Episode 79 - Nothing but Preheated to 350

This week, Mike talks about comfort — not sweatpants comfort, but the kind where you don’t feel braced all the time. Featuring dirty chai lattes, harmless debates that weren’t so harmless, and a realization that might explain more than he expected.

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Transcript

Redefining Real Comfort

Mike 0:09

Alright, so I've been thinking a lot about comfort lately. Not couch comfort, not sweatpants comfort, not I bought three velor tracksuits comfort, although they are fucking comfortable. I mean real comfort. The kind where you don't have to feel like you have to brace yourself. The kind where you feel like you don't have to just keep appearances up. And no, I'm not talking about shaving your sensitive areas because oh my god, the relationship is still too new. They can't find out that they're dating Sasquatch. I'm talking about emotional appearances. As you all may know, I had Olivia on the podcast last week, which I hope you all enjoyed. Yeah, no, I definitely gotta get her on the podcast more often. But last week we talked about performance when it came to Valentine's Day, effort, halftime shows, public displays of love, all that, right? And then after we recorded that episode, the word performance stuck with me. And it's not because I think I'm fake, it's not because I think I put on some sort of a character, but I think it's because I started to realize something subtle just about myself, where sometimes I don't perform confidence, I perform readiness, and I think there is a difference. Like, okay, here's a perfect example of this, right? So a few days after we recorded that podcast, we were just sitting at home and Olivia and I were just talking about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, just a normal conversation. Oh, this band's in, this band's not. I don't know why this band's not in, but this band is stupid shit like that, right? Harmless topic. And I just feel myself like ramping up. And I'm just like, well, you know, historically, well, commercially, well, technically, and halfway through, I'm just like, why am I acting as if this is a cross-examination? We're just chilling, sitting at the table, drinking our cappuccinos. There's no scoreboard, no one's keeping stats. Yeah, why is my tone just locked in like we're debating foreign policy? Have you guys ever done that? You ever feel like your body just tenses before the conversations even turns? Like you're preheated to 350, but nothing's in the oven yet? Oh, the food is still chilling in the fridge, but for some reason you're just hot and ready like little Caesars. And for what? I have no idea. Because it really wasn't until then when I realized that she just goes quiet. Like she's not mad, she's not dramatic, she just goes quiet and she goes, you know, I can't talk if you're just gonna go. And it hit me because I'm not trying to bulldoze. That's what this fucking podcast is for. Ain't nobody to interrupt me on this bitch, and I'm not trying to dominate in my heart of hearts. I thought I was just explaining, but explaining and overpowering are not the same thing. And I had this split second where I'm just like watching myself from outside thinking, like, do I really want to be this guy? The guy who just turns every harmless topic into cross-examination? Do I want to be the guy who's always right? Or the guy who people feel safe disagreeing with? Because those are not the same dude. One of those people gets respect and the other one gets distance. And it's not just with Olivia. I realize I do this with everybody in my life. I don't want to win music debates. I just want to be somebody that you can at least finish a sentence around. And that's what I've been kind of sitting with lately. I don't know, it kind of seems like disagreement registers as dangerous in my system. So what do I do? I sharpen, I speed up, I defend, even when no one's attacking me. And this kind of connects to something I said two weeks ago. The cappuccino thing. As I keep saying, the one that I didn't have until I was 30. I mean, I framed it as calories, which was true. I don't love drinking my calories. I mean, come on, what the fuck are you expecting out of a black cup of coffee? It's minimal and it's efficient. But if I'm being honest, I don't think it was just the calories. I think it was just this mental rule like no milk, no sugar, stay sharp. It was like I was preparing for something, like a war at Starbucks. I don't know, I feel like I made that same joke last week, but fuck it, we ball. But the truth of the matter, too, is like I wish that it also wasn't about masculinity and that it wasn't about being tough. It was just about guard. I think sometimes I confuse being disciplined with being guarded, and discipline is intentional, being guarded is defensive, and I didn't realize how much of my life I was just being slightly defensive, if not fully on the defense. Bro, my mind said Jordan, my personality apparently said Rodman. Yet now I'm dating somebody who orders whatever she wants. Chai Latte, foam, flavor, joy. No explanation, no apology, no performance, and I realized that I don't need to keep appearances up anymore. I don't need to armor up over milk. I can just order the fucking cappuccino. Better yet, I could just have it at home. And that's not about coffee, that's just about comfort. That's about emotional safety. Oh, dude, once I had a chai tea latte, I was fucking hooked. Christmas in a cup year-round? Are you shitting me? You know, I don't drink anymore, but you know what I enjoy the fuck out of? Is a dirty chai latte, two shots, extra foam. Hey Mike, all of a sudden you get into a relationship and your white girl is showing. No, it's more like these lactose-free cheese makes me too hot fucking people with their little iPhones and Starbucks cup may just know something that I don't. Because somehow they've cracked the code. They've figured out every flavor combination, every milk style that works with anything. Thank you for your service. Because God only knows what went on in those bathrooms for you to figure this out for my enjoyment. Oh, welcome to the party there, Mike. Well, you know what? I'm a late bloomer. Alright. So I think this same guard of defensiveness just shows up in conversation, which brings me to something that I think explains a lot. Like, for example, when I was seven, I tell my mom that I don't feel too good. She goes, I