August 11, 2025 • 56 mins
Today’s episode is for every dad who has ever felt stressed, overwhelmed, or caught in a spiral of self-doubt—which, let’s be honest, is probably all of us at some point.
We’re joined by Phil Barth, a keynote speaker, stress-reduction expert, and author of Fry Your Chickens! Seven Ways to Get Those Chickens Inside You to Shut the Cluck Up. He helps people overcome stress, silence their inner "chickens" of fear and negativity, and use humor to create a healthier mindset. He even competed on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, where he had to manage high-pressure stress in real time.
So, if you’ve been feeling overwhelmed and need some practical, hilarious ways to manage stress, this episode is for you.
For those who want to connect with you and learn more about managing stress, silencing negativity, and using humor as a tool, where can they find you?
👉 Check out Phil’s work at: www.PhilBarth.com 👉 Follow him on social media: Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn
Listeners, if you found this episode helpful, please share it with another dad who might need some encouragement today. And as always, subscribe, leave a review, and stay tuned for more great guests.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Stress and Parenting
06:07 Phil's Journey to Stress Management
12:03 The Power of Positive Thinking
18:11 Frying Your Chickens: A Unique Metaphor
24:10 The Red Rooster of Regret
30:04 The Role of Humor in Stress Relief
32:24 The Importance of Laughter in Life
34:22 Gaining Perspective from Life's Challenges
37:03 Finding Joy in Ridiculous Moments
39:05 Recognizing and Managing Stress
42:06 The Power of Perspective and Pausing
44:42 Learning from Failure and Celebrating Success
50:43 The Process vs. The Product in Parenting
56:07 Advice for New Dads: Prioritize Time with Kids
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
And welcome into the Young Dad Podcast, whether you're outside
grilling, mowing the lawn, changing dirty diapers, or maybe
just maybe you got a moment to sit back, relax and listen to
your favorite podcast. Wherever you're at, whatever
you're doing, thanks for being here.
And of course, thanks for tuningin.
And of course, another thank you.
Thank you for telling a friend in advance because I know you're
going to send this to a good friend, say hey, listen to this
podcast. I have no clue what this
episode's about, but I saw in the description chickens and I
(00:33):
was sold after that. So today's episode is for every
dad who has ever felt stressed, which is 100%, overwhelmed,
which is 100%, or caught in spiral of self doubt, which is
probably about 99%, which let's be honest, is probably all of
us. So all those things, 99 to 100%.
I'm joined today by Phil, keynote speaker, stress
reduction expert and author of Fryer Chicken.
(00:54):
Seven ways to get those chickensinside you to shut the clock up.
He helps people overcome stress,silence their inner chickens of
fear and negativity, and use humor to create a healthier
mindset. He even competed on Who wants to
be a Millionaire where he had tomanage high pressure stress in
real time. So if you've ever been feeling
overwhelmed me some practical, hilarious ways to manage stress,
this episode is for you. So make sure you grab a juice
(01:16):
box, grab a snack and let's jumpinto the conversation.
Phil, welcome to the show. Jay, thanks for having me.
Of course, I remember when I reached out to you to to have
you on the podcast, I literally said I had.
You had me at the chicken in your picture and that was enough
for me. So I don't know if that says
more about me as the quality guests I bring on and the
vetting process I do or what, but it was you had me at the
(01:36):
chicken. But in all seriousness, before
we get into all the nitty grittyof stress and mindset, I have to
ask you what was the most stressful moment of your Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire experience?
So they took, they took us probably the day before,
honestly, because I remember sitting there in the studio and
(01:58):
I started shaking because they were taking us through.
OK, here's where you're going togo in the hot seat and, and
here's how it's going to work. And I have been trying to get on
that show for probably 2 years, a little over 2 years actually.
And all of a sudden. On Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire? Like how do you even get on that
show? OK, so there were auditions and
(02:19):
so I tried. There was a phone audition.
I never passed that. Then there were auditions in
various cities. So I went to Chicago and I
auditioned and failed. Went to Indianapolis.
I'm based, I'm in Cincinnati, bythe way, and failed and then got
one a little while later in Cleveland.
And between Indianapolis and Cleveland, I looked up, well,
what if has somebody passed the audition and bragged on the
(02:42):
Internet and I found out a couple of tricks.
So they ask you questions on a, on a quiz, but the questions all
came from the show. So I had watched all the shows.
So I, I was good on the questions.
Then they take you, anybody who passed the quiz, they take you
and you have to fill out an application.
You fill out the application andthen you talk to an associate
(03:05):
producer. If they like you, they bring you
in. Well, the third time I I learned
that don't just take the pencil to fill out the form, but get
like markers and four color pensand so on.
So I took my favorite story, putit in red and it and it was just
find your story somewhere on putit somewhere on the form.
Doesn't have to answer the question.
And so I put a couple stories onthere in red circle with a
(03:27):
yellow highlighter that said, Hey, This is why you want.
Basically, this is the kind of story I can tell Meredith
Vieira, the host, in between thequestions.
And it worked. So the most stressful moment was
the day before when they're telling you, yeah, I'm like,
holy cow, I'm going to be on there.
(03:47):
I started getting really nervousand shaking the show itself.
I'm sure I was nervous, but I told myself when I'm on there,
I'm going to when the questions come up and the lights come
down, I'm just going to close myeyes for a second.
And when I open them up, all it's going to be is me and a
screen. There will be nobody watching.
There will be nobody in the audience.
It's just me and a question. And that worked pretty well.
(04:08):
Interesting. No, that's really cool.
So did you end up winning at allwhen you were on the show or?
$32,000. Thanks, so how does that
actually work? How does game show money work?
Because game show money to me isn't real money, it's just fake
made-up money. So of course you're taxed on it
at the state that you win the earnings in, correct or at your
(04:30):
local tax rate. So take us through kind of what
I'm just curious now. So I didn't know what happened
was I recorded in November and Iit aired in July and then after
it aired, they mailed me a checkfor $32,000.
You're, you're considered a 1099R, whatever that is, like you're
(04:53):
a contract employee. So they don't withhold and then
you have to deal with the withholding on the back end.
But as problems go, that's a really good one to have.
Yeah, no, 100%. That would be much more ideal.
So that's really cool. So that's a, that's a unique
experience. I've always watched game shows
and stuff growing up and into myadult life and whatnot.
I was like, that's not what happens to the money.
(05:16):
What do they actually do? So that's really interesting.
That's really interesting. So, OK, enough about who wants
to be a millionaire, because we all want to be a millionaire.
You only became a 32,000 Aire. Right.
Maybe next time, Maybe next time.
But is that show still going? Yes.
I don't watch daytime TVI. Know it's still going.
(05:37):
I haven't watched it lately because it's it's now daytime
TV. To your point.
Yeah, we're not old enough for daytime TV yet.
We haven't hit that part in our lives yet or in our careers to
be be a lot of the opportunity to watch daytime TV.
All right, there you go. Let's talk about, let's jump
into the meat and potatoes or the conversation, shall we?
Or I guess into the chicken. How did you get into all this
(06:01):
chicken? Mental or mental health, stress
management and all the fear, negativity.
How did you get into the chickenof it all?
OK, so it's a dual. There's two paths that converged
here. The first one was about 15 years
ago. I'm in Toastmasters, which is a
speaking organization, and everyyear they have a contest where
(06:25):
they start with 25,000 people, and it's called the World
Championship of Public Speaking.So you just keep going and if
you win, you move on and you move on and you move on.
And I tried it for several years.
In 2011 I made it to the final nine and the story I told was
about asking my wife out. A Co worker who became my wife,
(06:50):
getting the courage up to ask her out for a date.
And where it started to click was one I gave voices to the
fears and negativity and self doubt inside of my head.
And I made them chickens. So at the time I was just like,
I fought my wings and pretended I was a chicken.
And that worked fairly well. Later I discovered these
wonderful little rubber chickensto kind of represent them.
(07:15):
And I've got them, you know, in all sizes and, you know, the
fried version I got, you know, pirate rubber chickens, you name
it. And, and what happened was then
I didn't have to dance around and people could see this is the
chicken I'm talking about. OK, so it's, and I use them for
both goal achievement. The chickens are telling you
(07:37):
you're not good enough. It's to she's she will say no on
when you ask her out for a date,she's out of your league,
etcetera. Or the chickens that are causing
you stress, those voices inside of you, they're saying you suck,
the world sucks, whatever. And so I talk about how you fry
them and get rid of them so thatyou can lower your stress and
(07:59):
improve the quality of your life, right?
Do what you're meant to do. Now.
The other, the other piece that happened was about 2015.
I had a heart attack and I didn't, I wasn't, you know, I
wasn't in Olympic shape or anything that was in decent
shape. I didn't smoke, my diet could
have been better or I drank a lot of coffee.
But in general, you know, when Ithought of heart attacks, I
(08:21):
thought, number one, people witha family history, I didn't have
that number two, people a lot older than me #3 people that are
smoking and heavier than me. And none of that happened.
And when the doctor talked to meafterwards, they, they put a
couple stents in. He said you need to manage your
stress. Stress contributed to your heart
attack. And so from that day on, I
(08:43):
started looking for ways to manage my stress.
And that's those are the two things I talk about and they're
kind of tied together, right? Shutting out those chickens of
stress and negativity and fear that are holding you back,
lowering your stress and achieving the life you were
meant to live. Those are two crazy paths to to
me. So how long ago was that heart
(09:05):
attack? I'm just curious. 10 years. 10
years. OK, so you live with you live
for the last 10 years. Two cents, no issues.
No issues. Interesting.
OK, but those are two very, veryI'll unlinear past that
collided. But that's just how life works,
right? It's like 1 you're doing
(09:25):
presentations with chickens and all of a sudden a heart attack
and then boom, it all collides there.
So what was it about the stress that you had to manage or find
that you had to manage from there?
So the first thing I did was while I was recovering, I looked
for books on Amazon. I need to learn about stress.
And most of the covers had people like, tearing their hair
(09:47):
out. And I'm like, OK, the cover is
making me more stressed, so let's try something different.
And they gave you all kinds of tips.
What I found was it was about, well, the first thing was the
doctor said you need to every three months, take one week off,
unplug, relax and take that weekoff.
(10:10):
And I said, OK, I'll do that. And I was my wife was in the
room. So I had to do it.
It's a contract when your when your wife is in the room.
Right. I hate when that happens.
I hate when that happened. You're then obligated to do the
thing and you're held to it. And it sucks.
It's the worst it it's the worstthing.
But actually on our own, no, notat all.
(10:31):
No. But on on our own, we're going
to say, ah, yeah, sure, Doc. And go back and have another
heart attack, right? Yeah.
So it was the recovery took me till January of I had it in
August recovery January I'm backto work end of March.
My wife said OK, it's been 3 months, it's time to take a week
off. And I was still in the recovery
(10:53):
process. So we just decided I would take
a week off and we would do little day, you know, a trip to
the zoo and so on. And so the first day after I got
home, I went on Facebook and I typed, hey, here's the great
things that happened today. And everybody gave it likes.
You know, I was talking about seeing the gorilla exhibit and
(11:15):
baby cheetahs and picnic in the car, etcetera.
And everybody liked it. And I was like, wow, I'm getting
likes on Facebook. You know, that's, that's why
we're on Facebook, so everybody can give us the big old.
Instant validation. Instant validation.
So, so the next day I was like, well, I want more of that.
So I we went to the Art Museum and I was looking what was great
about today and somewhere in that week I said, I wonder how
(11:36):
long I could do this. And it's been almost 10 years
that I don't do it every single day, but almost every day I put,
hey, here's the great things that happen.
And, and they're little things. It's, you know, we just went out
to dinner. We, we had a ice cream together.
Any little thing and they repeat.
But what happens is you're training your brain to look for
(12:00):
what's good. And after training your brain
for a while, then your brain goes, well, that's what you
want, I'm going to go find it for you.
And it just presents itself. Yeah, no, it's like an ongoing
gratitude practice in essence. Yeah, which is really cool.
It's easier, yeah. And I think that as much as
anything has lowered my stress. I talk about the nine s s to
(12:23):
lower your stress management. One is seek the good, the other
is subtract the bad. There are so many ways that you
can find out how terrible the world is and how wrong other
people are and and you know, Facebook will throw it at you
and the news will throw it at you it and you don't need that
there. There are some stresses you
can't avoid in life, but those are optional.
