An Extremely Content-Brained Share & Tell with Domonique Foxworth and Dan Le Batard

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

In the article, he's like, I try to make a movie a year, then my beautiful wife and I f around, but I wish I was a dog.

If you want to be a dog, the fk do the rest of us want to be

right after this ad.

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Look at the grumpy, moody, arrogant face of Dominique Foxworth.

And yeah, well, you're already

joyful to see you and was about to syruply express how much I love seeing you guys and how much joy it genuinely brings me that we're doing this together in this form on this platform and you had angry black man face.

You gave, and don't, and don't just say it's your face.

Don't you, it was, it was, you seemed better than the room.

I don't see color.

I just see, I, I don't see color.

I just see anger.

Nah, you just see content.

We'll get to that.

I do.

I do.

I'm already wondering,

do I have to bleep Dan saying black?

Are we going to have to like leave it up to the audience to decipher what that word was?

If you bleep it, it makes it worse.

So much worse.

What terrible, so much worse.

What did he just call Dominique?

Dominique's carrying on a notebook now, Dan.

I don't know if you saw that before.

Dominique has like, you have like a moleskin notebook.

Why do you have a notebook now?

I like to write things down.

This is your journalistic effort.

This is you.

This is Pablo Torrey.

Find things out.

Why do you have a notebook?

Why do you have water?

Because you're thirsty.

I have a notebook because I like to write things down sometimes.

Why do you have on a sweatshirt?

That's like asking me, why am I drinking from a goblet when all I need is water?

And you're walking around with like an ink well and a quill.

Because I'm dope.

It's the answer to most questions you have.

But is that dope?

I would think you'd have a computer or something, just a notes app or something.

You got to write it down by hand.

He's an artist.

I get it.

I get Dominique's an artist.

He's more writer than either of us.

He's literally writing now.

No, I will tell you what's happening this is my theory pop psychologist from over here competitive dominique foxworth who loves to win and be better than others at everything is writing down independent thoughts all the time that other people in the sports media aren't having because he has independent thoughts that are more interesting than most

Nope, it's just me keeping score with everybody in my life.

I'm on the Pablo page right now, and that's been a blowout for years, dominating you, Pablo.

Coming for your ass.

He's just

a closer match with me.

You better slow down.

You better slow down.

I can't lose.

I hate the fact that we're probably going to Photoshop the page where Dominique just described the score, the running score between me and him.

Although you did, you did.

You did a fucking dinner.

You paid for a dinner.

You paid for a dinner.

I believe that you only paid for the dinner because you knew that I was coming on the show and you wanted to be able to say publicly that you paid for a dinner because everyone knows that you go to dinners with me all the time and you never pay for a dinner.

He's using you for content?

He's using, he's not even paying you?

He's making you do the work for his podcast and not even paying you?

And then I'm always

on the lookout when I'm with Pablo where he's trying to surreptitiously snap pictures for his goofy ass Instagram.

Little Stugatson everybody.

Of course he knows that

everybody knows that.

He knows that I know this.

He knows that I know this.

So he snuck one in and I saw it later.

He's a family where he tagged me.

No, he does this all the time.

No, he's a fame f ⁇ er.

He goes, he does this all the time.

Dominique, how many courtside seats have you seen with him and famous people because he wants to appear cooler than anyone?

For the record.

All of the fame is entirely consensual.

So I feel like I should start the show with a sports topic, a sports topic that began with a short athletic story,

but gave rise to bigger thoughts.

And so the title of this article is What's the Best Way to Deal with Nick Sabin's Fiery Coaching?

Alabama football players explain.

And I don't know if you guys saw any of the Alabama, Mississippi State game last Saturday.

It was generally uninteresting to me, except for the fact that Nick Saban on the sideline was doing stuff like this.

You can see if you watch the Draft Kings Network or our YouTube channel, he's yelling at everybody.

He is yelling at people.

He's yelling at his offensive coordinator, Tommy Reese.

He's yelling at players like Terion Arnold, a cornerback, Dominique, a young cornerback, who was chewed out very publicly on the sideline.

And

during halftime, Nick Saban was approached by the ESPN reporter.

And at halftime, you know, Alabama had started slow.

They got up 31 to 10.

And Sabin was asked about how this all flipped around.

And he said this.

What do you think changed in the flow of that game from sloppiness to all of a sudden execution?

You make that call.

Thank you, Coach.

Oh, he's not wrong.

Coach Sabin got smoked for everybody in that first half.

So all of this made me think about how to be coached, how I want to be coached, how I have been coached, how I would coach, and how Dominique Dan is different from us.

That part I know, but I feel like being an athlete and responding to a Nick Saban, I'm not wired that way.

And it makes me self-conscious about how I should be wired because this shit did per Nick Sabin's accounting actually

work.

Well, I mean, accepting Nick Sabin's accounting is your first mistake.

And assuming that all athletes like to and respond to coaching like that is your second mistake.

I'm shocked that you didn't show the Trent Dilfer outburst from the weekend where he's flipping out on his coaches also

for making a mistake, a substitution mistake or something like that.

