Timeless Spirituality
Timeless Spirituality, hosted by Daniel "The Past Life Regressionist," is a captivating podcast that explores the depths of spirituality and its connection to time. Join Daniel and his guests as they delve into past life regression, astrology, and the timeless essence of existence. With occasional humorous moments, this podcast offers profound insights, making it a unique blend of enlightening entertainment. Tune in to connect with your inner self and uncover the totality of who you are and who you've been throughout time.
IG:@thepastliferegressionist
Website: thepastliferegressionist.com
Timeless Spirituality
Ep. 90 - Somehow, We Made It Through: Mike Jann & Michele Jordan
Laughter is the best medicine, and who better to prove it than a writing instructor and comedy connoisseur? Daniel, Mike, and Michele share stories that highlight the lighter side of battling mental health issues, showing how humor can provide relief from depression and anxiety. They strike a balance between respecting the seriousness of mental health and finding comedic silver linings, demonstrating that it’s possible to laugh even in tough times.
The conversation also explores positive cultural shifts in therapy and mental health acceptance, offering hope and a few laughs along the way. They discuss how humor evolves with society while some jokes—like that of a faint-hearted mosquito—remain timeless. Mike and Michele emphasize the importance of individuality and self-acceptance, crucial elements in both comedy and personal growth.
As social media influences public expression, they reflect on the creative challenges and the importance of preserving the freedom to share a good laugh. It’s a candid wrap-up to a session filled with insights, illustrating why letting go and speaking one’s mind is the ultimate punchline to a life well-lived.
Michael Jann & Michele Jourdan
Michael Jann is an Emmy-nominated late-night comedy writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. He currently teaches screenwriting at UCLA Extension, and writes screenplays with his wife Michele Jourdan, a writer and a gold-medal winning body-builder. Michele likes working out so much, she actually married a dumbbell: Mike.
Bug Therapy: https://www.youtube.com/@bugtherapymovie
Ydaiber's offer: https://calendly.com/rekindleyourlight/introcoaching
Mike, thank you so much for being here today. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing good. I'm doing great. I'm so disappointed that this is just going to be released as an audio, because I'm so handsome.
Speaker 1:This is going to be fun today. You are handsome.
Speaker 3:I mean.
Speaker 1:I'll paint the picture for everyone. Mike is in his mid-60s but looks like he's about 49 and about 49, right, 49 and a half 49, and a half yeah, and you wear it well, so thank you. I think you look better than me at 37 I like the golden bachelor.
Speaker 2:The golden bachelor guy is 72. He looks like he's 49. You know, he's looking good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. Well, I mean, I have to be careful of what I say Now because the audience is predominantly female. But since I have a male guest right now, you know what it's the interest of Not caring what we're going to say. You know, we, we were lucky. We kind of get more wise with time, we'll put it that way. So, before I've alienated all of the audience, are you ready for the first question?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am yes, Shoot Is that?
Speaker 1:offensive Shoot. Yeah, I've said worse, but it's okay. Before we dive into the first question, I just want to give a little different introduction for how I met Mike. Mike was one of my writing instructors back in my television writing certification program, so he has helped me so much with story structure. Above and beyond, story structure is just so necessary and, as you guys are listening to the Mirror of Time series right now, you'll notice that there is a flow of structure and Mike hasn't listened to it yet, as we're recording this in late November of 2023. But, mike, I just wanted to thank you for helping me with story structure, because I hope that the audience is enjoying at this point, because I have a good, solid beginning, middle and an end and you know the beats are so important. So that's how I met Mike and that was about four and a half years ago and yeah, so thank you, mike. Thank you so much, I mean.
Speaker 1:I do it. Yeah, I'm being cheery, but it's weird to be like so appreciative and thankful for story structure. But as a writer, you know, thank you.
Speaker 2:It's true. I mean with Joke Ride. My career has been writing jokes and boy is there a beginning, a middle and an end, you know. And the key is, I know the ending and you don't. So everything else is a head fake, you know trusting your gut.
Speaker 1:When I took your class, I wasn't originally intending on taking it. I was going to be going on to pilot writing and, for those of you who are unfamiliar, pilot writing is the first episode in a TV series. But I liked the title of the course, which was writing funny comedic dialogue that doesn't suck. Did I get that right? Yeah, how to write funnyic dialogue that doesn't suck. Did I get that right?
