Acting According To Your Values 【 The Zero Dot Podcast #15 】

Mm.

tomorrow was your last day on this earth and yesterday was all you have to show for it?

Would you be proud of that?

Would you have regrets?

Regrets are normal.

That's perfectly fine.

We're all gonna have regrets.

That's fine.

But if the question causes significant pain, like crap, yesterday I worked a job I didn't
like.

I didn't get paid the money that I wanted to.

I didn't get to see my friends and family.

It wasn't the version of me that I wanted to be.

And that's a continual basis almost every day, Monday through Friday or however many days
I'm working.

and that causes you significant pain, I think we can hone in on that.

Fun total nothingness in my workshop this week.

After like eight hours of talking, I think I used the expression, do it like hell or
something like that.

And like the hell word sent some people like, you used the hell word.

I'm like, come on, man.

Hell.

no!

Should I have used damnation?

Should I have used River Sticks?

Yeah, should I use the devil?

Yeah, but no, it didn't happen.

Welcome everyone to the Zero Dot Podcast.

I'm Sam, this is John, this is Daniel, and boys, it has been a week, hasn't

I would say so.

I would very much say so.

one of the weeks of all time, wouldn't we say?

A week, I would say it was been a weak week.

Like I would use both spellings and meanings of the term.

weak week.

I love a literal joke.

W-E-A-K, W-E-E-K.

Mmm, yes, very weak week.

Well, you know what?

I'm happy to be with you both.

It's always nice to kind of re-energize a little bit, especially when it's been one of the
weeks of all time.

And I thought it'd be a good time to talk about something really good, some great news
that happened technically in 2025, but you know what?

We're gonna celebrate it here in 2026.

Folks, I think we can all agree, I don't think this is a hot take, I think this is kind of
a cold take, but, and with all permission to the YouTube overlords, who might censor this,

and that's totally fine, can we just all agree, fuck cancer?

Just fuck cancer?

Cancer is just not good, cancer is bad, like we should just do something about that.

Yes, it has done many a bad thing to me.

from the pro cancer community.

um I don't think they exist historically, but if you're out there, you can let us know.

We'll probably come for you pretty hard, so heads up.

absolutely.

You here at Zero Dot, you know, we don't try to be, you know, say that we're the
authorities or the right voices for things, but we feel pretty safely sound that, you

know, cancer is one of those things that we should all be for getting rid of as much as we
possibly can.

And yes, and John, I think you're right.

If there's anyone out here who is pro cancer for whatever reason, I'm curious to hear your
thoughts, but I do want to forewarn you.

I really don't think you're to be able to convince me, but I'm still curious to hear your
thoughts.

yeah.

I wanna warn you, it's on the fucking site.

So, you know, if you're pro cancer, like we can just fucking go.

Like it's been a week, I'm ready to do it.

And you gave me a great reason to just like yell at you, so.

brave of you to come forward with that knowing that we will destroy you.

instantly hostile, immediately.

Also, like, check yourself, man.

Like, when you're like the, I'm the pro cancer guy, like, you gotta really think what
happened to you?

Didn't you used to, like, be, like, the fun guy at parties who could do the magic trick
with your sleeve and leave it?

I'm a man that will die on many hills.

That is not a hill to die on.

That is really not.

honestly.

pause the show briefly to notice that Daniel's a revenant.

If he's dying on multiple hills, that's not usually allowed.

Usually it's typically the one hill you get, but if he's back, it kind of takes the
meaning out of it actually, if you just keep doing it, you know.

Multifaceted.

die, would die on many a hill.

Not that I have.

Not that I have, that I would.

Yes, I am.

hopefully none of my friends are gonna die anytime soon, but if you do die in a hill I
hope it's a cozy hill.

I hope it's nice.

Hope it's got a nice view You know Yeah, yeah

Or Hobbiton.

Yeah, Hoppton would be a great hill.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

do a random plug?

It's a sloppy plug.

It's a bad plug.

I just want to do it.

Okay, here I'm just gonna plug it right in.

um There's a YouTube channel just called like Amazing Benches and it's it's shorts and it
just shows you like a bench and the benches aren't actually that great.

And then the camera always pans around and it's like Niagara Falls or like the Grand
Canyon or like a fucking just like mants.

Like it's always incredible.

I just, it's a really, it's very satisfying.

I recommend it to you, dear viewer or listener.

from benches, but often the benches themselves aren't that great.

No, they're giving the benches credit, which I think is nice.

Benches are, know, usually kind of sat on, slept on, thought not about them.

Yeah.

I'm a fan of benches.

Many a time if I'm in a city and then I see a bench, I will typically sit on it just for a
moment just to see where the poise is.

And I get lots of comments if I'm traveling with friends like, ew, you know where that
bench is dirty, that bench isn't clean, whatever.

like, whatever, I've got pants on, it's fine.

I'm just sitting here, it's okay.

Yeah.

in, do some people watching, just hang out.

The trick is the guy before you didn't have pants on.

So just a heads up on that.

Also, I feel like this episode brought to you by Benches.

This is the Bench episode.

So big Bench, reach out to us, let us know.

We are willing to take an incredibly small payment to keep doing this every episode.

So, shout to Benches.

They're flat.

to Benches, we're brought to you by Benches.

If you've got a hot take we don't like, we're gonna ask you to bench it.

Just bench it for us please.

All right, that's the deal.

Yeah.

But still, speak your mind from that bench, but if I walk away, don't be offended.

Maybe you can be offended, I don't know, I don't care.

But anyway, I bring up cancer, this cold hot take of believing that, know, generally
speaking, and by generally I mean 99.9999 % of the population would really like to do

a punch to big old cancer.

And I'm here to say that we punched and we got a win out of it.

So T cell leukemia, often seen as the camp, one of the cancers that is thought to be
completely incurable.

Meaning if you have T cell leukemia and your doctor reports that you have that, they
almost always are going to say that your prognosis is terminal.

Well, guess what?

In late 2025, scientists found a way to cure it.

It is now curable.

We are on the mend and instead of me poorly explaining the process how this all works, I'm
gonna ask our producer Daniel to bring up one of the sources for this context from Dr.

Cal, your science pal on YouTube.

It's a three minute short and I think it's worthy of exploring least the most important
bits of it so that we can digest it a little bit more further.

Because it's good news, folks.

It's good news all around.

So, like I said, it was better that she explained it better than I, because I'm not a
doctor or a scientist, but the fact is, something that was thought to be incurable, we

couldn't, we were never gonna be able to attack it.

Thanks to some smart ingenuity and rewiring of the genetic code and how it all works, it's
now curable.

And that is a fucking W for science.

We love science here on Zero Dot, and that's huge, so.

Thank you Dr.

Cal for explaining that and thank you to all the incredible scientists who've been working
hard at saying, you know what?

There is a way.

And when there is a way, if you keep trucking on it, keep, keep, keep on trucking with
enough resources and enough time, enough brilliant minds, magic can truly happen.

That's some good news, right?

That's some fucking incredible news.

I think the quote that's like, man, I lost it.

I'll come back here to Arthur C.

Clark, the any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Like that shit's so cool, man.

I love that when somebody is like, that's not a thing you could ever do.

And now it's like, it's the thing that's been done.

Also a lot of props to the person who was doing that.

I like when somebody is both intelligent and also can speak with like a silliness or an
ease.

Cause that is a very relatable.

I mean, I talk personally in like dog man, Cameras, as a guy I'm thinking all the time.

So that's very useful.

um

when she brought up the Dog Man movie, I thought she was gonna bring up The Thing movie by
John Carpenter, because there's a Dog Man alien thing in that movie, but I guess she was

trying to go for PG-13 audiences.

Yeah, well actually, Dog Man the Cop is like, he's like a really fucked up character.

He like abuses people all the time and he like to people to Dog Man jail.

It's actually very dark.

But I know a book by covering all that.

But also, this is important to me, not important at all, but there was a still, if you
pause that video that just said attack anyone wearing a hat.

And I feel like you could really just put that up.

I just loved that.

But no, that is amazing.

I feel like what's really cool is like right now.

If you're alive and if you're listening to this, you probably are.

And if not, you're a ghost.

So that's fun.

But if you are alive, like the longer you're alive, the better it is to be alive
typically, because we get better things to keep you alive.

And it's just really cool.

Like when I was born years ago, like so many things are so different than they are now.

Like the whole fucking AIDS prognosis, like you can like, that's treatable.

You can just like live a regular fucking life.

I got taught about that in school.

It was like, this is the death sentence.

And like, that's amazing.

That's fucking amazing.

Yeah.

So to people with like,

You problems like hang in there because they know the good guys are working real hard
Also, thanks good guys.

Thanks for being big huge science people because I that shit was too hard So I quit so
thank you for doing it cool

Absolutely.

And again, super hot take.

We like science here.

If you don't like science, let us know, but hard time convincing me.

Hard time convincing me that science isn't just overall a net good thing overall.

take is so hot.

um It's not hot.

It's just it's just spicy.

Here's the thing.

um You, dear listener, you already do like science, no matter what your actual thoughts or
feelings are you do.

Because what you appreciate is that knowledge led to the growth of things.

That's just what it is.

There's there's no like there's nothing to not like, like what you don't perhaps like if
you think you don't like science.

something that's antithetical to things that are important to you.

And that's understandable.

But let me tell you, science is not.

