00:00:00
with Drake and Josh I felt pissed that started this whole mess
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he's an actor comedian one half of Drake and Josh a staple of my childhood
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the headline of the first 10 years of my life was a single mom never knew my dad didn't have enough money for a slice of
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pizza 15 years old Drake and Josh one would assume that you'd be like set for life there was no residuals and I'm as
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worried about next year's financial status as anyone else I don't have that security and I I do want to say that I
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was not properly appreciated for my work if I wanted to at will I could blow that
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up 18 years old you lose 127 pounds yeah one would assume that dropping 127
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pounds would make you feel different about yourself I dealt with the effect but I didn't deal with the cause it was
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anger at my dad it was anger at my circumstance everything was going right and I still didn't feel like enough
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substituting what I used food for with drinking and with other substance at 21
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it all came barreling down on me I hurt relationships and work I worried the
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people that love me and I realized that I needed to do something and what you do in that moment government decides what's
00:01:16
going to happen next for you you cannot think your way in the right acting you have to act your way into right thinking
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is there anything that's really helped you that you might recommend to someone listening at home yes so
00:01:30
before this episode starts I have a small favor to ask from you two months ago 74 of people that watch this channel
00:01:36
didn't subscribe we're now down to 69 my goal is 50 so if you've ever liked any
00:01:43
of the videos we've posted if you like this channel can you do me a quick favor and hit the Subscribe button it helps this channel more than you know and the
00:01:49
bigger the channel gets as you've seen the bigger the guests get thank you and enjoy this episode
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[Music]
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having read through your story extensively it's quite clear to me that the the most pertinent part of your
00:02:09
story and really like the through line Begins the sort of dot in that through
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line begins with this Dynamic your parents had
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when you were very very young can you take me back to 1980s in New York to give me the context
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that I'll need to understand to understand the things we're going to talk about today
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sure I I was born in 1986. I uh was born
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to a single mom and I never knew my dad I was sort of the result of a
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I guess what you would call a fling um my mom always says you were a surprise not an accident so I like the
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way she the messaging she's attached to that but basically my mom and dad knew
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each other sort of through business they had a night and nine months later came me so sort of
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so many different especially now having two kids of my own knowing how the process of creating life can be uh
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tenuous and random and arbitrary and it can be incredibly easy or incredibly hard to know that they were together
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once and it just sort of happened that way is uh kind of crazy makes you believe like oh
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maybe I'm meant to be here at least that's what I tell myself but yeah I uh
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I was the result of that and my mom who was 43 at the time knew that she'd
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always wanted to have a child but wasn't sure if she ever would and immediately took it as sort of this
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gift and my father who was in his 60s at the time and had a whole other family
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looked at it differently and decided not to be in my life and I wound up never
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meeting him and so my Origins were very much my mom and I
00:04:01
sort of navigating the world together I at an early age did you get a feel for
00:04:07
what your mom's your mother's perspective was on your father did you did you feel the emotion of that
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how her perspective on him my mom was weirdly unemotional about my
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dad I would say it was almost like the fog of war or I remember
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when I I interviewed Laird Hamilton and I asked him the very corny cliche
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question of when you're on a 90-foot wave what's going through your head and he's like you know your body will
00:04:41
sort of give you a bit of Amnesia so I really can't tell you when you're in extreme circumstance your body is a way
00:04:48
of like washing your memory and we see that phenomenon too with like childbirth right because if those hours during
00:04:55
childbirth really were as strong as as they are when you are experiencing it
00:05:00
we'd all be only children right but the brain has a wonderful way of washing that away so my mom
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did a really good job of presenting all the good qualities of my dad that he was
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a great business person that he was Charming that he was handsome
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I you know he was like the Jewish James Bond walking the streets of New York this handsome raccoon tour I I say in my
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book you know he seemed pretty Sterling his only sort of negative was that he really didn't want anything to do with
00:05:31
me so I think it wasn't until I got older that my mom sort of elaborated a little
00:05:38
bit more with details what was that what was the emotion between you and your mother and the
00:05:44
emotion in the household at the time growing up only money was tough and things were slightly difficult especially because your father had
00:05:51
chosen not to be part of your life but what was the emotion in your household you know below the age of 10.
00:05:56
the emotion in my household growing up if I had to if I had to find a headline
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right because sure if you zoomed in on any moment I could have been
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bullied at school or feeling insecure or feeling less than than my friends who had traditional family systems or how
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come I don't get to experience that surely there was plenty of that but if we're talking about a headline of the
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first 10 years of my life it was a very extremely loving childhood
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um not without its challenges and we would sort of oscillate between moments
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of of being extremely middle class and then having not enough money for a slice
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of pizza between us but inevitably even through the struggles we were
00:06:46
there was a level of of comedic relief you know we were always taking the piss out of ourselves my mom's a natural
00:06:52
comedian her being a self-made businesswoman especially in the 70s and 80s when she had to be
00:06:58
uh forced her to be extremely funny and extremely Savvy and um
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sort of puckish about the way in which she navigated the world and men and institutions and so I would say that
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um most of the time we were laughing and there were certainly times where we were we were crying but but it was
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mostly laughter when you um when you talk about your mother is the words you use will miss make it sound more like a
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partnership than a mother-son relationship it sounds like you were like you know partners
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certainly we were Partners I mean a single mom and an only child you are
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immediately elevated to co-pilot whether you like it or not I always say that traditional families growing up were
00:07:46
more like I viewed them as close corporations and that kids were employees and the parents were upper
