- It's going to be another
phrase that I've sort of coined, safe spaces and octagons. People are gonna become more scared, and go deeper into a safe space. Others are gonna long more for freedom and combat and excitement and danger, and they're gonna go toward the octagons. - Benjamin Franklin said that "Those who would give up essential liberty "to purchase a little temporary safety "deserve neither liberty nor safety". If the last several years
have demonstrated anything, it's that too many young
Americans value safety above all. Consider a 2021 YouGov poll, which found that Americans aged 18 to 24 had the
highest levels of nervousness about interacting with
other people post pandemic. 50% said they were nervous about it. That compares to just 31% for people over the age of 55. Think about that. The group with near zero risk was dramatically more fearful than the group at actual risk. From terrorism to climate
change to stranger danger, our culture of fear has made
our kids a nervous wreck, and threatened American
freedom for all of us. It's also wreaked havoc with
our comedy in the process. Well today's guest, fellow
MTV alum, Adam Carolla, isn't afraid to tell his kids, or the rest of us to toughen up, get over it, and move forward. He's a comedian, podcast host, author of six books, and star of the recent documentary "No Safe Spaces". In his latest book, "Everything Reminds Me of Something", he answers real questions from his fans, and famous friends with an
unapologetic sense of humor. Adam bootstraps his way to success, from construction work to coaching boxers before breaking into the
entertainment industry, and setting the world record for the most downloaded podcast. Adam didn't take no for an answer, and didn't let fear stop him
from achieving his goals. - I'm not so sure that the stuff you and I think that everyone
longs for longs for anymore. I can tell you that these people
don't in fact want freedom. It's the opposite of whatever the founding fathers
we're trying to create. But, it's insane, it's bizarre, it's unthinkable. Everyone I speak to in the
same general age vicinity is just dumbfounded by it. We wanted freedom. And I realized my kids don't want freedom, they like it in the house. I sat in a sweat box in North Hollywood that was 875 square feet
with no air conditioning, and was like "I gotta get outta here." - Adam is a great example of
how hard work, determination, and a no nonsense approach
to life can pay off. (upbeat music) Alright, Adam, thank you for being on Dad Saves America. - My pleasure. - So it's hard for me
to know where to start, because so much of the
stuff you've written and talk about all the
time is the substrate of what we do, or what I care about with this show, which is how to be a
good dad and a good man. What's happening with our kids? What's going wrong with our kids? And I guess I wanna start with a quote. In "Daddy Stop talking," you start with "Nowadays telling your wife "I have to work gets you
a disappointing sigh." I've had this disappointing sigh happen. "This is the worst period
in history to be a dad. "It used to be that you
worked and provided, "and that was enough." Do you think it's the worst
time in history to be a dad? - I mean, there's certain plagues, (John laughing) during, in some ages, some darkish ages, and things like that. My general synopsis, at least as I figured
out with my own family, is money became invisible. And when money became invisible then whoever was providing the money sort of became invisible as well. So it was funny 'cause I
was just watching football with a bunch of dudes who
were lamenting the same thing, and I was thinking back, when I was a kid, if I asked my dad for money, first it was the whole grieving process of him like oh God, dear
Lord, no, what, what? And then it was, he'd pull a dollar out, and be like now listen, I need change. The snow cone's 35
cents, this is a dollar, you know what I mean? And there was this sort
of transactional thing where it's like thank
you, thank you kind sir. And I realized my daughter, my son, everything's just sort of Apple pay and it's on their phones, so whatever's showing up to the house in terms of the GrubHub order, there's no direct correlation to me, why would there be? As money kind of becomes invisible, then the work that created the money sort of becomes invisible as well. And then also work as in work as in working at a logging camp, or working at the Dearborn
factory of Ford or whatever, where you'd come home, and you had soot. - There was evidence of the work. - There's evidence of the work. What do you do all day? What do I do all day? Just sit around, bore people
with stupid jokes or whatever. Nobody cares. So the money's kind of invisible, the work is sort of invisible, and so then where would that moment come where the provider of the money, payday would be Friday, and you'd come home and
your back would be sore, and somebody would yell "Dinner's almost ready in a panic "because you weren't in a good mood "'cause you had a tough week." That doesn't really exist anymore. So I think, I think the appreciation is commensurate with the
actual physical money, and the physical work. And since that's sort of gone then we're in some sort of nebulous zone of I don't know what you do. I don't know, do you
work, do you call it work? What you say it is? I'm not spending your money, I just got this phone, and the phone gets the
Chipotle to the house. I should thank whoever provided the phone. It's all kind of invisible now. - It's funny because I've done things that I know I probably shouldn't do. I got my son Apple Pay and the little card
'cause now that he drives he needs to be able to pay for gas. And I feel the same way. It's like I should probably
be giving him cash, but then that's kind
of a pain in the ****. And I don't carry that much cash. Is there an escape from the invisibility, do you think? Do you do anything to escape it? - No, I do nothing. Don't listen to me. But I mean obviously the
more regimented you can be, and the more tactile you can be, then it would be better. It would be better if your kids did chores and mowed lawns, and then got $20, and then could see that
$20 was going into the fuel for the car or the chipotle bag, or whatever it is. I mean it would be nice
if there was some sort of, because at a certain point I think you just sort of
become like the government. There's an apathy that is built into that nontacticle, the opposite of the bucket of change that your dad had on his nightstand or something that you could get a few nickels from. - You've always been a big advocate for physical work, and you worked a lot. So where did that start for you? - I was always kind of tactile. I liked wrestling and football, and jumping off a roof into a swimming pool and stuff. So for me life was pretty physical. I wasn't a good student, I wasn't good at reading
and writing and stuff, but I was good at wrestling, and jumping my BMX bike, and stuff like that. So I guess I just kind of
took that physical world into the real world after high school, when I just started working
on construction sites and stuff like that. And so my world was very mechanical, and very physical, and not very cerebral. And- - Was that your first job
on a construction site? What was your very first job? - Well McDonald's was probably my first sort of real punch the
time clock kind of job. Then after that I worked
at a liquor store, doing deliveries at the liquor store. But it was really always
about moving boxes somewhere. The liquor store was
unloading the station wagon with all the cases of Smirnoff in it, putting it in the store room, and then picking up another 10 cases. So a lot of moving stuff. When I got onto a construction site, it was just pure labor at that point. Digging ditches, cleaning up garbage. Just kind of demo. Just very mechanical, tactile stuff. - What was your feeling about work when you were doing that? - I didn't like digging for an entire day. We worked a lot of 10
hour days on this job, and the job was to dig footings, or a case on hole or something like that for the day, for the entire day. So I don't think most people really know what it's like to dig for 10 hours. They kind of have the I
