He's a Comedian, a Thespian, and a Therapist. He's Dominic Syracuse.

Try and keep up as Dominic regales us with stories of running a comedy shop in Cheyenne (during peak COVID), his use of theater therapy to work with the incarcerated, and so much more...

Transcript

Hi, I'm Myra and I'm Tressa. We are fancy marketing people with Union, Wyoming based telecommunications company. Yes, Wyoming really does exist. We proudly serve the Rocky Mountain region. On this podcast, we will feature businesses, organizations, nonprofits, and influential people from Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Our mission is to highlight those who inspire their communities daily.
 
 We believe this makes us truly authentic because a journey of a thousand miles always begins with a single step.
 
 Good morning. Good morning. Myra. You know how rough I am. Oh, my gosh, I'm I you know, I'm in that moment where it's like, why, why, why is this happening? Why today? Why this week? What is going on? it's been a party, so I'm just taking it as it is. There's lessons in life being learned, I guess.
 
 but. Yeah. No, I was checking my connection this morning, and I was ready. I had all my setup going on, and I couldn't get anything to connect to the Wi-Fi at all, like nothing would connect. And so, I ended up doing a hard restart on my computer, but then the modem had to have a hard restart, and I'm over here going, man, I really wish I had union internet and maybe I wouldn't have this problem, right?
 
 I absolutely I, I got on beautifully. Yeah I did not so easy. Yeah I won't disclose my provider but Yeah. So that was fun. And then this week I've had my, you know, my mom, she backed into my car, just sitting in the driveway. So, I mean, that was also, you know, has been a party, so.
 
 Yeah, just one thing after the other. so all the little beautiful moments in life, you know, just telling myself that. Yeah, I know, I'm like, well, it sounds like you've had a rough week. I hope whatever post to learn, you're learning so it can start to go a little smoother. Yeah, but I get it. I ran into, one of Troy's friends in our driveway once.
 
 You know, I'm not even thinking. I jumped in my truck in the garage. He'd parked behind our garage. And as mindlessness. Right, and just threw it in reverse, and. But. Oh, I'm going to have to. And then tell him no. Yeah, I felt worse for my mom than for myself, honestly, because I was crying and yeah, named Slam.
 
 He's like, it's okay. It's just like, we'll fix it. I felt so bad.
 
 This is she called me crying her eyes out, you know? And, I, I thought my dog died. It's by the look on Blake's face, I thought that one of them got out and that they had died. And I'm like, this is awesome, you know? Yay! no, it was just my car. And it's just an object, and that's how I look at it.
 
 It's just an object that can get fixed. It's not a big deal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So she hit the front end of it. She did. And I laughed because I'm like, how the hell do you miss a big white Wagoneer? The thing is massive. It's not like a little beep, you know, creates and like you, how did you just miss that?
 
 You know, and even when she got out the door, she had to look down the driveway to see, you know, there's a car in the driveway and she just totally bottom walked to the top. I don't know where she was going. And then I was excited to go to the Dollar General for the 12th time. And they. And there she got him.
 
 So yeah, I'm like, oh, as soon as I found out what it was, I'm like, that could be fixed. And you know, yeah, she's got really, you know, swanky insurance where her rate won't go up. Oh that's good. Yeah. So I'm like oh a little better you than me. Yeah. Exactly. You just have to have the while it's in the shop.
 
But that's okay. Yeah I think they're paying for a rental car, so. Yeah I said that's on you, Joanie. Yeah. Love. Yeah. But, you know, there goes my beautiful, pristine car. You know? Yeah. I mean, you haven't even had it six months have, you know? Yeah. And I'm over here and, gosh, you know.

 We were talking to Nola the other day and we're like, how much do you love us? You know, like being silly. And she goes, I love you. 1030 ten. I don't know what that means, but I'll take it. Good or bad? Yeah, I love you. 1030. So speaking of the time, I'm like, of course I love you. 1030.
 
I love you at 1230. Yeah. 1130. That's the view. Oh, I love it. Kids say the funniest stuff. Yeah, I know where they get it. Yeah. Well, what have you been doing? well, I'm getting ready to leave for Canada next week, so I've been trying to get a lot of stuff wrapped up here. Work and. Yeah, just getting ready to go on vacation.
 
