Garrett: What’s up people?! I’m Garrett Jonsson and you’re listening to Consider Before Consuming, a podcast by Fight the New Drug. Today’s conversation is with Chaz Smith, THE Chaz Smith. Chaz is kind of a big deal. At the time of this recording he has nearly 2,000,000 followers across his social media accounts. He’s had over 34,000,000 views on his YouTube channel. He’s a social media influencer, comedian, entrepreneur, and a Fighter for love. During this conversation we get to know Chaz better by playing This or That, Would You Rather, and a little Q&A. But we also had several aha moments as we discussed the harmful effects of pornography and it’s affected Chaz personally. With all that being said, we hope you enjoy this episode of Consider Before Consuming.

Well, we want to welcome to the podcast, Mr Chaz Smith.

Chaz: How you doing?

Garrett: What’s up, Chaz?

Chaz: Thanks for having me on, podcasts are dope.

Garrett: For sure.

Chaz: Fight the New Drug is awesome. This cause is so necessary.

Garrett: Well we appreciate your support. We’re going to start off with a, like the most important question of them.

Chaz: All right. Here we go. [laughter]

Garrett: We’ll just get right to it. And that question is, is water wet?

Chaz: Oh my Gosh. [laughter] Oh, dang the microphone probably peaked. But let me see. So y’all, if you want to talk about it scientifically, we can do that. If you want to talk about it just colloquially language-wise, you can do that. Which one? Take your pick. Red pill? Blue pill?

Garrett: So I actually, when I heard before I actually watched your video. For our listeners out there, Chaz has a couple videos out there about the debate, this on-going debate…

Chaz: One was about is water wet?

Garrett: And I heard the, I heard about the video and I was like,
“Dude, of course water’s wet.”

Chaz: [laughter]

Garrett: [laughter] But after, after I watched your video, I left with a one 80 change of perspective. Like “No, water is not wet.”

Chaz: That’s funny. So I don’t, I’ve talked about this so much. Like I’ll just use a simple analogy. If you have like, I don’t know, a pile of hair sitting on the table. Right? Would you say that that hair is hairy or is it just hair?

Garrett: It’s just hair.

Chaz: If you add more hair to it. Does it become Harry or Harrier? No, it’s just a greater quantity of hair.

Garrett: Exactly.

Chaz: Water’s the same way. [laughter]

Garrett: And I actually looked up like at once I watched your video worked, looked up the definition of like “wet” and it’s, yeah, it makes sense.

Chaz: What’s the definitions say? Because there’s, there’s like there’s the Merriam Webster, then there’s ox Oxford.

Garrett: Okay. I only looked up one.

Chaz: One defines it, I know one describes it like on a, on a scientific basis, yes. Water particles touch water particles that makes them wet. But if we’re like in every day…

Garrett: Are we the first podcast that has gotten you to admit that water is wet?

Chaz: I’ve said it before. To say it in everyday life, it’s redundant to say that that “Water is wet.” It just doesn’t make sense. Like I said, it’s a extreme understatement.

Garrett: Yeah, for sure.

Chaz: Like water is water. It’s greater than just anyway, go ahead. What is the…

Garrett: The definition is: covered or saturated with water or another liquid. The hair example is a great example.

Chaz: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Chaz: Anyway, before people start hating me before even getting into the actual important stuff, let’s move on.

Garrett: Um, I think it’d be cool if we started with uh… have you ever played This or That?

Chaz: Yes.

Garrett: Okay. I have some This or That questions. You Ready?

Chaz: Yes. Let’s do it.

Garrett: Introvert or extrovert?

Chaz: Introvert. Surprisingly, I’m an introvert. Most people don’t believe that.

Garrett: Yeah.

Chaz: I mean I don’t like to put in a box. I tend to have introverted tendencies. I guess it really depends on how I’m feeling and who I’m with. Like,…

Garrett: Well I’ve noticed, because we’ve been in Guatemala for like a week now, and I’ve noticed that there’s times like you’re, you’re interacting with the group, but then there’s also times that you like zone in and like play some Pokemon or something or whatever.

