Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link, lemme start over. No, no, don’t, no. This, this is a new No, no. Just like, I just want to take this. This is a new show. I wanna take this in. Okay. It’s a new show for me. I just, ’cause his Link is going to leave you with his ness here in the next to last, the pen, ultimate episode of your biscuits, where he forgets the Say I’m Link after the catchphrase. How many episodes have we done? 400 and Almost 500. Yeah. 97. Yep. Seven. We’re stopping short 500 to Welcome to Ear Biscuits. The podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. It’s that A, my voice wasn’t in the right register, it was too low. I’m Link and I’m Rhett This week at the round table of Dim Lighting, we are doing what we’ve done at the end of every year for many years now. And that is go through the top moments of us individually that we have experienced throughout the year. And, uh, the rule is. If you have something on your top 10 list that the other guy also has on his top 10 list, but his number is higher, meaning lower, higher on his list, then he gets to go first. Oh. Or I thought that you would then, that we would wait, like if it was number six and then it was number one for you, if I said the thing, then you’d be like, okay, gotta come back to that. And then you’d wait to make it your goal. We also have this discussion every year. Yeah. And what we have decided is that when we come to those things, we go ahead and talk about them. But the person, if it’s higher on your list, you go ahead and talk about it. Even if it’s number one. Unless it’s number one. If it’s number one, you can wait. Yeah. ’cause I, I mean, okay. But if it’s like number two. Like, I have something on my list that’s really high. That’s almost as surely on your list, but I it’s where you put it is, you know. Understood. I understood. Alright. Um, so we’re, we’re gonna do a little finagling there. We would be talking about your top 10 moments of the year, uh, but we don’t really know enough to do that. So we’re gonna talk, well we are preparing for the last episode of Ear Biscuits before our indefinite hiatus. And that is going to be the top moments of ear biscuits ever approached in a, in a different way. Not in a top 10, not in a top 10 way. ’cause some of ’em are from you, some of ’em from us, some of free flowing episodes, some of ’em are moments and they’ll be crying. Whoa, I don’t think so. But maybe I’ll try to, I made myself cry. Okay. Alright. Maybe you’ll cry Before we get into it, let’s go ahead and shout out, uh, our sponsor of this episode and a number of episodes, Oura, maker of the Oura Ring, which we wear. And have also been investors in for many years now. We love the experience and the information and the way that it helps us, it apply feedback and data on a daily basis to stay engaged in our personal health and vitality. I am coming off a really good night of sleep and a, and a good night of Heart Health Link. Let me, I’m gonna open my app. Go ahead. It’s been a, it’s been a big year for my heart and I’ve always paid a lot of attention to my heart health, which is one of the reasons I was able, in fact, the Oura ring is the reason that I figured out something was going on with my heart. Which I talked about when I told that whole story. Um, but one of the things that I have also figured out is that my HRV runs pretty low. Your my heart rate variability, which is an indication of how well your body adapts to stress. And so continually low HRV can be a sign that you are continually stressed. And that has always been the case for me. My heart rate variability was like through the roof when I was dealing with all my AFib stuff, but that was just, it was misreading. That wasn’t an indication of what was going on. Gotcha. But I, I, I’m coming back from travel and my heart rate variability has been pretty low. And then last night I was like, I’m gonna do some, some of my box breathing or some of my, like. Six, nine breathing where you’re like, you’re holding your breath and then exhaling low. I did that before I went to bed and my heart rate variability went up by 50% last night from where it had been at the beginning of the week. That’s just crazy. And you can see, you can do this practice and then you can see the immediate impact of it because you look, when you look at the app and there’s a whole section called heart rate. I mean heart health. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and this tells you your cardiovascular age. Mm-hmm. In reference to your actual age, which mine is currently eight years younger. Me too. Oh, but I’m, my app is connected to your ring, not mine. Oh no, that’s the problem. It’s always been that way. It says my heart. Just kidding. It says, my heart health is thriving right now. Now I will say I used to be nine years younger and now I’m eight years younger. Is that because I’ve gotten a year older? No, uh, yeah, my heart’s gotten two years older this year, but anyway, I’m still, I’m in a good place. I’m in a good, good place with that. Okay. I need to work on my VO two max, though. This stuff is helpful and, uh, it’s a gift that you can give to yourself and to somebody else because long term wellbeing is really the name of the game here. Yes, you can join the over 1 million active members today by clicking the Link in the description to make Health and Wellness at Daily Practice at Oura ring.com/ear. That’s OURA ring.com/ear. Okay. I’m gonna, I put my phone away, but I didn’t need to do that because I have my list and because I’ve already, uh, frustrated you by cutting you off. Just go ahead and do this time. Go ahead and do the first one. I’m gonna let you decide who goes first. You. Okay, you go. Alright. Uh, crap man. I have 14. Well, you only can do 10. My number 10. I have 14 as well, which is interesting. I mean, I have, I have 15, I have so many more, but I have four honorable mentions, but I list everything out and Christy and I had a great little date conversation where I like took her through everything and she was like, I have to do this. I’m like, yeah girl. Everyone should. Yeah, girl. Don’t let Apple do it for you. I mean, Jenna, don’t let Apple make your memories. Do you now do this every year because of I do, yes. Okay. Uhhuh all, I usually kinda wait. I, I haven’t done it yet ’cause I like to wait. Yeah. And listen the year’s not over and get my juices flowing to make yours better Yeah. Than ours. Yeah. I like to be better. My number 10 is my trip to Ireland. Uh, which is kind of all of my big trips that I’ve taken, I think have like, made the, maybe the top five every year. Hmm. So I feel kind of bad for Ireland that it only made number 10, but, um, well, Croatia didn’t even make my top 10, so. Wow. Yeah. So, uh, it, it’s not a good look, I’m sorry girl. When you go on vacation, you’re beautiful, but it just wasn’t, it didn’t make the list. And then all you do is just complain about how it wasn’t good enough. It was honor, honorable mission. We had a really good trip. We connected with friends. Built, built, built some solid friendships. Um, I’ve talked about all of the stuff in an entire episode. I’m, I’m fond of Ireland, but I’m not obsessed with Ireland. Like the people that we stayed with, they, they chose to, they, they wanna live there permanently. And that’s just not, you know, that’s not it for me. You know, the pub to other things. That I might be interested in doing. Ratio is a little off for me. Okay. But sure is beautiful. The roads could be a little wider. Mm-hmm. Yes. That’s my number 10. I’m gonna leave it at that. Okay. When we get, you know, when we get to the end of the list, that’s when the things really start. Yeah. Yeah. Take more time. I, I’m gonna cheat a little bit. Uh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do two for as my number 10 and I’ll explain why. Number one of number 10, I’ve already talked about it. I talked about it at the end of the episode, the state Carolina game. That was your number 10 B. I realized that, uh, I haven’t spent a lot of time with Locke this year because I was gonna go to Miami to, I’ve seen him over the holidays and, and stuff, but I was gonna go to Miami to see him, but I got, that was when I got sick. Um, and so I haven’t been to see him and we’ve just seen each other over the holidays and it’s been in the context of other things happening, but I did realize that I took him to that game and it was a great experience and I just, I really wanted a mo a moment with Locke to be on the list, but I’ve already talked about that, that Wolfpack whooping a tar heels ass. Um, so my 10 B is actually when I bought my first fountain pen and I bought two of them together. Uh, when I walked into bl, which sounds like a curse word, Blick. When? When was this? Like, it was earlier in the year now, you know, I started doing the notebook thing last year in the fall of last year, and then I started doing the fountain pen thing. The spring of this year. Okay. And bought two, two pens at the time and now have like tens. Yeah. That starteds somethings. And uh, that what it represents is not just like a hyper fixation on pens, uh, but also just the way, and I’m not gonna talk about this in detail ’cause I have, but just the way that writing things down has been a really significant development for me in a way that I did not expect to be the case. I mean, as you hear yourself talking about it, are you thinking maybe it needs to be a, a single digit at least A lot. I’m a little surprised man. This is your year of, if it’s just the pen collection, that’s one thing. But the writing part, what started unlocks the writing? There’s a writing thing started last year. Okay. If, if this was last year, and I