Science is just not.

Like fucking, it's cold outside.

That's science.

Like there's nothing to like or not like about it.

It's just facts.

If you disagree, genuinely, please let me know because I would love to talk with you about
it so very much.

And not even like in a shitty way.

Like I just, I this is a get on the same page thing.

And I would love to unmuddy the waters.

I'll just say I'd probably be dead without science.

Most of us would be dead, but I won't speak for anyone else, the seven to eight billion
people on this planet.

I'll speak just for me.

I know I would be dead without science.

I mean, I'll speak for a significant portion of them.

Are you over 40?

You'd be dead without science.

Like, that's just how it goes.

The electric meat suit that you're riding in right now, they're supposed to expire like in
your 30s.

Like that's the default setting of this system.

I have a foot that requires orthotics lest I overpronate, which would render me incapable
of walking.

I'd be done.

It'd be over.

Like, I'm not even kidding.

Like I'd be dead.

So yeah, no, it's pretty good.

Clothes, science.

Houses, believe it or not, science.

Yeah.

Food?

You're not fuckin' science again.

Isn't that weird?

How it's just, it's all that?

my god.

be dying from diseases and all kinds of awful stuff.

Hey, how'd you die?

Well, he had a bunch of rocks in his intestinal system.

And they ruptured everything.

Yeah.

Rocks are now uh super optional.

You don't have to eat rocks at all, unless you're a chicken and then you probably should
eat some rocks for gizzard-based purposes.

They don't do science quite the same way.

They're still in their chicken phase where they're chickens.

We aren't chickens, last I checked.

No.

Unless Daniel wants to make a revelation right now that actually guys, actually, I'm one
tenth chicken.

No, Daniel would never say that.

uh It would be great.

15 we're like, one of us is part chicken.

New theme of the show, chicken uprising.

It begins today.

from now Daniel's just gonna cut me off and be like, booka.

Yeah, my great great grandmother was a chicken.

find this fascinating and yeah, think about how that works or don't probably don't think
about how that works.

It's amazing that it's taken this long for this revelation to make itself known.

Crazy.

you outed his chicken sestri.

Yeah.

stand our chickens for sure.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was good news.

Now there's the part of the show that, you know, a lot of us kind of cringe, the butthole
clenches just a smidge of little bout, and we talk about stuff that's going on that's a

little bad.

And I want to break from our usual script for just a moment.

And for those of you that are listening, tuning in, or watching the Zero Dot podcast for
the first time, usually what we try to do is we try to highlight things that we might not

be paying attention to because if other things kind of...

getting in our eyes, eye holes and ear holes and all that stuff and what you can do about
it.

The one thing we never wanna do here at Zero Dot is to...

uh

Catastrophize something and then not give you the resource to do something about it But
today we're gonna break the script a little bit We're gonna be talking about something

that probably quite a lot of you know quite a bit about um and I'm gonna try to make this
as Clear as I possibly can In the United States right now if you are in the United States

the 50 United States um You are witnessing something that is incredibly devastating Ice
agents and what they are doing regardless of your politics.

We have seen that backfire on

human lives in ways that no matter where you fall on the spectrum, none of us asked for.

uh Alex Preti didn't ask for that.

Rene Good did not ask for that.

Before we get into what you can do about this, I wanna just very plainly speak to everyone
wherever you are on the spectrum.

If you are looking at the footage, if you see what a lot of us can see that's available,
even if you don't have sound on, it is my opinion.

I know for a fact it's John's opinion.

I know for a fact it's Daniel's opinion.

So it's all of Zero Dot's opinion.

That it's really clear that when you watch that, you can tell who the bad guys are.

It is abundantly clear where the bad is coming from.

And if you are someone who's watching that footage and you are disagreeing with that
notion, if you have any kind of inclination that actually no, Alex Preti deserve that,

Renee Good deserve that, all that stuff.

Well, we certainly don't believe in, you we make jokes about it.

We certainly don't believe in punching down.

We don't certainly believe in making enemies.

We actually want to connect with people in all kinds of ways we can.

But I do have a question for those individuals.

And the question is, and this is actually a question from Rhett McLaughlin from the show
Good Mythical Morning.

And I'm going to echo that question, which is, what would it take?

What would it take for you in order for you to see the truth, to see what's going on, and
to change your narrative about things?

That's my question to you.

But for everyone else that's watching that you're seeing the truth, you're seeing like
what we're all seeing, we're seeing where the bad guys are and you wanna do something,

well, there's a couple things you can do.

But first, before I tell you what some of those things you can do, I wanna just highlight
something for you, which is your number one priority is to protect yourself, take care of

yourself, your family, your friends, all that stuff, that's number one priority.

And if that's all the spoons you have, then absolutely have no shame for doing nothing
else beyond that.

My heart goes to you, zero dot goes to you.

But if you have a little bit more spoons in that, and I know many people do, many people
feel helpless and we don't want anyone to feel hopeless,

What are the things you can possibly do?

I'm going to turn you to three different resources before I turn to John for his personal
take on some of this stuff.

The first thing you can do is you can go to website called StandWithMinnesota.com.

Across Minnesota, ICE can use to stop, harass, and detain people regardless of their
citizenship status.

comes from their website.

Normal life in Minnesota has been interrupted as schools have been forced to close or go
virtual, as people live in fear of leaving their homes or going to work.

And as John has said many times, Minnesotans are a strong breed and they're doing super
well here.

But they do need our help if we have these spoons to give it to them.

If you go to standwithminnesota.com, you'll see a directory of places to donate to that
all comes from activists on the ground plugged into the situation.

Everything is vetted with the exception of one thing, which is pretty cool.

Every single day, the page refreshes with a new individual's GoFundMe.

That page refreshes every single day.

So if you want to check it out every single day, you can see a new person that's put on a
GoFundMe that's from that area.

that could use your help if you choose to so do it.

Everyone is in their networks and they don't want to pick and choose who is worthy of that
particular help.

If you don't have the resources to give, obviously you can amplify the signal what you're
hearing and seeing.

Call out the bad because again to us at Zero Dot, we know who the bad guys are, but again
amplify that signal wherever you can.

Go to your network's friends and family offline and again check out SandWithMinnesota.com.

The second resource you can go to though, which is the Minneapolis Mutual Aid Coalition.

Community Aid Network KNMN, that's KNMN.org.

That's CharlieAlphaNancyMichaelNancy.org is a grassroots volunteer-led organization
located in the Bancroft neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

And they work to build solidarity with their neighbors, organize volunteers, and
redistribute resources to ensure everyone has the means of dignified survival, especially

during this time.

And once again, you can go to that website, look at that resource, and you can donate to
them if you'd like to do that.

One more thing I want to point out to you.

We've been talking about the lives of United citizens that are here in the United States
that are being impacted by this, but you know who also might be impacted?

Those individuals that didn't have the luxury of having cameras on them.

Like I said before, we have the ability to see the live footage, but there's a lot of
people that have been detained, whether they're immigrants or not.

We don't know what's happening to them.

We have no idea.

And they deserve to have representation and resources at their disposal.

The last thing you can consider looking into is called the Immigration Law Center of
Minnesota.

That's ilcm.org.

The Immigration Law Center of Minnesota is a non-profit organization that provides free
immigration, legal representation to low-income immigrants and refugees in Minnesota and

North Dakota.

ILCM provides services based on their capacity.

ILCM has a generally high demand for services and way higher than it is before.

Unfortunately, they're not always able to meet and assist everyone, but...

what they're gonna do with whatever resources they can, they will try to refer you to an
organizational immigration attorney.

So again, you can check out that resource as well.

And if you wanna donate to them and give them additional resources, you can.

Before I turn over to John, and John I'm sure has a lot to say because he's living there
right now and he's impacted by this.

Even if it feels hopeless, we can still do something.

I do believe in breaking bread wherever we can.

I believe in communicating and building bridges.

And I think that's still possible in many different ways.

This is not a political issue, however.

This is impacting human lives.

You can see the footage yourself.

I would challenge anyone who has a different opinion than what we have just shared right
here at Zero Dot.

I would challenge you to suggest and ask if your opinion is coming from another talking
head or even the administration or someone trying to color or shade the texture of what's

happening for you.

I'm not going to do that for you.

I would encourage you to check that footage on your own.

Look at the resources there.

Make your own conclusions.

But we at Zero Dot, believe in a hopeful kind of punk.

We believe in doing what's right for everyone.

We want to make sure people have the resources they need to give back wherever they can.

John.

Really well said, Sam.

I'm going to get emotional during this.

So, uh, once again, if you are the person who's new to the show, welcome.

You picked a doozy.

watch the other ones.

They're, they're good too, but, uh, you can't not talk about the big monster at the door.

And this is that it's not a political thing.

Um, it's murder in the streets.

And I would offer you, cause there's plenty of things to know about how scary it is.

I'd offer you a little bit of an insight from Minnesota.

Um, yesterday I met with a person.

for like a physio, a working out my old body.

And I was talking with this guy who I'd never met before and he and I shared the same kind
of like, there's like a defiance and an optimism.

The people of this state are not the people you should have started this with because
we're not going to roll over.

We're going to be there.

We're going to outnumber you.

And we're not going to fucking start fights and riots that you can then blame us for.

And we're going to tell everybody.

So we're hanging in there.

I'm a therapist, if you didn't know that.

