The Sevan Podcast - #278 - Kyle "The Captain" Creek

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Writer. Creator. Instigator. Not your dad. Kyle Creek wrote "Speech Therapy," "Fucking History," and the "Feel Free to Quote Me" series. Follow Kyle - https://www.instagram.com/sgrstk/ Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Watch this episode https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC59b5GwfJN9HY7uhhCW-ACw/videos?view=2&live_view=503 Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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in the cabin. Ah, yep, it doesn't look familiar, but I brought all my stuff here not not the real stuff hey how are you man kyle how are you doing i'm uh i'm i'm like nervous good why are you nervous what's there to be nervous about i'm i'm uh i'm i'm not in my usual location i'm in a i'm in a um i'm on a family vacation I'm not in my usual location. I'm in a, I'm in a, um, I'm on a family vacation in a cabin. I say, it looks like you're in a bunk bedroom or something. I am. I'm in that room. My kids are like my wife and all the kids are in one room and my kids are like, why aren't you sleeping in this room? I'm like, you'll know, you'll know when you're old, you'll know. Yeah. It is my girlfriend and my baby just went in the other room too, to lay down. So

we're in similar boats. I'm not in a cabin though. I'm actually in my new home. So did you ever think you were going to have kids? I didn't honestly. Um, I mean, when I was younger, I think it crossed my mind a lot growing up. And as I got into like my twenties and thirties and got really busy with work and, you know, career aspirations aspirations it to completely kind of left my mind um and i thought oh i'll i'll you know i'll be one of those men who has kids when he's in like his late 40s early 50s kind of thing once i've accomplished everything i want to do and i am so glad it didn't happen that way like i am actually really stoked to have my son right now. And how old are you? I'm 35. So 34, and we found out we were going to have him 35. Now he's about six and a half months. And the way he's changed my life. And

I've tried to explain this to friends of mine. It's honestly made me more productive. Like every fear that I had about being a father and thinking that it was going to hold me back or get in the way and impede some of my progress, it's been the opposite. I've become much more cognizant of my time management. I feel like I'm a better writer now because I have different things to draw from. He's really just mellowed me out. out. I think being alone for a long sustained period of time for people actually makes you more anxious and makes you more stressed because you start to focus too much on just every little thing in your life that's inconvenient or everything that bothers you. Whereas like, you know, when you wake up and you have a kid and like something goes wrong, your morning kind of goes haywire.

Once you get used to being able to you know organize that chaos everything else seems easier everything else feels like it's just much less you know it just feels much less stressful now like the little things that used to really get to me i had a buddy in town a couple weeks ago and he was we were talking about fatherhood he's not a dad yet or anything and i was telling him i was like i told him i said you at least need a dog you need something to come into your life and kind of you need something to come into your life you You need something to come into your life. You need something to fuck your days up. Because he's been single and been alone for, God, probably like six, seven years now.

And he's very successful. He does very well for himself. But he's just so anxious about the littlest things. And so I've pushed him to get a dog. And he told me a conversation he had with his mom. He asked his mother, he said, why do you never get anxious and his mom said once you have kids it just changes like you just stop worrying about the little things that make you anxious and it's just so true and it's just not what i anticipated it's not what i thought fatherhood was going to be and i'm just so

grateful for it there's this daoist saying stop thinking and your problems will end. And one of the themes that you talk about when I was doing my due diligence on you was surrendering. And if you fight back, kids will be miserable. Oh my God. If you surrender and stop thinking about yourself, you will have an opportunity for damn near enlightenment. This is so true with a lot of things. The more you push back on things, the more of an inconvenience they become. It's true. Arguing with reality is a bad thing. And a lot of people do it.

I think a lot. I think you see it a lot with obviously with parenthood, but you see it a lot with just changes in life that people don't want to accept. And I'll admit, you know, there's times in my life where I've pushed really hard back on change, on things I didn't want to happen. And I think especially the last two years, we've all kind of been forced to adjust to change that we weren't, you know, prepped for, weren't planning. The times that I've tried to be like, I can control the situation, it's just so much worse. And it always is so much more

inconvenient. If something's going to happen and you know, you're going to be a parent, just lean into it. And I write about this in my new book. I think one of the biggest things is what's the new book. So my new book, speech therapy, um, it's a book. Oh, you got it. All right. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the topics I talked about in there, all these little things in our life and really they kind of all to have that common theme. Like the more like you push against trying to resist them, the worse they're going to become. And if you can just lean in and have that emotional management and just to go back to talk about being a parent, the more you lean into being a dad, the more rewarding it becomes, the easier it feels.

And he just the way my son is just assimilated into my life so quickly. I honestly can't imagine life without him now. And it feels cliche to say that you hear a lot of parents say that kind of thing. But it's true. It's true. Like, you know, and I when when we found out my girlfriend was pregnant, I wasn't ready to be a dad. And I actually had a really dark time for a couple of months. And I think I talked about it briefly in my book where it hit me pretty hard. I was really depressed. I started kind of drinking heavily for a while.

And it just wasn't it wasn't fair to this kid coming into the world. It wasn't fair to my girlfriend. It wasn't fair to myself. I was just coming out of that COVID rut of just feeling like everything had been stripped from me. And I just was not prepped. And once I finally accepted it and started really embracing it, stopped listening to everyone in my life that was giving me really bad parenting advice, it just got good. It got easy. And I'm just, again, I'm just so stoked. And it's been fun. How old's your son? Six and a half months. Oh, he's really new oh yeah

he's new now is is your wife breastfeeding uh she is actually and um did you where did you have the baby where did she have the baby well we did the midwife route we tried to have him at home she was really adamant on that my girlfriend is really into doing her research and she really wanted to have the baby at home. We found this excellent midwife. We were living in Vegas for the time. And she labored at home for, I think, 30 plus hours. We were trying to do the water birth and he just wasn't coming out. He was turned a little sideways. So we had to rush to the hospital. She labored at the hospital for i think another four hours because she really wanted to do it as natural as possible yes sir and after about 40 hours of labor um they told her she's gonna have emergency c-section so oh man how did she okay with that

was she able to process that and be like hey i gave it my best shot and yeah yeah yeah she's actually really proud of herself and i'm'm proud of her too. I mean, she tried, she gave it her all. I couldn't imagine being in labor as long as she was. And she's really happy. And I joke that she had every birth experience in one where she got to try the water birth, she got to try the natural labor, and then she got to do the C-section. So obviously, there's still a part of her that I think wishes it would have gone the way she had planned. You know, everyone has that birth plan they want to work out, but we're just happy he's here and healthy. And that's ultimately what it came down to.

When it was time to do the C-section, she really just wanted him here and wanted him to be safe. So she was okay with it. No, Jake, I will not ask him about his hat. There's a flow to this conversation. Podcasting is a fucking art and mind your own business. 20 burpees for you. So tell me about your hat, Kyle. It's actually a brand my buddy has been running for a while.

It's called Section 8. He was in the military and he always liked the idea of, you know, I believe a Section 8 is when you're kind of getting kicked out for being too mentally unstable. I think Klinger in the show Nash. No, the show Nash. Klinger and Nash. I'm 49. I remember Klinger. I hated that show. Klinger in the show Nash. No, the show MASH. Klinger. Klinger and MASH. I'm 49. I remember Klinger.

I hated that show. Klinger was trying. He was trying to get a Section 8. He was trying to get sent home for Section 8. My buddy always kind of resonated with that, thought it was funny. So he's just had the brand forever, and he made this hat, and I liked it. There's not a lot of story behind that. Isn't it 5150?

Isn't that what they call it? Isn't that like when you go to the loony bin, you have 5150? I don't know. He'd know more. But I know a Section 8, some mental, you know, release from the military for being too wild. And I know that's what Klinger is trying to get because my buddy goes by the handle Corporal Klinger on Instagram. Okay. In Section 8, it's also, I mean, you probably know this.

It's like the neighborhoods where like the housing is cheaper. Yeah, yeah yeah he's and what all the crime is and where you go get weed he's had a lot of like uh back and forth with people wanting to know if that's what the brand's about or not so it's always interesting i actually had that thought when i put it on this morning i was like should i wear this on this people are gonna think it's that hud housing kind of stuff but i like the hat it's a good hat and i like my buddy so i figured i'd wear it for him um you don't like him that much if you've put wear it on a big podcast then you'll show your true love um guys uh kyle in 2020 september of 2020 did his very first podcast i did did. He was an anti-podcast man.

And similar to me, I don't really have a lot of time to listen to podcasts either because I don't have a commute. If I had a commute and I was in a car, I'd probably listen to podcasts. I'm guessing you're not a commuter. And then by 2022, just a few months ago, he reached out to a guy named Alexander Woodrow, and he requested to be on a podcast. So it's, it's quite a, um, it's quite the podcast journey for a guy. It is. Yeah. I was very anti them for a long time. I don't know why. I think it was just cause it seemed like for a while, everyone, their dog was starting a podcast and I think

they still are now it's everyone in their fish. Yeah. And I think a lot of the content was just kind of, you know, drab and and content it wouldn't be a part of but yeah I was very anti-podcast I made fun of them all the time I've been told several times I should start my own I just wasn't really into it I enjoy writing I enjoy kind of being behind the scenes on things and uh that first podcast was actually set up by my publisher and even then I was hesitant I was like I don't really need to do podcasts and I enjoyed it I talked with Christopher Ryan had a really good call with him and then I kind of went dark again for a while I was like, I don't really need to do podcasts. And I enjoyed it. I talked with Christopher Ryan, had a really good call with him. And then I kind of went dark again for a while. I was like, all right, I don't need to do more podcasts. I got my one under my belt. I'm good. But then Alexander's

a mutual friend of a buddy of mine. And he'd actually posted on his story that he was looking for hosts. And I kind of liked what Alex was always was always posting so I wrote him I said let's do one together so again I had a good time with that and I figured I should probably jump more into this realm I do like talking I like having you know good conversations with good people and so um I think I've recorded about five in the past two weeks and everyone's been very different everyone's had you know a good journey as far as the conversation's been concerned so I definitely plan to keep doing these. I don't think I'll start my own. It's not something that my heart's in enough to

want to run my own. I'd rather focus on what I would not, I would not start. Yeah. I have no desire to, um, podcaster for lazy people who are interested. I don't know what they're interested in, but it's for lazy, lazy artists, lazy artists lazy artists do podcasts yeah i think there's probably a a group of people that do that but i think a lot of people are the opposite i think people put too much time into them like i know uh oh yeah sorry by lazy i didn't mean like lazy like in the totality of it's like drawing drawing like like i was a photographer photographers Photographers are lazy drawers. Videographers are lazy photographers. There's like this hierarchy.

And like, if you're painting with oil, then like you're not lazy. That's what I meant by lazy. So maybe lazy is not the accurate word. I should choose a better word when I'm speaking to a writer. I think the word you're looking for is it seems easier. Yes. It seems easier to have a conversation than it does to write a book. I get that. But yeah, I mean, more power to you if you've been running one as long as you have.

races to 500 i'm i i completely get off on the fact that it's just growing super duper fast i'm super i'm super stimulated by that um i'm even in tahoe and i brought my whole setup the soundboard the professional mic the whole damn thing i mean in that in that respect i'm not lazy but um but writing's a different writing's a different creature than this this this i just take a bunch of notes that i pretend like i'm going to use and then just stare at you and let my mouth just start going and you're an easy guest i listened to three of your podcasts on the drive up you are an easy guest so that's not that sounds like a terrible drive no it was that it was actually great it was actually it was actually really really great and what's funny is my my's funny is my kids were listening to it too. And I didn't agree with a lot of the technique that the host – most of the hosts that were using.

How so? I'm not a fan of like – for instance, and I don't mean to pick on Alexander. I know he's your friend, but he describes it as an organic conversation, but it didn't seem like an organic conversation to me. Like, I think he's, he's fairly new to it. I think I was like his 12th guest he's ever had. I mean, he comes from, uh, the rock scene. I actually knew of his band long before I knew him. Um, he was a founding member of our last night and I think he's been touring for about 15 years. He actually just this week announced that he's leaving the band to focus on other things so wow he was still cutting his teeth in the podcast realm too and i could i i know exactly what you're talking

about because i sensed a little bit of that in the uh in the podcast itself as opposed to you know christopher ryan who i think was on like 500. Yes. If not more, maybe episode 1500. That guy's been podcasting for over a decade, and he's got his shit together. I actually reached out to him two days ago to do a follow-up because I'd like to kind of catch up with him after. It's been two years since we last talked. Ask him when you go back on.

He had a thing. Did I lose you? No, I can still hear you. Not anymore. I kicked something. Can you hear me? Yeah. can you hear me yeah now you can hear me now you can't yeah little little echoey not as uh there we go. Now it's better.

What happened? Man, I hope the fire marshal doesn't come and see this. That's what I'm saying. A podcast is a lot of work. This doesn't happen when I'm writing. You don't ever drop a sharp pencil and it pins your scrotum to your chair. That's never happened.

Like you're writing naked or something. No, it's 2022. I use a fucking laptop. Right. Right. Who the hell is still scribing their words? Ask. Well, I ask.

I had the great. I wanted to talk about Trump for a second, Christopher Ryan. But back to scribing words. I don't let anyone see my handwriting. And last night I'm at the dinner table in the cabin and I'm taking all the notes I've taken on my phone and putting them on a pad of paper. My wife came by and complimented my handwriting and showed my three sons. And I was like, wow, no one's ever complimented my handwriting. That's funny about handwriting and showing your sons because I emulated my handwriting to match my dad's as a kid.

My dad, he's an artist and he's really into calligraphy and stuff as well. But he writes in all caps and as a kid I always thought that looked cooler than what I was being taught to write in school yeah so probably in like third or fourth grade I started writing in all caps because I wanted to you know emulate my dad so I think it's kind of cool that your son's got to see and revere your handwriting and so by the time I was in like fifth or sixth grade, I just told teachers that's how I was taught to write. And so I stopped getting docked on assignments for like not capitalizing things or improper noun usage because I just did the all caps writing. So that's the writing I still have. And it was because I looked up to the way

my dad wrote. Do you ever write cursive? I did. I had to in school. I write cursive when my hand gets tired. I do all caps and then I switch to cursive as my hand starts to like cramp. I think cursive still looks so cool. And it's actually something that I tell myself when I have the free time I want to get into. I'd like to start taking some actual calligraphy classes because with how much I enjoy the written word, because with how much I enjoy the written word, I thought it'd be kind of cool to start actually scribing some of my, my, my stuff and just real, you know, fancy, timely, uh, calligraphy, but it's just something, it's one of those things you'd put on your checklist of like nice to do is when I get the time to practice it. And I've been telling myself for years, I'm going to do it. And I just

haven't, you know, I haven't found the time to do it yet. Guys, uh, you're listening to Kyle Creek. I haven't found the time to do it yet. Guys, you're listening to Kyle Creek. He's affectionately known as the captain because he liked to drink and go to bars and party. Oh, you did do your research. There's a handful of books, fucking history. I'd love to know why they can't write the U on there, especially a man like you. I'll tell you exactly why.