00:07:52
management and the upper management was sort of beckoning down orders from the top and maybe they were seniority
00:07:58
because there was an older sibling but inevitably everyone sort of had the same Pace structure and then for my mom and I
00:08:05
we were more like a startup right so one day I was pitching the clients and she was sweeping the floors and uh most days
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it was the other way around so yeah I was I was the man in my mom's life
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yeah did you have any
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um you know when you start talking in your book about the pain that you were experiencing that
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led you to to food and that you know ultimately led to bullying and all of those things what was that pain
00:08:39
well I think I could make it I'm going to speak
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generally as a reflection of something specific
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that went on with me but I I dare I project that we're all in a certain level of of pain
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um the veil of adolescence Falls for for all of us at different times in our
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lives where we realize that the world is unfair or we become more attuned to where we are not enough in certain areas
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and the universe having a beautiful level of balance it's it's inevitable right I don't know of any of Tom Brady's
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shortcomings but he's got to have one he's probably hiding it from the world but um there's always something that that
00:09:26
for for us is is a challenge or something that's uncomfortable and I
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think you'd be hard-pressed to zoom in on any kid and especially pre-teen and teen who doesn't feel like Ultra
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sensitive that the world is unfair wrestling with their place in this world
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their identity forming their identity so for me I just feel like that was
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impressed upon me at a really young age if what's particular to me as I was really young and uh
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I think that was because of the dad stuff I think that was because I was overweight so I just knew that life was
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going to be more challenging with the set of circumstances that were at that
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point felt like sort of thrust upon me I didn't know that I was sort of eating in a
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in an unhealthy way I just felt like I eat fruit snacks like every other kid I just you know do it
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um in an excessive way so I think that pain was just born out of
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what we all feel is that it hurts to be different and it hurts to know that life is going to be challenging
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you earlier when you said the word comedic relief when you're talking about the relationship with you and your mother comedic relief
00:10:45
the word relief almost makes it sound medicinal like some kind of medicine in your household what what role did comedy
00:10:52
play in your your early years a comedy is
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for my mom and I it's it's everything it's everything we loved watching movies
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and television together sitcoms and stand-up comedy it was a release it was a superpower it
00:11:10
was something that came to both of us naturally I'm sure as as a byproduct of
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my mom's rearing and upbringing and she even talks about her her dad who I
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didn't know my grandfather who sounds like a pretty deeply imperfect guy but
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was a showman and did love to tell jokes and be funny and a bit of the center of
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attention and so for us it was uh it was a currency it
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was something that worked immediately and it could control the energy of a
00:11:45
room it could endear people to you so you could really use it to your
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advantage but if anything it was a wonderful distraction the other thing you describe as a
00:11:57
distraction is um is TV yes you refer to it as an escape View at that time in
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your life um and you said in your book happy people are annoying
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um that sitcoms were your favorite why were they your favorite well sitcoms especially at that time I
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talk about how my best friends growing up were The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore and
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um sitcoms had some Universal sort of qualities in my experience it projected
00:12:32
a healthy family right so it was family matters it was I guess Full House was
00:12:39
sort of it was a healthy sort of um non-classic family right because it was
00:12:45
the dad and the uncles but these were people that these were families that I I wanted to be a part of
00:12:51
and then there was a Justice to the comedy in the sense of you didn't have
00:12:57
to interpret it it wasn't objective or I'm sorry it wasn't subjective it was objective it was clear what worked and
00:13:03
what didn't it got a laugh and at that time it was a live studio audience so you know something Gotta Laugh
00:13:10
and uh and I would just lose myself in hours of watching these television shows
00:13:17
and I was absorbing The rhythms and the qualities through osmosis I didn't even know it at the time but it also served
00:13:24
as this wonderful escape and I say that becoming an actor was like
00:13:29
for me going to work for the hospital that cured my disease you know it felt
00:13:35
like my way of saying thank you for taking care of me during that time what
00:13:41
was the disease well I I that's a metaphor but yeah it's
00:13:46
just like sort of a metaphor for my discomfort for um having a lot of time on my hands
00:13:53
because I was an only child uh because my mom had to work a lot to support us
00:13:59
because there was some Financial insecurity just sort of all of the
00:14:05
discomfort going on in between my ears um was sort of muted when I was losing
00:14:11
myself in those shows one of the other things that we've touched on briefly that you describe in a
00:14:17
medicinal manner um I think the quote in your book is actually I didn't know it at the time but obviously I was
00:14:23
definitely medicating something deep within for me when I think about my childhood the singular powerful and all-consuming
00:14:30
memory that comes to mind as being fat it wasn't a habit it was a love my first
00:14:35
love when you're talking about food oh yeah well that's how you put on the weight
00:14:41
yeah food is great I mean you're a very fit person but I imagine you're you're a
00:14:46
fan of food I love food everybody does the whole world does you know it's not
00:14:52
like the biggest food guy who John Stamos and I don't mean to drop names here but we did a show together and he's
00:14:59
like you know I could eat a turkey sandwich and be okay with it like most
00:15:04
days and it's like sometimes I'll forget to eat and yeah I like a nice meal here and there but I'm not too absorbed with
00:15:10
it and I'm like I don't identify with this you and I are built differently John
00:15:15
well we know we know John Stamos is built different um but yeah I mean the whole world's
00:15:21
obsessed with food I was obsessed with it in a way that led to me being very
00:15:28
overweight when you say very very of a weight how much is that in I guess the metric here
00:15:34
is pounds isn't it I can give you kilos no I can't but what's kilos about two and a half
00:15:40
pounds 2.2 um you want to do stones I know you're
00:15:45
from the UK pounds well 14 15 cents yeah I think well like
00:15:50
basically it's funny because I was just kind of like a normal sized human until
00:15:55
around eight or nine and then I got kind of chubby and then I put on a lot of weight but it was only from about 13 to
00:16:02
18 uh where I was about uh 100 pounds overweight I was about 290 pounds
00:16:09
okay which is 130 kilograms probably and you're you're in nine or ten you said uh
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no I I really put that weight on probably around nine or ten I was probably 180 190 but I was only you know
00:16:24
five foot and then as I got a little bigger and older and also could you know
00:16:29
go to restaurants or grab fast food by myself I I put on the pounds I've come to learn over the the years actually
00:16:35
quite recently the um the role the link between how I feel and how I eat yes you
00:16:42
know I mean there's lots of these links in our lives you know one of them is how we feel and money
