Concluding "Self-Care for Men": Bathrooms, Plants, and Smells

Episode Title: Concluding "Self-Care for Men": Bathrooms, Plants, and Smells

Hosts: Charles and Dan

Episode Summary:

In this final episode of the self-care series, Charles and Dan discuss tips for men's self-care routines, including clothing choices for travel, refreshing your wardrobe, and the importance of a welcoming bathroom environment. They also delve into the concept of feng shui, houseplants, and aromatherapy, offering practical advice and debunking some common misconceptions.

Key Topics:

• Travel Fashion: Tips for packing light and choosing versatile clothing for European travel, including recommendations for wrinkle-free pants and avoiding shorts.
• Refreshing Your Wardrobe: Using color analysis to choose flattering colors for clothing and underwear.
• Bathroom Self-Care: Creating a welcoming bathroom environment with optimal storage, lighting, and aromatherapy.
• Feng Shui: Practical tips for arranging your home for comfort and security, debunking the mystical aspects.
• Houseplants: Discussing the benefits and limitations of houseplants for air purification and aesthetics.
• Aromatherapy: Exploring different scents and methods for creating a signature scent in your home, including candles, diffusers, and room sprays.

Additional Notes:

• Charles and Dan share personal anecdotes and experiences related to self-care.
• They emphasize the importance of prioritizing physical and mental health over superficial self-care practices.
• The hosts encourage listeners to be critical thinkers and choose self-care practices that work best for them.

Mentioned Resources:

• Haggar Cool 18 Pro Pants
• Next Level T-shirts
• Jockey Active Microfiber 2.5" Trunk
• Bath & Body Works "Wallflower" Air Fresheners
• Wyze Plugs

Call to Action:

Follow or subscribe to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast on your preferred platform for more episodes on men's self-care and relationships.

Transcript

Charles: 0:01

Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. Okay, this is it, our final episode on self-care for men by Garrett Muntz. I hope you have enjoyed this series. I have. I've picked up a couple of useful things and I've made some changes to my own self-care routines. Next week, we were going to start our new series on five love languages for men, so we're going to be leaving the self-care stuff behind and getting back into the relationship space, which many of our listeners have commented that they enjoy. So please enjoy this final episode and follow us on your chosen podcast app or on our YouTube channel. Thanks and enjoy.

Dan: 0:43

Morning Charles. How are you Spectacular Dan Thank you.

Charles: 0:46

How are you? Spectacular, dan. Thank you, how are you? I am well. Thanks. What's your week been looking like so far?

Dan: 0:51

Week's been productive. Yeah, mine too Good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got a lot of packing done way in advance of the trip that's coming up. What's the next trip for you?

Charles: 1:00

It's going over to Paris, paris and then oh, there's a family in germany this month, right?

Dan: 1:06

yeah, wow, yeah, end of may. So we're going for a while and wanted to make sure that I didn't over pack, as I tend to do. Yeah, yeah, I'm an under packer, right, but it's nice. The biggest challenge for me was figuring out what I'm going to need for every day of the trip, when I can get to a laundromat or wash the the clothes, yeah, right at a family's place. So the big. It just took me all day just to plan out. Okay, what am I gonna wear. And the funny thing is I just realized I'm gonna have to go back and and look at that again, because paris is known for five. This is style and fashion, and it can be a little bit snotty and stuff like that. So I'm like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't be wearing shorts, even though it's going to be hot outside I'm not.

Charles: 1:47

I'm not any shorts for my silly shorts I'm packing for my trip to europe in september yeah, no, I'm sorry, in august are the shorts I'm going to be like sleeping in, but I will not like venture outdoors in shorts.

Dan: 1:58

It's all going to be lightweight, cool, breathable pants and that's what I'm, that's what I'm on the hunt for, so I'll need to pick your brain on now what, what you found for that yeah, the, the ones I'm leaning to hager or hagar, however you pronounce it.

Charles: 2:14

They make a a very cool, very lightweight, very breathable, very quick, drying synthetic. Okay, dress pant that it's not too dressy, it doesn't have pleats or anything, it's like a flat front. And then they have it in standard relaxed and slim, fit and a lot of different colors, and you can order them on amazon and you can also find jc penny kohl's yeah, all those places I've owned some of those in the past yeah, you haven't gone down the road of linen though.

Charles: 2:40

I own a pair of linen pants and they're nice, but linen linen tends to wrinkle and you get a little bit of grace on that, like it's going to look wrinkly because it's linen.

Charles: 2:50

But it still bothers me but when it comes to packing it in a small bag and changing cities every two days, they would look terrible. They look like somebody just bunched them up in a wet ball and set them in the corner of the room for so I'm not going to do that. Yeah, these these other ones I'm looking at are all. They're all wrinkle free. They all have those comfort waistbands so you get it in your, in your waist size.

Charles: 3:09

Now you're talking my language, baby A little bit of grace there for how much food you eat while you're on vacation, perfect, yeah, I'm leaning towards just taking. The big debate for me right now is do I take a pair of jeans or do I only do two pair of these lightweight travely pants and things? Jeans are great unless they get wet, and then again you're changing cities every. I'm changing cities every two days. I don't want wet jeans in my backpack with all my other clothes making them moist and nasty. I think I'm probably going to skip the jeans entirely, yeah, and only bring two pair of pants trousers that's, that's yeah, yeah, I might.

Dan: 3:42

I might do a swap for my pairs of jeans to keep the weight under what it needs to be and get one of these haggard.

Charles: 3:49

I'll take a look at that thing yeah, and the thing with if you typically build a fair amount of your fashion around jeans, as I do, a pair of navy chinos can kind of oh for sure, take that spot. If the fabric and the weight having all that wet cotton is a concern, because, look, if if I'm in London and it rains while I'm walking around in jeans, then they're going to be at least the bottoms near where my ankles are, they're going to be soaked. They're not going to be not soaked for days and days after that. So I don't think I'm going to risk it, I think I'm just going to. Yeah, I looked at essentially what are considered golf pants.

Charles: 4:21

A lot of people on Reddit they say instead of spending a lot of money on travel pants, just buy pants that are made for golfing Perfect. I just didn't like their style as much. A lot of them will have an extra pocket here or there or an extra seam here or there. Where the Hager ones that are more made for a casual work environment. They look like they would be a little bit more versatile to. If I want to go have a dinner in a nice restaurant, I don't want to be wearing what clearly looks like a golf pant, gotcha.

Dan: 4:45

Yeah.

Charles: 4:45

So you want to avoid the cargo short? Look, yeah, and even a little bit like even just an extra seam around the knee area, where it almost looks like they're convertibles that could go from shorts to. It's like even just that extra seam turns me off a little bit.