Speaker 1:yeah, and how to write funny telling dialogue that doesn't suck and my whole intention for the program was to really fine-tune my writing skills with pilot writing. But there was something about that class and looking at it in that title it felt right to me and I delayed taking that pilot writing course by another quarter, which I mean I was so excited to take that. But I'm so glad that I just trusted my gut and went for it because I got so much more than I bargained for just by. I mean, dare I say I judged a book by its cover, initially with the title, but the story structure component was just yeah, that's great, just such a game changer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I try to make all writers 10% less sucky and I think you achieved that.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, yeah, 10.01. Still working on getting to that 10.5. But slow and steady wins the 10.01. Still working, I'll get to that 10.5, but slow and steady wins the race. Yeah, okay, so now we got that out of the way.
Speaker 3:Are you ready?
Speaker 1:for the first official question and my hands are going up for this one. Mike, what is your favorite song about time and why?
Speaker 2:there is a song called Breathe 2am by Anna Nalick, and it's about now. It's 2am. This girl's having a problem and her friend is giving her advice, Anna's giving her advice and it's just breathe, Take a breath. You are here now and I like that more than all the songs I've heard about time always being a past thing. I mean, obviously it's a past and future thing, but I just when you ask me the question, I think of that song, about right now.
Speaker 1:I'll have to check that one out. So with that my hands went down, because I've never heard of the song before. Therefore I have no idea You've heard it a hundred times.
Speaker 2:She's like just breathe, just breathe. Yeah, all the women in the audience know it, so get on board. What are you?
Speaker 1:saying Mike, I said I don't know this song, so I guess that wasn't funny.
Speaker 2:Okay, did I crash and burn with that one a little.
Speaker 1:Yeah, comedy, it's okay. Yeah, still need work on that. Okay, are you ready for the next question?
Speaker 2:yes, what do you believe in? What do I believe in? I believe in that there's more than meets the eye. I think there's a good chance we're perceiving a sliver of the total spectrum of visual stuff and mental stuff. Highly possible, right. Visual stuff and mental stuff highly possible, right? And if so, wow, there could be a lot going on. Just like a fly flies into your house, a great tv show going on and he just doesn't comprehend it. Right, and would be the same thing. There's something going on and we don't know. So I just like the. I'm kind of agnostic about a lot of things, except for really honoring the agnosticism and the ignorance of not knowing what's going on. I like that.
Speaker 1:Are you ready for the most difficult question I'm going to ask you today?
Speaker 2:I'm hoping. It's hard, that was easy. Who is Mike Wow. Who is Mike Wow. Who is Mike? Mike is? It's so funny. My whole life it's been. Mike is a writer. You know, like that my resume is. I am my resume, but more and more I'm a life force. I'm unusual, I'm very alive, I'm fun. I'd rather be fun than funny. My whole life I've been trying to be funny, but when I really look at it, with interacting with people, it's to be fun and make moments more fun. If that makes sense. It's different than just being funny. I'm grateful and that's why I kind of light up and perform a little bit when I talk to people, because I'm always grateful for the opportunity, the moment right.
Speaker 1:The now. When did the shift happen for you from funny to fun?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question, I think. When I was dating I was divorced and I was dating a lot. So you're presenting yourself over and over again and if you have any self-perception, you realize you're. You take a look at what it is you're selling. You know, the who am I question really comes up when you're dating. Right, because you have to decide how to package this, this thing. That is you, and my initial instinct was, you know, to lean so heavily on the funny and the resume and stuff. And I I learned pretty um slowly that it it's like asking someone a question on a date is more impressive than impressing them. You know what I mean. Like to be present and to be fun is different than you know. You can have them laughing all night, but that's different than a true connection. And so I would say when I was dating, I came to learn more about myself.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is, but packaging the who question who is Mike as opposed to tell me more about yourself, there's almost an existential component to it. So why do you feel that that question is so much more complex than tell me more about yourself? Because it almost seems more loaded to tell me about yourself, while there's a simplistic aspect to who is Mike.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if the simpler question gets the more complex answer, is that what you're noticing? I think so, yeah, because tell me a bit about yourself, then you get that, that instinct, that defensive instinct to gee, how do I want to portray myself? But the more interesting question who is mike? It's like, wow, it had that third person nature to it.
