Dr. Ryan Martin - Anger, Cordial Debate & Deep Connection Through Conflict - Ep. #53

0:00 What's up, friends? Welcome back to Rooted Wisconsin. Appreciate you for clicking another episode. Thank you for being here. Pumped up to drop today's episode and sadly, it's a very timely episode. Our guest today is Doctor Ryan Martin Dean at UWGB. And more central to our conversation today, an anger researcher. He spent his entire career virtually researching anger. We talk about what drives anger. We talk about the importance of normalizing communication about beliefs. And sometimes, so it seems like the lost art of cordial debate. Keyword cordial. There really interesting topic came up that I had never thought about, about the inverse correlation of the more gratitude you have, the less likely you are to speak up about things or to voice your opinion.

0:53 Think about that for a second. That one really kind of threw me for a loop and we talked about a really, you know, the state of affairs today. And like I said, that's really poignant right now with some things that have happened recently. And I think it's more important than ever to embrace the mission of why I started the podcast in the 1st place to bring people together with long form communication. I think it's really important. We can disagree but still care about each other and talking through things in long form conversation, as Ryan and I talk about in this episode, can really forge deep and emotional connections that come from conflict.

1:37 It's a really important thing and it's a lost art and we're watching this on socials and and sometimes I think it's driven somewhat or in large part by social media. So a really topical topic today and really excited to share. We also talked about his appearance on Theo Vaughn. I really appreciate and look up to Theo Vaughn as a podcaster. I think he does a great job and having a guest that was on Theo's podcast is a is a big get for me. So I was excited to talk with Ryan for about because of that. But more so after the conversation, I was excited about the places we got and how we can hopefully make a small positive impact for those of you that listen.

2:22 So we appreciate you being here. Ryan has a new book coming out. He has a new podcast starting. Check that out. Find him on most socials as the Anger professor. And before we jump into the episode, of course, a big shout out to our sponsors at Carouser. We had a blast tailgating out at the Packer game the other day. Check out their website, get some of their great products. Speaking of making a better environment and and a better outcome for people, I firmly believe that less alcohol in people's lives is a net positive as well. And Carouser is helping out with that. Look forward to the CEO or the commander in Reef Dan Lawrence's episode coming up in a month or so and check out their website and grab some Carouser.

3:05 Without further ado, let's jump into it. Really important topic today. Open up your ears, open up your minds and talk to somebody that maybe you don't agree with when you're done. Here it is, Ryan Martin. So have the ways we try to lift our neighbors. Where did the love go? Where did the talk? And we need to help to make this better. Again. Well, let's get into yours a little bit. OK. So yeah, I heard you moved here from Mississippi.

3:48 You said. How long ago was that? How long have you been in Wisconsin? So moved here in 2005, had actually lived here for a couple years prior to that at different stages. So I, I did a year at Lawrence University back in 94 and in 2003 I, I worked at UW Madison for a year. So I was in this weird. So I from Minnesota, went to College in Wisconsin for a year, went back to Minnesota, went to Mississippi, came to us from Madison, back to Mississippi, then to here permanently. OK, so did you, did you want to find your way back to the Midwest? Was that a goal of yours? It was I always loved my time here. My family was mostly living here. My wife's family is from my wife's from Madison that area. So we had made it a goal to move back to the Midwest and we were sort of prioritizing Minnesota and Wisconsin in that in that journey.

4:50 But we had also acknowledged like Illinois would be great. Michigan could work, I would could work, you know that there are some options there. We just more than anything wanted to kind of be be a little bit closer to, to family. And at the time, I had a sibling in Chicago and my mom and dad were in Minnesota and, and my wife's family were in Madison and Stevens Point. So it's the funny part about this is that when I lived in Madison, it was it was the first time I was on the job search for academics. I was doing my internship at UW Madison at the counseling center there, and we decided to go up to Door County for a long weekend. And as we were driving up, this was in, this was Memorial Day, so it's kind of the end of the job search. I was sort of acknowledging that I was probably you're going to have to do another year, that I hadn't gotten anything permanent yet.

5:41 And as I was driving through Green Bay, we stopped in Appleton for dinner and I, as we were driving to Green Bay, I said, Green Bay seems bigger than I thought. I wonder if there's anywhere here I could work and then went to Door County. Didn't really think anything of it came home. And then the next year, Green Bay had a job that was pretty much perfect for me and in every way. So I at the time, you know, I was a counselling psychologist, wanted to be a college professor. They had a job that basically was like a list of courses that I'd either already taught or was prepared to teach. And yeah, it was a was just a great fit. It's amazing how life delivers packages like that at different times, isn't it?

6:22 Yeah, it was really funny. And then, of course, you know, growing up in Minnesota, all my friends were Vikings fans. And so when I came home and, you know, told them like, hey, guys, I got a job, I'm going to be in Green Bay. Without fail, their response was, oh, Green Bay. Oh, no. So, yeah, yeah. Nice. Turning back the clock a little bit further, what brought your interests in into there? When so when did when did it like it sounds like it started with psychology and then when did that blossom into the the sounds like you're practicing counselor for a while and then the anger specifically, how did that all come about?

7:04 Yeah, so I, you know, it's funny when I, when I went to well, I guess we'll start at the very beginning if you want. I I running joke about my family, especially the men in my family, is that we all had the quote UN quote Martin temper. So anger ran pretty wild in my family, starting with my dad in particular. And it's, you know, whenever I tell people that story, I think the worry is that what people hear is like that it was like not a loving household or that it was an abusive household anything. And it wasn't any of that. It was, it was just a, there was just a lot of anger, right? And, and people getting sometimes mad at each other. Honestly, often times with my dad, he was just sort of angry at the world, right?

7:51 He would, he was just a really relatively inpatient person and so I've been interested in it for a long time. When I went to college, I wanted to to actually, I loved math and I wanted to be a math teacher. Took my first psychology class at the end of my first year and loved it and thought, well, maybe this is what I want to do. Decided to major in psych instead with the idea that I would, instead of being a teacher, I'd be a counseling psychologist when I went to Graduate School. One of the reasons I went to Mississippi is if there was a researcher there who is studying anger and I wanted to work with him and you know, and then quickly discovered when I was there how much I loved research and teaching. Part of the deal in in my program was that you had to teach a class as part of, you know, and so most people would do just one.

