The Mental Funny Bone

Episode 41: Grandmaster Goes to Flagstaff

• Gaster Girls • Season 4 • Episode 6

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In this engaging episode of 'The Mental Funny Bone,' hosts Sarah and Christine, with their silent intern Becca, explore mental health resources, share listener feedback, and delve into personal anecdotes. They recount a hilarious trip to Flagstaff with their Taekwondo Grandmaster trophy, including their misadventures at a creepy hotel, an unexpected bar exit, and breakfast with Drew Carey lookalikes. The hosts also discuss the impact of external validation on self-worth, drawing wisdom from the book 'The First Rule of Mastery.' They challenge listeners to embrace mindfulness and authenticity, sharing relatable everyday experiences and offering tools to combat the fear of others' opinions (FOPO). With a perfect mixture of humor and deep reflections, this episode highlights the joys and struggles of staying true to oneself.

How to find mental health help when you're struggling. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
https://washingtoncountyhumanservices.com/agencies/behavioral-health-developmental-services
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Services/Human-Services-DHS/Publications/Resource-Guides
Apps - Just search mental health where you get your apps.
EAP programs are a great place to look for help!!

Additional Resources (Sports Related):
https://globalsportmatters.com/health/2020/12/04/mental-health-resources-2/

Sarah:

Hey, and welcome to the Mental Funny Bone. I'm Sarah

Chris:

and I'm Christine,

Sarah:

and we are not mental health professionals. If you need immediate mental health, help, you should dial 988. and we also have a plethora of links that you can click on in our show notes. I'm not sure if five equals a plethora, but we're going to go with it. I think

Chris:

relatively speaking, five is plenty. Okay. Plenty.

Sarah:

Plenty. So we have plenty of links. feel free to check those out. Christine, do you want to talk about Becca or do you want me to talk about Becca?

Chris:

you go ahead. You're good at talking.

Sarah:

Just so everybody knows, we've got our intern with us today, Becca. She's in the background. She's on mute. we're not letting her talk. Nah. I'm kidding. When she

grows up. When she grows

Sarah:

up. So, Becca's with us. She's in the background. You might hear us as we record, tell Becca to write something down or keep us. I don't know what. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. So we

tell the interns, get us a cup of coffee. I'm not sure.

Sarah:

Yeah. Coffee is kind of difficult. We've talked about that before. We're geographically challenged. yeah. So anyway, Becca's in the background. Thank you for joining us, Becca. Yay.

Chris:

Becca the intern.

Sarah:

Yay. Okay. we're going to start. I'm sorry. I'm going to do that because I have the wrong thing up here.

Chris:

I like it when you point the camera at your microphone

Sarah:

Okay. so I'm going to start out, with some fan mail today. We really didn't have fan mail, but I just wanted to make some comments on some Facebook stuff after our Michelle Kapats interview. That seemed to be, everybody really, really enjoyed that. Our friends at, March 4th, Jackie and Ed, put a little post, this episode was awesome. Thank you for sharing. And then they also shared it on Facebook. So thank you guys for always being so supportive. another one of our, what's the word? Dedicated. I was going to say committed. Dedicated followers, Heather S. noted on Facebook, I really liked listening to Michelle. She gave me so much to think about from meditation to the words we use. Thank you. so again, thank you Heather for following. And then Jamie M, another one of our, very dedicated followers. She said it was a hell of an interview. Love all three of you. And I'm so proud of all of you for doing your thing. so absolutely. Love all you guys and thank you for continuing to make these comments and share everything that we ask you to. and a big shout out to my brother in law, David. he shared it on Facebook. Yeah. Yes. David shared the Kapotz interview.

Chris:

I didn't know he knew how to do that.

Sarah:

I, I was, that's why I'm calling it out. Cause I feel like that's positive reinforcement, right? Like, yeah, David, I don't know. I don't think he listens,

Chris:

David does not listen because yeah, his philosophy is I don't need to listen to you too, because I live it. that is amazing. David is getting quite proficient at Facebook. Yeah. These days he sends me about eight or 800 reels to watch because he's into them now too. So every time he toddles off to the potty, I am assured of getting at least 14 while that's going on. Shit Reels.

Sarah:

That's what those are called. Shit Reels.

Chris:

Everyone is about a cat or somebody who has Attention Deficit Disorder.

Sarah:

So, we'll ask all of our listeners to continue to share, as much as you can. we had some great success last year and we want to continue that moving forward. the gastro story, you have anything else you want to add before we get to the gastro story?

Chris:

Thanks guys. Okay. Appreciate the support.

Sarah:

the Gaster story this week, I had one in there, but I'm not really in a great space to tell that one. So I have decided to, make an audible, that, that's what it's called, right? When they change the play in football, it's an audible. Yeah. Mm hmm. Right? Yes. What did Peyton Manning, what was his thing that he always yelled? Omaha. Omaha. Ah, I was going to say Oklahoma. No. I'm going to give it an Omaha. anyway, and I didn't really write out a lot of it, so you're going to have to help me, Christine. And we may have talked about it, but I'm going to stop saying that because we're just going to talk about shit over and over again. the Flag Staff Trip.

Oh, I love it.

Sarah:

Did we, we may have talked about it. We're talking about it again. When we lived in Arizona, Flagstaff, for those of you who are not, familiar, Flagstaff is the cold place. I don't know. It's on a mountain. That's where you go skiing. Yeah. That's where you go skiing. you live in

Chris:

Arizona, if you live in Phoenix and you want to go to the mountains, you just head north and you end up in Flagstaff. It's also on Route 66. If, if, and if there are any old timey people listening, when you would travel across the country, you would drive on route 66.

Sarah:

You'd get your kicks.

Chris:

On route 66. Also a Depeche Mode song that I think was a cover of a real old song. So

Sarah:

yeah.

Chris:

There you go. That's what I know about Flagstaff. Before I move to Arizona.

