Best of Wednesday 2024

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard – Episode: "Best of Wednesday 2024" Summary

Release Date: December 25, 2024

In the "Best of Wednesday 2024" episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, host Dax Shepard and co-host Monica Padman delve into a myriad of engaging discussions ranging from personal career experiences to deep dives into mental health and societal structures. This long-form summary captures the essence of their conversations, highlighting key points, notable quotes, and the insightful conclusions drawn throughout the episode.

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1. Top Audible Picks of 2024

The episode kicks off with Dax and Monica sharing their favorite selections from Audible's curated list for 2024.

• Dax Shepard expresses excitement about a new full-cast production of George Orwell's 1984:

  "Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with." (00:30)

• Monica Padman highlights James by Percival Everett as a hot pick:

  "I'm so to listen to James, which is a new title by Percival Everett that is very, very hot right now." (00:57)

Both hosts emphasize their love for Audible, endorsing it as an essential tool for nightly relaxation and entertainment.

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2. Monica's Journey at Jimmy Kimmel Live

Monica shares her transformative experience working as an assistant to the executive producer on Jimmy Kimmel Live, detailing the high-pressure environment and the intense workflow.

• Monica Padman recounts landing the job despite unfamiliarity with the show's dynamics:

  "I got the job as assistant to the executive producer and I loved it... I was working about five times the hours. This is when Jimmy Kimmel Live was actually live. So we would shoot the show from 9 to 10pm Monday through Friday." (02:20)

She provides an inside look into the show's production process, illustrating the painstaking effort required to produce nightly episodes and the fleeting nature of successes and setbacks in a live TV setting.

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3. Self-Criticism and Empathy in Professional Settings

Dax and Monica explore the balance between self-criticism and empathy, especially when interacting with highly intelligent teams.

• Dax Shepard discusses his approach to handling flawed ideas within a trusted group:

  "If it's a group of engineers at Microsoft that I've worked with for 10 years and who know I think they're smart and we're in it together, we're gonna win or lose together and there's no doubt of that, I can say that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." (05:50)

Monica adds that recognizing and uplifting team members is crucial, even when their contributions might seem limited, emphasizing the importance of fostering a supportive environment.

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4. Debate: Superpowers vs. Intelligence

A lively debate ensues between Dax and Monica about the desirability of different superpowers, revealing personal preferences and underlying truths about their values.

• Monica Padman recalls a moment of vulnerability when Dax wished for increased intelligence over traditional superpowers:

  "She asked you in a quick fire if you had a superpower, what would it be? And you said, I wish I was smarter." (08:32)

• Dax Shepard defends his choice by emphasizing the prioritization of intelligence:

  "I'd like to be smarter more than you'd like to fly. Like, in my mind, I'm like, you've already got smart covered. Let's fly." (08:53)

The exchange underscores their mutual respect and the complexities of balancing personal aspirations with societal expectations.

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5. Understanding Love and Relationship Dynamics

Monica delves into the nature of love, particularly in the context of her relationship with someone grappling with a personality disorder.

• Monica Padman describes her first romantic relationship at 14, highlighting a matter-of-fact approach to love:

  "It was so matter of fact, my feelings about him... I thought I was gonna marry that guy." (28:10)

• She further explains the challenges of reconciling different emotional expressions within a relationship:

  "We love and demonstrate that love very differently. Neither way is right or wrong. It's just different." (30:39)

Their conversation reveals the intricate dance of understanding and accepting differing emotional landscapes within intimate partnerships.

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6. Conversation with Billie Eilish: Songwriting and Early Career

A special segment features discussions with pop sensation Billie Eilish, where Monica and Dax explore her journey into music and the genesis of her hit song "Ocean Eyes."

• Billie Eilish recounts her early days learning piano and collaborating with her brother:

  "I set about doing that, and I asked my dad, like, I want to learn how to play this song... Pop music is absolutely like that." (12:10)

• She shares the serendipitous moment when "Ocean Eyes" took off on SoundCloud:

  "We put it on SoundCloud and the next day it was on a blog... it was happening." (15:44)

The dialogue provides a candid look into the spontaneous and collaborative nature of creative breakthroughs in the music industry.

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7. Yuval Harari on Information Networks and Societal Impact

Guest Yuval Harari, renowned historian and author, discusses his insights into information networks and their profound influence on societal structures.

• Harari explains the concept of information networks using the spread of COVID-19 as a case study:

  "Overwhelming majority of people who were infected with COVID did not spread the virus very far at all. The spread comes from a small number of people." (48:28)

• He draws parallels between epidemic spread and the opioid crisis, emphasizing the power of targeting key individuals within networks:

  "We were spending, taking our sales budget... only a handful of doctors were prescribing way more oxycontin than anybody else." (51:14)

Harari's analysis highlights the critical role of information dissemination and the disproportionate impact of influential nodes within networks.

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8. Misconceptions Surrounding Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

Monica clarifies common misunderstandings about OCPD, differentiating it from general notions of being "detail-oriented" or "organized."

• Monica Padman defines OCPD and dispels myths:

  "Obsession is repetitive, unwanted thoughts... Compulsions are the acts performed to neutralize these obsessions." (38:55)

• She emphasizes that OCPD is ego-syntonic, meaning individuals perceive their behaviors as correct and necessary:

  "OCPD is an ego dystonic condition... people think it's detail-oriented, but it's not OCD." (39:31)

This segment educates listeners on the clinical aspects of OCPD, fostering greater understanding and empathy.

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9. The Power and Perception of Portraits in Society

Harari discusses the pervasive influence of portraits, particularly religious ones, in shaping collective beliefs and societal networks.

• Yuval Harari remarks on the global ubiquity of Jesus portraits despite the lack of authentic visual records:

  "Billions of portraits of Jesus have been produced... not a single one of them is true." (63:30)

• He explains how these imagined images facilitate large-scale cooperation and shared values:

  "They have been extremely successful... in connecting billions of people into a network which shares certain values and norms." (64:10)

Harari underscores the enduring impact of symbolic imagery in uniting and influencing vast populations.

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10. Mental Health: Dissociation and Its Effects on Relationships

Monica and Dax delve into the complexities of dissociative disorders, exploring their manifestations and implications in personal relationships.

• Monica Padman explains dissociation as a coping mechanism for traumatic experiences:

  "Dissociation is when things happen that are either traumatic or something you can't tolerate... you either don't process it or you shunt it towards a part of the psyche that's not your main part of your personality." (75:30)

• They discuss a case study involving a person named Alexis, highlighting the challenges of dealing with dissociative rage:

  "He's very afraid of his own rage... he's a very different kind of person who can defend himself more." (76:12)

This conversation sheds light on the internal struggles individuals face when managing dissociative symptoms and the ripple effects on their relationships.

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11. Closing Reflections and Holiday Messages

The episode concludes with a poetic collaboration between Monica and Dax, embodying themes of love, resilience, and the human spirit.

• The duo recites a heartfelt piece emphasizing unconditional love and support:

  "We are loved whether we speak up or we are silent... When we face it, may we embrace it. We are loved." (81:00)

This closing segment encapsulates the episode's overarching message of empathy, understanding, and the interconnectedness of human experiences.

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Conclusion

"Best of Wednesday 2024" offers listeners a rich tapestry of conversations that navigate personal anecdotes, professional insights, and profound societal analyses. Through candid discussions and expert guest appearances, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman create an engaging narrative that not only entertains but also educates and fosters a deeper understanding of the human condition.

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Note: Advertisements and promotional segments present in the transcript have been omitted to focus solely on the episode's main content.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. Experts on Expert. This is our Best of Experts on Experts for year 2024.

[Monica Padman]

We had an incredible amount of great experts this year. It was really hard to pick an embarrassment of riches.

[Dax Shepard]

It was so please enjoy the best of Experts. We are supported by Audible. Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment. Like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984. This is the one I am most excited to indulge myself with.

[Monica Padman]

I'm so to listen to James, which is a new title by Percival Everett that is very, very hot right now.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, there's so many good ones on the list.

[Monica Padman]

We love Audible. This is how you go to bed.

[Dax Shepard]

I love Audible. I swear by Audible. I can't wait to listen to the Orwell 1984 off this list. I'm also doing Fleas by autobiography right now, which I'm obsessed with. I can't get enough Audible in my life every night. Go to audible.comdax and discover all the year's bests waiting for you. That's audible.comd from episode 697, Our Sweet Love.

[Monica Padman]

Molly McNerney a friend of a friend said there's a job opening at Jimmy Kimmel Live to be an assistant to the executive producer. I'd never seen Jimmy Kimmel Live. I had no idea what an assistant to an executive producer did, but I knew it was in the industry and could maybe get me closer to comedy. In the meantime, I'm doing improv classes out in LA and making great friends who are all really funny people. And I interviewed Jimmy Kimmel Live. This is pre dvr. I tried to stay up to watch the show the night before and I fell asleep.

[Dax Shepard]

Oopsies.

[Monica Padman]

I remember being like, I gotta watch the show. I gotta know what I'm doing. And I woke up to the credits. I was like, oh no. Went in for the job interview. Got it. Naomi Scott, Adam Scott's wife. She interviewed me.