8:46 It wasn't their favorite thing. They would do just one. But I loved it so much that I was just like clamoring for additional courses I could teach and trying to get as many different classes as I could. And so got to teach, you know, multicultural counseling and abnormal psych and group therapy and a bunch of different classes. And once, once I kind of got that bug, I thought, OK, maybe I was right to want to be a teacher. It's just not math I want to teach. And so I did do clinical work for a while, part of it just through my, my grad school training, but then part of it when I went to, you know, on my, I did internship at UW Madison at their counseling center. I guess I had and loved it.

9:32 I mean, I really do love, I actually think that the relation or I think the similarities between teaching and therapy are, are pretty considerable. There's a lot of similarities there, and so it didn't necessarily feel unnatural at all to to focus on teaching, even though I've been trained doing so much counseling. Yeah, teaching overlaps with so much in life. Yeah, I late, much later in life, I found that out. I, I couldn't believe how much I loved teaching. The first time I taught, I, I was working in, I was working in a career services department, working with exponential learning and stuff. And I got an opportunity to teach and I was like, yeah, it'll make some extra money. It should be cool.

10:14 Did it and loved it. And like, even when I think of my, my history in the private sector of working in marketing, there's overlaps there of supporting people. It's just the way you do it, right? And in both, like in both of your instances, you're, you're trying to empower somebody, right, to make good decisions, positive decisions. And that's what we do. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I always think like therapy is often times, I mean, if you really break it down, it's you're using language, you're using words to try and help people change. And teaching is a very similar practice. And you know, and it's just a very specific kind of change, right?

10:56 I mean, like you're helping them learn. But ultimately that learning does, it isn't just like learning stuff. It's sometimes learning how to do things, which is very much what therapy is. Sometimes it's learning how to, trying to develop sort of particular virtues or particular qualities or whatever. So it's in so many ways it's a, it's a very similar practice as as counseling. So it felt really natural to me. I loved being in a classroom over time, and this actually sort of started to happen in grad school too. I, I also became really kind of enamored with and interested in the administration of higher education.

11:37 And I know that sounds a little strange, but I, I got, I started in my second year. I was elected like president of the grad school, like of our, like the counseling psychology programs, what a student government. And so it meant that I was going to faculty meetings and, and working with the faculty and all these things. And I, I kind of got a sense for how important some of that work is to the future of students and how you, I mean, there are a lot of really important decisions that are made that affect students in a really significant way. And I became really intrigued by doing that piece of work.

12:17 So I always kind of had the plan. I, I don't think at any point did I think, well, I'm going to be a Dean or like, I don't know too many people who like grow up thinking that's, that's what they want to do. But I was thinking, you know, that I, I did plan early on a thinking about like, I think I'd like to be chair of the psychology, the psych program at some point. And so that became available. I think in my 6th year at GB, the chair decided she wasn't going to run again. And I thought, well, maybe I'll run to be chair. And then I ended up really loving that. It was a, a great, great job and we were able to do a lot of good things. And then it just kept kind of evolving into I became the associate Dean and then did that for a few years during the pandemic, which was a a a treat, being responsible for scheduling during the pandemic.

13:04 Sweet. Yeah. It was great. And then and then we moved into and then I the the Dean position opened up a few years ago and, and I started doing that so. Sure. So are you still in the classroom too? Do you still teach? I haven't for the last couple years. I am in the fall, so I'm building a new course to teach in the fall that I'm super, super excited about. So it's going to be really fun. It's, you know, it, it, I had this moment last summer. I was talking to this guy down in Milwaukee. His name is Chad Bowman and he's the director of the Milwaukee Rep And we're talking and he said something that's just like stuck with me ever since he said, look, if the last 20 years has taught us anything, it's that we're going to experience a major disruption every couple of years, right?

13:59 Political unrest, AI, pandemic, economic uncertainty, whatever, like stuff's going to happen, he said. In that world, in that universe, the only skill that really matters is your ability to learn new things. And he's like, your ability to be adaptable, your ability to figure new things out, to embrace new technology, whatever it's you got to learn new things. And I have been just kind of clinging to that. And so I went, I drove home thinking the whole time, where are we teaching students at? Where explicitly are we? Like the idea is that they get it, you know, that it's like in the in the water somehow that they'll get it over their time in college. But I want to know where we're like, where are we teaching them to be lifelong learners?

14:52 And so decided, well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to build a course for this and it's going to be about how to learn. And we're going to encourage students to take it in their first year. And then then hopefully it'll inform not just their time in college, but their time after college that they'll be able to figure out, you know, and how to keep learning and how to keep kind of learning things on their own. So that's the goal is to teach them that they, they get a, my kids are in the International Baccalaureate curriculum at the and, and both of them, well, one's in high school, one's in middle school. But a big part of that is that you do like you, you do your own learning project as a student.

15:39 We just pick a thing you want to learn and you learn it. You know, you, you come up with your own like learning plan or whatever. So we're going to build something like that into this course. Students are just going to come up with a thing they want to learn and they're going to have to teach themselves. You know, so it could be, I want to, you know, I want to figure out how to play the guitar, or I want to learn a language, or I want to learn how to code or whatever. So and then just using whatever resources they have available to them, they're going to start figuring that out. Nice, I've always wanted to know how to do a Rubik's Cube. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm. Going to move around so the light comes out. That's super relevant though. Man, I I often times I call it being a curious problem solver. Like the value of being a curious problem solver transcends whatever you want to do in life. Like, it will open doors for you if you just take the approach of wondering and then trying to figure out, yeah, if you do that, it opens so many doors.

16:35 Just that thing in itself. Yeah, I would argue so. The the mission of our college, it essentially starts with which we wrote two years ago, is that we are curious and creative problem solvers and that's what sort of unifies all of us. It's in the mission. Yeah, so the mission, when I say the college, I mean my arts humanity. So not UW Green Bay's mission, OK. Yeah, the the arts, humanities and social sciences mission is that we're curious and creative problem solvers. And I, I would argue that's always been important. But right now, more than ever, I would say probably the three most important things that I want for our students is to develop curiosity, creativity, and a sense of community.

17:28 And that students who have that in college, they're just, they're going to have a better experience and they're going to be prepared to leave and do great things. I think that, I mean, we, we could talk about that in a billion different ways. I think probably most obvious right now is the the AI piece that I think people who are going to successfully navigate that are people who can build relationships, people who are creative, people who are asked good questions and and are curious. I think those are the people who are going to continue to thrive. You have to know your value proposition. You have to do something that AI can't do, right? It's those things, the human elements of those things.

