796 Pete Holmes: Having Hindsight Now

This is episode number 796 with the hilarious and wise Pete Holmes. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former.

Pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an.

Inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Benjamin Franklin said, without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. Welcome to today's episode. This one goes in some interesting directions that I think you're gonna enjoy, and it gets there pretty quick. For those that don't know, Pete Holmes is a comedian, writer, cartoonist, and podcast host. You might know him from his podcast, you, Made It Weird, or the Pete Holmes Show. Pete is also created and starred in the semi-autobiographical HBO show Crashing, which he executive produced alongside Judd Apatow. An accomplished standup with three hour long television specials and in numerous late night appearances, he continues to tour regularly to sold out crowds. And his latest book, Comedy Sex God, is available and it's out for pre-order right now. In this interview, we talk about how suffering is the fuel or energy that takes you where you need to go, how your consciousness can only grow through awareness, how peace cannot exist in the ego, and Pete's journey as a father and how it has shifted his mindset. Also, we talk about the comedy industry and what he's learned from some of the most famous comedians in the world. And while you're listening to this episode, make sure to share it with your friends. Let me know what you thought about this over on your Instagram story. Tag me @Louis Lewis Howes and @peteholmes over there. Let us know what you thought. I'm sure he would love to hear from you as well over there. The link is lewishowes.com/796 or you can just take the link from whichever podcast app you're listening to and share it over on your stories, on Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere you'd like to share. And without further ado, let me introduce to you to the funny and the wise, Pete Holmes.

Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Pete Holmes in the house. My man, good to meet you.

Hello.

Glad you're here. We just had a 20, 30 minute pre-interview already that we'll probably throw in here. I hope you do, I love that. We'll probably throw that in there before this.

And we talked about our-- oh, I thought that's what you did on my podcast. We just started with a roll. I don't mean to impose my style on you. I like it though. But, and also when you, I'm sure you know this, when you interview other hosts, they're like chefs or something.

They just start cooking.

Yeah.

Well, I like it. I actually like that model. Neil Strauss did that one time with me. Years ago, he was like, we're just rolling. We just started sitting down talking and he was like, okay, we're rolling and we're gonna keep going here. I like to prepare people to make sure that they're grounded as well and be like, okay, is there anything off limits that you don't wanna talk about? Otherwise, I might ask something and you're.

Like, what a jerk. Totally, dude. I'm actually surprised my style hasn't bit me in the butt more because a lot of people probably, what you're doing is very loving. What I'm doing is sort of like the dad that lets go of your bike.

You can bike. Right, exactly.

And maybe, I'm surprised it hasn't rubbed.

People the wrong way. Well, maybe since you're a comedian, they expect they're like, you,'re gonna go those.

Places and- Isn't that funny?

It's just a word.

Your container is more- that's right, I picked a good container. Yeah, you did. So we talked about being friends with Rob Bell. Uh-huh. Rob Bell, he and I in our work together, he's fascinated by just the.

Social contract of comedian.

You're allowed to do all these things, it's absurd. You gotta say whatever you want. What does it mean? And he's not a pastor, but he's a spiritual teacher, right? So he's supposed to, and then pick the type of comedian you are well. I always think about rappers, right? And how they sort of, they have to be cool all the time. Not all rappers, but a lot of people in hip hop feel Jay-Z has to be pretty cool.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I always joke that he couldn't do an interview and just be like, I just feel silly today.

But I can.

If I'm feeling cool, I can be cool. If I'm feeling silly, I can be silly. So comedian, If any young people are watching, do that. Even if you don't always do it, just do it enough to get like, oh, they were a comedian.

Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean? Oh, I get it. I see the comedian in there.

Every time I watch Jack Black do an interview, I'm like, this guy is fearless.

Yeah.

He'll just say what he wants. He just lays around, lets his belly kind of hang out, just doesn't care what he looks like.

He looks like comedy.

He is comedy.

He is comedy. No, I know. It's amazing. It's a body confidence, it's a vocal confidence.

Yeah, he just starts singing whenever he wants to.

You're just like, who is this guy? But it's also vulnerable. See, that's what I thought was interesting about you, is that you have vulnerability and you share that.

Yeah.

And that's so essential.

Jack, you can kind of see it.

I'm not making fun of it. He is vulnerable, but he's confident with it. That's right. Well, it's confident vulnerability, which is funny. So just in his, so the setup is his body and the punchline is his vulnerability, like that you sense. or the setup is his vulnerability, 'cause he kind of looks like somebody who might be looking through records at the record store. And then when he's excellent or amazing or outrageous, you're like, yes.

It's incredible.

More than someone who looked like somebody else. You would want, it wouldn't be as much of a, there wouldn't be as much fun in the contrast between how he looks and how he is. So that is kind of funny.

Who's the comedian that If you could be from one day, you'd want to be that person that's currently alive.

That's a great question. I don't know. I don't spend a lot of time envying.

What do you appreciate or admire? You're like, I don't envy, but they're just really funny.

Yeah, buddy, I know them all a little too well.

You know, behind the scenes. It's like when someone goes and sees a speaker and they seem incredible, but then behind the scenes, they work with them and they're out of integrity all the time and you're like, oh, they're.

Not who they appear to be. That's interesting. It's more like, so Bill Burr is one of my favorites, absolutely. And when I'm with Bill, I'm like, the guy just speaks in bits. Like, you can't talk to Bill and not have him flood you with unbelievable material. John Mulaney, the same way, absolutely one of my favorites. I don't know if I would want to be either of those guys. Because what it is is like the art of being a comedian is taking your dysfunction, which I have, my own dysfunction, and learning how to like do jiu-jitsu with it. So you can go to dinner with your wife or you can be quiet on a beach or something. And it took me 35 years to figure that out. Because when you're starting, like if you have a show, it would ruin your day. You know what I mean? The anxiety that you had a show. The stress.

People are gonna like me.

They're gonna laugh. You're writing everything down you're panicked and you're freaking out all the time. And it took me 35 years to get to the point where I can be like, no, like an hour before the show, I'll look at my notes or whatever, or I'll kind of make a set list. So if I was dropped into Bill's body and I had his brain, I would enjoy his perspective, but I don't know if I would know how to like harness it. It'd be like being locked in a room with a bear or something, you know what I mean? So it's fun and you're like, whoa, there's a bear. But he knows how to put the bear in a headlock and go like, okay, I'm gonna have brunch with my wife.

You know what I mean? How many of the most successful comedians, it sounds like you know them all. You've met them all, you've done-- I don't know.

You're in the scene.

Yeah, yes, yeah. You're in the scene in LA. You're in the scene. They know who you are, you know.

Who they are, most of them probably. It's a small community.

It is a small community, yeah. That's why I'm always agreeing. How many of these high level comedians that are like famous comedians, let's say, that are people know of in the world, how many of them actually have their life together and can actually function in normal ways? It looks like to me, like Kevin Hart seems to have his life together. Like he has businesses and he has structure and he has routines, but he also has major breakdowns every month and goes on TV.

I'm actually, so clearly you're into productivity. You like efficiency. I see Kevin, and I mean this, if Kevin Hart did my podcast, I would want to discuss what is driving him to do so much. Because if I'm on an airplane and I scroll past three movies you're in and there's a Netflix special coming out, I think, I don't think awesome.

A YouTube show.

