Adam Carolla Is Worried We’re Raising Kids Like Pets

it's going to be another phrase that I've sort of coined safe spaces and octagons people are going to become more scared and go deeper into a safe space others are going to Long more for freedom and combat and excitement and danger they're going to go toward the octagons Benjamin ant that those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety if the last several years have demonstrated anything it's that too many Young Americans value s

afety above all consider a 2021 yougov poll which found that Americans aged 18 to 24 had the highest levels of nervousness about interacting with other people post pandemic 50 said they were nervous about it that compares to just 31 for people over the age of 55. think about that the group with near zero risk was dramatically more fearful than the group at actual risk from terrorism to climate change to stranger danger our culture of fear has made our kids a nervous wreck and threatened American

freedom for all of us it's also wreaked havoc with our comedy in the process well today's guest fellow MTV Alum Adam Carolla isn't afraid to tell his kids or the rest of us to toughen up get over it and move forward he's a comedian podcast host author of six books and star of the recent documentary no safe spaces in his latest book everything reminds me of something he answers real questions from his fans and famous friends with an Unapologetic sense of humor Adam straps his way to success from

construction work to coaching boxers before breaking into the entertainment industry and setting the world record for the most downloaded podcast Adam didn't take no for an answer and didn't let fear stop him from achieving his goals I'm not so sure that the stuff you and I think that everyone Longs for Longs for anymore I can tell you that these people don't in fact want freedom it's like the opposite of whatever the founding fathers were trying to create but it's insane it's bizarre it's Unth

inkable everyone I speak to in the same general age vicinity is just dumbfounded by we wanted freedom and I realized my kids don't want freedom they like it in the house I sat in a sweat box in North Hollywood that was you know 875 square feet with no air conditioning and was like I gotta get out of here Adam is a great example of how hard work determination and a no-nonsense approach to life can pay off [Music] all right Adam thank you for being on Dad Saves America my pleasure so it's hard for

me to know where to start because so much of the stuff you've written and talk about all the time is like the substrate of what we do or what I care about with the show which is like how to be a good dad and a good man what's happening with our kids what's going wrong with their kids and I guess I want to start with a quote in uh Daddy stop talking you start with nowadays telling your wife I have to work gets you a disappointing sigh I've had this disappointing sigh happen this is the worst per

iod in history to be a dad it used to be that you worked and provided and that was enough do you think it's the worst time in history to be a dad I mean there are certain plagues you know during in some ages some darkish ages and things like that my general synopsis at least as I figured out with my own family is money became invisible and when money became invisible then whoever was providing the money sort of became invisible as well so it was funny because I was just watching football with a

bunch of dudes who were lamenting the same thing and I was thinking back you know when I was a kid if I asked my dad for money you know first it was you know the whole grieving process of him like oh God dear Lord no what what you know and then it was like like this I you know you pull like a doll around me like now listen I need change you know what you know the snow cones 35 cents this is this is a dollar you know what I mean so you know and and there was this sort of transactional thing where

it's like a thank you thank you kind sir and I realized like my daughter my son everything's a sort of Apple pay and it's on their phones so whatever's showing up to the house in terms of the GrubHub order there's no direct correlation to me you know why would there be as money kind of becomes invisible than the work that created the money sort of becomes invisible as well and then also work is in work as in working at a logging camp or working at the Dearborn Factory of Ford or whatever where

you'd come home and you had to sit there was evidence of the work there's evidence of the work like you know what do you do all day what do I do all day just sit around more people with you know stupid jokes or whatever like nobody cares so the money's kind of invisible the work is sort of invisible and so then where would that moment come where the provider of the money you know payday would be Friday and you'd come home and your back would be sore and somebody would yell uh you know dinner's a

lmost ready in a panic you know because you were in a good mood because you had a tough week you know that that doesn't really exist anymore so I think I think the appreciation in is commensurate with the actual physical money and the physical work and since that's sort of gone then we're in some sort of nebulous zone of I don't know what you do I don't know do you work do you call it work would you say it is I'm not spending your money I just got this phone and the phone gets the Chipotle to th

e house I should thank whoever provided the phone you know it's it's all kind of invisible now it's funny because I've done things that I know I probably shouldn't do like I got my my son Apple pay in the little card because see now that he drives he needs to be able to pay for gas and I feel the same way it's like I should probably be giving him cash yeah and that's kind of a pain in the ass and I don't carry that much cash so it's like is there an escape from the invisibility do you think do y

ou do anything to like Escape it no I do nothing so you know don't listen to me but I mean obviously the more regimented you can be and the more tactile you can be than it would be better it'd be better if your kids you know did chores and mowed lawns and then got twenty dollars and then could see that twenty dollars was going into the fuel for the car you know or the Chipotle bag or whatever it is I mean it'd be nice if there was some sort of because at a certain point I think you just sort of

become like the government there's an apathy yeah that is built in to that non-tactile the opposite of the you know bucket of change that your dad had on his nightstand or something that you could get a few nickels from you've always been like a big advocate for like physical work and you worked a lot so like where did that start for you I was always kind of tactile I like wrestling and football and you know jumping off a roof into a swimming pool and stuff so it's like for me life was pretty ph

ysical I wasn't a good student I wasn't a good you know at reading and writing and stuff but I was like good at wrestling and jumping my BMX bike and stuff like that so I I guess I just kind of took that sort of physical world into the real world you know after high school when I just started working on construction sites and stuff like that and so my world was very mechanical and very physical and not very cerebral and was that your first job on like on a construction site like what was your ve

ry first job well McDonald's was probably like my first sort of real punch the time clock kind of kind of job you know then after that I worked at a liquor store I was like doing deliveries at a liquor store but it was really always about moving boxes somewhere you know the liquor store was unloading the station wagon with all the cases of Smirnoff and it's put in the storeroom and then picking up another 10 cases it's a lot of like moving moving stuff you know when I got on to a construction si

te it was just pure labor at that point just digging ditches clean up garbage you know just kind of demo you know just very mechanical tactile stuff what was your feeling about work when you were doing that I didn't like digging like for an entire day we worked a lot of 10 hour days on this job and the job was to dig footings you know or a case on hole or something like that for the day you know for the entire day so you know I don't think most people really know what it's like to dig for 10 hou

