EB 417: We Ghosted Each Other on a Ski Trip

Welcome to “Ear Biscuits” the podcast, where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we’re gonna be talking about a little trip that we both took, but not together, but it was to the same place. Mm hm. And we didn’t see each other, we almost did, but we didn’t see each other. And- I actually dreamed that I saw you. Oh, really? Because I kept thinking I was gonna see you, and then I didn’t, except in a dream. And I was like, oh, there he is. While you were there you dreamed it? It might’ve been last night, ’cause I just remembered it. Huh. Well, I learned something about myself, not not seeing you. It had nothing to do with that. But like, this trip taught me some things about myself. I’m coming to some realizations Link. Okay. Are you sure you wanna share it? Is it the type of thing that- Does it make you look good or make you look bad? I don’t know, like, I don’t wanna think about it in that way. I will say- You just wanna be honest. This episode of Ear Biscuits is unexpected. It’s happening in an unexpected time, because we were supposed to be doing something very different today. Yeah. That we’re not gonna be talking about because it’s a part of that show we’re working on. Mm hm. That we talked about on the Rhett and Link channel. We were supposed to do something crazy today, but the weather didn’t cooperate. Nope. So we did shoot something for that show. I’m glad I didn’t get worked up all weekend and be nervous about it, because it didn’t happen. It’s funny because- Certainly type of thing that I should have gotten worked up. Well, what I learned about myself, is kind of directly related to how I would have been processing and feeling about the thing that we were gonna do. But- Hmm. Put that aside for a second. But we do both have a full belly of shrimp right now. Yeah, we do. That’s another thing that happened. We got to eat lunch out. Which we never do. And when you get to eat lunch out, it’s like, “Ooh, let’s go somewhere. Let’s go somewhere real adventurous. Let’s go somewhere cinematic.” We were also in the Universal Studios area. Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Not a sponsor of this episode. I was actually disappointed in the number of shrimp options that they had. You know, I really thought it was gonna be more shrimp options. There’s at least 20 options for shrimp. I wanted- What did you want? I wanted fried shrimp and grilled shrimp, or like, some sort of scampi. And it wasn’t, you know, that wasn’t an option. You can add shrimp to any dish. You could have been like, can I add grilled shrimp to this? You totally should have. If that was what you were thinking, you should have done it. Well, I’ll have to keep that in mind. Five years from now when I do find myself at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company again. I remember not- Because that’s about my frequency. I remember not liking it the last time I was there, but today I feel like I made a better choice. It was good. Well, your company was nice. I was trying to keep it a little bit reasonable for a lunch, knowing that we were gonna slide this podcast into the day’s arrangement. Oh, you don’t wanna be a bad boy? Well, I always wanna be a bad boy. But if you’re a bad boy right before a podcast, it slows you down. Yeah. So, I got the grilled mahi mahi and grilled shrimp. This is our podcast now. Just say what we just had for lunch. Have you heard of a show called Good Mythical Morning? Like, the only reason people watch that is because we talk about what we eat. Well, it’s like, the waiter came up to us today and he’s like- Everyone’s gonna click on this episode. Oh, you’re the food guys. That’s that’s what he called us. Well, first he said, you’re the food guys. And then we’re like, yep. And he was like, like cooks? ‘Cause somebody in the restaurant had told him the food guys were here. Food guys are here, you better make it good. And we’re like, no, we kind of just eat. It was good. It was good. Well, tell ’em what you had. Everybody’s… All the people like me are wondering what you had. Oh. Just so you understand, how hungry people think. They want to know what you had. When I say what I have, now you say what you had. And it makes people, hungry folk like me, excited. We like to talk about food. We like to hear people talk about food. Do you remember what I had? Yeah, but I wanna hear you say it. I’m still hungry. I had this- Because I had the grilled fish and grilled shrimp. And I wish I’d have had what Link had. Yeah, I got the… I can’t remember what it’s called. Oh, I know what it’s called. It was stuffed shrimp. I think it’s called the “I’m Stuffed Shrimp.” Yep. It was the first item on the shrimp page. It was big shrimps- With crab stuffed into it. They were fried. There was a crab stuffed on top of it, like dollop on top of it. And then some Monterey Jack cheese on top of that. And it was basically like a crab cake on top of a shrimp, like little crab cakes on a shrimp. It was nice. Did you enjoy it? I enjoyed it, yeah, yeah. You didn’t touch your rice. I did, I ate half the rice. I mean, it was just a bunch of rice. Like a bunch of rice left on your plate. Almost asked- I’m not gonna eat all that rice. I almost asked to finish it off. You could have. I had mashed potatoes. I would’ve given you the rice, dude. That’s okay. And then when the guy, the guy that had called us, the food guys- Don’t touch me. The waiter came over. The last thing he said was, “Would you like garlic bread for $7?” And it’s just like, everything in me was like, yes. But you’re being a good boy. I was being a good boy, ’cause I had a podcast to do. Gotta be on my toes. I had garlic bread with my stuffed shrimp. You notice that I also got that? It came with it. And you ate it. It was good. Ooh wee. It looked good. That would’ve been a $7 well spent. It was so yellow. It was so yellow. Some yellow bread. So garlicy. Yeah, this mic’s gonna be smelling right. We’re feeling good, we’re feeling good. I’m feeling a little stuffed. Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. That was more food than you typically eat for lunch. I didn’t learn anything on the trip, where we went, where we didn’t see each other this weekend. But I was solicited and it was really awkward. I was embarrassed. I was… Yeah, in public. Okay. Do you wanna talk about the trip, or do you just wanna talk about the solicitation? I will talk about that. That was a bit of a teaser. I need to get something else off my chest. It’s not related to food, but coming back from the trip, you know, the doggies were boarded. Jade and Jasper, they were boarded. Sokka was home alone. You can leave a cat at home alone and just have somebody come by once a day. And throw a piece of meat in the door. Throw meat in the door, and then scoop crap out of the bin. And that’s it. Now he’s lonely and he’s so happy to see us. Especially when we came in the front door last night and there were no dogs. Like Sokka the cat- He’s having the time of his life. Is so happy to see us. And he, like, he receives affection. He still bites, but he’s doing it in like a, oh my God, I’m so happy to see you, I just wanna bite you. Love bites. That kind of the thing. And then you sit down on the couch and he’s like, I can just see him, he’s looking around waiting for the dogs to come outta nowhere. Like, well, and then he like, he becomes convinced again and again and again that the dogs aren’t there. And he’ll like jump up, sit in our lap while we watch TV. And he doesn’t do that when the dogs are there. No, no, no, no. The dogs won’t let… Jade won’t let him. And I actually, you know, I went to bed, woke up this morning and me and Christy were waking up, and I was like, I hate to say it, but it’s nice not having the dogs here. Oh my God. I never thought I would say that. Whoa, you’re the guy who worships his dog as a religion. I do. And so I am really in a bad spot. You’re a bad boy. You’re being the bad boy now. Because when I got home, I really missed the dogs. And I didn’t see ’em. And I didn’t get to snuggle with ’em. I hope they’re not listening. And the cat was okay. And then the cat was a decent replacement. The cat is even softer than Jade, which is the softest dog I’ve ever petted. Mm. And then I get up from the couch to like go to bed after watching a show, and I’m like, oh, I don’t have to like, take the dogs outside and insist that they do their business. Oh yeah. Go potty. That is tough. Go potty, go potty. Standing out there. Yeah. Jasper, go potty. Why else are we out here again? Every time we come out here, I’m expecting you to do the same one of two things. Just do it. Or both. And then I give you something that you want every time you do it. Why do we have to keep going through this every time? Exactly, every time. And Jade is so persnickety about where she goes and, oh, you better hope it’s not raining. ’cause then, you know, all bets are off. Do you have a spot for when it’s raining? I have to go out a totally different door. Oh yeah, me too. Onto grass. Oh, I got full- Which is wetter than the dirt. Oh, I have a fake patch of grass that’s underneath and awning. And Sean, the only time Sean gets excited, is when he gets to go to that little patch of grass when it’s raining. He’ll literally do the cartoon thing where he starts running on the hardwood floor and he runs at least eight steps before he starts making any forward motion. Well, why don’t you just let him go on it when it’s not raining? Because it’s just a solitary piece of grass. Okay. And I want him going out on the lawn. He loves that patch of grass. Which is also fake. But I want him going out there with Barbara, you know? Yeah, but you’re sitting there like, coaxing, which door do I have to go out of? How long do I have to wait? And then they won’t go at the same time. Jasper will not go until