don’t know if I did say this last year. Hmm. I don’t remember if I did. I should have, if I didn’t, maybe it was too late. The moment of starting to write things down, I probably talked about it. Um, I was reading comments on the Mythical Society post about our trip to New York and we, a number of videos over there, one of which is just dedicated to your pen shopping. And I really got a kick out of how people were really resonating with Pen specifically, or just the passion or with the tolerance that I exhibited or that you exhibited in the record collecting video. That, uh, the record collecting episode, that was another part of that series. Um, we had so much fun in New York that didn’t, I mean, maybe I should have made the list. It’s an honorable mention. Okay. NYC trip question mark. Yeah, but just, I mean, just to tell you, that stuff lives over there on the Mythical Society. I think there might be five video individual videos and they’re all like a half hour because what we asked Hitch to do was to just capture the vibe of just us just going around New York City and doing what we enjoy and like pursuing our passions, which are pens and records and just like letting it, letting it breathe a little bit and just be in there with us. So that’s kind of a back door. Um. Promotion for what we’re thinking, what we’re planning to do more of on the Mythical society next. That’s the direction the Mythical society next year is headed. Next. I’m very, is more of that kind of stuff. Um, little versions. And then the New York City trip is kind of a bigger version, but it’s just very, vlogs kind of recapturing that vlog magic that from the, in a sense, I mean, I literally documented my entire deep frying of two turkeys and I did it with a phone, but also video glasses. But we’re not gonna release it this year. We’re gonna release it next year on the Mythical Society. Oh, because Thanksgiving’s over. So that kind of thing is gonna be happening on the society. My number nine is. Our college boys trip to Bend, Oregon. Hi. I did it higher number seven. Oh. And the reason I did it a little bit higher is because they complain when they get, when it’s low on the list and you, you don’t listen to ’em. Yeah. But Tim is on my shit list because my shoulder is still recovering and specifically my knee is still oozing all types of juice. Oh God. It’s horrible. The specific moment is the moment of going down the, the, the river. The second time the megalodon on the megalodon. That was so iconic. Five boys, a giant paddleboard. One guy in a lawn chair with a beer. I’m starting to think we should skip a year. We shouldn’t even get together because No, that’s not, we are not gonna top the megalodon. Yeah, we will. Yes we will. We’re not gonna skip a year. Yeah. It was a great trip. Maybe the best. There’s something, I mean, we just have this affinity for rivers. Growing up on the Cape Fear River and Buoys Creek, we swam all in it and it’s very special to us. And I think this C just Rivers are special, don’t you think? For us, I think they’re very special. And I like getting on a river with Du Bois and just, it’s, the river sets the pace. When you’re on a float and there’s something existential man about, just saying, okay, it’s gonna take us, we’re here together for the most part until we get separated. And unless Link is not on the megalodon. Well, that’s the beauty of the megalodon, is that we improve to a point where it’s like we’re all here together and we’re experiencing this thing that we have. We’re not in control, something else is in control and we’re. Accepting it and we’re enjoying it. And there’s a social aspect. There’s so many people on that river. There’s a spectacle to it. It was, yeah. And, and the trip in general, uh, the trip in general, uh, we highly recommend if you’ve got friends from another part of your life, college, high school, whatever, get together with ’em, you know, get together with ’em on a regular basis. Make like, be like, you know, I’m gonna plan on a trip, well, once a year. I guess. A regularly regular, regular basis of once a year or biannual. If you, if you wanna skip a year like Link does. No, I don’t. Um, you know, having people that you can pick up where you left off. Yeah. Yeah. Who are those people in your life? Try it now. It’s you. Number nine. Um, okay. I have to, this is about a secret project. Yeah. Okay. Do I know about it? Um, come on now. I thought so. Uh, we are working on something. I didn’t put this on the list because I didn’t know how to do what you’re trying to do right now. Yeah, I just, but I, I thought I would wing it here. I want, we’re working on something and it required a, a trip, a recent trip in order to do some things that you have to do when you’re doing this sort of thing. Okay. And I think this sort of thing is something that in a way has rarely have ever been done. So it’s like when you’re doing this sort of thing, I know what you’re talking about, but then in another, the, the specifics, the specifics, the specific way we’re doing it, exercise we were performing is what makes, is one of the reasons why it’s so exciting, challenging, engaging, and should have made my list. And I will say just, you know, if you’re a, if you’re an internet sleuth. You can figure out what it is. You can because somebody already has. Yeah. And so, and, and that’s okay. It’s fun. We, it is not something we’re trying to hide from you. It’s just, it has a time where we will announce it. But, uh, we did this trip and that was part of the process and it went really, really well. And it was very encouraging and very invigorating and very exciting and very confirming. Yeah. And this is the, the, the sort of the, the other thing besides the main stuff that we will be working on next year. And it was just a really invigorating trip. And so it made my list. I’m glad that made your list. Uh, ’cause then I didn’t have to use one of mine for it to be recognized. I’m at number eight. Mm-hmm. Which is when Lincoln and I went to Coachella. Coachella. I’d never been, he had never been. We, um, we had a, I had connections through Post to see, you know, we got to see him and, um, but we gotta see, and YouTube also gave us like access. Mm-hmm. So, um, it was fun to be able to be in the mix and experience an iconic music festival that I’d heard so much about and to connect with Lincoln about it and to learn how to navigate it literally via bicycle. Yeah. Well, yeah. We both weren’t on the bike, but yeah. That moment will definitely stick with me when I stole a bike. Stole a bike. Should be clear. Well, I borrowed a bike temporarily. Stole a bike, brought it back. I met somebody. And of course everybody’s going into the festival and I’m leaving the festival ’cause I can’t remember what I was trying to get something in, in, in your, uh, van car or something. Something, some, something in probably camp, probably chapstick, I can’t remember what it was, but I’m like speeding against, um, all of these people and I met somebody. Months later. Yeah. Who said I remember this? I You were there. Oh yeah. Yeah. It’s just like a fan came up and was like, like, Hey, I’m a fan. Did the normal fan interaction and it was like, I saw you on a bike at Coachella, like almost running over a bunch of people. Yeah. And you were going fast, like bee lining through a crowd of people. And I was like, is that Link? And I was like, yeah, that was me, man. Like the wicked witch of the west. And I got back in, I got back in to festival. Uh, but yeah, that it was special for Lincoln and I to, to have that. I would hope that that’s something that would make his list. I will, uh, is he making one? I will pressure him into making a list so that that can be on it. But yeah, we, we have fun. Um, it’s one of those, you know, you talk about going to the game with lock and you know, your kids get to a certain age and. Your relationship is constantly evolving, but then you have these moment, these shared experiences that when you feel more like two adults than a father and a son or a kid and and a parent kind of a thing. Mm-hmm. And that kind of define and maybe accelerate the transition. Um, and I think into how our relationship will work into complete adulthood and into his, uh, um, independence and all of that. So it’s, I it was a, it was special, but it, but I think it kind of, because it had that impact to um, you know, to pretty much our entire interaction was as friends there. And then I’m not saying our relationship now is just as friends, but. At Coachella, it kind of was. Right. And then when you come back into the family dynamic or when you’re visiting home or going on a, he’s, if he comes, when he comes on a trip to, you know, we get to go to Japan at the end of the year and he’s meeting us there. Um, ’cause he’s been studying abroad and his, it ends in such a way that like instead of him flying home, he’s flying straight there to miss. Right. Uh, the dynamic is still different because there’s, you’re in the family realm, you know what I’m saying? Oh yeah. So that’s why I think it, it was especially special. My number eight was my birthday party that we had at my house recently. Yeah. Um, I put that on the longest list. Oh, well thank you. It was, yeah, that was, it was a moment, wasn’t it? Um, there’s a number of things. Typically I do not. I do, I would never put my birthday party on a, I forget that it’s my birthday and I don’t make a big deal about birthday parties. Typically. This and this birthday party was nothing special about it other than the fact that my closest friends were there. Jessie got a heart cake, which I think we talked about, maybe showed a picture of at some point it was viscerally gross. It was a wonderfully made heart