Tommy Metz III

It was a dating show that I think was followed up by A shot of penicillin. So Tia Tequila, old host turned right wing weirdo, it turned out, wrote once, I hate my Lambo. Police is always pulling me over just because it's a Lambo. So they always think I'm speeding, but I'm not. Then they let me go. Okay. So she's saying, woe is me, my life is so hard, but it's because I have a Lamborghini. Yeah.

That's a humble brag.

Good. Toy Story 3 and Finding Nemo director Lee Unkrich once said, quote, spazz alert, colon, I tripped walking upstairs to receive my Oscar nominee certificate. Hashtag forever a nerd.

And also, he did trip. This is a humblebrag. There's no reason to say that. I mean, you can see that they really want everyone to know that he got an Oscar nominee certificate, but he's pretending to do it under the guise of Uber.

We didn't need to know that he was receiving an Oscar. I'm pushing back on your pushback. It's a classic humblebrag. Let me keep going. Okay. Keep going. Actor, comedian, Stephen Fry. Wrote, oh dear, don't know what to... Oh, all great British humblebrags start with oh dear. Yeah. Oh dear, don't know what to do at the airport. Huge crowd, but I'll miss my plane if I stop and do photos.

Dot, dot, dot. Oh dear, don't want to disappoint people like Stephen Fry.

And finally, Kevin Hart. Comedian, quote, actor, end quote. I'm watching the UCLA and Florida game in amazement because I performed in the same arena where they are playing now and sold it out. Hashtag God is good. These are all. So that's humble bragging. Okay. Yeah.

You're ready for the whiplash of one of the worst segues to talk about myself in history. Oh, good. Yeah. I'd like to offer up a twist on that term, humble bragging, and explain how I use it in Young Storytellers.

And Young Storytellers, real quick, it is a nonprofit creative writing and literacy program that I work for out of Los Angeles that I've talked about a bunch. I call it, this is a thing that I, I'm just making up this phrase for this episode. I've never called it this before, but I desperately wanted to relate it to what we're talking about. I call it dumbbell bragging. These were humble bragging.

I'm dumbbell bragging. May I explain it? And the reason I want to bring this up is because you don't work with kids, but A, you have kids, and B, you have been an instructor. You've been a teacher for people younger than you. And so I wonder if A, you... Find value in what I'm about to explain to you and B, if you've ever used it. Does that make sense? Go for it.

So when I'm working with a new fifth grader, I pretty much exclusively work with fifth graders, especially one that is very shy or introverted. It can be very hard to get them to trust me or to open up. Of course, because I'm a 49-year-old thousand man and they are a child with their life in front of me and they can see the light dying in my eyes.

And so they don't want to catch what I've caught, which is aging. And so I have a large basket of tricks that I can use. But one that I've been leaning on more and more lately is making myself vulnerable through a bit of self-deprecation of sorts.

I will actively make a mistake or do something kind of dumb or silly on purpose in front of the kid and then call myself out on it and laugh about it together. Like I won't talk down about myself. I won't say, ugh, or get frustrated. I'm such a jerk. What did I do? I'll just poke fun at myself. May I give you an example? I hope you do. This is a true story.

Two weeks ago, I was working with a young girl named Estefania, and she was very sweet and polite, but painfully shy. I was actually subbing in for another mentor. So this was like week three, and she was just meeting me for the first time and was never going to see me again. I was just subbing in for a mentor. So I realized that she was really, really quiet.

I've been told by the mentor, it's really hard to get her to open up. And so I started the process by we were sitting next to each other and I was reading out loud the last bit of the script that she had written so far. And to help bridge the gap, I tripped myself up on purpose. I'd like to, this is what I mean by dumbbell bragging.

You're being a little dumb on purpose to make yourself more accessible to others that need it. So for example, her script took place in Africa and the main character was a giraffe with an Australian accent. And I'd say it's lines and I'd do the accent. Pete, we know and avid listeners know I cannot do accents at all. Settled linguistic science. Yeah. Yes.

But I would make it egregiously bad for her and then say, I'm so terrible at voices. And she would giggle. And then I'd try to have her say it. And then I'd get even worse for the next line. Or I do it as an English accent. Like I would just keep messing up. And then I finally and she would giggle. And finally, I was like, OK, you're in charge of all the draft lines.

When we read together, I'll read all the other characters of the script stuff because I'm too embarrassing. You have to do it. And just like that, I got her talking. Now she's saying all the lines. She is comfortable with me. She's leaning into me emotionally.

And I think she got comfortable with me in part because showing vulnerability and making mistakes, albeit leaning into it on purpose, I erased the line between instructor and student. By dumbbell bragging, I raised her up to my level by lowering myself to hers. Wait. That was a riddle, but you understand. Oh, I met her in the middle.

It's like... Like when you meet a friend's kid, some adults instinctively, like if they're very small, instinctively get down on their hunches. Like you physically lower yourself to their level. Right. So you're not just looking down on them when they're staring up at you. When they're staring up at you, that's when they hide behind their parents' legs. It's because you are an intimidating force.