South Beach Sessions - Mina Kimes & Bill Lawrence

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Episode: South Beach Sessions - Mina Kimes & Bill Lawrence
Release Date: June 26, 2025

In this engaging episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, host Dan Le Batard sits down with esteemed guests Mina Kimes and Bill Lawrence to delve into the multifaceted impact of social media on professionals in the entertainment and sports journalism industries. Recorded live from the Elser Hotel in Downtown Miami, the trio navigates topics ranging from the challenges of maintaining focus without constant phone access to the evolving landscape of public criticism and representation in media.

Social Media and Its Impact

The conversation kicks off with Mina Kimes addressing the pervasive nature of smartphones in professional settings. She highlights the challenges of maintaining focus in collaborative environments, leading to her decision to ban phones from the writer's room:

Mina Kimes [01:06]: "Because if you're talking in a group setting and you say what does everybody think? And two out of the seven people in there are looking at their phones, you're screwed."

Dan Le Batard echoes these sentiments, emphasizing the addictive nature of social media and its relentless pursuit of content:

Dan Le Batard [02:06]: "Our jobs are perpetually rewarded by whatever's in there, right? Like it's got punishments, but the pursuit of content is something that is. It's a hamster wheel, 100%."

The Evolution of Public Perception and Criticism

Bill Lawrence and Mina Kimes delve into how social media has transformed public criticism from constructive feedback to often unfiltered negativity. Lawrence differentiates between the phone as a tool and the social media platforms that amplify negativity:

Bill Lawrence [02:22]: "The actual phone itself is just an innocuous device piece of hardware... The social media apps in here are the actual Problem, in my experience."

Mina expands on the addictive package of social media, questioning its overall impact:

Mina Kimes [02:48]: "Don't you find that all of it, though, to be just a giant package of addiction?"

Navigating Success and Failure in the Entertainment Industry

The discussion transitions to personal experiences with success and failure. Mina shares her journey with the show Whiskey Cavalier, reflecting on its initial promise versus its ultimate reception:

Mina Kimes [17:01]: "And the only thing that remains true is nowadays, more than before... of excitement for you to hit your next valley."

Bill Lawrence discusses the challenge of separating personal satisfaction from online feedback:

Bill Lawrence [18:36]: "There is an actual incentive, sometimes financial, for people to be angrier than even five to seven years ago."

Influence of Social Media on Young Professionals

Mina Kimes highlights the different approaches younger generations take towards social media, underscoring their savvy and resilience:

Mina Kimes [29:15]: "I think she takes the negatives in stride even more than I do. You know what I mean?"

Lawrence adds that young individuals often use social media strategically to build their personal brands while being aware of its transient nature:

Bill Lawrence [29:46]: "It's a window of a few years to figure it out."

The Role of Representation and Inclusivity in Media

The conversation shifts to the importance of representation in media. Mina discusses the challenges and responsibilities of being a role model, especially for young women entering the sports and entertainment fields:

Mina Kimes [36:59]: "I can't imagine a young woman who wants to be in the world of sports who isn't looking at you... you have to be super, extra, super secret careful, right?"

Bill Lawrence emphasizes the pressure to be perfect and the role of authenticity:

Bill Lawrence [37:43]: "The best role model I can be is just like doing my job really well and having the respect of the players I'm around."

Balancing Escapism and Social Responsibility in Content Creation

Dan Le Batard and his guests explore the delicate balance between creating escapist content and addressing meaningful social issues. Mina stresses the importance of not preaching to the audience while still embedding universal emotional truths:

Mina Kimes [43:38]: "I don't love being preached at about what I should think."

Bill Lawrence echoes this by sharing his approach to occasional stands within largely escapist programming:

Bill Lawrence [44:23]: "The big part of the reason every now and then I punch back is because women love it."

Personal Experiences and Reflections

Throughout the episode, personal anecdotes underscore the broader themes. Bill Lawrence recounts a poignant moment when he received unexpected positive feedback from actor Don Cheadle, reinforcing the importance of valuing constructive criticism over toxic online interactions:

Bill Lawrence [19:40]: "Sometimes bad things go crazy on the Internet. It's unbelievable, but it happens."

Mina shares her resilience in the face of professional setbacks, turning failures into opportunities for growth:

Mina Kimes [24:15]: "Failure actually can point you in the right direction. So I stopped being afraid of failing very."

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, the trio reflects on the evolving dynamics of audience engagement and the necessity of maintaining authentic connections amidst the noise of social media. They acknowledge the emotional toll of public criticism but also the rewarding aspects of genuine audience interactions.

Dan Le Batard [48:04]: "When I say it alerted me, I can only see it with the clarity of hindsight."

Mina Kimes [51:32]: "There's so much overlap between what you all do and what I do and sports and entertainment."

The episode concludes on a hopeful note, highlighting the importance of community, resilience, and the continuous pursuit of meaningful work despite the challenges posed by the digital age.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Mina Kimes [01:06]: "If two out of the seven people in the writer's room are on their phones, you're screwed."

• Dan Le Batard [02:06]: "It's a hamster wheel, 100%."

• Bill Lawrence [18:36]: "There is an actual incentive, sometimes financial, for people to be angrier than even five to seven years ago."

• Mina Kimes [29:15]: "She takes the negatives in stride even more than I do."

• Bill Lawrence [37:43]: "The best role model I can be is just like doing my job really well and having the respect of the players I'm around."

• Mina Kimes [24:15]: "Failure actually can point you in the right direction."

This episode offers a profound exploration of the intersection between social media, professional integrity, and personal resilience, providing listeners with valuable insights from two influential figures in sports journalism and television production.

Transcript

[Dan Le Batard]

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

[eBay Sponsor]

This episode is brought to you by ebay. We all have that piece, the one that's so you. You've basically become known for it. And if you don't yet fashionistas, you'll find it on ebay. That Miu Miu red leather bomber, the cousteau Barcelona cowboy top. Or that Patagonia fleece in the 2017 colorway. All these finds are all on ebay, along with millions of more main character pieces backed by authenticity guarantee. Ebay is the place for pre loved and vintage fashion. Ebay things people love.

[Mina Kimes]

Savor every last drop of summer with Starbucks. From bold refreshers to rich cold brews, the sunniest season only gets better with the handcrafted ice beverage in your hand. Available for a limited time, your summer favorites are ready at Starbucks.

[Dan Le Batard]

What is the longest you'll go without being in your phone over the course of today? Is this it? Will this next hour be the longest over the course of the day?