Sarah:

I said, when you said it's on Route 66, I was like, Mm hmm. Like I knew.

Chris:

I don't.

Sarah:

Right. I don't fucking know. I don't even. It's, it's up a mountain. Anyway, we went to Flagstaff. and I, am I going to combine two stories? Did we go to Flagstaff and do the. skiing.

Chris:

Two different stories. So why,

Sarah:

why did we go to Flagstaff with Grandmaster? That was just to take Grandmaster to Flagstaff?

Chris:

Cause yeah, we were, we needed to, to get out of town. We were going to Sedona.

Sarah:

Okay. Anyway, so it was just the two of us and we needed to get out of town and we did Taekwondo at the time and Grandmaster was like the head of everything at Taekwondo. and I don't know what type of event we did, but we got, or you got, or I got, I don't know. Somebody got a Grandmaster statue. We

both got trophies.

Sarah:

Yeah, and the Grandmaster is standing very stoic with his hands crossed, as you should, to show respect to the Grandmaster, I don't know, but it was just this gold statue. Anyway, and we decided to take him to Flagstaff with us and drive around and get him out of the car and place him in areas and take pictures. this the time that we stayed in the creepy shining motel and we got kicked out of the bar? Yeah.

Chris:

Yes. Yes. All of it. We had breakfast with Drew Carey. There were a whole series of events. But I really, I really feel like we glossed over the fact that, I have a black belt in taekwondo. I feel like we just skip that.

Sarah:

I have a recommended black belt.

Chris:

And I, I, I, I want everyone to know.

Sarah:

That

Chris:

fun fact about me is that I do have a black belt in Taekwondo that I earned by taking classes at the, at the ATA school of Taekwondo in Arizona. when you moved eventually out to, out to Phoenix, you worked at the ATA Taekwondo studio selling memberships and black belts to children. Thank you.

Sarah:

Yeah, that was my job. That was my job.

Chris:

I think you glossed over it a little too quickly. And you made it all the way up to recommended Black Belt, which is almost Black Belt.

Sarah:

Yeah, yeah. It was all kind of rushed because I work there and then They wanted me to teach kids. And then I realized I didn't like the kids and that led to me having to change my whole major in school. It was a lot. There was a lot going on in that period of my life. not, I'm on the fence of what was good and what was bad about it. But anyway, so, so we go to, we go to Flagstaff,

Chris:

we check

Sarah:

into a hotel.

Chris:

Again, you're glossing over the fact that we went to a Karate Kid style tournament, which is where we won these statues.

Sarah:

You, what you really need to do is just tell the story. So.

Chris:

No, I feel like you're just glossing over some of the important details. Nope, you're tagged in.

Sarah:

Nope, you're tagged in. Don't be like that. Nope, you're tagged in. You're done. Fine. I tagged you. This might

Chris:

have been the tournament we went to where the there were, there were always very limited grownups at these tournaments, as you can imagine, because that's

Sarah:

how we got trophies

Chris:

and activity for children. Yeah, I, I was 29 at the time, and I was in an age group with someone who was 18, I believe. this is. You were

Sarah:

younger than that because I was 21.

Chris:

26, 27. I was. 26. Early.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

Mid 20s. Mid to late 20s. We'll go with that. There were several years. Like if you just didn't walk up and they handed you a black belt, it took like a couple years for me to get the black belt of dedication, determination and. Knee surgeries, different story. so I squared up against this 18 year old girl and she, they said, they said fight just like they do on the karate kid and then you fight. and she kicked me in the head and then, and you get like three points for that year, like race and didn't nine or whatever. So I stood back and then she kicked me in the head again, same thing happened.

Sarah:

And then I

Chris:

stood back and she kicked me in the head again. Like, three times. Like, that's all I'll tell you. The whole thing took about four seconds. No one had to sweep the leg. No one got me a body bag. Like, none of it. It took, it took less than 30 seconds for this young lady to kick my ass. good news is we were the only two in that age group. So she got like a big life size statue of the Grand Master and I got like a little one, like a little teeny statue of the Grand Master.

Sarah:

Exactly. So,

Chris:

I, I think same thing happened to, to you in, in, in your, whatever you were doing. I think that was sparring where I got my thing and you got it in,

Sarah:

doing

Chris:

the forms.

Sarah:

The forms. I remember doing the sparring part, like we must have had four people. Because I don't think, because I was fourth, I guess, because I didn't get an award in that one. and yeah, I remember laughing. And I feel like that was never a thing that anybody wanted you to do, because everybody was so serious. the same thing, like, right to the head. And I was like, ah, shit. Then it happened again. And I laughed. I was like, huh, you think I'd learn? And I don't think anybody there, like the ref or my opponent, thought I was funny in the slightest, which made me laugh harder.

All right. So

Chris:

we,

we collect

Chris:

our little statues and I, I, I think. spring break? Like, I don't know why, I, like, no one was chasing us, like, we weren't being, hunted by the mob or anything, like, we didn't have to get out of town, we just decided we wanted to, to head up north without, without Michael. Yeah. And, yeah, we, we get to Flagstaff. And, we check into, what I think is the Bates Motel,

Sarah:

Oh, it was terrible. It was fucking terrible. No wonder I got so drunk that night. That was the only way I could sleep in that fucking place.

Chris:

It is a, it is a very classic old hotel in Flagstaff. And I'm sure if you're listening from the, That area, you know, the hotel we're talking about, everybody like, kind of like, Oh, it's so nice. but, we go out and apparently there's a nightclub in Flagstaff for people who have been skiing. So we go there and we have a couple of soda pops and, we are dancing at this nightclub like we do in the nineties. Like, I'm sure that there's, I'm sure they played Hootie and the Blowfish at one point at a dance club.

Sarah:

And,

Chris:

it's, it's the end of the night. And it's time for everyone to go back to their creepy ass, shining hotel where obviously some twins are going to drown in blood and ride their little tricycles down the hallway. yep. for some reason, you had been paying for the drinks. And

Sarah:

I think it was just, let's see which, which one of our cards was going to work at the end of the night.

