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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. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. And today is best of Wednesdays 2025 edition. We are supported by ServiceNow. You know what? I love not having to do boring, repetitive stuff. I want to focus on the interesting conversations, the creative work, the things that really matter to me. And apparently that's exactly what ServiceNow does for entire organizations. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. Here's the thing. ServiceNow has basically become the operating system of AI. Instead of Frankensteining together different tools, ServiceNow unifies people, data workflows and AI connecting every corner of your business data. That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform. We're talking HR, customer service, every department you can think of. And here's what's cool. They got Idris Elba as their brand ambassador. I mean, come on, if you're going to have someone represent your company, might as well be the guy who's basically the CEO everyone wants to be, right? With AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters Most. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people. At ServiceNow.com we are supported by Empower. See, you've always wanted to take that bucket list safari trip where you hop in a jeep at sunrise and cruise the Serengeti. Here's the thing. If you invest well, you could do things like that. With Empower, you can get your money working for you so you can go out and live a little. Isn't that why we work so hard to splurge at certain moments? Maybe it's those concert seats that don't require binoculars. Or taking that trip to Athens in Greece, not Georgia. No disrespect money, so use. Use Empower to help you get good at money so you can be a little bad. Join their 19 million customers today@empower.com not an Empower client. Paid or sponsored. From episode 900 with Scott Payne. They carried me down Clothesline, who's supposed to be my second closest friend, says, yo, Tex, you got a minute? And I said, yeah. And then he walks me through this door that I've never been in, even though I've been in that clubhouse. I don't know how many times. It's the only door I hadn't been through. And it leads into a very tight stairwell down into a. If I call it a basement. That's being generous because I couldn't stand up straight. It's more of a crawl space. Yeah. And I could touch the wall, probably on both sides. I see rope. Oh, no. I see that they have both brandished their pistols. One outlaw follows me, and he stands on the steps with his pistol, and he's watching. And Clothesline proceeds to tell me, I need you to. He says, there's a lot of shit going on, and it's my job to take care of my brothers. I need you to take off because I want you to write down your full name, date of birth, Social Security, everything. And I need you to take all your clothes off. I need to check you for a wire. So now I'm like, I hate this. Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too. And there's no one in a van across the street. We'll get to that. Okay. But really quick. Also, you're. You have to be playing the game in your head where you're like, okay, so I'm not wired. I am the guy. What's my reaction? Yeah, right. You're trying to. I would love to say yes to that answer, but I was shitting go by. I was having an adrenaline dump. Yeah. I had that panic, and it's the fight or flight or freeze. Yeah. Mid brain is in charge. And then you are hopefully doing what you've trained or rehearsed in your head. And that's what I did. If I had not seen me do these things on the video, I would have never known I did them. But just like I can show you, cops and military first responders and shootouts, they have no idea how many rounds they shot. They have no idea that they did a magazine exchange behind effective cover. They just do it because they've trained it so much, and it's instinctive. So in the undercover world, okay, now I'm down there, I'm trying to write my name down. I'm having that adrenaline dump. In other words, if you've ever been through a traumatic incident, whether it's a car wreck or whatever, everything just slows down. And your auditory exclusion, everything's going whoosh. What I'm hearing is like, scott, I need. I've even had sight get minimal. That's like closing in, tunnel vision. So that happens. You're getting the tunnel vision. Yeah. And everything's time dilation. It's in clicks it's like in frames, right? You go click, click, click. You can hear and feel your heart beating through your entire body. Palms are sweaty. I'm starting an Eminem song here. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to talk, and I'm trying to write my name, and I forgot my middle name. I've been this dude forever. I know, I know. I'm Scott Caliber. Oh, yeah. But because of the stress, I don't even know. And. And it was. I was blessed enough to put this training on to some Navy SEALs. And it was this guy that in one of the seals caught it, and he said, man, if you look, your hand's not even shaking the entire time. You're trying to read, trying to remember your name. And I'm like, well, my insides were shaking. And I yell back. I'm like, and what else do you need? I don't even know. I do it. And he's like, what? I go, my name and what else? It didn't sound that clear, though, because I'm crapping myself. It sounds like, what else do you need? My name. Well, you know, I'm not, like, underwater. Yeah. I'm not even enunciating. He yells up, and I hear, what do you need for that website? So I'm like, okay, they're going to Google search me. There was a. Who's a rat Dot com. There was things like that. And I go, okay, I'm cool with that. Then I remember my initials were SAC because, as I said before, is the head of an FBI office. And I thought that was funny because I know I'd never be one. You know, a little humor for myself. Sure. Not very humorous at the moment, but I remember Scott Andrew Calloway. So I write that down. I take all my upper clothing off. I probably was layered because it was cold. I take my boots off. I pull my underwear and jeans down to my ankles. So from ankle up, I'm naked and it was cold. Sure. And you were scared. Wasn't your best showing. Is my guest. I'm not attracted to you. I feel like I'm getting ready, possibly getting ready to die in the terms of a Seinfeld episode. That was a whole different level of shrinkage. Oh, my God. We're dealing with a woman. I thought it was an FBI agent. I know, right? Woman. I know. I don't care what I look like right now. I just want to get out of here. So I take all my clothes off, and he checks everything. And I. Again, adrenaline dump. I'm trying to talk. And if you Like, I know clothesline for a year and a half at this point. So if you saw what my face was saying to you, even though my words aren't saying it, my face is saying, tell me I'm okay. Yes. And his face back to me is kind of like, look, it's just business. However, he doesn't know that I'm an FBI agent undercover. He's wired to the Hill. Yeah. He's probably like, why are you that. Like, don't be that worried you're going to get through this. He said, man, he goes, trust me. And these are his words exactly. I think they even quoted in the news. In the press release after the takedown, he said, trust me. If somebody accused me of being a fed, I'd probably smash them in the effing mouth. And I said, I'm not happy. And he said, I wouldn't be either. And. And I tell him. I'm like, look, you guys asked for this. I did not come to you. You came to me. Nobody has to do anything. Yeah. If nobody wants to do shit. Yeah, nobody has to do shit. Those are my exact words. Not as clear as that, but. Because I'm crapping my pants, but I think I'm done. And all the gears in your clothes, somehow, obviously, some yes, some no. Tradecraft, I will say you can't say, but you are exposed currently. Like, they didn't. They're not seeing. They're not seeing. Yeah, correct. I think I'm done. And then I'm pulling my pants back up. I'm putting my boots back on, and then he grabs a particular piece of clothing, and when he grabs it, I'm like. And he says, when he grabs it, he goes, hey, I'm not going to find anything here. I don't want to write, like, some naked pictures of my old lady. And he goes. And my laugh is like, you know. Yeah, yeah. So I'm. And I even say, I hope not. Now I'm sitting here up against the wall, my head tilted, and I'm watching him take this piece of clothing and go through it. We call this kneading. He's kneading it with his hands and he's feeling it. And I'll just say this, Technology wise, in 2007, had he grabbed that part of that clothing, he would have felt something. Yeah. And he gets close, and he even looks directly at a camera and misses it. So while he's doing that, you think my adrenaline's here, and then it dumps, and then it's here, and then it's ebbing and fluent. When he's doing that, I have no idea. I do it, but you can hear clear on the recording. Me watch him. And I go. Cause I don't even know I'm doing it. It's a verbal side. Yeah. Because my insides are saying, it's over. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. And then he says he misses it and he hands it back to me and I go right into business. But it's just nervous chatter. Joking is. Even though I'm a jokester anyway, it's definitely a self defense mechanism. I feel like I can't breathe. I try to crack a joke. Things like that, PTSD's kicking in, whatever. So I go right back to business. And people ask all the time, hey, man, what would you have said if he had found it? And I remember it like it was yesterday. I had my first response. Probably would have been something funny if he would have said, what is this? I might have said, I don't know, some naked pictures of your old lady to try to buy me some time or to laugh it off. The only other response I had is, the gig is up. I'm an undercover FBI agent and I can walk out of here and we can see each other in court or all hell's gonna break loose. And here's the kicker. That would have been a bluff on my part. Sure. Because up until that point, to my knowledge, my cover team could never hear, for whatever reason, thick walls, bad equipment, whatever, they could never hear me in that clubhouse. What? But you didn't know that. Yeah, I did. You did. That's why. That's what it would have been a bluff. Yeah. Oh, my. You would just have to be betting on the notion that there's. They're gonna assume they're watching. And if you don't come out now they've got a murder. That's what you've got to be hoping. Yeah. Because the best case scenario is they. They've done the math and you've got. You always try to plan contingencies. Contingency plan. A, B, C, D. Four or five moves ahead, Right. But he didn't find it. He hands it back to me. And that night, my adrenaline dump just turns into anger. I end up going out with Joe Dogs in Scott Town. And luckily they didn't take it personally or anything, but I took it personal. And I shouldn't have because I'm just undercover. But I was pissed. Now that adrenaline is coming down, I'm like, who in the. If I go, you know what, Tomorrow, if y' all do show up. I'm stripping you naked in the parking lot. How's that? Yeah. Yeah. Come prepared. Yeah, it's going to be