[Mina Kimes]

No. For me only because I had to ban phones from the writer's room. Because if you're talking in a group setting and you say what does everybody think? And two out of the seven people in there are looking at their phones, you're screwed.

[Dan Le Batard]

So you banned it?

[Mina Kimes]

Banned it in the writer's room. If you have to go to your new parents, get to keep it, you know, in their pocket, but can't have it on the table. It's too much, too toxic.

[Bill Lawrence]

Is that common in writers rooms?

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, we are by definition a scattered and group of people that aren't great at maintaining focus. You know what I mean? And so finding the excuse to go, hey, I'll look that up on the Internet is usually an immediate 20 minute trip to nowhere. Because look, the job is trying to find ways not to work.

[Dan Le Batard]

You have to consciously get out of it though, right? Because it's beyond the addiction of it. Our jobs are perpetually rewarded by whatever's in there, right? Like it's got punishments, but the pursuit of content is something that is. It's a hamster wheel, 100%.

[Bill Lawrence]

I think though, with phone like there's are we using it as a stand in for social media or group chats or just having constant stimulation of like news and stuff because I find different aspects of it do different things to my brain. The actual phone itself is just an innocuous device piece of hardware I can use to call my mom and FaceTime with her and show my kid. The social media apps in here are the actual Problem, in my experience.

[Mina Kimes]

Don't you find that all of it, though, to be just a giant package of addiction? I mean, have you ever looked at that? You know how you can access how many hours you were on it? You looked that thing?

[Bill Lawrence]

No. It's like staring at the sun.

[Mina Kimes]

Absolutely bleak.

[Bill Lawrence]

No, thank you.

[Mina Kimes]

Are you on your phone all the time?

[Dan Le Batard]

Two of you? Yeah, I'm on it too much. But I've made some conscious decisions over the last five years just because for the first time, I have felt like the encroaching gray of, ooh, this does not feel good too often. There are too many times. There are things happening here where I'm going to a thing that doesn't feel that good when I'm in it, and then it feels really bad when I'm done with it. And so I have to be conscious about, like, watching myself. Because Mina and I have had some experiences with this in terms of how it is we've experienced social media. Cause at the very beginning of her career, she's sort of walking into just a firestorm of garbage tornadoes. Cause she went from business reporter to famous. Right.

[Bill Lawrence]

Like, there's some intermediary steps along the.

[Dan Le Batard]

Way, but social media famous? No. Do I. Yeah.

[Mina Kimes]

I've definitely seen countless attacks on you based on gender and your connection to sports. So that must have happened fast.

[Bill Lawrence]

It hap. Yeah. The biggest difference is just scale. I mean, when we first started doing stuff together, I was not as prominent as I am now and wasn't as discussed as I am now. And thus I looked at it a lot more than I do now. And my relationship with social media has changed a lot just because of that with me.

[Dan Le Batard]

Because I remember explaining to Mina at the very advent of what was her ESPN time, that as a newspaper columnist in my 20s, developing the voice that would make people write in, I enjoyed for a long time whatever feedback was. Like, pre social media, didn't mind criticism, get to pardon the interruption, start doing it with Tony and Mike, and am delighting in the fact that nobody wants me there. Like, nobody. They want Tony and Mike. They don't want me. And so I sort of enjoyed that because I had what was at the time a pretty impenetrable professional confidence. But it's been weird in my 50s as I'm doing things that I'm less confident in, as I'm trying to study business, to feel delayed. What you were feeling at the beginning when I met you, like, I haven't got. I got into my 50s before some of this stuff started affecting My head.

[Bill Lawrence]

Do you think that those feelings are because of your, like, I guess, sensitivity to where you are and the things you're doing, or do you think it is just the nature of the response, what's being amplified, what's being sent your way is that's it. Or different.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's super interesting to live it this way. It's aging in all its forms because I'm not talking about all social media. I'm not on Facebook or Instagram. I'm in one place that has been rotting. I'm in Twitter land where everything there has changed some. And whatever used to not bother me in terms of being politicized as a weapon for takes which you get a ton of now, that was something that wouldn't bother me once upon a time, but now I'm in an environment where it feels like I'm surrounded.

[Mina Kimes]

Well, you can't escape it, man. Look, I find your. I'm going to say it's going to hurt my heart. You're a different generation than me. It's really upsetting to me. We're the same generation. On some level. Everybody that does what I do at some point in time relished the anonymity of being a writer. Because, by the way, if it works out for you, you get some of the perks of celebrity restaurant tables and access and financially rewarded, but you don't have to deal with all the negatives. And for me, social media has brought what sounds like a good opportunity is the ability to brand yourself. You know what I mean? And to then by extension, get to make more stuff and get to do more things that you like. But it opens a door to the stuff that I think subconsciously I was always hiding from, which was what you had to face immediately, which is suddenly people going, hey, this is why I think this guy sucks, by the way. And that never, ever happened to writers before.

[Bill Lawrence]

And now you're seeing it.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah.

[Bill Lawrence]

And are you seeing it?

[Mina Kimes]

I do see it. I see it. You know, it's a combination of clickbait and. Either you guys. I said. I told Dan I was gonna ask you about. Do you ever search your own name?

[Bill Lawrence]

No.

[Dan Le Batard]

I used to.

[Bill Lawrence]

I used to.

[Mina Kimes]

I do it on the daily. Not only do I do it on the daily, but I have this perverse side of me as I answer some people like. So I surprise. I try to do it always comedically, as some dude really went in hard. They're rebooting the show Scrubs, and if you guys ask me my reasons for it, we're all Friends, nobody's making anything. I'm at a weird time in my life that I get to make stuff and not only have friends I would want to spend time with anyways, but people that aren't working, getting to work. Production in LA could all be very cool, but I just read somebody going, look at this asshole rebooting the show that is already over and already blah, blah, you shouldn't do it. And so stupid. And so I just like going on with people like that and going, hey, thanks, you totally turned me around on this. Just because in my head, I think without being mean, the value of people knowing that the stuff they think they get to anonymously put out into the.

[Bill Lawrence]

Ethos, you boop them.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yeah, it's fine pretending that there's someone human at the end.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, yeah, man. Because you don't have to give any kerosene to a brush fire type of thing, but just to go, hey, occasionally there's other side to what you're putting out there.