[Dax Shepard]

Nuh.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, she was the existing executive producer assistant. Oh my God. Finding a replacement for herself. Yeah. So I got the job as assistant to the executive producer and I loved it. This was just a huge quote, step down. Yeah. I was making about a third of the money I was making, I was working about five times the hours. This is when Jimmy Kimmel Live was actually live. So we would shoot the show from 9 to 10pm Monday through Friday. It was the longest workday ever. I lived in Hermosa Beach. I would drive to Hollywood. I had an hour commute. I had to be at my desk at 9am and I would leave at 11pm Aye yai yai. It was terrible, but I loved it. I was so happy to be a part of this live show. I loved watching people come up with ideas and they were on the air that night. It was incredible in terms of the way the process works. Do you wanna hear like, how it goes? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So around 5:00 in the morning, one guy wakes up a writer assistant and he combs the Internet for what the stories of the day are. Those are in our inbox. They go to head writer and we then edit them. So by 7am Every day, all of our 19 writers have an email that says, here are the top stories of the day that we're gonna focus our monologue on. You're not limited to those. Please don't be like. We prefer if someone goes, I've got this interesting observation about something that's not in the daily news. But primarily our monologue is based on what has happened today, what people are talking about at home. We have a 8:50am deadline. So you read all these headlines and stories and then you write a couple of jokes and bit ideas. So bit ideas are the things that are like fake commercials or a man on the street bit. A pre tape with a celebrity. Jimmy gets about 50 pages by 9:30am.

[Dax Shepard]

How many staff writers are doing this?

[Monica Padman]

19.

[Dax Shepard]

The 5am person shout out to Nick.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, big shout out, big props.

[Dax Shepard]

How many stories does he give before he gets whittled down?

[Monica Padman]

He'll give about 11 to 12 stories. We narrow it down to about six to eight stories. I would say.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, great. So the 19 writers get six to eight stories, then they write two pages.

[Monica Padman]

And now Jimmy gets a thick 50 page document. He whittles it down to about five pages. That's sent to us by 10am so now we have a pretty clear understanding of what our monologue's going to be. Then we all start writing more jokes. So we'll say like, here are the topics, here are the ones we still need better jokes on. This bit could use some work. This is what I love about late night television. You can be in your bed, in your pajamas writing a bit and then you get an email and by 10am you've got a director, a producer, a graphics guy, you're making wardrobe choices, you're piecing this thing together.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, the page is so awesome.

[Monica Padman]

You're rewriting it, you're having the head writers punch up on it. Then Jimmy always does a punch up and then you shoot it, you edit it. You are oftentimes racing it to air. Our show's at 4:30. By the time you've been assigned to, you're gonna do this bit. It's 10am and hopefully it gets approved and it's ready for air by 4pm.

[Dax Shepard]

So it's been filmed, edited, everything scored.

[Monica Padman]

It is a rock.

[Dax Shepard]

What a pace.

[Monica Padman]

It's incredible. It's insane. It's interesting though because the victory of getting that is so great. But ooh, it hurts because you worked so fucking hard. Work hard, you set your whole day, you haven't eaten, you're like did I even drink water today? But the other side of it is that those failures are very short lived because time to go tomorrow. Gotta do it again.

[Dax Shepard]

From 711 with Bill Gates. So there's a spectrum of when I'm testing my own thinking and I see some flaw, I'm like oh you're so dumb. I gotta think better. So I'm very tough on myself. If it's a group of engineers at Microsoft that I've worked with for 10 years and who know I think they're smart and we're in it together, we're gonna win or lose together and there's no doubt of that, I can say that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I think there's footage of you saying that I don't say it much anymore. It's a very old from the 80s and 90s. There's some good footage but we have very limited time. The stu agree with there's no need to mention. So when I moved from Microsoft where it's really top engineers and some of the people sitting in the meeting would be people who work in the field. Their genius is often a softer set of skills than thinking all the numbers through that this could be 10% community building and relationships. The idea of using a little bit of sarcasm, it can come across as I'm not even sure you belong here. And so at the end of a meeting you want feedback on was it motivating the people in this meeting to find a solution or did it motivate them to not work on this problem or refresh their resume? When I wanted to Keep them. So I did have to learn a lot about new domains. When people can say five smart things at Microsoft and one dumb thing, and I'm not wasting any time on the five smart things. I won't bring them up. That means good job. Yeah, right, right. Even inside the foundation, it's not that hardcore. And as soon as you're meeting with partners, you better say, oh, thing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are so smart. But maybe. Well, I am in many contexts where I'm meeting with politicians and prime ministers, potential partners. Early in my press days, somebody would ask a question that had some assumption built into the question that was really wrong. And I'd be like, hey, your thinking's not very good here. And, you know, and then I remember it was one I did in France when I was, like, 23 years old, and the guy ran France said, did you want that guy to feel bad at the end of the interview? And I was like, no, but he feels bad. And. But I was like, but he was wrong. And he's like, yeah, but was it important to correct him? Well, I've been behaving like I was in a meeting with very top people. So, yes, it does take a while to understand all the different situations you're in.

[Monica Padman]

Well, one of the most interesting things I've ever, ever seen happen, we both.

[Dax Shepard]

Wrote it down at the same time, which is true.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I was like, oh, my God. She asked you in a quick fire if you had a superpower, what would it be? And you said, I wish I was smarter.

[Dax Shepard]

I would want to be smarter.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. The whole room could not handle that answer, including us. I mean, I don't know. You tell me. It didn't feel like that was faux humility. That's truth to you.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I'd like to be smarter more than you'd like to fly. Like, in my mind, I'm like, you've already got smart covered. Let's fly. Let's get invisible and take a walk through the showers or do something that you can't already do. I'll double down on the smart. The thing I'm semi decent at, I'd.

[Monica Padman]

Like to be truly decent at zero ego. We should tell people we didn't get to play spades. But we will, in this lifetime, play spades.

[Dax Shepard]

As soon as your schedule gets freed up more by AI, we're gonna shellack you at spades. When malaria's eradicated or when the machine takes it over, I will write a book about optimal spades. Play well, Bill, from the bottom of my Heart. This has been such an incredible experience. I wouldn't have learned any of this without your invitation. I really don't know how we're here. Monica and I, the whole week have been like, he's gotta be wondering, why the fuck these two?

[Monica Padman]

Why did they let them come here? India.

[Dax Shepard]

To share together the beauty and mystery and the challenges of India. It's wonderful and it's so human. It does make you remember, okay, the great things that we have. You know, as much as the US Is in deeply polarized, troubled state, we are the gold standard.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So much learning and aspiration. So I think to come here, it always takes you out of your normal life and it gives you distance. It gets you to appreciate some things. And in a way, things are simpler here because they're still dealing with the basics and they're kind of focused on some great things. And so much talent and energy in the country. Anyway, it's fantastic you could come. Yeah. It's palpable. It's like we've almost got to time travel to a period where America was in this stage. That sense that they're going to do it. Fascinating. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But even today, we were driving by something and there was a little girl with her grandma, and she was just, like, pulling on her grandma.

[Dax Shepard]

Annoying. Her grandma being so annoying.

[Monica Padman]

And I was like, man, everyone has to go to another country and just see this so they recognize we really are all the same. Everyone is pulling on their grandma's shirt.

[Dax Shepard]

And even in the very poorest country, taking care of your children and doing unbelievable things to help your family. Yeah. That you wouldn't even do for yourself. It's really cool.

[Monica Padman]

It's unifying. Yeah. Cool.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, thank you so much from 7:23 with Phineas. Okay, so now 12 years old, you go to a music writing class.

[Billie Eilish]

My mom has always written songs. She never made a penny off of it, but she's always done it. I don't actually fully know the origin of that in her life. I don't know what switch flipped for her that made her start writing songs. Should have asked her before this interview. That was kind of always in our house. She was sitting down at the piano and singing stuff, and I was like, what is it? She was like, I'm writing it. So that was real. People write new stuff. And our dad doesn't write at all, but he's a pretty good pianist and he would sit around and plunk out Beatles songs or play pieces he liked. When I was 12, I started singing in this choir, and I immediately Was very smitten with this girl in the choir who was 13. I might have even been 11. It was never going to happen, but I was hopeful. And I had this fantasy that I would be in the choir rehearsal room before anyone else got there, playing a tune wistfully.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Billie Eilish]

And that she'd come in and it would win her over. This was really concocted.

[Dax Shepard]

I know it well.

[Monica Padman]

I do, too.

[Billie Eilish]

And the only thing in my way was I had to learn how to.

[Monica Padman]

Sing and play Easy Hurdle.

[Billie Eilish]

And so I set about doing that, and I asked my dad, like, I want to learn how to play this song. And he said, okay, there's like, four chords in it. And he taught me the four chords, and that took like a week to learn, just sort of shapes on piano. And then I said, oh, thanks for teaching me that. I want to learn this other song. And he was like, this other song is the same four chords. And that completely turned my world upside down. Like, the idea that I'd learned all this stuff without trying to learn all this stuff was so thrilling. And pop music is absolutely like that. I don't know if either of you play anything, but there is such commonality in the sort of music underneath the song that if you want to play some song by this artist, you're also learning 600,000 other songs.

[Dax Shepard]

But you have a very strange order of events, which is you have written Ocean Eyes for your own band.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Billie Eilish]

A couple things happen. I get Logic Pro, the daw, which is same as Pro Tools or Ableton or something, A software on my computer to record, start teaching myself how to do it, go on YouTube to learn. I have one friend, Frank Dana, who's popular at his school, huge currency at 17, and is like, hey, you produce, right? And you're like, well, not really. And he's like, that's fine.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's do some stuff.

[Billie Eilish]

What a huge vote of confidence. And the real truth is, like, neither of us were good at making music at all, but I suddenly was making stuff with him. And we're putting it on SoundCloud and his friends are listening to it and telling me I did a good job at producing it. And I'm feeling so cool. I sort of say to Billy at some point in the summer of 2010, 15, I'm like, do you want to sing on some stuff? I'll write some stuff for you and you can sing on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Had she been singing around the house? She's got a great voice.

[Billie Eilish]

Sang in a choir. She loves to sing.