Surprise, I am.

I don't look like one, but I am.

And I talk to people about this all the time.

Every session.

I don't document on that shit because I'm not a dumb dumb, but I say talked about current
stressors and it was very vague.

But people all say the same thing.

They say, this is bad.

Oh yeah, it's bad.

They say, I'm not doing enough.

And I say, well, let's talk about that.

Cause the good news for the good guys, as opposed to the bad guys.

Bad guys for the record are people who kill people.

with no defense for no reason.

just in case that was unclear.

And that's not right-wing, left-wing, that's bad guys.

em But there's way more of us than there are of them.

And if you do 1 % of what can be done today, and I do 1 % and Sam does 1%, Daniel does 1%,
if you do half a percent, if you do a 15th of a percent, that adds up astronomically.

There's a reason that coverage of this,

starting to say like the protests are working because you can't ignore millions and
millions and millions of people.

And while we try not to be openly political, like this is a trial run.

That's why they went from Minneapolis first, because we're a big city, but we're a smaller
city than New York, Los Angeles.

And it's not working.

The good guys are winning.

It's coming at a ridiculously high price and it's fucking stupid.

And these pieces of shit you on my goddamn state.

But I'll be fighting them.

I'll be talking.

I'll be blowing whistles.

We disseminate material at every coffee shop there is.

There's fuck ice written in every fucking window in every fucking building.

There's people from all lines over the political spectrum.

Anybody who's telling you that Minnesotans are down with this?

No.

A couple of fringe lunatic weirdos might be, but like this...

We're fighting the good fight.

There's optimism and we're starting to win.

So don't give up.

And then when we get the bad guys back on their back foot, we need to go further.

This needs to never happen again.

I'm very grateful that this state is as resilient as it is.

And I hope that wherever you are is as well.

But if it weren't for all the cameras and the media, this would be getting swept around
and hidden and all kinds of shit like that.

So do what you can and only what you can.

If you can donate your time, great.

If you can donate your money, great.

If you can donate your whatever, great.

The resources samllists that are really good, but I'll you what else you can do.

Get a hold of your family member in Minnesota.

So like so many people I know up here have been like hurting or scared because they want
people to know.

I admittedly have had frankly an outpouring of support from people who are like, are you
good?

And like, that means a lot.

So like, yeah.

And I go to work some days I'll see like a fucking shithead ice agent outside and I let
them know.

I let them know how I feel.

um But also like I'm a white guy.

I know you noticed that from the whiteness that I have.

Our listeners don't, but they might have assumed.

Yeah, no, I'm super white, turns out, um just from a Hugh standpoint.

ah But like.

It's it's scary, but when you know you have people who have your back, it's easier.

I feel good doing it because I know that like there's a ton of people who have our back
who are going to support this.

And I'm telling you, I'm telling you, the good guys are going to win, but we have to just
keep pushing.

So reach out, support people, let them know you care.

It makes such a fucking difference.

In fact, if you have a person who's not in Minnesota.

But maybe they have a little bit more melanin than I do, which is every person on the
earth.

Reach out to that person and be like, I'm sorry, our country's a fascist shithole right
now.

Once again, doing a poor job of veiling my opinions on this.

But I don't really want to because once again, this isn't political.

I'm not here to bash the right wing homies.

Genuinely, I'm not.

And I say this with love, like, they're going to come for you next.

The whole thing where they turned and they were like, the Second Amendment, oh, the gun
was the threat.

They'll say whatever they have to say to justify their actions.

And we're on the same team.

If you're a human and you're trying, we're on the same fucking team.

It's okay if you're scared.

I think we're all scared.

But that's kind of the premise of our show is you can do some of the most powerful, the
best shit you can do while you're scared.

So we'll be here, we'll cheer you on.

If you have questions or thoughts or fears, let us know.

You're not alone.

and on the note of being on the same team.

We are all on team human.

If you are a human being that cares about other people, but you do not live in the United
States of America, me, a British man who does not live in the same country where all of

this is happening, you can still do something to help.

Please do not leave the people in the United States to deal with it on their own.

If you care about other people, you can go to the links that I will leave in the
description of this podcast and you can do something to help.

You are not perilous just because you are not there.

rolling it together, no matter where you live.

Yes, we are.

And the last thing, I'll just kind of nip this in the bud here and just to give people a
bit of hope.

John's already said it, but I'll say it one more time.

The good guy side, you who you are, we're a lot more organized than the other side.

And that's showing and that's where we're seeing that.

And this is how we can keep showing that incentive.

So whatever you can do, again, this is not a call of arms, it's just a call of solidarity
and hope and doing what you can for anyone.

I would actually like to bounce on that a little bit too, Ray.

So, um I'm a very gentle, sweet guy by nature, but I'm historically 90 % fight to 10 %
flight.

And I would really like to go do some things that I shouldn't say on the internet to some
of these people who are hurting innocent people.

That's not what we need to do.

And this isn't some hippie shit.

I mean, it might be coincidentally, but that's not the point of it.

The point is it works if you play the strong

Ongoing card of this isn't okay.

We're not gonna stand for it They can't like they can't the the fucking political
mechanics of this don't work if you if you don't roll over like you can't And then they're

they're you know fucked up in a lot of ways But they're not dumb enough to just press the
button when the button won't work So keep the pressure on them make your voices heard

We live in a post-truth era right now, which is a very conspiratorial thing to say, but
also it's a fucking fact.

Like you can just say things and people will believe you because the truth is very blurry
these days.

Make your voice heard.

Because fucking dear viewer slash listener, know you can tell right from wrong.

killing people is wrong.

the last note again to anyone, which probably no one's on this side listening to us, but
if you are, if you are on the side and you're confused by what's happening or trying to

make sense of it all, the one thing I'd point out to you is any side that does the Darvo
tactic, deny attack, reverse victim and offender, that's a good place to start to try to

be extra critical of what anything is, what anyone is trying to tell you.

We're not trying to do any of that to you.

We're trying to bring solidarity and we're trying to bring hope and uh we're all in this
together no matter what.

Yeah, I don't know.

Fucking for posterity, the thought, the gist of it is that like, if you think this is a
good thing, like, let me talk to you.

Like, not in a threatening way.

Like, I want to hear why, because I know that you're, and I say that with gentleness and
frankly with love in my heart, which I'm sure is already being rebuked by a person with

this stance.

You're scared.

You're fucking scared.

If you want to, you think this is good, it's because you're afraid of something you think
this is going to help you.

I'm telling you, it's not.

I'm telling you, it's not.

This is an old play.

We've seen this play before.

You are as useful to these people as you are at this moment.

And as soon as you're not, you're out.

So I genuinely more than anything, I don't wanna talk with people who agree with me.

I wanna talk with people who don't.

Because we can be fucking humans about this.

I wanna help you feel better about supporting a side for fucking humans so when you go to
bed at night you don't feel fucking scared and angry.

That's a manipulative tactic if you wake up and think, God, I'm glad those people are
getting hurt.

That's because you've been hurt.

They're trying to control you with that shit.

And it works.

It's fucking effective.

So.

Sincerely if you are a person who's listening to the the devil's advocate of us trying to
talk about this and you hold the other opinion Thank you from the bottom of my fucking

heart because it's people like you who will make the difference Every person who goes I'm
not gonna participate in this shit anymore.

Holy fuck.

We want to welcome you with open arms There should be no chastising.

There should be no well you fucking none of that shit.

This is a human issue now We can go back to argue about politics later, that's This isn't
that

All right, well, let's lighten things up a little bit.

This week, I did bit of traveling, quite a bit of traveling.

I had a hectic travel week for my work, for my job, involved many cancellations of flights
and traveling through the weather and a lot of uncertainty whether I was gonna make my

destination on time for my big delivery.

But en route to that, a funny little story happened and I think it's an opportunity to
give a shout out to someone.

So, Don and Daniel, I'm sitting in Philadelphia Airport.

This is the fourth flight that

I'm trying to be on that hopefully doesn't get canceled to the left of me, the gate that
I'm on, the gate to the left of me, that flight gets canceled.

A bunch of people scream and get mad and they walk away to the right of me.

The flight gets canceled.

A bunch of people scream and get mad.

And then I'm watching the ticker right now.

My flight went from being on time to being 10 minutes late, to being 15 minutes late, to
being 35 minutes late.

And I'm like, geez.

And I have a razor thin margin in my connection.

And if I am too late, I won't be able to make my connection.

That the usual stuff, right?

Mm-hmm.

something kind of funny happened while I was at the airport.

I'm sitting there, I'm Michelle, the human being, it's been a long day, I'm checking my
phone, I'm wearing uh Daniel's awesome logo hat, which I'm wearing the shirt of right now,

I've got that brim cap on me and I'm just scrolling through my phone, and I notice two
individuals walk past me and they are pointing at my feet and gawking at me, and then the

one lady is like giving me this really big smile, and I'm like, what?

And I look at my feet, I look at my, I'm wearing shoes by the way.

Is something wrong?

Is there something scuffed about them?

Do they look, they're just, they're just, they're shoes.

They're just shoes.

So I'm like, huh, probably nothing.

I ignore it.

We get to start boarding the plane.

We are 35 minutes late, but I'm told by the ticket agent, you're gonna make your
connection.

Okay.

And this is a very tiny plane.

We're talking about a plane that's got only two each side.

It's a very tiny little puddle jumper plane.