How are we so bad with money? How? How?

Sarah:

Throw them both, both up there, see which one sticks.

Try not to put any drinks on that card, the advice.

Chris:

And you, you were, you were a little bit bitter that the bar was going to close. You were?

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't know what I thought was, ha Oh, I may, I think because we were in the mountains, they closed at like one instead of two, and I was like pissed off about it.

No, they all closed

Chris:

at one. They all closed at one. But maybe they, they, they were attempting to shut it down and tick early, like, I don't know. 12, 15. You were like, listen, and like you had your hands on the bar and I don't know what you were standing on, like if it was like the little rail around it, but you were, you were up.

Sarah:

And

Chris:

you were like, listen, I am not leaving here until you spell out.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

And this guy went, O U T, and you were thrown off your game. Like, I don't know if you expected him not to be able to spell. Like, I'm not, I'm

Sarah:

not sure, like I have no clue where this came from because I can't, like, it, it happened after this. Like, I think after this it was just a joke. Like, no, I'm not leaving until you spell out. Like, but I don't know where this came from. I don't know why. I would ask any, like, what, was there a movie? Was there something, if anybody is listening that may have known me back then, that has any clue where I took this from, please let me know, because I have obviously scrapped it from my memory. But I, don't know what the point was. I don't know what I was trying to do.

You,

Chris:

You thought you were a character in the, in whatever movie this is from. And then the guy was like, all right, O U T. O U

Sarah:

T. I was like, fuck.

Chris:

You're like all deflated. And I think he tried to hand back your card and you just walked away.

Sarah:

yeah. I don't, I don't know. I, I don't know. And then we went to breakfast and that's when I realized that I didn't have a card. Did we make those guys pay for the Breakfast. Yeah, we

sure did. Yeah. Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did.

Sarah:

So, yeah. So, we, we went to breakfast with Drew, Drew Carey and his buddy, because those are the type of people we picked up at the bar.

Chris:

I don't recall, I, it's, it's been a while, so I don't recall whether we met them on the walk to the diner or if we just went there and sat down with them.

Sarah:

I'm, I'm not sure. I feel like for the sake of a story, it sounds great if we show up and we're like, hey, there's Two seats and just sit with these guys because it wasn't like, it wasn't like we're trying to make out like they weren't trying to make out with us. We weren't trying to make out with them. It wasn't. We just, we just wanted to have some breakfast.

We were hungry and wanted eggs, hash browns, bacon, and a Coke. Not even eggs.

Sarah:

And apparently you didn't have any way of paying. I don't know why, but my card was at the bar. That place was shut the fuck down. So yeah. So they, they bought us breakfast.

Chris:

I think they offered. I think that when you said that your credit card was left at the bar, they just assumed we were destitute and needed help.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah. Which kind of makes sense.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think the next day is when Grandmaster and this was KF motherfucking see a trip. Wasn't it?

Chris:

Yes, I was just gonna say it. Apparently, we didn't get enough, we didn't get enough food at breakfast. So we went back and I, I think that we left the lights on in this creepy ass motel room where like the wallpaper's peeling slowly off the wall. I was like, we can't turn the lights off. It

Sarah:

was probably me. Like, I, yeah, I'm not turning the lights off.

I think either of us. There

Sarah:

were two single beds and I slept in the bed, the single bed with you.

clinging on to me like I was going to do anything against the ghost and the paranormal. Yeah.

Chris:

Just pretend it's not happening.

Sarah:

on. I have, I have a side, I have a side story. Feel free to take it out if we need to, but I saw a real, saw a real, I feel like it's a good one though. You might just have to go and watch it. It was an Ellen DeGeneres one and Kevin Hart was on the show and she was talking about ghost hunters and he was like, who's hunting ghosts? What are you talking about? And she's like, well, when they go and he, he does like a. Double take. He's like, what do we talk? Where are we? What are we talking about? What do you like? It's you have to watch it. And then it's, it's very funny anyway. So that reminded me of ghosts. So go check out the Ellen DeGeneres, Kevin Hart talking about ghost hunters. Cause it's just go search anything, Kevin Hart and you'll piss yourself. So it's great.

Chris:

I, I agree. I agree. So I, I, I don't know if this was our plan when we brought our, statues, our trophies along with us, but what we did the next day was drive around scenic locations in Flagstaff and pose this little statue, like in a tiny bit of snow next to a beautiful baby pine tree and take his picture. With a, with a camera, because back in the day, as I look at Becca's young intern face, to explain that back in the day, you used to have to get a camera and film, put those together, and then take pictures.

Sarah:

It's weird. So weird.

Chris:

Right.

Sarah:

Right. Mind blowing. Mind fucking blowing.

Chris:

Right. I don't even think I had a cell phone at this point.

Sarah:

No. No, I didn't have a cell phone until I moved back home.

Chris:

They were huge.

Huge. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah, no, absolutely not. I had a beeper.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Paging Dr. Sarah. Paging Dr. Sarah.

Sarah:

Fuck's sake. So, do you have any of those pictures? I have, I, I, I don't

Chris:

know.

Sarah:

Cause I, I'm pretty sure I do not. Like I, I think of all this shit we did and how much of it, like I always say I'm glad we didn't have cell phones. But I would really like that there's shit that I did not need to get caught on film. Right, right. But there's some shit that I'm like, man, I wish I did have a cell phone.'cause that those fucking pictures would be. Would be amazing.

Chris:

That photo study, if you will, of Grandmaster on his journey from Flagstaff to Sedona

Sarah:

and

Chris:

watching him enjoy the vortexes and the realignment of his chakras in Sedona.

Sarah:

He felt really, really comfortable and at home in all those trees. He likes the nature.

Chris:

Right. We laid him out on the pillow. I think he took a nap.