Speaker 2:I used to make fun of a baseball player. The first guy to do it was Reggie Jackson. He would talk about himself in person. Well, I just want to do what's best for Reggie Jackson. And you know, reggie Jackson was looking for a fastball and he got it and he hit it and everybody made fun of him as what an egomaniac.
Speaker 2:And then later, later, psychologists and therapists marveled at two things. One, he was incredibly stressful at what he did is hitting a baseball, and they thought, well, what if there's something to it viewing yourself in the third person instead of the first person? The first person is nervous, the third person is observing the, the nervous guy. And isn't that always? What we want in mental health is to step back, get perspective. Let's take a step back and look at this from a distance. And this guy was doing that and everybody was making fun of him. I think that's an interesting way to look at life. It helps to be self-aware as opposed to just self-indulgent and self-centered. It helps to take a step back and be aware of yourself. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Perfect sense, and I think that that really segues perfectly into I mean, do I dare tease a little bit your approach to the subject at hand is a level of self-awareness. So, with that said, why is it that you're speaking out about mental health?
Speaker 2:I think well I the reason I'm speaking out about mental health is my son had a mental breakdown and four years ago he's doing very well right now. But this happens to people and I've just seen the stigma. I saw his embarrassment, my embarrassment. I saw it. I didn't just see it, I felt it and I'm fascinated by it. I think about with mental health. If I had a shoulder injury or elbow injury, I could almost brag about it. You know, I was playing tennis and I hurt my shoulder, but now I'm doing this and I'm doing that, whereas people are much more reticent, not willing to discuss mental health issues. The mental health issues are more common than shoulder and elbow injuries. They're more interesting than shoulder and elbow injuries, but they've always been kind of shameful and embarrassing. And I'm speaking out about mental health because the more people who and joke about it, the more it will become totally acceptable. Uh, as it should be.
Speaker 2:It really reminds me in my lifetime I've seen homosexuality go from shameful and embarrassing to whatever. Who cares, you know, even if your kid is gay or your best friend tells you they're gay, like who cares, right, but that's a new development. That isn't how it was when I was young, and so the same thing is starting to happen with mental health issues. Like you find out, a friend is bipolar and they really should be taking their meds. What do you go? Oh, that's how embarrassing. No, you're like, wow, tell me more. It's just totally right. So that's that's why I speak out about it. I I love being one percent, or one-tenth of 1%, of that movement towards making it totally casual conversation, and the way I do that is with comedy.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a little bit more about the comedic aspect, because you and your wife, michelle, who shout out to Michelle Hi, michelle, sorry, I'm a big fan of Michelle. Let's talk about how you guys are bringing awareness to the subject in. I mean, I don't want to say it's an unconventional way, but it's not just. Hey, let's talk about mental health.
Speaker 2:Right, I'll just say this. It's a story about a mosquito who faints at the sight of blood.
Speaker 1:It's an animated comedy film that you're referring to right.
Speaker 2:We made an animated short comedic film about mental health called Bug Therapy, and Bug Therapy is about a mosquito who faints at the sight of blood and her name is Citronella. So there's two strikes against her and she's getting up the nerve to go to therapy for the first time and she's terrified and doesn't want to do it. It's a fun movie. The therapist is a pill bug named Dr Pill and Dr Phil played Dr Pill and Meghan Trainor is Citronella. And then you have Jay Leno as a fly who has OCD and can't stop washing his hands. Hey, you don't know what these hands have been. We think we do, and so on.
Speaker 2:Sterling K Brown is in it. He's a stick bug who suffers from depression because he feels like no one sees him and his friends are like yeah, try moving, maybe someone will see you. And then there's a. Tom Green is in it, plays a grasshopper who is um addicted to caffeine. He drinks 10 cups of coffee a day. He loves it, but it makes him jumpy and he keeps leaving the film. So all the bugs are struggling with their mental health issues and we think that's kind of funny laughing at like a moth who keeps flying into campfires because he's in love and they have to explain to him that's not love, that's not not good, and so on.