What's wrong? Really? Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? I would, no disrespect to Kevin, so we'll take Kevin out. So for all I know, Kevin has the most balance in the world and even schedules in spaciousness and his routine or whatever. Plus, I don't understand what he's, his psychology, you know what I mean? We have different lives. That being said, I sort of, at this point, I'm 40, at this point in my life, I measure success by a different metric entirely. Again, Rob is similar. It's like, Ryan Holl, you know Ryan Holliday. Of course. So it's like, what do you want your day to look like? I don't want my day to look like I gotta go. I don't want my day to look like that. I love that this day, I'm doing this interview with you, and my ability to just be here with you is built into the idea that I tell my team, I don't want to do five things in a day. And just because I could sell a special, no. Fuck you. I'm talking to myself. I'm talking to the monster in me that goes like, Comedy's hot right now. You could sell it for more. It's like, you suck my dick. Get out of my fucking face. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Now again, I really do want to remove Kevin from this. I'm speaking for myself. Your ability to have a somewhat normal life is balanced against like, you're producing and you're achieving. And I believe, and I'll probably end up quoting Richard Rohr a lot, especially if we end up talking about my book. Richard talks about knowing needs to be balanced with unknowing, and talking needs to be balanced with not talking, and achieving needs to be balanced with not achieving. And this isn't just- why is this? Why is this? Because that's the way the universe works.

Why can't people just always achieve and keep growing?

F***ed up, dude. The American Corporation is a lie that you should be making more money every year. It is against That's the law of the universe. And this is why we see corporations being shitty to their employees. Why isn't, I could name any one of them, but I use all of them, so I don't wanna call out anybody. But like, we know who these corporations are. Their mythology is that their shareholders should make more money every year. That is not the way the universe, look at the forest. Does it get bigger every year? There's a balance. There's fires, there's droughts, it goes down, it goes up, there's a flow. This is the law of the universe. This is the Dao. That's what we're talking There is an inherent structure to everything that is, and a lot of our ideas go fucking flat in the face, right in the face of those ideas. And that is not balance, and that is not harmony, and that is not the Dao, and that is not the Kingdom of Heaven, I would say. These are structures of the ego that say, like, we need to do more this year. You know what I mean? My TV show just got canceled. How am I going to book enough? Fuck you. Have a year where it's a little bit more like the sizzle, not the wave. That sizzle that we all love on the beach where the wave gets pulled back. Do that, you stupid.

Right.

That's, don't you see, it is the ocean. Big waves, little waves, calm time, big time. You need to find harmony. It's not just going like, I would have a month off in between shooting, crashing. I didn't run out to do a movie. Why would I do that? And again, I don't want to sound holier than thou. I like being with my family. I like being alone. You can't be a healthy person that gets, I don't think, that gets up on stage in front of a thousand people regularly and entertains them and has them hanging on your words and not balance that with time where you're not demanding that everyone listen to you and you're not listening to other people. It's a sickness. And you know what? I don't just see it in famous people. I see it in family members. I'm like, oh, you forgot to practice how to In, you're just out. And nobody likes talking to a just out. It's a horrible thing.

Right, what do you mean just in?

No, they didn't know how to do in. They're just out.

What does in mean?

In would be like quiet. In would be ingesting. In would be reading. We're people that buy books and don't read them.

I'm one of those people. I love the books.

I say this, why do I know this so well? 'Cause it's me. I'm talking about me. And that's why I get passionate about it. There needs to be your social time and your solitude, and there needs to be like, I already said it, you get it. So that to me, but I do see that with some comedians, but it's not common.

You just had this show, HBO show, three seasons, right? And then it just recently got discontinued. It's like, right? Isn't that crazy?

You'd say canceled too.

But how does that make you feel as a comedian that feels like you need to be on TV that, oh, we had this show and then, but three seasons is a lot right now. Most shows don't go past one season. Most shows don't even get on air. You know what I mean? So three seasons is a miracle. It's unbelievable. It's, but how does it make you feel to have it be that, but oh, it's not six seasons like this person. How does that make you feel? 'Cause it's fresh, it's recent right now.

First of all, it's loving of you to ask me that. I was waiting for my dad to ask me that. And instead he would just like project onto me what he hoped that I felt. So I appreciate that you guys. Yeah, yeah, of course.

And I love my dad.

But I noticed that a lot of men too uncomfortable with things ending or failing. Discontinuing. Or discontinuing or being canceled. Or, yeah, might get hold.

Yeah, well dude, when my wife left.

Me, like no one wants to, they just go like, but you're doing okay, right? Like they don't want to go like, how are you? You know? So I appreciate that you asked how I am. But, you know, I said to somebody recently, I was like, I made a show that is a love letter to the necessary change that is instigated by what we perceive as failures, right? Things ending. The character arc of my show is his wife leaves and his faith leaves. The two things that he never wanted to let go of, and then everything that he's supposed to be doing, he finds his flow because of something he would have never asked for. So I'm like, how disappointing would it be if I was devastated that my show went away? I wrote, I made a show that is a love letter to change, and then my life changes, and I go, no, no, it was joy and gratitude. And not just because I can rationalize and say, like, Yeah, three seasons is amazing. That's not it. It's because this is how the game is played. And the up moments are great. Sure, it's fine. But I'm looking at Tony Robbins and you in his private jet. How many lessons has he learned in that jet? You know what I mean? You talk to Tony Robbins, he's gonna tell you about Thanksgiving when his dad wasn't there. You know what I'm saying? And I'm not saying crashing going away is Thanksgiving with my dad not there, but I'm just saying, you need to learn, or I've needed to learn, something happens that you wouldn't have asked for. And it's this very interesting technique of saying, yes, thank you to that. It's very peculiar. The other example that I give is I wrote this book, right? And then they sent out the galleys for the reviews.

It's the new book, right?

Yeah, my first book, it's called Comedy Sex God.

Comedy Sex God.

Yeah.

So they sent out the galleys for reviews. Probably if you wanted one, they would have sent you this galley. I'm flipping through the galley and it was the wrong draft. It was like the second draft. That's the worst, man. I knew it was an accident. That's the worst. You would appreciate it. I guess the worst. But I think anybody can appreciate it. It's something that you worked on for, I worked on the book for three years and then I'm flipping through it and there's just stuff in there that I did not want in there. Like things that I took out. Things that I added, it was just the wrong draft. And I'm like, this is what's going. So I have this flood of like pain, right? And then I was like, but what did I write in the book? I was trying to employ what I talk about in the book. And I was like, you,'re full of shit right now. You talk about suffering being this fuel or this engine that can take you where you need to go. And maybe not even like externally, but internally, it takes you where you need to go. So I tried it. I said, yes. Thank you. To the pain, to the suffering, to.

That horrible, itchy-- Of the cancellation of the book.

Yeah, or the wrong draft of the book going out.

She said, yes, thank you.

You say, yes, thank you.

Yeah.

And your brain doesn't know what to do with that. And this isn't just mind tricks. It's an abundance model and it's a gratitude model.

It's abundance.

And you go like, okay, Pete, if I was getting up in the morning and writing out what would happen in my day, would I write in the wrong draft of the book?

No.

But all of the change and all of the growth and all of the evolution and all of the consciousness expansion comes from these things that we didn't want. And the trick is most of us can have a divorce or a breakup or losing a show or losing a job. Maybe, let's say it's five years. People say sometimes it's twice the length of the relationship. You can look back. and not have the suffering, you can understand, yeah, that wasn't the right person for me, and you were bullied and all these things, and you were injured, and now look at your life. Okay, so we can look back and go, it was grace, it was a good thing. The trick for me is to, so here's perspective, and here's it happening to you. So this is five years. To me, spirituality or consciousness or whatever is trying to get those things right next to each other.

So true, man.

So while they're happening, You go like, I may not rationally understand it, but I'm going to with myself and say, thank you. I have this earache. I say, right now, I'm in pain. And I go, thank you. You're right. My body's impermanent. Don't get too attached. Look how quickly you can get up. You think you're, oh, I'm a big fancy comedian. Oh, yeah? You can't hear in this earache.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Deal with that. And you go, ah, right. How much am I gonna learn from just succeeding? -Banging pinatas. -Yeah, yeah. Ooh, candy, candy, candy, candy. F***ing nothing.

Right.

And people like that that have only banged pinatas, I don't wanna talk to 'em. I wanna talk to people about what they didn't want and how they rolled with it, right?

