Ethan Kross

Welcome welcome welcome to harm chair experts on expert. I'm nurse Dan Shepherd and I'm joined by dr. Monica Padman This dr. Monica Padman the man the pad the pad man.

I don't even feel comfortable saying this doctor about myself It didn't even sound right didn't feel right. I hated it. You gotta have your own. I'm this doctor So maybe you could you be that doctor?

Oh? Dr. D is that that's true. That's true.

What do you want to be a doctor? I be Doctor that doctor they doctor us doctor. Okay. I need a mullet.

Okay. Drs doctor. Oh drs doctor. Yeah, I kind of like that joined by Monica Mouse This doctor's doctor.

Oh, there he's in a lot of levels. Oh Ethan Cross is our guest today and Ethan is an experimental psychologist a neuroscientist and a writer who specializes in emotion regulation Do you know why this is a ding ding ding? I'm pretty sure he's a doctor. Oh, he must be let's say dr.

Ethan Cross Well, but no it doesn't but let's say or case scenario we call someone a doctor That's not they'll never sue over that or be offended. That's true, but we're about the facts, okay I was in a whole rabbit hole in my head laying in bed two nights ago with this doctor thing Okay, I decided I don't like that you have to call doctors doctor Like when you're just talking to them like Mike like that you got to say doctor So because I mean can I make my case I hear your support about that, right? But do you mean medical doctor? Well, all the people who say like dr.

Smith doctor, you know phone call for doctor whoever just when you talk to a doctor You're supposed to call them doctor whatever, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, I don't like it. Can I tell you why yeah?

Okay, it's just a weird status acknowledgement and all be it doctors are very noble people but there are also many other occupations that are noble and you would never say like roof or John or Oh lawyer Mike. So there's a status thing. You don't say You just don't say it about any other occupation. So I'm a little true.

That's true. Sorry I'm even bring that up on you because you're worthy of the title if you're just double check Okay, dr. Ethan Cross is an experimental psychologist a neuroscientist and writer who specializes in emotion regulation He has a really cool new book called chatter the voice in our head why it matters and how to harness it now We love this one because we have the loudest fucking racket going on upstairs at all times Yes, and I've used some of the techniques. I really like them.

This is it's really worth trying Yes, and thank goodness. There's some tools you feel powerless over that racket or the chatter as dr. Ethan would say so please enjoy dr. Ethan Cross And then I bet dr.

Ethan Cross can see what's happening here I'm Jordan's there well, but what do these Jordans make you think of they make me think of my childhood in Brooklyn? Okay, well, that's very fair, but there you have em colors. Oh, let me get it back up here Okay, very nice. Are we a go-blue family?

I'm from Milford, Michigan 20 miles up us 23 from you Well, you never know sometimes people have the audacity to like the green those green colors. Yeah, my sister went there I mean I should be sympathetic to it Yeah, so the two of you so we've got Michigan and then also Atlanta my wife is from Atlanta So this is like a whole family fast-paced. What part? Sandy Springs.

Oh Sandy Springs. I'm from Duluth Okay, do you know Sandy Springs? Yeah, of course is it how close to you was it? It's not too far I would say probably 40-ish minutes.

Okay. Do you want to tell the doctor about the Georgia Red Clay? Well, if you must know Deficated this morning and said it was resemble Georgia Red Clay. I'm so sorry you had to hear I thought it'd be a good icebreaker There was an evacuation and it was undeniably Georgia Red Clay listen I have two young daughters and they love legumes, so I'll just say you want to go there we can go there I mean no worries how old are your daughters they are ten and six okay?

I've got six and seven so we're in a similar world similar world and you're from Brooklyn How do you feel about raising these girls in Ann Arbor? Are you excited about it, or do you feel like they're missing out on the city experience? I love it. I grew up in Brooklyn.

I like to tell people terrible dad joke here before it was cool But I really mean that when I when I grew up there it was like not the pleasant place to live I worked my butt off in school to leave and never come back and so it gives me great delight that my daughters can you know Walk to school and just hang out outside. I never had that kind of experience So I love it. Yeah Ann Arbor if you're gonna be in Michigan It's in the top three I'd say areas you'd want to be Trevor City is pretty darn nice to live I think as well. Oh, yeah I often think if you of Am was in Trevor City with the water it would be perfect already is pretty close, but it would be even nicer No one thinks so I tell people like the peninsula.

It's like they're vineyards up there if you feel like you're in France I mean it's beautiful and yeah people just look at me like I'm out of my mind like you drunk the cool Like you're in Michigan now, you know you've lost touch with reality, but but you could back me up on that right? It's pretty amazing well so good Monica because we kidnapped her and we forced her to vacation on Lake Michigan two summers ago And we brought we brought other Californians and they kept going like I'm so confused this is not the ocean It was so confusing that it was a lake. It was not a lake. It was an ocean with only in a lake Yeah, it's just it's remarkable.

Yeah, it's a little little secret So you know it would be nicer if they were better sushi Restaurants would be fun, but otherwise we're pretty happy here now We're gonna eventually talk about one of our favorite topics, which is the racket in our heads I guess that's what we say in a we come we're fond of calling it the racket But we're gonna get into that internal monologue we all do or the dialogue or the inner voice But before we do I guess I'm curious do you have theories on why you're interested in psychology to begin with you started at Penn as an undergrad And then Columbia PhD, what was it about psychology that interested you? Well, so my story goes way back to you know three years old because I had a dad who was an unconventional dad and It was an academic. He was a salesman and from the time I was three He would basically whenever something bad happened he would encourage me to go inside you tell me go inside find the Colonel You know Colonel what's currently talking about but he's the you know get to the heart of the matter And so he basically encouraged me from the time I was really young to introspect when anything bad happened and I listened to my dad and his lessons served me well for much of my childhood and Adolescence when you know I asked my crush out in high school and she said no I introspected I moved on it and get stuck and I figured it out You know so forth and so on and so so I was really good at managing myself Yeah, this was a tool I relied on and I got to Penn and I pause you really quick Yeah, please just because I had a car salesman dad and I'm so now jealous because my father was like if you are Let's say the crush if that didn't go your way you try to sleep with her best friend That would have been my dad's advice, you know go buy something or go do something flashy so I'm a little jealous Bad advice, you know it's all a matter of perspective. What'd you get for your fifth birthday from your dad?

Oh, no, no, no, no, what's your dad get you when you were five? He got me a mantra Yeah, yeah, he took me to transcendental meditation center in New York City And you know I was hoping for a bicycle or the next transformer and so sure that didn't happen And so my buddies are hanging out and I'm learning about meditation and even the worst part is you're not allowed to share your mantra with anyone You can't even tell your buddies what you got you can only be vague It speaks to how formative that experience was I still I don't think I've ever told someone what my Mantra is even though it's it's silly but I like imprinted on that I think I have to tell my wife first. Oh, man I've been trying to get everyone to tell me their mantras for years. Didn't David Walton tell us his yes He did he loves me the most yeah He got suspicious that everyone has the same one because he found out he and his buddy We're giving the same one and then he then they tried to go to a third guy and he went and tell him and I said look Well, here's what I'll do you tell me yours And if it's the same I'll admit it is and thank God it wasn't because I started to get a little suspicious that it's all the same Mantra as well So yeah, I mean he was an interesting character my dad What forced him to be that way these things don't happen on their own do they you know my dad You know not a college grad but was always fascinated by Eastern philosophy and the Beatles and that whole M movement back in the 60s and 70s and so to his credit one thing I really am really grateful for like he would talk to me like I was an adult from the time I was a little kid and that was really you know Sometimes I would prefer to talk about like the Yankees or G.

I Joe but but I mean those early conversations really did leave their mark So it's an interesting upbringing. Okay, great. I was gonna say this to the M because we both have daughters But I'm gonna say right now because it's so appropriate which is yeah so I talked to my kids like they're my age like their peers and I sometimes wonder like I guess I'm trying to understand the limits of their Capacity I am trying at all times to convey what a four step is and I you know, it's like you're mad at Joe Why you mad at Joe? He tries to get me fired, you know, how does that affect you?