[Dax Shepard]

Can I just add, really Quick. What's really funny is when you're young, just necessity drives so much shit. It's like this dude's got to take what he can get. He finds out you kind of produce good enough.

[Billie Eilish]

It's not like he's paying. Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you live with someone who sings, so it's like, let's get you on this. Right? It's just all kind of necessity, 100%.

[Billie Eilish]

So she starts singing. She's 13, so she's just now at the age where she can maybe even tolerate me saying, do another take of that verse. A little more angry or whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right.

[Billie Eilish]

And so we start recording, and it's fun. And I've still got this band, and the band is in sort of first stage of crisis. The other guys had finished high school. I was homeschooled. And I was like, I'm gonna die for this. Like, just at 17. And our drummer, my friend David, who now is also a successful great music producer, which is awesome, is in the same boat I am. He's like, I'm gonna not go to college. Like, I'm gonna make music. And the other two guys are like, okay, we're gonna go to Colle, you know?

[Monica Padman]

Seems pretty cool.

[Billie Eilish]

Our band sucks. I got, like, Green Day. We were not making Dookie at 18. We were making, like, terrible music. And I write the song Ocean Eyes that I think is like, I appreciate myself sitting there, but it doesn't feel like something for my band. There's a kind of a femininity to it. To me, I hear it, and I think I'd rather hear a girl's voice sing.

[Dax Shepard]

This was the band. Is the adjective melancholy?

[Billie Eilish]

No, the band was like a stupid pop band. I write this kind of sad ballad song.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Billie Eilish]

There's not even a place for guitar on this. How am I going to break the news to our guitarist? And so I say to Billy, do you have any interest in singing this song? And she sang it, and I thought it sounded beautiful. And we recorded it and we put it on SoundCloud. The thing that I'd heard about happening, that always seemed like bullshit, which was you put it online and it gets plays straight up. Happened like, we put it on SoundCloud and the next day it was on a blog. And then the next day it was on more blog, and it just started to percolate. We were not on Ellen. The next day. It was not viral, but it was happening.

[Monica Padman]

When people comment on the two of.

[Billie Eilish]

You, Me and Billie.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. And as people comment on us, a Lot as a duo.

[Billie Eilish]

You're a duo.

[Monica Padman]

Whenever you're a duo, the are often. They can be at the expense of the other person or in relation to. Dax really hates that even though you did just do it. And the thing we're cutting out.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I feel solid about that one.

[Monica Padman]

But everyone feels solid.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. It happens a lot. When they write an article about Monica, the inclination is to go like.

[Monica Padman]

I mean, you hear it as they're saying it's despite you or something, that I'm good. But it's tricky. It's tricky. But they're also trying to elevate me because I'm not the main focus.

[Dax Shepard]

Instead of just saying she's great, it tends to be like, if she weren't there, or she keeps him from blank, or the way they want to compliment her is somehow always at least feels disparaging to me, whether it is or not.

[Billie Eilish]

Does it bother you?

[Dax Shepard]

It only bothered me when one of our friends, they were asked to quote, and we're friends, and I was like, that's a weird way to phrase. I wish I could remember the details.

[Billie Eilish]

Was he like, dax sucks and Monica's great? What did he say?

[Monica Padman]

He didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Thank God Monica's there because that guy fucking sucks. That's what he said.

[Billie Eilish]

So brutal.

[Dax Shepard]

First academic to say that. It was an argument we got in a debate.

[Monica Padman]

This was.

[Billie Eilish]

Did you hear this was at the end of the Wyatt Kurt Russell episode?

[Dax Shepard]

Probably. It was that Monica had been watching the Globes, right? Yes.

[Billie Eilish]

Yeah. I heard this because I woke up to texts from my friends in New York that were like, I didn't know you were going to be on Armchair. And I was like, oh. And I listened to it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah. Because we kind of. We never do that, but we did it.

[Billie Eilish]

Exciting.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so then you're familiar with the debate.

[Billie Eilish]

I remember it. Should we talk about it?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, let's talk about it.

[Billie Eilish]

I remember both of your points. This is the day after the Globes or something. Monica's point, which very kind, was phineas stands there like a potted plant as they ask Billy a bunch of questions. And then they go, bye, guys. Wouldn't it be nice if they asked him a question?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Billie Eilish]

Dax's point was, who cares? It's a little interview before the Golden Globes and she's wearing a cool outfit and he's wearing a suit, and he's the millionth person that night in the suit. And it's not a representation of who's more important. It's a representation of the audience and the interview.

[Dax Shepard]

A red carpet. Like the conceit of a red carpet, which is. Let's get the most popular person here to talk about their outfit.

[Billie Eilish]

Also, I'm gonna throw this in there. Red carpets fucking suck.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Billie Eilish]

The interviews are awful.

[Dax Shepard]

They're so uncomfortable.

[Billie Eilish]

The idea that I get to stand there and not have to say anything is a thrill.

[Monica Padman]

You like it?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, yeah.

[Billie Eilish]

And there are great interviews. I don't want to be disparaging of all interviews. I just mean the format and the environment. If you watch an interview, you can see they shift the mic over to me and Billy relaxes and gets to not suddenly be nervous and have to come up with. With an answer to the question We've been asked 450 times in the last two months.

[Monica Padman]

It's brutal.

[Dax Shepard]

The closest analogy I can imagine is, you know, when the prisoners escape from jail and they shine that enormous light on the person's face. Because Kristen and I do a ton of interviews together too, Right? When you get the sense that they're actually going. And then the interviewer goes like, you guys haven't been out in public. And all of a sudden you just feel like, oh, fuck, that big old light is shining on me. And I hope it's shining on her. I need a minute to think about this question.

[Billie Eilish]

The best case scenario is that you're boring. And the worst case scenario is you say something, they never invite you to anything ever again. It's like very high.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the point I'll add, too, and you're here to answer this, which I appreciate, is I was also making the point that there has to be some expectations on your end, like who you're trying to be in. My guess is that you're trying to be Quincy Jones. You said it. Timbaland, Pharrell. I'm imagining that the space you want to occupy. You also recognize Quincy Jones was behind the Michael Jackson, But Quincy Jones is the genius that is in all these other things. I can't imagine as you endeavor into the job you have have that you're expecting to be all that popular, does that make it.

[Billie Eilish]

I think that everybody in every avenue of their life is hoping to be seen for their work.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Billie Eilish]

If you do something, if you build your kids a playhouse and they go in and they go, well, whoever built this did a great job. And you go, I built it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, whoever's right here.

[Billie Eilish]

You know what I mean? Like, you want recognition. You want recognition. I feel very seen. I feel very lucky about how much recognition I already have, have. Most producers and songwriters have less than I do. I'm aware of that, and I don't take that for granted. And being as famous as Billie is a nightmare. I would never want that. She wears it really well, and she is actually a rock star. I say that, like, as a person, like, she is a charismatic enigma. The air gets crackly in the room when she walks in. And it's cool to see that. I don't feel that way when we're in my basement making a song, but, like, I see it at a function and I don't want to have that and I don't pretend to have it. And the consequence of that is she can't do anything.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a heavy price to pay. But I guess back to the thing about.

[Monica Padman]

I think he's right.

[Billie Eilish]

Well, I think that both of you are basically practicing empathy and you're both talking about the same thing, which is you're recognizing the Robin Andy Richter of the armchair expert with Dax Shepard.

[Dax Shepard]

When we got to that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Billie Eilish]

You probably know implicitly how it feels to be the person always there, always participating in the thing who's not the masthead.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, exactly.

[Billie Eilish]

I put out some music under my own name, and I don't feel any better or worse about that in terms of, like, if somebody goes, I love your thing, I go, oh, thanks. I don't have.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Billie Eilish]

That means so much more to me than saying you like Billy's thing, because I feel like we worked on it.

[Dax Shepard]

This really ties exactly into the red carpet thing. It's truly just the ultimate message for every human being is like, if you feel it for yourself, none of the other stuff matters. You have to give yourself validation and self esteem. And what is obvious to me is you've given it to yourself. So whether or not the interviewer from E. Entertainment, if that's even still an outlet, really, it doesn't matter.

[Billie Eilish]

We also give it to each other. I mean, like, that's the other thing. Billy is so generous and effusive about me to me, privately or publicly to me. And I for sure feel the same way.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair Expert if you dare. We are supported by quints. Tis the season of holiday gifting. But finding the perfect gift can be pretty overwhelming. For timeless gifts made from premium materials at an affordable price, Quince has your back. Quince lets you treat your loved ones and yourself to quality essentials like their Mongolian cashmere sweaters, which start at just $50. That's an elevated gift at a Price that won't break the bank. Or for more winter coziness, try their super soft fleece sweatpants or their packable puffer jackets. Both perfect for anyone who's traveling for the holidays.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. Okay. They also have they're called Ultra stretch Point P O N T E straight leg pants and they are really, really great. They're great for travel.

[Dax Shepard]

They're very cozy gift luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag. Go to quince.comdax for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-I-N c e.comdax to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdax we are supported by Better Help There are so many things to love about December. It's holiday season. There are breaks from work and school on the calendar to spend time with loved ones, not to mention delicious seasonal treats. Staying cozy in the winter months is essential, and therapy can be a great way to bring yourself some comfort that never goes away, even when the seasons change.

[Monica Padman]

Therapy is essential to me during the holidays, especially because I generally am going home, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

And I need sort of some stability and guidance. And guidance to stay nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, if you've ever been considering starting therapy, give better help a try. It's completely online, so it's easy to integrate into your schedule. BetterHelp is flexible too. It's easy to book or move appointments on their platform. And if the therapist you're matched with isn't the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Find comfort this December with Betterhel Help. Visit betterhelp.comdax today to get 10% off your first month. That's Betterhelp. H E L-P.comdax we are supported by Squarespace. If you've been to the armchair Expert website, you've seen Squarespace in action. Wabi Wab made our website using Squarespace, the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. What I love about Squarespace is aside from the functionality, it's just so visually pleasing. And Rob was able to whip this up in no time with all the incredible templates that were available to him.