cake. And that I picked up the heart and took a bite out of it. Um, a la Temple of Doom. Lots of laughs that night. And we had an incredible time ’cause we played games that make us laugh and everybody laughed. And then the moment within the moment was. That when we were playing wavelength, right? And we finished playing and we had this question about the existence of God. And then you were like, let’s go around and everybody put on this wavelength where you are at on whether God exists or God doesn’t exist. And it was like it was the kind of thing that would be done at like a Bible study that was just a bait and switch to try to convert people like we would’ve done back in the day. Like, everybody go around and do this so we can convert you. But the beautiful thing about it was is that it was asking this question about where people stand on the existence of God. In a group of people that, you know, love and trust where no one is trying to tell someone else to think something where no one else is interested in getting someone else to be aligned with their own thinking. Yeah. But literally the question was purely curious. You know, it’s interesting. I was watching mm-hmm. Um, watching, I was walking somewhere recently when I was in North Carolina and there was a booth somewhere, and it was like, how can we pray for you? And, uh, here’s the thing. Having been on that side of these types of booths, I know, I’m not saying that there’s not a pure intention for the people who wanna pray for people, but I know that it’s more than that. It’s, it’s not just, we wanna pray for you, it’s, we wanna convert you. Uh, and this is the way in and. I don’t know. There’s just, I, there’s something about being in a group of people where no one is trying to like get to, to align everyone else to their thinking. Where everyone felt the freedom to be completely honest about what they thought. And I was like, this is a really beautiful moment in our friendship that brought us all closer together. It didn’t, yeah. It, it wasn’t about getting everyone to think the same way. It was about being understanding, being genuinely curious about each other’s position and having this love and understanding. And it was just a beautiful thing that I was not able to experience when I was in a place where my main goal in life was to get people to agree with me. And then the clincher though at the end. Oh yeah. Which, like quite a button, which I don’t think the last time we told this, we told it completely correctly. ’cause So tell me what you remember, because I remembered an additional detail. After the telling of it, we were like, let’s see if, let’s cover. The way that wavelength works is you can sheath it so you can’t see where the dial is landing. And you were like, let’s just randomly reveal the true answer. Let’s let the universe slash God decide whether or not God exists. And you did it a bunch of random times and you turned it around and you opened it and it was no, but you’re missing something. Okay. I don’t remember. I remember that we turned the dial right to the middle and said, ’cause we don’t know. And we predicted what it was going to be and we put it right, the dial right in the middle, and then we revealed the thing. The where the dial is at is kind of where the dial is at is irrelevant because it’s where the pie chart’s at. Yes. The back part, the thing that you reveal shows God’s answer and God’s answer. When we revealed it was right in the middle, but it, but the pie wasn’t in the middle. The pie was completely split on the side, so it was completely blank in the. Is that what it was? 100% sure. But then the needle, we took a picture of it. Where was the needle? The needle was in the middle. The needle was in the middle. The needle was in the middle. ’cause we determined that. Yes. But that was, and then that’s what the reveal was. When it’s, when the things are totally on the side, that means that it’s exactly 50 50. There is no answer. Well, there’s, there’s, there’s two ways that it can be 50 50. If you don’t know wavelength, this is probably making no sense. You can have the pie completely here or 90 degrees from that. And it’s Yes. And they’re completely split. And so it was, and both of those happened at the same time, which it makes it even crazier because we did predict, we were like, let’s decide where if, if God really does exist. And I mean, I guess it was me. I put the dial right in the middle. It, the dial was straight up. Right. Which indicates that we, we didn’t expect to get an, an, we expected to get the perfect non-answer. And then when we revealed it, it was the other version of the perfect non-answer. The pie was not even in the thing. It was all, which is crazy. Yeah. That makes it crazier. It does. It does. Yeah. But come on, man. I know, but we determined one side of it. The part that’s amazing to me, predict is the part, is the random part that was determined by God slash the universe. Well, sure. Okay, fine. That’s why it wasn’t on my list because I didn’t think about it though. Okay. Mine number seven, seven’s a, a special number on the list because, um, I don’t know. It’s complete. It, it signifies complete, which really didn’t go into my think. If we had to hire someone from Mythical tomorrow, we wouldn’t wanna gamble on someone who might be a fit. You know, we’d want someone who already knows how to edit or produce, understands our style. It can hit the ground running. That’s why we’d use Indeed to sponsor jobs because it connects you with candidates who actually match what you’re looking for. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Their sponsored jobs. Make sure your post stands out and get seen by the right people and it works according to Indeed. Data sponsored jobs have 4.1 times more applications than non-sponsored jobs, which means you get more chances to find the perfect fit. And the best part, you only pay for results. No subscriptions, no contracts. Just a smarter way to hire whenever you need to. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. Now with Indeed Sponsored jobs, you’ll get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job, the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/ears with an S. Just go to indeed.com/ears right now and support ear biscuits by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast indeed.com/ears terms and conditions supply hiring. Do it the right way. With indeed my Seattle. Record shopping trip with Lando and Christy. We had a great time. Uh, it was the previous year that Lando and I went on our own little record trip to, uh, San Francisco. So we built on it this time and had an even better time. It was nice for Christy to be there and, um, I think that built this excitement for. Orlando and I built on after that, which was continue to do record shopping around LA or at other places that we travel. Even when we went home for Thanksgiving, I mean we came back with, we couldn’t have come back with more records ’cause we couldn’t have carried them. And to the point where Christy’s get starting to get a little lose, a little patience that were constantly looking to go shopping, which is just not something she’s ever experienced. Meaning that when she is with you now she’s gotta go record shopping. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, Seattle was great. All the record shops now, and I still have all those records that I can remember that experience by. But that was, um, I mean I talked about the New York trip a little bit, but the Seattle one was like, uh, I think one, I’ll never forget my number seven, we talked about the Oregon trip with the boys. So I’ll move to my number six and now I’m going first. Oh God. Um, it was my trip to Peru with Shepherd. There’s a whole episode about this trip. Was that in like March or something? It was his spring break. Okay. So yeah. Yeah. March, April. Uh, and the specific, most memorable moment was we actually went to Machu Picchu two days in a row. Uh, but the first day seeing it, the way you enter it and you go down this path and you can’t see anything, you’re kind of on this path and then you turn a corner and just like. The postcard that you’ve seen a million times of Machu Picchu and you’re just sitting there seeing it in person and like a single tear left my eye and it was just, the weather was beautiful. Like literally, uh, I got teary-eyed and uh, the clouds were like literally rolling in like over it, and the sun was coming through. It was just this incredibly picturesque thing. And it was, the reason that we went on this trip was like, shepherd. I said, I wanna see Machu Picchu. And so it was a great trip for me and Shepherd the first time that me and him have been together on a trip, just the two of us, for any length of time, you know, like for more than a day or so. And, uh, we had a great time, lots of moments from that trip, but that was the one. If you had to do it again, what would you change? Do you recommend going to Oh, I definitely recommend going to Peru and Machu Picchu. I, yeah, I, I think that’s a, it’s a type of trip. It’s not a luxury vacation. Mm-hmm. It’s not a comfortable vacation. The thing that I would change is I would not have gone to REI before we left and gotten special clothes for Shepherd to wear at Machu Picchu because he just wore a T-shirt and big old jeans. Right. For the gram or whatever, I guess. Yeah. Or just for his aesthetic. Yeah. Okay. And now I’m at my number six. I guess I doubled up on Orlando number seven and number six because this was the year of Orlando’s driving lessons. Hmm. Um, took him to the same parking lot that I took Lincoln and I took the same picture in front of the same place and put it in the family group chat. Did you go