Well, it affects my financial security this that the other thing and what role do I play in that? Well, but I weren't late Joe would have nothing to say to my boss So, you know all this I'm trying to get them to work through their resentments I'm trying to help them see that most of their feelings are really coming from a fear that they would be helpful to identify and Then I'm confronted with the idea that like this is all going over their head. There's a waste of their time Is this is this the right course of action? So how do you do it with your daughters?

First of all, I don't think it's a waste of time I think it's great. There's some theories out there that suggest that you want to push kids always have them reaching for a little bit more Outside or comfort zone by way of analogy when I was on the wrestling team I always used to wrestle in practice with the guy who was two-way classes above me and so I often think about Talking to my kids the same way, right? So I realize that you know when I talk about mechanisms and the prefrontal cortex They may not really may not sink in but the more I talk about it the more they surprise me I mean, you know and so I do enjoy going for walks and just kind of sharing what's going on in my world and sometimes I like it and other times they say this is as my youngest daughter said this is balling daddy Okay, so your specialization in psychology is a motion regulation Which is something that I'm deeply interested in and fascinated by and I got to say Monica have many many debates Is a great topic for Monica and I because and I'm wrong often let me just start by saying I'm wrong often But in general I have kind of a blanket view which is the world is kind of a nerd as much as it feels like it's not It is just constant right so traffic is a reality bosses are real all this stuff is a reality and that is the variable in the equation That is unchangeable So I'm left with the only variable in the equation I have any say over is myself so I strive to not react to things or to be a slave to these things or get emotional all the time and Sometimes our debates are about you know, someone can't really make you feel bad Like you can allow someone to make you feel bad, you know, and by the way, it has been pointed out that I'm wrong We were watching this great documentary. I hope you watched it about Keith or Niri the vow And it can be taken to an extreme right where you never have a right to say someone's attacking you all right?

Which of course they are so I think in the extreme, but just in general I do think we have maybe more control than we think we have over How we feel and respond to things. What's kind of your blanket thought about that? Yeah, I think we have enormous control over how we react to the world and I think step one is simply being aware of the fact that You can change the way you think to change the way you feel I think that's a game-changing idea for a lot of people I mean that's something that I talked to my kids about quite a bit like when my daughter's having temper tantrums Particularly the older one not that she has more temper tantrums if she heard me say that I'd be But you know, she's at a point where I could talk to her and explain like you feel a certain way What if we thought about it differently? What if we reframed it and those kinds of reframings?

I mean, that's a lot of what we do in our lab like when we get really upset at things We tend to zoom in super super narrowly on the problem at hand to the exclusion of everything else, right? We're just narrowed in. Oh my god. What if I don't know what I'm gonna do.

Can you believe he said that and? We could zoom out and when we zoom out we get more perspective and that can often be really really useful Yeah, and I don't think it implicitly is a denial of feelings like sometimes I hear a reaction to my point of view is being like I'm asking people to deny how they feel when in fact I think I'm more going like go ahead and feel that like you're allowed to experience it and feel it and then I think it's time to work through it mentally I mean what you're describing I hope it's not wrong because it is about 20 years of what I do is towards that idea and so I'm not taking any sides here I just want to say I'm just telling you how I think about this. I don't disagree with that We I disagree sometimes with him saying people can't make you feel a certain way I think people can attempt to make I don't think we live in pods and in vacuums And I think if you try to actually that's to your detriment and that you shouldn't be taking in other people's you know Whatever they're giving you. I mean doesn't mean you have to feel it all but I don't know I just don't think we live in back.

Well, this is this is the perfect scenario here because I can extract an agreement with both of you here right, so you know I like to use the word harness to talk about how we can harness our reactions and Oftentimes other people can instigate certain emotional responses in us right like if someone says something to me That's the wrong thing. It's automatically going to elicit a response as much as I want to prevent that I'm not gonna be able to and you probably if you're thinking about how people work You probably wouldn't want to make it so that you could perfectly control your emotions because emotions are functional like negativity We often hear nowadays. I want to live a life without any negativity. I would not endorse that Right negativity in small doses is elegantly adaptive Like when I get a little ping of anxiety a week before I have to give a high-stakes talk That's a good thing That means I'm not watching football and basketball and doing you know no work It means alright even time to get to it so negativity can be good But when the emotions get too big and stay for too long a period of time That's when things get problematic and that's where our ability to control comes into play because we can rain in that response And we can move it around and that is a really useful skill I think I can give an example of what I mean generally when I'm bumping up against this when we have this argument I guess my point is I start from a place where you're tempted to say this person objectively wanted to hurt my face I agree with that people do objectively try to hurt other people's feelings But here's where I think your own personal role comes into play If you walk by a homeless person on the street and they look up at you and they say you're a fucking loser It does not impact you you do not care because you don't seek their approval And now if someone you look up to let's say we were interviewing someone that Monica loved historically And they said you're a fucking loser it would be crushing now both people tried to hurt you But one has status and one doesn't you want approval from one person and not the other so for me once I recognize that it is that Subjective whether or not I'm gonna care and it's my own desire to get approval from people's status or people I love Whatever it is that's to me Where your control comes from or at least you have to acknowledge it's actually not objective Well, I think what I hear you saying is when ourself is on the line so to speak right like when something is said that actually impacts That's makes us feel vulnerable.

That's an organic experience that emotional response totally so not everyone you know I gave a presentation to my kids class a couple of years ago and one of the kids just said this is boring And I said well, that's not nice no more talking for you But I didn't lose sleep over now I might lose sleep in another context, right? So whether you're on the line can make a difference in terms of whether the emotion is triggered We're not a simple species like it's hard to predict what's gonna trip you up is different from what's gonna trip you up Monica Like our triggers are different but once the emotion is triggered the tools we can use are similar. Yeah, okay Let me go one step further I guess has what I see the solution as and again, I'm very brainwashed by 17 years in AA So factor that in but I guess when I'm tempted to say is if whatever thing that triggered you if you treated that Yourself, right? So if I have a set of definitions that says I'm not a loser And I personally meet them and I actually decide that I have accomplished that and I don't have a fear that I'm not a loser I believe no one's comment could have an effect on me But it should because it shouldn't have an effect on you emotionally But it tells you something about your relationship to that person it tells you something about that person for sure that person might be Trying to manipulate you that person might you know It's important to take in what other people are saying so you can assess an entire relationship situation I totally agree But if I'm in place emotionally where I'm like well, I'm not a loser You know, it's like I'm the example I always use it someone calls me short.

I've just I'm 6 to I'm not sure it doesn't trigger any fear of Mine, so you just triggered me tax That makes sense and I apologize, but I guess my point is if someone says to me you're very short My first thought is why would that person say that what is their agenda? What is their objective what thing are they dealing with which in general? I think it's a good way to be thinking about these interactions It's like it all the things we say really say more about ourselves than the person we're addressing in many ways Great example. I'm talking too much But don't worry, I'm gonna really turn it over but we had Justin Timberlake on yesterday And I looked at the comments and every other comment is about how clearly and love Monica is with Justin Timberlake Well, yes, yes Oh wow and what I gleaned from that is those people are in love with Justin Timberlake and if they were staring at it I would argue her face is pretty neutral to what it is in most photographs She's definitely smiling, but I think she smiles and others and I was just like that is that's just straight projection like I would be in love Snaring at him and so I'm pretty sure that's what I see on Monica's face Yeah, I mean people do project, but let's go back to I mean I don't think you're saying that you're incapable of being hurt, right?

