Why Hitting Rock Bottom Can Unlock Your Greatest Potential w/ Dane Cook EP 1334

You're gonna be real to yourself because oftentimes we're not even allowing ourselves to show us this is who I really am. This is how I truly feel. You get to that, I'm telling you.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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. The School of Greatness is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. As Amica says, empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs. Whether you're on the road, at home, or traveling along life's journey, their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to ensure you have the right coverage in place. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to amica.com and get a quote today. as.

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Well, the first thing that I had to acknowledge was I wasn't alone in this moment of feeling capsized, right? It really was universal. Sometimes it's real easy to start to feel like you're, you've painted yourself into a corner or I've always had a little bit of fear of abandonment issues since I was a kid. So it's real easy to get lost and feel like, man, there's no real rhyme or reason for how I proceed forward. So the first thing is acknowledgement, right? And being able to look around, being grateful for the people, places and things that you have learned to love and and contemplate with and collaborate with. But then really, it was almost like, okay, everything's different. We're gonna come out of this era one way or another with new information. It's also a bit of a reset. I always try to find that things aren't falling apart, they're falling together. For me, I was like, what do I dispel? What do I delete? And what can I come out of this moment really honed in on? things that are important to me.

And were there a couple big moments in your life before the last couple years that were like, that broke you down?

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. The first 10 years of a career was like you sign up for a one long breakdown.

Really?

Yeah, because I jokingly say in my routine, when you sign up for stand-up comedy, there's no dental plan. There's no plan. There's no any coverage whatsoever. You're constantly rolling the dice in living with hope, dream, pipe dream, maybes, I hope so's. You're oftentimes driving to gigs. This was my experience going to work. Imagine this, you're driving to gigs, hours and hours, little to no money, realizing I'm going to a place where nobody gives a that I'm coming and they don't give a when I'm leaving either. And that's the life until you can figure out the persona, the character, your reasoning for wanting to see things through. So yeah, early years, constant undertow, but give you thick skin, prepares you for a moment of success, and then it prepares you for some of the spanking machine moments that we all get into.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

What was the hardest part of your career early days, the first 10 years?

Only getting paid in french fries and burgers. Crazy. I didn't start out that way. Trying to stay in better shape. 'Cause you're on the road, you live on the road.

And you were living in LA at the time, right?

No, still. Okay, so I started out of Arlington, right outside of Boston, and it was really like New England gigs, college gigs, late night New York City gigs, and my era switched to kind of early success, like just about 2000, but that first 90 to 98 was languishing and having a great time with friends and cohorts. I came up with guys like Bill Burr, I came up with Gary Gulman, I came up with Patrice O'Neal. A lot of laughs, but a lot of fear and uncertainty, you know? And so, yeah, that first kind of like life lesson, you know, something my dad actually said to me early in my career, he said, I was like, How do I do this? How do I build this out? I'm really trying to think it's just like, it's more than just joke to joke or story to story. and he was like, remember something. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. And, you know, we would see, like, people in a fangueul Hall where you would go and, like, shop, and there'd be a group of people performing, and they would, like, hype each other up, and then more people would show up because what's about to happen? Well, the key was when something does happen, how do you keep people there? How do you keep them attracted to what you're putting out there? So all those things combined in the first 10 years was like, Try to find my little crowd first, worry about entertaining them. Maybe it'll attract a larger crowd in time. But be better so that if that big crowd comes-- They stay. I'm not like-- He was okay for the first few minutes. So it's like the tough years in this industry, it builds your character and it prepares you for a yes moment to go, by the way, I have a few other things that I'd like to share with you.

And do you think if you didn't have those eight years of French fries and beer as your-- No beer. Just French fries.

Never had a drink in my life. my life.

Really?

I'm 50. I've never had a drink or a.

Drug in my entire life. You know what's interesting? There's another thing in common. I've never been drunk or high in my life. Are you serious? No joke. Never been drunk or high in my life. And playing college football, I went against the grain, right? Because, and probably being a comedian, you.

Are out late and people are in the green room behind the scenes. It's like, yeah, everybody's imbibing. And all I'm thinking about, well, for a couple reasons, I'm thinking about work. I'm thinking about Building a platform, because people came to see me, they liked me. They're dispersing, how do I hold on to them? So it was a lot of that after the show, but it was also like, even though I like to chase girls and I was hanging out and having good times, the reality was I wanted to wake up early and I wanted to figure out a way to fill in the other 22 hours of the day with more than just sleeping and hemming and hawing. I was like, how can I be proactive in this career?

That's powerful. You needed the edge.

I need the edge. I needed a destination. You could have short-term goals, but you have to have the long-term. And I also, lucky for me, I had a dad who just had like this man. He was just old school and he kept that competitive, he was an athlete and he kept that competitive edge in me even though I was in the arts. I still wanted to put wins in the wind column and show him Because he was like, oh, you're going into the arts, and I'm the athlete, and you're my only son, and you're dilly-dallying and whatever plays and makeup. Comedy, right? He didn't quite understand that I could set goals and have my own versions of a Super Bowl or a World Series. It was just gonna be different, and yet the mechanics are exactly the same. Sure.

I mean, you're selling out Madison Square Garden, one of the first comedians to do that, right? What year was that?

Oh, man, that was like, yeah, that was definitely after the '90s stuff. 2004-5, 6 was doing an arena run.

But that's kind of a Super Bowl, that's like a big win category, right?

Yes.

Especially at that time, that was much harder and unheard of for a comedian. It was who's schlepping DVDs 10 years prior, you know what I mean? Like, in the back of a, just like, hey, please buy my DVD or CD or whatever it is. It's hard, my brother is a jazz violinist, and so I grew up watching him in clubs, like, Will you buy my CD? Will you buy like playing for 14 people in a dive bar?

Yeah.

Building a community kind of in a similar arts, if you will, maybe not.

As big, but-- But those moments matter.

Absolutely.

Equally to the people coming through the turnstile and walking into Madison Square Garden. When I'm looking out, my perspective, you know, away from an event moment, is all of these individuals have trusted that their hard-earned dollar, I'm gonna come through and deliver in some way. And I never let myself forget that even 31 years in, I still look out, it doesn't matter how big or small the crowd is. I go, these people came here, they're rooting for me, they wanna win, and they wanna feel good when they leave here too. Yeah.

So how did you keep the confidence, you know, in those eight years to keep going until you started making money? Because there wasn't a lot of big wins. I mean, okay, 13 people showed up, I get it's a small win, but if you go eight years and there's maybe there's little wins here and there, but there wasn't massive wins it sounds like. How did you keep the confidence that I am funny or entertaining or I have skill or value to provide? And I can also survive as a human being.

I had to, yeah, surviving as the human being stuff is that came with some great therapy a little bit later down the line. But I was always interested in self-help stuff. Really? Yeah, during those days when you're filling time, find a local library bookstore. And that's the aisle I'd always lean against the shelf or sit on the floor and try to find an early version of the Four Agreements or whatever I could find that really spoke to me. I was desperately looking for symbolism or leadership or... My dad didn't understand. He wasn't in the arts, but he understood competing. I didn't have really anybody around me except for a couple of great comedian mentors in Boston. But even they didn't quite know that I had my sights on setting myself apart from an entire generation of comedians. I was coming up with a generation of comedy fans. I was the first comedian a lot of them were seeing in those early college years, club years. And I was like, I'm not doing this for halfway. I want to be one of the best of my generation. and the only way I'm ever going to do that is to dig deep, get to know myself. I had a lot of frailty. I had a lot of man, a lot. I had a lot. I have a lot of anxiety.

Still.

Oh, to this day, yeah.

But you're one of the biggest. You've accomplished so much in the space. You continue to innovate. You know, you're looked up at as a giant in this industry. You sell out arenas. You innovate before people are doing these things. How, why does that still happen today?

Well, that's the guy who can, through the mechanics, through the prep, through the 10,000 hours, finally can take a stage. And also, I'm a pressure performer. I love it. I'm better when things are starting to like, that's falling apart, and suddenly you and I are like creating something that really feels even more real and less formulaic and more like it's happening right now. So pressure performer, that's good for me, but everything that leads up to getting to the stage, A lot of social anxiety, a lot of, I'm an introvert by nature. You know, grew up as a kid, very self-loathing. It took a lot of years to become more offstage who I could, you know, try to become in those early years on. Didn't always do it, you know, had a lot of bad sets.

'Cause on stage you come across confident and, you know, the guy I wanted to be. Really?

The guy I wanted to be.

The character you wanted to be in real life.

Truly, yeah. And it took about, 15, not 15 years, 12-13 years before I could identify that is me. I'm putting hurdles and obstacles in front of myself in life for reasons that I need to understand. The trauma I experienced as a kid, something is causing me to feel like I need an obstruction. But when I'm on stage, I feel like it's just as far as I want to get to that horizon line. So I had to become more like the guy that already had the edge on stage and all that version of myself was telling me was, this is you. Take this into everything that you do in life. Be assertive, have the timing and have a blast. Bring humor to everybody and anything you can because it's gonna alleviate and levitate people around you.

What were you like off stage?

Early on, had my little, you know, the squad, we had our guys, a lot of fun. But away from that, it was really difficult for me to even meet fans in person because I would get like my breathing would, you know, I get like my throat would get yeah, yeah, yeah. I was very judgmental on myself.

People that adored you and loved you or inspired by you.

Didn't feel that way at the time. I felt like maybe they just liked a joke or like I could, I'm pretty good at finding avenues to go like, you know, but or maybe they only and I could kind of down talk myself, which I was a professional at. I was good at that from elementary school on up. Wow. Which has some benefits on stage. Yes.

