Lessons

Lesson Info

The Most Important Conversation About Life… Death with Michael Hebb

everybody. What's up? Different Chase Welcomed episode of the Chase Drivers Live show here on Creativelive. You all know this shows where I sat down with amazing humans and do everything. I can unpack their beautiful brains to help you live your dreams. Whether that's in career, in hobby or in life, my guest today is an artist. He's an activist, super long time friend of mine. Ah, very successful restaurant tour. Uh, and today we're gonna talk about his new book, which is gonna be a very powerful one. You need to prepare yourself for this. Let's talk about death over dinner, Michael, have in the house that you love you. So we've had thousands of conversations on couches all over the world at various times of day and night. Um and we said, We want our money, Continents. We've been together for many, and so I think this is gonna be a special discussion. I like, I think about the show is being special because I prepare for it. I feel like we have amazing guests, but the fact that you and ...

I have history that we have, hopefully we we can go from 0 to 100 miles an hour for the Lister listener with basically zero effort. So your background we were talking about One of my favorite things is that people on the show have a span crazy ray of backgrounds that basically everybody had trying introduces some sort of a hyphen. No one's just like volleyball star, you know, that's, like not a thing. It's like hyphen, hyphen, hyphen. Um, and there are many things that we could say about your background. We chose to say, Artist activist, now about to be New York Times Bestselling. But put that under the universe. We we know one another originally from events around food and culture. Um, and so in your own words, how Give me a little bit of the arc of how you got here your your back story and how we're sitting here on this couch. Well, we're not on Couch, actually. Yeah, for just, like, frame frame for us, because you could be so many things. And you are a chameleon and multi talented, multi faceted artist. But so just tell us a little bit of story about how you got here in more for my own opinions. Yeah, that sounds great. um well, I mean, kind of similar to you. It started in I'm a field that doesn't look like the field of urine. Now, you started in philosophy. Yeah, right. And then and then ended up with a camera in your hand. My background is in classics and architecture, right? That's what I study. Um, and and then I when I was 21 I opened an architecture firm. Um, it left architecture school and open architecture firm in Portland with star architect Mark Blakeman. And then we also started this nonprofit kind of guerilla architectural initiative, or, I guess not even kind of very much gorilla architecture initiative called city repair, which was we created city repair with the idea that we wanted to, without invitation or permission, fixed the city in the ways that we saw fit eso looking at like this, this architecture of mindset, of design so really like and foundational foundational design. Like, what is the world that I want to live in? You know, what is the what is the distance between the world and I'm living in and the world that I want to live in, right? Okay. What's that chasm and Then how do I cross that adaptive valley like that scary place personally? Yep. Right. And as a city, you're making culture in that. Yeah. Like Portland. Important lessons be poor. Portland was Portlandia before Portland was weird before Portland was like any of those just Northwest logging town. Yeah, it was a shit hole, right? You know what I mean? Like like I mean, sorry, but Portland Seattle were ugly kind of backwaters, you know, in a lot of ways. Years ago. Yeah, and so which gives you a great deal of opportunity because there was nothing going on. There was no eyes on us. So Mark and I started doing things like turning whole neighborhood intersections into Piazza's into Italian piazzas by painting like 50. Um, I'm sorry. 500 foot, um, on Assad's the symbols of life across the whole intersection, right? Without getting permission from the city. So the city woke up one day, and all of sudden, an intersection and sell wood was turned into this huge, you know, painting this mural on the street on the asphalt and we'd ripped up the corners and put in 24 hour T stations and clubhouses for the kids and, like, you know, all of these things. But with consensus, the neighbors and not the city, but not this way. Forgot to invite them to the party. Um, and so they got really pissed off, right? Like, you know, what in the fuck is this? Um, And who do we put in handcuffs kind of thing. And who's gonna pay for this? And the mayor at the time, Mayor Vera Katz was, like, hold, you know, hold everything, you idiots. They've actually done all of the things I have asked you to do with your community engagement projects. They've created consensus. They created local networks. They've created art and culture, and they've solved. They're probably gonna need less services from the city. They become less expensive by breaking our laws. And you want to find them like this is what I've asked you to. Eunice, is this incredible upheaval And, um and we ended up getting a one year temporary permit to run this project. And now there's 15, of them around the world. So, um, a couple things I learned from that was civil disobedience is essential. Um, and fun and scary transgression is very important, But you better know what the fuck you're doing, right? Like if you're gonna break the law, have a very good design. I have a really well thought out. Know your history. Um And so I think that what I learned from that was, you know, these lessons, but also that I can have a major impact, right? And I can create models that go way belong beyond the one instance, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we've talked about this sure for years. How do you, instead of just creating art or culture, how do you enable others to create art and culture, which I think is, you know, at the core of creative lives, for sure. Um and so that became an essential part of my work early on. And I also realized that architecture and even non profits and initiatives are very expensive. Both resource is and the amount of people that you and relationships that you have to manage to build a building. Right? So the Eliades, it's a big project. It's huge project. You know this You You've built out a couple. Yeah. And you. So you build a building in orderto have a human experience, right? Like that's what the architect does, you know? And it's like this. It's amazing the esteem thing, like you're shaping human experience. The engine, you know, the machine for living, like in caboose. Ea sort of idea. Um, and I was as a young man, I was very into that kind of hierarchical relationship of being the designer of experience, right? Um and then I realized the table is already designed. Um, it's may be the first architecture. All right, this and we don't know how to use it anymore. He was a dirt floor then. It was a rock, and yeah, and then was it like a fire where you roasted something and you didn't want to burn your fingers when you went to eat the meat that you'd killed. And so you put a table at the same level essentially of where it was roasting, just moved it over, And then and then, language. You know, this other thing happened of concentrating calories likes pretty extraordinary. We talk about what made us human. We think about this evolutionary leap, and it has now been proven that Darwin was wrong. Um, and we made the evolutionary leap because we cooked. And so apes have these incredible jaws like big jaws, small brains, huge bellies, Right? And they choose seven hours a day, um, and humans to 24 minutes a day. Um and so when you go from seven hours of doing an activity to 24 minutes, we lost the jaw size, right. And we had all of this room in our head fellow with the brain. Well, yeah, exactly. And the stove became the belly. We have this belly like a big cow's belly almost that could, like deal with nuts and Berries and roots to a belly that can actually a streamlined because we cook. Right. So we got big brains, were sitting across from each other around tables, eating, and then language happens, you know, like, yeah, so So I was like, tables way, way easier than a building. It's way easier than a bill. They don't have to build it, and you lose yourself in it like it