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My ambition, I have found, is really, I just want to be so much better at what I'm doing. I don't want to be doing something else. And it's a different kind of drive and ambition, but I have found that it still causes some confusion with people, because I think in our industry, most ambition seems to be more specific and it tends to be more about a different platform or a different stage or a different whatever.

But this is one of the reasons that I say, uncomfortably, that I'm proud of you, because you have under duress, under unpleasant circumstances, you've found and derived both real strength and real confidence. And it wasn't easy to come by. Like, it was hard. You had to earn it. You had to earn it with, I say all the time what you and others taught me on highly questionable and I didn't realize it until you guys were doing highly questionable with me. And you'd be in the makeup chair preparing and anxious 45 minutes beforehand, and I'd stumble onto the set with Mac and cheese in my beard and get things wrong and had the comfort of getting things wrong. And you went in novice, scared, anxious is like, I can't get anything wrong because if I get anything wrong on television, the Internet is going to devour me. And I'm sitting there next to you and I'm like, getting things wrong all the time. And it's allowed.

Some of that is true, obviously, and it's not just a gender thing. If you're new, you're judged more harshly. I mean, I can't remember who told me this. Somebody used to be an early in my career said, I was asking about kind of feedback and criticism, and they're like, at some point, people just get used to you. It's true. If you're just on TV a long time, people get used to you and the criticism to some degree subsides. So I think certainly some of it is being an outsider and looking different and that arousing just all kinds of feelings in people, not only negative ones, but some of it also. When you're new, people are more likely to judge harshly. And that was true. But I also think, Dan, in retrospect, I could have gotten stuff wrong and I would have been fine. I could have made more mistakes and been looser earlier in my career. I would have survived.

But this is why I knew that you were going to be good at this, because I'm like, oh, wow, her standard is higher than the people judging her. Her own standard for, like, you wouldn't allow yourself to make a mistake. You were too prepared to look like a fool.

I used to feel really bad when I felt like I had bad shows. You saw that sometimes. Yeah, I was really hard at myself.

But you were also super meticulous about how it is that you were prepared to not have, like, I wanted a loose environment. I wanted everyone to be free and easy, be your maximum self. We'll figure it out over time. But you didn't have that comfort at the beginning. You were still trying to prove something.

And that's changed. Some of it is with time, obviously, and confidence and riding the bike a thousand times. Some of it has changed with like, a reprioritization of things in my own personal life where the stakes of the big takeaway from me, this whole thing is going to be me. To Kaive's not that ambitious, not that driven, doesn't really care anymore. No. The stakes of the things that are important to me have really changed. And the funny thing is, I find in our job, it's not that my work isn't as important to me, and I don't feel like I have to be. I still prepare like crazy, but I don't beat myself up the same way because other things have kind of supplanted that, I guess.

Do you want to discuss what they are? Is it just growing up, adulthood, things becoming more important, realizing that this is a silly thing we do and treating it with the utmost importance? When you're growing or lacking confidence, it's.

Too early for a tear to shed.

Okay, we'll wait. No, we'll get to it. Well, they're pushing me. They're pushing me to make this an environment where I receive more. It's why we're doing these recently with the people in the industry that I'm closest to. And I sense your discomfort with all of this praise, and I recognize it.

Can I ask you, when you look back at those highly questionable days near the end, and I know you're joking about rolling in totally. Obviously, that's not true. But were you happy with.

How you.

Felt about doing it? I guess.

What are you asking me? Are you asking me the evolution of the show over eight years? Like, at the end, I was pretty fried for a number of different reasons that didn't have anything to do with the people I was working.

I guess I mean, about caring, because kind of what we're talking about is the concept of really caring about your work and what that means and how you care. And I did care so much, right? And I felt like it was good. I was really proud of it. I was really proud of those shows and whatnot. But, yeah, I do remember that you were pretty burnt out at the end, and I always felt bad about that.

I was burnt out, though, not for reasons that had anything to do with the actual doing of the show. I was hugely proud of the fact that we had gotten to a place where specifically, you, me, and pablo could get up there and do it in 25 minutes and snort laughing because we had a facility and a comfort around each other that made for entertaining television that I knew. Okay, that's good. I'm done with it. It didn't hurt. Hey, look, I can get fulfillment without something hurting. It can feel good. It doesn't have to be a process that's a little bit later surviving.