 Yeah. So we're going to, Victoria. No, sorry. Vancouver Island. Victoria is on Vancouver Island. so I'm excited. I've never been there. I've heard it's really beautiful. Are you hunting? Yes, we're bear hunting. And we're going to go salmon fishing and just touring around. Do you bring your salmon back? Oh, got a weird question that, On the airplane, I can have up to 50 pounds in my bag, so.
 
 Yeah. Oh, no. We we're bringing some back. Yeah. That's so cool. So do you just pack, like, a cooler? I don't know. Never done it. I'm going to figure it out. Oh. That's cool. I'm sure you have it. I can do my color, and I'm sure they'll help us out. So. Yeah. Yeah. This is my first time. I've never, done a fishing trip like this where you can bring.
 
The meat, you know. I've done deep sea fishing, but that's different. So. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that.
 
 Cool. All right, well, should we get into our episode today, Maya? Yeah. I'm really excited for this guest. Are you excited? You've come up so I know I am dynamic and not disappoint. I told Mara this is going to be one of the best podcasts ever. our guest today is Dominic Syracuse, and, he's a man of many talents.
 
 So who knows where this conversation will go? but initially we meant talking about, cognitive cognitive behavioral theater, which I had never heard of, until I had a conversation with Dominic. So I'm really, really excited, to start this conversation and learn more about it. So welcome, Dominic.
 
Hey, man, that was so great. I loved listening to your conversation. I'm so sorry about your car. you know, it happens, but I'm so interested in your voice. Dominic. Do you like my voice? A DJ host? Are you a DJ or your radio host? You know, it's funny. It's funny you say that I started my career in entertainment as a hard rock and heavy metal DJ, and so I was like, hey, how's everybody doing?
 
 
 
 This is damn over a nine, three, seven. Oh, you know, doing that a lot. it was really funny because I was also very I was too polite for hard rock and heavy metal. I remember, like, interviewing, like I interviewed the artist TEC nine. I don't know if you know tech nine. Yeah, he's he's an amazing rapper and he works in, like, the metal space and everything.
 
 
 
 And I remember he was so cool. He had all this cool slang. He was saying. He's like, yeah, I'm going to be doing this. You know what? I'm sizzlin and all this stuff. And I was like, absolutely. Mr. nine, that's fantastic. Mr.. Nice. Yeah, that's that's great. Mr.. Nine and so, yeah, it didn't that's the whole thing.
 
 But yeah, that's how I actually got started was, was doing, was doing radio. That's so cool. Yeah, my dad was a DJ and it was way back in the day and he would prank our family members by calling them and pretending like they won something on the radio. And, So cool. Yeah, it was awesome. And his voice, though, was more of the older, like, deeper radio.
 
Yeah, yeah. So, anytime, like, my mom says she fell in love with them because of his voice. Like he'd call her on the phone, you know, when they were courting or whatever. And, So, anyways, I love it. I love that you're background. Oh, I have you be awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. My wife, I, I'm very happily married to my wife. and we're to a point because that's all I do. You know, I, I do podcasts, but I'm also a stand up comedian, and, and I, I speak, for a living, especially doing cognitive behavioral theater as you were talking about. but that's all I do is speak, speak, speak, speak. So my wife is more like, hey, maybe could we be quiet when you come home?
 
 She's like, could we maybe. Silence. Beautiful. Yeah, I love it. My husband feels the same way. I get it like, I lost my voice the other week and I told her so I'm like, I don't even know. Like I'm still. I was fighting through it. Like I don't know how not to talk. Like I was like, I don't know what to do.
 
Like I'm like, you know, and everybody's their ears are bleeding. And I'm over here like, you know, we need to have this conversation. Yeah. You turn so it's like, how about you just, you know. Yeah. Like, this is no one. Yeah. That's. Give yourself a break. Yeah, exactly. So dominant. Do you want to tell everybody what, cognitive behavioral theater is?
 
 Yeah. Yeah. So, so, as I said, you know, I, I've worked in entertainment my whole life, actually, I'm here in Cheyenne, Wyoming. and I, I've always been kind of a class clown, I guess. And so I started acting when I was eight years old. I did my first play here at the Cheyenne Little Theater. Woo hoo!
 
 Little theater. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it was funny, too, because I it's always been kind of a calling for me. Like, I remember I got in a play when I was eight years old, and I remember being like, oh, finally, I'm almost washed up at this point, you know, like almost double digits, and I haven't even.
 