It's so fascinating you say this because I've had some big lessons in my life in the last five, you know, four or five months that and for the first time, I was able to have the awareness and kind of use the tools that I've learned over the last six years of like really diving into understanding myself and overcoming my childhood traumas and all the work I've done with therapy and everything, right? And interviewing great spiritual mentors. And I was like, wow, this is one of those moments that I don't want to happen in my life. I went through this pretty bad breakup about four months ago. And everything that I didn't want to happen happened. and then some, right?

Wow.

And so all my insecurities and fears of judgment of what people thought about me, everything was coming up for me. And there was about a week of like stress, but at the same time, I just kept saying, this is happening for a reason. This is happening for a reason. Like, and it's all gonna make sense. And then I just said, I got out of the stressful moments and I started saying to myself, gosh, I'm so grateful for this. Like, this is gonna make me so much more humble, so much wiser, so much kinder, have so much more compassion for people.

That's right.

And I just said, I'm gonna have hindsight now. I'm not gonna wait.

I'm gonna have hindsight now. You just said what I said. Yeah.

And so I was like, I'm gonna have hindsight now. You're already doing it. I was doing it. And I was like, I'm gonna act like it's Christmas, the end of this year, you know, 2019 is that we're in right now. I don't know what day it is. I don't even know what day of the year it is. But it's the end of this year, right? It's another year later. I'm gonna reflect back on this and I felt my body in the moment of a year out, Christmas time. And I was experiencing these beautiful experiences with my family and friends, loved ones. And I was happy and peaceful and I was like, none of this is gonna matter.

That's right.

And it's gonna be the thing that propelled me to the next stage of my life.

Right. It's also, it's a story that you're telling.

That's it.

And it's your, the thought itself. By the way, I'd like to say, People who are suffering that are watching this, this is not what I would say to someone who's suffering. You can just be with someone who's suffering and you can listen to them and buy them ice cream or give them a shoulder rub. Don't get philosophical. If this doesn't apply to you, I understand, but I'm talking to you right now and you guys are listening. But I understand that your suffering is real and your pain is real and it feels real. And that makes it real. That being said, one of the great Buddhist ideas is it's like your thoughts don't have power on their own. It's the belief that you, and we can get into who that you is, but the you are giving them power. So the belief- -Story you. -That's right.

Yeah.

So even yours is a little bit too painful. I like to use small things. And this is an Eckhart Tolle example, actually. He's like, your flight is delayed. This happens to people like us all the time.

You're stuck in traffic, you're late for a meeting.

Or you're all these things. You need to, like, you don't need to do anything. If you want to, like, sink your teeth into the story and get angry, I mean, that's one of the joys of life. Even pain is one of the joys of life, is just being, oh, I'm so depressed. When my wife let me, I didn't tell anybody, but I was like, this is kind of fun, like getting drunk all the time and I'd stay in bed all day. Like, you know, I've seen it in movies and you're just like, I eat Chinese food three times a day, 'cause I'm sad. There's almost like a company, it's like being snowed in, right? There's a feeling of like, nobody expects anything from me. My wife just laughs, I'm smoking cigarettes and stuff. It was okay, sometimes people be like, whoa, Pete, everybody's like, yeah, my wife laughed. So there's a temptation to pick up all of it, not just the good, but we actually enjoy the passion and the pain of the bad. you know what I mean? We like it in a quiet place. I think if we're honest with ourselves, there's a part of us that's like, one more time around, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not quite done milking that trauma. And I like it. I like the way it helps me define myself. I like how it gives me attention or might get me love or whatever it might be. So we like it.

It's meaning, yeah.

So it's hard to do this, and it's not very sexy and it's not very exciting to do this. This is why it's, hard or difficult. But if your flight's delayed, and this just happened to me, it happens all the time. You catch yourself going like, oh, I was on a flight recently and the chair wouldn't. The worst. And it was a six hour flight.

Oh my God, you're 6'4, right?

Yeah, I'm 6'6.

6'6? Yeah, I'm 6'4.

We're giants. We're giants. We're not built for that. It was actually worse. My chair wouldn't not stay up.

Oh man.

So I'm just like, and like, it wasn't just that, of course, reclining is fine, but it's like anytime I sat up it came up. Now this is admittedly a small example.

First world problem, too.

Of course. But I like using- that's why to Chicago. I like using bullshit examples, 'cause we can look at them less passionately. But you're just like, you hear it, you start writing it. The story, I paid full price for this ticket. You know what I mean? Delta. Delta, what is Delta? Delta is nothing. It's nothing. It's just a label for a bunch of machines and people in an area of the airport that we call Delta. And it's a stock that you can trade in. Well, right now Delta is just me on this plane. But you go like, Delta, it wasn't Delta. I don't even know what airline it was. But Delta's fun to say. Delta, this chair, I deserve better. Looking around, no one else's chair, they just flew in from, no one complained about the, But then you go like, it's the suffering is your attachment to the story. So you start telling a story to yourself, you believe the story. And by the way, that story is rational. I'm not saying you did pay full price.

You should have what you- But what.

Does that mean right now? All of that are just like, it's just a tale. I gave this many money units for this and my flight when I imagined it had a working chair or was on time or whatever it is. None of that is happening right now. What's happening right now? I'm in a miracle. But this is rationalization. A miracle 100 years ago, I was like.

Right.

This is rationalization.

I'm actually looking for something better than rationalization. But you can rationalize. You can say like, I'm in a miracle. I'm going home to my baby and my baby, my wife and my baby. And there's movies and I'm eating, now I'm having ice cream or whatever.

They're delivering food to me like Postmates.

My life is better than In every Pharaoh and every Caesar, it's f***ing king. Any king, I'm just a Joe Schmo on a plane, I beat those kings. I'm better than those kings. That's rationalization. What's actually even one up level of that, that's like an attitude adjustment. That's you telling yourself another story and saying, believe this story. The best thing I found to do is to just drop all the stories and just be right there. And you feel like an alien visiting. You're not thinking about how you're an alien visiting. You're not thinking about how your chair is still pretty good. You're just going like, well, what is? What is? If I could complain and maybe that would feel good. Ooh, madam. And maybe I'd get a voucher. Ooh, voucher. Or maybe I'd get a, I don't know, a free drink or something. Is it worth it? Just be with what is. That to me is presence and love. It's funny, love, right? What is love? It's like love is this big cosmic yes. And the Buddha would say all of our suffering comes from saying no to what is instead of yes to what is, even when it kind of sucks.

Why are we so attached to everything?

It's so fun. It's so fun. It's Indiana Jones. We're emotionally running and rolling and we're whipping. Addiction. We build up these identities and these structures and these systems and these titles and these jobs because it's like, it's fun, it's addicting because it's fun. It's not fun. There aren't a lot of movies about realized beings that just kind of go through life going like, my chair doesn't work. There's no drama. What are we doing? Then you get a little bit scared. Well, what are we doing? If it doesn't matter that my team lost or that my job promoted Henry and not me, or that my girlfriend and I broke up. If none of that really matters because the moment is actually enough, which is crazy because it is. But if we can put that away, then what are we doing? And then you have to ask a lot more interesting, deeper philosophical and metaphysical questions about what's going on here. Because you said something interesting. You said, so this is in my book too. It's like, We say everything happens for a reason. That, to me, can fall in the category of rationalization. We go like, My girlfriend broke up with me, but if she hadn't, I wouldn't have met this new girlfriend. That, to me, is like introductory level kind of jujitsu. Right, right. It's good. It's way better than moping and being victimized to everything. You go like, this happens for a reason. I always grew up thinking things happen for a reason, but the truth is, is like one of these things that'll happen to you is gonna kill you.

Right?

