Road to Reality | Defying the Odds with David Wright

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[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Hey everybody, welcome back to Road to Reality.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Today we are talking to someone that I think I rooted harder for playing Survivor maybe than anyone else.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_05]: David Wright, you know him from Millennials vs Gen X and Edge of Extinction.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_05]: He's here with us today to talk about how Survivor really had a life-changing effect

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_05]: on his perception of himself, of his abilities,

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_05]: of his relationship and management, of his anxiety.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_05]: We cover topics ranging from David's childhood on the East Coast

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_05]: all the way to becoming a writer on hit shows like Malcolm in the Middle and Family Guy in Hollywood.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_05]: We kick off here sort of in the middle of our conversation catching up

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_05]: after we were both in Las Vegas this past April for a fellow Survivor's wedding.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_05]: I present to you...

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Ah, we got off topic while we were doing the thing where we check in on people

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_05]: and they have descriptions of themselves.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_05]: So I wrote these three words of how I would describe David Wright

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_05]: since he didn't get to choose his own because we talked right over it

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_05]: which is a sign of how much we were just getting on and having a great time having a conversation.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_05]: So I'm excited for you to join us as we talk to the relatable, kind and magnetic David Wright.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_05]: I tracked you down at Adam Klein's wedding this spring and I'm like,

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh yeah, by the way I'm doing this podcast and you're like,

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_05]: oh yeah I know about it which was so flattering to me by the way.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I told my husband, I was like, I can't believe he knew about Road to Reality.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_03]: No, of course.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_05]: I was flattered by that.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_05]: And then I said, well would you do it?

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And you're like, you're not somebody who's like, hell yeah, I'm gonna do it.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_05]: There's a little hesitation. What's that all about?

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I really don't like talking about myself. It makes me so uncomfortable.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And I get nervous. In fact, like, even though this is a recording, it feels live and I absolutely hate anything live.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I hate when I have an awareness that I'm being recorded because it just gets in my head.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like I play guitar just as a hobby but anytime I go to record it, I just make so many mistakes.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just get in my head about it.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was my hesitation.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_02]: That's why this isn't a thing anymore but with Survivor, the live reunion show for me was the absolute worst part of the entire experience.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I do not want to be on live television and especially when you know that you've only got this little 30 second block.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not like a perfectionist. I'm a perfectionist who never makes anything perfect.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a perfect window for me to completely fail and whiff.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I hated that aspect but yeah, I thought this would also be fun. I wanted to challenge myself so here I am.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, look, here you are. I've been challenging yourself through the lens of Survivor since we started when we knew you.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_05]: A little bit of context around, I had applied, didn't hear anything for a year, applied the second time and your season was airing as I was first starting to get calls and talking to my casting director and stuff.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_05]: So like you are a millennial Gen X is like what was on TV when I was realizing that I might have a shot at this.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_05]: So it's so salient in my memory. It was the first time I was watching the show where I was like, oh my gosh, I had always dreamed what if it was me but this was like, oh my gosh, this might actually be me.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And so I think that's why it's the season I remember the most maybe in a sense of or I felt like I really wanted to get to know the people as human beings the most once I realized I had a shot.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_05]: So just so you know, that's the lens in which I was watching your first time on the show.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That's really cool.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it really changed things in the perception.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Is there a season that you remember watching like while you started to get into casting or it doesn't? It's not on a scale like that.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It was Co-Rong I believe is what was airing.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, well like going back a little bit actually first I came to Survivor very late.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Not to take this immediately to a dark place but so the show premiered, Survivor premiered as a series like the week my best friend and roommate died.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So I that's why I missed it.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So it took me like 10 years until I found it.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I was living with a now writing partner and I was walking through the family room and he was watching Survivor was Heroes vs. Villains as was airing.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, this is what Survivor is and I sat down and I see like Rupert covered in mud.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, this is actually kind of interesting.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So I ordered the season one on DVD.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh yeah, maybe you get those DVDs delivered.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I loved it.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I watched the whole thing in like two days and then just started watching it as it would air and I got all the other DVDs.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And then when I got to South Pacific with John Cochran, I was like I saw myself for like the first time.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought well he can do it.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Not that he had won that season but I'm like if he can do it, I can do it.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I started to get the bug and then fast forward to I got to participate in this like contest to play chess against Magnus Carlsen.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_02]: There's like I think 18 of us and it was a global competition.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_02]: They took 100 people from the entire world and then pulled out like 18 names and I was one of them.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And I did that just by like earning a bunch of points on Magnus Carlsen app.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_02]: If I said or not, he was the number one chess player in the world.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I know. I do not even know how to play chess but I have even heard his name.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's good.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_02]: He's the highest rated ever.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: He's amazing.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I was just so inspired.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not a very good chess player but I was so inspired in this opportunity to play chess against him.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought that would be like the coolest, most fun experience.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So I made it happen and after making that happen, I thought well the odds of that happening are like more difficult than the odds of getting on Survivor.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So if I can make that happen, I got to make Survivor happen.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So I paid for like Skype calls with contestants to figure out like what do I do?

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: What am I doing wrong because I had a plan before and heard nothing.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, that led me down the path.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, once I got the call from casting, it was co-wrong.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_02]: The funny thing is the advice I got and it's so obvious and honestly, it's the advice that Jeff gives.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Because before I talked to the people that know, I really wasn't being myself in my casting videos.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It was actually one casting video that I wasn't being myself.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So I did an open casting call.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Wasn't being myself. I did a video. Wasn't being myself.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Talk to people who know better. Be yourself.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I think as Rob puts it, be a triple espresso version of yourself.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, that's what I did. And it was more genuine.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So I needed the coaching. I needed somebody to say stop trying to put on these airs of putting your not just E, you are.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, and then I got a call.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, right. I know.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Isn't it the most annoying thing of like getting the advice to be yourself because you're like, what does that even mean?

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_05]: But then once you do it, then it just makes the most sense because you feel that it,

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_05]: or at least for me, I should only speak for myself.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Like when I think I just saw like when spilled on a YouTube video or something like an old one where she had said,

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_05]: we just really want you to be yourself. Like don't plan it or something.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And I just sat down, pressed record and talked somebody like I was going to talk somebody's ear off as if I had had.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes. A triple espresso, maybe a vodka martini.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I went with.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_05]: So but when you drop into that space and you do show up authentically, like and you can press record it, you feel it.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_05]: I can remember my friend who's coming on up on 47.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't go through her audition tapes or whatever, but she texted me one day and was like, I felt at that time like I felt I was just myself.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And so that's what you're looking for everybody.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_05]: You will know when it's the video to send in.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_05]: That's what I always say. But alas, Korong was a great season.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_05]: It was all in that time that we you and I were sort of like in the same era of Survivor, we can say.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_05]: So you and I have crossed paths a little bit.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_05]: You are still coming to some of the maybe you still are, but you came to some of the things in L.A.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_05]: when I was there, like in between airing and showing.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_05]: And so we've been able to meet a few times and you've always been so kind and gracious,

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_05]: especially when I was in like the torment of the time between filming and airing.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember you and Zeke being just incredibly supportive and holding space for me at that time.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_05]: And I really appreciate that. Yeah, that was in Big Bear.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, in Tahoe is Big Bear.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Yeah. OK. I don't know where Big Bear is.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: No, yeah. Yeah. We're running. We were running a Spartan.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_02]: That feels for her. I mean, I guess it kind of was kind of what I mean.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_05]: It's now that was 20 somewhere in like 2017, I think.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. And you were like the veteran.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_05]: You had been there. You knew what was going on.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_05]: And then here here I was showing up like, help me.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what's going to happen here. So yeah, I know it is funny.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like kind of living vicariously through you.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, again, like what that was like that had space because I remember that very well.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember being just so anxious about like what's going to get shown.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Because when you're doing it out there, there are some things that happen.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You're like, oh, this is definitely going to make the episode in a good or bad way.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Although some things would happen and I was always surprised that

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_02]: sometimes they didn't make it there for whatever reason.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no, it's such an anxious experience.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, not more, but then leading up to the library union like, oh, no, please.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_05]: It was a lot that is it's and I guess I kind of had not thought about it that way.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_05]: But that is the most pressure I felt in the whole time as well is when they were like prepping me

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_05]: because I was going to get a question on the live TV.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was just trying to block out the fact that it was going to be like on live television.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_05]: It's still in my mind. It wasn't live television, but I guess it was.

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, I guess it was. It really blocked that out.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_02]: The other aspect to about the live reunion show is that I you know,

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_02]: you're just celebrating your season, you're answering these questions.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And then at the end, they show the trailer for the next season.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And then you just instantly feel like a husband like inside the same hour and a half or whatever.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really a unique experience.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I wish that while we're talking about how torturous it was in some ways,

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_05]: it was really fun. And I do feel I wish they would bring them back for the new.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I don't think 47 at least is going to have one.

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_05]: So from what I've heard, but I wish that people would have that.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_05]: We got to experience a lot during the full 39 days you, you know,

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_05]: right, yeah, twice.

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_05]: So I do want to go back to I don't know where you would want to start in your.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know. Where did you grow up? Where were you born?

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Where did you grow up? I grew up in outside Philadelphia, suburban Philadelphia

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_02]: and Brookhaven, Pennsylvania and media.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Pennsylvania, those are sort of my kind of two dual hometowns.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_02]: My parents got divorced when I was eight.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: So I had like two houses that I would I used to be out every weekend.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I would move into the other house and then pack up my things the following weekend.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was really chaotic.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And then eventually became every two weeks.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, yeah, I grew up there.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm from Philadelphia, watched a ton of TV.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I was terrible at sports.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I had friends, but like I just I always felt like kind of behind my peers.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I was like they seem to know how to live life much better than I did at the same age.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was so naive and confused all the time.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember in elementary school, second grade, there was an announcement on the loudspeaker

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: in the morning that all Brownies had to report to this room at the end of the school day.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't know what a Brownie was, but the voice was so authoritative.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, I think I'm probably a Brownie.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm supposed to go to this room.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And so at the end of the day, I walk into the room.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_02]: There's all these little girls in brown uniforms and berets.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, OK, I don't I don't think I'm a Brownie.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, wait, I guess that wasn't a call for me.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah. And it's funny, too, because when I went out the place where I was the second time,

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Don Ross asked what your most one of your most embarrassing experiences was.