00:16:48
um how we feel and how we eat um I'm sure there's many many more but um these are all like psychological
00:16:54
Tools in many respects and medicinal tools often was there a point when you realized that the link between
00:17:00
your relationship with food and how you were feeling yeah I mean it came later uh
00:17:07
understanding the nuance and the correlation but I mean this is why
00:17:12
actors smoke right like traditionally whenever you see movies where where it's
00:17:17
it's about show business and you see the actor sort of hanging outside of a Sound Stage because you do a take you do a
00:17:26
scene you're not sure how it went you think you were good you hope you know there was one take that was good but
00:17:31
maybe they're going to use the take kind of sucked and you're full of emotion and you're unsure and you're insecure
00:17:38
and there's a table of food waiting for you right beautiful craft service like you've never seen hot and cold and then
00:17:46
but instead you're like what can I do to give me that sort of dopamine hit without you know giving me the calories
00:17:54
so you know people go outside and smoke obviously now smoking's not as uh in
00:17:59
fashion so you see less of it but I remember once I was working with this actor Paget Brewster she's just a gem
00:18:06
brilliant actor and she played my mom on this TV show and I I'll never forget
00:18:12
once they were serving pizza as sort of of like the late night meal because we're working long hours and
00:18:19
and I remember her pulling the cheese and like pepperoni off the top of the pizza and eating it and she just sort of
00:18:25
said this is the actress pizza right without the bread I was like how
00:18:30
perfectly set right and so yeah I think we we all run to food because it's
00:18:38
represented to us as this it's a celebratory thing it's also something
00:18:43
you do when things don't work out it's a cheat day but like think about
00:18:49
those words right we reward ourselves with cheating um right it's a funny sort of corollary
00:18:56
but um and it's ubiquitous it's holiday it's
00:19:02
pumpkin spice season at uh at Starbucks like all of these every great event is
00:19:09
accompanied by a meal even the worst events right like what do you hope for after a funeral well there'll be a nice
00:19:16
spread we'll go back and we'll have a nice spread when you say you were you were medicating something deep within
00:19:22
it seems like a relationship with food was a little bit more um
00:19:28
unique shall I say yeah so I think a lot of I don't think a lot of people would say that they
00:19:33
are using food as a way to medicate something deep within well they're probably using it it's in
00:19:40
some version of uh to medicate but maybe not it I I did it in excess right I did
00:19:46
it to an extreme in an extreme way yes there's a paradox
00:19:52
there which you highlight in your book where you say that like you're doing it to ease pain but it caused more pain
00:19:58
which is um I guess is the is the case with a lot of things where we have a unbalanced relationship with them where
00:20:05
like there's the short-term reward of the dopamine hit that you describe but then the long term punishment is like
00:20:11
the critique right and the self the self-talk I guess and the the teasing is you you refer to it in your book hmm
00:20:18
that's you you experience that that the kind of like short-term pursuit of the dopamine history short-term pain or um
00:20:25
short-term gain long-term pain yeah yeah I mean it's a paradox of addiction right it's it's us running to
00:20:33
I heard it said once someone in in recovery said my disease lies in my dis
00:20:40
ease I become uncomfortable and my coping mechanism the thing that my brain is
00:20:46
trained to do is to go to these things that numb the feeling uh it's another
00:20:53
great term numb and run you know uh it numbs the feeling it cauterizes it
00:21:00
temporarily but inevitably it never deals with the underlying issue so that
00:21:05
continues to grow and push the boulder up so it requires more and more medication and thus you know it makes
00:21:13
you more and more unhappy so you know whether that's food or drug or drink or
00:21:19
smoking sex you know gambling debt whatever your thing is it's I mean it's
00:21:26
it's just whatever's triggering I would I would think that dopamine serotonin sort of response
00:21:32
it's pretty crazy that at like eight years old you were already doing stand up yeah that's
00:21:38
that's boggles my mind at eight years old I was doing nothing productive I bet you were doing uh probably the
00:21:45
things eight-year-olds should do like times tables and yeah geography and yeah stuff like that like kicking a ball
00:21:51
against the wall yeah on my own or with a friend you were doing stand up at eight you know I had a I had I had a couple of
00:21:57
comedians on this podcast and they all there's this ongoing collect stereotype that like a comedian is depressed or
00:22:03
something and one of the comedians said to me that um a better question to ask I think it was Jimmy Carr he said a better
00:22:08
question to ask is like which one of your parents were you trying to make happy ah Jimmy Carr is so fun he's funny
00:22:14
isn't he what a super like he's like a Jedi he's on another level
00:22:20
sure what parent are you trying to make happy what girl are you trying to impress
00:22:28
I just think that we know that most assets are born out of
00:22:35
feelings of being not enough you know uh
00:22:41
how many great athletes were were created because they were trying to
00:22:46
impress their fathers right admonishing fathers help make very ambitious young
00:22:52
men you know and and young women I don't mean to gender it um the problem is is the duality of that
00:23:00
because inevitably once hopefully you've achieved that you realize that there's
00:23:05
no there there that there's no perfect moment that's going to heal that
00:23:11
relationship with that parent or worse you don't you don't attain those things and then you're left to wonder well
00:23:18
what what could it have been and I fell short I wasn't enough but
00:23:23
comedy is one of those more specific things because there is there's a
00:23:28
Justice to it um it's there's not a lot up for interpretation it's clear
00:23:36
uh it's more like boxing I think Chris rocket can akin to boxing which is why they call it a punch line and you know
00:23:43
it's on the cards that punch connected that one didn't you get a point for that you don't get a point for this
00:23:49
and yeah I think it's just born out of you
00:23:54
know being funny usually comes from very unfunny reasons and you know growing up
00:24:02
and I I don't mean to say this even now like when I'll I'll meet someone who's like really uh I'll just name names it's
00:24:08
like and he is funny but it's like sometimes when I watch Like Ashton Kutcher go like in a really hard comedy
00:24:14
and he's done some really really funny things I know this is what you're gonna clip me like trashing I I want to be
00:24:19
Ashton Kutcher I look up to him I love you Ashton I'm available for friendship and I love your wife I love them both
00:24:25
but it's like it's sometimes it's hard for me to reconcile how someone can be that gorgeous and handsome and um and
00:24:32
also funny right like sometimes I do feel like no Funny's got to be reserved for us you know who who who weren't
00:24:40
necessarily that because yeah it was used as a defense mechanism
00:24:46
did you know you wanted to be a comedian or an actor and if so when did you when
00:24:51
did that idea become cemented in your brain that that's the path you were going to pursue being an actor professionally didn't
00:24:59
seem like a reasonable career path sometimes it still doesn't but here I am
00:25:05
um it was ridiculous I grew up in New York I'm not a nepo baby I have no connection to show business other than a
00:25:13
very sticky mother do you know this word schtick yeah okay you're like I have a
00:25:18
mom who loves a bit and she's a natural performer it's a beautiful singing voice but no literally no connections to show
00:25:26
business in any way so it was not reasonable to think that there would be any opportunity to do it professionally
00:25:32
and then I was in sixth grade and my mom and I were having a really tough moment
00:25:39
financially we're living in an apartment on the east side of Manhattan it was like a studio
00:25:45
apartment and we would sort of switch off between the bed and the couch one night I'd get to bed one night I get the
00:25:50
couch and and I remember my mom saying you know there's a performing arts high school
00:25:55
that you should audition for and I said but I'm gonna go to the high school in my district like where my
00:26:01
elementary school was she goes you don't have a district anymore we don't live there anymore
00:26:08
and I realized okay well yeah maybe I'll give this the school a shot because I'm
00:26:15
not going to be in high school now with my friends who I grew up with and I auditioned and I went and I got in
00:26:21
and suddenly I'm walking the halls of this school the professional performing arts school which is in the Theater
00:26:26
District in New York near Times Square and they had alumni like Alicia Keys and
00:26:33
Jesse Eisenberg and Claire Danes and they were all older than me but all
00:26:39
of a sudden I'm seeing kids who are in Broadway shows TV shows and they're studying but they're also successful on
00:26:46