 Oh, gosh. Finally, I'm in a play. and and then that's all I did, you know, throughout, elementary school, middle school, high school, I was always in theater and I play music and all sorts of stuff. And then, when I graduated, I've gone all over the United States training in places. I did theater at this place called the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, which was started by Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. studied in Los Angeles at the Groundlings School of Improv, which is where a lot of that live, folks comes from now. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, I studied at Groundlings, which was a blast. And then, I got my master's degree at this place called the Stella Adler School for acting, and Stella Adler is out of New York.
 
She trains all sorts of, you know, she trained like folks like Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Benicio del Toro, Mark Ruffalo. Essentially, if you're a great actor and your name ends with, oh, Stella, train you, you came from New York or came from nobody else. Oh, Costner, Kevin Costner, oh, Salma Hayek, a lot of us. But we did, you know, different go from her to bingo.
 
 Was his name on Mo Stella train? Bingo. That's right. and it doesn't matter. but but no, that's where I went to study, because those are kind of all my film heroes, and I wanted to be like that. But Stella, had a program that was even kind of more interesting to me. it was called the Outreach program.
 
 And she, since the 80s, had been going into maximum security prisons and teaching acting inside of the prison system. And I was like, I have to do that. That's what I want to do. You know, I was like, oh, I'll, I was so enthralled because to pay my way through school, I always supported people with intellectual and physical disabilities.  for a couple reasons. One, because, acting is a very like, look at me, look at me, look at me, art. And I wanted to kind of give back in some way. So that was my way of giving back. Also, no matter where you go in the country, they're always hiring. That job has a massive turnaround rate.
 
So I always knew that I could dive in anywhere. And it's kind of the best kept secret because a lot of times it's just like hanging out with folks in their house and playing video games and going bowling, which is awesome. So yeah, when I found out that there was, you know, this acting program that went into prisons, that was kind of like this bridging of my worlds, and I was like, can I please do this?
 
  I'll wait in line. I'll pay you. And they were like, you are the only person interested. Go ahead. It's all yours. It offers no light, no go right it go right ahead. you know, so I started going in and teaching acting in the prison systems, and it was amazing. you know, we'd play these very simple improv games, and people would just come.
 
 I mean, it was it was so much more like a powder keg of energy when you're in the prisons, because for most of the time, you know, these are folks who are inside of like a little cage for, for 20 hours a day. Yeah. So when they get the chance to come out, everyone's like, were you scared? Were you scared?
 
 I was like, no way. You know how happy they were to see me. They were like blitzed, you know? And so like, with, yeah, they're like, let's go, you know, and it's, it's just so much more fun because, like, when I make a joke at a comedy club, people are like, when you make a joke in a prison, people throw chairs and break dance.
 
 Well, you know what I mean? You're like, oh, yeah. Yeah, it's it's so much more fun. so we started doing that. It was really, really great. And, I was approached by a school that operated inside the prisons, and they told me that they were they were kind of getting more out of the men and women, in the program.
 
  They were getting more out of the acting class than they were out of their anger management program. you know, emotionally. Yeah. and and they asked me if I'd be interested in coming in and teaching anger management, and I was like, I'm an actor. I can pretend like I know how to do that. Yeah, you know, and they were like, well, that's illegal. they were like, we have to train you. So. So I took, you know, I got trained at the cognitive Behavioral Institute of California, in cognitive behavioral therapy, which is the go to therapeutic method to handle anxiety, stress, depression, addiction, suicidal thoughts. You know, it's using motivational speaking. It's used a lot in, like, sports and things like this and the cool thing about it is it's completely medication list. It's just all about changing your mindset. And when you change your mindset, it changes the way you feel about things. So as soon as I learned that, I was like, oh, no wonder the acting stuff work. That's what actors learn. Actors learn how to change their mind to think like their character.
 
 And then you start feeling right now, in this moment, what your character would be feeling. So through imagination, you can access real emotions. That's acting 101. So I just started using acting to teach cognitive behavioral therapy, called it cognitive behavioral theater. And yeah, I know, I know, I know, it's so smart, but it also makes for the longest website name time.
 
  I'm sure that every time I feel bad for anybody who has to introduce me because when they speak, they're like, and he's the CEO of God. Did he Dominick Syracuse, everybody. You know, like it's the longest title you address that you actually crushed it in the biggest of them proud. And you crushed it. So anyway since then I've gone on I, I use acting and improv techniques to teach this kind of stuff.
 