[Dan Le Batard]

But the reason I said used to, and I don't know if it's the same for you, it was a conscious decision because there was something happening. When I talk about the encroaching gray, I don't know what it is about human nature. Like, obviously social media can be a poison pit in a number of different ways if you're just comparing yourselves to people. But to have access to 10 items of praise and then get stuck on the handful that aren't, like there was a deterioration there that was happening to me that I was. There was something happening with me where I was not absorbing the positive.

[Bill Lawrence]

That's everybody.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Le Batard]

Praise is like, I don't think that's everybody. You think that's everybody?

[Mina Kimes]

I don't know. You know, I think you have to. If you're gonna believe the good, you probably have to believe the bad on some level. But I think the game is the second you go looking to anonymous outside faces for anything to boost your self esteem, positive or negative, you're doomed, you know?

[Dan Le Batard]

Okay, but you're talking about, you're putting your work out into the world. You're not putting it in a drawer.

[Mina Kimes]

Look, I talk a big game. I wanted to call my production company, Noble Failure Productions, because if you could just show something that your friends and family didn't think was awful, you know, I mean, that's really. There's so many things out of your control, that's all you can shoot for. But I talk a big game. But no, I hate it. You know, it's. It Affects me. Is. Is. Is. On a logical level, I know I should distance myself from it. On an emotional level, I always take those blows and carry them around for at least a couple hours.

[Dan Le Batard]

When I say I used to, though, like, it's not. That's not an absolute. It's. I've been. It's a weaning.

[Mina Kimes]

Well, I got a question for you guys. It's a chicken and egg question that I was obsessing about before I got here because of what. What you do is. We're all so very quick. Is going to be me turning a spotlight on the media. All right. We're also very quick to go. The anonymity of these social media platforms has created an environment for people, young people to spew venom without consequence. Right. But do you think that's what came first? And then different media sites and platforms just said, oh, that's working, we're going to do it. Or here's the opposite side of the chicken and egg thing, which is in my business, even before social media started grabbing, I noticed a cultural turn that. A desperation, clickbait, you know what I mean? And I used to read criticism and reviews of shows, my own shows and other people's shows, and I found them constructive. There was even a critic, I mean, you guys remember Pauline Kael. And people that people would read did what I did for fun, you know, because it was eloquently written. The negatives were well spoken, the positives were well spoken. And now Dan made me read one on the air once, like the review of Shrinking by Time magazine. And I only care because my parents read it was Shrinking is an insult to therapy, comedy and Harrison Ford. And I'm like, who writes that headline, by the way? You know what I mean? By the way? By the way. There's no by the way. That's such a different. That's such a different pool than, hey, I didn't love this show. You know what I mean? So the question is, do you think it. It started as a. As a competitive thing amongst your business to grab people's eyes and look, or do you think it started as people found a way on social media to do this and it worked so everybody, you know, because I sometimes put my fingers in the.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yes. You're basically asking, were people always this mad? Yes. Mad and shallow in the madness. Right? Because even if there was criticism before, at least it felt kind of more earned or it felt earned, it felt.

[Mina Kimes]

Construct and it felt, like you said, there were kernels of truth because it didn't feel like, it didn't feel like everything that I have to deal with is at least starting from a place of wanting people to go, oh, no way, I can't believe they said that. You know what I mean?

[Bill Lawrence]

Well, you know, you can speak more to the olden times when people wrote letters to TV shows that they were mad at.

[Dan Le Batard]

Well, but she's.

[Mina Kimes]

What, she would bring them on a horse and stuff. Yeah, I do.

[Dan Le Batard]

I do miss.

[Bill Lawrence]

Even in 10 years, though, I do.

[Dan Le Batard]

Miss that your rage and hatred had to reach me by mail with a stamp before it got to me. And now it gets here a whole lot quicker. Quicker than it used to. But when. When you talk about, are people angrier? It's the difference between shouting in a bathroom by yourself and now having it heard and seen, getting. Getting that anger heard and seen so that young people can be in the business of being famous. Right, Right.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah. Well, I would also say to make it more narrow, even in the last five to seven years versus 10 years ago. So as I've been doing this now for about 10 years, the pipes, meaning the platforms, are incentivizing. The thumb is on the scale now for the matter, the better, not just the matter, the better. The more provocative you are, the more of a gotcha, the more angry, the more political, the more likely it is to go crazy. So there is an actual incentive, sometimes financial, for people to be angrier than even five to seven years ago. There's on Twitter, for example, a for you page that didn't exist before algorithmic. And when you go there, the mad stuff does well, the gotchas do well.

[Mina Kimes]

So there's actually incentives I would add to that. The thing that blows me away is absolutely no consequences to be completely uninformed on the topic. Even if you're going head to head with an opinion or an issue from someone that has spent a lot of their adult life or of their working career pursuing knowledge in that topic, that there's no weighted thing to experts anymore. I find that fascinating.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah, that's certainly true.

[Dan Le Batard]

An insult to therapy, comedy, and heresy.

[Mina Kimes]

I got all three. It's a trifecta.

[UFC Sponsor]

All right, everybody. It's UFC International Fight Week, and while hotels in Vegas may be sold out, there's still one vacancy left, and it's the lightweight title at UFC317. Grab your own crown with DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. A new champ will be crowned when Ilia Toporia, who's come up from the featherweight division, collides with Charles Oliveira for the vacant lightweight title plus Alessandre Pantoja puts his flyweight title on the line against Kai Kara France in a high stakes co main event new to DraftKings Sportsbook. Here's your main event just bet 5 bucks and score 150 bucks in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use code BEACH. That's code BEACH B E A, C H for new customers to get 150 bucks in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five bucks.

[Target Sponsor]

Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER in New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text hopeny467-36 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill casino and resorting Kansas, 21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void. In Ontario, bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG Co Audio.

[Bill Lawrence]

After zoomies at the dog park, it's time for Drive up at Target. In goes a big bag of kibble and one squeaky chicken toy for the good boy. Drive up that's ready when you are only in the Target app, just tap Target.

[Dan Le Batard]

But you had, you've had a remarkable amount of success early and a lot of people would say that you are wildly confident. It's not.

[Mina Kimes]

It's a trademark of my family is completely unearned confidence.

[Dan Le Batard]

But it's earned in your case. Well, but I mean, you've had, you've had monster successes I've had.