this like grown-up level and it seemed possible that you could make a living doing this thing that I loved
00:26:52
so I remember that was the first time where I had a suspicion like oh this this might be a long-term gig and
00:27:02
eventually then once I basically once it became a way out of my circumstance and
00:27:08
it allowed me to sort of contribute to the family financially I was I was all
00:27:15
in it just seemed like an escape and you were what age then like 12 16 I
00:27:20
think I was 12 yeah and then by 16 a chance meeting with
00:27:26
someone from Nickelodeon sends things in another Direction no that was 12. oh when you were 12. I used to audition
00:27:33
like every other day um and Nickelodeon their their Viacom
00:27:38
headquarters was in Times Square I've been yeah yeah another one yeah and
00:27:44
I auditioned for a movie I got it they fly me to Canada never been out of
00:27:49
the country now if you're going to go out of the country for the first time making Canada because it's lovely and I'm sitting there one
00:27:57
day in in Calgary Canada making jokes to some 40 year old guy
00:28:03
with a great laugh and a huge Park up and my mom Saddles up to me and she goes
00:28:10
you know who that is so you're making laugh that's that's the president of Nickelodeon a guy named Albie hacked you should tell
00:28:17
him that you want to be on all that which was kind of SNL for kids at that
00:28:22
time it was my dream so I told them and nine months later he called and said Josh I'm gonna move you
00:28:30
and your mom out to California to go be on The Amanda Show which was the spin-off for Amanda Bynes from all that
00:28:36
and that was kind of what changed my life and brought me out to LA and gave me my first TV
00:28:42
show and kind of started this whole mess this whole mess
00:28:49
ing way to describe it it boggles my mind that you're doing that at 12. I I am
00:28:55
I I don't even know how that's possible for you know it feels like there's a lot
00:29:00
of other things we're meant to be doing when we're 12. you were you were working essentially yeah yeah it was
00:29:06
what did you miss did you miss anything I'm in hindsight a lot I mean you can
00:29:12
speak to a better I don't know what I didn't miss I mean but you if you had a more traditional sort of adolescence
00:29:19
right did you yeah I did yeah yeah yeah so like school stuff like the prom and
00:29:26
playing football and with the team and you know Primary School primary school as well yeah figuring yourself out more
00:29:32
than anything uniforms I wish I went to school in the UK it seems awesome yeah it's not bad yeah yeah I loved
00:29:39
Matilda room for improvement um it's dope it's uh it's such a classic I am
00:29:46
um yeah I I missed out on a lot absolutely um you know it's funny people love this
00:29:52
question it kills me I don't know why because now I have two sons of my own and they're always like you got to put
00:29:58
them in Show Business like it's weird I I don't know why that is I don't know if people say to lawyers or Carpenters like
00:30:05
is your son gonna hit nails like are you gonna like read your son depositions
00:30:11
I guess because the idea is that why wouldn't you want them to and while I
00:30:16
would love for them to if they love performing to to find some joy in it
00:30:24
my upbringing my circumstance was so specific
00:30:29
it was inevitable that if this was meant for me that it was going to be meant for me and I mean that as
00:30:37
we could move 3 000 Miles because it was just me and my mom you know we could uproot our whole life
00:30:43
I I was an overweight kid so I didn't get a lot of self-esteem from the
00:30:48
traditional systems that people the kids gain it from but I found this performing
00:30:54
thing so of course my mom goes well I'm going to nurture this the way I would if it were little league
00:30:59
or it was an instrument so my environment my upbringing allowed
00:31:07
for me to go on this really non-traditional path my kids don't have that they have a very different
00:31:13
experience they have like a very rooted household they have a huge family they have a mom and dad and it's not
00:31:19
necessarily that one's better than the other but it's just like their experience will be different and
00:31:25
if when my son's 18 and he's like I want to go to Juilliard or I want to do it professionally that's great but maybe
00:31:33
his circumstance won't lend itself to start that early it's so interesting yeah but it makes so
00:31:40
much sense you know that circumstance and struggle are
00:31:45
factors that orientate us towards um towards our mission and it's so you know
00:31:51
I I think we often understate how like trauma and things we'd never wish on a
00:31:56
child end up creating their Brilliance you think about like the the Brilliance you've created the work
00:32:02
you've created that is brilliant so much of it has a through line way back to things that you would never wish on your kids yes right
00:32:08
15 years old you start um filming the pilot for Drake and Josh
00:32:14
one of the things I found really interesting when I was reading through your book is one would assume that such a hit show a show that we all knew
00:32:21
very very well in the UK off the back of it one would assume that you'd be like set for life financially
00:32:26
yeah and you write about how that's like that's that's that was certainly not the case
00:32:32
yes and I I do want to say that my first Kids Choice Award was one
00:32:40
at the UK Kids Choice Awards in London now I had been nominated a lot a lot I
00:32:46
had said sour grapes but allow me to continue I was not properly appreciated for my work
00:32:54
in the American Kids Choice Awards but it took you brilliant people in the United Kingdom to
00:32:59
appreciate my my my overweight but wonderfully comedic work as a young
00:33:06
actor so I want to thank you um yeah I
00:33:11
I think look I'm so pleased to talk about this stuff with you someone who's
00:33:17
like has wonderful insight into the book and and is interested and it felt like
00:33:23
the book for me was sort of like I don't I I really I don't do a lot of
00:33:30
this anymore and because the book felt like sort of a chapter ending in my life
00:33:36
it was me editorializing my life it was commenting on the things that I felt were perhaps misunderstood or didn't
00:33:44
have enough clarification or description and also in an effort unknowingly to
00:33:49
sort of say like and now I'm not I'm going to talk about it less and if someone is interested like they can you
00:33:57
know read the book and it's it's now you know in the the Library of Congress but
00:34:02
and so to that point I felt the need because over the years people would
00:34:08
either say it in a cheeky way like oh well you don't have to worry because of the residuals or they would see just
00:34:15
something random like you know it would actually be part of decision making or something
00:34:21
that it would apply to me they're like well Josh doesn't have to worry and I was like well I'm not complaining but
00:34:26
I'm I'm as much you know worried about next year's financial status as anyone
00:34:33
else because I don't have that security so yeah with Drake and Josh there was no
00:34:38
residuals and kids CV didn't have that at that time and I got really honest and I sort of broke
00:34:44
it down because Ryan holiday my friend and sort of advisor on the book was like if you don't it's he's like it's gross
00:34:51
to talk about money but if you don't actually give a a sort of exact picture
00:34:57
of what it was then people won't understand and so I sort of talk about that
00:35:02
you know while doing the show we made about a hundred thousand dollars a year for the four years we were making it
00:35:09
which is great money in a lovely middle class lifestyle but no one would assume that once you stop working that you
00:35:16
never had to work again so I just wanted to give some clarity to that to sort of
00:35:21
explain the choices that I made after and why I was so passionate about finding more work because I um I had
00:35:28
some people to take care of makes perfect sense and I think it's really important context because
00:35:34
um you're right it's very easy when you don't know entertainment contracts especially for for a young person that's
00:35:39
15 odd years old to assume that they made millions and millions in perpetuity
00:35:45
from that piece of work and then a lot of the the decisions and the choices they're after don't have are lacking in
00:35:51
context yeah when I read that it was like I understood of course if you make a hundred thousand dollars in the United
00:35:56
States living in California whatever it is for five years in a row you do need
00:36:01
to go back to work and yeah after Drake and Josh ended was there was there like
00:36:07
a pivotal moment where you realized that that show was big um it wasn't until much later funny
00:36:14
enough I am I think because when we were making it it was only popular with kids who were
00:36:22
sort of younger who I didn't other than if I was at a mall or at a theme park I
00:36:27
didn't have a huge amount of uh interaction with and then I would say that the the power of the show
00:36:34
to its credit was that it was slightly Timeless because it had a very sort of
00:36:41
classic through line of any sitcom it was about a family and a lot of kids shows can be more
00:36:47
Fantastical and have more of a Sci-Fi bent or something more fantasy or
00:36:53
whimsical this was just like very straight down the line two brothers who are very different trying to get along