Chaz: I’m going to talk about that later.

Garrett: Like you just need a second.

Chaz: I’m going to talk about that in depth later. Like that’s actually really tied to… you’ll see.

Garrett: Cool. Pancakes or waffles?

Chaz: Pancakes for sure. My grandma makes some poppin’ pancakes. Also there is this place called the Pancake House in New Jersey, what’s it called? Um… The Original House of Pancakes.

Garrett: Are they really better though?

Chaz: They are like superior pancakes. Oh my gosh! They melt in your mouth. PANCAKES… that melt in you mouth! But they’re cooked all the way through, I don’t even understand how it’s possible.

Garrett: Okay, I got to try them. Skittles or starburst?

Chaz: Skittles.

Garrett: Um, Lebron or Kyrie?

Chaz: Lebron.

Garrett: Lebron.

Chaz: I like Kyrie a lot though. He actually went to the high school of the Middle School I went to, and dated one of my friend’s sisters and played for the same AAU team that I played for but I played…

Garrett: Oh really?

Chaz: He played on a, I think he was like 16 under and I was 14 under or something like that.

Garrett: Okay. Um, basketball or croquet?

Chaz: Basketball. Why was that even a an option? [laughter]

Garrett: Halo we Pokemon?

Chaz: Oh Man! Pokemon, for sure. Yeah.

Garrett: Okay. Follow up to that question, Pikachu or Charizard?

Chaz: Charizard. Charizard is a homie.

Garrett: SpongeBob or Rug Rats?

Chaz: Why did you do that? Why would you do that?

Garrett: [laughter]

Chaz: SpongeBob. Yeah.

Garrett: Okay, cool. So This or That, we learned a little bit more about Chaz, but what about some Q&A with FTND?

Chaz: Okay.

Garrett: Um, in high school, Chaz, where you the class clown, the athlete, or the SBO?

Chaz: SBO?

Garrett: Like the student body officer.

Chaz: I was actually student body President and on the basketball team.

Garrett: Okay. Um, what about class clown?

Chaz: [laughter] Class clown?!?! I was definitely joking around a lot too, I guess of mix of all three.

Garrett: Okay, now Would You Rather.

Chaz: I love Would You Rather.

Garrett: Okay, so would you rather get kicked in the stomach by Bruce Lee or punched in the stomach by Mike Tyson?

Chaz: Oh, Bruce Lee, I think, I don’t know. Mike Tyson’s just huge.

Garrett: For sure.

Chaz: He’d like rearrange a couple of my organs or something.

Garrett: Either way, you’re just…

Chaz: Yeah, cause I feel like a kick to the stomach would be like, it would spread it be like a greater surface area. So more of my stomach will be able to take it. Yeah. I’m going to say kick.

Garrett: Elongate that surface area.

Chaz: There we go.

Garrett: Um, Jumping into like Fight the New Drug stuff. When did, when did you hear about Fight?

Chaz: Um, I found out about Fight when, let me see, 2017 bout two years ago. Lat Two, 2017 a few friends of mine, uh, they took pictures for you guys, like did some photo shoots, um, and posted it on their own social media and like, I was like, “Okay, what’s this stuff about?” I checked out the profile, I was like, “Oh Dang, this is, this is really dope. Like you are sharing an important message in a tasteful way.”

Garrett: And that was actually my next, my next question was like how did it go from hearing about Fight to being like, “Okay, I’m on board.”

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: And that was it? That’s what caught your attention?

Chaz: Yeah. And it was crazy. It was like, I was thinking like, “Yo, I really want to, I would love to collab with them.” And then I think the same day one of you guys reached out like DM on Instagram.
I was like, “What?”

Garrett: You’re like, “Shoot.”

Chaz: “That’s cool. Okay. All right, let’s do it.”

Garrett: Speaking of the YouTube vid that you created.

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: Can you talk to that a little bit?