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I said I thought I was a Girl Scout.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought it would be too confusing to say Brownie.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_02]: But in hindsight saying I thought I was a Girl Scout is probably way more confusing.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah, I get I get the desire for clarity there.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_05]: But then like, oh, wait, what? You thought you were a Girl Scout?

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Oops. I see.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_05]: I see the confusion there.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_05]: So you feel like that is.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Like that's your memory of being a kid is like it felt like other people knew what was going on and you didn't.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Was it? Yeah.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_05]: What was your like nuclear family said your parents were divorced?

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Did you have siblings? Were you young at what in what age order are you and your siblings?

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm there's two of us. My brother's always eight years older, so I'm clearly an accident.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And I actually confirmed my dad's like, yeah, I didn't know I was having you.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But but yeah, we were my brother.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: They're actually very close despite the age gap.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was just the four of us and growing up in this is this townhouse.

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's funny, like my childhood memories of that neighborhood, especially is that it was like so large and huge.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And there was this alleyway where I would spend most of my time with my friends playing like riding bikes and whatever.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And I've been back to that neighborhood since as an adult.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's insane just how like tiny it is.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just so small and in memory, it's still huge and larger than life.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But when you're actually standing there as an adult, it's like it's almost like a model or something.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's so oh my gosh. I just had that experience.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_05]: I think for the first time in my life, I went to my husband's living around here for the first time and he grew up in Atlanta and Spain all over the world, you know, traveling all the time.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_05]: And he really wanted to go to the county fair.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And so we went to the county fair. I took him and I was like, oh my gosh, it's so big.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_05]: It's going to be so big. There's all these things.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And we got there. We walked in and like you can see all the way from one end of the fair to the other.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, you can kind of see the whole thing where you're standing when you walk in.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was like, wait a second. I thought my parents couldn't.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_05]: I thought I got to run off on my own in the big old fair.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, my parents could see me the whole time.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. Yeah. And you think you're just like going miles and miles out.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. I mean, as a kid, there's a place in Philadelphia called the Franklin Institute.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like the science museum and they have this gigantic human heart that as a kid you can like travel through and go through.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, in my memory, it's so huge.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And you go back there and it's like, I could not fit into it today.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It wouldn't be possible.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_02]: But it seems so funny how memory and childhood.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, the sizing sorts its way out differently.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_05]: What was that like to ascribe that?

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm picturing myself like walking into Survivor for me.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_05]: That was almost the opposite experience for like what I had seen on TV.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_05]: It looked really big, those challenges and stuff.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And it looks grand and huge and grandeur and all the art and all that stuff.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_05]: And then I got there and then it was even bigger than I expected.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_05]: And the challenges and the beauty of it all was even bigger than I thought.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Was that your experience?

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you're really taking me back right now because the first few days feel like this morning.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it was so intense that I can remember it all.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember like we were recording like the helicopter and then the marooning.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: We were doing all the recording for that was probably like two hours.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember, yeah, it's like, OK, we're going to go maroon now and Jeff's going to be there waiting for you.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, OK, yeah, this is Survivor.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we beach and then you just see the fourth wall of like production people.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, oh, God. And then I started to get really anxious.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the first challenge started and I just I had was starting to have a panic attack.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And as I'm starting to have a panic attack, Jeff does his 39 days, 20 people, which actually did not air that way.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_02]: He then recorded it again, like on top of a mountain or something.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the version they use.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But I remember as I'm having this panic attack and I'm hearing his voice, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm inside this show and I'm freaking out.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's only we're only like 10 minutes into it.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You know? But yeah, it seemed so massive and just this really otherworldly experience is really nothing else to compare to.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_05]: How did you I can feel like I can almost feel my heart rate increasing now thinking about those first few minutes myself also on the beat.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_05]: It is for me, maybe I didn't make it far enough in the game.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_05]: But for me, it was the most intense time of the entire experience.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Those first few minutes like getting on the like my I literally thought my heart like I was like, am I bleeding out of my ears?

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Like it was so hot and the heart was going like so fast.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_05]: God, I thank God I didn't have to run a challenge.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Did you have to do a challenge right there during the marooning?

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it was like and I raced up this like kind of small hill to get some like supplies and stuff.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And I and I think, oh, that's right.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_04]: You guys had to go get stuff, picks them up.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah. And like and like and like I think Will or Adam or somebody pushed me to the ground.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, they can do that.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_05]: I think that makes the air right that they knocked you over me.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Probably did. Yeah, I haven't seen the season in forever.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't even remember like what's my memory and what actually made the air anymore.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_05]: But but yeah, I'm talking to yourself during those moments like what were you doing to like because watching we I literally just rewatched it

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_05]: because of seeing you at the wedding and all of Adam and everybody and Andrea and my husband hadn't seen your season.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_05]: So he was like, oh, we have to go and watch all these people, which was it was a very fun rewatch.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, damn, this season was so good.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_05]: No wonder I was in love with Survivor in those moments.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_05]: But what are you do because you can't I mean, of course, there's like the the shtick maybe and very real, but also the edit of the anxious guy.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_05]: But how are you? You're still keeping it together.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Like what are you doing to self talk in those moments to not just curl up in a ball, which is what I felt like doing.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, I did lose my mind those first couple days.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So I wasn't really doing anything to prevent that.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I yeah, because I mean, the problem is I I I binged all the seasons again before I played like leading up to it.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I had like the pace of the show in my head rather than the pace of the actual game and the experience out there.

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So I just had like my foot on the gas and I was just coming in like I feel like I could feel my neurons like bumping into each other.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I was just thinking so fast and too much.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And and I just wasn't calm.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, like I was making I thought everybody wanted to vote me out.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought everybody hated me. I felt I felt weak and all these things.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Some of them were probably true. And and then like the cyclone came and they evacuated us.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And thank God, you know, because that's what like gave me a chance to just calm down and like collect myself.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, OK, get it together.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember actually when we were being evacuated, though, I did this one thing because I still have a giant fear of death.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I think about it every day still.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, I manage it better than I did before.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So I would definitely help. But it's still on my mind constantly.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember when they're loading us onto the boats to evacuate us during the cyclone.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought this is this boat like we're about to go out to sea.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't see any other islands out there. I'm like, this boat is going to capsize.

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like it was like windy and rainy and like I'm going to die because I'm getting on a boat to go die in a cyclone.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Great. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And the irony in dying on a show called Survivor, you know, like, no, not me.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Were were the panic attacks things that have happened?

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, can you remember when you were you talked about being young in second grade going to the Brownie meeting?

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Were you having anxiety and panic attacks at that young age or do that develop later in life?

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I definitely had anxiety. But the my first panic attack wasn't until literally 24 years ago.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It was it was shortly after my my friend died.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_02]: That definitely was like this pivotal moment in my life.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, obviously resonated, I'm sure, with my fear of death because that's that's been there since I was a kid.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, like I it felt like like I was like leaving my body, like my mind was leaving my body and my heart was racing.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And and I've had I've had countless panic attacks, but not all of them have been like that nuclear level.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. I had one I was I was working as a writer's assistant at Malcolm in the Middle and we were working really long hours and I wasn't getting any sleep.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And I had just turned 29.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I it's stupid to say that I felt old at 29, but I did not not in like a week or decrepit, but I just felt like, oh, God, 29 years old.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Like my life's almost over. And and so I and I had this ice blended mocha and all those things, all that caffeine.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I my heart started racing.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought I was having a heart attack. And I had my my coworker, he drove me to the emergency room in Burbank and I called my parents to say goodbye.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And and they get in there and they hooked me up to an EKG and like, oh, your T waves are flat.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, my God, my T waves are flat. I don't even know what a T wave is.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm already dead. My T waves are fine.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. How many minutes do I have? And then the doctor, I finally talked to him.

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I'm like, what's going on with me? What is like, I'm like, my T waves are flat.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_02]: What do I do? He's like, you just eat bananas. You're fine.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Eat some bananas. Have something other than iced coffee and no sleep in a bag of chips and start to manage this stuff a little better.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. Yeah. And you know, I was obviously the you know, the for me anyway, the emotional roller coaster, the casting process.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Like once you get that first call for me, it's all I could think about.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, for me, I think anybody I mean, I have yet to meet a person who wasn't mostly consumed during that time.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, exactly. And so I was I was excited, but I was of course also anxious.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, I mean, I did some crazy stuff like I bought it like a Jeff Probst Andy and basically like made my living room, the survivor casting office just to sort of like immerse myself into like what that would be like.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I printed up a photo of Lynn Spilman. I put it on the wall. So and I would like walk in the living room like, oh, this is me walking in the audition just to try to like recreate like what I expected that experience to be.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_05]: And actually, it ended up being pretty similar. Yeah, they are just kind of staring. They are waiting in a living room. Right.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_05]: And then you just in a fake room. I don't know if it was in the same.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_05]: I imagine our experience was very similar since we went through casting so close together.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_05]: But at least for me, when I met Jeff and all that, they were literally sitting in like a living room type thing on the CBS lot. And yeah, you did CBS lot. Mine was in the hotel.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah. Oh, yeah. No, we went to the lot to meet Jeff and Matt and whoever else was there at the time. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I know. I remember like meeting Lynn. She was very like cold intentionally. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, oh, I just got to I got to make it past Lynn. If I can make it past Lynn, I can I can do this.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, I felt I was bombing in the audition and then and then she was like flipping through this giant thick three ring binder.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was just like, is that all about me? And and then my casting associate was like, it should be.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And and then and Lynn like cracked like a little smirk. I'm like, OK, that's something I got a little something.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But then they didn't have me check into the hotel because I live locally. Wait, was the binder all about you? I missed I missed the point.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, it wasn't. It wasn't. But but but in my head, it was like, I'm like, wait, wait, did they have a binder about me?