 
 
 And I've been going around teaching it all over the place. I've worked with eight different divisions of the Air Force. I've, I've worked with nurses during the Covid 19 pandemic. I worked with, therapist, well, specifically art therapists in Ukraine who are helping with families of war victims, just kind of all over the place. It's been really, really cool and exciting and fun.
 
 And then I've also done a lot of stuff with corporations like, you know, every everywhere from like the animal shelter to banks to the Bureau of Land Management, because that's where I thought my acting career would take me. I thought that was, you know. Yeah. So fun. Well, and what confused me more is that the acronym for Bureau of Land Management is BLM.
 
 Yeah. You probably thought that was going to be the other one. Not that exactly like the ones that don't talk back. You know, it was it was. Yeah. L it was so weird because I got like an email and it was like, the BLM is interested in your trainings. And I was like, really? That's great. Like, I wonder what you know.
 
 And then I'm talking to the guy on the phone and he's like, yeah, we're having a lot of problems with horses and wolves and and I'm like, what? Really? I think I didn't know. Wow, that's the whole other eye. There were different issues that I thought you were dealing with. But wolves do. It's okay. And then I realized I was talking to the Bureau of Land Management.
 
Anyway, so I didn't do much, that kind of thing. And and, now I'm on a big project where I'm going around the state, and, what I want to do is, is I want to provide my services, free of charge for all first responders and nonprofit employees in the state, and also like health and human service providers.
 
 
 
 So that means, like, mental health, you know, medical staff, that kind of thing. because I found out that, you know, these are like the boots on the ground people, right? These are the people that are their job is trauma. Like when you have a problem, who you going to call? Not Ghostbusters, just, you know, probably these people, right?
  
 Yeah. And the thing is, is they have like zero to no, mental health support on staff, which kind of blew me away. In fact, in my home town, there's a, resource center for people who find themselves homeless. And it was crazy. The owner told me that the first thing they asked people is, hey, what are your coping skills like?
 
 Because we can't afford benefits, you know? So people just do this stuff because they love it. And it's their passion is their calling. And it's a tough, tough job. And so I want to be able to provide this kind of stuff free of charge. And plus, the way I do it is all about having fun rather than like instead of it being like, let's sit around and talk about our feelings, you know what I mean?
 
 It's more like, hey, let's play this game that is also going to kind of teach you how your brain works. And it seems to work pretty well. So the goal is to go all across the state and, and do it in, if I can, every single county. But right now we def, we have like nine cities booked out through September, which is going to be super fun.
 
 Have you down the first one yet? Dominic we did just did it in the very first one in Cheyenne, which was a blast. it was it was so much fun. because part of what we're doing too, is we're working with 211, which is kind of meant to be like Wyoming's non-emergency 911. Yeah, because you have first responders being flooded with calls that aren't necessarily emergency.
 
 And then you have all these nonprofits that provide wonderful services, but a lot of people don't know they exist. So 211 bridges people together. Now I'm going to let them edit this out. If this is a completely family friendly show. Because the funniest thing about this is I was talking to one of our big sponsors for the show, wonderful guy.
 
 His name is Harvey the sounds he owns the sounds fine art and printing here in in Cheyenne. And he does all these amazing bronze statues to commemorate Cheyenne history throughout the downtown area. And he heard about it. He said, I want to sponsor the event. And I was telling him that the whole thing is for two, one, one and the goal of it.
 
 But he was looking at me with this face the whole time, and I was like, I'm sorry, what's that about? He thought I said two on one. Oh, that's that's incredible. So. And he said they made that statue for 201. Yeah. That was the yeah, that was the conversation. I was like, so we're really going two on one with this.
 
 The goal is to bring people together to connect us in a way. And I'm I'm going to be the middleman. And he's just like, he's like, what am I going to do? Are you going to be the on of the one he did? I was going to. Yeah, yeah. And then he's he's looking at me and you know I'm going like and we're going across the whole state man.
  
 And he's like and I'm going to make sure that every first responder is there. And you know and so Harvey was his eyes were like that. And he said 021 okay. All right. This whole thing makes more sense now, which was just the best. so anyway, we had the first event. We had a blast. it was so much fun.
 
 And and it seemed to work out really, really well. We got tons and tons of sign ups. 90% of participants said that it helped with their stress day to day. And and so now it's just off to the races, you know. Yeah. That's why Wyoming, Dominic I mean, I know that you talked about it a little bit and, your history of acting and where you come from, what you're doing and but why, why here?
 