Feel free to quote me. Volume i think revised edition this one he didn't self no i've self-published all of them but fucking history and that answer that answers your question the reason the reason they use not on it is because i didn't self-publish that i actually uh i went through pingham random house for that i got a pretty decent book deal something I kind of always thought would be my big career break. And they require it to be Asterix so they can push it to independent booksellers. And Barnes & Noble refuses to carry books on shelves that have the actual words spelled out. And so it was a compromise I was willing to make to, you know, dip my toe in the big publishing water. And after doing so, I decided to go back to self-publishing. Um, man, we have so many doors open. Let me go back and try to close this door real quick. In

that interview you did with Christopher Ryan and he does a rant for 30 minutes before you come on and, um, he's just, he's just ripping Trump you know what's funny is i've never listened to that podcast i don't know the rant you're talking about because i don't i don't ever listen to a podcast i'm on so i never listened to his little rant up front yeah i've never listened to my appearance but i know he does that intro um but yeah go ahead and finish but just you know like i have no context okay it's the typical 2020 rant that we all did um we hate trump flash forward to 2022 which which is amazing because he also says the word nigger in that podcast which i'm that he does with you which i'm fascinated by because um i think it does every and this goes to you know something you write about in your book, Triggered.

You write a whole couple pages on Triggered. But Louis C.K. does this thing on the N-word. Have you seen that? I have not. He basically says, you say the N-word, and then I have to translate it in my head and say nigger. Like what the fuck is that? How about you say it, and I don't have to say it? And it's an amazing – you know who Louis C.K. is?

I know Louis C.K., but I don't know the bit. Okay. It's an amazing you know who louis ck is i know louis ck but i don't know the bit okay it's an amazing bit i just love it but i would love to know how after watching what's happened in the last two years and the um especially it's fascinating how i would think writers would come across i think um there's this daoist saying writing is the origin of all particular things writing is the origin of all particular things. Writing is the origin of all particular things. And when I read that in my 30s, I realized that those Bugs Bunny cartoons where the guy had the sorcery book and he reads something out of it and it turns the guy into a rabbit, that's not fake. That's real. Actually, words are sorcery. You can manipulate people and for the last two years we've under this what i call woke woke posse um words

the whole word thing has been just tossed up in the air like diversity does not mean diversity inclusion does not mean inclusion equity does not mean equity and like all in um and i would just love to know like if because i was in his boat too fuck trump and i would do love to know, like, because I was in his boat, too. Fuck Trump. And I would do anything to get Trump back now. So the way so there's a lot of things to unpack there. Like you said, we got a lot of doors open now. Yes. Good. I'm glad I opened some.

Yeah, we got a lot of doors open now. So the way I view Trump personally, I think the guy's a fucking moron. I think he was the wrong messenger to deliver the message he was trying to deliver. Fair. Totally fair. I. And I think that happens often in life. You can hear something that is the right direction, but if the wrong person delivers that message, it's screwed. I think that's what happened. I think he was the wrong person to deliver the message he was trying to deliver. And that goes right into what you're

saying with words. The wrong word trying to deliver the right message can completely throw people off too and and i kind of appreciate that art by the way that's kind of my art i like people off uh um using words to using metaphors and similes and analogies to draw people in who – like I have a raunchy – what would be considered a raunchy sense of humor. I like your mama jokes. I'm immature. I just like that tactic to lure people in. I agree 100%. That's what I do in a lot of my writing.

That's what I do a lot of my writing. What I was going to say is, you know, like the wrong word can mess up a message, but then the right word can completely manipulate a message. And you want to talk about the power of words the past two years. I come from an advertising background. I grew up in a very creative household. My mom was a writer. My dad was an artist. They did some children's books together. I grew up being encouraged to read. I had the opportunity to either read. I think my

cats are fighting right now. That was some great audio, by the way. I hope it was. I see. It was amazing. One of the cats just coughed up a big tuft of fur. That's another thing. I never in my life thought I was going to own cats. I was a very anti cat guy until two years ago. And now I got two cats. Um, but don't get too many. You know what that means? I interviewed a guy a couple of days ago at five cats. I'm like,

dude, you're batshit crazy. Because I think, I think it just means they're creative, honestly. Okay. Fair. Um,

Ernest Hemingway had like two dozen. You can't tell me that guy was, that guy was crazy in a sense, but I think people with cats are great, but that's another door. We can talk about cats later. And he's in Florida like you are. You're in Florida.

I can't wait to figure out why you left L.A. to go to Florida. Why? Let me go back to what I was saying about the use of words because I come from an advertising background. So early on in my career, I mean, I worked for some politicians in the state of Utah, where I'm from, and I've worked on political campaigns. And I had some mentors that really understood how to manipulate and understood how to, you know, twist words and stuff. And so I ran with that in a lot of my advertising career. And then when 2020 came and I saw peers of mine that were writers start using their skill to incite fear, it really pissed me off. Because I know these guys and I know they're very talented writers. talented writers. And it's like, holy shit, like, here's an opportunity for you to use your writing to actually unite people and to use your writing in a very positive way, which is what the world needs right now. And you're jumping right into this boat of fear mongering. And it really pissed me off. And I lost a lot of respect for some writers that I used to look up to and consider

colleagues or good friends. And so that's why when I, throughout 2020, with my work, I was always trying to write stuff that challenged people to see things and think for themselves. And I wanted people to come together. And I wanted people to see if there was strength in numbers when, you know, there was enough people willing to, to think for themselves. And so I really tried to use my writing and what I knew about the use of words in a way to help people through this, particularly because I have, you know, a background of like mental health advocacy and stuff. So I love hearing that you understand the power of words, because I think a lot of people don't understand the power of crazy powerful, like we know, powerful, like we know that the way things are said matter, but people don't get it.

Like I can take a headline from like an APA article or something from early 2020. And I can tell you the two words in there that completely fuck that headline and made it the fear headline it was. And a lot of people just read that they don't understand that those words are affecting them the way they are. It's the same. It's the same thing with the mask. people don't realize that every time you go outside with a mask on you are announcing to the because in my opinion i mean i know but i'm trying to be like humble in my um we're all mirrors here there's nothing else here just a bunch of mirrors walking around reflecting shit on each other and when you put on a mask you're screaming to the rest of the world that there's something here to be afraid of and whether there is or isn't whatever your opinion is on that

to not know that and acknowledge that you're fucking out of your mind you're you're you it's like not realizing that while you're driving a car it's a dangerous weapon and it could easily kill people i agree i think it's nuts it's fucking bat shit crazy i refuse to wear a mask ever anywhere or put one on my kids ever because of that i'm not telling the world that there's something to be afraid of when there's exactly yeah even if your stance is pro mask and you see the benefit in wearing one which obviously has been proven you know it's not the case unless you have a pacific you know in 95 um you need to be cognizant of what it's communicating. Like you said, there is a certain air around a group of people that are all wearing masks versus a group of people that aren't.

And it's just like there is immediate fear and there's immediate tension presented in that room. It just happens. And again, like I don't care what side you're on. You need to understand that that is what's going on. and you need to understand that words are being used to twist things like it's like uh i don't know if you've read the book the 48 laws of power um it's one of those ones i own on audio and hard copy but here's the thing that book if you follow that book to a t you're a fucking sociopath like that's all there is to it that book gets a lot

of flack for that reason but he opens that book by saying it doesn't matter if you choose to live your life by this or not you need to understand this game is being played so to not read this book and not understand these tactics you're basically playing a game of chess and you don't know how the pieces move and so I encouraged both my dad and my brother. I encouraged my dad and my brother to read that book. And I said, listen, you know, my brother's a doctor. He works in hospital administration. And my dad, you know, owned his own business for a while. I said, whether you follow this book or not, you need to understand there are people doing this and they're going to do this in meetings and they're going to do this in business deals and you have to be cognizant of what's going on i think that's

the real short fall of society right now is when it's so polarized you kind of just jump to one camp or the other without realizing the true meaning of what each camp's trying to do and when you just blindly follow any direction, you're just setting yourself up for like some major regrets, some major breakdowns, mistakes. And I don't really try and push people to a side. I just try and push people to understand what's being played. And it's called the 48 laws of power, Jake. Jake, that's another 20 burpees for interrupting our conversation again it's gonna get bad for you buddy you're gonna be sweating before this is

but it's a robert green book's fantastic book um it's actually banned in the united states prison system because they don't want inmates understand shit yeah the 48 laws of power is on the banned list of reading for the united states prison system because they don't want inmates understanding that level of psychological manipulation. Okay, I'm on it. Just so people know, and I've said it a million times before, if you stop eating added sugar and you stop eating refined carbohydrates, there is no way this thing will get you. None. No way.

I've Googled every single person I can who they said is healthy who's passed away from this, and I'm up over 100, and there's only one that I can't prove that wasn't healthy. And it's some 15 year old kid out of New York. And there's just not a lot of information on them. But other than that, I just wanted to close the loop on that when you're like, what, but it's so dangerous. Another thing that I point out to my listeners all the time is you can't look at a group of a hundred old people who died from this and say, this thing kills old people. And although we're, it's, it's probably fair and safe to of 100 old people who died from this and say this thing kills old people. And although it's probably fair and safe to say that old people, as you get older, your immune system wanes.

Fine. I'll give you that. But old people have also had more years to participate in poor lifestyle activities, meaning if you're 80, you could have been drinking Coca-Cola for the last 50 years, which is a stronger correlate for your demise and your complicity of your death than being old. And you can't, it's just the magic of words and not having logic and not understanding statistics at a third grade level and not understanding correlates versus cause and effect. You have to educate yourself. That being said, I know people who are totally on board with me and and like no this is all just a fucking joke and they're perfectly fine and yet when they got the

disease they panicked because they didn't even realize how much the media had affected them do you know what i mean by that like they're terrified like they're like this is bullshit i don't care if i get it i want to get it and then they get it and they're fucking batshit terrified i'm like oh fuck they they got the psychosis i mean i don't blame if I get it. I want to get it. And then they get it and they're fucking batshit terrified. And I'm like, Oh fuck. They, they got the psychosis. I mean, I don't blame them either. There's an interesting thing you bring up there where I had read a study talking about how stress and anxiety were number one or like the number one preexisting condition for a bad COVID experience. And I got it when I was out here in August. I got Delta when it was running through Florida. And I got it on my plane flight back. I started feeling really crappy. By the time

I landed, I was in a pretty bad place. But I kicked it in about 48 hours. I'm a fairly healthy guy. I rested. And about two days later, I felt good. And then a day or so after that, I had a really stressful day. And I had like just a total, you know, one of those days that just completely just rocks you to your core. And I woke up the next day sick again. And that time I was sick for about seven days. And my girlfriend always likes to tell me, she's like, see, it just proves that like the stress is what makes it worse. Like you kicked it and you were totally fine. And then you had that rough day and it came back and kicked my ass. But that to me, it really speaks to the power

of the mind. And what's crazy to me is how people like to negate things such as the placebo effect. The placebo effect is something we should be looking at and being like, damn, that just proves right there how powerful your brain is. The fact that people can be on placebos and get similar results to someone in a drug trial, and we'll look at that placebo and like joke about it and be like, oh, it's just a placebo effect. Like, isn't that cool? That should actually be awesome to know that your brain just thinking about something can have those results. And I think that's something that's just completely lost. And it hits on exactly what you're saying. When people do get it, and they suddenly go into that fear mode and anxiety mode, it's going to make them really

sick. And they're going to have a lot worse experience because of that. And the placebo effect, again, I think explains that perfectly and shows that your mentality towards situations, whether it's sickness or some major life event, the way you think about it is really going to, you know, determine how, how brutal it is. Um, what do you think about, um, uh, I'm switching subjects here. What do you think, you know, when you have kids and you're supposed to give them energy for the good things they do and not the bad things they do. So like, if one of my kids punches the other kid, the, the, the reaction is, is to go to the kid who punched the other kid and be like, Hey, don't do that shit. But like the real powers is like the kid who got hit to go over to him and be like, are you okay? And not give attention to the other kid

or like when I take my kids to a lot of activities and i reward them with smiles and loves and hugs and touches like when they when they do things you know and i and i don't give really any energy to the stuff that i don't want them to do as just you know behavioral manipulation what do you think about um like i'm seeing there's uh a dude in the comment who's just a fucking hater right like he he's everywhere on all my shit just hating me and i want i'm wondering like what do you think about should i treat those people like should i what do you do what do you do with critics do you give them like part of me likes giving them attention because they um they stimulate me and they excite me and i like to like i have like that eighth grader mentality where

you're sitting around in the room with your friends and everyone's just ripping on everyone like you know um you're making fun of me for being five five and i'm making fun of you for being six six and we're 275 and we're just ripping each other um or do i just not give those people any energy i'm always torn it's case by case for me and i don't want to be mean either but there's like i don't like if someone can't take it i don't want to i don't want to like hurt anyone so i i treat that stuff case by case where if i can respond in a way that's not going to linger or change my energy i'm i'm fine putting someone in my place but like you said there's those times where it's really tempting and it's very easy to go down the hole. If I can see that happening, I'm like not worth my time. Like on Instagram, for example, if I write something that gets people polarized and gets controversial,

if someone writes back with something that I know I can easily respond to and it's not going to fuck up my day or my vibration at the time, I'll do it. I have no problem putting someone in their place. But if it's just like a total troll that I know is going to lead me to 20 minutes of just being like, God, look at this fucking idiot. I avoid that stuff. I used to not. Prior to about 2019, I was very much about like, you know, bring it on.