18:08 You're spot on. Absolutely. That's cool. I didn't know that was the mission. I'm going to use that. So I don't know if you even know. My undergrad is from GBN, College of Arts and Humanities. Is it or leadership? OK, excellent. Yeah. So I'm going to use that so you know that it wasn't written when I graduated. But you know, being a curious problem solver, I'll I'll definitely use it in the classroom, man. You know, what happened is that when So it's interesting. The history of the, the history of our college is that we, you know, when the, when the university was founded in the 60s, we had college right? There was just one. And then over time things kind of split off and we split off professional programs at some point.

18:51 And then we, you know, kind of broke things apart. But So what we have in our college is sort of the remnants of the like kind of what was originally there, whereas, you know, professional programs broke off and science, engineering and technology broke off and business broke off. So sometimes people in my in arts and social sciences, they, they feel like we're kind of the leftovers, right? We're just like the remnants and, and there's nothing really that ties us together. So my associate Dean, Jenny, Jenny Young and I thought we need a, we need to figure out what pulls us together. Like we've got to find out that, find that unity piece. And so she, she's a writer and I said, let's, let's, we've got to write a mission.

19:35 So she did a fantastic job of bringing people together to come up with like let's figure out what it is that connects us and that is sort of the central proposition there is curious and creative problem solvers. That's what that what ties all of us together in a lot of ways. Absolutely. Yeah, completely agree. Let's get back to that Ryan temper, the Martin temper a little bit. Yeah. So I didn't. That's cool, man. So even when you decided that psychology was the route for you, it was with the undertone of anger like being central. I love when somebody follows a passion. It's it's, it's just so heart warming to be satisfied with what you do on a day-to-day basis. And that stems from picking something you care about. So how did I guess A2 part question, how did the Martin temper come out in you as a, as a younger adult or even younger than that?

20:35 And how is it developed? The more you've learned about anger, because you mentioned the word impatient earlier. I think that's where a lot of anger stems from. I mean, you're the expert, you tell me, but how is it? How do? How did it come out and how is it developed? Yeah, You know, when I when I was young, for me it came out in mostly in a lot of like I, I would get mad and I would yell like that was my go to when I was a kid, not necessarily at people, but just sort of at the world. I do think like a lot of kids, I took probably more out on my parents than I wish I had, especially my mom, you know, And so and I really regret that, you know, like I 30 years later, still wishing things have been different. 35 years later, still wishing things have been different. But over time, I like really learned to. It's funny.

21:27 I had a conversation with a guy at work and he said a lot of this is about 10 years ago. He said a lot of people think that you study anger because you, because you want to know what other people feel like that they just don't see me as an angry person. They see me as like a relatively chill person, which is funny because I, I am, would describe myself as like angry all the time, right? I mean, there's so much to be angry about and I, and I am, I'm really, really, really type A, right? And, and so I am competitive. I'm impatient. I'm and I, I think for me though, I know that about myself. And so I'm able to be really like mindful about when I'm likely to experience anger.

22:13 I'm able to be thoughtful about what to do with it when I am feeling it. And so it's relatively rare that I sort of let it get the best of me, even though internally I'm kind of feeling like, OK, I wish things were happening faster. I don't like this, you know, I, I don't, I don't like being slowed down and I whatever. And so like, I think for me, the way I've been able to manage it for a long time is by knowing, like, just knowing that about myself and being able to like. I guess challenge the thoughts I'm having when I get frustrated, but then also sort of direct that anger into problem solving and directed into the energy it goes me into into other things. OK, that's interesting man.

22:59 So how much how much of anger in your research and learning throughout the years, how much of anger is learned as opposed to just inherently in the human? Yeah, that's a good question. So it's as I'm sure, you know, it's going to be a little bit of both that we do inherit some, you know, like a genetic predisposition to, it's probably not so much anger specifically as it is just to be emotional that we, you know, we inherit A tendency to react with like heightened emotionality in particular circumstances, a more active sort of fight or flight response to things. But then the part that we learn is pretty extensive, right? Because what you see is that sometimes, I mean, sort of a golden rule of emotions is that we get that, that we direct or, or we learn our emotional responses from our caregivers and from the world around us.

24:07 And so that could be what we call display rules, meaning I learn what's an appropriate way to display my anger, an appropriate way to display and display my fear, my sadness or whatever. And so we learned that from our caregivers just in one of two ways, either through modeling, right? I see my dad yell, so I decide this is what you do when you're mad, right? Or through some sort of conditioning, right? So, you know, I, I yell and then I get in trouble for it. And so then I learned, Nope, don't do that. Or I yell and I get praised for it somehow. And so I do it more. And so we, we kind of pick up on those things as we're growing up.

24:52 It's not just our caregivers, it's other types of modeling. I think about that a lot in terms of the political landscape right now and and what people might be learning from leaders, what people might be learning from other sorts of like celebrities and models about how to display emotions. I think about in terms of social media. You know, I was asked a question the other day about, you know, all of these like like people releasing dash Cam footage of violent outbursts on the road and things like that. And what impact does that have on people, on people's, you know, likelihood respond that way? And I think the short answer is we don't know.

25:34 But I think the longer answer is that the more it's normalized, the more outbursts like that are normalized, the more we're going to start to see them and and so that that modeling has an impact on the broader universe. Yeah, absolutely. All the way down to like not even just anger, but how people are comfortable talking to other people. Yeah, that just our our baseline communication. Yeah, can shift about ABC person does it who's in the news all the time. So if I do it on the sidewalk to my neighbor, that's the world we live in.

26:15 But really doesn't have to be that. It shouldn't be that way, but you know it is going to be that way. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we're seeing. You know, I've been, I've been coaching my son's soccer team for the last three years. And so one of the things I've seen is kind of how parents talk to referees, how they talk to players on the opposing team, how they talk to each other. And I'm, I'm seeing like a, a, an escalation of like aggressive responses to those things that is becoming worrisome to me. That is, you know, it feels like in some level we need like a reset to say, hey, there, there are things you just shouldn't. Like it's, it's one thing to question a call. It's another thing to, to, to do it in the way you did it. And and I think, you know, just in that vein, I think one of the interesting thing that's happening too is that everyone sort of overcorrecting in a way that is causing this real divide.

