Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey there. Today's episode is the first of a two-parter. This is an interview that I did with author Tucker Max. Um, some of you may know that name. Tucker was a phenomenally successful author and someone who has built his career on telling stories, talking about experiences, talking about parts of life that are often not part of public conversation. So, um, if you read his earlier works, um, he wrote a lot about his experience as a, as a young man, kind of navigating the territory of women and parties and alcohol and, you know, all the things. Since those early years, though Tucker has gone on to become someone who has pursued mental health maturity, emotional wellbeing, and has become very successful as a business owner and is current company, scribe helps other people tell their stories by helping them write, publish, and market their books. So, I have a lot of respect for Tucker and the kinds of ways in which he's reinvented himself.
Speaker 0 00:01:07 Another thing that I really respect about Tucker is his willingness to talk about his own experiences, especially his experiences pursuing mental health and mental health care. So, one of the themes, one of the things we talk a lot about in this set of interviews is his experience with M D M A assisted psychotherapy. This is a form of psychotherapy that's been around for a while and is currently in the third, sort of, at the third level of clinical trial in pursuit of FDA approval. Currently. It is not a form of therapy that is legal in the United States especially, or at least outside of one of the formal clinical trial sites, but it's something that's been on my radar for a long time, as what looks to be a very effective way to treat chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. So, if this is something that is of curiosity for you, I encourage you to, um, do your research and find out where there might be a clinical trial site near you.
Speaker 0 00:02:08 I'm also happy to help direct you, but this is not a do-it-yourself at home intervention. Don't go home and take ectasy, and I expect your PTSD to go away. So I think one of the things that you'll appreciate about how Tucker describes his experience is how thoughtful and intentional and careful this particular therapeutic intervention is, as are all therapeutic interventions that are designed for healing and, and not to be simply another interesting experience to add to your repertoire. So we will release the first half of the interview today, and then the second half will be up next Friday. So if you aren't already, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast so that you make sure that you do not miss the second half, and I'd love to hear what you think. So feel free to get in touch with me directly or leave a review on iTunes, letting us know what kind of value you got from this podcast. Welcome to the Zen Founder Podcast. This is a place where we have conversations about mental health and entrepreneurship. We have a pretty broad conceptualization of what mental health means, sometimes depression, anxiety, sometimes relationships, or physical health. The goal here is to bring some calm into the crazy roller coaster of ups and downs that is life from any entrepreneurs. I'm your host. I'm Dr. Sherry Walling. I'm a clinical psychologist and an entrepreneur, married to an entrepreneur, live in the world of entrepreneurs, and I'm so pleased that you have joined us for this conversation.
Speaker 0 00:03:48 So, I'm curious how you describe the first half of your career.
Speaker 2 00:03:53 You mean as a writer?
Speaker 0 00:03:54 Yeah, just well, how you introduce yourself. Like Tucker Max, the guy who wrote, I hope they Serve Beer and Hell. Is that, is that it? Or is there more to it? How do you talk about it?
Speaker 2 00:04:03 I mean, I usually talk about myself as Tucker Max, the guy who invented a literary genre and wrote, uh, uh, for that part of my career, three number one, New York Times bestsellers that sold millions of books around the world.
Speaker 0 00:04:15 Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:04:15 That's how I, how else would I,
Speaker 0 00:04:17 I think that's a pretty good introduction.
Speaker 2 00:04:19 <laugh>, like, I don't even know another way to introduce that, you know?
Speaker 0 00:04:23 Yeah. Do you feel like that you're living these sort of two separate careers or does it feel really integrated to you? Because obviously you've been a writer your whole life, that's what you are.
