A (2:30)

So I wanted to play that because, one, I like to imagine alternate reality where he grew up just a little bit later and someone else played Dwight and he was just high and watching clips from the office on his phone and just going nowhere.

B (2:44)

Somebody else would have butchered that role.

A (2:45)

Someone else. Yeah. But no, I was. I was curious. Like, I was thinking about this the other day, and I was like, I was actually editing a clip from my show, Preacher Boys. Go check it out. I was editing a clip for my show and I was talking to someone. I said, I can't imagine being a young man in 2026.

B (3:01)

Yeah.

A (3:02)

With the access that you have. And it's funny because, like, I feel like my generation was told, like, I can't imagine if we had had the access you had then to all the things you do now. And people probably in the 70s like you. I can't believe you.

B (3:15)

Exactly.

A (3:16)

And. But it really is now, like, the rise. I've read so much about the rise of, like, you know, people having relationships only with, like, AI chatbots.

B (3:25)

Right.

A (3:26)

You know, like, beyond just, like. Just like, the sexual categories. It's like, for therapy, for all these different things, like the isolation and things like that. I mean, what do you think about, like, the way people are, like, being isolated now? And what advice would you give as someone who grew up back in the olden days where you had to go out into society to, like, survive, you know, like, you couldn't just order food to your door and lock yourself in, Right? Like, what?

B (3:53)

Even movie night required a trip to Blockbuster.

A (3:56)

Right. I miss that so much, honestly.

B (3:58)

Blockbuster was the. Was pretty dope.

A (4:00)

I was telling my wife the other day, I. I miss the ritual of, like, going and picking three things. And I feel like that was such a cool experience because you'd go to, like, I went to Hollywood Video, but

B (4:12)

you go to Hollywood Video, the poor man's blockbuster.

A (4:15)

No, Hollywood Video was awesome. But I remember, like, you'd go there, you pick three things and, like, even that ritual of, like, coming back to your house, like, when you put it on to watch it, you're so engaged. It's an event because, like, I went and rented this. I'm going to pay attention and get my. My time and money's worth out of it.

B (4:33)

So much more invested in the experience

A (4:35)

versus, like, streaming, where you're like, yeah,

B (4:38)

did you see that interview with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck where they were talking about their. Their new movie that they released on Netflix and How many times?

A (4:47)

Yeah. Netflix.

B (4:48)

Yeah. Like, mentioned basically the plot of the film.

A (4:51)

Yeah.

B (4:51)

Because they were just like. Yeah, people are watching this while they're doing dishes or they're walking around. So you, you have to, you, you have to almost communicate the plot of the movie to them. Like they're a five year old in kindergarten.

A (5:02)

Yeah.

B (5:02)

Learning how to do which time. Which disgusts me from a filmmaker perspective is a real bummer, I assume, for people like that.

A (5:10)

Well, it. Yeah, it. That disgusts me. That's been a thing for a long time. Like, Netflix has rules about how much you have to reiterate the plot. It's basically like daytime television where you have to like, verbally say which. Like the number one rule of filmmaking is show don't tell.

B (5:23)

Yeah. Right.

A (5:23)

You know, and so it's like, I, I've seen so many movies lately. Not to get on a rabbit trail, but you brought me here. But I've seen so many movies lately where, like, in theaters, you're watching it and you can tell it's been crafted for like, the streaming audience later. Yeah. Where the exposition is so clunky, where it's like your father never stopped drinking after the accident. It's like, dude, you could have just shown a couple bottles around the apartment and we would get the message. And you did do that. And now you're still telling me again

B (5:54)

and you're gonna do it three more times right. In the next 12 minutes.

A (5:57)

Oh, your alcoholic dad just showed. It's like, it's like, how many times can we. We hit this. This thing over the head. There was one I saw recently egregious with this, where like every character motivation was like, iterated. It's like ever since this happened, you've always felt this way and, and. Or you're so insecure. It's like, yeah, we. We know there's character clues here. It's. It's so frustrating. But anyway, all that to say, I would love to have some weed with Rainn Wilson. Talk about the state of cinema. But. But I mean, like, the reality is like, I think about all those experiences and like, how communal everything was, even in, you know, the mid-2000s. And now, like, I see. I don't. Everything is just so online, so isolated. So, like, let me just go to my corner of the.

B (6:42)

It's exactly the world. It's convenience and it's putting everybody. It's. Nobody's forced to compromise for the salvaging of relationships anymore, if that makes sense. Like, everybody can do their own thing.

A (6:57)

Yes.