So I just turn them off. Yeah, that reminds me of a
(12:46):
couple of things there that you're you're mentioning here is
I just had a very similar conversation with one of the
kids I work with during my day job.
I work in mental health. So one of the kids I was talking
to just today even had a very similar conversation because he
started talking really negatively about himself.
And I was like, whoa, whoa, you just said three negative things
about yourself. You need to tell me 4 good
things about yourself. And then he did it again.
(13:07):
OK, now it's 5 good things. OK, now it's six good things.
Now it's seven. He was like trying to like, you
know, be a little smart aleck and whatnot, which is fine, but
he ended up doing the good things.
And I was like, so you know how you're always talking about how
you don't love the behavior you have, right?
You're always saying you're a bad kid, you struggle with this,
that and the other and blah, blah, blah.
Was a long, it was a good conversation.
He's like, yeah, I'm like, well,that's because you have all
(13:28):
these bad things in your head and all these bad things come
out as bad actions and you say the bad things and you do the
bad things because that's what'sin your head.
So what do you think would happen if you put good things
into your head all the time? All those really good thoughts?
Instead, he's like, well, I think I would be kinder to
people and I wouldn't get in trouble as much.
I'm like, exactly because your actions match your thoughts.
(13:49):
Your thoughts dictate then dictate your actions.
It was a really cool conversation.
It seemed to really click with him and whatnot because as soon
as he said I'm kind, it was like, oh, I did a kind thing
today. Instantly able to recognize the
kind things that he was doing for others.
So that was really cool. What was the thing I wanted to
mention on that that you mentioned?
No idea anyways. Welcome to my world.
I had something to say. Yeah, it was really good.
(14:13):
No, I really, I, I love that when I'm talking to groups, it
will do. Sometimes we do a stress
management workshop and one of the things I have the group do
is OK, we're going to take 10 minutes.
And I want you to write down as many things, many good things in
your life as you can. Take as many pieces of paper as
you want. Whoever writes down the most
(14:34):
gets a gets a book when my greatthings happen everyday book.
And then I've had people like come up with 50 some things in
10 messages. They're furiously writing.
And then I say, OK, now everybody stands up and then sit
down if you have fewer than 20. And then eventually one or two
(14:55):
people are are there and I say, OK, I want you to start reading
it off. But here's the deal.
If you're in the, if you're in this group and what they say is
great for you, you need to writethat down and raise your hand.
Yes, I agree. Because you know, if you've only
got 20 and then all of a sudden they say my grandkids and you're
like, Oh yeah, my grandkids, I forgot that.
And so you're getting a bigger list.
(15:15):
And I tell them, take it home with you and look at it.
All the good things that are going on in your life, keep that
in front of you. I love that.
And I've done actually the inverse of that activity with
kids and with people before to where I'll have them write down
the things that they like, essentially need to like go
over, get rid of as well. I've actually done this in a
workshop. It's on my YouTube channel.
(15:36):
It was when I gave a presentation at a conference and
I did that same concept where I had everyone write down a bunch
of things, right? And then I had them take them
and I had them tear them up and throw them away, get rid of
them. So it's the same practice.
It's just the inverse of that same practice, right?
You can do it both ways. I remember my thought now it was
(15:57):
related. I remember how you know,
realizing the good things, putting things in order, making
sure you're subtracting the bad.That's what it was on
subtracting the bad when you mentioned that the book how to
or it's an orange cover book. It's just about putting your
your FS in the right order. Subtle art of not giving.
(16:20):
Yes, yes, that one. And that's one of my favorite
books. I actually read that when I was
working. My gosh, how many years ago was
that? About 10 years ago now, so I was
working in like my first really big job and I just found myself
like stressed out. I was was caring about
everything I need to stop caringabout so much all the time
because I couldn't focus like too many things like I was
(16:42):
trying to focus about. And I read that book, I think it
was recommended to me. I was like, you should read this
book to kind of help you prioritize and reorganize.
So I read it and I still, I practice it to this very day, 10
years later, because it's all about making sure that you can
put your apps where they belong and you have enough where they
belong and not too many. And if they're not going
(17:04):
somewhere that serves you, then take them away and put them into
somewhere that does. So it's very similar to the
concept you mentioned there of subtracting.
Love that book. Yeah.
Great book, great book. You talk about frying your
chicken. What the heck does frying your
chickens mean? So that was when I started that
(17:27):
in the contest, I gave the speech the title of just a bunch
of s s. And everybody's like, when they
announce the title, what the heck is he talking about?
And so I started with my introduction.
I said, and you're gonna have a better life when you get those
chickens out from inside of you.Get a pan and fry them.
And so you're getting rid of thefears, negativities and self
(17:49):
doubt. So that's why I say, you know,
you're going to take these and, and that's what the book is
about. Frying your chickens is OK, one
of them. And I gave them cute little
names like Doubting Dave, you'renot good enough.
I doubt you're going to be able to do that and so on.
And and I think nasty negative Nelly, which is telling you, oh,
she's out of your league, you'llnever be able to ask her out,
(18:12):
etcetera, etcetera. And so there's all these voices
and they and their basic fears, negativity, self doubt, all
those negative emotions. I just kind of made them
different chickens. And then the idea is you take
the chicken, you pull it out andit's tools for how to do that
and you fry it, get rid of it. And then you've got, I've got my
(18:37):
fried rubber chicken that my daughter-in-law gave me that
pictures of that in the book. OK, here is how I fried doubting
Dave and here's how I fried facethe facts, Fiona.
And then it's got activities behind it to say, OK, you know
what, what facts are holding youback, that kind of thing.
(18:58):
And so it just helps to kind of personalize them as chickens.
They're all, and most of them are, are these little guys that
don't add up to much. There is one.
We'll talk about him in a bit that is a little bit bigger.
Very interesting, very interesting.
So the chickens are honestly just a metaphor of sorts for all
(19:19):
the different things that we go through in our in our
day-to-day. So take us through I guess what
you found as why so many people struggle with their inner
negativity and self doubt. So I think, I think it's people
give give those fears and negativities more, more of an
(19:39):
audience than they should. And it goes back to stress and
self doubt and so on goes back to thousands and thousands of
years ago you needed stress and maybe some sort of reasonable
self doubt to keep yourself frombeing eaten by a tiger or
whatever. But now it's like you, you get
(20:00):
held back and maybe somebody told you no once.
And so in in the back of your mind that message is going to be
there. Oh, you.
No, you remember you. That didn't work the last time.
And, and when you really look atit, and I'm sure when I was
thinking about asking, asking out the, the lady I'm not
married to, I was like, well, don't you remember that time you
asked that girl out and she toldyou no?
And, and of course we're going to get told no sometimes.
(20:22):
But you just kind of, you get conditioned and you don't want
to get hurt. But the problem is if you don't
get hurt or if you don't put yourself out there, then you
don't get to be on the game showthe, the woman of your dreams
and so on. And so I tell people that the
chicken you need to fear most isI, I call him this guy the, the
(20:43):
Red Rooster of regret, 29 incheslong.
And I, I don't think we're goingto be, I don't think we got any
kind of filtering on. But he's, he's really awfully.
I bring him to the, the keynote and I always have to fly with
checked luggage. And I'd love to hear what TSA
had to say about it. I bring him to the keynote.
(21:05):
And about 2/3 of the way I end that I'd like there's one
chicken you need to be afraid of.
And here he is and comes out. And then somebody from the
audience gets Volun told to comeup and squeeze the Red Rooster
Regret. And he will go for 45 seconds.
And so it's this awful loud noise.
And then I tell people that was pretty awful, right?
(21:27):
Well, it's not nearly as awful as dying and not pursuing your
dream. It's the regrets you're going to
have from not taking action thatare going to be far worse than
these little chickens that are telling you you can't do it.
Yeah, regret is regret is something that damning to us,
right? It's something that we everyone
(21:48):
lives with every day, right? It's honestly one of the biggest
struggles when it comes to negativity, self doubt, when it
comes to being present, managingour stress, something that
easily helps stress take over our lives, right?
It, it leads on all those paths at once because we, we can
easily regret different things. You know, I regret saying that
thing to my wife. I regret doing that thing or
regret not doing that thing or Iregret doing that.
(22:10):
And we have all these thoughts and we're constantly
overthinking and overthinking and overthinking.
And it's like, oh, shoulda coulda, woulda, shoulda, coulda,
woulda, shoulda, coulda, woulda,But you didn't.
Or maybe you did, right? And now all you can do is really
just kind of pick up the pieces and move forward.
You, I mean, what else can you do with that?
You can't. You can't do anything.
That's exactly right. And and you know, sometimes I'll
(22:34):
think back about I can't believeI did this.
And I just remind myself you areright where you need to be at
this moment, at this time. And and don't worry about the
things that happened in the past, but going forward, make
sure you don't have those regrets from not taking a
chance. Because it's about taking the
(22:55):
chance, right? Because you don't want to look
back. I mean, because I mean, your
perspective is probably very, very unique on this.
Because you did have the heart attack.
You did have that sort of sort, that eye opening moment of holy
crap, there's all these things Ididn't do right that I really
wish I would have done. But now I have the chance to do
one kind of thing. So your perspective is so unique
(23:16):
on this, which is really cool. Exactly.
Because you, you see it from that side.
Well, it's like, well, I didn't do that thing.
And if I that heart attack wouldhave taken me, I would have
regretted that or that would have been a regret for the rest
of my life. And now I can, I'm kind of not
not right the wrongs, but you can do the things that you would
(23:38):
have regretted not doing because, you know, you have that
ultimate perspective on, on life.
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. You know, I got, I got a second
chance. The arteries that block were not
the widowmaker and and so therefore I got a second chance.
Very fortunate to do that. And you know, obviously I, I had
the courage to ask my wife out before the heart attack that
(24:00):
goes back, that story goes back.But, but since the heart attack,
I've, I've taken more actions. And just like, you know what?
You you don't want to go to go to your grave with the Red
Rooster of regret squawking at you.
No, absolutely. I don't think anyone wants to
live with that, right? No one wants to live with that.
(24:20):
And like, you know, looking back, you know, whatever the
afterlife looks like, everyone'sbeliefs are, are different.
A lot of people are similar, butwhatnot.
You don't want to be living the afterlife.
I mean, like, man, I could have done all that stuff, but I
didn't do it. You know, I was scared.
Exactly. You know, there's this really
cool Will Smith quote out there of all people.
(24:41):
I think this was before like theslap and everything.
So it was when Will Smith was like kind of sane and whatnot.
But there's this whole like motivational thing that's on
YouTube, which one of my favorite things.
I used to watch it like religiously.
I'm not joking about that. I would watch it multiple times
a day. Like I would watch that stuff
religiously. But no, he would talk about fear
and he would talk about the fearhow it like holds you back from
(25:02):
doing this thing or doing that thing or doing this thing or
doing that thing or doing this thing.
And he's like, why are you letting fear hold you back from
doing that thing and making you paralyzed to your bed?
Why are you letting fear take hold of you here?
Why are you letting fear do this?
Why are you letting fear do that, you know, instead of, you
know, going through that door? And the greatest things in life
are on the other side of that terror.
(25:23):
The greatest things in life are on the other side of that fear.
And how can we not, you know, let go of those things and then
realize, oh, the crap, it reallywasn't that bad.
Why was I even scared in the 1stplace?
Because when we go and do the things we realize, oh, it wasn't
it wasn't that bad. It really wasn't.
It was OK. Like, I'm OK.
Did you? But did you die, though?
Kind of Quinn, That's the famousquestion.
(25:44):
But did you die, though? No.
OK, then you're fine. What?
What? What were you even scared about?
Look, you had fun. You enjoyed it.
I think that's one of the best things with our kids too.
You know, I relate that to last summer, my daughters and my
family and I, we went to Silverwood, the amusement park,
and I forced my 7 year old in tears to go on a roller coaster
(26:07):
that was scary Forster. I literally forced her.
I drug her onto the roller coaster and made her do it
whether she wanted to or not. And then she went a few weeks
later with her grandparents again, and she went on all the
roller coasters, no issues, right?
Right. He should have loved it.
Love it. So, and I had fun laughing
throughout that experience because I'm dude, you're going
to be fine. Oh my gosh, she's like
(26:27):
hysterical. I don't know, I never heard this
again. Love it.
Just the butter. So Speaking of like funny
moments and whatnot, you use humor in your keynotes and your
writing for you. How has laughter become such a
powerful stress relief tool? I believe we don't laugh enough.