rs they they kind of have the you know I put a dwarf lemon tree in my backyard kind of digging but they don't really know it's like to just strictly dig ditches for hours you know the entire day and just come back the next day and just pick up the shovel to start to keep going again but I uh unfortunately had a lot of that at the beginning and I didn't like it and it was you know very repetitive and monotonous and kind of mind-numbing and I didn't have earbuds and I wasn't listening to a podcast

you know I was just sort of go outside and stand in the Sun and dig and so no I I didn't like that at all it's funny this idea uh that you can now be entertained at any time I feel like our kids don't even know what it's like to be bored and like most of childhood was boring oh yeah I mean well I think most of child of my childhood at least was an attempt to escape boredom so you would be bored and then you'd go man I'm bored like how do I escape this and then you would try to come up with thes

e sort of you know like in the Great Escape when C McQueen would go under the cooler he'd like bring his baseball mid and he'd just go throw the ball you know I was like yeah and you understood like well that's not something you would do if you could play in a softball game but if you were in a cooler in solitary then that would be a way to occupy yourself I I was always about to be bored but I would figure out something physically to go do to you know climbing trees you know what I mean like ye

ah climbed a lot of trees just for the sake of boredom one of the things um that I think is so interesting is this distinction between like what does mom bring to the table versus dad and I know you've written about this a bunch who's gonna get more worried about you climbing the tree feels like one of these litmus tests for this because my son loves climbing trees I mean he's 17 now so he doesn't climb them quite as much as he used to but how do you think about like the difference between Mom a

nd Dad because I feel like typically mom's the one to be worried about you falling out and breaking your neck and dad is the one to be like well how high can you go yeah I think both parents now are worried that would be worried that the kid is climbing a tree I think that's what we've kind of morphed into as a society but yeah it was the mom traditionally was worried and this dad wanted the kid to have some bumps and bruises and understand how the real world works and also whatever it is you go

t in terms of your judgment and your relationship with danger so you know a lot of that you know a lot of what we talk about or like what someone like Jordan Peterson says well you have little boys need to rough house because they need to sort of regulate how hard and and I remember doing a lot of really ambitious wrestling with my friends but you and really trying to kick the crap out of them but also you kind of had to know where to stop you know at a certain point you cut the air off to their

brain or you hit them with a closed fist or something like it's really rambunctious really spirited but also you had to kind of learn to modulate you know and now we've just said no wrestling you know but that doesn't really teach people where the line is I feel like one of the things all everybody's got all these allergies and all these autoimmune problems now and that one of the things that's happened is like our immune system evolved in a much dirtier world so our immune systems are used to

having to do a lot more and so they've just turned on us I kind of feel like that's what's happened to all of society like our society has become a little bit like an autoimmune disease I completely agree yeah you need to work it out your immune system you know wiping everything down with Purell and washing your hands 10 times a day and stuff doesn't really give your immune system a chance to work out what do you do with your kids to try to not do the things that you're worried about with them y

ou look out you know it's pretty limited I must say I've essentially given up on society the most part I sort of know what works and what doesn't work you know I'm considered this is an old crazy man you know but I've worked it out I understand you know what were I had a deal going with my son for about 10 minutes which was I'm up in the Foothills and it gets really cold at night and the pool is not heated and it gets freezing cold I go in the freezing cold pool every single morning but I said t

o my son I'll make a deal with you I said you don't have to go into the freezing pool every day but on days where I drive in to Hollywood and do stand up for free on those days you need to go in the pool because I'm doing something to to try to better myself without and it takes a while from where I live to get into The Comedy Store and I'm sacrificing that to try to improve and on those days you need to jump in the freezing pool the connection between you're making things better and his jumping

in the does he did he just go along with this he did his plan did it a few times and then the whole the family turned against me I I was basically saying you need to create some adversity here your life is too easy and you're too laid back I didn't have to create any adversity when I was growing up there was just just kind of baked into the cake you know tell me more about that my family was pretty poor and you know they didn't have money they didn't have time for their kids they didn't really

they're kind of you know low-grade depression and just sort of poverty and so I was like forced to go and play sports and kind of engage in the world and do it outside of the house and sort of find my way and and deal with whatever life threw at you sort of independently I didn't have anyone in my family you know sort of bailing me out with money or having my dad step up on my behalf or whatever I was just kind of on my own and so I kind of learned to navigate you know and you know I don't reall

y wish it upon anybody but there's good lessons yeah to be learned from it and I realized that my kids were growing up and just too much opulence like just whatever whenever they got it they wanted something they'd order it you know they're in the mood for this kind of food they'd get that kind of food and it was just a general overindulgence you know that I would have indulged in too if had I had the opportunity but I didn't have the opportunity so I was just kind of forced to deal with I guess

adversity and then I got some muscles from it I learned some lessons from it and I took some bumps and bruises you know from it but I kind of took it and then you know I just sort of applied it to life and you know my kids aren't really going to get those life lessons and that all the kinds of stuff that kind of forges you into a to an adult it's really hard to try to recreate a thing that came along kind of for free right it's like that's something I think about that a lot it's like I didn't h

ave adversity insofar as like my dad and mom were there and we're pretty great but my dad dad did have me help on all of the home construction projects all the time so I have a lot of I spent I logged a lot of time crawling under the crossbar base or holding the flashlight while he fixed this or that I kind of picked that up and I I feel like I haven't done as good a job as I should of even having my son do those things for you at this stage of society it would become a sort of a full-time job b

ut back then it wasn't really a job it was just kind of life like so if you said well you wanted your kids diet to be X Y or Z well if you just lived in a house where there wasn't any Cocoa Puffs and there wasn't any money then that's a pretty easy job you know it's not even a job just that this is it we got nothing my parents didn't have to worry about how much fast food I ate because I didn't have any money and they didn't have any money and they didn't buy any fast food so when I was 11 how m

uch fast food was I going to eat you know right and now there's a place and it's on every corner and it's open 24 hours and the kids got Apple pay now becomes a job now you have to like regulate this and lay down rules and parameters how much of your upbringing do you feel like you know translates into your comedy I mean obviously you draw on it a lot but was there like is there temperamental things that it's like man I wouldn't be the comedian today if I didn't have kind of a a challenging chil