And I'm about boarding in and.

My seat is right next to one of the people, one of the ladies that had been gawking at my
feet earlier before.

I did not know what it was about.

But I'm like, okay, whatever.

I'm probably gonna pass out in sleep for this little puddle jumper flight, who cares?

I literally get into my seat.

I'm getting my seat buckle in and she's staring at me very intently.

Makes her sound scary, it wasn't scary.

And she says, so how long have you been wearing barefoot running shoes for?

She had known that the shoes that I was wearing were a specific type of barefoot shoe that
has no sole whatsoever, but looks a little fancy and has a very wide toe box.

I wear these shoes purposely because they don't look like those types of but she had
diagnosed and already figured out that was what I was wearing.

I'm like, well, seven years actually.

And before I know it, we had a very lovely conversation and it turns out she is a foot
care specialist that specializes in barefoot walking, barefoot running and barefoot style

kinds of shoes.

So I want to give her a shout.

Her name is Mia.

But the two, there's a couple of funny things about the story.

But the first thing is she has two Instagrams.

She has one she runs by herself and she has one that she's part of a large organization
for.

The large organization is called My Foot Function, where on that Instagram, if you go to
it right now, we'll plug her.

uh They talk about tips, how to massage your feet, how to stretch your tendons, how to
make your feet more strong, et cetera.

so she's like a physical therapist, but she does this on the side.

Occupational therapist with prosthetics and orthotics as her specialty.

I didn't want to call her something that she wasn't.

So let me say that one more time.

She's an occupational therapist with a specialization in prosthetics and orthotics, but
she's really nerdy about just barefoot walking, barefoot running and using shoes and of

that nature that kind of help with that.

Now, why am I bringing this up?

I'm not advocating for it, but I will say that my personal story

About seven years ago, I was in a lot of physical pain in my hip, in my knee, and in my
ankle.

I was a former long distance runner and an endurance runner.

And I felt like no matter what I did, I was just always going to be experiencing pain
throughout the rest of my life.

I remember going to a running store and buying $300 pairs of shoes because I was told
that's exactly what I need to take care of my feet and take care of my posture and

everything else.

And let me tell you, it didn't really work.

Like it made me feel better for about two months, but then by about the month three.

I'd have to buy a new pair of $300 pair of shoes.

I was like, this something has to give because otherwise I'm just going to be in pain for
the rest of my life and that's not suitable for me.

So the choice that I made, and I'm not saying anyone else makes this choice, but the
choice I made was, well, I hear barefoot walking, running, like retunes your body and like

how to properly move.

I don't know if that's true, but that's, what I tried.

And so I tried it and fun story, John, the first time I did it, I was told, you know, buy,
you know, cheap, uh, barefoot shoes with minimal soles and don't go further than like,

200 yards and then come back and don't do that.

Guess what I did?

I ran half a mile and I think I'm feeling great.

I'm doing whatever.

Well, right afterwards I wake up and I'm in such physical pain because my calves have
never been used in that capacity for that long.

For two weeks I'm limping.

I'm like, but I keep at it.

I keep trying.

I am barefoot most of my life, most of my time.

Every waking hour I wear barefoot style shoes of that capacity.

Takes me about, I would say, two years, which is a long time.

But can tell you right now, I'm so glad I did.

Because now I have literally no pain.

I can walk forever.

And this lady Mia, she resonated with that story.

So that's a fantastic story, but it is one of the tough things about medicine that she's
trying to advocate for is that

you know, we're always looking for a quick, easy solution.

Pop a pill, do this, do that, et cetera.

And sadly, with her practice, what she recommends is it takes a bit of sacrifice, which is
something that I personally did, but not everyone has the spoons to do it.

And it's a really tough sell for a lot of different reasons.

But I'm advocating for for a reason, for just a couple of funny things.

One, the company that she works with, the Instagram account that she works with is
MyFootFunction.

It's an Instagram account.

You can check on yourself.

They do all kinds of information education stuff.

But...

This is the real thing.

Her real personal account, where she kind of started this, it's called not that kind of
foot content.

And we had a funny little discussion about like celebs who like try to shield their feet
because they know there are fetishists out there to like look at that kind of thing and

like only fans accounts for that kind of thing.

And she just made fun of that for that particular reason.

But it was a lovely conversation and I'm glad we had it.

And even though initially I was upset because I really wanted to get a couple Z's, I
wanted to sleep throughout that small little puddle jumper, I'm really glad that I didn't

because I made a good connection with that person and I hope that person's doing well.

And I'd advocate for anyone that if you're looking for other avenues in looking at your
foot health and you want to try something, you might want to check out...

her channel, not that kind of foot content, But once again, I'm not advocating, I'm not
saying it is the solution, but it can help a lot of people if you go down that path in a

very healthy and sustainable way.

Hello, my name's John.

I'm one of the people on the Zero Dot podcast.

I'm a big believer in tradition and I'm already a white man in his 30s with a podcast.

So to really round this out, I want you to know that I also, well, my friends and I, who I
believe are similarly afflicted with white males in our 30-ness, we do have a Patreon as

well.

And perhaps you're brand new to the internet and you're like a Patreon.

Is that like a fan of some type that you're saying wrong?

It's actually a website.

And if you go there for a nominal fee, I believe for $3.99, you can become our internet
pal and get primo exclusive access to our videos that are actually longer and we say more

dumb shit or useful shit.

I don't know.

You can, I guess, be the judge of that and then tell us.

And if it's the bad thing, we'll try to change it.

But also it helps us support the channel and keep making things like this that I hope you
like.

please.

Speaking of Patreon, just want to jump in and thank our paid Patreon members.

We have God of Grunts, we have Aid, we have JP, we have William Kirk and we have Robert
Restante.

Thank so much for supporting us, we really appreciate it.

You're the best of us.

please keep paying us or I won't say your name anymore.

But anyway, that's just a small little anecdote to a bigger, larger story.

So this week was a pretty rough week for me.

I'm not saying it was the roughest of weeks, but it was a rough week.

I had a client engagement Wednesday and Thursday.

I was supposed to fly out from Philadelphia to Ohio.

You can actually drive that distance.

It's about seven to a nine hour drive.

I've done that in the past, but I don't know if you know this, but we had a little bit of
a...

polar vortex kind of hit the, just all of the Americas, but kind of the upper North East
America sector.

uh Lots of snow, frigid cold weather, et cetera.

So driving it was not going to be super reasonable.

And my flight got canceled four times.

uh To the point where the final flight they booked me for was a flight that was going to
arrive very late, like into the afternoon.

So if I was supposed to deliver my workshop at seven in the morning, I wasn't going to get
there till like one in the afternoon.

I'm like, that's not doable, that's not feasible.

I'm bringing this up because at a certain point I let my client contact know, hey, uh
we're looking at some significant risk here.

I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make it on time.

What would you like to do?

uh They scramble, they're trying to figure out what we're gonna do.

It's no one's fault, but a couple of funny things get indicated to me, which is, well, if
you ultimately can't make it, I guess we'll have to cancel um and.

We probably won't be able to use you ever again because this is a discontinuation of
service and you won't get paid for this job.

That doesn't feel good.

Even if I logistically understand the ramifications of that.

Even if I have a very good history with this client, I've never failed them before, but
this one time, completely out of my control, it looks like there might be a failure point,

I might be paying the cost for it.

So I call my travel agent and she books me this wild flight connection that

has me flying from Philadelphia to further down south, which makes no, it's going the
opposite direction of Ohio.

And then that connection kind of can get me to Ohio.

And I won't get to my hotel till about three in the morning.

Go time is at seven.

I should be up by about five.

That'll give me maybe two hours of sleep.

And I'm thinking this whole time, I don't want to do this, but we don't really have a
choice.

And on top of that, it's risky because as I said to you before, as I'm waiting on the
terminal in Philadelphia,

It goes from being on time to being 20 minutes late, to being 35 minutes late.

We're almost at 45 minutes.

There's a significant risk I could be stranded to my connection, not make it to the place,
piss off a bunch of people, and then I'm stuck.

I can say again, just as a call out, having that conversation with that individual kind of
made me, made my hopes a little bit cheered.

I learned something from someone.

It was a nice connection there.

But there was a significant amount of risk and it wasn't until I landed in my connection
and I literally got on the plane and the plane was taking off that I felt like,

I think I'm okay.

I texted the person.

I think we're good.

I think I'll make it.

I'll be tired, but we can make it work." And they were very delighted.

But it gets even worse because after we take off, John and Daniel, they tell me two
things.

They say, by the way, no potable water.

And also the left engine is kind of broken.

So we're just going to turbo jet the right engine and we should make it.

And the entire ride, we are wobbling back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

So while that's happening, I'm thinking, oh, okay.

I hope I make it.

I even remember texting my wife, says, hey, this is what's happening, love you.

Because I wanted to make sure the last message she had for me was, hey, I love you.

Needless to say, I land, we're okay.

I get maybe an hour and 45 minutes of sleep before I gotta get up, do the thing, run it,
et cetera.

The two day workshop goes exceedingly well.

Everyone's really happy.

I get the following feedback, which is, got an email that you might not be able to make it
and that was really pissing me off and I thought you were a hack of a facilitator, but

then you did your thing and man, you're like the best we've ever had.

So I'm really glad you made it and everyone's celebratory and everyone's happy.