Speaker 1:You get the idea I don't know why I didn't think about this before, but is michelle available right now?
Speaker 2:hey, michelle, she'll think I'm having some terrible computer problem, as I do 10 times a day. Daniel wants to talk to you because we're talking about bug therapy and I think he might ask about the dragonflies, you know, and it's, it's just. Yeah, it's not visual. It's a crying shame given my handsomeness, but it's my rugged good looks, but it's. It's more audio, but it's more audio.
Speaker 1:so in the interest of improvisation and a lack of forward thinking on my part, I'd like to now introduce Mike's wife, michelle, to the show. So I wanted to bring you on just to talk about bug therapy and just because I mean you and Mike just work so well off of each other. So just want to briefly tell everyone who is Michelle.
Speaker 2:Michelle is my lovely wife. I got her in a catalog.
Speaker 3:Yeah, scene set.
Speaker 1:All right. So let's talk about why you guys felt it was needed to approach mental health from more of a I don't want to say a comedic aspect, but more of a comedic take. Why was the comedy so needed for a subject that can be quite dark?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think because it is so serious and because it's so serious, if you can't figure out how to laugh at yourself at the situation, you're just going to end up crying all the time. You know it's. It's like you got to figure out how to, how to just have a sense of humor about things, because they they do get so serious and they get so hard and you have to kind of laugh and get some space, get some distance from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't fix a problem if you can't talk about it, and one of the best ways to talk about something is to crack a joke and break the ice and start the conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What would you guys say to someone who felt that, by approaching it from a more comedic side, that you were taking away from the seriousness of the topic?
Speaker 3:I would say that they are like I can joke about it because I've been there. I know what it's like to be so depressed that you want to veer your car into oncoming traffic. I know what it's like we met. Actually, you want to veer your car into oncoming traffic, I know what it's like we met actually.
Speaker 3:I know what it's like to be so anxious that I literally can't eat soup at a dinner meeting because my hand is shaking so badly. So it's like I know I have lived experience how shitty mental health problems can be, and if I took that so seriously I would not be any fun at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I've, I've visited my son in a psych ward, which is not something most dads brag about, but having done it, I'm, I'm, I'm qualified to joke about it, because there are funny aspects of it, and it's just that simple. If you can't joke about it, you probably can't even talk about it, and if you can't talk about it, you can't fix it.
Speaker 3:And having a sense of humor about it helps me to not take myself so seriously. Yeah, and being in my head an awful lot, that's a really good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't have to order soup in a restaurant, no, okay.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess where I'm also kind of running into an issue right now is I am very much in agreement with you guys with regards to how I mean I feel that that's it's just.
Speaker 1:It's so needed to be able to to laugh. And I remember looking at the comments on the video by the way, like I loved the clip and if you guys are okay with it, I definitely want to link it in the show notes and how I saw some people in the comments talking about how this I can't even. I don't remember it was like not muddying the waters but making fun of it, and I disagree because I thought it was. I mean because I feel the same way. There are days when I've wanted to drive my car into oncoming traffic, but then again I wouldn't even so much about the person who was experiencing it as much as the people who aren't experiencing it and kind of showing them that it's okay to talk about these things, that these things aren't I mean, they're not bread and butter issues for the dinner table but you can talk about it at the dinner table. So what comes up for that?
Speaker 2:What we find is when we give talks, we do professional speaking at events that are, say, run by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. So we're there at the National Alliance for Mental Illness convention, there at the national alliance for mental illness convention, and we're telling our stories and our jokes and they're all roaring, laughing because they get it and they're not afraid it's. It's just this funny thing. They have a saying called until it happens to you, you know, until it happens to you, you don't understand. And when you do understand, you understand that you need to joke about it.
Speaker 3:At the last NAMI conference that we did, nami Delaware the couple was there in the audience who literally started the NAMI Delaware chapter. Like they brought NAMI to their state because dealing with their son, I believe, dealing with their son, I believe. And after our speech and after seeing the film and after our speech she said I am so glad you guys address the humor, because when people come to our group the first thing we tell them is that we're going to laugh in this group and sometimes you're going to wonder why we're laughing at such serious things. But you have to. Going to wonder why we're laughing at so such serious things, yeah, but you have to. If dealing with this can get so heavy, you have to figure out how to put some levity into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, when I was watching it, I think I may have been 36 at the time, you know so we lad it came out earlier in 2023, right, or was it late 2022?
