(00:00) eight eight nine c o one all right all right i’m going to hit record also i can see you all can you is there do you have a video symbol at all on your screen hey there you are hey i did it make you big and you hear me yeah we both wore ut colors for you yeah we totally did that for you what did you say not a long one oh oh you’re not whatever he’s from houston i’m a bobcat i went to texas state oh [ __ ] let’s go change we totally didn’t do it on purpose well you’re from austin no we didn’t do it on

(01:03) purpose it’s just pumpkin spice month or whatever so i’m from houston i’m from houston um did you send adam a sound check already no you need to do that you follow his instructions i just wanted to make sure the video worked because when i was doing a test call i could hear myself but i couldn’t see myself which was a problem um it keeps weirding me out because i’m not seeing your headphone um things like we usually do with the guys yeah yeah yeah i’m fancy okay hold up i gotta open up this program

(01:54) and put microphone [Music] we like saying oysters clam and cockles clams right oyster oh well then we need well it just says clam on here i know because i fixed it oh all right i fixed it later you don’t have game of thrones do you only do it when game of thrones is playing no during the off season we do like we’ve done like a full re-watch of the entire series wow yeah which has been pretty intense like the rest of the fans yeah do you like hate game of thrones now that you decided to do this venture i would be like [ __ ]

(02:53) this it definitely makes me located in a different in a different light um it doesn’t ruin it for me like i think it would for some people but it it definitely changes it i mean because i’m looking at every little detail and i have to listen to every line every word different way of watching the tv do you have a crush on the show oh i mean yeah now like she’s now that i’m pressing the record button and it says error opening sound device try changing the audio host recording device and the project sample rate or either of

(03:39) y’all familiar with what the [ __ ] that means should we call adam say it again it says error opening sound device try changing the audio host recording device and the project sample rate which i don’t know what that means no i have no idea what that is um sometimes when it says something like that for me i just hit quit is this the first time you’ve used audacity no i’ve used it before but it’s been like a long time so i wonder if you just need to like exit it out um force quit it yeah yeah i don’t know

(04:19) i’m gonna ask adam real quick i have to force quit audacity every time after i know it’s just annoying so if you’ve been messing with it maybe you need to force quit it to restart like if you’ve been fiddling with it at all and then yeah yeah i just did that and it appears to be working cool and then is it recording you currently the green thingy going perfect hey adam sorry i told you because we called you because uh he was having issues with custody but i think we fixed it on our own hi i’m doing well well thank you he’s

(04:59) going to record a little 30 seconds for you and send it to you and then we’ll get started okay so false alarm hopefully yeah per usual okay just send it through and then i’ll learn i’ll shoot you and let you know it’s all good cool thank you okay guys have a good one thank you thank you he’s just like always by his computer with his headphones waiting for us to call for adam he’s like why did i take this [ __ ] job on he’s like this is the worst idea of my life i haven’t made him a dime yet i know

(05:43) my crush on game of thrones is dothraki oh yeah is a jason number one call like called rosie yeah yeah obviously yeah i think he’s a popular male choice but the red head isn’t she dating um which redhead are you talking about celsius yeah she’s married to the jonas brother not salsa salsa whatever her [ __ ] name is i always call her salsa she married one of the jonas brothers joe i think wait but that’s the one or is it the the lady of the darkness or whatever her name it would have oh no that’s nobody’s

(06:21) crush she’s a red woman yeah the red one like she’s kind of hot she’s she’s very sexual on that show i think when she turned into the old lady maybe i oh yeah that was uh a different deal though yeah you’re talking about with with the necklace off when she’s like 180s and none yeah but i will say she’s pretty high she’s hot she’s hot sensa sensa is it that her name so how do you say alka saucer she came to a bellator event uh like last month randomly oh no really yeah yeah i remember that um

(07:08) there was at the ayahuasca ceremony i did on saturday there was like a 95 year old lady and um you can hit stop this is enough oh yeah sorry did you send that to adam for the sample no i can do that right now sorry i know because we’ll just keep talking your sound check the red woman’s hot yeah you export it as a wave and then you send it we transfer it should take like less than a minute since it’s so small um that’s what she said um so there’s a 95 year old around 95 year old lady doing ayahuasca at the ceremony and

(07:54) i love doing it with elderly people because they just add so much like grace and wisdom to the space but the shaman is 42 and um during the healing she like went over and cradled the 95 year old woman and like saying lullabies to her and the woman who was that you know 95 freaking years old was like having an experience that she was an infant being healed because she had like mother issues wow isn’t that crazy yeah and then she was like i guess she lives in an elderly home i don’t know how she arrived here i don’t know how this

(08:30) happened but i guess she lives in like an elderly home and she only gets to shower at certain times and there’s another lady that only showers when her daughter’s there and she it like bled into her ceremony and she said that there was this weird like clown in her ceremony that was like news flash nobody wants to have sex with you isn’t that weird what the [ __ ] next day when we we have like integration where we all share what we experienced that was her story it was so cool that’s a weird story to go with i know

(09:05) but it was cute she was so little i wish she was at all the ceremonies 95 you did one this saturday hold on i’m still sending them this you know i feel everyone know what i’m doing sorry all good um yeah i had one this saturday i’m just waking up from it like all yesterday i couldn’t i couldn’t get much done does it mean mercedes and i rehearsed this last night and i was kind of just like i don’t know i feel better today yeah that’s mentally exhausting i’m sure and then you have not always about the

(09:46) time yeah no sometimes it’s not sometimes it’s like really rejuvenating like you feel like you had a vacation but this one was exhausting i did i didn’t even last the whole ceremony i passed out when i was trying to talk about it shaman came to do like a um a healing on me and he was like she’s really out i’m just going to let her rest because normally i stay up all night and eat watermelon with everybody after but why wouldn’t why wouldn’t you why wouldn’t you i couldn’t take it this

(10:13) time it was too much there was like a point where i remember saying i can’t take any more and i passed out [Laughter] mother what do you usually say uncle you say uncle but in this case you say oh yeah that’s funny okay so if you hit record again we’ll go ahead and start oh it’s nice to not have to do ice breakers with the guests i know because we know you know they’re a little what was the question oh the icebreaker usually is just really uh like

(11:17) usually it’s us trying to doing this yeah it’s trying to tell them how to do the sound check that’s usually okay and they’re just usually angry yeah they’re like how what why especially our older guests guests that were significantly older than me well paul selig actually was like y’all just want to do this later because i ca i’m not technologically i don’t know how to do an atm yeah and so we were like okay just hit record and hopefully everything’s fine we didn’t even do a sound check because he

(11:51) was getting he was like sweating and then tom had someone come to his house and do it for him literally nice and then yeah so he had someone come do it for him because he’s he doesn’t even like using a gps it stresses him out the first time he used a gps i remember because he used to have a flip phone forever because he swore he’d never get an apple finally ended up with an iphone and he’d used it to try to take us to the movies and we ended up in a cul-de-sac of a neighborhood and he was he got out of the car and he was

(12:20) just yelling holy hell like over and over and so whenever i sent him these instructions i remembered him and i uh doing that and i just thought like he’s going to be yelling holy hell so luckily someone did it better get into this i know ross you have 20 other things you said you’re doing today otherwise we will literally start i’m good i’m good i’m all yours all right all right let’s do it as i mentioned earlier today’s guest is a new york times best-selling author he’s the host of the ross bowlin podcast

(12:58) as well as the host of the number one game of thrones podcast in the realm oysters clams and cockles which is just fun to say this guy is he’s quite the entrepreneur honestly ross you’ve got such a long list of brands and ventures it was pretty tough for me to fit it all into this intro so without further ado let me introduce you to the show ross bowlin boys and babies happy to be here i’ve never done that i’ve never done a skype podcast before so this is exciting technology technology we’re honored

(13:38) before i jump into the next question i just want to check because my sound on ross is kind of grainy i don’t know if jade you’re getting the same thing and did adam say anything back no he said it’s fine and it sounds good to me okay cool i’ll talk for a few seconds just so you can get a better feel for it just in case i think he’s just got a a super manly voices super manly voice uh well just i’d hate to go through this whole interview and then it you know sound good [ __ ] okay sounds good

(14:07) cool and it’s and i’m trusting adam on that one adam you’ll cut two okay so ross um i’m just gonna be up front with you and honest with you on this one [Music] so you had us on your show a few weeks ago while we were in austin doing our little press tour for the magic hour and before getting to meet you i think both jade and i regrettably decided that you were this like quote-unquote quote frat guy whatever that means and kind of planted that stereotype on you which is by the way so lame of us to do because of all

(14:44) people jade and i having been you know in the modeling game for so long and having been victims ourselves of being stereotyped and put in very limiting boxes for our entire careers we should have known better than to read a book by its cover so we’re we’re sorry about that and we’re slightly worried that when we went on your show we were gonna you know want to stay very surface level but we were pleasantly surviv surprised that uh you were down to dive deep with us so thank you for that it makes me happy to hear you say that

(15:14) though because it’s um like that is definitely a stigma that i deal with and we’ll deal with forever and i mean i think there was a point where i probably fell into that box um at least a little bit and i mean i’m okay with that like it’s part of my past it is what it is but no i certainly do not fall into that box anymore and it can be easy for people to just assume that i’m just gonna be this douchebag frat guy kind of character uh when i’m not so i appreciate that thank you yeah you’re totally not and we’re we’re glad

(15:50) you’re on our show and what what we’re gonna get in today is exciting i think a lot of our listeners are going to learn a lot from it yes so ross could you give us a quick rundown of how you ended up with the number one college comedy website on the internet a new york times bestselling book and several very popular podcasts can you maybe just walk us through a brief timeline of all that yeah i’ll give you like the shortest possible version so i went to college um with the two guys who started this company called

(16:17) grand x and when they started the company their one property was totalfratmove.com known as tfm um at its at its height and it kind of started out as this website was just one line of frat guy jokes like you know did a beer going on and got a [ __ ] tfm just the dumbest possible you know base level humor um but those those little one-liners did really really well on social media to the point that cfm became a huge brand and they had the ability to hire me straight out of school as their first employee at the company that i still work for almost