to Rose Bowl, uh, parking lot? Is that, where do you go? Mm-hmm. Oh, that’s a good one. I go to a, uh, community college parking lot. And there’s a, there’s an open parking and there’s like stop signs and stuff in it. And there’s like, uh, there’s usually somebody else there learning how to drive. Actually people are catching off. That’s the, yeah, that’s, well that’s my experience at the Rose Bowl when there’s nobody playing at the Rose Bowl. People driving it. It’s a giant parking lot. This one also has a, um, a parking deck that’s completely empty on like Sunday. So you, like you can walk, drive through the parking deck as well. So that was, um, dad tips. Yeah. Like I remember my first driving lesson, you know, my papa taught me to drive that 87 Nissan pickup. That is still a sore subject when I go home and it happens to come up in conversation. Really? Because we crushed it in Wonder Hole season one. Well, Nana can go see it. I’m sure we could dig it up for you, but it was a hell of a finale. Was it worth it? I think so, yeah. So Lando has, he’s finished his, um, online course and now he’s gonna start getting, like, driving lessons. Ah, he has to take a test first. He has to go on a DMV and take a test. Anyway, I’m gonna start driving him on some actual isolated roads, but yes, you know, just a special rite of passage. Um, you’re a man now when you can drive, son. Well, I can’t get Shepherd to do it, so you’re, you’re ahead of me. Um, number five. So this is the same period of time this summer when Jessie and I went to Croatia, but the Croatia part didn’t make the top 10. The North Carolina part did. Okay. So, you know, we, we, we did our little, uh, Croatian vacation, and then we spent the rest of that month in. North Carolina. And this was the first time that we had spent in North Carolina in the cabin with it being done. Because you know, Jessie’s been working on this for a long time, and it was always a little bit in process and in transition. And then you can never really relax and there’s a lot of things that might be going wrong or whatever as it was still being like hornets constructed or like cleaned or, yeah, you’re getting the hornets out of there. So there was just a series of mornings where Jessie and I were, and, and Barbara and Sean, our other children, our furry children were the only ones that were present. And we would just have these lazy mornings of drinking coffee, reading books. And it was like, this is the vision. The vision of having a place to come back home and relax. Sometimes with family like Thanksgiving or whatever, but also sometimes without family. Mm-hmm. And just the two of us. Um. And it was like, okay, I can see we can do, we can do this, we can do this a lot. Maybe as of year as the years unfold, I mean, she had, she had worked on it for years, like two, two years. So it’s like two and a half years to, to finally have the vision realized, you know, when you’re sipping that coffee, it, whenever you watch like real estate shows or like HGTV shows where the ones about, if there’s an aspect to it that’s like the vision of what it is like to live in one of these places. They always like to talk about the sip. Oh, this is where you can drink your morning coffee. Well, it’s funny that you think about it that way. Uh, the thing is, is that if you, when you live someplace and you travel to visit family, uh, or even when you’re on vacation, a lot of times as the vacation is coming to a close. Or you’ve been traveling, you’re kind, you’re ready to get back home. Like you, you get this, like, I’m a little bit homesick. I wanna get back to my routine. There’s something that has happened with having the, the place in North Carolina is, I don’t wanna come back home. Sometimes, like we get to the last day in North Carolina, because it’s, you’re completely what comfortable. And it’s like, oh, we could, oh, I love la I love California. I’m glad we live here. It’s where everything else is. It’s where our is. You’re not gonna build, like, we’re not gonna go back to like pandemic. You’re gonna build like half a GMM set. No, maybe in your basement. But I’m just saying that Jessie has done such a good job of making that a home. Um, and a home, not just for us, because it’s used quite a bit by family when we’re not there. Um, but when we are there, it is like a home. Barbara and Sean. Especially Sean. Sean loves it there. Like he, he, he just, some, he just perks up. He’s in such a good mood when he’s there. I don’t know. He just loves wood, I guess. Put him on that plane though. Well, he was okay. He’s the, he wasn’t the problem. Oh yeah, it was barber. He did throw up though. He threw up. That’s what I’m talking about. Wasn’t him. Yeah. But he threw up outta joy. Okay. I mean, it’s, it, it was, it’s also suitable for, uh, a magazine feature. Yes. And is that, I mean, that happened this year. That’s on, that’s Jessie’s list. Uh, it’s actually in a way, a part of my list. Oh, okay. We’ll get there. It, it folds into another item. My number. That was your number five. Mm-hmm. My number five is. Wonderful Season two filming process. That’s my number four. Dang, son. Well talk about it. Well, technically there, we’ll both talk about it. Technically we are, we’ve, we’ve tied, because I just did my number, uh, five, so well go ahead. I, I, you know, I think, um, I do have a specific moment, but it, it’s not the premiere. It’s not it coming out, it’s not any of that. It’s, um, the process of making it, I think that it was challenging. We set, we set up a lot of goals in ways that we wanted to approach it, and I think that we really, we set it up to where it, we were, we were, we were developing, I. Our craft, you know, like our, our, the way we perform. Um, we also came up with all of these things that were just really fun to do. Mm-hmm. You know, you go out on a raft, you, um, you’re, you’re in this, you’re playing hide and seek in this crazy, uh, abandoned power plant. I’m trying to think what would be the, like quintessential, like having, having an improv scene with Rainn Wilson. I mean, the moment that was hilarious. The moment for me was ironically the beginning of filming, which we, we, it was the last episode that was released, the tiny house in the mansion. So specifically the, in the woods part. Yeah. I mean, it was super cold, so it was very memorable, but also it was the first application of this new approach to. Narrative storytelling, which is very loosely scripted, not scripted, more outlined as we’ve talked about, and executing that and, and like running into some challenges, but also hitting our stride and getting to a new, um, level of comfort with that type of thing. Which again, the whole looking back on Wonder Hall season two, in fact I was looking at, I don’t know how this came up, but like the, well, you may have noticed if you go on the internet and look at that channel, that some of the thumbnails have changed from the super crazy Mr. Beastie clicky clicky click style, which was the whole point of click bait and switch the theme of the episode to a screenshot from the episode. And the reason that happened is, you know, we always felt a. We always felt a little bit self-conscious about the fact that we were doing that style of thumbnail, even though we were doing a parody of that type of thumbnails. That was the whole point of the experiment with the season. But as we’ve discussed on the show, it didn’t really work out. And so we said, what if we just a b tested some screenshot thumbnails? Mm-hmm. Versus those original thumbnails, the super stylized ones, and I think on four outta six of the episodes, the screenshot thumbnail one out. So what we learned is that we, which we definitely learned again, that we weren’t, we weren’t right about our strategy. We were, the entire strategy was wrong, like the pivotal thing. But again, yeah, that was the algorithmic strategy. Right. The primary strategy, and that’s why I talk about this moment, which was before it ever came out, when we were doing the thing that we wanted to do. Yeah. With this new technique. The reason that’s the top moment for me from Wonder Hole season two is because that was the goal. When we set out, we said. Let’s try this new approach to performing and this is the thing that we want to take and develop and move into the next thing, which we are the secret thing that, uh, I talked about earlier. Mm-hmm. That is taking that element and building on it. It’s not taking the algorithm and all that stuff and building on it is taking that the heart of what we were trying to do with season two and building on it, which is not wonderful Season three, which I think we’ve already said that, but sometimes it bears repeating. Okay. So because that was technically your number four, now I need to give my number four. Yeah, but you haven’t, my number four is something that I know is on your list and I’m not even gonna say it, and I’m gonna say you skip to your number three. How do you know that? Because I do. I mean, I just, it has to be okay. And it’s just, it’s, it’s just one of those, I, I just, you know. Do you go to number? What’s your number three? Number three is another shepherd. Okay. Related moment. And this is one that I haven’t even talked about. So we finally got into something that I haven’t talked about at all on this show or anywhere else. Alright? I don’t think so. Uh, shepherd is a musician. He goes to an art school where his focus is the guitar. He is doing classical guitar, but he’s also like in a, in a couple, he’s like in a band on his own. He’s in a band at school that’s part of the, the program or whatever. And, uh, he loves music. I mean, it is his passion. It is the thing that he cares about. And I. You know, Jessie