dhood it's a difficult question to ask because it's a little impossible sure because I I know plenty of funny guys who had pretty good childhoods and I know plenty of funny guys who didn't you know and so it'd be hard to draw a straight line to a conclusion if you're just sort of looking at data you know I was kind of always funny just like some people are you know good have a singing voice or play an instrument or you know whatever that good with animals or something like that I always had a ki

nd of good sense of humor I don't know that it was spawned by my family I know you have a lot of cars and you love cars did you have a first encounter with cars where that clicked in like was it Matchbox or was it when did that first happen yeah I I always like like a Tonka truck or a Matchbox car and I used to really just sort of stare at them and kind of fantasize about having that car one day and what was your first car well the I got a motorcycle a Honda 404 just a get around I guess I was r

iding it for maybe a couple of years and I and then I got a job on a construction site after working there and kind of like riding my motorcycle in for several months I guess my my foreman told me give me another dollar an hour if I bought a truck you know I I was probably making seven bucks an hour maybe eight bucks an hour and I was gonna get another Buck an hour and that sounded pretty good to me yeah and I could do some side jobs on the weekends and stuff I had a pickup trucks I just went bo

ught a Mazda kind of beater kind of like 1978 you know long bed you know beater I want to read a quote from you know everything reminds me of something that really was it's so spot on he said when I was young if I met someone who was 17 and a half and didn't have their driver's license I would call them a loser and make fun of them my buddy Ray didn't have his license until he was 18. that was two long years of verbal abuse by me and which was repaid by physical abuse kids nowadays don't care ab

out getting their license and I encountered this I had someone had to force my son to get his license yeah I'm in the midst of forcing my son to get his license so tell me about tell me about what you're going through right now because my son was actually the first of his of his friends to get his license and I can't understand how you could not be banging down the door at the DMV the day you turn 15 or when you can get your learner's permit but this is like happening across the country well it

you know it's an interesting phenomenon that illustrates whatever the Divide is between old and new which is every adult father with a teenage son or daughter spoken to about this and moms of our age are befuddled like they're fit to be tied they're like I what is what is this I don't I don't get it I don't get it they don't have an explanation they they can't they can barely articulate it they're just like and then you know when I was 50 on my 16th birthday I went to the DMV you know I couldn't

believe you know and freedom it's insane it's insane how casual they are if if anything I mean this is an ongoing bone of contention I literally said to my son yesterday who's 16 and coming up on a half now who I'm like I'm I'm getting him the stupid books to study and signing them up for online you know classes and he's reluctantly sort of going along with it and I was going to go watch a uh I watch football game with the guys on the Sundays and whatever yeah at two miles from the house my son

and I usually is ride electric bikes over and watch watch the game but it was raining a little bit it was like it was drizzling but was it raining but I don't know it was kind of cold and I said uh Sunny which is his name I said don't you think I'm the adult Sonny I said look it's kind of raining outside I I don't know if the bikes are going to cut it today we're going to drive my SUV over there and I may have a couple of beers so if I'm gonna have a couple of beers then you drive us home and h

e's like uh you know and I'm like it's two miles away we'll take side streets you know and he's like I I don't know and I was like all right let's just ride the electric bikes then obviously you gave up I gave up I was like I'm fine I'll take the electric but but it's insane it's bizarre it's Unthinkable but I I think everyone I speak to who is a person who's in the same general age vicinity and has children in in that that age group is just dumbfounded by by they always say oh we wanted Freedom

we wanted freedom freedom get out of the house you go where we want to go and I realize my kids don't want freedom they like it in the house you know what I mean they got what they need in that house they're enjoying themselves in that house they have no reason to leave that house if they need some fast food someone will bring it to the house there's a movie theater in that house like all the stuff you know I sat in a sway wet box in North Hollywood that was 875 square feet with no air conditio

ning and no flat panel TVs and like a depressed mom and a decrepit house and I was like I gotta get out of here I got to get out you know but yeah but just driving in and of itself was entertainment compared to that if I'd had a 75 inch TV and 500 channels and some GrubHub coming my way I don't know that I would have been in such a rush to leave I feel like cars are such a part of like American culture and it's like it's a pin being pulled out it's like if the American culture is like a game of

Jenga this is a really low pivotal piece to pull on don't you think I mean obviously you love cars but it's like what is this where do we head culturally if kids don't have the love affair with cars that everyone's had since the Model T yeah it is a kind of end of an era for sure and it's not just you and I who drew a short straw with teenagers who don't care about driving it is ubiquitous now obviously it's a phenomenon it's not a coincidence and my nephews were the same way my nephews are a li

ttle bit older but I remember when one of them stayed with me several years ago and he was like 17 and I I was like do you have your drive no no you don't want your drivers I I don't not want it you know what I mean it's like I don't not one I was like well why don't I teach you how to drive in this loaded Audi A7 he's like you know I'm good so I mean it kind of speaks to the end of an era it also might be an eerie Harbinger when it comes to freedom because it's like I was talking to Dr Drew abo

ut this earlier today you know I said you know what's going on in this country like half the people just want more government bigger bigger and like more government and he said yeah it basically flies in the face of America and freedom and like what what this country is about you know yeah why do so many people want bigger more you know expansive rules you know look no further than living in California through covet you know like why is this enticing this is America we're Americans and I I said

to them yeah but we're old if you're 28 I don't know if you're saying everyone wants to be free I'm saying I don't know if these people want that anymore I mean I they don't want their driver's license and when it comes to covid you know shut the schools shut the workplaces I'm going to sit home bring me food like I am not so sure that the stuff you and I think that everyone Longs for Longs for anymore I I don't know the driver's license kind of a metaphor for freedom and if this is the results