Like I'm going to talk to you. That's war. I enjoyed it because I feel like i'm more clever than most people and so it was kind of fun like putting people in their place but then i realized that it really just kind of you like you get your hands muddy for no reason that shit just kind of sticks with you for a couple hours after and i just think when you feed that too much i actually read a book just recently it talks about how we all have two wolves inside us and there's the wolf that is like love and positive energy and there's the wolf that's like the negative energy and those

two wolves get in a fight which wolf's gonna win well the wolf that's gonna win is the wolf you've been feeding because that wolf that wolf's gonna be the more powerful wolf in that fight and i read that and i was like damn that is such a profound, very simplistic way of explaining like the animalistic nature of our thoughts. And that book's called The Mastery of Life by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. It's the son of the guy who wrote The Four Agreements. Oh, it's his son. Yeah. I've actually formed a little bit of a friendship with him over the past six months. kind of connect on instagram and talking back and forth and you know i sent him a copy of my book he sent me a copy of his new book and i read that bit and i read it i think two

nights ago and i just think that's such a profound way to look at things like i don't want to feed that negative wolf too much because i know i have a propensity to be fairly cynical. And if that wolf gets too fucking strong, it's going to destroy the other wolf when I need it. It's funny. You said I made this comment on someone's Instagram, this girl, I know super duper hot, super powerful, fun, open-minded chick, just rad. Her name's Danielle Brandon. And, um, she, uh, she was wearing this shirt and it was too big and i made a comment on her instagram uh and she's got like you know hundreds of thousands of followers and i make this comment on instagram your shirt's too big because her shirt had like

a fold in it or something and it was just like like just a style yeah well yeah and i was just like i was just trolling my friend yeah trolling my friend like i'm gonna troll you if uh well if i troll you that means you know i liked you after the podcast and so um fucking like a hundred comments came like you fucking misogynistic piece of shit blah blah blah blah blah and i spent a little time being like yo if someone says if if someone tells someone that their shirt's too big and you have a story around that like you should consider dropping that like that's a lot of shit to carry around with you everywhere you go like even if i am a misogynistic piece of shit like if if those little things trigger you in life like you're never going to be great well this is what i thought but it was pointless it was

pointless yeah i didn't i didn't help any i didn't like i wasn't like i mean that that's the kind of shit like my wife would tell me and help me right right? Yeah. If Kyle Creek says this when you get on the podcast, just remember, don't let him trigger you. Be cool. And I would be like, thanks, honey. Like, good pep talk. These people on fucking Instagram aren't there to make themselves better. I mean, I'm speaking a little bit in absolutes, but it was pointless. I should have just laughed it off.

I shouldn't have tried to help those people. I could have told you that was going to be the reaction you were going the reaction. I need your phone number. I should have called you. I joking with your friend or not. I could have told you that's where it was going to go. Um, but it's what I talk about in my book, speech therapy, where that chapter about being triggered. Yes. Um, being triggered is a choice as much as people don't want to admit it. As much as people want to put the blame on whoever's triggering them, you're choosing to be offended by that word or that individual. And yeah, people are going to say stuff that's fucked up and they're going to say

stuff that's hurtful. Like it's not to say like there's things that everyone can't say everything and not have a reaction. Like it's going to happen, but you're still choosing to let that affect you. And you're, you're given power away from yourself. Like every time you engage in that way,

like whoever, you know, came after you, they could have been having a great day for all. You know, that person was having a really good day and they're scrolling Instagram and they see your comment and they just snap and they go into this mode of being pissed off. And I guarantee you for the rest of their day, they were in a bad fucking mood. And for the rest of their day, they were thinking

about it and it changed their interaction with other individuals throughout that day. For all you know, right after that, they bumped into some of the coffee shop and they had a snappy reaction because they're in a bad mood. I'm still thinking about it four months later that's what i'm saying you're feeding right you're feeding the wrong fucking wolf right now back and corner and that's what i talk about being triggered like you're you something so minuscule can have such a profound effect on what you do with the rest of your day your life and those people that are constantly allowing things to trigger them. I don't understand how you get anything done. I don't understand how you go into a creative realm. I don't understand how you enjoy anything. As a creator, if you're not in a certain state of mind, you can't draw on this creativity and

you cannot draw on that creativity if you're feeding that kind of shit. And I don't understand why these people get their jobs done. I don't get it. And it's just you need to unpack whatever the fuck it is that is allowing that word or that phrase to trigger you. It's okay to still disagree with it and be like, hey, what you said is fucked up. But at that point, you should be able just to be like, all right, that guy's fucked up. I'm not friends with him, so it doesn't matter. And go on with your day. be like, all right, that guy's fucked up. I'm not friends with him. So it doesn't matter. And go on with your day. By the way, people, this is what, this is the, we're going to tie it back to what

we originally talked about. Words, how powerful words are. This is why things like anti-racism are a complete joke. Basically what you are doing, my words, not my guests. What you are doing is you are actually defending those words as being valid trigger words. You're defending that you're, you're create, you think that you're against them, but really what you're doing is, is you're building a fence for them and making them national treasures. You're maintaining the narrative that people should be triggered by those words. So you think you're helping people, but really what you're doing is, is your point. You're by pointing at the bad wolf. You just, you're just, you're just giving it power.

There's the bad wolf. There's the bad wolf. There's the bad wolf. When really, hey, just don't be racist and go about your day. You're just supporting the narrative. And it's gross. It's really gross that you're being tricked by those words. And I don't think the people who are doing it even know that they're doing it. I think the reason, the reason we do that and the reason we see that is because it's easier to label something than to understand something. Um, and it comes down to like the word, the word is more simplistic than the definition. Like what we need to be doing is focusing on the definition. What is that behavior? That is racism. What is going on? What's the

definition of that word as opposed to the word itself and then you know you look in a dictionary the word is eight letters the definition is 50 that definition is always hard to understand and so say that again easier to label than what than understand yes do you believe in god how does how does how do any of us ask anyone that question and then just go right into the conversation. Dude, we got to unpack who you is and who God is. So is that where we're jumping now? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want to ask you about your mind. I would agree with that though. Like, do you believe in God? I understand. Like who is God? What is God to you? Is God an energy? Is God is, you know, are you Christian? Are you, you know, Seventh-day Adventist or which I think are also still Christian? But I agree.

You have to unpack what God is before you can decide if you believe in it or not. Just like you need to understand what the definition of racism is before you can actually be against it, before you can fight for it. And I think now more than ever in society, we label everything. Everything has to have a label. Everything has to have a label everything has to have a word why let's bring it full circle because words are powerful and words are triggering and if we can put a word on something it allows it to have power and that's what we're doing you will never see the whole god i hope this doesn't offend you as a writer i hope i don't trigger you you will never see the whole with words you will never ever ever see the hole with words words partition shit i agree with that because

never see the hole with words yeah because behind the words you have the actual meaning or what the word is when you know the a word again like if i didn't know that was called a tree what would we call that we put a label a tree on something like that because it allows us all to understand it. And so it's the same thing with everything in life. We just label things to understand a much more complex picture, a much more complex structure, a behavior. And it's always going to be that way. I don't think there's a way where you can ever get away from that. It's just coming back to what the theme throughout this conversation is people putting in the time to understand the meanings behind words, the means behind actions, and just really know what they're engaging with, why things represent certain things. It's just a level of self-awareness that once you have it, I think life becomes a lot more easy to navigate and you become a lot less susceptible to manipulation from any force in your life, whether it's your spouse or, you know, a media outlet. Or boobs.

Boobs. Again, it's a word. We put a label on them to help us understand them, because without that, we're just so mesmerized. We don't know what to do. My wife just leaned in and closed the door to my room. I saw that. i think you upset her and i saw her boobs in between like the bunk bed and i just everything just went blank for me everything went blank for me it's nice that you and your wife still have that everything man okay someone stay focused uh you talk about authenticity and being real, and you talk about your mom being the editor for your work. As I go down this pathway of this podcast, I fancy myself as being – as a kid, I watched a lot of comedy. Evan Costello, I don't know if you know who that is, but I was huge into Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Pryor, just as a young kid, I had, I had, I loved dirty joke

books. Like when I was seven years old, I had the whole library of dirty joke books, like stuff that a seven-year-old should never be reading. And I just love dirty jokes. I just loved vile humor. I loved crassness. Um, and, and, and I still do. I just, I just so giddy around it. And so there is this huge part of me that's been oppressed. No, suppressed by me until – I'm 49 now, and now it's coming out in this podcast. And I know my mom and my sister listen to it, and I know that a lot of people like it. I know it's what makes me me to talk about vagina and God in the same breath. And as your mom, as your editor, how did you – how are you able to be – and that's the hardest thing for me to break, right? Like I really love my mom, and I really love my dad, and I want to make them proud in this world.

But I know some of the things that I'm going to say aren't going to make them proud. But it's who I am, and it's funny as shit. How are you able to let your mom be your editor for your work? I'm just like, Holy shit. I'm like, what? I think I have to pretend like my mom's not listening. I have to. I think I got past that probably in my teenage years. Um, what, which you probably know if you, you know, you researched my background, but I was raised Mormon. My family's still very Mormon. And so when I was a teenager and I started thinking for myself around 14, 15, I really did not relate to it. I didn't want to be a member of it. And by the time I was 17, I was fully out. And it created this big rift in my family. Like my mom wanted me out of the house at one point. I remember I came home with my ears pierced in high school. My mom wanted to kick me out. I was kicked out when I was 16. I, I, I actually knowing you now, I don't blame your mother for doing that. I would have kicked you out at 14. Um, well, my mom wanted to kick me

out. My dad was the one who said, no, this is my son. And so my dad took me in. My dad took me in. So my dad was the one that's like, no, it's my son. He's staying here. And I think that was kind of the point where I felt just defended by my dad. And I was like, wow, like my dad still loves me and supports me no matter what I do. And it just gave me the courage to kind of just be myself more and more. And my mom eventually kind of came around once she realized that I wasn't going to have that Mormon lifestyle that she had thought I was going to have. And we actually just had a really good relationship because she respected me for who I was and what I was able to do in my career. And to answer your question, there was a time where she stopped editing my work. So she was my original editor in my early 20s. And then she actually stopped editing my work so she was my original editor in my early 20s and then she actually

stopped editing my work and told me she couldn't edit it anymore because it was too vulgar and too crass and so it was too hard to read so it was her choice to step out of it so like fucking history and stuff she didn't edit those books but with this new book were you glad or were you sad when she said that? Uh, it didn't bother me either way. Cause I totally understood it. And I knew like the direction I was taking jokes was probably hard for a mother to read.

And so I actually didn't, it didn't bother me at all. Um, but then when she actually offered to edit my new book, I told her I was writing this new book. I told her the premise of it. And she said, Kyle,

I'd love to edit that book. And she said, I know some, that's going to be hard to read, but I still want to edit it. And once she already kind of acknowledged it was going to be hard to read, I was like, Kyle, I'd love to edit that book. And she said, I know some of it's going to be hard to read, but I still want to edit it. And once she already kind of acknowledged it was going to be hard to read, I was like, okay, cool. I'm going to make sure some of it's hard to read. So it kind of like motivated me.

You're a bad son too. You should have been kicked out. She's already set herself up for it though. And I was like, all right, well, I'm going to make sure that like it's completely, you know, the way I want to say it. You know, when I talk about like jokes about you know being caught masturbating and stuff like that in my book like that's not a conversation you want to have with your mom but my mom read it my mom edited it she made notes on it and I respected the hell of her for it and I think it was fantastic my mom's been like my biggest

champion of this new book and she'll admit that like chapters of it she didn't want to read and she didn't like reading them so I think it's just yeah there's like there's a couple different things that kind of allow my mom and i to have that relationship and it's like the early relationship where i felt really comfortable being myself just you know and she eventually came around and then she as a person also grew a lot too because my both my brothers at this point have fallen away from the mormon church no one in my family is LDS anymore except my parents, which required my mom to do some growing and her level of acceptance with us as her sons to know that, listen, my sons are going different directions. And we all have. My brother's a doctor. My younger brother's an electrician in Seattle.

And then I'm, quote unquote, a writer. I guess people consider me one. And we've all different directions. I'm mom's champion, all of us. And she's been our greatest supporter in whatever we do. How stoked are you on your life? You're like, fuck, dude, I did it. I wrote books. I'm selling them on Amazon. I'm self-publishing. I got a chick. I'm in Florida. I got a kid. I mean, a party must be just tickled when you wake up and be like. I mean, a part of you must be just tickled when you wake up and be like, I have I have those moments where I'm just like, wow, this is my life. This is crazy. And especially during the covid pandemic or when I realized how I was so grateful to have the job I did have. I was like, wow, like I'm actually an opportunity where I can move wherever I want. I'm not tied to a desk. I'm not tied to an office. I can do what I want with my life. And it is one of those surreal things where I still don't consider myself an author. I call myself a writer intentionally. I don't think you're an author until you've written a novel. And that's probably just me. That's probably just me being hard on myself. I actually don't

like being called an author. And people call me an author. It kind of weirds me out. being hard on myself. I actually don't like being called an author. People call me an author, it kind of weirds me out. To be where I'm at, making money writing is probably my biggest dream. There's nothing I'd rather do in life. I just talked to my girlfriend last night, actually. If there's one thing I know for certain in my life, I want to write. That's all I want to do and I've known this for about seven or eight years when I had buddies of mine in their late 20s like trying to trying to figure out where they wanted to go in life I just knew I wanted to write and the way to make money as a writer was to get into advertising and so I kind of had to get into

advertising to make money as a writer so you know what you're saying to make the money I'm able to make with my written word is truly like, it's like top 1% of writers. And I feel incredibly grateful for that. And I worked my ass off to make it happen. But yeah, I have these moments. I'm just like, I can't believe this is what I get paid to do for a living. I get to write stories about, you know, almost shitting my pants on the way to the airport and put a crazy life spin on it and people will buy this book so it is awesome it's great i love being a dad like you said just being here in florida which is a place i never thought i was going to move it just feels very surreal uh boy the shitting the pants stories uh we'll circle

back to that. Ladies and gentlemen, the takeaway right there of all that he just said, in my opinion, is he slipped it in there and I worked incredibly hard for it. Do not fucking think that for a second that anyone who's successful isn't like grinding. This guy would sit down for three weeks in a row, six to seven hours a day, every single fucking night. I want you to just ask yourself, have you ever done that with anything? A hand job, your favorite thing in the world only lasts four minutes. This guy fucking sat down three weeks in a row, six to seven hours a day, just grinding. Then he has to put that shit down. And let me tell you the little bit of writing experience I have then he puts it down and comes back to it the last thing i want to do after

i grind on something that hard is ever come back to it fucking again i want to fucking blow my brains out before i do that editing's hard and it's funny when you talk about writing so one of my mentors in advertising i still consider him one of the best writers i've ever had the pleasure of working with we had this joke about we were going to start an ad school. And there's a lot of these schools kids go to to learn to do advertising. They're ad schools. They teach you to be art directors, creative directors. And we told each other, like, let's start an ad school.

