Ever wondered how manicures could boost your overall health? Strap in for a riveting journey through self-care and personal growth with insights from Garrett Munce, as we lay out the connection between exercise, diet, sleep, and your mood. Dan's return to the weights paints a vivid picture, while the audiobooks in my ear these days offer golden nuggets on thriving in your personal and professional life.
Rising with the sun or hitting snooze; what's your battle cry? We chew over the conundrum of crafting the perfect morning routine, balancing discipline with the body's cry for rest. Digging into the grooming habits that spell out self-care for men, we crack open the lid on maintaining both hand and foot hygiene. It's not just about looking good, it's about feeling prime - and we share our own salon escapades and homegrown hacks that keep us in top shape, no polish necessary.
Lastly, let's talk about those salon visits that often come with an unexpected side of comedy. We share a chuckle over the offer of nail color—shoutout to Carson Daly's black nail—and trade stories about the unexpected joys and perils of public bathrooms. We wrap things up by tipping our hats to the likes of Adam Carolla, whose humor and craftsmanship underscore the message: self-improvement can certainly come with a side of laughter. Join us for a hearty conversation that'll leave your spirits lifted and perhaps inspire a pampering session of your own.
Books That Charles Mentioned:
The Road Back To You
The On-purpose Person
The Big Stick
Ever wondered how manicures could boost your overall health? Strap in for a riveting journey through self-care and personal growth with insights from Garrett Munce, as we lay out the connection between exercise, diet, sleep, and your mood. Dan's return to the weights paints a vivid picture, while the audiobooks in my ear these days offer golden nuggets on thriving in your personal and professional life.
Rising with the sun or hitting snooze; what's your battle cry? We chew over the conundrum of crafting the perfect morning routine, balancing discipline with the body's cry for rest. Digging into the grooming habits that spell out self-care for men, we crack open the lid on maintaining both hand and foot hygiene. It's not just about looking good, it's about feeling prime - and we share our own salon escapades and homegrown hacks that keep us in top shape, no polish necessary.
Lastly, let's talk about those salon visits that often come with an unexpected side of comedy. We share a chuckle over the offer of nail color—shoutout to Carson Daly's black nail—and trade stories about the unexpected joys and perils of public bathrooms. We wrap things up by tipping our hats to the likes of Adam Carolla, whose humor and craftsmanship underscore the message: self-improvement can certainly come with a side of laughter. Join us for a hearty conversation that'll leave your spirits lifted and perhaps inspire a pampering session of your own.
Books That Charles Mentioned:
The Road Back To You
The On-purpose Person
The Big Stick
Hey everybody, this is Charles. Thanks so much for joining us on another episode of the Mindfully Masculine podcast. We will continue this week to review and discuss self-care for men by Garrett Munz, and we will also get into some other topics, like Dan's triumphant return to the gym, my new audiobook purchases and my listening practices, how and why Dan and I go about waking up early, and we'll also get into hand and foot hygiene, including professional and do-it-yourself manicures and pedicures. Pretty, please, follow or subscribe to our show with whatever app you use to listen to podcasts. We will get to see the numbers go up, and that makes us feel good, so we super appreciate it. Thanks, and enjoy this episode. Good morning, charles. How are you? I'm well, dan, thank you. How are you? I'm well as well. Good, you went to the gym this morning, huh.
Dan:I did, and it's the third day in a row and I am well what I was, so three whole days, but I had gone probably last time I went I Interim, you know, regularly was before the holidays, love, last year so I've been.
Dan:It's been a while and I forgot all the side benefits of it. But I really tried to scale it back and say, look, I'm not gonna go crazy, I'm not gonna go, you know, try and do a two-hour workout. I'm just gonna get in the habit of going to the gym and I realized for it to stick, I need to be consistent with it. So none of these. Oh, I'm gonna be two days on, one day off or what. I'm gonna go every single day and on. Whatever that workout is gonna be, I'm gonna do it at the gym. So so I'm gonna get walking for a day.
Charles:Then you're walking to the gym. Exactly, gotcha, exactly.
Dan:Yep, yeah. Yeah, it's not lifting every day, but I have been doing that. It's been great, so it's been. It's it's definitely made me more patient. Yeah, how I noticed that.
Charles:How's the appetite been? Has it made you hungrier?
Dan:Not yet Okay, because I'm also not going crazy. I'm not going to failure with every set. I'm not doing crazy amounts of sets.
Charles:I mean I'm maybe working for like 30 minutes to 40 minutes in the gym Because you said your, your coach has you on a what 2000 calorie diet, or around 2000 calories.
Dan:Yeah, he has me on that. I have not been following it.
Charles:What? What would you estimate would be your homeostasis maintenance calories to just stay right where you're?
Dan:at Probably 2600. 2600. Yeah, I, I get cut, yeah, and it's just because I haven't set up my context, my environment, in the right way.
Dan:I've also not been going to bed on time and I've been watching, you know, netflix before bed and getting hooked on the, and I need to break that habit in order to get to bed earlier. If I get to bed earlier, I'm less likely to eat the longer I stay up. Once after it's like eight, nine o'clock if I'm, if I'm still awake at that point, I get hungry and I end up eating, and it's usually after I've already consumed all of my 2000 calories for the day. So I applaud my my trainer for sticking with me and not giving up on me because I've not been following his calorie recommendations and I haven't seen the results either, because of that.