You're gonna die. And then that whole model goes out the window. You can't just go like, well, if she hadn't left me, I wouldn't have been hit by the car that I was storming out of her apartment. So the ego wants to go, it's still paid out. I got that job or I got that money or I got that blowjob in the elevator or whatever it is. That's all ego stuff. One of the big points in my book is to try and identify who we really are, which I would say is just awareness. That awareness had a shell grow around it. And for you and I, that awareness went like, I am an American, I am a male, I'm a tall male, I'm white, I'm from, now it's just me, I'm East Coast, my parents, Lithuanian and Irish. It's all this story, right? And that's a Patriots jersey, and that's like an American flag, and it's all fun stuff. But it's your false self, is what Carl Jung and Freud would call your false self. You're building up this thing that isn't really who you are. If you can remember what it was like being a baby, you just were. You were just is-ness, you were just awareness. So I would say, let's call that words, let's call that isness soul. That makes people kind of, their buttholes tense up sometimes, and I understand. So we can just call it awareness. If that awareness is who you really are, I think the growth is for your consciousness, it's for your awareness. It's not for your story. We say, Interesting. This bad thing happened, but look, here's a bad ego story for me. My wife left me, but I turned it into a TV show. All right, who cares? Zoom out. Let's zoom out a little bit. Some ape just said that on a blue rock floating in infinity. And it's expanding infinity. What the are you talking about? But I got a show. Oh, my dad, another ape, another confused awareness just like all of us, thinks I'm still a winner. Yeah. 'Cause my false self wanted to be a winner. So dad still thinks I'm a winner and I'm still winning. It's all, the cup's already broken. We're all both dead already. It's over. So what can we really work on? Your consciousness, your awareness, your stillness. Like it's like a candle inside that isn't swayed by like, I won or I lost. I broke a pinata and this pinata was full of horseshit. Okay, what was there watching it the whole time? I'm depressed. What's watching the depression? I'm elated. What's watching the elation? We want to sort of opt out of this nonsense of the thrills of the spills and the chills and the ups and the downs that make for good movies and TV shows and books. But equanimity and peace comes from identifying with the candle inside that isn't blown, isn't swayed. Hopefully it's blown some, isn't swayed by these things. That's peace. I used to think peace was like, We're in this nice apartment with the nice view and we can go like, ah, I'm being you. That was a good interview with Pete. Wow, I feel peace.

Do you?

'Cause as soon as you think that, you go like, well, who's tomorrow? Yeah. Did I say anything wrong on that podcast? Like, what in 10 years, what will we be woke to that we're not woke to now that maybe we said was wrong? It's gonna happen. So it.

It.

None of this matters. Not in a bad way, in the good way. Peace, this is something Ram Dass told me, there's a big part of the book, peace cannot exist in the ego. It can only exist in your awareness. So identification with your awareness is where peace is. You can experience peace for a brief moment, but the way the ego works, it's made of stuff that does not allow for peace or equanimity. So I tell the story.

So how do we shed ego?

Well, that's where practice comes from, right? And it's not as complicated as it sounds. For me, it's reading about it, reading other people's words about it, lectures, these are good ways to start feeding the brain. For me, it was an audio series called Experiments in Truth by Ram Dass. It's on iTunes, changed my life, I just listened to that, that was the beginning. Then you start like just kind of follow that, maybe some Alan Watts, if you were raised Christian, then that's valuable to you, those symbols and those metaphors. Find some woke Christians like Richard Rohr and Rob Bell, start feeding that in. And then what happens is really beautiful. Once you kind of like, you're pouring tea in your cup and it starts overflowing, eventually you can just throw the cup away and realize that you are the tea and you're the cup and that everything you've always been told but you didn't understand like the greatest question you can ask is who am I? Is true. And then you can have some actual. But it's a little bit simpler than that. That's like advanced. If you're on that plane and your chair isn't working, if you can observe your thoughts, that is a very powerful technique. Really all the great spiritual people to me are saying something pretty basic. And then what we do is we pad it to make it fill a book. Or we've had it to make it fill an hour. It is one sentence.

Not a whole book.

The way that it works is there's all this ego resistance. So we want it to be a three-hour lecture. We need it to be because for those three hours, maybe we're in that space. And it's really the, as Ram Dass would say, it's the space between the words where you're actually just being present and feeling some good vibrations of a lot of people aiming themselves at the same kind of intention. That feels really good, so that's good. But the lecture could be simple. And in my book, it's simple. It's like, just, there are so many metaphors, but it's like, you,'re the sky and any thought or feeling is a cloud and just watch it go by. Or you're a river and the thought is just a leaf on it. And you don't resist it. I wish my fucking chair worked. You love it. Nothing goes away by resisting. Don't think that. Just go like, hello.

Hi.

This will be over in a few hours.

Yeah.

Oh, great. Good.

Yeah.

You can't, this is what Krishna das says, you can't get out of a prison made of thought with more thought, right? So you're trying to get into a place where you're not thinking, you're just being. Okay, these are all fun things to say, but what does that really look like? To me it looks like noticing your breath. Even in the breath, it's like, this is a Gungur lyric, but it's like, it's a give and take. The law of the universe is right there in your physiology. It's like, let's give, there's my show, there's my show being canceled. It's built into me. that's the lawfulness. That's the balance. Here's an American corporation.

What?

You can't only inhale. You know what I mean?

Right.

That's a bad mythology. Anyway, breathing.

I think gratitude really helps too, is focusing on what you are grateful for in that moment. Oh man, this is happening in a bad way and that sucks and everything's against me right now, but gosh, at least my right ear works. You know, at least, at least, it's my left ear. Yeah, your left ear works. At least my, I think that's, I'm healthy. I live in America, whatever it is.

That you're grateful for. Well, that's a Tony Robbins thing that.

Actually really helped me is doing gratitude and having gratitude.

The antidote to anger, frustration, you know. Completely agree. I think then the next level is to go, well, who's having the thought of gratitude? And if you can identify, and it's not as woo-woo as it sounds, so you're going, I wish my ear didn't hurt. Then you're going like, at least you have an ear. Okay, these are just clouds.

What is an eagle?

What is the sky? Who's hearing it? Who's hearing you correcting yourself and going, well, don't think about, who is it talking to? That's your candle, that's your spirit, that's your awareness. And that's where peace is. Because we can play, we can fence with our emotions and go like, at least there's an in-flight meal and win, win briefly. But real equanimity comes from going like, a big yes to whatever is. It's not easy all the time.

It's not easy.

And it's not sexy. It's not a fun story always. All of my comedy is about times when I really couldn't do that. Those are funny answers.

You couldn't say yes, thank you.

It's a funnier, I probably would have gotten a bit out of it if I complained, start live tweeting it. It's funnier. It's funny. It's good to be a human, and sometimes I am a human.

How often do you get, since you're so woken to this information, and this is something you talk about, at Largo a lot with Rob, and you do sets with Rob talking about these things. How often do you see yourself getting angry and allowing the anger to consume your thoughts for more than a few minutes or 30 minutes?

It's funny because that's a Tony, I keep looking at him. That's a Tony Robbins thing too, where he was like, Life's too short.

I can't get mad.

He has a rule where he and his wife don't get mad for more than 90 seconds or something.

Something like that.

Two minute rule or something, yeah. And I bet Tony could just school me on this. I have a deep respect for him. So it's not that I think he's wrong. I think that's perfect. He probably found the perfect thing for him. That model has a lot of resistance to me. Because it's a story. And I say this with respect. And it probably works for him. He can do a lot of things I can't do. You know what I mean? Like jump in a cold pool and all these things. You can lift all this.

But you might need to still eat ice cream and have pizza for two days or whatever.

If my anger or my sadness is persisting, I like to be gentle with myself. And the story of I don't get angry for more than 90 seconds is resistance. And that to me can cause suffering. Because what happens at second 91?

You're not feeling any emotions anymore.

Right.