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, she was she was flipping through it a lot like she was going page after page.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So there were definitely many pages that were about me. But yeah.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I didn't check into the hotel. They didn't ask me to. And I thought I bombed it other than that one moment.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And and yeah, just the just the anxiety, the emotional roller coaster casting experience, because I think I got the call in October.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that finals casting for me was end of February, beginning of February.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And and then, yeah, we left next month in March.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that was all pretty much the same timing for me.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_05]: October and then January, February going to L.A.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_05]: But I didn't leave to film until the end of May. So right.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because yours was worse, right? Because you had was it nine months? Mine was so shit.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I did. I did final. I got my first call in October. My finals was in February.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_05]: I started I filmed mostly in June, July of 2017.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_05]: And then it didn't air until February of twenty eighteen.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So that is a long stretch.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's really because that's what it was the second time I played.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But like the second time I played was just polar opposite in so many ways from the first time.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_02]: So I can't imagine like the first time you're playing, you got to wait nine months for that all to be revealed.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sure you you must have told people some people what had happened before then.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_05]: I was way too like yeah, I was way too scared. No, I didn't tell anybody.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I told nobody I told. Well, I told my parents and my brother.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_05]: And oh, my God, just like getting when I would see that my casting director was calling on the phone.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, my heart rate must have gone to like, I don't know, whatever is right before you die.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like so high and the adrenaline of that and the fun of that.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_05]: And then sometimes she would be calling and just be like, hey, what's up? What's going on today?

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, are you what are you? What are you? What do you mean?

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_05]: What do you want? What are you calling me about?

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_05]: But it was a really fun, fun but stressful time in a way.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_05]: But I loved most of it, but it did cause me great deal of anxiety and I wasn't really focusing on a lot of the rest of my life.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_05]: That was for sure all consuming. Totally. Yeah, it's all I could think about.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like coming up with like, what's my strategy going to be?

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I was 3D printing survivor puzzles to like memorize them in case they recurred.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And I even did that the second time and they did recur.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Everybody's giving credit to these new kids. You were doing this so long ago.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, actually, yeah, you know, you can barely I mean, no one listening is going to see this.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But that was the Cochrane puzzle I printed on my 3D printer right there.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it looks so good. It looks so good.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no, I remember the anxiety of like, yeah, you're talking about like phone calls with your casting associate.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Like when three weeks would go by and you hadn't heard it's like, oh my God, am I cut? Is that it?

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_05]: And she always told me like, I'm going to be your worst boyfriend.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, give it a try. But good luck with that.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_05]: She said, I'll be your worst boyfriend. You won't hear from me.

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_05]: You'll hear from me three times in a row and then you won't hear from me for months at a time.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_05]: So it was always this like there's air underneath you.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_05]: So you've started to have some anxiety stuff.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, it really bubbled to the surface in your first full panic attack in your mid 20s and then you play in your 40s.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_05]: So there's quite a bit of time in between there.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So you grow up on the East Coast.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_05]: When do you end up on the West Coast and start this whole writing career?

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I graduated.

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Sounds so old now, but I graduated in 1996, different millennium.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I just got up to my car and I drove out here to LA and I got I moved in.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I had career counselors at college, my career counselor's ex-boyfriend.

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I moved into a house with him and there was another roommate as well.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I got a job as a production assistant at Man About You, which is probably a show no one remembers anymore.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I remember it.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like it just like slipped away from any discussion.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so I got a job there.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_02]: It was the fifth season of the show and that was just eye opening.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, wow.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it was the first time my name was in the credits.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I thought that was like the coolest thing, even though it was just a production assistant.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_05]: No, it's so that's that's humongous.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_05]: OK, let's back up the truck a little bit because like getting to the point of your name is in the credits.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Like after you graduate undergrad, you're going and then all of a sudden you get a show and your name is in the credits.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_05]: How long have you wanted to be working in TV?

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Like where did the desire to be in the entertainment industry start?

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It came like like and this is probably true.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, as a kid, I think almost every kid probably wants to be an actor or if not an actor like an athlete.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_02]: An athlete was never an option for me.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, I wanted to be an actor.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And and then through I think it was, you know, middle school and then in high school, I realized, oh, actually writing is like I want to do more of strength anyway.

[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was in this in my English class, you could there's a writing assignment, creative writing assignment, write whatever you want.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It could be a book, it could be a short story, it could be a script.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So I wrote a spec episode of Cheers, which was on at the time.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I think people still remember that and and I just fell in love with writing.

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So then like, oh, I need to do this.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I got to you have to go to L.A. It's where the majority of the jobs are for that.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So I knew very early, fairly early that I would end up here.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, I was like, well, just hold it.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, the production assistant, it's like not a it's not a glamorous job.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I loved that job.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Loved having as my entry level, my first job.

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was just getting coffee. It was getting lunches and dinners for the writers.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_02]: The hours were really long. I was working weekends to I mean, I think I worked something like like 28 days straight once like through weekends.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It was just it was all about the work and it's very stressful.

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_05]: But anyway, yeah, were you were you making friends at this time?

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, are you socially having are you just sounds like you were working a lot.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_05]: But did you what was your social life like how were you settling into like being in L.A. in the 90s?

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Well, it's funny because I remember like pulling in to where I was going to live in that area, which is West Hollywood,

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_02]: which now I look at it like, oh, it's great.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But at the time, I just I never left cities when I was a kid.

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I was afraid of the cities.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I just like the suburbs. That's the only place I felt safe.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And so like a city just scared the crap out of me.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And when I when I got to L.A. and it was just concrete and roads everywhere.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, I really feel disconnected from like where I feel like safe and comfortable.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_02]: But wait, I'm sorry. What was the question?

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_05]: I lost her. Oh, my God. I'm so I'm just so drawn into this.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm imagining you. First of all, I do remember mad about you, of course.

[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_05]: So I'm imagining you like coming. You're scared of the city.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_05]: I can relate to that. I grew up on a chicken farm.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_05]: I always wanted to go, you know, I moved into the city in Chicago.

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_05]: So I can relate to that looking around and being like, oh, my gosh, there are so many people.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_05]: I have so much to be afraid of working all the time also.

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So I was curious about what your if you're getting along socially with your colleagues,

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_05]: if you're feeling like settling in because you're loving your job.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like the job is great.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And I made a lot of like connections with people there and all the people were great.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that was a great experience.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But also my best friend from high school, his best friend from college was doing graduate school at UCLA.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the guy that would become my best friend and roommate.

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_02]: So I eventually moved in with Bob.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So I had a really tight friendship very early when I moved to L.A.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I was lucky that way. And Bob's had a friend there already as well.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_02]: We just meet. So yeah, I feel really lucky that I met him.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And we lived together for two years in Westwood outside UCLA.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, he was going to graduate school.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So I felt like I had a small support group, but it was a support group nonetheless.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And there were other people too. I made friends with coworkers and we socialized as well.

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But still, you know, that always felt like everybody had figured out much better than I did.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of why I like I hated watching the show Friends because they were sort of I guess they're older than me, but sort of peers.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And I always felt like they seem like they know what they're doing much better than I do.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I just felt it just made me think about how I didn't have anything worked out and figured out.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_05]: I just felt lost. Yeah, it's interesting this contrast that I think that I've noticed that in watching you and talking to you here of

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_05]: In comparison, it seems like you feel like you're looking ahead at people who have more and are more settled or have it all figured out.

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_05]: And yet there are so many people listening, like so many people who are like, wait, what the hell?

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Like how do I want to be a writer? I mean even me, I know you and I feel like being a writer in Hollywood is this completely intangible.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_05]: To me, hearing about you and your job is writing in Hollywood feels like you watching Friends being like, how do I create that life?

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_05]: It feels that enigmatic to me. And so everything is all about perspective. Right.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_05]: So funny when you think about people listening who see your job and what you do as something that's unattainable, really like what is your advice to them?

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Or what do you wish you would have known back then in the 90s when you were just starting out in L.A.?

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I would say the biggest thing is like don't be afraid to let people know that you want to be a writer.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't be afraid to ask for help. Do the work.

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously writing first and foremost and get your two samples that reflect your voice that only you can do.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And they have to be original pilots if we're talking TV.

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, just like show your work and be ready to hear feedback that maybe doesn't match how strong you thought the material was.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You're not going to write a great script out of the gate.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_02]: If you are, then you don't need my advice.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But most people it takes a few scripts or really more to really figure it out.

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing is, though, I mean, I know people that are about to come out here and try to carve a career path as writing.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But I would say it's like not a great career path these days right now.

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many kind of like booming threats in the businesses still trying to figure out what works as a business model.

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It had been working.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, users shrinking.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes like a limited series, you might only get eight episodes and one person wrote it.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And so back in the 90s, you had like writer writing rooms that had like 20 people in them.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And then 26 episodes.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't limited.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_02]: There'd be hopefully go on to five seasons or more syndicated all this stuff.

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Those days are gone and they're never coming back.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And so and then you got the friend.

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_02]: By the way, I'll try not to smile here because it's true of AI.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's it.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_02]: That's we got protections for that.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Our most recent contract with the WGA with those contracts only last three years.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably good that they only last three years because there's so many things that crop up that you need to revise your contact to protect writers for those things.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a good point.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I'm going to be able to say that AI is one of them.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But I just don't know how long we're going to be able to stave off the threat of AI creating content that no human is.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's probably closer than people realize.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I hope not.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it's pretty easy for me to like spiral into like a paranoid place about about it.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm not a writer, but my I get anxious about it.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Like hearing the words, it's sort of a thing that makes me feel anxious.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, OK, it's just I imagine that people felt this way about the Internet.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_05]: The Internet's going to take away all of our drive is going to you know, back when that came up right.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_05]: That was probably a scary thing. So I'm just trying to roll with it.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_05]: It's OK, right?

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, actually, it's not true, but I'm going to lie to myself in that way.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_05]: That's my that's my relationship with my anxiety is like, OK, if I'm going to be that creative about what terrible can happen,

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_05]: what can I do to be creative about how amazing it could get?