just don't think you want to go to school. Which, you know what? Fair assumption. I'll give it to you. So what do I do? I go to school. Five minutes in, teacher takes a look at me, goes, Hey, you feeling alright? You know what, teach? Not really. No, why don't you go to the nurse? Five minutes of being in the nurse. Hey, we should probably call your mom to come pick you up. You can have that phone call with her. I bet she just got back home. Nurse calls up my mom. Hey, you might want to pick up your son. Okay, brings me to the doctor. Walking pneumonia. Which in hindsight is low-key kind of fucking hilarious. But it also means that I wasn't being dramatic and I was just actually sick. But it's moments like that that kind of stick, right? When you feel something is real and you're told that it's not, you get really good at building your case the next time. So what do you do? You get sharp, you get fast each time. You just try to come a little bit more prepared than you were the last time. And it's honestly not because you're trying to dominate, it's just because you don't want to be dismissed again. And maybe that's why sometimes when I'm arguing now, I'm not trying to win, I'm just trying to be believed, man. But I mean, I'm not the only one who I think does this, right? Like some of you probably don't get louder, you maybe get quieter, or some of you don't debate, you shut down. It's the same wiring, it's just different expression. It's just how your system learned how to stay safe. And I think that's just a little bit of a different energy. That's not ego, that's wiring. And wiring just doesn't disappear because you turn 30, you just get better vocab. So when Olivia makes a counterpoint about music, my brain doesn't hear, oh, interesting, it hears, oh, prepare, rebut. And those are two very different modes. And the wild part is I don't even internally feel aggressive, but apparently, externally, tone shifts, speed changes, volume creeps, and I didn't even know I was doing it until I tried to pay attention more because I can feel it in my chest, my jaw tightens, my breathing gets shallow. Holy crap, I sound like I'm just an angry lunatic when I say it out loud. See, people, this is self-reflecting, this is good, but it's all true because I also just stop listening and I start loading ammunition. Like, she's on word five, and I'm already drifting into my closing arguments. I'm not even hearing her sentence, I'm preparing my rebuttal, and half the time she wasn't even disagreeing, she was just fucking finishing a thought. Do you know how bad it is? Where I'm just now realizing that I don't wait for somebody to finish, I wait for them to just exhale because there's that one second of oxygen in the room, is just like, yeah, but and half the time they weren't done, they were just fucking breathing. Like, so now if I feel it coming, I just shut my mouth and I have to take one breath. Not to calm down, just to give my mental and them also just space for them to talk for me, just to chill. Because most of the time there is no threat, it's just old muscle memory, and that's the growth part, right? It's not some dramatic breakthrough. I feel like it's just noticing, it's just catching something mid-sentence and going, oh wait, I'm doing it again. Because what I had to learn and what I'm still trying to learn is that strength isn't volume, strength doesn't always mean being right, strength isn't steamrolling somebody into silence, strength is actually letting somebody finish. Sometimes strength is just not gripping the steering wheel like such an asshole. And I don't want to be the guy who wins an argument and loses the room. I don't want to be technically correct and emotionally exhausting. And honestly, if I can slow that down in real life, it probably makes me hear a little bit better too, probably makes me a little bit better in my own work life, probably makes me better in my relationship. Because I just don't want to be talking at people, I want to talk with them. So lately, if I feel myself ramping up, I just breathe. And not in a TED talk way, not like dramatic, just enough to pause. I wouldn't necessarily say that growth at 30 is dramatic. I think it's just one of those micro adjustments. It's catching tone mid-sentence, it's letting somebody finish, it's not turning music into lit a fucking gaishin. But it is done small. And it's small done consistently, because it's hard to break old habits. But when something's done consistently, it changes everything. I mean, I still drink black coffee, but sometimes I order the cappuccino, not because I totally changed who I am, but because I don't need the armor anymore. And that feels like the real comfort. You know, Olivia said something the other day that actually made me kind of pause. And she looks at me and she just goes, you know, you're kind of like Tigger. You're not angry, you're not malicious, you just always bounce it. And honestly, she's not wrong. I mean, I've got energy, I care, I get passionate about fucking dumb shit, debating the rock hall as if I'm on first take. But Tigger's thing isn't anger, it's momentum, and momentum without awareness just rolls people over. So the more I thought about it, the more I thought that she's kind of like Piglet. Because she's not loud, she's not combative, and she's just steady, man. And Piglet doesn't fight Tigger, Piglet goes quiet. And that's the part that stuck with me. I don't want to be the reason that somebody goes quiet, especially not somebody that I care about. Because if you keep winning arguments like that, eventually you don't have arguments anymore. You just have silence. And silence might feel peaceful at first until you realize it's distance. And I don't want distance. I don't want someone editing themselves around me. I don't want someone always contemplating is this even worth bringing up? Because I know what that feels like, and it's not peace, it's isolation. And you know what? I actually caught it the other night. I felt it ramp, I felt it in my chest, and instead of jumping in, I just let her finish. And nothing bad happened. The world didn't collapse, I didn't lose ground, the conversation was actually better. Trust me, I still drink black coffee, and maybe that's what comfort actually is. It's not softness, it's not even about being too passive, it's just feeling like you don't have to be braced all the fucking time. Anyway, that's where my head's been at. I'll catch y'all next week.