[Monica Padman]

It looks very professional.

[Dax Shepard]

Squarespace just looks good. And Squarespace optimizes your website for every device, so it looks incredible whether users are on their computer, phone or tablet. No matter what type of site you want to build, Squarespace can help you make it. Want to make an online store? Squarespace makes checkout seamless for your customers with simple but powerful payment tools. Want to sell exclusive content on your site? Squarespace has the option to add a paywall so you can sell memberships and courses or files that your customers can download, like music or ebooks. Check out squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to get started, go to squarespace.comdax to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com dax to get started Today. We are supported by Anytime Fitness. If you've been considering starting a fitness journey or if you're actively pursuing fitness goals, Anytime Fitness has everything you need, not just for bigger muscles, but for a bigger, better life. The right equipment, easy anytime access to more than 5,000 global locations, and expert coaching to help optimize your personalized training, nutrition and recovery plan, both in person and app.

[Monica Padman]

I got an Anytime Fitness membership for my brother one year for Christmas.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you did?

[Monica Padman]

I did.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's a great gift.

[Monica Padman]

It was a very big hit.

[Dax Shepard]

Anytime Fitness is convenient with flexible always open hours at thousands of locations worldwide and an app that you can use anytime, anywhere. They have all the equipment you need to reach your goals. And Anytime Fitness is focused on creating an inclusive community vibe with welcoming members who push and inspire each other to reach their goals and have fun along the way. So. So what are you waiting for? Get started@antime fitness.com from 7:26 with Patrick Gagne.

[Monica Padman]

I couldn't make myself feel better the way that other people made themselves feel better. I just remember being a kid sitting behind a little girl in school, and I looked up and she had barrettes in her hair, and I felt this Take that bread and you're gonna feel better. It didn't make any sense, and yet I knew it was accurate.

[Dax Shepard]

I should have started there. It didn't start with stabbing, but yes, that's the first time you feel the relief.

[Monica Padman]

And little transgressions like that usually did the trick. But on this day, when I assaulted this child, I had been doing a lot of little transgressions, and they weren't working. And I could feel it as a kid. You're like, what's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? But as a kid, I had a harder time talking myself through it. And there was a little girl standing next to me, and she had just been getting on my nerves as they. And I bent down and she kicked my backpack. And when she did, she knocked out my pencil box that was full of pencils. And then I just remember picking up a pencil and stabbing her in the head with it.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Monica Padman]

And I remember what was problematic, other than the obvious, was it wasn't just the pressure that disappeared. It was replaced by this euphoria.

[Dax Shepard]

Elation.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. And I knew enough to know that ain't great.

[Dax Shepard]

This is untenable. We're gonna run out of heads to stab, and I'll be kicked out of here quickly.

[Monica Padman]

So you did know that. That's interesting. You knew. This isn't good that I like it. I always knew right from wrong. Cognitive. It wasn't internal. That's the difference.

[Dax Shepard]

That's part of one of the erroneous stereotypes is, oh, sociopaths don't know the difference between right and wrong.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yes, they do. Huh.

[Dax Shepard]

Also, you hear sociopaths track highly empathetic. Actually, if you go by the Paul Bloom definition, that actually they're quite good at knowing what you are thinking and needing to hear from them because they've.

[Monica Padman]

Spent a lifetime mirroring paradox. Yes. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. So dates. How do you come to experience something that you would label your version of love? Or how did that grow?

[Monica Padman]

Well, we met when I was 14, so really young. And I'm grateful for that because I don't think that we would have been a match later. But I remember at that time, I felt very isolated. I was looking for a buddy to kind of bounce stuff off of. And in that moment, he just happened to come into my life, and he was that buddy. I could tell him anything, and he didn't judge me for it and rolled with it. And he looked at my actions objectively, and he would let me know if he didn't think something was a good idea. But it was not met with any type of negativity. So we dated for a summer. You know, I'm 14 years old. But it was so matter of fact, my feelings about him. When I met him, I remember thinking, my name is Patrick. I am attending this summer camp. I just met the guy I'm gonna marry. I'm gonna have pizza for dinner later. I remember writing it in my journal, but it didn't feel like, what all of the girls that I knew, oh, you know, this romantic love, and I know I'm just gonna marry him. It wasn't that. It was very matter of fact.

[Dax Shepard]

You didn't sit around wondering if he was thinking about you or talking about you?

[Monica Padman]

No. And so when we broke up, it was more like a. That's weird. I really thought I was gonna marry that guy.

[Dax Shepard]

At 14.

[Monica Padman]

Strange. I never had a feeling like that before. And it was so pronounced. I wonder what that was. Cause that was so true in the way it came through. But we never really lost touch. And he went one way, I went the other. And I lived an ENT before we got back together. And when we did, we had this wonderful honeymoon period. And then reality set in, which is, I have this personality disorder and I'm really struggling with some things. And David really had a hard time not taking it personally. So for him it was. I don't emote the same way he does. Therefore I don't care about him as much as he cares about me. And everything was seen sort of through a very egocentric lens. Not in the sense that he was in the wrong. But I think it's a very relatable feeling. If you go in for a big hug and the person doesn't want a big hug, your instant reaction is, oh, I guess she doesn't like me very much, of course, but I'm just not that person. But I've never been that person. So that was a struggle. It's. You have to take yourself out of this equation. In order for you and I to work, you have to see that you are one type of person. I am one type of person. We love and demonstrate that love very differently. Neither way is right or wrong. It's just different. Different. And if you were expecting that one day you are going to fix me, we should just.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not in the car.

[Monica Padman]

No, she's not. The irony is that's all relationships. And that's what I've heard. Yeah. It's just that it's so clear here and there's no arguing, like, okay, you have this personality disorder.

[Dax Shepard]

It's almost helpful.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

You're never gonna get what you want. You either accept that and we move forward. But I think when you have this neurotypical relationship, there is this fantasy belief that no, you will end up manipulating them in a way that's what you want.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And we have limitations too, in the exact same way that also cannot be transcended. That's why I wrote this book, because there are so many relatable elements to this. And I think that if the sociopathic camp and the non sociopathic camp could just drop it for a second and get together and sort of talk, you would see how much we could learn from one another. But with David, he did have an argument. But you're doing illegal shit and it's my job to protect you. It always came from a place of morality. The things you're doing are immoral, and I need to help you stop doing those things. So he had that really effective, logical argument that was tough to push back on, but ultimately, I need to want to stop doing these things for myself.

[Dax Shepard]

I would just said, the things you're doing are illegal and are going to end up getting you incarcerated.

[Monica Padman]

I would not argue with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's leave morals out of it for you. From 687 with Vanessa Marin. I would only ask you this because I know on your podcast and in your book, you're pretty open. What is your own sexual life at this time? Because you do see people go into psychology because they have a lot of unanswered questions about themselves. They hope to get some tools maybe that they can address. How would you evaluate your own sex life?

[Monica Padman]

At that point, I was still very curious about sex and interested in it, but the biggest thing that I was really struggling with was orgasming with a partner. I had learned how to orgasm on my own pretty easily. It felt pretty straightforward. It felt like this very fun, exciting, cool thing that I could do with my body, and I could not replicate that experience with any partners. And it was not only the orgasm itself, but sex with a partner was very performative for me. It was all about my male partner's pleasure, what he wanted to do. He was taking the lead. And so there was an internal struggle that I had for many years of this interest in sex and this fascination by it and wanting to pursue it for my career, to spend my life on it. But also this huge imposter syndrome of I have so many things within myself. I cannot find it within myself to initiate sex, to give feedback in the moment, to show a partner what my body likes and responds to say, I.

[Dax Shepard]

Might like to bring my toy with me to the next session.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. And anything like that. I really struggled with feeling like sex was something that I gave to a partner, did for a partner, rather than something that was for me that I got to participate in. That is so common for people. Yeah. And I think especially for women. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I was just gonna say, did you feel this frustration of this shouldn't be happening to me because I have the knowledge?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I felt like a horrible imposter. You know, I'm studying this. I want to help people with this. And I'm not really walking the walk myself, but a lot of that was because, you know, I was doing all this research and learning and exploration, but I wasn't learning any practical tools. I'm learning about Kinsey and Masters and Johnson, and that's great, but, like, what do I do in the moment with my partner when he's doing something that I don't like, rather than just faking it and saying, that's so great. Keep going.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Because there's the awkwardness.

[Monica Padman]

It's so vulnerable, and you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Yeah. Big thing that came up was I really wanted to make it seem like we were clicking when I was having sex with somebody that I really liked. Like, I want it to feel like the chemistry is there. It's so easy and effortless between the two of us. And so I had this idea in my head that my pleasure and my body were more complicated or needier than my partners. And I felt very much alone in that, which I think most people have had the experience of feeling alone with some sort of sexual struggle that they've had.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you talking to your girlfriends about it at all?

[Monica Padman]

A little bit. But talks with my girlfriends were more kind of braggy, like, oh, yeah, we had sex last night. Oh, it was so great. We didn't really get into the nitty gritty of, I'm really struggling to orgasm. Is anybody else? It was sort of this feeling of, we're talking about it openly and look at us evolved college girls. But at the same time, like, not being willing to be truly honest and vulnerable with each other about what was actually going on. The imposter syndrome that I felt made that so much harder for me. I was like, I can't admit to anybody that here I am, this little sex therapist in training, and I'm not orgasming with my partners. I'm not enjoying the sex that I'm having. Like, I can't admit that to anybody.