Charles:Well, as long as the checks are still clear and I'll probably give you doesn't hurt, always give you another shot Right.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charles:Yeah, Um.
Dan:How are you? What's going on?
Charles:I've got. I've got a couple of books in my audible queue that I want to listen to here soon, and I will. I will share some of the titles with you in the audience. The Road Back to you by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabil, I guess her name is, and that one oops, hold on, I didn't mean to start the audio from it. That one is about in anyogram journey to self discovery Interesting, so that was recommended by one of the guys in my men's group that I attend, as was this other book called the On-Purpose Person, and I don't have a lot of details on that other than this one. Fella told me it was good and he thought I might like it.
Charles:The On-Purpose Person making your life makes sense by Kevin W McCarthy Not the same one that was Speaker of the House, I don't think. I don't think he's writing a book about making your life make sense after he got kicked out of his job. This modern parable tells the engagingly simple story of one man's journey of going from a life filled yet unfulfilled. You'll find yourself walking in his footsteps. And this easy to listen to narrative, packed with practical applications and a timeless process Define what's most important to you, clarify your wants and heart's desire. Find your purpose, tap into the power of your authentic self.
Charles:So that sounds right up our alley. Absolutely, that sounds great. Yeah, I'm hoping. And then also I also got. The third one I got was the big stick, which is the collected wisdom of Robert Glover. Oh, and so it was curated and narrated by somebody who's not him, but it basically takes all of the stuff that he's put out in his books and, I assume, in probably his podcast and some of his seminars and stuff, and kind of boils it down into one edited tone.
Dan:So when you, when you have these, you've got three in your queue here. Are you listening to all three at the same time, or you could do one than the other. What's your style?
Charles:I have, I will. When I embark on these and I haven't started any of them yet I'll, I'll do. I will do them consecutively, not concurrently. Well, I'll, I'll start one, I'll finish it. I'll start one, I'll finish it. I'll start one, I'll finish it Because I would be. I mean, especially with books. You know, it's one thing if I'm listening to a Lee Child or Stephen King book, then maybe I could have a fiction book as well and not get confused. But if I'm, if I'm, listening to three books on personal development at the same time, I'm going to, even if they're only kind of related, I'm still going to get confused of who said what.
Dan:OK, so you are. You are a normal human being. Ok, I wasn't sure, because you always have quite a few in your queue and I was always wondering hey, wait a minute, you know you and you bang through those really quick. Well, it's because of all the driving I do, yeah, and so I was. I wasn't sure.
Charles:Yeah, the driving and the walking, which is something I need to. I need to get back into here. I need to start doing. You know the. The campground that I'm staying at now has nice paved roads. Where I can, I could put on.
Dan:And it's fairly sizable to. I mean that's, I feel like you were to do every you know, go kind of like serpentine through the mall.
Charles:Yeah, that might be a mile or two.
Charles:It's probably a couple miles. Yeah, yeah, I would think so. The the campground I used to live at in DeBerry doing that whole thing was a half mile and it was quite a bit smaller than where I'm at right now. So, yeah, I can, I can get up and do my. Usually I would do when I was walking in the mornings. I would try to do a mile and or no. I'd do three miles in the morning and that would usually run me right right about an hour, maybe a little less.
Charles:And what time of the day was this Usually, I would try to have shoes on my feet and be walking out the door by five.
Dan:And was it daylight or just not?
Charles:usually it was OK. I mean really, I think last time I did it was summer, like April. Well, spring, april, may and so OK, so it's closed. I mean probably five AM. There's not many times of the year where it's where you see the sun at five AM.
Dan:Yeah, when does it start hitting six o'clock? Usually Is that summer, I don't know. Let's see.
Charles:It's just, it's just so hard to what time is sunrise? Ok, so sunrise tomorrow will be at seven, eighteen, where we are, yeah, and we're pretty much in the middle of the of the winter. So yeah, I would say, and then you know, the time change messes it up to. That's right which that's right Hard for me to calculate. Yeah, it was spring and a head, yeah, but I don't know, I don't know.
Dan:It's just so hard for me to get up in the mornings when it's dark out and cold out in the winter.
Charles:Dude. Well, I might need to evangelize you on the idea of getting one of those hatch alarms where, ok, keep it in your bedroom and it gradually gets lighter and lighter, and the music or the birds, or whatever it is that you want to listen to.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:Gradually, as the sun, as the light gets brighter, the music comes up a little bit and it helps me wake up early when, when I need to wake up early, I can't I mean I could, I don't like using just a conventional alarm where five o'clock hits and I can't do that.
Dan:I don't do that either. Alexa has a poor man's version of that where it's supposed to brighten up about five or ten minutes before the alarm goes off. But for whatever reason, it seems like it's just like you know. You know, like lights on a stadium, kind of the hatch. It's not gradual at all and then it does wake me up.
Charles:But it is a little disturbing. The hatch restore to is the one that I have, because I had the hatch originally and it stopped working right. I wouldn't join my Wi-Fi network and so I wrote to them about it and they're like oh, we'll just send you the latest model for free.