doesn't matter if you think about the most memorable meals you've ever had. It's not a loo. Tesser noma the French laundry like a respect for what those sure create. But that's never somebody's most memorable meal like it's never like at a palace. It's always of someplace where it's the people and the experience, and some, like calamity happened or something. But it still was a great dinner, and what I learned from that was you could create human experience anywhere. You could create the architecture of experience without the budget. So I was like, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life working on tables. So by working out, I'm not building the building human experience around him. Yeah, but we've built something. We have wake literally built tables to do some of the events we've done together. So you traversed the landscape from architecture to food. I'm gonna fill in a couple of players, go for yourself. Um, restaurant tour in Portland needed some really early interesting, like the concept before the concept of farm to table. And you were buying stuff from the people who were growing the food in and outside of Portland, getting that kind of food at the table in building culture there for the you know, this time importance music scene was starting to shape up and and combining culture with food in an establishment. And as you said right before we went live, um, said something about you talked about? Use an entrepreneur. You said No. No endeavors. As an entrepreneur, you need to make money. Yeah, I know a terrible business. So you weren't long for the world of of building restaurants, mostly because they didn't suit what I have come to known as you're sort of vision and mission for your life. But convening people at a table was still quarter. That s o talk about shaping the underground food movement of, like, dinners that we're unsanctioned by the government and for or whom you were paid to bring people together. But there was no taxation. There was no, it was just guerrilla style because you're the first person I knew doing that. Yeah. I mean, I when I left the architecture world, um, after it in the nonprofit world, I was like, Wow, starting a nonprofit and dealing with all of these personalities was more than I knew. I didn't have the capacity for it when I was 23. 22. 23. Um, and so on my partner at the time, Naomi Pomeroy, who has gone on to be a renowned chef. James Beard winner, etcetera. Um, she was chef shows. Yeah, she's a master chef. It said We have a beautiful daughter together. She's an amazing talent. Um, but at the time, she didn't know what she wanted. Dio was a very talented cook, And so we started a private chef company for her. And I knew a bunch of like, you know, glitterati and people who could pay for a private chef services in Portland. And so but And then you start getting catering requests, but we didn't have a license Kitchen. Um, and I was like, Well, that's fine. Like, will cater for whitening Kennedy's, like, you know, annual party holiday party or for the mayor or for Nikes, you know, executive team out of our, you know, our bungalow kitchen right in Portland using Weber grills because we couldn't keep up with the, you know, thousands of people were cooking for totally illegally, um, and but is a service industry. We were providing a service, and that started away on me, and it was like, this isn't generative like, um, this is a nice idea, but how do we flip this on? And what I realized was at that time that the restaurant world food world in general didn't have an underground. Right? There was not the garage bands. There was not grunge. There was not the Warhols. The best bust Viets, the all every like, great art form has an underground. Yeah, right. A place where you can fuck up essentially where you can fail without high cost. All right. And in culinary world, it was in take huge risks, huge irritants, potentially successful ones. But yeah, there's your your your your lacking the consequences. Yeah, And so there was this huge missing again. This, like, Adaptive Valley or Chasm, Right? Like, um, you would go to culinary school. You work for Wolf game, Huck, And then you'd go and find a $1,000,000 because you had that much charm or a talent or whatever. Then you open a restaurant, and then you're Mario Batali or something like that, and then you're gone because, you know, you're an asshole. Um, but, um but the, uh, that trajectory for me, we just wasn't that exciting. I felt like there was a whole missing, um, potency in the culinary world. Um and so I was like, let's create a culinary underground. How would we do that? Well, let's create dinners in our living room. Let's create this idea called pop up restaurants or underground suffers. It didn't really exist. I mean, for dinner. Yeah. I mean, there's been ad hoc dinners throughout time. Yeah, but I was also very inspired by the, um, Pala Dorries in Cuba, where people, because they didn't have the money to feed their families, were turning their living rooms into restaurants and risking being put in jail slash Who knows what Have you been in Cuba? Um, and I was like, Well, this is going to be lower risk, but let's turn our living room into a restaurant. And so we started thinking family supper. Um, and within six months of doing these dinners, where people would come and leave money in the jar, Um, and it was illegal. And, you know, we don't have any licenses from a food handler's you need. We didn't having you not new name it. We had a nose. You name it. We didn't have it. Yeah, totally. We were breaking it until we made it kind of thing, breaking every law, Um, and uh, within six months of doing these dinners in our living room were on the front page of the dying section of The New York Times of starting a whole new movement and trend, which they didn't really have. A call is in there like, Who else is doing this? So we could say it's a trend like we don't know. There's no we don't know of anybody else, right? And New York time wants to break every trend or used to I don't know what they won't do anymore, but, um, the you know, it was two things that kind of smelled like us in an article, you know, on the threat fringe and thriving. And then all of a sudden, we became the poster Children of this idea, Um, which for me, even though the press was seductive for a while, the really interesting thing for me was to get the idea out that you can use whatever you have. Um, anybody can use, you know, whatever surrounding them. Whatever apartment, whatever. Warehouse, whatever they can lot, um, they have available to them, and they can create an experience where they try out their craft both as a chef, right, because you're part of this was the culinary, but also just as a person who's interested in phenomenology or experienced design, right, because that's what a successful restaurant are. Successful culinary experiences as much about the experiences. It is about the food, for sure, And, you know, and we saw it take off. And now there's, you know, there's restaurant, pop up restaurants everywhere, and you know, occasionally I'll go into one and they're like, Wait, it's like like it's your better grounder. Yeah, so that was That was an interesting chapter. And then it turned into a restaurant group slash art incubator. And that was exciting to see Portland. Portland was had all of the components, but it hadn't, um, is like a gaseous state before the universe. That is the now Portland that we know had formed. And, you know, we would have Miranda July, um, and the Decemberists and Modest Mouse and Gus Van Sant. And, you know, and then, like a bunch of experimental artists you've never heard of, you know, all like in our establishments constantly, you know, an incredible writers and Gore Vidal what you can like. So all of these people were intersecting in our kind of public eateries, and but it wasn't sustainable, and it blew up extraordinary fashion, but fiery. Yeah, but I learned a lot from that. Yeah, and so we said something in there, which I think is really I wanna put a pin in it. And that is that that anyone can do whatever their craft is with whatever they have with them. Yeah, and I think that's a very, very important and that you know the audience super well, you're very from credible. I've been a partner and a friend coconspirator in this thing we've been building for a long time, but that's a huge important take away that your first things you just built what you had with what you had or what you didn't have with what you had. And to me, that's ah, it's usually it's ah, that is a barrier for so many people. I can't do this because I don't have X y z the things they see on TV in that world you would have been Oh, it was a commercial kitchen and it would have been all this, you know, 1/2 a $1,000, for the things you like? Do I have heat? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do I have a table? And do I have, Ah, small group of people that I might build put around this table and try my craft? Yeah, I mean it. I mean, I I always say, Let's start by starting in The most terrifying thing in any project, in any discipline is the white page, right? Like it is Talk about, um, oppressive idea. Right? Or an oppressive phenomenon is the blank page. Right? Put something on it, right. Put the worst shit on it. You know, like, just put something on that page, do something. Start by starting has always been momento. It's a super powerful concept, I think, for any discipline. You know, ironically, we're about to talk about your book. You talk about it because I started the white page, speaking of White Pages s. So I think that's you was a great narrative to introduce, Um, the idea of getting people together for a cultural experience, in that case, around food. Um, and I had the for what? It's worth a little back story about us. Um, funny story about I will tell the story of our first meeting. Yeah, you please. Which? Um it was shortly after your fiery end to your restaurant tourism. You moved to Seattle, and we knew someone in the press who was fond of both of our works separately. His name is Nathan. Anything if you're listening. Thank you. Emily. Yep. Um, and is like, I don't remember. He was at my photo studio once, and he's like, you know, Michael was like, I know that name. Is those guy from Portland? Oh, yeah. Cool. Cool. It's like you guys have to get together. You have to, like, Okay, cool. I love to meet you know how many times to someone said you got to beat my buddy? It's, like, 1000 times that you've heard that in your life. And ah, so I didn't think much of it. And then we would every, you know, a few weeks or a month and see Nathan just around the city. And now I'm going to do this. I'm gonna do this. And I remember getting a call and 11 oclock on a Tuesday or something. It is like, remember, Michael Lab was like, Yeah, like I'm going to pick him up. I'm going to get lunch, and I'm bringing lunch and Michael to your studio, and I'm gonna put you two guys together and 45 minutes. This lovely gentleman I've never met before. I mother front Nathan and Paseo sandwiches. Yeah, And when Nathan took any left, Yeah, you just put the food in the middle, the table at at my photos video and drove away like, cool, I guess. And I'm gonna improvise here because I don't remember exactly talked about, but it was a very engaging conversation. And by the time we parted ways in that first our first date, our first mandate, we had a project we were gonna do. Yep. And that was getting amazing musicians together. Combine them with dinner's reso. Yeah, great chefs, Um, award winning chefs from Seattle and other places and do a series of dinners, um, called songs reading and drinking. And we did that? Yeah, it was wildly successful. People still talk about the dinners, and I have a few feature film in mind that we're gonna still way need to sew that together. Um, but what that at the core of that was my background in making photos. Media helping create ideas that spread your background of creating culture, conversation around the table, mash that shit together. And we've got something. Yeah, And I think in why I chose to go into that story now is because that is making something where there was nothing. Yeah, literally. It wasn't just like, Oh, cool. Let's be friends and talk for the next five years and plant the thing we're gonna do. It's like, Hey, you're seriously, I'm serious. Cool. Let's do some serious shit together, but just start. And then I think it was probably four weeks later, we had our 1st 1st dinner with people Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam Fences. Yeah, it was a lot of these incredible people. Yeah, and we went on to do many of those. So starting is incredible. Yeah, and it's the most valuable thing you can do. So now I'm gonna pivot back to that blank page. Yeah, because getting people together around, uh, over food or convening them. And you you just kicked this book off. Um, I think we're your first interview first piece of press before your used just came from something. Your second piece of press around your new book called Let's Talk About Death and then the over dinner is a little bit of a demolished your past, But I'm going to just say what it is like. Let's talk about death is not the thing that you want today. You want to come over to my house and we're gonna talk about death eso And But we also talked before we start rolling cameras that not really about It's about death. It's really about life. So a congratulations on the book be You started having dinners and talking about death long before anybody out I knew was willing to have that conversation in public. Tell me about the blank page and tell me like, Why do people care about having a conversation around death? Yeah, for so many reasons. But let's let me give you the kind of how we got to this book. Um, quickly, Um, because it's kind of a leap from, uh, you know, Portland dinners with Gore Vidal and, you know, yeah, modest mouse past. So, um, ice I spent about, um, 10 years after Portland, really kind of understanding how the dinner table and small other salons and other small gatherings of humans on major stakeholders could change national and even international conversations about really important topics, Right? So we know how the media works to try to shift or shaped conversations. And then there those smoky back rooms, right? Like where a lot of the chess pieces air actually moved. And so I got lucky, too. Be invited into a lot of the smoky back rooms to talk about to talk about death, to talk about, um, gender inequity. Talk about pay or or, you know, pay gaps to talk about homelessness to talk about, you know, even so far as bringing presidents together. President Kagame from Rwanda and former President Mary Robinson from Ireland together to talk about ending genocide on. They both dealt with genocide, and the Clinton Foundation asked me to bring them together and provoked him into conversation. So I had taken this idea of the table as a cultural site as a place that, you know, I was like, People need to learn how to just eat together again. Have it be fun and not just, you know, entertainment, but actually be really engaging participatory. So that was the first stage, and then it was like How do we go? Even deeper, right? How do we make this a place where lives our lives other than the people that are at the table are impacted for the positive, right. And so? So I went into the hardest conversations I could possibly think of and was willing Teoh moderate and create those experiences, which was phenomenal like that. He did it for all sorts of different foundations of Clinton Foundation. Obama's like you name it like crazy shit, but, um, but I could do that forever. But the thing is, like, I can't invite you to those dinners. Yeah, right. There's only so many people at those tables. I can't share it. I can write about it. And you can, you know, look in from recording. Yeah, and that courted lots of dinners. Yeah, and that's kind of cool. But I was like, how do I actually share this profound experience of deep human connection? Deep self knowledge at the table with millions of people, like, how does it scale? How does the unlike the thing that can't scale a very finite dinner table? How does it scale? Right. Um and so I was like, I need a topic that I can build a almost like a board game. Like how doe I gamma fied dinner. Right, Mike, um, we play board games after dinner around, you know, sometimes completely unnamed things, but we get to know each other better. Like, how do I make a very deeply meaningful experience over dinner? Um, and have a 1,000,000 people have that experience, right? And so I looking around for a topic. And then I came across death like stubble. Showstopper shows stop quite literally a bunch. We're here all week. Um, so the the thing, the thing that it was this perfect storm, right, um, that I walked into. And sometimes, you know, this is an artist