Don’t Turn Chicken Into Fish

0:00Ready to start a podcast? Bill Moran Productions is ready for you. Simply go to Bill MoranProductions.com and fill out our contact us form. Or call us anytime. 585 206 88 66. Your voice, your story. Bill Moran Productions handles the rest. And Billified, we like to align ourselves with people who can bring you value. That's why we're really excited to welcome Dr. Thaney and his team at Brockport smiles to the Billified team. Look, we've all had the thought. I should probably see a dentist. And then there's what I call a bombed out mouth. Broken teeth, missing teeth, teeth worn down to nothing. A mouth filled with rotten decay. Sometimes you get dental work sold, it deserves a pension. If you're chewing everything on one side because the other side of your mouth has basically been condemned, Brockport smiles can help you out. Dr. Thaney and the team offer full mouth reconstruction, looking at your entire mouth and creating a personalized plan to

1:00restore your teeth, to restore your bite, your health. And most importantly, comfort and confidence. You can finally laugh with your mouth open and not feel judged. Crounds, implants, restorative care, in visoline, whatever your mouth actually needs. And here's a great thing. The consultation is free. Plus, Brockport smiles has moved into their brand new home. It's at 133 states drinking Brockport. And on Thursday, September 17th, they're throwing a grand opening. Refreshments, giveaways, and Billified's going to be there. That's right. We're going to be in a dentist office. Finally, then we're having a big mouth is actually relevant. So, come meet Dr. Thaney and the team. Check out the new place and come say hello to us from Billified Brockport smiles. 133 states street in Brockport online at BrockportSmiles.com are called 585-637-6884. That's 585-637-688-84.

2:00The only podcast where the host needs a therapist. In the issue for me that I've realized is I need external validation. I need external validation for women. And wants to be one. I hear you. I hear you. From a Mac of all trade studio in Fairport, New York, it's Billified, the Bill Moran podcast. Well, hello and welcome my friends. Thanks for getting your pod on. Thank you for telling a friend. That's how we spread the word about the pirate ship. I think I got to change that open. I don't need external validation. Maybe we all do a little bit. This is going to be a solo. It's just me. I want to talk about being present. And I know that sounds like I'm about to light a candle and bring a little bell and tell you about becoming one with the universe. I'm not.

3:02I learned this lesson from chicken. Really. No, really, really shitty chicken. I decided I was going to make firecracker chicken the other night. And I found a recipe. It looked really easy chicken breast peppers, green onions, soy sauce, avocado oil and cornstarch to coat the chicken. Now I didn't have cornstarch. So I ran to the store specifically to buy cornstarch. I bought it, grabbed a couple other items, including baking soda, and I came home to become Bobby Flay. Or at least Bobby Flay's divorced uncle who wants a decent skill at something like that. I cut up all the chicken, got the avocado oil heating up in the pan. I chopped everything up. The recipe called for less chicken than I was actually using. So naturally I adjusted. I'm a chef. I'm feeling good. You know, I reach into the grocery bag. I grab a box out. I open it. I start coating the chicken. Never

4:04looked at the box. Not once. Chicken goes into the hot oil. Three minutes aside. While that's cooking, I'm cutting up the peppers, cutting up green onions, pulling, cooking chicken out, putting more chicken in. And the entire time I'm texting, I'm also listening to something in earbuds. I'm on the phone as well. That's why, you know, that's why I love the earbuds because you can do other things, right? I'm doing like seven things all at once while pretending I'm cooking dinner. I taste a piece of chicken. Bitter. Like, big gag bitter. But I'm like, yeah, once I get the soy sauce and everything else in there, it's going to be fine. This is how men fix relationships. Throw a little soy sauce on it. They'll be fine. How do you know worry about it? I add everything. Still better. And I don't mean a little better. The chicken tasted angry. Like, but here's the thing.