 Why are you doing that, sir? That's an amazing question. it's because. Well, okay, so I moved to Los Angeles in 2011. and I went, that's where I kind of studied and did all the stuff with Groundlings and with Stella and everything. and, and I also did stand up out there. And during the pandemic, everything shut down.

 I mean, the prison shut down, there was no live entertainment, in fact, like the people who had booked me in Up were like it, don't expect to get back on stage for another 18 months. Well, I was born and raised in Cheyenne and, I was a single dad out in LA. I had my son, and every summer my son would go, with my parents.

 So he'd go visit his grandparents in Wyoming. And I was like, you know what? I'll come, I'll go back to Wyoming, you know, because because in Wyoming, in order for us to be six feet apart, we've got to come 10 to 15ft closer to each other. There is. So yeah, there's no so it's cool. So I'm going to go, you know, quarantine there.

 Yeah. So I went came back to Cheyenne, chilled out for a bit. And I said to myself, you know, when I go back to LA, I'm going to need to get my chops up. So I, found a, a bar in town that had a real big open space they weren't using. And I asked if I could start doing some, you know, open mic stand up comedy out of there to practice and everything.
 
 And it turned out, you know, not only were we the only place open for entertainment in town, we were the only place open for entertainment in like, the country. So we were getting comedians from everywhere Salt Lake City, Denver, Nebraska, South Dakota, people were driving in to to come do this, to come do ten minutes in a little bar in Wyoming.
 
 And and the word started spreading amongst the comedy community. And the craziest thing is I got a call from a stand up legend, a guy named Doug Stanhope, who Doug Stanhope has ten specials on Comedy Central. He used to host a man show with Joe Rogan. He was the original host of Girls Gone Wild back in the day.
 
 Oh, gosh. Yeah. And I, I goes, oh, I know that one. Yeah. Oh Justin's like yes. Oh yeah. Rings a bell. Yeah. Oh we're we're back. We're back in business. We got it. Oh Larry. And so, so he, he Facebook messaged me and he was like, hey, I heard you got a club. I'll come play it. I was like, are you selling?
 
 Yes. So. So he came through and then and then from there that opened up the door to have all these wonderful acts. A gentleman named Christopher Titus, who used to have a show on Fox, came through, Bob Saget on the last tour before his death, literally six weeks before he passed, came through and did a thing.
 
 And so I was like, man, I'm getting way more play out here in Wyoming than I did in LA. So, you know, and then I made a crazy mistake where I meet the love of my life and fall madly in love and get married. And so now I'm here, you guys, like, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm laid roots.

 But it's been it's been fantastic because, you know, since Covid, the world's changed a lot. Everything's kind of moved to online platforms and everything. And on top of that, we've been able to really put Wyoming on the map. You know, before us, a lot of stand up comedians just had Wyoming blacked out. They were like, Wyoming. Where's that?
 
 What is that? You know what? They didn't even know. I mean, when I look at it in itself, oh, I'm telling my wife, this is true story 100%. True story 100%. When I was when I was in LA, I was driving with, I was talking to, my, my, my boss at the time and his wife, who operated stuff inside the jails and, and I told him he's like, where are you from?
 
 And I said, Wyoming. And he would just immediately forget he'd always go, oh, I'd always I've always wanted to visit Montana. You know, every time it's like he'd forget and just go. I swear every day he'd be like. He'd be like, dumb. You're from like Wisconsin. He just immediately forget. And the funniest part was, my wife got sick of it because.
 
 Because he's like, he's like, we're eating. And I'd be like, I'm from Wyoming. And then, Gary would say something like, oh, so, so what is the weather like in Nebraska, you know? And his wife looked at it and went, Gary, he's from Utah. Oh.
 
 They just it's like their mind blacked out. It was so funny. And so, like, us, did you think they're punking you like, this? Can't be real, right? No. Nobody knew what that. You know, like I had friends because in LA, it's kind of a big, LA's a huge, you know, everyone from all over the world comes to LA.
 
 So I had friends from everywhere. I had friends from, Israel. I had friends from Greece. I had friends from France, Switzerland, you know, and I was talking to them. And they be like, where are you from? I'm like Wyoming. They're like, what country is that? Yeah. You know, they had no idea. And so that's it's hilarious because, so, so anyway, you know, us doing this, a lot of the big agencies, big agencies are like, man, you know, like we're we didn't realize Wyoming had such great places, such great theaters, such great, fan base that loves it.
 