You know, when you're a kid, youlaugh and everything.
(26:48):
There's numbers and they're probably made-up, but it's
something like you laugh 200 times a day when you're a kid
and four when you're an adult. I read that somewhere.
But what's not made-up is the fact that you laugh a lot more
when you're a little kid before people tell you, oh, that's not
funny. I, I had three boys and, and
(27:08):
burps were funny and farts were funny and, and, and everything
was funny And, and God love them.
They're right. And so I try to laugh as much as
I can. We watch sitcoms, we watch funny
movies, dad jokes. You know, I'm a dad.
I've got 3 kids. So you got to tell dad jokes.
And I don't know that my kids would say they're funny, but I
(27:30):
think they are. And, you know, and even if, if
nobody laughs, you're still kindof connecting a little bit.
I think, I think dogs are great because they kind of have a
sense of humor. You know, our one dog takes the
toy and you chase him around thethe table and he's like, no, you
can't have the toy. So, you know, we're made to
(27:50):
laugh. And that's why, hey, I will tell
people in because early on when I was speaking, they're like,
well, don't put something humorous in there if it doesn't
have a point. And I will tell people now,
especially in the stress management window, I am going to
put some pictures up here of things I have found that are
funny and they do not. And I'm not going to tie them
(28:14):
back to any of the points other than this point right now.
You need to laugh more. It will lower your stress.
The whole reason these are in here in between each of our
modules is to get you to laugh. And people are like, cool.
And you know, you just, I, I take my phone, you've, we got a
phone everywhere anyway. And so you just find someone
like, that's hilarious. Take a picture and, and you
(28:36):
know, it's like, like a clearance price was $39.00, the
clearance price $49.00. Just silly stuff, right?
That just things that aren't quite right that when you look
at me, it's like, that's really funny.
And so you take a picture of it,you put it up there.
I got one from a minor league game in Charleston, SC where
(28:58):
they bothered to put on the signdollar beer price $1.00.
Like if you are to the point where you don't know how much
the dollar beer cost and you need a sign to tell you, you
probably ought to be cut off. And so it's just, and, and then
I tell people, look, you've got this phone, use it for something
positive. Number one, take pictures of
(29:19):
your kids, your family, your dogs, and so on.
Put your favorites out there so that they can go.
They can be my screensaver. Rotating pictures, favorite
pictures #2 find the humor and then #3 share it, share it with
people. Give somebody else a laugh.
I do that on Facebook all the time.
The the Dumber the joke, the better, and people love it.
I love all of that. That is all so, so needed and so
(29:41):
I wouldn't head as you were speaking there.
I promised I was paying attention still.
I will, I did, but I wouldn't have asked ChatGPT how many
times a kid laughs laughs a day versus an adult.
You were very close. On average, kids laugh 3 to 400
times a day. And as we know, ChatGPT is 100%
right on every single thing it does.
So as we know. And then adults laugh around 15
(30:03):
to 20 times a day though, so some studies suggest it could be
as low as 10. And why This is just as you
mentioned, Kids are more present, they're more playful,
and they're more uninhibited. Their days of revolve around
curiosity, exploration, and fun.Often as adult, we have more
responsibilities, stress, socialfilters, which can suppress
spontaneous laughter. But a little bit laughter is
(30:25):
good, all right? Like you're saying here, it's so
fun to laugh about farts and poop and things like that.
Also, we're men. If we go to a store and we see
the prices of 69, we're going tolaugh.
Absolutely. There's no doubt.
And like you mentioned about your hockey stick, I wasn't even
going to ask about the damn hockey stick.
I didn't care about that. But then you mentioned, well,
(30:46):
you probably want to know who the hockey stick.
You probably don't care who the hockey stick is signed.
But I'm like, yeah, I don't, buttell me anyways, please kind of
thing. It's like there's there's humor
moments as we go throughout our days, right?
There's always something to laugh about.
And sometimes I get yelled at bymy wife and I hope she can hear
me right now. He's in the other room.
But I will laugh at things that aren't funny and I will laugh at
the wrong time. And it's not the best, but I'll
(31:10):
be laughing anyways. I don't know why I tried to
control it. Like I don't, I just let the
filters go. But and she knows that she calls
me on and she's like, why are you laughing right now?
There's nothing funny. And I just, you know, I'm just
like, well, you know, I'm just, it's funny that, you know, we're
this is happening or we're doingthis kind of thing.
I'll just like laugh and not take it serious.
I'm probably the most unserious person there is.
(31:32):
I'll get serious from times, butmost of the times I'm very
unserious and I don't take nearly enough as I should
serious. But then again, life's too
serious as is it. Why do we have to take so many
things serious? Like what's the point?
What's the point? Oh, absolutely.
There's a a quote from Gary Vee that said somebody came up to
(31:53):
and said tell me something to inspire me.
And he looked at it and said youare going to die.
You only have so much time. What are you going to do with
it? And that's why you got to laugh.
You got to you got to not have regrets.
There is one thing that is 100% fatal and that's being born.
Eventually you're going to die. So we don't know when.
(32:18):
Let's laugh as much as we can. Let's have as much fun as we
can. Let's get out there and kick
some butt and fry some chickens.And I've lived that way ever
since the big heart attack you muted.
Better city. There's no better perspective
than when you have that second chance and to when you have
those eye opening moments. I'm sure you didn't plan for it,
(32:40):
but gosh has it been great alongthe way.
Yeah, well, that's why I tell people, you know, I'd love to
give you the benefits of the heart attack without you having
a heart attack. So let's lower the stress right
now and and let's just pretend like you had a heart attack and
go out and fry those chickens and have some fun now.
Yeah, yeah. No one's going to wish a heart
(33:01):
attack on anyone, right? That's not what you're saying.
You're not trying to do that. Oprah, you have a heart attack
and you have a heart attack. You get 1, you get 1, you get 1.
Be careful with how many heart attacks you hand out, you might
get doged. I hand out rubber chickens
instead, that's more fun. That's way more fun.
(33:24):
So is there any, you know, thingridiculous that you've done to
de stress that you found has actually worked?
Gosh, I do so many ridiculous things that there is a whole
section in my my prior book, Great Things happen every day of
dad jokes. And a lot of them are jokes that
I've just told, told to my kids,like made-up.
And that's what they all were. And just, yeah, I'll get in the
(33:47):
elevator with my wife and at ourlocal Kohl's.
It's two stories, right? So I will get in there.
Somebody else will be in there and we're on one.
I go 2 please. I mean, hello.
That's the only option you couldpossibly and she's just like, so
I think I can't think of any onething.
Well, I can't think of one. It wasn't meant to de stress,
(34:09):
but in the end it kind of distressed me.
I was about 50 years old and goton a, a roller coaster with my
son. And it's, it makes for a great
story, right? Because the chickens are like,
do you realize how old you are? And I tell them, you know, when
I was 25, it was a throw ride at50, it's like a hangover on
(34:30):
rails and, and it's all the chickens talking and telling
you. And then it's the voices inside
and the UPS and the downs and you know, almost throwing up and
so on and so on. But the cool thing was at the
end and, and what busted all thestress was looking at my son and
how happy he was and like, oh dad, that was so cool, you know?
(34:50):
And so for a moment I became thecool dad.
And it's like, well, that's a huge win.
Despite the fact for a few minutes and some odd seconds I
felt like I was going to die. Hey, it was worth it, right?
It's all worth it. It's all worth it in the end.
I loved it 25, but boy, at 50 they're they and this was pretty
heart attack, by the way, I now have a medical reason.
(35:12):
It's not stress. I have a medical reason where
the doctor said don't you get onthat roller coaster?
You ever think you're still doing the things that you're not
supposed to do? You're like, would it?
Would it really be that bad? And then your wife has to talk
you down from the ledge. Yeah, all the time.
Yeah, well, if I'm going to break a rule from the doctor,
it's going to be a 1/3 cup of coffee during the day.
(35:32):
You're living dangerously there,Phil Living dangerously.
That's obviously someone's a rule follower.
So obviously the kids are also pretty.
I'm assuming kids are pretty good rule followers.
Oh, who? Me.
Yeah. I mean, I mean am IA rule follow
I follow the rules that are keeping you alive, I.
Mean that worked. That worked.
Yeah, other than that and and the kids are a whole lot like
(35:54):
their dad, that with the sense of humor.
It's it's Like me, except they have musical talent.
OK. And then let me ask you a
question here. Who follows the rules the least?
The least rule follower of the three?
And tell me why it's the second one?
I was like, you know, it's the middle.
One I know I. Don't know why it is, but I do
(36:15):
know that it is and we didn't treat him any any differently.
The second one of the three, thethird one is was born with the
I'm going to be good gene. The second one there was at some
point and the kid, he was barelywalking, I guess he was walking,
(36:36):
crawled up on the couch and got on the back of the couch,
standing on the back of the couch and looks over at me and.
Goes. It's like, you know, you're not
supposed to do that. And, and he's been, no, he's
gotten older and, and mellowed alittle bit.
But yeah, it's, it's the middle one.
Why? I don't know.
Always the second one. It's always the second.
(36:57):
It is always the second kid. I don't know why, but OK, so
how? I'm going to bring this all back
to some applicable questions here, I guess.
Well, I guess we'll apply all this and not have as much fun.
We'll make it a little bit serious.
How can we recognize when the stress is taking?
Over if you're thinking about itall the time, if it's if you're
supposed to be doing something focused on work or whatever and
(37:19):
it's and it's stress instead, I think before you do that, I'm a
big fan. It's it's sitting over there be
right back. I've got this block, this time
block and, and so it's got all different numbers.
If you, if I put it straight up,it's 25 minutes.
And so you don't do anything formore than 25 minutes, it's going
(37:40):
to stretch you out. And then you turn it up and you
do a 5 minute break, get up, stretch, breathe.
So before I say, before it gets really to taking over, you just
kind of stop, breathe 55 deep breaths and that'll that'll
bring your heart rate down. If you recognize it and it's
(38:03):
like really taking over, then goout, take a walk, remember that
it's not worth dying for and just remind yourself, hey, and
then maybe that's when, because you've already written it down,
because either you were at my, at my keynote or some or
somewhere else, or you listen onthis podcast.
(38:23):
So you know what? I'm going to write down all the
things that are great in my life.
And then you pull that out and it's really hard to look and
say, Oh yeah, I've got 3 wonderful sons, a wonderful
daughter-in-law, a wife who loves me.
I get to travel and speak and soand on and on and on and on and
say, yeah, I'm going to stress out.
(38:44):
Is the thing still there? Yeah, but you just took that
pause. Yeah, sometimes a pause is all
you need. Sometimes that is all you need
is just a pause. And to shift your perspective,
right, to change that perspective into what you're
looking at and how you're looking at things because maybe
in, in the grand scheme of things.
So I'm actually involved in my church in a youth program called
Awana. And one thing I, I teach, teach
(39:06):
my wanna kids how my wanna kids is how it's like your, your
life, this one big, grand, beautiful painting, right?
That's already painted for you. It's Christian program.
I'm a Christian. It was already painted for you
by the creator, by God before you even came to earth.
And it's this great big, beautiful painting.
The details are amazing. They're intricate, they're
beautiful. Every single little detail
already planned for, already mapped out.
(39:28):
So why are you stressing? Why you stressing about these
small things? Why are you worried about even
these smallest little things come up on a day-to-day basis?
We freaked out. We have these blow UPS.
Maybe we fight with our spouse, maybe we we yell at our kids a
little bit too much. Who knows what happens.
Maybe we yell at a cowork or something like that happened,
right. But we look back.
So we have to be able to take that pause like you're saying
here, take that step back. I actually love that timer
(39:50):
because that's actually a space in psychology itself where the
brain can only focus for about 20 to 25 minute long term.
I mean, we're both doing great on this podcast, you know,
going, you know, 40 minutes. We're we're not to say we're
kings of the castle here, but you know, we're doing pretty
good and out. Yeah, you know.
(40:11):
It's, it's so important to take that pause and to reset, right?
Because our days go off the rail, we fail, We have to bounce
back. And that's just what we, what we
do, right? We especially as dads, right?
Those things can very easily consume us.
Taking that pause, reshifting our perspective, refocusing and
realizing, OK, it's really not that deep.
(40:32):
It's really not that big of a thing.
I just have to, I need to breathe.
I need to share my perspective and and move on.
Yeah. And, and I love, I love what
you're doing with your youth group at church, as well as what
you're doing in your profession with the counseling kid.