5:08I'm invested now and it's become a challenge. I'm on the phone, ear buds in. I'm talking to my mom and she's going, just throw it out. Just just throw it out. And I'm thinking, absolutely not. I am fixing this chicken. I dump the entire thing into a strainer and I rinse it. Now, I want you to think about that. I washed dinner. Put it back in the pan. More peppers, more green onions, more soy sauce, more seasoning. Taste it again. Still horrible. I wash it again. At this point, my chicken has been washed more than a teenage boy. I give a piece to my son. He practically spits it back in my face. Not exactly the Michelin 5 star review I was hoping for. And now I'm pissed. The fuck is going on with this chicken. So naturally, instead of admitting

6:09defeat, I make rice because rice fixes everything. Right? When we drop our iPhone and rice, if we drop the water before they were waterproof, nope. Now I have shitty chicken and rice. It's coming up on two hours of trying to do this. And my mother is still on the phone laughing at me, telling me to throw it out. But now it's personal. I washed the chicken a third time. By this point, the chicken breast isn't even chicken breast anymore. It has shredded. I've water-borted poultry for two hours. That's what I did. And finally, I surrender. I put a tiny amount in the container with some rice because apparently even in defeat, I need evidence of the crime and I throw the rest of this shit away. I clean the kitchen. I'm defeated. I'm just like, what the? You know, I was thinking a couple days lunch, dinners. I got a lot going on. There are days

7:11I'm gone from like 7, 30 in the morning till 10 o'clock at night. I go back to the grocery bag to put a couple things away that are still in there. And I pull out a box of cornstarch. Wait, why? If that's cornstarch, what the hell did I put the chicken? I coated it. What did I put on the chicken? Baking soda. I breaded an entire package of chicken in baking soda. And suddenly, the entire two hour, the buckle made sense, right? I realized what I did. I was making almond-hounders general sour chicken. There's it's so. General Sos chicken. My son looks at this disaster and he gave me the best culinary review of my career. You're the only guy in America

8:15who could turn chicken into fish. And honestly, he was right, but here's the part that really got me. I went to the store for cornstarch. That was the reason I went to get cornstarch. I didn't have it. I bought the cornstarch. I brought it home. And when it came time to use it, I grabbed the box out of the bag, opened it up, put it all over the chicken, tossed the chicken in the bowl in there. I didn't even look at it. How? Because I wasn't there. Physically, I was in the kitchen. Mentally, I was in a text conversation, a phone call, whatever else was going through my head. And apparently, somewhere on another fucking planet, I wasn't present. And that's funny when the victim's chicken, it gets a little less funny when the victim of not being present is your car. Like the other

9:17morning I saw an accident at a traffic light, somebody had rear-ended a car in front of them. And whenever I see that, I wonder how does that happen? Sometimes it may be a perfectly legitimate reason. But how often is it because somebody looked down? They got a text. They were changing the song, looking for a podcast, changing directions. One little, you know, you're looking at your, I checked my directions, that's it. One little glance. We've somehow turned driving from the activity into the thing we do when we're doing everything else. Like think about that. Driving used to be what we were doing. Now, you're driving while you're texting, finding music, checking email, listening to a podcast, screwing all over with the GPS. We treat a four thousand pound vehicle like it's a waiting room at a dentist's office. Right? We just,

10:20and here's the crazy part. Most of what we're checking doesn't even matter. When was the last time you received a text message that truly, and think about this, truly required an answer in the next 90 seconds. Bill, the nuclear codes of chains, please respond immediately. Probably not. It's usually, where do you want to eat? That can wait to a red light. Better yet, that can wait to you parked. You know what I mean? I recently said on a previous episode this week of Billified that we're living in a dopamine economy. Our attention is value. Companies know it. Apps know it. Sportsbooks know it. Porn sites know it. Social media companies sure as hell know it. Dopamine is a chemical messenger involved in motivation, reward,

11:28learning, and our drive to seek things out. Good food can engage that dopamine system. Exercise dopamine sex dopamine drugs cocaine method and fetamine can affect the reward system far more intensely and directly. And that's why a lot of people keep seeking that high chase of the dopamine. And I'm not saying Instagram is chemically the same thing as cocaine. It isn't. But social media online gambling porn endless digital feeds are really good at giving our brains something they love. Our brain loves anticipation. Novelty variable rewards. What's next? Swipe, refresh, check. Maybe there's something good. Maybe somebody liked it. Maybe somebody texted. Maybe the bad hit. Got that