Sarah:

He took a nap while we were at the bar.

My God, I wish everyone was us so that they could appreciate how funny this is.

Sarah:

You were 26 years old. I was 21 and we had basically had a trophy that we were treating like a baby doll.

I was a professional. I had already graduated. was working in my current field. FYI. this is why on. I don't know.

Sarah:

I feel bad for people who don't have these experiences. I

do too.

Sarah:

Anyway.

Freaking hilarious. yeah.

Sarah:

So that's, that's Grandmaster. Oh, and on our way out, we were hungry.

Chris:

Oh, yeah. And, you know, neither of us really had a whole ton of money. So we're driving past the, Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I was like, should we stop? What do you want to eat? And she was like, Sarah. would be me. K. F. motherfuckin C.

Sarah:

Yeah. I was super excited about it. I was so, I had never been, nor have I since then, been so excited about K. F. motherfuckin C. I was so, I was hungover. So that just, like, all of it. Seemed right. yeah.

Chris:

Looking forward to

Sarah:

Chicken. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:

Let's jump back in to our friend, Michael Gervais. I think the last time I was bragging because I remembered the name of the book. And now, the first rule of mastery is the name of the book.

Sarah:

Very good. Very good. I have to interject real quick. Macho just came in with Humper, for those of you that don't know Humper. Humper is a puppy, a stuffed puppy, stuffed puppy, a fake puppy, not a real puppy. That, well, you use your imagination if it's, his name's Humper. There you go.

Chris:

okay, so we've done, four chapters of the first Rule of Mastery and, we talked all about fopo, the fear of other people's opinions, and we've talked about how that is an actual fear response, and we've talked about how. Getting yourself in a cycle of FOPO takes away from your ability to, do really great things, because you're so constantly in this cycle of fear and adjusting your behavior and making sure that, that you're fitting in and that, no one in the crowd is giving you signals of, not being good enough or whatever. and. Kind of how damaging that is. And then last week, we spent a good deal of time talking about identity. Talking about how important it is to understand who you are as a person as a way to avoid getting in these, faux pose situations. so this week we're going to talk about, chapter five, which is outsourcing your self worth. And when Sarah and I were talking. earlier about this chapter, she asked me what the difference between identity and self worth was. So I thought they

Sarah:

sound a lot alike in the chapters. I feel like they do sound a bit alike,

Chris:

a good place to start for us would be here's, here's what I mean by identity and here's what I mean by self worth. So when we're looking at identity, going with a tree metaphor, cause it comes up in the book a lot, identity is where you plant your roots. And self worth is how tall and beautiful you let your tree grow. So, where are you grounded? Where do you, look for your identity? the place for you. Are you alright? Are you alright? I, I hope people are. If you haven't. Gone to watch us on YouTube, you really do, just to see that last four seconds of Sarah getting

Sarah:

stuck in

Chris:

a sweatshirt. I'm not distracted by what's happening on the screen at all.

I thought I could, I thought I could do it without you. Like actively stuck in a sweatshirt struggling. You look like Tommy boy, fat guy in a little coat, Richard. Oh, fuck.

Sarah:

Okay. Back in a little

coat.

Sarah:

All right. Give me a second.

Chris:

your identity is kind of the place where you ground yourself. The, the. Your, values where you plant your roots, the way that it comes across in the chapter is there's a, a whole slew of places where you can plant your roots and, some psychiatrists and psychologists and researcher type people whose names I never remember in these books. they did a lot of research in, how college students saw themselves and came up with some dimensions and there's actually a really nice, exercise at the end that kind of lists a bunch of these dimensions where you can start to think about where are, are my roots and the roots are kind of the places where you can, Find yourself falling into Fopo. So if you have your identity based in a lot of things that are, Sort of external to you. So when we're talking about performance based identities, we're talking about people who are really grounded in being better than the person next to them. People who are really grounded in having having success based on external measurement. And I think you had a really good quote.

Sarah:

Oh, well, I just wrote down, I just wrote down here that the self worth is dependent on the objectives in the world. So you have your external, which is appearance, academics, competition, approval from others and family support. And then you have your internal, which are the faith and virtue, objectives.

Chris:

The dimensions in the study were college kids see themselves reflected in the external. So am I getting good grades? And I think we talked about this a lot when we were talking about, kind of, Identity and basing yourself in in that space where looking to internal sources for validation and determining if you are enough. So what we find is if we base our self worth in places that require external validation. If we place our self worth in something like academics where someone has to give me a grade, then I'm always kind of on the cusp of failing, right? Because I'm always waiting for somebody else to tell me if I'm good enough, and what we want to try to do is move to, self worth being based on how we see ourselves and understanding that we are enough. I think is the, the whole point of chapter five is going from looking for external validation to understanding that at some point in your life, you have to accept that you are enough just as you are. I like to go back to my girl, Bridget Jones, I love Bridget Jones. Everybody loves Bridget Jones. I mean, if you're a younger generation, I see, I see Becca, over there, I need to

Sarah:

watch that again.

Chris:

You really got to check out Bridget Jones's diary. all of them read

Sarah:

it. Yeah. Read

Chris:

the book, Janet Fielding. I can remember her name. I can't remember, smart people's research studies names.

Sarah:

Yeah, that's just, I do. I, I, is this the quote you were talking about? We become trapped when our self self worth is a consequence rather than the cause.

Chris:

Yeah, like, when, when your self worth is based on something that somebody has to tell you, like, I, to this day, will find myself kind of holding my breath. If I share a, share an idea, or share something during a meeting, I mean, during a meeting is where I come up with like the worst faux pas, and it does kind of hold you back. I mean, you can, I can feel it. A

Sarah:

lot, yeah.