[Mina Kimes]

You know, it's. I did not expect to have a career renaissance in my mid-50s. Part of my business is highs, lows, and I've had plenty of peaks and valleys. And the only thing that remains true is nowadays, more than before, when you're in a peak, you have this general sense, just because of what Mina's talking about, of excitement for you to hit your next valley. Which is so weird, you know, because I root for the people I love to do great. You know what I mean? I don't sit around going, oh man, I can't wait till this one goes badly.

[Dan Le Batard]

But you both know when you've made something well, right? Like how much more impenetrable are you to whatever the cruelties are in this if you know it's good?

[Mina Kimes]

I don't know if you guys can do this because of the nature of your business. My personal epiphany was when I realized that success of Something creative. You can't use your metric to be how financially successful it is or you're doomed. And yeah, that's an easy thing to say for someone that was doing well financially, but it really helped me. I made this show that I thought was awesome, called Whiskey Cavalier and horrible title, don't worry about it. And it was really good. And I had to move to the Czech Republic to shoot it because it was a big action TV show and we could only do it in an affordable way there. It took place in Europe and Paris and Amsterdam and the show was cool as. And I challenged people to go watch it and say that it stinks. I'm now going to get 9,000 tweets after this. But it failed miserably. And I found myself going. I was in the Czech Republic for six months away from my family and it did not feel like a success. It felt like a giant mistake. And I finally got to a point that I was really lucky because my youngest kid watched it. He's like, dude, that show is good. My friends and I really dug it. I'm like, oh, cool, yeah, right. It has merit. So I think what success means to you is the biggest life change for me. That's positive, I think.

[Bill Lawrence]

And this sort of connects to what we've been talking about with social media. For me, a challenge and something I've really spent all the time is trying to disentangle my perception of whether something I've done is good from two things. One, the reaction on the Internet, which is hard and real and especially when we're now in an Internet business and it's like, well, this didn't, this didn't go viral. This didn't get X amount of reviews, so it must be bad. No. Sometimes the Internet is wrong. Sometimes.

[Mina Kimes]

We'll go back a second. Sometimes the Internet is wrong. It's crazy.

[Bill Lawrence]

Sometimes it happens.

[Mina Kimes]

If it's on there, it's mostly true.

[Bill Lawrence]

I'm going to blow your guys mind. Sometimes bad things go crazy on the Internet. It's unbelievable, but it happens. And then the other is to find the opinions that people actually value and trust and really not just say it, but really privilege those above. Again, the masses or what? Which isn't to say the masses are wrong. Sometimes they're right. And sometimes somebody who's been watching my stuff forever is one of those voices that I should trust. But really trying to zero in on that.

[Mina Kimes]

I mean, to curate the people that you listen to.

[Bill Lawrence]

An example that kind of connects both of them is back when I did read more of my Internet mentions. And I think I've told you this before, I was really upset that day because a bunch of fans were just like saying really vile stuff to me and I was bitching about it. As my husband. We get in a guard, we go to a party. We're on the way out of the party, someone stops me and it's Don Cheadle. And he's like, hey, you do a great job. I just want you to know this is such a humble brag story. I don't care. I'm such a fan. And I'm like, wow. We walk out and I'm like, you know, and those fans. And my husband's like, don Cheadle deserves.

[Mina Kimes]

Bitching about people on the Internet.

[Bill Lawrence]

And he's like, you gotta like step back and learn how to weight things better.

[Dan Le Batard]

And come back to that though. You guys think everyone's like that. You think that everyone is like that. I hope so that you get that. Everyone who gets 15 compliments focuses on the one negative.

[Bill Lawrence]

I think that's how humans are wired.

[Mina Kimes]

I think it is. I would also say this minus. I was excited to try and find a way to do this. So I am in a role. My daughter is in an even younger generation than Mina. It's fun to say, I see young people that live in this world. My daughter lives in this world. She's got a million Instagram followers. It's part of her career. She self promotes her music. And I've witnessed things that are confusing to me. Example, I've seen her once, a friend had a pair of jeans on that my daughter thought were amazing. And she said it's ridiculous that these jeans are like 400 or $500. And I'm like, yeah, you shouldn't buy them. She's like, no, no, just wait. And she had a friend take a picture of them, her in them. And on that she said, you know, not nad really like these. They fit great, they're fun. And within a week that company contacted her and she's like, now I just have to not be a jerk and say I want 20 pa and just say I want one or two pairs. And she lives in that world. And I think she takes the negatives in stride even more than I do. You know what I mean? Because she is at least savvy enough to know that if you're going to make a living on the same way that we know the pluses and minuses that came with our career going in. Young people, I think don't go into this with Blinders on. They go into it with tons of stories from their friends of the negatives and of what can happen and what you have to be careful about. And there's so much more savvy. It's an extension of that joke metaphor of how I don't know anything about technology, I don't know anything about entering that world. My daughter will educate me all the time.

[Dan Le Batard]

I'm surprised to hear you say though, that you made something that you knew was good and you're Whiskey Cavalier.

[Bill Lawrence]

I just wanted to say it. I hadn't got a chance to say it.

[Dan Le Batard]

You should say it like that.

[Mina Kimes]

We were talking about it today because I thought going to be a huge. It's my last network TV show. I thought it was going to be a huge ABC show. And. And then we went to upfronts what they still did when you bring you there and they talk about what. And it was relegated to a mid season replacement. And then Jimmy Kimmel, who's just an absolute buddy of mine, I love the guy, he had to do the big presentation. He made fun of the title. So I went from going, this show's going to be huge to it's a mid season replacement. He mocked the title and then it was over in like seven weeks and no one ever watched it. And then for it to come full circle, we were out trying to sell a show about six weeks ago. Someone's like, we're looking for a show that's kind of like action comedy, like Whiskey Cavalier, if you know that show. And I almost lost my mind. I almost went across the table and choked the person. I'm like, I made that show. I lived in the Czech Republic. It was very cold and there's castles everywhere.

[Dan Le Batard]

Roller coaster though, you, you love. You had the standard. You, you believed that that was good. And then you were taken off of your position by results.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah. Yeah. It really upset me.

[Dan Le Batard]

That doesn't happen to you very often, does it?

[Mina Kimes]

No, usually the stuff that doesn't work is so bad.

[Bill Lawrence]

Have you ever made something that you knew was bad right away?

[Mina Kimes]

I made. Yeah. My career was in a Valley when I was trying to just get work and I turned the movie Rush Hour into a TV show. Was it your favorite?

[Bill Lawrence]

That sounds good.

[Mina Kimes]

It's a great movie.

[Bill Lawrence]

I haven't seen the show. Who was in the show? Wait, did you do an Asian person and a black person in the show?