Chaz: Yeah. So the approach I took is like, I’ve, this pornography is like something I personally struggled with in my life. Um, like it was an addiction for real, uh, for six, seven years at least. Cause it’s like the same behaviors of somebody who feels like they need to go to alcohol or drugs in order to cope with something. Like whether you can articulate and explain and understand why you keep going back to this thing with the roots of it or whatever. It’s the same behavior.

Garrett: Um, you turn to pornography, like was it when you’re sad, when you’re down, when you’re stressed, when you’re bored, what was it for you?

Chaz: Um… it was a mix of stuff. Like filling, it could’ve been anything really. But between being stressed out or depressed or just feeling like what… multiple things, man. Like for sure, all I know for sure is that like every time it’s like, it was never really satisfying. It’s like, yeah, it’s just this whole is like void that in then the size increases every time you go back into it’s searching for something that’s not even there. There’s nothing good about it.

Garrett: Right.

Chaz: Like the what this the moment of pleasure for, you know, being depressed the rest of the day and like isolating, and not wanting to talk to people.

Garrett: That’s what I kind of want to talk about. Cause you talked a little bit about, we don’t have to dive too deep into your experience, but like you talked about how in your experience it was like a self diagnosis, like “I’m addicted.” One of the problems with that that we’re facing today is that people kind of overused the word addiction and it’s a heavy word.

Chaz: Right.

Garrett: So I think a lot of our listeners need to realize like just because someone looks at pornography doesn’t mean they’re addicted. Right?

Chaz: Right. That’s very true. That’s true.

Garrett: But, for you…

Chaz: For me personally, it was like I knew I did not want to do it. I never did want to do it, which is crazy. It’s such a paradox. It’s like, you know, keep continuing to go back to this thing that I hated.

Garrett: One thing I think would be interesting is to know when you were first exposed to pornography, what age saw?

Chaz: So I think it was, I think eight. There just so happened to be a movie on TV. Yeah. And um, it wasn’t a, an a, it wasn’t like in a, a quote unquote “adult film.” But there was, the first thing I remember seeing was a, like it was a rape scene when I was like, I didn’t even understand what’s going on, but I knew it was bad.

Chaz: And it was like, yeah, it Kinda stuck with me, but it was just like, there was that. And then I remember, um, this happened when I was like, with like two, um, like two sisters, they were babysitters. Um… we were on the computer like searching for something and this ad popped up. Like, I don’t know. Anyway…

Garrett: You mentioned briefly, you said like, “I wouldn’t want to look at it, but I would look at it anyway.”

Chaz: Right.

Garrett: And that’s kind of like the definition of compulsivity.

Chaz: Exactly. Yeah. That’s why I know it was in it. It was an addiction. It was just, yeah. I mentioned Pokermon earlier, right?

Garrett: Oh yeah.

Chaz: What’s wild is I’ve found that… just being totally transparent. I’ve tried to like without really realizing it, I’ve used other things to try to replace and like cope with the absence of…

Garrett: Right.

Chaz: Dude, it sounds so stupid but like…

Garrett: That’s interesting.

Chaz: I realize that like, at times, and again I’m being totally transparent. I’ve never really, this is the first time I’ve spoken to someone about this. I don’t know how many people are about to listen to her, but, uh,…

Garrett: I think honestly I think our audience is and meet myself as well as like very fortunate to hear your experience.

Chaz: Thank you.

Garrett: Because that’s real and like it’s going to help other people who are experiencing something similar.

Chaz: Part of what’s helping me talk about this as just in Washington, the documentary Brain, Heart, World, I just realized like there’s really no shame in the struggles that we have.

Garrett: 100%

Chaz: Like, and it’s something I’ve known, but like just watching it, I felt like something was lifted just off of my shoulders. Like, Yo, this is, it’s so liberating to be open.

Garrett: Exactly.

Chaz: And it’s crazy because like I was saying about the video I made for you guys before I spoke openly about, you know, my struggles with like pornography before I on my YouTube channel. The video I made for y’all was more, it was like my personal story, but the video I made for you guys was more based on data’s statistics, how it affects people.

Garrett: Yeah, I liked your video.