Not at all I get hurt all the time. I'm super sensitive right and so so you know your triggers may be different like the loser comment It seems to me like you're confident that you're not a loser and if someone says that, you know screw you I'm not a loser and I know that but let's switch gears like imagine someone who you care about deeply You know said you were a shitty parent that might tweak you I mean that what let's say I'm working real hard and you know my wife says you're not being a good father That would really really offend me like that would hurt so I think our triggers can be different There are 150 things you could say that I have a fear about or that I do feel incomplete in that would send me reeling That's what I'm arguing that that's my work to do so I could somehow either confront the fact that I'm not a great dad and become a great dad So that doesn't affect me or you know, I just think it's an internal job ultimately I think if you had real self-esteem across the board all these comments would have no impact Well, I don't know I don't know if I agree that if you take that argument to an extreme that would suggest that you would never never get offended by anything Yeah, kind of sociopathic like you're living in your own space and nothing affects you like you want to be affected by the world And then handle it and I'm definitely not suggesting that you don't handle it after you feel the feeling But you should be taking in feelings and feedback from your community. I agree where social animal And this is how we help each other be good animals But what I'm saying is you can imagine a state where you confront every one of those things that would have affected you You're a loser you're a bad parent and you actually demonstrate that you no longer that thing There is an imaginable state where you've actually done all that work somehow you have 80 hours in the day And you can become this person that really is impenetrable to that because you've done the work sure I mean you can make the argument that there's an emotional ideal that is Homeostatic you just stick to a baseline. You don't go up or down You just go about living your life and in some ways that's the Eastern ideal I have yet to see a living breathing human that conforms to that ideal.

So well, I've seen it But they have to be in complete isolation. If you're gonna interact with other humans, it's almost impossible It's it's hard and so you know, it's almost like working against the machine that ideal We are built to experience emotion and I'm a proponent of the idea that emotions are useful both the good ones and the bad ones as I was saying before and so I Wouldn't want to live a life without the ability to experience both kinds of states clearly I like the good ones better I mean, you know most people do but the negative ones also I think are vital to my ability to succeed and be effective and and be a good dad Like I need to know that when I say something that maybe does offend you or not you maybe Monica Like if I see the facial expression on your face that suggests I may have hurt your feelings I need to get the feedback. Oh, I'm sorry like yeah, I'm really sorry. I did that I didn't mean to like I say things You know, I offend people I don't mean to but I get feedback it's negative and then I adjust my behavior and so emotions are signals really important for me I think the big challenge that I try to look at in the lab and really in my own life is how can we make our emotions work for us Both the good and the bad ones rather than take over which we see happening quite a bit Yeah, and by the way, even in my weird utopian thing I just pitched you guys and neither of you are buying into I definitely I still see a well of emotions being someone shares with me Not what's broken with me, but they share with me when you do this I feel this way and then I feel terrible because I do not intend to make the person feel that way and then I adjust my behavior accordingly Yeah, so what I'm hearing from you is that you're you're what we would call low on Rejection sensitivity so you're less sensitive to being rejected than maybe others But that doesn't mean you can't experience other kinds of negative emotions like anger or sadness or you know plug in your favorite one Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare Okay, so your book chatter the voice in our head why it matters and how to harness it the voice in our head holy smokes Monica Both this is where this one is one of the foundational connections between us is awesome There is a trial going on at all times in our heads.

We are horrendously introspective where we are I'm an obsessive thinker I think Monica would say she is too. We build cases. We lose objectivity. We're so busy We're meant for each other three of us Share and join the crew, but this is this is what the book is about and this is what I've spent the last 20 You're studying so if we just go back early part of life dad introspect.

It's the utopian ideal know thyself, right? Look inward fast forward. I get to college I take my first psychology class and halfway through the semester we turned to introspection I'm like, you know the equivalent of rolling up my sleeves here. We go, you know, let me show you how it works and Lo and behold what I learned is that there's a lot of science on this and a great deal of it shows that So the exact opposite of what I learned growing up Which is a lot of people a lot of the time when they introspect when bad things are happening they end up getting stuck Negative thought loops what I call chatter rumination worrying catastrophizing You know choose your favorite description the negative roommate in your head the itty-bitty shitty committee, right?

Like your minds are taking over in awful ways And so for me this this became a giant puzzle that I became fascinated by and I've been studying for past 20 years Which is why is it that in some cases we can benefit from introspection like introspection is an amazing amazing tool So it allows us to problem solve to innovate to create and it is the basis I would argue of like why our species is so effective a lot of people myself included think that this is the key evolutionary advance That distinguishes us from other animals like yeah crazy. Yeah, so let's go through the utility first Like let's just I mean there's a couple things that probably are obvious to many people and then maybe some other people haven't even considered first and foremost We think in whatever language we speak or you'll sometimes meet bilingual people right and I'll say they think and Spanish But whatever it is but just the notion that I am thinking in English Confines me to a very specific culture which in and of itself is fascinating right because it culture is highly persuasive and it is a structure and We're confined by that even inside our heads in ways, right? So could you talk about that? Phenomena that that we think in language so we can think in language or images and sometimes we think in like you know I'm regularly now fantasizing about the next speech vacation whenever that happens and we can leave quarantine Right, so I can see myself on the beach with a peanut colada Sun-tan lotion, you know, I can do that But we also spend a lot of time thinking in words and we do you know think in our native language There's some actually interesting research on thinking in a foreign language I don't want to get too far too much of a detour but emotions have less impact when you think about an emotional experience in a foreign language It has less resonance like cursing in a foreign language doesn't feel as bad right cursing in your native language And the reason is when we're growing and developing we're processing the world through our native tongue, right?

So emotions these you know when you're first learning the curse words like you learn them in your native language They don't quite have the same zip when they're in a foreign language, which you know is you could play with that sometimes next time you're upset No, it's true. I'll say I'll say sha all the time instead of shit and it's it's just cute to everyone even if they know it I'm not gonna tell you the words I use in another language, but I have a job that could be a state We'll have a different conversation when you're tenured. Are you tenured? I'm tenured Well, here's an interesting interesting tidbit Maybe we get to at some point you know social media is really interesting with respect to the inner voice because it provides us with a ginormous megaphone for what's going on in our head like Facebook office says like what's on your mind just put it out there and Some people are obliging that request and just sharing and I often I tell people that I wouldn't want anyone to have a live feed Into what's going on in here all the time.

I'm really happy with that being a private experience that I can to some degree curate what comes out of my Mouth, you know, and so yeah editing is good and so going back to what the inner voice does for us I think of it as a Swiss Army knife of the mind. It does a lot of different things one of the things it does is it does it help us edit Our life stories like we narrate our experience. We're constantly creating stories to help us understand who we are and the inner voice helps us do it It also helps us Simulate and plan so you know if I'm prepping for an interview I can think okay mama is gonna say this and then I'm gonna respond this way and then she's gonna respond this way like so We often do that little role-play with ourself role-play internally in our head Yeah, right and then at the totally other end of the spectrum the inner voices is helping us do things as simple as just keep things in mind Like if I ask you to memorize a phone number repeat it in your head. That's your inner voice Oh, you know, so so it helps us do a ton of things But it can also get us into deep trouble, which is what I spend you know most of the time study Okay, so really quick just so I can put a pin in the language thing I got curious since you would know this do you find that because language does vary the lexicons different that we have words for Things that other cultures don't and vice versa and it gives us I was an anthropology major It gives us a sense of what they value is does the language you think in potentially have an impact on your overall happiness or mental health And specifically we always read you know Sweden and Finland these Norwegian countries are always highest on the UN happiness scale And the metrics are always you know standard of living all these other things But I wonder is anyone even considered part of it is the language that's in their head Yeah, it's a great question.