and I we’re obvi, you know, we’re both very into music. That was Jessie’s major. And of course I do music on the side and so we’re a musical family and we, and she, and I’ll sit down and like play and talk about music and that kind of thing. But when it comes to his, like performance of music isn’t really, so he doesn’t clue us into, he doesn’t want us to come to his like shows that he’s doing as a band or whatever. Like you don’t want your like parents to like show up at your show Uhhuh, you know? And when he is like performing at a house party, right. And which I think Land’s been to one of those, which I understand and respect right now. Not cool enough to add. There was a recent recital, right? And this is when they all dress up in like full black formal outfits and they all play their. Guitars, their, their finger style classical guitars. Okay. And we’ve been to a few of these, and Shepherd didn’t tell us anything about this one. We just knew there was a date. We gotta show up at this thing and we’re gonna see him perform. And I will say that we had both individually had difficult interactions with Shepherd that day, you know, typical parent child stuff. So we’re a little bit down on him when we show up to this recital and we get there and we’re looking at the program and there’s all the stuff that they’re doing in groups that they’re all playing together. But then there are individual or smaller group performances and look into the program and it says, shepherd McLaughlin singing Skinny Love bony Bear. I’m like, what? Singing? I mean, not that he doesn’t sing, but that hasn’t been part of what he’s done when he’s like performed. Formally, he’s playing guitar and that’s it. Yeah. Or playing bass or piano or whatever. But he is a great songwriter and he’s a good singer, but I just didn’t know it was in his mind. Ready for prime time. You know, where everybody there. Yeah. And if you don’t know Skinny Love, this is a hard song to sing because, well, first of all, like, what’s the one? Like get, come on. Oh, okay. And, um, lots of falsetto. It’s also a weird tuning of the guitar, but for somebody who’s like 17 years old and like, I mean, his voice has completely changed, but like, you’re doing like going in between like belting voice and, you know, right. Bon Vera’s, like got all these effects on his voice and stuff like that. You, yeah. I love Bon Vera, but you see him live and you’re kind of like, okay. This is better when you can hear the studio recording a lot of times. Right. You know? Yeah. ’cause it’s like, it’s the, the, the production, the stuff that he’s doing to his voice. So I got a little bit nervous, first of all. Yeah. Because I was like, oh God, is uh, is he gonna be able to do this? And let just say that Shepherd got up there and just did an incredible performance of this song. And it wasn’t just that it was good. It was that, um, it had this emotional quality to it. You know, one of the, and actually another parent came up and was like, um, you know, a lot of these kids are really good at, they’re technically, they’re, it’s an art school. I mean, they’re like, so, so many of them are so talented and so much more talented than anybody that we knew, including us at that age. Right. ’cause of where we come from. Um. But there’s a technical ability a lot of times where there’s like, everything is in tune and everything is kind of perfect. Mm-hmm. But, but there’s a, an additional emotional, like, well, you can take people on a ride. In fact, another mom was like, she really took us on a ride, took on a journey. And I was like, he did like it. I was like so proud of him. And then so he does that and I’m like texting him. I’m like, shepherd, that was incredible. He’s like, well, there’s more. I’m like, what? And so then it’s not even in the program, the guy that the, the teacher gets up and he’s like, um, well this is a surprise. But, you know, yesterday Shepherd said, Hey, I wrote a song on the way to the desert, uh, this weekend, and, uh, I’d love to perform it. So here’s Shepherd with another song. And so Shepherd gets up there, like, at the end of the thing, no, in the middle of it. So he got up there with this buddy who they were both playing guitar, and he like, uh, sings this original song. What and which was great. And so, I don’t know. You, you can, what happens is, you know, when you’re a parent and your kid, um, is, you know, we have the, we have the typical conflicts of like, are you, like, how are your grades? Are you like, you’re falling behind on this. They’re like, why is your, why is your room a mess? Or whatever, the stuff that every parent and child kind of argue about. Um, but then there’s just something when you see them doing the thing that they’re passionate about, that wasn’t something that, like, I never, I never sat my either of my kids down. I never shut, separate down and said, Hey, here’s a guitar. Be a musician. I want you to do this. You need, yeah, there’s no, there was no, there were things that we did like, Hey, let’s take you to diving, or let’s take you to basketball, or whatever. There’s the things that you kind of put in front of them, but then there’s the thing that they kind of pick up on their own and they just do. Then to see it like kind of come to this place where he is like willing to get up in front of his friends and the, the parents and the school and do this thing. It was a, it was a proud papa moment. Okay. And, and then, but you didn’t like make it like that’s where you experienced love. Oh, of course not. Yep. That’s good. Why are you saying, why are you saying it like that? Because that’s what you, I mean, I’m just messing with you because that’s what you, you talked about in the Wonder Hole episode about like when you win, you experience love as I’m very conscious of that. So you’re very conscious of it not being, not being the case. Yeah. That’s the kind of the point I’m making. Yeah. But you do love him. I do love him a little bit. You love him a little bit more? A little bit more because he was that performance. Okay. See, okay. It’s a little bit more, that’s what I kind of thought. Okay. Yep, yep, yep. Um, I am at my number three. Finally get to talk about my oldest Lily, she graduated from freaking college. Hmm. Now she got a film in digital media degree, right? Uh, so let’s, well, let’s see. It’s rough out there. Let’s see what happens. Um, she’s, and she’s back in LA and she’s thriving. Um, but work, it’s really hard to come by. I mean, if it’s like entertainment in the entertainment industry in this town. Yeah. So it’s, uh, it’s tough. It’s tough here on that, on that front. But she is, she’s got an apartment, she’s got a job. She is independent and she will, she’s close enough that she can call us and say, Hey, I’m at this, I’m at this show seeing some friends of mine perform. Over here. I’m not too far. So I think afterward I’m, I want to come by and see y’all. It’s like, yeah. So like, she came by for 20 minutes and we just hung out. It was her and her friend, and me and Christy and Lando, and we’re just like, you know, called up and we’re thinking like, well, when do you wanna come back over for dinner? You know, Christy wants to start having a dinner night. We’re at this new phase of, we have a bonafide independent adult out there living her own life and still wanting to come through Hmm. And be connected to us. Um, but still, you know, venture out on her own and, and do her own thing and, and engage life on her own terms. And, uh, so it, it, the graduation obviously was a, a special landmark. Moment where you’ve invested literally. And, but it’s, you know, it’s just the, the, um, it’s a culmination of a lot of, of, of parenting. It’s nice to like be able to like have that focal moment where you’re turning the page. And it wasn’t, you know, the, it didn’t have the emotional quality for me personally, of like, her going off to college. That was like the most emotional moment. But this was, I mean, of the, probably the most satisfying moment with this sense of closure, celebration, turning the page and now forging the next phase of our relationship. And so I’m grateful that she wanted to, and I’m glad that she wanted to be close enough. She wanted to be in the same city. Right. You know, so that worked out. And, um. Tonight we’re going to a movie premiere together. You know, she kind of finds things that she like is interested in and like, oh, I’m interested in this movie. It’s coming out. So then she’s, she has a knack for utilizing my, whatever I’ve got going on. Mm-hmm. To turn into some sort of, I’ll say, networking opportunity for her, which she takes the lead on. So I’m like, Hey, yeah, if I can get us, uh, an invitation to something and then you can work your magic. Uh, she knows how to work a room, you know, and I, I’d like to think that she’s learned from the best. She gets that from you and also me. Uh, but there is no, but man, she, look at her, look at her out there doing her thing. Very proud. Um, of course, I’m, you know, I think I’m, am I more proud of you than you, than I am of Lily? That’s not the question I’m gonna ask. I was trying to make a joke. Am I more, am I more proud of Lily than you are proud of Shepherd? Probably not. Oh, oh no. I definitely am. No, it’s the same. We’re both equally proud. Different stages. I think I’m different stages of life. Can I be more proud? You can be more proud. Yeah. I, well, I have more kids. She, she’s an independent. I have more kids. I’m probably less proud. ’cause I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m disseminating my pride across all three kids. Uh, I’m equally proud of three kids. You’re equally proud of two kids. Um, why don’t we take this opportunity to answer the