put a dwarf lemon tree in my backyard kind of digging, but they don't really know what it's like to just strict dig ditches for hours, the entire day, and then just come back the next day, and just pick up the shovel, and just start digging again. But I unfortunately had a
lot of that at the beginning, and I didn't like it. It was very repetitive and monotonous, and kind of mind numbing. And I didn't have ear buds, and I wasn't listening to a podcast. I would just sort of go outside, and stand in the sun and dig. So no, I didn't like that at all. - It's funny this idea that you can now be entertained at any time. I feel like our kids don't even know what it's like to be bored. And most of childhood was boring. - Yeah. - I mean... - Well, I think most of child, my childhood at least, was an attempt to escape boredom. So you would be bored, and then you'd go "Man, I'm bored, "how do I escape this?" And then you would try to come up with these sort of, like in "The Great
Escape" when Steve McQueen would go in the cooler he'd
bring his baseball mitt, and just go (Adam imitating sound of ball bouncing). Throw the ball. And you understood that's
not something you would do if you could play in a softball game, but if you were in a cooler in solitary, then that would be a
way to occupy yourself. I was always about to be bored, but I would figure out
something physically to go do. Climbing trees, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - I climbed a lot of trees just for the sake of boredom. - One of the things that
I think is so interesting is this distinction between what does mom bring to
the table versus dad. - Mm-hmm. - And I know you've
written about this a bunch. Who's gonna get more worried about you climbing the tree feels like one of these
litmus tests for this. 'Cause my son loves climbing trees. I mean he's 17 now so he doesn't climb them quite as much as he used to, but how do you think about the difference between mom and dad? Because I feel like
typically mom's the one to be worried about you falling out, and breathing your neck, and dad is the one to be like
well how high can you go? - Yeah, I think both
parents now are worried, would be worried that the
kid is climbing a tree. I think that's what we've kind
of morphed into as a society, but, yeah, it was the mom
traditionally was worried, and the dad wanted the kid to have some bumps and bruises, and understand how the real world works. And also whatever it
is you got in terms of your judgment, and your relationship with danger. So a lot of that, a lot of what we talk about, or what someone like Jordan Peterson says "Little boys need to roughhouse "because they need to sort
of regulate how hard." - [John] Yeah. - And I remember doing a lot
of really ambitious wrestling with my friends, and really trying to kick
the crap out of them, but also you kind of had
to know where to stop. - Yeah. - At a certain point you cut
the air off to their brain, or you hit 'em with a closed fist. It was really rambunctious, really spirited, but also you had to kind
of learn to modulate. And now we've just said no wrestling. But that doesn't really teach people where the line is. - I feel like one of the things, everybody's got all these allergies, and all these autoimmune problems now, and that one of the things that's happened is our immune system evolved
in a much dirtier world, so our immune systems are used
to having to do a lot more, and so they just turned on us. I sort of feel like that's what happened to all of society. Our society has become a little bit like an autoimmune disease. - I completely agree. Yeah, you need to work it
out, your immune system. Wiping everything down with Purell, and washing your hands
10 times a day and stuff doesn't really give your immune
system a chance to work out. - What do you do with your kids to try to not do the things
that you're worried about with them? You look out- - It's pretty limited, I must say. I've essentially given up on
society for the most part. I sort of know what works and what doesn't work. I'm considered just an old crazy man, but I've worked it out, I understand what worked. I had a deal going with my
son for about 10 minutes, which was I'm up in the foothills, and it gets really cold at night, and the pool is not heated
and it gets freezing cold. I go in the freezing cold
pool every single morning. But I said to my son "I'll
make a deal with you." I said "You don't have to "go into the freezing pool every day, "but on days where I drive in to Hollywood "and do standup for free, "on those days you need to go in the pool "because I'm doing something "to try to better myself without," and it takes a while from where I live to get into the comedy store, and I'm sacrificing
that to try to improve. And on those days he needs
to jump in the freezing pool. (John laughing) - The connection between
your making things better and his jumping in the... Does he, did he just
say go along with this- - He did-
- This plan? - He did it a few times, and then the whole, the family turned against me. I was basically saying you need to create some adversity here. Your life is too easy, and you're too laid back. I didn't have to create any
adversity when I was growing up, there was just, it was kind
of baked into the cake. - Tell me more about that. - My family was pretty poor, they didn't have money, they didn't have time for their kids. They didn't really, they're kind of low-grade depression and just sort of poverty. And so I was forced to go and play sports, and kind of engage in the world, and do it outside of the house, and sort of find my way and deal with whatever life threw at you sort of independently. I didn't have anyone in my family sort of bailing me out with money, or having my dad step up
on my behalf or whatever, I was just kind of on my own. And so I kind of learned to navigate. And I don't really wish it upon anybody, but there's good lessons- - Yeah. - To be learned from it. And I realized that my
kids were growing up in just too much opulence. Just whatever, whenever, they got it. They'd wanted something they'd order it, they're in the mood for this kind of food, they'd get that kind of food. And it was just in general overindulgence that I would've indulged in too had I had the opportunity, but I didn't have the opportunity, so I was just kind of forced to deal with, I guess, adversity. And then I got some muscles from it, I learned some lessons from it, and I took some bumps and bruises from it. But I kind of took it, and then I just sort
of applied it to life. And my kids aren't really
gonna get those life lessons, and all the kinds of stuff
that kind of forges you into an adult. - It's really hard to
try to recreate a thing that came along kind of for free, right? I think about that a lot. I didn't have adversity
insofar as like my dad and mom were there and were pretty great, but my dad did have me help on all of the home construction
projects all the time, so I have a lot of... I logged a lot of time
crawling under the crawl space, or holding the flashlight
while he fixed this or that. I kind of picked that up, and I feel like I haven't
done as good a job as I should of even having my son do those things. - For you at this stage of society it would become a sort of a full-time job, but back then it wasn't really a job, it was this kind of life. So if you said you wanted your
kids' diet to be X, Y, or Z, well if you just lived in a house where there wasn't any Cocoa Puffs, and there wasn't any money, then that's a pretty easy job. It's not even a job, just
this is it, we got nothing. My parents didn't have to worry about how much fast food I ate because I didn't have any money, and they didn't have any money, and they didn't buy any fast food. So when I was 11, how much fast food was I gonna eat? - Right. - And now there's a place, and it's on every corner, and it's open 24 hours, and the kids got Apple pay, now it becomes a job. Now you have to regulate this and lay down rules and parameters. - How much of your
upbringing do you feel like translates into your comedy? I mean obviously you draw on it a lot, but was there, is there
temperamental things that it's like, man, I
wouldn't be the comedian today if I didn't have kind of
