---
title: 'Andrew Zimmern on TV Integrity, Jay Leno, and the Power of Asking for Help'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=P7bY6VHB-bo'
video_id: 'P7bY6VHB-bo'
date: 2026-07-14
duration_sec: 0
---

# Andrew Zimmern on TV Integrity, Jay Leno, and the Power of Asking for Help

> Source: [Andrew Zimmern on TV Integrity, Jay Leno, and the Power of Asking for Help](https://youtube.com/watch?v=P7bY6VHB-bo)

## Summary

Andrew Zimmern, chef and Emmy-winning TV host, shares his journey from pitching 'Bizarre Foods' to Travel Channel to building a legacy in food television. He discusses the integrity of TV, the importance of storytelling, and lessons from Anthony Bourdain and Jay Leno.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Andrew Zimmern** [00:00] — Andrew Zimmern is a chef, Emmy and James Beard award-winning TV host, author, and storyteller. He joins the show to discuss his career and lessons learned.
- **Favorite Venue: Madison Square Garden** [01:30] — Zimmern's favorite venue is Madison Square Garden, but he also highlights the electric atmosphere of Lumpini Stadium in Bangkok for Thai boxing, with great street food outside.
- **Anthony Bourdain on TV Integrity** [04:00] — During a promo shoot, Bourdain told Zimmern: 'The minute you sign a contract to make television, you've lost every ounce of integrity you've ever earned in life.' This shaped Zimmern's view on balancing integrity and entertainment.
- **Travel Channel's 80/20 Rule** [08:00] — Travel Channel GM Pat Young told Zimmern his show was 80% education, 20% entertainment, and that wouldn't work on commercial TV. He advised flipping it to 80% entertainment, 20% education.
- **Pitching Bizarre Foods** [11:00] — Zimmern pitched by talking about unusual foods from around the world, like periwinkle snails in Paris and head cheese in Germany. He asked, 'What's more boring than a boneless skinless chicken breast?' and focused on foods from the fringe.
- **The Ecuador Exorcism Episode** [14:00] — In Otavalo, Ecuador, Zimmern discovered a witch doctor and negotiated a $20 exorcism. The ritual involved being spat on, beaten with dead guinea pigs, and set on fire. This scene became a pivotal moment for the show.
- **Jay Leno Saves Bizarre Foods** [20:00] — After episode three of Bizarre Foods aired with low ratings, Zimmern got a call from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. His appearance on the show, featuring the exorcism clip, boosted ratings and saved the series.
- **End of Bizarre Foods on Travel Channel** [26:00] — Travel Channel pivoted to ghost and paranormal content, ending Zimmern's shows. He finished the last episode (Underground Railroad) and remains proud of the legacy.
- **The Power of Asking for Help** [28:00] — Zimmern emphasizes that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. He didn't ask for help until age 31, but once he did, his life changed. He advocates for curiosity and humility.
- **Message to Those Struggling with Addiction** [31:00] — Zimmern, in recovery, advises addicts to call someone and tell the truth. He stresses that addiction is a disease that tells you it's not a disease, and recovery requires honesty and action.

### Conclusion

Andrew Zimmern's career illustrates the power of curiosity, humility, and persistence. His stories highlight the importance of balancing entertainment with authenticity and the transformative impact of asking for help.