00:36:59
uh and an evil little sister so because of how much it was rerun
00:37:06
more Generations would come to the show and these people grew up so it wasn't as
00:37:12
though it was this moment in time it was every year we were picking up new fans
00:37:18
because there was what 60 episodes or something yeah just like there was so much more I know it's weird why is that
00:37:26
I guess reruns yeah it played for so long over the last couple of how long
00:37:31
maybe four months I've been changing my diet shall I say many of you have really
00:37:36
been paying attention to this podcast will know why I've sat here with some incredible Health experts and one of the
00:37:41
things that's really come through for me which has caused a big change in my life is the need for us to have these
00:37:47
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00:37:52
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00:38:04
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00:38:10
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00:38:21
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00:38:27
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00:38:46
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00:38:52
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00:39:23
after Drake and Josh ended and as you go into you're like you you know the next chapter of your life 18 years old you
00:39:30
lose a lot of weight I do a lot of weight
00:39:36
127 pounds yeah how how does that's not an easy feat
00:39:43
how does that happen I certainly made a decision that I was ready to do it
00:39:49
um I think I just I always knew that I was going to do it and also in writing
00:39:55
the book it's when you put pen to paper and I know you're a writer yourself it's
00:40:02
amazing how these I feel as though we make these um everything in our brain is
00:40:07
sort of shorthand right it's like these picture memories that are connected uh
00:40:12
and sometimes they're connected by these really strong connections and sometimes it's just like short little hits but
00:40:18
when you're forced to actually explain it on a page it makes you look at it differently and I was like wow I was
00:40:25
only heavy from like 13 to 17. of course they're the years that have been enshrined in television
00:40:32
history forever so it feels much bigger but had I just been like a normal kid I
00:40:38
would have burned my yearbooks and sworn my family to secrecy and I'd never bring it up so
00:40:45
I think it was a number of things I was ready I think naturally like my body was
00:40:51
ready to let go of it and I just knew that I
00:40:57
I felt like because I was so insecure I had missed out on a lot of my teenage
00:41:02
years um it wasn't without lack of opportunity to go out and and be a knucklehead and
00:41:09
experience life I just didn't want to do it because I didn't love the body that I was in so I felt like if I didn't if I
00:41:17
didn't act now I was going to lose some really important years
00:41:22
is there is there a process that helped because I'm thinking about how you referred to it as being like medicinal
00:41:27
your relationship with food and that's like deeply psychological so to like append that deep psychological force or
00:41:34
that relationship with food there's no easy feat so like what what's the process is it therapy is it what that
00:41:40
that makes your that kind of appends that psychological force or replaces it or I think it was I I had been I've I've
00:41:48
had a therapist that that I've gone to since I was 15 and and I still see here
00:41:53
and there so my mom kind of knew I think she saw it in me early on that there was just a lot going on be it my dad or the
00:42:00
weight stuff and then I think I would just in the way that that change is born you
00:42:08
know pain is a great motivator I was sort of sick and tired of being sick and tired and I I knew that I had to let go
00:42:16
of something I don't think I knew exactly what it was but if I'm looking back at it now it was like it was this
00:42:22
anger it was anger at my my dad it was anger at my circumstance and
00:42:27
I just remember I was 17 years old my mom and I would drive back to New York every year for like two months and we
00:42:34
would just go and see family and hang out in the city and I just started to walk
00:42:40
and up until then I would do these really intense you know attempts at keto
00:42:45
or these extreme diets on a Monday and I would fail by Wednesday morning and then
00:42:51
it would be back on again but this time I said I'm just going to try to make a
00:42:56
small change every day and I would walk the city for miles and
00:43:01
I would listen uh to music and I would dream of what my life could be
00:43:06
and I started eating better and slowly but surely that summer I lost like 40
00:43:11
pounds and then over the next year I lost another 40 and then over the next year I lost another 40. in chapter five
00:43:18
of your book you say you had a new body but the exact same self-hating mind
00:43:26
one would assume that you know dropping 127 pounds one would naively assume that
00:43:31
dropping 127 pounds would would make you feel different about yourself yeah
00:43:37
well it's um to sort of the themes that you've mentioned throughout this interview it's
00:43:44
it's cause and effect right like I dealt with the effect but I didn't deal with the cause and unfortunately there were
00:43:51
some issues at play there were some um unresolved pain and work that needed
00:43:57
to be done that I wasn't even aware of but it was all at play Under the surface so when I no longer had that thing that
00:44:04
was helping to sort of keep those feelings at Bay they reared their head and I needed to find something else I
00:44:10
didn't know that it was going to be in the form of uh you know drinking and and
00:44:16
sort of uh alcohol's cousins but I uh
00:44:21
I just knew that when I finally did find those things and I did sigh that bit of
00:44:27
relief that I'd been looking for I I think there was even a moment in that
00:44:32
first night when I went out with some other kids my age and really tied one off and thought I was having like a
00:44:38
proper teenage time I remember this this voice in my head being like oh this is
00:44:45
it like this is what we've been looking for um drinking
00:44:51
yeah the drinking and drugs and I I I I think I see something in the book of
00:44:57
like if you've been carrying this invisible bag of stones around your whole life a weight vest with 50 to 100
00:45:03
extra pounds I mean I quite literally was but let's just say it's like emotional weight vest and
00:45:10
eventually you almost forget that it's on you just know your knees hurt you know you're exhausted it's like why
00:45:17
am I so tired why did why does why do things feel tougher for me than it does for my friends
00:45:23
and then if in an instant that weight vest is lifted off of you and your knees
00:45:29
hurt less and you're walking around and you're like oh you wouldn't question it you just be
00:45:36
like whatever just took that weight vest off I'm in and that's that was the
00:45:42
reaction that I had such an interesting analogy
00:45:47
the the weight vest you know you said the term self-hating mind for someone that hasn't experienced a
00:45:53
self-hating mind what is what is that like in detailed reality is it literally thoughts that you can
00:46:00
recall that are saying being pessimistic hmm I I probably if I could um
00:46:08
edit my book now I would be probably less um
00:46:13
I'd be less revealing no I would I would be less
00:46:20
um I would be a little harder on myself and say I it's self-centered if we're talking
00:46:26
about the root of it I remember when I got in when I got sober people would say
00:46:31
you're self-centered and I would say self-centered that's reserved for people who think highly of themselves that's
00:46:38
reserved for the quarterbacks the models the good looking the self-absorbed people to me felt
00:46:46
when you would see that in movies it was someone who was staring in the mirror and perfecting their hair and they would
00:46:52
say no if you spend all your time thinking about how great you are or how you are all you're thinking about
00:46:58
is you and you are self-centered it doesn't matter whether it's great or bad
00:47:04
so I wouldn't yeah I would substitute self-hating with self-centered I was
00:47:10
obsessed with self my trauma was real my challenges were
00:47:15
real and that played a part in it but I was just so wrapped up in
00:47:21
my feelings of feeling less than an uncomfortable and not proverbially not
00:47:29
at the cool table that um I you know found myself in a place to
00:47:36
numb my my feelings because those thoughts were were unrelenting
00:47:43
Nothing in life nothing in life is free and so even a temporary lifting of the weight vest comes with a long-term cost
00:47:52
as we talked about with food what was that that long-term cost of temporarily getting to lift the weight vest once in
00:47:58
a while I just became a cliche quick I I heard relationships and work I worried the
00:48:04
people that loved me I I just started to accrue a lot of wreckage quickly it's
00:48:10
it's funny I interviewed Hillary Duff on my podcast um Good Guys the other day and we made a
00:48:16
joke I was asking her about like um we were she brought up something about
00:48:22
like oh I love an alcoholic beverage and she kind of looked at me and said sorry Josh and I was like no I love an
00:48:28