Speaker 2 00:04:34 Uh, yeah, not really, actually, I, I, I mean, I started at 27 mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like, I mean, obviously I had written stuff, but I didn't start writing as a career until 27. And I honestly didn't identify as a writer for a long time, even after that. Even though that's what I was, what I was doing. If I were to think about like a split in my life, it actually is when I had kids not, you know, writing Fra Tire versus companies or investing or anything else like that. Like I've, I've always in my life, it's a great question because I, I've lived my life, I think in a way that always felt natural to me, but wasn't always obvious to other people. I've always just done the things that I wanted to do. Right. The things that made sense to me, the things that felt right to me. I, I didn't know any other way to be, and come to find out, as I've grown and matured and had more experience in the world, that that's not very common. <laugh>. Like, not many people do that, but it, it's like, it was so to me, it didn't even seem like a thing I was doing. It was just, I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.
Speaker 0 00:05:38 Yeah. It's fairly exceptional,
Speaker 2 00:05:40 Right? It,
Speaker 0 00:05:41 It's, you were just living your life without the, in some ways, without the like, meta narrative of what you should be doing or how you should feel or how you should act. You just did.
Speaker 2 00:05:51 No, I mean, it was there. It it, like, um, I had all the same defining moments as other people. I just didn't, maybe they were more, they were so poorly existential to me that I didn't even see them as being remarkable. Right. So like, like I, I'll give you a really good example. So, uh, this is in my second book and assholes finished first. So when I started writing, like I got some real traction. I got a bunch of attention and started going and, and I wrote a story about the only time I've ever used anyone's real name in my stories except mine is this one story about this girl Katie Johnson, who was Miss Vermont. And I used her real name cuz she was a public figure and, and everything she talked about in public, like, you know, she was a pageant girl and her like platform was abstinence and charity.
Speaker 2 00:06:38 And the first night I met her, we got drunk and slept together. And so obviously like her platform and her reality were very different. And so like, I wasn't trying to out her, I was like just writing about my life and she was a public figure and the loyalness is really, really clear, right or wrong, it's just clear. And so I, I, when I wrote about it, used her real name and I, this and that, and I even like told her, I'm like, listen, you wanna write anything, uh, rebuttal or whatever, I'll put it unedited right below mine on the same page. I'd love to actually, that would be great. Even if you call me the worst things or say everything's a lie. Cool. And so, um, she ended up, actually, it was her mom who ended up suing me. And then it became this big, it was the first prior restraint case in the history of, of internet speech.
Speaker 2 00:07:23 So it was like a big deal illegally. This was a page of the New York Times and all this sort of stuff. And so, anyway, so long story short, I had no money at the time and I had to basically go hand in hand to my dad and he put up the retainer for, I got a major lawyer to represent me at like 10% of what he would, or 1% of what he would normally charge. Like crazy ch cheap rates. But he still had to pay him something. But my dad would only cut me the, the check if I promised to take the bar and go back and go be a lawyer. And so like, uh, I remember like, I made the promise and then got the check, won the case. So it looks like I won. Right. And then I remember walking, I lived in Chicago at the time.
Speaker 2 00:07:59 I had to walk to the like Cook County Library, which is a total <unk>. It's like the worst place on earth. It's not really a library, it's more like a homeless shelter. Anyway, so they have type cuz they have typewriters. This is like in 2003 or whatever you had to submit. You couldn't submit your bar exam online. This is like, you had to type it out. Yeah. <laugh>. So, so I, I had to go get a typewriter or whatever, and I went to library and I was typing. I started, I'm not even sure if I got anything typed in. I think I got my name typed in. I got a little down and then I, like, I had such a physical reaction. I threw, I threw up three times actually in the trashcan there. And then I was like, I, I can't do it. Like I cannot do this. I cannot go be a lawyer. I like, my body was just like, no, this isn't, you
Speaker 0 00:08:44 Cannot do the thing that your dad wanted you to do.
Speaker 2 00:08:46 Right. And so it's not even that that he want, it hadn't, it wasn't about him. It was being a lawyer. Right. Yeah. Because it's an awful soul sucking job, you know, it's the worst. And so, um, I called him, I said, sorry dad, I, I I'm breaking my promise. I know, but I'll get you the money back at some point. And I have since then, like, it was actually a whole whatever hero's journey to get that money back to him. But I didn't do it. And then I just, okay, I'm gonna go. Right. And so like for I think a lot of people that would be like a major life event or whatever. And it, it was for me, I guess I just didn't,
Speaker 0 00:09:19 You didn't recognize it at the time.