Jade has gone. And Jade takes forever. And then the moment that Jade finally goes, Jasper runs over there and pees on the same spot. Every time. Every single time. What is that I wonder, what is he thinking? Or not what is he thinking, but what what does that mean? Is he trying to cover up- I’m covering up? Where she just did it? Yeah, yeah, like- So it’s like, it’s a dominance thing. It’s not a deference thing. Whatever you’re doing I’ve done more of it on top of it. So now it’s me that’s staying here, not you. Apparently. I don’t know, I really don’t care because at least I can rely on him to do it instantly. Now, when I take him for a walk, this morning, I didn’t have to get outta bed and take him for a walk. I did kind of miss that. So you’re gonna just leave him at the place? But I didn’t miss the fact that, like, when I take him on a walk, that’s when Jade, she poops like 20 steps into the walk, she’ll poop reliably. But then I never know when Jasper’s gonna poop. So Jasper’s the reliable pee-er jade’s the reliable pooper. But why can’t you just poop at the same time? Like, why can’t that be a thing? Just try to poop on top of her poop. Like, he won’t do that. ‘Cause I think he’s not marking anything when he is pooping. I don’t think they use the poop for marking. Even though it would be… It’s a great mark, you can definitely see it. And I slept all night. The dogs have been, you know, we moved them from the bed sleeping with us to sleeping in like their own little kennel at the foot of the bed. But then they’ll still cry in the middle of the night to get in the bed, or to get water, or to go outside. So it’s like we slept all night without waking up. It was like when your baby finally sleeps through the night for the first time. Oh, yeah. And you wake up and you’re like, what happened? Did we just sleep through the night? Oh my gosh. And it was because our dogs were still being boarded. They’re home now, I got a text. Are you looking forward to seeing ’em? I’m so much looking forward to seeing them, But it was a nice little break to not have him there. I mean, it’s a lot of responsibility taking care of dogs. Oh gosh, it’s so much. It’s worth it, but sometimes you need a break. Sometimes you need a break. And I’m not gonna feel bad about it. Jenna, you making faces at me? You can believe it. I’m not gonna feel bad about it. Literally minding my own business. Earlier I saw you making a face. Well, I had the initial shock face, yes. But then all of your reasoning- Guess you weren’t there. Sounds perfect. Yeah. Yeah, of course. It’s a lot of work, y’all. It’s a… It’s worth it. But you better be ready for it. It can be a lot at certain times. Well, we’ll talk to you about where we went and what we did and what I learned about myself. But we wanna remind you about this wonderful piece of literature that we have created. Well, we present to you this piece of literature. We did not create it. It was the creation of Josh Scherer, the mythical chef Josh from the Mythical Kitchen and the Mythical Kitcheneers. It is a recipe book, but it’s more than that. It’s got incredible pictures in there for those of you who don’t like to read, but just like to look at things. Mm hm. And it also has, in addition to recipes that we’ve had on the show and original recipes, it has a lot of funny copy, they call it, they call it copy when it’s just words. I learned that in my twenties. It was new to me when somebody was like talking about, “What’s the copy on this?” I was like, what are they talking about, the copy? Are we making copies of something? First time I heard somebody say copy- Words, written words. It’s just words. I didn’t know that. Written words? Maybe you didn’t, now you do. It has a lot of copy in it. Oh my gosh. And we’ve made copies of it so that you can have your own. Look at that sandwich. This is not the only one. Good Lord that looks good. ‘MythicalCookbook.com’. Get yourself that, you will love it. Ear Biscuits is brought to you by Better Help. You know, a lot of times I think to myself, I wish I had more time. Like if I could just have an extra hour in the day. Okay. You know, sometimes I wanna cook a meal that takes like a long time to cook. Oh. Or I want to like sit there and train one of my dogs to do something impressive for parties. Well that takes more than an hour. But I guess if you had a day- About an hour a day. Yeah. I would just reorganize my closet, probably. A lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. The question is time for what? If time was unlimited, how would you use it? 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The chime credit builder Visa credit card is issued by the Bank Corp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA, members FDIC, out of network ATM withdrawal and over the counter advance fees may apply. Call 1844 244 6363 for details. Late payment may negatively impact your credit score. Results may vary. Early access to direct deposit funds depends on payer. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. So it just happened that we ended up in the same place. We both, for the holiday weekend, extended weekend, went up to Mammoth. Mammoth mountain ski area. Ski and snowboarding area. And this was an interesting trip for me. Five hour drive from Los Angeles. I got there… Drive time, four hours and 40 minutes. Okay, well we were with another family. I wasn’t speeding, I’m just saying- Another car. That’s what it gave me. You went with another family. I went with my son and his two friends. All three of them wanted to snowboard for the first time. Shepherd had skied before. Yep. But you know, he’s 15. It’s time to like look cool on the mountain. And you do that on a board, not on skis. Who are we kidding? You gotta have one thing that your two feet are on versus two things that one foot is on. Yeah, it seems more for the youth. Even though I’ve gotten back into it. And now I’m just fully committed to snowboarding, which is what I did for three days. Had a blast. Lando is still on skis, ’cause that’s what he learned. Well, the thing that hit me, so, I wanted, as we talked about before, a few weeks ago, like you getting into snowboarding, really tempted me to try it. But then I was like, nope, nope, nope. Your back’s feeling good. Ruin your knees, not your back, right? There you go. So that’s why I’m skiing. And I’ve gotten, I’m not good, but I’ve gotten where I will likely not fall at all during the day. I don’t push it, but I’m like, I can kind of do it without falling. But I took the boys to a lesson, ’cause you know, I wasn’t gonna get them to do what we did. And what I think a lot of people our age did. When you learn how to ski or snowboard. You just showed up at the mountain and no one told you anything. No one in your group knew what they were doing. You just went out to some icy mountain right. Right. In North Carolina and they just dropped you off. And then you came back with a really sore coccyx at the end of the day. Oh yeah. But I was like, we’re gonna get you guys a lesson, a professional lesson. So when I dropped them off, I was by myself. Mm hm. And I texted you, ’cause I knew you were up there, and I was like, Hey, I’m available to meet, after I dropped them off. I am by myself, I kinda want to ski with somebody else, which I was trying to make clear. And you texted me back. Well, how about in the afternoon? Like, okay. Okay, all right. But when I got out there by myself, lonely, tall man, skiing, by himself, while his best friend was with another man that he doesn’t even know, that I don’t even know. Well I knew him. Somewhere else on the mountain. As I’m coming down on the first run, I’m like, I don’t know if I wanna keep doing this. What? You know how the first run you’re kinda getting your skis underneath you again? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I’m just kind of thinking like, I didn’t ski last year, I skipped last year I think. Oh. So I think it’s been two years. Yeah. And I was like, ah man, 46 feels different than 44. I think I’m technically in better shape, if all things considered, but ski shape’s kind of a different thing. And I kind of start moving around and I’m just like, this feels dangerous. Yeah. This feels irresponsible, maybe. There are people older than me on this mountain, but not many. Hah. You know what I mean? Not many. And there are no people as tall as me. None. I won the day. I’m the tallest guy at Mammoth, the other day. And that’s thousands of people. Yeah. In terms of people I saw. I saw one tall guy, I thought it was you. But there was one other guy. Was it me? No. But as I got down to- Yeah, I didn’t talk. I went the other way. But as I got down to the bottom- It’s like you see someone from high school in Walmart, “Oh, I’m gonna go down a different aisle.” But when I got down to the bottom, I was like, okay, I think I got this. And when I went up again, I was like, okay, now, okay. I think I do like it, I think I do like it again. The first front jitters are totally a thing. Yeah. But there was a… My whole, the future of me skiing- Hinged. Was in the balance in that first run. Oh yeah, yeah. I was almost like, I think I’m just gonna go back to the room. I was like, this is about the boys. You’re just the dad on this trip. My wife was not with me. Oh man. She has- But then you got over it. She’s in North Carolina. And so I was kind of thinking that like, I’m the dad that’s taking these boys up for the trip. This is about their experience and I’m gonna kind of engineer the trip for them and their enjoyment. Make a memory for them. This isn’t about me enjoying myself. But then I did start enjoying myself. I mean, I was still alone. Well, you know… Well, day two, I was like, “Hey, me and my friend Alex, we’re going out, the kids aren’t going out, we’ll meet up then.” Second day. Yeah. Which was my first ski day. And we