a challenging childhood? - It's a difficult question to ask, 'cause it's a little impossible. - Sure. - 'Cause I know plenty of funny guys who had pretty good childhoods, and I know plenty of
funny guys who didn't, and so it'd be hard to
draw a straight line to a conclusion if you're
just sort of looking at data. - Yeah. - I was kind of always funny,
just like some people are good, have a singing voice, or play an instrument, or whatever that, good with animals or something like that. I always had a kind of
good sense of humor. I don't know that it was
spawned by my family. - I know you have a lot of cars, and you love cars, did you have a first encounter with cars where that clicked in? Was it Matchbox, or was it... When did that first happen? - Yeah, I always liked a Tonka truck or a Matchbox car, and I used to really
just sort of stare at 'em and kind of fantasize about
having that car one day. - What was your first car? - Well, I got a motorcycle, a Honda 404 just to get around. I guess I was riding it for
maybe a couple of years, and then I got a job
on a construction site. After working there, and kind of riding my motorcycle in for several months, I guess, my foreman told me he would
give me another dollar an hour if I bought a truck. I was probably making seven bucks an hour, maybe eight bucks an hour, and I was gonna get another buck an hour, and that sounded pretty good to me. - Yeah. - And I could do some side
jobs on the weekends and stuff if I had a pickup truck, so I just went and bought a Mazda, kind of beater, kind of
like 1978 long bed beater. - I wanna read a quote from "Everything Reminds Me of
Something that really was, it's so spot on. You said "When I was
young, if I met someone "who was 17 and a half "and didn't have their driver's license, "I would call them a loser
and make fun of them. "My buddy Ray didn't have
his license until he was 18, "that was two long years
of verbal abuse by me "and which was repaid by physical abuse. "Kids nowadays don't care
about getting their license." And I encountered this, I somewhat had to force
my son to get his license. - Yeah, I'm in the midst of forcing my son to get his license. - So tell me about, tell me about what you're
going through right now, because my son was
actually the first of his, of his friends to get his license, and I can't understand
how you could not be banging down the door at the DMV the day you turn 15, or when you can get your learner's permit, but this is happening across the country. - Well, it's an interesting phenomenon that illustrates whatever the
divide is between old and new, which is every adult
father with a teenage son or daughter I've spoken to about this, and moms of our age are befuddled. They're fit to be tied. They're like "What is this? "I don't want, I don't get it." They don't have an explanation, they can't even, they can barely articulate it. They're just like I don't... When I was 15, on my 16th birthday I went to the DMV, I couldn't believe. - Freedom. - It's insane. It's insane how casual they are. If anything, I mean, this is an ongoing bone of contention. I literally said to my son yesterday, who's 16, and coming up on a half now, who I'm getting him the
stupid books to study and signing him up for online classes, and he's reluctantly sort
of going along with it. And I was gonna go watch a, I watch football game
with the guys on Sundays and whatever, two miles from the house. My son and I usually is
ride electric bikes over, and watch the game, but it was raining a little bit. It was drizzling, but was it raining? But I don't know, it was kind of cold. And I said "Sonny," which is his name, don't you think I'm that old. (John laughing) Sonny. I said "Look, it's kind
of raining outside, "I don't know if the bikes
are gonna cut it today, "we're gonna drive my SUV over there, "and I may have a couple of beers, "so if I'm gonna have a couple of beers, "then you drive us home." And he is like "Ugh." And I'm like "It's two miles away, "we'll take side streets." And he is like "I don't know." And I was like "All right, let's just ride "the electric bikes then." - You gave up. - I gave up. I was like "Fine, I'll
take the electric"... But it's insane, it's
bizarre, it's unthinkable, but I think everyone I speak to who is a person who's in the
same general age vicinity and has children in that age group is just dumbfounded by it. But they always say
"Oh, we wanted freedom, "we wanted freedom, freedom. "Get outta the house, go
where we wanted to go." And I realize my kids don't want freedom, they like it in the house,
you know what I mean? They got what they need in that house. They're enjoying themselves in that house, they have no reason to leave that house. If they need some fast food, someone will bring it to the house. There's a movie theater in that house. All the stuff... I sat in a sweat box in North Hollywood that was 875 square feet
with no air conditioning, and no flat panel TVs, and a depressed mom and a decrepit house, and I was like "I gotta get outta here. "I gotta get out." - Just driving in and of
itself was entertainment compared to that. - If I'd had a 75-inch TV and 500 channels, and some GrubHub coming my way, I don't know that I would've
been in such a rush to leave. - I feel like cars are such a part of American culture, and it's a pin being pulled out. It's like if the American
culture's like a game of Jenga, this is a really low,
pivotal piece to pull on, don't you think? I mean obviously you love cars, but it's like what is this, where do we head culturally if kids don't have the
love affair with cars that everyone's had since the Model T? - Yeah. It is a kind of end of an era for sure. And it's not just you and I who drew a short straw with teenagers who don't care about driving, it is ubiquitous now. Obviously it's a phenomenon,
it's not a coincidence. And my nephews were the same way. My nephews are a little bit older, but I remember when one
of 'em stayed with me several years ago and he was like 17, and I was like "Do you
have your driver's"... "Nah." "You don't want your driver's license?" "I don't not want it." - I don't not want it. - I was like "Well, why don't
I teach you how to drive "in this loaded Audi A7?" He's like "Eh, I'm good." (John laughing) So, I mean, it kind of
speaks to the end of an era. It also might be an eerie harbinger when it comes to freedom, because it's like I
was talking to Dr. Drew about this earlier today, I said "What's going on in this country? "Half the people just
want more government, "bigger, bigger and more government." And he said "Yeah, it
basically flies in the face "of America and freedom, "and what this country's about." - Yeah. - Why do so many people want
bigger, more expansive rules? Look no further than living
in California through COVID. Why is this enticing? This is America, we're Americans. And I said to him "Yeah, but we're old. "If you're 28, I don't know if, "you're saying everyone wants to be free. "I'm saying I don't know if
these people want that anymore." They don't want their driver's license, and when it comes to COVID, shut the schools, shut the workplaces, I'm gonna sit home, bring me food. I am not so sure that the stuff you and I think that everyone longs for longs for anymore. I don't know. The driver's license kind
of a metaphor for freedom, and if this is the results, I can tell you that these people don't in fact want freedom. And I don't think it's just as it pertains to driver's licenses. To me huge government's
disgusting, it's a waste, I want them outta my
life, I can't stand it. It's the opposite of
whatever the founding fathers were trying to create. I don't think they think that
way about driver's licenses, or the government, I think
they want it, less freedom. - I feel like it's super connected to what we were talking about before, being in the physical world. It's like there's lessons
you learn about reality when you have to get a
door frame to be plum that- - We would say door jam. I don't know how much your
dad actually taught you. (John laughing) - Yeah, no. - Door frame? Jam, door jam. - You're right, you're right. - Casing, not molding, casing. - I'm better with the, with the low voltage electronics. I can install the low
voltage in your house. - Oh, that's cute. That's sweet. - And I'll dig ditches for you. No problem. - Oh okay.