And for the first month, all the copywriting students are going to do is dig post holes. Because that is easier work than writing for a living. Because writing is easier work than writing for a living. Because writing is fucking hard, especially in the early stages when you don't have thick skin and you're not used to taking criticism and you're not used to putting yourself out there. Writing is pain. It really is. Even if you're writing advertising, everything you write, there's a piece of you in it. And so when people critique what you've done, they're critiquing you, they're critiquing your judgment, they're critiquing your opinion, they're critiquing your style. And a lot of people just cannot cut it as writers because,

even artists of any kind, because they can't take criticism. And so that's why we said for the first month, you just dig holes. And that's going to be easier than the criticism you're going to get for the first year or so of your career. Until you develop that ability to separate yourself from the criticism, actually look at it from a standpoint of like they might have a point. Like maybe I'm not right. Maybe I did use the wrong word there. And once you can have that holistic view on your work, writing does become easier, I think. But the editing part always sucks.

That's the reason why I don't listen to podcasts I've been on. I have no desire to go back and listen to a podcast, but I have to go back and look at my work. I can't just write one draft and walk away because your first draft of anything is shit. I think it was Ernest Hemingway that said that. And it's fucking true. And there's another writer I really like, Neil Gaiman. And he says, the whole point of editing is to make it look like you knew what you were doing the first time. And I've always loved that quote. But yeah, I mean, I lived at home till I was 26 because I wasn't making money writing. And that's what I wanted to do. And a lot of people aren't willing to do that. I mean, I felt like a fucking loser a lot of the time 34 34

i was kicked out of the house like five times and i would always come back and the last time i was kicked out i was 34 what were you were you sacrificing for something were you grinding away at something or were you i just grind i just grind like i wasn't the guy high on fentanyl at home i'm like you i just grind i was doing shit i was uh i was i think maybe i was working on my second book on how to grow marijuana with the pen name seymour buds yeah published by ed rosenthal yeah but but then my mom's like dude you can't be growing weed in my closet took all my fucking stuff for my second book and went to my girlfriend's house who's my wife now and threw all her shit out of the closet and continued the book there i love that people people aren't a lot of people aren't willing

to do that like they're not willing to like do that uncomfortable stuff like live at home you know when you think you should be out kind of partying your life away and that's why when i started making money as a writer like when i bought my first truck i remember when i bought my first truck i was like holy shit like i bought this on a writer's salary. Like I never thought I was going to make that kind of money writing. Escaping, and they both happened in the same – I don't know if they happened in the same moment. You have to inquire about your death with extreme focus if you want to become a different kind of human being. You have to inquire about your death. You have to really, really inquire about your death. And the other thing is you have to break the judgment of your parents.

They're the mirrors that made you, and at some point you have to abandon them and it's going to really fucking hurt. And it's okay. You can circle back around and love them and rebuild the facade of your attachment to them. But at some point you have to, and they're kind of, you have to let that die. It sucks. And then, and then, and then you can break free and it will, don't worry. It'll try to grow back. It's like fucking bamboo. I think it will try to grow back. I think it'll strengthen your relationship with your parents. As tight as you think you are with your parents right now, if you're living in their shadow, like maybe your parents are pushing you towards a certain career or certain lifestyle that you don't want. If you can rip that bandaid off and deal with the pain and disappointment for six months maybe yeah when you

come back around you're going to be more sure of yourself and your parents are going to have grown as people too like i talked about my mom grew and now we have a better relationship where i don't feel like i have to be someone i'm not and she doesn't have to pretend to love someone i'm not and you will have a better. And if you don't have a better relationship, I'm sorry, but someone has to grow. Either your parents or you, give it time. Give it time. If your parents don't come back around, then guess what? You actually are better off not having them in your life because they weren't the kind of parents they didn't have. That's the definition of conditional love at that point. If your parents don't come back around when you pursue what you want to do in life, I'm sorry, you just have shitty parents and it might take a while for

them to get out of that. And that's just part of life. But you as a person will be so much more fulfilled knowing you are doing what you want to do. And there's, I didn't talk to my parents for a year and this is like pre cell phone. I was probably in my early 20s. It probably would be difficult, more difficult now for someone. But that shit also requires discipline on both parts, on your parents' part and your part. There has to be. Can you imagine? I don't know if your kid's old enough now, but I was with my wife. Well, I was in a similar, but my wife and I were never going to have kids. We were never interested in getting married. Getting married is what people did who were tools of the man. It was just like, fuck you. You're a tool. You are a little hippie marijuana grower. Oh, totally, which is weird that now how this – anyway.

The politics of today have really scrambled me up in a good way. And so we end up having kids, and so for like 15 years, we were just coasting, and I had become – I had made a ton of money, and life was fucking great. And then we have kids, and we had had all the fights. After being with someone for 15 years, you start to have all the fights, and you see the cyclical pattern. So we had learned, and we both know how to work on ourselves, and we had really massaged this thing to where it was just awesome. We both know how to work on ourselves, and we had really massaged this thing to where it was just awesome. Then we had kids and all sorts of new fucking issues, crazy issues come up. And, man, what a powerful story you told.

Can you imagine this? So my wife and I only fight about one thing now, kids. It's all – every single thing is about kids. Like me throwing something of theirs away when they're naughty and her telling me it was too aggressive it's this nurture versus uh you know she's the nurturer and i'm the just the fucking line i roar in the house you're just the dick yeah yeah she's like what are you doing bro and roaring and she doesn't and when she's not around it's so different like that's anyway when can you imagine the stress on your mom and dad's relationship when your mom tried to kick you out and your dad stood up for you i mean it's a tremendous if kids knew the burden they put on their parents relationship it would fucking destroy them well and if if if if you just

understand that your parents are just people too and everything they do they don't know the right answers half the time and at the time that made sense to my mom it's like you have people who will break up with their boyfriend or girlfriend over something really silly and stupid and you don't understand that your parents have to go through those similar kind of feelings when it comes to things with you like are they going to cut ties with you or are they going to work through it? I think as kids, we don't give our parents enough credit, which I don't think there's a way for a child to understand that. It's just something that you have kids. It's something you have to understand as an adult. And when you have kids yourself and then you look back, like I think of my age now, I'm 35, my son, six months. When my dad was 26, I would have been six months. My brother would have been two. And I think, man, I couldn't imagine being 26 and having two kids.

And at the time, my dad was an art instructor at a college, wasn't making dick for money. I couldn't imagine that stress of raising two kids plus the financial burden of it. And they were living in someone's basement, I think in Orem, Utah. They were renting out a basement apartment. And I think when I was 26, I didn't have the emotional strength to do that. My dad was a much stronger individual in his early years than I ever was. And it's just something that comes with time. I give my dad a lot of credit.

And I look up to my dad in a lot of ways. And I've always joked to people, if I can just become half the man my dad is I'll be pretty proud of myself and we disagree on things like religion my dad's obviously still you know LDS and I'm not but the respect I have for him and what he's done in his life and the way he's raised us it's just it's unfathomable the way I respect what he was able to do and I the shit the shit I did in teenage, in my teenage years that my dad stuck by me, I, I can't thank him enough for what he did. Your dad benched 675 pounds. Yeah. My dad was a freak for a while. Like my dad, when I was in high school, he was really into powerlifting too. And yeah, 675, that's a, that's, that is a feat in itself. My dad's a big dude. He was like 6'2 and like 320 pounds at the time or something.

Did you see that with your own eyes? Yeah, I actually recorded it. We went to the gym and did it one Saturday because he wanted proof he could do it. We went with an old little handheld camera and I propped it up on a little bench next to us and I spotted him. I think we got some other guys from the gym to get on each side of the bar in case someone haywire and we actually recorded him doing it and then people would come over and question he'd bust out the little camera rewind the tape and like show people crazy who spotted that uh i was behind and then we had like we grabbed like two big uh tongan dudes um yeah you need tongans racist you need Tongans, racist. You need Tongans. Sorry, racist, but

you need Tongans. Where I grew up in Utah, there's actually a lot of people come over from Samoa and Tonga because a lot of them convert to Mormonism through missionaries. And so a lot of them moved to this area of Utah around the Salt Lake West Valley area. And so most high school football there, the defensive lines and offensive lines are all made up of big island boys. Check! With Circle K's Summer Road Trip Game, you can win over a million delicious instant prizes and a grand prize of $25,000. Play at games.circlek.com or at participating Circle K stores. And so they're pretty prominent in the gyms there, and those guys are strong. I had a friend in high school who was, I think he was Polynesian, but he was benched in like 500 as a senior in high school, was i think he was polynesian but he was benching like 500 as a senior in high school which was pretty insane and we'd put him as like nose guard they put him nose guard defensive

line and he would just like one hand just like be knocking center just he would just he would just plow through kids in high school and actually other coaches i think started to complain they thought like it wasn't fair to have him play on the team because he was just such a such a beast of a teenager um so yeah a teenager um nothing is fair nothing is fair in life man that's life so yeah i think we grabbed like two big tong and guys that my dad had friendships with because all those guys are all into bench press my dad would go work out with them on the saturdays and whatnot they're um just like at my college campus uc santa barbara there were a thousand girls who were the hottest chicks on campus so i'd be like

hey there's the hottest chick and somebody like dude you said that yesterday about that chick. I go, I know there's more than one. I can't help it. I don't have control over that. Santa Barbara itself is a beautiful area. Like Santa, when I actually, when we were getting out of LA, we actually considered going to Santa Barbara, but it's too damn expensive. Um, but I love Santa Barbara. I love that area. California geographic wise is stupendous. I absolutely love the state that area. California, geographic-wise, is stupendous. I absolutely love the state that way. It's just other reasons why I had to leave. People are fucking nuts.

I used to live in Berkeley, and the whole town has gone batshit crazy. Like, people will talk shit to my kids. Like, I have two five-year-olds and a seven-year-old. That is wild. I'm going to be like, dude, you better be careful, you fuckingolds and a seven-year-old i'd be like dude you better be careful you fucking marshmallow my seven-year-old people need to travel more is what i've realized too i live in africa for two months because i left even in the states because i so i when i left la in may of 2020 and we saw what was going on with the lockdowns. I was out walking my dog. I had a Great Dane puppy. I think he was probably seven or eight months at the time. I was out walking.

Congratulations, by the way, people don't realize that's one of the greatest dogs, companions you could ever have. It's the dog I've wanted my whole life. When I was a kid, I used to actually ask for Great Danes for my birthday and my dad would draw me pictures of him. He's a phenomenal artist. I actually have a framed illustration of a Great Dane my dad drew me when I was nine. And I ended up getting a Great Dane when I was 33. Yes. But I've always wanted a Great Dane.

So, yes, they're fantastic dogs. We actually would like to get some more. I'd like to have three together. I think that all kind of be a fun little romp around the house. But so anyway, I was back in L back in la and i was walking my dog my girlfriend and i were out walking our dog and the streets were dead it was ghost town ghost ghost town the time everyone was super scared everything was shut down it was at the time when like only grocery stores and gas stations were allowed open and an lepd chopper swooped around and came down

and hovered above us about 100, 150 feet above us. Wow. And it was just sitting there. And while I was walking my dog, I'd take him out. I lived in an apartment. I had nowhere for him to go to the bathroom. I was walking him to the park and I was so irritated that I could tell what they were trying to do was intimidate me to go back inside. And it bothered me so bad. And by that point, my girlfriend and I were like, we're not sticking around for this. I don't know how bad it's going to get, but I don't want to be here to find out.

Where in LA? Tell me where in LA. I was in Marina Del Rey. Okay. And at that time too, there was a grocery store by my apartment. It was called like Rainbow Acres. It's a really cool family run,

small little grocery store. And during that same time period, you'd go to the grocery store and there is an officer there with a police dog. And they had the police dog enforcing the doors. Only one person at a time could go in. And that stuff together, I was like, I don't want to be around for this. So we left and we went back to Utah for a couple of weeks. We ended up going to Park City. Then we ended up going to Vegas. I lived in Vegas for a year because I had some work opportunities there, writing some commercials and doing some creative direction for casinos. The whole time, we wanted to get back to the East Coast.

We had Miami in our minds. We just barely actually moved here a couple of months ago. Just what was going on in LA, we didn't want to be a part of it. I've been back several times for work. It's just sad to see what's happened. Like my old neighborhood is just tense and there's trash everywhere. So tense. It's hard to see.

It's hard to see because area wise, it really is phenomenal, but damn man, the people there. And I think if they got out and traveled more, they would see how fucked up it is. Uh, they're so scared if

Californians are so scared get out of it like I so I've driven across the country twice this year where I've driven from Vegas to Miami once I had to drive my dog because I couldn't get him on a plane then I went back a second time I did it with a moving truck and both times I took different routes and I tried to stop like you know seven or eight you know take a seven or eight day trip and experience different cities I hadn't spent much time in and it was so eye-opening even just getting out of vegas just away from that west coast nature of how the rest of the world was and i was so surprised and so stoked to see that a lot of people were still friendly we're still outgoing we'd still talk to you like you know restaurant owners were coming over and thanking me for coming in and it was just

great to see because i didn't see any of that in California. I didn't see any of that really in Vegas. Even Vegas was very tense. And I wrote a post challenging people. I said, listen, like, get out and travel. Get out and see what's going on in the rest of the country. And I promise you there's hope. And I promise you there's people that want to get through this like you do. And I actually got a lot of heat on that post. A lot of people bitched back at me and said, oh, well, I can't do that. Well, you only had a good experience because you're like a handsome white guy. And it was just so – Oh, fuck you.