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And so every time I have a scary story that comes up, like in this moment where you're like, oh, gosh, like someone wants to be a writer and now there's AI and like now there's no job.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_05]: And then I'm like, well, what can that person do instead?

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_05]: They could decide to design a theme park that they never have before.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_05]: I just try to make up an anxiety story that is so big and beautiful and use my creativity that way, because Martha Beck says you can't be anxious and creative at the same time,

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_05]: which is a super cool thing that you have this career in creativity and in comparison with compassion towards your anxiety,

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_05]: that it is literally impossible in your brain to be in creativity and in true anxiety, like in a panic attack at the same time.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_05]: And so I find it coincidental or destined like destiny that someone who with you who has anxiety has chosen creative work as your path.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think it makes sense for me because like part of the thing that fuels and drives my anxiety is feeling like I'm not in control.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's also why I have a huge fear of flying.

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like I don't like that I could take over the plane if something happened, but I like being in control and so much of life you feel with anxiety, you feel like you're not in control.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But with writing, you know, you're creating the world, you're creating the rules, what happens?

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's I think probably I'm only realizing this now.

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's probably what drew me to it is like feeling like, oh, that's a way to manage and have exert some control over the world when you feel like you have none.

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And where does reality TV like play in the on this scale?

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_05]: I can't sort it like in the creativity creation of a world being in control of it and then real life outside of that being anxious and have feeling like we have no control.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Then there's this thing I think that lands in the middle of being like on reality TV.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, survivors, there was never any other reality show pre survivors that I was like trying to get on or wanting to get on.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_02]: But survivor like spoke to the fear of deaf person or aspect of my personality where, you know, survivor I viewed it as a way like it's this fantasy to cheat death.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like you go into this thing, everyone's going to die except one person.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be the one person that lives.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that that's kind of what drew me to it.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it was just I just I just got the bug.

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_02]: It really like tapped into that.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I fell in love with it.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Like all and I fell in love with it so much.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And the only way to like love it more was to get inside it.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And and so yeah, that's that's what led me there.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't I didn't know that there'd be so many benefits from having played it and losing it.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I think I think it's a rewarding experience whether you win or lose and maybe more if you lose.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I don't know.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I feel like that million dollars would have really.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I feel like I would have liked that benefit.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh yeah, then you're right.

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_05]: It comes down to nothing essentially.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_05]: So you get to go and do this thing again.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_05]: What is the relationship with oneself?

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_05]: I guess first let me ask this.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_05]: You talked openly in the show and you've referred to it here in this conversation that going and being on Survivor really did have an impactful change in your life.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Is that true?

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_05]: You still relate to that.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_05]: That still feels very real.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, for sure.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like before before I went on Survivor, I felt like I was almost like putting on airs playing a role not just in trying to get cast.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I just mean in my life.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I was like trying to hide all my flaws and make it seem like I had everything together.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But then you go on Survivor and a national television show and the audience, you're just laid bare.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_02]: All your flaws are exposed and there's no hiding them when that experience is over.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It's out. The truth is out.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_02]: You can't put the teeny back bottle or the toothpaste back in the bottle.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever. But see, I felt liberated that way to just own my flaws and my insecurities and not have the fear that people were going to like run away from me then.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's like the rewarding thing about the experience for me is just just feel like, oh, I can just be myself and take or leave it.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_02]: This is it.

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And I felt comfortable in my own skin finally.

[00:44:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't get me wrong. Still anxiety, still the fear of death.

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm living a better life through that experience than I would have otherwise.

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's incredible.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_05]: The fear of fear of getting found out like you're found out when you go home, please remember, it's like nothing you can do.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_05]: You're just found out.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Right. We all all of us.

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't mean you.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, all of us.

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_05]: We all get found out.

[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_05]: We find we get found out by seeing other people, by being on TV and with ourselves, like meeting our true self.

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_05]: I think there were moments where I was a little bit where it was sick towards the end and it's the middle of the night and you're like just shitting yourself.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's just like there's there's no this is like this is this is me.

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_05]: This is who I am.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I knew I was getting voted out for the last three days.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_05]: And so it was just there are just moments where you meet yourself and people are watching.

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_05]: You can't run from that anymore.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, you can.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And then in your case, you got to wait nine months for everybody to see.

[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, thankfully they didn't show that part.

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_05]: I got lucky.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_05]: So then you get to go you have this huge life changing like liberating experience.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I love that it was that such a wonderful way of experiencing it.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_05]: And then what is it two or three years later?

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_05]: You're going back out to do it all again.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, 2018 is when we produced season 38.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And the first time was like this really truly magical experience like like almost like spiritual like this before.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's real true.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Like music sounded better after that experience and that it only sounded better for like two or three days.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was like songs that are thousand times before sounded like I was hearing them for the first time like great songs.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And and like I just noticed like the rhythm of like the planets orbiting.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, they're not orbiting the sun, but you know going overhead and and just like the tides.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I felt like connected to like kind of the world and the universe.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd sometimes think of honkers a little bit maybe for people.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But then the second time I go back out there and none of that was there.

[00:46:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't notice the planets. I didn't notice the tide.

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I was numb to it like I was before.

[00:46:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was a strange, again, polar opposite.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And partly like I just felt like there wasn't a lot new to grab out of that experience the second time.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_02]: At least not like the profound stuff that there was the first time.

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And probably that's because it's all the same islands.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I even started on the very same beach.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, wow.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_02]: The first time. Yeah. And then it was a hybrid season of newbies and returnees.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And the newbies were like, well, you've been before.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Where should we put the campfire?

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, last time we put it right there.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So literally like the same hole.

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So that will work.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it felt like more of a business trip, which a lot of people say.

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, the magic was a little gone.

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Was it more physically uncomfortable?

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_05]: And were you hungrier the second time?

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_05]: That's what I always I won't go and play again.

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_05]: But if I did, I would be like, I feel like I would be hungrier and more uncomfortable the second time.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Huh.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Hunkerwise, it was probably about the same.

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Might not even been as bad.

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But it was I felt like, oh, you know, this is going to be a much harder uphill battle than I thought.

[00:48:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Because the history until thirty eight, the history of hybrid seasons were that usually a returnee would then I felt pretty good about my chances.

[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_02]: But very quickly, I'm like, oh, I don't think it's going to go away this time.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, you're like, wait, the new kids, they're a little smarter this time around.

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It's true. It's true.

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think like in seasons past, people didn't have as much access to all the seasons and really like wrap their head around what that game is.

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But by the time thirty eight came around, everyone was already graduated.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_05]: They already I'm so thankful that I got to play at a time where I didn't know any of this.

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I had listened to like know it all every week, which was like, you know, breaking down the the show of the edit and like seeing what it was.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_05]: But I didn't know what casting was going to be like.

[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't know that I was going to be locked in my hotel room during casting.

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't know any of that stuff.

[00:49:14] [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't even know that we stayed intense like at Ponderosa beforehand.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_05]: So it was just this whole magical.

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_05]: All encompassing exposure for me, and I'm so thankful that it was.

[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_05]: I think I got a little caught up in that, and so I didn't I I enjoyed the experience more than I like played Survivor.

[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_05]: But you know what? Like only one of us could win, so I'm glad I enjoyed the experience.

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's that's kind of what I told myself, too.

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, look, you have to let yourself off the hook.

[00:49:44] [SPEAKER_02]: There is only going to be one winner and most people are going to be losers.

[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's all you're going to be one of them.

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And my biggest fear was just not being voted off first, which is how it felt the first time.

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_02]: It seemed like I was going to be voted up first.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was like I'm like, I can't believe it.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I work so hard to get here and I'm going to go after three days.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I feel for anybody that goes through that.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And I know you had Jacob on and there's early boots.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just awful. It's it's so brutal.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_05]: I feel so lucky about and that was my biggest fear, too, is like, I just just do not be the first one to go.

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like, don't be.

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_05]: And then both of us ended up doing well and getting lucky to make it as far as we did and to have that really.

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I forget. I apologize.

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_05]: But I forget how far did you make it a second time? Like pretty far. Right.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, by today's standards, it would be far.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, today, I believe it was day 25.

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So that would be almost final tribal now.

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But but yeah, I voted out day 25 and then you had the option to stay on the edge or home to stay for a chance to get back in the game.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I think that challenge to get back in the game is on day 35 or 36 thereabouts.

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So I guess so I still kind of view it that I was inside the game, even though I was on that island,

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I like the edge of extinction.

[00:51:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so it 30, 25 or 35 days, depending on how you look at it.

[00:51:18] [SPEAKER_05]: I would count it as 35. I mean, you weren't you were in the game, still in the game mindset, still with the chance to go back in and all.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. And then we had a big chunk of your time out there.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[00:51:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, God, what an experience that was.

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it was intense.

[00:51:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Would you ever go back? Have you answered this at all ever?

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, I go back and forth, but I really for a while there, like at the beginning of the 40s when they were trying to,

[00:51:51] [SPEAKER_05]: in my opinion, extremely poorly turned Survivor into a discussion on human rights and politics in this sense that I felt like it was just not going well.

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_05]: I did not feel like the producers handled that well, even though it was a very real experience for the contestants and it's absolutely legitimate topics.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, no way am I going back in at this point in time?

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And now just thankfully, and I really truly mean that with so much gratitude, like my time in the sun because season all season four, like I got a couple callbacks there around the time of when you were going back.

[00:52:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that time for me has passed and I'm so thankful.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_05]: I am so glad that I have zero feelings that I would get a call for like season 50, unlike a lot of my good friends like Dom Abate and a few people that it's still in the back of their mind.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_05]: All I will say is I'm so thankful that I don't have to worry about it because if they did ask me, I'm not sure I would be able to say no.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm not sure it's worth it.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_05]: I think everything out of Survivor that I would get out of Survivor the first time I played, I got seventh place.

[00:53:15] [SPEAKER_05]: I was there for 35 days.

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_05]: I got to be at Ponderosa.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_05]: I got to be on the jury.