[Dax Shepard]

Had a guy said to you, how can I help you orgasm? Would you have even been able to answer that or been confident enough to express what would have helped?

[Monica Padman]

I was never asked that. I'm not sure honestly how I would have responded to it. I probably would not have been honest. I probably would have said, like, oh, what you're doing is great. Or, like, you're always making me orgasm. But the final straw for me when I decided to stop faking orgasms and finally figure this all out, was actually a partner who did the exact opposite. So we had been hooking up, and I had faked an orgasm. I had gotten really good at a great, convincing performance by that time, and he'd been using his hands on me, and he said, I can play you like a fiddle.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Monica Padman]

And I just. My stomach just turned in that moment. Like, just huge pit in my stomach. And I thought, this is so gross. This guy is so proud of himself and this sleazy. Like, what a weird thing to say to someone, right? I can play like a fiddle. And so that was the moment for me of like, I'm not doing this anymore.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's start with the fact that the male orgasm's almost a given. The female is much more elusive. So a guy's pride and. Okay, tell me why that's so.

[Monica Padman]

There's nothing inherently more complicated about female orgasm than about male orgasm. What the problem is, is the way that we're all having sex. You know, male, female cisgender relationships, the type of sex that we're having heavily prioritizes male pleasure, penetration.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right, right, right.

[Monica Padman]

Most male female couples, we use sex and intercourse interchangeably. Like, when we have sex, we're having intercourse to the degree that in the.

[Dax Shepard]

80S, people would ask, like, how are two Les exactly?

[Monica Padman]

I mean, even think of the bases metaphor. Exactly. You know, the home run.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's the test of virginity.

[Monica Padman]

It's the thing. Right. So if we look at intercourse, though, a man is getting stimulation of the most sensitive part of his body, his clitoris. Yeah. Okay. So you know about this, which is great.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, tell everyone.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Most people don't know fetuses in the womb. We all start off, like, as the same little blob. And when we are differentiating into we're gonna be born a man or born a woman, the tissues start to differentiate around 8 to 11 weeks. And the exact same tissues that make a pat penis make a clitoris. So it's like having a ball of clay. I can mold it into a mug or I can mold it into a bowl. It's a different shape, but it's the same ball of clay that I'm starting with. So the clitoris and the penis are biological equivalents. They're called homologous structures. And they both are the pleasure centers of their respective genders. So if we go to intercourse, like a man's getting stimulation of his penis and a woman is getting stimulation in her vagina. So the clitoris has anywhere from 8 to 10,000 nerve endings in it. The penis has 2 to 3,000. The vagina, there's not really even an accurate scientific tally of how many nerve endings are there. But it's not a particularly sensitive part of our bodies.

[Dax Shepard]

You're pass a baby through there.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I mean, the funny comparison that I always like to make Is that intercourse for a woman is like playing with a man's balls. Sure, it might feel good, it can feel pleasurable, it can feel fun to do with a partner, but for the vast majority of men, it's nowhere near enough stimulation to lead to orgasm. And we don't make men feel bad about that. Right. There's not some alternate universe where we're like, you know, God, the penis. It's so complicated. Why do I have to touch that? Why can't you get the orgasm from the balls instead?

[Dax Shepard]

From 764 with Allegra Castins.

[Monica Padman]

With OCPD. So, number one, it's Ego Syntonic a lot of the time. And what that means is if someone has a preoccupation with control, perfectionism, organization, orderliness, they tend to think that that is the right way to be.

[Dax Shepard]

That's so key. We gotta triple down on that point. It's very in keeping with their overall value system.

[Monica Padman]

That's exactly it. It could impair other people. I also wanna say that I'm not saying that OCPD is a likable condition. And actually, someone was upset about my video about you because they thought I was saying OCPD is likable. That's not what I'm saying.

[Dax Shepard]

That's dismissing Matt.

[Monica Padman]

What does it stand for? Sorry. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder.

[Dax Shepard]

This is what you have.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

When we're talking and we use these terms, and you'll go, I'll be a little OCD in this thing.

[Monica Padman]

Got it? Yes. Where you might see excessive list making, excessive attention to detail. People who say, I really need my spreadsheets to be in this way, they get mad at others often who don't align with the way that they view things. There might be excessive devotion to work. So much perfectionism that can interfere with the person's ability to get a task done. But they think it's kind of like my way or the highway. This is how things should be done. There's a lot of inflexibility and a lot of rigidity. I think people often also don't talk about OCPD accurately. But when people are saying, I'm so ocd, I think what they're saying is, I'm detail oriented. I like to organize. Well, that is not ocd. OCD is an ego dystonic condition.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, now I will say this, and this is a time I misuse it. I am so uncomfortable when things that are hanging are not level. And I'll go, oh, this is my ocd. But that's my ocp, Petey, if I was gonna say it.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Even cuz it should be level in your head, I don't disagree. You know, like, I don't think I want it level, but it should be crooked. I think I want it level and it should be level.

[Monica Padman]

Totally. And that might not be distressing to you at that time, where if someone had, let's say, just right, OCD or perfectionism, ocd, that would distress them and they would feel the urge to do that over and over and over again until an internal sense of rightness is achieved. So there is that aspect to ocd, but it's also a, a very small sliver of how OCD can manifest.

[Dax Shepard]

And is it fair to say as well, it's also spectrumy. So it's like, even as you're describing it, like, yeah, I want it level. It should be level. Also, it's deeply unsettling in a bad luck way. So it's like, it's just like inching towards. Is it a spectrum?

[Monica Padman]

I guess that's a really great question. To be diagnosed with ocd, obsessions and compulsions have to take up at least an hour of your day or cause clinically significant distress or impairment in functioning. So yes, technically speaking, now there are more severe levels of O, C, D. Some people require residential treatment, whereas others can be treated in an outpatient setting once a week. But if you meet criteria for having ocd, there has to be some kind of impairment in functioning or distress.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a great metric too. An hour a day.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, okay, I'm going to go through the five taboos because, yeah, this might must be so distressing to be trying to evaluate what you are in spite of all these intrusive thoughts. And I also think just really quick because I found myself figuring out the difference as I was reading. Obsessive and compulsive. These are kind of two pieces of something. It's an order.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. So obsession is repetitive. Unwanted thoughts, images or urges that are intrusive and often distressing for the person. So it's recurrent. It's not just one thought that pops. Like, I think I heard you say, well, I have intrusive thoughts from time to time. We all do. People without OCD can let them go. It's like, that was an odd thought and you move on with your day. For the person with ocd, it sticks, it multiplies, and it replays all day long. That is the obsession. It could be a what if. So what if I'm a pedophile it could be a sexual phrase. I used to have so many of those. And then that causes a lot of discomfort, whether that's anxiety, panic, guilt, shame. And the person feels compelled to perform the complaint compulsion, the physical or mental act that the person is performing to neutralize the obsession, to prevent that bad thing from happening, to solve the obsession, to alleviate the discomfort. And that just reinforces the obsession. And you're stuck in that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So that's great. So I guess when I was thinking about it is like the compulsivity is what you're observing, but that might not even be reflective of the obsession.

[Monica Padman]

They might not be connected, you're saying, Right?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, just like. Yeah. If you were observing someone from the outside and you noticed that they had some of these compulsive. It's not so intuitive. It's like how they're choosing to regulate and address and fix and nullify the obsession isn't so direct. It can be, but also it might not be right.

[Monica Padman]

Some people with sexual obsessions will wash, let's say their vagina or penis after having an unwanted thought because they think that that's the thing that neutralizes it. To the outsider, it would be like, why are you washing that during the middle of your workday? 18 times.

[Dax Shepard]

You didn't even think they were a germaphobe.

[Monica Padman]

There we go.

[Billie Eilish]

So you can't.

[Monica Padman]

You can't always tell. Or it could be if I don't tap this wood, then I'm going to snap in my sleep and kill my child. Right. And people wouldn't think that the tapping of the wood has something to do with that. And you also don't always see people's compulsions. Mine are all mental. Nobody would have ever known that I was performing compulsions because they all happened in the mind.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair expert.

[Billie Eilish]

If you did.

[Monica Padman]

There.

[Dax Shepard]

We are. Supported by Skims. Skims makes holiday shopping for everyone on your list easier with perfect gifts for the whole family, even pets. Monica, tell us about what you tried from the skims holiday shop look.

[Monica Padman]

I think a great gift that most people overthink is intimates. Oh, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. Because skims has amazing using bras. They have underwear. I really, really like their fits. Everybody. Cheeky brief. It's really good, kind of for anyone. It's a slam dunk. And it comes gift wrapped in the cutest little boxes ready to go. So you don't really have to worry about wrapping, which is really nice.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Especially if you go to, like, a girl's Christmas party. Or something and you want to give everyone a little gift. It's the perfect thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that's awesome. Trust us, anyone on your list would be thrilled to get a present from Skims this holiday season. Shop Skims holiday [e-mail] available in styles for women, men, kids and even pets. If you haven't yet, be sure to let them know we sent you. After you place your order, select Podcast in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. We are supported by Acorns. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing for you, your kids and your retirement. You know, the thing with investing is you got to be preparing for your future and when you might want to retire. You know, so much of my thought at this point is how I do secure my future and it's such an important step. We talked to a lot of experts on the show and we've had great conversations with some financial experts. But when you invest with Acorns, you don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and you don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now. That could be just $5 a day or even your spare change. Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a $20 bonus. Investment offers only [e-mail], that's a C O R N S.com DAX to get your $20 bonus investment today paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important [e-mail] DAX we are supported by Macy's. Macy's is your one stop destination for all things merry and bright. Ring in the season with special prices on top gifts and stocking stuffers like Nest Candles and Crocs as well as discounts on their best beauty brands like Dry Bar, Skin Gym and Dior O la la.