[Mina Kimes]

I did. And by the way, both great young actors. It just didn't work. The funniest thing was it came back to haunt Me. In a good way. So Wendy Malik was on that show, and she's in shrinking now.

[Dan Le Batard]

An affront to comedy therapy.

[Mina Kimes]

And Harrison Ford still there. And I called her up and go, hey, you gotta do this show. And she's like, I don't think it's that good. She even said it in a great way. And I'm like, look, I think it might work. Come do the show, and if it doesn't go well, I'll put you in something great eventually. And she came and did that show, and it was a disaster. And then when I was putting shrinking together, she literally was like, hey, you owe me one. That's how bad it was.

[Bill Lawrence]

Even receipts. Yeah.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah.

[Bill Lawrence]

Which character is she?

[Mina Kimes]

She plays Harrison Ford's wife.

[Bill Lawrence]

Oh, okay. Excellent.

[Mina Kimes]

She was like, on Just Shoot Me and stuff. She's been around for a long time.

[Dan Le Batard]

Is that where your confidence was lowest there?

[Mina Kimes]

Me? No.

[Dan Le Batard]

Because Mike Schur. When Mike Schur speaks of Bill Lawrence, he speaks of meteoric rise. Mike Schur is not, you know, jealous of many people as somebody who was in his early 20s doing Saturday night Live. And this was like, the one person that he was looking at and being like, that guy's career path is Meteora.

[Mina Kimes]

I search the Internet for anybody. It's not a lot, because Mike's killing it for anybody that says that he's a poor man's Bill Lawrence. And if I find it, I find a way to get it to him.

[Bill Lawrence]

Whoever sees this, please put that out there as a test of that possibly.

[Mina Kimes]

No, I.

[Dan Le Batard]

But you bothered people with your confidence at that point, correct?

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, look, I think I learned a lesson that you spoke of a second ago very young, which is growth from failure. And, you know, I talk about it way too much, but I was mercilessly fired off my first three big jobs. Three? Yeah. I got fired off of Friends, the Nanny and Boy Meets World all in a row. Bam, bam, bam. I know. And the fact. And that was at my lowest, you know, because I would. Watching Friends become. You know, I wrote on the first season of the show and watching it become a juggernaut with young writers that I had become friends with and just seeing it explode while I was in my boxers like fetal on a futon was rough. And I think that experience of getting canned off all those shows that all went on to be very successful and actually getting another gig gave me this feeling of like, oh, shoot. Failure actually can point you in the right direction. So I stopped being. That's my luckiest thing that happened to me. I stopped Being afraid of failing very.

[Dan Le Batard]

Young, you lacked confidence at the beginning, right at espn, because this is the most confident version of you I've seen. But it's at least in part because of the sheer extraordinary amount of preparation that she has done in order to meet this moment. Like you were talking before we started here about one of the secrets in Hollywood is you can actually outwork people. I've seen what happens when you want to work because it's so important to be, like, more on top of things than everyone else is. I would imagine I'm speaking for you here, but I would imagine this is the most confident version of me.

[Mina Kimes]

I'd like to answer this for me. Just give me a second.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah, I guess so. I feel confident now in a way that I definitely didn't when we first started doing television together. But that makes sense because I was very green and bad at doing television at the time, and I didn't honestly deserve to be confident doing it. And I've just been doing the exact job I'm doing now for a few years now, quite some time. So I should hope that I'm more confident.

[Mina Kimes]

I would take this all back to Dan's original question. When you asked, does everybody feel it? The negative harder than the positive? And all that stuff is the one thing I've noticed in Hollywood and is why I was so interested in what you guys saw yourself getting here is I am constantly amazed that, and I don't say this in a judgmental way, that people that started with the goal of being the face or being famous or being in that situation, they've thought about it so much. I'm often amazed by how Teflon they are about when they land there, as opposed to people that ended up there because of a career path. Because, by the way, there are young people right now who you can. There's a horrible article, I read that, and it was on the Internet, so it's true, that said they asked kids, would you rather be the. You know, they gave them one job that seems like it really matters, or the assistant to someone famous. And the assistant to someone famous blew the other one just out of the water, you know what I mean? And so it was saying early on that they're growing up in a culture of I want people to know who I am. And I think that anybody that starts there, maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way, does not suffer the. The same things that we will talk about suffering as people that have ended up there.

[Bill Lawrence]

That's 100% true. By the Way this generation fame, I feel like, has a appeal and a premium and it is seen as a viable career path for kids in a way because of social media, whatever. And I'm like, for a lot of them, like, it's not like this is the thing that I want to do. And maybe fame will be a consequence of that. It's.

[Mina Kimes]

What can I on the savviness from. It is so off putting. I've met people, both through my daughter and my son, especially being in la, that I was talking to a young woman, I won't name check her that said, you know, that she's like, look, right now I'm kind of insta famous, you know. And so that buys me a window of a few years to figure out what it is that I want to do.

[Bill Lawrence]

Oh my God.

[Mina Kimes]

And in my. I'm like, oh, this kid's scraping by. And I'm like, what? You know, she's like, no, I mean, I make like $700,000 a year on Instagram. This is somebody in their 20s crazy. And by the way. And then the foresight to go. And I know that has a shelf life.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah.

[Mina Kimes]

But that buys me a window to figure it out, you know. And I'm like, oh, that's a level of savviness that maybe that's cool that there's opportunities like that for young people. I don't know. I don't want to give Dan affirmation because I like watching him struggle. But. But I think you also have to look at anything that affects people emotionally. And you guys both live in that world too. I was told my folks that I was coming to talk to you again. And the interview you did with me, that you talked a lot about your brother and I talked about my dad and stuff. It was so meaningful and helpful to so many people in my family that I ended up being just really grateful for it. And I think if you also. If you touch. Yes. If it's really funny. Yes. If you have those moments. But also I think you probably know when you've hit an emotional thing that feels a little universal. I mean. Cause I've seen you do it a bunch.

[Dan Le Batard]

Well, she makes fun of me for being the grief eater. She's.

[Mina Kimes]

Is that, by the way, is that an official nickname?

[Bill Lawrence]

Fantastic. Yeah, I stole it from. There was a show on hbo, a limited series called the Outsider. Did you watch that? It's one of their, like. Yeah. Anyways, it was a monster called a grief eater off of Sad People. But I think a lot of people have the same reaction to a lot of your work. We're like, oh, this family dynamic really resonated with this emotion that they talked about, or this experience or the lightness of it helped me get through hard times, but. And this circles back to what we were talking about. Like, do you engage with the audience when you see things like that? When people tell you things like that, does it resonate? Does it enter into your two different kinds?