and creator. You have those moments where you have one conversation and everything changes for you. Right? And I had that conversation on the train with a couple of physicians and they didn't know each other, and I didn't know them. And they left the current medical system, which we all know is broken, right. Um, and they both left it because they were just so frustrated. Their current medical system. And I mean, I was like, Well, what's the most broken thing. If it's so broken, what's the most broken thing? And they both said how we die, right? To be able to don't know each other, don't know me. And I'm like, this is six years ago how we die. Um, the good, death conscious dying, um, hospice, palliative care. All of these catch phrases that are now front page everywhere all of the time. Um, we're nowhere in the landscape, right? Um and so for me it was And I said, What do you mean, How we die is broken like you die like, how can that be broken? And they said, Well, it's very There's one statistic that really illuminates this, um is that 75% of people want to die at home, and only 25% of us do so in the United States. A country that prides itself on the rugged individual is, um, on a gent IQ. Life's on making our own decisions where half of us are not getting what we want for one of the most critical parts of our lives or our loved ones lives because they're passing right. Why are we dying in hospitals when we don't want to, and it was so for me, it was like, Wait a second. We're And the answer to that is right. We're not getting the death we want for ourselves or our loved ones, because we're not talking about it. Full stop. But nothing else is wrong other than the fact that we don't talk about death, right? And so when you don't talk about death and you don't know what your loved ones want and you don't know how to honor them, the default from you know, the medical field is very expensive. They'll throw everything at keeping you alive. Right? Um, and and that prolongs your grief. If you haven't figured out how to honor your parents, your spouse, like you want to know what they want because it's very hard to grieve somebody and to complete the grieving if you haven't figured out how to honor them. And so I was like, Holy shit! Like we have this financial crisis because this is bank ran coming, people. Yeah, it's the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US is end of life expenses. Number one, right? Not number 10 or 11 or 62 yet One. Yeah, biggest expense in their broken medical system. Right? It is. The last, you know, is the end of life, right? Was like because we have a financial crisis around this. We have an emotional crisis. We have a communication crisis, and we have an opportunity to treat repression, You know, repression and shame around it. Topic. And, you know, one of the things that I've learned through having difficult conversations is repression leads to disease. Right? And that's not just I've what? I've been lot. Not Gandalf. I've been alive long enough to see, you know, I'm not Gandalf. That's a tweet from I'm not General Michael had quote I'm not again. Uh, I haven't been able to see, you know, the your repressive aunt died of X because of her. The fact that she won't talk about money, sex, death, drugs or whatever it is, but luckily has been clinically proven that repressive styles create metabolic disorders and create auto immune disorders. We're talking about cancers we're talking about. All of these things have a direct relationship to how if shame suffering grieving. Yeah. How? Yeah, Repression. So I was like, Wait, death isn't is a doorway. This conversation the most taboo shit in our culture that loves to talk about everything, right? Yes. So we think. Yeah. So we're brand rather. We branded it that we love to talk about everything, but we really don't. Yeah, millennials share everything they share about their You know, that poop they had in the morning or the Baba. But it's like, Well, but they won't talk about death, you know, like so it's like, Let's look at the thing that we repress most. Um, let's put that into a box of conversation over dinner and let's scale it. You know, people were like, You're crazy. Call it Matt Wiggins. You know a friend who is a leader in the healthcare space and was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna create this thing called Let's have dinner and talk about death. And he's like, You're crazy. It's not gonna work, but I'm totally in. That's that's how we roll. That's our little posse. Yeah, it's never gonna work, but let's try it anyway. It's tried anyway, And lo and behold, this. We've created this thing death over dinner dot org's um, that's a basic tool kit for how to have a dinner talk about death, whether you yourself or someone you love with terminal, whether you're grieving somebody, whether you just want to be prepared, whether you're a doctor and nurse and or somebody who has been close to a traumatic death, um, and give them individualized scripts based upon why they might want to have that conversation. Um, we built it for $11,000. Um, we put no money behind it for five years. Five years since its launch, there's been over a 1,000, people have sat down at this dinner, um, in 30 countries, Right? Um so it works. So the punch line is it worked. It worked. So again, this idea of like, what is? What's a project that you can do for very little resource, right? That's incredibly disruptive and transgressive, but very beautifully designed because we put aesthetics at the highest level with any of these projects. It's always been very important to me. Beauty is actually creates change, but, you know, and then toe have it reach millions of people, make their lives better, reduce that gap between the world that I live in the world that I want to live in. Of course, there's people like Trump and some other players that push this gap out there may. Come on, make It's a midway, Um, but you know, there's there's always that, Um, so that's kind of that was this setting for, um, for the book, there is a physical event that you were able to scale create platform. I'll call it like a physical people for my like I think I like that word because it simplifies the concept. And then, of course, you're able to, uh, write the book is a bunch of people who want you came to you and said, This is a perfect topic for a book. It's obviously needs to happen but took me for a second about you said in that description, that for for those folks at home, yes, we're talking about death, and it's an important topic. And yet it's really a conversation about life. Yeah, right, because in just sells less books. Let's talk about life. Yeah, right. Well, even like, let's have dinner and talk about life for a life over dinner. Yeah, says said No. One. Yeah, it was like never come. Not it's not a real No. One, and no one writes that in The New York Times. But what it really is is it's facing our mortality, which is that's one of the reasons it was really important for, uh, Amy to have you on the show be Get this conversation out into the tribe that we've built here alive. Um, because as creators, entrepreneurs were passionate cares about building something that there is a lesson to be building things that are of value to you that you personally have experienced or have caused pain that you need to work through. And I think helping one another have a conversation about life. Are we living the life we wanted? How do we manage and contribute? And he'll and all of the the remedy that the served like pre remedy the things that are going to go wrong if we don't live the life that we want Disease, if you will, like, right preventative disease by living our best lives. So, yeah, give me some contact there. Well, especially since we're talking primarily to creative, Right? Um, the, uh, conversation, um, can take We can talk about death. Medically, we can talk about it philosophically, but let's talk about it in the creative process. Um, you know, I wanted I want to give people access to, um, the kind of lexicon of death, like instead of it just being this room you don't go into right. Or if only the brave go into Let's open it up and see what's in there. Right? Let's unpack this This thing, um And when I think about it from death as a transformative, um, idea, death is a transformative phenomenon. Um, and the creative process. If you think about nature, right, Nature is arguably the greatest creator. Maybe not even arguably. Let's just