Speaker 3:oh, we released it on youtube in 2023 yeah, 20.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it was a wee lad of 36 at the time just a pup, just a pup yeah well, a pedigree pup, but that's neither here nor there right now.
Speaker 1:but I myself have experienced some mental health struggles and I was kind of sad while watching it because I wished that there was a movie like that around when I was a kid, because it felt, since it was so stigmatized prior to. I mean, it still is to a certain extent, but, oh my God, over the last couple of years it's become cool to go to therapy, like what.
Speaker 1:Whereas you used to have to hide that, and I think it wasn't on my podcast, but another interview that I did on another show, I told the story about how, when I was 14, I went to therapy and I was sitting. Well, I've been in therapy for the last 23 years, but at this particular time, when I was 14, I was sitting in the waiting room and it was an outdoor office park. So, I mean, I was sitting inside just to kind of you know glass doors, and I saw someone walk by that I knew, and they were walking into another therapist's office and I was terrified. I walked up to them at school the next day saying please don't tell anyone that you saw me there. One didn't really fully dawn on me that they were in therapy as well, so, but I was so scared that they would say yeah they saw Daniel therapy, and then everyone would think that I was crazy, whereas you
Speaker 3:are Well yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:I mean that I kind of wear it as a badge of honor now. Back then not as much, but had that movie been around when I was a kid, I feel like it would have been more encouraged to talk about mental health and to not feel like it was such a stigma. And I don't know if that would have been the case had it been a movie that had some more weight to it as a child and and made me cry.
Speaker 3:That was. That would be heavy and a downer.
Speaker 2:Right, that's not going to make you feel good. It's not going to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one question I do have for it with regards to the setting was there a fear that having everyone laugh at I mean this almost sounds silly saying it in my come out of my mouth right now that having everyone laugh at citronella for being afraid to see blood because she's a mosquito, that it would deter people from wanting to share because of lap. Or was it that it was so over the top that it's a mosquito? Because one of the things that I always tell people is you may cry at the sight of a toothpick breaking and I may think it's ridiculous, but it's real to you. There's a reason why you cry at the sight of a toothpick breaking. So I'm still not on par with a mosquito afraid of blood. It's like a horribly structured question, but do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, were we afraid that people would object to the fact that all the other bugs laugh at her when she finally reveals her secret?
Speaker 3:Is that the question, or is it yeah something?
Speaker 1:else I. I think that that was kind of what I was getting at we did that, but for a couple reasons.
Speaker 2:One is it's funny. Every time we tell that joke it gets a laugh. I don't mean 99 percent of the time, I mean every time it gets a laugh. It's a story about a mosquito faints inside of blood, so she's afraid to say what her problem is. And when she finally says it, it just wouldn't be. Look if they don't laugh. It's a fake bullshit story. That's like an after school special that your mom tricked you into watching and look now that ends in a group hug. No, that's not real life. They laugh because it's funny. And guess what? She lives.
Speaker 3:She's not fragile well what my one of my favorite things in the whole movie is after they laugh at her, she's after. The grasshopper comes back and laughs, you know the second time. He's like you're a mosquito and you faint at the sight of blood and she goes, yeah, and she like smiles for the first time, fully accepting who she is. He's like, yeah, this is me and she's okay with it.
Speaker 2:Finally, Yep, she is not fragile, she's strong. We you know being afraid of being laughed at that's shame. That has to go away. You have to not be afraid of being laughed at. It doesn't kill you. Afraid of being laughed at it doesn't kill you. Comedians get paid millions of dollars to get laughed at. So it's just we. We knew some people would object and we did it anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think is really important, because I will say this we we have not gotten one objection from an insect gotten one objection from an insect, but I'm bummed, I mean, and they would be the ones who what if they were being personally offended? We shouldn't care on their behalf.