So language can shape our emotional experiences And in fact we've done a lot of work showing that there's some quirky linguistic Jiu Jitsu moves that you can use to harness your inner voice but as to whether cross cultural differences in language Put people onto different emotional trajectories. I'm not sure of research that speaks to that Yeah, specifically There's certainly there's some cultures that have words for emotions that other cultures don't and that's really fascinating right because there are certain Experiences that certain groups of people are having Presumably that they have a word to describe that other cultures are not we have a new show with Wendy Mowgill Who's a family therapist and she also does a lot of stuff in linguistics So for that show each episode she presents a word in a different language that we don't have that word in English It's a Japanese word where you're unhappy with your haircut right after you get it You know and it's kind of funny because we do all have we know that emotion but some cultures put a word on Monica Don't don't project. I don't have you love your haircut But I just see that yeah like some cultures put words to things that others don't that's so fascinating well Have to fact check this but again, I can't remember I learned this in school or this is just apocryphal that also in anyway There's no word for jealousy and that would be if that's true which wolf act check That would be a really phenomenal idea that there would be a culture that doesn't even need a word for jealousy Yeah, I don't know I think there are definitely studies that have looked at some of these comparing different cultural groups on these specific emotions and find some Consistencies on the whole I think a lot of the emotions that are that are common to us are Express linguistically in different cultures. It's funny you're reminding me one of the first studies I did actually I tell the story of the study in the book because it ended up being an inner voice Escapade for me with a kind of death threat that was not for an academic That's not that usual But we did a study where a lot of people had noted that in cultures around the world Different cultures use the same words to describe the experience of of being rejected which is the language of physical pain Right they describe how they feel when they're rejected as my feelings hurt my pain And so we did a study where we we looked at whether what's happening in your brain is similar when you're experiencing social rejection Versus physical pain so we brought people into the brain scanner This was back in New York City.

We recruited people who had just been dumped in a monogamous romantic relationship turns out New York City It was really easy to find these people. Yeah, and we had them bring a picture of the person who dumped them This sounds terrible right like we're not trying to make people feel awful for the sake of it. We're trying to learn some Science, I don't care what you did. Let's hear it.

Okay, so we show them the picture of the person who dumped them and as they look at that Person they're supposed to think of how they felt when they said I don't love you anymore It hurts it's not pleasant to look at that person and on another part of the study We put a little probe metal probe on their forearm that heated up to a hot temperature to be clear crystal clear I'm gonna talk slower now to get the disclaimer. This is not burning someone This is like holding a hot cup of coffee without the protective sleeve So it's aversive but tolerable and we found basically overlap in physical pain circuitry in the brain So there's a fun little study that someone then sent me a death threat for yeah, well again It says a lot more about that person Okay, so is that inner voice is that that's frontal lobe business? Well, there are language centers in the brain But it's also distributed so 15 years ago. We tended to talk about the brain in terms of specific spots Whereas now we're talking in terms of patterns across the brain networks and so there's a language network And there's certainly a frontal component to that because one thing that was fascinating and I listened to you on another Podcast about psychology and I guess there was a tweet I never read it But there was some tweet that caused a bit of Yes, yeah, it went viral and it was basically people weighing in whether or not they have an internal monologue going in to be honest I was shocked anyone would have said that they don't I would have assumed we're all imprisoned with all these thoughts Well, you know, this is why I think thinking in terms of the inner voice isn't one thing It does a lot of different things for us is really useful for addressing that debate You know do some people report not having like a monologue stream through their heads Yeah, there are people who report that they're thinking in terms of images more, you know, most of the time However, if their brains are properly functioning they still possess like the capacity to Think in words like so the ability to repeat a number in your head or repeat a word silently That is a basic feature of a well-working brain.

That's called verbal working memory It's part of the architecture that supports how human beings navigate the world So we all possess that capacity now whether we use language silently to do other things like reflect on our problems and work through them Yeah, I think you do have a lot more variability there And my sense is that that whole debate was about at that upper end of the spectrum some people just report not having the The stream that we see depicted in the movies, you know, where like the constant commentary, right? Okay, I probably wrongly or erroneously believe the objective would be to get rid of those voices and I assume you're gonna make a case For why they shouldn't be I guess I can yeah I fantasize about a state of being or I'm just aware of my current surroundings and I'm present and I'm not writing the fucking story Of my life that no one's gonna read that seems pleasurable, but is that not the desired state? I would say it's not the desired state So there's actually I tell a story in chatter about a neuroanatomist who had a stroke and lost her her language her linguistic facilities were wiped out Essentially and she initially describes that state as one of utter bliss for precisely the reasons that that you're describing tax, right? Like ah no more nagging all the time no more overthinking But then she goes on to describe how without those voices She also lost her sense of who she was yeah entity and her ability to do basic things like plan and simulate was also lost And so I think that is unique proof for just how vital this voice is and I think the goal should be not to silence it But to harness it right so to figure out how to make it constructive how to make it more you know supportive more coach like we do Studies on that how do you motivate yourself come on man get track together?

And so I think that's the challenge and what's really to me a bit of a mind blower is that there are tools that we have evolved to possess All around us and things we could do by yourself ways of talking to other people and even ways of navigating the world around us that Allow us to harness this conversation and that's been really exciting to study So when we want to harness it what are we trying to downsize and what are we trying to nurture? So we're trying to reduce the chatter and the chatter is that the zooming in really narrowly on a problem and then getting stuck spinning over And over and over in ways that are ultimately dysfunctional and destructive that get in the way of you doing your job Optimally that create friction in your relationships and and chatter that can you know undermine your your physical health? Yeah, we're built to experience stress stress becomes a bad thing when you experience stress and then you keep experiencing over time We are very well equipped to maintain that stress response because we just keep replaying the negativity over and over and that leads to the kind of Wear and turn our body that's not not so good for longevity And so when you talk about zooming out what are the mechanics of that or what is it a literal example? You could give us of how one should attempt to zoom out sure So there are lots of different ways you could zoom out one way to do it is something called temporal distancing or mental time travel And I actually use this a lot when it comes to COVID right?

I try not to focus on what's happening right now and how awful it is I think all right How am I gonna feel nine months for now 12 months from now when I'm vaccinated when most of the country is and when the ship is right And we're back on path what that does psychologically is it highlights the fact that what we're going through right now is not permanent It's temporary. Yeah, that gives us hope and hope is really really good for silencing those chattery inner voices So that's one way of broadening the perspective. I'm not thinking just narrowly about what's happening now I'm looking at the bigger picture. You can also go back in time, right?

Like like think back to a hundred years ago We had a terrible pandemic, but guess what? We're all alive right now sitting here. We made it through that We endured it we grew and we will do it again. So that's one technique That's my personal mantra.

I just want to say is and I've said it on here before my personal mantra is this is only temporary This is only temporary. This is only time. You know when I'm really caught in a dark blue mood I just I just try to remember remember all the time that it's temporary and it's powerful That's actually one of the defining features of wisdom. So we've studied wisdom So what does it mean to be wise well to be wise?

There are a couple of features one of the things you want to do is be able to recognize that the world is constantly changing It's constantly in flux. Another thing you want to be able to do is recognize that the limits of your own knowledge, right? I don't know anything. I can't possibly know everything.

It's another feature. So that's one zoom out technique Let me tell you about another one that is fun and I rely on it a lot It's called distance self-talk and it involves coaching yourself through a problem using your own name like you're talking to someone else Oh, wow, silently in your head of course And so here's a backstory on this and how this works We know that we are much better at advising other people on their problems and we are ourselves I mean have you ever had a situation where someone comes to you there? They're ruminating they're anxious They don't know what to do. They present the situation to you and hey, no problem.

This is what like have you ever had that experience? Oh, yeah, daily I sponsor guys and I hear myself giving them advice that I need to follow and I just fucking can't do it I know, you know, I can easily tell them what would make their life easy and yet. I'm like wow you just can't do that for yourself There's a name for this. It's called Solomon's paradox It's named after the Bibles King Solomon who was famously adept at giving advice like he's known as the wise king But when it came to his own life He had like a hundred concubines and it ultimately like he built them all shrines and temples and it got very messy and it ultimately Let his kingdoms demise, right?