chilly. Yeah. You know, that's good, because that's what you would have done if you weren't undercover. Well, it's also hard to know you're just modeling these scenarios. You know, it's kind of like what I'm hearing. What's annoying about some of. Of these docs you watch where the cops come and they're like, he wasn't acting like someone whose wife just died. How the fuck do you know how someone acts when their wife. Like, that's bullshit. That's what you saw on tv. That's what you thought of in your head. Nobody knows what anybody does until it's happening. Yeah. And again, I took it personal. I'm like, you took. That's the same thing I would have done at Scott Payne. Who do you think you are, taking me into a damn basement? Even though they were right, I wasn't undercover. Right. Yeah. He didn't have the moral high ground. But that's what we all do. We justify things to ourselves. Even if we know we're wrong, we can find a way to be right. From episode 941 with Mark Ronson. I'm always most interested in people's youth. When I interview them, I'll even get comments like, why do you bring up this movie? I'm like, I don't care about them. I care about, like, how people ended up being capable of making that movie. So I love it because this book is just. You're just taking me to the end of the 90s, basically, and even the beginning. You have a very fantastical. Is that the word? I mean, you have a really. You have a really strange and unique childhood. Yeah. Did you understand how unique it was? Can you have a sense of that? Yes. I think I had a sense of both things. I think. What's. My parents were this young partying couple in London. They have money. My dad came from some money. So they had this house, and there were all these rock stars always hanging out back there, and I'd wake up in the morning. You started a publishing company? Yeah, music publishing. And like, that was like their world, just. And. And I. And I remember waking up in the middle of the night and Robin Williams at the time, Mork and Mindy was the biggest thing. And I love Mork. Came in and woke. Woke me up, and I had this vague, hazy memory for you. He's definitely gacked out of his mind. Gacked out of his mind. My mom is definitely having a good time too. And he keeps running to the window to look at stuff. But I was also like my parents. I was used to the fact, I kind of say in the book that adults were more fun at night. Adults in the day were a little scary and bad tempered and irritable and maybe you had to avoid them. But at night everything was all good. Interesting. So I remember thinking, this is strange and unusual, but I'm sure it perverted my sensibility of what was normal from an early age. But he's leaving the room and you say, yeah. I'm like, you. You. You forgot their thing. And he turns back and he knows right away and he's like, nanu, nanu. You know? And I was just like, he knew what I wanted and would he go like that? Did he do this? I think he did the same. Might not have the dexterity at that moment. He didn't do it. He had the thing, you know. Towards the end of the book, I was out at a restaurant and I saw him at the table and I just wanted to go up to him, but I kind of like punked out. And to ask him if he remembered my parents house and the universe gave me a second opportunity. He walks towards our table, going to the toilet, And I'm like, Mr. Williams, I know this is so crazy and there's no way that you'll remember this, but I. One of my earliest childhood memories of you coming into my room like as a kid. And he like stops for a second and he's like, wait, your parents had the house on Circus Road? And I was like, yeah. He goes, man, they threw some fucking crazy parties and just kept walking like exactly what you want from Robin Williams, from that thing. And he even remembered it. I bet he remembered it. Cause it was at the beginning for him. Yeah, yeah. Like I bet if that had happened for him 18 years later, you know, it gets in that murk of too many neat things happening at some point. Yeah. Then you and your two sisters moved to New York to the Upper west side or West. Central Park West. Yeah. And you're what age? Sorry, at this point I'm eight. Eight or nine. When I moved to New York. Yeah. And move into this pretty outrageous, huge apartment. Yeah. And I'm guessing if you're a couple blocks from, as you later met Sean Lennon. Yeah. Were you in the San Remo building? Yes, you were. Lived in the San Remo building when we first moved there. Well, first we moved There. My stepdad had, like, a little bachelor pad on Riverside Drive. And suddenly it's like he's living with three kids and he's like. He really was. He was. And then Foreigner were just hitting this amazing peak. You know, like all these smashes. And they bought this really fancy apartment, for reference. The next tower. Or maybe it was your tower, but the Studio 54 guy had the top of one of those towers. Yeah. Tony Randall from the Odd Couple. Oh, sure, that's a deep cut. But he was on the set. Dustin Hoffman. See, this is what I'm talking about. This is a very unique childhood. Extremely. Yeah. But there were, like, crazy shit that happened with this dichotomy of knowing that all this stuff was crazy going on. Like, there was this one time that I stayed at Sean Lennon, who's one of my closest friends, at his house when Michael Jackson came over for a sleepover. And I know. On the Bad Tour. On the Bad tour, also a sleepover. There's a lot here. Yeah, there's a lot. It is different now to say some of these things, for sure. Wow, this is wild. But even with that, I knew not to say anything in school the next day. Cause I didn't want to be teased mercilessly or be made to be like, oh, you fucking dick. Or. Or look like braggy. So, like, there was this thing of, like. I knew it was crazy. I also knew to keep as much of it to myself. So that was a really. Yeah, that was a very specific part for me. Yeah. They're throwing wet toilet paper balls off the side. Yeah. Coach also soggies. Yeah. Please get kicked out of the Milford Plaza Hotel as a kid for throwing soggies. He just wanted to. Michael Jackson was just really intent on packing wet mounds of toilet paper and just pelting them nowhere near people. But just hearing them spat on the sidewalk, it's very rewarding because you start with the ball. And I don't want to encourage anyone to do this because it's dangerous, but I will say, okay, you start with a wad of toilet paper this big. When that fucking thing hits the ground, if you're 30 plus up, that's crazy. It's eight foot wide. It's very instantly rewarding if you're. Wow. I made that huge thing, like, if you drop a penny off the Empire State Building or something. Yeah. They say it would crush a cab. I don't know know if that's true, though. I think they told us that as kids to tell us not to throw pennies. I I don't want to. I. I have. Didn't put this in. In a book, but it. We did hit the hood of a car and there was this just like sound. It sounded like a. A tank blast. Oh, shoot. We were only on the 10th. 10th floor. It's so telling because that is something you do as a kid. Yeah, that's what kids do. They make little balls of toilet paper and throw it at things. That so reflective of him? Well, he was playing laser tag. He said he was like, more kid. Like. Like, do you remember the first time, like, you won because you're wonderful and young and the sharper image. That first laser pen light that kind of shone. That long infrared pen. They just decided that nobody ever needs that thing. So it was discontinued. But I think it's also dangerous for your eyes if you. Everything about it was wrong. Michael Jackson had made the guy who. He obviously had incredible lasers and shit on tour. The guy who built those lasers for him, built him his own little box that you could plug in the wall. It was about this big a metal. And it shone a single green laser that probably shone like hundreds of feet, you know. Cause he was just playing in fucking arenas and stadiums. So we were running around and holding it up to the window and shining it eight floors down. But nobody had ever seen that. Only thing you could compare it to would be like the thing on an Uzi. Like this thing or whatever, right? Yeah. So like, we're shining it on the street and like, there's a guy walking the dog. The guy can't see and the dog just like, it's terrible. Everything about it I would hate. I would never do that now. But, yeah, that was what he wanted to do. And in an absurd foreshadowing of who has to become. I was just like, this fun and games is great. Michael, give us a baseline. I want to go back and like make a demo. Like, I was just like, remember being really concerned with. Because my stepdad had a studio where I made demos. And I remember Michael actually was just like, okay. So he, like. He did this thing where it was like, of course, I'll never forget. It was so Michael, he like did like a. Like an arm out, like, snap. And he started to sing the Space Sign that went. Do, do, do do do. And I was like, okay, it's a little ripped off from Smooth Criminal, but we'll take it. And made a whole fucking song from this bass line that Michael Jackson gave us. This is shocking. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. We are supported by JCPenney. Okay, so I just ordered these king size pillows from JCPenney which were so hard to find. I was looking at a lot of places and JC Penney had they arrived, I was like, wait, these feel really lux and expensive. Way more than what I paid. Well, that's the thing about JCPenney right now. They're a one stop shop for incredible gifts. You can grab something last minute like even on December 22nd and it still looks like you've been planning for months. You know, I just bought a bunch of stockings for Nashville from JCPenney and an adorable Christmasy placemat with a fire engine on it and some nutcrackery. Guys creatures. There's like all kinds of fun Christmas stuff. Oh, I love that. Whether it's beauty sets, home decor, jewelry, or fashion for the whole family, everything has that elevated I definitely splurged vibe. Even when you didn't, it's what they thought that counts. And honestly, nobody needs to know you grabbed it at the 11th hour shop. JCP.com yes, JCPenney. We are supported by Addie. I know about Addie. The little pink pill, right? Yes, that's right. Addie is the FDA approved pink pill. Clinically proven to boost desire in certain premenopausal women who are bothered by a low libido. I love this. It's really nice that there's an option out there for women who are dealing with low desire. And I like that. 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Wait at least two hours after drinking before taking Addi at bedtime. This risk increases if you take certain prescriptions, OTC or herbal medications, or have liver problems and can happen when you take ADDI without alcohol or other medicines. Do not take if you are allergic to any of addi's ingredients. Allergic reactions may include hives, itching or trouble breathing. Sometimes serious sleepiness can occur. Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep and dry mouth. See full PIM Medication guide including box warning@addi.addie use code DAX for a ten dollar telemed appointment@addie.com that's a d d y I.com we are supported by Hill's pet nutrition something we celebrate here on Armchair Expert is that we all have juggles, struggles, faults and flaws because we're human. Those of us with pets know this all too well. We are their whole world and that can be a lot of pressure. Things are just going to go wrong sometimes and we can only plan for so much pet. Parent guilt is unavoidable. Yeah, like when you left one of your dogs when you went traveling, you probably had guilt. I did. Whiskey wasn't fit to make the trip, but I was relieved that he's having such a great time with Peggy at home. But yeah, because you're only human, there's Hills. Science does more. Find the right food@hillspet.com Dax we are supported by quints Winter in LA is weird. It'll be 75 degrees one day, then suddenly you need an actual coat. I've been rotating through the same three jackets for years and honestly, they're looking rough. So I finally upgraded my winter wardrobe with quints and the difference is wild. Their Mongolian cashmere sweaters are ridiculously soft. Like, I didn't know cashmere could feel this good without costing a mortgage payment. And their wool coats and Italian leather outerwear, they're the kind of pieces that actually last have amazing homeware. Do not sleep on the homeware. And if someone's moving and you want to get them like a little housewarming gift, it's the perfect place. I got a friend some curtains. Oh, you did? Quince curtains. QCs. Quince curtains do it. What I love about Quint is they cut out the middleman. Bye bye. They work directly with factories and have ethical production standards. So you're getting luxury quality without the luxury markup. We're talking premium materials, thoughtful design stuff that'll last you multiple winners, not just one. Refresh your your winter wardrobe with Quince. Go to Quince.com Dax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Dax free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Dax from episode 862 with Blaze Aguirre. Okay, so let's start if you're willing. First of all, what is the difference between a mood disorder and a personality disorder? Yeah, so mood disorder, you know, as we sort of think a little bit about it, is that you have discrete episodes of mood states, typically either depressed or manic, that last for a certain period of time, 10 days, 2 weeks, and respond typically to treatment such as medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. And that there's really, when you're in that state, there's very little reactivity to that state. So when somebody's depressed, they stay in that state for this period, some given period of time. With personality disorders, there are traits about who you are. You know, that the way that you experience yourself in relationship to other people and that those traits. So maybe it's maybe you're emotionally very intense, maybe you tend to be reactive to what people say and do, that those personality traits, when activated, interfere with your ability to function. So what's confusing is that say somebody has borderline personality disorder and everything's going fine. To the outside observer, they're just like doing fine. But then somebody says so then they're on Instagram and they didn't get invited to a party and they see all their friends at a party and now there's incredible rage, incredible anger, incredible jealousy, envy, and it spikes their emotional state. And in that state they cannot function. Their relationships begin to be impacted, maybe their work does. Oh, so that's already revelatory to me because I thought of it as like a status quo. You're in a state of this disorder, period. Exactly. And this is what's interesting. Let's just say that somebody was drunk and they walked into the studio and we all walk in independently, that we could see that the person is drunk. That state is permanent in that moment. But let's just say it's somebody with borderline personality disorder and you guys have a good relationship with that person. But I really pissed them off. So then you come and you're chit chatting and everything, and I walk in and suddenly you see this spike of ra. From your perspective, that person seems to be doing fine. But from my perspective, all of a sudden this person's angry and maybe they're devaluing me or very, very upset. And you guys are saying like, wait, what's going on? So that state only manifests when there's something either interpersonal or intrapersonal inside their own head that gets triggered. Now, is narcissism in a state of flux as well? It's interesting that I don't know narcissism as well. And the reason why is because people with narcissism don't tend to come in for therapy. Exactly. Yeah. We had a narcissist expert and she said exactly that. There's one of the rarest cases to come seek treatment. Yeah. You can't diagnose it really, because who's coming in? Understand it correctly. From the expert we had on, it's like you don't suffer from narcissism the way you suffer from some other person. It's the scariest one because they're in it in such a way that you can't even. They don't want to feel better. Maybe I could teach you a thing or two. Okay. What I'm saying is that's what the narcissist will say. But the most common comorbidity with a personality disorder is another personality disorder. So you can have borderline personality disorder with some narcissistic traits. And one of the ways in which I have been able to work with a few cases of people with a narcissistic personality disorder is to say, here's the thing is no one actually likes you. And you also have to just call it out as the truth. You know, sort of like, I know that you feel that people adore you and you're surrounded by people who you believe are supportive. They don't actually. And the thing about it is, you can't even see it. So what I'm going to say is I'm going to teach you how to see the world differently, even if you don't feel that what I'm telling you is true. Because what's happening is that you're kind of lonely for a narcissist. Like, what's going on? Is it actually about everybody else? Or maybe it's about you? So mostly it's hard for me to answer that question only because I see so many few people with npd. Yeah. So what are the symptoms of borderline personality? Yeah, and I talk a lot about it in the book because that's the group that I found with most self hatred and self loathing was the group of people with borderline personality disorder. Okay. So if we go through the criteria, the first criteria is frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. So what do I mean by that? Nobody wants to be abandoned, you know, and say like, okay, I'm going to go home, my kids and wife have disappeared, or whatever. I know, I'm already scared. Every time we have someone on who's speaking about like psychology, I think I have it. That's your ocd. What's so beautiful about this is that it's is. I mean, we're all on the spectrum. I mean, we all have like, who wants to be abandoned? But it's not so much that we fear. Like anybody would say, I'm saying, okay, like you guys are gonna go. The people go home, the people who love you aren't gonna be there because they don't wanna be there with you anymore. Well, that would be terrifying. Yeah. But the person with borderline personality just sort of fears it, whether it's real or whether it's not real. So, you know, and sometimes it's like, boy, this relationship is so painful for me that I can't be with you anymore. And so then that's real abandonment. But then the other one is like, no one's ever liked me, no one's ever cared about me. I just worry that people are going to abandon me. And so then what they start to do is. This is the first part of the criteria. Frantic efforts to avoid the abandonment. What does that mean? It's constant texts, constant phone calls, constant seeking of reassurance. Then to the other person, it's like, how many more times do I need to tell you I love you? And it becomes actually the kind of behavior that then creates the self fulfilling prophecies. Because I can't do this anymore. Yes. What I like about. There's lots of excerpts of dialogue between you and patients. And I don't know why, but I'm blown away with how intelligent some of the patients are and how articulate and some of them are downright confrontational with you, which I think is so brave and cool. I think there's something about the dynamic that, that makes that hard. Yeah. And one of your patients, a young woman, is like, you're not listening to me. Exactly. Yeah. I'm not like upset with myself in this moment. I hate myself across the board. Right. Like, you need to listen to me. And I'm like impressed and grateful that someone would have that conviction to push back against you like that. I tell patients, I said, like, if I've gotten it wrong, you've got to just tell me. I've gotten it wrong. Because otherwise I'm going to continue down this path believing what I believe to be. You too are also limited by your own experience. Yes. You've learned from the DSM all these other things and you know how to look for them because you yourself can't necessarily relate immediately to a constant state of self hatred. Right. It's a little inconceivable until it's detailed for you. Yeah. What does it mean? Really? Yeah, like, because I think a lot of people will go like, well, I hate myself often. Yeah. Or when is it a pathology? Or sometimes or whatever, I'm lazy. So let's just imagine a binary world. Identify as male. Yes. Female. Yes. Okay, now how certain are you of that those states 100%. Okay, what if I told you that you were wrong? What if I told you that, you know what? I actually quickly snuck a DNA test and you're actually XY and you're actually xx. Now how easy would it be for me to convince you that you're female? It'd be impossible. Impossible. Male. I mean I guess if you had proof, like wait a second, no, but not only that, okay, so here's, wait a second, this couldn't be proven to you. It couldn't. No, but even if I had, like, okay, here's your DNA, here's your DNA. That's what I'm saying. Exactly. And, and, and so even if I said okay, here's some proof now you need to be convinced. I would pull my dick out and go, great, you're holding that, I'm showing you this, right? Okay, no, but here's what I want you to do is I, you, you're actually wrong about yourself. Yourself, you are actually female. What would the relationship between me and you be if I kept insisting that you had to see yourself as female? Well, you would be an adversary, you would be a threat. You would be someone that's living in certainly a different reality than I am. Exactly. Because there's nothing that I could do that would convince you to. That's the level of belief, right? So I'm saying like I'm worthless and I am toxic. They use often this, this term toxic. Doesn't matter what proof you present to them, right? It doesn't matter. There is no separation from the isness of self hatred. Meaning they're as convicted about that as they would be about their biological, biological identity. And then if I say okay, you know what I want to start talking about self hatred. It's as alienating as if it would be. I Want you to start thinking of yourself as this other gender said, like, I know I've got kids, I know who I am. You're not going to convince me out of this. We're wasting time in therapy because I don't want to talk about this. Yes. So it's very hard to tackle it sounds like, well, that was the problem. Is that so? I thought, okay, so now what I need to do is tackle self hatred. Why aren't any therapies tackling self hatred? From episode 871 with Mary Claire Haver for decades, when you look at why menopause hormone therapy was developed, it was to treat a hot flash and forever the pathognomonic, the poster child symptoms was hot flashes or what we call medicine, vasomotor symptoms. What was never taught to me, ever, and I learned like three years ago, was we have estrogen receptors in every single organ system in this body. And what I also was taught is in perimenopause, it's a slow, gentle decline. That's all I learned. One sentence. To decline until full menopause. When you lose function, it is a rocking rollercoaster. And your worst symptoms tend to be the ones like the mental challenges, the brain fog, the cognitive disorders, the frozen shoulder. All of it is peri and late peri and early men. That's when you're accelerating your loss of bone and muscle. Yeah. And the eggs. Right. We were born with all of our eggs. Okay, so a million, though. That was a shocker to me. So 1 to 2 million at birth. 