Speaker 2 00:09:20 I I did sort of, I just didn't, I I, I didn't sit around and think about courage or living my truth or anything like that. Even though you could very accurately describe it that way. Because to me it was an existential, it was a survival issue. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> not a choice. Right. Even though it was a choice, of course it was a choice. I get that in all ways. It was a choice.
Speaker 0 00:09:44 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:45 I don't know. I just couldn't, it was a choice where the, the, the decision was obvious. Either I, I kept my soul and I went and took the other path, or I gave up on life and became a lawyer. And that just is not really a choice that I'm, uh, that that's reasonable. So I, I don't know if that answers your question, but
Speaker 0 00:10:05 Yeah. I think about you in so much of your work writing about things that usually happen in private, whether that's sex or more recently, a lot of the writing that you've been doing around therapy, specifically M D M A therapy. What's we're gonna do in a second, but like, why do you think it's so important to you to bring this public light to private spaces?
Speaker 2 00:10:25 You know, I i I, I don't know if I can tell you why yet I haven't, maybe I do have to do more m d a therapy to figure this out, but
Speaker 0 00:10:33 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:10:34 For my whole life, at least as long as I can remember part of how I've been defined as a person. And, and that's why I don't wanna say I defined myself cuz I'm, again, I'm not sure it was a, a conscious choice. It's not even like I had to go say the things that people weren't saying. It was more, I refused not to say those things. Right. To be quiet about them. Right. If they come up, you
Speaker 0 00:10:59 Refuse to edit. Right.
Speaker 2 00:11:01 Okay. Exactly. Um, like, it, it's not like I, I never felt like a, I don't know, like a, like a Ralph Nader where it's like I'm gonna go find the truth and broadcast it everywhere. Right. That, that's a, that's a archetype. That's not, that's not me. Like I'm not trying to get into other people's business or nothing against Ralph Nader. He is, you know, great. But like, um, that's a different mindset. My mindset has always been, I am going to tell my truth and right or wrong, cuz God knows half the time my truth is screwed up and wrong. And I, I'm all my ideas about things are wrong. In fact, probably most of what I think now I will think is wrong in five to 10 years at least. I hope it means I'm growing, but, but at least what, whatever it is at the moment, I'm gonna speak my truth. And so much of society and family, and at least my life has been people telling me in some way, shape or form that I have to be quiet about those things. And it's always been like, no. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. And, and thing that I've realized about myself, I think is that I'm willing, anyone really can speak their truth. It's just, you gotta be willing to pay the price for that. Right. And I, I'm willing to,
Speaker 0 00:12:12 And you've paid quite a price in some ways. I mean, I, so we met recently a couple months ago at an event, and the f I think the first thing I said to you was like, I thought you'd be an ple and I really, really expected that. And I was sort of had this framework for who you are, based on what you've written, what you've written about, or at least my impression of what you've written about. And I just wonder how many people you encounter in a day who have that sort of preconceived notion about you, as, you know, as a way that you've, you've sort of paid for the things that you've decided to write about.
Speaker 2 00:12:42 Yeah. I mean, well, and, and I don't blame, that's why I didn't get mad or upset because like, I No,
Speaker 0 00:12:46 You laughed at me. Right. Well,
Speaker 2 00:12:48 Because in a lot of ways I, I not, I earned that and I created that. Right. So I can't be angry about that. Like, um,
Speaker 0 00:12:54 But it's beca it also becomes something bigger than you when you are the recipient of everyone else's projections.