Dan:A great customer service.
Charles:Excellent customer service and, yeah, I believe I can do. I have definitely done 45 minutes of ramp up time before and I think you might be able to do an hour. That's nice where it starts. That's that's pricey though.
Dan:That's like a $200. I think it's $129.
Charles:I think I got a target like 1929, something like that.
Dan:Oh, all right Okay.
Charles:And the thing I do to increase the ambiance is I have it on the other side of my five gallon water jug that I use to dispense fresh water. As it lights up, it diffracts through the water and, yeah, it's a very pleasant salt light that comes on in the morning. So, yeah, that's one of my, one of my rituals when I am waking up as early as I should be. But, man, it is, I'm having a hard time getting getting to sleep when I ought to get to sleep and spending nights in my own bed, not for, yeah, not for that cool reason, but traveling, for work, you know, and spend some time, and you know I'm spending almost one night a week in a hotel and that that does mess up the process of getting to sleep early.
Charles:And then also, just you know, hanging out with my friends who have nine to five jobs and going on dates. I mean, it is hard to be. Ideally, my alarm or my reminder mocks me every day at 845 to say, hey, time to get in that bed. And you know, sometimes I'm just ordering food at 845 when I'm on a date or something and it's like, oh boy, this is going to be. You know, I can, I can still wake up at five tomorrow, but it's not going to feel great.
Dan:I wonder if there's got to be some sort of impact on making you feel guilty, like maybe we should just get rid of that whole reminder. I'm wondering if making you feel guilty is worse Then actually having it.
Charles:I don't know if I'm getting actual guilt.
Dan:I mean, do you actually even use it? Like, even if you are home in your camper and have that bed available to you when it goes off, do you use it? Oh, that's a good question, cause I have the same alarm. Yeah, and I don't, and I don't. I'm asking you because I don't, and all it does is make me feel bad about myself.
Charles:That's fair. Yeah, I'm trying to think even if I was, even if I was sitting at my desk working on something not urgent, or if I was watching a TV show at my desk, it's just like an annoying goes off, am I, am I actually going to say, okay, I'm going to pause this, I'm going to turn my monitor off and I'm going to go lay in bed? I can't imagine that happening. I've never done it. So, yeah, you're right, I think I should probably.
Dan:Let's do that. I'm going to get rid of mine right now. Actually, you know, and how stupid am I? I had this set for Friday nights too. Like, really, that's pretty stupid. Yeah, unbelievable. All right, done, updated, removed. Guilt released.
Charles:All right, I've got to go to the health part and let's see. Yeah, my ideal schedule is bedtime at 8 45, wake up at 4 30. Wow, and I would like to live that life consistently, but I just have not been able to figure out how to do it.
Dan:I think in the wintertime it needs to be different schedule. I think, looking at the way we are as human beings and so tied to the earth and the sun and everything in terms of our wake cycles and our eating cycles, I think we're swimming upstream, thinking we're going to be able to get up at the same time early in the summer as we do in the winter. Well, we certainly can.
Charles:It's just, how difficult will it be? And what are the tradeoffs? Right, exactly, yeah, how exhausted are we going to be? And but you do have to offset that with OK, but what's the value of the established pattern where I I identify? I'm just the guy who, like the rock, I'm a guy who wakes up at 4, 30. Like that's. That's who I am.
Dan:I'd love to talk to the rock in the wintertime. Is he really still getting up at 4 30? I really would like to know. Or does he kind of take it easy sleep in and I think we all ease into that because of the holidays to we get those days off where we don't need to wake up with an alarm. But when we know, it, our circadian rhythm.
Charles:Is the rock or jockel willing? I, I'll bet. I'll bet. They are doing it every day, no matter what the conditions are, and I know the rock star doing it because of you know his movie shooting. When you're shooting movies and TV shows and stuff like that, you know you have to get up so early getting hair and makeup and all that stuff.
Dan:I mean, making millions of dollars is quite an incentive. If I was pulling in the Rocks paycheck, yeah, no problem.
Charles:I'd be getting up. See that I'll disagree with you, because I think that that's a common thing that people like to do, to say, if if I had this on the line, then I would do it. But the only way you get that kind of stuff on the line is by already being the kind of person that does those things.
Dan:So you think the rock was so successful because he's getting up at 4 30 consistently?
Charles:first, I think he's successful because he's the kind of guy that decides all right, if this is what it takes, then this is what I'm going to do. Yeah Well, you got to remember. I think he's probably doing that in lots of areas of his life. The Rock started early.
Dan:If you watched the show, was it Young Rock? Whatever it was, yeah, I didn't see it, but I knew, I knew about it, but he was. You know he was a football player from a young age and training and everything else like that builds that discipline and that habit. So he's got that ingrained in his DNA. I think at this point.