So this is fundamental and so what what's really cool about distance self-talk is we're using language as a tool Right, we usually use names when we talk about other people so when you use a name to talk to yourself It's like a psychological jujitsu move right? It's it's changing your perspective really fast automatically and it's got anything Here's what we need to do and so that's another tool with a caveat that I don't endorse doing that out loud and in public Signally try to coach yourself through a problem using your name We find that that actually also gives people objectivity makes it easier to think through problems in an adaptive way now in the book You profile some top athletes and some fortune 500 executives and I'm curious what tools or techniques or strategies or methodologies you found that they employed that we could all benefit from well So distance self talks one that I talk about Malawi you soft see and LeBron using another fun example comes from Rafael Nadal And one of the greatest tennis players of all time who you know, I think it was in his autobiography He wrote something to the effect of the hardest thing I do in a tennis match is I try to control the voices in my head Which to me is astounding, right? So here you have a guy who is competing against the best athletes in the world on the greatest stages in the world He's not worried about how fit they are how good their backhand is his endurance He's worried about the conversations having with himself on the court And so what is he what does he do to do this? He does something that often elicits, you know, raised eyebrows and ridicule So he engages in these like elaborate rituals So if you watch Nadal you'll see he always walks onto the court carrying a tennis racket in one hand And then when he gets to his bench he turns to the crowd He unzips his jacket as he's bouncing on both feet and he carefully takes out his two water bottles and positions them on a diagonal One two one two then when he's you know playing he twirls his hair a few times looks like he's picking his butt before every serve He's engaging in a ritual and what he's essentially doing rituals are highly structured activities, right?

And he's got control so he's controlling himself and his environment to compensate for the lack of control that he feels in his head Yeah It turns out a lot of people do this and science shows that it can be useful when we're experiencing chatter try to order our Surroundings or engage in a ritual to help us in those circumstances And I'll just say that when I was writing this book I did something along these lines Which was very typical for me because I'm not the most organized neat person It's you know, it's a constant issue in my relationship You close all over the floor at piles of books in my office But when I was struggling with a paragraph or a chapter I'd go to the kitchen and I wash all the pots and pans and I neatly put him away and that was something inside me telling me to Hey, let's try to fix what's happening in here by turning to the world around us And so that's another fun tool that people use yeah So we've interviewed a couple of really successful athletes And I want to say Tom Brady was telling us about his kind of ritual before a game for all those reasons Like let's control all the things we can up till the moment it all starts and yet We were also interviewing a Formula One driver Daniel Ricardo And he said I'm against those because what inevitably happens is a part of your ritual can't be performed And now you have a built-in excuse to not do your job the way you should you know And so it's kind of interesting I guess I would imagine you'd agree with this is like knowing your own predilections is helpful too Like are you the type of person that's gonna be super productive for are you the type person that's gonna build an excuse off that? Well, so I'm glad you brought this up I mean I'm a big proponent and the idea that there are no magic pills and no magic tools And so you know what I advocate is a toolbox approach to managing the mind where let's say there are 20 or so science-based tools They're likely more I think the challenge is to figure out what are the combinations of tools that work best for you as a unique individual facing unique stresses in your life Figuring out what those combinations or blends of tools are that's I think the really important challenge that that we all face And could you give people like if possible could you approach a definition so we know? When you're having constructive self-talk and when you're very into rumination like how do people delineate the difference between that There is no very sensitive Apple watch detectable red line that says okay, you know, I'm in the chatter zone It'd be cool if they were yeah, but you know I think subjectively when you find that your thoughts are getting in the way of you thinking and feeling and behaving optimally Like that's a good cue to suggest I may be experiencing unproductive chatter So in other words if I'm trying to read a book and I read five pages and I realize oh man I just read five pages. I don't remember anything I just read because I was thinking about this problem right?

That's not a good thing when your job is to read for a living or you know if I'm supposed to be performing well in a high-stakes situation a big talk thousands of people and I Can't get the words out of my mouth because I'm so worried about what everyone's thinking like that's a cue that your mind's taking over in an unhealthy way So I think it's often apparent when the unproductive chatter strikes You know, I'm gonna just admit to one thing which is I had these kind of hard-fast thoughts about how one should Evaluate why they're triggered by things evaluate what things are having an impact on them emotionally And then found myself in a couple unique situations over quarantine one I relapsed on opiate so I was fucked up on opiates and then I was detoxing from them and I recognized in that state Oh, man, you know, you're kind of underestimating the impact of your biochemistry and how that changes and these things that the tools that I was able to access Normally or just so elusive to me I also took an arthritis medicine at one point didn't read any of the side effects came to find depression was one of them and then in that State at finally going like oh, I'm not enjoying interacting with my children like I always have what this is curious your chemistry man It's a big part of this isn't it? I try to sometimes look at people and go oh, man They're probably you know chemically feeling how I did when it's you can almost not climb out of that There's no question that it's all it's all integrated and connected right so so the brain is influencing our biochemistry Which in turn is having implications for our emotions what we're learning is that I mean by thinking you can change how your brain responds which in turn can have an implication on that neurochemistry Research on placebo is here is I think super fascinating right like this idea that I can give you a sugar pill for depression or anxiety and for not all cases but many cases like if you believe me that this pill is gonna make you feel better it has An effect adaptive effect like this to me is another mind-blower What that means to me is that we possess the capacity to change the way we feel in quite astounding ways Yeah, but we often have to like back door into that capacity. It's not fully under our control There are like safeguards that prevent us from unleashing that capacity self doubt Maybe insecurity, but if a trusted person says Dax you are gonna do okay. You will be better take this pill Mm-hmm then that effect comes to fruition, you know that that speaks I think the work that science has to do to figure out why we don't have more control Yeah, I totally agree with you on that and we've had several different scientists that have pointed out The placebo is is real like I think we all have this notion of what placebo is all they give you a fake pill in you But they've all pointed out no no the result is real right doesn't really matter what the cause is the result is measurable in real So I mean like so let's think about like why would it make sense for us to have these limitations on our ability to feel the way We want all the time because that's what we're really talking about right like if we have the ability to rethink how we feel No more depression no more anxiety no more anger right yeah That could be problematic if you think about it because we know that people are motivated to Approach pleasure and avoid pain the reason negative emotions are useful is because they feel really bad We pay attention to that because we don't want to feel that way So there are people who are born just by way of example with a genetic condition that makes it impossible for them to experience physical pain Like impossible yeah, yeah, and you know what happens to them yeah, they get really hurt and die exactly yeah Exactly so so that's what we're talking about so it's kind of a catch 22 here right we possess the ability to feel less bad But if you're if you're in charge of creating something I don't know that you want to give that organism that that entity the ability to just Modulate how they feel without any safeguards at all that could be really dangerous here lies the great conundrum of the simulation You can't give us too much of what we want or it doesn't work You got to keep it wanting for more though.

I would imagine the mastery of this self-talk does have the potential to be damaging I guess like as soon as I saw that you had done top athletes I went immediately to the Tiger Woods documentary which we both just watched I don't know if you had a chance to see that or not having yet It's incredible. I think it would interest you so much because his Conditioning since two three years old is his father creating racket around him while he played this game and Perfecting this ability to block out stimuli and to compartmentalize and to really master the voice in the head Because as you say similar to tennis, I don't think there's a mental game you're playing yourself tigers Yeah, you know, I there has not been an example of someone who better mastered that internal voice than than Tiger and then the personal struggles He had to me fit perfectly within that mastery Which is he can compartmentalize this part of his life and he can silence this voice in his head and he can proceed You know, so well go ahead. Yeah, you got me chomping at the bit here Yeah, please that's what I was hoping to make you horny for this. Yeah, we're gonna need another episode So this speaks to to something that I think is also fundamental about human nature We often think about people in terms of traits.