alcoholic beverage too unfortunately whenever I drink it leads to my other favorite beverage Percocet
00:48:35
which is a very popular painkiller in this country um and I remember people sort of
00:48:43
saying like they were so sort of they just didn't know sort of my
00:48:51
um they they didn't know that part of my history right so it was something that I
00:48:57
it was this thing that I was sort of navigating and balancing kind of how much I would sort of
00:49:04
talk about it and and uh and reveal and then also sort of this this balancing of
00:49:10
like the things that I also wanted to keep private when did you realize that that you had a
00:49:17
a problem with alcohol or an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and drugs was there a because at the time I imagine
00:49:24
you don't the first time you do it you don't know it's not a problem then is it but at some point you must have maybe got some
00:49:30
feedback or something indicated that this was not oh and I'm sorry I forgot the point I
00:49:35
was trying to make with the Hillary thing but oh someone wrote a comment on that clip and that video said damn Josh
00:49:41
Peck got sober at 21 he really went for it so to answer your follow-up question
00:49:47
yeah I mean I think that I basically was
00:49:55
substituting what I used food for with these you know with with drinking
00:50:03
and with other substance but it was all sort of connected so it wasn't this
00:50:09
four-year run it was really like since I was 9 or 10 years old it just was again
00:50:15
validating and reconfirming this idea of like you overdo things
00:50:20
and nothing is going to fill up this hole in the soul no matter what you try
00:50:26
to fill it with and even like the things that our um World tells us is a value even success
00:50:35
isn't going to do it even if girls like you it's not enough and so I remember at
00:50:41
21 having a moment like that when it all sort of came sort of barreling down on me and I
00:50:49
realized that I needed to do something now I think people have those moments and they don't do anything and they lose
00:50:55
another four years or five or ten or Twenty um but I do think the world and life
00:51:02
catastrophe challenging circumstance some version of a bottom whatever you're
00:51:08
going through being fired from something a health scare has a way of temporarily
00:51:14
waking you up and what you do in that moment um decides what what's going to happen next
00:51:21
for you you said that happened for you at 21 years old was that was that in the wake of the film The whackness it was yeah
00:51:27
that was certainly a moment tell me about that moment well again I I had accrued plenty of wreckage but I
00:51:34
remember I I had done this movie The whackness that I was extremely proud of with my favorite actor sir Ben Kingsley you know
00:51:41
and I mean literally my favorite actor like getting a you know have my rookie season with Michael Jordan and
00:51:48
and it went to the Sundance Film Festival and I was so proud and we got a standing ovation and it just felt like
00:51:54
such a confirmation for me as an actor that there was going to be that that there was going to be opportunity and
00:52:01
there was there was more to come for my career that it wasn't just this sort of anomaly
00:52:06
that I did this one show and that that was sort of gonna be it but I remember in that moment
00:52:12
all those similar feelings that mind that had gotten me in trouble
00:52:18
so many times before was still yelling at me and all those feelings were
00:52:24
flooding in they weren't there the night we got they weren't there during the 90 seconds of the Sandy Innovation they
00:52:30
weren't there you know when I was smiling in front of the camera but they were there when I got home they were there when I got in
00:52:37
bed they were there when I was waiting in line for a coffee the next morning or whatever else I was doing so it was like
00:52:43
so short-lived and it just confirmed this idea of like oh like even at your best even when
00:52:50
everything's kind of going right because it's easy to use when when life throws you challenges there's a reason to sort
00:52:57
of you know co-sign your bad behavior but everything was going right and I
00:53:03
still didn't feel like enough and I knew at that point that I needed to make a change or or
00:53:10
I might never do it that next day off to the standing
00:53:15
ovation at the Sundance Film Festival you talk about you know how you might have felt standing in the coffee line or
00:53:20
the next day when you woke up Etc is this are they are these specific thoughts or is it just an emotional
00:53:26
state is it just like a lowness it's totally emotional and it's
00:53:34
ugly like the way like how we're all pitiful in those moments I I don't think you have to be
00:53:40
um suffer from addiction or it's just like when we realize that our way isn't
00:53:47
working anymore and a change needs to occur and so yeah I I certainly it's taken 15 16
00:53:55
years to articulated correctly I think it was just the feeling you you your solution
00:54:02
to that feeling appears to be you know when when you hit that proverbial Rock Bottom moment
00:54:07
um to be getting some help and that's where you turn to AAA Alcoholics
00:54:13
Anonymous hmm what what is that Pro like what is what is Alcoholics Anonymous and like how how
00:54:19
did it help you turn things around and get sober well you know it's sort of in the name
00:54:26
Anonymous that there's there's an anonymity portion to it so I I I always want to make sure it said that I'm in no
00:54:33
way sort of a representative or Ambassador for it in any way it's just how I have found a way in which to get
00:54:41
and stay sober over the last 15 years is through through uh 12-step program and
00:54:47
it's just a way it's it's ancient truths
00:54:53
um repackaged to make sense to a guy like me it's the best way it helps to
00:54:58
mitigate the worst of my Character defects and it's just age-old
00:55:04
um it's just a sort of for me an age-old way of of cleaning up your
00:55:10
past and and looking at bad patterns and habits in my life and making amends and
00:55:17
trying to implement things that through history we have known to work gratitude
00:55:25
surrender acceptance if you want self-esteem do a steamable acts restrain a pen and tongue you know
00:55:33
just like um you know it's not you know your higher power is up to you as long as you know
00:55:40
that you're not God that one's a that one's helpful it just presented some
00:55:45
ways in which for me to to apply things to my life that helped me to to get and
00:55:50
stay sober so I think if if the efficacy wasn't there if I didn't see quickly that I started to feel better then maybe
00:55:57
I would have sought a different way this this was a way that happened to work for me and you've been sober for some what 13
00:56:04
13 years 15 15. recently yeah just uh February 15th congratulations thanks it
00:56:10
works for me yeah it's an incredible incredible um achievement you know everyone's got
00:56:16
their own relationship with with alcohol and whatever else but it's always incredible to hear um someone being able to
00:56:23
turn a corner in the direction they wanted to turn it it's the best way I can describe it thank you 2013.
00:56:31
you kind of start from reading your book it sounds like you start on a new a New Journey and that's the journey to
00:56:37
understand who your father is you're 27 at this point so almost 30 years old and
00:56:42
your father passes away um and you make the decision at that point having not met him before and
00:56:48
having not seen a picture of him until you were 24 years old to figure out who he was hmm what did you learn about him
00:56:54
and how did that change your perspective of him well I remember I'd always sort of toyed
00:57:01
with this idea of meeting him and yet I think I knew deep down I never would because
00:57:07
my creation of him in my head the way that I sold him to my
00:57:13
friends or or the way I would portray him to people felt like my weird Cosmic consolation prize like I don't get to
00:57:22
have him in any way but I can present him to people in the way in which I choose not that I was telling people
00:57:27
that my dad was you know the first man on the moon or anything like that it
00:57:34
just was like you know my mom knew that he was that he was Jewish and that he was
00:57:40
Sephardic which is um a type of Jew that tends to be from either the Middle East or from Morocco
00:57:47
or or French or or can be South America Mexican and and so for me I would just
00:57:54
like Ping Pong where he was from you know sometimes he was from Spain sometimes he was from Israel sometimes
00:58:00
he was from like I just would kind of present it as I so fit and and it felt
00:58:07
like if I ever met him well then I I lost Stephen the illusion or this creation of my dad that I wanted to make
00:58:17
so I but when I found out that he passed away it also felt like a little bit of
00:58:22
this thing that I've been carrying around this emotional grenade that I could you know I had the power in the
00:58:29
sense that I could show up and he had this whole other family and these grown kids and a wife and if I wanted to at
00:58:36
will I could blow that up for him if in theory he never had told them anything I
00:58:42
was never going to do it but it was nice to know right like whatever version my head was telling me like to keep me warm
00:58:48
at night so when he passed away I was like oh damn he won right perfect record like he set his mind to something and he