With the downplaying, the self-deprecating, the self-deprecating humor.

Taking the piss out of yourself, being able to be, you know, the Eminem eight mile, like I'll say it before you can hurt me with it. So yeah, totally man, you're right on. It's just all that ends up kind of in the guts of the performance.

But when you downgrade yourself in life, consistently every day, whether it be in your own mind or to friends, family and fans, what happens?

Everything gets minimized. The path gets minimized, your opportunities get minimized, even your dreams, you start, what is that like, haggling with yourself? Well, maybe if I only do this, I don't need all of that. I can, and you start to shrink the world around you.

Interesting.

And I think that to answer the very beginning of your question, the other element is I think it's not just about finding a philosophy that you adopt and subscribe to. I think it's understanding your philosophy and in your DNA. What do you truly believe? How can you learn to speak on it, stand by it, accentuate it, and be able to communicate and listen and understand that everybody is different and maybe that will be an asset to the differentness that we have. So personal Philosophy, not just the book that you read that like I was doing saying these are great ideas but finding your voice in all of that.

Let's I'm gonna ask you a question here When was Madison Square Garden selling out arenas?

Yeah, that was like oh 4 5 6 was the start of that so.

Those years you're around the world selling out 20,000 plus people in a in.

An arena yeah, always one guy heckling from like z section in the back and I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna handle this one with this dude Describe yourself and then I'm gonna say funny things about I'm not you interrupting the show.

That's funny.

But always an event, always fun.

Yeah. I'm curious, before that moment, let's call it 15 years before that moment, when you were in the trenches, right?

Open mics.

Yes. On a scale of one to 10, let's call it the self-love scale. 10 being you fully accepted and loved yourself. Zero being you never loved yourself, constantly downgrading internally, externally to everyone. Where were you before 2004-5-6 on that scale?

Yeah, 1990, first time I did an open mic at Catch Rising Star in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I would have valued myself. I felt very insignificant. I was like a two.

Okay. On the self-love scale.

Just self-love. Yeah. I definitely would not be on a scale of anything looks or anything wise. I came out of cystic acne. I had my head down most of the time or a hoodie. I did not like myself. I didn't want to see a mirror. So no value there. But as far as just like, could I have a good chat with you somewhere and like maybe just, you know, talk about the Red Sox? Yeah. The day I stepped on stage, I left the club that night and I got emotional immediately. I remember walking through Cambridge and I'm like weeping. I had a pay phone, called my mom and I said, this is the start. I did it. I did it. And she, how did it happen? And I told her the whole wild story of how I got on stage. and then I would probably have upgraded myself instantly. Like, I'm like five. Just because I did it once and I got laughs and I proved to myself when the mic was in my hand, I'm okay. I'm okay. So, yeah, two to a five in 1990.

Okay. And then 2005 or 2004 at Madison Square Garden, how did you feel after that moment on the scale? Was it. Was it greater? Was it less than I would have.

Thought I was like. at eight or nine level, I would have thought that just given the entrepreneurial ideas that I had in place, feeling multi-hyphenated feeling like I'm a person that you want on your team. If you want to, you know, if you want to have a winning team, you should look at me and go, this is one of the people who brings a lot of great ideas. What I did not know was when things started to go down a A road of hardship. My parents got cancer within the same year. I went through a terrible theft with my brother business manager and there was about a three or four year run at the end of an eight year high that I would have said, I'm like, I'm an eight or nine level. And then I realized that that was a bit of a facade and I was kind of even lying to myself. I identify myself all through success in business. with that number. And I had gotten away from the young version of myself that was so scared and had pain. And I did not realize he was still closer than ever. And when the business is, you know, done, you clock out or maybe you're starting over, it's a new machine to, I had a lot of work to do.

With the younger version of yourself inside of you.

Oh, totally like right, yeah, no, not, oh, I distanced myself from that because I had success or I, I proved it. No, there was a lot of things that were, again, just the mechanics and putting all the time, effort, and energy, but I really didn't at that time start the work that I was gonna do next.

Wow. So, you know, you went through these.

That's with professional people and being able to really go like, what, what, what's going on inside? Yeah, like when nobody sees me on stage and it's not about even like talking with fans or I love, I love it. I love that is my identity. I enjoy I enjoy that whole camaraderie and relationship, but like quiet moments, moments of, you know, Silencia. Who am I?

Who did you feel like you were at that time when you were at the height, but by yourself, how did, who did you feel like you were still?

I felt like I was a kid that just wanted to be a part of things and I built this thing all alone that was very lonely even though there's 20,000 people around me because everybody goes home and the show's over and then I still felt like I didn't have a real genuine love in my life. And again, I'm not gonna you, it's like I was a bit of a cad. I'm young, I'm successful, I was having fun.

Of course.

I wasn't looking to get so serious, but I also knew at the core of me, like I'm a pretty simple person and I want that intimacy and connection. Intimacy, as my mom say, you want a teammate in your life. You want somebody really feel like a team. You're boosting them, they care about you and then together you've got something that's like your mutual mission. And I didn't have that. And so when my parents were sick, I was like, Man, I don't really have a lot of people around me that are here to console. I had a lot of people that wanted to be a part of my business or maybe they're happy or take a little cash or be on the ride. But then it was like, I didn't know boundaries.

So you said no to everyone.

Yeah, a lot of yes. Of course, I felt like I'm popular and people like me and that's what success is. They just, they automatically, we know you now, you're great. And it was like, okay, I have to really dig in and put all these things that I've learned about myself, life around me, and I have to put myself in check and figure out exactly like what is my meaning here and how can I receive that love that I want to also give to a human being.

Interesting. So on that scale, one to ten, where do you think you were once you found out all these things with family challenges and parents and brothers?

Oh yeah, like the real number. It was not an eight or nine.

What was it at?

Yeah, no, I was really dipping back down to that five or six, somebody who was like my people love me because of something that I'm bringing.

The success you're bringing.

Success or maybe it was even just like, yeah, I'm bringing some entertainment. But I can't say across the board it wasn't all fans. I had a really beautiful early connection with fans that I think understood that unlike most comics, I was available.

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Through Myspace or early- you-'re big on.

Myspace back in the day.

Yeah, and it was, and it was, I was, I was, I was having, conversations and learning about people and my fans and on both a business front to go like, all right, I'm growing with them. This audience is changing. I'm changing. I'm evolving. My act is evolving. So I was all good for like the data and analytics. But I think that my fans also could see that I was like really desperate to share other sides of myself away from just personal sides.

Yeah.

The funny stuff, yeah.

There's something that just came up for me. I remember listening to one of your CDs back in the day. I think it was a CD or maybe it was iTunes back in the day. It was a cassette. Right, cassette maybe. But it was really funny because I remember the joke and there's rarely why I remember comedians jokes, right? But I remember the joke and I remember it was funny because it was related to what it was happening in that exact moment. And I don't know if you remember it or not, the joke, but it was about something like being in a parking garage and the screeching sound. You did this hilarious reenactment of like what your car does when you're turning the corners in a parking garage.

I was in Houston at the Galleria Mall and I wrote that two days before I recorded it for that album that you're talking about. Really?

Yeah.

I just happened to drive through the in a rental car. Through the it sounds like I can't.

Remember what you were exactly yeah, even.

If you're going two miles an hour it's just like screaming you should put.

That in my show. It was that's funny. That was the most memorable thing I remember because I was in a parking garage that's right and the sound was.

Making it as I was listening to it so I was like, oh, this is great timing. Yeah, that's kind of that's kind of humor yeah something that like you know.

They laugh in the moment, but later maybe it happens, you know and they're like you remember this yeah, yeah so you were you were still around the five or six in the scale. Yeah, I But everyone out on the outside looking in would probably say, you,'ve got it all figured out.

Sure.

You're at the height. I think you were the second comedian ever to sell out Madison Square Garden or something in the stats say online. But you were everywhere.

I was lights on.

You were in the movies, TV shows, selling out arenas. I mean, it was like you were the guy.

Right.

And you were paving the way, innovating, doing these specials, on your own, you know, before the new wave of comedians are doing it now in the last like three to five years, you were doing this 10-15 years ago. It wasn't an era where it was.

Really in vogue to communicate with fans like that. Exactly.

And so you really innovated and paved the way for a lot of people, which has been inspiring. What was the thing when you started to get, you know, to take a look inside and you were mentioning, you know, working with professionals, I'm assuming, maybe therapists or someone else, and I've done a lot of healing work on my own, What was the thing that opened up for you originally that you felt like was missing, that was keeping you from being a, you know, not being a perfect 10, but from the 8-9 range of loving yourself, accepting yourself, what do you feel like was missing either from earlier childhood or what you were missing in that time?

The ability to be confrontational, whether that means seeking somebody out and telling them, I'm proud of you and putting ego or whatever aside to congratulate you and find you to do that. but also being able to go to somebody and say, do you have something you want to say to me? And let's, you know, this is the moment. You know, calling, being assertive. Assertive was a word that I wanted to implement absolutely in my life. Somebody just was talking about me on a podcast the other day and somebody else sent a clip. I won't say the name. This guy, oh, dang, he used to come in the club and he's like, around 04, and he'd always pull his hat down. He just wasn't a very approachable, almost like I was big timing people. But the truth was, I was probably having massive anxiety. anxiety at that time. And sometimes I'd go into the club and if I didn't put my hat down and kind of just, you know, I'm feeling it now thinking of it. Really? Oh, yeah, yeah, it's right there, man. It's right. I'm a visual comedian. I'm a visual storyteller, and I feel it when I'm telling it. That's why I'm, you know, exuberant or whatever. So when I tell you, like, I heard this person referring to, oh, man, it was like, I almost wanted to reach out to this person and say, man, if you only understood, like, how there was no playbook for success and nobody knew how to walk me through it. And then there was certainly nobody there to help me to cultivate a team around me of people that maybe were there to protect me more than just benefit.

