Do we have any iPhone people here?
IPhone people, where are you at?
Yeah.
OK, listen, this is the Holy Grail.
If you have an iPhone,
you have a function on your phone
called Airdrop.
(audience cheering)
And if you don't know,
you can send any photo you want
to somebody else who has airdrop on.
Oh, don't get weird on me.
Don't tense up.
If they've got airdrop,
you can just one click of a button
send any pictures you want.
I have a portfolio of dead possum
photos.
And I sit at Starbucks,
at the airport, wherever I'm at,
I wait until your name pops up
and then I just--
(audience laughing)
And I look around for the person who
goes, "What the--
(audience laughing)
"Who did this?"
(audience laughing)
For hours.
Because it just pops up
and it says "Accept" or "Decline."
I was on a layover at the airport
and I'm just sitting there,
I'm just getting people the possums.
And there's a girl working
on her laptop and she's facing
the other way.
And so I see "Kat's MacBook" pop-up,
and so I just--
and I see it pop up on her screen.
The game has begun.
(audience laughing)
It pops up, her whole body goes--
(audience laughing)
and then she declined it.
I know.
(audience laughing)
But she left her Airdrop on.
(audience laughing)
So I sent another one.
It goes-- And this time,
she slams her hand on the table,
and she lookes at the guy
across from her almost
like she knew he was going to do it.
And to be fair, he looked like he
was going to do it. Right?
He's got long hair, really tight
pants.
He looks like the guy that
goes on a mission strip
and comes back, and you're like,
Hey, how was that mission strip?
And he's like, "Actually, I
"go by Promise now."
And you're like, Oh, no, Michael
started drinking
the essential oils.
(audience laughing)
So Promise is confused,
she's confused.
I'm in tears behind them.
And she's mad, real mad--
look around the airport
ready to fight.
And if you haven't learned this
about me already in our short time
together, I'm willing to take things
too far.
(audience laughing)
So I'm sitting behind her,
then I take a picture of her.
- Oh, no.
(audience laughing)
So she whips around
to see an empty row of seats
because I already moved
to the other side of the room.
(audience laughing)
Now she's spooked.
Now she's looking
around the airport, she's screaming
at people.
She looks at Promise
and he's like, "I don't know what's
"going on!"
(audience laughing)
And so she runs away
to a different terminal.
And then an hour later, I'm sitting
here I'm like, This is the best day
of my life.
I think there's no way this could
get better.
(audience laughing)
But God is good
(audience laughing)
because an hour later,
I'm boarding my flight--
(audience laughing)
and who gets on my plane?
(audience laughing)
Kat.
Round 2.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, now she's walking down
the thin plane aisle.
I'm leaning out.
She bumps my arm with her leg,
and I look up and I say,
"Sorry Kat."
(audience laughing)
And she goes,
What did you say?
"I said sorry about that."
(audience laughing)
I'm in her head!
(audience laughing)
We get to baggage claim.
She's looking around ready to fight
someone in the airport
like she works for United. Alright?
(audience laughing)
And here's what I didn't think
through, you see, all of my travel
cases have Jaron Myers spray-painted
real big on the side.
The only thing she knows
is that my name is Jaron Myers
because that pops up, just so you
know.
(audience laughing)
So she knows my name is Jaron Myers
and I want to share dead possums
with her.
(audience laughing)
So she sees those cases.
Now she's red with anger, and I just
have to wait her out.
I wait 20 minutes, and she's looking
around.
She finally gets in a cab
and goes home.
And I realize that eventually she's
going to google my name.
(audience laughing)
Now I'm not going to be there
to witness her see my website--
(audience laughing)
that I updated to say "Jaron Myers
"is a comedian that died in 2011
"at the hands of rabid possums."
Hey, thanks for hanging.
Thanks for letting me be here.
What an honor to do
a Dry Bar Comedy special.
(audience laughing)
Thanks for coming out.
If we haven't met before,
my name is Jaron.
I came here from Kansas City,
Missouri.
I'm 28 years old.
I do have a girlfriend.
(audience member cheers)
(audience laughing)
You clap like you didn't think
I should have one.
That's what that felt like.
That was like a,
"Good for you, really?"
(audience laughing)
I didn't like that.
(audience laughing)
You're right, though.
I do love my girlfriend a lot, man.
She's prettier than me,
first of all.
I look like a Honda Odyssey minivan
came to life.