Chaz: Thank you. Um, it was like the typical dark room, but… [laughter]

Garrett: It was very, very creative and very like, it grabbed my attention and I love that. The one thing I loved about that will link that video as well with this episode. But it’s like you’re like, you’re quiet, like you’re kind of whispering.

Chaz: [laughter]

Garrett: For me, it grabbed my attention and it kept my attention.

Chaz: Cool. I tried to add some humor into it too. So it wasn’t just like, “Why is he dropping this bomb? I just came here just to laugh.”

Garrett: For sure.

Chaz: So there’s still humor in it, but educational. So yeah, back to this gaming thing is like, I realize at times and it has, I recognize like just a couple of things about it. Um, it has very similar effects on me socially. Um, emotionally and mentally. Mentally. Like there’s a compulsivity like if I’m, if I start to feel, if there’s something like, I don’t know, just, just different, I started getting stressed out about things that I have going on or have to do. It’s like my escape, like the impulsivity, like I gotta go to this and then that takes me out of whatever is going on. I’m able to just be locked in right to the stream. I’m not consciously thinking that. It’s just like when I go to to feel better, like it’s not, it’s never a conscious thought. Rarely maybe. But there’s that, the compulsivity mentally, um, emotionally like after playing for hours I realized I really just wasted five hours on this stupid game that adds nothing to my life.

Garrett: Yeah.

Chaz: And I’ll try to justify like, no, I had fun. No, no, this is terrible. In third, like socially I just isolate myself from people, not only in the moment, but after like I wouldn’t even realize there’s a similar shame to like once I’d come back out of this hole in this game for hours, like on my computer or phone or whatever. Like once I get around people again is like, I wouldn’t even realize it, but I’d feel kind of ashamed and best when I’d be more introverted.
Like, even just around you guys. There was like a few days, like the first few days it was just, yeah, I realized like, “Yo, this is…”, I couldn’t even really explain it, but I recognize that’s what was happening and I’m like, there are times where I’ve thought literally, “Yo, this is like porn.” Yeah, this is horrible, right? Don’t even really want to do this. But um, you know, like it’s, what else is that kind of thinking? It’s almost like, what else am I going to do? It’s ridiculous. It this, it’s like an addiction. So I’d like, it’s crazy. After I watched the documentary last night, I was like, “Yo, I…” really, as I was watching, I was like, I did not realize how much, how correlated this was and I deleted all of it. I was like, “Yo, I’m done.”

Garrett: You deleted what?

Chaz: The game.

Garrett: Oh you did?

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: Interesting.

Chaz: It was ridic like it was too much. It was just too clear. Like, “Yo, this is exactly, this isn’t another form of an addiction.”

Garrett: One simple way to define addiction is if you do something chronically and compulsively.

Chaz: Because people think of addiction as just physical consumption.

Garrett: Yeah. Like putting a new substance into your body.

Chaz: Right. But it’s all connected to your brain. It’s not just like food or a drink or some, yeah, some drug or substance. It’s deeper than just the physical level. It’s affecting your brain directly. So of course it would make sense that pornography can have the same effect that gaming could have the same effect that, I don’t know, there’s probably other things that come to mind.

Garrett: There’s almost like infinite amount of possible addictions. Right? And we all engage in, there’s like escapism. It’s almost like, I think sometimes you’re explaining escapism.

Chaz: People using movies or shopping.

Garrett: For sure. And pornography is just one of them.

Chaz: Right.

Garrett: So another question I have for you is like, once again, the name of the podcast is Consider Before Consuming. What is it for you? Like what is it for you that the average user might not understand but you wish they understood so that they can make an educated decision?

Chaz: In a single statement? To sum it all up, I’d say that this destroys relationships and like that’s in a single statement, but the depth of what that statement means, like I don’t think people are really aware of. When I say relationship, it’s like… it totally takes away what makes us human. I don’t just mean romantic relationships, but I mean even understanding and fully comprehending with your heart what it means to be another, what it means to be human and how you view other human beings. You know?