Chris:

I worked really hard on this, I really have my points laid out, I know that it's good, I know that what I'm trying to do here is, I know that it's quality stuff, but as soon as I go to say it in a meeting, I'm like, Hey, and then I find myself like holding my breath and waiting for someone to go, what a great idea when, you know, in reality, I already know that it's a great idea. And I think some of, Some of the consequence to having that moment of waiting for someone to tell me it's a great idea is that I lose out on the opportunity to really engage in discussion about the idea because I'm just waiting for someone to tell me it's good. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. You're on the edge of your seat, like waiting, like, Hey, I said that. I said it. Hey. Hey. Hey. Right. And I mean, most of the, at least with me, most of the time, like they're decent, they're good ideas, but it's nothing that's going to be like meeting stopping Right. So just having the expectation of someone. Stopping and saying, great idea is kind of setting, setting yourself up for a little bit of disappointment.

Chris:

coming back to some of this stuff we were talking about in, in chapter four, it's the opportunity to learn from that feedback. If you're waiting for someone to tell you how good it is, you're going to miss the opportunity for someone to say, it's great. Or if someone to say, wouldn't it be better if we did like something slightly different? Cause you're so married to the idea that if you don't tell me it's a great idea, then I'm a complete failure rather than being someone who contributes and continues to bring good ideas. Sorry. And that

Sarah:

also, no, but it also leads to, immediately you go on the defensive if anybody has any criticism instead of, hearing that feedback. You're immediately thrown into that zone of, Oh my gosh, I'm a terrible human being. I'm the worst. I need to defend this. I need to make it right. And it's not, that's not what it's all about all the time.

Chris:

There are, dimensions, that he lists in the, in the last, like the last little taking action part of the chapter. And I found it really helpful to kind of read through there. And what I tend to do is think I'm better than I am when I do little exercises like that. And I'm like, Oh my God, I so don't care about what people think about what I look like. And yet I put on eyeliner and mascara every morning before I log in. and,

Sarah:

but I'm going to defend that. I am going to defend that because, like, I have my eyelashes on and people would see that as me getting my eyelashes done because I want to look a certain way for someone else. But that's not, I mean, I can validly say that I have these eyelashes on my face because they make me feel better. And if I feel better, I do a better job. So there are things like that as well. There are people who do a lot of shit for other people, but there are People who validly do shit for themselves,

Chris:

right?

Sarah:

So good

Chris:

looking at, looking at perspective, I think is where I was getting with it is the same thing you just said. Like, yeah, I'll put on eyeliner and mascara every day because I feel good when I do it. Not because I need someone to tell me how pretty my eyeliner is. I feel good. And when I put on the eyeliner and the mascara, that's me doing me. I'm not doing it to please somebody else. I'm not doing it to. You know, reject, stereotypical beauty. I am being me. And, and part of who I am, part of my identity is, really liking when I look in the mirror and see, that I have eyeballs. Which is hard to do if I don't wear eyeliner and mascara. so I, I think it's a lot of perspective shifting about looking at those dimensions and like kind of going through there and reading them off and being like, part of, and then I found ones that were actually sticky for me, like. somebody to tell me, that I had a great idea, being socially conscious about, about something and, and someone telling me that I'm better than somebody else. Like, those are ones that I really had to take a little bit of a 2nd glance at, but. Having an awareness of that is kind of where we can derail that faux pas. Understanding that, yeah, that's where I have, that's where I have a root. That's where I have an identity. So I need to start looking at that and shifting my perspective, maybe, so that I can avoid, really sinking into that fear. So that I can avoid being an immediate and being like, oh gosh, someone should tell me that this was a good idea or I'm gonna take it back.

Sarah:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I know there's in, in the book, there was a note of studies being done about the external and the internal and that data shows that the external, those who are basing self worth on external objectives that negatively impacts their physical and mental health, those individuals have a greater tendency to lean towards, alcohol, Drug abuse and eating disorders.

Chris:

Right and it kind of tracks it because you're always afraid like you're right. You just live in the whole cortisol loop yeah, and you're you're constantly up here and like

Sarah:

we all have bits of these that that are bringing us here. And that's why we're doing this to. Call attention to that and how we can help ourselves get out of that. I don't think I'll ever live a life where I have all internal objectives. Like it's just not, I'm, I'm not enlightened like that.

Chris:

I think it's looking at the, at their perspective. Am I really waiting for external validation for this or is this just who, who I am? And yeah, am I being my most authentic person by doing just as I want to do like our friend Beethoven? Beethoven was it he's really good at writing music But he is also really worried about not being able to write music and then he was like fuck it I I'm gonna do this because this is who I am and this is a part of my this is a part of my identity and I'm gonna separate it out of Waiting for everybody's approval. I'm going to separate my music and my, my jam from that being so tied to, to approval, I'm going to write music because I love to write music and. You know, damn the consequences. If you don't want to like it, then you don't have to like it. But I'm going to be true to who I am because that's a part of my identity that I really enjoy and I really like. It's, it's that kind of shifting from external validation to internal validation. Like, there's nothing wrong with wanting to get good grades. There's nothing wrong with wanting to succeed in your career. It's about understanding. But if you're basing. Yeah.

Sarah:

Go ahead. If you're basing everything off, if you're basing everything off of that, you're setting yourself up. I, those things, it's possible and those are great things to, to do. but that's not sustain, sustainable to base everything. All of your self worth cannot be thrown into that basket.

Chris:

Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Okay. Exactly.

Sarah:

can I, may I. wrap up chapter five with a little bit of reading from the book.

I would love it. I like this. I would love it. Okay.

Sarah:

Cause I think it puts it all together. So you simply, and I love the simply of all of this. It's so simple, so fucking hard, but it's so simple. So simple. you simply need to recognize that you are worthy exactly as you are. You are not your grade, whether it's an A or an F. You're not your job, your age, your marathon time, your place on the org chart, your relationship status, your gold bars or your prison bars. You have inherent value and it's not conditioned on anything you do or have done. Your value stems from your being, not your doing.