- Yeah. - You bury the low volt exterior wiring. - Yeah. You know, that process teaches you things that are not so obvious to me, I think, about the world is not abstract, but then our kids live in Minecraft land, which is all abstract. - Yeah. - How do you think about the, 'cause these things are really connected. They're both not driving. They probably don't think
they're not being free, 'cause they're free to, they have this digital
world that they go on that feels infinite. - Yeah. - And it's like do their brains
even know the difference? It's hard to say. It's like a brave new, I don't know if it's brave new world, it's a new world. - Yeah, it's not that brave. (John laughing) Although we keep calling everyone brave and hero and all that kind of stuff, which is interesting how we're laying all that
stuff on so thick now. But yeah, so what it is is when you're doing a door frame, there is a door frame. - Yes. - It's not the jam, but you would frame out a door, and you would put your header, and a door frame would be you've got a 36-inch door, and then the jam is three quarter and three quarter on each side, so now you're 37 and a half, and then you build in another
half inch to shim it up, make it plum and everything. So you'd rough it out at 38 inches. And if you put the header up, and the header was two inches too low, when you went to put the
door jam in with the door you screwed up. It's not gonna work. And it wouldn't be, you couldn't explain to someone that you felt like it should have worked, or in your heart it does work, or you like to live in a
world where you could imagine it did work. It just worked or it didn't work. It was very tactile, very
mechanical, whatever. And so when you grew up in that world there is no arguing away
you putting the header in at the wrong height. But in the sort of digital
whatever world we're living in, a lot of people starting sentences with I feel like I'm... I'm gonna... And I know in my heart... There's a lot of that. And so it's kind of left the
door, pardon the pun, open for a lot of feels talk
that is very inaccurate, and it doesn't really make sense, but we're hustling down
the road as a society as more people get off the farm and into the air conditioning, and into the cubicles then we've opened up this sort of alternate world where you're not right, but your feelings make you
feel like you're right. And I can't tell you you're wrong if you feel this way. And it's really pathetic really. It's kind of sad. And it's more, more the
people that should be the sort of custodians or guardians of sanity or truth are the ones that need to pipe up, and start telling people they're wrong, and it's not working. And they're being shunned and outcast. It's really a weird, kind
of dangerous place we're in. Getting away from the tangible mechanical is not gonna have a happy ending for most Americans even
though that's their plan. - There's this elite divide too that's on top of it all where everybody's told
they have to go to college, none of the things you're talking about really are, seem to be valued culturally. The idea that you can go and make a six figure living as a contractor is not a
thing that's on the table. I remember while we
were building our house our builder said more than once they've been on the job with a client, and the person says to their kid "You need to, see how hard
these guys are working? "You need to study or you're gonna end up "swinging a hammer for
the rest of your life." - Right. - He told this to me and I'm seeing red. First of all this person's
building your family's home, and you're basically
throwing them in the trash in front of your kid to
make some horrendous lesson. How do you communicate
this with your kids? Is this a conversation you have with them about get your head screwed on straight? - I mean look, I tell them you're gonna have to learn
to work at a certain point. You can get all the education you want, you can take all the programs you want, do all the extracurricular
activities you want, but you better learn to work, and I can't do that for you. You're gonna have to learn how to work. It's kind of a dying art, and everyone is scared of it, they're trying to avoid it. You're gonna end up, if you don't study
you're gonna end up here- - [John] Working. - Working. And it's like I never saw... First off those people who do that work are almost always happier than the people who are
in the air conditioning who went to college. I have found they have
just a better relationship with reality and life
because it's something that they have to engage
in on a daily basis. When COVID rolled around, it's like the more educated you were the more scared you were, and the more you work
the less scared you were because they have a
relationship with danger, the folks that do the work, because every time you pick up a tool it's an opportunity for that tool to hurt you in some way, and there's a lot of measuring, not measure twice, cut once, but a sort of I'm pushing this thing through this table saw. And when you do that for a living it's a constant dance with things where you could lose a finger, or the piece of oak could jam up at the table saw, and shoot you in the bridge of the nose or whatever. You're cutting something on a table saw, if the fence is this
far away from the blade, then you just push it through. But sometimes the fence is
four inches from the blade, and you might put your thumb and push it through, and then sometimes it's
two inches from the blade, and then you should get a push stick, and push that through. You shouldn't put your hand in there, which I've definitely done, but I'm just saying you
gotta kind of measure it out. And when you fire up a table saw, and you got a piece of hardwood like oak, and you're just trying to ram it through, it's gonna bind quick, and there's gonna be issues. You have to kind of
really kind of feel it. You can feel when it's not wanting to cut as fast as you're wanting to push. And those guys are
constantly engaged in that. So they're always calibrating. So when COVID comes along, I think they look around, and they see who's dying and who's not dying, and the buddy who got it, he was out for four days or whatever, but he's fine now. And they go "I've assessed risk, "'cause that's what I do all day." - Yeah. - I mean every time you climb up a ladder, every time you put
together some scaffolding to work off the second story, it's all risk. Assess, risk, asses. Also with some efficiency built in. Yeah, I'd like to make scaffolding safe, but I don't have six hours to do it. I'm not gonna put a net underneath me, but I'm not gonna not
secure it to the building. These things. And the people who went to college, especially the ones who
worked in entertainment, especially the ones who
sat around the most, in the most air conditioning, were just bat **** crazy
when it came to COVID, they had no... They were unable to regulate. They couldn't regulate. They couldn't understand who it affects, who it doesn't affect. They couldn't assess the
risk of mask outdoors, or shutting down beaches or something. - Arresting people surfing. - Yeah, (indistinct) paddle boarding. They weren't calibrated. They were poor educated
souls who didn't know. It's like they didn't know the difference between a lizard and an alligator, they just ran into the house screaming. - Well they're the same size
when you see them in pictures. - Right, yeah. The more we move away from the sort of raw places and the jobs
that involve your hands, and grease under your fingernails, and things like that, the more sort of bizarrely superstitious gypsy sort of weird I think with my heart. It's screwing up a lot of people. (John laughing) - (indistinct) Gypsy. - Oh, there's a lot of crazy gypsy people who are producers and directors, but they don't know how
to calibrate themselves. - One of the things that's
so funny about all of that is that, and I think this has been
found to be true more broadly, the older people I know in general weren't as scared of COVID as the under 30 people, which was even- - [Adam] Yeah. - More... It's probably just an