Speaker 2 00:13:01 Yes. Which definitely happened to me. <laugh> Yes, yes. No, but, but at the same time, like a hundred percent true. I also encourage that in a lot of ways I both allowed it and encouraged it for a period of my life and stupidly fed into it. You know? So like I don't spend a lot of time getting upset at that or fighting that because a at least a enough of that is my own fault. The negative, let's say perception of me ano uh, enough of that, I don't know whether it's the majority or not the majority, but more than enough of it is my own fault. And so it's like, okay, like that's a price. I'm gonna have to pay for both the freedom to speak my own truth. And I, and I was rewarded, like I made a lot of money. I got fame.
Speaker 2 00:13:45 It's not like there was no upside to that. Right? So understand everything's a trade off. Right? And so I, I took that trade off and I exacerbated in a lot of ways it didn't, it had, didn't have to be as bad as it was for me. I made it worse on myself. And so, okay. Then I have to, to some extent I have to pay the price for that. But most of the price I pay at this point now is external. Right. So like I'm, when we met, I was paying a price in your mind, but not in my reality. Right. You know, and so, and yes, that can translate to business and maybe I I it hurts our business in some ways, and maybe they're friendships I could have that I don't and whatever. It's okay. All right. I mean, that's welcome to life, life is trade offs, right. You know? Sure. So, uh, but no, I, I don't, I don't spend a lot of time with like, oh, you know, what is she think of me or what does he think of me? Or that's just never been mine because the cost of not speaking my truth is too high. Right? Like, like what cost are you willing to pay? I'm not willing to pay the cost of not speaking my truth, and if it means that I have to pay other costs than I pay, well,
Speaker 0 00:14:46 Everyone who does something in public runs the risk of people not liking them or disagreeing with them or pissing on what they've done. And that's the reality of, of putting yourself out there in any way.
Speaker 2 00:14:57 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, no. Oh, well, definitely, yes. But for most people, what they have to deal with is other people's, like you said, projections, they're envy, they're shame, whatever, those things. And I dealt with a lot of that, but then I also just stirred the pot Yeah. In, in a lot of ways that even to be a pot stir, like you can be like, Russell Brand stirs the pot a lot, but he doesn't do it in a way that is, he does it in a way that doesn't create, I created a lot of unnecessary intimacy and enemies that I just didn't even need to do. It was more, that was my own stuff. That was where my own junk got filled with, got crossed in with sort of, let's say, my job as a celebrity or whatever. Right. And so, like, that was my own anger and my own issues and my own unresolved stuff that created most of the negative aspect of it, you know.
Speaker 0 00:15:47 So what led you into therapy?
Speaker 2 00:15:50 Yeah, so it, it was a long process to both admit that I needed it and to accept that and to start, but the, the answer basically was I reached a level of financial and social success that I thought I like, that was way beyond what I ever thought I would get. And you know, it's sort of like I thought I was climbing whatever, a thousand foot mountain and I, and I realized it was 5,000 and I got to the top of it, right? And I'm sitting there, I mean, there was a movie made about my life before I turned 34. So like, like I clearly I hit, you know, a decent peak of success, but whatever, I did all this stuff and then I, I still wasn't very happy. Right. I wasn't, I was, it was way better when I was poor. Right? <laugh> having money in fame is way better than being broken anonymous. Like, there's, don't let anyone tell you different, but at the same time, my life was like incrementally better. It wasn't like, you know, you look at like
Speaker 0 00:16:45 Exponentially better, right? It didn't follow the same growth curve
Speaker 2 00:16:48 <laugh>. Exactly. You look at rich, rich and famous people, and you think even if you're smart and rational, you still, part of you thinks, well, if I got there, everything would be fine. Right? And this of course is not, not at all. How
Speaker 0 00:16:58 Did you know you were unhappy Tucker? Like, and that maybe a dumb question, but like, was there a moment where you're like, wow, <unk> Like I'm really, I'm not, okay.