[Dan Le Batard]

Right. So I was talking about the writing. It's lonely. Writing is lonely. And then you release it out into the world and you get whatever the feedback. But I made a choice at 30. The choice that I made that had less to do with performer than it had to do with, oh, that seems like it would be a lot less lonely. Was seeing the group of people who were working behind the scenes at Pardon the Interruption before they ever went on the air. And that community of people. I mean, it's your writer's room. It's the community of people that we work with now that you work with on television. The vibration of the laughter and the communal nature of it was like open air. It was like breathing compared to. Because writing, for me, I didn't enjoy writing either. Writing is awful, everybody.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah. I always teach excruciating. I say the same joke every time I teach, which is I say, raise your hand if you like writing. And a few people do. And I always say, if you really mean that, you're a sociopath, because it's not real. Writing's awful. What you like is having written something, like being done with something and then showing it to people. I get that. I don't get anybody that says they actually enjoy sitting down there in that mental struggle.

[Dan Le Batard]

But so the community of what I'm talking about, going out from whatever that sculpting, obsessive, compulsive sculpting is into a group of people that you can laugh with. I mean, that you're sharing any part of the human experience. He's mentioning the south beach session that we did. I don't know how much time. You're exceedingly, amusingly, not introspectively male in some places that I find.

[Mina Kimes]

It's true.

[Dan Le Batard]

We're. We're the worst men are. We're. We're not mature. We're not. We. We. There are any number of places that we have not looked in a way that would have value for us. And you specifically, when we talked about the stuff in the deep and the dark places. I don't know how much time you spend there with Others like volunteering it.

[Mina Kimes]

It's not my favorite. I think you can distance yourself with it, from it, with writing about it. And you forced me to talk about it in my own personal experience, which is not my favorite jam. But I think that's why I ended up being so grateful.

[Dan Le Batard]

But I'm just saying people who love you would have seen you talking about something there that. I mean, my friends will all make fun of me because I'm terrible at small talk. I'll just go right. You go deep, deep, deep. I mean, she spends a lot of time mocking that. I'll go right there to like give me the good stuff on whatever it is. Give me all the best parts of motherhood.

[Mina Kimes]

Just before we get to the car. Then I want to listen to music.

[Bill Lawrence]

Also. Just being bad at small stack makes you the world's worst texter.

[Mina Kimes]

Oh yeah.

[Bill Lawrence]

I mean, have you ever tried text with him? It's a nightmare. Literal nightmare.

[Target Sponsor]

The Hoover Dam wasn't built in a day and the GMC Sierra lineup wasn't built overnight. Like every American achievement, building the Sierra 1500 heavy duty and EV was the result of dedication. A dedication to mastering the art of engineering. That's what this country has done for 250 years and what GMC has done for over a hundred. We are professional grade. Visit gmc.com to learn more. Assembled in Flint, Hamtranneck, Michigan in Fort Wayne, Indiana of US and globally sourced parts.

[Bill Lawrence]

So hard to understand. You didn't actually answer though. Like, do you, when you are making good shows now, are you actually looking to the audience at all? And do you feel that when people.

[Dan Le Batard]

Like that when you say the audience. Yes is the short answer, but it's not the feedback of the audience. I see that my audience is the people in the room. Yes. Well, it's. Again, listen, for 20 years I've been doing something that doesn't take hardly any inventory of who's actually listening. It's the five, the seven of us, the nine of us. Does it feel good in here? And then other people happen to be watching it. But the entire. I mean, it's gonna be hard for me to explain how different radio is from all the other things, but it's just the intimacy of it is something. It's why I've chosen it to be the thing that sustains me professionally because it's just different from the other things in terms of how intimate it feels.

[Mina Kimes]

Back to the original topic. So interesting as you kind of load social media into this and Dan said like, oh, you know, there's so many things wrong with men. Do you feel the obligation as a young woman specifically in what you're doing? Is there a responsibility, you know, as you kind of enter the fray of this stuff and when you determine how you behave to be a role model for young women that now can see, like, by the way, it's so weird that we're saying this now, but I can't imagine a young woman who wants to be in the world of sports who isn't looking at you and going, oh, it's, you know, that that's a thing I can do. So you have to be super, extra, super secret careful, right?

[Bill Lawrence]

So some of it less, I would say less careful and more like there's pressure to be perfect, right. And not make mistakes and to do be extra prepared and be 110%. And that to me is like the best role model I can be is just like doing my job really well and having the respect of the players I'm around. That's the best I can do for young women. But, and this again goes back to we were talking about like, do you read the Internet? Do you engage a big part of the re. I don't know if this is going to sound solipsistic or self aggrandizing, but the big part of the reason every now and then I punch back is because women love it. The number one thing, when I meet young women in the industry and they're like, hey, you know, how do you do this? I'm like, oh yeah. And they're like, so like, I saw you dunk on this dude and it just made me feel.

[Mina Kimes]

Just give me joy.

[Bill Lawrence]

Give me a moment.

[Mina Kimes]

Pure joy.

[Bill Lawrence]

Just for one. Once one of us hit back and won. And like, I, I don't, I, I hope that doesn't sound like I'm like.

[Mina Kimes]

No, it sounds awesome.

[Bill Lawrence]

Like, yeah, I'm justifying my own trolling because it makes me a role model. I don't think that's valid, but it is. The I, I swear to God, it's the first thing women tell me is that they love it.

[Mina Kimes]

I think the pure form of that is people knowing that they can fight. Young women especially knowing they can fight back. I think it's cool. Look, the, the, there's so much overlap between what you all do and what I do and sports and entertainment. Even the contracts feel like you're on. And I asked that knowing that, you know, I'm not that old. I mean, I'm not like dan old. I think you're Younger than me, aren't you?

[Dan Le Batard]

We're about the same.

[Bill Lawrence]

The way he's dressing now makes it.

[Dan Le Batard]

A little confusing, the way you're dressing now.

[Mina Kimes]

I'm very cool and hip.

[Bill Lawrence]

Gucci sneakers under the table. They might not get captured by the camera, so I just want to make sure that I know.

[Mina Kimes]

I just looked at them and it bummed me out.

[Bill Lawrence]

They're sick.