[Monica Padman]

You know the Nest candles were on my gift guide.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh they were?

[Monica Padman]

Yes. Great. Go to Macy's and grab one.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, grab gifts for the whole family this season at Macy's and with their incredible holiday deals plus free shipping starting at just 25, maybe you can throw in a little something for yourself too. Shop now@macy's.com or visit your local Macy's to score these incredible holiday deals.

[Monica Padman]

From.

[Dax Shepard]

7.99 with old Malcolm Gladwell.

[Yuval Harari]

There's a couple of times in this book like the them. The story that frames the book is the story of how Purdue, a different version of the story of how Purdue used takes oxycontin from an unknown drug into the most damaging prescription drug in American history. And there, I think it's very useful for us to know how if you're super evil and very smart, how you can hijack a system for your own purposes, they hijack the system. They realize that if you want to corrupt the medical system, you, you don't have to corrupt every doctor. You don't even have to corrupt 99% of doctors. They did that whole thing on the backs of a tiny, tiny fraction of doctors living in very specific parts of the country. That's a kind of chilling, really important, if chilling thing you need to learn about the world.

[Dax Shepard]

That part of it is really mind blowing. So yeah, and they had help. And it's really interesting because we don't really talk. We talk about the guilt of them, which is warranted. But you have like McKinsey, right? They're the ones that discover this. And you're framing it the whole thing through the lens of COVID a little bit, where you introduce this one event at a meeting, one person early on in Covid who's a super spreader. And we learn why people are super spreaders. You know, their vocal cords emit some of the saliva when they're dehydrated and all this stuff. And it turns out that one person ultimately was probably responsible for like a million cases or 300,000 originally, but really a one human being resulted in 3 million infections, which is kind of mind blowing. And then these doctors, they broke up. At the time, Purdue was spending a fortune having sales representatives all over the country talking to virtually 100,000 doctors. And this bright company, McKinsey was like, let's really put this in a diagram and see what's happening. Well, in decile 10, the doctors are only prescribing it once or not at all in a year. And there's 99,000 doctors in that decile. And if we go all the way up to the top, those doctors of which there's only 384 of them, they're prescribing 300 plus. So fuck all the money that's being spent on 4 through 10. And let's just put all the money in 3, 2 and 1. And through that they end up prescribing millions and millions of tablets.

[Yuval Harari]

This is this really important principle. I had talked about it in the first tipping point. I called it the law of the few. The idea that when you have an epidemic, the work of the epidemic is done by a very small group of people. But I don't think I took it far enough. So I return to that idea in this book, and you're right. I start with the COVID example, and I say our assumption in the middle of COVID was that every person who was infected had a roughly equal risk of infecting someone else. Turns out that's just not true. Not even remotely true. The overwhelming majority of people who were infected with COVID did not spread the virus very far at all. The spread comes from a small number of people who, for some reason that we don't entirely understand, but probably just genetic reason, produce a huge amount more virus. When they talk, there's way more particles coming out of their mouth than anybody else.

[Dax Shepard]

And even that we thought it was coughing and sneezing. But then these aerosolists who study aerosol and particle disbursement, they look at it and they go, oh, no, no, no, no. It's from talking.

[Yuval Harari]

It's just talking.

[Dax Shepard]

And what happened at this conference, this person got up and lectured to everybody. Stands up, hosed down the whole room.

[Monica Padman]

This is so.

[Dax Shepard]

For an hour. And everyone was infected. The one person. One person.

[Yuval Harari]

So the logic of that says if you want to understand how to stop Covid, we should really have been trying to figure out who these super spreaders are. There's not a lot of them. And just an address there. Make sure they're not out and about when they're infected.

[Dax Shepard]

Give them a week long, you know, a trip somewhere. Yeah, it would be cheaper.

[Monica Padman]

They just quarantined all those people for like, three weeks. It would have been done.

[Yuval Harari]

We didn't have to. So what?

[Dax Shepard]

We.

[Yuval Harari]

We treated everyone the same because we didn't really understand how epidemics work. When you understand how epidemics work, you realize, no, no, no, no, no. You need to be worried about the one person in a thousand. So that same logic is used by person do in creating the opioid crisis. They understand that. Wait a minute. All along, we've been spending, taking our sales budget, and we've been trying to reach every doctor in America who prescribes painkillers wrong. Why we're wasting our time. Turns out there's a handful of doctors, a couple of hundred doctors throughout the country who are prescribing way more oxycontin than anybody else and more than that, who are really, really receptive to when we send a sales rep to go and see them and that sales rep, you know, takes them to a ball game and buys them a fancy dinner. They just respond to that and write even more prescriptions.

[Dax Shepard]

It's so scientific, I gotta add. They have the data in these, these companies, McKinsey and you know, other people, they're so scientific about it. They, they basically figure out, okay, you have these doctors, if you see them 25 times a year, they're going to write less and less prescriptions above 25. They're going to go up and up. Some of These doctors had 300 insight rep contacts within a couple years. Like they're non stop with these people.

[Yuval Harari]

Like every day some drug company rep is showing up at your door bringing gifts.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And they're attractive.

[Yuval Harari]

Probably. I'm going to guess in the book it says yes, yes, said in print. It's reasonable to assume that they're attractive and they're going to see, you know, these are like some guy running a drug mill somewhere in rural Tennessee is getting visited hundreds of times a year by some sales rep from and is just writing prescriptions by the boatload.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a little bit of an acquittal in a nice way of doctors in general because even I, who I think I followed it more closely. I am an opiate addict. I was part of this whole thing. I get it. I was under the assumption that most doctors took the marching orders. You know, there was this huge campaign pain that, you know, they convinced people that everyone was under prescribing for pain and they had all these, you know, pretty complex campaigns. But so I was kind of led to believe. Oh, I think all the doctors loosened up their. No, and that's not true. 49 of all the opioids prescribed in that period were by 1% of doctors.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it is you. Right. It does redeem your faith a little bit. And I think this is another use. Useful thing that comes out of thinking about these as epidemics and realizing that epidemics are, are propelled by a tiny fraction of the population. You realize that we're much too quick to condemn groups of people and professions. And, and that's not the. I, you know, I was doing a podcast in parallel to the book. I was talking to a guy who studies homicides on the west side of Chicago, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country. There are 50,000 people on the west side of Chicago. And this guy said, if you want to understand homicide, who's at risk? Who's doing the dirty work? You're really talking about 400 people.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Yuval Harari]

So he's like, our assumption would be, if you walk around the west side of Chicago, you think, oh, we're going to need a massive police presence on every corner and be stopping everyone we can be. This guy's saying, no, no, no, no, no. You're misunderstanding. It's an episode epidemic. I'm really interested in this question of how many people does it take to change the character of a group? I talk a lot about women on corporate boards. For years and years and years, there were no women on corporate boards in America then. They would, under pressure, corporations would put. You'd have nine men on the board. They'd have an opening. They put a woman on. So you have one woman, eight men. What happens when you only have one woman? Is she heard? Does she make a difference? Does she. Do they listen to her when she says stuff? Do they treat her like a person? The answer is they don't.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Yuval Harari]

It looks like they've changed the composition and created diversity. They haven't. There aren't enough.

[Dax Shepard]

Really quick. The woman who's you're. You're interviewing, who's saying it is very heartbreaking. She's in a room with nine men, and someone will enter, and the person shakes the hands of eight of the men and literally walks by her as if she's not there.

[Yuval Harari]

Well, they think that she's the secretary.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Or she'll have a point. No one will respond. Fifteen minutes later, a guy makes the exact same point and everyone's high fiving the guy. Yeah, yeah.

[Yuval Harari]

So the question is. So I found all these women who had been on Corporate Boys and were the first one in. This is one of those great moments in when you're reporting something when everyone starts to say the same thing independently and you realize, oh, this is real.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Yuval Harari]

So I call them up and I say, okay, so you were the first person on, you know, Fortune. Name the fortune of having a company. So they go, yes. What was that like? Terrible. You know, no one.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Yuval Harari]

Were you there when they appointed a second woman to the board?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Yuval Harari]

What was that like? Terrible. I mean, I had someone, I wanted a person like me, but they still. Nobody cared. No one listened to us. No one treated us properly. Were you there when they named a third woman of the board? Yes. What happens Night and day, really? It's like, really like at three. So at. When you get three at a nine, boom.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, she said, when you're there by yourself, you're the Tokonol Institute. When there's another person there, you have a friend. A friend and when there's three of you, you're a block. Like, you're. You're now start acting the way you really want to act, and they can't.

[Yuval Harari]

Ignore you, and they suddenly wake up to the fact that you're a human being and they have to take you seriously. It's this weird phenomenon, and turns out this phenomenon shows up in tons and tons and tons of different situations where when outsiders reach a certain crucial tip point in a group, the group changes.

[Dax Shepard]

From 790. With Kat Bohannon.

[Monica Padman]

It'S very hard to enroll human women in phase one clinical trials. So that's that moment where you actually start trying to test out a drug. You're not in rats anymore. You're in a human body. Okay. You try and see what are the side effects. What's up? Just enrolling enough women is presently a problem.

[Dax Shepard]

What's causing that discrepancy? They're not reaching out or women are not participating?

[Monica Padman]

I think it's both. I think it's bi directional. I think there's a lack of trust among women who might want to participate.

[Dax Shepard]

It might even be an interesting risk taker variable here, too.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I think sometimes you're like, well.