## Transcript

It took me years to get a meeting at Travel Channel, and I finally got one, six, seven, eight people and me. And they said, okay, what do you got? I think the working title that I had for it was something really awful, like the Wandering Spoon, but we can't air that. He said that show was 80% education, 20% entertainment. This is television, commercial television. We're the entertainment business. Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Sean Walchef. This is a Cali BBQ Media production in life, in the restaurant business, and in the new creator economy. We learn through lessons and stories. As you guys know, we started this show back in 2022. I have barbecue restaurants in San Diego. We are still open 18 years in business, but we built a media company, a storytelling company, primarily to talk to the greatest storytellers on earth, the restauranteurs, the hospitality professionals, the creators that were telling the stories about food. There was someone that I put on my big list. And he is a guest today. His name is Andrew Zimmern. He is a chef. He is an Emmy and James Beard award winning TV host. He has been in restaurants. He writes books. But more importantly, he tells stories about humans, about food, about travel, about life experience. And I am so honored, Andrew, to have you on the show. Welcome. Oh, thank you. It's great to be here. So we're going to start with my favorite random question, which is where in the world is your favorite stadium, stage, or venue? Oh my gosh. Stadium, stage, or venue, not one of each. Wow, that's really difficult. I found that going around the world and recording, making TV, uh, telling stories. Um, we didn't call it making content at the time, but that's, I guess what we were doing. Um, you know, come eight o'clock, I would, the crew is off having beers, whatever, uh, hanging out. I would go to see live music and live sports. Uh, that's, that's my thing. So, um, I've been to some, my immediate thought was, you know, some places overseas. You know, I've spent a lot of time in Bangkok and Lampini Stadium for, you know, Thai boxing is about as electric a place as you could possibly imagine outside the stadium because they broadcast, you know, from inside, outside for a lot of people that can't afford to be inside and watch, you could hear it on speakers. And so there's food vendors, arguably the best street food in Bangkok is on fight night outside Lampini Stadium. Inside, it's just, I mean, it's wild. It's wild. I've seen, you know, baseball games in Cuba, Nicaragua, And, you know, I saw the stones, the Alexander plots in St. Petersburg. Wow. So, but I'm a New York City guy. And while, you know, the great clubs of my youth are, I'm old, the great clubs of my youth are gone. There's still Madison Square Garden. And I'm just going to say, Despite how much I love the Beacon Theater, I was just there last week to see Tedeschi Trucks. I'm just gonna go with the garden. I just assume see a game, a concert, an event, a gathering at Madison Square Garden than just about any other, right? I mean, the history, so let's just go with that one. Otherwise we'll be here all fucking day. We're going to take your answer of Madison Square Garden as the greatest stadium for Andrew. However, because we're storytellers and because I am so interested in your perspective of telling stories about food all over the globe, we're going to go to Bangkok. So we're going to pretend that we are in Bangkok at the kickboxing stadium. We're going to fill it with storytellers, entrepreneurs, and hospitality professionals. And I'm going to give you the mic and I'm going to ask you, Andrew, can you please tell me the story about shooting a promo with Anthony Bourdain right when your Bizarre Food came out? You were doing a promo and you had a talk with Anthony about the integrity of TV. And I will let you take it from there and tell me what you've learned from that moment into what has now become a YouTube world, TikTok world, sub stack world, podcast world. So let's talk about the integrity of TV in that moment. Well, he said several things to me, but two of which I've discussed publicly because they're the most interesting. The rest of it was just random bullshit. And we were, you know, it was, you know, we were both sort of engaged in a little bit of a pissing contest at the time. We were acquaintances then, we weren't friends. But the occasion was, well, Travel Channel bought, Tony's first show was for Food Network. Most people don't remember that. um and he made a cook's tour with a production company that would become 0.0 uh for a season it aired on food network it was a dismal failure travel channel quote unquote bought the show from their sister network um and uh aired it on travel channel while to see how it would do while at the same time Tony was shooting season one of, uh, no reservations. I was about to head out and shoot season one of bizarre foods. And they knew that they were going to schedule them on the same night. They didn't know if they were going to move Tony to a new night and do it on a Tuesday and put other shows up on Monday that had already been on travel channel for, uh, a couple of years, things like world's best bathrooms and world's best beaches that were unhosted shows. Uh, they made the right decision. They kept Tony on Monday and they put my show before his, uh, which was the reason, uh, when the director said we were supposed to walk down the promenade, uh, underneath the Brooklyn bridge and the director went action. and we were supposed to walk and not talk, which both of us were talking. So it's just a bunch of lips flapping. It