 And so now we we do fun shows all of the time, you know, we do whatever we can to to bring some really cool stuff into town. And, so as far as that aspect of it, it's been it's been awesome. Well, we're glad you we're glad you're back. Well thank you. Yeah. Well thank you. Great for the state.
 
 So, I had one question to wrap up. I'm just calling it CBT now. Yeah, yeah, the new CBD, CBD. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I, you know, I'd be it we could do that study. What's more effective CBT or CBD. That's the generator or CBT on CBD. And now this is yeah that could be. Yeah. And maybe be on CBD on DVD, on TNT on DVD on D&D and yeah.
 
 Survey says that's A-okay. Yep. Just random. And so Dominic, I love your approach. You talk about like how you try to make it fun and lighthearted and you're still, like, working in switching the belief structure. I but just curious, like, is it ever does it ever trigger a sensitivity within somebody, or do you have those emotional, maybe releases during these kind of things?
 
 Oh, 100, 100%, you know, all of the time. and, and it's actually funny you say that. So, so, so one of the other big sponsors, of this last event, the wonderful gentleman named Josh, who runs a place, called hilltop Bank here in, in Cheyenne in Casper. And he served on the force, on for as a police officer for, for I think he said 17 years before he, you know, retired from the force and did this.

 And that's why he was interested in, in sponsoring the event. And he came, you know, and I was doing all this stuff like, I do this. Okay, I'll I'll show you just a little fun. Just a little fun thing that I, that I kind of talk about is, your, our brains as human beings, we have this amazing thing called an imagination.
 
 Right? And an imagination is it? It comes from the word image. It means to make an image in your head. Right. So when we were kids and we played make believe, you know, we imagined like, let me ask you, what were some stuff you like to play make believe when you were kids? I was a singer. Yeah.
 
 Oh, yeah. Yeah, their mom was a pop star, or I was. Yeah. Love it. I don't know, I was crazy, I thought, did you? Weird. How did. So. Yes. Yes. Did you do parody songs? I did, and I still do. My entire family does actually steal. So daily you do parodies? That's amazing. We ruined lots of sentimental music and.
 
 Yeah, we. Yeah, my kids, not my kids, don't like it right now, but they'll like it one day. But yes. Yeah. So that's so imagination always going did you did you do the whole like standing on your bed and pretending it's a stage and imagining people screaming your name and stuff like that? Oh yeah. I had a whole mic set up.
 
 I use the tennis racket as a guitar. I could see that. Yeah, I know, okay, good at all. So that's a perfect example. When you're a kid, you use your imagination and and look at the joy that it brings back. Just remembering that. Right? Like having, you know, playing make believe. And it's so much fun. Well, that's what actors do.
 
 Actors, they play make believe professionally. Just like basketball is a game when you play your when, when you're a little kid, if you get good enough, you go pro acting is just playing make believe. And a lot of people think that they stopped playing make believe when they were kids, or they don't play make believe as much as when they were a kid.
 
 And the truth is, that's not true, because around puberty, our imagination just shifts. We still use it today just as much as we did when we were kids. But our imagination shifts to instead of imagining myself as a rock star with a guitar and make a dance moves, we start imagining things like, what if people don't like me?
 
 what if people make fun of me? What if I didn't have enough time to do my hair in the morning and everyone's going to look at me and talk bad about me behind my back, right? And then we get older and it becomes things like, like, you know, what if something terrible happens? What? You know, you send a text to your loved one and they don't respond back.

 And what what happened? You start using your imagination to just think the worst. It's called catastrophizing. And and then the thing is, is that the part of your brain where emotions come from, it hasn't developed to catch up to your imagination, so it doesn't know the difference. So whether you're actually experiencing something or imagining something, the emotional part of your brain is going to react to the image in your head just as much as it's going to react to reality.
 
 I'll prove it to you right now. Okay, so I love this one. This is my favorite. Imagine a chimpanzee. Okay, can you imagine a chimpanzee right? Yeah. Okay. Imagine is like, you know, dark hair, charcoal skin. Right. That kind of thing. But now imagine that he's wearing a little, like, red tuxedo, like a little chimpanzee, James Bond. It's all like, let me tailored, you know?
 