question that some people might have, which is, oh, you got a daughter in film and media. Oh, why didn’t you just let her come work at Mythical? Well, you know, remember all that stuff I said about in independence and forging her own path, and, you know, um, I think that’s important. And so we’ve talked about that and there’s certain ways that she intersects with, like, again, if I can get an invitation to something or get access to something that then she can parlay into some sort of opportunity. I, I want to do everything I can there, but for me to be the one giving her all that opportunity is, I feel like it might short circuit a process in her, uh, own experience. And development. Um, but yeah, I mean, and it was funny ’cause I was, I was like, you made my list when she came over the other night and she was like, is it when we did this, uh, the survivor thing for the society? And I was like, well, it’s sweet that you would think that’s it, but I’m not, I’m not that, you know, selfish about it. It’s something else that you experienced. And she like, kept thinking she couldn’t come up with it. I’m like, uh, you remember, you kind of, you graduated from something and she was like, yeah, college. And she busted out laughing and it hadn’t been that long. I was like, yeah, you’re you doing your thing? Made my list, not you doing my thing. Made my list. Well, it was based on what I saw. It was kind of her thing. Yeah. It ended up being, yeah. Being her thing. Sure. Um, my number two is the LA fires. That’s my number one. Okay. And it’s, I don’t know. Now I’m really, I’m really regretting it being my number one. Why? Because of what my number two is. And I, let me explain. So are we coming back? You know what, let’s talk about the fires and then I’ll talk about my number two and it’ll feel like it’s my number one. Okay. The fires are my number one, because when, when something happens that puts a stamp on your brain and an impact on your soul that you will never forget. The, that entire experience for me and Christy and Lando and Lincoln, uh, Lily was still off at school, so the four of us, and then extending to how it impacted work like my, our friends and you know, you guys and then, uh, the entire city and it was just. It, it, it was such, such a powerful negative, the energy’s negative. You know, this is not a, this is not a positive thing, but it was so irrevocably memorable that I ended up putting it at number one because I just think we will always refer to it. Mm-hmm. You know, that experience of evacuating, setting up shop here at the studio, having friends come over and if you haven’t listen, spend a day. There’s a whole episode where we just talk, we go through the entire process of what happened as soon as the fire started and into that week. We, we recorded right after that. So that was, you know, very raw, very, very fresh earlier. The moment of moving into an Airbnb that night and then seeing the fire just, just. Jump up on the other side of the hill and then we had to evacuate again before we even moved all the way in was, I think that’s the moment within the whole thing. We ended up staying in like four or five different places and for us it was a little longer than you. It ended up being like two weeks away. And you know, we have close friends who are, and we are connected by extension to a lot of people, and especially in Altadena. Some, some in the Palisades that are at this point, almost a year later, you still very much rebuilding their lives. We, we didn’t lose anything. Mm-hmm. You know, but we know in our, in, in our, and have, you know, walked alongside close friends who had to start over completely and have this experience of, at each milestone, even now with like the holidays. And realizing that all of the traditions have to have a different version now, or all of the, all the ornaments that were special to us, that we accumulated over our, our kids’ lives are now, or they’re Oh, they’re gone. And now I’m mourning the loss of that now. Yeah. Because it, it didn’t occur to me. Yeah. Um, it keeps reintroducing itself. It keeps reintroducing itself. So for, for us, and I guess I’m speaking for you too, it’s, you know, we didn’t experience the loss. We experienced the threat and the uncertainty and just the, the fear and the trauma of it. And so, but in, but not the loss. So do want to acknowledge that and our hearts still go out to everybody who’s, uh, rebuilding their lives and, um. But yeah, I, I, I, I felt like I had to put it at number one because it was just one of those things. It’s just one of those things. I mean, it was, I mean, it was cataclysmic, right? It was a natural disaster unlike anything that we’ve experienced as we’ve been here. Mm-hmm. Um, that impacted everyone some more than others, as you just talked about. But I think it was, um, it caught, like what it did for me is it made me realize how fragile things are because I think I always thought that, okay, you’re moving into a place that is subject to wildfires and yeah, if you’ve got like a house. That’s like in the woods, like next to a bunch of trees and maybe your house will burn down, but like the idea that a whole neighborhood would would burn down. And I know that that sections of the city, and I know that that started happening, you know, up in like Paradise, California, you start seeing whole, whole communities going away. But see, but seeing it happen in the near where you were at. Yeah. I mean a, a metropolis, one of the largest cities on the planet. Well, and, and also seeing the most, like one of the most advanced, oh, in some ways, I guess we’re all looking at this app and we see a fire start in the, the wilderness north of our house. And whereas. 12 months ago, I would just be like, oh, I guess they’re gonna put that out. But now I’m like, oh shit, there’s a hundred mile per of winds. This starts running through the neighborhood. Oh wow. We gotta evacuate. Right. It just, it, it, it brought a lot of things into focus impacted the city in a really significant way and the impact of it is going to be felt for a really long time. And of course, I, for me, I was, Jessie wasn’t even here ’cause she was in North Carolina. Right. So, I mean, I told that whole story about, it was me and Locke and Shepherd and then Locke’s girlfriend and who had never been to LA before and this was her experience. Right. And so feeling like I was responsible for them and being like, this is not, this isn’t where I, I’m not like Mr. Turn to in an emergency. It’s just not my, you know, I’m not the first person to turn to in an emergency, I don’t think. You know, and, and so yeah, it was, it was a little discombobulating. There’s a lot. It was just a, there’s a lot of feelings, you know, it’s like you’re feeling a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it, it, it was a start, I mean, to a hell of a year in a lot of ways, you know? Um, yeah. Uh, it’s, it was one of those disruptive kind of years. It’s just not, not a great one. Not a great year. Not a great year. You got political vibes. I mean, it’s just not, 2025 has been a hell of a year. Both really bad for the world, for our country, yes. And for us personally in a lot of ways. Mm-hmm. Um, so that’s my number one buddy. That’s your number two. So now you only have left your number one right? Correct, which I’ve said was my number four, so hold on. But you haven’t said what it is, but I know what it is. So my number two. Okay. Which I will share and now it’s gonna feel like my number one. I’m glad it does. And you know what? It is my number one, you can’t do that. I told Christy, you made my list. What is it? I did the same thing with her, I did with Lily. And she was trying to, she was like, um, she mentioned a, uh, a trip that we, oh, we were talking about, we went to Joshua Tree for Valentine’s last year, and she was like, oh yeah, that, that was so special. That made the list. And I was like, no, that wasn’t it. And she was like, what? And I was like, there’s something else. And she’s like, oh yeah, our 25th wedding anniversary. So I was like, ha God, you forgot. You need to make your list. I said. And I was like, now you’ve moved to number two. Sorry. Oh, well, because you didn’t, you didn’t remember 25 years of marriage, uh, celebrating in Big Sur. She, which is such a special place for us. She had, uh, signed us up for, and I guess I told you this at the time, we, we did this amazing hike up into Big Sur beside this creek, and we did a cold plunge in the Yeah. And it was, yes, it was, um, may, but it was very cold water. Not as cold as it would’ve been in January. But, um, and there was something emotional about that exercise, like the way that we, um. I don’t know. It just felt the whole, that, that that whole trip in celebration was, was special. Um, but really, you know, just the fact that we were, were able to celebrate 25 years and that milestone is just, I’m super grateful, super grateful for our relationship and the fact that we’ve gone through so many versions of ourselves and so many versions of our, um, relationship, you know, as individuals, as a couple, we’ve, we are just, you know, when you live your life, it, it, it, it shapes who you are every day. You’re building more onto who you are. You’re changing, you’re, you’re morphing. You’re living, you’re growing, you’re dying, you’re everything. And you got somebody that you’re doing that with, uh, in the most intimate of ways. It’s, uh, it is a lot. It’s not, you know, it’s, it’s a feat. I mean, you’re a foot guy. It’s a feat, especially with me. Right. Anyway, that’s what people are thinking right now, and that’s what you could have said. Instead of the foot joke, you could have said the Yeah. Especially with you. Thank you for not doing that. Okay. Um, but yeah, super grateful for my Christy. 