1 to 2 million. But isn't this a weird. It's like that thing where you're born with all your eggs and what's the thing? And then like. So really your grandma's eggs are your eggs. Yeah. So like when you're. Your grandmother was pregnant with your mother. The egg that made you was inside of your mother, inside of your grandmother. Yeah. So in some ways, women have always existed. So there's all this, like, knowledge, wisdom and trauma. Well, it's also the mitochondrial era imprinting that goes on through a traumatic pregnancy. Okay, so there are 6,000 women reach menopause every single day in the United States. And There are only 2,300 providers certified in menopause medicine. So once this occurs to you and you're going through and you start getting serious about your own reluctance to go through this, which is a great motivator, how do you approach it? What do you start looking at? How do you even begin assembling what becomes the toolkit yeah. So I wish that I could tell you you could confidently walk into your ob gyn, your family medicine, your internal medicine doctor, and have a reasonable, logical conversation about your plan of care in perimenopause and menopause. Yeah. That is not possible right now. It is not the fault of the individual doctor. They may have been excellent in your birth and your pregnancy plan, you know, in every aspect. But because of this six hours. So right now, they surveyed residents coming out like three years ago. Only 30% felt barely adequately trained to treat menopause. Like, yeah, it's awful. So at least they're honest. Right. Call ahead. You know, look on the Menopause Society website, which is menopause.org and see who has passed the test and is certified there. It's not perfect. Not every. You know, there's always people out there who aren't great doctors, but who took the test. But it's somewhere to start. We crowdsourced with my followers and I've got thousands of testimonials and we organize them by country, city and state to help people find. They don't pay me, you know, just to go find a provider who might be able to help you. And right now it's pretty slick. There's some great telemedicine companies that have been developed, mostly female founded, who saw a gap in care and they saw a need, and they developed these telemedicine companies to serve the menopause. Yeah. So you don't have to live it. Los Angeles or wherever. I have women calling me from New York, Louisiana, London, you know, the most well connected, you would think. Exactly. Who have the same basic questions and the same worries and the same fears and cannot find help as the woman sitting on the couch in Iowa. Yeah. Okay. So as you start focusing on it and kind of pledging to get competent in it and start help and treating women. Yeah. Are you yourself even shocked with the amount of symptoms? Because I wrote down symptoms, and it's about the longest list of symptoms I've ever written. I was shocked. And most of that was driven by questions I got on social, you know, as my little social media platform was exploding. Women are, you know, when 10,000 women ask you about frozen shoulder or palpitations or vertigo, you're like, they can't all be lying. You know, anecdotally, you're just starting to see these huge patterns. Let me look into this. And so then I'm like digging and I'm like, yeah, there's a. They. They're somebody who did the study there's data. We've got clear data here. So I go online and I make a little video talking about the cor. Relation between menopause and vertigo, menopause and frozen shoulder, Menopause and validations. And the world goes crazy. Wow. I get 10,000 comments. Oh my God. Oh my God. Why didn't my doctor know? Again, we're doing a terrible job of teaching, but I was literally learning alongside my followers, right? As I learned, I'd make a video and teach. And that's what inspired me to write the book. And they were like, please write a book. I don't want to chase you all over social media. It's too complicated. Like, just put it all in one place. Frozen shoulder, is that, that is scaring me. Like, my mom had it, my grandmother had it. One of my mother in laws has been dealing with it for the last six months. So this is a great, this is a great story and I hope I get the lore right. So if I don't exactly, you know, but the, the, the story goes. The first study on frozen children, menopause, I know it came out of Duke University. I read the paper and it was the head of OB GYN and the head of orthopedics who both happened to be women. And it was something like they were sitting in the doctor's lounge or in the cafeteria and just shooting the breeze over. Can you believe all these women with frozen shoulder? Da, da, da. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You think there's a correlation? I don't know. Let's look into it. They started pulling charts and they were like, fuck me, look at this. Women who are on HRT have a lower incidence of frozen shoulder. And they have it. They do better. Yeah, they have it. You know, if they get it, they're getting it, but they're getting it less than women who aren't. And they're having a better course, right? Uh huh. So they go to get it published and then they go to orthopedic journals first. Nobody would say touch it. Nope, this can't be right. Nope. This is an artifact. Nope, nope, nope, nope. So one of the menopause journals published it. And so then I have a friend, Vonda Wright, if you follow her, she's an orthopedic surgeon, she does a ton of teaching and she wrote the paper on the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. How's that all work? What's the mechanisms there? Estrogen receptors and probably progesterone here as well are all over the musculoskeletal system. We know, but we know bones. We got bones down. Right. We've known about osteoporosis since I was a resident. I know that one really well. But what wasn't understood was tendon muscles and where the, you know, the connections between bones and muscles and how that all works together. And frozen shoulder is adhesive capsulitis. There's a capsule around the ball joint and the shoulder that gets absolutely adhesed and frozen. And it's an inflammatory condition. And so it's. You can't put your arm behind, like go to the picture. Yeah. And it's very, very painful. And you need early intervention. You need physical therapy. There's needling. There's all they have to break it up. Right. And that we can delay the onset and the duration and probably prevent several cases for women on hrt. And as you said, because there are estrogen risks. Estrogen is protective, so it's an anti inflammatory. But my mom didn't even know that this was. I've never heard her once say she had that because of menopause. Well, no, most women don't know. Most orthopedic surgeons don't know. You know, we're working to change that. All of this is. That paper was written a year and a half. Oh, wow. Okay. So ringing in the ears. Yeah. So tinnitus. Tinnitus. I still don't know how to say it correctly. Yeah, I had it for a minute and I didn't know what to tell people. I had it once, and man, you know, people kill themselves from it. It's a maddening, Maddening. Yeah. So again, this is an estrogen receptor problem. So there's, you know, and the vertigo is that the crystals break off quicker from like, it's basically osteoporosis in the ear. And the crystals break off and then float around and you're dizzy. But the tinnitus, you know, it's the inflammation around the nerve and around some of the. The auricular bones that is, they feel like is leading to. And that women on, you know, all these studies say age match women, premenopausal women definitely have it less than post. And women on HRT are less likely to get it. Yeah. Wow. What are some other dry skin. Yeah. So in the. In the skin. Integumentary. You know, skin. And the hair falls. I've heard that word. That's nice. So. And all the, like, follicles and oil and sweat glands. It's the whole system. Right, right. So the largest organ in the body it is most absorbent. So we see that we lose 30% of our collagen. You don't have to tell a woman that she knows in the first five years of menopause. We can attenuate that with topical or systemic hormone therapy. Topical works better, actually, which is why I'm on my vanity cream. Is it a retinol? Like retinol? No, it's estrogen for the face. Wow. So it's compounded, but some people take the vaginal product and will mix it in their moisturizer and put some on their face. But you should talk to a doctor before. You shouldn't do that. Don't do any compounding at home. So, yeah, mix it up a little mortar and pestle. So you lose oil production in the skin, you lose thinness and the trans. Epidermal water loss is much greater. So you're just losing all your barrier, your protection. So the skin is less healthy besides losing dehydrating at a crazy rate. Yeah. Dry mouth. That's the same dry mouth, same thing. So mucus production, the salivary glands dry up, you know, and we have tremendous. This dry mouth in. Dry eyes. Dry mouth is the same kind of, you know, guys, I don't want menopause. This is miserable. From episode 967 with Malala Yousafzai Now, I find this to be the most interesting part because it's so human. So, yeah. Now you start, you start this school in England and it's a disaster, right? It's disaster. It doesn't. High school's not. I, I loved that school, by the way. But what was really challenging for me was making friends. Yeah. I was a completely different person when I was in Pakistan. I was. You're popular and outgoing. I was in every competition. Debate, singing, playing cricket, Playing cricket, being a kid, everything. I mean, without going. And I had friends. I had so many friends now at this new school, I felt like a stranger. I just thought nobody could ever know me. I could not be that old self of mine. And, you know, I would try to, like, I would try to have a conversation with people and it just like you start and it dies quickly. Yeah. It's such a, like, stressful moment, you know, you're like, I hope, like somebody picks up this topic and it could be a funny thing, and it just fell