That's totally- okay, stop any emotion. Or you are, and now I'm mad because the story was I told myself I'd only have 90 seconds. and now it's three minutes and I'm still angry about it. That to me, it's attraction and aversion that causes suffering. So my attraction is to drop it, my aversion is to have it. Those two things, settling into what is, and maybe that's how he gets rid of his anger, by the way, and maybe he just kind of gives it a Western model, and that's a brilliant thing to do to make it a little bit more sellable or digestible to a achieving Western audience. So that's full respect to Tony. That might be what he's doing because he's a brilliant guy. But for me, what I'm doing is the game of saying, okay, this is 90 seconds doesn't appeal to me because that's it's just another wagging finger in my head. But if I go, I'm trying to think of when I was angry recently because it happens all the time. You get angry. When was I angry? Oh, I was in waiting room for the ear. and the kid next to me was watching Instagram stories with the volume on. And I'm having this, I want to grab him and go, Is anyone else watching Instagram stories? There's 10 people in here, but you want us to listen to yours? You know how annoying someone else's Instagram stories are? You don't even know these people and they're just like, Noodles! And we're all just sitting there, there's sick people and old people and there's this, Hipster and his dumbass jeans. And he's just like, I hated him. And then instead of going, you only have 90 seconds to feel this, I go like, I love that too. Look at Pete Go. Look at Pete being Pete. Not rationalizing, not going like, oh wow, these are funny thoughts or I understand, you're right. It's just going like, just saying yes to what is, including my anger, helps the anger go away. Saying no to my anger, I think, For me, it leads to more anger. Go, Don't do that. That's what I was as a Christian. It was willpower Christianity, as Richard Rohr calls it. It was like, Don't be an asshole. Don't be horny.

What your resist persists is what people say all the time.

That's right. Dude, as soon as I gave myself a green light to jerk off or look at porn or all these bad, bad things, I do it so much less. So much less.

You're not resisting it.

The addiction was all of it. That was a big breakthrough for me as a Christian, was like the addiction, I say in Comedy Sex God, I say it was like a, it's either a speedball or a speedball, heroin and cocaine. So the coke was looking at porn. The heroin one was the guilt, was the deleting the cash and the shame. I'd confessed to my wife, I looked at porn today. I loved it. That's what I'm saying, like somewhere deep down, I was addicted to both. I like saying Oscar Wilde says the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. That actually, it sounds like somebody in Vegas would say that. Just like, just have another margarita. But there's actually something beautiful going on there, pretty conscious, which is just like making it forbidden makes it cling to you so much worse.

It's almost like when you're, I'm not married, but if your wife was to give you like a hall pass, it's like you wouldn't need the hall pass.

Because now she's giving it to you or vice versa. Funny they wouldn't say that. 'Cause my wife and I are not open, we're not in an open marriage, but we're psychologically open. I say to my wife all the time, 'cause you're brilliant, that's exactly it. I just go, I just want good for you. I want good for you. I don't want you, this is all hypothetical, of course it would hurt my feelings if my wife cheated on me, but in a very different way from what had actually happened to me. My wife, I always say, went to Spain and there's an amazing classical guitarist, they had some wine and it started to rain and they ducked for shelter and then something happened, right? It sort of breaks my heart that she could tell her best friend that and her best friend, even though she was rooting for our marriage and stuff, would be like, oh my God, that's incredible. But she can't tell me that shit, dude. That's a story. Again, I'm not hoping that my wife does that.

You're not saying what's right or wrong.

Or good and bad for someone else. I'm not good for her. I'm on her side.

That.

So we're psychologically open, meaning I love you unconditionally. If you want to really get trippy with it, would I let her kill me? That's a way more interesting game than would I be okay if she had an affair. If she really wanted to murder me, which she wouldn't, it goes back to your point. The openness makes, could you let her? That's not unconditional love. You can do anything you want to me. You want to murder me? You know what I mean? The love of the universe to me. Obviously, I'm not there. I don't know if anybody could be there. But there's a game we play where it's like, I love you as unconditionally up to you murdering me. That's where I'm at.

I wanna be alive.

Yeah, unfortunately, I have instincts that would stop you from killing me.

Right.

Like the bodies. Kill you first. And I'd kill you first. you love me, you'll let me. But that's a good example. It's like, can we be outside of, can our marriage be psychologically free? Because if you go around going like, don't cheat. Don't think that thought.

Don't look at that. Don't do this.

Yeah.

It's willpower marriage. And willpower sucks. Freedom is beautiful.

Freedom brings you peace.

Freedom is peace. Well, that's what's free. Your awareness is free. You know what I'm saying? So when I go like, I'm a straight married white guy, then there's this resistance to that. Well, now you can't do this. F*ck that. Anybody can do anything in the moment.

There might be consequences.

That's right. You have to use your brain. And I go, My marriage is way more valuable to me than, and even my belief in myself as being a good husband psychologically is more valuable to me, and that's fine. I'm stuck in this meat puppet. I might as well, you know what I mean? I feed myself too. I do things to take care of my body and my story and my situation. At the same time, you're sort of like, the cup's already broken, zoom out, you're on a rock, and somebody's down here going like, I only have sex with one person. And you know what the universe says? It goes, that's not even true. If all things being equal, you've had sex with dozens of people, you know what I mean? That it's not true. You know how they say swans are monogamous? Swans are monogamous. Human beings are not monogamous. Look at what I just, I had a wife, and then you have another wife. We're looking at the whole data.

You're not a penguin.

You don't start being monogamous when you have a ceremony in a gazebo. You're not monogamous. Or some people are. I mean, I know some.

Some people are, yeah.

And then they get divorced, and then the rules change. You're not monogamous.

What's been the biggest challenge in your life that you've had to overcome that looking back, you say to yourself, wow, I'm really actually grateful that happened. Whether it was the divorce or, you know, I don't know something else when.

You were younger, but- well, the reason it was the divorce, which is embarrassing.

Obviously other things have happened. So what happened in the divorce for.

People that don't know, what's the story? Totally. I think I wanted to say the reason it is the divorce is because that is the time in my life.

When I had the most attachment. You were attached, you were committed to being married.

A Christian, a winner, a guy who doesn't get divorced, a guy whose wife doesn't leave him. So basically an achiever. I'm going to be a great husband.

How old were you when this happened?

I got married when I was 22. You didn't have an idea. I mean 22 year olds now, I don't know. I don't want to be like anti young marriage, but if someone asked me point blank for advice, I'd be like, just be together. Why get the law involved? You know what I mean? Why add another layer to it? I know why, because you're probably, you know, a lot of people that do that are trying to recreate their parents' marriage in a good way, like in a better way. My parents didn't really get along. I love them. They argued a lot. So there's like a psychological need get married and fix it through, it's like you watched a play called My Parents Marriage and there was all this like tension. You're like, well, I'm gonna write a new play and I'm gonna be, this time I'll be dad. And she'll be mom and we'll get along. And that play will be so well reviewed that we'll forget about that. That's what we're doing psychologically, right? At least some of us are. So I had all these attachments. I wanted to be a good boy and I was a Christian, like a really meant it sort of Christian. And I wanted to be- what does.

That mean to be a Christian?

Well, I mean, how long do you have? It really depends on which church you're talking about.

I was a- Fit the mold of like, you get married, you don't get divorced, you did this.

Totally. But also like the most important, although it wasn't, I think about this all the time. There was all this cognitive dissonance that I was like, God is the most important thing. But dude, I'd give Tony Robbins a run for his money with how ambitious I was. I wanted to-- Take over the world. Yeah, I wanted to make a new volcano with my imprint, you know what I'm saying? I was hungry. So that's causing tension. I remember at my wedding, they played the song Be Thou My Vision. It's a hymn. And there's a line in that hymn that always used to make me laugh, and it was riches I want not nor man's empty praise. And I always used to cry at that line. Why? Because I wanted riches and I wanted man's empty praise. More than riches. Praise.

Why?