Chris:

I mean, a hundred percent looking back to, looking back to our girl, Bridget Jones. I mean, I'll, I'll kind of, I'll kind of tie those two quotes together. There's a, there's Did we get

Sarah:

to the Bridget Jones quote at all? I don't think we did. I don't think we we

Chris:

did. This is why we need, this is why we need, Becca. But I will attempt to, to bring it up,

here.

Chris:

So there's a point in the story where, where, Bridget is always trying to be something for somebody else. She's writing in her diary and she's like, I smoked 800 cigarettes. I weigh 9, 000 pounds and she's always anxious about it. Right. And at some point Bridget decides that, you know, enough with that, enough with trying to date my boss enough with trying to impress everybody enough with all of this. I'm going to, I'm going to do, I'm going to get a job. I'm going to do my job. I'm going to have my friends. And, when she decides that. she, she ends up with a surplus of everything that, that she wanted before. and she, she ends up having this dinner party at her house with all of her weirdo little friends. And she puts

Sarah:

the leeks in the soup.

Chris:

There's blue soup. If you haven't seen it, you, you, you got to check it out there. All of her friends are eating her blue soup that she has tried to make. And they, one of them gives a toast and says to Bridget. We love her just as she is, and it kind of, it's the same thing, like, when you can appreciate yourself and your gifts and what you are in a way that doesn't depend on somebody else's opinion. Like, Bridget finally understands that she is a full and complete person if she doesn't have a boyfriend, if she stays a singleton forever, if she makes blue soup because she Screwed something up like I love Casey. Everything about that makes Bridget, Bridget, and everything about Bridget is wonderful and appealing just as she is. And it, I saw that movie and read that book at a time in my life when I needed to hear that. And it's so fun to, to kind of see those lessons come back.

Sarah:

I need to go back and read it. Like, I feel like it was a really, like, it was right at the same, like same, same stage. I, I remember going to the movies by myself. see them like I felt like it was very liberating. It was very liberating. So

Chris:

good stuff good stuff

Sarah:

and

Chris:

Hugh Grant Definitely easy on the eyes. So yeah, yeah, you can't lose with a Bridget Jones

Sarah:

No.

Chris:

Just as she is. I think that is the, that is the secret sauce

Sarah:

All right. Are you going to

Chris:

chapter six? yeah. Chapter five. find out who you are. So, chapter six kind of moves us outside of identity and self worth and starts talking about the neurobiology of FOPO. And, there are some concepts in here, that are really fascinating. So again, there's a, there's a science guy and he does a bunch of experiments and those experiments are what happens in our brains when we're doing things. So what happens in our brains when we're doing little tasks? What happens in our brains when we're doing big tasks? What happens in our brains when we stop doing those tasks? And one of the sort of groundbreaking things that he came up with in the 90s, so right around this same time, was that your brain never sits still like it, it's engaged and, firing, when you're doing a task, a complicated, hard, mentally challenging task. And when you flip over to not doing that task, when you're like, just have an idle brain, there are different parts of your brain that are working equally as hard. So your brain is never quiet. Your brain is always throwing things at you in your head. NNN me, Sarah. Your NMNN Neuro.

Sarah:

D-M-D-N-D-M-N. Default. Default

Chris:

Neuro

Sarah:

Mode Network.

Chris:

Default. Mode Network. DMS,

Sarah:

default mode network.

Chris:

Cool. yes. So even when you are just sitting still, these things are, these things are firing and it turns out, this might be where all of our fopo, where all of our, quote unquote suffering. Comes from because the tendency of those just, churning in the background kind of defaults, network is that it, it, it asks all kinds of questions that aren't that great. if you let your mind just sit here, it'll constantly ask you questions about the

Sarah:

shitty things

Chris:

like,

Sarah:

yeah, they, they talk about it at the beginning, like the studies that they did, um, it shows that people are actually happier when they are focused on a very specific task and they're doing something that's more challenging. Like we think like, I'm stressed out. I want, I don't want to do it. Like, I just want to sit down and not think about anything. Well, that's not fucking possible. If you're going to sit down and not think about anything, your mind's not. You know, if you're not doing the right things, your mind's going to go to that, those shitty places all the time. That's just, just how it is. And that's why we meditate.

Chris:

Thank you for stealing the punchline.

Sarah:

Okay. Sorry. It

Chris:

is, it is my week to lead.

Sarah:

Sorry.

Chris:

And you're. You ruined it.

Sarah:

You, you, well.

Chris:

You ruined it.

Sarah:

Okay.

Chris:

Fine. so, I will mention before I get to the mindfulness part of this, that, this is one of the big problems with, ADHD, is that, ADHDers tend to sit more in their DMN. Then, then, people with normal brains, like we just get there quicker. regardless of what we're doing, our tendency is to even pop out of a task we're supposed to be focused on and just live in our, our, our DMN. And for the most part, that's an uncomfortable place for, for people to be. That's why, ADD is a problem because then we, we do whatever we can to kind of. Get our brains to work in the right way. We don't necessarily get the same rush of focusing on a task that everybody else does. So we kind of create our own rush. and one of the, one of the ways that you can sort of combat this is mindfulness. how do we develop mindfulness, Sarah?

Sarah:

Am I allowed to talk now?

Chris:

Don't shake your head like you don't want to say it.

Sarah:

I didn't know if I was allowed to talk now. I didn't want to get yelled at.

Chris:

Talk. You say it.

Sarah:

Meditation.

Chris:

Meditation. Exactly right. Gold star for you. Gold star.

Sarah:

Can we talk about this experiment they did with the college students and this kid that zapped himself 490 times? We don't even have to, we don't have to really get into it. There was a study. They put these college students in a room where they couldn't do anything. The only thing they could do was give themselves electric shocks if they wanted to, like they didn't have to, but like before they threw them in there. They were like, Hey, shock yourself and tell us now, like, would you do that voluntarily? And they all said no. And then they get in there and they're so bored that they, they all start zapping themselves a little bit like here and there. But the one kid says, and I love, I love this guy just because he included this, but it ends with a one outlier push the button 490 times. Imagine being in that guy's head.