Dan: 4:58

Yeah, that's not a dinner pant.

Charles: 4:59

Yeah, exactly so cool. I think that's going to be a great trip. I'm looking forward to see. You need to break your normal social media habits and actually take and post pictures.

Dan: 5:08

I will take pictures and we will talk about posting them. At a minimum I will get. You will see them, whether it's on social or not.

Charles: 5:15

You'll see them. Fair enough. All right, let's. Oh, I did have some news. I ordered I'm refreshing my underwear supply. Oh, I was on baited with baited breath, sitting here asking about your yeah, thinking about your underwear. I, for, I'm using this trip to Europe as an excuse to refresh a lot of fashion. I made another um, jiffy shirts, purchase of my next level Good stuff, true. Next, bought a lot of, bought enough of those to get free shipping. Man, that is such a scam, the way they set that minimum for free shipping. It's like I don't need this many. But if I have the choice of giving you another $6 for shipping or giving you another $6 for another shirt, I'm picking another shirt. It works, it works, that's the reason why so many companies do it.

Charles: 5:54

Yeah, it works on me every time and yeah, I use the results of my color analysis that I got done that. I went to one of the companies that offers those and uploaded a bunch of pictures and talked a little bit about what I currently wear and answer some questions about my skin tone and my eye color and they said, all right, Charles, here are the colors for you, and then I use that to decide what color shirts to buy and jackets and all kinds of from this point forward, anytime I buy clothes if it's not on that recommended list, because they make this whole PDF document that they give you that shows you like, okay, here's your face next to these colors, here's your face next to these colors and like this one is clearly better and I showed it to you and it's yes, by hands down, it is clearly superior to these other colors.

Dan: 6:41

So where does purple fall? Because we just changed up the colors in our background. Purple is good for me, yeah.

Charles: 6:46

Yeah, I would think it's a dark. It's terrible for you, but I decided to use it anyway. No, I'm just kidding.

Dan: 6:51

No, I go with a similar type of colors.

Charles: 6:53

Yeah, you and I do have fairly different skin tones, but I would think there's a lot that I was just reading the other day about. I'm going to a client convention at the end of this month, while you'll be out of the country, and I've pared down the number of suits that I own, I've donated, and one of the ones that I own is a black suit. Which black suits for men? There's this idea of oh, it's so versatile, there's so many ways you can wear it for an evening out, you can wear it to work. They're not really, as black suits are quite a bit limiting because just they're. The blackness is in very stark contrast to most people's skin tones. Like, if you've got very tan, very olive skin, you can look good in a black suit. But for me, I will not be tan by the end of may and I'll have to try to figure out a way to use the shirt and the tie to calm down the blackness, the boldness of the black suit, and so, yeah, I would say a lot of. I think it's the best-selling color of men's suits, but it is really not as versatile as a navy or charcoal. Navy and charcoal is going to work for men in a lot more situations than black is.

Charles: 8:05

If you're thinking about buying your first suit and you're only going to have one, I would not make it a black one.

Charles: 8:11

I would look at either navy or charcoal and start there and eventually, if you own enough suits, black might make sense For me. I think if I buy a charcoal or I find a really nice dark brown, then I'll probably donate the black one because I have a tuxedo and it's like anytime at night that you would wear a black suit. You just put on a tux and even if you don't wear the tux with a tie, you can just do an open tuxedo shirt, formal shirt with it. It's still going to put you usually a level above most of the other people at the event that you're at. And yeah, I don't really have the utility for a black suit. I just don't want to go shopping and deal with the alterations and all that before I've got less than two weeks, I think, until this event. I'm not going to take it on right now. I'm just going to wear the black suit with probably a not white shirt and a muted tie and see.

Dan: 9:01

Tone it down a little bit. Exactly, yeah, without white, anything really makes it black and white together.

Charles: 9:07

The reason it looks so good for a tuxedo is because it's at night, and it's one of the appealing things of wearing a tuxedo to formal events is ideally, all the men look the same and it allows your face, your hair, your personality. That's the idea behind the tuxedo is we're going to all look alike, and so it's not going to be our clothing that sets us apart from each other. It's going to be the more intangibles.

Charles: 9:30

They do that with boarding school too, so that's true, that's the yeah, the job of a uniform, right? Yeah, yeah. But unfortunately now most black tie events, there's a lot of irregularity with how men choose to dress for those which I get wanting to express your personality a little bit, but I also see the appeal of the more traditional approach, all right. So, anyway, jockey, I was able to find a great. I only wear jockey shorts for my underpants and I wear, I think they're called mid-rise briefs. They're not like bikini briefs, like Speedos. They go down your leg a little bit, but not so far that you can see them below my five inch inseam shorts that I like to wear this time of year. Gotcha, I have quite a few, and now that I got, Very.

Charles: 10:11

European of you. Thank you, I got a good deal. They sell that. They sell by the three packs. I got three, three packs of all colors that I don't already own. So now I am going to chuck any of the boxer briefs I have that are too long to wear with my short shorts Because, like, why, when I'm getting dressed in the morning during the summer, do I want to be like, oh, I forget, does this one? I got to hold it up, I got to compare it. I got to see okay, is this one short enough to wear with my five-inch shorts or not? No, I can just get those away. And that's one less thing I have to think about as I'm getting dressed in the morning.

Dan: 10:44

All right, brass Tacks. The question that is on all of our minds is the colors that you chose for your underwear. Does that match the color palette you got?

Charles: 10:53

Oh, that's a good question. I didn't even think about it. The list of people who see me in my underpants is fairly small, but important, but important so you better make sure it matches.

Charles: 11:02

Yeah, but important, but important. So you better make sure it matches. Yeah, that's a good point. I think they probably do. I think they're For your performance art. They're all colored.

Charles: 11:10

I didn't get any. They obviously sell just white or just black. I didn't get either of those. I got patterns and stuff that. Yeah, I think they probably are good with my color palette. But that's a good question. I did not factor that in.

Charles: 11:26

That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here to contribute. I appreciate that. I'll think about you next time I'm ordering underpants, Please don't. Okay, let's talk about feng shui. That's where we're going to start in. This is going to be our last episode of self-care for men, and I'm happy about that. I'm anxious to move on to the next book. You think we really can squeeze all these in here. No problem, I'm going to cause, I'm going to go fast. Here we go. It's it feels like a lot of these topics in the back of this book. It's turning into the Charles's skepticism show, and this will be no different from that. So here's something for you to learn, dan your body has specific energy fields that, when blocked, can have real effects on your physical and mental wellbeing. I appreciate the boldness of being able to say something like this without the need to cite a source. So good for him. I could never write that off. I would never have the hubris to say something like that and not refer to anybody who's an expert, any published researcher, but he did it.