(16:57) eight years now called grand x and granbeck was able to utilize total frat move uh to blow everything else up that we do including the podcast including some some e-commerce stuff that we’ve done over the years and now the most current iteration of the company that you see is is the one revolving around what you guys are focusing on now too which is which is podcasting and audio content and so i i started with my game of thrones show oysters clams and cockles that’s where i kind of delved into the audio realm and like

(17:34) it’s so funny because i’ve done hundreds of episodes of podcasts now and i’ll go back and listen to myself from the first show i ever did and i sound completely different like i just wasn’t comfortable talking like it’s such a weird experience having yourself recorded yeah for the first time or whatever so we’ve already thrown away a couple of our episodes yeah for the same reason so this is uh this is like what i do now as a profession which is bizarre for somebody who like i just never really know you know what

(18:06) what it was that i was gonna be drawn to and end up doing as a career and this is definitely it like audio content um video is great too but typically i just do audio uh i have a face for radio and uh it uh it’s been a lot of fun so far so the game of thrones show took me to a level of exposure where i was able to launch my own show the ross bowling podcast which is what i focus on now primarily since we’re in the off season for game of thrones once season 8 comes back on i’m just i guess i’m just not going to

(18:42) sleep anymore it’ll be an interesting try to make that work timing wise but yeah i mean i’m i’m loving it i’m getting to meet a lot of fun new people like you guys i wouldn’t have ever met y’all or talk to y’all uh if this wasn’t what i did for a living so i i’m i’m i’m happy i’m enjoying it it is the funnest part yeah it’s a lot of fun um so having been involved in so much of that fraternity lifestyle and even just because you live in in austin texas which is known for its nightlife and is

(19:16) widely known as a party town how has drugs and alcohol played a role in your life and where are you with that currently oh my god we need like several ways to um to go through like i’ll i’ll give you the shortest version again um it’s always played an enormous role even now i’ve been sober or dry i’ve been dry for just over a year like a year in like four days i just celebrated my mind congratulations thank you um but even not drinking alcohol still plays an enormous part in my life um because i talk about it a lot and how i

(20:00) don’t do it anymore but also because everybody i hang out with still drinks like just because i can’t do it doesn’t mean that they can’t do it you know so i mean it’s my and and different people let me say this i don’t classify myself as an alcoholic in the typical definition of the word because i don’t like to box myself in it’s not it’s nothing against a a or like alcoholics or anybody that considers themselves an alcoholic it’s just not the the label i choose to give myself because the truth is

(20:37) i’m just an addictive personality like i get it i definitely am an addict i definitely subscribe i label myself as that for sure because i think i have the ability to overdo anything that i love um and really put my mind to so alcohol just happened to be one that i did that and it was unhealthy like it had negative results and an impact on my life so through i mean it’s crazy because it shapes my career too like not just my personal life um you know partying my ass off from like 16 to i guess 21 technically even though i tried for a

(21:15) few more years i wasn’t really able to do what i used to do anyway once i started having panic attacks it had a massive impact on my ability to party but all through the years of drinking i i took lsd once in high school that i’ll and it’s like it was so long ago but it was the only hallucinogen i’ve ever done and it was such an intense experience that i’ll always both credit that and blame it for like who i am today in a way i don’t know if maybe the only reason i have panic disorder is because i have to

(21:47) because i did lsd but also i’m not unhappy that i have panic disorder because it makes me who i am and it shapes the way that i look at the world and why it’s a big part of why i stopped it’s not why i stopped i would have stopped eight years ago ten years ago if panic disorder and anxiety were the reasons um it was more because i’m just a terrible drunk like i can’t drink for [ __ ] uh i love drinking too much and i have social anxiety so once i get in my zone and i’m like working the room

(22:23) or whatever i don’t want to stop and that’s it’s never like two or three i’m one of those people that always overdoes it and at the end of the night after everything has been entertaining and everybody’s had fun and whatever i turn into somebody that i don’t like um that i don’t think anybody would like so i had to get away from that and that was the reason i quit drinking is it just didn’t i mean it’s you wouldn’t you wouldn’t continue to do anything or take in just any substance that made you into

(22:50) somebody you like it’s so hard with alcohol because but didn’t of the way that our society is structured socially yeah it makes so much more of a pain in the ass really it’s all it is it’s obtaining like our culture wants us to be alcoholics right who is actually talking about this earlier today was like if you ate honey nut cheerios every morning and every morning it made you sick you would stop eating honey nut cheerios immediately nobody would care or if there was a label on the box that says like this

(23:25) could cause this to happen you know right sure it just it just it’s a weird stigma um with alcohol and the way it plays such an important part socially for everything that we do i don’t know if that’s just america specifically that it feels worse i’m not like worldly and cultured enough to know if it’s the same level in europe or whatever but here it’s like man if you wanna if you wanna have a social life you either are gonna drink you’re gonna or you’re gonna struggle uh as a drinker or you’re gonna have to be

(24:00) sober and find a way to do it without alcohol because it’s always there did you notice um that when you took alcohol out of your life that it turned up the volume on another vice of yours or anything that you kind of transferred that energy into at first absolutely um sports betting was like the one that took over for me it released it first and that was like the most i won’t say i’m a smart guy but i’m smart enough to know that there was going to be a way i was going to fill the gap with something

(24:32) like just asked about and that was it for a little while uh and i didn’t fortunately i didn’t make enough money at the time so that like really mattered but um if that happened now it could be a problem the point being i figured out a way to balance myself to where there’s not one thing like filling the big gap of alcohol anymore it’s just kind of the way i live is different in all aspects so that i don’t feel like anything is missing period but i do i will say this i used to smoke weed a lot um in high

(25:05) school i was a big big stoner when my parents were going through their divorce when i was a kid that happened to a lot of teenagers be like [Music] just like drinking can be um and i didn’t i wasn’t like a pothead uh really you could say for a really long time i picked up smoking foods like recreationally again when i quit drinking as a way to help me kind of deal with it right like it it’s a weird transition going from everything in your life revolving around alcohol and alcohol being the social lubricant that it is for you

(25:40) to not having anything at all so i was like well i’m going to use something that i know doesn’t turn me into an [ __ ] or make me a fat piece of chick uh as my like you know to bridge the gap and then what i found over the coming weeks and months and now sitting here a year into it is uh weeds actually just like a great overall replacement it’s definitely the biggest piece of that you know filling that gap for me because uh it’s just an escape from right like it’s just an escape from the the everyday

(26:15) stressors that i deal with and it’s one that that works for me that i feel like helps level out my my anxiety um i’ve even actually worked it into my social like the way i operate socially a little bit which is hard for a lot of people to smoke most people don’t want to get high and like go to a dinner yeah for example or go to a party i can’t do that now and i’m totally used to it and it’s really fun um which is bizarre because there was a point where i was like the last thing in the world that i would

(26:44) want to do to join and be in a room full of people now that’s just the way i do it but anyway it’s just been the weirdest like whirlwind of a transition to to the point that we marijuana cannabis whatever you want to call it i just say weed helped me so much with getting out of the world of alcohol that i’ve actually become like an advocate for its legalization and use which is weird um for a guy it’s a lot better than the medication that a doctor would prescribe right well it’s just like because i

(27:21) openly struggle with addiction yet i openly smoke weed and it’s just it’s it’s a strange thing to keep you know down yeah well um i know we talked about before consequences are a gift i have a bit of social anxiety and panic as well so i never went down the road of alcoholism because i also struggle with an addictive personality and all of my family does so i never went that route because everything that you’re saying happened is what i saw coming and so um i saw those consequences as a i could definitely see it coming too um

(28:03) but that’s the kind of person that i am like i saw a lot of the issues that crook cropped up for me with drinking coming but i chose to like try anyway um like i was stubborn about it i was like [ __ ] that i’m gonna make this work i’m gonna be i’m gonna find a way to make myself be able to be like everybody else dream socially i’m gonna do this and i even quit for like six months or eight months at one point and then i came back to drinking because i again i was like i wasn’t ready to let go

(28:33) um do you think that in in some human i i’m sorry if i’m interrupting you um i don’t know exactly how to word this but i feel like i’ve noticed especially in myself who i don’t necessarily say you know i’m a quote unquote addictive personality but i think all humans are addicted to something right like we all have vices we all have things that we go to that cause us immediate pleasure or euphoria or something and we take a little hit of whatever it is you know whether it’s spending money

(29:06) on sports betting or shopping for some women or whatever the thing is is it is there something to the idea that humans like have this addictive personality out base that’s maybe born out of original like some sort of survival technique some sort of part of our lizard brain but then we continue to do it even when we are we know we’re going down a bad road because we want to find the like boundary you know we want to find our bottom bottom like we want to be all the way at our limit that’s oh i i believe certain people are

(29:45) like that certainly um because i’m one of them that’s the way that’s exactly what you that’s what i was trying to say uh you did a much better job but absolutely with every single thing i’ve ever done i’ve found i’ve found the limit uh so far and it’s it’s a terrible way it’s really [ __ ] bad uh but it’s also been a lot of fun and it’s like if you can dance around the fire enough to you know enjoy the warmth and maybe share it with some other people and not get burned

(30:15) uh it can it can be fun but you always get burnt you always get burned but your scars are reminders right i mean like you know put it into i don’t know some sort of context is we we talk about this actually a lot on the show we need contrast in order to live like life is is born from everyday contrasts whether it be you’re hitting rock bottom and because you hit rock bottom and you’re in this total darkness and you’re in this space that you know there’s no no nothing worse that could happen except for you maybe you dying

(30:52) the only option is is up from there right the only option is to climb out of that hole and decide to actually live and then that’s the part where life is allowed to exist if that makes sense like right there was this weird quote um to tie everything together when i was in a fraternity in college i was a member of uh kappa alpha order which is uh a southern fraternity if you will which is funny because i don’t fit into the box that this stereotype the stereotype that goes into this fraternity is like southern [ __ ] kicking cowboy guy

(31:27) racist uh that’s the stereotype now that’s obviously not true of most of the members if any of them i can’t speak i haven’t been in the organization for eight years i’m not going to say you’re independent but the point being uh one of the things they teach you when you’re a pledge is some quote and i think it’s from robert e lee who is obviously a pretty controversial figure in history as the general in the confederate army but the quote was something like you can’t enjoy the bitter