example of the same thing. It's like you're actually at risk, this can take you out. - Right. - And they're more fine with that, maybe they're just out of wisdom, but if does feel like it's another example of this well they grew
up in the old world. - Yeah. - Where risk was a thing
that you understood. - Yeah. And they weren't narcissists. Everyone's a narcissist now, so it's like what about me? They think it's gonna affect them. And they're also understood that people were allowed to
make their own decisions. It wasn't incumbent upon
them to tell someone to put a mask on on a hiking trail that's not their business,
you know what I mean? Your average 23 year old does feel like they're
anointed to do that, so it's kind of a narcissism mixed with a grandiosity. Like I went here and I learned this, and now you gotta listen to me. And it's all kind of a mess. - Where do you think this starts? Because it didn't start
with the cell phones and the digital stuff really. It started, it feels like it started
earlier, but what do you think? What's the root of the narcissism? Everybody gets a trophy,
is that the beginning? Where did that start? That was weird too. - I think that that's
a kind of a misnomer. It is an interesting thing
the participation trophy. I think angry old dads get it wrong, and they go every kid
gets a participation. I played Pop Warner football starting in the early 70's, and everyone got a participation trophy. And so I'll circle back to an answer, but what I'm saying is
I think we just get, we mislabel it when we
go participation trophy, everybody gets, yeah, it's called a participation trophy and you get it because you showed up, and you attended the
practices and you played, or maybe you didn't play in the games, maybe you were second string or whatever, but at the end they'd have the banquet, and they'd give the
participation trophy to everyone, but it didn't mean anything, 'cause everyone got one. And then they would give
out best defensive player, best offensive play,
best defensive lineman, the best, break it down into categories. And now you were trying to
get one of those trophies, and then the most valuable
player was obviously the cream, the creme de la creme. So that's what you wanted. So what would end up happening is I would get a participation trophy, and then I might get a
couple other trophies for best defensive player
or something like that. And the participation
trophies would just kind of, eh, go over there, and then you'd take the
best defensive player, and set it up where it could be seen. People are dumb. There's a lot of that. I mean, let's never underestimate that, but I mean it's like the
self-esteem movement. - Yeah. - We decided this was
really super important. It was basically like the food pyramid. Some idiot decided you needed
14 servings of grain everyday, and one serving of protein or something. And they got it all wrong. They got it 100% wrong. But it was like somebody
put together a food pyramid, everyone signed off on it, we went, yeah, this is
how you need to eat, and then everyone got fat. But they did it with the
self-esteem movement. They did this thing where it's like, it's kind of reverse engineering, which is like some of these kids, they don't have good self-esteem, and the way you get self-esteem
is through accomplishment. It's not bestowed upon you by someone telling you you're the best, you have to go out to do something. - Or even if you're not the best, you're just you, and you should just feel great about that. - Yeah, you should just be you. - You should just be you, right? - Yes. And I literally would like sit around and watch these cartoons
like "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy" with my kids and stuff, and they had this whole ♪ You are the coolest ♪ - And everyone's gonna know, and you don't have to try, and it's like what kind
of horrible message is you don't have to do anything, and you don't have to try, and everyone will know you're the coolest. So we decided to fix whatever
problems we're having with the self-esteem movement, and we got a bunch of self-entitled, high self-esteem, lazy losers, who eventually you become angry because you have to be disgruntled, because how long could you have, you're fed a steady
diet of you're the best, and don't let anyone ever tell you, and you're special and you're everything. Well how many years of failure can you, can you endure before you
start just looking around, and getting kind of angry at the world? I'd be pissed off too if
everyone told me I was the best. - Why am I work working at Starbucks with a master's degree if I'm the best? - Right. And it never worked. And so I think you're
seeing a lot of resentment, and then there becomes
this sort of Elon Musk, he's rich and he's white, and it's like this weird envy and resentment and stuff. When did someone being successful, or the color of their skin
have anything to do with you or create your circumstances
in any way, shape or form? It's all externalizing. So the self-esteem movement, which does predate the phone, and the digital world, and it was probably hit pretty hard, I think some idiot politician, probably out here in
Los Angeles as I recall, in somehow the mid 80's
or something was like these kids in the inner city are failing because they don't have
enough self-esteem, and I'm gonna tell them. And it just became this
thing like the food pyramid where we went yeah,
you need seven servings of whole grain every day. And it's like no you
don't, you'll give fat. Yeah, no, check the pyramid. Check the self-esteem pyramid. You need seven doses of self-esteem. I don't care if you accomplished anything, you need to feel good about you, because... It's like I don't know
who signed off on this, it was a horrible idea 30 years ago, it's a horrible idea today, but it's pretty ubiquitous. I remember interviewing
the woman for my podcast, and her name just escapes me right now, and I liked her quite a bit. And she was the mom of the doc that I think was on Netflix where some shyster guy was hacking into everyone's computers, and putting up pictures
of the girls topless or having revenge sex or whatever it is. He's like the worst scumbag
in the world, right? - Yeah. - And at some point she like looked at me and she goes "This guy had
really low self-esteem." And I said "No, no, I
have low self-esteem, "I would never do this in a... "I would never do this in a million"... He has high self-esteem, that's why... Most killers, most murders, they have high self-esteem, because you need a lot of self-esteem to take someone's life. She's doing the food pyramid. - [John] Yeah, yeah. - Every idiot. - Whatever the problem is
it starts with this case. - Oh, that guy, yeah, the reason he kicked your head into the curb and took your mountain bike is 'cause he has low self esteem. And it's like I'd say that's the act of a high self esteem individual. And they're like if we could
just give him more self esteem, give him self esteem, and it's like no, that's not the answer. - That brings me to something that I'm really curious
how you think about, and that is bullying. A lot of the things that
happen with our kids I feel like they are kind
of smart enough to see when they're sort ****, and they'll make fun of this. So I know at my son's friend's school had this slogan bully back down, and they would have the meetings, and they'd say if somebody's bullying you you tell them bully back down, and immediately bully back down was something everyone made fun of. - Sure. - Because it's a goofy, cringey phrase. What is the best thing and the worst thing about bullying? - The best thing is you might want to learn karate. (John laughing) That's the best. Well the best part of bullying is if you listen to Michael Strahan talk, he was a fat kid, and he was called a fat kid. And at some point, I think
on some Army base in Germany where he was raised or something. He just, he got tired of everyone calling him the fat kid, so he started lifting weights, and he stopped eating sugary snacks, and he transformed himself into a world class athlete