Garrett: Dude, that’s important. That’s deep.

Chaz: Yeah. And it gets so much deeper than that. I’m like, this is just like just scraping the butter off the surface or whatever. I don’t know. I, why did I say that? [laughter]

Garrett: [laughter] This is the top of the iceberg.

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: The top of the butter stick. [laughter]

Chaz: There we go. All the thing. More of like more like a butter container, you know, like can’t believe it’s not butter like that. That’s what the image came up anyway. [laughter]

Garrett: We need to have another asked about if that really is butter. Just joking.

Chaz: It’s good, I don’t care. Oh, the Vegan kind. The Vishaan kind.

Garrett: [laughter]

Chaz: I had to pronounce it incorrectly. [laughter]

Garrett: That’s why Chaz is famous. [laughter] One thing that’s like kind of obvious if you really start to think about it is like someone, when someone consumes pornography, they’re not interacting with a human.

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: They’re interacting with an object.

Chaz: Again, it destroys relationships.

Garrett: You know what else is interesting? It also forms relationships.

Chaz: Elaborate please.

Garrett: Because you start to form a relationship with pixels and you start to form a relationship with your phone. It’s like your social media is an extension of yourself, right? You’re here present with me physically.

Chaz: Yeah. But your social media is out there talking. Yeah. And it’s almost like you have this as an extension of yourself. And I wonder if like pornography destroys some relationships. It can destroy some relationships and also it forms unhealthy relationships.

Chaz: Yeah. It is a form of relationship. You’re relating to something but it’s not human.

Garrett: And you know, they’ve actually done studies on this where they put a like, I think it’s like an an f MRI machine. Like they hook your brain up and then they’ll show someone an image, like an explicit image of pornography and the part of the brain that lights up in this study, isn’t the part that lights up with like human interaction. It’s the parts that light lights up when you engage with, um, an object.

Chaz: That’s…

Garrett: And you know what’s interesting is like you start to compare, like when you’re talking about romantic relationships and sexuality and healthy sexuality.

Chaz: Wow.

Garrett: It’s like you start to think…

Chaz: You start to associate objects with pleasure. But the object is an image of a person, therefore it’s distorting your, your about people.

Garrett: Yeah.

Chaz: That’s crazy.

Garrett: So you’re onto something.

Chaz: It’s actual objectification. I hate using buzzwords like that, like objectification. Ah, what else? Unapologetic. [laughter]

Garrett: It’s like the right time to use that word.

Chaz: Yeah. Like that is literally objectification. It’s, it rewires your brain.

Garrett: Yeah. That’s interesting. And so from eight years old and you were looking at, you saw like a TV show.

Chaz: Yeah. I didn’t start watching pornography until I was 17 but I’d like just in terms of like just my resistance, like the wall I put up against this metal metaphoric wall I put up against it started to be whittled away just through conversations that I’d have with like or just overhearing stuff w with friends or people. Other people justify it.

Garrett: Well it’s interesting cause like, yeah, that process of, it sounds like, I don’t know, I’m not a therapist, but it’s like a little bit of like desensitized.

Chaz: Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. Yeah. Over it happened like over the span of what, like five, six years though. It was a very slow process of the decentralization, but it turned into an addiction. It’s crazy cause people don’t really think that just little instances can really affect them. But if you look down the road, if you’d like, however many years down the road, you look back, you’re like, “Yo, how did I get here?” It’s these little individual moments that move the tick mark further and further in another direction. The Opposite Direction.

Garrett: One thing that I hope our listeners would consider before consuming is that how gradual this process can be? Because I think a lot of people when they hear about the harmful effects of pornography, it’s like, “Well yeah, I’m fine. Like I’m fine, I’m doing fine, I’m looking at porn, but I’m doing fine.” And I think it’s cool. Kind of what you’re saying is like this gradual process and then you look back, you’re like, “How did I get here?” You know, it’s interesting. So I hope that the listeners out there hope they would consider that, um, to use like the frontal lobes, that decision making every the brain and be like, “Yo, like this can progress in an a very unhealthy way. But very gradually.”