[00:53:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I didn't win, but I got the full.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_05]: I got to do the live show.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like, I feel like I had a full experience.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_05]: And so I'm so thankful.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't have to worry about pretending like I would say no.

[00:53:31] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, are you in the anxiety space about season 50 coming up?

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, a little like I don't even know if they'll ask me.

[00:53:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But also kind of like you, like if they did and it is hard to say no to one 20 shot or whatever at a million dollars.

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_02]: How often do you get those?

[00:53:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Very rare.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know what I answered the and I know that if if they ask me and I say no, and then I'm watching this season at home, I know I'm going to have FOMO.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_02]: That's whatever.

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_02]: That's just unavoidable.

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_02]: But I really don't know.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure.

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I don't think I don't think you get the get out of jail free card like I do.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I think I mean, I hate to break it to you.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_05]: But I think there's a chance you're on the I mean, there's for sure a chance you're on the top.

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_05]: What? The top 50 people of who they would ask, I'm sure.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_02]: So well, yeah, I mean, like once I really it's like because let's say there's 20 slots.

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be 10 men, 10 women.

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So right there, 10 aren't mine.

[00:54:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So then then it's like it's still crazy odd things.

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's it's still very appealing to me.

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I enjoy this last season so much.

[00:54:48] [SPEAKER_02]: 46.

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And you probably remember or did you talk to David Jalinski?

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I love it because his brother sat him at table several.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_02]: He honestly had he's the most memorable first food in the entire history of the show.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Getting referenced episodes in like 10 episodes deep.

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_02]: He's still kind of thinking even mentioned in the finale.

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think so.

[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:55:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know where I was going with that.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But I know I just like I really there's so many to choose from.

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think is what you were going to do is like for 50.

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like you can look at it on one hand and it's like, oh, of course, David writes at the top of the list.

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And then you're like, wait, but even Jalinski and then Q, even when you just look at this most recent season or people in the 40s, there's so many.

[00:55:40] [SPEAKER_05]: There's plenty of people to just bring back for an amazing season from all new era of all postseason 40 people.

[00:55:47] [SPEAKER_05]: So it is a shot in the dark, but it's yeah, it would be added anxiety for me if I thought I was in the running and I'm thankful I don't have to get on that emotional roller coaster.

[00:56:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So I hate flight.

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I know that's such a stupid reason not to do it, but I do hate that flight so much.

[00:56:09] [SPEAKER_05]: And you're like, you already get to leave from L.A.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Like it's already so easy. I had to take two flights to get to the flight because they didn't fly me straight direct from Indianapolis.

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_05]: So I have to fly indeed of Phoenix and then Phoenix to L.A.

[00:56:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And then do all that. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_02]: That's that's that's worse. That's way worse.

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. I can't afford a direct flight from there to there.

[00:56:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure why, but I was I was so sure for some play that on the flight back after recording the season that play was going to crash and that they would still air the season.

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But it would be like a little like card at the beginning.

[00:56:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Like all these slugs were lost.

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But here they are. Celebrate the fun.

[00:56:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Celebrate the fun they had starving themselves to death on their way out.

[00:57:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the worst. And like I don't like I don't know if this makes it better or worse, but in my head it makes it worse.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It's being over just water for that long.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I can't swim. Not that it probably matters.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's just the darkness and anyway, because it's always a nice flight to get there.

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_05]: It does feel like you're flying over the abyss.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like they wouldn't even know if you died actually.

[00:57:25] [SPEAKER_05]: So they wouldn't be able to put the sticker up on the on the.

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_02]: No, of course not. No, it's awful.

[00:57:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I'm sorry. It's that it's so light and refreshing though that you talk about it because so many people can relate to the I know I can't.

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't I don't super stress about death, but I have certain other things.

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I have anxiety for sure. Here we go.

[00:57:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Wrap it around questions. How many times did you apply for survivor?

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's say technically three because I did an open casting call waterpark, which is so perfect.

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I did two videos the year apart online.

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_05]: I had a water part. Yeah.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Wait, do they have like, can you describe this for me?

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_05]: Because is there like a conference center there or were you in your swim trunks?

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_02]: It was crazy. You know, I mean, I just wore regular clothes.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you're just it's happened to be at a water park for I don't know why.

[00:58:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know the actual reason, but yeah, you took a cattle call and it's I think it must be some sort of like third party thing or people that they hire because I didn't recognize anybody from.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_02]: The driver casting process. Yeah, you're in this long line waiting hours in the sun and then you eventually it's your turn.

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just a guy with a video. I mean, probably not now, but then it was a guy with a tiny little video guy.

[00:58:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, you just you just shoot it. You just talk for three minutes.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like what you would do at home. But yeah, you talk for three minutes and and yeah, and then you're done.

[00:58:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I never heard anything.

[00:59:02] [SPEAKER_05]: OK, so in both of your survivor bios, I think it said you chose OCD, nervous and paranoid as the three words that describe you.

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_05]: What are three words that you'd use to describe yourself today?

[00:59:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Want to make any changes or still feels good? Those three honestly, it still feels good, except that I have them better check.

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Although, you know, you get me talking about AI and then it's going to bubble to the surface.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I'm still.

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, especially in my apartment, just like straightening things and, you know, I don't know.

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_05]: You count stuff or like need things to be even numbers or it's more about like the space around you?

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_02]: How does it show up? More about the space around me.

[00:59:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Although there is some counting, like I definitely, you know, more as a kid, I would like want to count all ceiling because that was the thing.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_02]: But these days, it's just kind of the space around me and just keeping everything ordered because like the space around me isn't ordered.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Then like my mind is like it's just chaos and I can't concentrate.

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. How did you do that on the beach? Did you?

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Were you keeping your things organized in your bag or?

[01:00:10] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, there's barely anything.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the other thing, too.

[01:00:13] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like that experience driver like it is as hard as it is.

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And it is hard.

[01:00:20] [SPEAKER_02]: There's also kind of a vacation aspect and that the only thing you have to think about is the game.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Like in life, there's so much more things to think about.

[01:00:29] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like plates to spin and, you know, but out there it's just the game.

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of nice. It's like, OK, everything's off my plate.

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just this one thing you can focus.

[01:00:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of, you know, made a game itself sort of like helps with the OCP because it's all it's just that one thing.

[01:00:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I did know.

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember before I left working with a therapist, working with a meditation person, you know, having my mantras, trying to figure out how I was going to manage my anxiety.

[01:01:00] [SPEAKER_05]: I had had some like physical stuff where I'd like passed out on the train because of just like pretty some pretty physical symptoms around anxiety.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_05]: And it was I mean, other than we talked about on the beach and we landed there and it was overwhelming, like pretty soon within the first week.

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_05]: I would say that was most almost the least anxious I've been for 30 days for a month of my life.

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_05]: So did you said you have said that for you?

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Do you agree that some of these anxious and OCD tendencies for some reason can kind of melt away out there?

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they can.

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, the other thing is that like I think I told you, I don't know if it made this or not, but like recording makes me nervous.

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Like things being recorded and I just felt like out there, you know, you can watch at the time when I played a 59 day survivor game in like 15 hours or something like that.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So many more hours than 15 hours and 39 days.

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So I just would tell myself that, yeah, this is all being recorded, but most of it's going to get thrown away.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It won't until those moments would happen.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, no, this is actually definitely going to be so worth it to get in your head a little bit and then all that stuff for terms.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it was easier thinking that this is just going to get tossed.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, nothing to worry about.

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_05]: What was from like the moment you stood in line at that water park to today?

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_05]: What was the hardest part of the survivor experience and what was the best part?

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I would say being away from out there, being away from friends and family, like away from your support group and the things happening that are so cool.

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Then you just all want to do is like all your friends and tell them about it.

[01:02:46] [SPEAKER_02]: The emotional roller coaster at the beginning of the casting process, not knowing if you're going to get cast or not.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And then also that long show again.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh no, not this.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the hardest part at the end.

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I know you want them to bring it back, but as a player, if I ever were to play again, I don't want to come back.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_04]: What was the best moment?

[01:03:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Just like accepting myself, accepting my flaws, you know, feeling liberated that way.

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I just be myself.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And definitely that was the best part.

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_02]: That's like a lifelong change, which yeah, I really appreciate.

[01:03:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. And choose to and chose to take with you.

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And I know this is a cliche, but, you know, just learning to love yourself and it allows you then to love others.

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I just engaged.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I know.

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I have a fiance now.

[01:03:38] [SPEAKER_02]: By the way, we were talking about this.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Does she no longer my girlfriend and she's my fiance or is she both?

[01:03:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how that works, what the rules are.

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_05]: I think she can be both if you want.

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Whatever the two of you and whatever most importantly she feels most comfortable with, right?

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. Yes. It's just so weird saying I have a fiance though.

[01:03:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like it's very, it's still very new to me.

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_02]: It's only been a couple of weeks.

[01:04:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Right. It was just you just posted.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I was looking at your Instagram stocking.

[01:04:06] [SPEAKER_05]: First of all, everyone go to what is the real Dave, right?

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Real Dave Wright, which I hate that handle.

[01:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I made that handle well before I was ever on TV and there's just so many David Wrights and whatever.

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, there are plenty of real David Wrights.

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I love it. I think it's perfect.

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I figured you made it after the show of being like this is me.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_05]: This is the real survivor Dave Wright.

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_05]: I loved it.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Also, I think I've been going back and forth between calling you Dave and David.

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_05]: I should have totally asked you at the top.

[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Which do you prefer?

[01:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I go by David.

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay. Yeah, David.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know why.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: I think real David Wright must have been taken or something.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure why I did that.

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I go by David.

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But you can call me anything.

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't care.

[01:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: That's it.

[01:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the things that gave me anxiety is my parents would come by my middle name, which is David.

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And then in school, like when the teachers would be taking attendance, John, like, why didn't they just call me John or call me David and make it my first name?

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I didn't want to correct anybody.

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I hate correcting people.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I met when I was a math in the middle.

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember now this is like triggering a flashback that there's this one crew member who would often confuse me with a coworker of mine who shared an office.