Sure, sure.

So I was very confused. I was confused. The shows were the greatest. The fans were the greatest. But I was kind of spiraling in my personal life.

Where do you feel like anxiety was coming from? and have you learned how to overcome managing the anxiety and stress at this stage now? Sure, yeah.

There's like the things that, you know, are probably in good bad comedies where it's like, I gotta put my feet on the floor and then, you know, you rub it, it's 17 minutes. Tongue on the roof of the mouth thing, inhale through the nose and think about the ocean and like, there's a bunch of different things that I know to do to tell myself I'm gonna be okay. It's copasthetic.

But that's kind of more surface level like training, right? Yeah.

To not get to that point where it's like, really how do you prevent even, well that's a healthy environment. And what does that mean? That means what you eat, that means how your discipline is. That means, this is the hardest part, that you are the judge and jury that knows how to look in the mirror and call yourself on. Ooh, you know, to be able to really call yourself in.

Where were you living in the most your life at that time.

I think you look at a mirror. Yeah. Yeah. I was pretending after my parents, you know, they passed away from cancer, like, quickly. They both had it within the same. They both got it. And then my dad didn't tell me because he was real old school about illness. And when she passed a week later, my dad was like, I have cancer. And then he was gone several months later. So nine months.

Oh, my gosh.

And I was on top. I was on top of the world professionally. I was still in the midst of that like eight year run where it was like never a one spike almost kind of just like a trajectory. But I didn't want people to see me sad. I didn't want anybody to see me probably for two reasons. I don't want to make people feel bad for me. But I also think there was a part of me that was like, man, I earned all this acclaim and I don't want like my peers and the people that I know are rooting against me. that, you know, they were nipping at your heels.

I kind of was like, To have something in home.

I'm not going to show them that I'm weak, because I was so weak.

Wow.

And so the facade and not getting right with myself to be able to say to you, I'm having a very bad day today.

Wow.

I'm feeling a little out of sorts and like how you respond to it, I don't know. Relinquishing your power is something that once I understood that and made it a part of my daily, affirmations, which I do every morning, a lot better.

Like having vulnerability to express your full range of emotions.

Totally. Every day. Reminding myself, you know, sometimes in a funny way, sometimes even to me. Sure. You know, it's like I say my prayers at night, and sometimes it's humorous. Sometimes it's, you know, there's more desperation, there's fear, there's loss, anxiety. You're gonna be real to yourself because oftentimes we're not even allowing ourselves to show us, this is who I really am. This is how I truly feel. You get to that, I'm telling you, it's like, I don't want to say it's like a magical, it's feeling present in a way that you've never ever experienced.

And feeling peace.

A lot of peace. Even in turmoil. I think even in scary moments, you're like, I'm kind of zen. I'm okay with this. I'm okay with the outcome of this.

It's knowing you can face the adversity and the challenge and the messy emotions.

And if you're with me in a funny way, hopefully I try to make it for the people around me. I'm gonna say the thing that I hope cracks it open to where like, this sucks, but there's humor in everything, and if you can start there, then you're gonna be okay.

I don't know what this is about me. Whenever someone says something really sad or horrible happens, I somehow just kind of nervous laugh. It's like, man, my whole family just died. That's really-- It's like something where it's like I'm crying emotional, but I also laugh. I don't know if that's something I'm--.

Maybe it's 'cause you're thinking of the-- You're thinking for everybody.

I know.

And how do they feel? And is this per, he looks older, he's probably closer to death. It's like you're thinking of mortality. Yeah, you have to let all that go and understand that what we really love and value about each other is truth. Even if it's a truth we don't agree with. Right. Even if it's the most different, you know, the truth is where I think something's in the ether and it bonds us beyond opinion.

Okay, I have two questions for you about this.

I love that you're always a two question guy.

It's never one or three.

You know, I see what you're doing here, man.

Okay, the numerology here is fantastic. We're in LA. We're in LA. We're doing astrology.

We got the numerology with our dates of our birthdays. Your parents, they both passed within a year of each other. Here's the best part of this interview.

Wait a second before we go to.

My parents, and I know this is good. This is the best part. There's nothing on this page. You've got like one hieroglyphic. One word. This is amazing. You keep referring and I'm like, is it visible ink?

Where is this coming from?

You're amazing, you're like a phenom.

Well, what do you do over a thousand interviews?

Hopefully you start to be president. When you wake up and you open it up, you're like, questions for Dane.

And then you just kind of fog out for a second. No, I mean this thing is full of notes from everyone I've had on.

You see I have tons of notes.

That I- My page is blank. Well, I'm so present, man. I'm so present. I've gotta be more present with you, but usually people listen just like educational stuff. This is a different type of anything. I know, I know.

But I like that we're just, we're yapping and absolutely. I interrupted, so I'm sorry.

No, you're good. I interrupt a lot. I interrupt too much. It's one of the things I have to look in the mirror and say, hey, just listen more. Your parents, I mean, my father just passed this year. I'm sorry. Thank you. And it was a 17-year journey of him passing. He had a traumatic brain injury in a car accident 17 years ago. Which left him physically here, but emotionally, mentally not here.

I understand.

You could have a conversation, but every time I'd see him, he'd say, Hey, didn't you play football? Where did you go to school again? It was kind of like his memory wasn't there, his personality wasn't all there. So it was extremely challenging. 17 years, it was almost like he was here, but I couldn't fully grieve his emotional death.

I understand. I do.

And so him passing this year, in February allowed me to kind of have a allow myself to heal and grieve fully, right? Still extremely emotional and sad. The whole thing was sad.

Right.

But allow me to have a little bit more peace and connect them in a different way that I wasn't able to spiritually, right? But both parents passing in one year, I can't even imagine what that's like. Especially at the height, you know, looking for mentorship and support and parenting, all these different things that you were probably wanting.

Oh, yeah.

I couldn't even imagine.

They were the voices of absolute truth, you know, when I would go to them. They may not have understood everything in my occupation, but they were home and.

They allowed you to come back.

Pure love from two different vantage points. My dad, old school, very like, you know, just a lot of kind of like that mentality of like, you know, life is wins and losses. But then there was my mom, who's just so loving and compassionate. And it was all about love and beauty. And so it was a nice. companion ship to have with my parents up until they passed away, which was so confusing.

And how old were you then?

I was 20, man, oh boy, 29.

Okay. Still very young in your development. I felt like when I was, I feel like the last three years is when I really learned how to become a human, right?

Oh yeah. I was just getting smart in my eyes, like really understanding more than what I thought I brought to the table.

So the two questions I have are, what were the biggest lesson your mom and dad taught you before their passing? And then the biggest lesson that each one of them taught you since them passing?

Man, you know, for everything I talk about my mom, and it's always from a perspective of hope, it's always from a perspective of championing somebody, she also could be extremely blunt about people. And even though she understood that everybody's in their own experience, and it might mean that they're not quite ready to be a part of your experience, however, that her language and her ability to say, people suck, People suck. People can really suck sometimes. So, I know you want to always open your heart and you want to do A, B, and C. But at the same time, be ready to protect yourself. Be ready to create a boundary. Totally. Again, the word that I didn't really quite experience or have in place until maybe the last 12 years of my life. But just my mom's ability to have all this great authentic love and hope and whimsy and and yet she could, you know, straightforward tell me, you know, it's a brutal world, you know? So as much as all that stuff does exist, there are pockets of. And I'm not saying the exact language my mom would say, but she wasn't afraid to point to me and, you know, protect yourself. Okay. And she also knew that. She also knew that I had a pretty. exciting career ahead of me, even early in my life. And so she would say things early when I still felt very insignificant, like people are going to be very jealous of you. People are going to be coming after you because they know that you're sensitive, but at the same time, nobody sparkles like you. And people want that. And I remember talking to her once and realizing, I tell this to a lot of people. When I see the sparkle in somebody, I want to. I want to celebrate them. I want to tell you, you're doing something so beautiful and unique and whatever it might be. but I tell them what my mom said, which is now protect that.

Protect the sparkle.

Of course, because I think everybody has a time in their life when they can have it. I don't think it's something that just like some people have or just an it factor. I think when you, when you know you're in your lane and you put in the work and you know passion more than anybody else around you, even if they say they support you and then you're in your moment and oftentimes I think people snuff themselves out in that moment because either they feel so isolated and alone or they feel that there's a lot of animosity. When one person breaks away from the, you know, a mediocre group, then you're a target. You know, they talk you up and then the moment you're out there alone, it's real easy to look at, I wish that was me.

Or he's not as good as he thinks he is or whatever. Yeah. I know him from when he was this way.

Exactly. So she she gave me all that. That was all, like, stuff that in, in hindsight, I could look at and realize, oh, man, she gave me, like, some seeds that were planted that would help me, you know, before she passed. And then later after, I was like, oh, I just got to go to what my mom told me and just find the right people around me to help bring that out of me so I can really understand it.

So that was before her passing. What was the biggest lesson since she's passed that she's taught you?

Yeah, I mean, I'm in love. And I met a woman that I feel like it completely complements each other in a way that was so unusual, I didn't even know if it really existed. I kind of was unsure if that was just some, you know, romance version of, but for now five years and I'm engaged, I finally have that person I feel like is a team with me. I love her. I love her family. I'm in love with her as a man to say, like, I'm really in love with you. I never said that. I didn't say anything like that, but I say it because it's everything. It's I wouldn't be where I am without her and to love this woman and her family and to share all these common things that we want to do together, but to support each other separate ideas. It's like, Mom, I did it. I finally met that teammate. So that's what she gave to me. I wish he could know her.