So I think many athletes respond to that.

Many of them don't.

It's probably

overrepresented in sports, people who can respond to that type of like coaching.

But I think a lot of coaches justify it by saying that they're pushing buttons.

And I wouldn't say that they're wrong.

Like you're pushing different buttons to try to get a reaction out of a player that is potentially not engaged engaged or not focused.

So maybe it works sometimes, maybe it doesn't.

It's not the way that I feel like I respond.

Like, I think I like retreat back when someone yells at me like that.

That doesn't make me want to get more locked in.

I think of myself as someone who would rather have a real conversation.

Like, I'm not trying to mess up.

You screaming at me isn't going to make me try to get out of my mind.

No, but Dominique, I think, like, I remember the first time I thought about this.

It was the very first time I considered it.

It was Tom Coughlin during a playoff game with all the things Tom Coughlin represents.

Old military, I'm in charge.

These guys can't win unless I toughen them up and show them how to be leaders.

And his field goal kicker had just missed an enormous kick in a playoff game.

He felt bad enough, I assure you, without Tom Coughlin coming over and just lighting him up.

And I looked at it, I'm like, that's not coaching.

That's Tom Coughlin just feeling better about wanting control over things.

And he's just feeling rage and he wants to get it out.

And that guy's consuming it.

I don't think that you would respond to that.

I'm not sure you would want your children coached that way, that you would want them treated humanely and humanly.

But I also think that the ego of the position leads Nick Sabin to believe, no, I got the better result because I yelled, because I made that player tougher.

And I would say to you, and you can lose them just as quickly that way, because that is not a caring ally that you see now that's coming up with the Mike McDaniels of the sport, where they're like, no, how can I be a caretaker and an assistant and an ally and an administrative assistant?

How can I be someone who just helps you?

The thing is, this is about human psychology, what this question is.

And I feel responsible as the football player over here and the most traditionally masculine person in this conversation.

I've got plenty of

Cuban cavemen in me.

No, no, no, no.

I got three kids and I play professional football.

I'm here to.

I'm just saying, come on, get that facial hair hair together, Pablo.

I've been trying.

As the most traditionally masculine person here, I think that we would not be

being traditionally masculine is not a compliment.

I said, as the most traditionally masculine,

like we all believe.

It was extremely closed there.

This is a compliment.

My bad.

It is a compliment.

I don't consider myself traditionally masculine.

Like, I think of myself as a more progressive version of masculinity, but I do believe that someone needs to speak for, I'm certainly generally not a two sides person of the conversation, but I do think there's a reasonable side,

a reasonable position on the side.

When we're talking about human psychology, no one really knows how this works.

So there are people that I think probably do respond better in certain situations that would make us uncomfortable and we say that we don't like.

I've had coaches try to get the best out of me when they thought I wasn't focused and try something like that.

They notice that it didn't work and they don't try it again.

But there are players who I see like, yeah, they turn that energy into something else.

And the other defense of them is the Tom Coughlin yelling at the kicker, I think is, yeah, there's no argument for how that's going to help.

The kick is already kicked.

He didn't do anything wrong.

But I do believe in professional sports, there is an obligation and a responsibility that you have to each other.

So if someone flips out on a player on a pro football team, I would say don't do that.

That's not cool.

You're showing them up.

But if this is a continuation of someone who is not participating in practice, not doing, not paying attention in meetings, and then they make a mistake that's directly tied to that.

Like I do think that part of that is letting them know that what you're doing is not just letting you down.

Everybody else's money is riding on this too.

Everyone else's reputation is riding on this too.

And maybe you can find a softer way to do it.

But I do know in some of these

traditionally masculine scenarios, you're not just coaching to them.

That's a performance for everybody else, too.

So it's like, you know what?

You want to be a motherfucker that doesn't do the shit that you're that we expect of you, then we're going to embarrass you here.

And not that it's right or wrong, that maybe it doesn't get the best out of that person, but it is, it can be cathartic to everyone else on the team that's looking like, see, that's what happens.

That's what he deserves.

Otherwise, you get your ass beat in a locker room, which happens.

Well, accountability, right?

It's interwoven with what Dominique was just describing there, right?

Because you are maintaining this delicate ecosystem, which I think an office also can feel, although in a less traditionally masculine way than a NFL locker room.

But I will point out that there's this, I mean, again, to make this, to be a classic,

untraditionally masculine person, I'll say there is a spectrum to all of this, right?

And so there's a spectrum from Trent Dilfer on one end to even Nick Sabin, somewhere maybe like, you know, not on the other end, but somewhere in the middle, because Tarion Arnold, the cornerback in question, said post-game, quote, I feel like I have a relationship with him to where he knows I can take coaching like that.

It's hard coaching.

coaching.

When you choose to come here, you never know when he could chew you out.

But people always say you should be worried when he's not saying something to you.

Now, look, in that power dynamic, and we should also distinguish between college and professional, right?

There's a power imbalance inherently.