said… Oh, that was your first. Yeah, that’s when I was like, let’s do the afternoon, and then we’ll meet up at one o’clock. Or did I say 2.15? I think I said 2.15. It started as one and then it kept slipping. It was 2.15. I told you I was available at 10:00 AM. No you didn’t, you said one. No, no. I thought you said one. The first text I sent to you was that I will be available at 10:00 AM when I dropped the boys off at the lesson at the main lodge. Oh, I didn’t read that one. I only read the one where you were like- And then you kind of ignored that text and were just like, okay, how about one? I was like, okay. And then… Alright, that’s the way you wanna be. I was with a guy who was… Alex is much more advanced than either one of us. And he’s like, “We can go to the other side of the mountain and it might be a little windy, but it could be quite an adventure.” And I’m like, “Okay.” And we get over there and it’s… I get off the lift and I’m trying to follow him and I can’t see him through the blizzard. And then the wind is blowing so hard that it is blowing me over. Like I’m falling on my ass. I can’t imagine what it was like at the top of the mountain. Again and again, and like, you would have to like stand up and let the wind blow your body, like you were a sailboat. Yeah. And instead of blowing you over, you had to like turn so that it could blow you down the mountain to your death. Unless you would turn and like follow the carved path. And like I get to the blue black run, it’s like, it’s blue with a little bit of black around it. Right? Mm hm. I can do that, that’s like the height of my ability. That’s the one- But then it had a sign that had been put in the ground and it said, “Experts only today.” And Alex had already gone past this. And so then I’m going past it and I’m in a life or death… Is he on a board? He’s on a board too. I’m in a life or death situation, where it’s like gale force winds, being pelted with snow, sandblasted with snow. My goggles completely fogged up because I’m huffing and puffing and trying to like survive. Because you’re, I mean, you’re probably 11,000 feet at that point. Yeah, I can’t see anything. And we’re separated. And I like have to take off my goggles and try to use the handkerchief to like clean it off where I can see. Oh, you had your handkerchief? And we were probably separated for 10 minutes, maybe longer. So he thought I had gone off the side of the mountain. I finally catch up with him and I’m yelling at him. I’m like, “What have you gotten us into?” And he can barely hear me ’cause of the wind. Right. And he turns it around and his response is, “I’m gonna film you.” And so then I’m like, all right, I know what to do now. It’s like, at least I’m being filmed, if I’m gonna die… Yeah, capture it. Capture it. So I go past him and I’m like just hugging the side of the mountain, not wanting to turn back to the left and going over the edge, ’cause I can’t see where it is. And the wind is, thank goodness, it’s pushing me against the mountain. And I’m like hanging on like it’s railing. Don’t you wish you were with us? I wanted you to come down to my side of the mountain. I know. And that’s what I was thinking at that point. I should have been with my buddy Rhett. And then I stop, and I see Alex skiing down to me. And I assumed he was still doing some sort of dolly shot and I was angry. So I turned to him and I gave an emphatic FU, like a, you know, flipping the bird, like the big kind where it’s like- You have to stop it with the other arm. You have to slap your elbow, the crook of your elbow down with your other arm. So it just really pops up. And I’m like, whew. I just gave him the longest bird I could give him. And then I realized that Alex was on skis. And then I realized, that’s not Alex. That’s just some person on skis, who passed him while he was filming me. Right. He didn’t catch that on film. But I was quite embarrassed. But I couldn’t speak to the person because we thought we were both gonna die. How did that person respond? They just kept skiing past me. Confused? Maybe a little bit. I’m certain they were confused, as was I. And I mean, we survived. We got back to the other side and then the blizzard comes on the other side. And we were where I told you we were gonna meet you 15 minutes early. Well. And then you never showed up. Yeah. You never showed up. You stood me up. I didn’t. Here I am telling my buddy Alex, you know, my best friend Rhett’s gonna meet us. And he’s, you know, we’ve been best friends forever and he loves to ski and I love to snowboard. And we’re both here and I just can’t wait for you to meet him and see the two of us together. And, you know, and Alex was saying things like, I’ve heard a lot about this Rhett friend of yours. I’m really interested in seeing the magic in person. You know, the two of you together on one slope. It’s like- I’m sorry, I disappointed you. You know, I could probably film you. Is what he was thinking. Yeah. And then you stood us up. You never showed up. And he’s like, well, is he coming? And I’m like, he’s coming, he’s a man of his word. Like, I trust him, he’s a trusted friend. It’s like we’ve been through so much together. The last thing he’s gonna do is stand me up. And then he’s like, a few minutes later, he’s like, I don’t think he’s coming. And I’m like, no, he’s coming, he’s coming. He’s my friend. And this means a lot to both of us. And this is gonna be a great memory. And then a few minutes later he is like, “he’s not real is he?” This is all a figment of your imagination. Yeah, right, yeah, I’m an imaginary friend. Well- So I got a real friend, his name’s Alex. And I got an imaginary friend who ditches me on the slopes, man. Well, those 100 mile, literally 100 mile per hour gusts that were happening at the top of the mountain. Really? Yes. That’s what I was in? I think they screwed up the coms. Because I was like, what would happen is I was texting you and it would be like “sent as text.” You know, that’s a problem. Yep. Because you know they’re probably lying. Yep, yep. And then it would two minutes later be “not delivered.” Right. And then all of a sudden a bunch of texts from you would come in all at once, like 30 minutes after you sent them. What’s your problem? I knew I couldn’t trust you. Are you okay? But this is what I was experiencing at the time. I was down there on the somewhat sane side of the mountain. And I don’t even know how you got to us because all the lifts at the top. It was all treacherous, man. All the lifts from our side going to the top dealer side were closed. Started closing, yes. No, they had closed two hours before I even spoke to you at all. Oh. They closed really early. Like I could see all of them just stopped. So all the lifts that I could have taken to get, and I wasn’t even thinking about that, ’cause that’s like a black diamond and stuff. I don’t do that, you know, I’m trying to live. But I’m sitting there kind of going up and down and I had like, I would go back and like check on the boys in their lesson to make sure that they’re getting taught. You know, and they weren’t really. Y’all boys getting taught? All right, see you later. So I am trying, like I’m still thinking about meeting you, but then all the like lift operators are saying like, “guys, they’re probably gonna close soon because of the a hundred mile per hour winds at the top.” You could like see it like ripping the snow off the top of the mountain. I was in that man. And the gusts, where I was at, were 40, 50 miles per hour. And I get on this lift with these two women and we start going up, and then all of a sudden this icy arctic blast starts hitting the lift. And like the lift is just swinging back and forth. And then they close the lift that we’re on, they stop it. And they don’t let anybody else on. And I’ve still got to go all the way to like halfway up the mountain. And I’m… And I’m sure those women are like, “Why are we on this swinging chair with a giant?” Well they were actually great for me, which I’ll get back to the things I learned about myself. This actually had nothing to do with it. ‘Cause I actually didn’t get too freaked out about this, but I was thinking like, I’m really cold right now. Like this wind is really whipping. I didn’t have anything on my face. I didn’t… Oh. ‘Cause I have a beard. What did y’all have to body heat it? Did you have a face cover? Oh yeah. Because you could not be up there at the top without one, without a beard. But my whole beard was freezing. It turned to ice. “Ee.” And I’m just sitting there with these ladies, who seemed more experienced in skiing, and they were like, oh yeah, last time this happened to us, we were on the lift for 45 minutes. And another time it happened to us. They had to come get us with ropes. What? I’m like, I don’t want this to be my afternoon. And I knew I shouldn’t have gotten on this lift. I knew I should have just said, I’m just gonna sit at the bottom of the mountain. Eventually it started moving. It would move a little bit and then the winds would come up and blow us all over the place. And then they would pick it up and do it again. And then when we came over the ridge and got to like, where we’re kind of exposed to what’s happening at the top of the mountain. Ooh, tough. The wind was so strong that when the lift kind of brought you to let you off, like, I stood up and the only reason I kept going forward is ’cause the lift just pushed me. I couldn’t, I had no momentum ’cause of the wind coming at me. Yeah. And then I turned around to go back down the mountain. I turned around and it is just white. White. Yeah, I was in that too. Snow coming down, snow being blown all around. And then the snow on the ground and I couldn’t see anything and it was just a white. I’m like, I’m gonna go in that direction, ’cause I’ve been down this path before. Yeah. And I start going and because I