(31:57) or you can’t enjoy the sweet without the bitter or something like that um talking about it’s it’s it’s the contrast yes every human has those levels of ups and downs in that yin and yang somewhere it’s just to what extremes does it exist and i sometimes i feel like for me like i have the most extremes possible that i’m bouncing but then every once in a while i’ll meet somebody and i think y’all are a good example where it’ll change my perspective a little bit and i’m like well may it’s

(32:31) just it’s not that anybody’s experience is worse or better than anybody else’s everybody’s just different and it just it all depends how you look at it like i think some people’s lives are born that have never happened yeah and they’re totally cool and and i might judge them thinking they’re not exciting and they’ve never done anything wild or lived but but for them if it makes them happy like who the [ __ ] am i to say what they should be doing you know yeah i don’t know what their

(33:00) childhood was like that like let’s makes it to where that’s what they enjoy you know yeah i was gonna say that um similarly jade off that point this is something you and i have discussed that and i we’re getting way into the weeds right now so just maybe go with this area one question i know um it reminded me when you were talking about that that there’s these archetypes in psychology they have these these relationship our relationship archetypes the anchor the wave and um the island yeah where i recognize that i’m a wave which is by

(33:43) the way not a good thing yeah and and i’m with an island but you know i’m with an island the idea is to figure out like who you are essentially what the architect you’re living at currently and try to move towards being an anchor because an anchor is the person you’re talking about who seems like maybe they have a boring life a lot of times because they’re so balanced and there isn’t this like drama happening or like this they’re not doing these extreme things maybe but that’s probably because they

(34:08) don’t need it in order to be happy and i think in a person like me where i i do seek out like very extreme i’m very extreme when it comes to like work like maybe that’s where my addiction is like i literally work myself tell my body falls down dead you know and i’m just like sick as a dog because of what i what i’ve done to myself essentially and not taking care of myself but i have to my brain the way it works because of my childhood or you know all the ways that brought me to who i am today

(34:35) works that my brain works that way because it or not because my brain works that way in wanting an extreme measure to push me to do the next better thing so so i don’t know if i’m explaining this right but i have to get to a dark place yeah in order to move forward into the next light dude i’m i’m the exact same way like the exact same way uh no that’s how i am with anything though like i have to wrecking ball um i do a lot it’s like i’ve been described as a self-destructive person before

(35:18) which i used to agree with to some level but i don’t know if that’s it like if it’s it’s self-destruction it’s really fair so much as i’m just like i feel way more like a limit tester that i do like i’m trying to self-destruct because like i can assure you i don’t want to destruct myself um i enjoy myself quite a bit i just that’s just the way i am i don’t know why it’s it’s [ __ ] difficult though it makes everything a lot harder it feels like than it has to be would you

(35:49) what the heck you should pick up the book uh transforming your dragons because it talks about um that having that as a dragon it’s not something that you want it’s just something that has like a control over your life and it gives you like steps for how to slay that dragon or transform it’s very game of thrones so yeah so it’s really good my shaman shaman wrote it um but yeah i highly recommend it are you a shaman shaman a shaman sherman how many people have a shaman that have a shaman that’s right i know

(36:22) you’re doing it um how did getting sober affect your friendships and your marriage oh my god it made it totally different but so much better um it was weirder with friendships than it was with marriage because i like for my wife taylor it was just such a relief i think for alcohol to finally not be something poisoning our marriage uh the the changes were all positive so they didn’t feel drastic whereas with friends and getting used to the social side of it it was that was the battle that took so long and really like

(37:06) you know how it is peer pressure when you’re in college and when you’re in high school um and even up into your like early adult years really like in your early sure there’s always some level of it but like now i don’t even know what you could peer pressure me to do uh i’m trying to think of something i don’t even know what would work my point is yeah i used to be uh much more heavily influenced by that and it was something that was it always drug me back like people would make fun of me for like i

(37:30) was like i’m having anxiety i’m not drinking tonight and i’d get talked into it because i carried what everybody else thought and i wanted to be you know the guy that was partying you were sober that kind of stopped with your friends it finally i think clicked for them too um it’s like holy [ __ ] like he’s he’s actually cutting it out 100 out of his life and it’s and i think they could see it in my face like this was rock bottom like i was ruining [ __ ] that i was not going to be able to recover from if i

(38:03) didn’t stop and i just finally yeah i mean if if this was my rock bottom it was a really i was i’m very blessed because it was i’m pretty high uh is what it felt like so because i’ve seen other people with rock bottom and it can get really really really bad i’ve been i’ve been to enough aaa meetings and spent enough time in jail to know what that looks like and i got lucky to be in the position that i’m in where my rock bottom wasn’t so low um because i know i don’t say that i’m

(38:35) sober but i say i rarely drink because i do if i have sushi i’ll have sake but i really i if i order a drink i hardly ever finish it also but i know like if i go to a wedding it’s like people just keep asking me to take a shot and if i’m like oh no i’m not drinking it’s like it doesn’t stop especially the more they drink it’s like no let’s take a shot and go on the dance floor and i’m like well i can go on the dance floor i don’t want a shot and it’s like it’s it’s asked a couple times so i

(39:00) think unless you are actually saying you’re sober they’re going to keep asking i guess so maybe that made a big difference for you i even have people tip a year deep um and i don’t i don’t i’m not like one of these people i don’t go out of town with strangers or like meet a whole bunch of new people i typically hang out with the same group of friends that i have um you know i’m 31 i’m married i’ve got two dogs i’m chilling and i still have people in my close group of friends who on occasion will

(39:27) cross the line and and be like come on why don’t you just have a drink or whatever like it’s something it’s always after they’ve had several though and i think it’s people who might struggle on their own with it and not comfortable with it it’s the misery-loved company thing when you’re holding up a mirror to their addiction because you’re not drinking it yeah so it can still be even now it can be weird with my friends on occasion and that’s just part of the way like i i’m i’m like i said i’m a party guy i

(40:01) loved partying more than more than anything and that that’s why it was so hard to walk away from drinking is because that’s what fueled that lifestyle for me and so the people that i’m close with and i that i love very much they still like to party and they they drink a lot and on occasion it comes up and i’ve accepted that that’s just part of it i’m gonna have to deal with or whatever yeah have you found that that you know being so vocal with you not drinking anymore um on your podcast and now making the year mark for that

(40:32) has it have you seen a large response from your fans and followers oh my god uh it would blow your mind i mean i there’s i’ve been trying to find a way or think of a way that i can show the world the response that i’ve gotten yeah that gives me goosebumps the amount of replies and dms and and snapchats and tweets and facebook messages and emails and voicemails are my voicemail machine has over 3 000 messages on it and i can’t i can’t keep up with it it just keeps refilling anyway so many of those are people who are

(41:14) saying like i’ve had you know struggled with anxiety or depression or self-consciousness issues or whatever for years or i’ve always had a drinking problem and never know how to put my finger on it and like it’s exactly what you’ve described or whatever it’s it’s amazing to me how many people struggle with and with drinking or anxiety one of the two in one way or another and they kind of go hand in hand sometimes yeah they do yeah they do and it’s i mean it’s it’s really sad like in

(41:47) a way what like so many people hitting you up like i need help i need help i need help i need help i need help i need help what do i do what do i do but you just have to do as much as you can right like so i try to reply to as many people as i can and it really makes it’s not only it makes me feel good because i want to be a positive influence but i really do think i have advice that you can help people that are dealing with the stuff that i’ve dealt with so it’s i mean that’s what’s really given me my sense of

(42:14) purpose and made me feel like podcasting and everything that i’m doing now is what i’m meant to be doing because i can feel for the first time ever i’ve done a lot of [ __ ] i wrote a book uh that’s something that not many people can say they did it’s really exciting my twitter bio and [ __ ] stuff um anyway i don’t even know where the [ __ ] i was going dad but humble brag all over the place well it’s crazy to think about how many people may have gotten sober because you did that’s really cool yeah

(42:42) right i hope i hope that’s right um like i’ve done a lot of really really bad [ __ ] i hope that i’m balancing it out some uh i never really like hurt anybody except for myself so i don’t want to make it sound like i did but i i hope i’m balancing out some of the pain that i brought to my family for real life yeah karmic energies yeah yeah i just want to balance out whatever it is that i’m doing i like that i mean at any time i think that you can find ways to build community and and find common ground with people it’s a

(43:19) beautiful thing and it raises the vibration on the planet and it’s probably you know probably what we’re all here for the end of the day did that’s the question um i know it’s your show did you guys intentionally do the one of you has white headphones and one of you has blackheads on no but nice it kind of oh i know it’s cool it looks good it really did work out there’s your balance right there yeah also i’m like always in a green background and she’s in a pink but right now it’s not so bad because we

(43:52) have daylight usually we’re doing these interviews late at night yeah so when we were on your show last month um we came across some common ground between the three of us when it came to the topic of anxiety which you’ve touched on a little bit here already when did you first start experiencing signs of anxiety and and what tools did you use to work through those issues so i’ve had a lot of time now to think about um the origin of like when when the first time i think i experienced anxiety was and all that and i’ve it’s changed over

(44:24) the years because at first i thought the first ever panic attack i ever ever had was on my 21st birthday and i think that’s still accurate but i definitely had a version of a panic attack for like a lesser version of this on a flight back from mexico like two years before that and i didn’t remember that until years later i i attributed it to like some type of altitude sickness or some [ __ ] like that it was gonna it was an anxiety attack i just didn’t know what that was yet um but yeah the uh help me get back on track

(44:58) well firstly you attached it so just to go off that point you just made it because this is interesting to me how we decide to label our anxiety or panic or whatever it is and how we then attach things externally to it when it’s such an internal people just say oh it’s just work stress yeah or like i can’t fly on planes because i have panic attacks on planes and it’s like no the plane isn’t bringing on the attack though right it’s like what you’re saying the plane was where you had it so you

(45:25) thought it was altitude related you thought you know you had all these reasons and excuses to give it that are external but it was some chemical thing that was going on inside of you right yeah but the first full-blown panic attack i had was literally like so beautifully ironically on my 21st birthday um when i had been on probation for years i had been waiting so long to like i’d gotten off probation i was about to be able to drink legally go to the bars i was in college i was so pumped we had this big party i got blackout junk and i woke up