Dan: 12:14

Well, maybe he figures nobody's going to get to page 226.

Charles: 12:17

Fair enough, all right. So if you're willing to accept that unfalsifiable belief first, then we'll pile another one on top of that. According to the ancient Chinese art of feng shui, the same can be said of your home. All right, so we're going to skip a lot of everything else that he says and talk to you about some of the rules for feng shui. Focus on the positive, don't forget anything. Meaning no space in your home is too small to consider. Pay attention to your doors and windows and whether or not those are blocked.

Charles: 12:46

Get rid of color I'm sorry, not color. Get rid of clutter, and this is something you and I talked about before the episode. Clutter can physically impede airflow and again, this is not. Oh, I left my Amazon box on my desktop For you to have enough clutter in your house to impede airflow. You've probably been on the show hoarders, and congratulations on that, I suppose it is. Yeah, the amount of clutter you would have to have for air not to be able to move through your space means you have severe psychological issues that should probably be treated on an inpatient basis. Yeah, I would call that an exaggeration A little bit. Yeah, okay. So optimize the flow, meaning, keep your bathroom door closed and he gives some reasons for that. I don't consider to be valuable. Hold on.

Charles: 13:37

I'm not letting that one go.

Dan: 13:39

Keeping the bathroom door closed and the toilet seats down is said to prevent wealth from being swept away with the water. And let me tell you, I've been closing my door, my bathroom doors, and that's why you're so rich.

Charles: 13:51

Oh, that's why I'm so rich.

Dan: 13:53

The money has been rolling in ever since I closed the bathroom door. Now next step, I'm gonna unclose those toilet seats.

Charles: 13:59

I'm going for it I'd say remove the toilet seats entirely and do the opposite, and then crap will flow into your life. Leave room on both sides of your bed okay, that one I agree with. But, and he says get mirrors, isolate electronics, face your furniture toward the door and pay attention to color. So I will summarize this entire chapter on feng shui in the following way there are good reasons to do all these things that have nothing to do with chinese mythology or mysticism or anything like that, and those reasons are security.

Charles: 14:34

You're more, you're going to feel more comfortable if you're in a space that you would quickly notice an intruder or you would be able to leave fast in the event of an emergency. Absolutely Okay, that's one. Number two is furnish your house in a way that doesn't look weird, meaning. If you've never seen a house on TV, or a hotel room or the home of one of your friends who may be doing a little bit better financially than you are, if you've never seen one of them decorate the house, their house the way you're thinking about decorating your house, there's probably a reason for that. So don't pick super weird off-the-wall ways to organize your furniture and expect it to work out well for you or to be welcoming for other people.

Dan: 15:21

Yeah, I would say, unless you've got a specific purpose in mind, to break up your mind in some weird way, maybe get some creative juices flowing, because it it will stand out.

Dan: 15:33

If, let's say, you've got a chair that is facing away from the the door, right? So, like our desk that doesn't face the door that comes in, if you're facing, if the the door is facing your back, that's going to be weird and it's going to be that it's just going to throw you off, and so I'm a fan of having that once in a while. If it's a specific purpose, you want to be creative or whatever, just to throw off your mind, get you out of your routine if it's that off-putting, right. Or maybe some weird art on the walls, just something that. But If you're trying to live like a fairly seamless, smooth, normal, quote, unquote life where you're not looking to be upset in some way, I'm looking at this as hey you could create. So it's like a haunted house where they're going to have stuff that's just unexpected and it's for a specific purpose, to elicit a feeling.

Charles: 16:25

Yes, you like your haunted houses. And again, take, I do like haunted houses, but take into account the idea of if you're, most people who have fulfilling lives have social lives. And here's an example when I went to college, we didn't have standard dormitories. What we had was suites that we lived in, where every room would have a living room and a kitchen and a bathroom that you shared and there would be two bedrooms. Yeah, we had that too. Yep, two bedrooms would have bunk beds in them and at one point, rob and me and my other roommates decided, okay, we're going to move all of the bunk beds into the living room and then we're going to have a home office on one bedroom and an edit in a home theater for the other bedroom. That's hysterical. It's hysterical, but people still looked at us like we were weird because we were doing something outside of the social convention.

Charles: 17:16

You don't walk through the front door and expect to see bets, exactly. And yeah, it's like you. You may have a compelling reason to do something like that in your house, but people, normal people, are going to look at you like you're being weird, right, right. And yeah, I would say whether you're doing this feng shui stuff because the chinese philosophy behind it speaks to you and you're into chi and energy and all that stuff, great. But again, all these things that he mentions doing are good ideas to do, even if you don't believe in anything supernatural, mystical or yeah, these are all good. These will all lead to you feeling more comfortable, even if you don't believe that there's some sort of energy field that's being affected by it. So you don't need bad reasons to believe good things when it comes to furnishing your house. Okay, one of the other functions of self-care is to make your bathroom a place that is welcoming and comfortable to be in, because a lot of the self-care activities we've talked about in other parts of this book happen in your bathroom. So have a bathroom that you enjoy being in as much as possible and you won't be in a rush to get out of there. You'll be happy to stay in there and do the things that you need to do. Now, some of these you and I have different bathroom experiences. I live in an RV full-time. I have a some of these. You and I have different bathroom experiences. I I live in an RV full time. I have a very small bathroom and you got a pretty nice big bathroom, and.

Charles: 18:38

But I think there's ways to implement all of these things in no matter what size you have. Keep it minimal is one thing, so a cluttered bathroom with too much stuff is going to make the room feel even smaller than it is, and so try to keep your colors light and simple. And, yeah, just don't have things stacked on every possible surface that you can find. Optimize your storage things like shower caddies, shelving units, like. For me, again, I don't have my room. My bathroom has a toilet and it has a tub shower combo. I have no sink in my bathroom. I have no storage in my bathroom. I also have a mirror hanging on the wall, but it's not a medicine, it's just a mirror, and being able to store things in there is difficult. So what I've got is I've got a shower caddy that doesn't hang like over the shower faucet, the shower faucet.

Charles: 19:36

I've got one that is part of the shower curtain slash liner thing where it hangs on the little hooks that hold the shower curtain and the liner to the and the great thing is so when the shower curtain and the liner are closed, you don't even see it. You only see it from being inside the shower. And it's fabric and it's got these little pockets and you just put the stuff that you I mean I've got shaving cream, my body wash, my soap, my face wash, my Listerine. It's big enough. The pockets are big. There's some big pockets and there's some little pockets.