couldn’t see anything, I had no reference for how fast I was going. So I thought I was going like a mile per hour, going, I’m gonna plow all the way down the mountain. And then I like started to turn and realized, oh, I’m going like 10 miles per hour. And I almost completely ate it in the blizzard. Yeah. But eventually I was able to slow it down and I got a little bit lower and I got kind of beneath all that. And I got down to the bottom of the mountain. And then at that point I was like, there’s no way that Link is going to get over here. Uh-uh. And I think by that time you had come and gone. And you couldn’t even get back up, you had to get picked up by Christy, Right? Yeah. And then, that was day two, day one for you, day two for me. Day three was absolutely beautiful. And I had plans. I got all my gear on and everything. And then we were at the door and they were like, where’s your suit? I was like, oh crap. I forgot to put on my special suit. Weeks earlier, out in the desert, at Joshua Tree. I went in a thrift store and hanging outside they had this like bright red snowsuit. And it was vintage. It had like a fur collar, and it had a patch on the sleeve that said like, Chicagoland Snowmobilers Association. And this is out in Joshua Tree. And I was like, well I gotta buy this and take it. Alex was there, and he was like, you gotta buy this and take it skiing when we go skiing. I was like, all right, 40 bucks, I bought this thing. And it was like a vintage bright red suit that I forgot to wear. So then I didn’t wear it on the last day, which was absolutely beautiful weather. Stayed there the whole day. But then that night it snowed two feet. So the next morning I’m like, oh, now, I’m gonna put on my suit. I’m gonna put on my red suit and I’m gonna go outside and I’m gonna shovel the snow and I’m gonna get us outta here. And it took a lot of work. I worked up so much of a sweat that I had to come back in, strip down naked, and towel off, put on totally new clothes and then put on my red suit again. So then, we put like, I have like an all wheel drive, SUV, I didn’t put chains on, but like, we put chains on Alex’s car. And then we’re like leaving together. And once we got out to like the main road to leave town, he pulled over on the side of the road. ‘Cause it’s like, okay, it’s slushy here, we needed to take his chains back off. He didn’t need ’em anymore to go down the mountain at this point. And so we go down there. I pull over on the side of the road behind him, he starts taking the chains off the front left. And I’m like, well, you know, I can help. So like I get out and I go over to the right side and I start taking the chains off the front of his tires, the right front tire. And as I’m down there, he comes around having finished and like we’re both working on this tire. And then I hear somebody walk up behind us. Somebody had pulled up behind us and he said, “Hey guys.” And I turn around and stand up and it’s just a normal guy, like in a, I don’t know, some sort of SUV, pulled over behind us. And he was like, “Are you you putting on the chains or are you taking ’em off?” And I said, “We’re taking ’em off.” And he’s like, “How much do you charge for that?” And I was like, I don’t, I’m not doing that. Doing it to my own chains. And then I was like, “Is it the red?” He was like, “Oh yeah, it’s the red.” You look like, yeah, you look like ski patrol. I looked like chain patrol on the side of the road. Like I apparently looked very official. And there was a badge on your arm that said something. There was, yeah, well, a patch. Patch. So yeah. That was my solicited story. I built it up a little bit, but- Are you taking ’em off, or putting them on? Nothing for you. Nothing for you, sir. And I was like, well there’s a price for everything. And by then he was already walking off. But he legitimately thought I was going to do it for him. ‘Cause I do think there are people that do that. Did he want ’em off? He wanted ’em off. Off is the easy part, right? I know, I probably could have done it for 30. Well, like I was telling you, my car does not accept snow chains. Oh really? It says snow socks only. So I had snow socks with me. Here, here’s me with my suit. It’s very thick. It’s very big. There’s a lot of room in there. So you were on a snowboard in that? Yeah, just for the hell of it. You look like Santa’s little helper. I know, it makes my head look real small, ’cause the suit is so big. It’s so big. I would think the technology is not up to snuff with the layering- Yeah. And the things and the materials. But here’s me working on the wheel. Yeah, I would think you were charging. I definitely look official. I would think you were charging. Yeah, 30 bucks per wheel. I will say, since you talked about that last day, that was so beautiful. And I had called you and talked to you the day before, or maybe, I talked to you at some point, and was talking to you about the storm that was coming in, which was news to you. Which relates back to something I’m gonna talk about in a second. Right. But, because I was like, I’m driving home on Sunday because I don’t want to get snowed in. I was also staying at a location that was up the mountain and had one way in, one way out. And like you had to like, I was like, I kind of wanna sleep in my own bed. Well you were kind, you know, I was… We were all hanging out in the living room and you called, so I’m on the phone with you and like everybody’s hearing like my side of the conversation and like, you were giving me an earful about the weather and about the snowstorm and about all this stuff. And then I get off the phone and Christy’s like, is Rhett okay? And I’m like, well, I don’t know if we’re okay now. So you tell me your side of the story. Well, let me tell you about… I’m gonna get back to that, because that’s in the context of what I learned about myself. But the second day- Uh huh. That was was a beautiful day. Yeah. And this is the day that I was skiing with Shepherd and his two friends. And they sort of one by one dropped out, you know, as you do on your second day of snowboarding when you’re kind of- Yeah. A little bit beat up. But it was a beautiful day and the snow storm that was supposed to come in at like two o’clock moved to four o’clock, moved to six o’clock. And then it didn’t happen until that night. But they had basically been… Like, every time I opened my phone and looked at the traffic, or looked at the weather, I would get these like alerts. Yeah. Like severe winter storm, roads may be impassable. I was like, I don’t wanna get stuck up here. We got something we gotta shoot on Tuesday. But at 9:50 AM, when I’d already been out there a little bit, I texted you, “Snow coming later than predicted, should be nice all day. We’re still driving home, but you’ll likely be fine.” Because I had told you that- You had built it up that I was gonna get trapped and- Yeah. You scared me man. And then I said, “I’m gonna share my location, in case we happen to end up in the same places.” Like on the mountain. Yeah. “Share yours when you get a chance.” Well apparently you didn’t get a chance all day, because you didn’t respond to near one of these texts. Not one. Well, I shared my location. No, you didn’t. You didn’t, I shared my location with you. Which by the way, we should be sharing our location with each other. Like that should be a setting. Don’t we? But if one of us shares our location with the other one, the other one really need to share it back. Yes. Not really. You should be on Find My Friends, as many times as we need to know where each other are at for different reasons, we should be on Find My Friends. But… I will say, while you’re talking, I would like also like you to share your locations with me as well. There you go. Yeah, I’m a good backup. Well, why don’t we just put it online. I’ll share my location with every damn body. Yeah. Yeah, share it with everyone. What… But the thing I’m taking issue with is the complete ignoring of my texts on the second day. I wasn’t saying, we have to get together. My point was, I’m skiing all over the mountain on this beautiful day. It was a beautiful day. If we happen to be in the same place at the same time, maybe we can meet up and take a run together. That was the thought. Well you- So what happened on day two? Remember- Did you forget your phone? Remember day one, when you stood me up. I didn’t stand you up. That’s just desserts, man. I texted you and said- Oh, now he wants to meet up. Now he wants a little bit of the Linksky? So, you purposely did not respond to a text. Like, you looked at my text and made a conscious decision to not even text back. No, I shared my location immediately, for the rest of the day. Well, you did it wrong ’cause it didn’t show up. It says, “share location” and then it brings up a pop up and it says share indefinitely, or share for the rest of the day? Yeah, I did. And was like I’ll share for the rest of the day. I did it for the rest of the day. Because I was concerned… I almost did permanently. I was concerned about, if it would drain my battery, to share with you constantly. No? Your phone is not sharing your location just with me and using extra battery power for that. It’s giving me access to the location information that is happening on your phone. Okay, okay. Well I did. Well, a text back, would have, I mean, just a little. Yeah, yeah. Just like, okay. Anything. No, but- Thumbs up. No, but- Nothing, nothing. There’s nothing, there’s nothing. Okay, well lemme look at my phone. It’s all one sided. No, look, let me look at my phone. Let me look at this. Let me find you. I’ve talked to so many people since I’ve talked to you. There I am, right there. Okay. See, look. All right. “Snow coming later than predicted, should be nice all day. We’re still driving home, but you’ll likely be fine after we ski.” And then Rhett’s location shared. You