It just gets me off. It's my psychology. I love people laughing and listening. It's my drug. I love it. It's so good. I like to think I found a way to work with it. Jesus said, I got this from Richard Rohr, but he said, pull up the weeds while the wheat is still growing. You let them grow along with the wheat, and then when the harvest comes, you pull all of it up. So I don't look back and wish I could have yanked out my fucking red-blooded American ambition, but those were my weeds. And you work with them. The wheat just grew with them, and they got taller, but you find a way to prune your garden. But you can't yank it up because you'll yank up the wheat too. Jesus said that.

Wow.

The same Jesus that people are quoting to get people to stop, stop whatever it is you're doing that's bad. We yank those weeds up. And Jesus is over there going like, Gotta let everything grow as it is. It's very Buddhist. It's like, what are you doing? You can't, I mean, you, it's too deep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So anyway, got married because I wanted to move to Chicago because I wanted to do Second City because I loved Chris Farley and Chris Farley did Second City and then he got SNL. So I was like, I want SNL. I'll go to Second City.

Same path, yeah.

And dude, I got there and everyone had the same idea. It was every tall, doughy white guy who was the star of their college improv team moved to Chicago as soon as they graduated. It was a cattle call. It was crazy. Corn husks in their mouths, like just a bunch of, just a bunch of me's. So it was very hard to get in. And then I, so I started doing stand-up because it was, I was doing a little bit, but I went from being really into improv and doing some standup to being really into standup and doing some improv. That was like a very practical utilitarian like decision. I was like, 'cause I realized this is like Tony again, I keep looking at him. But he would like this. It was like, I realized that I was only as good as the worst person on my improv team. And my improv team, any improv team I was on would always have someone, maybe they would be funny, but they wouldn't be dedicated. you know, they're smoking pot all the time or they miss a lot of rehearsals. And I was like, it's hard to get seven people to make it in Hollywood. So you're just sort of like, well, I'll just do standup. I can do it every night.

Alone, yeah.

Alone. And I'll be as good as I am. And I liked that because I could control that. That worked out for me. And then when I was 28, we just moved to New York, maybe a year or two in. And then my wife had an affair.

So.

With someone she worked with, and then so she left me. So I was in this situation. The story's longer. The full version of the story is in the book. 'Cause the book isn't just me going like, be a candle. Nobody wants to read that book.

It's the drama.

It's the drama, it's the story. So I really kind of draw out, even in ways that I haven't shared on my own podcast, but it's like really tell the full story. But that was when I was like, god, I sort of looked at God like the mafia, like I paid him protection money by being good. I didn't smoke, I didn't drink, I didn't swear, I didn't watch porn. I didn't watch porn, or if I did, at least I felt really bad about it and like deleted Internet Explorer. And, you know, if your web browser causes you to sin. And then, so I was a very good boy-ish. And then, so that's the mafia, but someone still threw a brick through my bakery window. You know, I was like, what's all this protection money for? so it wasn't working. My model of God wasn't working because it had no allowance for suffering. You can see why now one of my passions is to figure out why we live in this world of duality of good and bad, of pain and pleasure, you know, like what's going on here? What is the model of existence? Because it can't just be a God that if you're believing correctly and do what he says, everything will pay out for you. That's a very Western Achiever model. It's also very narcissistic. You're just like, the world's about me. The movie is being shot from these cameras. My story is the one that matters. And I have a direct line to the God that made everything. So everything's gonna pay out. Then your wife leaves you. It's not funny. No, it is funny. It's funny. That's a great joke.

It's a great joke.

It's a great joke. And then you go, well, what's wrong with this situation? At first, I was an atheist briefly. Is it a chapter? So after you were a Christian, after.

All this happened, you were like, Screw God, screw religion. Yeah, exactly. Pretty standard, right?

I mean, you either go really hard, you double down on God. Yeah, all in. Like, you're like, well, it's probably because I smoked cigars or something. I don't know. And then you're like, I'm gonna go harder. I went the other obvious way. Nobody stays the same. I went the other obvious way. And you started studying everything. You were like, no, not yet.

Oh, okay.

That was awesome. I wish I was that awesome. I wish Pete was that awesome.

-Buddhism.

-Yes. It's like, well, now I can study all the cannons. No, I was just like, I really enjoyed a period of, and I'm grateful that I had a period of my life that was If it wasn't active atheism where I was really thinking and contemplating that there's no God, it was just a casual enjoyment of putting the issue aside, which I recommend. It was a nice time for me.

You were just like, There is no God. I just was like, None of this matters.

I guess we don't know. I thought I knew. I guess I don't know. I'm gonna put it aside. And when all your friends are comedians, nobody believes in God, so you're just sort of like, I'll just do, they seem fine. You know what I mean?

They look good on stage.

Yeah.

Behind the scenes.

But behind the scenes, I was one of them. I started drinking more and whatever it was. It wasn't that exciting. I always had girlfriends, so I wasn't going out and having orgies and stuff. But I just went hard into the body and had a lot of Chinese food and a lot of guilt-free porn and whatever it might have been. And this is a big turning point in the book. I took psychedelics. Have you ever taken psychedelics?

I have not. I've been in ceremonies and watched it and watched. Oh, yeah. And said, here you go. When I saw someone like demons coming out of him, I was like, pass.

You went to ayahuasca. It was like a, dude, who told.

You to take ayahuasca? No, I didn't take ayahuasca. I didn't take anything. It was like some other drug. I don't remember what it's called. It doesn't last that long. I think it's only like DMT. Yeah, I think it was that, yeah.

So I was in like a circle. I was in a circle, a friend of mine, I wasn't gonna, I was, I wanna know who on this wall was like, dude, because I do think you'd like psychedelics, maybe at some point. I don't know. I'm not here to tell you that. But I want to know which one of these guests told you to smoke DMT.

It wasn't me.

I don't even know if it was DMT. I'm just saying.

If it doesn't last very long, it was very strong and it tastes like about an hour. I don't even remember. It wasn't DMT. I don't even know.

Yeah, I think it was something else. And it was a bunch of like.

UFC guys in a circle. Because that's who you want to be with. And me. The embodiment of aggression.

Right.

But it was crazy. It was crazy to watch. I planning on doing it anyways when I went there, I was just like, I'll come and watch and like see what's going down. But one of the first guys like smoked whatever it was, I don't think it was DMT. And he was like, he was freaking out. I was like, I wasn't planning on coming in here to do this and I'm not gonna do it now. But other people had like this, they were joyful and happy.

It was just, I don't know.

So anyways, I wonder what it was. Salvia maybe?

I'll ask, I'll ask. But so you started doing this? I took mushrooms.

Yeah.

Which.

And I didn't even take that big of a dose. I split a dose with my girlfriend at the time. So it was pretty mild.

What happened?

I mean, which Pete do you want to ask? We can ask. You're asking this, Pete. I know what that Pete thought happened, which was, like, Euphoria and Wonder and Body High and. And Fascination. Really? What it. What's great about it is that it makes you fascinated. Like, you'd just be like. It sounds so trivial to say this like you're an idiot or something, but you're not an idiot. You're actually a Buddha. And you're like, Right, right. And you'd be so fascinated that there's this, this is molecules, this water is molecules, I'm molecules, and these molecules like swoosh around. That would be the funniest thing to you, but not in like a, I've said this before, like when you smoke pot the next day, sometimes what was funny isn't funny anymore. When you take mushrooms, what was amazing the next day is amazing. you've just sort of forgotten, because your brain builds reality, right? And one of the many things that your brain does, I think it's your frontal lobe, is it prioritizes reality. Right now, it's more important for me to be remembering my posture and to set like, okay, I look okay. Does she think I look okay? The audience and don't spill the water. And what's a threat? Like probably on some level we're like, well, there's fire there. It's very low level, but we're like, be aware that there's fire there. If something happened, we'd be like, don't let the fire hit the carpet. And when you take mushrooms, whatever the door guy is that tells you what's important and what isn't important, I say this in the book, it's like you slip them a 50 and tell them to take the day off. So everything becomes equally important. The air and the wood and your feet and your hands and everything becomes equally important. So what I experienced at the time was joy and fascination, and fascination is really much harder to come by than joy. You can smoke pot and feel joy.

