0:00 How do you know when you're good at something when you never compete or know where you're at? Maybe if you're hitting the target. Exactly. I didn't learn how to ride bike till I was like 12. Oh, I was on training rules the whole time. God, don't talk to me anymore. I didn't even ride a bike. You might get to me. [Music] Welcome back everybody to another amazing episode of the Careful Boys where Careful Boys. Careful Boys where Joe Wong is still here with us. Joe Wong, I refuse to leave. Yeah, you're staying with us. You're here for a while. I didn't realize I've been playing with this cockroach. You want to turn it on? Yes. It's really interesting. Turn on. Wait a minute. It dances. That's what I didn't know. I
0:50 just saw this and some hot sauce here. Crystal hot sauce. Really Chinese, right? I know. Oh, yeah. Chinese street food. Yeah, exactly. Dang. Oh. Oh, wow. Hey. Uh, yeah. I don't know if I like that that much. Yeah. All right. Loud. Yeah. How do you turn this off? Yeah. Cool. Oh, sounds like someone's getting a haircut or playing with a vibrator. Yeah, there it is. Or both. So, what's uh something you guys got good at real quickly? And then later on we talk about something that you still suck at even though you've been doing it forever. I think jiu-jitsu is something I suck at even though I've been doing it forever. That totally answers the question. That's a good one, Joe. Thank you. First time you stuck with the prompt right away. That was in like one sentence.
1:40 That was crazy. He like repeated the thing to give content. I learned it stretch it. Usually I like to start with comedy, but then I I I I went straight to the serious. Straight to the facts. Yeah. Cuz I like to whatever question he has, I like to ████ and say your question. Now is a time hammered. Yeah, you dominated that question. Good. You smashed that question down. What about something you got good at really quickly, Joe? I know. Oh, I know. Yeah, that's a t that's a good talent. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a big one, too. I don't think I've ever got n like I'm natural. I got good at anything quick ever for real. Yeah. I I think it looks it might be like short time because I've spent hell like if I get into something, I'll just
2:31 be like, "Oh, 10 hours every day." And then all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, you you you learned how to jump on that bike and do that at what, like 10 days?" And it's like, "Well, yeah, but I I didn't spend one hour a day on it." Yeah. You know, but there's people that just like I watch the progression like they they haven't even tried this before and then they'll start like doing surfing or golf or something and they just get right on and I'm like what the dude how do you know your body is so good? Yeah. I don't think I'm great at either of these things. But to your point, I picked up piano during COVID and that was like the only thing I was doing during that period of time. So, I think I progressed pretty quickly because that was that was it. Um, you still play it? Yeah, I can play. She plays on her Instagram sometimes. It's sick. You just picked that up during co
3:23 Yeah. I was like, well, what else am I going to do? I might as well do something that I've been But it looked like you've been playing like since your childhood. Like you look like So, that is a quick That's selftaught. That's cool. Um, that and archery. You're like John Lennon, you know? Huh? You're like John Lennon. No, I would not consider myself. But but John Lennon, she says it off. She She says she is off camera. Off camera. Off camera though. Yeah. She talks about how good she is at piano all the time. I'm like, "Shut up, Colleen." Yeah. Piano and archery. I would I'd say those two. I would say I'm like selftaught. Wouldn't say I'm great at it, but decent enough to be passful. So archery, you mean like you really can shoot something with a target? Oh, wow. How do you know when you're good at something when you never compete or know where you're at? Um,
4:13 well, maybe if you're hitting the target. Exactly. Or if you could do do the hard thing. If doing the hard things come easy. Yeah. So, if you're like at a three-point line and you're just going like this and 100 baskets are going in, you're like, I think I'm good at basketball. Yeah. I think this is easy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like Joe, dude. I I feel like everything I've done I was awful at. And there's always a stage of like, man, do I even want to keep doing this ████ thing? Because I know that like, dude, this is going to take forever. Or I get just mad frustrated. I remember the first time I was like, dude, I'm gonna be so good at skateboarding. I got a skateboard. I was like, this is perfect. Soon as I hopped on a skateboard and I felt how unstable it was, I was like, scary. Yeah. I was like I was like, I can't believe people do this. You didn't like tighten the trucks or anything like that? N just like just even rolling on it. I was like, this is not what I imagined skateboarding to be. This is not for me. And I just, you know, it