He just couldn't

Sarah:

stand it. Like, I would rather just electrocute myself than listen to my own brain anymore.

That guy had ADD so bad. So bad. Yeah. I love you. yes, I mean, that is one of the big takeaways from that chapter is that in general, we would

Chris:

rather give ourselves an electric shock than sit quietly and let our brains, meander where they will. Like, that is how, that is how frequently those thoughts turn dark, is I would rather shock myself and, and have that be an activity than for me to sit in my default, thingy thingy.

Sarah:

Yeah. So I laugh about it. but I shouldn't laugh about it because now I literally just like, just now, which kind of pisses me off because I read it 17 times, but just now thought about it. Yeah. Like. You think about people who, go to that place, who decide that suicide is the way to go. This is where their minds, like this is, they would rather not be here than deal with what's going on in their minds like that. And that's what lead, like that's, you know, I'm not saying that's what leads to it, but you get what I'm saying. Like that's,

Sometimes.

Sarah:

Like. Heck

yeah.

Sarah:

And this kid was just like, fuck it. I'm going to shock myself until I pass out. Like.

Rather than. I mean that's. Sit in stillness. Right.

Sarah:

Right. So that's. It's. Now I feel really fucking bad that I was laughing about it 490 times. Like that's a lot of shocking. Anyway.

Chris:

Yeah. Imagine living in that guy's brain.

Sarah:

Fuck. Right. So yeah. It's. It's fucked up. Anyway. Go ahead. Sorry. I just got that.

Chris:

No, I love that story. And I love the way that we can combat the FOPO is understanding who we are as people and what's important and what we value and being able to sit with our thoughts about that, being able to sit with our thoughts about, Here's my grounding things. Here's where my roots are and being able to kind of go back to that, but also being able to have the pause and the mindfulness to take yourself from one perspective to another, from sitting there and being like, I'm not good enough. I'm never going to be good enough. of course, I'm not going to say this idea in the meeting because someone might call me dumb or someone might think I'm dumb and I can't. I can't do it to, you know, giving yourself the opportunity to kind of take a breath and redirect like the perspective we were talking about in Chapter five and the. The way you do that a lot of times is being mindful and giving yourself the heartbeat to say, I don't need to shock myself right now because yeah, I'm bored. And yeah, I don't like the direction my brain is taking. But these are thoughts that are in my head. And they are not real. They are transient. They are not the part of me that that I ground myself in. These are things that are coming in and out of my consciousness all the time, and I can choose to give them attention or I can choose not to give them attention. I think that is one of the most powerful things that I'm finding in meditation is that you do give yourself that pause to make a good decision. You do give yourself that pause to align yourself with a value. I don't have to pay attention to that thought about how I'm worthless because I, I have to put on eyeliner, like don't be silly, like I don't have to give credence to any of these thoughts that are coming in and out of my consciousness when they do. I can make that decision because I am more mindful than I was a week ago. I mean, and if you think about how, how hard we fought the meditation at the beginning. If you think about how hard we were like, I can't, I can't do that. I'd like, there's no way I can sit quietly. There's no way I can sit in this room and not shock myself.

Sarah:

I just think of like, like, Things I heard at the beginning like I think one of the first things I listened to was Dan Harris's website podcast where he He did with his brother.

Yeah

Sarah:

talking to because his brother was very Resistant to meditating and blah blah blah anyway I remember one of them talking about your thoughts being the waterfall and you being behind the waterfall and I was like the fuck Like this, jeez, I need to way more gummies to figure this shit out. And I didn't need to. I didn't even need the gummies. I figured it, like, those are, like, that makes sense to me now.

Chris:

Right. And I, the, the fact that that's protective of FOPO is, Is not a surprise to me at this point, understanding who you are and having the, having the gap and I think we've talked about that gap through all of the books like building atomic habits and having the gap, the space to say, yeah, I don't really wanna, but I'm gonna is one of the things that makes that atomic habits work. I don't want to take my meds every day, but I'm going to because it's habit now. I don't want to exercise every day, but I found something, I found a routine that works. And having the ability to work through, I'm just not going to do it, is what kind of that mindfulness creates. So,

Sarah:

so this is what we need to remember when we need to get back into these routines after the holidays. And this is something that Noah will want to argue with me after he listens to this because he's already argued this point to me because I said, I'm, I need to adjust my routine. Yeah. And he was like, no, you don't. You just need to get your mind straight that you're going to do what you were doing before and get back to it. And you just need to be mindful of that. And I was like, yeah, I guess so, but, I'm going to adjust the routine. Yeah. Yeah, I have the ability to adjust the routine because that one works better for me, but

Chris:

I mean if you go back to Atomic Habits and Atomic Habits is a, is a book about building habits because it works. Like the reason that book is so successful is because when you pay attention to how you're building the habit, it works. Atomic habits isn't about forcing yourself to do shit. You don't want to do atomic habits is about finding routines that work.

Sarah:

And I think that's kind of how I explained it to him. Like, okay, well, we got into those routines and, and we both have kind of changed. I I've changed my routine a bit. anyway. Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah. I mean, it's, it always strikes me how everything kind of ties together. Like mindfulness is important in, not giving a fuck, right? Because you pick the things that are important to you, you pick your values, and then you give a lot of fucks about those values and being able to build a habit around a value. Again, it's mindfulness kind of weaving its way through everything that we've talked about until we get here, and we're like, oh, FOPO, ugh, no one likes it. Oh, you know how to fix it? Mindfulness.

Sarah:

I read this one, to you earlier, I believe, But I'm going to read something first. and this is just a study found. The average we spend on average, we spend nearly 47 percent of our waking hours in a mind wandering state.