Our youngest is going to be a teacher.
(40:53):
And he's doing it because he loves the kids.
And he's, well, he's at school. He's also working at our YMCA
helping the kids in the program.And he tells me all the stories
of the kids he's helped on. So it's like, yeah, but he's not
the middle kid. He's he's the third third of
three and and he just has this this servant heart that is so
(41:15):
good to see. I love when I see people doing
that you make. A difference.
I love that. And you know, bless your son,
honestly, because that's such a,that's a career that will eat
you up and spit you out. And I believe every single
teacher except for, you know, the 99% of teachers went into
teaching because of that right there, because they love kids,
(41:39):
because they want to make a difference, because they have
that sphere in heart. 99% did. I think you're.
Right, because of how it is in our society with teachers and
teaching and politicalization. And now it's even, it's even
more blown up and whatnot. Talking to a friend of mine here
in a couple days on the podcast about that.
He's an educator as well. And we're going to talk about
(42:01):
kind of doge and things like that and kind of what that looks
like from, you know, that perspective.
It's going to be really interesting.
But you know, it's, it's one of those things that just, you
know, eat you up and spit you out and it, it ruins a lot of
people, ruins a lot of really good people who really just want
to help. And then our kids are are no
better for it because of it. But hopefully he lands in an
(42:24):
excellent place. He's with an excellent
administrative staff. He's in an excellent supportive
environment and that he can get another experience because if
that first place doesn't work out, then he's able to move to,
you know, maybe a private schoolor charter school or something
more privatized and whatnot, more privatized education.
I personally have the way to go.Way to go myself.
(42:47):
I digress here. One thing I want to hit on is of
course failure. But how?
What have you found that is helpful from keeping from
spiraling when things go wrong? Because very easy as dad and
dad. It really is.
You mentioned failure. Recently.
(43:09):
I had the opportunity. I just, I happened to be
watching a game show. I was up visiting my mom.
She always likes watching game shows.
And as the credits rolled, I sawthe name of the executive
producer for this game. And I was like, holy cow, that
guy was the guy who interviewed me and got me a spot on Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire? And so I was like, OK, I'm going
to go on this. I will get to your question, by
(43:31):
the way. I'm going to go on LinkedIn and
see if he's on LinkedIn. And he was.
And we had a couple of connections in common.
So I just, I shot him a message out of the blue.
I was like, hey, just wanted to say, obviously you don't
Remember Me because you've dealtwith thousands of people over
the years. You were my associate producer
back in the day for Who Wants toBe a Millionaire?
(43:52):
I'm glad to see you're still doing game shows.
You were really good to me and, and thank you.
He wrote back and he said, you know, I've been thinking about
speaking. Could we talk for a while?
So we talked and and this is where you get we got the answer
to the question about failure, he said.
And because with millionaire andother ones, he's been able to do
the celebrity millionaire. So he has met a lot of
(44:14):
celebrities along the way. In addition to working with
Meredith Vieira, Richard Regis film and so on.
He said the one difference between the so-called the
celebrity and the rest of the people in the world is when a
celebrity fails, they keep going.
They don't let it stop them. And he gave an example of Regis
(44:35):
Philbinarini in question. He messed up a word and just
laughed through it, made a big joke about it, and they just
kept on a roll. And he said that's how they are.
They just, you got to understand, failure is not
fatal. That which doesn't kill us makes
it stronger. That's such an overused therm,
but it's true. And so as much as I can, I just
forget the failure. We've all had them and move on
(44:59):
because if you let, you can't let the failure win, right?
You can't let that chicken say see told you.
So don't ever do that again. I mean, so it just write it
down, write it off and move on. And the other thing I do is I
keep a success log. So you know everybody.
I have my task list and I write them down and then when I get
(45:21):
them done I check them off and if I do something by the way
that wasn't on the list I I write it down so I can check it
off. We all do that.
Everyone does that. Phil, you're you're not alone.
We all do that. I do that.
Why not? So at the end of the day, you've
got all these things checked off.
I messed one thing up. Well, you know what?
I got 9 things done. That's a 90%.
(45:43):
That's that's really good. So you can't let that one define
you. You got to say OK.
And I don't care how small they are.
That was the whole point of my Great Things Happen book.
You know, we had lunch together.Well, that's a little thing, but
it was great. So give yourself a pat on the
back for that. And I think we are always, you
(46:04):
know, we always hear, we'll ignore the critics out there.
I think the critics in here, those chickens inside are the
worst. And those are the ones that
they'll eat you up if you if youfocus on the failure, I would
say, OK, can I learn something from it?
Fine, what will I do better nexttime?
Fine, we're done. That's set it aside.
(46:24):
Let's move on. Absolutely.
It's, it's really the 8020 rule,a lot of it too, right?
We'll so easily focus on the 20%that we didn't do that where we
fell short, where we had our shortcomings, right.
And we see this a lot in every aspect of life.
The 8020 rule is probably the most accurate rule, one of the
most accurate rule that's out there.
(46:46):
It's insane. Ever since I started paying more
and more attention to it, I see it all the time.
Oh, yeah. But we pay attention to the
wrong side of the 8020 rule, right?
We're always focused on the 20 that didn't go right, that
didn't happen. That's not good.
Versus we're not looking at the 80% that did go really good.
We're not looking at the 80%. We're not looking at the, oh,
I'm really grateful that my, youknow, my, my wife made dinner
(47:07):
and it was delicious or that shedid laundry in the closet clean
or, you know, I got home safe from work today and all these
things and all these things wentreally well today and yadda,
yadda, yadda, yadda. But yet we can focus very easily
on the 20%. We can focus on the what didn't
didn't happen. But that's more So what we focus
on too. It's like, oh, you know, my wife
didn't do that thing I asked herto do or my husband didn't do
(47:27):
that thing or didn't fix the thing or do the thing.
And we get focused and caught upon the 20% and then we forget
all the 80% and then the people on the 80 side percent of sizes
like, well, why does it even matter that I did the 80%?
And I think that's so true with our kids too.
We have to recognize that we have to recognize the 80% with
our kids that they are doing really well, right?
Because it's not about the, it'snot about the product, it's
(47:48):
about the process, right? We should praise and worship the
process. The product is great at the end,
right? The product's going to be great
if they're working hard and they're doing everything they
can. The product at the end is going
to be fantastic. But we can't just praise that,
right? Because then we lose out on the
process and the progress and the, the, the progress and, and
all that. And we missed out on all that
(48:10):
hard work and the accolades and the work that it took to get to
that best product. When our kids go from AC to an
A, it's like, Oh yes, you finally got an A.
It's about time versus we missedout on the whole process of they
went from AC to AC plus to AB and they worked really hard to
make some extra work and then doall the things in between to get
to that point. They overcame the struggles and
(48:31):
they they fought really hard andthey were resilient and they
persevered and they got to wherethey want to do.
We need to love that. We need to fall back in love
with the process, not just love the product that is produced in
front of us. I really like it.
That's really good. So that's my deep thought of the
day. I I love it.
Fresh out. Fresh out.
After that, you dropped plenty. I had to drop at least one to
(48:53):
try to. I love it.
All right. Are you ready to jump into the
dad zone? Absolutely.
Is there anything you want to mention from the conversation
still? Any loose ends you want to tie
up real quick I think. We're good.
I think I'm ready. You told me about the Dad Zone.
I'm intrigued. Let's do it.
The Dad Zone is the end of the podcast here.
If you're a long time listener of YDP, you know the Dad zone.
(49:15):
You love the dad zone because the guest has no clue what I'm
about to ask them and it's my favorite part.
If you're a long time listener of the show, you love this part
of the podcast. It's like, Oh yes, dad.
So finally. So 3 is 4 questions total. 4
questions total. First one, does pineapple go on
pizza? Yes.
(49:37):
Wrong answer, but this was such a great conversation that I will
still air the episode regardless.
If you put that out on Facebook,people were really good.
How could you? And it's in every single episode
of my podcast, every single episode that dads don't happen.
But if you talk, I've talked to two Italian women on the
(49:58):
podcast. One of them owns a pizza shop.
The Italian women say no so but take their opinion over the
chicken guys. Sorry, Phil.
You mean what? That's fine.
I can. I like it.
But I like other kinds of pizzastoo.
It would not offend me if somebody said you can't have
pineapple on your pizza. Take this deep dish Chicago
pizza and be like OK. You and sis, I guess.
(50:21):
Twist one arm. I do it please.
All right. I'll just met her on the next
question, I promise. You will, because this one's a
much better question. Speaking of food, who are three
people, dead or alive, that you would invite to a dinner party?
OK, well, let's let's take Jesus.
(50:43):
I mean, you hear so much. You got to go with that one.
I'm going to go with Abe Lincoln.
And boy, I guess I ought to havean alive one in there.
Those two are the two that popped right into my mind right
now. Maybe Oprah.
She just seems. What a combo.
(51:05):
What's that? That's going to be an
interesting dinner party. It is I, I, I don't know.
Those were the three that poppedinto my mind.
I and we've talked Chet GPT. I actually set up an Advisory
Board with Oprah Ablink. I don't know that it put Jesus
in it. I think it might have Gandhi and
a couple others. And So what you do is you ask
(51:26):
the question, hey, Advisory Board, here's something I'm
considering. Here's the problem I'm having.
What do y'all think? And you can put anybody in.
I, I brought Mark Cuban in, I put him back out.
Anybody. And so he goes through all of
their writings and answers as ifit was them.
You just blew my freaking mind and never thought of doing that.
(51:48):
That is freaking amazing. Neither did I.
Somebody else told me. So cool.
Anyways, moving on. My mind's blown right now, but
I'm going to try to get back on track.
OK, what is your guilty pleasurefood?
I swear if you say pineapple on pizza filled, I'm going to.
I'm going to. We're done.
No ice cream. Delicious.
(52:09):
What kind of ice cream let's be?So many kinds of ice cream.
Just the whole basket. Robbery.
Raspberry graters, Raspberry dark chocolate chip here in
Cincinnati. Chunks of Raspberry.
And here's the bad thing. It was the last thing I had to
(52:31):
eat before my heart attack. And yet I still will eat it.
No. Problem Irony.
The irony. Yeah, it's not like a stomach
virus, right? Well, I I was, I ate hot dogs
and now I can't eat hot dogs ever again or whatever.
This stuff is the bomb. Yeah, no.
And I mean, as you know, it was the stress, not the ice cream.
(52:54):
Right. Right, so the ice cream's not a
culprit. No, no, that's not what in the
ice cream. Yeah, no, the ice cream has no
part in the heart attack. OK, ice cream's innocent.
It is. It is the bystander.
And you could also know with that.
Sorry, I'm getting off topic here.
I'll then I'll ask you the four.No, no, please.
(53:15):
If that heart attack would have taken you, you would have been
able to die knowing that was a thing that the coroner will find
in your stomach. That was your last meal, the
last thing you ate. That's what the coroner would
have found it. He has Raspberry chocolate chunk
ice cream. That's.
Love it. He went out, He went out great.
(53:35):
I mean, he was good. Man OK every time I'm feeling
bad I got to eat it just in case.
Exactly. And on the high note.
Exactly why not? You can thank me later for that.
So anyways, what is one piece ofadvice that you would offer to a
young dad? Let's say he's about 18 to 22
years old, just starting out hisfatherhood journey.
(53:57):
Take as much time as you can to be with your child.
It was for the first five years of my oldest life.
I traveled a lot and then our company got bought out and they
said, OK, and we need you to just manage the systems as we
move them to the other company. Just, you know, it'll take a
(54:19):
couple hours a day in the office.
What? Whatever you need to do, if you
stay for this last year, we'll give you a bonus at the end.
And so I told my wife, well, I'mgonna, I'm gonna, I'll take the
kids to daycare and, and once a week we would stop at McDonald's
and have breakfast and just sitting there with these two
cool little kids, the time going, wow, this, I need to be
(54:40):
here for as much as I possibly can.
And, and I made all their kindergarten things and all
their baseball games that I possibly could and scouts and
you name it in church. And I didn't miss it.
And that was the best decision Icould have made.
So life may look like it's busy,but going back to this, you
(55:02):
won't regret missing a meeting at work to spend time with your
kids. Absolutely.
That's beautiful. That was a great way to a great
way to phrase all that. So to wrap us up, Phil, this has
been such a fun and insightful conversation.