go. Greatest creator, right? Like we got things like mountains got volcanoes like us, things flying. Humans like a few things. And so, you know, ostensibly, you know, responsible for everything that we know of. Yes, including our thoughts, like Mother Nature, the greatest creator. So if we look at it, need nature like and even the most simple. We get really into some very sophisticated nature metaphors, but let's just look at basic, you know, Spring, summer, fall, winter, right. Okay, so winter has toe happen. Everything has to die for spring toe, right? Like that? That just if you imagine um, summer, fall, spring, summer, fall, spring. We're all gonna become compost, right? Really? Too many things on things talk about. It's like the Internets kind of like that, right? We don't know how to kill shit on the Internet. We don't know how the winter, the Internet, And so we have this accumulation and we get lost in things. But nature shows us that death is an opportunity to. And so for me, when I'm talking to creatives, it's what in you needs to die for the thing that you're meant to be doing to show up, right? So there is something standing in between you and the work that you want to create Unless you're living. If you're living your best self right now, kudos. But yes, yeah, yeah. And then But the thing is, if you're living your best self in six months, you might not be because something in you has to die in order to get to the next place. Because we're you know, we're dynamic, right? And people like you and I know that we have to shed constantly. We get, be, become really good at shedding skin. We get really good at not getting attached to our own ideas, their own egos about things, right? Um, we like there's so many ideas. How many ideas you have that was like that idea Didn't This isn't the right time, or I was just off. Yeah, right. I want to be, like, a lot like and then I walked. Watch a lot of friends that are like, I can't break through and they're carrying around all of these ideas that clearly are not about right now or they're not the right person. And it's like, let that shit die, right? And then and it's, You know, this goes to any you can attach it to your relationship. So you're not happy in a relationship, okay? Like a lot of people aren't happy in the relationship because they think of marriage. Um, as not a death ritual, right? Like, here's the press release. Marriages also is much about a living rituals. It is a death ritual. Okay, a bunch. A new person is born. A new union is born. When you get married, you know what? Who dies? The single you write the single, you is dead. When you put that ring on your finger and If it's not, your marriage is gonna be dead. There's no question about it, right? So it's like when you start to instead of avoiding death. Is this, like, scary thing or trying to be, um, you know, we fetishize it, like with our horror film industry. We want to be, like, you know, electrocuted by it through fear, which just shows our curiosity. But it's such an unhealthy relationship. If we just turn him, Look at it. We see these these opportunities to utilize it as a transform a nation ALS, you know, methodology. Um and so, you know, for me, it's not spooky at all. Um, And to get to your point, the book's not about death. The dinners aren't about death. Um, we don't know anything about that, right? There are no death experts. There are no experts in death or no death experts. Right. So let me tell you about death. Yeah, like or you're lying, right? Yeah. Medically, People who have observed it, there's a lot of data on it. But that's also not what death is right. That's an observance of it. And and and also the medical. The medical exposition of it is woefully inadequate. Yeah. So how what lends have you put on it in the book to help us capture it? Yeah, well, essentially, um, and you're right. We have medicalized death, and it's a community act. It's a human act. It's not a medical act. Um, the you know, the thing we have raised the idea of, like, with a tool go one day and breath becomes air and incredible amount of people starting with Elizabeth Kubler Ross and actually going way forward and all of the mystics throughout time. And all of the philosophers have been talking about death. Right? Philosophy was born out of, um, out of mortality. But there's a lot of people right now have done a great job of showing us that our system is broken or showing us that we need to really consider um, you know, our end in a very thoughtful way and that there's an alternative. But what I felt like was missing is very practical, engaging narrative story based, um, to, you know, a tool like a I want to say it za guide, but it's the book itself is really meant to be this invitation to go into these dark canyons with me to say, like, let's talk about every different types of of death there are. You know, let's talk about the scary ones like suicide. Let's talk about the fact that your parents are probably going to die before you. You hope in some ways, um, and the fact that it's difficult to talk to the people in your life about them. Let's just like, put that on there. I'm not saying, even though death is all this great topic that's going to change your life and make you, you know, more attractive and have better sex and all of these things, Um, which it will. But and we can talk. There's actually a study done at Harvard that, um, meditating on death makes you funny here, and it makes you laugh more right. Like so, Like it has all of these. Like, there's so many upsides. There's so many outsides, the death. Uh, I feel like now we're late night TV, right? And well, luckily, don't anything you like. You've got one coming to, um and I'm not going to sell it to you, but, um, the, uh, where we're going, we were gone. That there is a medical study? No. Oh, make sure whether you're getting this sexier better looking more exciting to have that have the conversations that people are going to have. Yeah, so we need help in that because we've for gotten It's like we've forgotten how to cook and we've forgotten how to pickle. And we've for gotten how to make, you know, Sunday gravy that your grandmother used to make. We've also for gotten how to broach the topic. Like, I kind of think about it like sex. Um, if, um if death if we treated death like sex, the conversation of death, like getting laid, right, So you go to your parents or you go to your spouse. Whatever listens is about sex, let's make it your spouse. Um and you're like, Hey, honey, I think we should talk about, you know, do our wills or something like that. And she's like, No, thanks, right. And you'd be like, OK, she doesn't want talk about it. You come to me and you say I tried to talk to my wife. She doesn't want to talk about it. Full stop on. And I said, Well, have you ever you know, wanted toe Make love to your wife and have her not be interested. Yes. Okay. Then Did you stop trying to make love to your life forever? Right? Right. Or like when you're in order is not now. Not ever. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So if we treated it like courtship or getting laid, obviously respectfully and consensually in all cases and did with death and consensual ality is actually key. Like you never force anybody into a conversation about about death. And you never surprised them. Right? So and again, it's like sex. 100% consensual. 