So good itself talk across the board Narotic across the board conscientious. I have a different perspective and there's a different tradition Which is that who are is very contextual? I can be incredibly controlled in work contexts But a total animal not true but in other contexts with my friends or with my family It's an if then profile that characterizes who we are if I'm in one context Then I behave this way that I'm in control if I'm in another context then I behave very differently Right, the triggers are very different. So when I hear that example of Tiger I don't see that as his ability to master self-talk as getting him into trouble I view it instead as he really mastered his ability to control himself on the golf course But when it came to other things in his life, he was in much less control Yeah for a variety of reasons likely.

So it's much more contextual. We all have our triggers I would argue that the amount of self-control was so overwhelming and he needed such a reprieve from that when not doing that thing Which is what he did most of the time. It's like yeah, it could be you know, it's possible I could think of other, you know, who knows there I gotta watch the video. Oh, it's really good.

It's tremendous I think it's more my armchair theory Yeah, is it's his life was so public and I think when your life is so public and I mean his to an extreme You crave a private life because everything you know you need that and you're not getting it So I think that's more what's what it's about as opposed to and still control is controlling the amount of privacy you have or anonymity or whatever But it's not so much about his self-talk I think well, you know, this is like I feel like we're in the lab now and we're workshopping idea and coming up with some Experiments we can do because when I hear you both talking about this which I agree fascinating I hear I think he also Started mastering the self-talk with his dad early on in life before he was famous and well-known right and then Once he got to the next level a whole different world opened up to him a world that now He's got the spotlight on him as you're suggesting a world where he's probably more self-conscious a world where he has handlers and enablers And and these are a whole new set of challenges that he probably wasn't as adept at managing and certainly didn't have the same practice As he did growing up with his dad, you know going to the driving range however often he did so a very different slice of life comes into play and here's my projection because this is me which is I Have demonstrated great Self-control and will in many facets of my life and that gave me an arrogance in these other harder to manage areas of my life So, you know, he's also an addict. He was on a bazillion different pills. He clearly was struggling with that And I could relate to thinking no No, I have the skill set to do the impossible So I'll be the person that can handle this situation in the same way I handle this other situation in a way most people can't so That's my projection of what's going on, you know, yeah Well, like one of my pet peeves is when someone might say to me they'll remain nameless you have no self-control No, that's not true I'm able to control myself I can delay gratification for a very long time to do my work and I can you know, yes, it's true Maybe late at night I get a little peckish and want some snacks and don't inhibit But it's it's contextual so it's trigger if then and I think having the understanding that we can be really good at controlling ourselves in some Context but not good in others. That's an important observation Yeah, and it really does then allow us to start thinking about how we can get better in that very specific context It makes it more manageable because not now I have to shift everything about me It's okay.

How do I master this task? Yes, it is compartmentalize like it is it okay? This is an area I can focus on as opposed to this broad. I'm x y or z which I think is all the great This illusion of alcoholics, which is oh, they're people with no willpower.

Well, no, they're running fortune 500 companies That's too simple. It's in that situation. Yes, and you know this speaks to a bigger issue of human nature Which is we tend to categorize we like categorizing because categorizing makes the world simple and we like simplicity So black white good bad controlled not on the one hand we have a tendency to categorize and simplify the world On the other hand, we ourselves all know when we think about who we are that there's a lot of texture to who we are Don't reduce us to categories. So how do you make those different views align?

I think that's a challenge that we really need to figure out to improve the way Yeah, we work as a society You know, we have to we have to start with understanding how we're built and then once we understand how we're built Then it becomes possible to start thinking about how to how to navigate the world more effectively But we need to take it I'm certainly like mindfulness. I talk about this a little bit in the book too like yeah, look I told you I've been monstrous since five, right? So I know how to meditate I totally value the mindfulness and meditation But I do react to the message that we always need to be in the moment Which a lot of people talk about right like yeah human beings weren't designed to always live in the moment We evolve to be able to live in the past in the future too and that's really good That's a useful quality. So I don't think we should be telling people always be in the moment Yeah I think be in the moment if you're in the moment But also just figure out how to be in the past in the future without getting sucked into the chatter vortex that ruins people's lives And so you know, we got to work within the contours of how we're built Yes, absolutely and your book chatter is a great step in that direction So what a wonderful way to try to start understanding both the usefulness the potential Pathological nature of it and how to navigate it and how to harness it so people should definitely read chatter So dr.

Ethan cross pride of an arbor so great to talk to you I hope you appreciated my u of m colors and I hope we talk to you again soon I think we can cover a lot of different topics. Yeah, it's great fun truly a fun conversation. Thanks for having me. Okay.

Be well Take care. Bye Stay tuned for more armchair expert If you dare And now my favorite part of the show the fact check with my soulmate Monica bamen Hello, we're not together. I'm in Georgia right now. I'm in a storage closet aka your cubby your fact check cubby cubby Cubby's an adorable word right that's all that is like to tell the kindergartners like you get a cubby put your stuff in your cubby And they don't really have stuff.

No, not not too much Too little for stuff not a lot of work to bring ting ting ting ting I'm at my childhood desk Really childhood like before like not high school desk. This was a five-year-old's desk Yeah, it's so funny because I remember um, I'll take a picture of it Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah has a bookshelf attached it's tall and when I was little I was climbing it to get a book because I was so smart studious And I lost my footing and I like slid down and I got a big scar on my belly. Oh my goodness. That's there to this day No, it's gone.

Okay, so a scratch We call that a scratch then if it didn't stick around Perhaps it was a bad one though. Yeah, it was a wound anyway I'm looking at this now and I the idea that I could have gotten hurt on this like it's so Is that I was so small that I fell and slid I must have been just one two inches Oh speaking of which ningles that I posted at this most adorable piece artwork came our way. Oh my god My lord so cute. Oh my god.

What a picture of you. It was me as a tiny mouse That's who I picture climbing the bookshelf. That's what made me think of it. That's what she looked like.

Yeah A little whiskers And it was a long fall for that little mouse. Yeah, yeah, but luckily mice are light so they don't they don't land with a lot of thunder They don't scar easily but they do get scratches. Yeah, really that's an incredible thing about mice is that you can really cut them up You're really slice them and then they'll heal without any scarring. No, he'll I know oh my gosh Yeah, and I do want to update people because we did tell everyone about it So if less they'd be concerned and we can alleviate their fears off opiate since saturday So going on four days off no no issue.

So if anyone who was concerned we went through it or passed it and all is good And the body is uh, but he's not great body's not great. Got some bad news Tuesday Yeah, well tell us about that and also I'm proud of you Thank you So when they got in there in the shoulder to put in the new hardware in my stellar doctor dr Delamisharo he thought he saw some infection Yeah, thought maybe it wasn't but it was to be safe. He said so I got a port in my arm very sexy. It's a doodad It's a new doodad.

It's a new look. It's kind of good to reinvent yourself every now and then that's true That's true. Yeah, I definitely have a dingle doodad coming out of my arm And so and I have to put uh antibiotic strictly and then what they do is they send away the piece of whatever body material to a lab And they see if anything grows so for the first five days nothing grew which means no infection I was starting to get really excited and then at my checkup It would have been the 10 day marker and I had been told if nothing grows in 10 days you can get rid of the sport So I went there with the sole goal of telling him either you pull this sport out or I'm pulling it out I went with the ultimatum. Oh boy.

Oh my god. Okay, you know how I like to operate And so about two seconds into me winding up for this speech I've already rehearsed in my head he goes stops up the culture grew this weekend. You have an infection I was like, oh my god. And then I said, okay, so fuck what another week on this thing No, no minimally another six weeks with the day And we're going to why?

It's not because I can't swim with the doohickey I'm not allowed to be submerged in water with the doohickey And I was really looking forward to snorkeling with the girls and splashing around Oh, lazy river splash splash. Oh lazy. Yeah, well, well, maybe you can wait in and just like, you know, keep your arm out Yeah, it's just a pretty big risk to take with an open hole into your veins if some Kids got streptus bacteria Yeah, figure out a way to like really duck tape around it's in a water Why don't we ask your your this doctor, but your doctor? Yeah, that doctor doctor dr.