But what I'm hearing is that every coach, every teacher, every parent, every motivator is kind of like a locksmith.

And they're trying to figure out, okay, what's the combination to this safe?

How do I pick this lock?

Even if they don't want to give up the thing inside of them that feels like potential.

And I know for me, Dan, this is why I introduced this topic the way I did.

I know that the way that I have been motivated, coached up, elevated is different from the way that Dominique has explicitly asked from his actual producers doing our job in our business.

Like I, in that way, am objectively softer in a way that's shameful than him.

No, no, but I've told the story before of going in to ESPN and the former athletes were amazed, shocked at the insecurity in the room because

it gets weeded out.

It cannot be in a locker room.

Just simply shocked that anybody would get in their feelings about being yelled at once.

But you bring up Nick Saban, and in his defense, Ricky Williams was...

always an artist trying to work within the restrictions of the army.

The only coach who reached him, who pushed the right buttons on a self-described weirdo, was indeed Nick Saban.

Nick Sabin found a way to reach.

So maybe he does have some secret formula that changes player to player and it's not always yelling.

But my experience with people of Nick Saban's age and success is they are control freaks who, once that ball is put in play, actually have about 10% of the control over what happens.

And when they lose or lose publicly, they appear like they want to show others they're in control.

When they're college kids, they're going to make mistakes.

And I think they're obsessed with control.

I think Nick Saban has been rewarded at every turn for that control.

And I'd ask Dominique, what percentage of coaches do you think really knew and understood the human being well enough to know, no, I can yell at Dominique Foxworth.

No, I can't yell at Dominique Foxworth.

I think that's their job.

I think they do know.

There's certainly, so like, it's impossible to say one coach is never actually angry.

He's always performing anger.

But I think all coaches probably do lose their cool sometimes and it's a genuine reaction.

I also think that all coaches sometimes don't know what else to do and they're like, all right, maybe I can fire this person up.

It's not golf where it's about being incredibly focused and locked in where a spike in your adrenaline is going to be bad.

It's football.

So it probably does help sometimes to like, fire somebody up in whichever way you can.

So like I do find myself defending them them in that place.

I wouldn't like it.

I don't need it, but there's no formula.

I don't think, I think the formula that you're looking for is just about care.

And the idea that players, some players feel like it's okay when certain coaches yell at them is also how like I imagine your parents have yelled at you and maybe even hit you growing up.

You don't hate your parents.

It's because you genuinely believe that they care about you and they want what's happening.

That's important, though.

That trust trust is hugely important if someone's yelling.

Well, do you believe that this person has your best interests at heart, right?

Do you believe that they love you?

Do you believe that they can be trusted with your actual physical vulnerability as well as emotional vulnerability?

And do you believe that you deserve whatever is happening?

And now we get into like some sort of victim blaming thing.

And you can say no one ever deserves to be talked to like that.

But if you let your team down in an important moment, you deserve something.

And I don't know what it is.

Being yelled at is the equivalent, though, of being hit with the immigrant parent slipper, right?

As you are, I don't know,

yeah, exactly.

Flying across the room the way that an errant punt would, you know, like that part, it does.

Yeah.

Sorry, Paper.

I thought that we were clear about this is they're different things.

Like dropping a punt, like trying your best and making a mistake, like the Tom Coughlin thing, a guy missing a kick, that's an entirely different thing than doing the wrong thing.

Like actually not executing.

So I feel like it's different when, and it's also when it's tied to your preparation.

We have to do that.

We have to have a missed field goal.

Tom Coughlin comes on the field and throws a chancleta at the kicker.

That would be so much better than just yelling at you.

Please, please make that a thing.

By the way, the generational distinction here is real, right?

Because we're also in 2023 and all of the jokes we've made about the traditional aspect of anything, masculinity and otherwise.

Saban's close to 80.

Right.

Saban, where's he going to connect with the 20-year-old cornerback?

Like, maybe, maybe, but that's going to take some work.

And it's going to take it from somebody who better be hungrier than somebody who's close to 80 and has had a whole lot of success.

I work the odds against Nick Sabin being able to connect there with every 20-year-old.

I disagree with you.

I think Nick Saban is not an just random 80-year-old man.

Nick Saban is someone who has built up a tremendous amount of respect in cachet.

And I think Nick Sabin has a better chance of connecting with a 20 year old cornerback than frankly I do as a 40 year old former cornerback.

I think when you show up there, the relationship dynamics and the value that he offers you is so clear and his track record is so clear that, yeah, Nick Sabin yelling at me.

And then I look at the history of players that he's yelled at and what's happened with them.

It's a whole different scenario, I I think.

And assuming that throughout the week and throughout the year, he's also doing the things, and at least that I've heard from players who play with Nick Saban, is that he does, for the most part, try to do the things.

He's not Dabo Sweeney who says that players don't deserve to get paid.

He's at least in the last decade or so, been someone who said that players should get paid and appears as.

progressive minded, even in the way that he coaches his team and the offensive development.

Like he does seem like someone who adapts and he's never been the one who's made the

huge mistake with the way that he talks to his players or he treats his players.

