ways that we don't even know.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so I think there's a responsibility with that, you know, with any great power comes responsibility, and technology is an amazing power and resource.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if we can use that for good, I mean we've had the technology of solar around for like 30, 40 years, so we could have already been off of fossil fuels, but there's powers that be, you know, like oil industries and um certain political parties that support uh using the fossil fuels, and it and it's we see the impact.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've totally depleted our environment, and um future generations may not be able to live on this planet anymore if we don't really, really do something about it.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um uh I almost got off on the question really I was seeing the like planet for a second and uh it took me out.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um reline me real quick.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's more important now than ever because um also with all this extra stimuli, we are looking outwards, and I and I think we each have incredible wisdom, but we don't take time to listen to our own selves, our own messages, our own wisdom.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we may need to be trained to do that.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: We may not know how to do that as a culture anymore, but it usually happens in community in a safe space.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we used to gather as tribes and elders and different generations, we had different safe spaces to count on.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if we don't have those, we have to create them now, void of technology, um, because we need to connect to the land.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the land is regenerative, the land is restorative, and if we take care of it, it takes care of us.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like trees feed us oxygen, we feed them carbon dioxide.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we're in direct relationship.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people don't even know that we're breathing mycelium, we're breathing spores all the time.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we're literally, whether we want to be or not, we are directly impacted by the land.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: So as we take care of ourselves, then suddenly also le also we get to take care of the land around us, and vice versa.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: So literally, as we take care of ourselves, we're we are impacting the environment in a more positive way.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if every action has a reaction, um there's studies showing if you yell at at uh if you speak words of hate to water molecules, they'll fizzle and break up.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you speak love and sing to them or bring love to them, they literally come together.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so if our bodies are made up of all of these things and the stars and the moon, and we're not even tuned into what's going on in the planet or the or the solar system around us, our atmosphere, I think we can really lose touch.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it's now more important than ever.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm teaching entrepreneurs all over the globe and huge companies are, you know, it's hip to talk about self-care and wellness now because you have to.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because your employees, if you don't make time for your wellness, you will make time for your illness.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, we've and fortunately, we've all gone through, we're more connected now than ever.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like the pandemic has been a global experience, a global trauma that has allowed us to globally grieve so we can heal together.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this is a really special time where we can come together stronger than ever, or we can split apart, right?
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like we have um the other thing is we've all been given the gift of spending a lot more time at home, whether it was a fun gift or not.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: And with that gift came access to our technology at all times of the day, right?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to our work at all times of the day.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: So our we're we're actually working longer hours than ever, whether we even know it or not, um, because we're just habitually doing stuff all the time.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't trained ourselves to turn off the darkness, the winter is important.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's there for a reason.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: So turning off devices to actually see the night sky, to see the light.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, hopefully, we're not in cities where there's so much light pollution you can't see it.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are, you can always go somewhere else.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, or even just like being outside for a moment.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's it's important to take in darkness.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our bodies are designed for that, and it's important to take in natural light.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: So looking at the sun or even the cloudy sky first thing in the morning before looking at our phones.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I really try to do that.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm I'm guilty of getting on my phone early, early, but um, I'll always like go to the window and look out and take in some air and take a few breaths in.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and I never do business on my phone though.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: I may like check in with a friend or look at my calendar for the day, kind of get related to what's ahead, but then I go meditate.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't start working.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm feeling really inspired, I might send a post.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but even opening Instagram can be a tricky boundary for me.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I have clear like I don't even open it certain times, I only open at certain times of the day.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at the people that who designed the technology, if they don't let their kids use it because they know of the impact, then then we've got to we have a responsibility.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we as adults get to be the mirrors and get to be the change we want to see in the world.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Kids already are, but then they get mirrored by us.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a responsibility, you know, to take care of ourselves, to teach our kids that self-care is is beautiful and important.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a form of self-inishness that has been lost in our culture because we're if we're self-caring, it's like trying to look perfect, you know, we have to video it while we do it, and that requires facial reconstruction or something like you know, to really get into what's beautiful about each of our bodies and even the most painful parts, like what is it here to teach us?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have, you know, I believe that we're gonna keep going to the next place, hopefully.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: And but like, what can we learn?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are we here for in this lifetime?