flat. Yeah. I mean, you, you had so much working against you. You're from another country. I can't imagine your English was bulletproof at that point. Was it? I mean, it was more like textbook English. Textbook English is very different than what people actually speak. Yes. You have the cultural thing. You have the fact that you're famous, which is an awkward thing. You've also just been shot in the face, so you're not like, feeling 100%. I became very, like, self conscious. Of course. Even if, like, if somebody's like, looking at you, you know, we all look at each other and we all just think sometimes, like, you know, what is that person actually looking at right now? Yes, of course. And usually they're not, but we just think that way. But I think at school, yes, I was very self conscious and I was thinking about the facial nerve damage on the left side because of the bullet. And I just thought, like, maybe, you know, I, I, I just was hesitating even to smile because I now had, like a crooked smile. And yes, I was. When I had acne, I didn't want to go to school when, if I had pimples, I would not interact with anyone those days. Like, it's, it's hard enough. Yeah. This is implausible. And you, you, you have to sort of carry the weight now. You're, people are looking to you to be like the voice of, of activism. And you're 15 and you're in a new place and people are expecting wisdom from you. Like, that's too much. Thank God you were kind of delivering on that front because you're, you're just, it's a mess at high school. Yeah. But luckily you are, you're, you're rising to the occasion of the political stuff, making the speeches at UN like you're, you're crushing that part of your life. Yeah. I mean, I just thought maybe at 15, this is where I'm supposed to be at these UN conferences, bilateral meetings with world leaders, advocating for girl education, running a foundation. I just thought maybe this is how my life is supposed to look. Like I won't get this other thing. And to be honest, yes, I wanted all of it. I wanted to be a normal student. At the same time, to have friends, to go to McDonald's, feel loved, and to be able to express myself and to try new things. But somehow, somehow I thought that maybe because I'm supposed to live this activist life, it means sacrificing. It's one or the other. It's one or the other. And I was like, okay, you know, of course, like, I'm sad and I don't feel like. You were lonely. Right. And lonely. But I thought, okay, this is how it's supposed to be. He did the cutest things to you. Like you enlisted on field day to run the 2,200meter. Yes. Dash and came in last. I know. You did so many things. This is horrible. I know. It makes me love you so much when this is going on and you're, like, struggling at school and. You know, I think a lot of American kids, they would come home and, like, tell their parents, and I feel left out. And did you feel like you could do that? Because I don't know how emotions were. No. I think when you are supposed to be this strong, brave, courageous girl, you feel you cannot complain about not having friends or, like, you know, crying alone in the bathroom to. To get over this or feel like, oh, I wish, like, more people could talk to me in the. In the school dining hall. No, I never. I never really shared it with my parents. I would just go home and talk to my best friend in Pakistan. I would ask her about everything that was happening, you know, with. In our neighborhood, with our friends and how her studies were going and just try to, like, reconnect with my old life. And I knew, like, that's just not a reality. I'm not there. But I used to just imagine myself being there and imagine what life would have been like if I were there. So I, like, deep inside, I just wanted to make friends and just know, like, who. Is that true, Malala? You know that? Yeah. And what would my life have looked like if none of these things had happened? So the day when I saw most of the students at my school talk to me was the day when I heard the news about the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh. So I had gone to school, and I was not expected to, like, you were 17? I was 17. Yes. I was in my chemistry class. The school's deputy head teacher walks in and calls me outside and tells me that I have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, my God. And I'm like, wait, what? Yes. And I'm like, oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. But I actually went back to my class. I finished my whole school day in hopes that people might engage with you and show interests were looking at me that day when you feel noticed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the day after, it was just back to normal. Everybody is looking the other way. They were all going to McDonald's and you weren't. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man, what a bizarre. You're winning the Nobel Peace Prize and you're not getting invited to McDonald's. Like, none of this makes. This is too much. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. This show is Sponsored by Better Help the holidays are all about traditions, right? Some we inherit, others we create ourselves. And honestly, I've been thinking about what new traditions might actually serve us. Here's one I didn't see coming. Therapy as a Holiday tradition I know, I know. But hear me out. December can be intense. Family dynamics, Year end pressure. All the reflection on what went right or wrong. What if instead of just surviving the season, we used it to actually understand ourselves better? We have talked numerous times about how the holiday season can be a activating event. Yeah, you're with your family. Exactly. Family dynamics. Also pressure. Moms have pressure. Dads have pressure. For these children present, I have pressure for my gift guide. Better Help makes it simple to start. They've got over 30,000 licensed therapists who follow a strict code of conduct and their matching system actually works. We're talking 4.9 out of 5 stars from over 1.7 million reviews. They've helped more than 5 million people globally figure things out this December. Start a new tradition by taking care of you. Armchairies get 10% off@betterhelp.com Dax that's betterhelp.com Dax facts we are supported by AG1. 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And also for the women's ones, the one I have is so cute. I like after my shower, my routine to get into a cute pair of pajamas. And I feel like my my sleep is improved when I'm wearing cute pajamas. You eventize it. That's right. And honestly, I feel more put together wearing matching pajamas instead of my usual mismatched situation. The timing couldn't be better either because it's holiday season. And honestly, these would make incredible gifts. They have options for women, men, kids, and even pets. That's so cute. Who doesn't want to feel this comfortable Sleeping Shop the best pajamas@skims.com after you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows from episode 891 with Michael Lewis. People get pissed off because there's a lot of money at stake already. Oh, yeah. Those two companies are 30, $40 billion companies. It is sinister. Yeah. What we're doing to young men right now. Yes. It's not just with sports gambling, but we're creating young male anger at a fantastic rate. If you were going to set out to. To create as much young male anger as you could, you'd do a lot of things. You're doing a great job. We're doing job. A great, great job. Let's take away manual labor jobs. Let's take away the trades. Let's stop sending them to college. Let's get that suicide rate up. Let's. I mean, let's tell them they're evil and when they're. From the. From the minute they walk in the classroom when they're in first grade. And then let's create an industry that preys on young male overconfidence in testosterone and rites of passage and all of that. Acts of bravery. Yes. And that has, with unbelievable precision, the ability to identify people who don't know what they're doing and get them to do as much of it as possible. Yes. At the same time, they can with great precision identify people who. The very, very, very few people who actually know what they're doing when they're betting on sports and kick them out of the casino. Yes. It's, it's, it's diabolical. Those algorithms. They can go, oh, this guy's too good of a gambler. He actually is making edge bets, the beds that have positive expected value. He knows something about golfers that we don't know. We can't take the bet. And he's gone. So they just say, you can't do this. Yeah, they only want. They're allowed to just. Oh, yeah, they'll say. They'll say, we'll either ban you. This. We gave. So we got a pro gambler who knew what he was doing to give us his bets to place. And we participated a little bit, so it was legal. And we got booted out everywhere in a matter of four or five bets. And it was even. Even where we'd lost money because they could identify that the bet, even though the bet lost, it was a smart bet. That's like a bar that's only letting alcoholics in. You got to prove they're an alcoholic, literally. And then anyone who can manage their drinking, you get the fuck out of here. That's exactly, that's you're just going to drink water. We don't want you. Yeah. We want fucking addicts. How can this be legal? Well, let's go through it. Can we start? I was really fascinated with Dan Juan. It's a great. He's a great character. Yeah. So Dan1 started studying fans. Okay. Which no one had really ever studied. Right. And I think the con. The reigning opinion of people who attended sporting events was a certain type of person. And through his studies, he found out, well, you know, you'd be surprised to find out that fans are. They donate more money, they're more politically active, they have higher GPAs. They're not the group you think they are. No, they're socially engaged. They're socially engaged. Yeah. And you know, so that they are. But they are not rational. Right. So now we get into the kind of Kahneman, any condiments take on these guys, which is what happens to someone's thinking when they're a fan. I mean, it's motivated reasoning. Right. It's like you will systematically think your team is going to do better than you should think or your favorite players. You got one half your brain in a really irrational space already because you are a fan. Well, I like when he puts it so simply, like just the original proposition position is, come spend two hours with us. There's a 50% chance that you're going to be very upset at the end of this. And it costs a lot of money. You see the bias right there? Like, any rational person would be like, no, those are terrible odds. If I'm going to spend a bunch of money, you say, half the time, I'm going to leave here totally upset. Yeah. And so that you're. When you. When you introduce gambling into this mind, it's already a mind that is. It thinks, it knows things it doesn't know. He gets into the superstition. Yeah. Like, you know, and I myself just did this. I went to a Detroit Lions game, the one they lost in the playoffs, and I hadn't been to a game all year. And I went and it was like a big deal. And they lost. And I'm like, it's. Cause I fucking. I hug. I hugged the coach. He didn't want to hug me. Why'd I have to hug that fucking