Oh man. That's beautiful.

Yeah, man. I feel really fortunate. A little later than I thought, you know, I'm 50. But I was dumb until I was about 38. So I think the timing is probably, you know, now I'm ready for whatever that next step is.

Absolutely. Okay. And your father, biggest lesson he taught you before passing and after?

A lesson that I didn't even know he taught me, which was don't go down that road of dependency to alcohol or dependency, addiction. It's a disease. I spent a lot of time with great friends, mentors in AA. I'll go to AA meetings just because I love it. I love the truth that's happening in that room. Even if it's sometimes caustic or, you know, the vulnerability. There's things, yes, and I admire that kind of communication. I really admire, I get goosebumps now, like thinking of a recent, you know, conversation that I was privy to. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I heard it in '92 or '93 with a friend of mine at a meeting. I locked it into my heart and I realized pretty early that my dad had all these abilities and yet this liquid, when it got into his body, it brought up a lot of things that I later learned were trauma for him. There was a lot of reasons that he wanted to kind of stifle.

And numbing the pain.

Yeah, and I didn't want to numb it. I had a lot of pain. I could have, I felt like I was so broken as a kid and like I said, self-loathing and you name it. Like I had every kind of like bad onus I could put on myself. I thought that liquid when I saw my dad doing it, I thought, man, what if that stuff just accentuates all of that and I can never find happiness? So that was a gift that he didn't even realize he gave to me, which was, don't do this.

But it's funny, as kids, we either kind of mirror our parents and follow in their footsteps or we see what we don't like and we say, I'm never gonna do this thing.

My mom would say to me after rough nights with my dad where things could get pretty, you know, sometimes violent or sometimes just, you know, as I look at it, look back, it's like we lived on a tilt and I didn't know that my life was on a, on a skew for years. I just got used to living unbalanced because of alcoholism. It wasn't until I had my own home and I learned what that is to finally be on a solid ground. We learned how to constantly be at that like in a pivot state.

-It'S exhausting though.

-Oh, totally, totally. My mom would actually sleep. I'd sometimes go into her bedroom. My dad would be you know somewhere at a bar or whatever. She'd have one foot on the floor outside of the comforter. And one time I said, why you sleep like that? She said, I sleep with one foot ready, because when your dad gets home, I need to get up quick and figure out what version of him just came home.

Really?

Yeah.

She's sleeping on the bed?

She's sleeping in the bed with one foot already out, because she wanted to be able to throw that blanket off and get to the door. So he wouldn't come in and like, maybe, I don't know, he's disruptive or, you know, something that, you know, he doesn't know where the bathroom is and he's in our room or like something that's just like gross or, you know, unprecedented moment of like, frustration. He could bring a lot of different things. And by the way, he could also be the most unbelievably kind, beautiful, believing, passionate person. But this other side from his own misery. So, you know, that was like, you know, my mom saying, be the best. Be the best of your father. She would say, be the best parts of him, but don't be that part. Wow.

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Fidelity Brokerage Services member NYSE SIPC. What do you feel like was the... I mean, I've done a lot of healing work on my own kind of childhood traumas. And over the last couple of years, I'll show you my phone, I started a practice where I have a photo of myself on my phone from when I was younger. And I had an even younger version of myself on there. I was sexually abused when I was a kid by a man that I didn't know. And for 25 years, I never told anyone. And I've opened up about it publicly on my show many times. But for 25 years, it was this underlying unspoken shame, guilt, insecurity, trauma that.

And confusion, so much confusion. So much confusion.

What's wrong with me and am I the only one? And how do I talk about this? And if anyone knows this, would anyone actually love me? That was the fear.

Right, right.

What was the biggest-- Or who could.

Hurt me as well.

Who would use this against me?

Exactly. No, I understand that.

What was the biggest trauma or pain or wound that you later in life had to realize and start mending and healing? that gave you that peace that, again, I felt like I masked certain things as an athlete and being successful in business to project totally power and strength and confidence. But inside there was a hurt little boy.

Right.

And it wasn't until I started the healing journey where I started to look myself in the eyes in the mirror and love myself.

Right.

And accept myself and heal that journey and forgive and all those things.

Right.

What was that? main wound or trauma that you have been able to heal over the years that have allowed you to have more acceptance and peace of yourself?

Yeah, I remember just one feeling that was so enormous in the house was humiliation. There was a lot of humiliation.

Towards you?

I felt it towards me, but I also felt like there was a feeling just even in the neighborhood, the police are at the cookhouse again and we were We were really, my mom similar to me, like what do people think of us? Her own kind of anxiety about her own kind of like image. She had a lot of insecurity and low self-worth. And so it was almost like this moment would be chaotic in the house and scary. And then, oh, the neighbors hear us yelling or the neighbors know the police are there. Now everybody's in your business. I just remember that feeling like that was like the malaise or like, almost like we were used to the alcoholism. We knew the bounce back and we'll be okay and have some Chinese food a couple days later and, ah, elephant in the room and thank God we're, but the humiliation that always came with it.

In the neighborhood, the community, the suffocating. Yeah, the school, the, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Who knows in the community and then how I didn't realize that what my father had allowed through those episodes how much it would kind of like haunt me. And then even later in my own humiliating moment in life through things that happened with my brother and things that just even in my career, things that were out of my control, how I immediately went into that same feeling of like people outside think a certain thing of me and I have no way of sharing, I'm not those things. You know, what other people think of me is none of my business is a beautiful quote. but it doesn't always work because you're in shambles sometimes when something gets outside of your, you know, the safe haven that you're protecting yourself with. So humiliation was a major factor in, like, probably how I perpetuated certain things or didn't perpetuate certain things.

And when did you start to address that, you know, either with your partner or therapist or. And start the healing journey of that?

Yeah, probably in therapy. You know, I got into therapy, got a therapist that was great with the grieving stuff that I needed to learn.

-From parents and other things.

-Yeah. I didn't know how to grieve. I was... -The funny guy.

Let's just go back to humor.

-The night my dad had passed away, I had been in Vancouver. I was making a film. I flew back to see my dad who was like hours away from passing away. And one thing about my dad is he loved business. He loved talking about business. He was so proud of me when I started really teaching him. This is how I built my business. He understood it's not just fan, this is how I'm, I know dad, I know regions, I know who lives, I'm popular here, I build it out, I do radio tours here, so and like he loved that information. So when I said to him, you know, he's on his, you know, deathbed and I said, Dad, I have to, I have a contractual obligation one day that I couldn't get out of, they let me come back to be here now, I gotta go and then I have to come back. And in that time that I left, he had finally passed away.

Oh, no.

Yeah, but I knew. I really understood.

But you had a conversation, you got to see him, you got to speak with him.

Man, like, you know, we won't go there today, 'cause-- All right. But it was beautiful. It was a beautiful, forgiving, manly, but still boys. The boy in him and the boy in me almost felt like Matt. He'd had a stroke a few months before he couldn't communicate in those last weeks. He could only say one word. It's like an im there's a certain stroke that's forgive me, it's almost like a certain impact that you get where you say one word. He couldn't communicate except to say like school, school, school, school, school, school. And yet we had the most beautiful conversations, even though we couldn't say everything exactly with the right vernacular. we could communicate in a way that I'd always hoped to have with my father. So when I left that night, I get to LA and my sister Courtney is like, Dad, Dad, he's passed away. And I went on stage two hours later.

Oh my gosh.

I didn't know what else to do. And I wasn't in the process of grieving at that. All I knew was he raised me to win. I'll go win tonight. I'm gonna go on stage. And I told the crowd at the midway point of the show, I said, My dad just died.

Holy cow.

Yeah. And of course, one guy was like, like, there's always one weird laugh. And then I'm like, you're laughing, but I know. And then I talked about my dad. I told some stories that I knew the crowd kind of knew from past. It was funny. And it was me, you know, kind of like an homage to my father. But that was also a night that I went home. I was like, as much as that felt good to do, I'm like, I think there's another way I need to My mom had already passed and then here's my dad and I'm like, I don't really know how to be sad. I don't really know how to really let that come through me in a real meaningful healthy way. I had to learn that. Wow.

Was there a time when you finally allowed yourself to open up and crack open emotionally and grieve?

Yeah. Oh yeah.

And not turn to humor as the comfort.

Grief turns to celebration. I find that when you like, can you round that corner and you can finally realize that like, yeah, there may be, certainly nobody has a quintessential upbringing and you kind of finally have to realize there are certain things that, you know, are things that you may be perpetuating. You need to find even maybe forgiveness or closure yourself, you know, admit things to yourself that maybe you could have done differently or wanted to do and then acknowledging the love. the, you know, they brought me into this world. These are the gifts they gave me. These are the things that they acknowledge. These are the things that I got to show my parents. And then sitting in with the therapist and not only going through what all of that meant to really, you know, let it all go in a, in a, like, in one real, you know, I'm, I'm the most in touch I'm ever going to be with myself emotionally right at this moment, and hopefully For years to come. But then from that being like, alright, that felt good. Now, what else can I be doing to try to relegate outsiders to stay outside and start building up like my own fortress of solitude with true genuine love for the people who love me just for me and not for any other reason. I'm going to quit comedy. I want to start over. I want to do that. Who really is there for you? And it's five words that are now in my life and in even my routine in above it all. you'll hear me say this because I love to put a lot of my truth even in comedy. Mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, caring. If people around you don't check those boxes, go.

Say one more time.

Mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, caring, collaborative.

I think a lot of people in business want to be competitive. And it sounds like that was kind of like the scene growing up for you in comedy where it was not as like, Hey, I want to see you succeed and you succeed and Let's collaborate together. It was more like, there's not enough fans for everyone, you know, type of mentality.

It was like the fatalities in Mortal Kombat. You were just waiting. Somebody wanted to come, you know, and grab that spot, and you don't learn till you're a little bit older. There's plenty of room for everybody on the beam here. We don't all have to knock each other off. But in that era of, you know, where I was at that young age and finding self-made success, it was like competitive. you know, constantly.

I feel like the only way it's exhausting living that life. I lived that life in sports and then kind of in my first, I don't know, five, six years of business, it was more subconscious, like competitive. Like, I want to be the best. I want to win.

I want to dominate, right?

Yeah, you just listen to that karate kid theme.

Exactly.

But then about 10 years ago, I started realizing like, okay, I'm accomplishing, I'm making money, I'm having success externally, but internally I wasn't feeling fulfilled.

Right.

And it was right around the time I launched School of Greatness 10 years ago, I was like, I don't want this to be the Lewis Howes Show, although there's nothing wrong with that.

Right.

I was like, I want this to be about something bigger than me, and I want to bring on brilliant people like yourself who've done incredible things in the world and make it about them and lift others up. And whenever we've put the spotlight on someone else in a unique and inspiring way, usually there's a reflection. And so I think when I see, you know, comedians today who are collaborating with their friends and say, we're all gonna be on stage, and maybe I'm the headliner, but I wanna bring you guys with me.

I'm spotlighting each other.

It's cool to see people lifting each other up in the podcast world, the comedy world, the business world as well. It's really cool. I'm curious, what lessons has fame taught you? Because you kind of were in the fame world in the, not many big comedians really who are like, globally known. Maybe there's a handful, but you got into that spotlight in LA, the whole scene. What did fame teach you about yourself and about life? And for people that think they want to be well known or have a big audience or have the platform or have the following, what should people know about fame? Were you ready for it? And how do you wish you would have been more prepared? For the spotlight.

This is like, let's, this is like two hour part two. Oh, man, let me boil it down to some of the, I guess, fundamentals. First thing about fame is at first, it's a blast, right? Because it just facilitates every empty pocket void, every no that you've ever thought, like, oh, they wouldn't let me be a part of that club. Or, you know, every rejection from girls.

I told you, I told you.

Be somebody? So yeah, like be lying if you didn't say like the dopamine hit of fame at first. And then very quickly, almost immediately, you get a little bit of a window of opportunity where it's like really just about like it's very flowery, you know, it's part of like the talk up, right? And then you have to understand that the whole thing is contingent on a narrative that has nothing to do with you. and there's going to be a version of you that's here. And then let's use the internet as like the, that, that, that's a show. That's a show that you participate in by posting and stuff as well. But there's a narrative that takes place, sometimes several. There's a few versions of Dane Cook. There's a few versions of you name a person. There's, there's hybrid versions. And depending on what kind of person you are, you follow that narrative. There's a narrative of me in People magazine that's very like homegrown and you know likes to just you know proposing on the side. And people that's the love narrative and people want to everything about you. They just it's almost like it's almost overwhelming amount of what they believe your life is in that version. Then there's another version that's very salacious. There's a version of your your narrative that's been pretty much hijacked is the way I refer to it. I've had my narrative hijacked to where a story goes, somebody says something, everybody goes, we want that to be true. He's a bad guy. And then they'll talk that up to the point where it feels like a real person. It just takes one person to say it too. That's the thing is, I sometimes feel like the internet, everybody's like, somebody just say it. Somebody just say that one thing based on that meme or somebody, and we'll all just take it.

And then amplify it.

Amplify it. And you've got to sit back and realize it's never going away. It's always going to be a version of a conversation where people are going to be, one time I heard about a thing, and it's imperative to do two things. I'll keep it on the list of two since we don't do ones and threes here. The two things is to always be able to share your narrative, share your truth, even if it's not always easy to do. If you can in real time be letting people know these are the overwhelming things I deal with or the things through my, you know, a great marriage that I'm in or something I'm learning from my kids. Whatever you can do to truly always keep your narrative front and center, that's important. And also, the greatest thing I've learned in the last 12 years is anything that you garner, give it to somebody else who needs that support or love.

What do you mean?

That's the whole thing. That means that means that I identify myself, right? I jokingly, I'm the old bull, yeah, I got some wisdom now, but truthfully, all I want to do is take any of that energy and, you know, even if it's impulsive or if it's a version of an idea that's kind of like my rag tag, I just want to find people and be able to share some form of knowledge with them. It's not early fame is I got it. It's about me. I did it. I'm here. And then you go a little further along and say, Man, it feels so much better to help somebody else cultivate their dream, to be a part of what you now know as a famous person. This is a show. This is hard. And it's a lot of people that are there for the wrong reasons. And if you can be one of the people that says, I don't need anything from you. I don't want anything from you, but I would like to share something with you. And where that is for me, where a lot of that lives is, is this kind of sentiment statement that I came up with a few years ago. When you're at your rock bottom, I've been to a few rock bottoms, but when you're really there, don't be so quick to try to come up for air.

Really?

Don't try to like in a almost panicked way escape it. Take a beat and acknowledge what's happening around you.

And evaluate.

Evaluate?

Yeah.

Understand the level of brokenheartedness you feel or whatever got you to that point. Really take a second to let just let it all in. The same way you want to let the biggest laugh out when you're laughing, take a minute when you're at rock bottom of the ground because I promise you, I absolutely guarantee, which is not something that you would really put on anything. you will come up with more data that leads to your success. It's all at that bottom. Really? It's, everything is at that bottom. I would even go so far as to say, you put yourself, you needed to see that bottom. The hurdles I talked about earlier, the obstacles, all those things I realized in life, like they start to dissipate once you see that they really don't have any power. The power is, I put them there to, put a limit on myself. And why do I put a limit on myself? Because I'm truly scared. And if I only go this far, then that makes me go, I'm okay because I went this far. Why don't I want to think further? Why can't I be of value to you, to strangers? So hitting that rock bottom moment for me, and I, like I said, I hit a couple that were like really like undertow moments. I could learn to look around and go, I'm coming up from this. When I finally like take that big breath of air, I'm going to come with more data in my own personal analytics, and I'm going to use these things in a way that nobody else would think to use them, which is to further myself as a better contributing member to my community.

Wow. Okay, so if you could go back to the version of you before really things started to take off, before you got famous and known, what would you tell yourself though to be ready for?

I don't know, man. I don't know. I'm so complete in some ways. And by the way, not fully. I definitely still like, I'm a, I like to recalibrate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that means I took it apart. Now, I don't even know if I know how to do this a different way or whatever. So I understand that feeling of being like back behind the eight ball in some way, shape or form. But if I could go back, I guess the one thing you kind of want to whisper, like, you know, you come up in a hoodie and you get, is just, Something that my mom used to always try to remind me, which is be your best friend. Be your best friend to yourself. To you. Because I was not. I didn't, I actually didn't like, my mom would say that rubbing my back helped me to come down from it. You have to be your own friend. And I thought it was so weird. And I didn't like it for so many years. Mom, I don't want to be, I want friends. I want someone else to make me feel good. It took so, so long to finally realize when you can look at yourself in the mirror and really enjoy your own company, you know, your high water marks, which you need to celebrate, and even the rock bottom moments that you know you came back from with better data and a better version of yourself moving forward, that's the place that you want to be. So I would tell that to myself. Just be your own friend and, you know, breathe.

How many people who have fame, again, I'm not calling out names or anything, but just in your own opinion.

How many people call out names? This next segment is names.

Exactly. How many people do you think who have developed some type of fame truly are their own best friend and love themselves, or are more putting on a mask to try to protect their fears and insecurities?

I know a lot of different kinds of fame. I know people that are famous and they're very good at it, and they're very good at the facade, and that's their that's their storefront window. You know, it's for, you know, whatever their pomp and circumstance and like fame comes in so many different elements. Some people are, you know, filling a void. Some people are truly like running away from something completely. Other people want that because with more fame there's more power and that means controlling people. You know, every version of fame I feel like I've broken bread with at some point or another. but I also know that I've had the experience of working alongside of people that are genuinely some of the most fascinating, inspiring, creative people. Kevin Costner is an example of I worked with Kevin 15 years ago on a film called Mr. Brooks. He trusted me to play a dramatic role, even though I was a kid that people knew just from comedy. I was being pigeonholed pretty quick and did not want that. And he believed in me and he gave me this shot. and I mean forget about dances with wolves, forget about the untouchables, forget about like, but then it was like learning about all the charity work that he was doing and learning about like the crew and the people around him that like want so desperately to be a part of that next idea and just how he handled himself and treated his crew. It made me go, I want to be a better version of myself based on what this gentleman is sharing with me. And oh, by the way, very funny. You know, just could, could you know, be quick with humor in a stressful moment. And I feel like people like him, and I've been fortunate to be surrounded with people that are really like the best version of fame. The magnifying to where it magnifies their creativity, but it magnifies their generosity.

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Yeah.

It expresses who you are more to people. If you're a generous and kind person before you have money, you'll be more generous and kind.

Very true.

If you're narcissistic and angry and scared, you're going to be more of those things. Yeah, probably the same thing with fame, right?

A lot of that, yeah, especially like early fame. It's, yeah, really, you are now part of this somewhat considered elite inner circle that once you're in, there's really nobody else in that circle that truly is like, here's how we do things here. Who understands it? It's completely discombobulated. And like I said, there's no playbook for it. and there's also no real way to protect yourself from some of the stabs and some of the takes. And so you have to almost go with whatever gets taken. You know, I don't want to delve too deep into this today.