 Yeah. Imagine he's got a little martini glass in his hand, you know, and he's kind of giving you that chimpanzee smoochy face like he. Yeah. Right. Like that. Okay. And now this. Chimpanzees. Not real. I'm just painting an image in your head. But you're laughing right now because the image you're seeing, the emotional part of your brain is going.
 
 That's funny. And the more detail I give that image right, the more detail I give the image, the harder you laugh, watch. Like, So now imagine this kissy face chimpanzee who's flirting with you, smiles at you, but he's only got three teeth up top, right. And then in a flirtatious act, he grabs his bottom lip and pulls it down.
 
 And you see, he's got a gold plated grill for his bottom teeth and then diamonds in diamonds. It just says chimpanzee. An easy tip. It ain't easy. Hello. And so look, the more we paint this image, the more you laugh because the emotional part of your brain is getting more defined and you're laughing. Now, here's the thing. It works with funny images like that, right?
 
 That's what I do as a stand up. I put funny images in your head and you laugh at the image. But if we're what psychologists call catastrophizing, if we're putting, you know, these images in our head of what if the worst thing ever happens? You know what? If everything goes terrible, what if the you know what? What if the worst?
 
 I mean, I mean, this hellscape, I imagine this horror movie in my mind. What if that happens in the same way that you laughed at the image of the monkey? You're going to to panic over this image in your head, right. And and it's gonna it's going to bring up those, those, those feelings. And that is what we call anxiety.
 
 You know, anxiety is just imagining the worst case scenario and you panicking right now as if it's happening in this moment. Now, the reason I can confidently say that anxiety only happens in your head is because if it was happening in real life, we call that torture, right? Like if it was happening right now, that's what I love.
 
 
 
 Like I've heard, I have a bunch of wonderful quotes on anxiety like, you know, I think it was I care, one of the there was a quote from, from a very smart old guy and he said, he said it wasn't Walt Whitman. It was, the other one. Anyways, he he said, I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened, you know, and I love that.
 
 I love that another one is, you know, anxiety is believing conspiracy theories about yourself. I don't like that. Which is good. Or my personal favorite is, you know, anxiety is daydreaming a nightmare, right? You're just imagining this stuff and you're feeling it right now. So, what I do is I teach people how to kind of control that.
 
 Does that make sense? So yeah. So what I'll do is the first thing you can't do is you can't just tell yourself to stop, you know, if you're like, oh, I'm just thinking of something. And it's, you know, ruining my day right now. You know, what you can't do is you can't be like, okay, stop thinking about it.
 
 Don't think about it. Don't, though, because if I were to tell you right now. Hey, tress. Hey, Myra. Think about anything in the whole world. Anything. You have the freedom. Just don't think about a chimpanzee in a red tuxedo. Don't think about his grill. Don't think about his. Think about anything. Just don't think about that chimpanzee. And don't think about the fact that I never said if he was wearing pants or not.
 
 Don't think about that. Don't think about his hairy chimpanzee legs. Said, don't. Don't imagine what does a chimpanzees but look like. Don't think about how immediately after this. Yeah. You're good. Yeah. You see him every time I say don't do it. Yeah. That's then what we're doing about right. Yeah. So what I'm tasked to do is I'm tasked to check because where you're where your focus goes, your energy flows.
 
 Right. And as, as, Corey, Tim Boone said, you know, worrying doesn't take away tomorrow's troubles. It just takes away today's joys. Yeah. Because you're. Yeah. You know, and that's what people really do is it's like we have a constant movie going on in our head. And when something bad happens, what we end up doing is we end up just replaying the movie over line play, rewind, play.
 
 That's why I ask people, hey, you know, when they were like, oh, I had such a bad day. I'm like, did you have a bad day? Or did you have a bad five minutes that you've just been replaying all day long over? And yeah, you know, so like Myra, I mean, how many times have you replayed the movie of your mom backing into your car?
 
 A couple times. But I'm not. I'm not upset about it. I'm just the storyteller. Dominic. So I think it is. I live in a movie in my head, but that's just my creativity or my mental problems. I don't know, you know, like there's a couple of terrible things that, you know, some people call them mental problems. Other people call them quirky personality traits.
 
 Other people call them the reason they've been incarcerated. Be careful with. Exactly. Yeah. Hey, you know, it could be. There might be a vacation compared to things going on right now, but but so so what I, what I like to train people on how to do is how to use their imagination instead of to cause their anxiety. I like to do it to cause their hope or inspiration.
 