[01:05:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And his name was Bill.

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to say his name.

[01:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, she called him hoops.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And when I go on the set, she would see me thinking I was him and call me hoops.

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And this one for like I wouldn't correct her.

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: This went on for like six months.

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And then finally someone was like, why are you calling him hoops?

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_02]: That's David.

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, what?

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And then I felt bad because she said, hey, hoops, how you doing?

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, how you doing?

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to inconvenience anybody until now.

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_05]: I just accidentally did six months later.

[01:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Now makes it way worse that you just went along this lie for six months.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, goodness.

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Other than we started to talk about this a little bit earlier, other than Survivor, what's your favorite reality TV show?

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many.

[01:06:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But right now, probably Traders.

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, I just love that it can't be fun of it and the castle and Alan coming.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I just think that's a lot of fun.

[01:06:22] [SPEAKER_05]: It's really fun to watch.

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I am one of those people that got sucked into Vanderpump rules the last couple of seasons.

[01:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you're one of them or not.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_05]: I haven't seen it.

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_05]: No, I don't.

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, not almost an expert now.

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I've gone back with my fiance and watched past seasons.

[01:06:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But I love Jury Duty, that reality show.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's really just I don't know if you remember Joe Schmo.

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It's basically just Joe Schmo, but it's Jury Duty.

[01:06:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Did you watch Joe Schmo?

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_05]: No, I don't. Sorry, you lost me.

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know Joe Schmo.

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_05]: And you mean Jury Duty, like the one where the guy doesn't know he's on reality TV?

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_05]: That is insane.

[01:07:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That's also the premise of Joe Schmo, which is basically like almost like a bachelor reality show.

[01:07:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Not exactly.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, but yeah, there's only one guy who's real and he doesn't know he's the only real guy.

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And actually, Kristen Wiig, I think was in the second season.

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: This is like 20 years ago or more, actually probably like 25 years ago or something.

[01:07:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, so she wasn't famous enough that it would give away the gig?

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, no one knew her.

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_02]: She was well before us now, years before.

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, yeah, it was a great show, especially that first season.

[01:07:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Oh, I don't think I've heard of it.

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_05]: But watching the Jury Duty, watching that show was I felt like a bit triggering for me in a way.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I can understand that.

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Because you relate or you just understand that somebody else might feel that way?

[01:07:57] [SPEAKER_02]: No, just that like, you know, you feel so out of control where things are happening to you rather than you're creating them.

[01:08:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And then obviously in a show like Jury Duty, it's all happening to that guy.

[01:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And they really lucked out with him because he ended up being, I mean, obviously, they were looking for a good guy.

[01:08:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But he had a rooting for him and he was very likable.

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And he made like some the right like kind of, quote unquote, moral choices.

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: You're rooting for him even more.

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I get it.

[01:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, not being in control, you're definitely not in control where like everyone around you is basically an actor.

[01:08:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone was.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_05]: It made me I had a similar feeling when I went back to Fiji for vacation and like did a boat tour around the islands where we film in Fiji.

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_05]: And like when I realized then how close everything was, like literally like I did a hike up from the resort I was staying in and I could see the beaches that we played on from there.

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_05]: It just happened to be like the beach is in a certain way where you we couldn't see the resort, but the resort could see where we were on the island more or less.

[01:09:16] [SPEAKER_05]: And I remember feeling like, wait, what?

[01:09:19] [SPEAKER_05]: They like really drove us around in those boats underground for so many hours.

[01:09:25] [SPEAKER_05]: This is before I even knew we could like Google or Reddit to see like where it was filming.

[01:09:30] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, so I didn't know until I went back on vacation that it was all made up.

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Were you were you were you staying on Mata?

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, I'm sorry.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_05]: I did say on Mana Island, then like on a like a hostel hotel kind of place, which is actually so fun and so affordable.

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_05]: And if people are going to Fiji, you should stay there.

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a blast. And it's right down where like we went and walked.

[01:09:52] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure we shouldn't have. But we went and walked like to where they film all of that stuff.

[01:09:57] [SPEAKER_05]: There were gates, but I thought they were suggested suggestion of gates.

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_05]: Don't do that while they're actually filming. They were not actually otherwise.

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you may or may not.

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_02]: But like Adam and I like a local fisherman to take us to Monariki, which no one lives on Monariki, uninhabited island.

[01:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why that's when I was like, OK, I might need to like put a pin in the survivor stuff because I buried a fake idol out there.

[01:10:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And as I was doing it, like Adam's just like walking the beach recording videos.

[01:10:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And as I'm like, I don't like what am I doing?

[01:10:32] [SPEAKER_02]: There must be something else in my life other than this.

[01:10:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, in preparation for thinking that you might get to go back.

[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And then I did get called back six months later, but I still there and dig it because I'm like, it's such a stupid idea.

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to let you use that. I don't know why I waste my time.

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it's still better there. I know I could find it right now if you put me on the island.

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure unless the rain washed it away somehow.

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_05]: You know where it was, though. Oh, it's yeah.

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I know where it is that our brains do when we go play Survivor.

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. It's true. It's true.

[01:11:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. In that weird game mode.

[01:11:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. But the islands are actually very close to each other just for the record.

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't know that when I played. Yeah.

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Do you have I do you have a favorite place in the world that listeners could visit?

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Where do you recommend people travel to?

[01:11:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you see, my favorite place in the world probably is media, Pennsylvania, where I grew up.

[01:11:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It's known as everybody's hometown.

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know that anybody else would appreciate it that way unless they're from there.

[01:11:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But just that's it makes that's where I feel like home, just like the trees and the weather and just stores and all that.

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So I guess I wouldn't recommend anybody hang for a flight there and let them listen from there.

[01:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: But I really I lived in London for a semester and that was fantastic.

[01:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I love that. So get to London if you can.

[01:12:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Is it media like the media?

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_05]: How do you spell it? Yeah.

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like media like the media.

[01:12:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, look at you television. You were just destined to be on television.

[01:12:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It's great that there's this little like kind of town, you know, a little like village.

[01:12:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's all these like independent shops.

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably a couple of chains here.

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But it just feels like like Norman Rockwell a little bit.

[01:12:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Are you a big reader? Do you have a book that you would recommend?

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm embarrassed to say I am not well read.

[01:12:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I admit it. There's no faking it.

[01:12:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But I I'm not that I haven't read anything.

[01:12:47] [SPEAKER_02]: You've never heard of one time in your whole life.

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I have. And actually, it's funny. Have you heard of Harry Potter?

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm actually about to start that series.

[01:12:56] [SPEAKER_02]: My my fiance got me like the movies like we watched.

[01:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: We just finished watching every Harry Potter movie.

[01:13:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And now now I'm like this I don't know if it's a hot take or not about Harry Potter.

[01:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the whole thing takes place in his head.

[01:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But now I'm going to now I want to start the books.

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And but as far as like stuff that I have read, I like like a big influence and like sort of author that pushed me,

[01:13:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I think someone into writing was like Ed Ground.

[01:13:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the short stories of Ed Ground. So not a book per se, but like his work, short stories, like all the all the greats tell tell heart.

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think the story of the Black Cat, the House of Oscar, the story I just don't know.

[01:13:35] [SPEAKER_02]: They're just so well constructed and and he packed a lot into very little.

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm sure people listening in from Ed Ground before and then probably already read it.

[01:13:47] [SPEAKER_05]: OK, oopsies. David and I kind of got carried away again.

[01:13:52] [SPEAKER_05]: It happened a few times here, but I just cut out some blabbering on about I got nervous talking about Steinbeck.

[01:13:58] [SPEAKER_05]: I couldn't think of the name of the novel I read, which was East of Eden.

[01:14:01] [SPEAKER_05]: But in the midst of all of us going through it, he brought up how he liked Stephen King as well, which in some ways I love.

[01:14:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Eleven twenty two sixty three. It's a great book.

[01:14:11] [SPEAKER_05]: In some ways I don't like so much because I saw The Shining at too young of an age.

[01:14:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Here's where we continued on with the horror topic of Stephen King,

[01:14:20] [SPEAKER_05]: which ties into some pretty important themes and David's life, which he goes into.

[01:14:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And if like even if he liked his his books and stuff, like the adaptations of this material, I mean,

[01:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: The Shining is one of the greatest horror films ever made.

[01:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the Stamp of Me and Shawshank Redemption.

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many. Anyway, all good stuff.

[01:14:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Talk about I saw The Shining too young.

[01:14:45] [SPEAKER_05]: That's why I don't like horror movies because that ruined movies.

[01:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That was my girlfriend. It was it was like the coolest thing.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: We love horror movies like every Friday we're watching a horror movie.

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_05]: How can you do that with your anxiety?

[01:14:57] [SPEAKER_05]: No wonder you worry about being about death all the time.

[01:15:00] [SPEAKER_05]: That's why I can't like even a scary commercial comes on my TV.

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I have to go like this.

[01:15:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I can't see it otherwise.

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_05]: It will haunt me. A scary commercial for a movie will haunt me.

[01:15:12] [SPEAKER_05]: I am not lying for two or three months.

[01:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: If I see one, you should definitely have them.

[01:15:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I think for me, I find it sort of cathartic.

[01:15:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's sort of like letting out the steam, the pressure.

[01:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but yeah, I mean, there's so many great slasher movies.

[01:15:28] [SPEAKER_02]: The Shining is not a slasher.

[01:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, if you like horror movies and you have a reaction to play with it all across.

[01:15:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, no, I can't.

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Do you get scared watching them?

[01:15:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, sure. Yeah. Oh my God.

[01:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, especially the jump scares.

[01:15:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's like such a cheap trick in horror movies.

[01:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely. Like I'm like it's take a lot to get, you know.

[01:15:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Huh. That is the most shocking thing of all the things I've learned about you today.

[01:15:56] [SPEAKER_05]: No, yeah.

[01:15:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Horror movies just really, really surprising.

[01:16:03] [SPEAKER_02]: They're fantastic. You know what?

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It's actually like one of the reasons is it's really is like the most progressive genre that there is.