100 president. Communicative. But you do not be like, Hey, pizza night. We're having a death dinner. Like a recipe for disaster. Totally. It's not cool, but treated like courtship because we want to know these things. And to your point that the book's not about death, there are no experts and death. No one can tell me what's on the other side. You have a near death experience. That's awesome. And maybe you saw something, but we don't know. Um, and I honor anybody who's had a near death experience on there's wisdom to be gleaned. We just don't know exactly what it is. Um, but the thing about, um, this book about the dinner's about any conversation I don't care if use my tools or anybody's tools or any inspiration. Um, what's actually at play are two things. Um, and that's human connection. Um, and knowing yourself, right? So when we talk about really any vulnerable topic, but especially death, um, death has the benefit of not being not having a lot of, like interpersonal drama, like we all face it. Um, there's no hierarchy. Um, and so there's again. There's no experts. So But when we face death, um, we learn it's the quickest way to learn about yourself, to learn about your priorities, what I want at the end, okay? And then what I want between now and the end, right? Like what this is. And when you talk about, like the the undercurrent that this show is largely based on that creativelive exists. My mission envisioned for not only is are we creating art and experienced housing, but we're literally creating our own lives yet every every day of it. So if there's something that's gonna bring into that like what? What? Oh, I got to do between now and end of days. Yeah, to I feel incredible to feel whole to feel human, to feel like it was a life well lived. Puts that into some serious perspective on the thing that puts that into perspective. Staff. Yeah, it's the strongest medicine out death. The strongest medicine. Yeah, it really is like you will get in touch with your priorities, your values. You want a mission statement for life, you know, face your mortality, you'll get your mission statement, right? I promise you, I can. I Sure it's right. Yeah, of course. Police engine. So, um, one of the reasons that creative life exists and that I shifted my mission envision from I say, just buy. Just focusing on being a successful independent artist with the working studio. And to be clear, it was absolutely living my best dream life of all time, making the way more money than I could ever spend or 10 times what I thought it was possible to make or my parents had made traveling around shooting snowboarding and skiing out of Alec copter with my friends. Yeah, that goody dope do as bad is bad. This is That is I was caught in an avalanche in Alaska and by every measure, haven't talked a lot about this publicly. Um, I have it on my list of shit to do, but I was caught in an avalanche that for by every measure, I should not have lived through. And I remember all of the things that you're talking about. If you've never if you've ever come up this close to it and escaped it or do your death or whatever, let's just say it crystallizes a lot of shit. Yeah, and it was literally in the 24 hours after that experience that I said, Wait a minute. I've been running on beating my chest, doing all this stuff that I thought was sort of what I was put on this earth to do. But I realized that that is like, that is the shortest, smallest version of myself. But I want to be out in the world. And so what is it that I aware Were you having fun prior to this? Absolutely is fun. Enjoy. And beauty and hard work and all those things important? Yes. How do we scale our ability to create the living the life that we want cause I tapped into that and it was amazing. But creativelive exists literally because of my brush with death. Yeah, So I'm familiar with this of which you speak. And I believe it is the most powerful medicine. I digress a little bit, but doesn't aggression. That's that's exactly what the book is. All right. Would you did like, um it I created a moment where people could share these stories with me how death actually gave them more life, right? And so that we can start to understand it, not as this thing to the avoid, but like, how to get the most out of the fact that we're mortal, right? So that we're comfortable with it, right? Yeah. I'm just thinking about how uncomfortable I'm right now, right? Yeah. And how I even qualify it like I haven't really told this story, but I really need to tell it. And it's still in my backpack of shit to dio. Yeah, but it's interesting that keeps finding its way to the bottom of the backpack. Every time I reach in the backpack to tell your story and you're bringing a new chapter. It's funny how the death thing and my brush with it. It goes way down because I don't know. I don't have the words are not the stories. Is it egotistical? Is it hopeful? Certainly. Painful, Very emotional. Um, anyways, thanks for helping me recover that for a second there. You know, it's I mean, that's like the permission is key. Yeah, right. Yeah. Like. And the thing is, what you What you did was you were authentic. Um, you were a motive. You were vulnerable. These are all the things that men actually need right now to get out of the ship that were right. Like men are having a really hard time when they deserve it to be having art. But, like, you know, what you just showed us was like, Hey, that this is what we want out of people leaders, right? We want them to be able to reach down to the bottom of the bag and tell us the hard thing, right? And it just it happens with death. It's this mirror, right? And so and it took me saying, Hey, you want a mission statement for life like Boom. And you're like, Yeah, wait a second bell goes off in my head in that act. Actually, how I got my mission statement was by almost dying, right. Um and that's the you know, that's what I've got to sit down with. Others, 100 interviews 100 people have had dinner with 100 people that I've really gotten into their bottom of the backpack story. Um, and some of them are really, like some of them are just beautiful stories. Some of them are funny stories, and some of them are like, You know, I lost a child or or I was impacted by suicide. But what I want to do is bring the same level of compassion and openness and invitation to somebody who's lost a child or somebody who's been close to a suicide. Because with those like extreme desk, we cover them with shame and self shame. And no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to even know, like, check in with the person. Yeah, right. And so we isolate a person who's already probably isolated because of their family structure, you know? And so for me, it's like, OK, so there's the part of this conversation that is self knowledge and the great thing about self knowledge is that's how we get. That's how we heal ourselves, right? I don't care what any pill or with any, you know, membership to cross fit for Pallotti's X will do for you the thing that will do more for your well being for your longevity, for your vitality than anything else is self knowledge, right? Like you are your best healer. Yeah, right. Um, it's built into our system. Yeah. Michael Mead was on the island here in fashion. Tells this great story who brought a this acupuncture master out to give a class to a group of people that were not acupuncture, um, professionals. And they figured that this man was stand up and put some pins and very like, do a diagnostic and put some pins and save their lives, right? And so he said he gave them all pins, and they're like, Why do I have these acupuncture needles on? He was like, You stick you. It's a Chinese man didn't speak very good English. And everyone, including Michael Mead, who brought him there, was shocked. And I was like, No, no, no. And they were like, What are you talking about? you stick you, you put the pin in where you think you need it. And he was like to himself was like, You do it and everyone is terrified, right? But then they did it, and then he'd go by and be like, Yeah, you stuck yourself there because you've got a thyroid problem. And that's actually, you know, the meridian that is attracted to your thyroid. And you So this information of like we actually are our best healer. We know, we know. We know. And so if we want to, there's very there's not a lot out there. Really? When you look at it, that, um is, ah, a practice of self knowledge, right? I don't have a lot of tools for it. We've got a lot of practices of self improvement. Yeah, right. Which is like, what you practice grows stronger. But if you don't know yourself, what are you actually growing like? Okay, s. So I think that's the first thing that self knowledge self knows. And then the other important thing is human connection. Which is another thing. We don't have a lot of tools out there for human connection. Going to your therapist is not, um, an exercise in human connection. Right. Um, but and go to your therapist. It's a great way for something. Hutchinson, when I go to a therapist gets that, But, um, human connection has been proven to be the number one factor in longevity, right? Your community. It's also what most people don't know is that a human child, if left alone, cannot survive, not from lack of food or water from a lack of touch. You know what that's called? I'm spacing on it right now, but it's it. We're social animals. And if you are wondering if this is a fact or not, human babies will die. Not from lack of food, not from lack of water, but from lack of