27:17 So, you know, fans feel like they can say whatever they want to referees, you know, and they can shout and be insulting to referees. Referees are so averse to that that they the second apparent questions them, they sort of double down and they push back and won't even listen. And so like, and I, I realized we're not here to talk about soccer, though it is the greatest sport in the world. I, I will tell you that the, the thing that I think that that's probably like a microcosm of what's happening in a lot of cases, like people are sort of standoffish with one another in a way that they're, they're always, no one ever.

27:59 That's exaggeration. People rarely assume good intent. And and because of that, like the divide is happening even before the the interaction in a way that's that's unfortunate. Yeah. And then with that divide in place, it makes, it makes like commonality harder to achieve when in reality it's so close and it's so apparent and it's always there. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. The the referee thing is wild. That's been wild for a while in youth sports. Like you see there online videos of that all over too, of people chirping the up behind the plate or something in in a, you know, 5th graders playing baseball. So they're 5th graders, man.

28:45 Yeah, yeah, I know. This is not it. It's, it's tricky it, it really is. And I, I, I think the part that truly worries me and why I'm like kind of hung up on this is I think, you know, so I grew up playing sports and I love them. And I think of all the good positive ways, positive impacts they can have on people. And it's actually a place where I think kids can learn a lot about, I mean, honestly, related to referee specifically, they can learn a lot about justice and unfairness. And they, they could learn about how you handle those sorts of disputes in a healthy way and that there's a difference when you get fouled. There's a difference between screaming at the ref and going up to the ref later and saying like, hey, you know, like this guy took me down and you didn't call it. Can you tell me what you saw?

29:35 You know, like that's those things are fundamentally different. We're not teaching kids that second way. What they're seeing is the first way and refs are reacting to that and it, and it's too bad because there's, there's opportunities here to actually again, reset and have like use that as a place where kids can learn healthy communication, healthy conflict. But we've now hit a point where I was actually at A, at a parent meeting recently, We've now hit a point where refs are so sick of being abused, understandably, that they're reacting with, we just don't take it at all. We just give you a red card and you're done, right? And that's, that's not a great outcome either, right? Like we're, we're missing the opportunity to have like like a training ground to talk about like healthy conflict. And instead we're we're giving that up because we just can't seem to get back there.

30:28 Yeah, absolutely. How much of A how much of A like, what does ego play into it on both sides? Yeah, great question. I think a lot. I mean, I think when you think about the, there are a couple different sort of thought types or ways of things that are happening internally that lead to anger. And one of those is a tendency. It's like demandingness or entitlement, some version of that, right? And and that's going to be driven by ego. So if you think that you deserve on some level like special treatment or that if you think you're sort of a special person who deserves things that other people don't get, you're just, you're going to get angry more often.

31:10 You're going to get angry because your food doesn't come fast enough. You're going to get angry because there's people in your way slowing you down. You're going to angry because you didn't get the call you wanted. I think all of that is part of the part of that anger response. And I think, you know, that ego, it also, I think it leads to some insecurity or it lends itself to some insecurity that tends to, to like kind of get exacerbated in those moments like you, you, you know, when, when you don't get what you want, it sort of hits you harder because you're like, why do they not realize how great I am, how important I am? And and and so it hits that way.

31:55 Yeah, absolutely. I figured it had to be a crew critical piece of it. Yeah, going to. Get the lights again. You need a ball that you can just throw over there and. I thought about that this morning. I thought about that. I, I specifically thought about this little football that my son has and if I brought it like, and maybe one other ball, I could just set it right here. And then when the lights go out, I just Chuck it that way. I tried a balloon last time. That was helium and it it was like the perfect buoyancy that it would float through the air, but then it got caught up in a in a little spot over there, so it didn't. Work, so all right. But yeah, I mean, ego certainly had to play a part. It's funny, I so I would put myself in like the flip side of the coin throughout my entire life, even though there was a time as like in my teenage years, like ego certainly ran rampant, you know, like it does for a lot of teens. Like you think you know everything, you're the most important thing in the world until you realize you're this speck of dust on a hurling Rock, You know? But I've never like, I've never got mad about very much other than driving.

33:04 It's my wife gets after me about it all the time because it's really true. As soon as I get behind a wheel, I get upset about these people. What hypothetically, maybe even making the wrong decision, doing something that you know, why would you be in the left lane driving this fast when you're not over there? And I don't know. That's not it's not ego. And I I saw part of your conversation and I think you talked about this with Theo about how it's well, you tell me what, what does that mean? Like, you know, in most realms of my life, super easy going driving pissed. Well, part of it.

33:47 Is that you know, so there's this debate amongst personality and social psychologists, right? Two different sort of two sort of different groups of of psychologists. And part of what they're the debate is is what's more important the the person or the personality or the situations we're in. And there's actually a pretty good argument that situations trump personality and in many cases meaning that probably the best influence of your behavior is not actually your personality, but it's the situations that you're in. Sure. Now there's a whole fascinating kind of way of thinking about that. But what I'll say is that from a, from a anger perspective, it's hard to imagine a more provoking situation than driving.

34:36 It just is. It's, I said this in a, in the, in the Ted talk. If you were an evil genius and you wanted to create a situation to make people mad, you would create a situation that looks like driving. And the reason is 1. It's anxiety provoking, right? Driving is just inherently dangerous. And whether we realize that, and sometimes it seems like a lot of people don't realize that, but it is and it's it's a dangerous thing. And that kind of elevates our physiological state. It makes us more prone to react negatively when we're provoked. We are by definition on our way someplace, and because we're on our way someplace, it's really easy to have our goals blocked. It's really easy to have other people get in the way. That's the piece I was thinking about. Yeah, it's, it's really.

35:25 Easy for things to interfere and to to block those goals. And that's one of the the primary reasons we get angry. It's that impatience part. You know, that like when my goals are blocked, I'm likely to get frustrated. And then add to that you've got all these other people on the road. You've got these sort of, I mean, yes, there are written rules of the road, but there are also all these unwritten rules. And I mean, the example I always use is like, for me, I don't know how many police officers listen to your show, but for me, you know, 9 over is what I usually set the cruise out when I'm on. OK, good. So what that means is that you and I could drive on the on the Interstate and probably be OK.

36:07 Like, we wouldn't, we wouldn't, you know, be frustrated by each other because we are agreeing on the speed. But if somebody comes up behind us and wants to get past us because they think that the right speed is 15, well, they're going to get mad at us. And if we run into someone who's driving 5 over, we're going to get mad at them, right? And so yet all of us are breaking the law. Like none of us. We've we've all just set our own sort of arbitrary rule about what the right speed is. And then we're upset that other people aren't listening to our arbitrary rules. And there's lots of those. There's lots of those on the on the road where people have different views about what is and is not like an acceptable speed to go, an acceptable way to drive, how close you should be to the confront of you. You know, how early you have to signal when you say all those, all these different things and people, people let that kind of all those rules, those unwritten rules, they let them get to them.