(audience laughing)
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, deluxe version.
But she's beautiful.
You know, when you see a couple out
in public and you're, like--
(audience laughing)
Don't act like you don't judge
people like that.
All you were like, "We would never."
Yeah, you do, all right?
I feel it.
We walk into places and people look
across the room, and they're like--
(audience laughing)
"Guys, that girl's being followed
"by her Uber driver right now."
(audience laughing)
Don't act like you don't judge
people like that, man.
She's awesome.
I love that girl a lot.
She's not only beautiful,
she is hilarious, she is courageous,
and I am terrified of her.
I am, I'm serious.
I'm honestly
afraid of all white girls.
(audience laughing)
I am, and I have a good reason.
And I'm looking around the room
right now, OK, because all of you
all listen to these true crime
podcasts.
(audience laughing)
Some of you are like--
Yeah, you, psycho.
You.
Yeah, because I don't if you know,
if you see a white girl
with headphones in, they don't even
listen to music anymore, all right?
If you take that headphone,
all it is is, "And then he
"cut her arms off."
(audience laughing)
That's just what they're listening
to all the time.
(audience laughing)
And here's what I don't like,
is that we were watching a movie
last week and my girlfriend goes,
"I think they put the body
"in the river."
(audience laughing)
And I was like, No, it would float.
Right?
And then she said, "Not if you
"puncture the lungs."
(audience laughing)
I don't like that you know that.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, I don't need to know that you
know that.
I'm terrified of her, man.
But that's all they're doing.
They're taking notes on how to get
rid of us.
But It's been four years
and she hasn't killed me yet.
So I think we're all right.
It is it has been four years,
and I grew up Christian.
I'm 28.
I know, I know, guys.
I get it,
I'm a 28-year-old unmarried
Christian.
That's old.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, all my friends got married
10 years ago--
(audience laughing)
for one reason.
(audience laughing)
The tax benefits, right?
(audience laughing)
All our friends-- we're the last one
in our friend group to get married.
We really are.
And so all of our friends
got married several years ago.
Now they've got kids, which
is awesome, because I get to hang
out with kids
and get the joy of being around fun
children.
But then I don't have to deal
with that when they're not fun.
You know what I'm talking about?
And so the only problem I have
is that all my friends are
like hipster, white, Midwest
Christian people who all grew up
with six Rachel's in their class.
(audience laughing)
You know what I'm talking about?
So now my friends are like, "I don't
"want my child to go through that.
"I want our child to have a name as
"unique as they are."
(audience laughing)
Do you feel all the 20 something
girls in here going, "Oh, no?"
Have you met that feeling?
Like you can't even tell if they're
talking about their children
or their pets anymore.
I was on the phone with my friend
and he's like, "Yeah, I went
"to the park
"the other day with Spartacus
"and Apollo."
And I was like, Are those
your dogs?
He's like, "No, man,
"those are my sons.
"Our dog's name is Jacob."
(audience laughing)
Just switch them, dude.
(audience laughing)
Are there dog people here tonight?
Dog people, where you at?
(audience cheering)
Nice.
All right.
Cat people?
(audience cheering)
Hey, welcome outside.
(audience laughing)
I'm fine with cat and dog people.
There some people who have
weird pets, though.
Like I grew up in a small rural town
in the middle of Missouri, a couple
of thousand people.
In my town, my junior year
of high school, these posters popped
up-- like you know when you lose
your dog
and you get those posters that are
like, "Please help me
"find this thing"?
These posters around my town
said lost Python, and I was like
it could stay that way.
But my favorite part about it
was they had big text,
"Lost Python," and right underneath it
was a picture of the snake.
(audience laughing)
You know, in case you got confused.
(audience laughing)
In case you walk out of Walmart
and you see a 6 foot snake but you
still have to be like--
(audience laughing)
Well, I don't know, it's not wearing
a collar.
I don't know, right?
(audience laughing)
Underneath it, big red text,
"If you see this snake,
"plesae don't approach it."
That's common sense to all of us
in this room.
(audience laughing)
But I'm telling you,
I grew up in rural Missouri
and they knew they had to put that
on there, all right?
(audience laughing)
They knew there'd be some guy
in the back of his pickup truck,
like, "I'm going to wrangle
"this thing back into the Chamber
"of Secrets."
(audience laughing)
Oh, sorry.
Christians, the Chamber of Secrets
is a--
(audience laughing)
You'll catch the VeggieTales
version. You're good.