5:05 took me forever to learn how to ride a bike. I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was like 12. Oh, don't laugh. Start. Don't laugh. Were you on training wheels for that whole time? Yeah, kind of. I was on training wheels the whole time. Oh, and it was sad. It was Yeah, I know. It's ████ sad, isn't it? God. Don't talk to me anymore. You might get to even ride a bike. Hey, I I uh you want to know something embarrassing about skateboarding? What? Um I didn't learn how to stand and ride a skateboard for the longest time. And then all when all of my friends were like doing that and already kick flipping, I was still riding on my knees. Oh, for real? Yeah. Like you know when you're a kid, you you you hold on to the board and you have your knee. So all of my friends are riding and I'm in the back like the dog. You're just like quasimoto just like falling pushing with
5:56 the back back leg. Yeah. I didn't know there was a way to learn how to sk I wish I knew that when I was like in fifth grade trying to learn how to skateboard. That's how kids kind of ride and then you ride standing up. I learned how to ride on a longboard. That's how I learned how to ride. It's a little bit easier, smoother. Yeah. And I was like, "Okay, I get this. This makes a lot of those little wheels are ████ Oh, yeah. And then you hit you hit that tiniest little crack and you're like, that's not right. Throws you off. I must have a s█████ skateboard or something." That's what I thought. I was like, "This skateboard probably sucks. It's not me. I buy the skateboard. What about you, Joe? Mr. Bicycle extraordinaire. Yeah. Yeah. What the hell? Do you know how to ride a uni unicycle with like five people on top of you and stuff? You probably spinning the plates. I I know how to do it, but I can't. Just kid
6:48 work. Technically, you should just balance. Well, I think the quickest thing I learned is probably swimming. Just it just came really easy when I was in probably junior high or uh Did you have an instructor or you just No, no instructor, you know, just bunch of friends got into the river and we just started to swim. What? Yeah. And it later That's scary as ████ Yeah, it was like river. Uh later on my mom told me that was the stretch of the river. My mom's hospital dumped there like a water waste water from their pneumonia clinic. You know that's how to swim. You should have like a superpower or something. Yeah. But then but then that's later on. That's when you got out
7:39 of it and that's it. Look at my power swimming. Yeah. fingers are all webbed. You're like, "Whoa." Exactly. Learning to swim in like live water. That's crazy. Crazy. Cuz there's already a motion. It's not even live water. It's like live feces. Bacteria waves. And also the the most scary part is the the swirl, you know, just really sucks you in there, you know, because like in whirlpools and rapids. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Those are really scary. You have to swim, you watch it, swim around, you know. Yeah. But but but then that's crazy. That's why I used to have a friend. He was a lot stronger than me. Uh once we went to this reservoir and and he thought, "Oh, if Joe can swim, I can do it, too." Man, halfway through, he just started to drown. Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah. He just drank a lot of water. Finally, we made it to the
8:30 pneumonia. Yeah. And then he just couldn't swim back. We ended up having to climb the cliff on the other side. Yeah. just in our like swim trunk, you know, we just got all squed up. Oh ████ So that's when you knew you're like, "Yo, I'm good at swimming." Yeah, but but I don't swim really fast, but I know how to do it. Keep yourself in there. Wow. Wow. That's a big deal. Wow. We're going to need more China stories from you in a minute. You got a ton of China. Crazy. Yeah. What about you, Barton? I don't think I learned anything really fast. Oh, but one thing I did realize, so this is not a traditional skill, but I I realized I I recognize patterns really fast. That's that's why you you're good at analogies. Yeah, maybe. So, this is this is the weird part where like I remember being a kid, I'm like, "Oh, man. I noticed like all Pizza Huts
9:21 have Taco Bells next to them." Oh. Or I would see like certain brands. I'm like, "Oh, they would never take uh carry that at Target cuz Target only carries these type of things or Foot Locker only have these brands." And I would just notice how like the way like the world operated or I'll see like how two brands have a collab and oh that makes perfect sense and I would just like yeah it was just it was just a weird way of like seeing the world. It was weird. And I noticed that as a like as a very as a as a small kid I would just see like thing like little weird things like that. Like I would be like if if like let's say Toyota made a cell phone, oh that's going to fail for sure. But then if Apple made a cell phone, oh, that's probably going to uh make it. And I would just see like little things and I I I just saw really weird patterns. Yeah, it's weird. It's not like a technical skill or anything. I I still