It frustrated me because it was like, wow, this is just the level we're at in our minds right now where we want to be – Why would you have that narrative in your head? Why would you have that narrative we wanted we want to be victims so badly that i promise you if you did the same trip i did and did the same things i did you would have just as good an experience no matter who you were it's just about the the humanity and the lack of character out there right now it's hard to see and sadly it's really really fucking bad in california um what i didn't i mean as you say this one of the tricks of my life where my life is so fucking good is i i'm nice to people isn't that crazy i'll just put nice to homeless

i'm nice to drug addicts i'm nice to old people i'm nice to kids i'm nice to people who are assholes to me i'm just like i'm just nice to people like i and it doesn't come easy. I work on it. I fake it till I make it. I'm the same way in the sense that I. I'll smile at you for no reason. And if you think I'm a fucking creep, I don't fucking care. I actually like similar thing. When I was living in New York city, I lived there for a couple of years. I went out of my way to compliment two people every day.

Oh, I love it. Like a compliment they weren't expecting to hear. And I made it like a challenge to myself, whether it was like complimenting someone on like, oh my God, I love your jacket or I love your hair. Or I would just compliment someone. And you don't know the ripple effect that could have. And so I actually wrote about this, I think in my book, I might have hit on this. Imagine that person had just broken up with their significant other and they're having a bad day. And as they're leaving, you compliment their hairstyle. That alone could make that night bearable for them. Or imagine someone's really nervous and they're going into a big job interview

and you just say something like, I love your jacket. Like that jacket looks fucking great on you. They're going to go into that job interview with so much more confidence and ease their nerves because you just went out of your way to be polite and it took you three seconds and I had that idea to do it in New York because you cross so many people on the street a lot of people don't acknowledge each other just that population density and I would compliment people in the elevator and I was with my girlfriend one time we were doing a long distance relationship and I was in the elevator with her and this woman stepped in and she was dressed really nice. I complimented her outfit and she was so shocked that I complimented her in front of my girlfriend. She actually turned to my girlfriend and said, are you,

are you okay with that? She's like, what do you mean? She's like, are you okay with him complimenting other women? And she's like, yeah, why wouldn't I be like, you look good. He's being, he's, he's being nice. And love this kind of interaction she was just so alarmed by a compliment and so like you said like i i do the same thing i try to hold doors for people i always return my shopping cart and on the way i'll take someone else's shopping cart like i just go out of my way to do those little things because the ripple effect similar the ripple effect of doing negative shit over and over again like if you're going to create a ripple effect you better be creating a positive one or you better just stay

the fuck in your house and and on that set i hate to shit on such a good thing but it's amazing sometimes you think you're you're you're being since you know you're being sincere and kind and it's and it's just taken the wrong way like like telling a lady her dress looks nice or something like that there's um i don't go to this. There's a website called Reddit, which I think is like, um, the, I equate it to like people who go there as just all closet child molesters. I find Reddit a despicable place. I think, I like Reddit in the sense that there's a lot of really good information on there but i think reddit is for people with too much time on their hands um and i since i work so close i work closely with crossfitters a lot of crossfitters and these people the crossfitters that have worked with the the athletes specifically that small percentage of them that i've worked with they

spend 24 hours a day focusing on their body, what they eat, how they sleep, what temperature their bed is, how many calories they take, what macronutrients, the whole thing. And so to compliment their body is like – it's completely appropriate, right? It would be like telling a porn star, you have a fabulous penis. What a straight penis, unblemished straight penis. It's fine. You can say that to a porn star. It would be like complimenting a lawyer on their argument skills. That's their profession.

Yes. Wow, you're so argumentative. Congratulations. That's beautiful. And yet you can go somewhere like Reddit, and there will be 700 comments being like, hey, Sevan's a creep for telling Noah Olsen he has a beautiful physique. And it's like – it's just bizarre. Zeke. And it's like, it's just bizarre. It's not, I don't know if bizarre is the right word, but you go back to the fact that like, man, just, it's just the triggered thing again.

Reddit's troll central too though. Like you have to, Reddit is troll central because it's got the longevity. It was like the original sound off board for the internet. And it's very anonymous where people, unlike other social media platforms where people actually mix in their personal opinions with photos themselves in their lives reddit strict for people to go on there use an avatar and say whatever the fuck they want yeah it's mean it's me i don't know reddit if if people want to be triggered by words go to any reddit thread like you will hear every word that is taboo said in the same line of one person's reddit insult to each other and i i go to it every so often um to look for you know like a current event kind of thing because a lot of times when there's a current event you'll get a lot of good

comments and some of the people actually take the time to generally write good stuff you just have to kind of sift through that shit but as a whole i think reddit is kind of a cesspool the internet i wouldn't take anything on there negative about you seriously because a lot of reddit from what i understand these days is bots too and these bots can come across seeming so real you wouldn't know the difference and so wow if someone will start a post someone will start a post so yeah someone who actually you know dislikes you and hates you might actually start a post talking shit on you but then bots will start jumping on and having a conversation with each other yes and they'll feed it and so a lot of those comments might not be the people it's just

bots it's just bots that are programmed there's a really good rogan episode where a camera the individual he he talks about this and there's actually a reddit thread where it is nothing but bots arguing with each other oh i would love to see that i think if you use google you probably find it it's a it sounds like real people and sounds like the kind of insults you hear where people are calling each other every made-up fucking name they can think of using every trigger word possible and it's just bots and it's been going on for months. And so a lot of that stuff on there might not even be real. So I wouldn't,

I wouldn't think too much into it. Just like most of the internet. I mean, people just like to say stuff to get attention sometimes. And so it's hard to separate the real critical opinions from ones that are just people totally trying to get under your skin. So you, for someone saying you're a creep because you're competent the guy's physique that's fucking absurd that's especially

i do it i do it every day even if you don't do it every day i know who cares like i grew up an athlete i grew up being around like you know a lot of my friends and stuff they're like fitness models and yeah you can look at a dude and be like damn that guy's got nice biceps and that's just there's nothing wrong with that um like how often do you hear women compliment other women on being pretty like that's just totally normal and standard my guess is whoever's saying that has a little bit of internal struggle they might be dealing with and so they're kind of sounding off on their own issues yeah of course of course that Of course. That's all of them. That's all of them. Going back to the thousand pretty girls at university. So the same thing is like that with books. Like you can be like, this is the greatest book in

the world. And there's a thousand of them that really are tied to the first place. Yes. Yes. For me, there's this book that I read. It, it's called, uh, it's the only Stephen King book I've ever read. And it's called on writing. I have read that book too. And it, it like, it, it changed my life. Like, uh, mostly through validation. I think there's some books that like open your eyes. This book, I was like, Holy shit.

This is so good to hear that book. That book developed a newfound respect for Stephen King in my mind, too. And what I like about that book is how he talks about how hard it was him to write that book. Even he, as a very successful author, in the book, he talks about, who am I to be the guy to write a book about how to write? Even he had this self-doubt. And I think he talks about how he wrote the manuscript and put it in his desk for 18 months um because he didn't feel like he was the guy to write it and it's anyone else would look at Stephen King and be like are you kidding me you're like the fucking god you're like in that top five prolific

writer category where you've written everything from you know Carrie to the Green Mile to Shawshank Redemption like he's written so his his breadth of work spans probably more genres than anyone with i think neil gaiman's getting there too to where he can write really good horror he can write really good heartfelt he can write really good like current you know um events kind of stuff but yeah i agree that book very very very um validating as a writer or any kind of creator just to know like the kind of uh self-doubt that even someone at that level can go through creating a book like that and what i really liked about it is how much he nerds out on like certain word use and how he says like certain words to never be used and he hates he's like the phrase the fact that he's like no one should ever

write the fact that i like writers that have weird little quirks like that. Like Mark Twain hated the word very. He said, any writer that used the word very is being lazy. There's a thousand other adjectives that are better than very. And I love hearing that kind of stuff. I love learning that kind of stuff about other authors. Simple lessons. In that book, he says something, he's in a band with other authors and they don't – he talks about how they never ask each other where their inspiration comes from because a true creative doesn't know where their inspiration comes from or something like that. I'm paraphrasing. And there's something you say in one of your interviews. You say when you're driving and you have an idea, you'll pull over and write it yeah yeah before before you lose it and i i thought oh shit he's pointing to that place too he's pointing like so my question to you is where

where do you lose it where did it come from and where do you lose it i lose it when i distract myself that's very but do you know where it goes do you know where it came from and do you know where it goes i don't know where it goes but when i when i'm heavily even king was saying too like like he it's so crazy to hear him say i don't know where it comes from i don't know where it goes but if you don't grab it down you fucking it just drives away i think in that same interview i talk about how there's never been a writer's block i haven't been able to get through by by cardio. Anytime I hit a writer's block, anything, whether I'm working on an ad campaign or a book of my own or even like a tweet, I'm trying to make the perfect structure. If I go running or if I go like hit the elliptical for 20, 30 minutes, I will always get past it. And I don't know why that is.

30 minutes, I will always get past it. And I don't know why that is. And it's just getting in that repetitive motion of doing something where you kind of zone out has always helped me. And something about being, you know, moving, walking has always fixed that for me. And so when I'm driving, it's similar where I'm just on the road when I'm moving and I'm just focused on the road ahead of me and none of the thoughts, random shit just sparks into my head about relations in life. And if I don't quickly jot it down on my notepad on my phone, I'll like, I'll, I've even told enemy and none of the thoughts random shit just sparks into my head about relations in life and if i don't quickly jot it down my notepad on my phone i like i've even told myself like oh i'll write this when i get to the grocery store but a time there i forgot what the fuck it was and it happens too often do you know what an assault bike is i have an assault bike actually okay so i

actually i bought one during quarantine because i couldn't go to the gym and i was like i need something that's gonna kick my ass and so i bought one of those I bought one during quarantine because I couldn't go to the gym and I was like, I need something that's going to kick my ass. And so I bought one of those, I bought one of those rogue echo bikes and holy shit. I didn't, I thought I was in pretty good shape and I got on that thing and I was like, wow, these things are no joke. So when I don't do a 7am, I prefer to do all my podcasts at 7am, but throughout the week, there's, I ended up doing two or I do one in the evening or whatever. Anytime I'm not doing a 7 a.m. I prefer to do all my podcasts at 7 a.m. but throughout the week there's I end up doing two or I do one in the evening or whatever anytime I'm not doing a 7 a.m. podcast I'll make sure that I get on that by an hour before the podcast I get on that bike I I couldn't agree with you more anytime I have any issues if I can start focusing on my breath and cause myself some

sort of oxygen deprivation I can get the volume up in my head really loud. Boom, boom. And then when I get off the bike, I just have clarity. I think that works for all sorts of creatives. I have a buddy who's a guitar player in a band and I showed him my echo bike when he was at my house in Vegas and he tried it. He's like, I'm going to buy one of these for tour. He's like, I'm going to hit it for two minutes before every stage. And so he takes on tour with him and right before he gets on stage he does two minutes on it which seems kind of counterproductive you're like why are you tiring yourself up before you go

on stage but he says like just doing something like that right before he has to perform is it's like the trick to keeping him on what he does um do you are you are you working out regularly i started to about three or four months ago pretty regularly i was pretty hit and miss for a while kind of had like that dad bod kind of idea where like i worked out enough that you could tell i worked out but three or four months ago i got real serious about it i did that uh 75 hard program by Andy. I actually developed a good little friendship with Andy during this quarantine too. We started talking a lot on Instagram. I failed the program three times before I was able to finally finish it. It took me a year to finish it for the first time. I tried it, I think last summer. I failed on like day 20

because I wanted to drink. I failed on day 27 because I wanted to drink again. And then I failed the last time because I got Delta and I was like sick as shit and I couldn't do anything for a while. But I finally did it. And that, to me, is the reason why I was able to finish my new book as quickly as I was. I don't think I would have been able to do the writing I did in that time frame along with being a father and moving across country if I didn't have that structure. And I've always been someone who has been kind of against routines. I've always felt routines were kind of boring. I used to pride myself on being very spontaneous.

But I can tell you after the last four months and what I've been able to accomplish, I will never not have a routine again in my life as far as being very strict and regimented with my fitness. If I get in really good shape, awesome. But more so for me, I feel so much more productive if I force myself to work out every day. Yeah, 100%. What is depression? What is that? I don't know if i know what that is and so when people say the word i have trouble getting my head i have trouble getting

my head wrapped around it depression to me and this again i think is one of those words would be defined very different ways i think depression to me is just prolonged rumination on everything bad in your life um and it's very it very, it's again, it's feeding the wrong wolf. I think if you're feeding that negative wolf for too long, it's always going to win that fight with the positivity in your life. And I've been through periods where I fed that wolf and I sat there and I would just dwell on everything in my life. I didn't like everything in my life. I wasn't happy with, and I did it when I first moved to LA. Can you give me an example? Like, I don't like how big my nose is, or I don't like the fact that I have hemorrhoids or like, or I'm stupid. It's like, what happened? So when I left New York

and moved to LA, I had planned to have these career opportunities come my way that didn't come my way. I thought they were going to work out. And so I just sat there and ruminated on the fact that I felt like my career was falling off. I ruminated on the fact that I felt like I'd hit my echelon and I'd walked away from it all. And so I was just sitting there thinking of how much I'd lost it or how much I just wasn't relevant anymore with my work. And it just slowly ate away at me to where I just wasn't working at all. And it's just that, it's that, uh, just that cyclical beast where you keep feeding it. And I was mad that I wasn't getting work, which was causing me not to work, which has caused me just to feel worse and worse about myself. And I got to the point where I got, I got fairly, you know, suicidal for a while there where I felt like I had it, I had it all and lost it. And what's that look like?

Not pretty. Um, I think the thing with depression too, lost it. And what's that look like? Not pretty. I think the thing with depression too is when you generally get in that space for a long time, you want to distance yourself from those close to you, not because you want to be alone, but because you no longer want to be a burden. And I think that's what drives most people to ultimately kill themselves

is you feel like you're a burden to the people around you that you actually care about. And that's how I started feeling with my family, my friends, my relationship. I felt like a burden to everyone because I knew that I was in a negative headspace. I knew I wasn't enjoyable to be around because, hell, I didn't even enjoy being in my own head during that time period. And so I started thinking about, well, maybe the best thing for me is just to end it so I don't have to think about it anymore so people don't have to be around this energy anymore and that was probably the lowest point I think I've ever had in my life was July of 2019 is when I was just like I hit this this echelon of I am I can't feel any worse than I feel now.