Charles: 20:00

Everything I need while I'm in the shower, I can fit in that thing and nobody has to see it when the shower curtain is closed. That's great. That's how I optimize storage in my teeny tiny small space, lighting said in the other part, where and I find that a lot of bathrooms, even the ones that have the light bar over the big mirror or have the the bulbs that surround the mirror, a lot of them, especially the ones that come with your house or come with your apartment built in, are really cheap and really harsh yeah and you know why.

Charles: 20:30

every time you're getting ready to leave the house, do you want to look at yourself in the mirror looking awful? You don't?

Dan: 20:36

Yeah, and I say, of all these tips here, the thinking about lighting section is the most critical, like you just mentioned, because of that. Also, when you're getting ready, you want, you want to be able to see as much as you can in the right way. So it does suggest getting a lighted mirror, and that has a lot of times. Those lighted mirrors have different magnification levels.

Charles: 20:57

Oh yeah, it's like a portable.

Dan: 20:58

Yeah, all the good hotels you stay in usually have those, yeah, and you can get cheap ones on Amazon, yeah, and it's in the rechargeable and everything. So, yeah, with the different magnifications, it's great too, depending on what you're doing.

Charles: 21:10

Yeah, I was just thinking what I haven't checked recently for. So I've got this. I've got a mirror in my shower that I use to shave with, because I usually I wash my face and I shave in the shower. I should check and see if Amazon has since added a shower mirror of sufficient size, because I've got a pretty big one. I want a fairly big one that I can see my whole giant head in.

Charles: 21:32

Boy, if they had one that had LED lights around the border, because my bathroom in my camper I only have one LED light on the ceiling that has a little toggle switch, and so there's no looking good in there. Now, again, I don't even have a sink in there, so my getting ready happens in the kitchen area because that's where my sink is. So a lot of the like where I apply my moisturizer, where I put my hair, stuff, that's. I do that all in the kitchen. But, yeah, having a mirror that has the lights around the border, I'm sure that's probably a thing that I'm not the only one that wants one of those. So just making sure that I can find one that fits in the space that I need.

Charles: 22:05

I'll do some shopping for that on Amazon today. Yeah, lighting's important and it's crazy how much better one looks Again if you stay at a nice hotel. That's something they almost always get right the lighting in the bathroom when you're getting dressed, getting ready, getting shaved. You look good, and then you go outside and see yourself in a mirror somewhere else. It's like I don't look as good as I did back in the hotel.

Charles: 22:28

Who's that guy? Okay, so keep your supplies handy, meaning for the things you do in the bathroom. You should have the supplies in the bathroom because your self-care rituals will be a lot more timely and complicated and less likely to happen if you have to hunt all around your house for your supplies before you do them. So put stuff in the place where you use it as often as you can. Green it up. Put some plants in your bathroom. Do you have any plants in your bathroom?

Dan: 22:53

I do not. I don't even have fake plants in my bathroom, but I might get some. I like that idea yeah, I uh.

Charles: 23:01

Yeah, the thing is with my insane cat, like any, introducing plants into my environment. Number one, something that he doesn't mention. We're going to talk about house plants here pretty soon. Uh, if you have cats, dogs, sugar gliders, bearded dragons whatever you got if they get to wander about your home, make sure you're buying plants that are safe for them, because there's some stuff that you could just pick up in the plant section of Home Depot that could kill your animals. Regardless of whatever suggestions you get from us or this book about houseplants, always make sure that you're not buying something that your kids or your pets could eat and get sick from. But I do like the idea A lot of people talk about that having that spa feel in your bathroom and fresh plants live plants would certainly add to that Listen they make such good fake plants these days Like you can get them at Hobby Lobby, all kinds of plants, for example.

Dan: 23:56

I have some in the living room and where it's like a vine just hanging over a wall.

Charles: 23:59

Listen, low maintenance man, but here's the question Is the maintenance on a fake plant in a super high humidity area going to end up being more than it would to just keep a real plant alive? Because I'm thinking if it's made out of plastic and it it's not using that moisture, it's not absorbing that moisture into its leaves, are there? Are you going to start getting mold spots on your fake plant? That's a good question. Yeah, I'll let you know. Okay, do that. I wouldn't even try it because I would not, because then I'm either gonna be like, okay, now I gotta clean this freaking thing, or now throw this thing away.

Dan: 24:31

I'm just wondering you don't have anything else that's plastic in that. I'm trying to think that I've got to have plastic stuff in there.

Charles: 24:37

That's not getting mold, yeah, but the way that the leaves of a plant are. There's nooks, there's crannies, there's places where it's not going to air out and dry.

Charles: 24:57

It's like it's just a walk-in shower and you don't have a tub. There's still stuff you can do to make it a little bit more enjoyable, like putting in a stool, which seems like a. You're not shaving your legs and you're not an old person. Why do you need a stool in the shower? Sit there, I feel like. Just sit on the shower floor and hug your knees and cry like the rest of us, real men to say you can cry in the shower without a stool, blasted Taylor Swift in the background.

Charles: 25:23

What are we talking about here? Okay, game changers, here's some ways to upgrade better towels. This is one that I'm thinking about because right now, all of my of my, my number one advice for upgrading your towels is get bath sheets, not bath towels. Get the real big ones so that when you wrap it around your waist now I only have a 30-inch inseam, but when I wrap my bath sheet around my waist, it goes all the way down to my ankles, not just above my knee, yeah, and so I love a nice big bath sheet like pretty much the biggest size that the given place that I'm shopping has. That's what I always get for drying off after a shower. I agree, and I would say number one use bath sheets, not bath towels. Number two look for very plush good feeling.

Charles: 26:05

This is another area where the cheap capitalism, slash consumerism, wants to try to sell you on the idea of microfiber towels. Absolutely not. I do not use any kind of microfiber on my sheets or on my towels. It is just it does not feel good. They're supposed to be plush and it doesn't dry. As well, it doesn't get the moisture off me. Now, I'm Egyptian cotton, a hundred percent. When it comes to my towels and the thing I like about my current towels, I got them from Ikea. They weren't very expensive, but they have built-in loops so it's very easy to hang them up on various hooks or surfaces to dry. And that makes things a lot easier because I typically will put my towels over a door to hang to dry so that both sides both wet sides are separated by the door and the air conditioner. My ceiling vent blows straight on them. So usually in a couple hours the towel that I just use to dry off from my showers is clean and, as a result, somebody who's using my bathroom has to either move the towel or use the bathroom without completely closing the door, which both of those are pretty not great options for a guest that you're trying to show hospitality Fair. Yeah, just a couple of the concerns about towels.