[01:16:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Like going back to like the 70s, you know, there's this idea of final girl.

[01:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, you know, especially in a slasher movie where there's only one woman left alive at the end.

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, yeah, they were the they were the badasses in the sense going and forward of like being in this situation and fighting their way out of it and surviving and overcoming.

[01:16:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And in a way that like a lot of other films, it was always like horror was a man, especially like an action film or whatever.

[01:16:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Like women are the real heroes of our genre.

[01:16:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's actually how I proposed to my girlfriend.

[01:16:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I was going to say, wait, I just looked on your Instagram and there was a final girl poster.

[01:16:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Right. So tell me how this all ties in.

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So like, yeah, because like every Friday we're watching like a horror movie and you know, sometimes it's a slasher.

[01:17:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that Scott is the lead of that, you know, Nef Campbell.

[01:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And she is a final girl who needs no outside intervention whatsoever.

[01:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: She overcomes strictly with her own wits.

[01:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's very appealing to her.

[01:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just like I knew when I was going to propose that I was going to build it around horror movies, I thought, oh, it's perfect to build a proposal around this idea of final girl.

[01:17:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, I got David, I got a cameo from him to and he's like enlisting my girlfriend to help find Ghostface who's back.

[01:17:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You got to help you got to find him before he strikes again.

[01:17:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And he left the clue.

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And the question is, riddle really is like what would you call the last surviving female in a slasher film?

[01:17:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Final girl. And then we're in Solvang and she spots the final girl winery and and we go in there and there's a ghost face mask.

[01:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And I had hidden the ring under there. And yes, she finds Ghostface.

[01:18:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I pull out the ring, suppose I want you to be my final girl.

[01:18:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway. Yeah.

[01:18:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[01:18:12] [SPEAKER_05]: The collective of everyone listening.

[01:18:16] [SPEAKER_05]: We and so thought out.

[01:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:18:19] [SPEAKER_05]: How did your fiance feel about it?

[01:18:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, she loved it. Yeah, it was great.

[01:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And she got me. She kind of saw it coming, especially once you get a frickin cameo on your phone.

[01:18:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You like, well, this is weird.

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But I just it was an important piece of the puzzle.

[01:18:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it went great.

[01:18:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we sat there and the final girl winery of the Tastier room.

[01:18:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It's in Solvang. If anybody there's a place people should visit.

[01:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a really cool space. You like horror movies and you like wine.

[01:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And it gets decorated all these different nods to like classic horror films of the past.

[01:18:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's such a nice little environment there.

[01:18:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I might go for the wine, but not for the horror.

[01:18:57] [SPEAKER_05]: But there are lots of people who who will do you listen to pod?

[01:19:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Are you a podcast guy?

[01:19:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I am. I am.

[01:19:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I love podcasts.

[01:19:07] [SPEAKER_02]: My favorite one is Daily Beans.

[01:19:11] [SPEAKER_02]: That's that's like a political podcast.

[01:19:12] [SPEAKER_02]: People probably don't want to waste their time with that if they don't want to go into that neck of the woods.

[01:19:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And but as far as like fun podcasts like

[01:19:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and then like an episode in particular, do you ever listen to Reply All?

[01:19:25] [SPEAKER_05]: I have listened to early on.

[01:19:28] [SPEAKER_05]: I did. Yeah.

[01:19:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So like a classic one for me.

[01:19:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you ever remember this one.

[01:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I knew you were going to ask this.

[01:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's it's episode number one fifty eight and it's called The Missing Hit.

[01:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's about this guy who like he just remembers this like hit song in his head

[01:19:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and he's like telling people like what song is this?

[01:19:45] [SPEAKER_02]: What song is this?

[01:19:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And like what are you talking about?

[01:19:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And he like is able to like remember all the lyrics in his head and any any.

[01:19:53] [SPEAKER_02]: He becomes so obsessed that he hires a band to recreate the the song like note for note,

[01:19:59] [SPEAKER_02]: chord for chord and they record it and then they're eventually able.

[01:20:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't want to ruin it.

[01:20:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Listen to the lesson to that one.

[01:20:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that was a great lead up.

[01:20:11] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, what do we have here?

[01:20:12] [SPEAKER_05]: A writer of a story, somebody who knows how to set up the pot, right?

[01:20:15] [SPEAKER_05]: It's right.

[01:20:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I will definitely check that out.

[01:20:19] [SPEAKER_05]: It's my I mean, it's great when people bring suggestions for like podcasts overall,

[01:20:24] [SPEAKER_05]: but the like single episode rec is it's just so you know, I'm able to do that.

[01:20:29] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm able it's hard for me to get a whole another podcast into the rotation.

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_05]: But when it's a single episode recommendation, I always plug it in.

[01:20:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, one more actually, if I can.

[01:20:38] [SPEAKER_02]: There's another one I really like not in a single episode, but Dan Carvey

[01:20:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and David Spade's podcast, Fly on the Wall.

[01:20:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I love that so much.

[01:20:46] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're an SNL fan at all, it's it's so great.

[01:20:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Awesome.

[01:20:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Those are great suggestions.

[01:20:51] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm excited about the daily.

[01:20:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I kind of frantically listen to politics podcasts,

[01:20:58] [SPEAKER_05]: which do not bring a sense of calm.

[01:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So she does.

[01:21:02] [SPEAKER_02]: She does.

[01:21:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Seriously.

[01:21:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, listen to this one because like she's just so on top of everything

[01:21:07] [SPEAKER_02]: and there's doesn't have time for BS and it's a hopeful.

[01:21:11] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a hopeful podcast.

[01:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And halfway through, it switches to good news.

[01:21:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's all this positive stuff about people like rescuing dogs and cats.

[01:21:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's really great.

[01:21:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I usually listen to it on my run in the morning.

[01:21:25] [SPEAKER_02]: It puts me in a good mindset for the rest of the day.

[01:21:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Were you a runner before Survivor?

[01:21:30] [SPEAKER_05]: All the Spartan running stuff came after.

[01:21:33] [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, I mean, well, it's funny.

[01:21:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I was.

[01:21:37] [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't talk about this, but I was in that in high school.

[01:21:41] [SPEAKER_02]: They put me in a special gym class for the physically unfit called intervention.

[01:21:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was this state program with like, oh, if you failed two or more

[01:21:51] [SPEAKER_02]: presidential fitness exams, they put you in this special gym class.

[01:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was like me and like a couple of other kids.

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I failed the mile back then and I failed the stretch test.

[01:22:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't touch my toes.

[01:22:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And they put me in this class and I used to throw up when I would run the mile.

[01:22:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, I remember my gym teacher, he was like, he's like, hey, I want you to

[01:22:12] [SPEAKER_02]: use it. I want you to run with the regular kids.

[01:22:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I can't as a Duran. I'll throw up. I'll throw up.

[01:22:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Come on, come on.

[01:22:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And and I did. I threw up honeycombs out my nose.

[01:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, but later on, I as I got into my 20s, I became really interested in running

[01:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: and I ran the L.A.

[01:22:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Marathon in 2007.

[01:22:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I would lie to you about my time, but I think it's a matter of public record.

[01:22:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a matter of public record.

[01:22:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's the thing about running, like people could probably Google

[01:22:37] [SPEAKER_02]: it and find my terrible times like I was over six hours is so slow.

[01:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I love running and it really helps.

[01:22:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, it's another thing that helps you to stay calm.

[01:22:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:22:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Mental health management of the whole thing.

[01:22:49] [SPEAKER_05]: So, oh, that's oh.

[01:22:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Why did they make children do that?

[01:22:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Why were they doing that? That's so so I guess it's all fine.

[01:22:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Right. Maybe you're glad you did because here you are running anyway.

[01:22:59] [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, calling it the program and then making you do it even though you're going to throw up.

[01:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I never got out of that program.

[01:23:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I was in it for I think a full year is my senior year.

[01:23:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, and in middle school, they put me in a special swim class because I couldn't swim.

[01:23:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And for me, for the group, tiny group of kids I was in, the goal of that class was to retrieve a black rubber

[01:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: brick from the bottom of the deep end.

[01:23:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I never got that. It's still there.

[01:23:26] [SPEAKER_05]: It's still there waiting on you.

[01:23:28] [SPEAKER_05]: But you've won a survivor challenge.

[01:23:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Not from swim. Well, I mean, I did.

[01:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: There was like one water challenge.

[01:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I you know, Chris Hammons was doing all the heavy literally doing all the heavy.

[01:23:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.

[01:23:42] [SPEAKER_05]: So you're going to give him you're going to give him the credit.

[01:23:45] [SPEAKER_05]: But did you ever get an individual immunity?

[01:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, twice. Yeah.

[01:23:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Not that I'm counting.

[01:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: You're right. No, you're right.

[01:23:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I did win individual media.

[01:23:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. But one was a balancing competition.

[01:23:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And then what was the other one?

[01:23:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah. The other one was like multifaceted, but there was a puzzle at the end.

[01:24:02] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, come on these people putting you in the intervention program and then look at you now.

[01:24:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Right. Yeah.

[01:24:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's the funny thing.

[01:24:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm in way better shape now than I ever was when you're supposed to be at your fittest.

[01:24:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I know. I just I don't know.

[01:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I would throw up whenever I don't know what I was doing wrong.

[01:24:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Was it just stress? Like, do you think it was anxiety or stress?

[01:24:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It probably was. It probably was. Yeah.

[01:24:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I realized.

[01:24:27] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's just there is such a lesson in that of thinking about A, things can change B,

[01:24:39] [SPEAKER_05]: you don't have to be defined by what other people or like quote unquote standards that people have like C, time and timelines like do not have to be followed.

[01:24:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, yeah. So you so there are kids who were like throwing up, running the mile and then you can win survivor challenges on national TV

[01:24:58] [SPEAKER_05]: and run a marathon and go do all these Spartan races and like accidentally show up to the Brownie class

[01:25:05] [SPEAKER_05]: and then also be the person who puts together this amazing thought out proposal.

[01:25:10] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just we don't everyone.