We wrap up, I get on my plane back home.

Feedback gets to my employer.

My employer goes, my gosh, Sam, thank you for going the extra mile.

You really made this client happy, et cetera.

I should be happy, but instead I'm not happy.

I'm not happy, John, because I'm a value-accordant person, and I realize that what I've
actually done is I've done a significant amount of work for significantly less pay and

under only the threat of fear that I might lose my job.

And that's not a good thing.

I bring this up because...

I'm proud of the fact that I'm able to look at all this and go, okay, something needs to
change, some conversation need to be had, those conversations will be had this week.

I won't get into what those conversations will be or what the outcome is, but something
has to give.

Because what was gonna happen, John, is that I was not gonna get paid, I was gonna get
declined further work for this client, even though I was nothing beyond my control, the

flights got canceled due to weather.

But then, just a fun little, fun ad, John, because of a bureaucratic thing.

Because all of my travel took place overnight.

I don't get paid for the travel time either.

So I technically made even less money for going above and beyond to try to make this
happen for this particular client.

Ugh, that's terrible.

it is terrible.

But I say this story to bring us the of the platform of what I really want to talk about,
which is value-accordant actions, which I know is something you're incredibly passionate

about.

I'm grateful again that I have the opportunity to challenge this and question this because
there was a time in my life when I would say, I just got to deal with it.

I guess this is just what I got to deal with.

This is my deck of cards is what I have to do, right?

But I know my worth.

I know what I'm really good at.

I'm in the top 50 of my profession of what I do.

And I think most of us do what we do because of the probably the most powerful motivated
in our life, which as you said before, John is fear.

Fear rules us all.

Now,

I'm here to tell you something pretty controversial, is fear can more times than not be a
good thing.

It prevents us from running away from, you know, dying from bears.

It motivates us to like get out of jail.

It stimulates a fight or flight response, et cetera.

Thanks to our good friend cortisol.

Cortisol is actually in small part, not completely, but it does play a contributing factor
to letting our heart pump just on a regular basis due to that.

Like fear has a role in our lives.

It is a strong motivator.

But I think a shift can happen when we shift what that fear is to rule our very lives.

If you live your entire life dictated by fight or flight, fear of what you're about to
lose, I call it.

I might lose my job, this might happen, this could happen, this could happen.

John, I think you know, it stifles you for sure and other things, but it also plays a huge
long-term cost to your body, physiology, and your relationships to everyone.

And...

We have to make this trade off sometimes, but if you can have the opportunity to take a
step back and go, hold on, something has to give.

If you can do that, I think you have a real opportunity to make some significant shifts in
your life, make it better, make it better if down to just not done, not just for you, but

for your family members and everyone else that cares about you.

And you deserve to live a life of sustainability.

And so I say this because this is the shift I think we can make.

And this is why I want us to talk about today, John.

Fear is a really strong motivating factor.

It's good.

It's powerful.

But what I'd like to challenge people to do, and even myself, from time to time, and these
are the most incredibly most successful people in the world that I get to work with, they

have also made this same shift, which is change our fear of not living or losing something
or everything falling apart.

Change that and repivot it to the fear of having not lived.

Mm.

tomorrow was your last day on this earth and yesterday was all you have to show for it?

Would you be proud of that?

Would you have regrets?

Regrets are normal.

That's perfectly fine.

We're all gonna have regrets.

That's fine.

But if the question causes significant pain, like crap, yesterday I worked a job I didn't
like.

I didn't get paid the money that I wanted to.

I didn't get to see my friends and family.

It wasn't the version of me that I wanted to be.

And that's a continual basis almost every day, Monday through Friday or however many days
I'm working.

and that causes you significant pain, I think we can hone in on that.

And I wanna pause there, because I know John's doing that thing, my fellow listeners,
where he's typing furiously.

And most of the notes are saying, Sam is wrong, Sam is wrong, I hate this guy, God, I
can't wait to get off this podcast.

But some of them are gonna be some good thoughts, and I wanna hear what they are.

You actually, you covered all of them.

It's just that you're wrong and I want to get this podcast.

So that's it.

Back to you.

Except maybe I'll add live a couple of things.

um One of those things is that first off, as you know, I am the biggest value according
action fan in the world because it is genuinely the one step blueprint to like having an

idea of how to handle most things.

It isn't the answer, but it's how you get to the answer, which is really nice.

Quick thought on regrets.

If you don't have any regrets, you are either perfect, which you can't be, or you're
lying.

It's okay to have regrets.

Regrets are part of stories.

It's good to have regrets.

um would validate.

Shout out to my homie, Kevin Baermore.

For instance, we were five.

He one time told me, what's going to give you a better story today?

Do you want to go out to this class with me for yoga or do you want to just fucking sit
around?

He was nicer than that when he said it, but that stayed with me.

And I think that you're, you're on something really powerful there, Sam, with like having
the fear of not having lived, not having conquered the day.

I do have a quick little caveat, perhaps.

um For some people, there's a glitch.

where the fear of doing the day wrong leads to inaction.

And for people with ADHD, there's a thing where it's so hard to start the day that this
fear morphs into shame a lot.

But I think, you know, in general, like the framework I like is move towards your values,
not away from your fears.

It's just in this case, they go the same direction because I feel like the fear of not
having done the things you want is also, it's just the upside down version of like,

chasing the things that you want.

But no, really like this idea.

And also I would validate what you said too.

Fear isn't a bad thing.

Fuckin' listen to this, listener and viewer, perhaps you as well.

Or read it if you're doing closed captioning, which is very weird.

Good luck with that.

um

Fear is an emotion.

You knew that.

Hopelessness is an emotion.

Terror is an emotion.

So if you're say, know, hearkening back to our Minneapolis, but if you're living around
here, hopelessness, you know, it's up there right now.

Like you'll feel hopeless.

You'll feel fear.

Those things aren't reflective of the actual prognosis you're facing or to be less
therapisty about it.

Those things aren't indicative of doom.

Like fear isn't, fear isn't as bad as it feels.

And when you can help your brain know

I feel fearful of this, this is a scary thing and say, I'm going to act in the face of
that.

Two things happen.

One fear is doing its job and it will fuck off afterward.

And two, you get to feel really powerful.

Doing things in the face of fear is really, really cool and you deserve to hype yourself
up when you do it, but we may get more into that later.

You said it before, fear is the antidote to despair, right?

Or no, action is the antidote to despair.

But fear plays a factor into that.

And I think you're right.

mean, there can be a debilitating effect to fear for sure.

And I'm not here to shame that or say that's wrong or any capacity.

But the pivot is, you know, I'm looking at myself in my position.

going, not just that I'm worth more.

This isn't an egotistical thing.

It's like I only have so much more time on this planet.

Am I gonna spend more of my time doing things like this or can I do something else with it
that's gonna help a lot more people?

And it's a tough question, it's a tough phenomenon to have.

But again, I'm only able to make that flip, John, because I've given myself A, permission
to make that flip, and B, I have a high self-efficacy, which is the second component to

this.

If you don't have high self-efficacy, which I'll explain what that is in just a moment,
you feel like you don't have a choice.

I just have to do whatever the cards give me, whatever the world gives me, I just have to
deal with it, right?

When we talk about self-efficacy, it's having the data that backs up that you have been
successful in the past with something.

And you can only do that by trying hard things and doing things early in your life or
later in your life.

It doesn't matter to me.

But once you have a well of knowledge that, I've been successful in other things, I've
done things well, okay, you start building up this nice little library of here's this win,

here's that win, here's this win, I've been successful, I've been successful.

And the question then becomes, do the people that hold the cards for me, and in this case,
let's say it's your employer, do they see the same stack that I do or are they seeing a

smaller stack?

And if they're seeing as much smaller stack, you can do one of two things.

I can try to convince them that the stack's much bigger than that.

Spoiler warning, 99 times out of 100 won't work.

I recommend still trying it, but it's probably not gonna work because they're incentivized
to think that stack is smaller than it actually is.

Or the second thing I can do is I can change it so that way the person that's holding my
cards,

either that's me or someone else, actually now finally sees the full stack.

here's what's fun about this is that because you have this full stack, you have a higher
level of predictive success than you would have otherwise.

Because one of the greatest things that we do, one of the best ways we can try to predict
success is look at past success.

When you interview someone, you say, tell me of a time when, and when you tell them a
story where you were successful and it correlates to the job objective or whatever, that

will give them the job interviewer.

best indicator of whether you'll be future successful otherwise.

And we can do the same thing for ourselves.

So I have a high self-efficacy quotient and I'm grateful for that.

And I have that opportunity.

And so anyone that feels like you can't make that choice, I want you to know that I love
you and it's not your fault.

But my next direction would be how can we build up your self-efficacy?

How can we give you some swings, some risks, some things that you can start doing small
little projects, things, and you can build up that repertoire of things.

And I'm sure

There's even more data that John can provide, especially when you do have a huge library
of wins, yet the brain just isn't tracking it.

The brain isn't finding it, right?

uh We all have that, but we don't think they're wins.

We don't think that it's something worthwhile to know, and I'm here to tell you it
actually is.

The world has told you it's not, but I and John and Daniel, if you wanted to, would tell
you it absolutely is.

John, thoughts about that?

Man, I'm super pumped.

It was you actually, Sam, who got me started talking about self-efficacy.