12:30money coming. Maybe there's another video. Maybe there's another notification. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And we're constantly reaching for the next thing while we're still experiencing this thing. That's the trap. We're so busy looking at what's next that we barely experience what's now. The past is the past. The future we don't know. All we really have is right fucking now. That's it. That is it. Even football has changed. Think about watching a football game. We used to watch the game. Your friends came over. Yates shitty food. You yelled at the television. You talk trash. You argue a call. Somebody said we're going to the Super Bowl in the first quarter. And then three minutes later to the screen fire everybody. That was the experience. Now, if you're a bills fan, you're watching

13:32the bills while you're scrolling on X to see what strangers think about the bills while checking your fantasy team while tracking a par leg texting another group about the bills. We're watching the game while simultaneously trying to experience six other versions of the game. And then it's over. What did we actually experience? We saw everything. And somehow missed half of it. That's the weird part about distractions. You can be somewhere for three hours and barely have been there. People have told us forever, right? You probably had a boss that used to hand out a book the present. It was about a grandfather telling his grandson he has a present for him or presence for him. The kid thought it was a present. You get the idea. But we're told be more present. Okay. What the hell does be more present actually mean? And I think it's a lot simpler than we make it.

14:38Be where you are. That's it. Be where you are. If you're having dinner with somebody, have dinner with them. If you're talking to your kid, talk to your kid. If you're driving drive. If you're making firecracker chicken for the love of God, read the fucking box. I'm telling you, presence doesn't require yoga. It doesn't require a yoga mat. And those sweet pants that you love to put on because it makes your ass look great. It requires attention. An attention has become the most valuable and endangered thing we have. We're always available. Think about that. Part of that problem of not being present is that everybody can get to us now all the time. Your boss can email you at 830 at night. Co-workers can text, family can text, friends, text. Clients can reach you.

15:41There are group chats, DMs, emails, Slack, messenger, Instagram, whatever. We have confused being reachable with being required to respond. Those aren't the same thing. Just because somebody can reach you doesn't mean they own the next 30 seconds of your life. I really think that's worth remembering because when you respond to everything immediately, you essentially allow everybody else to decide where your attention goes. And your attention is your life. Seriously, when you pay attention, it becomes your experience. So maybe protecting your attention isn't rude. It might be the healthiest thing you can do. I want you to think for a second about people you love.

16:42Think about somebody in your life who really, truly listens to you. You got the person? You start talking and they're looking at you. They're not glancing down every seven seconds. They're not checking notifications. They're not giving you the, oh yeah, wow, man, that's crazy. While they're clearly reading something else. And I want you to think about how it feels when somebody gives you their full attention. Pretty good. Like pretty fucking good. Being present communicates something without saying it. And what it communicates is you matter enough for me to be here. I used to tell my sons all the time. As you get older and there's people who are going to spend time

17:48with you, respect their time, be present, respect it. Because that's the one thing we all have, but we don't know how much of it we have. We've got analytics, we've got bank accounts, we've got all kinds of things that tell us how much of something we have. We've scales to tell you how fat we are. But we don't have anything that tells us how much time we have here. So respect the time. You matter enough for me to be here. Now flip it. When was the last time somebody you care about was talking and you just blindly pick up your phone. I think it's a rang or buzzed. Not because anything was happening. Reflex. You just picked it up. We've developed this bizarre reflex or two seconds of silence. Causes our hand to reach for our phone. We can't be bored anymore. I saw a couple recently. I don't I would assume was like date night. I

18:53don't know if they were married or what. And the woman or at a bar and the woman picked up her phone and started scrolling on Instagram. Just like picked it up. And then she caught herself. She apologized to the guy. I was standing close enough that I actually saw it was standing behind him. And I could see like she picked it up in the angle. She was at you could see when she put her phone down. It was Instagram. So she was scrolling Instagram. And she apologized to the guy. And I thought that's it. Presence. She realized I'm sitting across from an actual human being I chose to spend time with. And I'm looking at pictures of people I'm not with. That's weird when you really think about it. And here's another reason I want to work on this myself. I find life to be very funny. People are funny. The world is absolutely ridiculous. But you have to look at it. How much funny