00:58:56
stuck to it he's like I'm never gonna meet that kid and he did it and I never got that moment to sort of say like how
00:59:03
dare you I don't know if it would have been that probably wouldn't have been it probably would have been like hey I'm your kid what's up like do you want to
00:59:10
get a coffee um but you know all of that was sort of
00:59:15
taken away from me so I felt I felt pissed that I had to mourn this
00:59:21
guy that I never knew and that I was mourning like morning is
00:59:28
in theory sort of the worst part of it's sort of the other side of love right it's that the gift is you get to love
00:59:35
and the Embrace of someone and then what comes with that is that eventually if they're not here anymore you have to
00:59:41
mourn them you have to mourn what was I was like there was nothing like and I
00:59:47
still have to get the crappy side of this doesn't seem fair but it forced me to do something that
00:59:54
inevitably led to my men's and my amends that I gave myself which was I randomly
01:00:01
looked up uh his kids on Facebook my friend figured out a way to my friend
01:00:09
a buddy of mine basically was looking with me and was like oh I there was a connection between him and
01:00:17
my sister they had attended a similar like Workshop or some kind of like education program he's like maybe under
01:00:24
the guise of that I could become her friend and like then you know I could
01:00:29
see if on her profile she has any photos to your dad I had never seen what he looked like
01:00:34
she accepts it and I am immediately given this like Treasure Trove of photos
01:00:40
of his life and I'm seeing him at their bar mitzvahs
01:00:46
and and weddings and all these events and I'm seeing these beautiful tributes
01:00:52
said his friends and family are making to him after he passed away
01:00:58
and it made me realize that like what my dad was for me wasn't the only part of him
01:01:03
you know it certainly was a real part of him but he also was this great dad just
01:01:10
not to me and that's not uh valid there are that's not not valid
01:01:17
that's um that's a part of this imperfect man so
01:01:22
it like gave me a little bit of forgiveness for this guy and it made me realize that he was
01:01:28
probably scared and he had probably had this great perfect record with his family and then this blemish occurred
01:01:34
and he did the best that he could so in a weird way seeing that he was good to
01:01:40
them made me a little more okay that maybe he wasn't great to me and and then of
01:01:47
course having the son of my own and being the dad to my two boys now uh that
01:01:52
I wish my dad was for me was sort of like the ultimate amends to eight-year-old Josh
01:02:00
what's that Journey been like you know from I almost view it as like a
01:02:06
an emotional Journey on like some kind of like graph or something almost like a roller coaster from when you were young
01:02:12
to where you are now in terms of the perspective of your father and the relationship you know was there was there resentment at one point you seemed
01:02:18
to have gotten to a better place with it now yeah but what's that Journey like the resentment I think at its at its
01:02:25
highest is uh showcased in me being 100 pounds overweight right or you know my
01:02:31
struggles after that I I think that was certainly um it was all that resentment and anger
01:02:38
and frustration and unexplored feelings presenting itself
01:02:45
as as whatever that was as those addictions right they were in the
01:02:51
manifestation of a deeper issue they were a symptom of a deeper issue I was just pondering because I've I know
01:02:57
people that haven't had a relationship with their father obviously nothing is definitively causal like it doesn't necessarily mean you can attack any
01:03:03
other way but um one of the the trends you tend to hear about is when is that
01:03:08
connection between not believing you're enough and your father not being around are they connected for you like the the
01:03:15
do you know what I mean I'm saying does the absence of your father did that ever leave a thought that said he left but
01:03:22
you know that means I'm not enough because he chose not to be here it must right I I don't see how it
01:03:28
couldn't be right but what we what I've also learned in Being Sober this song
01:03:34
and hearing a lot of other people's experiences it my um my story my feelings are not rare
01:03:43
but they're not a monolith they're not singular yeah I've heard plenty of stories of people who had like pretty
01:03:49
idyllic uprightings and they just happen to suffer from this thing where they do too much and this particular mental bend
01:03:57
that makes them look at life or makes them seek out a way of numbing their feelings so what I know now is that
01:04:06
certainly I think you're right it it was part of my story but it's it's not the
01:04:11
only way I I think I've kind of grown in that Trend in my mind has grown a little
01:04:18
bit because I spoke to gabo mate who's there's a lot of childhood trauma stuff and one of the things he said is that as
01:04:23
children we're narcissists I've never been able to forget that and we think everything is about us so right if you
01:04:29
know if the father leaves for example instead of thinking well that's because he has another family or because he's
01:04:35
scared or whatever it's that's about me when you when you're younger um and then you as you say you had your
01:04:42
own boy yes now two boys crazy two boys you have kids not yet I could
01:04:49
tell because you're in such good shape were you scared to become a father
01:04:55
because of your own terrified because I I just didn't I didn't have
01:05:01
any work-life experience yeah um I just didn't know look I'm I'm a
01:05:08
mute I'm a I'm a formerly chubby musical theater kid from New York like I don't I
01:05:15
never thought anything that was masculine I never thought I had the prerequisites for that that was like
01:05:20
inherently dudeish like I've always been like a guy like I love boxing like I've
01:05:26
always broke down I've always you know had all those inherent qualities but
01:05:32
those things that felt felt like presentationally Macho or dude-esque I
01:05:38
was just like oh I don't I don't have that and uh and so yeah I wanted to have a girl and then when my son was born my
01:05:48
wife and I didn't find out the sex and so you know at nine months and nine
01:05:53
months and a couple days when the doctor was like what is it Josh and I got to announce to the room like it's a boy
01:05:59
I was like oh of course because it was required for me you know my life turned
01:06:05
into man school you know especially in
01:06:10
sobriety I had to learn and and I don't mean to make it this blanket a definition I for
01:06:18
me what it meant to be a man and the qualities that I had had to sort of accrue the things that no matter how
01:06:25
great my mom was couldn't give me because she was just limited by what one person can do the things that I learned
01:06:31
from my big brother Dan I've had a big brother in in the states we have the big brother Foundation
01:06:37
I've had a big brother since I was eight years old and things that I learned from him and then eventually my father-in-law
01:06:43
who I really look up to and all the great men in my life and all these these assets these tools that I had learned
01:06:51
you know when I had my son Max I was like okay here's my opportunity now to
01:06:56
implement that and see everything that I've collected what I can give him and
01:07:02
uh it just felt perfect it felt like God's way of like having a laugh and be
01:07:08
like you you knew this was going to happen right you married Paige yes you had they teach
01:07:15
your wonderful children um I had a guest on the podcast quite recently who said who described somewhat
01:07:23
of a similar upbringing where the father wasn't around and him and his mum acted almost like pilot and co-pilot and he
01:07:30
one of the terms he said to me I can't remember it was something something ancestral or something I know that
01:07:35
sounds strange but it was something to do with the fact that when you have such a close relationship to your partner to your mother and they end up
01:07:43
indirectly or unadvertently offloading some of the emotional energy around the
01:07:48
parent that's not there it can make your own personal relationships difficult yeah can you relate
01:07:55
I can accept that I think that everyone is bad at relationships and I think just
01:08:02
like I believe that even if you have a perfect parental structure we will self-parent there's always going to be
01:08:09
gaps in our rearing there's always going to be
01:08:14
spots that were missed as a result of your upbringing and your circumstance in
01:08:20
the way in which you've experienced life up to a certain point and it's incumbent on you to fill in those gaps that's
01:08:26
growing up right to even know what those gaps are yes right what for you what
01:08:31
were those gaps you had to fill in well I think it was with the dad stuff it was about in relationships up into my wife
01:08:39
I had this like I would call it like the Tony Montana approach to life which was like if anything went wrong if there was
01:08:48
any sort of adversity or any kind of I mean at this point right like I'm I've
01:08:54
dealt with the dad stuff and then I've been in Showbiz till you know since I was 10 right which is the ultimate
01:09:01
rejection right you're you're being you're going on a job interview at best even if you're on a TV show