Charles:Yeah, the whole idea of being comfortable. Being uncomfortable is what will let you set those patterns and live with those patterns and, you know, just trying to implement some of that stuff when you're in your late 30s or 40s. It is an uphill battle, but you can still win uphill battles. Just because something's uphill battle doesn't mean you're definitely going to lose. It just means expect it to be hard, exactly All right, let's. Let's jump into our material. This week we are still covering self care for men how to look good and feel great by Garrett months, and we're going to talk about many pennies, nice. So you should clean your nails and cut them, because the people in your life will appreciate it and because it's better to stop your fingers from falling off and being gross Yep, being gross first, then falling off, I would say.
Dan:Bacteria love to live under those little buggers and, yes, you know, we're touching everything.
Charles:How often do you trim yours?
Dan:Whenever they need it. So it depends on the time of the year. So I just kind of look at them every once in a while. So they grow faster in the summer, slower in the winter. So it's every could be as much as a week and a half or two weeks, really that long.
Charles:I can't go that long, yeah. Yeah, I'm usually like every probably around a week, okay, five, six, eight days, something like that, yeah, and sometimes I'll just notice, I'll look down and I'll notice like, oh okay, they need to be attended to.
Dan:Yeah, I don't cut them super short and because of that, and I mean I guess maybe you know, I don't they don't want to grow that fast. They're a little bit, they need a little bit of work. They're not too bad, a little bit longer than this and I'm cutting them. Okay, just so you know where I'm at.
Charles:Yeah, I try to cut them as close to the part where they change from pink to white as I can.
Dan:Yeah, so I actually did a woman once where she freaked out and said don't cut your nails too short, because I guess she had an ex-boyfriend who did, and he ended up like Doing some damage Doing some damage, and so she got me kind of a little paranoid about that too. So I let it go a little bit longer, but not to the point of where I'm scratching myself or people or whenever. If I feel like I catch my nail on something, that's when I'll look and I'll be like all right.
Dan:I'll either file it down or I'll cut them, depending on what's going on.
Charles:Yeah, I need to do a better job of filing them and buffing them, because I like the way. You know, I've never applied a polish or anything but when you get one of those like six grade sanding things where it goes from rough to very fine and nails get all shiny, I like the way that looks. I should do that more often, or go to a professional and let them do it. So, yeah, your hands are obviously the primary way that you deal with the world as far as touch goes right, yep, and as a result, they're more likely to have some of the roughest skin on your body, unless I mean. Yeah, you and I mostly touch keyboards for a living. So the only areas I have any roughness on are right here and right here, and that's from gripping a barbell.
Dan:Oh, that's something else. It's the size of a barbell. But a question for do you use hand sanitizers ever?
Charles:Rarely. Yeah, I usually wash. I would rather wash my hands than use hand sanitizers?
Dan:Yeah, me too, and I don't know if this happens to you, but every time I use it my nails break. Oh really they chip.
Charles:Okay, interesting. Well, I mean, you could probably alter your technique a little bit so you're not rubbing the outlaw directly on the fingernail.
Dan:Yes, and I've done that and I've also bought some stuff from Amazon. It's basically like a nail strengthening. It's like a moisturizer, a nutrient type of little polish. It's clear and it's just like a moisturizer and it might be what they use in the salons and I rub that in every time I use a sanitizer and that seems to have helped.
Charles:Interesting, the only time I really prefer sanitizer. Some people may think this is a great idea, but it's gross and that's fine, but I can't remember this answer. I sometimes, when I'm on the road and I have to stop and use the restroom in a really gross bathroom, I'm like I would rather not even wash my hands in this bathroom, even though I just got done using the bathroom.
Dan:You're not the only one who's done that. I would rather go out in my car and hand sanitizer.
Charles:Well, I mean, I'm, you know, I think between. Covid and other stuff. It's like you always have to wash your hands right after you use the bathroom.
Dan:But not. Not if it's covered in bacteria and dirt and, like some of the sinks, are disgusting. Yeah, and the door handle that you have to watch because of the thing on the.
Charles:I like that, like every McDonald's now and every, I think every McDonald's. And there's one other place that has, yeah, the thing on the bottom of the door where you can use your foot to open it. You don't have to touch it. And listen, I am no germ freak by any means. But, yeah, some bathrooms that I'm in, I'm like I don't want to touch anything in here, I mean.
Dan:I've used my foot to lift the lid on the toilet. So I because it looked so nasty, you know.
Charles:But I'm not. That's the other, that one. One idiosyncrasy of mine is I do not ever want to sit down to use a toilet with a black toilet seat. Okay, because you can't see what's going on on the seat. That grosses me out. So if I, if I have to, I have to kind of go and I go and do like a gas station bathroom and they got black lids on the seats. I'm like, nope, get back in the car, try the next place.
Dan:I'll do like a makeshift toilet seat cover with the toilet paper and I was kind of cover the back and then the sides and the front and I'll cover it like completely with toilet paper. If I've got a I haven't, I mean, I guess I could try hovering.
Charles:I got some decent thoughts you know, but I mean the girls do it all the time. Yeah, I don't like to hover. The other thing I will do in a public little bit of extra splash.
Dan:Is that the? Is that the concern there?
Charles:I just, I mean I just relax. I don't know how hard, I don't know how tough things are going to be. I'm not in there to relax. I'm not in there to relieve. I don't know how tough things are going to be with the actual you know exercise of using the restroom. So I want, I want just a little bit.
Dan:That's the reason why it is a restroom, I guess. Yeah, okay, all right, I'll give you that.
Charles:I'll give you that. Thanks all. Treat myself to two of the little Seat cover things and supposed to see covers, okay, yeah, don't just use one. Used to treat yourself. It's nice, very luxurious, feels good. Jiver in the 80s, did you ever have in your house or in a friend's house the padded toilet seats? Yes, those are so gross.
Dan:I Listen. I had at my dad's house. They feel good. They were amazing. Oh, it's only my own house. Would I just anybody else.
Charles:When I just think about how gross that is just the idea that there's foam underneath that vinyl. I Hope we've moved past that as a society. That is so disgusting. Okay, anyway, back to back to Manny Petty's. Yeah, if you work with your hands, then you should take care of them. If you wear sandals, ever, you need to take care of your feet. I don't know, is that because people will see your feet or is that because your feet will get gross because you wear sandals? I don't know what the logic is when he said that.
Dan:I would think it's probably your feet are gonna get gross from wearing sandals. The other thing is you're not wearing socks, so whatever was on your feet, that little is now in the sandal and a lot of sandals there, either some some Carpet oh my god, some some, you know, textured, something that might absorb some of that dirt and stuff, and, knowing that we absorb a lot of nutrients and things through our feet like epsom salt baths they have foot baths where you put your feet in it and it helps you relax our feet absorb a lot of stuff, so we really want to take good care of the feet, keep them clean as much as possible, and that even whichever. Look at the bottom of sandals, how like black and dark they are.
Dan:Yeah yeah, so I know I haven't been as diligent to clean them as I should I?
Charles:I assume that's probably just skin oil and then the oil captures dust and dirt and stuff at fingers crossed. Yeah, I.
Dan:I wonder if there's got to be somebody who's done studies I like done like samples of bacteria.
Charles:Yeah, I dissected it an old pair of Birkenstocks and report what they found our crocs. Yeah, right, well, the rocks.
Dan:You wear socks with them.
Charles:Oh yeah, I suppose you could, but I will you know if you're. If you're doing that and you're over the age of 14, I'm going to look down on you and also they're like a rubber, so they're less likely to suck up. Yeah, and I actually recently I donated my, my real Birkenstocks which you know, the real Birkenstocks like a $110 for a pair of those. I remember.
Dan:I remember when you can only get them in Germany as a kid yeah, my mom and I would. We and I said we'd go to Germany and that was her big thing, go to the shoe store, get Birkenstocks, and I was like these things are ugly, you know, but she loved them and they were uncomfortable. I mean, it was like it was like me that a back then. Yeah, there's no like memory foam or anything.
Charles:Well, I don't. I read some articles that actually said the originals are better than the memory foam one. So when I bought my, bought the originals, yeah because the originals break into your feet more than the memory foam do.
Dan:Yeah, and that's what my mom was like oh, just got to break them in. Well, how long does that take? Like I can be uncomfortable for like a month.
Charles:But honestly, they, they never my my leather and cork Birkenstocks never got as comfortable. That's right, it's meant a cork, yeah, yeah, they never got as comfortable to me as the. Essentially the plastic, like the. They have the Birkenstocks that are made with essentially the same stuff they make crocs out of. Okay, and I wore. I got those first and I went through a few pairs of those. Those old your feet too a Little bit, but they're. They're so light and they're so.
Charles:I look at my favorite sandals, the, the. I don't know what that kind of plastic is called EVA or whatever, but they're the most comfortable sandals I've ever owned. And the, the real Birkenstocks. Just, I found myself never wanting to wear them because they just didn't feel as good, mm-hmm, and you know if, if the they weren't appropriate for a lot of situations. So I eventually I just donated them, probably a few weeks ago I was still in New Smyrna, so I've, I donated over there and I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm never wearing these, so why am I keeping them in my, in my closet? Yeah, somebody else can wear them.
Dan:Yeah, I see my mom, so I'd be like this looks like a bed of nails. No, thank you. I was like this is not, not, not my cup of tea. Yeah, they.
Charles:They. If I had never tried the very lightweight plasticy rubber ones first, I may have been a bigger fan of them. But okay, those, those lightweight ones, and they sell them it. You know, I think I usually got them at Dix or on Amazon for like $45, $49, $39, something like that. So they're a lot less expensive and they feel so good and Maybe I need to give them a shot.
Charles:I would. I would try them out, okay. So Professional manicure, manicures and pedicures are low cost and low risk, but do wonders for your mood, not to mention your hygiene. Again, for me, Pedicures, man, it's got to be a special occasion where I'm gonna be spending a lot of time barefoot or or in sandals, because I just get tickled too easily. What I'm getting my, my toes and my feet touched. So I don't do those near as often as I do manicures.
Dan:When you were getting pedicures, did they do the luffa type of Scrub for the bottom of your feet for dead skin cells, or do they bust out the cheese grater?
Charles:I think they I've probably gotten both okay. I think the the stone they use on sort of the sides of my heel a little bit Okay, but the bottom of my feet are so soft that they're must be nice it is there, yeah, that's even with all that hiking and walking you're doing there.
Charles:Yeah, yeah, yeah I. I don't know if that's, yeah, walking doesn't typically make the bottom of my feet Harden up. Okay, I don't know if that's because of the socks and the shoes that I'm wearing, maybe or what, but yeah, my, my feet stay very soft in my palms. I mean the the first time I shake hands with a woman. The first thing they usually say your hands are so I wish my hands were that soft and it's like, yeah, I wish my hands were that soft, not doing anything.
Charles:But yeah, I, I've had all the. I've had a lot of pedicures problem, a lot of pedicures. I mean there's some people probably doing every week. I've had a few dozen pedicures, yeah, and I'm always just kind of feeling comfortable and I get the tickling when they're doing the pumice stone or the cheese grater.
Dan:I mean my, my feet definitely need the the cheese grater, for short it, to get all that stuff off, and sometimes they'll they'll think they can get by with the pumice stone and I'm like did you check? Did you check, cuz they're still like rocks. Oh, wow, yeah.
Charles:Yeah, I've never had to deal with that on the the bottom of my feet, all right, so you know a lot of the stuff in this. I, I really think most of the things that he, the reasons that he's selling go get professional manicures and pedicures. It's cuz it feels nice like I don't know that they're from a hygiene perspective, I don't know that there's a lot of benefit. The manicures and pedicures that I'm not getting myself Right, what I do in the shower, what I do when I, when I wash my hands, I mean they do put some nice Lotions and stuff on me that I wouldn't normally do for myself.
Charles:But yeah, just from a hygiene perspective, I mean my feet get pretty clean when I'm in the shower, not only cuz I wash them, but because all the other things I wash end up on my feet. Yeah, you know the so correct, the soap gets down there, yeah, and then I also do a little once over the tops in the bottom of my feet while I'm in the shower. So I you know, when he goes into the bacteria and the fungus, it's like okay, well, if you're, if you're showering regularly and you're washing your feet while you shower, yeah, I don't know that you should be fine.
Dan:and and I think If you're taking showers in public places, like at the gym, things like that you're not wearing sandals into the gym, into the shower, you're more likely to get, you know, get something on your feet. I mean just same thing after the gym. I wash my hands twice, actually for 20 seconds after I leave the gym, every single day, because there's nobody going around wiping stuff down or anything else like that, and you know, knock on wood, I rarely get sick, but that's just a habit that I've gotten into. The other thing I think is good to the reason why it's good to get professional. Any of these services is so you can see what the right way is to do these things.
Dan:And then you can bring it back and say, ok, look, I don't need all this other stuff. Yeah, I can just do. At least I know the right way to do it. I can do it on my own and save a couple of bucks, if you wanted to, or do it a little bit more often.
Charles:That's the same mindset that we talked about before, about you know, when you're looking to change up your style as far as your haircut goes, go to the most expensive place in town Exactly, have them do it for you. Then have your friend take pictures of your head from every angle and then, two weeks, when you need another haircut, go to your usual cheap barber and say make my hair look like this, and it's a way to establish the high, the baseline or the high line, and say this is what it is at its best. So now I've got something to shoot for, yeah, and so, yeah, I could. Great idea, I could see value in doing things that way as well. Let's go through.
Charles:If you've never been to a spa for a manicure or a pedicure, I just want to go quickly through what they do, real quickly. First they're going to clean your nails to get whatever dirt and oil and grime is on them off. Then they're going to cut your nails with a nail clipper, based on how long you want them and what shape you want them, and usually they start with a soak first.
Dan:Is that what they?
Charles:I don't know if they do the soak first. I think they do the soak before they push your cuticles back and start and get out the little tiny little snippers where they go after the dead skin around your nail. Gotcha, yeah, so they'll cut your nails Usually. You want rounded. I always cut mine to basically match the shape of the tip of my finger. I suppose there are other options for guys besides that. I don't know if I've ever seen to be honest with you and I think that would look weird.
Dan:I mean women when they get their nails on Right. They're options yeah.
Charles:I've seen straight, I've seen very curved, I've seen pointy, I've seen a lot with women Right, but man, nothing makes me feel both uncomfortable and a little bad for women. Let's see women with long fingernails trying to use a keyboard.
Dan:It's like, oh, that sounds, that looks, that looks not fun, man, I don't, I mean, I appreciate you're also very sensitive to sounds and noises, so I'm wondering if the click, click, click, click, click, click would eventually drive you nuts. It might a little bit you know, because the nails, either on the keyboard or the other keys, like constantly.
Charles:That's the question Are you using your nail or are you using the flat part of your?
Dan:I think the pad I don't know, I think they've done depends on the woman. I think you do both.
Charles:Yeah, just another thing to have to decide. Burn through that that, that decision making willpower.
Dan:Exactly.
Charles:Yeah, I speak of the sounds. The one sound that does drive me absolutely loony is hearing another person cut their nails. Oh, the clip, yes.
Dan:I, that's not ASMR for you. The keyboard nails on a chalkboard and the club clipping might be a might be your next ASMR.
Charles:Nails on a chalkboard might be easier for me than here. Wow, to put their nails Interesting. I yeah, when, when I had a partner.
Dan:You have some sort of childhood trauma around this, not that I know.
Charles:Okay, you know, maybe I mean yeah, you know the yeah. If my partner is cutting their nails, I'll be like I'm going. I'm going for a walk.
Dan:I have a little PTSD about that clipping sound as well. I had a roommate shortly after college who would clip his toenails in the living room. Who's it was? You know, it was an apartment where like three of us were living together and he just sit in the living room watching TV.
Charles:Yeah, Shoot him around the room. Basically, yeah.
Dan:Not knowing where it goes. You might find it on the couch. Might find it in your cereal.
Charles:Who knows, that's the, yeah, the disgusting getting in your food. Oh, oh my God, think, just thinking about it. Yeah.
Dan:I could deal with hair in my food. A fingernail no way. Oh, I can't deal with either. I can deal with hair, no problem.
Charles:I can't hear my food, the meal's over, yeah, yeah.
Dan:A lot of people are like that I'm okay with hair, believe it or not, as long as not too long.
Charles:Yeah.
Dan:Oh, it's like already in my mouth and then like I'm pulling it out and I'm feeling it like kind of grind against, like my teeth or my throat that's where. Okay, that's too much.
Charles:I hope tiktok bands us for this. Oh my gosh, all right, so they cut your nails and then they're going to file your nails to get the kind of shape you want, and I it's funny I was the first time I went to get a manicure that I realized I was filing my nails wrong, because you're supposed to file your nails like this along the edge and I would file them like this. So I'm taking off some levels of the top of the nail too, when I would file oh interesting.
Charles:Yeah, you'll like, they'll put like the file under the corner and stuff, and then, yeah, like the sides where you should not go against the grain like this when you file.
Dan:Oh, no, yeah, Okay, I don't do, okay, oh it's so much faster if you do it that way.
Charles:You just stick your hand up like this and they just, oh, oh, my gosh, that's hysterical yeah.
Dan:I don't get like under the corners, but I will go like around the top like that. Yeah, that's fine, you know, or I'll do like this and then this and then this.
Charles:You know, yeah, perpendicular to the way your finger goes, you should not do.
Dan:Yeah, okay, splinter yeah.
Charles:I learned.
Dan:I learned that I mean it's like cutting a good piece of meat. You know you got to go with the grain, yeah.
Charles:All right. Then, after your file you'll get soaked, and then after you soak is when they will push your cuticles back and then get out those little snippers, which I'm always shocked that I don't end up a bloody mess when they get those little snipping tools.
Dan:Oh, to get to get the cuticles at the bottom of that, yeah.
Charles:How am I not bleeding? But I guess they're just going after dead skin.
Dan:Yeah, you know, and the funny thing is I don't ever see it and yet I feel like sometimes there's going through the motions, I feel, because I don't like see any dead skin on my.
Charles:Oh, they get a lot off of mine.
Dan:It's yeah, it's gross and I'm like are you doing anything?
Charles:They get a lot. Okay, yeah, like the, the pile of skin that builds up around the corner when they're doing that. It's okay. Yeah, it's nasty. Yeah, they get a lot off mine Delicious. Then after they push, they do that part. Then the moisturize your hands, give you a little massage, which is nice, and then buffer polish them at the end. So there you go, guys.
Dan:That's what you're missing out on if you're not getting if you and if you've never had a good hand massage or a good foot massage. It's amazing because we don't realize how much we're actually using and it's kind of one of those things where it's like low-level stress right, like we're using our hands and feet so much all day long and you know we just get used to it being stiff and tight. Same thing with, like our forearms so to. Actually, when somebody actually gets in there and does a massage, it's like holy cow. One it's almost a little painful because I didn't realize how tight it was, but two, I need to do this more often.
Charles:Yeah, I I am overdue for going For a manicure, but the thing is I I rarely go to get them because when I notice my fingers are too long, I just trim them and I'm like, ah, I'd be a waste to go get a manicure now. I've already trimmed them where that's just a small part of what they do is the actual trimming, but I use it to talk myself out of it.
Dan:I'm, I'm exactly, I'm exactly the same way, yeah so I should.
Charles:I should use the act of trimming my nails as a reminder of oh, you should go get a manicure, and okay, so I'm. Usually manicures for guys are fairly inexpensive because they're just not doing a lot of Stuff to you but they're gonna ask you every single time if you want color.
Dan:That's like the running joke at all those salons, by the way, I have. Every time I go, they, they, they wink at me and they laugh that you want color.
Charles:You do just one nail black, like Carson Daley in the uh in the early 2000s, late 90s. Oh, I didn't know Carson. I started that trend. I think he did.
Dan:Yeah, I noticed that when he was hosting TRL total request live on MTV and that wasn't because he smashed his finger with a hammer, I think it was. It was.
Charles:It was an aesthetic choice, it really didn't look like a guy who's picking up a hammer for me. So I think, I think you probably you don't. You don't have tips that frosted if you're. If you're working with hammers on a daily business, I don't know these days I mean, yeah, but this was late 90s. Ah, yeah, him and vanilla ice. We were a little less tolerant back then.
Dan:Um, ironically, vanilla ice has a or had a home improvement show, or he's like a use a big. He's a big guy who's big into construction.
Charles:Actually, when he came back, oh the best home improvement show of all time was the adam corolla project On tlc. It was so much fun. He, uh, he bought his dad's that sounds familiar Dad's house from him, uh-huh. And then decided to renovate it and sell and he hired all of his loser high school friends to come work with him. He's started. It was very funny. We got to look that up. Uh, yeah, I downloaded it. I would love to see that. I downloaded off something. It might have been like one of the you know, lime wire, kazah or bit tour. I don't remember when I downloaded it, but it was all available. You can watch all of it. It might be on youtube now for free.
Dan:It's like a whole season.
Charles:Yeah, he did like a whole season of Fix it up his, his dad's house and, uh, I wouldn't mind throwing a couple shekels his way for that.
Charles:Yeah, I don't know, he. He probably doesn't have the rights to sell it, so it might. Maybe if you subscribe to whatever tlc's streaming services or whichever one tlc is on, you could get it, but I don't know, it'd be. It'd be interesting to see how it holds up. I'm sure it was very funny, though him, him and his buddies just a bunch of screw ups. It it's, you know, him getting frustrated and yelling out at the most of the time because he's obviously very funny. He's also a very good carpenter, so he, he knows how stuff's supposed to get done.
Dan:And it's like a race car driver. I mean, the guy is. Is he like a Genius? Has he been? Has he talked about that? Because I feel like he is. I've heard these things where he's like he's not just good, he's really good at a lot of really thing yeah and uh very that that's a sign very uneducated, dropped out of junior college and, uh, you know he's.
Charles:He's the one that I stole. Traditionally uneducated. Traditionally uneducated. I stole the phrase uh, I I know everything because I know nothing. That was him that originally came up with that. Oh, wow, yeah, I don't have a bunch of formal education in my head to get in the way of my common sense.
Dan:I feel like rogan took a little bit of that right with his uh, with his expression.
Charles:Yeah, yeah, so uh, yeah, but um, yeah, that's anyway great show. Okay. So how to choose the right place? Go to Places. Got some online reviews ideally positive ones, not negative ones and you always want to see people opening up the little baggie that the tools are in. Then that's how you know that they've been sterilized since the last person. Yeah, use them. You know, I, I use online reviews for everything, whether it's on amazon or google or yelp. It's like if a place doesn't have a high number of reviews and they're mostly positive now every place is going to have a couple people who had a bad experience, and Usually the people with bad experiences are the ones that actually write reviews. Um, where you know somebody has a good experience, like for me personally I'll click on the five star, but I I won't usually write out my experience.
Dan:That's probably more than what most of you'll do.
Charles:Yeah, so you know there there is a negative bias, I would say, with reviews in general. But I'd still, I'd still use them before I would pick a place to to work on my fingernails or toenails.
Dan:It's funny that you mentioned that because I wanted to ask Uh, these days, besides yelp and google reviews, are there any other platforms that you use that have a decent amount of reliable reviews for, either for food, for you know? Uh, you know these manicure, pedicure places no?
Charles:I uh, I pretty and I've pretty much given up on yelp to where I I only do google reviews.
Dan:Yelp gets a little confusing with the sponsored ads at the top.
Charles:Yes exactly.
Dan:It's a little bit frustrating.
Charles:Yes, yeah, I don't know. It's like I was this place at the top of the list because it's the best or because they threw a few bucks Yelp's way. Yeah, so I I generally Um use google maps and, like when I go, one of the things I do to relax when I'm on solo travel is, at the end of the day, I'll usually get on my phone and do google maps reviews for the places that I've gone that day and sometimes you know if I've taken pictures there, I'll upload nice.
Charles:Yeah, just one of the things I like doing laying in the bed in a hotel or a hostel yeah, I'm ready to go to sleep is just sort of go through my day and upload some reviews and yeah, some of them, you know, seem to be useful to people and, uh, that's a great way to remember the the trip. Um, okay, so here's how to do a diy pedicure. We'll go through this real quick. If, uh, if you're not ready to go and let a professional touch your feet, uh, soak your feet in a bath of Warm water and epsom salt for about 10 minutes. While still in the soak, use a foot scrub to exfoliate dead skin and get rid of calluses and pumice stone and, again, depending on your level of hardness will kind of determine the tool that's necessary. Clip your toenails with a straight edge clipper. Be careful not to cut them too short because then you can get infected and fungus and things like that. File the edges with a nail file or emery board and then apply a moisturizing foot cream all over your feet, in between your toes, and rub it in completely. So there you go. That's your process.
Charles:Um, I'm not sure how long we've been going, but I think we're at a good point to stop. So let's uh call it for now, and then on our next episode, we will talk about at least lotions, and maybe we'll get into the the secondary topic as well, because I I don't have a lot to say about lotions and I kind of didn't feel like the author did have that much to say about him either. I mean, how much can you say about lotions? Yeah, um, yeah. So we'll see you next week. All right, thanks, dan. Talk to you soon. Bye, bye, wow, you made it through the whole thing, so you must like us at least a little bit, in which case you should definitely follow or subscribe to our show in your chosen podcast app. Thanks, we'll talk to you next time.