I do love the idea, though, of insecure Nick Saban, who's like memorizing like little yachty lyrics to show up at work the next day.

We've seen it.

We've seen video of him doing dances in people's living room.

That man, desperate for a baller, just like the rest of them, he will do whatever he can to get your black ass scoring touchdowns.

He will learn the latest dance and also dap.

It's so sad.

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I wanted to bring you guys an article from GQ.

Chris Evans is having second thoughts.

And below that, below the headline, it says, Some of the things that the reluctant leading man has been contemplating lately include humanity's tiny place in our vast galaxy, autumns in New England, whether his dog realizes he's famous, and how, well, maybe being a movie star isn't the best occupation for a guy who's so prone to thinking about absolutely everything.

And the reason I wanted to put this in front of you is because I remember when Tyson Fury, who descends from decades of fighting in the street with his relatives, street fighters, bare knuckle fighters, lifetime fighters, he gets to the heavyweight championship, the dream title that any fighter would want immediately descends into cocaine and gains 100 pounds because what the top looked like or what he thought it looked like wasn't how it felt.

There was still an emptiness there at arriving at all of his dreams.

an emptiness made worse if you're an overthinker.

So I ask you, Dominique, to tell me when you have arrived at something.

This happened to me with the sports reporters in Times Square.

I thought it was the top of the profession.

And then I go in there and it smells like urine from the night before because it's in Times Square.

It's at the ESPN zone.

People have vomited.

I love the idea that Dan is relating to Captain

America.

That's right.

Because he hung out with Michael Lupa.

That's right.

That's correct.

Well, that was the top of my dreams.

I dreamt smaller.

I'm sorry, not all of us dream as big as you, Pablo.

My bad.

Not all of us hang out courtside with whatever glover it is you are hanging out with.

Yeah, Crispin.

Yeah.

No, my dreams were: I get to talk about sports on television in Times Square.

Why does that table at the center of this that I learned from how to be a sports writer?

Why is it 40 years old and covered in coffee stains?

Because this isn't the top of the mountain.

At 30 years old, I've arrived in a lonely place that doesn't look exactly like I thought it would look, the top of my profession.

Has that ever happened to you, Dominique?

Because you've gotten to the top of things.

Yeah, I mean, I think, absolutely.

I think there's no top is I think what I've come to realize and accept is that

thinking of it as like one climb and thinking that when you get there, that everything's going to be all right is a mistake.

And I think the way that one of the most interesting things about this article itself is that.

Chris Evans just talks about looking at the world differently at different times, which is something that I can relate to.

And maybe that means I'm an overthinker or maybe everyone can relate to it also.

There are times when I was at the top of the mountain, so to speak, where I was like,

this is awesome.

I'm at the top of the mountain.

And there are times when things weren't that great and I felt good about life.

I think it's just the way that you look at the scoreboard.

And we all try to like,

I think we want to make life as simple as movies.

or make life as simple as a sporting event where it's like, okay, this is the goal.

And when we do it that way, we always end up being somewhat unfulfilled because nothing is ever that simple.

That's what I've found.

But as a young person, though, right, your voice changes because what you think of or how you define success is different, right?

So it does depend on what age you get to it.

Like

I.

You getting to the top of football, professional sports had to feel to you like the top or not, no, or it was.

No, it wasn't.

I mean, it changes because you don't as you, and maybe it's different when it's a quick thing.

And because I was so young, it might feel like a quick thing.

But I decided I wanted to be a professional football player when I was six.

So like by the time I'm 22, that's a long process.

And that's a lot of commitment, a lot of sacrifices.

And it's also a lot of learning.

I think we've had this conversation before.

It's like having.

it be revealed to me what professional football is was a slow process where I got a better understanding of what was actually happening.

And then being a first round number one overall pick, maybe that feels like the mountaintop.

Getting your name called in the third round and then going out to Denver and fighting for a job and getting a check that is a respectable check, but it ain't life-changing money.

It's not, it doesn't feel like the mountaintop.

It just feels like you got to a plateau and it's like, oh,

there is an even bigger mountain.

And also, there's a grizzly bear chasing me because if I don't get to the top of this particular mountain, all the other things that I did leading up to this were mistakes that set me up to like be

unsuccessful in life.

So like it doesn't feel like a mountaintop to me.

On the animal stuff, I want to bring in the part of the story that I related to despite also not being Captain America, because Chris Evans is saying some stuff that resonates.

He said, he said this.

I want to read this quote.

It's our self-awareness that separates us, but also what causes our suffering.

We think it's what elevates us.

I'd say that's actually what makes us inferior.

And then he goes on to talk about how he sees his dog.

His dog's name is Dodger.

And he looks at Dodger and he feels something like envy.

Envy because the dog is not self-aware.

Envy because the dog is ignorant.

And in ignorance, there is this freedom from caring about the stuff that has to do with being human, right?

Which is to say,

he is unconcerned, Dodger is, with all of the stuff about how people perceive him and the measuring.