I can tell you that these people don't in fact want freedom and I don't think it's just as it pertains to Driver's Licenses I I you know to me huge government's disgusting it's a waste I want them out of my life I can't stand it it's like the the opposite of whatever the founding fathers were trying to create I don't think they think that way about driver's licenses or the government I think they want it less freedom I feel like it's super connected to what we were talking about before being in

the physical world it's like there's lessons you learn about reality when you have to get a door frame to be Plum that we would say door chain I don't know how much your dad actually taught you know door frame you guys should Jam door jamb you're right you're right casing not molding Casey I'm also I'm I'm better with the with the low voltage Electronics I can I can install the low voltage in your house that's cute sweet and I'll dig ditches for it okay yeah you bury the low Vol yeah exterior wi

ring yeah you know that process teaches you things that are not so obvious to me I think about like the world is not abstract but then our kids live in Minecraft land which is all abstract yeah you know how do you think about like because these things are really connected like they're both not driving they probably don't think they're not being free because they're free to they they have like this digital world that they go on that feels like infinite yeah and it's like do their brains even know

the difference it's hard to say it's it's like a brave new I don't know if it's Brave New World it's a new world yeah it's not that bright it's kind of we keep calling everyone Brave and a hero and all that kind of stuff which is interesting how we're laying that stuff on so thick now but yeah so what it is is when you're doing a door frame there is a door frame yeah it's not the jam but you would frame out a door right and you would put your header and you know a door frame would be you've got

a 36 inch door and then the jam is three-quarter and three quarter on each side so now you're 37 and a half and then you build in another half inch to shim it up and make it plumb and everything and so you'd rough it out at like 38 inches you know and if you put the header up and the header was two inches too low when you went to put the door jam in with the door you screwed up like it's not going to work and there wouldn't be you couldn't explain to someone that you felt like it should have wo

rked or like in your heart it does work or you like to live in a world where you could imagine it did work or it just worked or it didn't work it was it was very tactile very mechanical and whatever and so when you grow up in that world there is no arguing away you putting the header in at the wrong height but in the sort of digital whatever World we're living in it's a lot of people like a lot of people starting sentences with I feel like I'm you know and I'm gonna and and I know in my heart yo

u know and it's like there's a lot of that and so it's kind of left the door pardon the pun open for a lot of feelings talk that is very inaccurate and it doesn't really make sense but we're hustling down that road as a society as more people get off the farm and into the air conditioning and into the cubicles then we've opened up this sort of alternate world where you you you're not right but your feelings make you feel like you're right and I can't tell you you're wrong if you feel this way an

d it's really pathetic really it's kind of sad and it's more more the people that should be the sort of custodians or guardians of Sanity or truth or the ones that need to pipe up and start telling people they're wrong and it doesn't it's not working and they're they're being shunned and Outcast and it's really a weird kind of dangerous place we're in getting away from the tangible mechanical is is not going to have a happy ending for most Americans even though that's their plan there's like thi

s Elite divide too that's on top of it all where everybody's told they have to go to college every you know none of the things you're talking about really are seem to be valued culturally like the idea that you can go and make a six-figure living as a contractor is not a thing that's on the table I remember while we were building our house our Builder said you know they more than once they've been on the job with a client and the and the person says to their kid you need to see how hard these gu

ys are working you need to study or you're going to end up swinging a hammer for the rest of your life and it's like I could he's told this to me and I'm seeing red like first of all like this person's building your family's home and you're basically throwing them in the trash in front of your kid to make some horrendous lesson how do you communicate this with your kids like is this a conversation you have with them about like get your head screwed on straight I mean I you know look I I tell the

m you're gonna have to learn to work at a certain point like I you know you can get all the education you want you can take all the programs you want to do all the extracurricular activities you want but you better learn to work and I can't do that for you you know what I mean like you have to learn how to work it's a kind of a Dying art and everyone is scared of it they're trying to avoid it and it's that yeah you're gonna end up you know study you're gonna end up here working out working and i

t's like I've never saw first off those people who do that work are almost always happier than the people that are in the air conditioning who went to college I have found they have just a better relationship with reality in life because it's something that they have to engage in on a daily basis you know you like when covid rolled around it's like the more educated you were the more scared you were and the more you'd work the less scared you were because they have a relationship with danger the

folks that do the work because every time you pick up a tool it's an opportunity for that tool to hurt you in some way and there's a lot of measuring not measure twice cut once but like a sort of I'm pushing this thing through this table saw you know and when you do that for a living it's a it's a constant dance with things that where you could lose a finger or the piece of Oak could jam up at the table saw and shoot you you know the bridge of the nose or whatever like you're cutting something

on a table saw if the fence is this far away from the blade then you just push it through you know but sometimes the fence is four inches from the blade and you might put your thumb and push it through and then sometimes it's two inches from the blade and then you should get a push stick and push that through you shouldn't put your hand in there which I've definitely done but I'm just saying like you got to kind of measure it out you know and when you fire up a table saw and you got a piece of h

ardwood like Oak and you're just trying to Ram it through it's going to bind quick and there's going to be issues you know you have to kind of really kind of feel it you know like you can feel when it's not wanting to cut as fast as you're wanting to push and those guys are constantly engaged in that so they're always calibrated so like when something like covid comes along I think they look around and they see who's dying and who's not dying and their buddy who got it and how he was out for fou

r days or whatever but he's fine now and they go I've assessed risk because that's what I do all day yeah and and that I mean every time you climb up a ladder every time you put together some scaffolding to work off the second story when it was like it's all risk assess risk assess also with some like efficiency built in like well I yeah I'd like to make scaffolding safe but I don't have six hours to do it I I could I'm not going to put a net underneath me I'm but but I'm not going to not secure

it to the building you know like these these things and the people who went to college especially the ones who worked in entertainment especially the ones who like sat around the most in the most air conditioning were just bad it's crazy when it came to Cove they had Noah said they were unable to regulate they couldn't regulate they couldn't understand who it affects who it doesn't affects they couldn't assess the risk of mask Outdoors or shutting down beaches or something like they weren't arr

esting people yeah for paddle boarding they were they weren't calibrated they were like poor educated Souls who didn't know it's like they didn't know the difference between a lizard and an alligator you know they're just they just ran into the house screaming they're the same size when you see them in pictures right yeah the more we move away from the sort of rural places and the jobs that involved your hands and grease under your fingernails and things like that the more sort of bizarrely supe