'cause he was being bullied. He was called fat, and he said "I'll show you." - Yeah. - That's the best part. And karate. (John laughing) The best part of bullying is most people, whether it's Michael Strahan or Madonna, had somebody making fun of them or telling them they couldn't do it, or saying they weren't
good enough or whatever, and they said I'll show you. And they went to work. The bad part is I'm gonna eat Fentanyl and climb into a hole
because I'm being bullied. I don't think bullying is inherently bad, I think it's kind of what you do with it. There's a kind of process
in response to bullying that could be a positive response. And then there's a very
negative response to bullying. As they say success is the best revenge. One could go I will show you people, I will move on and have a successful life, and you'll be sad you bullied me. But there's nobody in my school that was going to out bully my friend Ray, or my friend Chris, and my friend Ray and my friend Chris were the ones who were bullying me, so there would've been nobody else that could have done a
better job of bullying. But I never really looked at his bullying, it was just, we were just abusing each other. - It's a really hard, I mean I'm sort of thankful now, my son is 17, he's on the other side
of the bullying thing in a lot of ways, but I just remember I sort of bullied my, I kind of bullied him a little bit. Only child, and I've always like kind of taunted him and poked and prodded at
him a little bit like. - Your son? - Yeah. - Yeah, I've done some
of that with my son too. - I'm not even sure why actually. It wasn't like a conscious I'm gonna toughen you up necessarily, but it kind of was. What do you think's underneath that? 'Cause I think men and dads
sort of do this naturally, and it's not some strategy, it's just like you wanna do it, you wanna poke, you wanna roughhouse. It's like a, it's a thing that's like this drive. - No, it's a kind of a
bust chops kind of thing. My son does it right back
to me all day every day. It's a little instinctive. I don't know, it's like
why do young big horn sheep smash their- - Right. - Horns into one another? I don't know, it's kind of what we do. I don't know that we need to- - Valorize it. - I don't know that we need to get that granular with everything, like why, why, why? It's like, I don't know,
guys kind of bus chops, women don't do it as much, and for them it's more psychological, for guys it's more physical. Guys do a little more
sort of put down humor. My son and his friends, they like roast jokes and stuff like that. - Yeah. - That's all time and
memorium kind of stuff. And it just kind of is. And I don't, I've always
pushed back on that. When people go well the
girls play with the dollies and the boys play with the guns, but if you gave the little boy a dolly and the little girl a gun... It's like shut up. - He's gonna pull the leg off the doll, - [Adam] Why the girls- - Turn it into a gun, - A gun, right, or smack someone over the head with it, and then they go "How
come men are the ones "who build the bridges, "and the women are the school teachers?" I don't know, 'cause it is. That's enough for me. I don't need to socially
deconstruct every facet of our society. And you can tell me about
some tribe in New Guinea where the guys are all gay, and the women do the hunting or whatever, and I'm like "Yeah, okay," but that's not what we do. - So I feel like a lot of what we're just talking about feeds right into this
cancel culture ethos, especially when it comes to men. What's your relationship with that? I mean from, have you found yourself to be immune to cancel culture? I mean you talk a lot about your comedian, how have you navigated
these past couple years? You're still standing. How do you do it? - It would be hard to say that I was not affected career-wise to some degree by whichever way the winds
are blowing currently and previously to now, so you can't really document it, because who knows. Well maybe they wanted you
to do this part in this show, but the phone never rang, and maybe that was because of this. - [John] Yeah. - But it's not really documentable. You just can't definitively say this is why this, and that is why that, 'cause it's kind of invisible. Hollywood is kind of a business where we don't really need anybody. There's always somebody
else who can do whatever. James Woods is a great actor, he's been in a million movies, and then at some point he
got pretty conservative and he started sounding off about it, and now James Woods doesn't work. James Woods is a fine actor, but we don't need him,
you know what I mean? That's just kind of how Hollywood works. Hollywood works like you're throwing a party and you're inviting all your friends, and then you're like "Do we need Craig?" And it's like "Well I used to like Craig." "Yeah, but do we need him for this party?" "Can we have a party without him?" And you go "No." "We'll bring our new friend Vince, "he can come instead." And you go "Yeah, okay." And then just kind of swap him out. And before you know it Craig's
not coming to the party. That's kind of how Hollywood works. And they definitely are for cancellation, and they're for essentially McCarthyism, even though they complain
about McCarthyism constantly. They're the biggest
practitioners of McCarthyism in real time, which they would probably resent, but it just happens to be accurate. And so for me, I have opinions, and I've always shared those opinions, and I'm pretty accurate in
terms of my prognosticating, and here's where we're going and here's what's happening, or here's what I believe, or this is stupid, or I'm not going along with that, and that was fine for
a long period of time, and then things started shifting, and they started kind
of demanding allegiance and compliance. Now here's what we're talking about, and here's what we know. And I was like I disagree with that, and I don't believe it to be true, and I believe what I'm saying is true. And they started going well these are, this is kind of the new world order if you wanna come get
invited to the parties, and get the jobs and stuff like that. And I just went "Well, I can't really "go against whatever it
is I know to be true." I mean, it's like I
interviewed Gavin Newsom on my podcast some years ago, and he was telling me
that the homeless issue was the biggest issue ever for him. That was a big, he was like the number
one homeless issue guy. That's about nine years ago now. - Yeah. It worked out great so far. - It worked out great. And I told him "Well the biggest
problem with homelessness, "I said it's junkies and
people with mental situations. "It's either mental problems "or people that are on drugs or both." And then he proceeded to explain to me the real picture of homelessness, and I'll quote him here was a mother of three whose husband left who had a full-time job, but she was only getting
paid minimum wage. And then I then told him that is not the picture of homelessness, the picture of homelessness is junkies who are out of their mind. (John laughing) That's all we got. Now, he never came back on the show, but the point is this. As an example, I could
have agreed with him, except for I knew he was 100% wrong, and I could have worked out a situation where me and Gavin Newsom became pretty good friends by me telling him something
that I knew was patently false. But then why be a comedian? And who are you? And then what do you stand for? And I don't even know what you stand for. It's like I said a bunch
of stuff around COVID, it got a lot of people very angry. It became- - You and Drew for sure. - You me and Dr. Drew, for sure. Got us pushed further out from whatever the Hollywood nucleus was. Okay, I could, I wrote a tweet over two years ago, and it said, I'll paraphrase, but basically COVID kills old people and it kills sick people, and the rest of you **** got played. I sent that tweet out, got a lot of people real
super angry, really angry, and like Newsweek and stuff like that. And Judd Apatow, who's a friend, and is a really good dude, he called me, and he said "You gotta