I think our listeners are going to walk away with some really
practical ways to reduce stress.And of course, they're probably
laughing, their belly's probablyhurt, they're probably belly
(55:22):
laughing from this episode. So we did, we did them a favor.
We helped them laugh more than their recommended 15 to 20 times
per day. You're definitely hitting the
over today of people. So for those who want to connect
with you and learn more about managing stress, the silencing
negativity, and using humor as atool, where can they find you?
Philbarth.com. Perfect.
And yeah, you can check out Phil's work at
(55:43):
www.philbarth.com. That'll be LinkedIn.
The show notes, of course. Listeners, if you found this
episode helpful, please share itwith another dad who might need
some encouragement today or justa good laugh.
And as always, subscribe, leave a review and stay tuned for more
great guests. And until next time, remember,
stress is just the game show question you haven't answered
(56:04):
yet. So take a deep breath, make your
best guess and enjoy the ride. And that's it.
And welcome into the Young Dad Podcast, whether you're outside
grilling, mowing the lawn, changing dirty diapers, or maybe
just maybe you got a moment to sit back, relax and listen to
your favorite podcast. Wherever you're at, whatever
you're doing, thanks for being here.
And of course, thanks for tuningin.
And of course, another thank you.
Thank you for telling a friend in advance because I know you're
going to send this to a good friend, say hey, listen to this
podcast. I have no clue what this
episode's about, but I saw in the description chickens and I
(00:33):
was sold after that. So today's episode is for every
dad who has ever felt stressed, which is 100%, overwhelmed,
which is 100%, or caught in spiral of self doubt, which is
probably about 99%, which let's be honest, is probably all of
us. So all those things, 99 to 100%.
I'm joined today by Phil, keynote speaker, stress
reduction expert and author of Fryer Chicken.
(00:54):
Seven ways to get those chickensinside you to shut the clock up.
He helps people overcome stress,silence their inner chickens of
fear and negativity, and use humor to create a healthier
mindset. He even competed on Who wants to
be a Millionaire where he had tomanage high pressure stress in
real time. So if you've ever been feeling
overwhelmed me some practical, hilarious ways to manage stress,
this episode is for you. So make sure you grab a juice
(01:16):
box, grab a snack and let's jumpinto the conversation.
Phil, welcome to the show. Jay, thanks for having me.
Of course, I remember when I reached out to you to to have
you on the podcast, I literally said I had.
You had me at the chicken in your picture and that was enough
for me. So I don't know if that says
more about me as the quality guests I bring on and the
vetting process I do or what, but it was you had me at the
(01:36):
chicken. But in all seriousness, before
we get into all the nitty grittyof stress and mindset, I have to
ask you what was the most stressful moment of your Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire experience?
So they took, they took us probably the day before,
honestly, because I remember sitting there in the studio and
(01:58):
I started shaking because they were taking us through.
OK, here's where you're going togo in the hot seat and, and
here's how it's going to work. And I have been trying to get on
that show for probably 2 years, a little over 2 years actually.
And all of a sudden. On Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire? Like how do you even get on that
show? OK, so there were auditions and
(02:19):
so I tried. There was a phone audition.
I never passed that. Then there were auditions in
various cities. So I went to Chicago and I
auditioned and failed. Went to Indianapolis.
I'm based, I'm in Cincinnati, bythe way, and failed and then got
one a little while later in Cleveland.
And between Indianapolis and Cleveland, I looked up, well,
what if has somebody passed the audition and bragged on the
(02:42):
Internet and I found out a couple of tricks.
So they ask you questions on a, on a quiz, but the questions all
came from the show. So I had watched all the shows.
So I, I was good on the questions.
Then they take you, anybody who passed the quiz, they take you
and you have to fill out an application.
You fill out the application andthen you talk to an associate
(03:05):
producer. If they like you, they bring you
in. Well, the third time I I learned
that don't just take the pencil to fill out the form, but get
like markers and four color pensand so on.
So I took my favorite story, putit in red and it and it was just
find your story somewhere on putit somewhere on the form.
Doesn't have to answer the question.
And so I put a couple stories onthere in red circle with a
(03:27):
yellow highlighter that said, Hey, This is why you want.
Basically, this is the kind of story I can tell Meredith
Vieira, the host, in between thequestions.
And it worked. So the most stressful moment was
the day before when they're telling you, yeah, I'm like,
holy cow, I'm going to be on there.
(03:47):
I started getting really nervousand shaking the show itself.
I'm sure I was nervous, but I told myself when I'm on there,
I'm going to when the questions come up and the lights come
down, I'm just going to close myeyes for a second.
And when I open them up, all it's going to be is me and a
screen. There will be nobody watching.
There will be nobody in the audience.
It's just me and a question. And that worked pretty well.
(04:08):
Interesting. No, that's really cool.
So did you end up winning at allwhen you were on the show or?
$32,000. Thanks, so how does that
actually work? How does game show money work?
Because game show money to me isn't real money, it's just fake
made-up money. So of course you're taxed on it
at the state that you win the earnings in, correct or at your
(04:30):
local tax rate. So take us through kind of what
I'm just curious now. So I didn't know what happened
was I recorded in November and Iit aired in July and then after
it aired, they mailed me a checkfor $32,000.
You're, you're considered a 1099R, whatever that is, like you're
(04:53):
a contract employee. So they don't withhold and then
you have to deal with the withholding on the back end.
But as problems go, that's a really good one to have.
Yeah, no, 100%. That would be much more ideal.
So that's really cool. So that's a, that's a unique
experience. I've always watched game shows
and stuff growing up and into myadult life and whatnot.
I was like, that's not what happens to the money.
(05:16):
What do they actually do? So that's really interesting.
That's really interesting. So, OK, enough about who wants
to be a millionaire, because we all want to be a millionaire.
You only became a 32,000 Aire. Right.
Maybe next time, Maybe next time.
But is that show still going? Yes.
I don't watch daytime TVI. Know it's still going.
(05:37):
I haven't watched it lately because it's it's now daytime
TV. To your point.
Yeah, we're not old enough for daytime TV yet.
We haven't hit that part in our lives yet or in our careers to
be be a lot of the opportunity to watch daytime TV.
All right, there you go. Let's talk about, let's jump
into the meat and potatoes or the conversation, shall we?
Or I guess into the chicken. How did you get into all this
(06:01):
chicken? Mental or mental health, stress
management and all the fear, negativity.
How did you get into the chickenof it all?
OK, so it's a dual. There's two paths that converged
here. The first one was about 15 years
ago. I'm in Toastmasters, which is a
speaking organization, and everyyear they have a contest where
(06:25):
they start with 25,000 people, and it's called the World
Championship of Public Speaking.So you just keep going and if
you win, you move on and you move on and you move on.
And I tried it for several years.
In 2011 I made it to the final nine and the story I told was
about asking my wife out. A Co worker who became my wife,
(06:50):
getting the courage up to ask her out for a date.
And where it started to click was one I gave voices to the
fears and negativity and self doubt inside of my head.
And I made them chickens. So at the time I was just like,
I fought my wings and pretended I was a chicken.
And that worked fairly well. Later I discovered these
wonderful little rubber chickensto kind of represent them.
(07:15):
And I've got them, you know, in all sizes and, you know, the
fried version I got, you know, pirate rubber chickens, you name
it. And, and what happened was then
I didn't have to dance around and people could see this is the
chicken I'm talking about. OK, so it's, and I use them for
both goal achievement. The chickens are telling you
(07:37):
you're not good enough. It's to she's she will say no on
when you ask her out for a date,she's out of your league,
etcetera. Or the chickens that are causing
you stress, those voices inside of you, they're saying you suck,
the world sucks, whatever. And so I talk about how you fry
them and get rid of them so thatyou can lower your stress and
(07:59):
improve the quality of your life, right?
Do what you're meant to do. Now.
The other, the other piece that happened was about 2015.
I had a heart attack and I didn't, I wasn't, you know, I
wasn't in Olympic shape or anything that was in decent
shape. I didn't smoke, my diet could
have been better or I drank a lot of coffee.
But in general, you know, when Ithought of heart attacks, I
(08:21):
thought, number one, people witha family history, I didn't have
that number two, people a lot older than me #3 people that are
smoking and heavier than me. And none of that happened.
And when the doctor talked to meafterwards, they, they put a
couple stents in. He said you need to manage your
stress. Stress contributed to your heart
attack. And so from that day on, I
(08:43):
started looking for ways to manage my stress.
And that's those are the two things I talk about and they're
kind of tied together, right? Shutting out those chickens of
stress and negativity and fear that are holding you back,
lowering your stress and achieving the life you were
meant to live. Those are two crazy paths to to
me. So how long ago was that heart
(09:05):
attack? I'm just curious. 10 years. 10
years. OK, so you live with you live
for the last 10 years. Two cents, no issues.
No issues. Interesting.
OK, but those are two very, veryI'll unlinear past that
collided. But that's just how life works,
right? It's like 1 you're doing
(09:25):
presentations with chickens and all of a sudden a heart attack
and then boom, it all collides there.
So what was it about the stress that you had to manage or find
that you had to manage from there?
So the first thing I did was while I was recovering, I looked
for books on Amazon. I need to learn about stress.
And most of the covers had people like, tearing their hair
(09:47):
out. And I'm like, OK, the cover is
making me more stressed, so let's try something different.
And they gave you all kinds of tips.
What I found was it was about, well, the first thing was the
doctor said you need to every three months, take one week off,
unplug, relax and take that weekoff.
(10:10):
And I said, OK, I'll do that. And I was my wife was in the
room. So I had to do it.
It's a contract when your when your wife is in the room.
Right. I hate when that happens.
I hate when that happened. You're then obligated to do the
thing and you're held to it. And it sucks.
It's the worst it it's the worstthing.
But actually on our own, no, notat all.
(10:31):
No. But on on our own, we're going
to say, ah, yeah, sure, Doc. And go back and have another
heart attack, right? Yeah.
So it was the recovery took me till January of I had it in
August recovery January I'm backto work end of March.
My wife said OK, it's been 3 months, it's time to take a week
off. And I was still in the recovery
(10:53):
process. So we just decided I would take
a week off and we would do little day, you know, a trip to
the zoo and so on. And so the first day after I got
home, I went on Facebook and I typed, hey, here's the great
things that happened today. And everybody gave it likes.
You know, I was talking about seeing the gorilla exhibit and
(11:15):
baby cheetahs and picnic in the car, etcetera.
And everybody liked it. And I was like, wow, I'm getting
likes on Facebook. You know, that's, that's why
we're on Facebook, so everybody can give us the big old.
Instant validation. Instant validation.
So, so the next day I was like, well, I want more of that.
So I we went to the Art Museum and I was looking what was great
about today and somewhere in that week I said, I wonder how
(11:36):
long I could do this. And it's been almost 10 years
that I don't do it every single day, but almost every day I put,
hey, here's the great things that happen.
And, and they're little things. It's, you know, we just went out
to dinner. We, we had a ice cream together.
Any little thing and they repeat.
But what happens is you're training your brain to look for
(12:00):
what's good. And after training your brain
for a while, then your brain goes, well, that's what you
want, I'm going to go find it for you.
And it just presents itself. Yeah, no, it's like an ongoing
gratitude practice in essence. Yeah, which is really cool.
It's easier, yeah. And I think that as much as
anything has lowered my stress. I talk about the nine s s to
(12:23):
lower your stress management. One is seek the good, the other
is subtract the bad. There are so many ways that you
can find out how terrible the world is and how wrong other
people are and and you know, Facebook will throw it at you
and the news will throw it at you it and you don't need that
there. There are some stresses you
can't avoid in life, but those are optional.
So I just turn them off. Yeah, that reminds me of a
(12:46):
couple of things there that you're you're mentioning here is
I just had a very similar conversation with one of the
kids I work with during my day job.
I work in mental health. So one of the kids I was talking
to just today even had a very similar conversation because he
started talking really negatively about himself.
And I was like, whoa, whoa, you just said three negative things
about yourself. You need to tell me 4 good
things about yourself. And then he did it again.
(13:07):
OK, now it's 5 good things. OK, now it's six good things.
Now it's seven. He was like trying to like, you
know, be a little smart aleck and whatnot, which is fine, but
he ended up doing the good things.
And I was like, so you know how you're always talking about how
you don't love the behavior you have, right?
You're always saying you're a bad kid, you struggle with this,
that and the other and blah, blah, blah.
Was a long, it was a good conversation.