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: What can we learn about this?
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a friend that always says, um, you know, what's right about this that I'm not getting?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or how could this turn out better than I ever imagined?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I also believe part of my self-care is is looking for possibility, not because I can I can beat myself up just as bad as the next guy.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, shame is is is very accessible for me and familiar.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: So also choosing people think I'm just like the most positive person ever, and I am because I choose to see that way.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've really, really, really chose, I've worked that muscle.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've gone to the gem of positivity, and it's not just like it's not toxic positivity, it's not like everything's gonna be okay.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if we if we ask for help, if we take care of ourselves, then then we'll be taken care of.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I just don't believe that we have to do anything alone or that we're designed to.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm all about asking for help, and that's how I have a band that really works, and that's how I um you know I compartmentalize things and I develop healthy boundaries around them.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when I mess up, like I I had a um a messy moment with my wife today where I didn't honor boundary in a way that I would have liked to have.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've got like stuff to clean up there.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not perfect, I'm still um, but I do have the awareness today, and even that allows a moment to create some acceptance and then some action.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what can we choose newly?
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I really want to just encourage people to like whatever you're dealing with today, consider that it's a choice, and what else could you choose that that might be lighter or um what might be right about the situation that you're not getting?
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I even more success and fame or whatever you get, you you still think you see someone else above you, and you see people go into the gym and they're like, Well, I'm not as big as that guy, and they're always trying to get bigger.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point you've got to stop and say, like, I'm enough.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I have a mother who told me yesterday, like she lost her brother to a murder, her kids were taken away from her in a custody battle, um, because her husband, her ex-husband's um um basically a sociopath, and um, she's really suffering.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, you know, I just I haven't seen my 11-year-old in two years.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: She found out my wife and I were musicians, and she said, You know, I just want to get on the radio so that my 11-year-old can be proud of me.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it just broke my heart.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I know me saying it wasn't gonna make a difference, and I said it and it didn't make a difference.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost like I didn't even say anything.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I said, you know, consider that you're a little like you've done plenty, you brought that child in the world, like that really takes something.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Your 11-year-old, if you're still showing up for life, you're taking care of yourself and her, she's proud of you.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be on the radio.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's really putting a lot of pressure on yourself.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a great goal to aim for, but not to like need to be okay, right?
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point we've got to practice telling ourselves like we're doing great and be proud of the work we've done and um be proud of who we are and and start to get curious about the gifts we have that are untapped and how we can help support each other's gifts.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, that is a great message, and Ben, I appreciate your optimism, I appreciate your perspectives on self-accountability because the world needs so much more of that right now.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you tell my listeners where they can find you online?