Chaz: Something that really hit me watching the documentary was, uh, there was a statement about like the connection between your frontal lobe and your reward center. And it has how like the frontal lobe is the, the system that checks and balances. You know…

Garrett: It’s like, it weighs out like the pros and cons.

Chaz: Right. This phrase that hit me was like, it’s like wearing out the brake pads as you get desensitized. Like that was, it was such a clear image the way it was explained. Um,

Garrett: So you’re your reward centers, is the driver, but your frontal lobes are the brakes.

Chaz: Right. And the steering wheel.

Garrett: Yeah, and the steering wheel.

Chaz: Right? Yeah. The rewards centers the destination and try to go or something… I don’t know. Anyway, watch the document. Please watch the documentary, for real.

Garrett: What was your favorite episode? Because there are three parts. Brain, Heart, World.

Chaz: Heart. Because the way it broke down relationships and just explained… like brain and heart are still 100% about relationships as well.

Garrett: Right? It’s almost like…

Chaz: Yeah. I mean brain and world. Did I said brain and heart? It’s Brain, Heart, World. Heart is specifically about relationships but they’re all like about relationships. Right? It’s like that episode hit me the hardest. Like the, the facts about, you know, about how it affects the world is crazy, like heartbreaking. brain was about like how it affects you personally in getting into like introducing it to you. It’s like scientifically to understand what’s going on emotionally with you mentally, whatever, but how that affects the way you interact with people and influence the world and how the world influences you. All that stuff. I think that’s like we, like I said, we were meant to interact with other people and to love and serve one another.

It just, the way that pornography affects that and destroys it and manipulates it and just perverts it every whatever where you could think of, whatever synonyms. Open your thesaurus. It was just amazing. And it wasn’t as heavy as I thought it was going to be.

Garrett: I know. That’s what I love about it. Whenever I talk about documentaries, I try to get the point across that this is not your typical documentary about pornography.

Chaz: Right. I don’t like documentaries. I really was not, I mean I know it’s important, but I honestly wasn’t really looking forward to watching the documentary cause like stuff like this tends to be heavy and dark and you know, it kinda like puts you in a certain mood.

Garrett: Yeah. You must walk away like little bit depressed.

Chaz: Exactly. But this was not like that at all. Like I don’t even like watching documentaries. I do not. Most documentaries bore me. I can’t sit still for that long.

Garrett: Yeah.

Chaz: Like I have to like get myself to be interested in whatever I’m learning about in order to enjoy most documentaries. Right. That’s, I would watch this again.

Garrett: That’s cool.

Chaz: Like for real, it was that good and entertaining too.

Garrett: It is.

Chaz: Like it is by, it’s not just all information. It’s not just like, “Okay, let me go sit down and learn real quick.” Like it’s not even like that.

Garrett: It’s funny. Like I honestly laugh out loud sometimes and then I learned something.

Chaz: Yeah. Um, I really want to encourage people to go check this out, for real, Brain, Heart, World. Please!

Garrett: We’ll a link that in this episode in the show notes, um, the, um, find her pledge. I’m going to read off the attributes. There’s nine attributes and I want you to tell me a couple that are like your favorite.

Chaz: Alright. Okay, cool.

Garrett: So as a fighter, I am bold, I am strong, I am real. I am understanding, I am open-minded. I am a rebel. I’m a true lover. I’m accepting, I’m encouraging.

Chaz: I like bold, real and understanding the most. Cool. Sorry. Explain why?

Garrett: Yeah, for sure. I want to know why.

Chaz: [laughter] Bold because I just really feel like that’s been, a word that’s been just relevant in my life recently, especially over the past couple of years, just to be bolder. Um, for example, in something that I’ve kind of struggled with a lot is, uh, worrying about criticism from other people who people think, I’m assuming that they think about me certain ways. So I have to like live in act, um, based on assumptions from other people or always feeling like I need to try to explain myself. I really just been letting that go. It feels so… that’s so freeing. Like just coming to a point where I truly believe that I don’t need to explain myself to everybody. My motives can be misunderstood, my heart can be misjudged by people, but I know like, but knowing where I actually stand and just being able to, that will allow you to go farther if you’re like taking care of yourself and being real with yourself.