(45:57) the next day and i went to a bar with one of my best friends still one of my best friends to this day he’s actually my co-host on oysters clams and cockles for the 15th plug um we went to a bar i had one beer one beer and like halfway through the beer at noon for lunch watching this football game like having my first legal like being a man having a lunch beer uh i [ __ ] lost it i lost feeling in my hands uh my feet i was freaking out i couldn’t breathe my heart was pounded out of my chest like most intense panic attack you

(46:30) can have and i had no idea what it was i’d never experienced anything like it i thought i was dying i was like well this sucks well at least i had my 21st birthday i guess like i was ready to call an ambulance like go to the hospital the whole nine yards and the uh the bartender was like i think you’re just freaking out man like you drink some of this cranberry juice and you kept making me these half cranberry juice and water and i was chugging them because i didn’t know what else to do and so i puked up cranberry

(46:57) juice all over the side of my friend’s mercedes after that um but from there it was like the longest struggle of my life i hope i never go anything like go through another struggle of this length because it took so long to figure out what it was how to treat it and i mean years and years and years of talk therapy and i’ve been getting cutting things out of my life like alcohol to get to a point where i’m like manageable because don’t get me wrong like i have a panic disorder but it’s been a long time

(47:32) since i had a full-blown panic attack because i’ve found a way to live and avoid them when i used to have them frequently it was crippling like i couldn’t do [ __ ] i would have him because i’d be in bed for a week like it was brutal hell and it almost makes me feel like i made it up somehow like it was a nightmare that that point of that part of my life existed where my brain was in that place and just this short period of time later i’m now here and i no longer have those horrific mental panic attacks it’s just crazy

(48:10) that’s exactly how i feel after a panic attack it’s like so debilitating and then the next day when i look back at it i’m like was that me did that happen it feels like i was almost sleeping like it was a nightmare yeah and but i do notice and not with every panic attack definitely not the case but i do notice that the days that i do tend to have a cocktail at dinner the next day i have that little bit of anxiety and i wonder i i noticed though the a lot of people who drink regularly wouldn’t notice that

(48:43) because they drink the next day and so they don’t know that like it’s the um that toxic the other body that’s that may be causing that anxiety and a lot of them would just think it’s a hangover and do hair of the dog drink have another drink or they’re drinking every day to where they don’t even get to experience you know be able to notice that it’s alcohol that causes that you know next day effect but um i do notice because i drink so rarely that it is always the day after yeah it’s weird because i mean i i’d say

(49:15) i’ve probably had i don’t know let’s say i’ve had 500 panic attacks um then 475 of them were caused by drinking like that’s so interesting i was hungover i was hungover for so many of them for almost all of them like alcohol was such a big trigger and it’s like for me i took it as like god giving me something to try to help me avoid the issue in my life that i eventually did have to face which was that i cannot drink i have a drinking problem i’m i’m not an alcohol person uh like it for me it felt like that and

(49:53) you can take that for whatever i mean i know there’s people who look at it different ways like the universe or whatever the [ __ ] but that was a gift for me definitely 100 like 100 100 i would be a totally different person that i would like i can see me like in the other timeline where the panic attacks didn’t happen and that guy [ __ ] sucks and i’m so happy that i didn’t end up that way i think it’s this is such a a topic that holds all this taboo around it you know anxiety panic even depression all these disorders that i

(50:33) don’t even like calling disorders because it’s something that lives in all of us it’s just a matter of when we decide to access it during our lifetime or if we push our bodies to a point like sometimes with you know drugs or alcohol whatever it is that maybe it’s even just a poor diet or lack of exercise that gets us to this point where we basically tap into the i shouldn’t say tap in we we have an imbalance that happens and then we have to experience our consciousness not being able to contain

(51:04) itself in the nice little box that normally is able to i think when you drink alcohol or you you use a substance that’s um affecting the chemicals in your body and brain you end up with side effects and sometimes you know depending on where you’re at what’s going on all the circumstances of your life sometimes that ends up like you’re saying in panic um or anxiety but voicing these issues and the fact that you know you you experience them and how you experience them and when jade and i voice how we experience them

(51:35) every single time i like can feel how people listening will feel a little bit less alone so i know when i was going through this in the beginning just like you’re saying ross when it first started i was like oh [ __ ] what’s wrong with me no matter if you’ve heard other people talk about anxiety or panic attacks a million times once you feel the fear that comes with it there you feel completely alone in it you feel like this is no one this can’t be what they’re talking about yeah because it’s so much

(52:06) bigger in your own head right it’s so important phenomenon that phenomenon that you’re explaining is is insane i mean i have tried so many times to explain this to people and the only thing the closest thing i can compare it to and i wonder jade if you agree with this is like having done ayahuasca and stuff when i took lsd and tripped on acid for 12 hours that’s the closest thing i can compare it to a panic attack because it was the only every time in my life where i was like holy [ __ ] i didn’t know your brain could

(52:40) do this i didn’t know the human brain could experience feelings like and you also can’t just turn it off yeah and i have no control over it yeah yeah that was that’s the other part of it and the first time i had a panic attack that i had fully realized was a panic attack like one that i was like and now we’re having a panic attack it was the same feeling i was like i can’t believe all of this time 21 years i’ve been alive and there have been i assume anyway lots of people out there who have this

(53:12) exact thing happened to them and i had no idea even a possibility and this is and it’s obviously very intense yeah finding that you’re that’s really what you’re describing exactly is is the the scary part it’s not so much the like feelings and everything you’re going through in that moment the emotions it’s realizing your brain is that powerful and but the beautiful part of it so your brain is so powerful that and and especially you know a very creative mind i think we said when we were talking on

(53:47) your show that only smart only intelligent people can have panic attacks maybe that makes you feel better but yeah this like very creative part of your brain turns on and becomes disaster mind it you know spirals down this rabbit hole of terrible terrible things that you are creating i mean they’re completely coming from your own subconscious and you’re just becoming conscious of it they’ve always been there they’ve always they’re they always will be there they will continue to be there but

(54:15) you’re just unable to control them in the moment because of some chemicals that are you know messed up when it comes to lsd like i know my experience with lsd was and it probably depends a lot on how you walk into that scenario you know if you’re guided in with a calm kind situation or if you’re it’s a party a bunch of people yeah but in any case when when i was on lsd i was with you know friends and i was in a it was a very fun happy situation and i wasn’t so afraid i’d done you know mdma before that and i

(54:50) had experimented with other things that i had positive experiences with so i only thought okay well this is going to be positive and although i saw a lot of scary things when i saw them i knew okay well this is the drug and i could tweak them to positive so like i would say devils everywhere and i would turn them into my my boyfriend’s face or whatever it was you know thing things like that so but knowing that your your brain is creating this [ __ ] and it’s like completely there’s infinite possibilities of what it can

(55:18) create and then if you can figure out how you can get gain control over it that’s where you have like this mastery of mind right and you become enlightened or whatever you want to say this is the end goal of this but i just i i think it’s for anyone listening to this i just want to say that firstly you’re not alone even though it feels like what you’re feeling is no one could have ever experienced it because it’s so gnarly and at the same time there is a light at the end of the tunnel like you will get through this

(55:49) tomorrow is going to be a new day to next minute might be even better than it is right now you know you might you you and then the other thing to remember is that on the other side is some sort of mastery you will figure out how to manage this and it will push you to this more enlightened space you know it’ll push you to this to become this person that’s better than yours wisdom on the other end for sure as somebody as somebody who went through i mean the thick of it was like a six year period probably where i was like oh

(56:20) this is i’m perm my life will never be better than it is right now i’m stuck at this level because i can’t manage this anxiety and this is just the new me this is the new level i’m gonna have panic attacks all the time i can’t figure out how to manage them this is it uh for the longest time i genuinely believe like the rest of my life was gonna be that way and then slowly but surely you know when if you work at it and everybody has their pace i think some people can figure it out in a year some people it takes a decade

(56:50) some people people it takes 40 years but if you work at it and you try to get to the root of your issues and what it is that’s causing you to have this fight-or-flight reaction gone awry i believe you can fix it um and not even fix it because that makes it sound like something’s wrong just i believe you’ll respond to it differently i think i still have the same triggers that i’ve always had for anxiety and panic attacks um including alcohol including whatever the [ __ ] at one point i couldn’t drive a

(57:17) car for eight months i don’t really know what that was about but it was i had a panic attack every time yeah so and that no longer is the case i’ve been driving through a couple years again but maybe i think i have all the same triggers it’s just that i’ve figured out and learned over the years the course of a decade now how to master and kind of keep keep keep everything in check to where it’s supposed to be you know if that makes sense how did you like when you said just to take the driving example because i had that too i

(57:50) would start panicking while driving i mean panic would just pop up wherever the [ __ ] i let it basically when i was weak minded in that moment the [ __ ] would pop up and i didn’t know how to manage it i had no tools i hadn’t done any of the the you know work that i’ve done to this point at that time and so it was just popping up everywhere and sometimes it still does but now you know you have a quicker way to to you have tools in your tool bag you’re ready you’re ready right now to slay those dragons yeah um when when

(58:16) that started occurring for you like take the like i was saying the driving thing for example every time you got in the car you knew that this external thing driving was your trigger right and so you got into that mindset of panic again the the disaster martin started racing you know all the thoughts started racing your script was going negative oh my god all these things are gonna happen i’m gonna pass out i’m not going to be whatever i don’t know what your script was i know mine was just like the

(58:39) gnarliest things yeah so how did you get past it because now you drive so just for an example for listeners the driving one was different for me it was uh it wasn’t the same exact feeling as a normal panic attack with all those feelings of dread and like you’re gonna die and you don’t know what’s wrong like what you just described was for me a normal panic attack um the driving one was like i have to escape i have to get out like i’m stuck it would often happen like at a red light with like two cars in front of me

(59:13) because i couldn’t like i knew i couldn’t go wherever i wanted in that moment and i needed to be able to and i couldn’t so i would start freaking out um i’ve had all these weird instances of it though there was like a stretch where it just always finds different ways to form and and the driving one has always been it never made sense to me i’ve never been able to completely figure out why the why that started happening but the thing i always tell myself and i’ve reminded myself of a million times and