Charles: 27:19

Fancy soap I like either fragrant-free soaps or I like the little bars that you buy at places like Whole Foods, where it looks like they're homemade-y and they have a lot of different scents. The last one I had was banana and oatmeal, which I loved. The one I currently have is almond. It's okay, but not as good as the banana oatmeal. My next one's going to be pistachio, okay. And so I use those on days where I don't.

Charles: 27:44

Mainly when I'm working from home is when I use that kind of soap because I'm not combining it with any cologne or anything like that. I'm just combining it with any cologne or anything like that. I'm just using it to get clean. I put on my fragrant-free deodorant and I don't want that smell that I personally enjoy to conflict with any of the other smells that I would usually use if I'm going out in the public. So those fancy soaps those are just for me Diffuse, don't cover, meaning. There's a couple of things you can do in the bathroom to deal with unpleasant smells, and both of them are not great. In my opinion, the worst one is like either keeping a matchbook or a box of matches there to light a match why is that the worst one?

Dan: 28:20

it's the actual one that works the best. It's gross, though it's not, it actually works. What's gross to me is a failing essential oil diffuser or some febreze that smells like febreze and poop. A match, a burnt match, kills everything. All the smells that are in there. It's the most effective. I'm actually going to be picking up some matchbooks at some restaurants because my Febreze is not cutting the mustard.

Charles: 28:49

The idea of going into a bathroom and smelling a burnt match because somebody was trying to. Versus smelling Febreze and the present they left in the bowl. I don't want to smell the Febreze either. So the thing part of it for me is I don't want a guest in my home who just took a dump to then have to make some other noise or engage in some other action so that the other people in the house don't have to smell their poop.

Charles: 29:17

That puts people into a so I would say don't use anything for breeze, where, okay, somebody flushes the toilet and then you hear, yeah, that's hey, everybody I just took a smelly poop like your guest is announcing that to whoever's at your party, your dinner party. I I don't think that's a good position to put people in, no, but I so I would say have something in your bathroom that is constantly putting out a pleasant odor, that is made to mask unpleasant odors so that people don't have to take an action.

Dan: 29:45

My problem is that the fuser is strong enough.

Charles: 29:48

I would not use, like the one where you like put the reeds and essentially, yeah, those are, yeah, those are garbage as far as I'm concerned. I like the bath and body works wall flowers where you buy the, the refills, you plug them into the wall, okay, and they are always just putting out a light bit of fragrance. And I've not tried that as a cover-up bathroom sense option, but I would try that before. I would either have somebody have to hit the can of Febreze or light the match Again.

Dan: 30:18

I think that's just so it's funny that you mentioned that, because I was actually staying at a friend's house and did my business in the bowl and went to. They had a whole bunch of matchbooks. Problem is in that humid environment, everything got wet and none of them worked yeah, I was making lots of noise, finally got one. Took me about five minutes, though, and maybe 50 matches.

Charles: 30:40

This felt like that just I don't know, maybe I'm being too prudish or sensitive about it, but the he the idea of we've provided it in.

Dan: 30:48

Here too, we provided this ritual for you to cover up the smell of your poops.

Charles: 30:52

So we've given you tools to make fire in the this ritual for you to cover up the smell of your poops. So we've given you tools to make fire in the bathroom so that you could cover up your stinky poo when it's okay. If that's the absolute only option, then I guess that's what you do. But again, the little plug-in diffusers are it's more subtle they're not a hundred dollars.

Charles: 31:08

they're fairly cheap and they you can refill them every couple months. It doesn't take a lot. So I would say I like that option better. All right, fair enough. Okay.

Charles: 31:17

So shower curtains don't get the cheapest shower curtain you can pick up at Walmart. Get something a little bit nicer, usually something made out of cloth or cloth. There's plenty of them that are made out of some sort of a polyester that feel good and look good and don't look like they're just made out of plastic and your space will look nicer with that. And don't go too crazy with the color choices, unless if this is a kid's bathroom, I find goes something loud and bright. But for the most part you want your shower curtain to not not be too much of a conversation piece. You want it to just be relaxed and chill, like the rest of your bathroom should be. And we did talk about bathtub caddies. Again, you can have the kind that hang on the shower faucet. You can have the kind that go in the corner, that you hang on the wall or that you have as part of your shower curtain. Again, just a way to organize.

Charles: 32:05

I don't want anybody to see any of my shower materials when they're outside of the shower, and so that's why the one that I have works for me.

Charles: 32:13

He also recommends a Bluetooth speaker, which I don't currently have, but I could see the value and I know they make them either with suction cups or that you can hang and being able to. My place is small enough where if I'm playing something anywhere I can hear it doesn't sound as good, and certainly I can't listen to an audio book or a podcast in my shower because the sound of the running water. If I take my phone in there with me, the phone doesn't get loud enough to for me to hear it while I'm like washing my hair, and if I'm playing it on my Google home speaker at the other side of my camper, that's not loud enough for me to hear. I can hear music playing, but I can't hear words of a podcast. So that's a pretty good reason and again, I know Amazon has tons of different Bluetooth speakers that are not very expensive that you can just either suction cup or hang in your shower. So I think that's something else I'm going to shop for today and add that to the mix.

Dan: 33:07

I've got a power outlet fairly close to the shower, so I've wired an Alexa Echo. Oh nice, okay to the shower.

Charles: 33:12

So I've wired an Alexa echo oh nice, okay Above my shower and it's holding up to the humidity. Okay, yeah, no problem there.

Dan: 33:17

And it's nice because then I just can talk to it and then I can give it commands. So rewind when I'm listening to an audible book or a podcast, so yeah. I love that. I love listening to that in the shower, yeah that's interesting.

Charles: 33:28

I don't have any power in my bathroom so I can't do that. I play my music on my Google Home, the same way I say, hey, google Play such and such.

Dan: 33:37

Yeah, yeah.

Charles: 33:38

And not being able, not having to touch something or not having to get my phone out and pick the song I want to listen to. I could definitely see value in that. I just don't know how I would be able to get a second one of those Google mini speakers in there without having.

Dan: 33:50

I wonder if there's ones that are like rechargeable, where you don't need an actual outlet.

Charles: 33:54

I don't know. I could certainly have a USB power bank, but then where am I putting it and how am I? How's that going to hold up to the humidity, and a lot of other questions like that. Yeah, I don't know, but it's something worth getting into or looking into. All right, let's talk about houseplants real quick.