(audience laughing)
I grew up not allowed to watch
Harry Potter, anybody else?
What?
Is that not a thing?
I grew up in the Bible Belt.
In Missouri, in the Bible Belt, that
was like a no-go.
Is that not the thing out here?
You all were, like,
you're fine with the devil?
(audience laughing)
I guess.
(audience laughing)
I'm telling you, all the parents
where I was growing up,
they were like, "It is mm-mm."
My mom was like, "It's potions,
"Jaron.
"It's witchcraft, and it's potions."
(audience laughing)
I know, right?
And now if I get a headache,
that woman comes around the corner
like, "Well, all you need
"is two drops of peppermint
"and thyme."
(audience laughing)
That's a potion, Christine,
all right?
(audience laughing)
You can't just call a caldron
a diffuser and make it Holy.
(audience laughing)
I'm sorry.
Are there oils people here?
Oils people?
You are?
I'm sorry, if you're offended, just
put some lavender on it, right?
(audience laughing)
(audience applauding)
My mom got into it because she
wanted to do
the whole natural healthy thing.
And honestly, I grew up
in the Midwest.
We grew up very unhealthy people.
OK.
We did, though.
I'm serious.
Me and my mom
were both overweight people,
and we actually decided when I was
in college that we were going to get
healthy together.
And so it's been a long journey,
but I have lost over 130 pounds.
(audience cheering)
And I know that all of us every year
are like, "We're going to get
"healthy this year."
But I was 400 pounds.
There's a moment where you know
you got to lose weight,
you know what I'm talking about?
My moment was one day,
I was in the shower,
and when I turned my belly button
suction cupped to the wall--
(audience laughing)
I had to have someone bring me
a credit card to break the seal.
(audience laughing)
I had to get healthier, man.
I grew up in the Midwest.
We ate a lot of unhealthy food.
We ate-- I don't even know if you
guys have these out here.
Y'all got Waffle House?
No?
All right, listen, Waffle House
is important to my heart
for multiple reasons.
One, if you've never been
to a Waffle House,
it is like if you went
to the bathroom back here
and if that served food, right?
That's what it is, all right?
It's like if they were like slinging
breakfast food out of there,
and some dude named Skittles is
behind the counter.
It's aggressive,
but it's important in the Midwest.
And this is real, Waffle House
doesn't close ever.
Period, end of sentence, done.
And I'm not talking about like,
"Oh they're open on Christmas."
I mean F5 tornadoe swirling
around, Waffle House-- lights on,
someone's cooking food.
(audience laughing)
I'm not joking.
This is so real.
And they do this, and they're all
through the South.
This is so true that FEMA, which
is the Federal Emergency
Management Agency,
responsible for cleanup
after disasters, like we all know,
they have-- google this later, pull
out your little phones
and search that I'm not lying
to you, OK?
They have what's called a Waffle
House index.
(audience laughing)
I'm serious.
We'll get back to the ha-has
in a little bit.
This is News, all right?
(audience laughing)
They have a Waffle House index where
they determine how bad damage is
in an area after a storm
by whether Waffle House is
open or closed.
(audience laughing)
Do you understand that somewhere
in a government building there's
an intern that busts
through the door and says,
"Code Red!"
And everyone in that room
knows that means, "Waffle down."
You know what I'm talking about?
And they say it's because Waffle
House is more prepared for disasters
than anybody else.
Ah, excuse me, are you telling me
Waffle House is more
prepared for a hurricane
than they are for a standard health
inspection?
(audience laughing)
I think what it is is the people
that work at Waffle House
look out the window
and see a hurricane,
and they're like,
"My life can't get worse--
(audience laughing)
Somebody awed at that?
Some of you are like, "Awh."
That's been happening more.
I've been telling that joke
for a few years, and only recently
had people like, "Oh, we don't want
"to make fun of Waffle House
"employees."
(audience laughing)
Shut up.
Shut up, all right?
They know.
That got me hired
by a corporate event
from Waffle House, you understand?
That I went to a Waffle House event,
told that to a room full of Waffle
House employees, and they laughed.
(audience laughing)
And then they slashed my tires
in the parking lot.
But whatever.
(audience laughing)
You laugh like a goblin, my guy.
(audience laughing)
I am a little worried.
I've got the spirit of Jesus.
You stay over there, brother.
(audience laughing)
You're covering your mouth
like you're afraid of what's going
to come out.