Yes.

But, you know, I put my brother in prison because we're actually doing a documentary about that era of my life. And he went to jail for stealing from me. He worked with me. He helped me, you know, Pay my bills.

Yes.

He was taking an exorbitant amount of money and he ended up going to prison. And the one thing I did say in the courtroom when I read an impact letter, it's called a victim impact letter, I said, the thing you forgot was, forget about how competitive I am with me. I'm not competitive with, I'm really not, unless we're on war zone or maybe golf. I'm a competitive person with me. I set a thing for myself and I want to exceed that expectation. And he knew that. And I said, you forgot that these things light my fire. And you lit a forest fire. And I said, but what you really forgot, and I read this in the letter, I said, you forgot that you could take anything you want from me. And maybe people will again, but you'll never take what's in here.

Wow.

That's the most valuable currency I have and nobody's getting that. Wow. Unless watch on the way home, somebody will knock me out of a van and then somebody takes my brain.

Oh, no.

No, no, but it was a powerful moment to be able to say that to him and acknowledge and pretty quickly understand, I'm gonna be okay. You know, this, I'm very different from what he did to me, but I'm also, it's forming who I meant to be, which is a person that you want to have on your life, in your life, because I don't want anything from anybody except for you to see value in you. And then that's the high I get is being like, yes, I knew we all saw that in you. And when you triumph, I get to sit somewhere, you know, eating my popcorn, being like, this is all the sparkle in that person. My mom would be very proud that I seek that person out and said, I hope that you're getting a lot of people saying, don't stop, because you're. You're good.

You're good, kid. That's beautiful, man. How did you learn or have you forgiven the people in your life, whether it be your brother or others who have hurt you or taken from you or, you know, backstabbed you or lied to you, manipulated you. Have you been able to forgive all these people? Not all, but, you know, yeah, I definitely have.

I've had a lot of hard conversations, as I call it. You know, you got to have hard conversations in life. Which is the first step, at least. First step. I mean, sitting almost similar to, like, what you want to do is take a table. You want to sit knee to knee. with another human being and you want to open up and you want to say, open body, you have a hard conversation and you allow it, you know? Okay. And then the best thing you can do is fall on the sword and talk about yourself first and what you think that you may have done. Maybe that was a disservice. You got to acknowledge first. Nobody wants to hear you. A point and a you is like a quick way to somebody needs a bathroom break and then they're driving away.

This is the thing I take responsibility for on how I could have been better.

The reason I want to speak to you today is because I don't like how I feel when I think of us. It hurts me to know that we've hurt each other. And if you can find a way to ingratiate yourself and we not you.

Did this to me.

Yeah, yeah. And by the way, maybe it isn't, I've had hard conversations where it wasn't necessarily something I did, but I still have to, you still want to be able to say like, you know, your version, your way of like, in searching my feelings when I think of you or us, It pings me in a way that I want to understand. And will you help me to understand? And so from having those hard conversations, it has, man, it's so much further than the simplicity of the answer, but it's allowed me to always acknowledge that I'm a flawed person. I can take responsibility and accountability, but I can also sit with you and acknowledge in a healthy way that if there was a moment where I had the baton and I was in front, that's, I'm going to celebrate an accomplishment as well. And I want people around me to know you can celebrate your accomplishment with me. This world we've created where everything has to be somewhat like, you know, everybody's at some kind of maintained decorum, I don't know. If you have your moment, it's like you you should be upfront, you should be touted. How many of them do you get in life? So I say, you know, you don't play those moments down. You have hard conversations with people and you say, like, I want to be able to celebrate my victories with you through you. But I also want you to be able to come to me and know, like, I'm the real deal. Absolutely. I'm a straight shooter. And whether it's a big, big win or, like, you fell in your face, I'm going to be the first person to be like, this is what I saw from my two cents. Those are the people you want in your life, man.

You're a deep dude, man.

I try, man. I love it. We get one ticket on this ride. I love it. One ticket. And the energy we create, I do believe that whatever you believe after, it's like, I think we take it with us. Absolutely. So I'm just trying to entertain people. The new show is about celebrating 30 years of stand-up comedy to do something aesthetically beautiful. It's a beautiful special with an incredible legendary director, Marty Cohn. And to really show people, I'm standing on my porch. This is the most transparent, vulnerable version and place you could be. This is my home. You're really in my home. But this is the shit that I worked my ass off on for years. It's ready to go for public consumption, but I've mixed in something that I've always wanted to have, which I can now say is introspection.

Right, and I'm gonna keep asking you questions, but you've got this.

Oh wait, so now you got this. Oh, wait a second, hold on. The notebook just had a couple of click notes.

I want to make sure I get it right. I was seeing the bio up there before. I haven't looked at it once, but I want to make sure, because I want to keep asking you some questions.

I think are gonna be really powerful.

Above it all. But above it all is out October 4th.

It's pre-order now, but then officially through dancook.com, it's like, you know, it's accessible to everybody, which I love.

It's exciting. So go to dancook.com, pre-order it now, or if you're listening after, go get it and watch it.

Yeah.

Curious about forgiveness because we touched on this for a second. Is there a moment, person or thing that you have yet to fully forgive in your life?

Yeah. In those hard conversations, sometimes you actually have to come to terms that like, yeah, listen, we're not ready. It's not just like, right. But this is a start. So yeah, no, there's been hard conversations that we agree to disagree, but that's okay. Some of the best friendships I have are from things that I thought were depleted But we revisited and then there's a new respect that gets formed sometimes of being like, man, we aired it out. We said some not so nice things.

But at least we shared our truth.

Yeah, but we both have maybe our fathers have passed away. And even though we agree on next to nothing, we can both agree that we love our dads and we want to be good kids for them for the rest of our life. Now, if we can't start from there and do something together, right, I, you.

Know, Or maybe it doesn't mean you're going to be partners on every business moving forward or close friends, but at least you can resolve some of the past pain or hurts and say, I accept you from a distance and I wish you the best.

Yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean we're forging a path together, but it means, oh man, I know that if we do bump into each other in some way, shape or form, that there is a respect there because we both understand a very simple human thing that we both you know, have gone through that pain together.

Do you feel like you've been able to figure, forgive yourself fully for just everything in life?

It's been a lot. It's been work. Yeah. There was times in my life where I felt like, you know, I lost my way. Definitely during, like, coming to, you know, be successful. Definitely lost my way. And probably in my own failures had tried to create a version of myself that, like, I thought pleased people. And so I didn't always treat my relationships with care. And I think that part of that too is just feeling maybe that selfish moment of like the hubris. It's about me right now.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And what I realized then was, oh man, it's not necessarily just about the women that I was with. It was the women that I was with were affiliated with alcoholism. And I knew the love of alcoholism. Okay. The love of alcoholism for me from my dad was there's chaos, and then there's calm and really great. I'm sorry is in love. And so you repeat the cycle. Yeah.

So the alcohol, you weren't using alcohol, but you're using or not using, but you were experiencing this with women as like it was alcohol. Yeah.

Yeah. And like, obviously, like, these relationships aren't going to be fulfilling because at the core of them, there's a pain. There's a bit of a pain. Yeah, there's loss involved in this. And so probably where I have the most, because of that, I would sometimes be like, well, if I'm with a person who's going to cause me this pain, then I don't care if I cause them pain. And so it kind of lets you off the hook to say, oh, you know, this is kind of power for the course. We're both not being great to and for each other. And I had to realize, you know, wholeheartedly that that was right. You know, that was me creating an ability for myself to get away with more of what I wanted for me. And, you know, that was going to be a very lonely Road going further if I continue to pull those kinds of people close.

How did you learn to break that cycle. And now you're engaged and it sounds like you have an amazing relationship and you have this deep connection.

One friend with one great line of advice. A good friend of mine, Paul, sat down with me and he just said one time, I said, man, this relationship and this and then, you know, and then like I'm half in and half out of it. And I just don't like how it makes me feel, you know what I mean? It doesn't feel like that's like my personal constitution and yet I'm living this way with like, and he said, easily. He said, it's because you know the love of alcoholism. That's the love that you think you deserve is that. And I was like, like a speechless moment when I rarely get, like, I just sat there in my, we're in my living room, and I was like, I need to change this. I need to change the people that I'm in, I'm surrounding myself with. And the women that I'm meeting, I need to meet somebody who's very different, very healthy and something that I was maybe afraid to have, which was somebody that really was all the things that I'm being honest with you about, like calling me on my sh*t. Let's have a... We're equal. I'm not better because of what I did. That's all hullabaloo. That's just stuff to bolster you up. I wanted somebody who just was very human and loving, mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, caring. And I wanted somebody who I could sit with and just feel like the value is just the love that's here.

Not the fame or the success or money or what's happening.

No, because that by that point has come and gone so many times. I've had more, I don't know if it's an ebb or a flow or a, you know, it's finicky a career. It's so much, it's, it's, it doesn't matter. What matters is what you put your creativity into and how you feel in the moment creating it matters so much more than the zeitgeist.

Being in the culture and selling out the arenas.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, it would be terrible to say to you, that's what I aspire to. A single destination of an arena or yeah, I want to play beautiful places in the world. I love that my comedy can do that, but what's more important is me going like, all right, how can I collaborate and help some of the people around me that are like, man, I have an idea for something that I'm excited. And I'm like, that's where I get.

Really the most kick.

The creative juices, the energy, the strategy of new beginnings. Out of the gate, people, I love them.