10:11 don't get this though, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like if somebody says to me, hey, you know, let's go get some boba tea at Target. I I would believe them. Yeah. Yeah. They might have it now where it's like to go pack the Yeah. And then what's so weird is I it's it's actually a visceral feeling. Oh. So if I heard someone go, "Let's go get boba tea at Target." It would feel like someone scratching the chalkboard to me. I'm like, "That would never ████ happen." Oh god, stop saying that. Who are you? It's almost like someone You are autistic. Someone playing a chord and then hitting the wrong key. Yeah. Like it's so apparent. Yeah. It's so apparent to me, but I'm like, "How does And no one else see?" And it's always Wow. What else? What else is like like you know like McDonald's and Coke? Yeah. If someone was like, "Oh, I ordered a Pepsi at McDonald's." They would never have Pepsi
11:01 at McDonald's. McDonald's sponsors the Olympics. So does the Coke sponsors the Olympics. They would never have a Pepsi product there. And they would I would conflict of interest. I would feel it. I would feel how the patterns of the world works. Wow. And I felt something. It feels like crazy. Weird, right? By the way, when you walk down a pretty cool It is. My other question is when you walk down a hallway, do you count the tiles I used to do as a kid? E I I do random stuff like that. Oh, okay. Yeah. In my head. When I when I would like like uh poop in like school bathrooms, I used to like Did you Did you guys ever have like that whole magic eye thing where you kind of like look crosseyed and then there's like three images? So, I would like let my eyes get crosseyed and then what h what would happen is like the lines of the tiles start look like they're racing. That's the ecstasy bar. No, this is precasy.
11:52 This is like third grade, dude. And it looked like uh like you know those uh photographs that they take of freeways of like of like at night where they open the shutter so it's like all red all all way the exposure. That's what the tiles would look like. It looked like everything's racing. I'm like, "Wa, they're ████ racing below me." I'm just taking a ████ That's funny. Such a guy thing. It's ████. Wow. What about you, Anthony? Um, I mean, sex having Yeah. Yeah. Just gyating those hips. Such a natural since birth. Getting girls numbers all the time. Since birth, just came out. Probably just say like dancing like and it's one of those things where even like to talk or talk about your question like
12:42 how do you like know when you're good at something type thing. It's like when people start telling you like you're good at that or and then there's that just collective uh I don't know if I'm good but you're good and if you're saying I'm picking this up really quick I guess that means I'm picking it up really quick and then if multiple sources are giving that to you then you're like maybe maybe I'm kind of good at this maybe I should keep going a little bit maybe I should push myself a little harder and then it just became a thing you know I for whatever reason I I was able to pick certain things up really quickly I don't know if it was also pattern recognition uh for dancing. Yeah. Like body mechanics, just an awareness. Certain styles you that gravitated towards you more than the other styles. Um well, I mean I was just like at that time when I was like really starting to like fall in love with it and be really passionate. I was just like I loved the hip-hop culture of it. So that like
13:32 means that I went not into just like commercial choreography movement but like I was learning breaking. I was learning popping and tutting. I was and waving. I was learning locking even. I was like trying different things that were just like associated with the culture because I was like, "Oh, dang." Like these are these are really cool or these are dope funk styles and stuff cuz the music was just like if I if I like that music, I got to be able to dance whatever the dance style is to that music specifically. So, if it's like a break beat, then it's like I should learn some break steps in order to like dance the right way to that song. But then if a funk song came on like I want I want to learn how to like lock or pop or something like that. And then I never got great at everything, but I was like good enough at everything that it was just kind of like, oh, I I guess I can do this. And then, you know, when something starts to become a part of your identity, then you like have a
14:23 you like really are motivated to get really good at something, you know, because people are like, "Oh, yeah, like you dance or you're the dancer." And suddenly I'm like, "Oh ████ well, if you're calling me that, I better be ████ good." So, I just started like picking it up. But even like my first year being on like my uh competition team, I just remember uh that they didn't give like first years like our newbies and whatnot. They didn't like give newbies opportunities to like choreograph for competition sets. Mhm. But I just kept on ████ around and then I remember like the directors came up to me like, "Hey, can you choreograph a section to our competition set?" And I was like, "What? That's crazy." So then I tried it and like same thing like that partic I they gave me two A counts but in my two A counts all I thought to myself was like I better like blow it up and then ironically I did and people you know it's like one of those things where after the competition and we won that