Yeah. Um, the second real, um, like I said, transparency is powerful. Like people, it takes more strength to show your scars and to hide them and cause also is healthier. Just show your scars because then it not only helps you heal because they need to be exposed in order to heal, like your wounds that need to be exposed in order to heal, but other people seeing your scars, you can help them be more transparent and real as well.

Garrett: I love that.

Chaz: Um, yeah, that’s, that’s a very powerful thing to do. It’s not like talking about talking about your emotions and whatever. Like emotion, scars, wounds, whatever, trauma from the past. It’s not…

Garrett: We shouldn’t repress those emotions.

Chaz: Yeah. People think that’s like a punk thing to do. Like “Men shouldn’t do that. Just keep walkin’.” Nah, that’s because what happens is stays closed off, gets infected and then you’re affecting other people because of your pain and you don’t even realize it. Like that’s another buzz word, “toxic masculinity” like this. I mean actually though.

Garrett: That definitely is a buzzword right now. But I think what we’re all about is like healthy masculinity.

Chaz: Just healthy humanity.

Garrett: Yeah. It doesn’t matter what your gender is or isn’t, but it’s like expression and vulnerability.

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: Those are healthy.

Chaz: Yeah. And it’s crazy because people don’t want to do it and think it’s like just a weak thing to do. But if you really think about it when people open up, even like I’ve seen like even the hardest, the people you think you are like the hardest, toughest guys will appreciate that too.

Garrett: Oh, for sure.

Chaz: Like, and when they do it, even more, people are like, “Yo.” Even if you are timid about it. Like just starting to talk about something can help so much. And then the last one was, uh, understanding, um, something. I’ve also been learning recently, uh, is just learning to listen more. Yeah, just, accept people’s experiences or their perception of their experiences as they are rather than trying to explain them for myself or try to make sense to them or… because… I don’t know if people can relate to this. Maybe. I’m guessing people probably can, but there are times where somebody might share an experience or say something that I don’t agree with and I feel like I have to have a reason and I have to be able to come up with a reason in my mind about why that doesn’t make sense or is not true. But really what I’m doing is trying to validate what I believe to be true, I’m learning like I don’t need to prove somebody else wrong, whether they, even if they are wrong, I don’t need to prove somebody else wrong in order to validate what I know to be right.
Garrett: 100%. One of my favorite quotes is that “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

Chaz: “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Garrett: So it’s like there’s zero convincing, you know what you’re saying is like if someone, if you disagree with someone’s opinion, you’re now what you’re kind of, the approach you’re trying to take is like just be understanding and not try to convince them.

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: To me that quote, it’s very freeing. That’s a quote that I’ve always repeated since I was very young and my mom taught it to me. It’s just like um, “a person convinced against their will, is of the same opinion still.” It’s like don’t convince anyone of anything.

Chaz: Yeah. You can share information like, what you guys are doing. Like share what you know is factual. But allow them to have the free choice.

Garrett: Exactly.

Chaz: Even if you know, it will be better for them to choose this.

Garrett: But would it be better for them? Cause I feel like each person, yeah, we all have to go through own stuff and sometimes going through stuff is what’s better for us. You know? So it comes down to a timeline. We’re impatient or like we want it now. “It’s better for you to be this way.”, and yeah it is technically, but maybe a like a bigger vision is like maybe it’s better for them to walk a thorny path, you know what I’m saying? Or like walk and I dunno have some struggles because that’s where we learn.

Chaz: Yeah. A lot of times like if I hadn’t gone through this struggle the way I did, I wouldn’t be able to talk about it either.

Garrett: 100%. And you’re like going back again, this is like a theme of this podcast is like we’re jumping to like things to consider as like, that’s another thing to consider for our, all of our listeners is like, if you have this struggle, you should be grateful that you have to have this struggle. The reason why, Chaz, for example, because of your challenge, you’ve been able to help other people. And if you didn’t have this challenge, maybe you’d be able to talk to it, but I don’t think people would be as receptive.