19:59shit are you missing because your face is buried in a screen? How many looks from your kid? How many weird conversations at the next table? How many sunsets? How many moments with your parents? How many moments with your partners? And how many stupid little things that someday you would give anything to experience one more time? We're trying to document our lives. While forgetting to actually live our lives. Sometimes the memory itself is better when there isn't a picture and there isn't a video. Some people I know have gone back and watch their wedding video. Many people I know have never couldn't even tell you where it is. But the memory of the wedding was nice. Then you actually see it. Sometimes. But when you don't document

21:02everything, you're actually there for it. I mean, like, I'm not telling you to delete social media. I'm not deleting mine. I make a living using this shit. I'm not going to tell you to throw your phone in Lake America or Lake Ontario. Those things are expensive. We're not doing that. But try something small. Next time you're having dinner with somebody, put the phone away. Not face down in front of you on the table because it will buzz and you'll hear it. Put it away out of your line of sight. Next time you're driving, just drive. Next time somebody you love starts telling you something. Actually look at them. Make eye contact. Give them the next five minutes. When you feel yourself automatically reaching for that phone, ask yourself, why am I picking this up?

22:05Sometimes you might have a reason. It's truly, you may. A lot of times, you won't. It's just have it. And maybe once or twice. I would say a day. Once or twice a day. Deliberately do one thing. Cook dinner. Just cook it. Go for a walk. Have coffee. Listen to an album. Watch the game. Talk to your kid. Whatever you're doing, just be there. Because presence to me isn't about becoming some enlightened Zen master. It's about actually participating in your own life. Your own fucking life. You know people say you got one life. You know what I say? You die once. You die once. Participate in your own life. Like my firecracker chicken might have cost me, I don't know, 15, 20 bucks in food and two hours

23:09of my life. I rents the chicken three times. My mother begged me to stop my son gagged. And I turned poultry into something that apparently qualified to seafood. Right? All because I couldn't take one second to actually look at a box one second. And that has sat inside my gut for all week. What else am I not looking at? What else am I assuming? What am I actually missing because I'm technically there, but my attention is somewhere else. How many times are you in a conversation with a person across the table, but in another conversation with someone who you're not even going to see for the next week? And maybe that's the question for everybody. Where are you right now? Not physically. Where's your attention? Because that's where you actually are. And maybe this week

24:15and this weekend, we all try to get a little better at actually being where our feet are. Put the phone down once in a while. Look around. Listen to people. Taste your food. Read the fucking box, Moran. You might, I don't know. You might notice a difference. You might even notice some really funny stuff you've been missing. And I will say this. Whatever you do, don't turn chicken into fish. Don't turn chicken into fish. Get your pada. I'll be on my rad. We'll see you next time. I woke up in a hotel. Didn't know what to do. I turned a TV on.

25:16I rode a letter to you. The news was talking about a damn it up on the end of the day. See, man, I got to tell you what I learned from Dr. Max Thaney at Brockport Smiles. Your mouth is a snitch. Turns out your teeth and gums can tell you a whole lot more than whether you've flossed more than twice a presidential administration. Poor oral health has been linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory problems, and a lot more. It makes sense. Your mouth is connected to the rest of you. But who knew? The side-stentist. I guess everyone would pay attention to the health class. That's why Dr. Max Thaney and the team at Brockport Smiles look beyond just your teeth. They combine exceptional patient care with advanced dental technology, preventive and cosmetic dentistry and vis-en-line implants, same-day crowns, and more. Because apparently when your mouth starts talking, Dr. Thaney knows how to interrogate it. And here's something that's no longer a secret. Brockport Smiles has a brand new home at 133

26:19states-treat. It's bigger? It's better. It has expanded treatment areas and advanced technology designed to make your care more efficient and effective. Basically, your dentist got an upgrade, and somehow you're still using the same toothbrush since Easter. Well, join Dr. Thaney and the Brockport Smiles team Thursday September 17th for their grand opening. Come check out the new place. It'll have you smiling from ear to ear, which frankly is pretty aggressive smiling. Brockport Smiles take care of your mouth. It knows way too much. Visit BrockportSmiles.com or call 585-637-6884.