He's like, yeah, I'm like, well,that's because you have all
(13:28):
these bad things in your head and all these bad things come
out as bad actions and you say the bad things and you do the
bad things because that's what'sin your head.
So what do you think would happen if you put good things
into your head all the time? All those really good thoughts?
Instead, he's like, well, I think I would be kinder to
people and I wouldn't get in trouble as much.
I'm like, exactly because your actions match your thoughts.
(13:49):
Your thoughts dictate then dictate your actions.
It was a really cool conversation.
It seemed to really click with him and whatnot because as soon
as he said I'm kind, it was like, oh, I did a kind thing
today. Instantly able to recognize the
kind things that he was doing for others.
So that was really cool. What was the thing I wanted to
mention on that that you mentioned?
No idea anyways. Welcome to my world.
I had something to say. Yeah, it was really good.
(14:13):
No, I really, I, I love that when I'm talking to groups, it
will do. Sometimes we do a stress
management workshop and one of the things I have the group do
is OK, we're going to take 10 minutes.
And I want you to write down as many things, many good things in
your life as you can. Take as many pieces of paper as
you want. Whoever writes down the most
(14:34):
gets a gets a book when my greatthings happen everyday book.
And then I've had people like come up with 50 some things in
10 messages. They're furiously writing.
And then I say, OK, now everybody stands up and then sit
down if you have fewer than 20. And then eventually one or two
(14:55):
people are are there and I say, OK, I want you to start reading
it off. But here's the deal.
If you're in the, if you're in this group and what they say is
great for you, you need to writethat down and raise your hand.
Yes, I agree. Because you know, if you've only
got 20 and then all of a sudden they say my grandkids and you're
like, Oh yeah, my grandkids, I forgot that.
And so you're getting a bigger list.
(15:15):
And I tell them, take it home with you and look at it.
All the good things that are going on in your life, keep that
in front of you. I love that.
And I've done actually the inverse of that activity with
kids and with people before to where I'll have them write down
the things that they like, essentially need to like go
over, get rid of as well. I've actually done this in a
workshop. It's on my YouTube channel.
(15:36):
It was when I gave a presentation at a conference and
I did that same concept where I had everyone write down a bunch
of things, right? And then I had them take them
and I had them tear them up and throw them away, get rid of
them. So it's the same practice.
It's just the inverse of that same practice, right?
You can do it both ways. I remember my thought now it was
(15:57):
related. I remember how you know,
realizing the good things, putting things in order, making
sure you're subtracting the bad.That's what it was on
subtracting the bad when you mentioned that the book how to
or it's an orange cover book. It's just about putting your
your FS in the right order. Subtle art of not giving.
(16:20):
Yes, yes, that one. And that's one of my favorite
books. I actually read that when I was
working. My gosh, how many years ago was
that? About 10 years ago now, so I was
working in like my first really big job and I just found myself
like stressed out. I was was caring about
everything I need to stop caringabout so much all the time
because I couldn't focus like too many things like I was
(16:42):
trying to focus about. And I read that book, I think it
was recommended to me. I was like, you should read this
book to kind of help you prioritize and reorganize.
So I read it and I still, I practice it to this very day, 10
years later, because it's all about making sure that you can
put your apps where they belong and you have enough where they
belong and not too many. And if they're not going
(17:04):
somewhere that serves you, then take them away and put them into
somewhere that does. So it's very similar to the
concept you mentioned there of subtracting.
Love that book. Yeah.
Great book, great book. You talk about frying your
chicken. What the heck does frying your
chickens mean? So that was when I started that
(17:27):
in the contest, I gave the speech the title of just a bunch
of s s. And everybody's like, when they
announce the title, what the heck is he talking about?
And so I started with my introduction.
I said, and you're gonna have a better life when you get those
chickens out from inside of you.Get a pan and fry them.
And so you're getting rid of thefears, negativities and self
(17:49):
doubt. So that's why I say, you know,
you're going to take these and, and that's what the book is
about. Frying your chickens is OK, one
of them. And I gave them cute little
names like Doubting Dave, you'renot good enough.
I doubt you're going to be able to do that and so on.
And and I think nasty negative Nelly, which is telling you, oh,
she's out of your league, you'llnever be able to ask her out,
(18:12):
etcetera, etcetera. And so there's all these voices
and they and their basic fears, negativity, self doubt, all
those negative emotions. I just kind of made them
different chickens. And then the idea is you take
the chicken, you pull it out andit's tools for how to do that
and you fry it, get rid of it. And then you've got, I've got my
(18:37):
fried rubber chicken that my daughter-in-law gave me that
pictures of that in the book. OK, here is how I fried doubting
Dave and here's how I fried facethe facts, Fiona.
And then it's got activities behind it to say, OK, you know
what, what facts are holding youback, that kind of thing.
(18:58):
And so it just helps to kind of personalize them as chickens.
They're all, and most of them are, are these little guys that
don't add up to much. There is one.
We'll talk about him in a bit that is a little bit bigger.
Very interesting, very interesting.
So the chickens are honestly just a metaphor of sorts for all
(19:19):
the different things that we go through in our in our
day-to-day. So take us through I guess what
you found as why so many people struggle with their inner
negativity and self doubt. So I think, I think it's people
give give those fears and negativities more, more of an
(19:39):
audience than they should. And it goes back to stress and
self doubt and so on goes back to thousands and thousands of
years ago you needed stress and maybe some sort of reasonable
self doubt to keep yourself frombeing eaten by a tiger or
whatever. But now it's like you, you get
(20:00):
held back and maybe somebody told you no once.
And so in in the back of your mind that message is going to be
there. Oh, you.
No, you remember you. That didn't work the last time.
And, and when you really look atit, and I'm sure when I was
thinking about asking, asking out the, the lady I'm not
married to, I was like, well, don't you remember that time you
asked that girl out and she toldyou no?
And, and of course we're going to get told no sometimes.
(20:22):
But you just kind of, you get conditioned and you don't want
to get hurt. But the problem is if you don't
get hurt or if you don't put yourself out there, then you
don't get to be on the game showthe, the woman of your dreams
and so on. And so I tell people that the
chicken you need to fear most isI, I call him this guy the, the
(20:43):
Red Rooster of regret, 29 incheslong.
And I, I don't think we're goingto be, I don't think we got any
kind of filtering on. But he's, he's really awfully.
I bring him to the, the keynote and I always have to fly with
checked luggage. And I'd love to hear what TSA
had to say about it. I bring him to the keynote.
(21:05):
And about 2/3 of the way I end that I'd like there's one
chicken you need to be afraid of.
And here he is and comes out. And then somebody from the
audience gets Volun told to comeup and squeeze the Red Rooster
Regret. And he will go for 45 seconds.
And so it's this awful loud noise.
And then I tell people that was pretty awful, right?
(21:27):
Well, it's not nearly as awful as dying and not pursuing your
dream. It's the regrets you're going to
have from not taking action thatare going to be far worse than
these little chickens that are telling you you can't do it.
Yeah, regret is regret is something that damning to us,
right? It's something that we everyone
(21:48):
lives with every day, right? It's honestly one of the biggest
struggles when it comes to negativity, self doubt, when it
comes to being present, managingour stress, something that
easily helps stress take over our lives, right?
It, it leads on all those paths at once because we, we can
easily regret different things. You know, I regret saying that
thing to my wife. I regret doing that thing or
regret not doing that thing or Iregret doing that.
(22:10):
And we have all these thoughts and we're constantly
overthinking and overthinking and overthinking.
And it's like, oh, shoulda coulda, woulda, shoulda, coulda,
woulda, shoulda, coulda, woulda,But you didn't.
Or maybe you did, right? And now all you can do is really
just kind of pick up the pieces and move forward.
You, I mean, what else can you do with that?
You can't. You can't do anything.
That's exactly right. And and you know, sometimes I'll
(22:34):
think back about I can't believeI did this.
And I just remind myself you areright where you need to be at
this moment, at this time. And and don't worry about the
things that happened in the past, but going forward, make
sure you don't have those regrets from not taking a
chance. Because it's about taking the
(22:55):
chance, right? Because you don't want to look
back. I mean, because I mean, your
perspective is probably very, very unique on this.
Because you did have the heart attack.
You did have that sort of sort, that eye opening moment of holy
crap, there's all these things Ididn't do right that I really
wish I would have done. But now I have the chance to do
one kind of thing. So your perspective is so unique
(23:16):
on this, which is really cool. Exactly.
Because you, you see it from that side.
Well, it's like, well, I didn't do that thing.
And if I that heart attack wouldhave taken me, I would have
regretted that or that would have been a regret for the rest
of my life. And now I can, I'm kind of not
not right the wrongs, but you can do the things that you would
(23:38):
have regretted not doing because, you know, you have that
ultimate perspective on, on life.
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. You know, I got, I got a second
chance. The arteries that block were not
the widowmaker and and so therefore I got a second chance.
Very fortunate to do that. And you know, obviously I, I had
the courage to ask my wife out before the heart attack that
(24:00):
goes back, that story goes back.But, but since the heart attack,
I've, I've taken more actions. And just like, you know what?
You you don't want to go to go to your grave with the Red
Rooster of regret squawking at you.
No, absolutely. I don't think anyone wants to
live with that, right? No one wants to live with that.
(24:20):
And like, you know, looking back, you know, whatever the
afterlife looks like, everyone'sbeliefs are, are different.
A lot of people are similar, butwhatnot.
You don't want to be living the afterlife.
I mean, like, man, I could have done all that stuff, but I
didn't do it. You know, I was scared.
Exactly. You know, there's this really
cool Will Smith quote out there of all people.
(24:41):
I think this was before like theslap and everything.
So it was when Will Smith was like kind of sane and whatnot.
But there's this whole like motivational thing that's on
YouTube, which one of my favorite things.
I used to watch it like religiously.
I'm not joking about that. I would watch it multiple times
a day. Like I would watch that stuff
religiously. But no, he would talk about fear
and he would talk about the fearhow it like holds you back from
(25:02):
doing this thing or doing that thing or doing this thing or
doing that thing or doing this thing.
And he's like, why are you letting fear hold you back from
doing that thing and making you paralyzed to your bed?
Why are you letting fear take hold of you here?
Why are you letting fear do this?
Why are you letting fear do that, you know, instead of, you
know, going through that door? And the greatest things in life
are on the other side of that terror.
(25:23):
The greatest things in life are on the other side of that fear.
And how can we not, you know, let go of those things and then
realize, oh, the crap, it reallywasn't that bad.
Why was I even scared in the 1stplace?
Because when we go and do the things we realize, oh, it wasn't
it wasn't that bad. It really wasn't.
It was OK. Like, I'm OK.
Did you? But did you die, though?
Kind of Quinn, That's the famousquestion.
(25:44):
But did you die, though? No.
OK, then you're fine. What?
What? What were you even scared about?
Look, you had fun. You enjoyed it.
I think that's one of the best things with our kids too.
You know, I relate that to last summer, my daughters and my
family and I, we went to Silverwood, the amusement park,
and I forced my 7 year old in tears to go on a roller coaster
(26:07):
that was scary Forster. I literally forced her.
I drug her onto the roller coaster and made her do it
whether she wanted to or not. And then she went a few weeks
later with her grandparents again, and she went on all the
roller coasters, no issues, right?
Right. He should have loved it.
Love it. So, and I had fun laughing
throughout that experience because I'm dude, you're going
to be fine. Oh my gosh, she's like
(26:27):
hysterical. I don't know, I never heard this
again. Love it.
Just the butter. So Speaking of like funny
moments and whatnot, you use humor in your keynotes and your
writing for you. How has laughter become such a
powerful stress relief tool? I believe we don't laugh enough.
You know, when you're a kid, youlaugh and everything.
(26:48):
There's numbers and they're probably made-up, but it's
something like you laugh 200 times a day when you're a kid
and four when you're an adult. I read that somewhere.
But what's not made-up is the fact that you laugh a lot more
when you're a little kid before people tell you, oh, that's not
funny. I, I had three boys and, and
(27:08):
burps were funny and farts were funny and, and, and everything
was funny And, and God love them.
They're right. And so I try to laugh as much as
I can. We watch sitcoms, we watch funny
movies, dad jokes. You know, I'm a dad.
I've got 3 kids. So you got to tell dad jokes.
And I don't know that my kids would say they're funny, but I
(27:30):
think they are. And, you know, and even if, if
nobody laughs, you're still kindof connecting a little bit.