[01:25:12] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think you Harkins back to what you said about being found out and then you're on Survivor as you.

[01:25:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And then it's like, wait a second. I would all you were found out as is that you're not doing the script that's made up anyway for life.

[01:25:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. Yeah. No, that's honestly like it was the best. I don't regret the experience at all.

[01:25:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It was truly the most rewarding experience.

[01:25:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And I probably would not be saying that if I got voted out first.

[01:25:41] [SPEAKER_05]: You didn't. You know, you didn't.

[01:25:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know. It's just so it's inspiring to me.

[01:25:47] [SPEAKER_05]: It makes me it literally makes me have the feeling and the thought right now of like, what do I feel like I can't do or what have I been told that I can't do?

[01:25:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. That I still want to do.

[01:26:00] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's not too late and I should just try it like definitely firing to hear your story in this moment.

[01:26:08] [SPEAKER_02]: No, that's cool. No, I think I like that too. I mean, I like challenging myself and this is probably me talking to you probably doesn't feel like a challenge to most people.

[01:26:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But I really do not enjoy doing podcasts. I like listening to podcasts. I like answering questions. So this is like a bit of a challenge for me.

[01:26:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I try to like push myself to do stuff like that. I mean, there are much harder things than doing a podcast, obviously.

[01:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It's all relative, right? Yeah, totally. It's all what you're comfortable with.

[01:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I like pushing myself to live a little more uncomfortably so that like it is rewarding once you do it.

[01:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's life I guess.

[01:26:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm always here asking people for fun music recommendations because I listen to the same three albums.

[01:26:49] [SPEAKER_02]: What three albums are roughly?

[01:26:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Brandy Carlisle, Lake Street Dive.

[01:26:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And I guess the next one will be Taylor Swift. Yeah.

[01:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Taylor Swift. We went to we saw her in LA. So far incredible show.

[01:27:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Then we went to the movies, saw the movie, wore the brace. I mean, amazing experience.

[01:27:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So right now I love Taylor Swift. Midnight's this is my hot take on her. I think Midnight's is her best.

[01:27:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think a lot of people think that but I love Midnight.

[01:27:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But right now the song that is like playing almost nonstop and the music video too.

[01:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a great music video is and I'm very late to the party here.

[01:27:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Chapel Rhone's Pink Pony Club. OK, yeah.

[01:27:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, love that song. Oh, fun.

[01:27:32] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a really, really fun one. So last but certainly not least, you still you have a first of all beautifully curated Instagram profile.

[01:27:41] [SPEAKER_05]: If you want to see like gorgeous photos of David's life and his beautiful fiance, go check him out at least on Instagram at real Dave Wright.

[01:27:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Wright. It's really fun content like I want to I want to live in your life.

[01:27:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, thanks. Thank you for saying that's very nice.

[01:27:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I mean, I try not to put too many photos up of our cats.

[01:28:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But if if I if no one would make fun of me and probably be a picture of my cat or cats every day.

[01:28:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you should put your cats up every day. People like cat content.

[01:28:13] [SPEAKER_02]: The other day was International Cat Day and I didn't do anything for it. So I think they're mad at me.

[01:28:18] [SPEAKER_05]: They know how many cats do you have to to the little white cats?

[01:28:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and they're they're both deaf, which is good because any time they do something cute, my girlfriend screams because she can't believe it.

[01:28:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And they don't flinch or react or anything. They're fine with it. You can vacuum next to them. They don't care.

[01:28:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Are they old to death or they just were there happen to be deaf?

[01:28:41] [SPEAKER_02]: They are genetically they're born deaf. Yeah, it's common.

[01:28:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know exactly why. But in white cats and especially, I think, male white cats,

[01:28:50] [SPEAKER_02]: especially if they have two different colored eyes, which one of them does.

[01:28:54] [SPEAKER_02]: They usually it's a sign that they're deaf.

[01:28:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I love them so much. I would take a look.

[01:28:58] [SPEAKER_05]: How old are they? How long have you had them?

[01:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So well, Laura had the first Niles before me.

[01:29:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So he's like eight. But then together this year, January 1st, actually, we got Jonesy, who's named after this.

[01:29:11] [SPEAKER_02]: This is all coming back full circle. Jonesy is named after the cat in Alien, even though he looks nothing like him.

[01:29:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, slasher film, sci fi slasher.

[01:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so he's I think he's going to be one next month.

[01:29:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, they're cute. I am allergic to cats and I'm sort of scared of them.

[01:29:29] [SPEAKER_05]: But I like still Internet cat content. I think they're so fascinating and so cool.

[01:29:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I relate to them as well. If I have an animal that is like, I would identify with it would be a cat like their personality.

[01:29:43] [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, leave me alone.

[01:29:47] [SPEAKER_05]: I know. But for this guy who puts off this, who says you have this leave me alone desire, which I'm going to leave you alone here soon.

[01:29:55] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just so damn easy to talk with you and want to learn from you and hear about your life and to feel like I can be myself.

[01:30:03] [SPEAKER_05]: And you just create this amazing space. And it's just really, really cool to be with you here, even though I know you were a bit hesitant.

[01:30:13] [SPEAKER_05]: But I have had an absolute blast talking with you today.

[01:30:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying that me too. I honestly thank you for even like wanting to have me and I don't last like this chat has been so enjoyable and a lot of fun.

[01:30:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Good. I'm glad it wasn't as torturous as maybe your anxiety part of you said it might be.

[01:30:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's nice that sometimes in these like survivor type podcasts and this is really and this is like adjacent and best way.

[01:30:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you're not asking me why you vote for Sunderwood to be so hard because I hate that question.

[01:30:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I hate this. I don't know what kind of survivor fan I am, but I wouldn't even remember.

[01:30:52] [SPEAKER_05]: And I literally just rewatched your season since we saw each other in April.

[01:30:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And I still was like, wait, can you remind me how long did you make it?

[01:31:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I am not very good at retaining those things.

[01:31:03] [SPEAKER_05]: It's because I've always loved Survivor for people's stories and who they are and curious about what their life was like before.

[01:31:11] [SPEAKER_05]: So I am so thankful that I got to like the girl who watched you in Survivor 33 as a fan getting my first call from casting is so thankful and so geeked out.

[01:31:24] [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm just so excited that you did this with me today. Thank you.

[01:31:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's cool. Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun.

[01:31:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, I love, love, loved, loved talking with David ever since he happened to be in Tahoe while I was there between when I filmed my show and when I aired.

[01:31:44] [SPEAKER_05]: I was so lucky to have him as a listening ear. It's like a soft welcoming voice from the other side.

[01:31:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I know he has this way of talking about his paranoia and his anxiety.

[01:31:56] [SPEAKER_05]: But every time I've been around David, he has been such a calming, kind, welcoming voice in the Survivor world.

[01:32:05] [SPEAKER_05]: I can remember being at my first party in LA and thank God he was there because I felt like a total nerd outcast.

[01:32:13] [SPEAKER_05]: And he just talked with me, made me feel like I was a part of the group and really made my time at that party in LA.

[01:32:20] [SPEAKER_05]: So much more comfortable and gave me so much self-confidence.

[01:32:24] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, I wonder how much David knows that he really helps a lot of people feel like they belong.

[01:32:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Couple quick side notes here. I listened to Friday's episode of the Daily Beans podcast and David wasn't joking that the good news portion at the end, it'll get you.

[01:32:41] [SPEAKER_05]: I cried. It was good. Consider giving him a listen.

[01:32:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And a second side note, thanks to all of you who sent me messages after listening the last couple weeks.

[01:32:50] [SPEAKER_05]: It's been so great to hear from you. I even heard from a contestant from one of my favorite baking shows.

[01:32:56] [SPEAKER_05]: I could not believe that they were listening and took the time to reach out and say they love the podcast.

[01:33:04] [SPEAKER_05]: All of this to say if David Wright can play chess with Magnus Carlsen,

[01:33:08] [SPEAKER_05]: both David Wright and I, Kellan Bechtold, can play Survivor and win individual immunities.

[01:33:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And if one of my favorite baking show contestants actually listens and loves my podcast, Rotary Reality, all of your dreams can come true too.

[01:33:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Like what are you waiting for?

[01:33:26] [SPEAKER_05]: I will see you next week. Do not miss the final episode of the season.

[01:33:31] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm dropping the name now because it's worth all of the buildup.

[01:33:36] [SPEAKER_05]: We will be talking with the one, the only, the creator and the king of this whole thing, Rob Sesternino. See you then.

[01:33:45] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd like to thank Rob Sesternino and the entire RHAP team for their support in making this podcast.

[01:33:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Jessica Sterling is the editor. Tricky Rice created the artwork.

[01:33:55] [SPEAKER_05]: To all of my fellow Survivors, thank you for showing up for free to give me and all the listeners a look into your lives that we wouldn't otherwise get to see.

[01:34:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm much gratitude to all of you listening. If you'd like to connect, and only if you're kind, you can find me on social media at TheKellanBee or at KellanBechtold.com,

[01:34:16] [SPEAKER_05]: where I as a holistic career coach try to give away as many free resources as I can to help people find more happiness and success in their career journeys.

[01:34:26] [SPEAKER_05]: May each of your realities lead down a road of peace, joy and a whole lot of adventure.

[01:34:32] [SPEAKER_05]: And now, here's Jacob Derwin with Mira from Manhattan.

[01:35:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And the airplane takes flight.

[01:35:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, I never knew.

[01:35:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, I never knew.

[01:35:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, I never knew.

[01:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, I never knew you.

[01:36:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We're flying out to Dublin, just to stop along the trail.

[01:36:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Mira hops from there to Paris.

[01:36:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I ride to Belfast on the rail.

[01:36:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Now she's cheering in the winery.

[01:36:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm staring at the sea.

[01:36:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Her name is Mira from Manhattan.

[01:36:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter much to me.

[01:36:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, I never knew.

[01:36:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, I never knew.

[01:36:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Mmm, I never knew.

[01:36:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I never knew you.

[01:37:04] [SPEAKER_01]: You.