guy? Cause he's on tv. I had this whole story. I'm like, all Detroit hates my guts. And I'm like, I'm kind of buying it. It's funny what gets studied by academics and what doesn't. And as he points out, he says like the fan was just sitting there waiting to be studied. It's such an important character, character in American life. And he said, but, but pinheads like me generally don't like sports. Like, it's like people were just turning a blind eye to it because they thought it was not worthy of attention. Right. And for our podcast, it's worthy of attention just to establish that the brain space in which this gambling industry is going to enter because they are targeting fans. That's why it's very important to understand right out of the gates that a fan is, is doing some irrational things. Think here. So most people who, who bet are a fan of the thing that, that's surprising to me already. I would assume most people who get into sports betting aren't fans, so they could be sort of objective. There are some who do that, yeah. But, but it's. They're kicked off over overwhelmingly. They are fans. Wow. So what happened in this country is that back in 1992, Senator Bill Bradley FORMER York Nick had passed a federal law that forbid states from legalizing sports gambling that didn't have it already and that grandfathered in Nevada, for example, and a couple of other little. Atlantic City, maybe. Atlantic City? No, they didn't. Not Atlantic City, no. Oh, they didn't have a sports book there. Then what happens is that because Atlantic City is not grandfather, they don't have it. New Jersey gets upset, they can't do it. And Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey Jersey launches what seems to be a quixotic and feudal lawsuit to try to get overturn Bradley's law. It succeeds in 2018. And in 2018 the Supreme Court says this law is unconstitutional. It's up to the states. Any state that wants to legalize sports betting can. And since then, 38 states have legalized it, which created all kinds of weird natural experiments like Alabama doesn't, Mississippi does. And suicide rates go up in Mississippi, and savings rates go down in Mississippi. Bankruptcy, all that stuff from episode 944 Seth Harp. There's a lot of crime in these secretive units. And one of the big types of crime that you see frequently is theft from military suppliants because there's an enormous amount of money and material, weapons, ammunition, things like gas. Gasoline, and just straight up cash. Yeah, talk about the cash, because I doubt people would know how much cash is entrusted to these people when they get in these countries to train these soldiers. They have to buy equipment, they have to pay people off like they do. Got to throw a lot of money around. That's the main thing that they do, just like the CIA, the main thing that they do is throw money around. And there's just, there's hundreds of millions of dollars that get thrown around. I don't think people understand the scale of it. There's billions of dollars. A lot of it, we know was stolen directly by the soldiers who are entrusted with these stacks of cash. You know, I interview military wives in Fayetteville who talk about how this is kind of a thing. You know, your husband comes back from a deployment and, you know, he's got several thousand dollars taped to his body when he gets off the plane. Yeah. Just skimmed off the top of the op fund is what they call it, the operations fund. Wow. By the way, I would do it. I'm like, I'm going to give this bozo $60,000. This guy's a bozo. I'm going to take four. I mean, it's not hard to imagine how one finds themselves skimming when you're giving it to shitheads. A lot of the time it's not hard to imagine, especially when, you know, hey, there's almost no accountability over this. This is just a handwritten receipt that I'm signing off of. Nobody cares. I have a friend who's an FBI agent. He too has to pay informants and stuff. And he said, you know, every time we come back, there's a lot they have to polygraph after every single time they bring back the money. And I don't think that's happened, happening here. No, I don't think so. No, no. The, the. There's so much less oversight over the military than an agency like FBI. Right. It's so huge. I'm also sympathetic to it. It's like, when you're over there, it's like what a machine that's, that's trying to run and keep up. Yeah. And they spent a trillion dollars in Afghanistan. And so the, the cash is just a tiny fraction of that. Yeah, yeah. Hard to detect, I'm sure. But we do know of, you know, cases where there were several cases, quite a few cases of special forces soldiers being caught, arrested, prosecuted and convicted for stealing six figure sums of cash. So this is not, this is not just an inference or a suspicion. What's the. Do you know them? What the most. Yeah, I saw one, this guy, 210,000. You know, I think. Yeah, yeah. Actually, no, you know what? There's, there's significantly more because there's all different kinds of diversion from the supply lines. There was once Fort Bragg soldier who got caught smuggling $1 million in cash. A female soldier named Tanya Long. Go get it, girl. One million. A million dollars that she was smuggling back in a. In like vcrs or some kind of electronic equipment really. But she hadn't. She had taken that money. She and her like, likely with conspirators, co conspirators, had taken that money not from the op fund but through a kickback scheme. Whole different type of corruption that also exists. The war in Afghanistan was an incredibly corrupt enterprise. The Afghan client state was staggeringly corrupt. And it's no surprise that some of that blew back and rubbed off on our own people who were the ones pumping all the money into there. And one small part of it, but which ends up being important for the culture of the Green Berets is the theft of cash. I was going to point to a study done that showed or not a study so much as a count of all the cases that had been adjudicated and they total $52 million in thefts that US soldiers were convicted of stealing. Oh my God. But that's just a drop in the. Just a drop. The conviction rate, I'm sure versus incident rate is probably single digit percentage. A final fact I can tell you about this is that the largest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve was I think 343 tons of cash. That's how much it weighs. Yeah. A hundred dollar bills. Bills. They were put on planes and flown into Iraq and all of it went missing. Billions of dollars. No, whole, whole pallets of shrink wrap. Cash went missing. Went missing. Say the number again of here's what I know is accurate. It was the largest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve. And you wonder where it all went. All these, you know, shadowy fortunes that were made out of the war and a lot of people that make a bunch of money. Money and decamp for Dubai and never come back. Well, they came up through the Special Forces or JSOC or the CIA. From episode 903, James Kimmel Jr. I have one. Great. I have one. Okay. So my apartment building currently is so disgusting. Like they're, they're. This is so annoying. Randomly not think of mine is turned on. Right. Like I'm not running any water or anything. But randomly there'll be like water. So be like water. Weird stuff coming up out of the tub into. Into my tub also it happened in the laundry room and it flooded the laundry room. It's been an ongoing thing and I've had to say over and over again, this is Unacceptable. This needs to stop now. Fix it. They keep sending in a plumber. The plumber's like, it's not. I'm like, I know. Clearly, that's not what's going on here. What are you gonna do? Like, what are we gonna do? So that's my grievance. Okay, so. And they're not reacting. They're not fixing this situation at all. Right. Okay. So let's just do it. Let's just do it. So I'm gonna add. They're placating you. That's a trigger for me to keep it short. Shortish. We'll just say that you've just begun testifying as the victim. Okay? So imagine now that you're in a courtroom. Okay. You could close your eyes for a second and just sort of picture the judge's bench and the lawyer's tables and the jury box. And maybe the defendant, like, is the landlord. And they're over at their table, and you're over in your thing. You're at your table, and there's a judge up there. And you're now on the witness stand, and you're testifying to what they've done to you and what has happened to you. And this could be something really significant. So I've done this with people with serious sexual violence, murder people who. Family members have been killed. So it can be as big or as small as your life, right? Yeah. But let's just stick with yours. So you testify that that has happened and tell us how that has made you feel. Totally unrespect, disrespected. I pay money to live here, and I feel that this is the basic level of care and hygiene that should be handled by the landlord quickly. Okay? So it's very annoying. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so let's stop with the victim testimony for a minute and let's switch over to. So now you're gonna play the role of the landlord. Okay. So the landlord was over at that table, and now the landlord's walking up to the stand and sitting down. You're just sitting and watching. Yep. That's you as the victim. But now you're. You are the landlord. So it's actually you in the witness stand. Okay. Okay. All right. So you've got to switch that role. Okay. And now your lawyer. Yeah. Very well paid, good lawyer. Is going to ask you. Jimmy Kimmel Jr. And his name's. Right. Jimmy Kimmel Jr. Thank you. Thanks for that advertisement. And he's going to ask you. So what's your side of the story, Monica? Has complained about, about some water leaking into her building. She showed me pictures. It looks bad. I've sent the plumber in multiple times. The plumber doesn't know what's wrong. He's snaked the drain and it's still happening. She's still complaining about it, but there's not much more I can do. You would probably add that you, you, you're looking over like 18 units. There's one of you, you don't have access to everyone else's. The plumber thinks maybe if he chased down this problem and all these other people's units, I can't get them to agree to let the, the plumber in because they don't have an issue. There might be a lot she might feel like. I, you know, I'm doing really everything one person can do with these 18 units. And I keep sending the plumber and I'm as frustrated with the plumber as Mo is and she somehow is holding me responsible as if it's, I'm putting the subs suds in her tub and I, I don't either have anything to do with it. We're on the same team here. Right. So you've just now, Monica, in your own role, you've just sat and listened to the defendant testify. Both versions. Uh huh. How did it make you feel to, you know, hear the defendant's story? What was that like for you? I understand that there's a lot on her plate. She's just a person. She's not, you know, a machine. She can't just make sure something gets done because I want it done fast. And I still think, unfortunately I do think it is her job to make sure that the building is run up to code. So though I have compassion for her, I would still like the thing to be done properly. So how do you find