I think, I think dogs are great because they kind of have a
sense of humor. You know, our one dog takes the
toy and you chase him around thethe table and he's like, no, you
can't have the toy. So, you know, we're made to
(27:50):
laugh. And that's why, hey, I will tell
people in because early on when I was speaking, they're like,
well, don't put something humorous in there if it doesn't
have a point. And I will tell people now,
especially in the stress management window, I am going to
put some pictures up here of things I have found that are
funny and they do not. And I'm not going to tie them
(28:14):
back to any of the points other than this point right now.
You need to laugh more. It will lower your stress.
The whole reason these are in here in between each of our
modules is to get you to laugh. And people are like, cool.
And you know, you just, I, I take my phone, you've, we got a
phone everywhere anyway. And so you just find someone
like, that's hilarious. Take a picture and, and you
(28:36):
know, it's like, like a clearance price was $39.00, the
clearance price $49.00. Just silly stuff, right?
That just things that aren't quite right that when you look
at me, it's like, that's really funny.
And so you take a picture of it,you put it up there.
I got one from a minor league game in Charleston, SC where
(28:58):
they bothered to put on the signdollar beer price $1.00.
Like if you are to the point where you don't know how much
the dollar beer cost and you need a sign to tell you, you
probably ought to be cut off. And so it's just, and, and then
I tell people, look, you've got this phone, use it for something
positive. Number one, take pictures of
(29:19):
your kids, your family, your dogs, and so on.
Put your favorites out there so that they can go.
They can be my screensaver. Rotating pictures, favorite
pictures #2 find the humor and then #3 share it, share it with
people. Give somebody else a laugh.
I do that on Facebook all the time.
The the Dumber the joke, the better, and people love it.
I love all of that. That is all so, so needed and so
(29:41):
I wouldn't head as you were speaking there.
I promised I was paying attention still.
I will, I did, but I wouldn't have asked ChatGPT how many
times a kid laughs laughs a day versus an adult.
You were very close. On average, kids laugh 3 to 400
times a day. And as we know, ChatGPT is 100%
right on every single thing it does.
So as we know. And then adults laugh around 15
(30:03):
to 20 times a day though, so some studies suggest it could be
as low as 10. And why This is just as you
mentioned, Kids are more present, they're more playful,
and they're more uninhibited. Their days of revolve around
curiosity, exploration, and fun.Often as adult, we have more
responsibilities, stress, socialfilters, which can suppress
spontaneous laughter. But a little bit laughter is
(30:25):
good, all right? Like you're saying here, it's so
fun to laugh about farts and poop and things like that.
Also, we're men. If we go to a store and we see
the prices of 69, we're going tolaugh.
Absolutely. There's no doubt.
And like you mentioned about your hockey stick, I wasn't even
going to ask about the damn hockey stick.
I didn't care about that. But then you mentioned, well,
(30:46):
you probably want to know who the hockey stick.
You probably don't care who the hockey stick is signed.
But I'm like, yeah, I don't, buttell me anyways, please kind of
thing. It's like there's there's humor
moments as we go throughout our days, right?
There's always something to laugh about.
And sometimes I get yelled at bymy wife and I hope she can hear
me right now. He's in the other room.
But I will laugh at things that aren't funny and I will laugh at
the wrong time. And it's not the best, but I'll
(31:10):
be laughing anyways. I don't know why I tried to
control it. Like I don't, I just let the
filters go. But and she knows that she calls
me on and she's like, why are you laughing right now?
There's nothing funny. And I just, you know, I'm just
like, well, you know, I'm just, it's funny that, you know, we're
this is happening or we're doingthis kind of thing.
I'll just like laugh and not take it serious.
I'm probably the most unserious person there is.
(31:32):
I'll get serious from times, butmost of the times I'm very
unserious and I don't take nearly enough as I should
serious. But then again, life's too
serious as is it. Why do we have to take so many
things serious? Like what's the point?
What's the point? Oh, absolutely.
There's a a quote from Gary Vee that said somebody came up to
(31:53):
and said tell me something to inspire me.
And he looked at it and said youare going to die.
You only have so much time. What are you going to do with
it? And that's why you got to laugh.
You got to you got to not have regrets.
There is one thing that is 100% fatal and that's being born.
Eventually you're going to die. So we don't know when.
(32:18):
Let's laugh as much as we can. Let's have as much fun as we
can. Let's get out there and kick
some butt and fry some chickens.And I've lived that way ever
since the big heart attack you muted.
Better city. There's no better perspective
than when you have that second chance and to when you have
those eye opening moments. I'm sure you didn't plan for it,
(32:40):
but gosh has it been great alongthe way.
Yeah, well, that's why I tell people, you know, I'd love to
give you the benefits of the heart attack without you having
a heart attack. So let's lower the stress right
now and and let's just pretend like you had a heart attack and
go out and fry those chickens and have some fun now.
Yeah, yeah. No one's going to wish a heart
(33:01):
attack on anyone, right? That's not what you're saying.
You're not trying to do that. Oprah, you have a heart attack
and you have a heart attack. You get 1, you get 1, you get 1.
Be careful with how many heart attacks you hand out, you might
get doged. I hand out rubber chickens
instead, that's more fun. That's way more fun.
(33:24):
So is there any, you know, thingridiculous that you've done to
de stress that you found has actually worked?
Gosh, I do so many ridiculous things that there is a whole
section in my my prior book, Great Things happen every day of
dad jokes. And a lot of them are jokes that
I've just told, told to my kids,like made-up.
And that's what they all were. And just, yeah, I'll get in the
(33:47):
elevator with my wife and at ourlocal Kohl's.
It's two stories, right? So I will get in there.
Somebody else will be in there and we're on one.
I go 2 please. I mean, hello.
That's the only option you couldpossibly and she's just like, so
I think I can't think of any onething.
Well, I can't think of one. It wasn't meant to de stress,
(34:09):
but in the end it kind of distressed me.
I was about 50 years old and goton a, a roller coaster with my
son. And it's, it makes for a great
story, right? Because the chickens are like,
do you realize how old you are? And I tell them, you know, when
I was 25, it was a throw ride at50, it's like a hangover on
(34:30):
rails and, and it's all the chickens talking and telling
you. And then it's the voices inside
and the UPS and the downs and you know, almost throwing up and
so on and so on. But the cool thing was at the
end and, and what busted all thestress was looking at my son and
how happy he was and like, oh dad, that was so cool, you know?
(34:50):
And so for a moment I became thecool dad.
And it's like, well, that's a huge win.
Despite the fact for a few minutes and some odd seconds I
felt like I was going to die. Hey, it was worth it, right?
It's all worth it. It's all worth it in the end.
I loved it 25, but boy, at 50 they're they and this was pretty
heart attack, by the way, I now have a medical reason.
(35:12):
It's not stress. I have a medical reason where
the doctor said don't you get onthat roller coaster?
You ever think you're still doing the things that you're not
supposed to do? You're like, would it?
Would it really be that bad? And then your wife has to talk
you down from the ledge. Yeah, all the time.
Yeah, well, if I'm going to break a rule from the doctor,
it's going to be a 1/3 cup of coffee during the day.
(35:32):
You're living dangerously there,Phil Living dangerously.
That's obviously someone's a rule follower.
So obviously the kids are also pretty.
I'm assuming kids are pretty good rule followers.
Oh, who? Me.
Yeah. I mean, I mean am IA rule follow
I follow the rules that are keeping you alive, I.
Mean that worked. That worked.
Yeah, other than that and and the kids are a whole lot like
(35:54):
their dad, that with the sense of humor.
It's it's Like me, except they have musical talent.
OK. And then let me ask you a
question here. Who follows the rules the least?
The least rule follower of the three?
And tell me why it's the second one?
I was like, you know, it's the middle.
One I know I. Don't know why it is, but I do
(36:15):
know that it is and we didn't treat him any any differently.
The second one of the three, thethird one is was born with the
I'm going to be good gene. The second one there was at some
point and the kid, he was barelywalking, I guess he was walking,
(36:36):
crawled up on the couch and got on the back of the couch,
standing on the back of the couch and looks over at me and.
Goes. It's like, you know, you're not
supposed to do that. And, and he's been, no, he's
gotten older and, and mellowed alittle bit.
But yeah, it's, it's the middle one.
Why? I don't know.
Always the second one. It's always the second.
(36:57):
It is always the second kid. I don't know why, but OK, so
how? I'm going to bring this all back
to some applicable questions here, I guess.
Well, I guess we'll apply all this and not have as much fun.
We'll make it a little bit serious.
How can we recognize when the stress is taking?
Over if you're thinking about itall the time, if it's if you're
supposed to be doing something focused on work or whatever and
(37:19):
it's and it's stress instead, I think before you do that, I'm a
big fan. It's it's sitting over there be
right back. I've got this block, this time
block and, and so it's got all different numbers.
If you, if I put it straight up,it's 25 minutes.
And so you don't do anything formore than 25 minutes, it's going
(37:40):
to stretch you out. And then you turn it up and you
do a 5 minute break, get up, stretch, breathe.
So before I say, before it gets really to taking over, you just
kind of stop, breathe 55 deep breaths and that'll that'll
bring your heart rate down. If you recognize it and it's
(38:03):
like really taking over, then goout, take a walk, remember that
it's not worth dying for and just remind yourself, hey, and
then maybe that's when, because you've already written it down,
because either you were at my, at my keynote or some or
somewhere else, or you listen onthis podcast.
(38:23):
So you know what? I'm going to write down all the
things that are great in my life.
And then you pull that out and it's really hard to look and
say, Oh yeah, I've got 3 wonderful sons, a wonderful
daughter-in-law, a wife who loves me.
I get to travel and speak and soand on and on and on and on and
say, yeah, I'm going to stress out.
(38:44):
Is the thing still there? Yeah, but you just took that
pause. Yeah, sometimes a pause is all
you need. Sometimes that is all you need
is just a pause. And to shift your perspective,
right, to change that perspective into what you're
looking at and how you're looking at things because maybe
in, in the grand scheme of things.
So I'm actually involved in my church in a youth program called
Awana. And one thing I, I teach, teach
(39:06):
my wanna kids how my wanna kids is how it's like your, your
life, this one big, grand, beautiful painting, right?
That's already painted for you. It's Christian program.
I'm a Christian. It was already painted for you
by the creator, by God before you even came to earth.
And it's this great big, beautiful painting.
The details are amazing. They're intricate, they're
beautiful. Every single little detail
already planned for, already mapped out.
(39:28):
So why are you stressing? Why you stressing about these
small things? Why are you worried about even
these smallest little things come up on a day-to-day basis?
We freaked out. We have these blow UPS.
Maybe we fight with our spouse, maybe we we yell at our kids a
little bit too much. Who knows what happens.
Maybe we yell at a cowork or something like that happened,
right. But we look back.
So we have to be able to take that pause like you're saying
here, take that step back. I actually love that timer
(39:50):
because that's actually a space in psychology itself where the
brain can only focus for about 20 to 25 minute long term.
I mean, we're both doing great on this podcast, you know,
going, you know, 40 minutes. We're we're not to say we're
kings of the castle here, but you know, we're doing pretty
good and out. Yeah, you know.
(40:11):
It's, it's so important to take that pause and to reset, right?
Because our days go off the rail, we fail, We have to bounce
back. And that's just what we, what we
do, right? We especially as dads, right?
Those things can very easily consume us.
Taking that pause, reshifting our perspective, refocusing and
realizing, OK, it's really not that deep.
(40:32):
It's really not that big of a thing.
I just have to, I need to breathe.
I need to share my perspective and and move on.
Yeah. And, and I love, I love what
you're doing with your youth group at church, as well as what
you're doing in your profession with the counseling kid.
Our youngest is going to be a teacher.
(40:53):
And he's doing it because he loves the kids.
And he's, well, he's at school. He's also working at our YMCA
helping the kids in the program.And he tells me all the stories
of the kids he's helped on. So it's like, yeah, but he's not
the middle kid. He's he's the third third of
three and and he just has this this servant heart that is so
(41:15):
good to see. I love when I see people doing
that you make. A difference.
I love that. And you know, bless your son,
honestly, because that's such a,that's a career that will eat
you up and spit you out. And I believe every single
teacher except for, you know, the 99% of teachers went into
teaching because of that right there, because they love kids,
(41:39):
because they want to make a difference, because they have
that sphere in heart. 99% did. I think you're.
Right, because of how it is in our society with teachers and
teaching and politicalization. And now it's even, it's even
more blown up and whatnot. Talking to a friend of mine here
in a couple days on the podcast about that.