rstitious Gypsy sort of weird like I think with my heart you know like it's Gypsy there's a lot of crazy gypsy people like who were you know producers and directors and but they they don't know how to calibrate themselves one of the things that's so funny about all of that is that and I think this has like been found to be true more broadly the older people I know in general weren't as scared of covid as like the under 30 people which was even yeah more it's probably just an example of the same

thing it's like you're actually at risk like you this can take you out right and they're more fine with that maybe they're just out of wisdom but it does feel like it's another example of this well they grew up in the old world yeah their risk was a thing that you understood yeah and they weren't narcissists you know kids everyone's a narcissist now so it's like what about me you know they think it's going to affect them and they're also understood that people were allowed to make their own deci

sions like it wasn't incumbent upon them to tell someone to put mask on on a hiking trail that's not her business you know what I mean your average 23 year old does feel like they're anointed to do that you know so it's kind of a narcissism mixed with a grandiosity like I went here and I learned this and now you know you got to listen to me and it's all kind of a mess where do you think this starts because it didn't start with the cell phones and the digital stuff really it started it feels like

it started earlier but what do you think what's the root of the narcissism is that everybody gets a trophy is that the beginning but where did that start like that was you know I think that that's a kind of a misnomer like it is an interesting thing that the participation trophy I think angry old dads get it wrong and they're like every kid gets a participation or like I played Pop Warner football starting in the early 70s and everyone got a participation Trophy and so I mean I'll Circle back t

o an answer but what I'm saying is I think we just get we mislabel it we're gonna go participation from everybody yeah it's called a participation Trophy and you get it because you showed up and you attended the practices and he played or maybe he didn't play in the games maybe your second string or whatever but at the end they'd have the banquet and they'd give the participation trophy to everyone but it didn't mean anything you know because everyone got one you know and then they would give ou

t you know best defensive player best offensive play best defensive line Iron Man the best of you know break it down into categories and now you were trying to get one of those trophies and then the most valuable player was obviously the the cream the creme de La Creme so that's what you wanted so what would end up happening is I would get a participation Trophy and then I might get a couple other trophies for like best defensive player or something like that and the the participation trophies w

ere just kind of go over there and then you take the best defensive player and set it up where it could be seen you know so you know people are dumb there's a lot of them I mean that's never underestimate that but I mean it's like the self-esteem movement yeah we decided this was really super important it was basically like the food pyramid some idiot decided he needed 14 servings of grain every day and you know one serving of protein or something and they got it all wrong they got a 100 wrong b

ut it's like somebody put together a food pyramid and everyone signed off on it we went yeah this is how you need to eat and then everyone got fat but they did it with the self-esteem movement they did this thing where it's like it's a kind of reverse engineering which is like you know some of these kids they have they don't have good self-esteem and the way you get self-esteem is is through accomplishment it's not bestowed upon you by someone telling you you're the best you have to go out to do

something you know what I mean so we even if you're not the best you're just you and you should just yeah right yes you should just and I literally would like sit around watch these cartoons like wow wow wubsy with my kids and stuff and they had this whole you are the coolest and everyone's going to know and you don't have to try and it's like what kind of horrible message is you don't have to do anything and you don't have to try and everyone to know you're the coolest so we decided to fix wha

tever problems we're having with the self-esteem movement and we got a bunch of self-entitled high self-esteem lazy losers who who eventually you become angry because you have to be disgruntled because how long could you have your your fed a steady diet of you're the best and don't let anyone ever tell you and you're special and you're everything well how many years of failure can you can you endure before you start just looking around and getting like kind of angry at the world you know what I

mean like yeah you know like I'd be pissed off too if everyone told me I was the best why am I working at Starbucks with a master's degree if I'm the best right and and it never worked you know and so I think you're seeing a lot of like resentment and and then there becomes this sort of like Elon Musk he's rich and he's white you know and it's like this weird envy and resentment and stuff like when did someone being successful or the color of their skin have anything to do with you or create you

r circumstances in any way shape or form you know it's all externalizing so I this self-esteem movement which does predate the phone and the digital world and it was probably hit pretty hard I think some idiot politician in probably out here in Los Angeles as I recall and somehow the mid 80s or something was like these kids the inner city are failing because they don't have enough self-esteem and I'm going to tell them and and it just became this thing like the food pyramid where we went like ye

ah you need seven servings of whole grain every day and it's like no you don't you'll get fat yeah no look check the pyramid like check the self-esteem pyramid you need seven doses of self-esteem I don't care if you accomplished anything you need to feel good about you because you and it's like I don't know who signed off on this it was a horrible idea 30 years ago it's a horrible idea today but but it's pretty ubiquitous like I remember interviewing the woman for my podcast and her name just es

capes me right now and I liked her quite a bit and she was the mom of the doc that I think was on Netflix where some shyster guy was hacking into everyone's computers putting up pictures of the girls topless or having revenge sex or whatever it is he's like the worst scumbag in the world right yeah and and you know at some point she like looked at me and she goes this guy had really low self-esteem and I said no no okay I have low self-esteem I would never do this in a I would never do this in a

million he has high self-esteem that's why like most Killers most murderers they have high self-esteem because you need a lot of self-esteem to take someone's life she's doing the food pyramid you know what I mean like we every idiot whatever the problem is that guy yeah the reason he kicked your head into the curb and took your mountain bike is because he has a low self-esteem and it's like I'd say that's the act of a high self-esteem individual and they're like if we could just give him more

self-esteem or give him self-esteem and it's like now that's not the answer that brings me to something that I'm really curious how you think about and that is bullying a lot of the things that happen with our kids I feel like there's they are kind of smart enough to see when they're sort of and they'll make fun of it so I know one of my son's friends school had this slogan bully back down and they would have a the meetings and they'd say if somebody's bullying you you tell them bully back down

and immediately bully back down became something everyone made fun of sure because it's a goofy cringy phrase what is the best thing and the worst thing about bullying the best thing is you might want to learn karate that's the best well the best part of bullying is like if you listen to Michael Strahan talk he was a fat kid and he was called a fat kid and at some point I think on some army base in Germany where he was raised or something he just he got tired of everyone called him the fat kid s