25 y Let, let’s do another 25. Well, I’ll put a signal. I got my 25 coming up in 26. Mm-hmm. But I won’t talk about it on this podcast. Number one. And apparently number four for Link, um, is everything that happened with my heart. Oh, um, oh, I was wrong. I’m sorry. Okay. What, what was your number four? Just kidding. Um, again, like many of the things on this list, there is an in depth podcast where I tell all of the story around it, so we’re not gonna do that. Um, but just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, I had, I developed a heart arrhythmia. My heart was beating weird. It was kind of out of the blue, but it was fixed via a procedure in September, and I appeared to be completely good to go, but what? But it’s really what it did, right? Because it happened. The interesting thing is, you know, we take a break. This is the second year in a row that we’ve taken a break during July by pushing 12 months of work into 11 months, and then taking the month of July off. Um, and using that time as a rest. Rehabilitation even. Mm-hmm. And also reevaluation. Yeah. There’s a lot of thinking that happens during that time and a lot of attempting to have some perspective on what we’re doing. And I think there was an element to what happened with my heart where there was a forced wake up call to say, Hey man, you’re about to be 48 years old, and you have stressed yourself out to a point where you’ve got this heart problem. And whether or not stress caused the heart problem or not, it certainly made it worse and contributed to it. But also now that I know that I have a propensity to this condition, stress becomes extra important to manage and to pay attention to, and that led to a complete reevaluation of everything that we do. And I, and I think one of the, the constant theme for this second half of the year having come back has been taking a really hard look at all of the things that we do. And I think the first of all, the, the theme has been, Hey, we gotta do less. We have to do less as we move into our late forties and then our fifties, if we want to keep doing this. And we do, yes, we’ve gotta be, we, we, it has to be personally sustainable. It has to be something that we can continue to do in a way. That we enjoy, we gotta do less to be our best. And we gotta do it in a way, not only that we enjoy, but a way that we can continue to do it. Because it is the, it isn’t like we want to retire so we can go do something else. Like we’ve said multiple times, that we don’t really think about retirement, we think about sustainability. We think about being able to do what we do in some form for as long as we can do it. Yeah. And I, I think this year was the first year of like, facing mortality in a way that I definitely haven’t had to do ever before. Uh, like any, any sense that I had, that I was invincible, that I would never have to worry about serious health problems. I. You know, that was thrown out the door. And now, uh, I think that it’s, it’s been reflected in a lot of the conversations that we’ve had. Obviously, it led to us stopping doing ear biscuits, which again, is something that we enjoy doing and something that we may do again at some point. But it was when we were looking at everything that’s going on, we’re like, some things have to drop off of the plate so that there can be room for the things that are on the plate to really receive the attention and investment that they deserve. Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t my heart, so it wasn’t my number one, but number four understood. Pretty, pretty high because it, it really had this impact in terms of like, us having this mind meld of, I’ll put it this way, I mean, just because. It was happening to you doesn’t mean that I would come to the same conclusions, you know, ’cause it wasn’t happening to me. But we were fortunate that we were coming to similar conclusions, um, you know, over our break in terms of a desire to simplify and focus in order to preserve our passion and our ability and our, our health and everything. So I, I’m, I’m really grateful that we were independently on the same page when we came back about things. And so, so I do feel like that, and I did, you know, besides you and then. I don’t know. I, I was, I’m still very close to what you were going through and, uh, certainly I was very key in your recovery, right? Oh, yeah. Right. So, um, yeah, yeah. Thank you for saying that. Um, I get what I, the point I’m trying to make is that it did have an impact on me to open my eyes as well. It’s like, damn, maybe that it, I, there will be my version of that and it won’t just be hopefully going over the handlebars of a bike, which was a wake up call again last week. Yeah. Um, every two years. But the, the result of it was this mind meld of we do need to make changes. We do appreciate what we want to preserve and fight for, and, um. This, it was, we each had clarity, but the fact that it was so in sync was huge. Right. Because we had, we had a lot of hard decisions to make. Yeah. You know, this ear biscuits decision was a hard decision to make. Um, asking questions, what, what all does this impact in terms of where we’re going? What are we taking on, you know, uh, us coming to grips with the fact that we have a, a history of leading Mythical in a way that is, if we can try this, maybe we, and, and we could try it, maybe we should try it. And you start to go after a lot of things. Mm-hmm. In order to make, to leave no stone unturned kind of. Well, our, we’ve gotten to this point. Of our success has allowed us to, uh, explore this opportunity or this opportunity turn over this rock, this rock. So we would, we did a lot of that in order to make sure that we were going down the right path. But the result was we started going down more paths. Well, and I think simultaneously, I, I think there’s a difference between doing some, I, I think a lot of the things that we have done, um, have been not just because we thought that we could do it, we would be capable of doing it. It’s that we kind of thought that it seemed like the kind of thing that we should be doing from maybe an external perspective. In other words, not necessarily being led by our own instincts and the things that we are truly passionate about. But sometimes you just do something because you’re in a position to do it. And. It creates a certain story about us or Mythical. And I think that some of those things have really worked out. You know, some of those things have been great, but I, I think that right this year was this, this moment where it was like, you can’t just keep making decisions like that. You know, you can’t, you to, it’s not sustainable. You have to make decisions based on your own instincts and your own skillset and the things that you actually bring to the table. And you don’t have to do everything that you could do. You just don’t have to do everything that you could do. And if you do decide that you’re gonna do everything that you could do, then all of those things are gonna be compromised. But the main thing is that you as an individual are gonna be compromised. And I think that we began to have an acute, I, I had an acute experience of being compromised. Yeah. In a way that. I’ve always been able to maybe brush off weather. Yeah. You know, I had the thing happen with my eye years ago that sent me to therapy was the first indication of like doing too much, being too stressed out. And then this was like wave number two Yeah. Of a similar thing. Like I get these involuntary physical manifestations that forced me to make decisions to, uh, think about my own vitality and sustainability. And I think from maybe the Mythical beast’s perspective, that first wave, because we were, we were like tripling or quadrupling the output of good Mythical mourning through what we call GMM 22. It. The, it was easier to perceive externally by fans, but this second wave, because it wasn’t, it was different. It was more like, well, if you can, if you can make a cereal, why not make, why, why would you not make a cereal? Right. It’s just, I mean, that’s actually a, a smaller example of it, but it’s like, well, the reason we discovered is because everything takes something and sometimes you say, you say, well, I don’t know exactly what this is gonna take. Yeah. To make it work much less. I don’t know if we, if we best have what it takes to make it work. Are we, are we the best people to be doing this? So it’s do le do less to do what we do, do best and do less to be our best, you know, from a health perspective and all of that. It, it. It’s a new era. And I think the reason that we, for, for us in Mythical that we are excited and we would hope that, um, because again, this is not, we just don’t do this in a vacuum. Like we do this in the context of the community, of Mythical beasts who support and enable what we’re able to do. Uh, and we don’t, we’re very careful to not be led by you. You know, that we, we make a decision to not just do what you think we should do. That that never works. But we don’t do this in a vacuum. We, if we do something and you don’t respond to it, then we probably will stop doing it. Right. You know, we’re doing the thing that we, uh, that we’re following our own instincts and our own skillset. Yeah, but we’re doing it not just for ourselves. We’re doing it for you as well. Yeah. Like, this is, it’s a community endeavor. It’s the intersection of what we want to give you that you want to receive, but I think it’s a relationship in that way. But it does start with, this is something that we want to share with you, but the point I’m getting at is that the reason I would hope that if you