shared it. Yep. I’m gonna share my location, in case we happen to end up in the same place. Share yours when you get a chance. So then look at this. You didn’t do it, it’s still waiting. Oh, there it is. You didn’t send it. It’s literally… You could do it right now. It’s literally- It’s loaded. It’s in the box. You got the got one in the chamber. You got one in the chamber that you did not send. Oh well, I’m here. Here I am. Yeah, I was like, here’s my thing. Okay, this is about right. My- Okay. Here’s my thing dude. Okay. I’m sorry. Listen. Okay. Oh, we are so butt-hurt today. Both of us, aren’t we? Okay, so here’s what happened, dude. Mm hm. It’s where I choose to keep my phone, it’s really hard to get to. Which pocket is it? It was like an inner pocket. And then I had my headphone, my wired headphones, which have this like big module attached to ’em for silence, like silencing or something. You got your wired headphones? Yeah, so I don’t lose them. And so then the wire’s long and there’s a little module. And so I’m shoving all this in my pocket. Oh, it’s hard. Every single time. That sounds hard. I’m like, okay, somebody has just texted me. I can see it, I can see Rhett’s said something about share my location on my watch. And then I’m like, oh God. So then I’m like, and pulling out my phone and I had already dropped my goggles, my brand new goggles. You lost them? Off the lift. And then I had to go down and hope they were still there. Were they? Thank goodness, they were still there. Like I didn’t wanna lose my phone on the lift. And I’m sitting here, you know, once I get things how I like ’em, I don’t like to undo it. ‘Cause then it’s so hard to get things like- Yeah, I mean that’s not like you might need the phone- But you know what I did- To communicate with people. I did, I sacrificed my comfort, my time, my security of my phone and I just, I wrangled it out. Oh my gosh, I finally got it out. Share location, okay, share. I shared my location. I see now, it makes me feel better that you did think that you shared it. Immediately. You thought that you shared it, but you got ready to share it, and then you didn’t hit the next… I’m gonna share it right now. Message is already being sent. Oh, thanks. Okay. All right, lemme see. Okay, it says you’re in Burbank. Yep. All right, so now I’m gonna permanently share my location with you and Jenna. Yes, please. So, but that means I don’t need to respond to any text ever, right? Because… Because I’ll just find you. You’ll just find me. If you really need me. I just shared my location with you indefinitely. I’m also in Burbank, right now. If you really need me, you know where to find me. Okay. Which is the thing that I regret saying the most in my spiritual deconstruction episode. Now I’m saying it to y’all too. To God? Yeah. God knows where to find me. I’ve shared my location with God. And Rhett and Jenna. Mm hm. Yeah. The holy Trinity. Yeah, I’m sorry. I am about that. You know, I was, we… It would’ve been great. It would’ve been great. Would’ve been great. But you know what? Now we can save it for next time. But you were so worked up about wanting to go home, that I was a little concerned about skiing with you anyway- Okay, so- Because- Let’s get back to that. I know this has to be what you learned about yourself. Well, I already knew that I care about these types of things, and have anxieties about these types of things. But I found something that brought it all home that I’m gonna share with you. So, okay, I am responsible for these three boys, for the weekend, right? Jessie’s outta town, I’m in charge of this trip. I’m like on a text thread with the other parents. Oh yeah. That’s a level right there. I’m saying I’m taking pictures and sending them to the text thread. Like, this is where your children are. This is what we’re doing. We’re having fun, having fun. Mm hm. I have copies of their insurance cards. I have like permission things that say like, I’m the guardian just in case. And I’m typically not responsible for people’s children in this way. But regardless- Right. I think a lot about things. Like, let me just, the way that my mind works, and was working leading up to getting there, was that okay, I’m like, all right, I’ve got these lift ticket vouchers, and you know, the lesson vouchers, and it’s all under one thing. But the credit card that I have with me is not the credit card that was used to make the purchase. And that might be a problem. Could be a problem. Am I gonna, like what am I gonna do? And then I’m like, when we get there, we’re gonna go, we’re gonna rent the equipment and then maybe I’ll have time to get back to the thing and then I can get the lift ticket so we have them before we go that morning. And then that didn’t happen. So I’m like, okay, well I’m gonna have to go in the morning. So I’m like, I gotta get up at this time. I’m gonna do this and we’re gonna eat breakfast. Yeah. And I’m thinking about all these things and I’m anxious about it, right? These are called dad logistics. But I go a step further, and I’m not just trying to figure it out. I have anxiety related to it. Yeah. And then, like I said, every time I’m bringing out my phone and look at directions or whatever, it’s like winter storm warning, these three roads impassable, two feet of snow between Sunday night and Monday. And I’m like, I don’t wanna be driving through the snow. So then I see that on Friday and I tell the boys, I’m like, guys, the plan is we ski on Sunday and then I drive you home, ’cause I don’t wanna get stuck up here. And I’m also thinking like, there’s a parking garage under this hotel, but there’s limited parking. Most of the parking is outside of the hotel. And those people are gonna get all this snow on their cars. And then I hear this guy, the front desk is talking to this woman, he’s like, “Yeah, if you wait until Monday, you might have a tough time getting outta here, but we’ve got people who can help shovel you out.” I’m like, I don’t want to have to worry about this. Mm And we got this video we’re shooting on Tuesday. And so, I’m thinking all that. So, I’m thinking about when is my window of time in which I can get my car from the outside and drive it into the inside. So I’m thinking about 20 different things, right? And in my brain, just the way that it’s always worked, this is just normal to me. But I’ve been in therapy, for I don’t know how many years now? Five, six, I dunno. And one of the things that it does is it helps you, you actually stop and you think about what you’re thinking. Yeah. Like you recognize the thoughts that you’re having and recognize that you’re not your thoughts, and you can actually step back. And so, you know, my therapist, and my wonderful wife, have been, you know, reminding me about the times in which my anxiety kind of comes out. ‘Cause you already know that when it comes to travel- Yeah. Getting to the airport on time is a big thing for me. And I actually start thinking about the trip multiple days ahead of time. And like leaving at the right time. And I don’t know if it’s gotten worse as I’ve gotten older, or if I’ve just become more aware of it. And then the other thing that happens is, I think about all the stuff that we have to do, right? And the way my anxiety has always transferred directly into action. Right, so, like, I don’t withdraw from it. I move, it’s like, we gotta be ready for this thing. You need to be writing this thing. You need to be thinking about this thing. You need to be coming up ideas for this thing. And so I had to make a list in my head, or sometimes like a list on my phone. And the way I relieve my anxiety is by doing the thing. Yeah. And so if I sit down and write for a long time, or I ideate something- You’ll feel better. Then my anxiety goes away. ’cause you’re like, oh, you took some time. And so that’s why I do a lot of things, because I’m actually treating my anxiety by doing the thing that I’m anxious about. Hmm. Finding a way to be prepared. And that’s one of the reasons I just do shit all the time. Okay. So there’s there’s a good, there’s a benefit from it. Right. I’m very driven. But it’s actually to kind of like quell anxiety about certain things. Yeah, like when you called me the day before and you’re like walking through all of that logistics of like, I think I’m gonna get outta here the night before. It dawned on me at a certain point that I think you were telling me, it’s like, I think you might need to think about getting outta here too. And I’m like, so then, you know, I’m just like, man. I don’t know, I don’t know. And then when I got off the phone, they were like, “Is everything all right?