took us about a hundred takes to just get us to walk and not talk. But literally as he, the director said, action, a friend of mine named Tracy was actually directing that shoot. And Tracy says, action. And we take a step and Tony turns the side and whispers in my ear, I hope you make it for more than a fucking season. That was the first thing that he said to me. Thanks for the confidence. Then as the day was wearing on, we're getting into scripted parts. They were trying to wait for crowd control because they wanted some people, but not a lot. And there's times where we're sort of holding in our ready position. And so we're on our first mark and There's someone standing next to us, a PA with the walkie talkie. And the PA says to us, it's just going to be a couple of minutes. They got to straighten out something with one of the cameras. So we just kind of relaxed and sort of stood and faced each other and we were conversing. And I said something to him about so excited that, you know, we had this opportunity together, we're going to make this great television and that, you know, I, I believe that, you know, we had a lot of integrity and I, I made what I thought was a joke, which was that between the two of us, we had enough integrity for one normal human being. And, uh, he looked at me without skipping a beat and he said, um, the minute you sign a contract to make television, you've lost every ounce of integrity you've ever earned in life. And I just sort of looked at him, and that's when the PA said, they're ready for you. And I can't even respond. The director goes, action. And we're supposed to walk down the promenade, and this time he was saying, hey, Monday nights on Travel Channel, I'm going to say bizarre foods and no reservations, back to back. And then he's supposed to say something, and we just got caught up in the whole thing. But in the meanwhile, my whole mind is swirling with the naivete of someone who thought that there was some integrity to be salvaged from being in television. Like so many things in life, I'm extremely proud of the work that I've done in television. I think a lot of it is important. I am really proud of the way I've showed up and continue to show up making content of all types, television and otherwise. But Tony was right, especially back then. Because there's more competition for eyeballs across multiple platforms and different types of media, I think you can have a little bit more integrity these days and still have a career. Back then, less so. He was more right than wrong. And it wound up, you know, being something that it was, it was great for him, but you know, trying to maintain some integrity was the reason he exited travel channel and, and moved to CNN. And, uh, and that was a great move for him and great for the fans. Did you know that Toast powers over 140,000 restaurants across the United States, Canada, and UK? It's an incredible company. I'm on the Toast customer advisory board. They are proud sponsors of this show, Restaurant Influencers. We couldn't do it without their support. They power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego. If you have questions about Toast, if you're thinking about bringing Toast on to be your primary technology partner at your restaurants, please reach out to me. I'm happy to get a local Toast representative take care of you you can reach me at sean p welcha on instagram once again thank you to toast for believing in the power of technology the power of storytelling the power of hospitality back to the show can you share about the tv executive that told you that 80 brains and 20 entertainment wasn't going to work and that you needed to flip the model yeah i i went to it took me years to get a meeting uh, at travel channel. And I finally got one and I flew to Bethesda. There was the discovery headquarters was in Bethesda with the, you know, discovery logo across the top of it. And, uh, these were the, the highfalutin days of television, you know, just lots of money and budgets and advertisers and, uh, none of the stuff that exists today. And, uh, I walked in there and I was in the, the, top floor of the building in the big space where they housed all the C-suite offices. And Pat Young was at the end of the table, the general manager of Travel Channel, and one of the truly great human beings in television. And his whole team, six, seven, eight people, and me. And they said, okay, what do you got? And I pitched them about my my show idea, which was telling the stories of culture through food in far flung corners of the, uh, of the globe. And I think the working title that I had for it was something really awful, like the wandering spoon and Pat just held up his hand and, uh, said to me, you know, the show you're describing Andrew is really great. Uh, And we like it. But we can't hear that. He said that show is 80%, you know, education, 20% entertainment. This is television, commercial television. We're the entertainment business. He said, you can go sell that to PBS. They'll take it in 30 seconds and they'll love you. And you will spend the rest of your life raising money. And you're going to have to do it just about every year with them. And he said, but my gut tells me you're going to have a really great year. You'll win an award or two, and then you're going to be right back at square one where you started. And he says, because I don't think you're going to like public television. I've come to love public television. Some of my best, best production work, not screen work has been at public television, including television, the soon to premiere season two of Hope in the Water, our PBS doc series. But he