(audience laughing)
That's right.
There are some people who suck it
back in.
You know what I'm talking about.
That's my favorite.
(audience laughing)
Me and my mom got healthy together.
We bonded over that.
I love my mom a lot,
I love my parents a lot.
They're the best people.
And I don't know about
y'all's family, but my family
in the past few years has been
pretty divided on some stuff.
OK, you too, you feel that?
Did you feel like everyone just
went--
Like everyone was like,
"What's he going to say?"
So my family's got a few people who
are like opinion people,
you know what I'm talking about?
At Thanksgiving, they're always
like, "Well, here is my opinion."
And then you got the other ones
who're like, "Well, here is mine."
And they just go back and forth.
I'm not one of those people at all.
I'm not about that.
But I am the kind of person who will
lean in and say something and then
just lean back and watch it happen.
(audience laughing)
This is my favorite holiday
tradition.
At Thanksgiving, I'll just be like,
"Yeah, can you pass the potatoes
"and some sensible gun laws."
Oh, yeah.
It's the tension in this room
right now.
Because Uncle Derek is throwing Todd
through the wall.
My mom is like, "You should just
"go take a drive, OK?
"And come back when you're
"ready to be part of this family."
Yeah, and I was like,
"I'm going to go read Harry Potter
"in the car."
I just love to stir stuff up, man.
But I will say, at Christmas time,
there was something that brought us
together.
First of all, Christmas traditions
naturally kind of bring families
together.
You see the car commercial,
and you're like, "Oh, we are
"a happy family."
But then, every once in a while,
you'll get a golden nugget,
and my family got that.
My cousin brought her boyfriend
home to meet the rest of us
for the first time last Christmas,
and we all agreed.
We're like,
let's put our differences aside.
Let's all agree that this guy sucks.
(audience laughing)
People were like, oh,
love will bring you together.
"No, no, no, no, baby, mutual hatred
"will bond you for life."
We hated this guy
for different reasons.
Everyone had their own.
And so, first of all,
he comes driving up our driveway
in one of those lowered Honda
Civics, you know what I'm talking
about?
Yeah, real low to the ground,
sounds like it's propelled forward
by six leaf blowers. You know?
And so we already kind of
had a bad taste in our mouths.
And my uncle just lets this stuff
happen.
He's just watching, he's like,
This is who my daughter has chosen
to date.
And we were all like, "Yeah, you can
"do something about that." You know?
And so, but the final straw
was that he'd gone into town to get
something, he comes back out to pick
my cousin up and was going to take
her out on a date,
and from the driveway--
I know-- he honks the horn.
I know.
(audience laughing)
And again, my uncle just stood there
as she goes out there and gets
in the car door.
I was just--
I was like, "Bro."
If that's my daughter--
I don't have kids yet,
but I'm saying like, if that's
my daughter
and some twerp comes up
the driveway, and from the driveway
honks the horn,
I'm shooting from the front porch.
Yeah, and then my wife
comes out to get rid of your body,
bro.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, he's gonna have
some punctured lungs.
(audience laughing)
I did realize I brought up how
divisive things have been
and everyone kind of got
a little tense.
Doesn't it feel like the temperature
in the world is just,
like, here all the time?
And so I think I realized this was
happening to me.
Last year, I realized I was just
angry all the time.
I would go out--
because social media
and even conversations with friends
and the news, it's just throwing
stuff that's like, "Hey,
"are you mad?"
And I was like, "Well, I wasn't."
And it's like, "You should be."
And you're like, "OK, all right."
So look, what happens is our brains
are being trained
through conversations with friends.
You surround yourself
with these people who always want
to talk
about the socioeconomic impacts
of what, blah, blah,
and they want to talk about what's
wrong with the world.
And so your brain gets trained,
as soon as you walk out
your front door, you're looking
for what makes you angry.
You know what I'm talking about?
You're looking for that bumper
sticker, that person wearing a mask,
not wearing a mask, that flag,
whatever it is.
And your brain is like a little
seeking thing that's just like--
And I realized that was happening
to me.
And I realized that the same way
that I had allowed my brain
to be trained to find what's wrong
or what's out of place
with the world,
I could retrain my brain to instead
of finding what's wrong first,
I could train my brain to find
moments of joy, hope, opportunities
to serve and love those around me.