Charles: 34:10

Yeah, I think places with live plants are, on average, prettier and nicer to be in than places without them. But, like we talked about in the last episode, when it comes to making these self-care choices, is the juice worth the squeeze? And between the amount of time I spend away from home and my cat, who not only would eat things but knock them over just for fun, it's okay how much do I really want to consider making my area nicer with plants versus just continuing to keep things low maintenance? Because when you get into these practices of boy, I think it'd be good for me if I do these things, if you take on things that you're not actually going to do, and then you just add to the clutter of your house by looking at these failed projects or failed self-improvement tactics, that's going to make you feel worse, because then you're dealing with clutter and you're dealing with failure, and so for me, until somebody makes a better case than this guy has for why I need plants, I'm not going to. I'm not adding plants for me.

Dan: 35:16

That's why I love the fake plants and they make them so realistic these days and they're not that expensive. So for other rooms besides the bathroom I have fake plants and to add to that I have one or two real plants. But the majority of the stuff that I have, like on the kitchen you probably haven't noticed, but on the kitchen wall that's all fake stuff. I'm considering probably put a couple more fake ones in there. It's interesting as long as it looks real. That's a big deal, but you can get really realistic ones without paying a lot of money for them.

Charles: 35:48

It's funny. We're revisiting the differences you and I have between fake plants, similar to fake breasts, where you're on board with the one and I am not. It's like if I. Just knowing that it's not real, it takes away the appeal to me. Interesting Okay. So yeah, like having plants in my house that look just like real plants, but I knew they were fake plants. I'm not interested anymore.

Dan: 36:11

It doesn't do it for me it's a little bit different, because there's not a whole lot of maintenance you need to do for the real versus the fake breasts, at least on your part you don't need, that's true. Right with the plants, though that is a big deal. You gotta really gotta kind of keep up with that speaking of which I don't know.

Charles: 36:23

If a lady has a full mastectomy, yeah, and replaces her natural breasts with fake breasts, then she no longer has to do self-exam.

Dan: 36:30

But I'm saying, I know, but you don't have any extra work one way or the other.

Charles: 36:35

That's true, fair enough, but yeah, something like that. Where it's, I want the aesthetic, I don't want the. The aesthetic matters more to me than the genuineness.

Dan: 36:45

Yeah, and there's also a lot of mental health benefits from stopping watering the plants. It can be a meditative experience like cooking and gardening and things like that.

Charles: 36:56

So for investing the time and keeping it alive is part of the appeal Right, and which I get that with my cat already. So it's more work than probably a plant would be. The one thing he said that I had to call BS on on. They work to purify the air inside. They do, though that's what I found. Yeah, in order to have enough plants in your house to have a measurable impact on air quality, 10 plants per square foot is what it would take, no way yes see that we don't consider how many plants there are on the.

Charles: 37:31

Obviously plants have an effect on the air quality of the earth, but when you think about how many plants the earth has, the density of both algae in the ocean, rainforests like to get that impact in your house. Yes, a there was a scientific white paper written by the grove collaborative that said you would need 10 plants per square foot in your house to impact the air quality just go live in the amazon, probably easier you know what does impact the air quality.

Charles: 38:01

An air purifier, yes. So you can just buy an air purifier that says what space it's made for and that will have an actual impact on the quality. So I'm not saying don't get plants, and I'm not saying plants aren't good for you hey, but I'm saying mythbusters over here. Yes, don't think that. Oh, I'm gonna add this cactus to the shelf and the air in my place is going to become healthier, is? No, it's not.

Dan: 38:26

It doesn't really work that way you figured there was some impact, but in minimal, but I had no idea how minimal the thing is, it's very easy to say that they work to.

Charles: 38:35

He says they work to purify the air inside. Okay, they do work to pure. They're certainly not making the air dirtier, they are making it cleaner, but then it's okay. How much cleaner are they making it? And then how much of it? Right? And then somebody does the research to see okay, here's how much house plants actually impact your air quality, and the answer is barely so.

Charles: 38:55

Just keep that in mind when you're deciding you want to take on. Do it for the other benefits, don't do it for it's making my air cleaner. Good point plants, cacti, bamboo, aloe, and then those all will require a lower amount of maintenance than other varieties, but they still will require some maintenance, like water, light, air temperature, keeping your cat away, the right size pot for the plant that you're trying to grow, the right kind of soil yeah, if you just do this willy nilly by buying something that's already in a pot at the store and you don't plan on doing things to keep it alive, eventually it's not going to stay alive, it's going to die, and then you've got a dead plant in your house.

Dan: 39:41

I thought it was funny at the end. Here he talks about soil and he says don't try to save money by digging up soil from the park down the street. Is this something people do? They just they're going to go dig up soil from some random spot in the yard and put it in there. Maybe I don't know. Is that something you?

Charles: 39:59

need to mention. It would never have occurred to me to do something like again. Because my time is worth something. It's not completely worthless. The or picking up a small bag of soil at the amazon locker down the road is going to be a better option for me than going to Lake Eola and trying to dig up some of the soil and plants and put it in a bag and then walking that bag back to my car.

Dan: 40:21

Home Depot's got plenty of soils, yeah. And the other reason why you don't want to do that if you haven't thought about it is the stuff outside could potentially have bacteria and bugs and everything else that now human urine, right, yeah, now you're bringing inside your house, yes uh, okay, dan, we're almost at 11 o'clock, do you?

Charles: 40:41

you still gotta?

Dan: 40:41

stop right now. Uh, no, we can go. Uh, we can power through the rest of this we'll, we'll be.

Charles: 40:45

Uh, we'll go quickly with candles. So, um, I am a fan of aromatherapy. I am not a huge fan of candles, though, and the the reason for that. That is, candles get used up pretty quickly and they burn up. They do put out soot and ash and carbon and there's.

Charles: 41:04

Setting things on fire in an environment where you breathe is not usually a good idea, and that comes to smoking, that comes to. I love a campfire every now and again, but I'm not sitting at a campfire every night breathing in burnt wood. And yeah, I don't think candles are going to make you sick, but it's like there are more convenient ways to get aromatherapy than candles, with none of the downsides of a candle. So I'm usually going to pick that.

Charles: 41:30

The only time that I will still use a candle occasionally is it does help me a little bit in my meditation practice, where sometimes I'll have a little candle going, especially if I'm meditating very early in the morning before the sun's up, then having that thing to focus my attention on during mindfulness meditation can be helpful, but it's for 10 minutes and then I blow it out where and I'm right in front of it. So having candles going in parts of your house, where you might not be at that moment, and also having children or pets, or yeah, it's a little risky to have open flames, and that's why so many. You go to a hotel, you go on a cruise ship and one of the big no-nos is you don't get to have an open flame here. So you just have to skip that level of aromatherapy or romance or whatever it is you're going for with candles.

Dan: 42:15

Now, if you're going for the mood other than the aromatherapy, the idea I got from you was the battery-operated candles that are very realistic.

Charles: 42:23

Yeah, absolutely I love those.