You just were like, okay, I can survive this. It's going to be 20 minutes.

No, but it's going to be 25 minutes of laughter. It's going to be 25 minutes of enjoying people's company and having it be good, being able. I don't know if you have the feeling that with the stuff that you do, it has to hurt in order for it to be good. But I've been striving all my life to get the fulfillment of the feel good without it having to hurt. Make it easier, have it come easier, so that I don't have to suffer it the way that you must writing, the painstaking way that you have to do with writing in order to get the fulfillment.

There's such a distinction between writing and doing television in that regard for me, and this is a huge part of the reason why I wanted to transition to doing television full time from writing in the first place, was writing was literally like labor. It was so intense. It's all you think about when you're especially reported features and you're just so worried and stressed all the time, and it's never really done, and then when it's done, you're happy for, like, 15 minutes, and then you're like, what the fuck am I going to do next? So it's this constant cycle of pain, and it's never easy. And the recording of it, whereas TV, my hope and I think I have kind of ride to this place is like, it's just a job. You just show up, you shovel the takes, you get out. The day is over. And early in my TV career, I think I still almost looked at it a little bit more like I did as a writer, where it was like, if I didn't have a good day, I was, like, just obliterated emotionally. Like, if I had a bad show, I was like, well, that's never going to recover from that one.

You do realize that's part of what makes you good, right?

Well, maybe, but it's kind of gone. I mean, I still care a lot.

No, but it's gone because you're confident. It's gone because you've gotten stronger. You're working with. Look, the show that you're doing on television looks like it's huge fun.

It's really fun. It's really easy. And even if it's not great, it's another day and it's over.

That's legitimate joy. That's Mecca right there.

Sometimes it is great. Sometimes I'm like, God damn, that crushed. I said, we had this discussion. It was great. I got to put this out, feel good about this. And then the next show is like, kind of a stinker, but it's fine. And that's the life that I wanted with being on TV.

Well, but I don't know that Mina Kimes. I don't think. I don't know that. Maybe toward the end we worked together, but I would say that Mina being that kind of comfortable with the experience is not something that was on highly questionable until the end. Until the end?

During the pandemic. Yeah, it was, like, very loose. The stakes did feel really low. We were on fucking zoo.

But that's what I've always aspired to. Please. They should be low. It's stupid. Everything we're doing is uncommonly stupid. Like, the stakes should be really low. You are a high achiever, at least in part because you refused.

Some of those final shows were like, I can't believe they aired on cable television.

Do you know what you did with your Ivy League education? That that's what we were doing at the end. That's what we were doing.

I think of the worst thing we did.

There were no sports going on for a couple of months. We were in our apartments just talking because 20 minutes of space had to be filled. Real.

Like performance art.

Honestly, art's doing a lot of work there. You deflected, though. You deflected on. Is my praise making you uncomfortable?

No. I guess it sounds like you're saying I seem different.

It's just stronger. It's not even different. It's just you've gotten a facility with what we do. I watch you on television, and I see a person who can spar with anybody, who can get along with anybody, who could work with anybody, who can fit into any environment. And it's rare because you know how much vanity and insecurity there is in this business and how people get threatened when someone's becoming a star around them.

Yeah, I think a few things have happened with me. A lot of it is just doing it so much. For the most part, I work with people I really like, which is a lesson I learned from you, honestly, the importance of just making sure at all. Because I think if I hadn't landed with the people that I'm with in different capacities on ESPN, I probably wouldn't feel as good about the work. It's the number one thing for me. It's not fun to do television with people you don't like, so that was a big thing. I think I've gotten a lot better, although sometimes I still fail at filtering what I allow into my brain, which is something I've talked about in your show. I've been open about it. I mean, it's like, the number one thing people ask me about is, what's it like to be shit on? That's literally the number one thing I'm known for, is being shit met. I was at the combine, I think, and I met Steve Smith Sr. He came up to me. I was like, oh, my God, Steve Smith senior. I sup, son? You know, I got so many things to ask you about.

He's like, mina comps people on you. But I like, like, this is who I am. This is what I. But they, like, know that people are against the people who are shitting on me or whatever. Yeah. And then the last couple of years is just, I don't know, kind of, like I said, like a reass calibration of, like things for me.

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Yiddy.