Speaker 2 00:17:07 It's not a dumb question at all. That's a great question. Well, okay. The raw honest answer is you can only fill your soul, let's say with so many girls and so much drinking and so much partying and so much whatever, whatever trappings of fame and success are important to you. For me, at that time in my life, it was as many girls as possible, not as much partying as possible, but a lot of partying and, and like attention, right? And I filled, I filled myself up for with that, and it was awesome for a while, but, um, at some point, if you're honest with yourself, you realize it doesn't fill the hole in your soul. Like it just doesn't. And, uh, as much as you try to, then you keep kind of doubling down on it. And it's like, okay, well, you know, one girl a week didn't, how about a girl a day?
Speaker 2 00:17:57 And how about multiple girls a day? And how about you live with three girls and you're hooking up with all of 'em, and how about, and then it's like, I, if you are at all self-aware, then you eventually hit the point where it's like you start to pay the price of all those things, right? Because they're almost always done in a dis dysfunctional way. I'm not saying they can't be done in a functional way, but I definitely didn't. And so, uh, what most people do at that point, what a lot of people do is they hide it with drugs. I've never been a drug person. Like I've never done Coke until pot was legal in Colorado. Like, I've never even really tried pots at once, but it was like this weird thing where I ate edibles. I'm not even sure they were edibles, but, so I was never a drug person at all for multiple reasons.
Speaker 2 00:18:35 And so, like, I didn't have anywhere else to hide my paint, basically <laugh>, right? I had nowhere else to put it, and I had nowhere else to put my loneliness and I had nowhere else to put it. And then eventually, uh, I had to realize, okay, if I, if, if I had all this success, then the next thought process in my head was, well, let me get my, everything else in my life in order, right? So I, you know, got in the best shape of my life, super into like health optim, like all the ways, especially people in our field optimized and all that, right? So I did all that <unk> and I was amazing at it. And, you know, six pack abs and 6% body fat and like, you know, the perfect morning routine before people even cared about this stuff, right? And it was like, yeah, it was better than being not that, but it was again, very small incremental success, right? So then it was eventually, and I had enough friends, of course, people who knew me or being like, Hey, why don't you try therapy? Hey, like, you know, and it's like I had to fix everything in my life and everything in my life, perfect. But still be sad and lonely to realize the problem is not outside of me. It is inside of me.
Speaker 0 00:19:40 You had to do all the math yourself.
Speaker 2 00:19:43 Well, I'm very stubborn, you know, like this, you know the saying of an old soul, right? Like, yeah, okay, so I'm the opposite of an old soul. I'm a new, you're
Speaker 0 00:19:50 Like a toddler soul <laugh>, right?
Speaker 2 00:19:51 No, exactly. It's funny because like, it's so many people, like, they're like, I didn't know if I liked you until I saw you with kids. And I What do you mean? They're like, you're just like a big kid, like all you, like, I'm like, really? Yeah, I do. I have a young soul, I think. So I have to learn everything myself the hard way, the painful way. Like I, I envy people who can like, experience a little bit of something at once. So like, I know guys friends of mine who like had one crazy spring break and they're like, okay, that was fun, but I don't wanna do that. Got that outta my system, right? And I'm like, it took me a decade, dude. <laugh> <laugh>. That's amazing that you could figure that out that fast. No, I'm slow. Like as smart as I am, I am emotionally, uh, I'm, I'm a baby crawl. So
Speaker 0 00:20:33 Therapy would've been a good, a good place for you, <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:20:38 Yes. Yes. And, and so I, I, I went to like a lot of false starts, a lot of fits and, you know, whatever. And then, um, I eventually realized I had a treat therapy sort of like dating, right? Like realized, oh, of course. Like, not like a mechanic where if you're a Mercedes mechanic you can fix a Mercedes, right? Like there's, you
Speaker 0 00:20:55 Know, all the things that all the other mechanics know. Right.