Dan: 42:25

I got tons of those they actually flicker and with the ones that I got flicker. It's like a little paddle which is on top and it's an LED light that comes from underneath, and then the part that's shaped like a flame is a little plastic paddle and it moves.

Charles: 42:39

Yeah, it throws off like active light.

Dan: 42:42

And it also makes a little bit of a clicking sound similar to a flame Like a wick would occasionally Interesting.

Charles: 42:48

I have not had that kind of. I've had the ones where, basically, the light is recessed below the surface of the cylinder of the candle so you can't see it directly and it just glows through the translucent plastic. And those are the ones that I had most recently. And, yeah, they're battery-operated and it's LED. Batteries last forever and yeah, I find that to be so.

Charles: 43:10

Combine that with a wallflower plug in smelly thing from Bath and Body Works and then nobody would even know that it's not the candles thrown off the scent and that they're not real candles if they're angled the right way, yeah. And then he goes through this list of best candle scents for men and whenever I read something I was like, okay, why are they the best candle scents for men? Like, why is this one smell judged to be masculine over this other smell? And I've never really gotten a good answer to that. Other than these smells are the smells that you have probably smelled before on men in the form of their deodorant, their cologne, their body spray, and somebody at some point decided it was a masculine smell and they sold it and people bought it.

Dan: 43:57

So now it's a masculine smell Now sandalwood is a masculine smell instead of a feminine smell. Right, I think feminine smells are associated with flowery stuff mostly, or really sweet stuff, and then everything else that's left over, that's for guys, right?

Charles: 44:10

Yeah, it's got to be like spicy and oaky and musky and leathery and yeah, I say, get the scents that you enjoy. And for me, like the wallflower that I currently have in my place now is almond croissant and it smells like I'm baking almond croissants in my place and I like the sweet in the food. Yeah, it smells a lot.

Dan: 44:37

So do you feel like that's actually helping you when you're trying to avoid sweets, or do you think it actually stirs up the hunger?

Charles: 44:46

I don't think it really has an effect on my appetite. One thing I have decided I'm going to try, though, is my my wallflower. Again, that's the brand name of the plugin ones that Bath and Body Works sells. It's plugged into a smart outlet, and I've I use the ones by that company wise because they're very inexpensive to buy. You can buy a bunch of them on a four pack on Amazon for not much money, so it's on smart plug that then integrates with my Google home, so I can say, hey, google, turn on my wallflower, turn. That then integrates with my Google Home. So I can say, hey, google, turn on my wallflower, turn off my wallflower, turn on my lava lamp, whatever it is that I want. And what I'm thinking about doing now is getting a second wallflower with a different scent and then setting both of them up to go on a timer where I have one to wake up to, and one to go to sleep to.

Charles: 45:33

And so, yeah, I'm thinking for the go-to-sleep smell, maybe do a lavender or eucalyptus or something like that. That is one of those scents that you think of as being like spa-feeling or relaxing or whatever. And then, yeah, have it. And I think with my Google Home I can even using what is it IFTTT if this? And that I can set it up based on sunset and sunrise to say, okay, when an hour before sunset start, give me the lavender, and then an hour before sunrise, turn off the lavender, or I probably wouldn't run the lavender all night, I'd probably just run it long enough to fall asleep. So if I fall asleep by midnight every night, then I'd cut it off at midnight and then, an hour before sunrise, hit me with the almond croissants. And because sometimes I also use my bun coffee maker to schedule my coffee, so waking up to fresh brewing coffee and an almond croissant, that's some pretty high level self-care for Charles. I don't know if that works for everybody, but, man, I would really enjoy that. That sounds wonderful, okay, so if you are going to use candles, keep the wick trimmed, keep it in the open, never leave it unintended. Don't plan on going to sleep. He says to use a snuffer, but that just seems. Never had an issue where I've blown on a candle to blow it out and the hot wax just went everywhere. You don't need to blow that hard unless it's a trick candle on a birthday cake. You don't need to blow that hard to put out a candle.

Charles: 46:50

He does go through real quick with some of the kinds of scents that you might look at for different purposes. So if you want to feel calm and relaxed things like lavender and eucalyptus, which we just mentioned, and how it creates that spa-like atmosphere, clean and bright would be scents like lemon and bergamot and neroli. I like things around my kitchen. I like to smell like lemon. I think I talked about my garbage bags. Are the Clorox with lemon scent scented garbage bags and I love that. I that helps make the kitchen feel clean, cozy and welcoming.

Charles: 47:19

Wintry notes like cinnamon, wood leather yeah, those do sound great. And I love like candle scents, like the holiday scents that come out around Christmas Again, either a car air freshener or the wallflower in my house. I always change them based on what time of year it is and what I want to smell. So right now springtime, so I am doing stuff that's kind of flowery and kind of bright and yeah, but my favorite is, around when it starts to be fall, go into the pumpkin and the apple and the pine and those things around the end of the year. Those are my favorites.

Charles: 47:53

Okay, casual and breezy. Herbal notes like vetiver, rosemary and basil and green plants can make even a windowless space feel open and breezy, which, uh, is good for small spaces. So I I may try one of those and then, sexy and mysterious, use a candle with exotic notes like frankincense, sandalwood and palo santo. I, I don't really like any of those things. I they do not. Yeah, the typical. Any scent that someone describes as sexy to me is going to make me think of Axe body spray. No offense to the wearers and stockholders that I'm sure listen to our podcast, but any, if it's an Axe body spray scent, I'm not interested in smelling it.

Dan: 48:33

Is that frankincense? Is that what it is? That's what it reminds me of.

Charles: 48:35

Really Anything that is strong and spicy and dark. Yeah, if you ever certain religious denominations, they walk through with their incense, the swing in the thing, and yeah, that's what I think of when I think of frankincense, that, and gym bros who are bathing in Axe after they take their shower at fitness. So, anyway, to create a scent story, you can use candles, you can use incense, you can use diffusers, room sprays, linen sprays and drawer sachets, which I've never used. I would say again, my favorite out of this list is going to be a plug-in diffuser room sprays. The difference between those and your favorite cologne, keep in mind. A room spray is meant to function at room temperature, where colognes and perfumes are meant to interact with high 90s temperatures and that's when they will give off their fragrance.

Dan: 49:28

Another reason to put it on your skin and not on your clothing.

Charles: 49:31

Yes, exactly, you are spraying A hundred percent. And again, if I would say, don't my own personal taste, there are deals and there are certainly some lower priced scents that I enjoy, like some of the very classic Aqua Velva. There's some cheaper scents that I don't hate, but if your spray on cologne is so cheap that you don't feel bad about just going around your house letting it go, then it's probably not good stuff, particularly spray-on cologne. The that stuff I would say they're usually aftershaves. There's some cheap aftershaves that I use and I enjoy, but when it comes to spray-on cologne, you get what you pay for the most part, that's what you're doing.