So the scoreboard idea is seemingly irrelevant in the animal kingdom.

It is the part of of the story that makes me think I also want to be like Dodger.

You could have just said ignorance is bliss.

If you don't do any thinking, there's no self-loathing.

Like, there's no room.

If you're not doing any judgment of yourself, animals do not do self-loathing.

They don't procasticate themselves with not forgiving themselves on this.

There is no aphorism that I am less likely to accept.

Ignorance is bliss, runs counter to everything I have wired in me and that I aspire to.

Enlightenment and awareness, self-awareness specifically, I will talk to you endlessly about how it's a virtue, how the people who are unself-aware of the problem.

No, but both of you, I would think, suffer from this same affliction.

I think, I may have this wrong.

Because I suffer from it.

The illusion of control that the comfort of my mind allows me is just an illusion of control.

I trust my mind implicitly.

I've only recently learned that trusting the heart is something that matters a lot more.

I thought, because my mind did not bring me ultimate happiness.

It did not.

It brought me the illusion of control and nothing else.

Like it's a poison as much as it is a blessing, your mind, depending on how you, how it treats you.

Yeah, I mean, I think that the way the aphorism that I would use is nothing in life is free.

And I would use that because I believe that the mind.

all the bad things that come with it, there's an equal and opposite like reward.

So while, yes, the dog can never be like self-aware and feel all the insecurities and

challenges that we may feel as a result of the self-awareness, but he can also never feel the level of joy and fulfillment that we feel also.

So he can lick his balls and he can feel plenty of enjoyment and he can do all sorts of things that seem to make him plenty happy in ways I've never been happy.

Which is all physical.

And I think that they don't have access to something that we have access to.

So like I get Chris Evans' point and your point that sometimes when I'm stressed about my kids' future or when I'm stressed about how we're going to be able to do this next thing or how I'm going to be able to make enough time to fit in all the podcasts I got to record for my friends and otherwise.

It's just nice to be like, oh, man,

you know what?

I just got to be a cat, go eat

and lick and chill.

It's so interesting, man.

You, Pablo, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Dominique, but one of the reasons that i think you're so much i trust your judgment you interrupted means i was going to say well no i'm only doing this because something you said was so fascinating to me about how much tougher you are than we are in every way if the mountaintop is not third round pick getting to the pros because you have to live your life of oh there are carnivores out here trying to take my family's money if i don't stay in this league like of course you're going to be tougher than us.

Like, I don't know what it's like to be competitive like that for dollars.

Hold on.

I think part of the underlying through line here, which I see Dominique

generously providing here, is that we're all impressed by the thing we didn't do.

So like you, Dan, fetishize Dominique's life because he is football guy.

Chris Evans fetishizes in this article the guy doing pottery, listening to music,

unstressed by the stresses of Hollywood.

And me too, I am also now clearly fetishizing a dog.

And I mean, I think most people fetishize Chris Evans' life.

And I think as an athlete, that's something that I'm familiar with.

It is kind of annoying, which I imagine Chris Evans as a straight white man.

Mac in America.

superstar, lead actor, millionaire.

Yeah, most people are like, yeah, give me that life.

And he, I'm sure lots of people who read this article were probably turned off by that.

Absolutely.

Because no one wants to hear

that Chris Evans has stress.

In the article, he's like, I try to make a movie a year.

Then my beautiful wife and I f around, but I wish I was a dog.

You want to be a dog?

The do the rest of us want to begin.

Can you imagine, though?

I like this so much more, not as the actor, but as the actual Captain America, the glum superhero, just burdened with.

Do you know how much responsibility it is to be superhuman?

I want to put him in the costume and have Captain America hate himself so much that he wants to be the dog, that he doesn't want to be superhuman or human.

You know, I mean, Captain America is the perfect analogy for this because it is, and I guess maybe Spider-Man is even better because it is like the idea of great power and great responsibility.

And that responsibility is hard.

And I, the thing that I think about often when I get the idea, so people know like I'm a professional athlete and know that I do like a pretty fun job now and get paid enough money and they're jealous of me and say things that are like, I'm not allowed to complain.

Or you hear it about athletes all the time.

Like, oh, you get paid so much money, whatever.

And I hear Dan defending them.

But I never really bring this up, but it always crosses my mind that it's just about who you're comparing yourself to because the distance between a superstar athlete or Chris Evans and the average American person is probably similar to the distance between average American person and poor person who does not live in the western part of the or the western hemisphere.

So like it is all about.

Making comparisons, which is why I guess Pablo just wants to be a dog because they aren't smart enough to make comparisons they're just happy because they got a meal and dan made some wheels but i'm not i'm not fetishizing though the idea that you at one point at one point you were earning money for playing sports like that was the goal like that you arrived that you couldn't enjoy it because there was too much there were too many bears chasing you doesn't change the fact it's not you did the hardest thing dominique you did the hardest thing right and then the the hardest hardest thing was actually getting to the second contract that was the one that, that was the time when I was like, oh, and it wasn't like joy.

It was more like relief was you had to, I had to get to that second contract.