Del doctor d. Why don't we ask him what we can do? Maybe he has some sort of great contraption. Oh, I work around a proprietary contraption Oh my gosh.

I'm gonna force him to invent a medical device and he's gonna become a billionaire Yes, see this is working out. He's so lucky to be my surgeon Before we get into Ethan. Yeah, we have to take a second. We just have to we must talk to the royals Oh, yeah, I'm gonna need you to film me in so I guess you're referring to the fact that they got uh, Markle mega-markle and Prince Harry.

Yep. Uh, they got interviewed by Oprah. Yeah, there's so many takeaways one is Oprah She's still got it. She does even though like some of the things she has I was like, huh Or like some of the tone I was like, don't say that But I loved it.

Oh like what was one of the things she said where you're like, oh careful like she pokes she pokes she pokes she just She's we need a poke more, huh? I guess it's tempting when you see someone as good as her to think like that. That's what we should be doing Yeah, well Wendy of course like Wendy emailed me after like after listening to that. I think I should listen Everyone up How long was the interview two hours Wow and does Oprah still interview people are just like when something big like this happens?

She'll do and then where does she drop it? It was on cbs. Oh, I think she got like eight or nine million No shit. I think so.

Yeah, suck it. Yeah, good for her I know good for her. I will tell you in my very egocentric way that I roll through life I I knew that was happening and of course I so wanted to talk to them as did you yeah And I did fantasize about being like god. Could we ever be that those people that like when people decide to talk that were the trusted place That crossed my mind.

Yeah, what a flattering place to be yeah, what a station doc up. I that's so cool Okay, so the takeaways, okay, so the takeaways so you're gonna feel so validated. Oh, okay I like that it's pulling the back the curtain on the royal family and of in a way that's like whoa they are Walked up Wow and and of course if you watch the crown which you haven't watched the crown by now You're not my friend then you know that like you see it and you see it in this one of the great dysfunctional families of all time Yes, but when you hear this outsider coming in and talking about it and like she was suicidal and was asking for help and they Wow, just like Diana who was like dying of an e-disorder annoying that and Harry said that he said I could see history repeating itself No shit. I'll write because that's his mom his mom.

Yeah, what was the most salacious accusation? Well, the big one that people are talking about is someone in the royal family had conversations with Harry while Megan was pregnant with archie Their boy worried about the skin color of the baby. Okay. Oh boy And no one they didn't say who it was but of course there's speculation who do people think it is that pervert?

That guy's out of the picture. I mean no he's he's not really any kind of is but he's talking about the Epstein cohort Yeah, Andrew. Yeah, he's on the mix like I'm pretty sure he still gets paid And they aren't they've cut Harry and Megan off completely they haven't there. Oh, they don't get any money.

No money. No security Oh wow like really bad really wow. Wow. What the fuck are they gonna do for a living?

So he said so you know they left they went to Canada and and they were really trying to make it like as good for the family as possible It's like we're gonna still keep our duties. We're just gonna take one position down You know trying hard to make them look not crazy Yeah, and then they were just like cutting them off no protection know this and luckily Diana had saved money for the kids He said I would never have been able to do this without the money my mom left me and now they have like Yeah deals. Yeah, can you imagine anything more distracting than if you walked into Starbucks and fucking Prince Henry was behind the Harry Prince Harry was behind the counter. Oh But the protection thing is really bad because like you know our your whole stance about the kids You know it's like they don't choose it.

He was born into this he has no choice And to take away protection from that person is very scary And like there's a lot of like death threats and lots about her race and oh yeah, just like I got really really really bad It's really worth especially for you because you're just gonna feel so good about hating the royals all time I felt guilty for liking them. Well, don't do that. Well, I just felt like they know interest to be clear I don't like them in a way that's like I admire them I just find them incredibly fascinating and I'm interested in their stories Here's my question if you had a choice would you end this thing? I think up until this I probably would have said no Right because you want to show it to you?

Yeah, let it let them be but now no It's hurting people. It's a problem. Well and again my point is always like nobody's benefiting. They're not they're miserable Even the perpetrators of this stuff.

They're fucking miserable and they're taking it out on everyone else I don't know who's winning exactly and that's what harry said other than tabloids. Well, yeah, and then that's a part of it I didn't realize like they're they're in cahoots like they're feeding off of each other The tabloids and the royals need the tabloids so they're like they host dinners at the palace for these tabloids. They're bedfellows Yes, and harry said they're all trapped. Yeah, my dad's trapped.

My brother's trapped Yeah, he's giving them some grace. They're not out of it. So they can't see and we always talk about being in the water Can you imagine mean in that water? What a fucking weird warp view of the world?

You have I know but you think after what charles? Went through with like Camilla and Diana and all that like you think he'd have more compassion for what was going on and but he's trapped Yeah, well, thank um well first of all he's got to consider people like you who are enjoying the story so much They don't want to break your heart, but then secondly I imagine they see it the same way people who went to world war two thought like well, I'm gonna go kill myself because I believe in this country Like they have some ideal that feels like it can justify all other things murdering people whatever it takes And so yeah, I'm sure being a royal is a far stronger force than being an american Oh for sure for sure and you're literally like oh, I'm gonna destroy this thing that has existed for 500 years on my watch I'm gonna be the dingus who mishandles this thing. I know Oh, but it made me feel so um Horny for harry. Oh, yeah, uh, is he sexy?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I remember seeing him naked in those photos and he had a great body Oh like from a long time ago when he was in vegas with some bros and he like was mooning the camera and he has top off and he fucking looked great Yeah, I mean he's obviously always been a bit rebellious. Yeah, I felt respect I respect these two people so much because that must have been so fucking hard to do to walk away Talk about getting out of the ultimate abusive relationship. It's like exactly exactly Yeah, because because you don't even have a living you don't have and what again.

What was he gonna get a job somewhere? That can't he can't get a job anywhere. I know maybe he's a movie star or podcast host But that those are two options or prime and zoologist Monkeys won't know who he is. Well, okay, so here was the one criticism I heard and I didn't watch it So I don't know but I I was told that Megan stuff felt a little too scripted and rehearsed and not really like As much from the heart as much as maybe like prepared monologues about the situation.

Oh Did you detect that at all? No, I okay, okay, I'm sure they were very anxious about this obviously Maybe she had pre-planned in her head like we all do before we do anything But I did not feel like it was disingenuous at all. Okay, I am gonna I'm gonna explore like I'm gonna put myself in the exact same position Aren't gonna attempt to right so let us assume because patriotism it's any more than you ever Or I think it's in a lot of people more than they recognize right so I have you find myself doing this It's like I don't mind someone from another country being somewhat critical of us But there does get to a point where I get defensive and let us imagine that a English dude or a Russian dude came in and wooed one of the Obama daughters And they became this big circus and then the Obama daughter and the Russian went back to Russia And then from Russia they explained why this whole system we have is oppressive and abusive in malarkey I could see being more critical of a Russian An outsider who came in and facilitated the end of this thing That's from my country. I can see a little in-group out group thing where it might be different if you're British watching her talk about this Then it is for us for sure and also I think the British tablets exploit that like they say like Megan Stole Harry Megan did this Megs it yeah, they made her that and so mexit.

That's it. Yeah, that's a good one And no, I mean I get it I get it people who live there like but yeah, hey american stop. Thanks for stopping by and destroying the monarchy Yeah, but you know in your example that you gave the Obamas yeah like if Sasha and the Russian were on Russian TV Vladimir and Sasha And they were talking about oh, we're really quick Sasha is a Russian name And if they were talking about some like real real deep-seated Racism that they experienced in the White House. Uh-huh.