take that tweet down "'cause people are pissed." (John laughing) And I was like "Can't do it." It's up today, it's been up for two years, whatever, however many months. I never touch it. I never took it down, I would never take it down. I would say I'm wrong
if I was wrong about it, but that's what happened. Every 22-year-old dude who doesn't have a preexisting
condition got played. - Right. - So that's my opinion. I think- - My son was in school
in the fall of 2020, so, but I'm in Texas. - Right. So I'm in LA, and they closed every school, and it hurt the kids, and I said it would hurt the kids. And then the LA Unified School District started clapping at me, and I was like "You guys are idiots, "you're hurting kids, you're cowards, "go back to work, stop being a coward." You're either lying or you're cowards, or whatever. Go get to work. The guys at the Trader Joe's are working, go to school, go teach your kids. And they started coming after me, and I was like "look, a,
what I'm saying is accurate, "and then b, you're hurting kids. "And then c, everyone is
telling me to shut up." They wanna know what was wrong with me. I was like "Listen, that's just how I am." And people are like "Don't talk about this, "and don't talk about that." And I'm like "I'll talk
about anything I want "as long as it's accurate." I don't want to dispense
false information, but just because you think it's false doesn't mean it's false. And then also I vetted all this. Now if it takes you two years to come around on who's dying
from COVID, that's on you. I would do a lot of interviews, and people would be like "We didn't know anything back then. "We didn't..." 'Cause I'd always make fun of everyone like you shut the beaches,
you shut the schools, you shut the playgrounds. "We didn't know." I said two things. "How come I knew," number one? Number two "If you didn't know, "how about you shut the **** up?" If you don't know. There's stuff I don't know about, I don't talk about it. - That's a good point. - If you know now, don't make policy if you don't know. So I got a lot of crap, and like kind of pushed for further out from wherever that was. - Although you're saying
you were pushed out further out from say
Hollywood or entertainment, but I do feel like this has
gone way beyond that, right? It's like the people
coming at you on Twitter, they're all over the place. And the stuff that's
happening when you went around on college campuses with "No Safe Spaces," that's students from all
walks of life, more or less, that are getting triggered
by you being yourself. I think there's something
really interesting about the role of comedians in
this moment we're in, right? You're the last hope, and like the canary in the coal mine for where the society heads, I feel like. How do you think about that? Because it's weird. You're like, I'm just a guy, I don't take me seriously
necessarily, but... - Well I believe everything I say, and I believe everything I joke about too. So when comedians go "Oh,
that was just a joke," they meant it, they mean it, they always mean it. You should always be offended, or not offended, but don't let them go "I
was just making a joke." They meant it. - So the John Stewart
shtick on Daily show, I'm just a court jester that's all sort of a head favor? - Whether it's him or Dave Chappelle or me or whomever, we mean it. I'm not talking about Larry the Cable Guy, but most comedians, you'll
know what they're thinking by what they're saying. And they kind of mean it. And guy's on the right
think how they think, the guys on the left think how they think. And the thing about comedians is the reason the left kind of goes berserk about Dave Chappelle is because the left has their kind of taste makers. They have their Obamas and LeBron James, and whoever the taste makers are. And they get to kind of, set
the tone for society, you know? - Yeah. - And so when a guy like Dave Chappelle starts saying stuff that's not in lockstep with their cultural movement
they go crazy, right? - Yeah. - That's why they go crazy on Chappelle. It's not really him making a trans joke, it's like hey buddy, you're one of us. We're on the... You tell me the nuanced differences between what LeBron James thinks and Oprah thinks, and Bill Gates thinks, I mean climate, there's
one of 'em that they have, they're on lockstep. How would they possibly be lockstep on every facet of COVID, something we knew nothing, a novel virus that nobody
knew anything, right? How'd you guys all get on the same page? How did all of Hollywood get on the same page, and about an answer, we didn't know anything at the time. Well how'd everyone get on the same page? Well they don't wanna be penalized. And so- - There's this really
embarrassing in retrospect, video, which is kind of funnily
executed with Paul Rudd. It's like I'm a certified young person, and my bro, Andrew Cuomo's here to tell you about how
you need to wear a mask. - [Adam] Right. - And you watch it now, and it's all just- - It's all cringe worthy. And it's 10 minutes old. - It's just awful. - I know. I always retweet that stuff, but everyone says to me
"Leave these people alone." And I go "Are you kidding? "No way. "This must be documented, "and they must be served up their crow. "They have to." And so comedians are people that need to be kind of controlled, because they're out making narratives, and pushing things. And you could remember, I remember when like John Stewart went on Stephen Colbert's show, and he went "Well, I think
the virus came from the lamb." Colbert's face was like
"John, no, that's not our"... - Yeah, he said something like, what are you, senator or something? I forget (indistinct). - Right, but really what he was saying is you gotta read the playbook, we got a script here, you just went off script. And it's dangerous for them, for people to go off script. And comedians traditionally
would go off script. They do it less and less now because they'd like to remain under the tent of Hollywood, but some of the ones that
have enough FU money, Chappelle or Joe Rogan
or whatever, those guys, those are the guys who don't care. - I feel like comedy exists on the opposite side or as an antidote to
fear in a lot of ways. And it seems like fear is
the tool in the toolbox that is constantly getting used, whether it's trying to make our kids scared outta their minds that they're gonna be extinct in 12 years because of climate change, which is all kind of baloney, or COVID was the ultimate oh, we can... The fear button's so easy to hit, I don't even have to have
my eyes open to push it. - Yeah. I was calling it crate training. I was like... (John laughing) But I really did mean it. People go "What are you
talking about, Adam?" But I end up being right
on everything all the time. And I've been saying it
for 20 plus years now, so I'm sticking with what I think. It struck me that this
never was an issue for kids, COVID wasn't. Statistically it's just not a thing, so why the emphasis on the kids? Well, in order to scare the moms you gotta get the kids, and then the moms will kind of control what's going on inside the house. So you scare the moms by using
the kids to scare the moms, and then you have sort of compliance. But I also said I just
labeled it crate training, which is you can't crate
train a middle-aged dog, but the kids, you can crate
train 'em, get 'em young, like a puppy. - Yeah. - You gotta get that
puppy into that crate. - Break 'em, break 'em. - You can break 'em and you can train 'em. You can't do it with
middle-aged, full grown dogs. And also, the thing that
was funny about the crate is the crate is an illusion of safety, but it's not safety. If the house catches on fire, the dog will go into the crate and feel like it's safe, but it's just in a house that's on fire. - Crate training is an
incredibly good metaphor. - I really meant it. I still mean it. - How- - Because we are gonna need
these kids for other things. I mean COVID will come and go, but there's gonna be a lot of asks, and we need compliant citizens. - So are you a pessimist or an optimist? - My feeling is I'm not really
here to shape youth anymore, I'm here to tell you what I know and how it works. I'm just the personal trainer