But what- Fascinated by every little thing.

You're like, Wow. People, you're like, Look, there's another this in that. And it thinks it needs fried dough. And you're like, and love. Like you feel love for everybody. But it's not just, you know, you have a couple beers and you're like, I love every- It's not that. It's like you get it. It's like, there's a line to a nightclub called Enlightenment. and someone came and took you and they let you in the club. They let you around the line and then you go in the club, but you can only go in for a couple hours. But it's still fucking amazing that you can go in for a couple hours. So that now, if you ask me now what happened is that I was fully in the moment. Why wouldn't you be if everything is fascinating? So all of the planning and all of the regretting and all of the anxiety completely goes away and moves aside. for basically like what feels like a jacuzzi in now-ness. So this later, I realize, is what I believe Jesus is talking about when he says the kingdom of heaven. He says, you know, the kingdom of heaven will not come by expectation. The kingdom of heaven is here and men do not see it, is my favorite Bible verse. Another favorite Bible verse that applies is he goes, Lest ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Children!

It's right there.

It's in the text. If you want to be Western, we can look at other texts. We can go Eastern. It was right there in ours, right? Which is an Eastern text. But I'm just saying children aren't, they don't have beliefs or complicated trees of philosophy. Well, at this than this, well, oh, that's determinism. Oh, well, that's Calvinism. And they're not that, they're here. My baby is here. And that is a beautiful, satsang to share with my baby, she's just here. So he's saying, be open, realize you're already here. Men do not see it, 'cause we're too busy. Back then they were too busy. I don't know what they were doing. Getting dusty sandals or whatever. But we're doing dusty sandals. Yeah, exactly. And he's like, it's here, it's here, it's here, it's here, it's here. How many times does he have to say it? But we don't believe it. Took this drug and I went, oh, it is here.

That's great. What was the big lesson for you? through that pain and through the drugs and through the dating other women and then now finding you're being married again.

Well, I mean, I guess that it's all, it's all this. It's all one thing. It doesn't really make sense when you talk about it, but it is one thing and it's thinking itself. It's one thing thinking itself. So the illusion of separateness, right? My friend Michael Gungor wrote a book called this, and he talks about like, we are part of the earth as much as a tree is. And he has this great line where he's like, we're the wireless upgrades. We don't have to be rooted to the earth, but we are a byproduct or a product of this system. And this system is a part of the solar system, and it's a part of everything. Everything is. Like I said, the air is made of the same thing you and I are made of. So it's helpful to think of the air as gelatinous, you know what I mean? But the ego builds up a story that goes, well, I'm over here and you're over there. Well, tell that to my baby. My baby doesn't know that. My baby's just like, it's this. And then we play out these little stories in these games because when you think you're separate and you think you're the center of everything, it makes sense that you would do that. So the big thing that my book is about and the big lessons that drugs and everything taught me was that it's all It's all in it. It's all in the game, including your suffering and including the things that you wouldn't ask for and including your death. Like, I'm not saying, that's why I want to be clear that I'm not saying that might have happened, but you got the job because that happened. That's ego shit. I'm saying it's all one thing working itself out, pretending to be lots of things to know and understand and play with itself basically. basically. That's what I think is going on. And if you took one of these drugs, you wouldn't have to believe me, you would believe me.

You'd feel it.

Yeah, yeah. You would feel it completely different than knowing it. None of us know it, but I've had moments on drugs and off drugs where you go like, so have you. Swim in the cold ocean, I just did yesterday. You're nowhere but there. You can't think about anything and that is similar to a feeling of taking, so you don't have to, like the guy that free climbed that mountain.

-For you, Solo?

-Yeah, crazy. I would argue the reason he's doing that is he's completely present. Where else would he be? And that has to be-- -The best feeling ever.

-It'S the feeling of euphoria. -It's the best feeling. That's why I love playing sports, 'cause.

You can't be on your phone and shoot a basketball at the same time. -That's why I love doing stand-up. -Exactly. You have to be present. -You can't not be thinking about it. So people with ADD and all these stuff tend to, you know, migrate towards these activities. But it was never explained to me that spirituality is actually trying to maintain a state of that without some sort of threat to our lizard brains that forces us there. Can we just be there? And that is what I believe to be the kingdom of heaven.

What has been the biggest lesson you have learned being a father? Six month old baby, right? Six, seven months old?

I mean, we did sort of hit on it because my baby does not think in words yet, but she is. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So, like, we call her. I call her. I think my wife calls her this, too. The chapter about her in the book is called Luminous emptiness. So she's just luminous and empty. That doesn't mean she's not having she, you know, as she's getting older, she's almost seven months. We see her reach for things now, and she's more interested, and she likes her solid food, and so she's. Building a false self. By the way, we're not going to resist that. She can be a false self until she's, she can do that her whole life if she wants. That's her journey. But I'm watching her build it, you know, from the ground up. Like, oh, she likes spinach. She actually does more than she likes lentils. So you see her building a preference. And you can see that, like, laser printer make a groove in her brain. So it's pretty wild, but what she's taught me was that there are people sometimes, it's a little bit cheesy, but they're like, oh, babies are like, it's like it makes me feel God, right? I would argue that it does, but it's not as simple. Sometimes there's like pro-life billboards that say like, there is proof of God and it's just a baby. I'm like, okay, that's sort of like the guiltification of a beautiful idea. which is that a baby who has no sellable identity. That's why I don't, I'll never, my brother gave, it was well meaning, but he gave her a Red Sox onesie. I was like, I'll never put her in that. Because I don't like that imposition of like, you,'re from Boston, and I get it. If you like that, go for it, it's fine. But I'm just like, what's beautiful about her is that she's nothing. She's just the, it's the video game screen, make a player, she's like a rotating avatar. What are we gonna do? And that is valuable in itself. Like in America especially, we see a big spacious field and we're like, well, what can we build here? But the field itself is valuable and my identityless infant is the greatest spiritual teacher I've ever had. And I've sat with some pretty great ones, and the feeling you get with something that isn't insisting that it's something, but is, is what God is to me.

That's powerful.

Yeah.

Wow. Is that great?

That's really powerful.

So I don't go like, I can't wait till she's taught, why? I love that she doesn't know her name. She doesn't turn when you say her name. Why would she? What does that mean? There's a word that's you? Get the f*ck out. F*cking bullshit.

This is powerful, man. I feel like I could talk to you for like three more hours.

It's you. See, that's a psychedelic thought. Again, you don't have to do them, but you know it already. Those moments when you're in the shower and you're like, there is a word that when they say it, they mean this. They mean all of this. But it feels more exciting when you're tripping. Again, you don't have to. I don't wanna sound like somebody that pushes that because one of the points in the book is that there are techniques and methods to get you in the kingdom of heaven, in the Tao, without that. Without that.

This is a question I ask everyone at the end. I love this conversation, so I'd love to have you back on sometime.

Oh, anytime. I think. I just want to see the view again.

I know, right?

And look at Tony.

And feel snuggled by love.

Yeah. That's a great choice.

This is called the Three Truths. so imagine. Imagine it is your last day on this meat suit physical Earth that we're in right now. 100, 200, 500 years from now, whatever. Whenever you want it to be, you get to choose the day, and you've achieved everything you want, if you want to achieve or if not.

Right.

Whatever you choose, you've done. Okay. And you've lived the life that you want, but you've gotta call quits and you've got to take everything you've created with. so you put everything into the world, whatever you've done, books, shows, movies, whatever you want to do, you got to take it with you. So no one has access to your information anymore.

I'm leaving and everything I made is leaving.

It's coming with you, yeah. But you get to rip a piece of paper out of a book and write down three things you know to be true and leave that as kind of like your principles or your lessons that you would leave with the world.

Right.

And this is all they would have to remember you by. Your three lessons, I call it your three truths. What would you say are your three truths?

What if it was just like my best joke?