o he started lifting weights and he stopped eating you know sugary snacks and he transformed himself into like a world-class athlete because he was being bullied it's called fat he said I'll show you you know so that's yeah that's the best part in karate hey the best part of bullying is most people whether it's Michael Strahan or Madonna had somebody making fun of them or tell them they couldn't do it or saying they weren't good enough or whatever and they said I'll show you and they went to wor

k you know the bad part is I'm gonna Fentanyl and climb into a hole you know because I'm being bullied you know I don't think bullying is inherently bad I think it's kind of what you do with it you know like there's a kind of process and response to bullying that can be a positive response and then there's a very negative response to bullying as they say success is the best revenge so one could go I'll I will show you people I will move on and have a successful life and you'll be sad you know yo

u bullied me but you know there's nobody in my school that was going to out bully my friend Ray or my friend Chris and my friend Ray and my friend Chris were the ones who were bullying me so there would have been nobody else that could have done a better job of bullying uh but I never really looked at his bowling it was just we're just abusing each other it's a really hard I mean I'm sort of thankful now my son is 17 he's on the other side of the bullying thing but in a lot of ways but it's like

I I just remember I sort of bullied my I kind of bullied him a little bit like you know he's only child and I've always like kind of taunted him and poked and prodded at him a little bit like your son yeah yeah because I've done it I've done I I've done some of that with my son too I'm not even sure why actually it wasn't like a conscious I'm gonna toughen you up necessarily but it kind of was um what do you think's underneath that because I think men and dads sort of do this naturally and it's

not some strategy it's just like you want to do it you want to poke you wanna rough house it's like it's some it's a thing that's like this drive no it's it's a kind of a bust chops kind of thing you know my son does it right back to me all day every day it's it's a little instinctive I I don't know it's like why do young bighorn sheep you know you know Smasher right I don't even like horns into one another it's like I don't know that's kind of what we do you know I I don't know that we need to

valorize it or I I don't know that we need to get that granular with everything like why why why it's like I don't know guys kind of bust chops women don't do it as much and for them it's the more psychological of guys it's more physical guys feel a little more sort of put down you know humor my son and his friends they like roast jokes and stuff like that like we that's all time and memoriam kind of stuff and it just kind of is you know and and I don't I've always pushed back on that you know

when people go well the girls play with the dollies and the boys play with the guns but if you gave the little boy a dolly and the little girl a gun it's like a shut up it's just he's gonna pull the leg of a gun right and smack someone over the head with it you know and then how come men are the ones who build the bridges and the women are the school teachers like I don't know because it is like I'm that's enough for me I don't I don't need to socially deconstruct every facet of our society and

you can tell me about some tribe in New Guinea where the guys are all gay and the women do the hunting or whatever and I'm like yeah okay but that's not what we do so I feel like a lot of what we're just talking about feeds right into this cancel culture ethos and especially when it comes to men what's your relationship with that I mean from like are you have you found yourself to be immune to cancel culture I mean you talk a lot about your comedian you know how have you navigated these past cou

ple of years you're still standing how do you do it it would be hard to say that I was not you know affected career-wise to some degree by whatever that whichever way the winds are blowing you know currently and previously to now so you can't really document it because who knows like well maybe they wanted you to do this part in this show but phone never rang or maybe that was because of this and but it's not really documentable you know I it just can't definitively say this is why this and that

is why that because it's kind of invisible Hollywood is kind of a business where we don't really need anybody there's always somebody else who can do whatever James Woods is a great actor he's been in a million movies and then at some point he got pretty conservative and he started sounding off about it now James Woods doesn't work you know so James Woods is a fine actor but we don't need it you know what I mean that's just kind of how Hollywood Works Hollywood works like like you're throwing a

party and you're inviting all your friends and then you're like do we need Craig and it's like well I used to like Craig yeah but do we need him for this party like can we have a party without him and you go no we'll have bring uh our new friend Vince he can come instead he goes yeah okay and then just kind of swap them out and before you know it Craig's not coming to the party you know and that's that's kind of how Hollywood works and they definitely are for cancellation and they're four essen

tially McCarthyism even though they complain about McCarthyism constantly they're the biggest practitioners of McCarthyism in real time of which they would probably resent but it just happens to be accurate and so for me I have opinions and and I've always shared those opinions and I'm pretty accurate in terms of my prognosticating and here's where we're going and here's what's happening here's what I believe or this is stupid or I'm not going along with that and that was fine for a long period

of time and then things started shifting and they started kind of demanding Allegiance and compliance you know like now here's what we're talking about here's what we know and I was like I I disagree with that and I don't believe it to be true and I believe what I'm saying is true and uh they started going well these These are this is kind of the new world order if you want to come get invited to the parties and get the jobs and stuff like that and I just went well I can't really go against what

ever it is I know to be true I mean it's like I interviewed Gavin Newsom on my podcast some years ago and he was telling me that you know the homeless issue was the biggest issue ever for him that was a big he was like the number one homeless issue guy that's about nine years ago now yeah worked out great so it worked out great and and I told him uh well the biggest problem with homelessness I said it's uh you know junkies and people of mental situations it's their mental problems or people that

are on drugs or both and then he proceeded to explain to me the real picture of homelessness and I'll quote him here was a mother of three whose husband left who had a full-time job but she was only getting paid minimum wage and then I then told him that it's not the picture of homelessness picture homelessness is junkies who are out of their mind that's that's all that's all we got now he never came back on the show but the point is this as a as an example I could have agreed with him except f

or I knew he was 100 wrong and I could have worked out a situation where me and Gavin Newsom became pretty good friends by me telling him something that I knew was apparently false but then why be a comedian and who are you and then what do you stand for and I don't even know what you stand for it's like I said a bunch of stuff around covet it got very lot of people very angry it became you Andrew for sure yeah me and Dr for sure now got us pushed further out from whatever the Hollywood nucleus

was okay I could you know I I wrote a tweet over two years ago and it said I'll paraphrase but basically covet kills old people and it kills sick people and the rest you please got played I sent that tweet out got a lot of people real super angry really angry and like Newsweek and stuff like that and she had Apatow who's a friend and is a really good dude he called me and he said you gotta take that tweet down because people are pissed and I was like can't do it it's it's up today it's been up f