[Dax Shepard]

I got a well from both of you.

[Monica Padman]

Well, yeah, well, my well is new, as in the last couple hours, because I was at the cardiologist this morning. You okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Everything's fine. But I am probably gonna go on a statin. Oh, well. Oh, yeah. And she was like, so, you know, great. It's fine. You'll be fine. But also, if you are gonna get pregnant, we're gonna come. We'll come off of it for a little bit before. For about a month. And as soon as I hear that, I'm like, oh, my God. Well. And I have no current plans to get pregnant. But I was like, well, then maybe I should wait to start because what if I randomly decide to want to get pregnant the next week, and then there won't be enough time. You know, your brain. Brain does start, like, running with you, and a lot of it is for protection for your reproductive organs and such. Also, there was a huge diagram on the wall of how heart attacks show up in women. And it's very specific. It's not everything we've been told about how heart attacks show up. Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, in the book, yeah, Kat says women die of heart attack more frequently, yet they show the signs of them less frequently or have less of them.

[Monica Padman]

But the thing about heart disease that's so interesting is that we did have that really mal model for a long time, which is that crushing pain on the chest and the tingle down the arm and these like classic, typically male symptoms. And we're finally getting campaigns out to be like, yeah, actually, do you feel like you have indigestion?

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

And the stomach, which definitely doesn't trigger our slightly more likely to have anxiety disorders at all, which women also get more because it's like, so is it heartburn or am I dying? Right. So it's complicated, but it is starting to save lives. Yeah, yeah, that, like, just take your body seriously, that thing.

[Dax Shepard]

The results of this asymmetrical testing, women versus men, kind of pops up in culture. I remember watching a 60 minute segment on women had been prescribed Ambien at the same dose men were in for years and years and years. And women were having all these adverse effects to it. Getting up and eating, driving a car. And people, people are like, what's going on? Come to find out, when they studied it, it's almost twice as effective in females.

[Monica Padman]

Women are 40% more likely to be diagnosed with sleep disorders. We still don't entirely know why. We'll take a drug like Ambien to try and, like, get some sleep. Right. But then we find out when the car crash data comes filtering back in that female patients are getting in car crashes on their damn morning commute more than male patients who'd taken it the night before. Because the drug is being metabolized differently in our bodies, it's exiting our bodies in different ways, its effects on the tissues, and we're only just figuring it out because of what car crash data.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, Right.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. So then just wait till that comes.

[Dax Shepard]

In and we'll make a decision.

[Monica Padman]

We're just gonna. So, yeah, so at the moment they were like, okay, this is a while back, they said, okay, Ambien, you should take half the dose if you've got ovaries. But at that point, it'd been on the market for 21 years. Oh, my God. So, yeah, a little. Little. I feel like we can do better. The weird thing about ears is that primate hearing changed dramatically. Well, ancestral primate hearing. When our mammalian ancestors moved into the trees, most primates still up there, right? Then our hearing had to change. We needed to be able to hear one another through this weird new environment. And we couldn't bounce sound off the ground. It was just this like. And there's leaves, and in between us, we could be far. So we needed to be able to produce and hear lower pitches than most other mammals. But the females needed to retain those higher pitches because our babies make very high pitched sounds. And it's absolutely true that human women still have a little of that legacy of retaining those higher pitches over our lifespan.

[Dax Shepard]

It's twofold, Right. You have a larger aptitude to start with and then your decline isn't as dry.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. Now remember, this doesn't mean just because you are a female person that it is your destiny to have babies. We're talking about evolutionary influences. Let me just go ahead and say that. Right. The reason you can hear the way you do is for many reasons in communicating with people. Okay. However, it is true that female hearing is especially attuned to a range of pitches that tends to be associated with human babies cries. That is true. Most people, people who are biologically bail around age 25 or so will start cutting off the top range of the pitches that they can hear. It's just a predictable slope. It's not like you need a hearing aid when you're 30, but it's just that predictable slope of that high end of human hearing. You start losing it. It's just like an aging thing in.

[Dax Shepard]

The comedic punchline headline. Yes, your husband can't hear you.

[Monica Padman]

No, I was literally, I was just about to say that, like, oh, I think this is proving something. I've been thinking for a long time time when I'll talk with all these men in a room and they aren't responding and I have thought, can they not hear me? They legit cannot hear you. They cannot hear you. It doesn't explain why they don't care. Sure. That's a different sexism. And we've talked about how. That's.

[Dax Shepard]

From 808 with Yuval Harari. I think when you read this book, you'll come away kind of understand understanding what an information network is and how powerful it is. So when do we see the first. What's the first example? We would look at historically like an.

[Yuval Harari]

Information network and its power, what information really does. Information doesn't necessarily tell us the truth about the world. Information connects a lot of individuals into a network that can do many, many things that isolated people can't. And to give you an example, if you think, for instance, about again, different types of information, if you think about visual information, if you think in terms of images and photographs and paintings. So what is the most common portrait in the world? Who is the most famous face in human history? The answer is Jesus.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, I was going to say Mona Lisa.

[Dax Shepard]

How we're so western.

[Monica Padman]

I know, I'm so Embarrassed.

[Yuval Harari]

I mean, billions and billions of portraits of Jesus have been produced over the last 2,000 years. And they've been like, everywhere. In so many churches and cathedrals and monasteries and private houses and schools and government offices everywhere. And the amazing thing about it, not a single one of them is true. Not a single one is authentic. A hundred percent, not 99%.

[Dax Shepard]

He never sat for a portrait that we know of.

[Yuval Harari]

We don't. We don't know if anybody painted him during, or sculpted him during his lifetime. Definitely. We have no image from his own lifetime. And also, if you think about, you know, textual descriptions, the Bible doesn't contain a single word, not a sentence, not a single word about how Jesus looked like, really. There is a description of his clothes one time, what he wore, not a single description of what he looked like, but whether he was tall or short or fat or thin, color of his skin, color of his skin, color of his hair, color of his eyes, nothing.

[Dax Shepard]

Wow.

[Yuval Harari]

All the portraits, the billions of portraits, they came out of human imagination. And nevertheless, they have been extremely successful and important in connecting billions of people into a network which shares certain values and norms, which can work together, together to build cathedrals and build hospitals and also go to wars and establish the Inquisition and things like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Voting blocks.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah. So whether for good or bad, this has been one of the most powerful networks in human history.

[Dax Shepard]

Catholicism, Christianity, even Christianity.

[Yuval Harari]

Again, like every network, it can break up into several sub networks. So there is always this tension between uniting more people together and breaking up into small, smaller parts. But this is what information does. A subset of the information in the world may also tell us the truth about the world. Some information is true, but truth is a very rare and relatively costly kind of information. Most information is not truth. Again, it's fiction, it's fantasy, it's sometimes lies, it's sometimes illusions, delusions. You know, a key point is that that the truth is costly because it requires a special effort to produce truthful information. You need to research, you need to spend time gathering evidence and analyzing it and so forth. Fiction is cheap. You just draw or write the first things that comes in your mind. So going back to networks, the key is that if you manage to connect a lot of individuals into a network, like a church or an online army or a corporation or a state or anything like that, they can accomplish far, far more than either individuals or small number of people. And again, this, of course, goes back to sapiens. This is the key to our success as a species, that we can build.

[Dax Shepard]

These huge networks, we can Build a network around money. This idea that this has some value or a deity or national identity.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah. And so sapiens began to explore this idea. Nexus now goes over history and also the future and looks at it from the viewpoint of these networks. So, okay, if we establish that stories create networks and networks are important, let's look at history as the process not of human actions, but of networks spreading, sometimes collapsing, changing the nature. So for instance, a chapter about democracy and dictation, dictatorship, which looks at them not as different ethical or ideological systems, but as different types of information networks.

[Dax Shepard]

How they flow.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah, how information flows. Information flows differently in democracy and dictatorship. And this is what makes them so, so different. In dictatorships. They are centralized information networks. All the information or most of the information flows to just one place where all the decisions are being made.

[Dax Shepard]

Putin's. Putin's desk.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah, Putin's desk or Xi's desk or whatever. And also they lack strong self correcting mechanisms. The network doesn't contain a mechanism for identifying and correcting the network's own mistakes. Democracy, in contrast, is a different kind of network. What characterizes it is that information doesn't flow just through a central hub. There is usually a central cultural hub. So in the United States, a lot of information flows to Washington, but most of it doesn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Probably more to New York.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah. Most of the economic decisions, social decisions, cultural decisions are being taken in New York, in, in Los Angeles, in lots of other places. A lot of the information never passes through any government office. And you have strong self correct mechanisms. If the network makes a mistake, you don't need somebody from outside to intervene. The whole point about democracy that you have these built in mechanisms to identify and correct its own mistakes. So in democracy you have this mechanism that every couple of years people can say, we made a mistake, let's try something else. Of course, the problem if you have only this is that it can easily be rigged. I mean, the weakness of democracy since ancient, ancient times is that you basically give enormous power to one person or one party on condition that they give it back.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Yuval Harari]

After four years.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Yuval Harari]

And what happened if they don't? Yeah, I mean, they have all this power in their hands.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Yuval Harari]

What happens if they use all these power to stay in power, to rig the elections? And we've seen it many times in, in Russia they have elections every four years. And presumably in the 1990s when Putin first rose to power, the elections were relatively fair and free. Then he used his power to dismantle and to rig the elections. And you saw the same thing in Venezuela. Chavez originally came to power, as far as we know, in free and fair elections. But then Chavez and his successor Maduro, they used the power to destroy the democratic system and then stay in power.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, they just had an election in quotes and it's a disaster.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah, I mean Maduro lost big time, but because he appoints all the election officials and all the judges and everything. So he says, no, I won.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And this just in. I won.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Yuval Harari]

So if you only have elections, this is not enough.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Yuval Harari]

You need an entire system. This is the famous checks and balances. And these checks and balances like independent courts and free media and constitution and federal system, these are all basically, if you think about in terms of information, these are the self correcting mechanisms.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. We are supported by Happy Egg. Happy Egg believes in spreading happiness through the simple pleasure of high quality and delicious eggs. Happy Egg hens are raised on over 8 acres of land by family farmers. They're free range farm army model coupled with the humane treatment of their hens leads to absolutely delicious eggs. Happy hens. Happy eggs. It just makes sense, doesn't it? You can see the difference with Happy Egg because the egg yolks have an incredible orange color that's not only beautiful, but also packed with flavor. I live for the orange egg yolk.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's really nice.