People don't understand that about athletes, Dominique, that, that, that you're playing a game for a living, you're making a lot of money, and you don't get to joy until it feels like relief because now the burden of the expectations of my body needs to make me money for a long time to feed a lot of people.

Like that's a burden nobody actually wants.

And the, the, the point that I wanted to, that I tried to make at the beginning of this is it depends on how I'm looking at it because I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy being in the NFL at any point.

I didn't enjoy playing.

I didn't enjoy the things that come along with it.

And I didn't at any moment in that time.

There were several times in there before the second contract and even in college and even in high school where I was like, God damn, this is great.

This is awesome.

This is awesome.

But then those are like fleeting moments.

They're like pieces of candy.

Whereas

during a normal day, it's the stresses that come along with it.

And that candy is never enough.

I think is the better way to explain it.

Because I don't want people to think that I was just walking around moping like, man, I got to make this team.

I got to get a second contract.

No.

This is part of what, Dominique is what it's a great point.

It's part of what Chris Evans is trying to say.

And I hate that I'm referring to Chris Evans as if he's f ⁇ ing Nietzsche or anything.

But he pointed out, he pointed out that when he thinks small, when he thinks about the thing in front of him, he suffers, When he looks at himself or his life under a microscope, as you just described an athlete doing,

it is suffering.

But when you think bigger, when you try to truly abstract yourself and sort of put yourself into perspective, you talked about comparisons.

Compare yourself to the galaxy.

Compare yourself to the sweep of human history.

And at that point, you'll realize that, okay, nothing here matters.

And in that knowledge, which I think is in some ways is the opposite of ignorance, but in the true knowledge of how small we are, because everything else is so big, maybe there is actually some sort of relief.

Yeah, I mean, I think that some of that comes with age and experience, but it also comes with, as I was reading this article, I was waiting for the drug reference.

He got to it in the last paragraph, or so it was like, oh yeah, and Chris Evans smokes a lot of weed, but sometimes that does allow people to open their mind up to see the things that they otherwise wouldn't see.

But the funny thing is, through your point you're making in a much more verbose way than necessary is

you can get so smart that you get to the simple place or you could be so like

dumb as a dog that you're in the simple place the point is we all want to get to the simple place that's right just ignorance is bliss licking your ball i think we can all agree that we have proven in this segment i take it back i mean hold on i'm sorry i'm sorry before you close it out as you always most wonderfully do because i do miss that about you i do want to point out that i hold on one thing i am no longer the most traditionally masculine person here it's definitely dan because all he really wants is his ball slicks that's right Nothing gets more traditionally masculine than that.

There you go.

I was threatened by your traditional masculine.

And anybody who thinks that we humans cannot lick our own balls, replay this segment.

Replay this segment.

I love working with you because I do believe that you do a great job of tying things together.

But as we also establish in this segment, there's a price for everything.

And the price that I have to pay when I work with you is sometimes you're going to make some weird sex stuff weirder.

I still work for ESPN guys, so you know, maybe

you motherfuckers say whatever you want, but I still work for Disney.

So can we chill?

All right, so the article that I'm bringing is a Hollywood Reporter article about, it's kind of a short article based on Idris Alba doing a podcast where he talked about his workaholic nature and how it like infests his life and a great deal in my therapy i've been thinking a lot about changing almost to the point of neuro neuropaths being changed and shifting and it's not because i don't like myself or anything like that it's just that I have some unhealthy habits that have just really formed.

And they,

you know, I work in an industry that I'm rewarded for those unhealthy habits i'm rewarded for that you know whether it's to be selfish or to be

i'm a workaholic i'm an absolute workaholic

and that isn't great for life generally honestly i this was a reverse search i wanted to talk about something and i found any article that was loosely uh tangential to my feelings about

the opposite of reporting a reporter goes in, it doesn't know what his report is.

Well,

you said that you wanted to talk about something, and you loosely tied it to an article to keep it to the flimsy conceit of we're bringing something here, but it's really just Dominique now wants to talk about something.

I'm bringing something here.

I'm bringing beef.

That's what I'm bringing here.

I'm bringing beef with people who are my friends, but Pablo specifically has been infected with content brain.

And it's ridiculous.

The thing is, the workaholic nature of Pablo and many people like him is weird because being a workaholic, as Idris Alba puts it, and he's an actor, is one thing.

And it's dangerous for him to go and leave his family and go work on a movie and develop a whole brand new family and then cut it off and then go back to be with your family.

Like I understand that in general, traditional workaholics, I can understand how it could be detrimental on your life in ways that aren't connected to your job.

But what I've found with some of my friends, Pablo specifically, is that it's it's so detrimental to your life that it infects the way that you treat everybody and the relationships you have with people.

Where Pablo and I used to talk, we used to text.

And the only time I hear from Pablo is him trying to get me on this stupid ass show.

By the way, I got a stupid ass show, too.

Dude, we're going to promote that.

You ever been on my stupid ass show?

No, let's preserve our relationships.

I do some of the same things.

I've done some of the same things to you.