37:12 So I think like for you and honestly for me, like this is a situation where, well, here's the interesting thing for me when I'm driving is that I'm actually more often than not relatively relaxed when I drive. The thing that there's two things that gets me. One is I when people do things that are overtly dangerous, that bothers me, like there's a piece of me that does that. This were the sort of justice piece kicks in for me of look like this is a like you fundamentally destroy a person's life by harming them all because you were going to miss your turn or whatever. Like you just go around the block like you don't you know, so there's that the other thing, and this is so silly and I like know what about myself? When I start to run low on gas, I start to have this like real intense, like internal panic moment. And it makes me so frustrated by all other drivers in that moment because I, I think what's happening is that I've decided this is like, I might run out of gas and that's going to be like a disaster for me.

38:22 And so everything that interferes, like everything that blocks my goals or whatever feels like a thing that's going to make me out, run out of gas. And so I've, I've actually started to, by and large, I've gotten to a point where I just say I don't want to let myself get in that situation. I'm just gonna always, always at 1/4 of a tank 'cause when I decide it's time and that way I'll never find myself like in that zone where I get frustrated. That's funny. Yeah, my wife has come from. That cloth and I'm more like Kramer. You know, the episode of Seinfeld where he's like, what we're we're gonna keep going and they just keep passing exits. I'll, I'll run it right down. Yeah, that's super. Stressful to me, man. Yeah, it is. Part of that nonchalantness, I guess for me, for me, it's the people who don't set the cruise control and then they go like 80 and pass you and then they get in front of you.

39:10 And then my cruise control set and I drive up to them and then I drive around and we exchange glances and then they pass me again and I'm like, just put to push the button. Yeah, yeah. I get that man. But yeah, there's all those external forces that come into, you know, funny example is I went to a concert in Madison recently with a friend of mine who will remain nameless because the story we he's an erratic driver, very fast. We were running a little bit late and we were going extremely fast. And I consistently the whole drive to Madison, put myself in the shoes of the other cars.

39:52 Like we got beeped at several times, like he was driving erratically. And the the best part about it or like the most like thought provoking part about it for me was watch it being in the car and watching him because I would never drive like how he was driving. But I was a passenger. So we're just talking and watching him navigate it, knowing that if I was in all these other cars, I'd be upset because he at times he was putting people in danger, you know, like making not the best decisions driving and he. Was blissfully ignorant the entire situation. Yeah. So there's this chain effect of all of these upset people. Mm. Hmm. And he was unaware we were talking about life, telling jovial stories. He was very happy the entire time and just wanted to make sure that we made our dinner reservation before the the concert when all of these other people, like we had all this other stuff going on, were absolutely pissed at him for driving the way that he had all the way. And he was blissfully and aware.

40:54 And then I thought about myself in all those situations where like, OK, the person who doesn't have their crux control set is talking to their grandma that they haven't talked to. And they're, she's coming across the speaker and they're so happy that they have no idea what else is going on. And that's the fine line, right? Where, where and what does that line look like between? Of course it's different for everybody. It's going to be unique. But between empathy and compassion and all those unwritten rules that you force on to other people, that that's a whole other conversation about being unrealistic because we didn't even communicate them in the first place. That's a big part of marriage. Where where's that line between empathy and compassion? And I'm right, you're wrong.

41:38 Yeah. You know, Well, real quick, let me tell you. So funny thing about so I used to do some research on driving anger right and why people got angry. And one of the one question we asked in every survey is on a scale of 1 to 150 being average, how good a driver do you think you are? And you know 50 is average. So you would think that, I mean, if people were thoughtful about this, most people would put themselves around that. I rarely would get answers below 80 that everybody thinks they're a great driver, you know? Like did you also ask what, what how? Would you rate everybody else? Yeah, I did not. And that would be a great. Question because I'm pretty sure that everyone else is that, you know, below 50 and it, it's like, look, we can't all be great drivers like like there's going to be a normal distribution here and like we're not all 80s and 90s. And so there is something about people are naive to what their deficits are, what their strengths are, you know, that they, that people tend to think they're, they're really good. And I remember actually talking to a friend and I said, I, I feel like people don't like me on the road. Like I, you know, and they said, well, that might be because you're a bad driver.

42:47 And I was like, or it might be that everybody else is a bad driver, right. It might be that I'm being careful and they don't like it. Yeah, Well, right. There's a lot of. Subjectivity in there, right? Because if you ask him about that trip, he's probably 10 out of 10, right? Like we made the reservation. We didn't, you know, nobody got hurt. We didn't get a speeding ticket. Maybe he's a 10 out of 10. When in reality most people aren't thinking that when and I think your your point. About, you know, empathy and understanding and, and miscommunications, all that. I mean, I think in some ways a lot of what happens, what we've been talking about the, the, the pattern of what we're talking about on the road exists in all these other places too.

43:27 I mean, your point about a communication deficit at breakdown at work leading to anger, like if you're not making your expectations known or at least having a conversation about your expectations and then people are failing to meet those expectations and you're getting angry. Like where is the, the who's responsible for that essentially? And I, and I think part of what we see is that probably more so than any other emotion, anger is oftentimes described as a social emotion, meaning we experience it in relationships or, or in interactions at least far more often than any other emotion. And so when you get angry, you by and large, you're typically angry at another person.

44:15 And that isn't necessarily true with fear or sadness or curiosity or all these other emotions that happen that can happen in different, in different ways. So what that means is that like when you get angry and if you have an anger problem or if you're getting angry regularly, it's, it's quite contextual. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on the nature of those interactions you're having with people. And there's always something that that you probably fed into that system somehow. And it might be I why I didn't communicate very effectively.

44:56 Or it might be, hey, I was feeling really, really anxious already. And so I just, you know, I brought that into the situation. It might be, you know, sleep deprived and I, and so I was quicker to respond negatively or whatever. Like there's all these different factors and there's things you bring to the table and then there's things other people do. And so much like on the road where there's lots of those things in any of our interactions, they're going to be those things. So that that kind of. Brings us to a spot I wanted to talk about today. We we talked about the missions of both of our shows earlier and underlying to sharing the stories of the people of Wisconsin.