Getting in there was something that not a lot of people have done, but I could not have fathomed this moment or where we are now. Back, going back four years, three years, through some of the conversations where at the end, when I saw that I was being squeezed at ESPN and I saw that there were Bomani had left highly questionable. So we had seats next to my father that were available but a certain number of days, and we had a whole lot of people at ESPN who were in peril because they were cutting salaries in half. And so you and Sarah and, well, Mina, less so because Mina had opportunities.

This was early on, though. This was early, Dan. Like, you were giving us an identity as like, oh, we are the people who do this thing.

Oh, but I'm not talking about then, right? I'm not talking about all of you. That was weird. Dating on television was weird. Dating co hosts on television as a construct was strange because I didn't know how to work. We all learned how to do that together without having a natural chemistry at the start. But I'm talking about when I knew it was about to end at ESPN or that I didn't have very many days left. And I was just trying to protect not just myself, but that seat next to us that would have protected a lot of salaries and a lot of careers. You were scared back then. I recall coming back from my honeymoon, and you were scared. And not only scared, but scared enough that ten minutes into a conversation, you informed me that you and your wife were pregnant. After we covered ten minutes of work related stuff before that. And to imagine this from there is damn near impossible because the safety net of health insurance matters, the safety net of Disney and the protection of employer. It's one of the reasons I admire my brother's success so much, because he did it without a safety net, he did it without a sugar daddy.

That just protects you at every know selling art out of the back of his car.

It's important to note in the chronology of things that when Violet is born, it is February 24, 2020. When Violet is born, I am in the hospital room, and Liz is physically giving birth, and the doctor and the nurses are there. And in my mind, what I'm realizing in a very out of body way is that, oh, no, my brain is not fully devoted to the birth of my child. My brain is also sharing space with the fact that high noon just got canceled and has just been announced as canceled on the day I was in the hospital. So the imprinting, like, why did I take ten minutes to mention that Violet was going to be a thing? It's because the entire time, I was worried about what the am I going to do about the fact that this person is going to rely on me in ways that I am clearly not confident in my ability.

So they were together. It's not just the responsibility of fatherhood and all that entails, minus the work stuff you're talking about. The responsibility of being able to provide for that child was something that was also in play for you.

It was the two things. It was, wow, this is not this magical panacea that's going to wipe away.

All of my joy in the hospital room.

It was fear, I would say overwhelmingly. It was absolutely joyous. But with that real layer, it was concern in the costume of joy or vice versa. The real thing I was feeling was, I cannot believe I had the thought to myself as if I was watching a documentary about my life. I cannot believe that I'm always going to remember this moment with this thought in my head. And they were born together. My insecurity was born alongside my daughter. And I realized, oh, this is not going to magically make me into a fully present dad, because clearly I failed the test from as soon as I could possibly take it.

That one.

I'm thinking about work and not being present for this. Like, what an ass. And the second thing is, why could I not be so present? And it was because I was already concerned about how am I going to do right by her.

It's funny you mention all of this, though, because I haven't talked to you about it, nor have I thought about it. Your coming here is something that's exciting and wonderful, and I just feel thrilled that I'm able to do this with my friends in general. But I don't know why you're here. I do, but I don't.

People should know that. People should know that I did not join this company because you and I were plotting hour to hour. How am I going to be extracted from ESPN. That's not how this happened. What happened is I, after showing up in an orchestra and then beyond, became a super fan of this show, of your show, and I did not stop listening. And in the back of my mind was always alongside existential dread. And how to provide was this notion of, like, in an uncertain future in which we don't know which icebergs will be remaining. I want to work with people that I love, that seem to have figured something out about how this could be. I wanted to be part of your family. That was fundamentally the decision that I made was, yes, great. I can do some TV stuff still with ESPN. Perfect. Always love that. I don't want to minimize that. That is so important to me. It really is. But in terms of how am I self identifying now? I didn't need you to explain that to me because you had begun explaining that to me back in 2014. I didn't need you to retell me those conversations because I heard them the first time and I did not forget.

It's funny because I don't view myself. Valerie talks to me about this sometimes. I just don't view myself with the same prism that others view me. So the idea that you or anybody else would think, well, Dan's got it figured out. It's just not a space that I live in at all. Like, when you ask me what I'm confident about, that is not it. It's not that it's filled with doubt, either. But the idea that Dan will figure it out when the industry is changing, when the icebergs are melting, when ESPN is firing people, and at the end at ESPN, it seemed pretty obvious that people like you and me weren't going to have a space there. And that's not something I ever imagined. I thought I was going to be working at ESPN for the remainder of the time because I didn't expect the country to change and the company to change, and the country's president to change and the company's president to change, I just thought I would be there. Well, hell, I was told by the previous people there who weren't. Skipper. Yeah. You'll have a job here for as long right.