that goes diet and exercise, and you wanna tell me
about some Weight Watchers fudge-based something, and I'm just going diet and exercise, that's what I'm telling you. And then you go "Well, I got a new workout "from a barker lounger." And I'm just like "All right,
well, I'll go on record, "I said, diet and exercise, "that's how you lose weight." And now go off and do what you want, but I shall state it. And I mean that's kind of
the way I felt about COVID. I just went here's what's happening, here's my opinion, here's how it goes, and you can call me an asshole, or you can disagree or
you can do whatever it is, but I'm then gonna just sort
of be over here living my life. And if you'd like to join me, great, and if not that'll be your choice. - How do you think about, you talked a little bit about the country, about what it means to be an American, how do you think about
where the country heads? There's a lot of reasons to be worried. Everything we've talked about
is reason to be worried. If we've got a whole generation
that's crate trained, what comes next from there as far as who's gonna use the trained
puppies for what is scary. Are you scared, do you think there's a path? Can enough comedians (John laughing) help these kids see the matrix and get out of the cage? What do you think? - I think it's going to be another phrase that I've sort of coined, which is like safe spaces and octagons. And we're no longer going
to live in the middle where everyone used to live. People are gonna become more scared and go deeper into a safe space, and others are gonna long more for freedom and combat and excitement and danger, they're gonna go toward the octagon. So California's sort
of become a safe space, and it will continue to go down that road, and Florida will become an octagon. - Yeah. Certainly Texas is an octagon. - And Texas. So people who want freedom and wanna drive a truck, and don't want to be
forced into an electric car by 2035 or whatever the mandates, or whatever they're talking about, they'll just start going, they'll start congregating
in those places. - In the octagons. - Yeah, toward the octagon. But for a lot of people that might not be where they wanna go. But I don't wanna live in the safe space, so I would like to go to the octagon. And I think, one thing I've
noticed in California right now is half the people are
driving an electric car, Prius or a Volt or Bolt or
whatever, leaf, whatever, Tesla. So they started kind of pushing people, hey, you get incentives, and do your part, help ecology, which we used to call it, and help the environment,
blah, blah, blah. - Help the electric get in California. - Right. So we started trying to nudge people toward electric vehicles, and there's lots of ordinances and things like that. But you look around I
see more Dodge trucks with big hemis in 'em, and more Ford Raptors. I'll put it to you this way. Ford does a super trophy truck that's street legal, it's called a Raptor. - Yep, yep. It's like over a 100K
or something, isn't it? It's a- - Yeah, it's a big gas guzzling thing. Dodge came out with a
competitor to the Raptor, which is like the veloci,
what's the veloci? The Raptor and the other
one's a T-rex or whatever. These are cartoon vehicles
that nobody needs, with 36 inch tires and 12
inches of suspension travel, and 700 horsepower blown V8. I was like nobody needs this. I'll bet you there are more raptors and dodge pickup trucks in California than any other state in the union. - Oh wow, okay. I mean I'm in Texas so
I see a lot of them. - [Adam] You see a lot of people- - And I drive a V8. I drive a land cruiser,
a used land cruiser. - Texas is a good example, but I still see these
massive trucks everywhere. And you'll never see
more electric vehicles and big trucks sorta living
right next to each other, which is essentially the
safe space in the octagon. So you try to tell people
get an electric car, and they go "I'm getting a Ford Raptor." Now there was a time
when everyone just drove a Honda Accord or a Camry,
that's all there was. You just drive around California, got a Camry and a Accord, maybe got a BMW five series. Now it's all mega trucks and Teslas, which is basically saying this is how humans work. You try to force them
into an electric car, and a large percentage
will get an electric car, but there'll be another percentage who's getting the Dodge
with the Hemi in it. And that's what Florida and
California are gonna be. People are just gonna go separating. - I ask this of every one of our guests, because we're called Dad Saves America 'cause I think men and and dads have, have a role to play in maybe, either preparing our kids for the octagon or being people who can maybe
pull us back to the center, but definitely not be in the safe space. You've sort of said this already, but how do you think about your
role in the American story? Like as an American? - I think you're supposed
to work real hard, and I think you're kind of
supposed to be an example. I'm much more interested in
being an example to my kids than I am in telling
them do this or do that. I wanna just kind of live a life that is kind of about dignity or hard work and character, you know? And I don't do much trying to graft on wisdom to my kids, but I do do a lot of I'm going to work, and I have to work and I
have to take care of things, and I have to provide for
you guys and stuff like that. I kind of believe there's
just way too much talk, and way too much talk about feelings, and in my heart I know
and all this nonsense we always talk about. When you talk to people who are older, and they talk about their fathers, they talk about their mom, and they'll go like "Oh,
she was really nice, "and she was loving and she loved us." Or "Hopefully you'll get some story "about good lasagna or something." With the dads you get a lot of "My dad worked really hard, "he was a hard worker," the ones that were proud of him. And they forgive a lot. Like my dad missed a lot of games, and missed this, he traveled a lot, but he was a hard worker. And if you said to him "Aren't
you kind of off at your dad "that he wasn't there for
the little league games?" "No, my dad worked hard,
he had to provide." Dads are kind of more
mythology in the sense versus hands on day in and day out. Nobody goes my dad was my best friend, he called me sport, I loved him. It's more about my dad didn't
take any crap from anybody mixed with my dad worked really hard. There was a lot of that. So I think dads would
be better suited to go what are my kids seeing? What am I showing them? What are they gonna say when they're 45, and you're talking about,
oh my old man whatever, fill in the blank. Because they don't really
go my dad was nice. They never tell those stories. They just talk about
him being an ex-marine, he was kind of a badass or whatever. And they'll always go "He
was really hard on me, "but I needed it. "He loved me." They do a lot of that. So I think approach being a dad a little more from the example side, and a little less from the let me just endlessly explain to you stuff that I'm never gonna do. - [John] Be a man of action. - Yeah. - Adam, thanks for being
on Dad Saves America. - Yeah, my pleasure. - I hope you enjoyed this
conversation with Adam Carolla. We'll put a link to his book down below. You know, my biggest takeaway
from chatting with Adam is that we all need to lighten up. Having a sense of humor, and not taking yourself
or your fears so seriously is probably one of the
best ways to overcome them. The funny thing about comedy is that it usually comes
from a place of discomfort, and it gives us a way to rethink what makes us so uncomfortable. That's a really important skill that all of us should
practice more these days. If you enjoyed this video, please share it with
your friends and family, and be sure to like, subscribe and hit that notification bell. At Dad Saves America, we believe that dads are heroes that play an essential role in overcoming the challenges
we all face together. And now we leave you with a
dad doing something awesome. - [Dad] Griff. (baby laughing)