or two years whatever however many months I'd never touch it I never took it down I would never take it down I would say I'm wrong if I was wrong about it but that's what happened every 22 year old dude who does have a pre-existing condition got played right so that's my opinion I I think my son was in school in the fall of 2020 so but I'm in Texas right so I'm in L.A and they're closed every school and it hurt the kids and I said it would hurt the kids and then the LA Unified School District st

arted clapping at me you know and I was like you guys are idiots you're hurting kids you're cowards go back to work stop being a coward either lying or your cowards or whatever go get get to work the guys at the Trader Joe's are working go to school you know go teach your kids and they started coming after me and and I was like look a what I'm saying is accurate and then B you're hurting kids and then C everyone is telling me to shut up they want to know what was wrong with me I was like listen

that that's just how I am and then yeah people are like don't talk about this and don't talk about that and I'm like I'll talk about anything I want as long as it's accurate you know I I don't want to dispense false information but just because you think it's false doesn't mean it's false and then also I vetted all this now if it takes you two years to come around on who's dying from covid that's on you I do a lot of interviews and people are like we didn't know anything back then we didn't beca

use I would always make fun of everyone like yeah you shut the beaches you shut the schools you shut the playgrounds we didn't know I said two things how come I knew number one number two if you didn't know how about you shut the up if you don't know there's stuff I don't know about I don't talk about it so then it's a good point don't make policy if you don't if you don't know so you know I got a lot of crap and like kind of pushed further out from wherever wherever that was but although you're

saying like you're pushing further out from say Hollywood or entertainment but I do feel like this has gone way beyond that right it's like the people coming at you on Twitter they're all over the place and the stuff that's happening when you went around on college campuses with no safe spaces that's like students from all walks of life more or less that are getting triggered by you being yourself I think there's something really interesting about the role of comedians in this in this moment we

're in right you're the last hope and the and like the canary in the coal mine for where the society heads I feel like how do you think about that because it's weird it's like you're like I'm just a guy I don't don't take me seriously necessarily but well I I believe everything I say and I believe everything I joke about too so you know when when comedians go oh that was just a joke they meant it they mean it they always mean it you should always be offended or not offended but don't let them go

I was just making a joke they meant they meant it you know so the John Stewart stick uh on Daily Show like I'm just a I'm a court jester that was that's all sort of a head figure whether it's him or Dave Chappelle or or me or whomever um we mean it you know I'm not talking about you know Larry the Cable Guy but but most comedians you'll know what they're they're thinking by what they're saying and they they kind of mean it and the guys on the right think how they think the guys on the left thin

k how they think and you know the thing about comedians is the reason the the left kind of goes berserk about like Dave Chappelle is because the left has their kind of taste makers you know they have their Obamas and LeBron James and whoever The Taste makers are and they get to kind of they get to kind of set the tone for society you know and so like when a guy like Dave Chappelle starts saying stuff that's not in lockstep with their cultural movement they they go they go crazy right like that's

why they go crazy on Chappelle it's not really him making a trans joke it's like hey buddy you're one of us we we're on the you know you tell me the nuanced differences between what LeBron James thinks and Oprah thinks and Bill Gates thinks I mean climate there's one of them that they have they're they're all lockstep like how would they possibly be lockstep on every facet of covet something we knew nothing a novel virus that nobody knew anything how did you guys all get on the same page how di

d all of Hollywood get on the same page and about an answer we didn't know anything at the time well how'd you go how did everyone wouldn't get on the same page well they don't want to be penalized and so what is this really embarrassing in retrospect video which is kind of funny it finally executed with Paul Rudd it's like I'm I'm a certified young person and my bro Andrew Cuomo's here to tell you about how you need to wear a mask and you watch it now and it's just it's all transworthy and it's

10 minutes old I know and I I always retweet that stuff everyone says to me leave these people alone and I go are you kidding no way this must be documented and they must be served up their Crow they have to and so comedians are people that need to be kind of controlled because they're out making the narratives and pushing things and like and like you could remember I remember when like Jon Stewart went on Stephen Colbert's show and he like went well I think the the virus came from the lab like

you see Colbert's face was like John no that's not our he he said he said something like you weren't you uh what are you Senator or something I forget something right you're a senator but really what he was saying is you got to read The Playbook we got a script here you just went off script and it's dangerous for them for people to go off script and comedians traditionally would go off script they'd do it less and less now because they'd like to remain Under the Tent of of Hollywood but some of

the ones that have enough Fu money you know Chappelle or Joe Rogan or whatever those guys those are the guys who don't care I feel like comedy exists on the opposite side or as an antidote to fear in a lot of ways it seems like fear is the tool in the toolbox that is constantly getting used whether it's like trying to make our kids scared out of their minds that they're going to be extinct in 12 years because of climate change which is all kind of baloney or yeah covid was the ultimate like oh

we can re this is the fear button is so easy to hit I don't even have to have my eyes open to push it yeah I was calling it crate training I was like but I I really did mean it you know people go oh what are you talking about them but I end up being right on everything all the time and I've been saying it for 20 plus years now so I'm I'm sticking with what I think it struck me that this never was an issue for kids covet wasn't statistically it's just not a thing so why the emphasis on the kids w

ell in order to scare the moms you got to get the kids and then the moms will kind of control what's going on inside the house see they're the moms by using the kids to scare the moms and then you have sort of compliance but I also said I just labeled it crate training which is you can't crate train a middle-aged dog but the kids you can crate train them you get them young like a like a puppy you got to get that puppy into that crate break them break them break them and you can train them you ca

n't do it with middle-aged full-grown dogs you know what I mean and also the thing that's I was funny about the crate is the crate is an illusion of safety but it's not safety if the house catches on fire the dog will go into the crate and like feel like it's safe but it's just in a house that's on fire a crate train is an incredibly good metaphor I really meant it and I still mean it how because we're we we're gonna need these kids for other things I mean covet will come and go but there's gonn