This is a fucking staple in my stuff that I do these days because it's such an available
tool.

And I don't want to steal your thunder, but my very Cliff Notes-y version of it that I
teach people is confidence is like, know I can do the thing.

Self-efficacy is I know I can learn how to navigate the thing and you can do that.

And I don't mean to just be like, you know, buzz wording it up, like you could believe in
yourself.

I mean, do believe in yourself, but there's, there's this piece of like, okay, I hope this
company is not evil because I always get scared now with AI, but back in the day, I used

to talk about this company all the time called goblin.tools.

Have you heard of goblin.tools?

It's if you just type in goblin.tools in your URL, it's kind of fun.

I give this to a lot of the homies with ADHD.

Cause what you do on goblin.tools is you just go like, how do I change a tire?

And it goes, well, you need to first decide what is wrong with your tire.

Is it flat?

Then you need to get a jack.

A jack looks like this.

And each of the steps, you can click on it and it'll go, what is a jack?

And it's like, oh, it's that thing in the back of your car, like the little corkscrew
shaped thing.

And then you'll have goblin.tools tell you.

And then you go, but goblin.tools, how do I twist a jack?

And it's like, we put one hand here, the other hand here, and you rotate it 90 degrees.

you're like, goblin.tools, how do I use my hands?

And it's like, consider the concept of your arms.

Like you can kind of have an existential crisis with it if you want, which is very fun.

But the reason I like it is because we live in an age where you can kind of just find the
answers to everything.

You don't have to use goblin.tools to do this.

I just think it's fun.

And it's called goblin.tools, which is we should just talk about that sometime on its own.

It's what a fucking great name.

um But like there's no, there's a depth and hiddenness of information that's over now.

You can just know stuff.

I had to buy airplane tickets to go to New York recently and I don't know shit about how
to do that.

I've always had help every time I've done it, but I just like.

did it.

Hey, nice.

Nice.

There you go.

That's good.

This is, this is

how it's gonna do this.

For those that are listening in, I typed in, there's a section here called the judge, am I
misinterpreting the tone of this?

And I'm being cheeky and I said, you are a piece of shit, die.

And what does it come up with?

The text communicates a strong and intense negative emotion.

thanks.

It conveys feelings of anger, hostility, and disdain.

The language used is aggressive and confrontational, suggesting the speaker is expressing
deep resentment or fury towards the person being addressed.

The phrase, you are a piece of shit, is a highly derogatory insult, indicating significant
contempt and a desire to diminish the other person's worth.

The command, die, further amplifies the hostility, implying a wish for the person's harm
or demise, which reflects a moment of extreme emotional agitation, possibly characterized

by frustration, hatred, or exasperation.

Overall, the text comes across as deeply confrontational, hostile, emotionally charged,
and revealing a severe level of anger or contempt toward the individual targeted by these

words.

Thanks goblin.tools!

uh

I, like I said, my feelings have changed on it a little bit since I feel like AI is maybe
not the best friend that I thought it was, but I've been using Goblin.Tools for years and

years and years.

um So I bring it up because like, if you're a person who has anxiety, when you are
approached with a problem, you'll be like, I can't fucking do that.

Allow you, allow you, allow you to listen to me, tell you about me.

So we were saying earlier it's been a week and if you recall, dear listener slash viewer
at the start of the episode, I was like, yeah, it's been really fucking stupid.

Let me just let you know a little bit of my lore.

If you listened to all of our episodes, maybe there was some foreshadowing.

Cause I've said to you, I have a key of soul.

Well, I don't anymore.

Cause they're very stealable.

And a guy tried to steal it.

He failed cause he's a loser.

He also was kind of like a super nice loser cause he didn't take any shit on my car, but
my car was very dead.

So my sunglasses were still in there, which just like meant a lot to me.

So thank you, shitty thief, at being bad at your job, you fucking piece of shit.

but the reason I bring all this up um is because I've never had a person try to steal my
car before.

So I'm going to work.

I'm walking out of an apartment where I stayed over the previous night and I go to my car
and I go to plug my key into the car.

And then I'm like, there's no hole for this.

And I sit in the car and I'm like, there's no hole for this.

Like this dude just fucking dismantled.

Once again, don't buy 2014 Kia.

Kia, totally fine brand.

The Kia Soul, you can't insure them now through a lot of companies.

Thank you to my insurance for covering mine because I don't know.

Anyway, I've never done this before.

And I remember going, I was like, hey, can I get a ride to work to a friend?

And they were like, yeah, what happened?

And like, I got to have this story.

Like, oh, I just got robbed.

So all week has been just new discoveries for me of like, you know,

How do you get this taken care of?

How do you get a tow into the city?

How do you share this thing?

Which pictures do you take of the car to send in?

Where do you get the rental car from?

If you need an appointment but the car's already totaled, then how do you?

And it's just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Super shit week for me.

Not a fun week at all.

um Shout out to my clients, by the way, for being mega flexible this week.

I really appreciated that.

Thank you, clients.

um But.

I've been scared the whole time, right?

Because like if I stop seeing people, I stop making money and then I stop having food and
then I'm dead.

So if I do this wrong, the consequences are catastrophic, saith the amygdala.

But the 38 years of life that I've had have been like, we kind of just do stuff.

So if you talk to a person, they'll probably tell you the next step.

And if they don't try to person.

And at some point, like what Sam was getting at, but you just kind of do these things like
it gets done.

I was telling the fellas before our show started, the rental company gave me a real fun
rental car right now.

It weighs about eight pounds.

It's got a solid half of a horsepower.

It's very, I'm motivated to get a new car now.

But um I believe that I'll get this done even though I'm scared the whole time.

To be transparent, I'm riddled with anxiety.

I've just had it for my whole life and I've learned how to go, your anxiety, I'm gonna do
a thing.

Will it work?

And this is the best part.

So stay tuned for this.

When your brain goes, but will it work?

The answer's irrelevant.

Because what your brain's trying to do there is make a little mini algorithm to predict,
will this be effective?

What should I do?

You can't know though.

Like if you are playing a sport, perhaps the basketball, and you go to shoot it, and
you're like, will it go in?

I can't shoot it unless it will go in.

You're doing a great disservice to your team.

You should try, or pass it, do a thing.

And self-efficacy is all about just trying stuff and learning and trying stuff and
learning, and you're a human.

and you are really good at this.

We're literally the best creatures at this at all.

And if you're not a human, that's way more exciting and we would like to hear about it.

Can I still do this as part chicken?

Yes, I believe your heritage has enough human that you have the ability to do it.

Also chickens can like do shit with their head cut off for a hot minute.

So there's some significant adaptability there.

are super clever.

They're really clever animals.

Sometimes they don't show it, but they are.

One of my favorite people once said to me that she is her best self in the presence of a
chicken.

That's a real thing a person has said to me.

And I said that to another person and she said, me too.

So I'm starting to think that's like a thing.

So maybe.

makes that makes so much sense to me.

Yeah.

around a chicken is really the big takeaway of our show.

Zero dot podcast, be around a chicken.

um But yeah, I think I may have bled into rambling, but self-efficacy is amazing and value
of court and action is amazing.

And if you just, and I know this is an oversimplification, but if you just keep trying,
you're not gonna just like die.

It will get you closer to an answer.

And I know that and Sam knows that and Daniel knows that because we've all tried a lot of
things.

I'll tell you something else, dear listener slash viewer.

my God, we've failed at so many fucking things.

I have failed at so many things in the context of just the car thing this week.

Like I'm on like try number four on figuring stuff out and today is the day I got it.

But I got it.

um Special shout out to the anxiety homies.

I mean this like from a genuine place of love.

This is harder for you.

I'm one of you so I can talk about this kind of freely.

Your brain will go, I can't do this.

And it will be like, your chest will lock up and you'll feel actual danger because your
brain gives you danger juice when it's afraid.

Not useful brain.

I have a little thing called propranolol that I take.

I take it for blood pressure reasons, but it also kind of just stymies the effects of
physiological anxiety.

So it's fun because my brain will be like, oh my God, we might fail at this.

And then my brain's like, yeah, I guess then we'd have to do the next thing then.

it's like, that's what the decision-making flow chart is like if you don't have anxiety.

And you can do this.

And like what Sam was getting at, the best thing of all is as you begin to do this, your
brain begins to develop a meta concept of it.

And it's like,

I can do things I don't know how to do, and if I can't, I'll figure it out, or I'll get
someone else who can't, or I'll go, I can't do that, I'll do a different thing instead.

Like, humans are incredibly good at moving forward until we're too afraid, which I'm
beginning to think is the theme of the show today.

Hmm.

Hmm.

If self-efficacy sounds like a $5 phrase, the other way to phrase it is trust in your
future self.

Trust in your future self to be able to handle, learn, do the thing.

And trust comes from, I've got a body of work that I've been successful in.

This doesn't seem that much different from the other stuff.

I mean, it's different.

The permutations are all different, but I've been successful before.

probably will be trustful again.

And you might think to yourself, Sam, John, Daniel, I don't have self-advocacy because my
body of work, my body of successes is nil.

In fact, my ratio of successes is incredibly low.

I'd say that I fail more times than I succeed.

And I'm with you, I get you.

But I have two things to offer to you.

Human beings statistically, even my neuro-spicy friends, you're really hard to be below 50
% success rate.

In fact, 99 times out of 100, you're guaranteed to be 51 % or higher.