(59:41) that i always tell people who hit me up telling me they’re having a panic attack first of all there’s this video on youtube it’s called the curiosity and it’s like k-e-k-u-r-o-s-h-i-o somewhere around there if you google that it’ll pop up it’ll be the first thing up there it’s a video and it’s this giant aquarium and it has a song that plays over the video called please don’t go by barcelona and it is panic attack pure 101 like if you play it i swear to god just watch the magic trick yeah

(1:00:11) i’ve watched it a million times it is absolutely a magic trick with a j anyway reminding yourself it’s gonna end no one’s ever died from a panic attack it can’t kill you it’s just your brain it’s gonna end and you’re gonna be fine and then you just have to go minute by minute and it’s gonna suck for a little while but once you accept that there is an end maybe it’s two minutes from now like you said maybe it’s in one minute maybe it’s an hour and a half sometimes it sucks longer i don’t know

(1:00:41) the point is you’re going to come out the other side and you have to remember that and just try to stay positive inside of the panic even like i know that sounds insane because you’re panicking and it’s a negative thing but you can find a way to harness it and make it positive because and i know and i most of the people that are listening and have panic attacks are probably like [ __ ] that’s not possible i promise you it is like if you have enough of them and you think at it enough and you and you work

(1:01:11) at it hard enough you can slay that dragon but we keep using that game yeah but it’s totally true though the breakdown of it uh i don’t know maybe the science behind it right is that what actually is happening whether you’re conscious of it or not in the moment is that you have this negative mental script going on in in the back your brain that’s like i said it’s always there but it’s suddenly maybe it starts becoming more forefront in your mind and now your body is starting to respond to this whether subconscious

(1:01:47) or conscious script that’s happening and hearing oh we’re in trouble we’re you know the what do they say the crane is falling the crane is falling you know like run get out of the way it’s a fight or flight mode and you’re in this sympathetic nervous system part of your your body your brains all responding this way like it needs to run from a lion essentially but right that’s not the reality and you’re going why am i having all these responses why is all the blood wicking from my hands and feet and

(1:02:14) i’m you know i have cotton mouth and i can barely breathe because i’m hyperventilating so bad and my heart’s pounding out of my chest all these things happening because your body’s responding to this script and so like you’re saying yes it sounds it seems like well no i’m in this panic and it’s the panic has got me it’s like if you can reframe that to the actual science of it you know the science of it is that actually your subconscious your actual thoughts are what caused this in the

(1:02:42) first place whether you realized it or not and so you can turn that around and start saying to yourself essentially we’re okay we’re gonna get through this and then pulling your tools whether it’s breathing techniques whether it’s listening or watching your video you mentioned on youtube or whatever your other techniques might be right to get you out of that place and get your thoughts back in the right state of mind where they’re they’re calmer thoughts they’re not all disaster mind thoughts and

(1:03:10) eventually you referred to you referred to the toolbox like quite a few times and then you just mentioned a couple things that i think most people with anxiety who have tried to add tools like breathing techniques and such like that’s what you’re talking about when you’re talking about a toolbox the tools that you can bust out to try to use to help yourself in those situations and i would say for people who are out there maybe you watch the video i just suggested it doesn’t help you it helps a

(1:03:35) lot of people i’ll just say that but maybe it doesn’t help you um there’s been a lot of things suggested to me that didn’t help me i went through this whole [ __ ] like three hour training deal to learn this breathing therapy uh at one point several years ago to help me to help me with my anxiety stuff and it didn’t do [ __ ] uh it made it worse for some reason like for me the process of like programmatically breathing made it worse i don’t know it just i was like my brain has even more power now it’s just doing

(1:04:04) work too much oxygen yeah like yeah so just keep keep at it is what i would say like don’t give up and don’t get discouraged if somebody gives you um advice or or a tool that doesn’t work for you because maybe you just have to find your own and that’s kind of the thing with me was was that people would suggest things for me or tell me like well you just have to breathe from your your uh your chest not your stomach it’s like one of my doctors who by the way was just [ __ ] awful this woman was so bad

(1:04:36) that’s a whole nother deal don’t get me going on doctors they’re just regular [ __ ] people with bigger degrees what were we talking about well you were you were breaking down the tools that did or didn’t help you anyway yeah so you get i mean don’t get discouraged there you will find things that work if you look for them but you have to look and some of them aren’t going to work that’s the thing you can’t just sit there yeah you have to take a pill you have to um do something not just uh mask the

(1:05:16) symptoms but actually do something different that you know yeah that’s not doing anything you’re just making everything worse um no you have to be active yeah so i was sorry you heard me breathe you can hear me breathe now uh so um no i was really gonna say something because i know you’re gonna move off you know you’re gonna move us off the subject and you know i don’t know how much we’re going to put into the show just because we’ve gone on and on and on i’m sure we’ll have to cut it down a

(1:05:55) little bit but i think it’s just so beautiful that you’re sharing with people or us that you have experiences and the way you’ve experienced it and you know your story because like you said everyone’s story is different everyone what works for everyone is going to be different um but because you brought up people wanting to have like an answer now okay well if that’s not working then nothing you’re talking about is even relatable and it’s not gonna you know it’s not gonna work for me

(1:06:20) i wanted to just say for our listener’s sake that you know we all know there are anti-anxiety medications and drugs out there anti-depression drugs and whatnot out there and i don’t want to knock any of those drugs i think they have their place and sometimes they’re super necessary and will get you through but it is not something to lean on for the rest of your life just like we’re talking about with other addictions it is there’s other options there’s a reason your body’s telling you that

(1:06:46) you’re you know you need to take care of something when you’re having this panic and anxiety and even though it’s not a lion chasing you in that moment there is something else going on with your body chemically that you need to respond to and i think probably for instance yeah and i might be speaking for all three of us you correct me if i’m wrong but out of the darkest places like we’re talking about with contrast out of the darkest places where you were in this panic or anxiety in your life

(1:07:11) a lot of light has probably come because you were pushed to do it you’re motivated because of that those hard fear yeah so consequences are a gift exactly listen to what’s going on in your body and do the research you know we always promote that on this show like read up figure it out watch youtube videos listen to podcasts on it you know find find your community in this show go ahead and anxiety stuff it’s just so important that you don’t give up and that you keep the you keep the search going because that’s that’s

(1:07:47) the thing dead on uh i feel like people try one thing and it doesn’t work and they’re like nothing’s gonna work no you’re not trying you’re not actually trying just because you’ve convinced yourself you’re trying or you’re doing something doesn’t mean you [ __ ] are and to that i would say this it’s so important to have a good group of friends around you uh they can tell you when you’re being a piece of [ __ ] and you’re not trying and you need to get off your ass and go and

(1:08:13) go fix it because if you don’t have that you go who knows you can go the rest of your life being wallowing around in your own self-pity or whatever like you need good people around you who will give you a kick in the ass if you need it and as somebody who’s gotten lots of kicks in the ass that’s that’s super important you got to have that you got to you got to try to build people around i mean some people it can’t be their family with me i got lucky my family my mom and dad were uh saved my ass so many times and and not

(1:08:41) just like financially like i mean by with the lessons that they gave me some people don’t have that some people don’t have their parents that doesn’t mean you don’t it’s not an excuse you’ve got to go find a group and a group of friends and people that can hold you accountable it don’t let your circumstances dictate how happy you can or can’t be you have to you have to be the one controlling that [ __ ] yeah yeah a lot of people with what you’re saying a lot of people may consider their friends or their wife

(1:09:08) or husband to be nagging but it’s probably coming from love and you know they want to see you get better but um one of the goals of this podcast is to make people feel less alone and that’s one of the reasons why we’re talking about this is because it takes the power away from it so you know don’t be afraid to talk about it either let someone know how you’re feeling don’t don’t hide it because that’s what gives it power and and don’t um don’t feel like you have to be ashamed of it

(1:09:34) because there’s more people that experience this than you think um whenever you tell somebody like i’m i’m freaking out right now i’m having a panic attack they’re always like really holy [ __ ] you look totally fine you can’t even tell and that’s such a funny like that’s always the kickstarter i mean again i haven’t had a really bad one in a while knock on wood but that was always the kickstarter for me to be like this is so [ __ ] stupid i don’t even look different on the outside

(1:10:00) i know i feel like i’m dying this is so stupid so that would always help me to go down the positive path of like dude everything’s fine um talk about it talk about it all of the time if you have to try to try not to try to spread out the talking so that it’s not to like one person because you don’t drag them but talk about it that’s a great great piece of advice so um [Music] ross you’ve written a book you’ve gotten sober you’ve worked through your anxiety um what are you still longing for

(1:10:40) oh man my focus right now has been helping as many people as possible um through the podcast and through growing the ross ball and podcast and and getting to talk about the things that i get to talk about it’s very similar to what y’all are doing and it’s for a very similar reason like same thing i don’t want people to feel alone either uh but i being you know everything in my life is is kind of built around humor uh if you’re gonna if you’re especially alcohol removed from the situation like

(1:11:13) you could look back and say my whole life has been built around comedy and humor and my sense of humor and and laughing and being funny is the most important thing in the world to me so that’s the kind of difference between i guess my show is very silly there’s a lot of talk about really silly [ __ ] so i just i want to do some combination of entertaining people and helping at the same time if i can so i try to mix the comedy with the very serious um if i could give an example of somebody who’s been like an inspiration

(1:11:44) to me in that way it would be neil brennan who wouldn’t shock me if one of you always met him at some point but neil is the guy who wrote david chappelle show with dave chappelle he’s a white guy real goofy looking [ __ ] he looks like a weasel and uh not a handsome man one of the funniest one of the funniest dudes on the face of the years and he did this this stand-up special on netflix called three mics go watch it it’s it’s just a really interesting look at how you can impact people through comedy

(1:12:21) and mixed comedy with really really serious topics like which chappelle’s perfect job yeah and but i mean if you thought dave was good at it go watch neil it’s crazy really i’m excited insanely talented comedian in three mics it’s called three mics fun netflix i mean me and him don’t know each other i’m not like plugging myself i’m gonna watch it tonight yeah he’s just fine without me i can assure you anyway you got to watch it dude it’s so good that’s that’s what i’m going for