B (6:57)

Right. So, like, you're cooking dinner. Before, it was just like, we're cooking dinner and what we're having for dinner is what we're having for dinner. And it's like, delivery apps happen. And it's like, well, I can get this and then you can get that, and then they can get this and then she can get that, and then it's like, okay, so now we have the dasher is going to stop at four different places so we all can get the exact thing that we want at the exact time that we want.

A (7:17)

Back when I was a kid, your dad would order pizza and it was egregious to be like, can you not get pepperonis on mine? It was like, no, I'm ordering pizza.

B (7:24)

Whatever shows up is what you eat.

A (7:26)

They have a special on the larger, you know, meat lovers. Meat lovers. Pizza is too much.

B (7:31)

I disagree. I disagree.

A (7:33)

Max, three toppings of meat.

B (7:35)

It depends on the type of pizza.

A (7:36)

A Meat lovers.

B (7:37)

Too much. Too much. Meat lovers. Pizza on, like, too, too much. My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink.

A (7:43)

Then straight to the gym, pre K

B (7:45)

pickup back home to meal prep. Time for my fire station shift. One more Celsius. Got to keep the lights on when

A (7:51)

the three alarm hits.

B (7:52)

I'm ready. Celsius live fit. Go grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com this episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed sponsored jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate. C. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs have four times more applicants than non sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Meat lovers on like a thin crust is overwhelming because it destroys the integrity of the pizza holding all the meat. But like a deep dish, I get down with a good meat lever some, so it's wild.

A (8:40)

Okay, all right, back on target here.

B (8:42)

Yeah, speaking of distraction, we're going down the. We can't even stay focused on the plot of staying focused.

A (8:49)

This is actually the worst episode we've ever done. But I hope someone out it touches their heart. Joanna is just literally that meme of the old guy that's got his headphones. Like, let's pull that meme up actually, and let's talk about that for a few minutes. No, but what would your advice be to people who are struggling to get out there because the pro of this is I think about feeling isolated when it came to certain interests as a kid. And the cool thing to me about social media, we were just talking about YouTube in the last episode. It is really neat to me that I can find another person that loves silent films and Buster Keaton as much as I do. Believe it or not, there's not a lot of those people in every city you go to, but there's people I can connect with virtually. Yeah. And I can be talking about, oh my God, things that matter to you. The movie the General is incredible with somebody in Ohio.

B (9:47)

Right.

A (9:47)

You know, where they love silent films. Haven't upgraded yet. But like that's a really cool thing. The really negative thing is, is that it's rare that you're forced to have a conversation with someone that doesn't view everything the same way.

B (9:59)

Yeah.

A (10:00)

Like beyond politics and religion, like just

B (10:02)

because everything's self serve.

A (10:03)

I'd rather talk about movies with this guy online I've never met.

B (10:06)

Then you know, pretend to like Marvel movies. If you like Marvel movies.

A (10:10)

Yeah, I hate them.

B (10:12)

But.

A (10:12)

So like what would your advice be to people right now that are like in their teens, early 20s, that are like I don't, I don't need it or I don't see the value in it or like, you know, I think

B (10:24)

the biggest mistake is thinking that because the word social is in the name that, that solves that part of your life.

A (10:31)

I like the, you keep hitting this talking point. I feel like you're going to do something with it.

B (10:36)

What?

A (10:37)

I feel like you're workshopping something because you keep going. The biggest issue is social. You've said in a couple interviews. I feel like you're workshopping.

B (10:44)

Yeah, well, it's something I think about a lot because that, that's, that's. People like to vilify social media as though it is the cause of loneliness. But loneliness has been increasing every year since they've been tracking it. Like 1970 something. You can fact check me on this. 1970 something I believe is UCLA came up with a standardized way to measure loneliness. And ever since they came up with that, it has been increasing. So lonely has been going up since the 1970s, 1980s. It, it didn't, it didn't come. Social media, that's something that was already happening, happening culturally. But the thing that's, and the, the reason why I bring it up a lot is that it's, it's more insidious to me because social media implies that the activity that you're doing is a social activity because you are connecting with other people. But it you. So that's why I say like my biggest piece of advice is to stop looking at social media, whatever, YouTube, Discord communities, whatever way you like to engage with others who are not directly in front of you. You can't look, you can't look at that as a replacement for your social life. You have to look at it as the media consumption piece of it. So like connecting with people on TikTok versus watching something on Netflix. To me, same activity. Like if you're gonna open up TikTok and mindlessly scroll for a long time, this is a media consumption habit. This is not a way for you to go connect with other people. So you, if you're going to do that, that's fine. Of course I'm on all those platforms and I spend time scrolling and I spend time dming and I spend time, you know, connecting with other people. But I don't use that as a replacement for my social life. I don't use that as like, okay, well I, I, I clocked in my hours this month of connecting with other people or trying to solidify friendships by, by going on these social media platforms. That to me is like, look, this is, this is media consumption time. This is not social connectivity time. So getting that out of your head and even, and I am, we're both lucky in the fact that we successfully avoided the mess that is online dating. But I can't imagine like I, I, the, the volume of people that have good endings from online dating versus not great endings for online dating is probably wildly skewed in favor of those that are having bad interactions.