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” And then, you know what I did? I went and took a nap. Well see- I did the exact opposite. And see- And then I also went to sleep. And the next day I also, I was like, you know what, it’ll all… But this is an interesting thing because you have anxiety too. Yeah, you made me real anxious. No, no, no, no. But you- Oh, I have anxiety. Your anxiety is in a completely different realm. When I called you, you were like eating something. I dunno what you… Yeah, sorry. Eating nuts or something on the phone. It was carrots with labneh. It was something that was like, it was something that kept snapping. I knew you were eating something hard. You should dip a carrot in labneh. Like, you know what that is? It’s like that- It’s like a Greek yogurt. It’s like a Middle Eastern yogurt or something. It’s like a Middle Eastern yogurt. And so I’m- I’m sitting here just cracking the shit outta this stuff. But I’m telling you this. And you’re freaking out. And I’m like, chump, chomp, chomp. But the funny thing is, is like, this was news to you. Like, your whole group, which it blew my mind, especially Christy, ’cause Christy’s anxious about similar things to me. Yeah. It blew my mind. She doesn’t ski. That no one in your group had gotten the information about this winter weather, this severe storm that they kept telling us about. Right. It was news to you. And so, like, I got off the phone with you, I was like, it’s funny, I know that he’s got anxiety, but he has no anxiety about this type of thing. I didn’t until you called me. No, but you don’t, ’cause you don’t have… You don’t, you’re not anxious, when we travel, I’m anxious. Yeah. You’re not anxious. You have anxiety about different things. Yeah. It’s just funny how people’s brains work. Well, when we woke up and there was two feet of snow on the ground, I did experience anxiety at that point, which is why I went outside and my ass off, to the point where I had to change clothes again. And then our friends, like, they’re still super chill. Like, this is not a big deal to them. We’re gonna put the chains on the car, everything will be fine. And I’ve already told the story, everything was fine. But I started to get very testy when we were trying to pack and get the snow out and like, put the chains on. I’m like, should we have chains? They’re putting on chains. And so it hit me very late. And then everything you were saying was echoing in my head. It’s like, man, we’re gonna be trapped up here. We’re not gonna be able to make that video tomorrow. And then about this time, I’m standing outside and we’ve loaded almost everything in the car. I’m like, thank God we can get on the road. Like the sooner we can get on the road the better, I’ll feel some relief. Especially when we get down this mountain. Oh good, so you got a little anxious too. And then they’re like, let’s get a photo first. And we got a photo of the adults, and they were like, let’s let their youngest daughter take the photo. Oh God. And I’m thinking, alright, just take the damn photo. And then she’s like being artistic with it. She’s like doing this, like, she’s turning it sideways and getting photos of us. And she’s like giving us direction, like, “Make a face, work the camera.” You know, and then it was like, well, can we get one that’s just vertical, is what, you know, her dad’s saying. So then she’s also getting just the perfectly vertical picture. And then after a while I just yelled at her. It wasn’t a great ending. Did you give her the bird? And then it wasn’t her. I was like, I don’t know what I said. But I think it was something to the effect of, can we just take the photo, or can we just get on the road? It was just like, I had just… You transferred it to me, man. I was in this zen place of like, hey, Link is really happy go lucky. He can get along with other families. And now here I am yelling at the young one. But you don’t typically get anxious about that kind of stuff. My observation is that you- Not to that point. Like, oh, the weather might turn bad, or we might be late to the airport because the schedule’s too tight. Right. You tend to be like, seem to like, that kind of just rolls right off. My coping mechanism is to ignore it, especially when there’s other people around who are gonna get worked up about it. Like Christy, she likes to plan and she thinks through worst case scenarios, and she’s at the ready. You’re a lot like that. So I have a good friend and I have a wonderful spouse, and they both experience me leaning on them heavily. So I appreciate it. And that way I can reserve my anxiety, actively for other things. But in a very passive way, I’m just like, ah, la, la, la, la, not hearing it. Not thinking about it, taking another nap. But see, that’s a skill, because I wouldn’t be able to, if I could take naps, which we know I can’t, I wouldn’t be able to. I cannot relax until I have everything figured out. If I was in charge, if I had put myself in charge of two of my son’s friends, I would probably have been stressed out. Well, so I was thinking about this a lot this weekend and I’ve been thinking about my anxiety quite a bit and trying to like write about it and figure out like, okay, I really need to understand what it is that’s happening. And you know, something that’s very helpful is having some kind of mantra that you say to yourself. Okay. Right, it is, you know, and my therapist kind of gave me that, I mean, I’ve heard it from multiple people, but he was like, you know, it could be helpful to have something that you kind of return to and kind of ground yourself. Obviously breathing exercises. I’ve been doing more breathing exercises, like in the moment where I feel like, oh, you’re getting anxious about something, let’s do some box breathing or whatever. That’s very helpful. But I found this comedian, who has this little standup bit about his travel anxiety. And I sent this to Jessie, because it was like, I’ve never felt somebody read my mail more specifically- Oh. Than this guy did. Almost to the point that I’m like, I didn’t think anyone thought like this. But just listen to this. So this guy, his name is Zoltan Kaszas. K-A-S-Z-A-S. Okay. And okay, so I’m going- I haven’t heard of Zoltan. So I’m going to- I’ve heard of a Zoltan, but not him, I thought it was a movie character. Okay, so I’ll play this for you here. I found out in therapy that I have anxiety. I didn’t know that, I thought I was just being polite all these years. You guys ever confuse politeness with anxious? That’s what I’ve been doing my entire life. I had no idea until I was in therapy, and she was like, give me a public setting. And I was like, all right. Like when I’m on a plane and we’re deboarding, I count the rows, and in my head I’m like, all right, when that lady gets up, I’m gonna get up. I got my bag over there. Don’t forget that bag’s over there. Oh, my wife’s bag is over there, don’t forget that. And at that point, my wife would be like, “Is everything okay? Are you all right right now?” And I’m like, “Shut up, are you ready? You need to be ready.” And she’s like, “What is happening right now?” And I’m like, “It’s our turn, there’s no time, we gotta go.” And I do that ’cause I don’t want to take half an extra second getting my bag down ’cause maybe someone behind me will punch me in the back of the head. Because that’s how I feel when I’m deboarding a flight and there’s someone in front of me and they’re like, “Is my bag there or there?” I’m behind him going, ha ha, I think we get to kill him. Right? I think we get to end this dude right now. And I don’t want to be a victim in a scenario that I’ve created. And for all these years, I thought that was me being polite to my fellow man by getting out of the way. Uh-uh, that’s anxiety. That means someone yelled at me when I was four, when they should have hugged me. And somehow 30 years later, that manifested into I can’t be in anyone’s way. You know. I found out… It’s a high pressure situation. No, but- But you think all of that? I sent that to Jessie and she was like, OMG, like, this is us traveling. Like, this exact scenario is the way I think about deboarding. I’m like, I count the rows, and I’m like, this person’s going a little bit slow. Okay, oh, that guy’s got his together. Okay, and here comes my turn, this bag. I stand up, I got it, I’m ready. I’m looking at Jessie, I’m like, “Get your shit together.” And she might have like, her headphones are like, still like, not together. I’m like, “Our turn’s coming up.” This is like, this is my world. And of course it’s seems obvious that that is anxiety. But to me I was like, I’m just trying to be an efficient member of this group of people on this plane. Yeah. Because if every single person were to do what I’m doing, we would all get off. But no, it really is related to not wanting to be the problem. Not wanting to be the thing that creates an issue for anybody. Which I would’ve said is because I’m polite. But no, it’s because I’m anxious. Huh. So what is your, I thought you… Do you have a mantra? Do you have something that you’re gonna say? I’m working on it. I’m developing it. Well, it’s only gonna be a couple words, right? Well- It’s not a dissertation. I mean, it could be like a couple sentences. It could be a couple of sentences. ‘Cause I was trying to figure out like, what is it that, like- Well, what you got so far? Well, that’s for me, man. Come on man, bounce it off us. Come on. No, that’s for me. But- Well, what about, I am gonna be a bad boy and a good boy, because I’m just a boy. Okay, you know what, maybe I’ll consider adding that. But what I found is that, so- You don’t want any suggestions? Well, I mean, I’ll tell you off the podcast what- Oh, it’s that private? Your mantra is something, it’s for you, it’s for you, man. Oh. You know, so, and I haven’t landed it yet. But what I did- Maybe text it to me. What I did yesterday- And I’ll maybe reply. So, because I got home on Sunday night, and then I had yesterday, which was a holiday. Right. But the way I think about holidays is I get to work when no one else is working. I’ve always thought of holidays in that way. Like, I’m like, okay, this is a day, where I’ll actually get stuff done. Yeah. Because work days, I’ve gotta do other things. Like, I’ve gotta schedule, I’ve gotta do this, I gotta do that. You gotta record this and you gotta, but if you actually want to get things done, like you wanna write things, you wanna come up with ideas, you do that on holidays. I’ve never thought that that was weird at all. Yeah, that’s not… It doesn’t… Yeah. And then it’s not great for me. I’ve had to come to grips about this with you, because I’ve been like, I’ve been very good. Like my coping mechanism is escape. So like a weekend, oh, a extra day where I’m not expected to do anything. Well then I’m not, that’s gonna be great. And then I’m like getting texts from you about all the that you’re thinking about. I’m like damn, I didn’t think about anything. I mean, I’ve talked about this in therapy. About how it’s like, man, he just, I feel bad because he’s so much more