01:09:09
you're interviewing for a job once or twice a year and if you are an out of work actor you're you're
01:09:15
interviewing for a job four times five times a month sometimes more during pilot season right so you really have to
01:09:21
calcify or uh calcified yeah like you have to become uh callous to rejection
01:09:27
it's like if you ever talk to a doctor like about death they have a very
01:09:32
interesting bet on it because they can't be overly emotional about it because it's a part of their job
01:09:38
so until this point in relationships if anything went South I just would go this
01:09:46
is a preview of more bad to come this isn't natural Growing Pains this isn't natural
01:09:52
um discourse or or just like the natural arguments that you get in and then you
01:09:57
get through them and you become closer I would just go this was great I'll be fine without you thanks and I would just
01:10:04
go leaving people in my wake to be like what the hell happened how did you reverse that's the point that you were
01:10:10
able to find someone and get married luckily I was in a state of doing the work I was
01:10:17
willing to be I was not doing that specific work but in general because I
01:10:22
was in a recovery program because my mom had put good people around me and
01:10:28
because I had done therapy since I was a kid I like knew I was self-aware enough to know like oh there's there's
01:10:34
certainly work to be done here but it wasn't until I had a woman like my wife in my my life who taught me a better way
01:10:41
who came from a family that doesn't leave and she reiterated that so when we
01:10:46
get in these fights and I would look at her and be like so I guess we should call it like this was great right she'd be like
01:10:53
what like no like I'm not going anywhere and neither you
01:11:00
and we can be mad at each other we can be mad we can go to bed mad I love that
01:11:06
and people go you don't go to bed man I'm like I don't know not in my experience like you can go to bed you're
01:11:12
gonna be mad for a couple days usually it doesn't last that long no one wants to be that pissed that long but it's
01:11:17
like but when we work this out I'll be here because I'm not going anywhere
01:11:22
because my siblings never went anywhere my mom and dad never went anywhere like
01:11:28
we stick around through the good and the bad and that was a revelation for me
01:11:35
I can so relate in so many ways I have the same avoidant attachment stuff for various reasons and then I met a person
01:11:41
I always say that like God over the wall you know like yeah you know and changed you from the inside
01:11:48
um definitely so I can totally totally relate that's why you have to have a that's why if if it's for you you have
01:11:55
to have a kid because in my experience and I say it in the book you don't we all work on ourselves and especially
01:12:01
with incredible podcasts like this and we're in the age of optimization and
01:12:07
self-realization and everyone's listening to a dozen podcasts at a time and wants to be their best version of
01:12:12
themselves and that's great but we can't be Faberge eggs right like we can't be
01:12:17
these perfect pristine things and then we get jostled around a bit by life and we shatter and so to me I think there's
01:12:25
only so much work you can do on your own and then it has to be like applied into life and then you put some skin in the
01:12:32
game and you get in a relationship and that forces you to go deeper and you're like I don't want to and they're like
01:12:38
well you better otherwise this thing's not gonna work but you meet someone of value and you do the work and it reveals
01:12:46
itself to be worth it and it gives you a deeper understanding and then once you
01:12:51
guys get really perfect you throw a kid in the mix and that little jerk makes
01:12:56
you go even deeper and work even harder and become even more selfless hopefully and less self-centered and again new
01:13:04
truths are revealed in new ways of living are revealed so yeah on all the
01:13:09
things we've talked about today the the mental talk the voice in your head the feelings of
01:13:16
um you know quote-unquote self-hatred self-esteem happiness where where are you as you sit here today on that
01:13:22
Journey I I'm I'm in a wonderful place my life
01:13:29
you know is a reflection of how do I say it my life is is that of a
01:13:36
good man's now I I say that not in like some big self-congratulatory way but I just did
01:13:44
the things that I was told to do by people whose life I wanted you know I surrounded myself with the
01:13:51
people who weren't telling me the things I wanted to hear but their life looked attractive and it wasn't because they
01:13:58
had a nice car or they had an impressive job those things don't hurt but it was
01:14:04
because they seemed deeply decent that they had a good spiritual life and that
01:14:10
they were good partners there were good Fathers there were good sons and that was attractive to me so I implemented
01:14:16
that into my life on a regular basis and the byproduct of that was a really good life that I'm completely overpaid to
01:14:24
have today um and I still just as much as I say I
01:14:29
rarely wake up in the morning in the mood for a salad I usually want french toast I wake up in
01:14:36
the morning most times it's usually not the morning I am a morning person it's usually at four eight four a.m at night
01:14:42
or 2 A.M or five in the afternoon when I'm over tired and I had too much sugar
01:14:48
when my mind starts going just remember it's all going to be bad you know that right
01:14:54
but I have tools you know I have ways in which of dealing with that to get out of those thoughts to break
01:15:01
that bad cycle um so it's just the voices are never
01:15:06
gone but the volumes turn down I have to ask you've got one last
01:15:12
question here in the diary that the last guest has left for you but when you said you have tools I was compelled because I
01:15:18
know that there's someone at home who can completely relate and they're sat there thinking Josh what are the tools
01:15:23
is there anything that's really helped you sort of turn down the volume on that that you might recommend to someone
01:15:29
listening at home I would just say and um my friend John
01:15:35
AKA Wheels um his motto was action is the magic word
01:15:42
and you cannot think your way in the right acting you have to act your way into right thinking
01:15:49
and I always felt like I'm reasonably articulate and I've you
01:15:57
know I've prided myself on having what I thought was like a good mind I gotta be able to think my way out of this thing
01:16:03
like I have to be able to impress my will on this thing and wrestle it to death like I I just can't believe it and
01:16:12
it's the duality of these things because didn't I get myself this far didn't mean taking my life and my will
01:16:19
into my hands didn't I get all this success and notoriety and blah blah blah and it's like well there was a part of
01:16:26
it that that but maybe you got that in spite of it you know maybe the truth is is that these things you know it they
01:16:35
need to be governed they need to be throttled because inevitably they'll pervert they will they'll ruin
01:16:42
you know that I just learned this they say a couple bad apples but the next part of that is a couple bad apples
01:16:48
ruins the barrel right so it's like I have to be careful with those thoughts and those feelings
01:16:54
because they can ruin everything so what I would say is when when I take the action to get out of self
01:17:02
when I become in service to others when I do some reading when I listen to a
01:17:07
great podcast like this about people who are Seekers who are trying to better themselves if you take the action
01:17:13
something will change if you sit and you try to wrestle it in my experience it'll
01:17:19
it'll never work
01:17:26
the question left for you who is the one person in your life that deserves the greatest thanks
01:17:33
and if you were to give them the thanks today what would you say well I
01:17:40
I I almost don't want to because it it almost like because she loves she loves her flowers but yeah I gotta give it to
01:17:47
my mom it all starts and ends with my mom and we have a deeply imperfect relationship because we're two deeply
01:17:54
imperfect people but at its core she did more than I could have ever imagined and
01:18:01
especially being a father and seeing what how challenging it can be with all the help in the world and she did it all
01:18:08
by herself and I just give her all the credit in the world so much of why I'm here today is because of her so thanks
01:18:15
Mom I hope you don't watch this but thank you I love you Josh thank you so
01:18:20
much it's been a an honor to meet you and learn about your story and um I'm a big following out of your YouTube
01:18:25
channel so please do post a lot more because it's enjoyable to watch you bring an important energy to the world and your book is one of the most
01:18:33
vulnerable revealing but wisdom-laced books I've had the privilege of of reading in my research for a podcast
01:18:40
wait I recommend everybody to go grab a copy I love the title happy people are annoying
01:18:46
um it's a truly important book Thank you Josh as you might know the show's now
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sponsored by Airbnb absolutely love Airbnb always have always been a you know saved my life on so many occasions
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uh [Music]