(1:12:52) that’s like that’s my deal i want it i want to make people laugh and i want to make them feel better cool so um maybe to the other end of that since we’re talking about comedy here on the other end of that uh the dark side of that you mentioned before that you hadn’t really experienced depression or that wasn’t a word that you’re really able to relate to but i’m sure you’ve experienced pain in some way or another so i’m wondering where those dark parts of yourself surface in your life and what do you experience

(1:13:26) pain around yeah it’s funny i mean i remember when when you guys came on uh we did the show a few weeks ago and we were talking about depression jade specifically was talking about some of her experiences and i was saying like it’s crazy because that’s the one i don’t know uh like that i can’t feel that i don’t i don’t have i can people describe their depression to me i’m always like [ __ ] i’ve never hit that uh that that note um and since then to now i actually got a new psychiatrist

(1:13:57) that uh long story short i’m like holy [ __ ] have i been depressed new label yeah so i think it’s something that i’ve started to kind of unravel even in the last couple weeks a little bit and i don’t know i’m still not sure like if i’m depressed or if i’ve suffered from depression in the past i’m not positive yet so i don’t want to put it out there or anything like that but it’s been weird like delving into it and i’m i’m actually weaning off of prozac as we speak like i’m like

(1:14:28) two months into it or something congratulations something that i i started taking as a result of the driving issue when i couldn’t drive i finally my doctor was like you have to take something like this is getting out of control um so i did and obviously i can drive now and have been able to for some time so i was finally like i’m gonna get off this [ __ ] what are they ssri or whatever they’re called yeah i don’t want that [ __ ] if i don’t need it uh so i’ve been wanting off of it it

(1:15:01) takes forever forever it’s like a six month [ __ ] you should no drugs should take six months to wean off of heroin addicts get clean faster than i’m getting clean off of this [ __ ] it’s miserable but is it how has it okay so serotonin reuptake inhibitors for anybody listening is what you would normally be prescribed if you were dealing with panic anxiety long term especially or really out of control panic attacks that you can’t seem to get you know control of easily and that’s something your psychiatrist would

(1:15:35) decide you know for you so we’re not medical professionals here just to state that no no no but when you when you’re taking that especially when you’re taking that long term it’s changing your body’s ability to create those chemicals right it’s helping you create them essentially and it’s making you not create some chemicals so when you’re getting off it like you’re saying it takes a weaning process because you got to ask your body to start doing that again otherwise your body’s been relying on this thing right

(1:16:02) this whole time so how is that detox or that and not to not like we said let’s not knock this drug because it does it gets people through the toughest times to get to the other side so how’s your come off been honestly it i’m so glad you put it that way because it really did help me um i i really do think it helped me get through that period whatever that was i had going on with the card thing i don’t think i got through that i don’t think i would have gotten through that without the project

(1:16:32) uh or whatever the generic version fluoxetine is what i’m what i’m taking but uh weaning off of it has been i’m by the way also i’m doing it under the guidance of a medical professional a psychiatrist it’s not like i was just like [ __ ] this it takes forever like i said and i’ve definitely noticed the reason i brought it up was i mean you asked about you know pain and depression and yeah i’ll have days now where i’m a little darker than i was maybe the day before and i’ll notice which isn’t something

(1:17:03) i’ve noticed for a long time because i’ve been on these for for a couple years now so uh it’ll be interesting having to react to that as i get back to like my normal brain that it does have some darkness in it like in the [ __ ] the thing is i want that back totally i it’s the real me so i i want that version of me and i know again it’s different for everybody no i’m not knocking anything i’m just saying like for me i’ve gotten to a point where after years and a [ __ ] ton of thought and and conversation about it

(1:17:37) i’ve decided to to get off to this dream for me doesn’t mean you should or anybody else right i hate how you have to [ __ ] reiterate that so hard here where people freak out on you but anyway it’s been it’s been interesting so like i i don’t know where so much of the pain for me that built up my anxiety was from my parents and from their poorest and from my childhood or whatever like i had a great childhood aside from my parents divorce but i somehow let that [ __ ] me up bad like there and it was a

(1:18:11) pretty painless divorce compared to most of them but it got me good and outside of that i don’t know where a lot of my [ __ ] comes from uh where a lot of it because there’s definitely like a level of darkness in me that i don’t see in any of my friends um and i love dark [ __ ] like even you know from from an entertainment perspective like movies and music and such uh i don’t know where it comes from i don’t really know maybe that’s something i’ll figure out in the in the next year but one thing at

(1:18:41) a time yeah i think it’s so cool you’re sharing your journey with us um i have a few friends that drink for a long time and then i don’t i can’t tell who i am i know it’s all good um i have a few friends that drink for a long time and they recently got sober as well and they started to question have i been depressed this whole time because it was like it was numbing that in them and after after being an entire year or more sober is when they started to ask that question so that may be [ __ ]

(1:19:19) yeah it’s weird it sucks but it’s like there’s um i also kind of anticipated that not the specific not specifically the depression part of it but i knew when i cut alcohol out that there was going to be in some ways it was going to crop up new challenges because that’s always the way it is because you’re gonna feel more something i feel like some people they quit something that’s a bad influence like they quit smoking or they quit drinking or they quit gambling or they quit sex or they put whatever the [ __ ] it is that

(1:19:48) they think is a negative influence on their life and then they’re like they expect to wake up the next day and just be this glowing happy person that is the best version of themselves or whatever that’s not the way it works life goes on the challenges continue other [ __ ] come that you have to face you don’t just figure it off and then that addiction comes knocking because that’s how you are used to handling it yeah yeah that’s a never-ending battle that never stops and i think that’s just

(1:20:16) it’s funny like the the alcoholic journey like if you go to an a.a meeting and they explain or you read uh whatever that the book they go off of it’s called oh my god it’s terrible that i can’t remember but the aaa book uh it is so very clear and every alcoholic goes down the exact same path in like one way or another it’s that way with all things in life though that translates outside of aaa i i think we all have our different struggles and things we have to overcome and you know as you overcome things new

(1:20:49) things present themselves that you have to then face up to it’s not never fixed and for a guy like me i have to remind myself of that constantly because you can start to feel like you’re you’re just you can’t get you can’t win that you’re always like it doesn’t happen that way this is the this is the way it’s supposed to be this is the state of living it’s it’s figuring things out and solving problems and going day-to-day get through that hump so don’t let it get you down

(1:21:17) that’s life now you’re at the good part like yeah i let it stress me out and freak me out i’m like this is all good [ __ ] and i it’s been tough to make the transition from things are really bad to things are really good and i’m refusing to let myself acknowledge it yeah now where i’m at kind of i think too if we can just focus on the fact that there is beauty in darkness and i think we have proof of that like you’re saying you’re attracted to dark things and entertainment you know like in shows and

(1:21:49) uh why vampire books and shows are so popular our human brains we recognize ourselves in those dark things you know in those dark but beautiful displays of what that darkness can look like sometimes and it’s important to let that really sink in i think that darkness has a beautiful side to it so it seems to be the con the the constant theme of this this episode for some reason but yeah or at least that’s what i’m pulling from it today i don’t know why is that we need the darkness in order to see the

(1:22:29) light we need to have those to explore those dark places in order to find our best brightest selves i brought the darkness that’s what i brought up darkness so we have a question from our magic mob uh at ibreal i guess that’s how we’re gonna say it today on instagram says uh will you please ask ross since he’s been booze free for just over a year what kind of tactics did he use to avoid drinking in the beginning when temptation was at its highest and then he says gang gang gang gang gang all right

(1:23:13) that’s what that’s what we say on my show for some reason uh the the hardest thing to do will be going to a bar or a party and not drinking because you it’s the physical not having a drink right so uh get really good at figure out what soda you like the best and then and then just order that in a cocktail glass or like what i like to do now is if restaurants have big fancy cocktail glasses for certain drinks like at wuchow in austin i’m sure you all have been to woochows they make drinks in these incredible

(1:23:45) tiki glasses so now when i go to when i go to woochow i make them bring me like a sprite in one of those and uh honestly it’s not that’s just for fun at this point but it’s a strat my point is it can also help with what you’re asking about so like i mean there have been so many different points throughout my life where i tried to differentiate like at parties i would open a beer pour half of it out like and then just carry that one beer around not drinking it at all for a long time like if i was

(1:24:13) having bald or whatever just to make people what if because if you don’t if you don’t have something everybody’s like hey what’s up man yeah what’s going on so it just helps if you do exactly what if a guy though comes over and got everybody around his shots though like how would you handle that situation uh [ __ ] walk off i don’t know that’s it’s really hard because that’s something i see a lot with my friends trying not to drink is like well then they end up drinking because someone got

(1:24:40) him a shot and then it’s downhill from there yeah you got to be upfront with your people um that’s the hardest part is really getting your best friends your closest people those around you to understand like hey look i’m done no drinking or even if it’s for a night like there’s nights where people are like i want to go out and see my friends the [ __ ] i don’t want to drink anymore i feel like [ __ ] and they still end up drinking like you just said it’s like you don’t have to

(1:25:04) let yourself do that there’s other choices the other choice being just to not drink it’s very simple but yeah it’s the shots thing it didn’t happen to me that much i feel like you get a good radar for that and you can feel when somebody’s about to be like two jager bombs or whatever and uh just get the hell out of that go to the bathroom whatever i’m curious if your withdrawals were a temptation like a lot of people when they stopped drinking they’re like oh well now i’m not sleeping well and now

(1:25:32) i’m not pooping well and they’ve got all these reasons why they need alcohol in their lives and so after a couple days of like their stomach pain or their headaches or whatever withdrawal they have they’re like a sip of whiskey would fix this you know so did that play a part in temptation for you no thankfully um this is one of the reasons i don’t give myself the full credit of alcoholism i never drink every day uh i never drank like that at all like compulsively or addictively like i never felt like i

(1:26:05) needed a drink or i never had any of that it was it was a very different type of alcohol abuse and it was every time i drank i binge drink and would just go until the lights went out so i don’t know i never had the physical withdrawals part i mean i felt better instantly like the next morning and uh and then from there it just it’ll blow your mind if you’ve been drinking for like 15 years like i had um to stop drinking for like a week and then remember what it feels like to not feel like [ __ ] it’s crazy like it