[Dax Shepard]

I've become an orange egg yolk connoisseur.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And these happy eggs deliver. So taste the difference and crack open Happy with Happy Egg. You'll find them in the yellow carton. Visit happyegg.com dax to find a store near you from 743 with Orna Goralnick.

[Monica Padman]

Systems thinking is super important when you work with couples and when you work with groups. The idea with systems thinking is that we each bring into the world a set of inclinations and traits and characteristics. But then when you're joining some kind of group or system, it could be a group of two, it could be a team, it could be a family. The system needs all sorts of things from its members. Like it needs someone to volunteer leadership capabilities. It needs someone to be the caretaker, it needs someone to be the critic. We need all these functions. When you join a system, the system calls upon its members to volunteer certain functions. And we're each more and less inclined to volunteer certain things. But it will change depending on what team we join. Like with some teams you'll find yourself, oh, I'm kind of a leader here. And with some teams you're like, actually, I'm a follower because there's someone else that's doing it differently and better than me now. So when you work with a couple, you try to understand how they're each drawn into certain roles based on what the couple as a system needs. So it's a very different way of thinking about, let's say, a crisis that a couple goes through. You're trying to understand what's going on with the. With a unit as a whole that leads them to this crisis. How did they each take this role? When you're raising kids, there are certain things that need to happen, and not everyone can do everything.

[Dax Shepard]

What I was going to suggest as an example that people I think experience most strongly is they go out into their adult life and they kind of gravitate toward a system that they wanted, and then they return home for the holidays, and you can feel yourself click into the role you were ascribed in that situation, and you're like, no, no, no, no, I don't want this role anymore. I feel like that's when people are really aware of it.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. And that's why around the holidays, I cannot go on vacation.

[Dax Shepard]

You have done a lot of work on disassociation. Maybe we could dig in a little bit of what that means for people. I think it's very common. It's a spectrum, the one I'm not familiar with that seems like a sister state is depersonalization. I don't know what that is.

[Monica Padman]

Generally dissociation, going back to Freud, you really int the concept of repression, that if there's something you don't want to know about yourself or something happened to you, you repress it, meaning it happened, you registered it, and then you push it out of mind.

[Dax Shepard]

You forget that was in quotes.

[Monica Padman]

That was in quotes. Dissociation is a different model of mind. It's when things happen that are either traumatic or to some degree something you can't tolerate. You either don't process it, you kind of leave it hanging and not fully comprehend what it means, or you shunt it towards a part of the psyche that is not your main part of your personality. You kind of keep it to the side, to a part that's kind of not me. That not me over there just registered all those bad things that were happening over there. But I'm not going to pay attention to it because the me that needs to keep functioning is moving ahead in.

[Dax Shepard]

The world that always happened to someone else, because to take that on would be too much.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly. So there are many ways to dissociate Some extreme ways would be multiple personality, what we call dissociative identity disorder. You really shunt parts of the psyche to the side and they develop like a whole world of their own.

[Dax Shepard]

And this one is so extreme that there's almost a lack of awareness that the other states exist.

[Monica Padman]

Right, right. One of the ways that we think about multiple personality is that one part of the psyche doesn't even know about these other personalities or there's amnesia for what the other personalities are going through. I treat people with multiple. Or did. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, this season we have someone that's approaching.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, Alexis. He has a dissociative disorder, and to.

[Dax Shepard]

The degree where he doesn't remember the arguments he's having with his partner.

[Monica Padman]

Yes, Alexis. What happens to him is he's very afraid of his own rage, and there are all sorts of reasons why. And when he gets triggered and gets enraged or triggered into, like a trauma zone, he really switches and becomes a very different kind of person who can defend himself, who can sort of defend himself more. He's trying globally.

[Dax Shepard]

He's actually making much more pain for himself.

[Monica Padman]

Right. That one is hard to watch. And going back to depersonalization, when people depersonalize, what happens to them is, in a way, they sort of remove themselves from what's happening. Being in a relationship with someone like that, like in this season, like Kazimar and Alexis. Yes. Feels so heavy. Like, I hate. Impossible. He doesn't have memories that the other person has that are painful and aggressive and hurt them, but they don't even know that they did it. It just feels so epic. Yeah, it is epic. I mean, you saw the two of them. What they had going for them is their deep psychological insight into all of this and first of all, their profound love for each other. They were in process of working on this stuff. Alexis knew and wanted to get better at it. They were incredible couple to work with. Yeah, I bet.

[Dax Shepard]

I want to earmark that case because it actually got kind of personal to you and we saw maybe one of your bad word for it, but Achilles.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Because of course, as a show, you're the hero of our story. So it's interesting to have a pretty insatiable desire to know about you. And there's not a lot of info for us. Well, there is, there is and there isn't. I don't know your history. I don't know about your children. I learned you're from Israel or spent time, you know, little nuggets here and there. But a lead character normally would have had kind of an introduction where we get the backstory and then we take a journey with them. So it's part of the fun of watching it is you yourself, as the lead character of a story we watch is a mystery to us, which is very. Go ahead.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. I have to respond to that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

First of all, it's uncomfortable.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Monica Padman]

Just characterologically, but the therapist, in a way, is, to some degree the lead character in a therapy. But also not at all. I'm doing the work. I'm the theory.

[Dax Shepard]

I was really unspecific in what I was talking about. There's the reality of what's happening that happens to get captured. And there. You're right. You're not the hero of that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Then there's a documentary series. That's another thing.

[Monica Padman]

I guess I'm less connected to that.

[Dax Shepard]

As you should be. I'm almost letting you into the perspective of the viewer. That would be hard for you to probably touch, which is. I turn on my table television. There's a program presented to me. The couples change. One person stays consistent. The blueprint of my brain for story is that's my lead character. That's my hero. Now, that's not the reality of what's happening in the room at all. I'm not suggesting that.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

This is great. This is uncomfortable, right?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. What about it is uncomfortable?

[Dax Shepard]

I can.

[Monica Padman]

Well, first of all, I'm not. Look, people go into the profession of being a therapist or an analyst because they're actually quite private. Yeah. Yeah. I like being private. I like the story being someone else. I don't like the idea of me being the main character, but I also have a theoretical belief. I understand what you're saying, but you're joining me not in being myself. You're joining me as the viewer. You're coming with me on this journey to understand how to think, how to listen. Not me personally. We're together, we're thinking about what is this human thing, this human journey we're on.

[Dax Shepard]

If I had used the word guide instead of hero, would that be less triggering?

[Monica Padman]

I. I don't know.

[Dax Shepard]

It probably feels like you're dishonoring the. You're really dishonoring what's happening.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

By claiming to be the hero of it.

[Yuval Harari]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I'm channeling what I've learned to do.

[Dax Shepard]

And you are. And I would feel that exact same way.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

From 758 with the avet brothers.

[Yuval Harari]

All right.

[Dax Shepard]

We are loved whether we speak up or we are silent if we are.

[Monica Padman]

Willing.

[Dax Shepard]

For we are done.

[Monica Padman]

If we're courageous.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, we are cowards we may be burdened with but we are loved Whether we stay true and do for.

[Monica Padman]

Another.

[Dax Shepard]

If we are hidden or we're.

[Monica Padman]

Discovering if we're forgiven or we're forgotten.

[Dax Shepard]

We may be lonely but we are.

[Yuval Harari]

Loved.

[Dax Shepard]

Every Every stitch and seam Every wish and dream Even in tragedy there.

[Yuval Harari]

Lies divinity.

[Dax Shepard]

Even as hope seems lost it may be found again.

[Monica Padman]

I have.

[Dax Shepard]

Felt alone but I have never been.

[Yuval Harari]

If you are standing or cannot stop.

[Monica Padman]

Moving.

[Yuval Harari]

If you are haunted or cannot remember.

[Monica Padman]

Over the grave gravestone.

[Yuval Harari]

Under the rainbow Pain comes and pain goes.

[Monica Padman]

And.

[Yuval Harari]

We are loved.

[Dax Shepard]

Every stitch and single.

[Monica Padman]

Every wish and dream Even in tragedy.

[Yuval Harari]

There lies divinity.

[Monica Padman]

Even as hope seems.

[Dax Shepard]

Lost it may be found.

[Monica Padman]

I have.

[Dax Shepard]

Felt alone but I have never been if we are speaking spirit.

[Monica Padman]

Or we.

[Dax Shepard]

Are human.

[Monica Padman]

Crossing the river or harboring change.

[Dax Shepard]

If we deny it.

[Monica Padman]

For if we face it.

[Yuval Harari]

May we embrace it. We are loved.

[Dax Shepard]

Foreignchair Expert on the Wondry App, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey hello ladies and germs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittney Broski and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all. Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville Whodunnit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out, follow Tis the Grinch.

[Monica Padman]

Holiday Podcast on the Wondery App or.

[Dax Shepard]

Wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery App, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.