Dominique has dragged me back a couple of times.

There's like a hate it though.

Can we just be friends with you?

Well, wait a minute.

Finally, it saves me the step.

Yes, it's not fair.

It's not fair to Dominique, but what has happened here, and I think this is super interesting, and you will recognize it.

Pablo sees in front of him an opportunity of a lifetime to make something specifically tailored to his life

specifications as a career in his voice and personality for the rest of his life to raise Violet and

to give a great life to his family.

And the obsession of the opportunity, you're going to say is a lack of balance that makes him, you know, rationalize that he's buried in work and not tending to things at home that a workaholic has to also pay attention to.

But I recognize it because what's funny about not only do I recognize it, I'm actually proud of part of lopsided Pablo because he used to be lazy.

I saw when he was lazy.

I saw when he didn't care about something that it was his own, that he was fooling around on television and it was easy for him as cotton candy i saw when he wasn't making his own thing how he he could be your friend in a way that wasn't worried about the content but now he's got his own risk his own opportunity his own grown-up responsibilities and so it becomes an obsession because it has to succeed so for

just hold on hold on hold the f ⁇

No, I just, no, no, no, no, no, no, you hold

it.

This isn't the dominant.

I don't give a shit that this is digital.

I'll see you again.

I'll see you again.

So let my traditional masculinity step me down.

I'm just going to make a question.

try to improve your show all right so i'll write down what you were gonna say and let him be the out let me take out my notebook am i am i the devil on your shoulder or the that's you're stealing my point dan is definitely okay so dominique and i unfortunately stealing and i did it better i have like a a double entendre metaphor here because what you just did was obviously sync your content brain which you deny having with my content brain which wanted to point out that if you're watching this on the draft kings network or on my youtube channel pablitori finds out no my show dominique foxworth show we're on youtube at espn also follow my podcast on the one shoulder

on the one shoulder is dominique foxworth alleged angel and on the other side is dan lebotard the content brained devil who is texting me encouragement because he sees how obsessed i am with making my show better don't animate this you better not animate this and my point about dominique and the merging of our content content brains is that there is nothing more content brain than turning content brain into content.

That is what you, sir, have done here today.

And so this is what this was your big get.

You knew I was going to bring your content brain.

You just couldn't wait to try to act like you turned it on me.

You didn't know.

What I'm saying

is that you have content brain aspirations and you're afraid to give in.

I don't.

You're afraid to give in, Dominique.

He's afraid to give in.

I'm not afraid to give in.

I'm not afraid to give in.

Well, this is interesting.

Let me start.

If I may, Alpha.

If I may.

Proceed, sir.

From over here.

I do believe Dominique has an incredible life balance.

He is good about putting his priorities where they belong.

And when he needs to be present.

Get to the shot.

Get to the inside.

When he needs to be present, he is present.

However, I believe that notebook would reveal.

evidence of content breakthrough.

That's right.

I believe that that notebook is you carrying around ideas for what you want to do that might come to you in a moment.

Why are you carrying around that notebook?

Because I need to write down notes.

It's not about the show.

It's not content brain.

It has nothing to do with any of that.

You wish that you had a big gotcha moment, but it's not a big gotcha.

I didn't know that.

I haven't given up on this gotcha moment yet.

I just, no, Dominique, this is, this is what we're dealing with is Dominique trying to have it both ways.

Yes.

And I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you,

as your friend who will admit that I've been a worse friend because i've been afflicted with late onset content brain is that i have noticed that you

want to do some stuff in the world of writing in the world of media in the world of entertainment that is wildly ambitious and don't don't say i want to do stuff like i don't get that done

i do he's doing everything i want to do it gets done all right he's doing it right now proper respect go ahead But this is my point, is that what you see as content brain is my evolutionary adaptation to try and get stuff done.

And you're doing it in a way that is, I think,

in this way, it is less honest than guy who is worse at texting now

because you're in the shadows doing stuff.

You know, dishonest.

The point that I am making to you, Pablo, and the reason why I yell at you and even even

Dan sometimes too about the content brain is not because I think that it is all bad, because I do believe nothing is all bad and nothing is all good.

The fact of the matter is you're lying to yourself and you're trying to justify it and pretending like you're not aware that there is a cost for it.

You're not going to lose me as a friend.

I'm going to be your friend, but be honest with what you're doing.

You are paying a price too.

That's all I want you to know.

I also think though, I think if I can, and he's not going to let me have this one either.

I do believe, though, that Dominique thinks himself and rightly in most instances so singularly unique that nothing would afflict him exactly the same way it afflicts you and me Pablo that he would

that he would be a pop

how is it that you fall for this handsome he didn't say that you're such a bad listener he said that's what Dominique wants him to think he's not saying that he thinks that also shut up host man and let the man talk proceed Dan yeah I just I believe that he thinks himself so unique and I've seen a lot of evidence of him actually being balanced, actually having his priorities in order, actually measuring success different than other workaholics I have met.

He wants to succeed.

He wants to achieve.

He's confident he can do those things and he is doing those things.