(1:26:38) melted my brain when i got a weekend and a month in six months just like because when you realize you’ve been living in this cloud the whole time and you didn’t even know it and it’s really depressing at first because you’re like god damn like nobody said anything i’ve been a total [ __ ] have your connections have your connections with your you know since you were social drinking it sounds like a social binge drinking even maybe is the label right have your connections with your friends that you would normally have social

(1:27:11) drink with or even just friends outside of that circle that you interact with now have they have those relationships deepened because of you’re so brave it’s weird i i feel like with some they haven’t with some they’ve become a little more distant um because it’s tougher for some people to understand and with other people they see it as a step forward for you and they want to be closer to you as a result i guess i guess i know i know you kind of answered that for us um before when jade asked something similar um i

(1:27:43) guess so i’m trying to let me re-angle that question so from your perspective like the way that you’re able to see them maybe more clearly or see you know have a clear interaction where you can remember even the next day um has that helped you in those bonding processes where because i know like when you when i go have a drink with someone you’re growing down and it opens that social uh anxiety thing up like we’re talking about it is it’s a bonding experience that’s why people tend to do

(1:28:09) it with their friends and family yeah but then there’s like only a level you can get to and then you black out so so there’s this other thing that you can access right that you’re probably finding now and that’s what i’m trying to dig in with you on is this other thing you can access when you’re you have a really clear and sober mind with people right sometimes i’ll say the way the way it has been for me so far um if i’m dead sober like if i’m not smoking drinking nothing is in my system

(1:28:46) i get really annoyed after a couple hours like i can’t do it i [ __ ] can’t do it i’m sorry like drunk people are the worst they’re the worst i sucked when i was drunk too i’m sorry i was probably the worst one of all y’all and now you suck uh people i feel like think i’m a [ __ ] at a bar because i’m the only sober one and i’m super annoyed by all the drunks you’re just like they get too close they’re up in your face they’re talking too loud and i’m also like what are you doing with your

(1:29:15) lives yeah yeah and they’re just actively ruining themselves no it’s awful but uh i if stories don’t make sense your stories don’t make sense you’re repeating yourself over and over what the [ __ ] you just said that they think that you’re having a great time because they’re like having this bonding moment with you and you’re like your story doesn’t make sense at all i couldn’t be more miserable yeah so it’s i don’t know i stopped doing that pretty quickly i was that’s when i was like i

(1:29:44) got to be able to lean on weed because this [ __ ] is not going to work i can’t handle these [ __ ] but but it has been easy since and i’ve gotten better at it every time i’ve done it and it takes a shitload of practice like whether you’re gonna go actually sober or get high on weed specifically those are the two things i can tell you i can’t speak to anything else um it takes getting used to either way either way just an equal amount of getting used to it’s a it’s an uphill battle and you have to be willing to

(1:30:15) continuously put yourself in social situations as practice because that’s how you get better at things right you practice so if you practice you’ll get better if you want to get better if you don’t and you don’t get to complain i’m glad you bring up um weed as you know you use the word escape in conjunction with you know in the same sentence as weed because i think sometimes people have this idea that that because it’s a plant substance or you know it’s natural or whatever they want to call it um that it’s

(1:30:47) just should be part of an it’s okay to be part of your everyday life and not that it’s not if that’s what you decide you know the thing is i think it’s important we take responsibility for the words we attach to to vices and the words that we put in our own heads when it comes to like what we use to get through a day if that’s what we’re using to get through a day or get through um social anxiety yeah it depends on what you’re using it for can i ask you why you think it’s important to acknowledge that i’m just

(1:31:16) curious because i agree with you i think it’s important because otherwise we go down uh a rat we can easily go down a rabbit hole to other darker deeper you know issues yeah uh or or vices darker deeper advices that are really not helpful to our lives or damaging to ourselves yeah you have to be honest with yourself about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it it’s the only way to make the why is important good decisions make good decisions yes so i mean that’s uh that’s something that i didn’t realize

(1:31:48) until like last year um which is [ __ ] which is crazy because i’m i’m a 30 year old man but it’s for real like that’s something i didn’t realize until like last year man that you really have to think about this type of [ __ ] yeah well two when we talk about alcoholism we’ve all heard you know we’ve all experienced people who are drunk we understand how it can become really damaging to the person doing it and the people around them when it goes too far but when it comes to something like weed

(1:32:17) which just seems like a much more mild drug even the way that especially i don’t know i’m in california you know so we’re kind of near the forefront of the whole weed movement so people and especially in our culture today consider it so mild and such a non-consequential right getting at i think it falls into the exact same category as alcohol for me it really does uh it’s that’s going to be a problem it’s going to be it’s going to take some time for us as americans to kind of figure out

(1:32:52) that like it’s still something to take seriously like you can’t just smoke weed all day every day and be fine maybe some people can most the overwhelming majority of people would not be very productive uh that would not work so no to me wheat is no different than alcohol it’s it’s a it’s a different it’s the substance that people use to de-stress to um escape to get [ __ ] up that’s part of the reason that i smoke like thrill it’s not something i’m ashamed to admit i i i get stressed the [ __ ] out during the day

(1:33:25) i’m i’m working my ass off sometimes shit’s not going well sometimes i need something to help me feel better and it does and the thing is uh it’s the one for me that doesn’t have any damaging side effects right um that’s why i think it’s a good one to choose yeah but they’re it can be understandable some people yeah i’ll give you an example some people start smoking a lot and they get the munchies a lot and they eat a lot and they put on a [ __ ] away i fortunately uh not munchies guy i don’t know why i

(1:34:00) always i thought i would be munchies guy honestly i was like excited about that part of becoming a dude again but i’m not munchies guy at all i i’m like too distracted to go [ __ ] eat i’m thinking about [ __ ] i don’t know it’s weird i think it helps with creativity uh depending on the strand and uh for me it helps with my sleep issues so if i’m gonna choose between a sleeping pill or ambien or even melatonin like i think that that’s the healthy option so it is it does depend on the why

(1:34:33) i wish the people who were extremely judgmental about the whole weed thing um would do some research on that in particular because like look i don’t i don’t know everything man i’m not i’m not a doctor i don’t spend my time i’m not a scientist i’m not experimenting figuring out all the ways this is beneficial or hurtful to anybody but i can tell you this with sleep and anxiety there are absolutely strains and that’s the other thing that these people need to understand there’s a whole bunch of

(1:34:59) different kinds of weeds like they don’t just all do the same thing and get you the same kind of high and you’re just a lazy stoner who eats [ __ ] potato chips and watch a cartoon if you take the correct dosage it can be so helpful with things like depression anxiety and sleeping it’s like of course if you smoke 15 blunts you’re gonna be mentally incapacitated same thing as if you drink the entire liter of vodka but that doesn’t mean one drink won’t help you relax like and a lot of people if they’re like oh

(1:35:31) i’m having sleep issues and they’re like oh you should try calm mag well you don’t get judged about that so why get judged about a weed strand that is specifically made to help you sleep so yeah i see i see where you’re going with that um the weed stigma is going to take like 10 more years i think it’s just hopefully a lot less i think it’s just important to focus and this is why i brought it up in the first place to focus on the addictive nature of whatever it is in your life that you i mean it could be

(1:35:59) [ __ ] exercise you know you could replace the word weed with exercise people exercise themselves to the bone literally they damage their bodies too much of anything yeah can be self-destructive that’s the point is figure out what your [ __ ] is that you’re going too hard on and relax on it like find some balance my dad told me for like legit i remember from my childhood up until you know when he basically had to stop parenting me it’s somewhere in my 20s uh he told me probably a thousand times moderation is key and i would always

(1:36:35) [ __ ] stop using the word motivation like i never took it serious i never understood what he said or what he meant and and then one day i was like oh my god he was right the whole time and i can’t tell you how many times that’s happened with my parents where like 10 years later i realized they were dead right on something yeah it’s just balance it’s all balance right so bringing up your dad’s little mantra of moderation there all in moderation do you have any mantras in your life right now

(1:37:07) no i i probably need one you don’t i just was wondering if because your dad was a mantra guy my parents are well my mom specifically is like a mantra person i have literally mantras all over my house some from her and some just because i’ve i guess inherited that annoying thing the concept of a mantra just being that it’s something you you say over and over that you can live by yeah and it doesn’t even have to be lived by like it can be in the moment is something you focus on to get through yeah yeah i don’t know i don’t i need to

(1:37:38) find one though well you know right now oh i’m sure now that i said that you’ll be you’ll be fine i’m all over the place yeah yeah so we also have a pick your poison question for you from jake grissom on instagram would you rather have a rewind button in your life or a pause button it really depends what you’re allowed to do while everything i guess you make the rules that’s all that i mean i’m not a big believer in regret or or in in over analyzing you know the mistakes you’ve made

(1:38:19) there’s there’s things to learn from from your mistakes obviously you should you should always be learning but being stuck in the past isn’t a good thing to me so i would go with the pause button even if it was just so that i could pause to enjoy a moment for a little bit longer or whatever uh i’m not trying to rewind and go back to do [ __ ] already did that’s that’s that’s the path so i’m a pause guy i like it okay i would choose rewind you would what would you what what’s your breakfast there’s a lot of

(1:38:50) things that i’d like to do over and um not just experience again because they were beautiful but um just do over um [Music] damn it i told him not to come home till 6. that’s 5 30. um that was another reason i was like we’re taking a really long time i’m sorry i can’t stop talking i ramble let me go let them know that we’re still recording real quick okay sorry the joy of toddlers yeah um three and two i think yeah little guys oh god i can’t even i have two cats that’s already tough enough man

(1:39:39) all right guys i gotta wrap it up because the kids have to eat dinner and go to bed and all that i’m sorry but we can we can still ask the rest of the questions because we always end with three staple questions okay you want to answer you want to finish your answer of why you pick rewind or just say that oh i was done okay i finished it um i think i would pick i’d probably go with ross on this one i’m gonna say pause because as much really shitty stuff that’s happened in the past that i would love to rewind and rework