[Mina Kimes]

They're pretty nice.

[Bill Lawrence]

I have a white version.

[Mina Kimes]

My career started with comedy. Rooms were, you know, maybe nine people, and eight of them were white dudes. And there was one woman who was most likely also white, you know, and just the way that that business has changed from then to now is both heartening, but also, I mean, it's not that hard to look up and see, you know, how many show creators are women as opposed to men. It's still skewed and still drastically imbalanced.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's still skewed in our world.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah.

[Dan Le Batard]

Dramatically so. Like, that she would still pass for representation in 2025 is kind of a stinging indictment for the industry at large.

[Bill Lawrence]

Just because there's so few of us. Or.

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes. I wasn't. I was just saying it's 2025, and still I know.

[Bill Lawrence]

I get asked the same questions.

[Dan Le Batard]

We're talking 2025 and you're saying, like, and it's okay to fight back. And it's like, you treat social media as sport. Your. You're it. You. It feels like you are a cat playing with yarn on. On. On acid and hatred. Like, I know that that's not the lived experience, but it's the way that it looks from. From over here.

[Mina Kimes]

I. Yeah, it's also a calculated response that's both safe and fun at the same time. A little bit. Yeah.

[Bill Lawrence]

Mostly. Yeah. Sometimes I probably walk the line a little bit too much. But, like, I listen. Like I said, I get called Di all day. Like, if you guys search my name, I'm sure, like, the first thing to see. That's new, right? Because of the last couple of years. But, like, yeah, I. I am dei. Like, and it's not the way that it's being interpreted now, which is a stand in for a slur as a stand in for being unqualified. It's because when I first came into this industry, the people who had me on the shows, like Dan, like espn, who hired me, had to open up their Rolodex and think, like, well, this person is doing something entirely different. But she also seems to love football. What if we gave her this opportunity and it's Something that we hadn't considered before. Let's see if we can include her. And they did, and I took it and I ran with it, and that is what it means, even though it's been bastardized.

[Mina Kimes]

I would also argue that there's a sound and smart business decision beneath it, because I don't think any of these corporations are just benevolent. I think on some. You know what I mean? I could be wrong, but I think on some level that starts with, how dumb are we that we're not opening ourselves up to a bigger fan base by bringing someone like you into the world.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah, I wish we still were able to have that conversation in our industry. And it feels like now people are shying away from it a lot. And I don't know if you're. Obviously, that's not something you're doing, but it's something you've thought a lot about over the last few years, over the last 10 years.

[Dan Le Batard]

Plus, you guys, look. I did not know where all my blind spots and privilege was in this regard until Mina and Sarah and Katie taught me. Because on our show, I've made this joke with her before. I'm stumbling onto the set with Mac and cheese in my beard, and she's doing her third hour of research for a show where I'm like, mina, we're just gonna watch a guy get hit in the balls by a sledgehammer. Like, what do you. You don't have to prepare that much.

[Bill Lawrence]

For my favorite part of the highly questionable because I couldn't prepare for it. The guy's getting hit in the balls was our specialty. As someone who I think has watched a pretty fair amount of your programming, sometimes when people ask me about, like, do you feel like you have to take a stand? And I will say, like, sometimes just me being on a stage with a bunch of former players talking football, that in and of itself is a stand. And to draw a parallel here, like, I do feel like watching a lot of your shows, just, like, you'd see the normalization of, like, obviously, the shows have a pretty wide breadth of representation in their casts, and they're not talking about, you know, the biggest issues of the day or whatever, but just, like, seeing people like that laugh with each other and share jokes and be friends and relate in that way to me in and of self, like, that sort of modeling, which is much closer to real life than the things we see on the Internet. I think in. Is in a. In and of itself saying something. I feel that way when I watch it. I feel better about People, I feel better about a world where people like that are friends and live together and work together and are cool and I don't know.

[Mina Kimes]

So I know by the way, this is going to sound incredibly insecure, but I need to hear that because we live in a time that I'm sure everybody is going like, hey, am I doing or saying enough? You know what I mean? And so I think about it, I was thinking about it today because I'm working on a, we're doing a new college show starring Steve Carell and the guy's awesome, great dude. And to do a show that's set authentically on a college campus right now is very tricky.

[Bill Lawrence]

Right.

[Mina Kimes]

Because of, you know, and so you sit around in the writers room going, what happens if we put these things that are out in the world on a day to day basis in what is essentially escapist entertainment? And it is a scary tightrope rope, you know.

[Bill Lawrence]

Right.

[Mina Kimes]

And by the way, and I'm somebody, I'm not necessarily right or wrong, but I don't love being preached at in it. When I watch, when I, you know, if I, if I'm turning to a show for an opinion, I love it. If I'm watching entertainment, I don't want to be preached at about what I should think.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yeah, I, I, I hear you. But I get to go back to a joke I made, I've made a couple times now. Like just me, like an Asian women doing mock drafts on ESPN is escapist for some people and revolutionary for others.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, okay, I got it.

[Bill Lawrence]

That escapist television can fill the same.

[Mina Kimes]

Role.

[Bill Lawrence]

Like everyone in the country does yesterday. We're all just picking our spots. And you, I feel like maybe are having a little bit of trouble, it sounds like with that not in action but in thought. Like, where are the moments where I want to be outspoken, where I want to be.

[Dan Le Batard]

Well, it just feels weak. It's the same thing he's talking about there where he's saying he makes things look, Ted Lasso landed at a time people needed what his message was. I don't know if there's another time that that show could have landed quite that way given where we were and the need for, hey, give me something that feels, feels good.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, we're all talking about the same fear is the fear of numbness. Right. And, and if you become a nord to something, it's almost as good a word as that word Mina used earlier. Was it solop something solipsistic. It's good stuff.

[Dan Le Batard]

She does use that one. Well, she likes that one. It's a good one.

[Mina Kimes]

I'm gonna just nod and pretend I know what that means. And Nerd's pretty good, though. The. I don't know what it means either, but I'm sliding it in. But, you know, it's a general fear that, for me, anyways, I don't know if you guys have it, that the sheer weight and the amount of stuff that's coming out is so fast that you become so numb that you just back out of it completely. And that's why I'm, you know, looking at what the type of work I'm doing and going, is this. You know, is this hiding from the stuff that's. That I'm really feeling?