productive than I am. You know? And now you’re like, man, you feel bad because you’re not as unproductive as me? I actually think… I thought we had a good system. You do the work on our day off. But I learned not to feel guilty for not doing any work. Yeah, it’s a good system. So I don’t actually… We’ve got a lot done. I don’t think anything is broken here actually. I think you’re totally good, man. Well, so this is what I did yesterday. No, I think this is good for you. So, I sit down to begin… Some of it was just like, okay, there’s all these like little… I gotta get back to all these people on all this shit. And I’m gonna do that. Yep. I’m gonna get that outta the way, ’cause it’s easy. And it’ll make you feel better is what you’re realizing. Yeah, and I’m gonna get my ridiculous… ‘Cause I’m not organized. Like, I’m a typical… My mind works like a typical creative person, which is not organized and systematic from a creative standpoint. It’s like just kind of like, it’s kind of a forceful thing that I’m kind of just hoping something will happen when I go into a creative mode. But I’ll get some of the stuff outta the way, like the systematic stuff of getting, you know, the inbox cleaned up or whatever. Did you go to the creative house to do this? No, I was at home. Okay. ‘Cause you know it was just Shepherd at home. Oh yeah. And he’s like, you know, gonna sleep until the afternoon. He’s a 15-year-old. So I do that and then I’ve got like, there’s a number of things, like some of the stuff we talked about today at lunch, these creative problems that we’re trying to solve related to the show right now, right? Yeah. And I’m just like, these problems are gonna start stacking up on us and then we’re gonna be making last minute decisions. And I hate that. Yeah. I hate just having just an idea that fills the gap. I wanna actually be intentional and like, just tossed this thing around and really land it, like, this is the best idea, right? So I’m like, we gotta start, we gotta do that. We gotta start doing that. So I sat down and I’m like trying to come up with a couple of things and I’m like, I don’t have anything. I was like, this, you know, I’m digging in the well and I just don’t… I’m just tired from snowboarding. Whatever the excuse was, it was just like, sometimes you don’t have anything. And so first of all, I’ve been doing this like all throughout the weekend. I was trying to do the like, okay, if you feel the anxiety kind of come up, you do, you know, say some comforting words to yourself. You do some breathing exercises and it was really working to kinda like level things out. If for no other reason than it’s simply, you don’t get lost in the anxiety. You’re like, oh, I’m being anxious right now. It’s not that I’m doing something productive. It’s not that I’m having a productive series of thoughts. I’m just being anxious. And there’s like a preexisting anxiety that then is trying to find something logical to latch onto to then try to solve a problem. Yeah. But instead of letting that cycle continue, the moment the anxiety comes just being like, no, we’re gonna like think about this thing. We’re not gonna think about the thing that the anxiety is trying to get you to think about. We’re gonna think about the anxiety. Yeah. And we’re gonna address it. Very helpful exercise. Simple stuff, but like, very helpful. But then I had this thought as I was sitting there not being able to really give anything to… Creatively, I was like, what if when I feel like this, I mean after all it is a holiday, what if I’m like, when you don’t have anything to give, give to yourself? When you don’t have anything to give the world creatively, which has defined your existence. Okay. Give to yourself. Receive. Right, or give to yourself. So what I did, is I watched two movies. I did a double feature just for myself, ’cause Shepherd went to a friend’s house. No you didn’t. And I made myself Chicken Parmesan. Oh, there you go. And in between the double feature. All right. I just made myself Chicken Parmesan. It was great. There you go. I got some that I’m gonna eat tonight again. And so it was funny ’cause I was like… And of course there’s a part of my brain that’s just like, yeah, but you kind of like, this is kind of work because you’re watching movies and you get ideas and you, you know. Yeah. Like the literally like, the little devil on my shoulder was like- Yeah. But you’re still working a little bit. ‘Cause you’re watching a comedy movie for a reason. Yeah. You know? Because you’re comparing notes or whatever. Yeah. But- And you did have notes. Oh yeah, I have notes on everything. But I did this and we’ve got these aura rings, right? That like measure your HRV- Vitals. And your… A lot of different things. But your readiness score, in part, is determined by your resting heart rate at night. And also your HRV, your heart rate variability, which is a good indicator of stress. And mine has always been, as we’ve talked about, very, very low. Like my HRV has been so low historically that I’m like this according to the doctors, you would be about dead now. I think it’s either, maybe it’s not completely accurate. And they say that a lot of people have low HRV, and it’s not really that big of a deal. You’re really trying to measure your relative HRV as it relates to your baseline averages. And then you can tell if you’re gonna be less stressed, or you’re whatever. But all I did yesterday was when I decided to not… That I didn’t have anything to give, I gave myself two movies in Chicken Parmesan. Yeah. And just kind of like, had a relaxing night, looked at some social media before I went to bed, which is something I try not to do. But I was like, and found that video. Oh, and laughed at yourself. And then I go to bed and I measure my, you know, it’s automatically measured when you wake up. And my HRV was double what it has been. Double, it doubled. It was pretty low to begin with, but it doubled. It was the highest it’s ever registered. That meant you had more lows? Like your heart rate went lower more often than staying high? It varied by going lower? Don’t try to read too much into what HRV means, but just strictly speaking, the more variability there is in your heart rate, not how your heart rate varies over the course, but how your heart rate… Variability between beats of your heart is an indication- Oh. And how variable that is, is an indication of your stress response. So I don’t know exactly why that’s the case. I’m not a doctor, I’m just telling you, if you basically have zero variability, there’s low reactivity, it means you’re not really equipped to deal with stress. And so mine typically really, really low. It can’t really go down very much. Now I can do breathing exercises and measure that with the phone and it will kind of bring it up. But then at night, it’s always pretty low. It was double. And then my resting heart rate was like five beats per minute lower than normal, lower than it’s ever been. Sounds like you need more chicken parm. But I mean that’s crazy. It’s good for your heart. And I’m wondering, is this an anomaly? Is there an error in the measuring or something like that? Let’s take off tomorrow and find out. Or is it, and to me it’s not so much about taking off or whatever, because the thing I realized is that I actually, I find joy in doing creative things. But when I’m doing the creative thing to treat the anxiety- Right. That’s a very different exercise than doing the creative thing because there’s joy in the creative thing. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like watching a movie that you enjoy and it giving us ideas about our series, or putting it in into context, that can be positive, I mean it can also be negative. It’s not… Right, its just- But that’s also not- It’s just a thought. You’re watching somebody do art that’s similar to the thing that you do and it helps you figure out how to not copy, you know, how to do something different, whatever it is. All kinds of reasons. But I’m also enjoying the process. I mean, it’s not really, watching movies is not work for anyone except a movie critic, I guess. But it’s like, it’s not really work. But to me, what I would have done literally every day of my life until yesterday, is watching two movies in… Well, not making myself meals, I make myself meals all the time. But watching two movies back to back, I would’ve been like, you are such a loser. You’re such a loser. Like, just like… Yeah, you can’t do that. Doing nothing? Like that was approximately four hours. You could have been doing anything that made more sense than that. And I’m not saying it’s that- Right. That’s not the dialogue, I don’t have a active dialogue like that. But it’s just like, I don’t enjoy vacation. I mean, I do enjoy vacation, but I don’t enjoy it at the same time. Because it feels like this is too much time not working. The world’s continuing to spin, things are happening, other people are getting ahead of you guys, like… Yeah. That’s how my brain has worked. But when it’s like, no, this is an investment in your own wellbeing, which yes, will make you, you know, more capable or whatever, but that’s not the reason. I’m just saying ironically, it actually is the best thing for, being a creative person, is being nice to yourself. So you can- Yeah, giving yourself permission to check out and, yeah. So, it’s probably okay to use that justification. You know, this will actually make me better when I reengage in what it is I’m trying to do or have to do. Yeah, as long as I’m actually giving myself permission. Yeah, so you can give yourself that permission. Well, I’m saying I did it. And I think, for me, this is a new… This is pretty revolutionary for me. I think it probably sounds like obvious to most people who are listening, but to me it was like- Well, I didn’t… It wasn’t obvious, your actions were obvious to me, but