And so I've been really working
for the past year and a half
to put that--
(audience cheering)
Yeah, so I've been trying to find
more fun, and one of the ways I did
that was-- the Starbucks by my house
has two entrances to get inside.
I hung up two signs that said,
"Please use the other door."
(audience laughing)
Because people are mad
when they see the first one.
When they walk
around the whole building
and see the second one--
(audience laughing)
that's free joy.
(audience laughing)
I thought I was going to watch
a middle-aged white lady bust
through the door.
Yeah, nothing's getting
between Catherine and her pumpkin
spice.
(audience laughing)
Oh, my goodness.
Go to Walmart.
They sell picture frames.
Go to Walmart,
print out your own pictures,
and then just put your own face down
the aisle.
(audience laughing)
Are you picturing it?
I didn't mean it.
I didn't mean to say it like that.
But I'm saying,
can see what I'm saying?
Your whole face down the aisle, just
the whole.
Someone's going to buy a frame
with you in it and then they're just
never going to replace it,
and you're just sitting their home
forever.
If you're struggling to find joy,
lower the bar.
(audience laughing)
I'm serious.
Fun is around you everywhere.
I promise you, I've been doing this
for years.
It became a trend on TikTok
last year.
Call somebody,
you can do this tonight when you
leave,
call somebody in your contacts list
and as soon as they
answer, say, "Hey, I'm busy.
"Can I call you back?"
(audience laughing)
Because they're like,
"You called me."
And you're like, "I got to go, Oh."
Let that wash over you.
(audience laughing)
Go to a fast food place.
You all got Chick-fil-A out here?
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah, all right.
First of all, if you've not been
to a Chick-fil-A recently,
they've got a three-lane highway
outside their building.
You pull up and they're just like,
"Why don't you go on down to lane 16
"for me."
And then you get there
and some 11-year-old kid runs out
your food.
I don't know where they're finding
this--
I mean, I know where they find them.
They're home-schooled.
But you get it, like--
(audience laughing)
I don't think they're exploiting
child labor.
That's fine.
But go to a fast food place,
get a large drink cup, not a drink,
a drink cup, and then tape
that cup to the roof of your car.
You're there already.
And then just drive around.
(audience laughing)
People lose their minds, dude.
You know what I'm saying?
You'll be in a red light and someone
say, "Hey!
(audience laughing)
"Your drink's on the roof!"
(audience laughing)
If you're a bad person,
leave a dog leash hanging out
the trunk.
(audience laughing)
Don't put a dog on the other end,
just the leash.
(audience laughing)
I'm telling you
fun is available to you.
That's the whole thing.
If you're struggling to find fun
in your life, I promise you,
if you'll do it on purpose,
if you'll find more fun, eventually,
you won't have to look for it.
I'm serious.
Your brain will just do it
on its own.
I was walking out of my apartment
one day.
They give golf cart tours.
I don't live in a fancy place,
but they want to appear as fancy.
And so they give golf cart tours
with people who might move in.
And so they come around the corner,
I'm walking out to my car.
And the leasing agent,
she knows what I do for a living,
and sometimes they make mistakes.
Because she goes, "Hey, Jaron."
And I'm telling you, my training
took over.
Without thinking, she says my name
and I just switched to--
(audience laughing)
"Hello, my name is Jaron.
"I love living here."
(audience laughing)
And she's slamming her foot
on the pedal trying to get out
of there.
I just watch her leave.
(audience laughing)
I get in my car, I am crying,
laughing.
I called my friend I'm like, "Hey,
"man, I'm busy.
"Can I call you back?"
(audience laughing)
And as I'm explaining it to him,
I realize that they give those tours
every Friday.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, and I don't have a day job.
(audience laughing)
I had a full week to prepare.
So the next Friday they came
around that corner.
I had gone to Home Depot
and bought gardening shears
and I was just out front
of my building.
(audience laughing)
No bushes, all right?
(audience laughing)
Oh, yeah, I'm cutting air.
(audience laughing)
Because she's going to be like,
"He's joking."
It's so good.
I did this so much they changed
the room.
They didn't even come by my building
anymore.
That's free joy, I'll tell you right here.
Do we have any iPhone people here?
IPhone people, where are you at?
Yeah.
OK, listen, this is the Holy Grail.
If you have an iPhone,
you have a function on your phone
called Airdrop.
(audience cheering)
And if you don't know,
you can send any photo you want
to somebody else who has airdrop on.
Oh, don't get weird on me.
Don't tense up.