[Bill Lawrence]

So, yeah. No, I mean. And I sometimes, you know, like, I could. Instead of doing my first mock draft of the week, I'll stop talking about mock drafts. I could be like, hey, I just saw that. I read this article about tariffs. I used to be a business, like, let me talk to cameras or whatever. But, you know, I. And I don't. And sometimes I'm like, is it cowardice for me not to address more serious things? But I think there's a lot of things that I think about. 1. Am I actually the best qualified person to be talking about this? A lot of times it's no.

[Mina Kimes]

To be honest, I'm not book smart. I'm not that book smart.

[Bill Lawrence]

Who can I amplify? Is something I ask a lot rather than my. Myself needing to this to do something. Recognizing that people do come to me for a lot of different things. And one of it is escapism and feeling better about people and getting away from that information, which they can get elsewhere. And then when I do pick my spots and every now and then I do. I want to make sure it hits. And I think the feedback that I've gotten is like, okay. Like, it feels good sometimes to see a person who I go to for escapism or entertainment or fun, occasionally picking a spot to take a stand. But it doesn't have to be the substance of what they're doing.

[Dan Le Batard]

Thank you, guys for spending this time with us. Love you both.

[Mina Kimes]

Love you, buddy. Said that to a guy out loud. Me and I were getting to know each other.

[Dan Le Batard]

That was hard for you, wasn't. It was hard for you.

[Mina Kimes]

I don't really hug my kids that much. I'm getting there.

[Dan Le Batard]

There's still growth for you. There's still hope and possibilities for you.

[Mina Kimes]

Lawrence iv.

[Bill Lawrence]

Oh, God.

[Mina Kimes]

Wow.

[Bill Lawrence]

This has been Sorry. No, no. This has been super fun, super validating. Not quite as validating as. Don't.

[Dan Le Batard]

One of the things that I used to love about the feedback that we used to get, we used to have a Reddit community that was very passionate, outsized in its passion, and it was a positive place. And I have seen over the last however many years, it turned on me in a way that was, like, hurtful. It was like, whoa. I'm like, these are my people.

[Bill Lawrence]

When did it start happening?

[Dan Le Batard]

I mean, I'm gonna say that it sort of alerted me to the idea that there might have been a political division in this country that was racial that I wasn't quite aware of. Like, it's been several years since I've been there as it turned. But I. When I say it alerted me, I can only see it with the clarity of hindsight. I didn't see it as it was happening. I didn't see. This was almost my introduction to a pure place that was a pure place that felt so good that I was will to actually seek out the constructive criticism. Yes. Like, these people really care. Let me see if they can help make me better. And then. And I had to check out of it because of how much it was hurting the. The entire atmospheric change of it.

[Mina Kimes]

Did it affect you emotionally?

[Dan Le Batard]

Yes.

[Mina Kimes]

You know, this is the thing I found with Reddit or with things like this is the people that are there to do the thing that attracted you in the first place. You just have to realize that the tide really hasn't changed in a massive way. But what happens is I find that once those Reddit streams turn to that, everybody that was there for the other reason just goes, peace out. You know what I mean? And what you're left with is that. And it can actually convince you that that's the general consensus or that's the, you know, that's the group think. And it's not. It's just that the people that were there for other reasons were like, oh, this turned into something not cool.

[Bill Lawrence]

So pretty much every TV show or podcast Reddit turns on the show or someone who's been on some of these at some. Especially for TV shows, not podcasts for me. And I think it is kind of a little bit of a version of the George R.R. martin thing, where the fans are like, where's the books, dude? Where's the books? And then they knew more about the books than him. But in a more. It's like, you take the most ardent fans of anything, eventually they'll get upset with the Creative output, I find. Which isn't to say that their objections are always wrong, per se. It's just too passionate a little bit. But it's different. Well, Red is different from, From Twitter and these other things because. And you were talking about this. Usually if somebody's mad at me on Twitter, they don't actually watch my stuff. Right. The people on Reddit are actually consuming the things that you make.

[Mina Kimes]

They know it and they get you too. But it's what you said, by the way, of if they have. If there's a kernel of something. Correct. Like a mistake that you made or a way you've contradicted yourself story wise, that you're like, I can't say I was really tired and I made 9,000 episodes of TV and.

[Bill Lawrence]

Right.

[Mina Kimes]

I gotta come up with some other crafty response while a character continuity.

[Bill Lawrence]

In this one episode, you said that this person went to this school and they actually went to Columbia. And what were you thinking?

[Mina Kimes]

Am I supposed to believe? Anytime someone starts with, am I supposed to believe I know I'm in trouble. Am I supposed to believe that a character who only episodes before.

[Dan Le Batard]

I got to tell you guys, though, I find it super weird that I'm in my 50s being more affected by this than I was in my 40s, in my 30s, in my 20s. Like, it's a. It's a mysterious, mindful.

[Mina Kimes]

I think it's partially, though, because if you're in the position, as you two both are, of world building, the second you enter into that nowadays you have to be concerned about the culture that you've created. Right. And that's not something that we necessarily worried about when we were first starting out. And if you're worried like I am, about the culture at work and how it feels to be around all these people, which is a topic that didn't used to get in the way, so to speak, in art or what you were trying to make, you're much more susceptible to anybody that pokes at that.

[Dan Le Batard]

It feels weaker. It just feels. I don't know how.

[Mina Kimes]

Oh, damn, we're strong. Let's stick with it.

[Dan Le Batard]

I don't. I do not. The very subject matter we're talking about right now, it feels. I feel weakness in it.

[Bill Lawrence]

Where our roles are so reversed from when we first started.

[Dan Le Batard]

It's crazy, right? It's crazy.

[Bill Lawrence]

I. I've told this story before, but there was one highly questionable, where I just screwed up a lot and I was like so upset. I was on the verge of tears. Dan talked me down and I think about it all the time.

[Mina Kimes]

What's solipsistic mean?

[Bill Lawrence]

If I know, this whole conversation could be classified as it. And once you Google it, then you'll.

[Mina Kimes]

She's making me do homework.

[Dan Le Batard]

Do you want to try and spell it? You want to try and spell it?

[Mina Kimes]

I really don't, but I'll tell you, this is as an end gag for the show, I will put it in the Steve Carell show, and you will see that word in there.

[Dan Le Batard]

Oh, look at that. Congratulations.

[Mina Kimes]

It's a private joke for us and whoever's listening. What a gift when that word is thrown out there.

[Bill Lawrence]

Juicing your radon is what he's doing.

[Mina Kimes]

I'll make sure Steve's character has no idea what it means.