 So now it's like, all right, let's imagine not just the best case scenario. Let's imagine all those obstacles in your way, and let's imagine a plan on how to overcome them. Let's imagine who you want to be in five years. You know, and really get that detail big and then work backwards and imagine a battle plan to actually get to that point.
 
 And it's so funny because when I do that exercise with people in prison or in the corporate world, it's it's unbelievable. I love this exercise where I call it the Red carpet party five years from now, where we pretend there's a red carpet and I'm interviewing people on the red carpet. But I have to interview you as your dream self five years from now, and I.
 
 So everything you say has to already be accomplished. So you write down your dreams, right? And so let's say your dream is to write a book and I'll say so. So how did it feel when you were put on the New York Times bestseller list? You know, and they have to use their imagination to already claim it, right?
 
 They have to be like, it was so good. I'm so glad I've helped this people, you know? And I was like, yeah, yeah. And you broke the record online for most views in a Ted talk. Tell me about that. You know, and and the amazing thing is, is whether it's guys in prison who have tattoos on their face and lived a life of crime, or whether it's these harsh, you know, corporate CEOs who own a bank and are staunch.
 
 I've seen both of them break down in tears in those exercise houses, because what we're doing is we're overcoming the mental barrier that tells them they can't. Yeah. Does that make sense? And and it's it's it's wild. It's like, you know like I, I swear to you I have seen like, you know, 60 year old CEOs break down in tears in an, an exercise where we're just playing the same games that you played when you were a kid, you know, jumping on your head or something like that.
 
 Yeah. That's beautiful I love that. Yeah. Thank you for those examples and for the conversation today. before we end, we always like to ask, one parting question to all our guests. And I think it's pretty clear with you, but, how do you stay authentic? Dominic. Oh. Oh, that's an amazing question. I would have to say CBT on CBD.
 
 I love it helps. Oh, yeah. Yeah. no, you know, I do. I do have to say, I, I, I really have to thank my wife for keeping me authentic because we're to a point in our relationship where she just calls me out on everything and she won't let me, you know, she won't let me, get away with BSing anything ever, you know?
 
 Yeah, I, I say this in my standup set, but it's a perfect example. Like, you know, if I was doing, MMA because I'm a man in my 30s, and that's what you have to start doing, apparently. Yeah. And and so I started taking those classes, and, and she came to, you know, I was working on, like, a sidekick.
 
 And anyway, I couldn't do it. And, and I was like, could I just get if I could do it, if I got a running start and my instructor was like, no, no, no, no, that's that's you using energy and momentum to make up for your lack of skill and my wife proudly was like, that might as well be on his gravestone.
 
 Yeah. oh. and I was all right, all right. So she she she keeps me authentic, for sure. That's awesome. Yeah. We all need those people in our lives, so. Yeah. All right, go ahead and give it to your where people can find you. Also put it in the show notes as well. Sounds great. okay.
 
 if you go to YouTube and want to see my comedy, just type in Dominic Syracuse, it's Dominic. And then Syracuse, like the city. you can catch my stand up special on there. You can catch some silly skits and stuff like that if you want a laugh. If you're more interested in the mental health route, I would say to check out my website.
 
 It's the longest website title ever. It's called Cognitive Behavioral theater.com. you can see a bunch of videos and, a lot of the work that I've done in all the places that we've talked about and everything and, Yeah. And. Yeah. And then, keep an eye out and follow us, because if you're throughout the state of Wyoming, we might be coming to your city, doing some doing some fun exercises and workshops.
 
 So if you feel like having a fun way to learn how to get rid of stress, then come on down. Yes. All sounds great. Well, what a great conversation, Dominic. Thank you so much, Dominic. Really appreciate your time today. Yeah. Thank you. And maybe you guys next time, you know, don't talk so much because I really didn't get a chance to get a word in edgewise.
 
 Yeah. Sorry. I, I see when my wife is, like, maybe quiet time down. Yeah. I'm like a wind up toy. You just cleaned it up and just. Sorry. No, I get it. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. actually, this is so cool. I'm so happy that you invited me on, and I can't wait to, hear the episode.
 
 And I can't wait to watch all the all the other episodes, you know, I'm going to I'm going to go back in and watch everything and check out everything in the future. It's going to be great. Yeah. Especially that. Thank you, thank you. Well, until next time, stay authentic.