As you want to have a job here.

Until this moment and the degree to which you have figured it all out, believe me, I'm like, knocking on the backdrop here, like, making sure, okay, this is a solid wall. Yes, this is real. This is real. This microphone works. But for me, I've only felt confident in terms of job security by working for a big company, for a giant corporation somewhere, Sports Illustrated and then ESPN. Believe me, the whole notion of you okay, again, the genie visits me. I'm in the hospital, Violet is being born, and the genie visits me and says, what do you want? I might have wished to work for ESPN for the rest of my life because of the security of it, because it felt safe, because I had replaced in my brain law school in that trajectory that I had, like, sketched out and studied. I had replaced it with this other trajectory that I had sketched out and studied. And I've approached this like a student. Man, I got to know you. I got to know Tony Kornheiser, I got to know Eric Reidhome, by the way, all people who became genuine friends. But understand that this started with me trying to understand how can I make a life for myself that won't embarrass the fact that my parents traveled from the furthest possible point on planet Earth to come here and make this worth their sacrifice.

And certainly TV helps. The markers of fame, celebrity, money, that all helps. But for me, what the am I doing in a real way? What the is my job? What is my calling in life? What am I here to do? I realized that what you had figured out here is a lot closer to what I actually blank piece of paper wanted to do than it was at ESPN.

It's strange to think that we are well positioned in a totally changing media climate to be a stable and secure thing that the thing that you think about me becomes so, but not because I have things figured out, but because we did a thing with my friends, because I was insistent about this part of it. If I'm going to build a company that allows my friends or tries to get all of my friends and family here to their dream jobs, what they have to do is make sure that we are insulated and protected. And ultimately, I view this. I mean, it's utopian, right? I don't know whether, and I've been told it's very hard to do building a company that actually cares, building a corporate structure that cares about its people. But we are in a very good position to be able to create that now. But the last two years have. Because I'm hard on myself and because there's a lot I don't know about entrepreneurialism and next to nothing I know about startups. I have not viewed failure as learning. I've just sort of absorbed it as failure.

No, I feel like I got to come in at a time that is like. It's funny, Dan. I don't know how much you feel this, but I was here last week. I'm here all of this week. The mood around your building, your new studio, your staff is one of. And like, I didn't have to suffer for the first two years the way that you all did, having to start from scratch.

I thought like seven or eight of you were going to come with me. You speak of the career transition. I want to just sort of go through where the heartbreaks lie, because last time we talked, you were talking about Dan, your fiance, Dan Soder, walking in.

On you, Dan Soder.com for tour dates.

And smiling at you. You're ugly sobbing on the floor, and he's smiling because finally he gets to see the real you and he's going to love up the real you as well. And you're no longer covered in shield and armor and barbed wire. But the reasons for it are because it seems like this has been a hugely stressful career time. If that much of your identity is tied up in work, you don't want to have that kind of uncertainty around it.

Yeah. What was the question?

The question was what was happening in your life that led to the ugly crying?

Right? God, it was. I had actually just gotten off the phone. I think it was Ashley got laid off. I think that's what it was. I think you left. Maybe it was you left. I don't remember which happened first, Ashley getting laid off or you leaving, but they happened very close to one another. And it felt like I was at this point where I was like, okay, but I have this and this. And then they were like, well, you don't have that one. And then right away we're like, and you also don't have that one. And I had at this point, ESPN famously Reorg a lot. I was always getting an email about a new to this person's now in charge of this and this person's in charge of that. And every time there was a reorg, my boss, like, whoever was my executive, changed. And everybody who had been my executive at this point, when I had my breakdown, was gone. They had all left. Connor Shell was gone.

Oh, wow. So you felt the lack of support.

Kevin Wilde was gone.

Certainty. It's like everyone's gone.