a be a lot of asks and we need compliant citizens you know so are you a pessimist or an optimist I I you know my feeling is I'm not really here to shape youth anymore I'm here to tell you what I know and how it works I'm I'm just the personal trainer that goes diet and exercise and you want to tell me about some Weight Watchers fudge based something and I'm just going diet next that's what I'm telling you and then you go well I got a new workout from a Barcalounger you know and I'm just like all

right well I'll go on record I said diet and exercise that's how you lose weight and and now go off and do what you want but I shall state it and you know I I mean that's kind of the way I felt about covet I just went here's what's happening here's my opinion here's how it goes and you can call me an or you can disagree or you can do whatever it is but I am then going to just sort of be over here living my life and if you'd like to join me great and if not that'll be your choice how do you thin

k about you know you talked a little bit about the country like about what it means to be an American like how do you think about where the country heads there's a lot of reasons to be worried everything we've talked about is reasons to be worried if we've got a whole generation that's crate trained what comes next from there as far as who's gonna use the trained puppies for what is scary are you scared do you think there's a path can enough comedians you know help these kids see the Matrix and

get out of the cage what do you think I think it's going to be another phrase that I've sort of coined which is like safe spaces and octagons and we're no longer going to live in the Middle where we everyone used to live people are going to become more scared and go deeper into a safe space and others are going to Long more for freedom and combat and excitement and danger you know they're going to go toward the Octagon so California sort of become a safe space and it will continue to go down tha

t road and like Florida will become an octagon and so certainly Texas is in Texas so people who want freedom and want to drive a truck and don't want to be forced into an electric car with 2035 or whatever the mandates or whatever they're talking about they'll just start going they'll start congregating in those places in the octagons yeah in towards the the Octagon but for a lot of people that might not be where they want to go you know but but I don't want to live in the safe space so I would

like to go to the octagon and I think one thing I've noticed in California right now is half the people are driving an electric car or Prius or a bolt or bolt or whatever Leaf whatever Tesla so they started like kind of pushing people like hey you get incentives and do your part and you know help ecology which we used to call it and help the environment blah blah blah help the electric get in California all right so we started trying to nudge people toward electric vehicles and there's lots of o

rdinances and things like that but you look around I see more Dodge trucks with big hammies in them and more Ford Raptors you know I'll put it to you this way Ford does a super trophy truck that's street legal it's called a raptor yep yep uh it's like over 100k or something isn't it it's a yeah it's big gas guzzling thing Dodge came out with a competitor to the Raptor which is like the velocir what's the velocity the Raptor and the other one's like the T-Rex or whatever like this is your cartoon

vehicles that nobody needs but you know 36 inch tires and 12 inches of suspension travel and you know 700 horsepower blown V8 and I was like nobody needs this I'll bet you they're more Raptors and Dodge pickup trucks in California than any other state in the Union oh wow okay I I mean I'm in Texas so I see a lot of them you see a lot and I drive a V8 I drive a Land Cruiser an old an old a used Land Cruiser Texas is a good a good example but I still see these massive trucks everywhere and you'll

never see more electric vehicles and big trucks sort of living right next to each other which is essentially the safe space and the Octagon so you try to tell people get an electric car and they go I'm getting a Ford Raptor now there was a time when everyone just drove a Honda Accord or a Camry that's all there was you just drive around California like that's a Camry and a cord maybe got a BMW 75 series now it's all mega trucks and Teslas which is basically saying this is how humans work yeah y

ou try to force them into an electric car and a large percentage will get an electric car but there'll be another percentage who's getting the Dodge with the Hemi in it and that's what Florida and California are going to be just people are just going to go separate it I asked this of every one of our guests because we're called Dad Saves America because I think men and and dads have have a role to play in maybe either preparing our kids for the Octagon or being people who can maybe pull us back

to the center but definitely not be in the safe space you've sort of said this already but how do you how do you think about your role in the American story like as an American I think you're supposed to work real hard and I think you're kind of supposed to be an example I'm I'm much more interested in being an example to my kids than I am and telling them them do this or do that you know I want to just kind of live a life that is kind of about dignity or hard work or in character you know and I

don't do much like trying to graft on wisdom to my kids I do but I do do a lot of I'm going to work and I have to work and I have to take care of things and I have to provide for you guys and stuff like that I kind of believe there's just way too much talk and way too much talk about feelings and you know in my heart I know and all this nonsense what I was talking about when you talk to people who are older and they talk about their fathers you know they talk about their mom and they'll go like

oh she was really nice and she was loving and she loved us or you know hopefully you'll get some story about good lasagna or something and I like with the dance you get a lot of like my dad work really hard you know he's a hard worker you know the ones that are proud of them and they forgive like a lot like my dad missed a lot of games and missed that this he traveled a lot you know but he was a hard worker you know what I mean and like if you said to him like well aren't you kind of pissed off

at your dad that he wasn't there for the Little League games like no my dad worked hard he had to provide like like dads are kind of more mythology in the sense versus like Hands-On day in and day out like nobody goes my dad was my best friend he called me sport you know I loved him that was it's more about like my dad didn't take any crap from anybody you know mixed with my dad worked really hard and you know like there's like a lot of that so I think dads would be better suited to like go wha

t are my kids seeing what am i showing them what are they going to say when they're 45 and they're talking about oh my old man you know whatever feeling feeling blank because it'll really go my dad was nice they never tell those stories they just talk about him being an ex-marine he was kind of a badass or whatever and they'll always go like he was really hard on me but but I needed it like he loved me you know like they do a lot of that so you know I think approach being a dad for a little more

from the example side and a little less from the Levee just like endlessly explain to you stuff that I'm never gonna do be a man of action yeah Adam thanks for being on Dad Saves America yeah my pleasure I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Adam Carolla we'll put a link to his book down below you know my biggest takeaway from chatting with Adam is that we all need to lighten up having a sense of humor and not taking yourself or your fears so seriously is probably one of the best ways to ov

ercome them the funny thing about comedy is that it usually comes from a place of discomfort and it gives us a way to rethink what makes us so uncomfortable that's a really important skill that all of us should practice more these days if you enjoyed this video please share it with your friends and family and be sure to like subscribe and hit that notification Bell a dad Saves America we believe that dads are heroes that play an essential role in overcoming the challenges we all face together an

d now we leave you with the dad doing something awesome drift