Speaker 2:They should care.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but I think that that kind of goes with. The next point question I wanted to make is what I've kind of seen myself doing over the last couple years is cringing at moments for fear of the mob, and yeah, yeah, it's like, even right now I'm like, oh my god, like what am I gonna say? And so that that's kind of. I think where we are as a society right now is, oh no, that's not right. Oh no, that's not right. Oh no, that's not right. Because I that I think back to if the movie came out 30 years ago, no one would be, you know, armchairing it and saying like, oh, how dare they so right, right, you know, I, and I think that this is something else that may create some mental struggles with society right now is the fear of speaking out, because it's kind of paradoxical that everything is becoming so more widely accepted.
Speaker 1:But then how dare you talk about?
Speaker 2:that, yeah, makes no sense. You know, um, I wrote for jay jay leno for 23 years and he's so amazing on stage and he used to have a joke when a heckler would interrupt the show and his joke would be he would say it's all right, sir, very soon everyone will have their own microphone and everybody would laugh at the guy who, you know, dared to steal the show. And that has come's happened.
Speaker 2:Everybody has their own microphone now social media yeah, and everybody thinks that their opinion is important and worthy of interrupting everybody else, and, um, it's just crazy.
Speaker 3:I like that word well, it's funny, like even when you were doing your ted talk. It's like some of the jokes, people are like it's they want to laugh, but they're like, oh, can I laugh at that shoot. You know, it's like you're kind of like looking around is anybody else laughing? Is it okay for me to laugh? It's like just if it's funny, fucking laugh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I was telling Mike about that before because before we hit record, do you want to tell the joke really quick?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really concerned about childhood obesity. It's it's a problem. I know we're making some progress, right, things are getting a little better, but I saw a kid in a park today crying that his hula hoop was too tight. That's a problem we need to. We need to address that. Crying that his hula hoop was too tight, that's a problem, we need to address that.
Speaker 3:I think that's funny. Do I think childhood obesity is funny? No, I don't, but the joke is funny.
Speaker 2:And now that we've laughed at it, right, if we laugh at that joke now, we've broken the ice and we can talk about real solutions. Right? Like why is there just one size hula hoop? I would think an XXL would be a great happy meal toy right now.
Speaker 3:All right, that's enough.
Speaker 2:He told a childhood obesity joke.
Speaker 1:Which that still. That's where I myself is someone who is not easily affected, but I almost felt like part of the crowd there, oh my. And I wasn't even in the crowd, I was just watching it on YouTube, oh my God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that joke gets a laugh.
Speaker 1:Can I laugh at this right now? What would people think of me if I was laughing at this joke, I mean the opening joke you told, told, that's the big no-no, like the one thing you don't joke about which.
Speaker 2:What is wrong with animal cruelty? What do you say?
Speaker 1:right, okay, 30 years ago everyone be laughing their ass off, but so so I guess my final question with the joke component is why and I'm going to let you guys take that in whatever direction you want to take it why?
Speaker 3:Why not? A joke doesn't mean, like when he says the childhood obesity joke, it doesn't. He's not saying it seriously, Like I really think that there should be an XXL hula hoop, Like let's have a conversation about that.
Speaker 2:I mean you know it's a joke and it's meant to be like.
Speaker 3:this is silly, and I'm gonna say it like right. It's a joke. That's why it's to get people to lighten joke.
Speaker 2:So that's why it's to get people to lighten when we laugh at things we thought we weren't allowed to laugh at. It connects us together and that's when you can have a real conversation. But if you're tiptoeing around, you're not having real conversation.
Speaker 2:If you're trying to be careful not to trigger somebody or not to say the wrong thing, or I, I have a joke that that I tell that you could say it involves, you know, cruelty to animals, right to a kid and, and I know I what I say is look, I love animals, they're delicious oh god.
Speaker 3:But that doesn't mean he's gonna to go cook up the cat, I mean geez.
Speaker 1:Well, there goes my vegan audience. Vegetarians, you still on board. So yeah. I would agree with you guys, so I loved the. It was so cute and I hope everyone goes and checks it out.
Speaker 3:Because it was something else.
Speaker 1:All right, you guys ready to play the new game that I've incorporated into the show?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:All right, so, since there's two of you, who wants to go first, do?
Speaker 2:I have to take my clothes off now. I want to Stop.
Speaker 1:Can I laugh at that? I don't know.
Speaker 3:Wait until he takes his clothes off, okay.