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you can find me online at bencurtis.co is my website.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can sign up for free meditations from me, join on my mailing list, get like exclusive offers to my programs.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm gonna be launching Dude School January 1st, and it's gonna be unbelievable.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've got guest speakers coming in there, there'll be some incredible work.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm doing a summit for uh Michael Unbroken, this awesome guy out there doing a think unbroken summit about trauma inform work.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and then oh yeah, at Ben CurtisOfficial is my Instagram handle.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you can find me on there.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's an easy way to send me a message.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um there's a link in there.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can book a call with me, you can uh find out more about my programs in there, you can listen to my band on there.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so oh, we have a new album coming out in in the new year, also.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and a tour, also, right?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're we've kind of just wrapped up one.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um we just got back two days ago from incredible festival in North Carolina.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Shakuris Hill, the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival um that we did.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh headliners were Donna the Buffalo and Haley Jane, and um uh uh there's another big Eric Krasno trio from the funk band Lettuce.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um is it was really, really cool, cool people.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh yeah, so we've been really grateful to we we're just meeting so many great musicians, and they're all like none of us have it figured out, you know, half ogre parents trying to figure out how to be, you know, just get by and we're all just trying to do what we love.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: But what was inspiring about you know being on tour and stuff is like be like, wow, how do you do that?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, yeah, I said to my wife, like, I think we're really I'm really doing what I love now, like I'm really happy.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and it's just because we've given ourselves permission to everyone in our family thinks we're extreme and crazy, but um we're doing what we love, you know.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: I so I figure it out and I asked for help.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're still like if you know you have a light or a purpose or something that you know, Mike, you never pursued acting and you chose music instead, like it's never too late.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's people who are you know, you can just audition for the play down the road and it may bring you so much joy or take an acting class again.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even if you're the old fart in the room, like I hit it off with my teachers because they were my same age, you know.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: You just like we can we need to be around other generations too.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're too busy trying to like find the elite people to get up to, but we need to like mix around, and that's what I used to love about New York City is we're being in a subway car just like throwing everyone a snow globe, just shake it around.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right, right.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I miss that that seeing so many different kinds of people every day, but um, I travel more than ever now so that I can do that.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and also in the new year, I have I would love to tell people about this balanced guitar.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's the 10th anniversary, it's a retreat I do in Costa Rica.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: You get to study yoga and meditation with me every morning with my dear friend Richard Miller, who's taught ear training at Columbia University.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's a world-renowned musician.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have another amazing dude, and he's a surf instructor, and this other incredible guy, his good friend Freddie Bryant, who's a world-renowned guitarist and um instructor at Berkeley School of Music, and he's a Tai Chi master.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we put all the things we love together, and so it's basically like a just amazing time like in the jungles of Costa Rica, right in the ocean in warm water in the middle of January.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like 80 degrees every day, and we just work on self-care and fun.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can learn if you've never touched a guitar or you're a professional guitarist, you will go to the next level.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn your favorite song, even if you don't play.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are, and you can be backed by pros at the end of the week.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are a pro, you have other pros that will literally take you to the next level, or you can just come hang out and listen to music.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I really want to invite people.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't share this publicly and openly that much, but that's also my website or balancedguitar.com.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's a really special like niche VIP retreat with myself and some awesome, awesome musicians and a lot of people who have like day jobs, and like we had this lawyer come this year, and he was just like ecstatic, like he got to be a rock star for a week, you know.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have a lot of fun, and that's in the middle of January.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: So for anyone that is looking for an adventure and a and a holiday present to themselves, I would encourage you to check it out.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's really cool.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, I have a lot of programs coming up, and I would I would love for you all to just come see what what moves you.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not sure, just book a call with me and we'll talk about it.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see how I can support you as a coach or send you to the right person.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all about people finding their tribe.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and Mike, I want to say you're just an exceptional listener.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard myself just like tell these long stories, and and I and I really hope they'll they'll help people, but I want to say it's it's in your listening that I've felt moved to share so much.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: You have a really generous year.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, honestly, there is so much that we have similar parallels on.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: I am privileged to get to know you.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I hope we can run into each other in the real world sometime.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, I'd love to talk more and get to know about you too.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, stay in touch.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: And for everyone listening, you know, I'm I'm really grateful for anyone who's who's with us here and keep keep listening to Mike.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you're ready for some self-care and up-leveling, come come check me out.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Ben.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: The world's a better place with you in it, my friend.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, feelings mutual.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure to be in this world.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: That was a fun conversation.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you give Ben a follow on all forms of social media.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: Check out his podcast every Wednesday morning, wake up Wednesdays, and listen to his podcast, dude.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're getting well on all podcasting platforms.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: While you're feeling generous with those followers, make sure you follow Cod on the Mic on all forms of social media, on Instagram, on Twitter, on TikTok, and Facebook.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: And hit me up at www.codonthemic.com.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate the extra shares on social media and the five-star reviews.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Michael Clark.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.