And it was depression. It was very much depression. But a lot of it was self-caused. And I think a lot of it actually is. And I think the unfortunate thing that was that. Like ego indulging in it? Or what do you mean self-caused? I think it's a pattern of behavior or a pattern of thought that we allow

ourselves to fall into too often. And then if you don't't correct it it's like you're going to keep feeding it and it just becomes so second nature to you without that self-awareness of what you're doing it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse like i'll drink a glass of wine every night at 5 p.m next thing you know you're drinking two glasses next thing you know you're drinking a bottle very similar to that i think your thoughts you allow to creep in that you keep indulging more and more yeah the thing is like a lot of us i think there's a lot of uh psychologists now talking about this where we have like these trauma bonds where our bodies become addicted to the feeling of stress or they become addicted to the feeling of self-pity because it's familiar it's that whole devil you

know kind of thing and if that's where you've allowed your mind to dwell for so long, you go to it immediately because it's safe because you know it. And that's why it's so important when you start having those moments where you realize, wow, I've been feeling like this for several days in a row. You got to break that cycle. You got to cut that synapse and you got to do it by doing the exact opposite of whatever it is you're doing and that's why i went sober for about three and a half months i started working out again during that time period i read a lot of books i deleted my social media off all my phones for at least 30 days i just distanced myself from everyone so i could just sit with myself i did the exact opposite of everything that was feeding that wolf of negativity in my life in order to start feeding

the other wolf so I had a chance of kind of defeating it and that's why I think routine is so imperative and I can preach it from someone who has lived the other lifestyle where I was traveling a lot partying um routine has helped me in my work being more productive, but mentally routine has saved me from going back to that dark place. So many times, uh, like just even exercising every day at four o'clock or something like that. Just something, just something that's productive, that something that keeps me from sitting with myself for too long and wallowing on whatever it is that might be bothering me.

Like just having the self-discipline. You feel good about yourself and just have those little small wins over time stack up and you start to get your confidence back and you start to just feel better about things in your life. Like, you know, you can attain certain things because you know that it's just a series of small steps to get you there. certain things because you know that it's just a series of small steps to get you there. And it's like I was that way through much of my career to where everything fell at hand with my fingertips. I just had that really low point in 2019 where I kind of fell off and I fed it way too much instead of fighting it. And that's why I say a lot of it's self-caused.

And I think we hear a lot from pharmaceutical companies that it's a chemical imbalance, which I don't know enough about to say whether it is or not but i can tell you right now chemical imbalance or not if you take control of your life with a routine and small victories every day even if it's a to-do list of pick up the dog shit wash the car like small things and you stick with that every day and you master the monotony of doing those small tasks, you can defeat a lot, a lot of depression that way. I really appreciate everything you're saying. Even if it wasn't true, which I 100% believe it is true, there's nothing better than to talk or listen to people who believe in you and who give you the tools for

self-empowerment that is what you want just do not listen to people who um who in who support blaming other people or um playing the victim even if it's true i agree it's a it's a dead end you're going straight for actually i actually wrote in my newsletter a couple months ago someone asked what do they think the single worst thing someone can do to their life is? And I said, victimize themselves because there's no end to that. There's no end game to victimizing. It doesn't stop. Like it just go. It can go into every piece of your life. It can feed into. And again, it's one of those things. Once you feed it, it becomes second nature. And even if you know it's bad for you, it's that, again,

it's that devil you know. You go to it because it's convenient and you'll start victimizing yourself in every fucking way. Someone will cut you off in traffic and you'll feel like, oh, I'm the victim. They did that to me on purpose. Everything will start to, it'll pour into every bit of your life. That's why I think it's the absolute most detrimental human behavior there is. I have a friend I've told the story a thousand times. I, I, he would get weed for me and then he would sell it and then he would pay me the money. And so we reached a point where he had like $4,000 and I was living in the Bay area and he was living in Santa Barbara and he's like, Hey, I got $4,000 for you for this weed. And I said,

okay, cool. So like three months pass and I go down there and I'm like, Hey, and he's like, dude, I spent the money. I'm like, oh shit. And he goes, dude, I had to move. I had to get out of this house. So I bought this. So I rented this house and I don't have the money. And so many of my friends were like, people in my group were like, Hey, how can you still be friends with this guy? And I never got the money, but that's not what my, never got the money but that's not what my that guy's not in control of my life that guy's not in control of my relationship with him i'm in control of it i've invested way too i've invested 10 years into knowing this guy i'm not not being his friend because he didn't pay me four thousand fucking dollars am i gonna front him any more weed no do i think any less of him fuck no i know what it's like to fucking live somewhere he got kicked kicked out. He needed first, last, and – like I am such a fucking amazing person. And then I cross another

amazing person like yourself that you put words on for me that I didn't realize was happening in my life at 49. And it's crazy. That's happening to you at 34. I'm at a point in my life where all the shitty stuff that's ever happened to me is starting to now flower out of that manure. I fucking shit in the van. And now it's a fucking story that's so fucking funny and i tell it and it goes viral on the internet i fucking in a taxi cab and the 500 pound guy pisses in a coke can and everyone else is like oh my god that's so disgusting when you pissed i'm like no that's fucking fodder for my next podcast see that's i get a tooth knocked out i get a bird flies into me and knocks out my tooth some most people are pissed i'm like i can't wait to talk about this on my podcast first of all you're probably the most empathetic drug dealer

ever heard of i love i love i love that you call a member of your street crew your friend for one that's a very self-aware very polite drug dealer um but what you're saying that's the truth with creation and that's what got me through a lot of hard times. I didn't even know it until I read it in your book last night or two nights ago. I was like, oh shit, this guy's explaining to me what I'm doing with my life. If I, anything wrong that happens, funny or stupid, if I can write a tweet about it and help someone else relate or help someone laugh, it's worth it to me at that point. And that's how I view a lot of things. And it's helped me get through so much random dumb shit that derails our days like things that happen to us like i was getting ready to get on an airplane a couple months ago i was fully dressed have my suitcase ready to go i picked up my son and he pissed on me and i was like oh so i went i went and changed i wouldn't change my

shirt no lie i wouldn't change my shirt i went picked up again to say bye and he peed on me again he peed on two outfits in the span of like five minutes. And that's the kind of stuff that people can just be like, oh, fuck it. This day is going to be. But then I think, OK, what is a funny tweet I can make about a kid peeing on you and relate it to something in life that's going to make someone laugh? And at that point, that that instance now is not only funny it has purpose and i do that with everything in my life and the times that i haven't done that are the times when my life has been the hardest the times when i've forgotten to turn everything into something creative my life gets infinitely harder and that's kind of what i was doing in 2019 instead of turning all those thoughts i was having

into like humorous tweets or meaningful anecdotes, I was just dwelling on them. I was internalizing them instead of putting it back out in the world. And it goes back to what we were saying earlier about, you know, when you're nice to someone, you put a lot of niceness out, you get it back. And you'll find that same thing when you create things like you're talking about, like someone knocking your tooth out. If you put that out into the world as a story, you get a lot of support back and everything

just comes back. And it's just this whole cyclical energy exchange. You never remember the time you transferred flights in Dallas, but you do remember the times you went to transfer flights in Dallas and you missed your flight and you had to spend the night in the airport. And if your life was perfect, you wouldn't fucking remember shit. was perfect you wouldn't fucking remember shit true and and it's it's it's really uh it's so i i my my favorite part about like so i love social media showing the world how great i am and how great my kids are it's my own people magazine look how fucking great my life is and then there's these moments in these periods where i realize what's even better than that it's when i'm filming

my kid and he's like look at the size of this caterpillar it's bigger than your nose and like immediately i want to delete it and i'm like dude what are you doing what are you doing don't delete that shit post that and you have to catch yourself you have to realize that you have to catch that yeah like you almost have to flip the script on yourself and be like okay i'm gonna show everything fucked up in my life for a week well because it's not not to be humble not to do anything but just to to to flip the manure like you know how you have to go in your backyard and turns the soil once a year with the shovel area you have to do that like i didn't want to come on i've never come on this is the first podcast that came on where i wasn't showered and quaffed this is me just roll rolling out of that bed and just doing it i'm like this is gonna be i actually i was gonna i was gonna say something about your appearance in the beginning but i didn't want to

get ripped on reddit later on so i was like don't talk about this guy's appearance someone on reddit is gonna rip you apart um but i've never been interviewed by a homeless man i love what you're saying though because when you think about your friends or individuals that you'd like listening to the stories they tell that are always the most intriguing are stories about shit that went wrong. Yes. No one is interested by you telling stories about how perfect everything is. Like if you do that at a party, you're a self-absorbed asshole. No one wants to talk to you. So why do we treat social

media that way? Everyone on social media is that self-absorbed asshole at the party that only talks about you know their last trip to france or the way that you know bagels taste better from this you know my new lamborghini that kind of person is not interesting to talk to the kind of person is going to talk to is someone that's like yeah i mean one time i ate a bunch of spicy human food and drank three coffees and went to the airport and almost shit my pants in the rental car and i had i had to jump i had to jump a concrete curve and run to a cvs and the bathroom was out of order so i ran across the parking lot entered through the back door of a bakery and used the employees only bathroom with like seconds to spare because that happened to me like six months ago it's the closest i've ever come to shit in my pants as an adult and i will never drink

that much coffee before going to the airport again i learned my fucking lesson right but that story is way more interesting to tell like i even enjoy telling that story better than i would tell them the story about when everything went perfect on a flight and so i don't understand why people don't get that like if you it's hard if you're listening to this though if someone's listening to this that is trying to start a podcast or is trying to become an influencer which don't even try to be that just try that's a bizarre concept to me try to be someone who's creative but if you're trying to be someone with influence you will get further by being honest about all the shit in your life and people will find you more interesting than if you talk about everything perfect guaranteed

100 i don't care what influencer strategy i don't care what realm you're trying to be in, whether it's fitness or mentoring or do-it-yourself crafts. Talk about the times when things go wrong and you will get a better following. Are you going to get married? We haven't talked about that yet much. It's something that i i'm open to for sure i just think we're kind of playing it by ear and you know to be honest like we my relationship was not in a good spot when my son when we found out we were going to have my son we actually thought we were going to kind of end things and so we're still working through a lot of stuff and like you said once you have kids and it complicates things a bit so we're still doing a lot of growing ourselves and trying to understand

a lot of our um you know likes and dislikes about life and how we want to raise this kid. And so it's not the right time to have the conversation. And it's, it's something I'm open to when it, when it comes at that point in the road that it makes sense. Um, when, when my wife got sick, uh, pregnant with our twins and not my first one was like one and a half, we, we uh and she was close to maybe two she was close to having the twins um we got married and in the in the reason why we got married is in case one of us died i just started thinking like hey all that shit it needs to be easy for the other one right like what if i get hit by a car but once i got married i was pretty

stoked like i don't know why but like i'm and it's weird calling someone my wife i mean i've made 10 movies and i don't call myself a director i do call myself a father though i'm a father and i'm a podcaster for sure it's like maybe the only two things i'm like ever comfortable with calling myself i like that yeah and a husband i like so i i've had the similar thought you've had where I've actually, I've changed all my, anything that involves like money or finances, whether it be like my brokerage account or my checking, I've changed all my passwords to be the same thing at this point for that very

reason of thinking, okay, if I die, I need her to be able to access all this stuff. And so if I make it, cause I used to have like six different passwords. It's like, I need to be very streamlined. And I know I need to probably go get a will and stuff done at this point because i do have a son but yeah i i like the rationale for but i also like hearing they were stoked about it because when i first found out i was going to become a dad one of the things that really affected me was how many other men in

my life were telling me it's over your life's over and to hear that when i was already pretty nervous did not help me in the least and then i heard even from other fathers that were like sending me like condolences and i was like what the fuck and then i thought that's not like and then i thought about it and i started thinking wait a, every one of you who's saying this to me has a lifestyle I would not want to live. Like your life sucks. Your kids are dicks. Like, yes, I understand. Don't make dicks.

I understand why you feel that way. Your life is not a life I want to emulate at all. So who the fuck are you to tell me that this is going to change my life in a bad way? And like in that moment, I'm telling you, I just completely switched in my head. And I was like, this is going to be fucking awesome. I'm going to make it life in a bad way and like in that moment i'm telling you like it just completely switched in my head and i was like this is going to be fucking awesome i'm going to make it the way i want i'm going to create my own mold of melting all my life together with fatherhood and it's going to be sweet and it's like we kind of started the whole podcast with this theme once i leaned into it it got infinitely easier and it got more rewarding and fun and now if i have to travel for work if i go go to Vegas for a couple of days,

I'm in Vegas with my buddies at a casino, but the whole time, like, damn, I miss my son. This would be a lot cooler if my son was here. Or like when I go see something cool and I'm not with my girlfriend or my son, I wish they were there to see it because I don't have anyone to share it with. And it's like, this is awesome,

but it'd be a lot cooler to watch my son interact with this parrot right now than it is to me just to watch this parrot. And so once that switches, I'm telling you, fatherhood, it's awesome. It really is awesome. It's challenging. It's not easy, but I dig it because I leaned into it and I flipped that switch and got away from all that negative feedback I was getting. And it's kind of what you were talking about earlier. Like, don't listen to people who don't self empower you. Any one of those people that are telling you the condolences are telling your life's over. Those are people that are taking those are people that are trying to victimize you.