Speaker 1:So what's the question? Well, that's what's going to be fun. Right now. I'm not going to tell you guys first. So who wants to go? You guys will both be good, don't worry, nothing scandalous sir, this is the pg show with explicit content okay you want to go first?
Speaker 2:ask daniel you decide.
Speaker 1:Ask the smarter of us to go to go first all right, so in this bag I have four different periods of time, so this can be completely random.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I like to maintain the integrity of the game. So you see that I take my hand out as I swirl it around. So I Okay.
Speaker 3:What if I don't know the?
Speaker 1:So, michelle, how have you grown in the last?
Speaker 3:year. Well, you know, this last year has been really tough and sometimes I feel like I'm going backwards, but I how have I grown, god? I feel like we've gotten our ass kicked a bit this past year and it has been an exercise in perseverance and communication and having each other's back and rectifying, doing what you can do and letting go of what you can't do or control. So, controlling what you can, letting go of all the rest and really managing stress and being grateful and thankful for all of the little things that you do have. So how's that?
Speaker 1:I like it. Okay, all right, mikey, you ready to play the game?
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:All right Hand out back in hand out back in CC. Maintain the integrity of the game. It's very important.
Speaker 2:Nothing shady here.
Speaker 1:So, mike, how have you grown in the last week?
Speaker 2:Ooh, in the last week.
Speaker 3:Last week.
Speaker 2:I put on a couple of pounds with Thanksgiving. I think I've grown as a person. I've really had a really good week of growth. Yeah, I've started meditating and I've been sleeping without any sleep aid of any kind aside from melatonin. So I'm really optimistic that I'm on a nice turn. I listened to a really optimistic that I'm on a nice turn. I listened to a not a podcast, but some recording of a scientist talking about the benefits of meditation. The scientific benefits you know like to really appeal to my left brain and really convinced me to do it. And the argument was so overwhelming Because you can hear, you know, a lot of woo, woo talk. There's a million good reasons to meditate, but I just wanted some hard science and I got that and I've I've now meditated three days in a row, that's. I think that's a record. I don't know that Gandhi ever did that.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I wasn't there. Well, how have you felt different in the last three days after you started meditating?
Speaker 2:I felt better, waking up better. It somehow has improved my sleep. Yeah, it's improved my sleep, and I have a mantra now which I won't divulge. I think it takes away the magic of your mantra if you tell other people but it's, don't eat the bacon. No, that's not it. That's not it. Yeah, I feel more rested by virtue of meditating. How's that?
Speaker 1:That's good, and I've also held onto the kosher crowd, so you know, maybe that'll balance out the vegans that I lost. Yes exactly Did I crash and burn with that one too Bad joke.
Speaker 2:No, it's good. No, but I will say a really cool thing. After I meditated, I opened my eyes and I felt like I saw the room for the first time. Like this room we're in is beautiful. And I opened my eyes and I just couldn't believe that lamp, that window, that curtain. You cannot notice things because you're so busy and meditation forces you to knock it off and focus on one thing. And then you open your eyes and you're kind of in the Now, you're in the business of focusing on one thing. You can notice wow, that's the most beautiful lamp I ever saw.
Speaker 1:I say that's growth. I don't know I could have done better with the kosher joke. I say I get hung up when I crash and burn. It's a good thing that. I'm still not thinking about the stupid joke that I said early.
Speaker 2:I'm going to help you with this. Take a deep breath, Daniel. Take a deep breath. Let it go. Don't make me sing a Frozen song. We've heard my voice. So, with that said, do you guys have any final thoughts for everyone, just talk about stuff that's bothering you yeah, it's been fun being on this podcast, just talking about it's good to do yeah, don't be afraid to talk about the important stuff we're going to talk about the important stuff.
Speaker 3:We're going to talk about your shoplifting after this is over.
Speaker 2:No, we're not. We're not All right, we don't talk about everything.
Speaker 1:I'll toast to that. Well, I just want to thank you guys so much for coming on today, and everyone go check out the film. It's something special. So go ahead and just look in the show notes, because the link's going to be there. I can't wait to see it made into a full-length feature one day. I think that'll really help the world a lot. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks, daniel, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I always like to finish all these by saying yay, Yay.
Speaker 3:Yay, yay.
Speaker 2:I like that.