as the, as the jury, is the landlord guilty or innocent? I think she's guilty. Okay. I do think that objectively that's fair. You're the jury and you get to say what you want. You don't have to apologize. Well, I feel bad for her and I do, which is why I think I can really do this objectively to some extent. Like I don't think she's a bad person. So what should your sentence? Since you found the landlord guilty, you're gonna have to hand down a sentence. And in the non justice system, which is what this is called, or the miracle Court cause there's a free app that you can use. Oh cool. An audio driven app where it takes you through all the steps more methodically than I'm doing right now. But in that, you do need to have a sentence. This is hard. This part's hard. I definitely don't want her to get foul hired. Okay. So I'm not sentencing her with that. Can I suggest a sentence that I bet you would love? Sure. She has to have the same foam coming out of her tub and her laundry room. Whoa. Because now she'll be heavily incentivized to deal with the core problem. Unless foam doesn't bother her. Well, we'll find out. That's funny. That doesn't even cross my mind. Interesting, because that's a very. I mean, you're. What you did, Dax, is a very. You know, that's a very reciprocal type of view. And research shows that males are much more caught up in that than women who. Their empathy centers are more readily available. Males. It goes quiet when there's somebody does something wrong. Males just go towards revenge seeking. Her eye. Correct. That's right. So I have to deal with this, and you should have to deal with it, too. My hunch is once you have to deal with it, you'll be motivated to fix it. I don't have that, and I wouldn't want to sentence her with that. Okay. I think she don't want her to have the phone say, oh, well. Which is basically what you've already done. Yeah. Which is actually something that does happen from time to time in these trials. As in, some people will stop at right after the defendant has testified. They'll get some new insight by adopting the other view that was completely unexpected to them, and it'll be shocking to the person. They may find that they themselves were at fault or that, you know, they understand at a very deep level why, and they might have done the same thing in the same circumstances. It is a workaround to force you out of attribution error, because no one's going to get on the stand and go, I did it because I'm a piece of shit. I did it because I'm a selfish monster. You have enough integrity, even in your own court trial, to know that no one would do that. So in the absence of that, you really have to fill in what they could possibly have been motivated by or what their explanation is. And it'll kind of inoculate you from attribution error. Right. And it also. I mean, what we find from the research is it will also reactivate if it wasn't your empathy. It's a different part of your brain. It's a different Part of your brain that was silent, like I was saying, for males in particular. So it reactivates that and you gain some new insight. But not for everyone. And most of the trials go the whole way to the end. But some people will stop at the defendant's testimony or where you're at right now. It's sort of almost like it wants to be stopped because you really don't have a sense. You don't have a punishment. Exactly. But you did wanna be heard. I did. And you got to be heard, didn't you? Yeah, it's true. And you're holding them to account in the sense that they had to come and be put on trial. Right. And I guess the sentence part is interesting. Interesting because even though I still, at the end, I'm like, yes, I think she is guilty of negligence as a landlord, but when it comes to sentencing, do I think that's worth a sentence? It makes you start doing that. Like, is that really worth a punishment? Right. No. And in your case, because the case wasn't a super serious case. I mean, part of it's driven by the type of case that you just did. Yeah. If this was something a romantic betrayal, like, I'm gonna be doing this next week on Dr. Phil with somebody who's lived through a romantic betrayal, like, really bad. And there won't be an easy go through that. You know, that's gonna be a seriously difficult thing because the pain of that betrayal. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more@apple card.com from episode 932 with Chris Faisal and Dave Mitchell. Here's the head of security for the Cali cartel. First he tells me, let's meet at seop, but come alone. I'm like, I'm not coming along. Are you crazy? I have to come with my partner. And he finally says, okay, all right, come with your. You can come with your partner. And then he says, no, Colombian. Right? Because he was one of the guys that was paying off a lot of the Columbia. So he knew about the corruption. Because if I see anybody who even looks Colombian, the Deal is off. Oh wow. Even if they brought you Monica, you might have stood too brown. So we're sitting there thinking like the head of security, the Cali cartel, he wants to meet us an hour outside of Cali, telling us to come alone, telling me to come alone and not to bring any Colombians. And we're thinking like, dude, this could be a trap. This could be an answer ambush. We weren't sure what to expect. We're not even supposed to leave the base. And then here we are going to go meet this counter intelligence officer in the middle of a cane field an hour outside of Cali. So it was, it was pretty, pretty hairy. I think we outlined that pretty well in the book, how we felt because honestly we were, we were scared. We were pretty scared. Yeah. It's funny, when we're there, everything's funny now at the time it wasn't, but I looked at Chris, I said, chris, you ever seen that movie Onion Fields? This could be our onion. Onion field. Why I haven't. That actually happening in California. Yeah, that's where some police officers were killed and in the onion field. And they made a movie about it. Okay, so you meet with him and do you like him? He's not at all what we thought. Right. And just to, just to backtrack a little bit when he, he says meet us at the cane field at 3 o'. Clock. Right. We get out there at 12 before 12, right? Yeah. Because we're terrified it's going to be an ambush or they're going to set us up and try to kill us or kidnap us or whatever. So we're out there in this blistering heat like sitting around for three hours waiting. But we had a good vantage point so at least we can see everything coming for a while. So if anybody came in, we were prepared. And we were, we were pretty heavily armed. They say we, we looked like Neo and Trinity when they went into the government controlled building to get Morpheus. We were loaded. But as we were there, we noticed we didn't see anybody, Nobody came. Maybe this guy's for real. Yeah. And I think we all have preconceived notions, right? So we're thinking head of security for the Cali cartel. It's going to be like a really bad guy. Something out of the movies. He's going to. Exactly. He's going to look a certain way, he's going to talk a certain way. And when we saw him, he was the exact opposite of what we thought. Right. Came alone, he wasn't on you Know, we made sure Dave, you know, patted him down. We checked the car. We were so wary for a trap. And he said our names first. We went to introduce herself. Yeah, he knew who we were. They knew. They knew everything about us. They had nicknames for us. We were called Los Monos. What is Los Monos? Los Monos is a monkey. A monkey. But what they would use it for is if somebody is like the gringos, where the gringos. Gringos, that's born. They'll call them Los Monos. Oh, that's interesting. It's almost a universal racial slur. Yeah. For real. There's something comforting about that. That was what the cartel called us. They referred to us as the motos. But. But he talked real softly, like, with a very low voice and very, like the cadence. Was he even an imposing man or was he just a. Nor very normal looking? The clothes that he wore, the way he walked, like, not trying to make a sound or an impression. So I look at David, like, man, this guy is like the exact opposite of everything that we, that we thought. And then, of course, and the first thing he says to us is like, hey, this is going to be a one time meeting and it's going to be real quick because I got to get back to Cali because I'm on standby for Miguel, the head of the cartel. But as we started to talk and go over things, we ended up being out there three hours. That first meeting. Oh, my God. Whoa. Until it's. It got dark. Was your mind being blown? Were you learning things that were unimaginable? Open up the book. We learned more in those three hours than the whole year on the ground. Wow. Absolutely. Can you remember one of the most shocking things you heard during that? Well, there's one thing I. I looked at him, I said, hey, is I just need to know, is DEA a threat? He looked at me just like a father would and says, you and Chris, you work very hard. Oh, so patronizing. No, he. You guys are hard workers. But no, DEA is not a threat. And this is why he goes, you and Chris can go out, talk to anybody you want to gather information, intelligence. But at the end of the day, you don't have arrest powers. You have to deal with the Colombians, and that's where we got you. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It all unravels a second. You got to get official. And by that point, we were very well aware of the systemic corruption that existed within not only the security forces, but in the government. But just talking to him and how plainly and how simply he would just put out that, oh, yeah, well, you can't deal with this person because he's corrupt. And the cartel's paying that guy and we paid this guy and this and that. And it was staggering. It was overwhelming, the amount of corruption that we were dealing with. Ask, why should we trust you? Well, we did. We talked all about that. But then when we started to hear his story, right, and we about talked, talked about that, how he got involved in for the cartel and that he couldn't get out. I'd have such a hard time believing it, really. You don't have a choice. I do. You don't have a choice. And then also, I think you'd be reasonable to conclude it's not worth them fucking with us as the, as he said, you're not. They're not a threat. They don't have to be appeased. They could be ignored. Well, so why do this? They already know where you're at. Unless they want to kill. Yeah, I would trust it because there's almost no incentive for them, them to be keeping an eye on you. They're already doing that. And plus, when we started to talk to him, and at that point we were pretty well versed on, on the cartel and what they were doing. But talking to him, it just took us to a whole another level. But we would ask a lot of questions that we knew the answers to, just trying to bet him. And he was basically doing the same thing to us. Like, hey, you guys are kids. You're, you know, we were 30 years old at the time. You know, he's like, you guys are here trying to bring down the head of the Cali cartel, you guys. So he was like, how can I trust you? How do I know that you guys are able to handle it? Right? Yeah. And then he, then he asked us, he goes, listen, it's not only my life, but my family's life. So it's. My family's life is in your hands. Can I trust you? It's like you see in these old movies where you push the wall and it opens highly sophisticated. So he tells us, look, there's supposedly. Is there a big red desk in the apartment because there's these really sensitive documents. So we're looking around for latches. We're pushing, we can't find shit. And then one of our partners who's there, Jerry Salameh, he comes and he picks the desk up and he just turns it over and it smashes on the marble floor and it breaks open and in the back of the desk is a hidden compartment in a desk. How do you do that with three briefcases? And in these briefcases, check this out. This is staggering. Are all these super sensitive files, corruption related information. Letters from the president's office, you know, about money that they had donated. And there was a list of. Check this out. 2,800 corrupt officials just in those briefcases. 