Speaker 2 00:20:58 Exactly. It's not like that with therapy. That's so much of, and the, the data on this, the empirical data is very clear too, is I'm sure you know. Yes. So much of the effectiveness of therapy is the connection between therapists and a patient. Right? And the modality is important, but the modality is far secondary to the, the skill of the therapist and the connection. And so I went to a bunch, I realized that, that for me, psycho-analysis was gonna be, I was gonna need talk therapy and I was gonna need something that kind of had a good framework to it. And that had a lot of big minds that came before me. Cause if it didn't, I was gonna find my way to crush it, you know? And so then I also needed someone I needed, I knew I needed a woman. I, I was more comfortable with women and, um, being vulnerable with women is way easier for me. And then I also needed a woman who was probably at least 20 years older than me, who'd been doing it for a long time, who knew her stuff, who had dealt with guys like me before, who, who was smart, at least as smart as me, if not smarter. Cuz I, man, I can take either side of any argument and win it. Right? So I needed someone who could deal with that and who knew how to, like, how to not even beat me in an argument, but how to outthink the argument frame, right.
Speaker 0 00:22:05 How to get you out of the argument. Right.
Speaker 2 00:22:07 Exactly. Right. And so, uh, I found this, uh, this woman, I had to go to 20 or so, but I eventually found an analyst in, in Austin, older woman. Like total, like, she's like a female Buddha, just calm, smart as hell would let me thrash and then ask me one or two questions and it would be like, oh, she would always very good at cutting to the core of the thing, right? Because the one thing about me that I knew is if I know what the problem is, I'll go after it and solve it. But I'm really good at a, the defending, like my defenses are as smart as I am. Right? And so, like, I'm really good at avoiding what the actual issue is. So I needed someone who was gonna be good at helping cut to the core of things. And so I spent four years in psychoanalysis going four times a week. Like I was all in on it.
Speaker 0 00:22:51 Yeah. And having tried 20 therapists before engaging with one, I mean, that's, that's a book in itself. That's pretty, you were pretty determined to, to try it.
Speaker 2 00:23:00 Yeah. No, I mean, it was not, it's not hard for me. It's like, I mean, come on, you're, you're a woman, you're attractive. I'm sure, you know, like 15 minutes on the first date, you know, if there's even gonna be a second date, much less a future. Right. It's not different with therapists. It's you,
Speaker 0 00:23:13 You get the vibe pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 00:23:15 Right? Right. You get a vibe very quickly. And then it never took me more than two sessions to know and almost never, there was only three therapists I even went to two sessions with. So with 17 of 'em I knew right away, you know? Yeah. And, and I had already vetted. So these were all women older been doing it 20 years at least. Right. So I just knew, I knew the, the ones who hadn't seen guys like me or were intimidated or, uh, were offended or like, okay, those gotta go to the side. It's gotta be someone who gets it, you know, who connects with me.
Speaker 0 00:23:44 So four years, four times a week. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, how did it change you or how did you change in that time?
Speaker 2 00:23:51 A lot. It was very deeply. It was, the only thing I can compare it to is like my relationship with my wife and having a kid like those, having a family, right. That
Speaker 0 00:24:03 Like being reformed. I mean a family like reforms every detail of your life.
Speaker 2 00:24:09 Yes. So it just, psychoanalysis just does it for me. Analysis just did it way slower. Yeah. And it was way less emotionally, it was more intellectual. Right. That's the only, the knock on psychoanalysis is that it is very heady and very intellectual mm-hmm. <affirmative> and that is correct. Like, um, and
Speaker 0 00:24:25 That's what you needed.
Speaker 2 00:24:26 That's what I needed at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> it did, it reformed me. What Dr. Adler taught me. And her name's Adler too. Like how, how, how psychoanalysis could you get? Right, right. Uh, what Dr. Adler, so the
Speaker 0 00:24:39 Inside joke is the Alfred Adler is a, a pure,
Speaker 2 00:24:42 Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:24:43 For those of you non psychoanalysis folks listening.