said, how about this? He said, come back tomorrow, same time. We'll get together for 15 minutes and you give us something that's 80% entertainment, 20% education, and I'll put it on the air. And I'll give you a television career of over 10 years, And you're going to get to change the hearts and minds of millions, if not tens of millions, if not hundreds of billions of people. And I said, uh, okay. And I went back to my hotel room and I went to sleep and, uh, woke up the next day, had lunch and, uh, went back to the, the conference room and it was awful. I didn't have a single idea in my head, nothing zero. zilch. And luckily for me, the first thing they did was they turned out the lights and they lowered this map of the world. It was big, like 18 feet long by like eight feet high. And they handed me a laser pointer and they said, you know, take us through your new idea. And for whatever reason, in my head, I just remembered by Connie Mayer, my English teacher from grade school and high school said to me, when you're writing an essay, if you really want to, you really want to impress someone, tell them what you know, then tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them what you told them. And I was like, I just heard Connie's voice in my head and I, I had a chance before she died to actually tell her this. And, and I just, I just told the audience of eight, nine executives and Pat what I knew. And I started in Paris and I said, you know, Paris, you know, city of, you know, three-star Michelin restaurants, et cetera. But, you know, also the city where they eat bourgogneau, these tiny little periwinkle snails that you steam and then pick out with a long silver needle in the sleepy, dangerous bars around Lael. And then we go to, you know, Germany where, you know, national law won't tell you what they grind up and put inside of the hot dogs, but just, you know, think of the glories of head cheese. And I just went around the world and talking about foods that, you know, my father had turned me onto when I was younger. And it wasn't until I was about three or four places and foods in that I realized that everyone was sort of sitting on the edge of their seat. And in my head, I very quickly realized, oh my gosh, I, for whatever reason, and it was complete accident, I was just talking about foods from the fringe that other people weren't talking about. And I just said the words, I said, what's more boring in travel food television than a boneless skinless chicken breast. I want to talk about the foods that are popular in countries that outside the country no one may have heard of, let alone want to eat. And I think we can do a really great job entertaining people and also educating them at the same time. And when I left there, they literally clapped me on the back and said, great, go find a production company to make it and give us a call. And Essentially, that was it. What if I was very lucky? I don't know about luck. Let's let's go to the Jay Leno moment. Episode three of Bizarre Foods. I'd love for you to share the story of how that episode actually came to be, because as someone that creates content, we understand the value of pre-production, understanding the story that you're going to tell when you go on site, but then the magic that happens when you are on site and you let your curiosity wander. Well, the late curiosity wander is great. It's how do you enroll other people in your crazy idea? True. Right. So we shot. Ten episodes of Bizarre Foods before the first one aired. We shot Spain and Spain won and Morocco won and then aired them in reverse order. And then episode three, we came back to the States and then left for South America to go shoot episode three in Ecuador. We were in Odovalo, which is in the highlands of central Ecuador, a place that had this giant farm market. where people would come to exchange and sell live animals, dead animals, eat, drink, be merry, trade, grain futures. I mean, you name it, everything was for sale. You could buy a child or a human body part in the Odovalo market. And in those days, I mean, when we wrapped Bizarre Foods, or when the network ended the show, I think we were up to 14 or 15 people in our crew in a, and then we added on four or five locals wherever we were that first season. It was, uh, Shannon and Mike who were a couple boyfriend, girlfriend. She was the producer director. He was the sound man, a cam B cam PA everything else. And it was just three of us traveling and a driver. and Shannon and I would sit in their room at night and write the script and go over show notes for the day we just finished and for the day that was about to come, and it was real, it was hard, just three of us making that whole first season. So it's like we had already spent a week in the Amazon in Ecuador, so we were beat to shit. I mean, it just wears on you eight 90% humidity, you know, snakes that are 30 feet long spiders that are microscopic, both of which can kill you. I mean, you know, just not, not easy. Uh, and difficult to shoot with just three of you. I mean, just lugging tripods to put stationary cameras on to shoot a scene extremely hard. And, uh, so About eight, nine days into that trip, we're in Odovallo. We shoot something in the morning. We're supposed to leave, but we wind up changing our plans to hang around, to shoot something with a guy who was going to come back in the afternoon and make this some dish for us. He was a farmer and he was going to make something with, you know, cow intestines and cheap shit. I don't know, something crazy. And... We're wandering through the town and the, the, one of the, actually our, our translator who we hired