I didn’t realize how much of it, like, it’s not for me to say. And I couldn’t know how much of it was a coping mechanism for stress and how much of it was… Well, I mean, if I came back after a weekend and told you that I had written a couple of songs, then I would expect you to look at me funny. Because that’s just not something that I do, right? It’s like, I don’t express myself by writing songs. So if I wrote a song, it would be like, well, I made up my mind that’s something that I wanted to do, or that I needed to do. Right. It was like, I made it a task. That’s not an outlet for me, you know? But for you, I would be like, man, we’re different in that way, because like, relaxing for me is doing nothing. Relaxing for you was like doing something creative, like writing a song that’s not necessarily for anybody to hear or anything, like you told me, right? Mm hm. And so I would chalk up a lot of… Even when you would work on our work, well it’s like, you know, he’s, he likes to write. So, and writing is more… The way that Rhett likes to write, it’s more of a solitary experience. So sometimes we don’t have time for that. So he’ll do it on the weekends. But I’m not concerned about it for him because I think it’s a creative outlet. It’s something that he really enjoys doing. But it’s nice to hear that you’re seeing that like, okay, there could be a dark motive that could be coping. And so that’s what’s complicated I think, is that things that can be an outlet for you, because it is also your job, you could do it as a coping mechanism. And that’s kind of dangerous, right? Because it could kind of spoil this thing that is precious, like creative time is precious. But if you find yourself doing it just to make yourself feel better, that might spoil it a little bit, right? Yeah. Like writing a script versus writing a song, a song that you’re not writing it thinking about anybody hearing it. Now somebody may hear it, but that’s not what you’re thinking when you’re writing it. That’s what you told me, right? Right. But if you write a script for something we’re doing, or like you start working or noting an outline for this series, you could be doing that ’cause you love it, or you could be doing that so you makes you feel better. How do you tell the difference? Isn’t that a challenge? Well, it is complicated, because we sign ourselves up for so many things, right? And first of all, I don’t think I’ll ever be be any different than this. It’s just like, I feel most at home when we have signed ourselves up for something that is like, I don’t know if we’re gonna pull this off. I kind of feel like everything we’ve ever done is kind of like, I don’t know- Stretching. I don’t know if we can pull this off. Like, we will be stretched creatively to pull this off. I don’t know- You find yourself most at home? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know if we can write a novel. I don’t know if we can make this show. I don’t know, whatever the thing is. I feel like if I was like, I’m only gonna do things that I can do, which I… So to me, because I know that’s not what you’re saying, like, I like the challenge. But if I become anxious about… Like, if there’s anxiety that is just existing, because I do think it’s sort of like a preexisting thing based on like brain chemistry or whatever. And then you’re like, well what is it I’m anxious about? The first candidates in line will be the shit that we’ve signed ourselves up for. Mm hm. For me, that’s how it works. It’s just like you get anxious and then what’s the first, okay, here’s something you… I’m something you could be anxious about. Nine times outta ten, that’s gonna be something related to what we do. Because we always sign ourselves up for something. And so I have to be careful that, I think to me it’s just kind of divorcing the two things. So, be like, I do wanna work on this, but… And I do like to kind of like start to try to do something creative and then see if I’ve got anything. Mm hm. A lot of times I don’t. I think for me, if I’ve got something, then it becomes fun. But don’t have anything, then it becomes this like, oh man, you don’t have anything. You are not talented enough. Kind of a hack, whatever. Wow. And you know, and you’re just kinda a little bit lazy or whatever, whatever the narrative will become. I think for me it would be like, it’s not anxiety inducing to work on stuff. But it’s just like if it’s not happening, if it’s not happening naturally, if there’s no flow. If it’s not something that I’m enjoying, then it’s like, okay, well what can you do right now that will be enjoyable? It might not be just like, just do things for yourself. It might be do things for other people. It might be like, I mean, that was one of the things this weekend with Shepherd, I was like, you know, I want to make choices that make this weekend memorable for him and his friends. Right, like, that really is what I’m up there for. You know, I would not be doing that for my own enjoyment, like lugging around three 15 year olds, you know? Right. I had a great time, but it was mostly because I kind of committed to, I’m doing it for them and- Yeah. And their experience. So, to me it’s just about like knowing where the energy is going and what the purpose of it is, and recognizing when I am beginning to do something simply to treat the anxiety. And the combination of like, giving myself something to do and say when I feel it happening, and recognizing the trap that I might fall into. Like, I just think that those are… It’s not like I solved it, but it was a breakthrough. Just because I’ve kind of existed in that kind of anxious soup, basically. That’s good, man, I’m glad. Because I was like, this is, you know, this is good. This is why I’m good at what I do, is the thing that I would tell myself. Just be like, no, I’m not good at these things because I’m anxious. Those things are separate. Yeah, you might be more prolific, but you might be a little unhappy at times. And it might make you feel a little more miserable and a little more joyful. Yeah, and it’s weird because it doesn’t, like, I don’t get… Like, I don’t have depression. Depression is not something I’ve dealt with. I’m not saying I don’t have sadness at times. But like, it usually is just sort of this like tenseness. Yeah, and, well anxiety and depression, two different things. I know, but yeah. But I’m saying that like, I’m grateful that it doesn’t go into that, like go into depression. Right. But it just goes into this like… It does go to a kind of a toxic place. But it makes it a little bit more complicated to navigate. ‘Cause like you’re saying, it’s like- Well that’s, I mean- I’m doing this thing that I want to do that is my job. Right. To treat my anxiety. You’re seeing results though. Well, let’s just see what happens tonight. Let’s see what happens tonight. Because it might be that all of a sudden it goes back to where it was and I’m like, oh, it was an anomaly and you actually hadn’t made no progress. But no, I believe I did. I mean, this thing has been accurate. I mean, we’re working hard- For years. To sign ourselves up… We’ve signed ourselves up for a lot less. We’re as focused as we’ve ever been. I think we’re setting ourselves up for success. So I think now’s a good time for you to… You have a little more space. A lot less and the number of initiatives. Right. There’s a lot in, especially one initiative right now, but it’s like- It’s a different thing, it’s like- Yeah. It’s 90% fun. Oh, yeah, right. And we’ve worked it out that way. So- Yeah. I like that. You can skip therapy this week too now. I did because I was- Oh. I was driving. Oh, okay, well you just made up for it. I was driving. But I’ve got a lot to tell my therapist about. He’s gonna be so proud. That’s not why you’re telling your therapist. You’re not trying to make your therapist proud. Yeah, but if you do. Okay. Let’s see, I have a rec for us to wrap things up. This is has been on my rec list for a while. It is completely unrelated to anything we’ve been talking about, but I do highly recommend it. It’s a documentary called “Lakota Nation vs. the United States.” And I watched it on the plane a few trips ago. Okay. And it is the story of the Lakota nation, the tribe, and their, like, the history of treaties between the United States and Native American tribes and what you can imagine the constant exploitation and backtracking and all the shit that the United States has done. So it’s a feel good film. It’s a hard watch, but it’s, you know, I think that as people who live on this land. Okay. And, you know, sort of reaping the benefits of the decisions that people made in the past to exploit people. It’s not, maybe it isn’t completely like, oh, it’s all new information. But some of the stuff like the history of the land, of, you know, even like where Mount Rushmore is, like the nature of what that actually is and what it represents. And I highly recommend it. It’s one of those things that just like come into grips a little bit with the nature of our nation, “Lakota Nation versus the United States.” Alright y’all, hashtag Ear Biscuits, let us know. Leave a review if you haven’t, that will help us out. We really appreciate it. Tell your friends, tell your loved ones. Invite ’em into the conversation. And call us. Please. 1-888- EARPOD1. Talk at you next week. Don’t stress in the meantime. Take a nap. I don’t know, say your mantra. Make some chicken parm. Mm hm. Watch a movie, then make the chicken parm, them watch another movie. Then what? Do the dishes, you know what? Do the dishes tomorrow. [Listener Voicemail] Hi, I’ve been a fan of you guys probably since you entered YouTube, but for some reason I never listened to Ear Biscuits up until like two weeks ago. So I’ve been binging all the Ear Biscuits episodes. So, keep doing what you’re doing. You guys are great background for my homework.