Speaker 2 00:24:46 Yeah. So she, um, she was really, she was the mirror that I needed that helped me see who I really was and helped me slowly, you know, like, uh, pretty classical analysis, like a lot of projection onto her. And then understanding of like, okay, reframing being like, okay, why are you feeling that it what it, we, she did a very good job doing what analysis was supposed to do. It connected my conscious to my unconscious. Like I understood I had an unconscious, which I knew before intellectually, but I didn't really understand it and how it worked. And then started to really start to understand what I felt and how I felt and why, and start thinking about why I felt that way and all those sort of things that if you had asked me when I started, I would've, you know, what's funny is most of the major issues that I actually discovered, analysis, I kind of already knew them going in. It wasn't a shock to me that my dad was an absentee dad or my mom was these issues or whatever. It was much more emotionally connecting with those facts than it was discovering.
Speaker 0 00:25:49 So feeling them not knowing them. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:25:51 Feeling them. So it was, it was Dr. Adler, and this is embarrassing, but it is just the god's honest truth. Dr. Adler and my dog are the things that kind of taught me how to, how to feel and how to love. I had a dog, I I, I had her three or four years before I started analysis, but, um, she, she's pretty normal dog. She's like a, not a border colleague, cattle dog mix. And she, I used to take her to analysis with me, and it was Dr. Aler that would point it out to me that like she was reflected how I felt. Right. But, but the inverse, so like when I was angry, she would hide, right? She would like hide under my legs or hide under her chair. And I remember like not even noticing that. And so she pointed out, and then like two days later I was on a call with somebody and, and like things got heated and they're like, why are you yelling? I'm like, I'm a <unk> yelling. And then I look and Murf, her name was Murf was under the coffee table. And I remember that moment. It was one of those things where it was like, that was one of those moments where either I could accept the truth or I had to construct a, a, a, a lie in my head about my life, right? And so it was like, I was like, Ugh, dogs don't manipulate unless it's for food.
Speaker 0 00:26:59 There's a mirror. Yeah. It's an emotional mirror. They're telling you the emotional truth about what's going on. She's
Speaker 2 00:27:04 Just reacting is all she is. And if she's under the table, yeah. And that dog would've laid in the road for me. She loved me so much and she's under the table. She's afraid. Okay, then that's just it. Like that <laugh>, that's the reality. And so, but you
Speaker 0 00:27:17 Are actually doing something that's scaring her.
Speaker 2 00:27:20 I'm angry. I'm, I'm clearly angry and it is so, I'm so angry on the phone that the dog thinks I'm angry at her and she had to go run and hide under the table. Mm-hmm. And it was like, oh man, okay. And so it was moments like that and you know, I probably have a hundred from four years that in that, that's, everyone thinks, everyone's like, oh, it's like a movie that's in their head. They think it's like a movie, but it's not. It's a hundred moments like that. Or, or maybe even a thousand smaller moments, right? Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:27:48 There's so rarely this big aha moment, like they show in the movies, right? No, never, never. Robin Williams hugging Matt Damon and saying, it's not your fault and go to a hunting like there, it just doesn't work like that.
Speaker 2 00:27:58 Well that, that what that moment should be, what people should see that moment is it's sort of like religion, right? You see it as a metaphor for life and then it makes a lot of sense. And it's amazing. Same thing with, with like that scene with Robin. That, that scene was great, but it, it's beautiful. If you see it as this is the culmination of a two year therapeutic relationship or whatever, and, and, and the, the sort of metaphor for it, then it makes total sense and it's awesome. And it's like, yeah, sure, okay, I get it. You know,
Speaker 0 00:28:27 Condensed for cinematic purposes.
Speaker 2 00:28:29 Exactly. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:28:31 Thanks for listening. We'll be back in two weeks with a new episode of the podcast. In the meantime, feel free to check out zen founder.com for lots of resources about the kinds of conversations that we have on the podcast. You can get information about working with me about maybe joining a Zen tribe. It's sort of like a mental health bootcamp for entrepreneurs. We also have lots of content on our blog, links to resources in our courses and books for sales. So check us out there and we hope to provide anything and everything that you might need to make the entrepreneurial life a little bit easier.