are somebody who’s a, you’re, you consider yourself a, a Mythical beast, and you’re, you’re on board for whatever’s next and you, you know, maybe you are upset in, in mourning the, the loss of your biscuits. Um, but excited about the, the whatever is coming next. I think there is a reason for excitement. The, and the reason that we have for excitement is that this is all based on a desire to continue doing it. Yes. You know, it’s all, it’s not based on a desire to check out. It’s not a based on a desire to like pursue other interests, right? It’s all based on a desire to be like, Hey, like this. We are somehow against all odds and by a series of very fortunate events that many of them we didn’t have control over. We lucked out to get, to be able to do what we do for a living, to, to get, to be able to live the dream, to fulfill the blood oath of doing something big together. And we wanna keep doing that. But as we get older, our capacity, uh, you know, it changes. I’m not gonna say it diminishes, but it changes and we’re actually setting ourselves up for. Uh, a future of being able to really throw ourselves into the things that we’re excited about. And I think that, you know, Good Mythical Morning for us personally represents the most obvious place to put those passions. We continue to remain very excited about what GMM is and what GMM can continue to evolve into. Oh, yeah. Uh, we’ve talked about the elements from this podcast, finding a home in the Good Mythical Morning world, Good Mythical More. But I think it’s, it goes beyond that because I, I, I think what we’re beginning to see in the conversations that we’re having is, hey, we, like, we’re in control of what the show is. We’re in control of what lives in, within the, the, the world of good Mythical mourning. If we’re. If we’re miserable, it’s our own fault. Yeah. Ultimately, and it’s like we’re, we’re not making this show for a network executive to approve the ideas like the, it’s us and the team together making this thing for you, the audience. Um, and again, we have to do that in a, when we say sustainability, there’s a physical health sustainability. There’s a financial sustainability to the show that has to be intact in order to continue making it with the team that we have. And so we make decisions that are based on that a lot. Uh, but I, I think that there’s, there’s a lot more to come that’s very exciting. And I will say, you know, that, and there are changes to come that will, there are exciting changes and there’s some that, you know, you might perceive as negative. And there’s, um, but everything that we’ve just said and unpacked is the. Is the heart behind any change or changes that you may experience. And I am very confirmed and excited and passionate and hopeful and energized by where we’re going and where, uh, what Mythical is gonna, uh, thrive and look like into next year and on into the indefinite future when, where we’re not retiring. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I’d say, you know, replay all of, all of this rationale, like filter anything that you experience as, as a passionate fan through what we’ve just shared with you as, um, as we move forward. Another part of it that I. Really appreciate is, well, I mean, there’s been the challenge of, of leading a company. I, you know, the, the thing about the waves and like I gave the serial example, but people, like fans not, it, not being as visible to fans how we’ve like overextended ourselves or, I guess all I’m trying to say is that there, there has been a challenge that we’ve stepped up to in terms of not only now that we, we’ve had this mind meld, we figured out the things that we want to do and, but leading the company through that has been, um, a challenge, but one that I’m very grateful to be going through and to have with you and the. The clarity that we’ve got has, uh, I think I’ve already experienced that the positive impact that has had on our friendship and our relationship has been really good. You know, when we talk about the New York trip and the things that we were doing and vlogging at the top of this thing, I think is the fact that we had the ability to do that in the midst of everything that we’re talking about shows me that it’s happening, it’s working. There’s, there’s enough space to where we can enjoy each other as friends more and not be so white knuckle just. Gripping something so tightly to try to keep it, try to keep it together. Uh, try to keep this thing that’s like growing so big and going in this direction and now this direction and this direction. And, um, let’s just, let’s, let’s keep the, you know, it’s like I, I starts to feel like a ship that is either exiting orbit or reentering orbit, or, but you got that shake and it’s like, are all the pieces gonna stay together? The impact that that starts to have on us is that our relationship is defined by stress. Hmm. As instead of by, uh, joy and enjoyment. And I, I’m seeing that we’re already experiencing the benefits of like, the clarity and making these decisions to do, do less and be our best. Yeah, I agree. And I, I think it’s, um, in some ways it’s a little bit more reflective of, uh, it’s not the way that it was back when it was just the two of us and one person, like one intern. Yeah. It’s not like that. Uh, ’cause that was its own kind of stress. Um, but I, I think that it is a, there’s a, there’s a trust in yourself with the fact that, you know, we actually, when you really start thinking about it, when we let the thing that’s leading us be our, um, the things that we want to do. Mm-hmm. Right? And the things that we feel sort of personally motivated and empowered to do, letting that be the guide. Not, Hey, this will look this way. To someone. To me that was it. The huge, the stress level just immediately started dropping because a lot of times, I mean, there’s been meetings over the past 10 years where we would be in a meeting with somebody and I felt like what I was doing was painting a picture that I did not necessarily believe in. Hmm mm-hmm. You know, it’s just like, I think this is, I think this is because you think it’s the, we thought it was the path to, well, I think this is what realizing the opportunity, well, I think this is what you want to hear. The best example of that is like, you’re in a room and you’re pitching a show, you know? Uh, like the whole process that we went through, for example of like, uh, we’ll tell the full story one day, I’m sure, but like the Bleak Creek saga of writing this book and writing the book. Because we thought that was a really great way to create some IP that then can be turned into the type of media that we really want to do, which is TV and movies, right? And then the process of sitting in rooms with people who had read the book and trying to convince them, let us make this movie, let us make this into a TV show. And then having a couple of years passed where the version that we are now talking to these people about has very little to do with what we wrote. Right. But it’s a complete, complete departure from what we wrote because we think it’s what you in this boardroom want to hear. Right. Or you on this zoom call want to hear. Right. So, and I’m just, we, we are. That we are never doing that again. And it’s, we’re never, we’re never painting a picture that we think is the picture that you wanna see. We’re just gonna tell you the thing that it is that we want to do, and we’re gonna do the thing that we wanna do. We’re gonna do it on our own terms, which again, is gonna be probably with significantly less financial resources than we would get if we were to play the game in a different way. But, uh, ultimately I think. Much more rewarding. Yeah. So there’s, I mean there’s the creative pitch examples. There’s, I mean, it just, there’s the vi It’s not, none of it’s that visible. That’s why we want to share it. Yeah. Like we’re doing now. But it’s like, some of it’s business, some of it’s creative and so, and a lot of it’s both and it’s just, and it’s, it’s been a lot. And now it’s less. Yeah. We’re, we’re, we’re doing things differently now. Right. And the, so this has been the year of that turning point, and I’m grateful that you heart’s good and like there’s no lasting effects. The ablation, as far as we know, I mean the lasting effects are. The fact that we are applying the lessons that we learned, and that’s to be celebrated. And I’m gr I’m, I’m grateful that we made it. I’m grateful that we’ve making it through 2025 and I’m grateful that you’re interested enough to listen and understand and, and support us and, um, still be along with us on, on this journey. You know, the different parts of the journey, the seats look different, the experiences are different. We can’t just keep doing the same things, but like, thank you for finding the, the place where if you wanna stay with us, that, you know, we want you to. Um, no pressure. We’re still here. We’re not going anywhere. Alright. And, um, yeah, I think that’s it. I, I do think, I feel grateful, but it, a lot of it is grateful to have gotten through this year. Yeah, and we got one more of these. Next week we’ll talk about this thing, ear biscuits and what it’s meant to us, to you. And, uh, we’ll see you then. Hey guys, um, I’m willing to do a lot to keep you around, okay? And, uh, I’m just gonna say it right now. I am willing to do my taxes before the first day. I mean, the last day, sorry, had a length moment. Um, I’m willing to eat liver and onions. I’ll do that for you, just to keep you around on the podcast. Uh, I’d probably run a three K marathon for you babies. Anyway, let me know if any of this will work. Love you guys. Bye. Oh, it’s Diane, by the way. Not that you know me, but now you do. Bye.