It could be whatever you want. Whatever you want to leave behind. That you think that would be a good lesson or a good story or whatever. Three ideas, three thoughts, three lessons.

Right.

Well, on the first one I would write, who is watching you read this right now?

Okay.

Who's observing you read this right now? I think that's the most important question. I used to think that like when people said the most important question you can ask in life is who am I? I'm sure you've heard that.

Why am I here? Who am I here?

And we sort of turned that into like an excavation of your preferences. Which again, zoom out, who cares? I like chocolate ice cream. What a prostitution. of that beautiful idea. Who are you really? Is the better question. And who's observing the thought, I like chocolate ice cream? Because you're not your love of the Patriots and you're not your love of chocolate ice cream. So I think that's encapsulated in the first one.

Okay.

And this is silly, but I think I would say everything belongs. I like that one. And that obviously includes yourself. There's so much energy. That's not to say that there's not, I took LSD recently and my big epiphany was it's nice to be nice. So sometimes they're not that deep. So it's nice to be nice is a good one. I don't know if that's gonna go on there, but like everything belongs is a good way to get over the idea that we're just like if only I was this or that or like but even your suffering belongs is like, that's my, when I'm like, it's all one thing, thinging itself. It's sort of a trippy idea, but like, we live in a world where as soon as you move forward, backwards exists. That's just sort of what we're stuck in. So as soon as there's like pleasure or goodness or kindness, like ugliness and selfishness and pain just exist. That's just like what's happening, because one doesn't exist without the other. So that's what the world of form is, and that's what Duality is, and our resistance to that causes a lot more suffering than actually those things on their own, wishing that it wasn't that way. So saying everything belongs is a nice way of saying, try to dissolve into and flow with everything that is. Because as Jesus said, these things, this is how it'll be always. He said that. He's basically like, the poor will always be with you. The suffering will always be with you. And it's just like, okay.

The homeless will always be down the street.

That's right. That's what he's saying. He actually says, I think he's speaking as the Christ. He's like, but I'm only here for a limited time, so you should be talking to me, which is kind of a funny thing to say. But he's saying, this is this. So everything belongs is a good way to say this is this. So what was the first one?

Who is observing you reading this? Who is observing you reading this?

Who is observing you reading this now?

Everything belongs.

Everything belongs. And the third one would be, it's a Richard Rohr quote, and I think it matters. Oh, there's two Richard Roys. Let's decide which one we should put in. One is love is learning to say yes to what is. So we could just say, say yes to what is. That's very powerful. It's a little bit more hashtag greatness. This quote is on my wall. He says, Humbly and proudly return what you've been given. Ah, God, I love that one.

That's good.

He says, the meaning of life is to humbly and proudly. So right there is non-dual thinking. It's humbly and proudly. And that's in there for a reason. It's to make you go like, what? It's not a rational thought. It's a heart thought. You can humbly and proudly return what you've been given. So that's kind of the game. I was given a sense of humor or whatever. So that is a little bit more practical.

It's like living a life of service.

Yeah.

What do you got?

Yeah.

Give, give.

And do it proudly, but also do it with humility, because zoom out. and what are you really doing? So that's four. I live with all of them.

Those are powerful. I'm glad I got to make you think there, too. You got this new book coming out?

And the fifth one will just be the word diarrhea. Okay. 'Cause that'll make you laugh.

There you go.

He could have left anything.

And he left diarrhea. And he misspelled it. We all do. I'm not even gonna make you write it down.

No, no, I don't think I'm dyslexic, sir. For me, it's like, You got this new book coming out, which sounds like you're sharing all these stories and more.

Yeah.

Called Comedy Sex God.

Comedy Sex God.

It'll be out when we post this interview, or if it's out before you.

Can pre-order it on Amazon. Please do. Your website is-- if you've enjoyed this, it's weird to just make an open plea to people, but you want a book to, as you know, you want it to open strong. And not because I'll be like, oh, my book opens strong, but because that means it'll be like, it'll get more attention to it. When you've worked so hard on something and I worked on it for three years, you want those pre-sale numbers in that like first week number to be big, not so I can like jerk off in the shower thinking about it like, oh, I'm a big boy, but because more people will find the book. Of course. That's really what I'm not just saying that. I want people to find the book. I worked so hard on it, harder than I've worked on anything. It was more satisfying and more difficult than anything I've done. And a lot of what we've been saying, I'll happily give it away for free and I'll never start and go like, well, if you want the answer to that one, read the book. But everything we've been talking about and more is in the book. And if you like this conversation, that's my little commercial.

I love it, man. I love it.

Yeah, Comedy Sex God.

What's your website? Is it Pete Holmes.com?

Pete Holmes.com, yeah.

So you can get on there, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. I'm pretty sure there's just a link to Amazon on my website. Yeah, just go there. Perfect. And follow you on Instagram. Got some funny stuff up there. Pete Holmes on Instagram. Make sure you guys, if you're watching or listening, take a screenshot, put it on your story, tag Pete, let them.

Know what you enjoyed the most from this as well.

I will see those, yeah, I look on my Instagram. I get your DMs and stuff.

So just whatever you do, don't put the volume up when you're in a waiting room. Or if you do, next to you. No, on some level, you are the spiritual work of the Lithuanian ogre to your right.

And he's trying to love you as himself. I love it, man. I wanna acknowledge you, Pete, for I feel like it's hard for comedians to really be vulnerable and continue to like do the work on themselves. Maybe that's just my perception of comedians, which is probably bad for me to judge in as a group, but I.

Feel like you were a bunch of pirates.

But you're constantly doing the work and you're probably doing things that aren't popular. You know, you're probably like saying things that aren't like what every audience wants to hear.

Right.

Asking people to tap into deeper questions for themselves and that doesn't get the best jokes all the time. And you know, you're doing the unconventional thing, which is making people think and making people love and open up. So I want to acknowledge you for the work that you're doing and allowing yourself to go there even when it may not seem like the sexiest, coolest thing to do. So yeah, man, I really acknowledge this conversation too for for everything you shared and your vulnerability and everything. So I think people are gonna love this.

We did it. We had some here. We did.

We did. We did.

We had here.

Make sure you guys get the book. Follow him on Instagram.

And my podcast, you made it weird.

You made it weird. Yeah. You made it weird.

Check it out.

You should be on. I would love to come on.

Yeah.

Love to come on. You can see Pete at the Largo once a month. If you're in LA, you can. Every month you're at the Largo. You're touring every now and then. So if you guys go to Pete Homes, homes.com, go see them live and give them a big hug afterwards if you say hi to people. This is my final question. It's what's your definition of greatness?

Man. Greatness is your ability to flow with and find balance within all that is. That's greatness.

Be at homes, my man. Appreciate it, brother.

Thanks, dude. I love this.

There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode with the funny Pete Holmes who we went all over the place in some different contexts today. It wasn't all about comedy, which what he's known for, but this was a powerful conversation in my mind. I love having these types of conversations with individuals that you normally wouldn't think you'd have these conversations with. So if you enjoyed this, make sure to share it with your friends, lewishowes.com/7days 96 with the hilarious Pete Holmes. Make sure to tag us both @lewis howes @peteholmes over on Instagram and be a hero for someone in your life, someone that you can inspire. Spread the message of greatness. Don't be stingy with your resources and the information that you're learning. Make sure to share this with a friend. Text a friend or two. If you have a texting group chat, post this in a group chat, post this in a group.

Let people know about this link because.

I think they're going to love this in a big way, just as much as I loved doing this interview with Pete. And as Benjamin Franklin said, without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning. What are you doing on a daily basis to listen to your heart, to listen to your intuition, to listen to what the fears are that you have in your life and make sure you're leaning into those fears and not hiding from them? How are you growing? How are you developing? How are you learning? How are you becoming more of who you're supposed to be in this world, not becoming less of it? Think about that today. Make sure to share this with a friend. I love you so very much and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.