when we left Amazonia, uh, because there were people in at the lodge we're staying in who could handle translation for us, but we hired a translator, uh, to work with us. Who was also our fixer for the city parts. And he, he was following me as I'm walking. It was really creepy. And, uh, but I'm glad he did because I turned down a street and it was like stepping back in time 500 years. And there was a sign that said, uh, brew hair. And, uh, I said, what is that? I said, there's no window. It doesn't seem like a store, but it seems like a retail side. He says, uh, that's a sign for which doctor, you know, brew hair, brew hair is which doctor feminine. And I'm like, oh, I said, what does the witch doctor do? And he says, well, basically he performs exorcisms. And I said, are they expensive? And he said, yes, very, very expensive. I said, how much are the exorcisms? And he said, they can be as much as $20. And I said, okay. And I ran back and found Mike and Shannon who were like napping under a tree or something. And I woke them up and I'm just like, we... I have to get an exorcism and we have to shoot it. And Shannon was like, oh my God, that's great. And Mike was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, because he had to carry the gear and go to the truck and get everything out. And it meant he wouldn't get another break for 12 more hours. And I mean, it was, he was playing devil's advocate more than he was drawing a line in the sand. But I managed to convince both of them to do it with me. And we went with our, uh, our translator back and we negotiated, uh, a $20 exorcism, which was the one with all the frills. I mean, you know, every extra. And, uh, we were in a tiny room with no windows, maybe 10 feet by 10 feet. I just remember because the camera had to be backed up all the way. We didn't have lenses with us. We had the lens that came with the, the, the Sony prosumer camera that we were shooting on. And I just remember Shannon, they're both, by the way, Shannon and Mike are both very tall. She's like six feet. He's like six five. And, uh, you know, so Mike is sitting or kneeling on the floor. Shannon is sometimes in the room, sometimes not because the, The first instruction was take off your clothes. Okay. And amongst other things, he spat up on me. I mean, a half gallon of phlegm. He beat two dead guinea pigs. Well, two guinea pigs. He beat them against my chest until they were dead. I mean, he was really swinging the guinea pigs. He beat me with a giant bush. I mean, just... massive i mean it must have been five foot long with a whole bunch of leaves just hitting me over and over with this thing until i my whole body broke out in hives he poured a bottle of homemade uh i guess it was rum uh it was homemade hooch and lit me on fire all my hair burned off my body um it was insane but basically what he was trying to do was pull the evil spirits from me and transfer them into these other things. So it went into the smoke from the flame and up into the ether. He trapped evil spirits in these dead animals and then would throw them, burn them, and throw them in the river later. We learned. But he really abused the ever-loving shit out of me. So flash forward six months. It was a great scene. We left it in the show. Episode one... does decently in the ratings episode two does an identical number of the ratings. And you know, the, the secret of television, at least when Nielsen ruled, uh, the world was episode three was where you put your best show and you really hope to kick ass. Uh, and episode three Ecuador aired and it was like a 10th of a ratings point below episode two. So it was going in the wrong direction. And, uh, You know, my agent called me and said, well, you know, we'll get back. They're probably going to cancel it. They'll air the 10 you made, but they, you know, probably not going to get other. Maybe we'll call them and try to get more work. And we're just going through all the what ifs. I was very depressed. And because I really thought the first season, although I felt that I ate too many bugs and weird things, I knew that if I could just become do everything I could for the audience that I would get renewed for a second season. And the, the, the, the, the pendulum would swing in my direction and I could call more of the shots, eat less bugs, tell more human stories. So it's Wednesday and the phone rings at my house, an actual phone that you picked up and answered, uh, Because the iPhone had not been invented yet. That's right. And I just remember answering the phone and it was a male intern saying, hi, this is Bob from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Is Andrew Zimmern there? And I was like, you know, I think I said, like, you know, fuck you, Michael. You know, one of my friends. Stop fucking around. And the phone rang again. And it was like, please don't hang up. This is Bob from the tonight show. I'm an intern. Don't put me through. I'm like, what can I do for you? And he goes, well, hold please for so-and-so our talent booker. And I'm just like, this is weird. And, uh, this woman gets on the, on the phone, um, with me. And she says, is this Andrew Zimmer? I said, yes. Said I, I saw clips my staff put together for me of your show last night and that whole thing with the witch doctor and the exorcism that was real. Right. And I'm like, what do you mean? Of course it was real. We don't have enough budget for special effects. We don't even have budget for a sound man or a second camera operator. And she said, I love it. I pitched it to Jay. can you be out in LA tomorrow night? And I said, I can't tomorrow night, but I can be out there for Friday