45:39 A lot of the place that I get satisfaction and where I see value is in just the communication piece of it. And using that to bridge these gaps between people that we mentioned earlier. I think it's very powerful. Now, getting people to listen to something for an hour and a half is difficult, right? But the people who do I like to think are positively impacted by the conversation that we have. Because I, I don't, I don't filter by, you know, some of the traditional ways, like I'm not filtering by political belief system or whatever. Like I, I filter my guests of like cool conversation and if it's going to happen, like we're going to do it. So what you brought up the relationship there between effective communication and anger. Balloon that out a little bit to a societal level and. Pretend that.

46:38 This is a big pretend. Pretend that the reception barriers aren't there. Like any At any time we could get someone to the entire populace to listen to an hour and a half of something. Does that affective communication and the ability to eloquent something effectively to have an understanding of an unwritten rule of society or whatever these things are that people make make people angry? Does that have the ability to impact change positively with these undertones of tenseness and anger and the things that make you uncomfortable about society?

47:19 Does it have the power to do that? I I I think it. Could I think right now what I if there's something? I could do. To change the way people are communicating right now, it's that I would want, I think we've lost our ability to have even basic conflict without it feeling personal. And I think like, you know, and, and obviously I'm just so we're clear, like so much of politics is personal. And I, I get uncomfortable when people are like, Oh no, we just, you shouldn't personalize. It was like, no, it's personal, right? I mean, these, these, these things that are happening politically, they make a big difference to people's lives. And I understand why people are, are, I mean, I'm emotional about those things.

48:05 I understand why lots of people are emotional about those things. But I also think that within that, we've actually really kind of lost our ability to have like to disagree and, and have it and, and have it, I guess, and to to, I guess for, for that healthy conflict that I was talking about. Like we've lost our ability to communicate in a way that isn't aggressive. And I think in some ways part of what needs to happen is people need to be sort of retrained a little bit to have some of those conversations. I, you know, one of my sons went to school the day after the election and, you know, and I was kind of curious how, what the day would be like for him.

48:52 And he came home and I said, so how was school today? Were were a lot of people talking about the election? And one of the things he told me is, yeah, we were kind of told not to talk about it. And I know which by the teachers, Yeah, that there. Was like I. Think that I think the teachers thought, look, there's so much potential for conflict today that we're we don't want right. So so the lesson then is that, hey, this is something we shouldn't discuss, you know, like we should stifle it. Too emotional and in the space that's supposed. To be the safe space to talk about things. Yep, exactly and. So, and I think that that might be where it's not unlike what's happening on the soccer field, right? Where it's like, Hey, we don't know how to handle conflict anymore.

49:37 And so we're just not going to do it. I'm going to give you that red card the second you do. And then we're never going to learn to have the healthy conversation. And so I do think we need to, we need to get away from and if it, if it means starting small, if it means like, hey, we're going to, we're going to get together and we're going to, we're going to argue about our favorite movie and, and talk about that just so we can get comfortable having like healthy conflict and recognize it, you know, and, and like talking about those things. I think we've just got to normalize some of that, that practice so that we can have a get back to learning to have those uncomfortable conversations. I just think we've kind of lost that skill. And then the more we've lost that skill, the more we've tried like we've avoided it and avoided opportunities to develop it.

50:29 So an interesting piece there when I think. About that concept, at least through my lens, through my individual lens, I've always been very comfortable in conversation about disagreements. You know, like I not that I would lean into it or look for it to happen, but I often thought about the positivity that comes from it, right? Like if you have healthy discourse and healthy disagreement, often times you leave the scenario in a better place than stewing over it in the beginning anyway. So I've always kind of had that awareness and been comfortable addressing situations. One change though, one shift throughout my life. And I wonder if this is at a societal level because disagreement has become so polarizing now that I wonder, you know, for me, I find myself almost addressing those things less now because of the potential ramifications in my life. You know, like I feel a lot more weight right now. I have a four year old son.

51:36 I feel a lot more weight as a human than I ever have in my life. A lot more responsibility because there's another human that counts everything on me. And that means a lot of things. That means not just your job, like people talk about the job all the time, but just like life in general, community perception, what relationships do to in life for you. Relationships open so many doors. And I'm wondering if those two things are tied together like that the the so polarized environment that leads to like, OK, I can't talk about this because if I'm a business owner, half my business is gone.

52:22 Or if I'm whatever, if I'm a referee, you know, I have friends in the stands on both teams and I'm going to lose some. And like, you know, you get what I'm getting at. I, I don't really have a great question formed of it, but I wonder if that's an expansive piece of this, you know, so there's this. Research study that, and I'm, I'm not going to be able to remember the authors or, or the year, but a research study came out a few years ago that I'm, I found really, really fascinating looking at gratitude. And it's connected to what you're saying here. Because so we know like for, for the last decade, we've been talking about gratitude and how valuable it is and it's a secret to happiness, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And, and all that's true like that research is great. And, and, you know, if you want to, you know, be a happier person, one of the things you should do is be grateful for the things you have.

53:14 There is a consequence to gratitude, though. And what the study found is that people who are thankful for what they have in their lives are much less likely to take bold stands for exactly the reason you're describing. And that when you, when you acknowledge all of the things that you have to be thankful for, you become more scared of losing those things. And the consequence of that is you don't, you don't push boundaries, You don't, you don't take bold stands, you don't get in arguments with people, You don't, you're, you're actually live. I think the study specifically looked at, you know, the degree to which people sort of push social justice initiatives.

53:57 You don't push social justice initiatives. Like you're too concerned about losing the things you have to take some of those bold positions. And, and, and so there's a danger in or a potential danger in that or potential downside associated with that. Now, you weren't talking about gratitude necessarily specifically, but I think it connects in some ways where you're saying like you feel this pressure because you've got things and people in your life who care about you and are, are depending on you, that it becomes harder to do some of the thing to like have those tough conversations because you don't want to lose some of those things. That's fascinating to. Think about me fascinating to think about, because if I put that on the timeline of what I'm talking about, I've always been by nature, pretty like, filled with gratitude. Like I, I love life.

54:49 I've been fortunate in a lot of different ways. But you know, when I, when I was more apt to make a stand and take that, I, I had far less physical things And like my gratitude stemmed from existing and having a voice and having an opinion. So of course, that's more like, I've never thought about that like that. That's fascinating, man. And, and you know what's funny? So I can. Even sort of map this out of my trajectory as like sort of a a social media scholar, you know, like a public scholar. So I've been, I've put a lot of weight in the last five years on trying to communicate with the public like we're doing now, right. And, and I think early on when I had very few followers, I, I, I was more willing to be bold. I was more willing to sort of get into arguments with people and things like that.