Yeah, well that reverse racism probably in this case because it's the whole boss and reverse racism doesn't exist but yes Right. Yeah No, I would know they could they she could have experienced. Oh, you're right. It's me calling out.

Yeah, because we love Obama So I'm starting from a place like I gotta pick someone I love I'm a little wonky on the details. Yeah, it's ever changing and losing an algae a bit Anyway, boy knows if they if they called out something like that we might be like hey, well That's what our foundation is and oh my gosh, but also they'd be doing the right thing They'd absolutely be doing the right thing by calling it out and trying to expose this really bad bad system But my friend who's British who that was his takeaway about me and I guess I was trying to consider why that would be his takeaway because he's a very thoughtful person And he is not pro monarchy so I was thinking why did he read it differently than you and I guess that's that's what I'm trying to come to As a justification. It's like well ultimately she is an outsider who's being very critical of the thing he was born into so I can't acknowledge that Also, maybe she wasn't like bawling. Right.

Maybe for him. He's like that's not how I would act if you know So a lot of people do that I'll think like oh, I'd be crying or I'd be doing this if I was talking about it And you know everyone just responds differently especially with talking to Oprah. Yeah, that makes me think immediately of them Adam Grant Interviewed Malcolm recently and they it's really I've not heard any of them. Have you heard these?

No, I know they like debate, right? Yeah, they fight. It's the greatest. I mean they love each other but like they don't agree on anything and Adam is so challenging to him It's really fun.

They're just they're such different personality types It's really fun But one of the things was Malcolm had had cited this psychological study that had happened in Germany where they're trying to disprove that your face is so linked To your heart which was this kind of consensus in psychology and they did this experiment where they did these people down this long dark hallway And they would put them into a room and they'd ask them to read some Kafka or something depressing and then they'd open the door and when they came out There was no hallway and someone from their childhood was sitting in the chair in front of them And they filmed their face and then they asked them what happened and they would say like oh I was I was so shocked And I was you know every single thing they would say they experienced and really none of it was on their face And so Malcolm was like in my opinion that study kind of disproves this notion We have that people's faces are so telling and then Adam countered and said well It might more prove that people are really shitty at recounting what they were thinking or feeling Oh, yeah, they might have not had the language or adjectives to say what they were really feeling like they just went to oh I was shocked anyways fascinating debate. Oh, that's interesting Yeah, and I think what they do is they anytime I want to have a book the other helps them promote it But they help him promote it by shitting on it kind of really fun So then I listen to Adam be a guest on Malcolm's show where he was promoting his book And it's so funny because had Adam never said it he said I want to say that I've observed a pattern where you write a book With a theory and then a few years later you write a book with the opposite theory He's like blink is saying that people are really good at thin slicing and they can make really good decisions And then you write the most reason why I forget the name of it that I love which is people don't know what anyone's talking about in confusion is the norm And then he says then you write outliers, which is about there's no Real advantage and it's all about thing and then you write David and Goliath and say oh Being in power is the disadvantage. He's like what's your message and Malcolm's just like yeah I don't care like you don't want me to have a seamless trajectory of my thoughts and opinions and I don't he said I take great joy in contradicting myself That's tasty. Yeah, it was really tasty.

Let's talk about you a little bit So this isn't a fact it was just something I wanted to bring up he talks about Raphael and the doll doing rituals You know we talked a lot about rituals on here And I think after hearing all these different opinions I just worry that rituals make you OCD like I don't know if they can I don't know if that can work backwards like that Well, they're the exact thing they're both an attempt to get control over something uncontrollable, right? Yeah, but one you know OCD You don't have control like you have to listen to the song, you know yours is you have to listen to a song twice if you're at once Anne Helen Jean, yeah, yeah, I don't even want to say it. I know I'd hate even saying it. Okay.

We don't have to say the whole thing shrouded in bad luck Okay, but you know that's like something you can't control whereas with these athletes. They're creating them You know they're creating the compulsions. They're like creating that I tap this five times and then I do this and it's a way to get control But it's invented but then I wonder at some point does it does it get out of control? Okay, so I have a little bit different of opinion.

I don't think they engineer them I think they are things they linked so one day they were green socks and they finished first So then they make the connection. Oh is green socks like I don't think they set out to have these I think they take notice of something they did just prior to having a great performance and then they clock it So I would say I would say the chicken or the egg is that they're OCD already Okay, but that might be true and then I think for like Danny Ricardo who doesn't believe in those with a really really defendable explanation Oh, I prefer it. Yeah. Yeah, why are you gonna let these little things inform how you do?

Because one of those goes wrong like that that's genius But I think it's easy for him to have that opinion because he's just not OCD. Yeah, that might be true Okay, all right, well, we talked it out. Okay, the name of the disorder that where you can't feel pain Uh-huh. It's just called congenital insensitivity to pain or okay.

Yeah, I know that's it. It doesn't sound Latin enough for me to take it seriously I don't love it either. Yeah congenital and insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis CIPA is a rare hereditary disease that causes affected individuals to be unable to feel pain and unable to sweat Oh anhydrosis is unable to sweat that I hear hydro in there that makes sense Okay. Oh, here's another congenital insensitivity to pain also known as congenital.

Oh man. Oh, anal. Oh anal gesia Hear the options. Oh analgezia Analgezia analgezia analgezia analgezia.

Oh my gosh. I've been a proctologist treat people with anal gesia Is that when your anus is full of gi? I think it's like progeria the disease where people age quickly I think it's you have a geezers anus too early I think I have anal gezier Is that what Benjamin Button had? No, he had reversing on gesia.

Oh my god. Yeah, his asshole look way younger than it was And look like a baby's asshole. Yeah, but when he was a baby he had regular anal gesia. He had straight up anal gesia Yeah, but then it started turning into reverse We talked a little bit about the tiger doc in this we've talked about it on here So we don't need to get super into it again.

I just take a wood stock. Yeah. Yeah, tiger woods And there's been an update of course since so you got in that car accident and I've just been thinking like I mean people are probably gonna get mad at me for like sympathizing with him But you know this doc comes out. I mean he's alive.

He's feeling that the world is Learning about him hearing stuff about him a portrayal of him that he's not part of and I just wonder if that like it must drive you Crazy already is not the most stable although is his superpower of disassociating and compartmentalizing being employed right now He's actually able to cruise through it more than any other person would normally be able to Perhaps I just because he was on his way to play golf right now. He's in public playing golf I know but I think that compartmentalization stops at a certain point unless you're truly truly diagnosably Sociopathic, uh-huh then I think that compartmentalization runs out or at least it's getting funneled into other areas and you don't know it I guess what I mean is like his ability to ignore his surroundings and the reality around him I eat tons of noise his dad doing the keys like he can yeah He can get in a tunnel clearly and ignore the world and and maybe that's what he's been doing to deal with all this Think the fact that he had like 30 girlfriends and could somehow do all that that's a lot 30 people That's a lot. That is a lot. That's a lot of folks That's that's really all for Ethan.

Oh, also Laura wanted me to share she too got a mantra when she was like five or six Birthday birthday, which is really funny. Delora grew up in Iowa in the Maharishi community She went to a Maharishi school and it's so weird to me that Laura grew up like that I think about her growing up and we're all hanging out and like you seem it may not be normal or abnormal But just like there's no trace of it exactly like I'm more aware of like oh you went to USC That seems yes in keeping yeah, but not Maharishi school. Yeah, or they meditated at school and yeah I'm getting fucked on your sixth birthday with a mantra. I'll be I'll be resentful.

That'd be in my therapy Right down right now for therapy. I was suggesting off mic that you get your find your way over to Athens and do a little booty pumping Oh, that's true. You the good old days. I was hoping you would dust off your booty bumper I was wondering if I could look through some pictures to see there are any pictures of those parties.

Oh, yeah I would love to see that. Yeah, give it a good I'll do a scour go through with a fine tooth comb. Okay, okay. Okay.

All right. I love you. I love you