Yeah. Bill Wolf was gone, and then Ashley's gone. They'd already laid off Jay, who was our producer and third mic. Then they laid off Ashley. And then you left. And I was like, why am I still here? I'm like, watching everybody get picked off. I no longer have any allies. The only people that work here are the ones I have not gotten along with work wise. The ones who will work together, but we like, I'm talking about people behind the scenes. We'll work together, but we clearly do not really like each other. And I just was like, for what? What is this for? And they had made me. It was right after I had resigned. I had just resigned for another year at a number that was obviously a lot lower, which I knew was going to happen. But I was like, look, I got this podcast I like, and I like doing HQ. And then right after I signed, they laid off Ashley and you left. And that's when I was like, all right, well, this really sucks because now I'm here for a year. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a co host for my podcast that they just increased us to two episodes a week.

So I'm like, now putting out more output, but I don't have anybody to do it with. I don't leave the house. It just felt like I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know what anybody wanted me to even do. At least if I could get a sense of what they wanted from me, I could be like, all right, I can perform this and then go do something else that I want to do. But this was just like, what do you want? What do you even want? Did you just bring me here to stomp on my dreams, to then be like, learn your place and then kick me out? And so I think I just lost it. And Dan came in and smiled and was like, you need to know who you are. You need to know what you did and what you've accomplished and how you got here. And you need to know that whether or not this company is a part of it, you have that in you and can continue to do that. He said, this place sucks. I don't want him being held responsible for that opinion. I don't want people coming at him for saying it sucks.

But he was like, that place.

And then that quickly became my mantra as well.

I wish you just pointed out a blind spot to me. I wish I had known this history when I called you after.

I do feel like we need to have a conversation about that at some point. I regret the way that that happened. I was in a bad place when we talked.

You want to have it here, we can.

I'm fine with it.

All right, let me give the backstory here because we haven't had it. I've apologized to you about this profusely by text, but you and I have not talked about everything that happened here, so we might as well do it now. You ready? Okay.

Yeah, I'm ready.

So I don't know any of this, and I wish I had known that you had been usurped a number of different times by we don't know what the job is. Just come on over and we'll figure it out together. Trust us. We'll figure it out.

Look at all this money we're paying you. How could we ever not figure it out?

And so, after I left ESPN, I wanted you to come over to metal arc with us, but I did not yet know what it would be. And you say you were in a bad space. I was manic. I was crazed. I've had nothing but success in my career. I've made all of my own choices. I don't fail. I've got to go figure it out, and I don't know how I'm going to figure it out. And so I call you and I want to bring you over to metal arc and do stuff, but I don't know exactly what metal arc is going to be because we're building metal arc. And if I'd known that you'd been burned at every time by. No, you got to tell me exactly what it is. And I'm sitting here with the passion of. What do you mean, it's me.

We'll figure it out.

It'll be wonderful.

Building a plane in the air.

Yes. We'll build it, and there will be money falling from the sky. And I remember just coming on strong, not knowing that you were in a frail place and scaring you with my intense, terrifying.

Because not only did you call, what happened is so I'm sorry you would call. Thank you. That's okay. I'm sorry for ever making you feel like I wouldn't want to work with you. Of course I did. I was, like, hoping that that would be the thing that would happen. But then when you called me, and then as soon as we got off the phone, Mike Ryan called me, and then as soon as we get off the phone, somebody else will call me, I felt like. What it felt like to me was like. You were like, of course you're coming. What do you mean, you're not coming? If you don't come, we're not going to be friends anymore.

No.

And I was like, the reason that I was hesitant is because I didn't want to not be your friend, because I didn't want to resent you as a boss. I didn't want to get to a point where I felt the way about you that I felt about the company that I was currently at.

What did I do? What did I do that made you feel, we're not going to be friends?

You were manic and you were very intense about, well, what else are you going to do? And I remember you said, well, you can't just be the cool girl your whole life. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. And I just remember being like. And I understood it. I want to be clear. I understood that you were going through a very stressful period, but I also felt like you were not strong arming me, but sort of just like, let's go, let's go. And I was like, well, okay, how does this company work? And you keep saying you don't work with agents. My agent does all my business, and I don't know anything about business. So if you're not working with agents, I'm screwed because I don't know how to do the business side. I just know how to be silly. And so that part I didn't understand. And then when it was like, well, we're going to have an arm that does producing, like, television stuff. We don't have that yet. And I was like, but then there was exclusivity that was like, you can't do TV, but we don't have TV yet.

But we will have TV. And it just was too much. I think I was already in a place where I was too up in the air that I wanted something that was like. And it was obviously I was expecting too much. And obviously because it doesn't exist because I don't have a job right now. But I just wanted somebody that was like, look, we'll pay you this. We want you to do this. You'll get to work with these two, three, four people. This will be the city you're based out of. I needed it to be more structured because I am so unstructured. I actually benefit from being given structure so that I know the like. Ashley used to always call it a snow globe. If I knew the parameters, I could shake up the inside of it without spilling over. Whereas if it's like, you can do whatever you want, you'll work with whoever you want, and it'll be great. And it's this. There was the not trust part of me from ESPN end that was like, I need more structure. And then there was the part of me that was like, I don't succeed well in a, you can just do whatever you feel like that day, I need somebody to be like, here's what we need to do this week, and we can do it however we want to.

But these are the goals that we have, and this is what we're trying to make. So all of it together was just too much. And then I think it was the you calling Mike calling. You calling Mike calling that. I was just still. I don't have a different answer than I just had for Dan. I don't know what to tell you. You're freaking me out. And that was basically that.

I'm sorry we created yet more stress.

That's okay.

I'm sorry that I was stressed and that I wasn't in a place where I could just be like, yeah, let's go. I would love to be that person. Everything in me wants to be that person who's just like, we'll figure it out when we get there. But I'm not.

I didn't understand that. What. What I thought was passion was being heard as an intensity that was scary. Like, here's our opportunity. What do you mean? Now we can make our own thing. We can do it our way without.

Can I be honest? Honest. I really didn't want to move to Miami, and I thought that's what you were going to ask me to do. I hate it here.

I hate it here, but I didn't ask.

So, sorry. To Miami. But I just. It's not.

A lot of people do, but I wasn't thinking that you had to move to Miami.

But I didn't know, and it wasn't really clear to me.

Nothing was clear at that time. The industry since then has provided the clarity. Oh, it's all falling apart.

I know. It really is. You picked a hell of a time to be like, I'm getting into this. I'm going to do this myself. How has it been? Terrifying.

I mean, it's been exhilarating, frustrating, terrifying. Harder than I thought it would be. Not quite like I thought freedom, how I imagined total freedom would feel, because it comes with a responsibility I wasn't expecting. But I also hate all of the business parts of this. So when you say your agent handles that stuff, what we are constructing is a place that one day, hopefully, will have the trust of its employees so that the business is acting as an agent for them, which is a beautiful idea, but that's the idea. We're free agents, right? We don't work for anybody. We have a sponsor.

Well, they work for you, right?

I mean, does it. Does it seem every day if you listen. Does it seem like anyone here works for me? I just got done telling Kugler, the producer of South beach sessions, why does it feel like I work for everybody here? Just got done telling him that before we started. Because it does feel like that most of the time. He did say, we're cutting that. No, I don't have any proof that he edits these at all. These just run unfiltered.

That's the whole point. They got to just run the way that they are.

You have since learned what, through the discomforts? Because I have found that some of the most fulfilling things I find, because when you ask me, how has it been? It's been hard, but the most fulfilling things I've done in my life, all of them, have been that. Without exception, I would say that's an absolute. The harder they are, the more fulfilling that they end up being. So when you break apart, an ugly cry on the floor, certainly from there, you cannot see whatever liberty looks like. Or, oh, maybe that was a good thing. But where are the things that feel good amid the uncertainty of what is my identity now, if you alter my work identity.

The first one, the most obvious one to me, but I also just feel so silly as a woman being, like, love. But the biggest thing from that was that I had a person who, because we were still early in our relationship, Dan and I, when this happened.

But I feel the same, just so that, you know, and it's not love of other, although you might articulate it in a syrupy way, it's that it allows you to love yourself. What I have found in love is some real healing. Like, just some. I can be more gentle with myself, because this person, she sees something in me I don't see.

Yeah, we were still early in what we were becoming, and I think that was the moment where I realized that this person is not watching my career and going, it's on its way down. I'm on my way out. It made me see that he was like, I think the things that are, the situation that you find yourself in is not a reflection on yourself, which was something I needed to hear at the time. And it also made me feel safe. It just made me feel like, okay, so he gets me. He's not like, oh, wow, when we weren't dating, you won an Emmy and now you're leaving ESPN and don't have a job.

Cool.

I'm getting you at your worst time. He was excited for the way you say that. I couldn't see the good stuff that would come from it. I felt like I was looking in the eyes of a person, like, literally looking in the eyes of a person who could see what would be coming down the road. And so I felt like, all right, whether he's telling the truth or not, because that's the thing about love. You can't question it. You have to just go, I believe him. I was like, he can see that this is just a thing that's happening to me. It's a thing I will go through, and it's a thing I'm going to come out the other side of. Now, depression is a bitch, and so coming out the other side isn't always as easy. And the annoying thing about it is when you say that nothing good or none of the most rewarding things in your life have ever not been hard. I think the thing that's so frustrating to me about depression is that it's just hard. And it doesn't feel like it's hard for any reason. It just feels like an unnecessary burden and weight that you're constantly hoping one day you'll wake up and go, oh, it's gone.

And that's not really how it works.

It's funny how people think of you versus what you actually or how you actually exist. And I am curious what people think about me and how I live and stuff like that, because I've always came up in my own head, right? I haven't had people to discuss these things with, so it's all up in here. And so I'm always concerned of what people are thinking of me growing up and like, oh, they can't possibly like me if they're not outwardly saying as much. And so I am always growing up, always been in my own head.

And it leads to insecurity, right? Because if you're alone with it.

So even to this day, even to this day, where I'm pretty confident in what I can do, what I can offer, what I do professionally. I, for years, have seen you guys and listened to you guys fly in guests from all parts of the country and get regular run right next to you and Stu, whether it be Mina, dominique Bomani, whomever. And when I'm on the show, most of the time, it was to fill in for you. And where I see that, as in my head. Oh, just to fill in. Just because he's local, it's convenient. I actually think other people look at it as, no, he actually does a good job filling in for Dan. And not many people do that. And so in my head, I'm thinking, no, chance in hell that people actually like me. And in my head, I'm thinking, you don't like me as much as those others because I'm not here every month or whatever, even though I live in this.

Take it for granted because you're the local guy. Take it for granted.

And when you have them, this is how stupid it is, okay? When you have them in here, when it's been two months since Dominique comes, he gets a rousing round of applause.

You got nothing.

I got nothing today last time. But that's how crazy it is. It doesn't effing matter. I know you don't think anything. I know, like, the guys over there, the people in the shipping container, mission control don't think of me that way.

Right?

But in my head, I'm just like, why?

That's funny that you would look at it that way. All of those have been visitors that are shipped in from elsewhere. You've been the guy that everyone around here has known since you were a kid.

That's what I'm telling you.

They all grew up. Everyone here grew up with you, grew up reading. You grew up. I mean, some of the people here are young enough to know you from being the person who was on highly questionable more than any of the other people, but you're always around and mind boggling to me.

Like, to hear you say that. And I have experienced that. I have met people. It's just like, wow, I've watched you in my whole life. That's crazy. I can't even think about that.

Old man. You're old man diarrhea. No matter how muscular you are. And even though we're only a third of the way into your life, you are now officially someone who has grown old next to us.

Yeah. And I love it. I love it because I feel like even at this age, I can relate to whatever age group, whether it be because I'm sort of stuck in this 20 to 25 range over the last couple of years or because I get along with and I vibe with old souls and old people in general. I'm just in this wonderful place right now, and I love it. Even my hair has worked out perfectly.

Because everybody loves silver fox. It's much better than the amount of gray that's forming all over me in a way that's not quite as sexy. You have an unusually good relationship with my father, because not everyone has those with my dad. And I think it's only because you find him funnier than anyone else.

Like, it's the same thing with Greg. Cody, I just find it humorous. Know you put yourself, they've lived their entire lives, had their whole careers, and even Greg's, who's been in a similar medium, not know TV and radio. But it's like they just kind of put themselves in a spot and just like, well, here it is. Let me just take it all in. Or let me just. The fact that your dad was on.

Television every single day, and it's the.

Only thing people talk to me about. Him and Stephen A. Smith, even though I never worked with Stephen A. Smith.

It's a funny joke. If you have never respected television to put your father on in his second language and have him steal the show from you, because it's all anyone wants to talk to me about either. I spent eight years slaving on that show, looking at. Looking for bear videos, bears falling out of trees and landing on a trampoline to entertain the people. And all they want to talk about is my dad and where's my head.

When I'm sitting right next to him and I can hear him breathing, and I look at him and I'm just like, oh, man, I feel so bad for him because he's just listening for the next line.

He's working.

Like your dad was working in that middle seat. And I was just like, everybody else is enjoying this so much, but you're not. That makes me sad.

Well, that part was a bummer. But I suspect you saw the innards of the thing, though. You saw it from an unusually intimate angle where you could see that my dad didn't respect me as the boss and where I would just get. Look at him. He still laughs at me. It's like when I complain about stugats with anybody and people just burst out laughing at the dinner table. Because, of course, because your dad would.

Always like, he's obviously got somebody in his ear all this time.

Eric.

Eric Rideholm was in his ear, or whoever was giving him the lines that day.

And you're revealing a secret that I don't think a lot of people know.

They know he was being fed lines. Come on.

I don't know if they know that he's being fed lines.

So, spoiler alert, if you want to go back in time, he was being fed lines.

I think they think that my father is a 100% authentic personality who was just that clever every single. You know what?

That is actually fair. There was a good percentage of time where he would play his own hits.

That's right.

He didn't need to be.

That's true. He was not 100% a puppet.

That's true. Your dad's a genius, actually. But for the most part, when he was having a good time, that's when it was the best. That's when it was 1000% genuine. I love just the fact that this man is sitting here giggling and doing a job that he's getting paid for, that he never once in his life thought he would ever do.

Well, let me ask you, because you and I have not talked very much about the mechanics of the doing of that show, because it is a weird thing to sit next to a grown man and his father and have chemistry with those two people. Did you spend any time at all examining your relationship with your own father? As I sat there next to mine and we played patty cake on television, trying to figure out. Because I had a better relationship with my father in the later years than I had at any other time, because we could have at least this television show as a connection point.

It didn't make me think of my father and my relationship with him in particular, just because I knew it would never get to that level, even if he hadn't had the stroke, whether it be because of the language barrier, if he didn't want to speak English and I didn't feel like speaking Spanish, or whether it because he wouldn't change his personality the way he grew up, I don't know if that ever would have been what I was longing for. But there was definitely a sense not of jealousy, but of just wondering if I could have that male figure in my life that I could have that level of relationship with. Because even when you were upset with your dad and all that stuff in the back of your head, it was like, this is my fault. Like, I brought him onto this, so if he's upset, it's because of me in any sort of way. So you're just kind of balancing the whole let's make good TV with don't piss off my dad, but also, thank you, dad. It's a lot going on there, and the mechanics of it being I can feel you from two seats over, handling all of that, and yet somehow so eloquently dropping this take that I was just like, son of a bitch.

Like, I wish I would have had that take, because now I've got to somehow get something that's just slightly different and set up poppy, and it was just a lot going on, and it had to do with that relationship, because if it was somebody else in the middle, I wouldn't think that you were worried about everybody. I think you would just worry about yourself. And in that scenario, I felt like doing that show. I felt like you were carrying weight for everybody, all three of us.

I believe that's kind of a curse of mine, though. I'm not sure that.

Meaning that you just.

For everybody. Well, when we're doing our show in here, if somebody checks out for six minutes in the back row, I find myself reaching for them. Like, are they okay? Do they want to get in here? The windows are too tight. I mean, they're often editing or they've been boxed out because we now have 400 people talking at the microphone.

I thought you're going to say they're all boxed out by Tony.

Tony can get to yammering. Yes. And he can box people out. You saw something, though, in that show, and my father, that it felt to me like you and my father loved each other in a way that I thought was beautiful. My father appreciated. You were always so gentle with him. Everybody who was in that seat was more gentle with him than I was because we come to that show with all the baggage. But you were so remarkably gentle with my father. I don't think he would have a bad thing to say about you.

Thanks. I feel like I was just kind of doing what was needed at the moment, probably because you were the opposite of that with him a lot of the time and just because I recognized the situation. But he's always just a pleasant man. You just can't be unhappy around him unless, you know, he's sad or whatever. But, yeah, I just. I don't know. It's a similar thing. I told you, I just kind of get along well with old souls. Like, your dad's been through some stuff, your dad went through some shit. Your dad worked his way up to be what he was, and he birthed you and your brother, and you guys are just, like, being super successful, and it's just like, man, this guy deserves some flowers. He deserves some rest. He deserves some. Just to live up his life the way he deserves to. And here he is just doing it for you.

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