55:39 And then as, as I started developing more followers, I think I and I started paying attention to them and started listening to them, I started to get a little too worried how they might react if I said something unpopular. And, and so I started to, I think honestly, like if I'm thinking back on it, I think I became a little less bold in some of the, some of the positions I was taking. And, and the funny downside of that is I actually think that alienated followers more than anything like that. They sort of felt like kind of being a wuss now, you know, like, you know, and sometimes things can come off as inauthentic. Too. And that's a big deal, yeah. And so I think you.

56:19 Know one of the, one of the things that I've really tried to prioritize lately is worry less about that. Worry about the message that you're trying to put out there. Pay attention to that, Think about that and try and communicate what you want people to hear and, and don't worry too much about how they respond to it. You know, and then, I mean, you know, and then, and then start that conversation with them. And if they push back and disagree, have a conversation with them about why they disagree instead of starting from the position of they're going to disagree. And you know, the other thing I was thinking about, as you were talking about before we got on the gratitude thing, is that so in, in Group therapy, we talk about like 3 stages of, of the therapeutic process.

57:04 And in the beginning the group is like typically and pretty like affable. And they get along right. And they're like, hey, everybody's sort of being polite. And then for a lot of groups, the second stage is like some sort of conflict stage where people start to disagree with one another and they start to push back and they start to argue. And that part of the group therapy process is like fundamental. It's, it's where the trust is built that allows people to move on. And I would argue this is true of all healthy relationships. Navigating conflict is one of the ways you develop like trust and intimacy. Yep.

57:45 Disagreeing with people and then learning. And this is the part that I think in modern society we're maybe missing, is learning, Hey, we can disagree and then we can still care about each other and still want to. And there's times where this isn't going to work, of course, but like we can disagree and we can argue and, and then we can come out of it on the other side with a better understanding of one another and like genuine trust in one another and, and frankly, A deeper emotional relationship or deeper emotional connection because we navigated that conflict. And I think it's when people don't navigate that conflict that they come out sort of more polarized.

58:29 And that seems to be what's happening so often is that people are coming out of conflict without ever, they're not learning to like kind of navigate that conflict in a healthy way. Well, that's probably driven by social. Media, because it's really easy to get to the point where, OK, I'm just not going to comment back anymore. Yep, I think it's I think. It's that I think it's also like it. We probably paint an artificial picture of of the people we're talking to. We think of them as different than they might actually be. Did I tell you I can't remember if we've ever talked about this before or if you're what? But my my, my Sheboygan basketball gymnasium story.

59:11 Have I shown this? OK, so I was this is like, I don't know. So my, my episode with Theo Von came out like a week after the election and, you know, a super, super polarizing time in, in, in the, the US And so this episode comes out and then and you know, he's Vaughn's a relative got a relatively conservative audience, right. And I'm not conservative. And we, I go to a basketball tournament in Sheboygan with my son. And so youth tournament, spending the day in the gym with him and a guy comes up to me and says, Hey, I just, I recognize you from Theo Von and can we sit down and talk for a little bit?

59:57 And me and this guy had a great conversation like just a super nice guy told me that he's trying to be a better stepdad, that he's dealing with his own anger that he he loved like the episode or whatever. And you know, we had, we talked for like 5 minutes, super, super, super nice guy. And then he left, and I. I don't know this why actually, I learned it after that. This guy is a like pretty serious Trump supporter and and I kind of got that that kind of had that guess at the time we were talking or whatever. But I think the what was really interesting about it though, is so here's a guy that I don't agree with politically at all and that we probably don't have a lot in common in a bunch of different ways. Yet we were still able to have a really thoughtful personal conversation about stuff he's struggling with. And this is my worry is that so often we're driven away by each other's, by these differences that we have that we don't ever get to a place where we can have those conversations, you know, that we can talk about something important. This is a guy I would have probably been fighting with on social media six months earlier, you know, instead of instead we were able to have a, a pretty meaningful conversation. And like, I came out of it changed Not, I mean, not totally changed, but I came out of it.

1:01:28 I came out the other side changed by some of the things he said. I think he came out the other side change by some of the things I said. So it was a valuable conversation. I don't think me and this guy would ever be best friends, but we were able to do this. And it all stemmed from the fact that we didn't lead with our differences, right? We left. We LED with the things we had in common, which is him being really interested in learning more about anger and being curious actually back to where we started, right? Well, and that's proof in the. Pudding of That's the question I asked earlier, man. That's the question of that person took the time to listen to something for an hour and a half. Yeah. And then like that concept of of course it's true. It's so easy to forget when we put everything, like our brains are made to compartmentalize and put things in little boxes because we like to understand.

1:02:19 It's human nature. But at the same time, just because you're in this one particular political box doesn't mean that there's not another box that you and I both sit in as a dad, as the type of work you do, as whatever it was. But that's the exact proof in the pudding of like, OK, if we can get some people to spend some time and talk back and forth and just reflect a little bit and be willing to not poo poo something that isn't whole, like 100% exactly what you do, right? Super valuable man. So how did the kind of building on that, How did the episode with Theo come up? So Theo, I, I love Theo's podcast. I think he does a great job.

1:03:06 So I actually take some creative direction from what I do from his his podcast. So like, how did how does that even come about? That had to be so cool, dude. It was amazing. Yeah, he. So it's, it's kind of a funny story that he so I just one day my assistant sent me an e-mail and she said, I have no idea if this is real, but here. And it was a note from one of his producers saying we'd like to have Ryan. I work for Theo Von, we'd like to have him on the show. And I had no idea who Theo Von was when I when I got this right. And so I realized now that's crazy. He's like one of the 10 most influential people in America right now.

1:03:49 And like, you know, and so, but I was at least according to Rolling Stone, but I when he well, when he had Bernie. On and then a week later had Trump on I'm like OK, he's got some weight so that was why I'll. The the crazy part about that is that I did the interview with him like a week before those two episodes and I was like, are you telling me that I like the same dude who interviewed me last week just interviewed Barry, Barry Sanders? That'd be cool too. That'd be great. Too, Bernie. Sanders not as cool as Bernie, but yeah. So I was like. That's nuts to me. So I was, yeah. So I so I wrote back and said sure, but I will be honest that until I met him, I questioned whether or not this was real.