2,800. 2,800. Yeah. Good luck finding the straight one. So we find that, that buys us a little more time. Then he tells us, look, he's in this secret compartment in the. The bathroom. He's hiding. He's in the bathroom. He's there. So he's been there for the last 12 hours. How was he telling this on the phone? Well, we were going outside. Oh, you know, making phone calls. He was at a pay phone. Oh. And we were at another phone about 100 yards away. And we didn't even know. We didn't know we were that close. Oh, my God. And then he would go back in and get more information to come out. As the head of security, he was able to get out and to relay. Hey, I got to go check on. My guys are telling me this, so it didn't cause a lot of. Of attention. So finally, there are like four bathrooms in the apartment, and we're knocking on walls. We're thinking, how the hell can there be a hidden compartment in the bathroom? Yeah. So finally, you know, we take measurements of the apartments below and above. We get the thing. We were in the bathroom. We got, this is smaller. This bathroom is smaller. This is the only one that doesn't make sense. And we opened the sink cabinet and it hits the toilet. Going days and days with hardly limited. Limited sleep. Oh, yeah, we're exhausted. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We're beyond. You're not at your best point. We're not at our best. We're exhausted. Chris and I were in the restroom and we just, you know, you had the sink right here with the door right under it. And it doesn't open all the way. It hits the toilet. And we are so exhausted. We go, look at this. Who would make something like that? You're just shitting. Man of the construction. This is what we said. And then we saw a little yellow hose over it. This is it. And that's when we started getting drills. So you start drilling into the walls, and you break three drill bits, right. You run out of drill bits. Corrupt captain that was supposed to be in OR liaison, who was the main source for him, he grabbed me by the arm. This guy was literally in a panic, and he goes, who's your source? Who's your source? How do you know this? How do you know this? Who's your source? None of your business. There's a space not counted for. And then once we started drilling through the walls, he looked at, you know, their lawyers for the government and said, the Americans are doing. Yeah, prosecutors are doing unilateral action. So that's when they detained us, some say maybe arrested us, but they got everyone out of there. And he escaped. They had drilled holes right next to him. He's. Imagine his experience in the wall. He's just standing, listening to you guys about the construction, just wondering, like, are they gonna get it? I mean, I can't imagine what his body was feeling like dodging in there. And now drills are coming through. Yep. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you d. The prosecutor is getting this information that the Americans are conducting a unilateral operation. He comes in, shuts the entire operation down. We're within a minute of accessing this compartment. This is no lie. You couldn't have drawn it up any better in a movie script if you tried. We were literally a minute away from grabbing this guy, and the prosecutor came in. He shut it down. He brought us out to the living room, took the keys, locked the keys the the door, put him in his pocket, typed up a formal complaint against us, and then escorted us and made us leave the apartment, just full corruption. Can we leave? No. I said. So we're arrested. No, no, you're not arrested. So we're. You just can't leave. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. From episode 958 with Andy Roddick. Okay, so. But with your height, that has to be a part of your serve, right? Because the crazy part about your game was you had this insane serve. Serve. Yeah. I like this detail of it. You had numerous different coaches over the years, and I do want to talk about that. I want to know how one. You're like, you got to break up with someone and hire someone. That's got to be a very stressful part of the experience. But as you hired coaches, your whole game was on the table except for the serve. The serve was to not be talked about. Is that right? It was to not be talked about. It was, yeah. It was proprietary. Were you afraid? Were you superstitious about the serve? No, I just knew it backwards. You knew about. I knew the cadence when it started. I knew that this little three count that I had there was. I knew the feelings of it. I knew what. Yeah. More than they did. And I, I don't say that lightly because you will get to the coaches. And I was obviously always in, in, in pursuit of something new, something different, something additive. And also, don't talk about my surf ever. Yes. Is, is the origin of it true that you got really frustrated at like 16 and you served in a weird way out of anger and it worked. Is that true? That's true. I was playing my friend Marty Fish, who ended up being a really good player. He was six in the world. And so we, we, we used to play this. Basically all the kids who didn't get picked by the, the Federation. Right. So the people not funded by US tennis anymore. Okay. Kind of the throwaways. We played at Crystal Palms apartment complex in Florida. Okay. And there were like six of us. And out of that group, a couple, you know, a couple of us made top, top five, top six in the world. But I was playing against Marty, who's really, really good and at that point better and just got pissed off. And I have like this little half motion aborted tears, but it's not conventional. Right. Hit one irresponsibly out of anger. Yeah. And it went in. Which by the way, is the thing they tell you to never do in anything. Right. Don't try to kill it, don't try to crush it, don't try. And you did. You're like, I'm going to murder this ball because I hate it. And that was it. Had I won that day, had I, had I been playing, had I been doing well with Marty that day, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here having this conversation. Crazy. And how do you, like, when you recognize it clicked? Do you then think like, okay, how do I commit this whole thing to muscle memory? Like I gotta replicate you just over and over again, you do it or what? Just started doing it. And it was. And you didn't have to overthink it. It was immediately. Well, a lot of the muscles building, like your shoulder still goes over. It's just your feet is. It was different, but it was like it, there was no time. And it literally took you. It went, went from. And there were some other things that needed to be adjusted. But yeah, I mean, you literally figured it out. And then the year before you're 40 or 50 in the world in juniors, which sounds good, but that means you're going to college. Yeah. And then four months later, it was, you're number one in Florida and signed a Reebok deal. Okay. So this One thing I just want to end on with your serve, which I find just so incredible. So you. You had the record for the fastest serve in history at 155 miles an hour hour. It has been beaten, but it's still only at 156. Wow. That's so massive. Like the. The serve is described in many of the things I was reading as unreturnable. Well, to. To most, except for these, the Avengers that came on midway through career. But yeah, I mean, I. I wasn't a natural tennis player. I was like a. A work guy. But I could throw it. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. Like I could make your life uncomfortable for a little bit. Okay, so you. You win the 2003 U.S. open. You are. I'm dying to go to the U.S. open. No one will invite me. Let's do it. Okay. Whenever. You just have to be a guest on podcast and then. Oh great. Invite me and then let's. You have to. You have to pay. You have to, you know, earn your way. You don't even. You don't even have to do that. Very easy. I know why you want to. I want to try the. That honey. Honey. Honey? Yeah. That's a cocktail. Yeah, they basically invented a signature cocktail like that everyone pretends like has been around for 100 years. Like a mint jule put in like eight years ago. It's not. Have you had a Honey juice of the US Opens? Like, no, cuz I didn't have when I was playing. It's a made up thing. But it's. It's genius though. I don't know. I never. You got to buy it to find out. No. Little shamboard lemonade, Grey Goose and Sprite. Yeah, I want that. I'll make you one and serve it on the Factory US Open. And then also she wants to open. Overpay for it. That's right. You can't imagine how well you know her. Yeah, you literally know everything you need to know. It doesn't taste as good if you don't pay 28 for it. And if it doesn't. Yeah, that's really cool. My favorite thing about that is they have these cups with like, you know, they. They have their. The Honey Deuce cups that have all the winners on them. It's like, oh my God. I know, but. I know I paid $30, but I got this souvenir cup. I got a free cup. It's worth 75 cents. Souvenir. So I won. Yeah, I want that. Yeah, I want that. I'm gonna do that. I saved thousands by getting this. But also, the US Open's gotten so cool. Like, it's everyone goes. It's definitely a social event. It's the Met Ball. It's the Met Ball of sports. Yeah. Yeah. It's really. I do really, really want to go. Foreign. Follow Armchair 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 Wonder app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey survey mom and dad, mom and mom, dad and dad. Whatever parents Are you about to spend five hours in the car with your beloved kids this holiday season? Driving Old Granny's house? I'm set to scene. I'm picturing screaming, fighting back to back hours of the K Pop Demon Hunter soundtrack on repeat. Well, when your ears start to bleed, I have the perfect thing to keep you from rolling out of that moving vehicle. Something for the whole family. Piece of Filled with laughs. He's filled with rage. The OG Green Grunk Give it up for me, James Austin Johnson as the Grinch and like any insufferable influencer these days, I'm bringing my crew of lesser talented friends along for the ride. With a list guests like Gronk, Mark Hamill and the Jonas Brothers, whoever they are. There's a little bit of something for everyone. Listen to Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts.