The Eds: Have No Fear

This is The Eds with Eddie Judge and Edwin Adoyave. Welcome back to The Ed's podcast. My name is Eddie, and today we have a special co host, Shane Simpson. He is filling in. Hello, Hello, Hell are you Buddy?

Good? Good?

Thanks for having me good, Thanks so much for filling in for Fred one today. Unfortunately he was not able to attend. He's got some big things going on in his life right now that have are very very important, particularly with his wife's health, and I just want to take this to a moment to wish him well and a speedy recovery, and I hope that the entire family gets through this unharmed. Absolutely, I'm excited.

Buddy.

Did you know that you were our first guest ever when we launched our podcast, you were our first person.

I do remember that it was a little while ago. It was it was enjoyable.

I want to say it's almost a year ago.

Uh way, really yeah.

Because I think we started well a year ago. We started in February and we did a podcast introducing ourselves, and then we did another podcast talking about ourselves again, and then I think the third podcast is when we started interviewing house husbands.

Okay, yeah, and you get some good insight from house husbands I have.

You know, I've been really excited to get to know the guys, particularly the ones I like. You know, It's it's fun to hear their real story and hear who they really are, because you know, I've I wouldn't call myself a victim. I don't like to victimize myself, but I think when you don't really speak your voice and tell your true story and sure who you are, it's hard to have anybody believe you know who you are.

Right and and in a way, you feel like you're in the closet and you're kind of hiding out, and you want to be able to express yourself a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah, And one thing I learned is, you know, and and Terry taught me this. He he loves talking about himself. So it really is good for us to talk about ourselves because who else knows us better than ourselves? Right?

And maybe there's you know, some areas you feel that you're misheard on or misunderstood on, and you want to be able to provide clarification. We're really, like you mentioned, we're really talking to ourselves.

Hey, so listen today's topic is about fear and any type of fear, phobias, or anything like that. We want to talk about fear and men relating to fear. We might hit on a little bit about how women handle fear, but personally, I don't know about you, but I use fear as a tool. The more scared I am of doing things, or the more the more something scares me, the more I want to do it. Part of it has to do with my addictive addiction to adrenaline. You know,

Well, you mentioned that it seems like you lean into something, So something is potentially fearful for you, you like to attack it and go head it head, you know, head first, right, Yeah, maybe beat it, I mean, right and overcome it. Yeah. I think that's the case for me sometimes, right. I certainly can't say I attack everything and I'm just going after it. But yeah, sometimes if I'm fearful for something,

Yeah, like what would be something that you have to put your hand in the sand and go, I don't want to know?

You know, when I was thinking about what am I scared of? Yeah, people might find this week, But something that I really am fearful of is is going broke.

Yeah, it's out of money.

And that comes from my childhood. Everything that was thrown at me as a kid. Yeah, earn, you have to earn. You're gonna go broke. You're gonna broke, You're gonna be a bum. And it was always like that growing up. So now you know, anytime Emily comes home with a pair of shoes or something, what runs through my head is we're gonna run out of money. And I'm thinking I got a wife and five kids that I find

That sounds stabilitating, and I totally totally understand that. Similar to me growing up with nothing and working my ass off and building you know, what we have in my life.

I have.

I've had thoughts of failure, and the way I turned it around was, well, I've been there already. I've been there with nothing, and if I had to go back and do it again, I've been there. I recognize it. I don't like it, I don't want to do it. It's not it's not fun. But I'm confident that I can rebuild because I've built what I have and who

It sounds like you know you've been there and you know you can get out of it.

Yeah, yeah, But do I want to do it at fifty I don't think so.

It's like I've been attacked by a dog. Maybe I'll be scared of that happening again, but I know I can. I can survive it.

And yeah, be so bad, right, Gosh, there's so many examples we can talk about now. I have had two fears or phobias my entire life, and I was recently able to eliminate one. Both fears are One was a fear of needle actual like you know, syringe needles. Yeah,

So but for your fear of needles, you really would have gone down that direction in your pursuit of you know, weightlifting and being fit. That really kind of that was the that drew the line for you.

I thought, yes, I have to say yes, and I thought you were going. I mean to ask me the question, like, if that wasn't a fear, would you have done it? I probably would have because I was so into bodybuilding and I wanted to get the results. But I don't know if I was to go back. I mean, I mean there was obviously other side effects that you know, as a kid, people talk about it makes you smaller.

Oh yeah, But when you're a kid, you're invincible, right yeah, and you believe everything you're.

So I'm glad. I am glad I didn't do that. But at the same time, I learned a big lesson in my life, and that's you can get over a lot of fears. And the way I got over this fear was when I was in the hospital for almost a year with my heart issue, you know.

My APIs And what year was that? How recent was that?

It was in twenty eighteen and I found myself in the hospital. I got three oblations and like seven cardio versions. But every time I went in, you know, they had to take my blood, so the nurse would I would sit down and the nurse would look you know about this big old needle, and I literally had to do this to force myself to look at that needle going into my vein. And after about six or seven of those, I got over it.

You're like, okay, I could do that. That might go for many things, Right, if you have a fear of skydiving and you do it six or seven times, you might overcome it, right, Yeah. Yeah, And I guess you had a greater good, which was becoming healthy. So becoming healthy you had to set that aside because you wanted the end results, right, So you had no choice in a way, or you did have a choice and you chose, you know, becoming healthy. Yeah.

And I think it goes back to my theory of fear, Right, if I fear something, and like I read that that definition fear to me has always been sort of sort of a negative connotation, like if you fear something, how do you get over it? How can I win this? Because I'm not gonna let fear win. So I could have made the choice of you know, just covering my eyes or looking the other way while they're taking the

Well, that's very interesting. So at first I thought you meant you just got used to it, and so it normalized it for you and you were okay with it. But you're saying you actually made a conscious effort to accept, you know, what you had to go through and be, and you leaned into it, and you you embraced it in a way, in some way. Yes, that's that's much more fascinating actually.

With the goal in mind to get over it, you know, because it's I can't figure out why I was even afraid of needles. I mean needles, people getting needled all the time, you know. So it was an unnecessary fear, right, and that's probably where spiders fall in, an unnecessary fear. But looking back to see what I why I was afraid of spiders, it might have been when I was a kid and I was watching some stupid horror movie about giant spiders and it's scared of living hell.

Me Like, okay, who wants to be with a spider pretty ugly. Yeah, I'll support you in that, In that fear you choose to get over it, I'll help you with that too.

I you know, every time I see somebody handling a tarantula, it drives me insane. I just I see that it's possible, but I just don't know if I could cross that that barrier, you know.

But it's not limiting your life in any way either, right, Needles. You could argue it might if you choose to walk away from it, because you might not get the treatment you're looking for. But spiders, is that really stopping you from pursuing anything? No?

No, In fact, I've taken a how do I put this, I've taken a path where I when I do see a spider, I try to help it get back into you know, it's it's nature. You know, if it's in the house, I'll get a cup or something and you know, help it and get it out. So it makes me feel good and it kind of makes me reduce my fear of spiders. But you know, then you find these images of the spiders they have in Australia that are as big as your head. And yeah, I'm not gonna

So your fear of needles reminded me of something which is a fear. Although I never classified it as a fear, it was always a worry. I was always worried about becoming addicted to things. So an example of being addicted to energy drinks. So nothing gets energy drinks. In fact, I wish I could take them sometimes or use them sometimes, but I worried that that'll be my go to. Yeah, it's become very dependent on an energy drink at the morning and afternoon and at night rather than just relying

So it sounds like you're saying that you actually were afraid of being addicted as the fear of addiction. That totally makes sense to me, and that's one of the biggest reasons why I like to practice abstinence, and I've done it for many years. There was a period of time when I was running my dad's law firm, and I would bring in, you know, cases of Monster or Red Bull or some energy drink, and we would be ultra productive for three straight weeks, and then I would

No, I don't drink coffee. I just never I've never had an appeal to it. I've never cared for it. And my thinking would be the same because I do see a lot of people drink coffee the morning, my wife, my father, a lot of people around me, and I provide it, you know, if they want to come, and I'll run the errands and go grab them stuff. So I'm not against it, you know, I'm not going to

Yeah, And it's definitely a psychological tool for me to be able to have a lot of self control, because what I do know about life is I can't control everything outside of me. But if I can control my desires, my addictions, my weaknesses, whatever I can control about me my thoughts, which are hard to control. You know, thoughts are going to come in. I have no responsibility, But what you do with it is what you can control. So what do you use to give you energy? Where do you get your energy from?

You know this might sound corny, but I just I have a lot of responsibilities with the family and my kids, and my concern on a daily basis is they're well being. And I don't want to make it like they're better than other children. And I don't mean their well being like they have, you know, nice clothes and fancy things,

And that's interesting. I've had a lot of friends share those emotions because it sounds like it's a psychological strength of yours that you utilize to keep you motivated. Right, it's not physical. You're not drinking anything, You're not you know,

Y I do it right.

And I've had a lot of fears. When I was part of Entrepreneurs organization, I was surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs and it was sort of like half of them were driven by fear, the fear of failure, the fear of having no money, the fear of you know, not making it, and then the other half were driven by success like like seeing progress right, Meaning they didn't use fear as a tool or an emotional tool to drive them because it was more debilitating to think about

Yeah? Absolutely. And some people, you know, they want to be the best at something and that might be their motivating factor, right, or some people, yeah, scared of I'm sure there's billionaires out there that always think they're going to go growth, so they're always striving for more and more and more. Right, because it's we're going to be enough. Yeah.

So I remember my dad used to say this to me. Maybe it's a lawyer thing, but he used to always, you know, motivate himself by by fear. And some of the comments would he would say, or what we started talking about, where we're not going to make peril this week, I guess we're going to be living in our cars, Like I'm not living in my car. Dad.

What was his thinking when he would say that? Though? Was his thinking to Was he really thinking that to himself?

I think that was his motivation. The fear of living in your car, or the fear of failure or not having enough money to you know, to pay the bills or you know, to keep the wolves away from the door.

Right, that really was a concerning at he really him we might be living in our car next week.

Yeah, yeah, that's what motivated him. I never understood it, but I get it, but I never understood it. I just I don't like the feeling of being debilitated by anything, right, And the only thing I can think of right now the top of my head would be like if somebody was standing in front of me with the gun pointing at me, and my family. I don't know what I would do. You know. The default reaction would be like, hey, everything,

You know.

Also, I'm the kind of guy that will go jump out of an aeroplane just for fun, even though it's scared of living hell out of me. Right, But I don't do it because it affects my wife in a negative way. She had two things in life that she didn't want me to ever do well three. The third one is obvious, you know, it's infidelity. I'm not going to do that. I can control that. But the other two or jumping out of an airplane and skydiving and

Yeah, what was the deal? Was there just some safety measures to.

Be taken or the honestly, it's gonna be it's gonna sound ridiculously dumb, but.

Not if it helped you overcome it, or it helped her overcome it. So what was it?

The deal was when she was off the show for two years, I think she was asked to go back. And around that same time, my youngest son, Spencer, was trying to have a relationship with his dad and they ended up. I think his dad ended up getting Mahrley Davidson. I mean, my son never rides a bicycle. Why would he be a freaking motorcycle?

Right?

And we get the receipts and the all that stuff and the mail delivered to us, and she looks at me like, did you get a motorcycle without telling me? I'm like, no, I would never do that, you know, I would never do that for you. And that gave me the opportunity, long story short, to stay, well, he's got a motorcycle. How come I can't get a motorcycle? Right? And then she says, I'll make you a deal if you let me, if you agree to go back to the show, you can get a motorcycle. So okay.

So with the quick pro crow was you know, yeah, I'll kind of let something slide that I'm not okay with if you let something slide that you're not okay with.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it was scary.

I mean, the scariest thing about riding a street bike was riding it on a freeway. It scared the living hell out of me. And it only took riding the freeway two or three times when I realized it's the safest place to be because everybody's going the same direction. Grant it. You know, we're going seventy eighty ninety miles an hour, but everybody's going the same direction, so it's a safer than crossing the streets.

Going through a green light, yeah.

Yeah, or somebody. Most accidents happen, you know, from stupidity, you know, the writer doing stupid shit, and the other is you know, accidents where somebody just turns in front of you. And that's how shit happens. When I'm writing on the street, I don't do anything stupid. I write really slow and very defensive. But on the freeway I feel good. I can go eighty ninety miles an hour and I still feel safe even though all the other

Yeah, I was scared. I was really afraid. So you've overcome quite a bit. Then you've you've not been scared of being fearful. Right, you tried to sing it on.

Yeah, and there's a stereo type of men that are not afraid.

Right.

Do you view that as a as a current situation with our men today are younger men or is this a you know, generational thing like when we grew up, you know, the whole you want something to cry about, I'm going to give you something.

Like, Okay, I'm not crying.

That's how I grew up. Anyways.

Well, you know, it's funny because when generally speaking, when we raise kids, if a little girl falls down and skins her knee, what do we say, oh, princess, it's okay. Yeah, When a boy falls down, what do we say? Generally we say walk it off, It's okay. Scars and all that stuff. Right, And so you can't help but say that that has an effect when they're older. You know, when the girl gets hurt emotionally or physically, you know how they're how they view it versus the male how he views it.

Yeah, Now, if you were to swap those two and you raised the boy like a princess, and a girl like, you know, a man up. Would you have you seen kind of have you met anybody like that? Like I've met some pretty tough chicks.

Like Yeah, you know, I don't I don't know. It have to make a difference, right, I mean it's nature versus nurture, right, Yeah, it's a combination of both. So what we're talking about nurturing and and how you raise them, and you know, it's it's kind of scary to think about how much influence a parent or an adult has around a child. Yeah, I mean, you can make them think and feel just about anything. And that's that's what

But it's so unpredictable though, because the kids that we have today are not the same kids when they were little.

I know, I would agree with so a whole.

Different some of them actually swap. You know, the boys a little bit more sensitive than the girl, and the girls like, you know, I don't care, Dad, I can handle it.

Yeah. I mean I got a daughter, my daughter, Annabelle, who's now twelve. We I mean, of all five of my children, we would all agree that she's the fearless one, right, see that. I don't know we see that. But she came out of the woob like that. Oh really, I mean, as far as we could tell, she was always like that. It's not like we said, walk it off or here, here's a dirt bike. Let's learn. She just on her own, would climb things, fall, get hurt, and get back on.

Whatever we do, so I don't get it.

So I do know that Emily, you know, really loves having mama boys. Right, So she love her boys, and we argue and kind of have a little debate how much of a part, and she's like, well, they're my boys. That's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, I'm thinking yeah, But then she gets mad at me, saying there are a bunch of whims. You got to toughen them up. I'm like, quit puddling with them in bed, and when they cry and they want to sleep with you, quit doing that. Yeah,

I don't know.

I did disagree with that. I thought, here, you are yelling at me to toughen him up. Well, yeah, taking him from one classroom to the next so he can be with his little brother.

You know, it's it's hard only because I've seen my kids evolved and done different things, and you know, just the and they're still growing into who they are as characters. Right, they have a whole life ahead of them. And I say that because I'm the same but the different person today. You know that I was when I was younger.

Well, I imagine we're the same but with much more experiences and ability to make decisions. Right, But that doesn't mean we don't think differently, Like the same thoughts come through our head, the same fears. Like you you still you know you have a fear of fighters, yeah, or needles, let's use needs that. You know you have a fear of needles. Yeah, but you've overcome it, right, so you you didn't really, you just changed the way you approach it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's another thing that's kind of happened to me in my old age. I'm a lot more empathetic I can. I take the perfect example is road rage. You know, when I was younger, I'd get pissed off, and you know, I'd cut them off or i'd make a point. Nowadays, I understand people have shit going on there in their lives. And if you cut me off, whether it's or on purpose, as long as there's no accident or you made me do something, you know, like have my own accident, then

I'm very much there with you. I rarely use the horn, and I teach my children. I'm like, I used to use it all the time. I don't know, maybe they didn't. They don't see that it's a you know, they don't see Maybe I don't see what's ahead of them, you know, like they want to make a right turn. I don't see what's ahead of them, So maybe I should be so quick to judge, and then a lot of the pedestrian there or other times it's just like I said, it's not is this really going to solve the problem

Yeah, I mean that's the other thing I was just gonna mention is there's been many times I pulled into my neighborhood and there's this person driving like an idiot, and I just either want to, you know, rip around him or honk on them. And then I realized he's in my neighborhood, and you know, really, he's probably gonna

I would agree with you on the road rage. I think that's a really good example that might be a lot of men as they get older, they realize, you know, it's not that big of a deal, and I'm not going to get any get there any slower, right, I mean, you know, you know another thing is how many times if I cut someone off I don't even know? Yeah, right, So I might be that person, and I'm grateful that you're not honking at me if I cut you off unintentionally.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

You fear that I do have, but I never really had to experience it. And I've told this to many people, but I don't have to experience it. Is it's bears, bears Okay, there was to be scared of, it would be a bear. Because a crocodile allegator, you could jump on a table, right, these you could probably Yet, they say you can run, zig zag or whatever. Right, you know, dogs you could probably fight off somewhat, right, I mean that don't mean you won't go with injury. But you

What are you to play dead?

Wait? Hell, you know, good luck? I'm sorry. I can't play dead. I will run like crazy, no way.

Yeah, you're right, it is scary. That's that's something I have feared when I'm out in the woods on my motorcycle. But and I've even seen videos where bears, you know, come after them and all they do is, you know, throttle it and make a bunch of noise and that usually scares them.

But if there's I don't know if I could take that chance.

I don't know either. I don't know.

I don't know if I'm going to sit there and think, well, maybe I'll bring these pots and pans and it'll run away, or instead of wasting these thirty precious seconds, I'm gonna start.

Running right Yeah, Or especially if there's a cop around, like your dust, if there's a cover around, he's going to eat you just to protect their cups. Yeah, that's that's a that's a legitimate fear. Do you know speaking of bears, that in California they outlawed bear spray. You cannot buy bear spray. When I went to Montana on a on a motorcycle trip, it was everywhere, I mean every.

Story that was out everywhere.

Yeah, And when I came home, and I don't remember how we were talking about bears, I said, well, just get some bear spray. I mean it's I I discovered it in Montana. I try to order it. They wouldn't deliver into California.

A large canister of probably intense like pepper spray or something. But it's large and it's sprayed like and then far.

Yeah, I mean if it if it diverts a bear, it must be pretty poete. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't look into that deep, but I was like, okay, just you know, take my guns away and my bear spray away.

Burglars will use that if there's a dog, that'll incapacitate the dog.

Yeah.

I wonder if that's one of the thinkings.

But I don't know. I don't know what California law thinks.

So you do in Utah. In Utah, there were bears when we lived there, and there were bear attacks and unfortunately, jeez, fatalities. It was It wasn't common, but it certainly happened my time there.

Do you have any fear of flying, particularly in what's going on right now with all these planes falling out of the sky.

So I have I do have a fear of flying, but it's never stopped me from traveling anywhere. There's always that concern that the planet would down, but I know statistically it's very unlikely, so I shouldn't be worried. And oddly enough, one thing that I have done over the past five years is I read a lot about airplanes. I've read a lot about crashes, disasters, why they happen. I've watched a lot of videos. My daughter Annabel started

That's hilarious.

Yeah, So we do that a lot and and and I still do. I read a lot about it. I love the idea of flying. Yeah, you know, we went and flew on A friend's husband has a she six fifty and he flies it though, so he holds it and he flies it, right, Okay, So when we went somewhere a year or two ago, whenever it was, I wasn't in the back taking photo, was with all these ladies that want to get the ex fancy. So as I was up in the cockpit in the jump seat,

Yeah, I I don't think I've ever been afraid of flying, because the only thing I can think of is the people I've flown with that have freaked out have either looked at me for you know, comfort or weirdnness.

Because I'm not afraid the planes, you know, doing all this stuff and all this weird stuff happening in the plane. I'm like, it's just what planes do. That's the big deal, right exactly.

Bump in the road.

Yeah, So I and I, particularly with plane crashes, I try not to watch them because then I'm going to start you know. It's kind of like that fear of addiction. I'm gonna have that thought because it's an image I've seen, and if I'm on a plane, I might revert back to that image that I saw that may or may not happen.

Right, So I go with Emily, who's an example of someone that has a fear of flying. While she's flying, I know what she's doing. She's thinking of crashing. Yeah, so of course you're scared. She's thinking, we're gonna crash. We're gonna crash, We're gonna crash, We're gonna crash. And then so naturally you'd be scared. You know. I reminded of a time I flew to Colorado, and I can tell you what year it was. It was in oh

Oh my god.

So out the window, I'm looking and we see off to another runway and like right in front of us that is just mashed into the ground. The wings are off and everything's just the fuselages is broken up. And it was like, oh that was It was kind of comical, right, And I was like, oh, yeah, I saw this plane crash just yesterday, and here I am landing right next to it.

So that that would be kind of scary.

Yeah, So American Airlines flight is going from I think it was that land er somewhere in the US across seas had a divert to Rome with fighter jets escorting them, And there's a lot of video footage of it. You can find it because there was a bomb scare. It ended up being not an issue, but there was a bomb there, so two fighter jets were flying alongside it

Well, I'm sure they didn't tell anybody why they were diverted, right.

I don't know. More scary? Why do I have these fighter jets? Are they all?

The first thing I would think is terrorism? There's something happening. Yeah, that would probably scare me a little.

I think that's the hell out of me.

Yeah, I could see that and that that kind of reminds me of a fear that I just remembered I had recently recently, as I want to say six years ago, I went mountain biking to Big Bear and I hadn't been there in a while. And you know, when you're skiing and you get on the lift and you look down, everything's white, so there's no real perception of death or height or anything like that. But when you're on a dry land and you're on this chair and you look down,

Well, it sounds like you're you came across the stair because you were thinking about falling. You're thinking, if I fell, I canfue I fall this far, there's trees or whatever, there's rocks, and yeah, bring yourself falling, and then yeah, hell yeah, that's scary.

And of course the why is is it because I'm getting older that I'm starting to fear these things? Is this going to start happening with other things? Because I don't like to be scared, and if I am scared, I try to flip it and use it as energy to get over the fear. Right. So that's kind of why sometimes I say I thrive on fear, the fear of failure. I will push myself to the edge as hard as I can, so I don't fear the fear

But well, certainly a quality that you should embrace. But when you're on a chair lift, what could you do to the fears you're kind of not so, Yeah, it's understandable that maybe you felt I don't have control, I could fall. There's nothing I can do about it, right, I can't step away. I can't. I can't, you know, secure myself any further in any way.

Yeah, But the complicated part is I've never ever had that fear because I've been I've done that that the chairlifts on on the summer, riding my mountain bikes in various places, and I've never ever been afraid to.

Get sweats or shaky or anything, or I.

Got little scared. I got shaky, Yeah, like stop looking down kind of thing, where like normally I'm looking at for fear enjoy.

Yeah, have you been on that lift since I have?

I have. Again, It's one of those things that it scares me, but I'm going to keep doing it until I'm no longer scared. And it worked and I think I ended up getting like three or four runs that day. But it was just a weird feeling to think, how forty fifty years later am I feeling fear. I shouldn't be fearing fear. I mean, this is just the way I handle fear, you know, I thrive on it sometimes and I don't like it to debilitate me, so I try to convert it to energy.

Well, that's interesting. You know what's interesting would be a statistic on how many people actually suffer death from the thing they feared the most. Right, It's probably very little. Right, Like I might be scared of a bear my whole life and I never come across one. I never so what so I wasted whatever time it was being scared

Yeah, fear debilitates a lot of people from living their life, you know, fear of you know, when you start a business, like you're afraid to start a business because you're afraid that you're going to fail. And you don't start a relationship because you're afraid you're going to get hurt. You don't have kids because you're afraid you're not going to be able to afford them, and you know, various things like that. Do you do you fear love at all? Have you ever been afraid to fall in love?

No? I don't. I don't think I can. I know I never really thought enough about love to be scared of it. I never really did, I mean, I guess yeah, no, No. The fear as far as family goes, The fear of my children is worry that they will grow up with trouble or difficulties, or they might have their own addictions or things that are you know, you know, prevent them from living a life of you know, comfortable life, that would be it. I don't fear, you know, falling in love.

Right? That makes sense, and that that was it.

And then fortunately we've overcome that and realized that that's not the case, and so you know, we're able to navigate her being on the show and being a part of all the ladies and everything, you know, during this time. So yeah, I mean, if anything, it's made us stronger because we've worked together on how how to navigate this, how to navigate her schedule, the opportunities that come our away, how do we work, what parts do we team up on, what parts are just for you?

And so yeah, I could see that, and I think when we first got together, my wife and I, the camera didn't scare me. I think I remember talking to you about taking acting classes when I was younger, so cameras weren't totally you know, foreign, and they still kind of put me.

You know they're there. Yeah, you know they're there.

Now, I know they're there. But in the beginning, I don't know if I remember telling you this, but well, first time we ever filmed, I was all gonna ready to go. I'm like, I could do this. I've been on camera before, you know this. It's going to be easy and just be myself. How hard can that be? And it wasn't until the production walked into the house and they all introduced themselves very nice, and then suddenly these big ass cameras walked in and I looked at

It became real at that point.

I guess it became real and I just remembered I was actually afraid. And of course, seven shots of tequila later and I think half a bottle of wine that took away all the fear, and I did stupid shit. That was the very first time we ever filmed where we did the tub scene. I don't know if you remember the tubs. Yeah, it was just I mean, where do you go from there? Right? But that's a moment I was I was actually afraid of when when I first got on the show, Yeah I was afraid.

Yeah, well, you know, there's I don't think. I don't think if anyone said they weren't afraid to be on a show, I don't know if I would believe them. There might be different levels of concern and worries them in fear, you know, fear how they look on TV. Fear if they are going to get along, if they're going to be liked or hated. There's got I mean, no one can say that it's jump in and got no problems with it.

I think ultimately though, it's how you handle them right, how you handle fear, because it's it's up there with jealousy. Jealousy is an emotional feeling, irrational emotional feeling that sometimes can you know, be quantified. If your wife or your partners, you know, flirting or something, or trying to make you jealous so that they like you more. I guess it's a manipulation tool. But when I was young, I made a determination that I am not going to let jealousy

Experience some jealousy, and then it was then that you realize what you were experiencing, and so you made that effort to, you know, stay away from that.

I think so which which goes along in the same lines as fear, you know, And I don't know how old I was when I finally realized fear is stabilitating and if you let it cripple you, you're not going to do anything in life, or experience anything in life, or really live life. You know, I sense I see fear as a limitation for people that just absolutely sometimes it's justifiable. You know, Let's say you had a traumatic

Yeah, what is it?

I don't know.

I guess fear would be acceptable if it's for your own safety, right, So it's fear of you know, like in your example of maybe growing up in an unfortunate household where there's abuse, So now you're prospective of your just your safety. Yeah, so I'm going to stay away from this type of person because I've experienced that they hurt me physically or they harm my lifestop right, not just they hurt my feelings so they said something rude,

That's yeah, that's that is valid. Yeah, going back to love, which is kind of along the same lines of what we were just talking about. For me, I think I fell in love for the first time as a teenager, my first girlfriend. I was madly in love and I was afraid, you know, because growing up to me, love was so important and so valuable and so sentimental and you just cannot fall in love with just anybody, right,

And what.

It wasn't a fear. It wasn't a fear. But when she broke up and we broke up, the pain was so deep and so emotional and so detrimental that I said that I am never falling in love again.

Wow.

And it took seven years for me to finally fall in love again, fell in love with this beautiful woman that just was everything that I know ever wanted. And unfortunately, five years later that relationship ended and again debilitating. I couldn't leave the house for three days. I was in the fetal position and I cried, and it was the hardest pain I've experienced next to my broken collarbone.

And then and how did you overcome either of those?

I think, Well, my dad, you know one thing I'll never forget he said during that time, was just get up and put one foot in front of the other. And you will get past it. And it took time. Yeah, it definitely took time. But again the second time, I was heartbroken, devastated. I said, I'm never falling in love again. But I it was in my probably my mid twenties at the time, and I decided, you know what, I'm

And take care of yourself kind of thing.

Care of myself.

You won't bring anyone in your little circle.

Yeah, and then I fell in love again and it wasn't deep love, but it was sort of like I don't know if I is the right person, you know. And even though I didn't fall in love with her, I introduced her to all my friends, especially the very critical ones that you know, just protect me, and they loved her. They said she's amazing, she's so different, she's awesome. And I ended up marrying her. The night before I was freaking out and just like, am I doing the

Like, I don't know? When everyone wants to hear.

And of course that didn't last very long. And then when I met Tiamra, it was one of those things like that's it. I'm not falling in love, not falling forward again. I'm just gonna have a good time. And the chemistry was there. What I think I experienced the very first time I saw her was love at first sight, but I wasn't ready to let it happen. But when I saw her, I saw birds, I saw stars, I saw out all these tingly feelings in my body, but I did everything I could to suppress it because I

Right you're completely fulfilled and everything's great. Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm there now, but it took a while to get there, which is the interesting journey for me, Like I'm not afraid to fall in love, but I was afraid when I was younger because it was so painful, and there was a period of seven years between love and another period of five years between love and then this one was maybe fifteen years where I started feeling like, Okay,

You're not allowed to cry. You're not cry.

You're not supposed to cry. You're not supposed to be afraid. You're not supposed to be vulnerable. What are you? What are your thoughts on that? Do you agree or disagree? No?

I agree? You know we talked to earlier. You know, you tell the little kid to walk it off, get back on your bike and go, you're fine, tough it out right, and then the girl don't. We don't generally speaking, we don't say that, we put a band aid on it.

Yeah, do you think the difference in your religion scared you getting into the that deep of religion of a relationship with Emily.

A little bit? Because you know, you worry about being judged or or you know, having different outlooks on life. But you know, fortunately, I think both of us have the same outlook on life, which is family is important, family in it, and respecting each other and kind of you know, living a you know, kind of a decent life and respecting one another's views. I know Emily, as she's gotten older, she's kind of softened up and become a little bit you know, as we all should.

Yea.

And so you know, it hasn't really caused any riffs in our relationship, that's for sure. Yeah, sometimes scheduling issues and things like that. You know, I go to church on Sundays. Sometimes she comes, sometimes she doesn't. I just let her and I always take the kids. So you know that that's a little awkward on those days because but but we respect each others, you know.

I mean, that's that's super important in any relationship, is to respect each other because once you lose that, you know, it's it's hard to come back to that. Let's talk a little bit about your experience and becoming a lawyer. I know you took the bar three times. Were you ever afraid that you weren't gonna make it or were you just determined Yeah, that.

Was It was a little bit of both. You know, it was pretty determined, but I also was fearful that it would never happen. Not to blame, not to place blame elsewhere, But it was really tough while this show was going that I'm supposed to sit there and also juggle my older two kids and their schedules with their mother, who which was not the easiest. So juggling that juggling you know what was she three or four year old

Yeah, I mean it's like looking at Mount Whitney and going, how the hell am I going to do this?

Yeah, unless I'm going to do something different, which is all those factors. Unless I remove some of those, like you know, Emily's at home all the time, or our finances are in order, or the mother my older two children, was more cooperative, like then what might have been eating? But I was like, nothing's changing. I'm still going to go through this hellhole, you know. And Emily's sit in there, you know, when I'm supposed to kind of a comedy in her schedule to take care of the kids. And

Yeah, yeah, but you did it. Yeah, And and what do you think contributed the most for you to accomplish that goal to pass the bar?

You know, it was it was just kept putting to you know, I'll be honest, I don't think I did anything different as I should have. I was really first of all, it was quite a while ago, so so my memory is a little vague, but it was just, you know, they did change the the the guidelines of the bar exam, which kind of worked in my favor as much as you know, I don't want to say that, but it did work in my favor. So that kind

Yeah, I've you. I always thought about this when I was working with my dad, like the fear of going to court. Do you go to court a lot?

Yeah, I don't. I didn't hear that. I have a fear in terms of just doing well. Yeah, we're doing well for the client, doing well for for the owner of the law firm. Yeah. But I'm not scared in front of a judge, because.

Were you though the very first time? Thank you the first case.

Yeah, I could, I could. I was nervous. I was practicing in Utah and I was thrown in judges all the time. Oh, that's right, okay, but it was it was I was nervous yacause you know, you feel people are looking at you and now you're going to look like a beginner. You don't know what you're doing, you know, you don't know the proper terminology, right, and you sound like an idiot. That was a concern, But in front

Course, I know pretty.

Much lawyers that don't want to be lawyers, right, don't they know better? And you know, have I been depart by judge in front of people? Absolutely? Really? Oh wow, I think everyone has. Absolutely. Yeah, And that's more embarrassing than it's fearful. That for me, that's embarrassing. And that's like sister, she's overcome it, but she I think she would even vomit before she went before a judge. Oh really really scared. Yeah, but she also would admit it.

Yeah, it's interesting times. My neighbor's an attorney as well, and I see a lot of him, you know, during the day, you know, because I have a pretty easy schedule. And I asked him recently, like, didn't you go to court anymore? It's like, zoom, I don't even have to get us anymore. That would take fear completely away. Like just the thought of being in chambers and fighting, you know, with the opponent and talking to a judge that scares me,

Well, they always say you fear what you don't know, right, Yeah, So if you've been there, you've experienced it many times. You've ridden your bike on the freeway many times. Now it's no longer an unknown to worry about.

Yeah. So speaking of do you, did you ever fear being a lawyer or was that just something you always wanted to do?

Well? I kind of kind of went that direction because my parents would let me become a cop. Okay, Like literally, I interviewed, I took the exams, I took the physicals. I even got you know then as a you know, for PDI and Orange, and then I had to back out, probably cut mostly because of my parents and you know, them having a worry and they were always scared and they didn't like it, and probably they want me sending

That's a big deal.

If if if in my profession, what was I fearful of? It would probably be being successful, you know, whole good job, earning more money every year doing them, not in front of the judge or in front of a client or co workers or anything.

Were you at all concerned or afraid of starting that podcast with your wife. I think it's called Legally Brunette.

Yeah, no, No, my wife is, I mean Emily Is. She loves that stuff. She could talk about it all day long. She she overworks to study those cases and learn the facts, you know, the interesting cases that are kind of you know, across the media, high profile. So I knew that she would take the lead on that, and I think she does really well. And my place in that I've learned was I'll just be the viewer that asks the questions, right, Okay, I'm asking the questions

Awesome, awesome. How often do you do that?

It's twice a month. Yeah, we're doing twice a month and right now she's covering the Blake Lively and Baldoni case. That's a big one. I don't know if you know that one. I'm sure viewers do. That's a big one. There's some pr disputes and creative differences on the set of it ends with us, and so there's some sexual harassment allegations and things like that. It's getting pretty heated. I think with Blake Lively being such a big star,

I have. Yeah, there's a whole documentary on that.

There's a lot of documentaries on that. So she's fascinated by that one because that is interesting. The case is where you know, you could kind of go either way. You do both points, and that's what makes it interesting to talk about.

Yeah, what do you fear it at all? About practicing law?

I think disappointing clients. You know, clients, unfortunately, they naturally they come in with expectations, right, I'm going to win this case. I practice workers competations with people that get injured on the job. We represent the insurance companies and employers, right, so the injured worker gets injured, they have a right to file a claim because it's a no fault state, so the employers should cover their injuries at their work related right. So it's a right that they have and

Who was an absence, which is really hard.

Yeah, and it's it's a tough one too, because you know the emotions involved. My fear in that case was not winning because this loving family and the stepfather who just did everything for this child, and was the father's as far as I was concerned, because the biological father was Mia, like truly Mia until the case services, and of course he wants to act like he's fathered the

Well, how many times have you heard of cases like that where a kid of a drug induced family you know can't handle it there in jail, the kid ends up being you know, fast from home, and finally a family you know, sees the connection and raises a kid and you know, goes through all the proper channels, finally adopts a child, and ten years later the parents get out of jail, even though they obviously have to sign a release for the kid to be adopted. Now they

Well? I've never experienced it that much. But if the parents' rights are terminated, you can only have two parents, right, Yeah, So if if a if a husband will call them, if a husband wants to adopt the wife's son or child, you can. You cannot terminate a biological father's rights and parental rights without someone stepping in his shoes, right. Okay, So in your example, if I understood it correctly, you have new adopted adoptive family. Right, So a mother and

Okay, interesting so.

But but I don't have any experience in that area. And the example you gave I have not gotten that far along. When I was practicing family law too, how did.

You get this case being in workers' comp.

I'll tell you how so well, I wasn't a workers I was in Utah at the time, so I was practiced family law. And Emily was just like, you know, you can practice on your own. It's no problem you can do. Let's just do it. Do it on your own. So I went on my own, rented a little office, and she sent out a mailer like across the county to every house. And these cases are coming in, and this one came into adopt. I'm like have I've never done this before. She goes, yeah, I can help you.

It's arguably one of the hardest types of lot of practice is family law.

No, I can't stand it. Yeah, it's just too heartbreaking. And I praise those that are able to do it because it needs to be done.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know. The thing is it's so emotionally. You get these people coming in your office just shouting out all this stuff. He did this, he did he did this. Yeah, that's great, that's not that's not a legal argument. That's more of an emotional argument. I need little stuff, you know. Him sleeping with someone else doesn't matter, all right, crappy as that is. It doesn't matter. He's still a dad, but that's not there or the other way around. I don't want to save her a dime. Too bad. You

Yeah yeah, and you have to do that to protect the family because there are some legit situations for men, you know, they especially if they own their own business, suddenly they don't make any money. Right, How does that?

Yeah? Absolutely, I can't. I tell you, I can't stand.

I can't stand.

I tell you, a dead beat dad is I can't, especially because I fall all the rules. I cannot stand that.

Yeah. See that would that would drive me nuts. One of the things that my my father gave me the option to go to law school, and I just couldn't do it because there's this one part of law that I just can't wrap my head around. I understand it, and and and and and I believe it's it's a necessity. But when you become an attorney and you have to defend a criminal, or you have to defend somebody you do know committed the crime, how do you know I've never done get.

Him out of it. It's a very valid thought. I've never had done criminal defense. But I know one way to look at it is so you have, you know, an obvious plea uh guilty, like oh, jay one, you never have a client you don't want to know. But if you know they did it, like let's say they yeah, I did it, I get crap out of her right, Well, then what you're trying to do is not say that the person's not that the person's innocent. You're trying to make sure that they don't get any more of a

So what about those cases where they're wrongfully in farstrated, you know, And and it's going back to what we were talking about family law. It's it's an imperfect system, right, So when it comes down to it, the law is not the law. It's not like black and white. There's so many levels and moving parts, particularly with cases like the O J case where he had money, he had connections, he had yeah, and there's a lot of that, and

So yeah, absolutely, to make your life hell.

And it's just so hard to win those cases, even though they are responsible for what happened. So that's one of the things that.

Like a casino, they're always going to win because they never run out of money. You will run out of money, yeah, they will never playing and playing and playing until you quit. And that's how it is. In your example, big Farm, They'll they'll play all day long. Yeah, and they have the means to the money too, and they're incentivized to win much more.

And and they'll just hire a law firm that has one hundred lawyers that are going to work on this one case.

Yeah right.

And it's not fair. It's not fair, especially when it comes to discovery. I mean, you can get buried in that stupid ship.

But you know, it's a first comp It's such a unique area of law procedurally that we've come across lawyers that may do very well in their niche and are very successful, and then they think that they're going to try to help their brother in this work comp case, and you know, you mop the floor with them because

That was one of the actually, that was the main reason why when I was running my dad's practice, we made sure we focused on ho A law bankruptcy transaction of foreclosures because it's a very niche industry that just grew big time in California and across the nation, but mostly in California. There's so many hoa's here it's ridiculous. But I made sure my dad wanted to dabble into all kinds of other stuff. I had to reel him in, like, God,

You know. Really just have to find one thing and excel in it, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree, it'd be really really good at that one thing. Except when it comes to medicine. I'm not a doctor or anything, but you know, I believe that a doctor should know how all the body parts work together, you know, instead of sending you, you know, to seven doctors for one ailment that just doesn't make any sense absolutely.

Or they should have a team maybe they collectively, right, so they kind of work together, so it's like you know what I'm I'm not a specialty. I'm not a specialist the cardiovascular, but my partner right here is, and then they can work together instead of it going to another office and trying to find someone and yeah, you should have one one stop shop, right you should?

Yeah, where you know, everybody's communicating and talking to each other. My other pet peeve with the pharmaceutical or the doctor the healthcare industry is they'll put you on a drug that's going to result one issue. Then that drug creates other issues, so they have to put you on another drug to fix that issue. So that's just perpetual.

The classic example. The classic example is, uh, you know, Emily gets a UTI right and my daughter both at you time. They're like, here, take this antibiotic, but it will cause a yeast infect so now take this. You know. It's like, well, yeah, yeah, it's just it's I don't know, I don't get it.

I don't like it, but I don't get it. Anyways, I think that's it. I think we talked about being afraid. You know, I coming into this conversation, I didn't know what I was going to really say. Because I thrive on fear. I make it a point that if it scares me, it's it's worth the pursuit or worth the fight. If it's not scary, it's kind of like, eh, I

I would agree with you on that, and maybe that's a pride thing, but I try to I try to be the leader in the family right and take take things on myself to try to be a that way. But you know, one thing I got out of this podcast, that's for sure, is to try to face my fears more so rather than just like you know, like the plane example, not just going on a plane and trying to be okay with it and thinking I shouldn't be scared, but actually kind of lean into it like you did

Well, give me, give me, give me a shout out on that. I want to hear how you did that. I'm really curious because it's it's worked for me for a long time. But like I said, what what I hate seeing is when people don't live their life because they're afraid. You know, they're afraid, especially the people that think about all the worst possible things that can happen in this one scenario. And my wife is one of them.

Not knowing where you're going, right, yeah.

Yeah, And she was totally gun ho on board, and it blew my mind that she was. So I said, all right, let's go, got a few pieces together, jumped in the car, and just started driving north with the goal to get to I think Yosemite was one of my goals. As we're driving, we get in I think it was Ventura County, and we both realized we didn't bring any food.

We exited the freeway.

Ten miles in we got to find a grocery store and we're in there walking around buying groceries. And this is like way out in the middle of nowhere, right, and the people, of course are recognized or they recognized me, and they're like, what the hell are you doing now here? Like we're just getting groceries. So we jumped back in the car back on the freeway, and as we're driving, I'm realizing, oh shit, it's winter. There's going to be a bunch of snow in the mountains. So we can't

You literally didn't plan anything, you just got anything.

It was it was so much fun. I can't tell you how much fun that trip was, because yeah, yeah, whatever whatever came to us, we did. And I can't remember the last time, well the last time I did that. My dad gave me a book written by Jack Cua. I think it's called On the Road. I don't know

Well, you know, you I'm certain you experienced things that you wouldn't have had you planned.

Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was almost like freedom, you know, because when you're on a schedule, even though you know you have to be on a schedule an organized to make life successful and accomplishable, it felt like I was free.

When you have a plan, you're you must do this, you must do that, or you're supposed to check in at a certain time. But here you are, you know, you were free to do as.

You wish for you to do as I wish, and I love that. You know. I have had friends where we've traveled and they have this whole agenda. I'm like, dude, I am not doing any of that on vacation, Okay, I just relaxing.

Yeah, you're all when I get home. Right now, right now, I'm just gone with the flow.

There's there's really something to say for that.

I do commend those, and I experienced that a little bit in Utah. I don't have him any stories, but people who literally just like, now I'm just gonna go on the mountains for a week or two, yeah, you know, literally, and I'll find food. Literally. I know a guy he was he loved it. He's like, I ate snake. Yeah, it was just it was just hunting. And he lived out there for two weeks and he just like he said it was the best thing. I never really dug into. I wish I did, but yeah, gone already know who

Know, really hungry, right like he you know.

He experienced things that he wouldn't have otherwise, and to be able to do that without any I mean that's yeah. I wish I could live a life like that sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, I mean you can start little by little.

Yeah, I'm going to go get a camper tomorrow. Yeah, just you know, Emily, he's going to get in it and we'll go to the beach food.

Go to the beach right here and send say Clamenty. You know, there's always I used to ride my bike there a lot, and I used to see people camp there all the time.

It's a good start, yeah, yeah, just.

It could be fun and then expand because that's one of my goals to get on my Harley and go across the nation one day. You know, I have to find the right people to teach me and be part of because I don't have the balls yet to just jump on it and go by myself. I thought about it. I literally thought, I'm just going to jump on my bike one day and go. But I got a wife, I got kids, now, I got a damned dog.

I got to do that.

But I think that would be such a fun, fun adventures just to be.

I had a friend that did that from Northern California all the way down to the south of Chile on a bike.

Wow.

And I followed him through Facebook and it was literally just stamp wherever he would share stories of people he met, and he just improvised all the way down and then he unloaded his bike, you know, sold there whatever, it blew back up and that was a couple of months.

Yeah, that's so cool.

That's you next next.

All right, on that note, thank you so much Shane for coming on. And it's been a real pleasure, always fun talking with you. And that's it.

That's the show. Yeah, well, thank you for writing me and inspiring me on facing my fear.

So guys, don't forget go listen to Legally Brunette if you're into understanding the law and you know, figuring out what you can learn. I'm always about learning, you know.

So some kind of high profile celebrity type cases.

Yeah, it's going to be fun to listen to.

Very good. Well, thank you Eddie.

Okay, guys, thank you so much for listening. That's the wrap and we will see you or hear you at the next one.