connection. Lack of human connection. So those those friendly doctors called the Nazis practice it in real life, you have to learn that it's actually a phenomenon. Yeah. Um, yeah. No, no, it's It's true. If you're an attachment, you know the well, our friend I'll actually, if you spend time with God dramatic. But one of my men listen to him a lot. Yeah. You embarrassed in amazing interview with them? All right? Yeah. Kate Kate and I want to spend a little bit of time with them, and now you got to spend some time with him a lot of time. He's Yeah, he's done more for me than anybody else was a teacher, for sure, but he breaks human vitality down to two things. Attachment and authenticity. Um, and the attachment piece cannot be. There's there's no way around it, and then the authenticity piece There's no way around it. We actually need to know what we want to be. You be able to speak it in order to live a vital life. But the attachment piece the human connection piece is talking about hardship is the best way to get closest to the people in your lives, right? Conflict. You know, you're perceived conflict turning your your your ship, her person toward conflict in your life. Um, and you know, I'm not saying you go and do this with all of the conflicts in your life tomorrow. Unless you feel like you have the skills. Yeah, but there is a conflict in your life called death. If you're not talking about it, it's a great testing ground to be like. Let's talk about this hard thing because you're going to get to know about yourself and the people you love faster than any other way. Like I've had every death inner I've ever had, including when I did with you and gate. Um, we've had, um, spouses married couples at the table every single time. You will hear. Honey, you've never heard this story before or I've never heard that story. Right, Which is crazy. You can have been together for 20 years. Yeah, exactly. Every single time. And, you know, you see that this and it's not like the person gets mad. No, no, they get like, they soften and they're like, I love you in a new way, right? Like I waited five years to have my mom and my brother at a death dinner because it's terrified, right? You know, big death guy talk about talk about E got this thing out there. I got to do. I did. I did deep in your backpack. Yeah. No, I didn't want to do it, you know, on. And, um and I did. And I tell you, like my love and respect for my brother and my mother, like, doubled in that evening, right? Yeah. I mean, that's like you take that to the bank, right? That just feels good. Yeah, right. Doesn't like endorphins that he'll you know, it's, like, very therapeutic. And yeah, so but extraordinary. Um, canvas. A lot of like I apologize. No, like the but do not do not apologize is an extraordinary canvas. And again, this sort of like, What are you doing now? What are you doing to you know, those two things again? Attachment? Like, what are the what are the blocks that are keeping you from doing the thing, or what do you attached to and what you holding on to that you should let go on. What do you not grabbing onto the should, Um, and the connecting part. Like, I think that we all when we're looking inside, for example, that's where the creative force and all of this comes. The things that made you weird is a kid are gonna make you fantastic as an artist or as an adult, if you can connect with those things. So you you set the table for his bomb bunch. Metaphorically. We're here all week. Um, I'd like to open the book and read a couple of prompts. Yeah, in many ways, this is like a handbook. You. The subtitle is an imitation and guide to Life's most important Conversation, and why I think that is true is because you can travel a 1,000, miles with this conversation, right? You're talking about one thing, but you're really talking about so many important things. And I think some of the prompts why. I think this is a book that people need to go out and drop, drop the money for right away. It was Just listen to some of these props. Think there's Hermes and maybe you can comment on a couple of Yeah, and let me set up the promise for you slightly video. One thing is death over dinner is a singular project about connecting over dinner, right? This book is about having this conversation over beers walk in the park, drive through Yosemite wherever you happen to be on a phone, etcetera. And I didn't want to make it like The Idiot's Guide to talking about death or how to write, Um, but we wanted to make it like, incredibly useful where you could pick it up and practical tactical Yeah, I guess. More like. And where I realized that were flying a 30,000 foot level. But I think it's important when we weight the show. Notes for this thing is like, this is a tactical guide for having the most important sort of conversations with yourself and your loved ones. Not just about death a bit About what do you want for yourself in this life? How do we create, you know, close the gap between where you are and where you want to be? Yep, chances are it's closer than you think it is if you sort of can live by some of these. Yeah, these air meditation, Yes, these air walking meditations, these their community meditations. And so each chapter is actually a conversation prompt that you can drop proposed, put into a comfort, Like like like a a game piece. Right? And it is very effective. Yeah, I've I've been watching you do this for 10 years. I just throw this. Let me set this out. I'm just not going anything. I'm just going to set this metaphorically in the middle of the conversation and see what happens. And it just, you know, people ask like I know people that think of themselves as question NASCAR's like this is next level. Shit. What you've done here. Well, before I started reading them, cause I'm gonna I was gonna read at Hawk. But do you have something? I don't know. I prefer the at Hawk. Like I can see what happens teaching through it. OK, if you had 30 days left to live, how would you spend it? What would your last day be like in your last hour? Um, yes. No light one? No. Yeah. How do you talk to your kids about death? Eso I don't I'm not a parent. Well, your apparent to many. I am apparent to me. I'm the fungal. Yeah, the fun uncle. Yeah. Great daughter's love him. I'm fine. So I end up being, you know, Dan by extension. But I observed it does provide a lot of ah vehicle into which to see a lot of my friends as parents try and do this. And I watched this happen like you come across a dead bird or bird. It's the window. You go outside. It's like it's like, what is the were you family pet passes like how did those conversations witnessed those? And I'm like, That is exactly why I didn't have kids because, oh my God, that is It explodes my brain to think about how many elements of difficulty they are in that. So I think this is it. That's a very powerful one. That's one of my favorite chapters to, um, what is the most significant end of life experience of which you've been apart? I think we've all most often for worse, sometimes for better, but most of them for what has been a part of some or close to some sort of traumatic end of life experience where we know someone whose life has been cut short. Um, sometimes it's very close. Sometimes it's not so close. But I think that's heavy. Topic well, and also, sometimes it's it's just beautiful. Yeah, right, because you get people who talk about experiences. Um, where you like? One of that was a good death like that brought the family. That person died in their integrity, identify, and it's really it's pretty extraordinary to hear the positive stories from that. What would you eat for your last meal? Yeah, you see that? So yeah, there again. That's the garden variety for sure. Garden variety. What would you eat? Your last meal, right. That's, you know, some people are gonna get a peanut butter and jelly with this crust cut off. I think it's telling you, there's a lot of stories we've again. I have had the good fortune of alongside you were with your guidance, participating in this discussion When you want to give some easy, um, you don't necessarily have to dive into the deep end immediately. There. Some of these air kind of, you know, did not cliche, but they're accessible. Question? Sure. You know what? Would you What song would you have sung at your funeral? You can almost feel like a fun like Davy question. You might put on, like, 36 questions to fall in love or a date kind of situation. Um, and you want some