night. And she said, great, come on the tonight show. And the next day I left for California and I went out on the, you know, I did my stuff with Jay and it was hysterical. Jay Leno eats like four, he drinks orange juice. That's all he drinks. He loves hot dogs and hamburgers, and that's about it. He doesn't eat vegetables. I mean, he has the diet of a poorly eating three-year-old. And so all of this stuff was really crazy. His mother was from Scotland. And in season one, I had done a thing on haggis. So we showed that clip, and I brought some haggis for him to taste. And he said, you know, my mother couldn't get me to eat this stuff. And I said, well, I'm going to, and I said, I'm not leaving until you do. It was just fun and funny. And one of the guests to my right was horrified at some of the things that I was eating and had brought for him to taste. And at the end of the thing, now I had watched The Tonight Show my entire life. My next birthday, I'll be 65. So I was raised on Johnny Carson and then Jay Leno after him. And so like with comedians, when your segment ends and Jay's like, oh my God, that was so much fun. Will you come back and see us? I just, that to me, will you come back and see us meant you were coming back. Yeah. And I've just never forgotten that moment. And I mean, literally without Jay Leno saying, will you come back? Bizarre Foods is 10 episodes and done. And yeah, I am just, you know, the, the, I know what you mean about, you know, disagreeing with my statement before about being lucky. I mean, you do make your own luck. Um, because I, I know if someone else was telling me this story, I would say, look, you saw the witch doctor sign, you investigated it. You realized it was going to be funnier and better real talking moment. Uh, and it wound up impressing the people at tonight's show and all that, but you just do the best you can. and, and keep plugging away. Um, but yeah, without, without that moment in Ecuador, there is no bizarre foods without the tonight show. There is no, uh, bizarre foods. I ended up going back four or five times at doing the show with Jay. And, uh, we had some really hysterical, hysterical moments. Can you share now looking at bizarre foods, like what you created and what it's become? Oh yeah. I have enough space, uh, for it. Um, or enough time has separated, you know, they, they ended, uh, despite all the bullshit you read on the internet, um, travel channel, we were making Zimmern list, uh, which was about to win an Emmy, uh, again. So we didn't know at the time, but I was in Florida making an episode of Zimmern list for travel channel. Uh, cause I was up to like three shows for them or something like that. And, uh, the president of the network called me and said, Hey, Andrew, uh, we are changing the network to become a ghost and paranormal network. Uh, we, uh, we're going to abandon food and travel and go ghost and paranormal. And I said, well, I can't very well be chasing Essie, uh, and seeing if, if, you know, she's edible, let alone real. And I mean, I thought this guy was fucking with me and nope. Uh, sure enough, uh, they were for real. They said, yeah, pencils down, come on in. I said, look, I said, I hate to be a dick. I said, but a couple of us, one of whom is still here, uh, help make this network. Uh, you've already paid for this episode that I think was the last Zimmern episode of the, of the year of the season. I said, we're going to finish this show and deliver it. And, uh, we will, um, we'll discuss all the rest of this next week when I get home. And I, you know, the next week I showed up at their office and, you know, sure enough, we're going ghost and paranormal. And that was the end of all my shows. So I never got to know that the last episode of Bizarre Foods that I made, which was the Underground Railroad episode, was going to be my last episode. But I'm extremely proud of the however many episodes of that show, gazillion episodes of that show we made. It, I mean, it's certainly, I think, become a legacy television show. As popular now as it ever was. And I'm super proud of it. So my grandfather, I never met my father. I was raised by my Bulgarian grandfather, and he has always taught me to stay curious, to get involved, and to ask for help. Curious people listen to podcasts. Curious people watch shows to learn. Curious people go to conferences, go to trade shows. They ask questions of mentors. You actually have to get involved. You have to do work. But the hardest lesson and the reason why I talk about it on podcasts and on stages is is asking for help, especially in the hospitality business. I know asking for help is such a powerful message that you continue to share. Can you share with our audience why it's so good? Yeah. You know, I never said the words, I mean, and I mean this literally, this is not a clever joke. I never said the words, I don't know how to do blank, can you help me? Or the hundred variations of that. until I was 31 years old. And I thought I knew everything. I would rather, you know, put pins in my eyeballs than ask somebody for help. I thought it was a sign of weakness. It's not. It's a sign of strength. Over the last 35 years, I think I've been the most curious, teachable, you know, son of a bitch on planet earth. Um, because once I started using that phrase and started to actually talk to people, um, incredible things came to pass in my life and it changed literally. And, um, for the better. I, I think we have put too much of a premium, uh, on uh thinking we know everything when it's impossible for anyone to do that. I think we've conflated the, the importance of the human ego to our own, uh, downfall. I