I just think he wants you to think and us to think that he comes by that as easily as he did his Harvard business degree and cornerback in the NFL, that it was effortless for him.

It was not an addiction.

It was a choice because this man is so alpha.

He is not controlled by any of his addictions.

There it is.

Don't forget that I've written on scripted television shows, too.

I do it all.

That's what I was referring to.

That's it.

I wanted to.

That's what I was referring to.

It's easy done.

I know.

It'd be cool.

Dan left it.

We'll never be cool.

Dan left it out.

But Dan left it out.

But that's why it will never be cool because

we can't be as confident as you.

It's just not.

It's not possible.

It's not that.

So I recognize if we're going to be honest here and I'll drop the alpha man performance for you.

Yeah, I've come to a different place to you.

It may not be a better place, but what happened was I had made enough money.

And it's like a retirement age experience that I was fortunate enough to have in my late 20s that most people never have or don't have till late in life.

I imagine that before Dan started this company where he also, along with the

pressure of having a successful company, carries with it the pressure of succeeding for your friends because they don't have the security that Dan has.

I imagine that if Dan had met Valerie and been all comfortable and happy in his life when he had money and did not have all these pressures, I imagine Dan would have come to a similar place as I have come.

But I was fortunate enough to be able to take a second when I was 29 and I quit at the NBA Players Association.

I looked at my bank account and was like, that's enough money.

How do I want the rest of life, my life to be?

And I looked around and my wife had a bunch of lifelong friends and I didn't have none.

That's what it came to.

And I was like, all right, let's see what I actually care about.

So that deathbed moment that lots of people have or you talk about having where you start assessing things, I did it at 29.

And I was like, all right, when I'm 80, well, probably more like 72.

I'm a black man, as we've established, life expenses, very low.

When I am 72 and I am dying of heart disease or hypertension or just general racism, then I will be like, hey, what did I do with the last 50 years of my life when I had an opportunity to fill my life with things that are going to be rewarding, I kept chasing this bullshit that doesn't matter.

And all I'm saying to you, Pablo, is I want you to be aware of it.

I'm not expecting you to be to change.

And I understand that your financial situation and your position in life is all very different.

But just be aware of what you're doing, the decisions you are making.

And when you make it to what, 80, 85, 90, then you can look back and say, Thanks, Dominique, for snapping me out of that.

I got to go pick up my son from school.

At the very end here, Dan, we're going to do a very unique finish to the show because Dominique Foxworth is gone and we are left to hear his echoing words of wisdom.

And at the end, I am curious if you found out anything big picture, because what I found out truly is that I do need to text Dominique more.

I have been shit about that.

He's just exposed you as a shitty friend on your own podcast, which is mastery.

Found out in ways that are making me genuinely uncomfortable.

But in all

seriousness, though, Pablo, in terms of what kind of friend he aspires to be and wants us to be, because he has learned some of the important things that need to be learned in life, he has been hugely helpful throughout the last couple of months, reaching out only and exclusively to be a friend, because he knows I am in pain and he knows what the important things are after the loss of my brother and won't let me talk, will not let me get to the business stuff because he's forcing me to sit in the friendship.

I remember the first time, the first day I spent any time with Dominique, he was putting on a backpack as he was leaving my apartment.

And he said to me, And when do I get to help you?

You know, he had just started highly questionable.

He's like, when do I get to start helping you?

And ever since then, it's all he's been doing.

Like he lives his life in the right space there, eager, eager to be a good and loving friend.

Yes, he is in that way far more advanced than we are.

We sat down after your brother passed away, Dan, and you brought in to the office a bottle of tequila, four glasses with the intent of let's let's do a show.

Let's make this content.

Let's make your grief content because that is your safe space.

That's your comfort zone.

And I, in my content brain, was down for it.

I was like, yeah, I think that would be good.

I think we can get to some places, as you suspect, that would be real and genuinely compelling.

I'd still like to do that.

I'd still like to do that.

I'd like to explore.

I've been isolating from people because I don't want to do that.

I'm scared to do it.

Even the people who care about me.

Right.

And I get it.

And I would listen to that.

I would participate and I would listen.

But Dominique was the one at that table who said, we are not turning on a microphone right now.

And we sat there and we talked.

And it was an amazing afternoon that I am now betraying for content reasons on public development.

Yeah, and wow, and you're denying them the actual content because it would have been good content.

Like, that conversation, people would have wanted to hear that conversation.

Please, please like and subscribe.

We're all sickos, is what was just informed in my ear.

You know, we talk about love languages a lot in the world of relationships.

And that was our love language, believe it or not.

Me, Dan, Dominique loving each other by sounding like maybe we don't love each other, but that's because we just love each other that much.

So, until next time, Pablo Torre finds out is produced entirely to spite David Sampson, basically.

And the people spiting him are Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rachel Miller-Howard, Carl Scott, Ethan Schreier, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumanello, Studio Engineering by Veridian Tech, post-production by NGW Post, and our theme song by John Bravo.

And I'll talk to you next time.