Chris:

I love it

Sarah:

from this. Our real power lies in being able to choose where to place our attention and having the mental skills to do so, which is exactly what we were just talking about,

Chris:

right? It's not motivation. It's not dedication. It's. Having that space to give yourself to make a good decision. And the

Sarah:

So I want my superpower to be mindfulness. What kind of leotards would I wear for mindfulness?

Chris:

Invisible

ones. I

Sarah:

feel like

my, my outfit

Sarah:

might be fun. It's just, you're just

like a Buddhist monk. Your robes, your leotard is orange.

Sarah:

My leotard. Oh my God. I'll stop talking. I think we're done. I think

Chris:

we're, I think we're done. I think next week we're going to go into, we're going to go into part two. And I think the first chapter is one about Barry Manilow and I know we're both looking forward to that.

Sarah:

Exactly what, as soon as I turned the page and saw that it's, Barry Manilow and the Spotlight Effect. I was like, wow, does that sound fucking fun. I can't wait to get into it.

Yep. And

Sarah:

I'm, I'm leading that one. So I'm super excited about it.

Chris:

I am too. I am really excited about that.

Sarah:

Yikes.

Chris:

And my ability to interrupt and interject the whole time.

Sarah:

I interrupted you one fucking time.

Chris:

I don't need your, I don't need your sass. Remember

Sarah:

that time early in the podcast when you didn't take your meds the one day and I was telling a story and you were like, and you weren't paying attention. And I said, why, what are you doing? Why are you not paying attention to me? And you literally were like, Because you're not saying what you should be saying. You're not saying what I want you to say. You should be saying this.

Chris:

That never happened.

Sarah:

The great thing about a podcast is we can go back to the tape.

I thought we won't.

Sarah:

Throw in my red flag. Replay.

I can't believe you're gonna call a replay on this.

Sarah:

Nah, I'm too fucking lazy. I don't care. Alright,

Chris:

so, Right. Looking forward to all that. so tomorrow's, tomorrow's Steeler game. Is that a, is that a playoff game? If we lose, are we done, are we done with the Steelers? Yeah.

Yeah.

Chris:

I mean, I got a sweatshirt that says play Renegade and I feel like I want to wear it some more.

Sarah:

if we, if, if we win, I feel like, and how I, I mean, I love to have faith in my team and all but, it will be a fucking miracle. A miracle It, I mean, I can't imagine they have to be a whole different team than they have been in the last four weeks.

Chris:

I mean,

Sarah:

it's, and I love that this is gonna come out in like a few weeks, so done. Right.

Chris:

Everyone will already know, we'll be able to look back on this and be like, listen to the optimism. Listen to the optimism. God bless you guys.

Sarah:

I hope the Steelers are going to win the Super Bowl and we'll come back to this episode. Right. And you know what? If they win next week, I'll be saying the same thing. Oh, if we win this one, it'll be a fucking miracle.

Chris:

I feel like we had a, we had a Super Bowl run where we, where we ended up winning. Like we, We were like four games away from the end of the season. And we were like, we got to win at, I

Sarah:

think it was, Ben Roethlisberger's first Superbowl.

Chris:

Can't remember.

Sarah:

I feel like it was, cause I remember, I distinctly remember watching that. And we, when we beat the Patriots, like that was like. Cause that was, that was the game you're going into like, and there's no fucking way. yeah, so that was fun. So maybe that'll happen again. I mean,

Chris:

I mean, that's the fun thing about the sports luckily, Sarah, this is not a podcast about football or Superbowl. Yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah. Or calendar. Definitely not the Kelsey brothers.

I mean, we're

Sarah:

getting there though. We're getting there. Right. Got like 40 followers.

Right. Oh my God. and then Noah can have his own podcast.

Sarah:

Yeah. It'll be awesome. It'll build

off the success of our podcast. It'll be amazing. I love it.

Sarah:

He, he'll love this. Yesterday he was talking and he's, he was telling his, you know, normal story and he went this, that, and the other, and the other thing, this, that, and the other. And I said, will you please stop, stop saying this, that, and the other. He was like, I don't say that a lot.

Go to the tape.

Sarah:

Wow. Wow. And he just sat there and laughed. I was like, just think about it for a little bit. And now every time you go to say it, and in the, the two minute conversation that followed that, he had to stop himself like 17 times from saying this, that, and the other.

Chris:

I mean, you, you open up a whole new perspective when you start recording yourself and listening to how. Dumb you sound.

Sarah:

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. It's pretty, pretty fucking amazing.

Chris:

Every week, constantly amazed by the amount of editing it takes for me not to sound like some dum dum.

Sarah:

I don't think I sound dum dum, dum dum,

Chris:

dum dum like

Sarah:

gum gum.

Chris:

How many likes, how many ums, how many, how many times

Sarah:

do I

Chris:

repeat words just to change the end of the sentence so it doesn't make sense with the beginning of the sentence? A lot. A lot.

Sarah:

It's fuckin great. It's fuckin great. yeah,

Chris:

good thing, in our, in our new era, in our new era, we were aiming to have shorter episodes. Great. we're an hour and ten minutes, and I think by the time we release this That's actually good! it'll be 45 minutes. By the time we cut out all the

Sarah:

Yeah.'cause we have a good, we have a good 15 minutes of us. the, we have a great amount of those to get rid of. We're fine. you went pee. Oh yeah. I forgot I had

Chris:

go pee.

Sarah:

Yeah, we're fucking golden. This'll be 45 minutes tops.

Chris:

Exactly.

Sarah:

Okay.

Chris:

All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, we're gonna stop recording. Hey, love you.

Sarah:

Love you. Bye.

Chris:

Sorry that I yelled at you for, taking my spotlight.

Sarah:

It's all right. It was fun to give you shit after all of it. Okay.

Chris:

Alright. Love you.

Sarah:

Love you, bye. Love

Chris:

you, bye.

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Christine Kanalis

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Sarah Leibhart

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