think that there is something extremely powerful in truly being able to let go and let others manage something that you honestly felt in your gut was something that only you could handle. Um, The voice inside everyone's brain that tells them that they got it all is lying. And the worst part about it is I think that, you know, I don't think phones are the problem. I don't think AI is the problem. I don't think all the things we label as the problem is the problem. I think the problem is the conflation of the human ego. And the degree to which we have decided that we are, as a species, the be-all and end-all. And rather than being curious and staying teachable and asking questions and understanding the concept of humility, we, over the last 25 years in human culture, have accelerated what would otherwise be a centuries-long philosophical moment in human development where we have decided that we are, you know, we are God. We are the supreme decider of everything. And that is so far from the truth. And I think that that has become, sadly, me, me, me, me, me-isms are the big cause. I think stuff like, you know, like over-reliance on this is just a symptom of the problem. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. You've been an inspiration to me. I've been in a program of recovery since 2012. I own... restaurant congratulations thank you I own restaurants I own bars I was a heavy drinker Hall of Fame drinker I know that there are restaurant owners there are people in the restaurant industry especially that listen to the show watch the show that they might be struggling can you talk to them and let them know a little bit of hope yeah pick up the phone and call someone right now Just call one person and tell them the truth. My experience is that if you're a real addict or alcoholic or gambling addict or sex addict or any of the other, you know, types of addicts there are out there, a real one. If you were a real addict, you have not told people the truth for years. You've compartmentalized it. Some people may know something. Some people may know another. You are hiding the truth. You won't even admit it to yourself. that, that was my personal experience, but you know, I've been heavily involved in my own recovery to this day. I mean, I still go to three meetings a week. I still do service work. I still take other guys through our literature. I still do the things that kept me happy, joyous and free because I don't want to go back to that hell hole that I crawled out of. I was a, an unredeemable human being, a user of people, taker of things. And, uh, you know, they, yeah, really, really bad shape. And, uh, everything changed for me when I told one person the truth, that was it. I didn't get sober for another three days, but it, it literally was the last barrier to, you know, my ego being supplanted by, uh, some rightful thinking, you know, uh, you got a problem, go get it taken care of, you know, uh, you know, it's a, it's, it's an old recovery saying, but if you broke your arm, you'd go to the hospital. I mean, yeah, I do. Yeah. The toughest guy in the world just says, hey, I need to have my arm set. Then I'm going to go back and finish the fight. Would you go to the hospital? You know, alcoholics and addicts, you know, we're just arguing that we don't have a disease when we know we have. That's the strange mental blank spot that is the oddly – mental health aspect of this disease that's probably most prevalent, even in recovery, those of us who were able to make it is that we still have a disease that tells us at times we don't have a disease. When I was using, I listened to it all the time. Now I hear it and I'm like, you know, fuck you, go back in your hole. But it's still in there talking to me, which is why I keep doing what I'm doing. So yeah, I would tell people, This is this don't don't make this bigger than it has to be. One step at a time. Step one, call someone, tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help you God and see what happens. That's it. Just see what happens. So powerful. Before I let you go, is there anything exciting? What is the most exciting thing you're working on right here right now today that you can check? Oh, gosh. By the way, we're going to put a link to your sub stack because I you are the you're my favorite follow on sub stack. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for writing. Thank you for all that you pour into that. You and your team. Well done. Thank you. You know, I mean, I'm, I'm working on a couple of new books, cookbooks. I, we, we just finished shooting the first half of season seven of wild game kitchen. We'll shoot the second half in May. Um, I got a great trip. You know, if you want to travel with me and hear these stories at infinitum, come to Japan. The information's right at the top of our website. We'd love to have you. I don't know. That's, you know, the stuff that I'm working on, it's the same shit I'm always working on. TV, books, YouTube, short form, social media. I mean, it's all the same stuff. You know, we're we're living in an attention economy and, uh, like everyone else, I'm competing for people's attention, just like millions of other folks are. Uh, so I'm still doing all the shit. That's like, look at me, look at me. Uh, and then with the other 50% of my time, uh, you know, I work, I'm lucky. I get to work with a lot of global NGOs. I, I have pilot programs with the United Nations world food program with the, uh, you know, Einstein's international rescue committee that he founded 39 that, uh, you know, uh, Sir Tony Miliband, uh, uh, David Miliband runs. He was Blair's foreign secretary. Um,