If they've got airdrop,
you can just one click of a button
send any pictures you want.
I have a portfolio of dead possum
photos.
And I sit at Starbucks,
at the airport, wherever I'm at,
I wait until your name pops up
and then I just--
(audience laughing)
And I look around for the person who
goes, "What the--
(audience laughing)
"Who did this?"
(audience laughing)
For hours.
Because it just pops up
and it says "Accept" or "Decline."
I was on a layover at the airport
and I'm just sitting there,
I'm just getting people the possums.
And there's a girl working
on her laptop and she's facing
the other way.
And so I see "Kat's MacBook" pop-up,
and so I just--
and I see it pop up on her screen.
The game has begun.
(audience laughing)
It pops up, her whole body goes--
(audience laughing)
and then she declined it.
I know.
(audience laughing)
But she left her Airdrop on.
(audience laughing)
So I sent another one.
It goes-- And this time,
she slams her hand on the table,
and she lookes at the guy
across from her almost
like she knew he was going to do it.
And to be fair, he looked like he
was going to do it. Right?
He's got long hair, really tight
pants.
He looks like the guy that
goes on a mission strip
and comes back, and you're like,
Hey, how was that mission strip?
And he's like, "Actually, I
"go by Promise now."
And you're like, Oh, no, Michael
started drinking
the essential oils.
(audience laughing)
So Promise is confused,
she's confused.
I'm in tears behind them.
And she's mad, real mad--
look around the airport
ready to fight.
And if you haven't learned this
about me already in our short time
together, I'm willing to take things
too far.
(audience laughing)
So I'm sitting behind her,
then I take a picture of her.
- Oh, no.
(audience laughing)
So she whips around
to see an empty row of seats
because I already moved
to the other side of the room.
(audience laughing)
Now she's spooked.
Now she's looking
around the airport, she's screaming
at people.
She looks at Promise
and he's like, "I don't know what's
"going on!"
(audience laughing)
And so she runs away
to a different terminal.
And then an hour later, I'm sitting
here I'm like, This is the best day
of my life.
I think there's no way this could
get better.
(audience laughing)
But God is good
(audience laughing)
because an hour later,
I'm boarding my flight--
(audience laughing)
and who gets on my plane?
(audience laughing)
Kat.
Round 2.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, now she's walking down
the thin plane aisle.
I'm leaning out.
She bumps my arm with her leg,
and I look up and I say,
"Sorry Kat."
(audience laughing)
And she goes,
What did you say?
"I said sorry about that."
(audience laughing)
I'm in her head!
(audience laughing)
We get to baggage claim.
She's looking around ready to fight
someone in the airport
like she works for United. Alright?
(audience laughing)
And here's what I didn't think
through, you see, all of my travel
cases have Jaron Myers spray-painted
real big on the side.
The only thing she knows
is that my name is Jaron Myers
because that pops up, just so you
know.
(audience laughing)
So she knows my name is Jaron Myers
and I want to share dead possums
with her.
(audience laughing)
So she sees those cases.
Now she's red with anger, and I just
have to wait her out.
I wait 20 minutes, and she's looking
around.
She finally gets in a cab
and goes home.
And I realize that eventually she's
going to google my name.
(audience laughing)
Now I'm not going to be there
to witness her see my website--
(audience laughing)
that I updated to say "Jaron Myers
"is a comedian that died in 2011
"at the hands of rabid possums."
I'm Jaron Myers.
Thank you so much.
divisive things have been
and everyone kind of got
a little tense.
Doesn't it feel like the temperature
in the world is just,
like, here all the time?
And so I think I realized this was
happening to me.
Last year, I realized I was just
angry all the time.
I would go out--
because social media
and even conversations with friends
and the news, it's just throwing
stuff that's like, "Hey,
"are you mad?"
And I was like, "Well, I wasn't."
And it's like, "You should be."
And you're like, "OK, all right."
So look, what happens is our brains
are being trained
through conversations with friends.
You surround yourself
with these people who always want
to talk
about the socioeconomic impacts
of what, blah, blah,
and they want to talk about what's
wrong with the world.
And so your brain gets trained,
as soon as you walk out
your front door, you're looking
for what makes you angry.
You know what I'm talking about?
You're looking for that bumper
sticker, that person wearing a mask,
not wearing a mask, that flag,
whatever it is.
And your brain is like a little
seeking thing that's just like--
And I realized that was happening
to me.