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: So I think that’s cool.

Chaz: Yeah. I think sometimes we’re afraid to… or we expect to just walk through life unstained by life, but this is a broken world. Like of course there’s going to be stuff that we’re going to struggle with and go through and I guess in the midst of it, be thinking about “Alright I will get through this. How will I be able to help others?”

Garrett: “I will get through this.” That’s key man, because I think a lot of people have tried so many times to get through it.

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: And there’s a like a little bit of lack of hope.

Chaz: Yeah. Try being vulnerable with people.

Garrett: Oh, I liked the solution.

Chaz: Bold. Realness. Like expose it. Any one mold only grows in the darkness. Shine some light on that thing. That’s what my, that’s what my phone case says “Shine Light”.

Garrett: Yeah. I like that. And Dude, you’re always shining light to be honest. I think a lot of people will see your videos. Probably think that you’re just the comedian.

Chaz: The loud dude who zooms in on his face. [laughter]

Garrett: Yeah, exactly. [laughter] But it’s been fun to get to know you. As I’ve been able to hang out with you and observe you, a couple things stand out to me. Day one, we’re in Guatemala, you arrive, the bellman offered to take your bags, and you were very considerate. It was something very small. But I was like “Dude…” You have over one million followers across your social media platforms, right?

Chaz: Yeah.

Garrett: It’s like, “Dang!” You’ve kept humility. You’ve kept gratitude.

Chaz: Thank you man.

Garrett: And I love that.

Chaz: Appreciate it. Shout out to my parents though.

Garrett: For sure. Good parents. Well Chaz, the last thing I want to say is once again a Fight the New Drug, our team, we are definitely Team-Chaz.

Chaz: Thank you man.

Chaz: We are so excited to see where you go in life and um, know that we always got your back. So for all of our listeners out there like go hit up, we’re going to link everything. Go hit up Chaz’s channel and like throw some love to Chaz because he loves that support too.

And if you’re listening to their podcast for the first time, it’s the first time you heard about Fight the New Drug, please go check out their stuff too. Uh, yeah, it will totally change the way you see a lot. For Real, please do it.

Garrett: Um, Chaz last question. Um, is it challenging for you to say “You’re welcome.”? Cause the reason I ask this weird question is because I want to say, thanks again for being here, Bro. You didn’t have to come.

Chaz: You’re… you’re…

Garrett: He can’t say it, folks. He can’t say it.

Chaz: I’d rather say “Thank you.” I don’t know…

Garrett: It’s healthy to say “You’re welcome.” Thanks Chad for being here.

Chaz: You’re welcome. [laughter] I feel like I need to say “Thank you.” Oh you know like it’s, I know we can talk about that after the podcast. But yeah. I could recognize that as we were talking to, I kept saying
“Thank you.”

Garrett: I think it’s important for you to say “You’re welcome.” because we benefit a lot from what you’re doing with us and when I say “we”, I mean our Fighters like our, we have lots of Fighters over the world and we’re benefiting from a fellow Fighter from you…

Chaz: You are welcome. [laughter]

Garrett: There we go. That’s a good way to end it.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of consider before consuming. Considered before consuming is brought to you by fight the new drug fight. The new drug is a nonreligious, non legislative nonprofit that exists to provide individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding pornography by raising awareness on a term full fat. She’s an only science facts and personal accounts. You can support this podcast by going to f, T and d. Dot org forward slash CBC support or text. Consider two four three five zero six.

Thanks for joining on this episode of Consider Before Consuming. Consider Before Consuming is brought to you by Fight the New Drug. Fight the New Drug is a non-religious, and non-legislative organization that exists to provide individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding pornography, by raising awareness on its harmful effects using only science, facts, and personal accounts.

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Big thanks to you for listening to this conversation. As you go about your day, we invite you to increase your self-awareness, look both ways, check your blind spots, and consider before consuming.