1:04:35 Like I drove because they could not have treated me nicer. I mean, you know, keep in mind, like I am a Dean at a regional comprehensive university in the Midwest. I'm not used to like red carpet treatment. And so he like, they flew me first class. They had a driver waiting for me at the airport. They, they, they had me staying at a much nicer hotel than I would ever stay at on my own. Like it was an awesome weekend. And, and I was still so stressed out about because, you know, I once I got once he asked, I started listening to his show.

1:05:15 And, you know, I mean, he like, it's like he talks about some tough stuff. He makes some jokes that I was like, gosh, I'm not sure I want to be part of these jokes. Like I need to come up with a way of like getting out of this if he asks me weird stuff. And then I went on and he was the nicest host I could possibly imagine. He, he started out the interview by saying like, Hey, are you feeling nervous or anything? And I said a little bit and he's like, is there anything I can do to help you not feel nervous? And, and I said I, I was like, I think I'll get there. Like I think we just talked for a few minutes and then we'll be fine or whatever. And he's like, OK, so then he, we just started talking. And then, you know, it was one, it was kind of like you and I started, there wasn't a point where he's like, OK, show starts now.

1:06:01 It was just here we go. And yeah, he was super, super nice. Invited me to his show that night. He was performing in town. And then when I laughed at the end of the show, he, the driver was like, oh, yeah, he wants to come backstage and talk to him. And so I went back. I got to meet all the other comedians. I just could not have been a nicer guy. It was it was fantastic. And on top of all that, I loved the interview he did. I loved the questions he asked. I love what we talked about. I, I felt in that interview like he, like, I, I felt like the depth behind his questions that like this is a sensitive guy who's super smart, who, you know, I think sometimes, you know, kind of plays a role for comedy that isn't really who he is or maybe it's a version of who he is.

1:06:52 But but I just, I, you could tell that like there's some demons there maybe. And that he that he kind of shared with me during the interview and I just, I just thought he was a super, super fascinating guy. Yeah, for real. Yeah. And that's, you know, there's layers to the onion with everybody, right? It's hard not to when you get to that level, you know, what layers make your money and you let those layers have a little bit more, you know, weight than than some of the others. But yeah, I can, I can see that. I I can. You can feel that in his interviews like you. I mean, it's funny you talk about the the two political candidates there.

1:07:38 And I mean, how he made it seem completely to normal to talk like the the owl joke, the cocaine owl joke with Trump on. It's one of the funniest pieces of content I've ever seen in my life. Like and he just it completely indifferent of who was sending in front of him. Like funny thing to say, Trump didn't even get it. And like he it was so funny. So yeah, I'm glad to hear that that was the experience. No, he was he was great. He. Was he was really interesting? Yeah. Super bad. I was. I was like, honestly kind of bummed when it was over. Like it was a fun, fun deal, I bet. Yeah, I can't imagine. That was wild. Though thinking about like, I didn't, I didn't know the timing of that lined up like that.

1:08:22 Yeah, that's, that's man, one of those moments in life that you only get a few of. Yeah. That it's, you know, regardless of the, you know, the platforms or how things were going to move on from there. It's like, OK, two weeks ago we interviewed who? And I'm here. And then next week he's doing who, what are we going to talk about? You know, so it was funny because I. The first thing I did was go and like check out his back catalog, you know, like I wanted to see like, OK, well, who's he? And and so, you know, I went and looked at some of the people he'd had on and, and listened to the, you know, and, and some of them were honestly, because one of the things I actually really do love about him, appreciate about him is like the diversity of his guests, you know that I mean, he's and so, you know, there are a bunch of people I never heard of.

1:09:11 So I listened to the Dax Shepard episode. That was a pretty good one. Yeah, it's a great one. I. Really liked it. And listened to that and I thought, OK, this is good. And then he had I can't remember her name right, Nikki Glazer on and I listened to that one, that one. It's hilarious. But that was one where he asked some questions where I thought ish like am I going to get am I going to get questions like this? And then, but then I, so I, I said I did that interview. Actually, I think it was in May or June and it didn't come out for I think he was saving it for the election. It didn't come out for a really long time. But in the meantime, he had interviewed Trump and Sanders and all these others, you know, as overtime until, as I was watching him like become like grow and grow and grow.

1:09:58 And it was so, but you're right. I mean, this is like a like a once in a lifetime kind of thing, you know, got to go check things out. And it was, it was cool. And he reached out to you. It's like, come on, another one of those life's packages. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so it was, it was great. And then, you know, actually he also, I think a couple days after me, Scott Galloway was on who does he's a professor at NYU, does the Pivot podcast. He's A and so just a super, super fascinating interview that had that kind of shifted a lot of my thinking around anger and around masculinity and stuff like that.

1:10:43 A really good interview. But then I got to, I went on Scott Galloway's podcast a couple days later through that, like Galloway saw me on his show and contacted me. And so it kind of got to build off that, which was fun. Got it that he's unfamiliar. To me, I haven't heard the pivot, not the not the pivot. The retired sports guys, I'm like Ryan Clark in them, no different. The pivot, Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I was less. Familiar with his I was less familiar with him. He he, he had the most popular Ted talk in the country this year, in the world this year. And it's, it was really interesting. He, there's some things about Scott Galloway that I've, that I, that I'm not crazy about, much like Theo. I mean, people are complicated.

1:11:28 You know, there are things about him that I'm not crazy about, but he, he, his, I think his Ted talk is about how we're leaving young men behind. And he cites a lot of research about how young men are, are struggling right now in a, in a host of ways. And he makes the argument that there are things that we're doing in society that are exacerbating that. And I think some of that argument's really strong and some of that argument isn't so strong, but he's interesting guy. So. But that discernment's OK. That's exactly what we're talking about. Like it's, it's kind of a pipe dream to like, my best friends in the entire world. I have things that I disagree with them about, you know, and I think that's probably the path forward. The path forward is just being OK with that and discerning where your beliefs lie, being confident in where they are, and then figuring out which ones you're willing to, you know, shout from the mountaintop.

1:12:22 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right, man. It was great chatting with you. Yeah, it was great talking to you. Thanks. So. Much for having me on. This has been fantastic. Absolutely. Good luck with the pod, I hope. Everything goes well for you. Thank you very much. Same to you. And yeah, this is great. Alright, take care, Ryan.