And if you want to bump that ratio even higher, keep trying.

Now that's frustrating, I get that, but in the keep of the trying, fail, fail, fail, fail,
fail, succeed once, well, you're not gonna just succeed once and be done with it.

You're gonna keep doing it until you keep succeeding, keep succeeding.

And now the...

the 20, 30, 40, 50,000 failures you had, that becomes an incredibly small number and the
success is outweighed by a significant amount.

And overall you can say, oh, I'm successful now in that particular thing.

When I learn a new task, I am the worst at that task.

I literally, if there's a competition for being the worst at a brand new task, that is me.

But one of the things that I give myself permission to, and this might not work for my
neuro spicy friends, but it works for me and it works for a lot of other people, is I say,

okay, I'm going to give myself infinite amount of time to do this task.

and to learn it.

And sometimes you can't, sometimes you don't have the spoons for it, totally get it, but
for those things that are like, no, this is important to me, I will take forever to learn

to get good at this task, whatever the heck that is.

And folks, when I tell you that I'm a slow learner, I am a slow fucking learner.

I do not have the skill where I can take a task that I don't know anything about and go,
it's like 15 other tasks that I did, they correlate to each other, and I can quickly ramp

up my skill.

I don't have that skill.

The skill that I have is this is a totally brand new isolated task that I must learn from
the ground up and learn to myself.

Now because of my learning disability, I don't make that choice with a lot of things.

There's some things like I'm not gonna spend the infinite amount of time to learn this.

I'm gonna hire someone to help me.

I'm gonna partner with someone.

I'm gonna connect with someone.

But for things that are important to me, I'll give myself the time to do it.

And when I do, as long as I have infinite amount of time and I keep trucking along,
eventually I'll hit success.

I don't know when that's gonna happen.

But it's going to happen.

And then from then on, the ratio comes in my favor.

And that's something that I offer to people that have the spoons to do it.

And I say this story uh because my father's actually a really great example of this.

I don't want to speak too much about this, but at a certain point in my brother's life, my
brother's nine years older than me, so I wasn't even born yet, I don't think in this case.

uh Teachers were really concerned that my brother wasn't doing well in school, wasn't
doing well in tests, whatever.

And my dad would say, well, okay, so what's the issue?

they give the test scores to my father, my father would look at it, so half of these
aren't even answered.

He says, yeah, he hasn't been able to answer half the questions.

He says, well, what if we looked at just the things he was able to answer?

Look at those questions.

And did the math and was like, it's like, if you did the percentage that way, it's like an
85%.

And he's like, so you're telling me that my son, in the time that he was given, when he
answers a question, he has an 85 % ratio?

That seems like success to me.

And then he argued with the teachers back and forth and eventually it became, you're gonna
give him a test and you're gonna give him an infinite amount of time to take that test.

And yes, some students will get it done in 25 minutes, 35 minutes.

You'll give him the two hours, three hours he does.

But anyway, so the story is when my father was able to negotiate with teachers, quite
hostily I will imagine, because the teachers didn't want to do it, but said, hey, you give

my son infinite amount of time for this test, and then let's grade him on that.

Or you only grade him on the ones in which he's able to answer.

They agreed to the longer format.

They gave him like two.

a lot more time to answer these tests.

He started scoring in the 80s and 90s.

And he's like, if you give people enough time to do whatever they want to do, they'll be
successful.

And my brother was successful there on afterwards.

So I say that to my spicy homies, I say that to everyone.

uh One of the fears that we often make is things have to be done right now.

And I fall into that sometimes.

When I give myself infinite amount of time, I find that no matter what, I will generally
be some kind of version of success.

And it could be a long time, but it can absolutely happen in that capacity.

John, you have spicy thoughts.

a lot of thoughts.

cool dad, big fan.

um Two of all, you gave me an insight into a thing that I've done for a long time, and I
kinda didn't know why it worked, but I kinda have the words for it now.

Heads up, I sound a little crazy when I talk about this, but that happens a lot.

You're probably used to that by now, and if you're not, strap in.

um I play competitive games, I'm a competitive guy, and occasionally I'll play somebody,
and historically in my past, I had what the kids are calling a weak mental.

I go, ah, I can't do this.

Ah, that sucks.

And somewhere along the line, my brain was like, let's try this on for a second.

And I would lose to a guy or a gal or anybody, I don't know.

It's the internet.

And I would go, I can figure this out.

I can beat this guy.

I can beat anybody.

I can beat anybody.

And that sounds like a crazy person's hyperconfidence.

I don't want you to think you're the best in the world of things because that's a lot of
pressure.

But that phrasing for me gave me permission.

Like if you give me enough games, I'll figure you out.

I'll beat anybody.

Whether that's true or not, it's incredibly useful for my brain because it goes, okay,
well, let's solve the problem.

And it's no longer thinking about, have to do it right now.

And what Sam's getting at with the infinite time thing is, and this is like kind of the
freedom for your little buddy, Mikhail Lubevich here, is if you aren't on a time

constraint or feel you're playing for stakes of like your personal value, your worth,
whether or not this was worth doing, et cetera, then you'd learn real fast and efficacy is

massively improved.

So when I'm just trying to do things to be like, okay, how would this work?

Whether it be in a game or life or cars or love or you name it, there's just this level of
freedom you suddenly have to just make mistakes and learn from them.

And that is really utilitarian.

And the reason I really want to harp on this so much is because your brain will pump you
full of death juice and be like, if you do it wrong, it's curtains for you, bud.

And that's not true.

That's just not true.

If you do it wrong, you get to learn from it.

And occasionally, this is like, okay,

So this is a hard one.

If you, dear listener slash viewer at home, can't roll with this one, that's okay.

This is like really hard.

There's a fear of death that is not utilitarian and it is okay to override it.

And that sounds crazy.

Here's my example that will hopefully make it make more sense.

I was flying in New York recently where I actually saw my buddy Sam.

and I got on the plane and they were like, as a heads up, fucking this plane's made out of
cardboard and it's going to be a turbulent the whole time and you might just die.

So I did the same thing that Sam did.

And I was like, Hey, people that I love, I hope I don't die.

Bye.

And then I got on the plane and my body was like, we got to go fly the plane.

We're going to die.

And I was like, Hey man, body, we don't know how to fly a plane and we're afraid of
heights.

So we'd probably let the pilot do that.

and I was like,

But if I don't, I have to sit here and risk dying.

And then in a very Zen moment, I was like, well, then I guess it's okay.

Because you can't do anything else.

And I know that feels negligent.

Anxiety-having person, I'm speaking specifically to you.

Because when your brain's like, we gotta figure out this thing for the job interview.

Or like, we gotta say the right thing to this person we're trying to date.

Or like, we gotta do this thing or our house is gonna fall over.

Those things would be really bad if they went wrong.

Worrying about it's gonna make you worse at it.

And self-efficacy is the cure.

So I'm not saying just do it because that doesn't work.

What I'm saying is what's the next step?

Help redirect your attention to that.

And then if you learn from it, you do it.

If you don't, you can't, but you were never gonna do anything better than that.

And your anxiety is trying to get you to like intuit from the universe to just magically
do it right.

And that's actually not helpful.

Bodies are dumb.

Don't listen to them, but you're smart.

Listen to you.

Yeah.

And related to that, if you don't have this anxiety thing, you're still not immune because
I'll tell you, we're social creatures.

So if you hang out with people who have that anxiety thing, it can rub off on you.

uh Happened to me quite a bit in my early goings in life.

I was generally of the vibe of like, well, we'll figure it out.

And if we don't, no one died.

So we'll just reschedule, do whatever.

But I'm working with an accountant director who's like,

No, we gotta make the quarter.

We gotta make this presentation.

We gotta do this.

What are we gonna do?

What if this doesn't work?

And I'm like, what are we freaking out about?

Like worst case scenario, we present it, they don't like our data, we'll come back.

But for them, it was literally death.

And I got to see it.

And we would do a presentation.

I'd do a QBR presentation with some stakeholders.

And they like some of the stuff we'd present, but some of the stuff, not so much.

And she was like, we failed.

We absolutely failed.

And eventually I start trickling in, oh, I have to start acting this way.

I have to start being hyper anxious and whatever.

And that can be a learning behavior and I'm here to tell you, if I'm your coach, no.

No.

The only case in which I would say this might be helpful, and I say the word might in a
very small asterisk right here.

If you are in healthcare and it's live or die, and you are on the ground floor, you're
there on the hospital, and people are suffering, and you've gotta be in that fight or

flight moment, I'm not here to tell you how to fucking do your job.

We need you, thank you so much for all that work.

But for everyone else who's not in a fight or flight, people are gonna die position, which
a majority of people are not in that position.

I would encourage you, no.

Try whatever you can to either get away from that person, recognize that's what's
happening, or put boundaries in place.

Because I did not do that in my early career and I developed a lot of unhealthy
tendencies.

I literally developed perfectionistic tendencies from that because everyone else was so
amped up and worried and it was coming on to me.

And it led to one of my very first nervous breakdowns that I hope no one ever has to
experience.

A of all, thank you for sharing that.

B of all, I get to do a fun, exciting thing now.

Wait, wait, nothing you've done has been exciting so far?

shit in the whole time.

I thought I was just like, I was trying to put people to...

Alright, Daniel, I want you to cut the entire episode up until this point.