A (13:06)

You know, I know a guy that met his wife on eharmony and he got to be in one of the commercials.

B (13:11)

Really?

A (13:12)

Yeah.

B (13:12)

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's true. Not to say that it's impossible.

A (13:16)

That's how rare it is. I know one person worked for and he got to be in a commercial, right?

B (13:20)

The only person you know, worked for got hired for the commercial. But yeah, it's, it's thinking that you're thinking that you're avoiding the discomfort of the bummer parts about connecting with people because that's all it is. It's, it's, it's the seeking of comfort is, is what drives people to do this online versus being in person. Because it's easier to deal with the rejection of somebody having swiped the other way on you than it to deal with the rejection of walking up to a girl at a bar or a restaurant and asking her on a date and being told no to your face there. It's, it's just an easier form of rejection. So people are, are always optimizing for what the easiest path is rather than what the most effective path is. And in reality, the most effective path is almost definitionally not the easiest one. So again, not to say that you not to say that online dating can't work or that it won't. You know, most obvious examp example of this would be probably Alex and Layla Ramosi that famously met on Bumble and then built a great relationship out of it. But they were also probably doing it the best way that you could, which was both of them were treating dating like it was like a business metric where they were like, the goal is to have a great relationship with an awesome person, not to just go on dates. So they were both actively looking for that. And then as soon as they had an interaction with the person they were talking to, that was an indication that this was not going to be something long term. They cut it off and then moved on to the next thing. It wasn't. It wasn't like this thing that people use is just like casual hookups and never seeking something that's long term at the end of the day. But people do this on social media for friends the same way that people do it on dating apps for romantic partners. It's that you're. You're trying to bypass the discomfort of the initial interaction by just outsourcing it to technology. AI is incredible. They can teach you how to fry an egg and even write a poem pirate style, but it knows nothing about your work. Slackbot is different. It doesn't just know the facts, it knows your schedule. It can turn a brainstorm into a brief. And it doesn't need to be taught because Slackbot isn't just another AI. It's AI that knows your work as well as you do. Visit slack.com meetslackbot to learn more. A KFC tale in the Pursuit of Flavor the colonel made his $10 Tuesday bucket so full with eight pieces of juicy crispy chicken or tenders that it might just last you till Wednesday if you've got that kind of self control. I mean some people want leftovers, others are more into right nowers. The Colonel lived so we could chicken 10 bucks 8 pieces. One big deal with KFC$10 Tuesdays. Prices and participation may vary. Tips and fees extra other than dealing with the discomfort psychologically and learning how to overcome that. So my biggest advice is Stop treating that as though it's the same thing as being in person with somebody. And then go purposefully spend time in person around other people. Even if it's doing something that you would find yourself doing in the comfort of your home, like go to the movie theater and watch the movie at the movie theater, or go to the coffee shop and work on that paper that you have to work on. Just go do things out with where other people are and force yourself to interact to a certain degree. I love the advice for. I think it's. I forget his last name. Charlie. The guy who runs Charisma on Command. Like, one of his big pieces of advice, which I think is really helpful for anybody that's trying to get better at this, is just say one more thing. That's it. Say one more thing. Anybody that you're talking to, just say something else.

A (17:06)

So something else.

B (17:07)

Interacting. If you're interacting with the barista, you're interacting with the person taking your order at the restaurant, you're interacting with the Uber, Uber driver, whatever. And your initial gut reaction is to say, like, you. You spit out your order and then you go directly back into your phone. Instead of spitting out your order and then going directly back on your phone, say one additional thing about the work environment, the person's hair, their shoes, or their smile that they had on their. Like, something that's something in addition to the. What the interaction required of you. And get into the habit of. Of. Of doing that as much as you can. And you'll probably find that it's, first of all, way less scary than you're making it out to be. You know, the more you. The more you try to avoid the activity, the more scary it becomes.