He's an educator as well. And we're going to talk about
(42:01):
kind of doge and things like that and kind of what that looks
like from, you know, that perspective.
It's going to be really interesting.
But you know, it's, it's one of those things that just, you
know, eat you up and spit you out and it, it ruins a lot of
people, ruins a lot of really good people who really just want
to help. And then our kids are are no
better for it because of it. But hopefully he lands in an
(42:24):
excellent place. He's with an excellent
administrative staff. He's in an excellent supportive
environment and that he can get another experience because if
that first place doesn't work out, then he's able to move to,
you know, maybe a private schoolor charter school or something
more privatized and whatnot, more privatized education.
I personally have the way to go.Way to go myself.
(42:47):
I digress here. One thing I want to hit on is of
course failure. But how?
What have you found that is helpful from keeping from
spiraling when things go wrong? Because very easy as dad and
dad. It really is.
You mentioned failure. Recently.
(43:09):
I had the opportunity. I just, I happened to be
watching a game show. I was up visiting my mom.
She always likes watching game shows.
And as the credits rolled, I sawthe name of the executive
producer for this game. And I was like, holy cow, that
guy was the guy who interviewed me and got me a spot on Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire? And so I was like, OK, I'm going
to go on this. I will get to your question, by
(43:31):
the way. I'm going to go on LinkedIn and
see if he's on LinkedIn. And he was.
And we had a couple of connections in common.
So I just, I shot him a message out of the blue.
I was like, hey, just wanted to say, obviously you don't
Remember Me because you've dealtwith thousands of people over
the years. You were my associate producer
back in the day for Who Wants toBe a Millionaire?
(43:52):
I'm glad to see you're still doing game shows.
You were really good to me and, and thank you.
He wrote back and he said, you know, I've been thinking about
speaking. Could we talk for a while?
So we talked and and this is where you get we got the answer
to the question about failure, he said.
And because with millionaire andother ones, he's been able to do
the celebrity millionaire. So he has met a lot of
(44:14):
celebrities along the way. In addition to working with
Meredith Vieira, Richard Regis film and so on.
He said the one difference between the so-called the
celebrity and the rest of the people in the world is when a
celebrity fails, they keep going.
They don't let it stop them. And he gave an example of Regis
(44:35):
Philbinarini in question. He messed up a word and just
laughed through it, made a big joke about it, and they just
kept on a roll. And he said that's how they are.
They just, you got to understand, failure is not
fatal. That which doesn't kill us makes
it stronger. That's such an overused therm,
but it's true. And so as much as I can, I just
forget the failure. We've all had them and move on
(44:59):
because if you let, you can't let the failure win, right?
You can't let that chicken say see told you.
So don't ever do that again. I mean, so it just write it
down, write it off and move on. And the other thing I do is I
keep a success log. So you know everybody.
I have my task list and I write them down and then when I get
(45:21):
them done I check them off and if I do something by the way
that wasn't on the list I I write it down so I can check it
off. We all do that.
Everyone does that. Phil, you're you're not alone.
We all do that. I do that.
Why not? So at the end of the day, you've
got all these things checked off.
I messed one thing up. Well, you know what?
I got 9 things done. That's a 90%.
(45:43):
That's that's really good. So you can't let that one define
you. You got to say OK.
And I don't care how small they are.
That was the whole point of my Great Things Happen book.
You know, we had lunch together.Well, that's a little thing, but
it was great. So give yourself a pat on the
back for that. And I think we are always, you
(46:04):
know, we always hear, we'll ignore the critics out there.
I think the critics in here, those chickens inside are the
worst. And those are the ones that
they'll eat you up if you if youfocus on the failure, I would
say, OK, can I learn something from it?
Fine, what will I do better nexttime?
Fine, we're done. That's set it aside.
(46:24):
Let's move on. Absolutely.
It's, it's really the 8020 rule,a lot of it too, right?
We'll so easily focus on the 20%that we didn't do that where we
fell short, where we had our shortcomings, right.
And we see this a lot in every aspect of life.
The 8020 rule is probably the most accurate rule, one of the
most accurate rule that's out there.
(46:46):
It's insane. Ever since I started paying more
and more attention to it, I see it all the time.
Oh, yeah. But we pay attention to the
wrong side of the 8020 rule, right?
We're always focused on the 20 that didn't go right, that
didn't happen. That's not good.
Versus we're not looking at the 80% that did go really good.
We're not looking at the 80%. We're not looking at the, oh,
I'm really grateful that my, youknow, my, my wife made dinner
(47:07):
and it was delicious or that shedid laundry in the closet clean
or, you know, I got home safe from work today and all these
things and all these things wentreally well today and yadda,
yadda, yadda, yadda. But yet we can focus very easily
on the 20%. We can focus on the what didn't
didn't happen. But that's more So what we focus
on too. It's like, oh, you know, my wife
didn't do that thing I asked herto do or my husband didn't do
(47:27):
that thing or didn't fix the thing or do the thing.
And we get focused and caught upon the 20% and then we forget
all the 80% and then the people on the 80 side percent of sizes
like, well, why does it even matter that I did the 80%?
And I think that's so true with our kids too.
We have to recognize that we have to recognize the 80% with
our kids that they are doing really well, right?
Because it's not about the, it'snot about the product, it's
(47:48):
about the process, right? We should praise and worship the
process. The product is great at the end,
right? The product's going to be great
if they're working hard and they're doing everything they
can. The product at the end is going
to be fantastic. But we can't just praise that,
right? Because then we lose out on the
process and the progress and the, the, the progress and, and
all that. And we missed out on all that
(48:10):
hard work and the accolades and the work that it took to get to
that best product. When our kids go from AC to an
A, it's like, Oh yes, you finally got an A.
It's about time versus we missedout on the whole process of they
went from AC to AC plus to AB and they worked really hard to
make some extra work and then doall the things in between to get
to that point. They overcame the struggles and
(48:31):
they they fought really hard andthey were resilient and they
persevered and they got to wherethey want to do.
We need to love that. We need to fall back in love
with the process, not just love the product that is produced in
front of us. I really like it.
That's really good. So that's my deep thought of the
day. I I love it.
Fresh out. Fresh out.
After that, you dropped plenty. I had to drop at least one to
(48:53):
try to. I love it.
All right. Are you ready to jump into the
dad zone? Absolutely.
Is there anything you want to mention from the conversation
still? Any loose ends you want to tie
up real quick I think. We're good.
I think I'm ready. You told me about the Dad Zone.
I'm intrigued. Let's do it.
The Dad Zone is the end of the podcast here.
If you're a long time listener of YDP, you know the Dad zone.
(49:15):
You love the dad zone because the guest has no clue what I'm
about to ask them and it's my favorite part.
If you're a long time listener of the show, you love this part
of the podcast. It's like, Oh yes, dad.
So finally. So 3 is 4 questions total. 4
questions total. First one, does pineapple go on
pizza? Yes.
(49:37):
Wrong answer, but this was such a great conversation that I will
still air the episode regardless.
If you put that out on Facebook,people were really good.
How could you? And it's in every single episode
of my podcast, every single episode that dads don't happen.
But if you talk, I've talked to two Italian women on the
(49:58):
podcast. One of them owns a pizza shop.
The Italian women say no so but take their opinion over the
chicken guys. Sorry, Phil.
You mean what? That's fine.
I can. I like it.
But I like other kinds of pizzastoo.
It would not offend me if somebody said you can't have
pineapple on your pizza. Take this deep dish Chicago
pizza and be like OK. You and sis, I guess.
(50:21):
Twist one arm. I do it please.
All right. I'll just met her on the next
question, I promise. You will, because this one's a
much better question. Speaking of food, who are three
people, dead or alive, that you would invite to a dinner party?
OK, well, let's let's take Jesus.
(50:43):
I mean, you hear so much. You got to go with that one.
I'm going to go with Abe Lincoln.
And boy, I guess I ought to havean alive one in there.
Those two are the two that popped right into my mind right
now. Maybe Oprah.
She just seems. What a combo.
(51:05):
What's that? That's going to be an
interesting dinner party. It is I, I, I don't know.
Those were the three that poppedinto my mind.
I and we've talked Chet GPT. I actually set up an Advisory
Board with Oprah Ablink. I don't know that it put Jesus
in it. I think it might have Gandhi and
a couple others. And So what you do is you ask
(51:26):
the question, hey, Advisory Board, here's something I'm
considering. Here's the problem I'm having.
What do y'all think? And you can put anybody in.
I, I brought Mark Cuban in, I put him back out.
Anybody. And so he goes through all of
their writings and answers as ifit was them.
You just blew my freaking mind and never thought of doing that.
(51:48):
That is freaking amazing. Neither did I.
Somebody else told me. So cool.
Anyways, moving on. My mind's blown right now, but
I'm going to try to get back on track.
OK, what is your guilty pleasurefood?
I swear if you say pineapple on pizza filled, I'm going to.
I'm going to. We're done.
No ice cream. Delicious.
(52:09):
What kind of ice cream let's be?So many kinds of ice cream.
Just the whole basket. Robbery.
Raspberry graters, Raspberry dark chocolate chip here in
Cincinnati. Chunks of Raspberry.
And here's the bad thing. It was the last thing I had to
(52:31):
eat before my heart attack. And yet I still will eat it.
No. Problem Irony.
The irony. Yeah, it's not like a stomach
virus, right? Well, I I was, I ate hot dogs
and now I can't eat hot dogs ever again or whatever.
This stuff is the bomb. Yeah, no.
And I mean, as you know, it was the stress, not the ice cream.
(52:54):
Right. Right, so the ice cream's not a
culprit. No, no, that's not what in the
ice cream. Yeah, no, the ice cream has no
part in the heart attack. OK, ice cream's innocent.
It is. It is the bystander.
And you could also know with that.
Sorry, I'm getting off topic here.
I'll then I'll ask you the four.No, no, please.
(53:15):
If that heart attack would have taken you, you would have been
able to die knowing that was a thing that the coroner will find
in your stomach. That was your last meal, the
last thing you ate. That's what the coroner would
have found it. He has Raspberry chocolate chunk
ice cream. That's.
Love it. He went out, He went out great.
(53:35):
I mean, he was good. Man OK every time I'm feeling
bad I got to eat it just in case.
Exactly. And on the high note.
Exactly why not? You can thank me later for that.
So anyways, what is one piece ofadvice that you would offer to a
young dad? Let's say he's about 18 to 22
years old, just starting out hisfatherhood journey.
(53:57):
Take as much time as you can to be with your child.
It was for the first five years of my oldest life.
I traveled a lot and then our company got bought out and they
said, OK, and we need you to just manage the systems as we
move them to the other company. Just, you know, it'll take a
(54:19):
couple hours a day in the office.
What? Whatever you need to do, if you
stay for this last year, we'll give you a bonus at the end.
And so I told my wife, well, I'mgonna, I'm gonna, I'll take the
kids to daycare and, and once a week we would stop at McDonald's
and have breakfast and just sitting there with these two
cool little kids, the time going, wow, this, I need to be
(54:40):
here for as much as I possibly can.
And, and I made all their kindergarten things and all
their baseball games that I possibly could and scouts and
you name it in church. And I didn't miss it.
And that was the best decision Icould have made.
So life may look like it's busy,but going back to this, you
(55:02):
won't regret missing a meeting at work to spend time with your
kids. Absolutely.
That's beautiful. That was a great way to a great
way to phrase all that. So to wrap us up, Phil, this has
been such a fun and insightful conversation.
I think our listeners are going to walk away with some really
practical ways to reduce stress.And of course, they're probably
laughing, their belly's probablyhurt, they're probably belly
(55:22):
laughing from this episode. So we did, we did them a favor.
We helped them laugh more than their recommended 15 to 20 times
per day. You're definitely hitting the
over today of people. So for those who want to connect
with you and learn more about managing stress, the silencing
negativity, and using humor as atool, where can they find you?
Philbarth.com. Perfect.
And yeah, you can check out Phil's work at
(55:43):
www.philbarth.com. That'll be LinkedIn.
The show notes, of course. Listeners, if you found this
episode helpful, please share itwith another dad who might need
some encouragement today or justa good laugh.
And as always, subscribe, leave a review and stay tuned for more
great guests. And until next time, remember,
stress is just the game show question you haven't answered
(56:04):
yet. So take a deep breath, make your
best guess and enjoy the ride. And that's it.
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