15:13 one. Hell yeah. Um but after the competition people be like yo that moment and I was like yo I can make moments. So then that's what really made me fall in love with choreographing specifically not just dancing. So I actually love choreographing more than I do just like dancing and performing. And it's like that just kind of kept me going. And I was in my first year of doing choreography. Wow. So I I guess I got good at that really fast. Were you getting paid for it? No, this was not in college. Oh, this college? Yeah, that's when I first started cuz I started That's how you started discovering Yeah. I I didn't have like dance training as a kid or anything. I wasn't thrown into a studio or or any of that exposure. Copying Michael Jackson was like the only thing I was trying to do. And then that era of sea walking because of whatever. I like Michael Jackson so much. Yeah, me too. Uh, but the thing is, but when you say that choreographing,
16:03 how is that different from dancing? You actually choreographing is like when you're Yeah, it's like dance designing where you're putting together like phrases and more importantly, I think in the culture of choreography is that like or at least in our culture of it like people are doing it with you. Oh. So, it's this really weird culture where a bunch of people get together and they're like, "Hey, let's all move the same." Oh, okay. Yeah. But I was not addicted to that. Yeah. But are you good at uh memorizing the choreography moves or you just creating and memorizing? Yeah. You saw it once and you can just do it or sometimes not not really like once but Oh yeah. Easy stuff once. Yeah. Sure. But like my pickup my choreography pickup is also like pretty fast as well. Okay. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. But what about stuff that you still suck at even though you do it? Everything. Yeah. Yeah. Where
16:56 do you start? You know, I feel safe for sucking at things and being a beginner. Cuz I like the feeling of, oh, this is new. What's this new thing? And then it's fresh and you're learning everything and you're just amazed by everything. And when you know too much, that's when I'm really hard on myself. It's like you know so much and then there's so many details and you get lost and you overthink it and then you're like really down on yourself and then Yeah. Being being a beginner, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Yeah. And it's so fun and you know like that what is it called? Is it It's not Dunning Krueger, right? But it's like a graph like that where in the beginning you're hella like progressing quickly and all that and then there's like a you have plateau and a huge slope and then there's like another one and it's a it's a natural progression of learning
17:47 something and getting into that state. I like this stage and when it comes down to this stage it's probably because I want to make money out of it. Yeah, I feel you. You know what I mean? If I kept it with no strings attached and it was just a hobby, it would just always be here for me. Yeah. Yeah. That that's where like that's like for me in golf, it's like what? Because I just started and I was starting at ground zero, I I I was like, I'm getting good really fast, right? But then once you get to a certain level, then it's like you expect yourself to be great and you really just actually suck the whole time. You start getting pissed off and then it's like that's why you going to stay sucking. Yeah. That's true. That's how I feel about cooking for me cuz I really like
18:37 cooking. But every time I I eat something I make, I'm like I don't even ████ want this anymore. Like for real. I'm like this ████ sucks. Yeah, cuz you're like it's not what I imagined. It's like one thing is off and I'm like, "Man, ████ this, dude." Oh, I get like that, too. It was leftovers and ████ you know? I I can relate to that, too, cuz I I worked for a uh what was it? Soup kitchen and soup plantation. No, no, I love soup. Oh, an actual soup kitchen. Yeah. Yeah, actually soup kitchen. So, I was I cooked it there. I was okay. You know, and then I opened the doors and those are outside smoking pot. I was like, "How bad does my cooking smell?" They have to smoke pot to work up the appetite. I was like, "Oh man, Joe's cooking again. Light it up. We got to get fed before we eat this." I
19:29 took a bio. It was really bad. Just like, you know, I I used to be a biochemist. I do experiments. You know, you're supposed to put every ingredient the same amount. But for some reason, when it comes to cooking, I just so bad at it. I don't know why. What did you cook at the soup kitchen? You just like chicken wings or something. The pretty normal stuff, but then just tastes bad. You see? That's crazy. You would think a biochemist would be hella good at cooking. You're so precise. Yeah. Oh, that's why I love that show. Um, what was that? Uh, uh, Dexter. Ah, yeah. I was like, you know, it's got blood, got DNA analyzing. I've tried baking. Oh, maybe baking is more apparent cuz I think cooking so much emotions cuz cooking is very subjective as far as like taste, how you
20:19 season it, how you do certain things. It's not it's not like a formula. I feel like baking is way more of a formula. It takes way more precision to be to get it perfectly. Well, I just feel baking is so boring though. Just stick it into the oven and you mix it, bake it, and then you eat it and you're like Joel wants to be in the kitchen. Yeah, exactly. What if you walk back? And then he's all like
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