A (17:54)

You get.

B (17:54)

You, like, start getting this, like, this. This social fear that prohibits you from saying anything to anybody ever, because you're so afraid, because you've worked it out in your head too long. So, like, saying something does not necessarily mean, like this. There's no risk of rejection here because you're not asking for something. I'm not saying to go ask out every person that you talk to. It's just saying one additional thing. If you can get in the habit of just saying one additional thing, then. Then you'll probably find that that one additional thing sometimes turns into two additional things, which turns into five additional things, which turns into, let's connect here. And like, like, to me, like, social media is. Is. Is a place where I can, like, collect the connections that I've made. Where, like, now we have a hub where we can continuously interact with each other where, you know, 10, 10, 15 years ago, we wouldn't have had that, you know, like you interact with somebody randomly at a airport bar or something and you find that you probably not ever going to stay in touch with that person. You'd be like, oh, let's exchange emails. But what are you going to email back and forth? Like pictures of your kids? No, like, that's weird. You know, so now it's more like had a cool interaction with the person at the airport bar. We can connect on social and now we can actually stay in touch and some other opportunity to reconnect later on might actually come from this. And social is like the hub that I sort of direct those connections back to. But it's always way more effective if that initial connection was actually started in person or continued in person, because we can't replace that desire for, you know, the in person connection piece there. But you know, what Rain was saying is very culturally relevant. And it's gonna, it's gonna be something that I think our generation is gonna really have to like, you know, take the bull by the horns on because we're the ones who the problem, like our laps is where the problem is being dropped, you know what I'm saying? Like, and I feel like, and again, to your point, earlier, most generations have this happen. There's usually something that like it was, it was passed on to them from, from a previous generation and now it's a problem and we just get to solve that problem. So we're lucky that our problem isn't like clean water or hunger. You know what I mean? Like we, we have, we've checked off a bunch of those boxes. You know, just being in the USA means that your top 10% of the wealth globally, you know, something crazy like that. So we've solved a lot of those problems. Now we just get a new problem to solve which is going social isolation, loneliness and, and it's come from technological advances that have been helpful to solve a lot of other problems. But it also doesn't mean that it makes this less of a problem to solve. So it's going to be something that we're going to have to just meet head on and say, how do we. That. That's why, that's why I think there's going to almost be sort of a regression in the next, Even if it doesn't happen like in the next five years, probably next 10 to 15 years, I would say there's going to be this, this desire to get back to more which is why I'm. I'm much more curious about what that's going to look like. Like more localized meetups, more groups, more clubs, more communities that are not necessarily based off of a Discord server.

A (21:02)

Well, it's just more, it's more the rise. Everyone like every. There's a lot of writing right now, but like the rise of like analog where it's like, you know, physical books, putting away the digital. Like having some people now are doing like analog rooms in their house where like they go to a room that's just what you got to be these wealthy fellas that have an analog room. No, but like having a, like, well, we did this in, in our place. Like we don't have a TV mounted. Like we bought a like a roller. I always joke. It's like when you're in class and they're like, we're doing a movie today.

B (21:33)

Yeah.

A (21:34)

But like we just keep it put away unless we're gonna watch something and then put it out. But it's like it's not a focal point. Like our bookshelves are like, it's set up for talking instead of like sitting there and watching, you know? So like getting away from just consuming and actually interacting, like I think is going to be a big, A big push. And I like all those like little, like I've been thinking lately about like little acts of like resistance, you know, to like things that you think are a problem. And like for me it's like I, I sit there and I, I find myself where I'll be like, look at all these idiots like on their phone just like staring down, walking down the street. But then I'm like, I look back down on my phone and start doing the same thing. But like even little stuff like when I go to Starbucks now, like I've stopped ordering to pick up. Like I'll go order to talk to the person.

B (22:22)

Yeah.

A (22:22)

Build rapport, like get my drink. And it takes an extra two minutes, you know, but like those little things are so huge. Or not using self checkout and going to a regular checkout line like hey, how you doing? Like, I don't know like that. Or even, even going to like dance classes on Saturday. It's like I take a physical paperback book with me and not, I'm not just sitting there scrolling TikTok getting depressed about the state of the world, you know. So I think all those little things are huge. And even when it is social, like intentionally being more social where it's like having a good conversation, I think I Told you that when I wanted to watch through Fast and Furious a couple years ago. And I actually would, like, start the movie with a dude that I knew in, like, a film group. And we just, like, would text each other through the movie.

B (23:06)

Nice.