I want to champion those kinds of people. So how did you, when you met your fiance, from that one conversation with, I think, Paul is the name. Paul. From that moment till when did you meet your fiance? Yeah. And what did you have to overcome the fears or insecurities that was really sounds like keeping you from true intimacy and allowing people to see you fully is what I'm hearing.

Yeah.

And you to be received by someone with all your in flaws.

I was ready to be my full complete self, you know, everything that I am, what I bring to the table. I was already before Kelsey doing that. I was doing that with every kind of relationship. an assertiveness unlike anything that I'd ever allowed myself to be before. Like probably, I'm sure in some people's eyes, like too assertive. But it's like, I don't let one bit of false, you know, even if I said, I don't let one bit of false, I'm the first person to be like, I f*ck up. You know what? The truth is, I actually do, you know, being just present, staying present. So when I met her, it was kind of strange because I used to host on a, I'd never had a Friday night off in my entire career. I never had a Friday or Saturday night off for 24 years. Never. And I finally had a Friday night off that at first I was really like, wow, this is, this is gonna, what do I do? So I decided, you know what I've always wanted to do? I've always wanted to have like a game night where I can invite creative people to just not do the traditional Hollywood, whatever that is, like something real East Coast and simple. Like my porch is open, sit up by the fire pit. We're gonna play code names or mafia or like running charades and like real easy. In fact, of the 30 or 40 people that would show up each week, there's barely anybody would drink. There wasn't any. And we all stayed in this like one little living room. We're all like, Living room kitchen leaners, you know what I mean? Like that's how we grew up. And so I met Kelsey when I started hosting the game night. And we were, she came with some other people brought her one. I didn't know her, but she came with some other friends. And we had people like, it was, it was a fascinating, it was kind of like one of the things that you would write about in like a book of Hollywood of like the amount of creative, interesting people that were out. Everybody. Everyone.

Yeah, yeah.

Just people that wanted to be around A nice, easy evening. Maybe a little bit of shop talk, but truly like-- Not have to be on. We're geeks, we're Star Wars fans, we all love Game of Thrones. It was just like, yeah, but some of the best of the best. I mean, I won't drop names, but people there were like, man, I can't believe I'm now friends with so-and-so. Opened up my world in a way. I'm like, man, this Friday night thing that I've been for years just never acknowledging I can have this night, a Friday night, to myself. So anyway, I meet Kelsey and she's there for a while. And then it was strange. One night we were all gonna go to karaoke. Instead of the game night, a bunch of us were gonna go do karaoke. And I was like, I'll pick up a few people. I picked up Kelsey and I was gonna pick up two or three other people. And halfway there, the guy that put it together was like, we can't do it. The babysitter, da, da, da, da. And the whole thing fell apart. So I already had Kelsey. I said, Do you wanna go get something to eat? We asked the other people. They were like, Ah, we're gonna skip it. And over two hours, I sat and I realized, man, like, this is one of the most. I mean, there's a lot of ways I want to describe it. It's special. Just a very special human being. And we had a lot of similarities, even though there's pretty good age gap. But we had so many things, like, that we kind of both came from. I can't speak for her right now, but, like, we just had a lot of things that were like, we didn't stop talking, and we were more and more realizing that, like, we had maybe, like, something stronger than a friend. friendship, even though the jokes were flowing because I'm like, I'm so much older, you're gonna change and I am who I am and I kind of didn't, I don't wanna say I pooped all over it, but the joke was like, this would never ever work. And then for about six months, actually fewer than that, I was like, I really would like to meet your parents so they know I'm a good person because I understand this, even to this day, people want to say stuff about our age difference and, you know.

What's the gap? the age.

Kelsey's 23. I'm 50. But at that point, you know, we're dating. She's like 19 and I'm 40. So understandably, like, we were, you know, being talked about the narration. The Narrative was becoming something that, you know, was not always nice.

Right, right.

You know, sometimes painful, not desirable. But anyway, I wanted to get to know her parents and getting to know her dad and then realizing, like, I love this family. I'd never had the love of a. family in a relationship like that either, where it was like. And. And not only that, but, like, the generosity and the genuineness and the things that I was realizing through this relationship were more important than anything career-wise we were already building on. So I said, this is gonna be cheesy, man. But I said when I sat here, I was gonna. Like, I'm not. I wasn't gonna. I told a friend of mine, maybe Paul, that I said, We were about a year and a half in and I said, I don't know if this is gonna... I'm a young 50. I'm 20, oh, I'm energetic. Love of the game lives in me all the time. I'm effervescent. And I said, if it only goes two years, I'm gonna give this woman all my love that I could possibly give to somebody in the most real, stark, absolute way. For two reasons. So I'll always know I did that and that for the rest of her life, maybe she'll know somebody really loved her. A man, especially in this town, the way this town operates. Then it's two years, then it's three years. And I'm like, if it goes three years, I'm just gonna give that same love. So when I know that, like, if it ends, and I kind of was like, I guess it's gonna end someday.

Yeah, yeah.

But I was like, but we're never not talking and enjoying and building and creating. We talk about music and politics and art, and there's never a dull moment. so go three years. And I'm putting this into it now that at five years, I'm like, I just love my life. And I'm saying to her, Are you sure you want to... Give me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like, you know, and I make the jokes are, sometimes they're very dark, man. Like, Kelsey and I have a great sense of humor and like the joke is, you know, I would say like, Gee, I want to start a family too late. You know, I'm gonna be saying goodbye on my deathbed to my, you know. Yeah, no, we joke and we get it. But also when we hit that five-year point, it was like, we don't want anything or anybody else. And it was very apparent by her the things that she wanted aligned with the things that I was hoping. And here we are. Wow, man. Yeah, man, it was a gift. I feel like it's like a gift from the universe. And it was kind of funny to be with somebody too. She didn't really know about the success and that she knew she got it.

She wasn't born yet.

She was like, no, no, it's like we don't, that's in my act. There's a whole routine in the act about Kelsey and I. So I hope people see that we can have fun with it as well. But the center point of the whole thing is it's two people that really just care so much about each other.

What's the thing you love about Kelsey the most?

Just her heart. The way she communicates about how she feels about things. It's all this, man. It's all this same kind of, we talk about it, we say we've always had just such an, everything is so real, you know, everything. There's no hidden agendas. There's no, the things that we both talk about that we want, it's like, there's no, it's no frills. It's the most authentic kind of relationship that you'd want with anybody. That's beautiful. And so it's, yeah, man. It's the best thing that's happened to me.

I appreciate you opening up and taking the time, 'cause I think it's really inspiring to hear your journey and your story. And I don't think everyone's heard you speak in this way consistently, the way you've been opening up.

So I really appreciate that.

Oh, man, I appreciate this is a-- this is fun, man. Great, great chat. This is fun, man. I wanna ask a little bit about business and strategy and kind of like the business-- Business.

I love it. Which is a whole four hour conversation. We're gonna wait 15 minutes.

That's what I'm saying.

If we get good ratings on this.

Thing, we might have to come back.

We'll come back exactly.

I'll wear a nicer shirt. Or maybe if you're still doing Friday nights, maybe I'll come over there and hear some stuff. Play some mafia hollers. Exactly. I'm curious, you know, you were like early in the wave of, you were like leading the way. You know, you're one of the giants that people are standing on the shoulders of now, right? It's like you've created something that people are trying to innovate with social media now and do their own specials. And Andrew Schwartz, we're talking about this. We're doing their own specials. Andrew Schultz, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talking about this, you know, all these other guys are, coming up and they're just really taking that and innovating it, right? Where do you see this going now? Being kind of like, you were calling it, what, Old Guard or something, or Old Dog in this world, but you're--.

Oh, I'm Old Bull.

Old Bull.

Old Bull. Yeah.

But you still got decades of creation and innovation. But where do you see it from where you've been, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, where the world is now with streamer opportunities to get specials. But now people are saying, I want to be able to not censor myself and just do it on my own.

Right, right.

I can make more money on my own potentially. And where do you see it heading over the next three to five years? Seeing that it's almost seems like every year things are changing very much so with streamers, Network, touring specials, digital, YouTube, Tick Tock. Like what Now, what do you see is happening in the future for comedians and artists in general?

I think anybody who's in any version of self-made creativity or innovation or even invention, it all comes down to protecting yourself with paperwork. I know it's like-- Really? Yeah, it's a little bit sexy. It's a little bit of kind of, a more modling type of answer. But the truth is, I learned after so many years that if you have a great deal with somebody who truly has like a steak, you know skin in the game, right? They want to benefit with you for whatever those reasons are, right? A, B, and C, then that's a deal worth making and taking. But for the most part, it's just about people collecting and sometimes in half-hearted way sharing your content in a way that you don't want it to be received, right? Because you know as a performer, this is how the show went. And so now that I've filmed it, I want it to be, you know, shown in that same kind of light. And so I think where these things and somebody like Andrew Schultz or CK doing it through his website for some years or I used to do things on like a, you know, sites that would provide like, you know, for $3, you can you can come in PayPal, watch my show. I would set these like fly by night evenings up. And all of that leads to where Above It All is now, which is I own the IP. Okay, so I paid for this. This special came out of my pocket. I was fortunate enough to get with the greatest comedy director Marty Cohn.

That's beautiful.