This is now when the real episode starts.

Just FYI.

This is the real Dark Souls.

like, there's that thing you just said where you're like, now for people in the medical
community when someone could actually die, uh if you're me, there's a chapter of your life

where you're a therapist, just like exclusively to medical professional, just like by
chance.

I worked with like a handful of ER doctors and nurses just simultaneously.

They didn't know each other as far as I know, but like, some of them had a really bad
anxiety and they'd be like, well, what do I do?

And they're like, if I do it wrong.

people literally die.

And A of all, spooky, scary, good content for the made a little bit mean about, um but B
of all, the answer actually didn't change at all.

It didn't change at all, right?

So like, let think of an example.

A long time ago, I'm in Illinois, I'm driving to Goodfield to watch a play with my sweetie
and my mom and my dad.

And we're just doing, it's a little lovely wintery evening.

And this.

The sweetiest me in this case, he was cuddling me in the blanket and everything.

And I'm driving and this guy has a really sweet car on the other side of the road, this
big, giant white SUV.

And he's like, ice is for fucking babies.

And he's going real fast.

And he just careens into the intersection, comes onto my side and he's coming at me.

At the time I'm driving a Saturn station wagon, the LW 200 Absolute Babe Magnet.

the like you're raising babies and this is a car for an early parent.

That is literally the car that you would see in a car lot that would go late at night.

That was the baby making machine for sure, for sure.

B of all, or do.

But, but, but, I dodged out of the guy's way, which was very courteous of me, because I
kind of was like, you asked for this, but I didn't do that.

And then I remember my car starting to spin, and I would see like the road ahead of me,
was like, yes.

And then I would see the cars behind me like, no!

And they were like, yes, no, yes, no.

And I was trying to stabilize it while dodging other cars, because it's icy road.

and I do the best I can.

And I remember thinking, I have to do this right or I'm gonna fucking die.

And I remember turning and I could see me leaving the road heading towards a tree.

And I was like, this is it for the record.

It's not it, I'm alive.

Did I do that right?

I don't know.

But like I could have fucking died in that story.

And all you can do is the best you can do.

I wasn't prepared for that.

I'm not better prepared for it.

I mean, I am I guess, but like, you know, like we, and that's, this is the really hard
takeaway.

If you do the best you can, it's good enough.

It doesn't matter if it succeeds or not because you can't do anything better.

I'm saying a bunch of weird shit today, right?

But like, if a nuclear bomb goes off and they're like, get down in a ditch, cover your
head, like that's probably not great for you, but you should still do it.

You should still try to do the thing that will do anything to help you because you should
always try to do a value-accordant thing for yourself.

And the amount of thinking to find a value-accordant thing is actually very low.

If you yourself perseverating, ruminating, that's not problem solving.

Sorry, go ahead.

going, no, going back to my example, I didn't really have to think too hard about the
decisions I'm gonna have to make and have, like, there's no, it's within my values, it's

what I, we're gonna have a conversation and all that stuff, like, I am not dwelling on it,
like, I know exactly what I'm gonna do and what I'm gonna have to do and all that stuff,

and that's right, it takes away your, what do the cool kids call it, mental stack, I hate
that phrase, but yes, your mental stack is shrunk quite a bit.

I don't think about, I'm gonna have a great weekend, because I'm not thinking about it
until my conversation with some folks on Monday.

Like I'm just, it is, know, whatever it is, I'm not dwelling, I'm not thinking, am I
making the right choice?

It's just, this is what we're gonna be doing.

em Said something else about doing the best you can, that's all you can do.

We live in an age right now, the TikTok-ification of life, which I can't stand.

Something comes up on your feed and tells you, here's the five ways to do this.

Here's the way you should be doing this.

Here's a strategy to do this.

Here's what you should be doing.

Everyone's doing this and they're doing it wrong.

We are being programmed to believe that there's an optimized right way to do everything.

And look, if you want to engage content and do that, and that's how you make your money,
okay.

But to everyone else who's listening to that stuff, that will kill you with decision
paralysis.

That will kill you with just being unable to actually fulfill your potential.

Perfect is the enemy of good and good enough.

The amount of good work the human race has lost out on because people said, I won't even
bother because it's not worth trying because I'm not doing it the optimal way.

It's so much and we could benefit so fucking much from just fuck it.

It's good enough.

Let's go.

I'll figure it out later.

We'll learn later.

We'll learn from the lesson as long as it's not going to kill anyone.

Even if you're in a position in health care, as John says, you still have to some kind of
mental stack of look, we've got to make this work anyway, do the best we can.

We have to move on to the next patient because the healthcare workers that do decide to
keep that mental stack as fresh as they can, that's like worrying about every single

thing, they won't make it.

They will not make it.

In order to be a true healthcare worker that's serving your community, have to, it sounds
dehumanized, but you have to calibrate it correctly so that way you're not doing that.

of all the takeaways of today's episode, please go do the thing.

I don't care if it's good.

I don't care if it's optimal.

Just do the thing.

You can make it good later.

You can refine it better.

Give yourself infinite amount of time to make it better.

But right now, just go do the fucking thing.

And when you've done the thing, you'll have done the best you can, and that is absolutely
perfect.

Long ago, I'm a little baby therapist and my boss I've alluded to before, David Ventrelli,
once again, if he ever sees this, he's gonna hate my hair so much.

I look forward to that day very, very much.

he's a brilliant therapist.

I remember going to him, whoa, whoa in my heart.

And I was like, David, I don't know what to do.

And he's like, why?

And I was like, well, I'm just worried.

My client has expressed suicidality on several occasions.

He was like, you made a safety plan.

I was like, yep.

He was like, have you told family if it's an emergency?

Yep.

I was like, have you told them about how confidentiality will work in this case?

I was like, yep, yep, yep, yep, Follow protocol.

He was like, cool.

Then you're good enough.

And I was like, but what?

And he's like, no, that's not yours.

You can't control that.

And I tell you this because ultimately at end of the day, like we can't control a whole
lot of things and it's cute that humans think we can.

So all you can do is your best effort.

Anxiety is never utilitarian.

Isn't that fun?

It's never actually helping you.

A level of a physiological arousal will prepare you for things better.

That's true.

But going, what do I do?

What about this?

What about this?

What about this?

about this?

Nope.

Nope.

That's not on the same team.

That's a glitch.

And to Sam's earlier point, ah it is lightly contagious if you don't have like some
shields up against it.

So I wanna wrap things up, because again, we've got a lot of stuff we gotta talk about,
and we could talk about all this stuff forever, forever, forever.

So to wrap things up, being a value-accordant person sounds like this high and mighty,
sexy, uh super prestigious thing, but honestly, it reduces your mental stack.

It reduces your...

decision making because the choice is always simple for you.

It allows you the space to make pivots in your life that are going to benefit you in your
life as opposed to just going along with the flow and what the environment, the world

gives you.

And some of us are never going to be able to make that choice due to the infrastructure
that's in front of you.

And for that, I'm sorry, but if you have any spoons available, it is within your best
interest to try to do that in whatever way you possibly can.

John and I speak not from a place of

Oh yeah, we've always had this way and this is just the way it works.

No, no, we, I've literally been on the side of literally living a life that the world has
given me and just suffering through it and thinking that's all I deserved.

And the truth is, I'm so grateful I made it on the other side.

And one of my great things is if just one person listens to this and says, okay, yeah, I
can, I can make some changes.

I can make some choices.

I can, I can make a pause on things and make a pivot here and there.

It's transformative, it's powerful, and it frankly feels fucking good.

You'll know.

You'll know if it was value recording, because you'll be like, I'm glad I did it this way,
even though this outcome sucks in occasional circumstances.

because you'll have been yourself.

I think that's the last piece we can say is when you are the other person, is you are
whatever your environment tells you you are, and you're trying to be a chameleon and adapt

to all that stuff.

Okay, cool, the world wants you to do that, that's fine.

Nothing feels worse than failing at having tried to be a chameleon to things.

Meaning, I don't get it, world, I did exactly what you told me to do.

I acquiesced to your demands and I still failed?

Meanwhile, if you don't have that mindset and go,

I was me.

I did the best that me could do and I failed?

That's fine.

I was me though the whole time.

That's still a win.

That's still a win.

It's the core, not to be self-congratulatory, but it's the core of our podcast and it's
why we hope you hang out with us.

It's because we want to do the things that we believe in and we want you to find the
things that you believe in.

We don't want to give you bullshit answers made in a can that give us money.

We want you to find ways to live a sustainable, joyful life that you can feel good on more
days than not.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that has been the Zero Dot podcast.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

You know where to find us.

at thezero.podcast.com.

We're also on YouTube.

We're on Spotify.

We're on Amazon.

We are everywhere where podcasts are generally.

If it's not in a place that you like so much, write into us at thezero.podcast.com.

Let us know your questions.

We'd love to field questions about life, about mental health, about social sciences,
professional advice, whatever you'd like.

We'd love to field those in.

But again, let us know, hey,

Zero Dot, why aren't you in this one random place that I really want you to be?

Well consider it, let us know.

We won't know until you ask.

Until next time, this is Sam, this has been John, Daniel, be your best.

Welcome to Team Human.

That's good.

killed it, murdered it, slaughtered it, butchered it to death, just shattered its corpse.

just...eviscerated its form.

You know, I don't believe in murder, but I will murder a take.