A (23:06)

And it was, like. It was cool. It was, like two hours. But you're, like, watching this movie. That's, like, not the best use of time, you know, always. Of course.

B (23:14)

Yeah.

A (23:14)

But you're also, like, joking about something that just happened or, like, oh, that was cool, or, you know, whatever.

B (23:20)

Like, sort of like the marriage of the two worlds, you know?

A (23:23)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where it's like. It's an actual social activity instead of just, like, commenting you suck on someone's, you know, political post, you know, whatever.

B (23:31)

Yeah, I would. Last thing I would say about that is basically, be okay with the person. Be okay being the person that doesn't know everything going on all the time. You know, I feel like. I feel like it's almost frowned upon when you jump into a social setting and everybody's asking your thoughts on something that happened and you feel. You feel, like, dumb or you feel ignorant that, like, oh, I didn't know that that happened or I'm supposed to. Not. Not only do people expect that, you know, that it happened, but they also expect that you have a fully formed opinion and that you'd be ready to share that opinion upon our next interaction, you know, And I've sort of, like, reserved myself to the idea that, like, I don't. I just. I don't need to know everything that's happening all the time. And. And we don't have to be obsessed with knowing everything that's happening all the time. And then it's so. It's so weird when you see this. This cultural peer pressure to know everything or to have an opinion on something. I was like. I saw something from Sydney Sweeney recently where I guess I really. And again, this is something.

A (24:32)

What did you see? Travis and I. I'm going to stitch that with the most diabolical. I saw. Somebody really helped me. I'm just going to stitch to just the lingerie lunch.

B (24:42)

This was what you're talking about.

A (24:43)

This was great stuff. I really touched me.

B (24:46)

No, she. She, I guess, was labeled as MAGA Barbie or something, which I didn't even know that that was something that was being tossed around. I didn't know. I didn't know that she was even being accused of this. Whatever. But some. Some media outlet asked her about it, and she basically said something along the lines of, like, I she was saying, like, I reject that title or like, I don't want. I never wanted to be known for anything about, like, I don't want to share anything about any of this stuff. She's basically just like, I just want to. I just want to make art. That's the only thing I want to do is make movies.

A (25:15)

Which was a little silly because art is very political.

B (25:19)

Okay.

A (25:20)

By nature, but.

B (25:21)

But you know what I'm saying.

A (25:22)

Yeah.

B (25:22)

But also she's basically just trying to say, like, I don't, like, I don't embrace that because I don't want. I'm not trying to be the person that everybody's piggybacking. I just want to make movies. I just want to do what I want to do what I do. And you have a bunch of people who are like, well, you can't do that and you have to use your platform for this and you have to do this. And it's just all these demands of people should be doing with their life when reality, like, you see some of these people that in the film world where they're just like, I just want to make movies. A lot of times they literally don't know what's going on because they're one of those people that just doesn't follow news outlets. They focus the majority of their time, which is why they're successful. They focus the majority of the time of their time doing the thing that they're wanting to be really good at. Like, imagine that. Like, you know, like imagine just actually putting your head down and focusing on something that matters to you and cutting out all the outside noise that doesn't have control over your life. Like, like that is probably a better thing to do than, than trying to be the person who's always got something to say about something that happened because you're. All you're doing is scrolling TikTok videos and reading comments and getting enraged and allowing that, that, that, that negative energy to like, permeate your entire psyche throughout the day, which, by the way, is only going to make you feel more from society in general anyway. It makes you paint more people as enemies who you don't know would be your enemies. It forces you into this, like, circle of isolation rather than allowing you to connect more easily with people who are outside of that circle. So I guess just like sometimes be okay with the just being the person who's like, working on your own stuff and there to be part of the friendship group and not have to like, have this again, fully formed opinion about these 14 current events that happened because you're just, you're never going to keep, keep up with everything and you're only going to further isolate yourself and make yourself more angry and upset because most of the time there are things that you can't do anything about anyway. So. Yeah, get, get out of, get out of your head and go talk to some people.

A (27:26)

There's a. We could probably do an episode about. We did. We tiptoed into that could be probably a full episode about how much you should be aware of current events. Oh.

B (27:36)

Oh, yeah. That's a whole nother topic.

A (27:38)

And I'm not going to divert. Pass again on this episode. Yeah, we recouped big time. Yeah. When we got, we recovered. We got about seven minutes in this episode. I thought, this isn't going to work. We're going to have to scrap this. But I think we got there.

B (27:52)

We recovered. We recovered. That's it. Yeah, that's it for today's episode. Remember, money, you only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace. If you're an H vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.