of those, like you want it for different? Yeah. You know, um, but you have no idea if you haven't asked your parents or your loved one or, um, a best friend. What you want that with their last meal, would be like, you're gonna learn something fascinating. And you're telling a story. you're not just gonna learn like PB and J. You're gonna learn why exactly? Because my grandma used to make it for me and tell me about your grandma on, and it's just it's a beautiful threat. Yeah. I mean, how often are we with people that we love in our lives when we're like, um, you feel stuck, right? Like, date night. Oh, I've had a busy week. I don't want to just talk about the cool shit that happened at work this weekly. But what a way. How do we connect with my wife for the woman I'm dating? Or I'm out with my mom or my brother, etcetera. And I don't know what you know. It's like, yeah, sometimes, Like, we just need questions that will, you know. Really? Yeah. Have us, um, show ourselves to each other. We want to be witnessed, and we want to be seen. Yep. Right. You know, um and so I think that that's, you know, deaths just one way. It's like, you know, there's things. Book is not for everybody, for sure. It's not for the other thing. But I'm also the same same time I'm trying toe like I know what these conversations have done for me. And so I'm actually looking right in the camera. If you're listening, I can't look at you right now, but I'm looking right at the camera and it actually is a book for everybody. Like that's the punch line is, And to me, that's part of, uh, what's beautiful about the top, because the topic is sure their conversations about death. But really, that's the signal for what is it that you're doing now? What do you value and what What really gets that crisp? Yeah. What gets that crisp is like, Okay, let's And there is that There are the superficial experiences. But when I find is that's like the gateway, right? Yes, you have one of those. It's like, OK, cool. Let's you know, when was the last time? If you have been with your partners bowels, whatever, for a long time that you really found out something new about them. And what a joys I Ideally it's joyful when you were only knew, maybe it Maybe not. But, um, that's what this conversation? Yeah, into me, I see, or whatever. You know, Esther Perel gets this great thing into into me, you see or something? USC. But that, um I mean, that's house. That's intrigue. That's eroticism. That sexy. That's foreplay. Like it's all of those things, you know? And it's also that's where you create you create the future, a more aligned future with each other, whether this is your business partner or your people that you go to work with. This changes work relationships, right? Like I've had people worked to death over dinner. Or now where do we have all doctors and nurses edition? Right. So doctors and nurses will be doing these these death dinners, which is phenomenal, right? But yeah. So I'm definitely prescribing this book. I love it. Dr Chases. Right. Um, fortunately, I dodged medical school. Uh, but so talk to me about, like, obviously, this is one project you're working on a lot of stuff. Yeah, I think it's important. Um, will be. This will be right on the cusp of this. Any computer. Now, I know that we've been friends for a long time. This is a huge Is your your focus, your current project, and it's admirable, but it's it's you've taken so much of your past into it it zebu Biffle. But I also know you've got all kinds of other stuff going on at all time cooking. The metaphor of cooking is not lost on me. In fact, I gotta have you over. It's time to have dinner again. You hear me? Um, sort of put a bow on this for me if you can. Just, like, how are you thinking about this project? What is You know what's part of your next project and actually think about Michael had buddy. What's your put upon it for me? Okay. I'll try. Yeah, it's everyone. I think I'm you know, I'm not the five year, 10 year, 15 year plan guy. So But I'll tell you what's going on and what I'm excited about. Um I mean, the books huge. Um, a book represents this incredible opportunity to concentrate, like all of your ideas or many of your ideas in one place and then have it be shareable. Yeah, like I've never had, like, most my works. This ephemeral work. Yeah. Do Were you there dinner? Yeah. Yeah. Were you there or can I talk about the experience of somebody else? Said, which is also by just by secondary, right? It's almost like it cause it's once removed. You telling you a story about a thing about a thing that happened as Ghana's ether? And so this is like I just want I'd prefer to, like by the 1st 100,000 coffees and just given to people, right? My publisher and my bank were like, um so but with the way that it's an opportunity to get the work about death out there to a larger group of people, for sure with the book. But death over dinner itself, Um, we're launching in India, which is huge. Um, with incredible support. Um, I should back up and say, um, all of my projects now get to exist in this collective called round glass Uncle. Yeah. So I joined Rambus. There's almost like the Bauhaus of wellness, right? It's, um, a school, a collective, an organisation that has brought together 250 well being leaders in India and the US and Europe to say, like, what does the how do we build a movement around well being? What would that look like? And so, um, death over dinner gets to exist, not just Aziz this or drugs over dinner. It's sister, Cousin, um, gets to exist in this, you know, with pediatricians and cardiologists and, um, and people working on public health policy and, you know, in Punjab and in Boston. And like and in Sweden, like, all over the place. Right. Um, So, um, this idea of conversation is medicine. Yeah, right. Um, were and and folk experience not just that. It doesn't need a facilitator. Right. So death over dinner is growing. India, we're launching in Brazil were probably launch in Mexico. Um, the books being published in, like, 12 different countries being translated into Portuguese on we're talking to feel there. Translations were going toe expand drugs over dinner, which is about addiction. And we're working on a project with the women's march founders about really important conversations. Um, I just launched women teach men, which is a project that looks at the very difficult problem of misogyny. Um, and inequity, um, across gender gap, Um, and says they were here. How do we get to a better future? Um, working with men, not just blaming them, which is, you know, like, what is happening has to happen. We've, um but what would a next step Look like how do we actually learn what we need to learn as men in order to re enter the gender conversation? Right. And so, you know, with Esther Perel and Gina Rudan and Tracy McMillan, All these amazing women, we just did our 1st 100 men gathering in Ojai and was transformational. All right, um and so that's like, we're going to scale that. You know, that old scale, like death over dinner has, um, and you know, there's there's, like, 25 other projects. It's like we'll go into the mature next. Yeah, well, what's the best place for folks to find you? Obviously, you just listed a bunch of very ah at their core very seductive topics. These air, all conversations that we need to have your master of facilitating them. Obviously the you know, let's talk about death over dinner. Book is the gateway. But if people are gonna sort of tap into the mainframe, you like, what's where to worship? Were sent him, of course. The book number one first and foremost. But anything else you wanna Yeah, I mean, I think going to round glasses just round dot glass and then you'll see how these projects fit in with, you know, maternal health and, um, you know, and projects in villages in India and, like, you know, include improving water systems and like it, it's remarkable to see the tapestry come together. So, I mean, that's where I've kind of committing all of my energy right now, and it's exciting to see it. You know, I'm elective super psyched for you. I'm a Zeman, chas. I love this conversation. We gotta plan dinner, so I'm gonna have to let you all go. Thank you so much for sitting with us. And, uh, congratulations on the book. I know you're just getting started with breast things for doing us first. Of course, on, um, much success, but all right, buddy. All right. Until next time he knows the line whole. See it again? Hopefully, probably. Maybe