(1:40:11) i have learned so damn much from it i feel like if i tried to do that again i wouldn’t become like i’m pretty happy with the trajectory of my life i’m pretty happy with like who i am and who i feel like i’m becoming and all those things and and i would be afraid to [ __ ] that up first i don’t know i guess the pause button on on that one for me you haven’t seen the adam sandler that’s the most depressing [ __ ] movie yeah like you go into it like thinking it’s gonna be funny and then you leave the theater like

(1:40:47) legit depressed i don’t like it at the time that it came out but it is it is a dark but the fast forward thing too it’s like well i guess the fast forward thing would be nice in the dentist office or like in a painful situation but then you’re not learning from any of the the serious pain that you did yeah the rewind though jade um you need the experiences yeah you need the experiences the rewind i feel like would be good like i i always i’m trying to be a vampire at the end of this deal here i’m trying to like i’m trying to

(1:41:18) encompass being a vampire like never dying being immortal somehow or another i’m gonna figure it out but uh rewind you feel like you rewind like right at the end every time like up nope life’s not over yet so there are a few questions i’d like to ask all of our guests ross that come on the show um i’ll kick it off with this one what would you tell your 25 year old self if you could oh so that’s six uh six years ago for me i would probably say man buckle up because it’s gonna be [ __ ] it’s gonna be a long ride

(1:41:59) i i’m serious i don’t i wouldn’t change a thing i don’t i don’t i don’t believe in uh you know i i i think everything happens to me i believe in fate and i believe in all that and and i think that i am where i am because of what i did in the experiences i had so i would just i would give myself as much warning as i could i guess to be prepared to face anything that may come because um life just never really goes the way you expect it to and that’s something that i know you know you old people tell you

(1:42:30) that your whole life your adults tell you that you make plans and life laughs or whatever um but when you really start to figure that out is a painful little growing process and i’m kind of in the middle of that right now where it’s like i’ve got control of my personal life in a way that i’ve never had before and that i’m happier than i’ve ever been before but that does not mean i have control over anything else that goes on out there at all and [ __ ] is still gonna get weird at times and you gotta be

(1:42:59) ready for it that’s what i would tell my 25 year old so i like it and he would be like what the [ __ ] are you talking about right so the next question is if you could have the whole world read one book which would it be oh [ __ ] one are you are you a big reader oh not nearly enough to be given this kind of responsibility i feel like you i feel like you should have to read like 30 books minimum per year to be allowed to answer that question like one book i’m trying to think of you know what this is really lame

(1:43:35) but i love this book and i’m going to say the great gatsby i think the message behind that book is so cool and i know it’s been made a movie three times four times now and i know there’s like the basic ass version of it you can say i think if you read that book and you read into it really deep uh there’s really interesting messages about a lot of the stuff that we’ve talked about even regarding like partying booze excess luxury love loss it has a lot of that and that’s why they make you read it when you’re like nine

(1:44:07) or whatever so i know i probably sound like an idiot right now but that’s the one i would choose i don’t have that many no not at all i think that’s a great story no there’s not a bad answer to that question there’s a reason that it’s been made into a movie that many times right so okay let’s see i think this is the last of our deep deep questions here if you could whisper one phrase to everyone on the planet what would it be [Laughter] uh it would be uh if i could if i could list the one phrase to every single

(1:44:42) human being on the planet it would be listen to the roster like podcasts at least double my listenership right that’s the entrepreneurial strategy right there that’s marketing all the way that’s really funny that’s a good answer i would do marketing that’s exactly right so many people would be very confused if they heard that god god told me to do it i don’t know i’m um all right damn we’re pretty much wrapped up here just let the people know where they can find you on social media

(1:45:26) interwebs you can follow me on twitter instagram and snapchat at wr bowling on all three of those w-r-b-o-l-e-n uh my full name’s william ross bowl and so that’s what i use as my handle especially i used as my author name on the photographer’s book could be star bowling because i thought it sounded more official and cool and i’m [ __ ] glad i did now because i go by ross bowling and my show is the wrong bowling podcast and it’s just nice to not have the direct attachment like it’s this yeah it’s but it’s nice to not have

(1:45:59) it so at w.r bowling um written in the ross bowling podcast it comes out at least two three times a week our schedule is hell i don’t know what the release days are just go start listening and uh yeah oysters clams and cockles i mentioned a hundred times nothing else to talk about today and uh i appreciate you guys so much having me on it means a lot you’re a great conversationalist i thoroughly enjoyed talking to you both on my show which everybody should go listen to the episode that you’re on uh but here as well y’all are real

(1:46:28) special and i have a lot of respect for what you’re doing damn thanks ross this was this is really cool and uh you know i’m sure we’ll we’ll be talking again soon and have each other on our shows hopefully again in the the future but i just want to say that uh i’m really appreciative of the fact that you have exposed your journey not just like you know getting deep with us today on the show and and your your dealings with anxiety and whatnot that that you’ve gone through um and that you’ve you’ve been really vulnerable and

(1:47:01) open with on your own show but even like all the stuff prior like when you talk about the total frat move book and and the website and all the things that have brought you to who you are today i think it’s so cool that you get to look back on that and we get to look back on that too and see like this is who this guy you know what he’s put out there for the world to see all the way up to this point and he’s basically exposed himself all the way through like that’s pretty much being the hundred percent the real

(1:47:30) deal so i appreciate it yeah that’s i mean that’s always been uh it’s something that i noticed real early on like when i somewhere in my like when i was going through puberty like in my teens when i was 17 18 19 like in that range end of high school beginning of college i realized that the people that i respected the most were um and it just made me want to be that way like as genuine as possible that’s the goal and uh i mean it doesn’t always work like there are times when i i can’t be vulnerable

(1:48:07) and i [ __ ] out just like everybody else and i put up on you know my defense and my mask or whatever and the times when i can’t say [ __ ] i run away from it just like everybody else but for the most part i’m just a big believer in the same thing that y’all are if you can put your message out there the more you talk about it the more you can help the better this whole [ __ ] [ __ ] of the planet will be as a result so uh i’m just trying to do my part but i appreciate it that was very sweet thank

(1:48:33) you that’s what people need so it is making a difference thank you for making your life speak y’all too well ross all right so you know what to do on your end as far as the yeah i got a thorough instruction okay cool uh it’s pretty straightforward though uh you should just be able to put hit stop there and then uh make sure you hit the stop button not the replay button or whatever it is and go over to file export wave again like what you did before and go to we transfer and send that over to adam yeah um do you have any questions on

(1:49:17) like the title of this thing yeah just put you can just put your name ross yeah you just say ross okay cool and i wanted to get from you real quick so we can put it in our caption what was the name of the youtube video you like for anxiety panic yeah oh [ __ ] let me let me google it to make sure that i’m not misspelling it i’m pretty sure i spelled it right though okay it uh is k-u-r-o-s-h-i-o okay and i can just i can just text jade yeah if you text it to me we’ll post it when we post your episode yeah okay i’ll just see how

(1:49:58) thank you excellent thanks for fitting us in today yeah thank you for taking so much time i’m sorry about that uh the partial freak out i just had like all this [ __ ] thrown into my day and i was seeing if y’all could move it if we needed to or whatever so i appreciate you doing it anyway and i know you all need to go and jaden you need to get kids so no sorry i knew i knew that you had a time crunch because of your day so i didn’t i i didn’t i should have talked longer i’m i’m great i promise

(1:50:25) okay oh this is awesome thank you so much yeah all right this thing finished like downloading or whatever oh that’s quick to oh no no you mean on the wave yeah that’s fine and then when you bring it into we transfer just make sure you don’t lock down your computer until it’s all the way until it says yeah okay cool okay all right has that been a problem before let me know when you all go there next i would love to absolutely um scott has hung out with you i told you hung out with you easy tiger for he

(1:51:06) said i’ll talk for like an hour so i’m sure we’d have a good time if we went to woochow yeah it’s it’s entirely possible yeah dude no i’d love to seriously let me know when you’re going next and i’m down to go cool come with me yes yes it’ll be fun all right thank you okay it’s really fun thanks raspberry bye okay oh sorry he had told me that he only had an hour so we can cut that out and it wasn’t i don’t hear them um what do you want to do right now if you told me he only had an hour i

(1:51:38) thought that um i told him that we’d be well either way they i needed to be done by six because i need them to get fed and put to bed yeah um but since i thought that since he said he only had an hour i thought that by six we would be completely done yep do you want to continue on from here you want to go to well they’re home so i need to um i’m probably going to have to put i didn’t know that was gonna take so long because you wanna do the rest tonight yeah um uh let me think our intro’s not very long but i don’t

(1:52:20) know how long our magic tricks are going to take because um yours looks really long it’s like a couple pages yeah so um yeah so maybe i’m gonna have to do it tonight um because we had he was on for almost two hours yeah it was a long time um all right so i was so worried it was going to be boring that i just kept back asking questions and getting into the weed but we reiterated i know it was a lot because i thought a lot of it wasn’t strong so i kind of kept trying to like hone it and maybe we can edit it down to something good but

(1:52:58) that’s why i skipped that one question because i was like crap he said he only had an hour and we’ve already spent it’s like 50 minutes so that’s why i skipped that one because i was like this could be really long um back in yeah no it’s okay i didn’t i didn’t have a way to communicate that to you but um i’m gonna send this to adam get the babies fed lay them down and then i’ll shoot you a text okay so we’re gonna try and do this again later um because maybe i can just record my magic

(1:53:32) trick on my own well you don’t want my interjections and stuff so that it sounds like i’m here yeah i’m just gonna send this to adam um and do all that and then i’ll record i i didn’t realize that because i was like i noticed that there was a lot of pages at the end but i didn’t realize it was like so much of your magic trick um so but i think all together that like the intro and our magic tricks try to keep it like probably less than 30 minutes right 15 before 15 after uh or 10 before 20 after probably so um

(1:54:18) it won’t take us long to do it i don’t think it can take us long at all but um okay i’m just trying to figure out how i’m gonna have makeup on again because i gotta go work out all right so oh we’re sending this out we’ve already stopped this link yeah um ross episode mercedes okay then i’ll be ready in exactly two hours um what time is it now you want to do that at six o’clock yeah i’ll be ready in exactly two hours because that’s i’ll have them in bed okay um sorry