Dan: 50:10

You're basically spraying the aftershave throughout the house because you know yes, exactly no.

Charles: 50:15

There's no pump on it, so I can't. It doesn't work. Instead of smudging with the sage, I just. I do something similar with aqua, velvet, ice, blue aftershave.

Dan: 50:25

Okay, gets the bad juju out of the house, hook it up to a sprinkler and just let it run I didn't know that was an option.

Charles: 50:30

I like that, that. Okay, so to create your signature scent. He does say to consider using different products. I would say not so much. Now, really, I definitely would not recommend doing that on your body, but in your house. If you have a big enough house where you want your different rooms to smell different ways, great, 100%, I'm on board with that. You want your kitchen to smell lemony? You want your bathroom to smell like eucalyptus? You want your bedroom to smell a little bit more lavender, fresh, fine, do that. But when it comes to a small space like my RV or like my body, I am not going to mix different products.

Dan: 51:05

Yeah, that could have disastrous effects.

Charles: 51:07

Yes, exactly I don't. I generally think the people that are paid to put together fragrance combinations are going to be better at it than us, and so just let them do what they're good at. Let them come up with the blends. He does say to use living things. I do occasionally use some fresh flowers and so having fresh flowers in your space to smell.

Charles: 51:26

But the great thing about fresh flowers, as opposed to houseplants, is there is a built-in timer on fresh flowers and when they're not fresh, when they don't look good or smell good anymore, you throw them away. You don't feel bad about it. But when you buy a house plant with the idea of I'm going to take care of this is going to be a thing that lives in my house now, and then you fail at it, you feel like crap. It's all about the intention. Yes, exactly, so I like the disposable nature of fresh flowers. And again, none of this that you do for making your house nice or your space nice is going to matter much if you don't keep it clean. So if it's constantly cluttered or dirtied or there is pet hair and just dust in all the corners and stuff, yeah, you're putting lipstick on a pig. You're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Charles: 52:11

Whatever metaphor you want to use, keeping your house clean is going to be a necessary function. Don't just stack all these nice ideas on top of a dirty house, because when people come into your house they can tell if this place stinks. But now he's put some fragrances on top of the stink. You know, if you do have pets like cats, dogs, hamsters, whatever, your biggest part of designing your signature scent is keeping that crap clean and don't let your pets stink up the place. Managing humidity is a big deal too Like. I am not going to put any kind of a drawer sachet with potpourri in a little net bag inside of a drawer, but I will certainly hang a thing of damp red in my closet so that, because I don't need my thing, I don't need my clothes to smell like a spring day.

Charles: 53:01

I just don't want them to smell musty yeah and so the goal for me is not make them smell like something else, it's keep them smelling from some being something bad.

Charles: 53:10

That's my goal yeah that's where I'm at with these things. I'm glad this book's over. I'm glad you were able to hang with us for another 15 minutes, dan, anything you want to say about closing the, the book on self-care for men? Okay, here's a question I'll hit you on the spot. With out of five stars, what do you give it? Three, I was gonna say three or three and a half oh, I didn't know halves were an option.

Dan: 53:30

Halves are an option. I would. I'd give it a three and a half. Oh, I didn't know halves were an option. Halves are an option, I would. I'd give it a three and a half, or maybe 3.6, something like that 3.7. I liked everything he said, except for the pseudoscience, mumbo jumbo and a lot of good basics in there and a lot of things that a lot of us forget about, and I think he makes us a little bit more mindful of the basics.

Charles: 53:55

Yeah.

Dan: 53:55

This book and that's something that I appreciated. And then he does go above and beyond. So if you wanted to go above and beyond the basics, he's got some ideas for you in there. So I think it's a helpful set of reminders if, or I guess for some people, it's the first time they may have heard some of these.

Charles: 54:11

There are a few things in here that I heard for the first time, but I would say it's, it's a buffet, so there's a lot of ideas in here and read through the whole thing and then annotate the book while you read through it with, okay, this is something I will never do, this is something I might do, or this is something I want to do today. And then, yeah, take, like any book we do, whether it's atomic attractionomic Attraction, or 12 Rules for Life or Self-Care for Men, there's going to be good stuff in there. There's going to be stuff in there that's not so good, and it's up to you to be the critical thinker and the critical reviewer to say, all right, here's what I'm going to keep from this and here's what I'm going to throw away.

Dan: 54:45

Yeah, there's a lot of things that in there that might speak to you that say, hey, yeah, this is something that I want to try and it's just a nice comprehensive list of ideas in a whole bunch of different areas. Wherever you might be quote, unquote, struggling or wanting to improve, it's a good resource to get started in the right way.

Charles: 55:07

Yeah, and he does address some stuff directly related to your physical health and your mental health, and I would say those are the things to focus on first before fretting over what smell. What fragrant candles should I buy for my house? You're always going to get more bang for your buck in your self-care when it's focused on your direct physical and mental health, and these little things can help with that. But it's again don't just spackle over a wall that's about to crumble and think that, okay, the wall's fixed now, and so I think some of these could be a distraction for those of us who have more substantial work we need to get done when it comes to taking care of ourselves. So just, I'm just saying, try not to let yourself fall into that trap where you're focusing on the little things that are very easy to do that'll make you feel better but expecting big solutions from them.

Dan: 55:55

Right, don't expect big solutions and don't put a period at the end of the sentence Okay, I got the smells taken care of. I'm done now. That might be a good way to get started and go. Okay, now I feel a little bit better about my place. I'm gonna then continue and see how I can feel a little bit better about me and my physical health and my mental health, right, yes, so I would say I slightly disagree with you in terms of don't start with the smell stuff.

Dan: 56:17

I say just don't call it a day at the end of picking an easy one.

Charles: 56:20

No, I agree with you 100% on that. There is value in the low-hanging fruit. We both agree with that. There's easy wins are wins and they help you take on bigger tasks for bigger wins. The problem is and the thing I want to cause, I do this myself. That's why I'm, that's why I'm bringing it up is fair. Watch out for taking the low hanging fruit and thinking, oh, I've just made Thanksgiving feast for my family. Like low hanging fruit is a low hanging fruit. Like you pick that apple, you eat that apple and you're like, oh, that's pretty good, I just had an apple. But when you try to pretend like the low hanging fruit is the whole meal, then you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Dan: 56:56

Great way of phrasing that, and clearly I am now hungry Me too.

Charles: 56:59

All right, talk to you later, dan, let's go get some food. 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,