They're trying to victimize you. And if you feed it now, you're victimizing yourself. What you said is I couldn't agree more. I realized this pretty early on well i actually had a friend of mine who's divorced and i'm friends with the wife and the husband and they have they have four kids together and the wife said the hardest thing about the divorce is that we're not together to enjoy these kids together and at the time i didn't have kids but i used to realize like my wife and i had this dog and like if it just ate crackers we would be like hold each, hold each other. My wife and I, oh my God, he's so cute. And anyone who else

would see us would be like, you dipshits. It's like that with your kids, having my wife there. Oh, look, he's sleeping. Oh, look, he's standing. Oh, look, he scratched his head. And to not, I, that must be really hard for people who don't have a mate. Like I'll, I'll do the same thing with my son. Like he'll be doing, he'll be sleeping in the same position he sleeps in a hundred times. But for some reason, he looks very cute in that moment. I'll grab my girlfriend and be like,

you gotta come look at this, look at this. And she was busy doing something. I'm like, no, look at this. And she knows what she's gonna see. It's like, look at it. Like you gotta look at it right now. Like hurry before he turns his head. And it's the same thing we've seen a thousand times

and have a thousand photos of, but it's just so much more fun to be able to share that with someone. I'll share this with you, even though you didn't ask. I apologize. I view raising a child as to you want to steal from your child as little as possible. And what do I mean by that? When your child falls down and you pick your child up, you've now stolen a burpee from your child. and a burpee from your child. And that our job as a parent is when your child falls down to turn your back to your child and make sure an alligator doesn't come out of the bushes and get them or uncle buck doesn't get them. That is our sole fucking responsibility to make the challenges of life, a safe place for your child to overcome. And so because of that, I almost never take my

eyes off my children. I go everywhere basically with them. And I, but, but I am not a helicopter parent. So meaning, um, um, I go to the skate park with them and, um, and I sit there and they skate and when they fall down and they're crying, I'm on hyper alert. And I look over the Savannah to make sure that fucking no, uh, you know, lions come and pick them up and that's it and it's up to them and if they need medical attention then i intervene you know when i get to the skate park i walk around and i pick up and i spend 15 minutes walking around making sure there's nothing in the skate park that my kid's skateboard is going to hit that they're going to crash on you know needles big gulp cups straws just all that shit, people, and, and it's made my kids,

um, it's made my kids just amazing. And I try to give them as much adult interaction as I can. What do I mean by that? I've hired them a skateboarding coach. I take them to jujitsu. I take them to, I didn't even want that. People see my kids on Instagram and they think I'm trying to make athletes or sport kids. I'm not. I want them to have a professional piano player that they interact with while I'm in the house in the other room, because no adult's going to be left alone with my kid. Even when, even when, if I have anyone spend the night at my house, all the kids come to my room and that person's been, it could be the safest person in the world. Could be my mom and my dad. It doesn't matter. My job is to protect these kids at all costs. There can be no excuse that i didn't protect these kids from from anything so and i'm not even paranoid about that

but that is my one fucking job and i don't feed them poison i don't care how bad loud you scream you don't get ice cream just because now if we're at if we're at um kyle creek's house and it's his birthday and they're serving cake you get a small piece you never get to drink coke that that you do that when you're 18 i because because your mind i never put poor poison into my kid anyway those are just some of the things like i'm pretty like i like that rationale though i mean your job is not to put up bumper pads your job is just to make sure there's not an unnecessary obstacle that shouldn't be there um you still need to get cut you still need to get cuts and bruises but you said, like you don't need a lioness to run off with your child while they're getting up. No. And, um, and when I, I would, I used to walk to this, um, uh, bar

outdoor bar coffee place where I would, um, and it was about a mile from my house and I would walk my kid there every day. And when you started, it's a two hour walk because he falls 200 times and has to touch everything. My job is just to be patient, just, you know, and then as the day and then you get there and I get the beer as a reward and then we walk back for two hours. But yeah, I love that. And Florida is great for that, right? Yeah, that's one of the reasons why we came to Florida is we wanted to feel like we had more of a say in the way Ethan was going to be raised. And I mean, I grew up in Utah. And so I grew up, like you said And I mean, I grew up in Utah. And so I grew up, like you said,

I mean, I grew up riding in the backs of trucks. My dad was handing us handguns at 14 and just saying like, shoot that direction. Like we grew up like getting dirty. I grew up doing all that stuff and I would want the same for my son. And I feel like Florida is a lot different than I thought it was i mean my notion of florida because i've been here for work was downtown miami south beach i got his figure at

all of miami was an episode of miami vice um where are you in miami i've been i'm in south miami actually and my neighborhood has probably like two or three dozen wild peacocks that are always nesting in the front yards and all around. My backyard gets filled with wild parrots and macaws every day. There's iguanas everywhere. I drive 12 minutes. I'm on the beach. I go 45 minutes.

I'm in the Everglades. I went shooting last week with a friend I'd met here. We went out to the Everglades, and we're shooting skeet with these old Cuban gentlemen who are probably 70 smoking cigars, shooting these gold plated like thirty, forty thousand dollar over under shotguns, like straight up something you'd see out of a Columbia cartel movie where the drug dealers in the back trying to intimidate his new meeting. later I could be in the city. I didn't realize there was that much to do here in Miami. I didn't realize there was that much outdoor activity in life to do. And once I can get my hands on a boat, I know life is going to get infinitely better because then you open up to the world of sport fishing and spearfishing and just being able to go on boat cruises and stuff. There's so much to do here aside from, you know, the Miami nightlife that I think everyone associates with this area. So it's a great place to grow up. I love that Ethan can go in the backyard and you know, when he's, when he's old enough to start running around and catching

lizards. I mean, I go out there and chase lizards myself. So still that little kid in me, um, it's going to be awesome to watch him do that. And he can be like, my kids are almost always barefoot except for, I mean, when they skateboard, they put on shoes, but almost all their activities are barefoot. Where do you live? In Santa Cruzz california okay oh yes you are still in california that's unfortunate i'm sorry yeah and it's people always ask why don't you leave and i it's because i have santa cruz is great though yeah i like that area but we do have a lot of psychos but if you get right on and i live just a couple miles from the beach and i go there a lot so once i get down there the psychos get cut by about 50 we still have like the triple mass people walking around on the beach um but uh but it's pretty it's it's been it's been pretty good you you

mentioned um quarantining did you did you actually quarantine because when when i hear you talk about that i'm like it sounds like you actually quarantined and i was just perplexed by that no i didn't it was just like i think it was the word we kind of fell into is we were supposed to quarantine when i got back and i was sick i mean i was still around my family and my friends and stuff and like when i sick you mean uh mentally no when i had like the delta like when i actually got sick like i came back and i was still you know going about my day just you know feeling the crap about it um but yeah when it first happened in la i think quarantine is just the word we used for it and I was still going about my day, just feeling the crap about it. But yeah, when it first happened in LA,

I think quarantine is just the word we used for it. No, I was out every day working out, getting sun, walking my dog. We were going to the beach all the time because we lived a mile from the beach. We'd walk the dog down to the beach, which was awesome because the beaches there are not dog friendly. But during that time period, they were

because there was no one there to enforce it. Yes, yes. We'd walk down to the beach with the dog, let him run the water like we were doing as much as we could to get outside at the time we definitely didn't stay in and that was one of the most frustrating things because you move to an area like that to enjoy the outdoors like i moved to marina del rey to be close to all that and so when they tried when they tried to take that all away i was like fuck that i'm not paying the kind of money i am living here to not get involved in this stuff and but it was like the chopper that one day when the lapd chopper came down and that was when it kind of started getting like this is too much there's no way

we're staying here it's just who knows where it's going to go there's this thing i want to throw out there too do you called kuman you don't have to worry about it to your kids two or three or maybe three or four but Kumon's basically you should look into it k-u-m-o-n it was developed by a Japanese are you familiar with it I've heard the name okay a Japanese guy in the 50s made it it's basically academic crossfit for kids that's cool and it's basically just 10 or 20 minutes a day of reading and uh and writing and and then math there's two two different modules and you could take it all the way up to diagramming sentences on the English side and you could take it all the way up to calculus on the math side. And, uh, my kids basically just do that. And then like, like I would never send my

kids to school now, like with the shit they're teaching my kid with, it's basically indoctrination in California. That's the cool thing about Miami school system too, though. There's a lot of good private schools here, but they're like, they're're bilingual and I love the idea of my son growing up yes very very bilingual because that's one of my big regrets my big regret in life is I wish I could speak more languages someone actually asked me a couple years ago if you could have one superpower what would it be and I would like to be able to read and comprehend every language that's ever existed on the world I think that would be I think that would be probably the most rewarding superpower you could have. Like imagine if you understood every different dialect that's ever existed.

So you could translate these ancient scrolls and translate them correctly. But then you could also travel anywhere and have a conversation with anyone about anything. Like that superpower would be phenomenal. And so if Ethan can have just a little bit of that and be able to you know be raised very bilingual because of the school system here i love that idea for him and i think it's gonna like that's one of the things when i when i went to the skeet range to go shooting with these cuban gentlemen i was upset i didn't speak spanish and because i felt like i was missing out on an opportunity to connect with some individuals that

probably had some very interesting things to say. My buddy, I was with, speaks fluent Spanish because he's from Brazil. And so he was translating some stuff for me. But I was missing out on that connection. I actually came back and told my girlfriend. I said, I need to hire a Spanish tutor. If we're going to live in Miami, I need to understand Spanish. Because I am not going to go back there and miss out on these conversations every time.

Because these guys are the kind of individuals who could impart real wisdom and probably have very funny stories to tell and i want to hear them from them firsthand uh it brings up a very interesting you're talking topic you're talking about about speaking different languages and i it's the sleepy masses will struggle with this one and bear with me here uh people i could say i don't like kyle creek and the vast majority of you would think that i was saying i dislike him that is not what i'm saying i'm saying i don't like him the the subject that i'm the the the topic there is like and you're jumping to the conclusion to think that i dislike him and that's because you have a mind that that's because you're trapped in your head and you live in duality and you're trying to make understanding of everything. Cause I could say, I don't like Kyle Creek. I love Kyle Creek.

And these types of things, as opposed to just saying what I mean, I dislike him. Now, you know, I don't like him. Like, like you, you, you, and it's not to say that you couldn't suspect that I don't, I dislike him. If I say I don't like him, but it should not – it would be very fair to say, well, do you love him? And we live in this world with the way our language was developed to keep us trapped in our head and to always be looking for the point. And some languages aren't like that. And some languages aren't like that. And if you can learn languages that aren't like that, you can open up a massive, massive universe for yourself. And very, very deep thinkers who are connecting concepts and theories together to make other bigger concepts and larger theories like E equals MC squared, people like Einstein, they don't do that. They don't jump to a conclusion.

They let shit ferment. they let shit float around they don't they're not looking for the point they're not trying to get ahead they're just letting these things kind of sit and um it's it's and it's an it's an incredible skill to have and you have to you have to you have to cultivate it but through language you can you can um you can i mean you only what it to what we were saying, naming is the origin of all particular things. I cannot tell you how true that is. If you did not name anything, you would not see the particular. You would see the whole.

So do you speak multiple languages? Armenian was my first language. Okay. And that's what makes me – and I don't speak it very well anymore, but I didn't learn English until I got a little bit older, 3, 4, 5, 6. And in that language, it's like that. It's a very old language, and those people are trapped in the Caucasus, and the language is very underdeveloped compared to other languages. That's interesting. I've never heard that before. Yeah, Armenian.

We're at two hours, man. I love it when I have like five pages of notes and I didn't even touch them because then I think, oh, like if I ever have them on again, I can be lazy. I don't have to do shit. I'm fine with that. You're a podcaster. You're lazy, right? Yes. I'm fucking lazy. I'm going to go part. It's now, it's 9 a.m. here in California. I'm on vacation. I'm going to get to spend the rest of my day until tomorrow. Tomorrow I have Dalton Rosta on. He's a UFC fighter. He's 5-0, young, beautiful kid, insane body. And he's fighting another guy this weekend who's 5-0.

That's awesome. Yeah. And fighting is something that really interests me. And I can't believe all these fighters are letting me into their lives, all these professional fighters. So it's pretty cool. That's the one thing I would like about a podcast is if you develop a good one, you get to interact with a lot of people that you otherwise

would never connect with. And that's probably the only thing that has me like slightly intrigued about starting one, but I just know my heart wouldn't be in it in order to make it a good enough podcast that I would want to attract those individuals to it. But that's one thing I do envy about someone who has a strong podcast spaces, the conversations you can have and people you can connect with. There's no other way in life that would happen other than your podcast a lot of the time. And I'm probably the worst writer you could ever imagine. And I'm probably the worst fighter that you could ever imagine. Like I am just like the only person in the world who thinks i'm a fucking badass is my kids that's hard to

imagine that you could be a worse fighter because i've read your emails and i just couldn't i just couldn't imagine you fight worse than you write i am a horrible writer and i am a horrible fighter and uh um so so it's pretty fun having someone who's a professional writer on the show and it's fun having professional fighters on the show because i can pretend like i can rub shoulders with them uh kyle creek i thank you for your time is a pleasure absolutely i appreciate it and uh and i'll and i'll stay in touch, and I look forward. One final thing. Oh, so this was my introductory to you, by the way.

By the way, one of my listeners basically said, hey, can you get Kyle Creek on? And I said, sure. And so then I started digging around, and I found your books. This is your most recent one? Yeah, Speech Therapy came out end of November. So like two months ago. And are you working on anything now? I actually started another book already a couple of weeks ago. So I'm actually going to, I'm big on writing what is pertinent in my life at the time. So I'm actually writing a parenting book next. Oh, from my angle of being a father and all my books, like my history books are about learning from the lives

of others that live before us speech therapy is more or less about learning from my life and i'm going to write this parenting book which is you know essentially what i'm learning from observing my son through his first year of life so i'm big on writing when it's like meaningful to me in the moment and then writing this book helps me take those instances a lot more seriously because I'm trying to really put it into words for the people so it's actually helping me engage and be more present and I think it'll be a fun book and I think it's kind of a spin I can put on parenting that hasn't really been out there yet so I've already started that I don't know when it's going to come out I don't know when I'm going to finish it but it is the next project that I'm working on right now. Would you start it and then not? Do you have anything you started and not finished?

Yeah, I have about six books like that. Does that eat away at you? It does. And speech therapy was that book, actually. I actually started speech therapy in 2017 when I was living in New York and I abandoned it because I just didn't feel like I was ready to write it. And I attempted it a couple other times and I quit every time. And I'm telling you, it wasn't until I got into this really hard routine the past few months with my fitness that I was able to regiment myself enough to be like, you know what? It's hard, but I know once I get that flow going, it's going to come.

Once I got into that flow, I was able to finally write it. I told my agent when it came out, I said, I feel like now that I finally got this book out of the way, I can really open the floodgates to other pieces I've been sitting on because I just needed to prove myself. I could get this idea out there because I've always thought it was a good idea for the few years I had it. So I do have books that I haven't finished, but they're not books that peck away at me as much. They're more or less, I'd say they're manuscripts at this point where when I have that moment, like we talked about earlier, of like creation in my head, I have to start it. Like I've started, you know, forwards to novels and like, OK, this is the idea I want to invoke in this novel.