And put up my fronted the money and figured out a way to make this thing that not only was beautiful and I think aesthetically unique from a lot of the visual perspective. Cheaper things that sometimes a great comic gets with a stream or a network and then they don't want to pay anything. You know, they'll give you a little cash for your act and then they'll put even less into the set and a set is theme, a set is tone. A great editor is going to accentuate the things. If they just throw Johnny the editor who does all the edits like you're going to look like her special and his special. All these things matter. All those things are in paperwork. Edit, who we're going to hire, I want to write refusal, I want to blah, blah, blah. So, understanding legalese, but also being able to create something and then say, where do I want this to live? And then, how do I get paid back in success for it? With this special, with Moment, who's the presenter of my show, It's a contract that's like a page. And it basically says we're gonna facilitate almost like what pay-per-view used to be, maybe more so. You don't need to subscribe to a year for a streamer. You don't have to pay for something that you don't want. You just want to see this show. You can go right to my site or to moment, click on it, you can get merch, you can be part of the after party, and then that's it. That's the rapport and the relationship that I would have at a club, a theater, an arena, and now online. And what that does is it presents me with the opportunity to see where my IP goes, to see where the show goes, and to be able to collect on that in success, and to not get screwed over. And this is how people are getting screwed over. Ready? Here we go. We're getting screwed over because you sign a contract in 2018 and the jargon in there refers to streaming. Well, two years later, streaming is called downloading or vice versa. And so now the language doesn't quite protect you because some of your stuff is still considered streaming and some of it and then man, there's a new thing now, two years called Hyperstream.

Right, right.

Now that person who owns your IP in partnership with you, partnership which by the way, they don't allow you to look at the books, they don't allow you to look at the numbers. That's not much of a partnership. Then they take and they're putting in Hyperstreaming but you're still getting your kickback from streaming or downloading. You will get lost in the shuffle. Somebody called me recently and said, I have a 30-page contract. I said, Stop. I said, 30 pages is too much for this thing that you're talking about at your level. That should be a three-page contract. You should be able to sit there.

And read that and understand it.

And no, perpetuity is a bad word. And then there's some other things that are that you're going to want to change in there. Where we are right now, with the success of Schultz, with the success of some of these other independent artists, I know even like Bieber went through the moment route. Scooter Braun is one of the investors. Amazing entrepreneurial guy. And wish I could meet him to thank him firsthand because you never met him? He's a great guy.

No, I don't know him.

But you know, now I'm working. You play basketball? I do.

Come out and play basketball sometimes. I'm not going to say no to that.

I'll bring you out sometime when I'm playing with them. I may have to wear knee braces on the left. I bang underneath too. But it's really like Scooter and those guys in Moment, Bart Coleman and everybody, great group of people over there. And what they're providing is the opportunity to say, not only here's your show that you own and operate, we want to put you in the best light, but when you leave that experience, they give you all the analytics. Nobody Bogarts your emails or you get the email list, you get all the numbers, you get the regions, you get the, you have all the data you'd want if you were a comic, like I was in 96, you'd pick up that piece of paper where somebody would fill out the comment card, say, We had a good time. We're from so-and-so. And you go, Now, I have an email or a phone number. Data is the currency.

-You own the data. -You own the data.

-Not the streamer or the network or whatever. -Yeah. -I'll be able to pay my... I'm going to recoup hopefully very quickly with my investment. And now, I have something that looks completely unique, beautiful piece of art with Great Marty Colmer and the best part is maybe a streamer or somebody calls and says, now we want it. And then you can go, okay, let's then let's shrink that deal down. And hopefully what we're going to see in the next couple of years to answer more directly is less about these long term and you're chasing royalties and mechanical royalties and all this. It's like mumbo jumbo to say, can we put it on our streamer for six months? Why is that better? Because they've got six months, they're on the clock. You want to sell it? Sell it.

Promote it for me.

Where's the billboards for most of these things? I have friends that are huge comedians. Nobody's even knowing their specials out. It's on a splash page.

It's not even available. You have to look for it, search for it, yeah.

Yeah, special should be special. Special should, you know, and-- Give it a moment.

Yeah, exactly.

So we've created something that I know, I mean, listen, Marty KalnEr, I know what I bring to the table. That man is such a brilliant director that when I looked at the cut, I said, Marty, this is like, this is the best I've ever been. And it's because I know you knew how to capture my version of storytelling.

I mean, you've had some great stuff. This is the best you've ever been.

This is the best. Wow. This is it. Because of that, you know, I had some tools in the, you know, in the Arsenal in, oh, you know, 0567. And then, then I learned things. I was like, oh, man, if I can Implement that into the routine. So now I've got an act that.

I think covers a lot of bases. That's exciting. And when you do, you know, stand up for 30 years or whatever you've been doing for. you've just figured out what works consistently.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You start to understand that people love not only the musicality that you bring to whatever your tempo and your style, I guess, but people talking about what we spoke to earlier, people just love the truth. And if you can share truth, observe and report, or personal truth, then you've got, for the most part, a fan for life. They want to check in and go, what's next?

I'm excited to watch this above-- I'm.

Gonna send you a link. You don't even need it. I got 10 giveaway links.

I'm gonna-- you- want to watch party here or now? What's that?

You're doing a watch party here in LA or now? Oh, we're doing a big premiere at the TCL Chinese Theater, the historic Chinese Theater. That's the night before-- On the third, okay. First comic to-- on the fourth. First comic to ever do screening and theater one, the big famous Star Wars theater. Ooh, that's cool. And again, man, it's so exciting, man. It's so exciting.

It really is. I want people to follow you. You're @danecook everywhere. You're also danecook.com. They can go and get the special there or through the moment. I guess it's, is it moment.com?

Yeah, it's moment.co. But if they go to danecook.com, it's right there.

Swing your arm. So go to danecook.com. I'm excited to watch this. I want people to watch it. I think it's gonna be really powerful.

If you're saying it's your best stuff. Yeah. that's in the eyes and the ears of your audience. I've been in the edit bay and we had a screening and I liked what I saw.

I'm excited, man. I'm very excited about it. I appreciate it. I've got two final questions for you. I want to make sure people get this, follow you on social media.

What's your social media platform of choice? I like TikTok. TikTok. Yeah. It's like Myspace 2.0. I feel like it's really vibrant. I feel like the people that are on there are really, really genuinely creative and excited. to be a part of that platform. So that's where I kind of do.

Most of my lives and stuff. This question is called the three truths question. Okay. So it's a hypothetical question. Oh boy. Imagine it's your last day on earth. You get to live as long as you want to live. Okay. You get to have the exact career, the relationship, the family that you desire, you envision, it all comes true. Yeah. But for whatever reason, this is the last day for you.

Okay. You know, many years away.

All right.

And all of your content. I feel like I'm about to audition for a film.

Your character is Matt.

He owns the rocket ship.

The world is ending. No, just kidding. But in this hypothetical scenario, all of your content is gone. It goes with you to the next place. So we don't have access to this interview, anything you've ever written down, social media, comedy specials, we don't have access to your message. But for whatever reason, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world.

Three lessons.

From everything that you've experienced in life, It can be any topic, anything. And this is all the content we have to remember you by.

Okay.

What would those three truths be for you that you would share behind?

Yeah. Well, okay. So maybe unexpectedly, but you always have to have a little humor and a little something cutting with a little humor. It's a quote that I heard years ago and I love it. Some people brighten a room by leaving it. And I never forget that. So you don't want to be that person. Some people brighten up a room by leaving.

That's good.

I think the second thing, man, the second bit of information would be anything that I ever do, one time Mel Brooks, the great Mel Brooks, called me up and it was to be in the Producers at the Hollywood Bowl. And he wanted me to come in and play Franz in this very famous role. And I pulled, I was so nervous talking to Mel Brooks that I pulled over on the side of the road. and he was like, can you do the accent? I don't care if you can sing. He wanted to know if I could do this funny German accent. He wanted me to do it on the phone and I just, I didn't want to do it on the phone because like, what if I mess it up here? I just do it. And so I said to him, I said, Mel, I just want, I'm not going to do it. I couldn't believe I was saying no. I said, I want to do this but I can't do it on the phone. But I will tell you this, I would not say yes to this if I didn't feel I could exceed yours in my expectations. so exceed your expectations. Whatever you expect of yourself, push it a little bit further, learn a little bit more and have a little more heart in guts and see what that does. And the last thing I would say and it's comparable to that is something I just told myself when I was very young. Kind of almost like a little bit of a soothsaying moment where I saw the future. Look before you leap, but don't spend your life looking too much or it's all looking and no leaping.

I love that man. Got a lot of wisdom here. I like that.

Try, man. Try to share it all.

Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Dane, for everything you've created and everything you've overcome. Again, I think, you know, I saw, I wasn't really into comedy necessarily when I was, you know, when you were coming up, but I think you brought comedy into my life to make me aware of it. you know, hearing your comedy, it was like shared around college campuses and stuff. And I was like, it got me interested in comedy. And you being an innovator was really inspiring to watch. And to see you innovate even from a place where you weren't like, where you were struggling and maybe emotionally wounded or dealing with family challenges and keep innovating and keep showing up and then continue to do the healing journey. I think that's really cool because some people will just crash and burn and they never work on themselves.

Right.

But for you to do what is your truth, to work on that healing journey and in all your relationships and things like that, I know you're not perfect. I'm not either. But to be on that journey and keep showing up is really inspiring. So I want to acknowledge you for that, man. It's really cool. Thank you so much. And I can't wait to, you know, dominate in the paint against you in a basketball game one day. My final question. Is what is your definition of greatness?

I think that it comes down to regardless of the outcome of what you even think or know of what you put into that piece. Presenting it and standing by it. Because the very fact that it maybe isn't perfect is exactly why it's perfect.

Thank you, man. Thank you, man.

I appreciate it, man. Really appreciate you, dude. Thank you.

Powerful, man.

All right.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links and also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's I've told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. When life brings the blah, add more yabba dabba doo with some tasty fruity pebbles. Early morning meeting?

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