And I realized that the same way
that I had allowed my brain
to be trained to find what's wrong
or what's out of place
with the world,
I could retrain my brain to instead
of finding what's wrong first,
I could train my brain to find
moments of joy, hope, opportunities
to serve and love those around me.
And so I've been really working
for the past year and a half
to put that--
(audience cheering)
Yeah, so I've been trying to find
more fun, and one of the ways I did
that was-- the Starbucks by my house
has two entrances to get inside.
I hung up two signs that said,
"Please use the other door."
(audience laughing)
Because people are mad
when they see the first one.
When they walk
around the whole building
and see the second one--
(audience laughing)
that's free joy.
(audience laughing)
I thought I was going to watch
a middle-aged white lady bust
through the door.
Yeah, nothing's getting
between Catherine and her pumpkin
spice.
(audience laughing)
Oh, my goodness.
Go to Walmart.
They sell picture frames.
Go to Walmart,
print out your own pictures,
and then just put your own face down
the aisle.
(audience laughing)
Are you picturing it?
I didn't mean it.
I didn't mean to say it like that.
But I'm saying,
can see what I'm saying?
Your whole face down the aisle, just
the whole.
Someone's going to buy a frame
with you in it and then they're just
never going to replace it,
and you're just sitting their home
forever.
If you're struggling to find joy,
lower the bar.
(audience laughing)
I'm serious.
Fun is around you everywhere.
I promise you, I've been doing this
for years.
It became a trend on TikTok
last year.
Call somebody,
you can do this tonight when you
leave,
call somebody in your contacts list
and as soon as they
answer, say, "Hey, I'm busy.
"Can I call you back?"
(audience laughing)
Because they're like,
"You called me."
And you're like, "I got to go, Oh."
Let that wash over you.
(audience laughing)
Go to a fast food place.
You all got Chick-fil-A out here?
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah, all right.
First of all, if you've not been
to a Chick-fil-A recently,
they've got a three-lane highway
outside their building.
You pull up and they're just like,
"Why don't you go on down to lane 16
"for me."
And then you get there
and some 11-year-old kid runs out
your food.
I don't know where they're finding
this--
I mean, I know where they find them.
They're home-schooled.
But you get it, like--
(audience laughing)
I don't think they're exploiting
child labor.
That's fine.
But go to a fast food place,
get a large drink cup, not a drink,
a drink cup, and then tape
that cup to the roof of your car.
You're there already.
And then just drive around.
(audience laughing)
People lose their minds, dude.
You know what I'm saying?
You'll be in a red light and someone
say, "Hey!
(audience laughing)
"Your drink's on the roof!"
(audience laughing)
If you're a bad person,
leave a dog leash hanging out
the trunk.
(audience laughing)
Don't put a dog on the other end,
just the leash.
(audience laughing)
I'm telling you
fun is available to you.
That's the whole thing.
If you're struggling to find fun
in your life, I promise you,
if you'll do it on purpose,
if you'll find more fun, eventually,
you won't have to look for it.
I'm serious.
Your brain will just do it
on its own.
I was walking out of my apartment
one day.
They give golf cart tours.
I don't live in a fancy place,
but they want to appear as fancy.
And so they give golf cart tours
with people who might move in.
And so they come around the corner,
I'm walking out to my car.
And the leasing agent,
she knows what I do for a living,
and sometimes they make mistakes.
Because she goes, "Hey, Jaron."
And I'm telling you, my training
took over.
Without thinking, she says my name
and I just switched to--
(audience laughing)
"Hello, my name is Jaron.
"I love living here."
(audience laughing)
And she's slamming her foot
on the pedal trying to get out
of there.
I just watch her leave.
(audience laughing)
I get in my car, I am crying,
laughing.
I called my friend I'm like, "Hey,
"man, I'm busy.
"Can I call you back?"
(audience laughing)
And as I'm explaining it to him,
I realize that they give those tours
every Friday.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, and I don't have a day job.
(audience laughing)
I had a full week to prepare.
So the next Friday they came
around that corner.
I had gone to Home Depot
and bought gardening shears
and I was just out front
of my building.
(audience laughing)
No bushes, all right?
(audience laughing)
Oh, yeah, I'm cutting air.
(audience laughing)
Because she's going to be like,
"He's joking."
It's so good.
I did this so much they changed
the room.
They didn't even come by my building
anymore.
That's free joy, I'll tell you right here.