I'm going to finish this when I have the time to really sit and live the life. But as long as the idea was there, I don't want to lose it. And so I have probably three novels that I've gotten maybe 18 to 20 000 words in that ultimately i'd like to get to and that's when i'll start calling myself an author when i actually write some real books um but yeah i do have unfinished work i think every creative does yeah i wrote this screenplay it's called five years to fornication it's the five years it took for me to finally drill my wife like the courting process it's so i, I, it's, I mean, I think it's so fucking good. It's fucking crazy.

That's like a 40 year old version kind of concept. It actually seems like a really good comedy you can make it out of that. Oh yeah. It's chaos. I hope you've written it that way. You've written it funny, right? Oh yeah. And I was homeless during those five years.

Well, do you blame her? I wouldn't fuck a dude that was homeless at the time. I don't blame her at all. And she had a boyfriend. She had to just keep saying like, dude. Wow. You had everything up against you. That actually does sound like a great premise for a movie, which is cool because I don't think there's enough original screenplays out there these days. And you said you directed some films. Maybe you can relate to this, but I think everything's a remake right now. The amount of just John Wick knockoffs alone, of how many people are some retired agent who gets taken back from their retirement and has to go on a killing spree again.

I've seen that John Wick story rewritten a dozen times in the past couple of years. I just feel like there's not original stuff out there now, which is kind of disheartening to me. I struggle to find like no exaggeration. Nine times out of 10, when I sit down to watch TV, I 30 minutes later, I've watched nothing and I've left. What is the last show you watched that you got into? I started watching Yellowstone and how they, but, but I, and I really like Kevin Costner and I like that hot chicken there.

And I like her husband that, the real manly dude. But how they ended season four, I think I'm done. She's too mean to her brother. I can't do it anymore. Yeah, what I like more is 1883, which is the prequel to that show. Okay. It shows the Dutton family coming across the plains to initially get their Montana ranch um but 18.3 has five episodes now I think you'll like that it's the same writer it's Taylor Sheridan which

is my favorite writer in Hollywood right now because he wrote Hell or High Water Wind River Sicario like the stuff oh he wrote Sicario yeah the stuff that the stuff that Taylor Sheridan touches I think think, is gold. And what's cool is his backstory. I don't know if you ever watched Sons of Anarchy. Yeah, I did. That's what I think Yellowstone is. It's Sons of Anarchy.

It is. It's Sons of Anarchy on horseback. So Taylor Sheridan comes from Sons of Anarchy. So Officer Hales, like the buff cop in Sons of Anarchy, that's Taylor Sheridan. So when that show ended, he was struggling to get more acting roles. And his wife said to him, well, why don't you write screenplays? You've read enough. Why don't you write some?

You've done enough yourself. And he comes from a ranching family. And so that's the lifestyle he knows. And so he says, OK, if I'm going to write screenplays, I'm going to write about the lifestyle I know, which is like this gritty Western Texas kind of life. And so he wrote like Sicario, Wind River, Hell or High Water, Yellowstone, 1883. He's a writer on Mayor of Kingstown.

And everything he writes has that same kind of gritty style. But it's gotten to the point now where I can, he's directing a lot too now. And so I can tell a big difference between things he's directed and written because his dialogue i think is so on point oh his dialogue's crazy like his his dialogue in wind river like the actual life lessons and the discussion of grief i don't know if you've seen that movie no if you haven't seen wind river you should watch that movie that That is a phenomenal show.

Unfortunately, it's an all too true story. But the dialogue of how this father deals with grief is profound. And I love that about Taylor Swift. And you notice that in Yellowstone. There's a lot of one-liners Kevin Costner delivers in Yellowstone that are really, really profound. Oh, the writing of the daughter is nuts. Yeah, and that's Taylor Sheridan. So if I see his name attached to anything, I have to watch it. So 1883 of the daughter is nuts. Yeah. And that's Taylor Sheridan. So anything he,

if I see his name attached to anything, I have to watch it. So 1883 is the prequel to Yellowstone. It actually has Faith Hill. And what's her husband's name again? God, who's married to Faith Hill? I can't, I'm blanking on right now, but they're a real life couple. Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw play the early Duttons. And they actually do a phenomenal job. Like their acting is they're so perfectly cast for it um but i'm the same way i have a hard time getting into shows but anything taylor sheridan touches i can get into um there when we were kind of ripping earlier not ripping is not the right word we're talking about the need

to get away from your parents and about how it's, how it helps you evolve and blah, blah, blah. But there's something very interesting in Kyle's life. This, um, his first book, his dad championed, his dad told him, Hey motherfucker, go write that shit. And that's an interesting take on this. He said, Taylor Sheridan's wife told him to write screenplays. And I want to tell him, and I wouldn't be doing this podcast. Um, and, and, uh, I don't care if I'm bragging. It's become extremely successful in the last six months, and I wouldn't have done it if my wife didn't believe in me, if my mom didn't believe in me.

The best thing you can do to someone is believe in someone, and I don't mean fake it. But if you do believe in someone, don't hold back. Share it with them. It will really mean – and that's why I think it's so important. That's why you don't don't hold back share it with them it will really mean and that's why i think it's so that's why you don't give homeless people money because first of all they're not homeless they're drug addicts and second of all what they really need you to do is look at them in the eyes and believe in them and recognize them as a human being and help them hope spark to get off that fucking mattress on the fucking curb and their fentanyl like believing in someone's powerful shit it's powerful it's so powerful and it was cool it was cool that i heard

that your dad believed in you because it's really hard for parents to convey that to their kids because usually you know you do you give your parents the heisman but the fact that your dad believed in you and like and that got you to move and the fact that my wife believed in you and like, and that got you to move. And the fact that my wife believed in me and the fact that Taylor Sheridan's wife believed in her, if you're in a relationship with someone who doesn't believe in you, get the fuck out. Yeah. That'll, that'll drain you so much life. That'll drain you of so much opportunity in life. And that's another, that's another thing about my current relationship with my girlfriend now is she is constantly pushing me to try new things. She's constantly pushing me to, to finish new work. And she's more than willing to take on like the

brunt of parenting duties. If she knows I'm in like a writing zone where I need eight hours to just focus, she will do whatever she has to to give me that. And if you don't have a partner that allows you to do that, you're not going to achieve your potential in life. And there is people out there that will help you do that. And you'll find them. So if I feel like people are in a relationship where they feel like, well, this is the best relationship I have. It's not if they're not pushing you to do something new like that. But yeah, I almost didn't write that first book. I had a call with my dad. I told him I didn't have time for it. I was busy with my advertising job. And I was traveling a lot for work. And I said, Dad, I don't have time to finish this book. And he said, Kyle, if you don't finish that book, you're going to regret it. And he called me a week later, like check up on me.

He's like, have you started writing that book yet? And at that point I felt like I was, you know, I owed it to myself and my dad. He's like, you know what? I he's right. I need to fucking knock this thing out. And that was when I did fucking history back in 2016. Um, and how did you know that was what, what, what happened? So you finished writing that book and um and how did you know that was what what what happened so you finished writing that book and how many followers did you have on instagram in 2016 i think i had maybe like 150 to 200 probably oh so you already had you had a thousand so i had a following from my writing because i started doing this captain stuff adjacent to my advertising career because I I had like jokes I was writing in scripts for tv commercials that weren't getting accepted

that I still thought were very good jokes or very pertinent observations of life so I started tweeting those instead under the captain because I was afraid at the time I was I was just getting paid as a writer I was paranoid I'd get fired if they saw me making controversial statements online you've seen that happen far too many times. And so I started this captain following of tweeting my work and it got to the point where my A game, I started giving to Twitter. My B game, I started giving to my clients. And eventually Twitter just kept taking off for me and it evolved into Instagram. So I had a good following for my work already. And I had been writing these historical lessons because I've always thought history was fairly interesting when it's told the right way and people love those i'd post them every sunday

and i called them sunday schools where i'd kind of take you back to history class but teach you the way you should have learned it and then my dad was almost like you know you should wrap that into a book and i found a buddy of mine who's a good illustrator and i was able to wrap that up and release that first book and that's the book that's probably most known for sold really well got the attention of some publishers and then ping on random wrap that up and release that first book. And that's the book that's probably the most known for. Sold really well. It got the attention of some publishers. And then Penguin Random House ended up buying the rights to it to re-release it as a larger volume where I wrote a bunch of new content. Were you tripping when it sold well?

Was it like this, I can't believe it sells well, and at the same time, I can believe it sells well? I didn't trip at all. I felt it. You know how sometimes you have those things in life where you just feel they're going to be successful and they're going to work? believe it sells well like i didn't trip at all like i felt it like it was one you know sometimes you have those things in life you just feel they're gonna be successful and they're gonna work okay when i finished the book when i finished the book i was like this thing's gonna fucking sell people are gonna love this and i released it and sold really well and i got a lot of a lot of

notoriety for it but when i started seeing like some of the royalty checks for it i was like holy shit i cannot believe i'm making this kind of money writing. And as a writer, I mean, it's all relative, like what I consider really good money, like some of my entrepreneur buddies would still consider like I'm living in the gutter kind of thing. But I can support myself. And it's awesome that I can do that. But I knew it was going to be successful because I felt really proud of it. When I finished it, I used, I feel like I have a pretty good barometer on what's good and what's not like I can write work and I know it's shit and I'll throw it out. Um, but when I finally feel like something's good enough to put out, I, I feel like it's going to work. I just have a good tab on that. I believe the guy you went for a job

interview at a ad agency and, and it was, and you, you weren't getting the jobs you wanted. And then finally you went to this interview and you say, okay, fuck it. If I'm just, if you tell the guy who's interviewing you, hey, listen, if I don't get this fucking job, this is the last interview I'm doing. And he hires you because of your honesty. Are you still friends with that guy? Yeah, that's actually the guy I said that we were going to start the ad school and dig post holes with. Oh. I consider him my mentor in the advertising career.

His name's Chip. He's a Nebraska corn fed boy who moved to Utah, got into advertising, and he's probably one of the most talented when it comes to conceptual writing. The scripts he writes for radio to sell a camera, I just think it's phenomenal. I've always looked up to him.

Other than that, he's just a tried and true, really, really good dude. What a trip that you stayed friends with him i figured you did when i heard that story we still talk we still talk every day probably we're always chatting on instagram like sending each other like videos of people getting hurt nature like we like the nature videos of like you know the nature's metal kind of stuff we send those to each other often but yeah i interviewed with him i'd interviewed with every other advertising agency in salt lake city i've been told like to my face that we like your work, your portfolio is good, but we can't hire you because you won't present well to clients because you have your fingers tattooed.

And I'd heard that so many times that I was like, this is fucking stupid. If no one's going to hire me because I can actually write, I'm just going to stop trying to work in advertising. I'm going to find another way to make money. I can actually write. I'm just going to stop trying to work in advertising. I'm going to find another way to make money. And me and him interviewed at a bar. And I told him, I said, yeah, I said, if you don't hire me for this, this is the last agency in Utah. I'm just going to say, fuck it. I'm not going to try and work in advertising.

I'm going to figure something else out. And he gave me a shot. I ended up being one of the better writers they've ever had. the better writers they've ever had um and it quickly my career quickly took me from salt lake to vegas to new york city where i was you know essentially a silent partner in advertising for many years and i worked for a lot of big hospitality brands and i was you know i was 30 30 years old and i was a creative director in new york city which is something that a lot of people in advertising don't reach until their 40s um but i i went all to him and i've told him many times i said if you didn't give me that shot and i started as just like a junior copywriter and quickly jumped up it would not have happened for me okay i promise i'm this is it and

you refuse to do work for pharma i do i i i i think i jumped out. I think I chubbed up when I heard that. Holy shit, that is awesome. I'm at a point in my career where I can be fairly selective with my clientele. And even then, when I was hired, one of the agency partners told me, said, hey, Kyle, just so you know the way we run things here, we take a lot of clientele. We'll take a lot of politicians. We'll take a lot of everything. If there's something you don't want to work on, just tell me and we won't make you work on it. And so I decided I didn't want to work anything pharmaceutical related. I didn't want to sell pills or anything like that because first of all, I'm not an expert in that stuff. Obviously, I can craft coffee that's going to make it sound attractive. I don't want to be a part of that machine. And there's certain political individuals I didn't want to work with. If we had someone whose beliefs I didn't believe in it, but we were

representing their campaign, I made sure I was not the copywriter on it. And I've done the same thing with a lot of my clientele. I probably turn down as much work as I take on, especially now where I focus more on books. But I do take maybe a half dozen contracts a year, primarily hospitality at this point, because I enjoy doing it. What do you mean? Like the Four Seasons or something like a hotel? Yeah. Yeah. I do like casinos in Vegas. I've done a lot of bars and restaurants. Like I enjoy, I enjoy branding, coming in and designing the space, putting the name on it, the logo, like that kind of creative direction work I enjoy doing and so that's mostly where i live now uh but yeah from the get-go i never wanted to do pharma i never

wanted the thing is those are the best paying jobs in advertising that's what that's why agencies take them like the retainers associated with some of those pharmacy accounts are fucking insane but i just didn't want to be a part of it my i have a friend who lives in um scottsdale and uh he's got more money than God. Anyway, and I went to his house the other day, and next to him, his neighbor is building a basketball, miniature basketball stadium on his property. This is like a few blocks away from the Scottsdale Mall, and it looks like a CVS he's building on his property. And it's basically a basketball court with all seating around it. And it's just in his fucking backyard. And it's completely enclosed.

And it's got an entryway. And it's fucking nuts. And I go, what the fuck does that dude do for a living? Pharma executive. Pharma executive. I was like, oh, dude. And the thing is, that guy's kids probably suck at basketball. But he's going to build them.

He's going to build them a court. It's for local professional players who live in the neighborhood. Oh, okay. Oh, it's for local professional players who live in the neighborhood. Oh, okay. So that his kid can watch them and rub elbows with them. I kind of respect that as a dad, though. That's actually kind of a cool move, I think.

If you have the opportunity to do that to your kid, I kind of like that he's taken that kind of interest in it. But yeah, that farm money is just wild. It's wild. You never had an STD? you're right you never even had crabs no no i got a great i had crabs i like that that's what you took from my book i had a scare i had a scare where i definitely thought i did for a while and it put me in a bad head space um and you're gonna you know people want to read about that. They can read the section of the book about thinking you have an STD. Ladies and gentlemen, Kyle Creek.

First time we've met. Great time. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate it. And I'm definitely down to do a follow-up. Enjoy your time in Tahoe with your family. Thank you, brother. All right.